revivalproject | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

WHO: Tony and some glownies, and any witnesses to this experiment
WHERE: Sansa and Tyrion's house, the livestock nursery, anywhere in between
WHAT: Tony sees an obvious solution to a transportation problem.
WHEN: There's a few options in here, this is an extended period of time while Tony works out the problems and gets your input. Theadjacking imperative, talk amongst yourselves.
WARNINGS: Potential animal harassment and/or consumption. That one's on Tommy.
ALSO: I've got an OOC post if you want to hash something out with me/each other, or there's something known about these animals/places that I've messed up.

Suburban Cowboy
The effort of cleaning out the forge and getting the heat on had caused a deep-muscle kind of exhaustion that encouraged Tony to recuperate for a whole, like, ten minutes with his feet kicked up on a worktop he found he liked the feel of, thankful for the soldering iron that had come back from Risa with him so he could mostly work in stillness as he knitted some found fragments together with his tongue between his teeth and cheap sunglasses precariously on the end of his nose. His work wasn't manifesting the mechanism of the data points quickly, though, and he was going to have to reprogram his tablet if he was going to Frankenstein a working computer that in any way satisfied his level of patience before he could start making sense of any software. If the workforce in any way seemed to exist on this planet, Tony would have found a way to pay for this menial labour days ago. It was taking way too much time to actually get to work.

Trying to sleep at this point didn't help his focus; laying in his nest of what he identified as largely blackout curtains repurposed from around the forge and neighbouring factory, close enough to his workbench that he could fall into it at any moment, Tony just stared wide-eyed at the dark, vaulted ceiling listening to the profound lack of humanity around him. There was no familiar rush of traffic, or even constant hum of power. There wasn't even a satellite he could reach out to to listen in on the murmur of connection around the planet. There was just the tiny, little network of a handful of people, mostly silent on a good day. All he could hear was the alien fauna, so clear without the familiar noise pollution, like being isolated up in a mountain cabin: a rustle of leaves as something small darted through the underbrush outside, a repeating call that back home Tony would have identified as a toad but here was probably some kind of scavenger canid. And his muscles still ached, but not nearly enough to knock him out yet, not like the last few times he'd been able to convince himself to sleep.

He hadn't gone West from the area around the forge yet, finding himself straying into the centre of town where most of the activity and food was to be found when he could make the journey, but it wasn't a particularly long run in that direction before he found himself jogging around what felt like a common block of a subdivision. This could have been an admittedly still pretty alien, but cottagey area of Long Island; he felt like he could pass a yoga mom out on her early morning jog before the school rush at any moment. The surrealism was enough without a flicker of faint light that kept on catching his eye as he rounded the block. It wasn't bright enough for Tony to pinpoint immediately, but without any other lights on his whole run, it was hard to miss, and eventually he slowed enough to wander toward it, through a yard to a fenced off area.

Were those llamas glowing?

Glow-Ranching
The agricultural sector of this community, or any community, really, hadn't been of much interest to Tony so far. It seemed to be functional and producing edible products, and the details could be left to the kind of freaks who enjoyed that kind of information, like biologists and plant-mom millenials. What he hadn't considered until now was the potential for an untapped labour force. Every agricultural society in history had very quickly figured out that domesticating animals, whether it was dogs or cattle, to get their stuff from one place to another, was much more civilized than walking around like cavemen. This New Temba Colony was so far behind on their development. Most of them might have been advanced enough in their technological development back home to be well beyond this kind of system, into spaceflight or beyond, but the resources for that kind of thing were many and complex. These resources were right here, fueled by weeds and, by all accounts, pretty placid.

The livestock nursery was a surprisingly quiet place, and Tony's first scan didn't reveal any obvious foot traffic. It was the middle of the long day, though-- when the sun was at its peak for that long, it was difficult not to buy into the siesta lifestyle. Everyone could have been in the huge greenhouse, that did seem to be the centre of plenty of activity whenever Tony was in the area, so Tony took a moment to squint up at it across the street, hand shielding his eyes, hoping he might see someone through the glass to catch their attention.

Field Test
Tony was very close to the camera, but he wasn't quite looking at it, clearly attempting to balance it carefully so he could back away slowly, hands up and waiting for it the tablet to fall. Perfect, stable, it wasn't about to pitch off of the fence. In one hand seemed to be loops of rope, while he used the other to point at the camera now expectantly. "Okay, rolling. This is field test one, starting mark..." He spun around, searching, and found that his subject was about ten feet from where he had left her and called, "Hey. We're trying to do something here. Places, people." None of the glownies had learned Tony's language yet, including this one. He turned back to the camera, and tried a new tactic, "This is Llamrei, she's a champ, has lots of ideas to contribute to the project. Today we are going to see if we can ride her."

