soinsouciant | IC Inbox for astranet

[Carol will get several messages in quick succession, each angrier than that last.]

I don't need nor want your opinion. I hate you.

I don't know how you've lived this long, you dimwitted asshole!

Shove yourself out an airlock and into the closest star and save us all the trouble of having to clean up after you!

[ Wow. Not creative, but certainly to the point. ]

Quick check in: Is this still about the garbage ship, or did I drink the last bottle of something you wanted at the bar?

These were not meant for you...

Although, was it you who drank the last of the brandy from Sarano. I wanted to try it.

[If so, rude.]

I mean, we can consider it paying the anger forward. I'm sure I'll find a new way to vex you eventually.

Speaking of: Would you believe me if I denied even knowing of the brandy?

[ Oh, she drank it for sure. ]

Most people do. [She's not really a people person, to say the least. Thanos hadn't really felt it necessary to teach her valuable social skills. Her patience is more than a little lacking.]

And no, I wouldn't believe you... especially since you asked the question like that.

But Nebula! I have such a trustworthy face. You want me to send you a video message to prove it?

[ She doesn't wait for an answer on that, of course. ]

I'd offer to fly back to get more, but... I don't know, the Sarano don't strike me as appreciating that much.

[Nebula is unswayed by this video message of hers. You can tell by the furrowed brow that's returned at her attempt. She is dubious about her face's trustworthiness, clearly.]

You'll just have to make it up to me.

I can appreciate a challenge. Alright, I'll bite - not promises yet, but what would it take to make it up to you?

[ She smiles, easy and cheekily friendly in the face of Nebula's frown. She's good at that. ]

[Nebula is not sure what to do with that smile. It puts her off-balance the longer it goes on. Her frown turning uncertain. There's also the matter of Nebula having absolutely no idea how she can make it up to her. She didn't have anything planned to say. No witty retort or cute flirtation. Those are not things she's good at.]

I... you can get me a bottle of something at the next planet. And you can't drink any of it.

[ Carol feigns surprise, puts a hand on her chest. ]

Nebula! Do you intend to make me buy a lovely bottle of something for you, then sit me down and watch you drink it all by yourself without sharing a single drop? That is so nefarious. Pure torture.

[ The grin eases back onto her face. ]

You got it, boss. It's a date.

Well. I was known as the biggest sadist in the galaxy... [Not that what she's proposing is particularly torturous. Still.

Nebula sputters at the mention of a date, really wishing the video wasn't on right then. She looks almost... embarrassed.] Yes. Sure. A date.

[She's hanging up now.]

( He just wanted a shower. Just one, normal shower, usually in such abundant supply there would be no reason to assume something so mundane could go awry.

One moment, Tony's rinsing the suds from his skin, humming lightly. The next, hot water goes replaced by the sudden fill of cool air and the absence of a shower stall... as well as his towel. For a moment, shock simply freezes him in place, then the water shivers off him with his hasty reaction, dropping his hands past the glowing rt in his chest to cover his junk, his confused outrage perfect, white-hot, and slightly shrill. )

Sonuvabitch–

[ It was bound to happen. Carol knows that. She's been displaced into hard vacuum more than once, some people have been beamed down planetside, and she's heard of people showing up in each other's beds. It was only a matter of time before someone showed up naked somewhere they didn't want to be.

Like the bar that is currently mercifully empty except for one person.

Sadly for Tony, that person is Carol Danvers, and about the least merciful person he could have encountered. ]

Heya Tony. [ Eyebrows up, lips curling into a smirk. Did she look? Maybe. She's paused partway through pouring a drink. ] Thirsty?

( The upside of spending nearly twenty years of one's life being a drunken slutty fuckboy means Tony is well-inured to public nudity, namely his own. Once the initial shock wears off, and the goosebumps are beginning to prickle their way slowly up his skin, he breathes a slow sigh.

Deadpan: )

Oh, I can see that.

( You know, fuck it. His tone eases into something magnanimous, because seeing him naked is a goddamn gift, as he ambles up to the bar, )

Since I'm here though, scotch. And I'll take– ( plucking the mostly-clean hand towel from the end of the counter, ) –this.

[ If there's one thing Carol can respect, it's proverbial balls of steel. Or... iron, in this case. Heh. Good for Tony, at any rate. Carol finishes pouring her own drink, unable to wipe the smirk away when Tony grabs the hand towel. ]

Hey, if I'm playing bartender, don't I need that to wipe down the bar while listening to your tales of woe?

[ She ducks behind the bar momentarily, and returns with scotch and glass. ]

So. Fancy meeting you here?

( Instead of making a hasty, half-hearted attempt to cover what's already been seen, Tony opts to forestall any further chill, and scrubs the towel over his wet hair and skin while she grabs the liquor. )

First time, on my end. ( He shrugs. There's a shamelessness to how he flips the now-damp towel onto the stool beside him and leans an elbow on the bar, like he's rocking an expensive as fuck suit, not bare-assing it in a spaceship bar in front of a beautiful woman he's never seen before. )

You mind filling in the details for me?

