kore_logs | when will you make a grave? for i will be home then

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when will you make a grave? for i will be home then

who Steve, you!
what Homecoming
when Early morning, day 48
where Edge of the forest

He wakes up in the forest and he doesn't know where he is. But he knows his best bet's to walk east. He doesn't remember these trees, but he knows what time it is, looks for the sun creeping up over the horizon, knows where he's going.

He doesn't feel drugged like he assumes he'd be, and he doesn't feel injured. He just feels confused, like he doesn't know where he just was or what day it is. How did he fall asleep out here?

If he looks at his reflection, he might not recognize it. His hair is unkempt, his eyes are slightly sunken, and he has the light beginnings of a beard. The only thing familiar would be the sharpness of his stare.

As soon as he sees the end of the trees, he knows where he is. This place felt like a dream, and not a particularly good one. Now he's back in it.

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"You should've let her stay in my room," he says. "Less of a hassle to get to." He doesn't even know Elle, though doubtless he's seen her around. Well, he's definitely seen her around because he's met Veronica. But anyway.

While Tony's still frying flapjacks, Steve takes the initiative to look around. Maybe they've got dried, or jam, or something. Anything to brighten up the plates, make it seem like they've got more than they have. He's a master of that, of making do and waiting until rewards are ripe for the plucking.

“Yeah, no.” He says it automatically, so flat and matter-of-fact that it’s obvious he won’t accept any argument to the contrary. “It’s your room. You were coming back. I wasn’t going to move her in and then move her out again.”

He was coming back because Tony was going to find him if it killed him. Thankfully, it didn’t need to get to that, but he’d been prepared for it.

The stack of finished pancakes is getting larger, and Tony makes a few more before calling it quits for the moment. He’ll only eat about three of them. The other dozen are all Steve’s.

“Find anything? Cause these pancakes are done.”

Alright, Steve's not going to push that further. Elle gets the attic. "Yeah, raisins." He frowns. Not a big fan. "Do you want them?" He might as well. They're just a little too sweet, and he prefers fresh grapes. Well, Steve prefers fresh most things, though most dried fruit is awesome. Dried bananas, dried pineapple-- he loves dried kiwi. But raisins, yuck.

Definitely Bucky's influence.

He brings out the box of them anyway, sets them on the table in case Tony would like them, and then looks confused at their hilariously mismatched piles. "Sure you don't want any more of these?"

Tony isn’t a huge fan of raisins, but he’ll eat them in a pinch if he has to. He’s not really sure how well they go with pancakes, though after he’s finished eating the main course, he’ll probably grab a handful just to get the taste of the syrup out of his mouth.

“There’s more batter,” he responds, cocking his head toward the bowl on the counter as he carries the two plates over to the table. The plate with the larger stack gets set down on Steve’s side. “If either one of us is still hungry after this, I can make more.”

Pulling out his chair, Tony takes a seat. “Seriously, eat as much as you want.”

That sounds like a challenge. Steve will actually eat them out of house and home if he took Tony up on it, so he thinks he'll settle for this nice stack. Waste none, want none.

He proceeds to drown the cakes in syrup, not because he thinks Tony can't cook them, but because he's actually got a bit of a sweet tooth and Steve will actually use his pancakes like a freaking sponge for syrup.

He does just that. Seriously, if he had bacon, sausage, or eggs... totally covered in syrup by this point. Actually, he really loves fried chicken and has a sudden craving for that on top of his pancake rafts floating in a syrup sea.

"Should we... feed the cat?" he asks, after two bites.

Watching Steve eat is like some weird kind of modern art that Tony can’t help but stare at. There’s a part of him that wants to ask if he’d like a little pancake with his syrup, but after whatever ordeal he’s been through, he probably deserves to drink the whole bottle if he wants to. Tony certainly doesn’t care.

When he puts the bottle down, Tony picks it up and puts a bit of syrup on his own pancakes. Not nearly as much as Steve, there’s still more doughy fluff than there is sea of thick brown goo, but there’s enough to taste, at least.

“Nah,” he says, shrugging as he starts cutting a pancake up into smaller bites. “I’ll make something for it after we’re done. It eats damn near everything, I’m surprised it hasn’t eaten the rug yet. Did you ever have pets? Do you know how to get them to listen to you?”

