Jemma Simmons is a terrible liar (needanewplan) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2020-09-01 04:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, jemma simmons, kitty pryde (shadowcat), natasha romanoff (black widow) |
Who: Jemma, Kate, and Natasha
What: Coming back from the dead
When: 15 August 2020 after Darkseid plot
Where: Agency garage
Warnings: Dealing with dying
Status: Log | Complete
Kate gasped, sitting up, hands going to her stomach. Her insides were no longer her outsides which was--
Images returned to her, images and sounds. All that blood and the torn flesh and the screaming and the crunching and that last little broken sob. She looked around frantically, “Jemma!”
She’d passed out before they’d turned to feeding on her, but oh god, Jemma…
It was very disorienting to be where she had been torn apart. Honestly, Jemma wasn’t sure what was real. The last real thing she remembered was seeing Kate with her insides on her outside before she was suddenly swarmed. She remembered pain, so much pain. Worse than when she’d been tortured whenever that was a thing.
Letting out a startled gasp, the biochemist spun around, looking frantically around the garage as she made sure her limbs were really there.
“Kate Kate Kate…”
It was as if her eyes were unseeing still trapped in the memories, not able to place herself yet.
Kate was shaking and, well, there had been a lot going on but she couldn't get the sounds out of her head. She'd seen so much death but that had been this visceral, brutal thing.
Scrambling to her feet when she heard Jemma's voice, she then rushed over, "Oh thank god. I'm here, I'm right here, I'm so sorry."
She grabbed for Jemma's hand trying to stop her spinning.
It was a lot. Getting her thoughts back in order, being able to place herself. Not the easiest of things after what had happened. As she felt a hand grab hers, that seemed to stop the frantic spinning and searching and the panic started to recede.
“You’re okay, you’re okay…”
And while normally Jemma was a master of compartmentalization, she just hugged Kate desperately. She was solid. This was real.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Because of course she was. She wasn’t a fighter. Not really. If she had been, if she’d been quicker, maybe just maybe… but they were alive and this was real and maybe she could breathe again. It wasn’t quite like the Dreams when she and Daisy had found one another after fighting LMDs and having to prove they were real but it was close enough.
"It wasn't... there's nothing to be sorry for." Even without closing her eyes, Kate could still hear it. The gnawing and crunching and screaming. It echoed in her mind, made her wonder if she was going to have to relive that.
Making her wish it had been her instead, that she hadn't been unconscious and likely already dead when they'd finished with Jemma and come for her.
She already knew what it felt like to be consumed, but the zombies hadn't been the same, it didn't haunt her the same way this was going to.
Maybe because she'd drowned before it had gotten bad enough (and the irony of how often she seemed to drown was not lost on her).
Hugging Jemma, practically cradling her, she whispered, "I should have been faster, less cocky."
There was no use in wishing for things to have been different. And Jemma had a feeling that no matter what had happened, she would have ended up Paradoom food. How could she not have been? It wasn’t like she would have stayed inside. She may not have been a fighter but she was a doctor as well as a scientist. She had to help in whatever way she could and that meant putting her life on the line.
So instead she just clung to her friend.
“Don’t think it would have mattered, no matter what we tell ourselves.”
She was trying to compartmentalize, it was what she did. But she knew that. She knew that in this? Faster or less cocky didn’t really matter.
Jemma was … probably not wrong, no matter how much Kate might really not like that answer. To her, there was always a way out, always a way to win or beat back the darkness.
That this had been so much out of her control was both grating and terrifying and yet it felt like these things were becoming more and more common.
“I don’t know how to prepare for this the next time. That there are things we can’t win. I don’t even know how we’re alive, but there’s no guarantee there’ll be a way back.” Kate laughed bitterly; she’d dreamed she’d drowned and there was no way for Krakoa to resurrect her the way it did everyone else.
Death was final, unless she dreamed more, and she wasn’t super confident of that one.
She’d already been leaning towards living in the moment, and this certainly didn’t help. “I wish we could just… turn off the part of ourselves that go out and fight.” She lifted her head, then leaned her forehead against Jemma’s, disinclined to let go until Jemma wanted her to.
Part of her still wanted to grieve but now there was nothing to grieve. “But then I ‘m not sure who we’d be.”
Jemma did have a tendency to say the things no one really wanted to hear. Part of that compartmentalization. And death should be permanent but between Dreams and Orange County, there was so much that was just...flipped upside down. And somehow, she had figured out how to live with that despite it going against everything she knew and understood of life.
“Honestly, I don’t think there is a way. We never know what’s going to come next. We just have to use our wits and skills we have.”
And she really hated it. But it wasn’t like there was a way to predict the next Orange County event. No way to know if it would be random Peeps multiplying at obscene numbers, or something like the end of the world.
“Wouldn’t that be nice….but I’m not sure who we would be either if we even could do that.”
Either way, Jemma was fine staying as they were at the moment. There was still so much to process and make sense of and it was just grounding.
If they were at their wits end, what did that mean? In the dreams Kate so often had to rely on her friends, but they didn’t always come through, and even in the waking world, there’d been a time when it had felt like her friends were ignoring the way the dreams traumatized her.
‘It’s not real, that’s not really you’ didn’t work for everyone and frankly had been insulting and inconsiderate and wow Kate was still upset about that.
