memeboxing

[fe_male]

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[nanite]

[ She can embarrass him with stories of when he was younger all she wants to later on. ]

Hey, that's a good idea! Maybe I'll do that, if I'm here long enough. I bet between me and JARVIS we could figure out how to stop him just burning everything.

Which car is yours? [ Pointing to the old Ford. ] I like that one.

[motherofnemesis]

[ oh she totally will. she'd be looking forward to it if she was certain she was going to get him back. ]

I'm sure you could. Hey, maybe that was Dummy prototype one.

[ Swiveling to point out hers, just a couple down from the Ford, still unassuming and basic in comparison. ] Course you would, that's one of your favorites. Older you's. You've got good taste.

[nanite]

[ He has mixed feelings about his older self so far but he does think he's pretty cool either way.

But he hops up, moves to look at her car, peering at it from a handful of angles. ] It's not bad. Not as pretty as the one I picked, but I ber it works pretty well. Looks like you take care of it.

[motherofnemesis]

[ It's kind of sad how happy that makes her. It's just been a really long time since she had something to call hers, even if it was a gift from someone else, and she does take good care of it. She works hard at it. ]

I go for being unnoticeable over pretty, yeah. And I do. She's a good car, and she'll be even better.

[nanite]

[ Better? ] What are you gonna do to it?

[motherofnemesis]

Keep tuning up the engine, make sure everything fits together just right. [ Running her hand along the hood with a smile. ] Make it perfect.

[nanite]

[ He watches this, looks at her and the car, considers things. ] I want a car.

[motherofnemesis]

You're in luck, then. You've got a lot. Not that you're allowed to drive them yet, I don't think you'd be able to see over the dashboard.

[nanite]

Yeah, I don't think they count if you can't drive them.

[motherofnemesis]

Well. Legally speaking, you can drive them on private property.

[nanite]

[ why don't people tell him these things ] You don't need someone to sit in the car with you?

[motherofnemesis]

[ For the same reason she sort of thinks she shouldn't have - it's dangerous. ] You can't be arrested for it as long as you're not on public property I think, but insurance won't cover any crashes.

[nanite]

[ But telling Tony things is always dangerous. ] Like there would be a problem with that. Can we drive one?

[motherofnemesis]

[ True enough. A long, assessing beat. Well, she was fighting crime at like 17 so. ] If you can see over the dashboard, sure.

[nanite]

[ Meet another long pause, sizing you up for truthiness, very squinty and suspicious. Pause, pause, done, okay awesome, and he looks around for a car he thinks he might be able to see over the dashboard for. There's a sort of low car over there, and he moves over to it, tries the door. ] Is there a key for this one?

[motherofnemesis]

JARVIS? [ Because hell if she knows where the keys for all his different cars are, she only knows a couple of them really. ] Is there?

[ And strolling over to look at it. ] And you have to be able to reach the pedals without difficulty.

[nanite]

[ You get a levelled look for a moment, because you're adding parameters that weren't part of the original proviso. But it's not like he can actually argue with you, because he does have to be able to reach the pedals and see, and even he knows that.

Butterfingers slowly comes over with the keys to the car properly and Tony opens it, tugs the door wide enough to clamber up into the seat, and perches just barely on the edge. It doesn't actually work, but he's going to argue that it could. ] Can you adjust this seat?

[motherofnemesis]

[ These are pretty necessary parameters, though. Yes, exactly.

She glances inside, raises her eyebrows at how he's sitting. Uh huh, this is totally going to work. ] Let's see if it can be. [ Levers, levers, hmm. ]

[nanite]

[ Just be quiet and help him move the seat, okay, he's having a hard time with those levers.

Although after a little while he can sort of see if he lifts his eyebrows and tilts his head back and sort of reach if he stretches a bit and doesn't ever need to push anything like a clutch in all the way to the floor. ]

See? Come on, it's totally fine. [ He says, sitting with the straightest posture he's ever used in his life. Hop in, Max. ]

[motherofnemesis]

[ She's trying to determine if she's actually going to let him get away with this, standing back with her arms folded as she watches for a long moment. Hmm. Hmmmm. ] I'm a mechanopath, kid, you take this car even a little bit faster than you can drive safely and I'm shutting it off.

[ Which is totally a bluff, her mechanopathy has never extended beyond intuitive knowledge, but he doesn't need to know that, especially since she's in a car with him. ] Drive on.

[nanite]

[ Well that gets his attention. He sort of freezes and then looks at her. ]

You're a what? Why didn't you say that before? [ Looking back over at the dashboard like it's some kind of thing that might, he doesn't know, get him, now. The idea is super exciting but he was already pushing his luck before he knew that, even if it only takes a few seconds to get his bravado going again. ] That's totally not going to happen anyway, I can handle anything. [ Like. Turning the car on, and holding onto the wheel, and craning his head again a little bit, subtly, so he can see. ]

[motherofnemesis]

[ Heh. She glances back over at him, amused. ] It's a fancy word for being very good with machines.

I wouldn't be sitting in the passenger if I wasn't pretty sure you could handle it. Take it away. [ She even manages to look like she's relaxed and calm, if part of her inside is going 'this may not have been a good idea'. ]

[nanite]

[ He figured what it meant he was just surprised she hadn't told him from the get-go, for some reason. There's no real method behind his surprise beyond 'dude, that's cool i want that', and that's hard to express accurately.

The apparent trust is a little weird too. People trust him to do amazing things with machines, sure, to replicate things he shouldn't possibly understand, but they don't trust him with... things like this. Because he's seven and impulsive and doesn't listen to people whom he feels are not listening to him.

But okay, he gives it a little gas, and it's jerky, but when he turns to leave the garage, he doesn't actually hit anything. It's a clear path, and he's not going fast by any means, and he's still craning to see all the time, but he's going where he means to be. And not talking, all his attention on what he's doing. ]

[motherofnemesis]

[ Yeah, the 'i want that it's cool' she pretty much can put with him any time, she thinks.

He's still Tony. Tiny and young but she doesn't think he's actually any more reckless older than he would be young, because he's pretty reckless when he's older. And if she's right there, well, it should all be good, right?

She's watching carefully, keeping her hands folded casually in her lap so that it doesn't look like she's nervous. ] There's enough driveway for you to take laps, I think.

[nanite]

[ If anything he's more reckless from the age of roughly 19 onwards through... all the rest of his adult life.

He still isn't saying anything, because he's focusing on driving the car, and this is fun and cool and she's awesome and he's so not going to fuck this up, okay, he loves cars and all their parts and he's just not going to. ] Really? [ So he'll get out there and then glance around a little - pretty clear. Looks like he lives in a cool house in the middle of nowhere and doesn't talk to people, so that's. Fun. But either way, he gives the car a little more gas and gets to drive a bit more. ]