Chapter Text
They do go to the beach, in the end, because it's as anonymous as they can get, and right now it's more important to regroup than anything else. There's not much to do besides drinking and tanning and swapping stories, and it'll get boring soon, probably, but right now, Bobbi doesn't mind much at all.
With all the fake memories and erased memories, it seems to Bobbi like they should have at least three lives' worth of histories among them. Probably more. But it doesn't count, really, when the memories they have aren't much more than bits and pieces of shattered glass. You can make a mosaic out of that, sure, but you can't put it back together to make something functional (a microscope, she thinks, and then wonders why that's what came to mind). Not really.
"Reverie," Daisy says sometimes, and she laughs when nothing happens, but Bobbi and Bucky don't laugh with her, because all of them know it isn't really funny at all.
This is Bobbi's team now. It's maybe the worst choice she's ever made, but it's completely hers. She's been SHIELD and she's been AIM and she's, apparently, been Cult of Entropy. She's been brainwashed and she's had memories erased and she's been replaced by Skrulls and she's been married to Clint Barton. But they haven't broken her. They've just made her more resilient. Now that she's none of those things (that she remembers- no, don't think of it like that), she can choose what to keep.
With nothing much else to do, they spend days on it, Daisy using her abilities to create patterns in the sand and Bucky picking at desserts with his hands (who does that, Barnes, no wonder you're a secret agent, no one wants to be seen in public with you) and Bobbi just listening as all of them compare notes, trying to figure out what's real and what's worth remembering. They can agree on Old Nick Fury's favorite cologne and New Nick Fury's favorite gun and Phil Coulson's annoying habits, and at least that's a baseline. But nearly everything else is dangerous territory. Even simple facts carry too much weight, when everyone has unsettled business that didn't end with their vanishing. Some are professional rivalries; others are... complicated.
They dance around the topic until Daisy, who has very little patience on a good day, says "Natasha."
For a moment there's that awful silence that comes when people well-trained at hiding emotions work to not show their world is falling apart, but deep within it Bobbi is grateful. It's the question she hadn't been able to bring herself to ask, and now she knows that it wasn't just in her head. To at least one other person in the world- two, now- it was real.
Daisy continues like she hadn't just made the very ground beneath them erupt- but then, that's what she always does. "You both loved her," she says. "Are you going to talk about it or not?"
There's not much to talk about, really. They can't compare memories, because they don't have them, for the most part, and the ones that they do have aren't the same for obvious reasons.
Bobbi is good at long, uncomfortable silences, but she knows Bucky is better, and she doesn't feel like waiting him out. "I don't even know if she remembers me," she says.
"I know she doesn't remember me," Bucky says. He doesn't say it to one-up her or to counter her point; it's simply how things are. Bobbi wasn't there, of course, but she's heard what happened, and they all talk about missions during down time. She's noticed the spaces Natasha doesn't realize exist in the stories she tells. But that's Natasha; she can read everyone but herself.
Bobbi thinks about her time in AIM, the way the memories were there and not-there all at once, knowing who she was despite evidence but not knowing how or why. She knows Bucky feels the same way; has heard Daisy describe it more times than she can count. Natasha should be part of their club here, sharing shards of recollections over mojitos and sunscreen. Even if Natasha weren't- who she is- she'd still belong here. But Bobbi's not foolish enough to lie to herself and pretend that isn't part of it either.
"They're never going to leave her head alone, are they?" Bobbi knows as she speaks that it's not really a question, and the way neither Daisy nor Bucky can quite look at her is proof of that. Of course they won't get out of Natasha's head. This is what they do. No matter how flexible morality is, it's always easier to say the magic word and make things even easier. The good guys, the bad guys- it doesn't matter. The people who think they matter will always see the ones who actually do as nothing but instruments for change.
"We should rescue her," Bobbi says. It's- well, it's ridiculous and it's brash and it's probably the same stupid part of her that decided she should dress up in a costume and fight crime. It's a terrible plan and it's the most she's felt like herself since she got off AIM island.
"She chose this," Bucky says. "She deserves not to have her mind played with any more than it already has been." He looks at her like he knows what she's going through, and it would be easier, Bobbi thinks, if he didn't. She doesn't want his pity, doesn't want his belief that the only thing to do in this situation is soldier on.
Because he doesn't understand, not really. Their history is similar, but it isn't the same. Bucky has disappeared, but he's never been replaced.
"Did she know what she was choosing?" Bobbi asks. "Did she give informed consent? Because I know I didn't."
She's cheating, using Daisy's biggest hang-up about SHIELD and the Secret Avengers program. She knows she's cheating. She doesn't really care.
"We help in other ways," Bucky says. "Nick gave us the tools." He sounds like he's trying to convince himself. He sounds like he's failing.
"Does she want to be rescued, Bobbi?" asks Daisy, and god, she's being gentle, which is almost worse than Bucky doing it. Bobbi isn't fragile. It's not a luxury she's ever been afforded.
The sand feels like it's chafing, now, and the sun feels too hot on her skin, and with each passing second she feels more like Mockingbird than ever. "Maybe not," Bobbi says. "But I'm going to find out."
"You know that's a terrible plan," Bucky says.
"Yeah," Bobbi agrees. "But it's mine."