bakerstreet | The Masquerade Meme

The Masquerade Meme

The { MASQUERADE } Meme

Masquerade
Paper faces on parade
Masquerade

It's a splendid night for a party!

You received an invitation to a masquerade party and after wondering who exactly throws these things anymore outside of people in Italy and the strange people in that Vanilla Sky movie, you've decided to attend! Decked out in your best (or maybe not so best - it may have been last minute, after all), you descend on the party and prepare to make it a night to remember.

Is it your friend's annual Halloween party with a twist? Perhaps you're an international spy, trying to find out the best way to steal the Crown Jewels. Maybe this is part of Spirit Week at your high school and you really wish that your classmates would be more creative next time.

Elaborate Venetian, playful animals, dazzling supernatural creatures - the night is young. Have fun.

:::

This is not a RNG meme. Your characters' role and situation is entirely up to you. "But how do you play?" you might ask. It's as simple as 1, 2, 3!

1.) Post with your character. In the subject line, type of your character's name and canon. If you'd like, in the comment section, you can describe what mask/costume your character is wearing.
2.) Tag around! This is a party after all, and your character can't find any of their usual crew behind their masks (or maybe they can and need to tease them mercilessly for their choice of costume).
3.) Profit!

First person to drop the chandelier buys drinks for everyone!

stolen from

dammithardison here

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"Yeah, good point." He sighed, shaking his head and settling just a little further, mostly because he knew there wasn't a lot of time left to stay settled, and despite his claims of vigilance (and the mindset that went with it) he was intent on making the most of that time, "Though I don't know, psychological break due to boredom might work."

There was another small smile, brow arching, "And what are you going to get me? A map? Or a real-life game of 'find the airport'?" It was a game that Clint wasn't much good at, unless it was a real-life version.

Seeing him settle deeper into the comfort of the bed, Natasha felt herself relax further as well. She was still alert and could be up and ready the second they heard anything strange, but it was nice to have this moment to just... be.

“I do hope you are not talking about your present company. I may be insulted,” she said, turning her face into the pillow a little more. When it came to their jobs she knew she certainly had the more exciting one. So much of what Clint did was watch and wait, which was something Natasha had never been good at. His job was definitely more boring in her mind.

“I can’t very well tell you what I plan to get you, it has to be a surprise,” she said with a grin. Maybe she should get them both a vacation and merely accompany him while he tried to figure anything out. It would be amusing... at least for a while. She doubted that feeling would last.

There was a crooked little smile, likely due both to the insistence on his birthday present being a surprise and also the thought that she could ever consider a job together 'boring'.

Sure, he did a lot of sitting and watching, but that's what he was good at, and he didn't mind it, if anything he liked it better than the groundwork. Not that he minded getting his hands dirty now and again, "Present company excluded." He finally opened one eye again, smile spreading, "You've got a standing exclusion from any sweeping generalization I make."

Natasha rolled over to her stomach, hugging the pillow under her head and turning her head to the side so she could still look at her partner. She really did prefer her missions with him to any other, but then she preferred spending time with him over anyone else as well. He had shown her mercy when she had most needed it and kindness when she hadn’t felt she deserved it. She trusted him and cared about him more than anyone else in the world, the one person who had always believed in her, believed she was worth saving.

“Very good answer, Barton,” she said, smiling back at him.

"What can I say?" He said with an easy, rolling shrug, "I learned from the best." He did lean up on an elbow then, mostly just to see the clock over her shoulder, sighing, "We've got about a half hour before the drill starts, might as well make sure we're ready for it."

Which in his case was going to mean making sure that the top of his luggage was open so that he could snag his bow as necessary.

Burying her face in the pillow at the mention of getting up, Natasha stayed like that for a moment. One of her guns was already loaded and ready to go, she just had to load the other and hide them in her coat that she planned to throw on over her pajamas and she would be ready to go.

Finally pushing herself up to sit, she stretched her arms up over her head. As much as she was enjoying their quiet moment it would be nice to get this mission official over with.

“Do you think they will be brazen enough to do anything if we stay with the crowd? Or should we separate from it as early as possible?” she queried.

He shrugged, rolling his shoulders more than anything, limbering up as he pushed himself to his feet, "Don't know. I mean, we don't even know for sure if they're going to try anything, right? SHIELD just figured the easiest way to get us out unnoticed was with everybody milling about during a fire drill."

He sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair, "Which probably means they'll have a van waiting at whatever the emergency gathering point is. Across the street and up a block, right? The open-air parking lot?"

True, they couldn’t be sure, and it was always better to err on the side of caution. There was a strong chance that nobody would even know to look for them here, or if they did that they wouldn’t want to cause a scene among all the people. It was possible they could finish this yet with no more risk to anyone.

Possible, but Natasha wasn’t about to call it probable.

“Yes, there should be someone waiting for us there,” she replied, finally crawling out of bed. Padding across the floor in her bare feet, she moved some of her luggage aside and was grateful to find a pair of runners so that she wouldn’t have to put those god awful heels back on.

"Okay." He made a quick sweep of the room, though it wasn't as if they'd unpacked anything that they might leave behind. Getting dressed took less time than re-arranging his luggage so that he could get at his bow in a hurry if he had to, whoever had packed it in the first place had gotten it almost right, but he was making doubly sure.

He was also amused that while their clothes looked like civilian wear they were made of the same stuff that his uniform was, not exactly bulletproof, but definitely stab-resistant as well as being lightweight, flexible, and surprisingly comfortable.

"Any bets on how many times we're going to hear 'but I'm a paying customer'? I'm guessing somewhere around thirty."

Natasha considered just throwing her coat on as if she had been awoken from sleep like everyone else, but seeing Clint change she followed his lead. In all the commotion who would be paying attention to what kind of trousers she was wearing under her coat?

Swapping out the pajamas for something a little more protective, she packed up the rest of her bag and set the loaded guns on top with her coat.

“That depends, are we counting the phrase in total or how many different individuals say it?” she replied, sitting in one of the chairs to pull on a pair of socks and the sneakers.

"Individually." He clarified, finally getting his luggage the way he wanted it, "In total is going to be more, at least half again, probably twice as many." A pause then, adding: "And kids repeating it don't count, kids are worse than parrots."

Of course, it might be a good idea to ask how he knew, sometime, when they weren't getting ready to play disgruntled tourists.

“Now you’re just making things complicated,” she replied when he discounted the children. Pausing a moment, she considered the layout of their floor and how many rooms it held, then multiplied by the number of floors and made a guess at how many rooms would be occupied at this time of year in this area. Of course not all of them would be vocal about their displeasure either.

“I will give them the benefit of the doubt and say twenty,” Natasha replied after a moment’s contemplation. Of the disgruntled ones only one of each party was likely to speak for them all, and that was assuming they had someone to speak to. “Are we putting any stakes on this bet to make it interesting?”

"Well that depends." He said, the crooked smile having appeared once more, he couldn't help it, even despite the lack of information they were very much in their element here, this was the kind of thing they excelled at, even tired, "What's your offer?"

He shrugged one shoulder, "You're the one who suggested it, which says to me you at least have some idea of what you want to get out of me."

Natasha couldn’t help but grin back. “I can think of a few things,” she teased, raising her eyebrows suggestively. “But let’s start with dinner, on you, and not at some fast food place.”

Oh, but that wasn’t really what she had in mind. That was just something to make him think he’d be getting off easy if he lost. She had something much better in mind.

“Oh, and paperwork.” Now she gave him her most direct, to the point expression. “If I win you will write up the field report and all the other required paperwork for this mission so I won’t have to do anything but read and sign it.”

His brow arched, shifting from foot to foot for a moment, as if getting ready to bolt, not that he thought they'd actually need to, but it was always good to be ready for any eventuality, "Are you sure you want to give me that kind of power?" Of course, she had said that she'd be reading the report before she signed it, but that didn't mean he couldn't get creative with it anyway.

Natasha glared back at Clint as if she could read his mind and knew what he was thinking of doing with the report. “I’m sure I would rather avoid writing it,” she said. After all, she had forgone sleep while he had managed to catch a few hours. All she wanted to do when they got back to base was get through the debriefing and go to bed.

“Don’t even think about writing anything I won’t approve of just to get out of this in the future. You know I can and will hurt you.” She didn’t need to say it in a threatening tone as he would know it was a fact. It would be dangerous to refute such a statement.

"C'mon, you know me better than that." Which was to say, she knew him exactly that well. He checked his watch then before cocking his head almost like a dog hearing a car in the driveway, nodding as the alarms started going off, "Give it a minute, got to wait for the hallway to fill up a little."

