kore_logs | is there room for one more sun? //closed

Entry tags:

is there room for one more sun? //closed

Who: Anna, Tony & Steve
What: Tony is an idiot!!!! More specifically, he fell into some rocks and Anna's bringing him home.
When: Evening, Day 19
Warnings:

It's been sort of a day of healing, of recuperation and figuring out where to go next. Aside from the worry, it's been a good day. Steve thought he'd go fishing and then spend the day at the library trying to figure something out about this place, all the things in the woods, maybe clues... But he's home now, washing dishes and humming a catchy song he'd heard on the radio...

He thinks about frequencies, whether or not anyone's been able to send out a signal. And maybe they can patch out a distress call and hope someone picks up. It's a long shot, but it's a decent idea if they can get it to work. He busies himself with these thoughts and checks his wristwatch. He thinks about making a call. As he dries off the dishes, he decides he'll write a note instead and leave it somewhere visible-- Dinner's in the oven, went to library, call if you need me.

When he gets to the living room to get a slip of paper, he thinks he can hear someone coming up the road. It's silly to think it's even someone coming here, but for some reason, he gets the nagging feeling to look through the window and see who it is-- when he does, he throws open the door and runs outside. He hasn't even gotten the chance to put his shoes on and he has an odd sinking sensation in his gut that reminds him of another time and another place.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Turns out that meeting at the place Tony is living in had been incredibly handy - it means she actually knows where to go when she starts off in a fast pace away from the docks. She keeps glancing at Tony, hesitant to try and move too fast with him in her arms like this. There could be injuries that she doesn't know about yet, and Anna can't make them worse. She's done enough already.

As she starts to approach she sees the door open, and for a moment she just stops and looks at Steve. It's a mixture of panic, fear and incredible, incredible guilt. As he runs she starts to move faster again and as she comes up to him she starts to talk far too fast.

"We were at the docks, he was so drunk- I thought the air- but earthquake- I just-," she keeps walking towards the house, still blurting out words a mile a minute, "I don't know what happened it just collapsed and then he fell and he's breathing but I don't know how bad he's hurt, Steve you have to help me."

"Anna, don't worry," he says, with the calmest demeanor he can muster. But he's putting together what she said and he's piecing it together badly. Tony was drunk and fell off the docks? There was an earthquake?

He wants to get Tony to the hospital, but of the two doctors he knows, one is still missing and the other-- he doesn't know how to contact her and he doesn't know where the hospital is. It's on his list of things to do immediately after this. Judging by where Anna decided to take him, she doesn't know either, so the best thing to do is get him inside.

"His bedroom's all the way down the hall; I'll get you both some towels."

It's Steve's voice that pulls him from the darkness, its familiarity dragging him out and depositing him in light that's far too bright. He doesn't know where he is or what's going on. His head hurts, his chest hurts, he's freezing, he's wet, and he's so disoriented he can't remember what he was doing or where he ought to be. Trying to grasp the memory only results in it slipping out of his reach, tantalizingly close yet impossible to hold onto. It's frustrating, almost nauseating; his mind's refusal just to work terrifying in a way he can't explain. And it's that fear, coupled with the how cold and wet he is, that makes the connection.

The wrong connection. The nonsensical connection. Because Steve was never in Afghanistan. Only Yinsen was there. Only Yinsen showed him any kindness. But he knows Steve and the sensations bleed together until only one conclusion seems logical.

"Steve?" Tony's slurring but he doesn't realize it, can't hear the way the consonants and vowels run together. He blinks his eyes but his vision is still blurry and what little he can make out swims in and out of focus, not permitting him to see much of anything at all. Dimly, he recognizes that he's being held, and it makes sense that it's Steve. Steve's strong enough to carry him. "S'okay, Steve." He tries to pat his shoulder. He thinks it's Steve's shoulder, but he can't feel his hand and doesn't recognize that he's touching isn't muscular enough to be Captain America. "Didn't tell 'em anything. I won't."

Anna still doesn't stop, just keeps pushing forward towards the house that they are staying in. She's getting more concerned though, there's no denying that and she's too worried to bother trying to hide it. She looks down quickly when he speaks and frowns, confused. It makes sense that he would assume she's Steve, she gets that, but the other part? "Steve, Steve why does he think he needs to not tell anyone anything?"

As Anna gets inside she looks around briefly, completely blank, and then she clicks and is heading down the hallway. Towels are good, but she needs to clean that wound and probably check for others, and she's cursing herself for not paying more attention to that stupid first aid course, because it turns out she actually does really need to know. She turns her head enough to call out quickly, "Is there anything I can use to clean his wounds? He's bleeding, you need to stop that right?"

