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welcome home.
The view up here is fantastic, commanding miles of the best that New York City has to offer to the west-facing spectator (which is, unfortunately, New Jersey - but the sunsets almost make up for it). The whole place is open, airy, half glass, a design perhaps semi-consciously influenced by the strong desire for transparency that's been prominent in Tony's mind since he first entertained the idea of letting himself be dragged into this mess. Nothing about it feels like a hiding place. It wasn't built to conceal.
But it occurs to him now, as he stands looking out on the nightfall overtaking the city, that if you're high enough up - none of that matters. If there's no one else around to see in, your plate glass might as well be steel.
Well. It wouldn't the first time he's feverishly drafted and constructed something only to realize he's temporarily forgotten some elementary principle of physics. And after the last couple of days of incessant news coverage and everyone's private files becoming reddit fodder, any privacy feels like a serious relief. Not enough of a relief to make him think twice about pouring himself a second drink from the pointedly useless bottle of vodka he's brought along as a fuck-you-very-much welcome gift for his newest tenant, but ... kind of nice. It takes just that much more of the edge off as he waits for the extra personnel in the room to scram. It wasn't very friendly, probably, to have security escort Rogers up to his new digs, but - he isn't feeling particularly friendly.
"You don't want any, right," he says, looking at the liquid rushing into his glass rather than turning to look at Steve, or even glancing up at his reflection in the glass - and not waiting for a response before capping the bottle again and setting it aside. "I mean, I can't imagine. After all the kool-aid you've been drinking."
If Steve were anyone else, it would be impossible to believe he could have been so closely involved with the work SHIELD was doing and yet fail to see the true nature of the beast. Everyone, everyone else's motivations are suspect. But just because he trusts Steve - he thinks - to have good intentions, he's sure as shit still pissed that he didn't know. After their first run-in with SHIELD's inability to be even moderately honest about their intentions for the alien power source they'd all gone hunting for, how could he not be suspicious? How is that a lesson he hasn't learned? He's angry; he's bitter; he's annoyed, really, at himself. Because he should have known. And somewhere, deeper down than he likes to look, he's afraid that this is just what he's fated to: delivering up the engines of destruction to whoever happens to want to destroy the world this week. Maybe there's something stained about him, something irreparably charred. It keeps fucking happening. His resources and his technology, no matter how innocuous they might seem at first sight, keep winding up in the same place: someone else's chest cavity.
He can't even pretend it's not his own fault. He was stupid enough to say yes when they asked him for help, enough of a self-involved idiot to think that offering technical assistance to some do-gooders could start to put a bandage on the gaping wounds he's left behind him all his life. He wanted to believe it badly enough that he tipped his hand to them, and that was all it took to let them know exactly how to manipulate him. So here he is, again, having facilitated another global project of annihilation. ... Almost.
Almost: because a couple of people managed to stop it in the nick of time, and one of them's standing behind him. And even if he doesn't feel like being grateful, he knows they should try to start off on something other than the worst possible foot. So, grudgingly, he turns to face him, with a tight, slightly frenetic smile - and he spreads his arms abruptly, as though to indicate the view now stretching out behind him. "But - believe it or not - I've never actually blown up that many billions of dollars of government property in one day, so. Maybe it's thirsty work. I wouldn't know."
But it occurs to him now, as he stands looking out on the nightfall overtaking the city, that if you're high enough up - none of that matters. If there's no one else around to see in, your plate glass might as well be steel.
Well. It wouldn't the first time he's feverishly drafted and constructed something only to realize he's temporarily forgotten some elementary principle of physics. And after the last couple of days of incessant news coverage and everyone's private files becoming reddit fodder, any privacy feels like a serious relief. Not enough of a relief to make him think twice about pouring himself a second drink from the pointedly useless bottle of vodka he's brought along as a fuck-you-very-much welcome gift for his newest tenant, but ... kind of nice. It takes just that much more of the edge off as he waits for the extra personnel in the room to scram. It wasn't very friendly, probably, to have security escort Rogers up to his new digs, but - he isn't feeling particularly friendly.
"You don't want any, right," he says, looking at the liquid rushing into his glass rather than turning to look at Steve, or even glancing up at his reflection in the glass - and not waiting for a response before capping the bottle again and setting it aside. "I mean, I can't imagine. After all the kool-aid you've been drinking."
