"anthony" stark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
servomotor) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
xistentia2018-01-05 11:02 am
servomotor) wrote in xistentia2018-01-05 11:02 am
Entry tags:
o1 👨💻 Nothing like a big bad bridge (open)
Characters: Tony Stark, CR, & YOU
Summary: Asmol average height technologist superhero man goes about his business in the wake of war and random comedic holiday shenanigans. Some closed starters in the comments.
Date(s): Catch-all for January 2018!
Warnings/Notes: Mental illness, manpain, etc. Maybe some sexual content in here eventually!
open;
Whether in this world or the last, Tony Stark manages to be both a highly private person and incredibly easy to find. Most of the time, he can be found in his workshop, where he invents and repairs a range of machinery for people. Lately, he's been working on copying Xistentia's emotional energy conversion technology and turn it into something that the average citizen (or above average, depending on your self-concept) can use. Behold: sewing machines and weaving looms that feed off bursts of emotional inspiration, coffee machines fueled by your addict's desperation, and cars that go a little faster because you really really want them to!
The rest of the time, he might be found out and about, often in the iconic red suit. He's often preoccupied with brokering deals to acquire more scrap from the beach or trade with other people from contemporary worlds. You might catch him in dry debate, negotiating; you might even find yourself waved over and asked for your honest opinion about the value of a piece of chassis or energy source, in the middle of an otherwise incomprehensible technobabble conversation. Just remember: there is definitely a right answer.
However, in his off-hours, you might instead find him at your local liquor establishment or listening to some live multiversal music downtown, wearing an Immensely Doubtful expression on his bearded face. On the other hand, it's Tony Stark. Maybe that's just what his rich white boy face looks like.
Summary: A
Date(s): Catch-all for January 2018!
Warnings/Notes: Mental illness, manpain, etc. Maybe some sexual content in here eventually!
open;
Whether in this world or the last, Tony Stark manages to be both a highly private person and incredibly easy to find. Most of the time, he can be found in his workshop, where he invents and repairs a range of machinery for people. Lately, he's been working on copying Xistentia's emotional energy conversion technology and turn it into something that the average citizen (or above average, depending on your self-concept) can use. Behold: sewing machines and weaving looms that feed off bursts of emotional inspiration, coffee machines fueled by your addict's desperation, and cars that go a little faster because you really really want them to!
The rest of the time, he might be found out and about, often in the iconic red suit. He's often preoccupied with brokering deals to acquire more scrap from the beach or trade with other people from contemporary worlds. You might catch him in dry debate, negotiating; you might even find yourself waved over and asked for your honest opinion about the value of a piece of chassis or energy source, in the middle of an otherwise incomprehensible technobabble conversation. Just remember: there is definitely a right answer.
However, in his off-hours, you might instead find him at your local liquor establishment or listening to some live multiversal music downtown, wearing an Immensely Doubtful expression on his bearded face. On the other hand, it's Tony Stark. Maybe that's just what his rich white boy face looks like.
no subject
That was six years ago, Stark. Have you really run out of material so soon?
[ Not surprising, but Loki is not keen on rising to the very pathetic bait. He's not ashamed or particularly regretful of that venture. Especially in light of Odin's secrets and Hela's creation. Loki may not know who he wants to be or who he wants to become, his self on shaky ground, but he knows he's not interested in going backwards just to bandy words with Stark. Carefully, he grabs onto the sea dragon, slowly easing it closer to the sea. ]
And what did you choose?
no subject
More ice sizzles, laser light raking across the surface. Another one of the dragon's numerous legs pops free, moving around sluggishly. It's still under the influence of the Jotun's magic.]
You know what I don't get.
