Look out to the future, but it tells you nothing

[nonstopnarcissist]

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?

Comments

[theluckygirl]

Claire nods, her friendly face shifting into a look of concern as she watches him. Being a nurse, nothing really gets by her and the way Tony seems to shift and lean while sitting there indicates he's uncomfortable, most likely from injury.

"Honestly, I haven't really paid too much attention. After I quit the hospital I worked at, I found myself with very little time."

She looks at him as she takes a sip of her coffee casually.

"So, how bad are you injured?"

[nonstopnarcissist]

"Most of it's been dull the past few years. Not a lot going on." Nothing that'd be newsworthy- up until the past few days.

But that's more horrific than sensational, a cynical twist of his mind prompts. He drowns it in another sip of coffee, smile going faintly wry. "Usually I'm better at hiding it."

Life as a superhero- you get banged around a lot. "I've been patched up but I was kind of stabbed? A little. Smidgen of stabbing."

[theluckygirl]

"If I had a quarter every time I heard that." Claire points out, leaning over to set her mug on the table. For as little as she'd actually known about Tony Stark, he was a man and men were stubborn asses when it came to their health.

Yet, the way he so nonchalantly admits to being stabbed reminds her very much of Matt. Thanks, universe. She needed that daily reminder.

Claire makes a gesture with her hand. "Can I see?"

Even if someone patched him up, she still wanted to make sure (for her own peace of mind) that the wound was healing as it should.

And if he protested, there'd be no more coffee and she would absolutely use that as a threat.

[nonstopnarcissist]

"You'd be as rich as me, probably." It sounds like something she'd hear plenty. People get stabbed all the time or whatever, he doesn't know, usually it's not quite like the mess he's got going on. For a moment he hesitates because he knows that look, he knows what's coming and he'd really rather not.

But this woman? This woman's smart and he's already tipped his hand RE coffee dependency.

He's got no cards to play.

Setting his mug down he sighs, hooking his fingers under the hem of his shirt. "Don't make thing of it, alright?"

That's the last thing he needs now that he's marginally better. His ribs are tightly bandaged and the neat line of stitches is almost visible underneath- A narrow three inch line of healing flesh in his lower left quadrant- with a matching cut behind. Through and through. "Fleshwound. I got lucky."

[theluckygirl]

Luckily for him, she had long been desensitized to mostly everything. Blood, every kind of injury, vomit, shit, you name it, she has experienced it. So when sees as much as she does through the gauze and tape, Claire has almost a look of appreciation on her face. Isn't the worse she's ever seen.

"Did this happen here?" she questions, dark brown eyes blinking up at him while her hand nudges his up to expose the site a little more. Not that she's heard of something like this happening before in the village, but with the discovery of the bunker and how things had been going in the last several months, it was absolutely a case of 'never say never'.

A short few seconds later, Claire's satisfied and steps back.

"Sure, a flesh wound that your damn lucky missed your stomach and lower intestine."

Smart ass, meet smart ass.

[nonstopnarcissist]

"This? This didn't even happen on earth." Which was a first for him, honestly. "But no, didn't happen here. I woke up like this."

In a tube.

Under water.

Saved by the guy that was brainfucked into killing his parents.


...It's been a fun day. So far coffee and a competent woman giving him shit is the highlight. "I did say I got lucky? I am very aware that I got lucky. If I still had a spleen I might've been in trouble, but."

Do what he does, get knocked around so often, so thoroughly? Yeah, that died a long, long time ago.

[theluckygirl]

Claire's head bobs up and down in understanding, then goes to shaking her head. "You weren't so lucky once upon a time."

Is basically what he's saying.

She picks up her mug of coffee again and decides to finally sit down. It's a bit surreal to think she's chatting with the Tony Stark, but reputation aside, he's just another person brought into this madness. One more person to join the ranks and put in as much as they take out. One more person to wait out the day and go through it all over again. The jury is still out on whether people can actually die of boredom there.

"So, how did it happen? Judging by the length of the wound, that isn't your standard "knife" stabbing. And if it didn't happen on earth, where did it --"

Suddenly, she remembers a conversation with Peter.

"Wait, does this have anything to do with that Thanos guy?"

[nonstopnarcissist]

"I mean." And his hand rattles against his chest, where the reactor used to live. "I scrape up against that line often. Never gets less worrying."

And here he can't throw himself into the armor or redesigning it to avoid that worry, which really fucking sucks. He's got a list of projects pending but it won't be enough. It rarely is. Even if he's spending half his time making the tools to make the tools- it won't take near as much time as he might want. Or need. It'll be good for something at least, the forging, the projects. Get some good started up before he manages to fuck himself over.

"Nanite blade." He murmurs, staring down into his coffee. "Kind of a desperate last stand sort of deal but- I made him bleed. Not a lot. Not near enough-"

Not for what he did, what he planned, what he managed. Not for having Peter dissolve in front of him like foam. His hands are locked tight, white knuckled around his mug as he swallows past the taste of ashes he can't quite get out of his throat. "But yeah. He was involved."

[theluckygirl]

It's funny how much she relates to the second half of that; the desperate last stand. Not too long ago, she was involved in trying to stop the Hand and sure, as far as she knew, they did. But in their world there would always be a question of what was next? Or who and at what cost would they have to give to win again?

Not exactly the same as what Peter announced to everyone at the crab boil a couple months back, but not entirely different either. And Claire, while looking at him, could feel the guilt coming off him in waves. That and anger.

She lets a moment lapse before exhaling slow and easy.

"Wow," Claire says, shaking her head. "I should have definitely brought a bottle of something along. I think you could use that more than the coffee."

And given it's her world, too, she could go for a drink herself. Now Peter's rambling at the crab boil a couple of months prior was starting to make sense.

"Kind of a desperate last stand doesn't sound very good, Tony. So, how does it end?" she asks quietly, hoping he'll be honest with her. He doesn't have to be. They don't know each other.

[nonstopnarcissist]

Forcing himself back into some semblance of humor takes a moment. THe all consuming rage at one man's arrogance, at his inability to find any other possible path to salvation, his complete disregard for using all the power in that gauntlet to provide rather than glut the entire fucking universe in an unsustainable cycle of slaughter and regrowth-

It's good to be feeling pissed, at least. It's something. The first flare of color in a monochromatic sky, first curl of warmth after hours spent numb. "If you brought me liquor I might've kissed you. Now we'll never know."

His smile's a fragile, jagged thing, not meant to be unkind but- it's unsteady. He's unsteady. The fact that she asks- he can't lie. Well he could, it'd be kinder, but what would that help? "We fight. We try. And there's a moment when I think we can manage it and..."

His hand lifts and uncurls, like releasing a palmful of sand. "Gone. Like that. We lose the ground we gained and...we lose."

He's far enough away from it now for something other than bland shock to set in; the hitch of his laugh is sharp, bitter. A cutting thing with the edges turned inward. "Earth's mightiest heroes- and we failed. He got what he wanted."