ataraxionlogs | oh the weight it must be light wherever you are.

Entry tags:

oh the weight it must be light wherever you are.

CHARACTERS: Libby and YOU (OTA)
LOCATION: Room 008 >> 189, floor 8 kitchens and living areas
WARNINGS: Substance abuse, cursing
SUMMARY: Libby is not taking certain losses well
NOTES: Bump into her any day whenever, profit from drunken honesty

Day One

Nikolai and Syg are gone.

Shrike checks on her people every day. She knows almost to the second when they've...just been gone. Like Kurt's Blaine. And she'll live, she tells herself. It'll be fine.

Nikolai was her one hope for opting out. Syg was her one girl friend. She is not going to be fine.

Shrike cuts out the blue in her hair and dumps all her piercings in the trash. That's when she starts drinking in her room. This isn't fair. This isn't--this isn't fair, she's losing everyone, and she doesn't know what to do.

Day Two

She wakes up shaking and sick with Nikolai's remaining cigarettes by her bed. She doesn't remember taking them. On the way to the kitchen to get more alcohol she tries lighting one up--

She pukes into her cupped hands, then the kitchen sink. She could clean up, sure. But she doesn't. Instead she curls up on a couch with a bottle of nearly vodka and teaches herself to smoke. She throws up three times and doesn't care. Somebody else can deal with it.

Day Three

They fucking abandoned her.

This is what she has to tell herself to get angry, lying on a table in the common room and wishing anyone else was gone. They left her and she doesn't give a fuck about them. Whatev, right? Nikolai was an asshole and Syg was stupid and she doesn't care except oh, fuck, she cares so much. She cares all the time and it's fucking horrible.

She needs to cut them out as efficiently as her blue streak, but she's keeping that in a box too. Sentimental. The colour of her hair and the colour of her heart were blue, blue, blue, and she misses them all--

That's what gets her going. She's given people prison tattoos before. She knows what she's doing. So after some more alcohol to ease the pain she traces two things: a reaper over her heart and spikes on her right wrist. Then she starts filling them in with ink she makes in her little lab in Engineering, biting down on a rag. So there she sits, naked from the waist up except for her bra, because she cares too much. Her heart is too big and it's choking her and she hates it, dully.

(She knows she'll lose everything, eventually.)

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He's making a face at her, setting the glass down and actually rubbing at his throat, coughing and making faces at the taste, exaggerating a bit, sure, but still. It was gross. Really, really gross and he honestly doesn't know why she'd willingly drink the stuff. But still, he trusts her, enough to sit back and watch as she moves to the refrigerator, getting the juice and cups.

Age doesn't mean anything to him. Whether you're old or young, that doesn't make a difference in what you can do, how you can act. He's just barely sixteen, his youngest brother is still twelve, his dad's old, with lines in his face and pure white hair. But he still saved the world, his brother still fought with them, and Tony put on the suit again to save their lives. Age is a number. What really matters is what you've seen, been taught, had to deal with.

"My sister's gone," is what he says immediately after she sits down, a look of muted surprise at the actual pain in his voice as he blurts that out. "She... she showed up, at the jump. I told her to find her room, figure out the communicator because... I had to tell Tony she was here. And when I went to check on her, she... she never made it to her room."

Libby doesn't even have to prompt him, this time. She's making the drinks for a reason, he can smell the same scent lingering on her that he can in the drink in his hand, now. There and being swallowed before he can really think about it. He still makes a face, his eyes and nose and throat still sting, but he's not coughing this time. "I can't find her."

"...I'm sorry." How often is she this soft? More often than she likes to admit. She cares and it's this--weakness, all the time, this thing she can't dig out or erase or cover with any amount of spite. There's no place to run here, either, like she used to. So Libby cares and not even just because it's her story, sort of.

No. No, she realizes, with shocked horror--it is her story. She lost Nikolai and Syg right now, and they mattered, but long before that she used to have a sister to. And she closed her eyes and woke up without one, and before she can think about it she has a tiny hand on his shoulder. See, what Libby believes and won't say is this: the people who go missing never really come back. The ship copies them, maybe. Brings them back without memory or with it. But they aren't the same people. She's a clone. She knows it better than anyone what it means to be a different duplicate, a variation on a theme that's never the original.

"I'm--wicked sorry," she blurts, uselessly. "I just--I lost some people. Too. Fuck, James. Fuck, I hate--I hate this stupid place so bad, I'm sorry. What do you want? If there's just--of I can do something I wanna know, 'kay?"

It's not the loss of a month in her voice. It's the loss of a childhood. A sister. Yeah, she knows, and she's rubbing a circle with her thumb on his shoulder helplessly because it's just not fair. It's not. And nothing she can do will make it better.

He wouldn't know how Libby is like "normally". To him? This is normal from her. She's always been nice to him. Sure, she was a bit grating before hand, a bit annoying, but that's just how he bonds with people. They make fun of him, he makes fun of them, it's how every relationship he's had in his life (all five of them) have been. Ever since he can remember. So this is normal. This is nice. It's comforting.

