Natasha Romanoff (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iwasrussian) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
iterumrp2023-07-01 07:21 pm
iwasrussian) wrote in iterumrp2023-07-01 07:21 pm
Entry tags:
here we go again
Who: Natasha and OPEN!
What: Getting settled
When: First week after returning
Where: Various
Warnings: Will update
It was like déjà vu, only of another world and not her own, though she knew exactly what the fate of her outcome was there. Now she was caught in some kind of middle plane that no one quite knew a lot about. Even the ones who'd been there years and before that somewhere else that had all of the same uncanny similarities.
Natasha woke up in her old suite at Magnolia and found the basket at the end of the kitchen island. In it were the same items from home and the same invitation to a party at the Tower. Everything was so damn reminiscent of the last time she had arrived that she had to look at the date on her phone to understand why she felt so unsettled. And that's when she saw it. The date. Last she remembered, it was February. Now it was July 1st.
So, where the hell did five months go?
She spends her first week passing through each of the districts, refamiliarizing herself and taking note of what was still there and what wasn't, all the while keeping an eye out for a certain Atlantean King who she steadily lost faith would be returning as days wore on. But, she spent time at the shoreline down at the end of Chicory Way where she had her modest-sized bungalow kept waiting for her.
In the second half of the week, Natasha connects with other Chosen and willingly engages with anyone she remembers or with those who look slightly out of sorts. If she's not dining in at one of the various restaurants or stops in to grab a drink at The Blind Beggar or The Lounge.
What: Getting settled
When: First week after returning
Where: Various
Warnings: Will update
It was like déjà vu, only of another world and not her own, though she knew exactly what the fate of her outcome was there. Now she was caught in some kind of middle plane that no one quite knew a lot about. Even the ones who'd been there years and before that somewhere else that had all of the same uncanny similarities.
Natasha woke up in her old suite at Magnolia and found the basket at the end of the kitchen island. In it were the same items from home and the same invitation to a party at the Tower. Everything was so damn reminiscent of the last time she had arrived that she had to look at the date on her phone to understand why she felt so unsettled. And that's when she saw it. The date. Last she remembered, it was February. Now it was July 1st.
So, where the hell did five months go?
She spends her first week passing through each of the districts, refamiliarizing herself and taking note of what was still there and what wasn't, all the while keeping an eye out for a certain Atlantean King who she steadily lost faith would be returning as days wore on. But, she spent time at the shoreline down at the end of Chicory Way where she had her modest-sized bungalow kept waiting for her.
In the second half of the week, Natasha connects with other Chosen and willingly engages with anyone she remembers or with those who look slightly out of sorts. If she's not dining in at one of the various restaurants or stops in to grab a drink at The Blind Beggar or The Lounge.
no subject
"Don't-" he starts, still clutching the balanced handle of the knife out of sight, and he doesn't actually know where to take the rest of that sentence. Don't give me hope is what he thinks. The hope that she might actually be here. Alive. Unharmed. That he can touch her again. Have entire silent conversations in only facial expressions to the bafflement of everyone else. Sit on some empty boxes in a shitty warehouse with some stale pizza. Crash at a safehouse to mend some wounds and fall asleep against each other watching soaps.
What if it's not her? Is any of this even truly real? Better question: what if it is her?
The hell is he supposed to do about that but feel healing scars splitting back open?
He takes a breath, shaky and wet, and tightens his mouth into something that would be a fair approximation of a cocky smile under better circumstances instead of something in deep pain. Rework the sentiment. Into anything else, fuck, anything else.
"Don't pretend like me crashing a party ever made your day better."
no subject
The remark has her breathing out a laugh, stifled and mixed with the threat of bursting into a sob. How can she know for sure that he's real? That this is some way the City's doing in order to invoke those feelings that it feeds off of so readily? She's barely been there a full day and she's hoping for this to be real, even if it means it's likely without his family. The very same one she wouldn't let him sacrifice himself for.
"Right," she playfully nods. "Because your party of one is so much more fun than mine. I gotta admit though, you do have the better view."
Natasha closes the distance a little more and stops in a patch illuminated by a nearby floodlight. She's within arm's length now and no longer has to raise her voice to be heard. So, she reaches out a hand for him to take, hoping he will.
Needing him to.
no subject
It's not the only way for him to be sure. But it's the way that immediately presents itself and will take care of most of the doubt in an instant. She offers a hand. She reaches out to him in a way that, if nothing else, this tells him that she knows. She has to know, what she did, why she did it. She must know, then, why her existence here rattles him so much.
Are they both dead? Is this what happens?
