revivalproject | 08 | It must be getting early; Clocks are running late

Entry tags:

08 | It must be getting early; Clocks are running late

WHO: the Soldier (

sinistral) and you
WHERE: various Temba locations
WHAT: while everyone hunkered down in the warrens, the Soldier was sent elsewhere; now it's time to come back
WHEN: a few days after the general population emerges from the underground
WARNINGS: none; will update if that changes

TEMBA
→ Excavation: for Billy Kaplan;

The first thing the Soldier did on waking in Temba, sore and tired and with the familiarly, infuriatingly vague idea that he'd been elsewhere, was to check to make sure he was intact, or near enough to it. But the first thing after that was to make his way through ruined streets to the building Billy and his brother claimed as their home. The sight that met his eyes made something twist and drop out of the bottom of his stomach, a sensation he immediately tried to ignore. It, and the implied emotion, were unneeded.

"Billy?" he called out, circling toward the wall that seemed most intact. The ceiling was a complete loss, but he couldn't tell from this angle how much damage the structure had absorbed, and how much it had caved. He couldn't tell either if Billy or his brother was around; he resolved to find out. "Tommy?"

→ Exploration: open to all;

The Soldier hadn't been one to rely heavily on the amenities of the community. He generally preferred to forage, and to repurpose things he found in so doing. Years of living on the run with few resources prepared him pretty well for losing the bulk of his supplies when the volcanic activity apparently swept through the towns. But years of living on the run also had him hiding small caches of supplies here and there in ruined buildings. If he was lucky maybe one or two of his stashes hadn't been completely destroyed.

(He never had that kind of good luck but it was a nice thought.)

The weather seemed like it would hold at least, making it a decent day for exploring the rubble of ruined buildings. Maybe he'd luck into finding something useful. Or maybe he'd just end up doing the heavy lifting for someone who needed it. At the very least the sounds from the building in front of him didn't seem like the predatory animals he'd seen on Temba's outskirts. Still, a hand strayed close to the knife at his hip, just in case.

→ Examination: network text to Cal Kestis;

I could use a mechanic. If you've the time.

→ Explanation: network text open to all;

Anyone know if this was a planned redecorating, or is apocalypse chic just in now and I missed the memo?

→ Wildcard;

Open to other ideas. Please reach out to me at

sometimesamuse or via PM for plotting needs. As always while I write starters in prose I'm happy to match brackets if that's your preference.

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"My primary skillset revolves around assassinations. Draw your own conclusions." Combined with the fact that every time he'd been returned, he felt the same way he did when shaking off HYDRA'S control, what else was he supposed to think? He couldn't know for sure how they used him, but it seemed a natural conclusion.

Tony though might not accept that answer. Or might have his own ideas about how the Soldier should be. Most people seemed to have those ideas, or claim that he should want something more. They didn't understand that every day was its own struggle just trying to figure out how to be human.

"I'm here aren't I?" He moved past Tony to punch through a half-collapsed wall and pull out an oilskin-wrapped package, handing it to Tony. "And here's your something good."

Inside the waterproof wrapping was a plethora of supplies: a blanket, a firestarting kit with both matches and flint and tinder, a solar flashlight, meal bars, an empty canteen, a shallow pan, other useful odds and ends for survival all gathered and previously stashed by the Soldier himself.

It wasn't that Tony was trying to argue what anyone might have thought the Soldier was useful for, so maybe some philosophical difference didn't really matter anyway. Maybe it was better to not be useful or liked if your programming was inherently destructive. At least that left Tony hugging himself anxiously already, so his flinch when the Soldier suddenly attacked the already well enough abused wall wasn't too obvious. He was slow to accept the package, looking startled that the Soldier would be handing him anything, and when he finally, gingerly did, he had to clarify, "Is that good?" Most people didn't think being here was any good at all. "Come on, you've got to miss pizza and lingerie and...not losing time," he continued, hands moving quickly now that he'd accepted the package, curiosity much stronger than any nervous reluctance. Oh, this would have been more helpful than a handful of pills and a little girl's purse when he was in the woods.

Hadn't Tony's robotic companion discovered the stashed supplies? The Soldier had assumed that was the reason why Tony was here, after all. Certainly he wasn't searching for the Soldier himself?

"Wasn't this why you came here?" It was why the Soldier was searching out the rubble of his various hideouts. Why bother stashing supplies if one didn't retrieve them to leave in the main gathering place for others?

As for his own desires? "I'm not likely to ever get what's lost back, am I? No sense in dwelling on it. And compared to that things don't really matter."

