sixthiterationlogs | I work hard, I work hard every day

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I work hard, I work hard every day

WHO: (Who is making the post)
WHERE: Inn & House 63
WHEN: September 4/5
OPEN TO: Kat, Constantine
WARNINGS: Discussion of time travel, swearing, tobacco use?

Inn

Now that walking isn't half so much a bitch and he's got a fair amount of work in his back pocket (figuratively) and hand (literally), Tony's better able to get a solid assessment of how much shit he can manage in a day. Which isn't near as much as he'd like but more than he probably should considering the whole 'healing up' thing he should be doing. But. He's got a meeting, supplies for what should prove to be an interesting interview, and a desperate need for anything coffee adjacent. He sets up at a far table, laying out the micro tools he'd managed to form the night before, the clock, and a sketch of what he hopes to make.

House 63

At least this time he's not hauling anything bigger than a lighter. Tony makes his way to Constantine's house with a notebook, a spool of twine, and something close to hope. Maybe. Workshopping timetravel isn't something that should be done he knows rationally but-

He has questions. It can't do any harm to ask, right? Right.

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The red door at the front of John's house is wide open and there's smoke billowing out in a steady stream. "Bloody Hell!" can be heard clear across the house and if Tony comes inside, he'll find John wearing his red scrubs in the kitchen at the back of the living area by the stove trying to boil down beeswax he harvested from the woods. There are also red lumps on his arms, neck and chest that look suspiciously like bee stings. He didn't hear the other man come in, so he starts a little at seeing Tony standing there, but he probably knocked or called out to him and he was just too in his head to hear him honestly.

"Well, hello, handsome. Are those for me?" He holds out both his hands, stars in his eyes. Or maybe just tears from the smoke inhalation, a delicate cough rising up his throat that he smothers against his shoulder. Thankfully, the air seems to be thinning out now. It's harder than he thought it would be to light a stove without fire or fire magic. The hell, man.

Edited 2018-09-07 22:57 (UTC)

When he'd called this guy the him of magic- he had hoped that maybe this guy had his shit together a little bit more on account of magic being weird and wild and fluid with it's own inscrutable rules.

Apparently not.

"Sure, Gorgeous, as long as you won't light yourself on fire with them." A deal's a deal and he'd thought, maybe, that meant something when he made the deal with Strange. But different worlds (probably) different wizards (warlock?) so he'll just attempt to not make assumptions beyond 'This guy's a garbage fire' and 'My kind of people'. It's a little damning if he's ever pressed to admit it.

Tony hands off the twine and the lighter, rubbing alcohol sloshing inside.

"Wouldn't be the first time," he admits, which probably only confirms for Tony that he is, in fact, another Hot Mess. Sorry, he was born this way. Sort of. He takes the items as if weighing them in either hand. The twine gets set aside, that will become useful soon. But the lighter. It's so similar to his own, except with... wow. That detail is actually startling. He squints at it, clutching the item protectively as he looks back up to catch Tony's eye. "Is that St. Benedict?"

"Not filling me with confidence here, Gandalf." Wizard, warlock, same difference. Tony slings his hands in his pockets, Journal tucked up under one arm as he peers past Constantine to survey his home now that it's not quite so full of smoke. How does the other half (magically inclined) live? Strange had his place full of artifacts but those are probably in short supply around here. "Mm? Oh, yeah. Only one I could remember off the top of my head."

Tony's brows lift. "You said you did exorcisms and shit. Figured that would be useful or...something?"

As the smog clears, this place is indeed... different. He had stolen chalk and marked up the walls with protective runes and seals. One of them looks suspiciously like the tattoo on his forearm. All the living room furniture has been shoved out of the middle of the room to make space for a giant rune on the floor, surrounded by a perfect circle. It's where he intends to do some astral projecting, once these candles are finished.

"Sexy Gandalf," he amends before slipping the lighter into his pocket. He owes this man and he knows it, John hates owing people. "Lapsed Catholic?" he guesses breezily as he turns off the stove at last and snaps a tea towel through the air to try and move the remaining smoke out of the room. "It's useful when there's a demon to be purged. Though that isn't my only skill. ...You mentioned time travel."

Edited 2018-09-08 19:40 (UTC)

"Six and a half, maybe seven with the bee stings. But you probably clean up nice." Tony offers graciously, stepping inside. The markings are- odd, for a moment he's reminded of Strange and his mandalas which segues quite neatly into watching the man himself dissolve because of That Thing That Happened that he's trying very hard not to think about, so. Yanking his eyes back to Constantine? Preferable.

Especially under the guise of gauging his physical appeal. Not bad, not really, but without the bee stings he'd have a better idea. "Mother was."

Tried to get him involved too but, it didn't stick. "Kind of something I need to crack, back home."

