(Untitled)

[reddestrobin]

WHO: reddestrobin and iron_liver
WHAT: Tim meets Tony face to face before asking him to design another network.
WHERE: Tony's office
WHEN: After Tim gets a cure, but before he goes back to Seattle.
WARNINGS: Probably not.
SUMMARY: Tim talked to Bucky!Cap about another network and creating the JL Avengers. Since he's closer (geographically) to Tony, he figured he'd see

Comments

[liverletdie]

The drop of Captain America had certainly... phased Tony quite a bit. He had to catch himself and remember that Bucky was Captain America. That's the way it would be now. Was it the old friend turned enemy? Or was it the man who held the moniker now? This place continued to be more and more confusing over time.

That was alright though, Tony was used to confusing. He was always finding more things to complicate his life without the environment, so this should be more than easy to acclimate to.

When he finally decided to call back this "Red Robin", he hadn't expected things to happen so fast, but he was glad for it. The more distractions, the better. When the secretary let him in, he was surprised at how familiar the guy looked. On the edge of memory, something about him, but he couldn't place it.

"Red Robin, I take it?" he asked, extending his hand to shake it, swinging around the desk to close the door behind them.

[reddestrobin]

Tim accepted the handshake. Tony's grip was firm, and his hands were callused. He must use them for something - maybe even just heroing - but Tim wasn't sure he could call it. Tony just looked like a businessman, but then, so did Bruce.

"Yeah. Nice to meet you, Mr. Stark. I'd have come in costume, but, you know. That would have been pretty suspicious, huh? Guy in a cape, waltzing up to your office. The lady at the desk already seemed like she didn't know what to make of me."

Now he just had to hope that Tony would take someone his age seriously. You could never tell how people would react, and he looked younger out of costume than he did in it.

[liverletdie]

"Believe me, I know," his eyes rolled just slightly, and he smiled at him congenially. "Thanks for the forethought. I'm sure after some time, they'll get used to seeing heroes around. I'll probably shock them enough eventually that they'll think it's a day in the life," a self-depreciating smile, and he returned to his seat, indicating one for Robin as he did so.

"So why don't you tell me what this is about?" he asked. He didn't like playing with niceties for too long, and after this week? He could use an excuse to focus his mental faculties onto something more than just paperwork.

[reddestrobin]

Tim accepted the seat, and forced himself to sit still. He had always been kind of fidgety when dealing with things like this - things he considered to be kind of mundane. He hadn't grown out of that yet, but he had to sit still. He wanted to be taken seriously, after all.

"Captain America suggested you'd be able to build - or help build - a network. Not like the one we have now, though. A more secret one, that the capekillers can't monitor. No one knows who to trust, so we're all running around in circles. Some of us almost died, you know? We managed to pull together and figure it out, but what if we'd been intercepted? What if the capekillers had actually been planning to off us, and started deleting our posts? Even them monitoring everything makes me uneasy."

He paused, waiting to see what Tony's reaction would be.

[liverletdie]

It was difficult for him to fight the urge to say no, and then do it himself. He didn't like playing nice with the capekillers, but it was the only way to help ensure that they realized that some of the people in this world were not fighting against them. That was the key issue, wasn't it? Play with one hand while you slipped the other under the table to cheat.

"Yeah, I know. I think something like this would be beneficial to us. Help us coordinate in the case that the capekillers might be working against us again. If they actively pursue us, we can make sure that we know where to go, or who we can contact to gather the people brought here together, right?" he asked, although it was more 'thinking out loud'.

[reddestrobin]

"Yeah, that's the idea. But I don't want to be left out of the loop, you know? I'm not a tech genius, but I do know my way around computers. My idea was more of a...well, a joint-effort thing. If we leave the power in just one person's hands, no matter who that person is, there will eventually be some level of dissension. I don't want that."

It wouldn't do him any good to tell Tony just how much he knew about computers, of course. Not this early on. He still had no real idea of who this guy was. He read like a really good businessman, which meant he wasn't very readable at all. He caught on quick, which helped. But was Tony the kind of guy who was going to take this all away from him so it meant nothing? He couldn't say yet.

That was a big part of why he wanted Batman to agree to it, too. He had to trust someone.

[liverletdie]

"Of course," he said. It wasn't any matter to him, to be honest. If he programmed a backdoor into something like this? Nobody would be able to either find it or hack it, since it would be linked to his brain.

"I think a level of cooperation is important. Who else were you thinking of for this joint-effort?"

[reddestrobin]

Tim's mouth twitched. Maybe Tony was actually feeling cooperative, maybe not. At least he'd sort of agreed. He hadn't been like no, thanks, get out of my office, and that was the biggest hurdle. Probably.

"I'm not familiar with everyone here. Generally, though, I work with Batman. So I'm going to bring this to him, too. Captain America said that he's not tech savvy, but I wanted him to be involved if he wants, since it was kind of his idea in the first place. He has a partner, too, right? Black Widow. I haven't spoken much to her, but partners are partners. There was a guy named Cypher on the network, and he found and confirmed information for us. I have a couple other friends here, people I trust, that I'd like to have at least knowledge of the network."

