15785/No Sleep Til Brooklyn

No Sleep Til Brooklyn
Date of Scene:	11 November 2023
Location:	Converted Safehouse, Brooklyn
Synopsis:	Never trust R&D.
Cast of Characters:	Phobos, Black Widow (Romanoff)

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Phobos has posed:
    When he heard the first hint of sound downstairs, figuring it was likely the woman of his life, he simply calls out into the ether. "Hey, I'm upstairs!"
    Which if it was her great, if it wasn't and it was house attacking ninjas? Then fine, better they find him now than wasting time and messing up the place. Then she'll hear his voice again, "I'm in the bathroom, don't come up if you're squeamish."
    Which might be a funny thing to say to Natasha. But then she'll likely realize why he says that as one of the first things she'll notice when she ascends the steps...
    Is the small pool of blood on the top stair.
    Then the trickle of blood that leads away and through that open training area, into the small hallway that leads toward the bedroom and the bathroom. The door to the bathroom is mostly closed, a sliver of light is seen inside adding a little luminescence to the hall on top of the single halogen bulb that hangs above it.
    As he hears footsteps he's already talking. "So a funny thing happened at work today."

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
So many House Attacking Ninjas to be afraid of in this area.

Thankfully for Alexander, it is indeed the woman he presumed it to be. Natasha tossed her keys into the small dish that was designated as the spot for them thanks to Alexander establishing it and she had started following suit. Then she started up the stairs.

Her brow was already furrowed when he mentioned being squeamish. After all, she'd dealt with a lot in her life. Although maybe he'd had chili and it was a particularly bad day. They had lived together long enough now, she wasn;'t really concerned about something like that.

Then she saw the blood.

Yet, he was awful calm sounding so if it had been House Attacking Ninjas, they were already taken care of. And there didn't seem to be any bodies.

Thus, despite the warning, she was soon there. Her footsteps clearly announced her arrival even before she put her palm to the door, nudging it gently open to get a look at the man inside.

"Funny ha ha or funny ironic?"

Phobos has posed:
    "Funny peculiiar." Was his answer as she opened the door and inside she saw her boy sitting on the toilet but leaning to the side with his hand over the sink, the faucet running. He was still wearing the black body suit of a SHIELD agent, so he hadn't had time to change and apparently... had made his way back home in this state.
    Which was an interesting state. For he held his hand over the sink, and that hand seemed to have been impaled repeatedly with dozens upon dozens of small twisted barbed spines, though the center of the palm was pierced by what looked like a worn down plastic cube that had frayed into a spiky ragged end and somehow pushed straight through his hand.
    Alex was pulling out those little spines and had about twenty in the sink apparently pulled out of his hand with a pair of tweezers.
    "So I was over at R&D today." He starts with that slightly sardonic sidelong smile given to her.

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
First her gaze went to him as a whole. Taking in the fact he was still wearing his work clothes. Though why was a question since he often changed before coming home. Then she followed that arm to the hand he was working on. The blood, the spines in the sink already with the water sending red and pink swirls down the drain. Then to the object that seemed to be the key to the problem.

"You touched something in R&D?" There was a bit of a shocked sound in her voice because really, she thought everyone knew not to touch anything in there. She wouldn't even pick up a pen to make a note unless she confirmed it wasn't going to explode and blow up the entire room.

"Do you need help with that while you explain?" she offered. Thankfully, strong stomach. Though this was a new one, something she'd not seen. That was saying something after a hundred years.

Phobos has posed:
    "No it's... not that huge a deal, and I'm probably erring on the side of caution here." Since she knows and has seen him survive much much worse injuries than this. "But here, the story." Alexander pulls one of the barbed spines out of his hand, grimacing as that tears some of his healing flesh open anew and causing a small surge of blood into the sink.
    "You know Agent Tobrek and that Needler he's been working on? Takes a block of plastic for ammo and shreds it, firing the pieces right?" His eyebrows climb as he grumbles and gestures with his hand, "Well say 'hello' to the ammo."
    He starts to work on another spine. "He asked for volunteers to help him test it. I, foolishly, agreed. Stepped up, aimed. And the thing just went to pieces, cracked like a little firecracker. Big deal right? I mean it hurt like hell, and it still does..."
    He pulls out another spine with those tweezers and grimaces. "But it went pop, and it shorted things out. My hand felt like it was on fire. But then I realized... Tobrek, Marsov, and Greene, the three people in there... they don't have Level 3 clearance. Which means..."
    She likely can follow his logic. It means they don't know that Alexander is an empowered individual and didn't have the clearance for it. "So lights come back on, they're picking up the pieces. And I hoof it out of there. I head to Medbay. I get there..."
    He pulls out another spike, "And it's that new gal, whatsername?" Alex grumbles sliightly, shaking his head. "I turn around and walk back out, since last thing I need is... dealing with all those questions. So I just say fuck it, and I get in the car and..." He gestures to the room around them.

