in his own little room again ((nexus_crossings continuity, for chatnerd, but open))

[shieldborne]

God's righteous man, Ultron had mocked to his face a few years back. Pretending you could live without a war. Steve had to acknowledge he wasn't wrong. The vision Wanda pulled out of his head, it wasn't wrong either. He is half strung-out, bone-weary, combat fatigue personified. Half of him wants to go home.

The other half? Will never be able to stop fighting, because that means having to face what's left.

Visiting the Nexus has only driven that point home, in some ways. No matter how much people encourage him to expand his horizons, take time to relax and recover, to be Steve Rogers, he's restless and adrift there, friendly with everyone but not, in the end, all that close to any. But there is one idea that's caught at him relentlessly since his arrival there, and that's the inescapable visual of kids fighting wars.

Most of them probably don't see it that way. Friendly neighborhood Spider-Men, just doing what they can, what they innocently assume any good person would do. Every time he thinks about that, it hurts. And he has plenty to do in his own world, collecting the proliferating alien weaponry across the planet, breaking up and hunting down remnants of HYDRA, and ducking the law. But here there's an opportunity for something more, something gentler, something that's not fighting and might, in the long term, keep people from ending up in the psychological catch-22 he's gotten himself into.

There's no Nexus real estate office, but there are people who have a clear idea of what land and buildings can be claimed and what can be done with them. Steve has somehow, through funds scraped together, favors called in, and contacts made, become the proud owner of what was once some kind of diner or restaurant. The building is a decent size, two floors, with a lot of the appliances and furnishings still inside it and still working. Including a jukebox, which is what he's looking at right now, outside the front of the building. He's got most of it taken apart and spread neatly on blankets on the grass, and he's methodically cleaning it bit by bit.

The long term plan is a safe house he can set up for the costumed-hero types here that have nowhere else to go if something goes wrong. The kids, specifically. He won't be able to be here all the time, himself, but he can put it together and give what he can. Fill it up with food and medical supplies, maybe put in some bunks, some security--

Well, the plans are still evolving, but it's something.

Comments

[red_room]

Thank every god in every realm for men's ability to grow beards. Not that Natasha can't tell the Steve's apart without it because she most certainly can. But it's so much quicker and easier for all involved that they don't look identical. Nat gives Steve a slight nod of her head. Enough to let Cap know that she's his ex-Russian spy slash assassin and not some other Romanoff.

Ever since Loki asked her about that she hasn't been able to put it from her mind completely.

"You know, I took a day off to get away from you right?" A lie, but an easy one. Steve just shakes his head and nods toward the building Natasha's lingering outside of.

"He call you here too?"

Inviting both herself and Steve out here, but not together? Curious. Natasha shrugs before she gestures vaguely toward the door.

"Guess we better find out what he wants."

[shieldborne]

He really didn't expect them both to turn up together, is the thing. Actually, he was half hoping they wouldn't, because they're disorienting enough separate. His problem is not that he can't get over the fact that they're alternates from another world, it's that he keeps forgetting they're alternates from another world. He's like an Alice in Wonderland that's been down the rabbithole too long now. Nothing makes sense, so everything makes sense, and he'll just go with the flow of it, for the most part.

At some point he's going to have to let Thor know what he's got going on here, too, but there's no hurry for that. Thor has his own people to look after right now.

In any case, Steve is opening the door for them before they get close enough to touch it. He's got a basic security system up and running now, and the cameras saw them coming.

He's kind of a mess at the moment. He's in sweatpants and an old 'I <3 NY' t-shirt, knees dusty, and there's a cap perched on his head backwards, which probably means he's been trying to clean under the furniture and fixtures. He's the kind of guy who usually complains how dumb it is for people to wear a baseball hat turned around--the brim is to shield your eyes from the sun, forchrissakes--but the irony is lost on him right now.

"Hey," he greets them with an awkward smile. "Anyone want to help me clean behind the oven? No?"

[juststeverogers]

That's a sentiment Steve can understand quite well. Before he ended up spending some time 'catching up' as Natasha called it, Steve spent quite a long time living in the Nexus when he was stuck here. He likes to think it's made him more open minded in general about the world.

Any world.

