open roleplay post.

[neveryourmask]

open roleplay post; consult active cast list (pending update). shipping and nc-17 content is fine. i also like action, genre aus, canon compliant and canon divergent things, and pretend tdms. feel free to plurk me if you want to bounce an idea. leave me prompts, starters, blank comments, whatever your dark heart desires. current links to meme starters/blank comments can be found here. i am periodically slow to tag due to prioritising games and life things.

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meme & character-specific post links.

[neveryourmask]

[lie]

[ Italy. Obviously.

It's the middle of the day, but it's raining out. Grey skies, light downpours. Natasha tracks in little puddles of water as she kicks off her shoes, her socks. She lives above a florist's in a modest apartment with a real shower, with real water pressure, and room for things like books and a couch and a good mattress. Wanda and Vision aren't far -- they've been renting a room for the last day, and it's Natasha's turn to be port of call for when Wanda comes back later. Technically, Wanda's supposed to be living here too. She clearly isn't.

Natasha puts the plastic bag she's carrying down on the kitchen counter. Water beads off it. Inside are things like hair dye and a new pair of scissors. A pocket book of sudoku. Brand new chapstick. The life of an international criminal. She opens the fridge to put in a new bottle of milk.

Pauses.

Natasha sighs, then closes the fridge. Flips on the dinky kitchen radio, background noise of some local news station. She fills up her hot water kettle and takes down two mugs. Again. ]

I'm out of chamomile, [ she says, instead of hello. ]

[propulsion]

But you knew I was coming, [ is mock-offended.

And not modulated through any helmets, speakers, what have you, except maybe a sense of uncertainty he is keeping locked down. Tony is here in the flesh, holding a yellow tulip he'd purchased downstairs from an elderly lady who did not seem to know or care who he was and complained in Italian about his unusual looking credit card. Dressed from his custom athleisurewear wardrobe genre, the kind that fits comfortable beneath armor, sleeves terminated above the elbows, blacks and greys and hot-rod accents.

What can be said for the wild internal tailspin that a simple invitation(?) is capable of triggering? Setting aside, even, Tony's general inability to be invited anywhere, crashing in on a Black Widow in crisis had purpose and momentum and sure, they did a kiss, but an objective had been achieved. Now he is in Italy and the why is being resistant to definition.

He's also been doing the post-mortem on that moment in particular. Even Friday's got nothin'.

But he is in Italy, and loosely drummed up some legitimate reasons for an Iron Man to be so; a gallery opening he won't go to, a charity he's shoved some money at, the usual circuit. Disappointing the press has become an increasingly frequent hobby. No one will be surprised.

The flower feels stupid immediately so he just puts that down on the kitchen counter. ]

[lie]

[ Natasha resists the urge to roll her eyes, even though she wants to, sort of. It's a knee-jerk reaction to his presence. She's surprised he's here in the same way she's surprised she invited him here to begin with, which was on a quiet, sentimental whim. It's been a while since Berlin and the apartment got demolished a few days ago. She got the email while she was dismantling a series of explosives at a train station while Steve gave an extremist an equally extreme concussion. Natasha's been interrogating her feelings on Berlin. It's good, mostly good.

She turns. Her arms don't cross over her chest and the edge of the counter digs into the small of her back. Her eyes land on his face, but only briefly, and take in the shock yellow of the tulip instead.

Natasha blinks. She frowns. After a beat, she smiles directly at him. ]

Hey.

[ Now she says hi. Her voice is soft around the edges. Tony Stark is here in a kitchen in Italy and got suckered in by Martina from downstairs who likely did not give a shit who he was. There is a flower. It's weird and maybe a Gesture and Natasha's not sure if it's significant in any way. ]

I like yellow, [ she offers. And leaves it at that. ]

[propulsion]

[ The nuances and microchanges of Natasha's expression are enough to create all new and exciting paranoiac tailspins, if only for the fact that Tony is not previously used to it. ]

Good, [ he says. ] 'Cause. That's why I got it.

