WHAT: Opening up and some gentle canon puncturing WHERE: New Asgard beach WHEN: Today, probably early afternoonish WARNINGS: Just talking about some sad STATUS: Complete
Kate huffed as she dropped her bow on the sand beside her feet, grinning in this breathless-and-elated way she always did after successfully completing a mission. Sure, it wasn’t much more than a workout and shooting at some targets Mobius had helped her transport onto the beach bordering New Asgard, but she was satisfied. Relieved, too - her arm had healed up after her encounter with the bitey creepy fuckers and didn’t seem to have taken any terrible damage.
Which was good. She had a showoff streak in her, and she’d have been embarrassed if she was totally off-target in front of Elsa. She’d been a little shaky their first few sessions, which was bad enough, but she was back at the top of her game now. She refused to bring that kind of shame to the Hawkeye name. She didn’t want to give Clint any reason to disown her, even if he wasn’t here.
She dropped down onto the sand, sweaty and content, patting the spot beside her for her companion to join her. It was still cold outside - not snowy, thankfully, but the chill was palpable in the air. It felt good on her face now, but she was sure it wouldn’t be too long before she’d be aching to go back to her room and put on some fuzzy socks.
“Thanks for indulging me.” She bumped her shoulder against Elsa’s, her smile molding into something softer, full of affection, as she looked at her. “Again.”
This had become a pretty regular occurrence for the two of them in the short amount of time they’d spent together in Vallo. She spent most of her time with Elsa, actually - talking, catching her up on modern things, target-shooting, and she’d even cracked a book for the first time in who-knew-how-long the other day. She was clearly a very good influence.
It was one of those days where a cold beverage would match the chill of the temperature outside, along the beach - Elsa liked that, even if she didn’t necessarily feel the cold the way other people did. The sky was gray, it felt natural, and was the color of a coin that was smudged and worn - but they’d gotten some good practice in, with the bow and arrows. Or, well, Kate did - Elsa was happy to observe and offer teasing (but she meant them too) oooh’s and aaaah’s.
Definitely was impressive, however, because Elsa certainly couldn’t hit the target - she was extremely fast and agile, but didn’t have a lot of practice with weapons that made her test her hand-eye coordination.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she settled on the sand next to Kate - after weaving her hands to let the swish of her magic create something for them to sit on; a blue blanket, that same powder shade that she wore in the snowflake design on her sweater - she still wasn’t sure how she could create clothing, but it happened. Shoes, dresses, accessories - obviously more than ice was on the table. “I had fun. One of these days you’re going to show me how to properly shoot an arrow too.” And actually hit the target.
Kate smiled appreciatively when the blue blanket appeared beneath them. She still couldn’t quite get over the way Elsa’s magic worked - even seeing it in the movies hadn’t prepared her for it. She had assumed it would all feel like ice, but it was the exact opposite, somehow. She had a full, gorgeous blue suit hanging in her closet now, thanks to this woman. And it hadn’t given her pneumonia or frostbite or felt like anything other than cloth.
Weird, but magic itself was weird. Still something Kate was still trying to wrap her head around, too. Most of it didn’t make sense to her, but she didn’t question it much. She had known it existed - Loki, Dr. Strange, and Scarlet Witch were all pretty well-known magic users back home - but she’d never been in such close proximity to it before, and a period of adjustment naturally followed.
“Tomorrow, if you want,” she offered. “I’m back to where I should be, I can be a better teacher now.” She’d promised to help Elsa learn and had taken the time to steady her and line her hands and feet up correctly during their practices, but she’d admittedly been working on getting herself up to speed instead of focusing on the teaching process. They would get her there, though - together. She had been total shit when she’d first started as a kid, just as uncoordinated and uncertain; now, it felt as natural as breathing, and it would for Elsa, too.
“Not a lot of weapons training for the Queen of Arendelle, huh?”
“Not a lot, no,” Elsa shook her head, laughing a little at the idea. She had no doubt Kate would continue to be a decent teacher - already she’d taught Elsa a lot about proper stance, which was really half the battle. If she couldn’t even manage to stand correctly (or lift the bow - that thing was heavier than it looked) then she’d be a sad case before she even started. But Elsa was also confident in her ability to pick things up at a quick pace - she’d learned about emojis and all the neat games she could play on her phone, so really, she was rapidly speeding along here in this new, modern world.
