(no subject)

[latrodectus]

WHO: Gil (invoking) & Natasha (latrodectus)
WHERE: A nice but somewhat bland business luncheon establishment.
WHEN: Some ordinary weekday afternoon.
WARNINGS: N/A
SUMMARY: Gil and Natasha have an Awkward Business Lunch.
FORMAT: Whatever.

Natasha was enigmatic by nature and by design; maybe that was why she'd decided to take Gil to lunch.

It was a very beige affair, this restaurant, with heavy cream curtains and a light touch of gilding to the chairs. The tables were spaced wide enough for talking and the waiter (who called himself Mark) wore a black vest with a suitably pastel tie. Without glancing at the menu, Natasha could tell the food would be competent, but lacking in imagination.

Business as usual.

Comments

i fell asleep before :(

[invoking]

Gil wasn't unaccustomed to this sort of setting, though he couldn't quite figure out what the occasion was or what Natasha's intentions were. He had felt guilty missing more work days, especially after the Sentry's attack on the City. He had tried not to focus on that however. His broken arm had been tucked into a sling, though he acted as if it didn't bother him at all.

A few days later and everything had returned to the way it always as in the City. It didn't feel completely right, but he didn't know what to think.

Since it was his first time in a nice restaurant in the City, he peered at the menu curiously. He noticed the others around him were drinking wine. He was oddly firm about only drinking water.

"Have you been here before?" he finally asked Natasha, trying to look as comfortable as he didn't actually feel.

[latrodectus]

"No. It came recommended." She'd looked it up on the internet. Natasha took lunch with clients she was trying to charm money from, sometimes. But that was in a different part of town. And she liked going to new restaurants more than she liked wearing in the old ones.

Natasha was roughly as comfortable as she looked. She never seemed quite at ease, but she was calm and untroubled. She had to decide what she was going to order.

[invoking]

"Oh," he folded the menu shut and slid it to the side of the table. In some ways it was like attending a formal dinner like back home, but without too much pressure from high society or his own friends and family.

He couldn't remember the last time he had lunch with a woman either, which was what really put him on edge. He couldn't read Natasha at all.

"It's rather surprising... to be honest." He pointedly avoided her gaze.

[latrodectus]

"This restaurant? I think it's fairly predictable." She knew he didn't mean the restaurant, she just liked to play contrary. It wasn't her most appealing trait.

[invoking]

He fell for it, of course. In truth, it wasn't just Natasha he couldn't read (though she ranked high up there on the list of people he did know here), but women in general. He didn't spend much time with them or make it a point to. Women were a mystery.

"No, I mean... being taken for lunch here."

[latrodectus]

"I thought I'd do something nice. Professional, but… kind." And that was the truth, as plain as she could state it. Natasha did something close to shrug, and then she turned back to the menu. Her syllables got longer, as though she were trying them out.

"I think I'll have the branzino."

[invoking]

"It is kind of you." He said it quietly, feeling very self-conscious suddenly. He forced himself not to linger on his arm.

And then he had no idea what she was saying, but it must have been one of the dishes served in the restaurant. Realizing he actually hadn't thought of what he was going to eat, he dragged the menu closer again to see.

"The grilled salmon is fine with me." He decided quickly.

[latrodectus]

"The waiter will only come if you put the menu down." Natasha didn't think Gil was stupid or unmannered— he was too polite, if anything. But she wasn't sure how familiar he was with, well, these specific sorts of lunches. It was easy to forget how displaced some people really were.

[invoking]

Almost instantly he let go of the menu and placed it aside. He didn't eat out at restaurants like this and cooked his own food. It was that or having it served to him directly when he had to attend parties at home.

"Sorry. I don't go out to places like this." A thoughtful pause. "That auction last year was probably the last one." It was actually more high class than this, but he assumed she understood what he was getting at.

[latrodectus]

And with that, the waiter (Mark) came over and took their orders. He was a deeply pleasant man, bordering on middle aged, very polished in his service. Natasha ordered a glass of Vermentino— Old World fish needed an Old World wine. Gil, of course, did not take wine with his lunch, and though Natasha did not raise her eyebrows she kept careful note of this fact.

When the waiter was gone, the conversation was back to where it began. Awkward smalltalk. "I hope your arm is feeling better."

