aggravating | 10th Command; Video - dated to the night after the breach ended

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10th Command; Video - dated to the night after the breach ended

[Nope. Screw you Bargians, he's not saying anything to you publicly.

... Oh okay, fine. Have a quick bullshit grin, the one he normally pulls at press conferences he'd rather die than be at.]

Well that was fun. We should petition to keep the brooms around.

[Private to Charles]

Alright, Chuck. Let's talk strategy, here. What's the plan for getting me out of inmate status? [He has a few things in mind as far as deals go, at this point. And he can't get those so long as he's stuck in the doghouse of the Barge.]

[Private to Steve]

What happens during Floods stays in the Flood. [Nope nope nope nope nope]

[Private to Arkady]

Any way I can have a few bottle of scotch to keep in my room, gorgeous? [He has a litany of BS excuses to give her, if she decides that's... a little much.

But Pepper's going to realize something's up sooner or later, and he wants a nice back-up supply of booze before that happens.]

[ooc: Hi I'm Em and I don't know the meaning of a hiatus. (at least not for tonight/tomorrow, beyond that I will be a little scarce)]

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[You should come join him on this river, Charles. It's kind of awesome. He's thinking of buying some property down here. A mansion or something. Maybe his own personal safari, a few speed boats.

'da Nile's awesome this time of year, bro.]

Yeah.

[Charles nods in understanding, and sort of considers what to say for a moment.]

Then I think the first step is at least trying to be honest with me about this. I've been inside your mind, Tony, I know you're not happy. You don't need to pretend like you are with me.

Then you shouldn't need me to say it. [But the press-worthy grin is fading back, lips curling down in an almost scowl.]

Pretty sure me saving people from terrorists and aliens back home doesn't hinge on how much I pat myself on the back and say Good job, old chap, definitely earned that one.

[A beat, and... okay, that was asshole-ish.]

Why the hell am I here as an inmate for an occasional hit of self-loathing?

[Just a little bit. :c]

You aren't here because you're a bad person, you're here because you have something to learn. You do good work, as Iron Man and as Tony Stark, but you do have some issues that need working through that get in the way of that sometimes.

The last six months back home do not count.

[Except for the fact that they totally do. But. Ugh, he doesn't want to go into that right now. He just. Wants an instant fix, and he doesn't really want to go full-blown into the emotional issues behind everything.

Actions can be changed without dealing with the underlying emotional drive that causes them, right? Right...]

So what, honesty hour with you and that'll be it?

[Charles ignores the comment about the last six months for now, because he knows that's not true. If anything, the last six months were probably what pushed him over the edge in terms of what position he'd be able to serve, here, but that's not what he needs to hear right now, so he keeps quiet.]

It's a start. But I don't think the solution's quite that simple.

Then what?

[Finally, his patience is snapping. Subconscious roaring to the surface loud and fast enough that if Charles was speaking to him face to face? It no doubt would have felt like an empathetic slap to the face.]

Because I'm sick of wasting my time here working on some self-help regimen when I could be using it actually doing some good. [That's what his life is worth for now, here, a bargaining chip] Forty years and my life is crap, I don't care. I have money, I have Rhodey, I have Pepper, I have the suit, I apparently have a team to look forward to but sitting around here doing nothing- [lost cause, god he needs a drink] -is kind of detrimental to every goddamn step I took towards bettering myself back home. [Breaking a promise to Yinsen, what can he do here? He can't help, he's not a warden, he's one of the ones to be helped. Not making the most of the time he'd been given.]

So what the hell am I supposed to do here. Throw me a bone, send me a therapy schedule, make me keep a damn journal about my feelings-- all I know is me being here, like this- [an inmate, it's hard to say the word, leaves a bad taste in his mouth] -isn't doing anyone any good.

Edited 2012-08-02 17:14 (UTC)

[To be honest, that's part of why Charles doesn't love communicating over the network sometimes. It's easier to pick up on the emotional intricacies and surface level thoughts people projected, which sort of gave him a leg up and some weight behind saying nope, you're lying or very clearly not okay with this.

And while he knows some of the truth behind what he's saying right now, it's not the same as really having the evidence to be able to throw back in his face immediately.]

Alright. For starters, where would you prefer we talk?

[Which is why he's losing it here, and now. Getting the frustration out of his system so he can curb his thoughts, sort through and comb them out. So he can put on the best front he possibly can when he and Charles meet in person.

