revivalproject | Interference

Entry tags:

Interference

WHO: Tony and open!
WHERE: The university/Avengers Mansion, library, Blue 16. Feel free to encounter him anywhere on this path, it's all at once and forever.
WHAT: Tony has some ideas, and some distractions
WHEN: End of July
WARNINGS: I'll let you know if things get weird.

Hiding so completely from the bake of the sun did not stop the training area from feeling bitterly hot. It had seemed large and airy at first, a perfect use for the erstwhile lecture hall, but by the time Tony was escaping with an idea nagging at the back of his head, his clothes were sticking uncomfortably and water seemed to have been boiled. That sweat only became a chill as he trudged down into the basement, cooling rapidly and making him feel exposed and unkempt in the empty, watching hall, until D.A.T.A. came rolling out of the workshop eagerly. He gave the bot a wry smile, and greeted, "We could have been having a proper workout this whole time, that's on me." Helpfully, D.A.T.A. projected a basketball hoop on the wall, and the ball that Tony mimed a perfect jumpshot for before he was sweeping down to give the little robot a high five on the wiry arm that shot out of the top of it to meet him. By the time Tony had straightened again, the projection had changed to an array of video screens, blurred and poorly coloured against the dusty wall, and fuzzy with static. He had raised his bottle to drink again, only to pause, watching the display, then looking to D.A.T.A. with a questioning lift of his brow. He could see them, too, he didn't need the projection, so he wasn't sure what the bot was trying to show him. It didn't move, though, camera eye trained steadily on the wall to hold the image, drawing Tony's focus back to the video feeds. The cameras had been restored throughout the city, watching over the mostly barren corners where Tony couldn't be at all times. A lobster toddled across the beach, where the waves broke on the shore serenely. A burst of birds came swarming out of the hedge around the museum. A spider crawled across a lens, obscuring the diner. Most of what he ever saw was this empty city and its wildlife. Watching it only fed the furnace of loneliness in his chest.

He produced a cover model smile and crouched down to offer a lift to D.A.T.A. and distract him out of this display as he insisted, "Hey. We've got work do to, come on, you're wasting time, you're supposed to be running some numbers for me." This time, the robot obediently cut the feed to roll into the offered hug against Tony's chest, where he remained while Tony slipped into the workshop and considered the tools, unable to completely ignore the loop of video feeds at the back of his own mind. Was that unusual movement, down by the lake? He juggled D.A.T.A. back and forth in each arm as he shrugged on the first robe he found discarded across a worktop, not feeling any more secure in it anyway, and rattled on to try to talk over the feeling as he did, "Unless it's the same storm that keeps cycling back to us, which, alright, we'll buy that bridge when we get to it, it has to run out of energy eventually, complete discharge. It's just an electrical problem."

An electrical problem should have been Tony's area of expertise. He only had several doctorates to prove it. Everyone else seemed to find the systems and engines in this place so intuitive. He just had to slow down, plan ahead more, think about the next two steps and not just tenth.

By the time the sun was sinking and the heat breaking, he was still thinking about those flickering screens. Impatient, he had traded the robe for a sweatshirt and pulled on some boots, but hadn't gotten far in the twilight before he was regretting the shorts as the insects began to swarm and he could feel them brushing around his legs even as he tried to keep to the less broken and overgrown roads. He told himself he was bound for the power plant, the crystals and the engine that kept the city running, and had headed out behind the library through the garden and the purpling path where less windows seemed to peer down at him from the empty-eyed city. He slowed well before he even reached the treeline, though, despite the bugs bouncing into his calves and threatening to crawl up his thighs, shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets like he could go unseen as he stepped lightly alongside the hidden camera. He watched the strange structure that he had been thinking about all afternoon, with its looping bridge of tubes, draped as they were now in vines and cobwebs to obscure the lake behind them, and held the same image from another angle of that camera feed at the back of his mind, staring so intently he thought he could hear the low whine of a CRT monitor. When it stopped abruptly, he realized he had stopped walking, and a grasshopper went leaping ahead over the tall grass, carrying that whining song with it.

