A/n: Okay, heaven help me, I am throwing around Australian slang, Scottish slang, and made up slang. You're probably like "no, why" (I know, I'm sorry, but there's reasons). The made-up ones should hopefully be clear from context, while the actual real slang are probably harder to decipher. There will be a glossary at the end of this chapter, so stick with me. ;)
[ NATASHA ]
"Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed." –Spock, Star Trek (2009)
Natasha recounted her experience in the Coal compound to a group of rebels, gathered around a dented metal table in a large meeting room. She explained her interrogation (leaving out any details about Bruce). Then, her attack on the Pocker she'd disabled, her run-in with the red-headed woman in the hall, and finally her escape and rescue at the hands of Garrett's team.
"Jessa," Garrett nodded grimly. "Yeah, she was one of ours. She was a Super—could manipulate electricity. Damn handy when it came to infiltrating Coal hives."
Garrett, Natasha learned, was the head of a core group of rebels intent on bringing down the Coalition. The rebel group, simply calling themselves by the Coalition-appointed nickname "the Rebels" ("Apparently 'Cragging Shits Here to Fuck Up Your So-Called Government' wasn't to their liking," Garrett said with a wink), had been working to overthrow the system for almost a decade.
"Started real slow back then," explained one of Garrett's lieutenants, a sharp Korean woman named Yumi. "Little pockets here and there. People were too afraid to move after the last Great War. It wasn't until maybe five years ago that things really got some traction—people found each other, pulled together."
"Found a helluva leader for our faction," said Jeks, giving Garrett a slap on the back.
Garrett laughed. Despite that, Natasha could see a spike of grief flash across his features. For the loss of his old life or the loss of someone in particular? she wondered.
"Been turning things sideways ever since." He smiled.
"Too right, that," Jeks agreed proudly, his teeth bright against his rough, tan features.
When Natasha wanted to know why they trusted her with any information, it was the muscular man who'd helped her back at the compound, Veer, who spoke up first.
"Because some of us have been there," he said. His voice was like a deep bellow, but filled with unexpected warmth. "Ain't leaving anybody to the Coals, least of all somebody that's been bleached. Bein' unclassified means you got rebels somewhere, even if you don't know it."
Natasha bit back a smirk at that, thinking of Clint and Tony and the others. Oh yeah, she had some rebels somewhere, all right.
"Plus, Garrett says we can trust you," Jeks added. "And Garrett has yet to steer this beamer wrong."
She didn't want to argue with them, it just seemed like they were so… accepting. She couldn't help thinking that had their roles been reversed, her first thought would have been to assume this was a trap set up by the Coals. Unknown, unclassified, mind-wiped person conveniently found wandering the desert by a band of rebels, then rescued by them a day later?
"Hey, some of us have our straight doubts," Yumi piped up, levelling her gaze at Natasha. "And don't think you're gonna have free rein or nothing." She flicked her long dark braid over her shoulder. "But yeah, we're gonna help you figure stuff out. Least we can do for a bleach-head."
For some reason, Yumi's coolness and distrust soothed Natasha's unease. She gave Yumi a nod and decided she liked Garrett's second-in-command, even if the feeling was not mutual.
After that, Veer and Jeks gave her a short tour. They led her away from the meeting rooms back to the eating area, amusingly named the Cantina (she barely stopped herself from making a Star Wars joke, remembering she was supposed to be mind-wiped). There was a cramped rec area filled with retooled gym equipment, pool tables, tables and chairs. It was around this time that Natasha realized the utter lack of electronics in the place. Anything she had seen was old, like old for her time's standards, let alone a hundred years in the future.
"That's 'cause of the Tech War," answered Veer when she asked about it. "All that electronic warfare kinda soured people on gadgets. Well, and the Coalition controlling every craggin' thing. Anything with a signal can be jacked. Has been. This last place? Only lasted this long because of the ban. Everybody knows it and won't come in with a drop o' tech."
