The Conceptual Deck

I spent a good chunk of time on my own, flying around the moon and in space while getting the feel for the Void Skipper. It had a surprising amount of get up and go when I gunned it, though it still took a few minutes to really move. The instruments said I was at one point going close to fifty thousand miles per hour pretty quickly, without even pushing the engines to their limits.

I had gotten a crash course on space flight from Tony, namely that besides maybe the speed of light, there was no top speed in the void of space. What really mattered was slowing down your ship when you arrived at your destination and fuel consumption. And since the Void Skipper didn't use fuel and it seemed like my ability to stop was pretty damn good, this practice ship was turning out to be a success.

Eventually I flew back down to my base, locking onto Ema's location. I immediately realized I needed a space port of some kind, because I was kicking up an incredible amount of dust as I got closer. Cursing I pulled back up and put the ship in low geosynchronous orbit before putting it on autopilot.

I climbed out of the pilot's seat after triple checking the orbit was stable, walking out of the bridge. I pushed out a landing pad and tucked it up against the wall of the hallway before traveling back down to my warehouse and flying back to the Octopit to meet Tony and Ema. Both of them were looking up at the Void Skipper.

"So what do you think?" I asked as I joined them.

"Not bad for a first try I guess," Tony said, looking back down at me. "I'm still shocked it flew. How fast was that? How quick did you stop?"

"I hit around fifty thousand at one point." I said looking back up at the ship. "And the gravity manipulator worked great, I could decelerate down pretty quickly. Of course this was all after I left the moon's gravity."

"With so little distance?" Tony asked, shaking his head. "That's… honestly impressive. Now I'm really looking forward to making my own."

"Yeah well do you want to check out mine in the meantime?"

The three of us traveled up to the ship and spent the rest of the day exploring it. It was amazing to stand inside the ship I had designed about a month ago, walking its halls and exploring its rooms. Eventually Tony convinced me to let him take it for a spin.

"Wow, this is actually pretty intuitive." He said as he sat in the pilot's chair. "Wait, how do I already know how to drive it?"

"There is an information feeder in the seat, but it's just the basics," I explained. "You can toggle it but I want you to leave it on for now."

Tony nodded and clicked a few buttons before guiding the ship out of its orbit, pointing it out into the void. Once it was out of the moon's orbit he started plotting a course, the destination popping up on one of the many screens surrounding the bridge.

"A full day to reach Mars?" He asked. "Not exactly an interstellar vessel huh?"

"One step at a time," I responded with a smirk. "I don't see you making something that could get us to Mars that quickly."

"Yeah, well I'm not cheating." He said, canceling the planned course. "It's not exactly nimble, is it?"

"No, I think my next attempt will be smaller and lighter, built for a smaller crew… I got a bit excited and went big immediately."

"Yeah, no kidding."

Tony flew around in space for a little while longer, before Ema took a turn. She was an amazing pilot, using her shifting form to click buttons and switches while still holding the controls. Eventually Tony and I realized she was interfacing directly with the ship as well, using her ability to tap into technology to get even better control of the ship.

Eventually though Tony needed to return to Earth and I needed to set up some things, like a landing pad, before I could finally take a break. I had been working almost non stop for over two weeks at this point, and while I loved conceptually crafting I was starting to feel the fatigue.

Ema traveled Tony back home, wanting to visit Jarvis while I maneuvered Skipper back into its geosynchronous orbit and traveled back down to the warehouse. I attempted to plan out and start a space port of some description, but I was seriously struggling to plan anything out. Instead I decided to leave the ship where it was, about twenty three miles above the workshop.

Ema returned an hour after I gave up and found me passed out on the apartment couch, snoring away.

I spent the next few days not doing much past flying around on the Void Skipper and unwinding after almost a month of constant large projects and daily conceptual crafting. I did still do some crafting, starting to build the more subtle response to Shield's dismissal of my palm healers. It wasn't completely done, mostly because Ema kept pulling me from my work to explore around my landing pads, but by the time my break was done it wouldn't take long to complete.

I did eventually make my way back to Kamar-Taj to apologize to the Ancient One for leaving so abruptly. The powerful sorceress simply shrugged in response. She assured me that had I rushed through the work on the actual Sanctums she would have been upset, but she understood the need to run from project to project when you had so many irons in the fire. Still, I felt bad, so I gave her a powerful healing amulet, a copy of the one I myself wore, which itself was a max stacked version of the amulet morphed by a divine spark. She was immensely grateful for the gift, which I found surprising. I had believed I was just offering something she already had, but wouldn't require her concentration or energy. She clearly had her own method of immortality, or extending her life at least, and I knew they had sorcerous methods of healing as well.

