3759/Saying Goodbye

Saying Goodbye
Date of Scene:	09 October 2020
Location:	A quiet cemetery in Russia
Synopsis:	Bobbi covertly takes Nadia back to Russia so she can say goodbye to the mother she will never know. From the sadness a new resolve arises.
Cast of Characters:	Bobbi Morse, Nadia Pym-van Dyne

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Bobbi Morse has posed:
Morse gets to fly the quinjet. Not May, not Danvers, Morse. That's the advantage of going on smaller missions. This was more of a favour than a mission and was deemed low risk - so long as they don't do anything crazy. In the back is Agent Buryakov dressed in a woollen jumper and jeans and a beret. He looks the part because he used to be the part. The quinjet is cloaked and over Kazakstan right now, approaching rapidly to Lake Azhbulat.

Bobbi looks over to Nadia in the co-pilots chair and says, "Satchel behind my chair. There's passports. I am Bronya Asimov and you are my daughter Mishka Asimov. We went to Kazakstan for a holiday and are returning home. We'll be entering Russia through a very small customs house. I don't expect any problems. This place does not see much traffic and their technology is mostly paper and pen."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
For much of the flight Nadia is glued to the windows looking outside at the scenery, for all that she has been to the actual moon, she still takes the time to marvel at the scenery of Earth. The remainder of the time is spent looking around and making mental notes about the technologies visible in the Quinjet.

That is, until they near their destination. "Da mat." 'Yes mother' replies Nadia to Bobbi in her native Russian accent, it is her first language after all. She reaches back behind Bobbi's seat to retrieve the satchel with the passports and other documentation. The satchel is settled in her lap as she starts going through it pulling out the documents and familiarizing herself with them, committing all of the details they might ask at the border to memory like date of birth and residence in Russia.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
"It's been a while since I've been to Russia," though half way through the sentence she switches languages and you'd swear she was a native Russian. "So from here on out, only Russian til we're back on this quinjet." She nods to Nadia and calls out to Agent Buryakov, "Approaching." He replies back, "Da." And the sound of an AK47 being loaded can be heard from the cargo area.

Bobbi puts the quinjet down in a patch where the grass is overgrown. Overgrown usually means no one goes here. It was pre-designated anyway and as the engines spool down, the hanger bay door opens. Waiting outside is another Agent of SHIELD who grasps hands with Buryakov.

Bobbi is dressed in civilian clothing, jeans and a blouse but also a warm jacket because dang is it cold outside. She takes the passports and puts them in her pocket. "Time to go little one," she says and winks a touch playfully. She pats Buryakov and Alexi on the shoulders, "Keep my bird safe." They both immediately stiffen and say, "Yes Ma'am." Alexi says, "There's a car in the parking lot," and hands her the keys.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
One day in the future Nadia might marvel at the number of mothers she actually wound up having in her life, the honored dead, the living standins, and even the evil cyborg. For now though when the aircraft touches down she quickly unstraps herself and jumps out of the co-pilot seat pocketing her passport.

Where she can be something of a fish out of water in America due to growing up in a bunker, in Russia she does have at least some passing familiarity with the outside world that surrounded that bunker and she is dressed like a typical Russian teenager, the well behaved kind that doesn't get arrested for political dissent.

She jogs after Bobbi to catch up, "Dasvidaniya." She says to the men with AKs though somehow the way she says it sounds like a Bond villain leaving one to wonder if someone introduced her to James Bond movies recently. "Coming mother!"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
The car is a beat up fiat, not too surprising for Kazakstan. It smells of cigarettes inside. There's even a packet in there. "Currency," she says of them. Bobbi gets in the drivers seat and adjusts the steering and seat. "Did they teach you to speak like a supervillain or something?," she jokes and then starts the car.

The roads are backroad dirt and soon they hit the A17. "We're driving past Lozovoye so that the secret Russian border cameras there see us driving from within Kazakstan," she says casually as they turn on to the high way and proceed through the sleepy little town. Then they're driving north toward the border.

"Last chance to turn back if you want to abort Mishka," she says and looks over to Nadia supportively. "Just say the word and I turn this car around and we go home. Once we're over that border though, we stick with mission parameters."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia follows Bobbi out to the beat up old car, walking around it once, "Are you sure this thing will even run?" she asks before climbing into the passenger seat. "One of these days you should let me drive!" she grins. Maybe not a good idea.

