Sometimes You Just Wind Up Giving In Who: Tony and Carol Where: Tony and Rocket's Workshop When: Sunday Afternoon What: Temptation strikes again Rating: PG-13
Tony had to admit something to himself: the recent zombie invasion was *fun.* It gave him something to do and helped him not think about, well, anything. He liked being able to shut off his brain for a while. Right now, he was working on trying to do just that again by basically taking apart and putting back together a little one person ship that looked like something straight out of DragonBall Z to him. That was how he figured out how things worked, by taking them apart and seeing if he could put them back together without somehow killing himself. So far, he'd managed to not hurt himself.
"DAMMIT, ROCKET! Stop trying to kill my cat or I swear to God I'm gonna make a hat outta you!" Carol yelled, hilariously aggravated, as she stomped into the workshop Tony and Rocket shared. She was dressed more comfortably today, obviously not really planning on being out and about. "Crap. He's not even here, is he?" She asked, looking around with an adorable scowl, before looking back at the one other person in the room. "Hey, Tony. Sorry for barging in. Thought that little jackass was in here with you."
Carol screaming for Rocket made Tony jump, causing him to cut his hand across something on the inside of what he was working on. "Shit!" He pulled his hand out of the pod and grabbed a nearby tag, wrapping it around his hand. He looked at Carol and gave her a sheepish grin. "Mind grabbing me the first aid kit?"
"Ooops..." Carol said with a sheepish grin. "Sorry, Tony. Hang on a sec." She scrambled over to the first aid kit they kept in the workshop, taking it down off the wall and carrying it over, placing it on front of Tony and opening it for him, to make it easier for him to get what he needed out of it. "Here's me feeling about two inches tall now..."
"It's OK. I think anyone coming in would have caused me to do something like that," he said to her, doing his best to ignore the pain in his hand. When she opened the the kit for him, he reached in, first grabbing an antiseptic wipe to clean his hand. "I think it's about time we pin Rocket down and at least shave him bald. He's just gonna keep going after your cat if you don't do anything soon."
"He's convinced Chewie is a dangerous alien Flerken." Carol said, huffing. "Ok, so he IS a Flerken. but he's not dangerous!" She thought again, before giving a resigned sigh. "Ok, so he IS dangerous. But he's adorable and I love him."
"As long as he's not actively trying to kill anyone, he's no more dangerous than anyone else here," Tony pointed out with a roll of his eyes. "As a matter of fact, I'm well aware of plenty of people around here that are PLENTY more dangerous than your alien cat." Once he cleaned his hand, he grabbed a bandage and started to wrap it up. "I'm pretty sure Rocket qualifies as more dangerous."
"I do love how this version of you thinks, Tony." She laughed, secretly kind of liking how he always seemed to take her side no matter what. The Tony SHE knew certainly wouldn't have done that. She sat down on a nearby bench, in spite of the all-white clothing she wore. Fuck it, she'd have them cleaned. No big deal. "So, aside from hurting yourself, what've you been up to?"
"Everyone should love the way I think." Well, it helped that it was kind of Ticket's fault that he'd cut his hand, at least how he saw it. "Other than getting to recently shoot down zombies, every kids dream?" he asked with a grin. When he was done with his hand, he sat on the bench beside her. "Not a whole lot. What about you?"
"God, only you and Beatrice would get giddy at the idea of fighting the living dead." Carol chuckled, shaking her head in disbelief. "I'm just glad we managed to prevent any serious injuries from happening. I give Rocket a lot of crap but... he threw himself right out there with Groot and really did a hell of a job making a path for the rest of us."
"You jest, but I highly doubt we were the only two that had a fun time. Not that I'm not also glad that no one was really hurt." He hurt himself more in the workshop than anyone hurt themselves during that. He looked up at her and smiled. "You can't tell me that you don't enjoy a good fight sometimes to break up the boredom."
"Of course I do... I don't think any of us could do this if we didn't." Carol said, giving a small smile. "I just wonder sometimes... if we get a little too overconfident about it all. Jaded, maybe. I mean, for us to be able to be so glib about these things worries me sometimes."
He knew she had a point. They had to keep themselves in check to make sure they didn't cross any lines. "I think we're all good at keeping ourselves together. We don't take unnecessary risks or anything like that. I think as long as we remember to keep it together, we're OK."
