Avengers AU: Baby Steps
Jul. 15th, 2014 08:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
awanderingbardTitle: Baby Steps
Characters: Tony, Bruce, daemons
Rating: PG
Warnings/Triggers: swearing and coarse language, a touch of angst on Bruce's side
Spoilers: generalized for The Avengers
Pairings: very light reference to Tony/Pepper
Word Count 2,750
Summary: Bruce and Nemi come to play at Stark Tower, and Tony and Mim make sure they feel welcome.
Author's notes: Finally something productive ('productive') comes from all my daemon headcanon. Just some Science Bros friendship fluff.
There is some ambiguity in the HDM verse about whether daemons speak to one another, and not just their humans. I'm exploiting the ambiguity and saying in this 'verse they do.
For reference: Demira (A common tailorbird) and Nemi (a qinling panda)
Takes place post-Avengers, and possibly pre-IM3, but since I haven't seen that yet, I can't be sure. Also, because I haven't seen it yet, or Cap 2, I apologize for any inadvertent conflicts with canon.
“All right, so this is it. Well, not all of it, but a good chunk of it. The coolest part of it. Well, there's actually a level above this that is also cool and—you are not even with me. Where are you?”
Tony paused and turned around. Bruce and Nemi were still in the doorway to the lab. Neither had taken a step in. Demira flew from Tony's shoulder and landed on Nemi's head, hopping up and down, trying to convince her to come along.
“There isn't a forcefield, or pass card or anything,” Tony said. “You can just walk through the door. Come on.”
Bruce was basically a skittish kitten, so Tony had had to coax him into Stark Tower with a trail of bread crumbs in the form of lots of cool and neat tech to play with if he came along.
“There's a lot of expensive stuff in here,” Bruce said.
“Yeah, I don't know if you missed the part where I'm a billionaire,” Tony said. “But, news flash, I'm a billionaire. It wasn't going to be a My First Microscope and a Thinkpad. I spent months building this up, and I'm the only one playing with it. You're the first friend I've brought over to play, come on and play. We'll do our hair and talk about boys.”
Bruce cracked a half smile at that. “I brought down a good chunk of a floating city in a few minutes,” he said. “You really gonna trust me in here?”
“I have unbelievably high premiums on my insurance,” Tony said. “We're covered—even for Enormous Green Rage Monster attacks. Jarvis has Enya on standby to soothe your inner beast if he gets a bit frisky. The only person who's worried is you, and you're, like, always worried, so that doesn't even count. Come on. It'll be fun!”
Nemi leaned over into Bruce's leg, and smiled up at him, tipping Mim off her head. Mim darted in front of them, doing some rolls and loops in the air, inviting them in. She landed on a computer station, and tweeted to Nemi. Nemi bumped Bruce's leg again, and bent over to all fours to pad in, carefully. Bruce followed, looking tentative.
“Whoo! Baby steps,” Tony said. “All right, let's introduce you to the gang. You know Jarvis. Say hi, Jarvis.”
“Hello, Jarvis,” Jarvis said. He played an old Vaudevillian rimshot. Ba-dum-tish.
“He's a prick,” Tony explained. “And that's DUM-E.” DUM-E turned to say hello, and knocked Mim off her perch, making Tony's chest feel like he'd been punched in the arc reactor. He crouched to make sure she was okay, and then stood again. “He's special, be kind to him. That's Butterfingers, and that's You. They're more competent, but we don't love them as much.” Butterfingers lowered his arm and looked sad. “Nah, I'm just kidding. I love all my children equally.”
Bruce had a big grin on his face now, and Nemi was giggling behind one of her paws. She smiled up at Bruce again, and he shrugged his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves.
“So, where do we start?”
“See, it's fun, isn't it fun?” Demira said, dancing around Nemi's feet. “Aren't you having fun?”
Nemi knew the only answer to that would have to be 'yes' or Demira would be trying to make it more fun, and Nemi was concerned where that might lead. She nodded, and Demira perched on her nose. Demira was not a dæmon who understood about personal space. She was right up in everyone's face all the time. Nemi wasn't used to that. Most dæmons gave her a very, very wide berth. She understood why. Demira just seemed to assume everything would be fine, which was both confidence building and stupid. Nemi had more faith in Bruce than anyone, but even she was aware that he was dangerous. She was dangerous. Together, they were deadly. And Tony and Demira didn't seem to mind.
“This is where I get to play,” Demira said, hopping from Nemi's nose to a computer screen inlaid into the table. She walked across it, and it activated, and she danced across it to make various functions come up. “You can use it too, you just have to programme your gestures into it and Jarvis will figure it out.”
“My claws will scratch it,” Nemi said, rising from the floor and pulling herself up to look. “I don't want to break it.”
Demira's tail feathers ruffled in exasperation. “You're obsessed with breaking things!” she said. “Breaking things is the best part! If you don't break things, how do you know how things break? Breaking tells you what you're doing wrong. If you break it, we'll know how to make it so it can be used with claws. You can be our beta. Just come on. Stop being sensible, it's boring!”
Nemi put her paw carefully onto the pad, and the computer screen rippled and tried to scan it. She quickly took it off as soon as it started doing something.
“Gesture unrecognized, please try again,” Jarvis said.
