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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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.

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oh the weight it must be light wherever you are.

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