Unexpected Aid - for wereperrito

[ofmarble]

The burning wing of the laboratory facility is just a smudge of smoke on the horizon when the snowmobile dies beneath her. Natasha blinks in confusion for a moment, then tries to restart it. Tries again. Notices, finally, that the fuel gauge rests on empty, which is distantly worrying, but less so than the fact that she no longer feels the cracked ribs, or the roughly bound wound that punches through the meat of her thigh, or the laceration along the side of her head that has turned her hair to a frozen, bloody horror in the alpine wind.

Of course it's empty. She'd had barely enough time to steal a vehicle in the chaos of the explosion she'd set off to cover her escape, let alone find one in ideal condition to make it to her rendezvous point. Just more proof that an op designed for two people is a disaster for just one, even one at the top of her field.

Natasha smacks dash of the snowmobile with one hand in helpless frustration, then slides off the saddle - and keeps sliding, wounded leg going out from under her in the snow. She digs in her pack for a moment until she finds her communicator and - no signal. Of course there isn't. This entire network of valleys is a dead zone, which is what had attracted her attention in the first place.

No choice but to get to her extraction point - which would be difficult enough on foot if she were whole. She estimates it's at least 20 miles off, and that's if her tunnel vision hadn't been bad enough that she veered off course. At least she can't hear the sound of engines approaching. The pursuit had dropped off half an hour ago.

Maybe because they knew her fuel would run out, and expected her to bleed out and be easy enough to find and mop up later.

She bows her head, then snaps upright again when exhaustion tugs at her, forcing herself to her feet. Her leg holds this time, but she should probably find something to use as a walking stick if she wants to stay standing.

She makes it all of a mile from the vehicle, in an increasingly-weaving line, before her leg goes out from under her again, and she falls, clutching the gnarled branch she'd picked up along the way to give her some semblance of control in her descent. Black spots dance at the corners of her vision, and when she shakes her head to try to clear them, they flood inward, and her stomach rolls in protest.

Her last coherent thought is that it's a bitter sort of irony to have survived the death of half the universe only to wind up here, alone in the forest, because the one person she'd been absolutely certain she could count on had decided abruptly that it was more important to chase ghosts than to try to put the rest of a broken world back together.

Comments

[ofmarble]

"Curious is one word for it," she says, just a little bit dryly.

She looks back at him, expression thoughtful. Except for the entirely predictable trigger, and the fact that it makes incarceration a practical method of temporary risk management, it sounds not entirely dissimilar to the Hulk.

"How battered will you be in the morning?"

[wereperrito]

"It depends on how... upset I get, down there, but even at the best I'm usually pretty sore afterwards. Those pain pills are mine," he explains sheepishly. "I will recover quickly, though. Just a day or two. And I can still handle keeping you fed and playing cards and things."

[ofmarble]

"Anything I can to to keep you from getting upset?" she asks. It isn't entirely out of kindness - she has a vested interest in making sure he doesn't have reason to test whatever security measures he has in place too thoroughly - but it isn't entirely self-interest, either. He's been kind to her, at not-inconsiderable risk to himself. The least she can do is not make this harder on him than it absolutely has to be.

"Aside from spontaneously developing the ability to teleport between now and moonrise."

[wereperrito]

"Not moving around much," Jack says. "Not moving off the couch at all until moon set would be best, actually. Being non-threatening, which I think, since you're injured, takes care of itself." He pauses, then holds out his hand, as if hoping she might put hers into it. "Knowing your scent might help. It's helped in the past."

[ofmarble]

She looks briefly bemused, but reaches over to rest her hand in his, suppressing a wince as even that relatively small motion tugs at her injured ribs. Not moving around much won't be a problem - she could be mobile, if she has to, but it won't be anything approaching pleasant.

"Sounds manageable. As long as nothing goes catastrophically wrong up here."

[wereperrito]

"I know better than to say everything will be fine, because then everything will not be fine," Jack says, "but we will do everything we can to keep things fine, at least." And with that, he bends down over her wrist to inhale deeply, sniffing up her arm to her elbow and back down again. It might tickle.

[ofmarble]

"Yeah," she says, a hit of amusement creeping into her voice, along with a stiffness in her posture that suggests she's suppressing a laugh that would only be painful. "That sounds about right."

It does tickle, and her fingers twitch slightly as she forces herself to endure and not pull away. He isn't hurting her at all, while jerking back would - and would, she thinks, run the risk of being interpreted as distrust or disgust, and not just inconveniently sensitive skin at the inside of her elbow.

[wereperrito]

At least it only lasts about fifteen seconds or so, before Jack sits back and lets her go. "I don't know if it will help. But it might. There are still several hours before I have to go down, but--" He shrugs and picks up his stew again, looking a little self-conscious. "--you needed to know. If you have any other questions, I will do my best to answer them."