[Chink! CRACK. Frozen crystals splitting under the punishing force of laser light.] Why you're in such a rush to ignore shit that happened six years ago, when all that was motivated by shit that happened what. Five hundred years before? Seven hundred? [The man in a can zips overhead, and starts cutting at ice on the other side of the dagon.] If you were human, my doctor would call that anxious avoidance. [A beat.] And if he weren't asleep. When does your tragedy expire, demigod?
no subject
[ Loki mimics the tone effortlessly, as his palm continues to rest on the creature's head. It whines piteously, its tail flopping against the sand. He can tell what Tony is digging for and he wants no part in it. The burn of anger rests against his chest at the mention of tragedy, but Loki is not so easily baited. Still. This deserves a response. He straightens, placid as a lake. If there are turbulent waters underneath, Loki doesn't allow a flicker of it to show. ]
Which one, Stark? I assume you know what my tragedy is if you can speak of it so boldly.
As for ignoring, I went to New York several times the last few years. None of the humans there blinked.
no subject
And then another TSEEEW, TSEEW. The frozen white snaps under the creature's belly, allowing its weight to start sloughing into the salty sea again. Its head lolls.
In the meantime, Tony does have to observe, taking potshots on Loki isn't as easy as it used to be, or it wouldn't if his goal were to specifically upset the Jotun. But it isn't, really. Revenge for Earth would probably be more along the lines of murder? More imprisonment? Something in Thor's hands, and that, it seemed, had expired as well. Instead, he's left to poke back irritably when poked.]
Memories aren't vices, [he points out.] Flashbacks. Nightmares. Whatever you want to call them. Bad stuff happening to you isn't a vice; what you do is the vice.
I'm recommending alcohol over murder. Besides, according to Thor's very fancy Asgardian mead, you'd need three bottles of vodka before you even felt buzzed. Never mind supervillain incontinence.
[The light starts to wane out from under Tony's boots. He comes down to the ice, landing his boots against it. It's thicker where he's at.]
You want to wake him up?
[The dragon, he means. Not supervillain incontinence or associated body parts.]
no subject
I saw you on the news. I think a mother called you an "uncultured influence on young minds." I also think she was crying. Blubbering. I can never tell.
[ Resting two fingers on the creature's head, Loki wills it to awaken. It blinks its baleful yellow eyes, letting out a warbled cry. He lifts his fingers away as the creature starts to uncoil itself, undulating its way to the sea. Going home. Though this was not anyone's home. This was a patchwork quilt, a joke. Or maybe deep in his bones, there is a fatigue Loki hasn't been able to expunge, not since the bridge broke under his feet. ]
Recommend what you like. But again, I haven't partaken in wide-scale murder in years. So your advice, if one can call it that, is moot. So I'm not sure what it is you are trying to accomplish in your dialogue.
no subject
[He'd bet that Thor had had a similar reaction a couple of years ago. Strange how things change. Swinging his boots forward, Iron Man starts powering back down toward the beach. A healthy distance from the Jotun, probably-- arguably, healthier than their dance had been.] Fact is, I know what I did. I've been trying to make up for it. You pointing out a bottomless debt isn't like... [he wiggles his metal hands, now that he no longer needs them to remain vertical and balance. and at the last three-foot distance, he lets himself drop onto the ground.] New information.
Hence the Sokovia Accords, Little Peter. The energy initiative. [He steps forward, his boots leaving prints in the sand. Inside his HUD, Fridayd is keeping an eye on the dragon so he doesn't have to.] And I can't pretend that alternating between... flippant and charitable endeavors is the best move. Laying off the mass-murder was nice of you, sure. Teetotalling, probably good for your liver.
[The glowy eye-slits settle on Loki's face.] But it might be something else to try. Being sorry.
no subject
No. That's not what you want. What you want is my suffering, my regret. You want it as currency for my own pit. What good is my regret to anyone? Does it make me a better person?
[ It ends with a hiss. ]
I think not. It changes nothing.
no subject
If I wanted you to suffer, I would be developing some kind of grand machine to make my desires a reality. I kind of have the knack for that.
