souffle_girlek | (no subject)

(no subject)

Clara Oswald feels that the correct number of times you should wake up in a bed you don't remember getting into, provided there isn't an outrageous party the night before, should be zero.

Tragically, she realizes, as she stares up at the ceiling blearily, she's up to two. Honestly. This is a sign she has a problem.

And then she hears the low hum of voices in the other room, and realizes she may have an even bigger problem than unfamiliar beds. After a quick check of her surroundings (clothes: on, complete lack of jammie dodgers, no kids, no cybermen, planet not blown up, still wearing space Roman jewelry) she decides it's time to sort out the mystery of why she's in bed without explanation this time. At least she won't have to go far to ask.

Perhaps the two SHIELD agents could be polite and pretend she was kinda sneaky as she peers around the doorframe?

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She is a few bites into her omelet before she decides what to say. There's other things she knows, of course - that there's a sentient spaceship that is just about as scary as her owner (that time with the bedroom had been horrid), that Artie's scared of the dark, that she sometimes is more afraid of the Doctor than the things that go bump in the night.

But those things either don't feel relevant, or feel like she's telling secrets she ought not.

"The Doctor's seen these things before, the Cybermen. And he kept talking about starting a funny little insect collection, but only just recently, just since we landed." She pauses, and stabs her omelet authoritatively. "He is going to get them back, you know."

"And we're going to help," Natasha says, glancing over her shoulder as she cooks her own omelet.

"Have you...seen any funny little insects?"

If she hasn't, if this Doctor is the kind who knows the danger and still rambles on about something else, that's also usable intel.

"I haven't, no." Clara replies with a tone that implies (perhaps a bit more clearly than she intended) that with the Doctor, in a situation like this, sometimes there really are tiny interesting insects that can compete for priority with the re-emergence of a robotic warrior race.

And sometimes he's just babbling about tiny interesting insects because he got distracted by something shiny.

Clara hasn't quite figured out how to tell the difference yet.

"We'll keep our eyes out," Clint says. "You get a read on -- a sense of what the relationship between the soldiers is? Do they trust their commanding officer?"

She blinks, a clear rough change in mental gears, but she manages with a bite of omelette.

"It's not so much trust as... well. They're a punishment platoon, so there's the sense wanting to obey the rules as much as possible, and... they have weird rules. They think I'm the boss because the Doctor said so and I'm wearing the captain's pin."

She scrunches her nose.

"And they respond to nanny-voice really well. It's not reassuring."

Edited 2014-05-18 20:06 (UTC)

Clint listens, then nods slightly. He rubs at the back of his neck. "I'd appreciate it if you'd delegate direct interaction to me. If you've been appointed the captain, they'll need direct signaling from you that they're not breaking the rules by listening to me.

"It's pretty normal for commissioned officers to have guys like me take on the face-to-face aspect. Sergeant Barton, of the 75th."

She eyes him, gnawing on her lip (instead of her omelette) for a long moment.

Given: She trusts the Doctor. She doesn't understand him, or even have great faith that he has a plan, but she trusts him. He's going to get her children back.

Given: She hasn't the first idea of what to do with a bunch of really scared soldiers.

Given: These two evidently have lots of ideas about what to do with a bunch of really scared soldiers.

Not given: These new plans and the maybe-possibly-might-be-fictional plan of the Doctor's may or may not conflict.

Given: She needs Angie and Artie to be safe.

Given: She doesn't have any better ideas, and she's pretty sure someone in that platoon wants to blow up the planet.

"No blowing up the planet?" She asks, eyes narrowed. It's one of only two guidelines she's been given. She's doing her best with what she's got.

"No blowing up the planet," Natasha says firmly.

She believes it.

It's not the truth, mind, because Natasha is perfectly willing to blow up a planet populated by under two dozen people to save a galaxy, but she'll believe it to give the lie sincerity.

"And we'll do everything we can to keep everyone else alive, too."

That, at least, is true without any further clarifications on the lying ability of spies.

Well, that's both rules covered at once. The stiff set of her shoulders and spine relax abruptly, as if she was finally allowed to drop a weight that was just a bit beyond her limits.

"Well then, that's... that's good." She has been in over her head from the moment she was asked if they were going to hole up in a shoe or a comical castle. "Sergeant Barton and...?"

"Specialist."

It's such a usefully vague classification.

"Sergeant Barton and Specialist Natasha?" She tries, hoping like hell it sounds better in nanny-voice because she's not buying it.

She gets the feeling there is no part about today that's going to be easy.

"Sergeant Barton and Specialist Romanoff," Clint corrects, easily. The titles sound natural in his mouth -- the lack of questioning helps.

"In most armies, the COs don't have that much on-the-ground experience, so it's not your place to convince them who we are," he adds, faintly reassuring. "That's on us."

And to people who know what to look for, they're very convincing.

(At least, Natasha is when she's not trying to pretend she has no military experience.)

Clara, who's spent more time in Russia than she ever thought reasonably possible in her day-to-day life, frowns slightly at the corrected name. However, she knows how to pick her battles - if the woman who may or may not be part of INTERPOL but sounds more like some sort of lady James Bond wants to be called Romanoff and not Romanova that's fine. She'll just add it to the list of 'things I'll probably never find out about', a list that grows steadily by the day.

"Sergeant Barton and Specialist Romanoff." She mimics, sounding at least superficially more confident about it. "I wouldn't tell the captain your theories on the competence of commanding officers, she seems a bit touchy about the whole thing."

He breathes a slight laugh.

"They're more competent at interfacing with a larger force part than I am," he says. "But thanks for the heads-up. I'll play nice.

"Was there anything you wanted to have prepared before we leave?"

The question is to both Clara and Natasha.

Natasha shakes her head.

"Just pull on my clothes, grab my things...we need to pick up those communicators from the Bar before we go."

Clara shakes her head as well, but more mutely - she is both desperate to get back, and completely unwilling to go. This is the first time the bar has appeared in the middle of one of their adventures, and this one has her the most scared.

(This is a lie, but it's a lie she doesn't know she's telling. There's a theme to her life. Lives. Whatever.)

Her fork is centered very neatly on her plate, and her hands are folded tightly so she can keep from wringing them into knots, and she's really really like it if they could just go now. Please.

Clint nods, taking the plates. He can wash them while Natasha gets ready.

"Then let's meet downstairs in fifteen," he says. He remembers, right before turning on the sink -- "You'll probably want to take the opportunity to use the restroom before we go," he says. "Battle's not really the time to realize you should've gone earlier."

Various emotions war for supremacy in her expression - disbelief, consternation, bemusement, terror, relief - before she gives up entirely and does an about face to scurry back to the room she woke up in.

Does he know how much that made him sound like some sort of bizarre school teacher?

She's never going to find out, because she's not going to tell him.

Natasha does not, for the record, laugh at Clara's expression. Or giggle. She might, however, smile. Just a little. Once Clara's back is turned.

"Meet you downstairs in fifteen."

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