Natasha Romanoff (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fallaces_sunt) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ten_fwd2014-06-03 12:11 pm
fallaces_sunt) wrote in ten_fwd2014-06-03 12:11 pm
Entry tags:
Deck Eleven: Holodeck Two (Volga River, circa 1930s)
This is not the smartest idea she's ever had. The library is open; she could be reading, reading just about anything she'd like. She could be in the gym working the edge off her tension. Hell, she could turn this holodeck into a gym that she's familiar with. Test out her ability to actually handle the fake reality with something safe and mundane.
That would be sensible.
Instead, Natasha is sitting on a low pier on the west bank of the Volga River, her slacks rolled up to her knees as she dangles her toes in the water and very carefully monitors her unease.
It's late spring, a vague point in the 1930s. The only people are those working on the occasional cargo ship as they travel up and down the broad expanse of the river, but there are plenty of birds. Location, just south enough from Volgograd that she can't see it.
This might not be the smartest idea she's ever had, but she knows better than to actually go to her hometown. And at least she's got a copy of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories to keep her company.
[OOC: As per normal Trek holodeck set-ups, anyone can walk in as long as they don't mind entering in mid-program.
Open until I say otherwise! :-) ]
That would be sensible.
Instead, Natasha is sitting on a low pier on the west bank of the Volga River, her slacks rolled up to her knees as she dangles her toes in the water and very carefully monitors her unease.
It's late spring, a vague point in the 1930s. The only people are those working on the occasional cargo ship as they travel up and down the broad expanse of the river, but there are plenty of birds. Location, just south enough from Volgograd that she can't see it.
This might not be the smartest idea she's ever had, but she knows better than to actually go to her hometown. And at least she's got a copy of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories to keep her company.
[OOC: As per normal Trek holodeck set-ups, anyone can walk in as long as they don't mind entering in mid-program.
Open until I say otherwise! :-) ]
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Don't argue with the lady, Steve.
He takes his hands out of his pockets and sits on the edge of the pier. He has to scoot back a little further than what is comfortable to keep his shoes from getting wet.
"You grew up here?" he asks, but it's not much of a question. "It's nice. Looks peaceful."
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The expression is wistful, and a bit amused.
"It's peaceful at the moment. It can get really busy with the ships, and when summer hits, you get all the-" Party officials with their yachts, except no. Not in the 21st century. "All the yachts, and sometimes planes on the other side. Parachuting clubs. I-
My parents' dacha, uh, 'summer house'? It was a bit further south. And the house was a two-room hut. But it was nice for vacations."
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"Wow. Parachuting clubs?" He twists a smile. "Sounds like it's a little less peaceful than I thought. But, uh, I guess that depends on what you're used to. I can't sleep at night without a window cracked so I can hear the street noise. Growing up back in Brooklyn, there was always noise, night or day. And the river closest to me was always busy, but that's where the Navy Yard was, too."
He hesitates, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. He half expects Nat will scold him for not locking his windows at night, but he figures he's probably not telling her anything she doesn't already know. "Dacha. That sounds nice, even if you didn't have room for all your jet skis and beach gear."
He's teasing. The apartment he's in now back in D.C. is bigger than anywhere he's ever lived before. It's not the space that matters, but the people who fill it.
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"I remember, it was always an adjustment when I was kid. Living in an apartment block in a big city, to out here in summer."
She runs her fingers along the wood of the pier, not nervous but thoughtful.
"You could recreate Brooklyn, you know? Here in this room. Would you?"
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She snaps him out of his reverie. He turns his head and looks at her for a long moment, then casts his gaze out over the river. He hadn't really thought about it. Everything that's happened over the last several weeks has had him on edge; thinking about recreation was more of a strategic curiosity than a personal indulgence. He wants to know how the ship operates. But home...
"Not sure I could get all the details right," he finally says, voice even. Something would always be missing; something would always be off. It wouldn't be his Brooklyn without his old neighborhood, and while he remembers all the names and faces like it was yesterday, it wouldn't really be them, would it? And what's home without the people? "And there would be a few people missing."
He rubs his brow and glances at his knees, one quick crack in his resolve before he pulls it together and looks back at her, smile faint.
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But it'd be useful for training exercises."
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"Training exercises," he repeats, bobbing his head. "Brings whole new meaning to 'bringing the fight back home'."
