WHAT: James and Kate reunite after her ageswap and James receives a gift WHERE: Black Widow House WHEN: VERY BACKDATED to the timeslip plot, the day after Thor's Halloween party WARNINGS: Big bad feelings? STATUS: Complete
It took her a few minutes to figure out exactly why, pieces of last night filtering into her brain one by one until it all congealed, and she groaned into her hands. Turning into Natasha for a night – well, Black Widow, really – hadn’t been what she’d wanted out of the rager Halloween party Thor was throwing, but there were worse things. At least she hadn’t missed another week of her life in the blink of an eye.
Overall, yesterday had really been a good day, anyway. She’d started figuring things out with Emily (finally kissed her, and God, she couldn’t believe she’d spent any time waiting) and made breakfast plans with her for this morning, too. She managed to make herself presentable just in time to head out the door to meet her, and the whole thing was just nice. It was nice to sit down and have a meal with her. It was nice to sit there and make heart eyes and flirt to her heart’s content and steal kisses between bites of waffle. It had been a while since she’d felt this way, since Elsa, and feeling it again was nothing but good.
By the time they parted ways later in the afternoon (breakfast had, unsurprisingly, bled into lunch), last night’s incident was all but forgotten and her headache was long gone. She headed back home, planning to spend the rest of her afternoon lounging with Lucky and Licorice and her sisters, only to step through the front door and turn to find the next best thing sitting on the couch with her needy cat rubbing up against his knee.
“Hey!” She grinned big at James, hurrying to take her coat off and hang it on its hook so she could bounce into the living room and tackle-hug him properly. Licorice yowled in complaint and dropped off the couch to race off elsewhere.
James Rogers was, factually, someone who had dealt with massive change in repetitively switching worlds/timelines/universes (however you wanted to refer to it) against his will. He had experienced a spectrum of weird things in every place (some things, like future kids and identity swapping and more, were just constants between those places). He had embraced, endured, or agonized about so many versions of so many people that his memories could resemble a row of revolving doors at times.
But it was undeniable that he wasn't a natural creature of change that he didn't like. Most people aren't when that tricky "don't like" gets involved, in all fairness. But for James, the struggle with change was a complex beast of a thing with ever multiplying layers that he often didn't conquer. Of course, sometimes change was just a basic bitch and James handled it like an idiot. It had definitely been the latter this time around with kids visiting from the future and people aging up and down. James had been ready to deal with his and Torunn's kids again now that they had been prepared for it by last time, but instead the central fuss for the inner rings of his extended family had been other future kids (Francis, Morgan, etc), de-aging (Yelena, Pepper, etc), and aging up.
Fine, that last one had been mostly him and mostly about Kate. He still wasn't certain he could articulate just why it had all rubbed him so wrong, but at least he'd been able to apologize to the older Kate for him being a jackass and send her on her way with no hard feelings. Now Kate was freshly back from being a decade older and then turning into his not-Mom for the night, and James had been prepared to hang out with the animals until the correct Kate waltzed through that door and some things returned to how they should be (in James' opinion).
The greeting he received made both the wait and the drama worth it.
With a laugh, James absorbed the forward momentum that was Kate's tackle and turned it to his advantage to properly smother her - with love, not to death. He left her a space to breathe out of and enough room for lung expansion. Very generous of him, if he did say so himself.
"This is more freaking like it," he rumbled, and there was no mistaking just how much satisfaction was in that declaration.
“That’s what I like to hear,” Kate declared, squeezing him right back, arms looped around his broad shoulders. James hugs were some of her favorites. He was such a powerhouse, but he never squeezed too hard, and there was comfort in knowing she could hug him as hard as she wanted without breaking him. Sometimes she needed that.
She reluctantly pulled back to frame his face between her hands and look down into his eyes. She squeezed his cheeks, her brows furrowing thoughtfully. “This is probably weird to say since I wasn’t really gone,” she began, her smile mellowing into something softer and fonder than the initial wild enthusiasm, “but I missed you.”
Strange but true. She hadn’t even known she was gone until she woke up seven days later than expected, but just like with her sisters and with Emily, her body felt the time apart. And she knew without asking he’d been missing her, too. She felt it in that hug, heard it in the way he laughed and the words he spoke, even read it in his expression. He had those expressive Natasha eyes when his guard was down.
