revivalproject | carriage

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carriage

WHO: Tony and open!
WHERE: Around Temba (hangar, fountain, ???)
WHAT: Doing some personal cleanup since the storm, and running into a floral distraction
WHEN: End of November/beginning of December
WARNINGS: It's a Tony post, we all should have expected it would get horny. It did.

a.The city had felt imposingly massive since the storm. Then, it was because of its depths and shadows, harbouring fears that only gave way to complex secrets as the clouds cleared, but today it was purely a problem of traversal. The hangar, looking slightly battered from the weather itself but not nearly as poorly treated as the ships finally returned inside, most of them still caked with mud and brought limping to roost, was approximately eight lightyears from the forge.

At least it was a fairly straight shot, but Tony felt half crazy by the time he came shuffling into the echoing space, the wheels of his cart dragged through the cracked roads rattling with a cohort of pebbles caught in their works, and abandoned the thing which felt like it had grown steadily heavier on this trek with a drop of his good arm and heave of a sigh. Gathering his energy again, he straightened to hug is arm cradled under the other, still wrapped and immobile against his chest, leaving his sleeve hanging empty, and headed for the Bloodsport to collect what remained of his onboard from their journey. There were tools there that had been sorely missed at the forge, and a variety of acquisitions from the Agrii cargo bay under Sundance's guidance, and a silky quilt that had Tony sitting in the doorway of the ship with it pulled up over his head, eyes closed and legs kicking idly, looking bruised and exhausted and trying not to look at the cart for just a minute while he meditated on his next move and definitely wasn't just stalling.

b. Most of the D.A.T.A. points had gone dark some time during their venture out to space, or, more likely, the storm that had seeped into all of their works. With the forge back to working order, it was time for Tony to address this problem, which it turned out he had made a rather large one for himself. The closest camera was installed near the fountain, though, and might have been the most important, to alert Tony to any new arrivals, so that would have to be his first stop to see what damage was done. They were all going to have to be upgraded; Tony wasn't going to be able to spread himself across the city to repair every one of them every time one of those storms hit. With his cartload of tools from the hangar, he would have to investigate the generator, surely flooded from the rain, and likely dismantle the watchful orb to find out what exactly had been burnt out in the overload from the storm's energy.

c. It definitely wasn't only the storm that had changed the charge of the city, though. As the skies cleared, it became obvious that the air had grown colder and crisper, and in the days that followed, the chill seemed to settle and harden the ground. Tony would have said it felt like autumn, but the alien plants didn't quite change the way they would have on Earth, growing brittle in the cold but without the warm oranges and yellows of a fall in New York. Instead, new plantlife seemed to have sprung up for him to notice on his long haul with his cart, giving him the good excuse to abandon it occasionally to crouch carefully at the side of the road, stiff in his bandages, and pluck up the young, frosty cyan buds that had started growing there. A few had flowered already, their petals petite but vibrantly blue, and smelling sharply spicy like cloves. He kept stopping to collect another, telling himself to deliver them to someone like Tommy to confirm that the smell didn't mean they were poisonous, maybe they were edible, and maybe this new growth meant that feeling that creep of ice on the air wasn't as much to worry about as Tony was starting to think. A winter couldn't be too harsh if these flowers were flourishing here.

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"Mea culpa. I thought with the, not suitable, and the--laws don't apply thing, you know--I mean, that's great, I'm sure he appreciates that," Tony tried to put together, hand twisting and not actually completely convinced Teddy wanted this lady following him around in the name of the Empire. Or 'Alliance', whatever that meant. Maybe Tony could ask Billy about it. Now, though, Tony didn't really know what else they could be doing here and slowly drew his lip between his teeth as he considered the nearest flowering vine. "So, uh, right, the greenhouse. Those flowers outside, I hadn't seen them before, I think they're seasonal and it's been getting cold, but maybe there's more like them in here."

An interesting way to react, and Lauri-Ell looks down at Tony with an intrigued tilt of her head. How strange. He does not seem comfortable around her. Well, she can live with that. Few people are comfortable around Kree soldiers.

"Wait, if you had not seen them before, you are not certain if their blooming has to do with body heat?"

Confusion, go!