[ Carol's grin only deepens. In part to hide the pang of sadness she feels. Not that she's surprised he doesn't recognize her - neither did Bucky Barnes, so it seems chances are high everyone else is scattered through different moments in time as well.

Ignorance is bliss, though. She enjoys this cocksure Tony who's leaning on the bar naked like it's the most natural thing in the world. Makes a weird sort of sense why the rest of the Avengers hold him in such high regard. Guy must have thrown some good parties before settling down to be a family man. ]

We met five years ago from where I'm from. In space, ironically enough. You got yourself a bit stranded, so I carried you and the ship back to Earth. Carol, by the way. Carol Danvers. Old friend of Nick Fury's.

[ She doesn't actually know if her name would ring a bell for him - he'd not exactly been in a very cheerful mood during debriefing, and she'd been off world for his return to the Avengers fold. So for her, it's anyone's guess if he managed to rip intel on her existence from SHIELD databases. ]

( What the Hell was he doing in space? goes unspoken, but is writ large across his features, the knowledge unsettling him. Tony shakes it off a sec later to nurse his scotch, rolling a sip of the amber liquid around his mouth before swallowing it, savoring the warmth. )

Carol.

( Processing, processing, until it clicks, a scrap of memory from the deep dive he made into SHIELD's servers not a handful of months ago, and the names associated with the continuing project his father once started, right at the organization's inception.

Tony snaps his fingers. )

You're Captain Danvers; you worked on Project PEGASUS. That was, what, '88, '89?

[ There's just a very small moment where Carol's eyebrows twitch up, and she would have looked a little impressed if she hadn't immediately covered with a bright grin. She puts her elbows on the bar, chin in hand, and smiles at Tony Stark like they're old pals, not new acquaintances, one of whom is completely naked on the other side of that bar. ]

The one and only. Well... I hope only. Would be awkward otherwise. It was '89. What else you got?

( Tony warms to her a little in spite of himself. Tossing back the rest of his drink, grimacing lightly for the burn, he shrugs again, pondering. )

PEGASUS was shuttered after an accident that killed you, or so SHIELD thought, until you showed up again in '95. Fury's report was, ah, colorful, to say the least.

( He'll just help himself to another pour after that, not mentioning that reading the specifics of a previous alien encounter not a handful of weeks after the battle of New York had sent his paranoia into overdrive. He left Manhattan less than a fortnight afterward, too overwhelmed to stay, realizing he had to do more to protect earth.

He should have known.
How?
He should have done something then.
You were twenty-five and wasted off your ass in St. Martin that week, the Hell were you gonna do?

Betraying nothing, Tony slides his glass back across the bar top, quirking his brow at her. )

Sound about right?

Hm, I can only imagine. Don't buy a word he claims about the scar.

[ Dodging and weaving about the various elephants in the room. Carol's a good pilot like that. She pulls back a little, grabs her own drink and downs it. The liquid's dark, near black, with colourful little specks inside of it.

Carol knocks it back, then grimaces. Her face goes on a short journey, rapid fire shifts of 'not bad' into 'oh no' into 'I regret my life choices' into 'or did I actually like it'.

She pours herself a second glass. ]

This tastes like if coffee were glitter.

[ She regards Tony again, and leans back in. There's mirth in her brown eyes, but also an easy cameraderie. This Tony's not quite he guy she briefly knew and deeply respected for his fight and sacrifice, but hey. Brothers in arms are brothers in arms, and Carol's not in the habit of being too picky about the details. ]

So how much shop do you wanna talk? 'cause we can get a little drunk and have some pretty colorful conversations ourselves. But I'm easy. I can make thinly veiled teases about your hairline and leave it at that, too.

( Oh he is so nosing into that once he's home, something devious glinting in his dark eyes. )

Noted. ( Her choice in liquor earns a brief glance of suspicion, mistrustful of anything edible that looks a little too much like nail polish. Pass. The remembered panic passes, too. )

Yours is a tempting offer, ( he dryly admits over another sip of scotch, the corner of his mouth pulling into a slow smirk and smoothing out again, ) But if we're gonna talk shop, I either need pants, or you gotta strip.

[ Stripping would be a monumentally stupid idea, given where the conversation could go, and what she knows that he might not want to hear.

But then, it does kinda sound like a dare, and Carol is already not the kind of person to back down from a dare or a monumentally stupid idea. Combine them at your own peril.

So she fishes the scotch out of Tony's hand and knocks the rest of it back herself, grinning as it burns down her throat and she sheds the suit with quick efficiency. The underwear stays on, though, because: ]

You gotta earn the rest, though.

( There is no way this won't go terrible places. He's better than this.

He's all in. )

Makes it interesting. Alright.

( Tony summarily takes his glass back to refill, drain, and refill again, seating himself on the towel-draped stool at his side and beginning briskly: )

Just to set some parameters, I'd rather not know if I die heroically to save all of existence. I want to be pleasantly surprised.

