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WHO: Tony Stark, Laura Kint
WHAT: Chance meetings about lyrium insides.
WHEN: Latter half of Kingsway.
WHERE: The Gallows docks.
NOTES: TBA!

He's allowed to leave, now. Clean bill of health, preliminary pocket money, and at least one legitimate recommendation for a wateringhole in Lowtown where they don't mind weirdos.

Tony has made it as far as the docks. The Gallows docks.

But he's thinking about it. There's a low wall of cobblestone that rises up between land and a sharp rocky drop into churning ocean, and it's here that he sits, boots dangling over the edge, watching the dinghies and skiffs pull in and out among the maze of piers. Occasionally, a ship bell rings out, or a sharp wind billows sailcloth loud enough for the sound to reach him here. It is maddeningly peaceful. How does anyone live like this.

He's a new quality, rarely seen, rarely stumbled upon, but right now he is luxuriating in being in a quasi-public area and no one coming up to him, needing things, friendly or not, knowing, whatever. He's decided to like it, for the minute, dressed in soft brown leathers, grey cotton, all articles native to this world from the finely stitched boots to the shirt with the lace up collar -- all except for the black shades he wears on his face, diffusing the sharp sunlight.

Not paying very much attention to everyone around him -- or so it would seem, with his loose posture, hands lax between his knees, feet dangling. The reality is he's more than a little aware. Each time someone roams behind him en route for the piers or away, he can feel tension spider-walk up his spine.

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Laura's come to decide she dislikes the smell of the docks, if not the sea itself. To her pleasant surprise, a mission along the coast made clear that not every body of water smells like dead things that have been trapped there too long. Still, it's a bearable odor, especially compared to parts of the city that lies beyond it. And it's becoming so familiar that she can tell when something else is twined up with it.

Like now.

She's ready to take the ferry over to the city--another unpleasant thing, risking drowning, but necessary--when she realizes that the scent around her is different. Lyrium, strong and discomfiting under the circumstances. Usually the scent means she's drawn her claws, and she hasn't, and it doesn't have this same heaviness; by Laura's mark, it is a lot of lyrium.

Her first instinct is a furtive glance around, but there's no obvious explanation. Her second is to abandon her current mission (travel to the marketplace and purchase a cowl, as she'd discussed with Mhavos) and find the source. The objective weighs stonily in her gut as she starts to move quietly among the other ferrygoers, looking for the source. Someone else has it, too.

But when she decides on a man, watching the ships go in and out of the harbor, he does not look anything like she expects--which is to say, nothing like her. She considers, comes closer, sniffs the air around him. Yes, it's stronger here. But he does not look like the few Templars she's encountered, and if he is an experiment, she does not know from where.

"You smell like lyrium," she informs him, both accusation and explanation. At some point, she assumes, he will have noticed her: a small figure, dressed all in black, standing just behind him and trying to determine who did this to him.

Tony turns to look at her.

This, after holding out for the dim hope that whatever mouth-breather will keep it moving, but nope. So he casts a look back over his shoulder and the tops of his shades, then pivots on his butt, relocating leg-dangle to street side, facing her. A beat, and then, "Your hair's greasy," very schoolyard, very one for one, like she's calling him out on improper grooming and not something more unsettling.

Buying a hot second while he figures this out.

No one has ever told her that before. The tilt of her brows shifts slightly, from suspicion to confusion, until she decides it is irrelevant. Then she's all suspicion again, watching his eyes over his strange, dark glasses.

"Why," she tries again, trying to decide just where the scent is leaking from, "do you smell like lyrium."

More demand than question.

Tony pushes glasses higher back up the bridge of his nose, attenuating not just the afternoon sunshine but her beady little searching eyes trying to get at him. It's not really enough, though, Tony given to communicating most thought and feeling from his head down to his toes, and that feeling currently is: a sort of bridling, and a terrible curiousity. The conflict of these two opposing impulses.

He tips his head.