But sometimes the ludicrous nature of everything seeps back in. Like watching himself with a baseball cap on backwards and an old ratty teeshirt that still manages to be too small on him despite clearly being comfort clothing. Steve shakes his head after a second to shake his train of thought free from the freeze it had done a moment ago, leaving him staring stupidly.

"Steve. The oven." Natasha nods over to it and that's one more thing breaking him out of his shock.

"Right, 'course." He can move it pretty easily if they want to give it a clean really quick.

[shieldborne]

The too-small shirt is almost synonymous with Steve Rogers at this point. He knows damn well he could go a couple sizes up easily, but he doesn't bother since most of the time he wears even a printed tee as an undershirt. That, and Sam teases that he's disappointed every time Steve wears a workout shirt that fits him right. He's pretty sure the guy doesn't mean anything by it; it's just a running gag at this point.

He laughs softly and waves a hand to halt them. He shouldn't be surprised that they'd help first and ask questions later. "No, no, I'm kidding."

He could move it himself if he needed to. "I mean, sure, but later. I thought I better give you both a heads-up about this project, is all."

He turns on some overhead lights, beckoning them toward one of the booths that still remain in the corner. The seats are covered with bright red leatherette cushions, and the formica on the table is carmine, with squiggly gray and white organic shapes all over the surface, a retro pattern (but then, what's retro when you're from the 1940s?).

"Have either of you run into Spider-Man here? He's a nice kid when he's not sweeping your legs out from under you." Steve sits, notes the dust bunnies on his knees, and stands again to try to brush them off.

"There are two of them, actually. Spider-Men? Spider children. And then there's a boy somewhere in his mid-teens that dresses like a black cat. There are probably more I haven't met."

He looks at his alternate with a grim smile. "It's driving me crazy; all these kids. I figured I better at least try to do something about it."

[red_room]

If they could get over the weirdness of seeing each other--interacting with each other--they might find amusement in what's the same and what's different about them. Steve's put a lot of effort into being more open minded about this but it's still so bizarre to be talking to himself.

He opts to find a nearby wall to lean against and fold his arms. Settle in for a listen and give Natasha the stage front and center of this other Steve Rogers' attention.

"Not personally since Germany." Natasha glances back at Steve but she knows it's the same for him. "We've heard a lot about him here though. I've been trying to keep an eye on him while I'm around, but I doubt he's noticed."

It's what Nat does best after all.

"You're all always so shocked when kids sign up to fight." Bruce was the same way. Natasha has never much understood it. Then again, she used to be one of those child soldiers herself once upon a time. "So what? You snazz up a secret base they can make a club out of?"

[shieldborne]

Phew, tough crowd. No one even wants to sit? Steve looks a little uncertain by the reception, but maybe he just wasn't clear enough about the invitation. He sits again, and he's about to clarify, but something about the way Natasha speaks gets his hackles up.

It's not abnormal for them to butt heads on occasion, even with as much as he trusts and relies on her. It feels weird, though, if only because he's reminded this isn't his Natasha Romanoff. He huffs out one of those 'holding onto my temper' sighs and taps his fingers on the formica.

"Yeah. Sure. Hands-off. That's fine, whatever. You know, I'm not shocked they try to sign up, I'm shocked that grown-ups are letting them. I didn't drop a plane in the Arctic so a grade-schooler could run around New York getting shot at and then potentially get arrested and tossed into a goddamn floating cage without trial."

Wow. Language, Steve.

"It's an emergency safe house. If they end up on the run on their own world, if their families get targeted, if someone gets hurt bad and needs to go to ground, if they have a big project they can't trust anyone with, they can bring it here. I have some food supplies, I'm working on medical kits. There are some bunks on the next floor up, and I can set up the basement like a bomb shelter if I have to."

Whoops, and now he's wound himself up, so he's on his feet yet again, pacing, hands in his pockets so he doesn't curl them into fists. "The food is important. Kid's not eating enough. None of the three I've seen are eating enough."

"Neither of you has to be involved. Actually, it's probably better if you keep your distance, because at least two out of three are cagey about their identities getting discovered." It was hard to tell how worried Miles Morales was. He might have been jumpier about demasking if he hadn't been in the company of Peter Parker and Captain America.

