Scour

[in_extremis]

WHO: Tony and anyone who wants to suffer
WHERE: The forge, Temba
WHAT: Tony's finally back from Not-Temba, and doing some housekeeping
WHEN: Mid-august
WARNINGS: It's a Tony post. It's safe so far, but watch your step.


The forge was rarely quiet.

Even in Tony's absence, the place hadn't been entirely empty; he could see traces of Catra's visits in the little messes she had left around, like he might not notice among the mess he had left behind himself. The D.A.T.A. unit struggling to manage its awkward limbs, still under development, followed Tony from its watchful crouch at the top of the door to display exactly how useless it had been in trying to pick up after either of them in the meantime, kicking a bolt across the floor in an effort to grasp it and stumbling like a baby deer after it. Tony sighed as he watched it slip on the rotting skin of some fruit that some trespasser had been eating from the meagre store he kept at the back of the room. At least it hadn't gone to waste. Evidently, there wasn't going to be any relaxing done here until someone cleaned this place up.

It was a large building, but the space inside was dominated by the furnace that Tony coaxed back from its constant, low smoldering to a hungry crackle that belched sparks and thick plumes of colourful smoke from the chimney high above him as he tossed garbage and glitter into it alike to clear the floor. Circling around behind the fire was a shivering, metal staircase that led up to a series of catwalks overhead, where Tony had to balanced to try to knock the fur from the beams and walkways where Catra liked to lounge the most, and scare the spiders out of their cobwebs and try to bat them directly into the flames with his broom. Beneath him, the worst of the dirt fell to coat his workbench, making him roll his eyes as he bent to peer over the railing. The bench sat in the path directly from the door, facing the fire, equal parts wood and metal bolted to the floor and then built up in a scaffold that reached all the way to the catwalk above where its weight looked like it might threaten to drag the whole thing down. It was laden with works under construction; more D.A.T.A. units, a handheld vacuum, a bronze ape's skeleton, a myriad of gloves, boots and chestpieces, and buckets full of heart-shaped glitter. Closest to the bench were places for Tony to hang his larger tools, that he had to scavenge around his own shop to find, dust and replace. In between all of these pieces were rare scraps of paper, pinned between the tools and crafts without obvious reason; a treasure map, a drawing that looked like someone was trying an impression of the still in the Deep End, a love letter with a three-eyed smiley face. There wasn't any other paper to be found in the forge; drawers and baskets under the bench were full of nails and wires, broken glass, and what looked kind of like the Mandalorian's helmet. Behind the workbench hung bodies.

From the catwalk above and braced by loops of wiring, some glowing faintly and others trembling at too much movement like they were on the verge of falling apart, suits of armor in various configurations hung for access. Most were decapitated in some way, arms and legs hanging separately, and some pieces appearing entirely alien to the man that most of them were meant to fit. With an irritable instruction, the D.A.T.A. unit clambered up among the wires to begin releasing some to clatter riotously to the stone floor, a crashing and racket that continued as Tony hauled the dark curtains the made up most of his bedding outside to shake out in the fresh air. It wasn't much more organized out here, but there were more wires looping from a window around the back of the forge to another bench that had been set up in among the larger pieces of scrap Tony had claimed and left languishing in the grass until they were needed. He hung these linens over the wires, shooing away a brightly coloured parrot that squawked a complaint, and gladly returned to settle comfortably on the fabric as Tony went skulking back inside. There was a bucket of black water sitting still next to where he hammered by the fire to cool the metal, and he kicked that across the floor to start sweeping the water and the grime it picked up with it out the door. A glint of gold caught his eye at the edge of the sunlight, stalling his energetic sweep to pluck the chain up out of the dirty swill and consider it thoughtfully in his palm before he was throwing it carelessly onto the workbench and retreating with a decisive slam into the small bathroom at the back of the forge.

The D.A.T.A. unit obediently pushed one of the discarded armor pieces across the slick floor, struggling to balance and shove it up the low wall with a scrabbling of delicate legs, and fell back triumphantly as it tipped the armor over into the mouth of the forge and greedy lick of the flames. For a moment, the fire sputtered, with a crackle of bright sparks as the D.A.T.A. unit toddled to its feet again.

In a deep, rumbling boom that made the stones on the dirt road outside skip, a great, black plume poured out of the forge's chimney. Inside, the D.A.T.A unit was thrown back against the wall, and the room was coated with sizzling soot and flecks of orange embers.

Comments

[out_of_order]

"Looks like someone's home," a certain red-haired padawan suggested to the little droid who clung to the harness he wore. They were just a short ways from the forge when that great puff of smoke was belched from the building. It wasn't too much longer before Cal and BD-1 reached the establishment, with the latter hopping down to go and scan the bird who was settled just outside.

