OOC: [memory 01]
From: Young Avengers Presents #3
Want is trying really hard to eat lunch when he hears the knock on the door. He's upside down, just a little ways off the ceiling, which - all things considered - is not that bad when there's no gravity to make the blood rush to your head. It's basically the same as being the right way around, except this way he can sort of make things stay on his plate by holding his plate in between them and wherever they are trying to go. This means occasionally having to rope in a bit of stray cucumber and give it a sharp flick upwards, but it isn't an onerous task.
Still, Want figures at some point he'll stop being stupid and just ditch the plate all together and go all Hungry Hungry Hippos in Space. He's actually thinking about doing that, and thinking about whether Drake's OCD would make an exception for sudden, inexplicable zero-gravity, when the knocking happens. Most of their usual visitors don't knock, and their most frequent visitor is A) at work and B) still not talking to him really, so this makes Want pause all on its own. He leaves his lunch hanging in mid-air, works his way around so that he can push off the ceiling, and then basically continues this pattern of manoeuvre, push, float until he gets to the door and opens it.
There's a suit behind the door, enough like the one Crow drew that Want has a brief moment of panic that it is Crow - oh, geez, how long do I have before Drake gets home? - but then the suit's arm comes up in a slow, heavy motion, hand outstretched with something in its palm, and in between some really familiar mechanical heavy breathing noises, it says, "A delivery." Want decides this is probably not Crow then, kicks closer, and starts to say "Ok, uh, thanks?" in return. But he reaches out to take the thing in the suit's hand as well and as soon as he lays a finger on it, everything goes black like someone shut off all the lights...
...except that's not quite right. Other things have changed. The air around him doesn't smell so relentlessly clean, and it's lost the woody scent of bark that seems to underlying everything in the Sphere. It smells heavier, like dust and sweat and city air. Want can feel himself sitting with one knee raised and touching his chest and the other crossed underneath. He feels bed sheets under the thumb of one hand, and the jeans he's wearing are definitely not the ones he put on this morning: too loose and well-worn.
Over all of this, a voice is talking, strained and uncomfortable, and halfway into the second sentence, he realizes it's his.
"Okay, so the dream," he's saying, trying to keep the sentences clipped and flat, just the facts. "I'm eight years old. I'm at my birthday party. My mom is there."
The bed ripples as someone's weight shifts slightly - and suddenly, Want realizes that there's unmistakeably someone else there, sitting with him on the bed. That's definitely someone else's body heat, for example, just by his elbow and up against his back. Fabric whisks across fabric as this person settles back. And yet, as mystifying as this is, it's comforting as well.
And he's still talking, embarrassed and rueful now: "My real mom, I mean," and that doesn't help much, only makes him think oh god did I really say that?, "The Scarlet Witch. Talking to one of the original Avengers. It's always someone different, but last night it was the Wasp."
The dream, this new dream that he's recounting, is like a non-stop party of words that don't make any sense. They feel like they should make sense, but his mind can't process them, like they're secret code, a song he now remembers the lyrics for, but not the tune. So Want tries not to focus too hard on what a Hawkeye is, just to be certain that he doesn't let the bigger picture slip by in the meantime. He's explaining about his Mom and how he has his father's eyes and how, at that moment, it's like the dream tightens around him and won't let him escape even though he squirms. Mom holds him tight. And Mephisto's there.
"Wow, Mephisto? Really?" says the other person on the bed, and Want's first instinct is to freeze up. It's Throne's voice, the voice from his dream - the first dream - and the one thing he seems totally incapable of forgetting. He feels a rush of exasperated affection fill him, like yes, you idiot and thank you for being here all at once. Caught up in this, he misses whatever he says next, though he can feel his mouth moving and his arms wrapping around his knee tightly, and then Throne's voice is cutting in again: "That sucks."
He feels himself swallow, roughly around a lump in his throat. "They've been getting worse," he says, "the dreams, since the war. That's why I have to do this. That's why I have to find the Scarlet Witch."
He shifts forward, bracing one hand on the covers. His knee hit Throne's knuckles and then he feels Throne shift too, drawing away and then coming closer. He can't see, but it's still obvious from the way the bed dips down that way, from the way the skin on his arm tingles and whatever was buckling in his chest, under the weight of these thoughts, stands up straighter. "I know what I think I am," he says with care, "but... I have to be sure. I have to know my past, my history."
A hand comes up fast and grips his shoulder, fingers wrapping steadily over almost his entire shoulder and up past the collar of his shirt too so that he can feel warm skin on his skin, which is weird actually 'cause he'd never noticed that Throne's hands were that big.
"They're just dreams," Throne starts to say, and Want can feel himself trying to talk over top, a bubble of explanations, his mouth forming the shape for "yeah," and then...
...he's staring at the ceiling, floating near the open door. The guy in the suit, whoever it was, is gone now, with no sign that he was ever there except this pounding in Want's head. Things smell right; his body feels right. There's a buzz of disorientation behind his eyes but as the memory starts to blur, it's fading too. Want tries to save all the details he can, to hide them in the back of his brain where no one and nothing can get at them ever again.
He covers his face with a hand and thinks, They're just dreams. Then he scowls into his palm and says out-loud, "Yeah, that's what I've been saying all along."
