open | april/may catch-all

[industries]

WHO: Tony Stark & you
WHAT: April catch-all for open, planned, & future threads
WHERE: Free Cities - Cadens & Desert Outpost
WHEN: 4/05 - 4/30
WARNINGS: None yet.

NOTES: Although he left his world emaciated and malnourished from months adrift in space, Tony's body was rejuvenated to its normal state by the healing powers of being pulled to Abraxas. TL;DR he looks like his normal self, except more depressed.

▶ i. we are not soldiers
    Cadens Desert Outpost 003 - Wagon | Apr. 6
    [ open ]

[ The last wagon to Cadens only has a couple of seats left when its wheels finally roll and crunch against the sandy road. ]

Hey! [ The shout comes from the right side of the departure area, in the general direction of the barracks. The driver reins in the horses and a middle-aged man jogs up to the wagon, a standard issue knapsack slung over his shoulder. ] One more for – yeah, okay. [ He squeezes in, past a particularly miffed soldier. ] Uh, Private Pyle? 'Scuse me? Thanks.

[ The man drops into the empty seat across from you and sinks into it with a long, slow breath. Judging from his plain fatigues and lack of epaulets, he looks to be a newly-arrived Summoned, though he at least appears to have taken the time to trim his facial hair into a neat goatee. Although his eyes roam cooly across the passenger area, the white-knuckled grip on his knapsack's strap betrays the kind of sharp anxiety common to Abraxas' newcomers – and perhaps something more.

His eyes flit up to you as the horses whinny and the wagon rolls forward again. He frowns. ]

What. Not a Kubrick fan? [He rolls his eyes.] What am I talking about, "Arrival of a Train" is probably peak entertainment here.

▶ ii. we won, mr. stark
    Cadens - Mag's Inn | Apr. 7
    [ open + planned: peter, nadine ]

[ It's only when he sits down at the inn table that he lets himself breathe.

Okay. Okay.

Step completed, box checked off. He drags a hand down his chin, then splays that hand on the table, feels the wood-grain of its surface, old and polished from years of use. It feels real. Has heft, and tactility, enough to tell the mechanoreceptors in his fingertips and the neurons in his thalamus that he's here. This is real. But that doesn't mean they couldn't be lying to him, because how-

Last thing he remembers, with relative clarity, is Steve Rogers' face. The rage rising up his throat, boiling over, barely standing, shaking. The arc reactor in his hand. Liar.

The last thing he remembers, with more bleary haze, is light streaming through glass windows, Pepper's hand over his. Slowly blinking at her face, her creased brow. The answer to a dozen sleepless nights on the Benatar: Alive.

Then – floating in water. And he was here – healthy again, and away from home... again. In... what? A glorified steampunk convention? Las Vegas' most dedicated LARPer club? He'd kind of hoped so, until the outpost wagon neared a city out of some YA fantasy and kicked him to the curb.

He closes his eyes and rubs his hands over his face. Footsteps approach the table.]

Not hungry – starved for a month on a spaceship, you know how it goes – hey, [ he presses the back of his thumb against his eye, ] so I heard you guys do a care package?

▶ iii. wildcard
    [ open + planned: sam ]

Keeping to two prompts for now since I'm not sure if Tony's going to find out... certain information.

Regardless! If you're jonesing to thread something in particular with Tony, please don't hesitate to drop it here! Also feel free to hit me up at LaCidiana, DM me, or PM this journal if you want to ask about anything. ♥

Comments

[industries]

[ Tony sticks to his word and heads back to the lab later on in the day, when most of the workshops in the district have closed up shop for the night. The few blacksmiths still pounding iron under their open garage doors send little sparks into the street as he ambles along, toward one of the few lit-up entrances at the far end of the row of brick buildings.

Once again, he doesn't bother to knock, though this time the makeshift lab looks a little more alive as he strides in. He briefly scans over the tools scattered on the nearby tabletop – standard handyman items, along with metallurgist's equipment, and a few sketched schematics – not unlike what Tony's own garage would've looked like had he been born circa 1875.

The next thing he catches is what most people would've noticed immediately – i.e. the imposing man making annotations to the chalkboard that had originally sparked Tony's interest just hours earlier. The guy turns, and the five o'clock shadow and weightlifter's jawline completes the whole picture. Yeah, he'd look right at home with the squad back in New York, minus the, uh. Current gutwrenching depression. ]

Jayce, actually – who I assume is you? [ He squints. If he'd conjured up some kind of Laurel-and-Hardy-esque opposite to Tiny Tim, then it'd probably look a lot like... this guy. Though there's also a slight tug of familiarity at the back of his mind – like he's seen him in passing, but can't quite place where. ] So – do those delts help with thermodynamic calculations, or is there a club scene in this town I don't know about?

[hextechhead]

Yes, that's me, you must be the engineer who spoke with Viktor earlier.

[ Viktor gave him a general rundown of the stranger who popped into their space and started to comment on everything, and that he was full of himself, used to sell weapons, but was clearly very knowledgeable. He would have to be for Viktor to be open to working with him despite the weapon part, but Jayce is hardly one to judge on that front. Even if he only did it the once. He knows from personal experience people can learn lessons on that front; Jayce is not a judgmental man.

He raises an eyebrow at the comment and smiles. ]

No, but they do help when physically building our technology. I'm a blacksmith too, which is more lucrative around here than scientist, right now.

[ Once they start selling their designs more, that might change, but it's what he did right off the bat to start making money so he and Viktor could move to a new apartment. Making money is something he actually is very good at, if not by schmoozing, by working hard as part of long-going family traditions.

Jayce is as open and easy-going as Viktor is closed and skeptical, so the opposites attract qualities really keep going. What they have in common outweighs all their differences, most of the time, but it can come off as stark. Blacksmith explains the body, something Tony knows from personal experience too! Jayce offers his hand to shake. ]

Tony, right? I'm Jayce Talis.