"I--what?" It has been just long enough since the first weird time Lauri-Ell had suggested that, that Tony was having trouble connecting those dots with her, and the connection had been tenuous in the first place. "I mean, I guess that's--that's a possibility. I'm not a botanist. Do plants do that? That doesn't seem productive." Curiously and cautiously, he reached toward another flower he was pretty sure he had never seen around town before, tucked into a mulchy row, petite and honey-yellow, expecting it to perhaps react to the proximity of his finger. Nothing happened, except Tony was poking an inert flower and frowning at it.

"I do not know. It was what you implied, was it not?"

She's still holding the flower in hand, and does seem very pleased. But with his poking she squats down to inspect the new one. So pretty.

"I like this shade. It is very becoming. Makes me think of Earth flowers."

Very quietly, Tony went, "Did I?," but entirely unable to recount what might have actually come out of his mouth within any period of time and what might have just been a very loud thought. Less to himself, he continued, "I didn't realize we had particularly remarkable flowers on Earth," mostly because the flora of other planets was always so massively alien to Tony that a delicate bloom like that couldn't really compare. He gladly plucked it up out of the garden for Lauri-Ell, finding its root long and rigid and close to the surface a few inches along the mulch, bringing up a few more of the flowers that Tony hadn't realized were so intimately connected like a mushroom. "They're a good match," he observed with the yellow held up next to the pale blue she carried. "Maybe there's more."

"There are not many flowers on the planets I have been stationed on," Lauri-Ell admits.

The flower is pulled up and she can't help but make a very pained noise at what he's done. The poor plant, the whole complex of them, hurt for her.

"Thank you for believing so. May I replant them? I can take one bloom, but the rest should not suffer for it."

What was this? A Kree with such delicate care for life? And truly she cherished the little things. Plants like these, they knew no violence. They just... were.

"I feared I could never look at such things again in my life without pain after the Cotati. It is nice to know I can."

The noise Lauri-Ell made was so unexpected that Tony wasn't even sure it was the right move when he tried, "Sorry?," outside of feeling guilty in general. "I mean...yes, you may," he replied, still sounding a lot like a question and not feeling like that was the sort of thing that needed his permission, nor that her reasoning was particularly sound. Mar-Vell had been incredibly sensitive as well, but Tony was pretty sure he understood that flowers didn't really mind being stepped on. "You know they're not actually suffering, right, sweetheart?," he had to make sure, because it was possible that Lauri-Ell's lack of flower experience had led to some bugs in the code. "They're just plants. If they had brains, we'd probably call them animals."

Mar-Vell hadn't loved flowers like she had, and hadn't just fought a war with the Cotati. Lauri-Ell takes the bundle and kneels to work the soil and replant the grouping.

"There have been those, in the history of the Skrull and the Kree, who would also marginalize the suffering of those from Earth. It was, after all, the Kree's experimentation that led to the Inhumans. Nor did our ancient ancestors care much for the Cotati, which led to their suffering and near extinction. Perhaps the world is better when we all care about things that we do not see as on our level."

And would the Cotati have lashed out at all animal life if the plants were not suffering?

"And Cotati are plants with what we would consider brains, but they are decidely not animals."

"I don't think I'm..." Tony started to defend, not really appreciating the comparison when he was just picking some flowers, but the rest of Lauri-Ell's argument had him rather deciding to keep his hands to himself in the greenhouse while she was around. What the Cotati were certainly threw a wrench in Tony's 'brains' argument, but he wouldn't have claimed to be a biologist in the first place. Taxonomist? He did, however, after a brief deliberation, have to ask, "What do you eat?" with a conspiratorial drop in his voice and tilt of his head, promising not to share this secret with the plants if it was a dangerous one.

"I'm a genetically engineered soldier of the Kree army. Typically carefully designed rations. Though I like more foods. Earth taught me pizza. It is good. But the does not mean I should kill a thing just because I can."

She didn't mind flowers that had already been picked, or that had been grown to be picked. Then they were fulfilling their purpose. The intention of the thing. It's complicated. So complicated.

"Forgive me. I have seen much war and suffering. I suppose I find myself cherishing life all the more thanks to this."

"No, yeah, I...get that," Tony said lamely, not confident at all that he got it in the least and if this was some Sal level hippy nonsense, or he hadn't been examining his actions and the impact they had on living beings closely enough. After all, he had seen war and suffering enough to change the course of his own life, but he did still rip that plant out of the ground without a second thought.