His hand lets go of the death grip on the knife and, tentatively, slides out to meet hers. It feels like it takes a year. It feels like it takes five.
Her hand is as warm and solid and familiar as it ever was when she was alive, and he grips tight, almost as tight as his chest squeezing fit to burst with love and pain and grief and joy. He pulls her the rest of the way in for a hug, because if he doesn't get his arms around her in the next two seconds, he really might just explode.
no subject
Natasha lets go of a breath she'd been holding, marking how relieved she is to see him again. Even after protesting as hard as he did to be the one, she knows grieving her was the second hardest thing he's ever had to do apart from grieving the disappearance of his family. That was a hole too big to recover from. But he'd gotten them back. Steve had told her they were successful and she could only imagine how happy the reunion with Laura, and the kids was for Clint.
She clings to him harder, blinking back tears that land on his shoulder. "I've missed you so much." Her voice is small, cracking halfway through. She can't hold that truth from him and even if she tried, he'd be able to hear it anyway.
no subject
Laura, the kids, the surviving Avengers.
Yelena.
The world doesn't mourn the Black Widow the way it mourns the Iron Man, but some people do. He's seen it, in small ways, not big colorful works of graffiti art, but smaller outpourings of love. And she would have hated it if she had gotten the same attention, the same recognition. It's easier on him, in some ways, so he doesn't have to see her face everywhere he goes, but sometimes it's quietly upsetting that their souls aren't weighed the same in the eyes of the world.
But she is missed nevertheless.
There are a lot of questions. And a lot of things that need said. But the most important thing is happening right now, holding her close, trying not to cry and failing that impossible task. Holding her the way she wouldn't allow him to hold on before. He can't let her slip away this time.
no subject
Natasha holds on tighter like her life depends on it yet again. Only this time instead of telling him 'it's okay' and to 'let go', she conveys the opposite now; to not let go now or ever again for that matter. The City is fickle and she knows nothing lasts for any length of time. He's here now, but she's lost too many friends to know that he might one day leave, too.
After what feels like too long, she finally pulls away enough to look at his face and without putting thought into it, she reaches up a hand and presses it to his cheek warmly, leaving it there to remind herself that he's really here.
"When did you arrive?" she asks, slipping her hand to his shoulder.
no subject
"Figured I'd get the lay here." Hence up. Out of sight, out of mind, unnoticed. Except those who know to look.
Should he ask her the same thing? Would the answer really matter? Is 'when' applicable to the dead? Which...shit, he really has to ask, doesn't he? Because it wouldn't be the craziest thing, though might be near it.
He licks his lips. "Nat, are we both...?" There's a cough of a laugh punched out of him. "If this is an afterlife, I was kinda hoping for something a little more glamorous."
no subject
So much for silver linings.
Natasha sweeps away the wetness with her thumb across his cheek and lowers her hand to his shoulder. She shakes her head. Not because the answer is a grim one, but because she doesn't honestly know.
"I don't think so," she answers. "I remember falling but it was like the half second before I actually died, I ended up here."
Her lips press together.
"Did something happen to you before you got here?" she questions next, her tone a little more animated than seconds before while eyes search his for the answer before he has a chance to tell her.
If he'd die, even despite her sacrifice, she wouldn't know what to do with herself.
no subject
"Nothing that I remember. Hopefully I didn't have a heart attack in my sleep. Always figured I'd go out in a much louder, way stupider way." Always figured he'd die on the job, and somehow, decades later, he's still here. Someone up there likes him, maybe a little too much.
Besides. Who knows if it's different for someone whose soul was made a sacrifice?
"I feel pretty alive. So do you." And she shouldn't. It doesn't surprise him that she thinks she's from before death, because it was instantaneous. She probably didn't even feel the impact, didn't have time to register anything like that. He couldn't get her body--
Under the circumstances, it's impossible to steer his thoughts from Vormir, but what he needs to focus on is right in front of him. She's warm. Alive for whatever that means here and now.
no subject
For the sake of him and that whole thing, Natasha wants to move on to other topics, though she's pretty sure it's easier said than done,
"Seems that way, yeah," she nods, letting a beat pass before taking in a breath. "You got a place nearby that we can go to and talk?"
As much as she doesn't want to take him away from his vantage point, anything that's more than a few stories is something Natasha has been steering clear of.
no subject
"Whether it's safe to talk there or not is up in the air." Since he doesn't trust shit for shit here. But maybe somewhere that isn't the top of some building might be better. Given the past several years of their lives back home, the idea of Clint being slotted into the more wrathful district probably doesn't come as any particular shock.