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[outstandingbalance]

[The woman who appears on the feed might be familiar to a few people. She's sitting at a table or a desk and facing the camera, composed, but a little worse for wear. She looks tired.]

You sure know how to make a girl feel at home. [Not that she's faced frost giants or dark elves before, but dropped into the middle of a fight she wasn't expecting and wasn't prepared for? One that probably should be left to gods and super soldiers? That is familiar. The last two days haven't been boring] Is that normal?

[Natasha taps the table in front of her twice, drawing a slow breath as she considers how she's going to play this. If putting her face on the network is a mistake, then she's already made it.]

I think I'm ready for the welcoming committee now.

Comments

[hypoxic]

[...Right. She may be an Avenger, but she's still ops.]

It's.... How can I explain it...

[Why should he have to explain it? He taps his chin lightly. UGH, the mundane educational system is putrid. He'll take a minute before pulling three differently-colored post-it pads from his desk.]

Pick one. Yellow, green, or blue.

[outstandingbalance]

[Natasha arches an eyebrow at that, then shrugs. Sure, she'll play along.]

Blue.

[hypoxic]

Now that was an active choice you made. As we understand time, it was the only choice you could have made. But there are likely parallel planes of existence where everything we know is the same, except you would have chosen the green one instead. From there, the timeline would branch off into a different collection of lived experiences. A color choice is fairly innocuous, but apply it in terms of battles, where you'd dodged left instead of right. A choice creates a point of divergence.

Now... these all exist in a parallel space and aren't intended to cross over, but Wonderland exists as a nexus perpendicular to these planes. [He drapes a string of wiring across all three pads.] As it collects us, it could take a version of you from the blue universe, while previous versions of you have visited here from the green or yellow ones.

[outstandingbalance]

Okay. I suppose I follow as far as that goes.

[She has other questions. What if she doesn't pick a color other than blue, though? What if she chose blue for a reason—because if she dodged left instead of right, there was a reason for it.

But that's a kind of academic question that she doesn't need answered.]

So what's the problem with them in this context?

[hypoxic]

The problem is that the crossover makes it difficult to develop a clear theory regarding memory loss when people are sent away and returned. It could be that your memory is wiped every time you return here. But it just as easily could mean that each visit is unique in itself, but that there's a very slightly different version of you who arrives each time. Each instance would present its own complications.

[outstandingbalance]

[Natasha nods slightly. All right, that makes sense. No way to know if there's slight differences between his world and hers. Or even major ones, if those slight differences snowball. No way of knowing if her memory was wiped or if she's from the same world. No way of knowing if versions of them from similar, closely related worlds are being affected the same by the memories they've lost.

Okay, but... ]

Assuming there is another world where I picked yellow or green.

[hypoxic]

Well it wouldn't be much of an assumption, but yes, let's.

[He was just explaining the likelihood of such a thing existing; it's not a difficult jump.]

[outstandingbalance]

As an example. [Her lips thin a little. She's spent more than enough time around geniuses to know when one wasn't impressed by her comprehension of a particular topic.] I just have to wonder how much proof we have that's what's going on. It makes it sound like the choice was random. Most choices aren't.

[hypoxic]

Well of course it wasn't random. There's no such thing as genuine choice.

[Doesn't everyone know this? He thought everyone knew this.]

[outstandingbalance]

That's more or less what I'm saying, yes.

[Or, not exactly. Natasha doesn't care that much about the physics of that statement and she cares even less about the philosophy of it. Natasha's interest is practical, based on what they have to deal with here.]

What I'm saying is that if the choice isn't random, if nothing is really random, do we know for a fact that there could be timelines that are that similar? Say I chose blue because I was thinking about frost giants. [She wasn't, but they're looking at the dumbed down version of things anyway.] To pick another way, I'd have had to be thinking of something else, which means how I showed up here would have gone differently, and so on and so on.

[hypoxic]

Essentially, everything we're discussing is conjecture. But even informed choices like that have an equal opportunity of being taken. If you chose blue because you were thinking of frost giants, you could have just as easily not chosen blue because you were attempting to circumvent a bias in the testing process and thought I would be trying to lead you with consideration to current events. It all comes down to the firing of synapses in split-second decisions. The perception of time and choice are both flaws inherent in our limited perspective.

[outstandingbalance]

[Natasha pauses a moment; this is not an argument she's ultimately invested winning, but while she doesn't doubt his answer works in a theoretical math sense, he's either missing her point or he doesn't have her experience manipulating precisely those split second decisions as a spy or in an interrogation.

Her lips twitch.]

So for all practical intents and purposes, what this means is that we can't be certain of a whole lot when it comes to where people are coming and going from and what any of us remember.

[hypoxic]

Ah--

[He shrinks slightly, withering.]

Well. In short, yes.

[outstandingbalance]

[Apparently she hasn't entirely lost her touch. Her expression softens faintly.]

Good to know.

[She'd rather have solid intel to work on, but if the best she'll get is forewarning that they're going to be partially working on assumptions, she'll take it.]

When I was here before, we worked together?

[hypoxic]

With respect to full disclosure, it hasn't always been the case for our working condition. We worked quite closely for a time, but when you left and returned, you weren't particularly interested in working alongside someone representative of SHIELD. I'm still open to collaboration, however.

[outstandingbalance]

I appreciate your transparency, Agent Fitz. [She drops her hands to the counter top, briefly, before folding them behind her back. It's not a threatening posture, but it would be a mistake to believe she's actually put herself at a disadvantage.] You know why she would have done that?

[Natasha can guess, but in a funny way, she doesn't want to speculate at her own motivation. Besides the more important detail is why he says she had a change of heart. It's his read on SHIELD that matters, and if he telsl the truth.]

[hypoxic]

We never had the opportunity to discuss timeline issues during that period.

[His transparency isn't immediately returned; he can tell. And she probably knows that he knows. He folds his hands together.]

There are a number of reasons not to trust someone claiming to be SHIELD. Bloody squid wormed in right deep for a time.

[outstandingbalance]

[Natasha's lips twitch. It's not entirely fair, but then, he has her at a disadvantage in some respects.

She likes to think of it as leveling the field.]

Just for a time?

[hypoxic]

[She's the Black Widow. She'll never be at a disadvantage.]

There was a period of recovery. When did you say it was when you left home?

[She hasn't said.]

[outstandingbalance]

[And Natasha know she didn't, but there's room for a certain amount of quid pro quo here. It shouldn't be a surprise she's not the most transparent, but she's not above sharing when it's mutually beneficial.]

Did you hear about what happened in Leipzig? The Accords?

[hypoxic]

Far as I'm aware, the Sokovia Accords are still being voted on.

[She might be ahead. Maybe as far as Daisy is.]

Rubbish that they think they can resolve everything by making a long enough list.

[outstandingbalance]

Not sure it's as simple as thinking it will resolve everything.

[Or anything in and of itself. It's a gesture or, at best, a first step.]

That doesn't mean much here though, does it?

[hypoxic]

[It's a step that'll do more harm than good.]

There are numerous residents here who have powers. It's somewhat less remarkable than we're used to thinking of it.

[outstandingbalance]

[It's a step that had Natasha scrambling to run damage control.]

Getting less remarkable by the day back home, seems like.

[But it is good to know. She'll remember it.]

More on topic though, SHIELD and I haven't been in contact since the Triskelion one way or the other.

[hypoxic]

I'm aware. But it's more that you've been busy. The Director felt it was a good excuse to sever ties, given how public-facing the Avengers are.