Natalie's Office, The Hegemony Compound, Brazil, Tuesday

[whenshewasnice]

Summer break in Canada was almost over. Natalie had a complex calendar system to keep track of the quirks of the passage of time. Also her father sent her a message at the same time every Monday, her-universe time. It worked. A couple more days, and she'd be back in Toronto, for a week or two, only to return to Ribeirao Preto to find barely a day or two had passed.

What a weird way to live your life.

But she wasn't thinking about that very much right now. She was in her office, and she was working. Although, as she typed up a piece of correspondence – resisting the urge to respond to some frustrated passive-aggressive belittling with some of her own – she had to wonder if she couldn't somehow manage to squeeze a few extra study credits out of this.

[ooc: NFB, but open for everything as always!]

Comments

[lockestheway]

Peter had been on the phone for most of the morning, and the small device was still plastered against the side of his head as he ducked said head into Natalie's office. "Have we got a plane for St. Petersburg secured yet?"

[whenshewasnice]

"As of about twenty minutes ago," Natalie confirmed, looking up from her message while backspacing an unnecessarily pointed sentence. "All taken care of."

[lockestheway]

"Good," Peter said. He brought the phone down from his ear. "I've managed to set up an appointment for Vlad, so now we're all set. Bring on the New Warsaw Pact trade discussions."

Also known as an excellent cover to quietly talk to some East European nations under the radar.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie gave him a nod. "Not bad for a morning's work. Go team."

That last bit was very, very dry.

[lockestheway]

"Natalie! I can practically feel the excitement pouring off of you," Peter said.

He sounded chipper, of course. What would Natalie be without someone who went over the top to compensate for how under the top she went?

[whenshewasnice]

A fair bit unhappier, probably. Not that anyone needed to know that.

"I was belittled by someone again," she said, nodding towards the screen. "It's getting old."

[lockestheway]

"What is it this time?" Peter asked, glancing over her shoulder. "General ego-pulling directed towards the Hegemony, or being stupid enough not to realize you're ten times smarter than he is?"

[whenshewasnice]

"The latter," Natalie replied, with the usual eye roll. "I don't seem to get as much ego-pulling these days. Men who act like like it's oh so terrible to have to go through me, however..."

[lockestheway]

Peter snorted. "They should be thankful they got you, and not one of the typewriter monkeys down the hall," he said.

[whenshewasnice]

"True." Hey, she had no problem saying that much. "A fact I usually try to convey back to them. Although probably too subtly for them to get it."

[lockestheway]

"Well, hopefully after St. Petersburg, we'll be on a track to get these people to take us all a lot more seriously," Peter said, idly tucking some of his hair behind his ear. He should probably get it cut before they got on the plane.

[whenshewasnice]

"We better," Natalie muttered as she re-wrote her closing sentence into something less biting. Then she glanced up at him again.

"You're starting to look like a Chanel Bleu ad."

[lockestheway]

Peter let out a snort. "I'll get the secretary to schedule an appointment with the hairdresser," he said. "But first, I need you to look at something I just forwarded you."

A file. A deceptively small file.

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie raised her eyebrows a tiny bit, but navigated away from her correspondence to check it out.

"This file?"

Presumably she should open it now, right? So she went to do that.

[lockestheway]

That file, yes, which when opened revealed a text document opening with the title,

the Constitution of the Free People of Earth
(first draft)

... followed by a rather more flowery one-paragraph description of the Constitution's aim to bring peace and prosperity to Earth.

"I'm going to need you to do a first run over this," Peter said frankly. "But it's a start."

[whenshewasnice]

One day, she would perhaps not communicate primarily through her eyebrows, but this was not that day. So, she raised both her eyebrows.

"Huh."

[lockestheway]

"Good huh, bad huh?" Peter asked, "'Peter, work on your presentation' huh?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Good huh." More often than not, that was the case anyway. "Combined with 'wasn't expecting this right now' huh, maybe."

[lockestheway]

"This is why I'm setting up those backroom meetings with the Baltics this weekend," Peter explained. "And they won't be the only people I'll talk to."

[whenshewasnice]

"Testing the waters for the Free People of Earth." Her fingertips tapped against the edge of the desk, twice. "Well isn't that something."

[lockestheway]

"I've been thinking about it since our little chat with Bean," Peter admitted. "I thought, you know, we can sit around waiting for an opportunity to arise - some point when the entire planet wants to sit down and talk - but why should we? This isn't a symmetrical process. There are plenty of nations that are already sick of war and worried. It's just the small ones. Estonia doesn't want Russia to get any ideas, for example."

