delivery

[in_extremis]

WHO: Tony Stark, Cloud Strife, technically open if you want to hang
WHERE: The forge? I don't know the structure of this post eludes me, it might be just network, I might just be setting up a bunch of interactions for Cloud to have with everyone else like a benevolent god
WHAT: Tony's been making things and has packages for Reeve, Tommy, Sansa and Jon, and he's not doing all of that walking himself.
WARNINGS: It is genuinely not my fault that all of Tony's posts are horny and you should just expect it now.

a text to Cloud

hey

where are you?

you want a job, right?

Come to the forge.

Outside of the forge, sitting in front of the closed door very pointedly, were five lumpy bundles, the wrapping of these clearly not Tony's strong suit. One of them seemed to be just in a big leaf. They were all labled with thin tags of impressed aluminum tied or just placed on top for Cloud to figure out where they were supposed to go with just a name-- the rest, like who any of these people were and where to find them, was Cloud's job to figure out, apparently.

At least one of them should have been pretty easy.

C L O U D
It was...a chocobo? Or how Tony remembered a chocobo looking from the glance at it in Reeve's memory. Small, grey and surprisingly heavy, it wound up to go bouncing away on weirdly articulated legs. Did Tony think he was paying Cloud?

R E E V E
It's a head.
This might be what Tony thought a cat skull looked like. It wasn't much like the design he had left for Mini-C's skeletal structure in Reeve's sketchbook, he obviously had some time, and the obsessive insomnia turned to 11 after the sleep glut and nowhere to pour his creative energy, to take a more detailed turn, and he would have used the energy to make more of the structure but they were still tight on materials. What he did make was a few servos, dangling from the skull shape like a disembodied nerve system, and a prototype pair of hands tucked safely into the dome, too delicate to be very useful to Mini, but responding to their programming housed in the skull. The systems were done, was the point.

T O M M Y
Was this what he meant by hydroponics? It wasn't like Tony had managed to miss that bit of drama on the network. It wasn't assembled, a bunch of disparate pieces that didn't come with instructions, but a note that only read 'you need a tube'.

S A N S A
This bundle had a pair of brass combs in it, stamped, much like the labels on the packages, with roses. If Sansa hadn't figured out how to keep her hair from being a mess, maybe this would be a reminder.

J O N
A very tiny little knot of a rag, about as big as the label that sat under it, and felt light enough to be empty.
It seemed to only contain a gold chain.

Comments

[in_extremis]

That expectant look managed to catch Tony off guard, making him raise his eyebrows back at Cloud for wondering what Tony had for him next without even being prompted now. That had to be a military thing, a good soldier didn't need a lot of reason to go submissive, because Tony didn't think he had been that manipulative this time. He thought he was still testing boundaries. He went, "Uh-m," not even prepared for what else he could tell Cloud to clean up around here, but could start by gesturing under the workbench he sat on for Cloud to replace the container there.

Showing off might buy him some time. Tony gladly leaned across the bench to switch on a humming lamp, a bright white that made the warm glow of the fire that had been the sole light in the room look impossibly dim. It was pointed down toward the table, but Tony swiveled it up to better illuminate the towering structure that was his workspace, layers of scaffolding connecting the bench to the trembling catwalk above, draped with his half-finished projects. Most of it seemed to be pieces of armor-- gauntlets, boots, pauldrons and masks, strung across the scaffolding like a massacre. "You name it, I can make it," he said.

[backoff]

Cloud could have easily turned the container into a soot canon. The broom would be knocked into the back of the container hard enough to make it puff out whatever was collected. He's sure it would have gotten him into a lot of trouble. But it may have been worth it depending on the next line of tasks. Because the broom would have been handed to Tony then and he would have walked away. Maybe they both were testing each other in some way to see what might happen. Cloud raises an eyebrow as Tony doesn't dish out another task to do.

He watches him as he finishes up with placing the container back under the workbench. Cloud waits as the scaffolding comes into view. The items on it too him with interest as if he may have seen similar things before. "Armor? Do you make weapons too?" You name it, I can make it. Cloud can't help but smile a little since it's how he ran his own business. He looks closely at the pauldrons.

[in_extremis]

The sword, of course. Reeve had mentioned. Tony settled back on his hands again, looking up at his own work contemplatively, mouth twisted to the side like he had to think about this question. "Not anymore," was the short answer, and with that Tony turned to Cloud with an impeccable smile, like he had just given the press everything they wanted. The real answer was definitely much more complicated than that, and the mold for Cayde's bullets was still on the bench right by Tony's hand, but those were highly exclusive services and Cloud didn't have the clearance yet. "Why, are you really jonesing for that baseball bat? There's not even enough of us here for a full team, slugger," Tony said, and barely stopped the teasing tilt of his head, eyes glittering instead and sure now that Cloud would assure him he didn't have to worry about getting a team together.

[backoff]

Not anymore. Cloud gives a nod knowing that Tony probably couldn't see him do it. But that would give him reason to not ask what he was seeking. It wouldn't be fair. He wouldn't want someone to ask him for stuff he does not do anymore. Bullets were different, Tony still wasn't making the weapon to fire them off. Cloud backed away from the work after really looking at the email of each one. He turns his attention back to the other man. “I can use a baseball bat the same way as a sword. But would the Agrii classify it as a weapon or a sports equipment?” He squints his eyes at Tony since he didn't think of trying to find a loophole within the system. It was cheating against the no weapons rule in some form.

