Day 2: Day Off
I tend to project on Nathalie a lot and when I was thinking on what would I do to relax in her place, well, the answer's obvious. Also, I used these vignettes to work out my feelings about S2 revelations...
Nathalie pulled the trigger and watched as the enemy's foremost fighter went down, her kill count moving up by another point.
"Damn, Heartless, you're brutal today." Jinxo's voice held a lot of admiration. Nathalie didn't blame him. She had always pulled her weight on the team, but she had never been the most efficient player, either; her lack of time to play and practice was obvious.
"I had a bad week," she said and focused on providing cover while LadyBird - their medic - healed Ashai, who had as usual overestimated her character's endurance.
"Don't you always?"
Nathalie nodded, even though no one was in her apartment to see. They would have been surprised if they did. Relaxing for Nathalie meant getting as far away from her work image as possible. That's why her hair was down not just figuratively but also literally. And why she was dressed in an old tracksuit and worn out T-shirt of a band she had liked as a teenager.
"This one was especially bad," she said at last when it became clear Jinxo was expecting her to answer. "There were three deadlines we had to meet, someone in the requisition messed up an order and it got delayed and we had two Akuma attacks at the place."
"Why do you keep working there?" Ladybird asked as she moved cautiously forward. "You seem to be good at your job and you could probably easily find another."
"The money's good," Nathalie replied, naming the least important reason. She had only ever talked to these people when they were playing. They knew she held some sort of a managerial position but anything beyond that was kept vague.
"Enough chatter," Ashai cut in. "We have a game to play."
Nathalie tried to focus on the game but Ladybird's question kept repeating in her mind. Most likely because of her name's obvious inspiration by Ladybug. Why hadn't she walked out yet?
She knew why. It was not because Gabriel would try to stop her because of her knowing too much. At this point, either of them moving against the other would assure nothing but mutual destruction so they kept working together.
It was also not because she was helping to mitigate the situation at least a little for Adrien. For all she tried to do for him, she was constantly falling short. A few kind gestures here and there didn't make up for the deception she was committing.
No, if she was entirely honest with herself, she was staying because to do otherwise would be to fail. And Nathalie couldn't allow herself to fail. She would see things through to the end, one way or another.
"This was a good run," Ashai's voice broke into her musings. Nathalie blinked. She had just played a better part of their run on a mental autopilot and judging by her score, she hadn't done too bad.
I don't allow myself to fail, huh?
"Same time next week?"
"Sure, I'll be there," Nathalie said and after the others voiced their agreement, she turned off the game and buried her face into her hands.