"Thing is... if something like that happens again... can you imagine if someone like me, or you, or someone equally important to this place was injured or, god forbid, killed?" Carol asked, before deciding to show her immense trust in Tony in telling him this: "We're... attempting to put together a defense team for this kind of thing. Something that would solve multiple problems in one sitting. And everything I tell you here... is absolutely top secret."
He reached out and took her hand with his good one and gave it a squeeze. "That's the risk that us heroes take. Not that I'm in a hurry to see anyone hurt, especially you or me." What? It was the truth. The next part made him arch an eyebrow. "What kind of defense dream?"
"Well... there are some people here that have, for the most part, stayed out of trouble." Carol said, with a raised eyebrow. "But who, for one reason or another, are not trusted, or have reputations as being bad or dangerous. And due to that, we try to keep them away from the others, and keep them on a tight leash. But what if we gave them a chance. A chance to be a team, and to prove they deserve our trust? They'd be paid well and monitored by Wade Wilson, who'll be given express permission to deal with them however he feels appropriate should they disobey." And face it... we all know what that meant - Wade would have no moral problem offing any one of them.
"Are you sure we *can* trust these people?" he asked her. "If you're talking about some of the ones that I'm thinking of, I wouldn't trust them with a pea shooter, much less anything of actual value." Plus, was it OK to basically use these people as cannon fodder? Weren't they better than that?
"We.... would have you and Rocket fashion inhibitors for them." Carol said, trying to get everything out before Tony could object. "Nothing lethal... just... imagine the equivalent of those collars a dog wears, that zaps it if it goes too far away from the yard. Something like that. And they'd all know what they were getting into. Nobody would be forced."
"I could do that, as long as they aren't being forced into this, I guess." It still left him feeling a little weird, but he could at least understand the idea behind it and everything. Plus, he did trust Wade, at least.
"If they.. prove themselves, long-term, they can obviously have the inhibitors taken off. We're not trying to run a prison here." Carol told him, sensing his trepidation. "All we're trying to do is help everyone be useful, without being naive and putting too much trust in anyone without a reason to."
"We'd have to come up with some some guidelines to go by with that. Some way that we could know that they weren't fooling us in some way." He was sure that others would likely raise even bigger issue with this than he had, so, if this was really going to happen, everyone involved would have to think of every contingency before anyone else did. "I'm....I'm with you guys, though. I trust your decisions."
"Good. Because one of them, well... you've had your own issues with." She said with an audible gulp. "Loki. The version of Loki that's apparently from your world. And please try not to flip out, ok? I already had to deal with Angela screaming at me for close to an hour."
Tony kind of figured that he'd be one of them. "There needs to be A LOT of contingencies with him. God of Lies, OK? Not a joke title. This guy also threw me through a window once." Tony did NOT really like the guy, obviously.
"Well... not sticking up for Loki, now... but come on, Tony: who HASN'T wanted to throw you through a window at least once?" She teased, trying to lighten the mood a little. Plus? She was kinda right.
He smiled back at her, giving her hand another squeeze when he realized he was still holding it. "Yeah, everyone wants to chuck me through a window, but he's the one who did it, no suit or anything. I'm lucky I had my bracelets on when he did it or I'd be very dead."
"Bracelets." She repeated, trying not to smirk. She liked giving him shit sometimes, ok? "Well, at least you thought to properly accessorize first. Did you remember the matching earrings?" She visibly shuddered there, from trying so hard not to burst out laughing.
He playfully narrowed his eyes at her. "I'll have you know that those bracelets are attached to a highly technological suit that helped save millions of lives in New York. Just because I'm also fashion forward doesn't mean that you get to make fun of me."
"So.... that's a 'no' to the earrings then?" She asked, stretching her legs out a little, looking QUITE proud of herself, thanksabunch.
"I don't know...do YOU think I could pull off some Diddy style diamond earrings?" he asked playfully, tilting his head to the side and showing off one of his ears.
"Oh, you know damn well how gorgeous you are. Like you couldn't pull off pretty much anything." She scoffed, rolling her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Jeez."
