(Barely) Controlled Chaos #12

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #12

Again with the delay... Work sucks.

Follows on from last part.

Warnings for this part: Randomness, if that counts, but nothing else particularly.

April 1996, Clifftop House, Malibu

Malibu was awesome.  There was no other word for it.

The sun was shining, there was a private beach literally on his doorstep, and Tony had the pleasure of witnessing Ditto turn itself into a clump of seaweed the first time it ventured into the ocean and got startled by a passing fish.  He had to grab the Pokémon before it floated off and got lost, but the chagrin on its pink blobby face when it transformed back was enough to have Tony almost doubled over laughing.  The Pokémon had maintained a respectful distance between itself and the sea ever since, and Tony had taken to threatening it with dried seaweed when it took its jokes a step too far, which led to the blob adopting a haughty pose that was frankly hilarious.  Herdier put up with this with little more than an eye-roll, letting the raucous duo have their fun.

Unlike Ditto, Herdier loved the sea, and Tony had taken to joining his dog for a swim every day for half an hour or so in the morning.  The water was freezing cold, but it woke him up, especially if he hadn’t been to sleep the night before and was in need of more stimulation than caffeine alone could provide.  That happened more often than either of his Pokémon was happy with, and when Ditto started giving Tony disapproving looks, he knew he was pushing it too far; the blob spent most of its time enabling his insomnia.

It was part of his deal with Obie.  Tony could have his free reign and live on the other side of the country, but he had to pull his weight with the company – specifically, with R&D, since that was the only department he’d shown any real enthusiasm towards in all of Obie’s prodding about Stark Industries.  Tony heard ‘go live in Malibu’ and fled before his mentor could change his mind.

He had spent three days moving his parents crap out of the house – there were a few sets of clothing and one framed picture of his mother and father on their wedding day, which he had put carefully out of the way in the bedroom he’d nominated his so that Ditto wouldn’t break it in one of his fits of exuberance.  He spent the rest of the month redecorating; he knocked down three walls, turning the upstairs into three huge rooms and opening the ground floor up to let all of that glorious California sun into every nook the window-wall could illuminate.  Which, by the time he was finished with it, was most of the floor.  He made sure not to get rid of anything structurally important – he was an engineer, and by no estimation an idiot – and then he turned his attention to the basement.  His father had made it into a garage, but as much as Tony loved cars, he had no plans to keep it that way.  Well, maybe some of it.  The far wall, perhaps, by the ramp that connected the basement to the outside world.  Yeah, that could be the garage.  The rest of the space Tony transformed into an engineer’s heaven.

There were computers – of his own design, a prototype that was not viable for mass production, but that served him quite well – several steel tables with every tool he could conceive of ever needing spread out over them, a large open area for tinkering with bigger projects, a forge; hell, he’d even included a small, secluded firing range for testing the designs he came up with, soundproofed in respect to Herdier’s dislike for guns.  He hadn’t used it yet – he was busy learning his new home and was yet to produce the new-and-improved prototypes Obie had asked him to throw together to show off to the R&D guys (there were still 6 days before the deadline he’d been presented with, he had plenty of time).  He had, however, christened the workshop by producing another ‘bot.

In this new home, with so much space and so few people filling it, Dummy was at a loss; the bot wasn’t used to so much quiet and had started to glitch, trying to make jobs where there were none.  Tony figured that some company would be good for him (Dummy was totally a him, no matter what faces Obie pulled when Tony said so), so had spent the last week building another robot arm.  He kept the design similar, tweaking the claw slightly to compensate for the ticklish joint that Tony didn’t have the heart to fix in Dummy, and altering the AI to incorporate the things he’d learned since his first foray into AI technology.  It was half-improvement on the old design, and half-prototype for making Dummy more stable – he needed to fix the loop the bot got into when faced with a dilemma he didn’t know how to solve, and making an upgrade was a good way to figure it out.

The arm was finished and the AI installed two days later.  Tony was exhausted; he’d been up three nights in a row getting it done, but the bot’s first whirr as it came to life and Dummy’s response – which Tony could only think of as a Happy Dance – was worth it.  Ditto also loved the bot, mostly because it became clear two minutes after uploading the code that Tony had miscalculated his adjustments to the claw.  The bot wasn’t ticklish, so it had worked in that respect, but no matter how he adjusted the wiring, he could not get the robot to grip anything properly.  Dummy didn’t care, and Herdier reacted with a flinch the first time a wrench hit the floor, but ignored it from then on.  Ditto, however, delighted in giving it things to hold, just to see how long it took before it dropped them.  Tony wondered briefly whether he could put the Pokémon off by draping the new bot with seaweed, then gave up and named it Butterfingers.

