Stranger in a Strange Land

[in_extremis]

WHO: Tony, Steve and Bucky? And everyone else!
WHERE: Some network nonsense, and skulking around the resort
WHAT: Tony's playing catch up, and doesn't have a good lead yet. This is also Tony's TDM thread, relocated to make more sense on Risa, so if you want to properly canon that meeting, here we are!
WHEN: Risa: After Hours
WARNINGS: Nothing scandalous yet!


The Resort
The amount of information that Tony had now was not helpful, and neither the tablet he had been carefully tucked into his new bed with nor the computers spread throughout the resort were properly calibrated to help Tony map this ever sprawling conundrum. He had no way to connect the mysterious '31' to apocalyptic storms on a planet he had never heard of to all of the information telling him he was currently in an episode of Star Trek. What he did have was: an already rockstar-trashed room, a new wardrobe, and a creeping sensation of truly disgusting self-pity eating away in the pit of his stomach that he was going to have to overcome very rapidly before it grew any more powerful. To do that, he needed answers. He needed Cap. No, he could do this.

If he was going to solve the problem, he had to be in control of how at the very least. So far, the market had offered Tony plenty of fun and fashion, but not anything particularly useful, and it was about time he experienced a childhood fantasy: the replicators. One of the staff members had helpfully directed him in a way that felt so reminiscent of suggesting the ice machine back on familiar ground, that when Tony was actually standing in front of the thing, his first impulse was 'computer: ice'. And the replicator just made it, just like that; and not even just ice, this thing was advanced enough to interpret this failure of a human communication, vague and directionless, and delivered the beautiful, mouthwateringly glistening ice chips in a delicate glass, a useful container for his bumbling desires. Tony could smell how crunchy they were. He stared at this gift for too long in wonder, before remembering that he was still in public and gave a glance up and down the hall, regrouping, trying to focus. It was late so the halls felt deserted, but anyone could be coming back from the clubs at any hour in this place. Current problem: Kidnapping situation. Problem for another time: solving world hunger. He collected his glass of ice, then tried again, asking for a set of precision tools and a soldering iron. Then, after holding all of this cradled in a hammock of his shirt pulled away from his stomach, asked for superglue (this did not work, Tony had to get more specific and got what he hoped he was looking for with 'Cyanoacrylate?'), then, duh, bandages. He should have brought a bag. "Oh. Computer, one more thing, sweetheart. Do you have a bag?" A Ferengi rounded the corner, looking festive in a Margaritaville shirt (would he get the reference?) but staring very seriously at Tony, clearly suspicious and unwilling to share this space with him at this hour. Tony wasn't eager to find out if the species was really as they were portrayed, and instead gave a courteous nod of acknowledgement as he slung his cleverly resort-branded cloth bag of goods over his shoulder and slid away, glass in hand, to find another station to test the limits of. It couldn't hurt to test out his new tools on one, just a little bit. He could solve two problems at once.

It was late, and the breeze flowed easily through the open-air halls of the resort, keeping the still-warm, tropical air from feeling oppressively hot and carrying the sweet smell of alien, fruiting flowers with it. It was the perfect time to case the joint.

[Video]
[A video message posted to the network of a man frowning down into the camera, chin propped up in one hand and looking equal parts bored and skeptical, but occasionally glancing up, just past the camera, possibly betraying his alert tension.
Tony is in his room, sitting with his back against the bed where he has clearly thoroughly tossed the blankets, a single pillow left in the middle of the mattress among the mess. He knows from Billy that this is the best way to get in touch with anyone who might be able to relate to his situation. It doesn't make him feel any less vulnerable.]

I'm used to having some, you know, guidelines-- hard to read the room here, hard to read the audience. Um-- Tony. [He quickly touches his chest, that's me, before holding his chin again.] Looking for: just some fun, nothing serious. Likes: long walks on the beach, particle physics, black coffee. Dislikes: The smell of bookstores. I know, you'll try to convince me, and it will be a very good date, because I've never had a bad one, but I still won't like the smell. What else goes on these things...? [He's looking past the camera again, like he's waiting for the response to come from out there. If this doesn't produce solid results, Tony's ready to take this thing apart and make it more useful to him.]

Comments

[doubled_speed]

Tea? Tommy tries not to grimace. He needs coffee and a lot more sugar. It's who he is, part of the speedster thing.

"Don't call me kiddo. I'm not your kiddo," he says, narrowing his eyes. But he definitely considers Stark for a few minutes. Before shaking his head. No. Stark CANNOT count on him for that.