In the time it took Tony to jog over to the animal, there was a distinct shiver to the camera as someone disturbed the fence, and it wobbled just as Tony started to murmur sweet encouragement to his project and try to slide his makeshift reins into place. The tablet hit the dirt at the same time as Tony went, "Woah, sorry!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sansa had made it clear that Tony should maybe keep some of his ideas to himself, but that didn't stop him from making a show of holding his tongue, pressed under a devious canine tooth, and letting his narrowed gaze wander thoughtfully to the sky. Just what could bring relief in the middle of the night? He laughed off the expression before Sansa could take him too seriously again, giving a wave that said he would definitely hold himself accountable for this continued disrespect, then shifted where he sat to make room for her between his knees and tapped the fence there where she could put her back. "I had a friend, a lifetime ago," he said, and that could have meant anything in this place, "and we were in a similar position, cut off, basically on our own planet, doing our own kind of survival and she was due..." Basically immediately, Tony had found out, but the delivery story was another one entirely. "About where you're at now," he said. "We didn't have a lot of options, is what I'm saying, and this seemed to work for her."

Sansa arches an eyebrow at him but shrugs and comes to rest against the fence so that her back had a little relief. It's not much, really, but nothing took the pain away entirely these days. She'll eventually give birth and then the pain part would be over, at least.

"I'm open to any and all suggestions at this point. My husband seems to think that if we...the child will come faster. I told him that was a story that men have been telling their wives for centuries and had no proof to back it up whatsoever."

This was going to do something, Tony was confident of that, so he took that skeptical look brightly and smiled at her approach. He at least had something else for her to think about. With his hands on her shoulders first to welcome her and accustom her to this position, he started to laugh at Sansa's careful dance around being too crass now and offered in Tyrion's defense, "I've heard that one, too." Carefully pushing her hair over her shoulder had him wondering briefly at the texture of it, and sure he could have mistaken her for Pepper at this angle. There was too much to keep his mind busy here, he didn't have time to be homesick.

"I've heard spicy food can do the trick, too, if that's more your thing, but I'd have to side with your husband there. I don't know if that's the sort of thing you should be forcing or anything, but if you've got an excuse to do completely indecent things to each other, there's not even a question, you take it every time." At least, that was what Tony thought the benefits of marriage were. His fingers settled alongside her neck, propped gently on her shoulders where he could press his thumbs to the base of her skull, seeking upward for tension that she would be carrying all the way down her spine.

The feel of his hands is very, very nice and Sansa thinks that this might be the most relaxed she's been in weeks and he's barely started it. Clearly she should have asked someone to rub her neck before now because it seems to be helping - at least with all the worry she carries about having the baby.

"It was a lot easier to be indecent before there was so much of me," Sansa says with a laugh. "As it is, not much left to do. There's something to be said for trying though, I suppose."

She lets out a soft noise and exhales, trying to let some of the tension out. "And you are very good at this. You may have a business on your hands if you advertise."

Tony's hands were his primary resource; the day someone could accuse them of not being talented, he was going to be out of commission, but it was more often less yielding metal that he had to work with. If he could build half the empire out of a good neck massage, he might be willing to give it a try. "That's what this place is missing. Pictures of my face, on every street corner," he agreed. Egotistical posturing was much safer territory than wading into whether or not Sansa should be letting her pregnancy get in the way of feeling frisky. That was a minefield of delicate self-image and someone else's bedroom, Tony could already sense the tears. "Back home, you couldn't escape my brand if you ran to the other side of the Earth. In fact, our numbers are better over there. It's actually kind of a relief, can you believe that?" Tony didn't have a short version of why that would be a relief, so he noted, "You usually have very good posture," directing his pressure to her notably trained spine between her shoulders, "but you're overcorrecting, here." He pushed there gently with his thumbs again, lifting her chin with his fingers spread along her jaw, so she wasn't sitting so much into the weight of that baby.

"I do think you might be right," Sansa says. It feels much better when Tony pushes between her shoulders and lifts her chin. She has to wonder how he knows how to do this, though, and files that in back to puzzle at later. She'll pick the easier thing for now.

