lucetilogs | Post-Event Blues

Entry tags:

Post-Event Blues

Who: Everybody, everybody!
What: The battle is won. Now what?
When: The eleventh, twelfth, and onward
Where: Luceti
Summary: With Zompano dead and the cultists routed, Luceti is restored. Kind of.
Rating: F for Feels

On the eleventh, things were slowly breaking down. Memories of their true lives were breaking through. The village, scarred by the battle with the cultists, began to rebuild itself. Community buildings that had vanished were returned to their rightful places. The battle dome was uncovered from the earth that had covered it. Hundreds and hundreds of fake homes slowly faded away. Paved roads gave way to trees and grass. It was an incredible sight for anyone who was willing to sit aroun and watch it happen.

Things wouldn't be easy for the villagers, though. The memories perpetuated by the last ten days would not be easily removed. The feelings and hatreds it had created would take time to conquer and remove. Perhaps, in a way, that was Zompano's nastiest trick of all. The village itself may heal from his invasion, but it would take far more than a few Shifts to fix the people left behind.

Towards the end of the day, their wings returned. Much like some of the buildings, they seemed to just reappear, as if they had never been gone. Their barcodes became visible again as a singular reminder that they were, ultimately, just the property of another entity who as a whole were not much better than Count Zompano.

By the twelfth, the village looked as though nothing had ever happened. Sure, the contents of buildings might have been messed up or destroyed during the battles, but things were otherwise as they were supposed to be. The night before, people would have had to find their old beds to go sleep in, as they no longer possessed the old ones granted to them in another life.

The village was peaceful.

Modly Note: That wraps up the event. As noted in the prose above, you have the option to play up the after effects of the event more than in other ones. While it won't have the same impact universally, the Shift was constructed in such a way that people may have difficulty shaking off the emotions they developed during the event. In effect, it was a cruel send off to Luceti so they would have to deal with the loathing and hatred that came with the less desirable parts of it. Of course, that means the feelings of familial bonds will also persist for awhile as well. It's up to you, as players, to decide how much or little to play with it!

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She stiffened momentarily when Tony first replied, but he was quick to correct himself, much to her relief. She nodded because for all intents and purposes he was right. They had lived there for just over a week. During that time the Valley had been just as real as the village they were in now, or their Malibu home.

She grinned a little when he pointed out the number of kids. "Yeah, you did. Two of them were even with me." But that was a hard subject to broach, because Pepper could still feel that agony of knowing she wasn't truly a mother. It had nearly torn her apart in that fake life, and even now she couldn't keep up a smile.

"It wasn't real. Our life in Luceti Valley."

He was strangely surprised to hear that, even though objectively, he knew that was the truth. That life hadn't been real - only a complicated web of lies. Except that it didn't feel that way to Tony, not entirely. He swore there was some truth to it - he just didn't know which parts they were yet.

And that was an awful feeling. Not knowing what reality composed his life.

He grabbed her hand, winding his fingers around hers as he swallowed. "None of it?" He didn't understand. That couldn't be right. His half-let memories argued otherwise.

She shook her head slowly, her fingers tightening around his when he took her hand. "Some things were based on truths. Like us." She held up her left hand, that small smile returning, now paired with a hopeful look in her eye. "We aren't married yet, but we're going to be. You asked me almost a month ago."

Whereas in the false life, they'd been married only a few years shy of twenty. Maybe that'd be some place safe to start. That they loved each other was the one thing they had been able to decide was real, even as so many things broke apart. "Do you remember, Tony? Asking me to marry you?"

His focus snapped away from that strange, false life, because he couldn't remember asking Pepper to marry him that context. He did, however, remember asking her to marry him in a different one, that set them in the middle of their living room on an entirely ordinary day that he never expected to turn out the way it did. That memory was welcome, and he smiled slightly at her ring.

"And it jumped out at me so suddenly I didn't even have a ring. But I worked it out." He couldn't help a conscious look at his own ring finger - he remembered playing with his wedding ring when he was anxious. But that hadn't been real. As she said, they weren't married yet.

"Yeah. You did." Everything about that night and the one that followed a week later, when he gave her the ring she wore, was precious in Pepper's mind. So she was so very glad when he not only remembered, but he smiled as she spoke of it. That was their real life, and in turn what he needed to focus on.