[ Big guileless eyes challenge her to defy him on that one.

He comes to lean against the counter, arms folding a little guarded across his torso. The strange circling that had gone on in Berlin had been mostly forgotten with only the last few moments brought into severe relief, a scrap of stolen time at four in the morning. Here, cloud-diffused midday light and daytime radio chatter as opposed to static and numbers all feel very.

Exposing? Somehow. He is watching her as he studies her. ]

You look better. Are you out to pasture?

[lie]

[ There is a lot going on in this kitchen in Italy. Natasha stares for another second at the tulip, which is freshly cut and butter yellow and beautiful and simple. It's not four in the morning anymore, and Natasha isn't sure how to communicate what she wants to communicate. To be kind, she stares at the flower rather than at Tony's face. There's still a smile across the curve of her mouth that she doesn't try and shutter away. ]

I slept another nine minutes.

[ Like a joke. Ha, ha. More to the point, she is sort of on a vacation right now, in so much as you can be on a vacation from a life of international war crimes. A breather, at least. Ostensibly, this means that Natasha chose to invite Tony on her vacation. There's only one Avenger that Secretary Ross would have called as back-up when the Raft got broken into, and Steve had told her it was as easy as anything. Security seemed a little lax.

So. Breather. The ends of her hair are a little rain-damp. Red, the color of old blood. Natasha waits for the kettle to boil and considers Tony.

More silence.

Then, ]

I'm going to say something. [ Like a signpost. Or a warning. Or both. ]

[propulsion]

Sure.

[ He unfolds his arms, there, as if maybe her warning demands reconfiguration. Elbow to counter, hands clasped. A listening pose.

Her staring at the tulip meant, also, that he's pretty sure it was a mistake, one he is immediately internally defensive about. It's just a flower, not even a great flower, and only one flower. Don't overthink it.

But verbalising that all sounds more crazy than he feels like in this moment. ]

Okay, go ahead.

[lie]

[ She has his attention. Which is good. This is about ripping the bandaid off, so Natasha turns when the jug clicks. Fills up each mug. Steam warms the right side of her face, and she's paying attention to the little floating teabags -- green tea, this time, the kind that comes in powdered mesh bags and aren't, objectively, too great -- and says, ]

It was ill-timed.

[ Because they kissed, and it was. Natasha pushes one of the mugs towards Tony. The ceramic bottom drags across the countertop, makes a solid but smooth scraping noise. ]

And I think we should have sex.

[ Her mouth does a funny thing. She's looking at him with something that might be amusement but is also bright, and more considering than she feels, as if she's coming up with the idea all-impromptu. ] Not right now, but soon.

[ And then she shrugs. Like it's not a big deal. ]

Your turn.

[propulsion]

[ Tony couldn't be able to say for certain that Black Widow is capable of surprising him by virtue of the fact that she is notoriously difficult to predict in the first place. Even demonstrations of kindness and humour aren't a shock when those are the things that seemed built in already.

Anyway. He stops himself from asking if she can run that one by him one more time. Fingers fan out, rearrange back into their tangle. ]

Mhm.

[ His turn. ]

Well. I think you could be onto something, Romanoff.

[ He hooks a finger around the handle of the mug, drawing it closer. He's not not a tea guy, in the way that people who have been hard drinkers with occasional side ventures legal and less than legal stimulants might tend to embrace literally any mood stabilising alternative including weird leafy brews that taste like dirt tend to be. But he has other vices. ]

Not right now as in not right this second, or-- other small units of measurement. I mean, this is the first I've thought about it, so.

[lie]

[ Natasha blows lightly across the surface of her tea. The warmth presses into her palm, and her shoulders are all slack; one knee is bent forward a little, bumping softly into the line of drawers. The counter's taking the weight of her elbows.

