thecapitol | Here's the thing...

Entry tags:

Here's the thing...

Who| Tony and anyone in the Capitol,
What| Tony is somewhat moping about his super "quick" arena death.
Where| D12, Tower Commons, The shopping district.
When| shortly after waking up from his arena death
Warnings/Notes| Talk of death?

District 12’s Floor
When Tony wakes up, he is less than impressed. Okay he really doesn’t at all expect to be able to win any of these arenas, but to not even last a whole day? That was what really stung, especially considering with what he saw of the Arena it would have been one he could have really taken charge in. Okay, so he’s not really an astronaut and the one time he was actually in space he sort of died for a moment, but at least being on a space station meant there was more than enough technology for him to have worked with. However once he was fully awake, he took his shirt off (and for the first time realising that his cuff has been removed from his wrist), and went to the mirror, his scaring was still there, he pawed at it for a moment because to his mind at least death by knife in the arena was far too close to home than he’d ever actually care to mention, reminding him too much of the shrapnel long since removed from his body.
Needless to say he took the whole next day to mope around the empty floor of District 12, and by mope he means he was rearranging his entire room then putting it all back again while trying to ignore the arena playing on the wall screens. He didn’t want to know who was dying or who was playing with tech. It made him feel both jealous and very lonely.

Tower Commons
Soon enough he was out in the common area of the tower sniffing out food that would bring him into at least some relative company, knowing that he at least wouldn’t have been the only tribute to have died in the last day or so.
He knows he shouldn’t, but he orders a non-virgin grape-tini and goes to sit at one of the couches to relax into it, glancing around he can see that the screen is at least playing arena highlights, he huffs with frustration before looking around to call out.
“Do a dead guy a favour and change the channel?”
He knows he’ll be ignored, but he can still try, right? By now he knows that his team will know that he died before lunch time, and while for the most part he knows every single one of them will be fine without him, there’s still that worry about Bruce, life and death situations aren’t at all something he’s at home with.
As for Dave? Well, he still has far too easy a time remembering the look on his face in his last few moments in the arena so it’s more reason to avoid the arena screenings right now.

Shopping District

With his cuff gone, Tony knows that he won’t have much of a problem indulging his tastes anymore. Not that he has overly extravagant tastes, but unsurprisingly the finicky ways of the Capitol had them honestly trying to avoid dealing with him due to his being somewhat of a criminal.
Walking into a diner he used to frequent before they refused to serve him and his cuff, he was greeted happily and they had no problem taking his order. Tony assumed that without the cuff they assume he’s done his penance and doesn’t have to be shunned anymore. Really, Tony wish he could be surprised by this but it all felt too familiar to home. So Tony takes a seat out in the sun with his burger and fries on the table as he watches people go by idly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She quirks a brow at the fact that he's dressing himself as he leaves his room, but she chooses not to comment on it. Instead, she breezes past that topic and onto the quip he's making.

"Oh please, you're the one dying to see me." It's a low blow, said with a roll of her eyes and a wave of her hands as she sets the muffins down on the nearest counter.

"Well, it's early. Something light on the liver, maybe. Pina colada? Mimosa? We can be healthy bitches." Alcohol is totally healthy if you're mixing it with fruit juice, right?

At the emphasis on 'dying' Tony's hands flops to his side and he shakes his head at her.

"I want to say 'too soon' but really. I don't think it counts here." Though the moment passes quick enough when Jolie puts don't the muffins he becomes properly aware of them. "You bake?"

His eye linger on the muffins for a moment longer then he pulls out some long stemmed glasses.

"One healthy breakfast coming right up."

He pulls out a bottle of Champagne and pops the cork, it's not chilled so the cork shoots across the room in a harmless direction as the bottle pours over, apathetic to the bottle's excitement an pours the bubbly liquid into the glass before crossing the room to get some orange juice out of the fridge.

Edited 2014-12-31 03:10 (UTC)

"Oh, bullshit! If I didn't say it, you would've beat me to it." Probably. He seems like the kind of guy who faces these things with humor, possibly while burying his emotional pain under it, but that's why she's here.

"Huh?" She raises her brows, giving away the fact that she probably didn't actually make these before she tries to act cool. "Oh! Oh. I do a lot of things you don't know about." She half mutters that, fluffing up her wig nonchalantly before she jerks her hands back to herself protectively when the cork shoots past.