"Hot yoga this morning, didn't have time to hit the showers, so sue me. Where're you getting that?"

Where really is the question. The rest of his reply means nothing, so Laura ignores it, instead leaning in to sniff quickly at his arm, and then his--

"Your chest." Her own ribcage aches in sympathy. They would have had to cut him open. Laura looks, hard and searching, at his face again. "Why did they put lyrium in your chest?"

"Hey hey hey--"

Tony stands, sliding sideways as she gets up closer, one hand out to block the progression of personal space encroachment and the other slapping down across his chest on automatic. In the stark sunlight, the glow of activated lyrium is better disguised, but between her focus and the press of cotton to chest piece, Laura can make out the faint glimmer of blue catching against grey weave.

"Kiddo," Tony is saying, meanwhile. "Take five steps back and a chill pill." To be fair, she does not seem agitated exactly -- maybe that's just him, an easy state of being for him to become anymore. "I can't-- you can smell that?"

"No." Laura doesn't know what a chill pill is, and she's not about to move. The lyrium is there, in the center of his chest, where something blue is faintly visible over his breastbone. That must be where they grafted it on.

(Does he have claws, too? He couldn't--claws would be useless, springing out from the center of his torso. It must do something else.)

She does deign to answer his question, drawing back minutely. (At least she doesn't touch him. Laura is aware that pulling at his collar in an attempt to see down his shirt would be invasive. Under the circumstances, she would not want to be touched.) "It smells like thunderstorms. Why did they put it there?"

There it is, that question again. They. When she does not back up, Tony-- stands his ground too even as he keeps one hand protectively splayed around the circular centre bored into his chest. As if he can maybe sense that impulse she's keeping in check.

"And that's... bad. Good?"

A lot of questions are itching to be scratched right now, but, you know.

Her first.

"Who's they?"

"Bad," Laura confirms, though it is not entirely bad. At this point, she would not remove her claws. Mostly bad, though, she is willing to own and thus rounds up.

His other question is equally straightforward, if irritating. It does not matter who they is until she finds out more from him; she is not going to tell him something, only to discover later that he comes from Antiva. (The way he speaks, she doubts he comes from Antiva. But the point remains.) "The people who did this. What does it do?"

Not blades, she assumes. One finger jabs in the direction of his chest, not quite touching the hand covering it.

That guarding hand relaxes a little without yet moving, the tips of fingers now idly tap-tapping some kind of hard surface. Agitation settled down to a pending simmer, still not loving this proximity -- except that he then uses it to his advantage, hiking his voice down quieter.

"Something good," Tony says, finally. "Maybe. It used to be made of something else before I got here, used to be-- electrical. Like lightning, contained on a small scale. But no one did this to me. I did this to me."

Kind of. Long story. He hard-swerves the specifics on what it does.

Laura's frown takes on a vaguely sympathetic cast. She has no idea how that would work, but she'd spent those days of surgery strapped to a table; she cannot begin to imagine wanting to do any of that to herself. But there is nothing about cutting into hands and feet that is necessary--the chest might be different. Everything vital is in there.

So the next question is inevitable, more important than what. "Why?"

"Nuh uh," says Tony. "You why."

He has to admit that this literal child has the kind of stern gravitas necessary for getting away with asking blunt questions in the middle of the street, but there are still some sacred things in this world, some secrets he cares about. Telling a random that he could die without a potentially dangerous artifact lodged in his chest is on the cusp.

Glancing out at the water, back to her, and Tony decides not to form up his own questions just yet and says instead, "C'mon, let's walk before someone asks you if I'm bothering you."

Edited 2019-09-20 22:42 (UTC)

"I'll tell them that I am bothering you." But if she does not have to, that's just as well. Walking, she can do. Laura straightens up, waiting for him to lead the way to...wherever it is he wishes to go.

And once they start moving, she asks, "Why what?"

