2014-01-16 - SDR: Rations

Hours had passed. How many, neither Natasha nor Clint could be entirely sure-- no electronics working, no light to judge by.

Nothing save the sounds of their breathing, the faint whirr of the jury-rigged air recycling system, and the occasional comment from one or the other... but even those had been sparing for a bit as they tended each others wounds and rested.

Nat wakes up from the short nap she had drifted into... she assumed it was short, at least, because she still felt sore and exhausted. Her tongue runs lightly across her dry lips... parched. The faint light of the emergency LED on the floor near the two gives the sub's interior a haunted cast.

She thinks she recalls that the bench of the observation port-- viewing nothing but the cavernous pitch black of wherever they have ended up-- had a set of emergency supplies. Water would have to be part of that.

So she slides over a bit, dragging herself upright using the wall as a support.

Oddly the concussion made waiting easier, he could, he found just sort of ride on the woozy feeling in his head and the hours would just slip away. What was taking SHIELD so damn long to come get them, they were just near Ryker's Island, it wasn't like they were halfway across the world. A chilling thought struck, what if everyone topside had been wiped out? He didn't want to think about that, but, it was something they had to deal with. He glances over at Nat as she struggles to stand. He offers a hand in support. Then when she's up he stands as well, shaky on his feet. "Going to see if I can get the beacon going," he says as he heads to the control panel.

Natasha nods, accepting Clint's assistance. The thought that everyone on the surface had been wiped out had occurred to her as well, though she didn't want to mention it. Better not to worry Clint. "Hopefully it was not damaged in the EMP as well," she says quietly. And if it was? Well, let him toy with it. He always seemed to focus better when working with his hands.

The spy makes her way back to the observation dome in the back of the sub. It isn't a far walk, but it seems that way in the darkness and with the soreness the woman has from the numerous bruises, cuts, and scrapes. She sits down heavily on the cushioned bench, looking out of the dome into the blackness, then focusing on the dome itself, checking for cracks and weaknesses. Seeing none, she inspects the bench itself. The cushioned seat pops up, revealing a tightly packed cache within. She begins removing the items, laying them to the side to inventory in a few moments.

Clint moves to the controls and works off an access panel to look inside. Like the air system it was fried but good. He checks the wiring, that part seemed intact. The rest though, that was all blown to hell. Still he digs around for the beacon, figuring out what he's looking at from past experience. It takes him about five minutes to pull apart the transmitter and see that some of it was salvageable. He sets that aside and starts fishing for parts to replace what was too far gone to fix. "Transmitter might be workable, I just need a few more parts," he reports as he digs around inside the guts of the command console. "How's our supplies?"

Slipping to sit on the floor in the midst of the supplies, letting the bench seat close with a click behind her, Natasha begins looking through the emergency supplies SHIELD had stocked the minisub with. Finding a pouch of water, she immediately tugs the cap off with her teeth, taking a couple of swallows. "Mm." She replaces the cap. "Catch." tossing the water pouch to Clint.

Looking over the rest of the supplies, she nods. "There's water, mostly. A couple of thermal blankets, and I think these are a pair of small inflatable pillows. Enough food for a couple of days. First aid kit." She pauses. "Several water purification tablets, flint and steel, a hatchet... I suppose this was meant in case of washing up on some island."

Clint fumbles the catch but recovers before the pouch hits the floor. "They really did think of everything," Clint says with a faint smile. "Don't suppose they thought of an EMP shielded back up beacon did they?" Clint asks before he tears open the pouch with his teeth to have a drink.

"The Director runs an effective organization," Natasha replies. The interior of the sub was beginning to take on a slight chill, but she would worry about that later.

She looks through the supplies again. "Not that I can see." She begins separating the food and water out and stacking it to the side.

"Heh," Clint says before going back to his work. He can feel the growing chill as well but doesn't comment on it, if anything it just makes him work faster. He's quiet while he works and focuses his thoughts on the task at hand and not the possibility of dying here in this stupid sub. When he's replaced all the parts in the transmitter he grunts with approval. "I think I got it rigged," he says. "Now the question is power and do we want to take the scrubbers offline to make this work." He looks over at Nat.

Natasha considers it. "Not yet," she decides. "We /will/ die without air. SHIELD should be here to retrieve us soon..." she muses. "If we are not retrieved within a day or so, it may be worth it to risk asphyxiation."

"I really hope it's not a matter of days," Clint admits setting aside the jury rigged transmitter for the moment. "I've got to move tomorrow, or maybe that's today depending on how long we were out," he says as he gets up and moves over to help Nat with the supplies.

She passes him a small stack of self-heating meals, her hand chilled as it brushes his. "Moving?" she asks with a small smile. "Does this mean a housewarming party?" she teases gently.

Clint frowns at the chilliness of Natasha's hand as he takes the meals. "Are you sure you're okay? You're freezing," he says as he sets the meals down. "And yeah I guess, it's got a nice deck, and I'm going to get a grill," then he flinches. "Crap, I was supposed to making chilli for moving day too." He sighs and leans back against the cold bulkhead. "Anyhow, yeah, so hoping SHIELD gets off its asses and RESCUES US!" that last is shouted upwards in hopes of being heard.

