Log - Early/mid-June

[musicdied]

Who: Yelena and open
When: June 9-15
Where: ADI headquarters and housing, around Gloucester
Summary: Preparing to part ways.
Warnings: N/A

Headquarters
The dust settles surprisingly quickly, all things considered. It doesn't take much longer for Yelena's desk in the investigations department to...not quite empty, exactly. Her terminal is still there, the files she's been working on, a slim stack of research material. It's the personal items that vanish, the amusing mugs, the sweater she's kept draped over her chair, the little plastic dinosaur statue, the carefully kept notes.

For a little while, at least, she's still there - her reports continue, she remains a presence in the training gym, she eats the occasional meal in the cafeteria. If she's a little distant with most people, less quick to crack a joke or share a theory, well. She's hardly the only one.

Housing
At home - at what has been home for nearly two years now - the change in her demeanor isn't nearly as pronounced. She's still willing to joke and gossip with her roommates, and pull out a film for movie night. But here, her preparations are more obvious. Bit by bit, her belongings vanish into cheap plastic totes, neatly organized. She doesn't even need those - there's a duffle in her closet, packed with everything she absolutely requires.

She may intend to stay long enough to see to it that Zyrian Steel never has the chance to use another young girl as a cat's paw. She's prepared to vanish in a heartbeat, if she needs to.

Around Town
It's possible, now and then, to find her in a coffee shop, reviewing notes or photos - of aging buildings, mostly - over a cup of black coffee. It's possible, more rarely, to find her standing at the edge of the churchyard that once held an Eye cult, frowning to herself, apparently lost in thought, or prowling the perimeter of Dogtown.

Searching for more roaming signal towers, maybe. It's hard to trust that they're truly gone.

Comments

Around Town

[punched_hitler]

Steve seeks out Yelena off campus, as it were - it just feels better to talk on completely non-ADI-controlled ground, he figures, stepping up beside her table with his own cup of black coffee in hand. He's pretty sure they're thinking along the same lines, and he's talked to Winter some, but it'd be nice to have an actual conversation with her, now that ADI has decided its path forward and Steve's sure she doesn't like it any more than he does.

"Hey," he says, "mind some company?"

[musicdied]

"What if I said that I did?" Yelena asks, though it's apparently more out of idle curiosity than any intent to actually turn him away - at least, she follows it up by flipping her notebook closed and nudging the seat across from her out with the toe of one booted foot.

[punched_hitler]

"I'd probably leave you alone," he decides, lips twitching up a little as he sees that seat move a little, and reaches out to pull it out the rest of the way so he can sit. "But I'd just come back later."

He sets his drink on the table and looks at her for a minute, smile not entirely gone, but definitely a bit more subdued. Even wry. "I think we have a lot to talk about."

[musicdied]

She makes a small sound that only bears a passing resemblance to a laugh, and picks up her coffee to take a sip.

"Yes," she says, after a few seconds of silence. "I expect that we do."

[punched_hitler]

Steve nods. He waits a moment, but only a moment, before he jumps right in: "I definitely don't want to stay. I don't want to leave the world to burn, but I don't want to follow where ADI is going."

[musicdied]

"I think the next time someone implies that staying with ADI is the only way to fight, or even the best way to fight, I am going to punch them in the throat," Yelena says. Pleasantly, like she's commenting on a book she's read.

[punched_hitler]

Steve can't help but smile at that. "Well, if you do, I'd be happy to, what do they say. Hold your beer?"

He leans back in his chair, though he's not really relaxed. "I hate how ADI has so many of them under its thumb." His voice is quiet; he's going for the same kind of pleasant tone, but he definitely doesn't have her skill with that kind of thing. It sounds marginally casual, at best.

[musicdied]

One corner of Yelena's mouth ticks upward in a wry little smile. "They have worked very hard at keeping people dependent. Even before we learned what was at the heart of it, it was very much like a cult."

[punched_hitler]

"Yeah. It sure does feel like a cult, doesn't it." And he hates it.

"But I don't want to fight our own people, if we can help it." They can't force people to leave, and even though he's sure their paths will cross, he hopes it's at least with the same goals in mind.

He sighs. "Can I ask - do you... did you. Ever think they would find a way to send us back?"

He knows Winter never seemed to. He's curious how Yelena feels.

[musicdied]

Yelena considers him for a long moment, then snorts quietly. "I think this is a conversation that needs something stronger than coffee," she says.

Fortunately, she believes in coming prepared. Her hand dips into her bag, producing a small, battered silver flask. She unscrews the lid and tips a measure of whisky into her coffee, then holds the flask out to Steve, eyebrows lifting slightly.

[punched_hitler]

Steve lets out a soft little bark of laughter, but he immediately pulls the lid off his cup and holds it out for Yelena to dole out a dose for himself.

