nothinglasts | IC Inbox

[ Sam searches her eyes. It's not a lie, but he feels he should question something here anyway. Doesn't. Because he's still broken up about her death enough that he needs to cling to this.

Bucky's silence already betrays the fact that whatever he intends to do, it will take him from Sam, one way or another.

For the time being, Sam needs to believe that Natasha intends to survive Vormir - for the time being, he needs to believe it's not something more fundamental and complicated she wants to change.

So he just nods, and then quietly pulls her back in. ]

You're gonna have to visit Louisiana. I moved back home. Bucky visits often, too.

[ She relaxes into him again. She really can't remember the last time someone held her like this. Hell, she can't remember the last time she even let anyone this close, really. ]

That sounds nice. You gonna introduce me as your mysterious yet sexy friend from work?

[ Maybe they can really do that after everything. Natasha wouldn't mind meeting Sam's family. She wonders if they're as warm and smart as he is. Her own family--the one that isn't the Avengers--is steeped in odd complications and contradictions. She'd only had a few years with them, but then she'd never really had another family until the Avengers, so she figures maybe a few years is an alright measure. She still cares about them. Yelena especially. ]

[ Sam snorts softly, almost embarrassed to admit: ]

Sarah knows who you are.

[ The important parts at least. She doesn't know everything, especially the darker parts of Natasha's background. Same with Bucky - those are not his stories to share. But still - she's his sister. And he might not have been home in a long time before coming back from the blip, but he's shared his family with her in whatever way he could. She knows about them, all of them, especially the ones Sam's close to. She knows about 'on your left' and the fossil joke, she knows that to Sam, it was always Steve, Tony and Natasha who led the team rather than just Steve and Tony. She knows he grieves Natasha still, even though he's not talked about his grief in so many words. She knows that near their parents' and grandparents' gravesites there sits a small headstone for those of Sam's family he couldn't bury near home. ]

Sara would love you, and team up with you to bully Bucky and me.

It's not bullying if it's said with affection.

[ And her heart wanders a little to Yelena who is aware of the Avengers and who really wouldn't care about meeting them because they're the Avengers, but she might have enjoyed meeting Sam and Bucky. They could all tease Natasha the way Natasha teases Sam and Bucky, all laugh together with the sort of warmth that only comes with long-won love. ]

I don't have a real sister for you to meet, but you could meet my fake sister and get a go at my dignity with her.

[ Sam's got the witty retort on his tongue, the quip, the tease.

And then Natasha proceeds to short-circuit his brain a little bit. ]

Run that by me one more time. Fake sister?

[ Did he mishear?

For a moment his chest clenches and his stomach rolls with a mixture of emotion he can't quite lock down. Eventually, it settles on guilt and shame and grief - because either Natasha is joking, or she has some sort of connection back home that's important enough to earn the moniker 'sister', and Sam never even knew. Would never have known if not for this place. Someone's who grieved Natasha, too. ]

Oh, you know how it is. Sometimes when a man-spy and a woman-spy have to pretend to love each other very much, they get a couple of orphans for a little while so they can complete a mission and then toss them back to the wolves when they're done.

[ It hadn't been a long time, so it's hard to grapple with the fact that it had meant something to her. Maybe it hadn't been real to her the way it had been to Yelena, but it hadn't been nothing, either. ]

I never thought it was real, so it's not a big deal.

IC Inbox - Ximilia

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