(Barely) Controlled Chaos #2

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #2

Part 2 of the fic.  Tony goes to MIT.

Warnings for this part:  none in particular

October 1991, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tony closed his eyes, counted to ten mentally then, when that failed to calm him down, picked up his phone and threw it at the wall.  It smashed into five different pieces, but he didn’t care.  Only his father and Jarvis ever called him on it, and he was going to ignore any calls from Howard Stark from this point on.  He thought he could give Tony rules, did he?  Fuck him.  If Tony wanted to make friends, he’d make fucking friends, and screw his father for suggesting that anyone who would bother was only there because Howard was rich.

He was wrong anyway.  Nobody was interested in Tony for his father’s money, because nobody was interested in Tony.  He’d been at MIT for two weeks, and nobody had looked at him twice.  Which, you know, was fine.  He was used to being ignored.

Tony’s temper abated as fast as it had come, and he looked morosely at the pieces of cell phone scattered around his feet.  Sighing, he gathered the bits and shoved them into his bag.  He’d take it to the robotics lab – the only place on campus where he actually felt like he maybe belonged, even if he was ignored just as thoroughly there as anywhere else – and put it back together.  Maybe with a few improvements, because the time it took to charge was just ridiculous and Tony could totally fix that.  It would be fiddly work too, which would take his mind off the pained feeling in his chest.  He was lonely.  Howard had a knack for hitting Tony right where it hurt most.

His father was a dick.  He needed to remember this, because Howard was a dick, and Tony couldn’t let that upset him.  He was stronger than that.  He was more than that.

He slung his bag over his shoulder and headed for the robotics lab before he could wallow any more.  It was surprisingly full for the hour; after 8pm, Tony usually found himself alone in the lab.  He looked around at the grad students taking up most of the room, then remembered that they had a deadline the next day.  Suddenly, it made a lot more sense.

Tony found a free bench in the corner of the room and set the pieces of his cell phone on the table.  He hadn’t managed to crack the case – it would take something along the lines of a sledgehammer to manage that – but the back had come loose, and several bits of circuitry had flown free.  Tony ignored the shell – he could sort that out later – and focussed on the interior components.    He studied it for several minutes before working out what he needed to change, then looked around for the tools he’d need to fix it.  They were all on a neighbouring bench, being used by a harassed-looking grad student.  Tony debated the wisdom of asking to borrow vs. sneaking them away, and decided that disappearing tools might make the guy explode.  He walked over, ensuring that he made a noise because making a person holding a soldering iron jump was a good way to get burned.  The student shot him a sideways look, before proceeding to ignore him and continue with his soldering.  Tony cleared his throat.

“I need to borrow these.”

Ok, so it wasn’t exactly asking, but it was better than ninja-ing the guy’s tools.  It got him a stressed glare.

“Tough.  I’m using them.  Go play with your cell phone elsewhere, kid; the grown-ups have real work to do.”

Tony bit his lip to stop a very rude retort – the guy still had a soldering iron in his hand – and turned on his heel, sweeping the bits of cell phone back into his bag.  He was sick of being called ‘kid’, and he was sick of being ignored and treated like a joke.  Tony Stark was a goddamn prodigy, something even his fucking father had never been called, and he knew more about engineering and robotics than every grad student in that stupid lab put together.  He could make things they could never dream of.

Fuck it; that was what he was going to do.  He would make the bastards take him seriously.  He was going to make something that would make their brains implode with its sheer awesomeness.  He didn’t know what it was going to be yet, but it was going to be huge.  And it would prove to everybody that he was more than his father’s money and a smart mouth.

Maybe it would even prove it to Howard.  Tony wanted that more than he would admit.

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #4

Part number 4 is up :)

Warnings for this part: none

November 1991, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Two months into life at MIT, and Tony was finally settling in.  His dorm-mates still pretended he didn’t exist, unless they were busy stealing his stuff because ‘he’s the rich guy’s kid; he can afford it’, but his professors had acclimatised to the idea that their youngest student was more proficient in most of their areas of expertise than they were, and everyone in the robotics lab was in awe of him.  He was no longer invisible to everyone, and that was a hell of a step up from his home life; he was almost sociable, and that was not a word that anyone had ever attributed to him.  Tony didn’t do social well.

