| DC/Marvel: Age of Infinite Heroes | ||||||||||
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Their supplies had been organized, and reorganized, and reorganized a third time after the squid incident had scattered them across the interior of the minisub. The 'bed' had been made-- two inflatable pillows the size of a magazine and about two inches thick stack atop each other; the thin thermal blankets stretched out across the bench. The wrappers and containers from the used rations had been neatly bundled into one of the boxes the rations had come in. The unused ones were stacked in an entirely too-neat pile.
There was a slight ambient glow from outside the sub, and where the darkness, only broken by the tiny light, before, had the sub feel so small because the darkness threatened to swallow them... now, the light, dim as it was, was enough to remind them both of how truly small this sub /was/.
Natasha sits on the floor near the control panel, organizing the pieces of wire and other parts that she or Clint had removed or stripped to get first the air recyclers working, and then the ill-fated (perhaps?) sonar working.
Clint was resting. There was not much else to do except organize and he'd done that more than enough today. Besides he was supposed to be moving, or he had been, and that reminded him of that. So he lay back on the floor near the bulkhead with his hand laced behind his head and rested. Well, rested and thought. "We're higher up right?" Clint asks Nat. "I mean less deep or whatever? Maybe the transmitter will be strong enough to reach the surface with the backup batteries."
Natasha looks up at the pressure gauge. "We can try it," she notes. "But we are still fairly deep. I do not know if it will reach the surface. Or... perhaps bring our friend the calamari back again?" She finishes organizing the materials.
"Besides," she asks, "didn't you say that we only have enough power for two, maybe three more days of air?" She lifts a brow. "How much power will the beacon take?"
"Hard to say," Clint says about the power usage. "The transmitter has a power rating and everything, but there's so many jury rigged parts, plus the wiring's not exactly insulated, so there will be a lot of fluctuation. Best guess is that we'd probably use up our spare batteries around the time our original ones died. That said, if we don't do anything, we die in three days."
Natasha considers. "We'll try it," she reasons. "Get at least a few minutes of a shot out, then hook the air system back up." She stands, moving the bulkhead where the jury-rigged air recycler is.
Perhaps its the right call. Or perhaps not. The air isn't exactly working at peak efficiency, and food and water has been limited.
"Do what you need to do," she decides.
Clint sits up and grabs the transmitter. "Okay, I'll give it a few minutes, see how it works," then he sets to work stringing the backup batteries together then when they're set he wires them into the beacon. Once the last wire is in place he takes a deep breath and then closes his eyes and flicks the switch.
The beacon transmits an SOS, but how far it gets and whether or not its recieved? There's no way to tell. It doesn't blow up, or immediately drain the battery, though, so there is that.
Natasha settles down on the floor next to Clint while the transmitter runs, watching the batteries with trepidation.
After several minutes, she elbows him lightly. "We'll try again later. If there's a later to try.”
Clint nods and turns off the transmitter before he checks the voltage on the batteries. "It's running pretty close to spec," he says proudly. "Not bad." He sets the meter down and looks over at Nat. "And if there's a later? Who's sounding Russian now?"
"I /am/ Russian," Natasha points out with a lifted eyebrow. "Fatalism is a national pastime." She tugs slightly at the zipper at the front of her bodysuit unthinkingly, tugging it down a couple inches. The sub had been heating up. Compared to the previous couple of days, the interior was a sauna.
She looks at the batteries, relieved. "So this did not burn too much time from the air. It would do no good to be rescued after we have already suffocated, after all." She grins a bit, elbowing him again. "Good work."
He eyes the unzipping of the body suit warily. Though to be honest thanks to the heat he had taken off the top two layers of his costume and was down to a black tank top and his pants. Even his boots had been taken off in favour of going bare foot. "I'm good like that," he says as he starts putting tools away so his hands have something to do.
Natasha rises to her feet, moving back to the front of the sub and grabbing a bit of unused, fairly thin wire. She swoops her hair--thankfully, much shorter than usual, thanks to the ill-timed plasma blast back at Christmas--into a ponytail and uses the wire to tie it.
She unzips the front of her suit a bit more, trying to breathe. Between the heat and the thin air, she feels like she's drowning already.
She glances over her shoulder, tugging the zipper down the rest of the way, beginning to tug off the bodysuit to leave just the tank she was wearing underneath. "Clint, remember that op in Cairo? You never did tell me why you wouldn't go into the pyramid after those AIM kretins."
Clint shakes his head as Nat strips out of her body suit, or at least the top, and goes back to his work. "Uh, Cairo? Why are you asking about that now? That was years ago." Clint remembered the op though. He also, remembered being hungover with a headache that threatend to break his skull open and just looking at that tight, hot, corridor into the pyramid was more than he was willing to take. "And for, y'know, reasons."
"Just making conversation," Natasha shrugs. The top half of her bodysuit hangs around her waist, the thin, nearly space-age fabric of her tank top much more preferable to the thick, bullet-resistant suit in the heat. "I never did tell you what happened when we split up on that op in Marrakesh, so I thought..." she trails off, shrugging. "But if you do not wish to talk... is fine."
Clint shrugs. "The truth?" he asks. "Well, I don't like tight spaces, I'm not full on claustrophobic or anything, but they bug me, also, I was pretty hung over," he volunteers when he discovers it will be a quid pro quo sort of arrangement. "So what happened in Marrakesh?"
