onlyforthedream | the waiting is always worst

the waiting is always worst

I have, frankly, no idea how long it's been. I have a clean shirt and my leg's been bandaged. I haven't left the chairs set up across the hallway from the door to the clinic. I don't plan to, not until there's some word, some update.

I want to know what's going on in that room. I'm terrified to know what's going on in that room.

With my elbows pressed into my knees and the hands loosely clasped, I run over the day's events in my head, step by step. I go farther back, the last week, the past month. My memory for details is excellent but I cannot for the life of me think what could have triggered this.

Whatever it was, I should have seen it. I should have known. Not that I know how I could have. I recognize this train of thought isn't helpful but I'm so damn tired, and there's nowhere else for the energy to go, the thoughts to turn.

The fact is, I can't do anything for him but wait.

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It had been stressful work. The brain might be a kind of computer, but it was a very sophisticated one, and if something went catastrophically wrong they could hardly scrap the attempt and start from a fresh set of circuits. And not his area of expertise, but he could defer to the knowledge of others.

More or less. He knew more now than he had, he'd do some homework. But for now, it was mostly just... waiting.

Which had to be tougher for Rogers, even someone as mired in his own self-interest as Tony tended to be could recognize it. With Pepper's injury, he'd known the solution worked because it had worked on him. And he'd had a robot to take it out on, besides.

"The brain is startlingly resilient," he said, by way of greeting, slouching (with a mechanical whir) into the chair one down from Rogers. "If I could make something half as adaptive I could retire."

"But you wouldn't," I point out, not quite lifting my head, but glancing over.

"So it's done."

"I mean I could already retire, but I could retire... again. It's- done probably isn't the word. It's in progress. At this point we just wait and see."

And, again, it not being his field meant he couldn't predict with any accuracy how it would go. There was no math for it.

"I was never any good at this part," I say quietly, lifting a hand to briefly dig a knuckle against the corner of my eye.

"Feeling useless in general, never took well."

"Speaking as someone who has in the past been widely considered useless except in the one respect, I'd advise... actually, those are all bad ideas," Tony reflected. His coping mechanisms hadn't exactly served him well, in the end; he'd kept himself off the board, mostly. "Except finding something to drive very fast for a while. But somehow that doesn't seem like your style."

It's funny how wrong he is on that point, not that I can manage to look particularly amused.

"I had a Triumph 5SW back during the war. Great bike, had the weight of a 350 but it was actually rigged with a 500cc. Looked like a praying mantis folded in on itself. God, that thing moved, even off road." I sit back, folding my arms beneath my chest and pressing my shoulders back against the wall. I don't know what has me crawling out of my own skin more, the worry or the exhaustion.

"They're almost all gone, now. Short production cycle to fill the gap after Dunkirk."

"That was a great bike," Tony said, looking over. He'd made his first engine at the age of six; he knew his machines. "I have a Triumph Thruxton. Converted to not run on traditional fuel, which feels a little blasphemous, but it still purrs. Had to fix it up after I lent it out the last time, but somehow I think you're a little more... reliable."

Edited 2012-06-02 06:39 (UTC)

I have no idea how the hell he got a Thruxton on the island- maybe one of the random gifts in January- but it's impressive. Not a Bonneville, but as far as cafe racers go, the Thruxton is a beauty.

It's strangely nice to be talking about motorcycles, of all the damn things, only I wish it didn't make me think of that last moment before-

If I'd just stopped him from making the jump, he wouldn't be in there, now, would never have gone through any of this.

I try to shake the memory off, and glance over at Tony, nodding my thanks for the offer.

"How's your head?"

"Attached and free of holes," Tony said, eyes flicking upwards to the spot where the bullet would have gone. "No tinnitus, that's in the plus column. How is your... everywhere that got punched."

"I'm fine," I reply. The pain will dull to discomfort eventually, I'd wager another five hours or so.

"I'm sure," Tony said, not sounding entirely convinced. Mostly because in their line of work -- even if no one was prepared to believe he'd been in that line of work long enough to count -- no one said that and was serious.

Hell, outside their line of work. "Well, you are... engineered to be so."

"...yeah."

I sit forward again, digging my elbows against my knees and folding the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other.

"The bruises will be gone in a day or two, the stab wounds in five. Nothing too concerning."

Edited 2012-06-02 07:10 (UTC)

"Good work on the part of... whoever it was in your universe," Tony reflected. "Erskine and... whoever made the equipment."

As in, pops. In his world, at least.

I don't know why it causes me to start. I'm just not prepared to hear the name. It makes sense Abraham Erskine existed in Tony's universe, of course, no one else could have made the serum work. Still. I blink a few times.

"Uh, yes. They... Yes. It was never replicated successfully, I suppose that makes it outstanding work."

That wasn't a confirmation or a denial, but he thought he might have mentioned it if so. It wasn't really important. Other things on the go. Chalk it up to another difference.

"Not for lack of trying," he said. "That's what Banner was doing, in my universe. Succeeded... a little harder than they would have liked."

He just thought it was kind of neat. Not nearly as much of a problem as everyone was convinced; they just had to back off a little. Let the guy own it. Like the suit, really.

"Mine as well," I say, tone darkening somewhat. The casualties of the attempts to recreate the super soldier serum- not just in those that were directly affected but in those who have suffered the collateral damage of those attempts- far outweigh whatever value I held.

