entrancelogs | all that's left behind [closed]

Who: Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff, Bucky Barnes, Pepper Potts, Lydia Martin, Darcy Lewis, Billy Kaplan, & Carol Danvers
Where: Starting in the hedge maze, then all around the mansion.
When: 05/11
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Steve is back from a year-long trip home and has a lot of people to catch up with. Possible spoilers for Age of Ultron within! This is a closed log, but if you want to be added to it, feel free to contact me.
The Story:
One moment, Steve is in the middle of a training session at their new facility. It's what most of his days are made up of lately, him and Natasha putting their new group of Avengers through their paces. It's all about learning to work together as a team, to act as one unit instead of six separate entities. It's been going well, all four of their new additions ready and willing to show up every day and put their all into it --

But the next thing he knows, he's looking at nothing but green. Steve's grip on his shield tightens as he spins in a quick circle, only to find that Natasha is there with him. But it's just the two of them, and it takes a few seconds of puzzled staring before he realizes that they're in a maze. A hedge maze.

There's only one place he knows of that has a hedge maze, and it's a place he'd forgotten about entirely until this exact moment. To have a year's worth of memories crash back into him all at once is almost enough to send Steve off-balance, and he definitely doesn't have the coherency to speak as it rushes back. This place, the events, the people. Bucky is here. Bucky, who he's spent a year searching for back home to no avail, had been right here all along. Trapped in time. Peggy had been here too, and then there are those who he met and befriended here: Pepper and Darcy, Sansa and Evelyn, Lydia and Carol.

He snaps his head to look at Natasha when he remembers that Bruce had been here too, and they had found something here together, carefully working their way into a relationship long before it happened back home. They'd had the peace and quiet and security to actually make something of it here, whereas at home Natasha has been doing her best to accept that Bruce took off without her. (To keep her safe, Steve knows, but it's not like it stings any less that way.)

So many people had described to Steve what it would be like to go home and then return here, but even with all that he hadn't really been prepared for it. He rubs at the side of his head with his free hand as he finally finds words. "Looks like the two of us are doomed to come and go from this place together." At least, that's what Steve figures happened, but he'd better be sure. "What's the last thing that you remember?"

If it's training their team after cleaning up Stark's hugest mess, then they'll be in business. Or on the same page, at the least.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"What's that saying about old dogs and new tricks?" she quips back as she straightens once more, letting her stance fall into one of alert casualness. She's dressed in her tac-ops gear, an upgrade since what she's had here last, but maybe that will be useful. Neither one of them know how long they've been gone, or what might have changed in that time.

"I'd say I never expected to see this place again, but that would require remembering it, I suppose." She sounds about as happy about that as can be expected. She lifts a hand, shades her eyes as she scans their surroundings once more. "I suppose it's a relief it still looks like I remember, now that I can."

No hungry dragons running amok, at least.

Everything that Natasha says about Wonderland and their memories pretty much sums up how bizarre and mindnumbing this entire experience is. It does add to the theory that their memories of this place aren't actually erased so much as locked away until they come back here, although that isn't the case every time.

It's really enough to give anyone a headache and Steve isn't ready to start picking it apart right now. There will probably be plenty of time for that. He recalls Wonderland having a lot of quiet days with not enough to do.

"There's no telling if there's some kind of event going on right now or not," Steve says as he sets one hand on a wall of the hedge maze and starts to lead them out. It hopefully won't take too long. "Let's hope there's not. I could probably go the rest of my life without having to go through one of those again."

But it's something they'll both have to adjust to now that they're back.

"On the bright side, there are people who are here who we'd never get to see back home, so..." He'll focus on that. Whether it's because those people are from different universes or just different times (or avoiding him back home), the point still stands.

"Gee, I wonder who you could possibly be referring to," she drawls, flashing him a sideways glance full of wry humor. Although he's right. There are people here she knows don't exist back in her world. People who meant a lot to her. People she would have missed, had she remembered them. She hoped they were here, hoped they were still alright.

She eyes the hand he layed on the wall of the maze and gives a quiet scoff, shaking her head at him. "That will take too long," she argued, shifting her position in front of him, facing him as she eyes the top of the hedge. Give me a boost up, would you? I just need to see where we are and I can get us out."

She may have spent some time memorizing this particular maze, just in case.

