revivalproject

Entry tags:

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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The thing was, that Gladio didn't really know where he'd seek Tony out if he wasn't here. So yeah, he's going to look for Tony here.

"We are," he promises, because wow man. He's happy and embarrassed to talk about it. "And Noctis is doing his best fishing now, if that's the metaphor we're going for right now. Promise."

Though he's now a bit lost over the idea that there should be schooling. Uh, what?

"You trying to start a school then?"

He's gotten distracted from his own purpose.

Looking taken aback at that response to his running mouth, Tony said, "Me? No. Can you imagine? Christ." He had said he was thinking about it, not that he should be involved. He wasn't that delusional. "But maybe you can...I'm not saying on your own, put on a bonnet and start a one room school house, but some of these kids already look up to you, they can trust you. You said students. Get them together and make sure they can all read every once in a while, that would be a start."

"Why not you?" Gladio says now. Yeah, he's completely pivoted. "You're a genius, right? There are things you could really teach the kids. As for me, the only thing I could teach would be Eosian history, military strategy, combat, and wilderness survival. And I'm already doing the latter two here."

So no, don't ask him to actually teach something. That's not what his teaching is about. He teaches people how to live in a time of war.

Having a whole prepared list of topics that he could (and already did!) teach was not a very effective way of convincing Tony that he was not a useful teacher, earning him pursed lips and an irritably raised eyebrow. Maybe that in itself was the better argument against Gladio's capability. "We're trying to improve their lives, not irreparably damage them," he pointed out. "And you need to stop reading the tabloids. Rumours of my genius have been greatly exaggerated. If you're already giving lessons, all I'm hearing is that the foundation has already been laid, they're already listening to you and developing themselves and the process just needs to be scaled up. I can write you a couple programs, to track their progress, set up schedules, file systems."

Dude, they were literally part of his job description back home. Wow, don't tell him he's good teacher. He's just a military guy with a camping hobby and a thirst for reading.

"I'm teaching kids to throw punches, and hopefully wield weapons. That's why I'm here. To see if I might eventually be able to talk you into crafting some Eosian quality arms, like you did with the shield. A mace and an axe."

Because dude just has to rock out the old stuff. He's not a teacher.

"You get that I'm a military leader. I was literally born, bred, and raised to be one. That's literally all the House of Amicitia has been doing for 115 generations. I'm not a teacher. You need Ignis for that, and he's not here."

A shield was very different from an axe, especially if the intent was to put it into some kid's hands, and none of the faces flashing before Tony's eyes were making him feel any easier about who they might have been talking about. He had spent enough of his life arming children for wars he never saw. Gladio wasn't even acknowledging his offer, though--they both know what Tony was good for. No wonder Gladio had made the journey.

The sharp, impatient edge was gone from Tony's voice, and his focus had dropped to the work bench in front of him as he tried to continue arguing, "If you're so bad at it, why'd you start? You're confident enough to want to give these kids weapons, see how much damage they can really do. You don't get to say you're teaching them, and you're not a teacher. Try again."

Edited 2023-09-21 01:28 (UTC)

Gladio sighed and moved to lean against a wall, his massive arms crossing over his chest. None of this was easy to talk about, but he got why he owed it to Tony in this situation. Didn't matter that the kids were, by Lucian society standards, adults. They were both over 18. He still had to answer to Tony for this and he respected it.

"I didn't start teaching them like a high school teacher. One of them has anger issues, and I've seen that as part of the Crownsguard a lot. There are a lot of ways to handle those, but I've learned and seen how sometimes the most effective way to keep an angry youth who is lost and scared from becoming a danger to himself and others is to teach him the discipline required in combat, and then to let them find something they want to protect. I think I can make his life better if I can give him this. But it means a promise from both him and from me. The axe would be my side of the deal, which he know Noctis will get if he doesn't live up to his side."

The other one... How did he describe Steve? With Billy there was this feeling Gladio got, that there was something dark in his heart that he could give into. Hell, Steve had basically mentioned some of the history, and the way the boy stressed how much he didn't want Gladio to touch him for training... there was something there. But Steve?

Steve Harrington had seen some shit and no one had been there for him. He'd been through the hell of a fight he wasn't equipped for, and Gladio refused to leave him in that position.

"He's already fought monsters of the sort I understand and know has to have him fucked up. Kid's absolutely nursing some PTSD. Handles it well enough though. Seems to do it because he's got purpose and focus. But you and I, we've seen some of the shit that happens here. And this kid? He isn't going to run and hide and let someone else protect him if something happens. I'm not letting him face whatever this place could throw at us next with nothing more than a baseball bat with some nails in it. Solid way to get him killed."

