sixthiterationlogs | Look out to the future, but it tells you nothing

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Look out to the future, but it tells you nothing

WHO: Tony Stark
WHERE: Tube Room in the Bunker, Inn, Forge
WHEN: September 3rd onward
OPEN TO: Initially Bucky Barnes, then Everyone
WARNINGS: Descriptions of Dissolving, Canon typical Violence, Language, Blood, etc.

Tubular Trauma - [Closed to Bucky Barnes]

Oblivion isn't as comforting as Tony thought it might be. That drifting, aching sort of silence that seeps in like ice to strangle all sensation and thought? Normally didn't include quite this much pressure. Like the armor locked up dead around him, but with a single terrifying exception he's never had water between his skin and the circuitry. It makes drifting awake less of a vague meandering towards consciousness and more of a snapped, panicked shot of adrenaline to the base of his spine. Because this? This isn't Titan. It's not stale air stinking of ozone and ash it's a tube.

Full of fucking water. Whatever's just beyond is a bit beyond his capacity to grasp seeing as the first detail that sinks in isn't that he's in soaked scrubs, floating in a tube. It's the slow coil of red swirling in the water from his left side and- that? That's going to be a problem. The patch job didn't hold through whatever the ever loving fuck brought him here- why being fully submerged makes this easier, he doesn't know. Too confused to panic, he'll think- as soon as he gets out. Though trying to scrabble for a seam in the tube is A) useless and B) slow going with one hand, the other pressed tight against his wound, for all the good it does in keeping the exit wound from bleeding.

Protip: It doesn't.

Got an Inn

Adjustment after a shock is- well. It's a thing. A shock to his system, a shock to the senses, emotional fatigue, whatever. The finely tuned engine that is his brain keeps trying and failing to roll over, the dull click click click of failing spark plug echos in his teeth. Failure's one thing. It wasn't an option, and they'd failed and that- he'll. Cope. Somehow. Not much of an option. He'd given himself a moment, maybe ten to breathe and think and wonder and he'd- woken up here. In scrubs (his stylists would kill him, Pepper would kill him) and they're not there, he knows they aren't there, but he can't help but keep picking at his nails. Digging out bits of ash and soot that don't exist anywhere but in his memory along with the still palpable crumpling of an adolescent arachnid that-

Yeah, no. Not thinking about that.

Heels of his hands pressed to his eyes Tony tries to just. Breathe. Eat the damn lunch he'd come to get and figure out a step two. Or. Shit, at this point? He'd take a step one. Maybe another soak in the hotspring so his ribs and torso stop feeling quite so delicate; he's been over this whole thing for years Revisiting this particular sharp edged vulnerability? Not his idea of fun.

Rebuilding, Rebranding, Reforging

The best part about waking up here, Tony decides, is the built in ability to figure out what the 'best' option is for him, outlined in a shade of blue so damn familiar it aches a little. As long as he's stressed out of his mind- which is all day, every day, since he was fucking twelve- and without direction (which is every hour since the snap) the universe which screwed him over so spectacularly through circumstance and poor cosmic shuffling throws him a bone. A glowing line not entirely unlike a flight path that guides him from wherever his latest round of trying not to rattle apart while left alone with his own sharply spiraling thoughts that circle 'we're fucked we're fucked we're fucked' on a nigh infinite loop was (usually somewhere not too open, usually with his back pressed so hard to a wall it's hard to breathe but he needs to know he can see everything that's coming at him or not) to...a pretty well dead forge. It's antiquated like the rest of the village. Clean, empty, quaint.

Dead coals, unused tools, and just getting everything cleared out to the point of use would take a day, finding ore or iron would take gifts or mining but- he can start doing something. Here's the best place for him and it's true, he can feel that garrote of tension fit to strangle start to go loose at the idea of a project. It's direction. It's something productive, something he can lay his hands on and...tinker. Bandage around his ribs or no, Orders for bedrest or no (he has them, he's ignoring them, some shit doesn't change), Tony busies himself with getting the forge cleaned up and organized, rough charcoal sketches dusted on the wall as he plans the first of many projects that still...won't be enough. Not to keep him busy. Not to keep him sane. But for now? it's as good a place to start as any. First order of business: Stockpiling iron to work. Which...that'll take some doing, won't it?

