for the black widow : dated late June

[morethanhuman]

What was that saying? It's five thirty somewhere.

Erik was sure that was true, even if there was no way to gauge time zones at the Nexus. By his watch, it was barely two p.m., a pleasant buzz of alcohol humming through his veins as he ambled through the portrait gallery on the first floor of the hotel. In retrospect, perhaps letting Jordan take him to lunch in New York City had been irresponsible— but, he thought snidely, it wasn't as if he had anything else on his calendar for the afternoon.

He found himself in the billiards room, dragging his fingertips along the worn felt of the game table, his other hand sparking with lazy little flashes of lightning. His metal sense pinged off a handful of short, thin spikes stored somewhere on the opposite wall; closer inspection revealed a wooden box full of red-fletched darts.

Erik grinned. He was just tipsy enough to find the idea of playing funny, and let the darts hang in midair near his shoulder while he located the board hanging on the wall across the room. Plucking one out of the air, he squeezed an eye shut and threw.

The dart thudded into the wall a foot away from the board. Erik winced, and gave an unsteady chuckle— then turned, as a snort of amusement sounded behind him.

Comments

[regimes_fall]

There were things more miraculous in the world than a man surrounded by levitating darts, and yet Natasha was easily drunk enough to be frozen in sheer awe as the man plucked one from the air as though it were nothing more substantial than a fallen leaf and tossed it toward the dart board. Had he hit a bullseye she might've stayed under his spell for at least a few seconds more, but the fact that he was even unable to make it on the board left her unable to check her snort of laughter.

Mirth always brought things back to roaring perspective when paired with more than her share of a bottle of Russian Standard, and she was able to note that this fellow had a rather slim bottom - and wasn't that nice? - just before he turned around.

"I'm sorry," she said, sitting down the aforementioned bottle of vodka she'd been drinking from and lifting that hand as though it might negate a truce. She certainly didn't want to see those hovering darts flying through the air at her. "You making them float in the air is impressive enough. Who cares about landing a shot, right?"

[morethanhuman]

Erik's eyes were narrow as he scrutinized the woman— Romanoff, wasn't it?— swaying gently with a tipsy smile on her face. A second later he relented, too much under the influence himself to bother being annoyed. Besides— a man who could control metal missing the bullseye? Even he could see there was no reason not to find that funny.

He allowed a little smile and turned back, selecting another dart and letting fly. "Cheating against myself would be pointless," he said with a shrug, frowning as this one pierced the wallpaper on the other side of the board. "And normally—" in other words, sober— "I don't have to cheat in order to win." Billiards, darts, cards— they'd served him well once, socializing his way to the information he needed, and he'd been very good at them.

Another dart pinched between his fingers, Erik looked back over his shoulder. "Care to try your luck?"