futurology ⊛ network sample post

[hyperverbose]

Question that I'm already sure I'm going to regret asking:

Is someone actually expecting us to wear these uniforms?  They're not exactly GQ, and the fact that one seems to keep magically appearing in my closet when I try to toss it out is starting to scream cult dynamic.  I'm not gonna wake up sewn into one next week, am I?

Comments

[hyperverbose]

my PARENTS, nat

[ in other words, he's not denying anything she's saying, any of her concerns. in fact, he's probably just as afraid as she is of what this could do to him. but all of that is balancing against the weight of how much that singular event devastated his entire existence, and that weight is heavier than anything else he's ever carried. ]

How am I supposed to walk away

[expatriates]

[ It stings because she knows that she can't provide an answer—this isn't something that she can help him through, give him the cheat sheet, drag him out of because it's not something that she knows personally. The one thing Natasha will never, can never have, and the one thing that can bring every rational thought in Tony Stark's mind to a standstill: family. ]

You know I can't answer that. I can't tell you that I understand what you're going through because I don't.

[ And for a minute, she flounders there, trying to find an answer, trying to find something that she can say to make him understand. ]

But I know that you signed the Accords because you believe that we should be held accountable, and if you take this into your own hands, then you're undermining all of that.

[hyperverbose]

And if I'm willing to be held accountable for what I do? Let justice run its course?

[ it's a harsh admission - that maybe he thinks that whatever happens to him next doesn't matter, as long as he gets to make good for how bucky destroyed his family. ]

What he did has to be answered for.

[expatriates]

Does it?
Bucky took your parents, so you take Steve's best friend? Is that equitable? Does it bring them back or salve the wound to thrust your loss onto someone else?

[ To a certain degree, the question is actually genuine. Loss and revenge are something that she hardly understands because she lacks the necessary investment to prompt either—she doesn't have a family to lose, so she can't see the threads of Tony's logic here in the same way. ]

[hyperverbose]

The man Steve's so hellbent on saving is already gone. He lost him years ago. Just because he doesn't want to accept that doesn't make it less true.

[expatriates]

So is the man who killed your parents.

[ That, she does have experience with. Natasha won't claim that he isn't still responsible for it, that his hands didn't do the deed, just like she wouldn't claim that she wasn't responsible for what she did; but she's not that person anymore, and neither is Bucky. ]