fe_male | memeboxing

[ That's - creative, yes, sure. In a not actually that great way though. Or at least a very nonproductive way.

That's all good, it's all very good and about what she was aiming for, which is nice. Good to know she got things fairly right, good to know that he's a little more relaxed. That she eased some of it, at least temporarily. She leans down, slips the knot of the tie and tosses it aside, presses her lips to his for a lingering moment. ] Better now? [ It's hushed, looking to keep the moment more or less intact. ]

[ creativity is no guarantee of productivity. in fact, frequently the opposite

Quite right. She usually does though - he manages to have an odd sense of both surprise and a total lack of the same. She's close again, warm against his own warmth, and then kissing, and he lets his eyes slide shut to appreciate it, he's tired, and she's perfect, and he wants to remember it. Her words are warm when they hit his skin and patter across his face, and he has the hints of a smile behind his lips. ] Better. [ Similarly low, quiet, husky, not breaking the moment. ]

[ When an empath genuinely likes someone it's remarkable how spot on their reading of that person and what they need becomes. And she really genuinely likes him a great deal. That brings a faint smile to her own lips, still almost against his, and she lifts one hand to retrieve the key from the bedpost and unlock one hand, rubbing his wrist gently. He'd been pulling pretty hard at times. ] You can always tell me. [ Still just as quiet. ] Whatever you need.

[ This is a very good point. Just, understanding people, it's almost anathema to him sometimes. There are aspects of people he actually understands very well, but anything involving sadness or gravitas or personal history and he has no idea what to say to comfort them or anything of the sort. Which is a large part of interacting with people, sadly.

Wow, yeah, he had been, he hadn't really been paying attention, kind of surprising, and he turns to look over at what she's doing for a moment. He's going to have some interesting bruises. ] Because I totally knew this was a thing I needed.

[ It really is. It's probably for the best he's currently wound up with her, because when it comes to things involving personal history she doesn't really want comforting most of the time, or at least anything extending past a physical presence and mutual agreement to pretend everything's okay.

He's going to have some very interesting bruises, and on his neck as well, but she's good at using makeup to cover injuries if he needs any help with that. ] Even if you don't know what you need. [ A faint smile, just a twitch of the edges of her mouth as she moves to his other hand, releases it too and looks down at him from his side. ] Whatever.

[ Yeahhhh, he's quite wound up around her at the moment; it's helpful. He's focusing on her, and himself, and how he interacts with her and whatever she wants, really, he doesn't care. (Pliable, remember?) But he looks back at her face as she moves from one wrist to the other, looking back at her in return. Her face, breathing carefully. Pause. Considering. ]

What if it's more?

[ He really is remarkably pliable and she's not sure what to do with that entirely right now except stay close, listen to him, stay open and accessible. She wraps his hands in hers, looks down and watches him carefully. He's talking to her, now, of his own free will. She doesn't try to keep back the soft smile on her face, because it's not really victory she's smiling about, it's him being willing to talk to her. Which is a victory, but that's not the point. ]

Anything, Tony.

[ It's cool, because in a little while he's going to notice and feel weird about it and probably rein it in. Like, a lot. He was being a total dick like. Not that long ago. It won't be that hard to slip back into it - the outfit is still warm. He's already picking up on all this careful observation and getting torn between look-at-me and look-anywhere-else. It's not that difficult to work out which one is the natural inclination, but there's a lot of the unnatural about Tony Stark most of the time.

So there's another pause, because sure, he's talking, but that still doesn't mean he actually knows what to say. ] It's just the time of year, or something. Some stuff came up, some stuff came back. [ Wasn't dealt with properly in the first place. You know. ]

[ She's been kind of expecting that for a while, really, counting each moment it doesn't come as a win. Temporary successes are still successes, she doesn't expect miracles here. That would be unrealistic, and if there's something she's trained herself into being best it's pragmatic. But she's still going to watch him, because even if he's more guarded again now it's still easier to tell things than usual.

She does know, and she puts her hand on his shoulder, runs her thumb slowly up and down. ] Stuff does that. Takes a while to get used to it. [ She's not entirely sure you ever do get used to it. More used to it, she guesses. That's accurate. ]

Yeah.

[ She is remarkably pragmatic it's kind of impressive. And a good balance for someone who tends to manage walking some sort of balance between darkly optimistic pessimism and blindingly pessimistic optimism. But for the moment he's just working out when it's okay to start being an asshole again (he suspects 'never' is probably the answer but that seems like a really long time in his opinion) and how much he actually feels like being one right now (which is 'not much' but it isn't as though Tony isn't known for being mercurial or anything). ] Did you get enough out of that? [ no not the like, not, well ] I mean, the - context. [ all that context. and sort of an attempt at levity, which doesn't really work in this situation. ] Because I'm not explaining it again.

