revivalproject

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Scour

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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?"

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?"

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.

As though this wasn't a very convincing answer and Tony had any reason to be concerned about being policed, he nodded slowly with a suspicious squint and pointed with the boot at this man once more to indicate that he was being watched, before throwing both of the pieces he carried into the bucket with another crash.

"Always," Tony assured the good samaritan. He was going to have to decide how true that was for himself as Tony wiped his hands down on his clothes enough to approach with an offered handshake. "Just doing some redecorating, you know how it is, sometimes you gotta go big. Welcome to the neighbourhood." Tony had to assume a welcome was in order, anyway, because the smoke wasn't that strange. Unfortunately.

Noctis had no idea why this guy seemed so guarded but it was a good idea considering the two men didn't know each other. But he took the offered handshake because that was a good sign in the king's eyes. That took effort and a small amount of trust that the man unknown to him was a sort of good person at the very least.

So of course he had to reciprocate in kind.

"Noctis, nice to meet you." And he meant that of course as he took his hand away afterwards.

He tried a small smile about being in the neighbourhood so he ran with the little bit of decorum he had here and nodded. "Thanks, it's always interesting to be the new kid in town." Kid..he was thirty years old and deceased, but Tony didn't need to know that.

The name must have been interesting to Tony because he echoed it quietly with a popping emphasis on the consonants and held the 's' in a long, thoughtful hiss as he contemplated his guest with a growing smirk. It was a stare of such intent calculation in his cold blue eyes that the expression looked wolfish, and all at once it was replaced with a placid smile more like Noctis' for him to reciprocate, "Call me Tony." With a vague wave toward the door and the world outside of it, Tony asked, "You do that a lot then? Be the new kid."

Noctis had the distinctive feeling he was being sized up. For what purpose he had absolute zero idea, but he shifted a little and one of his hands went to his stomach. It was a nervous habit he had and as much as he tried to come off as a cool type person, deep down he was just a nervous kid. Being a king, saving the world and his subsequent death hadn't changed those habits.

Oh..this was the Tony that Reeve had told him about. Funny how that worked.

The question made him smile though and he shook his head. "I try not to, but it happened to be the case here."

But it had happened back in that other world too with all of the warriors that had been called to serve under Materia's banner.

Tony went, "Ah-huh," with narrowed eyes, looking like he didn't quite believe Noctis then, not with that subtle bit of backpeddling, but it wasn't entirely worth pursuing. Not with any intent, anyway; it seemed like if Tony let him talk, he'd find his own places to stumble, so Tony just encouraged, "And how is it working for you now? Besides running toward smoke. There's a lot of that kind of thing here, you might want to pace yourself."

The king had to laugh a little. "Call it being something we did back home. We put a lot of fires out, ran a lot of errands." And Prompto had been so bold as to call him one step above an errand boy or something along those lines when they were dealing with Dino and finding his gemstones.

"But what about you?" Noctis asked, looking around. "You seem pretty settled in here."

While that wasn't an entirely unfair observation, Tony had to glance around dubiously at the forge to see what Noctis was seeing, because he had yet to feel particularly settled. Not here, anyway, mostly full of junk and on the constant verge of disaster, and still sleeping on a pile of the first soft textiles he found. There wasn't even a hot tub. It was over a year's worth of junk, though, and narrowly avoided disasters leaving their marks on the walls, and even if the place did burn down he felt confident that he had somewhere to go that would gladly have him, which wasn't always true where he had come from. So he relaxed with a hand on his hip and a private smile, and allowed, "Something like that. This experience doesn't let you forget you're on an alien planet for long, but I've put in my time, I've got some foundations down. You need some stable ground, give me a shout."

Maybe it was because he had that in mind that he thought to press, "Who's 'we'?" Noctis said it casually, like it might be someone he expected to see again soon to pick up his delivery business where they left off.

Noctis wasn't sure what Tony meant by 'stable ground' but he nodded anyway as if he did. "I appreciate the offer." And really what he saw on the ground was discarded projects and it did remind him of a conversation he had with Lauri-Ell. She had termed this man 'Iron Man'. But the king still had no idea what she could've meant by those words.

She hadn't informed him he was so generous with his time. Not even Reeve had mentioned that trait. However, this was the thing that hit Noct the most with this introduction. But when Tony pressed for the 'we' it was easily enough explained.

"By we I mean the guys I worked with back home."

It would have been very helpful if Tony hadn't been out of communication in that other city, being more social and gossiping about the cute boys in town because none of them, including Noctis, were telling him much about this guy who had just shown up at his door. Tony raised his eyebrows expectantly at that profoundly unhelpful answer, yeah, he'd gathered as much, then breathed a laugh when it became evident that was as much as he was getting, nodding in understanding. Right, great, the errand boys, a mysterious crew.

