Bcc - Tumblr Posts

Lunch at Britomart Country Club with mum then off to do some opshopping! 😊 #rekorderlig #bcc #lunch #waitingformypizza (at Britomart Country Club)

It’s the fact that they didn’t hurt Yuta, they just stopped him from saving Bryan. That’s how you know Moxley thought about this, because he would have never hurt Yuta.

He is a freak, because Mox implied that when Claudio walked to the gym from the airport, a 20 mile journey, it took him 20 minutes. This means Claudio Castagnoli can walk at a brisk *60 miles per hour.*

Important information.

On Wednesday, we wear the blood of our opponents. (Click for better quality)

I want Yuta to be angry, I want this to elevate him.

I want that fire lit inside of him, the two sides of not only how dare you do what you did to Bryan, but how dare you go behind my back and completely blindside me.

I need him to channel that grit, that frustration, that fight that encompasses the energy of what the bcc was meant to be.

Despite the probable belief that Yuta wouldn’t turn his back on Bryan the notion of leaving him out of a plan is another layer to all of this. The idea of “why was I not good enough, not trusted enough, to stand alongside the men who told me I will be great.”

I want him to be outraged, not only to seek vengeance for Bryan but I need him prove that he IS great. I want him to be as dangerous as the men who have taught him for all these years, I want him to show to this audience that Mox, Claudio and Bryan took a chance on him for good reason and he can bleed just as hard for what he loves as we know the rest of them can.

Everyone else in that ring was emotionless, like it was a necessity to get a job done. Yet Yuta was distraught beyond belief, Bryan was in total shock after a possibly foolish moment of bliss upon seeing the people he thought he could rely on, and well emotions can be the most powerful thing.

I need this air of, You seem so nonchalant, you act like you do not care, like this isn’t personal, like you had to do what you did. But the reality is you’ve cared so much for all this time and it is a disservice to yourselves to act like this isn’t world shattering.

I want him to have this frustration stemming from not wanting to be selfish. Wanting to do right by Bryan, being devastated at what unfolded and knowing that he escaped physically unharmed but having, at his core, this nagging feeling of being a kid who’s simply been left behind.

They know Yuta to be great, I want the world to see it too.

I see your 'The BCC were just behind the curtain to protect Bryan from getting jumped by Christian' and raise you 'Claudio knows Yuta grew up on home-burned DVDs of Bryan x Nigel matches and wouldn't miss watching it as closely as possible for the world after seeing Bryan to Gorilla, and was hoping to nab him for Trios match brainwashing or worse there'

imagine some creepy rat man slots himself into your family dynamic and then your dad tries to strangle your mom in front of you and two weeks later your new rat uncle sends you a message like “hey buddy where you been man. we miss you” yuta get the fuck outta there

AEW x Reductress Headlines

claudio wont hit yuta but he will put him in a hold and shove him around and pull him close to pac so he can hit him

he wont hit him but he can hurt him anyway

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #1

So, this is part one of the first installment in the I Choose You 'verse.  (Barely) Controlled Chaos will be from Tony's pov, contains lots of angst, some humour, many many swear words and descriptions of torture and sexual scenes - nothing too explicit, and nothing worse than shown in the films, but if you don't like that, this may not be for you.  The Iron Man 1 and 2 films will come into this, as will The Avengers, so if you don't like spoilers, check the warnings at the top of each section before reading.

Warnings for part 1: mentions of physical and mental abuse, mentions of alcoholism

Disclaimer: I own nothing.  Please don't sue me.

***

Tony was not allowed Pokémon.  His father was very clear on that fact.

His mother had one, an old Persian that she’d helped to raise when she was a teenager.  Tony didn’t know if her luminous silver fur was like that because she was close to 40 years old, or if she had been born that way, but it didn’t matter; she was still the most beautiful thing the six-year-old had ever seen.  He loved the cat because his mother loved it; sometimes he thought that she favoured the Pokémon over him, but that was alright, because sometimes Tony did too.  Tony did bad things, and his father shouted at him; Persian only ever got petted and given treats.  His mother was right to like the Good Girl more than the Bad Boy.

