entrancelogs | all that's left behind [closed]

Entry tags:

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

Breaks were things that Lydia was finding harder to take, or rather Lydia was putting them off. Although the situation with Dean had been remedied, and there were currently no other threats, it didn't stop Lydia from keeping herself busy. She had her work in the clinic, her research into Wonderland, her studies in the library and now a more personal area of research - her abilities.

Whilst Lydia wasn't keeping herself contained to her room whilst she worked there hadn't been that many people that she'd seen or spoken with lately. Minus her late night trips to see Bucky - to study something else. It the growing feeling of hunger that had prompted her break over anything else, Lydia not realising just how long she'd been working. The library hadn't provided much help in Lydia's search for knowledge about banshee's, but the note she'd sent out to Wonderland had given some ideas. The notebook that she carried with her into the diner contained those ideas - and her initial thoughts on where to begin.

The food became a second thought when Lydia stepped into the diner. Finding Steve sat at one of the booths was not something that she'd expected. How long had it been since he'd gone? At least a week - a week was always the minimal time frame, and it didn't feel too long. Although Lydia had assured Bucky that he'd return there was a large part of her that worried that he wouldn't. She knew who he was - what he did, but what was his home like? What had he been doing? Lydia knew that if Steve ever permanently left that she'd miss him. He was someone that had become important to her after getting to know him, and selfishly she'd hate to lose that.

Lydia steps quickly over to his table, dropping herself into the seat opposite from him without warning or invitation. It's rude, but she's a little impatient. If he hadn't been sat down there might have been an impromptu hug.

"When did you get back?" Hi Steve.

Steve doesn't find Lydia's approach and decision to join him rude at all. In fact, his face immediately brightens at the sight of her. Here is someone who he'd been forced to forget over the past year, but who he knows he would have missed if he'd had the knowledge to. Either way, it feels like a year since they've seen one another, and so if his reaction to her seems exaggerated, that would be why.

"Lydia," he greets, leaning forward in his seat slightly. "I got back this morning. It's good to see you."

As usual, Lydia has a notebook with her, and while Steve could ask her what she's researching this time around (little does she know, the man who had turned into a giant green monster is gone), he realizes that she'll probably have more questions for him.

"I forget, have you gone home and come back before? It's pretty disorienting." This still feels a little like some strange dream, like he'll wake up before long and find himself back in the training facility. Steve knows better, though, and that's the strangest part.

"This morning, and you're only just saying hello now?"

There's a little chiding in her voice but it's not serious. Even if they'd only run into each other by chance Lydia knows that there's other people he'd need to see first - people from home, and Bucky especially. To let his friend know that he was back, that Bucky wasn't alone any more.

Her serious expression drops into a small smile, and there's a nod at Steve's question. It's been a while since it had happened to her - she can't even recall how long it's actually been (it had to have been months since the last time by now) but it's happened, and she knows how he's feeling.

"Twice. Both times I spent months at home. A lot can happen in a few months." Even if you don't live in somewhere like Beacon Hills were a lot does happen. A few months is a good chunk of time to do a lot - and if you were a teenager you tried to do as much as you possibly could.

"Are you okay being back?" Did he have something still to do at home? Knowing that things were effectively paused and that you weren't missing might be a small bit of a comfort - that you weren't missing a fight or saving a life while you were gone, but it wasn't perfect. You still had that thought in your head of what if when you first arrived. Or returned.

Steve can tell that Lydia isn't all that serious with her reprimand, but he still puts on a look as if he's hurt. "Come on, you're acting like it's been days." When it's truly only been a few hours. Lydia had of course been on his list of people to contact, but he's been pacing himself. It's not like he minds that they've run into each other by chance, though, and he'll be happy to share a meal with her.

So Lydia has been through this twice before. A few months is a long enough time that coming back here must have thrown her for a serious loop. She sounds casual enough about it now, but that probably hadn't been her feeling on it at the time of her return.

