Summary:Tony has some interesting gadgetry to show Steve in the gym of the Avenger's Mansion. The walls are spared…this time! Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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"I made you a present," Tony's voice finishes, speaking through the mansion intercoms. "Don't keep me waiting," he adds, amusement full in his tone. "Though you might want to be in uniform, or at the very least gym attire. Not so much a black tie affair down here in the gym," Tony warns flippantly. There's a pause, wherein it's easy to guess that Tony was almost silently yawning. Then: "See you in a bit."
With that, the communication ends, heralded by a little computerized chirp, as if they were on board a starship. Tony's been fiddling around with a lot of mansion protocols lately. Entertainment? Something else? Hard to know. "Oh wait. Bring the shield if you want." Chirp again.
—
Down in the gym, there IS indeed a setup. A small crew of little robots is set up rows three deep. They are little mouse droids, about the size of large softballs, orienting their little eyestalks here and there at each other and the room around them. Stark's present, comfortable in some of his attire that marks him as in 'project' mode. He also has an interesting chair he's in: sort of a high tech hammock chair, reclined in it with a tablet in hands, one leg loose and hanging onto the floor.
It was the particular mention of the uniform which had Steve intrigued. Followed up by the addition of potentially including his shield in the mix, it's the full spangled stealth-suit regalia which arrives at the gym's entrance in the mansion. True-blues consider the collection of robotics with a friendly if cautious interest as the Captain steps across the floor towards his fellow Avenger all slung up.
"You had me at the shield," admits the super-soldier as he does an unconscious testing heft of the vibranium disc on his forearm. "What're you up to then, Tony?" He gestures at the coterie of creations, brow quirks and half a smile on his face. The cowl-helmet of his suit is back, revealing his golden hair.
"Well, about time that I shared some of my incredible friends and contacts with you," Tony comments, before leaning sideways, towards the floor to his left. There's a drink there, he's just hunting for it - it's just within reach, and he gets it. It's pretty clearly alcoholic, but it looks like whatever work was happening has since already finished: no harm in some relaxing.
Except for the alcoholism anyway.
"These little guys are here for some target fun. They have personal magnetic fields on them, and they're willing and eager to play some extreme frisbee. /I/ have some creative thoughts on how they might be used, particularly in the field, but first I wanted to see what you make of them," Tony suggests, slyly.
The little robots bounce up and down as if eager to be picked, and then the back row takes flight, buzzing into the air, whirring up, and speeding out into the room.
"Oh?" The little sound of question comes as Steve takes up a nonchalant stance on the edge of the mat, his shield-arm left to hang easily at his side and the other hand rested at his hip. He watches Tony's drink appear with no real surprise; the surprise comes in the reveal of the robotics' capabilities.
Those expressive brows lift as the man looks over at the little things with their eye-stalks and semi-intelligent motions. "Personal magnetic fields," he echoes with a slow, thoughtful nod. The departing back row is eyed with the beginnings of a smile not necessarily dubious, but definitely delighted by the prospect of a challenge. Another glance over at Tony. "You ready to call in the interior decorators about divots in the walls again?"
Since the shield bounces well, but other surfaces tend to suffer.
"The /point/ of them could be to preserve the walls," Tony smirks back at Steve. "Between you and Thor, half the things my robots do is cleanup up charred lawns and missing walls," he adds, with a lift of his drink. "The other half being tearing down walls intentionally for me." A grin slides into place across the goatee.
"Maybe don't aim at the walls," Tony suggests in deadpan over his drink, and gives Steve an aloof little side-eye.
The rest of the robots zoom into the air, and seem to begin to fight over who is in front, before they then spread out all over the place, behind different equipment. "Think you can hit one or two?"
"Sure, Tony, I won't aim at the walls," retorts the super-soldier in a similar deadpan. He still smiles to himself as he tucks his chin, the better to pull the cowl-helmet into place over his head one-handedly. The flying robots are eyed from beneath his brows as he takes a moment to click the helmet's strap closed. Another glance over at Tony.
"We'll start with one or two, see how it goes from there." Tony can probably see him orient on one of the robots nearest to them, tucked behind an elliptical machine. With a saunter almost lazy, the Captain steps out onto the mats.
