Oh, God...

[shieldborne]

Infinity War Open Post






THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Drop me a prompt, or ask me to drop you a prompt. Open to doomy pre-IW foreshadowing, fix-it AUs, post-IW angst, character interactions that should have happened but didn't on-screen, crossovers, and whatever else anyone can come up with.

Comments

[shieldborne]

Steve knows all about shell shock. He's seen it in the men around him, during the war (which wasn't so long ago, from his perspective). Before that, he'd heard plenty of stories about men coming home from the (first) Great War, men like his father only slightly more fortunate, in that they were alive. They were still fighting the stigma, last he checked. Plenty of people still considered shell shock a sign of weakness and cowardice.

In another man, he wouldn't. In himself, he doesn't give much ground or have much sympathy. So the less said about that moment, the better, perhaps, and in the back of his head he makes note of the look in Tony's eyes, the patience he's just shown, and the altered note in his voice.

Yeah, okay, he can see himself maybe falling for a guy like that.

"Right," he says, putting that on the back burner, and setting his jaw. "I'm with you on that. But we can't have SHIELD overhearing, and I know they have cameras there. Can you wave your magic wand or somethin'?"

Steve understands technology just well enough to know what he doesn't know, and recognize what Tony does know.

[starkingenuity]

“Abra Cadabra,” Tony says, moving his hand like he’s conducting some sort of orchestra. It’s not going to be hard to mask themselves, video looping and sound technology is easy to manipulate. It’s going to require more than that. They’re going to need a distraction. Interestingly enough, Steve himself poses to be the biggest one. “I have it on good authority that there’s at least one person here we can trust. How’s your signing hand?”

Blanking our the recording devices and taking Coulson’s attention off of the situation will let Tony ask Loki about Thanos.

He figures it’s a little bit of a risk, but he’s pretty much lived his life through risks and why should this be any different?

Cookson will be easy to find. He’s in the room with Loki, the only one who is, because Loki is saying some weird things and pissing Fury off. There are armed guards outside, sure, but no one is breaking out of that cell they have him in. And Coulson is more or less immune to just about everything. But that’s when Captain America shows up, all smiles and handshakes.

Does he notice Stark? Sure. But what can the world’s richest baby do? Maybe piss Loki off? Fury might even like that. The smile on his face is bizarrely frightening.

[shieldborne]

Despite the situation, that gesture wins a little smile from Steve, and when the suggestion he pose as a distraction hits home, he gives a brief eyeroll. Not at Tony, at himself, for not thinking of that. He's not so good with intrigue, apparently.

But he is pretty good with talking to Coulson. It's reassuring to find out that at least this guy is trustworthy, that HYDRA may have infiltrated the organization, but that doesn't mean every agent is aware of that, or with HYDRA. On some level he's probably clinging to that hope as he clasps hands and sheepishly prompts the man to talk about his card collection. And he gives a little, with this conversation, reminiscing about the rest of the Howling Commandos, wishing they'd had their own sets, because the cards are mostly fictionalized images and USO tour snapshots. And then he asks if Coulson's met Peggy, which prompts yet more quiet discussion.

Loki says nothing when they come in, simply holding onto that eerie smile, and maybe neither Steve nor Tony believes in gods as such, but there's something eldritch about his eyes. He also looks a bit haggard, like he's coming out on the other side of a ferocious illness. His eyes are hollow, cheekbones a bit too sharp. Actually, everything about him is a bit too sharp. He's prickly and pointy, all blades and angles and subtle sickness.

"And so," he greets Tony quietly. "You come to me. I had thought you might be too absorbed getting acquainted with your new friend...but you have yet to disappoint me."

In point of fact, he didn't expect either of them to come speak to him, but he's only biding his time here, for the most part, and acting like he holds all the cards is a simple way to manipulate them.

[starkingenuity]

Tony isn’t about to let someone like Loki get under his skin. Very few people do and this bat shit crazy weirdo isn’t going to be one of them. That doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the guy. Tony has always been attracted to people like this, at least on an intellectual level. It’s a game. Very few people can keep up with him.

