♤ The spaceman says everybody look down, It's all in your mind

[deal_me_in]

WHO: Cayde-6, his crewmates (Ren-Ren, Kitty-Catra, Dapper Cap), and whoever else!
WHERE: Aboard the Starduck, over the communicators
WHAT: SPACE TRIP...?! It's been anticlimactic so far and this Exo be bored Cayde they just started
WHEN: Beginning of the trip
WARNINGS: N/A, will adjust as needed.
NOTES: Will match preferred style as tagged. Feel free to make your own threads! Shoulda thought of saying that earlier but you know, hindsight all that stuff



Finally, he's been able to get aboard a ship. He's not really disappointed either; the Starduck's a swanky little thing. Maybe a little over the top. It's fine. Over the top is fun.

He's still been quite adamant about not touching the datapoints, not that it keeps him from trying to do things without them. Probably no one aboard will notice the extra singing about the edges of his hood, and he's had worse to the face when the Agrii "death tool" had bit back. It's nice having a metal head.

Naturally he would have made a beeline for the cockpit, sat himself in the pilot seat, and would have had to be shooed away for the actual pilot to take the controls. And so the next spot he'd be found in would be the bunks, where he's totally laid claim to the Captain's because it being the only single bed, was the most obvious choice.

Lying with arms folded behind his head to stare up at the ceiling and not the underside of someone else's bunk, it serves to keep him entertained for maybe a while unless someone challenges him for the bed. He's willing to give it up within good reason, but if no one complains, this is where he's keeping his stuff.

If it was hard to keep track of the time on the Agra 10, it's even harder on a ship out in space. Thus the question he voices, both aloud and over the network that he assumes is still connecting them to their buddies aboard the other ships, he poses the ever eternally important question:


are we there yet?

Comments

[brooklyn_boy]

He lets out another very wet laugh and uses the back of his hand to wipe at his eyes. He's not crying, really, but it doesn't come back completely dry. He sniffles hard a few times and laughs again, shaking his head at Tony's missing information. Their universes must be pretty different.

"Stitch is a cartoon character," he explains. But it's not important.

He smiles up at his friend in genuine gratitude. "Thanks for coming over, Tony. I am sure this old-folks home isn't your idea of a great night out, but it's nice to have a friend still here." He leans a little into the hand on his back as though to underline that he's appreciative of all the efforts Tony is making. Lord knew it couldn't be easy or natural for him.

"So," he says to change the topics. "Girlfriend? Who is my girlfriend?"

[in_extremis]

Trying not to look too concerned about that designation, because they could be friends, Tony supposed, he had been assuming they must have been, they just had some work to do, Tony gladly draped an arm around Steve to bear his weight for a much easier to struggle to put his mind to. "Honestly, I can smell the denture cream, but it's not a problem, my ship is a morgue. Have you met the other Bucky? Fucking grim. You hit the jackpot, you got the one that smiles," he was saying rapidly, some of those words sure to take up the space in this room that any tears were trying to fit into.

He took a deep breath to answer more attentively about Steve's love life, not feeling like he should have been the authority on that one in this room, but maybe he kind of was in most rooms. Steve wasn't particularly good at paying attention to it, anyway. "At that point, it might have been Bernie--or maybe Rachel? That seems a little on the nose, turning her into a snake, but Loki isn't always that creative. Rachel's still around anyway, I think you're pretty good at keeping her and Sharon at a distance--after the thing with Wanda, you've kept it in your pants, very low key." The answer really didn't have to be that meandering, and Tony slowly slid his gaze Steve's way, the corner of his mouth twitching up with a challenge. He could keep going, Tony was very glad to take the chance to make Steve the feel the playboy for once.

[brooklyn_boy]

Steve's cheeks go a vibrant pink as he hears about not one, not two, but four girls that he apparently has gone through? What was he, Tony? He blinks up at the other man, mouth ajar. At least for the moment he is completely and utterly distracted.