Maybe that was why he still didn’t have any friends.  Tony was used to being ignored by humans, but now he was out of his father’s house, he had planned on breaking Howard’s principal rule and finding a Pokémon to keep him company.  All of his dorm-mates had Pokémon, and several people in his classes had their Pokémon escort them.  One of the professors had a Teddiursa who sat on the desk at the front of the lecture hall and made the least threatening growling noises Tony had ever heard at anybody who walked in late.  Tony was certain that several of the girls were late on purpose, just so they could coo at the little bear.

So, yeah, it was fair to say that Tony had anticipated finding a Pokémon that could stand his company.  From what he could tell, the creatures tended not to care what a person’s IQ was, or how old they were; if they liked you, they stayed with you, and Tony wanted that.

There were several wild Pokémon around campus as well as the ones following various students and lecturers around; mostly they were bird-types, but the odd Rattata could be found in dark corners and sometimes Sentret wandered onto the grounds.  Tony had hoped that, maybe, one of them would take a shine to him, and he made a habit of sitting on a bench in an area where a lot of the Pokémon congregated, throwing crumbs to the birds so that they would hop close to him.  They took the food, but none ever seemed interested in the person feeding them.

Maybe Howard was right, and he’d have to buy his friends.  He should just give up and go buy a dog.

One more day.  He’d try for one more day.  The pet store would still be there in the morning.

***

Tony was – once again – sitting alone on one of the benches scattered around campus, eating the remains of last night’s pizza for lunch and throwing crumbs at the birds that gathered around him.  Two of his dorm-mates walked passed without looking at him, let alone offering to join him.  He sighed and threw the crust onto the ground, where two Pidgey started fighting over it.  One more day.  It had become a mantra by now.  One more day.  One more…

“You shouldn’t encourage them.”

Tony jerked and turned to see who had spoken; behind him stood a tall black student that he remembered seeing around campus.  Seeing that he wasn’t about to be punched (it hadn’t happened yet, but he thought it probably would at some point), Tony shrugged and turned back to the birds.

“Not doing any harm.”

The student was silent for a minute, then the bench to Tony’s left creaked and he was sitting there, holding out a hand.  “James Rhodes.”

Tony blinked and took the hand slowly, waiting for the punch line.  He was the youngest, smartest person at this university, and that meant apparently that nobody talked to him.  Well, no one except the grad students in the robotics lab, who were constantly asking for his advice, and that was a recent development.  It wasn’t until they’d seen Dummy that any of them took him the slightest bit seriously.  That, at least, had gone according to plan.

So, this?  Unprecedented.  Tony’s mind flicked back to his last conversation with Howard, and he flinched.  This Rhodes character wanted something.

“What do you want?” he asked, because he was sick of people in general and had no patience for any more games at his expense.  Rhodes blinked and let go of Tony’s hand.

“…To talk to you?”  he said, uncertainly.  Tony snorted and tore the corner off his pizza, throwing it and watching as a Taillow caught it in mid-air.

“So talk.”

There was a beat of silence, then Rhodes spoke again, judgement in his tone.  “You’re not very friendly.”

“Neither is anyone else,” Tony said, brutally honest as he watched the blue Pokémon dive and twist in the air, waiting for more food.  “Get used to it.”

Rhodes sighed and reached into a bag at his feet, pulling a sandwich out of it and peeling off the crusts.  He threw them to the Taillow, who caught them and took off into a nearby tree to eat them.  Tony sighed and threw the last of his food to the bickering Pidgey.

“I’m Tony.  Stark.”

Rhodes smiled at him.

So, I'm new to this...

Hello, stranger on the internet.  Welcome to my corner of insanity.

This will be mostly me whining about work (I have ridiculous hours), posting Avengers fanfiction (it will be cross-posted on AO3... probably.  Eventually) and talking about random life events.  Don't wanna see that?  Don't read it.

I hope anybody who stumbles across this enjoys it.  I certainly enjoy writing it.

Oh, and watch out for the plotbunny.  He bites.

Halloween Shopping

Work does dress-up nights every month, and this months is Halloween themed, so I bought my costume(s) today.  They were cheap, and consist mostly of wings and a very short rag skirt, but I can make the rest up from my wardrobe anyway.  So, win, I think :)

The thing that confused and scared me was the Christmas stuff.  The sheer amount of it that is out in the shops already is ridiculous.  IT IS OCTOBER.  There are over 9 weeks until Christmas.  Enough already, people.  It is one day, do not drag it out for months on end.

Checklist for character development.

Created by myself, compiled from questions gleaned from several sources, and some of my own additions.