Relaxed. Casual. This is a relaxed and casual conversation. ]

Not this second. [ She considers how much she wants to refine that. Settles on, ] Probably not today.

[ Probably. There's room to adapt. ]

I can give you a minute. [ To think it over. She has an entire new sudoku book to work through, so. She can keep herself occupied probably.

Also, Natasha is fairly sure that Tony has thought about it before, in so much as it was several years ago, Tony was dying, and Natalie Rushman had been very specifically engineered to appeal to every corner of Tony's id. Modeled in Tokyo wearing nothing but lingerie on fur rugs levels of engineered. All Natasha really remembers is how itchy the lace had been. ]

[propulsion]

[ Immediately; ] Well'm gonna need longer than a minute.

[ Then-- ]

Oh, to think about it, you mean?

[ Tony picks up his tea, brings it up to sip from, still watching her directly. She can probably sense the quiet agitation her proposal has created, despite his own adaptation. He'd thought about it several years ago and it was almost uncharacteristic how cool he'd run after that. Like getting close to Natasha after the Natalie veneer had come away was about as ill-advised as running headfirst into the dark.

With stairs. Less that now, but every now and then, he still braces for a lurch. ]

Is there something you need to get out of your system?

[ There is an ironic slant, there. But jokes can do multiple things. Test the waters. Natasha should know. ]

[lie]

[ This time, she doesn't resist the urge to roll her eyes. It is, somehow, fond, and full of some level of contempt that is complicated and not really true contempt. So it's a look she shoots Tony with singular and specific regularity.

Used to. Used to shoot Tony with regularity, when compounds and living arrangements meant a closer orbit. ]

You're infuriating. [ She says, outloud, to underscore the point. She drinks her tea. Follows that up with: ] And I like you, as a person.

[ Which is one of her own, irritating qualities. It's also profoundly simplistic. Natasha doesn't say anything about the Accords, or how she's not angry at him, and she doesn't offer to apologize. Shoulders hitch into a small shrug. ]

I'm also a really cheap date.

[ He did bring her flowers. Flower. A flower. ]

[propulsion]

[ It's a familiar exchange enough that it makes his heart do an unnecessary thing that he didn't ask it to, but also evokes a crooked half-smile, which is more cool and sardonic, so that can stay.

'As a person' feels like it has potential to be drilled into. ]

And crazy beautiful, [ he adds. If we're listing qualities. ] And tens attract tens, its natural. That part's.

[ Not actually that important. ]

Not worth cavorting around with war criminals for, [ is what he goes with. ] But I like you back. Took me a while to come back around.

[ But all she had to do was be in trouble. ]

[superpatriot]

[FYI future Rhodey is incorrect. The fugitive life suits Steve Rogers very well, at least insofar as that his appearance doesn't suffer. That jawline! The hair. He finds some way to maintain it. Natasha does know her way around a blade and a set of aesthetics, and he has been recently introduced to peroxide. Because friends reciprocate. You can blame him for her blonde hair in a couple of movies!!

Anyway, he heard there was trouble. Fortunately, not the kind that ends worlds or timelines (yet), but trouble of its own shocking magnitude. Awkwardly, he heard about it first over the tabloids. That shouldn't make the situation more embarrassing than it already is, he thinks. After all, Tony Stark famously ended up on the news the one time for directing a terrorist's missiles directly toward his personal home address.

Incidentally, Pepper was leaving that time, too.]

Hey, Tony. Wanna get a drink? [He's standing in front of Tony's car. The sleek two-door and its noisy, V-three-billion-something engine, which is only noisy because Tony wants it to be and not because it actually requires pollutant gasoline mixtures to run.

The parking lot valet, still holding Tony's key fob, had obviously believed that the big handsome tourist in his FIFA cap had taken a genuine interest in his opinions on the post-Chitauri changes to the city, rather than this being some kind of manipulative ploy to corner Earth's most notorious playboy superhero billionaire. The poor kid looks very guilty. (Plot twist: Steve was interested. He can multitask.)]

