revivalproject | Little darling It's been a long, cold, lonely winter

It was hard not to agree, "You deserve the world," but Tony hadn't deserved the open sky for a long time. Maybe ever. So, with another glance up at it, he had to tuck his chin down and start his sweeping again with determination. "I don't have a suit," he reminded her. And, after a beat, had to admit, glad he had the berries to focus on, "You don't either, actually. Your closet got, ah, redistributed. Might have to look into that."

The small form lifted from his shoulder and moment later her full grown self was pouting at him with crossed arms.

"Okay, first of all, you are getting back any item of clothing missing, plus interest. And second of all, don't think for a second I believe that you- Tony Stark don't have a suit stashed away somewhere. I know you. And I know every single time you've put it away for good or destroyed them or given them away, that you always have another before too long."

Watching Jan grow was like emotional nuclear decay, first a bright flare where Tony held out a hand expectantly to receive hers and pull her into a proper hug, only for his smile of relief to fall guiltily as she barred him off instead. He brought his hands together on the broom again to press it to his own chest, letting it take some of his weight and letting his focus wander back up to the sky like he couldn't even hear her as she laid out his bad habits. It was much easier to address indignantly, "Interest? I can't be making Tae give up some of her shoes just because I thought I was never going to see you again. Honestly, this is on you, if you think about it, you could have just not...done that." Not his best argument, but in his defense, he was under some duress, arms flexing in tension where he gripped over his heart. Maybe she wouldn't notice that he was not confirming or denying the existence of a suit.

Okay, maybe denying him was a bit too much, Jan held that pout a moment longer before Tony's guilty look ate away at her resolve and she was pushing her way into his arms.

"I'll keep that in mind next time I decide to disappear. Now celebrate with me, and put on the suit. For me."

She didn't have to work very hard to get there, welcomed easily with the broom immediately forgotten against a drooping bush so Tony could fold both his arms around her shoulders and kiss her hair until he might be satisfied, like he could avoid the future where he regretted not taking every chance he had. His lips still moved against her temple as he answered, "For you," because he couldn't very well say no to her in this position; there wasn't a force great enough. Not even the gravitational well of his guilt, which still had the power to draw him back enough to meet her eye with a pleading promise. It was just this once, and she couldn't tell anyone, and then he would stop, for real. That might have been hard to believe, with the small gesture to indicate the suit was nearby, of course. Just down the nearest stairwell, into the basement of the library and his lab.

She laughed, letting him have has fill rather than duck away, and gave him a good squeeze while he was occupied.

She met that gaze, one she'd seen before, and she nodded softly, even if she knew and hoped this wouldn't be the end of it. She took his hand and started to pull them off towards the stars.

"No one I'd rather be up there with."

"Now I know you're lying to me," Tony accused with a wry smile. "If Thor were here, you wouldn't be able to take your eyes off of him, you're not subtle about it. Don't worry, Steve told me he was his favourite, too." They didn't have to go far, met at the top of those stairs by the Iron Man navigating its way up. It caught the light as it came stomping out of the shadow of that hollow, gleaming in almost entirely a pale gold, only its joints and the plates revealed as it moved, shifting like scales, shot through with a dark, brushed metallic, almost black. It was a sleek machine, light on any obvious armaments, even its recognizable unibeam heart a closed eye, just a knot of scales meeting where the chest flexed. As the darker gold that spilled across Tony's skin coated his hand, he was still reluctant to release Jan's, only slowly sliding away as he gestured to invite some of the armor pieces to assemble themselves around him, a finger still hooked around one of hers when he stood in his boots and had pulled his shirt over his head until he couldn't stand the disarray that had left his hair.

"Well sure. He's eye candy. You're the full package," Jan dismissed. The new suit was beautiful. They almost always were. And each one reflected Tony, his fears, his dreams, the environment. Some people didn't appreciate all that went into one of these, but Jan knew fashion, knew it was deeper than just the surface level details.

She kept that finger hooked, lips curled into a grin and laughed at the state of him. "Beautiful," she said, rocking up to try and fix his hair to her liking.

