[Psychological profiles have become a distinctly smaller part of Natasha's job description since she transitioned from being a spy to an Avenger, but there was a time when identifying potential threats and targets was a large part of her job.
Which is not something she's necessarily in a hurry to air. It's not personal, but secrecy can become a habit.
A fact that more than one of Natasha's friends or colleagues has pointed out to her with varying levels of humor or frustration at one time or another.]
I'm not about to open a practice, if that's what you're thinking.
[For his part, Homelander just smiles. He doesn't naturally laugh very often, and he has a feeling it's better not to press his luck getting too performative around the ex-spy. She seems pretty sharp.
Which is also why he avoids going into a speech about how great and important friendship is. He's not sure he's ever had friends, in the traditional sense of the word.]
A support network.
[Maybe that's a bit overly clinical way of putting it, and maybe she'll appreciate the directness.]
[There's no sign that his summary bothers her. Natasha might be using the term friend a little generously here.]
Exactly. Things are going to get in your head, you're going to be hurt, you're going to end up compromised.
When that happens, it's better to have someone in your corner.
[Whether that means getting you back to your room if you're bleeding or cleaning up the mess after some kind of outburst. Or just acting as a character witness after you try to murder someone in your sleep.]
[There's a bit of stiffness in his jaw, as if something about this turn of the conversation troubles him, but he doesn't let his mind drift there.
He's been managing decently, so far. He'd rather not think about getting... compromised.]
You got good people in your corner?
[He would assume so; anybody with any kind of strategic thinking would make alliances a priority. But she doesn't seem like the type to easily open up, either.]
[That tension doesn't go unnoticed, but Natasha doesn't comment on it; being tense at the prospect of mind control or drugs seems like a reasonable enough reaction.]
I'm lucky. I have people here from my team back home.
Homelander isn't sure who from back home he'd even want here. Maeve? Noir? Madelyn? He feels strange and unrooted without his team, but at the same time... this place seems to have a way of exposing parts of you that you don't want people seeing. At least with people who don't know him, there are fewer expectations, fewer risks.
So in some ways, it's better he's here alone. And in some ways, he's always been alone.]
[Well, that's pretty fucking ridiculous, but Homelander has, by now, more or less adjusted to the fact that he's basically in some kind of Who Framed Roger Rabbit situation, here. The fictional colliding with the real.
That aliens over New York thing, it rings a bell.]
Did it happen to involve a fella here named Loki?
[He remembers reading an argument between that stuck up prick and a guy named Stark.]
[Well... Homelander figures most people would be on their best behavior in a place where everybody is unkillable and every enemy you make is a tactical error that can really bite you in the ass.]
We're not allowed to operate on foreign soil, so we mostly deal with threats on a domestic level.
[That and... press events, photoshoots, and a whole bunch of collective cocksucking.]
[That's one way to avoid problems with international jurisdiction. The political implications in that sentence are intriguing. They can also wait for another time.]
Sounds like you'll run into significantly less oversight here. At least in respect for how you chose to operate.
[That's a very good point. He doesn't have Vought breathing down his neck here, only some wannabe devil who, by the sound of things, doesn't even call the shots.]
Have there been escape attempts? Attempts to organize?
There's been one major escape attempt to date. It was not successful. Or, if you'll pardon some editorializing, well advised. It resulted in a good deal of property damage and ripping open a hole to... let's call it another dimension. We saw some monsters come in through the breach before it was closed. We also saw some changes in organization on the administrative level, and the mastermind behind it was tortured.
[But there's a lot of torture to go around, isn't there. Natasha doesn't bother to clarify whether or not she'd have supported a better thought out escape attempt. The answer, as it stands, would be entirely contextual.]
Organization... to a degree. Nothing formal. But we've had people trying to establish flow of information.
A lot of folks around here aren't good with authority.
[That it was unsuccessful and ill-advised doesn't mean it wasn't worth doing. Homelander would really like to meet this... mastermind.]
Yeah, I've noticed.
[He smiles, because he's sharing a room with a teenager whose whole shtick is a very loud, fortified Fuck the Police, and a woman whose soul seems to herald to the Wild West era.
You could call Homelander anti-authority too, but that's hardly the part he's meant to play to the public.]
But there are some solid team-players, too.
[Obviously he's new, so he doesn't know that many people. But there's Rogue, Spider-Man... and Natasha seems to be pretty good at it, too.]
Some. Probably comes down to the team they're working with.
[Which is something of a cop. Isn't that always what it comes down to? Who you're working with.
Or for.]
Organization gets a little complicated too, when you're not sure who's watching and when. If there's something the escape attempt highlighted it's that Lucifer doesn't know everything that's going on, so there's at least the potential for private conversations to stay private.
On the other hand, they have access to everything we're doing. Those sin lists reflect things here sometimes.
[And it's safe to assume everything on the network is insecure.]
We can do some networking without attracting suspicion, but stands to reason it'll only be so much.
[Homelander nods. Those are all good points, worthy of consideration, and as far as talk of organization and privacy goes, he thinks they're at a temporary dead end.
Different topic, then.]
Do you believe in the whole conceit of this place? The offer of "redemption"?
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[Psychological profiles have become a distinctly smaller part of Natasha's job description since she transitioned from being a spy to an Avenger, but there was a time when identifying potential threats and targets was a large part of her job.
