riverviewlogs | [open] gimme fuel, gimme fire

who: Tony Stark and Open
what: Tony and his bots making themselves at home
when: September 4 - 30
where: Tony's workshop, shared housing, and anywhere in between
warnings: None yet

To the surprise of absolutely no one who knew him, once Tony's workshop was even moderately livable he essentially disappeared into it. He could occasionally be found heading back and forth towards where he (technically) slept, but that was mostly to grab something he'd forgotten or on the extremely rare occasions where he decided seeing actual daylight might be a good idea. Or someone else decided it for him, and was quite happy to hold his work hostage until he went along with it.

But being able to actually work, having his own private space to get things done, settled him in a way he couldn't articulate. A slight tension to his shoulders had loosened, something that would have been hard to notice until it was suddenly gone. Tony smiled a little easier, seemed much more pleased with himself with his hands covered in grease and soot.

With Dum-E and JARVIS there, the armor tucked into a corner like a watchful sentinel, it was almost like the best parts of the last few years. Sure the lack of his usual resources made it hard to forget that he wasn't exactly at home, but all said, Tony was about as settled as he was likely to get.

At least while dealing with everything else that got thrown at him, anyway.

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In Peter's defense, things had been pretty crazy lately – what with the random bouts of amnesia (the likes of which he had only ever actually seen on daytime soaps), the housing building literally catching on fire, and all the random crap after that – that when Peter was supposed to show up for their technological play date, he just– didn't. Peter deferred and deferred and deferred like an asshole avoiding jury duty, and now that he finally had time, it was almost a month after the fact.

Punctuality, thy name is not and will never be Peter Quill.

But, hey, better late than never, right? And here he was, standing in the doorway to Stark's workshop, hat in hand. Only it wasn't a hat, it was the deploying trigger for his aero-rig. (And Peter seriously hoped Rocket never showed up in this place to find out he was potentially giving away the guy's trade secrets.)

"Uh." Strong start, Quill. Keep it up. "Hello?"

Nailed it.

It took the sound of a semi-familiar voice to even catch Tony's attention from where he was standing over one of the worktables, frowning down at whatever he was looking at. But once he did, he startled for just half a second to see someone standing there before his brain registered exactly who it was.

"Quill?" He returned, somewhere between question and greeting. Tony straightened up to lean his hip against the table, head cocked to the side in what almost looked like curiosity. "Hey. What brings you by?"

Peter offered a tight-lipped, awkward sort of smile in return, and lifted up a small device.

"Just here to make good on a deal. I'm a man of my word, after all." He gave the device a demonstrative little shake before tossing it to his other hand. After a breath, he gave a sheepish sort of shrug. "As long as we ignore the fact that I made that promise, like, a million years ago, and that I'm only just now getting around to it."

Tony stared at him blankly for a moment, eyes catching on the device in Quill's hands, before things almost visibly clicked together.

"Oh, right. Fun with MP3s. Come on in," he said with a vague gesture. Clearly not too worried about how long it had been, considering he seemed to have completely forgotten about it. He turned away from whatever he'd been working on to head over towards his bank of monitors, assuming Quill would follow.

"Did I tell you I'd get you a computer too? I don't remember."

Peter hovered around the door for a second or two before he shrugged to himself and stepped into the space. It wasn't exactly an invitation, but he figured if the guy wanted him out, he'd kick up a fuss. Possibly get his robot buddy to haul him out or whatever.

"I think that was the arrangement," he said, glancing around the place with open interest. "I get a free computer and a crash course on an apparently outdated music player. You get a look at the innards of the aero-rig."

He paused, glancing down at the trigger for the aero-rig and thinking about the possible screaming match that would ensue if Rocket ever heard about this. It was just as well that the guy was unlikely to show up.

"Just as long as you promise not to break the thing, anyway."

"I'm not going to break it." Tony even gave him an overdramatically offended look at the very idea. "Besides, I'd just build you a new one anyway." Probably.

But rather than worry about that, he just waved Peter over towards his computer desk, even very kindly vacating the chair to let Peter settle into it. If they were have lesson time, might as well do this properly.

"So you've already got stuff on there, right? I'm assuming you want to keep it all."

Peter met Tony’s affronted expression with an unimpressed look of his own, but he followed dutifully after him, thumb running over the edge of the deployment trigger for the aero-rig. When they reached the computer, Peter eyed it almost warily – the computers he ran into out in the Andromeda Galaxy didn’t look much like this.

But he carefully dropped the aero-rig trigger onto the desktop and dug the Zune out of his jacket pocket, bringing the device to life. At Tony’s question, Peter let out a quiet, agreeing sound.

“I’m just looking to add stuff, yeah. I, uh,” Peter paused, clearing his throat. “I had some mix tapes back home. Obviously I don’t have them anymore, and I kinda miss having those tracks.”

Given what little Tony knew of the guy from the few encounters they'd had, anything that got him quiet and serious was probably a big deal. And even Tony wasn't an asshole all of the time, he could work with that. He did cast one last glance at the jetpack thing before moving over to the back of the computer setup. That was for later.

"First thing, then," Tony said, suddenly producing a cord with all the drama of a magician making a rabbit appear. "Plug the sucker in. Then we play computers 101 and we hope that you don't accidentally manage to wipe my hard drive."

Not that he couldn't have fixed that. It was the principle of the thing.

Peter offered another flat look as Tony whipped out the cord, but rather than offer a verbal complaint – because it would be a total party foul to sass the guy doing him a favor – he plugged the Zune in as directed.

"I'm not going to wipe your hard drive," and if Peter's tone sounded familiar, it was only because he was echoing Tony's offended voice from moments ago. "And if I did, then you've learned a valuable lesson about backing up your data."

Save frequently and often, kids at home.

As the Zune connected, Peter's gaze flicked up to the oversized claw machine wandering around. He nodded to Dum-E, the corner of his mouth curling up a little.

"How's your puppy settling in?"

Tony just snorted, amused despite himself -- he had JARVIS for that, thanks -- but he followed Peter's glance over towards the bot parked comfortable in the corner. "He's managing," he said with a smile that was more fond than he probably meant it to be. "I mean, not quite the luxury to which he's accustomed, but when you're a a dumb hunk of metal, you don't really need much."

With one last glance, he turned back towards the computer. "Okay, see that icon there? If you take your music files and drop them onto it, they'll load onto your sad excuse for a music player."

[open] gimme fuel, gimme fire

hope this is ok!

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