"A lot can definitely happen in a few months," he agrees. "It was a year, for me." And while the entire time had been action-packed, it's really the last month or so that had been a doozy.

Her question is more complicated than it might seem at first, and Steve eyes the table between them as he considers that. Everything had calmed down back home, and even if it hadn't, it's not like time is passing while he's here. "I guess... I'm okay with it. There are people here who I would never be able to know back home, so I'm glad for the chance to see you all again."

He smiles at her and when someone comes around to take their order, he asks for a double-patty burger and some fries. He needs something hearty right now.

"Any amount of time is long enough when you've missed someone." She gives a little shrug with her admittance, trying to brush it off as if it isn't really anything. Yes Steve, she missed you that much. He'd unexpectedly become important to her - someone she'd call pack. Wonderland pack. At first they'd just talked - had a few nice conversations, and Lydia doesn't know when that changed but she's glad it did. He's someone special.

Lydia gives a nod at Steve's words, his uncertainty about how he really feels being back. At that moment, when you're still a little in limbo between the two places, it does feel stranger. Lydia had been glad to come back to everyone - especially after Allison had died - but at the same time she'd still been annoyed at it. It wasn't right, or fair.

She's interrupted from saying anything when Steve starts to order, getting just a coffee and a sandwich for herself. Her eyes glance up to him at his order - a double-patty burger, Steve? Don't ruin those fine abs now.

"I'm glad you're back. Did something happen at home?" She'd heard snippets of things from his home before, and though she didn't need to know the details she was concerned about what had happened. When Bucky had gone home it had been bad, but it had also been a longer amount of time.

Well, it does sound like Lydia had really missed him, which Steve is touched by. The corners of his mouth turn up into a warm smile. Though it also makes him even more guilty that he'd had no awareness of her existence for the entire year that he was gone, though it's not like he had any control over that. It's just another way in which Wonderland has made him feel helpless.

Lydia looks a little bit scandalized about his food order, which is pretty amusing given that he could have gone so much more overboard then he did. His super-soldier metabolism means that not much worry needs to be given to his abs. They'll be fine.

Steve eases back in his seat as he prepares himself to answer Lydia's question. He's gone over this a few times already, though he doesn't need to be as in-depth with Lydia as he was with Bucky and Pepper. It occurs to him now that he must look kind of ridiculous sitting here in a diner booth in full uniform, but it hadn't occurred to him to change. It reminds him a little of the team's stop for shawarma after the Battle of New York.

"You could say that. It wasn't aliens this time, though," he clarifies. "We were dealing with an army of robots this time around, ones that wanted to commit mass genocide." Really it's just one robot, but Steve isn't going to get into all that now. "We found a way to stop them, though." They always do.

"An army of robots." Her tone turns incredulous now, a frown joining that. Steve, do you know what she thinks about that? Really. There's so much that could join it - the shake of her head, an eye roll, a sigh. She worries over you being missing and you run into danger? Steve.

"Why is it always armies of things trying to kill you?" Aliens in New York, gods that were rude, and now killer robots? Not to mention what had happened with Bucky. Whilst Lydia doesn't know the specifics of that, and not what had happened between Steve and Bucky, she knows that it was serious enough that it had Steve concerned, and that is something to be concerned about.

Although for all that Lydia is judging Steve - or at least not happy about what goes on for him at home, and his involvement, it's very hypocritical, and it's possibly a good thing that he doesn't know all of the details about her home world. About how involved she is in dangerous situations.

At least he's safe - here and at home. At least they stopped it. This time. For now. Somehow she had to doubt that would be the last thing.

"To be fair, they weren't just try to kill us. They were trying to kill everyone." Because that makes it so much better. Steve's being somewhat tongue in cheek about the whole thing, but he's not sure how else to tackle something like this. His life consists of constant fighting, and while Lydia doubts it will be the last thing, he knows it won't be.

