Steve knows that despair all too well. It's the kind that's been threatening to swallow him up since Tony's death, since Wakanda, since Siberia, since-
He's stopped keeping track. Better to keep moving, he tells himself, except he hasn't been able to do that since the battle with Thanos. They'd lost too damn much in one fell swoop, and now Steve's burden is too heavy for even him to bear, even without the weight of the shield on his shoulders.
"You- what, you accidentally uploaded yourself to the cloud?" Steve sounds dubious, as he should. He knows Tony was with them the entire time - that he hadn't just sent some computer-controlled suit. That a human had snapped his fingers and rewritten the universe. He'd seen him dead on the battlefield, a moment of triumph transformed into heart-rending sorrow. That's Tony Stark. This isn't Tony Stark, voice and face and mannerisms aside.
(But there had been two Tonys when they'd traveled back in time. That's a fact. Two flesh and blood versions of the same man. What makes a digital Tony less Tony?)
"You have to know how," he insists. "Something. Anything." Convince me, he almost says.
"I don't," Tony snarls back. He raises a hand to his face and digs his nails into his forehead. "I guess it... Testing? The diagnostics for the Mark 50, which... but," he mumbles, more to himself than anyone else, "transcoding the entirety of a human brain to data is theoretical at best, let alone superimposing it on preexisting AI scaffolding, so it must've..."
He stops. Drops his hand from his face, and lets out an ugly laugh.
"God. This is rich. This is so rich -- having to affirm my own goddamn self to you."
To him. Wait. What's Rogers even doing here?
Tony raises his eyes toward the updated, photo-real simulation of his lab. There's more to this scene than just the rearranged equipment -- dark, empty hallways stretch out beyond the tempered glass walls, normally bustling with chatting teammates and support crew. Why--
He feels himself dip back into the stream, from his feet to his face. His mouth and nose go under.
>access -a STARKLINK SECURITY >>>loc: avengers_hq >>>type: camera >>>category: all >AI_54.4f.4e.59.0d.0a ACCESS GRANTED
Exactly 104 camera feeds populate his view out of the possible 206. Reason: Offline. In the space of a second, he scans the available images and labels them. Dark, empty, dark, dark, empty. Damaged. Dark.
>>>timestamp dt 11/05/2023 17:14:09
The room comes into focus, a single point of analysis. He sucks in a breath.
That tone confirms it more than anything else ever could: this Tony is from after Siberia, the wounds still raw. (Had he been hoping for a magic reboot button? Something where he could pretend he'd never ripped them apart, where everything hadn't changed? He's not sure, and he doesn't want to examine it too closely.) It's a Tony who hasn't fought Thanos yet, without the highlights in his hair hiding the grey, a Tony who hasn't had Peter die in his arms.
You ran off to sulk in the woods for five years, Steve almost says, but that's - mostly - unfair, even if it's accurate. He hadn't tried to fix things, either, but he's not the kind of guy capable of coming up with the sort of plan they'd needed. Steve's a blunt object, a hammer, a shield. You aim him at something and let go. They'd tried that approach when they'd killed Thanos the first time. Tony had already given up by then.
"You know," Steve says with a deceptive mildness, "I seem to remember something about creating new AIs being banned by the Sokovia Accords." God help him, he can't resist the urge to push an AI's buttons, even when he can literally push an AI's buttons instead. "But it's been awhile, so maybe I forgot that part."
It echoes through his head. He tries to wrap his mind around it through simple calculations: 2,210 days, 21 hours, and 34 minutes.
He remembers the cereal he ate this morning.
The abyss beneath him yawns wider, and it's all he can do keep staring forward and not fall into it. Except -- that's not how it works now, is it? He always had an active mind, always craved to be busy, especially in moments of emotional peril, but right now what he feels is a hundred running streams through his head, ready and waiting for commands, buzzing with untapped energy. His thoughts, scattered on the surface, are only the most obvious part of what he is, what he can do.