"I just wanted you to know this is what's happening, and why." And apparently, god help you if you have a problem with it, guys. He's got that blue-steel look in his eyes now.

Splitting Here

[juststeverogers]

It's not that Steve doesn't want to sit, but he can read the discomfort off of his counterpart like a book and he's really not quite sure yet if he's welcome. And then Nat has to go and open her mouth.

He and Natasha have already argued about this before and probably always will. He can see the hypocrisy when it's not his hackles being raised but he knows himself well enough to know that saying anything right now is only going to further start a fight. So Steve lingers and watches, and when Natasha looks back at him for support he shrugs and drops his gaze before turning to look around the place.

"Mind if I give myself a tour? This place is really something."

He'll wait until the waters have settled a bit to try and talk to Steve about this. In the meantime, maybe he'll find out something else about all these kids he's missed arriving here in his ever growing list of missions that keep him away from the Nexus.

[shieldborne]

Information-gathering? Steve the host eyes his counterpart thoughtfully. He's still obviously steamed, but he doesn't especially want a fight, either. Not with these two, for certain.

He's not sure what the issue is. At worst, he imagines, this is harmless as long as he keeps his attention on it. At best, maybe it'll help someone.

He sighs and gestures loosely with one hand. "Help yourself. I'm still working on the upstairs and the basement, but there's a big kitchen in the back. Bathrooms, and a small infirmary."

[juststeverogers]

"Thanks, pal."

Steve nods before disappearing off up the stairs, his footfalls calling out his tactical retreat so that Nat can have her opinions without fear of pissing off both of her exceptionally fighty friends named Steve. It's not fair to her for one thing, and he doesn't want the other guy to feel like Steve's lingering and judging either if he makes himself stay quiet.

This way's better.

He doesn't come back down though, long after any voices--raised or otherwise--have died down. Did he fall in?

[shieldborne]

After the discussion with Natasha winds down, Steve takes it upon himself to come look for his alternate. He assumes he wants a word, as well, and maybe he won't enjoy hearing said word--his nerves are frayed now--but it's only fair to let him have his say. He comes up carrying two bottles of apple juice, one for each of them, and knocks on the door on the landing before entering the room.

"You okay up here? I mean, if you need a nap the infirmary actually has a cot, so it's probably more comfortable."

[juststeverogers]

Now at first, Steve's retreat upstairs was purely a tactical move to buy himself some time to get his thoughts sorted about all of this. He knows well enough probably what Natasha's going to say on the matter because he knows the burdens she carries as well as anyone who knows her does. As much as she thrives in being a mystery to others some wounds of hers are too large to be anything short of obvious for those who know about them.

And she loves to think she's the only one capable of getting her hands dirty when it comes to any kind of problem. As if Steve Rogers hasn't done horrible things during his time in The War. Or since, in some of their other battles. He's only human.

But while Natasha talked to his clean faced double, Steve's found himself an empty room upstairs that might be planned to be used as some kind of a dorm eventually. It's got a long wall on one side unbroken by windows or other fixtures. And Steve, bored of poking around the place after a few minutes really can't help himself.

He starts with a rough sketch on the back of a napkin and holds it up in front of the wall while he hums thoughtful noises devoid of the shape of words before turning back to his little napkin.

If what his counterpart is building is a sanctuary, then maybe it should start to look more like home. Maybe, despite everything, a part of Steve's heart will always be in New York. Or maybe it's because after all this time he finds a relaxing calm at drawing the cityscape of his home from memory because it's the only place where that time exists anymore.

In his head with all the other fragments he's never sure are real or not these days.

"If I got sleepy you and I both know the lack of a comfortable place to crash wouldn't stop me any." He's slept on the hard ground with very little to protect him from the elements more times than he can remember. "I got distracted thinking of all the possibilities you've got here for a mural."

[shieldborne]

"Comfortable is relative," he says, enters the room slowly with his hands in his pockets, and then just sits on the newly-carpeted floor near his alternate, letting his legs collapse and fold in a half-lotus under him.

"Sometimes it's easier to sleep on a floor than a bed, I guess. Don't take what I said about the infirmary as a recommendation, by the way. Your feet'd hang off the end of the cot."

