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WHO: Tony Stark, dangerously open
WHERE: Tony's Calibration Room
WHAT: You're stuck in Tony's head and good luck, buddy, he doesn't want to be there, either.
WHEN: During the Calibration Event (June 3rd - July 10th)
WARNINGS: Some body horror under the cut, but otherwise it depends on you. Digging for Tony's secrets is still going to be a challenge here, so if you work for it I'll assume you want to see that nasty stuff. I'll update as necessary.
Update: Horny, as usual.

There is bright, dazzling light in the eye immediately upon entering this room, another door directly in front of the entrance peppered with bursts of camera flashes and roving spotlights illuminating the fine, gold silk drapes around the open frame, flashing through intricate, stained glass mosaics set into the stone flanking the entryway, and glinting off of the golden struts where a velvet rope had hung but had been knocked carelessly to the floor, an open invitation. Through it is a sweet-smelling party, packed with beautiful people in even more beautiful clothes, laughing among the sumptuous chime of crystal in a warm, welcoming hall. The wall stretching away from either side of it reaches almost to the extreme edges of the room, incrementally decaying from polished brickwork to raw, cracked stone, tumbling down into rubble that litters the way further into this room around the corner from the rich door.

This building the door is set into is just a wall from the other side, built up into a dark cave of that raw stone. Tony is pacing behind it, nowhere in the cave welcoming enough to sit or linger, jagged piles of scrap metal where there wasn't cold stone lining the walls and scattered in piles that would have to be carefully navigated to avoid sharp edges glinting readily to slice into ankles. The lone occupant isn't dressed nearly as charmingly as anyone at that party that would have been such a good time, his once white shirt wrinkled and tattered and rolled up to his elbows, open at the collar and liberally stained black down the front with whatever dripped from his hands, thick and dark like oil and charcoal. In one hand, coated in this viscous liquor, his ever restless fingers worked erratically and mercilessly over a dark knot. The sweet smell of the hall is long gone here, overtaken quickly by acid and whiskey and a bitter, sick smoke.

Set into the back of the wall, there is a computer monitor, spilling a soft blue glow across the stone floor with a constant generation of lines of code in an alien alphabet that Tony throws judgemental glances at as he paces back toward the front of the cave. Most of the light comes from the back of the room, though, the roof of the cave opening to a bright, blue sky, where soft clouds make a slow march across and birds wheel freely, well above the curl of smoke that whisped up out of the cave and dissipated.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Because he blames himself. And because of what our mother did to you," Tommy answers.

Part of the issue of interacting with Tommy was that he'd had a very strange upbringing that meant he didn't manage some parts of his powers easily. And yeah, talking about twenty things at once can be so much easier for him.

But then he's grinning because maybe he figured some of it out. That would be pretty cool, if he was even remotely close.

"I'm a speedster. Understanding precisely how to slow down is important. Plus, you know, I watched his show on replacing the lens on the Hubble telescope once with Mr. Kaplan. It talked about orbits. From there, well, it's like, thinking? Just thinking. And I've got all the time to think."

Granted he's probably spent a lot of time, relativisticly speaking, trying to figure out how this would WORK as an alibi.

"And movies with hackers. It's not how it really works, Jonas said, but he said some stuff could be automated. Like, set to go off at a specific time."

What Wanda had to do with why Tommy was being catastrophically resistant to playing Tony's game made as much sense as his weird age tangent, making Tony rub his brow with irritation then squint to focus on what logical information Tommy had to offer him that wasn't all twisted up in his compulsive paranoia. Movies and even documentary shows were not the best way to learn about practical sciences, that was definitely doing the science and finding out what blew up first, but it was a good start, especially for someone willing to do the thinking.

"Sweetheart, I'm going to tell you about the satellite, I promise, but I've just got one more for you, if you'll indulge me," Tony said, and maybe this was risky because Tommy actually seemed engaged in the satellite thing and had stopped being so much of an asshole, but it was staggering that he could have both of these thoughts within the span of a single Basement Jaxx track. "What is it that you think makes a person smart?"

