gotup | open post 3.0

[Returning the Infinity Stones goes off without a hitch, thankfully. After everything that's happened lately, Steve isn't sure he could handle anything too eventful. He looks at the device that's meant to take him home - just enough Pym Particles for the trip - thinks about where he might want to be, where he's meant to be.

Neither of them are where he ends up. (When he ends up? Time travel is confusing as hell.) Instead, he's in Manhattan, where things look...not quite the same. Steve chalks it up to Tony setting things right; he's grown used to desolation, to a decaying infrastructure. Things are back in place now, people are everywhere, the world is normal again.

Except there's no longer an Avengers Tower (the former tower) looming in the skyline. Steve frowns, idly rubbing a patch of skin on his wrist that's started to sting. Maybe he's overshot his mark and the new owner's demolished it. Maybe he's gone in the wrong direction the other way and now he's going to have to fight his past self again. Maybe-

He shakes himself out of potential problems. This isn't helping anything. But when he sees a familiar red and gold streak overhead, he stops and stares.]

[ not having a soulmate was something that Tony had come to terms with a long time ago. okay, no, so it wasn't so much that he had come to terms with it as he got really good at pretending that he had come to terms with it and that, in the long run, it was really a kindness to all the souls out there that he wasn't linked to someone else on a level like that. because, who would want Tony Stark as a soulmate?

here, he will help you out: no one.

sure he was good for a few things, shallow things and creative things; good for saving the world and creating revolutionary technology. hell, he's even a great guy to have funding an operation, and a fantastic partner for a very extravagant one night stand. but he wasn't soulmate material.

and that was just fine by him, thank you. means he could focus on the important things like that whole inventing thing. and avenging. right. avenging which sends him back home with a few new bruises a nice headache, but nothing too bad at all. of course, thing's can't stay that way, oh no. as he is flying over Manhattan, he can feel the hot shower on his aching muscles, when he gets a reading that indicates a fluctuation in spacetime and--]

Fucking Pym, I swear to--

[ with a ~~groan~~ sigh, Tony turns sharply moving to loop back around to where the reading sprung up.

what he finds is not Pym. not at all.

the faceplate slides back to reveal Tony in all his skeptical glory, eyebrow raised despite the bruise on his temple and posture just a little bit weary.]

You know, usually people at least try to go for the more traditional red and blue stripes to play dress up, but you almost manage to fill it out. Almost.

[The armor is sleeker than what Steve's used to, but it's unmistakably Iron Man - and when the faceplate slides back, Steve recognizes the expression all too well, even if the face wearing it is different. He closes his eyes for a second as a fresh wave of grief washes over him - if he'd had the chance, he would've taken it, would have spared Tony - and when he opens them again, there's still a stranger in armor in front of him.]

Almost? [Steve echoes, and he manages to sound a little affronted. Mostly confused, though.]

[ don't give him that look, you're a decent attempt, but you're not quite there. there's the right amount of stubbornness there, just beneath the surface, but-- something is off.

however, there is enough familiarity, or maybe just enough fatigue in his bones, that Tony doesn't stay on edge too long. he snorts as he lets the armour melt away into his bones before giving the little lost soul a once over.]

Yea, almost. Need do do a few more pull ups there to really fill out the Stars and Stripes.So, are you lost, taking a stop, or something else?

[Steve stares as the armor just...disappears. Yeah, Tony had been working on something similar, but it's not something he's seen before, given, well, circumstances. By which he means Tony not speaking to him for six years.

Not that he's still annoyed about that or anything. (He absolutely is.)

He feels strangely unbalanced, like he's managed to find a place where he doesn't fit even more than back home. He doesn't know if the man in front of him is Tony Stark, a relation, an...android? (Steve's seen a sufficient number of science fiction movies to be familiar with the concept of androids, but apparently universe-hopping doesn't occur to him.) Shaking his head, he deflates a little.]

Lost, I guess. Not that that's anything new. What's the deal here?

[Which is remarkably vague, but Steve doesn't know what to ask. Why are you Iron Man? seems rude.]

[ good god, Tony didn't think that Steve could ever look like a kicked puppy, he really didn't, but-- well that was if this was Steve. a Steve? the concepts of multiverses isn't foreign to him at all, but usually there was a little bit more fanfare when things were happening. or explosions, more explosions too.

lost.

well it certainly fits the look on his face. Tony squints a little bit before leaning in, eyes bright despite the fatigue.]

