thecapitol | I'm really not sure if I'm floating or drowning here.

Entry tags:

I'm really not sure if I'm floating or drowning here.

WHO| Tony Stark, and anyone who can see him!
WHAT| Tony is not really loving this whole kidnapping death match thing
WHEN| 11th of the May
WHERE| Several locations in the tower
WARNINGS| References to the end of Winter Soldier but it's only a spoiler if you haven't seen it or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. But you can avoid it by not reading what Tony's doing/thinking on the roof

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[District 12's floor]

After Tony had told the Gamemakers what they could do with their evaluations and had been left in his room with a communicator and a credit card, he stood in his room for a moment staring at both. Then after a moment he dispassionately drops the card on the bedside table and starts turning the communicator over in his hands.

Sure it wasn't the first time he was taken away from what he knew and threatened with death, really it's starting to become a major theme in his life, he's had better themes to be honest, just as destructive, but on the whole more fun. However this was the first time he was kidnapped, given an allowance and technology. He isn't sure if it's amature, or cocky but he's not going to pass it up. Frowning a little Tony pockets the communicator then starts looking through his room as he runs a hand through his hair now and then. Clothes, Shoes, a remote (Which he also pockets) but no much else. Frowning at what he's found he leaves the room and turns his attention to ferreting his way around the floor as a whole, for now he's staying out of the bedrooms but if he can't find so much as a screw driver, very narrow knife or a broad fork he's going to invade privacies.

But as it is, right now he needs what he knows, and that's playing with tech, and he's probably not being quiet in his looking as he loudly moves things about and mutters to himself.

[Central Commons - Cocktail Bar]

After his attacking of his floor for something to do, Tony started to feel a little claustrophobic and found his way to the bar, something else that was familiar enough to act as a calming agent. You know what Tony also finds calming? Scotch. When he orders, he doesn't even realise it's free, he's just assumed they've given him an automatic tab, which for him isn't unusual.
He contemplates the two neat amber fingers in the glass then toasts the air.

"Here's to kidnappers with a resort and open bar."

He takes a drink and takes in who's wandering around the bar, feeling the twinge of homesickness. It's weird being held hostage but not you know being threatened with pain if you don't build a weapon for them while being allowed to apparently roam free for the moment.

[Roof]

The homesickness got to him for a while so after just idely riding the elevator with no purpose, Tony takes it up to the roof. It's about as quite as a roof top in a large city can be and if he closes his eyes he can almost pretend he's standing on the landing pad back in New York, Pepper listing the names of S.H.I.E.L.D agents who have jumped that sneaky ship and are banging on his doors for work.

He runs a hand over his face and huffs, he really needs to quit being a hypocrite with all this sentimentality of his. He walks to the edge and looks down seeing what little he can of the busy streets.

Tony let's his mind tick back to when he was told that he had been selected for a battle to the death.

"If this is going to involve swords, and war horses then I am in a lot of trouble."

He could probably use another drink. Actually, what he could really use is Pepper.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sandy folded her arms and looked like she was thinking hard about it. If this guy was so dedicated to learning things the hard way she wasn't going to hurt herself to stop him.

"Maybe you can use a fork to pry it open? They don't let us have like...steak knives unless we're at a fancy party." She chuckled "Pruna can't be trusted with pointy things."

After a moment she added "Pruna's another girl in our district. She's close to my age, but she comes from a different type of world. Like swords and bow and arrow you know?"

"Knives can be sharpened"

He moves over to the drawers and starts digging around in them to see what's in there, taking out a couple of forks and knives.

"Also, after the last few years I've had, a bow and arrow isn't all that an unlikely thing to show up."

He closes the drawer then looks at her.

"Right, wouldn't happen to have a stone, and a piece of wood? Or just a brick?"

"Um..." She slid from the stool scurrying off to return with a few things, a boot, a book and the base of a trophy that had her name on it and "Second place"

"This is the best I could do."

Could they really punish her that much for just helping him figure out how pointless it was to do this?

Looking at what's there Tony idly picks up the trophy base and wiggles it as he looks at it exhaling.

"Well, that's. Frustrating." He puts the base back down. He frowns a little, thinking that for now he can wait, he guesses. "Second place for what?"

She took a moment to drag a stool over to his work area along with a drink so she could watch him work.

"Motorcycle races. They gave us like these beginner motorcycles to ride and I've never ridden one before but I came in second so they let me keep the bike and gave me some other stuff." She smiled sheepishly "They customized it for me too...kinda cool."

Humblebrag much?

He begins to tap a beat on the trophy base. Tilting his head at her.

"Motorcycle, huh? What kind?"

Before Killian trying to ruin Tony's life, he used to have more than a few bikes in his collection of performance vehicles. So who is he to ignore hearing about something he knows about.

"The Super fun safe for all ages Bumpercycle by Tomu." She quoted "It's a high speed, high fun level ride for children and adults. Made from the highest quality life protection technology the Capitol has to offer, these fully customizable bikes are the perfect gift for birthdays, anniversaries or just to celebrate the beautiful weather."

She let the words fall out of her mouth with practiced ease and then took another sip of her drink. "Part of winning the prize meant I had to do commercials for them. It was kind of dumb, but at least I only took second place. Elsa had to do most of the work since she came in first place."

"That." Tony just stares at her after she recites. "Sounds not that fun. Why would you give that to someone for their anniversary?"

