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jackassery2013-08-27 05:54 pm
derogatory) wrote in jackassery2013-08-27 05:54 pm
Entry tags:
your feelings are buried in scriptures and fictions
nathan and victor went to east l.a. and all they got was shot, part dos
At the last minute Victor thinks he should've waited in the hall. Nathan never had a drug problem, it's going to be a bunch of the usual bluff and bravado, some autographs and they're out. What if Nathan says something ridiculous an he laughs? Does it look weird that I'm standing? he thinks from the back of the gymnasium. Should I sit? Should I have worn my costume?
The scared straight program leader or whoever finishes his introduction (you know, for the 0 kids who don't know an Avenger when they see one) and Nathan steps up to the podium. Well, I'm staying, Victor relents. We're here, were queer, oh fuck don’t let Nathan say something like he was an honorary member of the Latin Kings.
He had half an idea to brainstorm what they'd see in LA while Nathan gives his speech, but he hasn't got much better at tuning the other man out over the years. Nathan was always hard to ignore, give him a microphone and a good story and it's impossible.
He's impossible. Victor watches Nathan move across the stage when he's talking, always moving, and starts thinking of a couple ways to keep him still- and oh, fuck, none of these kids better be mind readers.
"At least give me a hint," he pressed over lunch but Nathan's not talking, nothing beyond hey, if you wanted to know the details, you should've listened.
"I did listen," Victor counters stubbornly. He hopes to god Nathan isn't gonna quiz him on how many grams or some other mundane detail that Victor knows he subconsciously stored underneath his initial shock at the reveal. But instead Nathan asks,
"So you're cool? Los Angeles?"
"Why not?" Victor shrugs, stealing a pepperoni from Nathan's plate.
"Well, you saw how stellar Wertem went."
"Wertem was fine," Victor feels like he's spent his entire life assuring Nathan that their visit to England was not as much of a disaster as the other man made it out to be. "Besides, nobody I know even lives in LA anymore. We could just do dumb tourist stuff, if you want."
"If you want," Nathan counters, stealing an entire slice from Victor's plate in turn. "It's your hometown, right," he shrugs. "It's whatever you want." There's a funny crackling sensation in Victor’s chest, like a wire burning out, a whole circuit board shutting down under the force of a single spark, the word home. Victor leans back in his seat. Or it's just heartburn.
"It'll be fun," he nods to Nathan, pushing the rest of his plate across the table, pressing his palm to his sternum. "Let's go to LA."
The request for vacation time goes off without a hitch- Vision is back on Earth for the next couple months, so Pym is happy to let one Ultron bot off the hook. Tony thinks Nathan needs some time to chill in light of the very startling revelations that were brought up at the drug workshop.
"Oh, like Tony Stark hasn't done blow," Nathan snaps and Pepper makes him sign like four separate legal forms assuring them he will not say that ever in public, not once, I'm serious Young.
So the weeks' vacation is approved, tell the Pacific Ocean I say hi, and Tony waves them out. Nathan is halfway through asking if robots get tan lines when Chase stops the closing elevator doors.
"Hey, Vic," he pants, hand in the entryway. "Can I talk to you? In private." Victor feels his mouth curl instinctively, but Nathan answers for him.
"Fuck off," Nathan replies brightly, pressing the door close button- a futile action when Chase stops it again. "You can't give us orders, you know. Pretty sure a field Avenger outranks a secretary." Chase's fingers tighten around the doorframe.
"Yeah? How's that immortality holding up? You wanna try a trip down the shaft without the elevator?"
"Chase, I'm sure you want nothing but to be all up and down my shaft, but I'm taken-"
"Guys," Victor groans. "Chase, we gotta catch a flight, can it wait?"
"It'll just take a second," he assures Victor, reaching out and taking him by the upper arm, pulling Victor back onto the sixtieth floor of Stark Tower. Chase shuffles Victor down the hall, ignoring his grumbling for an explanation until he shuts the door to the empty conference room behind him.
"Why are you going to Los Angeles?" he demands.
"You know, gonna see if our male modeling career takes off. What do you think? A holida- vacation." Victor feels a funny flush to his ears, correcting the British-ism.
"None of us are in LA anymore." Yeah, Victor crosses his arms and nods. He's aware no one is there anymore. "Your mom isn't either." It feels like every muscle in his body just ran a marathon when Chase mentions Marianella.
"Chase, you better have a really good point you're getting to, I swear to god-"
"I'm just saying we don't need Nathan blabbing about the shit we did." Victor needs a minute before he can address the absurdity of that statement, trying to work Chase away from the door.
"Okay, one. This entire building is bugged, so if you're gonna say something about how Nathan might tip off Stark and make you lose the internship of a lifetime, maybe watch what you say. And second," Victor sets him with a level stare. "I didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. Anything criminal? That was all you." He tries to resist the mental note his brain makes about how suspiciously that sounds like Nathan's defense for the ASBO crew murders.
"Oh right," Chase sneers and pushes him back. "I forgot. You weren't ever actually a member of the team. So yeah, it's not your fault what happened." He cuts Victor off amid a colorful Spanish lesson on what he can put where- "Just keep that shit light."
