revivalproject

Entry tags:

Loom

WHO: Tony and open
WHERE: The Temba greenhouse
WHAT: Taking care of the greenhouse
WHEN: End of February
WARNINGS: That's up to you

It was early enough that Tony's breath still came in a faint puff even inside the greenhouse. He didn't think much of it at first, of course it was cold, and inside was still an effective haven from the frost that had reddened his ears as he crossed the square. Not so much from the dark, which seemed to cling to the ground, pressing in from the density of eerily still plants with the deep blue of the sun not quite breaking the horizon yet wilting against them. Tony could feel his heart in his chest, trying to hear the scuttling legs he knew were in that darkness, squinting to try to find some source of light. There had to be lights in here. It was almost enough to send him back out, try again later, but his stomach grumbled and the street just outside the window was washed with that tepid grey already. It wasn't that dark. Bugs probably slept.

By the time he had made his way along the perimeter, closest to the windows and the too slowly climbing sun, he had a paltry few berries in the (evidently overconfident) bucket that he had brought along with him. They weren't going to be enough to feed him, let alone bring back to the kitchen like Tommy would have. Tony was going to have to venture deeper in, and, god forbid, investigate some of the plants closer to the ground and the crawling things within. How was he supposed to tell when a potato was ripe? Did potatoes ripen? It was while he was crouched down by a bed of completely mysterious tubers that he became so viscerally aware of the barrel that he was staring down, that he was going to have to figure this out if he really thought he was capable of staying here alone, and just how much he took from the extraordinary people who had been doing the work while he made their lives more difficult. He risked pulling a glove off with his teeth to test the tenderness of a hanging leaf, dainty pinky out in case he felt an antenna or fuzzy body hiding on the underside, and found only wilted crepe, dry and cold. Around his glove, his breath still fogged. From there, still knelt down, his eyes finally flicked up, searching along the windows, not for the light outside but the glass. The cold and the constant wet of the winter had not been kind to the most robust of the buildings. This one featured a hasty patch job.

Another breath, this time a sigh that swirled around Tony's head and dissipated into the darkness. There was more for him to do here than collect a few berries.

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By then, Tony had at least adjusted to the light, barely squinting anymore as Little Bear did his first bounce of delight. It was a very brief reprieve though, because Tony had to let out his own low wuff as the air was knocked out of him with the weight of the dog's paws on his shoulders, and he barely had the chance to twist his face to the side so he didn't get frenched by an animal. With one eye screwed shut against the slobbery assault and mouth twisted to the side, he mumbled, "Yeah, yeah, big man, I get it," hands on Little Bear's flanks thumping a greeting in return. He might have even been smiling when the dog deemed him damp enough to draw back for a pat to his nose instead, until he realized Little Bear hadn't come alone and noticed the movement behind him.

"Ms. Buckley," Tony tried to greet with dignity, easing Little Bear back so he could wipe some of his face clean on his shoulder. "You'll have to promise you're a better kisser if you want one, too."

"Tony," she says, smiling a little before patting her hip. Little Bear jumps down and comes back to her side. He was pretty well trained before she acquired him.

"I'm really going to pass on kissing literally anyone on this planet, thanks. What are you doing out here so late, and in the dark?"

Tony opened his hands as though he took offense to that, inquisitive like he couldn't believe she would say something so dismissive to his exhausted, dog-slobbered face. Who could turn that down? Then he tossed a shoulder, and was quick to correct, "Early. I'm kind of a morning person." That one couldn't sit on the bench long before it got too obviously brittle, so Tony had to swiftly move them along, twisting to crouch back down to his work like he had any idea what he was doing with these leaves as he blurted, "Eddie's stuff is at the university, if that's what you're looking for. I didn't think anyone else would really--you know, it's just some dice and some books, but if that's why you're not on the ship..." The guitar was more likely, but Tony wasn't so eager to just offer that.

Lesbians. Who see him as literally dad aged given she's only going on 18. Sure, he would have had to fathered her when he was her age, but in her defense: her parents had.

"Ew, morning person," Robin groans. That was so not her own vibe. She didn't like getting up early. "Guess the dog's sorta forcing that point for me."

She does approach closer, tilting her head in confusion.

"I don't have the right to his stuff. Maybe, in time, I'll see about it. Make sure I don't have to do certain... family duties."

She was, after all, from the generation of queers who tried to beat families to the home to destroy any evidence of things. The honorable thing to do. But people here wouldn't judge him for that.

"I'm planetside because I don't trust Hargrove on his own right now. And I really don't like alien hugs. And... And I wanted to try and help in ways I can? Which of course means I need to think of what to do. Figured I could maybe try helping pick things. After I feed Little Bear. It's not hard to do farm stuff, right? I mean, serfs did it."

She's so not ready to be a farm worker.

Who had what rights to what remained of the people here hadn't really been the gas in Tony's engine, and he had to shoot Robin a sidelong glance to make sure that wasn't accusatory, because he didn't really have a defense against it, either. Ultimately, he was left with a puzzled frown, because he had no idea what 'family duties' meant in this context. "For Steve...?" was his best guess. What the three of them had meant to each other, and what parts of Eddie they were missing, were a second hand abstract to Tony. Maybe he should have thought a little more about those rights.