Obviously, Loki has already been trying, though. He’s already taken note of the situation. And, Tony surmises, that’s because he wants to be here. Why?

He puts on a smirk and slips his hands into his pockets. He’s not defensive. Loki isn’t getting to him. He leans in. He’s interested. Loki interests him. Body language, obviously, is something Loki is paying attention to and so Tony amps up his body language game.

“I wouldn’t want to disappoint you, Oh Great Boot,” Tony says, amusingly throwing out what he’d caught Loki saying to Fury about the human race being mere ants to a person like him. “But I’m actually here for Thanos. Heard you might be besties with him.”

((ok so I guess I have secretly wanted to play Loki for a while))

[shieldborne]

The trouble with Loki, perhaps, is he buys into his own manipulations too well. Here, among lesser beings, he can imagine himself a puppet master, tugging on strings, making them all dance. It doesn't actually get him much, is the thing. It buys him time and distraction, for his underlings to open the portal. That much is true. And it allows him an opportunity to make his point to Thor. Companionship and trust are empty things. Worthless. Sentiment.

These two men, the old soldier and the broken knight, seem to be reaching for a connection. If Loki can't disrupt it, he can encourage it and watch it break them. But in the meantime, this one, the dark one, Stark, is clearly the chessmaster. He straightens when Tony leans in, folding his arms behind his back like the genteel prince he really is not but is skilled at pretending to be. He's taller to begin with, and their relative positions just emphasize that height disparity.

He's not thrilled that Stark seems unintimidated by him, but the superior smile lingers--until Thanos is mentioned. Something flickers in his face, his silver tongue pressing to the roof of his mouth, and his throat works visibly in an anxious swallow. They are not supposed to know that name.

"If you expect to parley with him," he says after a few seconds of leaden silence, "you will be disappointed. You should be on your knees blessing me for my intervention on your worthless world's behalf."

After all, what's worse? The indiscriminate slaughter of half the planet's population, or a more controlled burn leaving a stable ruler to rebuild? "But tell me, where did you hear that name?"

Tony's caught him off guard once, but it won't happen again.

[starkingenuity]

((I have been known to dabble in FrostIron))

It will happen again because of the man that Tony Stark is. He’s tenacious, though not always in a good way. When he knows he has the upper hand, as long as nothing distracts him lime a dog with a bone seeing a squirrel up in the tree, he’s not about to let go. Loki’s surprise is telling. Thanos sent him, he knows that already, and given the way that Loki looks right now, it’s not a good relationship that they have. Loki might not fear them, but he does fear Thanos. Maybe he’s in a cult? Maybe that’s where Thor’s brother went wrong? Tony doesn’t know the supposed God of Thunder well enough to know his history and he and Steve didn’t take the detour they should have to discuss Loki with the other blond.

Their bad. Luckily, Tony’s often gone into situations where he doesn’t know everything. He has a way of coming out on top just the same.

Tony puts together pieces in this puzzle in a way only his mind can. Compartmentalized options move and shift until they find their place and he constructs a sort of narrative others might not. He’s decided that if this guy Thanos wants to destroy half, but not all of the universe, it means that he believes himself to be on a holy quest. He’s sent Loki to collect the Tesseract. Why hasn’t Loki just stolen it and left? Well, that might have to do with the fact that Thor had been here before and Loki and Thor have some weird, unfinished business to attend. That means that Loki is a little off of his leash.

And that Loki might actually be afraid of Thanos. Tony can work with all of that, even if only parts of it is true.

“Who doesn’t know Thanos?” Except for everyone. “We’ve been waiting for him for a long time. Thought he’d come himself and not send you, but whatever. What do you think we can trade him for you so he’ll hurry up and see us?”

Let Loki think that they’re nuts, like a planet full of death cultists. He’s got a feeling that Loki likes crazy, something to match him. Tony can give him that.