"Tony?" Cal called as he set foot inside.

[in_extremis]

There may have been a small fire. Not the one that was contained in the furnace, though that one was looking slightly green like it was still nauseous and not quite done with its emissions, but a crackle climbing its way across Tony's workbench that Tony had to abruptly disengage with at the sound of the unexpected visitor. He gave a start and froze, holding a rag in both hands that he had been trying to beat the flames out with, his dripping hair under a stained towel and wrapped hastily in his black robe, leaving his feet thoroughly stained up to the ankle with the soot that had been expelled across the workshop floor. "Calculus," he greeted lightly.

[out_of_order]

BD-1 came scrambling inside, flustered squawks sounding from outside from a bird who had apparently resented having light flashed at it. The little droid immediately forgot any trouble he'd almost gotten himself into in favor of exploring the wonderland of a calculated mess that sprawled out around him. Cal gave him a faint smirk before looking over to where Tony had appeared.

"Hey," he said, offering a wave. "We...catch you in the middle of something?" he asked as he stepped over some part or another that was lying across his path, glancing at the remains of the fire Tony had been assaulting.

[in_extremis]

At first, Tony went, "Ah...," looking to the smoldering fire that seemed to have settled into a greasy stain on the bench, flickering with contentment. "This? No, just a little experiment. Have you heard of this thing called 'fire'? Not sure how useful it is yet." He dropped the rag he was doing battle with on top of the spark, hoping to smother it for good.

Closer to the door, one of the scattered armor pieces toppled away from the wall, letting the smudged and battered D.A.T.A. unit sag out from under it with its spindly legs splayed flat, throwing sparks of their own, on the ground. Behind BD-1, the bird came hopping curiously into the doorway, casting a long shadow into the room that it cocked its head at, then chirped a laugh at the bobble of its own feather cast along the ground.

[on_repeat]

The original plan was to just keep walking.

Unfortunately, it was hard to ignore the boom and the subsequent blanket of black smoke that filled the air above and around the forge. That obviously wasn't a good sign and the ARC Trooper couldn't leave it well enough alone because it wouldn't be right to leave it as it was, especially if they might have gotten injured in the explosion.

So in stepped Echo, trailing smoke where it hadn't dissipated as he did a quick scan of the soot-covered, ember-ridden room.

"Everything alright in here?"

[in_extremis]

There came a pathetic whirring from Echo's right, among the dark lumps of soot-stained armor, that petered out sadly as Tony barked from across the room, "Don't you try to appeal to him, you're still grounded." He appeared from behind the furnace, clearly harassed with his hair spiked erratically and just tugging on a shirt that he clearly got from an unscrupulous vendor at the fringes of a market on Corcuscant, printed messily with suspicious flowers and randomly in tiny Basic, 'INTERNATIONALLY'. "We're fine. Just learning some hard lessons," he said.

[on_repeat]

He wasn't exactly sure where to begin, squinting as things gradually became clearer. The whirring caught his attention first, and he made his way over to it despite Tony's sudden scolding.

The shirt was briefly given a second look, shaking his head slightly as he tried to clear away some of the mess. "Does every lesson end like this?"

[noch]

Merrin has been to the area around Tony's forge, when she was still acquainting herself with the city, but she's never actually been inside it, if only because she never really had cause to before.

Now she has cause, though there's a small part of her that feels... uncertain about asking for help from Tony Stark. He managed to endear himself to her, despite everything, but that doesn't mean that she either knows or understands him well. (Yet?) Her impression of him is as... a very strange man.

But Cal had mentioned that he often tinkered on things with Tony Stark, and she has something that needs tinkering that she can't go to Cal with. So here she is, poking around his forge while she looks for the man—not that she's trying particularly hard to find him, since she's busy examining the myriad objects on the workbench, not caring at all that this makes her a very nosy houseguest.

[in_extremis]

Traces of the small explosion problem remained in scorch marks across the workbench and greasy stains on the floor, but it had largely been controlled with the exception of the D.A.T.A. unit autopsied on the bench. Its legs weren't exactly designed to take a blast like that, and most of them had to be completely rebuilt, so they were arrayed across the surface in various states of damage, twisted metal and exposed wires. The D.A.T.A., its body open to expose the joints and configure new connections, still rolled its watchful eye toward Merrin and gave a forlorn whir.

