New Avengers Tower

[worthallthis]

The press meeting takes way too long. Then they're all taken to a hospital, because most of them are injured in some way. Then Mel takes them back to that stupid tower. Avengers Tower. Watchtower. New Avengers Tower. Nobody knows what they're calling it.

They get a tour, even though they're exhausted and grouchy, and even though half the tower is clearly in some state of construction and clearly not ready to be shown off. The labs are complete, hastily so, but none of them are going to be going anywhere near those. The rooftop bar is still in shambles, and none of them want to linger there. The kitchen and restaurant-like eating areas spiraled out around it seem intact, and well-stocked, at least.

They each have their own floor. Stark had originally made a whole floor for each of his superhero buddies, which hadn't really been renovated at all even in the multiple years the Avengers had been toast, so now they're the cleanest and least disturbed of the whole tower.

Bucky gets Steve's, Walker gets Thor's, Ava gets Clint's.

Yelena gets the one meant for Natasha. Of course.

And Bob gets Banner's, with its combination of calming decor and Hulk-proof walls.

Then they're left alone to "rest" with the promise that Mel and Valentina will be in touch over the next few days, which sounds more like a threat than anything else.

Comments

[musicdied]

She lifts her other hand to lay on his other arm, grip gentle, like she can anchor him in the present - or at least convey that she trusts him not to snap and drag her back into the depression dimension.

Not that distance would help, if she's wrong.

"We stopped it," she says. "Okay? You, me, the rest of the team. We stopped it. It's over, everyone's back. I promise."

[makingitworse]

This time, at least, she's not wrong. He sits and shivers for a long minute, full of conflicting desires, but finally he twists one wrist around in her grasp and turns it back to catch around her forearm, back, careful to keep his hand on nothing but her long sleeve. Probably a good sign? No awful memories drop, anyway, and he's not gripping so tight that it hurts, at least not yet.

"Everyone's okay? I didn't-- leave anyone in there?" He doesn't even know why that idea haunts him so much. He doesn't even remember being-- in there. If he was pulling people into it, was he really in there or was it really just him shoving people into their worst memories, on purpose, to make them share his-- his void?

[musicdied]

She breathes a quiet sigh of relief when he breaks that shuddering stillness. He's not all right, clearly, but at least he's responding. She may need to tread carefully, but she can work with that.

"Everyone's okay," she confirms. "No one was left behind. It was all over pretty quickly, in real world time."

[makingitworse]

He can't even explain the deep certainty that someone must have been left behind, beyond the knowledge that he always messes things up, and that can't be the sole exception to the rule. But because he doesn't remember it, he can't give any reasoning to her, or really do anything but hope that she's right.

He sniffs, then ducks his head a little so that his face is mostly hidden between hair and pillow, but he doesn't let go of her arm, either, or shake off the grip she still has one his other one. The shivering isn't entirely subsided, but it's not constant, either, little waves going through him.

"Okay," is what comes out. He might need a minute before he can bring himself to ask anything else.

[musicdied]

Yelena's hand shifts up toward his shoulder, as she starts to pull him into a hug before catching herself. She doesn't know enough about how his powers work - if it's only touching his hand that has an effect, if he has to be an active participant, or if even incidental skin contact will trigger something - and while she'd be willing to take the risk on her own account, she suspects that it would only make him more miserable if something were to happen.

So she turns the motion into a gentle squeeze of his upper arm, which feels entirely inadequate as far as reassuring gestures goes, but at least isn't going to dump any more of her trauma into his head.

[makingitworse]

He might maybe lean a little bit her direction when her hand moves, some part of him anticipating being pulled in. When it doesn't happen, he realizes immediately why not: she can't risk it. He can pull people into terrible memories. Into a terrible memory dimension. And neither of them really know how. It's not safe. It might not be safe to do what she's doing now.

But she's still doing it.

