sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

The fever's claws were sunk deep. Altaïr was not, he knew, who Tony saw. That person was imprinted much more deeply, but just from this, these few words, he knew that the person he spoke to was one worth knowing.

He placed his hand over Tony's and gave it a gentle squeeze. "You have no reason to apologise, Tony. There is only waste when no effort is made at all. I know enough of you to know that you gave the greatest effort you could. Let no one tell you differently."

Altaïr dunked the cloth again, squeezed it against the side of the bucket to keep it from dripping, and pressed it against Tony's temple. "It weighs on you so deeply. Even now, when so many would be seeing fantastical things, your mind is on the burden you've taken..."

"I tried. To do- to build something good. Take what we made and make it more." He curls his fingers around whichever part he could reach- his wrist, his hand- skin fever hot and eyes bright, cracked open and aching. All his failures roll through his mind, every life he couldn't save. Every person he lost in the latest war. "Cleared 'em out of Gulmira. Too late for you, your family but-"

He doesn't know if he saved or damned those people by wiping out the Ten Rings but he knew he had to do it. He couldn't leave them like that, living under their thumb, living in fear, leave anyone else cracked open, yanked away from their family like Yensin. "I tried. I tried and for awhile I thought maybe..."

Maybe he had it right. Maybe it'd be enough. Maybe he'd climbed up from the ashes and made something worthwhile.

The name was unfamiliar. Gulmira. It sounded related, as if it fit in his part of the world, but it wasn't a place he'd been - but, Altaïr thought, it explained some of Tony's reactions to him. But that knowledge was overshadowed at the thought of Tony trying to save people for the cause of *family*. For a moment, all he could see over Tony's face was Sef's, his Sef's, dead because of who had fathered him.

But then he took in a deep breath, folded his hands over Tony's, and murmured, "Ibni, all you have done, it is more than enough. I swear that to you."

He needed willow. Willow to help break the fever, or at least soothe it. Hiltith, ephedra, herbs-- was stramonium present here? It would have to be carefully treated as it would be poisonous in too great a dosage, but--

Damnation, he was not going to see these people die.

"My fault. It's my fault they killed your family. Blood's on my hands. Obie was double dealing under the table, selling my weapons- he ordered the hit." Fragments of thoughts, of memories, fragments of truth that Yensin is owed. He gave his life to buy Tony time. Saw him as worth saving, as worth something more than what he could build, what he could design- even if it was only for long enough to get them to see the sky again.

His fingers twist, trembling tight against Yensin's, eyes squeezing shut. "I shut it down. All of it. went into clean energy instead, made a- scholarship? In your name. Too little too fucking late-"

A brief coughing fit wracks him, he clutches at Yensin's hands, holding their palms over his chest, keeping the reactor, the electromagnet, his heart from popping out of his chest. "Made the suit bigger. Better. Privatized world peace. Did good for, for a little bit. Like you wanted."

He would have to ask some questions later, if he remembered to. None of it mattered now. He could glean names, intents, happenings, and what he saw brought an ember to life in his chest. Here was a man who had taken so much to heart, who saw a weight and lifted it of his own accord. A man who knew duty--

And in a flash, he saw his library beneath Masyaf, the door locked behind him, the keys long gone. Lights extinguished one by one as voices from the past echoed in his mind, following the slowing beats of his heart. Get rid of that thing she had cried. It is my duty, Maria he had answered, insistent and even angry. None could see what he had seen, and he had known answers he had never wanted to give her. Had been so careful not to give her.

As he coughed, Altaïr held him, pressed against his chest. Made a note to bring him a pillow to hold to ease the aches that would come afterward. And when he could, he stroked his hand over Tony's brow. "I blame you for nothing, Ibni. All I can give you is my praise."

He needs a moment to breathe. It's a wet, ragged thing, his lungs feel thick and sore, his chest heavy. Humans aren't meant to have hardware jammed in their sternum, not meant to survive what he did, to do what he does. "Even if it was killing me?"

Palladium. Steady hands, a wry smile, a laugh. The only point of contact he had, the only person he could trust. The only person that understood and saw so, so much more than he could ever hope to grasp. Someone that knew grief so keen he was glad to die of it when the time was right, that didn't begrudge Tony his plan. Yensin has always and ever been a complicated tangle of grief and regret warring forever in his veins, twisting through like shards of glittering steel.

"Felt kind of like this. Didn't tell anyone. Had a few months? Fixed it. Had to fix it. M'always fixing my own fuckups."

"The strongest people are those willing to give of their own lives to see things made right," Altaïr told him softly - and then, the thought coming, he went on with patient calm. "Long ago, longer than anyone remembers, there was a group of people who laid claim to a small section of land. Wars raged about them, each side having decided that their way was right. All these small number of people wished was to be left be, but each side of the war came to them. 'Join with us, for what is just and right!' said one. 'Join with us, for what is your duty as men of this land!' said the other. 'No,' answered the Old Man of the Mountain, 'for your ways are both brutal and bring only death. We follow our own path, and bring harm only to those who bring harm to us.'

