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 Stark had originally made a whole floor for each of his superhero buddies, which hadn't really been renovated at all even in the multiple years the Avengers had been toast, so now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]

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.

[musicdied]

"You could try, but if you're going to be staying here, we're all very upsetting people, so you will need to have the patience of a saint," she replies, giving him a brief, crooked little grin before she sobers. "I think bottling things up will only make it worse. That's what we figured out in there - locking away the horrible shit only makes it harder to carry. We need other people to make it lighter."

[makingitworse]

"You've never upset me," Bob protests, but between Alexei and Walker, the aloof snark of Ava, and the enigma that is Bucky Barnes (is it really Bucky Barnes? he isn't sure and doesn't want to ask right now), she's probably right and he's likely to wind up startled, overwhelmed, or even just angry again. And then he might hurt someone. Again.

He puts his chin back down on the pillow against his chest unhappily. "We figured it out? In there?" He wonders if he ought to ask for specifics. Or if she'll tell him even if he doesn't ask any more than that.

[musicdied]

She's tempted, briefly, to point out that the furniture attempting to rearrange itself suggests she's upset him at least three times just in the course of this conversation, but she swallows that for the moment and nods.

"We didn't stop it by fighting. You tried, but it turns out beating up the nihilistic, self-destructive part of yourself still is just beating yourself up. It stopped when you just let us be there for you, jagged edges and all."

[makingitworse]

That wasn't her fault. He upset himself with that. Clearly. She was just telling him stuff that happened and he freaked out.

Still a thing he ought to get a handle on, though, even if it's not her fault.

He considers that a minute, trying to imagine what that could have even looked like. "Group therapy?" he guesses, trying to imagine snarky Ava or stoic Bucky in the one or two therapy circles he's witnessed. Alexei would fit right in, though, actually.

[musicdied]

"More like a group hug," she says. And then snorts quietly. "I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud like that. But that's where we ended up."

[makingitworse]

"Huh." That doesn't even sound that bad. He wouldn't mind a group hug. At least if they were... already in some weird memory dimension, touching him probably couldn't make it worse. It's a little funny to think that a group hug saved Manhattan, but still. Kind of nice, in a way.

"That's how we ended up in a pile on the ground, isn't it," he realizes, because that he been-- weird, when he thinks back on it.

[musicdied]

"That's how we ended up in a pile on the ground," Yelena confirms. "It's not the story the news is running with, but no one actually knows who you are, and it probably is safest to keep it that way for now."

Given the way the last man who'd stayed in this room had been hunted for years, for more destructive but far less disquieting incidents...

[makingitworse]

"How can they not know?" Bob asks, surprised and a little worried. "Didn't they see my face?" Everyone has their phone cameras out as soon as anything weird happens, surely someone got video of it, a picture, something. Did he do it all from inside a building?

No, she'd mentioned a helicopter, so he must have been outside. Maybe on the balcony?

[musicdied]

"No," Yelena says quietly. "No one saw your face. You were the first person the darkness swallowed up. All anyone saw was a human-shaped shadow with glowing eyes."

The image from the video Bucky had pulled up is still seared into her mind. Seeing that slice of darkness in the shape of a man she'd wanted to save had been disturbing; seeing the void actually consume him before he stood up again had been so much worse.