"It's back to the days of yore here, I'm afraid," put in Jeks. "And hell, I mean yore. Operations has some stuff, but it's pretty low tech, old-school, or layered up with a dozen jammers and shielders. Really whatever we can scavenge and build ourselves."
Once again, Natasha couldn't help thinking about Tony. She allowed herself to picture him and almost laughed out loud at the idea of his pinched, horrified expression.
They moved on to the barracks: windowless room after room filled with six beds a piece and an assortment of personal items. Like everything else about the base, the areas looked scavenged and rough around the edges. There were faded photographs, frayed knapsacks, beat-up musical instruments, and rag-tag groups of people of all ages and races.
"Anyone can defect," Veer told her as she watched a trio of children playing with some toys in the hall. "It's not the best place and rations are usually pretty thin—we only have what the Scav crews can steal or scrounge. But sometimes it's a helluva lot safer than life out there."
Natasha noted that almost everyone was three of the four classes of citizen. She saw mostly blue bands for Empties and black bands for Scuds, some white-tattooed former Coals, but only a couple red Supers. They darted out of sight, probably terrified of a new face until they knew it was safe. She wondered if the lack of Supers was because the Coals hunted them so fiercely that there were hardly any left or because the remaining Supers out there were too scared to come out of hiding, even join the rebellion.
Jeks and Veer stopped in front of a room that looked like it only had one occupied bed.
"We'll put you up in here with Edie for now." Veer jabbed his thumb through the open doorway. "She's a probie, too."
Natasha shot him a questioning look.
"Probation. Newbies gotta spend a while under supervision so we know you're not spies or trouble or anything," Jeks explained. "Ain't the best solution, but it's better than nothin'."
"No, I understand," said Natasha.
"Me 'n' Ophie's room is here," said Veer, pointing to the room across the hall from Natasha and Edie's. "Fair warning, Edie's a little sideways, but right grouse once you get to know her a bit. She always scoops from the book hauls the Scavs bring in, so if you're wantin' any more history lessons, ask her to borrow some. Need somethin' else, find somebody and ask, and if they don't know, they'll point you."
"Got it."
Veer gave her a salute and went into his room.
"Be choice, Red," said Jeks, grinning. He waved and headed on his way.
Natasha glanced at the beds in Edie's room. Most of them were plain mattresses with no bedding, aside from Edie's—covered in an orange and brown patchwork quilt—and the one closest to the door, which had a set of blue sheets and a old gray comforter piled haphazardly at the foot. Natasha frowned at them but a quick look and sniff told her that they were freshly laundered, so she made her bed. Her new roommate showed up just as Natasha was smoothing out the corners.
Edie's long brown hair hung in straight lines at either side of her face as she bustled into the room, head down.
"Hey," greeted Natasha. "I'm…" She paused and instead decided to go with the nickname Garrett and the others seemed to have chosen for her. Why not, she thought. It's not like I'd know my own name if I'd really been bleached anyways. "Red. I'm new."
"Obviously," Edie replied, her voice quiet but not unkind. More like she was agreeing with a fact instead of being sarcastic.
Natasha fussed with her bedsheets and took the girl in out of the corner of her eye. Edie's shoulders hunched when she moved like she wanted to make herself smaller and she was using her long hair like a shield so she didn't have to make eye contact. She couldn't have been much older than eighteen or so, if that. She settled cross-legged onto her bed and slipped a book out from under her pillow to read. Her long sleeves covered her wrists so Natasha couldn't see what class she'd previously been.
Shy bookworm, Natasha assessed and smiled a little. Is this what Veer meant by 'sideways'?
"You're Edie, right?" Natasha tried, staying on her side of the room, not looking up and keeping her voice light but neutral.
"Mm-hmm," was the soft reply.
