open | april/may catch-all

[industries]

WHO: Tony Stark & you
WHAT: April catch-all for open, planned, & future threads
WHERE: Free Cities - Cadens & Desert Outpost
WHEN: 4/05 - 4/30
WARNINGS: None yet.

NOTES: Although he left his world emaciated and malnourished from months adrift in space, Tony's body was rejuvenated to its normal state by the healing powers of being pulled to Abraxas. TL;DR he looks like his normal self, except more depressed.

▶ i. we are not soldiers
    Cadens Desert Outpost 003 - Wagon | Apr. 6
    [ open ]

[ The last wagon to Cadens only has a couple of seats left when its wheels finally roll and crunch against the sandy road. ]

Hey! [ The shout comes from the right side of the departure area, in the general direction of the barracks. The driver reins in the horses and a middle-aged man jogs up to the wagon, a standard issue knapsack slung over his shoulder. ] One more for – yeah, okay. [ He squeezes in, past a particularly miffed soldier. ] Uh, Private Pyle? 'Scuse me? Thanks.

[ The man drops into the empty seat across from you and sinks into it with a long, slow breath. Judging from his plain fatigues and lack of epaulets, he looks to be a newly-arrived Summoned, though he at least appears to have taken the time to trim his facial hair into a neat goatee. Although his eyes roam cooly across the passenger area, the white-knuckled grip on his knapsack's strap betrays the kind of sharp anxiety common to Abraxas' newcomers – and perhaps something more.

His eyes flit up to you as the horses whinny and the wagon rolls forward again. He frowns. ]

What. Not a Kubrick fan? [He rolls his eyes.] What am I talking about, "Arrival of a Train" is probably peak entertainment here.

▶ ii. we won, mr. stark
    Cadens - Mag's Inn | Apr. 7
    [ open + planned: peter, nadine ]

[ It's only when he sits down at the inn table that he lets himself breathe.

Okay. Okay.

Step completed, box checked off. He drags a hand down his chin, then splays that hand on the table, feels the wood-grain of its surface, old and polished from years of use. It feels real. Has heft, and tactility, enough to tell the mechanoreceptors in his fingertips and the neurons in his thalamus that he's here. This is real. But that doesn't mean they couldn't be lying to him, because how-

Last thing he remembers, with relative clarity, is Steve Rogers' face. The rage rising up his throat, boiling over, barely standing, shaking. The arc reactor in his hand. Liar.

The last thing he remembers, with more bleary haze, is light streaming through glass windows, Pepper's hand over his. Slowly blinking at her face, her creased brow. The answer to a dozen sleepless nights on the Benatar: Alive.

Then – floating in water. And he was here – healthy again, and away from home... again. In... what? A glorified steampunk convention? Las Vegas' most dedicated LARPer club? He'd kind of hoped so, until the outpost wagon neared a city out of some YA fantasy and kicked him to the curb.

He closes his eyes and rubs his hands over his face. Footsteps approach the table.]

Not hungry – starved for a month on a spaceship, you know how it goes – hey, [ he presses the back of his thumb against his eye, ] so I heard you guys do a care package?

▶ iii. wildcard
    [ open + planned: sam ]

Keeping to two prompts for now since I'm not sure if Tony's going to find out... certain information.

Regardless! If you're jonesing to thread something in particular with Tony, please don't hesitate to drop it here! Also feel free to hit me up at LaCidiana, DM me, or PM this journal if you want to ask about anything. ♥

Comments

[falcony]

[ the way tony looks back at him - his eyes fierce, his jaw set - stills something in sam. because it feels a bit like a reminder, like a photograph into an era long since gone for sam. of the tony stark who is iron man. who built avengers tower. who held the stones in his hand and saved the universe.

tell me everything he says, and sam sits back. it's not far, he hadn't leaned that far forward to begin with, and he nods. tony stark is, and probably always will be, the smartest person sam has ever known. he can make his own decisions where it concerns paradoxes and time. and if he wants to hear everything, sam will tell him everything.

and he does. or at least - he tries to. everything that sam wilson knew, everything sam wilson read in files or heard from reports or saw on the news. he'll answer some questions, here and there - quick one offs before he continues the larger explanation. before he brings up morgan. pepper. his family. where the world went, after everyone returned, where's it's going, what sam's more worried about than anything. he fills up his glass, drinks through it, and refills it again, because the course sam takes is the longer one.

and not all of it is bad - there are some funny anecdotes in there, some more interesting moments. rhodey, and how well he's doing. pepper, and how she's still running everything. things sam doesn't really have a direct line into, necessarily, but also things sam hasn't talked to pretty much anyone about in over a year. it feels like longer in some ways, and like no time at all in others.

how they get to the couch, sam's not sure, but he is glad for it if only because it's more comfortable. he's feeling loser, probably more than just a little drunk, as he finishes up as best he can. as the truth of it settles around them.

