revivalproject

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Scoria

WHO: Tony and...you?
WHERE: The forge, the hospital
WHAT: Dealing with Iron Man
WHEN: Mid-September
WARNINGS: Tony's depression is a rich bouquet of alcoholism and self-destruction. It's a touch gory.

a. forge
This wasn't a completely unusual scent in the close air of the forge. The acridity was standard, the taste of coal and slag even before the regularly singed hair. It was the richness, like oil that shouldn't have been so close to the mouth of the fire, that Tony could taste in the back of his throat and had him blinking out of his distant focus to finally feel the sear that seemed to reach straight to his heart. He sucked in a sharp, wakeful breath, any other sound cut off by the metal clanging to the ground as he dropped the crucible, tearing the deadened skin of his palm with it and leaving him still again as he watched silver spread across the floor and held his scorched hand shakily aloft, struggling to remember what his intended next step was meant to be. His glove dangled from his other hand, along with a glass, chosen primarily for its cleanliness as he searched through the Deep End, and was now smudged liberally with fingerprints as Tony endlessly twisted it at his side.

The criteria for the bottle he had taken had been significantly different, though no less straightforward; as long as it wasn't a terribly lurid colour, it would probably do the job. Tony backed away from the fire, to return to the bottle on the workbench, dropping the gloves and the glass alongside it to consider his blistering hand with a sigh of disappointment. It did hurt a little more when he tried to stretch out his fingers, and he couldn't quite bring himself to, instead leaving it with a glare and propped up on the table as he searched carelessly through nearby boxes and baskets for something to wrap it in so he could keep working. Not that he was going to get much further. Dedicating the amount of resources that he had in the first place to the Iron Man had been a profound waste, and now anything else was best applied to regrouping and rebuilding, and actually protecting them against a future disaster. If he was going to build something like the armor, he was really going to have to recycle what he already had. Which meant he was going to have to go get it again.

b. hospital
When a gentle knock returned only silence in the darkened hallway of the hospital, and Tony easily pushed the door open to a largely empty room, there was an unspooling of disappointment in his chest. Not that he was exactly prepared for what he might say to Wesker, but it didn't seem like he'd have to carefully calculate the kind of provocation that would get him pinned to a wall. A cheerful 'good morning' would have been perfectly effective. Leaving a small puddle of water behind, Tony went drifting into the abandoned room, and slowly sank down onto his knees in front of the lumpy rag that he knew when he tweaked up would reveal the slightly battered scales of the Iron Man. "Morning, dear," he mumbled to it in lieu of someone that would punch him, and slid the scattered pieces he'd dredged out of the fountain alongside it. They jangled delicately, while the bottle he set down at his other side clanked on the ground with conviction. Now what? It wasn't like he could lift the imposing weight of the full set of armor and cradle it back to the forge to be melted. It wasn't even all here; there were more parts yet, glowing like embers behind his eyes, somewhere further down the hall, the full list of their individual destructive power and itemized armament scrolling endlessly at the back of his skull like white noise drowning out everything around it. He was squeezing the glass in his lap, and had to take a deep breath to release it again, and shake out his stinging, bandaged hand. He could have at least filled it with water while he was at the fountain, so he could also have something to sip.

He unstopped the bottle, so he could watch the pour, just a couple inches, then carefully set the arrangement aside. He could just ask the armor to assemble and walk itself out of here. It was probably fine. What was the worst that could happen? Plenty of people could have one drink. He wasn't doing anything anyway. He took another breath so he could push himself back up, and set out for those last few pieces. Once the full set of armor was together, then he would have to think about tearing it apart.

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Wesker does not expect to be faced with several pieces of armor rushing at him when he reaches the door. Though that doesn’t mean he can’t dodge them, luckily.

He is down in a half crouch in an instant, with the fingers of one hand touching the floor before him and one lag stretched to the side, very much ready to dodge again should the pieces turn back to charge at him again. Or make use of some of their inbuilt weaponry…

He remains ready to react, but for the time being only looks behind him, to where the armor parts were headed. If Tony is indeed controlling them remotely, then he doesn’t seem to be requiring a device to do so.

