[ in some ways it's odd that andy is lingering, given her preferred follow up to collateral sex is to leave, but she's stuck on this ship anyway. might as well enjoy the company she knows she already does. ]
[ andy replies in french, though she doesn't realize it till about halfway through. hers is good too, a level of fluency that comes from centuries of using it and decades with booker. ]
[ she does not want to think about booker. ]
It used to be more of a common language than English.
[ she switches between the languages as seamlessly as natasha, though again she doesn't wholly make the choice to. she's used to just reflecting on what's around her. ]
Maybe not the Algerians. [ they're done having sex, she doesn't need to be charming. ]
Don't think there's anyone left who knows any Arabic anymore, so it'd definitely fit the bill.
[ she is going to miss joe. that much is true, no matter how or when they part. ultimately andy knows she will see him again, but he was a solid comfort here. especially when it came to the situation on ciraiwei. ]
I said it was garbage. I didn't say I don't know any.
[Teasing, though mostly herself. It's strange admitting a weakness, even if it's largely immaterial.
Natasha has made a whole lifestyle out of not showing weakness. Acting like she knows everything, all the time, when she really knows just enough to keep up the front.
Her fingers walk up Andy's abs idly.]
But that's a pretty good reason to learn more. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to impress someone with it down the line?
[ she grins, the kind of expression that would normally precede a laugh. ] Should I have specified outside this room?
[ the soft touch is a surprisingly welcome one, for a woman who wanted to run away from everything at the start of this evening. in some ways, she still does, but natasha's fingertips are grounding. ]
If I start speaking it exclusively, you're bound to improve. Immersion is the easiest.
Just making sure we're clear on the exact level of shit it is.
[A bit playfully, pretending not to notice what she's doing with her hands.
Natasha is usually one to leave by now, shower and find her own bed. But it would appear that despite being a spy, Natasha isn't immune to the charms of a post-coital chat.]
I assume you're speaking from experience. Just wash up on some island and now you're learning English or Japanese.
[ andy is aware of the touch but also not. it's just part of the moment, her mind definitely more scattered than usual tonight. ]
[ in her current state, she might also have preferred leaving and moving on. that had been the point of reaching out to natasha in the first place - a round of fucking then disappearing. but this comforts her too. ]
You have to be around people using it to keep using it with fluency. My best Arabic is Derja now because I always have Joe, and I don't want him to lose it. [ a beat. ] It definitely helps that I'm well-traveled.
I find that the more languages you know, the easier it is to learn more. Probably because you already know similar languages—if you already speak Italian, Spanish and Romania, Portuguese gets pretty easy.
[There's a reason her handlers and teachers had started her with Latin.]
But you also learn how to learn languages.
[If that makes sense.]
At this rate, my Romanian might be a little sad too.
[ she hums idly in agreement. ] There are patterns you pick up on the more you know. It does make it easier.
[ she closes her eyes again, against the feeling of natasha's hand. ] I was alive through Latin's evolution, and I could see the pieces of it in the others as they grew. It was the same for the Iranian languages, even though so many of the old ones have died out now.
Ossetian is probably the closest to Scythian that's left.
Now that's one I don't know. I can manage to get around in Iran with Farsi and Kurdish, but... not where I was expected to be deployed.
[Natasha's expression softens, once again struck by the vastness of Andy's life. Whole languages have come and gone. Not just shifted, not just the change from old to modern English, which in and of itself would be immense but Natasha could wrap her mind around that scale.
But Latin came and went.]
Do you think you'd recognize it, if you heard it again?
I like Farsi. But Ossetian is... different. [ she says it fondly, as much as she can have a fondness for languages. ]
I still remember some Scythian. [ she wonders, briefly, if quỳnh would when this is all finished, if andy manages to get her freed. she had clung to it fiercely for andy, much as she does the same for her brothers' languages. ]
But I couldn't tell you anything about my first language. [ and the admission has her feeling every bit her age again, every line of fatigue in each ancient muscle. ] I don't even think it had a name.
[Natasha's fingers ghost along Andy's collarbone, then going still. She licks her lips, wondering if she shouldn't have left sooner, but she can't say she wants to leave now or that she wishes she weren't here.]
I'm sorry. That must be... I don't know.
[She's been about to say hard, but that seemed like such a platitude in the face of so much loss. She struggles briefly to find something to say that's less shallow, but how can she understand that much time?]