See, he can TOTALLY live with Sweetheart actually. Somehow, it's less demeaning to him.

"Uh, they do well in school and tests and they go to college and they make shit. Though I guess some smart people don't even go to college I guess. Just, you know, not failures at school shit and capable of doing shit that is about thinking."

If Tony gave him a moment, would Tommy get that Tony was on to his bullshit? Or was he genuinely not making the connection? Hard to tell. Tony had slowly turned his head to give Tommy a sidelong look, but was rolling his eyes before Tommy could start debating him on the nature of time and control again and bounced up to his feet with him. "Come on," he instructed with a swipe of his hand up the back of Tommy's head, directing him through the sticky-floored dining room and pushing his hair up and too far forward. "Most of any craft landing has to be done well in advance," he started to explain as they went, weaving their way through bodies to make it to the kitchen and the large window overlooking a sloping front lawn, facing out to a wide, flat park and the night sky that was too overcast to see many stars through. Tony lifted himself up onto the kitchen counter nearest to it, a throne of mostly empty bottles, where he could check the offerings for any dregs left at the bottom of any clear enough glass to not have to guess what was about to go into his mouth. "The runway at Kennedy Space is fifteen thousand feet long. That's fifty football fields, no matter how immaculate or celebrated, and they use that for space shuttles. If a satellite is coming down, it's not coming in for a landing, that goes in the Graveyard, you're lucky if it gets a controlled descent at all. So, assuming everything goes perfectly, and the air pressure doesn't change because of a storm system and there are no other flight paths in the way and you craft is even designed to survive re-entry and no one is wondering why it's falling out of orbit, what problems do you have to calculate for?" With his free hand up to count them off, Tony applied Tommy's previous answer, "Air resistance, can't come in too hot. Angle, that's an interesting one, lots of angles to account for, actually entering the atmosphere is just one of them. Degradation, same thing, can't be too fast but can't be too slow, either. What else?"

Dude, Tommy could debate the nature of time until the end of his own life. Because it really was relative, and he definitely experienced it differently.

But when Tony left, Tommy followed, mostly because he's intrigued. The stopping in the kitchen definitely bores him, though. Look, he's already got a bottle, and he takes another shot of it. He listens, he listens hard and then his eyes go just the tiniest bit out of focus as he shifts mental speeds to consider things.

"Speed," he offers at first, after what might seem like a very short pause to Tony, but for Tommy is hours upon hours of thinking about it. After all, some of this stuff was things he understood from instinct alone, because of how his powers worked. "Speed is a huge factor. Doesn't matter how strong your surface is, if you're coming in too fast, you're coming in too hot, and you're going to deal a ton more damage. That's why planes and the shuttles have to have means to slow themselves down. It's easy when you can deploy flaps and that sort of shit to help slow you, or you've got other ways to introduce friction into the system. The one part of my suit that isn't just basic unstable molecules is the soles of the feet, because the frictionless material would actually be bad for me there."

Another swig of the alcohol.

"You also have to know material strength, right? Like, it may not be something other people think of, but I know how different surfaces are going to react to my speed. Too soft, you bounce. Last thing you want is a crashing satellite to bounce off into the stands, or worse, people. Plus you've gotta know what's under the stadium, or you should think about it. The force a satellite crashes at might be enough to break through to whatever is underneath, and if that's flammable or something else, ouch. There's also timing. You want to make sure that when it lands you're not making a paste out of the football team. Which would definitely get you in a ton more trouble. So you've got to know that all the factor's you're controlling for means that it comes down when you want, as much as where."

That said, he leans back for the next point, grinning stupidly.

"You've also gotta account for how the thing is going to break down, coming in. Then again, maybe you don't. But I did part time work with super-sonic construction of high end electronics. I'm faster than a mass-production line you see. And basically I learned a lot about how easily components can fry under the wrong conditions. So even when you're planning all of this, even if the satellite has like, boosters or something and it probably doesn't, you can't rely on them coming back in. Because they're not designed to come down, so you can burn right through the electronics because of insufficient heat or electrical shielding."

