ᴊᴜʟɪᴀ ᴡɪᴄᴋᴇʀ (juliawicker) wrote in noexits, @ 2021-05-31 20:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread/narrative, the magicians: julia wicker, ₴ inactive: tony stark, → week 013 (body swap) |
body swap | day 2 [backdated]
'Pardon me, your Majesty, for the official records may I suggest a slightly less incendiary term? Perhaps arbicide?' — Julia tells Tony about the One Way Forest, Tony is pretty sure he can fix that? He just needs to fix his wife first.WARNINGS Mentions of murder and tree genocide.
From a distance, she looked seven feet tall. There was something about her presence that filled the space. She looked cramped in the bubble that was Derleth, even with the extra space she had stretched out of it. Up close, Julia was taller but not quite six feet, as though she were part tree herself and still growing under her own power.
The greenhouse itself had not exploded, but looked as though it wasn’t far off from pushing itself apart-- not unlike what had nearly happened in their little pocket of spacetime. Someone had planted orchids there, and instead of being delicate little things, they had become overwhelming almost living looking things.
Julia waited awkwardly by the greenhouse, as if she’d forgotten what people do with their hands, but in actuality she was trying not to tremble. It wasn’t her shade she was feeling-- that was still gone. This was something else attempting to take its place, low grade divinity maybe, and failing to completely fill in for her humanity.
She hoped Tony brought a lot of alcohol. She had no idea how much it took to get a dryad drunk.
He had not stepped foot in the greenhouse since his little chat there with Bucky. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, just a realization that popped into his mind as he stepped through the threshold to meet Julia. The supersoldier assassin had since been giving him a wide berth. He wondered if he should approach the guy to clear the air a little. But not this week. This week he was on vacation.
Tony arrived with a bottle in each hand—some space scotch he’d acquired on Planet Vegas and something called Bayleef Spiced Rum that he’d picked up in Galar. The label had a dinosaur with what looked like leaves for feathers and had seemed appropriate, given his company for the evening. He stopped short when he saw Julia. She looked like she had grown about a foot in height, to say nothing of her dress. Tony sighed. “Damn. I really got the shaft with the whole switcheroo thing.”
It should have been a power she wanted to keep. She had wanted power to take down an evil god, hadn’t she? And this put her closer to that goal than she had ever been. There were times where she could be so stubborn and so single minded, even to the detriment of everything else. This was one of those weeks, one of those situations, where she was forced to step back and reassess.
Julia reached out for one of the bottles. She didn’t actually care which one.
“Or at least be in a position where my having a panic attack doesn’t nearly get people killed.” At least now she could relate just a little bit more to Vanya, though that could have been an experience she could have done without.
The Greenhouse itself was almost too crowded with overgrown plant life to enter, but Julia preferred being out in the open anyway. She hadn’t stepped in any of the buildings since running out. She didn’t feel tired. She didn’t sleep. She hardly felt the need to eat or drink. Maybe she picked up nutrients from the ground beneath her and the light above her like the trees. Maybe the idea shouldn’t have really surprised her.
“How are you doing now? Do I need to watch my back in case an orchid tries to smother me?”
“I have no idea if I can even get drunk but I figure I might as well give it a shot.” Julia tried to remember her mythology. Dionysus made wine, didn’t he? So rum would probably work. Julia drank deeply from the bottle a second time. “I don’t even think I really have to eat anymore.”
It was almost answering his question.
“Your one man fan club seems to be having a rough go of it this week.” Julia changed the subject to Peter, followed by, “You and the wife okay?” So clearly Julia was doing great.
“Yeah, he’s an overeager one, isn’t he?” Tony was still making his mind up about the kid. The idea that he was somehow important to Tony in the future made him feel uneasy, like neither one of them had earned it yet. “Me and the wife,” he repeated with a slight chuckle. “Well, I’m good. Not sure how Darcy likes sporting my work.” He was still uncomfortable with the fact that he had no control over his tech, especially a newer model he had yet to create.
What if dryads did get drunk, but being drunk felt different to them? While she pondered, she offered the bottle back to Tony while the scotch was still breathing.
“It’s just for the week, right?” Julia didn’t realize until after she spoke that it sounded less reassuring and more like she wanted to be reassured.
It was an offer to help. If he wanted it. She handed the bottle back to him. They hadn’t even touched the scotch yet.
Human Julia had consumed enough to be rolling around on the floor by now. Drinking more and wanting to be drunk wasn’t going to make it so.
