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username: IRONMAN

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with him I'm not sure there's a difference

[expatriates]

He was your friend once.

1/-

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a FRIEND would never pull what he did

2/2

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he put up a convincing act but that's as much as it ever was

[expatriates]

What makes you so sure?

1/2

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because actions speak louder than words

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or in this case, it's more like a lack of words that sent the message
all he had to say was anything. but that was too much to ask.

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[ Natasha is an expert at reading between the lines. Tony is upset with Steve for not saying anything and at Bucky for killing his parents. Ergo ... ]

He knew?

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[ she's duplicitous but he doesn't think she'd straight up try to hide that she'd also known this way.

either way, the reply is slow in coming. ]

yeah. he knew.

[expatriates]

You know what Bucky means to him.

[ it's not an excuse, but a plea for understanding. it stings her too, knowing that she was out of the loop, but she has no illusions as to why that would be. rogers cared for them both deeply, but they couldn't hold a candle to bucky, the last living person to understand what life was like for steve back then. it was his last link to a past he'd lost. ]

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Is that supposed to change anything?

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What would you do? Sell him up the river? Even you're not that cold.

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I don't. Care.

[expatriates]

[ She hates this.

Natasha realizes it acutely with a sort of shock; usually, she spares herself strong emotions by not committing, not investing, but it has become impossible with the Avengers. They are everything she has, the only thing she's done in her life that means anything, that could be called truly good, and it's in shambles.

She hasn't been this close to tears since Nick died, but this time, they're born of frustrated rather than grief. The shades of gray have been where she lived since before she could remember, but this strains even her ability to navigate that. These are the shades between her friends, her teammates. At what point did sacrificing them become too much? At what time did they stop being Avengers?

There is finality in the way she accepts that it's never going to be like it was. The fight dies before she can manifest words about how the people she killed as the Slavic Shadow, the Red Death, and their families meant nothing because they were faceless and foreign, buried in a wasteland of ice and not a million-dollar plot with the Stark name. She is no better than Bucky Barnes, and every grudge Tony holds against him, Nat can feel driving another knife into her ribs, but the worst is knowing that she deserves every one.

If he really didn't understand where Steve was coming from, if friendship and bonds really didn't matter, he'd be just as quick to decry her as a traitor. He wouldn't have given her a headstart. She would be on the Raft with the others (and maybe she belonged there more than any of them). It's a small consolation. ]

Do what you want then. But some of us still believe in this team. There's something you need to know.

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[ the problem is that he does believe in the team, despite the fact that he's pretty sure none of the team believes in him anymore. steve might have left them to him, but it's hard not to remember the accusing faces on the raft, hard to imagine that he'll ever be able to feel like an acceptable leader to what's left.

hard not to regret everything that's not. ]

well?

[expatriates]

Loki is here.

A Loki, more accurately, though the validity of that claim is still nebulous at best.

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ok i've read that five times now and still got nothing.

[expatriates]

He's changed his appearance, and he claims to have no memory of New York, to have never heard of the Chitauri, and to have come from a parallel universe.

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and we would ever believe that because...

[expatriates]

Because I talked to him, and I'm telling you that I do.

[ It seemed like an unnecessary point to drudge up that it was Loki's reaction to Phil's murder that sealed her tentative belief, particularly when they'd already mired themselves in so much grief. ]

It's not the first time I've interrogated Loki, but this was different. He was different.
Still. I think it'd be a good idea to watch our backs and keep an eye on him.

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seems to go without saying.

[expatriates]

I'm sorry, am I wasting your time?

[ gonna smack his ass back into self-pity land and call it quits tbh ]

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[ her straightforward way of calling him out is pretty much exactly what he needs, to be honest, or he'll just keep being snitty about everything. and this is an important issue - although he's not sure what to make of it. it's not that he doesn't trust nat's appraisal, but he doesn't really trust any appraisal that's not his own. ]

is that all he said?

[expatriates]

He suspects the Loki in our universe might be faking.

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surprise, the trickster god might be pulling a fast one.

so. loki's alive back home.