[ Turns out idealism is really just being a total idiot sometimes, particularly when it comes to the sort of situation she wound up in. She mostly just thinks she was lucky she learned pragmatism fast enough that her idealism didn't wind up killing her. ] I got enough. [ She tucks her knees up to her chest, puts her chin on her knees and watches him, pressed against his side a little. Never is accurate, yeah, she may understand the instinct and where it comes from better but being an asshole still isn't an answer to the problem. She's not okay with that part. ] No need to re-explain anything. I'm a fast learner.

[ He nods a little bit, because cool, good, he really didn't want to have to ... do all that again. Like, at all. And he shifts, because this whole just looking at each other - they need to do something else. Hug, sleep, leave, something, although he can't tell if he wants to sleep on her, close together, held in her arms, or let her just sleep on him from this position here, holding her like he's worried she'll go somewhere. Supposing she even does want to. Sleep, that is. Feel protected. Feel in control. Is control really the issue? It's definitely part of it. And then how about protection? Probably somehow a larger part. Just the way things happened. ] You are. A fast learner.

[ She ducks her head a little bit at that shift, looks down instead of at him for a moment because this is the part that winds up feeling kind of awkward to her, because after that much intimacy there's still a part of her that wants to recoil from it, that's still scared of what the consequences could be. Scared of that level of emotional closeness. She runs a hand over her face, trying to push back the feeling of exposure, glances back at him. ] Was there something you needed to be doing? [ A beat, and she shrugs a little bit as if it's not important at all, as if this is all totally normal, everything that's just happened and everything they've talked about. ] I'm tired, I might just go to sleep.

[ His hands, which had been settling on her thighs since they both finished, a relatively safe place to leave them, tighten on her as she mentions leaving to sleep, because, okay, yes, he has been pulling away, but that doesn't mean he wants her to. After that much vulnerability, if the next step is abandonment, or anything that isn't really just chilling out together, maybe sleeping all close to one another, he won't handle it well. Because then, it feels like appeasement. Here, that's what you needed, now I'll go. And that's not what Tony's looking for. ]

You could sleep here? [ Which comes out far more pleading than he meant for it to but hits a better accuracy despite him anyway. ]

[ She covers his hands with hers, a silent reassurance as she carefully figures her way through this. Personally she'd prefer to stay, because sleeping with him (in the actually sleeping sense, in this case) is relaxing. Because she likes the reassurance and the comfort and she likes him being close. She's just not sure what he wants. Or wasn't sure, because that tone makes it a lot more clear, brings a tiny smile to the edges of her mouth. ] I could. That would be nice. I thought maybe you - [ wouldn't want to stay with her, would want to just put this away and pretend it hadn't happened, would need space to himself. ] Would need to do something else.

[ The hands, those are fine, and he's not actually going to really do anything about it, aside from considering looking away again, but that just sort of looks like amusement on her part. There's not really any particular reason, it just. Does. He doesn't want her to leave, but he doesn't really feel like there's an aspect of this that's all that amusing. But he'd rather she not leave right now more than anything else. ] Think I just got everything I needed. Big bed, c'mon.

[ She promises it's not amusement at all, just being pleased that he'd like her to stay. And happiness that he said everything he needed, and a lot of slightly confused emotions here that she's not entirely sure how to quantify for herself, much less for him. ] It is a big bed. [ Because that is far easier to say than anything that really addresses anything. She slides to lie down curled close against his side, one leg hitched over his as if to make sure he's not going anywhere. ] 'm glad you're here.

[ Yeah, he can swallow whatever it was there that he found... distasteful and go with the myriad of other and conflicting things that smooth it over and get rid of it in the first place. Happy. Just be happy. Take the comfort, the affection, soak it in like you always try to do from people who aren't actually giving it, because this is genuine, and that much is obvious and not the sort of thing that should be pushed aside in favor of harping on something you're not even sure was there.

It helps that it's just comfortable here. It's safe here, when she's here, because she's here, and that's a good thing. He shifts to move his arm around her when she starts to slide down, because that's just as much about keeping her close as her leg over his is the same in reverse. The statement he chooses to take literally in the interest of having more time to think of a real response to it, if he winds up needing one at all. ] Well, you told me to come in here.

[ His arm around her is solid and reassuring, and she tucks herself closer against him, skin against skin as she leans her head on his shoulder and presses close. The constant in this whole complicated no specifics discussed ever relationship they've got going is that with him there she feels remarkably safe. Because he's there, same as he feels about her and safety. When she was younger and a romantic she might have thought that was a silly thing to build a relationship, but she's older now. She knows better.

She smiles again just a little at that literalism, presses her lips to the hollow of his throat for a moment because he's right there and these days she feels more and more comfortable with physical expressions of how she feels. A good thing, because she's still terrible at the verbal expressions. ] I did, yeah. Wasn't sure you'd listen.

[ 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. ]

Thank you. Again.

[ 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.

lakhdf 8D look at these great life choices we make

i question the words 'great', 'life', and 'choices' in that sentence

that's like the entire point of the sentence you're questioning there

oops?

oops is for accidents you totally didn't disagree on accident

what. wait, what.

i'm no longer sure

i'm glad that makes two of us

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