002 VIDEO LIST TWO

[deadliestviper]

[This time when the video turns on, Beatrix is well-groomed and polished; she's dressed in a very feminine suit with a nametag reading BETH S. on the lapel, is wearing makeup, and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. Her smile is bright, easy, and full. In both name and deed, she's here on Official Business.]

Ahoy! – That's the right terminology, right? I've never been on one of these things before. [She winces, a little self-deprecatingly.] Uh, anyway, hello there, I thought I'd better introduce myself since I'm going to be working with a few of you. My name's Beth Solberg, I'm a social worker, and I'm just here to check in on the staff and residents, ask a few questions, basically make sure everything on the Barge here is up to snuff.

So yes, I'll be speaking with a few of you. Let me assure you, you don't have to answer any questions you don't want to. I'm not here to interrogate, I just want to get the gist of the situation. And it is an unusual situation here, so any comments, complains, you've got about the place, this is the time to talk.

I'm setting up shop in the – what's this place called? That's it, library, no special term? Okay – I'm in the library for the next day, just stop on in. [She pauses, lifting a pen to her lips as she consults a clipboard.] Oh, and I've got a couple people I need to check in with – newer ones specifically. If none of you mind doing this in reverse alphabetical order, may I speak to a... Ms. Reese?

[OOC: So since I forgot to say earlier, this flood B.B. got marginalized. Beatrix still got pregnant, still had the baby, just never hid her pregnancy from Bill or ran away to Texas. As such she's still very much an active member of the Assassination Squad, with the events of the movie never happening. The social work thing? Just a ruse to get in the same room with her current target Natasha.]

Comments

[persuadeyou]

Great. I'll be in room five.

[Actually, she will be across the hall in room six, waiting to see just what Beth will do. Or bring. Natasha can't find a single weapon anywhere, not even in her room, but maybe the blonde has a cache. And she doesn't want to be too reckless.]

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

Wonderful! I'll see you there.

[A few short minutes later B arrives on Level 8, clipboard in hand and nothing more deadly than a pen on her person. She feels naked without even a knife in her boot, but her job would have been over before it started if any security had caught her smuggling in weapons. Besides, her hands were God willing all she needed.

Flanking the wall next to room five, she taps the clipboard against the door, remembering well the Karen Kim incident.] Excuse me – Nicole?

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

[Natasha watches from the peep hole across the hall, and wonders if she can throw her voice well enough for this. She's going to find out, anyway, and it's going to be interesting, because she can tell she was right: Beth isn't standing in front of the door, which means she's expecting a fight. Which means she was bringing a fight. Natasha smiles, and cups her hand around her mouth, throwing her voice across the hall and using the door to keep it muffled.]

It's open!

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

[B moves in and throws open the door with all the force and determination of police on a raid, scans the empty room quickly, and moves back to the shelter of the wall, falling into a defensive stance as she studies the hall's other closed doors. The entire process takes less than three seconds.

She chuckles quietly. So it's a game, is it? No wonder Bill told her to keep on her toes around this woman. She'll break down every door on the level if she has to, but she doesn't think she has to. All she has to do is murmur two smug little words.]

You're afraid.

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

[Bitch.

Natasha's eyes narrow out the peep hole, and she's tempted to throw the door open and dive at her. She doesn't, but she wants to. Instead, she turns the knob and opens the door, only a few inches, and retreats silently to hide behind an adjacent wall, without being seen.

Afraid. As if that was possible.]

Don't be too cautious, vozlyublennyĭ, [and some of the accent slips back into her voice.]

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

[B kicks the door open with enough force to make it bounce back when it hits the wall, expecting the other woman to have hidden behind it. The clipboard falls forgotten to the floor, though as she steps through the doorway she keeps the pen in her hand. Her stance is now a snake form, wary and ready to strike wherever her opponent moves.]

You aren't proving me wrong, honey.

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

[Natasha isn't stupid enough to have done that, but she does give B points for trying it. Not many points. When she answers, she throws her voice to the other side of the room; when Beth comes in, she wants to be at her back.]

We'll see. [She's crouched low, several feet away, giving herself room to get a quick start at Beth. She isn't concerned, not yet - just curious.

And, okay, a little mad. But the bitch called her a chicken.]

