revivalproject | Mermay!!

Entry tags:

Mermay!!

WHO: Steve Rogers
WHERE: all around
WHAT: MERMAY
WHEN: MERMAY
WARNINGS: ....MERMAY

darling it's better

Steve can be found on his now early-morning swim around town, zipping past anyone. He'll happily deliver anything to anyone within the confines of Temba, for any reason, in the early morning, since he makes a whole loop around. He's faster than a shark, but he's got a rather ostentatious blue tail, with red and white striped fins.

He seems to be in a decent mood, if only because he's having trouble with a lot of his memories of the past that don't reconcile with his ones of being a merman. Anytime he tries too hard to wonder why there's a lack of water if he thinks too hard, the memory disappears like seafoam.

He's having one of those such moments, paused mid-fin flip, eyes in concentration as he starts to sink, but then, he shakes his head, and keeps swimming. That was weird!

down where it's wetter

Sitting on a rock somewhere, Steve's drawing things into the sand. If you ask, he could make a whole series of drawings, each of them replacing the last, ephemeral in nature, washed away by the waves.

"I can try drawing you next," he offers. He's not sure how portraits will work out in the sand, but he'll give it a good college try.

take it from me!

[ cw: injury ]

Having swum through a whole nest of sea urchins in order to grab one, somehow Steve'd accidentally loosened a whole bunch of them, and they'd fallen, mostly on his tail.

He swims out of there quickly, but he has lots of barbs sticking out. He pauses to pull one out, only to manage to accidentally shatter a few of the ones in a cluster and leave them further embedded into his tail. Trying to violently flip it doesn't really help, either. He needs to swim somewhere he can sit down and address this as best as he can.

"Tell me you have tweezers on you," he requests of the nearest He-Row that he finds.

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Leo's on his way past said rock, when he hears Steve speak up. He swims over to take a look, all four flippers propelling him as he swims. He's still a turtle, just a sea turtle now instead of a slider. It doesn't stop him from being as colorful as usual, though.

The offer immediately gets him lighting up, settling onto a rock across from Steve and posing dramatically.

"Get my good side."

Someone coming clattering into the hangar wasn't completely unexpected, the ships had the most generous accommodations, after all, but it was rare enough that Tony startled with a final sharp twang as his claw snapped a guitar string in his surprise. The second one already, which was a brief distraction that had him glaring at his hand like it was an unfamiliar enemy, definitely not used to being so accident prone. That did at least leave him laying very still, and when he was able to put aside his frustration with himself he kept the hand suspended like that, cautiously listening for movement. Of course, he wasn't lucky enough that they hadn't heard him, the music must have been audible outside. He only relaxed slightly, letting his hand drop onto his chest, by the second word as he recognized the voice.

"Usually," he answered before he was rolling up from his back on the top of the Glitter Food and came slithering far enough to peer over the edge with the headstock of the guitar tucked under his chin, down at Steve. "Jesus, what happened to you?" he was startled again, not prepared for Steve's new fashion statement.

Steve smiles at him and starts, poking his stick around the sand. "They're all your good sides, Leo."

But he's glad that Leo's feeling good, because he knows Tony was worried about that. So he asks: "Did you like the gameboy?"

Steve had, in fact, heard the music. He had thought it was quite nice, except for the snapped string, which he's sure that he'd caused. It's a shame, really, because on any other day, he would've liked to hear Tony play.

Despite his entrance, Steve crosses his arms over his chest and tries to ignore the pain, plenty of spines sticking out of his tail making him look like a porcupine, some others just snapped close to the skin, and some others making black bumps underneath his beautiful tail.

He looks like a pathetic morningstar.

"Swam through a nest of sea urchin," is what he says, as he takes a bag off his shoulder and lets it fall to the floor, full of the stuff. "Thought maybe we could have some uni."

Leo’s not doing that well, but he does what he always does with unpleasant emotions: shoves them down as far as he can so no one knows they’re even there. He can plaster on his face-man smile just fine.

His smile gets wider when Steve says that - he catches on quick! And is absolutely right.

Though the question manages to make his smile droop, turning to confusion.

“Huh? What gameboy?”

A foraging misadventure was a much funnier answer than Tony had braced himself for, surprising him again with a bubble of a laugh that still ended with a pitying sigh. He was already on his way down when he cautioned, "Don't move around too much, Winghead," so those spines couldn't get embedded even further before Tony could deal with them. The guitar hit the ground carelessly with a hollow thunk next to the bag of urchins as Tony threw it aside to wrap an arm around Steve instead and drift him over to the light spilling down the steps of the waiting transport shuttle. "Your romantic evening can still be salvaged," he promised, "But maybe bring a big bouquet, or something really shiny, too."

