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 'why' seemed self-evident enough to Tony, who could give exacting details of any dimension of Jon, that it didn't occur to him to ask, and instead he only paused to raise an eyebrow at Gladio for expecting Tony to be able to make an axe with confidence, but not a ring. "This will be too small," he could say confidently about his mold, hand going from it then out expectantly for Gladio's, because his hands were definitely bigger than anyone else Tony might have been crafting for. "But I can customize it, if its going to take you a while to find a stone. There's some here, if you don't want to go shopping yourself." He kicked a basket under the table, which rattled with an assortment of rocks, sea glass and the strange gems that had appeared on the festival grounds.

"A stone?"

No, hold on, that makes no sense to Gladio. Why would he look for a stone? Those weren't in rings back home. Not unless they were things like signets. When they are displayed he shakes his head.

"Those aren't traditional in Lucian culture. Not between men.'

Between the proposal and the rings, Tony had been assuming this process was all going to sound pretty familiar, and it hadn't occurred to him that there was both an alien, and a male-specific cultural expectation that he was blindly offering to meet. His mouth opened, then shut, not sure what to ask when he didn't know what he didn't know. "We don't have that," he landed on. "You're going to have to..." he tried to encourage, gesturing vaguely toward the bench.

"You don't have marriages between men?" Gladio asked, intrigued by that. "It's still a ring for us, but it's just a metal band. Giving a ring with a stone is more like a sign of fealty."

And he thought a simple band was suitable anyway.

"No--maybe some places--..." Tony grimaced, hand wavering, sort of. Definitely not with enough confidence to suggest there were any traditions around that kind of arrangement that he knew about. "In the circles I travelled in, the expectation was that a guy proposed to a gal with the biggest rock he could afford, so she could pretend not to flash it at all of the important parties all season and run up the stock prices. I guess it doesn't sound that different to me, engagement, fealty."

"That's pretty common with super wealthy women," Gladio says, but he shrugs. "Noct and I are also fighters. Having a huge ass rock of any sort could get in the way."

But engagement and fealty are not the same. He has to smirk at the other man, shaking his head.

"No. A simple band. Some sort of silvery metal."

While it looked like it would be harder to convince Gladio that he deserved some adornment sometimes, too, Tony still started to suggest, "Isn't that part of the promise..." letting his hand go limp, only there to look pretty in the big ring his man had given him. That wasn't really for everyone, he did have to admit. The most admirable couples he knew were still fighting side by side, a wedding hadn't changed that. He frowned thoughtfully, though didn't have much of a chance to decide which version of a marriage he thought he'd been chasing this whole time because he was blurting, "God, that's barbaric. Silver? Do you not have a lot of silver on your planet?"

They didn't do adornment like that Tony.

"Could get caught on things, or damaged. Smooth profiles are better," he points out. Though the sudden outburst about the metal has Gladio flinching.

"What's wrong with silver? It's one of the colors shared by our houses."

"No, I mean, sure, it's fine, it's very practical. Understated. Wouldn't want to get too excited, it's really best if you blend in with the flatware," Tony graciously allowed. "Then he knows you don't want to show him off."

What? Gladio looks at Tony because, what?

"It's not flatware. Are you kidding?"

That was the point Tony was trying to make, and it wasn't clear if Gladio had actually gotten that or didn't understand what a fork was. Tony locked him in a dubious, sidelong look while reaching across the bench to pull out a coil of gold wire that he had pulled to make chips, but knew his projects weren't nearly as important. He set it between them, shimmering and resplendent in the flicker of the fire. Much more striking than any of the silver that littered the bench as tools and solder.

"You know there are plenty of people who like silver jewelry, right?"

Why would it be so wrong to choose silver? He doesn't get it. The gold is there though. Clearly a whole implication here.

"Okay, argument for gold? It's more useful for your robotics, isn't it?"

"We're not talking about silver jewellery," Tony pointed out. Maybe he took the whole presentation a lot more seriously than Gladio. He did have a thing about a proper presentation. The Iron Man was a terror while it was dull and silver, and a hero wrapped in gold. A wedding ring wasn't some bobble.