"I was introduced to a thing called /movie night/." Nadia informs Bobbi as she fastens her seat belt, as if this should explain everything.

She shakes her head when Bobbi asks about turning back, "I am going, one way or another." she takes a breath, "This is something I have to do."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
"Titans?," she asks and smirks as they approach the border crossing. There are boom gates and it looks more like a drive through service station than a proper border building. They get stuck in line with a lot of trucks. As they approach the check point a guard approaches with his hand out in a stop sign. "Turn off the engine," he says.

Bobbi complies and winds down the window. Another guard approaches the car with a mirror and starts to walk around the vehicle looking at its underside. "Passports," the first guard says and Bobbi hands over hers and gives Nadia a nudge, "Your passport little one."

He opens the first few pages of Bobbi's fake passport and then writes down some of the details with pen and paper on a clipboard. "How was Kazakstan?," he asks Bobbi and she replies like a seasoned spy, "Kazakstan is a shit hole." The guard shrugs a little and nods.

"Where do you live?," he asks and Bobbi replies, "Veselovskyote." He takes the 'Mishka's passport and checks the details on it too, writing more things down, he gestures to the cigarettes. Bobbi takes one out and offers it to him. "Thanks," he says and puts it in to his jacket pocket.

"Open the boot," he says. Bobbi presses the button and it pops open. The guard with the mirror on a stick then goes to the boot and after a few moments he shuts it and taps on the door. The guard looks at the two of them and then hands back the passports, "Stay on the left, don't get in the way of the trucks."

With that, the two guards step back and move toward the truck behind them. Bobbi restarts the car and shrugs to Nadia and then drives through the checkpoint and in to Russia.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia looks at Bobbi, clearly wondering if they should actually be mentioning the Titans, but she gives a small nod confirming it is indeed the Titans that have been introducing her to the wonders of movies.

She sits calmly in the vehicle as Bobbi do the talking. When prodded to give her passport 'Mishka' complies and hands it over with a sweet friendly smile. She watches the entire exchange, including the cigarette bribe. In fact she has been hyper-alert of her surroundings the entire time even when feigning boredom. This isn't exactly the safest place for her and under the seemingly calm and relaxed exterior she is ready to act at the drop of a hat.

But then they are through. Once across the border she relaxes a little in her seat, most people probably wouldn't notice the difference, but Bobbi isn't most people.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi gets on the highways again and starts their longer leg eastward. "See, nothing to worry about." She reaches over and places a hand on Nadia's and smiles. Nadia did pick her spy for this journey after all. She had a choice of two - Bobbi or Natasha. Bobbi was probably the better choice.

She reaches over and turns the radio on, there's some Russian rap playing and she shrugs, "That'll work. As to letting you drive.. not when I'm on mission." There's a small smirk at the corners of her lips and then says, "Glove compartment, under your seat in the adjustor, inside the lining of the floor mat, behind the air vent to your right, keep yourself busy and assemble the gun for me please."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia offers a bright smile, "I didn't really think there would be, some rural border officer isn't going to get the better of you. Though if something did happen, I came up with about 348 different ways to neutralize everyone there while he was talking." She doesn't seem to be kidding.

She then reaches into the glove box and the various other locations Bobbi described where the gun pieces have been hidden, assembling them almost absent-mindedly into a functional firearm while trying to sing along, badly, with the Russian rap music on the radio. Her rap may not be the best, comically bad even, but despite the seemingly absent-minded assembly the gun is put together perfectly, she could probably do it in her sleep.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi smiles at Nadia's attempts at rapping along. They're alone in a hostile country with no one watching them... so she joins in with the bad attempts at rapping to the songs too. They are mostly American rap songs translated and sung by someone else. They're _kind_ of familiar in that uncanny valley sort of way.

When the gun is assembled she gets the air freshener that's over one of the vents and squeezes its contents in to the chamber of the gun. It's dendrotoxin, not actually an air freshener. She puts the gun between her chair and the door where someone looking in can't see it and she can access it without them seeing her moving.

"So, spy stuff. It's basically a road trip. I don't get why Lance can't see that," she says introducing the topic of why she has been on again and off again with Lance over the years. "You go on a mission to an exotic location.. that's dating, right? I think it's dating. He seems to want dates that aren't connected to a mission. All our best dates have been on missions."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia stops attempting to rap for a moment and listens thoughtfully. She is perhaps the worst person to ask about dating. "I was with you up to road trip. I guess a mission could be dating though with less killing, wait your missions don't do that, do they? Never mind."

