Yeah, okay. Congratulations, Tony! First time outside of Stark Towers in days and he immediately finds someone crazier than him. And at least Tony's type of cray is productive and helpful and, really, it only looks crazy to the outside world because they aren't inside Tony's head. Probably a good thing since none of them would be able to follow along with the bouncing ball, anyway. Point is, Tony isn't really crazy, a fact he's pretty sure he's now proven in multiple universe? dimensions? Time Lines? New Yorks at the very least.
You know how people say there's a thin line between genius and insanity. That's utter bullshit. If you've ever seen someone go truly insane, and thanks to Tony's temporary run as a fully costumed super hero he'd gotten up close and personal with plenty of personalities that thought they were insane geniuses. The operative word being "thought" because the truth is when you hit that point on the crazy scale you lose all sight of what needs to get done and you jut go coo-coo. Genius, you know, actually does stuff even if it's just from time to time to keep from getting too bored.
Pretty sure this one is just crazy. Not like Loki crazy but your typical Earth bound crazy. Maybe a little better dressed than your typical specimen (although, really, who wears a blue suit and red converses? I mean, what is this? If he taps his heels together three times can he go back home?) but crazy all the same.
Tony keeps a weary eye on the suited stranger as he empties his pockets of quite the collection. This has to be the weirdest form of hording Tony's ever seen. All of it's random, some of it's the sort of thing you imagine crazy people just pick up off the sidewalk, some of it is just strangely shaped and fancy looking junk as far as Tony can tell and is that - no, couldn't be. That wouldn't even be possible, so clearly not.
Oh, God, maybe it's spreading. Maybe whatever this poor guy has, Tony is going to catch it and soon he'll be dressed like a hipster detective answering people who talk to themselves. Jesus Christ this is what he gets for leaving the labs.
And Tony is this close to excusing himself and going back to his place and taking a nice hot shower when the other guy, he says, "though honestly it'd be more effective if you removed the stabilisers, there's better ways." And just like that Tony's interest is piqued. Damnit.
He turns around, trying to get a look at what exactly the guy is reading about without actually needing to see the page at all. He does invent most of the products that come out of Stark Industries and, besides, he remembers this interview pretty well. Cute little red head (he's always like red heads, ever since Sarah Danvers in the third grade) who could have been a fucking wunderkind in journalism, for all Stark knew, but there's no way that she'd stepped inside an engineering class in her life. Which is fine because, again, Tony enjoyed flirting with her over dinner and then called his assistant and made sure someone contacted Wired, got a copy of the interview before it came out, and have one of the interns go over it so that Tony doesn't sound like a bubbly social science major by proxy. He might have kicked ass and forced his way up in the industry but four short years doesn't give him enough history to risk that sort of image problem. Take all the pictures of him naked in a hot tub full of playboy bunnies that the press can print, that's all part of Tony being Tony, but he's not going to look like an idiot because some tipsy reporter got his science all wrong.
Science that he's now having to defend to Dorothy here. "Sure," Tony answers in that way where you can hear the eye roll in his tone. "If you like your satellites doing their best Harlem Globetrotter's impression than go on, remove the stabilizers. Me? I have a preference for not blasting millions of dollars into space and hoping it comes out spinning the right way." There is so much wrong with this. For starters, no way this guy knows what he's talking about. He's probably just picking words from the article at random and got lucky there, that's all. Technically it's in the realm of possibility even if, okay, even Tony has to admit it's unlikely.
But he's not backing down just yet. It's not that Tony can't admit when he's wrong - he's had to do so plenty of times to Pepper that he's pretty well practiced, and when it comes to science, well, if you have the facts staring you in the face there's no point pouting at them. Tony can totally admit when he's wrong.
He just isn't, that's all.
Second, God, is he following the crazy guy now? He is, and is that really one of his better decisions. It isn't one of his worst but that's really not saying much. Okay, so yeah he's walking with the guy now. But only until he calls him out on this whole "getting what Tony's talking about" act. Tony could make up a list of people that actually understand him when it comes to engineering and physics, and it wouldn't even take a full screen in his phone's contacts.
Also, not that the stranger needs to know this, but if he were desperate or drunk enough, launching a million dollar satellite into space without any special stabilizing or GPS equipment as an "experiment" just to see what would happen is exactly the kind of shit he use to pull, back when he had all the funds in the world.
