revivalproject | June-July and Calibrations

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June-July and Calibrations

WHO: Reeve Tuesti, OTA
WHERE: Arriving In Tunnel, Calibrations Waiting Room, Reeve’s Calibration Room
WHAT: The lead up to and time around Calibrations
WHEN: June 2nd to July 10th
WARNINGS: CW: Reeve’s Calibration room may contain references to kidnapping and confinement, including of children

Man and Cat OTA
When they arrive it’s near the end of the thirty-six hour period. There had been much to do for preparation, things to pack, and honestly, he wanted to see the storm as it brewed up. It wasn’t like he’d seen it the first time, having arrived just days after the last blew itself away. But that means the man arrives with quite a bundle in his arms. Packs and papers and the few kits and tools he’s gotten himself from the replicator.

And at his side, a foot and a half tall stuffed animal of a black and white, tuxedo-cat, its own arms wrapped around coiled up papers. Was it possible for a stuffed animal to look proud of itself? Perhaps it should, because it’s got a very smart looking, dark green cape tied around its neck and a whole load of responsibility, so why wouldn’t it be happy?

“Does anyone know how long these storms typically last?” Reeve asks of anyone who comes near. And Mini stops every few steps to readjust the papers. It’s a lot harder to carry things when you don’t have fingers.

Calibrations Waiting Room

here

Calibrations [CW: Referenced (nothing explicitly depicted) kidnapping and confinement, including of children]

It’s not a bedroom, it’s an office. A rather dark one at that, most of the light coming either from the scattering of monitors, some recessed lighting high above, or two lights pointed at the rather oversized Shinra corporate logo behind the desk. The desk itself is cluttered, covered with files and papers and reports. This is clearly the desk of someone far too busy with their life. Someone who isn’t fully organized.

On it there are a few things of notable interest, like architectural reports and diagrams, a few reports on small hinges with one bearing a sticky note of ‘but why would you want them’, and there’s even a box filled with several glowing green and blue orbs. Materia. Further along, in a corner, is a framed picture of a couple that look vaguely like Reeve, his parents no doubt, and Reeve as a boy, all of them smiling in front of what looks like a farm house. The computer monitors scroll through a number of images of Midgar in various stages of being built.

Of course most of that only matters if you didn’t sit in the very comfortable office chair. Hope you like boring board meetings.

Reeve himself lounges on one of the couches in the room, looking tired. Very tired. Like he wishes he could just sleep in peace. But, if engaged, he will indeed talk.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He lets himself be pulled forward and watches the motion of Tony’s hand. But ultimately he shakes his head.

“I do not seek to control you, or take charge of your recovery. My bedside manner would be horrid. My point was there was a connection there. A relationship I thought I was tripping over. He injured himself because he saw the affection I offered. I thought I was the other man."

And he didn’t want to be that. Couldn’t.

“I must be maddening I expect. For that I am sorry.”

"Completely," Tony agreed, not sure which part of that he could be taking any better than his own evaluation; he was wrong about Reeve's relationship with control, and Reeve's understanding of Tony's character was bleak. Not unfounded, probably, he had no reason to expect Tony to be any more respectful of the people he was sleeping with, and plenty of reason to believe Tony was the frivolous playboy he played up. That didn't make it any less easy to hear from someone Tony thought uniquely capable of understanding him. It wouldn't be the first time the post-fuck pressure recalibration had cracked his foundations. At least he got the RT back this time. With his gesturing hand on Reeve's shoulder, he continued, "I'm trying to do what you want me to, and what's best for you and--I'm trying to take care of you. You asked me for distance, and I'm doing my best, okay?" Between the close quarters and the forced bonding experience, and Reeve's maddening push and pull, Tony thought he was doing okay.

"I live to exceed expectations it seems," Reeve sighs, fingers of his free hand carding into his hair. "Going above and beyond and creating new methods of making people crazy. Myself included."

Okay, he has to think of the right way to say this, right? A way that doesn't make this more confusing, because all he wanted to do was untangle his own complicated mess so he left Tony free of it.

"There is little resemblance between what I want you to do, and what I've asked for. The asking was based on bad data, a fallacy of observation and an assumption. As men of engineering we know how wrong assumptions can go. I assumed you were spoken or, or near to that, and I didn't want to cause complications. A process whereby I of course did. What I want and have wanted since the first time you started flirting with me was to hold your attention. A minute, an hour, a day. It didn't matter. You're something I've never met before. Someone who might get me. But what I really want is to see how well you'd pin me to a desk. Which I want, but I don't assume I've a right to it."