He was thinking of Dick, and Kon, and even Spider-man. The list wasn't exactly exhaustive, but he knew that not everyone could know about this or they'd all be in danger pretty quickly.

He cleared his throat.

"I'm open to suggestions, though."

[liverletdie]

"Captain America and Black Widow are trustworthy. I know them both. Spider-Man, Hank Pym, Janet Pym, and..." he trailed off for a moment.

He'd almost let another name slip. He didn't trust him anymore, as much as he wanted to. No, he wouldn't be bringing up that person.

"I think I can run through my lists and come up with more for certain. There's plenty of people who are more than trustworthy. Tell me about Batman, though. I don't know very much about him, to be honest."

[reddestrobin]

Oh, good. Tony knew Spider-man. That meant Tim had someone else he could ask, as to whether or not Tony was really trustworthy or not. He'd have to play some of this by ear, either way. Even if Peter didn't trust him, for whatever reason, obviously some people did. And sometimes you had to just go with it, if someone had something you needed.

Tim had worked briefly with R'as al Ghul, after all. Tony couldn't be that bad, could he?

"And?" he asked. Had Tony changed his mind?

He was quiet for a minute after that, though. Explaining Batman was probably impossible.

"Well, I'll be honest with you, Mr. Stark. Batman isn't easy for most people to trust. He's kind of...overbearing, I think. But he's a member of an important team back home, called the Justice League. Superman and Wonder Woman are on that team, too. They're more open than he is, but...he's probably the person in my life who has let me down the least."

It was true, but that didn't mean that Batman had never let him down. Disappearing like he had...well. That was a let down

[liverletdie]

He nodded. Batman sounded about like everything he heard from everyone else. A lot like him, and that was curious. He wanted to speak more with Batman, and figure out the secret, but this would take time, and with the opportunity to get to work with him?

Well. That would be interesting. He laughed a small laugh, and nodded.

"Being difficult sounds a lot like me. I'm sure someone will tell you that I'm a pain to work with, and that I don't take no for an answer, so maybe Batman and I would be good to work against each other, what do you think?"

[reddestrobin]

Tim kind of laughed, too. There were things in their mannerisms that were the same. God, he hoped Tony wasn't as freaktastically paranoid as Bruce was, though. Adding himself into the equation, there would be a lot of paranoia going around once this got moving.

Well, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.

"Captain America told me that not everyone trusts you, but he didn't tell me why," he said. While they were leveling with each other, it was worth mentioning.

"Honestly, I wasn't sure if I wanted to ask you without asking him first, but I'm kind of glad I did. He's probably going to be way more resistant to working with anyone than you are. But I'll win him on it. If you're as good with tech as I guessed you were, then, the two of you will be a great team."

Provided they could get along. BUT Tim wasn't worried about that at the moment.

[liverletdie]

"There was something that happened back home," his voice was as level as he could make it, and he swallowed back the urge to say more. "I'm sure plenty of people will fill you in. And if Batman doesn't think I'm trustworthy, just send him to me. I'm sure we could work something out."

It was true. He really did believe in his natural charisma, and he had a feeling that if Batman was able to lighten up for maybe five minutes, they could get along. They had the same views, he could tell that much from just their conversations over the network, and working with him to cure the illness was an insight into the man.

[reddestrobin]

Tim was used to people being secretive. Tony wasn't exactly hiding whatever this huge thing was that had gone on, but it was obviously a big deal to him. Tim wondered if this had something to do with whatever big deal thing Spider-man had mentioned when they first met.

This life had too many secrets, some days.

"I bet you could, Mr. Stark," Tim said. He could see what people liked about Tony, even if he wasn't sure of his trust factor. Maybe he could figure that out from someone else. Right now, he could probably trust him enough to build this network.

"So, for my own curiosity, tell me something about you. I've only heard your name, but I don't know what you actually do."

[liverletdie]

He smiled enigmatically. "That's a tricky question, I do a lot," he leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of him as he did so. It was almost a lazy motion, but the touches of comfort and stability were in the move.

"Obviously, I hope to run a very large company one day. Focusing on Research and Design, as well as consumer electronics, of which I'm generally working on those projects. I'm known as Iron Man to some, as I'm sure you've heard, and can research quite a bit about on Wikipedia. I'll assume you've done that, so there's no need to elaborate on that one. I'm also the Director of SHIELD, a multi-national peacekeeping force that ensures stability and helps keep superhumans from acting out on the world at large."

[reddestrobin]

Of course Tim had googled "Tony Stark" after he'd been given the name. Captain America had mentioned that this world had similar history to his own. He'd read some things that contradicted themselves, but Tony's identity as Iron Man was already known to him.

It seemed to him that Tony was a man who was used to a lot of power. That could be a good thing, or a really really bad thing. He played it well, though. He seemed like someone Tim wanted to trust, even if he wasn't there yet. Since he wasn't going to be spending all his time in Manhattan, there wouldn't be a lot of chance of that right off. He'd have to work at it.

At least he had something to work at, though. Getting Batman to agree was the next step in this. And getting Batman to work with Tony might be a good idea, too