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I Choose You - Information

So, information about the ICY 'verse.  It is (currently) 6 parts long, not all written yet, but fully plotted and waiting for me to have enough time to do so.  In order, they will be:

1. (Barely) Controlled Chaos 2. Under Cover Of Darkness 3. The Face The World Sees 4. Good Guys Don't Always Wear White 5. My Brother In All But Blood 6. War, Not Just A Battle

I have no idea how long it will take me to write and post them all, but I'm in this for the long haul, so sit back and enjoy :)

You do not need to know anything about Pokemon to read this 'verse.  I am ignoring all the things except for the Pokemon themselves, and the first time each one is mentioned, I will add a link to the relevant Bulbapedia page for anybody who's interested.  Otherwise, just assume they are sentient creatures, and anything else you need to know that is relevant to the fic is explained therein.  I wil  answer any and all questions happily.

Pokeballs, Gyms, Trainers - all are ignored in this fic.  Well, mostly.  I plan on taking the mickey out of certain aspects, but it is done with respect - I love the Pokemon games.  I just find certain parts of them strange.

As far as the Avengers is concerned, there WILL be spoilers for the MCU films up to and including The Avengers (2012).  That is not to say that everything that happens in these fics is true to MCU canon.  This is very AU, and most of the background I give is made up by me, but certain scenes are taken directly from films; I will give warnings when this happens.  Otherwise, my head is a strange place to be.

Posting will start soon.  I hope you enjoy it.

(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.

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #9

Follows on from last part.

Warnings for this part: none

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

Tony stepped out of the limo Obie had sent to meet him at the airport (why a limo?  He wasn’t going anywhere fancy) and stretched, feeling the ache in his lower back ease as he uncurled from the seated position.  He’d spent the previous three nights in the lab, much to Rhodey’s disgust, and the two before that he’d spent partying with the robotics grad students.  Merry (Meredith McCall, but she had threatened to kick anybody who called her by her full name in a very painful place) had been dropping hints in Tony’s direction for some time, starting with the hangover cures she’d provided once, and had taken advantage of his inebriation that week to plant one on him.  Tony genuinely liked Merry, which was why he’d been putting off asking her out, but after her enthusiastic display he’d relented.  He didn’t think she only wanted to go out because of his name, but if it turned out she was like the other girls and only wanted him for one night so she could brag to her friends that ‘I-went-out-with-a-millionaire’, then he would have to deal.  The robotics lab would be awkward for a while, but eventually one of them would graduate.  It wasn’t like they were living together.

Tony shook his head; he had to stop borrowing trouble.  Merry wasn’t going to drop him after one night.  She hadn’t told him to get lost when he’d had to cancel their cinema trip and get on a plane to New York, after all.

Tony dropped his arms to his sides and looked at the R&D building he’d been brought to.  Obie was currently in charge of Stark Industries, because Tony was underage, but he’d decided that the young Stark needed to know what was going on, and it had to be that weekend because Tony’s life was screwed up and fate conspired to make sure that he couldn’t get a date with the girl he actually liked.  And Obie wasn’t free any other time, but whatever; it was mostly the other thing.

Obie walked out of the building and smiled at Tony, clapping the teenager on the shoulder in a fatherly manner.  Tony let himself sway to the side with the touch, hoping it would dissuade the man from doing it again.  Tony’s own father hadn’t been fatherly towards him; he didn’t need it from the man currently running his company.

“Tony!” Obie said, sounding genuinely happy to see him.  “You made it!  I half suspected you wouldn’t show up.”

“I’m here,” Tony sighed, not happy about it.  “You sent a driver to my dorm; I didn’t have much choice.”

At least it had proven to Merry that he wasn’t blowing her off.  They’d have to find another time to catch that movie.

Obie tutted and threw his arm around Tony’s shoulders, tugging him towards the building.  Lillipup, who had been sitting beside Tony’s feet (he had flat-out refused to leave without his Pokémon, and the private plane he’d travelled on hadn’t had a problem with the unexpected passenger.  Sometimes, Tony was very glad he was rich), trotted alongside, close enough that Tony had to watch his feet so as not to step on the dog’s paws.

“You could sound happier about it, Tony.  This is all going to be yours when you turn 21; you have to know what’s going on.  You’ll be running it in a few years.”

