What makes us interesting is our secrets ...

[twelve_not_fourteen]

In a galaxy full of space fairing captains who know their ships, Han stands out among them for being obsessive. From the moment he first sat in the pilot seat, before he could even call the ship his own, he’s been studying it.

He remembers what parts he’s replaced over the last two years and when. And he’s got a fair idea of what’s running down on him, though even the best mechanics can’t foresee every breakdown before it happens … especially not on a ship as persnickety as the Falcon. Han knows which of the hidden panels in his ship screech when you remove them. He could even tell which pads on the walls have a crack on them or what square on the holochess board has a chip on it.

He knows his ship.

However, even for a man who knows his ship as well as Han does, it’s hard to pick out some things. In this case, the something in question is an … optic? Some sort of camera? It’s by chance that he even notices it at all, considering the thing is hardly bigger than the size of his thumbnail and tucked into a grove were some power lines are running. He just happened to catch it out of the corner of his eye while walking up the ramp ...

It makes him wonder when did it get there? Who would have placed it there? The location doesn’t suggest they want to find any of the secret compartments of his ship as much as see who is going in and out. Odd. Does he know anyone who would want to watch every single person who came aboard the Falcon and left? He can’t think of anybody who would.

Anyway, he takes the camera over with him to the small section of the ship that he’s allocated to be the lounge and takes out his phone. He shoots a picture of the small camera in his palm and sends it to the only person he can think of that would be able to offer him any thoughts at all on the subject; the spy who has captured much of his attention of late.

The text that accompanies the picture reads:

Do you know what this is?

Comments

[twelve_not_fourteen]

It's not that she slammed him against the wall that surprises him. Nor is it the strength that she shoves his body into it. It's the speed that it happens that he finds stunning. One minute he was leaning in for a kiss and the next moment, there's a pain shooting through his back and he's listening to the sound of a human body clattering against durasteel.

His own body.

Still, even with aggressive showing, Han seems perfectly content to kiss her deeply. Not roughly, per se, but greedily. He's swimming through the exchange with nearly every sense - the way she tastes, the way she feels while close to him, the way they breathe and stop, the way his heart drums in his chest and the ache of pain that seems to tie everything together in just the right way ...

"Last thing I remember was best pilot." He says trying not to smile too much. "Did you still want to see the stern?"

[red_room]

That.

She.

Natasha isn't sure how to respond to that.

At first. Punching him in the stomach (lightly) and laughing both seem like equally good choices here. She takes a moment to look him up and down and then rolls her eyes.

"Of course you would." She takes another step back, giving him room to pick himself up from where he's shoved up against the wall. Gestures down the hall with one hand. "After you."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

One of the things that the two of them have in common is their uniqueness. Han can honestly say, he's never met anyone like Natasha before and ... she's probably never met anyone like him either.

The Captain picks himself up off of the wall and takes a second to stretch out his back, thank you. It's suddenly a little tense for some reason. It's a pretty straightforward arching of the spine that he does and it causes an audible crack coming from his midback somewhere.

Now he's ready and it's not as if the walk to the stern is very far. Twenty meters or so gets them to the area. There's little more to it than an open space apart from something cylindrical in the center of it. There's also large structures affixed to the far wall.

"This is where most of my free space is." That said, it is what it is. A place for cargo. He's clearly not smuggling anything in a big open space now, is he?

[red_room]

Well.

Natasha tucks her hair behind an ear and follows Han, tension easing out of her shoulders with every step until she's as casual as he is when they arrive at the bulk of his cargo space. It looks innocuous enough. Though he'd hardly be a good smuggler if it didn't.

She can think of at least three places offhand potentially housing 'extra' storage, but that's hardly her reason for being here. Natasha does take a moment to stand over a particular place on the floor, tapping the toe of her boot against the grating casually.

It's probably nothing except it's Natasha, and she doesn't do anything for no reason.

"Tch." Her phone comes out and opens with a swipe of her finger. "No hanging fixtures, and while they could feasibly put a tap under the grates or at an angle along the hull line, there is no good angle to get a good view of your storage area. Not to mention..." She gestures around her.

"It's empty right now."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"When I dropped out of hyperspace into orbit here, I had just left my partner on his homeworld." He says by way of explanation. The Captain does try to get Chewie some time back on Kashyyyk once in a while. Just because Han doesn't have a family doesn't mean he should keep his best friend from his, right?

"It was a planned rest. I wouldn't take on a job without him."

After a moment, he shrugs off whatever feeling has seemed to come over him. "This is the area where someone who didn't intimately know the ship would be inclined to put a camera, anyway."

[red_room]

"Hey. Han." Natasha steps forward, no longer concerned in the slightest about what may and may not be hiding an extra compartment ripe for sticking taps to monitor the captain.

There's something in his expression she needs to address. Her voice is quiet. Serious. Not steely and cold like it usually is, nor sarcastic and monotone. It's just...concerned.