She flipped her braid over her opposite shoulder, playing with the white-blonde ends. Some days she wore her hair down and free about her shoulders, other times it was contained - like now. So it didn’t fly in her face and smack her there at an inopportune time - riding Nokk over stormy waves, hair blowing majestically in the wind probably was more of a gamble than one might think. Mostly she assumed she looked ridiculous. “I got training on so many other things though - proper activities for a Queen,” she rolled her eyes. “Horseback riding, needlepoint, ballroom dance. I can make weapons, of course, but I’ve never been much of a swordsman, for example.”
Oh, well. Everyone had their talents - and there was no reason why she couldn’t become a swordsman. “What made you want to take up archery anyway?”
That checked out. Every one of those activities Elsa listed sounded exactly like something rich girls in her time would do. She had done some horseback riding and ballroom dance herself thanks to prep school - some things didn’t change even nearly two centuries later. Needlepoint, though? Kill her. She didn’t have the tolerance or patience for it when she had more important things to focus on.
“My partner, Clint,” Kate explained with a fond smile. It still kind of blew her mind that Clint, this man she’d admired for over half her life, was her partner. That she got to be the new Hawkeye and was totally an Avenger now. It was like - life goals complete.
“When I was younger, aliens attacked. And we have these heroes, the Avengers, who act as our protectors. He’s one of them and he’s an archer, too. He saved me when our house got hit with an explosive during the attack, and I just remember thinking - that’s awesome, I want to do that.”
She had done everything in her power from that moment on to turn herself into the same sort of protector. She wanted to be that hope for other people, that hero, someone others could look up to and depend on. Someone who would stand in the way of injustice and fight.
“My dad died that day, too,” she revealed after a moment’s pause, her expression becoming much more somber. “I wanted to protect my mom. Make her proud. I think I did - not that it matters now.”
That was inspiring to hear - having strong, positive role models was important. Elsa knew that children were impressionable. “You wanted to do it, so you did it,” she smiled encouragingly. Though hearing Kate had lost her father in the attack (by aliens? That sounded horrible) brought a touch of sadness to her expression too - she knew that pain. The pain of knowing one of your parents (or both, in her case) were never coming back.
Feeling grief, sorrow, loss - all of it on top of the anxiety and self-loathing that already had churned through her veins was almost too much for her. A sharp knife covered in salt, just continuing to slice its way along and re-open wounds without them healing properly - that was what the cycle of grief and madness felt like.
She had additional complicated feelings about her mother and father, however (especially her father’s side of the family, considering what they did to the Northuldra people) - and she suspected it was the same for Kate. Elsa reached over, placing a comforting hand on top of hers. “Why wouldn’t it matter?”
Kate’s lips quirked upward and she turned her hand to clasp Elsa’s properly, intertwining their fingers and giving her a gentle, grateful squeeze. She hadn’t really dealt with the ramifications of Christmas and what it had brought to her family, what it meant. She had leaned straight into Clint for comfort, even gone home to meet his family for the remainder of the holidays, then she’d popped up here. Asking questions and finding any semblance of closure wasn’t really an option in an entirely different universe.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t talk about it. And whether it was a side effect of feeling like she knew Elsa through the Frozen movies or actually getting to know her these past few weeks, slowly but surely, she trusted her. She had complete confidence she would support her without judgment.
“I kinda got her arrested,” she admitted with a sigh. Her free hand tucked a lock of dark hair more securely behind her ear when the breeze picked up. “Turns out she was working for the mob in New York and this big crime lord boss, Kingpin. My dad got tangled up with them when he was alive, and she just… followed suit, I guess. I turned her in, and - well, I’m pretty sure she hates me now.”
“I don’t know if she could ever hate you - you’re her daughter,” Elsa allowed, returning the hand squeeze. She didn’t know the entirety of the situation, just what Kate was explaining - and it sounded like her mother got in over her head; perhaps it all snowballed, turning into an avalanche, quite quickly. That happened sometimes, and we were powerless to stop it all. “Maybe she just - lost her way. I hope she comes back to you at some point, and that the two of you come back together. Maybe the ‘you’ at home is even doing that right now.”
After a lot of discussion and working out what had been broken between them, of course - it wasn’t the job of the child to parent their parent, and Kate’s mother would have to make amends for putting her daughter in that position. “Parents certainly aren’t perfect though,” she sighed, trying not to let bitterness creep into her tone. “Anna and I were told certain things about our own parents and they weren’t true. We were lied to for a very long time about what our grandfather did to the neighboring Northuldra people.”
She wondered how much her mother knew and had kept from them too - it was just a lot of lies, all twisting and turning over each other. Especially since when Elsa had developed her powers, her mother had withheld any sort of explanation about those also.