[propulsion]

Really.

[ Flat affect, made flatter with the fact that Tony has his outdoors sunglasses on, concealing his eyes. The slight tip of his head then seems to include the valet in this pronouncement without having to verbally repeat himself. Really.

He is chic in shark-skin grey and off-white, hair upright and rakishly piecey, tan consistent, and he goes about retrieving a wallet to exchange keys for cash tip, the latter of which is generous and pushed peevishly into the kid's waiting hand. ]

Well, [ he's saying, not to the valet this time, ] no one ever accused you've not having a pair. Give or take a little speculation.

Get in.

[ The 'for fuck's sake' is pronounced silently. ]

[superpatriot]

[Steve Rogers gets into the vehicle for fuck's sake. His very tall rather broad frame folds up neatly, a little bit reverse clown car. He has to immediately adjust the seat, which he starts to do quickly and without comment, only to find that the modified model is already shifting back, answering the optical sensors that tell it how long a Steve Rogers is. That is cool. He should probably be worried that the car is also about to cuff him and ship him off to jail, aND YET.

He also fastens his seatbelt of course. Protecting his entire person including ze testeecles.]

I almost called. [He's referring to the phone he sent Tony, along with his lengthy heartfelt letter. He looks out the window at the curb peeling away.] But I figured our problems have more tiers than most. How're you holding up, Tony?

[propulsion]

[ The car doors close like wings, and Tony pulls out into the street, the air still warm from the day even as the sun is set to sink out over the ocean. Responsibly, his eyes are on the road, but there is a tension to it. ]

Me? [ he asks. Me??? ] I haven't checked my pulse in the last five minutes but I got a war criminal riding shotgun, that's gotta do something to your blood pressure. [ Now a glance, and then hand-over-hand as he switches lanes. ] Nice cap, Cap.

[ How are they not already in jail. ]

What're you drinking these days.

[superpatriot]

A lot of Malbec. It's all they have there. [Steve thinks about the predictive computer of Tony's brain, as well as the predictive computer of Tony's computer, making sense of this information. Argentina, probably. Some outlying regions of South America, maybe.] I could use a beer.

[An American bar! The ambience. Tony Stark's anxiety-relaeted heart problems, alternative proof that Tony Stark has a heart. Steve will like that. He looks out the window at the city swishing by, allowing himself to enjoy the shape of the unlit neon, advertisements for musicals that he does not recognize, and regional oak trees instead of worrying if he will have to kick through a wall of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. The second to last time he went fugitiving around the United States, he kind of made out with Natasha at a mall. These things happen.]

I like your car. [He squares his head back on center, peeks at Tony's narrower face in the rearview mirror.] Made any other upgrades lately?

[propulsion]

[ There is only so much overpreparation one man and his AI assistant can achieve in locating an ideal watering hole. Via the speaker only audible to him through the arm of his glasses, Friday provides a couple options, and assures an absence of traffic that implies Steve's disguise hadn't set off any alarms anywhere.

As they go, Tony sneaks a glance at his passenger. There's very little to read there, heroic jawline angled where he watches the scenery and an ease to body language.

Tony looks forward again as Rogers tunes back in. ]

Sure you don't wanna find out the hard way sometime? [ is tightly quipped. ] Could be fun. What'd you mean by tiers of problems.

[superpatriot]

I mean I still consider you part of my family, when there's a global threat.

[What if they're about to get into an argument. Steve hopes not. He does have like maybe twenty more lengthy semi-apologetic, but effortfully empathic letters to send. And ugly flip phones.]

But there are other problems. Life doesn't stop. I got into it with Natasha the other week. [and the paparazzi have made no secret about you and pepper's stuff but also I'm too tactful to say that right away, no matter how obvious it is, and how many news stands we've driven past with the big jagged lightning split frame dividing the cover of the rumor rags between your photo and her photo.]