If there was such a device, it didn't appear as though Tony was in any way attentive to it, or to the discarded fragments of the armor lifting up from under their cover. He had swept down to gather his bottle and refill the glass, deliberate and measured, and when he swung back around it was to raise an eyebrow at Wesker down there near the ground, with a glittering array braced behind him, hung still in the air like they had been pinned there. "I'm very flattered, but I'm going to have to let you down, First Offense. I'm sure you'll make some lucky gal perfectly miserable some day, though," he addressed Wesker's presented ass.

It’s not without a low, barely audible growl that Wesker turns back around by bringing his leg around himself and using the same motion to stand back up to his full height. That he is narrowing his eyes cannot be made out through his dark glasses. And yet he shoved one of his hands into its respective pocket, making his posture seem almost casual.

“Why do you insist on aggravating me?” He asks sharply. “You are trying to pick a fight you know you can not win.”

One drink was not enough to distract Tony from tracking that hand, a quick dart of his focus that he tried to play off by continuing the scan down like he was searching for his most effectively aggravating answer across the ground, then along the ceiling. A half-hearted smirk managed a weak tug at the corner of his mouth, because he had won his own private battle by getting Wesker on edge again, then he was looking the irritable doctor in the eye like he could see straight through those dark glasses, skeptical with his tongue playing along his lip to taste the alien liquor there and another point poorly made. "Will you?" he challenged, because Wesker clearly hadn't thought that part through, and came sauntering closer, not intimidated into keeping his distance. "Will you be satisfied, will you have accomplished something fulfilling, when you make me bleed?" he continued. Close enough now that when he raised the glass again, he could stretch out one finger to touch to the placket of Wesker's pressed shirt, over his heart, and he said, "What do you win when you have your hands around my throat?"

Tony will find himself mirrored in the clean glass covering Wesker’s eyes while Wesker remains where he stands, following the man’s approach only with those very unseen eyes.

He lets out a short, dry chuckle and shakes his head, slowly pulling his hand from his pocket only to reveal his phone within his fingers. He holds the device up between them to show that it is clearly recording. By now he knows how these self-proclaimed heroes work. They instigate fights only to push the blame on the ones they aggravated into action. It only makes sense to have some evidence in his favor.

“I am not wasting my time by fighting you.” He says, lifting his free hand to take the glass out of Tony’s fingers. The hospital is not a place to get drunk. “But I will ask you to stop provoking me. It’s unproductive. Everyone here shares a common goal. And that’s what I am pursuing. As should you.”

The recording must have been to help Wesker fall asleep because there wasn't any market left to humiliate or discredit Tony with it. None of his other dubious talents had proved useful, and now he couldn't even seduce the guy who loved choking him into choking him. He really was obsolete. He gave a slight pout at his glass being taken away for Wesker's cruel satisfaction, letting his empty hand drop bonelessly. "There's where you fucked up," he said. "Imagine all of this free time you would have had to be productive if you had left me up here." He certainly wasn't an asset to the team. The volcano wouldn't have happened in the first place if he hadn't been blowing stuff up. The spiders. The ghosts and the pain. He went slinking back toward the suit, which had drawn itself together by then, the light of all of the repulsors dimming as they slid into perfect place and left the room dark again. Tony gave its shoulder a pat as it marched itself by him toward the door, to head back to the forge be put to better use.

"There we go again with the self-deprecation." Wesker rolls his eyes audibly and sets the confiscated glass aside. He does not, however, stand in the way of the marching armor. But he gestures towards it with his newly empty hand. "The man that built this from what scraps are available among the ruins of this city and commands it with his will alone considers himself worthless. That's foolish."

Wesker's phone joins the glass and he steps further into the room himself now, crossing his arms. "Tell me why you think that way about yourself. What makes you worthless in your opinion?"

This hadn't been much more than a party favour, something to let Tony pretend he could fly until it was put up against a fraction of resistance, and it turned its head in tandem with Tony then to look incredulously at Wesker, unable to conceive of what game he was playing now. It managed to stop them both in their tracks, so maybe he'd already accomplished what he wanted. Tony still tried asking, "Is this how you're saving your energy, you're not fighting, you're getting me to knock myself out? We're not doing this, you don't get to skip straight to pillowtalk. At least buy a guy dinner first."

“You are avoiding the question.” Wesker states factually. His attention is on Tony, less the animated armor that has come to a halt.

