25 Lives By Tongari ()

『25 Lives』 by Tongari (ಌ)

This is beautiful

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #11

Sorry for the delay, work happened.  Do I want to work 10 extra hours this week? No.  Do I need the money?  Yes.  *sigh*

Anyway, fic.

Warnings for this part: none

March 1996, Stark Mansion, New York

Tony looked at the certificate in his hands.  PhD.  Only 19 years old, and had a PhD.  He was Dr Tony Stark.

Too bad that he was the only one who cared.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.  Rhodey, who had graduated two years before with a masters degree, had come to his graduation ceremony, and been appropriately worshipful of his achievement (he’d made a lot of jokes about the odd cap Tony was required to wear, and had called him ‘Oh Wise One’ the whole day), and his Pokémon were both very proud of him, he knew that, but it would have been nice if maybe Obie could have been there.  He was the closest thing Tony had to a family, after all, but the man was busy with the company.

The company had become Obie’s life the last few years, and he’d tried to make it Tony’s too.  Tony knew more about Stark Industries now than he really wanted to; he knew enough to be sure that he didn’t particularly want to run it in two years’ time.  Unfortunately, he didn’t have much choice.  On his twenty-first birthday, Tony inherited Stark Industries, and all the problems and paperwork it containted.  He’d met the board of directors twice now, and he thought they were all pricks.  He didn’t want to have monthly meetings with them.  He didn’t want to talk to them at all.

Tony sighed and shook his head, returning his gaze to the framed certificate in his hands.  What was he supposed to do with it now?  He had certificates from his other degrees – he hadn’t jumped directly into the PhD, MIT wouldn’t let him, so he’d picked up three BSc’s and two Master’s degrees earlier, two of them almost by accident – and they were in frames on a dresser in the dining room of his parent’s Manhattan mansion.  Jarvis had cleared the surface specially for them before he died, and Tony had set them up mostly because he knew that the butler would have been proud of him, would have fussed over the papers and kept the frames dust-free, and not just because he was paid to do it.  Tony’s parents probably wouldn’t have cared.  He set the PhD certificate down in its place in line, straightening it so it was at the same angle as the others.  Jarvis would be proud.

But Jarvis wasn’t here.

Tony had finished MIT now, and he was living back in the mansion for the first time since he was fifteen years old.  He hated it.  This wasn’t his home; this was a place where he once lived, and it was haunted by memories of his father, making Tony feel like he was seven years old once more and trying to explain how he’d managed to set the silk curtains in the living room on fire.

He couldn’t live here.  It would drive him insane.

Ditto crawled down from Tony’s shoulder and sat on the dresser admiring the certificates.  Herdier (Lillipup had evolved about a year ago, scaring Tony when he woke up one morning to find his puppy had doubled in size and was now considerably heavier) sat by his feet, leaning against his leg and eyeing Ditto carefully.  The dog had become Tony’s unofficial watcher over the years, and Ditto’s too, because the pink blob had a curious streak a mile wide and little to no sense of self-preservation.  It was also one heck of a prankster which, while entertaining and yeah, Tony encouraged it, did have a tendency to get them both into trouble.  Herdier was probably the only reason Tony hadn’t been arrested yet.

This wasn’t their home any more than it was his.

Tony closed his eyes and turned his back on the dresser.  The certificates could stay there; he didn’t know what else to do with them, and he wasn’t about to hang them on the wall so he could see them every day and be reminded how little people cared about his achievements.  His degrees didn’t matter to anybody except him, because he was Tony fucking Stark, and he was going to be CEO of Stark Industries no matter what he did.  What Tony wanted didn’t matter.

Well, Tony wanted out of this house, and at the very least, he was going to make that happen.  This was not the only property he owned; there was an entire island somewhere in the South Pacific he thought, though he’d never been there, and he knew Howard had brought houses in England and France.  Tony had spent a fair amount of time in the European houses when he was younger, and he recalled being happy in them, the English one especially, though that was because he’d met Jarvis’s family the one time and the butler’s niece had called him adorable and shown him how to play card games.  They weren’t viable options for escape now though, because Obie was expecting him to have an even greater hand in the business now that he was done with college, and Europe was one hell of a commute.  There was a place in Malibu though, right on the beachfront; it had been bought as a holiday home for when France was too far away, and though Tony had been there a couple of times, he didn’t have any strong memories of his family there.  It was a clean place; he could set up shop there quite happily, and New York was only a (relatively) short journey if he needed to get to the main SI buildings for any reason.  That could work.

With a small smile, Tony turned back around and looked down at his Pokémon.

“How do you fancy moving to California?”

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 # 13

A timely update!  The last one, probably, because I'm away this weekend, but I'll post again on Thursday possibly, then it's gonna be either Sunday or Monday.

Warnings for this part: other than swearing, none in particular

August 1997, Stark Industries Main Office, New York

“Mr Stark?”

Tony looked up at the voice.  He was half-heartedly glancing through the third fucking ream of paperwork his good-for-nothing secretary had dumped on his desk ten minutes before, just prior to screaming that nothing was worth putting up with his bullshit and quitting.  The woman knew how to make an exit, he’d give her that.  Pity she didn’t know anything about filing; the first two piles he’d looked at had been nothing to do with him; they were for Marketing and Accounts respectively.    Tony had no idea who’d hired her – he certainly hadn’t, and he was quite glad that she’d gone – but they’d done a shit job.  Hell, he hated paperwork with a passion that had once led Ditto to turn itself into a paper shredder, and he had managed to do a better job in the last few minutes; the woman was not getting any kind of recommendation from him.

Not that Tony thought she’d take one if he offered.  She had made her opinion of him quite clear before she stormed out of his office.  Well, him and Ditto.  Mostly Ditto.  The blob freaked her out, usually on purpose.  That was her problem so far as Tony was concerned, and one of the big reasons he was glad to see the back of her.

As he’d threatened when he was seventeen, the first thing he’d changed when he inherited Stark Industries three months ago was the ‘no Pokémon allowed’ rule.  Obie had not been happy, and neither had his neurotic secretary (whose name he had never bothered to learn – she had shrieked the first time she saw Ditto, so he had dubbed her ‘Screamer’ and ignored all her attempts to correct the nickname), but everyone else had loved the change, and the upswing in productivity – after a week or so of the novelty wearing off – had silenced any objections on Obie’s part.

So yes, Screamer was gone, and she had left him with a headache from staying up four nights in a row working on crap that he had very little interest in and the shrill pitch of her voice as she yelled at him, and a pile of paperwork that was taller than he was.  Even Herdier had been pissed at her, and that took some doing.  The dog put up with Tony and Ditto every day; annoying him to the point where he showed it visibly was a feat and a half.

So Tony was understandably thankful for the interruption/rescue from the ridiculous amount of paper on his desk.  He leaned sideways to see around the largest pile, and couldn’t help the smirk that crossed his lips as he saw the owner of the voice.  It was a woman of about his own age, certainly no older than his own twenty-one years, and she was very pretty.  Her hair was fire-red, swinging down her back to her waist, and framing her slim shape nicely.  She was an inch or so taller than him, if he had to guess from his seated position, mostly because her legs were about six miles long and revealed quite nicely from the knee down by a modest skirt that was far too long for his liking.  Also, there was a small grey Pokémon peering from behind her knees, which instantly gained her points.

Tony smiled at her, pushing his exhaustion back as he did so.  He needed to sleep soon, but he could fake his way through whatever she wanted before collapsing and dealing with this shit when he woke up.

“I am.  Who are you?”

“Virginia Potts, sir.  From Accounting.”

Tony made a mental note to look her up on the company files later – when he wasn’t close to passing out from lack of sleep, he was going to hit on her until she swooned.

She stepped fully inside the office and eyed the desk with distaste, the Pokémon at her side doing the same thing.  It had a white tail that was wrapped about its neck like a fur scarf – it was a very well-groomed, elegant looking thing, like the woman it was with.  Tony had no idea what it was, but he was going to find out; it was rare these days for him to see a Pokémon that he didn’t know the species of.  Walking forwards, she gingerly placed her own – small, thank god – pile of papers on the tiny clear space remaining on his desk.

“I wanted to talk to you about a problem I found with some of your numbers.”

That woke Tony up.  His appreciative leer turned into a scowl as he totally abandoned the prior paperwork (not that he’d been paying it much attention in the first place) to study the file in front of him.

“Impossible.  I don’t make mistakes with math.”

“Third page, fifteenth line from the top,” she reeled off.  Tony frowned at the pages as he flipped through and found the so-called ‘error’.  He read the line, blinked, then read it again.  And then a third time.  He sighed loudly.

“Fuck.”

“Told you,” Potts said, not sounding as smug as he would have thought – not many people corrected Tony Stark, it was usually the other way around – and he looked up to find her elbow-deep in the papers on his desk, her Pokémon sitting by her side passing her piles and taking ones she filtered out from the much larger selection to her left.  He cleared his throat, wondering what she was doing.

“I’m pretty sure at least some of those are private.”

Not that he cared, but the statement made her blush, and yep, he was right, she looked good like that.

“Sorry sir,” she said, sounding embarrassed.  “I shouldn’t have touched it.”

“I don’t actually care,” he said, waving one hand carelessly and taking a pen from Herdier with the other to correct his error.  “Screamer dumped it all on here and left; I don’t know what most of it is.”

Potts smiled, a tiny quirk of lips on one side.  “Most of it isn’t for you.”

(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?

Odd Things To Happen At Work #6

So, working last night, and I got proposed to.  By a random stranger.  Again.

Just.  Why.