Steve, Stark
Jul. 20th, 2012 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aa_natasha Which leaves Steve alone with Tony. In his office. He looks down at his phone a few moments longer before slipping it back into the pocket of his trousers. Which are probably pressed or something. "So," he says. "What are you working on?" Maybe that is a bad question to ask for someone with his level of technological experience, but he sounds sincerely polite about it.
Stark flicks a guilty look from his tablet to Steve's phone and then back again. "Uh." Not at all hacking your phone, Steve. He would never work on that. He lifts the tablet to hold above the coffee table and taps twice to bring a display of the tower. The display is astonishingly crisp 3-D with a strange blank spot. Shifting, Stark reaches out to kick a falafel wrapper away from the hologram emitter. The image sharpens. "/Renovations/."
"Oh." The image is certainly intuitive enough to follow, even for him, and Steve takes a step closer to inspect it curiously. "What are you changing?"
Abandoning his table to move entirely to gestures, Stark moves his hands in simple, clear patterns to center and enlarge the image on the tower's upper flowers. "Most of the damage was to the top of the structure, so really just changing things there." Tiny dots mark points of life: Stark, Steve, Pepper in the other room. Maybe there is another dot on its way up and over? "Here and up, that is. Haven't fully decided what to change."
"Maybe you could make the lettering a little smaller," Steve suggests with a quick grin. Look, he is joking like a person!
On its way, and not terribly subtle about it. The steady sound of Natasha's footsteps announces her presence as clearly as any tiny, moving dot, as does the raise of her fist to rap against the doorframe in brief staccato before she pulls it open. She looks as if she belongs in the high-power world of Stark Tower at present in a well-tailored pantsuit and heels that give her an inch on Tony Stark. Hello boys.
Hello, Natasha. Stark does not look surprised by her knock, what with magic tech toys telling of her arrival, but he does pause just a moment to take her in (he's only human) before greeting her: "What, is it office hours? Do you want an extension on your paper?" The look he shoots Steve is one of resigned exasperation. "/Why/ would I do that? It's advertising. They are going to be /bigger/."
"They're just kind of big," Steve says in innocent observation. "Or -- it is. They were." He shakes his head in mild baffle at Tony's point on advertising, then turns to Natasha's knock. "Oh. Hello, Natasha." We're on first-name basis, right? Right. We saved the world together!
"Tony," Natasha greets with an inclination of her head that almost serves as a polite nod. It lasts only a moment before she turns her attention to Steve with just a hint of exasperation. Tiny hint. You know he likes it. "Thanks for the offer, but I complete my work on time. I was looking for the good Captain." She gives another nod, though this one comes with a smile, and adds, "Steve. I hope Mr. Stark isn't trying to sell you anything."
"They are supposed to be big. I want them to be bigger." Stark smiles, and any sharpness in it as he mutters, "Blow up /my/ tower, will you," fades into something milder as he looks back at Natasha. "He can't afford me. Don't worry. I save my pitches for your boss. Say, think he'll help pay for renovations if I let the Avengers use this space?"
"He's just showing me the renovation plans. Although apparently all that's involved in the 'renovation plans' is 'bigger lettering,'" Steve says with a hint of a grin tugging his lips. "Did you need me for something?"
"Fury wanted me to go over a few post-mission details with you," Natasha makes up smoothly. She crosses the room with long-legged strides to consider Tony's dots. "There's still a good bit of curiosity about what exactly you're capable of. Bureaucracy." She gives half a shrug, sympathetic, before she arches her brows in neat disbelief at Tony. "You want the Avengers to move into Stark Tower?"
Stark taps the floors as he says, "Rogers, Romanov, Banner, Barton, uh, Odinson." They light as he indicates them, and there are floors left over. Shooting Steve a dirty look, he adds, "I was getting to the rest." Even after marking a floor for everyone in his clubhouse, there is room leftover. "Totally convenient." For him.
"Of course," Steve says, not seeing the seams of Natasha's lie -- but she's a professional liar. He looks back at the holographic display, his brows lift, and then furrow. "You want us to live in your company's building?"
Natasha's smile is small as she spreads a hand at Steve's words. "Neat way to keep us all monitored and under your eye, Stark? Little dots watching us traipse up and down the hallways. Sounds like a /dream/. I'm sure Fury will be thrilled with the idea of paying you to turn the Avengers into your pet project."
"Safety first," Stark sing-songs at Natasha. "Mi ... ojos es su ojos." His Spanish needs work. "Fury already paid me to take the Avengers on as a project. And I set some pretty obscene rates for that consulting. I had a bet whether or not he'd pay it. I lost, by the way."