I don't remember my people either. [She tries after her pause, attempting for reciprocity, even if she can't offer sympathy.] Not for the same reason, though. The people who—who trained me took me from my family when I was an infant. I grew up thinking I'd been abandoned. I only found out later that they'd killed my mother and paid off my family. Whoever they were.
[There was no way to know now, no records. The weight of that admission weighs on Natasha and she drops her gaze, wondering if it would have been better not to bring herself into this at all.]
I don't know what it's like to have something like that and lose it, but I suppose... I do understand how it feels not to have a place in the world. Not being able to remember where you're really from.
[And she really is sorry. No one should have to live like that, not for so long.]
[ her eyes are closed as natasha's hand stills, as she offers that sympathy, as she suddenly opens up about her own childhood losses. it makes her feel connected, which is perhaps something she hadn't realized she needed again. she feels a little less inclined to run for the hills. ]
[ unmoored women. it's definitely how andy feels right now, half the reason she sought out natasha for the sex, for that distraction from the listlessness of longevity. ]
I don't remember my mother. I had sisters too. They're just shapes now, sometimes feelings. Knowing it's there and it existed but being unable to find it... living with that knowledge is sometimes worse than what's gone.
[ to be taken as a child and made into a weapon - because andy recognizes that's what natasha is explaining here, she has experience with child soldiers - there's loss in there that doesn't quite match andy's, but it's similar enough. ]
[ unmoored, again, the both of them, looking for tethers to replace the ones lost to time. ]
I'm sorry too. I can go back to the steppe and you can go back to Russia, but it'll never be quite the same.
[It had been so intentional with Red Room, the way they'd been cut off, had their choices taken from them and their identity, their family, everything. An army to fight for a cause, but that would never have a place in the world they'd helped create.
She wonders if it would sting less if hadn't been intentional, or if it was easier when there were people to blame. She'd been the victim of ambitious, greedy, cowardly men. Andy had been the victim of time.]
You can only move forward, right?
[Making an attempt to be philosophical about it.]
Connect who you are now with... I don't know. The people who can still see a little bit of who you were then?
[Natasha wonders if that makes sense. She feels it with Yelena, though, someone who'd been the same place, and who'd known Natasha as someone other than the Black Widow.]
[ it's more echoes between them, places where their lives cross but are just different enough. andy's not sure there is anyone who can really grasp her life, because she's never met a human as old as she is. ]
[ she huffs a laugh, though it's quiet and maybe a little jaded. ] You go forward even when it's dragging you there kicking and screaming.
[ it's hard to have a choice when you can't die. ]
There's no one left who knew me then. There could be something closer, if all this works out - [ she gestures, vaguely, at the station, at the mission and the orbs. ] - but the only thing left of that time is my name and my axe, both of which have changed as much over time as I have.
Joe and Nicky are a few thousand years too late for that. Don't get me wrong - I'm so lucky to have them and I would kill for them both a thousand times over, but they're so young. There are parts of me they just can't grasp yet. [ they're both fast approaching one thousand. it's still so very young. ]
I can't go forward without them, but sometimes I need to go backwards alone.
[The similarity can only go so far, and Natasha has no illusions that she can understand that. She'll never understand that. Andy would only keep growing older, and Natasha has already died. If not young, then certainly not old.
So she listens, because that's what she can do, and she risks asking a question.]
That's your regret? Someone you lost?
[She figures Andy will let her know if that's too deep.]
[ there's a silence that stretches just long enough to suggest that andy isn't going to answer. ]
Yes. [ until she does, surprising herself, but quỳnh is so wrapped up in how she dealt with the mushroom people that it feels like a farce to ignore it. she would have chosen the orb over them, without hesitation. it's half the reason she's always so goddamn tired. ]
Joe's not the second oldest. We lost her, maybe five hundred years ago, and I'm here to save her.
[It seems like almost everyone Natasha talks to is here for something like that—to save someone they didn't manage to before. Not everyone, but of the regrets Natasha has heard, that seems to be a reoccuring theme.
Or maybe it just seems that way from her perspective.]