Either way she was happy with my gift and promised me I would always have a safe place among the Masters of the Mystic Arts, and that I would be welcomed eagerly when I finally had time to learn their ways.

With that out of the way I spent a few days relaxing at home and occasionally hanging out with Tony, who had finished the tower redesigns and had started working on his vibranium experiments again. He seemed happy with his progress, though he was remaining very mysterious on what he was doing, claiming he wanted to be able to show them off all at once when he finished his latest suit. Still, it was nice to chat, and the genius inventor could multitask talking and building as easily as I could craft and breath, so it all worked out.

About an hour into us hanging out, I heard some footsteps, too heavy to be Pepper's. I turned at the same time Tony looked up.

"Hey Rhodey, what's up?"

The casually dressed man lifted his hand to scan it into the security panel that used to control the lock of the transparent door that led into Tony's workshop. The only problem was we had done away with that lock when we overhauled his security.

"Jarvis, let Rhodey in please. And add him to the security list, the same level as me and Pepper." Tony asked, the door opening smoothly for one of Tony's oldest friends.

"Certainly sir. Mr. Rhodes, will you be joining us for lunch?" Jarvis asked, his voice coming out from the speakers around the workshop.

"Uh, maybe?" He answered, giving me the eye.

"Relax Rhodey, this is Maker. Maker this is Rhodey."

"Nice to meet you," I said, stepping forward and holding out my hand. "You did good work at the expo."

"Nice to meet you too, and thanks. Would have done more good if my version of the suit hadn't been an open book for Vanko to hack." He responded, giving Tony an accusing look.

"Hey, you stole that suit," Tony said with a shrug, not looking up from his work. "Not my fault you picked the old model. What's going on anyway?"

"The big wigs upstairs wanted me to check in with you," He said, leaning back on a table and crossing his arms. "Last time you went silent for this long you came back and made the last fifty years of weapons tech hilariously obsolete."

"Well you can tell them everything is fine," He responde, leaning over to focus on something. "It's going to take at least another couple of days to finish the next fifty years."

Rhodey snorted before focusing on me, looking me up and down. His eyes locked onto the armor chest plate that was under my jacket, as well as the singular empty card I was playing with.

"So… what's your story?" Rhodey asked me for a moment. "If Tony is agreeing to call you something like Maker you've got to have impressed him somehow."

I smirked and leaned over, touching a rolling chest of tools and pulling it into a card. I flicked it out across the workshop, the chest reappearing a split second later, rolling on its wheels across the shop.

"What the… Wait, are you the guy who has been making shit disappear all over the country?" He asked, suddenly very interested. "Shield's been running interference for you you know, but-"

"Rhodey, Maker is a friend, try not to go all nationalism on him," Tony said, sounding like he was almost bored.

"I wasn't, just surprised to see him here," He explained, rolling his eyes before looking back at me. "Tony got you running errands for him or something?"

"Or something," I responded, laughing a moment later and shaking my head. "Sorry, I couldn't resist. Tony and I are collaborating on a few different things. Some big projects."

"Big projects huh? Anything your military liaison should know about Tony?" Rhodey asked as he gave his friend a half hearted glare.

"Uh…. not that I can think of," Tony responded. "I've just been working on some exotic materials research really, not much interesting to the military."

I had to turn around and bite my lip, quickly pretending to pick something up off of the floor to keep myself from laughing. More than eighty pounds of vibranium definitely counted as exotic materials.

"Alright, well I was going to invite you to grab a beer or something but if you're busy-"

Before he could finish Jarvis, in his human-like construct, pushed open the workshop door, a tray of sandwiches in one hand and a half rack of beer bottles in the other.

"Please Mr. Rhodes, I made sandwiches for all three of you." He said, laying the tray on a table in the lounge area. "These two needed to eat anyway."

"... What… Jarvis?" Rhodey asked, his eyes wide.

"In the flesh sir," Jarvis responded with a short bow. "Would you three be needing anything else? No? Then I shall return momentarily with a bag of chips."

Jarvis bowed again and headed out of the workshop, climbing up the stairs and out of sight. Rhodey watched him the entire time, his eyes locked onto the AI. When he did eventually lose sight of him he turned to Tony, gesturing with both hands at the stairs.

"You wanna explain what the hell that was?"

Tony explained in a roundabout way that he had built a body for Jarvis, using just enough big words and complicated science mumbo jumbo to throw Rhodey off. Eventually Rhodey bought it, and reluctantly agreed to hold off spreading that development around. He stuck around to enjoy the lunch Jarvis had made, as well as the beer. I was actually the first one to leave a few hours later, wanting to head back up to the warehouse to check in with Ema and call it an early day.