“Then I’ll deal with it then.  I had to cancel a date for this.”

Obie shot Tony a look that he couldn’t quite read, then his face smoothed out into a smile.  “Plenty of time for that later, eh?  Lots of women out there; you’re a fine-looking boy, Tony; you’ll have no trouble getting good arm candy.  But business, now, that’s what’s important.  Come on; Howard never showed you around the R&D department, and it’s the lifeblood of the whole system, Tony!  This is where everything comes to life!”

Tony shot a look at Lillipup, who nudged his ankle with his shoulder in a supportive gesture.  Tony sighed and let Obie tug him into the building, holding the door open long enough for Lillipup to enter too.  Obie shot him a disapproving look.

“Now, Tony, there’s a rule about Pokémon in the SI buildings; you know that, your father implemented it.”

“And I’m ignoring it,” Tony said bluntly, shrugging free of Obie’s arm and scooping his dog up into his arms.  Lillipup licked his wrist and glared at Obie.  “Lillipup stays with me.”

Lillipup woofed in agreement.  Obie looked like he might argue for a moment, then sighed and shook his head.

“You’re stubborn, Tony, just like your old man.  Fine, but don’t let it near the weapons; they’re delicate, and we don’t want to damage them, do we?”

Tony was tempted to place Lillipup down in the middle of the department and tell him to run riot, but he held the impulse in check.  Obie was not Howard, and had done nothing to deserve that level of blatant disrespect.  He still wasn’t leaving Lillipup behind.  Obie wouldn’t change the no-Pokémon-in-the-building rule, because the man’s views on Pokémon closely mimicked Howard’s, but as soon as Tony was in charge, he was scrapping it.

He didn’t pay too much attention as Obie showed them around, more interested in the weapons themselves than the area of the building they were currently standing in.  It took maybe half an hour for them to reach the testing area, which didn’t really need an introduction as the firing of weapons was pretty loud and obvious, even from outside the sealed room.  Lillipup winced at the gunshots and buried his nose in Tony’s elbow; Tony scratched at his ears to calm him down.

“Let’s skip this one; I know how to fire a gun.”

Obie looked between Tony and the Pokémon he was comforting, and grimaced, but led them further down the corridor without comment.  Tony sent him a smile in thanks.

(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.

(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?”

(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?

(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 # 14

Follows on directly from the last part - read that first

Warnings: none

August 1997, Stark Industries Main Office, New York

He put down the pen, the equation now correct (he needed to stop trying to do accounts when sleep-deprived), and gave her his undivided attention.  “It isn’t?”

She shook her head.  “No.  Those ones need your signature,” she pointed to the small pile her Pokémon was holding, “but these are for Research and those ones are for Marketing.  This one should be on my boss’s desk; I’ll take it down with me now.  If that’s alright?”

Tony blinked at her.  He made very bad decisions when he was craving sleep, he knew this, but the solution to all his problems was staring him in the face and he was not going to turn it down.  “No.”

She frowned at him, startled.  “No?”

“No.  Because they’re no longer your boss.”

Potts blinked at him slowly.  “…Are you firing me?  Because you said you didn’t care about the paperwork…”

“I don’t.”

“…and I’m certain that you can’t fire people for pointing out your mistakes, that’s what I’m there for…”

“I’m not firing you.”

“…and if you’re going to, then my job is just… you’re not?”

Tony was smiling broadly by now.  Her rant had been somewhere between angry and incredulous, with just enough disrespect thrown in there for Tony to decide that he liked this woman.  He didn’t like many people – Rhodey and Obie were about the only humans on that list, and wasn’t that just sad – but he liked Virginia Potts.  And she was going to need an awesome nickname, because ‘Virginia’?  Really?  No.

“What does your family call you?”

She blinked, wrong-footed again by the sudden turn in conversation.  Beside him, Herdier growled lowly in warning.  Tony petted him between the ears, trying to reassure the dog that he wasn’t about to do anything remarkably offensive.  Herdier didn’t look like he believed him, but he did stop growling, so that was good.

“Excuse me?” she asked, recovering from the derailment of her thought-train.  Tony liked that she got over it quicker than most people managed; Tony ran on about six different tracks simultaneously, and she’d need to be quick to keep up.

“What does your family call you?  Surely they don’t all use ‘Virginia’ all the time.”

