12641/Guilty Pleasures

Guilty Pleasures
Date of Scene:	12 January 2021
Location:	Big Belly Burger, Gravesend
Synopsis:	Skye and Natasha meet for lunch and discuss the goings-on that need attention.
Cast of Characters:	Black Widow (Romanoff), Quake

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Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
Everyone has a guilty pleasure or three. For Natasha Romanoff, the woman known as the Black Widow, espionage expert and baddass fighter, it was Big Belly Burgers.

Really, any good greasy burger would do but Big Belly had been one of her favorites since she first tried one back in 1954. Though the recipe had changed some from those times, it still was close enough to the original that it had a place in her heart.

Of course she couldn't go there often. Even the super soldier serum in her blood could only do so much if she went completely off the rails. But about once a month, she would find her way to one of their establishments somewhere and get herself a burger.

Today, she'd invited Skye to join her.

Quake has posed:
Oh she'd heard about Big Belly Burgers, but amazingly, Skye had never tasted one!! So of course Skye was curious, and snapped up the chance to try one. Besides she'd heard that they had enormous onion rings, and Skye was a fan. A big fan.

Skye wandered into the restaurant and immediately saw Natasha. "Hey! So this is it? Looks normal." Oh yes, she's kidding, knowing that Natasha will need to defend it.

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"About the most normal thing I get to experience, it feels like," Natasha says, nodding to the seat on the opposite side of the booth from her as an invitation for Skye to sit down. She already had a platter sided plate in front of her with a mountain of fries along with a giant burger. It wasn't typical fast food fair, being a bit more of substance with quality ingredients.

"It's nice to do normal when our lives are insane."

Quake has posed:
"No kidding!" Skye scammed a french fry from the plate that has Natasha's name on it. "I'm getting onion rings. Two plates of them, on top of the burger. Clint has often mentioned this, but we never tried them. Well, I never tried them? good grief! They *are* as big as your head!?!"

Skye thanks the woman who brought her order over.

"So what's new with you?" Mmmm onion rings!

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"Literally nothing. An op here. A rescue there. This mutant cure thing is causing a lot of concern. We're trying to track down who is behind it because it is not the U.S. government. Lots of false leads and dummy companies. We'll get there but it's annoying until then."

She cuts her burger in half, simply to make it easier to pick up and eat. It's still going to be messy. "And things are running hot. We're worried it is going explode thanks to that travesty in Mutant Town."

Quake has posed:
Skye listens, putting her second plate if onion rings in the middle of the table. "Help yourself." But as Natasha talked, Skye looked worried. "Do you need help?"

After all, she also had her contact with the Bird's of Prey!

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"Well we have someone weaponizing a cure and using it against mutants. There is no doubt they are going to fight back. I wouldn't expect less, since I would in their situation," Natasha admits. She does snag one of those giant onion rings, ripping it in half and giving a nod at the ratio of onion to breading. Too many are just breading.

"So the question is where are those people who are doing this. Where are they hiding. We will find them, continue digging. But them attacking so many, including some known Mutant heroes, will lead to likely a counter attack. Should the X-Men find them before us."

Quake has posed:
"Weird," Skye snacks on an onion rings as she thinks. "Why weaponize it. I mean, *if* I were to do it, I'd drop it in, say.. the water supply. Wait, it is the kind that you could drop in the water supply?"

Unlike Natasha, Skye plans one eating her burger whole. Just two hands, and a bottomless supply of napkins.

"Your certain that this is the end goal, not dragging the superheroes out and hitting with something else?"

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"Honestly no idea. What little we have been able to figure out, they are trying to eliminate mutants. It's like the Friends of Humanity with the Sentinels a couple of years back. I think they are just out to get rid of them entirely. Just not sure who or why out of the blue."

Nat takes a sip of her chocolate malt before continuing. Because one needs a milk shake of some type with this sort of meal. "It's sad because the cure was such a wonderful thing for those that wanted or needed it. Mutants with extreme mutatations the don't allow them to live their lives without danger to others."

Quake has posed:
Skye has a moment of silence.

"You know.. when I first became what I am, I would have thought about going back to the way I was. Now?"

Now she would go back for the world. But that didn't mean people didn't want to be 'normal'.

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"There are some mutants who have powers that will kill others close to them. Some with physical mutants that keep them from being able to be in the world without extreme challenges. Fitting through doors. Sitting on chairs. Sadly, there is the bias of people not wanting someone with fur in the next cubicle as well," Natasaha says with a frown.

"You would think in 2029, we'd be better." It's been over 100 years in her life, a fact she doesn't share and is highly classified. Yet the world still was so much like it had been.

Quake has posed:
"Yeah." Skye frowns. "Everybody still puts us outside the norm. I don't blame them for taking the cure. But weaponizing?" She eats a bite of her burger. It was great, but the topics of supper had really gotten her down. "Anything you need?"

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"You and your friends can dig around a little. See if you can find the operations of these people who have turned the cure into something they use without consent of the mutants," Natasha suggested before taking a big bite of her burger. It took a napkin to clean up her chin and mouth after.

"That would be the most we can do. Keep an ear out to see if there are any other attacks they have planned. Not sure that they will be easy to find but your skills and those of your friends, you likely can find any online chatter if it is there."

Quake has posed:
"I was thinking the exact same thing." Skye had a sly grins on her face. "And being a little under the cover.. unlike SHIELD.."

Skye lets her statement wander off. After all, all she really needed to say was weren't SHIELD.

She got through about half a burger and a quarter of those onion rings before she was stuffed!