“All right, well, baby steps,” Demira said. “Put your left paw in, put your left paw out.” She did the Hokey Pokey and turned herself around, making Nemi laugh. “Come on. Don't be a wimp.”
Nemi put her paw on the computer again, and let it be scanned.
“New user recognized, please enter a user name,” Jarvis said.
“What do you want to be called?” Demira said.
“Nemi?” Nemi suggested.
“No, choose something bad ass,” Demira said.
“What name do you go by?” Nemi asked.
“Mim,” Demira said. She stuck her beak in the air. “I didn't say it was a good choice. How about Nemesis? Yeah, that's hardcore.” She hopped about.
“New user Nemesis recognized,” Jarvis said. “Welcome. Please input gestures.”
“Why 'Mim'?” Nemi asked, following the directions on the screen gently. Swipe up, swipe down. Nothing broken yet.
“That's what Tony called me before he could say my name,” Demira explained. “De-mim-ra. His mother thought it was cute, so it sort of stuck.”
Nemi nodded.
“You can call me that, too,” Demira added.
Nemi nodded.
“Can I call you Nemesis?” Demira said.
“No,” Nemi said.
“Okay. Baby steps, haven't reached the nickname status yet, that's cool,” Demira said. She climbed up onto Nemi's head. “All right. Let's break some shit!”
“I think it's going well, what do you think?” Tony asked.
“We're nailing it,” Mim replied. “We're owning this. Operation Friendship is a total success.”
She hit his finger with her wing in a low five. Low one. Bruce and Nemi were starting to relax and using things without asking instead of staring at them and hoping Tony or Mim would say it was okay. No one had turned into a Rage Monster yet, which was a bit disappointing, but probably something Pepper and Lev would think was good. Lev was such a wet blanket.
“Have you seen his brain?” Tony said, nodding toward Bruce. “It's like a box of awesome in there. Why he hid himself in Calcutta fixing up sniffles is beyond me.”
“He was being hunted by the government and trying not to kill people,” Mim pointed out.
“Okay, yeah, but still,” Tony said. “I'm just saying, it would have been cool if he and I were friends before the whole 'oh no, end of the world' thing.”
“Well, we'll just have to make up for lost time,” Mim said. “Besides, you weren't exactly open to friendships until recently. You used to be an asshole. More of an asshole.”
Tony closed the mouth he was going to object with. “Okay, that's fair,” he admitted.
“Don't live in the past,” Mim said. “Rock the future.”
Tony held out a fist and Mim bumped it with her beak. “Hey, do you wanna beer?” he called to Bruce.
“I don't really drink,” Bruce replied.
“Do you do anything fun?” Tony asked.
“Crosswords,” Bruce said, with a wry smile. “I like crosswords. And green tea.”
“Do you knit, too?” Tony said.
“I tried. It's supposed to be relaxing, but The Other Guy hated dropping stitches,” Bruce said. “Which was a pretty stupid reason to destroy a gas station.”
“You are seriously the coolest uncool person I know,” Tony said. “You sure you don't want a beer? One can't hurt.”
“Tony? No,” Bruce said, firmly.
“Okay,” Tony said, raising his hands in surrender.
Mim had spent 47 years telling Tony Stark 'no', and it had almost never worked. Certainly never on the first try. Bruce Banner was some sort of god.
Mim flew back to Nemi, who was clinging to Bruce like her non-dæmon panda counterparts clung to trees. She was a shy thing, she needed to break out of her shell. Which shouldn't be as hard as it was proving to be, because she was really good at breaking things. Mim wanted her to stop being afraid of that, and just go with it, because it could do good as well as bad. Just like anything. It was best to concentrate on the good.
“Everything still cool?” Mim asked. “Need anything?”
“No, I'm good, thanks,” Nemi said. She let go of Bruce's leg, and laid down on her stomach to be at a level to talk to Mim. “Bruce is really enjoying the simulation software. He's had these ideas for years, and it's only taken a few hours to prove some of them are viable, and Jarvis is already starting on prototypes. It's amazing.”
“That's what it's here for,” Mim said. “Big giant playground for nerds.” She held up her wing for a high five, but Nemi didn't respond. Mim swatted her nose to show her how it worked for next time. “So, everything's cool?”
“Everything's cool,” Nemi said.
Mim held up her wing again, and, though Nemi left her hanging for an awkward amount of time, she eventually bumped her nose to it.
Operation Friendship was definitely a success.
“I like it here,” Nemi said.
Bruce glanced down at her with a smile. She was hugging his leg, as she often did. She'd started doing it after the lab accident, as though she were trying to physically hold him down and prevent him from turning into the Other Guy. It was pretty amazing that Demira had convinced her to walk away from him for a while. Usually she kept to herself.
“Yeah, well, don't get used to it,” Bruce said. “It's only been a few hours. I haven't had time to mess it up yet.”
She hugged his leg tighter. “Don't be so negative,” she said. “Maybe you won't this time. It's different. You don't have to run any more. You have back up. People care.”
Bruce shrugged. “I've messed up every relationship I've ever had,” he said. “That's not negativity, Nem, that's a correlation based on sound data. You could graph that.”
“It's different,” Nemi repeated. “They want you here. Tony wants you here. He invited you. Just relax and have fun.”
“I'll enjoy it while it lasts,” Bruce said, grudgingly. “How about that?”
