[Closed]

[prorenataa]

Who: Tony Stark (MCU) & Adrien Arbuckal
When: Early August, post the command change
Where: Nomo #001
What: How fast can you run, till you fall down
Warnings: Discussion of slavery, graphic violence.



Eventually, even the deepest demons could been out run by sheer exhaustion. Or perhaps it was that they caught you, in your exhausted state and you collapsed beneath their weight but didn't feel their teeth until you woke up the next day.

Either way, Adrien eventually had to return to his room for an attempt at an actual bit of sleep. Not a couple of hours caught on an empty bed in the Medbay, or an hour snatched in a chair in the library, this was a visit to his actual bed.

First there was a delightful cold, three minute shower to be enjoyed, which Adrien made the most of every last minute of water he was allotted. Hot or cold, it didn't matter. At this point the chill in his bones had nothing to do with the physical.

Hamilton appeared to be gone, leaving the room oddly quiet and that combined with the exhaustion and mental turmoil was perhaps why Adrien wasn't as attentive as he had been since returning from the outpost. He had been careful not to go out in public without a shirt on, covering the still livid contusions and lacerations laid out across his back, shoulders and lower abdomen by Mr. L&U.

He had briefly considered why they were healing so damn slowly but his diagnostic mind had wryly supplied physical strain, such as lifting Elena, crashing on decking (thank you 'bots and your pranks), crappy diet (nutrition bars yum) and general run down immune system meant his body was taking it's damn sweet time knitting back together.

He didn't expect either Tony or William back (actually, he'd just lost track of time) and so he sat on the edge of his bed in just his sleep pants, leaning forward as he idly twirled a monogrammed stethoscope between his hands, watching the low lights flash off the metal of the diaphragm. Courser was up on bunk behind him, laying with his chin on a sock, watchful of the door as if he understood how thoroughly distracted his companion was at the moment.

Comments

[arcreact]

Adrien should really know better by now.

Tony wanders in sometime in the middle of Adrien's musings, a small flashlight in one hand and a series of superficial, extremely minor burns on the other. It tells a whole story: electrical work, most likely. Probably directly related to the forced power cuts, or rather, directly related to subverting some of those power cuts, because fuck you.

He's halfway through the door, not really paying attention, when he catches sight of the various bruises and injuries painting his roommate's torso. He comes to an abrupt halt; he's not an idiot. He can guess where those came from.

What the fuck.

"Did you put your whole body through the bulkhead this time?"

This is how he chooses to say hello.

[prorenataa]

Normally, Adrien was so damn twitchy it was near impossible to sneak up on him. At the moment, however, this would not appear to be the case; if the way he startled sat up sharply was anything to go by.

"Don't you know to knock!?" The words honestly left his mouth before what he was saying and to whom sank in. Further testament to just how startled he was in the moment, how far away his thoughts had been.

As if realizing this fact, Adrien exhaled a deep breath and made a waving off motion with his hand before he reached with the same hand and grabbed for a shirt.

"It was the ..." he began but oddly, the actual words slavers didn't quite leave his mouth. As if there was something holding him back from addressing the reality of the circumstances and true to form, he moved to avoidance, tossing out the more immediate concern.

"Did you have any luck?"

As if he'd waste Tony's time or his own on asking about how his roommate got those burns. Instead, he stood up with the button down shirt pulled over his shoulders but left undone for the time being, as he motioned with his hands. Come on, let him see if any of those burns needed attention.

[arcreact]

The outburst earns a look that is nothing short of withering, but he refrains from comment, which is probably indicator enough that he understands why it happened to begin with. It's not worth the sarcastic quip, in this case, and that's saying something.

He finally moves the rest of the way into the room, closing the door behind him, and pockets the hand in question.

"Yeah, no. Don't try the doctor shit on me." He points at the bed with the flashlight. "Sit."

He's gonna be stubborn about this one, and fully intends to chase that aborted statement. But first, he does deign to at least answer the question.

"I've rigged up some geothermal lighting using the heat coming off the engines, but that's only gonna help us down in engineering. Everywhere else, we get to continue bumping into walls all day."

[prorenataa]

That 'doctor shit' had a long and well tested history of working as a perfectly acceptable avoidance tactic. The fact that Adrien stood there and looked dumbfounded for a moment as Tony not only deflected the attempt but also removed his hand from view, might have been comical under other circumstances.

It actually might still be comical, to be honest.

Dark brows furrowed as Adrien seemed to realize that, outside of grabbing Tony's arm and wrestling his hand out of his pocket, he was stuck. Close on the heels of the frown came something that might have almost been called a pout, before Adrien ducked his head and moved to sit back down on the bed.

Ah but then Tony offered another avenue of escape and the doctor's head came back up as he pounced on it.

