Who: Karli Morgenthau and Sarah Walker (with a cameo by Clint) Where: Central Park (Umpire Rock) When: Saturday, September 17 (Backdated) What: A little tête-à-tête about the future Rating/Warnings: Low Status: Completed via gdocs
Clouds scudded by overhead, casting ever-shifting zebra stripes over the sun warmed rock. Kids were playing nearby, the low thrum of the city—always there, always just within the range of hearing—punctuated by a squeal of delight or a sharp scream of elated fear.
It made Karli smile.
The New York of her time, of the half-time (no one could decide what to call them—the Survivors? The Saved? The Unraptured? The Remainder? None of it quite fit. They didn't call themselves anything; they'd been too busy trying to survive for labels to even come up or remotely matter), had been quiet, funereal. Sepulchral. A once proud city, now left to die. But not now. Not anymore apparently.
At least there was bird song again. Still. Whatever. She hadn't been here a week, so her mind was still muddled between past-present-future and all points in between.
The data pad she'd been given buzzed in her pocket, prompting her to sit up and lower the arm that had been across her forehead. She spotted Sarah Wilson right away, moving toward her over the lawn, along with a man wearing a lot of purple by her side. Karli raised a hand in both greeting and to get their attention if they hadn't seen her already, and then slipped off the rock so she'd be standing and waiting when they got there. "Sarah," she said with a nod as the woman drew closer. "Do you mind if I call you Sarah?"
It had been a very long time since Sarah had been to New York City. Back when her auntie had taken all the cousins for something or another. She was young, but not too young to remember. It was almost surreal how in the middle of this huge city that never slept, there was this small area of relative calm in the very center.
She hadn’t wanted to come here alone. Sarah wasn’t a hero, she didn’t have any powers or abilities. She was a mom who’d been through hell and managed to survive it all. Clint had agreed to come with her as a sort of bodyguard, just in case man, putting both her and Sam at ease, but even so Sarah had the feeling nothing was going to happen. Of the two of them she didn’t trust either Karli or Walker. Both had their issues and innocent people got caught in the crossfire, but at least Walker wasn’t pretending - or lying to himself - about something he wasn’t? Honestly, once they’d gotten through everything, she really had hoped that the whole business would be out of her and her family’s sphere of involvement. Seemingly not the case now.
Sarah glanced at Clint, more confirming his presence for herself, before she approached Karli. “Karli.” She nodded her head as a greeting. Not terse but not entirely certain how else to greet her in this situation. “It’s fine,” she added. “Not the first time you’ve called me Sarah, or it may be ‘will call me Sarah’.” She sighed. “This whole different time points thing.”
"It's the first time I've called you Sarah." Maybe it was petty to point it out, but it seemed to need stressing. She'd done some bad things in her time, but not nearly all the things she'd been about to do according to the Gospel of John Walker. Karli's gaze flicked back to the man with Sarah, not really sure if he was actually looking at her behind his purple reflective sunglasses until his mouth quirked upward and he gave her a jaunty salute. She returned it with a cautious nod of her own. He struck her as someone who made people think he was ineffectual when he was anything but. Didn't need to be intimidating, just had to be good, competent.
Her attention focused on the other woman, who radiated powerful mama bear vibes. It made Karli tilt her head, more out of curiosity than anything else. "So, what horrible, monstrous, evil things do I do to you?"
For a moment, Sarah debated giving an explanation for Clint’s presence, but ultimately decided against it. Karli was smart, she’d figured it out by now and Sarah wasn’t about to insult her by explaining the obvious. Instead it seemed it was right to the heart of the issue, which gave her a better idea of when Karli had been portaled from as it had been her only interaction with the Flagsmashers, at least directly.
“Used me to help you decide if you needed to kill my brother after something went wrong with a meeting, wanted me to deliver a message and prove a point. Threatened my kids in the process.”
A part of her wanted to protest that she would never, but Karli didn't have to dig all that deep to know she would have, if pushed into it. Now, whether she would have acted on it was a different matter altogether, but that just seemed like splitting hairs over a hypothetical. She dipped her chin in acknowledgement. "I knew of you. If the Falcon and the Winter Soldier came after me and mine—and they did, we'd be stupid not to have done some digging. You're brother's ain't exactly low profile. Or not as low profile he'd probably like to think. I'm guessing you don't know what went down during that meeting? Hate to say it, but without context I've got no idea how far they pushed me to make me use that particular card."
