Who: Tony Stark & Wanda Maximoff. What: Making sure Wanda's talents stay where they can do the most good for the fewest people. Where: Tony's workspace, somewhere in the government complex. When: A few days after the Victors' Ball.
Elbows-deep in the body of an anti-aircraft gun, hands half-black with grease, his sleeves shoved back almost to his shoulders and his hair sticking every which way under a pair of protective goggles that probably would have been more effective had he worn them over his eyes, Tony wasn't really in any state to make official receptions. The room wasn't much better. The remains of his lunch lay forgotten on the floor to one side of his rolling chair, and a haphazard pile of tools and parts was stacking up slowly on the other; countless projects in various stages of non-completion lined the long, high-ceilinged space according to no obvious system of organization; and there was an afterthought of a desk shoved into a corner and almost completely buried under a lot of official-looking paperwork that very clearly hadn't been touched in months. This was not the picture the Capitol would have preferred to broadcast of their first line of defense against enemies both foreign and domestic.
But this was the one place in which Tony felt no obligation to put on any kind of show. There were, of course, cameras - there were always cameras - and he was, naturally, being observed and evaluated. But, in this one room and in this one occupation, it didn't matter: he had no fear of failure. Nothing he did could possibly be wrong. All he had to do was what came naturally to him, and it would be in every way exemplary. It was solitary work, recursive, meticulous, demanding - and successful. He enjoyed it.
So, while it would likely have been more appropriate to meet with Wanda in the office he maintained (and never visited) somewhere in the vast complex upstairs, it was perhaps understandable that this was what he preferred. Her display of talent during her tour had recommended her highly to his field of interest, and the Capitol liked to keep talent where it could use it (if not eradicate it altogether) - she was coming to talk about the work. Why not do it in the workshop? In his own way, he meant it as a reward. She'd written him, uninvited and evidently without reservation, and just asked for a meeting; no one did that. It had been a good opening move, an effective gambit to use on a man who liked audacious people and bold behavior and anything that took life out of the realm of the mannerly and expected. What better reward could there be than getting to spend time somewhere he liked?
He was in the middle of swapping out a bunch of components around one of the gun's revolver cannons when the door hissed open. He glanced over his shoulder to see the entourage bringing her in - including what seemed like an unnecessary number of armed men, even for someone who'd proven herself to be formidable. Admittedly there was a lot of odd sentiment swirling around this year's victor, and anyone brought to this sensitive a place arrived under security, but she was supposed to be a friend.
"Have a seat," he said, kicking a rolling stool in her direction. When the guards lingered, he twisted in his chair to give them a flatly incredulous look - and pulled his hand out of the machinery long enough to wave at the gun's massive barrels angled toward the doors. "I think we'll be okay." Honestly. While they filed slowly out, he turned back to the task at hand, waiting until the door had shut again to begin.
"So, how's triumph treating you? Bored yet?" An insensitive question from a man whose victory had cost him his family, too; but he did his best not to remember how triumph had treated him. The memory of the smell of ozone and singing hair and the locked-up agony on the faces of his final adversaries (in that grotesquely incongruous bed of peonies) had been better for him than anything that had come after it. He jerked his head down at the arrangement of replacement parts at his side, a series of long, fine, metal ribs. "Grab those, will you. I'll need them in a second."