[shieldborne]

((Well, I might have to think of a journal name here. His dialogue is fun to write.))

Banner's observation was acute; Loki's mind is certainly not operating within stable parameters of late. Still, it's less like a bag of cats than an undersea cavern, submerged in bitter cold and crushing darkness, labyrinthine, and full of biting eels and worse things that are better left buried. If Tony can keep up with the twists and turns, he's a far more pitiable figure than the god anticipated. Time will tell.

He's regained some of his control now, although his mind is racing as he wonders where and how they have heard of Thanos. Thor couldn't possibly know. If there has been some other contact with this world that's preceded his own attempt at conquest, Loki may well have been double-crossed.

In point of fact, he has encountered Thanos face to face precisely once, and it was enough. His introduction, his patronage, his training, as it were, has all come through the Other, one of the members of Thanos' Black Order. Perhaps the most fanatic of the lot. Loki hasn't seen dissent among Thanos' underlings, but it's always possible. Anything is possible, where politics and power are concerned. It may be that the Other is the one that's being double-crossed. If, of course, Stark's assertions are true.

A puzzle to consider. A very dangerous one. Loki tilts his head quizzically, eyelids half lowering as he regards Stark through the glass. Certainly, Thanos has collected a cultlike following; the idea that this man might wish to join it strikes him as inconsistent with what he knows of him. Not impossible, but highly unlikely.

"He desires nothing from you save your death. As I said, parley is useless. You have no means of negotiation." Which isn't entirely true. They do have the Infinity Stones. Sort of. Loki has the Tesseract, and the Mind Stone is close enough it may as well be in his hand.

He takes a step away, turning his back to Tony, strolling in a small circle as if considering. A moment later, he glances back over his shoulder. "Or perhaps that is your sole desire. To watch your world burn and burn with it? Extraordinary. They did call you the Merchant of Death once, I am told. Your own designs, did they not satisfy your appetite to create suffering?"

[starkingenuity]

To Tony’s credit, he does not flinch when Loki dredges up his past. He doesn’t know how the alien has access to that information, but he doesn’t need to. Reporters and journalists have been priming him for this very moment for years now. They have no been kind to him when it comes to bringing up the contracts he used to have. And he doesn’t blame them for that. He hadn’t been an evil man, but he hadn’t been a very good one either. It haunts him, the knowledge of the people he’s hurt. It haunts him more that it had taken him this long to feel that guilt too.

So he shrugs. He leans on the hulk cage, resting on his shoulder, and looks fully disinterested in what Loki’s trying to say here. “Not really. I get that I might be in the half of the population that gets destroyed, but I might be in the half that doesn’t. Those are better odds than I usually give myself.”

His smile isn’t nice, but it doesn’t mirror Loki’s.

“If you know about me, you know about this planet. We’re overcrowded. We kill each other over ideologies and resources. Know what would make this place better? A cleansing. What you’re doing here? It’s fine. It’s not enough. We’ve been waiting for Thanos for a long time.” You’re nothing to him, Loki. That’s what that smile says.

((recycling an old journal name here))

[coldsong]

Loki has his sources. Barton is one of them, Selvig another, but it's not difficult to pick up information regarding one Anthony Edward Stark. The jab he's just aimed at him could easily have been informed by a trip to the local library to go through old periodicals (it wasn't, but it could have been). It isn't a secret, but he had thought it would be a sore spot. Men like Stark, though, keep their sore spots well-armored. A pity.

Meanwhile, the comment about half the population tells him a bit more about how much Iron Man knows. He is not, apparently, just whistling in the dark. "I see," he says, and saunters back up the clear panel between them, leaning one palm against it. "And what of your dear Captain? Does he share your point of view, your desire to cleanse this world?"