[whenshewasnice]

"So it's a little like building from the ground up," Natalie replied, thoughtful in her mildness. Her fingertip traced a shape that was probably meaningful to her even if it didn't seem so from the outside. "A little like what Virlomi did in India, structurally."

[lockestheway]

"We talk to all of these little agents left and right. Individually, they can't stand up to the big countries," Peter said, "But united in a unified Hegemonial army, with a unified Hegemonial government? It might start looking like something."

[whenshewasnice]

"Makes sense," Natalie replied, with another very small nod. She paused, before adding idly as an afterthought, "And also makes my upcoming school year feel so insignificant in comparison."

[lockestheway]

Peter shrugged. "You're going to help me write a constitutional document," he said lightly, "That's got to be worth some course credits, at least."

[whenshewasnice]

"I'm sure I can wrangle it into being an independent study project," she replied with an answering shrug. "I'm getting to be okay at getting my way."

[lockestheway]

"That's my Nat," Peter said fondly. "Though nobody gets to hear about this but you and me until I'm ready to start leaking it to other Hegemony officials."

[whenshewasnice]

"And here I was about to email all about it to the intern who really wants to take me out to dinner," Natalie deadpanned.

It was her way of being reassuring.

[lockestheway]

Peter let out a chuckle. "Oh, wow," he said, "Somebody's aiming way out of his league."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie shrugged a shoulder.

"Maybe he's hoping I'm into skewed power dynamics."

[lockestheway]

"Maybe he wants you to spank him while he calls you 'ma'am'," Peter said, grinning.

[whenshewasnice]

"Mm." She smirked, although it was faint. "Too bad for him that that side of that equation is not the one I prefer to be on."

It'd been too long since she'd gotten to TMI him.

[lockestheway]

Peter was too composed of a person at heart - despite the melodrama - to say 'um', but he didn't find it in himself to spit out his usual mockery at the notion of her sex life, either. He wasn't sure why.

"Anyway," he said, "I thought the college thing was supposed to be all about self-exploration anyway. A break away from international politics."

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie looked briefly amused, and even she herself couldn't have reliably pinpointed the reason. "And into interpersonal politics?" she suggested. "I don't know. I'm not sure I feel like this is the year I explore things."

[lockestheway]

"Well, building up a global empire - no, sorry, I shouldn't talk in those terms, Hegemony - is a decent runner-up, at least."

[whenshewasnice]

"So I should aim to focus on that and not pursuing a lesbian affair?" Natalie checked. "I'm sure I can work with that. Without dinner with interns, no less."

[lockestheway]

"It's much appreciated," Peter said, sinking down into a chair and rolling it up beside her like the teenager he still was. "How's school working out, anyway? Drowning in lesbians?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Unless my grumpy roommate is one, no." It was hard to imagine Julie being interested in anyone, man or woman, because it was hard to imagine Julie being interested in anything, ever. "The tech feels old-fashioned, and the boys are surprisingly uninteresting."

Or possibly her dual life of politics and school kept her so busy she hadn't been as much in need of a distraction.

[lockestheway]

That was basically how Peter had avoided being interested in any women for pretty much forever. Welcome to his world.

"Well, that saves me time updating your security detail," Peter joked. "How's the work?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Please, I update my security detail myself." Strong independent woman, and all that blather. (Scott was never going to get to visit, ever.) "The work's okay. Easier than what I do here."

Surprising no one. No one asked her to help write constitutional documents in Toronto. At least not ones intended for actual use.

[lockestheway]

"I figured that much," Peter said, shrugging slightly.

But she seemed to like it when he showed an interest in her life, so he made an effort. "Anyway, give this some time, read it over, and mail me your suggestions."

He figured there'd be suggestions.

[whenshewasnice]

She did like it. Less for the interest and more for the fact that he made the effort to do things she liked. Which was kind of a convoluted thing, but it worked for them.

She nodded. "Okay." There'd be suggestions. But right now, she reached out and picked a largely imperceptible piece of lint or dust off his shoulder. (The movement wasn't hesitant, but it was slow, and precise.) "Is it lunch time yet?" she asked. "I should fix my blood sugar before I send my reply to this dumb man."

[lockestheway]

"Five more minutes," Peter said, making no particular effort to disrupt the lint-removal process. "Technically speaking. But I can make up for those later."

Probably by pulling more all-nighters.

[whenshewasnice]

So Natalie picked up a couple of other imperfections, then smoothed the fabric before drawing her hand back.

"Probably in overabundance," she replied, getting up. "Lunch, then?"