She has to use an elbow and a foot to get the door open but she manages eventually, and then she's carefully turning through the door to settle him down on his bed. This really did seem like the best place to take him with no practicing doctors in the town anymore, and now that he's here and in a bed she sighs and touches his cheek gently. "Hey, can you hear me? Tony, d'you know where you are?"

"I don't know why," he says. "But you need to put pressure on him to stop the bleeding." He then proceeds to practically slam himself into a wall trying to get over to the linen closet. He's recovering from being poisoned, and sitting down all day has helped (though the reading's been hell on his eyes), but now that he's up and about his head is starting to get the familiar feeling of wooziness. It hits him pretty fast.

He brings over towels, some bandages meant for smaller wounds, an old shirt he hasn't gotten tailored, some cotton, and a clean pail to fill with water. Unceremoniously, he dumps it all to the floor by Tony's bed, since his vision's gone temporarily blurrier and it's giving him a headache. He thinks he's louder than he is when he says, "I'm going to fill the bucket with water and get some honey. Just keep pressure on anything bleeding. We might need to cut him out of his clothes."

He leaves to go do these things, and slides on back in, splashing a little water on the carpet.

Tony’s only dimly aware of what’s going on around him. Somehow, Steve’s turned into a big cushion and there’s a woman leaning over him with red hair and kind eyes. It makes his smile, bleary and dopey.

“Pepper?” It takes him a few blinks to realize that no, she isn’t Pepper. Another few to realize that this isn’t a cave or Malibu or the tower in Manhattan. It’s… He doesn’t know where it is, but he has a feeling that if he could just think, he could figure it out.

He makes a grab for her arm, missing by a mile. “There’s—Something’s wrong with—” Licking his lips, he tries again, struggling to find the words. “With my head. Can’t think. It’s—Must’ve given me something. Narcotic. Sedative. Dunno.”

He doesn’t realize he’s drunk. But he does realize, finally, that Steve isn’t there anymore. “Steve?” Struggling, he starts to sit up. “Where’s Steve?”

Anna just about has it in her to be worried about one of them at any given moment, which is why until she got Tony inside Steve only got a few concerned looks. Tony's in the bed now though, and he's not dying any time soon and it gives her time to notice how the other man in the house is acting.

"Steve, Christ are you alright?" She frowns, but Tony's talking again and she quickly turns her head back in time to see him try to sit up. She sighs, shakes her head and quickly puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back into a lying position. She keeps her hand where it is, shifting to look at Steve properly now.

"Do you need to sit down or something? I...I can do this, you don't look so good." Anna can't quite tell if he's drunk or just not well, but it's definitely one of the two. A quick glance between the two of them gets another small frown, and then she gets up to take the water from him. "Steve, sit down. I'll sort this out."

"No, it's fine, I'm just... something's in that water," he says. "Something bad. I've had worse; I'll be fine once I'm not moving as much." He grabs two chairs and slides them over, one for him and one for Anna, and sits down, grabbing some smaller towels and, with a knife, slowly slicing off Tony's shirt and carefully peeling it off his wounds, replacing it with a towel there so he doesn't bleed too much.

"I need you to help me clean these wounds off with water. I'll keep the pressure on the other ones." He's trusting her to do that because he doesn't trust himself not to slip and press too hard; he doesn't exactly have the best motor control right now. And it gives him the opportunity to talk to Tony.

"Hey, I'm right here," he says. "I'm not going anywhere. You're at Cape Kore, you've been here for five days, and you fell into some water. This is Anna." He frowns. "She's a... nurse. You're hurt, but you're gonna be just fine."

He blinks again, as he starts getting mild double-vision and Tony's features get confused in his head.

A child could probably hold Tony down right now, as uncoordinated as he is, and when she presses down against his chest, he goes down and stays down. The bewildered panic doesn’t abate though, and he turns his head, trying to will his eyesight to come into focus while he tries to find Steve. He’s already lost Bruce. He can’t lose Steve too.

When he hears his voice, he relaxes, the tension going out of him in a rush. Not dead. “You’re not dead.”

That’s the important thing. More important than the fact that he’s opening his shirt and baring the arc reactor to…to… - his mind’s searching for her name when Steve says it - Anna. Until he realizes that Steve said hurt at the same time he’s opening his shirt and that, coupled with the pain he feels, might mean something very bad. “Is it damaged?” That’s clearer, not as slurred, as that robotic warning comes back to him. “Be careful. It’s dangerous now. Unstable.”

