Michel Combeferre (etre_libre) wrote in angellogs, @ 2020-11-13 21:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, combeferre, tony stark (iron man) |
Who: Tony Stark, Combeferre
When: Current
Where: A zoom call
What: Combeferre can't sleep and Tony offered to words with friends while on a Zoom call.
Rating/Warnings: Chance of past life trauma discussions? Les Mis / Iron Man spoilers may pop up.
Status: Complete
Tony's wearing one of those linen shirts from when they went down to that tropical resort, and judging by the open window and the fan going nearby, it's a hot evening. His arc reactor is pretty visible through the fabric. Somewhere, in the distance, it sounds like there's a concert or a radio on, but all that's audible is a bit of zither.
Combeferre’s not going to be sleeping, though he was, at one point trying that, so he’s wearing ancient scrubs from back in his residency or so, with a tshirt under the top.
“Hey.” he says, as he flicks the camera’s connect button on, and smiles, though he looks tired as well. It’s the level of tired where sleeping isn’t going to happen, though. “God, I’m glad someone else is awake.”
"Hey. Any ground rules on stuff not to talk about? I can stick to aggressively not the past if you'd like." Tony smiles at him. "I'm glad to talk with you. Wasn't as desperate for company, but I like talking to people who haven't had me half awake and groggy all over them. I should warn you that I might bring you pancakes if we stay up long enough."
“At this point?” Combeferre grins ruefully. “It’s a matter of whatever works. More like the stress is making all of this worse.” he explains, wincing a little as he rubs at his wrist, shifting in his chair. “That’s just...a thing. So, distractions are fantastic. How’s your stuff been, for instance?”
"Enh - no worse than usual." Tony eyes him. "So, uh - does suggesting stuff make you feel worse? I tend to kind of denial all over the place, but sometimes it helps, but I find I've got a really short fuse."
“I mean.” Combeferre shrugs. “It depends. It’s more the stress exacerbates what’s already there. As long as you’re not going to tell me if I do yoga, my autoimmune condition’s going to go away, I’m up for hearing.”
"I was going to suggest we both try to get as comfy as possible before we settle in to type words at each other. My air conditioner's dead, but I'd be up for getting told to make a glass of iced stuff. Or seeing if my barley tea's cold enough to be drinkable." Tony stretches his back. "And I'm pretty sure yoga requires a brain that isn't mine."
Combeferre grins at that. “That and kombucha for some reason. People like suggesting that one too. So weird. And yeah, I’d say being cool is probably important. I’ve got a heating pad at least.”
j"Hm. Slippers? Hot something or another? Soup maybe? I'd say tea, but I've literally got a tea shop's worth of options." Tony picks up the laptop. "Let's head on in and I'll get myself a drink. Fingerless gloves?"
“Decaf.” Combeferre grins, nodding toward a mug that’s somewhat in view and bears the legend ‘Please Do Not Confuse Google with my Medical Degree’. And the gloves seem like a decent plan. Back and legs are the worst. I may be dragging myself around on stools all tomorrow morning.”
"Got anything major planned? I could set you up with a wheeled chair and ply you with peace and quiet and the occasional lunch and words with friends?" Tony brings up his phone. "Shall we start? Or are you up for the other evil time waster I was pointed at?"
“Work, but I’ll be fine to do the mostly immobile thing.” Combeferre shakes his head a little. “I’ve got staff who get it. And ooh, starting is probably a good idea. Unless...what are we talking?”
"Someone found a pack of vintage crossword puzzles. There'll still be the unguessable stuff like random sports things, but we could work them together." Tony shrugs. "Mix of really hard stuff and easy ones."
“Ooh. I’m up for that.” Combeferre does look interested. “Seems worth checking out. I mean if we’re gearing up for seventies pop culture clues, I’m a little bit screwed, but…” He’s snorting a little at the thought of that. “Promise me you’ll fill me in on the references that are beyond me?”
"You're assuming I'd be the expert in seventies pop culture." Tony digs up the page. "So - we can write stuff in, like so, and I'm turning off the timer because it annoys me."
“I mean, you were from, what, around the early 2000s?” Combeferre grins. “Old enough to have seen RE-RUNS. “ he teases, “And oh nice. Good idea with timer stuff. Is it me or are those somehow the most headache inducing sound on the planet? And that’s including Courfeyrac as a child.” he adds, clearly joking. Well,mostly.
"But not to know who was a star baseball player. I'm not the baseball fan." Tony says, filling in an easy "erie."
“Sports are….not the easiest on my end, either.” Combeferre looks amused. “I mean, hockey but, I’m Canadian. That’s a given. ...In this life I’m Canadian anyway.” he adds, to clear up confusion. “But other things I can work around. “ He’s frowning a little and squinting while he adds his own answer.