The usual of course, had to clean up another one of Doom's attempts at being better than me, which failed spectacularly of course, not sure why he keeps trying. It has to be jealousy, right? Right. Of course, now, just how lost are you? Is it just geographical or is it temporal too?

[Judging by the look on Steve's face, he understands all those words individually, but not combined. But the spark of enthusiasm - that he recognizes all too well. And, no offense to Vision, but androids can't manage that sort of thing. So is this Tony? He's not quite sure.]

I- it's complicated. I was time travelling when I got here - wherever here is, obviously it's New York, but- [He shakes his head. This story is weird enough without getting sidetracked.] Anyway. We were all pretty beat up after fighting Thanos, and I volunteered to take the Infinity Stones back to their original timelines so that our timeline wouldn't get destroyed. So I was on my way back to 2023, but I was coming from 1970.

[ stop it. stop. it. gods you can't just waltz in here with your face looking like that and--]

First of all, you're a little off from 1970, not 2023 though, you managed to hit that-- oh wait, what designation is your universe? That might help, hell maybe Loki or Strange could even help you get back if that's what you want.

[ why is he offering you that like it's a choice, he shouldn't do that. you should go back, he is sure of it, and yet--]

I mean, if you want that is, fighting the mad titan never goes well, even if you did win. Which I assume you did, by the way, good job, but-- uh, yeah. Welcome to New York? Again?

Edited (did I say fingering the mad titan the first time MAYBE I DID OOPS) 2022-01-24 05:14 (UTC)

[blink blink blink]

My universe?

[gonna need you to back up a moment here pls]

Uh, yeah, like, you know, the place you are from?

[ because saying New York is too vague for him, give him more details thank you.]

Like, this one is six one six. Are you the one where I'm a woman-- no wait, you'd have a ring on from that one. And clearly not the one with the apocalypse happening. At least I don't think, I'm not one to keep them straight actually.

[The kneejerk snarky comment slips out automatically:]

You mean Brooklyn?

[You knew he was going to say that, okay?]

I didn't realize there was more than just one, [he admits, a little awkwardly. It makes him feel like he's fresh out of the ice again, perpetually behind on things everyone else seems to know about.]

-how is there one where you're a woman?

[ any thought that this wasn't possibly a Steve is successfully put to rest when that sarcasm slips out. Tony barks out a laugh and, without really thinking, claps his hand against his shoulder. the move is easy, practiced. clearly he is used to this kind of touch.

Tony grins and shrugs.] I think this is one of the few universes where we have regular encounters with the others, it's not that common.

[ at least he thinks it isn't that common. they also have more than one person who regularly hops through universes so...

that train of thought is derailed though when he is asked about the universe where he is a woman and the look on his face turns terribly bemused.] Lovely from what I can tell, avoided the whole civil war fiasco with a wedding instead, you let me wear the suit to the ceremony!

[Steve isn't used to any physical contact, doubly so from Tony, of all people. While he doesn't flinch or pull away, there's a certain tension to his muscles that says as much. But it's not as if he doesn't want to be touched, he just isn't used to this strange easy rapport. It feels like something that could have been, something shattered beyond repair, and it hurts. He's almost jealous of the Steve in this world.

At this point, Steve feels like he's probably starting to annoy Tony (who is almost definitely Tony) with asking questions about everything. He doesn't even bother to ask about "the whole civil war fiasco" - he has a guess, and he'd rather confirm it with someone, well, less Tony. Instead, he sticks with the sarcasm, because it's safer.]

Shame, that's probably the only universe where you had the figure for a wedding dress.

[Look at how utterly bland and innocent his face is right now!]

[ well you better get used to it, and fast, because this Tony is touchy and you are Steve which means that he is Extra Touchy. or maybe just normal touchy if the way he curls his fingers back into his palm at the tension is any indication. there is a twitch to his brow that lets it be known that he notices the tension (of course he does, this is Steve after all, maybe not his Steve but a Steve nevertheless) and he respects that perhaps they don't have the same easy relationship that he is used to.

still, Tony stays close, posture relaxed and comfortable, mouth twitching with amusement.

ah, there's the sass he loves. uh. likes. yeah.]

You wound me! I would look stunning in a nice Vera Wang number, mermaid to highlight my fantastic shoulders. [ he waggles his brows a bit before he is gesturing towards a car that is coming up, sleek and unassuming but clearly expensive.] Come on, let's get you out of traffic and to a place where maybe you can get some answers, sound good?

As if you wouldn't have the fanciest princess skirt imaginable. Something with robots carrying the train.