Sarah paused for a second. She held up a finger before turning to Clint. “Whatever you hear right now, about Sam and what happens in my future to him. You talk to him first before you go spreading. Yeah?” She wanted to at least let the three of hers this directly affected having a heads up before it started getting too far around, from a future that might never happen now.
Karli watched the guy mime zipping up his mouth and throwing away the key while he nodded. She'd also noticed the aids nestled in his ears and wondered for half a second why he didn't just turn them off, and then realized how dumb that probably was and respected him just a little more for not pretending to do it. As the very least, he wasn't treating her like she was an idiot. Strange, how far respect went. She looked back at Sarah, brows raised expectantly.
That out of the way, Sarah turned back to the younger woman. This was the third time in a week and a half she’d told parts of this story. She wondered what Karli was going to do with this potential second chance.
“I can’t say I know the specifics. But whatever it was, it was bad enough you needed to send Sam a message,” she started. “You accused him of workin’ for the new Captain America, for Walker. And I told you not only had I not picked him, but there was no way Sam was workin’ for him. So whatever happened, I’m assumin’ Walker was involved.” She took a breath, letting the words sink in a bit. “My brother ain’t like him, never has been. Steve left him the Shield for a reason, just took him a while to see it.”
None of that was particularly helpful, but all it took was the mention of Walker for a muscle to twitch in Sarah's bodyguard's jaw, which made her to begin to suspect that he wasn't a fan either. Good to know. Karli had to roll her eyes at this last bit. "That bloody shield," she muttered, grinding out the words. Tension bubbled up inside her, and she made herself flatten out her hands against the rock behind her and lean back onto the them. All to keep her from doing something that might appear threatening. "And then let me guess, your brother got the shield and we all gathered 'round and sang Kumbaya or some shite, eh? One big, happy fam."
Sarah’s face soured a bit. Karli’s attitude right now wasn’t helping either. Simplifying anything like that. It might have taken Walker out of the equation, but Walker hadn’t been Karli’s problem. Her attention was pulled from the thought for a moment as she noticed the change in the woman’s stance, almost completely the opposite of the sarcasm and anger coming from her mouth, she’d practically gone stock still. She’d seen this from people doing their best to keep themselves under control, but something like what Sarah had just said… It seemed a bit of an overreaction to set her off that much.
“Ain’t nothing that simple. And your problem wasn’t with Walker, it was with the GRC,” she said, voicing what had been in her head already. “But there ain’t no GRC here. There’s no Snap, no half the universe disappearing. Future’s different.”
"Then why, Sarah, does John Walker and the rest of the people from my future, from our future, get to treat me like it's the same? You saw what that bastard wrote. Called me a criminal and a murderer and a terrorist, right where everyone could see. Even told 'em I'd taken the serum." Part of the stone behind her cracked, the lines spidering up around her like a nimbus. The man took a step forward, tense in a way he hadn't been before. Karli's eyes were fixed on Wilson's sister, narrowed, angry, and hurt. "Where's my chance to start fresh?"
Sarah Wilson had gotten very good over the years at keeping a straight face while looking in the eye of the storm. It came from growing up on the water and, if she were honest, having kids. At age 16, she’d taken charge of the family boat and gotten her back home in the midst of a storm that had blackened the sky across three Parishes. As the rock splintered, Sarah’s shoulders tensed, but barely. She saw Clint step forward, but Sarah didn’t move. She’d seen Walker’s post, but hadn’t been sure if it’d been true or if he’d made it up. Now she knew.
Karli was only a few years older than Sarah had been when she’d first guided the boat through the storm. She remembered the raging emotions, the pounding of her heart and the anxiety and heightened emotions, knowing that all of this had been on her… Karli had blown up that building with those people in it, that she’d done. But here… that future hadn’t happened yet. As real as it was, as much as she remembered it, those people were right now still alive and well somewhere in this world. The anger plus the serum that was flowing through her veins… Sarah didn’t know anything about how it worked, but was one setting the other off more than just splintering the rock?
