driftfleet | 'cause it's better than nothing

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'cause it's better than nothing

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(last updated: 1/25/19)

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"Up to you."

He smiles over at her, calmer than he might have been had there been other people in his head. Nat probably knows most of the things scattered around here. Not all but most, surely. He takes his hand off the box next to him, opening that up to her as well.

"We could always just talk, too. I don't know what to do in my own mind normally. This just makes it weirder."

Steve's projection of himself is friendlier than her own had been. It's not unexpected, but it makes the fact she has to be here a little easier. Hopefully Steve will feel the same when he wakes up.

"Never have a problem talking to you." That's truer in spirit than in practice, but she does mean it. "Do you know what's in there?"

Steve looks at the box and the expression on his face is fond if sad. "I do," he admits. "Memories. Dreams. The things I hold deepest in my heart." He looks around the room at the other items there as well. "And other things. Regrets. Happiness." He looks askance at her, lip quirking up. "You might even be here. Somewhere."

"I don't think I need to go riffling through your memories to find out what you think of me." She makes it sound confident, which is quite a trick when the actual answer might be more avoidant. Sometimes it's better not to know the exact answer. But they are friends, right? She good leaving it at that. "Do you want me to see any of them?"

"I don't know if that's the way this goes," he answers honestly. "But I don't want to hide anything from you, if that's what you mean." He knows she has looked at his history. Not much here will be a surprise. There's Peggy and there's Bucky and there's Tony and their new family he'd come to love and then destroyed. Nothing here is anything Nat can't see.

"It's up to you."

Natasha takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. If she didn't do anything, she'd still probably leave eventually. They'd wake up. But like in dreams, time could be strange here. It could be an awful long wait if she didn't do anything.

"It's not the way it goes, but if there were things you didn't want me to see, I'd try."

"I appreciate that." And he does. Not everything here was pretty and not every memory was something he would share with the world. But Nat wasn't the world and with everything they'd been through, what was this, really, in the grand scheme?

"But I trust you."

Steve's always been an open book, unable to lie and wearing his heart on his sleeve. He's not sure if it's an old-fashioned thing everyone else evolved out of or if it was just him. But either way, he has precious little hidden. Still, he stands up and looks around the room.

"I can guide you. If that helps? If there was something you didn't want to see?"

"It's not that there's anything I don't want to see." Not in that specific kind of way. She's not afraid of anything she'll find in Steve's head, or worried that she'll see him differently. Steve's an open book already in a lot of ways. He's honest, and open with his friends.

And there's nothing in here that will be worse than what she's done.

The problem is more general. "I just don't like messing with people's heads." That's the simplest answer. "What's in the box?"

He can understand that. But strangely it doesn't bother him. Not with her.

He looks at the box and then picks it up to show to her. The lock flies open as he reaches to pull up the lid, revealing inside two film reel and a DVD. One reel has a label with a firework on it while the other is glowing with the same sort of red magic that Wanda uses.

The DVD is blank but shiny and new.

"Sam once asked what makes me happy. I didn't know because I keep them all locked up in here. Safer to protect them, right?"

"Maybe." Probably. Natasha's the last person who should judge anyone for compartmentalizing or repressing their emotions, but the fact she does it herself doesn't mean she doesn't want better for her friends. "Hard to enjoy them when they're in there though, isn't it?"

He seems to trust her with this. Hopefully he'll feel the same when he wakes up.

Natasha puts her hand on his shoulder, supportive. "Should we watch them? I'd like to see what you enjoy."

Steve continues to hold the box open to her but makes no selection himself. Like when he's awake he prioritizes what others want and need. He won't force Nat into anything and he won't show something she hasn't decided on.

"They're people. Moments. Some are real and some aren't. But memories change over time anyways." He looks down at the three items and smiles a bit sadly.

"I haven't thought about some in awhile."

It's not Natasha's way to force people to face things they're avoiding, not without a good reason. If it were really the two of them talking, Natasha would have told him to think about himself. To take care of himself.

Here, she has to make a choice.

She reaches for the DVD, her her touch gentle. That seems most likely to be from her time with Steve. "How about this one?"

As she touches it, the light from the screen expands. It drowns out the entire room, Steve included, until instead the view of a bar starts to come in. Natasha will see herself there, first. Then Bruce as the scene plays out, effortlessly shifting a few hours between the one memory and the next.

Steve reappears at Nat's side as he watches with a longing smile on his face. Up until the memories end and the light brings them back to the theater.

Steve takes the DVD out of her hand and places it back into the box.

"The first time I felt like I really had a family again. I was happy." His smile fades around his eyes. "Probably the last time, too."

[Steve wasn't there he whole time so start around :55]

She doesn't wince. That's a good memory for her too. Natasha's not one to get too wrapped up in regretting things that didn't work out like she'd hoped at the time; it was good while it lasted, and who knows what chances they might have in the future.