That's something I've always known. After the war, it ceased being a matter of merely playing my part and making the most of the gift I had been given. There were things I had to balance out, by wielding the shield.

"That's why they pulled Bucky out of the water. They thought they were getting their hands on a super soldier, what would have been the only one, with my death. It's hard to keep track, the things that have been done to-"

In the name of creating a new formula, a better formula, of replicating the original or possessing it's secret. I bite the sentence off. No need to follow it to its end. I stifle a sigh and press my mouth to my knuckles.

Tony had never dealt real well with this kind of thing in other people. He'd never really had to. No one expected it of him, and he could carry on doing his thing, supposedly unaffected.

Not so much, these days. He was trying to leave the whole do nothing thing behind him. Kind of his new deal.

Still, this would be easier if everyone was a robot.

"Couple of Erskines in there," he said. "Of different fields, of course. But smart guys. And me, I have done... the odd thing worthy of duplication. Had more than one iteration of this-" he tapped the glowing circle in his chest, "-ripped out of me. People literally want to rip the heart out of my chest to power their war machines, it's... kind of poetic."

I don't bother pointing out that there will never be another Abraham Erskine, that even if Xavier and McCoy- and Tony Stark- are unabashed geniuses, I have yet to meet a man who was as compassionate as he was brilliant in the way Dr. Erskine was.

That's not something anybody else knows, though. Everyone else who knew the man is dead. I'm not sure anyone else on the project even knew him that well, and to this day I'm still not sure why he spent the time with me that he did, after he'd decided I was the one.

But I understand what Tony's getting at.

"If I didn't trust them- trust you- to do this... it wouldn't be happening."

The history of people stealing Tony's armor is lengthy. I'm not surprised to hear the same has happened with the arc reactor, although the implications are somewhat more drastic, and seem more personal, somehow.

"It feels like an inelegant comparison, the serum in my blood to that," I say with a nod toward the reactor. It's a miracle of engineering, running off an element of Tony's creation. It's an incredible thing.

"But I think I understand. Then again, they're both works of art, I suppose. It's why the knock offs never turn out."

Someone trusted him to do something. In part, although trusting him to be part of something was part of the bad. Well, wasn't that something. Put that on the mantlepiece somewhere.

"I do like to think of myself as an artist," Tony said, half under his breath. Ridiculous. I don't paint.

How about the Merchant of Death?

That's not bad.

I'm not sure what he's thinking of, what memory my comment sparked. I recognize the look well enough. I look at the floor, at the blood still drying, turning my pant leg stiff.

"The Thomas Crown Affair," I say suddenly, not sure why it comes to mind now, after Tony's off-handed quip hours ago.

"I saw that. Who sang the theme?" It's so incredibly trivial. It will drive me absolutely crazy until I figure it out.

God, I'm tired.

Tony blinked. Somehow that was more offputting than anything, because it was the kind of random segue that he tended to associate more with... himself, and he always blamed it on the way his brain worked. Sometimes he went on tangents.

He supposed other people could have tangents, too.

"...the old one, or the new one?"

"There's a new one?" I ask, frowning.

"Why would someone remake that?"

"The old one, then," Tony said, absently shuffling associations around in his brain to see if he could come up with that one. Now it was going to bug him if he couldn't figure it out, and he was at least half sure he didn't know to begin with.

And Jarvis didn't even have access to the internet to check.

"They remake everything. Brand recognition is big these days. Replaced the star system."

"That seems to apply to more than just Hollywood," I murmur. The Avengers are a brand, these days. As mantles get passed down and the shape of team changes, the way the American public- the world- views the team changes, it becomes less and less about the individual members, less about the heroes and more about Heroes as a group. A class. I wonder if that's what did it, what turned us all around so badly, but... I can't buy it. Nothing could make me regret Bucky becoming Captain America, I don't think.

God, let him pull through this. Please. The enormity of what he's fighting against turns most of my thoughts into white noise. I can't wrap my head around it anymore.

I suddenly straighten a little, snapping the fingers of my right hand.

"Dusty Springfield."

"Well, that's a relief," Tony said. He had no idea if that was right or not, but it seemed to have clicked, no doubt it was. "I'll be able to sleep at night."

"You should," I say, ignoring the sarcasm.

"You've been powering that suit for most of the day. You should go, get some rest, have fresh eyes on this in the morning."

"It's surprisingly comfortable," Tony said, but he did stand up, as if stretching. "Except where it chafes. And you will, I assume... continue to sit here."

"The two times he's needed me most, I wasn't there," I say, looking from Tony to the door, where my gaze holds.

"I'll be here for this."

Edited 2012-06-03 06:59 (UTC)

Tony considered. He probably wasn't going to convince the guy, he figured.

"At least try to nap on a chair," he said. "My house exploded, so I live... on the other side of the rec room."

Now's not the time to bring up that I've already spoken to Pepper about ways to help the reconstruction. He'll notice eventually, anyway.

Probably.

I nod a little.

"Tony," I say, lifting my head before he can start down the hall.

"Thank you."

"Call it even, I still have... a face, Pepper'll be grateful, too," Tony said, passing a hand in front of said bullet-hole-free face to indicate that he'd been done a solid, too, before turning to head down the hall.

Really had to do something about EMPs. Getting them outlawed on the island was probably out of the question. And... wrong, it went to a kind of authoritarianism that just wasn't him. He'd cut the reboot time down.

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the waiting is always worst

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