"Sheesh." Someone is a little skittish, but she pulls herself into a bar stool in front of the counter, propping her chin up on her hand when she does. "So. No curfew." That is the face of a suggestive queen. "Do you prefer ice or trees?"

"I would have come up with something better, at least." He teases, and he doesn't miss the eyebrow raise and it's meaning, which has him smirking at her. "Oh I bet you do. Just so long as you remember to keep engineering out of your little side hobbies we can still be friends."

He skittishness isn't lost on him either, however he elects to let it past, no doubt her nerves are always twitchy at the start of the arenas, this is just the first time Tony's been around to see it. Once he finishes the drinks he pushes one in front of her and raises an eyebrow at her.

"You know, this seems like a really suspicious question. Especially when you bring our new lack of curfew into things. Is this you scheming?"

"Really? No engineering? Shit. And all those courses were looking so fucking promising." She rolls her eyes and it looks all the more dramatic with those thick lashes and that white line making them wider.

"Why're you so touchy over people liking stuff you like?" She can't help pulling at that thread when she takes the drink and has a swig out of it. "Not scheming. I'm totally honest with my plan to put you in something that looks respectable and dragging you out on the town." She punctuates that with a bite of the muffin. Mm, yep. She's still got it.

"You mock, but I've just saved you a fortune in manicures." Sadly something Tony knows as a fact, back when he was younger he used to get them, after all his Mom did push hard to make sure he tried to keep a strong public image and nice looking hands were a factor. Though he gave it up when he realised that his predilection to spend days one one piece of technology without sleep, showers, or moisturising cream that his hands were pretty much a lost cause.

"Oh you can like it. I'll just feel less special if everyone's doing it." He offers her up a sarcastic grin.

He watches her bit into the muffin with a raised eye. "I don't even pay attention to my own stylist when it comes to dressing myself every day." He tips the glass towards her. "Why am I going to listen to you. Not to mention that I always look respectable when I leave the suites." Tony actually does manage to sound a little huffy about that. Because he has always prided himself on his taste in suits.

"Well, everyone I know hates dirty nails, so you're safe for the most part. Pretty sure a lot of tributes are used to having some nasty shit up and under theirs, though." She's inspected enough of her precious tribute's nails to know this is a fact, but it does make her eyes cast down toward his hands to get a better look at them while he drinks.

"I wouldn't pay attention to your stylist either. Everything went to shit after you lost Cinna. That man could work miracles with leather and pyrotechnics." She rolls her shoulders and stares serenely upward so as to illustrate the bliss his creations gave her before she frowns at him. "You don't look respectable now though." At least, she wouldn't make an important public appearance dressed like that.

For the most part, Tony hasn't been able to get anything to give him dirt under his nails. The few times he has gotten them dirty from working on his secret computer, he's been very careful to clean his nails before leaving. After all, it wouldn't be good to get caught before he even started anything.

"Well, at least I can take solace in that?" He drawls, his calloused and worn fingers delicately hold the glass in a very practised manner.

Tony doesn't comment on his current stylist, or Cinna. He avoids one and never knew the other. So he really can't weigh in on comments about them.

"Because I wasn't thinking about going out. And this?" He tugs on the button down he had thrown on at her arrival. "This has an impressive thread count." Well it's soft, and while Tony knows his designers, and his own tailors style, he really knows nothing about the fabrics themselves.

"Which is why I was going to put you in something respectable." She points out, unwilling to let this argument escape her cold, dead hands. She'll bicker until she's six feet under, don't try her bitch.

Except that when he boasts about the thread count, he's asking for it. She dusts her hands off on a nearby napkin and reaches forward to run her hands up and down his chest and stomach without so much as a please and thank you.

"Mmm, what's that? 200? It ain't like you bought it though." She points that out too, pulling her hands back to pick up her muffin again. "It's way too early to go out anyway." She sounds so mournful about the concept of going out for lunch.

As she paws at him Tony raises his hands a little along with his eyebrows.

"You know, some people charge for this kind of groping."

when he hands retreat from him he needlessly rearranges the shirt.