He just laughed. "Doesn't mean I don't enjoy hearing people admit it," he joked. "And don't look so put out. It's not like you couldn't rock a potato sack and make all the ladies jealous."
"Hm. I will admit that I fill my costume out quite well..." She laughed, wagging her eyebrows at him playfully. "But trust me: I've never been the type to really... focus on my looks to begin with, but even if I was? Being on the same team with a barely-dressed Asgardian goddess will keep you humble." She laughed,
"Well, personally, I think you blow that goddess right out of the water, but maybe that's just my humble opinion." He probably shouldn't be saying stuff like that, but right now, he was having serious issue with really remembering that, or why. All he was thinking right now was that he had a gorgeous, wonderful woman that he cared a ton about sitting in front of him.
"Well aren't YOU the smooth-talker..." Carol replied, secretly lovign the way he complimented her. She had never been the type to get giggly over a guy saying nice things to her. EVER. But something about how Tony bantered with her made the occasional comment like that mean so much more... "Makes me think you want something." She said, obviously teasing.
"Just telling you the truth here," he said to her. The only thing he wanted to do right now was kiss her, honestly. Without realizing what he was doing, he reached up and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "Sometimes, I think you don't realize just how great you are."
She raised an eyebrow there, knowing he was... DANGEROUSLY close to crossing a line they'd purposely set over a year ago. Yet... she didn't stop him, either. "Tony... you know we shouldn't..." she started to say, before finding that she'd lost the ability to verbalize what she was thinking. She was utterly lost in the moment, and trying her damnedest not to do anything stupid.
"I know," he said softly, still not pulling away himself. It was just really hard to remember that right now. He let his thumb trail down her cheek, suddenly just so fucking TIRED of pretending to not feel the way that he did. He leaned in, pressing his lips gently against hers.
Oh, the HELL with it. If he wasn't gonna try anymore? Why the hell should she? Sure, she'd likely feel like trash in the morning, but for right now? It just felt right. She crushed her lips to his, throwing her arms around his shoulders and neck to fully enjoy the moment.
Oh, he'd feel like hell about this later, but right now this just felt too right to care. He wrapped his arms back around her, pulling her closer as they kissed. If this was happening, then he was going to enjoy every second of it and worry about the consequences later.
"We are... NOT good people..." Carol panted between kisses, feeling like a louse right now. A turned-on louse who was fresh out of willpower, but a louse nonetheless. "If this goes any further... there's no going back." She warned him, hoping maybe HE'D have the willpower she felt herself lacking right now.
He knew she was right. There would be no going back from this. "I can't pretend I don't feel this was about you anymore, Carol," he admitted, making himself stop kissing her so she could see that he meant what he was saying. "I'll...I'll talk to Pepper. It's not fair to her, and, honestly? It's not fair to US." He'd changed in the time that he was here, and apparently his feelings on a lot of things and PEOPLE had, too.
"That's all I want, Tony." Carol said, taking that moment to calm her ass down, which they BOTH needed. "We've both been fighting this for a while. I assure you, it's not JUST you. Talk to her. Do right by both yourself AND her. And then... we can figure out what the hell's going on here."
He took a deep breath himself, trying to calm down even though all he really wanted was to kiss her again. He'd tried with Pepper for a while, but this wasn't going away. If anything. Everytime he saw Carol, his feelings got stronger. "Honestly, the sooner I do this, the better," he admitted, looking at Carol longingly. This was starting to drive him a little crazy.
"I couldn't agree more..." She said with a ragged little laugh, running her fingers through her hair in frustration. Finally, she walked back over to him, and planted one more big, longing kiss on his lips, really trying to give them both something to look forward to. "There. To hold us both off. Now just... find me after you've talked, ok?"
He kissed her back, fighting the urge to just grab her and pull her into his lap. "That's just making me less patient," he pointed out, letting out a ragging laugh himself. If he didn't get control of himself soon, he was going to pop.
And she knew that... which was why SHE was leaving. "Just... like I said. Take care of things the right way. And then... yeah. So just... see you tomorrow, ok? We're good people. We have to BE good people."
He nodded, his good hand gripping the bench he was sitting on, kind of making sure that he didn't go after her. "We have to be good people," he repeated, waving bye to her. This conversation was going to suck, but it would be worth it.