10456/Are you lost

Are you lost
Date of Scene:	16 December 2019
Location:	Gym, Avengers Mansion
Synopsis:	Tony and Steve chat about workouts and parties.
Cast of Characters:	Iron Man, Captain America

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Iron Man has posed:
Tony's never in the Avengers gym unless he's testing something and chose to move in on the Avengers' ability to work out as a lower priority than whatever he was trying to test.

Until today. Though it's not too late: there could still be a test in the making.

Tony is laying on his back on a mat with a variety of the free-weights he was using out near him, using his mobile device while resting. He's dressed in emulation of a workout: sleek gray athletic pants, a black tank-top that hides very little of the light emulating from the arc reactor in his chest, and he's sweaty, his hair spiked more from sweat than hair product at the moment. A towel is under his head as he rests there, fiddling with the device quietly.

Captain America has posed:
"Oh -- hey, Tony." A familiar voice, ever so slightly laced with the unmistakeable Brooklyn-Gaelic accent almost completely dead in this day and age, proceeds a well-built blond into the gym area itself. It's Steve -- surprise! -- in his own workout gear with two white towels lazily tossed over one shoulder. He's more colorful than the genius-inventor comfortable on the mat with a t-shirt in pale green and black workout sweatpants, but only so much so.

His sneakered steps bring him near-silently to the edge of the mat Tony occupies and he looks down upon his friend with a quiet, admittedly curious smile. Hands anchor easily at his hips. "What do folks need from you now?" he asks, nodding at the mobile device.

Iron Man has posed:
"Instructions about the invitations I want for my first party's attendence," Tony answers evenly, without looking up at first, skimming the device and flicking through the lists he's scrolling. He moves one leg to cross the other at the knee, still laying on his back: a level of extreme comfort in his expression of body language. If he was working out, he sure isn't doing it now. "The yacht party's up first." Naturally.

"What's up, Capscicle?" Tony asks, friendly and cheerful, though his attention still seems to be on his device. That said, Tony's excellent at high levels of multitasking! "Come to run in circles a bit?" Tony /hates/ running laps, but he knows that Steve partakes of the boring pastime.

Captain America has posed:
Nodding to hear of the holiday invites on the wing -- er, the signal -- wavelength -- Steve then drops down to rest his forearms on one bent knee, the other leg beneath him almost in a sprinter's readied state. He eyes the mobile device and then looks back to Tony.

"How'd you know I'd come to run in circles? I gotta do something else now, 'm getting predictable," he laments drily. "Might as well go punch at the bags instead, or maybe Tai-Chi, really switch it up." One of the white towels is slipped from his shoulder and laid down on the mat near to Tony, almost forgetfully, before the Captain rises to his feet. He toes off his sneakers and walks over to the next mat over, setting aside his second towel and water bottle. For all intents and purposes, he does appear to be setting up to do Tai-Chi.

His attention goes briefly back towards Tony as he starts with a balanced stance and a cycling of breathing. "When're the parties then?"

Iron Man has posed:
"When are you /not/ running in circles down here?" Tony asks with an aloof smirk, finally turning his dark eyes to Steve with a lift of one eyebrow. "All the amazing treadmills with /virtual reality/ in the world, and you're wearing circles in the floor," observes the inventor, shrugging, as if he were offering Steve a buffet and the man just wants to chew gravel. Makes no sense.

"Mmmm, next Saturday, then the second for New Years' eve at the tower. Just two this year, I cut one back," Tony says, having held up three fingers, and drops one finger, the ring, back towards his palm to show the reduction of parties. "Just made the last one more insane instead. You're invited to both."

Captain America has posed:
Mmm, delicious gravel.

"Consider my attendance accounted for the parties," Steve replies easily before taking another deep breath in and releasing it. Palms pressed together before his chest rise up past his face and part above his head to ray out. The arm stretch is lengthy, dropping out to purely horizontal now and held as such. "'m sure Janet'll find something snazzy to stick me in 'nd call it good to go." He smiles to himself a little before the zen mask slips back into place.

"I'll take a crack at the virtual reality when the real deal stops being interesting," he adds as a side-note before slipping into the first stance, gathering Qi. His hands revolve around an empty point before his navel to rise above his head and then press down on the invisible ball past his chest, exhaling as he goes quietly. "Expect Pepper'll be at the parties?" His voice now has a distinctly distant note to it.