“Sam said it, and he meant it. None of that’s happened, those people are alive and no one here should be judged for what ain’t happened yet.” She said it seriously. “But you can’t let him get to you. Walker’s an ass. And he’s been through more of this than you have. He ain’t gonna like you, but that doesn’t mean you gotta let him win. You take this and make it your fresh start. So you have the serum, so you took it. So does Steve. So does Bucky. They’re like Sam, neither of them’s been through what we have yet. You, me and Walker so far are the only ones.”
Not for the first time since getting to this place, Karli was struck with the revelation that the last five, going in six years of her life hadn't happened yet. There was a possibility of her 14 year old self wandering around right that very second. At this point, she was struggling to remember where she may have been. Who she may have been. The Snap had changed her. Irrevocably. It had given her the family she'd never had before. The love she'd never felt before. Somewhere out there was a 14 year old who would never know that. She blinked against the sting of sudden hot tears, and swallowed thickly. "And her ladyship. Valentina something something fancy posh name. Seemed to know who I was." Not that it mattered. She bit her lip, but it trembled anyway. "How are you doing it? Knowing how bad things got, what we did to survive and come together. How do you get on with living with the shadow of the future, of the future we lived, hanging over you?"
Sarah blinked. Lady who? Admittedly, Sarah didn’t know everyone who’d arrived, but she’d never heard of this person before. She couldn’t help the blank look that she gave Karli at the name, but if there was another one of them here, then she was damn well going to find out.
The question however, was one that hit on something that had weighed on Sarah since she’d found herself here. The knowledge which had turned into secrets. The friends who hadn’t known who she was. The brother who again had a gap in his shared time and experiences with her and her boys. Sarah had had the future she came from, her memories of the Snap, the five years she had managed to survive with the help of her community, all of it hanging over her like a dark cloud.
“I survived,” she started, almost hesitantly. “I survived it all and it made me stronger. When I got here and realized there was the possibility of living it all again, it terrified me.” She paused, swallowing and taking a deep breath to help ground her. “But instead, we get a chance.” Sarah met Karli's eyes, trying to make her understand. “I keep my boys close and thank whatever sent us here that they’re with me, because if they weren’t I’d have torn up heaven and Earth to get them. And I hold on to the fact that I survived and that because we lived it, if it happens again here, we are the ones who have to be the canary in the coal mine. We have to watch for any signs and speak up so it don’t. History doesn’t get to repeat itself. Not this one.”
It took a moment for Karli to realize she was nodding slowly. A lot of what Sarah said was resonating with her. A second chance. A do-over. Keeping a watchful eye. But what was keeping her from doing more than just watching? The Snap wasn't happening, but it didn't mean the world was peachy-keen. Far from it. Things needed fixing still. And there was the small matter of the dozen or so vials of serum she had squirreled away. Still didn't know what to do with those now that she didn't have the rest of the Smashers around, but she knew it would come to her. She'd been quiet too long, lost in her thoughts, but she came out the other side with a tiny smile at the older woman.
"You're not so bad, Sarah Wilson. For what it's worth, I wouldn't do it now. Go after you and yours. Be a bit daft, seeing as how I don't got much in the way of friends 'round here." Karli ducked her head and looked up at Sarah from under the shadow of her hair. "Maybe you could be one?"
Looking at Karli right now, what Sarah saw was a kid. She’d been driven to do what she did by circumstance, the same way they all had. But at the same time, she knew that the young woman was dangerous. She had that spark in her, the one she’d seen in her brother, Steve, Bucky, the one that made a person do more than talk about doing something and actually do it. That spark was a difficult, sometimes impossible one, to keep unlit. Was really a matter of what she chose to do and how, if she chose to.
“I’ll take some comfort in that.” Especially since she knew if anyone did go after her and the boys while they were here the kind of hell that would likely rain down from multiple people. It… wouldn’t have been pretty, but she wouldn’t say that. Not something that was necessary. Wouldn’t help anything. “We’re all in this together. Stuck here together. And the only way we’re gonna survive it and maybe have a chance of fixing what’s happening is if we stick together.” She wouldn’t say friend right now, but she wasn’t just going to let the girl be out there on her own. “You like seafood?”