Nemi rubbed her face into his thigh. “It's a start,” she said.
“So, do you wanna see your digs?” Tony asked, circling behind Bruce with a clap to the back.
“My what?” Bruce said.
“Your apartment,” Tony said. “I told you, I made you an apartment. I made everyone an apartment.”
“I thought you were being facetious,” Bruce said.
“Ooh, SAT word,” Tony said. “Admittedly, 99% of the time I'm being facetious, but in this case, I am as unfacetious as is possible. It's a few floors from here, I thought you'd like to be near the labs.”
Bruce realized he was serious. “You want me to live here?” he asked.
“Why, is it too soon in our relationship to ask you to move in?” Tony said, making a 'uh- oh' face. “I won't tell you that I've already named our future children, then. Do you like the name Antonia? Because I'm open to suggestions. Mim thinks Zeus is nice for the dæmon.”
Bruce huffed a laugh. “I prefer to take things slow,” he said.
“Well, hey, I bought you dinner,” Tony said, gesturing to the remnants of pizza scattered around the labs. “You can't say I'm a cheap date.”
“Let's go back to the part where I have an apartment,” Bruce said, holding up a hand to stop Tony's teasing.
“Right,” Tony said. “Well, I figured, we're a team now, right? So, teams usually hang out, and I have this big tower thing here, so, why not make it headquarters? Obviously we're all going to go on superheroing on our own, or in pairs, or whatever, but if anyone's in New York, they can drop in and the place is all ready for them. Safe house, living space, whatever. Just a place to go if you need it. Jarvis knows you, he'll let you in.”
“You're serious,” Bruce said.
“Yeah,” Tony said. “You don't know me that well, but this is my serious face. It looks like all my other faces, so you'll sort of get the hang of figuring it out. Come on, I'll show you.”
He headed out of the lab. Bruce looked down to Nemi, who shrugged. They followed Tony out to the elevators.
“Okay, so this is your button,” Tony said, pointing to one marked with a DNA strand. Bruce could pick out the other team members' buttons—Thor's Hammer, Natasha's belt, Clint's bow, Steve's shield, and Tony's helmet. “There's a billion floors in this place, so easier to find if you're drunk or exhausted or whatever. Just press it, and away we go.”
Nemi didn't like enclosed spaces; she clung a little closer to Bruce's leg as the doors closed and the elevator jerked. The doors opened again onto a hall, with a big door at the end.
“You can put your own security code in,” Tony said. “It's defaulted to 12345 for now.” He strode down the hall and entered the number into the key pad.
“Welcome home, Dr. Banner,” Jarvis said, when the doors opened.
Bruce was ushered in ahead of Tony, though Demira did a few barrel rolls ahead of them to show the room off.
“All right, Pepper did the interior design, so blame her for anything you don't like,” Tony said. “She went for 'soothing' colors. You have a double floor, so if your heart rate gets to Hulk levels, the ceiling will open and you can change without busting your head. The floor's reinforced, and all the windows are as unbreakable as I can make them. Furniture not so much, but it can all be replaced, so don't worry about smashing it. Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living area, office area...guest bedroom if you want to bring a friend...I think that's it. I say that like it's not awesome, but, obviously it is.”
Bruce and Nemi walked around, gaping. For someone who had lived in hovels, and caves, and military facilities for the past several years, this was a palace of epic proportions. King- sized bed, a Jacuzzi bathtub, a full gourmet kitchen. Half the place was windows. There were screens in every area, all of which were currently displaying a welcome message.
“I like it here,” Nemi said, snuggling into his leg.
He dropped his hand to her head. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
Demira landed on the kitchen counter, and arranged her wings like Vanna White to show off the granite. Tony hopped up to sit next to her, kicking his legs back and forth.
“So, what do you say?” Tony said. “Think you'll stick around? You can change anything you don't like.”
Making commitments made Bruce nervous. “I'll stay for a bit,” he said.
Tony held up his hands. “No pressure,” he said. “But it's here if you want it. I won't be around to bug you all the time—I have boring running a company shit to do—but you can hang out here for as long as you want or don't want. You do get that, right? You can do whatever you want. You're not a government toy. It's all open doors here.”
“Open door is a bit of a weird concept, still,” Bruce said, rubbing his hands together.
“Well, baby steps,” Tony said.
Nemi wandered over to the counter, and Demira hopped onto her head, poking her ear. Nemi swatted her off, laughing. Bruce smiled, and sat down on a stool by the counter.
Baby steps. He could handle that.
Characters: Tony, Bruce, daemons
Rating: PG
Warnings/Triggers: swearing and coarse language, a touch of angst on Bruce's side
Spoilers: generalized for The Avengers
Pairings: very light reference to Tony/Pepper
Word Count 2,750
Summary: Bruce and Nemi come to play at Stark Tower, and Tony and Mim make sure they feel welcome.
Author's notes: Finally something productive ('productive') comes from all my daemon headcanon. Just some Science Bros friendship fluff.
There is some ambiguity in the HDM verse about whether daemons speak to one another, and not just their humans. I'm exploiting the ambiguity and saying in this 'verse they do.