Iron Man has posed:
"New Years' at least. I require her for the kiss at the ball drop," Tony answers teasingly, looking back to what he was doing, then stretches one leg out, then the other, seeming to be stretching perhaps since Steve reminded him to finish doing that. He's probably done with whatever he was doing to work out, by his manner, though it might be hard to say for sure. "I don't know if she'll be on the yacht yet. Up to her."

"Yes, clearly my fault for making this room so damn interesting," Tony observes of the gym, glancing around. He then pauses, and reconsiders, "Then again, sometimes the shower's a good place for inspiration. You find it runnin' around, well, you're the artist. Must be working for you." With a grunt, Tony sits up, rubs one hand against his cheek and nose. He drops the hand to flutter a few fingers against the hard surface of the arc reactor and then eases to his feet, starting to return his weights to the rack manually and with disinterest, like a child that would rather be doing something else than cleaning his room, but he's doing it anyway.

Captain America has posed:
Rather than pinking at the ears as he might have nearly a year back, the Captain gives his fellow Avenger another small, knowing smile. Of course, he'll have his own gal to kiss at the final past second of the glittery ball's drop to signal the New Year.

"More than I find some downtime mentally while running around rather than inspiration, but...I mean, not too far off from base at the same time," Steve muses to himself. Even as he moves into the next form, he's idly watching how Tony's become inwardly-turned, detached from the world around himself.

"C'mere, Tony, try a few forms," he says quietly, inviting the man to join him. "It's not difficult to follow."

Iron Man has posed:
That earns a blink and partial turn, and then a quick flash of a grin and laugh. The first instinct is just amusement: Steve said something that really was just purely funny to Tony: some forms? It was open amusement at first but quickly gains Tony's more general flare of wit and sass.

"Difficulty isn't why I'd decline, but thank you for the offer to finger-wiggle with you," Tony says, with a graceful little roll of one hand. "I have met my quota today of gym torture." He turns to bend to pick up the last of the hand weights to rack them, snaring his towel, but does troop over to skeptically observe finger-wiggles for the moment.

"Rennovations are underway in my tower gym," Tony says loftily. "I'll have a holodeck soon enough. Jog in Tokyo without the flight," he says smoothly. It's a brag but not really a brag. It's a Tony-ism of pleased news.

Captain America has posed:
Innate grace is on display as Steve flows into the next form, bringing his weight to pillar on one leg as he turns through his hips; his palm parallels down his arm to reach and then rise to an angle next to his head. He's wearing that small knowing smile yet.

"Only Tokyo? Kind of limiting." The complaint is friendly in its pragmatism. "What if I wanted to jog in Paris? Sydney? Greenland?" Steve glances over at Tony, eyebrows lifted in quiet amusement. "Asgard. The moon. 'm finding all this inspiration here wiggling my fingers, you should try it sometime. But 'm happy to come test-drive it once the holodeck's all finished," he relents good-naturedly in the end. "Be a good audience given how I like my reality."

Suddenly, he winces, face twitching -- ouch, strained the stitches too far on his ribs. A sigh and he retracts his arm back to give the bullet graze a break.

Iron Man has posed:
"Yes, because that's the staple of things I invent. /Limits/," Tony laughs. It's a happy sound, even if it's steeped in sarcasm. He might have said more about his project, but he observes the wince, and gives a bit of a skeptical look.

"Looks like I made the right choice not to do those forms with you," Tony slyly observes of the pain with a flick of his head in an upnod.

Captain America has posed:
Lo and behold: good ol' Rogers mulish resolution appears in full display with the thinning of his lips even as he sighs. Retracting out of the form does trigger one more small wince through his eyes as he then rolls the shoulder on the same side, as if doing so would cement the point that he was fitter than a fiddle.

"Took a bullet graze in an incident up-town. Nothing dramatic, just a pain." -- in his American Ass, he implies -- side, rather. "Janet's laid up with what's probably a broken ankle, but we'll mend. It's just a flesh wound," he quotes, trying for a British accent and nearly succeeding. "Not gonna stop me from helping you with the holodeck if you'd like."

Iron Man has posed:
"Yes, I remember: nothing stops you," Tony answers wryly, but it's not mean: he's teasing his friend, and there's zero venom here. He approaches the short bit of distance to offer a clasp of hand. "I'll take you up on it later. I'm sure as hell not going to be the guinea pig for a whole hell of a lot of running, you know," Tony adds. He flips the towel in his other hand over the back of his neck.

"Shower time now, though. Try not to get /more/ injured, is all," Tony declares with a quick smile and /two/ finger guns as he walks backwards towards the gym door.