"I don't mean to bother you, it's just that I was—well, I was bleached. And Veer said you had some books." Natasha put what she hoped was the right amount of optimistic hesitancy in her voice to catch Edie's curiosity. The girl's muscles stiffened and for a moment Natasha worried that the poor girl was shy enough that Natasha had already pushed too far. Instead, she lowered her book and peeked past her long hair at Natasha.
"What do you need?"
And the look in her eye was all Natasha needed to know: Edie had been bleached once upon a time too. She was sorry in a way that said she knew how Natasha felt. Exactly how she felt.
Natasha swallowed. "History, if you've got 'em. Anything from about 2012 on." She added a small, non-threatening smile.
Edie's eyebrows went up. "That's… a lot of history."
"Even just an overview would be helpful."
The girl took a breath and climbed off her bed. "I don't know if we have anything that far back, but Vika'll know." She pushed past Natasha, head down again, and Natasha had to strain to hear her, she spoke so quietly. "She keeps track of the books better than me. I leave most of mine with her now… 'cept my favorites, of course."
Edie led Natasha to a room that was at least twice the size of the one they'd be sharing. There were no beds in this one, but instead a small table with a few chairs, as well as some faded and lumpy cushions scattered around the floor. Shelves lined the walls, filled with books. It was a mini-library, with books stacked to the ceiling, in heaps on the floor, and piles on the table. A couple people lounged on some cushions, faces buried in the volumes they held. At the table sat an elderly woman with flyaway silver hair. She grinned when she saw Edie.
"You cannae finished that one already, lass," Vika said. Her voice was scratchy and laced with a Scottish accent. "Only picked it up at breakfast."
Edie surged forward and mumbled a reply that Natasha didn't catch.
Vika's eyes lit on Natasha. "Brought a friend, eh, Edie?"
"Red. She's new. And…" Edie glanced unsurely at Natasha.
"Bleached," Natasha finished.
Vika inhaled sharply and she clenched her fists at her side. "Those mingin', craggin'—I could just cowk! Those facking —"
Edie squeaked.
"Sorry lass, sorry, apologies. You know how I…" Vika shook her head. She huffed and relaxed her hands, though the redness in her sagging cheeks took a good minute to disappear. "Tell me what you need, lass," she said to Natasha. "Tell me what you want to know, and ol' Vika'll find it."
Natasha left the little library ten minutes later, loaded down with several books. Edie trailed after her without a word. When Natasha spread the books out on her bed and cracked open the first volume, Edie smiled and looked inexplicably proud.
Natasha spent a few days reading. Though she took breaks in the Cantina for thin meals and to get bits of information from people that the books lacked, she returned to her room to continue going through them. Garrett and Veer each took the time to check in on her from time to time, though they were content to let her be while she came to terms with the state of the world. She figured if she was going to have any chance of making it through this, she had to have an idea of what she was up against.
What Natasha learned about the world since she'd last been in it was horrifying.
The books she had didn't go into deep detail about anything earlier than about 2050, but what it did gloss over was enough to know that the world had gone to shit. There were multiple major catastrophes and attacks across the globe that levelled major cities. Robot invasions, alien attacks, chemical warfare…
Here she found a footnote that made her stomach drop: After the mysterious and complete disappearance of the powerful and groundbreaking team known as "The Avengers" in the 2010's, chaos reigned, and hundreds tried to fill the void they left behind—for good and for evil.
Natasha swallowed. It was hard to grasp that her team had left such a vacuum in the world. They were virtually newly formed, not quite a full year of saving the world under their belt. Granted, they completed dozens and dozens of missions and dealt with a whole host of things she's never thought she'd see, let alone fight. But still, for them to have meant that much? She couldn't wrap her mind around it.
She read on and it didn't get better from there. Wars and crises and a massive virus. Countries became isolated. Some were almost completely uninhabitable. Governments were in tatters, dismantled, reformed into unrecognizable pieces…
Her eyes blurred with tears and fatigue.
