[The touch feels surprisingly intimate to him - or maybe not so surprising, considering his own isolation - and that's what makes him end it so quickly. He wants more, but that's probably (definitely) weird.]
You might try saying that to someone who hasn't seen you in your underwear, [he shoots back teasingly, trying to distract himself more than anything else.]
[ tony lifts his chin. he's confident in his body and ability to please his part–a woman, even with the tech sitting in his chest. ] I've yet to receive complaints and I don't see that streak breaking.
Oh, bit of a size queen, are you? That's respectable. [ tony nods thoughtfully to himself. then, slyly: ] Want me to buy you a mega-size dildo since I'm so unfit for your needs?
[He's just left blinking and sputtering at, well, everything. Apparently he needs to stop playing chicken with Tony. He remembers the guys giving each other shit about their dicks (he's not sure which guys; that part of it is hazy), but none of it ever went this far.]
I think I'm unfit for your needs.
[Which maybe comes out a little more self-deprecating than he intends it to.]
[ tony smirks. score another win for him. ] You're right. I like mine much curvier and softer, and with less, [ he glances downward, ] dangly bits. Especially less teeth. No offense.
I know a subset of people who would be very into that. [ tony's not, but he's dabbled in the scene. a girl wanted him to try it. ] Who knows? One day you might find your very own kinky Belle.
['Disney', at least, he recognizes - though the lavish spectacle that unfolds before him bears little resemblance to Snow White or Bambi. But he can see the bones of the past in the present, a certain style that seems familiar.
The story, of course, he recognizes. It might not be a tale as old as time, but it's still one he's familiar with, at least after the setting is established. But his first comment comes after Belle's in the Beast's castle, a quiet remark that he slips in just before a musical number kicks off-]
At least you only have one thing in your house that talks.
[ tony loses interest early on. the movie's not his style, even if he owns it (good enough for the academy, good enough for him), but he keeps quiet in his chair, letting simba watch, occupying his busy brain with working on his tablet and later with the pizza delivery that arrives sometime during gaston's song. after dividing the boxes appropriately between them, he leaves and returns with a large glass of water for simba and a bottle of beer for himself.
once the beast shows up more, tony pays more attention, looking up from hunching over his tablet and food. mainly, though, when he looks up, he watches simba watching it. he finds the gion more interesting: his own real-life beast. not that that ... makes him belle. nope.
he yanks his eyes back to his tablet and shoves more pizza into his mouth. when simba finally comments, a smile fights its way onto tony's face, his cheek still full, and he ducks his head behind his hand to hide it. ]
[At least the movie distracts him from the emotions that threaten to drag him under when he eats the pizza. It brings back so many fragments of memories from before the war, and that's part of what keeps him so quiet up till then, fighting a battle between his past and the present. (It helps that the pizza isn't quite the same as what he had growing up - the crust is thinner and crispier than he's used to, the sauce tastes different.)
Tony doesn't offer a retort, and he finishes off the pizza as he watches Belle befriend the Beast, drawing him out of his shell. He thinks about the soft brown curls that haunt his memory, a firmly stubborn gaze and vibrant red lips - wonders what she would think of him now. She'd seen through to his heart before, but the situation is muddled now - thornier. He's not the person he used to be, and she's probably dead now, anyway.
He doesn't speak up again till Gaston leads the townspeople in a hunt against the Beast.]
That's what would happen to me if people found out. In a best-case scenario. [That's why he can't do what Tony does, no matter how much he might want to.]
[ tony's reclined in the chair, pizza box closed for leftovers later. the beer bottle hangs from his fingers. ] You might be surprised. Most people have moved on from the torch-and-pitchfork mentality.