Then he's done. But after a moment, he shakes his head, like he's decided it isn't good enough. Like there's no way he's hit on the things that are important here.

"You're probably going to say something really smart now, right? About how I messed up and missed something SUPER obvious. But I don't really know anything about satellites, 'cept what I pointed out. I bet David could tell you in, like, ten seconds flat."

His best friend was a genius on Tony Stark's level after all.

Edited 2020-06-14 00:00 (UTC)

It wasn't clear if Tommy had just leapt ahead of the whole flight process, problem already solved, to address the myriad of problems that arose when the flight went well enough to even consider the landing complications, or if Tony mentioning their target had just focused his attention there. He did have to know more about ground friction than any kind of air friction involved in coaxing a satellite down into the atmosphere, so it could have just been the safe area for him.

What Tony did say was, "Who's David?" looking slightly offended like Tommy had just whispered another girl's name in bed. They were trying to do something here. He waved off the intrusion, rude, and continued, "So, you've got all of these problems unique to bringing something down from space already, that's just the tip of the iceberg, we haven't even talked about fuel or lift or cross-streams over the Pacific. Now think, that's about ten times more challenging than landing your standard 747. Those beauties take off and land fifty thousand times, every single day-- their paths are planned well in advance, the conditions familiar, sometimes the same crew does the same landing multiple times in an hour. And yet, it takes a pilot," Tony was counting again, "a co-pilot, ten guys on the ground and eight more in ATC, and that's just to set her down, it's a whole different group that plans the landing in the first place." He drained what was left in a vodka bottle that he didn't think was vodka, from the taste of the burp, and finished, "So, you tell me, does it make sense that I, one kid, not a real computer in the building, these are business majors from top to bottom, would be the culprit if I was here all night?"

"David's a mutant at Xavier's. Or he was at Xavier's. His powers meant his brain copied the knowledge of people around him. But he's smart on his own."

Still, he takes another serious drink before leaning forward to listen to Tony more. Clearly he's intrigued by this lesson here. But then he's grinning, because when Tony's done he gets it.

"Fuck man, perfect crime. Do you get caught? Or do you get off because people don't get how smart you are?"

Just the knowledge...? Tony wasn't sure how to interpret this mutation Tommy presented to him, leaving him frowning thoughtfully about the implications while Tommy was drinking, idly searching for another viable bottle himself. If he could just copy knowledge, that would save a lot of reading time. A mutant like that would have to be smart to do anything with it, or all of that information would be useless detritus.

Tommy's grin was enough for Tony to brighten and smile back, though, and he slouched back on one hand like he could in any way hope to exude any kind of humble indifference to his dazzling talents, waving the drink in the other hand theatrically, oh, this old thing? "Of course I didn't get caught, but do you think I'd let anyone forget how smart I am? Please. It was all Hammer. He's already a billion years old at this point, and the second my dad dies, he's the leading aerospace engineer on the planet. His options are to admit the rival's kid with centuries less experience could possibly have that kind of control over his systems and tank the company stock, or claim it was an internal error and fire a few interns to cover up a total sweep of the security team. Still cost him a few million, sure, but that's petty cash."

Knowledge and skills. So yeah, David was fucking awesome. The guy was a super genius. A genius's genius.

But he considers Tony for now and frowns.

"So that's why you did it? To cost him money and frustration? Not, you know, because it was funny?"