He's growing to appreciate how her mind works. When it comes to the mission, her focus is unmatched. She's always thinking about the advantage three steps ahead of her opponent, always keeping the team on their toes, and that's good. Necessary, even. Steve's been learning a lot. But sometimes... well, home is home. And those memories, those people, are things he carries deep down where no one else can touch them. A lot of the time, they were the only things that kept him going through the war.
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She thinks of anything being set in Stalingrad - Stalingrad, not Volgograd - and her mouth flattens.
She thinks of leaving her meaning that unclear without meaning to, and her mouth flattens even more.
"Unless you think we're doing to be running into nefarious time-travellers, anyway."
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He shakes his head a little, shucking off thoughts of home and broken sidewalk and the smell of pepperoni, his mother's laugh and Bucky's sharp smirk. He takes a breath and looks around again, this time trying to find the edges of the room.
"Yeah, I actually forgot where we were for a minute," he muses. "The, uh, 'programs' seem to expand the dimensions of the room. There's a lot of space to move around out here."
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Pause. This is the kind of pause he may have come familiar with, the speculative devil-may-care one.
"What to try and find the edge of it?"
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"Want to go for a run?" Their words overlap, and Steve breaks into a grin. "It's a nice day to take in the Russian countryside."
He gets to his feet and holds out his hand to help her up. "Anything I should know about? Have you programmed in surprise aliens or ninja attacks?"
OK, that's because he's grown to understand his partner's peculiarities.
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"No ninjas. Or aliens. Or pirates. Just the occasional plane."
A plane which even the sound of it would tell him that they really, really aren't in their normal decade.
"About the planes...Before you ask, we're in a facsimile of 1936."
no subject
He finds he's not all that surprised. Something felt off about the scenery, but it's not until she tells him what it is that it all clicks.
"1936?" he repeats, looking across the river one more time. "Any particular reason?"
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I thought I'd test it with something I knew."
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He dusts away dirt and splinters from pushing off the dock, digging through those unwavering eyes of hers for any intel she might be gracious enough to let a guy like Steve steal.
"And 1936 felt like just yesterday?" he asks.
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She smiles, the expression very faint. But underneath her almost cool neutrality, she's nervous - about his reaction, about trusting him this much.
And she's letting him pick it up.
"Some days it does. Mostly, it feels like it's been a very, very long time since I was a little girl."
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It's the only thing he says for several seconds.
He's watching her, brow beetled. It makes him look severe, but right now he's just trying to come to grips with what she's just told him.
He doesn't ask her. He doesn't have to. He knows exactly what she's saying, and if she's half as good as she says she is, she knows he understands. There is one question she can't scoot by, however.
"How?"
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She sighs, and glances to the side for a long moment. Then she looks back at him.
"It's why I heal faster than you. And I don't age. Or, at least I haven't so far."
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He always knew it could be a possibility, but it's almost like a personal slight knowing someone else has tried to continue Erskine's work. Besides his affection for the man, he knows firsthand how wrong things can go if the conditions aren't absolutely right.
But Natasha knows that, too.
"I had wondered," he says, quiet. "You took some pretty hard hits in New York."
He's really not sure what to say to her. He's upset. It's been two years and SHIELD still treats him like a backwater poster boy, just a friendly face to slap on all the questionable things they do. Nat's his partner, and partners should be able to trust each other. They should at least be able to talk to each other.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asks, some of that hurt bleeding through.
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"I am telling you," she says at last. "But I had to trust you first."
There is a faint emphasis on the second 'I'; Natasha had to trust him, not SHIELD.
There is a flicker of a smile. "You're still technically older than me."
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"We've been partners almost two years, and you're only now trusting me?" he says. He's got this way of sounding perfectly level and supremely disappointed at the same time. "There were times you could've said something, Nat."
He picks up on the teasing, but stubbornly holds his ground. The idea that Nat couldn't trust him with this before now makes him feel like a grade-A dunce. He really thought they were further along than that.
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She bites back her temper, or tries to.
"You know where I live. There are people I've worked with for years who don't know that much. But you do. "
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"How old?" There's a shift in his voice. It's still low, but now there's a hint of something like levity. "You said I'm still older than you, so how old are you?"
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The only thing her ID is wrong about is the year.
This is the dangerous thing about truth, the way when she's being honest there is always the desire to say everything. She keeps the rest of it firmly behind her teeth: the other dangerous thing about truth is that when other people know, they actually know about it.
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"Who else knows?" he asks next. His personal feelings aside, he respects his partner's privacy. Even if it doesn't matter up here (blanket tactics: pretend like nobody knows anything, and everything is normal), when they do get back Steve wants to know who he has to watch himself around, and who else is in the know.
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