"I guess I was hoping you left something..." Tony had to admit, rerouting away from feeling somehow less prepared for this survival stuff and back to his original intent. It was a good thing Soldier had turned up himself to solve that problem, because Tony doubted Billy would feel great about a pan. Unfortunately, it did mean he was staring uncomfortably at his effectively stolen loot in front of the guy who might have needed it some day. "I thought you were gone," he felt like he had to reiterate. He clearly wasn't exactly charming the Soldier otherwise, so some shared delusion that he wasn't a thieving asshole and more of a pragmatic opportunist would have been appreciated.

Had he been suggesting that they dwell? He really had is wires crossed. "Won't happen again," he mumbled, thinking maybe he did miss Earth a little too much for someone who wasn't going back.

"Left things all over the place. Figured I'd see what survived. Someone might need it." Not that the Soldier would ever play the part of survivalist guardian angel. No, it was practicality speaking; most of his hidden stashes contained the same or similar supplies. Better to collect them and leave them for the general populace, considering the state of things in the aftermath of the volcano.

It still hadn't occurred to him that Tony might be looking not for supplies but for some more personal memento of the Soldier himself.

"I'm surprised you noticed," he replied, then decided that maybe he should clarify that he wasn't making an insult. "Most people probably wouldn't. I don't exactly hang around everyone."

Again, that made sense until Tony opened his mouth to reply, and was left frowning, appreciating the instinct but not sure why these packages were hidden in the walls in the first place then. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow, wondering if the Soldier saw or had an explanation for that change of heart.

"I didn't," Tony had to admit, because Soldier really did make a point of keeping to himself, and Tony had to be resigned to never really knowing where he was. "Not really. I figured..." But they had been over Tony's theory. "It was Billy. He was pretty sure he'd have a bead on you. So, when the volcano blew, and you weren't with us...He tried really hard to stop it, you know, he's a good kid, it was pretty hard on him."

He shrugged off the inquisitive look. The Soldier hid supplies for his own use, should he have need. He didn't have immediate need beyond what he'd already scavenged, but he had a feeling that Billy might have suggested sharing, had they gotten around to it in conversation. Easier in his mind to gather the bundles himself and anonymously leave them in the main supply building than to seek people out. He'd tell Billy about it later. Maybe.

"Ah..." Of course Billy noticed, and the Soldier had no way to warn him in advance. He'd disappeared before the volcanic activity had started; though he'd been suspicious of the new mountains he wouldn't have anticipated the scope of the destruction or how quickly it had happened. Volcanos weren't supposed to just form in a few weeks!

"He would have noticed," he agreed belatedly. "I'm not surprised he tried to stop it."

That awkward pause would have been excruciating even if Tony didn't already feel like he was somehow imposing on someone who had come up behind him, and Tony had started to nod and glance around for a release valve before the Soldier had mercy on him. Kind of. "Yeah..." he responded uncertainly, eyeing the Soldier then to work out why that lap had taken him so long, now that he wasn't suffering through it. "Back home, the Billy there--I don't know, maybe this one is your Billy and you know him better, and this doesn't mean anything--The one I knew, before, he couldn't be told to keep out of it before his balls had dropped. You wouldn't know it, the way he talked to Cap. It's my fault--he probably would have found you, if he didn't come looking for me and get stuck underground."

"I didn't know a Billy," he admitted quietly. He didn't know anyone, had an encounter with Steve breaking into his apartment but that was it in terms of contact with anyone Avengers adjacent. "I only met people because of the Fleet. And this place."

Knowing what he did about Billy here though, he wasn't at all surprised that another Billy also felt a commitment to doing what he thought was right.

The Soldier shook his head, finally dropping to sit on a pile of rubble that was probably once a wall. "He might not have. I understand there were warnings about all of this. I was gone before even those happened. I don't think he could have found me. I definitely don't think it's your fault." He felt pretty certain on that last point.

It looked like the Soldier was settling, which felt a little like one of the more antisocial mothcats finally agreeing to sit on a nearby shelf while Tony worked, and the sharp breath that Tony immediately took to challenge him on what part of that explanation he had missed was better huffed out before Tony got himself scratched. Billy's willpower didn't need Tony defending it, anyway.

"Lucky boy," he announced instead, hefting up the package again and picking through it like the contents had fascinated him all over again, "I just happen to have a legendary little black book. For the right price, I might have some very informatively embarrassing stories about all of your new friends. Company bears no responsibility for any multiversal discrepancy."

Maybe the Soldier sat simply to make himself appear like less of a threat. Tony seemed jumpy enough on a good day, and the Soldier wasn't the one who anyone sought out for comforting company. Well, anyone aside from Billy, apparently.

Tony's offer made him shake his head. He'd never be able to explain it in a way that made sense, but the offer felt wrong. Maybe it was because the Soldier was used to people knowing things about him — knowing him, period — when he had no counterpart to the memory. "I don't think I can meet your price."