For reference: Demira (A common tailorbird) and Nemi (a qinling panda)
Takes place post-Avengers, and possibly pre-IM3, but since I haven't seen that yet, I can't be sure. Also, because I haven't seen it yet, or Cap 2, I apologize for any inadvertent conflicts with canon.
“All right, so this is it. Well, not all of it, but a good chunk of it. The coolest part of it. Well, there's actually a level above this that is also cool and—you are not even with me. Where are you?”
Tony paused and turned around. Bruce and Nemi were still in the doorway to the lab. Neither had taken a step in. Demira flew from Tony's shoulder and landed on Nemi's head, hopping up and down, trying to convince her to come along.
“There isn't a forcefield, or pass card or anything,” Tony said. “You can just walk through the door. Come on.”
Bruce was basically a skittish kitten, so Tony had had to coax him into Stark Tower with a trail of bread crumbs in the form of lots of cool and neat tech to play with if he came along.
“There's a lot of expensive stuff in here,” Bruce said.
“Yeah, I don't know if you missed the part where I'm a billionaire,” Tony said. “But, news flash, I'm a billionaire. It wasn't going to be a My First Microscope and a Thinkpad. I spent months building this up, and I'm the only one playing with it. You're the first friend I've brought over to play, come on and play. We'll do our hair and talk about boys.”
Bruce cracked a half smile at that. “I brought down a good chunk of a floating city in a few minutes,” he said. “You really gonna trust me in here?”
“I have unbelievably high premiums on my insurance,” Tony said. “We're covered—even for Enormous Green Rage Monster attacks. Jarvis has Enya on standby to soothe your inner beast if he gets a bit frisky. The only person who's worried is you, and you're, like, always worried, so that doesn't even count. Come on. It'll be fun!”
Nemi leaned over into Bruce's leg, and smiled up at him, tipping Mim off her head. Mim darted in front of them, doing some rolls and loops in the air, inviting them in. She landed on a computer station, and tweeted to Nemi. Nemi bumped Bruce's leg again, and bent over to all fours to pad in, carefully. Bruce followed, looking tentative.
“Whoo! Baby steps,” Tony said. “All right, let's introduce you to the gang. You know Jarvis. Say hi, Jarvis.”
“Hello, Jarvis,” Jarvis said. He played an old Vaudevillian rimshot. Ba-dum-tish.
“He's a prick,” Tony explained. “And that's DUM-E.” DUM-E turned to say hello, and knocked Mim off her perch, making Tony's chest feel like he'd been punched in the arc reactor. He crouched to make sure she was okay, and then stood again. “He's special, be kind to him. That's Butterfingers, and that's You. They're more competent, but we don't love them as much.” Butterfingers lowered his arm and looked sad. “Nah, I'm just kidding. I love all my children equally.”
Bruce had a big grin on his face now, and Nemi was giggling behind one of her paws. She smiled up at Bruce again, and he shrugged his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves.
“So, where do we start?”
“See, it's fun, isn't it fun?” Demira said, dancing around Nemi's feet. “Aren't you having fun?”
Nemi knew the only answer to that would have to be 'yes' or Demira would be trying to make it more fun, and Nemi was concerned where that might lead. She nodded, and Demira perched on her nose. Demira was not a dæmon who understood about personal space. She was right up in everyone's face all the time. Nemi wasn't used to that. Most dæmons gave her a very, very wide berth. She understood why. Demira just seemed to assume everything would be fine, which was both confidence building and stupid. Nemi had more faith in Bruce than anyone, but even she was aware that he was dangerous. She was dangerous. Together, they were deadly. And Tony and Demira didn't seem to mind.
“This is where I get to play,” Demira said, hopping from Nemi's nose to a computer screen inlaid into the table. She walked across it, and it activated, and she danced across it to make various functions come up. “You can use it too, you just have to programme your gestures into it and Jarvis will figure it out.”
“My claws will scratch it,” Nemi said, rising from the floor and pulling herself up to look. “I don't want to break it.”
Demira's tail feathers ruffled in exasperation. “You're obsessed with breaking things!” she said. “Breaking things is the best part! If you don't break things, how do you know how things break? Breaking tells you what you're doing wrong. If you break it, we'll know how to make it so it can be used with claws. You can be our beta. Just come on. Stop being sensible, it's boring!”
Nemi put her paw carefully onto the pad, and the computer screen rippled and tried to scan it. She quickly took it off as soon as it started doing something.
“Gesture unrecognized, please try again,” Jarvis said.
“All right, well, baby steps,” Demira said. “Put your left paw in, put your left paw out.” She did the Hokey Pokey and turned herself around, making Nemi laugh. “Come on. Don't be a wimp.”
Nemi put her paw on the computer again, and let it be scanned.
“New user recognized, please enter a user name,” Jarvis said.
“What do you want to be called?” Demira said.
“Nemi?” Nemi suggested.
“No, choose something bad ass,” Demira said.
“What name do you go by?” Nemi asked.
“Mim,” Demira said. She stuck her beak in the air. “I didn't say it was a good choice. How about Nemesis? Yeah, that's hardcore.” She hopped about.
“New user Nemesis recognized,” Jarvis said. “Welcome. Please input gestures.”
“Why 'Mim'?” Nemi asked, following the directions on the screen gently. Swipe up, swipe down. Nothing broken yet.