It's frustrating, losing the serum, but there is some small amount of compensation, he supposes.

"Sorry," he adds, though his wry, lopsided smile says he's only a little sorry. "That's me, asking the questions that require the strong stuff to answer."

[musicdied]

She pours a measure of whisky into his cup as well, then caps the flask and tucks it away again.

"I let myself hope, for the first couple of weeks," she admits. "That there would be a way back, or that this would all turn out to be a very bad, very stupid dream. But believe? No, not really. Especially once I started to understand how things work here."

[punched_hitler]

He nods. "When I got here, Winter seemed so very sure there was no way back. And I - I was so very sure there was."

He frowns, swirls his cup gently, takes a long, slow sip.

"It was really important, that I get back. Now, it's - I know something happened to me. I lost something. But I've also gained some things. And it feels less important."

It scares him... and it doesn't. All at once.

[musicdied]

"I think more of us are missing pieces than aren't, at this point," Yelena says quietly.

She leans back in her chair, fingers lacing loosely around her cup. "Does this mean you're looking to make long-term plans, and not just - a stopgap, until you can find the right door?"

[punched_hitler]

That's sure as hell true, isn't it.

"Yes," he says, quiet, but sure. There's no hesitation. "I - I can't say that if some way back presents itself... I don't know if my not going back is going to cause problems."

That's putting it mildly; but honestly, in a lot of ways? He'd ended up here from the least problematic timeframe he could've been pulled from. Sure, Mjolnir is an issue, but the soul stone...

If he has to live with the guilt of not even trying to barter it back for Natasha's life... well. Then that's his guilt to carry, and he will. He doesn't even know if it would have worked. And whatever he had been going to do, after it was all done - that's the part that's gone.

So: "But I can't plan on that happening. This is where I am, and this is where I will make my home. With Winter. And with you, and with whoever will join us. And we will try to save this place because we and it and all the people here are worth saving. And if we can't - then we will make lives here and do the most good we can."

He's done that before. He can do it again.

[musicdied]

She blinks at him for a moment, then laughs, sharp and startled.

"I'm not the girl you ask to help save people," she says. "Stop a threat, maybe. Or root one out."

[punched_hitler]

Steve just raises one eyebrow and takes another sip.

"Funny, that sounds like saving people in my book."

[musicdied]

Yelena shakes her head at that, and finally picks up her cup to take a long swallow.

"That depends very much on when you take the shot. And why. That's true everywhere, but especially here - what we're facing now is proof of that."

[punched_hitler]

She's not wrong.

But still, "We do the best we can do. On our own - we might do even better. Considering."

No, they won't have a coordinated effort. But they won't be working for an avatar. Or with people who won't give them the whole story. They can just react to bad situations, which is admittedly his forte, if not hers.

But if she can root out threats, or at least find out about them... hey. Teamwork is a wonderful thing.

[musicdied]

"We might," she allows. They will not, at least, be sacrificing the threats they target to, ultimately, feed the Hunt. That on its own would be a significant improvement.

"But I'm not so sure we will be able to do it here."

[punched_hitler]

She gets a one-shouldered shrug. "Won't know until we try," he points out, maybe a little aware that he sounds like an optimistic broken record, which is kind of funny, really, but he does believe it.

They have an advantage, knowing how to deal with the impossible. And they owe it to this world to try. He knows Yelena may not feel that way, and yet he doesn't doubt that she'll step up. Maybe him believing in her will be enough to let that happen.

"After all, I don't think I know how to live a quiet life." It's rueful, the way he says it - but also true.

[musicdied]

"Do any of us?" she asks. Acknowledges, really, despite the upward lilt that makes it, at least tonally, a question. "The last time my life even pretended to be normal, I was six."

[punched_hitler]

"If we did, we wouldn't be in this business," he agrees; in some ways, he's glad for it. Glad for people who understand.

Even if he can be sad about it, too.

"Normal's overrated. Most of the time," he adds, taking a long sip of spiked coffee. "But I still think we can find something good. Good enough. And I want to make sure it's not just us."

He still wants to get other people out. "I've been trying to figure out how ADI does it. Let people pass." As human, he doesn't say. "So we can do it for them, too."

[musicdied]

Yelena's head cants slightly, expression shading thoughtful. "If we're lucky, it will be a thing," she says. "Like the poem they made us all read when we got here."

The poem she still suspects, deep down in the most distrustful corners of her heart, might be the real reason they seem to be targetted by horrors when they strain their leash too far.

"No one has said anything about something being done to them, at least."

[punched_hitler]

This is where Steve starts looking grim, though.

"I don't think it's a thing," he says, even more quietly than before. "Or, if it is... it's a thing that's powered by a person. With powers. But all I've got are strong suspicions, at this point. I'm still digging around."