This Is How We Get Along

[doubled_speed]

WHO: Tommy Shepherd, Tony Stark, Billy Hargrove
WHERE: Tony's Workshop, Tommy's Room in Avengers HQ
WHAT: Trying to figure out a gift; emotional vulnerability
WHEN: Late September, Early October
WARNINGS: To Be Added in the Billy Hargrove Thread

I. What Do You Get For A Surfer Dude? | Closed to Tony

The thing about Tommy was that he was kind of shit about asking for help when he needed it for himself. Things that would benefit him, or make his life better, or help him deal with his shit. It wasn't something he did. Which always made him showing up to ask for it harder.

So yeah, his showing up (after a good bit of searching) at Tony's workshop door, knocking lightly as he did so, was odd. Him looking nervous was probably less so. He was, after all, trying to heal what he thought was some damage between them due to his own actions. But this wasn't about any of that. This was about asking for help. And fuck if he wasn't shit at that.

II. The Terror of Being Known | Closed to Billy Hargrove

Between them they have so many places to withdraw to. The shack on the beach, the apartment above the diner, the rooms taken up by Billy for his winter in the Civics Center. And here. The place Billy is getting to see for the first time while he comes help Tommy make the place more homey.

A room in the established Avengers HQ. A place shared with Steve Rogers and Janet Van Dyne and probably others. A place that was more plain than the efforts he had taken with the diner's space. Which was supposed to change today. That was absolutely the plan.

A plan that was being foiled by the frustrated noise as Tommy tried, once again, to get a table to sit level. He'd been trying to shim this thing for ten minutes now. Ten minutes for someone like Billy. A lot more than that for Tommy. It was a frustration so deep that he finally did something stupid. He kicked a leg of it in frustration. And with speed. Too much speed. The metal leg bent from the force, dumping the table and the box of tools and decorations that had been sitting on it to the floor.

Which in turn only amped Tommy's bad mood up further, leaving him fuming in particular down at a small, potted plant that clearly had a damaged pot now. Something that was going to take repotting.

"Fucking hell."

Comments

I

[in_extremis]

The knock was so gentle that Tony couldn't entirely ignore it. The sound had him lifting his head, looking over at the door with pinched annoyance, ready to go quiet long enough that whoever it was gave up and went away, like watching the phone ring as he stared lasers at the call display. It hadn't been insistent, though. Strangely quiet.

The silk robe he drew along with him to pull over his sweatpants was only half way up one arm by the time the door swung open, and remained there for a beat while Tony froze in surprise, eyebrows raised and struggling to recalibrate from his expectation to see Jon waiting on the other side. When he did manage to process, he finally shrugged the sleeve on enough to brace the arm across the doorway instead, and greet shortly, "Thomas," with an expectant expression.

[doubled_speed]

"Please don't call me that," Tommy sighs pretty instantly. "That's what Frank and Mary called me."

And come on, Tony. Do you want to be like the Shepherds? Probably not.

"I. Uh. I needed some advice, and you're the person I know with the most relationship experience so I was hoping... You could spare some wisdom?"

[in_extremis]

That also wasn't the request that Tony expected, so his expression turned to a dubious frown before he was glancing over his shoulder like he might have left someone in there better equipped to handle this. The last time Tony was doling out relationship wisdom, he had told Tommy to assault his boyfriend. There wasn't anyone else there, though, so he had to reluctantly venture, "What happened?" Tommy wasn't exactly coming at him with the bravado he was usually full of.

[doubled_speed]

"Nothing happened I just..."

Tommy sighs as he stands there. This is an awkward conversation to have in a hall but he isn't going to invade Tony's space right now.

"I'm better at gifts and surprises when I can go shopping. And I can't do that right now. But you make stuff. I thought maybe you might have ideas."

[in_extremis]

Tommy was still making it sound pretty heavy, and had to endure Tony's scrutinizing stare until he relented with a short nod, scratching through his hair as he dropped his barring arm in favour of leaning a shoulder against the doorframe instead. "Might depend on what you're apologizing for," he prompted.

[doubled_speed]

It's heavy because there are important emotions involved. Surely Tony's known enough speedsters over the years to know how shit they are at emotional matters.

"Not apologizing. I swear. I just... I want to get him something nice? That's how people show affection, right? And borrowing clothes. But that's more the affection the person being borrowed from is showing. And he's bigger than me. So it doesn't go well in the other direction. Normally I'd find a store and buy something. And I guess I could use the replicator for that. But I do it with window shopping. Like for his birthday."

