revivalproject | Trimming

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Trimming

WHO: Everyone! It's a mingle, get into it, bring your own winter traditions
WHERE: The diner
WHAT: A little winter celebration
WHEN: The solstice/end of the year
WARNINGS: Mark it if you get weird. I assume we're all a little busy, so if you want to use this to handwave some cordial introductions or a quick lore dump from Tony, just let me know.

There wasn't any official invitation or forewarning. In fact, Tony hadn't exactly planned to spend his day like this. Arriving at the diner, though, it would be difficult to ignore the acrid smell of burning, or the waft of coffee trying vainly to cover it. The scorched scent could have come from the brazier crackling outside of the diner door, spreading a ring of warmth that left a patch of the walkway cleared of snow, though the effect of that fire was more cozy, inviting anyone in the square near the fountain closer, with a sweet, woody smoke and an extra sharp, green scent from the lurid red and weirdly purple, piney boughs hung around the doorway. The burnt smell was stronger inside, anyway, clearly from a mishap in the kitchen, with another stack of those prickly branches on the diner counter not doing a convincing job of covering a black mark scorched into the surface. The rest of the room might have been distracting enough, though; red, white and pink glitter was dusted throughout the space, spreading from where it had been intended to be contained in clusters of flowers on tables, and colourful glass was hung from the ceiling in icicles or gathered into balls that all winked in the flicker of warm light. Where there weren't lumpy, grey-ish candles, hurriedly disguised with more glitter or brass bowls, there were small, woody shells like chestnuts dotted around the room, filled to teetering brim with a viscous sap that gave off a yellowish glow and left the whole diner shimmering.

Nestled in doorframes and above the counter where a spread of food that might be alluring to the particularly brave, were more lovingly crafted decorations: clusters of small, gold leaves in bouquets tied with red ribbons that chimed softly like bells if someone stood underneath them. The food on display did not give a great hint of what the disaster might have been. Rather, it was difficult to discern which dish would be the main culprit. There was a large bowl of a creamy, yellow liquid, with suspicious lumps and blackened flecks floating in it, with a stack of mismatched cups next to it for serving. The coffee pot next to it was probably safer. The foods that weren't cooked, per se, but sliced and piled onto plates were likely innocent, too, though it was entirely possible that some of those fruits should have been cooked to be edible. A tray of what kind of looked like pancakes looked trustworthy enough, assuming the worst of them didn't make it to the serving stage. In general, the decorations were clearly handled more competently.

The days had been dark and cold, and the diner was warm, bright, and ready to leave everyone full of dubiously edible cheer. If you stayed long enough, maybe Tony would even offer you one of those strange bundles he was fastidiously working on at a table, where an occasional crack sent a puff of smoke swirling up among the gently tinkling glass ornaments.

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Tony reacted to this revelation like it was an attack, recoiling slightly to take in more of Tommy with his frown. That was a bold statement to make, Tony had a lot of personal shit to forgive that he couldn't begin to guess which one Tommy held against him, far more than anyone else they were talking about. Well. Maybe not Pietro. He did make it particularly unrewarding to try. "So Cap and Vizh and whoever else should be easy. You've climbed Everest and are complaining about a flight of stairs. You've picked a job where you spend more than enough time fighting weirdos in tights, don't hold grudges against the ones that have your back."

"Yeah, well shit isn't always easy. Those stairs are icy. You've sorta helped me here, plus you didn't let Maria Hill shoot me, so that's bonus."

He had been trusted with the armor. He was kinda sorta being taught. And Tony wasn't as tolerant of Tommy calling himself stupid. He's won some important victories.

"They don't always have my back."

Being 'sorta' helpful and not letting Tommy get shot did not sound like the same hurdle to clear that he was setting for everybody else, and Tony pursed his lips with a sigh, trying to pin down this elusive equation. "They do, though," he insisted, fully confident that any Avenger would drag Tommy out of a burning building. That was kind of their whole thing. "Maybe not every time you want them to, but when it matters." Tommy had his own example right there, and Tony opened his hands on the table to finally accept it, "I gave Hill that gun, didn't I? I put you in that situation?" Just a guess, but Tony had plenty of the pieces of that puzzle by now to assure him that his vision of the future was not going to stop it from crushing them. "Still had your back."