"200 is a comfortable thread count. But fine, feel free to raid my wardrobe. Considering it's you it could take an hour until you're satisfied."

He picks up his drink again and sips from it looking casual, waiting for her reaction.

"Some people aren't you." She points out coolly, because she knows he's full of crap. "If I wanted to cop a feel, I wouldn't be miming your chest." Everybody knows Tony has the booty, but that is a platonic booty and it isn't to be trifled with.

She opens her mouth to argue about the relevancy of comfort, but the words die in her throat when he offers something of considerable value to her and she lights up like a Christmas tree. "I thought you'd never ask." She almost squeaks, plucking up her drink and moving around to grab at him so she can drag him toward the bedroom suites.

"A fact I'm kind of glad for. I might actually have to work at looking this good." He smirks at her comment though. "Trés Jolie, I think you're trying to seduce me." He knows she isn't but that's hardly the point.

His eyes widen as she grabs at him in her excitement to go through his clothes to dress him up, he really knows he shouldn't be surprised about this, but he didn't exactly expect his offer would have her acting like he bought her a whole bar dedicated to only serving her.

"And here I thought it was always going to end in you pulling my clothes off."

"If I were trying to seduce you, you'd know." She points out, as she drags him into his room to play with his clothes. There's a strong sense of self awareness in the comment at the very least, coupled with a grin thrown over her shoulder at him.

Once she figures out which room is his, she pushes him away so he can sit or stand wherever he likes and she can flounce toward his closet and throw it open. She clicks her tongue as she starts to pull at things, muttering as she does. "Cinna really did retire, huh.." And yet, she's turning around and dumping a few of her favourites on the bed. "You have your stylists trained, don't you? All of this shit is the same."

"I'd feel insulted. But I don't want to wake up with that make up all over my pillow."

He rests his right ankle on his left knee as he sits and watches her grumbling about his clothes.

"I've spent my whole life in the public eye. I know that short of my armor. I look best in a three-piece suit. Not all of us can make an entire rainbow look good."

He glances at what has been dumped on the bed, straightening out the fabric of the top item while picking off a lint fluff. It took him a lot of arguing and flat out ignoring to get his way on his suits, and he's not about to be bullied out of them without more fighting.

"Yeah? Well stop wearing it then." She says that dryly, folding her arms over her chest as she looks from the pile, to him, back to the pile and back to him.

"Lucky for you, you only need to make a few colours work. So pick one and put it on." She points at the pile of clothing, but she isn't quite ready to start wrestling him out of his shirt. Instead, she'll put on a condescendingly sweet voice and air that is more reminiscent of her drag mother. "Would you feel better if I turned around and didn't watch, honey?"

"No need to be rude because I go for the subtle look." Considering that Tony actually does wear light eyeliner to help give his eyes more impact, his teasing isn't too far from the truth. It's probably the few habits he picked up in his teens that he still dabbles in.

At the sweet condescension, Tony pulls a face clearly it's a tone that grinds on him a little.

"Uh, yeah I think we're fine. If you haven't swooned by now..." He starts, standing to pull off his sweats only to start sliding into a pair of charcoal trousers. as he eyes the shirts she's left out for him. He picks one up but before he makes any move to take his well worn one off, his focus changes to the ties, still weighing his options about his chest before anything else.

"What are you partial to, red or maroon?" He smirks at her.

"I can try, if it makes you feel better about yourself." She suggests, bringing the back of her hand up to her forehead and letting herself tilt back some before she gives up and just sits on the end of the bed. Clearly he's fucking around, that's never going to change, but if he's going to do that then she's going to sit down.

And well, the change of pants isn't the most disgusting thing she's ever seen, but she's decidedly not ogling him and looking off to the side like a polite bitch. Her attention draws back when she asks a question and she furrows her brows.

"Clearly I like both if I picked both." She points out, waving her arms wildly at him. "Hurry up and take your damn shirt off, bitch! If I wanted a burlesque show I'd go to a club."

He shakes his head at her pretending to swoon over him, then drops the maroon tie back on the bed clearly in the mood for a proper red.

"You know. Keep talking like that you're going to hurt my feelings. Girls used to line up for my shows."