There are cuts and scrapes along his side, a bit of bruising, but nothing to indicate a broken bone and nothing that truly needs stitches. Some antiseptic and bandaging and he should, eventually, be good as new.

Anna can't quite help her fascinated gaze as she looks at the arc reactor within his chest, and her hand goes out briefly to touch it. That's hardly productive to what they're trying to do though - namely get Tony in some sort of decent shape, and she frowns as she reminds herself to ask about it later and starts to gently clean the wound on his forehead.

"Look you need to stay still. If we don't clean these up they're going to get infected and you really don't want to deal with those consequences without an actual doctor in the town, do you." It's not the kindest thing in the world to say, but it's practical at least. Anna's just focused on trying to make the situation better now, trying to rectify her mistakes and absolve some of that guilt.

Her expression does soften into something a little more pleasant though, still worried but far less frustrated as she turns her head to look at Steve. He doesn't look any better and she is tempted to just tell him to sleep it off, but she needs him here at least for a moment.

"This thing could be completely screwed for all I know," she comments quietly, motioning to the arc reactor and trying for a smile as she looks at him rather helplessly, "You don't think it's broken or damaged or anything, do you?"

"...It's still glowing," he replies, and thinks it's a little amusing how she touches it, since that was basically his first reaction. Actually, he notices that his hand goes towards it too and he's not sure whether it's because it's the only thing he can see clearly or it's because he's slightly afraid she might get too curious and remove it to see what injuries lay beneath. He'd like to check, himself, but he's not sure how long Tony can survive without it and he's not taking that risk. "We don't have a spare, so don't take it out."

Steve starts applying honey to the cleaned wounds and dressing them with the actual bandages first-- they're supposed to be waterproof, so they'll help keep the honey against his cuts and scrapes. The old shirt is his last resort, but he'll use it if there's anything too big and then stumble around the whole town tomorrow morning finding Mina if he has to. "What did you mean it's unstable?" he asks, while applying pressure to various parts of Tony's body to see if anything's broken. This would be a lot more effective if he weren't so drunk. And if he weren't so drunk, this probably wouldn't have happened in the first place.

“Sure, doc.” He’s not really sure he caught most of what she’s just said, but she’s tending to his forehead, so in his addled mind, that makes her the doctor. Not that he likes doctors. But she’s pretty, so he’ll make an exception just this once. Smiling at her, he continues, “Anything you say.”

They’re looking at the reactor. He can practically feel the weight of their eyes on the thing and it makes him itchy and nervous. The urge to cover it up again has him lifting a hand, but his motor control’s so bad that he doesn’t manage to do much with it.

“Ow, hey.” Sidetracked from the reactor by Steve checking for injuries, Tony rolls his eyes sideways to look at him. He’s half naked and being felt up by Captain America. It figures that this sort of thing only happens when he’s apparently drugged or suffering from a head injury. Or both. It might be both. “This was all better in my head. You weren’t wearing clothes, for starters.”

She can't help it. The situation is unpleasant at best and she feels terrible about it, but his words cause her to let out a quiet snort of laughter. Anna ducks her head quickly and lets her hair fall forward to partially cover her face, but despite the fact that she's not making any noise the small shake of her shoulders give away the fact that she's still laughing. She takes a deep breath, and when she looks back up and tucks her hair behind her ear she's got more of a serious look on her face.

"Come on now, it's hardly time for that " She uses her best 'means business' tone, complete with a stern look and everything, and she goes back to gently cleaning his wounds. After a moment though she leans forward, and murmurs quietly into Tony's ear. "You'd have to pull the pity card and ask very nicely, I bet it would work."

Sitting up again there's the hints of a smirk tugging at her lips, and as she washes out the cloth and gets a new fresh one she starts checking his head for other wounds. And just like that she's back to serious and concerned as she asks, "How are you feeling? Are you still cold?"

She has completely forgotten that she's sitting there in soaking wet clothing, that she should be well and truly freezing. It's easy for these things to slip her mind after all, she's not used to having to pretend to feel.

Caught up in the moment, Steve's forgotten, too. But it looks like most of everything is all cleaned up, from the waist-up anyway. "I can take care of the rest and change him into dryer clothes," he says. "I found some women's clothes in the attic-- they smell a little bit like mothballs but they're completely clean, if you want them. I stuck them by the window in my room, to air them out. I was going to give them to Jones tomorrow. There are more towels in the linen closet." He knows she's not really a nurse and there's no reason she has to stick around for having to take Tony's pants off.