As he walks by a weight rack, he picks up one of the neoprene-coated dumbbells rated higher on the weight scale. A purse of his lips and then he makes to dart around the elliptical machine to huck the dumbbell at the robot!
The field around the robot surges into presence as it spots the danger incoming, and turns in a little spin with the flying metal. The dumbbell passes just to the left of the robot as it dodges, then suddenly hooks back around the backside of the robot and flies off to the left, behind another weight machine: to where another robot does the same thing, and relays the weight directly in towards Steve's right flank!
"I already know you can hit the walls, so, impress me!" Tony teases in a call towards Steve by the elliptical.
Taught by Barnes throwing rocks rather mercilessly to use the shield, Steve brings it up and the weight collides with it. His grunt is probably lost to the resounding BWONG of impact and the weight drops dead to the blue mat below. He blinks at it and then at the robots before glancing over at Tony with a wry smile.
"You're never impressed," he shoots back as he stoops to pick up the weight again. A considering heft of it flips end-over-end before he catches it again. Marking another robot over by the bench-pressing machines, he takes up another easy amble towards it. Lining himself up so that another robot is directly behind him, he then gives the weight an outside flick of a throw, making it spin like a boomerang dead at bench-press robot.
"Untrue, I impress myself continually," Tony retorts with a quick and easy laugh, shameless as always. The drink is enjoyed, thugh Tony is actually paying more attention to his tablet than what exactly Steve is doing. If Steve feels comfortable with getting weights hucked at his head by the robots, that's fine by Tony, really.
In truth, Tony is participating, he has the layout of the robots on his device, and is getting quite a bit of feedback from them… while lightly directing them!
The robots do organize, taking the weight again, steadying it and relaying it upwards this time, across two more, then to the robot behind Steve. It doesn't just hurl at his back though, it makes a sound, then does it.
Steve watches the robots manipulate the weight around and he too tracks them, unknowing that they have a master behind their motions. The weight arcs and flicks and he turns around to take another impact on the shield, CLANG.
Laughing, he picks up the weight and nods to himself. "Alright, I see how it works," he murmurs as he walks over to the weight rack to return it. A hefting of the shield and then, without much ado, he turns and flings it at the robot on the far side of the room, intending to observe how the distance affects the hivemind-like reactions of the robotics.
That robot was not ready. The shield cuts it in half and it falls out of the air. However, the one next to it slides in with zero hesitation to accept and orbit the shield and relay it to another robot that's low, then directly above Steve - he can no doubt jump and grab it if he wants, or it will relay across overhead to one of the other bots that will relay again, across Steve's back.
"That's fine, I didn't really like number eighteen," Tony comments with a dismissive gesture of hand, as another robot goes over to pick up the top half of number eighteen.
Ready and watching as his shield moves around the room like the result of a reality-bending pinball machine, Steve can't help the half-grin on his face. He readies himself as he watches the robots manipulate it and then, quick as a cat, he leaps to pluck the disc out of the air. Boots and palm land on the mat as he drops from at least ten feet into the air and immediately makes to hurl the shield diagonally across the room, towards a robot hovering by one of the lifting mirrors.
"Haven't named 'em yet?" he asks Tony as his throwing motion curls to a halt, waist turned and body recoiling up into a readied stance.
"Wouldn't want to get attached if you decimate them all, now would I?" Tony asks without looking up. The robots again catch the shield, but zolley it back and forth a few times in a quick little keep-away: from nobody, really, they're just showing off that — (well no, TONY is showing off) that it can be sent low along the floor and then suddenly there's that little noise as warning and they are sending it back to Steve's back, in the same angle as last time.
"I figure if you want to practice with them, potentially could time off the return sound, to know when to expect it," Tony comments, with a pleased half-smile. This isn't about the robots being hit, it's about a relay method to return a shield quickly!
"Not looking to break your toys." Tony probably doesn't need the reassurance, but ever polite, the Captain makes note of his intentions. He watches the shield get passed around the room with an increasingly-impressed expression of consideration. He does glance away from the swift passing of the spangled shield as the genius-inventor further explains his reasoning for the robots' creation.
