bound by the science that lives on the lips of men

[ahollowman]

It was a scheduled meeting between himself and Spider-Woman, which he'd made for later in the evening, because he assumed she had a day job, and because although he was certain KIRIN was watching the place, KIRIN already knew her face, and Tony's employees did not. He wanted to keep it that way, because if she was anything like Pete, it meant something to her.

And it wasn't Tony's decision to make for her. He'd maybe learned a lesson recently about that. It had only taken a week of Wanda being a total dick to him. He supposed she was just fighting fire with fire.

He left the side door unlocked and sat at work, with parts to his suit and parts to the robobee spread out in front of him on the table as he sautered. He preferred to work on two projects at once. He could move between them if he got bored, or frustrated.

When the door chimed a gentle alarm, he lifted his head, and pressed his safety goggles up into his hair.

On top of the refrigerator, the ghetto blaster thumped out This Flight Tonight by Nazareth. The condenser on the refrigerator hummed on. A suspiciously Dummy-like robot sitting in one corner turned to face the newcomer.

"Holy crap," Tony said. "Are all of you fresh out of middle school or something?"

Comments

[herownway]

It was a touchy subject, clearly, but then it would be. The man had killed his parents. There weren't a lot of wounds as tender as that.

"His brainwashed best friend killed your parents," Jessica said, and then, "Well, shit," because, well, shit. "I mean- I can only imagine. I can see how that'd break up a band. When... when you all threw down, how bad was it?"

[ahollowman]

"That is the short of it, yeah," Tony said, managing to pull the curtain of sangfroid down again. It was rare that a subject could that easily throw him off his guard. That made it worse.

He pointedly stuffed one of the blue cakes into his mouth whole. Vodka would have been better, but cake was a quick substitute.

"The UN was on my ass to arrest Cap and the others. There were reasons, a political nightmare. Anti-vigilantism Accords signed into place. But we were still friends, mostly. I said go easy on them. And then somewhere along the line, going easy on them turned into 'beat their asses' which quickly all went to shit. Do you know Rhodey? You guys even have a Rhodey? He's my buddy. The reactor in his suit got taken out, it was a freak accident. He went down. Crushed half his vertebrae, severed his spine. That ended it pretty quickly."

She was, for whatever reason, only the second person Tony had admitted this to, after Phil. He wondered why. SHIELD training? Maybe. Or maybe she just had a kind face, when it wasn't covered with spider webbing.

[herownway]

"War Machine," Jessica said, half to herself, having to think to place the name. She didn't know him, but she knew of him. "Severed his- oh my god. I'm- it is wholly inadequate but I'm sorry. That's horrible."

She'd considered whether to tell him what happened to Peter, and was now decided on not yet, or at least not now. It would be nothing but piling on, like some kind of ghoulish competition to see whose superhero fights ended in the worst collateral damage, who had the most angst, and she didn't need to play and she didn't need to make like she needed to instruct him on consequences. Clearly, he knew from consequences.

[ahollowman]

"Yes, it is horrible. And yeah, I'm sorry too," Tony said. His face had gone quiet, and he half stared at his feet before lifting his eyes to half stare at Spider-Woman. He didn't want the conversation to turn into superhero disaster porn anymore than she did. Tony might, years ago, have been convinced in his own struggle, but now he didn't care. In this, he wasn't the victim. Rhodey was. And Tony had no perverse desire to hear anyone say they were sorry about it, except the one: Steve Rogers. Tony wanted to hear that man alone admit his culpability.

"It'll be okay. He's unlucky enough to know me, but he's also lucky enough to know me. I don't just make smart fabric. He's got everything money can buy available to him."

There was an undercurrent of irony, and then Tony decided to close that chapter in the conversation. His megawatt smile returned, as if pinned there.

"You've got a little bit of raspberry on the side of your mouth. What should I be calling you, anyway? Unless we're sticking with Pajamas. Which we are, by the way. Just, you know, in costume."

[herownway]

Discussing the horrid outcomes of inter-hero strife with raspberry on the side of her mouth. That did seem pretty par for the course, unfortunately. She wiped it off and then ate it off her thumb because she also was not wasting it. It was good.

"Jessica," she said, with a slight sigh about Pajamas. That seemed pretty par for the course, too. Some aspects of Tony Stark were fairly consistent. "Drew," she added, in case he was thinking that might be a different surname, one beginning with P, perhaps. "Formerly agent of SHIELD, now agent of... myself, mostly."

[ahollowman]

"Nice to meet you, Jessica Drew," Tony said, and sat on the counter with his hands curled over the edge.

"Former SHIELD contractor, current bankroller of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Should we come up with a cover story for me knowing you, or something? Does that not matter to you? Because Pete is my mentee. I mean he sort of is, literally, but also, you know. I'm just ... I'm actually really bad at this whole secret identity thing."

Tony did have one question answered, though. She wasn't related to Peter, at least not directly, not that way.

"I might have just showed up at Parker's apartment one day. His aunt is so engaging. We talked for like, two hours before Pete showed up."

[herownway]

"Aunt... May? She's a nice lady," Jessica said, squinting at him, because he had definitely said engaging with a twist on it, and it wasn't the twist you used for 'a smart and capable woman distinguished but undiminished by the years.'

"Um. Anyway. Let's say I solved one of your puzzles but wasn't in the market for the job," Jessica said. "Which- I actually did do that, so it works. It should cover it."

[ahollowman]

"Is there a second hot aunt I haven't heard about? Because I would hate to be missing out. But yeah, great woman, not sure she knows how to cook, but great."