But he does like it better. He likes the lack of make-up smeared across her face, he likes the emotions he can actually hear and see, not the mask of bullshit she normally puts on. The mask he can see as clear as day. Because when you're a kid who's grown up with nothing but clarity, with pure emotions, you become used to the signs of them. Masks don't exist if you're not expecting to see them. At least for James. People can try all they like to cover things up, but James is so used to seeing every little bit of emotion on another person's face - because his siblings just don't know how to hide that he doesn't get distracted by the cover-ups, the fake emotions. He gets confused by them, sure, doesn't know why they're there, but he doesn't dwell on them, take them for being all that's there.

It's why he sits and studies, why he stares at people so intently when he talks to them, here. He's never been around this many people, he's learning something new every day, something more about emotions, about how people express them. It's... different. It's interesting. And-- it hurts, sometimes. Like right now. The pain in Libby's voice, the deep-seated pain of old wounds being ripped right open again, and he finds himself swallowing around a lump in his throat, leaning around to rest his hand gently on her shoulder, instinctively careful of not pressing against those feathers so they bend the wrong way. He's held Pym in his hand so many times, had to be mindful of his wings underneath the clench of his fingers, that it's just second-nature by now.

He likes her better like this. Uncovered, raw, real. He doesn't like that she hides under the paint on her face, hides what's on her skin from everyone else. Azari doesn't hide the patterns on his skin, Torunn didn't think to hide her scars once she got them, for Pym being small and glowing was normal. And James... he doesn't like that Libby feels the need to hide what's normal. He doesn't get it.

"I don't-" his voice catches in his throat, and he's tightening his jaw, shaking his head to try and clear out the emotion welling up inside him. The sympathy, the anger, the worry, the pain. "Do you know what happens to them? The people that go missing? That don't... that don't make it through a jump? Because Torunn- she can survive in space, she's... she's done it before. Just before I came here she flew up into it and-" went to Asgard, saw her father. Or... that was what she thought. Asgard was the realm of the Gods, but how different was that from being the realm of the dead? From being- what was it. Tony'd taught it to them a long time ago, Torunn had gushed about learning her roots, her past, her mythology. Val... Valhalla? What if she was wrong. What if she hadn't gone to the bifrost and looked into Asgard. What if her father had been bringing her to the halls of the heroes slain in battle, making the ultimate sacrifice? No one could survive in space, not even gods. And Torunn- she could be hurt, they proved that. She's not invulnerable, she's not immortal. She's tough, but she needs to eat and sleep and breathe and gets hurt just like everyone else. So why does he even thing for a second that his sister... "She can survive in space, so if that's- if that's where she ended up, she'll be okay. She'll make it back.

Her dad can get her, and if he gets her than anyone else... anyone else in space with her will be fine. Your friends- Thor can bring them back to Earth."

He lets go of Libby's shoulders, and with trembling fingers, he brings the glass back up to his lips and takes three, big gulps. The sting and burn of the alcohol is better than the taste rising in the back of his throat. The fear clawing its way through him.

It's like James thinks she has answers. That Libby is smart enough to know what happens--or he knows she doesn't have any, but he wants them as much as her. Needs them as much as her. What happens to the people who go missing? Not die, just vanish. Are they lost in a dead zone? Trapped outside the ship? Just gone, like they were never here? It hurt her with Kurt, but Libby has never loved anyone or anything the way Kurt loved Blaine. It wasn't her hurt, mirrored like this. It wasn't being four stupid fucking years old again and thinking no, no, this is a mistake, this isn't true, she'll be back tomorrow. She'll be back tomorrow, she's just getting better. How long did Wren wait patiently for Larkspur to come home? Longer than Libby likes to remember, longer than she had any right to be so stupid, but how can you not be stupid about something like that?

Thor. Her father's name is Thor. Does James know Thor was here, and now he's not? Does he know that Loki is here? Does he know how much Loki hates Thor, for reasons Libby finds justified but--did Torunn do any of that? She couldn't have. James isn't like that, and they're family. James didn't crush her feathers. But Loki hates Thor, and Libby wonders how much, exactly.

This much?

"If she can survive in space she'll be 'kay," Libby agrees, hesitant and lying, lying like he is, because she can't look at him and say you know as much as I do that she's dead. She expired, that word that poisons her blood and her nerves. "And sometimes people show up again, you know? They disappear for a while and come back. She could come back. And that'd be--yeah. If he can do that. That'd be good. She'd tell him to come back for you for sure, at least."

She hasn't stopped touching him this whole time, and now she slides off the table and awkwardly, clumsily pulls him into a hug. It's not the way she clung to Miles or Jesse, when she was looking for comfort. Now she's trying to give it and she doesn't even know where to start. She doesn't care that she's bloody and half-naked, and she knows he won't either. Doesn't matter. They're fighters. Sometimes you bleed on each other. Miles stroked her hair, so she puts her fingers in James'. How did Larkspur do this--and Libby can't even really remember, can't really remember at all what her sister used to do when she was sad.

"And--hey, if your sister showed up--maybe--" she can't hope this for either of them, how can she even be trying? Their sisters are dead, and to be honest even if the ship dragged them from other times--she knows Larkspur would die, fragile and trusting, and Torunn had enemies here even if she didn't know it. But hope is this reckless, desperate thing that beats in her chest like ripped wings. "--maybe mine will. And we'll watch for them, right? For each other? Mine--I'm her clone, so, that's easy, um--she's less ugly, though, her name was Larkspur--" a slip of past tense "--and I met--I met yours. She seems wicked awesome. I'm sure she's just kicking space's ass. Right?"