"Tropical vine," Tony murmured frowning at one of the clues. "My father was into sort of - military sports teams and kind of cared about rugby, but I got the feeling that he never -" Tony trailed off. "I think he really internalized the anti-Italian sentiment and it left him with this massive gaping need to be manly and the biggest and the best? Looking back, I can kind of write an essay on toxic masculinity, and I definitely picked it up myself."
“Oof I feel that one. Not in so many terms, but…” Combeferre has his share of some after all. “There’ve been people who get...weird about me. Mostly in the ER,where everything was SO high stress for patients. I try not to mind too much. I mean, you get somebody with kidney stones or something, they’re going to pull out weird assumptions and comments without taking the time to think. In my case, it’s this need to know everything or well, pull off the idea I do. Seems to be a thing, culturally. If you look like you’re accomplished and know things, it’s just...better.”
"It's funny because I got a lot of - you know - don't show emotions, be a sexy man who is loved by women, that kind of stuff. But I never noticed him avoiding stuff he knew he couldn't show off in?" Tony shrugs. "And yeah. I'd probably be an awful medical doctor. I'm very - you throw me at something and I gnaw at it forever and ignore my health and everything. Add in a bigger life and death component and I'd wreck myself."
“The emotions one is a little bit true for guys most places I think.” Combeferre muses. “And, the doctor thing…” he grins. “I’d be pretty useless at a lot of stuff too. I read before I try things I know nothing about,but. They don’t always end up working out for me in the best ways. At least I can say I gave things a shot. That’s important. Life and death…” He’s frowning a bit more. “That one IS hard even when you have the aptitude for the rest.”
"Hey, you do try. I still remember when I had a migraine and you just - showed up and tried to do as much as you could. It was - I don't know. It made me trust Strange a lot more when I met him. I knew it was . . . different? In a good way here. You got it." Tony trailed off. "I really got used to people not talking to me, but just hammering on my problems."
“That’s good to hear that it helped” Combeferre’s taking a sip of his drink. “It...helps when people do. When they’ve seen some shit. I think we’re somehow able to subconsciously pick each other out.”
Tony settles back in with his glass of tea and leans back. "I swear, this tropical vine clue is for tomato. It's not a vine, is it?"
“I don’t think tomatoes are really TROPICAL…” Combeferre muses. “Some kind of flower? Or are they going for more generic, something like…” He’s not sure, really.
"I mean, we've got 'oma' here - can we get some clues around it?" Tony tries to think. "Philodendren's tropical, right?"
“Oma…” Combeferre starts running through that in his head. “Stoma...lymphoma...yes I’m aware those are medical terms, just...getting the sound pattern established.”
"I think it helped too," Tony says filling in around their mysterious plant, "I guess - you weren't coming in to talk to a Tony Stark going full Tony Stark is an ass and a rich one? You talked about my options, got me to take some stuff, and stayed and made sure I ate and took it easy. Time is money but I've noticed that I really - the best way to get me to listen is to spend time on me."
“Well, hey.” Combeferre says. “You’ve been there, the same places I have, or similar. That’s got a bond to it that’s...well, different. It’s like a messed up little club.”
"I'm about a four right now. Maybe a six if I tried to actually sleep?" Tony grins. "And before I got here, I'd never sit and try to get how I felt into a number."
“I’m glad that’s working out, thinking about it.” Combeferre says, nodding. “It...can help a lot.”
"It also feels good that I've got control enough to say how I'm doing." Tony thinks about it. "It felt like I was bottoming out to not be fine, before. And you've given me an option to do that."
“Ouch bottoming out...definitely a bad thing.” Combeferre winces. “I think 1830 would have been that for me, if I hadn’t been so busy right after the revolution. It’s amazing how chaotic things GOT right then. I mean, first there was the chaos, then we got the announcement things hadn’t gone all that well, and then nearly everyone I knew, at least half of my friends were injured badly enough I was running around for days. You’d think having a back up doctor would have helped, but then again, probably NOT the backup doctor with anxiety and a misfortune prone boyfriend.” He laughs.
“Anyway, the distraction kept me from that then, otherwise I fear it would have been….really easy. Maybe that’s why I wanted to run back to emergency medicine once I realized the whole reincarnation thing...and tried to convince people I wasn’t totally insane.”
"I mean, it's not a failure that stuff was a mess?" Tony gestures. "I was a mess when stuff went bad in my life, and I wasn't in a revolution."
“Oh it was QUITE a failure.” Combeferre says, his tone a little tart. “BUT it was not OUR failure. We were among those failed. Two years later, we were betrayed again, but it was much smaller than and no one’s fault among our number either. Well. There were perhaps three parts of the first, the July revolution that were my fault. Smaller errors,and one in the June Revolt, later on, that I think we’ve all tried taking on responsibility for because it was so...stupid as wastes of life go. “ He looks thoughtful.
