driftfleet | Action + Video | Captain on the bridge. Sort of...

Entry tags:

Action + Video | Captain on the bridge. Sort of...

Who: Steve and you!

Broadcast: Video, yes: Fleetwide

Action: SS Bishop
When: Yesterday, after arrival

ACTION:
Steve has just about managed to acquaint himself with the strange, new idea that he is now in space when the next curve is thrown his way. One second he's standing in a hallway, just about to walk up and ask someone if they have any idea what he's doing here. The next, he's...on a bridge. With confetti? And are those pudding cups? What the Hell is going on? He blinks around, his first instinct to always look and see if there is some sort of fight about to happen. Hands are in fists and he really wishes his shield was somewhere around here. But he dropped that in the dirt a few months ago, so fat chance.

Steve will stand down slowly, once no one attacks him right off the bat. Sadly, he's been in this position before; in a strange place and time, not knowing why or how. His thoughts are back on Earth and with the friends he's broken out of their floating prison and now, seemingly, abandoned. Maybe there is a way out of here. Or, maybe, he's needed here more? Hopefully someone is going to be able to talk him through it all.

VIDEO:

Many hours later, Steve sends out a broadcast, finally understanding how and wanting to reach out to anyone else that might be here. Anyone else he might know.

"Uh. Hey. My name is Steve Rogers. Hopefully I'm doing this right and you can all see and hear me. I just arrived about..." He looks down at something and then scrubs a hand over his face as though in disbelief. "Two days ago. A lot got packed into those days, it seems. But I'm sure you all know how that feels."

Steve pauses, shifting a bit before getting closer to the camera, face serious. "I've met some people here so I know that what happened to me has happened to a lot of other good people. I have questions and a lot of things I want to look into. But first, I want to know who else is out there. Who else might have the same questions I do and who wants to start getting some answers."

He moves back and tries to smile. "Or who maybe just wants to talk? Anything. So, yeah. Thanks. How do I....um. Is it this butt-"

Video cuts off abruptly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah. That's smart."

It stings a little, knowing that Bucky is avoiding him. But that only comes from the perspective of them being on firmer ground with each other. He can still remember the run-down room he found Bucky in. The notebook. The way Bucky had looked at him and said he read about Steve in a museum.

He needs this space and he needs time. Steve thought he was confused and lost here? Add in all of Bucky's other issues and Steve doesn't envy his friend at all.

"If you talk to him again, let him know I'm here. However he needs me to be, even if that means staying away."

"You're not going to tell him yourself?" Natasha asks it neutrally, clarifying a statement of fact. There are plenty of reasons for Steve not to go directly to Barnes. But there's plenty of reason for him to want to talk to him too. "Sure, if I run into him again, I'll let him know."

A short pause, then she adds, "He's on the Starduck."

"I sent out a broadcast and he didn't even send me a line. That tells me everything I need to know about where his head's at. He'll come to me when he's able." Hopefully, he thinks but doesn't say. It's probably written all over his face, anyway.

"The Starduck. Weird ship names." He looks up. "And he's good? Got a good crew around him? Healthy?"

"It used to be two ships. When they combined the two, they smashed the name together too. It used to be the Starstruck." Less weird. And explaining that seems like the gentler option than talking about Barnes' mental state. "It's where you and Sam were when you were here last time. There's been a lot of turnover with the crew, but... there's some good people over there. They'll watch his back."

"Good." And it is, even if the word comes out flat. "I'm glad there's good people. And that it's my old ship. If it was good enough for me and Sam then...I figure..." He shrugs instead of finishing that. A moment later he's pasting on a smile and kicking his foot out to knock at Nat's calf.

"What about your crew? Got friends here?"

"I have you now." She says it sincerely. "And there's Vision, Wanda, Thor... My ship is all right. I'm the first mate on the Vanquish; works pretty well, we tend not to pry too much in each other's business." Not the closest of crews. That doesn't really bother her.

"But I have some friends, I guess. Not my idea, but..."

"This is a strange situation. We need allies wherever we can find them. I've actually met a kid named Red Robin who's from an alternate reality. Smart kid. Crime fighter like the spider boy."

Steve smiles encouragingly. Friendship isn't exactly Nat's forte but that doesn't stop her from accumulating a few.

He has to ask, though:

"No Bruce or Clint, huh?"

"Bruce was here for a while. Not long. We only had the chance to talk a couple of times." It was as awkward as you might expect considering the last time they talked before that. There had been a lot to work out. And Bruce had been Bruce.