As though he hadn't also been fussing with his hair, Tony gave an impatient nod, mouthing, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," ineffectually flapping a hand to not really brush her off before he was pulling on his helmet with the hook of a grin. The hollow sound of his own breath trapped behind the mask and the dazzle of lights before his eyes was electrically bittersweet, leaving Tony unsteady enough to have to pretend to get his bearings in the new armor while he reveled in a familiar security, resented his own excitement, and yearned for the easy grace and power that Jan embodied that would let her leap from the ground without trapping herself in a metal coffin. When he found her hand again, it was because the armor told him about the contact points along his glove. He raised it expectantly, for her to follow off of the ground.

No metal coffin. But it did require losing at least a little height. Jan only shrunk down about as far as she had to for her wings to come out to start this flight, wanting it to feel more about her and Tony and less about 'Wasp & Iron Man'. But there was plenty of time for that too.

"This thing going to be fast enough to keep up with me, or do I need to go slow?" she teased as the took to the air, and even in this unfamiliar suit she could imagine the face Tony was making in there, sticking out her tongue.

There was barely anything to her to begin with, so at this size she could easily slip away when the Iron Man lurched up at that taunting, one arm wrapping around her legs to scoop up around her hips and lift her with the rocketing boost of his jets. The other hand didn't quite alight on her side, ensuring she was steady even as the mask stared up at her with the slightest tilt; a smirking challenge, to anyone sensitive enough to read it, as they went twirling upward. "I can't remember the last time I asked anyone to take me slow, Van Dyne," Tony replied. "Maybe it would be novel, to start."

She laughed happily at that challenge and the surge of adrenaline the boost offered. Rollercoasters had nothing on flying. Nothing could match it.

"To start? Why, Mr. Stark, whatever are you insinuating?"

"Nothing untoward, sweetheart, don't be crass. I have a reputation to maintain," Tony insisted. By then, his corkscrew had slowed to a lazy spin, the momentum threatening to tip the other way and send them hurtling back down into the garden. They hadn't reached much higher than where the raptors darted watchfully across the sky, but Tony still closed his eyes as he cut his engines, listening to the beat of his heart and the hollow echo of his slow, counted inhale inside his helmet. They were definitely falling by the time he opened them again, and he kept his hold on Jan, the weight of the armor dragging her down, only shifting it to take her hands until he felt just the right pressure tingling up the back of his neck. Then he flipped, jets suddenly roaring, to swing her down and toss her back up into the sky.

"Oh, I know your reputation~" she countered with smirk, and that shared trust was evident in the wide grin as they began to freefall. She flipped gracefully, shrinking down and twisting into several loops before she flit back to Tony's side.

"Nothing like it," she sighed happily. How Tony had gone so long without it she didn't know. "Feels good, doesn't it?"

There wasn't a better summation; he had to agree in response, "Nothing like it." There wasn't room for his guilt as he fell, and he sped too quickly toward the treeline to lead them along the edge of the city for there to be any dwelling. As long as no one else saw the armor streaking through the sky and called in the cavalry to shoot him down. He wanted to ask if Jan was doing the same, keeping ahead of the despair of waking up in this place again, the invasion of her missing time, and decided he would rather stay in the sky forever if it was working. Instead, he challenged, "Bet I beat you to the beach," with a lazy roll in place of a coquettish batting of his eyelashes, daring her to bet something valuable.

Given everything they've collectively gone through, Jan's good humor can't be all natural. But she was a poster child for fake it til you make it.

She spiraled casually round Iron Man, and then flew into his path with a cheeky laugh, taking the momentary advantage where should could and streaking off toward the beach. "Loser owes me a backrub!"

He wasn't so graceful at recovering from that surprised halt, recalibrating and finding his momentum again while she gained her lead. Not that losing sounded like such a bad deal. Jan didn't have to know if this Iron Man's engines were as powerful as those she was used to, that easily outstripped a jet, let alone Jan's fastest flapping. He could still put on a show, rocketing after her, a straight shot in her meandering wake, so much like a bee bumbling and bouncing erratically that even his tracking system sometimes lost the tiny point of her in the cold sky. He barely skimmed around her as he overtook her, then rolled onto his back to watch her with a staticy laugh.