They weren't alone for long before the door was opening, only for Tony to pause there in the frame, eyebrows raised and hand slowly raising to point to Merrin like he had found her. While it had become unavoidably more likely for people to drop by, that didn't make Tony any better prepared to actually see them in his space, so he went slinking around the room when he unstuck himself from the door giving Merrin plenty of room while keeping a watchful eye on her. "Do you know where my pliers went?" he greeted. Maybe this wasn't the first time she had been looking around.

[noch]

Ah, poor droid. Her Binary is still very rudimentary, but she can still recognize a forlorn whir for what it is. "If he does not fix you well, then I will take you to Cal," she informs it, which is a very generous offer coming from her.

Then the door opens, and she turns toward the noise, unsurprised by who she finds in the threshold—it is his forge, after all. Also unsurprising is the very wide berth that he gives her—it almost reminds her of the Mantis' small captain. After she joined the crew, Greez had spent weeks making himself as scarce as possible around her. It was quite a feat for such a small ship.

Either way, it doesn't bother her at all. "I do not," she answers bluntly. In fact, while she could probably pick out a pair of pliers if she tried, she wouldn't be that certain about it. "They have left you?"

Young Man How Can You Live Like This?

[stitch_witch]

She had heard of this place, from Moonshade. A man who served as a smith of sorts, and that meant that she would be able to finally get her hands on some useful tools. Lark had thought perhaps the name almost sounded familiar, then dismissed it. That was silly.

And yet there she was, showing up and being left to frown at the state of the forge. Frostpine would never allow his space to get this bad. Lark, a cleanly woman as it was, tutted at the state of the place. It was horrible. She considered it for a moment and immediately turned around and walked out.

She returned an hour later, with the broom she had made for her own space, some rags made from scrap fabric from resizing clothes, and a bucket of clean water, not to mention replicated soap.

This place needed cleaned. And since she wasn't willing to start near the back of the place, where there were so many strange things, she instead produced a twig and dried grass hand broom she had made for dusting and started to carefully clean around the doorway, keeping well away from the moving D.A.T.A. It made her nervous.

(*/ω＼*)

[in_extremis]

It has been a while, and some things had changed, but Tony was not willing to believe that he had been gone long enough for other people to start making themselves at home in this space. He barely felt ownership enough to clean the place until now, so he went very still in shock when this unexpected woman appeared, apparently armed, and started...dusting. Between Lark's first appearance and her return, Tony had dragged himself back into the forge with a basket of pickles and flatbreads that he hoped would last him without wilting to death on his shelf, and immediately forgotten them to drop face first into the careless mound of curtains that was the softest surface in the room. There were bugs to squash in the parts of the armor that had made the trip to the other city with him and had been nagging at him the whole time without an easy connection to Extremis to handle them, so it would be nice to finally deal with that as he slowly suffocated...

The sound of the door had him turning his head, only to stare as this woman set down a bucket and broom. It took several long seconds of this staring before he was sure he recognized something in the slope of her shoulders, until she went up on her toes to reach and he realized, "Lark?"

[stitch_witch]

So messy. Oh it was a good thing Frostpine wasn't here. Not just because he would become VERY caught up in the armor she caught sight of. No, his horror and ranting was something she could imagine as she hummed to herself and dusted. Or she hummed to herself until Tony spoke up.

Recognized? Ah, she appreciated being recognized, because it meant she could no doubt ask for a favor more easily if he knew who she was.

She turned to Tony's voice and offered a smile to him, warm and welcoming.

"Who else would I be? My what a mess you have here, Tony," she said. The name had been one given to her by Moonshade, so she was able to react to him, to know who he must be. The name had been vaguely familiar too, from her time in the spell. A name Ikora had seemed impressed that Lark had in her 'cell phone'. So he was real.

[silenziobruno]

There was a dragon in the building.

That seemed like the most plausible explanation given the noise, the heat and the smoke coming from the place.

After Kaz's advice, Alberto had come looking for a man named Tony Stark, to ask for a favor and offer something in return. He might not know many things about the human world, but he was aware that, back in Portorrosso, money got you things you might need, so it must be the same in Temba. Arguably, he also knew that loud explosions were never a good sign, and It would be wise to come back later (or never). But he had never seen a real dragon before and wise people rarely did anything fun. So into the Forge he went.

Alberto was carrying a couple of crystal rods, some seashells and a few minerals in a messenger bag he had scavenged, now hanging from his arm. He held onto the strap as he peered inside for two seconds before walking in. If the dragon turned out to be mean, he could always throw one of the crystals at it. Dragons liked shiny things, right? Right. Infallible plan.