He loops it around his neck before steeling himself momentarily before unbuttoning the ratty shirt he has on, letting it slip off him before he tosses it onto the bed to quickly picking up one of the better shirts Jolie picked out and he tries to slip it on casually, as if he doesn't have one hell of a gnarly scared torso. He's decided that if he doesn't bring attention to it, maybe she might miss it, looking at something else at the same moment.

But then, she is looking right at him and it's hard to miss. Turning his back to her over it would probably only make her more curious.

Despite acting equally in favor of both ties, Jolie nods in approval when Tony throws down the red. So they're not going for the subtle look? Good.

"Right, of course. Wouldn't want to offend your girls." She says with as much boredom as she can possibly inject into her tone when someone is getting undressed in front of her. She might be platonic with him, but that doesn't mean she doesn't acknowledge that he holds his own for attractiveness even around his fellow Avengers.

In her line of work, she's seen a lot of scars. Most of them go on to be surgically removed, but some of them are kept around for the aesthetic. She has her doubts about Tony's aesthetic involving huge chest scars, she also has her doubts about the sincerity of his casualness here. She doesn't realise how long she's stared for, but she polishes it off with an exaggerated blink of her heavy lashes.

"Did that hurt?" She asks, the naivety of it only occurring to her after the fact, so clearly she needs to continue. "I mean, duh. It must have. I'm just fishing for you to tell me what happened, let's just put that out there." This is a person who has not grown up in a subtle society.

Tony gives a quiet snort at Jolie's bored sounding teasing. and manages to be half buttoned up with the tie hanging untied around his neck before she asks about his chest.

He focuses on it, long used to not seeing the metal in his chest, or worrying about that one sliver of many that gets past the magnet and tear up his heart. He scratches at one of the veiny protrusions that have lingered since the palladium poisoning.

"Uh. Yeah." He sounds almost distracted. "A lot." He licks his lips and sticks his hands in his pockets for a moment. "7 years ago, I took shrapnel from one of my own weapons. While being, uh. Kidnapped." He narrowed his eyes a little, as if he's just managing to remember what happened, even though it's all so very clear in his mind. "A good guy, great really. Managed to save my life. By putting an electro-magnet in there to keep what he could get out of me away from my heart. And then after a while. Maybe 5-6 months before coming here, I got it out."

From the look of the scar it's clear that more happened in between but unless pushed he's really not going to say much more.

"Oh.." Jolie whispers that with a strange sense of awe, drawing a little closer like she's eager to share in the morsels of personal stories he tells her. "Your origin story.." She whispers again, just in case it wasn't obvious she's a Capitolite who has been born and raised around well-constructed heroes. All of them with stories, just interesting enough to be inspiring and terrible enough to garner pity and wariness for the Districts and pride for the Capitol.

"Does it still hurt?" She asks with a raised brow. She reaches out quickly, but something in her clicks and she stops before she just starts prodding at his chest without permission. "Can I touch it?"

Tony rolls her eyes as she says 'origin story' like he's a pre-release trailer for Comicon or something.

"It aches." He offers with a shrug. "But it hasn't really hurt for a year or two now. And it's just skin and scar tissue. It's not going to be that surprising to touch."

He says instead of giving her actual permission to touch. But he knows that she's hardly going to attempt to hit it or anything so he makes no move to discourage her from his chest.

"The texture looks interesting." She points out, reaching out now that she's been granted the permission she'd been seeking. She's careful not to be too rough without being too creepy, but it's hard to caress someone's chest without being at least a little weird.

Jolie runs the pads of her finger tips over the veins, wondering to herself why his Stylist hasn't monopolized on how interesting they look. Her fingers trace around the scar before she pulls her hand back and folds it politely in front of her with her other hand.

"Very cool. Very macho." She smiles earnestly, nodding her head toward the door. "Are you gonna put your damn shirt on so we can go? I'm starving."

Tony just rolls his eyes at everything Jolie says before, grabbing up his shirt and pulling it on. Keeping the fact that she is part of a list of people he can count on one hand who has seen his chest as it is now on one hand, all to himself.

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to worship me for a weirdly long moment. So you only have yourself to blame for starving."

He buttons up the shirt and does up the tie with practiced hands before swanning out the door leaving her in his room.

"Waiting on you, now." is all he calls out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Here's the thing...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject