clopen.

[propulsion]

WHO: Tony Stark and the Ironettes, and some of my other guys.
WHAT: Business as usual, probably.
WHEN: Just generally Justinian
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall, etc.
NOTES: Some open prompts in the post for any and all, but also a gathering place for some specific starters.

Nightmares are just another excuse to join the insomnia brigade, a disparate club of people constellated around the Gallows, lit rooms, lit hearths. Nowadays (nowanights?), Tony often takes himself and his restless hands out of his private quarters, now that he has a full human woman to share personal space with and she might not appreciate the sounds of tinkering and miscellaneous farting around one wall over.

So his colleagues might find him in the peace room, drinking coffee at stupid o'clock and going over paperwork, or those who know him well might hear the sounds of clicking tools being worked and set down again in the Research work spaces, where it is much too dark to see by the single candle he has going, but that's what enchanted sunglasses are for.

During the day, he is:
- jogging, sometime past dawn, stairmastering down the tower and then running a circuit through the expansive courtyards, and then out towards the docks, before the day has a shot at getting unbearably hot and sticky;
- chained to his desk to make himself, you know, available, some paperwork stacked at his elbow while he desperately seeks some dopamine by carefully folding a paper airplane instead;
- clattering a plate of pizza down on a taken table in the dining hall, and while it's a little lopsided, it is at it promises to be, melted cheese and flat circles of meat, everything sliced into slices;
- at the training grounds where the archery range is set up, wearing some light-weight leather armor and a more elaborate gauntlet, with articulated loops around the wrist he is adjusting. "You know the story of William Tell?" he says, positioned not where the archers are, but standing amongst the dummies, which should probably be some kind of sign. "Me neither, but probably worked out okay." He readies a defensive stance. "Hit me."

Comments

peace room bro

[bouchonne]

"Your signature," Byerly declares, irritatingly perky given that it's somewhere deep in the murky hours between night and morning, "is absolutely terrible."

He shakes his head as he peers at Tony's paperwork. "No elegance. No style."

[propulsion]

Without immediately looking up, flipping a page over, speaking much too fast for the hour, "Function over form. I was kind of a big deal in my home world so you gotta be able to churn out dozens at a time when you're pulling red carpet duty."

Tony glances over, lifting his coffee, "And I need my wrist operable at all times." Eyebrow waggle, as he takes a sip.

[hassaran]

One of the nights their quarters are being smoke-bombed finds Yseult in the peace room long after most are asleep, a stack of reports balanced on the arm of one of the low-slung armchairs. She's left them for now, crouched in front of the fire with two slices of bread beginning to toast on the end of a long fork. Its wooden handle balances in the crook of one elbow, and the other is braced on a knee, temple propped on fist. In the split-second just before Tony fully enters into the room, he might catch her with her eyes closed.

[propulsion]

Long gone are the days when data could be extracted in a fluid stream from all corners of the globe, crunched down and synthesised by the most reliable of artificially intelligent sifters, handed to him on a virtual silver platter in easily digestible soundbites and three-dimensional holographic imagery. No, we deal with books now.

Tony is holding one such book as he opts to read away the evening instead of spoon with the rabble downstairs. A heavy tome, jammed under his arm, and upon finding the lights on and the scent of toasting bread, he swivels in place until locating Yseult's crouching form.

"Don't fall in," he says. "Or everybody'll know you sleep ever."

research work spaces.

[heorte]

Consider: Ellis has some expertise in this area. In having the kind of dreams that make sleep so unappealing as to be avoided entirely.

Also consider: based on all that they have exchanged, Ellis is willing to wager that Tony has some similar experience, or at least, has enough experience that the fodder for his nightmares would be enough to drive him away from his bed.

Not that Ellis needs this excuse to want to check in on Tony. It has turned out that keeping regularly contact sometimes nips certain experiments in the bud. Or at least, tempers them to more reasonable means.

