[App] beyondtherift

[secretsneverkeep]

About You - The Player
Name: Aubrey
Age: 24
Contact: taibhsearachd@gmail.com, mortalcity
Past Role Playing Experience: ...how many times have we been over this? I'm honestly curious.

The Character
Name: Natalia "Natasha" Romanova
Age/Birthdate: 79 / some time in 1928? Maaaaybe?
Species: Wanderer
Canon: Marvel 616
*Pre-existing powers: Well, she's kind of immortal, in that she doesn't age and heals faster than your average human. She's also faster, stronger, and more agile than (almost) any other human, thanks to the Russian version of the super soldier serum.
*Rift Change, if applicable: She has her own personal pocket dimension that she can deposit things into and retrieve at a later point. In addition to whatever she puts in it herself, the pocket dimension is full of random shit - random shit which happens to be items someone in this universe really, really wants. Figuring out what item goes with what person... well, that's up to her.
Livejournal: secretsneverkeep
Played By: Scarlet Johansson
Icon: http://www.dreamwidth.org/userpic/4985562/1649480

Appearance:

Natasha looks to be in her late 20s or early 30s, though in reality she's... considerably older. She's a little taller than average height for a woman, with a lithe, slender build, the build of a dancer or a gymnast... or a super spy assassin, which is what Natasha actually is. Whatever.

She's fair-skinned, with very distinctive red hair and blue eyes, and undeniably gorgeous. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about her, though - if you know her well enough to notice it, which is rare - is her ability to command exactly the amount of attention she wants. She's the kind of woman who makes an impression by nature, but she's equally skilled at blending into the crowd, fading into the background, or disappearing into the shadows. It's impossible to define her style of dress: that depends entirely on who she's being on any given day, which is never a sure thing.

Personality:

To most people, Natasha is the perfect spy: inscrutable, perfectly adaptable, perfectly competent, fearless, emotionless, and capable of almost anything. She's very... intense, giving the impression that there's little else to her but her job, like every move she makes is calculated to achieve a specific goal.

The fact is that there's little room in her life for anything that's not calculated one way or another - with her training and conditioning, she barely has unconscious reactions anymore, not in her expressions or body language, and certainly not in her words or actions toward others. She is, however, very good at faking it, and all of those carefully calculated reactions can seem perfectly natural when she wants them to. Natasha's something of a social chameleon, becoming an entirely different person at a moment's notice, and even when she's being "Natasha Romanov", that's a sort of performance in and of itself: due to what was done to her as a child, and later as a Soviet agent, she's had to construct the person she is out of what's left behind when you take away the Black Widow.

The person she's constructed out of those shattered fragments of self is stronger and better for the effort she's put into it. Whether anyone sees it or not, Natasha cares deeply about other people and their wellbeing, and though it's sometimes difficult to believe looking at her history, her actions, she is at her core loyal - not to nations or organizations, but to the people who have earned her trust and to the few ideals she holds dear. She will risk her life to save a teenage girl she barely knows, when no one would know or care if she turned and walked away; she will go to the ends of the earth to help a friend, without being asked and sometimes whether the help's wanted or not.

However, for all of that caring and loyalty, she is also incredibly pragmatic, and while she's not as unemotional as she seems, the ultimate deciding factor in her actions is nearly always logic over emotion. No matter what she feels or what she may want to do, she will end up doing what's necessary... even when it may make others turn against her for being so coldly pragmatic. She is always looking at the bigger picture and considering angles, even with those she's closest to - for years she collected information on the Avengers, strengths and weaknesses and capabilities, against the possibility she would one day end up fighting them; when a girl she cared about, someone she'd mentored, was possessed and threatened the world, she was the first to suggest killing her for the greater good.

There's a certain paranoia that creeps in when you're a spy, and Natasha is no exception; loyal as she is, some part of her is always living her life on the assumption that the people she cares about most can and very well might stab her in the back... an assumption not entirely unfounded given her history. She's extremely slow to trust - friendly, and capable of letting her guard down somewhat with those she should be able to trust (generally fellow heroes), certainly, but rarely letting anyone close enough to see her weak spots, if she can help it. She manipulates others without a second thought - not maliciously, not with the intent to harm, but if she has a goal and it's easiest to achieve it by using those around her, she does so almost out of habit, and rarely takes the time to explain. Playing her cards close to her chest is a defense mechanism; in her world, information is both currency and a powerful weapon, and she doesn't give away either easily.