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Steve has been coming around more often lately, because he can't exactly train all day and sometimes he just needs to get out of his head in any case. Usually, he's killing two birds with one stone, because he's finding it more fun to cook something nice when he's thinking about feeding someone else.

Today, he's in the workshop with what sort of passes for sandwiches with homemade bread. A little gummy, definitely not his best effort, but a crust had formed and honestly if he'd just let it cool all the way first, it probably would have had a decent texture.

He nudges the plate over towards Tony, as he settles beside him, pulling up a tablet to draw on. "What are you working on today?" he asks.

The sound of the door opening made Tony tense, defensive with only a slight tilt of his head to betray that he was listening. Any other footsteps would have him turning to intercept, readying with an excuse to push them both out if he had to, but Steve's he could recognize and had his shoulders easing back down as he kept his focus on his work. He only glanced up as Steve found his seat, and took his time with a slow inhale and thoughtful pout at the question, like he hadn't really planned out what he was already wrist deep in on the workbench.

"Maybe a masterpiece," he eventually offered. "I'll do a few sketches, but I've been thinking of painting the clocktower, I'd capture how hollow it looks with the empty sky behind it, facing the beach." He stole another glance Steve's way, to assess if that was close, or if Steve was more in the kind of mood that had him drawing comics. "Why, what are you doing?" Tony encouraged, eyebrow already raised in amusement.

Steve is interested in all of Tony's projects, even if he can't understand the littlest thing about them. He'd always had a brilliant mind, and it was fun just to see him work those gears and come up with something that Steve wouldn't have imagined in a million years.

He's already started sketching as Tony thinks about what to answer him with, and looks up with a curve of his brow. He'd play along with this game, only, he really can't tell what Tony's doing at all, so he just does what he does best and tells the truth. "Thought maybe I'd draw your team. I've got a bunch of portraits of mine, and of all the people here, but none of yours." Except the ones who are here, of course.

Tony didn't have long to hold a pout of disappointment for the rejection, quickly abandoning it to an inquisitive frown, his attention successfully captured enough to slow his hands. Somewhat. It was brief, and Tony quickly trained his focus back on his work so he wasn't caught staring, and had to ask, "What, team--like back home? Now?" Or, the team makeup as of the last time Tony saw them, he supposed would be more accurate. That couldn't be right, though, because he was pretty sure Steve didn't know most of those people. "Is this going to be an interview?" Tony had to add. Finally, he paused long enough to lean an elbow on the table and lift the device he had been fussing with, ostensibly to offer a display of the bowl's inner workings so Steve could see how they spun and glowed to try to get any guess out of him. Mostly, it gave Tony the excuse to watch Steve for his explanation.

Steve doesn't know most of those people, it's true, but he figures that Tony remembers them clearly enough to describe them. Even if it's in the Tony way of speaking, which honestly, doesn't help Steve all that much sometimes from an artistic point of view, but he'll try to bridge the gap.

"Only if you want it to be," he says, calmly. "Just - thought maybe we haven't seen our friends in awhile. I like to flip through the portraits and remember them. Thought maybe I could do something similar for you and Jan." It wasn't even the first time he'd done this. He'd started to, years ago, when he was trying to recall old times with the Howlies.

"You're so sentimental," Tony accused, and he was already looking away, focused on carefully arranging his device in front of him again like he suddenly had to approach it from a specific angle. It took him a beat to realize that wasn't really an answer, and he was talking again before he had thought about it, "You're getting good at this, huh? Starting over." He meant that Steve would know better how to handle being so disconnected from his old life, but it sounded sharp enough when Tony said it that he was continuing quickly, "Some of them are easy. You know me. You know Pete. And you." One easy reference that Tony was uniquely positioned to offer was a shimmering display that suddenly projected in front of them, glowing over the table, of technical designs of some familiar costumes.

"I don't think I look like me," he answers, crossing his arms. "Or - I look a little bit like him, at least, but we've got differences, right? I'm assuming the same's for Pete." Like hopefully Peter is older, for one.

But for another, Tony's features are way different, so, Steve knows it's not just the same as drawing a portrait of himself.