"Before I went into the army, I couldn't intimidate a rabbit if I tried," he confesses. Seriously, those were some vicious rabbits at the pet store. Puppies loved him, however, but cats and meaner dogs would find him to be easy prey. That's not exactly fair, in terms of cats, since they own everybody.

It looks like this one isn't special, in that regard. He just hopes he's not going to wake up with its ass in his face, because for some reason, cats really love doing that to him. That, and sidling up to him and acting all flirtatious and then trying to gnaw his hand off.

"And be glad it's not eating our upholstered furniture. I don't know how we'd fix it."

If there’s anyone in town the tiger does take a liking to, Tony suspects it will be Steve. That’s just the way Steve is. A magnetic personality that someone can try to hate but ultimately can’t. Even, he thinks, wild animals.

“I could probably fix the furniture. And the doors if it – he, she, I don’t know – starts destroying them. It’s the socializing that I’m having trouble with.” Quite possibly, that’s because he has trouble with socialization on his own. Trying to teach something else how to function with people is like the blind leading the blind.

“We just need to get it actually liking us. Then it won’t try to eat us. In theory, anyway.”

It's quite obvious that lack of sleep and a long day caused Steve to basically fall asleep into his shawarma. It should now be quite obvious that with decent rest and no invading chitauri army, that Steve can tuck away food faster than most champions. In fact, if they were strapped for cash, they could enlist him and Thor in separate eating contests.

But speaking of bad ideas. "You brought home a wild cat that's going to grow up about the size of a small bear, and it hates you."

Moreover, shouldn't Bruce be able to figure out what sex their cat is?? Shouldn't he have made an announcement?

Anyway, Steve dabs the corners of his mouth with a napkin and then gets up. "Where is it?"

“A lot of sentient beings hate me. That’s nothing new. In fact, it’s probably proof of sentience in the first place.”

Tony knows that he isn’t the most likeable of people. He’s also well aware that that’s a personal choice and that he could stop being a dick if he wanted to. The problem is, he doesn’t. People are going to dislike him anyway. He finds that he can live with it a hell of a lot easier if he’s disliked because he’s an ass than just because he has money or good looks or a brain that he knows how to use.

“If I stopped bringing people home who hated me, I wouldn’t bring anyone home at all.” Not that the tiger is people, exactly. But whatever. Steve gets the point.

“It’s in my room. I didn’t know where else to put it.”

Steve is compelled to sit back down, and look Tony straight in the eyes. "I don't have a lot of friends. Never did. I guess that's why no matter what I say, you won't believe me. I'm not too great at expressing how I feel," he says, and in all honesty, he's not. Everything's a too-late story for him, and there's only one person he thinks who's disappeared from his life knowing exactly how much he cares for them.

"You're just going to have to believe me when I say I like you. I wouldn't be pretending if I didn't, I'm not that kind of man. You know that." And then he gets up again and starts walking towards Tony's room, because the prospect of possibly getting mauled by an ancient beast is slightly less uncomfortable than discussing his feelings in a vain attempt to get Tony to stop being so negative about himself.

He hadn’t made that comment as a jab at Steve. He hadn’t even been thinking about Steve when he’d made it. Just the tiger and the fact that, yes, it hated him and probably would continue to hate him forever because that’s just how things work for him.

Blinking, he watches him get up, too dumbfounded to do or say anything for a moment. Once his brain comes back online, he leaves the table and follows him. It’s easier, he decides, not to comment on the whole friend issue. Period.

“What are you doing? Are you going to try to engage the tiger? Don’t do that. It might try to bite you and I absolutely cannot have Captain America being bitten by my tiger.”

Because if he gets bitten, fine. But Steve? No way.

He just gives Tony a look. It's a look like, bro are you serious this cannot be worse than the aliens, or the ambush of wolf tiger things. It's just one little cat. So he slowly opens the door, and has no idea what he's going to find.

At first, he stands back, waits for it to be comfortable with him in its territory. Seriously, Tony doesn't want to sleep so he invites a tiger to be in his room? Wow. There needs to be a word for how determinedly stubborn Tony wants to be when he wants to sabotage his own health.

After a little bit, he starts walking slower, and he's calm about it. He just hopes the damn thing isn't hungry.

