catching up with friends

[outstandingbalance]

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.]

Comments

[outstandingbalance]

[Her lips twitch at that, her gaze flicking past the heavy bag to Barnes briefly. She doesn't argue it, though.]

Maybe.

[Looking away or not, her punches don't stop.

There's a pause while she considers whether or not she should say more. She could not. She suspects Barnes wouldn't object to her working in silence for a while.

Instead, she asks:]

Did you do this for the last Natasha who was here too?

[reconstitution]

Nothing like this, no. We were still figuring out where we stood.

[ He's quiet while she hits the bag again. ]

The last time we saw each other, I shot her.

[outstandingbalance]

You say that like we're not still figuring out where we stand.

[Because Natasha certainly isn't. He isn't her enemy. But that doesn't mean she knows what they are.]

That makes three times? Not many people can say that.

[That they'd got a shot off on the Black Widow three times, or that they'd been shot three times by the Winter Soldier and survived. Either way.]

[reconstitution]

Oh.. I didn't do that here. We were from essentially the same time, I think? But we talked about Odessa.

[ Or, she showed him during calibrations. He had some of it, but she filled in the rest. ]

To my knowledge, it's still just two.

[outstandingbalance]

[The next punch comes a little harder. She doesn't lose any of the control, but the force behind it's unmistakable.]

You mean you saw my memory.

[ Coming on the heels of her experience with Wanda and her discomfort with having both her present and her past exposed, she almost would have preferred he did shoot her again.

At least that was something she was prepared to handle.]

If she showed you that, she must have trusted you.

[reconstitution]

[ Bucky grunts at the sudden, unexpected change of force, but his expression remains the same. ]

It wasn't necessarily trust. A few months ago, all of us were on the Marsiva. There was this countdown every day until the next 'calibration'. Everyone could freely walk through other people's experiences. Memories. There were rooms, unique to everyone.

[ So yeah, he saw the memory from her perspective. ]

[outstandingbalance]

Do things like that happen often?

[That made at least two wide spread incidents that Natasha knew of, and then apparently there was the potential for random one off glitches as well.]

[reconstitution]

Too often now. Didn't used to.

[ It used to be the biggest thing they had to worry about were people you knew showing up. ]

[outstandingbalance]

I could live with a little less of it.

[There's just a little hiss in her throat as she says it, an uncharacteristic show of frustration. Another firmer punch accompanies it.]

[reconstitution]

Hm. Couldn't we all..

[ The audience loves the drama, don't they? What better than kicking everyone while they're down? ]

[outstandingbalance]

[For a long moment after that, her only response is to channel her frustration into the punching bag, her face a mask of concentration beyond what this task deserves.

She's considering. Doing the math.

Her instinct is to keep the details of what's happened close to her chest. As a rule that's her favorite strategy. Don't give up information unless she was pressed or there was something to gain from it. Barnes isn't pressing, so she's free to keep the fact she remembers the Accords and what followed to herself for a while longer if she wants. She's free to sit on the fact that she saw Wanda's memories, and worse, that Wanda had seen hers. Despite her frustration, she's not inclined to vent about it.

Which leaves her to weigh whether or not there's an advantage to tipping her hand, and whether the gains are worth it.

Her fists fall steadily, and her breathing deepens though it remains steady.

Finally she says:]

Did you tell anyone what happens? Or did you give everyone the same treatment you gave me?

[In the end, if she told him, she avoided the possibility of it coming out later. She didn't have illusions that something that big could be hidden indefinitely. This way at least she controlled the narrative.]

[reconstitution]

[ She's doing much the same thing that he does when he's taking his frustration out on the punching bag. Sorting through the thoughts, making sense of everything.

They're alike, the pair of them. Keeping things close to the chest, not involving anyone unless it's absolutely necessary. It's not his place to make her talk about it, and he expects the same. The silence settles, the only sounds are their breathing and the blows Natasha lands on the bag. ]

Wanda convinced me to tell Steve. He's still convinced something can be done about it.

[ Typical Steve, though. Maybe it'll get better or resolve itself, but the events are done for him. Nothing's going to change how things unfolded. ]

[outstandingbalance]

[And who knows, maybe he can? Maybe he's from a timeline where the only difference is that Steve was able to prevent the Accords somehow. She huffs a little though.

She doesn't see that happening. Even if it hadn't been Nigeria, something would have happened eventually.]

That sounds like Steve.

I suppose Wanda would have told him anyway.

[reconstitution]

Well, it hasn't happened for him yet. Guess we'll see eventually.

She felt guilty keeping him in the dark.

[ Wanda is compassionate despite what's happened to her. At least it hasn't been carved out of her. ]

[outstandingbalance]

[What does that say about the two of them?]

I can believe that of her. She's a good kid.

And she feels bad about what happened.

[reconstitution]

[ It doesn't benefit them to tell people their business until they want. Forcing either of their hands puts them in a corner that's a bitch to get back out of. ]

None of it was her fault. She's not likely to believe it, though.

[ Because it's the same song and dance that he's trying and failing to navigate. ]

[outstandingbalance]

No, she's not. [There's no doubt in Natasha's voice as she says it. She sounds flat, focusing on her fists.

There's not much conviction either as she says:] It's not anyone's fault. Sometimes things just work out a way. No one's really to blame.

[Or maybe it's just not productive to start assigning blame. She's still working on actually believing that.]

[reconstitution]

I don't think it was any one thing. It all just built up and imploded on itself.

[ The Accords, T'Chaka's death, Zemo, Lagos.. Really, most of those only helped to tip the scale that's been building for years. ]

[outstandingbalance]

More or less. [She bows her head a little.] Something was bound to give eventually. Just turned out when it happened, it was us.

[reconstitution]

You're probably right. Some of us have been involved too long.

[ Whether they wanted to be or not. ]

[outstandingbalance]

[There's a pause after her next punch, her eyes flicking up.]

Some of us, maybe. But you were out until the bombing. If it weren't for that, you could have gone right on doing whatever it was you were doing for two years.

[reconstitution]

[ He resolutely does not make eye contact with her. Bucky's thought about that more than once. If Zemo hadn't drawn him out, he'd still be in Romania.. having some semblance of a life- even in hiding.

Instead, he's holed up in Wakanda, arm busted and back in fucking cryo waiting for a cure for his fucked up head. ]

I could have.

[outstandingbalance]

I wouldn't call that doing it too long.

[She doesn't know that she wants to argue with Barnes about his role in this. She doesn't say it to change his mind, but he might as well know that she doesn't see him as at fault here either.]

[reconstitution]

Been involved since I didn't die falling from that train.

[ HYDRA got him involved, even if he never wanted to in the first place. He's a threat because of his power. For what he did under HYDRA's control. ]

[outstandingbalance]

[Her lips twitch and she drops her eyes and her fists. She's not going to agree with that, but she can't disagree with it either.

In the the end—she recognizes the sentiment. It's only been recently that Natasha has felt in control of her own involvement. Even her original association with the Avengers had been a matter of necessity, circumstances pulling her along one way or the other.

In a way, that was why it was why it was so hard to let go of the Avengers. She had finally been choosing how to use her skill set for herself. She hadn't been ready to retire.

Rather than answer him, she twists on one foot and levels a solid kick on the heavy beg, putting her frustration into the attack.]