The Soldier was never going to be an enthusiastic partner in gossip, so Tony couldn't exactly be disappointed by this dismissal. He still pointedly plucked the blanket out of the package and accused, "Stingy," as he set the rest aside so he could drape it around his shoulders. This was going to be a game changer on the floor of the shop. For a moment, Tony was suddenly quiet, wondering if he should probably think harder about that, and gave a shiver despite clutching the blanket tightly around him before his focus was just as suddenly back on the Soldier again. "Don't worry, I'm a rare luxury, no one else's been able to afford your secrets, either. The showroom is really more for throwing parties. It's a money laundering scheme."

"I gave you a cape," he pointed out as Tony settled the blanket around his shoulders. And other supplies; Tony could have the whole package. Certainly that wasn't stingy! Not that he had any interest in learning others' secrets. It still seemed like too much of an imposition.

At least Tony put up with him, for now at least. He imagined that would change eventually.

"Don't know how much you'd have to launder money here," he replied, clearly actually thinking about it. They really didn't have an economy. Things were mostly shared or traded, or requested from the replicator or the Agrii. He wondered if the Agrii even had a sense of payment — and if so, what that meant for all of them, especially regarding some of the more interesting things to happen. "You might need a different reason for a party."

"Shows how much you know, Chiquitita," Tony sniffed, looking as much as a confident authority that he could manage in a blanket cape. "While you've been conquering the wilds, we've been developing a very complex and hostile economy, so everyone feels more at home." Assuming that the Soldier was even willing to play along with this game, though, that did not change, "But I never need a reason to throw a party." It was a purred invitation as Tony let the blanket slip from one shoulder, he was the showroom in that scenario, keep up, a soft-eyed persona that was adapted then gone just as quickly. "Surviving a volcano's a pretty good reason. You came to the last one," he was back to the authority, though looked inquisitive again, wondering at the Soldier's rare slip of a not entirely negative response. Not no party, just a different one.

"I don't think I want to know what you're using for currency. Or did you bypass physical money altogether in favor of digital?" Probably nothing of the sort? He couldn't tell for sure though. He never could tell with Tony; the man put him off balance.

(And to be honest, the last thing the Agrii needed was their own cryptocurrency.)

"I didn't want to." Billy had asked him though, and he'd gone for some time. He wouldn't have made an appearance otherwise. Parties and other gatherings still made him uncomfortable. "I don't enjoy them."

There was the no. Tony deflated slightly, then rallied to insist, "Listen, we've got to start considering some kind of ranking system here, because if I start listing things, you're going to say you don't want or enjoy any of them. There's got to be levels to this, some kind of scale." There was a lot of things Tony didn't like either, but he could pretty confidently divide them between things he hated, and things he wouldn't seek out on his own, and it was possible the Soldier's baseline was broken enough that the scale didn't go any higher than that. "I don't want to go to bed at night thinking I'm something you hate. I spent too many thinking we'd be best friends, you have to ease me down into it, when I really deserve it." Maybe he shouldn't say that, he'd already earned plenty of ire for the demolition disaster. Quick, keep talking, "It would be an honour to be something you tolerate. Because I gave you a pony."

"Maybe we just like different things." Diversity made for an interesting world, right? Though the Soldier struggled some days with the simple distinction of like versus dislike and didn't think he'd want to rank things, especially on those days. How to order items when he felt all but paralyzed from too much choice? Not that he's ever admit as much to Tony.

"I don't hate you." Was that the true motivation behind this entire encounter? A worry about being perceived as hated? How odd. He watched Tony's face carefully, trying to see if he could unlock any deeper revelation; it couldn't be so plain. "I never have. I wouldn't make a good friend though. And I really don't need a pony."

Tony looked very skeptical of this refutation; not because he didn't expect them to have different tastes, that much seemed self-evident, but because the Soldier then just kept on saying he didn't like things and offered nothing to disprove Tony's theory. "Listen, there it is again, we can already put the ranking system into the ranking system," he said, animated so that maybe the Soldier would stop looking at him like that, laying a flat hand out at his side about elbow height to establish his chart. "We can start with something neutral. Like a breathable atmosphere. You're not going to say you like it (you don't like anything), you probably barely ever think about it, but it keeps you alive and breathing, so in a purely objective way we've all got to be a little bit of a fan of the atmosphere. Pure neutral. So ranking system is down here somewhere, in the ranks." He illustrated this by dropping his hand, very mathematically, down closer to his hip, then eyeing the Soldier for some indication that it should be higher or lower as his hand wavered. He abandoned exacting this level any further before he got a clear answer, turning his palm out to indicate all of the space in between his two established levels that could be filled out, with things that the Soldier liked more than Tony's perfect system. For example, "Okay, you don't need a pony, but I don't need a blowjob either, and I'd put that pretty high, I'm not going to turn one down," and he brought his hand up over his head, up in the 'actually likes' quadrant of the chart that he had access to. "And I don't need a cape," he added, which admittedly had to be lower on his ranking, bringing his arm down, "but a good friend thought I should have one."

