tony stark. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
propulsion) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2019-09-18 09:32 pm
propulsion) wrote in faderift2019-09-18 09:32 pm
Entry tags:
closed.
WHO: Tony Stark, Laura Kint
WHAT: Chance meetings about lyrium insides.
WHEN: Latter half of Kingsway.
WHERE: The Gallows docks.
NOTES: TBA!
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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So the next question is inevitable, more important than what. "Why?"
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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."
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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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."
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(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."
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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."
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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?"
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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."
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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.
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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?"
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(Has it only been three months since someone else decided everything for her? It already feels longer.)
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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?"
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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."
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But--
"Well, that's a win for exclusively me," Tony says. "So."
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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."
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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."
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"Why does it matter?" This doesn't seem like something that will be awkward. She walks near other people all the time.
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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.
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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.