[propulsion]

[ That first part is Manipulative and Tony will have None of it and so he says nothing, mouth pressing into a line as they close in on a bar that probably is not ordinarily graced by bullet-nosed cars with doors that go in unexpected directions.

OKAY AND DO YOU THINK THAT'S COMPARABLE TO MY PROBLEMS is not something that Tony says in a too loud voice, although he's close to doing so. The truth is, he doesn't want to fight. Not even the verbal slaps that are a little familiar, not after the actual slapping that occurred what seems like not too long ago.

That sucked, that one time. ]

Sorry to hear that, [ he says, clipped, as he pulls into the little back alley parking space of a bar with flashing neon, barely worth it in the daylight. He switches up his voice to a more pleasant affectation as he says; ] Friday, be a dear and run a blindspot protocol on all devices in this area, will you?

Certainly, sir, [ chirps from his car.

Tony kills the engine, and pivots to look at Rogers properly before anyone can think of getting out, just yet. ]

I can't even imagine a reality where you hijack my valet for the purposes of getting relationship advice about Romanoff from me, which leads me to think this is about-- [ Fingers flex, ball up into a fist, where he has his arm folded on the back of his seat. ] --the other really impossible alternative.

Since when did you care?

[ --and he can't decide if that's an unfair thing to ask, or a damn good question. Either way, he wants an answer. ]

[superpatriot]

I always care about you, [says Steve, who can get away with it with a face and jaw like that I guess. He glances at Tony from across the car's narrow girth again.] Always.

[Then he glances out the window. Hmmm. Bar looks very divey. He's into it. Once the car parks, geometrically perfect parallel to the sidewalk, he pops out of it. Clown car again, his big shoulders and boxy head emerging leviathan from the coupe's sleek little angles.] You did me more than one solid.

[You know. Letting them get away from the Raft with hours of head start. AND FOR THIS, IN EXCHANGE, STEVE SHALL PURCHASE HIM A BEER. Something. It's not quid pro quo, it's #friendship, which for some reason exists between them in a permanent skew where Steve objectively gives less than he takes. Arguably, he has less to give. Not a billionaire, and whatnot. He peeks through the windows and is happy to find that the room is nearly empty. How much scandal does one billionaire playboy genius something something need?]

But we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.

[propulsion]

[ That is such-- that is a terrible answer, and Tony doesn't even have time to make a face about it before Rogers is exiting the vehicle. It's a terrible answer because it also effectively puts his question to bed, and so Tony also exits the vehicle. The bad thing about beautifully designed technologically marvelous cars is he can't give it a satisfying door slam on his way out.

He's not mad, just-- maddened.

Button up his jacket, breezing by where Steve had stopped at the window to enter the bar. It's not too terrible in here, but not exactly hoppin'. ]

I'll have what you're having, [ he says, over his shoulder. In the dimmer light of the bar, the tint of his glasses have shifted to a less opaque champagne hue. ] Thrill me.

[ --while he tries to wrap his brain around what he could say about Pepper to Captain America. The transition between staying watertight and talking at lengthy excess about his problems is a rusty state-change. ]

[superpatriot]

[Steve is having a beer from the tap. The barman either doesn't recognize either of them or is secretly hitting a panic button straight to SHIELD under the table that somehow Tony's tech isn't alerting him to, or possibly, the old fellow just does not care.] I'm glad I caught you. You look like you're holding up.

I know it's a balance that I'm not an expert at. Figuring out how our duties and personal relationships fit. And I know you aren't under obligation to make them. I guess I'm hoping there's a part of you that wants to. [There is an orange plastic bowl sitting on the counter by Steve's arm, approximately half-full of candy. One may belatedly observe that the peanut shells underfoot are mixed in with candy wrappers, and that there is a slightly shriveled paper skull attached to the wall above the highest shelf.

Steve fishes out two Hershey chocolates, little teardrops. He keeps one for himself and passes the other very contritely to his companion.]