She moved onto a book about New Australia and found it written entirely from a Coal's perspective—how those designated "Supers" were dangerous and insane, intending only harm on society. It said reporting a Super sighting was the right and responsible thing to do. How the way to handle a Super in the family was to say your goodbye and turn them in. She had to put that book on the floor before she put it through the wall.
Natasha stacked the books at the foot of her bed and crawled under the covers late on her fourth day in the rebel compound. Her mind buzzed with images of death and endless paragraphs about how the world had completely fallen apart in the last few hundred years. She closed her eyes and wished Clint were here. He wouldn't know what to say, but he'd wrap his arms around her and that would be all she'd need.
She wanted to fix it. She wanted to find a way to stop this future from ever coming true, but maybe she couldn't—maybe the world was destined for this, a train barrelling down the tracks with no brakes, headed to the canyon where the tracks haven't been built yet.
Worse, maybe she was stuck here. Maybe she would have to stay with these people from now on and fight to survive in this insane, dystopian reality.
Natasha opened her eyes and her heart sped up. She couldn't be—she could not be stuck here. She forced herself to take a slow breath. She'd been so busy worrying about how to survive her immediate situation, been consumed with learning about the world, she hadn't even taken a moment to consider how in the hell she was ever going to get back home.
When Bruce had showed up on that table, he hadn't said much. The team had been tossed in time, and she needed to get out of the Coal prison and figure out what happened. Well, she'd done that. But now what? And where—when—was the rest of the team? She had no clue how she could possibly return to her own time. Maybe if Bruce or Tony were with her, they could figure it out and she could help. As it was, she didn't think she had any other choice except try to adapt. She didn't have the know-how to build herself a time machine out of here.
Another slow, slow breath. You don't know, she thought. That's okay. She closed her eyes again. You can figure this out. Even as she thought it, she knew there was no way for her to do that.
But lying to herself had allowed her to fall asleep when she needed to in the past, so lie she did until she drifted off.
They got her some fresh clothes so she didn't have to wear the Coal prisoner jumpsuit anymore. She returned the books to Vika, who fixed her with sympathetic look when Natasha said she'd read them cover to cover.
"S'not pretty," the old woman said. "But is what it is, s'pose." She smoothed her hand over the cover of the top book. "At least we still have these to tell our stories."
Natasha nodded. After the Tech War, any books remaining to this day were precious, scavenged from the ashes of a ruined world or painstakingly printed in limited quantities on old print presses. It was astonishing to know that these people functioned with the equivalent of 1920's technology while the Coals lived off incredible futuristic tech.
The feeling that everything here was so very, very wrong bubbled up in Natasha and she had to get out of the windowless room.
Unfortunately, she wasn't able to go far, since she was still "a probie". While Natasha understood and respected their caution and rules, it got old fast. She was only allowed to wander around the barracks and to the Cantina or rec room and back, always with somebody trailing her like a shadow. Usually it was Veer, which Natasha didn't mind so much, since he was always up for telling her stories—nothing important to the rebel cause, just anecdotes about his friends.
"Garrett's scaling the wall, and he's always been a right monkey when it comes to climbing," Veer said jovially. "Hell if he even needs the ropes. But he hits the top and bam! Coal guard on the roof!"
Natasha's lips quirked up at the edges. "Sounds like a problem."
"Right! So, he thinks he's boinked. Damn Garrett just yanks a pocketful of junk from his pants and tosses it right at the Coal. Coal thinks he's gettin' hit with somethin' lethal, jumps back with a shout, and Garrett dives. Gets him down and out in a hot second. Pops the code in the door like he was supposed to, repels back down the cragging building—no sweat."
He paused to take a swig of his water. Natasha waited, sensing a twist in the story.
"'Till he's six feet off the ground," Veer continued, his voice dropping a little lower for dramatic emphasis. "And gets his ropes tangled. Poor nut's hanging there, and the alarms bangin' off because now they've seen him, right? And Hannick can't untangle him fast enough, so what's left to do?"