If Steve were anyone else, it would be impossible to believe he could have been so closely involved with the work SHIELD was doing and yet fail to see the true nature of the beast. Everyone, everyone else's motivations are suspect. But just because he trusts Steve - he thinks - to have good intentions, he's sure as shit still pissed that he didn't know. After their first run-in with SHIELD's inability to be even moderately honest about their intentions for the alien power source they'd all gone hunting for, how could he not be suspicious? How is that a lesson he hasn't learned? He's angry; he's bitter; he's annoyed, really, at himself. Because he should have known. And somewhere, deeper down than he likes to look, he's afraid that this is just what he's fated to: delivering up the engines of destruction to whoever happens to want to destroy the world this week. Maybe there's something stained about him, something irreparably charred. It keeps fucking happening. His resources and his technology, no matter how innocuous they might seem at first sight, keep winding up in the same place: someone else's chest cavity.
He can't even pretend it's not his own fault. He was stupid enough to say yes when they asked him for help, enough of a self-involved idiot to think that offering technical assistance to some do-gooders could start to put a bandage on the gaping wounds he's left behind him all his life. He wanted to believe it badly enough that he tipped his hand to them, and that was all it took to let them know exactly how to manipulate him. So here he is, again, having facilitated another global project of annihilation. ... Almost.
Almost: because a couple of people managed to stop it in the nick of time, and one of them's standing behind him. And even if he doesn't feel like being grateful, he knows they should try to start off on something other than the worst possible foot. So, grudgingly, he turns to face him, with a tight, slightly frenetic smile - and he spreads his arms abruptly, as though to indicate the view now stretching out behind him. "But - believe it or not - I've never actually blown up that many billions of dollars of government property in one day, so. Maybe it's thirsty work. I wouldn't know."
no subject
Stark seemed to be admired by the majority of military personnel Steve had met since waking up. They might be torn between opinions of Stark Industries leaving the weapons business, but it was universally acknowledged that they had the best tech you could ask for. Even SHIELD had him on board as a consultant, though in retrospect, Steve would like to know just how much Stark had been aware of what his repulsor engines would be used for.
He had been in Zola's algorithm, Hill had confirmed that much. She wouldn't have gone to work for Stark if he was Hydra. Steve suspects she and Fury are up to something that involves Stark, but he isn't particularly interested any more. All he wants to do is find Bucky, and for that, he needs help. It wouldn't hurt to ask, Sam had said, the implied 'what have you got to lose' loud and clear. The worst Stark could say was no.
Steve makes the elevator ride to the top of Stark Tower accompanied by burly security guards and wonders briefly if this is Stark's idea of a joke. They step out into the penthouse, which looks markedly different from the last time he had been there. Stark is busy pouring himself a drink and Steve watches his reflection in the enormous glass windows taking up one side of the room till he turns around.
"I took a dip afterwards, it's fine," Steve replies dryly.
Billions worth of damage aside, SHIELD's files being dumped onto the internet is what's causing more trouble. The downside of exposing Hydra had been airing SHIELD's dirty laundry as well. Steve isn't all that concerned about what's out there about him. The life of Captain America, both before and after Project Rebirth, has been scrutinized and picked apart in the years he spent in the ice, and he has nothing to hide about the type of missions he ran for SHIELD. The rest of the Avengers, though, might have more of a problem with it.
no subject
He drinks - again - looking at Rogers with a sort of skeptical reproach, as though it's his fault they're standing here staring each other down - again. God, he really doesn't want to wind up on that road (at least not after all of twenty seconds, which - record time), and he turns his head to look at nothing in particular, just to break the line of sight. Playing chicken's a stupid habit, although not one he's ever tried to break. It always crops up around people to whom he feels like he has something to prove, and Rogers is that, for some godforsaken reason that doesn't bear thinking on. It's different, somehow, from the desire to impress, which is the source of all the gleeful stunts he pulls for, say, Banner (whom he hasn't seen in a couple of days, but the world finding out you're the Hulk is a good enough excuse for a little brooding).
He should take up introspection, instead. He's not going to. "Anyway. The pool's on 42. Make yourself at home. My house is your house. Go crazy. Don't, you know, invite friends over who turn out to be fascist infiltrators who use my intellectual property to facilitate the murder of any potential threat to their global dominance, but - otherwise." Mouth twisted slightly, he looks him in the eye again. "You know, if ... that's okay."
It's not the most delicate way to test the waters, but he doesn't do delicate. It is, possibly, less forward than how the hell did you not notice, but equally unfair. There's not a lot of sympathy left in his reserves, though. For him, the hit he's taken is personal, and has little to do with the concrete consequences. Sure, the data spill is making PR a nightmare, but when is it ever not. There are no secrets coming out about him that people haven't been publishing in tabloids since he was old enough to read. The sting is in having fucked up - in having been duped. In having wasted another couple of years in a life that's already littered with waste.
It is, in short, extremely inconvenient for his personal project of rehabilitating his sense of moral righteousness. Among other things.