No, this was too complicated again. So Reeve pulled his hand free of his hair and grabbed a paper from his desk and a pen. A page divided into four sections. The top half labeled 'What Actually Matters'. The bottom half split into three boxes. Reeve Box A was 'What Reeve Wants'. Box B was 'What Reeve Asked For.' And Box C was 'What Reeve Said'. Into Box A was 'a connection with Tony in any and every way offered.' Box B was 'Distance Because He's an Idiot.' Box C got 'Complete gibberish, constantly.'

And then into the top box, what actually mattered... Tony's Desires.

"Here. Diagram of what's going on here. And from here on I'm hoping to avoid confusion because I'm bad at this. But clearly I can't trust myself to put my care first, so I do appreciate how you have worked so hard to respect me and what I've asked for."

Reeve continued to exceed expectations of his maddening habits as he dropped all of that information on Tony, only to completely abandon him holding the image of 'pin me to a desk' to...start doodling. It left Tony bereft, a very unfamiliar step behind as he stared at where Reeve had been for a beat before slowly turning to look over his shoulder to where Reeve wrote on the desk, just long enough to recalculate; he wasn't wrong about Reeve's control issues, he was just considering them in the wrong dimension. He didn't want a fight, clearly, and he didn't really want Tony to leave him alone, getting clearer, it was sounding more like he wanted Tony to take that control away from him when he went a step too far with 'I want you but...'

It wasn't a terribly comfortable concept to Tony, not until Reeve confessed his lack of trust in himself-- that made sense, Tony could work with that. The occasional diagram would help fill in the gaps when Tony was struggling with the boundaries, and it didn't hurt that the impulse was incredibly charming. He leaned a hand against the desk to bend with Reeve over his page, smoothing a hand up his back and only watching his work sidelong as he bowed to touch his nose to Reeve's shoulder, not quite nuzzling into him like he wanted to yet, where he stifled a laugh as Reeve filled in Box C. 'Tony's Desires' were...more fraught. He avoided saying what he wanted out loud, because he wasn't good at having a healthy relationship with what he wanted--putting it in writing felt like begging for a total cascade collapse. Instead, he dragged the page off of the desk with a roll of his eyes like it was completely ridiculous, only to tuck it into his pocket like he could carry it out of this room. Besides, what he desired hadn't exactly been convoluted, he thought. Haltingly, gaze darting like he was breaking down a complex formula while he brought his hand back up to hook under the knot of Reeve's tie, he asked, "Was flirting with you not attention?" That wasn't really a breakthrough he needed any more help with, but he wasn't sure he could provide the attention Reeve was asking for for a day. Reeve's friend broke the replicator, he couldn't even ask for Gatorade.

The point wasn't for Tony to fill it in. Just for Reeve to show where he thought the communication failures came from. But to see it earn a place in a pocket was good. It meant being processed, instead of being trashed.

But Tony would get his gatorade soon enough, if Reeve could help it. He'd already resolved to take the engineering datapoint and work with Cal to repair the thing. Tony would get his sports drink if Reeve could help it. And he probably could. Maybe. he hoped.

The hooking under his tie has his heart briefly racing as he looks up at Tony.

"I'm pretty sure you flirt with all of the people who can build generators from spare parts."

With a surprised laugh, Tony asked, "Is this your way of making up for lost time?" because he didn't really know the extent of Reeve's ability to work under that kind of pressure, but was more than happy to find out. Rewarding the offer and inviting Reeve to press his luck with whatever else he thought met Tony's standards, Tony tugged him by the hold around his tie to bring his lips close to the ghost of Tony's as he muttered with a smirk, "Because it's working." Even this close, his lashes fluttered with his searching study, waiting for the first sign of regret from Reeve that he knew was coming now. Not that he thought it could stop him, just like Whitney or Kathy or Rumiko, any further insults Reeve had for Tony to shove him away again were worth the divinity of the taste of Reeve's breath on his tongue as he licked his lips.

"I don't know. I've never tried," Reeve admits. There's so much temptation right here, the breath against his own lips, and he longs for it. To seek that warmth, to feel it against him. To lose himself in Tony and not care that he was.

"When you wake from this, you should come by my room. Or I suppose I could come by yours."

Because he wouldn't mind lazing away the 'morning' hours with a more thorough experience with Tony's body than he had before.