Loki is somewhat ambivalent, where the human population is concerned. Thor cares about Midgard, and that is the primary reason the place has Loki's attention, although he can hardly disapprove of the humans that still tell stories of him and his kin. Words have a power all their own, and if anyone will speak of his exploits with awe or delight, he'll take the nourishment to his ego. Asgard, on the other hand--there have been times Loki would have liked to tear it down with his own hands, but regardless of his rage, it is his home, and rightfully his kingdom. Thanos won't be laying waste to it, if he can prevent it.

One world might prove sufficient leverage to defend the other. He's not certain how yet, is all.

Love it!

[starkingenuity]

In Tony’s opinion, you either love Loki, or you hate him. It’s the same way with him. He sees a sort of kindred soul in the alien, which is equal parts delightful and incredibly terrifying. A little corner of his lip tilts up when Loki mentions the Captain. Again. Why not just a little louder, he thinks to himself, but just shrugs again.

“He’s not my dear anything,” Tony says, because it’s true. “We only just met.” But he’s attractive. He can see himself enjoying time with the other man. “Technically, I’m in a committed relationship with anyone else but she understand that my eye wanders.” He doesn’t quite waggle an eyebrow.

Now comes the need to decide how far to take the lie. And Tony thinks that he should keep Steve’s nose clean this time.

“He’s been in the ice for years. Since before I was born. The world he left isn’t the world he’s woken up to. I haven’t spoken to him about it. I came right to the source. If you can’t help me, that’s fine. I’ll wait until the guy shows up. And with you here, he will show up. That’s all I care about right now.”

[coldsong]

By and large, Loki is more accustomed to being hated, and usually prefers it. Hate, unlike love, confers no obligation upon the recipient, while still providing the benefit of the hater's full attention. This is probably why he gleans such joy out of irritating people, even when he's not actively trying to cause harm. God of Mischief, mischief being an inadequate term, but since most of the other applicable terms contain expletives, it will do.

This is more than mischief. It's ambition, survival, vengeance, and potentially disaster. If he looks cracked, it may well be because he's under excessive stress. He's not so far gone that he's failed to recognize the game Tony's playing, though. No, he doesn't believe Tony truly wants to see the population of his own planet halved. Not even for the power he could obtain were he to be one of the survivors. But what he does believe is that here is a man who will do anything for a singular goal, whether it be throwing Captain America under the metaphorical bus or allowing himself to become one of the villains of the day. That, Loki can identify with.

His take on Tony Stark is becoming more nuanced by the second. There's a flicker of real amusement in his smile, though it quickly gets swallowed back up in that dancing madness behind his eyes. "Merely a pretty face, then. I wonder if he will be disappointed."

"I cannot deliver you directly to Thanos, as you seem to desire. Midgard will be mine, to cull and to rule as I so choose. I do not expect him to set foot here. That is our arrangement."

[starkingenuity]

Hubris is and will always be the undoing of people like them. Tony has already suffered by his own hand in that regard and he has a feeling that he is destined to do so again if what Steve said was true about his inevitable attempt to help causing more problems then it’s worth. That stung, and it stings again, but that’s why he can recognize in Loki that the supposed former Asgardian Prince has just given himself up.

He’s here for an arrangement. He was caught because he wanted to be caught. Tony lightly taps on the glass and shrugs.

“Well, if that’s the case, and I’m going to be real honest here and hope it’s not, but maybe we can work together in the future. I think we can be useful to each other.” He’s just trying to exit the conversation and return to Steve. They need to prepare for an attack-- Or, more likely, some sort of ambush.

[coldsong]

Hubris, yes, is as much a vice of Loki's as it is of his brother's. His additional trouble, though, is how he thinks too much. Clairvoyance is not a gift he possesses, which is good, because it would drive him even further into madness, but he cannot help but try to anticipate every detail in his plans that might go awry. Contingency after contingency...and he's not above trying to keep a foot in more than one camp. The Avengers, he is convinced, cannot hope to stand against the Chitauri, let alone Thanos, but...just in case.

"I doubt that very much," he tells Tony with a hint of kindly condescension he learned from Odin. "In order to contend with an unearthly force, you would need an unearthly weapon. A thing which you do not possess, nor have the means to control."