"Dude, I literally have no clue whether you did or not. Likely she already had it. She IS Shield. But I was there to get you your suit. Because Asgard was falling."

And Tony, even knowing everything that was going on, how people would react to him, even hurt as he was... He had chosen to help. And he'd protected Tommy.

"And if it wasn't for some assholes giving Osborn his own Avengers it wouldn't have happened."

Tommy made it difficult to tell if he understood that 'the gun' in Tony's situation was a metaphor for the reason or the means, not literally what S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued weapon Hill was pointing at him, making Tony narrow his eyes dubiously and ready to make sure they were talking about the same thing still until Tommy made it very clear that he knew what a metaphor was. Asgard couldn't literally fall out of the sky. Could it? And he was still recovering from that when he was presented with the equally unwieldy concept of giving [anyone] their OWN Avengers, let alone forced to place exactly who Tommy meant by 'Osborn'. Tony's first wild swing was some other S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, a handler like Gyrich, and this suggested parcelling of Avenger teams their neatest solution for managing the incoming superhero panic bill.

Right?

Tony could feel the wrinkled forming from squinting at Tommy and had to consciously relax to accuse, "You say the most unbelievable shit, sweetheart, I feel like I'm being attacked." And with Tommy clearly blaming whatever this monumental occasion was on someone that wasn't Tony, Tony did not have a clear path back to what he was trying to tell him. Instead, he tried, "We both should work on that."

Of course he didn't understand what Tony meant. Tommy and metaphors didn't really get on well.

"We were all attacked by Osborn. His stupid fucking Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men and Dark every-fucking-thing. He even sorta facilitated a team of evil teens that were elbowing in on the Young Avengers. Tried to force their way onto our team, and dude, they were fucked up. And that's coming from me."

But he'd seen Lisa again, and that was something.

"We live in an unbelievable world, where unbelievable shit happens. I'm literally retroreincarnated, that's fucked up. The world is just like that."

That did sound like a terrible empire of misguided heroics (why were they dark?), more of a power grab for someone to be in charge of these groups, so Tony quickly went from a nose wrinkled in irritation at the concept to a pout of concern for the 'evil teens'. "That sounds like you could have helped them," he said hopefully, though it did not sound like Tommy or the rest of the Young Avengers were open to that kind of thing. The basic tenets of the Avengers in general took a very thorough beating in that short explanation.

They were called that in retrospect. TO differentiate them.

"We tried, but fuck. They didn't really want that. Not much you could do when they were trying to basically fuck you up and replace you."

Not that it was going to change anything for those particular kids now, but Tommy's attitude about it made Tony frown and try to think back on how often he otherwise gave Tony a shrug of 'not much you can do'. Too many times since he joined Tony at the table alone. Maybe that did work for him, and maybe it was healthier than going to Tony's extremes. Still, Tony pointed out, "Your mom was just a kid in a bad situation when she met the Avengers. So were you." He raised his eyebrows, asking if it was possible for Tommy to extend the same sympathy.

"I was literally in prison," Tommy answered with a shrug. Which was where Wanda no doubt would have been, given the chance of the X-Men. Hell, there were still people that would want her in such a position.

"Exactly," Tony replied, not sure again if that meant Tommy actually understood what he meant, or just literally, ignoring the context again, and furrowed his brow inquisitively. "Plenty of people had already written you off. Did you deserve that?"

That's a loaded question, Tony, a very loaded one. Tommy took a moment to consider it carefully, form many different angles. So his response was actually one that wouldn't satisfy him, but would be accurate.

"According to a jury of people who were in no way shape or form actually my peers, yes."

"Yeah, that would be part of the group that had written you off," Tony agreed, snapping his fingers with a shake of his head. He shouldn't have need to tell a speedster to keep up. "All of that qualifying sounds like you don't agree, so you tell me what's so different about these 'dark' kids. Is your territory being threatened?"

Well, that was simple in Tommy's book. Really simple.

"Murder," Tommy answered. "They killed people. Intentionally. Willingly. Sometimes because they were bad people. Except I think people are should get second chances, even the bad ones. These kids, we tried to give them a second chance. And if we weren't there..."