But regret? He doesn't show any before pressing forward to offer a light, teasing kiss to those lips. Light as the touch of a thought perhaps?

Already pouting with disappointment that Reeve wasn't boasting about any other handy talents, Tony narrowed his eyes at the invitation and was left humming thoughtfully into Reeve's kiss. What happened to 'pin me to a desk', was that some kind of test? Tony straightened where he had been bent closer to Reeve, clearing his throat and giving a short nod of understanding as he adjusted Reeve's tie back into respectability before he could bring himself to peel his hands away. Not that he was going to make a habit of arguing against Reeve's invitations, he had leapt at the first one despite circumstances and hoped that was going to be more of the established pattern, but as Tony took a regretful step back he had to ask, "Does that place make you horny? I feel like I'm in a psych ward." He had to figure this office wasn't making Reeve particularly comfortable, Tony wasn't sure, he was having a hard time getting a read on it, but that bunker was truly demoralizing. "Sorry," he muttered for dumping even that much on Reeve, and dropped heavily into the office chair with a hand up, at a loss and without an excuse for admitting his frustration with the lab rat situation--didn't matter, they could ignore it.

Honestly, Reeve didn't think something like that was POSSIBLE here.

"No, it doesn't," Reeve shrugs. "But it's not like we can do anything here. I'm frankly shocked I can touch you."

Reeve shudders at the very thought of the bunker they were in. It was beyond demoralizing. It was frightening. Soul breaking to feel so trapped. He had been in worse locals for longer, but he accepts it. All he can do is survive.

It hadn't occurred to Tony that there might have been limits to what they could or couldn't do here--or anywhere, honestly, but that was a much larger issue--making him lean his head back on the seat to look around the room again, not hunting down pieces of Reeve this time but anything that looked more out of place. Eventually, he had to pose, "Why...not?," clearly not seeing what Reeve was.

"We're... in my mind, are we not? We're not physically here," Reeve points out. And surely true physical contact couldn't come in a space like this. He looks... confused and nervous by Tony's own confusion.

Wait...

"Should we... see what the limits of this place really are? Or we could just offer you a second memory. My mind seems to require two for actual freedom from it. Or time. Some people go the time method. That said, I'm certain I have something quick and frivolous to enjoy. Maybe a chocobo ride?"

Tony had dropped his head into his hand, leaning on the arm of the chair to tap at his temple, eyes narrowed again like he was trying his very best to follow this logic and really was struggling and not just kind of ignoring Reeve's position. "I mean, I guess..." he muttered skeptically, not of the fact that they weren't physically, in body, present in Reeve's brain somehow, that hadn't been a theory that occurred to Tony while trying to work out what was happening to them, but skeptical of how that was an argument against doing whatever the fuck they wanted. It wasn't like they were going to start firing Reeve's neurons backwards.

"If you put me on a big chicken I will scoop out your brains myself," he said, at least very confident about that personal limit. That Reeve didn't even know the comparable dignity of a horse was disturbing, someone was going to have to draw him a picture or something--Cayde could be enlisted for this important lesson. Pushing up from the seat before Reeve could recommend anything else humiliating, Tony leaned over the desk again to peruse the sketches and watch the monitors, much more interested in what Reeve's work might have to offer than any more rustic farming activities.

They had definitely danced together, but that wasn't the same, was it? This suggestion was far more... intense. And what if his neurons did go weird from this? Was it magic? Was it science? He didn't know. He didn't understand. And it made him nervous. But not so nervous as to resist trying.

"Chocobos aren't big chickens. But I understand the reluctance. Not everyone is comfortable with them. Still..."

Tony's clearly trying to get a look at the monitor and he smiles.

"You know, if you sit in my lap in this chair, I doubt you'll trigger the memories. Those only seem to come for people who touch it. You'd have a far better view of the diagrams of Midgar that way."

Managing to not touch the chair didn't sound like a game Tony would excel in, but it wasn't exactly one he wanted to, anyway. He really must have been a distraction if Reeve hadn't noticed his hunting. "This one?" he asked innocently, pointing to redirect Reeve's attention to that hand while he brought up the other to shove Reeve back by the chest into the seat. He didn't even pretend that there was a graceful way to invade Reeve's space on the chair without touching it, grabbing the back of it instead to keep it steady as he braced a knee on the seat next to Reeve. Whoops, how clumsy.

