aggravating | 11th Command; Video

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11th Command; Video

[Hey guys. Hey. Guys. Was Tony kickass in that Port or what? Yeah, that's right. He was.

And he is totally lording it over all of your heads for the rest of time.]

So, uh, for the record. We should probably have some sort of actual sane plan for situations like that. Like. The Bargites Guide to Surviving Alien Kidnappings. First chapter: Listen to the Locals and Don't Rush the Aliens.

[And, almost as an afterthought:]

And in case anyone knew her, Pepper Potts went home.

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[There's an immediate wave of relief at the comment that Charles isn't even going to bother trying to hold back, because you're on board and well enough to be obnoxious, which he's taking as a good thing.]

I suppose I should take that as a yes?

[He supposes he should feel kind of insulted that Charles is assuming cattiness means that he's okay. But, at the same time... it is a pretty damn accurate way to figure that out.

The day Tony Stark responds with genuine emotion and no sarcastic nicknames is the day something is very, very wrong.]

You tell me. [There's a quick pause in his thoughts, or at least the most immediate ones. Instead there's a flood of white noise, unless Charles is up to picking through everything. Memories from the port, bursts of information and equations as he runs his eyes over everything in his room. He has JARVIS up and running, the helmet connected to the arc reactor and screens up. His thoughts are no doubt going to be running with equations in the background, now. A constant accompaniment in his busy mind.] What about you, Speed Wheeler?

[Because he wasn't paying attention during the port, didn't care enough about individual people. He just watched from safety as people scrambled, got hurt, practically died as he listened. And he just didn't give enough of a damn to do anything about it.

Even so, unless Charles had gotten back on the boat, or unless he had some kind of protection... there's only so much a guy in a wheelchair can do against alien invaders. And it's a horrifying fact that Tony's definitely not skirting around. Sorry Charles, it's gonna be right there in the forefront of his, uh, not too well-filtered thought process.]

[The various thoughts and memories and images from the people around him and those he's contacted are almost too much for him to process like this. He's exhausted, barely holding it together, and so the buzz of white noise with the occasional stronger thought breaking through is a relief. It's easier to handle, even if it's still a little overwhelming.]

I'm - [And he wants to say "fine", can feel the second word, but he knows it's a lie, can feel the memories threatening to bubble up and spill into Tony's mind, but he clamps them back down and blurts out a more honest answer.]

Recovering.

[There's an almost halt to his thoughts, on his end, and given Tony's own mental state? The stress and heartache that came from Pepper leaving? His own emotions are raw, the wall they're normally kept behind with a gaping hole in the side.

Which is, and forever will be his reason behind the fact that the next words thought Charles' way are laced with an actual quantifiable amount of worry... and a touch of righteous anger.]

Should have sent me a message. I give an awesome eulogy, no funeral's complete without it.

... Although I swear to god if you're "recovering"- [can't you just see those air quotes?] -because you got an alien staff infection from a paper cut or something, I'm making fun of you forever.

[Aw, Tony, you care. c:

An amused, almost hysterical laugh bubbled out of his throat at that, because the image does seem a bit ridiculous, if not entirely inaccurate.]

It was from split knuckles, not a paper cut. [And again, he chokes down the memories of hitting his fist as hard as he could against the door, screaming for them to let Erik go, to take him instead. He'd broken a few of the bones in his hand, and it wasn't like the cells they'd been in had been particularly clean, so he really wasn't shocked that an infection had set in.]

I lost my device when they took me. [And because he really didn't want to relive any of it, and had at this point picked up on some off the worry and depression that was fairly clearly labeled PEPPER, he changed the subject.] What happened to Miss Potts?

[In some small ~~read: large~~ capacity yeah. He cares. You've wormed your way into the outer layers of his really damaged heart and somehow managed to nest there. It's barren, uncharted territory. Namely since Casa de Pepper and Rhodey's Fox Hole are pretty damn unlit and gathering dust right now.]

Wait, seriously? [He can't pick up anything from Charles, other than the words, a weird sense of... something causing an almost uncomfortable feeling to run through him. Makes his mouth go dry as he swallows. But he can't place it, doesn't want to dwell on it.

Tony'd make a crappy telepath.] I hope you know you just signed yourself over to full-blown teasing.

[Predictably, though, the easy rhythm to his thoughts gets blown to hell and back as soon as Pepper's mentioned. It's almost like a cat fluffing up and hissing as soon as it feels cornered and threatened. Bristling and trying to make itself look bigger, more menacing than it really is. Than it really feels.

That's what's happening with the surge of thoughts and emotions in Tony's mind, in the harsher edge to his thoughts.]