She shakes her head. "Clint... that's a weird one, actually. Clint hasn't been here. Now our Clint, then guy I've known for years. But there was a Clint, and he was still kind of Clint. He had a protege with him. She was cute."

It had been comforting in a way, and even worse than not having Clint around in another. She could have used her best friend a time or two. But here they are.

"Things get real interesting around here."

"I heard about that. Different versions of us. Different universes. I haven't encountered it yet, but I bet it's... confusing. To say the least."

He picks up the pudding and finishes it off with a few large bites. It gives him time to process everything he's now learned.

"What's next here, then? I heard about planets and...reality shows and all that. Is there a schedule? TV Guide for our lives in this place?"

"Not exactly. Not sure if it's really a TV show like that, or more of a streaming situation. Either way, it's safe to assume that more or less anything we're doing is being watched. Allegedly there's some privacy, but..." Natasha shrugs. She trusts that about as much as she trusts any shady organization full of faceless interests that she knows nothing about. So not even slightly.

"We're about due for another planet, I figure. If not that then a space station or a pirate fleet or something. We don't usually go more than a couple of weeks without something interesting. They mix up just what it is. Could be a tourist trap, or it could be a planetary war. Don't expect too much warning."

"I heard about cannibals from a kid, here. And...hotel planets. All sorts of strange things. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to it." Which Natasha supports with what she's saying. Planetary war. Steve remembers the armory he was shown to. Hopefully, at least, he won't have to fire on other people in the fleet.

"While we have some time I'm thinking about getting all of us together for a dinner. Someplace for us all to talk and maybe plan a next course of action. Talk about what has already been done?"

"That's not entirely true. They don't do the same thing too many times in a row." That's the closest Natasha's come to a consistent pattern. They might be at an abandoned planet one month, in the middle of a war the next, then at a resort the week after, then somewhere more blue collar, but it's unlikely they'll do the same thing twice. Even if they hit a couple of rough worlds in a row, they'll be rough in different ways.

"Dinner, huh? Should I bring something?"

"Any chance of an alcohol being found here that works on a super metabolism?" He's mostly joking. Mostly. But he smiles all the same, settling down just a little. This at least feels normal even if it really isn't. The space is different and the situation uncertain but, in the end, it's them against something bad. That's as familiar as it gets.

"Nah, just bring you. I'm gonna figure out how to make a pizza with these...weird gels that we're saddled with. Nothing can be worse than boiled cabbage soup ala Depression."

"Oh, I bet I've had worse." Dryly, not assigning much weight to the comment or elaborating on it further. Cabbage soup isn't high on her list of hopes and dreams, but having it with friends... she can find some affection for that.

"And I can't guarantee something that will get you drunk, but in my experience, it always works better when you don't drink alone." Whether at dinner or on the Iskaulit, or down the line when they stop in at the next planet, Natasha has no problem volunteering to be a drinking buddy.

"You say that now. You've never had two potatoes, a head of cabbage, and Bucky Barnes determined to add enough spices to make a soup." It was probably the only liquid outside of seawater with enough salt to actually dehydrate you as you drink it. Not even the potatoes could save it.

Steve smiles at the memory all the same.

"I definitely think that company could improve the drinks' effect. And at least I know none of us have a lot of plans yet. Just. Drifting along." He exhales, disheartened all over again.

"I keep worrying about what's going on at home. All the ways things can go wrong without us there to help..."

"You might be surprised." There are so many things that she won't answer to that, even to Steve. Things she won't or can't joke about here and now, because they bring up their own questions or involve revealing things when hiding them is second nature. She could say how close she'd been with Barnes here. She could say that she still bets it beats a Soviet orphanage or training facility. She could laugh, because it's a joke and people laugh at jokes. She could tell him about some of the things going on at home and where it goes. Instead she looks away, her smile half a grimace.

Natasha holds it all in, refocusing on him a half second later when she's pushed the awkwardness down.

"For what it's worth, we don't miss things back home. As far as everyone else is concerned, we never left." That's the good news. "Sometimes something happens around here, and suddenly we wake up with more memories, new scars, things like that. It's... pretty awful, actually." Somehow, she injects a little real humor into that last admission. "There's a lot messing with our heads, and sometimes it seems like we're just waiting to remember what's going on only to find out it's all gone to hell."

But it's not because they missed anything.

Steve isn't stupid at all. He can feel the awkward pause following her comment and watches her carefully to try and figure out why. He could go ahead and ask but something tells him that he wouldn't like the answer he'd get back. Either he'll feel bad for the joke or...