Persian was his mother’s constant companion; that was one thing that didn’t change as he grew older.  Tony became a prodigy, which made his father behave as if he loved him, at least in front of the cameras.  At home, Howard was too busy trying to beat his son’s genius that Tony was mostly treated with indifference and sometimes he was outright ignored.  By both his parents.  Tony wasn’t a cute little boy any more, and his mother seemed to lose interest in him more and more as he grew towards his teenage years.

He’d overheard his parents argue on more than one occasion, but never about him.  They didn’t care enough to argue about their son.  No, Persian was usually the topic of their arguments; Howard Stark was of the opinion that the house was no place for pets.  Maria always countered that with ‘Pokémon weren’t pets, they were friends’.  You couldn’t just pick a Pokémon up and take it home with you; it had to choose to be with you.  These arguments were ultimately circular and ended up with both his parents drunk while Tony tried to get close enough to Persian to pet her.  The cat didn’t like Tony very much, and he was yet to get in stroking range, but he held out hope.  Pokémon have to like you to stay with you; Tony’s parents didn’t like him, but Tony thought that maybe, if he was very nice to Persian, she might like him one day.

Then the Pokémon died, and Tony’s stable-ish family life went to hell.

Without her companion, Maria became depressed, and more than once Tony had returned home from school to find her unconscious in her own vomit.  He took care to never mention these incidents to his father, who drank just as much, but handled it better.  Or worse, depending on your point of view.  Locking himself in his garage or office and passing out on a desk was not Tony’s idea of a good time.  By the time Tony turned fifteen, the only member of his family he actually liked was Jarvis, the butler, and he was technically a servant.

All in all, when his school finally got sick of him and let him take his exams early, he was ecstatic for a chance to get out of the house.  MIT accepted him (who wouldn’t, with his grades?), he filled out all the paperwork himself – he put himself down for communal living arrangements, just because he knew Howard would hate it and he was feeling petty at the time – and then he was out of there.

He grew to regret his hasty decision.

Not about MIT – that was awesome, even if he did know more about his classes than most of the Professors – but about the dorm living.  His accommodation was a small room on a corridor, sharing a communal bathroom and kitchen.  At first, he thought it would be fun – sure, it was a step down from what he was used to, but he was paying for it with his trust fund and he knew that Howard wouldn’t shell out for these living arrangements, so he wanted to stretch his budget.  He was a few years younger than the other students, but that wouldn’t matter.

Except it did.

His dorm-mates were four other boys – men really, given their age – and they sneered at him when he tried to introduce himself.

“What do they think they’re doing, letting a kid in here?” was the nicest greeting he got.  Tony assumed they doubted his right to be there and promptly aced every test put before him, in one case getting a better mark than two of his dorm-mates put together.  They didn’t take it well.

As Tony was expecting, Howard threw a fit when he found out where his son was living (it took almost six weeks, and Tony thought that maybe his parents had only just noticed that he was no longer living in the mansion), but as Tony was paying himself there wasn’t much he could do about it.  He made vague comments about Tony learning his lesson and coming back for help before slamming the phone down.  Tony was almost vibrating with rage; when had his father ever given him anything, except a black eye that one time when he’d gotten very drunk and Tony had said something sarcastic?  Howard had apologised when he sobered up – the only ‘sorry’ he’d ever given anyone, Tony thought – and it had never happened again.  That didn’t mean that Tony forgave the old bastard.  Help, indeed.  Everything Tony had, he’d gotten on his own.  Sure, the money was Howard’s, but the brains and ambition were Tony’s, and he would not let his father belittle that.

That was when Tony decided that, no matter how bad his dorm-mates were, he was sticking it out.  He would not prove his father right.

