Milliways

[redintheledger]

Natasha is eighty-three. Old enough to be a grandmother. Old enough to be a great-grandmother, had the mother part had happened at all. Old enough, apparently, to acquire a certain degree of wisdom.

What she is doing at the moment isn't very wise.

She's sitting at the bar in Milliways, studying the bottles stacked up on the shelves. There is some logic: Milliways appeared in her apartment just when she was thinking that she'd really, really love to stop thinking, and it's a bar.

A bar at the end of the universe, where people from all times (like Nataliya Shostakova from 1952, whispers the annoyingly persistent part of her mind that won't let her forget it), so maybe they'd have something that'd get her drunk more easily than vodka.

Unfortunately for Natasha's drive for experimentation, another part of her is pointing out that getting drunk in a strange bar when she is freaked out over her memory is stupid.

But Natasha is eighty-three, and she's very, very tired of being careful when all she wants to do is not think for a few hours.

Comments

[katyafeline]

"No, I was the one trying not to vanish. Bloodsuckers weren't entirely particular whether they got human or Other." And she was short then, before she figured out how to make her shapeshifting ability work for her.

[redintheledger]

"Everyone was trying not to vanish."

This time, the shot just goes straight down.

"It should have been better after the war," she says, voice quieter. "I thought...it'd be better. We did all of those great things. How could it go back to how it was."

[katyafeline]

"There is always the human tendency towards the Dark, as there is always one towards the Light." Katya sighs, "Humans are not made to be one, or the other - even when it is in their best interests."

[redintheledger]

"I am still human," she points out. "We're a contrary species."

[katyafeline]

"Da,, I know - on both counts." There's a grin there, quicksilver bright. "I have not grown as rusty as all that."

[redintheledger]

Perhaps oddly enough, Katya agreeing with her makes her feel a tad better. Department X did a lot, but they didn't change her that much.

(Sometimes, it should be said, she doubts.)

"Ah, and when is rusty to people like you? Around the five hundred mark?"

[katyafeline]

Katya pulls a face, and rolls her eyes.

"Don't say that too loudly, rumor is my... eeeeh. Boss, here, predates Russia." No one (or at least, no one Katya is good friends with) knows the truth about Olga the Grand Sorceress... and none of them feel like risking their necks enough to find out.

"Besides, are you calling me old, devochka?"

[redintheledger]

"I got the impression you predated the Revolution. Was I mistaken?"

Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

[katyafeline]

"I remember visiting wounded soldiers in the first world war - I was too young to be there in any official capacity, of course, but I could play checkers with them." She shrugs. "Doesn't mean I'm old though. Could still drink you under the table."

[redintheledger]

"So you are maybe two decades older." She shrugs, as if - even with their previous argument - it doesn't mean a thing to find someone even remotely close to her age who doesn't look like it.

"Drink me under the table?"

[katyafeline]

"Your tolerance has been untested or challenged for far to long. Mine gets lots of exercise." Katya grins. "One must exercise to grow stronger, yes?"

[redintheledger]

Clint comes to Milliways. So does Coulson, and Hill.

And Fury.

When was the last time she was properly, properly drunk? Victory Day, 1945. Was it a table she ended up dancing on, or a tank?




"Perfectly sound logic. You're on."

[katyafeline]

Katya refills both glasses nearly to the top without a word - She's been properly drunk much more recently than that, but there's so very few bad times to be properly smashed.

These aren't any of those times.

"What are we drinking to?"

[redintheledger]

"To the existence of alcohol," Natasha decides, lifting her glass.

[katyafeline]

"It's a good enough start as any." Katya agrees, "To alcohol then." The Atlantean burns all the way down, but it's really not any worse than rotgut vodka.

Really.

[redintheledger]

On one hand, Natasha hasn't had that kind of vodka in a a while. She's been drinking alcohol strictly for taste for a long, long time.

On the other hand...Well, Katya is a lying liar. Even in her narration.

"Fuck," Natasha gasps, and then she laughs a little hoarsely. "No wonder the Atlanteans blew up."

[katyafeline]

Katya giggles, a light tripping sound that goes perfectly, really, with the chiming of her numerous bangly bracelets.

"They were hearty souls, evidently. Or they hated their insides with every fiber of their being." She agrees cheerfully, before taking another sip.

[redintheledger]

"All those demi-gods running. Have to get them drunk on something. Or gods."

Beat.

"Not that either of us are in that category."

[katyafeline]

"Eh, my kind have been mistaken for them." She shrugs, "It's discouraged, but not banned. I think it'd be a bit boring, to be honest."

[redintheledger]

She snorts lightly.

"Not remotely the same thing."

[katyafeline]

"I'll make sure to tell the next idiot who babbles on about angels at me that." Katya retorts dryly (though some of that is because the alcohol is making her voice a bit raspy).

[redintheledger]

"...being able to pull off an actual angel would be interesting," she muses.

"Normally when people talk to me about likening me to angels, they are trying to fuck me."

[katyafeline]

".... That'd be an unfortunate bedfellow." Katya scrunches her nose - when the first comment someone habitually makes is 'be not afraid', that doesn't usually mean they're tons of fun.

[redintheledger]

"You'd think so," Natasha says, taking another drink. "But metaphors do that. Turn the interesting insipid.

Sometimes," she confides, "language is a very depressing subject."

[katyafeline]

"Da? Spellwork has never been a strength of mine." She sighs - there's a couple of witches in Moscow that she owes a beatdown that will now never be paid.