So when he looked to his own left hand, now barren, she gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "Soon." She remember his habits, the way he twisted and worried his ring to give himself reassurance. It wouldn't be long before he had a real band to do that with. "For right now, though, you have to focus on figuring out which life is real."

He held a deep breath, because that wouldn't be an easy job. There were so many snapshots swimming in his head already, and talking about it was only going to illuminate more. But he wanted the truth; needed it. So he nodded, looking up into her eyes again.

"Sounds like fun. Let's get started."

"It really isn't." Her grin turned dry with that admission, because Pepper had already gone through the process herself--at least in part. Some memories still held a firm grip, and in truth she thought they still might until she ran into people, forced herself to think of who they actually were to her when they spoke.

"Maybe you should start by telling me something you remember?" She was making this up as she went, but thinking through things was what seemed to work for her. Hopefully the same would hold true for him--he would recall something, speak of it, and decide for himself whether it fell as fiction or fact. Pepper would stay with him while he did, help guide the pieces into their proper places, and soothe his frustrations as he worked through the mental blocks. "Anything at all."

Something he remembered. He selected a less-than-pleasant image from his gallery. "I got into an argument with Shikamaru." They had already debunked the offspring myth, and there was a wound there that hadn't yet fully blossomed. But did that mean the whole memory was fake? "About a tax hike. Except that wasn't what it was really about."

And of course, the first thing that came to mind would be one of the most difficult to place: something from the false life that had actually happened. Pepper pressed her lips together in a thin line for a moment, trying to decide just how to broach this.

"They made us think a tax hike had gone through, yes. And I remember you telling me about the argument." His concerns after had very little to do with the repercussions of how their class had Tony vote, but that was something he needed to remember on his own. "What was it about?"

The more he remembered, the more Tony's features tightened. It had been a terrible argument, full of harsh accusations that he had come to regret later. The argument hadn't been about to tax hike at all - it had been about one of Tony's growing fears. That he was a terrible father.

But he wasn't a father at all, what a joke. His fingers tightened around Pepper's as he found his voice again.

"I'm not - I wasn't there for him." That distinction was so important, but it didn't come naturally.

There was another distinction more important still, and Pepper was quick to offer it when she felt how tightly Tony clutched her hand. "That wasn't you, though. That was the person they made you think you were." Because Tony wasn't a father, which was a bitter truth indeed--but that meant it was impossible to say whether he was a good or bad one.

"I've seen how you've grown, Tony. I know better than anyone how much you want to do what's right, especially for the people you love."

They made him think he was that person - but didn't he share so much with that man? He loved the same woman. He ran the same kind of business. He drank the same liquor. He tried to do right by the people he cared about.

Just like she said he did now. But it didn't quite gel, not with the sinking sensation in his stomach. Not with the feeling that he really did care about Shikamaru but had screwed everything up anyway.

He wasn't ready for this.

So he didn't say anything, resting on his excuse to be unresponsive as a fallback. They could talk about this later when all his pistons were firing. He wasn't ready for this.

The best lies were always peppered with truths, weren't they? Pepper thought she had heard someone say that once, and that was what made the shift from one life into another so devastating. Those overlaps, the traits that Pepper Stark and Pepper Potts shared, from who they loved to their hobbies to the gallery she owned in both worlds.

So she understood why he would want to shrink away from it; she really did. But when he fell into silence her heartbeat picked up. He'd been far too silent, staring with vacant eyes into the still room for the past few days.

"Tony?" Her voice held a note of fear, though she tried unsuccessfully to quell it. "Tony, please...say something."

He didn't know how to talk about this, when there was still so much he hadn't pieced together. But there was only so much skirting around dangerous topics he could do. The last week or so of his life before his coma had been built on a fantasy. On a person that was him, but wasn't. He couldn't even be sure where the danger lied until he stumbled into it.

He couldn't meet her eyes. "Let's talk about sports. The weather. Lemme explain how internal combustion works." Just don't make him talk about being a dad.

The relief from hearing his voice again was short-lived; that he wanted to avoid the topic probably meant it was the one he needed to talk about most, and her eyes were sympathetic as she mulled over the options.