He can taste the lie in the air. It's a bitter, horrible thing. Thick and oppressive, settling on his shoulders along with everything else. Just one more thing for him to carry with him. One more lie he's had to keep since coming here. Because if he doesn't he'll kill them all. He wonders if a lie would have saved his family from the mess they'd gotten into. If lying and siding with Azari when Vision'd come through the wall of his bungalow, when they watched Tony carry his friend into a passage they'd never seen before... if that would have kept them all safe. Kept Ultron from finding them (his fault) from invading their home, destroying it and everything they'd known (burning forests, broken buildings, snow and cold air rushing in) from the robot who'd killed their parents dragging Tony away by his neck (he'd started this it was) from finding Tony barely conscious, unable to walk on his own, hurt and tortured (his fault he'd done that it was all him just because he couldn't let his dad go).

If he'd lied, would all of that have been avoided? Would they have talked to Vision, argued with Tony, been able to go to Ultra City on their own, to launch a more organized attack?

He can't change the past. But he can change the future. He has his family to look after, and if any of them show up here... Pym's, Azari's parents aren't here. Torunn's dad is -- was, but he doesn't know that yet -- but he's like Tony. Like James' parents. Like Steve and Natasha. They're not their parents. Not the man he remembers taking him to baseball games, walking around with his son on his shoulders, high above the rest of the world, feeling powerful and light as air, his mother walking silently beside him, always there if he tipped over too far, if he started falling for the ground. Catching him whenever he stumbled, helping him get back up again. Even Bucky wasn't the man he remembered coming over, bringing a Dodgers cap, a baseball, telling Steve to make sure to raise his son right. To make him a true Brooklyn boy. They weren't the same.

Tony wasn't the same. And if his siblings got here, if they fell out of the pods, they wouldn't have a mother and father to lean on. They wouldn't have Tony, JOCASTA. All they'd have would be each other. Whoever came through the next jump, that's all they'd have. And James- James has been here the longest. He's heard the horrible truth. If he gave anything away, he'd get them all killed. His parents, Tony. They'd die, again, in a universe where they might have lived, if not for him. So he'd lie. He'd be strong, he'd set up rules. He'd become someone he'd never had to be in order to get them through this. Just one more obstacle, one more fight. They wouldn't have their father, so he'd become one for them. And he'd learn to choke his need for one, because that's what he'd have to do. He'd lie and--

Arms, around him. An embrace as awkward as he was, at first. As if Libby didn't really know what she was doing. Hands in his hair and awkward words being said, a halted, pained reassurance. He can smell the alcohol on her breath, knows her wrists and chest are still bleeding from the ink she was pushing into her skin, but he doesn't care. He's dealt with worse, helped Tony deal with worse. So he stands, awkward for a moment in the embrace, until he's letting out a breath of air, forcing himself to relax, to fold his arms around Libby in return, to gently run his gloves down with the natural bend of the feathers on her back, reassuring her just like the fingers in his hair were reassuring him.

"I didn't think Torunn'd come. She- the last time I saw her she was flying off into space and... and I didn't know if she'd come back," he'd thought she was dead, was sure she couldn't survive that. She couldn't survive guns, not forever, and space was cold, no pressure, a lack of air. "Your sister'll show up," not even a question of might. Sometimes- Tony'd taught them this, from the day they landed in the Arctic Circle he'd driven this into their heads - it was better to hope, to hold onto an impossibility and constantly move forward with that in mind. For them, it was the hope of avenging their parents, of defeating Ultron and not having to hide anymore. Not having to run, if it came to that. An impossibility that, since they spent every day reaching towards it, had come true, in the end. "Every jump, Libby, I'll wait with you. We'll watch for my siblings, your sister. Every. Jump. I promise."

And then, he can't help but smile, even if she can't see it in their embrace, but she might be able to hear it in his voice, the gentler tone to his own voice. "And I dunno about being ugly. You look less weird with all that paint gone."

Survival takes sacrifice. Libby left Wren alone under a bridge and she's trying to leave Libby behind too, but she knows this place they're both in--this place where you tell yourself over and over that this is what you are now while what you were screams as you cut it apart. So they're lying to each other, and while Libby can't regret it for herself, not to become what she needs to become...she can regret it for him. Maybe he has to do it. She doesn't have to like feeling it happen to this boy who somehow knows how to touch her feathers, which for her is something that simply has never happened before.

But right now, she realizes, they don't have to be anybody else yet. She doesn't need James to be strong. He's fine like this, a snarky, irritated little fuck up--there is nothing wrong with him and she doesn't even know who she's pissed off at for making him think he has to change. What, the world? For not being fair? For making it that they are what they are and they both feel like there's an entire world precarious on their backs? She presses her face quick and tearless against his shoulder. Right now she wants to be Libby and he can be James, and they can just be fucked up. Nobody else has to know.

Then she ruffles his hair quick and steps back, a smirk reappearing even though it's tired: "Screw you too, dickface."

"Um--" she's not shying away from showing this, exactly, but it doesn't mean it's ever going to be easy to let her scars show like her feathers; everyone can see she's fucked up, but usually she can make them hate her fast enough that they don't care. She half-turns and picks up her own drink, swallows quick and fast. Every jump, and he says it like he means it. (He reminds her of Liam, right now. Not as dreamy, not as submerged in oblivion, but that way of saying things and meaning them. Decent guys get into you and you end up wanting them to stay.)