Eventually hanging out with Tony and lounging around the warehouse got a bit boring, which is when I called Steve and Bucky, inviting them to the usual bar at lunch time to catch up. When I arrived about an hour or so later Steve and Bucky were already inside, greeting me with the usual firm handshakes. They even had a cold drink already waiting for me.

"You've been gone for a while." Steve pointed out after I had sat down and taken a sip of my drink. "If it weren't for your off the books socializing with Clint and Natasha we would have been worried about you."

"Yeah, sorry about that." I said, wincing as I apologized. "Got myself wrapped up in a few big projects, the last of which was kind of important."

"Anything we should know about?" Steve asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, it's fine. Just finishing an old building project for some new friends." I answered vaguely with a smile.

"Well you missed my apartment warming party." Bucky said with a smirk.

"Dammit, I said I would help you move in, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but don't worry about it, we don't exactly struggle with heavy things." He pointed out. "Plus some of the squad helped. They aren't as strong as us but when all you're carrying is boxes and furniture you don't have to be."

"Wait… Fury lets them wear everything outside of work?" I asked, genuinely shocked that a control freak like Fury would allow that.

"Yeah, but only after we realized that constantly taking everything off and then putting it back on again after a weekend made it harder to adjust." Steve answered, gesturing for a refill of his drink. "We have seen a noticeable improvement since they have started wearing everything full time."

"Huh… Makes sense I suppose. I must not have ever noticed it because I never really took mine off." I admitted with a shrug. "I would have warned you guys otherwise."

"We figured, though we had to convince Fury not to use it to wrangle another few super soldiers out of you."

"Yeah, about that. How come Shield hasn't come around looking for more gear?"

"The WSC got a bit wary of you after the dust from Hydra settled." Steve admitted, taking another sip of his beer. "Not to mention they have been pretty locked up in indecision now as well. We are lucky that we don't need their permission to be sent out into the field or we would never do anything."

I nodded, finishing my drink and waving down for another one.

"So how is Peggy?" I asked innocently, getting a laugh out of Bucky. Steve just gave him a nudge.

"Peggy is good. We are talking about moving in together."

"Oh, that's good to hear!" I said happily with a smile. "I'm glad things are working out between you two."

"We just needed time to adjust," Steve said while Bucky shook his head, still chuckling. "Everyone expected us to pick up where we left off at a dead sprint, but both of us had a lot of baggage."

"It was still dumb to deny yourself for so long," Bucky said. "You were both being stupidly noble, trying to help and give each other space when you both wanted anything but that."

"Alright alright, maybe we shouldn't have pulled back so far," Steve admitted, taking the good natured admonishment in stride. "But I think overall it was for the best. Now we can both start a solid relationship not based on the energy and desperation of the war and without the baggage we picked up after it."

"Well I'm glad it's working out," I repeated, patting Steve's shoulder. "You guys clearly had something special and you both deserve that kind of happiness."

The three of us continued talking for a while longer, eventually ordering food. As we ate we continued to chat, though at a slower pace.

"So, nothing for us to test today?" Bucky asked after he swallowed a bite of his cheeseburger.

"No, like I said I've been focusing on bigger projects," I explained, chomping on a thick steak cut fry before continuing. "If you guys want to head over to the range I'm all for it, but I've got nothing new. Unless you want to test the final versions of the guns we worked on."

"The range might be fun, but I was thinking about something else. How about-"

Before Steve could finish his sentence his phone started to ring. Before he could even pull it out, Bucky's did as well. They both shared a look and quickly pulled their phones out and answered them, suddenly all business. The conversations were short and professional, every bit two soldiers answering an important call. They both hung up at about the same time and shared a nod before Steve turned to me.

"Maker, sorry, we are getting called in, it sounds like it's all hands on deck," He said, frowning a bit before continuing. "You might want to-"

Again Steve was interrupted by a phone call, this time to my cell. My eyes went a little wide as I dug my phone from my pocket and checked who was calling.

Natasha.

"Hello? Natasha?" I asked, the phone at my ear in a moment. "What's going on, are you alright?"

"Carson, yeah, I'm fine… wait how do you- Never mind!" She said quickly, sounding anxious and off center. "I need you to come in, please. He has Clint."

"Wait, what? Natasha, who has Clint?" I asked, rising to my feet without even realizing it.

I could sense Bucky and Steve both shifting next to me, Bucky cursing softly.

"It's Loki." She answered, starting to regain full control of herself. "Loki has Clint."

Hello! Just a reminder that I have a Pa_tre_on! Supporters enjoy early chapters of The Conceptual Deck and of Mettle, Metal, Meddled. They also have access to my first book Lair Divers Tale, though its sequels are on hiatus. I have also posted the introduction/Prologue for my next book, Last Resort - Interdimensional Bloodsport, which is open to the public! If you are interested in showing your support, stop on by! If not, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!