Describing and delineating those subtleties seemed easy when it came to remolding the Iron Man to adjust for windsheer or weight distribution, and suddenly much less quantifiable when Tony looked to Steve and was left with his mouth open and empty as he searched his face for the first obvious calculable difference. "He's younger," he could say more confidently about Peter instead. "Leaner. No kid yet, so he doesn't have that kind of...light." Maybe 'yet' was too optimistic, and Tony turned his frown back on his work to push that thought away. It seemed foregone, once he had held May. "Sometimes, I think you look older," he finally could produce, "but you might just be more...expressive. He's harder, beautiful, but I wouldn't call him 'pretty'." His smirk was a tiny tug with a scarce glance Steve's way.

Steve seems surprised to hear that Peter had a kid, but - well, of course he did, he was a lot older, right? That makes sense. It's only confusing because he knows Peter as a high school student, barely out of middle school. He's so young, it's hard to imagine him as a father.

Hell, he can't even imagine himself as a father.

"So he's younger-looking than me, but, what? More severe? --I'm gonna guess he doesn't have a beard." Everyone gets hung up on the beard.

With a snicker, Tony confirmed, "No, no beard. Stronger jawline, you know, wouldn't dream of depriving us of it, kind of a national treasure." He could bring himself to look up then, one hand up under Steve's chin to feel his thumb through that treacherous veil with a pout of assessment. Maybe Steve's wasn't too disappointing, if anyone ever saw it. Now that he had the object of scrutiny in hand, he properly focused with a frown, and could report, "Your eyes are different. That's what it is. Darker."

Steve doesn't mind the physical closeness - honestly if he reflected on it, Tony was always getting up in his personal bubble. This one happens to be a little more shameless about it. "Lighter eyes, got it. I'm gonna go on a limb and say my nose isn't the same, but I don't need you poking it," he teases.

"But here..." He flips through the files on the tablet and pulls up a self-portrait he'd done, one without the beard. "In case you couldn't tell where my jaw is." He reaches over to give Tony's chin a little scratch just to demonstrate how ridiculous his idea of measuring is.

The nose wasn't so obvious to Tony, who had to tilt his head and bring his hand up like he might just feel his way around the problem now that Steve said he wasn't allowed. His measurements were impeccable, after all, even if Steve didn't trust his methods and left him chuckling again as he waved away that teasing hand. The offered portrait was probably the best way for Tony to solve this problem with his hands, rather than trying to push Steve's face into shape, and he accepted it with a swipe across the tablet to draw a copy out and into the projection he already displayed, where the soft pencil lines became bright and aliased. With a flick of his fingers, he could overlay the model of Captain America's helmet over the face, making it obvious where the fit of the mask would change, and Tony had to tug on the portrait to pull or push the lines of his brow or his cheeks. "I wouldn't have said there were any differences that mattered," he muttered, puzzling over an angle fussily. "You walk the same. You get that same tightness, in your mouth. But I guess if you were standing next to each other..."

Steve's interested in looking at the other Steve - and of course Tony would have a schematic ready of his helmet, and just draw everything around that. He does see how Steve would have slightly different features, and look more stern, less soft than he does.

It's a little odd to imagine that one smaller, isn't it?

Once Tony's done fiddling around with the facial structure, Steve reaches over to take off the other Steve's cowl, to reveal his face underneath.

The result didn't appear to please Tony very much as he gave a skeptical tilt of his head and slight lift of his lip at the unmasked face. He wasn't the artist, though, and maybe that was helpful for Steve to rebuild the image properly, so Tony shot him an inquisitive look. It wasn't very optimistic. "This is a little backwards," he pointed out, flicking a finger between them, "you've got the advantage, you can just draw your team for me to see."

"I already did," he says, as he scrolls through some of the pictures. He'll even put them up so Tony's programs can translate them into a 3d model or hologram if he wants.

He puts Thor up first. "You're not gonna guess who this is," he says with an overtone of sarcasm. He'd even drawn Mjölnir.