"Why don't I take him to Malibu?" Victor counters, shoving Chase out of the way to get to the door. "I can show him some of your greatest hits." He's glad Chase doesn't follow him into the elevator, doesn't clarify what keeping anything light would entail. What a psychopath, he thinks, stepping into the lobby. His chest aches from something other than the push. Victor's not entirely sue what 'keeping it light' entails, but he figures if there are a few locations Chase doesn't want them to check out, they'll definitely head there on the LA grand tour.
Nathan waves from the curb, holding up a cab as Victor approaches, han on his chest.
"'the fuck was that about?" Nathan asks as they climb inside the taxi. He fixes Victor with one of his more serious looks. "Did he molest you? Do I need to tell Miss Potts there's been an egregious violation of the Avengers' sexual harassment policy?"
"He just wanted me to get him some souvenirs," Victor laughs weakly- the cabbie is giving them too many glances in the rearview mirror. "Forget it, he's just a dick."
"Did he punch you in the tit?" Nathan earned a punch of his own for that. As the car speeds towards JFK, Nathan yawns. "I think we deserve this vacation."
"Of course," Victor leans his head on the other man's shoulder. "My drug mule boyfriend earned it."
"Hey, you heard me answer that junkie girl, I told her it wasn't being a drug mule PERSAY.."
Before a tourist stop to stick it to Chase, they have to go to school. It's where he met the Runaways anyway, the place where Victor's life changed. In reality, the warehouse with the Doombot, with the override, with the pile of smoldering ash where his mother was, that's where it really changed- ended. But school was part of his life too.
"Why were you running?" he laughs, catching up to Nathan halfway onto the football field. "Seriously, there's nobody around, you could've- hi." Nathan wraps an arm around his waist and pulls them close. Victor clears his throat, "So. You like LA so far?"
"The schools seem to be top notch," he nods, looking at the scenery around him like he isn't holding Victor so tight that the clothing between them is more a hindrance than anything else. "Wanna head under the bleachers?" It's Victor's turn to look around them, anywhere else. "Yeah? I'll be the quarterpounder and you'll be the cheerleader." Victor groans and snakes away from Nathan's hold, shuddering.
"Ugh, dios, no. You ruined it."
"Hey, I know it's quarterback, I'm just messing with you."
"Yeah, cause it's the sports error that got me," he calls. When Nathan doesn't supply a witty retort, Victor shoots a glance over his shoulder, at the spot where Nathan's still standing, staring across the field like there's something there. No, that's stupid, there's nothing there. Like he's got something else to say. "Come on, you wanted to see non-school places right?"
"Right," Nathan breathes, falling back into pace. He must want to ask it, Victor figures glumly, but he doesn't. Nathan doesn't ask about other schools, imaginary schools, ones that exist only in Victor's memories. Ones with no records of his enrollment because what Avenger would investigate proof of a sleeper agent's middle school, right? Guess Ultron didn't think those boxes needed to be checked. Victor doesn't know why he looked into it. Nathan was away on a mission and Minecraft server was down. No record of him attending a middle school, an elementary school. He wonders if the neighbor woman who babysat him when he was small ever even existed.
The rational parts of his brain tell Victor that Nathan doesn't ask about other schools because he knows it's a sore subject. This is supposed to be a fun visit, a visit that goes better than the Wertem one. Except then the human part of Victor's brain says that Nathan doesn't ask because it's boring. He's bored of you, it says when Nathan disappears into a crowd when they're back downtown. He's not coming back because he has eternity to spend with someone and he's already sick of you.
The rational, robotic part of his brain would say he's overreacting; this is just LA affecting you worse than you anticipated. When he sees Ultron again, he'll give Dad a heads up that he must've connected the rationale wires wrong. And then, you know, kill him and all that.
"You okay?" Victor asks, the countless time Nathan spaces, slips away, doesn't hear a word Victor says about the boardwalk. "You're acting weird."
"No," Nathan replies immediately, defenses up, the way he does when Victor catches him doing exactly what Captain America ordered him not to. "I just- I thought I saw Megan Fox." Victor laughs, walking forward again, what do you need to see Megan Fox for? Except when he turns back, Nathan is still rooted to the spot he was before, hands in his pockets, mind a million miles away.
"Whatever," Victor mutters as Nathan notices their distance and jogs to catch up. "She's fat now anyway."
Like Wertem, they spend the first night in a bar. There's no cadre of superfriends left in LA, like Victor said, so they meet with one old friend, or as old as a guy can have for still being a preteen. Jorge's impossibly older, fatter too, not that Victor was expecting any change there. He's got a Lakers' cap on to cover some premature balding, but the voice is the same. Victor considers himself an expert now in siphoning the realities of his past from the fictions Marianella fabricated. The best memories were usually the fake ones, but the few that are tolerable and entirely real, one hundred percent his, include Jorge.