He looks up at his counterpart, then turns toward the blank wall with a thoughtful little smile. "A mural, huh? That's a lot of painting. Are you volunteering to help?"

[juststeverogers]

"Wouldn't be the first time we slept in a place too small for us. Remember the beds at Clint's? I was so sure one of us was gonna break those things."

Maybe not as much of an issue for them as it was for Thor, but those kid beds were not made for a super soldier to sleep on. Steve's not sure about all of them, but he knows he ended up on the floor after the second the bed he'd been relegated to creaked in protest. A spot of a good memory amid the muddied waters of the Ultron incident.

Or at least not a traumatic memory, which some day sis all he can ask for.

"As if I'd let you get to hog all the fun." Steve tucks the pencil behind his ear before handing the scrap of napkin over to his counterpart. "S'only my first idea, but. It's a start."


((OOC:I don't have anything specific in mind for this thing, we can talk about it OOC if you'd like. My Steve tends to draw 1940's Brooklyn a lot whenever he's feeling down or lonely so it's likely a cityscape he's sketched out here.))

[shieldborne]

Steve laughs softly. "Yeah, I remember that. Do you remember Bucky tryin' to say we could save money on rent if I'd just sleep in his desk drawer and we sublet my room?"

Those were fighting words, but it was a pretty friendly fight.

He accepts the napkin with a smile. "I've got a sketchbook here. You could've borrowed it."

He looks it over, holds it up to the wall to imagine, and sighs the sigh of wistful nostalgia. "No one but us is gonna get it, you know. But I like it. Soft colors? Earth tones, but not too brown?"

[juststeverogers]

"I accidentally gave him a black eye over that one. He was tryin' to get me into a hold and I brought my elbow back at just the wrong angle. Bony bayonets he used to call them."

Steve rubs at the back of his neck and gives a slightly guilty chuckle. It's nostalgic, talking about those times. And sure, he wonders how different those moments were between the two of them. How much was the same. He's worried if he asks though, he'll never stop.

"Maybe not everything has to be for them." Steve mumbles back but shrugs his shoulders. But the other one likes it? Well, good. Steve nods along with the color choices. "Some sepia wouldn't go amiss there, but something something instagram filter jokes if we go too far with it."

Splitting Here

[red_room]

Natasha looks back at Steve for any kind of guidance or backup here, but she's not surprised to see him disengage on this particular subject. Her eyes still narrow in suspicion that the stubborn fire in his veins dumbass from Brooklyn is backing down from this fight. It usually means he's waiting for his time to pick it right back up again.

"Is that how you think of Wanda, too?" And maybe she's asking both of them that, her jaw set when she turns back to Steve. He's thought the worst of her before. She can handle whatever he thinks of her now.

"What we want isn't going to stop these kids form getting involved either because they believe in the cause or because someone forces them to."

They tried the safe and sheltered thing with Wanda before the Accords happened. All it ended up doing was making it easier for someone else to turn it into a cage. So now they're hands off. ....Ish. Granted she's also a bit older then the kids Steve's talking about here now, but she wasn't when they first ran into her.

[shieldborne]

"Wanda?" Steve raises an eyebrow. "You mean the girl who joined her twin brother in volunteering for experiments to end war in her country, only to be exploited by HYDRA? If you're trying to argue against what I'm doing here, Nat, you could have picked a better example."

He folds his arms and stalks around to lean his hips against the coffee bar. "Wanda's an adult. She's a young adult, but she's legally and physically grown up. She's been hit hard, over and over again. If I could go back in time and give her peace, and her brother back, I probably would. But there's a difference between an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old, and at some point we have to look at what we are becoming."

"Look, I know I'm nobody's dad. I have no jurisdiction here or in anyone else's world. If I tried to stop them, I'd fail or get them into worse trouble, or both. But if the government or the police or public opinion turns on them, if someone threatens their parents, when they end up burned out or traumatized and don't know where to turn except the Nexus? This will be here."

[red_room]

"No, I know why I picked her. Because Wanda rebelled against us too. And that? Was only barely handled."