But it is a little bittersweet, especially facing Steve over it like this.

"You know, I didn't eavesdrop on that conversation." She could have, but she can respect people's privacy. "Looking out for me, huh?"

Cracking a little smile as she says it.

"You haven't entirely lost it, you know."

Steve smiles, fond as he looks up at Nat. "What can I say? We kissed. I needed to make sure that the next person could compare."

He looks back at the screen and lets out a small sigh. He's still smiling though which is an improvement. "I know. I know I haven't lost all of it. But it won't be like that. Not again. I knew it before and I know it even more, now." Now when they were all scattered with their various wounds on their hearts. It would never be like that moment again.

Maybe beautiful moments like that weren't meant to be given another time.

Natasha's expression in response is amused, her smile small and crooked in a way that's more honest than some of her more practiced expression. She doesn't tease him for that joke. She doesn't have to. The look says everything: worried you ruined me, Steve?

The smile doesn't last long.

"No way of knowing what will happen." Especially not here. She doesn't think explaining the way the fleet provides second chances would actually help, though. "It might not be the same, but there'll be something."

Considering how bad that kiss had apparently been, he can safely say 'no'. But the joke is worth it to see that smile on her face. Even if it is short.

"I guess that is true. From what I have been seeing already, there is no way of knowing what could happen in here." It's a strange thing. All of them being brought here against their will but then having experiences they otherwise might never again. Like Wanda. Vision. Bucky. All of them, really. It makes him wonder if being here is as cruel as he had believed, once.

Everyone needs practice, Steve. Everyone.

"It's true." All of it. That they can't tell what will happen here, and that it's not always cruel in the way they believed. It's a mixed bag, and when it's cruel, it's often cruel in completely unexpected ways. "You've been seeing people's memories of the fleet, not just back home?"

"I've been seeing all sorts of things," he admits, not sounding happy about it. "I've seen Bucky. Many Buckys. And...Peggy. All while they were here, before they were then sent back." Who knew why? The Atroma don't seem to have a reason for these things. Except, perhaps, their own sick amusement.

"I've seen things from back home, too. Lots of things." He sighs heavily. "By comparison my box here really must seem like nothing. Sort of a relief, actually."

"It's not nothing." Natasha leans close enough to bump his shoulder with her, lowering her gaze. None of what they see in here is nothing. None of it. It's all meaningful, and sharing any of it is an act of intimacy that most people wouldn't ask for.

Natasha doesn't want him to minimize that. Especially when he guards his good memories like this. In some ways, those are more fragile even than the bad memories are.

"What about that one?" Pointing at the older film canisters.

Steve smiles at the two of them sitting inside his box. Nat isn't going to be surprised by what he says. "A dream of Peggy," he says pointing toward the one with the red magic wafting off of it. And the other? Steve recalls, the voice of his memory echoing around the room:

'He said 'Bucky' and suddenly I was that 16 year-old from Brooklyn again...'

"My birthday with Buck."

Natasha nods. Not surprising at all. The first memory was of some of his most cherished relationships since coming out of the ice. Of course the other two would be of his relationships before going in.

"I won't make you watch them, bu you should."

"I know them." Steve smiles at Natasha, just a touch sad at the edges. "One is real. The other is a dream that could have come true. Maybe, in another world." He doesn't make a move for either of the canisters.

"I know them," he repeats for her benefit, "but you don't. It's up to you to pick which you want to see. If you want to."

"No, I don't." It's a difficult choice. She doesn't want to pick at him, pull og the scabs. The fact he seems to be comfortable with it here doesn't mean he'll feel the same when he wakes up.

On the other, she does want see. It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. She wants to know what makes Steve happy, what makes him him.

"Show me the birthday?"

It's the reel with the firework on it. Steve smiles as he picks it up and lets the sepia of the screen fade outward, coloring all the space in the theater. When it clears, they are on a roof, Steve younger and just as thin as all the pictures of him showed. Beside him is a younger Bucky and a few bottles of beer, most of them empty.

"I'm sixteen. None of the doctors thought I'd live that long. We went out to celebrate it," Steve says beside Nat as the two boys carry on drinking, heedless of them. The fireworks start and Bucky slings an arm around his shoulder to wish a sloppy, happy birthday to Steve. The younger boy grins up at his friend, cheeks red from the alcohol and the heat of the summer. He watches Bucky even with the fireworks banging in the distance. It's a long moment before he turns back, still smiling and peaceful in a way Steve almost can't remember being.

The older Steve, the ghost, walks closer, looking down at the pair of them wistfully. But even now he smiles, remembering the moment.

"It was weird," he says to the air and Nat, mostly just because of her proximity, "being the weak, sick, poor kid and being best friends with someone like Buck. I always felt grateful for it. Like I was getting away with something." He finally looks at Nat and laughs. "The nuns loved him. Warned him away from me so many times. I'd love to have seen their faces when I became Captain America."

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