"What's dating like anyway? They don't usually teach those classes for a few more years." They clearly being the Red Room. Given the age she escaped much of this remains a mystery for her. What understanding she does have seems to be rooted in the Red Room's courses on seduction that she never actually experienced and probably those movies she's been watching.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi hmms and chuckles, not answering the question about whether her missions involve killing or not. "Dating is.. hanging out with your best friend in a place outside of your normal life regime. Can be some place new one or both of you have never been to before, could be a favourite place you both like to go."

"Sometimes it's activities, sometimes it's food. Sometimes it's just chilling. If you ever find yourself on a date and you don't feel like you're hanging out with your absolute bestie.. well, they're not the right person for you to be dating."

Yep, she just called Lance her best friend. Which is true, of all the people in her life it hurts the most when he's away. "I suppose I can see his point though. I hated when he went away.. and I was going away a lot. Anyway I've already made up my mind to try it his way this time. The last few times we kept falling in to the same patterns and that was probably my fault. So... dating - outside of work."

They are progressing through lots of small towns and the landscape is slowly getting greener, despite the snow and winter in general. It was barren before but now the trees are bigger and healthier. They're getting more north and more east. The towns are starting to get bigger too.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia's head bobs up and down as she listens to the description of dating, a topic she has never really put much thought towards, "So.. I should date Ying?" she asks out of nowhere, though not completely nowhere since Ying is her childhood best friend.

She is clearly still processing this whole dating thing. "So outside, so hanging out in the lab can't be a date... what if we go to someone else's lab?!" Her completely brilliant idea that is still likely not really grasping what dating is supposed to be.

"It sounds like you really like him though, why can't you just take him with you missions and be partners? Share everything in and out of work?" She asks while looking out the window at the changing scenery. Maybe the core concept isn't completely lost on her after all.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi chuckles and says, "Okay so .. hm. Okay. I need to be more specific here. Your partner, of which one property of said partner would be your best friend. But a partner should have other qualities too. Oh geez. Uhm. Someone you want to spend all your time with, someone who has your back and you have theirs, someone you think about ahead of yourself and they back to you... stuff like that. And of course there must be several kinds of love."

"...I suppose a date could be in a lab, if that's something the both of you enjoy. Variety, though, is the spice of life. And yeah. Lance and I used to go on missions together all the time. I thought it was enough, but it wasn't enough for him. There's give and take in a partnership. In this case, he isn't getting enough of what he needs, so I'm going to make this change for him."

A few hours later they are entering Novosibirks, the town where Nadia's mother is buried.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
The gears turn in Nadia's head as she processes all of this, it still sounds an awful lot like Ying. "Dating sounds really complicated." Says the girl who can figure out the necessary theorems to open a gateway to a parallel Earth. Science she can understand, it follows rules. Romantic relationships though? That's a vast uncharted frontier as far as she is concerned.

When the scenery starts to look more like the satellite images she studied before the trip Nadia grows a bit quieter, thoughtful, introspective as she stares out the window at the small quiet city where Maria Trovaya was hidden away, buried under another name.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
The P-254 takes them on a bridge over the Ob River and then turns south down in to Novosibirsk. This city is big enough for an international airport. There are institutes and a proper city center in this place. Bobbi isn't stopping for any of that stuff though. They are taking some back streets just to avoid more cameras than they need to get to the cemetery.

They rejoin on to the P-256 going south and are soon past the city and suburbs and in to a forested area once more. Unceremoniously they arrive at Novosibirsk 'south'. The mixture of mid-density apartments, shops, and industry is very Soviet-era looking. To the east they finally arrive at a forested area marked as Cemetery. Bobbi pulls up in to the car parking. It's all on-foot trails from here.

Getting out of the car in to the brisk winter air, she tucks the ICER in to her pants and pulls her jacket over it to conceal it. She looks around the quiet place. There's a couple of other cars parked but it doesn't seem to be a terribly busy place. "Okay Mishka, let's go say good bye."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
A lump hangs in Nadia's throat as she gets out of the car and swings the door shut. It is one thing the be determined to go when you are far away, it is quite another to actually be here. A shiver runs through her and she pulls her coat tighter. A small nod and "Da." is all she manages in response to Bobbi.

