driftfleet | Action | Who needs a gosh dang drink??

Entry tags:

Action | Who needs a gosh dang drink??

Who: Steve and everyone else who just needs to get drunk. One closed to existing CR
Broadcast: No
Action: The Iskaulit/Space Bar
When: Post Calibrations/Bombing the eff out of Marsiva

[OPEN]

Tony would probably be proud of Steve, if he were able to see him right now. He'd slap his back and welcome him back to the world of inebriation while ordering shots for everyone in the bar to commemorate the day. As it is, though, Tony isn't here and, without him, there's not a damn person who would feel proud in this entire bar. That's part of it's charm.

Steve sighs and swallows his fourth drink. It's strong and alien and somehow enough to give him a strong buzz but not enough to really get him drunk. Not yet, at least. But he's not a quitter, so bottom's up! He hisses a little at the burn of it and feels, not for the first time, like he was being a coward. He saw some stuff in those rooms, sure. But other people had it so much worse. Saw so much more. He should really be thankful, actually.

But he's not. And this is a 30's approved way of getting over trauma. There were worse ways of coping, he was sure. So for now he's just going to stay in his seat and keep ordering drinks until that elusive drunken state hits him once more.

Should only take another hour or three.

[CLOSED TO EXISTING CR]

No one could blame Steve for starting. He'd messaged his friends about fifteen minutes ago, telling them to meet him at the bar for some drinks. But just sitting here, waiting? It was done better with a drink in hand to look social, at least. And it's not like that one is going to be his last. No, after Calibrations he can imagine himself coming over here quite often. He can imagine all of them coming here quite often, in fact. But maybe tonight (today? Space was hard to judge) would help take some of the sting off. Or at least some of the awkwardness.

But it wasn't as though they <i>chose</i> to share all of that. Loki, Steve is sure, would have preferred to keep his death to himself. And Thor? I am sure half of those memories were things he'd rather not have replayed over and over again. And <i>Hux</i>. God... That was just what Steve knew of. Who knew what other people had put his friends through? What they'd been through themselves?

Steve preemptively orders another drink for whoever shows up first. Whoever it was, he's sure they won't say no. Not now.

First round is on him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You know I will. Though... not sure he actually likes me any more than he likes you." Natasha will try though. For both Steve and Bucky, she'd try. "Mostly, I think he needs time. Be gentle."

In a way, it's like winning over a stray cat. Be patient. Prove it can trust you. Just be there, and eventually most stays will remember how to be a domestic cat again.

There may be a few scratches along the way. "The way you boys eat, he'll probably appreciate the snack."

Not our fault! [But that brings back the smile and Steve's good humor.] That serum turns everything up. You think it's fun to eat 4000 calories a day until it's noon and you've cleaned out every hot dog cart in the Mall. [Speaking from experience.

They get to the ships and Steve pauses, pulling Nat in once more for a hug.]

I'll see you on your ship. [A pause.] And whenever you need to talk or anything. I'm here for you.

"Yeah, I can tell it really tears you up being able to eat as much as you want and then some." She returns the hug, more relaxed than before. Not happier—not really, but at least she feels like she can lean on him.

He's not the only one either.

"I'll keep that in mind. Just... feels good to get it off my chest." For now, that's enough.

She'll turn him loose then, heading back to her shuttle.

"See you in a few."

Steve is getting used to using the shuttle. He follows behind Nat because he has no idea how to tell one ship apart from another. It's a miracle he knows his own at this point. But following is easy and docking is something this little implant in his head allows him to do. It's almost like the quinjet. Almost.

Popping out and onto the new ship, Steve immediately starts peering around to satisfy his own curiosity. The first shuttle he's been on beside his own. It's almost disappointing how similar it is.

"Who's your captain?" he asks once Nat pops up.