"Wanda? I had a thing with Wanda? Vision's Wanda?" He saw her almost like a sister. How could he have had a thing with her? Sharon, sure. He could see that one happening considering it sort of had in his timeline too. But who were all of these other people? And just how long had these relationships been? God forbid he tried to see more than one at the same time.

"And...Sharon. Sharon Carter I assume. I mean, I kissed her in my timeline too, but that was the extent of it. Is she...where you come from, is she my current partner? Or are there twelve other names that you can list out for me?"

[in_extremis]

"Vision's Wanda," Tony confirmed with a chuckle that he tried to capture behind tightly pressed lips as Steve went through his very visible crisis of character. It was a little gratifying that Steve wasn't trying to argue with him, like Tony had been so resistant to what Steve had to say about Loki, not sure what part of that spiel sounded the most trustworthy to him but glad not to be the enemy. "She'd been a little in love with you since it was just the four of you on the team, you and Clint and Pietro--I mean, who isn't, please. You're a real heartbreaker. The rest of us are lucky Bucky finally made an honest man out of you. You haven't really settled down back home, as far as I know--like I said, you've got those two gals on the line, but it's been hectic around the Tower. You've been sneaking off with Sharon plenty, though, like you don't think I notice." He didn't exactly come back looking happy, and mostly smelling like blood and gunpowder and with bruises that he didn't talk about while Tony patted them apologetically, but that was a much less fun detail. Maybe Steve already knew what he was sneaking around about while he was kissing Sharon, and could be the one to tell Tony himself.

[brooklyn_boy]

No dice. This is all so completely and wildly out of character for Steve that all he can do is blink up at Tony with comically large eyes. "Two? Two girls on the line? I haven't even picked one to go steady with?" And sneaking out with Sharon? God. What is he like in this world?

"Tony, I am sorry. I think the Steve Rogers in your universe is someone who just stole my name. I cannot believe there is a version of me who takes Wanda ou-" He pauses and replays what Tony had said earlier. 'Kept it in his pants'. Which means...

"Wait. Tell me I haven't slept with all these women. Tell me I didn't sleep with Wanda."

[in_extremis]

The innocence was as charmingly genuine as ever, and Tony was pretty sure his Steve would react similarly if someone ever laid it out for him as transparently as that, too--or maybe pulled that jaw-set glare of personal offense for not presuming his intentions were all noble, because he just didn't notice how goddamn magnetic he was. It was going to get him into some real trouble one of these days. Joking about an imposter Steve was a callous move that quickly turned Tony's teasing smile, making him shrug as Steve's gears turned painfully, looking back to the shield for somewhere else to focus and pout into the reflection thoughtfully. That that turned out to be Steve's concern was a real surprise that shocked a laugh out of Tony through the brooding.

"You're not big on sharing details, but..." he offered, and sucked his teeth, sorry to be the one to deliver this terrible news. Steve wasn't the only party involved with details to share. "Billy and Tommy have said she's really different from the one that's here, if that makes you feel any better. I haven't even seen her, but she doesn't sound that bad, come on. I won't tell Barnes. I can be discrete."

[brooklyn_boy]

Barnes. Steve's embarrassment and easy mood breaks along the edges. The smile returns to being 75% plastic. "Well, at least that might not be necessary. Right? No awkward conversations about interdimenensional infidelity. If you can even call it that."

He takes his shield and the tool he was using to tighten up the grips. His back hunches over it as he continues trying to tighten them up.

"At least you don't make fun of me for being a virgin in your universe," he offers as a muted joke. "And maybe Nat spends less time trying to set me up."

[in_extremis]

Mistake. That was supposed to be a casual, hey, of course, he'll show up again, no need to dwell on it, and instead Tony was tucking his restless hands between his knees to keep them from getting into any more trouble without the shield to draw their attention. Wasn't working, Tony abruptly got to his feet again to head for the drink dispenser with enough intent that he might have been aiming to take it apart, so he could at least get Steve some water in the absence of anything else to try to give him.

