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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“Stationary,” Natasha replied as Clint rejoined her beside the car. “Building at my ten o’clock, top leftmost window.”

The shooter was mostly concealed but every once in a while there was movement, enough to catch the eye. Clearly an amateur who hadn’t learned the value of patience and the ability to remain unflinchingly still. The problem was that there was still at least one more shooter not accounted for so they couldn’t put their full attention on just this one. “See him?” Natasha asked for confirmation. Once Clint had his eye on the first one she would continue the search for the next. It was likely he would take action the second Clint did.

"I've got him." Clint said with a nod, already pinpointing not only where he was, but which direction he was leaning, after all, despite the fact that these people had kill-on-sight orders, he was only planning on winging the sniper, not killing him unless absolutely necessary.

"The other one's probably almost directly opposite." He said, "At least judging by the angle the windows got shot out at." He had to make sure that the one at the front of the car wasn't going to shoot him if he moved to take down the one at the back of the car.

Natasha nodded at his assessment, now they just needed to decide the next step. They could probably wait it out until backup arrived but it would be risky, and hardly their style. She knew Clint could easily taken the men out from this distance, but the second he stood up to take a shot he was making himself a target for the second shooter. Of course, there was always a third option.

“I think it’s about time we test their skills by giving them a moving target to shoot at,” she said, turning a grin toward Clint. There was another parked car a few yards away. If she made a run for it she would draw their fire and give him the opportunity to take them down while their attention was elsewhere.

"You sure?" Though really the question was just a formality, she wouldn't have made the suggestion if she wasn't sure she could get to new cover without actually getting shot.

So he nodded, shifting his weight and snagging an arrow, just holding it loosely between his fingers, ready to draw and shoot at a moment's notice, and with a second arrow within easy reach, "Okay. Wait until the one we can see is looking away, that way you're more likely to draw the fire of the one we can't."

Which would keep whoever it was from actually shooting Clint while he took out the one at the rear of the car, "See if you can spot where the other one is and let me know."

“You have a better idea?” Natasha replied, quirking an eyebrow at him. She knew he wasn’t truly questioning her, just as she wasn’t really looking for another option. It was just their usual exchange of words while they prepared to jump into action.

Her eyesight wasn’t as keen as Clint’s but she did as asked. Taking into account the trajectory of the bullet that had shattered the window, Clint’s estimation of where he believed the shooter would be, and the first shooter’s line of sight if the two were to communicate, she quickly narrowed her search and focused on just a few key areas. she scanned all the windows, balconies, anywhere that could conceal a man but came up with nothing.

“I can’t spot him. I... wait,” she squinted into the early morning light. “There’s movement on the roof.”

He just nodded once, "We'll find out if that's right when he starts shooting." He rolled his shoulders, shifting his weight so that he could shoot up over the back of the car as soon as he was on his feet, "On my mark." Still keeping an eye on the fidgety one, waiting for the next turn away, "Go."

He waited until she'd actually moved before he surged to his feet, letting fly, knowing that the shot was true even before he dropped again to turn and retrieve the other arrow, hoping he had a clear shot at the other one, that the rooftop shooter's attention would be focused on Natasha and not on him.

In their line of work they couldn’t always run on certainties, so this ‘wait and find out’ problem was nothing new.

Clenching the fist on her injured arm and holding her gun in the other, Natasha positioned herself and prepared to run at Clint’s say so. She didn’t like taking her eyes off both the shooters but she had to focus on her new target, the other car that would provide her with cover, or at least that was what the shooters would hopefully believe. Ideally Clitn would incapacitate them both before she reached it.

At his signal she rant and though she couldn’t hear the silenced gunshots she was certain she could feel the bullet whiz by her. She didn’t pause, didn’t falter; she just kept running, trusting in Clint to have her back.

And have her back he did, his smile was grimly pleased upon finding out that she'd been right, that the man on the roof was their other shooter. Clint's second arrow was just as sure as the first one, both of them set to disable and not to kill, because until they knew for sure whether the gunmen were connected with their hit last night or not, they couldn't risk dead bodies.

Once both the gunmen were dropped, Clint ducked back down into the lee of the door, resting on one knee, quiver still on the backseat of the car where he could draw another arrow if he needed, turning to make sure Natasha was alright.

Natasha ran. She ran and she didn’t stop until she had leapt over the hood of the car an concealed herself behind it. For a brief moment she held her breath and listened before she let it out slowly, trying to regulate her racing heart. There was no sound of gunshots, no breaking glass, no pinging of bullets off metal; clearly Clint had lived up to his reputation as the best shot SHIELD had.

Peering over the hood of the car she caught his eye and nodded once. It seemed there had only been the two shooters but they couldn’t be too careful. Signing to him she asked about the status on their backup.

He glanced up to verify with the driver before signalling back that they were still about ten minutes out, but closing fast. He suspected that the location of their two dropped snipers had already been relayed as well, though they didn't have any sort of signal for that, so he couldn't ask. He just scanned both buildings again to see if anything else caught his eye.

He was relieved that she'd made it without further injury, though not surprised, if anyone could pull off a headlong rush like that it was Natasha.

Ten minutes. What were they supposed to do with ten minutes, just wait? Clint had taken out the snipers but how long would they be down? She didn’t know what arrows he had used to accomplish his task. Checking her wound, she could see that the blood had seeped through the makeshift bandage she had tied around it but otherwise nothing serious.