His gaze is opaque. Whether he is hinting that Tony bring him the scepter, take it for himself, or whether he means there are other unearthly objects on the planet to be had is hard to say. Maybe a little of everything.

But it seems their audience is at an end. Loki may sense Tony's inclination to leave, or he may just be done, because he turns his back then, and wanders back into the middle of the cage, peering at the window of sky above.

At the other end of the room, Steve and Coulson are still talking quietly, with occasional glances toward them to confirm Tony isn't endangering himself.

"You suppose they all dress like that in Asgard?" Steve breaks off to ask as Tony heads back toward them. "Looks like it'd chafe."

[starkingenuity]

“Maybe they’re made of silicone instead of carbon or self lubricate,”Tony says, strolling back towards Pepper’s agent friend and Steve. He can’t help being a little bit rude from time to time. His humor depends upon it. A little smirk that mirrors the one he had given Loki is still on his face and he walks towards the door. “Meet on the bridge in ten.”

He assumes Steve will catch up with him in the hallway so he doesn’t slow down. The smirk, however, drops immediately from his face as he heads back towards the bathroom, and likely the hold that Steve found the evidence of weaponry in. This is getting crazier by the second. His life might be considered one big ball of crazy, but time traveling doubles and space aliens really just take the cake.

By the time Steve catches up with him, Tony has hit the hallway they’d bumped into earlier.

“The story checks out,” Tony says under his breath. “There’s an invasion coming. He’s here because he wants to be. Because he thinks he’s going to rule us. That stuff about Thanos? It’s true. We need to destroy those things. Immediately. Both of them. All of them.” He leaves out the subtle admiration he has for Loki, though. He can’t just decide to court disaster twice while in a relationship with Pepper. That’s low. Even for him. “I don’t care about waiting for the right time on this. Now is the right time.”

[shieldborne]

Steve sputters, ear-tips turning slightly pink at 'self-lubricate', and he has to clear his throat to cover a laugh. Phil is, as usual, blandly controlled in his reaction, but a smirk flickers across his face briefly. "I'll pass that theory along to our research department," he suggests, and thumps Steve companionably on the back as Tony departs.

There's only a couple moments' lag before the soldier emerges, serious and focused again, but with some of his earlier rage banked to embers. This time he doesn't grab Tony when he catches up, but walks very close to catch the quiet murmur.

"I'm not sure the HYDRA story doesn't check out," Steve responds. "After seeing the weapons in the hold. SHIELD is at least improving on their designs, and I don't like it. But handling evil aliens comes first, I guess."

How is this his life? He's fallen into a pulp series. "What I was told," he adds, having decided he and Tony are in on this together, personality conflict and latent sexual tension or no, "is that by allowing the invasion to play out and be repelled, we're buying time before Thanos comes to this planet. At the expense of a lot of damage and casualties, which..."

He still doesn't like it. His gut instinct is telling him Tony--this Tony--is 100% right and they should move on it right away, but he wants to make sure all the information is on the table first. "Fuck it. I wasn't a fan of that plan. Besides which, letting a madman run around the universe destroying planets unopposed seems wrong. But I don't think we can just grab the scepter and toss it in a volcano."

He's been rereading The Lord of the Rings, so sue him. "It takes more to destroy these things than what we have on hand, unless you've got ideas. They have something, but I haven't seen it."

[starkingenuity]

“Calm down, Frodo,” Tony says immediately. “If I can create clean energy the size of a hockey puck,” and stick it in his chest, “I can figure out a way to destroy a magic wand and a glowy box.” It’s full of hubris, that sentence, but hubris is what Tony does best. And he so rarely is disappointed by the outcome. There’s that smirk again, bright and shining, and he lifts his head slightly to gaze up at Steve, waiting for him to say boo to any of that. “There’s going to be an attack. And that’s more important than anything. We need to put the scepter somewhere safe, somewhere only we know the location of. We take care of this attack and then… I guess we go to Mordor.”

