entranceway | video; guess who's back, back again

video; guess who's back, back again

[ The feed snaps on, and the frame is on the crowded side. In the foreground Steve and Wanda are seated, arranged on a couch in one of the mansion’s tea rooms, while Natasha stands behind them, leaning against the wall near the door. Steve has his phone tilted so that all of three them are visible, Wanda’s arm linked with his.

Steve’s in civilian wear, his expression composed and collected. He isn’t here to give out orders or make any speeches, though. ]

So it looks like Wonderland sent all three of us home at once. Sorry about that. [ As if they had any control over it. ] But we’re back now and more or less in one piece. [ Which isn’t the full story at all, but that isn’t something that needs to be shared with all of Wonderland.

Natasha pushes away from the wall at this and moves closer into the frame of the video, leaning on the back of the couch over Steve’s shoulder, expression mild. ] I don’t know if any others of us were sent home recently, but if so, letting us know would be greatly appreciated.

[ Her lips quirk briefly. ] Either way, I think some of us will need to be assembling for a SitRep soon regardless. But we wanted to let you know we were back to keep people from worrying.

[ Steve glances over his shoulder at Natasha, nods, and then returns to looking at his phone. ] Let us know if we’re needed anywhere.

[ With that, the feed cuts. ]

[ They’ve done their duty and reported their return, which means that it’s time for all three of them to go and lick their wounds. Steve returns to his room first and foremost, finding Bucky even sooner than he had expected when it turns out he’d camped in his room.

Once they’ve reunited, though, Steve laces up his shoes and goes for a run up and down the beach, needing some time to clear his head. Everything that happened back home has him on edge, searching for a way to take action, to do something, and yet none of it means a thing here in Wonderland. There are no Accords here, but a secret that had been revealed in the worst possible way back home remains a secret here, and it’s eating at him.

He also heads up to the roof, as if hoping that a bird’s eye view of everything will somehow cause it all to make more sense. Wonderland isn’t where he’s supposed to be, but at least some of his team is here. They maybe be prisoners, but they’re not caged and collared. It’s something. ]

[ Once Natasha parted ways with Wanda and Steve, having had a chance to - finally - compare information, she briefly stopped by her room upstairs, checking to make sure everything she'd accumulated here was as she'd left it. Then, after replying to a few text messages that had been waiting for her, she headed to the fifth floor. And the bar.

Because damn, did she ever need a drink. Or twenty. ]

[ For most of the day following their return to Wonderland, Wanda remains out of sight. There's no trace of her in either of her usual haunts, the training room or the magic study: she shuts herself away in her room for the better part of the afternoon, door locked tight, though she'll likely answer for those who seek her out. It's been months since she's been this withdrawn-- longer, considering how much time had passed during her trip home, but she finds herself feeling very much like the Wanda who had first come to Wonderland one year earlier, skittish and wary of human contact, unnerved by the idea of having to explain exactly what had changed to rob her of the confidence she had spent so many months building alongside her teammates and new friends alike.

Eventually, it's one of the most basic of human needs that forces her to emerge, hunger driving her to leave her room behind and make her way down to the communal kitchen. After spending time in government custody, the need for a real meal as opposed to whatever the closets might be able to supply is enough to make her brave the mansion beyond her room. She keeps her focus narrow at first, rummaging through the pantry to see what it might have to offer in the way of ingredients, occasionally turning her attention to the kitchen at large to see who else might have wandered in since her own arrival, an attempt to remain aware of her surroundings. House arrest followed by more severe isolation has done very little to put her at ease, and she finds herself unwilling to trust even the slightest creak of the floorboards, regardless of the fact that here, the word fugitive means very, very little. ]

[ OOC: One or all of them will respond to any network replies. If you reply to any of the action options, please specify who it’s for! ]

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"Good," Billy nodded glancing over at Steve. "I'm not sure that I helped but this place is confusing to anyone that shows up here. I know Darcy was also keeping an eye on him." He's quiet for a moment. He and Bucky had been forming a friendship last time he was here and he was concerned about him.