Had Tommy already forgotten the whole point of the prank in the first place? Tony pouted back, nose wrinkled in irritation, not pleased with having to defend his ingenious antics again against Tommy's demanding critique. "Those were just excellent bonuses to a perfect plan. The football game, remember?" he pointed out. "MIT and Yale are rivals," he said, sitting up to knit his fingers together around the neck of a bottle to demonstrate the tight link of the two schools. They practically shared territory and everyone acted like Yale was the alpha and omega of prestigious academia, even though they knew all of the heavy hitters always came out of MIT. "And they're not nearly creative enough to fuck with us, because none of them are that smart, but that hasn't stopped us from fucking with them every chance we get. It's tradition. And it's funny." He glanced around, knowing a few of these brothers were football guys, but not sure if he would spot any of the memorabilia on the walls of this house to show Tommy what he meant. They didn't actually play Yale that often, they weren't in the same league, so they didn't have much to show for it. Tony definitely didn't want to talk to any of them about it, though. Waving the thought away, he said, "Again, I invite you to come up with a more flawless prank. Hasn't been done since."

“I’m more interested in how than caring about sports rivalries,” he shrugs. But it’s all interesting.

“Just a lot of work for make them look bad. Guess I’m just not smart enough to get it.”

Even after the conversation he still doesn’t see himself as intelligent enough to get the joke. Kid really is clueless.

It was such a clueless statement that Tony had to take it as a joke, snickering around the mouth of the bottle as he emptied it before flipping it in his hand to knock lightly against Tommy's head, checking if it was really that hollow. "Never heard a better definition for a prank," he said. "That's probably how Yale justifies it. They're above putting in that kind of work."

It’s literally nothing for Tommy to duck to avoid the bottle. Don’t mind him. But he does stare at Tony. And for a while.

“No, seriously. If somehow you were caught wouldn’t that be serious jail time? Are sports really that worth t? Especially for someone smart like you? How can you risk throwing it all away? All the shit you could have in your life and you risk it for a, truly epic don’t get me wrong, prank. One no one will ever know is that.”

"It's not sports, it's..." It didn't honestly matter what the justification was. The fact was, most of the other MIT students who had pulled their own version of this stunt on that field did see jail time, were expelled, and while they enjoyed infamy on campus, might have thrown away a greater life just like Tommy suggested. That didn't have much to do with how smart they were, but the resources at their disposal; at the end of the day, even if Tony wasn't clever enough to cover his tracks, daddy wasn't about to let him spend one minute behind bars. Above a certain tax bracket, those sort of problems were dealt with differently, and Tony lived as if numb to plenty of risks because he knew that. Tommy didn't have that luxury.

With a sigh that muted the bravado he was going for, Tony replied, "Good thing I'm too smart to get caught." With a frown, he slid from the counter, leaving the bottles behind to hook a hand over Tommy's shoulder, pushing him aimlessly out of the kitchen and away from that line of thought. "You haven't ever done something that wasn't for the notoriety?" he lead instead. "Don't get me wrong, seeing your name in print is basically seeing the money being printed, but the handiwork has to be the satisfaction sometimes." It didn't really matter that anyone knew the satellite had been Tony's fault, it still crowned the game and practically the rest of the school year, and the photos still hung in Building 33.

"Tony... I blew up my school. I can't handle any more notoriety," Tommy points out.

Surely Stark had looked into his record, probably hacked himself access to Tommy's not so sealed record.

"And I wasn't even trying to do it. So no. All the good I do is as Speed and I guess that could be for something other than notoriety, but people know I did it."

Of course Tony had dug up every word about the Young Avengers that ever hit a network, but he still attempted a very unconvincing look of mild surprise before abandoning the front entirely with an apologetic shrug for both trying the lie on, and maybe a little bit for invading Tommy's privacy like that. It was need to know information, though, and that was the kind of thing that kept Tony out of jail; knowing what to expect. It was much harder to see the future without all of the information.

Pushing Tommy's hair up the back of his head again, this time to grab it for a small shake like he might knock the interference loose, Tony accused, "You're doing it again." He was much easier to talk to when it was about science. "You couldn't have led with one of those good things? You've never run for somebody's glasses they forgot at home?"

Doing what again? Getting down on himself? Some things are ingrained because of how other people treat you. He stares at Tony for a long moment then shakes his head.

"No. Usually Billy summons things like that with magic."