His public face is one of the best practiced. He doesn't give anything to the press that he doesn't want blasted through the headlines. And damn if he'll let anything other than a thorough mental dig reveal anything else.]

Pub. [He rubs at his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose for a quick second] Could use a drink.

[A few weeks ago, Charles might have said yes. He likes alcohol just as much as anyone, and while being fall down drunk isn't really a smart idea when you're a telepath and can lose control of your powers and stuff like that, being drunk was fun.

But. Tony the amount of alcohol you've been consuming lately is troubling. :|]

No. Either your room or mine, or we can use one of the warden conference rooms up on deck.

[He'll meet your worry with a fuck you, Charles. An opinion that's making itself pretty clear in the way his face is stoning over, closing off. The way he's rolling his jaw to the side and quirking his lips up in a humorless smile.]

... Right. [Note to self, someone in this rust bucket is finally noticing. He'll have to start using his brain with this one.

Which, given his level of genius, isn't really a problem.] Yours, unless you wanna run interference with magnet boy.

[Which he is definitely noticing, and man this is going to be bad, isn't it. There are times when he feels hilariously under qualified to be here, and the idea of having to police a developing alcoholic is definitely triggering some feelings of I'm a professor, this is so far out of my area of expertise.

But he keeps his cool.]

Erik won't be a problem.

[You'll go bald by the end of it all, Charles.

But he's shoving things aside in order to get a bit of power behind a grin]

Right, right. I'll be up in a few minutes, then.

[Which is when he's reaching over to turn the video feed off, giving himself a moment to scowl to himself, to glower and get pissed. Not just at Charles, but at himself.

He's not an idiot. He knows, in his gut, that he's drinking too much. He just doesn't care. The ache and need to drink outweighs the glimmer of discomfort. And god knows drinking will get rid of it all together. But he has to be smarter, has to work, now.

Thank God he's getting a supply for his room, now.

Either way, true to his word, about ten minutes later he's leaning his shoulder against Charles' door-frame, rapping his knuckles rhythmically against the door itself.]

[Charles waits, patiently, hoping that Tony will actually come down here sooner rather than later and he won't have to go looking for him around the pub again, after getting text messages about how something more interesting had come along, so the knock on the door is something of a relief.

He gets the door open and gestures into the room.]

Hello. Please, take a seat.

[Today? Charles is lucking out. Tony's still sober, for now, and just kind of making his way inside, hands in his pockets, forgoing the seat in favor of just leaning back against the wall, face carefully neutral, almost bored, as he watches his Warden.]

Pass. [He nods towards the chair] How's it handling? [Small talk, right? Always a safe thing to start out with.]

Edited 2012-08-03 02:30 (UTC)

Very well, thank you. [It is safe, and Charles is being honest. While it still wasn't exactly his favorite thing in the world (and he still wasn't sure how he felt about flying), it was definitely better than what it had been before.] You do good work.

Not just good. [He grins, some almost affectionate pride welling up in him] My work in robotics and engineering is completely unmatched.

[He reaches up, tapping his fingers against the side of his head] You've seen the suit.

[Remarkably? As much as Charles' power probably should have Tony on edge, the fact that he was already given a file with every bit of Tony's life put down on paper kind of made the whole... mind reading thing a little less of a problem, to Tony. It's still a little weird, sure, and it makes him uncomfortable on occasion, but at the same time, Tony trusts his mind, his thoughts, his genius. He trusts himself to be able to make Charles have to dig if he ever really wanted to get at something important. Something secret.

Tony prides himself on the complexity of his mind. And honestly? Trying to trip up a telepath, lead them down the wrong train of thought, bombard them with equations and puzzles... heh. It sounds fun.]

So. Therapy session, Professor?

[It's a challenge he's willing to undertake, and really, on Charles' side of things, it was nice to know Tony didn't seem to mind all that much about what he was capable of. He knew some people - even other telepaths - were a little put off about it, and while he isn't really planning on pushing the boundaries on this at any point in the near future, the fact that he was open enough about it to say he'd be willing to establish a link before going into port or something was something to be pleased about.

Strange that in a place like the Barge, people were so judgmental about what people could and couldn't do, but there was a part of him that did understand. He didn't exactly want some stranger rooting around in his mind for information, either.

So basically, it'll be almost like a game. How well can Tony lie, and how well can Charles weasel the truth out of him.]

Alright. What can you tell me about your parents?

