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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[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.]

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11th Command; Video

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