Steve keeps drawing, every so often looking up at Leo, but he's also slightly confused. "What do you mean?" he asks. "Didn't Tony come over with the gameboy?"

And then, realization settles on his face.

Only. It's the wrong kind.

"Is that not what it's called? It's like a, handheld. Videogame, I think he said."

His ear fins deflate a little when Tony laughs at him, but he supposes he deserves it, as he floats on over and lets Tony carry him the rest of the way. "Wasn't a romantic evening," he says. "I was gonna deliver some. Thought maybe you'd want one. You and Jan."

Only because they were the fanciest people he knows, so maybe they'd actually like the taste, or know what to do with it.

“Uh yeah, that’s what a gameboy is.” They’re old, from Leo’s perspective (he was born after the Gameboy Advance released), but his family uses a lot of old tech so he’s familiar. “But uh, why was Tony supposed to bring me one?”

Leo hasn’t seen that guy since the whole pod fiasco.

That first part must not have stuck, because Tony purred, "At the same time? Ambitious," as he directed Steve onto the stairs where he could see best. His tools weren't too far, but the same deft claws that sliced easily through metal guitar strings made for fine tweezers, at least for the moment and enough that suited Tony's impatience. He'd hardly made sure Steve was settled before he was sinking down into the coil of his own tail to coax Steve's fin into his lap and start meticulously searching there first for any delicate spines that he might miss without the feathery sweep over Steve's brilliant stripes. The water fizzed as his currents sought out any iron that Tony couldn't see dispersed in the water.

He blinks a little, slowly, and stops dragging the stick across the sand. "He... made you one." A beat. "He didn't bring it to you, did he?"

Steve shakes his head. "He thinks you're mad at him."

Yeah, yeah, of course Tony would take the opportunity to flirt. It's not like Steve's helping, but this was the first place he thought to go. Some of his skin is already healing over the ones that he broke, which means they're embedded quite deep, the blue a raised little bump over a dark black underneath. The serum works wonders, but it's also annoying sometimes.

He might have to break the skin in order to get those ones out, as the point of ingress is no longer obvious.

"Next time I go out there, I'm putting armor on first," he says.

The easier spines had to come out first as Tony worked his way up Steve's tail, feeling his way along the scales and mapping where he had to return as he went. The pins that he could grab were quickly gathered into his palm, and in his focus he only seemed to hesitate when the intrusion had left Steve's beautiful scales bunched or shattered, and Tony had to carefully smooth them down or pluck them free as well. He had directed Steve's tail up over his shoulder by the time he answered, "Just send in one of the bots if there has to be a next time. Are you even sure these aren't poisonous? You should ask Jon..." He flushed slightly, glad to have another scale to focus on intently, sure he had said that exact phrase enough times to be embarrassingly predictable now, but he still had to finish, "He'll know how to treat it, if it's a problem."

"It'll be fine, Tony," he says, wincing a little as he plucks a particularly tough one out. He looks embarrassed and apologetic when they start bleeding once pulled, even though he's sure Tony isn't afraid of getting a little blood on himself and he's sure his own Steve's bled on him a couple times before.

"Serum's already taking care of these ones," he says, pointing to some of them that had been taken out earlier, where the tail looks fresh and new, aside from how the scales haven't grown back.

"And you know I'm resistant to poison," he adds. "If you want me to get along with your boyfrie--" he sucks in a breath for a moment. "--nd, you could do the normal thing and invite us both to dinner. Jan and I are your family, right?"

The amount of Steve's blood that Tony'd personally had in his mouth made the little blooms of it in the water barely register, and they were quickly dulled by the spark that ran through them. It was only when Tony glanced up at that wince that it occurred to him to slow down with a more apologetic sooth over the last splinter that he pulled, realizing this might have been yet another intimacy that he had been taking for granted. He still might have dug his claws in a little too aggressively when Steve took his own liberties with Tony's intentions. Not that he had an argument.

"And give her another opportunity to try to kill him?" he asked. She hadn't pulled any punches in their game of chicken, and that was her good impression best behaviour. Mumbled into Steve's tail, he did add, "I'll think about it," because they were going to have plenty of opportunities to share a meal imminently, and Steve could find out for himself how viable that idea was once Tony had the university properly prepared.

Tony made him a gameboy? Leo’s puzzled look stays until Steve offers something of an explanation.

“Sooo he made me a gameboy so I would stop being mad at him?” Leo huffs, turning his nose up. “He must not care that much if he didn’t even give it to me.”

Steve appreciates that Tony's trying to take a gentler touch with him. Even though he doesn't really mind when it hurts to take out the spikes - he's gotten in worse scraps before, but even Steve Rogers hates papercuts and splinters.

