Work Text:
When Nova arrived at the scene, only destruction remained.
She hadn’t wanted to go back; really. She knew it was a horrible idea, that there was no point in rubbing salt in her nearly-closed wound. It was best to keep these things out of mind- and what would the Renegades think if they saw her here now? Hell, what would the Anarchists think? There was no understanding in emotions to them, and she’d be fucked if they found her. But she came anyway.
She’d always been good at not getting found.
Somewhere in a nearby building, someone blasted a song Nova didn’t know the words to through an open window. She typically hated it when people did that (headphones existed for a reason), but today, she didn’t mind. Though she couldn’t make out lyrics, the song’s slow melody was almost fitting. Wallowing wasn’t like her, but there was nothing wrong with acknowledging her feelings on occasion, right? Besides, it wasn’t as if she could do anything about the music anyway. Whether or not she liked it, it would be there.
In some strange way, she’d always thought that about the library, too.
It wasn’t as if she spent much time there. Nova had never been a particularly book-oriented person, preferring things that were active to the internal melancholy of inked pages. But she came often- for visits with Leroy or one of the other Anarchists, most often, but for a time, to visit the Librarian’s granddaughter.
When she was there on a mission, she didn’t think much of the library itself so much as what it could do for her. But in those small, stolen moments in her youth… it was a haven, a steady structure of stone and brick, immovable and hidden away and unassuming. In some strange way, the library had been something of a monument to Nova. And now… well, now it was gone, and only rubble and the faint smell of smoke remained.
What happened to memories, she wondered, when the place where they resided was burned to ashes? Where else could they call home?
Or did they wander forever, filled with longing and hope, reaching for something that was always out of grasp, searching for querencia?
The noise of stone scratching roughly against itself shocked her out of her thoughts, and she looked up in hyperawareness. Had someone found her here? Did the Anarchists somehow know? Her eyes flew around the broken scene until, finally, she saw it: a small ginger-haired figure, standing half-hidden by a pillar of chipped and burned stone, staring at her with wide eyes and shy calculation.
Narcissa.
Nova wasn’t sure if the feeling that bubbled in her chest was relief or anxiety or something else altogether, and though it clawed at her throat and screamed to be let out, she didn’t want to.
Nova knew the exact second when Narcissa realized she was watching her too, the moment where they both inhaled sharply and ran through a million options in their minds, where they wondered what the other was doing here before cursing themselves internally because they knew, of course they knew, wasn’t it obvious?
What she wasn’t sure of was when or why they both decided to step forward, weaving through piles of charred brick and broken stones and the smell of fire and burning, to meet each other in the middle.
They didn’t speak for a long, long moment.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Narcissa said.
Nova stiffened slightly and tried to contain the hurt that flashed across her face. “Why not?” she asked, a dare in her voice.
“You could have stopped it,” Narcissa said simply. “You didn’t.”
A million words flew to the tip of Nova’s tongue. She couldn’t have stopped it, not really, not without knowing about Ingrid’s plan beforehand and certainly not without giving up her identity as Nightmare to the Renegades. The library was a tragedy, but it was a sacrifice that had to be made for the greater good. And besides, if anyone was to blame for this, it was Ingrid.
She said none of those things. She knew that look on Narcissa’s face, knew it as well as the one that might be on her own, and more than that, she understood.
“I know,” she said. “I didn’t.”
She did not say she was sorry. She wasn’t, and Narcissa had always hated insincere apologies. One of the few things they still had in common.
They lapsed back into silence, content to simply stand and look at each other, taking in the souls they’d known so well mere years before but were now nearly strangers. Since… whatever they’d been had ended, Nova made herself scarce to the library and Narcissa. She’d seen glimpses here and there, had conversations in brevity when necessary, but the closest they’d been in nearly a year was when the library burned down.
And now, here they were, standing on the ruins of a fire, taking each other in.
Narcissa was taller than she’d been before.
She wasn’t tall - she never had been- but she’d inched past Nova and was now probably around 5’4”. She was slender, lean and delicate-looking, as if she could fold at the slightest touch. She’d always looked that way, but she was stronger than she seemed in all the ways that mattered.