"And this is Nathan, my-"
"Luck of the Irish! How you living, guey?" Jorge is already shaking the other man's hand, saving Victor from a potentially embarrassing introduction. It isn't like he's ashamed, that's far enough from the fucking truth. But there's no easy way to mention to your childhood best friend hey, I'm like super gay now, the tabloids are totally right.
It's not as exciting as meeting with the ASBO group. Jorge never got into trouble beyond sneaking out late when they were younger. It never registered to Victor that Jorge would look for him, that anyone would care after New Moore, after the Runaways fell apart. He gave up any thought of having a past until he went through some Avengers fan mail, some familiar handwriting. He's lucky it was pre-finding Nathan in Ireland, or he'd have had to explain a four hour telephone conversation entirely in Spanish.
Jorge brought photos. He wound up marrying Daniela from their chemistry class, "She filled out pretty nice," he laughs and Victor isn't sure how to translate it. Even if Nathan's Spanish got worlds better than when they met on the island, Victor knows they talk too fast, about people Nathan never knew. He watches the interest wane and slide from his friend's face, the weird looks into the distance. There's a girl in a tight dress sitting with her friends in the corner, if Nathan wants to talk to her so badly, nobody's friggin stopping him--
"I'm sorry about your mom," Jorge murmurs. He bumps shoulders in what was likely a understanding gesture, but nearly knocks the distracted Victor off the bar stool. Pink with jealousy, Victor straightens up and glances back between them. "She was a good lady." Not too many people show an Ultron sympathizer that kind of support and Victor swallows it awkwardly through his beer.
"She had a hell of a secret," he manages at last. Nathan excuses himself- actually excuses himself, who is this?- before heading towards the bathroom. At least it's in the opposite direction of those girls. Jorge can never read a mood, and his gaydar was probably shit to begin with, so he presses on.
"You're tellin me! I read that origin story and I was like, no friggin way Mrs Mancha knew Ultron, if I knew a famous super villain I wouldn't keep that shit to myself, yeah?"
Scrubbing his hands over his eyes, and just the voice alone, Victor thinks for a second they're in his room, huddled over a homemade radio and comparing superhero notes. He didn't expect to miss Los Angeles so much.
"You don't keep knowing me very secret, that's for sure," he argues, raising a hand for another round between them.
"You sent me an Avengers t-shirt," Jorge points out.
Victor grins, "I brought more."
"Hell yeah you did."
"He's gonna break up with me," Victor hisses into the phone as Nathan staggers past a few more sharply dressed couples on his way to the bathroom. They finished up with some sightseeing, as much as they could with Nathan acting so fucking shifty, and ducked into a nice restaurant to- Victor's not even sure anymore, be completely ignored while his boyfriend gets drunk, apparently.
Karolina sighs the sigh of a very put upon intergalactic gay best friend/consultant. "Why would he fly with you all the way to California just to break up with you there?"
"I don't know," he moans, craning his neck to make sure Nathan isn't back from the bathroom. In a fit of desperation, "What does Xavin think?"
"Xavin's at a war meeting-" What war? Karolina glides over it breezily. "Wow, you must be freaked if you wanted to hear Xavin's opinion."
"Well, I figured since he hates me, he'd agree that Nathan should dump me."
"Xavin doesn't hate you," Karolina assures him, along with five more minutes of sweet, placating gestures about the stability of his relationship. "Maybe he's gonna propose!" She cries and Victor swears entirely too loud for a restaurant with cloth table linens. They change the subject.
"When you go, remember to bring flowers," she insists. "I'll text you a florist down there who's very clean earth minded, you'll want something cruelty free."
"Dios, K, they're flowers, how cruel can you get?"
"You still gonna visit- you know," her voice drops a few nervous octaves.
"Well, it'd probably piss Chase off, so sure."
"I don't think I could go back there," Karolina admits, and even lightyears away he can picture her twisting her hair between her fingers. "What's the point without everybody else around?"
"It's where we became a team," Victor urges. "It still means something even if nobody's there." Karolina sighs.
"That doesn't mean it's something good, Vic."
"So you gonna ring the door or we gonna crawl into the backseat?" Nathan rolls his eyes in response to the glare. "Fuck off, it's a joke. You made me walk up to two front doors in my hometown." He holds up the number for emphasis, as if Victor could forget.
"To see the people inside, yeah," Victor counters, twisting from the window. Cyborgs don't exactly get hangovers, but the streetlamps feel entirely too bright, the returning glare from their old mailbox sharp against his eyes. "That's just someone else's house now. I don't need to talk to anybody." Cords in his chest snaps like a rubber band, he winces.
"You just wanna sit outside and stare at it," Nathan replied dryly. Victor keeps his eyes resolutely focused anywhere else other than his boyfriend's expectant stare. "Fine," he grumbles, slumping back against the side while they look over the house in silence. "Which room was yours?"
"There's a bedroom in the back," Victor manages, clearing his throat mid sentence. His chest still feels tight, like a collection of cords that have snarled together, that are burning out in their proximity. "Mom said a bedroom in the front- She thought it was dangerous. So she took it."
Nathan scoffs at the dangerous comment, as if talking about Marinella wasn't dangerous territory already. "Looks like a normal place to me."
