Simmons came after. Not long after... maybe a few months? [ the squint he makes is uncertain, the kind she might remember from the face he made when recalling specifics about Hydra Academy. There's a sorting process to his recall. Those memories, not that other set. The ones where he was violated, not the ones where he was performing the atrocities with his own hands. ] Functionally the same, but not precisely so.

[ she asks where people go, and that's more of a complicated issue. ] They tell us it's tied to redemption, but there's no reason to believe that if we're going to discard the rest of the line they give us. Sometimes, people return. But the process is full of magical bollocks. Hacks and shortcuts that don't follow the normal Rules.

[ and that's when she reasserts their friendship. Even now, even with the way everything is... that's meaningful. ]

It isn't usually this... pleasant. We've just come out of some really hard times. We've had to lean on one another to get by. People are enjoying the peace while we have it.