"Greenhouse needs me. Listen on your own."

[in_extremis]

For a second, Tony thought he had finally cracked the code, so when Tommy shook his head Tony had to purse his lips and breathe a deep sigh. And if that had worked, he would have had the sketch of a working team, with the perfectly unexpected spy; fast, brash and stubborn. With this denial, Tony was out of short term tactics, outside of being openly antagonistic, which he didn't feel confident in field testing without access to the Iron Man after that display with the bottle. He didn't prod the Hulk without a solid escape plan. "Great. Well. Billy's probably more reliable, anyway." Okay, Tony was never really out. But he didn't intend to stick around for the results, raising a hand to clap Tommy on the shoulder in farewell and reconsidering, giving a wave instead. He had been on his way to take apart one of these replicators, and this hall had proven a little too heavy on the foot traffic. There had to be one somewhere less exhausting.

[doubled_speed]

Oh no he didn't. Tommy is up and in front of Tony with all the righteous fury of a Maximoff Speedster protecting their witch twin. And he definitely looks furious.

"Don't. Even. Try. It. Clearly you've already learned he's here. But unlike Billy, I'm not going to pretend you're our friend. Not after that shit you pulled after he fucking saved New York from a fucking nuke. You took who we were out on him, and you don't deserve his help."

And Billy would give it anyway, because he's a good guy that looked up to older heroes. He was going to forget the suffering they had because of the Civil War. How Tony Stark as Iron Man wanted to destroy Wanda. That's not cool.

[in_extremis]

Okay, the comment was meant to irritate Tommy a bit, but in no way was meant to lead to more running and swearing. At least Tony was learning what to expect. Direct antagonism was definitely inadvisable. Tony had to stop short midstep, making him slouch back with canted hips and a pleading roll of his eyes up toward the stars for some explanation from the wider universe for what he possibly could have done now. All he got in return was, some of that language was familiar. 'Not after that shit you pulled' was one of Rhodey's favourite phrases after a destructive bender, and came in mighty handy during his tenure as Iron Man. To this day, though, Tony didn't have a good statement prepared for this situation; Rhodes had made it clear that an apology was a minor part of the calculation that didn't mean much on its own. Not after the shit Tony pulled.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't," he said with a shrug, knowing even as he did that it wouldn't mean much. Tommy was comfortable being angry and needed someone to beat up on to feel in control, and what he had to tell Tony about his future was going to come out in these bursts of passion. It was a simple puzzle all along. "Maybe I don't deserve the help. But I kind of got the feeling you were ready to get home, too. Get everybody home. Do you want to tell me how much anyone else deserves it?" He would have to ask Billy about the details of an impending nuclear attack on New York, and what about it might have led Tony to respond in a way that pissed this kid off.

[doubled_speed]

Ready to get home? No, not really. Tommy doesn't have much there, and he does wanna help the Agrii. But sending Wanda back to her Vision, and Billy and Teddy home, it's not a bad thing. Their world, though, it would be great if Tony didn't go back to it.

"If you go home, you're going to cause a lot of really bad shit, including treating Billy like a pariah," yeah check out that awesome word there, "because you and yours are too fucking paranoid over what Wanda could do with her powers and finding out Billy is stronger is going to break your little coward brains. And I don't intend to let that happen."

Yep, he definitely takes after his Uncle Pietro. How he ever doubted the family connection was a fucking mystery.

[in_extremis]

Tony did not know what it was about him that had both Tommy and Billy convinced they were from the same place. Tommy kept on talking like he knew with certainty how Tony felt about Wanda, like she and Vision weren't gone after the Mansion came down, like Tony had done something to convince the rest of the Avengers that Wanda was to blame for whatever did happen.

But there was Tony's unavoidable reality: faced with the uncontrollable destruction of the Hulk, Tony had gone behind the Avengers' backs to send him off world. He was fully capable of making that decision with someone else's life. Since he carried that with him, though, Tony knew just as clearly that he would rather stop that crisis before it began, than have to make that call again. He doubted he could change the future for these kids, but in his dimension, wasn't this the perfect opportunity?

Folding his arms across his chest and holding his ground, not about to be intimidated now by a vague threat like 'don't intend to let that happen', Tony asked, "What did he do? Did he lose control?" Here was the other gear that wasn't fitting into the mechanism that Tony could see: Billy had seemed healthy, happy to see him, engaged and thriving where he was in his life. Had he so disengaged from reality that Tony couldn't read this anger in him?