"Maybe it's better now." Victor takes his hand away from the funny grip in his chest, still bothering him. He'll have to ask Pym to check on it when they get back to New York. "Sorry, we can leave-" Nathan bolts upright and twists in his seat like he's having a fit. "Jesus what?" He's staring out the window, at the house, at something for a second Nathan isn't so sure he can only see. "What?"
"Spider," Nathan gulps. "Sorry, uh. There was a spider on me." Victor skeptically raises an eyebrow. "What! You fuckers have right poisonous spiders here, don't you?"
"It's not Australia," Victor dismisses it. After a beat. "There are Black Widows, though." The two boys sit in a stiff silence before they clamor out either side of the car in a frantic unison, "Out of the car, out of the car!" They slam the doors behind them and do a quick shakedown for poisonous arachnids (a couple breathless Spiderwoman jokes between them) before realization sets in.
"Wait," Nathan hesitates, looking between them, from one immortal to the self-repairing robot. "Why the fuck did either of us get out of the car??" Victor laughs anxiously and tells the other Avenger to keep an eye out, he has to zap open the open car doors since they locked themselves out.
"What, you wanna keep this powers shit on the DL?" Nathan scoffs. "Last night you were shooting fireworks at the bar for Chubs." He turns to look through the darkened streets for any potential witnesses. "Hey which gang color's the bad one?" Victor swears and looks back quick, although it's hard to tell what color they're wearing thanks to the glare from the streetlight overhead.
"Meirda. All of them, get back in the car." Nathan is doing the opposite of getting into a car, walking towards the drug deal and Victor moves after him without thinking. Well without thinking anything beyond wondering if those stories to the at-risk teens really were legit.
This is why back bedrooms are better, he thinks and at the next pop he pushes Nathan out of the way. When he turned twenty-one the nanites fused with Victor’s human cells to create perfect replica human organs. Which means even with self-repair, getting shot hurts like hell.
Nathan's died in his arms a few times already this year alone, but it never comes without the panic that this could be the last time. Even with his limited processes, Victor can still focus on dread.exe that maybe this time Nathan won't wake up, or that he'll wake up different, or that he'll wake up just to kick him to the curb. The last one is a newer development.
"If you come back to life just to break up with me," he mutters into Nathan's hair. There's no second half to that sentence, Victor doesn't know how to finish this threat. They could both live a couple more lifetimes before he figures it out.
Ten minutes to full reboot. He drags them both further behind the dumpsters when the patrol car rolls by.
"I'm sorry too," Victor mutters, forcing his eyes open. Nathan catches his look when his head emerges from a fresh, unblood-stained shirt. They made it back to the hotel without getting picked up by the cops, without Tony having to come all the way to Los Angeles and bail them out of jail for a drug related incident.
"'the fuck are you apologizing for?"
"This didn't happen in Wertem," Victor groans, voice barely audible over the murmur of the hotel television. He's too tired to remember he's supposed to be annoyed with Nathan for the whole thing. He felt fine until they were back in the room and the bed was right there and is there any way to work out an auto-repair without wanting to sleep the sleep of a factory restore? Things to text Hank.
"Wertem isn't East LA," Nathan points out the obvious, kicking his feet up onto the bed and shouldering some room next to Victor. "See, we all learned a valuable lesson tonight. You learned that the West Coast Avengers are surprisingly lax on their drug enforcement laws." Victor grunts into the mattress in reply. "And I will never again doubt you saying you grew up in the hood."
"Barrio."
"Burro, right." He grins at Victor’s weak corrections, his fingers trailing across the ratted hotel comforter. "I fucked up. You don't have to apologize for it." His hand reaches Victor and he runs his fingers through the cyborg's hair. For a second Victor feels like he's home again, in that back bedroom, half asleep when his mother comes in from the graveyard shift. Memories filed under ones 'of dubious reality.'
"So," Nathan says, voice thin. "If you're not mad at me.." Victor's not gonna question why dying sets something off in Nathan's sex drive, it's the one upside to a shitty situation, but his yawn is enough of a deterrent.
"Sorry," Victor apologizes and yawns a second time. "Self repair takes a lot-"
"I know." Nathan ruffles his hair, sitting back against the pillows. "Get some rest, I'll figure out how to get the naughty channels on this thing while you sleep it off." Victor squints through half opened eyes are Nathan reaches over him for the remote, to turn out the lights. He can't tell if he's disappointed or if it's just the lights from the television playing over his face.
"Hey," he asks, voice weighed down with sleep. "Do you.. Am I boring?"
Nathan laughs, "Most definitely. Good night."
There's no trip to the graveyard. Not anything formal, not that Victor bets Nathan would want to. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel when he explains it, that there wasn't a grave for his mother. When Ultron was done, there wasn't anything to bury.
Nathan asks if he should drive, how hard is it to find the Hollywood sign anyway? It's right fucking there. He points. Victor shrugs it off, why shouldn't he drive? Nathan reaches across the seats and taps the center of Victor's chest.