With a pretty strong feeling of content, James made his face more comical looking when she squeezed his face, like she was exerting more pressure than she was. That only lasted until she softened and told him she missed him, at which point his expression sobered. Even if he hadn't been a total raging jerk to that Kate, the experience still hadn't sat right with him. You'd think he'd be unaffected by things like this after so many freaking years, but here he was, still uneasy with Vallo playing fast and loose with past and future.
"Take it from somebody who's been there and done that with variations on variations of people - for some of us, you were gone." His gaze dropped, but returned to hers with effort. "I don't think that's how that you saw it, and that's okay. I'm glad, because it means maybe she didn't have everyone get switched out over the years. But it's always gonna be how I feel."
He proceeded to do his best to smotherhug her tighter, but this time there was less comedy to it, and he had to clear his throat before he spoke again.
"I really missed you too." He didn't tend to be great at dealing with the whys of his feelings, though he had improved a great deal with age, especially compared to his early teens self. One of the whys this time was pretty clear, though - he hadn't had nearly enough time with this Kate yet.
Kate let herself be tugged right back into that smothering hug, fingertips pressing into James’ shoulder blades as she clung to him. She knew it must have been hard for him, after all the world hopping and version swapping of people he loved that he’d experienced. She’d heard maybe half of his stories, if that, but she knew enough to know it was still tough for him no matter how long he’d been at it.
Eventually, she did pull back, shifting off where she’d landed on his lap to sit beside him on the couch. That didn’t mean she left even an inch of physical space between them; she looped both of her arms around one of his and leaned on his shoulder, just like she always did to Natasha when they were curled up together. Except James was taller than her so there was less maneuvering and potential for a sore neck.
“So, what happened?” she asked him, looking up at him from her comfy spot on his shoulder. She knew it had been something more than just her future self making an appearance if he had missed her that much, but she hadn’t looked at much of her network activity over the past week just yet. She already knew her older self had told Nat things because of the way her sister smirked at her when she asked what she’d missed.
Settling back into the couch more comfortably, James rolled his neck and then looked down at Kate. There were a few ways he could go with the answers, but straight up lying wasn't one of them. After all, plenty of it was still available to be read and there were still big mouths about. Thoughts of his brother-from-another-future made him want to groan, but he resisted, because he definitely wasn't ready to unpack all of that right now.
So he went for the one that could be played off like a joke, one of those jokes where everyone involved knew it wasn't really a just kidding thing.
"She wasn't a mess like us," he said, scoffing perhaps a little too purposefully, "and I'm supposed to be the older one, so "Aunt Kate" wasn't as funny."
Kate scoffed right back. “How dare she. Being a mess is fun.”
There was something reassuring about knowing she got her shit together. She had always been a little bit of a messy person, outside of her training. Her silly side, and the laundry list of insecurities she harbored beneath all her bravado, had been coming out full-force with the people she loved most lately. It was nice to know she got a hold of herself, but she hoped she wasn’t expected to do that anytime soon.
“That’s not it, though,” she prodded further, perceptive as always. “Do I need to apologize on her behalf? She’s not supposed to show up here and piss off my favorite nephew.”
"She didn't piss me off, the situation pissed me off!" It was too sharp to be believable, but in James' defense, he very much wanted to believe that was precisely the way to break it all down.
He laid his head back and stared up at the ceiling, sighing heavily.
"Pepper deaged to when Dad did some seriously stupid-" he paused, sighed, amended it, "stratosphericly next-level, seriously stupid, stuff in their past. So all the "ha, time to troll" that we're all so great at stopped being funny when she was convinced he was brain-damaged and some people egged it on and Dad was taking a lot more heat than he deserved."
He dragged the hand of his free arm through his hair, sending the normally somewhat messy arrangement into an even more chaotic state.
"I wanted someone to knock it the fuck off and me and that Kate got into it. It was my fault."
“Oh. Shit, James.” Kate had backed up a little bit after the snap. She knew he wasn’t trying to scare her, and he hadn’t, but it seemed like a good time to get her head off his shoulder at least. She straightened up instead, still leaving her hand on his knee in a show of support.
