JULY PLANET MINGLE

[save_the_souls]

Who: YOU. ME. EVERYONE.
Broadcast: IF YOU WANT
Action: YEAH!!!!!
When: July!

[Congratulations to the crews that did not get themselves blown up! Welcome to the Blue Planet, a planet full of charming islands and even less charming weather patterns! Are you going to take the time to enjoy the beach? Help out with the local Nunnilis population? Get caught in a storm with another person and have a rating boosting sexual tension moment? The world's your oyster!]

[Yeah in other words: ITS A MINGLE GET IN HERE]

[July Planet Info!]

Comments

[redactions]

​​​​[ He gives her a look that marries amusement, incredulity, and faint disgust. ]

That makes me feel a lot better. ​​​​[ muttering, ] Bottoms up in-deed...

[tothefly]

Relax. Pretty sure ratings are better if we all stay pretty, so I wouldn't expect anything too horrifying from it.

[Yes, definitely smiling. The expression only gets clearer at his words, and she looks past him at the bartender, signaling for another drink for herself, and something pink and fruity-looking for him. That has something suspiciously resembling a tiny umbrella in it.]

You might like this one better. No algae, just local fruit.

[redactions]

​​​​[ His expression twists into a grumpy little scowl, which softens as her smile stays. At least she's getting something out of his misery. ]

Bottoms up to this too, then.

​​​​[ But he sips it cautiously, and smiles at her, savouring the taste. ]

Hey, not bad. Kinda tastes like grapefuit?

[tothefly]

Dangerous words, Captain. Remember what they got you last time.

[He's got more expressions than she does, she thinks, watching his face go from a playful scowl to something gentler, an easy grin. When he looks at her, there's still hints of that smile lingering on her face, but a thoughtfulness about her eyes.]

Really? I haven't tried that one yet.

[She leans over towards him, reaching for the glass.]

[redactions]

If I'm going to do something completely stupid, I'm going all the way.

​​​​[ He followed Steve to War, didn't he? Amused, he slides over the glass, and puts in a straw for her. ]

[tothefly]

Really? 'Fully commit to stupidity' is your philosophy?

[Her voice is dry, faintly sardonic as she leans in to take a sip, arching an eyebrow at him. Once she's tasted it, she sits back, considering.]

You're right. Not bad. Maybe there's something to your plan after all.

[redactions]

You've met Steve, haven't you?

​​​​[ His voice is utterly fond. It's never been this way, that he meets someone who knows Steve — beyond the whole myth of Captain America. This Natasha's the same as his in how she sees through people, there's no way she wouldn't see Steve's a punk with a heart too big for him. ]

[tothefly]

[The comment gets a little huffing noise that might almost be a snort of laughter. She shakes her head, tossing back curls from her face, resting her cheek on one hand.]

I always figured you'd have been the voice of common sense. You know, to counter his incredibly suicidal sense of nobility.

[redactions]

You assume he listened to me.

​​​​[ Still light, but something flickers in his expression. How many times did they have the argument, about enlisting? All Steve saw of War was a good, productive death, a way to prove he'd meant something, and all Bucky remembered of it wasn't too far off All Quiet On the Western Front. The first film he and Steve had seen together as boys. The scene in the mud where the soldier apologises to the enemy for killing him, and weeps over his corpse. Some things stick to you, carried across a century. ]

​​​​[ And maybe Bucky shouldn't have pretended to know everything, but that's what regret is for. ]

[tothefly]

Oh, Steve always listens. He just makes his own choices, regardless. There's no other option.

[Light, just like his, but there's a hint of cynicism, nearly imaginary. Steve was his choices. There was no other option but to do the right thing, to save lives, to sacrifice and to shine. Survival was a secondary instinct at best. The practicalities he left to her.]

[redactions]

​​​​[ Except the only option's been just walking away, and nobody here is the type to do that. Bucky's flesh fingers skid over the glass, as he eyes it. ]

No, there really isn't. ​​​​[ he quirks a smile. ] Sorry, don't mean t'be a downer.

[tothefly]

[Hard to walk away in a place like this. There's only so far you can run. Idly she wonders what Atroma would do if someone tried to stay behind. If they'd leave them on the planet, if they'd just get teleported back aboard. Might be worth trying, somewhere more interesting.]

You can buy the next round to make it up to me, Captain. If you're sticking around.

[redactions]

I've been known to stick.

​​​​[ He stifles a chuckle. ]

Let's get free drinks out of him while we can? All right. ​​​​[ he waves to the waiter ] Another one a'these, please.

[tothefly]

I did buy the first round. For certain values of buy.

[She asks for one of the same, rests her chin on her hand, looks him over. The slightly more casual look isn't a bad one, though she's yet to find anyone who it does look bad on. It's not exactly the yellow Speedo Vision ended up with, but the clothes work for him.]