“I tried it once. In the dreams. Tried to have a normal life, at a normal college, doing a normal job. But it followed me there, too. I don’t think you were here when the Sentinels came to visit. Uh, giant mutant hunting robots. Not sure if you’ve got those in any of your dreams?”
She shook her head, leaning into Jemma and stopping herself before she nuzzled her; this wasn’t really an appropriate time to start feeling the heart squishies though near dying and actually dying tended to make Kate affectionate and a little horny.
Clingy was probably the operative word here.
“I think maybe it’s the small stuff I miss. Helping regular people. Cosmic and world consequences are exhausting.”
There was a part of Jemma that wondered if this would be added to the Id version of herself, the representation of every single traumatic thing that had happened to her. It hadn’t shown up which meant she still didn’t know if it was just the traumas from the Dreams or the waking world traumas as well. She also didn’t want to find out.
“No, that doesn’t sound familiar.” So it had to have been before she had shown up. Which of course made sense. How could it not? But she also couldn’t say that she was surprised that even if Kate had tried the normal life thing in the Dreams, everything else followed.
Jemma wasn’t really aware of the clinginess at the moment, not with everything that had happened.
“It’s why we do what we do. The small stuff. All of this?” Well, like Kate said. It was exhausting.
"We should live like cats. Napping in sunbeams, 18 hours a day. Go crazy for 3 hours. Eat. Nap some more." Kate grinned. It was an idealic life but also probably very boring. She'd lose her mind after a few days.
But there was a difference between the excitement of, say, skydiving and what they'd just been through. She'd take the sky diving a thousand times over.
Without a parachute even.
She pulled her head back, looking at Jemma and gnawing at her bottom lip, but before she could say (or do) anything, a voice interrupted them.
"I could get you two a room if you'd like."
Despite the inherent snarkiness in the question there was genuine relief in Nat's voice.
Shaking her head some with a slight smile, Jemma had to admit that cats had it fairly well made. Not that she’d be able to do that. She’d be itching to get back into the lab or really anything. There was a reason that vacations were temporary after all.
Hearing Natasha’s voice, Jemma looked over, completely unaware of what Kate might have done and where her thoughts were. For the biochemist? It was all a lot and Kate was solid and familiar and real and that was all she needed. But it was also good to see Natasha and that she seemed to make it out of it all okay. In theory. It was hard to say really since she shouldn't even be alive.
And much as she had after being undercover at Hydra and then surrounded by the rogue S.H.I.E.L.D team (whom honestly she couldn’t deny they’d had a point but after everything), Jemma went and just hugged Natasha as she had May for being someone familiar and she could trust. Because it seemed necessary.
Nat was not usually one for hugging people she wasn’t dating, but she could make an exception at times. And this was one of those times as she patted Jemma’s back awkwardly then returned the hug. She had a few things she needed to give them but that could wait a moment or two.
Her people were alive and that was what really mattered right now.
Kate had done worse in public then cling to someone but she was too tired to even make that joke. Instead she walked over and hugged them both. Because this was a hugging day. In fact they should make it a county-wide holiday.
After a few more moments Nat grimaced, “Okay ladies. We’re all here and intact.”
Stepping back, Jemma folded her hair behind her back, slightly embarrassed but not really given everything that had happened.
“Right. Of course.”
Still, it was definitely a hugging day after what had happened. How could it not be? So much had happened. It was overwhelming.
Nat looked between them, then reached into her pouch and pulled out two items. She only knew which one belonged to whom by differences in size and the materials they were made from, as she carefully handed over each of their necklaces, “Very glad to be giving these back.”
It was only as she saw what Natasha was handing her and Kate that it really hit what had happened. She remembered, could feel it still, but to see the Magen David that had been passed down through her family for generations? That it wasn’t being worn? Somehow that made it harder to push aside.
“Thank you…”
Voice quiet, the biochemist once more put it on, letting it rest against her. It was a strange feeling, one she couldn’t quite place, like she was more grounded once it was once more on.
Kate took hers, not putting it on, not yet, simply looking down at it in her hand and feeling the weight of it. There were times in her life where she was loud about her heritage and times when she was not. But she never forgot it and this had always been a comforting weight and presence, even when death and suffering was a revolving door. Maybe because of that.
Glancing at Jemma, she had a stark reminder of how infrequently she really interacted with the other Jewish heroes of her dreams. Magneto more than some others. She liked that about Jemma and it made her feel less alone.
“Thanks,” she said, pulling it on.
Nat simply nodded at them, looking between them and trying to gauge how much they’d obey orders to recuperate. All three of them were pretty bad at work life balance, after all.
“Give yourselves a day, preferably two. There’s work that needs doing but it can wait long enough for you to get your heads back on straight.”
That was the concern, wasn’t it? That none of them would take the time to truly recover. Jemma knew that leaving herself to think about things would only end poorly. But she also had seen the physical manifestation of her compartmentalization in the Dreams. So all she could do was nod.
Besides, mistakes could be made if they didn’t have their heads on straight.
“I’ll get her home,” Kate promised, though she had no idea what she’d do. But Nat was right, they were kind of useless at the moment. “Try to take your own advice?”
Nat smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes, “I’ll try.”