onepassingnight | (no subject)

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The mellow dance hall had an old timey feel to it: wooden paneling, sweethearts dancing slowly with each other as the gentle music of a big band song played. Steph was standing to the side, searching over the slow moving couples to see if she could find...if she could find him. But something was off. She knew she wasn't in the 40s anymore. She knew that. She was wearing her new Captain America uniform. One that Coulson designed. Yet...yet the setting looked just like home. And there was hope in her chest that Bucky was just really late.

No. This was a dream. It had to be.

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"My pockets wouldn't have all of this. It would have other things in them." Steph kept checking them, then checked the pockets to her pants. Still no stark phone. "This is unusual."

That does not precisely answer Homura's question, Homura is quick to notice. She decides to be more leading in her comments.

"I believe it may be the result of outside interference from an enemy." Even after all this time, she hadn't fully immersed herself in these dreams, still saw them as foreign, strange.

"The enemy?" Steph asked. "What enemy would this be?"

"Enemies of humanity." Stephanie had, perhaps, already met some of these - or would soon.

"No name? No origins?" she asked. "Where have they attacked? What are they after?"

"You may call them what you like," Homura, who has seen witches come and go and demons take their place. "They attack humanity for the sake of sowing chaos and confusion."

"What?" Why did SHIELD not know about this? "Where are they? What's the situation? How many men do you have on this?"

That settled Homura's question about how much Stephanie knew, certainly. A contracted puella magi would have at least known precisely what enemy she meant. She was somewhat relieved. It was simpler with less of them, fewer people deceived by their own good intentions.

"There are very few people who know of this," she said - and the habit of caution meant Stephanie would not have heard of it from Homura even a year ago. "They do not have the means to protect themselves."

And then the real point: "But you might, just as you are now." No need for a contract, no need to be caught up in Kyuubey's games.

She nodded solemnly. "Does SHIELD know about this? What organization did you say you were with again?"

Immediately, Steph slipped into her Captain America mode.

She may work together with other magical girls, but she still sees herself as slightly apart from them, still has memories of things they have no idea ever happened.

"I am not with any organization," she answered. "I fight together with those who have the same enemies as I do."

"What else do we know about the enemy?" she asked. Perhaps later, she can dig up about this girl on her own.

"They are abominations that should no longer exist in this world." This was, perhaps, stating the obvious at this point - at least to Homura, whose world's magical girls faced that type of threat regularly. To a soldier whose enemies were simply the opposing, human, army, perhaps it was different.

"And that's it? We need to do a little bit more recon work in order to figure out what our course of action," Steph insisted.

"If you wish, I will accompany you. It may be for the best." That is, it may be for the best if Steph thinks of these sorts of things instead of the strangeness of the situation.

"Kid, this might not be the best place for you," she insisted. Just then, a loud alarm went off. The people started disappearing.

She was too deep in the dream to take the cue at first; Homura didn't disappear until she ran to the door and outside to check on the people quickly vanishing from the grounds. Just before she faded, she gave one last look back to Stephanie.

"Watch out!" But her voice died in her lips as the girl disappeared and everyone else disappeared and the morning light nearly blinded her.

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