[ofmarble]

"Dangerous offer to make to an intelligence operative," she says with a quick flicker of a smile, and reaches over - slowly, carefully, but still not without a twinge of pain - to squeeze his shoulder. "Are all of your senses enhanced? Or just your sense of smell?"

[wereperrito]

The squeeze gets her a warm little smile. It's nice, when someone can continue to act normal no matter what they know about him. Of course, she's a superhero, she's probably seen a lot stranger than one werewolf. He's heard stories about what the Avengers have done. Natasha has been to space.

And he certainly doesn't mind answering questions, intelligence operative or not. "Just smell and hearing, a little bit." He looks a little embarrassed and adds, "I, um, I'm a little colorblind. Just red-green, but it is still noticeable."

[ofmarble]

"Must make driving a bit of a pain," she says, because positional awareness only goes so far. "Please don't tell me you're allergic to chocolate. That would just be a tragedy."

[wereperrito]

He gives her an exaggerated sort of sad face. "I can't eat it, no. It does very unpleasant things to my stomach." Which is a tragedy because it tastes so good! It won't kill him, probably, not unless he eats enough to really turn him inside out, but it won't be pleasant, either. "Grapes, too. It really isn't fair at all."

[ofmarble]

The corners of her mouth twitch faintly at the exaggerated expression. It makes him look a bit like a kicked puppy, which is an opinion she intends to keep firmly to herself. "No," she agrees. "It really isn't."

She's quiet for a moment, then says, "Tell me about yourself. What do you do when you're not holing up in remote cabins, or rescuing damsels in distress?"

[wereperrito]

"I travel a lot," he says, gesturing vaguely at the world at large with his spoon. "Usually it isn't remote cabins unless it's the full moon, really-- though sometimes I disappear into a protected forest or something, if I know it's empty." He shakes his head. "No, I like being around people, I have a lot of friends all over. I'll take odd jobs as I need them, help out where I can, when I can."

[ofmarble]

"You do seem like the friendly type," she says, still not quite smiling, though the corners of her eyes crinkle a little. "Do you have a favourite city to visit?"

[wereperrito]

"There is a little village in Brazil," Jack says. "I don't remember its name, and it is a ways north-west of Brasília. It is not very big. But that is my favorite place, I think." He tilts his head at her and counters, "What is your favorite city?"

[ofmarble]

"I should probably say New York," Natasha says, with a twitch of her lips that would probably be a laugh, if laughing didn't make her ribs feel like they were waging war on her internal organs. "Or St. Petersburg, out of loyalty. But if I'm being honest, Venice. During Carnevale. It's loud, and noisy, and probably 30% pickpockets by volume, but the city's gorgeous, and the festival's like stepping into another world."

She pauses, then gives him a slightly crooked smile. "And it's a very interesting set of rooftops to run over, if your tastes lean that way."

[wereperrito]

Jack is startled into a little snicker by the suggestion. "I am not a rooftop kind of person, I'm afraid. Not unless I am very desperate, or else I'm, you know." He waves his hand vaguely at himself and the cabin, as if indicating what's going to happen in a couple of hours. The wolfman leaps rooftops readily, if caught in a city. Jack tries very hard not to be caught in a city.

"Venice is a nice choice," he continues thoughtfully. "It is very pretty. Though it smells a little funny to me sometimes."

[ofmarble]

"The canals?" Natasha asks, wincing a little in sympathy. "Those smell weird enough to me, some days. Can't imagine how much worse it might be with sharper senses."

[wereperrito]

"Not as bad as some places I've been," Jack allows. Especially given his lifespan. "But it's still a lot of water and a lot of people all in one place, and it is very old. The smells aren't even all bad, they just... turn me around a lot." He shakes his head. "I do better in smaller cities. Though suburbs still confuse me sometimes."

[ofmarble]

"Pretty sure suburbs are designed to be confusing," she says, flashing a quick, wry smile. "Homogeneity as psychological warfare. So, scent's a big part of how you navigate?"

[wereperrito]

"Oh, I read street signs and maps just like everyone else," Jack chuckles. "And I have a little compass in my bag, too. But scent is..." He pauses to consider how to explain. "Smells catch my interest. Sometimes they take me to good places. Sometimes bad places. But they are never boring, you know? But in a place where water is everywhere, they get all confused, and I can't always make out what is coming from where."

[ofmarble]

"So you have a nose for adventure." She manages to make the cheesy remark sound solemn, though there's amusement glinting in her eyes. "--Is that what led you to me? Or was it just chance?"

[wereperrito]

"Well, you were very lucky that you collapsed so close to this cabin," Jack allows, after an amiable eye-roll at the joke. "But I smelled the blood. Blood smell carries a long way." And the wolf pays close attention to the smell of blood, so this close to the full moon, it was stronger than usual.

[ofmarble]

She's quiet for a moment, expression thoughtful, shading towards concern. "Is that going to be a problem for you tonight?" she asks. There isn't, she thinks, much they can do about it if it is - even if it weren't for the storm, there's nowhere else she can really go in her condition.