He had voted for them, until he'd learned more. Then he'd just wanted to take Lisa away from them.

'We tried to give them a second chance' was very reassuring, releasing some pressure that was tightening Tony's shoulders and making him feel like he had to fully reprogram Tommy. Tommy's foundation was still solid, he just maybe didn't have the patience. Surprise.

"I killed people. Indiscriminately. For money, not even for a good reason," he pointed out. And maybe, if it were up to Tommy, Tony would have never been an Avenger, either, but it didn't sound like he would make that call today. He said he had forgiven Tony, maybe he had earned his place. "There aren't a lot of Avengers that aren't carrying around some dark shit. Billy and Teddy are not the rule, you can't make them out to be the blueprint. It's you and me, and one day probably one of those kids that scares you so much, if someone gives them the chance, even if they keep screwing it up. Even the worst of the people I throw down with, I make sure that they get support and therapy when they get put away because I have to believe that their future is better, and we can build it."

There were some forms of patience that Tommy definitely had.

"Uh-huh. Tony? Some of those I said that about? They literally killed indiscriminately for money too. And then went on to try and blackmail Kate to get a place on the team. Another wanted to either reprogram or murder Vision too. You going to say I should let them in? Maybe if they one day get that support and therapy, then they can make it better. But not when they're trying to destroy my team."

Would Tony just stand by and let someone try and kill Cap to get a place on the Avengers?

Tony took a quick breath, then seemed to reevaluate, hands open on the table and looking hurt. It was possible that there was a resource disparity, Tony suspected Tommy could hardly afford his own therapy nevermind the rehabilitation of the criminal underground, but at the same time there wasn't anyone better suited to helping kids like the ones he was describing. Tommy and the Young Avengers were the ones with the powers to handle them, understand them, and give them an alternative, and half the work was already done for them if these kids were trying to muscle their way in.

"Your foundations, as a team, might need some reinforcing before you can take on something like that," Tony eventually conceded, dropping his hands away under the table. "It sounds like you can't really handle a little fracturing."

Tommy hadn't even gotten therapy. He'd had his team, who were often overwhelmed by him at that age, and he'd literally LIVED WITH a psychologist specializing in youth needs. And Tommy and Billy had definitely stood for two of the future Young Masters, suggesting bringing them in. Looking back Tommy knew his reasons for wanting Lisa there weren't good ones. But really, that didn't matter in the moment so much as the utter disbelief he was looking at Tony with.

"Yeah, how is that rehabilitating Immortus coming? The Mandarin? Fucking Dr. Doom? Seriously, Stark, what the absolute fucking hell? Our foundations weren't what mattered, even if we had broken up only a few months later after Cassie and Vision were killed. No, one of the dudes looked up to fucking PUNISHER. The girl with growing powers? Literal neo-Nazi who happened to reprogram their android into a racist murder machine. And Lisa, she fucking knew how fucked up their team is, because when they went to fucking Osborn to fuck us over, she tried to warn me, to get me away. So tell me, Stark. What the fuck do you expect a group of kids to do? A group of kids who absolutely realized that having that whole group around might make US change, and not them? The fuck, Tony."

He just can't take this fucking suggestion, and all the anger and tension in him was making the table vibrate, almost worryingly so.

"I'm starting to see what leads you to supporting the Registration act."

That was a long rant to come out and just agree with Tony in the end, making Tony prop his elbow on that vibrating table to lean his chin into his hand and raise his eyebrows inquisitively. If the worry was that the core of the team would be changed with this unstable influence, that was a problem with the foundation. Tony didn't even know what else Tommy thought he meant, but it was clear that Tommy thought he was either naive or nefarious, so it wasn't likely that he would take anything Tony said seriously again.

"That's a big leap to make," he pointed out, gathering from enough of Tommy's similar outrage that the 'Registration act' must be what this bill ended up being called. "I think it's reasonably your responsibility to look out for kids like you, so I think superheroes should be criminalized. Sure. Seamless." With a deep breath, he flicked that away to continued, "You can't tell me that these kids are impossible, beyond help, and then tell me that one of them fully recognized that and cared enough about you to warn you. That doesn't make her an outlier, she wasn't a flaw in their system, and you made a connection with her enough for her to want to help you."