Want is trying really hard to eat lunch when he hears the knock on the door. He's upside down, just a little ways off the ceiling, which - all things considered - is not that bad when there's no gravity to make the blood rush to your head. It's basically the same as being the right way around, except this way he can sort of make things stay on his plate by holding his plate in between them and wherever they are trying to go. This means occasionally having to rope in a bit of stray cucumber and give it a sharp flick upwards, but it isn't an onerous task.
Still, Want figures at some point he'll stop being stupid and just ditch the plate all together and go all Hungry Hungry Hippos in Space. He's actually thinking about doing that, and thinking about whether Drake's OCD would make an exception for sudden, inexplicable zero-gravity, when the knocking happens. Most of their usual visitors don't knock, and their most frequent visitor is A) at work and B) still not talking to him really, so this makes Want pause all on its own. He leaves his lunch hanging in mid-air, works his way around so that he can push off the ceiling, and then basically continues this pattern of manoeuvre, push, float until he gets to the door and opens it.
There's a suit behind the door, enough like the one Crow drew that Want has a brief moment of panic that it is Crow - oh, geez, how long do I have before Drake gets home? - but then the suit's arm comes up in a slow, heavy motion, hand outstretched with something in its palm, and in between some really familiar mechanical heavy breathing noises, it says, "A delivery." Want decides this is probably not Crow then, kicks closer, and starts to say "Ok, uh, thanks?" in return. But he reaches out to take the thing in the suit's hand as well and as soon as he lays a finger on it, everything goes black like someone shut off all the lights...
...except that's not quite right. Other things have changed. The air around him doesn't smell so relentlessly clean, and it's lost the woody scent of bark that seems to underlying everything in the Sphere. It smells heavier, like dust and sweat and city air. Want can feel himself sitting with one knee raised and touching his chest and the other crossed underneath. He feels bed sheets under the thumb of one hand, and the jeans he's wearing are definitely not the ones he put on this morning: too loose and well-worn.
Over all of this, a voice is talking, strained and uncomfortable, and halfway into the second sentence, he realizes it's his.
"Okay, so the dream," he's saying, trying to keep the sentences clipped and flat, just the facts. "I'm eight years old. I'm at my birthday party. My mom is there."
The bed ripples as someone's weight shifts slightly - and suddenly, Want realizes that there's unmistakeably someone else there, sitting with him on the bed. That's definitely someone else's body heat, for example, just by his elbow and up against his back. Fabric whisks across fabric as this person settles back. And yet, as mystifying as this is, it's comforting as well.
And he's still talking, embarrassed and rueful now: "My real mom, I mean," and that doesn't help much, only makes him think oh god did I really say that?, "The Scarlet Witch. Talking to one of the original Avengers. It's always someone different, but last night it was the Wasp."
The dream, this new dream that he's recounting, is like a non-stop party of words that don't make any sense. They feel like they should make sense, but his mind can't process them, like they're secret code, a song he now remembers the lyrics for, but not the tune. So Want tries not to focus too hard on what a Hawkeye is, just to be certain that he doesn't let the bigger picture slip by in the meantime. He's explaining about his Mom and how he has his father's eyes and how, at that moment, it's like the dream tightens around him and won't let him escape even though he squirms. Mom holds him tight. And Mephisto's there.
"Wow, Mephisto? Really?" says the other person on the bed, and Want's first instinct is to freeze up. It's Throne's voice, the voice from his dream - the first dream - and the one thing he seems totally incapable of forgetting. He feels a rush of exasperated affection fill him, like yes, you idiot and thank you for being here all at once. Caught up in this, he misses whatever he says next, though he can feel his mouth moving and his arms wrapping around his knee tightly, and then Throne's voice is cutting in again: "That sucks."
He feels himself swallow, roughly around a lump in his throat. "They've been getting worse," he says, "the dreams, since the war. That's why I have to do this. That's why I have to find the Scarlet Witch."
He shifts forward, bracing one hand on the covers. His knee hit Throne's knuckles and then he feels Throne shift too, drawing away and then coming closer. He can't see, but it's still obvious from the way the bed dips down that way, from the way the skin on his arm tingles and whatever was buckling in his chest, under the weight of these thoughts, stands up straighter. "I know what I think I am," he says with care, "but... I have to be sure. I have to know my past, my history."
A hand comes up fast and grips his shoulder, fingers wrapping steadily over almost his entire shoulder and up past the collar of his shirt too so that he can feel warm skin on his skin, which is weird actually 'cause he'd never noticed that Throne's hands were that big.
"They're just dreams," Throne starts to say, and Want can feel himself trying to talk over top, a bubble of explanations, his mouth forming the shape for "yeah," and then...
...he's staring at the ceiling, floating near the open door. The guy in the suit, whoever it was, is gone now, with no sign that he was ever there except this pounding in Want's head. Things smell right; his body feels right. There's a buzz of disorientation behind his eyes but as the memory starts to blur, it's fading too. Want tries to save all the details he can, to hide them in the back of his brain where no one and nothing can get at them ever again.
He covers his face with a hand and thinks, They're just dreams. Then he scowls into his palm and says out-loud, "Yeah, that's what I've been saying all along."