He kicked himself off the counter again and moved toward the door in the back, where he kept the textiles lab. He and Peter suited one another well; they were kinetic. Tony saw the same quality in Jessica Drew. It was weirdly relieving.

"Yeah, that covers it." The best lies were the ones closest to reality. The kind Tony rarely told; his were bold and unrepentant and large. So the tiny ones tended to better pass under the radar. "Also, handily, gives you an excuse to know Peter. Congratulations. You're on my radar and I want to headhunt you just like I decided Pete needed my personal touch. Except not really."

Because cover story. And also because, she no doubt didn't want any of that, from the way she spoke and acted. And he didn't want her, because Tony was tired of all the women he worked with being secret agents.

[herownway]

There had been some other stuff in there, and part of her did register and agree with those things, but it was buried entirely under her brain attempting to process his first sentence.

"Hot... aunt?" she said. "Hot aunt. Hot aunt."

Attempting may not have been the word. It was more of an infinite loop.

"Hot aunt... May? Hot Aunt May. Hot Aunt May?"

Her head was tipped so far to the side that as she followed towards the other room she would have been walking on the wall had she not had shoes on. "Aunt... Hot May?"

Oh my god does Tony Stark have a senior fetish. I suppose... I suppose he might just be open to the beauty in everyone. That would be very sweet. But. But.

HOT AUNT?

[ahollowman]

"Hot aunt," Tony replied, emphasizing the tt sound on the end of both words and giving Jessica a worried look out of the corner of his eyes. He was a little worried he had somehow broken her, for reasons he couldn't comprehend. Maybe missing context. "Physically. Attractive. In a mature way. She's fifty-five and she absolutely has that Jane Seymour on a great day vibe going on. And she is maybe reaching out after being widowed and thinking about getting out and socializing more. Which sounds like available to me."

He opened the door to the textiles lab and waited for Jessica to pass in.

[herownway]

"She's fifty-five," breathed Jessica, in tones of profound relief. Perhaps this would have been the logical assumption, that she was older. Probably she should have considered it. But Aunt May was Aunt May. It was hard to think of her as other than herself, a constant. She'd just erroneously pictured her the same across the multiverse, which was silly, really, considering how many other things were different.

"Our universe's Aunt May is... not fifty-five," she said, passing into the textiles lab, looking around once more, although perhaps not with an eye towards the same things, more simply appreciative of what was there. Since she was going to be the benefit of its largesse and all. "Not that women older than fifty-five can't be, um, engaging, I'm sure many still experience, um, romance- I'm stopping there."

[ahollowman]

"I mean, you're right, age is only a number, right? She's an attractive, intelligent woman, she could be ninety, whatever." He was half-joking. He never had cared what the papers, and the tabloids, said about his personal life, but also, he made the suggestion purely because she'd been so knocked off-center by the subject. He was just impish enough to have possibly found a new straight man. A straight woman, as it were.

Which would work well, he supposed, until she decided to remind him that she made her own webbing.

Tony waved at the host of machines. They were, mostly, used, and they were, mostly, fixer-uppers. Cheaply acquired and well-loved, which Tony, despite his ostentatious personality, did not have issue with. There were also a few very new machines; a 3D printer among them.

"Here you go. The room where magic happens. Feel free to poke around to your heart's content. If you're former SHIELD and half as smart as I suspect you are based on my little weirdo, if you want to get into my files, you will. So no point in password protecting anything. There are some templates with your name on them. 'Pajamas.' You might want to look them over before we finalize. Or I could just give you some skeins of red and white and send you on your way. Do you sew?"

They had already established that Tony did.

[herownway]

"I do not," Jessica said. Maybe given practice or instruction she could have, and if she hadn't gotten a line on solutions to her costume problem maybe she would have had to try. She kind of figured getting a professional to do it was a better option than trying to become a tolerable amateur, because then she could focus on the more useful aspects.

Keeping her hacking skills up to par, for one, since Tony Stark considered her able to get into his system. Tony Stark!

Not that I think he's wrong. If his little weirdo can do it, I can do it.

She might have a more tempered view about science, her origin having made her relationship with it rather more fraught and wary. She couldn't muster the same kind of pure love for it, so she bent herself to other things. Same smarts, different applications.

"I might take the skeins, anyway. I kind of lined up a person to do it. I met an actual facts fashion design student and lined her up to do it."

[ahollowman]

"Holy crap, those still exist? I thought the kids these days were all doing psychology and medical administration or whatever?"

Tony moved off, bustling with an almost but not quite directness around the room to gather the things for her. Red. White. Everything she'd said she needed. He had no problem giving it to her, no problem letting her get her project finished by herself. He felt no ownership over the issue, and no need for gratitude or a returned favor. Tony was raised in generosity; it was a careless generosity, without pretense or expectation.

He thrust the pile toward her arms.

"Just uh, remember to tell them it's heat activated, you fuse it with an iron and then no seams, tada. Except also, if there are wrinkles, you set those, too, so basically, try not to wrinkle it. I mean, once you put it on, they'll be pulled out anyway, but it just looks bad, you know?"

Not that it had mattered with Peter anyway, who kept the thing balled up in a backpack and sometimes smelling of his teenager armpit sweat, but Tony wasn't his Aunt May and he wasn't in the market for someone to parent.

[herownway]

"No wrinkles," Jessica said, taking the proferred fabrics, running her hand over them thoughtfully. Good feel. She liked it. Seemed like it would wear well. "I do not want to be Wrinkled Spider-Woman, so I will pass that along. We'll avoid it. Thank you for this. Really. I was in a bind, I'm out of a bind. I'm very grateful."