Thinking back, that was probably where his stupid stubborn streak really kicked in.

(Barely) Controlled Chaos is now on AO3!

So, I've done it.  Started the upload on AO3.  They'll be full chapters, rather than the smaller chunks posted here, and less often, but it's begun!

Now I need to start writing again, make sure I stay ahead of the posting...

(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 #3

Continues directly on from the last part.

Warnings for this part: None

October 1991, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Alright, so, Tony knew what he was going to do.  What he was going to build.  And it was going to put him on the fucking map.

One of his Professors had been talking about coding – Tony couldn’t be more specific than that because he hadn’t been listening, he could write code in his sleep – when it had come to him.  He knew what to do to prove himself.  He was going to write code.  He was going to write code for a functioning AI.  Oh yeah, this was going to be big.

If he could manage it.  It had never been done before.  With that in mind, Tony made certain not to tell anybody what he was doing.  He didn’t want to face the heckling if he failed.  Also, he was a sneaky bastard when he wanted to be, and he really wanted to surprise them all with the finished product, not present them with a prototype that may or may not do what it was supposed to.

Tony started spending a lot of late nights in the robotics lab.  None of the grad students cared, so long as he didn’t touch their work, and nobody was interested in what he was doing.  That just made it easier.

He started by building the shell – he kept it simple; it was his first time making something that could think for itself, and he figured that the less it had to think about the better.  So, one arm, three joints in the support strut so it could bend, a camera so it could sense its surroundings, and a claw so it could pick things up.  He gave it wheels to move, made sure that all the joints were working correctly and nothing interfered with anything else, and fiddled with wires to attempt some kind of pressure sensor in the claw (he didn’t want the bot picking things up and smashing them by accident), but with the materials he had available, it would be iffy at best.  He would have to improve that later when he could get better tools.  For now though, it would do.  He would just have to keep the robot away from anything fragile.

The robot itself got him some interest from a couple of the grad students and one professor; it was simple, but kind of elegant, and they were curious about the reasons for the design, but Tony was close-lipped, and they lost interest again just as quickly.  Safe once again from potential heckling, Tony turned his attention to the difficult part; writing the code.  It was frustrating, and took longer than he had anticipated, and he hit more than a few snags as he thought of things that he should have programmed in and had to keep backtracking, but he was making progress.  Even if this didn’t work, he’d gotten further to creating a functioning AI than anybody else on the planet.

God, he hoped this worked.

He’d been working on his robot for a month when he finally finished.  He rubbed his eyes, glancing at the clock on the wall (six minutes passed three in the morning), and re-read the final lines of code he’d entered.  It all looked right.  He’d done it; it was finished.  He blinked hard.

He’d done it.

All traces of lethargy left his system, shoved aside by the rush of adrenaline that accompanied the realisation.  He scrambled to his feet and read the code again, checking for any errors his sleepy mind might have missed.  Seeing none, he fumbled his way over to where the robot was lying dormant under a cloth, and fed a cable from the computer holding the precious data to a port in the bot.  Trembling fingers pressed several keys, then hit enter, and a bar appeared on the screen.  It was uploading.  Tony watched the bar inch across the screen, tapping his fingernails repeatedly against the bot’s arm.  It was a nervous tic that he had never been able to shake, not that he’d tried very hard.  It annoyed Howard, so sometimes he did it on purpose.

16% complete.

34% complete.

62% complete.

Tony stopped watching the bar and paced the lab, watching the bot from the corner of his eye.  He did one lap and returned, physically unable to tear himself away.  If this worked, he would have proved himself.  He would actually get some respect, instead of the derision that had followed him around thus far.

Maybe he’d even have a friend.