So he's lost.

[in_extremis]

"You're doing this backwards," Tony muttered as Tommy rambled, and only clarified after a beat, "Not, 'I saw this and it made me think of you', but 'I was thinking of you so I got you something'. That's what flowers are for. No wonder you're already out of ideas." He scratched through his hair again, hands flexing without something to occupy them, then pushed a knuckle against his lip, very aware that he didn't need to say all of that. It still didn't stop him from talking more, "You could start with 'why'. You know, 'I thought you deserved a break, so I got you a boat'. 'I thought you'd look good in silk, so I got you these--pants.'"

[doubled_speed]

Was he? Tommy doesn't know.

"I've only dated Kyle before, Tony. I literally don't know how to do this stuff," he admits. "Expecting people to want to keep me around is very new territory. And being charming past the initial hook wasn't my thing either."

Other people did the heavy lifting because Tommy was terrified of the end of things. Too busy mentally racing forward to slow down and take things in properly. To enjoy life in the moment.

"I definitely don't have a boat and he already has a surf board. And I don't know if he'd look good in silk. But... I just want to see him smile. To make him happy. Shit, it sounds silly, doesn't it?"

[in_extremis]

None of that had Tony looking any less skeptical, and he gave an impatient glance down the hall while chewing his lip before he was sighing and twirling a hand in the air expectantly. He has to resign himself to dropping it, because he knew Tommy hadn't actually been listening and had to be prompted again, "So, what makes him happy?" Tony had only really met the kid once, and had mostly figured how how to piss him off, so that wasn't exactly his area of expertise. "That should be, you know, the intended output of a relationship, making each other happy, you're going to have to tell me what you think is a less 'silly' use of your time. No one universal answer to that one, either. Pretty sure a thesaurus would delight Jon. Got a feeling you'd throw it at my head."

[doubled_speed]

"The beach. Being able to protect people. His car. Surfing," Tommy lists off. The shells stuff but he isn't sharing that.

Though he doesn't think it's a silly use of his time. Just silly that his whole entire desire is so simple. It should be more. It should be amazing and huge and impressive. But he doesn't know how to do that.

"And really, don't get a thesaurus. But a leather bound edition of all the Pierrot novels might work. For Jon and me."

Yeah, Tommy reads. But there's no books here.

[in_extremis]

Tony gave a nod and tap at his heart so assure Tommy he heard and had internalized the suggestion, but his snort as he did so didn't make it very convincing. He mouthed 'leather-bound' with wide eyes, then sucked his teeth and was looking around, back into the shop again, raising a finger for Tommy to wait. It turned out, he did know something about Billy's happiness.

It only took a bit of searching, during which D.A.T.A. rolled to Tommy's feet to peer up at him, and feed out two of his spindly arms to wave as a distraction. Tony pursed his lips at the meagre display as he came sauntering back, and didn't wait for Tommy to ask before he was dumping parts into his arms. "I took a look at his car. It's not going to get moving in that state. Those should help."

[doubled_speed]

His arms are suddenly loaded with stuff and Tommy looks... so confused.

"I don't know anything about cars. Wouldn't a car part coming from me be... disingenuous?"

[in_extremis]

Tony had to look confused back at him, squinting and waiting expectantly for some kind of elaboration. Eventually, he had to ask, "Would giving you the book be disingenuous unless I wrote it?"

[playingtough]

So many places. Autumn weather was coming, so soon, Billy would be moving from the beach shack back into the Civics Center for the winter. A nice place that was really close to the diner, too, so bonus. And there would be more nights spent in that little apartment. Maybe he should get the Civics Center spruced up to be for both of them? Hm.

For now, he'd been called to help Tommy decorate his new place, his third home away from home, the Avengers HQ or some nerdy name like that. Going in the main door, he had a little bundle with him wrapped up in some spare fabric, and was now hunting for his boyfriend.

It didn't take too long to find him, hearing a frustrated noise down the hall he was in and standing in the door to watch the table go from upright to bent over as one of the legs got bent out. "What'd your table do to you, babe? Need me to fetch a spare out of the diner or we gonna fix that one?"

[doubled_speed]

Fix? How was he going to fix this? Literally he'd been trying for a while. And the metal weakness wasn't going to be reparable. With a frustrated noise Tommy carded his fingers through his hair and tilted his head into the room.

"Just come in and close the door."

The sensible, older Avengers don't need to see him in a shit ass mood.

