open + closed.

[propulsion]

WHO: Tony Stark, Loxley, Marcus Rowntree, and all their friends
WHAT: Catch-all of misc!
WHEN: General Harvestmere content
WHERE: Various
NOTES: Some open content behind the cut, also a catch-all for threads, both backdated and present.

I LIED but watch this space

Comments

closed to viktor. backdated to [mumble].

[propulsion]

The library is a place of peace and quiet and anyone would be right to expect it.

And to be fair, this is true for most of the time, and it's only disturbed—this time, with the sound of too-heavy footsteps impacting solid floor in a slow, rhythmic plod that gets louder as it nears. Joining it, less concussive, are the scuff and cadence of more ordinary, man-sized footfalls, moving at a casual clip ahead of it.

It's the late afternoon, and the angles of light hit the windows bright and disperse through the treated panes, presumably to prevent blinding anyone or ruining the books, while the deeper shadows can be beaten back by lamps that would be actively difficult to break and set things aflame. It is also infamously dusty in here, and Tony and his friend make for a fresh disturbance, setting motes adrift to dance and spin as they move into the space.

And for the record, it will only be half a surprise. Tony had suggested a meeting to Viktor and agreed to the library. He just hadn't mentioned his companion tailing him slowly, a shape in the shadows that stands at least three feet taller than him, broad angles and hints of lyrium glow. With a gesture of something in Tony's hand, it pauses its advancing as Tony looks around.

solemn nod

[grindset]

Viktor is, of course, in the library.

You could say this any time, any number of times, and it would be true at least half those times. To say he's posted up here, as Ellie thought of it, is a slight understatement. Upon discovering one of the lowest floor's study rooms contained both a padded chaise and a window with coloured glass—it even opens!—he took it over at once, and established a bed for those times when he feels too inconvenienced by the idea of leaving. The upholstery is old, bad, about as comfortable as a quarter-full bag of sand. He thinks it's fine.

Today he's been in there with the door open and a chilly cross-breeze going, chiefly because he's noticed the room is manifesting an aura of unwashed laundry, warm leather, and sweat, too specific to his own body. He hasn't washed his hair in at least three days and he slept in his clothes again. That smell, though, what a mystery.

The unusually heavy footfalls don't sound like the company he's expecting, and shortly have him sitting up, leaning to see. If he had a rolling chair he'd be rolling to the door—he's actually got a set of casters in progress, just hasn't finished them—but it's the regular kind, so he has to get up and go there. Instead of just emerging like a normal person, he leans all the way out to look, and when that unusually large shape registers in the gloom his already curious expression reaches a nigh-parody level of candour.

"Is that," something cool enough to knock the end off this question as well? Seems like. It certainly knocked greeting his boss off the priority list.

[propulsion]

Tony pivots towards the sound of a voice, caffeinated energy and, for his part, has definitely bathed in the past twenty-four hours, tidied up his beard, put something in his hair, and if Viktor's dishevelment goes noticed, its contained to a quick zigzag of scrutiny before it's dismissed.

Whatever, sometimes people are feral.

"Fred," he says. "He's been asking after you. Just kidding, he's not, uh, sentient." Tony steps aside so he can direct that shadow out into the less gloomy open space outside the stacks, and it's a delicate operation, actually, moving the heavy iron bulk of him down the aisle where a step in the wrong direction could spell disaster.

Polished, heavy metal, armor built into its make. Bipedal and looming, its legs easily absorb its own weight as it ambulates forwards with mechanical smoothness. And for all that lyrium-charged runes shine from where they are etched in complicated rows, both directly into the metal as well as panels of amber, there is mechanism in the slide of rods, cylinders, crankshaft. The torso, such as it is in this human-shaped design, is dark iron and then a deep centring well from which a brighter glow of lyrium emanates. Its arms hang at its sides, with pincer-like hands on each wrist. The head has a helmet-like quality, knight-style, from which arcane light glows through visor and vents.

"Fade-reactor engine droid," is further explanation, Tony lifting the wand-like thing he's holding, tapping that glowing centre. "I figured when you want to learn how the world works, you build a robot about it."

Worked for him when he was sixteen, anyway.

[grindset]

Feral library dweller; increasingly depressed; free of aesthetic pressure from the ambient expectations of the elite; enough self-respect to use a washcloth, so he doesn't actively stink; blessed with frankly great hair that against all odds still looks Fine at a glance, the way the chaise is also Fine.

