worthallthis | The Last Voyages: IC Inbox

"Huh," is the soft reply, but... yeah. Yeah, that tracks. "I guess you are, then."

Which makes things extra interesting. "But you're still there? On the Barge?"

She hopes he's not still a prisoner. Sure, nine years is nothing. But it's also far, far too long. Especially for this man.

"Not still. Again." So he's not trapped here anymore. And he certainly didn't spend nine years as an inmate, no matter what he thought might happen before graduation took him by surprise. "I went home for nine years and came back four days later. It was somewhere between awful and amazing."

This Natasha probably doesn't know him as well, he has to remind himself. He had a whole year at the Avengers compound that her Bucky wouldn't have had. But it's still so good to see her.

Natasha's not the kind of person to generally show surprise, but even knowing that time travel exists, that is still a large bite to swallow. Especially when it doesn't sound like he meant for it to turn out that way.

Especially when, she admits with a small, rueful smile, "Sounds a bit backwards from the usual." Where he spends time in cryo that feels like nothing, and comes back to a world that has changed.

"So you're back. Again," she confirms, leaning a little closer to the screen. "How's it treating you so far?"

"Better than I expected. Figured I'd be starting all over. Alone with a whole new crew. But my friends are still here." And that's a big change from when Natasha was here last: he's opening admitting, talking about, having actual friends. "Mostly they're not even mad I came back."

Natasha nods, because that makes sense - planning to come back to strangers, to need to start over. In a way, she's glad it didn't happen that way, although every good thing seems to have its tradeoffs, in the end. Ideally, you just try to find a way for the pros to outweigh the cons. It's not always in your power to do that, though.

But here and now? She thinks maybe it was a mostly good thing, the way he's talking. It's good to see, like blinking and seeing a child grow up and turn out... well. Really well. It makes her smile, too, even as she asks, "Mostly?"

She wonders if there's a mutual acquaintance requiring that particular modifier.

"Well, Steve was kind of snappish at first, and my former warden shoved me around a little, but she's about fifteen and maybe this high off the ground," he holds up a hand level with the bottom of his chest, wearing a smirk that says he's clearly exaggerating. "So it's not like it did any good. But they came around. I guess Loki's still kinda pissed about something that happened nine years ago for me, which is-- a weird feeling."

Hearing that does make Natasha smile; she'd suspected Steve would be part of it, sure, but she'd also suspected he'd come around. The rest isn't surprising, either. Even Loki, honestly, if she has to be honest. How can anything really be surprising anymore, anyway?

"It definitely sounds like you've come dangerously close to building yourself a good place, there," she murmurs, and while there's teasing, there's gentleness, too.

It's good to see him just about as happy and well off as she ever has, despite everything.

"So you're a warden now, right?"

"Yeah. Crazy, right?" His own little smile is self-depricating, now. "Though I guess you might not think so, of all people." Those poor Red Room girls would probably be more forgiving of the idea than other people who knew the Winter Soldier. They only got the best parts of him, at the time-- at least until he was sent to kill them, in the end.

"I don't think so, no," is the reply, delivered with a smile. "And I can think of at least one person who probably doesn't think so, either."

You might know the guy. Big, blonde, very stubborn.

"But I guess what really matters is whether you actually think so."

B wrinkles up his nose at the subtle mention of Steve. "I mean, I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I could do some good. I'm not that selfish." He maybe worries he might be, that he was so desperate to fix the Steve problem-- and to see someplace that felt like home and people who actually wanted him around-- that he'd ignore the actual mission parameters.

But he's got rational, logical arguments why he might be able to accomplish this particular mission. So maybe it's not all being selfish.

"I never implied it would be selfish," Natasha observes, softly, because that is interesting, the way he seems to worry it might be.

"Besides," she adds, "even if it was, haven't you earned a little of that?"

He makes a face. "Maybe I've earned, I don't know, a chance to work in retail or the food industry or something. I don't think I've earned an all-expenses paid trip through space, at the cost of occasionally having to be somebody else, as an escape from the real world."

And there's the inmates. He can't just ignore them and pretend he really is here on some kind of vacation. Pretend he's just come here to feel loved and to clean up regular messes instead of supersoldier messes. He's supposed to be here to help people.

Natasha maybe lets out a very soft snort at that. "You'd look good in an apron and paper hat."

He'd look good in anything, okay.

But that's not the point.

"I've been there. I think the cost is much higher than you're making it out to be. For everyone involved."

She doesn't necessarily mean it in a bad way. It is what it is. She's not Steve - she doesn't want to upend the system. But she can see that it is a complex, weighty thing. "I think if it's where you want to be, then you should be there."

