All I Want Is Everything

Cloak and Dagger

A/N: Again, I know nothing about the music biz in the early 80s aside from what I can get off the internet and a couple of rock star biographies, so I'm sure there are tons of errors and they're mine, all mine! Also, I've never been to the state park mentioned here although it looks gorgeous and I have done my best to work from descriptions.

Tell us commander, what do you think?
'Cos we know that you love all that power.
Is it on then, are we on the brink?
We wish you'd all throw in the towel.

Men at Work, "It's a Mistake"

They staggered into the house at around five the next morning. Shooting videos, they had discovered, was not as easy as they'd thought. It required a lot of takes, the cameras much closer than they had imagined, with frequent breaks for hair and makeup to be adjusted, and a costume change for the second video. Natasha had come home with them and crashed in Ella's old room. They had a day off, then Stark was sending a car for them at 1 am for a trip outside the city to a location for an outdoors shoot. Apparently they would play their third single and roam about the area. When Ella woke up around one, she couldn't go back to sleep, so she snuggled under her blankets and drowsily thought about the day. It had been a lot more work than she'd been expecting.

She'd been dressed in a strapless leather bodysuit for the second video; the legs were high cut and it had long fringe from the hips to just above the knee; she had a short black leather jacket to wear with it. She'd kept the fishnets and was switched to black thigh-high stiletto boots--her feet were still dying--and lost the bra. Steve had nearly stroked out, but Stark had rolled his eyes and said that they couldn't show too much jiggle because MTV wouldn't play the video. Nat had been given another pair of pants, black, with flat boots because she'd twisted her ankle a little after catching a stiletto in the grating, and a gold lame bustier under a black velvet shirt that was left open. They'd brushed out Ella's hair and gave it some curl before foofing up the roots again. Steve had leather pants, which he quite liked, bare-chested under a long rust colored shirt that brought up his tawny hair (the unbleached part, anyway) and Bucky had been given a different military jacket, this one with gold on the blue fabric. It was a good look for him, Ella thought sleepily, then fell asleep.

They got up in the early afternoon and took it easy; they spent most of the time working on new music, and Mrs Barnes fed them again. It was an early night. Ella got up before midnight and took a shower. Then she pounded on doors and went upstairs and dressed before started the coffee. They still had nothing in the fridge and there wasn't time to go out, so Ella ripped open a packet of oatmeal and boiled water. She was starving and every bit of food that she and Nat had eaten on the shoot had been evaluated and judged by Stark and Thor, which made her incredibly self-conscious. She'd still been acutely aware of the calories of the food she ate at the Barnes' but wasn't going to going to go to the shoot hungry. She got mean when her blood sugar dropped.

The others came down in time to have a hasty bowl of oatmeal themselves before they heard an engine on the street. They piled into a van--nicer than the one they'd taken on their road trip--and found Stark's assistant, Peter Parker, riding shotgun. "Hi, guys," he said brightly. "You might want to see if you can nap on the way--it'll be about four, four and a half hours to the shoot. I guess--does anybody get car sick?"

"Not usually," Bucky murmured.

"Great." The van pulled away from the curb. "We're going to Watkins Glen State Park."

"Oh, god," Nat said, her eyes popping open. "Those waterfalls are going to be freezing this time of year. Please tell me we're shooting somewhere else? Like a parking lot?"

"Uh, no," Peter said cautiously. "But you'll all be moving around a lot, they'll have coats for you between takes and everything. It'll be ok."

The band wasn't so sure, but there was little they could do, so they took a nap that lasted until they stopped for gas and a bathroom break. The boys were allowed to buy soda and some junk food without a peep, but Parker side-eyed Ella and Nat until they bought Diet Cokes, sugar-free gum, and low-fat string cheese, the gas station options being limited. At the last minute, Nat looked around, saw the boys getting back into the van, and asked for cigarettes. The bored clerk recommended Camels or Marlboros, so Nat got the Camels and Ella the Marlboros.