toblameforit | (no subject)

(no subject)

Sherry did, of course, do a background check.

"Andy Wright, age 24, graduated cum laude from Bethlem College in South Dakota with a BA in Creative Writing. No criminal record."

Tony was not impressed.

"Licensed bartender. Works in coffeeshops a great deal, as well. Published several poems in a few magazines around the country."

He shouldn't have been surprised, either, and after the initial shock he wasn't.

"Did you expect me not to? Her work isn't bad, though I think she relies on her allusions a little too heavily."

But now, if he's going to email her, he should probably get that out of the way first thing. He sprawls out in bed with his laptop and starts typing.

Subject: so hi
From: tonys (dcxvi)
To: awright (gmail)

Hey,

Sherry totally did do a background check. :( Sorry. It all checks out, though, so that's good I guess.

Anyway. If you seriously want to talk, I think I seriously need to. But like I said, I don't want to freak you out or anything. So... I dunno.

Coffee sometime?

-Tony

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Saturday morning finds Andy at the Cafe Decameron a little before ten; she claims a table near the wall and soon has its top populated with notebook, laptop, iPod, and giant mug of coffee. She's typing busily and mouthing along to her music, though she keeps glancing up at the door to make sure she doesn't miss Tony.

It's about ten-thirty when Tony finally shows up.

He looks around the room twice before he spots Andy and lights up with a warm, if rueful, smile.

After a second, she looks up with a frown. She brightens when she spots him, though, tugs the earbuds out of her ears, and waves.

Tony waves back and heads for her table.

"Hey," he says, casting a critical eye at the laptop. Not in a mean way, but he definitely wants to know what kind of technology she's playing with.

A PC, several years old and a little banged up around the corners. (It's running Red Hat, although presumably he can't tell that from the back.) Last year in a fit of whimsy she gave it some tasteful decoration (http://arkhambazaar.com/bmz_cache/e/eee4119ffca11af6ab04dfdb34afe704.image.260x141.jpg), which probably tells Tony more about her as a person than about her tech savviness.

"Hey! Glad you could make it. Sorry, I've sort of taken over the table, let me clean all this crap up."

He grins. "Don't sweat it. Nice fish."

"It is not a fish, it's an Elder God of Chaos that happens to live in the ocean like a fish." She makes a thoughtful moue. "He might be an amphibian, actually, if he fit into any of our taxonomic systems. I'm not certain."

Tony occupies the other chair at her table and snorts.

"That is a fish. A fish with wings. And—" he wiggles his fingers— "creepy face tentacles."

"Okay, fine, this is a fish, but symbolically it's an Elder God of Chaos that might be an amphibian."

"I'll give you that," Tony concedes.

Andy wins! :D

Andy is adorable.

"You're cute when you're all triumphant," he informs her.

"I try," cheerfully. "Do you want coffee or anything?"

"Hmm." He considers the state of his stomach. "Later," he decides.

"Fair enough."

She finishes packing her stuff away into her bag and leans back in her chair.

"So how've you been?"

He sighs, running a hand through his hair.

"Holed up at home where nobody ever asks me that question."

". . . Shit."

There's a lot to unpack there.

"You want to talk about it?"

That was, after all, the point of this little klatch, but it seems appropriate to actually invite him to start.

It's a backwards way to get into it, but y'know, whatever.

"'cause I'm a really bad liar," he continues quietly, "and I'm always afraid I'm gonna answer with the truth, and people don't actually wanna hear that, y'know? They wanna hear I stayed up all night playing video games, not crying into Sherry's shoulder."

Andy nods and keeps her mouth shut. This is not the time for advice, or platitudes.

"So I mentioned my parents were killed, right?" He knows damn well he did. "Yeah, car accident. Except it turned out it wasn't an accident, somebody took the road out on purpose. And we've got—we had this family friend, Obie, he ended up my guardian afterward, turned out he was behind it 'cause he was after Dad's money."

Tony takes a breath.

"And it's funny, you'd think I'd hate him, and I kind of do, but I kind of still love him anyway? And he got murdered last week."

"--Oh. Oh."

Shit.

If she sips her coffee, will it hide the fact that she only just now figured out he's that Tony Stark?

"Jesus."

"...so yeah," he says wryly, "that's life in the fast lane for you."

"That . . . Jesus, Tony, I'm so sorry."

He looks down at his hands.

"Thanks."

"Did they catch whoever did it?"