exsiliumlogs | anything you say can and will be held against you

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anything you say can and will be held against you

Date & Time: At night in unit 610.
Location: In unit 610.
Characters: Tony "I'm working on my jetpack" Stark and Max "I've made a huge mistake" Kearney
Summary: One of the people in 610 has a nightmare and casually gets up to work on his jetpack. One of the people in 610 is an empath who hopefully considers this to be a Bad Idea.
Warnings: Rated T for Tony, M for Max/Mature, and W for What Could Possibly Go Wrong with This Combination.

[ It wasn't as though he never had them before, the last time he was here. They were a little different, a little less developed, but at least in the time he was gone they had the chance to swell and then start to fade again. This is them, on the healing side, but that doesn't mean that they aren't still a large mass of problems he has to deal with, and now he just has new memories to add to the pile of inspiration - a twisted fuel for the subconscious to turn into newer and darker variants of things that already happened and were new and dark enough at the time the first go-around.

At least last time Pepper knew about it though. Trying to keep them from her this time - because there are aspects of his time away that he's still not comfortable explaining just yet, for reasons he can't really decipher and doesn't really care to - it's difficult. Not the least for the fact that she is what helps abate them. Pepper is, as always, a boon to his conscience and well-being, and with the stress of being relatively new here, the things that have recently happened - both in Exsilium as a whole and with them in particular - being with him already being something that is more or less a serious labor of love on her part, he just doesn't feel like giving her her own sort of fuel just yet. He just got her back - he doesn't know how he'd handle it if he lost her again, one way or another.

So this time when he wakes up, breath short, eyes red and puffy not only from sleep, heart racing (and he feels like he can feel the vibrations from it pounding so hard when he lays a hand over the reactor, which is silly, but there it is regardless), he tries to be quiet. He makes sure that Pepper is still asleep, then carefully pads out of the bedroom, sticking to his tank and shorts, because he doesn't feel like rummaging around in the dark and potentially waking her up and isn't expecting to run into anyone in his living room anyway. When he gets there, he falls onto the couch with a long exhalation, calming down, wiping his face. Then, almost immediately, he gets back up enough to reach over and grab the jetpack Max gave him for his birthday. He's been tinkering with it, and right now he feels the need to tinker with something. (Yet another reason he wants Pepper to stay asleep.) He's not doing anything serious with it, he doesn't have the tools here, but it's something, at least, looking at the inner workings with what he can get open - because he doesn't have all his tools here but he always has at least a few. ]

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[ Max isn't much of a sleeper. Years of conditioning mean it takes very little to wake her up, and that's when her brain is cooperating and she's not waking up because some wire in her brain sparked when it touched another and she dreamed again.

Tonight she was sleeping well enough in most respects, but she leaves her shields down enough that she can pick things up in a nearby radius while she's sleeping, a sort of early warning system. It's been useful before, and she doesn't really feel safe here ever. But it means that the familiar feeling of a nightmare, if very vague and indistinct, brings her close enough to the surface of sleep that the first time metal clinks she hears it, startles awake and lies in bed for a long moment as she categorizes the room. Tony, Pepper asleep in the bedroom, no one else in the apartment.

She makes a point of not reading either them beyond being able to confirm their presence, for Tony's sake, but it's a bizarre hour of the morning and the unsettling feeling lingering and that combined are enough to get her out of bed and wandering out into the living room. At the least she just needs to reassure herself that everything's okay.

But it doesn't take more than a quick glance at him to be fairly certain something's not really okay, and she pauses and watches him for a moment, goes and fills two glasses of water. One she keeps for herself, setting the other one on the coffee table in front of him as she settles on the couch near him. ] Some of those modifications are a little patchwork. Worked with what I had here.

[ He sits up straighter, sniffs hard once or twice and rubs a hand over his face again in faux-startlement to make sure there's not actually any wetness on it. He can't do much about his eyes, but it's dimly lit in here and he doesn't know how much Max can see of him right now as it is.