"I'm not listening to you drone on about internal combustion." The other options were similarly out, of course, but it felt normal to offer him a dry retort. She brushed her thumb over his hand, then opted for a different path--but one he would like no better.

"Do you remember promising me there wouldn't be any more secrets?" Something not from last week, but still from their lives in Luceti. A vow made after Tony had tried to run from another painful, horrible event. Someone important had gone missing from their lives...Jane, she remembered a moment later, but didn't speak the name aloud. Tony would likely recall it on his own anyway, without Pepper making mention of the specific circumstances.

He never meant to keep things from her, did he? He wouldn't do that, she was his wife but he didn't tell her as soon as he found out he had a daughter except none of that was real. He had to remind himself, insistently, because it was only too easy to let his mind rely on what had been natural to him before he woke up like this.

But even if he didn't keep things from her, he seemed to inevitably mess that up and do it anyway. He'd been in the Battle Dome, in a suit - and he didn't tell her. He'd been so selfish. God, why did he do that?

And at once, he remembered her. His colleague. His dear friend.

Jane.

God, remembering hurt. It hurt like hell, and while it would never be his personal creed, maybe the idiot who said ignorance was bliss was onto something.

"Yeah," he answered in a murmur. "But it isn't a secret. You already know exactly how I feel."

"Yeah." Her eyes lowered with that quiet agreement, because Pepper did know. Every memory that wanted to assert itself had to be forced away, but so much worse was how she'd acted during the chaos. How she pleaded with Tony to ignore his pain in favor of her denial. How she'd been the one to demand he go to work that day, where he brushed fingers with Marie--Rogue.

And at home, where she'd discovered her own affliction. Extremis as she now knew but then? Then it had been some horrible, impossible fire that made her a monster.

She still had trouble shaking the notion that she was.

"It hurts so much. Every time you think of something, good or bad." Because the good wasn't real, and the bad spoke to their deepest fears and yes, maybe also to their darkest traits. "But you still have to do it."

It hurt, and yet, he had to do it, because he had to know. He had to know the traces of who he really was, what he meant, what he'd been through. God, he felt so broken, he almost dissolved into the same bout of painful laughter that seized him with Loki the day before. It still marked a sorrowful smile on his face.

"Want to know what Loki had the audacity to tell me? That illusions don't make something meaningless. That they have their own kind of power." His smile waned. "I just - don't know, Pepper. I don't know what's real, I don't know what anything means." Did any of it mean anything, if it was just built on a series of lies? That didn't seem right, and yet, it was what he wanted to believe.

Edited 2013-08-17 09:02 (UTC)

"He came back?" The words slipped out before Pepper could quite stop them, the knee-jerk reaction to realizing that Loki had not only visited once more, but talked to Tony when he was in this state. He'd likely waited for some point when she was away--it was too much of a coincidence to think otherwise--and she could have cursed except that Loki did have the right. And beyond that, he was probably looking for the same sort of closure he'd found with Pepper, if it could be called that.

"Don't--don't think about him right now." Yes, it went against what she had just been saying, but Loki was another matter even beyond the people they'd cared about in both lives. Shikamaru had been Tony's son, but before they were also close friends. The same could be said for Billy, and what little Pepper knew of Gai told her he cared, if in the most abrasive way possible.

Loki was far too complicated a matter just then, for both of them.

"I think it means as much as we want it to. Or that it will." His grin faded just as hers formed, one that held just as much sadness. "Being toyed with like this--I hate it." The Malnosso, the Cultists, Zompano. Killian. They all tried to manipulate and use them, and worse, they had all succeeded in doing so. Pepper swallowed, then repeated the lessons she'd been taught when trying to deal with Extremis, and all of this. "We have to make it ours. Otherwise, it's just something that happened to us. Something we can't control."

Edited 2013-08-17 09:42 (UTC)

"It isn't something we can control," he remarked, bitterness evident in his tone. He didn't want to own this, not when the implications of just remembering it made him miserable.

His fingers slipped from hers to run over his features.

"I don't want it to mean anything," and he didn't, because that would be so, so much easier. He didn't want those lingering attachments, obligations set upon lies. He didn't want to feel like a father to four kids, a brother to two sisters. He didn't want to feel like a boss to Rogue. He didn't want to feel like a best friend to Loki. Hell, he didn't even want to feel like a husband of eighteen years, because it wasn't real.