"You didn't even come out of the ice a virgin, are you kidding me? I thought I had plenty of material about how repressed you are, and now you're telling me I actually missed out," he babbled, trying to calculate quickly; of course this Steve was more repressed, he slept with men, back home he wasn't trying to hide something like that, god, shit. "You'll see him again when you go back, won't you?" That was not helping. "Not him, I guess, but..." Really not helping. "His face, you know, not like Cayde or Catra or...Jon." Who might have been on this crew, Tony didn't know, he was just guessing, the other two were, it was possible and reasonable to suggest for no reason. This was the opposite of helping. "Sansa doesn't want to go back." Cool, great, smooth recovery.

[brooklyn_boy]

"Depends what 'back' means."

Steve glances over at Tony and debates with himself what he wants to say here. He'd already unloaded the details on Jon but in more or less broad strokes. Telling Tony would mean telling someone who mostly knew his character and his past. It meant admitting something he felt he should be ashamed of but still couldn't regret. But someone had to know.

"When Bucky and I met before, we were held by the Atroma. When we defeated them, we all had the option to stay behind and make a life in this new place or to go back to our universe. Go back to our lives before." Steve fiddles with the band of the shield as he talks. He doesn't look at Tony.

"I knew going back was the right thing to do. But so much had happened at home. I knew from the others how everything turned out and... I knew that if I did go back not only would I never see this Bucky again but I would forget him completely. Like it all just. Hadn't mattered.

"So. I stayed."

Finally he looks up. "If I go back to that place then...maybe he'll be there. But if I go home to my own universe? I guess then I lose everything."

[in_extremis]

That was a meaningful enough opener that Tony hesitated anxiously, with the glass of water in hand, by the counter. 'Back' could mean dying, too, that was the worst case scenario, and Tony wasn't sure how prepared he was to talk through mortality and the last moments of their lives being on a pile of rubble in another universe.

But it didn't sound like that was such a bad thing to Steve. Tony's brow knit in concern, eyes wide and watchful like he could see through Steve's face to understand better, mouth a thin line. If Steve had just said 'it's the right thing to do' about any part of that, Tony would have agreed with him without question, he was pretty sure; it was always hard to argue when Steve said those words. What he said and what he did weren't often at odds, though. How could he not go home? Tony could feel his heart breaking in a dozen different ways, and just as suddenly as he had stood up before, he glanced away from his intent study, looking up toward the cockpit then down into the glass. Right, he was doing something.

Pushing the water onto the table in front of Steve, he said, "You always were ready to give up absolutely everything for one person." That usually meant no man left behind, no matter the cost, but it obviously had its own complexities. "He's a real special guy." It was Tony's turn to offer a brittle smile, because he didn't really mean Bucky, but it didn't feel right to accuse Steve of doing something just for himself. That would have gotten Tony decked any other day.

[brooklyn_boy]

Steve looks up sharply at Tony's words and frowns at that fake smile on his face. He knew that he was risking disapproval for his choice when he decided to tell it, but he hadn't expected it to come from that quarter. It doesn't seem fair.

"I was always ready to give up everything. From the time I was 23 I traded my life for the chance to do good. And I lost a hell of a lot more even after."

His self-righteousness leaves him about there and gives way to guilt. It had been a nice few seconds while it lasted.

"I would have gone back and lost everything, no matter what. So I decided to be selfish, for once." Yeah. He can say it. "I don't regret it."