She had known Pepper had de-aged a bit. It had been in the breakdown Nat had given her when they’d talked yesterday morning. She hadn’t known it had resulted in a fight because, again, she’d really been otherwise occupied since she woke up back to her normal self. She wanted to assume it was for a good reason, and since James was taking the blame, she figured it was some sort of miscommunication. She didn’t relish making James feel badly, and she doubted her future self would either.
“I am sorry,” she offered. “I haven’t looked back to see any of it, but I know I wouldn’t hold you getting upset against you in that situation, so I doubt…other me did.”
Not quite yet to mentally cataloging the finer details of the ceiling, but definitely giving it more rapt attention than it deserved, James continued to stare at the ceiling. Of course she was going to apologize, that was exactly the kind of person she was and he loved her for it, but he really wasn't going to let himself off the hook for this. He might not want to talk about what had been one of the roots of it all, but he could at least keep ownership of his jackassery.
"She didn't hold it against me and she really should have. I really was a huge jerk."
He finally shifted his gaze away from the ceiling to meet hers hesitantly.
"I'm not kidding. You haven't seen it, at least I don't think you have, but I can be really mean instead of deal with stuff."
“I’ve been kind of busy, so I didn’t go back,” Kate told him (assured him, maybe; she was pretty sure he wouldn’t have minded if she never went back to see this conversation). “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you were the biggest jerk in existence. I love you, and we’re good. So, seriously, stop beating yourself up.”
She had her faults, she was happy to admit that. Self-flagellation wasn’t one of them. Making choices that put herself in danger? Yep. Throwing herself back into danger after injuring herself? Double yep. But she didn’t beat herself up for bouts of temper or mistakes she’d made. Her head was enough of a mess without spiraling in her own regrets. It was her inferiority complex and worries about doing right by the people she loved that really tended to get her.
"I meant seen as in during the time you've been in Vallo," James explained, "not specifically the network, but okay, okay, you win. No more apologizing."
He wasn't actually going to stop beating himself up just yet - it was what he did - but he'd stop doing it outside his own head. It was the least he could do now that she was back and the last week hadn't even happened to her.
As she wasn't currently leaning on him, James stretched to grab a pillow to stuff behind his head. He pushed aside a blanket to do so, but what he came away with was a small piece of clothing.
A very tiny, very specifically made hoodie.
And Black Widow was right on the front of it.
"Oh come on," he groaned, thoroughly exasperated, as he held the thing in front of him. "This is crap, Vallo."
There was a mental ‘duh’ moment when James explained a little further, but Kate decided to leave that where it was. Whatever he meant by it, she meant what she’d said, too. He was her family, and it didn’t matter if he was a jerk to her in person or on the internet or wherever – she loved him, and she’d forgive him. She might be a little sore about it for a while, but she’d get over it.
So, no more apologizing. She wasn’t afraid to hit him if he did it again.
She watched him with a concerned little frown as he tried to rearrange the pillows behind him, her expression shifting to complete surprise, eyes wide and brows raised, when he produced a tiny Black Widow hoodie from seemingly nowhere.
“Um,” she began, the bewilderment on her face deepening. “What the hell?”
There was an unnecessarily dramatic force to how heavily James's hands were dropped into his lap, still holding the bear hoodie, and it was with equally dramatic energy that James tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling again. Seriously, the bear had been one thing, but he and Torunn finding the hoodies in random places was another thing entirely. He blew out a breath as he raised his head, tousling the floppier bits of his red hair in the front.
"It's for a teddy bear, you know, like Build-a-Bear?" he explained. A moment was spent trying to remember if Kate had been here for Vallo's version or not, because sometimes it felt like she'd just always been with him, before he decided overexplaining was better than underexplaining.
"In Blackpoint, early on, there was a spell to keep people from hurting each other or doing property damage because they didn't know who was coming through the portal and what kind of beef they'd have with someone or someone with them. Plus it kept vampires honest about not feeding on people, other stuff like that. Me, Torunn, Francis, Azari, and Pym all turned into teddy bears with hoodies of one of our parents." He smiled, despite the irritating nature of the current situation. "It got funny eventually and we had other hoodies of our other parents."
"While you weren't here, a teddy bear in a Hawkeye hoodie showed up," and here, James' eyes rolled hard, "after David S Pumpkins wouldn't leave me alone, and it wasn't talking or moving, but I don't know, I needed to know it wasn't actually Francis, the Francis who remembered Blackpoint? I wasn't gonna leave him stuck inside a bear."