There will always be someone else trying to seize power or lay everyone else to waste. There will always be a war of some kind to fight. And Steve will always be there with his shield in hand and his team at his back. That's just how it works. He's accepted it by now.

At least Lydia is more questioning his penchant for throwing himself into dangerous situations, rather than the actual existence of a robot army. Because Steve knows how it sounds.

"This was the result of an experiment gone wrong," he explains, leaning his chin into his hand which is braced on the table. There's not much point in throwing Stark under the bus when Lydia doesn't even know him. "It just went really, really wrong, but we managed to keep civilian casualties low." That's one thing to be proud of, but for every step forward there's one back, and his gaze drops. "We lost someone, though. One of our own." Even if Pietro had only just joined their cause, he had also died for it, and Steve believes that needs to be honored.

At Steve's quieter admittance about losing someone - one of his team - it causes Lydia to reach across the table, resting her hand on his. There isn't really anything that you can say when that happens, other than expressing how sorry you are about it. Her frown is dropped, her expression neutral, a little sadder-neutral. Lydia wishes that she didn't know what that was like - losing someone that you shouldn't, someone on your team.

"What were they like?" Her own voice is quieter, soft probing words. Unless Wonderland brought them before they had died, doing some sort of kindness, it was likely that no one else would know them. Not without Steve's memories.

It is possible that Pietro could show up here, because Wonderland has that capability. Steve's not sure if he wants that or not. It would be good to have some extra time with him, to get to know him better, but it would also cut that much deeper if Pietro left, because he wouldn't be going home. He'd be going back to an early grave.

Steve glances down at Lydia's hand where it presses over his own and then shifts his hand around so that he can grasp hers better. "I didn't know him that well," he admits. "We started off on different sides. He and his sister had been through a lot of trauma as kids and they were pretty resentful because of it. They signed up to be experimented on, just like I did."

The food comes then, the server moving away quickly to allow them privacy. Steve ignores his plate for now. "When they realized that we were the good guys, they switched sides. His sister is still part of the team, actually."

Wanda will never be over Pietro's death, but she's doing what she can to move on and make good use of her abilities. Steve respects her for that, because he knows how tough it can get.

"They can do what you can do?" It's the only experiment that Lydia knows of from Steve's world, minus Bucky but his abilities are very similar to Steve's themselves. Although her poll had told her about gods and aliens there hadn't been an abundance of abilities mentioned, not anything that would cause Lydia to assume anything other than Steve's experiment.

There's a small frown on her features, a pause as she lets Steve's words fall in. An army of robots wanting to kill humanity, these new members of his team. It hadn't needed long for something to happen - and something big.

"They helped you with the robots." She didn't need to guess there but she would take his confirmation. Unless the robots had managed to happen before this recruitment, but then he hadn't said another big event for the twins.

It's a fair assumption that Wanda and Pietro had gone through the same experiment as Steve did, but that's not what happened. There's seventy years of advancement between the two things, so it makes sense that HYDRA had changed their methods with the times.

"No. Pietro's ability is superspeed -- way beyond what I can do." Lydia's seen him running around the grounds enough that he thinks she'd be able to make a comparison. "Wanda's abilities are a little more complicated. She can see into people's heads, move things around with her mind, and let out these blasts of red energy that can do a whole lot of damage."

It's something that you really have to see to believe. Steve's not sure what HYDRA did to her, but it turned out to be so effective that they couldn't control her any longer.

"And yeah, they helped us. We may not have made it without them," he says as he starts to pick at his french fries.

"They sound like-" There's a pause, a search for the appropriate way to describe it. Lydia isn't certain if there is one. "-interesting people to have around." Helpful if they did help - which luckily they had. There was always two ways that people could go, and in her world she'd seen both kinds. Helpful werewolves and dangerous ones. For them it was hard to fight the stereotype of being a monster - a beast.

Lydia pulls her drink a little loser to her, stirring it with the straw - more just playing with the straw in her fingers than actually stirring her drink.

