CHAPTER: Casualty Notification II

Carol wasn't exactly expecting Steve Roger's daughter Natasha, 'Tasha', to be so intimidating in her sorrow. "He's really gone? He jumped off a fucking cliff on an alien planet half a universe away? Is that what you're telling me Carol?" Steve's daughter asked with narrowed eyes. Tasha was trembling in a tempest of emotions. She towered over Carol, and despite the slightly younger woman being near unkillable, she was not feeling particularly safe at the moment. Tasha may well be into her 60's, but she had aged incredibly well thanks to the effects of the super soldier serum being passed to her from her father. Carol couldn't help but think on this fact as Tasha stepped closer to her.

"Yes. That's exactly what happened. I'm so sorry Tasha. But you know why he chose this." Carol said with a grimace. Steve's daughter was actually older than her, but due to the super-soldier serum changing the man's DNA, some of the effects were inherited. Natasha Romanov's namesake stood a bit taller than her father at 194cm (6ft.4in.). Carol was not used to looking up at other women, and she wasn't sure she liked it very much. Well,

"You're sorry? What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?" Tasha practically roared down at the blonde.

"Tasha, Meine Liebe, you know she couldn't stop him. He wouldn't have wanted her to. He would have seen it as unforgivable," Hilde interceded as she admirably repressed her own tears. She wasn't sure if she was starting to cry because of her own grief over her father figure dying or seeing her Tasha so broken. Captain America's daughter-in-law gently brushed her wife's hair out of her face while Carol looked down at the ground and clenched her jaw.

"Yes! She could! She should've tried." Tasha hissed back, angry tears in her eyes. Carol couldn't help but feel horribly guilty and out of place. When her daughter Monica called her, she had been hoping for a happy reunion with the rest of their family; naively, as it turned out. Monica had handed the phone off to her wife Maggie, who had implored Carol to check on her mom.

Because Maggie's first mom, Tasha, Monica's mother-in-law her just lost her dad to a noble suicide. The American FAA had grounded all flights for the second time in history, and in the days following the Reversal, all flights were booked once the flights were allowed to resume, so travel wasn't the easiest cross-country. Nobody really wanted to face the prospect of a road trip at the moment. People in general went a little crazy during such powerful moments of change.

So in the meantime, Carol was playing emissary. At least Monica and Maggie were there for Maria and Katie. They had planned appropriately, and Monica insisted on being there for her mom, who had suffered enough cosmic bullshit since 1989. Maggie had reluctantly agreed provided Carol check in on her moms.

Tasha's wife, Hildegard, was looking between the two most powerful women she knew and was torn apart by the grief suffocating the room like a shroud. If the situation wasn't so terrible, Hilde would fine much humour in her wife making Carol look like a chastised schoolgirl. Hilde placed a hand at her wife's elbow and pulled her close, away from Carol, "We knew this was coming. Or at the very least, suspected it, dear. Look at Carol's face, really look, this wasn't easy on her either. Steve was one of her closest friends," Hilde spoke in a gently accented soothing tone. Tasha had inherited her father's eyes, though Carol thought they had Peggy's sharpness, and to see them so aggrieved was making Carol feel emotions she wasn't ready to deal with.

Grief just wasn't productive. Mourning was always a leisure; if Carol stopped to mourn her shortcomings, her grief may cost whole planets their lives because she wasn't there to protect them. Or, at least that was the case. The Decimation made her a bit more laid back, more cynical; because if half of all life could be snuffed out on the whim of a madman, little else matters.

Hilde had taken Tasha aside and was speaking to softly her in German, trying to sooth her wife's silent sobs. Hilde had tears in her eyes as she tilted Tasha's head down to look her in the eye. "I didn't think he'd actually do it," Tasha mumbled helplessly as she buried her face in her wife's voluminous hair. It was a little awkward with their height difference, but Hilde rocked them back and forth for a few moments before gently ending the embrace.

Carol hung back as she watched the miserable scene play out feeling like she should be anywhere but here. Tasha's pathetic attempts to hide her tears reminded Carol that everyone is a child when their parent dies. There was mostly silence but for Hilde whispering her native language to her wife as she brushed aside the tears. "I want to meet her," Tasha rasped.

"Her?" Carol replied.

"Romanov. Natasha. My namesake. He named me after her. I want to see what my father's life bought," Tasha's tone was somehow both glacial and fragile.

Carol frowned, "I don't know if there's anybody feeling worse about this than Romanov. So if you're going throw blame at her, then I'd really rather not introduce you." Carol's defensiveness was as instant as it was unexpected. Her tone was just short of biting. Even Hilde raised an eyebrow. "Fuck. I'm sorry Natasha, I didn't mean to snap at you."

"It's alright. I know that if I'm shitty to her, it would be like spitting on Dad's sacrifice," Tasha said in a quieter voice. "But it might help me, I think, at least in the short term. Grief gets less heavy if you share it right?" her caustic humour didn't quite lessen the tension, but Carol chuckled none the less.

"Fine. I'll introduce you if you promise to leave her the fuck alone insofar as Steve's death is concerned, alright Tasha?" Carol replied.

"I'll try."

"It'll be fine Carol," Hilde replied with a small smile. "I'll keep this one in line. I'm good at that," Hilde's lips quirked in a semblance of a smirk. The emotions were just too raw to bring humour out in the situation.

"Alright. I'm going to talk to her first alright? It'd be really shitty to blindside her," Carol pointed out.

"Fair enough," Tasha said with a sigh. She took a couple calming breaths before taking a long penetrating look at Carol. "Go. I know being here is making you crawl out of your skin. I need a little time to grieve." She exchanged a short glance with Hilde before amending, "We need a little time to grieve. We'll contact you later." It was a dismissal, clear as day. But instead of being offended, Carol could only feel relief. Her emotions were beginning to get the better of her, and losing her composure around these two was not a situation that she found attractive.

"Sounds like a plan," Carol breathed out. "Also, Hilde, Natasha, it's really fucking good to see you two alive again. You were missed so fucking much." Without much ceremony, she was out the door and flying away inside ten seconds. Neither Hilde or Natasha II missed the tears just beginning to run down Carol's face as she pivoted to leave. After Captain Marvel departed, the two grieving women stayed in comfortable silence for a few minutes just holding each other before Hildegard spoke up.

"Natasha? Would you like me to cook anything special tonight?" Hilde asked softly.

"Dad's chicken soup would be nice," Tasha replied in a small and vulnerable voice reserved only for her beloved. Hilde hummed as she brought Tasha down for a soft kiss. "What would I do without you Hilde?" she murmured against Hilde's lips.

"Cry alone?" Hilde supplied with a wry grin as she patted her wife's cheek. "Help me peel the vegetables Frau von mir; I'll cut up the chicken."