14688/Tune Up Time For Bessie

Tune Up Time For Bessie
Date of Scene:	14 April 2023
Location:	Avengers Mansion - Garage
Synopsis:	Cap does some engine tune up while trying to help Natasha find a happier life.
Cast of Characters:	Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff

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Steve Rogers has posed:
The garage is filled with the sound of a baseball game broadcast. Which isn't all that unusual perhaps. Various Avengers like sports, and the baseball season kicked off just a couple of weeks ago.

Though if one pays much attention to it, they might be surprised to hear the Brooklyn Dodgers are playing the St. Louis Cardinals. Given the Dodgers have been in Los Angeles since before most people today were born.

Steve Rogers is wearing jeans and a light grey t-shirt. He is working on his vintage Harley Davidson Military EL Knucklehead. Loving named 'Bessie'. He's showing the bike all the care that you might expect for an item that he actually rode in World War II. Though the cherry red color isn't quite standard military issue.

At the moment he has the engine partially disassembled and is fastidiously cleaning the pieces.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff is entering into the garage, parked to the side an older, beat up bike. Something mass produced of rather low quality to the outside. The type one bought used and cheap that had been mostly ridden until it fell apart. She would glance over at Captain. "Steve, I hope all goes well with you. Nothing's amiss beyond what the normal reports and antics say?"

Natasha was perhpas one of the fewer that made a point of cataloguing what went on. For others, it was perhpas not as pressing an issu when they had JARVIS to do all of it for them.

"And how goes your work?" Gesturing over at the bike.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve looks up and gives Natasha one of those smiles of his that is more than just acknowledgment of her being there. Those true blue eyes show that he's glad to see her, that her presence makes the day a better one for him.

"Nat. Oh, nothing I'll complain about it. Just doing a little spring engine cleaning. Now the ice and snow are gone, looking forward to some nice long rides through the countryside. When I can make the time," he says, the last part getting a slight grin and chuckle from him. As if that can be a little more difficult than he wished. But he takes it in stride.

"And yourself? Haven't had a chance to catch up lately. What have you been up to?" he asks her as he examines an engine component with a critical eye. He scrapes at something with his fingernail and then gives it a thorough rubbing off with a soft towel.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would nod over at Steve, "I'm spending most of my time on SHIELD operations as of late." She tends to give that priority over the Avengers, at least when there's not a crisis going on. There are plenty of Avengers, after all, that have a skillset far better suited to heroing.

"Primarily with counter-Hydra operations. They've been extremely aggressive, but they've also left themselves exposed as a result. They seem to be intensifying research and development of new attack craft and transport. They're showing a rather concerning degree of creativity with it."

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve's jaw sets at hearing the news. "That's one thing still around that I could have wished would have been lost to the years," he comments softly, shaking his head. He removes a spark plug, looking it over and confirming it is still in tip top condition. He sets it aside and then begins removing another piece.

"So what about outside of SHIELD?" Steve asks, his tone more lighthearted as he glances up and over to her again. "Are you finding time for a life outside of the agency, Nat?" he asks her in that tone of being a friend that he manages so well.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would nod, "They've been much more proactive on their aerospace development side. None of thier usual slapdashedness. We've seen a few prototypes in testing.." SHe's going to work over on her own little bike that looks on the verge of total breakdown. As she pops open a panel to add some micro-missiles to it.

"I have my duties." That is all there is to her.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve looks up from the latest piece he's cleaning, his head tilting just slightly to the side as if evaluating her comment. "And duty is important," he says before looking back down, and deciding he needs a tool to right this particular engine part. He grabs a wire brush and begins gently scrubbing it to remove some build up from it.

"Doesn't need to be the only thing in life though. We only get one chance to go 'round after all," he tells her. Then pauses a moment in thought. "Well, most of us. I suppose we could probably find a few examples otherwise at hand without too much effort. But, still," he says, giving a little shrug and flashing that charming smile over to keep the topic light and inject a little levity.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would glance at Steve, "Perhaps. But duty is what I have. And obligation." There's something about a leoporad and spots. "It's been my life, Stephen." She's not that far off from a century, her entire life and existence fueled by war, darkness, and shadow games. "I have adapted."

The micro-missiles are loaded into the small launchers, even as she goes behind it to start working over at fiddling with the rear axel, going to add in some small oil pellets that could be dropped.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve carefully works the brush over the part, being careful not to work it too hard and remove more than buildup from the engine component. He glances up at Natasha a couple of times though as he listens to her.

"Hmm," is his quiet response. "So all the training you've had. How to blend in. How to look like a... housewife. Or a college student. A corporate employee, a teacher, a... I mean I don't think I can guess how many covers you've actually had. Let alone just your ability to adapt and be anyone you need," Steve says. Where is he going with this?

"So in all of that, did you ever find yourself thinking... this is nice. I could use some of this in my life too?"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would shrug over, "Time when not on assignment is effectively used for training, researching. Keeing myself ahead of potential threats and looking for avenues of improvement. It is far, far too late for me, Stephen. I do appreciate your faith and your sentiment. But this is the life that I have been place dinto. And I have far too many blood debts to ever come close to paying back them all. So I must spend what time I have trying to right those crimes I have done to many."

Steve Rogers has posed:
The quiet, "Hrm," that Steve gives doesn't exactly signal agreement. But it does carry notes of acceptance that he's not going to push the topic any further.

He carefully threads the piece back onto another, then returns it to its normal spot in the engine. "Want me to take a look at your bike when I'm done with Bessie?" Steve asks. He glances over at Natasha's hard-used motorcycle, then to the woman herself.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would nod over at Steven, "Of course, appreciated. This is one I'm using with hte intent of it having be a disposable one." Something that didn't stand out as much and that she was fine with abandoning. Not every time needed a multi-million dollar state of the art one.

Steve Rogers has posed:
Steve Rogers gives a nod of his head back towards Nat. "Nothing like a little time to work on an engine to clear your head. Lara's pretty hard on vehicles so there's some opportunity there too. But, she also shoos me away if I try to do too much of it on my own," he comments of the WAND agent in his life.

Speaking of, Steve pulls out his phone as it beeps. Gives a soft smile and taps out a brief reply before pocketing it again. "Just saying, nice to have someone to go home to," he says. Ok maybe he didn't leave it off completely, but the grin he flashes Natasha just made it a comment that was topical for the moment.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would go to continue to fiddle, "Yes, Dame Croft seems like a good influence on you." She would go to continue to work along on her bike, for a moment. Considering as she would fiddle with the engine. Broken down and rusty. So she takes out a wrench and moves to strt to pull it out, bit by bit, as she goes to work around rust and chunks that would fall out.

"THere is nowhere for me that is home. Merely where I am statinoed." Explaining after a moment of thought. "Everywhere I go is a barracks."