He waved the Black Widow hoodie.
"Now the hoodies keep showing up in weird places. We pulled Iron Man out of the fridge. Rescue in blue was at the bar. Mockingbird was on a bow in the apartment armory the day after we all kind of agreed that Francis bear was just a toy."
Kate knew Build-A-Bear, that was an easy one. She’d been born around the height of its popularity and had spent a good decade of her early life going to workshops for birthdays, holidays, or even just on the occasion a friend’s nanny wanted to kill an hour or two of hyperactive children. She had a closetful back home, stacked up on their little cardboard houses as if the closet was their village.
The we-turned-into-bears-because-of-a-spell was a new one. She’d heard quite a bit about Blackpoint at this point, but that hadn’t come up before now. She wasn’t sure what she thought of it; it sounded effective, sure, but also kind of against the whole free will thing. She was glad Vallo hadn’t taken the rule and implemented it here, too.
But now she understood James’ concern and his reaction. It must have been a little bit like a haunting, even if it was a happier one.
“I mean, it’s a cute hoodie. And I guess it’s appropriate Black Widow showed up in the Black Widow House?” She shrugged. “Vallo just likes to mess with people sometimes. Remember my useless plushie power?” It had turned out semi-useful, thanks to Yelena’s genius, but still.
"Then Vallo should have had the hoodies show up for your plushie power," James grumbled, folding his arms across his chest. The Black Widow hoodie could have stayed in his lap, that would have been perfectly natural and expected, but instead it ended up held in his hand against his chest, over his heart. It wasn't an active, thought out action, but it wasn't like James was oblivious to having taken the action.
He let out a sharp sigh after a long exhale, a debate with himself that, by nature of being with himself, he both won and lost before speaking again.
"It's stupid saying it out loud, stupid and selfish, because who wants their best friend trapped in anything? But I wished it was him more than I hoped it wasn't him."
Azari and Pym were his brothers. Torunn was his world. Francis had literally been the first friend he had ever made outside the dome and that connection hadn't crumbled when they had been able to meet so many people in Blackpoint. No, instead, James had learned to love his smug, annoying, brave, ride-or-die friend as his best friend. So, while the Francis Barton currently here had so many of the same mannerisms and the same shared smartass behavior that James could easily believe they were close family in the future despite the decades-wide age gap, he just wasn't the Francis he really wanted to have here right now.
James' jaw tightened and shifted tellingly but it was the only clue beyond his words that what he'd said was a Big Damn Deal.
“It’s not stupid or selfish,” Kate countered. “You miss him. That’s allowed.” It was odd, but in the context, it made sense why James would wish something like that. He missed his best friend, and that was fair. Kate missed home some days, too. Not often; she didn’t have close relationships the way James did, always investing herself in her training more than anything else. But she missed Clint. She missed the opportunity she was right on the brink of and had missed when she was yanked off to Vallo.
But she could definitely see the extra sting of having a Francis here that wasn’t really Francis, too. Her future self had rudely interfered on her time to get to know these kids that called her ‘Aunt Kate’, but she knew enough to know they had ended up being more like siblings with a big age gap to James.
Allowed. It felt like there were two aspects to that allowance – what the universe allowed, and what James allowed himself. He was willing to let Kate sell him on a more universal permission, but personal permission felt like giving in to the ache that went everywhere in the multiverse with James. Shoving it off into the corner where all things Multiversal Loss went was generally how James handled not giving himself that personal permission, so he did that. When that maxed out and blew up in his face was a problem for himself in the future.
He shook his head, unfolded his arms, and tossed the hoodie onto the nearest flat surface that wasn't the couch.
"Anyway. Did you catch up on everything else you missed?"
“Not yet, but I’ll get there,” was Kate’s reply. “It’s been an eventful two days since I got back to me, and right now, I just want to chill.” She was pretty sure she deserved it, and now she had one of her favorite buddies here to chill with. What more could she ask for?
She reached for the remote, turning on the TV to navigate to the house’s shared Hulu account and selecting her profile. “We’re watching something dumb, get comfortable.” She grabbed James’ arm, pulled it around her shoulders, and leaned back into him. She may not be able to solve all his problems, but she figured chasing the bad thoughts away with a little brain-rotting fun wouldn’t be the worst approach.