[ she wants to ask if any of them are good, considering the expectations of the orbs and their goals, the way andy still tries to follow hers despite knowing how terrible and awful the orbs can be. ]
[ it makes sense though, because who doesn't want another chance to save someone they might have failed before? ]
Her name is Quỳnh. [ at least on ximilia, andy is careful to always use is, not was. absently her hand moves to touch the necklace usually at her neck, but she'd taken it off before natasha arrived. ]
I didn't really want to get involved to save the Hivawei for a lot of reasons, but she was up there. [ she knows a lot of the crew have a hero complex, but natasha is not one of them, and that makes it easier to touch on her less than popular perspective on the last mission. ]
And now I'm just too fucking tired all over again.
[Natasha's tone is apologetic, but not pitying. She doesn't seem especially ashamed either, just—sympathetic. Their last mission was one where Natasha could find deep sympathy for the people who'd wanted to save the inhabitants, and also for those who couldn't prioritize them.
Nothing about any of this is easy, or simple.]
I could talk about something else, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not curious.
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She's content to be here. Her answer, when she gives it, is in French.]
It is. One of my better ones, I think. Not as good as my English probably, since I was embedded there, but I haven't embarrassed myself yet.
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[ andy replies in french, though she doesn't realize it till about halfway through. hers is good too, a level of fluency that comes from centuries of using it and decades with booker. ]
[ she does not want to think about booker. ]
It used to be more of a common language than English.
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[It's not because the anglo world was dominant to start with.]
It's still useful to know. Plus, some people find it sexy, so there's that.
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[ she switches between the languages as seamlessly as natasha, though again she doesn't wholly make the choice to. she's used to just reflecting on what's around her. ]
Maybe not the Algerians. [ they're done having sex, she doesn't need to be charming. ]
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[She can admit her flaws.]
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[ then she finds herself grinning, fondly. ]
When I first met Joe, we found it easier to communicate in Greek. His Arabic and mine were too different.
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[Playfully, though it does remind her that Joe is gone.]
Never a bad idea to have a few of those.
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[ she is going to miss joe. that much is true, no matter how or when they part. ultimately andy knows she will see him again, but he was a solid comfort here. especially when it came to the situation on ciraiwei. ]
I've got a stockpile I could share for secrets.
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[Teasing, though mostly herself. It's strange admitting a weakness, even if it's largely immaterial.
Natasha has made a whole lifestyle out of not showing weakness. Acting like she knows everything, all the time, when she really knows just enough to keep up the front.
Her fingers walk up Andy's abs idly.]
But that's a pretty good reason to learn more. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to impress someone with it down the line?
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[ the soft touch is a surprisingly welcome one, for a woman who wanted to run away from everything at the start of this evening. in some ways, she still does, but natasha's fingertips are grounding. ]
If I start speaking it exclusively, you're bound to improve. Immersion is the easiest.
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[A bit playfully, pretending not to notice what she's doing with her hands.
Natasha is usually one to leave by now, shower and find her own bed. But it would appear that despite being a spy, Natasha isn't immune to the charms of a post-coital chat.]
I assume you're speaking from experience. Just wash up on some island and now you're learning English or Japanese.
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[ andy is aware of the touch but also not. it's just part of the moment, her mind definitely more scattered than usual tonight. ]
[ in her current state, she might also have preferred leaving and moving on. that had been the point of reaching out to natasha in the first place - a round of fucking then disappearing. but this comforts her too. ]
You have to be around people using it to keep using it with fluency. My best Arabic is Derja now because I always have Joe, and I don't want him to lose it. [ a beat. ] It definitely helps that I'm well-traveled.
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[There's a reason her handlers and teachers had started her with Latin.]
But you also learn how to learn languages.
[If that makes sense.]
At this rate, my Romanian might be a little sad too.
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[ she closes her eyes again, against the feeling of natasha's hand. ] I was alive through Latin's evolution, and I could see the pieces of it in the others as they grew. It was the same for the Iranian languages, even though so many of the old ones have died out now.
Ossetian is probably the closest to Scythian that's left.
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[Natasha's expression softens, once again struck by the vastness of Andy's life. Whole languages have come and gone. Not just shifted, not just the change from old to modern English, which in and of itself would be immense but Natasha could wrap her mind around that scale.
But Latin came and went.]
Do you think you'd recognize it, if you heard it again?
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I still remember some Scythian. [ she wonders, briefly, if quỳnh would when this is all finished, if andy manages to get her freed. she had clung to it fiercely for andy, much as she does the same for her brothers' languages. ]
But I couldn't tell you anything about my first language. [ and the admission has her feeling every bit her age again, every line of fatigue in each ancient muscle. ] I don't even think it had a name.
