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Who: Natasha Romanoff & You
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: 6/24

Video

[Transmission starts at the same moment the woman laying in fram shifts from unconsciousness to tense stillness—her eyes open, darting, and she goes tense, but otherwise there's no movement from her for the first four or five seconds. That seems to be how long it takes her to process that she's in an unfamiliar space with no memory of how she came to be lying there. Then one hand balls consciously into a fist. Her eyes flutter. Jaw tightens.

Natasha takes a deep breath and forces her body to relax muscle by muscle.

Seems like spies don't make for great entertainment when they first wake up. Not unless you find tension and veiled suspicious looks riveting. The first minute or two isn't much more than that. She wakes up. She sits up. She swings her legs over the edge of her cot and stretches her back, trying to flex the adrenaline out of her muscles.

She looks directly into the camera at one point, her expression flat, lips tightening in a frown. She taps the edge of the lens experimentally.]

You know, if you're gonna kidnap a girl you could at least buy her dinner first.

[Her voice is just a touch to defiant to be neutral as she speaks.

Then she hauls herself to her feet. The last thing caught on camera before the broadcast ends is a shot of her catsuited figure walking away.]

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[He relaxes minutely enough that most others wouldn't catch it, but this is Natasha after all.]

Believe it or not, I've been here approximately a year, playing along with their "reality show". Wanda's been here slightly longer, but other relatively new arrivals include Captain Rogers, Mr. Stark, and Sam Wilson.

We're quite popular, it seems.

[Natasha catches the change, subtle as it is. She notes it, but doesn't ask about it just now.]

That changes a lot.

[She frowns, working through these new pieces, trying to fit them together in her head.]

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad to have you at my back, but I don't see how that's possible.

[His brow quirks up.]

Because I've not been missing for a year? There's something of a time differential in play. They're certainly capable of pulling us from different points in time, as well as different timelines altogether.

For example, Agent Peggy Carter is also here, from the year 1947.

[His explanation... well, it doesn't exactly make sense. It's internally consistent? It would explain how he could have been here for a year when by her timeline he shouldn't have been alive that long.

That doesn't make it less to wrap her head around.]

This sounds like it's getting a little above my pay grade.

[He nods.] It's all a bit much to take in, especially at first. You'll become used to it soon enough, I think--none of us claims a full understanding of it all, but on the surface it's hardly more difficult than a typical mission for the Avengers.

[By which he means it's not as important to know why the Chitauri are invading, only how to stop their advance.]

That's one way to put it in perspective.

[She shakes her head a little, her voice low and just a little creaky. One the one hand, she's survived everything the Avengers could throw at her. On the other, presenting it like that put being here in the same conversation as the Chitauri, Hydra and Ultron.

Not exactly a comfort.]

I guess I better get to adapting.

[Most of the time, it's no effort at all. The rest--well, his first mate is still in traction thanks to the Winter Soldier going berserk.]

I'm more than happy to help, if you should have any questions, or any difficulty.

[Speaking of which, he tilts his head to one side.]

You may perhaps have heard this already, but this is not the first time some of us have seen you here.

I hope you were planning to say a little more about that. [It's hard to say for sure with Vision. His perspective is... strange. There were other things to call it, but in the end, it came down to the fact that there wasn't really anyone else like him.]

Obviously you've seen me before, but I don't think that's what you mean.

[It's very different indeed, but one of the perks of having crewmates who tend to take things literally is that he's developed a straightforward way of speaking.]

I've seen you here, yes. And you were from before a time you'd met me at home. We became friends regardless; you were the captain of my ship, and assigned me as first mate. When you vanished, I became captain in your stead.

And how long ago was that?

[Slow down. Work out the details. Worry about figuring them out, decidng what she can accept and what's too much later.

Natasha's not trained for this, but that doesn't mean her training isn't useful or doesn't assert itself.]

It was a little over three months ago that the previous version vanished. [Not very long to some people, but for him it's been a quarter of his life.]

It's hardly a unique phenomenon, as this is the third Mr. Stark and fourth Steve Rogers [if not Captain Rogers] I've seen here.