She frowned at him.  He took her silence as permission to guess.

“Ginny?  Gin?  Gin-Gin?  I like the last one.”

“I have never been called Gin-Gin in my life, and I would like to never hear it again.”

Tony grinned widely at her half-offended tone.  Oh yeah, she would do.

“Fair enough.  What do they call you then?”

There was another hesitation, then she finally answered him.  “Pepper.”

Pepper.  Tony laughed.  It was so appropriate, he was almost mad at himself for not thinking of it.  “Brilliant.  Pepper, I like it.  I like you.  So no, Pep, I am not firing you.”

He could see the ‘warning, mad person, back away slowly’ light flashing behind her eyes, but to her eternal credit she did nothing more than straighten her posture and tilt her head to one side.

“Then what are you doing?”

“Promoting you.  I need a new secretary, and you are just about perfect and officially a gift from god if you say yes.  The wage is outrageous; it’ll keep you in Jimmy Choos for the rest of your life. You have to put up with me 24/7, but that’s why I pay you the big bucks.  Interested?”

Herdier slowly banged his head against Tony’s knee in the nearest gesture he could get to a facepalm.  Pepper’s Pokémon looked equally sceptical, but Pepper herself was smiling at him, and not in the ‘humour-the-crazy-man’ way either.  He had actually managed to amuse her.  He was calling that a win.

“Mr Stark?”

“Yes Pepper?”

“Do you always talk so much?”

He laughed.  “I never shut up.  Ask Herdier.”  The dog barked an agreement.  Tony nodded sagely.  “See.”

She shook her head, smirking.  “In that case, I’ll be needing a set of noise-cancelling earplugs.  And I want a nice office.”

“You can have mine,” he offered, grinning widely.  “But no earplugs.  You get paid to put up with the ramble; you’ll just have to deal with it.”

She sighed exaggeratedly, then nodded.  “Fine,” she said, attempting to sound hard-done-by, but the smile rang out in her voice.  “I guess I can put up with it.  For the shoes.”

“Of course.  Go tell your ex-boss that you’re moving up in the world; I’ll see you here tomorrow.  Wear a shorter skirt.”

“Are you sure ‘up’ is the right direction?” she asked, making him smirk again.  She lowered her Pokémon to the ground, placed the files that Tony needed to sign in the middle of his immaculate desk, and picked up the others, hefting them as though they weighed nothing.  “Will that be all, Mr Stark?”

“That will be all, Ms Potts,” he replied, happier than he could remember being for a long time.  Certainly since he’d had to return to New York – he’d loved Malibu.  Stupid Stark Industries making him relocate.  He missed the sun.

Pepper nodded and turned to go, pausing briefly beside the door.  He raised an eyebrow as she looked back at him over her shoulder.

“I don’t think I want to know the answer, but I’m going to ask anyway.  Screamer?”

Tony grinned like a lunatic.  “She didn’t get to pick her nickname.”

Pepper shuddered lightly and left.  Tony leaned back in his chair and made happy faces at his much-smaller pile of paperwork.

There was no way that this was a bad decision, no matter how sleep-deprived Tony was.

(Barely) Controlled Chaos # 15

Ok, so, in short, flu sucks and work eats my time.  But I'm alive, so here, have some more fic :)

Warnings for this part: none, but spot the cameo ;)

September 1997, Stark Industries Main office, New York

Pepper Potts was an angel from heaven, and Tony was having her canonised.  She’d rolled her eyes at him when he’d made that declaration, but he’d written it down on a memo with Stark Industries letterheads, therefore it was now official and had to happen.  Unfortunately, he’d forgotten that part of Pepper’s job now was sorting all the paperwork.

She had screwed the memo up and tossed it over her shoulder onto her Charmeleon’s lap, who promptly fried it to ashes.  Tony was tempted to mime being mortally wounded, but Ruby, the Charmeleon, gave him the evil eye, and he didn’t quite dare risk it.  Pepper may be sporting a halo and white feathery wings, but Ruby quite literally had horns and a tail, breathed fire, and apparently hated his guts.  Tony knew why she felt like that, but still felt it was unfair; what happened had been Dummy’s fault, not his.  And hey, Pepper was talking to him, so why the dragon felt the need to blow smoke at him every time he so much as breathed in Pepper’s direction, he didn’t know.  Whatever, Tony wasn’t stupid enough to pick a fight with the Pokémon.