“That's what Tony called me before he could say my name,” Demira explained. “De-mim-ra. His mother thought it was cute, so it sort of stuck.”
Nemi nodded.
“You can call me that, too,” Demira added.
Nemi nodded.
“Can I call you Nemesis?” Demira said.
“No,” Nemi said.
“Okay. Baby steps, haven't reached the nickname status yet, that's cool,” Demira said. She climbed up onto Nemi's head. “All right. Let's break some shit!”
“I think it's going well, what do you think?” Tony asked.
“We're nailing it,” Mim replied. “We're owning this. Operation Friendship is a total success.”
She hit his finger with her wing in a low five. Low one. Bruce and Nemi were starting to relax and using things without asking instead of staring at them and hoping Tony or Mim would say it was okay. No one had turned into a Rage Monster yet, which was a bit disappointing, but probably something Pepper and Lev would think was good. Lev was such a wet blanket.
“Have you seen his brain?” Tony said, nodding toward Bruce. “It's like a box of awesome in there. Why he hid himself in Calcutta fixing up sniffles is beyond me.”
“He was being hunted by the government and trying not to kill people,” Mim pointed out.
“Okay, yeah, but still,” Tony said. “I'm just saying, it would have been cool if he and I were friends before the whole 'oh no, end of the world' thing.”
“Well, we'll just have to make up for lost time,” Mim said. “Besides, you weren't exactly open to friendships until recently. You used to be an asshole. More of an asshole.”
Tony closed the mouth he was going to object with. “Okay, that's fair,” he admitted.
“Don't live in the past,” Mim said. “Rock the future.”
Tony held out a fist and Mim bumped it with her beak. “Hey, do you wanna beer?” he called to Bruce.
“I don't really drink,” Bruce replied.
“Do you do anything fun?” Tony asked.
“Crosswords,” Bruce said, with a wry smile. “I like crosswords. And green tea.”
“Do you knit, too?” Tony said.
“I tried. It's supposed to be relaxing, but The Other Guy hated dropping stitches,” Bruce said. “Which was a pretty stupid reason to destroy a gas station.”
“You are seriously the coolest uncool person I know,” Tony said. “You sure you don't want a beer? One can't hurt.”
“Tony? No,” Bruce said, firmly.
“Okay,” Tony said, raising his hands in surrender.
Mim had spent 47 years telling Tony Stark 'no', and it had almost never worked. Certainly never on the first try. Bruce Banner was some sort of god.
Mim flew back to Nemi, who was clinging to Bruce like her non-dæmon panda counterparts clung to trees. She was a shy thing, she needed to break out of her shell. Which shouldn't be as hard as it was proving to be, because she was really good at breaking things. Mim wanted her to stop being afraid of that, and just go with it, because it could do good as well as bad. Just like anything. It was best to concentrate on the good.
“Everything still cool?” Mim asked. “Need anything?”
“No, I'm good, thanks,” Nemi said. She let go of Bruce's leg, and laid down on her stomach to be at a level to talk to Mim. “Bruce is really enjoying the simulation software. He's had these ideas for years, and it's only taken a few hours to prove some of them are viable, and Jarvis is already starting on prototypes. It's amazing.”
“That's what it's here for,” Mim said. “Big giant playground for nerds.” She held up her wing for a high five, but Nemi didn't respond. Mim swatted her nose to show her how it worked for next time. “So, everything's cool?”
“Everything's cool,” Nemi said.
Mim held up her wing again, and, though Nemi left her hanging for an awkward amount of time, she eventually bumped her nose to it.
Operation Friendship was definitely a success.
“I like it here,” Nemi said.
Bruce glanced down at her with a smile. She was hugging his leg, as she often did. She'd started doing it after the lab accident, as though she were trying to physically hold him down and prevent him from turning into the Other Guy. It was pretty amazing that Demira had convinced her to walk away from him for a while. Usually she kept to herself.
“Yeah, well, don't get used to it,” Bruce said. “It's only been a few hours. I haven't had time to mess it up yet.”
She hugged his leg tighter. “Don't be so negative,” she said. “Maybe you won't this time. It's different. You don't have to run any more. You have back up. People care.”
Bruce shrugged. “I've messed up every relationship I've ever had,” he said. “That's not negativity, Nem, that's a correlation based on sound data. You could graph that.”
“It's different,” Nemi repeated. “They want you here. Tony wants you here. He invited you. Just relax and have fun.”
“I'll enjoy it while it lasts,” Bruce said, grudgingly. “How about that?”
Nemi rubbed her face into his thigh. “It's a start,” she said.
“So, do you wanna see your digs?” Tony asked, circling behind Bruce with a clap to the back.
“My what?” Bruce said.
“Your apartment,” Tony said. “I told you, I made you an apartment. I made everyone an apartment.”
“I thought you were being facetious,” Bruce said.
“Ooh, SAT word,” Tony said. “Admittedly, 99% of the time I'm being facetious, but in this case, I am as unfacetious as is possible. It's a few floors from here, I thought you'd like to be near the labs.”
Bruce realized he was serious. “You want me to live here?” he asked.
“Why, is it too soon in our relationship to ask you to move in?” Tony said, making a 'uh- oh' face. “I won't tell you that I've already named our future children, then. Do you like the name Antonia? Because I'm open to suggestions. Mim thinks Zeus is nice for the dæmon.”
