driftfleet | catching up with friends

Entry tags:

catching up with friends

Who: Natasha + Wanda, Natasha + You
Broadcast: Nope
Action: SS Starstruck, SS Vanquish, Iskaulit
When: Now-ish?

Starstruck

[With Pietro showing up, it seemed like the thing to do to check in on Wanda. Natasha had kept an eye open for the girl, but unsurprisingly their paths hadn't crossed by accident since then. She could have sent a private message—maybe should have—but the kind of distance that talking to someone through a screen would hide clues to Wanda's emotional state that Natasha would rather not miss.

It made the most sense to drop in. Have surprise on her side. See Wanda face to face.

That's how Natasha found herself on the SS Starstruck, standing outside her younger teammate's door like she belonged there and knocking confidently. Will Wanda even be in? On the other hand, would Natasha be here if she weren't?]

Starstruck - later

[It's a less confident Natasha who slips off of the ship after her meeting with Wanda, a Natasha with new memories and nursing a stabbing headache. She'd just as soon sneak off the ship without running into anyone else at this point; she could use a little time to herself to recover and regroup.

Even a spy might have a hard escaping a spaceship unnoticed, though.]

Vanquish

[Back on her own ship, Natasha retreats to her bunk almost immediately. She lays down for a bit—but she doesn't stay down long. After enough time to push aside the worst of her nagging headache, she throws herself into activity. Nothing useful. Nothing that takes focus. But empty action, something to work off a little energy while her thoughts are elsewhere. Pushups. Sit ups. Lunges. Whatever she can do with the space she has.

Eventually, the workout might spill out into the corridor...]

Iskaulit

[But after that, her workout will take her to a real gym, somewhere she can actually open up. Anyone who finds her here might run into Natasha taping up her hands before laying into a heavy bag. Or they might run into her working her frustration off on the bag itself. Spectators might be impressed—if they don't know her, and if they don't know people with superpowers. She's stronger than most people take her for, though, and her form is more or less flawless, if you notice those things.

She stays in the gym for a long while, until she feels herself back on top of her emotions. All of her reactions have been identified, categorized and compartmentalized.

That's when she she finally wanders over to one of the bars.

She's earned a drink.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nnn—ow.

[Natasha's brows crease and her face scrunches against the persistent ache in her head, clouding her thoughts and confusing her perceptions.]

Do they always do that?

[Wanda is still wincing a little herself from the lingering headache.]

The augments?

[She sighs, trying to force the pain out with her breath.]

Only in my personal case it seems.

[She rubs her head again, starting to look a little guilty.]

Nat, I- [The more informal abbreviation of her name just slips out, but this time Wanda doesn't correct herself.] I am sorry...

[Natasha touches her own head gingerly, near the augment. She can't say she's a fan.]

Believe me, I don't think you did that on purpose. [Ignoring anything else she might be referring to in her apology.

Natasha's not ready for that.]

You okay?

[Wanda nods. The guilty look still lingering on her face.]

This is the second time something like this has happened. An augment glitch forcing my powers to go haywire. At least this time, I was able to control it better.

[She had her training with Vision and Charles to thank for that. It's bitter comfort to her though, because...]

Yet again, it seems I inadvertently dragged you into this mess.

[For a moment, Wanda has forgotten that the Natasha from before and this Natasha with her now are two separate people. Too distracted by the lingering ache and fuzziness of her head.]

[Natasha's brows draw together, a frown of confusion that she smooths out with her fingers.]

It's all right. I was going to remember eventually anyway.

[She wouldn't have seen Wanda's side of it, though.

Or the suspicion that Wanda would have seen hers, even if it wouldn't have included the worst of Natasha's memories by far.]

[Wanda still looks troubled, as her hand descends from rubbing her head to clenching her other in her lap.]

That they would use me and my powers again like this...

[The anger clearly there in Wanda's voice and flaring up behind her eyes.]

[Natasha's lips tighten slightly as she considers the younger woman's expression and whether or not she should ask the question on her mind.]

What happened the last time?

[Wanda looks up at her, confused for a moment. But she quickly realizes her mistake. Her thoughts and memories had been a little scrambled after what happened, yet it still felt like a careless mistake.]

I lost control of my powers. All of them. It was much worse than what you just experienced.

[She sighs.]

To keep others safe, I exiled myself to the nearby planet the fleet was visiting at the time. I thought I could wait it out, or that I would eventually be able to regain control.

In the meantime, the landscape around where I hid became badly damaged or even destroyed. Nightmares tormented me every time I closed my eyes. And I imagine I scared a great number of locals that dared wander too close.

... everything a monster does.

[The guilt Wanda used to feel over this was now replaced with anger. Her rage palpably boiling just below the surface of her words.]

But you were able to regain control eventually. [The monster comment manages to win a little wince out of Natasha. Nothing demonstrative, but it's there.

It seemed to be a common motif.]

Guessing being a hermit wasn't actually what did it.

[Despite her otherwise sour demeanor, Natasha's words manage to force a small, sliver of a grin out of her.]

I have Vision, James Barnes, and you to thank for that.

Another version of me. Or not.[She looks up, as though she could find some clarification on the ceiling above them.] I'm still not sure how that's supposed to work.

[She brings her attention back to Wanda, shrugging off the strangeness of that situation physically.]