"There's a broom over there," Tony indicated, nodding Noctis back toward the door where the broom was still propped against the wall, and about as dirty as the rest of the place, "If you want to make yourself useful. Just don't touch any of the armor. And don't, uh, stick your hand in the fire." If he wasn't really here to chat, then he could do the boring work while Tony finished sorting through this metal to give it its bath.

Dark blue eyes followed Tony's line of vision for the broom. He was highly amused, and maybe he wasn't being such a bother to the guy if he was telling him to sweep the floor. So he half laughed at the making himself useful comment and the warning not to stick his hand in the fire. Of course he had no intention of doing such a thing, but that added that the man cared about people in his mind so he definitely didn't seem like a bad guy to Noctis so he nodded with something of a smile.

"Right, I'll keep those things in mind."

So he grabbed the broom and started sweeping, because this was fun, it was giving him something to do. He did wonder what the armor was for, but as he moved around he thought. Was this why Lauri-Ell referred to him as Iron Man?

But still he couldn't help but ask. "So..all of this is all yours, right?"

Edited 2021-09-04 23:28 (UTC)

Not quite believing that anyone would take up a broom that convivially, Tony watched Noctis for a beat until he was satisfied that he was actually sweeping, though not yet entirely satisfied that he wasn't playing some kind of game with Tony. People didn't just show up an do chores for no reason. If they did, this place might not be such a disaster now.

Keeping Noctis in sight, Tony made his slightly more careful way around the armor scattered across the ground, gathering it without as much ruckus as he kept on guard. "I guess," he replied. "No one else really comes by here. When the place isn't blowing up, I can do my stuff in peace. If those guys ever come down out of orbit, maybe they'll have something else to say about it."

Noct was just enjoying getting to meet the man who he'd been referred to by both Reeve and Lauri-Ell. This was spending time of sorts in order to get to know the guy although he didn't want anything from the guy. He just could take orders since he'd been a delivery boy even as a king if Miss Cindy asked him to do something.

Hearing Tony's words now, made him just shake his head. So..did that mean that the man wanted to be left alone? He didn't say so but his words just were kind of confusing. Still, he didn't address it. "Must be tough, being the highly recommended go to guy for things."

That did not do much to convince Tony that Noctis wasn't angling for something, instead making him chuckle with a small nod, there it was. As though he didn't just react like he was expecting that, he pressed, "Am I?," brow furrowed and with a hook of a smile.

Not that he was going to dispute anything Noctis might have heard about him. Hopefully, the rest of it was wildly untrue and intimidating; Tony could work well with that. As for being the 'guy for things', he gave a more open nod, squaring his shoulders with some pride. "I'm going to make it better than anyone else," he said with unquestionable confidence, "so doing it right the first time is, honestly, minimizing the workload. There's enough broken around here that needs fixing."

He shrugged as he continued sweeping. "That's what I heard from Lauri-Ell and Reeve. So I wanted to stop by to meet the man they spoke so highly about." He really didn't want anything himself. Still, he saw the posture change and it reminded him of when Gladio or Cor or even Ignis had pride about someone saying something positive about their skills so it made him smile a little in memory. The only time he himself changed his posture was when Iris talked to him because he felt as if he had to play the proper part of the King of Lucis though it had only been once.

However, when he heard that last part, that was a part he hadn't known he'd been looking for. "So..you plan on making this place a better place then it is already?" That part had the king intrigued.

The smile didn't accompany Tony's furrowed brow of confusion this time when he asked, "They did?" As far as Tony knew, Lauri-Ell would only recommend him for immediate expulsion, but it was nice to know that Reeve wasn't actively warning people away from him. He probably should have been, but still. Tony shook that off quickly, of course they did, and held his hands up to caution Noctis' train of thought.

"As far as I've been able to tell, that's still the most direct path out of here. No one knows we're here, and they've got control over our--brains, or whatever, so fixing what we're working with is, so far, the path of least resistance. Not that I'm set on it, mind you, and I'm not going to be shocked and heartbroken when solving the storm problem doesn't actually get us everything we ever dreamed, but alternatives so far have just been slamming our heads into the wall."

Noct nodded his head in reply at Tony's question and stopped sweeping. But then the hands came up from the other and the king's dark head cocked to the side as his arms folded across his chest, absorbing what he heard. For now, he kept his gaze on the man before him and thought.