Bruce huffed a laugh. “I prefer to take things slow,” he said.
“Well, hey, I bought you dinner,” Tony said, gesturing to the remnants of pizza scattered around the labs. “You can't say I'm a cheap date.”
“Let's go back to the part where I have an apartment,” Bruce said, holding up a hand to stop Tony's teasing.
“Right,” Tony said. “Well, I figured, we're a team now, right? So, teams usually hang out, and I have this big tower thing here, so, why not make it headquarters? Obviously we're all going to go on superheroing on our own, or in pairs, or whatever, but if anyone's in New York, they can drop in and the place is all ready for them. Safe house, living space, whatever. Just a place to go if you need it. Jarvis knows you, he'll let you in.”
“You're serious,” Bruce said.
“Yeah,” Tony said. “You don't know me that well, but this is my serious face. It looks like all my other faces, so you'll sort of get the hang of figuring it out. Come on, I'll show you.”
He headed out of the lab. Bruce looked down to Nemi, who shrugged. They followed Tony out to the elevators.
“Okay, so this is your button,” Tony said, pointing to one marked with a DNA strand. Bruce could pick out the other team members' buttons—Thor's Hammer, Natasha's belt, Clint's bow, Steve's shield, and Tony's helmet. “There's a billion floors in this place, so easier to find if you're drunk or exhausted or whatever. Just press it, and away we go.”
Nemi didn't like enclosed spaces; she clung a little closer to Bruce's leg as the doors closed and the elevator jerked. The doors opened again onto a hall, with a big door at the end.
“You can put your own security code in,” Tony said. “It's defaulted to 12345 for now.” He strode down the hall and entered the number into the key pad.
“Welcome home, Dr. Banner,” Jarvis said, when the doors opened.
Bruce was ushered in ahead of Tony, though Demira did a few barrel rolls ahead of them to show the room off.
“All right, Pepper did the interior design, so blame her for anything you don't like,” Tony said. “She went for 'soothing' colors. You have a double floor, so if your heart rate gets to Hulk levels, the ceiling will open and you can change without busting your head. The floor's reinforced, and all the windows are as unbreakable as I can make them. Furniture not so much, but it can all be replaced, so don't worry about smashing it. Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living area, office area...guest bedroom if you want to bring a friend...I think that's it. I say that like it's not awesome, but, obviously it is.”
Bruce and Nemi walked around, gaping. For someone who had lived in hovels, and caves, and military facilities for the past several years, this was a palace of epic proportions. King- sized bed, a Jacuzzi bathtub, a full gourmet kitchen. Half the place was windows. There were screens in every area, all of which were currently displaying a welcome message.
“I like it here,” Nemi said, snuggling into his leg.
He dropped his hand to her head. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
Demira landed on the kitchen counter, and arranged her wings like Vanna White to show off the granite. Tony hopped up to sit next to her, kicking his legs back and forth.
“So, what do you say?” Tony said. “Think you'll stick around? You can change anything you don't like.”
Making commitments made Bruce nervous. “I'll stay for a bit,” he said.
Tony held up his hands. “No pressure,” he said. “But it's here if you want it. I won't be around to bug you all the time—I have boring running a company shit to do—but you can hang out here for as long as you want or don't want. You do get that, right? You can do whatever you want. You're not a government toy. It's all open doors here.”
“Open door is a bit of a weird concept, still,” Bruce said, rubbing his hands together.
“Well, baby steps,” Tony said.
Nemi wandered over to the counter, and Demira hopped onto her head, poking her ear. Nemi swatted her off, laughing. Bruce smiled, and sat down on a stool by the counter.
Baby steps. He could handle that.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2014-07-15 06:33 pm (UTC)“That's what Tony called me before he could say my name,” Demira explained. “De-mim-ra. His mother thought it was cute, so it sort of stuck.”
Nemi nodded.
“You can call me that, too,” Demira added.
Nemi nodded.
“Can I call you Nemesis?” Demira said.
“No,” Nemi said.
Hahaha! They nearly had a moment. But at least later Nemi gave her a high five. Sort of.
I thought I was starting to recover from my daemon-obsession but I've fallen right back in with this story. I hope you have more soon!
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Date: 2014-07-15 08:02 pm (UTC)She kind of wrote herself a bit. I was actually expecting her to be the reasonable one of the two of them. Turns out she's actually worse, but less due to a lack of reason and more due to an overabundance of enthusiasm. She knows she should be stopping things, but she's just too excited!
I thought I was starting to recover from my daemon-obsession but I've fallen right back in with this story. I hope you have more soon!
Oops, I'm sorry! I've finally gotten around to writing things now, so my daemon obsession has yet to play out. Soon, hopefully. After I finish the sixteen fics from various fandoms in my head.
I'm really glad you enjoyed the story. Thanks for all the inspiration boosts from our late night chats!
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Date: 2014-07-16 04:06 am (UTC)Yup, that's Tony at his core.
Oops, I'm sorry! I've finally gotten around to writing things now, so my daemon obsession has yet to play out. Soon, hopefully. After I finish the sixteen fics from various fandoms in my head.
Well here's hoping there's more daemon fic to come from you!
I think animals are just my Achilles Heel. Especially anthropormorphic ones. Guess I'm diving back into ficcing about daemons. I've been staring at videos of raccoons to try and get their mannerisms down for Dejeni.