"You're going to make it out of here. It's not an ultimatum to be sent here."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

It's been hard on him. To be stuck somewhere. He hasn't been in one place for this long since his academy days, but at least then he was learning new things and on the verge of becoming one of the most promising pilots in the Imperial Military. It was also his choice to be there.

Cliche as it is, marooning Han somewhere is like clipping the wings off a bird. Even with all the people he's met and friends he'll want to come back to ... there's something not right inside him and it's not going to be until he can come and go as he pleases.

"Yeah." He says with a nod, but he can't quite look her right in the eyes. "Nothing holds me down for too long."

[red_room]

"If you need help finding a way out....you know I'll help you look, right?" No gimmick, no price. She's speaking from one friend to another, the concern on her features not leaving her face just yet.

She can only imagine what he's going through. She'd have had a breakdown if she'd been separated from her world with all that's been going on there. With the people who need her. Depend on her.

"Or are you still trying to repair the ship?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He had a mind to be somewhat guarded around Natasha. She is in the business of finding out people's secrets and he's in a business where keeping them is sort of important, but ... he senses that her concern for him is actually genuine and it makes him lower his defenses.

"Still making repairs." He admits. "I landed with almost nothing except for the Falcon itself. Raising capital for parts and fuel has been taking a while. Got something lined up that I think is going to help that part, though."

[red_room]

"That's actually a lot less of a problem than 'I"m stuck here' would be." Natasha observes, nodding along with Han's explanation of what all has been going on.

"And by that I mean, money is one obstacle, but having no doorway or path back home would be much more difficult to work around."

Were that the case, the only course of action would be to take stock in unsavory nexus Magic Users and Natasha doesn't trust those one bit. She's seen enough Weird in her life to be immediately mistrustful of anything supernatural until proven it is otherwise not to be considered a threat.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"I'm a one problem at a time kind of guy." He murmurs and this not an easy situation to unravel.

"The fact that the falcon needs maintenance is my first problem. How to be able to leave and get back is something I haven't even begun to start thinking about."

It was the easy thought, at first, to get the ship fixed and get home. And yet, the longer he stays here in the Nexus, the more reasons he's finding to want to come back. Now it's not enough to get home. It's made his situation a lot more complicated.

[red_room]

"I'll keep an ear to the ground."

Natasha doesn't have limitless free time to investigate for Han, but she can certainly check her sources and see if there's any low hanging fruit on the grapevine to snag for information.

Plus, now she has to go sopping for better cameras to hide. So really she'd be hitting two birds with one stone.

"We'll get you home."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

The fact that she's willing to put any effort in at all is a good thing. Han thinks, anyway.

He'll not meditate too deeply on the fact that she didn't hesitate to offer her help on something that was going to separate the two of them faster, because he ... well, maybe he's projecting, but he hopes that maybe it's because she realizes more than others how badly he's homesick.

The Captain thought for sure that he saw some genuine glimpses of concern for him in her desensitized facade. "It means more than you know." He murmurs finally. What the 'it' actually is? That's for her to decide.

[red_room]

Han can hardly be a shipper if he doesn't have a working ship or access to move things around. It's a practical problem with a practical solution. And besides, it may be separating them now, but Natasha doesn't seem to think much of this. Because--

"The sooner you get back to work the sooner you can pay me back that dinner date you owe me." There's no doubt in her mind that Han will come back.

If he doesn't she'll understand, more than he'd like her to more than likely. She didn't grow up under a rock, so she has some idea of what his life could be like. But she also knows that things like this are hardly set in stone. She's seen proof of it already here in the Nexus.

"Anyway, I don't see too many other suspect places. You always leave your ramp down for strangers to go sticking things on board?" He raises an eyebrow once more. "I mean, I get that the ship's empty now, but still."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He can't help it. All the posturing he feels like he has to do for the sake of impressing her falls away when she mentions that he owes her dinner. He can't help but smile. That's an outstanding debt he owes that, for a change, he's going to be happy to pay back.

"I do owe you that." He says with a slow and thoughtful nod. "Guess this means I'll have to stop loafing around and start getting to work. Wouldn't want to keep you waiting too long for something like that."

At he mention of the cameras, he will glance around the ship vaguely. He may not have even realized how much of sending Natasha the message about the cameras had to do with him just wanting an excuse to talk to her again and better yet, be around her. Really, he doesn't need her here to comb through the ship for cameras that may or may not be there.

She raises an interesting point, though. One that actually further makes her the more likely suspect by his line of thinking. "I'm not going to say it's impossible, but it's not likely that I left the ramp down long enough for someone to have snuck on and off without me noticing." More likely it would have been placed by someone he invited ...

[red_room]

Of course she's the most likely suspect. The question isn't whether or not Natasha planted the device. At the end of the day, the question is why.