The poor D.A.T.A unit, or Tony himself if he stepped out of the bathroom, might notice a new young visitor. It was a kid around 13 or 14 years old, with brown and very curly hair, freckled tan skin, a scar on his upper left arm, and green eyes that were squinting a little because of all the soot and dust in the room. He was wearing a threadbare yellow tank top, brown shorts help in place by a piece of rope, the aforementioned messenger bag, and no shoes. Kaz had already pointed out that Alberto should get himself a pair of those, given the amount of debris scattered all around the city, but it was difficult to find small ones in his size. Besides, he wasn't fond of them in the first place, as swimming with shoes on was uncomfortable and next to impossible for a sea monster. His feet were a different shape when wet. Now, however, he wished he had them because the forge was covered with a bit of everything, from dust to pieces of scrap metal and pointy debris.

It took Alberto a few seconds to take in everything, there were just so many new and cool things in the room, maybe even some of them on fire, that he didn't know what to focus on at first. He definitely let out a loud "Woah!" at the ganging 'bodies', looking alarmed for the first time. The suit armors reminded Alberto far too much of his friend Cayde, and they looked like some crazy psycho had been butchering and disemboweling Exos. On second thought, whatever was going on here, and no matter how smart and useful that Tony person might be, maybe this wasn't a safe place for non-humans to be.

Alberto was about to leave, ponder if needing a Vespa to move around the city was worth coming back some other day and risk being impaled by something sharp when the view of the knocked down D.A.T.A unit caught his eye. He didn't know what (or Who?), it was, but it looked hurt to him and Alberto rushed to its side to try and help it up.

"Ey! Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

[in_extremis]

It had been struggling to find its footing on broken legs, and with a soot-covered eye that made navigating particularly difficult, so when the stranger that it couldn't see approached very suddenly and very loudly, it startled and collapsed back down into the mess it had made. This was a mournful position for something that was supposed to be a watcher, first and foremost.

That was about when Tony peeked out of the bathroom, a slow movement in the smokey haze of the forge, and Alberto lost his chance to escape with his life. With a flash of metal catching the sunlight from the open door, something came stalking toward Alberto and the tortured robot through the dust; something tall, and covered in gold, and growling, "What did you do?" Alberto was going to have to move fast if he didn't want to get snatched up off of the ground.

[silenziobruno]

No good deed goes unpunished, as they say. Alberto should have gone with his first instinct to flee the scene when there was still time. He takes a step back when the D.A.T.A unit flails around a bit like a turtle on its back, but before he can say or do anything, Tony steps out of the bathroom like a metal demon catwalking through the gates of hell.

Alberto could be surprisingly fast when he was startled, actually, because he had learned through painful experiences that it was the only way to save his skin. However, with the ground of the Forge covered in debris, the soot and smoke making it difficult to tell what way was out, he didn't manage to move of the way in time. So yup, the scary-looking... Exo? Metal-dragon-humanoid?... The thing managed to grab him without much difficulty. He was not that heavy, anyway, but he sure was loud. Alberto let out a startled SCREECH when he felt someone lift him and his feet no longer make contact with the ground.

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" There was a lot of flailing, and the kid was all long limbs. Tony better had a good hold onto something that was not Alberto's old tank top because that was bound to rip, or he was going to be slapped in the head by a messenger bag.

[fatedsacrifice]

Noctis only heard about the master sword makers in Lucis. So when he heard things while standing still among chatty people (old habits and all that) he then moved towards the indicated direction of the forge. Lifting his dark blue eyes to the sky, he spotted the black plume of smoke and kept heading towards it.

Of course the king knew to be careful and all that, but still he couldn't help but feel a little giddy at being able to see sights he'd been pretty much sequestered away from all his life. His own weapons were summoned and he had two ancestral crystalline weapons on him in his Armiger. But being able to see someone who could forge things was just priceless.

Gladio would fanboy in his own way if he was here.

So he headed in and saw the man working. And all around was metal and odds and ends he couldn't put a name too. But he tried to make enough noise to be heard. "Do you..own all of this stuff?"

[in_extremis]

The D.A.T.A. unit that was perched on the edge of the workbench, its broken legs dangling uselessly, was so excited to get to do its job again at the appearance of this stranger that the move it made to train its camera on the new man sent it toppling right off of the bench and bouncing across the floor. Not that the sound stood out much in the forge; Tony was trying to gather the armor pieces that had been released to the ground and needed to be hosed down now before he could properly salvage them, and tossing them erratically into piles or buckets standing by with crashes and clangs that stopped suddenly as he jumped at the sound of the unexpected voice. Most of the worst of the explosion had been swept away, but he was still standing in a silk robe with blackened hands and feet from the fallout, holding a boot in two parts between his hands and did not feel prepared for company. Especially not company that led with what felt like something of a philosophical question, making him glance around at the scrap and salvage in the building he was squatting in before he answered, "Sometimes." Gesturing with the smudged armor he still carried, he asked, "Why, you a cop?"