He looked down at the plants like he was baffled that anyone would be considering applying themselves to this job, even as he knelt over them with his bucket and gloves. "I'm kind of working that out for myself," he admitted. "Serfs had to wash dishes, too," he did point out. "And, you know, other things, that are--some people think dishes are difficult."

"Steve's, like, part of me. But in a sibling way. And Eddie's... Well, Eddie and him have way different stuff going on than me and Eddie. So yeah, it's not my place. Friends are one thing. Loved ones are something else, you know?"

As for working it out, she considers. Then nods her head.

"Well, I've known people who could break dishes washing them. You stay here and be smart while watching the dog. I'm going to go get the datapoint. Just for now."

Better to get to know something, right? That way they can teach each other. Or themselves. Sure, Robin's avoided weird brain stuff for a while, but it hadn't seemed to hurt her friends, so yeah, she can do it for a night.

Robin's claim made enough sense as presented that Tony didn't immediately respond; it was only after a beat that his lips parted with a frown, and still he didn't know exactly what he meant to articulate until Robin was talking again, and he only could really mumble, "No..." He didn't really know. At least then she was giving him the time to consider it, which he encouraged with a small nod and expectant raise of his eyebrows at Little Bear. The dog didn't need much of a signal to come trotting back where Tony could pretend he was holding the animal in place with a hand on his neck. "She's not running a familiar operating system," he murmured, and Little Bear seemed happy enough to have any conversation. "Yeah, you probably got her figured out, you don't have to rub it in."

Robin really wasn't. She was a unique, hand coded operating system. People wished they could run on her OS. Okay, that was probably a bad joke. But soon enough she's back. And look, she even found a basket.

"Alright. I've got the datapoint. I know what the weeds look like and what we can eat. I just need to start by getting one of those savory potato things for Little Bear. Any chance you've got some way to roast it on you? You're, like, the smart guy, right?"

Tony had been dissuaded of the delusion that he was the smart guy some time ago, so he replied, "Compared to him?" with a thumb toward Little Bear, "Sure." He was more than happy to divert from possible beetle interactions, though, to set something on fire. He didn't exactly have an oven on him, but fire did come naturally. All he needed was this sagging trellis from the garden, and some of the litter below it, and shortly his bucket, which had been a disappointing collection method, was becoming a respectable potato-roaster. As he worked, he asked, "You don't love your friends?," which did sound unfair, out loud like that.

Little Bear, seeming to get the attention is for him, dances happily around the whole creation while Robin returns with one of the striped potatoes. She does pause, though, to consider Tony's question.

"Yeah, of course I do. But, like, if it was a friend that had a romantic partner and then a friend, wouldn't you think the romantic partner gets first dibs? After family of course. If it was Steve it'd be me all up in that stuff. But it's Eddie. So I have to let Steve handle it first. So I can be there for him."

She's learned something about prioritizing she thinks.

"Like, I wouldn't take Max's stuff without Billy getting to it first. I have to respect their pain too."

That hierarchy didn't feel nearly as solid as Robin presented it to Tony, and it didn't seem like she actually thought so, either, earning her an unconvinced tip of Tony's head and expectant purse of his lips as she went on to admit that Eddie wouldn't get those dibs in her hypothetical scenario. She managed to outrank the romantic partner in that structure.

"That doesn't mean yours doesn't matter," Tony could point out. "Everyone handles their grief differently. You don't have to assume what Steve is feeling takes precedence, it's just different." Maybe not with this situation exactly; Robin did seem more concerned about her friend than any loss on her part. With a toss of his shoulder, focused on stoking his fire to a roasting constant, Tony said, "Besides, the romantic partner, they're the most likely to have eventually left, anyway."

She did say family outranks romantic partners, right? Well, it's not always true. But it is for her and Steve. They have something special between them.

"Guess we're just gonna have different opinions on that."

Then she looks at him out of the corner of her eyes.

"What about you? You seem, like, out of it. Did you lose a romantic partner? Is this from experience?"

They weren't built to agree about much, and while that wasn't new to Tony, used to feeling out of sync, the lack of volatility in it was paradoxically destabilizing. The catch and flare of the fire made more sense, and gave him a reason to keep his head down where he could produce a convincing, wry smile. "A few," he answered. "The expectations are higher," he rationalized, "and when you don't meet them, it cuts deeper. Friends, you can have a bunch of 'em, and you don't have to trust all of them to take care of you, you can still look them in the eye after they've stumbled home drunk. They stick around, maybe at a distance. Your partner, though, you can't be wasting time with someone who's not meeting the moment, no matter how much you want it to work." He gave another shrug. It was inevitable, then, that he would keep trying and not measure up.

Huh, that's not a stance she's ever heard.

"Must be nice, not having to stick around. I've seen plenty of relationships where the women clearly don't think they can easily walk away from their husbands. The 'burden' of being divorced. Or worse, courts punishing them for it."

Must be nice to be able to walk away if you need to.

