002; elevator of forced honesty

[memefox]

elevator of forced honesty

» POST: a top level for your character(s) » RESPOND: to other characters ICly. your characters are now trapped in an elevator together. » UH OH: neither character can lie. » ADDITIONAL, OPTIONAL COMPLICATIONS: at player discretion characters may also... a. be unable to remain silent when asked questions b. be unable to speak around the truth when answering c. be compelled to reveal truths/secrets unprompted THE POWER OF THE ELEVATOR COMPELS YOU.

Comments

[wingedman]

I feel like there's a good joke about being high in here somewhere.

But it's got more to do with having to claw my way back up from rock bottom after Afghanistan. Learning to be calm 'cause that's what you have to do in order to be a functioning person again.

And when you have a job like mine, you gotta be able to project calm. You just fake it till you make it.

[buildsomething]

Bruce is the one with the weed, I can tell the difference.

And I know something about faking it and rock bottom, and I sure as hell don't have your chill.

[wingedman]

Wings joke, Stark, not pot joke. -Well, okay, it's both.

I'm not doubting that. But unlike you, I'm assuming, I spent a whole damn lot of time in therapy, learning actual coping mechanisms to deal with my trauma.

[...which sounds harsher than he means it to, honestly. He understands that not many therapists would be equipped to handle what any of the Avengers have been through.]

[buildsomething]

I talked to someone.

[Okay, that someone was Bruce, who slept through it all, but still.]

I just don't see the point in wasting my time and someone else's talking about things they couldn't understand.

[wingedman]

You aren't totally wrong about that. Doesn't mean your time would be wasted if you talked about your life before you became a superhero. You got issues on top of issues like some goddamn Jenga tower - I don't know what they are, but it's pretty obvious they're there. Everything with the Accords was someone pulling a block out of the tower and fucking up real bad.

[buildsomething]

My issues are all front and center. Poor little rich boy. Not worth the consultation fee.

[There's a pause and along exhale.]

I wondered if you were going to ask about that.

[wingedman]

Oh, come on, you could send someone's kid to an Ivy League school from the billing hours on those three sentences. Especially the self-loathing. Therapy isn't just talking, it's learning how to work through your problems and correct the thinking patterns that have you stuck in a rut.

Hard not to talk about the elephant in the room, isn't it? You get a bit of distance from it, a bit of hindsight, and it's easy to see you and Steve got played like fools, and the rest of us just followed along like sheep.

[buildsomething]

If I was stuck in a rut, I'd still be drinking myself blind on a regular basis.

And obviously. But it would have been an issue even without Zemo's helpful string pulling.

[wingedman]

You solved one problem. Doesn't mean the rest aren't still there.

Ross exploited you, too. You're right that it would've still been an issue, but it was like a perfect goddamn storm. One of those things that happened because all the conditions were just right. If things had been different, we might've all shouted at each other, might've still gone our separate ways, but it wouldn't have ended the way it did.

-I'm not trying to pin everything on you, either. Steve got pushed over the edge, too.

[buildsomething]

Ross was the tip of the iceberg. If it wasn't him, it would have been something else. Shit like the Accords has been in the works since the portal opened up over Midtown.

This was always going to come. My failure was thinking we had more time to work with it. And that people would have been willing to hear me out long enough to do it.

[wingedman]

The Accords were shit. That's not your fault, either. Like you said, having more time to work with it would've changed things, might've come up with something that wasn't as shitty. But the way Ross put it was either sign it or not. No compromise. They caught us with our pants down, broke us apart, and bam.

[buildsomething]

They weren't shit. They were unstable and untenable in a lot of places, but we could have made it something worthwhile.

[wingedman]

They were written by fearmongering assholes who wanted to treat us like criminals and politicize the Avengers by turning control over to the UN Security Council. They should've given us a say in it from the start if they ever wanted us to agree to a damn thing.

[buildsomething]

They were written by people who are afraid, Sam. Afraid of us. And for good goddamn reason. The amount of damage we can do, have done, is insane.

Making us take responsibility for that is not treating us like criminals.

[wingedman]

[And since it's the elevator of honesty, Sam finds himself saying:] Not as insane as it would've been if we hadn't stopped the other guys.

I'm not saying we shouldn't take responsibility for our actions. I'm saying the way they wanted to go about doing it was wrong, and I'm saying that knowing I could've just hung up my wings and washed my hands of the whole argument. But I didn't, because doing things like limiting our travel and making us register is exactly like treating us like criminals. Because talking about Thor and Bruce and Wanda like they're inanimate objects and not people is bullshit. Yes, they have incredible destructive power, but they're still people. You don't point them and press a button.

[buildsomething]

You think I don't know that?

Look, I'm not saying it was perfect, or even good. It was a carrot. A chance for us to work with it and make it into something we could all get behind. Ross was an asshole, but he wasn't the top of the ladder.

Next was going to come the stick, and believe me when I say nobody would enjoy that.

[wingedman]

Who the hell do you think is gonna sign something they had no input on and not even a hint of being able to change in the future? That's just stupid. You're basically painting a stick orange and saying it's a carrot. A hundred and whatever countries agreed to it as-is. They weren't gonna change it after we signed over all our goddamn rights just because we didn't like it.

[buildsomething]

It's the UN. Even if everyone signed it, it would probably still take ten years for the thing to go into effect. When it was presented specifically with the idea that it could and would be renegotiated afterwards. Which I told you.

[wingedman]

Uh-huh, and who told you that? I'm guessing it was Ross, trying to get you to play along with him.

[buildsomething]

Ross didn't need me to play along, he was going to do whatever he felt like. And considering I just barely managed to keep him from shooting all of you, I'm not sure why you think we're best friends.

[wingedman]

I don't think that, I think he had his hand shoved so far up your ass he could tickle your tonsils.

[buildsomething]

Better me than anyone else.

[wingedman]

And why's that?

[buildsomething]

Like I said, this was inevitable. And I play politics best of the lot of us. So.