Oh. It totally just caught up to him what Tony meant earlier, so he might be pressing these new bandages on a little tight because honestly, Tony can't even think straight and he's still... really??? There's a "you're worse than your father" comment in Steve's head somewhere, but he'll settle for frowning a bit instead. He might have lost a little control over his body and over his mind, but he's trying to pull the reins tight. "Why don't I get you all those things and make you some tea?" Steve offers to Anna.

“Pity card I can play, darling.” The slurring is starting to subside, but there’s a breezy lightness to Tony’s voice that continues to linger, proof that he isn’t quite in full possession of all his faculties. And if he could pull himself together enough to do it, he would play the pity card and try to angle someone into bed with him, if he could get them both there. But he can’t, and when she asks about being cold, his mouth quirks into a rueful half-smile.

“These days I’m always cold. It’s a—A side—Ow, stop.” It sounds like he’s whining but he doesn’t care, too preoccupied with flinching away from Steve’s hand. The bandages are too tight, the weight of his hand too heavy. “It’s my head. It’s not right. Something’s wrong with my head.”

"Look," Anna drops the rag, stands up and rests a hand on Steve';s shoulder lightly. She's trying to be gentle, she can't imagine he'll take 'you can't do this, you're too sick' all that well, so instead she tries the more careful approach. "How about I go make some tea for the both of us and hunt out those clothes? That way someone can still keep an eye on this guy."

She turns to look at Tony and she's smiling fondly, but for just a moment she takes in all the injuries and the general state of the man whom she'd been having a fantastic time with only a few hours ago, and it feels a bit like she's been punched in the stomach. The guilt is obvious, because she can't quite get over how, if she hadn't been so damn insistent on keeping herself undercover, none of this would even be an issue.

That's part of the reason why she doesn't wait for an answer from Steve, she just squeezes his shoulder and steps back. Her smile is bright, but clearly fake, and she just shakes her head for a moment before gesturing towards the door. "So, attic? I'll grab clothes, towels and tea. Just make sure he doesn't get into any more trouble while I'm gone, okay?"

"I'll-- try," he says, wondering when she got up and left him. Guess he's still thinking slow, then. But that's alright, because he's still able. Sort of. He loosens some of the bandages he'd put on Tony and makes quick work trying to get his pants off, blinking a lot and being extra careful around anywhere there seems to be a bruise or a scrape.

He begins the process of cleaning those up, too, trying not to press down too hard. "There's always something wrong with your head," he replies, extremely belatedly, to Tony's assessment. He says it quietly, ruefully, like he's sorry about how he was driven to drink and he's sorry that it caused him injury. He's sorry he wasn't there to prevent it. He knows they should stick together and they should go out and they should find Dr. Banner and the Agent Romanoffs. Moreover, he knows Tony's not a patient man. He knows this was trouble from the get-go.

It's quicker, this time, getting the bandages on. He's got it down to an art.

Despite the comments he’d just made, Tony is quiet and cooperative – insofar as he can be – during the next few minutes. There aren’t any off-color remarks about Steve taking off his pants, no suggestions for what he could be doing instead of attending to the cuts and scrapes that criss-cross his legs. He barely even moves, unless it’s to shift in whichever direction he’s prodded to do so.

“How bad?” he says after a moment’s silence. “She was—” He lifts a hand, fumbles out a gesture meant to indicate Anna cleaning up a wound to his head. “At my head. Why can’t I think straight? Is it bad?”

And what he’s really asking, though he can’t put it into words, is if he’s suffered some kind of brain damage that’s going to make him this disoriented forever.

Anna is out of the room quickly, and the moment she steps outside she lets out a heavy breath, rubbing her hands over her face. She can fix this, she just won't, and that fact is eating away at her conscience painfully. There's no way she could get away with it, not now that Steve's seen him and Tony's aware enough to know that he's been injured. She'd have to explain what she is, have to at least offer some kind of reason and that's too much. It's too soon, and too many people already know.

She sets off to find Steve's room, and heads up to locate the mentioned clothing. It takes a bit of poking around, but finally she manages to find a decent enough set of clothes. It's nothing fancy, just a simple black skirt and white shirt, but they're wearable. It's not like these things matter too much to her, anyway. Next on the list is tea, so she finds the kitchen and fills up the kettle, putting it on the stove and sitting down to wait. She's determined not to think about this all too much, but she can't help it. It had been her who'd asked him if he wanted to drink that particular day after all, and her idea to get some air to sober him up a bit. Not to mention she'd been the one who hasn't saved him, not really. She's so caught up that she barely notices the whistling of the kettle, and a minute or two pass before she jumps up and fixes up three cups of tea. She's not sure if Tony is even going to want it, but she does it anyway.