[in_extremis]

"I'm glad," Tony was quick to assure him, though the smile was harder to maintain, making Tony take a deep breath and shake his head, honestly, don't read too hard into this expression, he couldn't be held accountable for what his face was doing. "I hope that stranger back home can figure that out soon, too." It would hurt more than anything, if the suggestion that Steve would choose not to come back home was any indication, and Tony had put more work than any of the other Avengers combined into convincing Cap to not go back to his time and stay in a home Tony would build for him in the 21st century. But to make him do that again, when he seemed to have figured out how to really be with someone instead of satelliting around them while he slowly self destructed, even Tony wasn't selfish enough to talk him out of that. Tony would gladly hold down the fort in his absence, and his honour. "I just know a lot of people are missing you," is how that came out out loud, and he tilted his head meaningfully, sure, that had to mean the Tony that was wondering where his Cap was, but not just that. "Those are big tights to fill."

[brooklyn_boy]

Ah. Steve deflates as it becomes clear he misunderstood. He exhales a little and shakes his head. "From what I understand...and I don't know how...the timeline is unaffected by me staying here. I guess. I'm not really sure if my timeline is now an alternate one or not. It's all confusing." He shrugs a shoulder. "But I think everyone got by alright without me.

"You have Pepper. Sam probably picked up the shield. Nat and Clint were always okay and Wanda has the team." The one loose end was Bucky who was frozen in Wakanda when he left. Steve had to assume he'd understand when he woke up and didn't find him.

Steve takes a sip of his water and rolls the glass between his palms.

"Even if I stayed I would have left eventually, I heard. This was just early."

[in_extremis]

Even Tony's ego wasn't big enough to think the world stopped turning if he wasn't there, and he pursed his lips and frowned to ask if Steve really believed that or it was just something convenient to tell himself so his guilt finally didn't get in the way of his happiness. His idea of everyone 'getting by' was far more flimsy, though, maybe Tony could let him have the ego thing. What the hell did he think 'the team' meant without him? Tony gave him another pat on the shoulder, this one leaning distinctly condescending, sure, okay, whatever you say, before retreating again to the safe distance of the counter.

"Everyone leaves," Tony did have to agree with, though until now he would have been able to say the one person who he knew would always come back was Cap. "I have this reoccurring nightmare, you know--stop me if you've heard this one," he said, hand out for Steve to jump in any time if his Tony still had the balls to share his disaster premonitions with Steve, because Tony had given up some time ago when they were constantly met by Steve's stubborn refusal. "In it, I'm the last one standing, I'm it, the Avenger, singular. Every single choice we make, doesn't matter if it's building the Tower or it's Ultron, always, always, is a step toward this future. I can see it. And I know I'm, this is bad energy, I'm not thrilled, but, listen, if I knew that future was coming not because you all died, but because you all managed to get out, it would be a lot easier to sleep at night."

[brooklyn_boy]

Steve is quiet as he looks over at Tony. He hasn't heard this story nightmare before but it makes a certain amount of sense. He probably will never know if his own Tony had the same one but he can imagine that to be the case. Can imagine Tony terrified of being the last one standing and knowing that there was no way around it. And to think, for him it had pretty much come to pass.

Which posed Steve with an issue.

Nat had told him about what happened in his time line. Steve knew about Thanos and the cost of beating him. He knew that Tony had given his life with Nat and their family had to move on without them. It was the exact opposite of what this Tony feared. But should Steve even say it? Was knowing that you died and left behind a wife and child better than that fear?

He looked back at his glass and pursed his lips for a moment in thought. At the end of the day, they were both from different universes. That meant that Steve's experiences were probably going to be vastly different than what they would have been in the other world. Telling Tony about Thanos, therefore, was probably not helpful. Right? Yeah.

Probably best to leave it vague.

"I can tell you that, at least where I came from, that doesn't happen. It's not pretty and it's not without loss, but the Avengers are still standing when the dust clears."