"Trust me," Tony adds, and yeah he sounds cocky as hell but he's sort of got the right to on this occasion. "I know something about launching yourself into space."
no subject
You know how people say there's a thin line between genius and insanity. That's utter bullshit. If you've ever seen someone go truly insane, and thanks to Tony's temporary run as a fully costumed super hero he'd gotten up close and personal with plenty of personalities that thought they were insane geniuses. The operative word being "thought" because the truth is when you hit that point on the crazy scale you lose all sight of what needs to get done and you jut go coo-coo. Genius, you know, actually does stuff even if it's just from time to time to keep from getting too bored.
Pretty sure this one is just crazy. Not like Loki crazy but your typical Earth bound crazy. Maybe a little better dressed than your typical specimen (although, really, who wears a blue suit and red converses? I mean, what is this? If he taps his heels together three times can he go back home?) but crazy all the same.
Tony keeps a weary eye on the suited stranger as he empties his pockets of quite the collection. This has to be the weirdest form of hording Tony's ever seen. All of it's random, some of it's the sort of thing you imagine crazy people just pick up off the sidewalk, some of it is just strangely shaped and fancy looking junk as far as Tony can tell and is that - no, couldn't be. That wouldn't even be possible, so clearly not.
Oh, God, maybe it's spreading. Maybe whatever this poor guy has, Tony is going to catch it and soon he'll be dressed like a hipster detective answering people who talk to themselves. Jesus Christ this is what he gets for leaving the labs.
And Tony is this close to excusing himself and going back to his place and taking a nice hot shower when the other guy, he says, "though honestly it'd be more effective if you removed the stabilisers, there's better ways." And just like that Tony's interest is piqued. Damnit.
He turns around, trying to get a look at what exactly the guy is reading about without actually needing to see the page at all. He does invent most of the products that come out of Stark Industries and, besides, he remembers this interview pretty well. Cute little red head (he's always like red heads, ever since Sarah Danvers in the third grade) who could have been a fucking wunderkind in journalism, for all Stark knew, but there's no way that she'd stepped inside an engineering class in her life. Which is fine because, again, Tony enjoyed flirting with her over dinner and then called his assistant and made sure someone contacted Wired, got a copy of the interview before it came out, and have one of the interns go over it so that Tony doesn't sound like a bubbly social science major by proxy. He might have kicked ass and forced his way up in the industry but four short years doesn't give him enough history to risk that sort of image problem. Take all the pictures of him naked in a hot tub full of playboy bunnies that the press can print, that's all part of Tony being Tony, but he's not going to look like an idiot because some tipsy reporter got his science all wrong.
Science that he's now having to defend to Dorothy here. "Sure," Tony answers in that way where you can hear the eye roll in his tone. "If you like your satellites doing their best Harlem Globetrotter's impression than go on, remove the stabilizers. Me? I have a preference for not blasting millions of dollars into space and hoping it comes out spinning the right way." There is so much wrong with this. For starters, no way this guy knows what he's talking about. He's probably just picking words from the article at random and got lucky there, that's all. Technically it's in the realm of possibility even if, okay, even Tony has to admit it's unlikely.
But he's not backing down just yet. It's not that Tony can't admit when he's wrong - he's had to do so plenty of times to Pepper that he's pretty well practiced, and when it comes to science, well, if you have the facts staring you in the face there's no point pouting at them. Tony can totally admit when he's wrong.
He just isn't, that's all.
Second, God, is he following the crazy guy now? He is, and is that really one of his better decisions. It isn't one of his worst but that's really not saying much. Okay, so yeah he's walking with the guy now. But only until he calls him out on this whole "getting what Tony's talking about" act. Tony could make up a list of people that actually understand him when it comes to engineering and physics, and it wouldn't even take a full screen in his phone's contacts.
Also, not that the stranger needs to know this, but if he were desperate or drunk enough, launching a million dollar satellite into space without any special stabilizing or GPS equipment as an "experiment" just to see what would happen is exactly the kind of shit he use to pull, back when he had all the funds in the world.
"Trust me," Tony adds, and yeah he sounds cocky as hell but he's sort of got the right to on this occasion. "I know something about launching yourself into space."