Which is not something she's necessarily in a hurry to air. It's not personal, but secrecy can become a habit.
A fact that more than one of Natasha's friends or colleagues has pointed out to her with varying levels of humor or frustration at one time or another.]
I'm not about to open a practice, if that's what you're thinking.
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If there's one thing this place could really use, it's a good shrink.
[Obviously, he's joking around, but... well it's not like he's wrong, is it?]
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[She doesn't quite laugh, but there's a change in her tone, a sort of lighter archness that somehow communicates what a chuckle might have.
She snorts then.]
That said, it's not a bad idea to make some friends. People who can talk too when shit hits the fan.
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Which is also why he avoids going into a speech about how great and important friendship is. He's not sure he's ever had friends, in the traditional sense of the word.]
A support network.
[Maybe that's a bit overly clinical way of putting it, and maybe she'll appreciate the directness.]
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Exactly. Things are going to get in your head, you're going to be hurt, you're going to end up compromised.
When that happens, it's better to have someone in your corner.
[Whether that means getting you back to your room if you're bleeding or cleaning up the mess after some kind of outburst. Or just acting as a character witness after you try to murder someone in your sleep.]
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Yeah. You're right.
[There's a bit of stiffness in his jaw, as if something about this turn of the conversation troubles him, but he doesn't let his mind drift there.
He's been managing decently, so far. He'd rather not think about getting... compromised.]
You got good people in your corner?
[He would assume so; anybody with any kind of strategic thinking would make alliances a priority. But she doesn't seem like the type to easily open up, either.]
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I'm lucky. I have people here from my team back home.
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Homelander isn't sure who from back home he'd even want here. Maeve? Noir? Madelyn? He feels strange and unrooted without his team, but at the same time... this place seems to have a way of exposing parts of you that you don't want people seeing. At least with people who don't know him, there are fewer expectations, fewer risks.
So in some ways, it's better he's here alone. And in some ways, he's always been alone.]
What's home like, for you?
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[Not often. Maybe she shouldn't give the wrong impression. At this point, she's not even sure what the right impression would be.
That is the moment Natasha figured she was passed being surprised anything else, and for the most part she's been right about that.]
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That aliens over New York thing, it rings a bell.]
Did it happen to involve a fella here named Loki?
[He remembers reading an argument between that stuck up prick and a guy named Stark.]
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[But that was already apparent. He wouldn't have reached out to her in the first place if he hadn't done some initial research.]
Broadly speaking, he's from the same place as me.
[The same reality. Before she came here, she would barely have classified Asgard and Earth as the same place.]
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[Look, he's a superhero, he can roll with some fantastical bullshit. But he can't help scrunching up his nose a bit just having to utter those words.]
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[Not exactly how Natasha would put it; she prefers to downplay the strangeness where she can.]
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Yeah, the world I come from is... not quite as wild as that. We haven't had a single alien invasion yet.
[And there are no Gods, for that matter.]
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Don't recommend them. They tend to make very big messes. The kind that aren't so easy to clean up.
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[And kinda fun, to be honest. Dealing with an alien god invasion is a lot better than fucking parading around like a mascot.]
I take it he's better-behaved, here?
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[And Natasha is willing to accept that, at least for the time being. She considers Thor a reliable source of information on the matter.]
As I understand it, there are factors involved as to why he attacked in the first place. Why he's on better behavior here, too.
I take it that's not the kind of thing you deal with where you're from?
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We're not allowed to operate on foreign soil, so we mostly deal with threats on a domestic level.
[That and... press events, photoshoots, and a whole bunch of collective cocksucking.]
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Sounds like you'll run into significantly less oversight here. At least in respect for how you chose to operate.
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[That's a very good point. He doesn't have Vought breathing down his neck here, only some wannabe devil who, by the sound of things, doesn't even call the shots.]
Have there been escape attempts? Attempts to organize?
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[But there's a lot of torture to go around, isn't there. Natasha doesn't bother to clarify whether or not she'd have supported a better thought out escape attempt. The answer, as it stands, would be entirely contextual.]
Organization... to a degree. Nothing formal. But we've had people trying to establish flow of information.
A lot of folks around here aren't good with authority.
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Yeah, I've noticed.
[He smiles, because he's sharing a room with a teenager whose whole shtick is a very loud, fortified Fuck the Police, and a woman whose soul seems to herald to the Wild West era.
You could call Homelander anti-authority too, but that's hardly the part he's meant to play to the public.]
But there are some solid team-players, too.
[Obviously he's new, so he doesn't know that many people. But there's Rogue, Spider-Man... and Natasha seems to be pretty good at it, too.]
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[Which is something of a cop. Isn't that always what it comes down to? Who you're working with.
Or for.]
Organization gets a little complicated too, when you're not sure who's watching and when. If there's something the escape attempt highlighted it's that Lucifer doesn't know everything that's going on, so there's at least the potential for private conversations to stay private.
On the other hand, they have access to everything we're doing. Those sin lists reflect things here sometimes.
[And it's safe to assume everything on the network is insecure.]
We can do some networking without attracting suspicion, but stands to reason it'll only be so much.
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Different topic, then.]
Do you believe in the whole conceit of this place? The offer of "redemption"?
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[She asks, and for a moment sounds tired.
She follows it with a shrug.]
The short answer is practical intents and purposes. The long one might get a little in the weeds.
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