"But each side insisted, and those in the middle were under attack. At last, the men came to the Old Man of the Mountain once more. 'Join us!' they insisted, 'or we will kill more of your people!'

"In answer, he lifted his hand to a tower on which three men stood. 'We believe in our leader!' they shouted, and, fearless, they leaped from the tower's edge, proving their willingness to give their lives for what they saw as right. It shook the warleaders and they turned away, giving the village and the citadel their peace. The men who had leaped were called fedayeen, which means 'those who sacrifice.'"

Altaïr stroked his thumb across Tony's temple before picking up the cool cloth once more, dabbing away the latest beads of sweat. "You follow in their footsteps, Ibni. You give of your soul to do what you see as right. I have faith in that."

Talking doesn't hurt yet- but breathing does. He can't figure out the why of that but he drifts in the sensation. Body sore, mind spinning, skin too tight and too light by turns flicking with every twitch and beat of his heart. Trapped in his skin. That's how it was before with the palladium. Mind pointed and focused but his body failing him in inches, in miles and now-

Now even his mind seems to waver. Tony's eyes flutter shut for a moment as he licks his dry lips. Swallows around the itch in his throat and tries to listen. It's important. Shards of home, of truth. Of life outside the cave. Of a world that mattered, otherwise why were they trying so hard to get back to it? People that meant something to someone with more to offer than things that went boom. A breath, two and he tries to place the parable. No story like any he's heard but-

The lilt of Yensin's voice is comfortable. Comforting. It always has been. That initially eerie calm that made sense in retrospect. A man willing to give up what little he had left for the sake of someone else. "You taught me that."

Buy you some time.

This was the plan, this was always the plan.

It's hard to peel his eyes open, the damp at his lashes would mortify him if he was in his right mind but- he isn't. Hasn't been since he passed out the first time. "You did that for me. You told me to to waste the life you saved and- I tried. The, the wormhole. Sokovia. Titan- I tried. I tried and I still couldn't..."

But Altaïr shook his head, hand gentle as he drew cool water beneath Tony's eyes and across his brow. "You did what you could. Let no one ask more. You gave and you gave and I see the cost deep in your eyes. Some men pay with blood. You have paid with your heart and your soul. A life can be easy to give or take in service to an ideal. To give of spirit and ever-present thought can extract more than death.

"I believe the only thing I can teach you now is to remember that if you give everything that you have, you can help no more. Some amount must be held back - and in holding it back, you will find it grows to fill what had been given before."

And that was what he'd learned in twenty years of solitude. Twenty years of trying to delve into the Apple and delve into himself for answers, twenty years spent alone as his family, all that was left, went to Alexandria while he remained, barely waking from the Apple's trance to feed himself. He had given too much out of a selfish ideal. Only when he began to reclaim himself did Darim return. He'd learned. Now he would gently teach.

"It wasn't enough." Which shouldn't come as a surprise and yet- he'd hoped. He'd thought maybe when it mattered, when their backs were to the wall and the stakes were as high as they were ever going to get? He'd pull through. They needed to pull through, they needed to be able to do this impossible thing just one last time. Later, when he's well, when he's not strung out and tangled up in every bitter regret, every stone on his chest? He'll be mortified at how easily the tears come. Hot and stinging, carving a molten path down his skin.

Processing Titan hadn't really happened.

Coping hadn't happened.

Throwing himself into work happened. Projects happened. Throwing himself into whatever comfort he could dig up from Bull, from the bottle, from smoking happened but none of it could change the fact that he had failed in the most fundamental of ways and there was no altering it.

All the lies he spun, the promises he made to Peter, to Bruce? They counted for fuck and all. "I wasn't enough. Half the universe is gone because I couldn't- we couldn't-"

Half the universe.

It was odd how his mind divided at hearing those words. One half felt relief. If the Apple hadn't warned him of that, then there was no way his world was the same as Tony's. Half of his world was not gone.

But that faint relief was easily pushed aside by the thought of half of the universe being gone. It was too large of an idea to fathom. And yet-- And yet, for him...

No, he would not contextualise it with his own life. His own losses, here, now, did not matter. What mattered was that this man was taking a weight that large upon his own shoulders, and that was not a burden he deserved to bear. It wasn't a burden any one man deserved to bear because while he understood that the fate of the Earth could rest on one, the universe was much, much larger. One man could not bear that responsibility.

Altaïr put the cloth aside in favour of shifting how he sat, shifting his hands, and he pulled Tony to him without hesitation. He knew the man didn't like touch, but just then, touch was a necessity. "You did not fail," he said with words as certain as any man could be. "You gave. You did all you could. But all things are possible. This is not a weight for one man. This is not a weight for one, or ten, a hundred, a million. Some things are inevitable, Ibni. Some things cannot be stopped -- but Ibni--" Pulling back, Altaïr looked into his eyes. "All things are possible. Perhaps this could not be stopped. But if it could be done, then there is a chance, even if it is small, that it could be reversed."