Kate knew what Elsa was saying was a possibility. Her mother hadn’t gotten into this position herself; it had been her father’s doing, and she’d been forced to fulfill his obligations after his death. But that didn’t excuse staying in with Kingpin for as long as she had. It didn’t excuse making Kate think everything was fine or throwing Jack (who Kate had no particular fondness for but still) under the bus to cover herself.
At a certain point - when was it Eleanor’s fault and when was it getting in over her head? She wished her mother had just given her honesty. She wished she’d told her when she was in trouble so they could work something out together. She never had, though; she’d just continued on like nothing was wrong, and this was what it had come to.
Elsa’s point stood - parents weren’t perfect. Kate’s weren’t, and Elsa’s certainly weren’t. “Yeah, your parents could have done better,” she agreed. “You deserved to know what you were getting into, and they didn’t help you control your magic for shit.”
She didn’t think either of Elsa’s parents were anything other than well-meaning, but they’d really just screwed her up and scared her. She couldn’t imagine locking up any potential future kids she had and isolating them for their entire life for any reason.
Disconcerting to think of everything King Runeard had done - that the tales of how he forged a treaty with the Northuldra by using a dam as a peace offering after so much fighting were all false, and he had actually ‘given’ them the dam to weaken their territory. The dam had to be destroyed to restore spiritual harmony, and it had been, but it made Elsa feel as if every muscle was twisted up in knots when she considered that much of her history was filled with misdeeds and painting over those not-so-rosy pictures with a brush that was far too kind.
History was like that a lot, it seemed. Meant to look a certain way, for certain people - meant to shove others into the light and keep their darker atrocities a secret. At least she knew that with Anna as Queen, that sort of thing wouldn’t happen anymore. Point was, she understood mistakes and the need to make up for them - she hoped that Kate’s mother could get there eventually. And that the relationship between them wasn’t fractured beyond repair. A mother’s love was meant to be a unique, beautiful sort of thing - pure and unwavering. Nothing compared.
She glanced at Kate, catching what she said. Not that Elsa disagreed, but. “How did you know?” she asked. “I haven’t talked about them much, have I?”
Damn it. Kate blinked stupidly for a moment, her cheeks reddening (and not just from the chill in the air anymore). She had been so careful about not saying anything about the movies. She didn’t want Elsa thinking she knew her without getting to share the information herself - and she didn’t necessarily think she did because Disney was known for, well, Disneyfying certain things. But she’d spoken so unthinkingly and Elsa had caught it, so she doubted she’d be able to skirt around it anymore.
Time to ease her into this. And she would ease, try to be as delicate as possible. She couldn’t think of a single person who could hear “you’re a fictional character in my world” and not be mildly freaked, at the very least. Maybe some of the nerdy types? Hard to say. She knew it was true for her here (after some thorough Googling), and she thought it was cool, but that didn’t mean everyone would feel the same way.
“No, not really, you haven’t, but, um. Well, you remember how at the DOA, we got this whole spiel about what this world’s like and that little bit about ‘media being freely available’? What they mean is - you might know people here from media. And that’s - I know you from something like that. Or, of you - from these movies back home.”
She hoped that didn’t sound like total psychobabble. She was trying to be gentle about it, and she brushed her thumb across Elsa’s, sucking on her bottom lip, hoping she understood.
Oh.
Wait, what? It didn’t really make sense, but - it also sort of did? Elsa was familiar with the concept of media and people from that media walking among them, especially because when she’d gone to inquire about a job at Cerberus Books she’d been informed she needed to pick a costume of a ‘horror movie character’ and she hadn’t any clue what that meant.
Which was why she’d asked Kate, and they’d come up with the idea of her dressing as Carrie White who was from a film apparently - Elsa just had no idea she was also falling under some of these umbrellas.
“They’re good movies, I hope?” she chuckled sheepishly, feeling her cheeks turn pink. This seemed like it would put certain expectations on her but she didn’t really mind - if they were good movies, and she had already inspired others, then she hoped she could keep doing that. Did she want to put on a costume of herself and parade around at parties or something? No. But little things, perhaps.
“The best,” Kate assured her, grinning. “Wholesome is probably the word. They were meant for younger audiences, very uplifting and inspiring. It was a whole sensationalized thing. I watched the first one a lot when I was little.” She almost offered to turn them on for her sometime and let her watch, but - that would be weird, right? Maybe if she asked, but it wasn’t something she was going to bring up right now.