Either way, you shouldn't apologize. It's a good thing you had them. And if there's something I know about me, it's that I wouldn't have been there if I didn't want to be.

I know... we were closer then.

[She sounds sad. She knows that the Natasha from her first glitch experience was a different Natasha, or might as well be as she has no memories from her first time in the fleet. Now, there was all this mess with the Sokovia Accords, and, try though they all might, there was no way to completely erase the damage they'd all done to each other from that. All of this naturally made it hard for her and Natasha to be as close as they had been.]

[Natasha glances away. The sadness makes sense, and Natasha wishes that she could be reassuring. With the new memories fresh in her head, both her own and Wanda's, it's hard to work out where the two of them stand and where they have stood.]

I'm glad you had that.

[That much at least Natasha can say with certainty.]

[Wanda only responds with a small, sad smile. She's not sure what more needs be said on that subject. Instead, her thoughts drift back to the memories she had been exposed to during the glitch. Natasha's memories... if anything, she was able to understand that Natasha had been acting from a desire to try and hold the Avengers together. Wanda's motivations... well, it seemed she had been more selective in her loyalty. Still, she feels the need to ask...]

You chose to side with Stark. Yet, in the end, you helped Steve and Bucky escape. Why? If you were willing to believe that Steve was making the right call, why even fight in the first place?

[In this case, Natasha can see how she might owe Wanda an answer to that. Natasha's position.]

I don't think Steve was making the right call. [She can't ignore his role in escalating the conflict between the Avengers. She doesn't blame him, exactly. They'd all played their parts. She hadn't seen everything she should have either. And Tony... had been Tony.

The memories are fresh in her head, but she finds it's not hard for her to pick up the threads of her thoughts.]

Tony didn't either.

Neither of them knows how to stop. They try, but it's not who they are. They're not compromisers.

[Natasha pauses a beat, untangling her emotions from her actions.]

Someone had to back down or the fight wasn't going to stop. Everything that was happening, it was all us. There weren't any aliens, no Hydra, no Ultron. That was just the Avengers destroying an airport.

I did what I had to to control the damage.

[Wanda listens to Natasha's words, neither reacting or interrupting. She knows the truth of Nat's words. Wanda had felt a degree of Natasha's emotions, her motivations, as she experienced her memories. Yet, it had still been important to her to hear the explanation out loud.]

Everyone... everyone of us did what we thought was right. All of us acting with the best intentions, and yet still coming to a clash. Perhaps the Avengers were doomed from the very beginning.

I wouldn't say doomed.

[But nothing lasts forever, does it? Maybe the Avengers got as far as they could.

Natasha's not sure she believes that.

She's also not sure it matters.]

It was never going to be easy, though.

[In this moment, the memories newly recovered, she feels the loss acutely.]

[Wanda feels the loss, too. She has not been a part of the Avengers as long as Natasha, yet... since losing Sokovia, the Avengers had become a second home to her. Now, that home was splintered.]

Perhaps there is still hope... but after everything we put each other through, it seems a slim hope.

And for the time being, some of us need to keep our heads down. So it seems there is little chance of reuniting anytime soon.

No, that would take some big changes. And some very big egos would have to learn to bend.

[Tony, but also Steve. From Natasha's perspective, neither of them proved willin to compromise. And while he heart might agree with Steve more, Natasha isn't a woman who always listens to her heart.]

For what it's worth though... if I held a grudge every time someone threw me against something hard, I wouldn't have many friends left.

[Which Natasha knows doesn't necessarily fix anything. It's not meant to. It is meant to signal that Wanda doesn't have to count as unwilling to try to repair their particular relationship.

Seems like about the most either of them can offer at the moment.]

[That gets a flicker of a grin from Wanda.]

Well, I wouldn't have had to throw you at anything were you not about to kick your friend Clint in the head.

[She's not trying to sound accusatory, just a little teasingly defensive. Still, when experiencing Natasha's memories, she had felt her own attack... and it hurt. So, after a moment, she does add a soft yet genuine:]

Sorry.

Clint's tough. He can take it.

[Natasha's voice is light as she says it.]

Maybe some day I'll tell you how the two of us met.

[Some day, but not now. Her smile falls a little.]

Don't worry about it too much. I mean it.

[Natasha's offer raises one of Wanda's eyebrows. She had never bothered to ask how they met. Assuming that, like the other Avengers, they were both brought in shortly before the crisis in New York. And in spite of Natasha's words, Wanda has a hard time not thinking about their clash at the airport. While Wanda had practiced and gotten more control over her powers, it still seemed that at times she had trouble judging just how strong they could be. She briefly thought of Vision, her powers rocketing him down through several floors of concrete and earth. A grimace of concern flashes on her face, but she tries to ignore the thoughts. She tries changing the subject, hoping it'll help clear her thoughts.]

Where do we go from here?

That depends. Where do you want to go from here?

[Wanda cracks a small smile at that.]

I meant the Avengers as a whole, but I guess starting at just the two of us makes more sense.

[She then takes a moment.]

Even with everything that happened back home, I do not want to say goodbye to anyone.

[Did they also include Stark? She'd have to think on that a little further...]

It's just us here. No real reason to say goodbye to anyone you don't want to, if you don't want to.

[Tony's circle of friends might be a little small after this. Depending.]

So that answer is really the same. Where do you want to go?

catching up with friends

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