He rolls his eyes at the diss, if that's even how Tony meant it. He doesn't care either way, it was obvious the man didn't want to sleep with him. And since they're apparently working together, John can't justify putting much behind his flirting either. With that said, he doesn't mind being looked at like a slab of meat, on occasion. Even when he senses it isn't about him at all. A distraction maybe, and he is familiar with being that. Time to be as distracting as possible, then.

"Let's you and me sit in the circle and have us a chat then, mate." John gestures to the chalk outline on the floor and for Tony to take the lead before shoving his hands in his scrub pants pockets and trailing after. Once they're sat inside the seal he lifts his eyebrows and crosses his legs pretzel style, his expectation on Tony to give him his case.

On the floor? Tony's eyes swing to the circle for a moment before flicking back to Constantine, with all the flat pressed incredulity one might expect of a haughty feline, all subtly lifted brows, pursed lips. Really? Tony Fucking Stark, sitting on the ground in the middle of a magic circle.

Stranger things have happened. Not that he can recall at the moment but, with an eyeroll and a huff (he did come here for information, he can't be all that picky) he steps into the ring and settles with his legs crossed, momentarily distracted by the construction of the circle. Glyph? Sigil? Strange's had a distinctly East Asian look to them, all fractal construction and unreadable runes. Similar flavors of different coolaid seem to be at work here, he'll figure out what makes them work (if they work) later. "Right. Time travel. Possible via magical manipulation of some sort of quantum singularity that exists as one of six infinity stones back home- I can't believe I just said that- it's gone MIA. I need another way to make it happen."

It's the safest place John knows in this realm, though he can't guarantee anyone's safety here. Not until he figures out how it works and why his magic seems to have dried up. It has to be something in the mechanics of the setting, he knows, and perhaps unfolding that will take an engineer, as much as he dislikes science. Maybe this isn't as unlikely a team-up as one might assume.

"Right, you mentioned these talismans before. Powerful dark magic pressed into a stone. My world has them too, though I can't say one exists like you're describing... That I know of, anyway." It really is an interesting concept to him. That wasn't a lie. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you've never performed magics before?"

"I've had magics done at me, but no. I dabbled once and it-" Trying to scan the Scepter, the Mind Stone, and creating Ultron. Creating Vision though he's not sure how much of that was him and how much was pure dumb luck and Thor's timely intervention. "Didn't go well. Science and Magic don't mix. I learned that much."

At least in so much as they exist back home.

"No... no, they don't." It's why John leaves science alone, himself. He scoots a little closer to Tony, lowering his voice a little more. They're alone, at least, presumably, but he's about to ask the man something he knows is personal, even without the details. "I know you may not want to tell me what happened, but I need to know how large an impact the thing you wish to reverse has. How many people did it affect?"

"...fuck." He scrubs his face with both hands, dragging them through his hair. "...half the universe got snapped out of existence because a megalomaniac decided the best way to deal with finite resources was to half the population of sentient life instead of any other possible option available to him. The selection was random, people just...crumbled into dust."

John narrows his eyes, absorbing the information. No wonder Tony is so eager to change the past.

"Would you like the good news or bad news first?"

"...there's good news?" That's the surprising part, honestly. "No, shit, wait. Start with the bad news."

He can handle that, whatever it is. He'll have to.

That gets a shadowy not-quite smile. There's always good news in magic, but it always comes with a cost.

"An action that widespread will take an equally devastating move to reverse. But because it was magical in nature, it is reversible." He levels Tony with a rare sober gaze, imploring him to understand this next part. "Magic always comes with a price, Mechanic. You have to be prepared to pay the toll."

"Tony." If they're talking end of the world and devastating consequences. "Half the universe is gone. Because we couldn't keep it from happening. If there's any kind of cost to fix it that's less than half the universe getting wiped out? Any cost at all? I'm more than prepared."

His life, his legacy- the lives of all the avengers- doesn't matter. Nothing he can think of is worth keeping around at the cost of half the fucking universe.

"You will only get one chance to make it right. If you hesitate, it won't be undone."

He speaks with certainty though he doesn't know this man or his universe. He doesn't know about Thanos or the gauntlet in any specific way, but he knows a fair few things about magic. They're (nearly) universal, the rules he's sketching out for Tony now.

"Unfortunately, nothing can be done from here. This is an in-between place. Limbo."

He's never been the one that lacked conviction. Not once. A bone deep certainty that a thing needed to be done- he's always had that. Whether or not it aligned with what the rest of them thought would be best; that might've been the biggest problem.

But they had their shot. They all failed. His way hadn't worked. Their way hadn't worked.

Not many options left to them back home but anything is better than sitting and waiting. Anything.

