fade rift. inbox.

[propulsion]

"You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark."

sending crystal
written correspondence
private scenes

Comments

[propulsion]

So the game's rigged. I'm not saying we should take 'em out the back or anything—

[ He hasn't forgotten her doodles. Or he did, briefly, honing in on making his point, but now that he's made it and she's scribbling away over there, he tips a look back at it. ]

But, you know, I have a very selective Christmas card list, and they've lost out, that's for dang sure.

Your anti-magic shield was dope, by the way, let's make that happen too.

[heirring]

[From the sound she makes—swallowing a protest so abruptly that it seems like she might choke on it—, this last part is an unexpected turn in the trajectory of the conversation. And surprise enough that for a moment it briefly undercuts her intent for further hen pecking.]

Oh that. It isn't possible. There might be some way of adapting the theory of course—something to do with the Templars and what they do, perhaps? But the form it took in the dream? No.

How do you imagine these to work? It can't be a mage producing the lift; they would be exhausted before it could travel anywhere useful. You need—Ah. [Another note is scratched down in the margins of her page.]

[propulsion]

Yeah, [ Tony says, at her ah, filling in the blank. ] Fun part will be figuring out how to power a sustained heat-based glyph with that much oomph and not catch the whole thing on fire. Oh, the humanity, et cetera.

[ He picks up her notes, watching her write. He has something he wans to ask. More critical than the subject of Venatori treachery, of his slow death she carried herself away from getting too close to, of the substance of the reality they shared together, a month like, five years long.

Nonchalantly; ]

What'd you think about the robot?

[heirring]

Oh.

[She hums, drawing an excitable series of runes in the margins of her notes. A box is drawn about them, presumably to emphasize their importance when she is later reviewing her own handwriting.]

Very cool.

[propulsion]

[ His smile is immediate and genuine if a little compressed, like in resistance to it, keeping his eyes fixed on the pages he's stolen as it happens. That day, Tony Stark's heart grew three sizes.

Papers rustle, and he now lays her notes flat against his chest and turned out so she can see her own rows of runic scribble. ]

So I've been reading this for three minutes and I have no idea what this is.

[heirring]

No, I don't suppose you would. It's a Kalvadan spell diagram. A very basic one, mind. Though I've been refining it for some time.

[Dashing off a last note, Wysteria at last sets her pen aside entirely and raises her attention from the page and the airship sketches. She looks at him.]

Would you like to see how it works?

[propulsion]

[ There is a beat in which the amount of that Tony wants to see how it works cannot be properly quantified and is written plain in his look across at her. Probably the fact he is also exhausted means he can pull off the nonchalant— ]

Sure.

[heirring]

[The line of her mouth pulls sideways and her eyebrows flirt in the direction of her hairline, but she does hin the courtesy of not explicitly calling his bluff. That would be rude.

Instead, Wysteria takes a random blank page from the middle of her stack. She folds it in half once and then lays it open with the fold's crease exposed on the table.]

Lend me something from your pockets, if you please. Something with bulk if you have it.

[propulsion]

Okay David Blaine.

[ Tony pushes both hands into his jacket pockets, coming up with his comms crystal—which goes back in—and a pair of winter gloves. This latter thing he offers with a querying twitch, a glance down at the paper. ]

I'm watching both hands. Nothing gets by me.

[heirring]

I don't know who that is, [is an automatic reminder as she takes the gloves.

There is no showmanship about it. Wysteria simply sets the gloves on one side of the paper, and then closes the other half over them.

Completely.

All the way over them.

The two sides of the folded paper meet flush and smooth, as if nothing at all lived between them that might reasonably make closing the fold—not difficult. Impossible.

Wysteria folds the paper a few more times, making a neat little self secured origami envelope out of the thing. She slides it back across the table to him.]

There.