They were all a little dysfunctional; why should the newest addition to the family be any different?

『25 Lives』 by Tongari (ಌ)

This is beautiful

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #5

Follows on directly from part 4

Warnings for this part: none

November 1991, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Every day for the next week, Rhodes joined him on the bench and they threw their lunches to the birds.  The Taillow came back day after day, getting brave enough to sit on the bench and wait for them, even sitting on Tony’s shoulder and taking food from his hand.  Tony grinned at that, and Rhodes grinned back at him, and maybe he had a friend now.  They talked to each other like friends; Tony a little more reserved to begin with, because he still wasn’t sure that this wasn’t some kind of trick, but Rhodes joked and complained with him, and he didn’t seem to care that Tony was Tony Stark, son of a billionaire weapons developer.  By the end of the week, Tony had called him ‘Rhodey’, which had made the older boy pull a face and complain, so naturally that became his new name.  Rhodey called him ‘Tones’ in response, which Tony hated but also kind of loved at the same time, because even his father had never given him a nickname beyond ‘Tony’, and that wasn’t a nickname, that was because ‘Anthony’ took too long to say.

So, yeah, Tony had a friend.  Two, if he counted Taillow, which he was starting to. (One more day…)

The following week, Tony was sitting on their bench, hand-feeding Taillow crumbs of a cake that Jarvis had made and had delivered to him, when Rhodey came up to him with a penguin Pokémon in tow.  It was just tall enough to rest against Rhodey’s thigh, two ridges running along its head resting either side of his leg.  Tony smiled at them both and waved at the Pokémon, which regarded him coolly.  Rhodey rested a hand on its head.

“Tones, this is Pippi.  He’s a Prinplup; we grew up together.  Pippi, this is Tony.”

Pippi gave a low chirp and leaned closer to Rhodey.  The Taillow on Tony’s shoulder chirped back and hopped onto the bench to inspect the newcomer.  Rhodey managed to manoeuvre so that he could sit down, and grinned at Tony.

“He doesn’t usually come out the dorm; he doesn’t like people much, but the weather is starting to get colder and there’s a chance it might rain later, so he agreed to come meet you.”

Tony blinked.  Those two weather conditions were usually considered bad things by most people, but he supposed that from a penguin’s point of view, it was just what he’d want.  He shrugged and nodded.

“Hi, Pippi.”

Pippi ignored him; he was eye-to-eye with Taillow and Tony wasn’t sure what to make of the situation.  Rhodey didn’t seem too worried by it, so he relaxed and offered some of his sandwich to the penguin.  Taillow stole it, then hopped onto the other Pokémon’s head and ate it, chirping.  Rhodey laughed.

“Made a friend, Pip?”

Pippi flapped his wings and took the fish Rhodey offered him.  “Do you have any Pokémon?” he asked Tony casually, pulling his own lunch from his bag.  Tony felt his mood drop and shrugged, eyeing Taillow surreptitiously.

“My mother had a Persian, but it died a few years ago.”  That seemed a safe thing to say, and it didn’t invite a whole host of questions either.  Tony didn’t feel like explaining the aversion that all living things seemed to have to him, Rhodey excepted.

“I’m sorry,” Rhodey said, sounding it, and patted Pippi on the beak.  Taillow jumped onto Rhodey’s hand and flapped its wings.  He smiled at it and scratched the top of its head with the pad of his index finger.  “But hey, maybe something’ll come along.”

Tony nodded and changed the topic; he couldn’t tell you what they’d spent the rest of their time discussing, because he was too busy trying not to look at the way Taillow was flitting between Rhodey and Pippi, and when they stood up as Rhodey’s next class started, the way Taillow went with them, riding on the Prinplup’s head.  Tony smiled, because its wasn’t Rhodey’s fault that Pokémon didn’t like him, so he wished his friend a good day, then as soon as they were out of sight the blew off the rest of his classes, locked himself in the robotics lab and made unnecessary repairs to Dummy’s arm, stroking the bot and feeling sorry for himself.  The robot flexed its claw and tilted its camera to one side, then whirred and bent over Tony in what it probably intended as a hug.  Tony closed his eyes patted it.

“At lease I’ve got you, Dummy,” he whispered.  The bot whistled and hugged him tighter.

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #10

Follows on directly from last part; make sure you read that one first.

Warnings for this part: none

May 1992, Stark Industries Research and Development plant, New York

They ended up in the chief engineer’s office, where Obie tried to get Tony interested in the new weapons the man had designed.  Tony looked over the blueprints, which the engineer talked about proudly, then put Lillipup down on the man’s desk and pointed at the trigger mechanism on the first schematic.