What happens when Steve's good intentions end up rubbing one of these teenagers the wrong way and they pull back rather than jumping at the chance to be part of Rogers' After School Special he's got going on here? She sees what he's trying to do here and it's a good idea to have a safe place for these kids to call their own.

With her own friend no longer here to see or hear what Natasha says she sighs and lowers her gaze toward the floor a moment. There's regret on her face as her fingers drag across the counter and drop to her side.

"Just make sure they know you're no one's father, Steve. This could easily blow up in your face big time."

[shieldborne]

His lips press in a thin line. "I don't think she did rebel against us. At any point. I think she just grew up."

The way his arms are folded is tighter than his usual Captain-America-is-Thinking pose. He's tense, and it's more than just his jimmies being rustled by a dissenting opinion.

"I'm not sure I understand your objection," he says, even voiced in spite of his discomfort. "The kid shows up in the Nexus hungry because he's got too much pride to ask for help. Stark wouldn't let him miss a meal, if he knew. Whatever Tony's flaws are, he's generous to a fault."

"I can't stop him from doing what he's doing, and I can't chase him down in his world and protect him, but I can make sure he's got food and a place to stay if the worst happens. Why does that bother you?"

"You used to trust me. I mean..." He has to remind himself this isn't his world's Natasha, but the dynamic feels painfully similar right now. "Never mind. It's not the same thing; you don't actually know me."

[red_room]

"This--" Natasha gestures around them with both hands, taking a step forward into the space Steve's been working so hard at. "This doesn't bother me. You wanting to help a kid in need? Doesn't bother me. But you said there were more."

Not from the same world, not from worlds either of them will understand well. Why the hell doesn't Steve Rogers ever see risks as well as the potential for good? Sometimes Natasha hates being the one to clean up after others as much as she ends up doing.

But it needs to be done and she's good at it.

"It's not about Trust, Steve." Why can't he ever see that? "Someone's got to be the paranoid one when you stick your neck out so far all the time. You don't know what kind of worlds these kids are from, or what kind of powers they could have. What happens when your act of good will is seen as charity or worse--pity and one of them inevitably reacts like a teenager would react? What if he hurt or influenced the other kids? What if one of the kids you invite isn't such a good kid after all?"

How many ways does she have to say it?

"I just want you to be careful who you trust. I've met more than one kid in this place who needed a cell far away from anyone else he could hurt more than he did an act of compassion here in the Nexus. And if you're specifically targeting kids at this age with crazy powers? That just makes the danger greater."

[shieldborne]

It's worse than she thinks. He sees the risks, he just doesn't care, at least not on his own behalf. This is the kid who would shake off an asthma attack to pick a fight with two men twice his size. When he does a cost-benefit analysis of an action on his own behalf, he includes the risks on the 'benefit' side of the equation. He's always been looking for trouble.

Even more so now that he's convinced he's no good for anything but trouble any longer.

And that's what's really bothering him here, when it comes down to it. He's trying to do something good that's not about fighting, killing, and maybe-dying. Just giving some kids a place to do their homework and have a decent meal without the authorities or their own enemies breathing down their necks. Of course there's a risk. There's a risk in just talking to Natasha, to his alternate. Someone might learn something that changes the course of their world.

But he has to find something that's not a fight, at least not the same fight, or there's not going to be a Steve Rogers much longer. He's got to break the mold or die on the front lines, and he can feel that down to the bottom of his soul.

He can't stop fighting. Every time someone tells him to take a chance to breathe and just be, something rebels in him. This is the first alternative that's really gripped him, reached right into his chest and tugged at his heart and lungs like the arrhythmia and asthma he left behind in the 40's, and refused to let go. It's a job to do, it feels right, it feels just as vital as any battle he's ever stepped into, and he can do it. The worst that can possibly happen doesn't sound like anything worse than he faces on a day to day basis back home.

He listens to her talk, accepts and understands that she knows more about the Nexus than he does and that she's probably right; someone who looks like a kid in distress here could just as well be a ten-thousand-year-old god of destruction or something crazy like that. Or even just someone like Wanda, exploited and powerful beyond his understanding, and damaged beyond his ability to repair.

It's a real risk, but it just...doesn't matter. He turns away and sinks onto one of the bar stools, resting his elbows on the counter and running his hands through his hair.