“You’re looking at her.” Said with a shrug and a cock of her head. Overall, it’s not especially interesting to look at. There have been some personalization of course, but few enough that it still looks like most of the other ships on the fleet. There may be a cat or two around, if they’re lucky. Otherwise, it’s another ship. “At least as of coming back from the Marsiva. We never took that particularly seriously through. I don’t expect that to change now.”

"I guess I should be calling you 'Cap' now, huh?" Steve smiles and nudges her as he walks through the ship, still looking around like it is a museum. It looks similar enough to his own. Except without a four-armed alien walking around with weapons.

"How many people are on your ship? We just lost one..." He didn't know the guy well. Just knows now that the room is empty. "Anyone I know?"

"Four, if they're all on board. We don't tend to be an especially close crew, though." She wonders sometimes if she should try to change that. Might be a good way to go, especially if they run into trouble. On the other hand, none of them chose this assignment. "We've lost a lot of people, including the last captain.

"But that's still Natasha to you."

"Cap Nat. Got it." He smirks like the brat he is and waves for her to lead the way. "Sorry about your missing crew. The one we lost wasn't one that I knew at all but I know that's not always the case." He's curious but also reluctant to step on a nerve. Still, he asks softly, "Do you know if your captain went back home?"

"No idea. That's a theory going around, but... we don't really have any way to corroborate it." And Natasha feels there's reason to doubt it, even if it may largely come down to a suspicious nature. "For all we know everyone who leaves is waiting in storage on the Marsiva. They can wipe their minds or not, reintroduce them when it suits their plan."

She sighs. "Or they could be home with their families."

Steve goes ice cold thinking about that. "So...When I was here and left, the theory is that I could have been iced and brought back, now? Or...that there are versions of me still there? Waiting?" Natasha's Bucky. Sam. Tony. Wrath. All the lost people, still kidnapped.

It made sense and it was the most horrible thing he could have imagined.

"We have to go home eventually, don't we? There are memories! Things we haven't done yet. We need to go home to do them!" Unless he already has and forgot. Christ.

"Maybe. No one ever seems to realize we're gone, so either we go back eventually, we're all from different universes, or we're not really us." That last one is not Natasha's favorite theory by a long shot, but she doesn't want to leave it out.

"We don't really know that much. We do know that the Atroma have highly advanced technology when it comes to teleportation and replication."

The idea that they're not really themselves makes Steve want to be sick. Copies? Clones? To what end? "I don't think that's the case," he says honestly. "I guess it's impossible to know for sure. But I don't think that's true. Now when everyone has such different experiences going home."

But the other two? Steve winces hard, thinking about it. "Christ. None of this is good. Not any of it.

"I wanna know who these Atroma are..."

Natasha doesn't like it either, and most people don't discuss it, but it's a possibility that they've broached a few times during the duration of her stay. It's also the hardest for her to shake because it makes sense. Why go through the trouble of kidnapping them and returning them directly to the time they were taken, memories scrubbed and scars removed, why bother resurrecting the dead, when you can make your copy and update memories periodically?

Then rather than ever bother sending them home, they can throw them in storage or maroon them on a planet or even toss them in an incinerator.

Thinking about it too long is a good way to bring on an existential crisis.

"We have some information. Kitty would be a good person to talk to about that. I also have some hard copies. Most of it is redacted, though."

"I'll have to talk to her about it then." Steve is glad he knows Kitty so it won't be as awkward when he starts demanding answers. How can he help it? There's a chance he's...what? A clone? Yeah, he wants to know one way or another whether he's real or not and the best way is to figure out who the Atroma are and what they are truly capable of.

Steve keeps walking and mentally takes a step away from all of these troubling thoughts.

"So, what is this gift you're giving me?" Steve turns, thinking he saw a cat walk by. He lights up a bit; he knew Hux has a cat but he wasn't sure if there were more about.

"If it's a kitten you are officially my new best friend. I'll get ya a badge and everything."

"Sorry, Rogers. Licorice and T'Challa aren't going anywhere." Most ships pick up a pet or two along the way. At this point, it's cats. "And I'm not sure you can really call it a gift, considering."