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I'm sorry. That must be... I don't know.
[She's been about to say hard, but that seemed like such a platitude in the face of so much loss. She struggles briefly to find something to say that's less shallow, but how can she understand that much time?]
I don't remember my people either. [She tries after her pause, attempting for reciprocity, even if she can't offer sympathy.] Not for the same reason, though. The people who—who trained me took me from my family when I was an infant. I grew up thinking I'd been abandoned. I only found out later that they'd killed my mother and paid off my family. Whoever they were.
[There was no way to know now, no records. The weight of that admission weighs on Natasha and she drops her gaze, wondering if it would have been better not to bring herself into this at all.]
I don't know what it's like to have something like that and lose it, but I suppose... I do understand how it feels not to have a place in the world. Not being able to remember where you're really from.
[And she really is sorry. No one should have to live like that, not for so long.]
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[ unmoored women. it's definitely how andy feels right now, half the reason she sought out natasha for the sex, for that distraction from the listlessness of longevity. ]
I don't remember my mother. I had sisters too. They're just shapes now, sometimes feelings. Knowing it's there and it existed but being unable to find it... living with that knowledge is sometimes worse than what's gone.
[ to be taken as a child and made into a weapon - because andy recognizes that's what natasha is explaining here, she has experience with child soldiers - there's loss in there that doesn't quite match andy's, but it's similar enough. ]
[ unmoored, again, the both of them, looking for tethers to replace the ones lost to time. ]
I'm sorry too. I can go back to the steppe and you can go back to Russia, but it'll never be quite the same.
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She wonders if it would sting less if hadn't been intentional, or if it was easier when there were people to blame. She'd been the victim of ambitious, greedy, cowardly men. Andy had been the victim of time.]
You can only move forward, right?
[Making an attempt to be philosophical about it.]
Connect who you are now with... I don't know. The people who can still see a little bit of who you were then?
[Natasha wonders if that makes sense. She feels it with Yelena, though, someone who'd been the same place, and who'd known Natasha as someone other than the Black Widow.]
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[ she huffs a laugh, though it's quiet and maybe a little jaded. ] You go forward even when it's dragging you there kicking and screaming.
[ it's hard to have a choice when you can't die. ]
There's no one left who knew me then. There could be something closer, if all this works out - [ she gestures, vaguely, at the station, at the mission and the orbs. ] - but the only thing left of that time is my name and my axe, both of which have changed as much over time as I have.
Joe and Nicky are a few thousand years too late for that. Don't get me wrong - I'm so lucky to have them and I would kill for them both a thousand times over, but they're so young. There are parts of me they just can't grasp yet. [ they're both fast approaching one thousand. it's still so very young. ]
I can't go forward without them, but sometimes I need to go backwards alone.
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So she listens, because that's what she can do, and she risks asking a question.]
That's your regret? Someone you lost?
[She figures Andy will let her know if that's too deep.]
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Yes. [ until she does, surprising herself, but quỳnh is so wrapped up in how she dealt with the mushroom people that it feels like a farce to ignore it. she would have chosen the orb over them, without hesitation. it's half the reason she's always so goddamn tired. ]
Joe's not the second oldest. We lost her, maybe five hundred years ago, and I'm here to save her.
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[It seems like almost everyone Natasha talks to is here for something like that—to save someone they didn't manage to before. Not everyone, but of the regrets Natasha has heard, that seems to be a reoccuring theme.
Or maybe it just seems that way from her perspective.]
Effective motivation.
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[ it makes sense though, because who doesn't want another chance to save someone they might have failed before? ]
Her name is Quỳnh. [ at least on ximilia, andy is careful to always use is, not was. absently her hand moves to touch the necklace usually at her neck, but she'd taken it off before natasha arrived. ]
I didn't really want to get involved to save the Hivawei for a lot of reasons, but she was up there. [ she knows a lot of the crew have a hero complex, but natasha is not one of them, and that makes it easier to touch on her less than popular perspective on the last mission. ]
And now I'm just too fucking tired all over again.
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[Natasha's tone is apologetic, but not pitying. She doesn't seem especially ashamed either, just—sympathetic. Their last mission was one where Natasha could find deep sympathy for the people who'd wanted to save the inhabitants, and also for those who couldn't prioritize them.
Nothing about any of this is easy, or simple.]
I could talk about something else, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not curious.
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