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Clint's been told what happened in the world after he was pulled- here. Wherever "here" is. He knows that, somehow, he's still back home taking care of his family. He knows he took a deal to return home and stay with them. He doesn't remember any of it, since the last thing that happened to him was falling asleep on the Quin after Cap busted them out of the Raft, but he's been told it happened.

It makes no difference. Clint has been in the village for so long that sometimes he forgets how long it's been - he knows this isn't his life, that he hasn't been here a fraction of how long he's been alive, but it's just been so. damn. much. time. He hasn't seen his son learn to talk, hasn't been to soccer games, hasn't touched his wife, hasn't braided his daughter's hair, hasn't done anything in close to two years. He's wired. He's angry. He's frustrated with this whole fucking mess, and now hearing about Thanos and what happened with all of that shit, from both Nat and the kid-

-Well, the anger had been dying, unable to last against the plodding monotony of life in the village. Wake up, work hard, scrounge for what you could, sleep again. He knows Tony had only been doing what he thought was right, could admit that neither Steve nor Tony hadn't approached everything from the best angle, knew they were being set up and played against each other, and he'd really thought all of that was done and gone. But then Peter had turned up and everything had broken wide open again, first learning that Tony had brought a sixteen-year-old to a goddamn superhero fight and then learning about the chaos and horror that had engulfed their world while he wasn't there to do a damn thing to stop it. The anger came rushing back and had been under his skin simmering for two months, waiting for a target.

So when Steve finds him and tells him about the new arrival, Clint makes sure to hunt him down. There's not too many places it'd be logical to find Tony, and the forge is the second place he looks - and when he sees the billionaire there, he doesn't hesitate. Instead he marches straight in and with no words and no warning, decks him with a powerful left hook.

"Asshole."

He really needs to take the time and figure out who all else is actually in this backwards ass island, so he wouldn't keep getting suckerpunched (figuratively and literally) by people from back home. Hunched over the anvil as he is, squinting down at the latest sketch for the gravity powered fan? He doesn't hear Clint coming. The forge is roaring and waiting for the few projects he's got the materials ready for, his mind's flitting from point to point, tacked up pages on the wall outlining all the work he's gathered to keep himself busy while he's here.

Keep himself sane.

So there's not much warning, no chance to brace for impact and, well. Archer's with the kind of pull Barton has? Kind of swing hard. Tony's head cracks back and he stumbles into the table behind him, hissing as he curls inward. One hand pressed to his face, the other? braced against his ribs. Fucking. "Barton."

Of everyone around that he can think of- this is...probably the one hit he'll take with grace. Does, in fact, massage his aching jaw without so much as a glower. "...You done?"

Edited 2018-09-04 21:51 (UTC)

"Almost." It's not only the strength to draw a bow with a tension of around 200 pounds giving him that force; it's also the fact that Clint is only a hair's breadth less of a martial artist than Nat, with plenty of training under his belt and reflexes that are sometimes faster than her. But almost any grace and agility is lost from his movements as he swings once more, right handed this time, one more belt across the face while Tony's still braced against the table, one more bruise for the mechanic's jaw. "The first was for dragging a goddamned teenager into a superhero showdown. The second was for betraying my family."

And at that, once he's got the hits out... the anger doesn't immediately vanish, he's not left a mentally exhausted wreck right away, although it's starting to bleed off now that he's actually had a chance to act on those impulsive feelings and not just keep them bottled inside. But Clint had promised Tony would get a sock in the jaw for everything he'd absolutely done wrong - and when it came down to it, it was only those two things. The Accords? Not Tony. Leipzig? Some, but under orders, and he'd been desperate. Tony could probably guess that that was the end of it after his declarations, and indeed, Clint doesn't walk away, but he doesn't move to attack again. Instead he just watches the man in front of him, knowing in a vague way how much shit he's been through since the last Clint knew of anything, and taking everything in about how bad his condition is. That curl around his rib cage. The exhaustion in his face. The slight pallor that's actually weird for Tony to have, since his skin tone is pretty swarthy and not given to going pale like Nat's is. The man looks like he's seen hell - and if he's from the same time Peter is, that's not really a surprise, is it?