Sitting up? Hurts. His muscles ache and his hand spasms at his chest, a moment's panic about the wires, fuck, he can feel it shifting in his torso, what did you do to me, why did you do this to me- up and against and human warmth? Shouldn't feel so cool. He's miserable when he's ill and he shouldn't but it's the one fucking scrap of comfort he has in all the world now- shameless and needy (fine Bruce, you win, he's needy) he presses his face into Yensin's throat to breathe.

It's not- pipe tobacco (a rare luxury when they show promising progress), not the turmeric and clove undertone he knew so well that brightened up the cave and sent a pang through him every time it wafts by- this? Is something else. Unfamiliar but rich, woody, vaguely floral. It makes the next few breaths slightly less painful as he clings, one hand on his chest to hold in his heart, one hand tangled up in Yensin's shirt. "We couldn't. I couldn't. You wasted your life saving me."

What good is he if he can't stop the thing he saw coming for years?

And yet he's held. And yet he's comforted with steady hands and warmth and a sincerity that reaches into the mangled mess of his torso to untangle the bands around his lungs and heart. If it can be done, it can be undone.

It was the only way.

Green and glittering and in play, as infinite and finite as anyone could possibly imagine, something as fluid and fickle and abstract with absurdly concrete repercussions. Shards made whole.

Sins prevented.

For the first time in months, for the first time since he woke in the hospital something sparks in Tony's eyes. Not coherence, not really. Not full on lucidity- but the barest embers of something infinitely more fragile. Hope.

"...you think I can find a way?"

"I think that your mind is sharp and your will is strong. I see no reason why this couldn't be done - especially if you let others help. If you listen to their words and build together rather than apart. People are willing to stand and help, but you have to let them, Ibni. Ideas come from everywhere. All you have to do is listen."

Holding on to Tony this way - a hand on his shoulder, the other at his back. It helped to hide how his thoughts lingered on Sef. On Darim, when he was young, when the journey East brought an illness to all of them but how it had hit Darim the hardest. How Sef died alone, with Swami's words in his ear--

He would not make that mistake again. There was no Abbas here, but he would not let someone put ill words in his mouth again. Especially not toward someone who had just found hope again after too long.

"I have faith in you, Tony," he said, uncaring that the name was still odd to him, that their times were separated by centuries. He needed reassurance. Altaïr could give that without reservation.

"Nine times out of ten their ideas are unreasonable." Tony mutters, hunching in, listing against Altaïr as he settles. But he won't be alone- provided he can make it back to earth. He'll figure something out, probably.

He always does.

For the first time since Thanos vanished off Titan, since he woke up in that tube? It feels possible. This pit of frustrated grief feels...manageable. He'll have people he knows he'll have people. He knows he'll have Rhodey and Bruce and Shuri and that'll be more than enough, probably. Some of the tension in him unspools, eyes slipping shut, cheek tipping against Altaïr's shoulder. Whatever this purgatory is? He thinks he might be able to endure.

The answer to that was a soft chuckle - so soft that only Tony could hear it. The weight of a head to his shoulder was nothing new, and he found it, if anything, comfortable. He could feel Tony slowly relaxing, and he took the weight with a small smile. It felt good to be relied upon again. For too long, he'd had to rely upon Malik the younger and Darim.

"They can be," he agreed, "but I believe some of your talent would be to make the unreasonable reasonable. To find a way. Because do not mistake, Ibni - I know you can."

"...What does that mean? Ibni? I can't-" He huffs, mind twisting and turning around his conversational grasp of Arabic. He can follow a line of thought but- some stuff flips through the cracks. "I can't place that one."

It's a noun, he thinks. Has to be. Everything he's heard makes sense with or without it so- something with emphasis? An endearment. As though he earned the right to endear anyone to his mess of a self.

His hand tightened on Tony's shoulder before he answered, "My son."

He wasn't sure if it would be appreciated. If the thought would be turned away. But if it was, he would accept it - even if he kept the feeling in his heart. This was one feeling he was sure of: that Tony needed something so steady in his life.

That- the effect is pretty instantaneous. Tony's shoulders don't tighten so much as loosen, melting into the contact, the support, the promise of affection and kindness. Listing into the idea like a flower to the sun, starved and fragile and infinitely wary of how fickle such a thing can be- but...

He leans into it all the same, eyes fluttering shut. "Oh...that's- that's nice."

"It is a promise," Altaïr said, easily taking Tony's weight. "So long as you wish it, Ibni, you will be my son."

With carefully light touches, he stroked Tony's hair back from his face. He was still over-hot and sweating, his hair sticking to his skin in damp curls, and Altaïr knew that it couldn't be comfortable. When his sons had been ill, he'd held their hair, pulling it back while their body fought the sickness. And so here, he did the same.

"Don't think I'll ever...not. Wish it." There was more to the thought, probably. Something about asking him not to make a promise- too many broken for him to really trust it but it slides in and out of his mind before he can grasp it long enough to attempt putting it in words. Plenty slips out of his grasp, consciousness ekes out little by little, leaving him boneless and dozing against Altaïr.

This time when he sleeps? The nightmares aren't quite so terrible.

[MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

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