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

[She'll earn the rest of the points the hard way. B shifts lower to guard against the lunge she anticipates, glances to the corner she thought the voice came from. Nothing.

Behind her.

She spins on the pads of her feet, ducking as soon as she sees the other woman and throwing a strong punch simultaneously. One hand comes up in a block and she weaves as far out of Natasha's path as she can as fast as she can, then straightens for the next strike.]

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

[The seconds she saw the blond, Natasha was moving - but the other woman was fast, too, and she hadn't fully counted on that. Instead of throwing herself down and getting her legs around Beth's neck, Natasha compensated for the low position; her favorite style didn't work was well when an opponent was too low. So she rolled over Beth's back instead of compromising her momentum, spinning away with fists raised to face Beth. She has questions, but Natasha isn't one to talk during a fight, not really.

So she opens her mouth as if she's going to ask something, then darts forward and goes low, hitting the floor with her hands and lashing out with her feet, also low, trying to throw Beth off her feet.]

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

[The redhead rolls off her back like water and B whips upward, trying to grab her by the back of the throat but moving too slowly. For a second they face each other, and she sees the woman begin to speak but feint down. Knowing what's coming she leaps up, aiming a sharp crane kick to Nicole's face.

She lands nimbly on her feet and draws back, both hands tiger-clawed in front of her, eyes daring Nicole forward.]

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

[She snaps her head back and down, but not fast enough, and the kick catches her jaw. Not enough to dislocate or knock her out, but she feels it, and rubs the spot when she rolls back to her feet again.

First hit. Now she knows better than to play around.

Eying the tiger claws, Natasha allows herself the barest of smiles, a quirk at the corner of her mouth - and then her hands shift out of fists and into claws of her own. Kung fu. All right; not that she'll limit herself to it, but why not? It'll make things interesting.

She waits, this time, letting Beth strike first; she wants to see what else she's dealing with.]

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

[A second sooner and that kick would have snapped Nicole's neck. B curses inwardly, circling her just like the big cat they both emulate, but knows now that she can let her guard down. That she's on the defensive, emotionally. That she can make mistakes.

Good.

She has no intention of drawing this out. She throws both hands forward toward Nicole's face, banking on her blocking both.]

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

You know what they say about tigers fighting, [Natasha says, and it's almost abrupt, that she'd break the silence while they circle. She doesn't get the chance to finish, though, because as those claws come at her, she throws an arm out and steps to the side: protecting her face by pushing both arms away, and stepping in to throw her knee at B's kidney.

She likes tiger style, and B's good at it - but sometimes you need to mix it up to get what you want. In any case, she knows the blond is fast, and wants to see just how fast.]

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

I'm counting on it. [There are two things B is utterly sure of in this moment: this will be to the death, and it will not be her death. Even as her blow is deflected and the rest of the move cut short by the knee connecting with her side she's sizing Nicole up for weaknesses, looking for any window of opportunity to send her fist through her ribs or a claw through her throat.

Grunting at the blow to her kidney, she loops a hand under the crook of Nicole's knee and clamps it down tight, one foot whipping forward to kick out at her other ankle. If she can just get her on the ground it's over – all she'll need then is a grip around the redhead's throat.]

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

[Natasha would find that funny; because that's exactly what she's thinking. When her leg is caught, a smile twitches the corner of her mouth. As that kick comes toward her, Natasha's fingers relax, coming out of those claws so she can grab B's shoulder. She uses it for leverage when she jumps to avoid that kick, bringing her other leg up high.

It's not kung fu she's using anymore, it's lucha libre; that other leg isn't trying to damage, it's trying to catch around the side of B's neck as she throws her body weight to the side in an attempt to throw the blond down.]

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

[The sudden weight on her shoulder forces B to the floor and she braces an arm and tucks her head down, trying to roll out of the leg-hold and out from under Natasha. Fucking cunt. Fine. She wanted a dirty fight, she got it.

Her fingers arch against the floor, scrabbling for hold, when they light on a plastic cylinder and instinctively clasp around it.

It'd do.

Without even looking B fists her hand around the pen and stabs it down into Natasha's thigh, driving it further in as she uses it to push herself back and away. She's on her ass and leans back, holding herself up by her elbows. Forearms flat on the floor and she pushes herself up, lunging at the other woman.]