"Seems a dangerous proposition for all the civilians working for you in the building," Steve inevitably brings up.
"Safety, is it?" Natasha's glance moves pointedly around the room, lingering on aspects in particular need of... renovations.
"You know, Thor left just as big a hole at SHIELD HQ. Bigger, even," Stark says. "Jarvis, bring it up." And there it is, the pictures that he took the other day, supplemented now with additional data, the better to rub Natasha's nose in it. "I'm just saying." w/e civilians "And he was just stopping by to say hello."
"And he hurt some people, and could have done worse," Steve says with a particular stubbornness. "You'd just be making a target out of civilians."
"I think you'll be stuck rebuilding your pretty tower on your own, Mr. Stark," Natasha says, all genuine sympathy.
Stark gives Steve a bit of a long and slightly blank stare. "What, you want to go the Banner route? Throw ourselves out into the wilderness? Go ahead. Roughing it isn't my style. Me, I refuse to take responsibility for the actions of others." The look he slides Natasha shades toward wry suspicion. He doesn't buy the sympathy. "I'm glad you think it is pretty."
"I didn't say that," Steve says all reasonable-like. "Just that it doesn't seem a good idea to be housing us in a commercial building."
"I thought you enjoyed the wilderness," Natasha observes with a dry levelness so complete that it's difficult to tell if she's serious. "It seems to feed your... creativity."
Stark ignores Steve, because he doesn't have an answer for him, to instead favor Natasha with a slightly unfriendly smile. "There are better ways to fuel creativity. Caffeine. Alcohol. Sleep. Sex."
Steve frowns as his concerns, which are obviously the highest moral concerns here, are ignored. And when Stark starts talking.
"Are you suggesting you had difficulty obtaining these things before you were Iron Man?" Natasha's smile is sweet as she turns it from Stark to Steve and his sad-looking frown. "Wherever Director Fury settles us, I'm sure it will be a location as firmly dedicated to safety - everyone's safety - as possible. SHIELD is in the business of saving civilians, not putting them in needless danger."
"Don't be coy. You've read my file. You know better than that," says Stark with a smile that sweetens to match hers. "That sounds like SHIELD. /Saving civilians/." He gives Steve a bit of a pointed counter-glance. No secret weapon-creation programs at SHIELD or anything, right? (This, from the man formerly known as the Merchant of Death.)
Steve does seem to recognize the pointedness, but he stands firm on the point that, "/Someone/ should be in the business." EVEN IF IT'S JUST HIM.
Natasha's smile is, despite orders, exceedingly coy. She lets it speak for itself. "That's why you're such a valuable member of our team, Captain Rogers," she answers with a tilt of her head. "We need someone to keep our feet on the ground. Your dedication is admirable, given your circumstances."
"/We/ are in that business," Stark says to Steve, taking turns ignoring people. Now he ignores Natasha. /Really really hard/.
Steve sets his chin like one used to enduring praise. "Just doing my duty," he says quietly. He glances to Stark with a hint of annoyance. "Then you should be better at it."
"You'll find that duty is not as common a virtue as it was in your day," Natasha informs Steve, her tone consummately apologetic.
Stark's eyelashes fall in a blink just a fraction longer than the usual: barely enough to mark, hardly anything to note. He turns his attention to Natasha then and says, "Better get back to Fury before he sends someone after you, next. I don't need Barton climbing through the ducts."
"It's our duty to always strive to be better than we are," Steve says with unfaltering conviction that really should go on a recruitment video or something. He glances at Tony. Okay, you did that one time.
There is a small beat of silence from Natasha's corner before she turns a smile on Steve. "Feel like heading back and letting me give you the rundown, then? I've been working up a report based on what I saw in action, but I'd like your input, Captain."
"Oh my God," Stark says under his breath, and rolls his eyes to ceiling like he is drowning, suffocating, something. Help, ceiling. Save him.
"It's not a joke," Steve informs Tony with another one of those frowns before turning back to Natasha. "Sure, I'm happy to help." UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE.
"Fantastic," Natasha answers, her smile both grateful and polite as she turns and tips her head toward the door. She gives Tony a look over her shoulder as she moves toward it, brows arched with a shade of amusement hidden from Steve by the fall of her hair.
"I need a drink." Stark pushes to his feet and meanders over to the nearby bar. He is Stark. This is Stark Tower. There is always a nearby bar. He gives Natasha a look, skeptical of her sweet act, but follows it with an ironic sort of salute that waves her off. "Enjoy your evening, kids."