The firm push has Reeve's lips parting in a quiet gasp. And to think, he was going to see if he couldn't take the lead. And instead there's Tony, moving forward and... Touching.

Touching the chair. And just like that, than they're not in Reeve's office. Instead they're standing near the door at the far end of the Shinra Executive Board room. And it's a very full meeting, every chair but one filled with people very many years from Reeve's past. But familiar enough for the Reeve at Cayde's side to look half disgusted. There's younger Palmer, still fat and with hair and in that horrid yellow suit. Heidegger in green has less of a paunch, no facial hair, and actually looked the military man he claimed to be. Scarlet... still looks like a woman trying to win a wealthy husband, with her revealingly cut dress, but there's less sag and plastic surgery to go with it. Another version of Reeve, perhaps a few years older than in the last memory, stands near the foot of the table, opposite President Shinra.

From there the table is even more filled, with an older man in a black suit from whom Reeve clearly takes some presentation cues from, from the manner the man kept his hair to the specific brand of his suit. There's another man, unremarkable and prim looking in a violet suit, at whose side sits a boy, maybe fourteen, with silver hair and in what is very clearly a military uniform, what with the armor over his shoulders. Near him was an undeniably creepy looking scientist. But really, the attention was all either on the man at the head of the table and the boy at his side that was clearly his son, or at the younger form of Reeve.

A very, very young Reeve who looked very, very nervous. The younger Reeve shifts nervously from foot to foot, and the tension is overwhelming.

"Mister Tuesti, do you know why you were called here today?" President Shinra asked, and Reeve watches himself look at the floor nervously.

"No sir."

And the President is nodding to then-Reeve.

"Your work has been brought to my attention frequently, these last months, young Mister Tuesti. And I must say..."

The pause is weighty.

"I'm impressed."

The reactions on the younger Reeve's face are... multiple. Confusion. Pride. Relief. They all warred on his face and there were a few chuckles around the table, some mean spirited, others merely amused.

"Mister Tuesti, are you aware that the current head of your department is retiring for medical reasons?" President Shinra continued.

"Yes sir. He will be sorely missed. His work with..."

"You will be his replacement."

The culture of walking right over anything important Reeve had to say had apparently started quickly. And he's left staring in open shock, his mouth hanging open.

"Sir, I'm not certain..." young-Reeve started to say, only to be cut off again.

"Are you suggesting that you do not want the position?" President Shinra asked, his eyes narrowed.

"No sir," Reeve says, stepping forward. "I'll take the position."

"Then sit. We've got real business to get to."

"Now, for the first order of business..."

Clearly the man is going to get plowed over, and the young man was thus going to experience his first board meeting. And with that they were back in Reeve's office. Luckily they are spared the rest of the meeting, thought the President does drone on for bit while the others present look at Reeve in disapproval or curiosity or not at all.

And when it's all over, it's the chair again, Reeve frowning up at Tony and then beyond him to the door in the office, offering Tony an out.

"I'm getting really bored of remembering that particular scene."

"Sorry," Tony offered, completely disingenuously by the way he had immediately left Reeve's side to peer over people's shoulders much the same way he had done to Reeve's mother, like he could calculate for every facet of them in Reeve's life, and looked slightly disappointed to be leaning over Reeve again so quickly. The younger Reeve had been fascinating, nothing like Tony in any similar board room, but he had never really been in the same position and his tables didn't typically seat children, either. He finished the move that had been aborted by the intrusion of the memory, ignoring the door to slide into Reeve's lap with most of his weight on his knees to keep off of Reeve, hand still on the back of the seat where he could look down at him, and asked first, "What's with the kids?" The position felt more manipulative than Tony had thought it would when he started, now that he had seen how easily bowled over Reeve had been in that boardroom, going from assuming his control issues were those of someone who was used to having it, not necessarily someone who wasn't.

Would Tony even believe that all he had to do was ask and Reeve would tell him anything and everything he might want to know about any person in that room. As for Reeve himself, confidence had come, with time. But that has been his first time in that room, and with a far more expansive representation of the board than normally attended.

“The blonde bear the head of the table was Rufus,” he said, his fingers sliding up Tony’s thighs. “the only legitimate son of President Shinra and his heir. He was indoctrinated into the company early, and can be hard to work with. The other is... was Sephiroth. Before everything.”