You worry about that overheating?

[The arm. It's an impulsive question, but she can't pretend to ignore it.]

[redactions]

​​​​[ Once upon a time he wouldn't have minded something that showed himself off. Steve used to complain he was such a peacock. Now — he keeps to himself. He saw for twenty years what the world did to the people it didn't think were whole, and even in the future that hasn't changed. The prosthetic is cool, but it's no real arm. He extends it for Natasha to get a better look, willingly exposing a vulnerability. The red star on the shoulder is a white one, enclosed in a blue circle. The plates are the same, as are the fingers, but the colour of it is subtly different from the one the Winter Soldier possesses. The metal isn't as scratched. ]

Yeah. It happens sometimes. Don't want to risk it out here.

[tothefly]

[She takes the invitation for what it is. A peace offering, a vulnerability displayed. Whatever his Natasha is like, she knows that her own instinct to take advantage of weaknesses is innate. She's always been a survivor, using the tools at hand. He's giving her one now, and she knows what that means.

The Soldier was never this patient with her curiosity.

Natasha studies the star, the differences in metal--not stainless steel, not the mottled alloys of Russian science. This metal is different. So is the craftsmanship, subtly; the joints are the same, the plating shifts in ways she recognizes intimately, but there's a signature here. She reaches out fingers, waits for permission.]

Stark?

[redactions]

​​​​[ It's not wise, to offer this to someone he barely knows, but he comforts himself by thinking it's not like he's showing her the internal wiring. The outer plating has been made to withstand a Widow's Bite and more besides. He's not going to be caught with it as a dead weight. ]

​​​​[ With faint fondness, ] Tony, yeah.

​​​​[ He meets the curiosity by brushing his metal fingers lightly against hers, and letting her hand come to rest where the pulse would be on the wrist, if it were flesh. ]

After a long lecture about Cold War chic.

[tothefly]

[He barely knows her, and maybe his casual, almost joking manner is just how he treats all strangers. But he knows someone like her, and he clearly lets that influence how he reacts around her. She wouldn't be Natasha if she didn't take advantage of that, at least a little--in the ways she can let herself. On the one hand, she doesn't turn down any advantage she can find. On the other, that other woman isn't her and she doesn't need handouts, even from strangers.

But he gives her permission, the faint brush of metal against her flesh-and-blood fingertips, warmed by the sun and by whatever servos whir inside. Her thumb rests along the outside of his wrist, palm arched over his own, as she explores the fine join of plates, hand wandering upwards over the artificial forearm. She looks at the arm, not at him, but there are faint notes of distracted amusement in her voice.]

I'm surprised he didn't talk you into chroming it. Man's got a serious hot rod problem. At least, the one I know does.

[redactions]

​​​​[ Once upon a time it would've been, when he had nothing to prove to anyone but himself. Nowadays it gets kept away, to be used like any other tool. He's giving away that he'd like to trust Natasha — does trust Nat intimately if there's no wariness in how he hands over this part of himself. But he'd rather die trusting her than not. She walked away from the Red Room too, didn't she? That intersection means everything. ]

Oh, he tried. ​​​​[ with an affectionate mockery of his own accent, ] My tongue's just as silver as his, darlin'.

​​​​[ He's grinning boyishly at her. ]

[tothefly]

[It's a weakness, that trust. She hasn't earned it. Doesn't know if she will, or can afford to. Not in a place like this, not when every day is another chance for things to go wrong. She has her own survival to think of, and it makes her ruthless.

But he isn't the man she'd expected him to be, and that--this offer--means something.]

[She glances up at his words, and there's a glimmer of something in her eyes, for sure, something that's half laugh and half challenge, her fingers resting on his arm.]

Really? You're going to just give away your advantage like that? No 'shucks, ma'am, I'm just a humble Brooklyn boy?'

[redactions]

​​​​[ He rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, his attention drifting. ]

Who says that's my real advantage? Maybe my right hook is my secret weapon.

[tothefly]

I'm sure that's a hit with the ladies.

[Tone dry, she shifts back in her seat again, fingers trailing down the slick metal surface to brush over his fingertips, finally withdrawing her hand to take her fresh drink.]

So. Stark tech on your arm. I'm surprised they let you keep it.

[redactions]

[ The smile disappears. Things he doesn't like joking about: that. No matter that the women of his acquaintance can hit back, and harder. He shrugs. ]

It's an asset. We were in a war. There wasn't time for ifs or buts.

[tothefly]

[She logs the change in attitude the way she tracks the rest. Curious, not thrown off by it, as she sips her drink.]

I mostly meant Atroma. Seems like the kind of thing they'd take.

[redactions]

That was a good trap.

[ He makes a soft, amused noise, resignation and tolerance mixed into it in generous amounts. ]

Guess I got lucky. They did take the shield.