aggravating | 11th Command; Video

[She actually looks vaguely sad at that, or at least disheartened. But only for a second, and it's gone as quick as it came.]

I think you have to have your shit pretty wired in order to do that. [There's no way he wouldn't know it was a one way trip. Just no way.]

Is this easier? [She doesn't elaborate, not yet, but it's the best explanation, in her book. He makes people hate him, keeps them at arm's distance.]

[He won't know for another few weeks, when he closes his eyes in his room on the barge and wakes up in the armor, gasping for breath and raising his hand, yelling for Rhodey to do the same. When he lives two more years, the barge a distant memory, moving forward like he's a part of a dream.

Now, it's a story. Told to him by Pepper, confirmed by Steve, by Loki. There's no way to know.]

... Yeah. Make the people you'll never meet love you, and make sure the people around you hate you. Key to survival.

[Key to keep from making mistakes. To keep the idiots from sacrificing themselves for your sorry ass.

Tony just sucks at making people truly, completely hate him. But it doesn't mean he won't keep trying.]

Doesn't sound like the greatest survival trick. [More quiet irony, since she knows that judging isn't really going to help. She's seen what he does when accused, and she isn't interested in watching him withdraw fully.

Natasha shrugs, and lets one corner of her mouth twitch up in a half smile.]

Then again, love is for children. Not your job to worry about other people, right? [It is your job, admit it and stop being cray.]

It's worked so far.

[He's just... screwing up his face for a moment, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead and counting to ten, calming down, focusing on numbers and breathing and not flying off the handle. Not saying something that he'll really regret later.

Not that he isn't already regretting ninety percent of what's happening here.]

Not exactly the guy to save the world one kissed baby at a time, Natasha. [He means it, too.] More the demolition specialist over here. Blow up the bad guy, reap rewards, keep being an ass.

I think any babies you kissed would wind up crying.

[ And she pauses, for a moment, just considering, thinking his actions over, the things he's said. It's been sliding into place for a while now, and she tips her head to the side just a bit, looking at him. ]

It's not about your actions, though. It's about other people's.

Proven fact. 11,458,914 hits on youtube last time I checked.

[He doesn't like that pause, doesn't like her actually taking time to think about things. It makes him twitchy, actually. And suspicious.

So when she speaks, he pauses in the drumming on his arc reactor, to narrow his eyes at her.]

... Yeah, not following. Since when was it not about me?

[Don't you dare make this leap, Natasha. Don't you dare.]

[ She's spent her life learning to read people, to spot tells, and his body language is screaming that she's right. Her eyes drop to his fingers, now still, back up to his narrowed eyes. And she pushes. ]

Come on, Tony. You don't want people getting hurt because of you.

[He hates you. He hates all of you. And more than that he hates Obadiah putting him in that cave in the first place, hates the memory that snaps to the forefront of his mind, of Yinsen lying in his own blood, choking on it as he tries to speak, voice wavering and color draining from his face.

Don't waste your life.

The image painted for them by Loki, by Pepper and Steve. Coulson, stabbed from behind. Another person dying for them, for him. Because they saw something Tony honestly doesn't see in himself. Because they saw something good in him that made him want to run away. Something enough to die for.

Dying because he wasn't fast enough, wasn't smart enough, didn't plan on it. Never plans on someone being stupid enough to throw themselves away for him.]

Everyone gets their start somewhere. [Don't. Just... don't push that any further.] Doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing. I have things under control.

[ She makes a gesture toward him, toward this mess that he's made. She can read body language to know well enough when she's right, when to push, and when she should ease off. But only a little. ]

This obviously isn't under control.

[ She wonders what he's gone through. Who died for him. She doesn't know what that's like; no one's thrown their life away for her. Clint's come the closest to it, and she can't imagine would it would feel like, watching him die and knowing it was happening so she could live. It makes her stomach tight. ]

You're worse off than you were.

[He's tempted to bite back, to tell her to screw off, to lay on some bullshit about how she can just leave him alone, that he's fine. Fine fine fine fine fine.

But he can't. He's tired and pissed and drunk and... no, he's done. Natasha knows. She's seen him at his worst already, dying of palladium poisoning, lying to his closest friends and hiding at a donut shop.

So instead, he lets out a laugh. A harsh, hoarse laugh.]

Pepper's gone.

[Said in that way that the next words don't even need to be said, they're just audible in the silence hanging after those two words Of course he's worse off, his better half is gone, what the hell do you expect?.

Instead, he's just pinching the bridge of his nose, screwing up his eyes.]

Fury's not here. You don't have babysit me.

[ He's in love and love is for children and you're not a therapist, you're a spy filter through her thoughts as she looks at him. It isn't her job to make him well. It isn't her job to console him or comfort him.

It's her job to keep him alive, and it's impossible to die here.

But that's not enough, really. Her job had been keep him alive, keep him ready to fight. She's seen him fight drunk. It's impressive. So she knows how much better he'd be in the right frame of mind, sober and not depressed. She wants to slap him for his stupidity most of the time, but sometimes she feels the faintest urge to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him that it'll be all right. ]

Coulson babysits. I watch. [Or stalk, really. ] Pepper's waiting. So it's time to start getting your shit wired.