[fatedsacrifice]

Noctis had wondered why something seemed to come crashing down when he came close but it didn't seem harmful. At least he hoped it wasn't at any rate. Anything here could be considered dangerous up to and including the man himself that was here. And it did almost felt as if he was invading someone's private space though it hadn't been intended that way at all.

The 'sometimes' answer he got puzzled him and then the question that got asked only served to further his confusion. "A cop? Uh..no." While he wouldn't reveal what he was in his own world, it was definitely a was, a past tense. As Iggy had said royal rank carried little weight outside the Crown City. And he was nowhere near that anyway.

He had watched as the armor had gotten tossed around and thought that in the right hands, this could be remade into suitable armor. But then again he figured the man disassembling it would be considered the 'right hands'. "I saw the smoke and wondered if everything was okay."

Old habits.

[heeeyadora]

The smell of the smoke still in the air stung Catra's nose, and she squinted at the forge with an anxious frown, all ready shifting to a defiant look.

As far as she knew she was the only one poking around in the forge while Tony was gone, but when she'd left the place hadn't been on fire! Any more than usual at least.

She tried to skulk inside and see what she could do to erase the evidence before Stark returned.

[in_extremis]

The furnace was flickering with a sickly green tinge, smoking heavily enough that it was still flooding the room with the chimney choked with the soot of the explosion that had left the space from the mouth of the fire, across the heavy anvil where embers still glowed eagerly, to the wall formed by the workbench. The armour hanging from the catwalk still swayed slightly, occasionally bumping into each other and perpetuating the rhythm started by the blast and slowing the progress to their eventual standstill. No one seemed to be on the walkway above them, and the door at the back of the room stood open. From there, leading through the debris of the blast then tracking the soot across the floor to meet Catra at the front door, were footprints.

[heeeyadora]

Her eyes burned, and Catra tried to ignore both that and the rising fear in her chest that she'd be in trouble if Tony found out she'd played a part in this. Not that Tony had ever lashed out at her in any way like Shadow Weaver. Besides which she wasn't afraid of Shadow Weaver any more.

She huffed and tried to shove those feelings aside, squinting curiously at the footprints. Maybe this really wasn't her fault?

She bent to sniff at them, trying to catch a scent over all the putrid ash and smoke.

Have a very late tag in!

[beholding_archivist]

Jon may not be the first to arrive at the forge, but he hasn't missed the noise and the smoke has been quite visible from the library. And yet he only gets to actually see the cloud once he steps out of said library - Having been down in the basement had dampened the boom to a dull, distant rumble that hardly justified the dark cloud of smoke.

Somehow he isn't too surprised despite the concern he feels. A concern that decides to persist even as Jon just knows that Tony is alright. Tony had to be alright.

By the time he reaches the forge, the worst of the smoke has cleared out, and yet Jon still grimaces at the smell and peers around cautiously before actually calling out. "Tony?"

[in_extremis]

The only thing Tony wanted was for everything to be clean for once, and what he got for it was an explosion, a black eye, the horrible task of sweeping the chimney before it got any worse, and the opportunity to mop the whole place down all over again. He thought, perhaps unduly, that he had earned a minute to himself to finally have this shave, and he had only been sitting in the steam of the shower-warmed bathroom for what he thought was ten seconds when something else had to happen.

"What?" he called back sharply, in a tone that suggested this had better be a matter of life or death, before he was flinging the bathroom door open once again. His impatient frown softened with some surprise as he spotted Jon and went, "Oh," then he let his shoulders drop, though the wave he gave to invite Jon in definitely still looked impatient. It wasn't someone else here to throw something at him, anyway. "You ready to go back already?" he guessed. Roughing it had somehow been easier than this day, so Tony was very open to the idea. "Great, let's not tell anybody, maybe if we grab the replicator real quick no one will notice."

[beholding_archivist]

Tony's initial tone catches Jon by surprise and he opens his mouth to reply in an equally sharp tone, but then decides against it at the sight of Tony's realization.

A little scowl remains on his face, however, and he looks away from Tony to cast a demonstrative look around the state of the forge. He then shakes his head and steps closer with a sigh. "No, I don't want to head right back. Believe it or not, I wouldn't mind a moment to just- uh..." He pauses there, having stopped halfway on his way to Tony to shrug. So he turns his attention back to the state of the forge. "Whatever happened here, I heard it in my basement, Tony." Another pause and Jon takes two steps to the side to pick up what he assumes to be- A boot? Part of a boot of one of Tony's armors?

"Let's clean this up. I brought coffee and something to eat as well."