She comes back in in time to catch the end of Tony's comment, and manages to fix her best attempt at a smile on her face as she sets the cups down an hands one to Steve. "It's superficial, you're just drunk still. How much of it all do you remember?"

He continues patching Tony up, hunched over him like he's burning the midnight oil working on a painting. Steve will find the board game Operation later, albeit without batteries and with a few missing "ailments," and it'll remind him of this moment. "I'll make you some coffee tomorrow and you'll be right as rain," he adds to Anna's answer. He looks Tony over to make sure he hasn't missed anything and then takes a clean towel and ruffles his hair a bit before accepting the tea, taking a sip, and setting it down by the others.

"Thank you," he says to Anna. She's honestly a godsend right now, even if she doesn't think she is, and she'll probably find a thank you letter in her mailbox as soon as Steve can figure out how to write his own name again without it looking like he's also drunk.

He waits for Tony to answer Anna's question before addressing him. "I'm going to need your help a bit. Think you could hold onto my neck?" he asks, continuing to towel Tony off a bit. He does a quick fold and places it on the foot of the bed as he moves to scoop Tony out of bed and move him to the side that isn't sopping wet. He doesn't need to catch a cold on top of his black and blue hangover. "And you never answered my question, about this," he adds, placing a hand over the arc reactor, as if to protectively keep it in. He takes Tony's arm with his other hand.

“Drunk?” he echoes, turning his head to look at her. “I’m drunk?”

That explains a few things. Not all of them. He’s been drunk so many times in his life that he shouldn’t be this addled, but there’s an ache in his head and a fogginess in his perception that points to a concussion. But it helps. Tony knows how to circumvent drunkenness so that he can function.

“Should’ve said so.” It’s still slightly slurred, and it’s obvious that he’s not exactly 100%, but it’s not quite as bad as before. “Not as much as I should. There’s a—It’s like fog. A disconnect. I remember… A bar. You were there. And then, the beach? I don’t…”

He looks at Steve, tips his head in what he hopes is a nod, and tries to do as instructed. It’s sloppy and loose and probably not that much help, but it’s enough so that Steve can get him over to the other side of the bed. There’s a part of him that wants to squirm away from Steve’s hand, but there’s nowhere to go and touching before didn’t set it off. So maybe it’s okay. Maybe. He hopes so.

“It’s…” He licks his lips, nervousness knotting in his stomach. “What did I say? I don’t remember.

His answer should bring relief, after all it's a real concern if he's having memory lapses, and while it's too soon to tell anything for certain it could very well indicate something more serious. All the same, Anna can't help but let out a slow, soft breath that she hadn't even realized she'd been holding since she'd posed her question. She can fix any serious damage, quietly and undercover and subtly while no one pays attention, but she can't remove his memories. If he could somehow remember how she got him out, or even if he remembers that she had been previously standing next to him, maybe even a little further in on the docks, then it could raise awkward questions that she's not yet ready to answer. So she smiles, and it's gentle even with a lightly teasing tone as she responds. "Yeah, I outdrank your ass. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. "

She sits down in her position next to the bed again, and just watches closely as Steve moves him. She can't quite place what it is, but Tony looks uncomfortable and she knows that kind of uncomfortable. Whatever it is, it's something familiar to her, and so she reaches out to touch Steve's elbow gently. "You know, he could probably do with a couple more blankets or something?"

Tony has no reason to trust her, whether he knows it or not, but she wants to try to swing a moment alone all the same. Wearing her best helpful smile, she cups the tea tighter and shrugs her shoulders. Steve's no better than Tony, and she doesn't exactly want either of them moving around too much, but he can hardly get into that much trouble in the house for a few minutes, can he? "That water was freezing after all. I had a look but I couldn't find them."

"He can have the ones from my bed; they're warmer than the ones in the third room." He's grateful for the touch, because it helps to keep him aware that he needs to be standing, and that so far, it's successful. It strikes him that it's actually rather difficult to move Tony like this, in this condition. He feels like the serum's actually trying to battle out the poison, but until then, all other facilities are closed. So he does wonder, briefly, how Anna could have carried Tony all the way here, but he chooses not to ask.

