IC Voicemail, Driftfleet:

[tothefly]

[There is no recording, just a few clicks and a beep.]

[Leave any IC voice messages or texts for Natasha here.]

Comments

text;

[redactions]

He's gone.

Re: text;

[tothefly]

I know.

[Wanting something to not be true rarely prevents it from being so. Still--]

Went by his ship this morning. Do you know when?

text;

[redactions]

Does it matter?

[ A day, a few hours, both lead to the same conclusion. Jim rubs at his nose, and he sends her coordinates on the station for a location. A small, seedy dive. ]

Re: text;

[tothefly]

[The end result is the same. Hurts a little more than she was expecting, if she'd been expecting it at all. But every bit of data was data.]

[So she meets him there, in this place where no one looks at them twice, sliding up next to him with a grace belied by the tightness in her shoulders. She doesn't say anything. Just makes sure they each have a drink, that there's space enough to talk.]

Tell me.

text;

[redactions]

[ He drops his arm to the edge of her chair, and leans into her space. She looks at him like she wants his story, when she has all the pieces. Long ago he learnt what weariness was and how it bled out from the cracks in his soul. He doesn't want to wear a mask in front of her. He doesn't want to be stuck between two men who are both empty. ]

What do you want to know?

Re: text;

[tothefly]

[She make her choices carefully, even now. Even with a sudden absence, the tide of loss, even beneath the cover of anonymity, she considers appearances and actions before she chooses.

But then, there's only one choice to be made, here. He leans into her space, and she leans back at him, choosing contact over isolation.]

The purpose of the universe. But I'll settle for whatever you're thinking right now that you can't tell the others.

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[redactions]

[ The similarities still throw him. Every time he tries not to see Nat — well. There she is. ]

I don't do so well with grief. I was always — ready to lose him, but [ he sighs quietly, and sips. ] I guess I wasn't.

Re: action;

[tothefly]

[He has it worse, she knows; she's always ready to lose someone, anyone, here. No way of telling who's staying, who's going, who's arriving next. But she has managed to learn over the course of her time with the Fleet that she can't keep herself totally detached from everyone to stay safe. There's no running away, not from this. They've screwed around inside of her head, and if she's gonna be stuck here she's gonna use her time to tear them apart. Steve, and what this is doing to Jim--that's just one more reason.

Maybe that, and this, make her more like that other Natasha than she thinks, but then she thinks now that maybe having some things in common isn't a bad thing, after all.]

You can always expect loss, but that doesn't mean you're ready for it. Especially not with someone like Steve. He's got a certain...presence.

[She feels it, too, she doesn't say. But then, she doesn't need to.]