thecapitol | The Crowning of Tony Stark

Entry tags:

The Crowning of Tony Stark

Who| Everyone.
What| The Crowning of Tony Stark.
Where| The New Capitol Stark Expo!
When| Friday, late afternoon into the evening.
Notes| This event is mandatory for all Tributes to attend. Even if you do not tag in, your character will attend this party. Peacekeepers will be on high alert, so no funny business.
WARNINGS| Alcoholism / References to Alcoholism.

The Capitol might be known for its extravagance, but Stark Expos have never skimped on a show. Combining the two together could only be a recipe for the most wild indulgences. The center theater takes styling after a arc reactor, with glass ceiling and glowing blue lights set right within the metal and putting a glow to the sky. Lightshows go off on the main stage, the stark logo overhead and a massive screen displaying the Panem flag and Tony Stark's image just behind the dancing Ironettes. A circle plattform going off from the stage, clearly reserved for the guest of honor, features a design Panem's bird in red, gold, and glowing blue.

A globe is featured in the outside gardens, showing off a map of Panem, and the park is filled with artistic statues of destroyed Iron Man amror. But there's no quiet here, not with the fireworks going off all night and the consistent playing of music that is not but sounds an awful lot like that of Daft Punk, Eifel 65, ACDC, and one other song that breaks them up.

Various shows can be found about the gardens, including display models of some of Tony Stark's old weapons and Iron Man suits. Further along guests may find the Avengers display, featuring large portraits of the Avengers and their allies, large red x's going over greyed out portraits of those deemed dead, including Phill Coulson, Natasha Romanoff, and Thor. Along with these portraits can be found the Stark family tree, featuring the Victor Tony Stark and all his relations including apparent son Dave Strider, and Arya Stark, Ancestor of the Stark family, not to mention the great Howard Stark who's accomplishments (and tragic lack of care for Anthony) are lovingly illustrated. One such accomplishment being a "flying car" just a short walk over.

There's plenty for guests to do besides just ogle the brilliant sights however! A bar has been set up with a whole variety of drinking games available from Sink The Battleship and Drink Roulette to an extravagent variation of the classic game, Beer Pong, and an ongoing run of the Games with rules of drinking for each emotional scene, funny incident, or death. Those under the age of eighteen will be served fizzing juice or soda instead and can participate in junior versions of the very same games. All the cups are made from the finest glass with Tony Stark images over them. Avoxes are on scene to clean every spill and break of glass that might come.

A cave has been crafted of artificial and real material, designed to look like the Cave in which Tony Stark became a real hero, but with a twist; it's been made into a fun-for-all maze! Guests can attempt to navigate their way to the labyrinth and reach the core, avoiding those nasty pop-out rebels along the way. Those who make it to the fire-lit center may receive a limited edition "Tony Stark Heart" miniature arc reactor in a beautiful glass case.

An indoor sky diving station is also available, large enough that many guests may enter at once and still find it spacious. Here, guests can don Iron Man themed sky-diving suits and experience the sensation of flight, just as Tony Stark once did. Of course, the party doesn't start until the Victor comes in; he'll be appearing by Capitol-controlled suit to make his entrance at center stage. It is here that his Throne shall be raised up through the stage and his crown gifted to him. Following the official Crowning Ceremony will also come a speech from the Capitol's very own, Cyrus Reagan.

Tributes are dressed in formal wear with robotic accents. Such as a full mask or metal armor. Capitolites can be seen with Tony stark styled hair, bearing tattoos in his image, and even with surgically implanted lights, in honor of the new Victor. Available for purchase are handcrafted Tony Stark dolls, Iron Man action figures, and models of beloved robot-pet "Dum-E" in both small and life-sized. The Iron Man light gloves come completely free for all guests.

The Crowning ends off with a bang, as in the center of the sky, a massive "wormhole" opens up showing a vast darkness full of sinister creatures just on the other side, sure to inspire some screams from fans. Guests near to the Iron Man suit displays are asked by peacekeepers to step back-- far back-- but may be the first to witness the incredible scene of all those suits launching into the sky and exploding around and "in" the wormhole. The wormhole shifts to a message stating the show to have been brought to you by the Hunger Game's skilled Sky-Display Designers before going into advertising for the rest of the night as the party dies down.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I know. I'm going to have a headache when I wake tomorrow, I know it. Or ringing in my ears from all this."

He rests his arm over the back of the bench, not forcing but inviting her to rest against him. One knee touches hers and he smiles.

"It's deeper than it looks, that's why. Or maybe the doctor just didn't know what he was doing. Wouldn't discount that possibility."

It's almost reflexive, the way he stretches out and she automatically curls against him, tucked neatly in the space under his arm, her head on his shoulder. The little LED lights stemming from her hair brush against him before settling and casting a dim halo around her head.