There wasn't a huge chance Jan could actually win, but it didn't stop her from flying like she really believed she could outstrip him. The wake in the air pressure as he passed veered her off course, and she laughed as she beat her wings to try and outpace him.

"Don't gloat 'til it's over, you know that!"

The gloating was already happening in the way Tony took a luxurious winding path that let him keep an eye on her and roll through the air to let the sunlight catch on all of his fine metalwork. "I will be gloating before, during, and after, Queen Bee," he assured her. "You know that."

There was a steady hum as her wings beat, eyes narrowed with a fiercely competitive look as she dived to skim along the treetops.

"You're lucky I like cocky boys."

That was dangerously close to the environment where he wouldn't have such a clear advantage, and Tony still had to follow, his playful dazzling slowing to a minimum so he could keep a read on her tiny form between the graze of the leaves. "I can carry you the rest of the way, if you can't handle it," he goaded, like she had only dropped because her energy flagged.

"You can carry me home after my massage. You're gonna do a good job, I can tell," she countered, dipping down abruptly below the canopy. Bobbing and weaving was far easier at her size than Tony's, should he follow, and if he didn't, she knew she was still harder to keep an eye on down here. As if they didn't both know he could barrel on ahead and win in half a second if he wanted to.

The teasing hadn't worked how Tony hoped, and now he had to decide if he would veer up into the open to charge forward and meet her where the trees broke, hoping she was okay, or try to follow her into the maze. A few seconds later, he came crashing through the branches, a burst of snapped twigs and a shower of leaves where Jan had slipped in so seamlessly. She wasn't easy to catch sight of again, and Tony had to slow down dramatically to navigate around the trees, still clipping branches as he past and leaving new greenery scorched as he searched.

It was her laughter that gave her away. How could she help herself after that less than graceful display.

"There he is," she called back, darting between the trees and branches with ease. "Careful, you're going to wind up on the bad side of those little plant things."

What any of the plant-people thought was largely mysterious and frustrating, and Tony didn't want to admit that this warning affected him, so he answered, "What're they gonna do, pollinate me?," even as he slowed further, trying to limit the singed leafs in his wake. "I might be into that." Even more unfortunately, the downshift was giving Jan a significant advantage, and Tony could already see the trees thinning and the glint of water between them ahead. He had to do his best to follow Jan's more nimble path, finding the easy gaps in the branches, an charge forward to try to crash into her as they broke the treeline, attempting to draw her back conversationally, "I'd have to ask the resident expert."

"Anthony Edward Stark, did you just ask me to pollinate you?" she asked, easily manipulated into slowing to be heard. "You better hope you don't have allergies."

And shit, she'd quickly given up the small chance at a lead that the trees had granted, wings beating hard to try and make up for her bravado.

That didn't make for much competition for Tony's much more reckless burst of speed, letting branches shatter against his armor to break straight through rather than waste a second going any further around, which let him catch her in one hand to pull back against his chest. By then, he could regret the enthusiasm, because the charge was strong enough to send him fishtailing as they did finally pull out over the sand and he tried to slow with no real resistance in the vast waters' great inhale; he flipped onto his back to cradle Jan carefully as he let himself crash into the beach and be dragged to a stop in the sand, just as the tide came crashing back in and hissed its way up to meet them. While his mask tried a few filters to combat the glare of the sun on his face, he said, "You know I can't stand a tie."

It was the perfect end, Jan laughing in delight as they tumbled through the air and finally to a halt there in the sand, shaking of the spray of the water. That laugher grew as Jan did, laying across him half boneless and squinting as the sun shone, laying her cheek against his chest.

"That that perfect. Fuck I missed this."

Tony's careful hold lifted away to hover daintily over her instead as she shifted, and then only returned as a ginger trace of his fingertips over her shoulders, the metal warm from the burn of energy and gliding easily. His laugh was a brief jump of his chest, short before a contemplative silence as he deliberated finally asking, "Didn't you go home?" If that was where she had just been yesterday, it wouldn't be unusual to find out yet another familiar face was at odds with him on Earth.

Little darling It's been a long, cold, lonely winter

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