aggravating | 14th Command; text/spam

[Private to Charles]

death tolling.
willing to offer one piece of personal bullshit on one condition: you ever read my mind on what happened that breach, i'm getting another warden.

[Private to Steve]

you make a crappy fed.
stuck in infirmary for a while oh captain my captain, have fun with the kids

[Private to Perry]

la, right?
consider me the rich asshole hiring you to make sure this gets forgotten. deal with your inmate.

[Infirmary Spam for Kozak]

[Tony's all fluffed up in bed, thank god, but the guy looks like death warmed over. Probably because he pretty much is death warmed over. A bullet through the head kind of does that to a guy.

Either way, he wants nothing more than to just forget that breach ever happened. Can't be too hard, right? Just play avoid the Kozak, slip into denial around Perry, give Charles one "hey look I realized something" moment... yeah.

He could totally just slip that entire experience right into his giant box of denial. He could do this.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Sorry, Tony, but you're not allowed to forget it. Kozak is there an hour after the breach ended. No blood on his face, thank fucking Admiral for that, but it's very obvious he cried his eyes out for a good twenty minutes, if not longer.

There's about a dozen different things he wants to say, all of them starting with "YOU FUCKING MORON" but, he doesn't.

No he just comes in, and punches him in the shiny fucking arc reactor as hard as he can. Which isn't much, truthfully, and it possibly does more damage to him than it does to Tony. But, even so.]

[He catches sight of movement out of the corner of his eyes and damnit it takes way too much effort to push himself up, to get his head turning and to squint and focus his eyes, to-

It's almost like seeing a ghost. He freezes, his mouth opening to say something, to just... to something that his brain hasn't quite caught up to.

And then Kozak's slamming his fist down on his arc reactor, pushing air out of Tony's lungs and causing pain to burn out through his chest, his ribs aching as the metal curled over and around them shifts, as adrenaline floods through him. He wheezes, grits his teeth, and shoves weakly at Kozak in response, his other hand rubbing over his chest as he practically snarls:]

What the hell?

[Kozak backs off almost immediately after his fist connected with an all too similar hissing sound bitten back. He spends the next several seconds waving his hand to dissipate the sudden pain, pacing, almost bouncing on his feet. Almoist certainly need some ice on that later, but that isn't now.

Because now he's looking over at Tony with sudden concern, and he can't tell who that emotion stems from more: himself or the alternate universe version where he was Tony's brother. The feeling of that sibling bond was not easily shaken off, even as he briefly closes his eyes to try and dispel it. Just like with Rhade, there's a whole host of memories, and details of the other man, he'd really rather forget.]

Don't. Don't even ask like you don't know why.

[And what was the reason? The blood on his face couldn't be blamed on this Tony. He had no control over those actions any more than Kozak did. If it was an attempt to separate both of them from that breach, then he'd failed there too. Now they were both pained, Stark more than himself, but it was just one more thing shared.

He can't explain his reasoning. Can't put into words what he's even feeling right now. It's certainly not anger, that had all dissipated as his knuckles formed bruises. He reaches out and grasps Tony's hand with his own. Seeking comfort and support as much as he was offering it. A deep exhale, the sound of a man defeated.]

Fuck. [Pause, then a half-smile as a thought occurred to him.] You were right about me cussing, you know. Though I think I lasted longer than a week.

Edited 2012-09-26 23:22 (UTC)

[It hurts, yeah. Like someone reaching into his chest and grabbing a chunk of cartilege and muscle, twisting and pulling and bashing against both of his lungs at the same time. But at the same time, it's a pain he's used to, so in the end he's left just rubbing his chest, forcing his breath back, trying to keep from too much discomfort flashing through his expression.

His jaw, however, remains tensed, his teeth ground together and his lips drawn tight. He's not going to answer Kozak, damnit. Not going to give into the rebuttal bubbling up inside of him, the bark of a defensive argument his mind has already prepared. He's not stepping into that trap.

That breach... he wants to forget it. Wants to pretend like it never happened. He's determined to forget, actually. That hadn't been him, hadn't been his life. He remembers it, remembers the person he'd been, but it's... dampened, separate. It hurts and it aches and it's pulled things to the surface, memories he'd tried to bury years ago just ripped to pieces and throbbing like new and recent wounds. But damnit the man in front of him is not his brother. He doesn't have a brother. In this place, here, he's just a guy with his face. Ten years younger and a whole lot more anal, unstable. Something he honestly hadn't though possible.

Still, for all of his internal berating, for all his glaring and refusal to say anything, when Kozak reaches for Tony's hand, he's turning it automatically, gripping tight before he can stop it. Before he can even fully recognize that Kozak had even reached for him.]

Echoing that, actually. [He's muttering, tired and in pain and sick to his stomach - Dean had been right, this... this was worse than the withdrawal he'd sat through, at least in some ways. Better, in others.] Pretty sure if we actually go and time it, you-

[Suddenly, it's as if something's clicking in his mind, as if he's finally fully registering the pressure on his hand, the fact that he's holding Koz's just as tight and desperate as the other man was. In an instant, almost as if he were burned Tony's pulling back, away, pushing with his other hand if he has to, just to get out of the contact with a shuddering breath.

Weird, definitely weird. Too weird. He doesn't offer comfort, sure as hell doesn't accept it, so that... he doesn't know how to deal with that. At least other than drumming absently against his arc reactor with the hand Koz had grabbed, the other mirroring the pattern - binary, codes, zeroes and ones, JARVIS' problem solving programming - on the side of his leg.]

... Yeah, look, I don't... [Do this. Emotion. Comfort. Dealing with anything that just happened.] ... I don't do the whole sit and talk about feelings crap, so you're kind of screwed if you were coming looking for that.

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