Tony checked the progress bar.  84% complete.  He sat back on his stool and rested his head on his arms, counting in his head.  85… 86… 87… 88…

----------------------------------

Tony yawned as he woke up, stretching his arms out in front of him and arching his back, making the blanket fall to the floor.  He hated falling asleep in the lab; it always made him ache all over.  He rubbed his eyes and slouched upright, wincing at the pull in his lower back.  The computer sat before him, screen black.  Tony blinked, then straightened as he remembered why he was in the lab in the first place.  He jabbed at the keyboard, waking up the monitor, and the progress bar blinked back at him.

100% complete.

Almost vibrating with anticipation, Tony turned slowly, looking at the spot where he’d left the robot.  It was still there, in the same position as the previous night.

The exact same position.

It hadn’t worked.

Tony sighed and his shoulders slumped as he let himself fall back onto the desk.  Of course it hadn’t worked, because Tony was a failu…

Tony froze.  There was a blanket pooled around the bottom of his stool.  There hadn’t been a blanket over him when he fell asleep.  Slowly, he looked back up at the bot, which hadn’t moved.  He swallowed and reached over to unplug it from the computer.  He poked it gingerly.

“Hello?”

There was a second of inactivity, then the bot whirred and lifted its arm, the camera on top focussing in on Tony’s face.  It made another sound, higher-pitched and excited sounding, and reached forward, claw grasping Tony’s shirt and pulling his from his stool.  Tony followed, laughing hysterically.

“It worked,” he whispered, tracing the arm along to the first joint.  The bot stopped leading him around the lab (the same path he’d paced the night before; how much was the bot aware of?) and twitched, making a squealing noise.  Tony blinked and prodded the joint again.  Again, the noise and twitch, followed by a slight jerk from the claw.  Tony felt a grin take over his face.

“Is that… are you ticklish?”

The bot whirred and let go of Tony’s shirt, pulling the sensitive joint away from his questing fingers.  Tony laughed again.

“Oh my god, it worked!”

The bot clicked and circled Tony, banging off a desk and chirruping at it angrily before facing its creator again.  Tony laughed harder.

“You’re kind of a dummy, but you’re alive, aren’t you?  You can understand me?”

The robot whirred again, shrugging the arm up and down and clicking its claw together.  Tony patted the bot carefully.  It preened under the attention until Tony began tickling it again, then it reversed into the same table it had just told off.  Tony doubled up laughing.

“Ok, so, you’re Dummy.  That is now your name.”

Dummy tilted its camera to one side, then seemed to accept that and nudged Tony with its claw.  Tony patted it again, staying away from the sensitive joint so it would stay where it was.  He grinned and gave in to the urge to hug the metal arm, a feeling of utter happiness washing over him when the bot actually squirmed closer into the contact.

“Dummy,” he muttered, and the bot chirped.  It was the best noise Tony had ever heard.

(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.

(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 #6

Follows on directly from part 5

Warnings for this part: none

November 1991, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

He was on his way back to his dorm when he heard it.  It was dark, cold and raining, and Tony was clad in a pair of jeans that were more hole than denim and a too-thin t-shirt that bore the evidence of his late night working in the robotics lab.  He was frankly surprised that he could hear anything over the sound of his own teeth chattering, but he was sure he had.  He paused his stride and listened carefully.  Yes, there it was again; a high-pitched, almost inaudible yip.

Tony turned in the direction he thought the sound was coming from; there was an alley to his right that seemed to be the source.  It wasn’t wide enough to be a walkthrough for the general populous – it was a three-foot-wide gap between two university buildings rather than an actual pathway – but Tony had used it before to get from one class to another when he was running late and could actually be bothered to go.  He squinted down it, but it was too dark to see if there was anybody there or not.

“Hello?” he called, just in case.  The only reply was another, slightly louder yip.  Tony narrowed his eyes, debating the wisdom of checking it out.  Well, it wasn’t like he could get any wetter, and this was a very elaborate set-up for one of his dorm-mates’ let’s-mess-with-the-kid pranks; usually they just tripped him up and stole his stuff.  Decided, he shuffled closer to the alley and peered down it, calling out again.