It wasn't him.

So why was it so hard to parse?

"But it isn't something you can turn off, either." She'd had far too many hours to try, to have faces flash before her mind's eye only to come with unwanted emotions. Billy and Gai, her children, except one was a friend and one she barely knew. The extended Stark family, again, largely strangers, and each one inspiring complicated emotions born of years of interactions genuine and two-faced alike. Loki, a trusted friend, as dear as family, and the person responsible for attempting to destroy Earth and wrecking her personal world in the process.

Tony--god, Tony. The man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, and a man with whom she already had.

"Except your not the kind of person who can just not care. Not like that." Tony did care, in ways too few people recognized. It ran deep within him, all the way down to his bones, and for as much as he tried to shut the world out the foundation of that wall was cracked to its core.

He cared, heart and soul, and their capture had brought that to the forefront--because now and then, he didn't know what to do with it.

"It's going to feel like tearing yourself in two when you try to let people go." It had with Loki, and for as difficult as that had been, Pepper feared he would also be the easiest. The line perhaps had not been clear, but well-defined enough for her to be able to choose a side.

How would she look at Billy and not think of him as her son?

He scrubbed at his own features, and Pepper clutched her hands together in front of them. Like with so many things, she didn't know what to do with them now, when Tony had pulled away from the comfort she offered. But really, what promises could she make? It wasn't going to be easy, but agony. That was all her experience could speak to, yet it made the task no less necessary.

He knew she was right. He couldn't just shut it off - it wasn't in his nature. When did that happen? When had he become so reliant on others that his perception of them changing could be so devastating? It wasn't something he regretted, but at this point and time, he sure as hell couldn't appreciate it. Some of the people in his other life he didn't even know, while others still were important to him in this one. The real one. Sons, daughters, friends, employees. Not a single one of them where they should be in his life.

Save for one.

He glanced at Pepper finally, the realization dawning on him. She had an explanation for him; she had things sorted out. But who had been there to help her through the terrible truth when she came to it?

He hadn't, too busy hovering between life and death as he was. He couldn't help her, and she would have faced those realizations without him, on her own.

His expression softened as he reached for her, this time with his arms instead of just his hands.

He didn't say anything, but this time Pepper bit back on her fear by watching his eyes, able to see how he was thinking. He always got a certain look when he focused, whether it be on something he wanted to ponder or not. She didn't like the silence then, but she could bear it, so long as he had that look.

But then he focused on her, gaze softening with unexpected sympathy just before he drew her close. Her arms shifted around him, and Pepper closed her eyes as she took a guess at what he figured out. It wasn't difficult, she supposed. Not even for a genius who could be a thick as he was sometimes.

"It's okay. We'll be okay." She couldn't say that she was, not yet, but she'd managed to take a few steps down the path. At least, she wanted to believe so; otherwise, it would simply be another vigil at his bedside where the circumstances overwhelmed her. And as she'd told him, she hated how many things, huge and important things, had been taken completely out of their control.

He pressed his arms tightly around her, translating the comfort he didn't know how to give through words alone. He hadn't been there for her when she needed him, and while he couldn't exactly blame himself in this situation, it still hurt. They were supposed to be together through all of this, and she had had to take one of the hardest steps on her own.

Far and away the strongest person he knew, bar none. But that didn't make it okay. None of this was okay.

"I'm so sorry," he muttered against her shoulder. He didn't need to apologize, but he felt like doing so anyway. For this whole goddamn situation that was out of their hands. No one asked for this, and now they had to reconfigure all of their relationships all over again. Even their own.

She didn't feel very strong then. She honestly felt like she was barely hanging on, trying to push through because that was what Tony needed her to do, and what she had to do for herself. Maybe it was only because she feared what came after, if she broke into so many pieces. Life went on, their lives, and even in her worst moments Pepper had forced herself to go through the motions to avoid the alternative.

Now, she at least wasn't alone with it. That was one improvement.

"Me too." Not out of guilt, but regret. She understood everything he apologized for, and if she deserved to hear those words then so did he. But they had each other now, and Pepper stayed closed to him, took in his warmth and his scent. Even if she'd already started taking those steps on her own, she wasn't done yet. She hadn't put herself completely back together, and now she wouldn't have to completely on her own.

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