Back to Pepper.  Homicidal dragon aside, his new PA was a full-fledged, halo-bearing angel of the lord, and Tony was considering giving up atheism just on the evidence of Pepper alone.  She had come into his life literally

(Barely) Controlled Chaos # 16

Follows on directly from last part, read that first.

Warnings: mentions of military and weapons, unrealistic contract-negotiation

September 1997, Stark Industries Main office, New York

Tony grinned.  Rhodey rolled his eyes.

“I didn’t go to Outer Mongolia anyway.”

“Why not?”

Rhodey sighed and sat down at a table in the window, cradling his coffee in his hands.  Tony joined him, still grinning.  He’d missed Rhodey while he was off travelling the world, even though the older man had called every few days, and Tony had a pile of postcards and small gifts from every country his friend had visited in a box in the penthouse apartment he’d bought upon his return to New York.  He refused to live at the mansion, though he had made three more trips to the old house to deposit more degree certificates on the dresser.  Most of his stuff was still in Malibu, as he was mid-way through the process of relocating the R&D department to California, possibly along with a few other departments, and it would only be responsible of him to be near his employees, wouldn’t it?

Tony finished his coffee and looked up just in time for another to land at his elbow.  RoRo smiled as she swept up his used mug and returned to the counter, talking to Jeanie over it and giving the men their privacy.  Tony grinned at them.  He loved this place.

“So, now that you’re back where you belong, what are you doing?” he asked, turning back to Rhodey.  The older man smiled and shrugged one shoulder.

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.  Some of the things I saw abroad...  I’ve signed on.”

Tony blinked at the sudden change in conversation and wondered if Rhodey meant what he thought he meant.

“Signed on?  Like, the army?  What kind of places did you go to?  I don’t remember any war zones on the list.”

“Tony…”

“Have you thought about this, Rhodey?  Properly?  You have a Masters from MIT; you can do so much other stuff.  Hell, you could probably do my job.”

“I don’t want your job.  I wouldn’t mind your PA though.”

That was a weak joke, but the look on Rhodey’s face told Tony all he needed to know.  His friend had been planning this for a while, and the decision was already made.  This was an FYI, not an opinion-seeking mission.

“My Pepper, get your own,” he joked back, getting a smile in return.  Rhodey could read Tony just as well as Tony could read him; he knew this was the closest to an endorsement he was going to get.  Tony may make weapons, but that was his father’s business, not his.  Now though, now it became his business.  Now it was personal.

He pulled his cell from his pocket and dialled Pepper, who answered very politely until she realised it was him.

“Mr Stark.  No, I will not extend the deadline; you have a meeting with two of the Board in forty minutes and I’m not cancelling it again.”

“That’s not why I’m calling Pep, though you do realise that now you’ve reminded me, I’m going to dawdle on purpose.  I hate Board meetings.”

“I’m aware.  Herdier is here though; I could just send him in your place.  He’d probably talk more sense.”

“Do that,” Tony agreed, smiling slightly at the expression he could imagine her wearing right then.  He forged ahead with his original point before she could come up with another, more effective threat, and ignored the odd look on Rhodey’s face as he eavesdropped.  “I need you to re-draft the military contracts.”

There was silence on both ends of the line for several seconds, then Rhodey narrowed his eyes and Tony could sense Pepper doing the same thing.

“Tony…” Rhodey said, at the same time Pepper said “Mr Stark…”.  Their voices carried the exact same tone of ‘what the hell are you doing’.  He cut across them both before they could say more than his name.

“I need a new sub-clause, or however you want to draft it.  James Rhodes will be present at any and all liasons between the military and Stark Industries, and they are to deal with me personally.  Get Legal on it, whatever, just make it happen.  And schedule a meeting with somebody for sometime in the next month; I want to go over the latest deal we made with them.  There are a few additions I want to make.”

Pepper was a little thrown by this efficient Tony (he could do it when he wanted to; he was a Stark, after all, and he’d spent the last few years learning from Obie, whether he wanted to or not), but knew better than to argue with it, merely replying in the affirmative and confirming that he would be back in the next quarter of an hour.  Tony hung up with his gaze firmly on Rhodey, who was staring at him like he’d never seen him before.

