Logs:The Burning House

The Burning House
Dramatis Personae Bruce, DJ, Steve, Tony
In Absentia	2020-12-04 "Amazing what you can sell yourself. Repeat it often enough." (Part of Rift TP.)
Location <NYC> Guest Apartment - Stark Tower - Midtown East
There aren't apartments for rent at Stark Tower -- you certainly wouldn't find these spaces advertised with any realtors -- but there are apartments here all the same, one vast sweeping floor of lavishly furnished spaces often used to house visiting C-levels from other branches, guest researchers or government functionaries of note, particular personal guests of Stark himself. At the moment one of the smaller of those apartments has been occupied by a visitor from much farther afield. The quietly stepped-up surveillance of the place by discreet S.H.I.E.L.D. agents trying haplessly to keep an eye on the teleporter, that doesn't usually come standard with the furniture, it's just a DJ special. Stark doesn't quite seem to know what to feed an extradimensional visitor and so, in the wake of a Very Long Day of poking somewhat futilely at the rift, he's ordered -- or, well, he's enjoined on Pepper to order -- what looks like enough of a feast to feed several DJs. The recently-delivered assortment of Chinese takeout is bumping up against Thai, Mexican, sushi, and two large pizzas -- these last, Tony is just bringing in himself to set down on the overcrowded kitchen counter. He eyes the pizza boxes skeptically almost as soon as he's set them down. "-- Wait. Do mutants eat pizza?" Steve is sitting at the glass and steel dining table, the faintest exhausted slump in his broad shoulders telling on too many too-long days at the rift site. He's still in his tactical uniform of red, white, but mostly blue, silver star on the chest echoing the star-in-concentric stripes design of the iconic shield slung on the back of his chair. He has been gamely shoveling fried rice into his mouth (a small stack of empty containers in front of him already) but now stops mid-motion to stare at Tony. It's a beat before he remembers to chew and swallow. "What the heck -- why would you ask that, it's ludicrous!" "Sorry, what?" DJ -- still in his jeans and flannel and boots from the day before -- is just returning from the bathroom when this question comes. He stops by the farther end of the kitchen counter, staring blankly down its food-covered length at Tony. It takes a minute before he blips to the other side of t he counter, grabs himself a glass so he can get some water. "It's a little eerie how much like him you are. He was --" He stutters on this a second, but doesn't correct himself, "-- kind of ridiculous, too." "Tony." Bruce has just fixed himself a bowl of basil eggplant, chopsticks poised in one hand. He's dressed in a slate gray button-down and black slacks with comfortable black penny loafers, and furnished with another pair of identical thick black-rimmed glasses from the ever replenishing stash he keeps. "I'm vegan, it's got nothing to do with being a mutant." He's sitting sidewise, turned to face the two men in the kitchen now, a tablet on the table before him projecting a dataset that he's not altogether ceased working on since they left the rift. His eyes dart to DJ. "'Was'?" he echoes, curious yet hesitant. "Never seen a mutant eating pizza." Tony is eating pizza, though. He plucks a slice from the box, setting it on a paper towel as he goes to drop into a chair at the table. "Was?" It's nearly in time with Bruce, though far less hesitant, his brows lifting. "Still there. Probably still ridiculous. Unless something's changed in the forty minutes since we left Staten Island." Steve looks a little distant for just a moment, eyes narrowed at nothing in particular. "Mutants eat pizza," he finally confirms, with a faint note of sheepish incredulity. "Even the ones who are vegan, sometimes. How many mutants have you seen eat at all, other than Bruce?" His eyes flick to Dawson, then away again, back to the meal he has ceased eating. "Can't imagine you've had too much opportunity to observe him up close lately." He finally sets the carton down and looks at Dawson again. "Though I suppose he's probably been ridiculous enough for the media." The twitch of DJ's side is small, but enough to set his empty sleeve to swaying. "Seen him close enough. Sorry -- no. I know he's still alive, I just." His jaw tightens, then eases as he takes a sip of his water. "Used to be friends. Been a while, though." Bruce's eyebrows lift behind his glasses, and he sets his chopsticks down after having only taken a single bite of his food. "You were friends." It's not a question, not even particularly startled, at least not in tone. "How could he..." His brows gather deeply. "Not that it would have been alright if he didn't have--mutant friends." He's looking at Tony now. Kind of softly, "I guess he wasn't very inclined to listen to your point of view." "Jaws." Tony is holding his hand up about -- waist height for this answer. "Guess the ah, whole, hunting all your people down. Kind of. Puts a rift in that friendship huh?" Tony is getting a bottle of soda. Cracking it open to go with the pizza. He tips the neck of it toward Bruce. "What? It's easy. Government cuts you a check. Few billion. Takes the sting out." His head tips, one side then the other. His eyes flick to DJ's empty sleeve. "For a while." "Has," Steve corrects, glancing at Bruce. "The other Bruce Banner is still friends with him, far as I can tell. Which is -- not far, since he scurries away every time he sees me." He pokes at his food again, more thoughtfully than hungrily now. "I somehow doubt he was hurting for money before that contract. What's a few billion dollars to Tony Stark?" "Yeah. Not really an agree to disagree kind of situation." DJ's eyes drop to his water glass, and he sinks down against the counter, resting his elbow on it. "I don't know if it was the money. I think it was -- a lot of things. For a while he did just want to help. We all did. But things were getting really bloody, and the government kept pushing, and after Steve died --" His jaw clenches again. "My Steve. I mean. Kind of an understatement to say he took it hard." Bruce's eyes go a little wide. "Still," he echoes flatly. "Probably most people like to think they'd be strong, but when the chips are down..." He looks to DJ. "...only some are." He scrubs at his five o'clock shadow with the backs of his knuckles. "A single death to turn the tide of history -- isn't all that uncommon, I guess, from certain perspectives. Or a single life." "Bloody." Tony has set his pizza down, half-finished. "Well, what hasn't been. Probably tells himself he's doing some good. Keeping the peace. Spill some blood to prevent how much more. Make some money in the process. What's more American than that?" His mouth twitches, small. His hand rubs at his chest absently, then lowers. "Amazing what you can sell yourself. Repeat it often enough." Steve's eyes flick sharply to Tony. Then drop to the polished tabletop. "Maybe a bit less amazing when the government, the economy, and for that matter society are for the most part selling the same thing," he adds quietly. "Doesn't excuse him. Neither does grief." DJ doesn't answer, first. His jaw tightens. His hand tightens. His nostrils flare, breaths coming harder as he stares down into his water. "I'm sure he does," he says finally. "Been plenty of times I've wondered if things would have turned out differently if I'd stuck around more. Not that wondering's going to get us anywhere. Just -- been a long few years. And this --" He nods toward the men sitting at the table. "Is kind of. Surreal as heck." Bruce shifts in his seat, straightens his chopsticks where they lie neatly across the edge of his bowl, then shifts again. "It's hard to lead a man out who doesn't think he's lost, and harder still when the house is on fire all the while." The last part is softer, distant. He pulls the glasses from his face and cleans the lenses absently with a handkerchief drawn from his pocket. "I think it is just a different kind of surreal, for us." "The arm thing is uncanny." Tony is looking up abruptly to say this, waggling his soda bottle in DJ's direction, "-- little inconvenient, too. Gonna have to make some adjustments to -- know what. Maybe later." He picks up his pizza again. "Not an excuse." The bite he takes seems to have no diminished appetite now, at least. "Want to fix your code, gotta debug it first."