So there's that, which in a way both answers and doesn't answer Tony's question. Gladio sighs. Recognizes the trauma in himself from ten years of constant war to survive. But he has to answer the question.

"When you say teacher I think you mean some dude in a button up shirt and tie, lecturing at the front of the class room about math and composition and biology. But there's other ways to teach. I teach a man how to survive, and they're young men that need that lesson. So maybe I need a different name. In the palace we'd call it an armsmaster. That's what I seek to be to them. What I'd be to anyone here who asked for it."

Palace. Yeah, there's no question that Gladio's from a really complex background at this point, is there?

"My family has lived our lives around that concept. Around being protectors, around teaching others to protect and serve our nation. And while Lucis isn't anywhere near here, people are, and they still need what the Amicitias have been doing for about two thousand years. So that's what I'm going to give any kid here who needs it, or wants it. If you also want me to read their creative writing short stories and tell them they're overusing the enemies to lovers trope, yeah, I could do that too, but I won't be doing right by them, not like I can do with this."

Gladio spoke about his students with more careful dedication than Tony had ever heard him direct to his lover or his home, and that he said all of that and still sounded like he was building up to an argument against his obviously already chosen role had Tony looking up from his distraction to level a challenging stare at the effusive, shining knight. Thank god he wasn't also a complete idiot and came around to it in his own time. Just incredibly high maintenance. Armsmaster.

"Okay, Mr. Armsmaster, what is it that you need then, to do right by them?" Tony offered again, reminded by this lecture that he better served anyone by keeping his mouth shut and letting them give the answers. A mace, an axe--rudimentary, compared to the weapons of war that he'd become an expert on, enough so that the robot hanging overhead could project the designs he had impulsively produced in his numbed reverie onto the table in front of him. Some things did come easy.

What is he needs? Well, for now, not much.

"In the long run, weapons. But for now, help making training ones. Things that have weight but can be made safe. And before that?"

He tilts his head, considering.

"I think I need to sit down with you and make this plan for teaching. Like, I'm not going to be a good teacher. But that's no reason I can't help you figure out someone who would be. And help you talk them into it.

Training weapons, Tony could do that, he did it for the Avengers all of the time, don't even think about it, just nod. It wasn't like Tony could explain what those kids needed like Gladio did, so Tony could get over himself and actually be useful. He gave a weak wave of his tied hand at DATA's projections, shunting them up to spread an array of modifiers to soften the blows but keep the balance.

"Yeah, yeah, you're awful at it, I bet those kids don't listen to a word you say, must be hard on you," he grumbled. "We're rich in options, every person here is extraordinary, they're going to have some wisdom they can share. It's the person that's willing to do the structural work, oversee the operation, to make sure there's consistency and spot the chinks in the armor, that's who's harder to pin down. God, wouldn't it be great if someone here had a family history of that? Anyway, what do you think about giving the job to the kid who talks to his pet rat? That would keep things lively."

Oh, they listen. When it pleases them. Which is less often with Hargrove. Harrington seems... Well, it's going to be weird to say it, but Gladio thinks the kid might have just declared Gladio a father figure? Which Gladio was very confused with? He didn't know how to be something like that. But he supposed it was like being an older brother or a captain.

"Seriously Tony, be straight with me here. Well, as straight as either of us can be. Are you looking for a teacher, or a principal? Because if what you want to start with is someone to do administration and recruit teachers and make sure things happen? Yeah, I'm definitely qualified for that. Trust me, my dad basically had me doing paperwork since I was eighteen and could officially be part of the guard."

It was a distinction without a difference to Tony, who had to make himself take a breath to stop from grousing any further, and maybe snatching DATA from his perch to slam him down onto the table and cut off his projection helped a little, too. Very placidly, with the little robot's legs waving faintly next to where Tony planted his hand to casually lean, he looked back toward Gladio to accept, "Sure, Principal Armsmaster Teacher, who cares, we can call it whatever makes you happy. Would that make you happy? I'm getting mixed signals here. You've got this blood-oath dedication to these kids, but its because your dad told you to, and you're not a teacher, but you can make them better...If the only part of this that you don't want to do is cover up your cleavage in an Oxford button-down, sweetheart, I would not dream of dimming your shine."

"Firstly, I'll never cover up my cleavage, don't worry. As for the rest, it's not mixed signals because they're different things, Tony," he says. Geez, how does he explain it.