What is now a greater factor than any of those things?

Fred.

In today's version of a hurry, which more resembles Viktor struggling to keep up with where his feet want to go than the reverse (like that foolishness in Arlathan, which imposed a heavy tax), he comes tapping up to the pair of them. Without fear for the innocent power inherent to a machine so large, and trusting Tony to manage it besides, he stops conversationally close, cranes a look up,

and up,

"He's beautiful." He's talking to Tony, but only has eyes for Fred. "This would be quite the undertaking even with modern fabrication methods... how long did it take?"

[propulsion]

Tony moves aside towards an available table, setting scroll cases down. He goes for one of them in specific, undoing the latch and tugging free the rolls of paper within as comfortably as though he had grown up with these specific modes of writing and documentation. Or is used to handling paper at all, in the day-to-day. It sure would be easier to show his work via hologram.

Alas, alack, whatever. He sweeps pages flat, using a few books laying around as paperweights. Talking all the while.

"I'd put it at ten months," he says. "Finding the people willing to do a bunch of enchantment on machine parts that don't exist yet was, uh. Time consuming. Plus a lot of trial and a bunch of error. Basic scientific principles don't always work like you think they will, here, but that's kind of why I prefer to bypass them and go for the untapped potential of esoteric bullshit."

Lyrium, for one. The big one, even.

Now, leaning his butt against the edge of the table, Tony folds his arms and continues. "Lyrium-enchanted machinery has rules too. It's a living thing, for starters. Binding it to a lot of moving parts runs the risk of—well, mostly the thing you're doing just not working, or it'll behave unpredictably. Or disastrously. Pushing it outside the scope of established enchantment practices requires a sustained amount of stable energy generation.

"Which is what I wanted to show you," he adds. "It'll probably come in useful."

Up close, there is a decent amount of warmth emanating off of Fred. Not so much that anyone needs to worry too much about valuable tomes on the shelves, unless he were to stay up here permanently, and it seems to be cooling now that he is resting idly. Warm, still, to the touch, if Viktor were to be so bold, and the subtle feel and even subtler sound of an engine's hum emanating out from his chest.

[grindset]

He is exactly that bold, and teases a few taps with a middle finger before laying his long, pale hand on the housing surface. What then seems like a slow caress is— well, it's that, but also sliding to another position to pause there, and again, like he's checking the machine's pulse.

Leaning in to listen incidentally turns his head toward one of Fred's arms, and from there he follows his line of sight to the elbow joint, the arm, the fingers, all so carefully wrought. No factory produced this. Scarcity of resources, of artisan labour, of an overwhelming cultural obsession with progress, these make every native piece of machinery he encounters feel priceless—even, and especially, the mundane. This one, while arguably not entirely native in origin, is off the charts.
Ten months, he said. Remarkable.

Viktor's attention finds Tony again well before he's finished talking, and the quality of that attention says he's waiting for room to interject. Not that he isn't listening, because he is, with an almost uncomfortable intensity, but—

"Wait, wait—what do you mean by 'living'?"

(Those newly spread papers are all but glowing in his awareness. He'll get to them shortly.)

[propulsion]

"Like,"

a hand flops forward, thinking, then,

"you should probably go nerd out about it with Niehaus, but she did a study about lyrium responding to a pathogen like a living organism, capable of infection in a way that a mineral is not. There's also some research, you know, deep dwarf stuff, about its animating properties with inanimate material—I got it filed somewhere."

'Somewhere'. Tony's brand of controlled chaos does actually mean he knows where everything is. Everything that matters, anyway. "It's still an unknown, but I subscribe to the classification."

closed to julius.

[luaithre]

He'd contemplated how he'd feel about these appointments. He has some options. Certainly, injured pride could factor in. Reluctance to take up so much attention and energy on a thing that is neither romantic nor to the benefit of the war effort. Apology, anxiety. Resentment. To say he has felt absolutely none of these things, if in sample sizes, would be false.

Marcus has instead decided to lean into: glad for the excuse to spend the time.

And, after a few weeks, lessons and his own private study also divests him of some amount of boredom. It turns out that even non-scholars do a lot of reading, actually, a thing he is coming to realise. Pamphlets and written gossip and cheap volumes picked up from the market place and poetry and even being able to satisfy a whim and borrow a history book from a shelf in the library seem to have filled a deceptively high amount of hours that Marcus hadn't counted on when he'd agreed to his sacrifice.

