Loom

[in_extremis]

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.

Comments

[in_extremis]

Her melancholy must have been funny, because Tony chuckled while he let his head loll onto his shoulder, his smile slanted with his tongue between his teeth. "Your parents aren't here," he said after massaging between Little Bear's watchful eyes, keeping his own focus there as he continued, "All those people from town who aren't at your speed, the kids in class who don't know how to talk to you. It's just you. You could tell me you're a Kree princess and I wouldn't know the difference."

[work_wife]

See, here's where she'd ask what a Kree was, but she was focusing on his words. ANd her eyes were widening. Maybe she couldn't get the education or the practice with girls but...

She really could, couldn't she? Really try and figure herself out here?

"You're really smart, aren't you?"

[in_extremis]

It wasn't clear yet if Robin did actually understand him, or had just found her own path to whatever enlightenment was making her stare like that. The question still made Tony give another breathy laugh, then grimace with a shrug. "Some people have said that. Usually with some modifiers," he replied.

[work_wife]

Who knows which it is. Robin sure doesn't. But she'd crediting it to Tony. Perhaps that counts for something.

"Like 'amazingly'?"

Because clearly he's earned it.

[in_extremis]

Tony still wasn't sure how to take that, not seeing any sign to doubt its earnestness, and mostly feeling guilty that he had managed to mislead Robin if so. That couldn't stop him from lifting his chin with a nagging smile that he had to school into something more flirtatious to answer, "You must bring it out in me." Before his head could get any bigger, he had to toss it with some impatience, abruptly redirecting, "How's the harvest coming? Come on." He gave the dog an apologetic pat so he could slide away and onto his knees over the garden bed again, searching expectantly for another potato to pull.

[work_wife]

"Ew, please don't flirt with me," Robin cringes. Before finally saying it out loud. "I don't like, you know, guys."

There. Now he knows. It's not even that he's old. It's that he's all male and all of that. One day she was going to be quite the butch and everything about her was going to scream who she was. But today was not that day.

"The harvest will probably go well," she says with a sigh, before finally pulling out one tuber. Got to wash it off next.

"Thanks for the help."

[in_extremis]

With a snort, Tony said, "Yeah, I figured that part out," which did not at all acknowledge her questionably polite request. In fact, it was that kind of security that made some people exceeding fun to flirt with, people who could never be interested, or who were otherwise committed and Tony generally expected to not take such an exchange seriously, until it backfired and he had to politely turn them down before Hank set ants on him. So instead, he promised, "Eddie's gone, sweetheart, sorry, I'm running out of options, you're going to have to put up with it. That's the sort of thing you can't leave to Steve, he probably doesn't even like to be called 'daddy'." He mostly seemed focused on digging up another potato, so his sidelong glance Robin's way was brief, eyebrows raised in challenge.

[work_wife]

Robin snorts.

"If you heard about how many kids Steve wants then you would realize he would probably love to be called Daddy."

And she doesn't even mean just out of bed. He's probably got one of those kink things about it.

[in_extremis]

That wasn't the reaction that Tony was angling for, making him giggle in surprise and mumble, "That right?" Evidently, he had been making the wrong connections. He had to suggest hopefully to Robin, "Maybe you could talk to him about helping out Gladio, with his school." She hadn't been a big fan, but someone else who dreamed about a few of their own might understand Tony's concern.

[work_wife]

"Steve doesn't like school, but he does like young people, so maybe."

He had taken in a lot of them. Robin... She doesn't like people enough for it.

"I want to learn something to help me help people better too. I know we had a whole thing about it when I got here, but I mean it. I'm learning how to use my crossbow, weird as it is."

[in_extremis]

"That's great," Tony encouraged, though there was already something in his voice, the inevitable argument. "The crossbow, you know, once every couple years, that might really come in handy. This guy," he noted, flicking a hand toward Little Bear, "might argue that keeping him fed was, on the whole, quantitatively and holistically, significantly more helpful. He can't do that very well for himself. Runs into some limitations."

[work_wife]

"Yeah, he would. But I'm not really the farming type. I don't like it," she admits, frowning at her dirty hands. "Not a dog person either typically. It just... he came to me, after I was attacked."