He screws up his face at the image in his head of what it could possibly look like.

"I gave my girlfriend a giant rabbit for christmas and got shouted at for how it wasn't what I should have given. That should be enough of an example of how terrible I am at present giving, and even I know giving a bumpercycle... Thing would be for a relationship."

"A giant rabbit?" Sandy sounded even more suspicious of that "Does she...like rabbits?" Trying to see what Tony's logic was behind this.

"At least there's the chance that you're like...married to someone who likes to ride motorcycles. What do you do with a giant rabbit? Feed it giant carrots?"

Tony shrugs, to be honest he's still not sure where she stands on the whole rabbit situation apart from that it was an overboard gesture.

"What? No. It was a 20 foot stuffed animal. I'm not going to buy her an actual rabbit." He waves his hand dismissively. "All that loose fur on her clothes? No. Also, if you know someone who likes to ride motorcycles, they aren't riding them for the ergonomic safe fit."

"Twenty feet?" Her eyes boggled at the idea "That's like...bigger then a house!? Where would you even keep something that tall?"

As an after thought she added "I dunno what ergo-whatever means but I didn't write the commercial. I just know that it felt good to win something for once even if it was only second place. And the bike is pretty fun."

"Well, I had to have a construction team come in and well open up a wall to bring it inside. I was trying to be romantic" His voice rises a little at the end defensively, he might agree now that it was a dumb idea, but at least he tried for him that's new.

"Ergonomic. Shaped in a way that compliments natural bone movements. You know like a waterbed, or those rubber grips on pens."

Sandy was starting to get a better idea of who this guy was and it was kind of amusing in a distracting sort of way. She decided at this point there was no harm in just asking.

"Are you a mad scientist? You talk like one." At least he spoke like the ones she'd met through this horrible multiverse kidnapping project.

Tony's eyebrows slip up as he's accused of being a mad scientist.

"Uh, well that's subjective, really. When you think about it. Also, I'm an engineer so I guess that would be a... This is not how mad scientists talk."

Really he's been accused of being many things, but this is new.

"Are you sure?" She challenged with a hint of a smirk as she studied him inquisitively "I guess I've never heard of a "Mad Engineer" but you wouldn't be the first science guy to show up here and be a little off." She then politely tapped her head as if he couldn't figure out what off meant.

"It's OK, I still think you're probably OK, but if you're a little crazy I just wanna know."

He contemplates her for a moment then shrugs his face.

"I think it's one of those fine line things that comes with being a genius."

Be picks up the book and flips through the pages so he has something to do with his hands.

"I mean, look at internal combustion or human flight, crazy ideas that couldn't happen. And then." He slams the book shut and drops it back on the counter. "We have Audi R8 spyders with V10 engines, and sort of personally modified Boeing 737s to take us where we want to go."

Of course, Tony would think back to the cars and planes he has for reference, but they were really great feats of engineering. Also his.

At that Sandy couldn't help but smile and nodded.

"My dad always liked cars. Fast ones. I think that's why I like riding my bike as fast as I can." She supposed.

"What's the coolest thing you've ever engineered?" She added seeing no reason to leave him alone to work on something she was pretty sure would yield no results.

"Coolest? Easy. My suits."

Tony says with a tone that suggested that was the easiest thing in the world. If she had asked best, that would have been a bit harder but only because then he has to pick between the arc reactor redesign and the suits.

That didn't quite land with her and she looked puzzled.

"What was so cool about them? I mean I've seen alot of different suits since I got here...I wouldn't call all of them cool but our Stylist team are really really good at making suits that look cool and feel good."

She was still rather fond of the bird armor that Cinna had put together for her once.

He pauses and looks at her for a moment.

"Wait, the other Tony gave you a pizza in the shower. But didn't mention the suits?" He gives her a flat look.

"Told you it wasn't me. They're fully pressurized armored suits, with and integrated A.I system, each of them were specialised for different tasks, all of them were bullet proof to a point, and capable of flight while running off a clean sustainable energy source."

She returned the flat look "Maybe the other Tony was trying to help me out. It's not like knowing about the suits would have helped me any." She shot back before trying to wade through his techno babble.

"Armored suits that fly...wait..." Her eyes went wide as realization donned on her and she finally put two and two together.

"You mean like the Iron Patriot?"

Unfortunately even if Sandy was swinging in the right direction, her worlds history was still a little skewed.

Tony's face falls when he hears that god awful name.

"Uh, better than Iron Patriot. Also, I'm never calling it that, because War Machine's a better name." Sighing he rubs at his forehead. "I really don't like focus groups."

Tony doesn't have too many things that really bother him. However the Iron Patriot is most of them.

"Hey it's not like I made up the name. It's in the history books." She held up her hands in a gesture of abandonment. "Iron Patriot helped the liberated government of New York arrest metahumans." She explained "I got lucky, no one knew I was one."

"History books? Why would- No, hang on Metahumans. Okay, you're going to need to recite your history books here. Because I don't remember Rhodie dealing with that."

This just sounds a little too sureal and confusing for Tony.

It wasn't the first time someone had asked her to clear up her history "Where I come from, New York split off from America and outlawed all super powers and masks. Meta humans and mutants were arrested and taken to jail." She explained "My dad was one of them. But no one knew I had powers because I was so little."

Lucky her.

"They cut off the city from the rest of the world with a big force field that made it rain all the time."

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