Said tiger, who will one day soon come to have the name Stanley, is laying on the large soft thing in the center of the room when the wall opens. His – he’s a male, even if the one with the star in his chest hasn’t paid enough attention to figure it out – ears prick up and he lifts his large head to scrutinize the two-legs that made the hole. His nostrils flare, scenting the air, and what he smells is something new.

Blood and bone, hair and the strange, foul-smelling plant fibers the two-legs cover themselves with. And something else that he cannot name. Like the smell of a lightning strike, the smoke of a fire, and warmth of the sun on rent earth all rolled into one.

The two-legs comes in and he sits up, great golden eyes gleaming. He’s curious. Unlike the loud one, this one, at least, is quiet.

Okay, he was expecting a cub... Not what looks to be a fully-grown tiger. Even though Steve doesn't know how big sabertooths get, this one's looking pretty damn big. He's already settled on male in his mind, and he's not sure how exactly Tony's gotten away from having his room smell like cat pee long enough not to verify.

He comes closer, reaching out slightly with one hand, making sure it's in the tiger's full view. He's fetched a few cats out of trees before, but this is getting thrown into the deep end.

"Hey boy, I'm Steve." It's not necessarily a good sign if he'll let Steve pet him, but on the bright side, he hasn't killed anybody yet...

The tiger’s ears flick at the sound of his voice. Steve. Steve. The sound is nonsensical to him and ever so slightly, he tips his head. It’s a calm sound, not harsh and grating like the other two-legs, and when that hand is stretched toward him, he delicately leans forward to sniff it.

Near as he can tell, there’s no food. Nothing to eat but the two-legs himself, and the tiger doesn’t want to kill him. He isn’t being threatening, he doesn’t smell like danger. Just that elusive something the tiger can’t understand.

His tiny tail flicks against the thing he’s laying on, and he blinks up at the two-legs again.

He takes this as a good sign, walks closer, and scratches the underside of his chin. This is mostly just so that if he pounces, Steve can still easily get away. If he went for the ears or behind, he'd have a whole head in his way. But he can work his way up.

He grins a little, without teeth, since they might be too aggressive. But this isn't so bad. He makes no sudden movements, but looks back at Tony briefly. Seriously, he thought this tiger would be way less friendly. He's rather majestic, and he's got such big eyes, it's hard to think of him as the beast he imagined not two minutes ago.

"Guess you're staying with us, if you don't mind."

It figures the damn cat likes Steve. It gives everyone else a hard time, but Steve? It’s like a goddamn kitten with a ball of yarn. Maybe an exaggeration, but Tony’s feeling disagreeable enough to make a big deal out of it in the privacy of his own mind. Meeting the look Steve gives him, he rolls his eyes and shrugs. Why isn’t the fierce wild animal attacking or growling or anything? He doesn’t fucking know.

For his part, said tiger simply closes his eyes as he’s scratched beneath his chin. It’s strange, new and different, but after it continues for a few seconds, he decides that he likes it. Enough, anyway, that he doesn’t feel the need to bite the two-legs that’s doing it.

More noises come from him, equally as incomprehensible as the Steve sound, and the tiger flicks an ear. After a few seconds, he turns his head, trying to angle for the scratching to hit the space along the ridge of his ear.

Steve is pleasantly surprised when Stanley moves his head. It's massive, and heavy. Super strength or not, he could easily be outmatched if he makes a false move. But if ear scratches are what he wants, ear scratches are what he gets.

He is endearingly cute. He feels almost like he's petting a small housecat who happened to have been on the receiving end of some super soldier serum.

"Mind if I sit by you?" He makes the move to do so, slowly but surely encroaching on Stanley's personal space. "We're roommates now, so I'd like to get to know you better."

The tiger doesn’t understand what’s going on. The string of sounds coming from the two-legs keeps changing, though he still can’t detect hostility. Even when he moves into his personal space and moves to take – no, the tiger decides after a second’s reevaluation, not take, share - the soft thing, there’s no hostility, no malice.

If there’s danger here, it’s likely to come from the loud one outside the room than the one inside it, and the loud one isn’t dangerous either. Just annoying.

Ears twitching, the tiger sniffs at the two-legs again, then shifts himself into a smaller space so that he has room to sit down. Slowly, he stretches out a massive paw, claws retracted, nudges at the side of the two-legs’ leg, eyes staring intently at his hand.

The tiger wants petted some more.