So after a few seconds with Clint doing nothing except stare at him, he reaches forward to offer Tony a hand back to his feet proper, more of that anger dropping away every moment. He's had his fit, time to make sure the man in front of him doesn't explode. "I heard - that bad?"

At least this one he sees coming. This one he can roll with- though rolling with it means rolling his wounded side deeper into the damn counter top but he'd rather not have a broken jaw, his ribs are healing, he'll fucking deal. It's nothing compared to the beatdown in Sibera. Nothing compared to getting hammered by a gauntleted fist and watching everything whither away like dust. Besides- unlike Thanos? Barton's got a right to it. Tony sags for a moment, ears ringing, tongue working in his mouth to clear it of blood (damn split lip) before spitting it out. There's a hand offered and- he doesn't accept it up. He's got one on the table and that'll be enough to haul himself to his feet. Inch by inch, vertebrae by vertebrae, pulling himself upright again. By the time he's standing again he's got his shoulders straightened and his face smoothed out into a blandly civil mask.

The only thing Clint was guilty of, ever, was loyalty. Tony can't fault him for that. Won't, even. No recriminations- but no excuses. No explanations. Minds were made up years ago, and he's dead tired of pretending he doesn't know exactly why they kept him around. It's fine. He's fine.

Well he's not, he won't be, but it's no Business of Barton's now, is it? "Now you done? Because I'd like to get back to work. Million things to do, never enough time."

It'd be a familiar gripe if he added the usual flippancy, the humor- but Tony's voice is just like his eyes, flat and cold. Though there is the question hanging between them and Tony has to wonder, for a moment, if it's worth digging into. "Relative to what? New York? Sokovia?"

It's really no surprise Tony refuses to accept his help up; Clint knows he knows men more determined to be independent, but right at the moment it's impossible for him to think of any. That combination of pride and neuroses that is Tony Stark is a temperamental beast, one that Clint had never fully learned all the ins and outs of even with all his observational skills, but he'd known when he offered that hand it wasn't likely to be accepted. And especially not after other physical violence. Still, he had to offer; it's a sign that Clint's not planning to kill him and doesn't hold much against him, except that one giant thing.

He's just so tired of all this bullshit.

The look Clint's giving Tony at his show of grandstanding bravado speaks volumes; the archer has a way of tilting his head just a little and narrowing his eyes only a hair that says better than words that he's not putting up with any bullshit. He's not going to call Tony out on it, at least not yet, but it's abundantly clear he isn't buying it.

"I've been here since the Raft, Tony. All I've got is secondhand news." Clint's definitely looking shaggier than Tony would remember - his hair is longer, still short but not cut close like he prefers, there's more stubble on his face like he doesn't shave every day (which he doesn't), his skin is more weathered, and his clothes are pretty beat up. Even not dressed in the scrubs uniform, he's clearly been living in the jeans and flannel he's got on for a good while. "But I heard about Thanos."

"We lose." Best to get that out of the way. "I don't even know if you're alive. If any of you are alive."

It bothers him, a little. Somewhere in the back of his head where he can still feel bothered about that shit. Shock and a pressing need to tinker to not give into shock and grief and a bone deep need for scotch has done plenty for his ability to avoid thinking about it. He had it out with Peggy earlier, had a moment to be upset, he's moving on. Or.

He's trying to. It'd be easier if people quit making him fucking talk about it. "That's all there really is to it."

They try and half the universe dies. Earth's mightiest heroes- and Thanos goes right through them like they're nothing. Unprepared and outmatched and great now he's fucking thinking about it. About that damn planet and the kid crumbling away into nothing and how they almost had it. They very nearly had it except for fucking hotheaded Quill and maybe this was the only way- but what kind of right did Strange have to make that call? That this was the preferable option? He shakes his head and turns back to the metal he'd been working on. This is something he can fix.

This is something he knows how to handle. "So yeah, Legolas. Pretty fucking bad."