He glances at the glass of water, but he doesn't make any move to take it. Ignores it entirely after the initial glance at it to see what she was putting down. And now it looks like she's going to stay and he entertains the idea that maybe she simply can't sleep for all of about six minutes, which is the time it takes for 'empath + nightmare = company right now' to finally be an equation that hits him and makes him feel even more strange. ] 'M just looking at the basics here. Hadn't had much time to.

[ She's good at the dark, always has been. But it's not necessarily the physical appearance so much as the fact that she can still feel that specific distress that comes with nightmares, and it's all from his direction.

What precisely she's going to do about it she really doesn't know at all yet. Or if she's even going to do anything about it. This isn't her responsibility, it really isn't. He's a friend, but that doesn't mean she owes him.

Except for how it does. She shrugs a little, tilts her head to evaluate. ] You're a busy person. But shouldn't you be asleep?

[ Well he's not sure about what he's going to do about whatever it is she's going to do about him, so they can just sit in mutual little tugboats of uncertainty and bob up and down for a little while.

That statement is very easy to reverse, too. Just saying. ] Shouldn't you?

[ They'll probably figure it out in a little bit, or maybe just sit there and be awkwardly aware of why the other person is there for a while. Or one of them will go to bed, but that's pretty unlikely.

A shrug, because yeah that statement's easy to reverse but she has a reason. ] I'm a light sleeper. Heard you up.

[ He's certainly not going back to sleep tonight. He isn't fond of letting things have a second chance, not when he already knows they'll just do it again, more than likely. ]

Insomnia. Didn't want to wake Pepper. I'll go down to the workshop - sorry I woke you up.

[ She may or may not. She's not really sure she'd like to give what she's picked up from his broadcast a chance to take root in her mind while she sleeps and cause any problems, and it's not like she does a whole ton of sleeping anyways. ]

It's okay. I don't mind. You don't have to leave, I'm not really good at sleeping either. [ Leaning back against the couch and carefully not looking at him. ] You dream a lot?

[ He'd apologize for that too, although there's not a whole lot he can do about it. His shields are a little more easily tuned towards keeping out machines, not keeping human feelings inside. Although he does work really hard on that second one in general.

This is a conversation he's abruptly decided isn't going to happen. ] I told you, I couldn't sleep. [ Which is more or less a bold-faced lie, especially with his face looking the way it does right now, clearly having just awoken from sleep and clearly not the happy kind. ]

[ She considers letting him off with that for a little bit, just getting back up and going because she doesn't really need to deal with this. He's not her responsibility, this isn't something she really needs to do.

Except he's a friend, and that's complicated but it boils down to the fact that if she can help, she wants to. ] You know, I don't even remotely need empathy to tell that's a lie.

[ He stops what he's doing, tinkering with the jetpack, and more or less lets it and his hands fall into his lap. He doesn't really move otherwise, and he totally blames, later, he'll blame this reaction on the thing that put him out here at this hour in the first place, and his inability to just think clearly because of it. ] I don't know what you want from me right now.

[ Well, that takes the wind out of her sails for a moment because, let's be honest here for a moment, she has no idea what she wants from him right now. She wants him to not feel the way that nightmares always wind up feeling, or have to sit up shaking in the dark because of them. She just isn't particularly sure how to go about that. ] I want to help, if I can.

I don't know how you would. [ Not that he's particularly entertaining the idea. He doesn't want help right now, he wants to be left alone, to lick his wounds in the dark by himself and curl back into bed around Pepper once he's sorted himself back out to a reasonable level, to feel her warmth and solidity and heartbeat so he can stop seeing her have none of the above. ] I had a nightmare, big deal, it happens. Go back to sleep.

What do you think empathy's even for? [ It's said mildly, pretty neutrally, and she leans back into the couch and sighs, tucks her legs up to her chest. Him being difficult she could definitely have foreseen, here. It's still a little frustrating. ] I've got plenty of experience at this.