“Wanna try the scotch? Maybe the hedonists on Planet Vegas know something about distillery the rest of us don’t.” He swapped out the rum in Julia’s hand for the bottle of scotch. It wasn’t that Tony was reluctant to be the sole inebriate in the room. Maybe he felt a little sorry for her. See? He wasn’t a complete narcissist.
Julia shrugged.
Her expression softened when he passed the scotch. She examined the bottle and, it being from Space Vegas, couldn’t tell how nice it was. She appreciated the gesture and sipped from it more politely. She wasn’t a connoisseur but didn’t want to chug it like an unrefined heathen. “That’s actually pretty good,” she said, before handing the bottle back to him to try.
Tony accepted the bottle and took a sip from it. It was good. “Another point for Planet Vegas.” He took another sip.
She doubted it. Tony didn’t seem like the type that enjoyed working with others. Not that safe houses had worked out well for Julia, but they had their uses.
Maybe if she kept him talking, she wouldn’t have to say much. She appreciated that about Tony, particularly now.
He reached for the rum and took a sip, motioning for Julia to keep the scotch for awhile. “So,” Tony began, after eyeing Julia closely for a silent moment, “As much as I love talking about myself, what do I gotta do to get you to spill about your own personal hell week?” Tony was anything if not delicate.
Do they have the Fillory books on your world?
So there was this war between two kingdoms on a magical world on Fillory— not that I really cared at the time, but—
“Losing my shade felt like the best thing that ever happened to me. All the things that hurt me, that ever made me feel guilty, just didn’t anymore. I was happy, for the first time in a long time.
“And I was in a magical world called Fillory, where Eliot and his friends ruled it as kings and queens, and they were in a war with another kingdom I gave precisely zero fucks about. The other kingdom did, however, have a powerful illusionist.
“So I used all of them to get what I wanted, an amulet that makes it so gods like the one trying to kill me can’t find me or see me, and then I firebombed the dryad and Fillory’s only sentient forest that were in the middle of the dispute because I could and I thought it was hilarious.”
Julia watched Tony carefully, trying to measure his response.
“I literally can’t feel right from wrong like people are supposed to. I haven’t done anything like that since—” Julia paused as if trying to remember if that were true or not, “—Okay, I did try to murder a US senator, but then I didn’t.”
That was another story, and it seemed only fair at this point to be transparent. Julia failed to mention the reason why she didn’t was only because her friends were there to stop her. They’d just kidnapped him instead.
“I’m trying to do better, but I’m doing this by memory. And so when shit like this happens,” Julia mentioned to herself and The Green past the Ellery Building, “it doesn’t feel coincidental. It feels pointed.”
“It can’t be paranoid to think so, right?”
Julia offered him back the bottle of scotch, in case he was regretting his decision to share with her.
Tony shook his head, declining the scotch. “Sure it can. Doesn’t mean it’s not warranted though.” He was quiet for a moment, and then, “You’re doing alright with the faking it thing. I mean, knowing what’s going on behind the curtain does lend some clarity to your occasional moments of being a complete stick in the mud.” He flashed her a friendly smile.
Julia glanced down at the bottle of scotch in her hand and, though it had yet to have much of an effect, took another sip. It was good scotch.
“I guess we’ll see how long I can keep it up,” she said finally. Julia had figured it out, and yet, it was hard to completely have faith in herself. Not when remembering how things used to feel became a hazier and hazier concept.
It was hard to say she blew it, helping Quentin restore Alice. She didn’t regret it, really. “Shit doesn’t work out sometimes.”
She could tell that he was still thinking about it. “I mean, I could demonstrate what’s missing but it would be really unpleasant for you.” She recalled the way the Beast held her shade in his hand when he offered to remove it for her. It was a disturbingly easy thing to do.
She pictured Quentin’s disapproving face in her mind’s eye when it came to actually doing that to someone else, but if Tony asked for it?
“Yeah, alright,” Tony agreed without hesitation, perhaps proof of his previous statement. The guy was willing to try just about anything once. It wasn’t recklessness, it was curiosity. Or maybe he just didn’t know what he was really in for.
It wasn’t painful physically. Emotionally, it was another story. Everything that his shade kept for Tony; guilt, pain, love, the parts that made him most human, went off like an alarm at Julia’s touch. But like a vice grip on the family jewels, Tony wasn’t in a position to back away from Julia’s hold on his soul.
“Okay?”
She wasn’t sure if she was asking Tap out? You alright? Understand? Let go? Maybe it was all of those things at once.
He nodded at Julia, a sign for her to return his shade. He wanted to forget that feeling of not feeling before it became a high he would crave again.
She offered him the bottle of scotch once more.