[Because, let's be real, Tony Stark is extra as fuck in every universe. Steve can't imagine a universe where that isn't true. Tony had managed to make dying a dramatic act of self-sacrifice (and somehow Steve manages to think this without even the slightest bit of irony).

Steve lets himself be herded into the car, where he sinks back into comfortable leather seats and closes his eyes.]

Are you actually admitting that you personally don't have all the answers? Because that would be a first.

Princess skirt is only allowed if it is entirely holographic, just so I can be scandalous as well.

[ what are you trying to say there, Steve? that you are thinking about a wedding with him? him in a dress? both of these options make Tony laugh, his amusement warring with his fatigue as he settles against the seat next to Steve, mouth twisting.]

Now now, I never said that. It had more to do with just getting you out of traffic.

[ and also maybe him getting to a place where he can as inconspicuously as possible run a scan on the other so that he can figure out just where the other is from.]

Mm. I saw these pictures from the Met Gala a few years back and one of the women was wearing a skirt with lights that changed color. I think that would be right up your alley.

[Steve would definitely never ever admit to thinking about either a wedding with Tony or Tony in a dress, let alone any kinks involving stockings and garters he might have (thank you, Peggy). It's not Tony's shoulders that he's interested in bringing out.]

Tony, I grew up in New York. We didn't have nearly as many cars back then, but I'm still not dumb enough to keep standing in the middle of traffic.

[ it isn't surprise on Tony's face when Steve says he watched the Met Gala, not really, maybe something closer to impressed. intrigued? either way he thinks that at the very least Steve understands what he was going for.]

I mean, why stop at lights? Make it entirely holographic, fluid nanites! Why wear one dress when you can have infinite dresses!

[ he is.... far too invested in this idea now. somehow this is your fault.

(though you should tell him about those thoughts, maybe not now, but--)

he holds his hands up, but his mouth curls in amusement.]

Hey, I never said you were going to! I just gotta make sure you aren't going to rip a hole in space-time and cause a collision between universes or something.

[Look, fashion is art, and Steve likes art. He doesn't always understand fashion, as evidenced by his clothes, but he likes trying to tease out the links between the clothing some people wear and the art on display.

(Somehow, it's never occurred to him that he's enough of a celebrity to warrant going, that someone might want to create an outfit for him to wear. That kind of thing is firmly in Tony's wheelhouse, not his.)

Steve looks baffled by the mention of nanites, but, well, he's been out of the Tony Stark technology loop for more than half a decade now (actually almost a decade, but who's counting the years hahaha). It's all lumped together under 'science shit he doesn't understand', just like travelling between universes.]

Yeah, that might cause a bit of a traffic jam. Especially if the streets go all M. C. Escher.

[So deadpan. Though at this point, folks in New York might not even blink at something like that, regardless of the universe.]

[ please stop looking so strangely adorable, it really isn't good for Tony's heart okay. and that poor sucker is weak enough as it is (at least, it is when a Steve is involved). there is a bubble of laughter from Tony he pulls up a screen before him, blue eyes seeming to glow in the reflected light.]

Look at you and your art jokes, or is that a Strange joke? Both?

[ look, he doesn't know if what you have seen is the same as what he has seen, but he can make a few reasonable guesses.

maybe.]

I think they would be annoyed more than anything in this place. Ah, anything particularily interesting about where you're from? Anything you might consider ah-- a calling card of sorts? Like, me being female? Or Doom being Iron Man?

You're dead.

[It's flat, and it slips out entirely without thinking, and after it does, Steve sort of crumples in on himself. He's not a small guy (no matter what this Tony might say), but he seems small - small and lost and sad. He's carefully pushed all his grief to one side till now to deal with returning the Infinity Stones, hasn't allowed himself to think about that last battle against Thanos and the way everything had gone quiet for one second just before Thanos and his armies turned to dust and blew away in the wind. He'd carried himself through the memorial service on autopilot, just like at his mom's funeral Mass, just kept going and putting one foot in front of the other.

And now he's here and Tony's here and it hurts.]

[ well that certainly wasn't the response that Tony expected. and that was even less so the reaction that he expected from Steve as well. no, not that he didn't expect Steve to be upset if he were to pass, he knows that his Steve wouldn't handle that well (better than he did when Steve died, but that really wasn't saying much of anything) but this-- this isn't his Steve.

he seems younger somehow. younger and lost and Tony doesn't know if it's the bruises beneath his shirt that ache or something more metaphorical at this point. maybe both, compounded.

