Tony Stark - Iron Man

/That/’s debatable.

I’m not giving mirrors without getting something back for it, that’d be way too charitable.  Plus you sound like a perv.

There’s a lot of ‘probably’ floating around your sentences, man, that’s not what I came looking for.  And just for the record, nobody’s looking to destroy humanity.  Manhattan won’t die off with a cooler summer, I promise you.  If anything I’d be providing a much needed service to people who can’t necessarily afford air conditioning or make time to get to the public pool- which leaves tons to be desired as is.

Humor me and imagine that you could take a gun to a sizzling neighborhood and- for a small collective fee- cool it down so people can make it until sundown.  Temporary temporal interruption for the sake of avoiding anything from dehydration to heat exhaustion.

But sure, buy me a beer.  It’s literally the least you could do while saving face.

Yeah, sort of the whole point there, squirt. But fine, keep your mirrors. I can just get my own. 

You don’t think a freeze gun is going to have some serious environmental repercussions? You know what, let me mock something up and we’ll test it on you first, see how that goes. I’m sure all those little people will appreciate it - whatcha gonna do when someone can’t pay up? Let them heat stroke it out? Nice to see you’ve got no qualms about exploiting the lower income families. That’s gonna be great for PR. 

So the answer to my question is a big, fat, resounding ‘No’.  No, you can’t make a gun to make it cold outside.

Actually, I wouldn’t mind the mirrors - there’s a few strategic places around here that I’ve wanted to get equip, and no one can protest their placement if they’re gifts. 

Well, yes, I can probably make a gun to make it cold outside. Will I? Probably not. There’re other alternatives to fixing your problem, other than, you know, destroying humanity as we know it. 

... are you? 

You totally are, aren’t you? 

“It– I dunno, it’s stupid!” He shook his head dismissively, “It ain’t even possible. And SHIELD would be pissed if I lost one of my ‘best features’.” He used those words very loosely. “This body has been fucked with more’n– Hell, I guess you probably know what that’s like, huh?” He gestured to the other man’s chest, “Kind of don’t want anyone fucking with it anymore, y’know?”

“Well, but - wait, just what are you looking for? Because I’ve updated and upgraded this thing so many times it makes my head spin and my chest ache. I mean, pretty stable now, but it’s fine,” he taps his chest, though the dull glow is covered up by the incognito-layers he’s wearing. “No why in hell’d I’d let SHEILD touch it though. Pretty handy in a dark room, too. But, man, it doesn’t have to be metal - or heavy as hell, if you like the look.” 

Tony’s pretty sure that he wouldn’t want anyone touching the reactor even if he didn’t know how to manage it himself, but if Bucky’s saying he wants a new arm... well, that might just be a fun project. If he wants. If he could handle some more fuckery. 

“I dunno, I think I’ll just wait till SHIELD figures out how to make an actual arm. Probably gonna be waiting a while. Don’t think it’s high on their list of priorities - helping out people that aren’t in immediate danger. Hell, I dunno if they’re even helping anyone but themselves half the time.” He grumbled to himself, drinking from his glass. “I know how to do the talking thing! I taught Steve that!”

It’s weird, to think about it, how one person can make such a difference. 

“You want a real arm?” he asks, a little caught-off guard. “Like, what kind of real arm?” A prosthetic? Or a less Russian metal arm. Because Tony wouldn’t be trusting SHEILD with either of those things. 

Rolling his shoulder out slowly, the man gave a shrug. “I guess it must help with the arm. Mean, the fuckin’ thing’s heavy.” The weight helped in a fight, and to be honest he rarely noticed it unless he ever removed the thing. “Would you think I was threatening if I had little rubber bits at the ends of my fingers? No. I’ll just stick to slow texting.” 

There was always some way of improving something with these Stark me. Something that could be tinkered with, upgraded. By now, Bucky knew better than to use the old ‘you’re so much like your father’ line, knowing it would only ever earn him a scowl. “You stuck magnets on the shield? Little kids stick magnets on me.” 

Ah Howard… Bucky wanted to guess it was the war that had left the man in the state Tony knew. He hadn’t known him very long, never seeing the side that the other man had apparently grown up with. The Howard in his mind was a smartass that could hold his liquor, not the distant, cold man Tony described. “She was a knockout. Never looked at me twice despite givin’ it a go.” Gulping down the contents of his glass, he grinned happily. “There ain’t many women like her in the world.” 

The image of little nub-shaped bits poking out of Bucky’s metal fingers is amusing, and he can’t help laughing. “No, you neanderthal. If you wanted them on your fingers we’d peel a sticky and match the hue. But you can use a pen - or just dictate. You know we aren’t living in 2000 anymore, right?” he grins; it never gets old. 

“Yeah, only little Trevor’s A-letter fridge magnet is like comparing Cap’s bike to a tricycle. How do you think he gets it back when the boomerang act doesn’t work out?” Then he realizes, “You let kids play magnetic poetry on your arm?” 

How was that even a question, do I look like a supervillain that wants to blast people with nitrogen?  You’re supposed to be a smart man.

You’ve heard of this thing called air conditioning, right? You don’t need a gun, you need four walls, a power outlet, a wall, some styrofoam, and a box cutter. 

Are you talking nitrogen-infused blasts, or a temporal interruption? 

The arm had always been a topic Bucky had guessed would be a fascination of Tony’s. Built years before he had begun creating his own designs, constantly upgraded throughout the decades, even hating it as much as he did, Bucky could admit it was something to marvel over. “Not exactly something you wanna hand out to every guy that loses a limb though… I still accidentally rip doors off of things, smash glasses, don’t even get me started on the goddamn phones. Why’s everything gotta be touchy these days?”

The man was still acting strange, off. Tony was always strange, but rarely did Bucky ever see him ever struggling to keep quiet. 

“Serum helps with the arm then - who knows how it’d react to someone who hasn’t had the biological fuckery that you’ve had to deal with. No arm wrestling, got it,” he laughs. Tablets and smartphones for the artificially limbed -  he makes a note of that. Might be a decent good-will project. “You know they have pens and shit with rubberized ends for people like you. You don’t have to actually use your fingers.” 

“Vibranium-Adamantium alloy; vibranium’s got a weakness for gamma-radiation. Adding a bit of adamantium compensates for it. Plus there’s some pretty wicked magnets on there that weren’t around back in the day.” He shrugs - it was standard upgrading, but it was still better. 

"Yeah, sure,” he scoffs, “Because dear old dad was the first one to let me hang around and get to know his friends.” More like a smack on the back of the head and a locked door. “Did see Peggy sometimes though,” and the memories make him smile, “She was pretty cool. Didn’t take any of my shit.” 

It’s okay, it’d grow back.