Or.

Too much is going on today for him to add on an 'Or'. So he mentally shelves it to be picked up again some other time when he can handle it all better. And then Nat keeps talking, so it's easy to put it all aside to deal with the next batch of good and bad news about this weird limbo they're living in.

"Well. I guess with time travel, that makes sense. We can spend years here and then get dropped back the same second we left. No one would know we were gone and, without memories, we wouldn't know either." It is a strange thing to think about. How everything that happens here can be erased so completely. Everyone he meets and talks to so completely destroyed. He has no idea what to even do with information, now, but it settles heavy in his stomach.

"Are the new memories real? Thinks that have happened from home?" Steve's pit in his stomach drops out even more.

"What have you seen from home?"

"They're real." Well, there's room to quibble over that. Who knows if any of this is real. Natasha prefers not to go down that rabbit hole, though. "People who come from home, from after us, corroborate. If it is just the Atroma messing with us, they go all the way with it."

That last question, though, that's complicated.

"It's not always a good idea to know what's coming before you remember it yourself, Steve." And she means that. Because it's Steve, she won't turn him down outright.

Steve's heard things. Hints that something terrible has happened. This warning makes him think that it is worse than he even could imagine. He swallows hard and leans against the nearest wall to brace himself.

"What's happened?" He is never one to walk away from something. Not even when a loaded gun is pointed at his head. He needs to know and he wants to hear it from a friend.

For a moment, she doesn't answer. Natasha looks in his eyes, studying his expression, and wondering if even leaving him in the dark wouldn't still be more merciful. Whatever he comes up with, it wouldn't be worse than the reality.

But it's only a fantasy.

"We lose, Steve." That's the simplest answer. "We lose when it matters the most."

Simple words. Simple words with a simple meaning. They lost. There was a fight and, for once, they lost. Steve goes cold, heart stopping in his chest as he considers what this means.

"What...did we lose?" It's not the right question and he knows it as soon as the words leave his mouth. It might be a 'what' but that's not what matters. He can tell by the look on her face.

"Who did we lose?"

"Are you sure you want to do this to yourself, Steve?" Because he doesn't have to. Because knowing won't help, and there's not a whole lot they can do about it here. Because the real answer is so much more than anyone can be ready for.

She shakes her head briefly, the gesture cut short because she knows the answer. Steve Rogers never ran from anything, did he?

"The guy we're up against had a very simple goal: the end of half of all life." Does that tell him just how much they lost? She's not sure it's the same without putting names to it. "Not just on earth, but everywhere. We couldn't stop him."

Calling this a punch to the gut doesn't cut it. It's a sword to the throat. It's a mallet to his chest that's smashed the bones into pieces so his heart is exposed and bruised. It's the worst thing he's ever heard. And he knows it's going to get worse.

He walks to the wall, bracing his hands against it as he tries to breathe. It is hard to manage over these new, bleeding wounds inside him.

Half of all life. Half of all life....

"Who?"

Who did they fail?

There's a long moment before Natasha answers. She goes over the list in her head. Where is she even supposed to start something like this? Wrapping her arms around herself, she says, "I haven't told the others."

Which isn't to say that he can't, but there are reasons not to. If he decides to share, it will be news to them.

And he'll be shedding light on Natasha's secrets.

"Vision. Wanda. Barnes." A pause, because she knows Steve won't hear anything after that, not for a moment. She wishes the list stopped there. "Sam. T'Challa. Tony is MIA. Best intel is that he and Spider-man were between Thanos and us. Those are the ones I know."

The names hit him like bullets. It shouldn't be worse, knowing who they lost, but some how it is. The names make it real. It makes him feel the mourning more acutely now that he has faces to the tragedy. And it's worse than he could have expected.

He knows Bucky is on the list. He knows before she says it because that seems to be their lot in life. In the pause, he lets out a humorless laugh and the rest of the names just wash over him, salt in that particular wound. When Nat is done, he's quiet for a long moment. And then he speaks to the wall:

"You know what the history books always get wrong? They always make Buck this hooligan I ran with. But the truth is that he was a good kid. Nuns loved him. Everyone did. It was me they warned him about. 'Stay away from that Rogers boy; he's nothing but trouble'."

He's quiet again so nothing preludes him rearing back a fist and punching it into the wall, hard. His knuckles split and bleed, but it will heal. It's only then that he turns and looks at Nat.

"How do we fix it?"

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