"You are excessively fond of yourself," Sansa agrees. "But alone you...I don't know. I think you're hiding a little. What you're doing for me gets you no personal gain. It's just a nice thing for a friend. Someone that obsessed with his own self wouldn't be selfless. Perhaps it's good no one knows who you are other than your friends from home. And, well, me of course. I know everyone named Stark. It's a rule."

'Excessively fond' was not one Tony had heard before, and it tickled him enough to make him chuckle, hands going loose and abstract in the work until she got a little too observant. At least she bookended it with another one that Tony could snort at, giving him time to mount his defense and seek out a pressure point under her ear to put her balance to the test.

"I don't know who told you that my intentions were selfless, but you shouldn't trust them, they're setting you up for disappointment. You don't know, I could be a vampire," he pointed out and tipped her head into one hand to expose the weakness of her throat to a hovering predator. Selfless wasn't the worst thing she could accuse him of, Tony found, and he was happy to entertain the concept as long as they didn't stray any further back to what he had to hide. "And are you boasting, is that supposed to be a boast? There's two of us, that's a very narrow field of study, that's a thesis your advisor won't even bother to read. Scratch that, I have a cousin that's still kickin', a whole third specimen for your research."

"And I have a sister, a brother and a half-brother left," Sansa agrees. "But there's still only a few Starks lying about. Just enough that I care about, anyway. When winter comes, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. Winter lasts years where I'm from," she explains.

"So it's no small thing to concern yourself with it. Hence, I don't think you'll do anything foolish. I wouldn't have trusted you otherwise. I know better now than I used to. I can just tell."

Imposing himself on the pack sounded like more of a good argument for Tony's more selfish intentions than hypothetical vampirism; they weren't very different concepts. But kindness without altruism didn't necessarily make the action any less kind, not in the moment, so Sansa wasn't wrong. The way she spoke made 'naive' seem like the wrong assessment, too. "Don't say that one too quick, I am capable of a myriad of foolish things that can and will surprise both of us," he dismissed first, but had to ask, "How old are you? You've lived a life, I get that, but sometimes you talk like you've been dealing with bullshit for about 80 years. And if that's true, listen, you look amazing, any tips?"

Sansa laughs a little and shakes her head. She's nowhere near eighty, though it feels it some days. She feels so far removed from the girl who went to King's Landing at twelve, that's for certain, and more removed from it than her age would belie.

"I am two and twenty, actually, though my life has been very difficult. I've been betrothed three times, married three, married one man by force and later for love and between married a monster. I've lost all my family and my home - but regained some of my family and became Queen in the North. I think that's a lot for someone of my age to bear. Becoming a mother is actually a pleasure I'd never have at home."

"Twenty-two?" Tony parroted with some disbelief. That was only a couple of years difference from Billy, who was basically a toddler. Clearly, she came by it honestly, but Tony would have added a few to that number if he had to guess. "If a twenty-two year old gal from my planet said to me, 'I can just tell', we would be sitting down to have a very serious talk about predatory old men right now, I would get her best friend involved to make sure she was making good choices," he said. Sansa clearly had more than enough experience with predatory men, but on Earth that definitely did not lead to a healthy foundation for relationships. "Are you putting up with me because you think you're supposed to? Do you have some friends your own age you could be spending time with right now?" These could have been friends for his hypothetical Terran 22 year old, but he was just a little worried about Sansa now.

"First off, I actually rather like you. Secondly, as someone who has been...well, I'd rather not use the graphic terms for it but you can infer what happened to me in my prior marriage if you wish it, I can tell when a man is going to hurt me. You have no intention of it. You flirt with me, yes, but when it comes down to it I don't think you'd force yourself on me."

Sansa laughs softly. "I was taught how to fight by the Winter Soldier and he's the very best, from what I've heard. He worked me to the bone but he taught me how to fight him off; it's my suspicion it would take less to fight you. He helped me find myself again. Thirdly, there isn't really anyone my age here. The younger men from your world are...they're closer to my age, yes, but it's hard for me to relate to them. It's easier with you or Wanda or Steve."

Even her saying it like that made Tony's skin crawl-- maybe it was how she phrased it, 'force yourself', because that wouldn't have been the real threat from him, or to any of the young women that he knew had a story about how mature they were for their age. Brute force was not at all what he had been talking about, and it was deeply unsettling both that force was how Sansa immediately related to it, and that Tony didn't have such an optimistic opinion of himself. There was an unavoidable kernel of truth to what Kathy had claimed about his manipulative nature.

