First Run in a While

"Our Government funds us to a point, I supply the rest." Tony said, understanding the issue with identities. Honestly, lower levels would do it to but Tony had no one to lose. Everyone knew Tony Stark was Iron Man.

"I gave up long ago hiding my identity." He said in a whim, might as well be frank with the kid.

"That's fine." Tony said turning around to open the control panel of the treadmill as he heard the door shut. He was pulling out a few wires to readjust them before he heard the door click open again.

"Um, how exactly do you get to the parlor again?"

"Down the hallway, take a left then a right go straight down that hallway before making a right turn two doors down." Tony never looked up from what he was doing, he could take apart most of this machine by the time the speedster came back.

"Bring as many bottles as possible." He muttered using his finding to unscrew parts of the panel.

Satisfied with Tony's instructions, Wally jogged down the hallway once again. Surprisingly, he did not meet anyone on the way to the parlor.

Arriving into the room, he looked around for the liquor cabinet. Finding it, he opened it up. Not really knowing the difference between any of the drinks, he grabbed a nearby plate that looked sturdy enough and placed three odd bottles of liquid onto it. Grabbing a bucket and filling it all with ice (to keep it cold he told himself), he grabbed a few glasses (in case any shattered, he has yet to find out what sort of drunk Tony is), and placed it all on the tray. Judging that the tray will hold all the weight, he lifted it up and made his way back to the weight room.

Once again, he didn't encounter anyone. Did something happen? he wondered. Nudging open the door with his foot, he declared cheerfully "incoming delivery, Mr. Stark!"

Tony started to take apart the tread mill examing the pieces and he put some parts in a 'keep' pile with some others were put in a 'trash' pile. He fiddled with the machine when he heard.

"Incoming delivery, Mr. Stark!"

"Jervis, just place it on a flat service." He mumbled out continuing to work on the machine for a few more minutes not even realizing his mistake.

"I've been called a lot of different names, but Jervis was never one of them," Wally joked. Whoever this Jervis was, he must have been one of Tony's good friends for him to idly mention his name.

Probably Jervis to Tony was like Alfred was to Bruce. Placing the tray on an unoccupied table in the room, he walked over to inspect the progress. "You don't need any extra parts in order to build this?" he wondered out loud.

Tony blinked turning his head around.

"Oh. Force of habit. Usually when I work in the garage Jarvis brings me things so I don't accidentally kill myself." Tony explained himself, feeling the need to. He wasn't exactly sure but he knew he needed to blame Cap.

"And, the accelerator will need to be built but I can dismantle a few other machines in here to program that. But mainly I can use everything in here, I specifically designed it to not need the requirements that Reed would desperately force upon it." Tony explained once more, he was seriously doing a lot of explaining while his hands continued to work.

"Whoever this Jervis guy is, he's probably an awesome one." Wally grinned.

Blinking at Tony's explanation, Wally decided that he should just stop pestering the older man and let him work. Walking up to the tray that he had left there earlier, he took a glass and places a few ice cubes into it. Pouring what he thought was whiskey over it, Wally offered it to Tony. "Whiskey on the rocks, as I recall, right Mr. Stark?"

"If you're trying to be Jervis's replacement, sorry but you aren't cut out for the job. But if you're looking for a job in butlery, you're hired." Tony almost sounded amused but was a bit too enthralled with his work to give an honest answer.

"And yes, whiskey on rocks." The Iron man replied tilting his head to ask the man to put it on the ground. He needed to finish playing with wires before he'd be ready for the drink.

"I'm quite happy with my job as a forensic scientist - which probably fired me because of my disappearance into here - thankyouverymuch," Wally smirked. It were moments like these that he was reminded that he and Dick would taunt each other in a way very similar to this.

Placing the cup on the ground, he sat down beside the other man and simply watched him work. He felt useless, but on the other hand, he felt the need to keep this man company as he worked on his project.

"You'd like Reed. To two of you would homogenize into a large, nerdy conglomerate. Unlike putting... Steve in a room with him. Seriously, it would be like a bad chemistry joke... there'd be no reaction." Tony gave himself a proud smirk on his face while he used his free hand to take a sip, more like half the cup, of whiskey before setting it down. He could feel the nanobots in his body whir to life.

It was a great feeling, knowing he couldn't be killed by his lethal habits.

He pulled apart the mainframe holding his left arm out to be covered by his suit. It would be easier working with both of his arms than just with one for the moment.

Wally gave Tony a light slap on the back of his head, only to realize what he did a second later. "Oh shit, sorry. Confused you with someone else for a second there," he rubbed the back of his neck. "My friends would usually do those bad chemistry jokes around me because I used to do them all the time as a kid, so I would just slap them just like they would slap me when I was younger. I guess it was force of habit, sorry!" He apologized profusely.

"This Reed guy sounds interesting. I would say I look forward to meeting him, but my saying that would mean that I hope he ends up in this hell hole, and honestly, I wouldn't wish it upon my usual Rogues."

Wally was once again amazed at how the suit covered Tony's body so perfectly, but he held his tongue this time and continued to watch him work.

Tony's left eye twitched after Wally had smacked him. He mumbled out a threat but continued to work. The kid was almost as bad as Steve.