"Listen--you can't tell anybody about my sister, all right? She shows and--I don't know her, you don't know her. We're just clones. 'Cause in case you didn't notice I'm not exactly fucking popular and--you know. I have to protect her." She shrugs, but she's shaking with the realization of what she's just given him in her moment of searing empathy. He's got Larkspur in the palm of his hand and she just has to believe he's not the best liar she's ever seen. "And--personally I think that's enough downer fucking talk for serious a year. Whatev, you know, we get--we get our people back. I'm not quitting 'til I do."

He's trying so hard to be his father. To constantly repeat to himself to slow down, to not give into the mannerisms he'd picked up from Tony, the way he snarks and snipes at everything as a kneejerk reaction. To try and be calmer, to think things through and always look for the good in people. He's been trying to ever since he saw his father's tattered cowl and chipped shield in Ultron's display case, the same shield sitting on the floor just a body's length away.

But as Libby steps back, James is smirking too, a light in his eyes again, that wasn't really there just a bit ago, when he'd been so utterly weighed down by the loss of his sister. The fact that he was alone in this ship again. But he wasn't, not really. He had friends. He had someone to look after in Nill, and he had Libby, too. For everything else. She was a lot like him, and it was... it was relaxing. Natural. He didn't have to worry about her, he knew she could find a way to take care of herself. He worried about her because he wanted to, not because he had to.

"Fuck off, it was a compliment," the word is still awkward on his tongue, almost stuttered through, the vowel dragged out too long. As if in a foreign language, and he's swallowing the instinctive 'did I use it right?' because he's pretty sure that ruins it. Instead just, quirking an eyebrow up in half-challenge, half-curiosity. Because did he?

"I won't say anything if-" he stops, tightens his fists for a moment before releasing the tension. "Can you not- only you and Tony know she was here. I mean, I know she talked to some other people, but I don't think she said who she was. I won't say anything about your sister either way, I'm not... bargaining for that," he's making a face. He's not good at this. He doesn't even really talk this much, usually. "If more of my family shows up, I don't want them to know Torunn's lost."

But he's following suit, tipping back the rest of his drink. He's gotten used to the burn of it, but the actual effect of the alcohol really isn't doing much more than relaxing him, just slightly. Not yet, at least. "What're the tattoos for?"

"Cursing and drinking," Libby teases, approvingly, and it's like being slippery and ridiculous in the medbay again for that second, this place where James could be just some guy from back on the islands. Pele-touched. Some people still said that about red hair, and she thinks it kind of fits, actually. The fire is good when it's back.

But then she's processing compliment and bargaining at the same time, side by side, and twisting her fingers into her own hair as she goes to the fridge to just get the whole damn carton of juice. It's one of those days. She doesn't feel like getting utterly obliterated anymore, though, just...level. Just stupid enough to function when otherwise her brain is going to keep whirring like monstrous machinery, those brilliant drives of hers always too fast. She could make this a bargain. Loki would, and that's who she wants to learn from, right? But he's asking like a favour, and--she'll just tell herself they're even and let it go.

"I won't tell anybody about her, don't worry 'bout it." Drinking like this brings out that strange accent of her she's modulated since coming aboard. Except it's not the drinking alone. It's just feeling like she can wear this skin that fits so much better than the one she's trying to weave out of silver lies. "And, um--"

She looks at them and shivers a laugh: "Yeah. Not just your sister that didn't get back to her rooms, lately. This one--this is Nikolai." The reaper. "This is Syg." Spikes.

"It's for...it's stupid." She bites her lip and looks away, filling his cup back up unprompted. She makes his drink stronger than hers, this time, and then glances back up almost shyly. As much as she knows what shy even is. "I figure--so they've got that stupid fucking list everybody is always freaking out over. But Nikolai and Syg don't...have that. So I'm--I'm gonna keep them like this. So even if, you know, we get another Strela--at least my skin remembers they were here. Which serious sounds stupider when I say it."

He lets his lips curl up on one side, into a grin that really is more a smirk. "I told you I'd give that list a try," and he has been, mentally. Getting used to a few of the swear words in his mind, in text, never really saying them out loud because to him they still sound like silly made up words. Nonsensical sounds. He hasn't heard more than a few of them while growing up. When Tony forgot himself and let them slip, or when JOCASTA was reading them out some texts that had a few of them in the lines. But even then he hadn't really thought that much of it. Just thought of it as something from the world they weren't a part of any more.

But he's taking the drink she's offering him, knowing there's a point to it, but knowing quite what that point is. Instead, he's just taking a breath and drinking it. Half of it, until he coughs and his eyes tear up again, until he's screwing up his nose against the sting shooting down his throat after the alcohol. It's better, with the juice, but it's still... weird.

