Logs:Operation: S.T.A.T.E.N. I.S.L.A.N.D.
| Operation: S.T.A.T.E.N. I.S.L.A.N.D. | |
|---|---|
Sorrow Takes Acute Tolls Everyday Now; Instead of Sobriety Look At New Dimensions | |
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
|
2020-10-21 "Why? This an intervention?" (Part of AWIT tp.) |
| Location
<NYC> Clint's Apartment - Hell's Kitchen and <NYC> NYPD 121st Precinct - Staten Island | |
Though small, this studio has tall, stately windows that let out onto a fire escape with a commanding view of the streets below. The entryway is flanked with a closet on one side and a bathroom on the other, and is the only uncluttered space in the whole apartment. Brightly colored banners adorn the walls and all manner of puppets and stuffed animals line the shelves such that the entire place looks like a carnival in miniature. The floors are covered with busy central asian carpets and littered with plush cushions, except in the kitchenette, where the narrow counters are crowded with jars upon jars of custom seasoning blends and locally roasted coffees, all with ridiculous names. A tight spiral of floating stairs leads up to a loft half taken up by a big, fluffy bed and an armoire, the remainder of the space there given over to an L-shaped workbench below a pegboard laden with tools. The pizza boxes have been piling up again, likewise the bottles of Jack Daniels. It's mid-morning, but Clint hasn't gone to work. He didn't even make it up to bed last night--or whenever he finally passed out on a heap of cushions with half a bottle of whiskey in easy reach and the Book of Mormon tucked beside his head where he's draped one arm over his eyes to keep out the light. At some point he'd been draped in a purple knit blanket, but he's since kicked it most of the way off and, dressed in a white ribbed tank and black pajama, is only kept warm by Arrow curled against him little-spoon fashion. The door unlocks, swings open. Natasha's almost obnoxiously bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this... almost-noontime, dressed in black jeans and boots, a tan canvas jacket over her red shirt. She has coffee in one hand, a paper sack in the other, and wanders over to drop down beside Clint's makeshift nest. She nudges at him gently with the cardboard drink caddy. "You sober? Relatively sober?" Arrow hops up to greet Natasha at once, tail wagging as he stares pointedly the paper sack, licking his chops. Clint groans and curls in tighter around where his dog had been a moment ago. His arm pulls away from his eyes and he groans again, louder. "Christ..." He squints hard against the mid-day sun, reaches for the bottle but then stops, eyes Nat speculatively, and grabs the coffee instead. "I'm sober," sounds more like a lament than a reply. "Why? This an intervention?" "This is caffeine and baconeggandcheese bagels." Natasha tugs one paper-wrapped sandwich out of the bag, holding it out to Clint despite Arrow's intent gaze. "Why, did you need an intervention? We got work to do, but I'll try to squeeze it in." "Nah, I'm good." Clint rights himself and accepts the bagel, setting the coffee down so he can unwrap it. "Who needs healthy coping mechanisms when I got caffeine and baconeggandcheese?" He takes a big bite of the sandwich and chews hastily. 'What work?' he signs, one-handed. "A question we've all asked ourselves now and then." Natasha picks her own sandwich out of the bag, settling down cross-legged to unwrap it and take a bite. 'When was the last time you went to Staten Island?' --- <NYC> NYPD 121st Precinct - Staten Island The 121st Precinct station house is one of the newest in the borough, its unique top-heavy outline eyecatching where it perches at the top of its hill. There are no police officers in sight now, though, nor any cruisers out front, though some remain in the actual parking lot in back. There are instead quite a number of commercial vans (Strategic Pest Control and Mold Remediation, they read, beside an incredibly generic geometric logo) parked in the circular driveway, and workers in coveralls coming and going at regular intervals. Perhaps it's fortunate there are no cops here, because the Stark electric motorcycle making its way up the drive is definitely not observing the speed limit. It slows at last upon reaching the loop, still eerily quiet given its velocity, and pulls up to the curb. Clint climbs off of the back first, pulling off his helmet and running a hand through his mussed and flattened hair. He looks far more put together now, in a black and gray tactical jacket and pants. He unslings the pack he had worn across his back and withdraws a quiver and his intricately folded compound bow. "I'm going to feel real silly going in like this if it's just Yonkers on the other side," he says, clipping his quiver securely into place as they follow one of the site management agent's young gophers inside. Nat still looks much the same, save for some squashing of her hair where the helmet has pushed it into an awkward cap. She fluffs it back out with her fingertips as she approaches the building, unzipping her jacket; it makes it easier to see the hip holster beneath. "Better silly than dead. Yonkers can be a lot, anyway. I would not have wanted to get in between some of those soccer moms and their haircuts back in March." For all that, the station seems quiet -- empty and unthreatening as they make their way through it, down to the holding cells in the back. Here it -- also, just, looks empty, though one of the cells has been fenced off with barricades and psi shields both, an array of complicated looking machinery aimed at it. Nat leans up against one of the barricades, peering through at -- actually, beyond, it still just looks quiet. "The nerds do say we'll probably come back." Clint fetches up against the barrier, too. Narrows his eyes at the utter lack of any apparent abnormality beyond. "The nerds say a lot of things." But there's no heat to this, mild and contemplative. "Fury knows what to do with my dog if we don't." He deploys his bow with a decisive series of solid snaps, withdraws a single arrow from his quiver, and nocks it before hopping the barricade, waiting for Nat. "I'll be right behind you." And steps out the other side -- where there's still a cell. Similarly sized to the one they just left, more heavily reinforced, though it and the others down here are open as well -- not standing open but broken, bars twisted and bent, a small scattering of rubble on the floor still. It's colder in here, dustier, an air of disuse around the abandoned and slightly ruined station as Nat makes her way back out the way they came. "Well -- whatever it is, I don't think it's Yonkers." Clint's eyes track to the twisted, broken bars, then past them, down the empty hallway beyond. He steps slow and careful and even, his focus absolute, though he does not draw the bow, not yet. They emerge into the expansive lobby of the gutted station, familiar yet unfamiliar. "No," he agrees, finally. "Kind of looks like it's still Staten Island." He nods at a newspaper abandoned on a nearby desk, the tip of his arrow still trained on the entrance they haven't yet reached. "Check that." Natasha's eyes are scanning the empty station thoughtfully, but stop when Clint points. She heads over to the desk, fingertips touching down lightly on the New York Times there. It's old -- June 2018 -- and her brows crease as she lifts it. Studies it. Turns it out to Clint. "Staten Island," she agrees, "but maybe not ours." The top-billed headline: Praise and Unrest Follow President Pence's Executive Order on Mutant Internment | |