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Date: 2014-07-16 04:23 am (UTC)I"ve discovered you can almost literally sell me anything by having an animal or inanimate object speak. I am a sucker for giving personality to things that normally do not have one.
I've been staring at videos of raccoons to try and get their mannerisms down for Dejeni.
I fully support this.
I've suddenly had Stark Family feels, so I've been looking around for a good face for Maria for my mental headcast. No idea what I plan to do with any of my feels, but it's always good to be prepared. I mean, I probably don't need to write baby!Tony but...I probably will.
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Date: 2014-07-16 04:26 am (UTC)Me too! Although mine came about because I was tinkering away at that Peggy Carter and Howard Stark Are Work Spouses fic and I mapped out how Peggy was the one who ended up introducing Maria to Howard and was there for a lot of important events in the Stark family.
I"ve discovered you can almost literally sell me anything by having an animal or inanimate object speak. I am a sucker for giving personality to things that normally do not have one.
YES. This is why I love Tony's robots so much. And Jarvis.
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Date: 2014-07-16 04:32 am (UTC)Awww! You are fluffing well, Grasshopper.
YES. This is why I love Tony's robots so much. And Jarvis.
Yes! DUM-E wants to help so much! And he's just not very good at it. And the fact that he is not a real living human being does not change that fact that he just really wants to help.
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Date: 2014-07-16 04:34 am (UTC)Yes! DUM-E wants to help so much! And he's just not very good at it. And the fact that he is not a real living human being does not change that fact that he just really wants to help.
It amazes me how much DUM-E could emote in the film with just a sad tilt of his head or pincher. Or perhaps that's just me giving inanimate objects personalities.
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Date: 2014-07-16 04:38 am (UTC)It was more of a hope than an assumption. It's cool, though. You angst, and I'll write fluffy stories about Howard and Maria being in love and Maria teaching Tony how to science and stuff. We'll get it all covered that way.
It amazes me how much DUM-E could emote in the film with just a sad tilt of his head or pincher. Or perhaps that's just me giving inanimate objects personalities.
No, no, it's not just you. His little 'did I do okay?" head tilt after giving Tony the spare arc reactor in the first movie is just the sweetest thing.
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Date: 2014-07-16 04:43 am (UTC)I truly am the Nemi to your Demira. I do have some nice ones. How they meet is kind of nice. And clearly Howard and Maria had some good times before the alcoholism and death.
His little 'did I do okay?" head tilt after giving Tony the spare arc reactor in the first movie is just the sweetest thing.
I loved how excited he seemed, all ready with the fire extinguisher in case Tony went up in flames. He's all set! He can totally put out any fires!
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Date: 2014-07-16 04:49 am (UTC)I have no idea why this sentence makes me laugh, but I feel like you were trying superhard to fluff and but just nosedived into tragedy at the end. 'It wasn't awful all the time, what more do you want from me, Bard?"
I loved how excited he seemed, all ready with the fire extinguisher in case Tony went up in flames. He's all set! He can totally put out any fires!
Tony gave him a job! He's been trusted to do something! Is he on fire? He doesn't know. But he's a fire extinguisher, so he better just extinguish that just in case.
He's the Arthur Shappey of the robot world. He's been put in charge of the faxes.
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Date: 2014-07-16 04:53 am (UTC)I might have given myself a nosebleed from the strain to try and fluff. But! I do know that the fic will conclude in the present(ish) time and will be nicer. Not straight fluff but not straight angst either? It's the best I've got.
He's the Arthur Shappey of the robot world.
OMG the most perfect description ever of DUM-E!
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Date: 2014-07-16 05:02 am (UTC)Hee! 'I've got straight angst or an angst spritzer. You want fluff, go to a different bar.'
S'all cool. You write what you want. It'll be awesome, either way.
OMG the most perfect description ever of DUM-E!
Jarvis is Douglas. I don't know much about Buttefingers or You, but I'm guessing they would be Martin and Carolyn respectively.
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Date: 2014-07-16 05:04 am (UTC)Then does that make Tony G-ERTI?
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Date: 2014-07-16 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-16 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-16 12:00 pm (UTC)Arthur would be soooooo excited. Tony would be all 'no, but I'm a billionaire, how did I end up on this flight?'. Martin would not want to fly with robots in his cabin and oh my God, Carolyn trying to serve Tony because she would hate him but he's rich so she would have to be nice to him.
Dammit! Why is Cabin Pressure so crossoverable?
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Date: 2014-07-16 07:15 pm (UTC)Poor Tony. He probably did something to make Pepper mad so she booked him on this flight.
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Date: 2014-07-16 07:47 pm (UTC)I did CP daemons at the cottage, btw. It was quite a relief, because it meant that I had officially run out of characters to give daemons to. I've covered all my fandoms now, I think.
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Date: 2014-07-17 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-17 01:54 am (UTC)Also, I discovered this (http://www.pinterest.com/pin/321866704592270545/) on Pinterest, which lists pre-serum Steve's ailments, and the 'partial deafness' really intrigued me. Because that had to be a huge change get used to, depending on how profound the deafness was. I wonder if he realized he was yelling a lot, or was really overwhelmed by how loud New York sounded now? And my daemon brain wondered if your daemon shares your ailments. So, was Issie partially deaf too? Can Odin's daemon only see out of one eye?
