[His demeanor sobers too at that, and his arms end up settled against his tail as one might with their thighs.]
There used to be a ton of guides I could have shown you, but it's kind of hard to access that network from another universe.
What happened is we got brought to this town called Norfinbury, Alaska, some year in the future compared to what we're from. I'm from 2009, by the way. There were other people, too. Do you know Natasha Romanov? She was one. But other people from other worlds besides ours too, not all of them with Earths. And this town was pretty heavily destroyed after some nuclear attack for bullshit reasons, so we were basically all stuck trying to survive while got fed clues piece by piece from the assholes running everything.
People died sometimes, got revived missing senses or memories temporarily. There were nanomachines in our blood to keep us from dying of radiation, but the trade off meant other side effects, altered perceptions, having our heads messed with... Monsters called anomalies could show up and grab you if you were traveling. If you didn't get inside before lockdown each night, exposure would kill you from how cold it got.
[He doesn't know why Clint hasn't told her, and he may ask him later, but he won't blame him for struggling. He may have said serious shit like a joke, but he meant it. It's exactly why he joked so hard. Everything's been so serious so long that he needs the lighter stuff to remind him it's over.]
[He lets out a slow exhale, and by now he's more staring aimlessly into the middle distance beyond the couch than at her or anything else.]
There were a bunch of these 'sessions' before us, and a whole lot of complicated shit about who was running it and what was really going on. The whole town was some weird project, I guess, shaped like a spiral that we had to find the center of. And after that, we got to go—
[He almost says home, and he means for this Earth to become it, but it's not where he comes from.]
no subject
There used to be a ton of guides I could have shown you, but it's kind of hard to access that network from another universe.
What happened is we got brought to this town called Norfinbury, Alaska, some year in the future compared to what we're from. I'm from 2009, by the way. There were other people, too. Do you know Natasha Romanov? She was one. But other people from other worlds besides ours too, not all of them with Earths. And this town was pretty heavily destroyed after some nuclear attack for bullshit reasons, so we were basically all stuck trying to survive while got fed clues piece by piece from the assholes running everything.
People died sometimes, got revived missing senses or memories temporarily. There were nanomachines in our blood to keep us from dying of radiation, but the trade off meant other side effects, altered perceptions, having our heads messed with... Monsters called anomalies could show up and grab you if you were traveling. If you didn't get inside before lockdown each night, exposure would kill you from how cold it got.
[He doesn't know why Clint hasn't told her, and he may ask him later, but he won't blame him for struggling. He may have said serious shit like a joke, but he meant it. It's exactly why he joked so hard. Everything's been so serious so long that he needs the lighter stuff to remind him it's over.]
[He lets out a slow exhale, and by now he's more staring aimlessly into the middle distance beyond the couch than at her or anything else.]
There were a bunch of these 'sessions' before us, and a whole lot of complicated shit about who was running it and what was really going on. The whole town was some weird project, I guess, shaped like a spiral that we had to find the center of. And after that, we got to go—
[He almost says home, and he means for this Earth to become it, but it's not where he comes from.]
—Out. Elsewhere. And I decided to come here.