The yip this time came from below him.  He looked down, and saw a huge pair of brown eyes looking up at him from a sodden, skinny Pokémon.  Tony knelt slowly so as not to startle the creature and gently reached toward it.

“Hey there, are you ok?” he asked soothingly, ignoring the shirt sticking to his back.  The animal shivered violently and sneezed, crawling closer until its nose touched Tony’s knee.  He rested his hand on its back, hoping it wasn’t about to turn around and bite him.  It shivered under his palm, cold and soaked to the skin, but didn’t move otherwise.  Tony could feel its ribs bumping against his fingertips.  He sighed and pulled his shirt off, shivering as the night air made intimate acquaintance with his bare skin, and carefully tucked it around the Pokémon, picking it up and tucking the material under its paws.

“It’s alright, let’s get you dry, shall we?” he said to it, pulling it into his body and hoping that any warmth left in him might transfer to the creature.  He finished his jog back to his dorm, doing his best not to jostle the Pokémon, and for once didn’t run into any of his jackass dorm-mates.  He put the Pokémon down on his bed, ignoring the damp patch that spread over his sheets, and found a dry towel in the bottom of his closet.  Gently, he unwrapped the animal and dried it off, telling it what he was doing so it didn’t startle.  After it was no longer dripping, Tony ran the towel over his own hair and chest before throwing it onto the floor.  The Pokémon sneezed again and climbed onto his lap, huddling against his stomach in a little ball.  He petted it carefully, making soothing sounds until it stopped shivering.

It blinked up at him with huge brown eyes, and Tony realised what it was.  “Lillipup,” he said aloud, and the little dog yipped at him and wagged its skinny tail a few times.  Tony smiled down at it.

“You’ll be alright now; it’s safe here.  I’ll go find some food and you can sleep here, if you want?”

It yipped again and rolled off his knees, so Tony got up and traipsed into the communal kitchen.  He didn’t keep food in there, but the others did, and unless he wanted to try to feed day-old pizza to the ill puppy, he needed to raid the fridge.  He pulled it open and found a plate with the remains of somebody’s chicken dinner on it.  He grinned and stole a handful of the meat before slipping back to his room.

The Lillipup ate from his hand happily, and all the chicken was gone in seconds.  The dog still looked starved, but at least it was dry and warm now.  Tony spared a minute to change out of his sodden jeans into something more comfortable to sleep in, then pulled off the wet top bed sheet and slid under the remaining layers.  He patted the pillow beside his head gently, and the Pokémon wobbled its way up, curling up beside him.  He arranged the sheets so that the creature was at least partly covered, hoping that he’d done enough for it.  He wasn’t sure what else he could do; it needed food and sleep, but he wasn’t a physician and couldn’t tell more than that.

Not that it really mattered, because the dog would be gone in the morning.  Pokémon never stayed with Tony for too long, so there was no point getting too attached to this little one now.  He leaned over and cracked the window open just enough so the Lillipup could crawl through when it woke, then curled up and closed his eyes.

When he woke, Lillipup was curled up against his chest, awake and looking at Tony.  It yipped when it saw his eyes were open and stood up, licking him on the nose.  Tony blinked at it.  “You’re still here…”

The dog rolled its eyes at him and yipped again, wobbling down the bed so that he could sit up.  He did so, staring.  It wagged its tail and licked his hand, eyes never leaving Tony’s face.  Slowly, a smile spread across his face.

“You’re still here.”  It was a statement this time.  The dog wagged its tail faster.  With a grin, Tony got out of bed and dressed, then stole some more chicken for Lillipup.  At the first chance he got, he’d take it to a nurse, but until then he let himself pat it and reassure himself that it was really there.

It had chosen to stay with him.  Today was officially the best goddamned day of his life.

(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.

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #8

Back again :)

Warnings for part 8: Tony being a stubborn ass.  So, Tony, really.  Does that count as a warning?