Of course Bucky had been the first person Steve had thought of when it came to that statement, but he's not the only one. Sansa and Lydia and Evelyn... the list goes on when it comes to people who he can only know here in Wonderland. In some ways, it's a relief that he hadn't spent the last year missing them, but it's also disconcerting, that his care and concern for so many people could be locked away so easily.

Natasha doesn't seem interested in getting out of this maze in the obvious way, so it looks like they're going to end up busting their way through instead. Steve can't say he's that shocked that she's impatient right now. He also wants to make sure that Wonderland hasn't fallen into complete disarray in their absence -- and he wants to figure out who's still here.

"Yes ma'am," he says jokingly as he detaches his shield again and then holds it in front of him at waist-level, creating a step for her to use to get up onto the hedges. Once she steps onto the shield, he'll boost her up. They've done this kind of thing so many times that it's second nature by now.

She flows into the move as easily as he does, boosted up on top of one of the hedges and balancing precariously atop the shrubbery, feet braced in the split and arches of the branches. It gives her a much better vantage point than where they'd had on the ground.

"We're on the left side of the maze," she informs him after a moment, gaze searching the puzzle for the nearest exit. "If we follow the path, it's two rights, a left and then a hard right. Or we could go over. Or through, I suppose." That one would be harder, but over wasn't exactly easy either.

"The mansion looks just like I remember it. It all looks just like I remember it. Maybe we haven't been gone that long."

Maybe the familiar faces now swimming back up through her memory will still be here waiting for them.

Everything looks the same? That's probably a good thing. It means that jabberwocky hasn't come back to lay the mansion to waste, at least.

It doesn't sound like they're that far from the exit, so Steve doesn't see the point of destroying the hedges to cut a path through or launching himself on top to go over. It would probably just take longer in the end.

"I'll take the scenic route," he says up to Natasha as he starts walking in the direction she'd indicated. "You can acrobat your way out if you want."

Once Steve makes it through, he circles around to see the mansion and the fields and gardens in between them and it, along with the forest off to the side. They haven't returned to some wasteland, and what more could he ask for?

Steve nods toward the mansion. "I guess we should go make sure our rooms haven't been ransacked."

"What, no piggyback ride?"

It's said teasingly as she hops back down off the shrubbery to land lightly at his side once more, moving beside him as they make their way out of the maze. It goes exactly like she'd called it, much easier once they know the direction out. The sight of the mansion ahead of them is familiar in a way that makes her a little uneasy. Why, after everything that's happened, does this feel a little more like coming home?

She nods at his statement and glances over at him. "And see who we have to thank for that, I suppose? You'll let me know what you find?"

And who he finds, for that matter.

Steve, meanwhile, had only just decided that his team was his home, and now he's here without the majority of them present. Granted, he'd been putting together a version of the Avengers here in Wonderland before they left, and depending on who's still here, they can pick up where they left off with that.

He can't deny that he has some good memories associated with the mansion (now that they've been returned to him). It's still a glorified holding cell, but it's filled with people he cares about.

At Natasha's request, Steve glances over at her with a frown. "What, you're not coming with me?" If she's going to dart away to see to something else, then that's her prerogative, but Steve can't help but be curious.

She turns her head just enough to give him a look, one eyebrow arching upwards as a smile plays about the corner of her lips, subdued - barely.

"I just thought that you'd be heading straight far a particular reunion and would want a little privacy for it. I didn't think exhibitionism was one of your kinks, Cap, but if you want an audience, I'll play along."

A particular reunion. As if Steve could ever forget that Natasha has his number in just about every way.

Maybe she's right, and it's better that he sees Bucky again on his own. No doubt Natasha will have her own reunion with him at some point, although Steve can never quite keep up with the status of their friendship.

"Fair enough," he says, rolling his eyes. He's about to ask her who she plans to seek out first, but then thinks better of it. He knows who it would have been, if he were still here.

There's a few moments of silence as they walk together before he peers over at her again. "Natasha," he starts, tone hushed. "Even before it happened back home -- here, you and Bruce..." There isn't any better sign that it's somehow meant to be, right? But with how things ended back home, Steve doubts Natasha will see it that way.

all that's left behind [closed]

she does. she'd be lost without him.

spy mom and soldier dad 4 lyfe.

best partners

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