[ And he may or may not freeze when she does express that affection, but it's just in a 'surprised you didn't do that before very often' kind of way, that quickly melts away into something that makes him feel warm and happy and totally brushes whatever negativity however minor it was he was feeling straight out the window. His body shifts in increments to melt up along her, and his arm around her is secure but not confining. It's clear he wants her there but it's equally clear that he's not keeping her there should she not want to be.
Tony tends to discount the verbal to a large degree anyway, given how easily given, mistaken, taken, twisted, misunderstood, and untruthful the verbal can be. Not that physical affection isn't much the same, simply that he has a much easier time trusting one over the other, and things like what she just did, and indeed all of what she's just done, that... That is what he believes. ] You're generally pretty knowledgeable about things like... all of that.
[ It's that sort of thoughtfulness from him, how he's careful about how he holds her, that makes her feel so safe with him. It makes it hard to even imagine him doing something to hurt her on purpose. The way his body fits with hers is a beautiful addition to this whole thing, her heartbeat slow and steady against his skin, his just under where her head rests. She would be okay with staying right here for a very long time.
It's just easier for her. Saying things out loud sounds so very final and suddenly Important, and she's very bad with commitment of any kind. ] I try to be. Paying attention pays off a lot. [ She could say 'it's my job' as a joke, but that's so far from the actual truth, which is that if she ever thought of it as her job she just flat out wouldn't do it, and too tangled up in the weird give and take of normal sentinel and guide things to not come with baggage. ] Glad I did.
[ If she can hear his heartbeat, normal save for the slight arrhythmia here and there, then she can likely also hear the low hum of the reactor reverberating through his chest all but imperceptibly. He is, for his part, totally okay with her staying right there, because she's calm, and he feels calm, and happy, and she's happy, and safe, because she's safe, and things just tend to work out better when they're together. Imagine that.
Both of them bad with commitment just in totally opposite ways, excellent.
He's quiet again, digesting things a little slowly because he already had a lot to digest to begin with. ]
[ She can hear it, almost felt more than heard really, and she's not at all sure when that became a comforting noise to her but apparently it has, one of those things that means safety and calm close against her and that's a realization she is in this moment completely okay with. Things do tend to work out better when they're together, in ways she'd written off as no longer possible. She wouldn't know how to put it into words if she tried.
Kind of a miracle by itself that hasn't managed to throw a gigantic spanner in their collective works. ]
You don't ever need to thank me. [ Verbal admissions of things, again. They make it seem more important. ] But you're welcome.
It was my pleasure. [ Because making it a little bit of a joke, that's easier. That's a lot easier. ]
[ Comforting for the same reason that he occasionally, absently, taps out a rhythm on the outermost covering for the reactor - reassurance that it's still there, because after having a great big hole put in your chest, roughly over your heart, you'd probably want to periodically double-check that the thing preventing everything from the outside from getting inside was actually still there.
He has the energy and mood to snort a little bit, shifting along her a little bit but settling again no further away than before. Just movement for movement's sake. ] Mine too. Maybe next time we can drag it out. Make it your pleasures.
[ In her case, reassurance that he himself is still there rather than it specifically, because to her it's always been an integral part of his presence next to her. She's never known him without it.
She waits until he stops shifting, melts a little further into him. ] I wouldn't argue with that. [ She can think of a lot of things she could say to him, here and now. She's just either too much of a coward or likes the moment too much to change it at all to say them. ] You're a good listener after all.
[ and he prefers it that way. yes, yes, phoenix metaphor, yes transformation, but that doesn't beat the pure and simple relationship based on a total lack of constant comparison to a former, lesser, version of yourself.
they are going to just be one person here in a few more posts. also he's not scary she can say stuff. ] Am I? I think that's the first time in the history of the world I've been called a good listener. Must have had something to do with the inability to talk.
[ she's pretty okay with it too, just in that she really likes this version of him and she's never seen a reason to need to compare him to how he used to be or whatever. the same would apply if he'd been a saint before, really, all she needs or cares to know is that he's a good person now. right here and now he is a good man and she trusts him.
she wouldn't object to that particularly. and he's not scary, but the idea of anything being changed is. it's terrifying. ] With the exception of listening to being told not to talk, that is.