Which is why Ellis lets himself into the dimly-lit Research workroom, two cups in hand. He has no special glasses, or particular gift for seeing in poor conditions, so he is navigating largely by the clink and rattle of tools and Tony's muttering.

A greeting materializes, eventually, in the form of a cup placed directly in Tony's line of sight.

Have some tea.

[propulsion]

The work appears to be very meticulous. A thick ring of copper-toned metal held in a frame, the faint glimmer of dwarf-inscribed runes catching the faint firelight. Tony is carefully laying cobweb-fine filaments of some kind of metal into small divots in the copper, rough hands holding long silver tools with an impressive degree of unshaking control.

The tea is set down as Tony exchanges tweezers for some kind of soldering tool, taken out of a mini-furnace which contributes a little as a light source, if a surprisingly poor amount. "Thanks," he says, distracted, as he moves the white-hot end of the tool over his work without actually touching it to the metal. The proximity of heat will be enough.

"Tea fairy," he adds, like it was a part of the thanks but he needed to get this little bit done before he could dial in a quip. "Can't sleep?"

[heorte]

In the time it takes Tony to finish his ministrations at his work table, Ellis has picked his careful way across the darkened room to one of the cluttered chairs aside the hearth. The fire is banked, reduced to just glowing embers, hardly enough to see by. His own cup comes to rest over his belly, unsipped.

"No."

To the tone of ha, ha.

It's not as if Ellis ever slept soundly, but it's been more difficult in the past months. The appearance of fleas and the disruption of everyone else's sleep patterns just compound an existing pattern.

"You?" feels like a more valid question. There's even odds that Tony's work is holding his attention.

[propulsion]

"Nope."

Funny joke.

Tony stows the soldering tool, presses his shoulders back to stretch out some lingering tension, before flipping his glasses up onto his head. The sudden darkness is jarring enough for him to make a sound of complaint before flipping them back down, and he picks up his tea. Lists forward to stand, pivoting at the waist. There's a lantern around here somewhere.

It's warm, in this room. Summery evening, fire, a meagre breeze struggling through the window. He's pulled on his underarmor, the clothes he'd rifted in with all those years ago, for the purposes of a little personal insulation. His lyrium device glows bright blue through the fabric. Distinctly alien in the medieval darkness.

"But I guess that's going around," he says, as he moves through the room in search, tea in hand.

[heorte]

"Aye."

Which brings Ellis to his next point:

"Should you be working, when you've not slept?"

Wysteria and Tony have time and again reassured him as to how unlikely it is that explosions can occur during any given experiment. But by the third time Ellis had to smother a small fire or throw open windows against a cloud of semi-toxic smog, it had somewhat eroded his trust in their assessment.

[propulsion]

"Listen, Mr. Mom,"

doesn't actually have an immediate follow up, except for the clatter of a lantern being located, lifted, return towards the fireplace, and, "Probably not," is the end of that sentence. He sets his tea down, bends, sets about lighting the lantern and letting a more acceptable amount of light fill the room.

Now, Tony takes his glasses off. Sits, tea back in hand. "But I do my best work while manic and underslept," he adds, as he does all that, and it's not a lie. Now, his focus squares on Ellis, and true to his word, there's no sleepy fuzziness in his assessment. "So, what's got you wandering."

[heorte]

Yes, that is true, so Ellis doesn't contest it further. His gaze sweeps the workbench, perhaps assessing again the extent of what Tony was working with and on, before he looks back over to Tony himself.

The glow of light in his chest is nothing new, but it's so rarely on clear display. Ellis has never asked after it. But it seems inevitable that it was preceded by a wound. Something that should have killed but didn't.

Ellis takes a sip from his mug.

"Snoring."

Ha, ha.

snakehole. closed to dickerson.

[propulsion]

The thing is they must see a certain inevitable amount of each other, but it is with relative ease that Tony has a way of tuning out the things and people around him. His focus can be hard to on purpose get, and a lot of times, you'd be better off relying on accidental.