“I can fight but my skills are at their best with a sword. I can use guns if needed.” It’s what he used as an Infantry man but even back then he had shown skills in handling a sword better than most. Cloud grips the broom while giving a small smirk. “I won't ask you to make something that you don't do anymore.” He takes several steps back and does a full swing of the broom out towards his right side. Cloud spins it back up and over his head before placing it behind him. “I could use this broom and knock out a few people with it.” If he really wanted to but he’s not about hurting others. There’s been far too many deaths.

“I know that fighting isn't always the way to protect people. But if a threat comes I don't feel as if I'll be useful.” Which sword did Reeve talk about? Since the one he’s used to using comes in parts that slide together to create the giant familiar buster sword. Cloud knew what to look for back on Gaia.

[in_extremis]

"Listen, trying to figure out how the Agrii brain works is the big question around here, you're getting ahead of yourself. Leave that kind of problem to the think tank," Tony insisted before Cloud hurt himself trying to work out how the Agrii classified a wooden bat. It was challenging enough figuring out how they classified slavery.

He wasn't sure if he was supposed to take the smirk as confidence that Cloud didn't really need a sword if he had a broom to swing around, or confidence that he could convince Tony his form was worth reconsidering the weapons embargo for him, but Tony gave him a prim, sarcastic clap for the performance either way. That was his freebie, it didn't seem like Cloud could get through a conversation without boasting about his physical prowess in some way, so Tony would indulge the one. He stopped being so sarcastic as Cloud admitted his usefulness, making Tony frown and lean back again instead. "Come on, you're up for anything," he pointed out. "Not sure how good you are at being the mailman yet, that one's still in the air, but you haven't let me down yet." Granted, dumping a bucket and sweeping up a bit wasn't an impossible bar to clear, but Cloud was still hitting every shot.

[backoff]

"Figuring out the motives to alien lifeforms can be tricky. But they have to have a motive of some kind." Cloud's going to be stubborn on that topic of wanting to find out what exactly they were after. Was it really wanting the heroes to rebuild so they could all go home? It seemed too good to be true only if those here wanted to put forth the effort to remotely want to rebuild.

Fighting didn't have to be the only way to protect people. Cloud could easily use anything to fight but he would be better off with a sword if a major threat did appear. He walks off to place the broom back in it's spot before coming back towards Tony. "The names on the tags are ones I recognize for the most part. It shouldn't be too hard to deliver your packages." Cloud shrugs while looking at him. "There might be a day where I won't be able to help right away."

He places a hand over his left arm, he knew for the moment he was fine. But any other given moment he might not be. "And it won't be because I'm out of a weapon."

[in_extremis]

That move with the arm was getting familiar, if Tony had figured out how to expect anything from Cloud. It halted Tony from his dismissive encouragement to hit the dirt, then, if the job was so easy, making him freeze then drop his hands back to the bench, leaning forward with them curled around the edge of the table, eyes narrowed to watch Cloud with ruthless scrutiny.

"Are you dying?" He didn't say it with any tenderness, but if it was the case, then it wasn't news to Cloud, either, but a problem to be fixed. The last time Cloud had made that move, he had stumbled into Reeve's room to sit pallidly while everyone seemed to panic and have something to whisper about.

[backoff]

Cloud remembered what Reeve had told him about telling Tony. He hadn't expected tenderness to begin with when it came to Tony. They had been hiding something and it could have been much worse. He looks at the other. "Yes." The answer is quiet and quick, nothing else follows after it.

There's silence as Cloud seems to be searching for something to say. His eyes shift from side to side as he slowly glances downward towards the floor. Cloud's not good at expressing himself or letting people in for that matter.

He presses his lips together and lifts his eyes back up to look at Tony. "I don't know where to start or begin with that."

[in_extremis]

Cloud was in total control of that silence, and Tony let it eat at him, watching with that cold calculation for more of an answer. When it didn't really come, Tony finally prompted, "Do you think there's anything you can do about it?" This place was about solving problems, not spilling them all over the floor to get sticky and obtrusive.

[backoff]

"I don't know. Right now it's trying to think of a cure." Cloud knows that he gets cured very soon within his timeline from what Vincent and Reeve have told him. "I know in my close future I get cured. But dealing with it now, I've mostly been staying busy or keeping to my room in the hotel."

If he passes out anywhere the hotel room was the better spot to be if anything started acting up. "It's a disease. The side effects is what's hard to watch."

He looks over at Tony. "A suggestion was made of who else I can go to about this. But, it's not exactly easy to bring up."

[in_extremis]

So the death wasn't a forgone conclusion, however Cloud came to know that--it sounded like he might have been in a position much like Tony, where some people here knew more about his life than he had the luxury to. This was good, though, this meant there was something workable in the problem, so Tony finally tipped his head with what might have been sympathy, his cool-toned eyes still not betraying much even as he muttered, "I'm sure they're harder to go through." Cloud isolating himself just because he thought he would make anyone else here uncomfortable was a painful thought; Tony might not have been the most generously welcoming to him, but everyone else he met on this wretched planet had largely been effusively kind.

He finally slipped from his throne on the table to approach Cloud more on his level as he observed, "I assume that suggestion wasn't me," with a wry smile. Unless Cloud's disease had a surprise mechanical twist, Tony was probably the last person he wanted to tell about it. "Can't get much harder than that, look, we both survived."