Walking through the graveyard her eyes go this way and that looking over all of the Cyrillic engraved headstones that tell the tales of those laid to rest here. At least in theory, the one she is here to find is nothing but a lie, like everything else associated with the Red Room.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi wraps an arm about Nadia's shoulders as they stroll. There are graves under the sun and graves under the shade of the big trees. The grave they're looking for is shaded from the sun and the satellites. This is ideal for Bobbi and Nadia too. There are probably a lot of people that the Soviets wanted to forget buried here. The Red Room even more so.

And then, around a corner and in to the end of a cobble path are a set of graves. One of them for Maria. Nadia's true biological mother. Bobbi and pats Nadia's shoudler and says, "I'll stand here. Take your time." She steps over to a tree trunk and leans up against it.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
For all that Natasha speaks of the mysteries of how someone like Nadia could have ever come out of the Red Room, in this moment Nadia face looks a lot like Natasha's normally does. The girl who always seems to wear her heart on her sleeve is apparently capable of that blank emotionless expression after all. Holding it all back may be the only thing allowing her to hold it together at the moment.

One hand reaches up to pat the hand placed on her shoulder appreciatively before she steps forward walking towards the group of headstones. The stone marking Maria Trovaya's grave says 'Sasha Yermilov', without the records taken from the Red Room it might well have remained anonymous forever.

Kneeling in front of it Nadia reads the rest of the inscription, 'Loving Wife and Mother' it's a ridiculously common inscription and yet it still hits her like a punch to the gut.

"Hi Mom," She says quietly addressing the gravestone and her own feelings. "I made it out. Here I am. Your Hope survived." As she speaks even the Widow Training she was falling back on to shut off her emotions begins to crumble and tears begins to flow down her face. "You don't need to worry about me. I found Dad, he's really great. Not quite as perfect as I imagined, but I love him. I have friends, too. Lots of friends. They're really great, they help me when I stumble and pick me up when I fall. I wish I could turn back time, change the past, save you. The one day I truly want to save is the one I never can. I'm told that could destroy all of reality, so this is the closest we'll ever get to meeting. But it's okay, I'll be okay. I'm going to try and continue your work and make sure these tragedies are never repeated. So please, rest in peace. I'll be okay. I love you and I will always cherish who you were, who you are, in me. This is goodbye, but I know you'll always watching. I'll be okay."

The repeated mantra of 'I'll be okay' seems to be as much to convince herself as whatever spirit of her mother she is talking to. Scientifically none of it makes sense, but in this moment for once in her life Science is perhaps the furthest thing for Nadia's mind.

Eventually she falls quiet, just kneeling there letting the tears run down her face. Perhaps another five to ten minutes pass before she finally stands wiping her tears and makes her way back to where Bobbi is. The tears may be wiped but there is no disguising the puffy redness around her eyes. "Thanks, Bobbi." The formalities of scientific respect dropped and she just hugs her, burrying her face in Bobbi's shoulder. This isn't a superhero girl genius, right now she's just a sixteen year old girl who has just finished saying goodbye to the mother she will never truly be able to know.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi has her ears peeled and her peripheral vision widened as she rests against the tree, one foot propped up to trunk. This was the purpose of the journey, to give Nadia some closure. She's not at all surprised when she comes back over to her having cried, nor that she had forgotten to use the fake names.

She pushes off the tree and wraps her arms about Nadia and holds her tightly, a touch of wetness at the corners of her eyes too. She can't imagine how hard it must be to face mortality at such a young age wrapped up in elaborate lies and manipulations.

"It's okay Nadia, this isn't meant to be an easy thing," she says softly and lets the moment hug out. Her hand comes up to wipe away the tears too. "It's been a very long road getting here, she'd be very proud of you."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
There's a lot of emotion in that hug, chalk it up to escaping before 'graduation' but Nadia remains a very emotional being. Eventually she looks up at Bobbi, "I know she is." She says without releasing the hug, "I know."

Finally she let's go, eyes mostly dry now, "There's still more to do though, and I'm going to do it. I'm going to start my own lab, an entire team, and change the world. I think it's what she'd want. She named me Hope and it's a lot to live up to, but I'm certainly going to try." There is fresh determination in her eyes, a new resolve. She casts one look back towards the grave and then up at Bobbi, "Let's go home."