8th Command; Voice

[aggravating]

There's this old adage, Bargians. Secrets, secrets are no fun. Unless you are a part of one. I'd kind of like to add onto that for a minute. So, uh, bear with me.

There are a few things that yeah, they're supposed to be kept secret. No one and their aunt Martha care about your latest bowel movement or who you had a crush on in the third grade. Seriously, they don't. Unless you're loud, obnoxious, spray tan like hell every chance you have, and get into cat fights over who gets the last can of soda. Those are fine. As are the family secrets, things like divorces, fights. I'm not saying "Spill your guts, Bargites, 'cause it's just not faaaaaaair~!" Those aren't the types of secrets I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the secrets that have to do with someone else. If someone knows something about your future that, you know, might be good to know for your own peace of mind, your own well-being, then hey. What the hell are you keeping it from them for? Because I pretty much guarantee that when they find out - and they will - things will be even worse than you imagined.

And yeah, for the record? Lies of omission totally count.

[Private to Natasha]
Coulson's dead, huh? Or did Rogers leave that out of his debrief?

[Private to Arkady]
Gorgeous, I needed to be drunk yesterday.

[Private to Charles]
Give me a reason to actually keep giving a shit, Prof. Because apparently even if I work to come back to life now, I just die again later.

[Private to Steve]
So. Rogers.

Coulson's dead.

I flew a nuke into space.

Loki's a fucking supervillain.

Game over.

Comments

[most_feared]

The angel's right. One misplaced word can throw off a whole future.

[He knows this, and hates it.] Even things that have to happen even if you don't want them to.

[aggravating]

[Snapping at people is exposing too many things, right now. He's being too emotional. He was hit where it hurt and hit hard. Tony doesn't trust people easily, doesn't like most people, and after his dad raising Cap up on a pedestal... well.

So he's trying something else, trying a different approach, trying to get himself back under control, before he tells someone something really personal. (As if what he said to Castiel wasn't just that.)]

Is everyone on this ship an expert in destiny or temporal whatever?

[most_feared]

A lot of 'em. [Bluntly honest. He's on a ship full of people who have had their pasts, futures, and vague alternate scenarios meddled with.] But if it's about something personal, it might just plain be something they didn't want to talk to you about. Who wants to have to tell someone that everything they ever wanted out of life is gonna go wrong?

[aggravating]

Sucks, but that's kind of our job? You don't call heroes into street fairs to run carnival booths. You see us on the street you run and hide because there's going to be some kind of catastrophe coming in just a few seconds later.

So they can suck it up. Kind of like having a head's up. A little "oh, hey, by the way, your life might go to hell in a few years, and people are gonna die, so maybe try to make them not die, or at least not be an asshole to them just before."

[most_feared]

I don't. I'm not the guy that runs and hides.

Have you ever had to do it? Tell someone that their life is about to be ruined, because if it's not, if you don't let things happen, the Earth is pretty fucked?

[aggravating]

Yeah, you kind of didn't seem like someone who does.

[He's leaning back in his chair a bit, jaw jutting to the side as he chews on his tongue a bit in thought]

No, I haven't. Because I'm not normally someone people tell things to, in case my little rant completely went over your head just now. But I can pretty firmly say from the other side it sucks to be jerked around like a dog on a leash.

[most_feared]

Your right. I don't get it, because when I signed on for what I do, I signed on with the full awareness I might end up canon fodder, and that my superiors can and would wipe my memory if they needed to. I signed on knowing I might end up cannon fodder.

It would be a whole lot worse for everybody else if they didn't, though.

But if you can't put that much trust in your teammates either to give you what you need to know or keep things to themselves, then you're probably not ready to work with 'em.

[aggravating]

Obviously not. And hey, if they don't trust me enough to tell me when the guy it apparently took six of us to fight shows up, guess it's mutual.

Teammates are pretty damn overrated.