"... So they're to remind yourself of your friends," he likes that. A lot, actually. Enough that it makes him smile warmly, looking down at the messy skin, knowing it'd heal up, eventually, that the ink would be left. He knew how tattoos worked, in theory, and sure it was weird looking at an unfinished product, but--

Libby says Strela, and the smile dies on his face. His eyes darken, and he glances at Libby's eyes for just a second before glancing away, rolling his jaw and tugging uselessly at the edge of his uniform top, putting his drink down and walking the few steps over to his shield, needing it in his hands for a moment, needing to grip the leather straps and just turn the metal around in his hands before walking over, setting it down closer to the table his friend had been on top of. Leaning it so it's just brushing against his pants. Closer. Safer. Instantly, he feels more relaxed. "You were on Strela too. Right," he'd been with her on the trip over, she'd woken him up. He remembers that. But then he'd lost sight of her, had gone off on his own...

He doesn't want to remember what had happened after that.

She pales. It's easier to see now, especially when her feathers flatten all at once, and her first thought is the opposite of what usually comes to mind: please don't have seen me. He gets his shield and she just fucking knows, doesn't she? It's the same reason she's been sleeping in the vents again, never in the same space for more than a night, the reason she wakes up not screaming but unable to breathe. Jesse's bed is full now, with no room for her in it, but that doesn't mean the nightmares are over. No.

So what does she say? Oh, I remember Strela, I was there. And did you know that when you rip open a human stomach with their own guts those guts tend to split and the whole room smells like bitter, sick gore? Did you know, James, that a human jawbone clicks when you rip it off and shove it into an eye? Did you know that it's technically possible for someone who doesn't feel pain to try to walk on two broken femurs and that if you let them try they slice open their own arteries? Did you know all that? Because I didn't and I'd do almost anything to not know that again, but see at the time, at the time it seemed like the only thing to do, because when I hate something I hate it all the way down?

No. But she inches closer to him, like he moved to his shield, and the parallel isn't lost on her. Group up, stay safe, have your weapons ready. She was no real threat before, but she had no real allies either, so the idea of being close to someone to stay safe--it's new. And yet it's not. It feels as natural as breath, some human instinct left in her DNA. Stay together.

She covers his hand with her own. Just--to make sure. He's there.

"Yeah. I--I was out of it. In the waiting room. Sort of--well, I blew up my ear. Or they did. Assholes." They're fine. They're both here and they're fine and she's fine and it's fine, all of it, because it has to be. "I--fuck, I didn't--if I'd known you were in there I would've come and found you."

His hand turns easily in hers, fingers wrapping around fingers as he forces a smile back on his face, as he tightens his grip in a comforting squeeze. That much he knows how to do, has always known how to do. It's like when Torunn had been scared, telling them they should leave. He'd smiled at her and held out his hand, telling her it was okay, they could do this. And she'd taken it, squeezed, and they'd been flying. Maybe Libby couldn't fly, and maybe that wasn't the kind of reassurance she needed, but it was reassurance all the same. A gentle reminder of another's presence. Of someone else being there. That they weren't alone.

And really, that's all he needs. His shield at his feet, Libby's hand and worry, the broken assurances, the slight web of alcohol at the corners of his consciousness. It's enough, for now. Enough for what he'd been through, what he hadn't told anyone, so far.

"I got out. The-- the smile appeared and there was a way out," he'd barely been able to move, had to drag himself out of the room on his arms, his legs practically paralyzed until he'd been out of the room, until the crushing presence in his mind lifted and he could get to his feet, until he could run and break his way into the room they'd shoved his shield inside of. Until he could get the comforting metal back in his hands and bust the rest of the way out, along with everyone else their mystery helper had let lose.

But other than that, he'd been okay. He'd seen the reactions others had had, how much worse some of them had had it, and so he'd bitten his tongue. He'd kept his head down and waited until he was ready to check the network again. And he'd kept quiet. He hadn't told anyone before now, and he didn't-- he hadn't even wanted to, not really. But Libby had mentioned it, and he'd needed his shield, needed the reassurance, and she'd known. He knew she would figure it out. That's just... that's how it was, with them. For some reason, they just knew.

"Can you give me one?" he's blurting out, suddenly. Tightening up his jaw almost defensively as soon as he says it. "A tattoo, I mean. To remember."

In a smarter mood Libby would reconsider this idea immediately striking her as brilliant--she has the sense James is something she is supposed to not touch, wound up with Stark and Rogers and their whole crew that moves together in ways she doesn't quite understand. He's too good for her to be touching; she'll just fuck him up with her filthy little hands.

But maybe that's why it's such a great idea, because she's sick of having her hands slapped for just wanting to know, just wanting to touch all of that brilliant, frustrating code. Just wanting to come inside and look for a while, and she thinks with no small trace of bitterness that if someone had just--if someone had warned her. If they'd said anything about the company she kept, because she knew Stark could hack her encryptions and she knew he'd seen her talking shit and they'd just let her. And yeah, they didn't owe her anything. Maybe they thought it was funny to watch her ruin her stupid little life.

Maybe James is too good for them. Maybe she wants to touch, because he's asking her to, and even if he's some kind of hero and she's a mouthy little gutterbrat they get each other. They get being frustrated and shut out because you're not good enough, you're not one of us, when all she had wanted to do at the start was to belong to something good for once.

"Yeah, totes." She grins, the wicked sullen and preoccupied mood lifting. You know what? They can do whatever they want. Nobody's around to say it's a bad idea, or you're just stupid little bitch kids, or that she has to learn to just shut up already (her voice is all she ever had, and they want to shut her up, and it sits wrong with her when all she wants to do is scream look at me). Nah, they can do this. Stupid permanent shit that's impulsive and they might totally regret later. She takes her hand from his and whisks over to her computer.