Tony is itching to get going here. He’s always like this before he takes on a new project. His blood runs hot and is muscles feel like they’ve been completely wound up in his arms and legs. Someone just needs to pull the pin and let him whirlwind across the globe.

“Can you do that? You’re squeaky clean. Even if you have such a terribly vulgar vocabulary. They’ll never suspect you, Cap.”

{{Stark and Rogers versus Stark and Rogers is a go!}}

((sorry, the holiday weekend got me))

[shieldborne]

Steve is visibly skeptical, though he refrains from expressing it verbally. There's something searching and dark in his eyes when he meets Tony's smirk, because they could be screwing this up. Tony could be his father's son, and Howard sure wasn't in a hurry to destroy the Cube after he fished it out of the Atlantic. In the end, though, Tony is the guy he's formed the most personal connection with in the modern world. Peggy is alive but there's a gulf of seventy years between them. Phil is great, but a stranger. Fury is...Fury. He and Tony aren't best buddies yet, but he can feel the potential. He's willing to take it on faith, because he has to be.

"You better figure it out fast," he says after a moment, as a last caveat. "Because there's gonna be at least three interested parties trying to track the stones. SHIELD, Thanos, and us."

He takes a breath. "We keep the scepter out of New York City, the gateway to the invading force won't be able to open. Yeah. I can get the scepter and hide it. I'll have to steal a plane; we're over water right now and I'm not interested in swimming down the East Coast."

Goddammit. He just volunteered to crash another fucking airplane, didn't he? Well, maybe if he fakes his death that will buy them some extra time to strategize. "They told me the stone in it can cause heightened aggression. I'll fake like I've snapped. They've been watching me for signs of instability anyway."

"What are you going to do in the meantime?"

Re: ((sorry, the holiday weekend got me))

[starkingenuity]

It probably isn’t a bad question. Tony should be able to tell Steve what he already has cooking in the back of his brain but he doesn’t trust the guy his dad always seemed to like better. The bottled blond, the serum, the kid he’d met during the war, these are the things Howard Stark had treasured, so much so that he had patented the very blood running through that kid’s veins. Tony actually wonders if he should say that, tell Steve, but it’s his secret, one that hopefully will never come up. The chaotic and reckless part of Tony wants to tell him everything, suddenly, but he loves keeping secrets. He loves knowing more than anyone else in the room.

And he’s pretty sure Steve will just flip out right now anyway. So this is for the beat.

Tony glances over the large blond’s shoulder, at the clear hallway, and tries to maneuver around him without touching him. “Leave it up to me. I’m going to go poke the Jolly Green Giant inside Pooh Bear and create the distraction you’re going to need.”

He assumes Steve knows he’ll have a way to contact him. If not, he’ll figure it out when Tony commandeers whatever technology with a speaker and WiFi there is nearby after the coast is clear.

((I hope you had a good vacay!))

((I did, ty!))

[shieldborne]

This Steve trusts too easily, perhaps. He's good at sniffing out a lie in a new situation; if he's on high alert he's always intensely observant, always strategizing, and in looking for an opening, he'll see flaws and details most people miss. But at this point he doesn't know Tony well enough to keep an eye out for a hidden agenda. He knows he's not HYDRA and he's not an evil alien, and that makes him an ally. One of the good guys.

He's gonna take this one on faith. But it does sound like an absolutely terrible plan, and a bit cruel. "He's not going to thank you for that," he warns. "And neither is anyone else."

Actually, no, he hates this idea. "You're going to endanger the lives of everyone on this vessel. Yourself included."

But like the older version of himself, this Cap has a pragmatic streak. The ends don't quite justify the means, but they don't have time to create an elaborate plan, either. "Fine. But you damn well better make it worth it," he growls out, "And you better come up with some ideas on how to contain him, stat."

He backs off a step to let Tony go. They need to move now, and getting the scepter without interference is going to be tricky.