“That won’t work.”

The man stuttered, his speech drawing to a halt, and Obie raised an eyebrow at Tony.

“What makes you think that?”

“It’s not connected properly.  Look.”

The engineer sneered at Tony, but obediently leaned over the blueprint.  “You have a bit to learn about actually putting things together, young Stark, because you’re wrong; see here, this is connected to…”  the man stopped mid-ramble and blinked.  Tony smirked.

“Yes?”

“Err, nothing; it’s a preliminary design; not important…”

Obie looked between the two, then settled his gaze on the engineer.  “Is he right?”

The man’s hesitation was answer enough.  Tony grinned at him, smug.  Obie’s gaze turned dark.

“Wait here, Tony; I need to have a word with our worker in private.”

The engineer paled, but followed Obie out of his office and shut the door.  Left alone, Tony shrugged and looked at the other blueprints, pulled a pencil from a mug on the desk and made annotations to improve the designs, feeling smug.  He ignored the raised voices from the corridor, but looked up from a rather rude comment on the third schematic when Lillipup let out a low bark.  The Pokémon had jumped from the desk onto the floor, and was peering underneath the furniture, hindquarters up in the air and back arched so his chin rested on the floor.  He yipped again, and Tony let the pencil fall onto the desk.

“What is it, buddy?”

Lillipup looked up, then pawed at the space under the desk and whined.  Tony knelt down and looked under the desk, wondering what the Pokémon had seen.  He often found spiders, but he didn’t draw them to Tony’s attention, so it couldn’t be that, but the gap was too narrow to be anything much bigger.

Tony squinted into the dim gap, spotting an obstruction under there, but not able to make out what it was.  He looked back at Lillipup.  “What is it?”

Lillipup barked again, and the thing under the desk moved.  Tony jumped and flinched back as Obie opened the office door.  The man frowned when he saw Tony on the floor.

“You alright, Tony?”

Tony nodded.  “Fine.  Lillipup saw something.”

“Something?”

Tony shrugged, then froze when the thing under the desk emerged.  It was pink and gooey, and it had eyes and a mouth, which made it either a Pokémon that had sneaked into the building or some kind of experiment that had gained sentience, and if it was the latter Tony was getting out of there right now.  Behind him, Obie sighed.

“Ditto.  They sneak in sometimes; it’s warm in here.  I’ll get rid of it.”

So, it was a Pokémon.  Tony immediately felt better about it being all but on his lap.  Obie stepped forward, and the Pokémon actually did slither onto Tony’s knees, making Lillipup growl quite threateningly at it.  Ditto froze for a moment, then went solid and changed shape and colour.  Tony kept very still, not sure what was going on, and then there was a Lillipup sat on his lap where the Ditto had been, and suddenly its name made sense.  The real Lillipup barked, tilting his head to one side.  Ditto copied him.  Tony found himself grinning at the display.

Obie leaned down to pick the Ditto up, muttering something about ‘finding a way to keep the things out of the damned building’, but Tony leaned forward and shielded the Pokémon from his reach.

“No, it’s ok.  I’ll take care of it.”

Ditto curled into Tony’s stomach, and stuck its tongue out at Obie.  Tony snickered, making Ditto lick his chin, and Lillipup growled again.  Tony scratched him behind the ear.

The chief engineer was standing outside his office, looking nervous.  Tony moved the Ditto so he was cradling it in his arms and stood up, gesturing at the blueprints with a nod.  “I corrected your drawings.”

The engineer looked like he wanted to cry, but settled for nodding and muttering a ‘thank you’ that Tony ignored.  Obie rolled his eyes and stepped aside so Tony could get out of the room, Lillipup following and glaring at everyone.  Obie growled another threat at the engineer and guided Tony and the Pokémon towards the exit of the building.  As soon as they got outside, Obie gestured at the Ditto still in Tony’s arms.

“Get rid of that thing.”

Ditto stuck its tongue out at him again, turning back into its original jelly-form and crawling up Tony’s chest to sit on his shoulder, resting against his neck.  Tony patted it gently, and it made a happy-sounding noise in his ear.  He smiled.

“I like it.”

Lillipup barked, and Tony chuckled and bent down, catching the puppy as it jumped into his arms.  “I like you too.”

Lillipup licked his nose, then sniffed at Ditto under his chin.  There was no angry squealing or barking, and a few seconds later the dog settled quite happily into his hold, so Tony guessed they were sorting out a hierarchy or something.  Obie’s eyes rolled heavenward.

“What am I going to do with you, Tony?” he asked, and Tony didn’t think he was just talking about the Ditto.  He tried not to be hurt by the comment, shrugging the shoulder that didn’t have a passenger and giving his standard flippant response.