"The wizard that had the amulet- he put it in play. I figure time travel has to be part of how we fix it. He said it was the only way we'd win. Fourteen million variations on the future- and only one route where we win." Those aren't odds he loves- those aren't even odds he can comfortably fathom. "So if all we can work on here is theory- that's fine. Call it payment for the lighter."

"Time theory," he echoes a bit dully, mulling that over. "Time is... fickle. If this wizard held the talisman then he must have mastered it to some degree, correct? I'll admit it isn't my usual arena."

But he knows people - things that operate between time itself. It isn't a completely foreign concept by any means, it's only something he's never had much success in personally. If he could go back, bring back his mother? Reverse Astra's damnation and his own? Of course, he would. But the cost would be too high, it would plunge his world into darkness. He wouldn't risk it, not when it was already rising on its own.

"What do you know about the other talismans?"

"Singularities. Infinity Stones." He'd gotten a whole lecture right about when everything started going to hell in earnest. "I've got more experience with some than others- Space, Power, Time, Reality, Mind and Soul in all the colors of the fucked up rainbow. The Space stone- Tesseract- knocked around on earth for a few centuries in hiding before getting picked up by Nazi's to power their weapons and research. My father picked it up after World War 2 and studied it pretty extensively, discovered an element that was similar? The Mind stone's...like a sentient computer without a personality. Artificial Intelligence that's nigh human but completely without human rationality, empathy, reasoning. Trying to work with it sort of fucked things up a bit and then sort of fixed things."

Ultron, Vision. Two ends of a very different scale.

"The Power stone was- I don't know, I don't think it ever made it to earth but essentially it'd be the battery in the overall equation. The Reality stone popped up in London for a little bit courtesy of Asgardian Political Drama before being hidden somewhere not in our solar system but that didn't take, clearly. Dr. Strange had the time stone which was protected by Wizards for...god knows how long. The Soul stone- all I know about that is it cost Thanos his daughter to get it." Ruined the whole damn plan, Quill losing his shit.

Singularities. Right.

"Powerful items like you describe, they have no morality on their own. It is up to their user to abide by natural law, and if they don't..." Half the world is wished away. His mind's in overdrive, Tony's the genius perhaps he only needs a sounding board. But that lighter is a weighted stone in his pocket, he feels like he owes this man something. Anything he can give. "Did you say his daughter?"

He just needs... a minute, okay? That was a lot of information. And he still doesn't know how he's gonna get Tony out of here so he can have a rematch with that guy. Or, especially, why he cares about that.

"Estranged but he sounded pretty beat up- I think..." He closes his eyes to go back over the fight, that moment when they were so close to success. "He said 'I had to'. I'm assuming the cost for the soul stone was her life. Which- more or less cements the fact that he was a zealot. I hate dealing with zealots."

Bone deep conviction in what you're doing? Makes for powerful delusion. Makes for something you can't rationalize with or fight back.

"The time stone's in play. Time travel has to be the answer, Strange told me we were in the endgame right after he ponied up the space stone. And right after everyone began crumbling to dust he said it was the only way." And then he too crumbled into dust.

Kat had spent that morning finding whatever useful material was available. It wasn't much and wouldn't dent his steadily growing collection but she hoped that it'd be sufficient enough to help him get a good start on some of his other projects. She'd spent time reading everything that was requested of him and it was certainly an eclectic collection of items.

"Tony." Her expression was steady but questioning as she stepped up next to his table. There wasn't anyone else setting out tools in the middle of the inn so it was rather easy to find him. "I'm Kat."

Kat was in her early twenties but compared to Tony she looked young. She was dressed in a dark green dress she'd gotten paired with black leggings and boots. She didn't much care for the scrubs and went out of her way to avoid wearing them. "I brought you some things in case you needed more materials." Including a lighter (with no fuel) and a few other small trinkets that she found that might be useful for him.

"I hope you weren't waiting long." She glanced down at the tools. "We're fixing a clock?"

Normally he didn't attend interviews so much as crash them and use his better judgement one way or the other RE a hiring choice. There's not much going on now by way of hiring but extra hands are useful and he'd probably need to sit down, outline who's helping him with what and actually name this business mess of his. Organization charts, ugh. He'd rather, and did, focus on the tools and toys in front of them that would need repairing. Or. Reworking.

"Not that long, no-" He stood to meet her, because that was a thing, and offered his hand because that, too, was a thing and he was trying to be better at the whole working with people...thing.

All in this shit together, etc. A lot of his fuckups in the past were tangled up in not communicating effectively and he's starting from scratch here. "We're taking a clock apart and building something with the components. Call it a working interview."

Kat took his hand in a friendly handshake though she was quick to pull away. She didn't mind the general concept of handshakes but touching always made her a little nervous. She was strong but there were parts of her past that continued to caution her.