It was just a plant.

"Pizza is Earth's greatest gift to the universe," was much safer territory, said with such devoted confidence that he clearly thought nothing else came close. "Other planets make an excellent coffee, or something like it, and I have had some of my best nights out on satellites, but nothing compares to a New York slice."

It was just a plant to Tony. To Lauri-Ell it was something beautiful being hurt for no reason.

"I never experienced coffee before Carol gave me some," she admits. "My sister has taught me much in our limited time."

But pizza is good. Too bad this place lacks it.

Right, the Earth sister that Tony hadn't worked out the puzzle of yet. He tilted his head with the question at first, watching Lauri-Ell work for a moment as she carefully re-housed the flower before asking, "Why did she get to stay on Earth, why not you?" 'Get to' might not have been exactly what the circumstances were, with what Tony knew about the Kree and how fondly they looked on his little backwater planet, but he would have easily chosen it over anywhere else. Including Agra-10, and not just because there weren't any pool bars here.

Once the flower is back in place she carefully pats the dirt around the whole cluster. Then she carefully pinches a stem between her large fingers. With a single blossom gathered she tucks it over her ear.

She cleans her hands off and stands.

"I believe the Emperor would welcome her with open arms. But I do not believe she would agree. She carries on Mar-Vell's legacy, protecting your planet."

So cute...

The whole action was reminiscent of watching Thor pick a flower, only to stand up again and look like that. Tony was staring with wide, dark eyes one second, only to snap to attention the next as Lauri-Ell's mouth moving actually resolved into words for him, and he had to clarify, "Danvers?" Tony didn't know another 'Carol' that fit that description better, but the one he knew didn't have any sisters and was only quote-unquote 'Kree' by interference. "Cheesburger? Care-bear?" Clearly, he was not accepting this very easily.

For a moment she watched Tony, saw the darkness of his eyes, and frowned. Was that not a sign of illness? Should she seek medical attention for Tony? Ah, but he was already plowing on. It seemed he was prone to such behavior.

"Danvers, yes, that is the name she inherited from her human father. But I do not know who this Cheeseburger is. Or Carebear. Does Carol possess more living family I should know?"

"No--what?" Whatever planets Lauri-Ell was posted on didn't have a lot of flowers, or socialization, as far as Tony could tell, because every concept kept on being a minefield. "Those are just other names that people call Carol. Nicknames. You don't have a nickname? Everyone just calls you Lauri-Ell," stretched out like this was an exhaustingly long name, "all the time?"

That was so far off the mark, though, that Lauri-Ell had been talking about that Carol this whole time, and Tony shook his head to dismiss the nickname problem for now because he was brightening, excited. "She never told me she had a sister. Or, maybe she doesn't, where I'm from. She's just...she's from Earth, she's human." Regularly more human than the rest of the Avengers, Tony found, in a way that made her easier to talk to than most of them, and that she might not have been made his chest ache guiltily.

Nicknames? No, they were not things the Kree tended to go for. Especially not ones like her.

"Lauri-Ell is my name. Why would I be addressed by something else?" she asks, confused. "I have also been addressed as Accuser Lauri-Ell recently."

At least he seems happier, and clearly remembers her sister.

"She has only just learned of me. But Carol is my half-sister, and is half-Kree. Why do you humans keep suggesting otherwise? Her father was a human, but our mother is Mari-Ell, who was a great champion of our people. In fact, that is likely why my sister is named as she is. Car-Ell means Champion."

A title was a kind of nickname, Tony could see that, tilting his head with a squint like me might be sold on the concept with a better pitch, so Lauri-Ell wasn't entirely off base. "Because it suits you, honeybee," he explained with a wry smile and reach up to brush the dirt from her hair that had clung to the flower over her ear. "It means someone's been thinking of you."

Maybe a little like the Kree naming conventions, but this one sounded more like a coincidence than intent to Tony. Carol was a long-storied Earth name, used for centuries to denote slightly rough around the edges, older blonde women who probably had a bad smoking habit. "Yeah, well, Carol, to me, means a friend I've known for years and we take care of each other, so maybe don't outright dismiss the humans that have known her a little longer. Don't get me wrong, I'd be honoured to be her sister, too, but I don't know who, uh, told you all that stuff."

