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Tweak says, "THIS. IS. SPARTAAAAA!!!"

Tony Stark (sansiron) wrote in silverage,
@ 2011-06-21 22:23:00

Entry tags:

!log, rex racer, tony stark

Who: Tony Stark and Rex Racer
What: Generic car talk // male bonding. The usual!
When: Wednesday morning
Where: Stark Industries
Warnings: Nada

There was still motor oil behind his fingernails from before that morning's sunrise when Tony found himself wandering down to the car bay in the Stark Industries building. He'd started back up again on the Aston Martin almost as soon as he'd woken up on Sunday morning. The race had been its first test, and though he hadn't won anything tangible, he'd gained some valuable information about his work on the car's engine. Right ideas, slightly faulty execution. He'd worked into Sunday night and had gotten up early on Monday to do some more, wanting to get everything down on paper before he lost his ideas entirely.

Tony stifled a yawn as he stepped into the elevator. There wasn't going to be any inspiration to be found in the car bay if he was too tired to grill his lead mechanic within an inch of his life. He'd watched the man race on Saturday afternoon and had to grudgingly admit being impressed by the man's willing to be so incredibly reckless. A recklessness enabled by a car that seemed to react to his slightest touch, not to mention the addons that Tony was sure he'd only seen the bare surface of. As his boss, Tony was confident in his ability to sit Rex Racer down and make him spill all of his secrets.

Well, it wouldn't be hardly as sinister as all that.

There was no elevator man in the private elevator he tended to take to get around the building, so Tony operated the thing himself. It was an older model, using a handle to determine when the car was going to stop rather than floor signaling buttons. He had to watch and count as the floors passed and pull the lever forward at the right moment to lineup the floor of the car with the lip of the door that led out to his mechanic's shop. He could have had the thing updated ages ago, but it was one of the few remnants of his father's era that Tony refused to get rid of.

The elevator creaked to a stop and Tony slid the cage door open, pushing it to the side and stepping out in a high ceiling, brightly lit open room filled with cars, tools, and one dark haired mechanic.

"Rex!" Tony's voice boomed through the room. He didn't walk in far, instead going over to one of his favorite vintage pieces (a German model from the second world war) and leaning his hip against the hood. "Come on out! I want to talk about Saturday."

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9lives
2011-06-22 02:29 pm UTC (link)

Rex was very much a morning person, and his routine each day consisted of a long jog – even back home he didn't like the recycled air of gyms, a light breakfast, and an early commute to work. He always had the tendency to be completely immersed in whatever job he did at any given time, even if that meant overworking.

The past couple of days had been experimental improvements to the steering system of a Lincoln 66H, and the results were mostly successful. The new hydraulics enabled power steering, while miles ahead of what was commercially available, still weren't up to his usual standards; Rex would have to start over, from his base modifications on the engine. That, at least, explained his early arrival.

He heard the elevator doors clang, but didn't look up from his work until his name was called. Poking his head out from under the hood of the Lincoln, Rex asked, "What's up?"

It always took him a while to readjust to the vocabulary of this era, especially when he'd been alone for a while. Also: probably not the best way to address one's boss. Straightening up, he wiped his hands on his shirt, leaving streaks of grease marks, but that was hardly the worst his clothes had been through.

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sansiron
2011-06-23 01:38 am UTC (link)

Rex was far more amiable to being being bothered while working on his cars than Tony was. Though, perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he was being bothered by his boss. Tony grinned when Rex slid out. "Nothing anywhere near as interesting as whatever it is you're working on, I'm sure." He raised an eyebrow and nodded at the Lincoln. It was a bit boxier than what he normally liked, but it still had its own beauty about it and he was sure that whatever Rex was doing to it would give it some kind of secret magic.

"D'you have a minute?" he asked, more out of politeness than necessity. "I wanted to talk about Saturday. I think that's the first time I've seen you really drive." And by 'drive' he meant 'steer a car in the most reckless way possible'. You know, the way Tony liked it.

He tapped his fingers against the hood of the Benz for a moment before impulsively shurgging off his dark grey jacket. "It was impressive." Gesturing to the Lincoln, Tony started rolling up his shirt sleeves. "I want to know why you learned to drive like that. And you can show me what you're working on while you tell me. I want to get my hands dirty."

