Are We Ourselves? - Post-Arrival Settling In

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Having arrived the previous day, our group of intrepid investigators settles into a safe house on the outskirts of Barrow and makes sure everybody knows their covers.


Clint checked their stock of diesel fuel after refilling the generator, then headed back to into the cabin. When he and Natasha said 'off the grid,' they really meant off the grid. There was nothing to tie this safe house to anything either of them had anywhere else and, thanks to the generator, interested parties wouldn't even be able to trace power usage. With a burner sat phone making a mobile hotspot, they were pretty well covered, at least for phones. That was all they needed for the time being.

Getting inside, he pulled his gloves off and flexed his hands a bit. "Okay, we're set for that for the next twelve hours." He stomped his feet to get the snow off of his boots, then pulled his jacket off but left his beanie on. His ears were cold and the unrelieved dark outside made him feel even chillier. He was going to miss the midnight sun again. "Everybody warm enough? We're set on diesel. Sorry, Kyle. I know it's gotta smell gross."

"Ain't as gross as frostbite," Kyle said, from one of a pair of threadbare armchairs. He'd stripped off most of his winter gear and was stretched out, bare feet as close to the fireplace as he could get. "That guy I was chatting up at the docks this morning had me hauling shit all up and down the pier. Wanted to see if I was gonna be a bitch about working hard in the cold." He snorted. "Diesel isn't as gross as old fish and crab stink, too." Now he smelled more like lemons than anything else, because it got the smell of hard work and fish off his arms. "For the record, I only bitched about the price of orange juice. What the fuck, five bucks for two quarts?"

"Dude, is it magic orange juice?" Molly said as she adjusted her disguisey-nerd-glasses. They still felt funny on her face, so they were kinda hard to get used to. Still, they did make her look smart. She'd tried to look the part by dyeing her hair brown too, especially if she was supposed to be an intern for Black Widow Lady. "I'm glad I smuggled in my Twix bars. They cost a lot here, too," she said, giggling. "They call this one fish we're supposed to be studying a 'Chub.'"

"If it's magic don't drink it," Topaz spoke up. Despite the warmth of the cabin, she was wearing her jacket still, as well as a hat pulled down tight against her head and her gloves still on. She didn't like Alaska. Who the hell lived here? Godawful frozen wasteland. "I'm only dealin' with one emergency at a time, and if you turn into a fish that's not priority."

Natasha was seated in the other threadbare armchair with her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of hot chocolate and her feet tucked under her. The hot chocolate might've had a dash of vodka to help with the warming effect. There was only so much multiple layers of cold weather clothing could do. And while the cabin was warm enough, it never hurt to be warmer. She was uneasy about barreling headfirst into the unknown with this many people. People she hadn't trained with, some of whom were barely even trained at all. The fail safe of mutancy didn't excuse being well prepared. She supposed that was why she was along. She had more than enough experience with dragging Barton's ass out of the fire when things went to hell in a hand basket.

The conversation drew her out of contemplating when a good occasion to gift each member of the hastily cobbled together team with her mission prep packs. Between Clint and the inordinate time she'd spent with the mansion files on each person, she'd hopefully selected usefully appropriate items. "Yes, please. Let's not draw unnecessary attention to ourselves. That would ruin our nice vacation in the subzero."

"Price of orange juice is worse in Hawaii," Clint said, shrugging. "Also, there are lots of different kinds of chub, they're pretty interesting. Not my area of science, though. Hopefully no one actually gets turned into one." He walked into the kitchen to find the last of the hot chocolate on the stove, burner set to 'low,' so he poured it into a mug for himself and then made his way back into the living room area.

Seating himself on the floor, back against the front of Natasha's recliner, Clint said, "Okay, so snarky Russian currently-blonde commentary on stealth aside, let's lay out our plan for tomorrow. I'll keep doing my thing with my regular people here. Some of them were acting weird today, but nothing that was so out of the ordinary it'd ring the big alarm bells. Kyle, aside from smelling terrible, how'd things down at the docks seem? Any trouble finding a captain to sidle up to or whatever?"

"Opposite of trouble. I got like two guys who were all trying to butter me up to work on their boat." Kyle grinned. "I mean between calling me a pussy and implying I wasn't good enough to work for 'em, they were telling me all about how much cash I'd make if I was maybe good enough to work for 'em." He stretched out his legs, and rolled his ankles - they popped several times each, the result of being cramped in boots all day. "From what I'm hearing, there's less people out here, and usually they get to turn folks down, because the cash is pretty legit. This time, they're losing guys, just like, dudes wander off, stop working, whatever."

"I'd bugger off too if I was stuck in this sun-less, god-less frozen hell," Topaz muttered as she dug her laptop out and opened it. "Oh wait," she added pointedly. "I heard a few rumors along those lines too - people just disappearin', up and walkin' off in the middle of the day or whatever, even a few just abandonin' their dogs while they're out for a mornin' walk. There's a Facebook page about it, if you'd believe it." The fact that she had started a Facebook - using her birth name which existed exactly nowhere - just to look deeper into this wasn't something they would discuss. "The local police are apparently overloaded - I guess when the most action you see a year is a random polar bear attack you're not really equipped to handle a horde of people suddenly up and takin' off. So someone started a group or somethin' so people could 'report' someone disappearin'."

"More likely to be a random moose attack," Clint deadpanned. Then he shrugged and said, "That's about what I've managed to pick up from the locals. The woman at the pizza place said she's lost three out of seven people in the last month. The police are down several members, too - but none of them showed up to work. Their families are a hodgepodge - some missing, some not. And I haven't been able to make contact with any of the SHIELD or SWORD agents who're supposed to be in the area. That's not surprising, though, since they're basically the reason we're here." Scratching at the nape of his neck just beneath his beanie, Clint finished, "On the plus side, since Annie thinks I'm getting ready to mush out onto the frozen tundra, she's offered me a last meal of as many calzones as I can carry. So that's something to look forward to in the next couple days, right?"

Molly looked a little excited at the idea of there being mooses but didn't say anything and instead went back to munching on her candy stash. She was super stoked about getting out to go on a mission. It was her first official one with the X-People, not counting Slender-Men, alternate brain universes, Genosha, Ren Faires, ghosts, Morlocks, giant crabs, evil firebird women, fish people, and Loki (on Midgard anyway). "Totally," Molly said with a thoughtful grin. "Let's rock and roll."