Dammit Marvel, stop being so me-ish in your world building!
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Date: 2014-07-17 02:03 am (UTC)I wonder if he realized he was yelling a lot, or was really overwhelmed by how loud New York sounded now?
My guess is that Steve was partially deaf in probably only one ear. I'm basing that purely on how he spoke at normal levels in the first Cap movie. But I'd imagine like how he had some trouble initially adjusting to his new body, he took a bit of time adjusting to having his hearing at 100%. There's a hilarious moment in the 2nd movie where he's running so fast he fails to make a sharp turn and slams into a wall hard enough to dent it. Turning is still a work in progress.
And my daemon brain wondered if your daemon shares your ailments.
Going on pure instinct, I'd say no. If daemons are your souls then they should reflect who you are on the inside, right? Rather than the outside?
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Date: 2014-07-17 02:23 am (UTC)Yeah. And I feel like he might really enjoy Arthur, since he's like DUM-E and trying so hard to help. Unlike a lot of genius characters, Tony doesn't have (at least as far as I've seen) that impatience with people who aren't as bright as him. He likes to show off, but he's not vicious about it. So, he wouldn't have that same level of disdain as someone like Sherlock would have.
There's a hilarious moment in the 2nd movie where he's running so fast he fails to make a sharp turn and slams into a wall hard enough to dent it. Turning is still a work in progress.
Aww! He's really like a newborn colt or something. Or a big sheepdog that doesn't know its own strength.
If daemons are your souls then they should reflect who you are on the inside, right? Rather than the outside?
Yes, but they also feel the pain you feel, so if you lost a limb would they lose feeling in that limb? Or maybe that's where phantom pain comes from. Your daemon still feeling the limb you don't have.
Thank you for indulging my questions. You are a helpful and patient person. :-D
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Date: 2014-07-17 02:31 am (UTC)Okay, this I thought a lot about given that I had to decide if Shess would 'lose' a limb now that Bucky's lost one. I settled on the idea that they might feel the pain but the daemon her/himself wouldn't lose the function of their own limb. If you were born blind or born without a limb than it would make sense to me that your daemon would have the same condition. But if you lost a limb as an adult, you most likely still have a sense of self as a person who has all their limbs. Kind of like how a person feels a phantom limb, their daemon reflects all the parts they began with.
I love jamming about this stuff so it's less me being patient and just giving into my HUGE FANNISH GLEE.
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Date: 2014-07-17 02:35 am (UTC)Yeah, that makes sense. And I wonder if your daemon would settle into a form that reflects that to some degree. An animal with poor eyesight or a two limbed animal instead of a four limbed one. By which I mean how they walk, whether on two legs or four. Most creatures have at least four legs, unless they are fish.
Kind of like how a person feels a phantom limb, their daemon reflects all the parts they began with.
This also makes sense. I saw a theory on tumblr that suggested that people with same-sex daemons might be people who have gender dysphoria, so the daemon reflects the gender they feel themselves to be, rather than the one they were assigned. Which makes a lot of sense to me, too.
I love jamming about this stuff so it's less me being patient and just giving into my HUGE FANNISH GLEE.
*high five*
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Date: 2014-07-17 03:26 am (UTC)That makes sense. I wonder if people who are then blind since birth would have a daemon settle in a form that's not quite what the animal looks like but a close approximation based on touch?
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Date: 2014-07-17 03:38 am (UTC)And would d/Deaf people have to make up a language to communicate with whatever form their daemon settles or would the daemon choose something with fingers so it could sign?
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Date: 2014-07-17 03:47 am (UTC)I'd imagine a deaf person would settle into a daemon with fingers. Unless they also communicate by the daemon writing/scratching out words?
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Date: 2014-07-17 03:58 am (UTC)There is literally nothing on how daemons are born. There's a lot of headcanon I've seen, but nothing official. My own thought is that the daemon takes a baby version of the form of the first animal it sees, usually the mother's, and stays that way until the baby starts to become self-aware. I've seen a theory that daemons are just golden blobs until the baby becomes self-aware, and then it takes on a form. But that's from the daemon religion people, who are a bit..unique. I suppose that could work for blind people--their daemons just never become animals, and remain more shapes or blobs; those with more vision looking more like animals than those who have less vision. Being totally, completely blind isn't as common as it's portrayed. Legally blind people can still see somewhat a lot of the time.
I'd imagine a deaf person would settle into a daemon with fingers. Unless they also communicate by the daemon writing/scratching out words?
Or some sort of code they inventing themselves, using wing positions, or nose tapping on the human's hand or tail swishes or something.
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Date: 2014-07-15 06:51 pm (UTC)I love how the daemons say more openly what the characters are really doing and thinking (often not consciously) in your fics. Tony might actually say that one, though.
Love the guys here too.
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Date: 2014-07-15 08:16 pm (UTC)One of my favourite parts of daemons is that all those conversations you have with yourself in your head are actually playing out in real life dialogue, which makes for some rather soul-bearing moments. And the fun part is what they sound like and how they communicate (with enthusiasm, with annoyance, with sarcasm, etc), and how that shows the human's personality. I really love playing around with all that.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment!