𝙽𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝙳𝚛𝚊𝚔𝚎 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nonscriptum) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hadriel2018-08-01 01:05 pm
nonscriptum) wrote in hadriel2018-08-01 01:05 pm
[video] You only THINK I guessed wrong!
I fell victim to one of the classic blunders- do I seriously have to read this?
[You may recognize the guy on your screen as local parkour enthusiast and history nerd Nathan Drake. What he is wearing, however, differs so resolutely from his typical "jeans and a Henley" aesthetic that the broadcast appears to be hosted by a man whose sartorial sensibilities make him look like the quintessential Harvard professor: tweed vest, bow tie and all.
He gives a pleading expression to someone out of frame, who appears to have no mercy. Nate takes a fortifying breath and continues his recitation with approximately zero enthusiasm.]
...the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "never challenge an FBI psychologist to deliver a line with a straight face."
[He looks directly at the camera, then at the figure behind the camera, and mimes a finger slicing across his neck at the figure in question with a mouthed I'm going to kill you.]
[You may recognize the guy on your screen as local parkour enthusiast and history nerd Nathan Drake. What he is wearing, however, differs so resolutely from his typical "jeans and a Henley" aesthetic that the broadcast appears to be hosted by a man whose sartorial sensibilities make him look like the quintessential Harvard professor: tweed vest, bow tie and all.
He gives a pleading expression to someone out of frame, who appears to have no mercy. Nate takes a fortifying breath and continues his recitation with approximately zero enthusiasm.]
...the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "never challenge an FBI psychologist to deliver a line with a straight face."
[He looks directly at the camera, then at the figure behind the camera, and mimes a finger slicing across his neck at the figure in question with a mouthed I'm going to kill you.]
no subject
Is this the part where I'm supposed to say "I only gamble with my life"? Seems appropriate.
[And technically it's 100% true, but hey.]
Can't say I've ever gone climbing in tweed. Tell me how that goes, yeah?
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[That was always more his brother's speed. Nate prefers wagers that may or may not end up in bodily harm - and besides, it's not as though he's never walked away from something like that before. He's capable.]
I don't have to do it to tell you that it's crap. This stuff doesn't stretch. How are you supposed to boulder in wool?
no subject
[Not that he wouldn't just dive headfirst into something stupid and dangerous anyway. That's kind of his thing these days.]
Ew, yeah, that sounds uncomfortable. Worst thing I was ever stuck climbing in were old jeans I'd mostly outgrown.
no subject
Jesus. Denim is the worst for that. When I was a kid I had these hand-me-down jeans from my brother, probably circa 1989, and trying to stretch for footholds in them was a nightmare.
[They were also excruciatingly hot in the Colombian heat, but what was he going to do? Not wear pants when executing burglaries???]
What kind of climbing do you do?
[Nate didn't think that was popular with Kids These Days.]
no subject
[Now he climbs in high tech spandex and he is never going back.]
There's not much to climb in New York aside from buildings, so. Buildings.
no subject
More importantly, Peter just disclosed that he climbs buildings, which is a cool thing. Nate spent most of his childhood and teenaged years doing the same thing - Hell, he was still doing it up until a few years ago. It's the location that strikes him as odd, however. New York isn't exactly known for an infrastructure that encourages free-climbing on its buildings.]
...what, like skyscrapers?
no subject
[because yes being a responsible Spider-Man and helping people is important and all, but sometimes you gotta just fuck around with your super powers for shits and giggles. But shhh.]
Oh, um. Don't... tell any cops? Because this is all like super illegal.
[He's only met like one whole cop here, but still.]
no subject
There is the faintest glimmer of doubt present at the back of Nate's mind, because he has a hard time imagining anyone finding handholds and grips on something as sleek and modern as a skyscraper, let alone not getting caught doing so. He and Sully have a list of cities to avoid expressly for all the times they've fucked something up somewhere and gotten caught.]
Listen, with a record like mine, you don't have to worry about getting narc'd.
[Who is he going to tell?]
I just want to know how you do it.
no subject
Okay, if there's a good story behind this record of yours, you have got to tell me.
[There's like one entire cop here and he's pretty twitchy, so Peter isn't actually worried.]
You know what, there's a... kind of a trick to it. Maybe I'll show you some time.
no subject
Oh, no, no, no.
[He hears 'noncommittal' all up and down that half-assed excuse, which makes him suspicious and therefore all the more curious.]
Tell you what: you swear to show me how you do it in the near future - no maybes - and I'll tell you about my record.
no subject
He hesitates for a moment, like he's trying to come up with some kind of bullshit excuse. Mostly he's trying to decide if there's really any point in hiding his abilities in a place like this. Maybe he shouldn't advertise it to everyone, but is there really any harm in showing off a little bit every now and then?
Plus he's very bored, sooooo]
You know what, sure, that sounds fair.
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Frankly, he still kind of is.]
Okay then.
[With terms agreed-upon, Nate doesn't feel all that conflicted putting Peter at ease when it comes to activities of questionable legality.]
Record-wise, I uh. Used to be a treasure hunter.
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That sounds pretty awesome, actually, but what does treasure hunter even mean in this day and age?
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Different things, depending on what you're good at.
[Heists and what he would consider more legitimate varieties of treasure hunting are very different things with only mildly similar skill sets. Some people just aren't cut out for research.]
Might be breaking and entering and stealing something for somebody, might be discovering a lost city worth millions.
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[Or maybe Peter's just thinking too hard about it.]
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[Nate points out, picking up on the way Peter's brow furrows. He doesn't elaborate on his record.]
Usually it starts as a research thing. Pick a wreck, or a city, or a historical figure who "mysteriously" disappeared. Like- okay, for example. [It will serve them both better to use a proper explanation.] A few years back, I was working this job trying to track down Marco Polo's lost fleet of ships using a map he'd hidden in a lamp that Kublai Khan gave him.
[Jesus, it really does feel like it happened so long ago.]
The lamp was on display in a Turkish museum, so...not exactly accessible to people who want to handle it.
[Do you see where he's going with this?]
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Okay, I think I follow. You broke in and stole this thing from a museum, so you could use it to go treasure hunting. So it's both, a hunt and a heist.
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[He's had other jobs that were exclusively heists, things that were contracted out to him from wealthy people who wanted some bauble, but those weren't as thrilling by comparison. Glorified burglary at best.]
Not every treasure hunt requires that, sometimes you're just picking up clues from a wreck dive or some ruins or a person's remains.
[At what point does grave robbery become archaeology, and vice versa? Jury's out on that...]
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[Not that he'd let anyone rob a museum in his town, but hey. Still cool.]
Those are probably less illegal than stealing from a museum. Did you end up finding those ships?
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Oh, yeah. And way more. [As disastrous as much of that particular endeavor was, Nate does miss the Himalayas.] The ships were just a stepping stone. They had been transporting something that they brought back with them from Tibet when their fleet got pushed into Borneo. Marco Polo had found Shangri-La.
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Wait, what? Seriously? I thought that was totally fictional, like Atlantis.
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Atlantis might be, but I kind of doubt it?
[It's on the list of possibilities, after he checks Henry Avery's treasure off. Nate has learned to take rumors like that with heaping mountains of salt, because more often than not these things are founded in truth. The extent of that truth is a little more malleable.
Perhaps it is the earnestness in his face that will persuade Peter that he isn't just bullshitting.]
El Dorado, Shambhala, Agartha, Ubar...I've seen 'em all.
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Huh, well. I can't say if they're real or not where I'm from, and I don't really have a reason not to believe they're something exist where you're from. Man, how can you even tell when people come from different Earths anyway?
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[Partly on accident, sometimes. It depends on the day. He has catastrophically good luck.]
And I've met people here who use words from languages they don't actually have in their version of Earth. It's...weird.
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[nah he's probably gonna be broke in New York forever, but hey.]
Like what kinda words and languages? This whole... alternate Earth different universe thing is way more complicated than it needs to be.
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