"What happened to his arm?"

Darcy and Billy had both done well with keeping the ship afloat while the rest of them were gone. Steve can't help but be proud of them.

Though that question isn't what he'd wanted to hear, even though he can't blame Billy for asking. He would have done the same in his position. All the same, it's something he'd hoped he could avoid talking about, although that had been wishful thinking more than anything.

Steve lets out a drawn-out sigh. "That's a long story. The short version is that Tony blasted it off." He glances over at Billy, his expression weary. "When it comes down to it, it was my fault."

Billy can't help but wince at that. He's already spoken to Natasha so he knew as much as she would tell him about what happened, which he figures is just the bare bones. "I spoke with Natasha before. Was it over the accords?"

It's a legitimate question. Knowing both Tony and Steve here he wouldn't have thought that, but he knew Tony and Steve back home too. Best friends, almost brothers and team leaders and he never thought it would have happened to them either, but it did. It was some of the worst fighting he had ever been involved in, because it was people he called friends and mentors, people he respected once. Hell it had even split apart his team.

That's a difficult question and one that Steve thinks for a moment he could simply avoid. Just agree with Billy's interpretation of it and leave it at that. The truth isn't something that he wants spread around for everyone to know, but at the same time, he's already paid the price for keeping it a secret. He's known Billy for long enough that he can trust him to keep this to himself.

Steve's never been much of a liar, and he's already sick of it.

"No," he says after a long pause, shaking his head. "That was what it was about at first, but at the end... it was something a lot more personal than that. We got led into a trap and Tony learned the truth about something that I'd been trying to keep from him." It's not an easy thing to admit, especially to someone who respects him so much, but Steve won't try to make himself sound better than he is. He glances over at Billy, half-questioning. Is this something that had come out in his world already? It would make it a lot easier if Billy could already anticipate what he was going to say next.

Billy raises an eyebrow slightly as Steve talks. He forgets sometimes that while similar things occur in their worlds they aren't identical, and the people aren't identical, no matter how much he grew up looking up to Captain America and Iron Man, now much he had grown to respect them...the Steve and Tony he knew here were different. They were people he could call friends.

He shakes his head slightly at Steve's questioning look. This is all new information to him. "What...was it?" His question is hesitant, he can tell Steve really doesn't want to talk about it, even if he is.

There's no sense of recognition in Billy's expression or his body language. If anything, he looks confused and apprehensive. Of course it couldn't be that easy.

Steve heaves out a sigh. Even now, having to say it out loud makes him feel like his intestines are knotting up on each other. "When Bucky was being controlled by HYDRA, he was ordered to carry out a series of hits." All of which Billy already knows. "One of those hits was against Howard and Maria Stark."

It's cowardly, but Steve doesn't look at Billy as he says it, instead watching the grounds below, picking out the various Wonderland residents who are milling around and carrying out their day as if nothing is wrong.

The part about Bucky isn't surprising. That seems to be the same in both their worlds, and he'd learned about it from Steve and Bucky the last time he was here. Tony's parents though, that's news to him.

He blows out a breath; so Steve knew and tried to keep the truth from Tony. "Let me guess, he found out in the worst way possible?" Because that's always how it happened.

If Billy is at all judgmental of what Bucky did, he shows no sign of it. Steve figured that would be the case, but there's a moment of relief anyway. Most people can acknowledge that what Bucky did while under HYDRA's control hadn't been anything approaching his own will.

Maybe Tony will even be able to admit to that someday, but it's going to take time.

"Of course," Steve says, letting his eyes fall shut for a moment as the memories of that awful situation run through him all over again. "We were set up. Someone wanted to pit us against each other, so they made sure that all three of us were in one place so we could watch the footage."

He doesn't think he has to specify that it was brutal.

Billy grimaced. "They showed you footage of a the Winter Soldier murdering Tony's parents?" That was...well Billy can't imagine what that would be like.

"Should I even ask how Tony reacted to that?" Because he could guess, but the Tony from his world and the Tony he knew here were very different people.