Natasha lifts a brow, and an amused looks crosses her face. "You never complained about tight spaces before," she teases lightly, settling down on the floor, leaning back against the bulkhead. She muses. "Well, remember how when you found me, I was leaving the ambassador's bedroom, and you assumed one thing, and I told you that was not the case, but would not tell you what happened?" Of course he probably did. She shrugs lightly. "So, when the counter-intelligence guy was dealing with you--why did he think you were spy, I will never know--I made my way to the embassy alone. The security was horrid, and when I got to the ambassador's room..." she pauses. "This is why I did not have to sleep with him to get the files, da? Remember that very tall, ugly, just..." she shudders, "Ah... fuzzy? Yes? Guard that you had that arguement our first day in? Apparently, he was more the ambassador's type. I took pictures, and told him if the file was not mine I would put them everywhere." She smirks. "So, you see? You were wrong." She shrugs. "Your turn." To pick something to ask, of course.
"Heh, yuk it up," Clint smirks over at Natasha when she mentions tight spaces. The story though makes him laugh. "Different take on the honey pot trap for you," he says without judgement. "Nice, but seriously, I am glad that mission was years ago, because I can barely remember what the ambassador and hairy looked like, but god, do not need that mental image," he says with a shake of his head. He searches through his mental index of questions, he had tons, but he starts with a softball. "What was your first mission for SHIELD? Provided I'm cleared for the answer."
Natasha considers that for a moment, then bites her lower lip. "I was... fresh from Russia. My people, they had out a termination on me, you know? Because I was unsuccessful with Tony." Her gaze goes distant. "But Director Fury... he brought me in. Gave me purpose." She narrows her eyes, giving Clint a stern look. "If you tell anyone of this, I will deny it. But..." she shakes her head. "my first 'official' assignment for SHIELD? Picking up the Director's dry cleaning." She sighs. "Second? Cleaning his office. And so on. For three weeks. Menial tasks. To see if I were willing to do even the lowest thing asked of me." She shrugs. "Compared to what I had to do at home? It was nothing. Lovely, even."
She thinks. "My first field assignment was a simple prisoner transfer for Von Strucker and Reaper. Of course, they broke out within months... but such is how it goes." She looks over at Clint. "How did you end up with a dog? I have meant to ask... he just is there suddenly."
Clint smiles "Really? He had you running errands?" he asks with a soft chuckle as he tries to picture it. "Crazy. And yeah, those two tend to get out pretty quick, but," he shrugs.
Then when she asks her question his smile gets bigger. "Okay, it's a long story, but remember when I fell out of that building that one time, ended up in the hospital for six weeks? It was right after that. That was on my break from the Avengers and I was living in that place in Bed-Stuy, it was rent day and so I come back and find our landlord Ivan, who is one of those tracksuit thugs we tangled with, throwing people's shit on the curb, yelling about how he raised the rents to get rid of us. Anyhow, he and I have words, it doesn't go so well for him when it goes beyond words and I send him packing," he shifts to get comfortable then continues.
"So, rather than let this asshole force everyone out I go see him at this shitty backroom casino, that's where Lucky is, out front with the two bros keeping watch. I've seen him around before, fed him a few times, anyhow, I go in, I try to pay everyone's rent, it doesn't go down and there's a fight. Well, I get out of there okay, but the two bros out front they pull guns and I'm 30 feet out, no weapons, no real chance to stop them, so I'm bracing for the shot when Lucky grabs the one guy's arm and he misses. Well, they were pissed, they beat the shit out Lucky and throw him on the road. I stepped up and I did that coin thing, broke a side window on the car that was going to hit him, then got him to a vet to patch him up. You know, a Tuesday."
Natasha grins. "No wonder he is so loyal to you. Though you should stop feeding him pizza." She frowns. "It is bad for dogs. Makes them sick." She leans back against the bulkhead, sighing.
There's a slight whine added to the whirring from behind the bulkhead where the air recycler is. Natasha's brow lifts. "That is a different sound."
Clint nods. "Yeah he's a good dog," he agrees before he looks over at Nat like she's crazy. "He's Pizza Dog, what else are we going to feed him?" he asks, teasing her.
The noise from the machinery gets a look. "That's not good," he says as he gets to his feet and heads over in that direction.
The whining noise stops, but so does the whirring. Natasha rises to her feet as well. "...is that our air?" she asks. She already knows, she's just confirming.
"I hopethat the beacon got out," she says quietly.
Clint opens the panel and grabs the voltmeter he left by it to check the batteries. "Crap," he says quietly. One of the connections had come loose and some of the battery power had been discharging pointlessly into the frame. He checks the batteries, they were all flat. He drops the voltmeter and slumps back on his ass on the floor. "They're all dead, Nat."
Natasha moves over behind him, kneeling down and resting her head on his shoulder from behind. "The signal got out. It had to."
Clint looks back. "Yeah, here's hoping." He stops himself from sighing, there isn't that much air left. "We have what now? A couple of hours?"
Natasha pecks him lightly on the cheek. "Perhaps. Maybe more, maybe less." She settles down next to him, leaning against him. "...we should probably stop talking," she murmurs.
Clint's lips draw tight before he hooks one of the blankets with his foot and draws it in reach of his hand. He pulls it over them and uses what might be his last words to say "Better that we die warm right? Also, sorry, for a lot of things."
There is a slight noise that might have been a scoff from the former Soviet spy. She nods. "Me too," she admits. "For so much." Her expression is distant, and she leans closer to him, and goes silent, though her hand reaches out and slides into his, squeezing it lightly.
They look out the viewport, and wait.