"Natasha," he says. "I have to do this. If you have suggestions for some protocols I can put in place to protect the kids, I'm all ears. But I need. Something. That's not out there in the field. That's not a mission. Do you understand?"

"I'm only human."

[red_room]

"And I'm warning you because..."

Natasha gestures with her hands--lifting them as if to emphasize herself--before changing her mind and letting them fall back to her sides with an audible slap of her palms against the fabric of her clothes.

"Because when I was their age I'd think nothing of breaking into something like this, following every single one of these kids to their home worlds and murdering them first chance I got just to remove a threat. And this is a multiverse. If there's one of me, there's a million of me and even more that aren't me."

And if Steve Rogers ever has that on his soul, well. She thinks it might break him.

"I get it. I do. I just can't trust like you do." She knows too much to do so.

[shieldborne]

"And if you had, you'd be standing before me now, aching with guilt like you do for every other thing you've done that you blame yourself for," he says quietly. "But you're still human, and somehow when Clint reached out to you way back when, you responded. What would you have told him, before he made that call? Don't? She's too dangerous?"

He turns to look at her. "Sometimes you do the right thing and you lose because of it. We haven't had that happen too often, in too cut-and-dried a way, but it's always a possibility."

And Steve is the kind of guy who hates to lose, but he's always going to make the 'right thing' call rather than the 'guaranteed win' call. That's probably one of the reasons he's such a mess these days.

"Any security measures I can come up with, I'll put in place. And the kids themselves will know. We can't protect everyone against everything."

"Do you really get it, though? Do you? Is he..." He nods up at the second floor to where his alternate has vanished for far too long. "Is he as far gone? I can't tell. You need to keep an eye on him."

[red_room]

"...Yeah. I would have."

Because she has never needed Banner's powers to be a monster. These days Natasha's more at home with the dichotomy of who she tries to be and who she's been for most of her life. Her past haunts her but the things she's done have given her experience that makes their time on the lam easier to navigate.

"For one thing, there's certain kids out there you cannot let into a place like this. Young adults now, I suppose but. People who need help or to be removed, rather than saved." She's quick to pull out her phone and call up a picture of one of the Nexus regulars in short order so she can show it to Steve. "If any of these kids befriend this guy, for example? We need to shut that down right away. It's only going to end badly for everyone involved."

But all out security is tricky in a place like the Nexus. There's nothing stopping most anyone from walking right into anyplace they like and looting the place. Locks are fine but can be dealt with. And with no ability to actually hurt another person the best security you could get in the Nexus would be a way to either detain an intruder or keep them out altogether. Easier said than done.

"Your circumstances are different, Steve. The Nexus has affected us, and him especially. He doesn't remember what things about this place are memories and what things he dreamed were real while he was under in the ice unless he can find one of his drawings to prove it. Some times I catch him asking himself if he could have done more to stop Barnes from being captured because he'd met a Winter Soldier here well before he ever became the world's first super hero. He's distancing himself from all of us. Spending more time with our Exo friend Blaze on her world fighting her battles because it's easier than being here."

[shieldborne]

"You gotta let me make the same kind of call Barton did, then. Because I'd be dead a few times over without you, and you know it, and you know I'm not the only one. Or--okay, here's that thing about parallel worlds again, but I'm pretty sure it applies."

He gives her a strange, sad, gentle smile. "I'm not the arbiter of who does and doesn't deserve to be given a second chance or anything. And you're right, there's a lot of danger, I admit it and I'll take it under advisement. That's the best I can do, Nat. Okay?"

He gets up and steps closer to get a look at the guy and gives a little grimace. Maybe it's a bad photo but there's something unsettling about that expression. "Duly noted. What's the matter with him?"

He half hopes this means she's willing to pass along intel about long-term Nexus residents and visitors. He could use it, but he's not about to ask, because she's got more than enough to do these days.

He folds his arms across his chest, listening to her assessment of his alternate, and Steve--he's relatively self-aware. He knows he's distancing himself from his work and friends on his own world. That's part of what this is about, too. Only part, but still.

"Doesn't sound all that different," he says quietly. "Except for the memory part. I can't forget a goddamn thing, and I know it's all real. You worried at all?"