( steve, who put the stones where they found them. steve, who didn't come back. ) ]

So...yeah. You're looking at the new Captain America. [ there isn't exactly...pride, in that. or excitement. but there also isn't negativity associated either. more - this is serious, he knows it is serious, and it wasn't an easy road to get here.

sam lifts his cup, a mock cheers. ]

[industries]

[ Tony's melted halfway into the couch cushions, one arm draped over the armrest, fingers loosely gripped around a half-filled glass. His eyes drift over his own feet, propped up on the edge of Sam's makeshift coffee table, to the near-empty bottle beside them. ]

I mean. [ It's only from years of experience with this particular vice that his enunciation remains clear as he raises his glass to his lips and takes another swig. He considers, twists his mouth. ] At least you're not a dad.

[ A dad.

He remembers that day, in Central Park, his joking tone, and Pep's rolling eyes. It felt so real. Sam's dropped a megaton of TNT in his lap – triumph and loss, love and death. A world on the brink, and the heroes who brought it back, by bending the very laws of time. But – maybe it's because Sam has to recount most of it second-hand or maybe it's something else, but all of it seems – distant. Faraway, in the face of the one thing that sticks to him, to his heart, to the inside of his ribs.

They make a family. They raise a daughter. Her name is Morgan. She's beautiful – Sam doesn't tell him that, but he doesn't have to.

Tony will never see her grow up.

His head swims. He drinks again. He turns to look at Wilson, through the slight haze that stands as a bulwark between him and the abyss below, that allows him to think, to function, to not break down in a strange world, in a strange city, on the couch of a complicated friend.

He inhales. There's a kind of conflict playing across Sam's face, and if Tony knows anything, it's that other people's problems are easier to face than his own. ]

Anyway, you sound. Excited. [ He squints, gestures with his glass. ] Lemme guess – having trouble memorizing My Country 'Tis of Thee? God Bless America? Star-Spangled Banner – I hear they really ding you on the "rocket's red glare" high notes.

[falcony]

[ at least you're not a dad.

tony doesn't say it with any malice, but sam does still feel the innate urge to wince. for a brief moment, sam reconsiders his whole approach to this. whether or not it's a good idea, whether h made the right decision. it's so much easier when it's in the field, when there isn't time to rethink and overthink and be worried. but people, people's lives, sam can't help but think that this wasn't the way to go.

but it's too late now, so sam just sort of. lets that comment sit for a moment. because tony isn't wrong - it is distant. sam didn't exist for most of it, and everything he now knows has come from reports and very few first hand accounts. for all that happened and all he relays, he wasn't there for any of it. or, at least, wasn't there for most of it. and the person he would have taken the best report from, the closest recollection, left him behind in it too.

they both sort of sit in that silence for a few moments, each weighing their own realities. trying to sort through what it means. sam is just drunk enough to feel the loss of all of it - all of it. tony, who is sitting right next to tim. nat, who might show up any day now or sam might never see again. steve, who he's already seen here once, then lost again. he takes another sip, follows the burn of it for something tangible. but that also means he's a little distracted when tony turns the attention back onto him.

sam blinks, then sits up a little, shaking his head. it's telling just how drunk he is that he needs a moment to figure out if this is tony's way of compartmentalizing, if he just needs to talk about something else, or if sam's being an ass and just fully moving passed the extensive trauma tony stark is once again going through. ]

Don't get me wrong- the new Wakandan suit is pretty sick. And I look damn good in it. Just feels kind of weird, still. You won't see Rhodey going by Iron Man any time soon.

[ sam does wince at that, if only because...yeah. they're all kind of fucked, aren't they? ] Sorry.