[invoking]

His good hand curled into a tight ball on the table. He didn't even realize it, too consumed by his thoughts of that thing that had taken over the Sentry— or was part of him this whole time.

Gil half-shrugged then, "It's not as bad as it seems."

[latrodectus]

"It wasn't a complete fracture, then?" She knew a lot about broken bones. She had to, in her line of work. Which, if he asked, she would still tell him was dancing.

[invoking]

"They said it would heal up just fine given some time." He was surprised about it; he had thought the Sentry was powerful enough to kill him on the spot. He squirmed suddenly, remembering an important piece of information they told him at the clinic. "Ah... they said smoking slows down the healing process. Something about a tibial... shaft..." His voice faded, having forgotten what they said exactly.

It was difficult, not being allowed to smoke until his arm was much better. It made him twitchy and irritable when alone.

[latrodectus]

"And you're going to listen?"

That was interesting to her, his ability to accept orders that didn't agree with him. If the doctor told her to stay in bed and rest, she'd get up and walk out. Most people she knew would get up and walk out. Something about risking your life for a living, laughing in the face of danger.

[invoking]

Nine times, came a voice in the back of his head. Nine times, Gilbert.

His good shoulder sank and his gaze drifted past Natasha, lost in his own little world for a fleeting moment. Finally, he blinked and returned to reality to answer her question.

"I... I guess?" Gil realized he must have sounded as conflicted as he looked. "I've never had health problems from smoking," he added, honest.

[latrodectus]

"Then you haven't been doing it long enough." Natasha had even gone on public health crusade, once, back when she felt she'd lost without a cause. It had been more about her than it had been about smoking, about the drugs, and she knew that now. But she could still recite the Surgeon General's warning if she had to.

That was all boring, though. Things stuck in the past that should stay there. She wondered what it was that caused Gilbert to lose his focus— but she didn't ask. Not yet.

[invoking]

He was grateful there wasn't any indication she was going to chide him for his bad habits. He was fully aware what the cigarettes could do to him, but they proved more than difficult to quit.

"Compared to some, not really." He had picked it up because of Oscar. What a terrible mistake. "Have you ever...?"

[latrodectus]

"Smoked?" she shook her head. "A little, back in the days of my misspent youth."

White cigarettes, with long black holders. She smoked them in opera gloves, her shoulders trimmed with mink. Natasha didn't regard those days with fondness, but she could not muster for them the warmth of regret.

[invoking]

Gil regarded her with surprise, followed by mild amusement. He had difficulty picturing Natasha as a young girl and doing things like that. In spite of the fact he only knew her as the woman she was now, that air of professionalism and class wasn't something you just acquired. That was learned over a period of time, either on your own or instilled at a young age.

"May I ask you something? If it's not out of line." It felt like a bold move on his part, so he watched for her reaction.

[latrodectus]

"You can ask." She wasn't guaranteeing an answer, her features fixed in that same placid expression that seemed to come to her like a rainwater to a gutter.

[invoking]

Well, he had already asked if he could ask...

He shifted in his seat slightly, a touch hesitant before he finally came out with it: "Are you from this country? In your world, that is." He observed the room briefly at that point. Americans were strange to him.

[latrodectus]

"I've lived here, for… many years. It is my home." She paused, to take a sip of water. "But I do not think of myself as American."

[invoking]

His side of the table remained untouched. He hadn't drank the water, touched the napkins or even poked at any utensils placed neatly before him. He seemed more preoccupied with keeping himself rigid and maintaining polite conversation than anything else.

"No?" Her red hair reminded him of Rufus Barma and his lineage; a foreign dukedom that emerged in his country not too long after they had left theirs. "Where are you from originally?"

[latrodectus]

"Volgograd." Of course, they had called it something different, then. She couldn't deny Russia, though Natasha did not embrace it. But Stalingrad was engraved on her soul, written into her with white-hot fire. It was nothing she cared to speak of aloud.

Her lips set in a grim line, and for once she forgot to change the subject.

[invoking]

A bit of the color drained from his face, noting the sudden tense atmosphere of the conversation. Again, he didn't know much about the geography of this world, but without delay he realized this wasn't a subject he should have pried into.

"Oh." Evidently at a loss at what to switch the subject to. "I see."