Maybe she could head toward the building that held the nearest sniper, get a jump on detaining him before back-up arrived. Keeping low, she moved toward the back of the car and peered down the street. There were a few other cars but little else in the way of cover, and no doubt people had taken notice of this entire situation by now. Staying hidden was probably the better option, though the much more annoying one. Ten minutes felt like ten hours with nothing to do but wait.

He'd been about to try and get her attention to verify what she was doing, even though he figured it was going to make sure at least one of their snipers stayed down, but he didn't have to because he already heard the low throb of a helicopter approaching and he couldn't help but smile, just a little.

Apparently these guys had planned this, and SHIELD had just been waiting for the call, which likely meant that the pair of them had been used as bait even on top of the job from the night before, unless the two were related, he suspected they'd find that out soon enough.

Natasha was weighing her options when she heard the first indication of an approaching helicopter in the distance. While Clint smiled at this she frowned instead, her eyes narrowing slightly. They were early, and she quickly came to the same conclusion that Clint had, or at least considered the possibility.

Whether this had all been a set-up or not back-up was still here, and she allowed herself to slump to the ground, her back pressed against the side of the car. Between the lack of sleep last night, the injury and the fading adrenaline now that they were in the clear she was feeling rather fatigued. She was hoping they could do the debriefing on the ride back because she wanted nothing more than to just crawl into her own bed as soon as they returned.

Clint was thinking much the same thing and for much the same reason, which was why he was relieved when the second car arrived, one of the usual fleet. Unobtrusive, downright small, really, compared to the SUV, and with Coulson in the driver's seat.

Clint felt that this boded well for a debriefing on the go and being able to take a shower and a good long nap when they got back. The senior agent apparently waited for an all-clear from the chopper and the new ground crew before he opened his door, "Get in, let's go."

Natasha stayed where she was, gun still clutched in her hand, until she heard Coulson’s order. Letting out a breath she pushed back to her feet and moved quickly to the car, depositing herself smoothly into the backseat. Only then did she set her gun aside.

“This wasn’t exactly the mission we signed up for,” she said. Reaching under the passenger seat in front of her she pulled out a first aid kit and set it on the seat beside her before finally slumping back and giving herself a moment to rest.

"Not the one I signed you up for either." Coulson replied, as calm as ever, though there was a tightness around his eyes, at the corner of his mouth. If Clint hadn't been so tired, he would have found it interesting that apparently even Coulson was being kept in the dark as to what it was they were doing.

Right at the moment, however, he was too tired even to be curious, dragging his quiver and bow out of the SUV before dropping himself into the passenger side of the car, glancing back at Natasha in the rear view mirror as he did so. He did have enough energy to be amused that Coulson waited until they were both buckled in before pulling away.

Natasha looked up, studying what she could see of Coulson’s face in the rearview mirror. He had made sure they had been prepared for trouble if they encountered it, but it didn’t sound like he had known what to expect either.

“So what was it, then?” she asked, turning her eyes back to her arm. Removing the makeshift bandage she was relieved to note that while the bullet had left a deep gash it had passed straight through. Digging a bullet out of her flesh was not high on her list of ways to cap off this mission so she was glad to not have to.

Removing the antiseptic from the kit she clenched her teeth and set about cleaning the wound.

"This was added on as a rider late last night before I could schedule your extraction." Coulson said, giving her a glance in the rear view mirror, mostly just making sure that she was alright.

"That's why we got the update we did." Clint surmised, giving a nod and settling himself a little more comfortably, head leaning back against the headrest, "And the warning."

Coulson nodded, just once, "And the warning." That was all he had to say on the matter, since the next thing he said was: "Report, how did the initial mission go?"

Natasha conducted the debriefing in her usual ‘to the point’ manner, her voice rarely wavering even as she continued to tend to her wound. She told Coulson how the original mission had gone pretty much to plan. The mark had taken the bait, she had gotten him somewhere secluded and administered the drug and he had sung like a bird. They hadn’t been able to make it out clean but Clint had photographed the faces of those that had attacked them, and Natasha gave Phil a full physical description of them, just to be thorough. By the time she had concluded she had pushed the medical kit to the side and cleaned the blood from her hands.

“The confession is on this,” she said, rolling up her pantleg and removing the small card she’d had strapped to her leg. It was the memory card from her recorder from the party. “Agent Barton has a secondary copy.” She handed the small chip through between the seats.

Coulson listened attentively even as he drove. It was something that Clint often wondered how he did it, multitasked that way well enough that he could -and would- remember the details even though he hadn't written anything down.

The senior agent nodded once, tucking the chip away, giving Clint a sideways glance, "You have anything to add, Barton?"

Clint just shook his head, and even though his eyes were still closed, he knew the look he was getting, "No, sir. She covered all the important parts."

Once she had handed off the info, Natasha let herself collapse back against the seat and close her eyes. Unlike Clint she hadn’t slept a wink, and as the adrenaline faded the exhaustion was finally catching up with her.

“Can I assume this counts as our official debriefing and that we’re free to go when we get back?” she asked once Clint had confirmed her story. She would probably be expected to stop at medical to have her wound properly tended, but she trusted her own skills and if she could she would be putting it off until after she slept.

Coulson nodded, "I'll make sure that it does. Just see to it that you get to medical sometime in the next twenty four hours to get the field dressing changed out for a standard." He knew that she was competent enough to handle it, but also knew that he'd be the one to catch hell if it wasn't properly handled. So that 24 hour window was the closest thing to a compromise he knew they could get away with.

Clint hadn't exactly nodded off, he was still listening, but he was definitely taking the time he could to rest. Sure, he'd been the one of them to sleep the night before, but not for anything even close to long enough.

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The Masquerade Meme

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