He tries his hardest to walk slowly, and makes it to the other side without incident, although after he lowers Tony to the bed and tucks him in, he realizes his hands are shaking a bit. He takes the half of the blanket that's supposed to drape over the wet side of the bed and folds it over on top of Tony. It's a quick trip to his room, where he's found a large comforter and some heavy knits.

"You said it was unstable now. Are you going to... need a new one?" He's not sure if they even could get a new one, somehow. Only Tony would know, and he's not exactly in the right frame of mind to answer important questions. That said, instability means it might give out at any moment, and Steve is not watching Tony die.

Being tucked in feels nice. He’s still cold, the chill isn’t quite gone from his skin, but he’s no longer dripping wet and he’s gradually beginning to warm up. So he’s quick to burrow into the covers that Steve piles on top of him, feeling drowsy enough that he could fall asleep if left alone for too long. In his addled state of mind, he can’t remember if that’s a good or a bad way to deal with a concussion.

He hadn’t meant to tell Steve about the reactor. He’d thought about it, waffled on the decision time and time again for days, but each time he chickened out. Now, however, it seems like the choice has been made for him by his traitorous subconscious. To play dumb or not play dumb, that’s the question. It’s never worked before, but maybe it could now.

Maybe. But probably not. It's never worked before, he doesn't think it will now.

“I don’t know.” That’s the honest answer, at least. “Maybe. Depends what happens. I haven’t—I don’t know how bad it is. Whether there’s damage or… I just don’t know."

Anna doesn't exactly want to touch the arc reactor so much as stare in fascination, but that's no good to them at the moment. It's just so rare that she sees something she's never really come across before, and it must be a strange universe that they come from if this sort of thing is normal to them. Still, she might not be inspecting it up close as she'd like, but it's hardly subtle the way she stares. It takes her a moment to realise, but when she finally catches on she at least has the decency to look embarrassed as the covers hide her view anyway.

"What exactly does unstable mean?" She's careful to be gentle when she asks the question, still watching but not touching. He's obviously uncomfortable, the contact is obviously making him jumpy, and she's not about to push it considering they don't actually know each other that well. No, that sort of thing can definitely be left to Steve. She just has to make sure he stays physically well.

"If it's damaged, how difficult will it be to repair?" She glances between Steve and Tony as she asks her questions, not quite sure if one or the other is the best to ask at this point. Steve doesn't exactly seem all that sure of the reactor, but perhaps he's better to answer given Tony's state.

Then again, Steve's not much better.

Steve is legitimately the worst person to ask about the arc reactor. He doesn't know its name, doesn't know how it works and doesn't even know if it does work, since he doesn't know what its exact purpose is. He assumes it works because it's part of Tony's chest and he once watched Tony fix an engine for twenty minutes as it was falling out of the sky. It's some sort of power source. And it dies when Tony does.

"Right now? It'd be impossible."

Steve can't even pull a lever and Tony's got the capability to become an expert on highly advanced science over the course of a night. And apparently has multiple degrees in subjects, one of which didn't even exist in Steve's time. So yes, in their current states, they're about as useful towards this as a cardboard box filled with puppies.

He starts to gather all the rest of the supplies so he can put them away, tucks the jar of honey and some bandages into a table in this room so he has easy access to them later. If he were any less debilitated, his eyes would be cold and sharp as steel. But right now he just looks exhausted, the kind of tired he should never be. He's stuck in a fog treading through waist-deep mud, and it hurts him to know he could do better. He should do better.

“I can’t fix it.”

It’s hard to say, not because of his muddled thoughts, but because he should be able to fix anything. He always could, if it was mechanical. To not be able to do it now, when perhaps he most needs the ability, is frustrating and demoralizing and, quite frankly, depressing. That it has nothing to do with him, that it’s no deficiency on his part that makes the reactor impossible to repair, is irrelevant.

“It’s not about skill. I designed it. Of course I can fix it. But I can’t do it now.” He looks between them, as if by doing so, maybe they’ll understand without him having to spell it out. Tony even goes so far as to reach out to Steve, but between his own unsteadiness and the fact that Steve’s moving away, he never comes close to touching him.

“Steve…” He wants to tell him that he’s sorry. Sorry for not being able to fix it. Sorry for letting it get tampered with in the first place. Sorry for not telling him sooner. Sorry for not having the decency to go away so that he wasn’t putting everyone else in danger with his presence. He could, and should, say any one of this things, but what he says instead, is a quiet, “Don’t leave.”