Natasha flinches slightly as the shout echos off the bulkheads in the enclosed space. "Clint..." she leans against him, snagging another pouch of water to share. She takes a sip, then offers it over to him. "We have been in worse," she notes. "The embassy in Cairo? The AIM base in Beirut?"

She doesn't mention they had extricated themselves from those problems.

Clint nods. "Yeah, but we could do something about those, here, we're stuck waiting on other people to get off their asses," Clint reasons looking over at Nat and forcing a smile. "You know how I hate that."

Natasha chuckles softly. "I know," she agrees. "But I am not worried." A lie. And an obvious one. She gestures towards the meals. "Pick one. We might as well eat, and those will be warm." She gives him a small, secretive smile, and slides him a strange canister. "Push the button, shake, and then pull the top."

Clint eyes the container but takes it anyhow. "You're usually a better liar than this, Nat," he observes before he follows the instructions, pushing the button, shaking it then pulling the top off. "Whoa, coffee," he smiles as he lifts the container to his lips and takes an almost reverent sip. "Mmm, even sort of good too." It was black coffee of course, but then, Clint often drank direct from the pot at home. "For this, you get first pick of the rations."

Natasha deftly 'borrows' the container from Clint, taking a sip of her own before handing it back. The chemically-warmed liquid helps, a lot. She looks at the pile of meals and shrugs. "Funny, Clint," she teases. "You know they all taste much the same."

She muses. "Check to see if they have the vegetable lasagna one. It is not so bad. If you add salt." Which there should be in the pack with the meals.

Clint smirks and rifles through the cotainers and comes out with the vegetable lasagna one. There is only one, but he tosses it to Nat. "You know lasagna without meat is a sin against god and good food, right?" he jokes as he grabs the Shepherd's Pie one from the stack.

"Yes," Natasha replies with a laugh. "But I will take this over... whatever it is they put in the rations that they call meat." She shakes out her pack, setting the varying extras to the side, yanking the chemstrip at the bottom of the small metal tray with her food in it. While it heats, she reaches for the small pack of dried peaches that came with her e-rat, tearing it open and beginning to eat them like potato chips.

She offers one to Clint, holding it to his lips while he gets into his own ration pack. "You will have to make some at your new place, da? Like you did... oh, when was this? With the extra cheese, and the green peppers on the top. That was good."

Clint takes the dried peach from Nat's fingers with his mouth as he pulls the strip on the e-ration and lets it cook for a couple of seconds while he chews thoughtfully. "Yeah I will, but chilli first, I promised Adam that," he says as he pulls off the top of his ration and starts to dig in. After a couple of bites he makes a face and sets it down "I think you're right about the 'meat'," he says and leans back against the bulkhead again, then comes the question. "It's stupid of me to have a kid right? Doing what I do?"

Natasha picks up her lasagna, taking a couple of bites and considering his question seriously. If the taste of her meal bothers her, she doesn't show it... beyond idly taking the mini bottle of tabasco sauce from the e-rat pouch and emptying it onto her meal. Soldiers. "Mm. I am not sure." she shrugs. "He is not an infant-- and perhaps it is good for us," and the tone she says that word with seems to encompass the Avengers, SHIELD... the so-called extended family she has been somewhat adopted into, "to raise the next generation of heroes. Is that not why Tony started the Academy? We will not live forever, but evil will always need someone to stand against it." Philosophy from the Widow.

"Sure, in the grand scheme of things we should be teaching the next generation, but I am doing more than that now aren't I?" he asks her as he picks up his ration to poke at it with his fork. "I mean, he's back on his own again if we die down here."

Natasha looks over at Clint, her head tilted slightly. "This is not like you, Clint. Fatalism has never been your chosen method of coping." She finishes the last of her hot portion of her ration methodically, stealing the coffee back for another sip... and to wrap her hands around the container for warmth.

"You almost sound Russian," she teases lightly. "It is strange, circus-boy. Are you a--" she bites off that joke, her expression growing serious and somewhat apologetic. No, Skrulls are never funny. Less so for Clint.

Clint offers the faintest of smiles "Unless they included a beer ration in there, I'm sort of down a coping mechanism," he murmurs. "Should have got stranded on an MI-13 sub, they'd at least have rum." He knows where Nat's joke was headed and when she doesn't finish he shoots her a grateful look. "Anyhow, things change. I'm different now, or at least I'm trying to be."

"Perhaps I will remind the Director to include a beer ration for next time we are stranded in the minisub," Natasha says in that mock-serious tone she sometimes takes when trying to make light of things. She reaches for her dried peaches again, peeking over to see what fruit Clint had with his.

She leans against him and the bulkhead, quiet for now, an easy offering for him to talk if he wished.

Clint glances over at Nat when she leans against him but he doesn't talk more. After all like she said, fatalism is not his thing. So, with nothing else to do he picks up his ration and continues to choke it down in companionable silence.