That didn't really explain what the kids were doing there, or...anything, really, making Tony repeat, "...everything...?," without actually looking for an answer; he could recognize that 'everything' meant that answer would be substantial. Instead, he pushed it away with a comb of his free hand through Reeve's hair, eyebrows raised with another question about that which Tony couldn't quite form, the man he was emulating at that table standing out as much among the strong personalities in his subdued posture as Reeve did, leaving him with, "Place was a little incestuous, hm?" He leaned back then, grabbing the edge of the desk to pull them up close to it where he could look over Reeve's work and the monitors again, asking, "How pissed was everyone to be working for some kid?," already knowing pretty well what the actual answer to that question was, but Reeve might be able to offer a unique insight while Tony assumed his monitors were touch screen and tried to scroll through the images faster.

Surely the heir of a major company expected to follow in his father's footsteps was someone worth being there. But the comment of incestuous earns the loudest bark of laughter from Reeve. Oh dear, he actually can't help but laugh over it.

"Oh it's worse than that. The President later hired one of his bastard sons to replace the man in purple. And that man, as well as Rufus, both tried to assassinate their father to take over. It was a mess. Horrible."

He tries not to yelp when the chair gets pulled, and smiles when Tony looks toward the monitors, showing the city in various states of design and progress. Sometimes it's buildings peeled away to show under-workings. Sometimes it's power grids. So many things.

"In my department? Only the man whose head I was promoted over hated me for it. He left the company. The others... They looked up to me. I didn't understand why. Perhaps they recognized how good I was. Perhaps it was how eager I was to do well. But I was just terrified they would find out about my magic and the things that would happen for it."

Then there was the hand, reaching out past him, touching the monitor. Not a touch screen, sadly. But the touch takes them away from the room again. Instead they stand in a large, clearly corporate style lounge, with towering glass windows. Sure, there is also some nice minimalist modern furniture, coffee tables, fake potted plants, but other than that, most of the place was clearly built around elevator banks behind them, and a sprawling view of a city beyond the glass and far below. Forty some floors below. The city is bathed in early morning light and from this high it wasn't easy to see much more than a sprawl of buildings.

And next to Tony stood Reeve, younger, free of some of the wrinkles. Perhaps Tony's age, perhaps a few years younger. Still older than the one in the conference room, and with a mass of files tucked under his arm as his eyes turned toward a section of the city that was clearly incomplete, given it was tons of exposed girders and pipes and the like of the plate. If one looked hard enough, they'd even see something far below even that. The slums.

"Welcome to Midgar," the younger Reeve mused, before turning his attention to Tony. He's dressed in a very sharp, clearly fashionable suit. Reeve from a point in time when he cared more about the power that came with looking sharp and fashionable. Better than the younger employee Reeve in quality, and yet higher quality materials than even Reeve had worn in the office space, the more modern Reeve. "You really just like letting your hands explore everything, don't you?"

As though to prove that point, Tony was up against the window, hands on the glass like he could reach through it to pivot the scene and inspect it from all angles, and he muttered, "Doesn't matter 'til you can touch it." That Reeve's entire office wasn't touch-compatible would have been intolerable working conditions to Tony, though he would have been more forgiving of some underdeveloped technologies had he not been immediately greeted by the obvious accomplishment that was this city. It took a glance over his shoulder at Reeve, then over the other one to search for the Reeve he was more familiar with, to realize at least some of this experience was a little more tactile and spun on Reeve again to grin, "Look at you, back in fighting shape." Not sure if this truce included being allowed to call him 'old man' again, Tony found himself pressing his lips together in a tight smile as he clasped his hands behind his back to sidle up to Reeve and submit him to the same scrutiny as Tony had his younger selves. "You built this?" he prompted, any image he'd had of the city Reeve kept claiming architect to never quite matching what he saw outside those windows--Tony couldn't imagine a project of that scale, and he was incubating a dyson sphere in his own star system. That was different, no one lived on the sun. No one touched it. This kind of corporate control over a city--that had very different implications.

If Reeve HAD touch compatible technology available to him, he'd LIVE for it. Don't get him wrong. But the 'fighting shape' earned a chuckle from Reeve and he shifted his empty hand, letting his sleeve slide back enough to show the flash of something like a bracelet at his wrist, lit with glowing orbs that might well be crystal.

"Oh yes, definitely fighting trim, so to speak. This is in the prime of the value of my department in Shinra's eyes. The ongoing project. Before the structural failure of the in-progress sector six. The other side of the building's views would show the city still under construction in some areas."

He moves to walk along the windows, smiling cheerfully at the view.

