[ 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.
[ she doesn't want pity, so the tone is more welcome. ]
[ there's a stretch of silence that suggests andy isn't going to expound, but it's the fact that natasha doesn't pry that makes andy feel like she can speak of it. if she changed the subject, natasha would go with the flow, and that makes it easy to be in the other woman's company. ]
The four of us were trying to save victims of the witch trials, in England. But she and I were caught, tried ourselves, and executed multiple times. Obviously none of it stuck. They put her in an iron coffin and threw her into the ocean. [ short, flat sentences that describe it with precise technicality but certainly leave out most of the emotional components. ]
She's still there. I've seen so many cultures die off, including my fucking own. This time I had to put her first. Myself too. Though I'm not sure how well that part worked out for me.
[Natasha's memory goes back to a dance under the sea, how—melancholy, maybe? Restless and unhappy Andy had seemed during that mission. Natasha couldn't say she had loved it herself, busy with her own discomfort having her body altered without her consent, but she can imagine now how much older and deeper Andy's discomfort was.
She tucks her head, taking in the weight of that.]
It hasn't failed yet.
[They did get the orb in the end, and they saved some people.
She wonders how many people are still tender about the fact they hadn't been able to do more?]
I'd say you've earned putting yourself first a few times. Once every few thousand years.
[ there's a huffed sound, almost a laugh but she can't quite get there. ]
Maybe when I hit seven thousand I can retire. The sixth millennium is a tough one. [ absently, she leans her head against the top of natasha's, where she's tucked it in, seeking out that comfort and connection. ]
I know we're a team for a reason, that we all have our strengths and weaknesses and it varies from mission to mission. But it's still my body. Sometimes I just need a break.
[Natasha relaxes against Andy deliberately, letting herself be comfortable here.
It's easier than she wants to think about.]
Yeah, I think that's fair.
[Seven thousand. It's too much to even wrap her head around. Natasha doesn't even try. Instead, she focuses on being here and providing some kind of comfort while she can.
She thinks about leaving, how she'd normally have crept out by now and left Andy to fall asleep, and thinking about it finds she doesn't really want to leave now.]
I could stay a while longer, if you don't mind? Just... maybe take a little nap before heading out.
[ it's odd to have her years as known as they've become on this ship, to admit to them even if the exact number is as lost to time as the rest of the earliest pieces of her life. there's a strange solace that comes alongside admitting it each instance though, like a tiny bit of weight is shed. ]
I don't mind. [ it's a comfort in itself to have natasha offer, knowing her usual modus operandi is to leave. the bigger surprise is that andy finds she wants her to stay too, usually preferring to fuck and run when she gets in these moods. ]
[ but there is nowhere to run here, and natasha is warm. at least she can feel a little human instead of soldier for a while. ]
It's... good to feel like I don't have to be a shield right now.
[Natasha makes a sound of agreement, as though it's not surprising, or particularly in need of more comment than that. Just enough to confirm that she's heard and that she'll stay.]
Oh no, definitely not a shield right now. That would be much less fun to take to bed.
[ without thinking, andy finds herself curling in more, her body only sore in a good way, her muscles at ease instead of taut with tension. quỳnh lingers in her head, as she so often does, but laying here with natasha without any pressures or judgements solidifies her lack of regret for how she'd handled the hivawei. handled herself. ]
[ sometimes andy is just a tired woman stuck inside an immortal body and she wants to ignore the latter, however briefly. ]
[Natasha sighs, relaxing to stay for a while longer. It's not so hard, really. She doesn't let herself reflect on whether it's easier than it should be.
It seems like maybe neither of them quite want to be alone.]
[ andy's own smile is faint, even as her eyes slip closed again. ]
Me too.
[ she'd meant it moreso for the talking, the chatter, the way it seems to have settled some of andy's own restlessness, but falling into a pattern of sex for the sake of it with natasha would hardly be the worst outcome. ]
The offer's mutual, you know. Today I needed this. Maybe next time you will.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
[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.
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
[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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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.]
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
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.]
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
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.]
no subject
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.
no subject
[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.
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
[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.
no subject
[ there's a stretch of silence that suggests andy isn't going to expound, but it's the fact that natasha doesn't pry that makes andy feel like she can speak of it. if she changed the subject, natasha would go with the flow, and that makes it easy to be in the other woman's company. ]
The four of us were trying to save victims of the witch trials, in England. But she and I were caught, tried ourselves, and executed multiple times. Obviously none of it stuck. They put her in an iron coffin and threw her into the ocean. [ short, flat sentences that describe it with precise technicality but certainly leave out most of the emotional components. ]
She's still there. I've seen so many cultures die off, including my fucking own. This time I had to put her first. Myself too. Though I'm not sure how well that part worked out for me.
no subject
She tucks her head, taking in the weight of that.]
It hasn't failed yet.
[They did get the orb in the end, and they saved some people.
She wonders how many people are still tender about the fact they hadn't been able to do more?]
I'd say you've earned putting yourself first a few times. Once every few thousand years.
no subject
Maybe when I hit seven thousand I can retire. The sixth millennium is a tough one. [ absently, she leans her head against the top of natasha's, where she's tucked it in, seeking out that comfort and connection. ]
I know we're a team for a reason, that we all have our strengths and weaknesses and it varies from mission to mission. But it's still my body. Sometimes I just need a break.
no subject
It's easier than she wants to think about.]
Yeah, I think that's fair.
[Seven thousand. It's too much to even wrap her head around. Natasha doesn't even try. Instead, she focuses on being here and providing some kind of comfort while she can.
She thinks about leaving, how she'd normally have crept out by now and left Andy to fall asleep, and thinking about it finds she doesn't really want to leave now.]
I could stay a while longer, if you don't mind? Just... maybe take a little nap before heading out.
[Because it's the best she can offer.]
no subject
I don't mind. [ it's a comfort in itself to have natasha offer, knowing her usual modus operandi is to leave. the bigger surprise is that andy finds she wants her to stay too, usually preferring to fuck and run when she gets in these moods. ]
[ but there is nowhere to run here, and natasha is warm. at least she can feel a little human instead of soldier for a while. ]
It's... good to feel like I don't have to be a shield right now.
no subject
Oh no, definitely not a shield right now. That would be much less fun to take to bed.
no subject
[ sometimes andy is just a tired woman stuck inside an immortal body and she wants to ignore the latter, however briefly. ]
Thank you. [ for many many things! ]
no subject
[Natasha sighs, relaxing to stay for a while longer. It's not so hard, really. She doesn't let herself reflect on whether it's easier than it should be.
It seems like maybe neither of them quite want to be alone.]
no subject
[ andy assumes it's just going to happen again. her body as a weapon is a long-running theme. ]
no subject
I like the idea of there being a next time.
[Not a commitment, but making sure it's clear—she's entirely open to this being a pattern.
Even if sometimes there's a little talking after.]
no subject
Me too.
[ she'd meant it moreso for the talking, the chatter, the way it seems to have settled some of andy's own restlessness, but falling into a pattern of sex for the sake of it with natasha would hardly be the worst outcome. ]
The offer's mutual, you know. Today I needed this. Maybe next time you will.
(no subject)