arc_reactor | //Xim inbox

( Tony wraps his metal arm around himself and scrubs at his face with the heel of his opposite palm, lapsed into silence as Sam talks. Focusing on him, because what is any of this for, if they can just take us away without warning wants to slither to the forefront of his mind, and Tony can't think about that, can't think that maybe everything they're doing is futile. )

Good.

( It's not, just a neutral affirmation that he's heard and processed what Sam's relaying to him. Anything more complicated is suspect. )

[ Silence falls for a moment. There's not much to say, not much that you can explain that would make this any easier to bear. ]

I've had six months. To... mourn her. The first time around. You didn't. We can make time and space for that, now. Just... you ain't alone. You got your people here, alright?

[ Sam shifts his hand to the back of Tony's neck, leans in to chase the man's eyes a little bit. ]

We carry this together.

( Some, he wants to say, Not everyone, but it's knee-jerk, bitter because it sounds too much like we'll lose together, and Sam doesn't deserve it, wouldn't know why Tony is almost afraid to hear that. He smiles, a reflex, so fake and tight it looks like a grimace as he slides his hand over Cap's. )

I want to go home, Sam.

[ No, not everyone. It's not so different back home, with a fractured and splintered Avengers. Rhodey tried. Bucky's the first one, strangely, who managed to actually show up and be there for Sam. And Sam knows, now, that it falls on him to show up and be there for the others, because otherwise, no one will.

Tony, meanwhile... sounds an awful lot like 'I want to die' from where Sam's sitting, and he holds Tony's gaze. Sees the fake reflexive smile and wants to gag, because he knows that kinda smile, has seen it on Bucky, too. Not a fan. ]

Tell me what you're tryna fix and how.

[ Is he coming home, after all of this, or is Tony just headed to death... like Natasha? ]

I don't know.

( Fragile, fleeting, his smile is gone. Tony rubs his hand over his face, pinches the bridge of his nose, and then takes Sam by the shoulder, a mirror of their previous arrangement. )

What the Hell are we even doing here? What guarantee do we have that this, this- wild goose chase for magic space rocks even works, and Nat and I, we... we don't come back?

( He scoots to the edge of the pallets, his voice pitching low, because there's nowhere that's safe to talk but he has to say this aloud, at least, candid and fearful in a way he doesn't let anyone see that isn't Pepper, but she's not here and Sam is, the offer of support made and accepted. )

We had... maybe fifteen minutes between putting the gauntlet together and Thanos leveling the facility. What happens when these orbs come together? What if something worse is coming?

[ Sam is good at this. Pushing down his own hurt and focusing on others, being the rock they need. And it's nothing he resents either - makes it easier for him to handle his own grief, to push it under like this, instead of letting himself get pulled under.

Besides, for once he has someone who holds him up, too. Sam is strangely relieved that he'll get to go home to that tonight. ]

I don't know.

[ The admission pains him, because Sam hates flying blind like that when it comes to this kind of scale. It's a recipe for disaster. ]

We got to make deals in our dreams. Ain't exactly the kinda shit where you get to read the fine print. And Viveca feeds us what she's programmed to say. Can't imagine she can do more than that.

[ Sam licks his lips. ]

She claims we can't go into the north wing because at best those orbs would drive us mad or hurt us. There's apparently special ways to contain them up there.

( They don't know how right Viv is about that, they don't know what's coming. Still, even without knowing, only sure of what he's heard of their last mission, it does make a kind of sense. He contained the Infinity Stones in a specialized chamber to assemble the gauntlet, after all, not knowing what would happen once they were placed. So Tony sighs, wets his lips, and sits back again. )

When I came aboard for the "time heist", after time team number one conducted some very, ah, questionable experiments in time travel... I told Steve that I didn't want us to die trying. Part of, of keeping what we gained meant us too, our lives.

( Tony says it so vehemently he looks like he shocks himself, but proceeds, insistent: )

Natasha and I, we should have made it. I want Yelena to have her sister back, and I want to see my family again, at the end of all this. That's it.

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