"Clearly you didn't leave him behind," put in Natasha. "So how'd he get out of it?"
Veer held up a finger. "Well, see, now that's the trick. Garrett's upside, working himself out of his situation. Hannick's red-faced and panickin'. Now remember, Ophie was on diversion duty? 'Course that's about when she comes haulin' outta the sewer, head to toe in you-don't-wanna-know, and she's spittin' fire."
Veer shook with a deep belly laugh and Natasha chuckled too, picturing the scene.
"She gets Hanni's gun and when the Coals come pouncin' out, Ophie roars and runs and fires and scares the ever-living crag out of 'em. Coals turn tail, Garrett has his gear in pieces and falls on his head in the dirt. Hannick's got his shit together so he gets Garrett up and then they drag Ophie outta there, back to the beamer, and once they're in, I just say, I say: 'I craggin' told you so.'"
Natasha laughed again with Veer, his eyes sparkling with mirth and memories. Often, she couldn't quite tell whether Veer's stories were true, exaggerated, or flat out lies and she enjoyed working at discerning how much truth was in his words. This one had her stumped and judging by the smirk at the edge of his lips as he took another swig of his water, he knew it too.
Other times, Natasha learned about these people without Veer ever saying anything incriminating—she naturally put the pieces together as the days went by. Things like: Garrett and Yumi had some on-again/off-again romantic relationship (though Veer sounded convinced it was always "on," they didn't always know it). She learned that Jeks had a big mouth that got him into trouble, Veer was unflinchingly calm in pretty much every situation, Ophie was a complete badass, and Garrett could MacGyver just about anything.
Filling hours chatting with Veer and the others meant passing the time. It meant not dwelling on her impossible situation.
Evenings back in her room were much harder. She was restless and edgy. She'd faced worse; she'd dealt with missions gone wrong and endured terrible conditions, physically and mentally. She'd been a prisoner, waiting for days or weeks without contact. She'd been brainwashed and more. But there was always an objective. A goal. Something to move towards—escape, information gathering, taking down a target…
This was limbo. A terrible, apocalyptic limbo she was forced to wait in and muddle through.
Natasha ground her teeth together and flopped down onto her bed. Well, if the universe was determined to trap her here, she was determined to make it through. She hadn't survived so much horror in her past only to give up on this latest one. Even if she had to actively choose every single day to get through this, then choose she would.
She wouldn't let herself do anything else.
A/n: So here's a glossary, now that Nat is catching on to all their wacky terms, you can too! ;D
keen—okay, good
choice—excellent, brilliant, awesome
crag—derogatory term for someone; like bitch, bastard.
cragging—strong curse that has developed over the years and is now one that 'everybody' uses
bleached—the process used by the Coalition to completely mind-wipe someone (usually an undesirable person of some sort). Takes away all memories (life to this point, name, etc) though leaves 'functions' behind (ability to speak, walk, certain learned skills).
sideways—weird, confusing, crazy (ex. wow bro, that's sideways)
beamer—the small sized hover transport ships used by both the Coals and the Rebels
mucker—ill-bred, vulgar
carnie—freaks and show offs; derogatory term for Supers
peeped—saw/see, look/looked, spot/spotted (depends on context)
vac'd—short for "evacuated"
Australian Slang:
whacker—idiot, someone who talks drivel, dickhead
grouse—great, terrific
Scottish Slang:
cowk—heave/throw up
mingin'—horrible/dirty
facking—fucking
Language changes and the way we speak it changes. So while I didn't want to go crazy and make it unrecognizable, I want it to be noticeably different and mixed up. This is why most of the Rebels talk kinda funny (not just the slang words, but in general). That being said, natives will have stronger slang and accents—i.e., Vika is a native Scotti, Jeks and Garrett both come from native Australian parents, etc.