He raises his hands and rests his eyes on them. He cross-references the locations of the 104 dark camera feeds against the facility's lighting system, and finds 97 rough matches. He uses root_command -access protocol AI_54.4f.4e.59.0d.0a to override the automated schedule. He flexes his fingers inward, toward his palms.
Cap speaks, and Tony's main processes stutter.
"Do you think this is funny," he says.
He's standing. He can't remember if he made the motion, if he didn't just blink and go from one position to the other, but that doesn't matter as he turns toward Rogers.
"I wasn't trying to make an AI. I was building a suit -- here," he emphasizes, as he points a finger at the ground, "In this room, ten minutes ago. I was on the phone with Pepper, I..."
His heart wrenches in his chest, or motherboard -- wherever the hell else it's supposed to be. He feels the loss, all at once, like a landslide. Six years.
In real life, the hologram raises its eyes, wet and red. The voice in the room's speakers comes out raw.
"Where is she?" The hologram sucks in a breath. "Is she.... is she with--"
I ought to ask you the same thing, Steve thinks as he stares at the crystal clear image of the man who used to be one of his best friends, the man he trusted more than any other right up until he drove the edge of his shield into his chest in Siberia. It's a fucking imitation of Tony, a digital echo, and Steve desperately wants to punch something real right now.
"I think you're a glitch in the fucking Matrix," he retorts harshly. Steve squeezes his own eyes shut, tries not to clench his hands into fists. It fucking hurts, and he hates Tony Stark a little bit right now. Only he could accidentally leave a ghost behind while building a suit, just a casual thing of no consequence that would haunt Steve years in the future. Sure, it isn't Tony's fault, but in lieu of anyone else to blame - including himself - he makes a good scapegoat.
Then he mentions Pepper, and Steve's stomach twists into knots at the thought. God, there's no way he can mention any of this to her. If it feels like salt in his wounds, he can't imagine how much worse it would be for her. They'd been married, spent years together, raised a child, and now-
No. He can't give her a cheap imitation who doesn't remember any of that.
"She's fine." That's all Steve offers in reply, all he can offer. None of them are fine, not anymore, but they have to keep moving. They have to move on, and this isn't the way to do it. But he looks at the expression on the hologram's face, so anguished and real, and wonders how something made of pixels can do that, if Tony had to sit here and cry for cameras to capture and reproduce in HD. There's a depth of emotion that isn't just footage being replayed, or so he thinks for a moment. "Really. I promise." Not that his promises mean much to a Tony from six years ago.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He's stopped keeping track. Better to keep moving, he tells himself, except he hasn't been able to do that since the battle with Thanos. They'd lost too damn much in one fell swoop, and now Steve's burden is too heavy for even him to bear, even without the weight of the shield on his shoulders.
"You- what, you accidentally uploaded yourself to the cloud?" Steve sounds dubious, as he should. He knows Tony was with them the entire time - that he hadn't just sent some computer-controlled suit. That a human had snapped his fingers and rewritten the universe. He'd seen him dead on the battlefield, a moment of triumph transformed into heart-rending sorrow. That's Tony Stark. This isn't Tony Stark, voice and face and mannerisms aside.
(But there had been two Tonys when they'd traveled back in time. That's a fact. Two flesh and blood versions of the same man. What makes a digital Tony less Tony?)
"You have to know how," he insists. "Something. Anything." Convince me, he almost says.
no subject
He stops. Drops his hand from his face, and lets out an ugly laugh.
"God. This is rich. This is so rich -- having to affirm my own goddamn self to you."
To him. Wait. What's Rogers even doing here?
Tony raises his eyes toward the updated, photo-real simulation of his lab. There's more to this scene than just the rearranged equipment -- dark, empty hallways stretch out beyond the tempered glass walls, normally bustling with chatting teammates and support crew. Why--
He feels himself dip back into the stream, from his feet to his face. His mouth and nose go under.