Tony's reaching out to grip Steve's shoulder again, the words he had on the tip of his tongue swallowed down.'better me than you' seems like it wouldn't sit that well here, sit well anywhere really, but less so here with this Steve and his grief that is still raw and open. trying to commiserate in understanding seems uncaring, knowing that not everyone cheats death as many times as he and his. eventually he settles on:] Do you wanna talk about it?

[Despite running a grief support group, Steve has never in his life wanted to talk about a single emotion. Encouraging others to let it out? Sure, absolutely, great times, let's help other people process things in a healthy way. But his own feelings are blocked off with flags and red tape and god only knows what else, and that goes double for anything that involves Tony. Their relationship had been thorny since the day they met, eventually growing into a massive tangle of vines like the ones surrounding Sleeping Beauty's castle. They'd been too different, or maybe too similar, and Steve always felt like he was just slightly off, like he and Tony almost but not quite fit - like they should have fit together and it hurt all the more because they didn't.]

I would've done it, [he says finally, his voice small.] He used the Infinity Stones and it killed him and I woulda done it, even if it killed me instead. [Maybe especially if it had killed him instead.] After he came back from space, he was so angry, and he ripped the arc reactor from his chest and shoved it into my hands like he was tearing his heart out of his chest, and- [the muscles of his jaw work for a moment] We didn't speak for six years after that. Or two years before. I wasted so much time being so stubborn and I didn't think any of this would happen.

[None of this makes any sense, he's mixing his entire life with Tony together - and most of it is, like he said, defined by his absence, the lack of someone who should have been there, a hole that's suddenly, painfully permanent and there isn't a damn thing he can do to change it.]

[ 'I would have done it' and oh, isn't that a familiar feeling of shrapnel in his veins when he thinks about Steve, (any Steve, his Steve, this Steve, all the Steve's he has never known) laying cold and unmoving. collateral for his own mistakes. Tony understands it, knows that Steve is a good man, that never changes, that he will always take one for the team, but he also understands this other version of him because he knows anger. he knows how stubborn he is. knows the weight of the suit is light in comparison to the weight of the ghosts that are in the wires, in his head.

' we didn't speak for six years' might be the most shocking part of it all. but even if they didn't speak for decades, if they never saw eye to eye, or were as close as Tony figured all Tony&Steve's were, he still knows in the marrow of him one true: better him than Steve. it doesn't matter how many fights happened, or how absent they were in comparison, Tony knows that having Steve die rather than him would never be worth it.]

...it wouldn't have been worth it. [ his own voice wavers, the faintest echo, a pale bruising of an old grief in the words.] Trust me, Steve, without you it's never worth it. I made the right choice, and if that anger, that absence, kept you alive, I'm glad for it.

[ it might sound selfish, and maybe it is, but Tony believes what he says. knows that this other version of himself would agree.]

Maybe I would've survived.

[That's not the point of the choice - though Steve does think that if he survived crashing a plane into the Arctic, there's a non-zero chance he would have made it through wielding the Infinity Stones with only a light charring. Hell, maybe he and Bucky could've been prosthetic arm buddies. They'll never know.

The point is, Steve's tired, and maybe he would have finally gotten a chance to rest. He's a relic, when it comes down to it. He's an old soldier fighting a war that never ends, and while he'll keep going as long as he has to, part of him welcomes the thought of resting.

(Part of him thinks that he and Tony should have earned the right to rest together, that they should be sipping drinks on a beach somewhere while the next generation of superheroes handles things. But they were never meant for a happy ending.)

And Tony...Tony is the future. Tony figured out time travel. Tony had so much left to give the world, so many ideas that can never be realized now. He could have done more for mankind than Steve punching a million Nazis, left a lasting legacy.

(He did leave a lasting legacy, a voice in his head points out, but Steve, wallowing in his grief at last, ignores it.)]

If there's one thing I've learned from all of this, it's that guys like me are pretty much irrelevant these days. Not that there's any shortage of fascists to punch, but people start getting mad when you do it. I'm not sure I know what I'm doing anymore, Tony. I'm a soldier without a war to fight, and it feels like it would've been better to go out fighting.

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amelioraate - 2023-01-11 15:21 (UTC) - Expand

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gotup - 2023-01-11 19:00 (UTC) - Expand

open post 3.0

for amelioraate

im so sorry about this I still dont know what im doing lmao

do any of us tho

you would think that by this point maybe someone would

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pretend I remember comic details Okok thank u

wow you're so good at comic details

thank u thank u i am here all week. maybe

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la la laaaaa~

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