"Yeah, okay, I'm down-playing it. There's some shitty stuff about the Barge, I know. Just." He sighs, bumps his head back against the bed-frame couch behind him. Yes, he's on the floor of his cabin. "I can't be here for me. That's not fair to the inmates, you know? Am I here because I really want to help them? Or am I just here because this is the only home I got left, and I was too tired to try and make a new one out in the world?"

Maybe it's because Natasha's been somewhere he's been. Maybe it's because she's not here and she's probably not going to go tattle to Steve or Godric or Ellie. Maybe it's because it's Natasha, who, in his timeline, he'd gotten close to. Like a sister. Maybe it's because she's dead. But he doesn't think there's anyone else he could have really said that to, right now.

She's silent for a moment, turning those words over for a moment. Considering exactly what he's let her see, by uttering them.

It's not her place to judge him. But if it were... she'd be favorable in her ruling.

"Why does it have to be one or the other, though?" she finally asks. "Sometimes... things just end up being mutually beneficial. That doesn't make them less valid than if they weren't."

It's sort of like her and SHIELD - well. The right side of SHIELD. Fury and Clint. Steve. That had been good for her, and at the same time, she'd been trying to do good. One just came hand in hand with the other.

She thinks this might fall along similar lines for him. "Just because it's the right path doesn't mean it needs to be the hard one. Or the self-sacrificing one. That's Steve talk, and Steve's sort of an idiot sometimes."

That is said fondly. She thinks he might have been learning. Slowly. But the world ripped the rug out from under their feet, and everything's turned around.

Maybe soon it will be better. She hopes.

"Yeah, sometimes he is." He's quiet a moment, looking off-screen, not sure how to reconcile Sam's "be of service" with his own cowardice, being back here. Trying to reconcile the fact that he's missed her, too, and she's not here to hug or to take on Dogma's obstacle course or shove exchange eyerolls with.

Maybe his deal will change things for her, too. Who knows how much his deal will change? It'll be a different world from the ground up, with any luck.

Probably not going to change anything for this Natasha, though. Different universes. "Natasha. Do you want to know what happens?" he asks finally. "In the future? Or would you rather not know?"

That's maybe not quite a question she was prepared for - even if maybe she should have been. It leaves her silent for a moment, watching him, as if she's trying to discern whether it's good or bad news, just from watching his face. His tics. His lack of them.

But then she seems to realize she's doing it, and she sighs. "I feel like I should say yes," she finally admits, quietly. "But I think the real answer is no."

Knowing is a burden that she isn't sure she can live under. For better or for worse.

"Unless you genuinely think there's something I need to know," she adds. "But I don't think you'd ask, if that was the case." And even then, "I think I need to make my own decisions. I can't let something else make them for me."

He nods soberly, taking in her face again, now that he's asked. He might never see it again. "And I won't take anyone's choices from them," he agrees. "Not ever. I just. Wanted to ask."

He pauses, then adds, "I told Steve a little. Not much, but a little."

"I know," she says softly, gently, even. She does. Not him. Not after what he's been through.

Of course, she's just as unsurprised to find that he's told Steve some. That Steve was willing to listen. "He'd have told you yes," she murmurs, with a wry little smile. "Maybe just to buck whatever happened if he didn't like the outcome."

Again, she does feel that pang, that want to know - but it's easier to suppress than it had been even a moment ago. You never know what's going to happen. You're not supposed to know.

"Whatever did happen, I'm glad you came out the other side of it."

"He needs hope," is what B says, a little wearily. But that's all he'll say, the closest thing to a hint he'll give, since Natasha hadn't wanted to know. God, he can't even tell her he misses her, because that would be another hint. A strong one.

He can't even say that he's necessarily glad he made it out the other side. The smile he brings up is pretty pathetic, and he says, "I wish you were here. In my timeline. With the changes I made. We're pretty good friends, you know."

That's maybe the truest phrase she's heard about Steve in a while. "He does," she agrees, and is fine with leaving it at that. After all, if Steve has hope, then he can pass it along to the rest of them. That's sort of how it works, really.

She smiles at that, though. "Are we? That sounds - nice, actually." It does. She can even imagine it. She probably shouldn't, not until this is over and dealt with, but hey. It's food for thought.

And so is the idea of being there. "I think I have to give here a chance, first," she finally decides, eyes on his. There's a plan, and there's a mission. But if it doesn't go well... maybe she always likes having a key to some back door in her pocket.

"But you never know. This is twice, we've talked now. Maybe the third time'll be the charm."

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