[ eyes glued to his tablet, which seesaws on his knee as he draws his finger around it, tony twists his mouth to one side. he can't say he disagrees with simba's assessment, especially if they're talking worse-case, but ... he can't figure out how to word it, so he lets his silence trail after.
until, during the comedic battle between the townsfolk and the enchanted furniture, tony says out of the blue in a low, somber tone in direct contrast to the movie, ] I didn't think I'd get out of that cave alive. [ shoulders laced with tension, he taps and swipes on his tablet. ] I had a chest full of shrapnel, terrorists with military-grade weaponry, [ my weaponry, he growls, ] surrounding every exit, and no hope of rescue. I shouldn't be alive several times over, but ... I am. I got out of there, and now I'm Iron Man. [ he breathes deeply in and shrugs as if revealing even this little wasn't difficult. ] Just sayin', there's always a chance. [ always a hope for something better. ] Don't knock it.
[He doesn't want to dump on Tony's optimism, especially not when he's being so vulnerable - and as much as Tony's trying to pretend otherwise, he knows it takes a lot to admit it - so he doesn't mention how many narrow escapes he's had, that even this is more luck than he'd expected, and that it has to run out sometime.
Instead, he reaches over and rests a paw on Tony's hand, catching it as it swipes over the tablet like he might catch a mouse. He doesn't say anything, just lets the silence hang, more comfortable than before.
At least, until the Beast changes back into a human.]
Okay, but I think we can agree that's definitely not gonna happen.
[ tony stares at their overlapped hands and that tension bleeds back out. he hangs in the silence, too, returning to work as the movie plays on. he needs to shake off the memory of yinsen–if he could just give simba the kind of hope and clarity and drive that yinsen gave him that vital week–repay simba that way... for now, though, his fingers dance over 3D models of custom eating utensils that he's sending to JARVIS downstairs to cut out and print.
tony drops his hand from his cheek, which he unconsciously rubbed at when beast's giant paw cupped belle's face. ] You mean you're not a cursed prince waiting for true love's kiss? [ he jokes, brow popped up. ]
Still about as good of an explanation for your mysterious past as anything I've come up with, to be honest, [ tony admits. ] More fantastical, at least, and who wouldn't want that?
You were vat-grown by some kooks who Frankenstein'd lion and human DNA together, [ tony answers bluntly. ] Not exactly fairytale material. [ more to it than that, but that's the gist of it. ]
[Not that he's really all that possible, but growing a baby seems completely implausible to him. Of course, he doesn't even know what DNA is, so his scientific knowledge is just slightly out of date.]
Anything's possible, [ tony says and his father's voice echoes after–"everything is achievable through technology," one of his many sayings that he instilled in tony. tony believes it, too. possibility isn't a concern. the degree of probability is. ] I wouldn't be surprised if you were born in a secret government lab in New York. They have a ... bit of a history of messing with genetics.
[He remembers the first change - how could he not? Childhood might have made him an expert at enduring pain, but having your body reshaped is an entirely different kind of pain. At least that had been in one go; he's not sure how many procedures he'd gone through later, the haze of sedation and the bone-deep biting cold and whatever they'd done to his head blurring everything together in an interminable length of injections and electric current and chanting, being strapped to a bed or dumped in a cell between sessions as his body changed and warped. They'd started tranquilizing him when he would break through straps and chains in his struggles, drugs running through his veins nonstop. It's a wonder he remembers goddamn anything, frankly.
But the one thing he's struggled to hold onto - the one thing they wanted him to forget - is that he was human, fragile and frail, but full of experiences and emotions. He only has fragments now, and he hoards them like a dragon's treasure.]
I wasn't, [is all he offers. It'll have to be enough to satisfy Tony's curiosity for now. He grabs the pizza box and rises from the couch in one fluid movement, heading over to toss it in the kitchen trash.] I'll try to have the turkey done before you bring your date home tomorrow.
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You might try saying that to someone who hasn't seen you in your underwear, [he shoots back teasingly, trying to distract himself more than anything else.]
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[His grin is toothy - but he doesn't really have any other kind.]
I'm just talkin' about the facts.
[Admittedly, facts he only caught a glimpse of for a split second.]