Obligingly, Steve supplies petting for him, mostly on his crown and neck to start off with. He's glad that he's the one doing this, as even with his claws retracted, that is one heavy paw. He reminds himself that however friendly it is, they've only just met, it can probably never be domesticated, he's a very sizable piece of kevlar-less meat, and tigers eat humans. Not just the one with 19" teeth. Regular tigers.

But goodness, it's kind of cute. Steve's never had a furry companion, but of course he would love one. Immediately. And of course he'd see a bear of a beast of a giant cat that would scoff at the puny human who's spent time in ice, and feel compassion upon seeing it. Not only this, but Stanley would probably be a pet better suited to Thor, so Steve's actually gotta try a little to pet or scratch him properly. It's actually kind of a nice feeling.

There's also so little threat from Steve that the whole point of sitting down, as obvious as it might become, is to have an easier time with petting Stanley. He gets to reap the benefits of a super soldier with tireless hands and whose mood is suddenly uplifted.

Tony lurks in the doorway a little longer, watching the two of them like a suspicious father watching his beloved daughter with her first boyfriend. He’s no supersoldier, however, and he knows it. If the tiger chooses to attack, he’s likely to get killed first. Steve at least the strength and speed to protect himself. Which means that they really don’t need Tony hovering, and quietly, he slips into the hallway and heads back to the living room.

The tiger notes his retreat with a brief, unconcerned sniff, the majority of his attention centered on the two-legs and his hands. The tiger enjoys this scratching-stroking thing the two-legs is doing, and he decides that he’s acceptable. This two-legs can stay. This two-legs, in fact, is his.

Opening his massive jaws, the tiger yawns and, once finished, settles his head across the legs of the two-legs, directly in his lap. Perhaps for the first time, he’s mindful of his fangs, careful not to pierce fragile two-legs flesh accidentally. And ever so softly, felt more than heard, comes the faint, hoarse rumble of a very quiet purr.

Steve Rogers does not say "aww." Steve Rogers is not an "aww" kind of man. But he has also never been tempted before by a purring yawning tiger in his lap trying to soak up all his attention and affections. He wants Tony to stay, but he doesn't want to raise his voice in case it startles Stanley. Tony's back is already turned by the time Steve beckons him back into the room.

But then there's a very heavy head on his lap and it's very warm and it seems to like him very much. He continues petting, marvels at how soft the fur is on the underside of Stanley's neck going to his belly. He's really a beautiful large cat. He has no idea what Tony's problem is with him. He's careful, still, but he's got good experience with being alert and still maintaining a high level of comfort. In Steve's mind, Stanley might be tough, but he's just a big softie on the inside.

"Do you mind if Tony comes back?" he asks, after a bit. "I think he'd like to make amends." He knows Stanley can't understand, but maybe he'll hear it in the tone of his voice.

He doesn’t know what the two-legs is talking about. His tone is calm enough, but the sounds are incomprehensible. All but one, which he’s heard often enough to start associating with the loud, obnoxious one. His ears flatten at that sound, and his lips skim back from his teeth.

It’s not a warning of imminent attack. He doesn’t tense or move to bite the hand that’s scratching him. But his expression isn’t one that can be misinterpreted as pleasure or friendliness when that sound – one day, he’ll realize that it’s the obnoxious one’s name – gets made.

The answer here is clear. The tiger does mind. He doesn’t like the obnoxious one. This two-legs is okay. The other is not.

Steve takes this opportunity to appease Stanley by scratching his ears some more. Okay, so Tony's not invited to this little soiree. "That's what I thought about him too," Steve replies, kind of amused because he's talking to a cat, kind of because he's relating to a cat. "You'll see. He's pretty nice when you don't tear up his furniture."

He pauses from the petting to give that some thought. "Well, sometimes."

Steve thinks Stanley probably weighs half a ton, and although he can carry that, he's never tried, and he doesn't know that he can.

He moves onto playing with the scruff of Stanley's neck, partly to get a good full-body petting going on, partly to see if bigger cats operate like smaller cats. Who knows when placating him might be a good idea? His body's built for strength, not speed. If they need to catch him, subdue him, just to calm him down, they might be able to do it.

when will you make a grave? for i will be home then

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you actually got a tiger icon.

I couldn't use tony!

now i just want frosted flakes

well, they are grrrrrrreat!

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