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

[Natasha hissed in air through grit teeth as the pen entered her leg, cursed outright in some very fast Russian when B leaned into it. She doesn't waste time dealing with the injury, knows if she waits too long she'll be pinned and that will be it, and of all the terrible ways Natasha can imagine dying, having her throat ripped out is not one of the top ten ways she wants to go.

So she rolls away from that lunge, swallowing a snarl as the pen - still stuck in her leg - taps against the ground.

Somehow, she gets to her feet, still dancing away from B's advance, and she yanks the pen out to use as her own weapon.

Should have gone for the throat, she thinks, but doesn't waste breath on giving her advice. Instead, she moves in to meet the other woman, free hand reaching for blond hair as she raises the pen.]

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

[Natasha moves so fast that B's lunge propels her into empty space and she has to whip around in a pivot to get on her guard. The pen should've slown her down but she's still going strong, pulling it out and holding it up despite her blood slicked on it. B's impressed even as she's yanked forward by her hair. No wonder this woman made an enemy of her friends.

Still, she wasn't slow herself and she grabs Natasha's wrist with one hand, the other curled into a fist to slam into her sternum. The hit's not as hard as it normally would have been, her strength concentrated on keeping Natasha from returning the favor with the pen.]

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

[Still hard enough to make her grunt, to make her struggle to force her body to draw in another breath. She bares her teeth and puts her weight behind her pen arm, angling for B's throat. She shifts her legs in the process, bringing one knee up to pound against B's side, her leg, anywhere she could hit before slamming her heal down toward her instep. Anything to distract her.]

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

Bitch! [She growls as Natasha knees her thigh and yells when that heel slams down on her foot. She can't evade without losing a fistful of hair or wrenching her neck – all she can do is twist Natasha's wrist with one hand, trying to jerk her hand down and drive the point into the hollow of the other woman's throat. Her other hand's still fisted, hammering rabbit-punches wildly against Natasha's chest, frantically trying to shake her off.]

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

[Between the punches and the angle, she's losing altitude with the pen, she can feel her hand slipping, and it's for that reason that she snarls and drops the pen.

She was pulling her head back to try headbutting B again when the flood very abruptly ended. It didn't kill her adrenaline, though, and she didn't just go slack when she came back to herself (but those memories, God, she wanted to scream, almost wanted to let B kill her, how could people deal with this on a regular basis, it was a nightmare). Instead, she went very still, eyes moving to the blond's, searching her face for the same realization.]

Let go. [She's sliding her for away from B's, to show that she wasn't going to attack anymore - but she doesn't put any weight on that foot, either, just in case this fight isn't over.]

[spam]

[deadliestviper]

[She dropped the fucking pen. Bitch, she thinks again, Just couldn't take the heat. B's fist stops in midair as if it had been grabbed and she quickly loosened her hand, reaching up to wrap it around Natasha's throat when something... shifts.

Her eyes are watery when the realization hits, but not from the pain. The memories flicker back through her head as false as they'd always been but this time she doesn't believe them. Still Bill's woman, still a Viper, still a mother but Jesus Christ she couldn't think about that, not now.

Her hand is shaking when she straightens and withdraws it though she still maintains the stiff-lipped poker face. She'll deal with it later. For now she just watches the woman she knows as Nicole step away, sure they've both come to the same conclusion.]

Nothing personal.

[It's as close to an apology as she'll get, and as near an explanation as she needs to give.]

[spam]

[persuadeyou]

[No, nothing personal. Natasha might have laughed, if she was a little less in control of herself right now - but she couldn't afford that. She felt surreal, like maybe all this was just another nightmare; she'd had plenty, when she first joined SHIELD, when they first ripped her mind apart, stripped her of everything she was, everything the Red Room had made.

Natasha swallowed, and nodded. Nothing personal. She drops a hand to her thigh, probing to see just how bad the wound is; not very, and not bleeding too badly. She can limp out of here and get to her room (though it's the last place she wants to be, even the thought of it makes her skin crawl. She lets on none of this).]

Right. [She couldn't bother herself to say more than that, just headed for the door - though she never quite let B out of her sight.]