[There's just something weird about Natasha, something that had dug under his skin. She was something fresh, different, and interesting back home, back before he knew she was a spy. She'd been the next generation of PA, she didn't take his shit. She could hold her own and he'd respected her for that. And even now, here, knowing she's in Fury's pocket, knowing he'd eventually fight side by side with her, there's still a part of him that respects her.

And, believe it or not, getting Tony Stark's respect is a really hard thing to do.

He'd deny that in a heartbeat, though. Love. It is for children, for the sentimental and the romantics at heart. He was a futurist, a realist. He saw situations and wasn't full of fuzzy optimism, he saw situations and picked them apart, weighed outcomes with equations and predicted moves. He and Pepper apparently worked, and he had no idea how. Just as he had no idea what this sudden hole ripped in his chest really is. A place that had once been filled by Pepper Potts, so achingly empty, even filled up with booze.]

Coulson tases, you stab with needles. [He'll forget, for now. He'll pretend like it never happened, like they're still tucked up snug in a blanket of denial and wrapped up in their own time line. Like the Avengers Initiative doesn't exist, that Loki and Cap aren't a part of things. That Coulson doesn't die and it's still okay for Tony's voice to have that edge of humor, an edge that's just that shy of fond.]

Mean it, Natasha. Fury's not here. I'll get out eventually and blast Vanko in the face. My "shit"- [Air quotes are a thang] -isn't your problem.

[ She let's herself pause, let's some of her actual thoughts and emotions filter into her voice and face, where they are almost never allowed. She doesn't trust Tony by a long shot, that was why she wanted him kept in the dark, and by all rights she shouldn't trust him with how she feels, of all damn things, but here she is, about to.

Maybe it's just a masterful manipulation. Maybe it's just her knowing exactly when you have to give more in order to get more. Maybe it's because she hasn't talked about this at all, in the entire time she's been here, and it's eating at her.

It isn't vulnerability, she would never show that without the potential for a much bigger pay off, but it is an uncertainty, just for a moment. ]

You're the only problem I can fix. I'm not - getting out of here.

[ She thinks that was too much, more than necessary, so she straightens a little, goes back to pushing her thoughts off her face. Back to neutrality - and maybe just a little back to pretending. She mimics his almost fond tone when she talks next. ]

Don't worry, Tony. I don't plan on dying for your sake. Hasn't happened yet. [ She's good enough to save them both, but saying that would sound arrogant, and that's his job. ]

[He glances up at the video feed as Natasha says that, eyebrows arching up and his hand moving down, covering his mouth as he listens, thinks, mulls over the proper response to that.

But there is no proper response, is there?

He's not an emotional person. He doesn't do things like this. And he's damn sure Natasha's even more emotionally stunted than he is, sometimes. At least in situations like this. So why the hell was she giving him this? She didn't trust him, he knew that, and he barely trusted her, so...]

Pretty happy being broken.

[And that's all he'll say. But there's an edge to his voice, it isn't as firm a denial. There's an almost... soft side to it. Quiet, considering. Curious.]

Yeah, well. Do me a favor and keep it that way. [He scrubs his hand quickly over his face, screwing up his eyes and damnit whatever she'd been playing at worked.

His momentum had been thrown, annoyance and exhaustion had settled in, and he's... open, now. Almost. At least just a little more than he was a moment ago.]

Getting sick of it.

[ That she couldn't answer, at least not now. She hadn't been happy, being broken. She knew no one was, in the end. But pointing that out meant admitting things she didn't want to admit, it meant thinking about James, and the Red Room, and being unmade. She didn't want to get into that with anyone, didn't want to be trapped with those thoughts. So she let her eyebrows lift just slightly before falling again, a vague, I-don't-believe-you gesture.

It didn't matter. She knew, now, and knowing meant finding a way to combat his very poor reaction to the possibility of people getting close. It was, strangely enough, something she could relate to. Something she could just nod at instead of talk about, because she's the same way. Natasha very, very rarely lets people in. And she wasn't looking forward to paying the price of that in two years, wasn't looking forward to watching Clint suffer and being able to do nothing. To hearing about Coulson.

She ought to stop owing people. Maybe that's what it comes down to: she believes in being even. Phil saved her life, she ought to save his. (But she won't be able to, and that will eat at her.)

Natasha makes herself smile, a little upwards crook at the corner of her mouth. ]

I can promise. I'm not really the sacrificial type. [ And she isn't, because she's never had to keep someone alive at the cost of her own life. She wonders what that would be like, to judge a situation and know someone else needs to live, and she doesn't.

Tony's going to redirect a missile, save Manhattan. What's she going to do? ]

[Tony's going to take a missile in his hands, will push and pull all that destructive power, he'll fly it into space and feel the very air sucked out of his lungs, body gasping for something that isn't coming, no matter if his brain was telling him he wasn't drowning, wasn't choking, there should be air and there wasn't...

Tony flies a missile into space. He saves Manhattan.

Natasha thrusts a spear into a glowing, blue cube. She saves the world.