He obviously wants to know something. Her guess is why are you asking me these things, but if she doesn't have to answer that, she thinks she will enjoy this conversation a little more. It is as simple as showing him her claws, but not everyone is satisfied by the sight of them. Some people only want to know more--and looking at this man, she is not sure if he is one of those people.

There aren't a lot of places to go, and Tony isn't walking with any speed -- roughly away from the docks, reversing both of their errands, but only because it draws them away from more crowded centres. He folds his arms loose across his chest, tipping a look up at the looming fortress as they go.

"Why are you asking?" Ding-disappointing-ding. "For starters. But we could back up a sec, start with names, my name's Tony, I'm new in town, and you are..."

Gesture. Fill in the blank.

"Laura." Which answers one question. The other one doesn't require words.

She holds a fist up before her, and two blades materialize: slender, straight, weightless, the same silvery-blue colour she thinks she saw glowing under his shirt. Lyrium, she knows--but most other people don't know it the way she does.

People who are not familiar with the claws usually either dislike them or like them too much. She's not sure where Tony's opinion might fall, but she suspects he will be surprised.

Black glass does much to disguise some of his emoting, but Tony's pause denotes his wide eyed attention. He mutters, more to himself than to Laura, "Dope sword arm."

It should probably say something, anyway, that the oddest occurrence he's since witnessed after plummeting from the sky with a cadre of demons should also strangely be the most familiar thing, the thing most like the weird shit he knows better. Humans remolded into something more than, something unique.

Regardless. He is surprised.

"Okay, Laura," he says. "You showed me yours, I'll show you mine, but tell me-- how much do you know about what's going on with you? Or about lyrium. Besides its scent."

"It is not a sword arm." She has no idea what dope means here, but a correction is easy enough to provide. They are claws, because otherwise she would also have leg swords, and that idea is truly inane.

(Most people here have yet to learn about the foot claws. Laura prefers it that way.)

Unfortunately, her knowledge of lyrium is scantier than perhaps it should be; she only recently learned where it's mined. After a moment, she offers, "It is on my bones. It comes from the Deep Roads."

Edited 2019-09-21 03:01 (UTC)

"Huh."

It's a multifaceted 'huh'. Huh, that's interesting. Huh, that's messed up. Huh, that doesn't sound like it should work. This substance has a fascination, functioning in ten different ways and counting, and it would behoove him to know more about it, resting as it is right next to his heart.

After a protracted moment, Tony figures it's his turn to speak now. "You're from here," he says. He guesses, anyway. "I'm not. From here. This universe, I mean. The thing in my chest is a reactor, generates a sustained output of-- energy. Power. It changed coming through the rift, and instead of a machine, it's-- magical enchantment, to use the common parlance.

"It wasn't dangerous where it was before," for a given value of danger, "so I have to believe it's not now. I don't know these people well enough to get their take; you're only getting a preview because you're nosy and I don't need you sniffing around while I figure it out."

His explanation gets a nod of understanding from her. "I saw you come out of the rift."

He was of minimal interest at the time--not when she was busy fighting the demons who came with him. (She'd been too busy attempting to compensate for the wine she'd drunk.) But she is fairly certain he was the person who came through that afternoon, at Wysteria's party.

A preview seems a measure too strong for what he's telling her, however; there is not much beyond I did this someplace else, and the rift changed it. After mulling over his explanation, she asks, "What is the power for?"

"Suit of high-tech flying armor."

Tony stops their meander and pivots, then, a hand up as if to still any objection or question he can imagine might come out of her, though Laura herself is an unknown quality. Hard to gauge, which isn't great. "Here? It powers jackshit, which is American for 'nothing'. It makes a quasi-helpful reading lamp in a pinch but other than that?"

He lets the question dangle, and his hands drop. "It's mine. Still is, despite the, uh. Magical makeover."

Flying armor sounds like a fever dream. From the description, she isn't sure if it is armor he can fly in, like the griffons with their wings, or something that flies before him and takes hits he otherwise would. Neither option seems at all believable, so she puts the concept aside for the moment.