"Do you think it will ever stop? You've had aliens, gods, robots. Will the strange things ever just stop?" Although Lydia didn't really need to ask that question. Things always just got stranger.

Wanda and Pietro are not monsters, no more than Steve is one. They're just a couple of kids who had grown sick of being the victims caught in the middle of a war, and they'd decided to do something about it. Steve's always been able to relate to that.

Nothing about this conversation has been that easy despite Lydia's attempts to make it so, but this next question is definitely the hardest one she's asked so far.

Steve stops eating for a moment and glances over at her, his expression grim before he remembers to cover it up. She's hit the nail right on the head without even realizing it. "I'm not sure it ever will," he admits. "But when I signed up for the war, I think part of me knew I wouldn't ever get the chance to stop fighting."

He'd hoped, of course. He'd had dreams about him and Peggy, but those had all fallen away when he'd aimed the Valkyrie right for a huge glacier in the Arctic. Now all that's left is the fighting, and the people he fights alongside.

There's a small nod. Lydia gets that. When they'd returned the power to the- tree they hadn't really known what that would mean, although Scott had said that if anything did come they'd do what they always did. Sadly that meant that more people kept dying - innocents, and now some friends. It was getting stronger, and worse.

"I hope it does. I hope you get to see it stop." Hope that more than one day the weird stops being that Steve gets to see the difference - have a different life. Fighting all his life and seeing no change doesn't sound like a good thing, even if Steve sounds like he's okay with it - or accepted it.

"Only fighting- it's not living. For everything you do you should get to live too. And enjoy it." To do something fun, to have peace and calm. A moment for himself without danger.

They can hope all they want, but Steve knows better than to rely on that too much. He's seen the worst of people and what they can do to other people, and he doesn't think that kind of thing will go away. HYDRA taught him better than that. Cut off one head, two more takes its place. That means it never ends.

It's sweet of Lydia to want a better kind of life for him, but Steve asked for this, even if he hadn't entirely realized what he'd been signing up for at the time.

He figures it's for the best if he reassures her a little, and so he takes a glance around the diner, motioning at it and his meal with one hand. "Wonderland gives me that chance, at least some of the time. Between events." He's got way more downtime here than he ever has back home, although Steve's already thinking about making some work for himself related to his team -- or the version of it that exists here, anyway.

"I don't mean in Wonderland." At least not just in Wonderland. Lydia rolled the straw between her fingers again before taking a small sip. It was nice that he did have the break here, that everyone did from what happened at home, but she didn't really believe that it could last forever.

"You can't fight forever. And if you could at some point it has to stop." Wars, weird things. At one point they'll either have seen it all or there won't be a point. Maybe one day peace would be reached, or at least a good enough truce and cease fire agreement that meant that people didn't have to constantly look over their shoulder. That people like Steve could breathe without just waiting for the next thing to happen.

"It would be nice knowing that you could stop." That he could know something more than just war and trouble. He might have chosen it but doesn't that mean he deserves more?

Lydia's stating these things as if they're facts, but Steve isn't so sure. He might be fighting until his last day. He still doesn't know how his aging compares to a regular person, but it appears to be more gradual, and he doesn't imagine he'll slow down any time soon. So what would stop him from keeping at it until he didn't have the strength left to lift his shield anymore?

Sure, it would be nice to have more than that in his life, but Steve doesn't want to set himself up for disappointment either. His life has been rife with that already. The less he expects from the future, the less let down he'll be when he doesn't get it.

If he voices any of that, though, he's only going to depress Lydia, and they should be glad to see each other again. "It would be, yeah," he says as he lifts his burger and takes a sizable bite. It's a noncommittal answer, but he's not sure what else to say.

He doesn't believe it. That's something Lydia can spot - she's become very familiar with noncommittal answers, either from giving her own or hearing enough of them when people didn't want her to know something. They suck but there isn't any way of getting around them - not without the conversation taking a negative turn, and that isn't somewhere that she would go with Steve. He might be a friend but they're not from the same place - she doesn't know everything.