"And here I thought you were committed to it for a moment there." There was something resembling disappointment there in Noct's tone, but he shrugged. "Still, it's not a bad idea to save this place, path of least resistance or not as you put it." His head raised, thinking over it in his own mind as he attempted to catch the other's gaze.

Slamming heads into the wall never got anyone anywhere and Noct knew that firsthand.

Noctis did sound judgmental, or maybe that was the confrontation Tony felt in the way he tried to stare Tony down, which was not the level of enthusiasm for their kidnapper-overlord's cause that Tony expected from the new kid. It had him drawing his brow up in confusion, and mouth open wordlessly for a beat of surprise before he worked out, "You think we should be committed?" After a beat, he added, "To an asylum, maybe. This could all be a shared hallucination." That would make about as much sense as how the data points worked.

Noctis didn't understand where Tony was coming from until he started talking oddly. "I meant be committed to making this place better and saving it." It wouldn't be the first time for the king to save a world, except this time he was pretty sure his own life wouldn't be a requirement as the crystal had foretold back on Eos. And this time it wouldn't be due to a foreign deity's will or being kidnapped by strange white children with a strange female companion. Oh right, fighting Garuda had been a thing too back in his world. So that made more than a few times for him really to be saving worlds. However, the ultimate one on Eos had cost his life.

For now though, he shrugged at the other's suggestion. "That could be too. But whoever or whatever it is, kidnapping the people it has..I don't know there if there's a connection somewhere." And being back under Materia's banner raced through his mind, as all of those skilled warriors on both sides had proven Materia and Spiritus had been right in summoning them to save their world.

Sighing, his shoulders went down and he glanced at Tony. "But maybe that's its purpose, unless you have a better idea."

And the 'locals' as he termed them in his head, had been unhelpful.

Edited 2021-09-12 04:43 (UTC)

"Yeah, no, I got that part..." Tony interrupted, hand out to stop Noctis from going any deeper into the noble cause that he was getting the sense they did not see eye to eye on. Luckily, Noctis didn't seem keen on convincing Tony too much, and Tony just had to drop that warding hand slowly, leaving it curled near his hip to tap restless rhythms into his palm. On the other hand, Tony did agree that there had to be a connection--a pattern that he had been searching for since he arrived, in the kind of people that had been brought here, so he watched Noctis curiously, hoping he would expand on the thought. Maybe he had seen something Tony hadn't, maybe Tony had been looking at it too closely anymore. "What do you mean, what purpose?" he asked, not quite following.

It was interesting. Tony had mentioned saving the world and then seemed to not be onto the idea. So there was no sense in 'beating a dead horse' as the expression went back home. However, he had to illustrate his idea and get into some parts of what he'd gone through.

"One time I was kidnapped along with other warriors to fight for a Goddess I'd never even heard of. And to hear them talk they'd been through that cycle a few times and knew each other. But even those on the opposing side had to fight for the God they didn't know. And in the end we all had to work together to defeat the real troublemaker in order to save their world."

Noctis shook his dark head. "It wasn't our fight and none of us chose to be there. But the ones that were there were pretty damn skilled. And that's the only pattern I noticed when I was there, and in the end we all just wanted to go home back to our own worlds, which we did."

He sighed and looked at Tony with a sort of resigned look. "So I thought maybe there was a pattern or some sort of connection line as to why the people that are here are well..here."

This description had Tony lighting up, less guarded and searching, and eager to interrupt, "Have you talked about--you said you know Reeve, he told me something similar. Not the--God part, which is, that's even wilder, but he's been in a situation like this before, too. Taken from home, with a bunch of other total strangers from all different places, who had to work together..." Maybe the pattern wasn't so much the people here, but the kind of entities that had the power to interrupt their lives like this.

Just as excitably, Tony waved his hands to talk over Noctis again, only he seemed to realize this time that he should probably let the guy finish and redirected all of that energy into hauling up one of the buckets he was filling with parts, clutching it to his chest to start carrying it toward the bathroom. "The real troublemaker, that's the problem, isn't it? You didn't do what you were kidnapped to do in the first place in that situation. You shouldn't assume this one is any different. Saving the city sounds nice on paper, but actually getting anything done usually requires a little disobedience."

Well this was the most animated Noct had seen the guy since arriving. And as it made him wonder as to why, hearing the part about Reeve had the king take a mental step back. It made him think a moment. "He..never told me that." Or maybe he did and for whatever reason he couldn't recall. Well he might have to ask the man at some point about that.

So he then watched Tony haul the buckets and wondered if he should help. But then again maybe the man didn't want any person touching his stuff so he waited until Tony came back. Sighing at the other's assessment, Noct shook his head with a little smile. "And here I somehow figured you would know all about that, the getting anything done part that is."

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