"You're intolerable," Tony groaned. Obviously, he hadn't shaken hard enough. They were standing in the narrow hall by then, between the front door and the back room where Tommy had entered the house and tucked next to the creaking stairs. It wasn't exactly a thoroughfare, most people were lounged and talking already by the door or bouncing around to the music down near the couch, but Tony looked up and down at this crossroads, not sure which way now would lead Tommy to some basic self-respect. Tony might not have been the authority on the matter, but even if Cap was here, he was very focused on teaching the Young Avengers a different lesson, in Tony's experience; someone else had to take up the mantle. This left them in position for the blonde man, heading back down the stairs now, to offer them the same smirk and report, "Seven," as he passed them for the kitchen, eyeing Tommy judgmentally again.

Perfect. "I have to get eight phone numbers," Tony reported, tagging Tommy in with a slap to the chest. "That's not a job for Billy, too, is it?" There was no way Tommy could claim he wasn't the twin Tony was looking for here, Tony had met Billy.

"Oh, you do do you?" Tommy asks, grinning. "And you're calling in a ringer?"

Tommy loves it, and laughs. If there was one thing he was confident about, it was his skill with the ladies. So this was something he could help with.

"So, written down or what? People got cell phones? I could lift them and get their numbers. How much time am I working with here?"

Looking aghast, as though Tony had never cheated a game in his life and bringing in Tommy for assistance clearly wasn't against any stated rules, he had to insist, "Honour system." Tony could have just written down a bunch of random numbers, too. "You don't get to..." he gestured, his approximation of Tommy shaking the goods out of people's pockets as he tried to work out the right phrase, "pinata people for their phone numbers." They were in the golden age of Nokia and flip phones, but of course Tony's model was more advanced as he drew it out of his pocket to slide it open, cringing slightly at the image himself, and show Tommy the number he was working with. "You get them to text you. It's not the dark ages." Despite appearances. With the phone still out, he checked the time to report, "Ten more minutes and the news of the satellite reaches us, and Ty comes to collect."

"Give me your phone number. They'll text you," Tommy grins. Ten minutes, he can manage it.

Absolutely manage it. "It will be so much fun."

Tony waved the phone again for Tommy to take the number off of the display before tucking it back into his pocket expectantly, ready for it to start ringing. "Divide the room," he instructed, and gave a gesture to indicate that he had an eye on Tommy so they weren't about to try to get the same number out of the same girl.

Tommy nods and then he's gone in a blur. This part is the fun one. This is somewhere he's confident. In a manner of a minute he's already laughing with some girl, complimenting her clothes, and getting her to type in Tony's phone number and text him.

Call me sometime, tell me if the carpet matches the drapes.

Can't complain over his skills.

This wasn't a game designed for Tony to win, and while that wasn't enough to stop him in most cases, it definitely slowed him down. What he had needed all along here was the ringer because his age put him at a severe deficit trying to work this room, and even at the height of his talents he doubted he could work as fast as Tommy. The first buzz of the phone came quickly enough for Tony to jump in surprise, making his gaze dart to find Tommy and raise his eyebrows, really?, not sure if he was impressed or threatened. By the time he saw that message his laugh was loud enough to be heard over the music; that wasn't the kind of line Tony got.

A few texts in, circling the room, Tony stole closer to Tommy to accuse, "You're a nuclear grade slut, I've never seen anything like it. Have you been tested?" He did mean psychologically, but he might have a clinic to refer Tommy to as well.

And by the time Tony's back to Tommy, there are at least four numbers in total, and Tommy grins when Tony's there, taking a moment to wink and step away from the hot twins he had been talking to, and who he knew were going to get Tony at least one more number. Then he's talking to Tony in a quieter tone.

"Every month, always use a condom, and I can flirt in five languages. English, Spanish, French, German, and Japanese. That last one was the hardest to learn. I had to read three books and listen to several hours of tapes. A few times. Every other language I mostly just keep a phrase book or two on me when I'm in country."

All of it learned since the YA had busted him out of jail.

"Everyone has to have their hobbies."

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