ic inbox

[redrooms]

"You've reached Natasha Romanov. Please leave a message."

Comments

[jumpthegun]

Natasha, you're the fourth person to compare me to Captain Rogers. I'm starting to get a bit of a complex here.

[advanced]

I'm not shutting you out, he already told you what happened. What do you want me to say, Natasha?

[redrooms]

I need you to be honest when you tell me how you're doing. Pierce gets under your skin, and that's dangerous.

[redrooms]

Well, we can't all be wrong, can we?

[advanced]

Of course he gets under my skin.

[Wouldn't any of the instigators of the red room get under her skin if they were here?]

[redrooms]

That's certainly a colorful way of putting it. Have you run into any of the anomalies?

[redrooms]

So tell us when he does. We need to be able to help you.

[advanced]

How can you help? By telling more people? By going to give away everything to Pierce to put yourself at risk? How does any of what you do help?

[By you, he means John. He's just more than annoyed right now, and the sting of the mistakes John has made have made him really regret letting anyone get involved.]

[redrooms]

Once you're done taking out your misplaced anger on me, let me know.

audio;

[advanced]

[He just hangs up on her. In fact, he hangs up on her by throwing the tablet across the room.

It takes several hours before he's calm enough to call back, ashamed enough that he'll use audio for once to give a more sincere apology.]

Sorry. That was out of line.

[jumpthegun]

I'm just starting to think it's not as much of a compliment as I thought it was.

audio

[redrooms]

[It was, but at least he's apologizing. Using audio, no less!]

It's fine. I take it John showed you those messages.

[advanced]

Yeah.

[He doesn't really need to elaborate on that. He's so so angry with John right now. Voice tight and terse even in that one word.]

I should never have told him.

[redrooms]

He's doing his best, but he wasn't trained in this the way we were.

[advanced]

I told him not to contact Pierce.

[John outright didn't listen, that's not doing his best.]

[redrooms]

Did you?

[Natasha sighs. This is an absolute mess.]

We'll play damage control. We'll figure this out.

[advanced]

I told him he could try and build a rapport, but back off immediately if it became too risky. After what happened in that place, he had no business contacting Pierce again.

[If that wasn't the definition of too risky, Bucky didn't know what was.]

Now he wants to tell Sherlock everything.

[Antoher person in the know, and one that Bucky doesn't know or trust, it's probably obvious from the tightness of his voice how he feels about this.]

[redrooms]

That probably isn't the best idea, no. For now, I'll do my best to keep detailed accounts of the anomalies I see or hear of. Fair?

[redrooms]

And did you tell him not to?

[redrooms]

Everyone has flaws. Steve wouldn't be much of a hero if he was effortlessly perfect, would he?

[jumpthegun]

He seems like he's effortlessly perfect in the films.

[Can you hear the longing sigh, Natasha?]

[redrooms]

Does it? Is that the fantasy you prefer?

[jumpthegun]

It's the fantasy I'd like to aspire to.

[To be a better man than he is. To know that there's a world where there are men who are everything he wishes he could be and then some.]

[redrooms]

The thing that makes Steve inspiring is that he doesn't give up, even when he makes the wrong decision. He picks himself back up and tries to be better. That's something to aim for.