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"And you will be detailing the car interior later when you heal up," Natasha finished helpfully for him as she continued to watch him doctoring himself. Certainly he would be fine but the fast healing he did meant that it was likely trying to heal as fast as he was working. Which meant opening wounds that were closing. It had to be painful yet here he was after driving himself home.

Natasha shook her head in disbelief. "That was nice of you to offer for the testing, so that someone else didn't potentially lose a hand. But perhaps they should've been testing in some other way instead of real life test dummies." She raised a hand. "Turn of phrase. Not calling any of you dummies."

Now that was cleared up, she asked, "Anything I can do to help at all? Or just leave you to it and go do other things? Or just stare at you while you work which I'm sure would be fun for you."

Phobos has posed:
    "No it's alright, and normally I'd just..." He shakes his head and she knows what he's likely intimating when he gestures with his injured hand to the side. "Then let it heal entirely, but..." He smiles slightly and looks sidelong at her, "Well, it'd take longer to heal and in the morning there's that gunnery pool contest at the range. And the competition is pretty good this year..."
    So she most likely realizes in that moment that there might be a smidge of ego attached to what's going on. He pulls out another spike.
    "But yeah, I don't know what the deal was. Usually the R&D people are... better." He clenches his jaw a little as he tosses another spine into the sink.
    He then seems to remember and leans over to the side to touch a kiss to her cheek softly, "Oh and hi."

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
The last earns a little smirk from her. "Hi, yourself. Glad I had a better day at work. Though I hadn't been told about the gunnery pool contest." She arched a brow as though he had been remiss. Not like she actually would try to compete, it was just fun to yank his chain a little.

She'd already filed away the name of the Agent in R&D that had asked for the live testing to look into later. While Alexander was more than able to handle himself, protocols felt like they had been violated in some way. She'd just check. Because they broke her man. Even if he would get better.

"I'm going to take off my boots," she warned him as she turned and headed toward the bedroom, leaving the doors all open for easier communication despite the separate rooms. "My day was completely boring. Had a couple of meetings on some upcoming ops but nothing really interesting. More them watching people as opposed to going in," she explained.

Phobos has posed:
    She heard another clink of another needle being dropped into the sink, then the water is turned up a little. His voice is heard as he calls through the door after her, "Amongst the lower decks you are stilll a mystery and our connection hasn't disseminated as far as I had imagined it might. Maybe people are worried about being caught gossiping about you." Which is understandable, considering her reputation.
    She heard a sharp /hiss/ and a grunt come from him, then a louder plink as something heavier fell into the sink. Perhaps the larger plastic block. He then lifted his voice, "Have you eaten yet?" He asks as he continues to work on his hand, his breathing steady.

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"Mmmm," came that noncommital noise in reaction to her being a mystery. It was something that she actually enjoyed. She was the boogeyman hiding in the closet, the thing that went bump in the night. The idea people were afraid to even gossip about her was funny, in a twisted sort of way.

She got her boots off, tucking them inside on the floor of the closet. Then she threw her socks into the hamper nearby so that they were ready when laundry day rolled around. Her uniform was next and she slipped on some yoga pants with a tank top instead. She didn't bother putting on socks or shoes.

"You can actually think about food at a time like this?" she asked and this time he likely would see her approaching but her footsteps were far more muted.

Phobos has posed:
    "Pain and I are old friends, and we're both hungry." He says with that somewhat flippant side of him that she rarely gets to see. It's this window into his manner that rarely comes to the fore save when he's under a bit of stress, like he is right now. Though she likely knows why too. He hates being off balance and not in control of things. And likely this whole incident was a thing he couldn't entirely control.
    Still, for someone with an impaled hand, he is remarkably at ease. Just she would know on the Alexander spectrum of annoyance, he was pushing a seven out of ten.
    Then when she slipped back into view and he saw her in those yoga pants and the tank top she'd see him do one of those small double-takes he normally does, then his smile grows a little as he lowers his eyes. He doesn't say anything, of course, but she could read him like a book.

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
"Get your mind out of the bedroom, mister," came the immediate response although the pleased smile didn't match the words. This was just comfy to her but for some reason, he really liked it. It was so strange that what a woman /might/ think was sexy was not at all sexy in the eyes of their special someone. In this case, her husband. At least, as far as she was concerned. They'd given one another vows, even if the state wouldn't recognize them since there were no licenses and things to back it.