“Tony, what are you doing?  You can’t just change the contracts…”

“I can and I am.  You’re going into this, fine.  I can’t change your mind, and I won’t insult you by trying.  But I can give you the best fucking chance of coming home in one piece.  You looked after me all through MIT, Rhodey; it’s my turn.  What was it you said to me once?‘When friends do stupid shit, you help them out.’  You’re coming home, Rhodey.  I’m not letting you not come home

(Barely) Controlled Chaos #17

Follows from last part.

Warnings for this part: mentions of weaponry, abuse of sarcasm, minor injuries to a Pokemon

September 1997, Stark Industries Main office, New York

Ten minutes later, and Tony was on his way back to the office, alone this time.  He’d left Rhodey flirting with the two baristas, happy enough to meet him that evening for a drink or ten and to let Tony pretend, just for one night, that his only real friend in the world wasn’t heading off to fight a war and might not come home.  Tony couldn’t let that happen; he couldn’t lose Rhodey.  It would break something inside of him, as much as losing Herdier or Ditto would.  Rhodey was a piece of him, and Tony would protect him to the best of his ability.  If that meant drafting up new military contracts and Tony doing most of R&D’s job for them, then so be it.  He had carried the department for the last two years anyway, it wouldn’t be any real change.

God, he wanted a drink.

He stalked into the Stark Industries office building, working out several improvements to the standard body armour provided to the military in his head; it was one of the things he intended to include in the new deal, as SI didn’t currently manufacture it, but they were damn well going to start.  It needed to be protective without being bulky, and that was an issue, but if he could make a few small alterations… he was distracted from his planning by a screech from his left, followed by a lot of yelling and a slew of curses that had him mildly impressed.  None of them were particularly original, but their sheer number spoke volumes about the shouter’s vocabulary.

Tony veered towards the shouts, as they seemed to be of anger rather than ‘oh Holy God we’re all going to die’, which had happened a couple of times when he’d been in the R&D buildings and led to a few people losing their jobs for sheer idiocy.  Tony was not losing staff to an explosion because somebody couldn’t fucking count.

He was right about the shouting; following the voices led him through a few startled workers in the SI cafeteria (Tony made a point to avoid it usually; their coffee was awful and, sad though it may be, that was how he judged these places) to the kitchen.  There, a large man with a very red face was practically hopping in rage, shouting obscenities out of the open fire doors into the alleyway beyond.  Tony stopped in the doorway, watching how everyone else in the kitchen was staying as far out of range as possible, and surmised that this was probably either really out of character, or the guy was a dick and had everyone cowed.  He hoped it was the former, but knowing his luck…

He leaned against the wall and cleared his throat loud enough to draw everyone’s attention.  The chef (he had to be, dressed like that) sneered at him, before realising who he was and trying to appear professional.

“Who do… Mr Stark.  What are you doing here?”

OK, this was the chef’s domain, Tony got that.  He could still do without the ‘get the fuck out of my kitchen’ in the guy’s voice.  Tony decided that option number two was the right one; this guy was a dick.  He raised an eyebrow and affected a deliberately casual tone of voice.

“Investigating a murder on Stark Industries premises.  That is what’s happened here, right?  I can’t think why you’d be swearing so loudly otherwise, unless you got a papercut or something.  Hey, those mothers sting, I’d yell too.  Of course, the whole street probably wouldn’t hear about it, unless I hired a skywriter or something, but you don’t need to, you have like a built-in foghorn or something, really.  Cuts right through the crowds.”

The chef’s face was crimson with rage by the time Tony was finished, and everyone else in the room was muffling smiles and sniggers.  One boy didn’t bother, snickering openly to Tony’s left.  Tony decided that he was awesome and turned to face him.

“So, what did happen, and why do I care?”

The boy sobered quickly and nodded out the open doorway.  “There’s a Nidoran that forages…”  He was talking fast, as though anticipating being cut off.  Tony shot the chef a glare as he opened his mouth to do just that, and was totally unsurprised when it failed to elicit a reaction.  He paid no attention to whatever the idiot was shouting at him, merely waited for him to take a breath before throwing in his own input.

“Wow, you really are a dick.”

