open | put my faith in the hard of heart

[achievable]

WHO: Howard Stark & Anyone
WHAT: Congrats Thedas, you’re saved!
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Nah

Comments

[propulsion]

"Uh huh."

Tony unsticks from freezeframe to shake hands. "I know. I mean."

Genius strikes, like genius always strikes: unexpected, and a little wild, barely managing to avoid stumbling his words as he adds a cavalier; "Who doesn't. Besides our frolicking friends of fairy forest." It's a bumpy landing, from pure ??? to something resembling any manner of dealing with what's happening

(is this tinnitus that's happening to him right now, or did a corner of his brain fritz out, hard to say)

but he's gotten some practice in, to say the least.

That said, this handshake is going on for a while. "Uhhh Tony. I'm Tony. Rhodes. Potts." That's weird, he regrets it already. "It's a pleasure."

[achievable]

“Sure is,” Howard says, with a slanted smile and slight squint that add up closer to amused appreciation than judgment. Eccentric old men are better, in his very educated and valuable opinion as an eccentric young man, than most of the alternatives.

But he’s still taking his hand back now.

“Rhodes-Potts, huh? Of the Hoboken Rhodes-Potts?” There are no Hoboken Rhodes-Potts, obviously, and the joke is for his own personal benefit, so he speeds ahead and leaves it discarded behind him. “What did you do? Or what did you do, before the—“ He rolls a recollecting hand. “—fairy forest.”

[propulsion]

Tony actually does something like an apologetic jazzhands when the handshake is terminated on the late side, and there's an awkwardly overlapped half-laugh at joke that is already left to the wayside. The bumpy landing continues, apparently.

"I, uh." Car salesman. Math teacher. Body double. No one, this isn't happening, it's a dream. "I tinker. Robotics, engines, A.I. Took up a contract or two with Stark Industries, actually."

A smile, more at the eyes. "It's a small multiverse after all."

[achievable]

“Yeah,” Howard says; “yeah.”

A delay.

He hates to say he doesn’t know what someone is talking about—in this specific situation, anyway. When they’re talking about something that matters. He needs a few seconds to be able to stomach it. This, on top of being soaked and attacked by griffons.

But then he waves one finger, spooling an invisible line back in.

“No. Back up. A.I.?”

[propulsion]

That wasn't on purpose, somehow. Like maybe the idea of Howard Stark feels as present and live as he does in sepia tinted film reels. That twitch of a smile from before kind of settles, private amusement in spite of himself. In spite of how complicated this is all gonna get because he can't keep his damn! trap! shut! for any real length of time.

"Artificial intelligence," Tony supplies, parting with knowledge easy. "As in, machine intelligence with learning capability, human competencies and computational-- actually, did you ever meet Turing?" A gesture, indicating Howard, lax at the wrist. "He had some neat ideas."

Somewhere in the sky, a griffon screeches.

"We could take this-- I mean, you look like you could use a towel and a drink."