But all this to say: there are worse things he could have given up, and worse things to relearn. So it's really none of these things that give reason to his being a few minutes late, and just that there are a lot of stairs and he didn't organise his time very well, going from the eyrie and back to their rooms then back up to the offices where they'd agreed to meet today,

and he knocks before he lets himself in. There is a bundled something under an arm, and he is dressed more for a day of labour and riding than office work, or writing lessons.

"Sorry," is more conversational than repentance, shutting the door behind him.

[overharrowed]

Julius waves it off. They've had conversations before about his feeling that Marcus sometimes apologizes for things that don't merit an apology, and Julius doesn't generally feel the need to belabor the point.

He understands Marcus's reluctance, has been patient with it, but he's come to look forward to the lessons on their own merits. Teaching adults who voluntarily want to learn has its advantages, for one thing, and the extra time together isn't unpleasant, even if Julius does feel duty-bound to (mostly) keep them on task.

Today, he considers Marcus' parcel and his clothing, mildly, before saying, "Coming from something or called to it?"

[luaithre]

At least, even the section of his wardrobe dedicated to clothing he won't mind getting dirt, blood, or whatever else on that may occur in the course of his work in Forces is still presentable, due to vanity, sturdy leathers and cotton, all dark browns and greys and subtle texturing. And today, he mostly just smells like griffon, face and hands cleaned before he'd come this way.

"I was training with Monster," moving towards the desk. "And forgot something in our room."

Marcus sits, picking up the few sheaths of cheap paper atop the bundle, which are evidence of private study. He is, it should be noted, taking this time seriously, and motivated to work on what he can on his own in between, but given to distraction and conversation when lessons are wending their way towards a close.

It's this homework he sets down first, but doesn't draw attention to it as he sets the other thing on the desk, pushing that forwards instead. "For you," he explains. It is book-sized, this thing, soft leather, a little worn and obviously secondhand but restored to a supple, shining red-brown. There is a buckle loosely fastened, and when opened, that it's a sort of transportable writer's kit makes itself apparent.

It contains fresh paper of good quality, pinned down inside, along with a few vials of ink and quills, a few other bits and pieces. More notably, a fine glass pen stands out amongst the ordinary, silver with transparent glass prettily twisted to a point. Likely not suitable for outside work, but there nonetheless.

[overharrowed]

Julius is visibly if quietly delighted with it, taking a moment to examine the components. When he looks up, his expression is mainly still delighted, thought with a slight undertone. "What's the occasion?"

Marcus knows him well enough that the slightly anxiety he's forgotten an anniversary or misremembered the date of Satinalia is faint but legible.

[luaithre]

"None," is genuinely assuring from Marcus, as the person who will certainly be reminding Julius and Petrana both of Satinalia in the coming weeks.

And truly only because Marcus wants to be able to give them gifts without worrying they'll feel bad about it if they forget, so. He settles a little more in his chair as he explains, "It's a gesture of thanks, and I thought you could make use of it. Bit boring, besides, for Satinalia."

[overharrowed]

"It's beautiful," Julius contradicts immediately off of boring, but his smile still eases a bit at the reassurance. "Thank you, it was a kind thing to think of. And it's not as if teaching you is any great burden. You even do your homework with out reminders," is arch but fond. He's thought, recently, that in a different life he could see the appeal of making teaching a vocation. In this one, he has too many other irons in the fire, but as much as he's sorry for the necessity, the process itself is no burden.

(Arguably, Julius does have enough other things to do, but he gives no indication of it.)

Of the kit, he adds, "It reminds me a bit of my time in Antiva. Doing scribe work."

closed to petrana.

[luaithre]

[ In meeting his appointment with Petrana, Marcus is (in contrast to Julius) much more careful not to be late. Had he forgotten something, in this instance, he'd likely let it stay forgotten rather than imply to her he doesn't value her time—

So things have been strained. Not constantly, not greatly, but here and there, these moments of tension. Where it can be helped, Marcus would rather aim for ease.