"Okay. Do you have an idea of what function you'd like what we're building to perform?" She slipped her bag from her shoulder and placed some small items on the table for Tony to take or not take as he chose. Her dark vibrant green eyes didn't leave the parts on the table as if she was memorizing and sizing each component.

Kat didn't have the same technical mind that Tony did but she was precise and talented with delicate work. She'd also come here to learn and even if she isn't adequate for what Tony needs, she plans to take something away from this interview.

"Simple clockwork system, nothing too complicated-" He pulls out a sketch, a diagram of a palm sized clockwork spider. "Turnkey spring, tension on the wires having it skitter forward or back, maybe turn? Nothing too complicated to start. If we leave enough room in the gearbox so I can update it later when I have more time, that'd be ideal."

Simple straightforward creation. Not something that's needed, not something that's even all that useful but- Peter's been alone.

this isn't bringing in Ned or May or any kind of grounding influence, it's not Karen or even more of his time but it's...something. Something a kid might like, because he is a kid. And being allowed to be a kid should be a thing.

"Since it'll be small- delicate work. But I think we'll be able to manage."

Kat let her eyes scan over the plans before gently nodding her head in silent understanding. It was a simple design and very similar to the sphere she'd put together to help Dante.

"Okay. So we'll start with this here." She took the outside casing that would hold most of the gears and began to carefully put it together. Kat's hands were steady and her motions practiced as she began to follow Tony's plans. She didn't forget that Tony was watching her or that this was something like an interview but Kat was used to intense working conditions. It didn't bother her.

"I have a question." She leaned over the plans again and pointed to one of the gear segments. "If we push this here, it'll have room to move and give you a little space for later. Will that effect the torque of the gears?" Kat didn't know. By her standards this technology was very old.

"A little." He made the adjustment, sketched out the math just to double check the tensile strength of both the wire and the posts of the gears- and it all evened out. Good. "Not enough to be a risk on the mechanism. Good eye."

Leaving little pockets like that was part of how he tests for initiative- and she caught it beautifully. He'd begun threading and arranging the gears and loops for the legs, the wire spooled and ready to be cut to proper length whenever the main body was prepared- it wouldn't be a difficult build, but tedious.

And she already showed quite a bit of promise. "You weren't kidding about being good with delicate work."

The work that Kat did before her arrival at the village involved devices and materials that helped cross over to, or effect, Limbo. Those powers as a medium have been diminished in this world but she can still use the skills she'd picked up along the way.

Many of her projects back then had been life or death and mistakes couldn't be afforded. It was kind of nice working on something playful and while Kat would put the same effort forward regardless, she found the task to be relaxing.

"I've had to create clockwork like devices before. Everything had to be in the right place so that as I turned it, chambers would connect and mix different substances." She pulled back after placing a small gear in place and gave Tony room to see her work before reaching for one of the small bolts. "I also have small fingers."

"Clockwork timer for chemical reactions. Huh. Get a good system down and it'd be more reliable and safer than a long fuse and hoping it doesn't burn too quick." therefore: useful skill worth keeping no hand. The longer they work the more certain he is that she'll be an excellent set of hands to keep around when he gets deeper into clockwork mechanisms. Right now the only difficulty is having enough metal and sheeting it out to cut/punch out the gears.

He'll get it figured out. It's as good a puzzle as any.

Tony tilts his head to the side, squinting down at her work before nodding, pleased. "And a light touch. Good for working on delicate materials."

"I would also inscribe runes on the outside." She didn't look up at Tony but spoke like this was all completely normal. "It allowed me to release different parts of a spell in the correct order very quickly." Sometimes Kat didn't have enough time to cast a spell and she came up with these little trinkets to help.

"Thank you. I like being able to work on things like this."

Kat paused in what she was doing and looked up at him. "I miss it. I used to do this in the city for various reasons. Not exactly this but have a clear goal in mind." It's nice to have it again.

Huh. Magic. But Magic with some kind of logic to it, so. He'll allow it. "So engraving's something else I can have you handle. Making things that work- that's fine. But what makes something a Stark Product? It's gotta be stylish."

Delicate floral chasing on a teapot, carefully engraved lines on a flatiron. The devil was in the details and Tony kept his work as meticulously functional and fashionable as he could possibly manage given his tools and time. "I know the feeling. This is a little low tech compared to my usual work but it's soothing to get back to something more tangible than a hologram."

To have the gratification of something coming together under his fingers.

Kat looked up at him and shook her head. "I'll need tools that are made of something harder than the material I'm engraving." Which was her way of saying that she could do that except that right now she didn't have the tools that let her do that. Right now she couldn't engrave anything that was made out of metal.

"You worked with holograms?"

She hadn't had that kind of technology in Limbo city though she'd seen reflects of people between planes before.

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I work hard, I work hard every day

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