[Might as well. Dive right in...]

[The second that question is uttered, it's like every thought in Tony's mind is pulling back, retreating and locking itself away, a flash of anger and bitterness, a few images of a large, fire-lit study, the back of his father's chair, a door closing in his face time and time again, disappointment in a harsh, lined face, mouth open in rage, hands ripping everything out of his grip-

And then nothing but annoyance, the push of video reels, of images of his parents at cocktail parties, bitterness still there, but only that of a spoiled rich kid who's mommy and daddy were too busy getting their asses kissed and their fortunes raised to pay attention to the little boy with grease on his face and a microprocessor clutched in grubby little fingers.]

My parents? Going straight for the big hits, huh Professor? Alright. Mom was obsessed with the social scene, appearance at parties. She was the one who taught me to stand straight, one arm behind my back, glass in hand. To smile at the right times, laugh and nod, listen without listening. To scan a room and go straight for the people I needed on my side, leaving everyone else in the dust. Socialization for business, not for pleasure.

Dad wasn't there much. The company was his baby, but apparently that was just him not knowing what to do with a kid? I got my apology from him, twenty years after he died, and he kind of saved my life, so there's that, too.

Edited 2012-08-09 12:03 (UTC)

[It's almost incredible, how well disciplined his mind is for someone who's had no previous experience with a telepath, and he can't help but almost marvel in it, at just how good he was at pulling everything back, locking things away where Charles couldn't find it unless he dug. And he could, but he wouldn't, because this was about trust and discussion, not extraction and confrontation.

Some of it feels familiar - the society functions, the loneliness, the sense that nothing you did was going to be enough to really hold their attention - but parts of it aren't. He'd more or less outgrown the frustration of having an inattentive mother and a completely uninterested stepfather once Raven had entered his life, because he had a companion, someone who understood. Someone to band together with when parties got dull or the mansion felt exceptionally lonely, or when his mother had too much to drink. He's struck by how fortunate he really was, and just how much he missed his sister, but he can't focus on that.]

I remember. [It was all in his file, after all, the gift Howard Stark had given Tony from beyond the grave.] How old were you, when your mother started teaching you how to behave?

[He says it more conversationally, curious, suddenly having an idea that if he presented this as more of a conversation, and maybe offered up some information about himself so they were on more level footing, he might open up a little more.]

[Well-disciplined? Nah. Tony is just that good at repressing his past. His childhood. The things that bother him. Anything he doesn't need he buries under layers of code, lets sit in the dark to gather dust as he fills up the gaps with robotics, plans, equations and numbers. With the latest specs for the suit, the latest results on flight patterns, weaknesses in the joints, poor response times.

And then he fills the cracks, the space still there after he packs int he code with alcohol, women, gambling. Buying expensive cars and modifying them to go faster, run smoother. With dodging bullets in Dubai, racing in Monaco. With near-death experiences and the fact that Pepper's allergic to strawberries. That he has a heart beneath the one glowing blue beneath his shirt.]

Right. [His lips twitch upwards into a bitter half-smirk.] It was in the file. What he said on the tape.

[The conversational switch in Charles' tone almost throws Tony, but he's so used to interviews it barely shows. Just a quick quirk of his eyebrow, a flash of amusement at the sudden topic switch, the latching onto something he hadn't really thought was important. At least not compared to the rest. But hey, he'll go with it. He's been fielding questions about his parents since before he can remember.

How's it feel to be a Stark, Tony? Do you ever feel any pressure with who your father is, Tony? Will you be carrying on the family name, Tony? Now that he's gone, do you feel like you have to be the next Howard Stark, Tony? Would your father have stopped making weapons, Tony? What would your father think about the direction of your company, Tony?]

She started as soon as I could walk and talk. It was just something I had to do.

[They were a family of status. And even in the seventies, the upper class was still... a pretty fucking elite and mysterious group.]

[Charles almost wishes they had the buffer of something like a drink or a chess game (or both) while having this conversation. It made it easier to talk about serious things when you could pass it off as being casual statements and observations and questions instead of wandering into very personal territory for both parties.

And he doesn't really talk about his life before Oxford. It wasn't that it was particularly traumatic or awful, but he knows he didn't really have the best childhood possible growing up, and he prefers not to spend too much time thinking about that part of his past. It's behind him, and he'd honestly never considered moving back to Westchester until they'd needed somewhere to go after the attack on the CIA facility.