“Let me go on my date?”

Obie paused for a second, then sighed and turned his back.

“The driver will take you back to the airport, but I want you in regular contact, you hear me Tony?  This is your company, whether you want it or not, and you have to be involved.”

Tony nodded, paying very little attention, and climbed into the limo that was still waiting for him.  Ditto and Lillipup both settled in his lap, looking quite content to be there, and Tony felt a smile stretch his face as he carefully poked the pink blob on his knee.  It twitched and then poked him back.  He laughed.

Ok, so maybe this was worth missing his date.

I find that, when writing bios, it’s really helpful to look at a list or a chart like the one above. Picking two or three traits from each chart and building a character based around them will give you a really interesting bio, because they will serve as a reminder that characters need depth and dimension.

Independent and clever.

VS.

Independent, clever, pretentious, and stubborn.

The first combination doesn’t come with any flaws, whereas the second will provide a more dynamic character.

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #7

Now we're getting somewhere... angst ahead.

Warnings for part 7:  Alcohol, drunkeness, character death

February 1991, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tony had been at MIT for four months before he was invited to one of the infamous college parties he’d heard so much about.  It was Rhodey who invited him, and it was Rhodey who held him up at the end of the night after he’d had too much to drink and couldn’t make his legs move the way he wanted them to.  Sure, he was underage, but so was everyone else, and he’d wanted to see just what his parents found in the bottom of the bottle.  It turned out that he enjoyed the buzz, and he’d drunk more than he thought, leading to his first (and still only, really) friend half-carrying him back to his dorm and propping him against the wall while he opened the door.  Lillipup was sat on the end of Tony’s bed, a disapproving glare levelled towards both boys, but Tony had merely patted him happily on top of the head (the nurse he’d finally taken the puppy to had confirmed that he was male as she gave Tony some antibiotics for the too-skinny Pokémon) and collapsed face-down into his pillow.  He woke the next morning to a disgruntled dog, and when bacon rashers weren’t enough to buy his way back into Lillipup’s good books, he asked the Pokémon if he wanted to go to the lab with him.  Technically, untrained Pokémon weren’t meant to be in the robotics lab (neither were untrained people), but as most of the grad students thought Tony could do no wrong, at least so far as engineering and computer programming went, he figured he’d get away with it.  Also, Lillipup was very cute; that could only help.

So, Tony and Lillipup both skipped Tony’s classes (again) and headed for the robotics lab, where the bright lights made his head hurt until one of the older students took pity on him and gave him a list of hangover cures and a glass of water.  Tony thanked her sincerely, grateful when his headache eased.

When police appeared in the lab three hours later, everyone assumed they were there about the party.  They asked to speak to Tony in private, which only cemented the belief.

They weren’t there about the party.

***

Three days later, Tony was stood in a cemetery, watching as dirt covered his parents’ coffins.  His long coat, intended as protection from the February chills, lay open against his chest, flapping in the light breeze.  Lillipup sat silent at his feet, resting his head against Tony’s ankle in support.  Everyone else had left half an hour ago, but Tony couldn’t move; he hadn’t cried at all over their deaths, hadn’t really felt anything except numb.  There was no love lost between him and his father, and his mother was less maternal than he would have liked, but they were his parents, surely he should feel something?  Something other than the blankness that he had been walking around in since the police had taken him to one side and told him that his parents had been killed in a drink-driving incident.  They omitted the fact that Howard had been the one driving drunk, but Tony had guessed that much anyway.

There wasn’t much to say after that.  Obadiah Stane – his father’s best friend and now Tony’s guardian – had cried as he gave a speech to the assembled gawkers (some, Tony was sure, where only there to see for themselves that Howard really was dead; his father had made a lot of enemies in the business world).  Jarvis had stood by Tony’s side through the whole thing, one hand on the young man’s shoulder, squeezing every now and then in a motion meant to reassure, though which of them the gesture was aimed at Tony wasn’t sure.  Tony himself hadn’t said anything; he’d barely blinked as the coffins were lowered into the ground and people began to leave, throwing sympathetic glances his direction.  Obie had offered to take Tony home, but Jarvis had said that he’d see to the young Stark’s health, and when Tony had shown no preference either way Obie had given in.

Tony spent two more days at the Stark mansion before returning to MIT.  He kept Jarvis in his employ, more because he couldn’t bear to let the man go than because he wanted to keep the house tidy – he couldn’t care less what state his parents’ home was in.  Jarvis was family, even if he was paid to stay that way.

The following year, Jarvis was diagnosed with cancer and died barely a month later.  Tony spent three hours sobbing into Lillipup’s fur.