Now that he wasn't on the spot, Tony could lean over with his elbow braced behind Steve, chin in his hand to watch his pathing through the files. He wasn't expecting Thor to be the first, or at all, based on how Steve had spoken about him before, and was almost startled out of that inquisitive lounge immediately. He went palpably tense, and took his time with a scratch at his beard before he admired, "How about that." When he had gathered himself enough, he managed, "The face, it's almost the same, I'd have to look at him twice. The thing about Thor, though, he always had this...he's big, massive," and Tony twirled an approving finger around the breadth of the drawing's shoulders, then had to flick it away, "but he still looked lighter than air, like he's not really solid."

He isn't sure why Tony's so tense over seeing Thor - they'd last been on good terms, at home. Maybe they weren't so much, for Tony. He wouldn't know, though, but he says: "Not ours. He's probably about six hundred pounds. Looks it; he could be made of steel and that'd make him less strong."

But he flips the page; hopefully Tony's still on good terms with Bruce. Steve's drawn him timid-looking, the way Banner always is. "I never really spend time with Banner, which is a shame."

The resemblance wasn't so obvious this time, and Tony was still puzzling over the unfamiliar face when Steve gave him the name and Tony had to close his eyes, holding his breath while he berated himself for thinking this would be the easier option. Bruce was supposed to be in space, that was what Steve had said, not on the team. "He does keep to himself," Tony had to agree, muttered under his breath so he could swiftly move on, "Where're the gals? Come on. Spider-woman, Jessica Jones, MJ, they're all at the Tower full time, what's going on with the testosterone on your team."

Steve moves through and pulls up Nat. "Black Widow," he says, smiling up at how he'd pulled her up. She had the red hair that she'd had when they'd first met. "But we don't have that many women on the team," he says. "So far it's just her and Wanda. Guess that Scott's got a... Ant-Woman probably."

"His daughter," Tony confirmed, his smile and fondness obvious in his voice, both for Tasha's unmistakable sharp eyes and as he explained, "She calls herself Stature." More wistfully, and with an apologetic brush down the back of Steve's neck, he said, "She practically grew up in the Mansion. You would have adored her." Finally, one of these portraits didn't have him holding himself carefully, instead relaxed enough to lean in and admire it.

Steve smiles as Tony tells him about Stature, whose name he doesn't know at the moment, because yeah, he's thinking he would have loved her too. There aren't exactly kids abounding in the compound, or at the tower, but he's fine with that, since there's usually a lot of dangerous activity, and neither of those places are really kid-friendly.

But, it seems to have worked out for Tony's team. He swipes to a new page, and starts a general sketch. "Tell me about her," he requests.

It wasn't obvious how to start a description for someone else to produce a person's image, and Tony floundered slightly as he slouched back into his seat to lean on the table instead, buying himself some time by finally taking up the sandwich. "She's a little younger than the twins," he eventually settled on with his mouth full, "Last I saw her, she was fourteen or fifteen." Beyond that, he struggled but muddled through her blonde hair, round face--she looked more like her mom than Scott, making dangerous gestures with the sandwich as he spoke. His description was smoother when he instead explained how much her mom didn't want her at the Mansion, how she never saw that mostly she was skateboarding with Tony in the wide, marble halls, or helping Jarvis make pancakes, but maybe mom was right. "That was where she got her powers, the little troublemaker. She figured out, faster'n any super-sleuth thief, how to sneak into the labs, steal Pym particles for herself."

He starts up a drawing, and even though he doesn't know what Tony's Scott looks like, and definitely not Cassie's mother, he still tries. He definitely gives her the kind of mischief in her eyes that he usually associates with Tony though, but it's only because the way that he describes her as such a troublemaker.

Eventually, he has a drawing - it may need a little retooling, but it does resemble her somewhat.

"That's not bad," Tony had to admire, though it took some squinting to try to see Cassie's face in the bare description he had managed to provide, and ultimately he suggested, "Maybe that's what she looks like in your universe." He couldn't quite bring himself to look away, searching in that drawing for a life that felt so far away now that maybe he didn't even recognize it, and said, "You should ask Tommy. He'll talk your ear off, you'll know more about her than you know yourself."

"I will," he says. There's going to be improvements to his drawing of Cassie in the future. "But tell me about some of the others." He's still pretty bent on this whole portraits thing - he's hoping to at least cheer Jan up with it, if Tony's not all that keen.

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