Natalie's Duplex, The Hegemony Compound, Brazil, Sunday

[whenshewasnice]

There was the usual, annual bouquet of roses on Natalie's kitchen table. Happy Valentine's Day to our Valentine. It was February 15th, and no matter what year she was in right now, it was Natalie's birthday. She was twenty years old today. She felt younger and older all at the same time, but at least she was no longer officially a teenager.

And next to the vase of roses was a thick enveloped bearing the seal of the University of Toronto. It had arrived for her on Friday, but she hadn't had time to even open it before now. Or maybe she'd kept herself too busy for that on purpose. That was possible too. Valentine's Day wasn't her favourite holiday this year for a few reasons, and she'd needed to thoroughly ignore the whole idea of it.

But now Valentine's Day was over. It was February 15th.

She sat down and got to opening the envelope.

[ooc: NFB, open for all the usual although with a warning for slowness!]

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[lockestheway]

Peter knocked on her door. Unsurprisingly, the whole concept of Valentine's Day had flown entirely past his radar. "Natalie?"

[whenshewasnice]

Sometimes his lack of paying attention was a blessing.

Some of the university paperwork was still in her hand when she came to get the door.

"Hey."

[lockestheway]

"Did you get the paperwork done for the Saudi ambassador?" Peter said. Just out of bed and already to work: best way to do it.

[whenshewasnice]

That was Natalie's usual MO, too. Just not today.

"Last night, yes."

[lockestheway]

"Can I read it?" Peter asked, already pushing past her into the room. "I need to make sure I'm briefed by noon."

[[ hi, I just found out this account still redirects to the wrong email. ]]

[whenshewasnice]

"Sure," Natalie replied, rolling her eyes behind his back while she closed the door – not that she would have had any problem doing it to his face. "It's on my desk."

[lockestheway]

"Thanks."

Peter came to a stop by the desk, skimming over it in search of--

"Hey, is that your college application response?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Yes."

Should she be more verbose than that?

"It came two days ago."

[lockestheway]

"So what's the verdict?" Peter asked, looking her way. "Has my talented and brilliant Chief of Staff been shitcanned by the system, or have they proven themselves to be not entirely idiotic?"

[whenshewasnice]

"I got in," she replied with a one-shoulder shrug and a glance down at the part of the paperwork she was still holding. "They want to give me a dorm room and a heavily modified study plan."

[lockestheway]

"Ew, dorms," Peter said, with a theatrical shiver. "I don't miss those. Though hey, not like you don't have anywhere else to sleep."

[whenshewasnice]

"I'll still need it sometimes." Because the world needed someone to annoy Julie Powers at least sometimes. "It'll work out."

[lockestheway]

"Anything I need to know so far?" Peter checked. "Dates, addresses, your-world-weird following you back here?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Dates and addresses aren't fixed or official yet, and so far nothing specific to my world has followed me here ever, although who knows what university is like."

Filled with unlikely endearing slackers, for one.

"You're fine for now."

[lockestheway]

"Okay, good," Peter said, sounding idle even if the whole thing still left him more nervous than he'd be willing to admit. "The last thing I need is a mob of mallet-wielding hooligans showing up here, shouting about tearing down the fourth wall. I like my fourth wall, it's sturdy."

[whenshewasnice]

"It's never as sturdy as you think." So there. She pushed her hair back. "Besides, you've done fine with me here."

Granted, she didn't tend to swing mallets around, but she was weird in her own way.

[lockestheway]

Peter - being Peter - just had to lean over and knock on the nearest wall three times just to make sure. "Yes, but my walls are still standing."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie rolled her eyes.

"I'm not above punching a hole in one to make a point."

[lockestheway]

"You break it, you pay for it," Peter said, shrugging. He wandered back towards the desk and picked up the paperwork he'd come here to get in the first place. "Anyway, thanks. It's hard enough keeping a straight face around this blowhard."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie just nodded.

"Mm. You're welcome."

[lockestheway]

Peter gave her a mock salute with the papers, and then started for the door again.

Where he paused, briefly. "... Oh, and good morning, blah blah, how are you?"

[whenshewasnice]

It was an eyerolly kind of day, so Natalie did it again.

"It's my birthday, Peter."

[lockestheway]

"I knew there was something going on this month," Peter said, after a short pause.

(Admittedly, he'd more or less started consciously blocking out even the existence of Valentine's Day after... well, after Valentine left. Sadly, this year, Natalie's birthday was a casualty of that.)

"You want to grab dinner later? I'll get them to sing you happy birthday, you know, the whole shebang."

[whenshewasnice]

"I think I'm just fine not doing anything," Natalie told him with her usual mildness. "Thanks anyway."

[lockestheway]

"If you're sure," Peter said, with a casual shrug.

He had this feeling there was something off, but he didn't know what.

[whenshewasnice]

There was always something off with her when big changes were happening. It didn't help that that was also when she tended to fall back on her old favourite of minimal expression.

Like this little wordless shrug right here.

[lockestheway]

Peter had gotten a lot better at parsing people beyond easily manipulable notions like 'what they feared' and 'what they wanted', but Natalie at her minimalist best was still beyond his abilities.

"Okay," he said, with slightly too-thick casualness, "I'll be down the hall."

Then he stepped out of the room.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie's "Bye" might have had a higher than necessary level of 'whatever' to its tone, for reasons she herself wasn't even entirely sure of. Except for a part that was very petty and very small and yet somehow significant.

She went back to her paperwork.

[lockestheway]

So did Peter - to his paperwork, and his calls, and a million other unscheduled problems that fell into his lap now and later that day. But that unsettled feeling stayed.

He didn't like there being tenseness between him and Natalie, which he thought there might be, but he thought he was imagining it, and... you know what, he'd just focus on getting through today without belittling the Saudi ambassador.