"Cause you're in a delicate condition apparently. You pretending to be Tony or is the roboheart kickin out on us?" Victor flinches away from his touch, jerking the car into the (thankfully) empty other lane. "Watch it!"
"I'm fine," he hisses, raking a hand through his hair. He hadn't been aware the pain in his chest was noticeable to Nathan. Considering how distracted the other man's been lately, he's pretty surprised Nathan picked up on it at all. He'd been hoping the self-repair, a hard reset would've cleared it up. It's just getting worse. Victor blinks spots away from behind his eyes.
"You're not gonna take a picture?" says Victor when they crane this necks to look up at it and Nathan shrugs, you're the one with photographic memory. They make their way through the pathways from the common viewpoints, higher into the hills, far enough and under enough fences Victor only knows they're close when Nathan starts complaining. The fall air hits them both hard when they reach the summit, wind a shrill howl between the gaps in the letters, the words stretching out infinitely around them, overlooking the cityscape. Victor's happy for the photographic memory when Nathan's expression gets quiet and slack.
It takes a few minutes to twist free from his amorous hold- no, that's not why we came up here! Nathan, extremely put out, turns to examine the back of the sign while Victor hunts down the spot in question. The rocks they placed were moved, decades of grass and sod have been put in and grown. Luckily, magnetic abilities work like little metal detectors of their own, which helps since they buried her in all her jewelry. It feels like identifying the body somehow, not that they needed to. Chase carried her to them and Molly screamed and screamed and Victor thinks every Avenger death will never live up to Molly's wailing. Nico had used a digging spell before and none of them were stable enough to come up with a synonym. They dug it by hand.
The wind's the only reason Victor hears Nathan swearing, but he can't figure out what the other Avenger's looking at when he glances back. Nathan walks toward him with heavy footsteps, turning his back to the gusts of air to try and light his the cigarette.
Victor sets whatever constitutes as 'cruelty-free' flowers over Gert's makeshift grave. He figures he should say something important, like a prayer, or even just a hello. But all he can think of, as loud as the pounding in his chest, from the parts that feel like they're collapsing in on themselves- all he can think of is I didn't kill you. No matter what else happens, Victorious didn't kill Gert. She never joined the Avengers. She died here with her friends and it had nothing to do with him at all.
"Think I would've liked her?" Nathan asks, fidgeting over Victor's shoulder.
"No," Victor laughs and he's very sure of this. "You would've hated each other."
Victor wakes up five seconds before a phone call. It only happens on a cell, land lines still catch him by surprise. He looks into the science of it when he has free time, but there's been a lot less of that lately.
The phone rings and Nathan's up too fast to have really been surprised by it. Victor's chest feels as tight as ever when he waves acknowledgement to Nathan, Kelly being dumped, sure, like he believes that. The door closes behind him, footsteps growing softer along the motel hallway. Victor keeps his back to the door, squints at the wallpaper. Think about the wave interference. Think about how much paperwork will be waiting for you back in New York. Think about anything else than what he's saying about you right now.
Victor groans and sits up, halfway through scrubbing his face when that feeling comes back. He looks back to his phone. Three, four, five- it lights up with a text.
Molly has told me not to correspond with you.
Before they left, Victor sent out a text message to the Runaways, Chase excluded. After feeding the story to Nathan that the other man had wanted souvenirs, Victor realized that wasn't a half bad idea, and asked the rest of the team if they wanted anything from their old stomping grounds. It was just a courtesy, he has no idea how to send anything to the next galaxy for Karolina and nobody else was on speaking terms with him. He can only imagine the current respondent mulling over how to reply for days. Or she's still not carrying a phone with her, she always said the 21st century is terrible confusing.
Hey Klara. She interrupts him mid reply about staying up too late, clearly she had these texts drafted for a while now.
However I do not think you meant to include me on the message regarding Los Angeles, so I am replying to inform you on your mistake for your future correspondences. There's a pause between these texts and Victor waits- typing on a keypad would be tough for a 19th century girl.
Hello, Victor. I hope you are well. I thought you would be asleep but as I recall you do not.
I do sometimes, he counters. And I did SO mean to include you, I can get you whatever you want. Name it.
There's a long enough pause Victor worries she actually is gonna ask for some esoteric souvenir he's gonna have to scrounge up when she replies, Thank you, but I am fine.
A car roars past the hotel. He spends enough time thinking about how to continue the first conversation he's had with Klara in three years when she answers back-
I saw you on the television a few weeks ago. You were standing beside Mister Stark during a press conference on the incident in Yonkers.
Victor grins, Yeah? I'm glad you saw that, I think we did all right.
You should cut your hair, Klara chides back immediately- she's getting better at typing as she goes.
Oh, come on. I think it makes me look handsome. There's a long enough gap in the reply time that Victor regrets it. Chase once pointed out how attached Klara was to Victor before he left, saying she's got a type for older bad guys after all. He scrubs the sleep from his eyes and sits up straighter. Focus. You and Molly okay?
We are well, thank you. He can picture Klara sitting so tiny in the center of the couch, legs crossed at the ankles, watching a hundred years of the world fly past her in a blur. He remember the second when he forgot they took her instead of Lillie, when he realized he had to step up and be the brother Chase wouldn't. He remembers Molly's bone breaking grip in his hands.