"Would there be any chance of using the technique on some of the exhaust vents running through the ship, to utilize it in other areas?" There probably wasn't enough heat in those vents but ... this is why Adrien is not an engineer.

[arcreact]

It is comical, and sickly satisfying to boot. He knows how this bullshit works, enough to peg it when he sees it, and certainly enough to call it out when he doesn't feel like dealing with it. Adrien should've expected it would one day loop around to this.

"Not unless I have time to make a few revolutionary clean energy breakthroughs." Because it really is a matter of time and not ability.

Tony switches off the flashlight - the arc reactor in his chest provides more than enough light to navigate the small barracks with - and opts for leaning against the wall across from the bunk. His scrutiny of his roommate is tempered somewhat by the half-darkness, for which Adrien should probably be grateful.

"So. Spill."

[prorenataa]

"What are you waiting for?" Adrien fired back, surprisingly confident that Tony could make these breakthroughs; though not particularly practical about the time needed for such a thing.

Again, one of the many reasons he was not an engineer.

As for the question. Adrien sat there for a moment and then he began to button up the shirt.

"I should go finish the MedBay laundry," he remarked, shirt only haphazardly buttoned before he began to grab for his boots, dropping one of them awkwardly in his haste.

"It seems Hamilton's left, by the way. So if you need another flat surface to cover in crap, go ahead and use his bed."

[arcreact]

Tony watches him, impassive and unimpressed.

"I don't think the inspection gestapo will like that," he offers in airy response. He sends the door a sideways glance, and seriously considers whether or not he'd be able to hack the thing closed.

He makes no move for it yet, just sighs, and it's the genuine kind.

"Y'know, I've noticed something about this place."

[prorenataa]

"If it's about the socks, I claim no responsibility." Adrien responded to the latter comment, leaving the former alone.

Mostly because Tony was right about the inspections.

At the moment the doctor's head was down as he tried to lace his boots in the semi-light. Why the fuck had he yanked the laces out of so many eyeholes??

It was a stupid thought but the one that scooted through his head as he expected to finish lacing up the footwear and make good on his escape. Perhaps he should have been listening a little more closely to the sincerity in that sigh, but even having known the man, Stark was still a difficult one to get a read on.

[arcreact]

"I know exactly who to blame for the socks."

Tony shoots Courser a look while Adrien fumbles to hasten his escape, as if on cue. He quirks an eyebrow at the alien cat, as if to say 'Are you seeing this shit? You're just gonna let him get away with it?' Honestly, this guy's an even bigger piece of work than Tony is.

"No, I was thinking about how, no matter what I do, this place always seems to be one step ahead of me."

It's surprisingly honest, ground out like a confession. He doesn't do blatant honesty, at least not usually. But Adrien's done him the favor at least once before, and it had gone a long way toward Tony feeling like he can trust the guy enough to live and work with him.

Maybe he ought to spend some time returning the favor and see how far that gets him.

[prorenataa]

Courser continued to lay on the bed, chin on his paws. He flicked an ear at Tony when the man looked his way as if to suggest he'd exhausted his bag of tricks. This might be why the bahari had a sock habit.

As for the tracker's companion.

The honesty did come as something of a surprise, not because Adrien believed Tony duplicitous (though he knew the man could be secretive as hell) but because he hadn't expected the show of trust. Or the concern for that matter. The doctor was used to licking his wounds in private, having his shit together when in public and he suspected that Stark was a similar personality.

Showing weakness was unfathomable; the risks were just too great.

However.

Adrien slowed the motion of his hands, eventually dropping the laces without completing the act of tying the boots. He didn't look up, he couldn't quite manage that but after a long pause he nodded.

"I thought I'd learned to just live with that feeling," he admitted in a soft voice. "Brace myself for what was coming next and keep moving forward."

Brushing his hand through his hair, he folded them together, hanging over his knees but finally looking up. In the shadows it might be hard to determine, but he was looking at Tony.

"Maybe there are still some things we shouldn't feel prepared for, because if we do ... we'll have lost something of ourselves." Did that even made sense? Maybe his next words would clarify.

"While you were in cryo, if you haven't already heard, after the Moira made the jump to where-ever we are here, about a third of the crew was transported to an outpost where many of us fell victim to capture. Apparently that particular outpost deals in the slave trade; various types."

He considered listing them off briefly but oddly found he didn't want to dwell too deeply on what he'd seen there. In fact, Adrien cleared his throat, suggesting he was mentally yanking himself away from certain memories.

"Well. You live with me, I'm not particularly agreeable at the best of times. So I endured my fair share of attempted 'attitude adjustments'."

[arcreact]

Tony isn't convinced by that philosophy. He doesn't blindly ride out waves as they come; he tasks himself with knowing they'll happen, when they'll happen, how they'll happen. How they can be avoided or embraced, as the situation demands.