[Does he really think a conversation with Tony Stark is going to change Loki in any real way? He doesn't know. Maybe not. It'd be stupid to hope for it. But considering they're allied against the end of not one apocalypse, but the apocalypse of all apocalypses, the summary ending of reality, it's probably better to have some information on his attitudes toward past misdeeds and their relevance to future ones.
He shrugs his robo hands. Swizz swizz.]
If it wouldn't change anything, you'd do it. You don't like your big brother now more than you did before his little awakening?
no subject
[ Of course, again, the conversation turns to Thor. As if everything Loki does has to do with Thor. He hates it because it has the stench of a truth Loki cannot fully escape, even with Asgard's dust behind him. The simmer of frustration is in his eyes, bright as a star. While Thor is more boisterous, he is steady as a hammer. Loki's passions are sudden, dangerous sparks that makes one's head spin, drawing them in. He moves closer, his form wavering in the ozone. Loki may not have the kind of power Thor has, but his divine presence still holds weight, charging the very air. ]
You have some nerve, Stark, to speak of me and my brother. As if you didn't see for yourself when you traipsed into my head. As if you do not know.
no subject
But for a billionaire playboy philanthropist, he's not very good at leaving, actually. He hangs over New York City and its bluecollar work force like a bad stench, mingled in with the ravages of the Chitauri, the legacy of hisf ather. He hangs over the whole of his planet that way. Sometimes, he even leaves deliberate marks. Arc reactor technology, PTSD visualization devices.]
I'm asking because I did see, [Tony says.] I know that jagweed monster in your head isn't the guy you have at your back right now. Like I know not being able to predict who and what you'll become if you do this thing is part of what's -- nerve-wracking about it. But I'm telling you, you'll still be yourself after. You'll be who you were meant to.
Don't tell me you don't believe in fate.
[There's a light edge of a joke to it. But inside his helmet, Tony isn't smiling.]
no subject
Everything I believed in is gone. Of course, all of it was a lie but — [ He shrugs carelessly. Tony has hit it on the nail and Loki is unnerved. There was an itch under his skin that was slowly subsiding, the maniacal energy that had surfaced so quickly ebbing away with the tide. ]
Who I'm meant to be? You don't know that. I don't know that. Freedom, it seems, is still life's greatest lie.
[ What he is now are scraps, broken china pieces oddly fitted together. He can't go back to the way he was. He can't keep playing the villain because his sister Hela has far outdone him in that regard. He is no longer Odin's monster or Odin's pawn. He barely — barely qualifies as Thor's brother. He is not necessary to Asgard, to anyone. He could vanish and be forgotten. Like Hela. It's why Loki was always perplexed by Thor's mourning. He never quite understood it.
Deep down, he would like someone — anyone — to tell him what he could be. More what? More who? ]
no subject
[There's a split second where Tony doesn't feel like he's inside himself. He's far away, staring down through his HUD, the holographic arrows and spinning diagrams, at the two tiny figures of men on the beach. A Jotun with wet shoes, a tin man who somehow thinks to advise on having a heart. Ridiculous.
But so is the end of the world. The Multiverse. Anything that unlikely becomes ridiculous, until it happen. Trees falling through the roof, homes falling through the Earth. Fire careening out of a black sky.]
Maybe it's the opposite. [Fridayd notes his vitals are spiking, but it's nothing to be too concerned about. He ignores her.] Not being able to escape everything that made you. But having some say in what you become. Having intention about it, instead of-- waiting for the next bad thing to happen. The next punch in the nuts. The next chance. The next shitty human who reminds you of what you did. You can choose to take part of the past into the future. You just have to look at it first.
no subject
Is that what you tell yourself, Stark?
no subject
[Tony can tell when a conversation's over, though. He can read a room. The way he frequently offends and bothers people is not because he fails to read the room; it's because he says what he means despite it.]
Good job, Loki. B+ for teamwork. Maybe I'll see you around.
[His boots power on again.]
no subject