"We can go to a different doctor, if you want. Get a second opinion."

She knows the way he reacts to doctor talk, and so she quickly breezes past it, lets the idea just hang there in case he wants to mull over it. Swann certainly can't see the harm in having another doctor look at the wound, but she never knows how Jason will interpret these things.

"I guess it's nice that there's edible food this time? There's a silver lining." And even she can admit that it's a slim one, but she has to look for a good point or she'll go crazy from all the music and lights. "I just hope this doesn't run as late as the last one. I'm tired."

"That's all I need, two people charging me for their useless opinions." He brings his arm in a little closer, fully embracing her, smoking quietly and staring at stars with an uncharacteristic peacefulness. He follows it up with something even stranger for him, a positive utterance.

"At least we don't have to work a Cornucopia after this."

He rests his palm on her shoulder. "I'll take you home as soon as I can. You can sleep in the car if you need to."

She suppresses the urge to roll her eyes, knowing full and well that he was not charged to see the Tribute Center Medic, but it's easy enough to let go. If it doesn't get any better in the coming week, she'll make him go to another doctor -- it's hard to see how he can argue with a dermatologist, though she's more than sure that he'll find a way if he can.

Reaching her hand up to take his, she sighs and nods. "We don't have to do anything after this, we can actually sleep and rest for a day." It's always calm the day after Crowning, with everyone worn out from the party and thus unlikely to make any appointments or arrangements. Swann remembers when it was once a year, how the city would practically shut down to let everyone recover.

It's not possible now, of course, but it takes another day or so to get back to business as usual in the Capitol.

"Though really, they talk about it like it's a special treat, allowing the staff a bit of peace."

"I told Mother that this is going to run until tomorrow morning." He lets that hang in the air, an invitation, maybe a hopeful suggestion that she catch her second wind once the party ends. Unsatisfied with that, he continues. "You know, I was driving the other day and I found a lookout point where you can see the whole Capitol. Nestled between the mountains like a jewel. It probably looks nice at night."

He gives her hand the slightest squeeze, still looking up at the stars.

Smiling as she bites the corner of her lip, she turns her head to perch her chin on his shoulder and look at him. "I bet it does," she answers softly before nuzzling into the crook of his neck, breathing in the thick, herbal smell that surrounds him and just lets through the other notes, cologne and clean clothes and the pure scent of his skin.

"Maybe you'll take me there."

"If you ask me nicely."

Her head fits there perfectly in the crook of his neck, and even the music behind them turns into something more serene than the electronic thumping. He rubs her shoulder, then turns his cigarette off and tucks it behind her ear, not his.

She sighs happily, his cigarette warm on the skin behind her ear, and releases his hand to wrap her arms around his middle, fingers clenched together on his other side.

"Pretty please, with sugar on top?" There's just a little bit of a teasing undertone in her voice, but mostly it's sweet and quiet and content to do as he asks, even jokingly. Her eyes are closed and she feels much more calm now than she did before, wandering around and trying not to pay attention to how much light and noise and sudden movement there was everywhere.

"I don't know if I can resist such a polite request."

They melt together, the two of them, like shadows overlapping or blobs of oil in water. Jason can feel her heart rate slowly, even, as she rests against him, as he casts that spell of calm upon her, and it makes his own blood rise to think of himself as this sort of sorcerer who can draw out the softer features of her mind with only his touch.

"How has your week been?"

"Not that bad. It's just... not as busy now, you know? But that makes them even less likely to listen to me. They don't understand why it's important to keep all of this up. The cooperative ones are doing it mostly to have something to do."

It makes her frown, that she can't really get her Tributes to take her seriously, and it doesn't really seem to matter how she treats them, how she talks to them. She supposes that they find her so unintimidating that they just don't care.

"Let's see, Firo called me a spoiled brat. Joel told me I should stop having feelings. Oh, and I have a girl now, although who knows what she's worth in the Arena. So that was this week. Yours?"

"Aside from getting my face slashed by a wild Mentor? I had to call the Peacekeepers on two separate Tributes for attacking me, and neither of them spent a night in jail because I managed to dodge in time." That's a slight exaggeration, but not much of one. Not enough for Jason to not hate this week. "Maybe next time I'll stand there and let them hit me, get myself a bloody nose for 'evidence'."

He sighs, pulling her a little closer. One of his hands, which he's mostly been keeping to his pocket, is crudely bandaged.

"I know you feel guilty about hating your Tributes, so you can comfort yourself knowing I hate them for you."

Swann sighs and frowns more deeply, curling tighter to him. She's capable of making herself small enough to fit in a large duffel bag (she knows, because there was once a drunk game of hide and seek played when she was about twenty, and she won), and she really wants nothing more than to disappear into his side, until she feels better. Maybe longer.