"Yeah, I don't think I can live like that." He's a futurist. That's the word he liked to use back home, anyway, even if it hasn't been very apt aboard the Moira. "But then I come here, and everyone I know from home is tiptoeing around me like a bunch of untalented ballerinas because they know more about my future than I do, there's a magical bullshit portal that keeps bending reality, people fall in and out of stasis like we're playing musical chairs, and we have absolutely no guarantee from anyone that we'll actually be sent home. Ever."

It comes out in a frustrated rush, but he what the fuck, he's on a roll, right? If he's grateful for Adrien choosing to be up front with him (with very minimal coercing, let's be honest), it doesn't quite show, save for the tidal wave of actually-honest words still tumbling out of his mouth.

"And then I take a nap for two weeks, and when I come out of it? We're in a different universe and half the people I know are hobbling around like they've been beaten half to death, and nobody's talking about it - hell, I wouldn't! - and I still don't have a damn clue what's going on."

And he gets it, he does, because he's the last person who's interested in 'let's sit around and talk about our feelings and traumatic experiences', but it also puts him one step behind yet again. He may feign aloofness so well that he has plenty of people convinced, but seeing everyone he knows beaten half to death isn't actually something he can sit around and silently ignore.

"I'm tired of never knowing anything, and I'm tired of this place's bullshit." Grit out, as he doesn't quite meet the gaze Adrien's rewarded him with. "For Christ's sake, you got your ass kicked around by slavers."

This place is a nightmare.

[prorenataa]

As Tony ramped up, Adrien's eyebrow rose but he sat quietly and let the man work through his words. Sitting forward, just slightly, the edges of his shirt fluttered slightly with the movement as he unfolded and refolded his fingers. The position set him in the shadows but the light from the arc reactor fell more completely across his face.

The doctor was quiet as the words began to tumble together. The anger, the grief, the helpless frustration, the uncertainty; dangerous emotions that could build up under the surface without a person realizing it. There might be a pinch, here and there, but when so much was internalized it became its own cycle of normalcy that didn’t expose it’s darkness until the first words tumbled loose.

Tony had probably needed to say some of this since before he went into stasis, let alone after waking to even more chaos. Adrien waited till Tony wound down, or at least paused for breath and after a moment, he asked in a surprisingly gentle tone.

"Been holding on to that for a while, haven't you?" It wasn't so much a question as a statement.

[arcreact]

Tony opens his mouth, draws a breath - and then closes it again with a sharp clack of teeth, like he's thought better of it. The first outburst wasn't planned. The second one can be.

Suddenly he's the one who isn't making eye contact. He pockets his hands, but they fidget even there.

"How'd everybody get out?"

Non-sequitur, sure, but he'd rather gather information than dwell on his own lack of emotional solvency. Especially not so somebody who - holy shit - got beaten around by slavers. He feels like an idiot, which only makes it worse.

[prorenataa]

This ... was why he and Tony were perfect roommates.

Or horrible roommates.

Or something.

Adrien recognized the dodge because it was the exact same avoidance tactic he'd use in this very situation. In fact, it was the exact same avoidance tactic he was using in this situation, so that didn't give him a lot of room for forcing Tony away from it.

He watched the man for a long moment, letting it simply show in his expression (though Tony wasn't making eye contact) that he knew. But he also knew to give space.

"Escape, mostly. A lot of people came from the ship to help and a lot of people on the outpost made the most of opportunities to escape. Nate, Hawke and a gentleman in fancy dress were able to help get me loose."

[arcreact]

Other people might've pried, but those aren't the sort of people Tony surrounds himself with, generally speaking. He does Adrien the service of not calling him on his shit the vast majority of the time (today being a notable exception), so it's fitting that he'd have the favor returned.

Ironically, it's the lack of prying that's been the foundation of Tony's trust in him from the outset.

"That explains a thing or two." Hawke's condition, mostly. Nate had been too preoccupied with Elena's surgery to dwell on what happened at the outpost, but Tony's not surprised to hear that he was involved, too. "Which is rich, because there's no good explanation for any of this."

Booted to another universe and forced into slavery? Is this their actual lives, or a shitty sci-fi novel?

[prorenataa]

Unfortunately, this is their actual lives.

Leaning forward, Adrien ducked his head and reached up to rub at the back of his neck.

"The Ingress does seem to be capricious," he agreed, unable to give the man any answer as to why they had been yanked from their various dimensions and pulled to this one. "Or perhaps it has a purpose that no one on this ship has sussed out yet."

Which was a disquieting thought but not the worst one Adrien's ever had to live with. Lowering his hand, he turned his attention back to Tony.

"You'll drive yourself into misery if you try to force an answer." He offered. "That's not to suggest you settle and just go along for the ride; that's not in your nature."

At least, in so far as he's known the man in two different universe.

"But start counting what you can control."