Lab Below Stark Industries, Friday Morning

[imafuturist]

It was safe to say that Tony too had not noticed anything strange today. Mostly because he rarely used a filter when working with JARVIS and had been working since the night prior with only a few coffee breaks.

On one hand, he was getting closer to finding where HYDRA currently was, but on the other.... sleep deprivation.

Choices, choices.

He took a sip of lukewarm coffee and fiddled with the code on a bot he'd designed to watch the traffic cameras in Queens. For the tenth time that hour.

Yeah.

[open for anyone lookin' for him!]

Comments

[fjordicswagger]

where r u at stark, Tamsin texted. green girl's at the desk.

[imafuturist]

Tony blinked as the text pinged in the back if his mind. It helped make him stop fiddling at least. "J, show the lady down."

"Of course, sir."

[fjordicswagger]

A couple of minutes later, Tamsin was coming down the stairs. She was holding a bottle in each hand.

"Drinks," she said firmly.

[imafuturist]

"This is early even for me," he replied, clearing off a work bench for her.

That was the thing about peppering your normal conversation with self-depricating remarks. It didn't change that much on days like this.

[fjordicswagger]

"The island is doing this stupid thing again where you can only speak the truth, which is bullshit and also terrifying for me because I lie a lot," Tamsin said.

Beat.

"Dammit. Ugh. Let's just open these and shut up."

[imafuturist]

"Oh." A beat. "So do I, but I try to do it to keep people from getting hurt most of the time. Not that it really helps seeing as how I've managed to kill a friend and destroy my team---"

His eyes went wide at how he couldn't sseem to stop himself there. "Give me a drink."

[fjordicswagger]

"That's what I thought," Tamsin said, holding out the bottle for him. "With any luck, when we finish these, we'll be so tired we pass out for the rest of the day."

[imafuturist]

"I'm going to need more than this," Tony said, taking the bottle. "Though I haven't had anything other than coffee in the last twelve hours..."

[fjordicswagger]

"So we'll order in Mooby burgers," Tamsin said, twisting the top off her own bottle. "And I'll be nice and not ask you about killing people. Not that I have any right to talk."

[imafuturist]

"I want to ask, but it'll just make me talk about things I don't want to discuss either."

[fjordicswagger]

"See? Nobody asks any questions," Tamsin said. She took a swig from the bottle. "That's the best way to do this."

[imafuturist]

Tony had to laugh at that, opening his own bottle to take a sip. And, admittedly, the laugh bordered on desperate, but it was still a laugh. "Silent, angry drinking. Sounds like home."

Aaaand a much longer sip.

[fjordicswagger]

"Then stop talking," Tamsin muttered. She snagged a chair and sank down in it with an oomph.

[heroic_jawline]

"Tony?" Steve called down the stairs. "I'm back from the mission. Punched a bunch of bad guys really hard and learned that Rumlow spends more time on his hair than Natasha."

[imafuturist]

"That's the guy with the AXE bodyspray, right?" Tony called back. "I'm not surprised, it's a calling card for douchebags."

And then he sighed because honesty was continuing. Of course it was.

[heroic_jawline]

"Is it?" Steve asked, stepping into the lab still in his tac suit. "It's kinda overpowering, so I guess that makes some sense. I think Rumlow's just trying too hard to impress me, and I'm so desperate to make friends that I don't care."

He blinked. "Um."

Why had that last part come out?

[imafuturist]

"Something is forcing us all to tell the truth today," Tony said with a wince. Because someone gave him alcohol to bemoan this fact. "I'm going to say I'll pretend you didn't say that, but it's going to make me eventually punch everyone who should be your friend in your awful universe instead."

Yeah, Tony was loving today.

[heroic_jawline]

"I always tell the truth," Steve said. "Or try to because I really want to live up to this ideal people have of me."

He made a face. "This isn't fun."

[imafuturist]

"It really isn't," Tony agreed with a frantic nod. "Tamsin already got me a little drunk for it. But one of the things I remember from that weird weekend were the twelve steps, so that can't be good."

[heroic_jawline]

"I just remembering waking up feeling like I'd been crushed by guilt all weekend," Steve said. "Which was just awful."

[imafuturist]

Welcome to Tony's magical world where everything could be blamed on you. Literally everything.

"Yes," Tony agreed, wincing at himself. "And a tension. I don't like that feeling. Not with my friends."

[heroic_jawline]

Steve nodded. "I'm pretty terrible at making any," he said. "I had Bucky...and that was about it."

[imafuturist]

"That's okay, the only friends I had before meeting Rhodey wanted money or my father's influence," Tony replied with an expression of horror at himself for being so freaking pathetic. "Oh god, I hate this."

[heroic_jawline]

"I can tell," Steve said. "We're not exactly amazingly share-y types normally."

Beat.

"Because our lives are terrible."

[imafuturist]

"Well, you're repressed enough that I sometimes I almost feel normal." Tony inhaled sharply and covered his mouth after that.

Yeah, this was going to be a thing.