She still doesn't want to see me, huh, he sighs and hits send.
I'm sure she wouldn't want me speaking for her, but I presume if you have not heard from her that she is still very angry with all of you.
Yeah, Victor writes back. How about you?
It takes a few minutes for this one to come through, long enough Victor considers going back to sleep. I understand people have to do things they do not like, even if they promised they wouldn't. So no, I'm not mad with any of you. If we could be together again, I'm sure this would all be sorted out.
He tries not to think about all the things Klara's had to do, that people promised her she wouldn't. I know. I miss you guys too.
The door opens, Nathan tossing his phone onto a pile of clothing and slamming the door in a few swift movements.
"Was she really upset?" Nathan glances to Victor at the question, confused. "About being dumped." The half second of hesitation is enough to tell Victor that wasn't what his conversation with Kelly had been about, but- it's not worth fighting over. It probably is, but he isn't sure either of them have the energy. Nathan walks to the other side of the bed and pulls the covers around him.
"It's cool you guys still talk a lot," Victor continues, propped back on his elbows. "I actually just heard from-" Nathan turns on his side, away from Victor, pale.
"uh Okay. Night," Victor mutters, turning on his side and not sleeping.
"Believe it or not, we ditched it because Iron Man found us," Victor grins over his shoulder as they approach the tar pits after closing. Nathan spent most of the car ride there speculating the gruesome ways animals would be preserved in tar pits and how much disgusting, animal death photos they could take with them before Victor revealed what the actual location was.
"That when he put you in the Avengers?"
"That's when he almost put us in foster care, actually," Victor admits. He'll go in first, disable some traps. "It won't take long," he assures him.
"Right," Nathan scuffs his foot against the grass. "And here's where an Avenger gets picked up for loitering at the molasses animal tar museum."
"Okay," Victor waves him aside, ducking through the boarded up passages. He steps over rusted out security daemons, long broken and disused, but maybe decent for parts. He shoots a few with some test sparks into them to make sure they're out of commission. He tries not to grin, nothing boring about this.
"That's probably just Vic," Chase explains to Cloak. "He's gonna grow up into a world class psycho someday."
"I am not!" Victor snaps and Chase eases an arm over his shoulders, shushing his protests.
"Sure you are," Molly echoes except she hadn't. The conversation goes back to saving Dagger, about their parents brainwashing them. Nico nods in agreement, he'll live up to daddy dearest eventually.
"Guys," Victor cries, twisting between them, the cold claw of Cloak's aura and Gert's there, then she's worm food, fingernails oozing with blood and dirt. "Cut it out." Chase grabs him and pushes, and Victor feels like he's falling and drowning and staying impossibly still all alone.
"You were just a last minute substitution, Ultron jr. And teaching you good never saved my girl."
"Hey." Nathan looks like he almost asks where the other boy got his flashlight before he realizes its a light from his open circuits. It hasn't stopped being strange, that Victor can pop up panels along his skin, all hot wires and nanochips and whatever the shit else is inside. Nathan saw Victor splayed out in pieces once after a Sentinel attack. Tony came across him trying to gather the smaller parts in his shirt, like he was going to patch him together with super glue. For Iron Man's credit, he never mentioned it.
Victor takes a deep breath, mopping cold sweat from his face.
"I thought you were gonna wait outside."
"I did," Nathan scoffs, bumping shoulders when he passes. "You've been in here like twenty fucking minutes, got worried." Victor mumbles an apology, trailing after him, deeper into the entryway, throwing light across from his arm across the grand entrance hall.
"Who's that?" Nathan points. There's a picture along the wall of a couple in lab coats whose faces have been torn out of the portrait. Victor follows his eyes, seeing the defaced portraits for the first time.
"'Mr and Mrs Stein,'" he reads from the placard. "Chase's parents, he must've been here," he murmurs, voice heavy, trying to shake off the dream. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. He just needs more sleep, except that he doesn't.
It feels weird to introduce the mutilated wall size photos of families he never met. The Runaways standing between their parents- The Pride, how gay is that- seem so infinitely small, even Molly. Chase gouged out his own face from the portrait, but Nathan recognizes the snide turn of his shoulders. The rest of the kids’ faces are untarnished, but the adults all have varying graffiti, usually a jagged gash in the portrait where a face used to be. Gert's parents’ portraits have a few marks along the edges, hesitation stabs, but it looks like Chase couldn't put the knife in them.
"You sound like a maniac," Nathan laughs breathlessly, hand at his elbow. He corrects himself when Victor start arguing, "I mean Chase is a right cock, bet he didn't wanna have us come back here, right? Doesn't want everybody to know what a nutter he is." Victor agrees, his voice a thousand miles away.
He wants to see Victor's room, but he says that he cleared his things out a while ago. Victor wants to wait outside- it's too hot in here, aren't you hot?