But it doesn't mean that she might not try to show him something else in Wonderland - get him involved in something that isn't fighting. Have fun and enjoy life, Steve. You can't do everything.

"What are you going to do now you're back here?" Once he's checked in with everyone, anyway.

Thankfully, Steve does have plenty of friends around here who push him to do more than just work, work, work. Wonderland also doesn't always have enough going on for him to remain occupied constantly, which is why he spends time reading or sketching or playing with Dodger.

At her question, Steve takes another bite of his food and thinks it over. Getting settled back into life in Wonderland is already a daunting task, given the discrepancy between how much time has passed.

"Once I've let everyone who would care know that I'm back, I think my first move is gonna be figuring out who the Avengers are here in Wonderland. I want to make us available to everyone here." His last memory is of training the new lineup, and now that's going to shift again, depending on who's here.

"What's the criteria for that?"

Lydia knew why Steve was an Avenger - or at least what he did for them in fighting the battles. Whilst she'd heard the term passed around a few times, and had a vague idea of what they did she didn't actually know what it mean to be an Avenger - or how they were chosen.

In truth she didn't actually know who the Avengers were other than Steve - who his team at home were. It's definitely something to make her curious.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Steve admits. The team had been thrown together haphazardly back home, and even when the lineup shifted it had all come together naturally. Here Steve has plenty more candidates to choose from, but he doesn't want to overload the team and he has to make sure he picks out people who he trusts.

"There's a few people from the original team who are also here. Me, Natasha, Thor... but that's not enough to make a team, and there are some other people who would fit the bill here, I think. I just have to make absolutely sure of that before I make anything official."

Bucky's the one who may as well be a shoe-in, and that's not only because of Steve's bias. Bucky's a competent fighter, well-trained as both a soldier and an assassin. He's got discipline too, and while he might not believe in himself, Steve can manage enough faith for both of them.

He has a couple other people in mind, but Steve needs to take some time and think it over before he makes any final decisions. At least Wonderland gives him plenty of downtime to puzzle his way through it.

"That's a start. And it sounds like you'll be ready for something big." Just ready - prepared. She's saying nothing about him jumping the gun or getting something ready when they won't need it because by this point saying that would be a lie. Lydia's been through enough - been there long enough to see exactly why Steve would be getting his team together. And he knows it too.

"Do you know why the original Avengers were Avengers? Or what made you pick them? Maybe that would help you figure it out." That was if there was a strict sort of criteria, although Lydia hoped that even if there wasn't there would be a few things. Like 'want to take over the world - no' and 'help people above all else - yes'. The basic hero things.

"That's the idea." There's no point in acting like something isn't coming. They all know it, so the only thing they can do is be as ready as possible, to have a team that's trained to work together so that they can stand up to whatever Wonderland throws at them.

Granted, if it's the jabberwocky again, Steve has no idea what they'll do. It's not like any of their tactics had worked on it the last time.

Lydia's questions serve to remind Steve of how little he's told her about his background. "I didn't pick them. It was an idea that someone else conceived of, I just ended up serving as leader once the team grew. We were pretty much thrown together and then a crisis hit and we had to learn to work with each other if we didn't want New York to be blown to bits, so..."

Very much a trial by fire.

"Hopefully this time you'll be able to figure out how to work together before that happens." At least they'd managed to save New York. That Lydia knew of from previous conversations, or at least she was assuming it. They'd gone on to beat killer robots, she was assuming that they'd managed to save New York from those aliens too. No one had mentioned alien invasions.

"There must still be a reason why someone picked everyone. You're a soldier and a leader." Probably a leader before taking on the mantle of Avengers leader. "What about everyone else?"

She was hoping that the questions would help - that it would get him thinking about what he'd had in the previous team, maybe what he was missing and needed in someone else. Or what qualities worked well for what he needed to build - accomplish in a fight. Hopefully the people were there for it or they might have to work harder.

all that's left behind [closed]

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