"I heard." His own bouts with going through the wringer of shit you're not prepared for and the PTSD and guilt and bone-deep phantom pain you go through after those kinds of experiences make Tony's reaction very familiar to Clint. This is a man who's desperately trying not to think about what happened, what he'd done that might have lead to this particular outcome, what he'd lost in the crossfire. Clint's felt all of that, multiple times, but it's true he hadn't been there for half the universe dying. Hadn't had a chance to prevent it all and failed, not at this level. Somewhat with Loki, but nothing like Thanos.

Tony's broken, it's obvious, and it's obvious that he doesn't want to deal with it, wants to keep running away from his pain and the dark thoughts that creep up around the edge of the skull and grab you with phantom claws to pull you back down. He can feel those same claws rising a little at the edges of his own consciousness in response to Tony's emotional charge, the last vestiges of Loki's control that he knows will never fully go away, and Clint's not about to make Tony try and face his monsters. He's not a therapist, and Tony's always been notoriously avoidant of them anyway. But he has information he wants, and... hell, even after three years, Tony's still a part of his team. He's still tried to do what he thought was right and protect people, even if some (occasionally a lot of) those decisions were stupid and impulsive. He wants to be left alone, Clint's not the one to force him out, but he's had experience with letting things fester inside you. It always turns out worse in the end.

"Nat said it was bad." He makes no response to the part of Tony not knowing whether he himself was alive or not; he's already inferred that no one knows, either from having been dusted or from being pulled in too quickly to have time to check on one old farm in Iowa. "She said the original team's good, but a lot of the others... It got them. T'Challah, Barnes... Wanda."

That's the one that hurts. That one, more than anything he's certain of, that's the one that kills him because Wanda is his kid. Her brother already died for him, and three years later he wasn't there to help save her.

"Peter said him, too. Kept thinking I was dead."

"If you already knew, why ask?" It doesn't occur to Tony that it might be an inquiry RE his injury or how he's holding up in the face of it. That level of concern is the kind of shit you save for people you trust, for teammates, and whether or not it was right or rational or even all that obvious- lines had been drawn. You were either in the circle and mattered: See everyone that bailed, or out and condemned for it. Or. Whatever. Washing his hands of the matter would be easier if he didn't keep running in to people that walked out for one reason or another. The point's moot. It happened, everyone rolled on with what they thought was best as they were wont to do, and it wasn't enough.

Shocker.

Still there's some good to come out of this. Bruce is alive. He can take comfort in that. Nat's alive. That's acceptable. Barnes and Wanda- he knew about Barnes. Wanda not so much. He doesn't bother asking about Vision- that's kind of a known casualty. You want a stone you tear it out of whatever's holding it. "...Rhodes?"

Half the universe. Which side of the coinflip did James fall on? He'd just gotten used to the braces and- it'd been horrific, the kid crumbling away to nothing in his hands. But if he had to sit and think and try to find a way to fix this mess and Rhodey was gone? That-

That wasn't happening.

"You weren't with them, you know different things." The story had been jumbled from Peter, much more clear from Nat, and not just because of their connection. The two of them had ended up on opposite sides in the conflict but it had never affected them, their friendship and trust, no matter what stupid comments he'd made. As long a history as they had, it'd take something worse than Thanos to rip them apart, and Clint didn't know of anything like that, anywhere. Tony and Rhodey have a similar kind of thing going on, and so it's no surprise that he's asking about his best friend. Clint'd do the same - and did.

"Not him. But... Sam. A lot of Wakandans. That's all she knew before she showed up here." She hadn't really wanted to talk about it much, and Clint hadn't pushed for a lot more than the basics. It's bad enough knowing he hadn't been there to help - Nat had clarified that, timeline screwiness or clones or whatever's going on, him being here didn't mean he wasn't back on the farm with his family and he'd stayed there through the entire conflict - and if he let it, the minutiae would crawl into his brain and infest it worse than he had any hope of fighting off. He'd already had one massive spiral of depression and self-pity this year; he didn't need another one. "She's blonde now, by the way. It looks good. But she always looks good."