"Don't be a bitch, it's fine. I just got here," Nathan argues, taking the crumbling stairs two at a time. He wavers uncertainly as some of the stone gives way, turning back to grin at the cyborg. "C'mon, give us a light." Victor swallows and nods, walking after him towards the stairs. It's fine. Whatever he saw, that didn't happen.
A couple of the halls have caved in, but down there was Molly's room. Klara never lived here. Nico's room is empty, not even dust, and Victor yanks Nathan's arm back before he treks into a spell. Gert's room has the door closed and Nathan presses on further without asking anything more about her. Say, where was Karolina and the alien's room? Lady lovin in there right? They were both aliens, Victor laughs and they're on the boy's side of the building.
"I told you there's nothing in here," Victor explains. His room wasn't even a bedroom, it was an old study they dragged some bedroom furniture into. Like he said, everything had been cleaned out a while ago. There's a skateboard against the wall missing a wheel, a rusted out toaster half under the bed.
Nathan tosses himself onto the bed, a burst of dust erupting when he lands. He laughs, gesturing for Victor to climb down after him.
"This is home, huh?" he asks between a sneeze. "You're right, it's hot as hell down here."
"Under a tar pit," Victor mutters, vision spotty from the dust, the heat, the lights. That's all it is. It's fine. They didn't abandon you here; they didn't abandon you at all. You just grew up, people grow up and apart all the time. It's part of becoming adults, Nico said, we just need space. We couldn't keep running forever, Chase assured him. Just like how you'll run out of batteries too. Every process inside him will grind to a halt, like the feeling in his chest lately. After all, moving parts have a limited shelf life, what is the point of making a sleeper agent if it never wakes up? Maybe it self-destructs when it outlives its purpose, instead of living forever with someone who's already annoyed with you--
"Hey," Nathan is back on his feet, in front of him, shaking him. Victor twists in his arms, like a scared kid, like this gigantic fucking underground mansion is closing around them and Nathan kicks himself for letting this idiot in here alone for so long. "Hey!"
Victor can only half hear Nathan through the buzzing in his ears, the shuddering in his chest. It feels like the engines shutting down on a stalled car. His arm sparks, the panel slams closed.
"I'm calling that fucker Hank," Nathan says, fumbling for his phone.
"No," Victor hisses. Your asshole brother then! "I'm not- It's not a cyborg thing." There no graceful way to slowly sink to the floor, and Nathan's freakout is reaching a fever pitch that they both hit the ground hard. Nathan is shouting he's having a bloody heart attack and exasperated, Victor tries to explain, "No, I just- don't wanna be here."
The snap from screaming to silence is deafening.
"Then why are we fucking here in the first place?" Nathan asks, and Victor cringes, because that's the low tone Nathan uses when Tony sends them on a mission in disguise of a bigger mission, a bait and switch where they're the bait. "If you didn't want to come back here, then what the hell are we doing in here?"
"You said you wanted to see-"
"I said I wanted to do what you wanted to do," Nathan throws back at him and shakes Victor one more time for good measure. Victor finally twists free, tossing back a warning glare. "Nobody wants you to have a panic attack over your old hideout-"
"Shut up!" Victor can tell when he crosses the line and Nathan hears Victorious. Victor doesn't forget how warm and comfortable the override in the warehouse was, letting Ultron take over every process. At the time it felt like taking a quick nap. Now it feels like collapsing, exhausted, and letting someone else do all the heavy lifting from here on. It seems easier now. "I'm fine."
"Bullshit you are!" he breathes. "You've been acting weird this whole trip-"
"You seriously want to go there right now?" Victor wants to fight it out of his voice, to be nicer, to be normal when shit goes down. At least Nathan's not shying away from it, Victorious snarl or not. He looks surprised, but at the same time like he knows what's coming, "This whole trip, you've been acting like you-"
"Like what," Nathan cuts in, voice thick. Victor starts to laugh, because seriously, he's gonna make him say it? Like you want nothing to do with me, like you'd be happier someplace else, like there's something else way more important you could be doing, when he sees his mom.
It's just a second, just a glimpse over Nathan's shoulder and more than anything it's impossible. Victor is a good Catholic deep into his wires, he knows the response to seeing something that can't be true is just look away. When he opens his eyes she's gone. Just a hallucination. You're just going crazy, he assures himself. There must be a Los Angeles fail safe, like if Victor tried to dump his sleeper agent duties and run home that the Ultron programming would dismantle him from the inside.
"I'm sorry," he groans, pressing his forehead against Nathan's shoulder. "I'm sorry I'm so boring."
"What the hell part of this was boring?" Nathan mutters in disbelief, hand between Victor's shoulder blades.
"Jesus, this city does a number on you," Nathan grumbles, letting the cyborg rest against him as they wake their way through the passages without a light. "First we both get murdered, now this. Some fucking holiday."
"The beach," Victor murmurs, face still buried against his neck. "Tomorrow I'll take you to a beach."
"What if Chase kicked apart all the sandcastles before we get there?" Nathan asks, looking to Victor with feigned solemnity, deep concern. "You gonna have a freak out there too?" Victor raises his head. "Too soon?"