But he's forgotten nothing, and so knocks on her office door at the agreed upon time. It is early evening, and he's had a chance to clean up and change from the day, and so does not bring the scent of horse or work or dust into her office, just the ever-lingering presence of warm smoke. He has, in his hands, a few reports that will need her reading and her pen, but some other bulk as well. ]

Hello, [ first. ]

[ipseite]

( there are times when it's petrana who is careless of the time they've agreed upon— becomes absorbed in work, or only one more task, or caught in a conversation about the same, and finds him with apologies. these times are frequently when the meeting is more personal in nature, and not when she is endeavoring to speed him along his journey back to literacy so she can hand him back his own paperwork, so she is well ready for him now when he arrives, the chair that usually occupies john's (unoccupied) desk moved for marcus to take up, her own paperwork for now set aside to make room for his.

it must be said, she is not nearly the teacher that julius is. she's neither the temperament nor the experience, and teaching is itself a skill, one that she has only ever truly exercised in the service of teaching toddlers simple tricks.

truly, she never dislikes spending time with marcus, but she can't say she looks forward to their efforts to teach him to read. it's nearly a relief when they are instead focused on keeping track of the work he still must do, and she can only take it from him and do it herself— )

Hello, ( has her usual warmth, then, without the additional way she seems to be slightly bracing herself in advance when they've set aside time for a lesson. ) I've made some tea that we might manage to drink before it goes cold.

[luaithre]

[ The warmth is an easy thing to draw near, closing the door behind himself as he goes. Over the past few weeks, Marcus is managing to figure out how to divide the assistance he needs—teaching and reading from Julius, and the management of daily reports and mail with Petrana. There has been some overlap, dependent on their schedules, but he would rather his sacrifice not feel overmuch like something shared.

Still. He is aware, if not too sorry about it. ]

I'll pour, [ is thanks for tea as he sets down his handful of reports and memos, but doesn't push them over to her right away as he adds, ] And I brought you something.

[ The item he places more centre has the appearance of a book, but once inspected, reveals itself to be something more versatile, a honey-yellow leather that binds inside of it a collection of good paper, some cut to different sizes and thicknesses, ideal for letter writing and other notes. There is a collection of quills of excessive finery, given their temporary nature, some wells, and a pen of fine copper, with an elegant twist for gathering ink.

Before she can comment, there's a click of glass to wood, Marcus placing down a small glass bottle he'd pocketed on his way here. The viscosity of the liquid inside tells itself as alcohol as he adds, ] This apparently goes well in tea.

[ipseite]

( marcus can probably see what's happening in her face, familiar with her tells in a way that few can claim to be — gathering up appropriate and courteous gratitude for a thoughtful, useful gift — only for the glass bottle to swerve her attention and brighten her smile, a little in spite of herself.

she has the book open, one hand lightly holding its — lid? — as she examines the contents, though with half her attention only, now. )

Well, that may go well with paperwork, ( or at least make it a little less interminable. )

[luaithre]

[ He had considered getting her something less fine out of an instinctive measure of how much she would care to appreciate it—but a simple replenishment of good paper and pens seemed, even to him, a little too like he was making light of the extra work she was doing for him. Let him dress it as a gift, because it is one.

With alcohol, to fix the point. Any smile back from him is a subtle thing, glad to see a brightening no matter how it was encouraged, and he unstoppers the bottle. Modest helpings are added to teacups, the scent of a citrus-laced gin mingling pleasantly with candle wax, past cigarette smoke, tea.

The bottle is left within reach, for her to stow it wherever she may, and he reaches for the teapot. ]

If it is ever too burdensome [ he says, ] or interrupts too badly your proper duties, I trust you'll say so.

[ Probably, he'd said something to that end in their initial discussions, but perhaps less explicitly, an instinct towards containment that he is beginning to loosen his grasp on. If it seems to him that her assistance is too burdensome and disruptive, he'll act first.

His re-education is a different matter, being much more particular about whom he'd rather spend those hours with. ]

[ipseite]

Of course, ( is a reassurance, albeit one he probably knows better than to take at face value when dealing with a woman to whom delegation occasionally seems a dirty word. she'd had assistants, in the diplomacy office, but those appointments had been as much — more — about guiding their advance as making any part of her job easier to do.

it's rare she admits there's anything she hasn't the capacity for, even in huffing over how much it needs doing, and how it might have been done differently. and that she doesn't entirely trust that marcus won't decide he's burdensome when he isn't,

well.

in any case, she sits back from her current occupation to retrieve her own cigarette case from a desk drawer, gesturing him to sit and cease looming, ) Your evacuation drill was quite the success, I think. To speak of your duties.

closed to jos. backdated to mid kingsway.