[ well. she's just strange. normal people apply old ideas onto the new - it's what makes people like him, who discard old things like the old things that they are, so special and ~futuristic. It also implies an almost worrisome lack of ability to bank on his history with her later on, should he wind up not being a good man, because lbr, that's not an impossibility. to him.
okay that though that totally makes sense. change is, when it involves people and not just a software upgrade, basically a paralytic. the hang-time, where you can't tell how something has just gone but it's too late to have prevented it. ] Have you seriously tried not talking? It's really difficult.
[ She learned to do the not looking back thing by virtue of having to, because the other option was getting caught up in memories when you needed to be surviving. Also through winding up working with quite a few people formerly classified as villains. When it's personal history with someone, that's more complicated. A lot more complicated, and unpleasant, and she would be most happy if he just stayed a good person.
basically that, yes. she hates that hang-time, she prefers to just avoid any need for it if possible. ] I haven't tried not talking during sex, but it doesn't seem like it would be that hard. [ she's used to keeping quiet on stakeouts. totally the same thing, right? ]
[ Personal history is always more complicated. It's why people constantly run from their own and into that of others. ]
You don't talk to begin with. Not much, I mean. You speak in motion. Actions and expression. [ he's saying this like somehow 73% of everything he says isn't in one of these formats as well but shhhh ]
[ Pretty much. And personal, well, it implies the personal level on which it matters by the name pretty well. It's the coward's way out, maybe, but it's also so so much easier. ]
That's true. The body can express a lot, you know. You do know, you gesture all the time.
You do say a lot with your mouth. [ Grinning. ] I guess I'd find it hard to not use actions to express myself. Still. Not talking really isn't that hard.
I'm highly social. [ It would have come out prim, were he actually capable of it. As it is, it just sounds like someone choosing to be humorously oblivious. ] Please, it's totally hard. I'm pretty sure I just demonstrated how hard it actually is.
The other way would be saying that you have a very talented mouth. [ she can be oblique if she wants. ] I'm trained in not having any reason to talk, actually. And in stake-outs, I guess.
I don't think I've actually had the chance yet to show you how talented my mouth can be. [ But see, that's the problem, not having a reason to talk. He's always got a reason to talk - there is always a reason behind why he's about to say something. Maybe thin, but still, a reason. ] So you're still having thoughts and stuff, you're just not finding reasons to voice them.
Given the talent you've showed with it so far, I'll look forward to it. [ which is, funnily enough, a sign of trust. she has weird trust markers sometimes. and while she says it's not having any reason to talk, it would be more accurate to say trained in having a lot of very good reasons not to talk. people's lives among them. though not used to having reasons to talk is another one of the reasons she's quiet. ] I have lots of thoughts, thanks. But I'm not used to having someone to tell them to. [ really there's just a lot of converging reasons she's not a super talkative person. around him is the closest she gets to it. ]
[ wait, the looking forward to it or the reason to talk thing. which one is the sign of trust.
he can probably be argued to having had both lessons in not talking and lessons in talking. it's all very conflicting. ] Hey I didn't say you didn't have thoughts, but I mean, some people can legitimately think about nothing. Or, not think about anything. If you're thinking about nothing technically that's a thought, that's just thinking about a void. Totally reasonable thing to think about. Lots of math involved. And potentially wormholes. Definitely black holes. [ what was all that about talking ]
[ the looking forward to it sex is complicated and so are her feelings about it.
these sorts of things generally are. hers just all verged on 'no talking', which had been weird and hard at first because she was a talkative teenager and a talkative young adult and then she'd had to learn how to shut that down really fast. also wow that was seriously a lot of talking. ] I tried the thinking about nothing thing. Not a lot of fun.
[ oh, well that's like the total opposite of how tony regards sex. sex is a thing and he doesn't have feelings about it. (except that he totally does have feelings about it, he just as so many he doesn't know what to do with them and a cascade failure starts to take place. although, to be fair, this isn't to do with sex in general. just affection and basically positive interaction between people.) ] Really? I don't think you did it right. Zoning out?
[ it's the whole intimacy and closeness thing and also that sex can make it really hard to keep her empathy in check. plus that she sometimes finds it very hard to let herself be on the receiving end of things. it feels too vulnerable most of the time. also seriously someday he's going to have to figure that out, having cascade failures from positive interactions isn't a very good thing really. ] Not zoning out. Nothing else to think about. Only so many times you can go over the fibonacci sequence in your head.