Innocuous comment of truth that buys him a little time because fuck, this isn't an easy conversation, but it isn't quite as bad as he'd thought it might turn out. That anger at the inventor had lasted a long time, and Clint knew being trapped here where he didn't have his family with him hadn't helped matters any, but time had eroded it. It'd been a 50/50 chance for it to flare back to life when they met again, and really it was only meeting Peter that had fanned those flames into life again. But it's over and done and now there's more important shit to talk about... only Clint's not entirely ready to broach those topics yet. Instead he turns to lean himself against a shelf along the side, hands bracing against the wood, still watching Tony but deliberately turning the conversation in a different direction.

"There's not a lot to work with here, so we've had to improvise a lot. I built a smokehouse down behind the fishing shack last fall." It's a small but very solid structure made out of a mud-based compound called survival cement; it's not very pretty, but looks don't matter here and it's a damn good smokehouse. "If a building goes down, we pull it to pieces and reuse what we can, but the last one of those incidents was last year. The dicks that stuck us here rebuilt everything that'd been wrecked a few months ago. Most places here don't have electricity. And then there's the shit that comes out of the woods and tries to kill us."

"Half the universe." Random, dispassionate, as fair as that kind of bullshit logic could ever hope to be without being fair at all- how was that ever the ideal solution? Tony shakes it off, tries to shrug past the entire memory of his conversation with Thanos.

I hope they remember you.

Not exactly the kind of ringing endorsement anyone wants or needs. How in the fuck were they supposed to fix it? Why in the hell did Strange sacrifice the stone for him? He wasn't worth it. They both knew that, they both knew there wasn't a single life on that planet worth half the universe-

Doesn't matter. If he starts wondering now he won't get a single thing done for the rest of the night without tearing himself apart.

"Right. Fence- that's a priority-" He gestures to the top of the list sketched onto the wall, right next to the list of names he's got on hand helping him with his projects. "Along with anything else we can build to keep out man eating...anything. Apparently the deer are carnivorous? Which is fucked up but at this point just about anything seems possible."

Half the universe. Clint's silent for a long time after that pronouncement, leaning back against his shelf and just... trying to cope with it. He'd known it was bad - he'd heard Nat's outline, heard Peter say he was dead (a teenager, fuck), he'd had a lot of the pieces, but that specific bit? That specific bit had not been part of it. There's no way he can actually sit down and take the time he needs to have that go through his brain to the point where he was more or less "okay" with it, but he still needs some time to get through even the first steps of that process. That would take a long time. A very, very, very long time - time he didn't have right then.

The fact that Tony also needs a little time after that statement isn't lost on him, and it's something that Clint absolutely can't blame him for. Tony's always had a tendency to take too much on himself since he came out of his Douchebag Phase, definitely more than he should, but this one? Yeah, this one earns it. This one is massive and all of the team would be traumatized after losing a battle so crucial, without exceptions. The implications of this are going to be felt for a long time to come, and there's nothing he can think of that could fix it whether he was stuck in this village or not. When Tony pushes the fugue off, Clint shakes his brain back into functioning again, and then turns to look at whatever Tony's gesturing at. The project list is an organized mess, no surprise there, and he scans down it before moving on to the list of names. Most of the projects seem not very practical, things people wish for and are probably more just to keep Tony busy than anything, but it's not unexpected that after being trapped in a place with such scarce resources for so long people would want some luxuries. "We've build fences, but we just don't have the ability to make them big and strong enough to keep out the big creatures. We can't mine, if there're even metal seams around here that could be mined. Can't cut down all the trees to make fences or we don't have any firewood. The deer-things aren't too bad - just don't get in their faces and you won't get bitten. There's other things that'll kill you a lot faster than them if you piss them off."

But as he moves over to perusing the list of names, Clint frowns as he reads it over, because something on it just isn't sounding right to him. "Why've you got Barnes on here but Steve is still blacklisted?"

"You haven't had me here." Like that matters- and it does. There are mechanical engineers (and that's nothing to sneeze at, he knows, knowledge is knowledge and it's useful) and then there's him. Resources are limited but that's never stopped him from working within the boundaries to build something anyway. "There's an abandoned village, right? Has anyone considered dismantling them, using those materials?"