[playingtough]

Okay. Billy does as asked, moving into the room and using his foot to push the door shut behind him. He doesn't need to ask if Tommy's in a bad mood. He could read it easily off of his boyfriend like he could Neil's quiet dominance in the Cherry Road house. He moves to set his bundle down on the bed.

"Well, whatever's got you bent out of shape, I'm here, so it'll be better easily." A probably poor attempt at lifting the mood in the room. "We'll just find something to use as a temp leg for it until you can get a different table or get this one fixed."

[doubled_speed]

Will it though? He's so pissed off at his own head that he's not sure better is an easy thing to do. Even with Billy around.

"It's a shit table that wouldn't even stand properly before and-"

And he looks at all the spilled stuff and realizes something that was in that box. It leads to a string of expletives (in a number of languages but thanks to the inherent translation the Agrii inflict on him amounts to the same or similar curse over and over) as he rescues it.

There's a small tear in the canvas of the painting. And with it comes tears of grief and anger.

"And now I have to beg my brother for a bit of magic."

Because he can't just have Vizh's painting damaged. It was the one gift of meaning any version of his parents ever gave him.

[playingtough]

"Quit it," he says with a little too firm of a voice. It sounded like the start of a spiral and they can't decorate if Tommy's doing that. Which, it seems to work as Tommy stops talking and goes for something on the floor.

Finally. Decorating. They can worry about the table later.

Except——

His partner is pulling out a canvas, a painting of some sort, that has a slight tear. Shit. Shit, Tommy's got tears.

Billy moves to Tommy and puts hands on his shoulders from behind. God, he can feel the tension there. "I'll ask him. Even if you did ask him, I'm sure he won't mind all that much. He'll make it look like nothing happened."

[doubled_speed]

Yes, it's a spiral. The start of a really bad one. One that probably isn't going to stop just because he's told to.

"He's going to think I was being stupid. That I shouldn't have let something Vision made me get hurt. It's survived through multiple damagings of our place, and I fucked it up now!"

[playingtough]

Billy… Billy has no idea what to do for a spiral. A spiral not really aimed at him like Neil would do with his anger. They hadn’t gone over dealing with other people’s anger in his lessons with Gladio, really only his own.

So Tommy’s anger starts stirring up his own, though Billy tries to keep it in check.

"It was just a fucking accident, Shepherd!" Oops, a little bit of a raised voice. "Who cares if you did it when it was an accident?! We’ll ask Kaplan to fix it, or I’ll ask him!"

[doubled_speed]

He cares. He cares. So much.

"I care. Because of all the parents I was given, he was the only one that loved me. The only one that wanted me. The only one that ever celebrated my birthday!"

So to him it's not an accident. It's failing the only person that cared.

[playingtough]

He knows that Tommy has a depth of care that goes even deeper than that lake in the city. Billy has seen it towards himself and others. Reaching out, the blond grabs the speedster by the shoulders.

"I get it," Billy says with tightness in his voice. "It’s special, I get it. It’s still an accident. Did you kick the fucking painting? No, you kicked the table. You can go find a different one and I’ll take the painting for Kaplan to get it fixed. That’s what you do with accidents right? You fix them, you don’t just yell at them and hope it does it itself!"

Though he’d be a hypocrite if he had done the same thing to the vase of shells. The Californian would be just as mad and yelling.

[doubled_speed]

The problem with growing up in a household like Tommy had was that the way accidents were normally addressed was with yelling. Usually at him. And while he'd gotten better at not doing that, this was absolutely some old ass form of mirroring going on.

"I know my powers," Tommy snaps, but he doesn't pull away. "I know what I fucking am. A fucking speedy freak that can break just about anything even if I don't mean to. I shouldn't have kicked the table! I should have known better!"

So yeah, still upset.

[playingtough]

The snapping rules Billy up more, and his hands grip onto those shoulders hard before giving him a shake. This wasn’t good. None of it was. Billy’s anger was feeding from Tommy’s and both of them were going to spiral like this. "Don’t snap at me when I’m trying to fucking help!"

Another shake. "But you still have fucking emotions, right? You’re not allowed to fuck up?! To have accidents, Shepherd?! Just because you’re damn superhero doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to fuck something up every now and again!"

[doubled_speed]

"Because my mistakes can kill people. Easily!"

And that's what it comes down to, isn't it? His mistakes can kill people so much easier than other people can accidentally kill someone. His mistakes can blow up buildings. His mistakes destroy lives on an impossible level.

His mistakes leave barely any body.

"Because," he says, his voice falling low and shameful, "because my powers make my fuck ups disaster areas."