[propulsion]

At some point, seventeen individuals in various states of grief and fucked up arrive back altogether at homebase. Tony is among them, not so injured that he can't make a direct beeline for wherever she can be found posted up, and pull her into a grimy hug that starts out as a greeting and leans more directly into comfort seeking. Relief.

Not a lot of explanation before he carts himself or lets himself get carted to the healing tent or whatever. He has a burn that striped all the way up to his ass and it's very undignified. It's not until they're back at the Gallows, not even the first day back but a few days more, that the subject comes up against beyond the outright need-to-knows.

It's bath time, Tony already half-submerged, chesthole above the water-line but otherwise relaxed with his arms spread across the edge of the tub on either side of him. Normally he might be watching her go about disrobing and getting in after him, but his focus has settled on the opposite wall in a way that indicates he's wandered somewhere internal.

The water ripples, displaced, as she joins him. He cues back into the present, turning his head to remember the tankards of beer they'd decided needed to join them. His mood probably does not match a fun naked wet adventure, but he's working on it.

[obdurata]

Given the circumstances under which Tony had returned, and what Joselyn had seen and heard of the other returnees, it's been something of a relief that he'd returned with only the usual complement of limbs and holes. All ten fingers, all ten toes. Hands where they belong. No more than usually, selectively deaf. Both eyes. Ass burn aside,

but he hadn't given up nothing, and she hasn't been laboring under the misapprehension that it won't matter. It is a tentative offer to make space for that when she says, “Are you going to be a mopey drunk?” with enough of a jest to be deflected if he's not ready to talk yet, and a light touch of kindness if he wants to take the opening.

“Because I don't mind drinking both of them. For you.”

The smile is fond; the concern is lingering.

[propulsion]

"What a trooper."

Tony's fingers wiggle and nudge the handle around to face him, a propriety hooking of a knuckle through it lest she get any ideas. Her joke is specific like a gentle finger on a bruise, which kind of makes him want to play off the moment as a matter of instinct, see if he really can get hammered off of one big beer, maybe do as much kissing as they'll tolerate while their everything starts getting pruney.

That had probably been the plan, but he fidgets a little with the tankard. "I don't remember what I'm meant to be moping about anyway," he says. "That was kind of the catch. I got to pick."

[obdurata]

It makes sense, that. It's along the lines of what she was thinking must have happened, per her understanding of what did, but it doesn't— it's no easier. And it doesn't sound as simple as a thing he could relearn,

“What do you remember about choosing?” she asks, after a moment, holding her tankard loosely and shifting in the water, not so suddenly as to dislodge any of it, just resting her foot along the outside of his thigh, a small point of slippery contact.

[propulsion]

"That the other choice was Morgan," is, from Tony, a rare moment of seriousness. No jokey 'yikes' cringing, no jokey anything, really, just his mouth in a resentful line and a flash of a look to her that conveys his displeasure that something here tried to get its hands on something that had previously been off-limits, even if only in memory form.

That tension relents. Foot touch, beer, hot water, distance in the form of many miles and a few days. He is not a very angry person and so it slips away from him, leaving behind the ache. He sips from his tankard, eyebrows twinging. And he almost doesn't want to ask, where insatiable curiousity comes up against the pre-emptive guilt of knowing what he gave up. But one of those was always gonna win out.

"It said 'the son'. And I said 'Peter'."

Something he'd been told later, when even the memory of that name disappeared off his tongue, into nothing.

[obdurata]

A question without a question mark, and— it's not as if there is, now, any real reason why he shouldn't expect her to know. He hasn't forgotten sitting in their bed with a bottle of wine and a dreamful of memories; her many and not very varied opinions on superhero naming conventions, and willingness to listen to his life story and kiss him about it. So it's not a surprise, just a confirmation, when he says Peter and it's clear in her expression how that slots into place after the son.

That she hadn't been sure before the name; that she understands, immediately after.

“He was a boy when you met him,” she says, presuming the implied question, “doing what you were doing, without your resources, apprenticing himself to the world without a mentor. You became that, for him. You stepped into that role.”

What a strange thing, that the only person who remembers Peter Parker is Spider-man is Joselyn Smythe.

“You chose to love him. You wanted to protect him. You made him a suit to do it, because you only love stubborn things, I think.”