"I don't understand why they have to make it so hard. Wouldn't everyone just be happier if they did what they're asked?"

It's then that she notices his hand, and grabs at it gently. "What happened?"

"That's expecting our Tributes to be logical. They aren't. They're unhappy with their situation and they take it out on us and then act surprised when we don't like being blamed for things we can't help."

He pulls his hand away from her, not out of any sort of territorialism but because it's tender. He holds it out so she can see, the redness at his fingertips and the rigged-up care he took with it. "Pretty sure I broke my hand. It's fine. I just slammed my hand in a door earlier today."

"Jason, you have to let a professional look at it. You might need it set or put in a splint."

She looks at him, worried, eyes big and dark and full of concern. She doesn't touch his hand, but she looks like she wants to cradle it to herself, until she can drag him to a doctor.

"I know how you feel about doctors, but please, Jason, for me? You need x-rays. You don't even know which bones are broken."

"It'll heal itself, won't it, long as I keep it straight and don't use it? It'll be fine." He lets her have his hand because he doesn't want to give her what she really wants, his agreement to go see a professional.

"Like I say, it'll be fine."

"No, that's not how it works! Even if you get lucky and it heals, it might heal wrong, at an angle or something until you can't use it at all!"

She takes his hand, delicately, but she's looking up at him with tears in her eyes, afraid that he's going ruin himself out of some insane principle that she still doesn't fully understand.

"It's just your hand. They don't have to look at anything else. Please."

For a while he's quiet, watching the tears in her eyes impassively, almost hatefully, like the anger's there, the anger he so rarely turns on her but that lives inside him. Anger's easier than dread, that fear that rests outside him like a cloud, that there are things he can't do himself and that that means that he cannot do anything for himself.

"You'll go with me." It's a condition, not a request. If she's going to press him to trust someone with his body, even just his hand, then they'll do it his way.

She hates that look on his face, wants to cringe back from it but forces herself not to. She knows that he needs this, that it's for the best, even if it makes him angry with her. And then he speaks and she almost sighs with relief, her heart pounding.

"Of course I will. I wouldn't want you to go alone." She nods madly, her LED lights bouncing around her head like little fireflies. She reaches for his face, puts her hands on his cheeks. "You don't have to do these things by yourself. You have me now."

"Alright." He breaks that eye contact with her, looking again at the sky but really not watching anything at all. He breaks from the touch of her hands. He can hear that rushing in his ears again, his blood pressure rising, his heartbeat picking up the pace, and so he breathes more slowly, spiting his lungs.

He has her and he's glad for that, but he feels as if she's creating her own orbit and he's being sucked into her gravitational pull.

"Housecall, though. I'm not sitting in a waiting room with everyone looking at me making guesses at what happened. And your place, because I don't want Mother fussing."

Swann doesn't push, only curls back up under his arm and lays her head on his shoulder again, quiet so that he can lead the conversation.

She already orbits around him, a small planet to his fiery sun, and she has trouble remembering what it was like to not be that way, to not have him within arm's reach or on the other side of her phone when he can't be in her presence.

"I'll call someone in the morning." Her voice is quiet and calm and entirely compliant. The more orders he gives, the better she feels because there's less room for her to screw up and upset or hurt him.

Likewise, it calms him to be back in control, to specify things to his liking. It's his way of transposing something over the fear. He wraps his arm around her again, tucking his injured hand into his pocket.

"One of the doctors you see? One of yours, I mean?"

She nods, runs her hand along his side opposite her, and opens her eyes just a little to look at nothing in particular. "Just my regular physician," she says, fully settling herself against him. "I always had to take my appointments at home when I had my shows, to keep the paparazzi away from his office. And then I didn't really go outside for about two years. So he's used to coming to me."

"Alright. I don't imagine you've been keeping company with an idiot that long." He rests his head against her, thinking if the brain were like a heart he would be able to hear her thoughts pulsing away.

"Have you eaten today?"

"I had half a piece of toast for breakfast." The task of getting all of her Tributes to cooperate and wear Jolie's designs, show up to the party and behave, it made her nervous. Of course, the only time she really only eats more than the bare minimum needed to live is when she's with Jason anyway. She doesn't imagine he'll be terribly impressed.

"And I had some juice earlier."

"Have a something or other here at the crowning. No bugs this time, thank god." He does fuss over what she eats, knowing on some level that she knows better than he does what her body needs and yet relishing in the control, in the order, in feeling as if he makes up a necessary part of her daily routine as much as an alarm clock or calendar does.

"The little sandwiches shaped like the Victor's head are kind of entertaining, even."

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