There's a long pause where Anna just looks blank, and she's about as clueless as Steve with this device in Tony's chest. It's not like she doesn't understand technology, it's almost the opposite. She's had time to watch technology as it is come into complete fruition, and watch every single development as it's been made. The arc reactor is entirely new though, and that's mostly what catches her off guard. Nothing is new any more, not when you've lived as long as her.

She does catch on though, eventually, because despite being slow to the uptake she sure as hell isn't stupid, and it's easy to tell when she does realise, because there's a frown on her face almost instantly. She leans slightly closer, looking at Tony with obvious concern. "What happens if you try to fix it?"

Steve's becoming more of a concern with each passing moment though, and she barely waits for a response before she reaches out to catch hold of his elbow and stands. She has no issues with holding his weight, and tips her head slightly to look at that tired, exhausted expression with concern. That's not the Steve she'd seen at the lighthouse, by any means.

"He's not going anywhere." Her eyes are still on Steve's, but the words are directed at Tony, and she's still frowning as she steps back. All of a sudden her voice is much more decisive, and even though she's stepping back she's still not-so-subtly guiding Steve to a chair (or the bed, whichever he ends up in first, really) with that hand on his elbow. "Neither of you are, you're both staying here until you're actually in some kind of fit state to move unattended."

He has no idea why he's become so weak, because he doesn't believe she could be inhumanly strong, because that thought hasn't quite manifested properly in his mind, although it really should. Instead, he will just confusedly sit on the wet side of the bed, and he guesses he'll just. Be here. For awhile.

"I'm not leaving, I just... wanted to put everything back where it belongs," he reasons, although he sounds a little bit defeated. These are not the words of a man who is regarded as a hero. These are the words of a five-year-old who's been berated for trying to tie a splint on his pet cat.

He takes up his tea and takes a sip. It has gotten cold, so he drinks the whole thing. It feels nice. Sitting down feels nice. Lying down would feel even better, as his head would sort itself out and everything can settle into a nice, dull ache. He must have closed his eyes.

They snap open, and he lifts his feet up. They're still dirty. And now his butt's all wet. But he leans back against the headboard and takes a part of Tony's arm that isn't injured to assure him that he'll be here.

She asks the right question. At the moment, with his thoughts scattered and refusing to sort themselves out, he isn’t able to think about it. Later, it will depend on how much of this he can remember. Chances are, it won’t be much, and even if it is, it’s unlikely that he’ll think too long on how it is that she knows what to ask.

“I don’t know for sure,” he tells her, glancing sideways at Steve as he does it. Even drunk and concussed, he suspects that there’s going to be disappointment in him for this and he hates it. He hates that he cares enough to hate it, too. “But I’m told everyone will die.”

Something’s wrong with Steve. Dimly, he knows this. When he settles himself down on the side of the bed he’d just recently vacated, Tony inches closer. His arm shifts in Steve’s hand, twisting so that he can touch Steve’s forearm. Touch it and hold on to it, like he has to reassure himself that he’s still there.

“I told her I’d protect you. That I wouldn’t let anything happen to you this time. I won’t. I won’t let you pay for my mistakes again.”

With any luck, neither of them will dwell too much on any of this long enough to ask her some potentially awkward questions, because she hasn't actually got any logical responses. It's not on the forefront of her mind any more, although as soon as the two of them are out of the danger zone it's going to be right back up as number one concern all over again.

As it is, she's just a little bit distracted with two of the few people that she actually likes in this place simultaneously trying to die on her, and that's just not acceptable. Not now that they've made her actually give a damn about what happens to them. It's pretty much the only reason she's still here, half-drunk and stone cold cup of tea still clasped in her hands as she looks over the two of them. She could help them, but she won't, and so to atone for the selfishness that they don't even realise she has, she's going to make sure she at least takes care of them until they get better.

"Here." She's quiet and gentle again, and with the small hints of a smile she gathers up some of the blankets to spread out over the two of them. She hovers for a moment, digging her teeth into her lower lip as she looks between them, and then just sits down on the chair again. The tea is still cold, and she's still not going to drink it, but it's at least something to have in her hands anyway so she picks the mug up again. If nothing else, if anything else happens, if either of them get worse, she can step in. "Do you want anything else?"

"Tony, you didn't make a mistake. No one is going to die." He's confused. What mistakes? Who is "she"? Steve thinks it probably had to do with the other Steve who was here, but when he got to the Cape, Tony said he'd only been in town for three days. But he also said he hadn't slept and definitely looked it. So Steve's not sure what happened. Why did everyone think he was dead? And who decided Tony was supposed to be his protector? That seems a bit odd, especially considering their current circumstances.