Vacation leave. The kind you usually don't come back from because hey, why bother with a hell barge when you can lounge in Tahiti?

[Charles doesn't want to dwell, either, particularly because talking to Tony and catching up on other people is fending off the knowledge that he'd been kidnapped and tortured for four days, it's not something he can pretend happened to someone else or was just a dream or didn't matter. It had happened, and the panic, the desire to fall apart is still hovering off to the side, waiting for an opportunity to swoop in.

So the sudden shift in Tony's emotion is almost too much for him to handle and he flinches, not quite retreating, but definitely being cautious. Tony's an animal that feels backed into a corner and vulnerable, and thus feels it needs to fluff itself up and hiss, but Charles is more wounded, weary and not sure if he wants to approach other people, or stay away until he feels better.]

I'm sorry.

[It's decidedly lame, it's not the right thing to say, but he's coming up short with any ideas for how to actually make it better. He knows what it's like to lose the person (people) you're closest to without warning, to feel lost and angry and vulnerable even if you know there's nothing you can do about it, and he tries to send Tony some comfort, even if he's not sure it will do any good.] Is there anything I can do?

[If anything else, Charles should know by now that Tony knows torture. It was right there in his file, underneath the stuff on his parents, the general background. It was always written right there in big, bold letters. Afghanistan. Missing three months. Held captive by terrorist group known as The Ten Rings. Injuries sustained: lacerations to chest and shoulder, burns, bruises, damage to heart and chest cavity. He couldn't run from it, could never get away from it. Everyone knew, it had been headlines for months. He'd never faced it down, though. Never looked back. He'd taken what he needed to from the situation and used it to move forward. He'd never dealt with it.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knows what happened to humans taken by the Vanquish. Torture, experimentation, or forced to fight for their own entertainment. Sometimes a combination of the two, sometimes all three. He knew, he just didn't want to admit to it. Wanted to allow Charles to do what he needed to in order to deal with the situation. To suppress or bury for now, to act like everything was normal. God knows that Tony knows that feeling. Knows that, in a way, it works.

So he allows himself to relax, doing the mental equivalent of a shrug and calming himself down a bit, letting his appreciation for Charles' words bubble to the surface. A rare show of actual affection.]

Any way you can get Faith to lift my bar ban? [Oh yeah, sorry Charles. He kind of forgot to mention he's been called out for alcoholism...]

Edited 2012-08-19 22:05 (UTC)

[That rare show was appreciated, but it made answering the next question even harder. He knows he's not exactly been doing the best job at not enabling Tony so far, between actually drinking with him in the bar and not quite policing it as much as he should. So the answer, really, should be absolutely not, you're not going to touch anything alcoholic as long as I have anything to say about it.

But he really isn't in the mood for arguing right now. Holding himself together enough to converse with anyone is draining enough without saying you have a problem, you're never going to have access to alcohol again to someone who was very good at picking a fight.

And there was the fact that he didn't even know there had been a bar ban in place in the first place.

So, not entirely intentionally, not quite, he decided to go about this maybe a little manipulatively. Play dumb, get Tony to offer up a little more information, and play the I was just tortured for four days, I don't really want to talk about this card.]

I don't know. Did she explain why?

[He knows.

He knows full well that Charles is tired, that something traumatic happened during the last port. He's not stupid, that much has been proven time and time again. A bit out of touch with human emotions and friendship, but Tony Stark is a genius. Too smart for his own good. And he knows that what he's doing is a dick move.

But that doesn't mean he's stopping. Doesn't mean he's taking back the question, the thread of affection. He's using it, the emotional connection to someone else, the responsibility Charles unfortunately had for him. Pushing it in his face, settling it on his shoulders in an attempt to break him, for him to look two problems in the face and realize that one has to go, one has to be forgotten, overlooked. And Tony is always the overlooked.

This time, he's playing it to his advantage.]

I might have been a bit of an ass a while back.

[The word alcoholic is being buried stubbornly under a pile of AC/DC trivia and conversational Persian right now.]

[He wasn't sure if he should be angry or not. He didn't want to be. He was too tired and sick, and it wasn't something he could deal with, so he didn't. He mentally curled in on himself a little, protective, refusing to let Tony use his vulnerability to his advantage. That had happened enough this weekend already.]

Once I'm out of the infirmary, I'll speak with her. [He would, he meant it, although he wasn't going to be making any sort of promises about whether or not he'd actually get it lifted. Just because Tony was hiding the word didn't mean Charles couldn't think it on his own.

And he turned up the guilt card a little, letting some of the exhaustion and frustration filer through. It wasn't even really lying, he was just giving him more than he would have if the situation had been different.]

I don't think I'll be all that convincing right now, I'm afraid.

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11th Command; Video

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