Instead, her brow furrows as she gives his chest another dubious look. "You should turn it off."

It apparently does nothing--and more than that, it is a liability. She can see it here, on a reasonably bright afternoon; at night, in the shadows, he will be useless. A painted sign labeled AIM HERE would be less noticeable.

"Yeah maybe," he lies.

A quick lie, easily said. Deception is not his strong suit but he's guarded the more vulnerable aspects of what his arc-reactor does for him for this long, so why not a little longer. "But what I'd like to establish just real quick is that you're going to keep it to yourself. That this," a gesture at his chest area, a circular motion, "is not your problem. Can you dig that, Wednesday Addams?"

"Laura Kint." There's an edge to her voice, one that does not come from being called by someone else's name. Many people here, invariably the ones she likes best, have spoken to her with the expectation that she will make up her own mind about things; at the very least, they make requests of her when she must do something. Having someone tell her what to do, this sharp and insistent, chafes.

(Has it only been three months since someone else decided everything for her? It already feels longer.)

Tony waits, unblinking.

And waits a little more, and then says, "Line? I think it's 'your secret's safe with me'. I know it's a cliche but I need to hear you say it." There is an honest obliviousness occurring in which equal ignorance that he just dispensed an order at all is married with the expectation that he will get the thing he wants with minimal effort.

"Listen-- I intend to figure this thing out and I want to be the one to do that. Let it stay that way and if I come across anything I think might be relevant to your French tips, I'll DM you. Deal?"

She waits, too, looking for something he says that means anything. French. DM. Tips. The thing he cares most about--do not tell anyone--is clear, but Laura dislikes the way the details remain opaque.

And she is not going to ask for clarification. Not now, and not from him.

"No," she tells him, her jaw tight. "I am not going to tell anyone. But we do not have a deal."

He lost her, he knows that, he can see it. Going overkill on the modern day vernacular seems like the coward's way out of talking to these people, just because they make him edgy by existing, and whiskery mouth twitches aside a little like he's thinking of doing the clarifying without her having to ask for it.

But--

"Well, that's a win for exclusively me," Tony says. "So."

"No." It is not a win for him purely for the fact that Laura does not want it to be. He is refusing to accept anything but his own correctness. He is smug.

And she does not like it. Talking to him is standing in a room without any doors: if there is an escape, she does not see it. Her mouth is flat, her eyes sharp. "Deals are for people you wish to work with. This is not winning."

"That's fair."

Tony takes off his glasses, then, and if eyes are the windows to the soul, Laura can simply reaffirm her observations -- but there is a bright kind of interest, like she is a puzzle, that is probably kind of ungreat as well. Harmless, more or less. He missed whatever made her snap closed like a steel trap.

A drawn line in the sand around what he wishes for his personal information seems too mild for that, but it's all he's got, so. "Appreciate the discretion. If we're done here, we should go in different directions so it's not awkward. You get dibs."

She does not like being somebody's puzzle--not if it means somebody will try to solve her. And for now, at least, she does not like Tony. But she's genuinely baffled by his offer, and it shows in her raised brow.

"Why does it matter?" This doesn't seem like something that will be awkward. She walks near other people all the time.

"Why does--"

She is fucking with him, like a baby Black Widow, except that's not it at all, because strangely disaffected obtuseness seems to actually be her one speed, except when mad, but even then. Maybe if Laura Kint did not want to be a puzzle, she should not be so puzzling.

"It doesn't." A beat, then, "Take care, kid," quick and precise, before he starts off for the Gallows himself.

I mean, if she follows, he will keep talking anyway, but he's not glancing back to check as he folds up his glasses, to hang them off the closure of his shirt collar.

She still has a cowl to acquire, so she turns without another word and heads back toward the ferry. If she keeps listening behind her, in case he returns, it's more for the sake of preparedness than anything.

The Gallows are not large--not like the forests she walked through to get to them. They will no doubt have to speak again someday. But today, Laura is ready to put the conversation behind her.

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