Marriage hadn't been factored in to Tony's position, it wasn't familiar to him, making him tilt his head in consideration. They were both definitely products of their time, too, and perhaps of their gender, though Tony's girlfriends had never seemed to have much trouble walking away. "I could get so mad at my mom, sometimes, even now," he admitted after a thoughtful pause, "thinking, why didn't she ever leave? It wasn't the money. She had her own. She could have walked out. I'd get drunk and break a window and my gal would say goodbye, this used to be fun, and I'd spend the rest of the night thinking about my mom."

He took a beat to pat Little Bear's nose, where he could press his mouth into a thin smile and it was easily returned with a panting grin. "I've never really thought about how different it must have been, must be for you--dating in 2010, the future came at us fast. I don't think she could have walked away, either. I hate the idea that she'd owe him anything, after that. That he'd get 'first dibs'." The revelation hadn't exactly changed his position, but it did have a different texture.

Ouch, maybe he gets it after all. Gets that marriages can be hell.

"Social stigma must survive," she sighs. "Could be worse. The whole 'women can have their own bank accounts' is pretty refreshing."

Happened in her lifetime after all.

"Do... people get more freedom in who they can be with? In your time?"

If Tony could just get Robin back home, there was such a big, open future waiting for her, earning her a lopsided, guilty smile for the bank accounts. It dropped entirely at her question, though, and Tony had to find an excuse to look anywhere else, tugging on the dog's ear this time while he crafted his answer. There wasn't really any benefit to telling Robin the whole truth. "Of course," he said. "Faster'n you know it, really. Listen, we're making interstellar deals with beings from Andromeda and the astral plane, we're trying to build in the Negative Zone, we can't be hung up on who other people are willing to share a toothbrush with. You're going to, really, be getting on board fast with dating, you know, the concept of spring. She came from space, she's made of clouds. She's hard to buy for, but a great listener." How on board other people truthfully were was worth a lot less than giving Robin something extraordinary to look forward to.

Interstellar deals? Astral planes? Negative Zone?

"Really?" she asks, and she looks almost anxious. "I just... would be happy to not have to risk bible thumpers being ready to thump me."

Tony should have seen the backfire coming. Instead of a smile, he got Robin worked up, and he gave himself a short, impatient nod for having to learn that lesson the thousandth time. "You get that a lot?" he asked, a little incredulous. Sure, he had plenty of religious protestors standing outside his door for his heretical lifestyle, but his sins were very public, and there were plenty of groups who took umbrage with them. Robin seemed more like she made an effort not to be seen.

"I don't tell people," she admits. "Because they would do that. Not my parents. Hippies and free love and all of that."

But the other stuff? Come on, she lives in a small town in Indiana in the 80s. It would be dangerous.

While Tony was certain he wouldn't want to have been raised by hippies, this did make him squint inquisitively, feeling like he missed an important function. "So, your parents are supportive, and you don't tell anyone anything so they haven't done anything horrible, but you're still afraid," he summarized, as far as he understood it. "What else don't you let yourself do?"

"I don't know if they are supportive," Robin groans. She can't tell them. What if they disown her? She needs to be safe and able to take care of herself before she even considers telling them. "I never told anyone by choice but Steve. And Billy I guess."

And soon she'll say it to Cal.

By then, Tony had leaned back on his hands, watching Robin curiously and trying to work out her baffling machinery more than his opening defensive tension. Someone must have programmed this anxiety into her, and her answer about her parents was a little ambiguous. After a contemplative beat, Tony admitted, "My dad had me figured out before I did." He shrugged one careless shoulder, but his focus rolled away again, wandering like there could be something interesting on the ceiling as he continued, "Said he sent me to boarding school to toughen me up, he wouldn't be having such a sissy in his house, Stark men were made of iron. All of those parts of me that he hated so much, that weakness, that failure to be the man he expected me to be, it feels all bound up together, and I still don't want other people to see it. I put on a suit of armor, and I try to be more like him. I don't know if I've told anyone--I don't really let myself think of the words for it." Other people had enough names for him, and didn't often pause to ask personal questions before the bedroom door shut. It was easy enough to avoid.

"You dad sounds like he'd fit in back in Hawkins," Robin says with a sigh.

But she thinks she gets it. The wanting to be what others want, but not being able to change for them.

"I used to think if I got away from home it would be easier. I could find a place I would be accepted. But... I can't just leave, you know? Not when it's not safe."

'Getting away from home' hadn't really been an option for Tony. He was still in that same childhood home where his dad had taught him how to think about himself until it was knocked down from under him. "You're still in high school, aren't you?," he asked first. "Your job is math tests and getting drunk and fooling around, and if you're not doing it, nobody will. It's important, just as important as keeping the world together at the seams. I promise. But..." He knew more than enough kids her age and younger who had a hard time extracting themselves from that unreasonable responsibility, so he knew better than to hope she internalized the point immediately. He continued, "You build with what you have. You have a home, you don't have to run away from it--you fill it with the people and the ideals that are important to you. You make it into the place where you're accepted. You won't have any more tools somewhere else than you do right here."

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