But there's purpose, now, when Tony materialises at wherever Richard happens to be working. It's been a minute since that latest kerfuffle, enough time for dust to settle or feathers to unruffle or whatever has to happen, but probably not so long that his presence could be interpreted as mysterious, a smartly dressed fellow rifter™ with a penchant for unnerving eye contact.

And also holds something out, a little rumple paper bag. "Nut?"

[nonvenomous]

The goblin of a cat lounging in the chapel just outside had flattened herself into an involuntary hiss at the Provost’s approach, puffy fangs flashed white and blue in the sconcelight.

Within the infirmary proper, Richard Dickerson has turned to rankle at the rumple of bagged nuts on offer. Restraint tamps the worst of it down into something akin to suspicion -- drawn in the bones of his face, stiff up his back, bright in his eyes. Several cabinets stand open; there are jars and pots and bottles meticulously organized into factions atop limited counter space.

He has a ledger in hand and a sheaf of his own notes tucked into its pages. Innocuous. Busy.

“Are you injured?”

He does not want Tony’s nut.

[propulsion]

His loss.

Tony keeps the offer out on a delay, just in casesies, a ripple of amusement crossing his expression. There is no peep of lyrium reactors, thick fabric tied up neat and vest buttoned, but his ever-overzealous shard gleams bright green up through the proffered baggie.

"I mean, if looks could kill," he says, "I'd say 'grazed'. Are you sure? It's almonds. Keep you going on a busy day."

Rattle.

[nonvenomous]

The medicinal stink of salve-infused pottery and an ointment or two he’s had to uncork to classify does little to mask the mustier cling of elfroot smoke to his clothes. He’s quite still, also, opposite the nettle of Tony Stark’s existence within arm’s reach.

“So you understand that I’m busy.”

He keeps to eye level despite that peek of green through jittering almonds, trace evidence of a tug of curiosity in an odd beat of delay. It’s just a pause. It could be anything.

“What do you need?”

[propulsion]

"To talk to you," Tony says, offer withdrawing and looking down at is as if to check for what's wrong with his almonds, before shaking a few into his other hand as he says, "obviously," and then palms them into his mouth.

Unconcerned about the possibility that his presence is a disruptive force, because, what else is new.

"Or I guess I could sit around and wait for a report to cross my desk about rifter experimentations like some kinda moron, but with Poppell heading north for the summer, this seemed faster."

[nonvenomous]

“Mm.”

There is a disapproving pull to the slant of his mustache: due consideration burred with open dislike. It’s fleeting, at least -- and not an intentional showing of disdain, more akin to the glimmer of inner workings at the orifices of something being stepped on.

He turns back to his work, a pen dipped to an open well of ink on the counter.

Presumably he is capable of listening and marking down stores at the same time.

“I don’t follow.”

[propulsion]

"Okay,"

sure, sometimes he talks fast, he's been told,

"I'd like an update on your experiments with rifters and lyrium, please. And then I wanna help out and stay informed about it, after."

Tony does not have all of Richard's attention, and attention is as necessary as almonds when it comes to life support. If it bothers him, it does not show in the tempo and pace of his words, save for maybe the slightest prissy flourish around please.

training grounds

[notathreat]

Ellie's shooting a few arrows into the target, more to center her mind and than because she actually needs the practice, but she tips the point of her arrow quickly down by her feet as Tony walks onto the field, frowning at him.

"William who?" she asks, squinting at him suspiciously.

But she's been in enough focus groups for the Provost's inventions to want to see whatever bullshit he's got up his sleeve this time, so she shrugs her shoulders, pulls back on the string.

She aims for a place just over his shoulder. It'll be fine, so long as he doesn't move too much. Maybe. It'll probably be fine.

"Do you mean literally, or-?"

Ellie looses the arrow, and it gives a hushed sound as it flies through the air.

[propulsion]

"Friend from college."

Tony assumes the position, which is something between a fighting stance and a baseball player out left field. As far as literally goes, his eyebrows go up as if to say you bet, but his focus immediately shifts as soon as her grasp shifts, and now there's an arrow flying at him. Or near him.