[ That is the exact opposite of getting up and going back to bed, no Max. Look, he's very frustrating, almost especially when people are trying to help him, because he doesn't really get it, so you should just go because he's going to keep being frustrating. Probably. ] Staying up and poking at people?

[ She can be a deeply frustrating person herself, frustrating people don't phase her too badly. And yes, yes that is the exact opposite. It's okay, she's a professional? ] Helping people get some sleep.

[ Tony stays quiet for a very long time after that. At some point, he even picks the jetpack back up, although he does little more than turn it over and over in his hands. ] How?

[ She glances away, lets him have at least an appearance of space and privacy. ] You can use empathy to do a lot of things. Temporary solution, but still a solution.

[ He appreciates that, even if he does it silently and without much acknowledgement of the fact. ] How does it work?

I can dull the emotions temporarily. The negative ones associated with the dream, that is. I can't maintain it for more than a day or so, but you'd get some rest tonight.

[ He considers what she's getting at, but he's not sure how that'll help. ] So tomorrow they'll just come back, and then separated from the event. How is that helpful? [ Which is a lie, he can see where it could be helpful, he's just doubtful that it'll help him. Maybe he misunderstood what she meant. ]

[ She shakes her head a little at that, tries to figure out how to explain it better. ] They won't necessarily come back at the same strength. If they would have faded by themselves, they'll fade. They'll come back the next time you dream, but. [ But she's not really capable of making him stop dreaming entirely, unfortunately. ] Like I said, it's mostly a stopgap. Lets you sleep tonight.

[ Still not sure this sounds like it's worth it. He let the last person into his mind because a. she didn't really ask, and b. he didn't really have a choice. Arguably, this might not be considered a choice for some, but he's a fairly stubborn person and remains to be convinced here. ] Thanks, but I think I'm already up. Anxiety attack's all good and finished for now - you should be happy you missed the show.

[ The thing is, she doesn't want to push here because she enjoys being friends with him, and she feels like trying to convince him something he clearly doesn't really want to do is a good thing might fall under things friends don't do to each other. It could help, it could not. But - ] It wouldn't be anything I haven't seen before. I honestly wouldn't mind, if it would help at all.

[ He doesn't mind a certain amount of push, because he's aware that he's a stubborn asshole sometimes and it's the push that shows you actually care about him. He can see where what she's offering could be beneficial, but remains unwilling. ] You do this a lot, then? [ wait ] How would it not be what you've seen before? You mean in general?

[ She's a little bad at caring, sometimes. It's hard to demonstrate, it's hard to get right, and with him she feels like the parameters got shifted again from what most people consider caring. ] I've got enough experience to do it well. [ Aw shit Tony stop being observant. ] A lot of my coworkers had PTSD. Anxiety and nightmares happened a lot.

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anything you say can and will be held against you

man i love this song so much and were the italics on jetpack absolutely necessary

isn't it a fucking awesome song i sing it to myself all the time

saaaame i love that album a lot

because it's a great album

i played all of it for my sister yesterday because she didn't know it

my brother wouldn't like it

my sister liked about half of it

it was on in my car last night and he definitely actively really disliked it and i was sad

oh no hayden :( why

his taste in music is questionable. he feels the same way about mine.

i'm on your side in this

this is good i'm clearly the better sibling

well you're certainly my favorite but i doubt that comes as a surprise

did i tell you he apparently lost his job and filed for unemployment?

ouch good luck to him i hope all will go well

well it was mostly his fault

i remember you telling me how likely it was i have to admit that does seem like a thing

apparently he'll be back here for like. tonight through tuesday. surprise!

have fun!

already been eating my food the little shit

lemme talk to him

good luck

i'm very good at chastising siblings

he's a little misogynistic

i was gonna say he could bite me but actually i think i'm reserving that response for you