Nova did her best not to look at the eyes that had first captivated her, so like stars they seemed. A part of her said that if she were truly done with Narcissa, she’d have no trouble looking her in the eye. The bigger part screamed no, she was not ready to see another thing she’d burned without the intention. Not today. Maybe not ever.
Did that make her selfish? She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think she cared. Most things she did these days were. Why not add one more thing to the list? Narcissa certainly wouldn’t be surprised; she expected nothing less from Nova these days.
“I’ve always wanted to dance to this song,” Narcissa said at length, and Nova realized that whatever song it was that had been blasting from the open window had changed, the opening chords of a song she could just barely see in the back of her memory beginning to play.
She didn’t answer, but she extended a hand. An offer, but not a question.
Narcissa took it.
When their bodies came together, Nova stiffened like she’d been burned. Everything about Narcissa was familiar- the way their bodies fit together when they danced, the way her head tilted slightly to the side, the way she swayed to the music and quietly accepted Nova’s lead.
She didn’t know where to look or what to think, but this was not about her. This was about Narcissa.
It was the very least she could do.
This is the deep and dying breath of the love that we’ve been working on.
Nova took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let the song consume her, memories without a home mixing in with them, awakened for one fleeting breath.
Narcissa’s smile when she told stories was bright- not like the sun, but like spilled golden ink. She had a talent for it, probably inherited from her grandfather, but she didn’t bother with the pretentiousness and elitism that the Librarian was known for. In her mind, all stories were created equal- but they became something more when she breathed life into them, and Nova couldn’t count the number of times she sat, enraptured, as Narcissa recited some age-old tale from heart, late at night, huddled between two shelves.
The night they first dared to think I love you, Nova told Narcissa her eyes looked like stars. It was true, the secret that Nova held tight and bound to her heart, as if someone might steal away the impossible light she saw in them if only they knew. There were plenty of things she’d never gotten the chance to tell her- that her eyes not only looked like stars, but Nova was convinced and certain that her soul was one too, that Narcissa was the one who first made her think that people were made of beauty and stardust and wind, and maybe there was hope in a broken world after all.
Narcissa showed her every part of the library. Not because Nova was overly interested, but because this was a place Narcissa knew as a home, and Nova wanted every part of anything that had to do with what she held close to her heart. She never held the same appreciation for the simple existence of wooden shelves or carpeted rooms as Narcissa, but the creation of memories there nestled something warm and cozy in Nova’s own heart, and for a moment, she understood.
When Nova told her everything that happened that night when Evie died, she didn’t cry, and Narcissa didn’t make her. Instead, they held each other, and the tears singed the backs of Nova’s eyes and fell down her throat, and she made love sonnets out of them instead.
Once, they held each other like this. On the roof of the library, ignoring the danger, embracing the cold. There was no music, no poetic substitute. Simply two hearts beating in time, two souls reaching out to touch, bodies folded together and four closed eyes and three words in the moonlight for only a moment before they had to go.
Then Nova got more assignments, began training more, put her whole heart into her duties without realizing that meant there was nothing left there for Narcissa. They didn’t so much end as they fell apart, slowly and brutally inside but as much swift and meaningful as the rest of what they’d been. They never said goodbye, and Nova taught herself not to long for it and to no longer look for stars in peoples’ eyes or stories loose on strangers’ tongues.
Nova and Narcissa met again, after a year apart, on the ruins of a library filled with not only books but memories, and they did not speak. They danced, slowly, on rubble and smoke, so close to burning themselves and what they’d had- but not quite. To the tune of a song Nova knew but could not name, they finally said goodbye.
“I’ll- I’ll see you,” Nova said haltingly when the song finally ended, when they let go of their too-long embrace.
“No,” Narcissa said, picking up a black backpack and turning away. “You won’t.”
Then she was gone, and Nova didn’t know what to do- she’d never had the chance to say goodbye before. Not to Evie, not to her parents, not to Ace or anyone else. Narcissa… Narcissa was the first.
She was the first to teach Nova a lot of things.
Later that day, at the Renegades headquarters, Nova shocked even herself when a song with a familiar lilting tune came on as Ruby and Oscar sang karaoke and she found herself humming alone.
We’re slow dancing in a burning room.