"We're not even off the property yet, pendejo." Rolling his eyes, Victor kisses him just to keep him from laughing.
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/)A(\ i think this is my new favorite in the series
VICTOR IS JUST. SO CRAZY
not as crazy as he could be thank you irish jesus but so crazy. so so crazy YOU REALLY DID STRIKE THE PERFECT CHORD OF CRAZINESS fkjds god his poor little hurting chest everywhere they go. way to give nathan his own heart attack-- hey wait that's a way he hasn't died yet
GOD CHASE IS SUCH A SHIT
i want you to know one of my delirious thoughts on the bus last night was 'what if i read runaways just to write the blossoming of chase and nathan's bromance followed by the inevitable crash and burn where nathan realizes he hates that guy'
who knows when i'll ever have time again but GOD HE'S SUCH A LITTLE SHIT. lfkjds did he molest you?? look, that's a real question that needs a real answer. also destroying the pictures in their base like a psycho!! WHAT IF CHASE ALREADY KICKED ALL THE SANDCASTLES APART i just love everything about it, okay. he's really really terrible. oh shit also the same defensiveness with the runaways as nathan has with the asbo shitheads AND HIS ACCIDENTAL BRITISHISMS THERE ARE SO MANY LITTLE PARALLELS IN THIS THAT I REALLY LOVE *A*
ugh the back bedrooms parts are my favorite. caitlin loves nathan dying, no surprise there!! WHICH GANG COLOR IS THE BAD ONEflkjdsflkjsd nathan is so braindead. victor how do you put up with how damn stupid he is. ugh and dread.exe I MADE SO MANY SAD NOISES THROUGHOUT THIS BUT THAT ONE WAS PROBABLY THE WORST
/)A(\ also calling karolina godddd he's just so fearful and meanwhile nathan's like I OPPOSITE OF WANT TO BREAK UP WITH HIM. I CARE ABOUT HIS FEELINGS?? KELLY WHAT DO.
ALSO KLARA KLARA KLARA HELP THAT WAS SO SAD BUT CUTE fkljds i miss you guys too and then nothing :(
can they visit klara or would nathan scar her for life
she's over 18 now right? right. so tell me about 19th century torture and sextoys OH COME ON IT WAS A JOKE no it wasn't. tell me.
OMG AND JORGE!! I DIDN'T EVEN THINK OF JORGE I'M SO HAPPY sob jorge the avengers fanboy being sad about marianella. thank god victor has one normal friend. and by normal i mean nerdy as fuck, which is normal for him i guess
ugh gert's grave and the hideout. robocop this trip is nothing like wertham IT'S A HELL OF A LOT MORE TRAGIC. ugh but i love it so much and stupid nathan seeing marianella's ghost everywhere and being a weird shifty fucker about it is perfect. ALL THE LITTLE MOMENTS ARE SO GREAT they're so subtle and spot on with him i want to die
also real talk you write nathan better than i write nathan
this is perfect
you are perfect
i'm going to keep sneakily rereading it all day at work hope no one notices
will i ever love anything as much as i love robohomos? PROBABLY FUCKING NOT
/)A(\ help
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he couldve been worse, just remember that. age of ultron means he couldve been much worse, corrupted memory files and all that jazz. NO DYING FROM A HEART ATTACK!!! how would you have a herat attack, health twenty something immortal
CHASE IS A SHIT BUT HE STARTED OUT SO GOOD he just gets lost. I'm glad he pissed you off and uuughhhh nathan and chase, my one true love. If he came to new moore vic would be so jealous bc of course theyd be friends ofc nathan would wanna be his friend instead. and then it explodes bc they are a hot mess together for suuure.
fkjhdkjf LBR I LOVE WRITING VICTOR SO NERVOUS WHILST KNOWING NATHANS LIKE MAYBE WHEN WE GO TO IRELAND ILL ASK HIM TO MARRY ME!!!! oh k hes gonna dump me and we are gonna have to work together and WHAT IF THAT WHY I GO EVIL K. WHAT IF I GO EVIL BC OF NATHAN (karolina: that is the gayest effing thing ive ever heard. and i dont mean gay like homosexual ok thats gay)
kfjhsfjks 19th century sextoys and torture???? victor holds klara to his chest like HER LIFE WAS SEXTOYS AND TORTURE WHATS WRONG WITH YOU SHHHHH SHHHHHHH and klara is just stock still like okay you may let go of me now. Nathan can try to scar her but she will just string him up with rose vines and wait for molly to knock some sense into him. You know they both grew up hot too. hands off Nathan.
TRAGIC LOST POST S2 WERTEM THANK GOD WE NEVER ACKNOWLEDGED THAT. also no no no you write nathan as nathan i am just a poor imitation. you have both our boys downpat. OUR BOYS WHO LOVEE EACH OTHER STUPID sob sob sob
is it still my turn what next
yeah i'm rereading while alone in the office sue me
THAT TEXT CONVO WITH KLARA
HAHAHAHAHAHAH ;A;
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WOULD YOU BELIEVE I PLANNED IT THIS WAY
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NO
I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE!!!!!!!!