"Finish up with your hand, get healed up fully, then we'll circle back around to that look." It was a promise she most definitely would keep.

"I can order something. Or try to cook." It wasn't that Natasha coudn't cook. She could cook just fine. Quite well in fact. She just didn't /like/ to cook. And thus, she generally did something easy rather than to the level of skill she could achieve. "Do you have any preferences?" Which was a way of asking what would you like but allowing that someone might not have something they wanted but they would know what they did not want and could share that at least to help the process move along.

Phobos has posed:
    She could tell just by the deepening of his smile that she had read him perfectly, even though in the next heartbeat of a moment he looks up with a feigned incredulous look as he pretends toward innocence.
    He fails to convince her.
    But then he pulls out another needle and she can likely see that he's getting close to the end, the hand already healing around the portions of his flesh that he had to tear open again. It was slow going, but he worked it steadily. "New Thai place. But let's get it to go. I... don't think I'd be good company to be around for the general public." He gives her a slightly wan smile, as if apologizing to her for his mood.

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
When he was stressed, the best thing to do was just be there for him should he want but not to press. Because if she pressed, that might stress him more. Thus, she took his role. The laid back, easy going side. Accepting of whatever might roll their way. Oddly, it was an influence he had to her even when he wasn't in this state. She'd noticed she had changed, grown, in the last few years with him at her side.

"Menu online or in the drawer?" For indeed, they had a small collection of paper take-out menus from some of the local things in their area, all those Mom and Pop restaurants that seemed to be so much better than big chains.

And she turend to go grab her phone, which she'd left in the bedroom, or toward the menus, depending on his answer. Though she /did/ perhaps put a little extra sway to her hips as she walked away from him. For that angle was one of his favorite views when she wore these pants.

Phobos has posed:
    As she departed she didn't see his reaction, but she heard him as he admonished her, "You're bad."
    But he then answered her question, "Online I think, it has a bad name that is impossible to search up though." There's another plink and after a few more moments the running water stops. She might hear the rustle and thump of the trash bin in the bathroom being moved somewhat, and the rustle of plastic inside. Then he'll emerge with a towel wrapped around his hand, even as he walks across the room toward her.
    As she's checking her phone he steps behind her and puts his arms around her shoulders, resting his head atop hers and looking down at her display. He was always so warm, and this moment was no exception. But it was nice this time of year considering how chilly it was outside. And to think of all the money they saved just because of his Olympian Internal Engine.
    "I want curry."

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
As she scanned through the browser, trying to find the new restaurant since she didn't have a name, Natasha couldn't help smiling when he came up behind her. That warmth just seemed to wrap her up like a happy little blanket. He was her own personal Snuggie. In fact, she immediately leaned back, relaxing against him and savoring that contact along with the heat.

"Is this it?" She finally found one she wasn't familiar with on about the sixth try, tilting the phone up at an angle and lifting it slightly to make it easier for him to see with his head atop her own.

"And curry sounds amazing. Any kind in particular? It looks like they have..." She scrolled the menu. "Seven or eight different ones. That green curry looks really good."

Then she glanced over at the now bandaged hand, though it wasn't really bandaged. Though, in truth, it would probably heal so fast that using real bandages would be a waste. Thus, the towel. She tilted her head ever so slightly as though she was going to try to look at him though it was impossible in their current position. "You sure you're okay?"

Phobos has posed:
    "Get a couple," He says regarding the curry, but he says it quietly, barely moving his head on top of hers so it sounds a bit muffled. Alexander stays there, just watching her scroll and scroll, seeming almost felinian as he doesn't move and seems entirely comfortable in that mild state of sprawl. Then he casually points at the screen, saying nothing when she passes by the pad thai noodles. Clearly indicating he wants that and for her to make it so.
    Once she's got the order settled he squeezes his arms a little around her and takes a deep breath, holds it, then releases it slowly.
    He lifts his hand with the towel still wrapped around it and then flexes it a bit, grimacing to himself. "Tell me more about your day so I can ignore mine."

Black Widow (Romanoff) has posed:
The pad thai are added to the order along with the curry for him and herself. She even adds a few springrolls for good measure. Then the order is sent off and should be delivered within the next 45 minutes. Giving them plenty of time to catchup.

At the request from him, she turned in his arms and smiled. "It was very impressive stuff. They believe AIM is doing some money laundering through a nearby auction house. Thus they have set up not one...but two surveillance vans in the area. Along with about a dozen plainclothes agents pretending to be everything from food truck vendors--with a food truck that was given to us by the DEA after they had seized it--to homeless on the streets. It should be so much fun. I did /not/ volunteer to join them. Then there is the ..."

She would continue to regale him with a level of boredom that they might both get sleepy if she didn't stop.