On the other hand, Tony was very willing to agree, "It is," regarding the gold's usefulness. To him, that was in the material's favour. "Because it's more conducive. It doesn't corrode. And its soft. Even on the hand, over time, its going to change, slow enough that you won't even notice it, so it fits better than anything you've ever worn, and you can't imagine living without it." Silver couldn't be half as much appropriate for the occasion.

"Actually, we are. Rings are jewelry."

So they are, absolutely, talking about it. But that still leaves other points.

"What about steel? You could make a ring out of that. And my point on the robotics is that shouldn't you be saving the gold for something more than some impulsive decision from a man desperate to not let someone he loves go?"

Had Gladio heard a word he said? Nobody ever did, but there couldn't be a less romantic metal than steel, and the suggestion shocked Tony into raising a delicate hand to his chest like he might faint, returning, "Like for plumbing?" That Gladio could express his affection so easily but seemed to have trouble conceptualizing it as a tactile object was baffling. The thing that his partner could touch should have expressed so much more than ephemeral words. "I can make a robot out of a VCR and a hot glue gun, don't worry about it. There's nothing more important. You're not eager to get out of here because you miss the microwave, are you?"

Different people find different things romantic. He and Noctis were both people who lived by the sword. Of course steel could be romantic.

"Like for swords," Gladio corrects with a laugh. Though he seems more shocked by the concept of a VCR. "Shit man, I haven't seen a VCR since I was a ski. And no, it's not that. I'm just... I'm trying to do right by him."

Tony couldn't think of a steel ring that he had made for a sword; they were for clamps and carabiners, though maybe there was something to be said about strength and support, making his eyes roll up thoughtfully. Not that Gladio seemed to be considering this angle. "You think your relationship with him is like a sword?" Tony prompted, sounding skeptical.

Not steel rings for swords, just steel for swords.

"We're brothers in arms," he says, so yeah, that is sorta how it is. "I was his weaponsmaster and instructor before we were involved. A long time before. A sword is something we share. Sometimes literally trading the blade between us in combat."

That was a dynamic that Tony could understand, and he seemed to consider it less critically, like he might be able to relent somewhat on the gold. It still wasn't going to look as good. Besides, "And you want your marriage to feel the same? Like you're in combat together?" Sometimes, that already felt like an effortless marriage. Which made the times they weren't running the same program all the more painful.

No. No it wasn't the dynamic he wanted either.

"We'll always stand together in conflict. But I want us to be equal. True equals for a change. Astrals know I need that chance for a change."

"So, two of the same, that makes our job easy," Tony wasn't going to argue with. Twin rings for true equals. "Is that why you thought you had to argue with me about the teacher thing? Listen, it's not my fault you put yourself in that position, it's him you've got to be accountable to if you think you need to stop bossing him around and acting like his superior. Couple of rings aren't going to fix that, but can be a good reminder when your wires are all crossed."

"I'm not going back to the whole teacher thing," Gladio says with a sigh. Though he's not going to correct Tony's conclusion.

"I love him, and I want to share this with him. Give him my life in a different way."

Tony didn't need to hear any further proof--he was the last person who anyone needed to justify a relationship to, and he wasn't interested in challenging Gladio on his convictions in maybe this single area. Enjoy the brief reprieve. It was only the rings themselves that Tony was going to stubbornly insist, "Gold. Come on," and it wasn't a cajoling encouragement. He was taking up the wire that he had produced and heading toward the fire for Gladio to follow. "Bring those gloves, you're going to need them. Get that crucible, watch the mess."

Gladio grab the glows and frowns.

"Why would I need them?"

He does start fetching as he's directed to though.

"So you don't burn yourself, come on, keep up," Tony explained impatiently, mumbled around the end of the wire already in his mouth to keep aloft as he was busy taking up the hefty sheers laid against the forge to snip off as much as they would need. A pair of rings wouldn't take long, as long as Gladio was willing to follow, "Hold that up, steady, in the fire. Just for a minute." By the time Tony saw Gladio out of here, he will have made his own wedding bands, adopted a new job title and task, and left Tony with a list of weapons to disassociate over while he crafted them by whatever base code drove him to endlessly produce the tools of destruction. By any measure, Tony should have felt like he finally achieved something. The dread still coiled in his chest, effortlessly mapping for him every way that his brief satisfaction could make the world more bleak.

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ziedrich_bearer - 2023-10-09 00:37 (UTC) - Expand

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