Tony Stark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
in_extremis) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
revivalproject2024-07-30 01:47 pm
in_extremis) wrote in revivalproject2024-07-30 01:47 pm
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.
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.