[in_extremis]

That...was much less reassuring than it sounded like Steve meant it to be. At first, the only response Tony had was to click his tongue, unsticking it from the roof of his mouth and calculating this reaction from Steve narrowly, the blue stare an alarmingly cold assessment. Steve seemed to have some context that Tony was profoundly lacking, though, and eventually had to ask, "What do you mean, what dust?" If Billy could be trusted, then not only did the Avengers continue to stand for a few years yet, there was about eight different teams of them to do a whole lot of standing. Tony wasn't worried about immediately, his prescience didn't extend to the end of next week and get foggy from there. Who did Steve think he was? "Do you mean the Mansion?" he tried to place Steve in time, because that had really felt like the end of the whole world when it happened, but it did take Steve being there to make sure the Avengers assembled again despite that.

[brooklyn_boy]

Steve probably should have said nothing. But it was helpful, a bit, to hear Tony talk and to realize just how different their time frames were. At 'Mansion', Steve just blinked dully and shook his head. He didn't know about any Mansion. Definitely not one that had felt like the end of the world. Maybe Thanos didn't exist in their time frame? Maybe he had defeated him way earlier than they had?

Maybe that was still to come?

"Does the name 'Thanos' mean anything to you?"

[in_extremis]

Not even any hint of recognition for the Mansion was enough to make Tony frown, because Cap had definitely been the only one actually living there for most of the time it stood, but the question he had in return was what sent a shiver up Tony's spine. Not necessarily for Thanos himself, as terrible as that fight always was, the guy could go spit, but for the Gems he knew Steve was not going to casually accept the fate of. The name brushed a little too close to that inevitable confrontation.

"That was years ago," Tony said, the apology for having to be the one to deliver the bad news in his posture. Thanos wasn't nearly the end of the fight, he was just one among many. That was what the Avengers were for, Tony thought; because the hits kept on coming. "Is that what your team got together for? To fight Thanos?" he asked, not that this was an ignoble goal, just a surprising one that might explain the Loki thing. In his own defense, he had to point out just in case, and so no one thought too hard about the Gems, "Our first fight was with Loki. No one of us could deal with him on our own."

[brooklyn_boy]

Years ago? And Tony thought something else could top it? Steve had vastly underestimated the differences in their history. "We fought Loki, too. That was how we formed. We fought many other battles and Ultron too before we disbanded." Steve might as well say everything. It is clear that their backgrounds have little in common. "There was a disagreement between you and I. We fought and separated until Thanos came and used the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all life in the galaxy."

Steve hadn't seen it, he'd only heard about it. Only seen the pain in Nat's eyes as she talked about all that had happened. Even imagining it made him feel sick.

"Five years later, we found a way stop it from happening. We all fought together one last time. All of us. And not everyone made it, but we won.

"That is the last fight I was in, I heard. After that I...retired."

[in_extremis]

The way Steve said 'we' implied he was there for that first throw down with Loki that got the team their name, which felt incredibly wrong. It would have been a much easier fight, surely, but very different. Ultron wasn't alien to Tony, though, at least they shared that one, too, making Tony nod in recognition, then only briefly look concerned about 'disbanded'. He had to mutter, "Sounds about right," with a small smile about a disagreement between them making everything feel like it fell apart, knowing at least that it didn't last.

"Five years?" was the big takeaway that Tony had from that abridged history of the Avengers, looking horrified. These Avengers sure took their time getting anywhere. "Shit." If a fight ever took that long, Tony would hang up the suit, too. "We're still going strong," he reiterated, really not sure if this was something Steve wanted to hear anymore. "Almost called it quits not that long ago. We did, for a while. There was a...We lost a bunch of people, all at once. Hawkeye, Vizh, Thor was gone, Scott and Jack...We never took losses like that. Not like that. With the Avengers Mansion going out, too, you know, it seemed like a sign, that we had made this problem and cost these people their lives and, they were our friends, our family. I didn't have the money anymore to even think about putting it all back together. It's you that convinced me--the way you always convince me, by just doing it and expecting I'll be there, because of course I will--that it was fate. Your word, not mine. That a team needs to be in place, that we would keep coming together to fight those big fights."

Tony might have just been reassuring himself, he realized, that he still had some time left, and that the Captain America back on his Earth was too stubborn to think of something like retiring just yet.