It wasn't, in Tommy's opinion, coming to agreement. IT just sounded like one.

"Lisa was in Juvie because she belonged there, we knew each other then. She wasn't like them. We... it's hard to trust anyone in a place like that, and we trusted each other. And none of that relates to all of this, Tony. And my point is that you fail to see what is fucking reasonable on shit like this."

And he's not shaking that point.

"Sixteen year old kids don't know how to fix murderers. We don't know how to help people who carbomb their own mother. Not even me. I made mistakes, but I WANTED to be something better. IT didn't take me long to go from wanting revenge against the people who hurt me to wanting to help people. All I needed was an outstretched hand. They didn't even want that. Kids. Can't. Cure. Murderers. Team strength or stability doesn't figure into it. We were kids and stable for ourselves, but that doesn't mean we could pick up EVERY ball the adults dropped."

"I'm not talking to a sixteen year old, I'm talking to an adult, right now, in front of me. At what point do we start to agree that it's you dropping the ball? Twenty-four? Five? You still a kid who can't handle that kind of responsibility by thirty?" Hopefully, Tommy could see why he wouldn't be letting anyone else off the hook for that kind of behaviour. With a quick breath, Tony held up his free hand to try to belay the argument that he knew was coming, because he didn't need Tommy to tell him that they were dealing with this problem when he was sixteen like that was at all relevant to how his attitude clearly hadn't changed now. That wasn't even information that Tony had until right now, as far as Tony knew this had been happening to Tommy last year, but that didn't change the fact that Tommy had a lot of rationalization for his own behaviour that he wasn't willing to extend to anyone else. "What I'm trying to say is, them trying to muscle their way onto your team sounds like them reaching for an outstretched hand to me. You're telling me that your limit of helping people is by beating up the bad guys and, as luck would have it, you know exactly who the bad guys are. That is a bold position to take for someone who started this conversation by telling me he doesn't like the way Cap works."

"Them trying to kill us wasn't an outstretched hand, Tony. And I don't know what I'd do these days. I'd definitely try and do better. I'm not the kid I was then. Shit happened. I grew up. I changed."

And being the son of the Scarlet Witch and nephew of Quicksilver meant he had to reach further, try harder. He had to be better than they were, in every day and every way or he was just proving how bad their family was. Didn't matter that Billy was amazing or any shit like that. His mistakes made them all look bad.

"Don't make the argument about now when it was about then. And no, I don't fucking mess with beating up bad guys these days, unless other teams call me in for that support. I do rescue work these days, things that are below the big names. That doesn't mean I don't dislike how Cap works though."

Tony had met too many girlfriends and Avengers through plots on his life to not frown with frustration at Tommy's insistence against it. They did all seem to be Avengers that Tommy had severe hangups about, so maybe they just were never going to agree that a little murder could be a love language. More annoying was Tommy's mercurial shift away from a charged argument, making Tony's lean into his hand less of a tense performance than a tired sag as Tommy throttled his fuel.

"At least we agree on something," he muttered, shifting up to cross his legs primly like he was ready for Steve to walk in at any moment to flash him an innocent smile.

No, murder was murder, Tony. It wasn't a love triangle. If Tommy knew that thought he wouldn't be able to help it. He'd have to ask if things were OKAY. And that wasn't something that you wanted from Tommy.

"I don't like how you work either. Honestly, I don't like how most heroes work because they forget the small saving people need too. I wanna do that."

The prim pose grew stiff as Tony realized Tommy's previous 'below the big names' comment really was supposed to be a dig, and he was still digging, though what reaction he was looking for wasn't immediately clear. An apology? Another argument? It didn't seem to be one that he thought he could win, because his 'I wanna' implied that he didn't yet have the comparable helping-old-ladies-cross-the-street percentage to be self-righteous about. If he just wanted Tony to feel guilty, he really could have saved himself the trouble, that came naturally.

"Good. You're lucky, you get to learn from all of the mistakes that we had to make figuring this shit out, the next Avengers are all going to be twice as smart and take half as many hits," Tony welcomed, searching through his debris to find the cold cup of coffee.

Trimming

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and if i have the wrong event poke me over discord to fix

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