He finally pulls himself together enough to let go of his death grip on the couch pillow and wipe his eyes a little with that hand. There hadn't been any sobs or even hitched breath, but he definitely leaked a little. The jittery energy is gone, at least. All he feels is a familiar, heavy despair.

It's bearable, though. He's had worse. "You said... we stopped it."

[musicdied]

She gives his arm another little squeeze when he wipes at his eyes, sympathy a dull ache in the centre of her chest.

"Yeah," she says. "You were trapped in there too, with the rest of us. It was like a maze of interconnected memories, with a manifestation of - all the horrible thoughts that make up that void at the centre of it."

[makingitworse]

"Like in the vault," Bob says, remembering what she'd said. And what they'd seen in the vault. He'd subjected her to it again, except... worse.

Then, with a sinking feeling, he realizes that if he was "in there" too, he probably wouldn't be immune from the horrors he forced on Yelena and Walker. He has to ask, dreading the answer, "Mine too?" He can easily imagine at least some of what they saw.

[musicdied]

"Yours too," she confirms, with a slight wince of sympathy. "I'm not going to try to make you talk about the things we saw, but if you ever need to unload, I'm here, okay? About whatever."

[makingitworse]

She knows it, then. His past. His awful memories. The things he did. His dad--

This time the whole couch rocks with the force of how much he does not want her to know that, and it's impossible for him to overlook. He jerks, grabs the back of the couch, and looks around wildly. What the hell??

[musicdied]

Yelena's breath catches in her throat as the couch rocks, and she forces back the memory of how violently the memories had warped to impede their escape. This is the real world. This is reaction, not attack.

"It's okay," she says, voice pitched calm and reassuring despite the hammering of her heart. "Just take a deep breath."

[makingitworse]

He looks back at her, as the couch shudders under them again again, and realizes, "I'm doing that." He's making the couch shake. He doesn't know how, but it has to be him. Like how he flew, and stood up after a hail of bullets. Maybe that's how he actually managed to fight six very-nearly-superheroes and win, just by making things move around them.

The couch actually shifts aside a whole foot, and the coffee table vibrates a foot the other direction, before he actually takes her advice and tries to calm down. It takes three whole breaths before things stop moving, and he still looks shaken.

[musicdied]

Yelena reaches out to lay her hand on his arm again, deliberate and telegraphed enough to give him the chance to pull away.

"We're going to help you," she says. "Okay? To deal with all the weird new shit, and learn to control it."

[makingitworse]

He flinches, half expecting a memory to hit them or something else to rattle noisily, but doesn't actually pull away, and nothing happens. His breathing is shaky, but just that. "No. No, no, no, no, I don't want to do it at all," is what he says, even though he knows it can't possibly work that way. If it did, Valentina would have done that. These people would have done that, locked his powers down so he could never hurt anyone ever.

It still spills out of his mouth, childish and scared: "Can I do that? Find a way to make it not work anymore?"

[musicdied]

It hurts a little to see him flinch, to hear that fear, knowing that everything that's happened is because of something that was done to him, is because there are still people in the world who see nothing wrong with treating human beings as disposable lab rats.

"I don't know," she says. "We don't know everything that was done to you - we're still combing through the lab to see if there's more information than the little bit we found in the vault - so there's no way of knowing if it can be reversed. We can look for that, if it's what you want, but I am not going to lie to you. There's a very big chance that the best we can do is help you learn to control it so the power doesn't leak out when you're angry, or afraid, or under stress."

[makingitworse]

She's right. He knows she's right. The people who did this couldn't stop it, they had to try and kill him, she said it. He's going to keep making things move, keep plunging people into their awful memories, probably forever. The only thing that can stop him is him, and he knows how good he is at that. He's never been able to stop himself.

The heaviness seeps back in, only briefly rocked by the intensity of his wish for nobody to ever know about that. He's just going to have to try. Probably fail, but still try. "Or I can just try not to get upset," he offers, only about half joking.