He lies down and crawls underneath the blankets when Anna starts to drape them over him, not letting go of Tony because here is a man who he saw fly a nuke into space to save a city, to save their city, without hesitation. But he's scared that Steve will even leave for a second. So he grips Tony's hand and resolves to stay, so that Tony can stop making promises to fix things he didn't do or feel guilty about things he can't control.

Looking up from where he is, he suddenly gets a bout of deja-vu and expects to see a shock of blonde hair when he looks up at Anna. He wonders if she ever loses that calm, or if she's just as saintly as his mother was. She must be cold and tired, and all she's doing is fretting over the two of them. "You can stay, if you want," he replies, to her question. "It's cold outside. I'll be better tomorrow," he says, a promise he used to make. "I'll make us something to eat in the morning."

More blankets are nice. Very nice. It’s getting warmer, the extra blankets and Steve’s body heat going a long way to chasing the rest of the chill away. The trouble with the warmth is that it makes him drowsy, and coupled with the intoxication, the concussion, and the fact that he hasn’t been getting much sleep, it makes the lure of sleep impossible to resist.

Tony’s fingers curl around Steve’s, tangling them together so that it will take some effort – though admittedly not much – to get away from him. Why it’s so important to make sure he keeps a hold of him, Tony doesn’t know. But he wasn’t there for Bruce and he disappeared. He won’t let the same thing happen to Steve.

“I always make mistakes.” It’s a quiet, disagreeable grumble and Tony’s not entirely conscious of the fact that he says it. His eyes are closing and he’s content to let them. It’s warm. It’s comfortable. Steve’s not leaving. Anna’s okay. It’s fine. He can close his eyes for a second. They won’t disappear in such a short span of time.

But a second turns into two and quickly becomes sixty. Tony doesn’t open his eyes again. Warm for the first time since arriving in the town, he finally sleeps.

A slow smile spreads over her face at Steve's offer, small but strikingly genuine all the same, and she just gives him a small nod as she turns the cup around in her hand, and after a moment or two of quiet she nods. She's not sure what it is about his offer that touches her so much, because she's sure he won't be better by the morning so it definitely can't be the offer of breakfast. She just settles down more comfortably in her chair, and it's about then that she realises that she's really invested in these two being okay. Aside from a few exceptions she's kept mostly to herself since arriving at the town, mostly to protect herself but also because the few people that she knows from home aren't the ones that she remembers - or else they're just too much of a reminder of what she used to be.

Tony and Steve on the other hand, come completely history free, and it's a chance at a clean slate. She can pretend for a little while around them, and it's nice, comforting, and she has believed for a long time now that she wasn't going to get that again. Selfish as it is, untrustworthy as she's being, that brief reprieve and moments of normal are a relief when every moment is spent resenting her existence.

"I might have to take you up on that." She's not going to sleep, even if she could she has bigger priorities at hand right now and that's keeping these two safe, but that doesn't mean she can't stick around a while anyway. For once she's glad that she doesn't share their needs for rest, someone has to look after them after all. It might as well be her. Setting the cup down on the floor in front of her, she glances at Tony with a soft smile before leaning forward, propping her elbows on the bed and resting her chin in her hands.

"I think he's asleep," that comment is softer, quieter, and she pokes Steve's arm gently, "You should do the same. I'll still be here in the morning."

He sighs in relief that she agrees to stay, because he knows he's not in any sort of shape to do anything right now but danger seems to be a recurring subject and for some reason, he feels that if she stays here, that if anything were to happen, at least he'd be here. Come nine circles of hell or scientists, he'll stand up and drive them as far as they'll go. For all the loss he's suffered, it never does get any easier.

"I'll get some sleep if you do," he offers, knowing that she might not. He knows that of all of them, she deserves it the most. And he knows that he might not be better in the morning, but he'll have a whole new chance to act like he is. They've all got work to do and he's got a breakfast to make.

He needs to wait until she leaves anyway, because the sheets are still damp and they smell like the ocean, and when he closes his eyes he feels the vertigo slam into him and the drag of the sand on his face. It smells sharp and acrid like gunfire so he busies himself looking at the glow that seems to surround Anna from his altered state. The fear in his eyes looks like worry, so there's nothing terribly suspect about that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

is there room for one more sun? //closed

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whoops i'm retconning that hydrogen peroxide apparently it doesn't actually work

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