>access -a STARKLINK SECURITY
>>>loc: avengers_hq
>>>type: camera
>>>category: all
>AI_54.4f.4e.59.0d.0a ACCESS GRANTED
Exactly 104 camera feeds populate his view out of the possible 206. Reason: Offline. In the space of a second, he scans the available images and labels them. Dark, empty, dark, dark, empty. Damaged. Dark.
>>>timestamp dt 11/05/2023 17:14:09
The room comes into focus, a single point of analysis. He sucks in a breath.
"Six... years?"
no subject
You ran off to sulk in the woods for five years, Steve almost says, but that's - mostly - unfair, even if it's accurate. He hadn't tried to fix things, either, but he's not the kind of guy capable of coming up with the sort of plan they'd needed. Steve's a blunt object, a hammer, a shield. You aim him at something and let go. They'd tried that approach when they'd killed Thanos the first time. Tony had already given up by then.
"You know," Steve says with a deceptive mildness, "I seem to remember something about creating new AIs being banned by the Sokovia Accords." God help him, he can't resist the urge to push an AI's buttons, even when he can literally push an AI's buttons instead. "But it's been awhile, so maybe I forgot that part."
Why don't you go Google yourself, Tony?
no subject
It echoes through his head. He tries to wrap his mind around it through simple calculations: 2,210 days, 21 hours, and 34 minutes.
He remembers the cereal he ate this morning.
The abyss beneath him yawns wider, and it's all he can do keep staring forward and not fall into it. Except -- that's not how it works now, is it? He always had an active mind, always craved to be busy, especially in moments of emotional peril, but right now what he feels is a hundred running streams through his head, ready and waiting for commands, buzzing with untapped energy. His thoughts, scattered on the surface, are only the most obvious part of what he is, what he can do.
He raises his hands and rests his eyes on them. He cross-references the locations of the 104 dark camera feeds against the facility's lighting system, and finds 97 rough matches. He uses root_command -access protocol AI_54.4f.4e.59.0d.0a to override the automated schedule. He flexes his fingers inward, toward his palms.
Cap speaks, and Tony's main processes stutter.
"Do you think this is funny," he says.
He's standing. He can't remember if he made the motion, if he didn't just blink and go from one position to the other, but that doesn't matter as he turns toward Rogers.
"I wasn't trying to make an AI. I was building a suit -- here," he emphasizes, as he points a finger at the ground, "In this room, ten minutes ago. I was on the phone with Pepper, I..."
His heart wrenches in his chest, or motherboard -- wherever the hell else it's supposed to be. He feels the loss, all at once, like a landslide. Six years.
In real life, the hologram raises its eyes, wet and red. The voice in the room's speakers comes out raw.
"Where is she?" The hologram sucks in a breath. "Is she.... is she with--"
>root_command -access protocol AI_54.4f.4e.59.0d.0a
>>CONFIRMED
Lights across the facility turn on, through rooms, outer corridors, and hallways nearby.
no subject
"I think you're a glitch in the fucking Matrix," he retorts harshly. Steve squeezes his own eyes shut, tries not to clench his hands into fists. It fucking hurts, and he hates Tony Stark a little bit right now. Only he could accidentally leave a ghost behind while building a suit, just a casual thing of no consequence that would haunt Steve years in the future. Sure, it isn't Tony's fault, but in lieu of anyone else to blame - including himself - he makes a good scapegoat.
Then he mentions Pepper, and Steve's stomach twists into knots at the thought. God, there's no way he can mention any of this to her. If it feels like salt in his wounds, he can't imagine how much worse it would be for her. They'd been married, spent years together, raised a child, and now-
No. He can't give her a cheap imitation who doesn't remember any of that.
"She's fine." That's all Steve offers in reply, all he can offer. None of them are fine, not anymore, but they have to keep moving. They have to move on, and this isn't the way to do it. But he looks at the expression on the hologram's face, so anguished and real, and wonders how something made of pixels can do that, if Tony had to sit here and cry for cameras to capture and reproduce in HD. There's a depth of emotion that isn't just footage being replayed, or so he thinks for a moment. "Really. I promise." Not that his promises mean much to a Tony from six years ago.