"Peregrine, on," she says, and flickers her fingers through the holographic interface that obligingly blooms blue in the air. The drawing program comes up readily, and she takes his hands to hold them in the scanner until they're locked in. She usually doesn't let people touch her shit, but this is harmless. A pen appears in midair, glowing and translucent. "Draw whatev you want, I'll project it and trace it on you when you got it. Hey, um--where you want it, anyway? 'Cause over bone hurts like a bitch, for the record."

He almost jumps as the interface comes to life. Would have instantly grabbed his shield if he wasn't kind of used to this from living with Tony. He's never used anything like this, this complex, but he's seen Tony use computer systems, seen the helper bots move on their own. There weren't many holograms in their little base, but there were a few. Small ones, little keypads. Enough that while it's weird, getting his hand moved to hold a pen that isn't really there above a surface that's also... not there, he's just gritting his teeth against the strangeness of the situation, focusing instead on the drawing.

"I don't care where," he mutters after a while, wracking his brain as he moves his hand, his fingers, as he sketches and erases, slowly forming the symbol out of his memory, chasing lines together with an ease he forgot he had. He's a natural artist, he just doesn't do anything with it. Never has. But lines and shapes come easy to him. Putting images on paper from his mind has never been a challenge, unless he tries to do it with words. "You can pick, I... can deal with pain."

Slowly, what he's sketching takes shape. It's a little complex, like the symbol from norse mythology but... simplified, slightly. Less complex than it is in its full form, maybe a bit innacurate. But he's seen the symbol every day for the last twelve years. Been woken up by it, sat by it at dinner, fought with it. He's seen it gleaming and etched in gold since the day their ship landed in the Arctic. It's the symbol of mjolnir. Of Torunn's father, and thus of Torunn herself. It's the symbol she'd carried around on her sword every day, the symbol that binds her to her weapon.

It's something simple that... it's his sister, through and through. She'd always obsessed over the stupid symbol, her tie to her father. And now... now it can be his tie to her. Even if she's gone. Even if-... he was starting to doubt that she'd come back to them at all, back home.

"Does this work?"

"Yeah," Libby says after a moment, because now she recognizes the shape--her memory isn't eidetic, but it's close, rapid and accurate and cross-referencing instantly. Mjolnir, Thor's hammer. A symbol of the god and also of protection, and Libby knows exactly where it belongs. "Yeah, I can do that. Take your shirt off."

She goes to help him out of it, deft and for once not thinking or worrying about implications, then she picks up her computer and flits her fingers deftly through the interface. (This will be the first thing to go, the poetry of her hands, but for now they are sure and swift and subtle. It's almost too fast to make out what she does, calling and banishing files and folders and programs and flickers of raw code.) A blue glow falls on his shield arm, and she switches the computer to her left hand, keys in something that produces a flash and locks it--now no matter how the projector shakes it adjusts to keep the image exactly where it is.

She's made a lot of upgrades since she got here. That's nothing to brag about, to her mind. It's like saying she bothered to eat. She dips a stylus in the ink pool and touches the top of tbe hammer, thoughtful. It'll go right on the swell of where his arm meets his shoulder. Appropriate. The arm that offers protection, protected.

"Is this right?" She glances at him--he said she could pick, but it's his tattoo.

A pause, and she adds, apropos of nothing (except--): "You're good at that. Drawing. I didn't know."

There's a rush of relief that she can work with what he'd traced out. The lines and curves and little intricacies. It's not perfect, but then again... maybe that's what'll make it even better than if it had been traced from the sword itself. It's not complete, not there, but it's what James remembers. It's his memory, and he's learned over the years that memories are just as important to hold onto as the things right in front of you.

So, he pulls off his shirt sitting still as Libby lines the light up, tensing his arm as he realizes what that means - having his shield arm immobilized, aching until he healed. It was a gamble, and it meant a lot of trust was being put on Libby right now. Trust that she wasn't taking advantage of this, distracting him. But then again, she wasn't a robot. And James... he hadn't learned of human betrayal, not yet. It's something he's been blissfully spared from. So, he's relaxing, grinning and shrugging his right shoulder, making sure to keep his left one still under her hands.

"Yeah, it's fine," he's glancing away, then, letting her work, not really wanting to watch the actual process. Which is why he's... glad for the offered distraction. It's not that blood bothers him, he'd just honestly rather be surprised by the end product.

"My dad drew. Back before... he became Captain America, he was a cartoonist. He kept drawing, sometimes. I remember... sitting with him, when I was little. He'd draw, and I'd color," he's trying to swallow a smile. "At least I thought it was coloring. I don't draw that much, but..." it's just a natural talent he'd inherited. Practiced at night when he couldn't fall asleep.

It starts with tracing. She wants to see how it actually looks on his skin before she does anything, so she paints in quick, light strokes. She can trace well even if she's not much of an original artist.

The story about his dad--she can't relate, much, until she thinks of Larkspur's hands lightly over her on the piano. Sister and mother all in one, really, and she hums a snatch of Bach before she catches herself. The lullabies were always her favourites, sweet and soothing, and soothing makes her think as she sets the stylus aside and picks up the bundle of needles.

