The Blip Bae

Wabi Sabi

Zoe had been thinking about taking Tony up on his offer more and more lately. She was feeling the emptiness of the compound in her bones, with Nat busy dealing with wrangling international super people and Steve spending more and more time in the city.

Her 3 clinic days in the med bay were fine, but the shifts in the local ER were few and far between. She hated not having much to do, but she really hated not having anyone to do nothing with.

Sure, there were a few more people kicking around the compound these days, agents and operatives swung through regularly, but she mostly stayed in the med bay and the private living quarters, as Steve didn't want her visible. Like it mattered at this point. They were living almost separate lives more often than not. She was so tired of the fighting, it was actually a relief when he stayed in town. He had actually narrowed down the candidates for his donor to a few women, and he wanted her input, but all it did was cause arguments.

Nat, to her credit, was the one who saw how much Zoe was the one needing cheering up these days and tried to get her out of the house when she could.

It was on one of these outings that Zoe began to feel herself accepting this strange and uncomfortable existence. Nat had taken her to a small Japanese museum about an hour away from the compound for the afternoon. They were wandering around, looking at the displays, when something caught Zoe's eye.

Off to the side of one of the galleries was a small room with a special display. The show was about the aesthetic tradition of Wabi Sabi. She remembered this from an art history class she had taken ages ago during her art school days.

The concept was something that was resonating with her more than usual these days. Sure, appreciating the beauty of the imperfect was nothing new, hell, she built her tiny shred of self esteem around something like that, but it was reading about the "core concepts" today that shook her.

Reading the wall text, she tried not to cry. The idea that "nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect" pretty much summed up her life these days. Looking at the examples of broken pottery repaired with gold, she was overwhelmed thinking about the cracks in her own life.

Nat noticed Zoe was off in a side room of the museum and went to join her. As she found her friend in the gallery, she tried not to make a big deal of the fact that she was silently crying.   She wrapped her arms around her and let Zoe cry on her shoulder for a change.

"Are you sad for the broken tea cups?" Nat tried to joke. "They look like they're doing okay to me, they made it into a museum, right? Can't be that bad..."

"Ha, no, I'm just thinking about whether I'm the tea cup or the glue these days..." Zoe sniffed. "Sorry, let me find a bathroom or something to have my little breakdown in..." she tried to walk away, but the redhead held her in place. "Please, Romanoff, I don't want to be that weirdo crying in the museum, especially if anyone recognizes you."

"Fuck 'em." Nat quipped. "I don't care what some stuffy museum patrons think, and the Zoe I know sure as shit shouldn't. What's really going on? Is this about him?"

"I don't know, Nat." Zoe sighed as they sat down on a bench. "What the hell am I doing? He has narrowed his choices down and wants me to help him pick, but I can't even think about it without wanting to throttle him. Does that make me a bad person?"

"Hell no, that makes you human." Nat elbowed her. "And get in line to throttle Rogers these days. He's so far gone about this kid thing...I'm so sorry I forced you two together. I feel like this is partly my fault. You told me your reservations, and I still thought things would be okay, hell, for a while there, they were."

"I just wish I could understand what goes on in that giant head of his sometimes, you know" the redhead shook her head. "You're my best friends, and I hate to see you both like this. It fucking sucks, and what's worse, is that there's nothing I can do to help. Is that how you felt when you first came out here? Like you were watching people drowning and you couldn't pull them out?"