toblameforit | (no subject)

If it could help Sherlock, then hell yes, she'll help.

"Of course."

He grins. "Awesome!"

Pouring himself another cup of coffee: "Like now, or you wanna have breakfast or whatever first?"

Tony is aware that sometimes people need these things called 'food' and 'sleep' in order to function. Quite often he does, too, but right now he is running on a combination of enthusiasm and coffee.

"Food would be smart if I'm going to do magic."

She reaches for an apple.

"Would it be okay if I made toast? If there's bread?"

"Yeah, sure," he says easily. "Help yourself to whatever."

"Okay," she says, munching her apple.

She feels super weird rummaging through a stranger's kitchen, but she locates both the bread and a toaster and starts her toast.

"Do you want some?"

Tony considers this, and then says, "Nah. I think I'm gonna go shower now that I'm done with the carpentry. See you in a few minutes."

With this as his parting line, he wanders off, coffee in hand.

"Oookay," she says, as he leaves.

She gets out the butter and jelly, and, after a couple of tries, finds the silverware drawer. She sits down at the table and butters her toast. It's too quiet in the house. Alyce needs to fill quiet spaces.

"Um, hi, Jarvis? Is Sherlock awake yet? Or do you know?"

"He is still asleep," Jarvis answers. "I expect he will be up in an hour or two."

"Okay. Thanks."

She nibbles on her toast.

"So, um, how are you today?"

She has no idea whether an artificial intelligence responds to questions like that, but it seems like the polite thing to ask.

...Awww.

"Fine, thank you," says the disembodied voice. "And yourself? I was sorry to hear about your difficulties yesterday."

"I'm much better, thanks. I guess you know pretty much everything that goes on here, huh?"

Which is... a good thing, right?

At least he (it? no, he) has a soothing voice.

"I do, yes," he agrees.

Cameras everywhere! The boys are used to it, but Jarvis makes sure to avoid spying on guests when they are doing anything private. Trusted guests, at least. Alyce qualifies for that category.

"I'm happy to know you're feeling better."

She is just not going to speculate on cameras. Nope. Not going there at all.

(If any footage of her showering ends up on the Internet, serious curses will abound. Alyce can take care of herself, in that regard.)

"I'm happy to be better. It's all thanks to Sherlock."

Her voice takes on a softer tone when she mentions his name.

(On that score, she needn't worry. Jarvis closed his eyes then, too.)

Awww. If Jarvis could smile, he'd be doing it right now. "He was very worried about you," Jarvis confides on Sherlock's behalf.

"I'd noticed," she says, grinning.

A girl can dream. Alyce is a dreamy kind of girl. But she doesn't pine. Dreaming is fine; pining your heart out is not.

"He's a very good friend. He's my first one from outside of my, well, you know. My coven. My old coven."

"Ah," he says dryly, "so you did have a name for yourselves other than 'ducklings'."

She snickers.

"And yes, we go - I mean, we went by that. Nothing formal. Just 'the coven'. I think I prefer ducklings now. I suggested we all get matching jackets with that written in cursive on the back. Surprisingly, no one else thought that was a good idea."

"I can't imagine why not," says Jarvis, with considerable innocence. There's the barest hint of humour in his tone, though, that indicates he understands the joke.

"Tony is returning," he adds after a second or two. "Do try to forgive him for babbling nonsense; he's been up all night working on that coat."

"Oh, gosh, all night?"

Jarvis is surprisingly easy to talk to. Tony is still a little difficult.

She smiles automatically when he walks back in.

"Jarvis, you are such a gossip," Tony says affectionately as he walks in. His hair is damp and messy, but there is no sawdust on him anywhere and he's wearing an actual T-shirt with sleeves and everything.

"So," he adds, heading for the counter to refill his coffee, "you up for testing the coat?"

"Sure," she says, popping the last bite of toast into her mouth.

She folds the paper towel she was using as a plate and drops it into the trash can as she walks by.

"So your shield protects against all external forces, but I'm thinking as long as I'm within the shield I can call on the magic I use?"

"Yep. As long as you're not trying to go through the walls, it'll work fine."

Now with a fresh cup of coffee (his third in the last ten minutes, if you're counting), Tony leads Alyce down the hall toward the stairs.

Eek. They must be going to the dreaded workshop of breakable things. She presses her arms firmly to her sides as she walks.

She is so much more comfortable in a forest clearing with nothing to bump into by mistake.

He takes her down one floor, to a room that looks a lot like the garage from last night. (The garage from last night is not far away, in fact.)

Luckily for Alyce, all the tables bearing other works in progress have been shoved up against the far wall. The concrete floor is more or less bare, except for the sawdust and a few discarded chunks of wood or metal. There is a forge set up in one corner; it's been cold for a few hours now.

And, of course, in the middle of the room, the coat.

It's a trenchcoat, hanging on a styrofoam mannequin that's nothing but a torso on a pole. The material is hard to determine from a distance, except that it glitters in places; up a little closer, the reason for that becomes clear, because the coat is covered in scales. Wood and metal for the most part—silver, iron, something that might be gold, rowan and ash—but there are other things too, harder to identify. The scales don't look like they're laid out in any kind of pattern, except for the fact that they are perfectly symmetrical on both sides of the coat. They range in size from miniscule in the joints and folds up to a few inches across down the back. There is not a single place on the coat where the original leather shows through a gap between them.

It looks weird as hell, but like Tony said, kind of in a badass way.

"That is- wow."

Alyce walks around the coat where it hangs, examining it from different angles.

"That is a seriously impressive coat. Oh, the wood." She inhales the scent from the sawdust. "Nice. Rowan, right?"

Okay, Tony is coming up in her estimation.

"And you did this all in one night?"