Re: ((I did, ty!))

[starkingenuity]

Tony takes a moment to tilt his head over, almost like a puppy might when he hears a command but isn’t sure what to do with it (and certainly has no intention of following it anyway). “The guy hasn’t had an incident in seven years. He can stand a little poking.” Steve is uptight, but not in a way that annoys him so much as amuses him. Tony simply has an affinity for the Hulk and for the scientist that encapsulated him.

Bruce Banner is everything he is and everything he isn’t all at once. Steve can’t quite compete with that yet, even with Tony’s knowledge of the future.

Walking away, he waves his hand at the blond and wanders down to the lab. It’s where the scepter is, and technically, they’re supposed to be analyzing it. It’s why he needs Bruce in a place where he won’t ask questions. He doesn’t realize that Bruce tends not to ask questions actually. He stays as far away from the action as possible. So, while he does in fact notice that Steve Rogers comes in for the scepter and he does in fact realize what Tony is doing, he’s not going to confront anyone about it. Certainly not the man that he’d been trying to emulate with his experiments, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately, Bruce isn’t the only one who’s noticed a sudden change in the status quo. Tony rolls his eyes and nudges his nose with his thumb to shoulder Steve away from the mess of SHIELD agents they’d just rendered unconscious trying to control the attack meant to be happening in less than an hour. “Problem. You just went AWOL, Cap.”

[shieldborne]

Steve assumes, perhaps, that Bruce is more volatile than he actually is. Or maybe he assumes Tony is more determined to draw out his green alter-ego than he actually is. He still thinks this is dangerous. The only thing more dangerous than a shell-shocked super soldier with an exaggerated startle response is a shell-shocked Hulk with an exaggerated startle response. He's been debriefed. He's seen footage. But he doesn't blame Bruce for the being that lives inside him, and he's been perfectly civil thus far.

He goes in a few minutes after Tony, acting like he's simply there to check on their progress. Not like he has any right; he's slightly more closely affiliated with SHIELD, but he's not exactly an agent, and certainly not a commanding officer. Tony would be the only one to question that right now, though, and he's too busy prodding Banner.

Scepter in hand, he's quick to make his way down to the planes. He leaves a few casualties behind, but no one dead or seriously injured, and if the entirety of the helicarrier is now on high alert thanks to his shenanigans, fine. They should be.

Down on the ground, the older Steve has limited means to pay attention to whatever programs and bugs Tony has laid down. He's eyeing the half-dozen vehicles left behind, wondering if they should disable them to make sure they're not followed, when Tony nudges into him.

"Wait, what?" It takes a second for his brain to catch up and remember there's two of him. "Shit. Shit! AWOL how; what's he doing??"

Wow, it isn't until now he fully realized how irritating he can be. Maybe this is a lesson that's been a long time coming.

[starkingenuity]

Tony gives a little shrug, not because this isn’t a big deal but because of course this is a thing that is currently happening because Fury had known all along that every single member of the Avengers is — was — volatile. Going off script is one thing but Tony can’t tell exactly how or why. There’s no communication here and FRIDAY has only been able to tell him that Steve Rogers left the hellicarrier on a quintet.

Nothing more.

It’s really not a whole lot to go on and they’re too far away now and occupied to do anything physically about it. Tony can already see Steve starting to put contingency plans into place, which is good, but also probably the worst thing for them both right now. They don’t have the information they need to put any of this right.

“He took a quintet. FRIDAY is tracking him. When he lands, we’ll have a chat.” Otherwise, Tony is pretty sure he’ll just freak out and they don’t need to give Steve another rough water landing. “It’s too soon to know where to.”

Or even to narrow it down. The world is a big place.