"Consider it less my hands building the whole thing. More... guiding it. I could take you down into parts of the city, I think. There's... something different about this memory. I can almost feel it. Life if I opened the right door I'd be out on the streets in Sector Four, near Loveless Avenue. Or if I summoned an elevator, I'd be near the university in Sector Three."

He moved along the glass, his free hand trailing over it, looking out at his city with pride.

"The more I hear about other worlds, the more I wonder. What could I have made with clean energy sources? What could I have wrought if I had the funding and a board who supported my vision? But this occupied me well enough until the city was destroyed. It's a bit much, even with my department, to plan out all the structures one needs to build a city of this scale. But the city itself started as a series of company towns down on the ground, before I was even born. The plates project, Midgar as it stands in this moment, is three hundred meters above the ground. Constant work crews rotating in an out at all hours... It was a masterpiece."

And a nightmare. He smiles back over his shoulder at Tony. A bright, flashing, hopeful smile. One like Reeve was prone to in those days, before he shut down, closed himself off, lost his hope. Before he was crushed under the machines of the company.

"Would you believe that I designed this while also working on a degree in yet another discipline? Engineering, architecture, city planning, and finally materials science. Most of my robotics work didn't come from a degree, but rather a brief fling with a woman that worked in weapon's dev."

Perhaps he wasn't a genius like Stark, he wasn't a futurist, but Reeve was absolutely experienced in many fields, and the ones he chose fit together like a matching tie and vest picked to go with the perfect suit.

The hardware didn't mean anything to Tony, and he couldn't tell if it was a personal choice of Reeve at his flashiest, as it seemed to be. He gladly strolled along with Reeve, a step behind with his hands in his pockets to keep watching out the window as they moved, trying to reconcile anything he could see with the childhood Reeve had shown him or anything he knew on Earth. Maybe it was for the best that Reeve hadn't had every opportunity at his disposal to create something even more massive; the energy collapse was inevitable, of course, but the darker structural issues of the 'company towns' had to catch up with him eventually if that hadn't. "Why does it have to be elevated?" he wondered, coming to a stop with his hands on the glass again, trying to see through this layer himself.

"They wanted flash," Reeve answers, his voice full of undisguised disdain. Was he proud of what he had created? Yes. Did he approve of the why? No. "They wanted to ignore how 'ugly' the old villages were."

They wanted their perfect little heaven, and Reeve hated it. But the work had to be done, and if it was going to be done, he wanted it done right, to best serve the community they were making. And by the end Midgar had been more than Shinra's powerbase. It had been its own world, all unto itself. Or it had been in some ways.

Reeve keeps moving along the glass until they reached a sealed door, one clearly leading out onto a balcony. One that was locked, but the lock gave way with an audible click as Reeve approached it.

"The view out here is better. More organic, as it were."

Did Reeve realize that at the time? It felt harder to ignore than the power issues, and Tony was slower to follow this time, staring out at Midgar and feeling like he could see the seams now, frowning at the people he couldn't see from up here. He pulled himself away as Reeve beckoned, leisurely pace along the windows gone with some of the polish. A little safer: "You had the cushy job, why did you think you had to complete the degree? Why not just..." With a vague gesture back the way they had come, indicating the much more reasonable way to learn. "Get in bed with some gal willing to tell you about it?" Tony had plenty of his own certificates proving he had put in the work, but that wasn't time he had to spend anymore just to prove he knew something with a piece of paper. He had shit to do, if he didn't know something yet he'd ask Reed for the reading and move on.

"To make it better. To make a better world, better lives, a better city so that people would have more."

Tony gave money as a philanthropist. Reeve gave his heart and soul as something not so different. Plus, of course, he wanted to learn it properly. Out on the balcony he lets his hand sweep over the view down below, and then turns to Tony.

"At this point in my life I was working on city planning. I needed to know it all, know it properly, to do this. To make sure I was doing it right. A city is like... it's like a computer. Every piece matters, and you have to put them in the right places. Things fit together the right way."

His fingers trace the lines of roads, the wires that deliver the energy, the hidden pipes of water. They dot over places he knows are police stations, military outposts, fire stations. Glance over schools and arts and stores.

"If you don't understand how to put all the wires in the right places, then you make a mess, things don't work well. You solder the ground line onto the wrong contact point on the motherboard, and nothing works."

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wow autocorrect. Boy not bear.

bear now, small blonde bear, CEO

Nah. He's too sleek to be a bear.

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