“You have a capable mind to achieve and create great things, yet you remain insecure about yourself. This, in turn, is crippling your productivity. I prefer those I work with to function true to their actual value. In your case there is an obvious issue that needs to be fixed. If no one else is aware of that, I will have to do it myself.” And he has experience in handling such cases, having been responsible for an entire research facility as well as STARS. Burnout, depression, PTSD. All not uncommon in soldiers and scientists working in BOW research. Not that Wesker wants to take on such responsibilities here, but if that’s what it takes to finally make progress, he will.

Oh no, was it really obvious that Tony didn't want to divest his deepest insecurities to Dr. Tortures Kids? He readily shot back, "You didn't answer mine," so he was just following their healthy pattern of established boundaries. See, he was perfectly fine.

"Good luck with that," he invited, his biting edge dulled then by the squirming discomfort trying to crawl up his throat, and that would have been easily sated by another drink. He wanted to be capable, and wanted to be able to prove that, even if it was just to this one despot, and how pathetic was that? It wasn't that no one else was aware of the 'issue'; they were terribly aware, and the fix was not to trust him. "Seriously, zero judgment, I would encourage anyone to play with themselves, its very healthy, especially when you're this uptight. Let me know if you feel anything."

A nod. “As expected an unhelpful response.” Wesker steps forward to collect the bottle Tony had left on the ground.

“Why would I answer your questions if I can simply answer my own.” He says as he carries the bottle to where the glass has been left. “All the answers are here already anyway.” Wesker turns his attention towards the Iron Man where it lingers notably before returning to Tony. “The younger heroes hold you in high regard. Do you know why that is?”

Tony thought he was cautiously tracking Wesker as he moved, keeping a sidelong eye on him and on high alert, and didn't notice when his focus had switched hungrily to the bottle until he was tearing his gaze away from it with a puzzled frown. What answers...? Before he had worked that out, he was scoffing at the plain absurdity of his high regard, and only hesitated when it seemed like Wesker was quite serious. Now he had to figure out who's game he was playing, because if it was one of the kids, they must have had a reason for feeding Wesker a line like that. If it was Wesker's, taunting him for continuing to let Wesker terrorize the kids, he must have been getting some satisfaction from hearing Tony admit his failure.

With a fist clenched tightly at his side, nails biting into his skin, Tony ventured, "Did that come up before or after you pulled a gun on them?" He needed more information, before he ruined the plans of one of the 'younger heroes'.

"You don't believe me." Wesker states the obvious. He isn't surprised, however. "And yet it is true. It even makes sense if you allow yourself to think rationally about it. But the human mind isn't always rational. It lets emotions get in the way of reason." He gestures towards Tony's clenched fist. It's all too obvious that this man is beyond distraught. But just as much at a loss. Especially with himself.

"If you need me to go into detail, I will." He will not, however, comment on the little incident with the gun. It hadn't even been loaded at that time. And yet even without being an actual danger it had been very effective in stopping those two unruly teenagers from potentially hurting themselves. Wesker can appreciate a healthy respect towards a weapon.

It was very reasonable to want to deck this guy for introducing a couple of teenagers to radiation poisoning, or making another flee under threat of torture. The accusation that Tony was too emotional to be reasonable still made him flinch, forcing his fingers out of their clench at that acknowledgement, and drop his gaze to the floor. Stark men were supposed to be made of iron. Thirty years and a universe later, Tony was still so transparently fragile. This wasn't a game he wanted any part of any more.

"What function do you think you're going to get out of this?" he asked instead of playing along, lifting his bandaged hand from where it had been pressed against his chest long enough that it felt cold when he used it to flick between them. "You're not going to talk me into leaving the suit. It's already gone, not on the table. If your accountant is having trouble keeping track, that makes the offer right now nothing for nothing."

The flinch doesn't go unnoticed. As does the change in posture. Both telling Wesker that he has hit a nerve. An already raw one. Though he kept a knowing smirk to himself, his shades just as always a very useful asset for that task. He still keeps his attention on Tony.

"I am not interested in the suit. I have my tools, the armor is yours." At this, Wesker turns his attention back to the Iron Man. "Neither of us were born with special abilities like magic, speed or super strength. No. Ours was to be born with a superior intellect and you used yours to create your own set of powers. But unlike those born with powers, you have the advantage to simply take yours off. To change and adapt without having to deal with any of the side effects." Side effect that can be crippling as Wesker is well aware of. He steps back to where he has left his phone to pick the device back up. "What I want out of this is simple: I want to return home. And our best chance to achieve that is if we stop from fighting among ourselves and instead work together."