[doubled_speed]

“He saved New York City from a nuke, he saves your life and mine and everyone’s,” Tommy answers. That’s the part that is important. The ‘Billy didn’t know he could do that’ and the ‘put bad guys into a coma’ wasn’t something that bothered Tommy. Then again, the US government had been training him to be an assassin, so his morals were likely a bit skewed. “And all it took was a little of that reality warping you all get so fucking freaked about. Like he doesn’t weigh that power heavily. Like he didn’t grow up idolizing you capes and agonizes over what he does.”

It wasn’t like Billy uses his powers frivolously. Except for coffee. Okay, so maybe he uses them frivolously a lot, but not in ways that hurt the universe.

“You guys just react like you do because you hate magic and you hate mutants, and so when you get a magic mutant on your hands, all hell fucking breaks loose. And Tony Stark just likes the rush of feeling in control, mister I know best for all super heroes and they should all listen to me.”

[in_extremis]

It was hard to argue with how much Tony hated magic, but if it was a matter of controlling the kind of power that defied all logic, Strange would have been first against the wall and even Tony knew that wouldn't solve the problem. There would still be magic, but no magic users to keep a handle on it. Tony hated it, and he also didn't want to be the one to have to deal with it. He knew how to delegate sometimes.

Whatever bias Tommy thought Tony had against mutants, though, was entirely baseless. Conflated with Tommy's judgement on Tony's controlling character, Tony could only guess he was holding a grudge about Tony's behaviour while the Scarlet Witch led his team, but if he knew about that, it would have been through Jonas. Jonas' version of those events would have been more sympathetic to Tony than anyone's, he thought, but maybe Tony's weakness to Kang's control was pathetic to them. They shrugged the Conqueror off easily enough. Tony dropped his arms again, hands on hips, losing the steely stare he had levelled at Tommy to give an absent nod to the floor.

"Fine, no, you're right," he allowed. "I assumed you couldn't handle shit on your own, and I was mad that you were getting such big wins so fast. I'm not used to not being the one in the spotlight. Can you blame me?" Tommy wasn't going to give him the whole story that had him so defensive of Billy. He had said himself that the rest of the team looked up to Tony, so maybe it was Teddy that could draw out that part of the equation for him-- it might have been just Tommy that was holding onto this so tightly, and there was a more personal reason that he didn't want to reveal. If thinking Tony was some kind of resentfully inadequate mutant bigot helped Tommy process it, Tony wasn't going to complicate his life any further.

[doubled_speed]

Seriously? Tonny thought he was going to fall for this behavior? Well, actually, it was pretty close. And there was a lot Tony didn't know, but really, what had set him off was saying her name. Even now it hurt so much, and if he could lay some of the blame for her death at Tony's feet, then he would.

"Fuck, you think saying that is going to make me believe you really feel that's true? I'm young, not an idiot. Give me some credit. OR does someone have to be in the order of 'scientist heroes who think they have all the answers' to have even a bit of respect from you?"

Not that Stark will ever take a mouthy young Speedster serious, right? But he's seen lives ruined, bodies buried over Stark's actions. Well, maybe not his alone. But those of 'adults' who knew what was best for everyone else.

"You're an attention hog, but you care about the right thing happening. That said, I think I'd much rather hangout with Old Hawkass than you."

[in_extremis]

This was going to give Tony whiplash. He needed a drink, and a cigarette, and a nap, and he has to click his tongue to unstick it from the roof of his mouth as he rolled his head back. He was the adult here, so if one of them was gaslighting the other into misery, it couldn't have been the kid. Tony did cause this, he had been trying to charm Tommy into trusting him since he appeared. That was how Sunset started, too, very charming, and Tony must have done something to make her as angry as he felt at this final name Tommy pulled out to mock him with. What the fuck did this kid know about Hawkeye? How many of Tony's dead friends was he supposed to be proving his loyalty to here, to someone who had never even met them?

He had caused this, and he had to put an end to it before he did any more damage. He didn't want to push past Tommy, and he didn't want to slink away to double back, so Tony said, "You need to get away from me. Back off."

[doubled_speed]

Too bad there isn't a Hawkeye here. Either of them. Tommy steps aside.

"Just... you don't want to know your future, Stark. Don't ask things. You might find something out that you don't want to know."

He moves away and goes back to his table. He wants to eat his roast.