He gave an apologetic pat and squeeze to her shoulder for bringing them back around to that abusive relationship again, sure she had heard more platitudes about it than he could think of by now. Instead of being irredeemably glib about it, instead he went with, "Wow, you line me up with telling me you like me just to lay me out letting me know you're pretty sure you could kick my ass. Masterfully vicious, honestly, I've never felt so emasculated." If she had any more of those in the barrel, she was never going to get rid of him. "Have you tried? I mean, Wanda I get, she's..." The word Tony had at the tip of his tongue was 'ephemeral', but that wasn't quite right. "Wanda. But Steve is literally a hundred, he watches medical dramas in his spare time, there's no way you're more his speed than Teddy's."

"I'm not the girl I used to be, Tony," Sansa reminds him softly. "Anything that was soft or tender in me has been forged into steel. I cannot relate to those who haven't...who haven't seen war or pain. I don't relate to those who haven't suffered loss. I suppose that's maudlin but it's who I am now. Steve, idealistic as he is, at least has been through war."

"As to whether or not I could beat you in a fight, we could give it a go when I'm not with child and see what happens. He did teach me how to use a knife and my own body against his. He even taught me how to escape if someone as strong as he grabbed me from behind. It might serve me well someday. I do believe I'd win, though, so if you'd like to forfeit now I'll accept it."

It was hard for Tony to believe what Sansa said about who she wasn't anymore, so far all he had seen of her was tenderness, even the way she yielded under the careful pressure he put along her neck was soft. Not that he doubted that was how she saw herself, or how she wanted to be-- the language was so similar to the voice of Tony's father in his head every time he was at his most wretched, Tony knew better than to try to challenge her on it.

He didn't know if she meant to imply that her comfort with Tony was coming from the same place, relating to some loss she saw in him, but even trying to make a joke of it seemed like it would draw too much attention to it. Tony did not want that under the spotlight, it was enough of a challenge trying to keep her cheerful without dragging his baggage into the conversation, too. "Gladly, I'll take that forfeit, I'm not above that. My pride can take it, not enough of that to matter, but my face? That would be a tragedy," he said. "Listen, for me, I'd rather you never have to put those skills to the test. If there's someone here that you think might force you to, I think we should figure out a way to deal with them before it comes to that."

"Especially since I don't have James here to do it for me," Sansa agrees. "There's only one person you need worry about and he isn't here. Still, we must plan for his coming because anyone and everyone can come here. Steve knows the name, as does Wanda. It's my former husband. If Ramsay Bolton shows, you must kill him. There's no other option."

Sansa rubs the bridge of her nose a bit. "Especially since I have a child. He tried to get one on me for a year and it didn't happen. I won't go into the particulars for you - you needn't hear of those horrors - but he'll have what he wants and his favorite plaything. Tyrion, much as I love him, cannot defend me. That is the only person you need worry about my safety with and he is not here. I have no other enemy. I killed him once but I would rather not have to do it again. It's the one thing I fear about a place like this - it can bring the dead back to life."

At first, Tony thought Sansa must have been referring to someone who had been here and left, like her James or the Vision Tommy had mentioned, so it took him by surprise to realize this was just the one person Sansa was afraid of. The explanation, the horrors, was unnecessary, but Tony didn't know how a person could come to be so confident that they could pinpoint that one person in their lives that could ruin them. Tony felt that threat from everywhere.

He dropped his hands to her shoulders to follow them down to her arms, and skimmed his palms along them as he sank down against her back to wrap their hands together over the swell of her belly, protective and pacifying. 'Kill him' was an unavoidably extreme solution, but this did not seem like the best context in which to argue the morality of it, especially if Sansa had already done it once before-- but she didn't have people like Steve or Wanda to present an alternative solution at that point. Tony wasn't going to make it an argument, or he would try not to, but he could help but ask, "Did they say they would do that? Kill him?"

"James swore he would," Sansa says, voice steady. "I did it myself, back home. It's no small thing, to kill a man, and you never forget it even if I swore I would erase all memory of him and his house from the world. I think if I asked, Steve or Wanda would. There's no other option. He won't stop until he has me. He'll hurt others, certainly, but it isn't what he wants. It isn't enough. He wants me. He tried to break my mind by breaking my body and he failed. If he's here, I'm not safe."

The intimacy she has with Wanda and Steve leads her to trust Tony perhaps more than she should; he does seem good, though, and she thinks herself a far better judge of character than she once was.

"He won't stop until Sansa Stark is gone. I'm the only one he never broke. If he comes, he has to die. There's no other option."

