Option A: Tony can't say that he enjoys disaster relief – it's physically and emotionally taxing, and rebuilding the wreckage of people's lives and livelihoods is never going to be, well, fun.
But it's important, and it's helping people in direct and concrete ways. He feels like he's doing as much good as he ever did fighting villains in the Iron Man armor – maybe more. It's rewarding, in its own way.
And now that it's been a few days and the bulk of the rescue operations have been completed, Tony can focus on the easier work of helping put the city's infrastructure back together.
At the moment, he's troubleshooting a generator that's supposed to be providing emergency power for a few residential streets until the grid comes back online. He's nearly got it working – unfortunately, he's wedged quite thoroughly underneath the whole contraption, and he's just realized that he needs a different tool from his kit.
"Dammit," he mutters under his breath, stretching his arm out as far as he can and blindly patting the ground. Where did he leave that stupid thing? The armor is occupied holding a large, heavy, and rather important component in place while he works, so it looks like Tony's going to have to extricate himself and find the wrench on his own... unless some helpful passerby wants to lend a hand.
Option B: Tony had found the clock half-buried in a pile of excavated mud while working a repair shift on some water lines that had been washed out by the flooding. It's an odd item, and an odd place to find it, so when he'd asked around and no one had claimed it, he'd decided to hold on to it. It's intricate and obviously valuable, and the inscrutable dials had intrigued him – surely the rightful owner won't mind if he tinkers with it a little, just to make sure it's in good working order.
It's been ticking steadily since he'd found it, but he'd started to disassemble it on his lunch break to check if any of the movements needed cleaning. Even if it doesn't look damaged now, moisture and rust can spell the end of delicate clockwork.
What he'd found had been... weird. The finely-crafted housing had remained watertight, but the array of movements inside are unlike anything he's ever seen. They certainly don't help elucidate what sort of time or other measurement the dials on the front are supposed to be keeping. Baffled, Tony had covered the half-gutted clock with protective cloth and returned to finish his shift.
And now that his shift is over, he's even more baffled, staring down at the clock as it ticks merrily along— fully reassembled and sealed up tight, as if he'd never even cracked the housing open.
He picks it up and turns it over in his hands. "What the heck?"
[ II - The Lightning Trees - Closed to Pepper ]
Tony sure is glad he was able to sneak a sample from the lightning tree growing from the Skyway tracks before the Opara techs cordoned it off, because this shit is amazing.
First of all, it had been no small task to get a sample in the first place: he'd had to slip out one of his gauntlets and use the laser cutter to slice off a sprig. Whatever the trees are made of, it's tough as hell.
The next attribute he'd discovered: within minutes, the little cutting had sunk tiny rootlets into the gauntlet he'd been carefully cradling it in. He's not even mad about having to sacrifice a few pieces of finger plating for that.
And when he'd gotten it home and started to run tests, he'd discovered that the silvery-blue streaks running through the wood are, as hypothesized, metal – and not just any metal. The alloy is mostly steel from the tracks, but whatever is mixed into it to give it that blueish sheen and incredible strength confounds all his attempts at identification.
As for how the cells are interacting with the metal, he can't tell much without destroying his little sprout entirely. Given how vigorously it had tried to integrate with his armor, though, he suspects there's a solution to that problem. He fills a plastic bucket with steel scraps from his workshop, nestles the cutting into it, and waits.
Sure enough, the little tree takes root, and within a few days it's sprouting new silvery, razor-edged leaves. Finally, a plant that Tony will be able to keep alive.
So, of course, when Pepper tells him about the peculiar effect of her own investigation into the lightning trees, Tony sees an opportunity. (An opportunity to find out more about his new houseplant, but also, maybe, an opportunity to cheer Pepper up a little.)
"Hold on, I'm gonna go get something from the workshop. I think you should take a look at it." His eyes are sparkling with excitement. He returns with the bucket, and holds it out to Pepper, grinning. "Check it out. It's a cutting from the trees on the Skyway tracks. Do you think you can try to, you know, talk to it?"
no subject
Option A: Tony can't say that he enjoys disaster relief – it's physically and emotionally taxing, and rebuilding the wreckage of people's lives and livelihoods is never going to be, well, fun.