How've you been? Really?

not here;

[beachland]

[europe, prompt: video/photo]

Finally, Teodoro comes over to Williamsburg for the first time. He chooses to do so a few days after Thanksgiving, which feels potentially like some passive-aggressive bullshit, but he texts beforehand, providing some variety of reasonable-sounding excuses about state-level licensure examinations, and then he brings over a box of tools, so. Maybe not passive-aggressive. Maybe, maybe.

Mostly, they talk in English, which feels squarely like they're being careful. Less nuance to be found, in this one.

(Or, if you're ignoring the spectacular odds of miscommunication demonstrated by their past year and trying to be optimistic: less to be lost.)

Optimistically (or trying to be), Francois shows his husband around the apartment, still clearly a fixer-upper, mostly bald and impersonal apart from Francois' books. Their books. Bathroom, bedroom, walls and the patchy bit at the bottoms of some of the walls where the baseboards came off at some point and new ones need to go on. He experiences a flutter of chagrin when Teo compliments his realtor's judgment of the solid construction, and the flutter really guns its wings when Teo seems to realize his mistake and tries to reverse the compliment into a mumbly acknowledgement that Francois is good at judging and hiring realtors? or something? It takes less effort than you might think, for Francois to let it go.

At around five PM, it starts to snow.

By then, Teodoro has pulled several remaining baseboards off. This is a process punctuated by splitting, splintery sound-effects, and Francois spends most of it standing there and staring at him, accepting cast-off pieces. It feels kind of bad, despite needing to be done. It feels worse, that the dimming of daylight and inclement weather seem to be converging toward a super awkward conversation about how Francois totally has linens, and he can make up the couch.

But Teo says he is leaving and packs up the stained and discolored pieces of MDF to take with him. Teo is avoiding eye contact and seems to be hesitating fractionally; discernible only to someone well-versed in his gift for gab. Though this wilful retreat is not less awkward than the unvoiced invitation, overall, Francois considers this a win. It does seem like objectively, empirically measurable progress, according to the visibly exposed glue blotches in several of Francois' rooms. Francois insists Teo need not do any sweeping, and gamely proposes another project day, soon, which Teo agrees to, so there's definitely a positive trend occurring even before Teo says:

"And I'll bring a tree."

"Que?" Accidental/reflexive French.

Teo gestures at the flurries outside the window, or maybe the Christmas lights across the street, or maybe -- if you are being optimistic, you might say -- at the home they are renovating together, and he says, "You should have a tree."

"Okay," Francois says quickly, hoping it won't be hard to take care of, that it won't die, that, that, that. He takes a breath.

Five days later, Francois has a seasonally appropriate tree. It is a Norfolk Island Pine Tree, bushy and growing green from a square pot, very much alive, about which Teo does about fifteen solid minutes of profoundly boring technical farmer person captioning, before he gives the tree's age and expected growth. Translated to laymen's terms in French slang. Un ado. 'A teenager.' It's a rescue, in absence of any kind of nursery industry in post-war America, not bound to get bigger than eight feet. And Francois should not, apparently, worry if it initially sheds a few leaves or scales from climate shock. Norfolk Island Pine Trees are allegedly very resilient.

Not knowing what to expect, Francois had purchased what he thought was a no-pressure, if slightly clueless quantity of tinsel. They garland their foundling in gold and take a picture of it. Neither of them are in the frame, and they chat cooperatively about how no one sends custom holiday cards anymore, since the war. But the picture looks good and Teo wants him to send it to him so he can text it around, and that is enough to veer Francois' mind around whatever Teo is plainly not telling him. (What will Teo write with the texts? 'Merry Christmas from...') ('From...')

Francois has always been good at hope. And besides, he saw Teo looking at the book he'd left marked on his nightstand on the first tour through. A novel in which Frances Hodgson Burnett had lovingly described the hope one might imbue in a bit of earth.