"Okay, so you clearly went to college back home, yeah? And in a college there are professors that teach, and there is administrative staff that helps direct the teachers. I can do the latter, not the former. I'm not going to teach kids math or physics or biology or stuff like that. But I can try and help you find the people who would do that. I can help find a place for them and set it up. I can help make sure they do the teaching and that the kids show up. That's what I'm offering."

So he finally moves closer, because he thinks he's making something hard on Tony here. He reaches out, gently offering his hand to the guy. To give him a grounding touch. But only if Tony wants it.

"Is what I'm offering okay, handsome?"

There was the disconnect. Neither of them needed to be told how a standard college system was structured, it was just that Tony didn't think that was relevant and snapped, "This isn't home." Nothing that they did was ever going to feel like normal school for someone like Donnie or Omega who were never getting the chance otherwise, because Tony kept screwing it up for them. He took another heaving breath, eyes closed this time to try to force himself to actually listen to Gladio very patiently explaining himself, and only opened them again in a wary slit as he felt the shift of the approach, tensing like he thought the offered hand was going to be a blow.

It was an offer he did accept, just a little awkwardly with his wrong hand, keeping the wrapped one held against his ribs, and holding Gladio's in apology as he tried to excuse his impatience, "It should have been done already."

No, it isn't home. That doesn't mean that it's not a place they have to adapt to. This, though, this makes him want to hug Tony, tight and supportive. If only the guy would let him.

"IT should have. And we've all let them down. So we make it better. Right now, you and me, we sit down and we make a plan. You know the people who are smart. Who do I need to Convince on this?"

And he will find a way to do it at that. He'll make this come true, if it helps.

Sending Gladio out as the PR manager and recruitment officer seemed like a misapplication of his talents, but he would absolutely be more convincing than Tony, who had already slowed this process down too much. He kept an absent hold on Gladio's hand to stay him as Tony glanced around, like he might suddenly spot a comfortable arrangement to conduct a meeting in the deliberately hostile forge, until he accepted that the 'sit down' part was maybe more metaphorical. Like the 'principal'.

"Everyone's brilliant," he started, finally releasing Gladio to push DATA back up onto his feet, where he could project a new array across the table; a list of the whole known population, including those that had abruptly disappeared, and several numbered designations that didn't seem to correspond to any face. "Our criteria is going to narrow more on time or temperament, so we can take some names out right away. Tommy can't. Soldier. Wesker," he listed, the names sorting as he spoke into their own column and going dim. "Some others are ideal and stubborn assholes," he continued, slashing another column through the middle with Gladio's name at the top, followed by Lark and Jon. "They're going to turn you down. Let Lark think she needs to take care of you. Tell Jon..." Tony tipped his head, tongue between his teeth, less confident after his spectacular failure with the karaoke party that he knew what Jon wanted to hear. "Tell Jon it's not going to be done right without him."

"Never really met Soldier. That Tommy kid I agree on. Wesker is... Listen, I've never met him but damn, that one network post? Shady."

Keeping kids away from that seems wise. Still, he's considering it thoughtfully as Tony lists people.

"Lark, that's the lady that makes the clothes, right? I'm going to talk to her about a gift for Noctis anyway. I can twist the two tasks together. But I don't think Jon likes me. Pretty hard to convince him I think."

Though he'll try. Of course he'll try. But they need a spread of skills he thinks.

"What about that Reeve dude?"

Shady was one way of putting it. While it didn't seem like they had a lot of social overlap, so far they were in agreement, which was promising and eased some of the tension still in Tony's voice, letting his shoulders drop as he brought a hand up to curl thoughtfully through his beard instead of perching anxiously on the workbench. "Clothes lady, sure. This was her thing, back home, a school or convent or house for wayward children...I don't know, some magic thing, I tuned it out a little. Is it his birthday, or did you fuck up?" Gifts weren't easy to come by under the circumstances, so Gladio must have had a reason for the occasion, and Tony needed more time to consider what to do about Jon.

Reeve was easier to think about, though he wasn't easy to sort. Tony grabbed his name from the default array, and left it hovering with an uncertain shiver over the X column, where he murmured, "I don't know if he has the time. He's an architect, disaster relief, the most convincing pick the Agrii made if they really mean for us to be rebuilding this place."

Okay, but what if it was a school and convent and house for wayward children all at once? Wouldn't that be cool and complex? Gladio would so read a story about that. Especially if you add in something like raiders and maybe something racy. Yeah, he'd so read that.