It's one thing to take a look at a situation and realize that you can die to save people. It's one thing to sacrifice yourself and know that it's okay, it's what has to happen. Because it's all about you. In that moment it isn't about the other people, the people impacted by the death. It isn't even about the fact that everything you are will end. It's the simple knowledge that you are the one thing standing in the way of people living. If you don't take that risk, if you don't kill yourself to save everyone else, then you're even more responsible for the murders of hundreds of thousands of people than the people who built and fired the damn bomb in the first place. You die a savior, or you die a murderer. There's nothing heroic about it.

To stand at the top of a tower, beaten and bloodied, screaming out to anyone who can hear you that you can stop it, you figured it out. To hear the order from a leader on the ground and stare up at the gaping hole in the sky, the speck of a shadow the shape of a man, between the lights of an exploding ship, trapped outside the pull of gravity, moving the barest inch at a time. To see the fire of the explosion roaring closer. To know a teammate is behind the line and knowing you have to close the portal anyways, to make a conscious decision to save the world at the risk of one ally? That's heroism.

But Tony doesn't know any of that. Yet. Weeks, months from now they might have this conversation again. They might find themselves emotionally vulnerable, having worked their way into this corner, unsure of where to go and how to get out, stubborn to a fault and refusing to let the other win and have the satisfaction of a terminated feed. And they might find themselves here again, Natasha determined that she's never going to redeem herself, and Tony might tell her. Might say that she was the one who closed the portal, he'd heard the radio calls, silenced the second he passed to the other side of the portal, as his displays went blank.

Eventually, this conversation would go differently. It would be something more than what it is. But today? It's as if something not quite right has settled on his shoulders, makes him roll one, caught in awkwardness, in the emotions crackling beneath their surfaces, hinted at in a way they never normally are. A way he's not fully comfortable with.]

Perfect. [He grins, not really feeling it, just going through the motions. A learned routine, rather than a true reaction.] I'd lose my place on the team.

[ Things will be different, eventually; they always are. Natasha knows that. Right now, though, she's accomplished what she set out to do. Tony has calmed down. He's talked. And for now, that's good enough. So she doesn't point out that he's faking his smile, that they're talking about nothing, because she knows they're both well aware.

They have enough on their minds, now that things have been said, that she doesn't mind going through the motions. ]

You can have mine. [ It's dry, and she's back to hiding her frustration about their 'team.' If the world really was at stake, if it was fight and maybe win, or run and lose, Natasha thinks she'd probably fight. It isn't a question of noble intentions or being a good person, it's just logic: they would have a better change with one more fighter on their side. And if things went south, she would run. Fight another day. (Except she won't, because she'll be compromised, too involved and too willing to be a soldier and see it through to whichever end she reaches.)

Things change.

But right now, Natasha doesn't see herself as an Avenger. She sees herself as an agent, as a spy. As an assassin, same as she always has been. Some things can't change. ] I'll lose my green card if I join another super-secret organization.

[His lips twitch, despite himself. Despite the nagging nausea in his stomach, the pain in that red, slightly swollen spot on his face - it'll probably bruise, and he can still taste blood from where his cheek had caught on a tooth. Damn could Peggy punch - he still manages to feel a spark of tired amusement at what Natasha's saying.

Even if it's amusement tinged with the slightest bit of... well. It almost feels like a sort of weight settling over him. A sad sort of resignation.] Like Fury deals in green cards.

[It's said easy enough, normally enough, and Tony can move again, pushing himself up and off the ground with a grunt, working his jaw as he stares into space for a moment. Finally, the corner of his lips pulls up, into a smirk that's more him than it was before.] But yeah, pass on the whole taking your place thing.

[He glances down at the communicator, a bit of life back in his eyes, a bit of that snarky, billionaire playboy crawling back to the surface.]

I can't really pull off leather catsuits.

[She can see him pulling himself back together - just like she can see that kind of resignation. It's consoling and disheartening at once - because she knows there isn't much more she can do for him. There's only so much anyone can do for him, in the end.

So she keeps an almost smile on her face, and shakes her head; she'll take normal, and she'll give normal back, because it's easier. Even if she could do without that image.]

Please never feel the urge to try.

[Hey now, some people would pay good money to get Tony Stark in form fitting leather. He tends to avoid them with near military precision, now, but they do exist.

Still, those walls are falling back in place, the mask sliding back on, clicking firmly back in place. Almost as if that entire conversation, that miniature breakdown had never happened.]

Trust me, too much effort to get in and out.

[Luckily she is not one of those people and she really does not want to know they exist somewhere. Really really does not. But she sees the mask come down and knows that's it, this is as far as the conversation is going to go for now. And she's okay with that.]

I'm going to ignore that you sound like you know what you're talking about.

[It's an easy enough shift, even if it leaves him tired. Leaves him mentally kicking himself for actually opening up to someone who's only goal in life was wheedling out secrets.

And he knew that, too. Which was what made it worse. Because if he knew she was a spy, was on Fury's payroll and he was still letting his guard down?

... That's when things got tricky.]

I'd tell you to google it, but we're kind of out of range right now.

[And so starts the now tradition of seeing who will get frustrated and hang up first.]

11th Command; Video

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