He hasn't even really talked about it to Erik, although part of that is more because he feels uncomfortable complaining about his childhood when he grew up comfortably, with a living-if-distant and not quite affectionate mother and a sister, while Erik was alone and hurting and had to fight for everything that came to him.]

My mother was the same way. [His father, less so, but he'd died when he was young and Charles couldn't really remember if it was something he'd impressed on him too much.]

Although I suppose it's a bit different when everyone expects you to eventually inherit the family business. I was just expected to be polite and generally seen but not heard.

[Chess Tony could benefit from. Anything to focus his mind on, to give his hands something to do. To divert his energy and attention enough to actually have a normal conversation for longer than a few handfuls of seconds. There's a reason he gets drunk, why he stays drunk so much at home. His tongue is looser while drunk, it allows him to slip more into social norms, to dull his mind just the slightest amount, so he can stop living in Tony Stark's world and speaking that fast-paced language all his own. A language no one other than his own computer spoke and understood.

And even then, JARVIS couldn't quite keep up.

But he could benefit from a chess game, especially one with Charles. The guy was smart, for someone devoted to only one discipline. A geneticist, sure, and not his own personal choice in studies, but there was nothing inherently wrong with them. Not the smart ones, at least. The ones that found that their focus branched into others, that biology wasn't the end all be all of breakthroughs.

Still, he leans forward slightly on his knees, eyeing Charles with a stubborn blankness to his face, just the slightest hint of curiosity in his eyes.]

I thought I smelled money on you. What was it, inheritance? [Surprisingly enough? After a small pause, Tony's actually... giving something up. Just a small thing. But it's still something from his past. From a vault usually locked up tighter than Fort Knox.] At parties, that's what I was supposed to be. Seen, not heard. The son they showed off who never opened his mouth, never knocked anything over. [He smirks] Didn't light the kitchen on fire during a benefit trying to make a stove cook faster.

[Charles knows. Even when he'd been living in a tiny flat in Oxford with Raven, they still dressed and spoke well, him especially, and it wasn't like someone who had degrees from Harvard, Oxford and more than one Ph.D. was strapped for cash.

And his room on the Barge was from the family mansion, so there was that, too. It's hard to ignore, and while he doesn't really like talking about it and certainly doesn't brag, it's still not something people were generally able to ignore.]

My father came from money, although I wouldn't say my mother was destitute before she married him. [Her family had been well off, from what he remembered, and they'd probably met at some society function or another. He wasn't actually sure of the details, as it had been explained to him when he was young and he'd never really asked again after Brian Xavier had passed away. His mother had seemed pretty content never to discuss him unless she had to, and while he knew they loved each other, it seemed better to just let sleeping dogs lie.

And he shrugs this off too, focusing instead on the tidbit Tony offered up and grinning, amused, because that was a bit more extreme than anything he and Raven had gotten away with as kids, except maybe Charles convincing his mother she had a daughter, but. That was different.]

Did you actually do that? How old were you?

[Poor people could spot money by looking at a person and seeing polish, a lack of dirt, no scars on their hands or lines around their eyes. By seeing a lack of wear on the knees of pants, no stretch in shirts from pulling them on and off more than once a week. Rich people could spot money in an entirely different way. The way someone answers a question, how long the pause is. The way people sit, reach for objects. The way a conversation can go.

Tony was bred to have manners, to know all the social customs of high society. He just didn't give a crap anymore. He'd had all of that beaten into his head and then he'd gathered it all up and dumped it on the curb almost as soon as his parents died.]

What, the stove thing? Six, maybe seven. Jarv- [He stops, mid word, brow pinching before he grins, wide and harsh, eyes sharp as he stares at Charles, his expression guarded.] You're good, I'll give you that. You use the mind thing for that? [The slip of the tongue, the information he'd started to give out, information that even Pepper and Rhodey didn't actually know.]

Jarvis, the family butler, had given me a cake a few weeks before, so I'm pretty sure I was seven. Parents celebrated my birthday whenever it corresponded with a benefit. It was easier, and I never actually cared. [Which is why he can say it with a shrug of the shoulder, burying the one pertinent piece of information under a load of facts completely detached from any sort of... affection. Worth. Things he'd let the papers know, let them think was a juicy piece of gossip.

He honestly just didn't care. Birthdays didn't start to matter until they were an excuse to go even more wild than he already was.]

10th Command; Video - dated to the night after the breach ended

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