Moving fast, his hand in the gauntlet twists, and from his anchor-shard, a burst of glimmering green energy erupts out into the immediate space around him. This, the arrow hits, and doesn't stop or scatter away, but moves through the air at a slow rate. Tony starts to move, and then doesn't, as it passes just over his shoulder.

He points at it, accusingly, looking towards her. "You kidding me with this?" he asks, voice slightly distorted and echoed. The arrow passes through the other side of the glimmering barrier, and—thwip continues on its way, if much slower than before, tumbling to the ground.

The barrier disappears.

[notathreat]

If he going to try to catch an arrow in his fucking hands? God, Ellie's real glad she's not actually aiming at him -- and then somehow he fucking fucks time around him or maybe the Fade or reality or-

"Holy shit," Ellie sputters out at him, nearly dropping her bow. That's going to scare the pants off of someone on the battlefield.

"Okay, you didn't tell me you were going to pull that out of your ass," she says accusingly, pointing at him before shifting back into a proper pull on the bowstring.

She doesn't call on Gold for it, it's so damn close she knows that she'll hit what she wants to.

So this time she aims for the meat of his shoulder, a place she knows they can reasonably push it out the other side, if things go horribly wrong.

[propulsion]

There is a bright and immediate smile for her shock, the accusation that comes after, and Tony claps his hands together, once again raising them in readiness. (In battle, god knows it won't be like this, area man used to advanced AI systems keeping him primed for each battlefield variable as they split from the calculation, but plenty enough raw human instinct went into being Iron Man that maybe all he needs is, you know,

practice.)

The arrow looses from the bow, he turns his hand, the barrier bursting around him and catching the feathery butt of the projectile. He pivots to dodge its far slower trajectory, and this time plucks it out of the air. Twirls it between his fingers, self-satisfied.

"Pretty awesome, huh?" he says, as the barrier flickers and dies, and he holds out the arrow for the taking. "Replicated the temporal effects displayed by aberrant rifts. Could probably outfit the whole crew if we had a million fantasy dollars. Pounds. Gold coins. Whatever. Wanna see another thing?"

[notathreat]

Ellie wrinkles her nose to make a face at him as he holds the arrow out, and snatches it from his hand, stepping back into line.

Even if she's annoyed by the smug satisfaction he's oozing, there's more than a smidge of admiration in her eyes. She does love his inventions. They are brilliant.

"You're slowing it with baby bursts of rift magic," she echoes, raising both scarred eyebrows, but nocks her arrow again, taking aim.

"You bet."

Another shot, this one more towards his other shoulder, just a smidgen more towards a vital area.

[propulsion]

It's the smidge that he lives for, the reluctant concession that he is at least a fraction as impressive as he will happily broadcast being. It is, at least, an amiable kind of smugness, and Tony doesn't waste time getting back into position, adjusting something on his wrist as he goes.

He should probably practice before going straight to arrows, but also, what's the fun in that. And this trick only gets the one shot.

Fwip.

This time, something happens to him. A blur, a disappearance, the arrow passing clean through a sort of warped green space that is only vaguely Tony-shaped, where Tony was once standing, and then it flickers, and he comes stumbling out of that space with less grace and panache than he'd plucked an arrow out of the air. (This arrow skitters somewhere off behind him, as if she'd fired blindly at nothing.)

"Hell yeah," he says, weakly breathless, hands balanced on his knees. Slightly pale, suddenly. "Oh, that's rough. But also very cool," just, for the record. "Still cool."

[notathreat]

""Fuck yeah!" Ellie hollers across the practice yard, pumping one fist into the air, before Tony's pale sweaty reaction dawns. Ellie finally puts it together, stows the arrow in her hand back in her quiver, and heads over to where he's standing with his hands on his knees.

She mimics the stance, putting her head down on his level, her voice quiet.

"Did your dumb ass," she says, trying mightily not to grin, "make this the first field test?"