[ okay that makes sense. It's a vague source of frustration on his side, because Tony long ago learned to associate the physical with the emotional on an interchangeable scale, with things one can directly point to being the things that allow one to gauge a relationship. People connect to each other with wires and pathways just like anything else, it's just that the wires are physical intimacy and the pathways are random bestowals of generosity. So when she, or anyone else, doesn't take something, it's basically just a refusal of his own feelings. Which is like, perfect, right. They're both so screwed up sometimes. ] There are sequences way more interesting than that one, please, it's almost prosaic.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Tony tends to discount the verbal to a large degree anyway, given how easily given, mistaken, taken, twisted, misunderstood, and untruthful the verbal can be. Not that physical affection isn't much the same, simply that he has a much easier time trusting one over the other, and things like what she just did, and indeed all of what she's just done, that... That is what he believes. ] You're generally pretty knowledgeable about things like... all of that.
no subject
It's just easier for her. Saying things out loud sounds so very final and suddenly Important, and she's very bad with commitment of any kind. ] I try to be. Paying attention pays off a lot. [ She could say 'it's my job' as a joke, but that's so far from the actual truth, which is that if she ever thought of it as her job she just flat out wouldn't do it, and too tangled up in the weird give and take of normal sentinel and guide things to not come with baggage. ] Glad I did.
no subject
Both of them bad with commitment just in totally opposite ways, excellent.
He's quiet again, digesting things a little slowly because he already had a lot to digest to begin with. ]
Thank you. Again.
no subject
Kind of a miracle by itself that hasn't managed to throw a gigantic spanner in their collective works. ]
You don't ever need to thank me. [ Verbal admissions of things, again. They make it seem more important. ] But you're welcome.
It was my pleasure. [ Because making it a little bit of a joke, that's easier. That's a lot easier. ]
no subject
He has the energy and mood to snort a little bit, shifting along her a little bit but settling again no further away than before. Just movement for movement's sake. ] Mine too. Maybe next time we can drag it out. Make it your pleasures.
no subject
She waits until he stops shifting, melts a little further into him. ] I wouldn't argue with that. [ She can think of a lot of things she could say to him, here and now. She's just either too much of a coward or likes the moment too much to change it at all to say them. ] You're a good listener after all.
no subject
they are going to just be one person here in a few more posts. also he's not scary she can say stuff. ] Am I? I think that's the first time in the history of the world I've been called a good listener. Must have had something to do with the inability to talk.
no subject
she wouldn't object to that particularly. and he's not scary, but the idea of anything being changed is. it's terrifying. ] With the exception of listening to being told not to talk, that is.
no subject
okay that though that totally makes sense. change is, when it involves people and not just a software upgrade, basically a paralytic. the hang-time, where you can't tell how something has just gone but it's too late to have prevented it. ] Have you seriously tried not talking? It's really difficult.
no subject
basically that, yes. she hates that hang-time, she prefers to just avoid any need for it if possible. ] I haven't tried not talking during sex, but it doesn't seem like it would be that hard. [ she's used to keeping quiet on stakeouts. totally the same thing, right? ]
idek man
You don't talk to begin with. Not much, I mean. You speak in motion. Actions and expression. [ he's saying this like somehow 73% of everything he says isn't in one of these formats as well but shhhh ]
shhh ily it's fine
That's true. The body can express a lot, you know. You do know, you gesture all the time.
;;
Yeah but that's usually just accentuating whatever I'm already saying with my mouth.
/wraps up
/clings to
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
he can probably be argued to having had both lessons in not talking and lessons in talking. it's all very conflicting. ] Hey I didn't say you didn't have thoughts, but I mean, some people can legitimately think about nothing. Or, not think about anything. If you're thinking about nothing technically that's a thought, that's just thinking about a void. Totally reasonable thing to think about. Lots of math involved. And potentially wormholes. Definitely black holes. [ what was all that about talking ]
no subject
these sorts of things generally are. hers just all verged on 'no talking', which had been weird and hard at first because she was a talkative teenager and a talkative young adult and then she'd had to learn how to shut that down really fast. also wow that was seriously a lot of talking. ] I tried the thinking about nothing thing. Not a lot of fun.
no subject
no subject
no subject
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)