Natasha doesn't try to hide or deny the fact that she has done terrible things in her past - she's shed blood, she's hurt people; not always awful people and not always for the purest of reasons. Some things she feels sorry for and is entirely willing to make amends for if she can; some things she's not sorry for in the least, unflinchingly admitting to her deeds and daring her comrades to judge her for it. She is the person who does terrible things so those bright and shining heroes she fights alongside don't have to dirty their hands with it; she's a dark creature of blood and violence, she is not a good person even in her own eyes, but she's learned how to use her talents for good purposes, and she is very firmly on the side of the angels.

Events:

• Natasha's training and work as a covert agent and assassin, in the Red Room and with the KGB, is deeply ingrained in who she is. It started at a very young age, and it shaped her into a weapon, a fact she is well aware of. It's shaped how she reacts to people, how she forms relationships, how she exists in the world... Even now, even with the people she trusts the most, she is constantly gathering information she can use, gauging threats, running worst case scenarios in the back of her mind, expecting to be stabbed in the back, and even those closest to her rarely get to see more than a fraction of who she is, because information is power, and all her training tells her to guard it more fiercely than her own life.
  
• Natasha's defection from Russia and decision to become a costumed hero was one of the biggest turning points in her life. She'd been used as someone else's tool, being made to set aside and even forget who and what she was to serve others' ends... and she has no desire to go back to that place. It's left her with a fierce determination to control her own life and circumstances, to make her choices for her own reasons rather than serving anyone else's agenda. As a result, her primary loyalty is to her own sense of what's right and necessary rather than organizations or countries - which may be the reason many people still regard her loyalties as flexible, and the reason she's gone from one team to another, over the years, never seeming to quite find her place. That fierce self-determination means she has no permanent place in the world, but she is very much her own person, and that's what she needs to be to survive.

Writing Sample:

She sees it coming. Whoever's after the shield, he's good, fast, but not so good that he escapes Natasha's notice as he vaults off a nearby rooftop, slides under the car and...

The street's narrow, no room to swerve aside, and a half-second after she slams her foot on the gas to get the hell out of there, the car just dies, electronics cutting out, engine sputtering to a halt. Natasha curses under her breath and spins the wheel, trying to avoid hitting anything other than the ground - an endeavour that becomes a little more difficult when something in the universe twists in a flash of blue light. Gravity seems to vanish for a moment, and then reasserts itself at a different (and wrong) angle, and instead of a narrow street lined with parked cars, Natasha finds herself staring at grass and gravel in the instant before the front of the car slams into the ground.

At least the car doesn't have airbags, is all she can think when thought comes back through the haze of pain and disorientation. This car was designed with the expectation that it would be in crashes like this, and it was difficult for agents to respond to whatever situation had caused the crash if they were unconscious. That said, she could do without what she's fairly certain is a broken nose on top of... whatever just happened.

She shakes her head a little, and while it's still spinning, she does manage to focus - on what looks very much like a park outside the windows of the car, nowhere in New York and certainly nowhere near where she just was. Well, whatever the plan here is, she can at least give the points on creativity.

Ignoring the blood dripping down her face and the throbbing pain in a half dozen places from the crash, she slips out of her seatbelt, grabs the shield off the passenger seat and slings it over her back, sliding her arms into it like a backpack before shoving the car door open. She waits for a moment, one leg curled to kick the head of anyone who tries to grab her, but... nothing happens. That's strange too, making a move this bold and then just sitting back to wait.

Outside of the car it looks like a normal autumn day... somewhere. That's odd too. It was summer a moment ago, but the leaves on the trees are orange and brown and dead, and there's a bite in the air that can only mean winter's coming. Natasha tilts her head, considering, and then sighs and slides cautiously out of the car, arm coiled at her side for a punch at the slightest sign of an attack.

"Alright, you've got my attention..." she murmurs under her breath. "Now what?"