March 1991, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

After becoming the most famous orphan currently living in America, Tony threw himself into life at MIT.  He still skipped most of his classes, but he aced every test put in front of him, so the lecturers found it difficult to reprimand him.  Instead of class, he spent most of his time in the robotics lab, fiddling with Dummy’s claw until the bot could pick up an egg without cracking it.  Lillipup never left his side, and more often than not Rhodey could also be found in the lab, trying to talk Tony into leaving to eat or sleep.  Tony rarely listened, relying on coffee to keep him alert enough to function.  It took just over a week for Rhodey to have had enough.

Tony jumped and looked up as Rhodey brought his hand down hard on the table, startling him out of his work-trance.

“That’s enough, Tony!” he said, almost screaming.  Tony blinked and put down his tools slowly.  Rhodey only called him ‘Tony’ when he’d finally managed to exasperate him to the point where normal people stormed off.  Rhodey just yelled and pulled Tony after him.  “It’s almost two in the morning, and I want to sleep.  I also want you to sleep, because I’m pretty sure you haven’t left this room for three days, and this is not healthy!  You’re going to make yourself ill, Tones.”

Tony sighed.  “You can go sleep if you want to, Rhodey.  I’m not tired.”

“Bullshit,” Rhodey growled, grabbing the coffee cup out of Tony’s hand.  “When was the last time you had anything to eat?  Coffee doesn’t count.  You’re going to pass out, Tony, and I’m going to have to drag your ass back to bed.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Tony protested, trying to reach his coffee.  He was fine, and he was almost done.  He could sleep after he’d finished this.  Rhodey stalked across the room and poured the coffee down the sink in the corner.  “Hey!”

“I do have to, Tony,” he said, voice low and quiet.  “Because you are my friend, and when friends do stupid shit, you help them out.  You may be a genius, Tones, but you need me right now, and I am not going to stand here and watch you hurt yourself.”

Tony had no idea how to react to that.  The only person who’d ever reacted like that, even a little, was Jarvis, and the old butler was more inclined towards a gentle reprimand aimed at making Tony feel guilty than this.  Rhodey sighed and walked forwards, wrapping his fingers gently around Tony’s arm.

“Come on.  I’m taking you back to your room.”

Lillipup yipped his approval of this idea, and nudged Tony’s ankles to get him to move.  He wasn’t going to win this; Tony let himself be pulled from the room, Lillipup following at his heels.  Rhodey didn’t let go of his arm until Tony was back in his room in his dorm.  He shut the door behind him and bent to pick Lillipup up and put him on the bed.

“Sleep, Tony.”

Tony rolled his eyes and muttered “yes, mom,” but Rhodey was right, damn him - he was tired.  He didn’t bother getting changed out of his clothes – they were rumpled enough at this point that sleeping in them would have no effect whatsoever, and his sheets were grease-stained anyway – and collapsed backwards onto the bed.  Lillipup climbed onto his chest and curled up in a ball; as the dog usually slept on the pillow by his head, Tony took this as a ‘stay there’.  He glared at Rhodey.

“Now you’re ganging up on me.”

“You’re welcome,” Rhodey intoned, sitting next to him.  “Close your eyes.”

Tony rolled his eyes again, but did as he was bid.  Lillipup shifted on his chest, so he lifted one arm to curl around the puppy, and Lillipup licked his wrist.  He made a vague humming noise – he liked when the puppy did that – and ran his fingers through the fur of his neck, tangling them behind his ears and scratching lightly, getting a sleepy yip.  Rhodey chuckled and Tony felt the bed move as he stood up.

“Goodnight, Tony.”

Tony hummed a reply, and the door clicked shut.  He rolled his head to one side, felt Lillipup lick him again, and conceded that, ok; maybe it was nice having somebody looking out for him.

He fell asleep feeling happier than he had for a long time.