[in_extremis]

"He's figuring out how to help, too," Tony observed. "Comes naturally, to some people. Or dogs." It wasn't so natural for everyone, making Tony quiet for a minute as he worked another potato out of a tangle of thin roots. Then he was suddenly asking, "But you like the crossbow?," sounding a little skeptical. Not that she might be having more fun with it than with the worms, but, "Have you, you know, put something down with it?" That felt a lot different than picking off bottles.

[work_wife]

"LIke it?"

She shrugs. But she gets the value.

"It's important to be able to defend my friends. I know that adults won't always come to save us. So while I'm not comfortable with it, it's valuable to have. And... I'm working up to that."

[in_extremis]

Maybe she would make the connection that Tony was trying to point out in her own time. For now, he agreed, "Not a lot of adults doing the crossbow work," with a wry smile as he piled more potatoes together.

[work_wife]

"Nope. But this guy, Alec or whatever, he's teaching me. I think more because I almost shot him than anything else."

And that she understands.

[in_extremis]

Tony made a curious sound, eyes resolutely down on his work like it wasn't a targeted jab when he lightly murmured, "Another one." When he did look up, it was with eyes rolled at himself, hand twisting in the air to accept that there was obvious nuance and Robin still definitely didn't have people lining up to help her out if he really thought about it, "I'm sure it's because of the cute nicknames, Or Whatever, you seem very close."

[work_wife]

"Cute nicknames?" she says, a bit confused. Because she didn't think she threw those around all that much. Which was, of course, wrong. Though Steve deserved being called a dingus.

"I'm not as close with people here as I suppose I should be. But I was never the most social kid. Being social gets you noticed."

[in_extremis]

Being social worked both ways and meant paying a little attention, too; it took some practice, making Tony snort and quickly try to cover it with a nod of understanding. "You could, not that I'd know anything about it, make sure they noticed just what you wanted," he suggested. "If that would, you know, get you to where you should be. You tell people that you're beautiful, they'll believe you."

[work_wife]

"Yeah, I could. But... I really didn't want to be noticed. And now I just want to feel connected here. It's so isolating. I know I do it to myself. Defense or something. God I sound like one of those self help books."

She knew she did. Or like her mom. But damn, confidence was hard when you'd spent so many years trying not to be seen by the bullies of some backwards bible belt town.

Though she laughs at the idea that you can just tell people you're beautiful.

"Isn't beauty in the eye of the beholder?"

[in_extremis]

That guilty isolation was terribly familiar, making it impossible not to feel for her, but was a searing reminder that Tony was definitely not the person to help Robin out of it. His brow was still knit sympathetically when he huffed a laugh at her self-help lament, and was glad to be presented with a much lighter argument to crash into. It seemed like it should have been an easy one, too, only Tony hesitated with his mouth already open, because she wasn't wrong. He had gone from being regularly reassured that he was magazine cover material, to a whole planet of people who made it clear they found him offputting at best. It was still with confidence that he could present, "Have you ever met a woman who wasn't beautiful?," with a helpless shrug.

[work_wife]

"Yes," Robin says with confidence. "Plenty. But I don't just like appearances? Like, there's beauty inside?"

Still, there are some stupid pretty girls at school.

"Carol isn't pretty."

[in_extremis]

That was not the answer anyone was supposed to give, and it came so quickly that Tony looked scandalized, hand starting to raise to his chest before he thought better of bringing the soil too close to the fabric. Maybe Robin's social issue wasn't so much the external one that she insisted. "Now you're being catty. I didn't know you had it in you," he admired. "You should come to spa day, Jan would adore it. I might even get a facial done finally, if you're filling in the gossip."

[work_wife]

"Oh come on, it's worth being catty about the school bitch," Robin rolls her eyes. But the other thing...

"Spa day? That's something rich people do, right?"

[in_extremis]

Tony squinted with a twist of his mouth to show that he wasn't so sure about that one being worth the energy, when they could have been talking about wonderful women instead. He was happy, though, to insist, "It's something everyone should indulge in, sweetheart. Sure, the money eased the process, but there's none of that here and it's an easy sell when you both get a foot massage out of it."