That stopped the tirade, and got more than a few laughs from the assorted watchers.  He turned back to the boy, who was grinning at the sight of the stuttering, speechless chef, and nodded.  “You were saying?”

“Right, Nidoran.  It’s been around here for about a week, scrounging food.  I think it’s hurt; it’s been limping, but it won’t let me get close enough to see.  I’ve been leaving food out for it, stuff that would have been thrown away otherwise, you know?  Anyway, Gary found it eating from the bins and went nuts.”

Tony nodded and walked calmly past the now-babbling chef to peer out into the alley.  For a few seconds, he couldn’t see anything, and he hoped the Pokémon hadn’t run out into the road at the far end while trying to escape, but then he caught the glimmer of eyes hiding underneath a skip.  He crouched to look underneath, and a dark shape shuffled backwards as far as it could go.  Tony was struck by the similarity to the situations in which he’d found both Ditto and Herdier, and felt his expression fix.  Alright, now he was pissed off.  He stood up and whirled around, stalking back into the kitchen.  He pointed at a random woman standing close to the door into the main building.

“You, go to my office, tell Herdier that I need him down here, now.  When Pep… Ms Potts tries to stop you, tell her the same thing.”

His voice was flat and toneless.  The woman blanched then ran from the room, presumably to fetch Herdier.  Tony turned to face the chef.

“You’re fired.”  He was in no mood to sugar-coat anything, and he really didn’t want to be nice to this man.  He pointed at the boy who’d spoken to him before.  “Can you cook?”

The boy hesitated for a second, pointing at his own chest as if to confirm that Tony was actually talking to him, then swallowed and nodded.  “I… yeah.  Sure.  Why not?”

“Great,” Tony said, hearing ‘yes’ and ignoring the less-than-enthused tone that accompanied it.  “You’re hired.  Get me a list of whatever you need, I’ll make sure you get it.  The good stuff.  If you find a way to make the coffee here palatable, I’ll get you the really good stuff.”

The boy nodded, much more enthusiastic now, and Tony turned his glare on the ex-chef, who was still standing in the middle of the kitchen looking thunderstruck.  He raised his voice slightly and spoke to the room in general.  “Somebody call security; I want this man removed.  Now.”

There was movement as he finished talking, but he ignored it and went back out into the alley, crouching once again to see under the skip.  The Nidoran had its back pressed to the brick wall behind it, and nothing short of a crowbar was getting it away from what it deemed as safety.  Well, a crowbar or, Tony hoped, Herdier.  Right on cue, his dog appeared beside him, looking at him expectantly.  Tony nodded to the terrified Pokémon beneath the skip.  Herdier knew him entirely too well, because that was all it took for the dog to lie flat on the ground, nose facing Nidoran, and begin making low, calming sounds that eased Tony’s temper as much as they told Nidoran that nobody was going to hurt it.  Wordless communication between Tony Stark and another living being – Tony knew several people who would swear it wasn’t possible, including Tony himself the majority of the time.

It took five minutes and Tony backing off, but Herdier coaxed the Nidoran out from under the skip.  It was purple (male then, Tony thought, looking it over), and limping badly on its front left leg.  The limb was sprained, at the very least, likely broken.  Tony looked over his shoulder to see the newly hired chef watching carefully.

“Call a doctor,” he said, keeping his voice level so as not to undo all Herdier’s work.  “Tell them to go up to my office.  We’ll meet them up there.”

The boy nodded and left, looking between Tony and the Pokémon with an expression midway between curiosity and respect.  Good to see that there was somebody who didn’t regard Tony’s caring streak as weakness.

Herdier nudged Tony’s legs, and he looked down to see his dog carefully pressing as much of his body against Tony’s legs as he could manage without pushing the human over.  Tony caught on to what he was trying to do and slowly bent down to stroke him between the ears and down his spine.  Herdier arched into the touch, which he didn’t usually do, but this was about showing Nidoran that he could trust Tony, so contact was good.  The purple Pokémon slowly, very slowly, limped forward, pausing just outside Tony’s reach.  He eyed Tony warily, then took the final few steps forward and nudged Tony’s knee with his horn.  Tony carefully bent at the knees and scooped the Pokémon up, making sure not to jostle the injured leg, then turned and walked back into the building, Herdier clearing a path ahead of them.

He wasn’t going to make that meeting.