Tony Stark (in_extremis) wrote in oh_marvelous, @ 2010-12-19 21:04:00 |
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Garnish
Characters: Stark Tower type people. OTA, really, if you want to be in some public part of the Tower we'll come find you.
Setting: Um...Stark Tower.
Content: There is already a cat fight, awesome.
Summary: The Avengers get into the holiday spirit with a tree and junk.
By some holiday miracle, in the middle of the night after the accountants had gone home and the bug checkers had fallen asleep at their desks, Stark Tower had been transformed. The day after Thanksgiving, while everyone else was sleeping off the turkey, someone had been hard at work stringing up lights and garland to remind the whole building to start their Christmas shopping. The lobby didn't boast a forty foot, freshly cut evergreen, but a sculpted monument to the idea; solid steel adorned with crystal and fiberglass radiating constantly shifting light from gold to red to green in a synchronized shimmer. It was someone's idea of the future, and Tony had barely noticed it.
The Avengers penthouse wasn't so lucky to be visited by the same elves, but slowly some of the decorations had seeped up to the top floors. The fresh flowers had been replaced by poinsettias, JARVIS had learned to adjust some of the floodlights to the red that they usually flashed during alerts to wash calmly over unused corners of rooms, and there was a strange abundance of candy canes constantly available. Tony didn't really notice much of this, either.
Ever since Wanda seemed to have realized that Raven wasn't a constant discouraging presence, Tony was reminded at every little snuggle and extra warm greeting how completely terrible it was to climb into an empty bed. And, of course, she still took her periodic naps in his, which left him with this frustrating phantom presence whenever he could bring himself to curl into those pillows. His solution lately had been to resume his full time commitment to the garage, and either forgo sleeping entirely, or crash right where he was sitting or on the cot, which wasn't quite as bad. This meant two things: an unmistakable trail of cigarette butts and Red Bull cans wherever one wanted to track Tony to, and the rapid development of an Iron Man Tony wouldn't have even considered until all of these pieces had fallen so traumatically into place.
One: his repulsor feedback heart combined with the streamlined processing power of Extremis.
Two: Cassie's described not-so-theoretical 'neuro-kinetic armor'.
Three: Mystique's limitless ability to not only shift her physical appearance, but produce garments and hide effects in her own body mass.
Mystique. God, if he could just have all of the data and know how to protect everyone she could be here and he wouldn't be alone in this perfumed bed wrestling with sleep in the middle of the day. He pressed a pillow over his head to block out the light and maybe the air so that he might at least pass out from lack of oxygen. That was when Steve came in, as if this process had to be any more difficult. Tony knew it was Steve by the careful way he snuck in and the weight and heat of his body as he sank into the mattress next to him. Steve didn't have to say anything, and Tony didn't move, hoping he would go away, but a warm hand slid over his hip and paused against his stomach, like he was counting Tony's breaths. When the damp puff of air ghosted over the back of his neck, Tony finally tensed, and the next was a laugh at his giving up the ruse. So Tony pushed the pillow away and rolled back to meet him, forcing his hand lower and rolling his tongue into his mouth to taste gunmetal.
Gunmetal? Steve grinned wickedly, a disturbing, unnatural expression on his face, at Tony's confusion, and the blue started to creep across his skin from all of the shadows in the dark.
Tony found himself upside down, legs still hooked over the edge of the bed and shoulders pressed into the itchy rug on the floor, the back of his head feeling tender from the fall he took making his daring escape from nothing at all. Still, when he got his breath back and made his first, useless attempt at kicking the tangled sheets from his legs, he dropped his head back against the floor with the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. At least he'd gotten some sleep.