toabsolution | IC Inbox

Steve offers as friendly a smile as he can, stepping inside to set the thermos on the table. "So I guess... I mostly just came to say I'm sorry and that was probably just as weird for me as it was for you. I know it doesn't make us friends or anything, but - I have been through a lot of breaches, so if there's anything I can do..."

There probably isn't, but he still wants to offer.

"You can sit and share that with me," he tells him, gesturing to the thermos before sitting down. "Tell me who you really are."

He had only one interaction with him that he recalls, and it wasn't entirely unpleasant.

Steve nods, taking a seat without any further hesitation, smiling a little wryly at the question.

"Uh - only child. From New York. And that was not my first alien invasion, actually, although I'd at least had my, uh, growth spurt by the time I had to knock some aliens around where I'm from."

Hm. Seems to be a lot of that going around. He opens the thermos and pours a bit into the cup.

"What are your aliens like?"

Steve tilts his head, considering. "Tall, gray. Pretty ugly. Didn't talk much, but they had some pretty nasty laser guns. And hoverbikes. And... space whales? Never did figure out what those things were, but picture a whale - just flying. Carrying a whole lotta shock troops."

And, because Steve is Steve, he can't help but add, "And there's Loki. He's on the Barge. He's not big or gray, though. And he talks a lot."

"Uh huh." Most of that was unintelligible garbage, but he does know about aliens.

"Ours were green. Gray. Big. Had...this." He holds up the wrist with the gauntlet.

"Huh." Steve leans in, just a little, to get a closer look. Not that he expects it to look like anything he's seen, and it doesn't. "Did you steal that, or did they put that on you?"

He takes a drink and gives him a dark laugh. "Stole it after they took me. Has a punch like dynamite when it goes off."

Steve grins at that. "Sounds useful, then. Serves 'em right."

Seriously, though, "It'd be nice if they'd just leave us alone. We've got enough problems of our own, without the added mess."

He shrugs at that, adding a bit of whiskey to the coffee. He's been drunk since they got back; no use in breaking that streak.

"Would we leave them alone, if we were in their place?" he grumbles.

God, Steve misses getting drunk. It does make a lot of things easier - or at least less sharp-edged - to deal with.

He huffs a soft laugh at that, though; "I guess it depends on what we wanted. But maybe not," he has to admit. "I don't really believe that shit about the best defense being a good offense, though."

He takes a long drink. "My aliens were after gold. You don't think our kind would be after gold in another place if they had half a damn chance?"

He gestures to Steve. "Gold still valuable where you're from?"

"Far as I know, it is, yeah," Steve agrees, with a nod.

"Loki was just after power. We were just some backwater planet his army could snatch up easily - or so he thought."

His wry smile says it did not go as planned. Still, lusting after power is about as common as lusting after gold, so. Not much of a leg to stand on there.

"If there's one thing I've learned, people are usually just people. Even when they're from other planets. Or different times."

"Yeah. There ain't much to change," he points out. "With people anyway." He looks down at the table.

"This breach shit. How long before it goes away?" Because he does not want these feelings anymore, thanks.

Steve blows out a breath. "Hard to say. My memory's better than most, but even I lose some of it after a while."

Which isn't helpful, he knows, so he tries for a more concrete answer: "The feelings fade first. After that, it'll be something you remember, but a lot more objectively. Usually just in time for something else to go to shit, but that's the life you had no idea you signed up for around here."

"It's what I gotta do," he tells him. "I ain't here to...save anyone. Not the people here. I don't even know what that looks like. But if that means I figure it out and get what I want, then so be it."

"Well, that's the beauty of the system," Steve says, in a too-flat tone of voice that indicates severe dislike. "It doesn't matter why you came or what you want out of it. You'll either get it or not, but the odds on that will change by the day."

He hears that tone but he is very used to it, so it doesn't really faze him much. "Maybe you're right. But I...came on for what I came on for. And I'll get through whatever I can if it means those people don't end up like me."

He...may be a little too drunk to recall that he hasn't actually told Steve about that.

He has definitely not told Steve about that. But there's maybe enough there, even in the lack of context, for Steve to guess at something. He's been here a long time, after all. He's heard about all kinds of deals.

"I've seen him save entire worlds full of people," he says softly, of the Admiral. "And then I've seen him turn around and leave people he once promised a chance to by the wayside."

But even so, "I hope whatever you need, you get. But you keep in mind that you're not the one who's gotta get through it."

He's not quite selfless enough for that last part to sink in properly, but he does raise his head at the second.

"What do you mean? Leave 'em by the wayside?"

Steve hums, mouth twisting into a frown. "People disappear off the ship as readily as they come aboard. No warning, not because they want to - hell, I disappeared right in the middle of a conversation, once. If an inmate disappears that way, they're dead to the Admiral. You ask for a deal to save them, or even just bring them back for another chance, he won't even agree to it. He can save whole planets of people, but one person that he decides isn't worth it, he won't do it."

Jake frowns. That sort of casual cruelty doesn't really sit right with him, though it wars with the part of him that really doesn't care much for people he isn't invested in.

"You sure it's out of spite? He ain't a god."

Steve has to shake his head. "I don't know what it is. Trying to get a straight answer out of him is like trying to get sense out of a drunkard. I just know what I've seen, and I don't like it. If he wanted me to sympathize, he could do to tell me the truth."

But until such time as Steve gets real answers, he's not inclined to feel sorry for the guy.

"All I'm saying is, I had a hard time working for the guy. So I made my choice. I can't make it sit right or wrong with anyone else." He's learned that, to be sure. "But if you can stick around, against whatever sends people away or knocks them loose, then you don't have to worry about getting your deal."

Maybe just about whether it's a deal you need or not, but that's another argument he's stopped trying to have.

Jake laughs at that. "Want you to sympathize. That kinda man don't care about you or any of us. He's probably got somethin' else goin' on. Checkin' off a list."

He doesn't quite have his footing here yet and he's not quite sure when that might happen, or even if it will, but he is starting to figure out a few things here and there about the place. Not all of them are nice things, either.

"You don't seem like much of the inmate type," Jake says. In fact, he's pretty sure that he's probably robbed a guy like Steve before.

Steve makes a noise that's clear agreement; whatever the Admiral wants, he's clearly not all that fussed about his passengers and how they feel about him. As long as none of them rebel, at least. "He's on the run from someone up the chain from him, I know that much. We're just along for the ride."

Of course, the next point makes him huff out a soft laugh. "No? I can cave a guy's face in with one really good punch."

He's pretty sure that's not what Jake's talking about.

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