But it's important, and it's helping people in direct and concrete ways. He feels like he's doing as much good as he ever did fighting villains in the Iron Man armor – maybe more. It's rewarding, in its own way.
And now that it's been a few days and the bulk of the rescue operations have been completed, Tony can focus on the easier work of helping put the city's infrastructure back together.
At the moment, he's troubleshooting a generator that's supposed to be providing emergency power for a few residential streets until the grid comes back online. He's nearly got it working – unfortunately, he's wedged quite thoroughly underneath the whole contraption, and he's just realized that he needs a different tool from his kit.
"Dammit," he mutters under his breath, stretching his arm out as far as he can and blindly patting the ground. Where did he leave that stupid thing? The armor is occupied holding a large, heavy, and rather important component in place while he works, so it looks like Tony's going to have to extricate himself and find the wrench on his own... unless some helpful passerby wants to lend a hand.
Option B: Tony had found the clock half-buried in a pile of excavated mud while working a repair shift on some water lines that had been washed out by the flooding. It's an odd item, and an odd place to find it, so when he'd asked around and no one had claimed it, he'd decided to hold on to it. It's intricate and obviously valuable, and the inscrutable dials had intrigued him – surely the rightful owner won't mind if he tinkers with it a little, just to make sure it's in good working order.
It's been ticking steadily since he'd found it, but he'd started to disassemble it on his lunch break to check if any of the movements needed cleaning. Even if it doesn't look damaged now, moisture and rust can spell the end of delicate clockwork.
What he'd found had been... weird. The finely-crafted housing had remained watertight, but the array of movements inside are unlike anything he's ever seen. They certainly don't help elucidate what sort of time or other measurement the dials on the front are supposed to be keeping. Baffled, Tony had covered the half-gutted clock with protective cloth and returned to finish his shift.
And now that his shift is over, he's even more baffled, staring down at the clock as it ticks merrily along— fully reassembled and sealed up tight, as if he'd never even cracked the housing open.
He picks it up and turns it over in his hands. "What the heck?"
[ II - The Lightning Trees - Closed to Pepper ]
Tony sure is glad he was able to sneak a sample from the lightning tree growing from the Skyway tracks before the Opara techs cordoned it off, because this shit is amazing.
First of all, it had been no small task to get a sample in the first place: he'd had to slip out one of his gauntlets and use the laser cutter to slice off a sprig. Whatever the trees are made of, it's tough as hell.
The next attribute he'd discovered: within minutes, the little cutting had sunk tiny rootlets into the gauntlet he'd been carefully cradling it in. He's not even mad about having to sacrifice a few pieces of finger plating for that.
And when he'd gotten it home and started to run tests, he'd discovered that the silvery-blue streaks running through the wood are, as hypothesized, metal – and not just any metal. The alloy is mostly steel from the tracks, but whatever is mixed into it to give it that blueish sheen and incredible strength confounds all his attempts at identification.
As for how the cells are interacting with the metal, he can't tell much without destroying his little sprout entirely. Given how vigorously it had tried to integrate with his armor, though, he suspects there's a solution to that problem. He fills a plastic bucket with steel scraps from his workshop, nestles the cutting into it, and waits.
Sure enough, the little tree takes root, and within a few days it's sprouting new silvery, razor-edged leaves.
Finally, a plant that Tony will be able to keep alive.So, of course, when Pepper tells him about the peculiar effect of her own investigation into the lightning trees, Tony sees an opportunity. (An opportunity to find out more about his new houseplant, but also, maybe, an opportunity to cheer Pepper up a little.)
"Hold on, I'm gonna go get something from the workshop. I think you should take a look at it." His eyes are sparkling with excitement. He returns with the bucket, and holds it out to Pepper, grinning. "Check it out. It's a cutting from the trees on the Skyway tracks. Do you think you can try to, you know, talk to it?"