At least, that's what Natasha would say. She hopes there's at least a little suspicion that she's to blame for this. She's hardly had more than a moment alone on his ship anywhere, when could she even have found time to.

Though if she'd had time to plant it, he wouldn't have found it so easily. Of this she is certain.

"I'm sure a guy like you can do some kind of heavy lifting." She quirks an eyebrow, the side of her mouth twitching into something close to the start of a smile.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

There's no question that Han can work hard when he's got his mind set on something. Conversely, it can be awfully hard to get him motivated to something he doesn't want to do. Leave it to the practiced card player to be boom or bust in things pertaining to his life.

"It's a pretty strong back, darling." He says and it's clear the smile hasn't quite left his eyes yet. "Since we could turn over this ship all day and not potentially find anything, maybe we should do something a little more interesting."

"I'd love a better look," not so innocent pause here, "... at your ride."

[red_room]

"I bet you would." Natasha rides that double entendre all the way back to the ramp is the slight sway to her hips as she walks is any indication.

The bike is sleek, black and even without understanding Terran designs altogether built for speed. The way it hugs the ground, forces the rider to lean forward to be more aerodynamic. Natasha flips the kickstand up in the same motion as she swings her leg over the bike and gets settled. The engine roars to life at her command and she gives Han a tiny smile from where she's sitting on the bike, leaning forward to rest her forearms on the grips.

"Like what you see?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

She might have noticed that Han is rarely ever the first person to start walking somewhere. Often, it's because he doesn't like having his back to people - he does hang around in shitty crowd back home, after all. There's an obvious benefit, however, to letting Nat take the lead when they're going somewhere.

He's not sure that he would ever tire of this vantage point.

It would be a lie to suggest that Han, when they were theoretically 'looking at the bike', wasn't eyeing the woman on it as much as the machine. Oh, he glanced at the bike, sure. It resembles a speeder enough that he thinks he might even be able to figure out how to ride one. If someone was to leave a vehicle like that in his care for a couple of hours.

He finds his eyes increasingly drawn to Natasha, though. And he knows she's at least indulging his attention on some level when she takes that forward lean. "Oh yeah. I like what I see." He murmurs, with a subtle nod of appreciation. "The bike's alright too."

[red_room]

This sadly isn't the sort of bike meant to hold more than one person or Natasha would offer to give him a ride. The idea of him riding bitch seat makes her grin entirely too pleased with herself.

"It's my preferred way to travel." Light, fast, small with incredible maneuverability. Great for getting into (and out of) tight and otherwise dangerous situations. Though, this one is in much better shape than the bikes she usually ends up using. Those usually end up getting wedged between cars, thrown--thanks a lot for that Rogers-- or otherwise ditched when they become inconvenient for taking down the Bad Guy of the day.

No, this beauty is Natasha's for personal use.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Oh, it's a damn shame that it's not. If she offered, he wouldn't hesitate to take the unmanly seat. He's made himself look way more foolish for the sake of getting close to someone before. And for Nat? It would be so worth it.

"It looks like it would perform admirably." He offers. Not that he has much of a frame of reference. He starts walking around the vehicle to get a better look, at one point, crouching to get a better look at the components he can see - which is ultimately not that many, because sportbikes tend to have panels that cover the parts.

"Do you do the maintenance yourself?"

[red_room]

Natasha shakes her head, tossing her hair out of its spot behind her ear once more. Her smile is easy and she shrugs slightly.

"No. I know--it's horrifying that there's something I can't do, right? I don't have the time for it. I could probably make emergency repairs if I flat out HAD to, but with my skillset I'd just as soon steal another vehicle than waste precious time I need to be getting the hell away trying to fix whatever it is I'm riding at any given time."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"It's downright shocking." He murmurs with a smile, taking a moment to glance into her eyes, from his still crouched position. There's so much to admire about Natasha that sometimes it's easy to miss how pretty her green eyes are.

"You should let me do the work on it for you." Han says as he brings himself up to standing. "When you need it worked on that is."

[red_room]

"I'm sure. I've been known to be incredibly shocking." It doesn't occur to her until after she's smirked that he actually doesn't know that is a very real part of her combat capabilities.

Which honestly just makes her laugh softly and shake her head again.

"Do they make bikes that still touch the ground where you're from?" Her voice is light, teasing, and airy. "Can't imagine the inner workings of a combustion engine would be that different between universes though..." If it's combustion. It might be space snot for all she knows.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

What does he really know about Natasha other than the fact that she's unbelievably good looking and she's an earth spy? Only what she's told him so far and honestly, it hasn't been all that much. Doesn't mean he wouldn't listen if she offered more, but he's not holding his breath for that.

"Nat, I can fix a malfunctioning hyperdrive in space with the scraps I have on my ship for parts." He says with a not so modest shrug. "One night with an owners manual and I'd have your bike pretty well figured."