There's a few in there so deep; he's not looking forward to those ones. But if Tony's willing to do those, it's at least nicer than having to do them himself.

"Don't think she was really going to hurt him," he responds. It was just a game, after all.

"No, he made a gameboy because he wanted to cheer you up," Steve says. "He didn't even want to be the one to give it to you. He told me to say that I made it," he says. "Ask Donnie - that's a lie I can't sell."

I mean, maybe he doesn't have to if Steve had to clarify that a gameboy is a videogame, which it isn't even. But he's a proto-boomer, leave him be.

At the suggestion that he ask Donnie, Leo can't help but hunch his shoulders up a little. Oh look, it's the negative emotions he's trying to avoid!

"I can't ask Donnie. He was sent home."

At least, that's what Leo hopes happened. Based on what they saw in that pod room, he's guessing it is. He doesn't like thinking about the potential alternatives.

"But why does he even think he needs to cheer me up? Or that I'm mad at him? Sheesh, we barely know each other, why does he think he knows everything about how I feel."

Oh. That's what that was. He'd just thought that Donnie had gotten killed or hurt or something, but he'd have returned.

He deflates. "Sorry." And then he crosses his arms over his chest. "I don't know why he thinks you're mad at him. He just gets like that sometimes. He makes up this whole narrative in his head where it's all his fault."

Tony was rapidly running out of the easier spines to extract, so those more embedded ones were going to have to be managed soon and he could only put it off for so long by testing them hopefully for a sliver that he could grip. Just as methodically, he felt his way back down Steve's tail, sliding himself back down the length of it with his fingers tracing a constant warm hum along the patterns of Steve's scales. It must have been clear that he no longer had a real excuse by the time he was restlessly petting just over Steve's elegant fin, and he chewed his lip like he had to focus when he was really trying to come up with any reason to maintain the contact.

"She thinks we're dating--" he produced, and already had to rephrase with his head tipped side to side, "we are dating, I guess, back home, on her Earth. Did she tell you that?" He had given up his searching, both hands just wrapped around Steve's tail, fingers tapping with sparks stretching between them. "For me, we had tried, long time ago, but I was lying to her then, to all of you, and hadn't told you that I was Iron Man. When she found out, you all found out, she was hurt, called me all kinds of names, mostly because I was supposed to be her husband's friend. Iron Man was his friend, and Tony Stark was dating his wife. That's..." A unique kind of betrayal, Tony had to admit, and not one that he thought they'd recover from; that wasn't a great quality in a romantic partner. He started to laugh then, though, because he had to add, "You--Steve was furious, though. I think he was more mad than she was. You're right about the family thing."

Let's all be glad Donnie didn't get killed, or Leo would be reacting very differently right about now.

As it is, he shakes that off. "No, it's good," he says quickly. Because it is! It's a good thing that Donnie is home. He was homesick, Leo could tell. He's happy for him!

Let's not talk about how Leo is all alone now, shall we? Let's focus on this whole Tony situation instead.

"I mean, some of it was his fault. A pretty good chunk of it was his fault, actually? But it was my fault and Wesker's fault too, so..." Leo huffs and folds his fins over his chest. "I mean, I guess I am kinda mad at him for not listening to me to begin with. But I'm mad at Wesker too, so he's not special!"

"Wait, Jan was cheating on her husband with you?" he asks, shocked. He hadn't thought Jan would be a cheater, and he hadn't thought Tony would settle for being the other man. He's hoping for an excuse for all this, because it's making him a little more wary of the both of them.

He has no room in his heart for infidelity. It seems the other Steve Rogers agrees on that front.

Even if it's his friend, helping him get his scales out. He can see Tony's just doing petting now, though, so he might have to just cut the rest out himself. He's not sure what Tony expects out of telling Steve this - he also wouldn't know what Jan expects from Tony. Was she going to leave her husband for him?

Okay. He doesn't know the exact situation, and he doesn't want to ask Leo about it, because he doesn't want to keep opening these wounds. And he has no idea what Wesker and Tony have to do with this. "Seems like maybe you just need a little space," he says.

Sounds about right for Tony. "Look, how are you doing?" He does want to check in that Leo wasn't all alone.

“Uh, yeah, I’m not going around Wesker again if I don’t have to. And Tony is avoiding me, I guess. Kinda can’t get any more space than that.”

Why are these adults all so exhausting? Leo thought you were supposed to have your life together in middle age… (Then again, his dad for sure doesn’t.)

He cools down at the question, his usual smile fitting right back onto his face. “I’m good! Fintastic, even!”

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Mermay!!

darling it's better

down where it's wetter

take it from me!

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