“I am, too,” she admitted after another moment. “Comic books, movies, or - well, a TV show in the same universe as a bunch of movies. It’s weird, but it’s still my life, so I don’t really think about it. People seem polite enough not to acknowledge it, and I really didn’t mean to shatter the glass for you,” she continued earnestly. Elsa didn’t seem particularly upset by this revelation, but it was a lot - realizing people knew things about you without your own contributions to that knowledge. “I never want you to think I’m prying or know too much or don’t want to hear everything you have to say. Because I do - I really do.”
Elsa wasn’t upset, no - mostly just still trying to process everything. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t think that,” she reassured. “It makes sense, in a way - that we’re stories in someone else’s world. Just the way everything is intertwined and how everything comes from something,” she said, gazing out at the water. New Asgard really was beautiful - she was glad she decided to make a home here, taking one of the empty cottages and claiming it for herself so she could tentatively begin to put down roots.
It was difficult, because so much of her still missed home. She ached for her sister, an empty hole in her heart that only Anna could fill - and she doubted it would ever fully go away, even if she made a thousand friends here (terrifying) or worked a nine-to-five job in a way she never expected she would.
But she had a lot of good things here too. Like Kate - she was very glad to have met Kate. “I’ll probably need to turn it all over in my head more, but that’s alright. This place has given me a lot to think about anyway.”
When she thought about it, Kate would agree. It did make a weird kind of sense, and she definitely thought it was cool, but there was something uncomfortable about it, too. Knowing that her whole life was just out there was never going to be the easiest to wrap her head around. She’d just decided to accept it and deal with it when necessary.
It helped that no one had confronted her with it; she’d just decided to do some independent research because she was curious. She could decide what to do with it from there - that was part of why she felt bad her slip had kept Elsa from doing the same. Unsurprisingly, she took it as gracefully as ever.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked softly, the pad of her thumb now rubbing slow, little circles at the base of Elsa’s. “Home?” She could understand if that was the case. Being displaced into another universe, even one that wasn’t overwhelmingly bad, hadn’t stopped her from missing home.
It was very odd but Elsa supposed she couldn’t do anything about it - she should put her efforts and energy into what she could control. Which, in Vallo, may not seem like a lot - but people built new lives here and seemed to thrive, and she wanted to as well. She didn’t want to stagnate, or be buried in her memories so deeply she missed the good things that could happen.
“Home, always home,” she smiled a little wistfully, shifting her gaze back toward Kate. “I won’t get stuck there though. Already I’ve had a lot of positive things happen to me, so - ” The fingers of her free hand wiggled over where the two of them had their other hands clasped, and she made a happy little snowstorm - the flakes fluttered like hearts, glittered like diamonds; she snapped it all away a moment later with another whoosh. The cold could be beautiful too, as she’d come to learn.
And, really, she was grateful to Kate for telling her about her ‘movie’ status because if she saw any merchandise with her face on it she would have definitely flipped out first.
“I’m also thinking maybe we could go for a walk before heading back inside? It’s nice out here.”
Kate’s expression was a mix of happiness and fascination when those little flakes fluttered down around them. She didn’t think she’d ever get over how effortless and beautiful Elsa’s magic was - especially seeing it in person. Witnessing it in reality (whatever form of it this place could be considered) was just as fantastical as seeing it in Disney’s animation style.
“You can talk to me about that anytime you want, you know,” Kate offered. She sensed a little bit of that ‘conceal don’t feel’ vibe going on, but she wasn’t pushy. She just wanted Elsa to know she was here. “It’s not getting stuck. We got pulled into a whole new universe out of nowhere. Yeah, it’s good here, but it’s still okay to miss home.”
She admired that ‘let’s move forward’ attitude, but if it wasn’t always that easy, she wanted Elsa to know she was a safe place to land. She knew without a doubt the opposite was also true.
She gave Elsa’s hand a gentle tug, pulling them both up to their feet. “Let’s take that walk. Enjoy it before my ears and nose turn to icicles,” she teased. She was probably a little red in those spots, but she didn’t care. Sure, it was cold, but she could bear the cold without actual complaint - New York wasn’t exactly known for its mild winters.
“Thank you,” Elsa breathed out - because for someone as anxious as she tended to be? She appreciated a grounding point, as it were. A safe place. No doubt she’d be coming back to that on occasion, and it was good to have the best of both worlds - someone who you could reminisce about home with, but also someone who wouldn’t let you mope too much when you lamented things you couldn’t change.
She kept ahold of Kate’s hand, the blanket they’d been sitting on dissipating with another swish of her fingers. “And I promise not to let anything on you turn to icicles,” she grinned. Hey, she had to use her talents for something. That seemed to be as good of a reason as any.