Steve does not look back over his shoulder at anybody. There is a hint of tension about his shoulders at Tony's words, but he makes his way out without further comment.
Stark flicks a guilty look from his tablet to Steve's phone and then back again. "Uh." Not at all hacking your phone, Steve. He would never work on that. He lifts the tablet to hold above the coffee table and taps twice to bring a display of the tower. The display is astonishingly crisp 3-D with a strange blank spot. Shifting, Stark reaches out to kick a falafel wrapper away from the hologram emitter. The image sharpens. "/Renovations/."
"Oh." The image is certainly intuitive enough to follow, even for him, and Steve takes a step closer to inspect it curiously. "What are you changing?"
Abandoning his table to move entirely to gestures, Stark moves his hands in simple, clear patterns to center and enlarge the image on the tower's upper flowers. "Most of the damage was to the top of the structure, so really just changing things there." Tiny dots mark points of life: Stark, Steve, Pepper in the other room. Maybe there is another dot on its way up and over? "Here and up, that is. Haven't fully decided what to change."
"Maybe you could make the lettering a little smaller," Steve suggests with a quick grin. Look, he is joking like a person!
On its way, and not terribly subtle about it. The steady sound of Natasha's footsteps announces her presence as clearly as any tiny, moving dot, as does the raise of her fist to rap against the doorframe in brief staccato before she pulls it open. She looks as if she belongs in the high-power world of Stark Tower at present in a well-tailored pantsuit and heels that give her an inch on Tony Stark. Hello boys.
Hello, Natasha. Stark does not look surprised by her knock, what with magic tech toys telling of her arrival, but he does pause just a moment to take her in (he's only human) before greeting her: "What, is it office hours? Do you want an extension on your paper?" The look he shoots Steve is one of resigned exasperation. "/Why/ would I do that? It's advertising. They are going to be /bigger/."
"They're just kind of big," Steve says in innocent observation. "Or -- it is. They were." He shakes his head in mild baffle at Tony's point on advertising, then turns to Natasha's knock. "Oh. Hello, Natasha." We're on first-name basis, right? Right. We saved the world together!
"Tony," Natasha greets with an inclination of her head that almost serves as a polite nod. It lasts only a moment before she turns her attention to Steve with just a hint of exasperation. Tiny hint. You know he likes it. "Thanks for the offer, but I complete my work on time. I was looking for the good Captain." She gives another nod, though this one comes with a smile, and adds, "Steve. I hope Mr. Stark isn't trying to sell you anything."
"They are supposed to be big. I want them to be bigger." Stark smiles, and any sharpness in it as he mutters, "Blow up /my/ tower, will you," fades into something milder as he looks back at Natasha. "He can't afford me. Don't worry. I save my pitches for your boss. Say, think he'll help pay for renovations if I let the Avengers use this space?"
"He's just showing me the renovation plans. Although apparently all that's involved in the 'renovation plans' is 'bigger lettering,'" Steve says with a hint of a grin tugging his lips. "Did you need me for something?"
"Fury wanted me to go over a few post-mission details with you," Natasha makes up smoothly. She crosses the room with long-legged strides to consider Tony's dots. "There's still a good bit of curiosity about what exactly you're capable of. Bureaucracy." She gives half a shrug, sympathetic, before she arches her brows in neat disbelief at Tony. "You want the Avengers to move into Stark Tower?"
Stark taps the floors as he says, "Rogers, Romanov, Banner, Barton, uh, Odinson." They light as he indicates them, and there are floors left over. Shooting Steve a dirty look, he adds, "I was getting to the rest." Even after marking a floor for everyone in his clubhouse, there is room leftover. "Totally convenient." For him.
"Of course," Steve says, not seeing the seams of Natasha's lie -- but she's a professional liar. He looks back at the holographic display, his brows lift, and then furrow. "You want us to live in your company's building?"
Natasha's smile is small as she spreads a hand at Steve's words. "Neat way to keep us all monitored and under your eye, Stark? Little dots watching us traipse up and down the hallways. Sounds like a /dream/. I'm sure Fury will be thrilled with the idea of paying you to turn the Avengers into your pet project."
"Safety first," Stark sing-songs at Natasha. "Mi ... ojos es su ojos." His Spanish needs work. "Fury already paid me to take the Avengers on as a project. And I set some pretty obscene rates for that consulting. I had a bet whether or not he'd pay it. I lost, by the way."
"Seems a dangerous proposition for all the civilians working for you in the building," Steve inevitably brings up.