"Reed has kids, I hope to whatever sick fuck is running this business that he won't bring in children or parents." Tony mumbled out, seemingly developing a mumbling habit as he work. His left arm became bare in a millisecond as he reached for his glass, killing it off without so much as a noise. The armor covered his arm once more as he shut his eyes rolling the plans through his mind. Extermis control his hands for the moment while he figured out how much of an estimated time frame it would be before he'd be done with the treadmill.

"If that were true, I hoped it would apply to potential parents as well...." Wally trailed off. He may have told Dick that they were thinking about children, but that was a half-lie.

Tony didn't question the man, to each his own.

"Honestly, I have nothing better to do." It was a flat tone, almost bored. He wasn't one for dealing with emotional baggage.

"Pour me another, would ya?" He stood up sitting in the track itself while he fussed with more wires.

Thankful for Tony's non-prodding nature, Wally was all too happy to oblige to pour another. The man was building him a treadmill, might as well do whatever he could to thank him. Placing the cup in the same spot it occupied, Wally sat back down on the floor.

"So... what's your world like?" he asked for the lack of a common conversation topic.

"Earth, lame as always." Tony muttered out, grabbed the cup and knocking about a quarter of it back before letting his nose twitch. He placed the cup back down folding his arms as he stared at the machine in front of him.

"Huh, we have too many wanna be heroes and they get themselves killed what we do isn't a game. I get really irrated at the ones that try to be... well us. I already had to take down an Anti-Iron Man. That shit isn't fun. Neither are clones, swear to God next Tony clone I see I'm sending it to deep space." He gave a minor rant before adding a bit more.

"Oh and don't get me started on the government. Because of their need for weapons they pretty much gave Steve a fuck you. The man didn't deserve it." He mumbled out, with a bit of softness. Steve hadn't deserved the treatment he received yet the Patriot blinded followed his government.

Fucking Stripes.

"What about yours."

"So you have a clone problem too?" Wally joked lightheartedly. "We've had one with the government a while back where they tried to clone our leader several times. Only one was successful, and he turned his back on them. And there ended our clone problem. The government from there on has its ups and downs, there were several times it threatened to arrest all of us but a good talking from Batman quieted them down. Other than that, it's just usual daily patrols and fighting bad guys," he shrugged.

"By the way, who's Steve?"

"Tch, sounds annoying." Tony commented as he got back to work. Governments sucked.

"By the way, who's Steve?"

Tony completely paused in his actions. He blinked before dispelling his armor and taking a seat next to Wally with his glass.

"...Steve's a hard one, honestly. You can actually find him walking around here, poster child of perfection. He... uh..." Tony wasn't sure if Steve would appreciate Tony talking about him like this, but he felt almost compelled to gush about the man.

"Well, Steve's a soldier and a great leader. He took over the Avengers after I snapped and had a killer melt down after being possessed by... a lot of things really. He's the poster boy for the boy scouts. Seriously, he radiates charm and love likes it's the only reason he's alive."

"He wouldn't happen to also wear blue spandex with red accents and a cape? Cause we got us one of those boys too," Wally laughed. "Does he call himself Superman too?"

"Blue spandex with red and white accents. Never had a cape though, uses a shield. And... has a giant letter A plastered to his forehead in costume." Tony explained before raising an eyebrow.

"Please, Superman? Lame ass name. He's Captain America... though that's not really all that cooler."

Wally snorted. "I don't know which one's worse. Superman or Captain America. They both scream "patriotism!" whenever you hear them."

Looking ahead thoughtfully, he realized something. "So if Captain America took over the Avengers after you, it's like the same with our Supes! He's like the public leader of the JL while Bats controls everything from the shadows. Batman used to be the public face of the League, but various familial commitments caused him to shun public appearances, so Supes took over that aspect."

Tony just blinked, killing his whiskey.

"So now there's a guy named Batman? Seriously? ...seriously?" Tony said in disbelief before shaking his head.

"I only took charge because Cap died and they needed someone that was dashingly handsome to woo the public. Let's just say, when you're me, it's not a tall order to fill." Tony resisted the urge to wink, he barely succeeding. His PR days were catching up to him.

"Then I took over, was possess, killed a handful of people Cap came, saved the day God knows how and I snapped out of mind control when teen me stepped in. Yeah, it was really confusing." Tony said aloud, shaking his head.

"Okay, rule number one Iron Man, if you ever ever see Batman in the halls, do not make fun of his name. You never ever make fun or madden a Bat. Trust me, in the long run it'll keep you alive longer," Wally looked Tony seriously in the eye. "And Cap died and came back to life too? Don't get my started on how many times that happened with Supes. Last time he was presumed dead, we didn't even announce it to the public or held a funeral, per Batman's orders. We just waited a week and he showed up by himself."

Tony blinked, something clicked in his mind. He saw the way he was describing them before he chuckled.

"And next you're going to tell me they're partners, right?" Tony said, trying his best not to laugh hysterically at it all.

Wally was unsure of how to answer the question. He meant partners as in, they work a lot, right? "Well yeah, they're partners. Known each other forever, if I recall correctly. Ever since I was Kid Flash, Supes and Bats been hanging around each other. Honestly, I think Batman is the only person Superman listens to when it comes to orders, otherwise he just does whatever."

"So, they're gay together, right?" Tony covered his mouth, amused by it all until he frowned behind his hands. That dynamic seemed a bit familiar.

A bit too familiar to be comfortable.