@dettached sent: "there's always trouble where there's money owed, sooner or later." [ yelena to sharon ]
"well, you know what they say about money." sharon tips her head at yelena, smiling a sardonic smile. there are a lot of idiomatic expressions related to money, and every single one of them rings true for madripoor. from her perch in hightown, sharon has seen the ultra rich continue to lie, cheat, and kill their way for more cash, no matter how blood-soaked it may be -- if it buoys up their bank account, then it should be good enough -- and consequently, she's seen the very poor continue to lie, cheat, and kill their way into a fraction of the pickings, using every underhanded means in the book in the name of survival. the same grubby game centered around the same filthy reward, to very different outcomes. it's really no wonder madripoor is up to its neck in trouble.
overall, it's not an easy job, becoming hightown's 'queen'. but sharon likes to think that's why she's been handed it to begin with. and speaking of trouble, it prickles at her more than she'd care to admit that the white widow is in their midst. yelena belova is unpredictable. even as an agent of SHIELD, sharon always got the distinct feeling that she would have walked away, if it weren't for nat. and now nat's gone, and she's got no idea what kind of firecracker she's dealing with; if the fuse is long enough to give her time to take cover, or if it might blow up in her hands with nary a warning. she doesn't like to dwell on the latter possibility.
"the trouble is why you're here, i assume?" sharon leans forward, grabs the bottle of whiskey and refills both their glasses. her eyebrow is arched in curiosity, but her expression is benign enough to pass as somewhat neutral. she's a hundred percent sure yelena is as familiar with this game as she is, and all the subtleties it requires. "there's a lot of debt owed around madripoor. some of it money, some of it blood. it all leads to the same conclusions, more or less." sharon shrugs, but there is nothing nonchalant about it. the polarized state of hightown and lowtown is the bane of the principality, and with the chaos of the blip, the disturbances in lowtown has grown even more disturbing as of late. "how about a deal, one spy to another?" the pitch of her voice has gone low, so only yelena could hear her. sharon barely moves her mouth, expression shuttered. "you tell me why you're here... and i'll see if i can help you. that is only if you need help, of course."
prompts. / accepting.
