Early release - for worthallthis

[musicdied]

They survive, in the end. That much is a miracle in and of itself. They survive, mostly intact, still themselves. And then comes the parting. There is no option to stay, to make a real life - so long as they remain, the connection to the place they came from remains, a flaw in the walls of reality that could be pried open or slipped along, the whole cycle restarted on new ground. There is no option to choose a new world to settle on. It's home, or death.

They promise to find each other on their own worlds, so like one another as to be nearly indistinguishable. It will not be the same. It's the best they can do with the hand they've been dealt. Yelena, the one who had walked two years in another world, who had faced monsters and the awful temptation of power, has the easier task in 2023.

Yelena, the one in his time, is still a tool of the Red Room, still under the thrall of a poison that will not have a certain cure for years. The serum distilled from her older counterpart's blood and cerebral fluid may work. There had been no sure way to test it. "It will take years for the neural pathways to repair themselves, if this doesn't work," the older Yelena had warned. "At least two, probably closer to three."

But even before that comes the problem of tracking her down. There is no intel on where the Red Room is, in his time. It moves, and the Widows are drugged both coming and going, aware only of their entry and extraction sites. The older Yelena can only tell him where she will be. It's nearly three months between his date of return and the date on which a suitable mission will present itself - one on which she will be alone, without the risk of other Widows, victims all of the Red Room's poison, interfering. Without the red dust, there is no guarantee of freeing them, and she's not willing to sacrifice them to secure her own early release.

And so: Bern. Yelena, younger, still the Red Room's plaything, is set up in a small apartment, paid for under the alias of one of her handlers, under the pretense of being a young mistress. One with a minor admin role at a scientific institution that is hosting a large conference, at which - regrettably - one of the speakers will suffer a fatal heart attack tomorrow. Tonight, she is running through the plan one last time, accounting for last-minute scheduling changes - nothing that speaks to any interference. Her target's schedule remains the same. Her exit window will just be a little tighter than she'd prefer.

In the living room, her handler is watching television. He'll have nothing to do tomorrow; it's two days before she'll be extracted, if all goes to plan, time built in to go to ground and take down the trappings of this identity.

No one is expecting any visitors.

Comments

[musicdied]

Yelena's head cants, very slightly. "You can see the solution, yes? They need all of the stones for this - and if one of them is to be kept from him, the best candidate is the one that might let him go back and choose his time to take the others."

[worthallthis]

"What do you want me to do? Lock it in a box?" the Ancient one says, sounding skeptical, maybe even amusedly so.

"We want it destroyed," Winter says flatly, which seems to horrify her even more than the idea of half the universe being destroyed. She puts both hands to the pendant, as if he might grab it and try to crush it then and there. He might, if he thought he could, but he doubts it would be that easy.

"That would irreparably damage the timeline," she says. "And leave us defenseless."

"The purple alien destroys all of them when he's done with his thing," Winter shrugs. "The universe will survive. And I have faith you can protect the universe without it."

[musicdied]

"What is the threat you're so worried about, that's worse than that?" Yelena asks, quiet and even and not at all like she wants to grab the woman and shake her until something like sense falls out. It won't make their argument, and would probably just result in being turned into a newt. Or perhaps, this being New York, into a rat.

[worthallthis]

"Cruel deities," the Ancient One begins. "Other dimensions. Devils. Dark magic. Evils you probably cannot even imagine."

"No, I can imagine them very well," Winter says. "I belonged to one of them for a while. Entities that fed on fear, and changed the people they chose to better suit that fear. We fought them without any fancy magic rocks." Maybe they didn't win in the same way as one would win in a regular war, but they beat them back enough to calm that world, for a while.

That does seem to make her pause, eying him warily. "I knew you had disrupted the timeline," she admits. "I had not known how or why."

"I can give you the whole story if you really want," Winter shrugs. "If it will convince you I know what I'm talking about."

The Ancient One looks back to Yelena. "And you believe everything this man says?"

[musicdied]

"He isn't lying," Yelena says, meeting the strange woman's eyes squarely. "And he isn't crazy. And you would not be asking me this question if there wasn't a part of you that also believed."

Or was afraid to believe and clinging tight to what she knew and could control. Given her own experience with the powerful of the world, she's willing to bet that control is a not-insignificant part of the equation.

[worthallthis]

"I have been trying to understand this ripple in the timeline," the Ancient One admits, "with little success. How and why time suddenly changed around this one man, and how that was expanding into the rest of the timeline. Hearing that... explains many things."

She does look troubled. Winter looks between her and the amulet still in her hands.

"We've got some time," he offers. "A couple years before the purple alien shows up. If you need to, I don't know, think about it. Or prepare."

"I will need to think about it," the Ancient One says dryly. "And prepare. And consult with my fellows. How long will you wait in this city for my answer?"

Winter glances at Yelena, brows up. They have a few months before they need to be in Europe, but he knows Yelena in particular has no desire to linger here, so close to the Avengers. (Neither does he, really.)

[musicdied]

"A week," Yelena says, which is longer than she's comfortable with, but just long enough that she doesn't think the woman will balk and say no out of sheer stubborn pride over being rushed. "We will have to move on, after that. Do sorcerers use cell phones?"

It's a genuine question. She doesn't know how magic works. She hadn't known, until Winter found her, that magic was even real.

[worthallthis]

"We have a land line, actually," the Ancient One says. This doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't have a cell phone, Winter figures, just that she's being contrary. Still, she does add, "If you leave me a number, I can contact you when we have made a decision. Or when I require more information." She pauses, then adds, "You say this... alien... destroyed the stone?"

"All the stones," Winter confirms. "When he finished turning half the universe to ash, he used them all to destroy them. Universe kept trucking on without them just fine."

"Hmm." The Ancient One looks thoughtful, the troubled kind still, then she glances to Yelena, to see if she has any last words for the moment.