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[He's just left blinking and sputtering at, well, everything. Apparently he needs to stop playing chicken with Tony. He remembers the guys giving each other shit about their dicks (he's not sure which guys; that part of it is hazy), but none of it ever went this far.]
I think I'm unfit for your needs.
[Which maybe comes out a little more self-deprecating than he intends it to.]
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All the better to eat you with, my dear.
[Surprisingly, that isn't intended to be an innuendo. Which, obviously, will not keep Tony from interpreting it that way.]
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[The twenty-first century is weird. Living in a cave was much less complicated - but also a lot lonelier.]
-what does being Southern have to do with anything?
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[ "indeed, sir." ]
Roll it.
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The story, of course, he recognizes. It might not be a tale as old as time, but it's still one he's familiar with, at least after the setting is established. But his first comment comes after Belle's in the Beast's castle, a quiet remark that he slips in just before a musical number kicks off-]
At least you only have one thing in your house that talks.
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once the beast shows up more, tony pays more attention, looking up from hunching over his tablet and food. mainly, though, when he looks up, he watches simba watching it. he finds the gion more interesting: his own real-life beast. not that that ... makes him belle. nope.
he yanks his eyes back to his tablet and shoves more pizza into his mouth. when simba finally comments, a smile fights its way onto tony's face, his cheek still full, and he ducks his head behind his hand to hide it. ]
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Tony doesn't offer a retort, and he finishes off the pizza as he watches Belle befriend the Beast, drawing him out of his shell. He thinks about the soft brown curls that haunt his memory, a firmly stubborn gaze and vibrant red lips - wonders what she would think of him now. She'd seen through to his heart before, but the situation is muddled now - thornier. He's not the person he used to be, and she's probably dead now, anyway.
He doesn't speak up again till Gaston leads the townspeople in a hunt against the Beast.]
That's what would happen to me if people found out. In a best-case scenario. [That's why he can't do what Tony does, no matter how much he might want to.]
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[So dry.]
Either way, I don't think there'd be much of a happy ending.
[Or a love interest.]
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until, during the comedic battle between the townsfolk and the enchanted furniture, tony says out of the blue in a low, somber tone in direct contrast to the movie, ] I didn't think I'd get out of that cave alive. [ shoulders laced with tension, he taps and swipes on his tablet. ] I had a chest full of shrapnel, terrorists with military-grade weaponry, [ my weaponry, he growls, ] surrounding every exit, and no hope of rescue. I shouldn't be alive several times over, but ... I am. I got out of there, and now I'm Iron Man. [ he breathes deeply in and shrugs as if revealing even this little wasn't difficult. ] Just sayin', there's always a chance. [ always a hope for something better. ] Don't knock it.
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Instead, he reaches over and rests a paw on Tony's hand, catching it as it swipes over the tablet like he might catch a mouse. He doesn't say anything, just lets the silence hang, more comfortable than before.
At least, until the Beast changes back into a human.]
Okay, but I think we can agree that's definitely not gonna happen.
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tony drops his hand from his cheek, which he unconsciously rubbed at when beast's giant paw cupped belle's face. ] You mean you're not a cursed prince waiting for true love's kiss? [ he jokes, brow popped up. ]
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I'm not hiding an enchanted rose in my room, I can tell you that much.
[And princes don't usually talk like they're straight out of Brooklyn.]
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[He's curious, because by and large, Tony simply hasn't asked.]
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Is that possible?
[Not that he's really all that possible, but growing a baby seems completely implausible to him. Of course, he doesn't even know what DNA is, so his scientific knowledge is just slightly out of date.]
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But the one thing he's struggled to hold onto - the one thing they wanted him to forget - is that he was human, fragile and frail, but full of experiences and emotions. He only has fragments now, and he hoards them like a dragon's treasure.]
I wasn't, [is all he offers. It'll have to be enough to satisfy Tony's curiosity for now. He grabs the pizza box and rises from the couch in one fluid movement, heading over to toss it in the kitchen trash.] I'll try to have the turkey done before you bring your date home tomorrow.
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