There are Options. There are always options. Its just a matter of finding what they have and working out how to make the most efficient, effective use of what they've got on hand with the skills available. A full perimeter fence? Probably not happening unless they get a quarry going, and cutting stone? Bitch and a half. Something around the center of town that people can fall back to, watchtowers around the perimeter? Probably closer to doable. The whole settlement is far too spread out for his peace of mind but apparently peace of mind wasn't what it was designed for.

Not that he can begin to guess at the why of any of them being here.

"Barnes didn't have a say in anything that happened." Victim of circumstance and Rogers own stubborn determination.

"Oh for the fucking love of..." Clint groans when those words come out of Tony's mouth, raising a hand to scrub at his face while throwing his head back on his shoulders. He should've known, he really should've known... "Will you drop it with this messiah bullshit already? You're good, Tony, you're great, but you are not gonna be the one person to magically solve all of the problems that ever come up. You've tried that, you remember how that turned out?" There's barely a pause before he's off again. "You're a damn genius but you're still human and trying to mechanic your way out of a problem's not gonna work this time any better than it's worked a lot times you've tried it. Especially if you're not eating or sleeping, and if you try and tell me you slept last night there's no way in hell I'll believe it."

Clint hadn't said anything in when the Ultron debacle had begun while most of the rest of the team had gone after Tony, mostly because he could see both sides and couldn't really add anything to the debate. Tony had done something really stupid, yeah, but he'd done it with good intentions. But it's been almost three years since that incident and it doesn't sound to him like Tony learned anything from it, even though he'd thought he'd had with him retiring after Sokovia. Probably the Accords had brought everything back; Clint had shown up in the village too soon after them to see the fallout, he just knows it wasn't pretty. But even two years on, something as massive as half the universe gone... and Tony's still making those grandiose statements? What the hell, man. What. The hell.

Not to mention the whole thing with him refusing to give Steve even a little room. "You think I don't know he had no say in what happened? Me? But you knew that too and you still tried to kill him, and you hold a grudge harder than any man I've known besides maybe that asshole Ross. You're doing it with Steve right now. I can't even tell what you're thinking, man."

"It's not messiah bullshit, it's an accurate assessment of resources. I wasn't available before or if I was I didn't do much- which isn't that fucking surprising." Depending on when he came from and his mental state? He could easily see himself falling into some kind of idle existence to recover or to just not have to put everything on his own shoulders. This? It's a lot of work, but it's keeping him busy. Being busy is better than the alternative. "Also- bringing up Ultron? Not wrong but not entirely on me. I was both brainfucked, not alone in working on that, and we weren't actually close to any kind of integration."

The short explanation is magical space stones are evil and he should've done more research before terror and desperation pushed him to making a rash decision. The long one he's not going to go over with Clint because- minds were made up, opinions formed, it's effort he's not going to waste. People are going to think what they're going to think- Clint's clearly made his mind up, fighting that perception? He's not beating himself up trying to do that anymore.

"Consider, for a moment that I don't want you to know what I'm thinking." While he's got no issue with Clint, cracking his head open for people to peruse wasn't something he ever really did before the Avengers and- since they aren't a thing anymore? Not something he's about to start up again. A good engineer tries not to make the same mistake twice. "It's not about the Accords and it's not about the fight. It's about the lie. I'm not in the habit of keeping people around that lie to me- Natasha being an exception. She had a job, she did it, whatever."

When you're in? You're in. He tries (doesn't always manage) to be good to people that are in, that are close. Generally that list stays small and his life had been, if not good, manageable. Then the Avengers and...he reached and hoped and thought too much of what hadn't been much of anything, apparently. Whatever. There's always a version 2.0. He drags his sketch paper close, comparing the work on the curved sheet of metal to what he'd designed. "I was shown a tape of my parents being killed. After a shitty few days scrambling to keep everything level, trying to talk our way into something that wouldn't get us tied down, being shown every which way that Rogers never trusted me in the first place to do something that I've been doing and doing well since I was twenty years old. After my oldest, truest friend nearly dying and being paralyzed probably for life. Safe to say- I wasn't in the most objective state of mind."

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Look out to the future, but it tells you nothing

Reforging

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