dear_mun | (no subject)

Would you prefer don't call it a comeback?

I'd prefer you looking like Justin Timberlake and signing the Best of 80's Pop as sung by female vocalists, but we can't always get what we want.

Sorry Stark, you're stuck with this gorgeous mug. Get me drunk enough and put on some Cyndi Lauper, I might get that second thing going for you.

Those are fighting words, Katniss. I'll have you know there's no match for my high-functioning alcoholism.

You're drunk right now, aren't you?

No.

[ Yes. ]

[ whatever you say drunkie brewster, clint doesn't believe you. ]

It's not whether I win or lose going shot for shot, it's now well I sing The Go-Gos while wasted that counts.

It's like people assume from my lack of having any embarrassing teenage pop hits that I can't sing.

I can sing.

You were gone?

[ bruce thinks he's hilarious. ]

[ Flipping him the bird, merci. ]

Chicks like it more when you have that sex-rumpled "Professor who I will fuck to get an A" look. Mouthy doesn't suit.

I seem to remember a slightly different grading scale, when I taught.

Yeah, cause you were a nerd.

[ And Tony was, like, barely sixteen and trying to get MIT post-grads to sleep with her, but that's neither here nor there.

Right? ]

Associate professor, actually. But I did have a few students who thought like you.

[ caught. ]

If only you had gotten some T&A. [ Fingerpoint. ] Your life could have turned out completely different.

[ scoffs lightly. ] Yeah. That was the problem.

[ he's not thrilled about following this line of thinking. time for redirection. ] So. Is she... do you still have the arc reactor?

Edited (sry) 2013-10-15 08:54 (UTC)

[ Bruce, she was perfectly happy to have you play ball — now you're just asking all the wrong questions. Her brows furrow but only for a second, dismissing it with a vague Starkian hand gesture. ]

Common sense says yes. Puppeteer says things went a little differently for me in Manhattan. I'll lodge a formal complaint and look into it.

—that all I am to you? Fancy piece of clockwork?

Could be fancier, I guess.

[ dismiss it all you want, but he's a scientist. you're stuck with the follow-up. ]

No Extremis?

[ a mild question, but he's meeting her eyes, which means he's serious. he didn't nap through the entire two hours, and he caught enough to be his version of concerned. ]

Edited 2013-10-15 09:06 (UTC)

[ Even for you, Bruce, you're skating on thin ice. ]

There was. Is.

[ Just a little different, is all. Because, really, my biggest creation is you? And the last time someone told Tony Stark what to do, his name was Obadiah Stane and look how that one ended up, and Rhodey has his own suit now, and—

The bottom line is, some things turn out different. That's just how it is. ]

Flavored more Stark than AIM, I guess.

[ he knows. he's willing to risk it. her answer deepens his frown, which turns darkly wry at the edges. ]

So, less of a privilege. More of a burden. [ the humor grows. ] But consistently terrible?

Baby, you don't know the half of it.

Really. Two hours was only half?

See, I wouldn't have pegged you for someone who had problems finishing early.

Oh? What, what did you have me pegged as?

You know. All that tantric sex bullshit.

Mm. Right. [ nods down at his feet. ] I got to know some practitioners in India. Tantra, it believes in cosmic, divine energy. They teach their followers to, uh, [ and now he's looking up. the look's a little dangerous, if you have any common sense. ] to channel that energy in creative and... emancipatory ways.

Edited (gdi i'm a failure tonight) 2013-10-15 09:46 (UTC)

[ Yeah, common sense — of which, it has been argued, Tony has none.

She grins at him instead. ]

So if I want a gangbang, I should go to India?

[ blink and it's gone; bruce reigns himself in. it almost works. ]

Don't you usually get things delivered?

So you're saying I should look closer to home.

[ Okay, no, that's not fair. Once you let it out, you can't expect her not to chase after it. Kind of like a cat and one of those weird... sparkly cat toy things on a ribbon. ]

Tony. You paid off my neighbors in Kolkata, bought me an apartment, and gave me an entire floor of labs in Stark Tower. I, I'm saying you don't need to look.

[ Her lips purse then unpurse. It's a pleased expression, but also kind of like the look in a leopard's eye before it, like, breaks an antelope's jaw. ]

I like it when you get flustered.

[ jesus christ. good thing she does, because the likelihood of it happening is directly correlated to how acutely he feels the space left between them.

he doesn't respond, just shakes his head, but he openly grins as he looks away, which tony should definitely count as a win. ]