Natasha opens the door to her own quarters—bigger than standard. Being captain has some perks.

Inside the room she moves to the bedside and pulls something out from under the bed. It's familiar to him. Or it ought to be, at least, seeing as how it's his shield.

"The last Steve got this back along the way. He didn't want to keep it. He—he didn't seem to think he deserved it at the moment. Eventually he gave it to Sam. When Sam left, it came to me.

"I'm not really the patriotism and optimism type, though."

Steve isn't expecting this. He hasn't seen the shield since he dropped it in front of Tony and walked away from Captain America. It still feels a little like it doesn't belong to him. That this is a Stark creation he borrowed and then used against Howard's son.

Still. He takes it. It fits into his hand as well as it ever did. Steve stares at it a moment before pulling it off and just holding it in his hands.

"I didn't think I'd see this again so soon." He smiles, warm and fond because the shield is like an old friend. And he knows what he's going to do with it.

"Thanks, Nat. Although I could see you in stars and stripes. Goes with your hair."

"Pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about there, Rogers," Natasha says, her expression softening the words. It's nice to see him accepting it back, at least. "Besides, I've had it for months and the cat's got more use out of it than I have."

"You let your cats use my shield?" He loves cats so he's just pretending to be offended by that. Really, it's the perfect size and shape for a snuggly cat bed. He can't blame the two of them. "Good thing it's headed to a better home, now."

He looks it over and lets out a small sigh. "It was weird, how easy it was for me to drop this when I needed to." He doesn't seem sad remembering it. Wistful, maybe, that things could have been different. But he doesn't regret anything in that moment. It had to be done.

"It's not that weird." Not to Natasha, at least. It might be to some people, people who didn't know Steve or thought of him as Captain America first. Maybe Natasha just wasn't one to be easily starstruck or taken in by symbolism, but it hadn't taken her long to figure out Steve didn't need the name or the shield to do the right thing.

She'd seen it herself.

"I'd be more surprised if you said you hesitated."

Steve looks over at Nat and smirks a little. "Ya know, one of these days I'm gonna surprise you." And that day is going to surprise him all the more since his friend knows him better than he often knows himself. He looks back at the shield and wonders what it had seen, here. What he'd done with it. What Sam had.

In another universe, what Bucky had.

"What else have you got here? Enough to open a museum?"

"Oh... by now, probably." There are more things in Natasha's room than most people would expect. And for good reason. For months after Natasha arrived in the Fleet, she'd kept her space spartan. As time passed, that changed. They visited more systems, and she collected souvenirs, tools, new clothes. More than that, though, people had left.

There are journals that aren't hers, various mementos, and a fair amount of storage containers.

"Sam's wings are under there too."

Sam. Steve bends for a second to see them but then he decides he doesn't want to. Even having Bucky back doesn't make him not miss his friend. The two of them had searched for Bucky together, had fought together... It had been nice having a best friend again. Just like it hurt to know he'd missed him and there was no guarantee he'd see him again anytime soon.

"I'm surprised you didn't take them for a spin." He'd been curious himself, now and again. "I bet you've thought about it."

"Who says I haven't?" Raising her eyebrows. It's a bluff; she hasn't taken them out. Partly because there hasn't been a great opportunity. She hadn't been in a hurry to run out and explore the trash planet, for example.

But she also didn't want to all that bad.

"You could probably take them out if you want. Doubt he'd mind."

"If you went flying and no one took a video, I'm gonna be mad." Steve waves off the offer for him to take them though. They belong to Sam an until they go back to him, Steve figures they're better off with Nat than with him. Otherwise it's just a constant reminder.

"How long has he been gone?"

"Since last summer." It's less raw than some of the other losses, though knowing he's one of the missing after Thanos's attack makes it impossible not to feel some regret.

Under other circumstances, Natasha wouldn't worry much at all. Sam is smart and can take care of himself.

"Around the same time you left last time."

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