Steve had to assume that Tony would have reacted the same way no matter what universe he came from, though he couldn't say that for sure. It wasn't like he'd ever met the one from Billy's world.

He breathed out, a drawn out thing, and shrugged in something like defeat. "He completely lost it. The only thing he could focus on was making Bucky pay, and I had to get between them. Hence Bucky's arm getting blasted off."

Still, it could have been worse. One of them could have ended up dead. Steve just had to hold onto that, as if it somehow made the reality of what happened any better.

Billy nodded, he could above guessed that and part of him couldn't entirely blame Tony, if that had been him...well grief made people do stupid things sometimes.

"I've seen you two fight." Billy told him, memories of that day weren't exactly the greatest. Even though he hated Tony at the time, watching them almost kill each other was- was realizing your heroes weren't perfect. "Though, our civil war was a lot more complicated."

From what Billy had heard their world was relatively lucky, relatively.

Steve had also done stupid things because of grief, so he couldn't really say he blamed Tony either, especially now that he'd had some time to reflect on it. That being said, it had still been his job to protect both himself and Bucky from Tony's rampage.

"Civil war?" Steve asked with a frown as he looked back to Billy. "Didn't realize there was a name for it." But it was pretty fitting, given that they'd turned on each other even though they were supposed to be allies.

"I'm not sure what to make of it when I hear that this stuff happens in your world too," Steve admitted as he drew his knees up and rested his forearm on them. "Kind of makes it feel inevitable, you know?"

"I think we have names for everything. I guess thats what happens when people write comics about your lives, or the Daily Bugle needs to make headlines. We don't make the names up at least."

He nods, understandingly. "I know, its weird, when you guys disappear I wait to hear what happened when you came back to see what was different and what was the same. Inevitable, maybe but also different. We have a lot more superheroes in my world, ours was a long drawn out thing with different consequences. People died." He goes quiet at the end there. He might have been young during their civil war, still not fully an Avenger, but losing Cap had effected everyone.

To be fair, it's not like Steve had much of a chance to look at the news or any headlines during that whole mess, so for all he knows it had been called "Civil War" in his world too. He'll probably find out eventually, not that he really wants to.

The same, but different. Steve still doesn't like the implication that there are certain events they can't avoid, such as Bucky being turned into the Winter Soldier, but if enough is the same about their worlds, then it does make sense, much as he might dislike it.

When Billy mentions that people had actually died in his version of the scenario, Steve's head lifts up sharply and he frowns. Of course he wants to ask, but he also doesn't want to prod at any old wounds. "I'm sorry to hear that," he says after a long pause. "We had some injuries, some of them pretty bad, but no one died." And he'll remain eternally grateful for that fact.

"Good- that no one died, not that people were hurt." He gives Steve a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry you guys had to go through that too."

The worst part had been fighting his friend, and people he had looked up to and respected. Watching it tear friendships apart. It was something he hoped he never had to see happen again.

"If it helps, you and Tony eventually made up back home. Worked it out and stuff."

As things stand right now, it's hard to imagine a situation where Steve and Tony can work things out. They'd actually gotten there before Zemo had put his plan into place and ripped the rug out from under them. Now, the ball is really all in Tony's court, and Steve can't expect him to be that forgiving.

Still, if Steve's going to accept the inevitability of various happenings in their two universes, then he has to assume it's at least a possibility.

"That's good," he says after a long pause. "Everything's still so raw right now, it seems like it's gonna take a lot of work. But I'll do whatever I can."

Billy shoots Steve a smile. That's a very Steve Rogers like thing to say. "Of course you will, you're Steve Rogers, you always do. Thats something that's consistent through universes. Or at least between ours."

The smile and the vote of confidence goes a long way. Steve may not be able to believe in much right now, but Billy still does, and that counts for something. His own smile is brief, but he reaches out for Billy's shoulder and gives it a good squeeze.

"Thanks, Billy. I appreciate you hearing me out."

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video; guess who's back, back again

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