Tony HAD to know there were as many syllables in Lauri-Ell and Honeybee, right? How could he complain over the length of her name, and then do that? Still, when he reaches up, she leans down just a little, to make sure he can reach whatever he is going for.

It's not like she couldn't grab his arm and break it if he tried something funny.

"I was a soldier, Tony. Genetically engineered and grown for that purpose. People did not 'think of me'. And while you have known her longer, that does not make her not Kree."

Really, humans were weird. They took the simplest truths and tried to deny them.

"For a smart man that managed to prevent the death of Earth's star, you can be very resistant to the truth. My mother is Mari-Ell of the Kree, as is Carol's. And if you do not believe me, then believe the genetic testing. The Universal Weapon is capable of performing such analysis at near instant speeds, and already confirmed such, to Carol herself. Perhaps it is just that in your time or world, her heritage has not been made known to her yet. Our mother's presence on Earth was a secret mission, and she 'went rogue' as it is said."

Tony was willing to accept the first part of that observation with a jerky nod, sure, that sounded like something he would do, but frowned with a pinched mouth at the idea that he was 'resistant to the truth'. That wasn't really something he had been accused of before. Skeptical, sure. Because he was a smart man. "I've met Carol's mother, she's been on Earth this whole time--" But this was a stupid argument. Teddy was also an intergalactic emperor to Lauri-Ell, clearly they did not have the same experiences.

It didn't sit with him well, though, that she was willing to trust this piece of handcrafted technology she carried around to speak in absolute truths, so he sighed with one hand up to surrender to whatever Lauri-Ell wanted to believe, but left her with the suggestion, "Someone made that Weapon." Tony had plenty of experience using technology to craft a specific image. With his hand still up, Tony gave a twist of his finger in the air and said, "You want to find more flowers?"

"Yes. And you believe that her presence on Earth meant she was human? That is a faulty argument, is it not, when you have Mutants and Inhumans? Wasn't Teddy raised on Earth by his Skrull nursemaid in disguise?"

Tony, your argument has faulty logic.

"Yes, someone made the Weapon. You presume they did so to lie. Does it amuse you to attempt to defraud my sister of her heritage?"

And now he had stepped on toes. Very big, very blue, very STRONG toes. Except, she didn't even look angry. She just looked sad and confused. Why should Carol not be celebrated for what she was, a bridge between Kree and Human? A child that Mari-ell had loved so deeply that she had forsaken her duties to protect and shelter? The sister that Lauri-ell had so quickly come to adore? Why must all of this be a lie?

'Faulty argument' was not about to go by without Tony immediately interrupting to point out, "It meant that she wasn't going to the kind of places that would lead to easy hookups with Kree army geneticists or whatever, and if she was it's really fucked up that she would keep choosing Carol's alcoholic dad over Carol when she had a whole other family on the other side of the galaxy."

Maybe that was a little more personally tinged than Tony meant it to be. Marie and Maria were similar figures in Carol and Tony's lives, though, and Tony had a pretty strong idea of how it might feel for Carol to find out her mom's priorities were even more fucked up. While Lauri-Ell on the defence got sad, Tony did look angry, and huffed another sigh before physically taking a step back. "Armies lie all of the time," he said, conclusively, looking at her sidelong like he didn't really want to actually face her anymore.

Well, Mari-Ell didn't have to. The Kree were prone to keeping genetic records of some selections of their people. Lauri-Ell was just an engineered person grown to maturity.

"My mother never knew of me, Tony. I never met her. I was designed by leading bio-engineers of my people. Does that make me any less blood of Carol's blood?"

Does she not deserve family?

"Do I not warrant family distinction because I was made, not conceived? Should Carol not see me as her family because the definition does not suit your standards?"

That was a leap that had Tony looking sharply to Lauri-Ell again, hand up to deter whatever manipulation she thought this was. "My standards of what defines a family are not on trial here, it's where you're getting your information from. As someone who wasn't grown in a lab to blindly trust my military force, I'm telling you that that's the kind of institution that will grow people in a lab to suit their own purposes, and sorry if that's really going to blow up your world view, I know it's a big revelation.

"But for the record, no, most of us aren't choosing the family we want from the best genes we can find in the galaxy so we can pal around with the coolest big sister. We're stuck with our bullshit."

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