"Not his birthday, didn't fuck up. Just love him. Have loved him so long and so deeply that I kinda lose myself with it sometimes," he says, and he's smiling so stupidly. Like he's on cloud nine to just have Noctis, even for a moment. "We sort of got ourselves into this, for real, last summer. So I guess it's an anniversary maybe?"

Love, Tony. That's all the reason Gladio needs. Love and examples set for him by his father and mother so many years ago.

"Huh. So dude's stupid busy. Okay. We can put a maybe on that. We probably don't need to teach the kids about history of any given world, seems unfair. But we should care about basic things like math and writing, right? So we need someone that might be willing to teach those sorts of basics. I mean, I could do writing if we don't find anyone else, but I'd rather someone who actually cares about that stuff?"

That was such a brazen thing to admit in the middle of a conversation that Tony was almost relieved that it might have also been Gladio's anniversary, a much more normal thing for fathers and mothers to acknowledge with a token gift and terse apology for being away on business yet again. Gladio's words sat heavily in his chest while Tony tried to focus on where to put Reeve in his tables, pushing him aside for now and chaotically splaying out the names of anyone else that could legally drink across the workbench with a spread of his hand. "All of these kids are smart in ways that are going to surprise you. They're going to have some egregious gaps, and be really advanced on some of the same subjects. I think that's what Lark and Jon are going to be good for, identifying those gaps, where they need more structure. For everyone else, it might be a matter of pairing them up. Do it like an apprenticeship," he proposed, more unsure than ever now even as his mouth kept moving, which he chalked up to not seeing what strengths Gladio was identifying in Lark and Jon until he was still talking, "Aren't you scared?"

Hey, it's also just for the fact that he wants to give Noctis a gift. There is NOTHING wrong with that.

"Apprenticeships? Like... in books?"

Okay, those aren't really a thing back home in his era. But it's something to consider. Making arrangements of kids to have them learn from each other. Maybe field trips. Huh. Tony's actually setting this up enough that he actually thinks he might enjoy the problem solving here.

"Scared of what? Kids?"

"Books?" Tony echoed, baffled, finding this a brazen confession in an entirely different way. The social structure of the magic palace world that Gladio knew must have had some distinctly alien elements to Tony, so it was with genuine confusion that he started to explain, "Like a trade. Plumbers, you know. Carpenters." Maybe Gladio's social position was the blinder. Explaining that process was going to have to wait, though, because Tony was cringing, hand up to wave away Gladio's guess at Tony's non-sequitur, and was forced to admit, "No, for Noctis. For...That's going to hurt. Some day." And it sounded even worse out loud than he was prepared for. Plenty of things hurt, that wasn't really what he meant--he went fixedly back to his array of names, dragging some of the younger ones across the table them to try match with someone that might be agreeable. Dustin with Cal. Omega with Tae.

"Yeah. Like blacksmiths and glassmakers in fantasy novels."

Dude, he's so far away from apprenticeships that it's actually sort of silly. Though when Tony describes them like that it makes more sense to what the last ten years at home were.

"No, we didn't use that system in Insomnia. There were trade schools, that often contracted with private businesses to help people get placement and practical experience."

Huh. People really still did apprenticeships. Weird.

"Noctis wo-"

Gladio pauses. Tony can't know, can he" Can't know that Noctis is... Or perhaps he does. Gladio doesn't even remember anymore who knows Noctis is dead and not, or who knows Noctis is from another version of their world or not.

"Yeah. It will."

A quick reversal happened, where it became clear that Gladio did have some idea of what Tony was talking about, only for Tony to be left quite unprepared to handle 'Insomnia' even with the context. It seemed out of place enough that impulsively he muttered, "Like...in books?" If Tony knew much of anything about Noctis he might have understood better, and he might not have asked such a jarring question. As it was, Gladio's resignation made his open declaration of love that much more reckless. It drew Tony's attention up, with a wide-eyed inquisitiveness, not sure if he had given Gladio some reason to trust him like that, or he was just comfortable with the inevitability that someone was going to use this weakness against him. Probably at Noctis' expense.

"Does he say it like that, too?" Tony had to guess. Some things might have been worth being able to tell everyone how in love you were.

"Like what?"

Gladio asks, his voice soft and pained. They've gotten off topic but it's into something that's hurt him for so long tha he doesn't know how to hold it back now that he believes someone knows the secret. Now that he believes someone other than Link know Gladio can only have what he has because he will lose it.

"Pained? Because... Because it hurts. Knowing every day we have together could be stolen away if the Agrii sends one of us home. I'll never be with him in my world, and in his own..."

In his won that Gladio will have someone else because his king will be dead.

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