Ianto was going to kill him.

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9lives
2011-06-23 01:11 pm UTC (link)

"Dirty I can do." That was probably the closest thing Rex got to a joke. He nodded at Tony, beckoning him closer, then propping the hood up further, so the engine could be clearly seen. "I've added a steering booster here. The pump and the distributor case are my own designs – I wasn't sure it'd be compatible with this model, but it works pretty well. The hydraulic fluid's a bit of an experiment as well."

Read: he had to make do with what was available. Sure, he was limited by resources, but Rex had never particularly been a stickler to maintenance and modification protocols. He had always been creative with his mechanical work, it was just that now he had to stretch that a little further. "My father designed cars," he explained. "And where I come from, racing's a big deal. Hard to grow up in that kind of world and not know a thing or two."

Saturday had not been his best performance, driving an unfamiliar car, and not pulling all the stops, as he had been surrounded by vehicles that didn't have Kwik-Save to protect the drivers from harm. Ten years ago, coming in fourth place in a race would have him fuming for days, but now, Rex didn't care about the result, as long as he could drive.

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sansiron
2011-06-24 01:36 am UTC (link)

Tony nodded as Rex began to explain what he'd added to the car. "And with the compatibility issue... I remember you mentioning a fuel problem before? Was it this car?" Fuel and alternate energy sources were constantly on his mind these days, especially with people surrounding him able to provide him with information it would have taken him years to divine on his own.

"Designed cars," Tony repeated, a healthy sort of respect in his voice. "I leave the design to the Europeans and just muck around with the shoddy engineering once I get my hands on them. The design's a skill, but this," he gestured to the engine. "Is where the brains come in. If there'd been any critical thought put into the design of the Porsche 550, James Dean'd still be alive."

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9lives
2011-06-25 02:45 pm UTC (link)

"European cars look impressive on the surface, but it's the Japanese that have got it right. Accessibility, safety, fuel economy," of course, none of those really mattered at the moment, with the market lacking in any real quality Japanese cars. "I'm not gonna say no to a Lotus if someone handed me the keys, but the average guy's better off driving a Toyota."

From what Rex learnt, though, that company had a particularly disappointing debut in the country with the 'Toyopet'.

"The gas isn't ideal," Rex shrugged, checking the dipstick almost absent-mindedly. Wiping the oil on his shirt and replacing it, he continued, "but it works for this. It's my car- here, I'll show you."

Not ten feet away, the 9 was parked between two town cars, doing a horrible job of blending in. While he was helping Cloud with modifications on his motorcycle, there was no room in the garage for the 9, so this was its temporary residence. "I've installed some filters so she'll run, but that's not a permanent solution, and it's hell on her engine."

Rex popped the hood – compared to what was in the Lincoln, the 9 seemed impossibly advanced.

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sansiron
2011-06-27 07:09 pm UTC (link)

"Eating away at it, most likely." Tony could sympathise, having heard the same complaints from Misty. Oil was apparently more refined in their time, in ways that companies now simply couldn't hope to accomplish with the technology available to them.

Of course, those other companies didn't have Tony Stark.

He frowned slightly, the thought of a perfectly good car being forced to run on flawed fuel annoying him perhaps more than it would have annoyed a normal person. He did have some strange peculiarities. "What would you say if I asked you to write down everything you know about oil refinement in your own time? No matter how basic that knowledge is. I'd put down good money on a guess that I could make something work-- get a better fuel for your cars. Hell, I'm sure my Aston wouldn't object either."

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9lives
2011-07-01 12:25 pm UTC (link)

As much as Tony Stark was a non-entity back home (way before his time, Rex supposed), he was witnessing first hand the kind of magic Tony could do. Advanced science was the one that was indistinguishable from magic, right?

"I can do one better." After all, he was a mechanic, not an engineer, and Rex wasn't sure he'd be able to remember all the things he read go into workable, suitable gasoline. There was a small plastic container, discarded haphazardly under the passenger's seat, which he retrieved and shook lightly, revealing that it was half-filled with liquid, and should be bug enough of a sample.

Handing it over to Tony, he explained, "I siphoned the rest out when I was installing the filters."

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