It wasn't a straightforward answer, but Karli respected it nonetheless. Or maybe even more. An outright lie—even one born from the best of intentions—would have gone over like a lead balloon. As it was, her lips tipped upwards as she eyed Sarah curiously. Over her shoulder, she noted the bodyguard had lost some of the tension in his shoulders. He was one to look after, mostly for the fact that he made himself just about as unobtrusive as a person could be. In her experience, those were the ones who brought the most trouble. It was just a flick of her gaze, but it recentered on Sarah absolutely. "What, like fish and chips?"
It was a safer topic to be sure. One that could be the start of something, a place to build from - food instead of politics. “Fish, yes, chips, not really. We got some pretty good cooks. You should stop by and catch a bite sometime.”
Young as she admittedly was, Karli had mastered the microexpression for a while now. Her misgivings about going anywhere near the Facility itself, let alone inside, came out as barely a twitch of her upper lip in an otherwise neutral smile. "Maybe down by the water," she hedged, "in that Asgard place. Like one of them fry-ups I've heard about. Could be nice, yeah?"
“I tend to do 'em. Been trying to decide on my next steps while we’re here. Used to own a boat with my brother. But I dunno.” It was different here. Cold water fish weren’t the same as the ones at home. “Anyway, I like t’cook, and you should come. If it turns out y’don’t like it, I got a decent fish and chips recipe I can toss up. No one leaves my table without a full stomach. Could meet a couple’a non-Walker people too.”
Now seemed like a band time to mention that she already knew that, about the boat and all. At the second mention of Walker, Karli glanced toward the archer. Clint Barton. His non-reaction was probably even more damning than when he'd gone tense earlier. "Could do with more of them in my life, believe you me. Yeah, all right. Fish and friends. Or potential friends. I know from next steps too. World's your oyster and all, 'cept you've got no idea which way's up." Her mouth quirked upward, not quite a smile, but not far off. "'S far as meetings go, this wasn't a bad one."
“Yeah that happens ‘round here a lot.” Figuring out which way was up was the hardest part of the whole arrival thing. “Just a matter of findin’ your footin’.” It was honestly the best advice she could give her starting out here. It wasn’t always easy, that and, “if you need someone to help, someone to talk to, believe it or not, my brother’s actually pretty helpful.” Sarah wasn’t entirely relaxed, but she felt better. “Honestly, I didn’t think it was gonna go too badly. Everything’s gotta start somewhere.”
"I'll keep that in mind." And she would, mostly because Karli still wondered what a pre-Snap Sam was like. If he could be an ally. She could ignore Walker for an age, but the bloke had the kind of beef that didn't just go away. Didn't seem to matter that she hadn't yet done what he hated her for. "Think I'm gonna hang out here for a bit longer. You and Mr Barton should try to enjoy the park. 'S a nice day."
Sarah nodded and glanced up. It really was. Looking to her left, she saw Clint standing there, he’d been there the whole time and while he didn’t look out of place, she wanted to thank him for his time today. “I think we will. Maybe take a stroll, see if we can’t find some ice cream. Figure it’s the least I can do. This one’s gonna make sure I don’t get lost.” She turned towards Clint and nodded. She wasn’t as familiar with the city as he was after all.
The man nodded and smiled easily, and Karli had that certainty pulse through her mind again that this was an act. He wasn't a super soldier, didn't have any special powers, but that didn't mean he wasn't dangerous. Wasn't deadly. He sauntered over to Sarah and offered her his arm. "Shall we promenade like the gentlefolks do, my dear?" Barton doffed an invisible hat at her. "Ma'am."
It was far too over the top for Sarah to not play along. She held up a hand and pretended to fan herself, a smile spreading across her face. “I would be a fool to turn down such an invitation, sir.” Sarah linked her arm with Clint’s, turning her head back towards Karli with a small smile. “Think this is my exit. You have a good day, Karli. We’ll see you.”
Which she had no doubt in her mind that she would.