"Hey. You can pet me, if you want. I don't know. I'm a companion animal, we're supposed to be comforting." She smiles a little crooked, offering her arm, and as an afterthought: "You do it right. Most people like--bend them or break them or something. It's pretty--I don't know. Where'd you learn that?"

"And," she adds, pressing the needles to his skin, "Captain America is the guy with the shield, yeah? Steve?"

Libby doesn't know she's not supposed to know, not really. But she's seen Steve's shield, the way James got tense in front of him, and Steve runs around with Tony, who James is all hung up on, and Libby is the relentless compiler and analyzer of data. "He seems pretty chill. Captain America is a weird name, though."

He's relaxing as Libby keeps tracing on his skin, finding himself grinning just a little at the few notes of a tune she's humming as she works. Which is really why it's so easy to just cock his head to the side as she smiles at him, offers. His eyebrows knit for a second, pure confusion on his face. "What do-" he glances at her arm, at the feathers on it, and you can almost see it click in his his mind.

He'd honestly barely noticed. Had noticed absently, of course, to be able to work around it, to feel around it, but this is his first time really taking a good look, consciously reaching out and touching, careful and gentle.

"My brother has wings when he shrinks. Bug wings. He rides in my collar sometimes, and we've had to grab him. After he stings you on the nose a few times, you learn not to crush stuff like this," his fingers are moving over her arm, though, just stroking gently down her arm, over to her shoulder, a few inches down her back, moving carefully to learn the way they bend at first, until he becomes a little more sure. Interested and curious in how they felt, what they were.

"... Yeah, Steve Rogers. Captain America is..." his fingers twitch slightly on Libby's upper arm, nerves evident. "It's just a thing. A symbol. I dunno if dad even chose it, really."

It's Libby's turned to be lulled. She wasn't expecting it to feel this good when she offered, her feathers relaxed and pliant under exploration. It feels like the heat of sunlight on a warm winter's day, a hot shower that doesn't end, the sleepy contentment of a full stomach. Simple, basic happiness, all physical and easy--and she realizes with a shock that comes as slow as sound underwater that this must be how it's supposed to work. These are endorphins being triggered to flood at being petted, this is--this is something that was put in her DNA before she was even a separate creature and somehow in sixteen years not one person has managed to find it.

Usually she'd be furious, for dozens of reasons. Right now, drunk on touch and starshine, she thinks at least now I know. She sighs softly before she even realizes he said much (his brother has wings like that's nothing, like it's freckles or brown eyes, and it twists her a little), then smiles crooked and dreamy.

"You pull it off," she says, arching and angling a little into his touch with a bitten lip, and then she gets back to work, "The shield. And everything. Just--you should pick any name you want."

He's oblivious to the things going through Libby's mind. To him, the action is comforting, and that's... about it. It's something she said he could do, and so he's doing it. And he likes her smiling. It's a lot better than the look she's had before. That sad, defeated look that quickly morphs into annoyance, anger. The way she puts herself down and then goes right back to being forcibly chipper. He hates it when she does that. Hates it when anybody does that.

So, he'll keep petting her feathers, even as the pricking starts, the push of a needle and ink into his skin. It'll be worth it, in the end. He knows. Trust Libby to make it look like his sketch, as close to the original as he could remember.

"... I'm not Captain America," it's said quietly, and a little distantly. If Libby looks up at him right now, she'll see the way his brow's furrowed, the firm set to his lips, the tension in his jaw and the look of guilt and disappointment in his eyes. "I never wanted to be, I... I can't live up to that. My dad was Captain America, and I'm not... I'm not as good as he was. I'm not a leader, not really," he makes too many mistakes to be. Loses his siblings, gets them hurt, gets Tony hurt. Kidnapped. Tortured.

"I'm okay without a codename," he finally admits. "For now, I'm just me."

Libby does look up. She does see. And if he's guilt and disappointment she's instant protective anger, burning through her contentment. Not good enough. Says who? He's good enough to care about her, of all people. Good enough to carry this burden she can't name but knows in his shoulders' set. Good enough to have a sister he loves and misses. Not good enough for what? Not able to live up to someone Libby's never seen do anything?

She doesn't care about the name. Names mean nothing to Libby, she puts them on and takes them off like clothes--Wren, Peregrine, Mockingbird, Shrike, Liberty, they don't matter. Except this name matters to James, and for some reason he thinks he couldn't have it if he wanted it. It's not that she wants him to be Captain America, who means nothing to her. It's that she wants him to think he can be anything, because he can.

Libby tosses down the needles and squares off in front of him, eyes flashing bright and blue as electric current: "And you're fucking perfect."

It's drunken hyperbole, but it's felt, meant. She doesn't have the real vocabulary for what she wants to say, which is that to her he's perfect. He sits there with every future in the world and denies himself one, when Libby wants him to have all of them. Every choice should be one he gets to believe in.

So she kisses him because it's all she really knows how to do, at this point. Tattoo unfinished, with her fingers smeared in ink marring the clean skin of his arms as she takes hold of him and leaves tiny smudged handprints that will stain and last, her mouth sweet and sharp at the same time, eyes screwed shut--she doesn't know what to do with him, because he hurts like her, so maybe this. Maybe she does this, and he gets it, that somebody wants him exactly the way he is. That they all might think he's a screw up, but she doesn't, and she tries to fit it all inside the slanting of her mouth against his and it pours out of the corners anyway in a frustrated little breath.