“Perhaps two if we count...there was a gamin, a child who was practically one of us and better at most things than we were. He was killed before we were, but...I can’t, especially with the distance in years, think of that as anything but Gavroche’s choice and the fault of the National Guard. You don’t shoot...I think he was about twelve, twelve year olds, after all. It was incredibly sad, but...Gavroche may have lived for that many years, but was far older by far. There’s...a lot of ways to grow up too fast. Seems like you know about that yourself, actually.” He does know how young Tony was when he went to MIT after all.
“The first was letting Jehan wander off after his best friend was killed. Bahorel was the first of us to die that time and that’s the kind of loss...well, I think you’ve met the man. He doesn’t die easily. It was a shock in spite of knowing we were probably all going to meet our end in the hope it did some good. And we didn’t think Jehan would take it the worst and do something as brave and stupid as he did...the two of them are GOOD at amping up the score in ways like that. I think they confine it to World of Warcraft or Overwatch or something else with scantily clad elves in armor you could stick a toothpick through now though.”
And that just makes him shake his head, even if it IS a little funny that Jehan’s running around with an avatar in short shorts and an open vest and nothing else, while Bahorel’s got a giant cow...woman...thing with a hammer. He really missed the chance to get into gaming when he had the time, he thinks. Back before he’d had a medical degree would have been ideal.
“ But...back to the original point...There was a lot of failure...very little of it was OUR failure. But blaming myself, especially for 1830 seems...short sighted so I try NOT to do it. I mean...I’ve read A Tale of Two Cities...a lot, actually. I used to think that what I was getting memories of was THE revolution, so, you know. Famous works about it. But Dickens in particular...his whole THING with that novel seems to be about showing the petty injustices that lead to someone seizing power and establishing a rule of tyranny. And while we witnessed and helped put out some petty injustices...we were never tyrants. We never failed in our duty to the people to be stronger, morally than St. Just and Robspierre, to hold firm and not lose our humanity. My personal failures were...I can live with them here. One continues to BOTHER me but not because I did not do everything I had to. More because it...is it dramatic to say something scarred me for life?...on the sole basis of the trauma involved. I need to touch that with a professional before I say anything about it here, but at least I can accept what I did, with no choices. “
"It just sounds like you blame yourself and you're hurting?" Tony shrugs. "You've got every reason to, but it might not hurt to notice that it's there, I guess."
Combeferre’s lips purse in thought a little. “Mm deeply buried, perhaps. Let’s say that intellectually I understand I’ve no reason to take on the GUILT but some blame...I think we always wonder in some cases, what may have come about. I think the guilt would be more like a torture, but the question of some...responsibility perhaps?” And he laughs. “I AM my brother’s keeper.”
But, he also knows something else. “Noticing, now that you mention it...I don’t suppose it DOES hurt, really, to know if I’m doing it too much. But this is about keeping myself from dwelling and here we are. Sorry about that.”
"It's all right. We can talk about whatever - it is tomato." Tony scowls at the crossword. "Seriously. It's a vine?"
“Is it seriously?” Combeferre raises an eyebrow. “I guess you learn something every day. I knew they were FRUIT, but...tropical?” He laughs. “Amazing.”
Tony pokes at his phone. "South America, apparently. They usually never die in their native landscape and can hit over three meters? If the internet is useful."
“A useful internet?” Combeferre’s grinning. “Imagine that. I’ll admit I don’t know very much about tomatoes besides that I like the grape kinds in salad, and tomato soup is better when you’re buying the imported English version.”
"So what kind of soup are we talking? I've seen some British stuff where you cook rice in your flavored tomato stuff and then blend it. I'm tempted, but I'm not sure Steve would be interested in it." Tony thinks about it. "It sounds nice."
“Oh the tinned tomato just.” Combeferre says. “Those don’t sound bad either, but...trust me. Heinz tomato. Nothing added. It really is better than the kind you get here. Import stores have everything, trust me.”
"Huh. I wonder if you could narrow down what the change is." Tony looks thoughtful. "I mean, if I had to bet, I'd say different tomatoes, and maybe some less sugar."
“Good question. Someone likely COULD.” Combeferre looks a bit intrigued. “That’s something to put on the list of things to google someday, isn’t it?”
"Or a distraction dinner thing." Tony grins. "Not an amazing cook, but we can do a taste comparison sort of thing."
“Not a bad idea at all. Easy enough to do, too.” Combeferre’s up for that idea. “Simple enough, too. I think I can manage that no matter what.”