"Why are you so determined to know how I rank... anything?" The question came colored not with scorn but pure curiosity. "Doesn't it all come down to personal opinion anyway?" He had no objections to Tony's system, he just didn't know why the other man seemed to care so much. It wasn't like his opinion mattered much to anyone else, unless it came down to those things at which he particularly excelled. And unfortunately he hated having those particular skills.

He made a face at even the idea of blowjobs; likely Tony saw it before he could school his expression back to neutral. The Soldier had absolutely no interest in those activities, and he knew it made him weird. What was wrong with him, indeed. He was broken, and probably beyond fixing.

"Tony," he began, then shook his head and tried again. "I'm not good at being anyone's friend. I don't know how."

Personal opinion was exactly what Tony thought they were trying to work out, so his hand came out in a tense clutch at the air for the Soldier to make that final connection that he was so close to. Maybe this whole venture wasn't as altruistic as he had been telling himself, though. The energy went out of his hand, making him drop it then withdraw it into the blanket where he could hug himself securely in the cocoon for a beat, focus dropping guiltily to the floor. He could practically hear Jon at his side, sighing and grumbling 'Try to listen, Tony'. He shouldn't have needed the Soldier to tell him they weren't friends that many times.

"Yeah, okay," he muttered, letting the blanket slip from his shoulders to bundle it back into the rest of the package, spilling over the sides now as Tony lifted the whole thing back up to his chest. "I'll make sure this gets to someone who needs it," he promised. He did at least get more than he came here for; he could assure Billy that his heartbreak was premature.

He thought the conversation had been going well, until Tony seemed to withdraw. It stung like a blow, more evidence that the Soldier deserved his current life as an outcast. He couldn't even warn someone without it backfiring on him. And now Tony apparently disliked him enough to hate even the blanket he'd so enthusiastically claimed moments earlier.

"I gave it to you. Not to a random someone. I thought you could need it. Maybe." See? He was trying to be nice. It wasn't Tony's fault that the Soldier seemed to choose every wrong conversation option. He was really bad at interpersonal interactions, to the point that he probably needed to just ask Billy to be a translator for him.

"What's wrong with me isn't your fault," he admitted quietly, not quite able to meet Tony's eyes. It was easier to pretend to be what HYDRA made him, even though he didn't enjoy it. "I don't know how to be anyone's friend, never mind a 'good' one. It's not you. I know I'm just going to disappoint you. Maybe I'm trying to save you the trouble."

The emphatic correction was enough to make Tony clutch the package more possessively, having turned it instantly from an act of scavenging that the Soldier seemed to be shaming him over when it was revealed, to an intentional offering that Tony wasn't very used to. He wasn't exactly easy to buy for. On the other hand, he was very easy to guilt, and while it hadn't occurred to him that anything about the Soldier was his fault, the Soldier independently volunteering that assurance did make it sound kind of like his fault. He definitely wasn't helping.

"Do I look like I have to be saved?" he asked, irritable in this new anxiety, and immediately regretted it enough to add, "Don't answer that." He wasn't looking cover shoot ready, he didn't really want to hear the Soldier's honest opinion on how miserable he looked. "Nobody knows how to be friends," he continued, which might have also been regrettably revealing, because there were definitely a few people that Tony knew who seemed to effortlessly get along with anyone. What he could claim with confidence was, "There's not exactly a manual, or a class you can take. I pay people. I know how to do that. If my best friend isn't on the payroll, I don't see him until I can manipulate him into a new contract. Your turn. It better be more embarrassing, you're the one that's got us in these trenches."

A blanket was a useful thing! Even if Tony just cut it up for shop rags, it would be useful. And wasn't that better than just taking up time and space in the other man's day? In the Soldier's mind, the math worked.

But as far as Tony's explanation went, it left him with a little better picture of the man. He didn't get allof it, especially why Tony seemed to try so hard. But he understood that Tony held the belief that this was important.

"I had orders," he began once Tony had finished, "when I was deployed. When I wasn't deployed, I was put in storage. Friends didn't exist in that life. And I don't really remember anything else." Surely Tony would have no doubts about how broken the Soldier's measure was. Surely he'd see that he had much better options than a half feral former assassin.

Edited (Omg this is why I shouldn't tag when I'm falling asleep ) 2023-10-06 12:11 (UTC)

"You're changing the parameters, that's not fair, I could have told you all kinds of embarrassing things that were done to me, now I'm the only asshole," Tony complained. To him, the Soldier was avoiding the immediate reality, so Tony probably should have led with, "And you're dwelling." The soldier had been the one to point out that they should be letting this stuff go. That was a nasty loophool if it was only supposed to apply to things they enjoyed, and the Soldier conveniently didn't enjoy anything.

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08 | It must be getting early; Clocks are running late

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