Nat & Stephen

[14million605]

[After having spent far too much time sitting in front of the grand fireplace in the Sanctum, Stephen had finally passed his limit of productive study. Closing the book in his hands, he furrows his brows, glancing down at his still faintly scarred fingers. He wets his lips and concentrates, whispering the words to a spell he really has no business attempting at 4am all by himself.

The walls spin around him as he casts, and he feels a sense of accomplishment bordering on smugness when they vanish entirely, reveling now a small empty alley. It's astral, that much is certain, but where this is, or why, he has no idea. Glancing around he notes a street sing, (Russian?), he starts moving cautiously down the street, not entirely sure why a beacon spell like the one he'd cast would bring him to a place like this.

He figures it can't hurt to be proactive.]

Hello? Is there anyone there?

Comments

[deaddrop]

[Natasha isn't sure how she came here. She recognizes it as Volgograd, a city she'd spent time in as a child, but it's empty. None of the people who should be filling the streets and alleys, should be pouring in and out of the buildings.

And also, she's supposed to be dead.

The last thing she remembers is falling...

The sound of a voice spins her around and her form, spectral, becomes clearer, more solid in appearance as she focuses.]

Here.

[Wherever here is.]

[14million605]

[He calls out before considering the possibility of the voice being a hostile.]

Stay where you are.

[He follows the sound, jogging lightly down the street and turning the corner to see a quickly solidifying human form. He doesn't bother reaching out, there won't be anything or anyone to touch yet.]

Hello there.

[deaddrop]

[Natasha doesn't try to get away. She's not sure where she'd go if she did.]

Hi.

[Very friendly. Truly. She looks over Strange, taking in the cape, the strangeness of his appearance and his arrival.]

Do you know how I got here?

[14million605]

[He does, but the dead are notoriously volatile, or so he's read, so he decides not to open with that.

Stephen sees her looking him over, and is suddenly appropriately embarrassed that he didn't changed out of his sweats before trying to master travel between life and death. The cloak almost certainly doesn't help.]

I have some guesses. Have you been here long?

[deaddrop]

Hard to say.

[Natasha looks around the empty street, shrugging. She knows she's out of her depth here.]

I don't think anything's changed. It was dark when we got here and it's still dark now, so less than a day.

[If there are days here.]

You're the wizard?

[14million605]

Don't let time fool you. There's every possibility that it's only ever dark here.

[He wishes he knew for sure, but this was all uncharted territory even for him. Well, mostly uncharted.

He sighs.]

Sorcerer actually, but clearly our branding is terrible.

[He looks at her a bit more closely.]

I'm sorry, but do I know you?

[deaddrop]

No, but Bruce mentioned the cape.

[Along with a number of other details Natasha had assumed would be useless, part of anxious rambling that Natasha never challenged because she didn't want to miss something potentially important.]

There's not many people who can make that look work.

[14million605]

[Stephen makes a motion like he's brushing off the cloak.]

Thank you, I think it's known as Laundry Day Couture.

[When she mentions Banner, the pieces click together in his head. Why he's here, how, who this is.]

And that must make you Ms. Romanoff. We've never had the pleasure.

[deaddrop]

No, we didn't. I've heard... mixed things. Tony.

[Which is to say Natasha takes his version of things with a grain of salt. Stark has his own way of talking about people who challenge him.

Natasha has learned to read between the lines.]

And as I understand it, if everything worked right, we shouldn't be meeting now.

[14million605]

[At a different point in time, Stephen might have said something derisive about Tony, but not now. Certainly not in this context.

From what he knows of Natasha there's no need to be careful with his words, but it seems cruel to be overly direct.]

That's... partly true. I hope it'll put you somewhat at ease to know that you won. You undid Thanos's work quite soundly. I wouldn't be here otherwise.

[deaddrop]

That's good to hear.

[Part of the price of her sacrifice was not being there to see if it would work in the end.

She hadn't expected to be around to find out in the afterlife either.]

Though it does raise some questions. If I'm dead and you're not, what does that make this?

[14million605]

[Stephen nods, knowing he doesn't need to confirm for her that she's dead.]

Short answer, the astral plane. The longer answer would involve me admitting to you how tenuous my grasp here really is.

[He looks around, spotting a small cafe table outside of an empty storefront. He gestures towards it before walking that way.]

Let's sit. This might be a lengthy conversation.

[deaddrop]

Apparently I have nothing but time.

[Natasha steps toward the table, pulling out the chair.

The fact she's dead isn't a surprise, but being confronted by it is strange. She's not sure how to feel about it.]

I'd love to hear what's going on. I doubt you wanted to be here.

[14million605]

I did actually, to a point. Believe it or not, crossing the astral barrier between life and death isn't easy as it sounds. My theory for why this was possible at all is because you aren't supposed to be here. Well, not here here.

[deaddrop]

I'm not sure I follow. If I shouldn't be here, where should I be?

[14million605]

[He's clearly searching for an explanation that makes sense.]

I don't know the answer to that entirely, but... gone. I could tell you that due to being an all powerful master of the mystic arts that I can just commune with the dead, but I can't. I'm not sure anyone can, certainly not in the way people profess to. Not like this.

[deaddrop]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying this shouldn't be happening.

[14million605]

[a sigh]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. I've communicated with the very near dead, but I've never had a conversation with anyone well and truly gone.

[deaddrop]

That sounds complicated.

If I'm dead, shouldn't I be in the past, when we got the Soul Stone? I'm petty sure I didn't hitch a ride back to the future as a ghost.

[If that's even possible.]

[14million605]

Possibly. Given what we don't know about the true power of most of the stones, I think the most likely guess is it's a side effect of the Soul Stone itself. Given that your soul seems pretty well in tact.

[deaddrop]

Is that surprising?

[She has no idea. None of this is normal to her.]

I always assumed that dead was dead. That I'd be gone.

[14million605]

Surprising in that I haven't seen it before, but that makes a whole lot of things surprising.

Me too. So now we get to figure out what happens when you're not.

[deaddrop]

Do you think it's a problem? That it can somehow undo the sacrifices or...?

[But that can't be allowed to happen.]