It was an abstract kind of relief to hear that neither of the people Tony thought he knew had overtly agreed to that kind of punishment; Tony didn't really know either of them, he knew, and found he had been holding his breath until he sighed against Sansa's shoulder, reassured for now that they weren't completely alien to him. What did that even mean, functionally? He hadn't even seen Wanda yet, this anxiety was over relationships he didn't even have, and this place was making him long for those connections.

It didn't sound like Sansa could even sympathize with the feeling. Where she came from had not been kind to her. "Even if, if whatever was calling the shots here decided he was a necessary cog in this machine, you're in a very different place now. You got your husband, you got this baby, look, this little house and these weird...animals," he said, fingers twitching and flicking restlessly to gesture but not quite leaving where they rested. "So none of that can play out the same way again, we're on a totally different system here."

"Having spent a year of my life raped, flayed by knives, and tortured with other people watching, I do not think my current life is insulation enough from what he wants with me," Sansa says coolly. "I don't speak of it in such detail normally but I felt it necessary in this instance for you to understand. My husband cannot protect me physically. My child is what Ramsay wants. Hurting me is his favorite game."

Even speaking of Ramsay makes her shoulders tense and Sansa lets out a slow breath, trying not to undo what good Tony had done to her neck and back.

"I would spend every waking moment terrified. There's no other option."

This was not a battle of the wills that Tony was going to win, nor did he even have an argument for a victim that deserved her reparations. Making her dig her heels in was just making her defend her experiences, and Tony was not enjoying being the one to make her feel that way, so he rolled his shoulders back and released her, happy to forfeit again with an apologetic kiss to her hair. As long as they were speaking hypothetically, about a dead man maybe showing up to continue a reign of terror, then hypothetically Tony could see another way out of the problem. That didn't mean his opinion wasn't malleable should he be faced with the situation in reality. He had killed for lesser crimes than what Sansa was forced to carry with her. It wasn't worth arguing about now.

"Come on, don't do that," he chided softly, pushing her shoulders back down where they wouldn't cause further problems that she didn't need. "One of these nights, we're going to run into each other and you're going to have a happy story to tell me. What about these guys, which one of them is your favourite?" he asked with a gesture to the glownies, not bothered that the redirection was obvious.

"The little one who walks funny," Sansa says, pointing out a little glownie with plenty of energy but very little coordination. "I think he's the sweetest of the bunch and he's very affectionate. You could say I have a special tenderness for cripples, bastards, and broken things."

Sansa turns around so she can look at Tony. "I didn't relieve you of your duties to rub my shoulders, you know. I'm a queen and I demand it." She doesn't, really, but since Tony is so often teasing her, she thought she might tease him back for once.

"I'll settle my debt with you after you're done."

Thankful that she wasn't frustrated with his push back and willing to play along with him, Tony let a wry smile slip first before seriously schooling his expression as though he didn't adore the punishment. "First you tell me you'll kick my ass, then you call me a bastard, and you come at me with this? Do you think sitting on this fence is comfortable? My right cheek is fully asleep," he complained with the vaguest flick to make Sansa turn around again and settle in for this ordeal she was putting him through, his restless hands obediently back to work. "Just know, I collect interest. The payment is going to be staggering."

"Oh, you usurer, I figured as much. I'll just have to see if I have what it takes to settle my debt or if I shall have to pay you in installments. I'm certain you'll want it to be the latter so you have an excuse to come flirt with me that is legitimate."

Sansa settles back into his touch though and lets out a soft sound. She's certain these muscles haven't been loose for months and it feels good to have the tension release.

"All said, even if I weren't happily married and here pregnant and alone instead, I doubt you'd be nearly as interested since I would be available to you. I fascinate you solely because you cannot have me, don't I?"

Tony theatrically scoffed his indignation at her accusation of looking for excuses to flirt, only to tell on himself, "I don't need an excuse." Her next observation wasn't so easy to respond to, though. He was sure she meant it lightly, but it felt like a deep cut, and Tony wasn't sure if he should defend himself or Sansa's value outside of unattainable intrigue. It couldn't be that she saw through him that clearly, even Tony found the assessment murky (would he lose her number the moment she showed too much interest? How much of that was the playboy mask he crafted, how much of that mask came from an honest place, and did he want to be looking this closely at his own psychology? Not at all), and Sansa had done that thing where she asked for his approval on Risa. "Hey, I didn't even come here for you," he pointed out, "I'm here for the glownies. You're, honestly, you're a distraction. I see what you're doing. Sure. I'm the one flirting."