It was difficult to tell when Wesker was lying, when he seemed to be very straightforward with his intention, but that was definitely a lie. If he wasn't interested in the suit, he wouldn't have taken it. So how true was the rest of it? Wesker didn't seem to be able to take his unnatural powers off, and Tony knew too personally what side effects came with trying to make a supersoldier before he tempered out the fire breathing and rage aneurysm to upload into his own brain. That would explain Wesker's too human anger.

"What happened to you?" he asked, once again ignoring the suggestions that having Tony work alongside him would finally solve their grand problem. Tony'd had and squandered years to make sure Wesker never arrived here at all.

Wesker considers the question while pocketing his phone as he turns around in front of the counter to face back into the room, avoiding Tony for a moment as he leans back againt the furniture once again.

"I died." He finally says and with one hand reaches up to remove his sunglasses to reveal dimly glowing eyes of orange and red. "I was the Captain of S.T.A.R.S., Raccoon City's Special Tactics And Rescue Service and we were sent to invesigate an outbreak in a research facility close to the city. Most of my team died, some turned into zombies, some were plain eaten. And by all rights I should be dead as well. But I was fortunate to have been born immune to viral symptoms - The reason I studied virology and genetics in the first place was mere curiosity about myself, indeed. So while my intellect meant my mind stayed intact, my genetics counteracted the virus. For the most part. It still rewrote my genetic code. Being half conscious while every cell in your body rewires itself is not an experience I recommend. You have experienced what I gained in return."

The sunglasses return to their rightful place on Wesker's nose and the man crosses his arms. "Raccoon City fell, being overrun by zombies created by the virus. The city ended up being nuked to the ground and I used my knowledge, connections and newfound powers to take down the organization responsible for the initial outbreak. That's what I wish to return to." And that's as much as Wesker is willing to share. Especially since it carries many truths. But he has shared these information with some others before, including Billy. Wesker very much prefers to decide just how much of the truth he shares as compared to the mess that was Calibrations.

At first, the rare reveal of Wesker's eyes seemed like a distraction, a controlled display of vulnerability to convince Tony of more obvious half-truths; Wesker had said his power was an evolution, not a band-aid. Tony took a breath, mouth already open to interrupt and challenge Wesker, and only was stalled because he did very much know the tumultuous pain of being rewritten. He had thought of it as an evolution, too.

"They were trying to make supersoldiers," he concluded, not needing much more information to fill in where a zombie outbreak might have been manufactured, and why Wesker was so disparaging of the 'heroes'. It couldn't be the same virus that they shared, could it? Tony didn't know where Raccoon City was, maybe that was what they had called Austin on some other Earth in the universe. "Do you..." he started, and found himself breathless and a little lost. He had killed the last person who had survived the virus, the fine mist of blood and bone that had been his head flared across the highway and painting the Iron Man, and so immediate again that Tony thought he might be sick where he stood.

And Wesker's powers were always meant to be an evolution. That's what Project W had been all about. But he isn't going to go into the differences between the T-virus and Progenitor. That the virus he injected himself with is not the same that turned an entire city into zombies. No. Progenitor didn't create zombies. It simply killed everyone incompatible with it. And Wesker had merely been lucky to be the one person to survive the injection. But those are details.

He frowns at the term supercoldiers. "Calling a BOW a soldier implies a degree of autonomy." Wesker concludes before gesturing towards the Iron Man. "Is that what the armor is meant to counter?" It's either that or meant to copy these soldiers.

Right now, the armor was a solid surface for Tony to try to subtly brace his shoulder on and he tried to swallow that bloody highway back down to where he had hidden it, somewhere in the void of his chest, but it was easily buoyed by the reality of what the armor was really for. "No," Tony admitted. "It was just meant to save my own ass, from a bunch of lost kids with my weapons in their hands." The bottle, achingly out of reach, was an anchor to focus on while Tony tried to build any explanation that didn't sound miserably selfish. He must have had one at some point, for anyone to have called him a hero, but now he was left shaking his head. "I made landmines so effective, they've wiped out entire populations, and when I finally got what I deserved and got caught in the blast of one, it should have left nothing behind. Universe doesn't really work that way. Stars aren't the arbiters of justice. So I survived, barely, and this," he tapped the armor, "was to keep me alive until I could get back to my life of luxury. I thought I could make up for all of that death by keeping it around, painting it gold and telling kids I was going to help them."