"Safety, is it?" Natasha's glance moves pointedly around the room, lingering on aspects in particular need of... renovations.
"You know, Thor left just as big a hole at SHIELD HQ. Bigger, even," Stark says. "Jarvis, bring it up." And there it is, the pictures that he took the other day, supplemented now with additional data, the better to rub Natasha's nose in it. "I'm just saying." w/e civilians "And he was just stopping by to say hello."
"And he hurt some people, and could have done worse," Steve says with a particular stubbornness. "You'd just be making a target out of civilians."
"I think you'll be stuck rebuilding your pretty tower on your own, Mr. Stark," Natasha says, all genuine sympathy.
Stark gives Steve a bit of a long and slightly blank stare. "What, you want to go the Banner route? Throw ourselves out into the wilderness? Go ahead. Roughing it isn't my style. Me, I refuse to take responsibility for the actions of others." The look he slides Natasha shades toward wry suspicion. He doesn't buy the sympathy. "I'm glad you think it is pretty."
"I didn't say that," Steve says all reasonable-like. "Just that it doesn't seem a good idea to be housing us in a commercial building."
"I thought you enjoyed the wilderness," Natasha observes with a dry levelness so complete that it's difficult to tell if she's serious. "It seems to feed your... creativity."
Stark ignores Steve, because he doesn't have an answer for him, to instead favor Natasha with a slightly unfriendly smile. "There are better ways to fuel creativity. Caffeine. Alcohol. Sleep. Sex."
Steve frowns as his concerns, which are obviously the highest moral concerns here, are ignored. And when Stark starts talking.
"Are you suggesting you had difficulty obtaining these things before you were Iron Man?" Natasha's smile is sweet as she turns it from Stark to Steve and his sad-looking frown. "Wherever Director Fury settles us, I'm sure it will be a location as firmly dedicated to safety - everyone's safety - as possible. SHIELD is in the business of saving civilians, not putting them in needless danger."
"Don't be coy. You've read my file. You know better than that," says Stark with a smile that sweetens to match hers. "That sounds like SHIELD. /Saving civilians/." He gives Steve a bit of a pointed counter-glance. No secret weapon-creation programs at SHIELD or anything, right? (This, from the man formerly known as the Merchant of Death.)
Steve does seem to recognize the pointedness, but he stands firm on the point that, "/Someone/ should be in the business." EVEN IF IT'S JUST HIM.
Natasha's smile is, despite orders, exceedingly coy. She lets it speak for itself. "That's why you're such a valuable member of our team, Captain Rogers," she answers with a tilt of her head. "We need someone to keep our feet on the ground. Your dedication is admirable, given your circumstances."
"/We/ are in that business," Stark says to Steve, taking turns ignoring people. Now he ignores Natasha. /Really really hard/.
Steve sets his chin like one used to enduring praise. "Just doing my duty," he says quietly. He glances to Stark with a hint of annoyance. "Then you should be better at it."
"You'll find that duty is not as common a virtue as it was in your day," Natasha informs Steve, her tone consummately apologetic.
Stark's eyelashes fall in a blink just a fraction longer than the usual: barely enough to mark, hardly anything to note. He turns his attention to Natasha then and says, "Better get back to Fury before he sends someone after you, next. I don't need Barton climbing through the ducts."
"It's our duty to always strive to be better than we are," Steve says with unfaltering conviction that really should go on a recruitment video or something. He glances at Tony. Okay, you did that one time.
There is a small beat of silence from Natasha's corner before she turns a smile on Steve. "Feel like heading back and letting me give you the rundown, then? I've been working up a report based on what I saw in action, but I'd like your input, Captain."
"Oh my God," Stark says under his breath, and rolls his eyes to ceiling like he is drowning, suffocating, something. Help, ceiling. Save him.
"It's not a joke," Steve informs Tony with another one of those frowns before turning back to Natasha. "Sure, I'm happy to help." UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE.
"Fantastic," Natasha answers, her smile both grateful and polite as she turns and tips her head toward the door. She gives Tony a look over her shoulder as she moves toward it, brows arched with a shade of amusement hidden from Steve by the fall of her hair.
"I need a drink." Stark pushes to his feet and meanders over to the nearby bar. He is Stark. This is Stark Tower. There is always a nearby bar. He gives Natasha a look, skeptical of her sweet act, but follows it with an ironic sort of salute that waves her off. "Enjoy your evening, kids."
Steve does not look back over his shoulder at anybody. There is a hint of tension about his shoulders at Tony's words, but he makes his way out without further comment.