His eyes dart to the side as she tosses the needles away, brow pinching in confusion. What was she doing? Did he do something wrong? Did he upset her? He was being honest, serious, letting the warmth in his belly spread out through his body, sending his mind tingling and blanketing over, the haze of his first taste of alcohol finally settling in. So he looks up at her, mouth open to say something, but the look on her face has his teeth clicking as his mouth shuts, has him blinking rapidly at her in confusion instead.

Perfect? He wasn't perfect. Anything but, actually. He was a jerk, a pain in the ass. Hurt and bitter and that bitterness had almost cost him his family. He pretended to be able to lead his friend and family, to be able to know what was best to do in a fight but the bottom line was he didn't. He didn't know what to do, where to go, who to talk to. This entire ship has his head spinning. There are so many people here, and everyone pretends like it's something normal. He's only met and known seven people in his entire life, and then suddenly he's here? With people he knows but doesn't know, his family nowhere in sight.

And he can kill them. All of them. Just by being himself, acting how he was raised to act, he'll end up killing them. His parents, the Avengers, it'll be his fault just like Tony getting captured had been. And ever since he'd seen that happen, had remembered clutching tight to the railing as everything shook, as shouts echoed over the coms, as Tony yelled at him to go back with the others. Natasha's soothing voice telling him to be good, even if she was out of breath, pained, dying. Cap had already gone down, but she was telling him she loved him and that would happen again, here, so what if it had been his fault in the first place? Had he touched something? Done something to bring Ultron to the mansion? Had he-

Lips, against his. Hands on his arms. He doesn't know what to do other than freeze, to open his eyes wide and reach his hands up, fingers skimming over Libby's skin gently, nervously, not sure where to touch, what to do. He knows what kissing is, he's not that stupid, and he knows what it means, but he's never gotten why people would do it. Why it would feel nice. And it... does. It's weird, he doesn't know how to react, but the contact feels nice. Reassuring. And he welcomes it.

He knows he should do something, but all he knows is to sit as still as possible and see what happens.

Libby remembers her first kiss. The first real one, anyway, not years of mockery beforehand that ruined something she knew, according to stories, was supposed to be special. But it hadn't been terrible.

Her name was Nika and she had a laugh like tinted glass, nails all painted different colours. One of Jo's friends, a little younger than her but vastly more worldly, and they'd been working the same corner when Nika looked at her, thoughtfully, and pressed them together as gently as the falling rain. And she'd fluttered like James is fluttering now, and that's how she guesses.

Sharp is wrong, she realizes. Sharp is wrong for him, for a first time, and in the warming flush of their skin wherever they're touching Libby finds stability enough to soften. Her hands lose the desperation of their grip, fingers tracing back lightly: like this, like this. She brushes the tip of her tongue at the seam of his lips but doesn't dive in, her little noise now much quieter and lilting, a note of bird song. This is okay. This is more than okay, chaste and safe, and she realizes she's not just kissing him to prove a point.

That's why she pulls back, wide-eyed, hands stilling on his arms as she assesses--well, she just fucked this up, didn't she?

"James, I--" she hesitates and stutters, more shocked at herself than anything "--I shouldn't have--I should've asked, I'm sorry, oh, fuck, I know you don't like me like--fuck."

Let her just. Disentangle and make an escape, how about that.

This... is his first. He's never really thought about kissing anyone else, before. He'd grown up only knowing Torunn, Azari, Pym, and Tony. And even recently.. before Tranquility, he'd only been outside of his home for a day. Not anywhere near long enough to form any lasting relationships with anyone, to explore feelings of attraction. And the only girls he'd known had been Torunn, Betty.

So here he is, sitting there as Libby moves against him, traces his lips with her tongue, a movement that makes his skin feel too tight and too loose all at once, has color rising in his cheeks. And yet, he can't help but finally let his hands rest on her arms, fingers smoothing over her feathers, relaxing and even trying, nervously, to tilt his head a little, to move his lips the same way Libby is. Or, well, at least he thinks it's the same.

But then she's gone, pulling back and wide-eyed, probably as wide-eyed as James is. He's flushed, not sure what to do, shock still more than evident, but it's not bad shock. Not by any means. It's simply being taken unawares by a gesture he had no clue about.

"N-No, I-" but his voice is tense, choked out, and he has to take a moment to swallow, to clear his throat and try and speak again. And in that moment- Libby's pulling back, away. Running from the room and James is still too stunned, too numbed to do anything but blink slowly at her retreating form, to stare at the door she'd disappeared through. Finally, he swallows again, clears his throat to an empty room and glances at the needles on the floor, the empty glasses still smelling of alcohol, the shield at his side. "... I do," he finishes, the words still feeling stuck in his mouth, a feeling only made marginally better by telling it to the empty room.

He breathes out a sigh, muttering a quick, quiet damn it before pushing himself up, tugging on his shirt and slipping his shield over his shoulders, trying to sort of... push all their stuff into one big pile with a foot. It makes it look a little less-- ... okay, no, he made it worse.

So, hands shoved moodily into his pockets, he turns and walks back the way he'd come in, still not entirely sure what had just happened.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

oh the weight it must be light wherever you are.

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