"And did you help them?" Wesker inquires further, closely watching Tony's body language throughout everything he is being told.

So it was guilt. Guilt over his creations being too effective at what they were meant to do. A strange motivation as far as Wesker is concerned. If you create a weapon, you take pride in the devastation it brings. Then again, it doesn't look like this man has been very aware of what that devastation actually looks like until he was met by it himself. Which isn't something Wesker can claim for himself. He has been to war. He has fought BOWs and taken that opportunity to study them. Figure them out and develop meants to effectively fight them. There was, after all, money to be made by selling BOWs as well as anti-BOW weapons. Why not benefit from both ends of a war?

Wesker wasn't so naive that he needed Tony to answer that question for him, so Tony gave him a small, sad smile, brow twisted with some pity now for the mean, little impulse that made Wesker ask anyway. Wherever that was coming from, it explained why he seemed to target the kids so frequently. "I've been here maybe three years, probably more," Tony said, losing count probably telling enough, because it was the scale of his failures that would have been more difficult to comprehend. He was still feeling nauseous, leaving him pale and leaning on the Iron Man, but now it was a kind of gnawing, empty hunger that made him sweat where his hand was still pressed to his chest, and where he hugged himself tightly around his ribs to try to quell the pain that had been sparking up his spine like a lit fuse. Years that he certainly hadn't been helping anyone back home, and that he had squandered while telling everyone here that he was going to fix the problem. "I can't even be in my own home without being watched. It's a matter of time before I break something, set us back another six months. I caused the volcano, and couldn't do a damn thing to protect us from it. Would you let me in your bed?" It was supposed to be a rhetorical question, but the lonely, cold future of sleeping on the workshop floor until he had earned any trust made him shiver.

His bed? That's a strange question to throw at Wesker who barely sleeps as it is. In fact, he hardly even considers any bed necessarily his. He used to sleep in one of the ships when those were around, now utilizes one of the rooms in the hospital when his body demands rest. But there is nothing as personal about his sleeping space as the question implies.

It looks differently when he considers the bed a metaphor. Would he let this man into his lab? His office? Spaces that may seem more public, yet are littered with secrets, neatly hidden away.The answer would be a strong: It depends.

Finally, Wesker gives a small nod. "I understand. You have great potential, but just like your suit needs someone to control it, you need someone to direct that potential." He pauses, but his expression doesn't change. "I will make you work for me. Your talents will be useful at last and I don't have to bribe those teenagers to run errands for me anymore. And if I have to draw my gun on someone for their unruly behavior, we both know you would prefer that someone to be you." Of course he has other means than an unloaded gun, but Tony will get the hint.

This was the direct opposite of Tony's intent to discourage Wesker from insisting he just had to be part of the team, making Tony roll his eyes until he realized with a scoff, "That was always going to be your grand solution. You should just be in charge." There wasn't a way this conversation could have gone since Wesker came waltzing in that would have resolved differently. That was why he pushed the kids around, because they were easy targets. That was why Tony couldn't really say no. Not that he was ever going to be so obsequious out loud; that instead came in his hesitation, level focus on those impassive sunglasses, and a frustrated tick in his jaw and clench of his fists, despite the tearing protest of the broken skin under his bandages.

So they both knew exactly what Wesker had just decided for them, he finally pushed himself away from the armor, sauntering just a little too close into Wesker's personal space to collect that glass that had been pointedly taken from him to raise in another loose-limbed toast and drain in a mouthful.

Of course Wesker knows what he just decided for them and he very much welcomes the lack of protest. It's for the best this way. If no one takes charge at all people like Tony will just burn themselves down and take everything around them along with them. So Wesker lets him have the glass and simply nods once. Though he does pick up the bottle again when he steps away from his spot to approach the door a second time.

"Get some actual food into your system, get some rest, fix your suit. I will have a task for you soon." He pauses before adding. "And I want to know how you caused the volcano." Because that part still sounds off.

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in_extremis - 2023-09-25 17:08 (UTC) - Expand

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