Basic learning processes click quickly. Hearing the chirrup, Steve turns and lifts his hand to catch the shield with a small grunt. It stings in a familiar manner of impact and he then slips it into grip for another throwing. "Not a half-bad idea. Saw it can manipulate other objects in the magnetic fields besides the shield, team could use it for all kind of things. Figure we put bullets on the no-go list," the super-soldier adds in his usual 'team dad' manner. "Spare the walls more."
The Captain then cocks the shield to readiness. A quick, dance-like two-three-four-five step across the mat and he spins with eyes on the robot far ahead…but releases in the spin for the robot behind him.
The robot behind Steve dodges aside: it learned that if it wasn't ready, to get out of the way. Or Tony added that on the fly. Could be a mixture of things. Or Tony is actually playing an entirely different game on his device. It isn't angled so that Steve can see it.
The robot does dodge, and two behind it come flying across to catch the shield and volley it immediately straight back at the robot that wasn't ready (but now is), who sends it low near Steve's thigh. So far they haven't hucked it directly at him, but across him, such that if he's not ready it won't hit him, but it's available.
"I can bring in some shooter drones if you want opponents, but looks like you have the gist," Tony sly-grins. "Originally I made them to toss gear or rescue equipment, but this seemed like an alternate application. Cap frisbee." Tony's always aware of games that can be played with otherwise serious inventions.
Steve steps to one side as a bold torero might a charging bull as he watches his shield wift by in a silvery blur, headed for another grouping of robots across the expanse of gym. He risks a look over at Tony, his own smile appearing in honest fullness.
"Clever as hell, Tony. You're not wrong: there've been enough times where the team's thrown something 'nd wanted it back." The man does include himself in this grouping with the fleeting wry flick of his brows. "Bet they play a wicked game of 'keep away'. That'd be a nice challenge, especially if they could be taught to keep the shield in the air — move to intercept 'nd stabilize the flight path if somebody tipped it," he muses aloud as he watches for the next angle of shield throw.
Tony nods agreement that he is, in fact, clever as hell. "I am generally not wrong," Tony does agree smoothly, as if only mildly irritated, in a playful way, that Steve felt the need to say that he's not wrong. Tony's so right.
"Keep away? Maybe," Tony says, play still in his tone, eyes coming up from his tablet as he makes a few gestures across it.
The robots very promptly shift their attitude, orbiting the shield around one robot, instead of passing it, and 'staring' at Steve while the others spread out to form positions that look quite similar to a dodgeball team. Sneaky shield thieves, now!
Now that the shield has become a larger moon within one of the robot's fields, there's a readiness melting through the Captain's otherwise laid-back poise. He smiles to himself and then his jaw sets as he looks back and forth between the two organized lines of robotic creations.
"Now this's something the team could also use. Toss a few dumbbells into the fray 'nd you'd have yourself a real obstacle course or lesson in dodging projectiles," Steve notes with challenging laughter under his words.
"Dumbbells? Seriously?" Tony laughs. "No no. We don't throw the gym equipment," Tony snickers, with a lift of one hand and a wag of finger side to side. Tut-tut. He doesn't actually really care about it, or Steve would have gotten a rise when he threw the dumbbells before. "At least, not at Hawkeye's face."
"I have /better/ things to throw at Hawkeye's face."
Tony enjoys his drink, while the robots begin to toss the shield around, tauntingly close to Steve.
Admittedly, after the first few shifts to one side or the other, tracking and calculating any pattern of throwing present, Steve realizes he's not going to be biffed — not unless he steps into the flight path of the shield. Then it becomes almost a game of chicken, with the robots whifting it closer and closer to him.
Displaced air as it blurs past his head makes him squint, but he otherwise grins at Tony. "'m admittedly a little curious as to what you want to throw at Clint's face, but 'll just see instead." A turn of his head, oblique lowering of eyes, and he then reaches across his body to pluck the shield from the middle of its flight path a centimeter from his outer bicep. It then gets clicked into place on his back before he saunters over to try and peer at Tony's screen.
"'s'cheating if you program 'em to throw things specifically at Clint's face," the super-soldier notes in friendly tease. "Show me how the program works?" He lingers for the explanation, glad to have the genius-inventor around the mansion once more.
"I am a big cheater," Tony agrees, and then gives Steve a quick tutorial on the program, and various applications related to Clint's face.