Steve Rogers... [Natasha notices the difference there, and she considers letting it pass, but Vision's level of formality has been fairly consistent otherwise. He'd said Captain Rogers before.] Is there a reason you're more familiar with Steve than you are with Tony?

[Ha. Ha. He wishes.]

Oh, I'm not, but you see one of them wasn't Captain America at all. He was the Winter Soldier, and his counterpart was Captain Jim Barnes. I was especially sorry to see Jim go; he was a good man.

Okay—what?

[Congratulations. He's reached the point where Natasha really can't keep up anymore. The timelines and the space travel, even the fact she'd apparently been there before, she could could sort of compartmentalize and set aside and let be for the moment, until she was ready to process them.

A Steve who was the Winter Soldier and Barnes as Captain America was a step too far.]

[The Vision nods, looking concerned.]

It's a natural extension of the idea residents can be from many different times. There are individuals from the eighteenth century, or the twenty-fourth. There are many others here from an Earth where New York was never invaded by the Chitauri. There are some who know the Avengers to have dozens of members and to have been around for decades by the start of the twenty-first century.

And there was one timeline that seemed identical to ours, except that their roles were switched.

[Processing this. Somehow, it seems much bigger than coming from different points in the same timeline.

It's not that his explanation doesn't make sense, but it also makes things a whole lot messier.]

So there are people here from those timelines, people we know, they know us, but they're not the same.

Any names I know?

[It's a mess, all right.]

There's one significant name. Clint Barton.

[Because of course.]

He's accustomed to a much larger team and has a protege named Kate Bishop who's here as well.

[Much more than that it's hard to say, because he'd only very briefly known Clint back home.]

So you're saying Clint is here, but he's not Clint.

[In a way, she's glad she found out about Steve and Barnes being swapped first. And in every way, she's grateful for the warning. There weren't many people who'd be as hard for her to handle not knowing her as Clint.]

I'll keep an eye out for him. See if he's as much of a loser in every timeline.

[Making fun of him is better than exploring whatever other feelings that might bring up.]

He is, and he's still Clint, but he's not our Clint, if I may be so possessive.

[~~This one is even more of a loser.~~]

The others are, as far as I can tell, the same versions we've known before.

Be as possessive as you want. I won't tell on you.

[She's already getting the situation in perspective. It might be a lot different than she initially expected, but she'll handle it. One way o another.]

Any other surprises I should know about?

No doubt you'd prefer to hear of all of them. [Where to even start? Well, with the one they were already discussing.]

The Winter Soldier, for one, and I mean James Buchanan Barnes when I say that. And with the caveat that he's yet to cause any actual trouble here, Loki.

Those would be high on the list of things I'd want to know. [She agrees wryly, already processing that information, both what Vision says and what he implies. That Loki might potentially cause trouble, but but hadn't.

The fact that Vision made no such caveat about Barnes.

Where did she even stat with this information.]

How is Steve handling Barnes being here?

[She starts with that.]

[Let's add a layer of encryption on this, shall we? This could be sensitive, after all.]

Captain Rogers doesn't share his thoughts on the matter with me, I'm afraid.

[Which, frankly, there could be any number of reasons for. He doesn't take it personally.]

Winter, as he calls himself, has made significant progress from where he was. However, something caused him to revert temporarily and many people were injured as a result. We've yet to positively identify the trigger.

[Probably a good idea. Natasha's interested in the encryption she's seen here. And guess she's lucky, because turns out she knows something about it.

Not sure she likes that.]

Winter, huh?

[She notes it. Never hurts to know what people like to hear, what they maybe don't expect to hear.]

You're sure something triggered it? It wasn't just a break on his part?

Winter. [A reasonable compromise, he thinks, between the "Bucky" of old that Steve knew and the tool of Hydra he'd become.]

As sure as I can be without witnessing the initial incident myself. But he believes it, and the telepaths who have looked into the situation agree - Wanda helped to neutralize him, and there's another one here named Charles Xavier who's been very helpful.

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encrypted;

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