After all: they were prepared, most people wouldn't be, at least not to the same extent.

Natasha just gave him a knowing look and pointed her finger at him in warning. Lucky for him the alarms chose that time to start sounding. Nodding at his words she pulled on her coat and made sure her guns were handy in the pockets. Sufficiently equipped, she rubbed her hands over her hair a bit vigorously to give it a more slept on look before turning to the door and spying out through the peephole as people started to pass by.

“You didn’t say what you wanted if you were to win,” she said, listening as the commotion outside got louder as more people filled the hallway.

He snorted, shaking his head, "Let's be honest, do either of us really think that I'm going to win this?" He shrugged then, "But on the off-chance that I do, dinner, on me, and then down to the shooting range. Only you wear a dress."

A nod to the door followed, "Let's go, better to get lost in the crowd before hotel staff comes to herd us out."

Natasha chuckled. “Well, I’m not one to make bets that I don’t feel confident of winning,” she replied, turning from the door to look at him. It was interesting that, even if he didn’t believe he would win, that he would still say that dinner would be on him. Giving him a strange look, she tilted her head to the side.

“A dress?” she repeated. “Nice to know I made such an impression tonight.”

Gathering the last of her things, she nodded at his instruction and opened the door, putting on her best disgruntled face as she stepped out into the hallway.

He shrugged, "What can I say? Ballgown and a Beretta would be really nice to look at, I'm not going to lie about that." Mostly because he figured she already knew, but also because he knew she'd be able to tell if he even tried.

Slipping into the slowly-moving crowd was easy, blinking blearily as if the fire alarms had actually woken him up, even despite his state of dress. Of course, given as how it was a veritable herd of civilians, none of them even noticed, and if the staff noticed it was only because of relief that they didn't have to answer the same questions again.

Natasha knew the effect she had on men; how could she not? She was shown at an early age how to use her beauty and her wiles to get what she wanted, and even now, with SHIELD, her job still required that of her. Clint knew her better than anyone else, he knew the terrible deeds and ugly secrets that hid beneath her beautiful exterior, but he was still just a man and he wasn’t completely immune to her either.

“Deal,” was all she said in reply, choosing not to comment on the rest.

Once they were in the hallway she grasped his hand so as not to be separated, and each time she heard a different voice mutter the desired phrase she gave his hand a squeeze so they could both keep count.

He gave a slight, barely there nod each time, just to show that he'd gotten the message and was keeping the count. It was easy to just move with the crowd, keeping alert without looking alert was something he'd gotten good at, and it came in handy here even though being out in the open, being visible, wasn't his usual forte.

Tension was starting to ride across his shoulders the longer they went without an incident, he was never sure what to do when things actually went according to plan, especially when he was prepared for them not to. But even by the time they got to the emergency evacuation gathering point, and their final tally was up to forty four, everything was still on the level, no one had started shooting, nothing had visibly caught fire, nothing was dragging stragglers off into the early-morning fog. Nothing had happened and it made Clint more paranoid than ever.

Maybe neither of them had expected Clint to win, but it seemed there were a lot more irate people at this hotel than either of them had anticipated, and all it took was one person to say it and it set off a chain reaction until Natasha’s guess was more than doubled and Clint’s was still quite a bit off, but still closer. These people were no better than parrots.

Once the crowd had stopped moving and they were all milling about the marshaling area, she pressed herself close to Clint, giving the illusion that she was cold; one hand still held his while the other was in her pocket, fingers curled around her gun.

“Think we can slip away unnoticed?” she said in his ear, inconspicuously scanning those around them for any suspicious behaviour. Their ride should be waiting for them, they just had to get to it.

He was surprised by the win as well, surprised enough that he wasn't going to claim it yet, not until they were actually back at HQ and make sure they were both on the same page.

There was a small smile when she huddled close, arm curling loosely around her waist, under her same pretense of keeping warm, but still giving her the ability to move if she had to.

"Probably. You see our ride yet?" Because he hadn't spotted anyone waiting for them. He knew they'd have one, since they'd been assured of a pickup, but there weren't any obvious SHIELD vehicles in the lot, nor across the street, and there weren't any of the unmarked ones either, which was just something else to add to his growing paranoia.

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