( He actually doesn't know, at all, but it's all in jest, so grotesquely grandiose, so egotistical it just seems implausible by everything he knows to be true. )

I mean, who doesn't love a good surprise.

[ Definitely gotta touch base with Nebula, make sure they're on the same level of information - and if they are, then on the same level of secrecy.

It's surprisingly easy, though, to detach the Tony Stark she'd met with the one sitting in front of her - obviously younger, in more ways than one. Carol puts her chin in her hands. ]

Any other rules you wanna esteblish, boss? Game's yours to put rules on.

So, is Redwing one of ours?

( Yeah, just gonna leap right in. )

[ The first text comes immediately: ]

yeah, sam's great!

[ Except... cue confusion after she sends that, because... wait. What? And so a second text comes in, as apparently after the first, it occurs to Carol that she shot from the hip here without thinking about the implications. ]

wait why do you need to ask?

Edited (what is formatting) 2021-05-11 19:10 (UTC)

Sam. Huh.

( Yeah he...didn't offer that up to Tony. )

Well, that gives a little more context to our conversation.
Anyway, thanks, Carol.

hold up how do you not know sam
are the avengers that big that you can just not know your co-workers?

Uh, easily
As of my time, we have a crew of six. Seven, counting Rhodey
We haven't exactly worked out what future recruitment's going to look like

Dammit, I'm starting to feel like the last girl asked to the dance with this future shit

you'd rock a nice skirt I'm sure.

feels like a minefield the other direction, too. y'know, what to share, what not to. familiar face shows up and I gotta think 'you gonna even recognize me?' and i barely even know most of you guys to begin with

I do, thanks

I'm not trying to gatekeep the suck, here
Just

( cue a lot of "..." while he writes stuff and deletes it, thennnn )

Where are you?

outside the observatory deck.
wanna hit the bar, stark, or should I bring the drinks to you?

Awesome as that sounds
I actually need to borrow your shower.

you got it, boss.
just the shower, or the shower and company? just to check in, not intending to sound cheeky for once in my life. let me know what you need, yeah?

[ 'cause now she's just gonna slide from commiserating to worrying for him. ]

( and this just dredges up that memory of Rhodey attempting the same sort of check-in, 2 Real 2 Fast, before he panicked and split.

No one ruins his own parties like Tony Stark 🎉🎉🎉 )

...it's a shower. I'm in a suite; mine's occupied.
Company would be appreciated.

well feel free to let yourself in. I'll be with you in a sec. don't mind goose, make yourself at home.

[ does he need context for that? carol's door will indeed open for tony. And if there happens to be an orange tabby cat curls up on the bunk and fixing Tony with a judgmental look, well. That could explain the goose. ]

Thanks

( Totally about to ask the pertinent question, he waits to see instead, dropping his gym things and sneakers by the door. He eyes the cat in a selfsame fashion. )

Oh, huh. Now where did your mom find you? Are you friendly, or were you aptly named?

( Giving a glance toward the shower, feeling a little foolish talking to someone else's cat, he shrugs and pulls at his sweaty shirt. )

Edited 2021-05-12 00:57 (UTC)

[ There's the softest sound of little paws dropping onto the floor, and shortly after Tony has to live with the 'cat' winding around his legs. She's impatient for clothes to drop, truth be told. Not that Tony knows yet just what kind of nefarious thief Goose can be.

his comms chime with another message: ]

want me to make a pit stop and get us some of that lava lamp looking wine?

Hey... ( That answers that question. Shirt draped over his shoulder, he leans down to absently skritch behind those soft little ears. )

Sounds promising, I'm in. Had your fill of glitter liquor?

[ That rewards him with an enthusiastic purr. Goose will graciously allow the petting, and if she's enthusiastically leaning into Tony's hand so heavily that she'd surely fall over if he removed his hand, well, no one needs to know but them. ]

I'm still occasionally finding glitter on my tooth brush after brushing my teeth. the places I don't want glitter transferring to are innumerable at this point.

[ case in point: there's a speck of glitter behind Goose' ear, too. ]

( Tony breathes a low chuckle to find it, shaking his head. )

Okay, Goosie, I kinda need that hand.

( With a monumental effort, he withdrew, shifting his weight from one foot to the other to strip his socks off, dropping them carelessly onto his shoes without a backward glance. Enough futzing with the cat, time to get the shower started and, with some help, put his unease behind him. )

Edited 2021-05-12 03:20 (UTC)

[ By the time Carol makes her way back, Goose is very comfortably nestled into the clothes Tony left behind. And just because occasionally, she can be considerate and kind and doesn't want to spook him, she calls out: ]

Honey, I'm home.

IC Inbox for astranet

misfires from the past! - voice | un: nebula 1/3

2/3

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voice; un: c.danvers

voice; un:nebula

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action; displacement stuff whereverrrr

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lmk if this assumption's too wild

All good! Honestly, I'm completely fine with him knowing as much or as little as you think fits :)

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text; un: stark; backdated after his convo w/sam

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