[Sorry bear with me. I started a new job and I’m in training. No phones allowed for tagging. :(]

[shieldborne]

Let's be honest here; for the remaining two living Avengers, 'volatile' still applies in a big way. Steve was counting on the remnants of military discipline in his younger self. That we have orders; we should follow them instinct that he clung to for a while even after the Chitauri invasion, when he was working for SHIELD. He's never been great with authority, but it took a lot to really shake him. It took--

Oh, Christ. He's made a huge tactical error. He should have told the younger Tony something else. Anything but the truth he actually shared, which he should have guessed might leave Tony's lips at some point, too. "If they talked to each other, we may be fucked," he tells his Tony.

Because of course hearing HYDRA survived within SHIELD would send his younger self off the deep end. "Can FRIDAY tell whether Loki's still in containment on the carrier?"

Because if not, they're going to have to make a big adjustment in plans, but otherwise, they've got no better ideas than Plan A for the moment.


[[Not a problem at all! I'm in VA bracing for a lot of rain from the hurricane so I am probably facing power outages over the next few days. In case I go quiet for a while, that's probably why.]]

[starkingenuity]

It’s not in Tony’s nature to comfort through touch. He sets his hand in Steve’s chest anyway, telling himself it’s just to feel the fine job Angel had done with his uniform, picked up just that morning. In reality, though, he’s already made Steve his touch stone and he needs to have that moment of grounding himself. He’s pretty sure Steve does too. They’re wildly different people, their empathy runs in opposite directions, but there’s a point they meet at and overlap in briefly. That’s what connects them here.

“Loki’s still there. The escape has to go as planned. Can you finish mopping up here? I’ll go and meet our straggler.”

The armor is waiting in sentry mode behind them, sweeping the area for visual and heat signatures. It’s waiting for Tony to step back inside, a throw back concept to an idea he had improved upon before Thanos ruined the technology, disrupting the nanomachine matrix. He’s still bitter about that and it’s easier to be angry for that reason than to focus on the crushing reality of everyone being dead.

It makes him want to see Pepper and Happy. And Peter.

And he can’t do that.

Tony doesn’t wait for a confirmation from Steve. He just heads back towards the armor and it welcomes him inside, closing comfortably around him. FRIDAY already has trajectories up showing him the best course to rendezvous with the wayward Rogers and he goes, knowing he’ll be landing in a forced open cargo bay in twenty minutes.

It’s not the first time today that Steve has had a visitor to a plane he’s been on in mid flight.

[Oh my gosh! Please be safe!!!]

[shieldborne]

It's very much Steve's nature to comfort through touch. He's well enough aware by now that Tony isn't as tactile, and it's easy to assume when he reaches out it's because he knows Steve gets something from it. Either way, something in him shifts and gives when the other man presses his hand against his chest, and in the back of his brain that same something murmurs see, this is what matters.

And it is, in a way. Broken souls reaching across a gulf to try and nudge one another's chipped and shattered fragments back into place. But that kind of thinking won't save the world, most likely, so all he does is give Tony a gentle squeeze to that forearm and nods. "On it. Be careful. If he's upset...and carrying the scepter...?"

Well. He doesn't think he was ever so volatile he'd gratuitously attack Tony without an outside influence, but the Mind Stone is a new wrinkle.

In mid flight, the younger Steve is, in fact, as twitchy and unsettled as he's ever been. The scepter is an unpleasant copilot. It glows and flickers in the corner of his eye, and the more time he spends in its company, the more he wants to just see it destroyed as soon as humanly possible.

Tony's arrival will be heralded by a blue streak of anachronistic swears. He wasn't lying when he claimed he learned to curse as a kid and only tried to lose the habit later. This younger version knows his way around an f-bomb. The way he locks his fist around the handle of the scepter, though, suggests it isn't going anywhere without a serious fight.

"I'm warning you, Stark, keep your fucking distance. I already survived one nose dive into the Atlantic and I really don't want another but I'm betting I'd come out more intact than you would."

That's not a good bet for him to make, actually, considering the suit and all, but maybe he's not at his best right now. His nerves are a little frayed.

[[I am so sorry. I'm fine but there was weather and I lost control of my inbox and I seriously thought I had replied to this already.]]