[brooklyn_boy]

"We lost half of the galaxy, Tony. They ceased to be. Bucky, Sam, Spider Man, Doctor Strange, T'Challa, Shuri..." He hangs his head, remembering them all getting a list and realizing the people they'd lost. The empty hole that created inside of him that couldn't be filled. "We needed to take time figure out how to help humanity through this. We were all they had left. You and I...still were at odds after the battle and you had Pepper and your daughter, so we had a skeleton crew to fight crime and also help the world move on.

"It was awful, Tony. And we all almost died trying to stop Thanos from succeeding again."

He knows his face telegraphs what he's thinking so Steve looks very concretely towards the floor.

"Members of the team did. Too many did. I can't imagine a fight with a higher cost or more at stake than that."

[in_extremis]

The Thanos thing, right, they worked it out, it was fine, nothing worth giving up for, making Tony nod impatiently and roll his eyes. That's what supervillains did, that's what the Avengers were for, the big fights, Tony did say that part out loud. They all almost died every time; that was part of Steve's pitch for the New Avengers, too. That was a feature, not a bug. Steve really didn't have to bother trying to hide his face, though, because Tony was entirely hung up on another detail.

"My daughter? I have a daughter? I had Pepper--Pepper and I have a daughter?" he asked, like if he said it enough times it would start to make more sense. "No," he said, like he was in any position to be correcting Steve on his life. "Pepper and Hap are married. Their baby--their baby didn't even make it, Happy doesn't even know about it," Tony explained much too quickly, both hands up to halt Steve from trying to convince him otherwise because if Tony could have been building a life with Pepper and a daughter, he really had fucked it up beyond repair. Maybe he was wrong about being the only one around here that didn't seem to have left behind their own apocalypse.

[brooklyn_boy]

Whoops.

Steve's head flips up at the mention of Hap (Happy?!) with Pepper. That was a bit of a change. God, did their universes have anything in common at all? "Clearly things were very different for us both. I think it's safe to say that things from my universe have little to no resemblance to yours. I mean. The next set of Avengers is going to have Sam as Captain America and I don't even know who else. Wanda, Hawkeye. Maybe Thor if he comes back?

"Something tells me that wasn't what yours looked like when you were finished with Thanos."

[in_extremis]

With a deep breath, Tony sighed, "Yeah..." looking away again down the length of the ship, distant and sightless. Different was starting to sound like it might have been better. It took a herculean effort to shake his head and blink back into focus, crafting a smile--it wasn't that hard, it was great that he had a kid, even if it was in another universe, that must have been incredible for him, wherever that was, Iron Man didn't cry--"Yeah, no, we were kind of split up already then. Wanda and I, we were already on the West Coast while you led the good fight back in New York, we just kind of went back to that. It didn't work out. I'm not half as good as anything as when I'm..." Different, right.

Something to latch onto quickly was, "Sam?" because Tony couldn't immediately conjure who that might mean. "Sam Wilson?" was the only 'Sam' on the roster that he could recall. "Does he keep the wings, too? That's deadly, huh? Great, good for him. Good stuff. That's what your Bucky's world looked like too, then? Just him with the shield? All the other stuff, Thanos and he retires and I've got Pep, that's all the same?"

[brooklyn_boy]

Steve dropped his gaze again because, even in another universe, it had to be hard to hear about your death. Steve doesn't want it to show on his face. "Yeah, Sam Wilson. I don't know about the wings, unfortunately. Another version of Bucky who was here before told me about it. I haven't had any new memories of my universe since I was first taken. As far as I can really remember, you and I just had our fight and I had to get a bunch of Avengers out of a floating prison.

He shrugs a bit. "As for...Buck. He doesn't remember anything beyond the fight with Loki from his universe. Our worlds seem to be the same other than who fell off the train, but we don't know more than that. No one from his universe has ever come here so, for all I know Thanos isn't even in his universe."