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WHO| Tony Stark, Momoko Ryugasaki
WHAT| A chance meeting that cannot possibly go well...
WHEN| Just a few days before the next Games start.
WHERE| Outside the training center.
WARNING/NOTES| None at the moment.

Logically Momoko knew this was stupid of her, that skipping out on training more and more as the Games drew closer wasn't a smart strategy. On the other hand, even more logically, Momoko couldn't help but realize that cramming in hours of combat and survival training wasn't going to really help at all, in the end. Not when there were hardened military men and the like entering that same Arena. Not to mention whatever else waited for the tributes in there.

She still shuddered to think of the terrifying mess that was the Victor Crowning party. No amount of training in the little time she had left could prepare her for an entire arena of that. So why should she waste her last few days of relative freedom and luxury in pain and sweating in the gym?

She shouldn't, Momoko had decided, and promptly slipped out when her mentors were looking the other way, secure in the depressing knowledge that they wouldn't bother looking for her. She left the building through a back exit, more to avoid being bothered by Citizens she was in no mood to deal with than anything, already planning what lacey Lolita fare she would replace her gym outfit with upon reaching her rooms.

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No one has ever been particularly successful at getting Tony to attend anything he doesn't feel like attending. They can tell him what he's 'supposed to be doing' all they want, but until they physically pick him up and haul his ass down there, Tony fully intends on doing exactly what Tony wants to do.

He's been in the Training Area once already anyway, thank you very much, and he'll go back again when he feels like it.

That just doesn't happen to be today.

No, today, he slept in and had an omelet delivered to him in bed while he read up on every statistic he could find about his 'fellow tributes.' There was more information on some than others, and none of it was what he would call particularly divulging.

Thus far, things have only been mildly frustrating and generally annoying. But he hates feeling so cut off from anything familiar; anything that's his. Typically, Tony isn't what you would call a 'walker,' someone who wanders for the sake of wandering. But his reading hasn't gotten him as much information as he wanted and he really doesn't like being cooped up on places that he doesn't actually own.

It takes a moment to register who she is when he sees her. He only knows her face because she'd been in the information about the District 7 tributes that he'd just been reading. She looks drastically different in her training outfit than she does in her pictures.

"Had enough of learning how to cleave people in half for the day?" he asks once she's near enough to hear him.

Momoko spots the man coming towards her and frowns. She'd hoped to avoid the frankly disturbing attention of the Citizens, especially when she's dressed...well, like this. Though this man is dressed very tamely, compared to the people of the Capitol. He doesn't much look like another tribute though, either, not that Momoko can discern who they've been choosing and why.

"Oh, yes," Momoko says, once it's clear she won't be getting away without at least attempting a conversation. She puts on a wry smile. If she's going to be skipping out on training she might as well attempt some networking. "If they're going to pull me out of school, the least they could do is allow me to skip physical education along with everything else." Although, cleaving people in half would probably be a far more useful skill than what they've been attempting to teach her.

School, huh? High school girl? Seems a bit unfair. Not that there was much about any of this that fell under the category of 'fair.' At all.

From what Tony could tell, the woman who had won the last 'Game' was easily in her later 20s, and had clearly been well trained. Not someone Tony wanted to cross, unarmored, because he's dealt with deadly little red-heads before and he's pretty sure his quota has been more than filled in that department.

This girl though? What chance did she have? She was maybe 90 pounds soaking wet.

"I think you have to have a note," Tony gives her a smirk and a shrug of a shoulder. "But truancy isn't really a concern of mine. I'm not asking to see your hall pass."

Tony shifts a little, allowing her to move. He'll walk with her if she decides to continue, because he's got questions and she hasn't tried to stab him in the neck, so basically that's about all the permission he needs to continue. "I am curious though. What's your story? Samurai princess meets Hello Kitty? Mortal Kombat? What's your thing?"

Momoko can't help but raise an eyebrow at this man. He seems to have taken her offhand comment about p.e. and ran with it. She's a little afraid of having met Ichigo's match in babbling, but she's probably just being paranoid. And homesick.

She eyes the opening he's made for hesitantly. He's asking her questions--strange, strange questions but still--so he's apparently means to follow her home. To her rooms, that is. Not home. Momoko's not exactly happy with that thought, but it's not as though anyone has any real privacy here, especially the tributes, it seems. And she desperately wants to get into her usual clothes, so she walks and talks.

"I'm not a samurai," she says to begin with, wondering if she should feel offended or not. "Or a ninja, before you ask. And I wouldn't touch Hello Kitty or her like with a ten foot parasol, thank you." She sniffs. "My 'thing'...hm. I like embroidery. I'm good at it, too." That wasn't even bragging. Her work had been complimented by the designer of Baby. The god of clothing, as far as she was concerned, and frankly everything else important as well.

He makes a face like he's almost disappointed, "Too bad about the ninja thing, really. That might have been useful. But I give your props on your life choice concerning Hello Kitty. Big heads. Little bodies. It's a bit weird."

Pestering her as he surely is, he doesn't walk so close to her that she should feel threatened. He hopes. She'll have enough of that later. Right now, he's just gathering facts.

Embroidery? Crap. What even is that? Sounds vaguely familiar.... ish.

"So that's your thing, then? Embroidery? You think that's why you're here?"

Right now, he isn't sure if there even is a correlation, but individual talents and strengths seems as likely as anything. Not that pitting the best goat header in the universe against the guy whose best at bashing a man's skull in with a rock seems like a logical choice for a televised death match. Seems a bit one-sided and obvious.

"Right," says Momoko vaguely in response to his initial ramblings. Definitely getting Ichigo flashbacks. Though she can't fault his opinion of Hello Kitty, though mostly she just thinks it's tacky.

His last question actually gives her pause. "Why I'm here," she repeats, turning the concept over in her head. Because of her embroidery. Maybe, if they brought her over to help with the state of the Capitol's fashion, which she would do in a heartbeat but... "I don't think so? Why would they make me fight if they wanted me to embroider for them?" She shakes her head. Why is she even entertaining this line of thought? This is stupid. Scowling, she speeds up slightly, hoping he'll get the hint. "No, I don't think that's why."

Unless it's punishment for abandoning the job for Baby in order to save Ichigo. Of course, if this were all some divine punishment sent by him she'd gladly take it and more.

"Yeah," Tony decides that he agrees. "Me either. Still can't put a finger on why though. Seems pretty random so far. Could be test samples I suppose. I've always been a fan of more controlled samples myself; the spectrum seems too wide to get any consistency. But maybe consistency isn't the goal here. Controlled chaos. Or maybe they're just hoping to see you stab an embroidery needle in somebody's eye."

He's more talking aloud than he is actually talking to her right now, but she can listen in all she wants. Even he realizes he's rambling now though, and he turns to look at her giving her a grin and says, "I'm Tony by the way. Seems you and I share a bit of a burden together."

Of everything before he gave his name, Momoko only understood the part about stabbing someone in the eye with her embroidery needles--which, no, then she could never allow them to touch her clothes again--and that Tony was just as confused as everyone else.

"Momoko," she says shortly. If this Tony isn't a prospective sponsor or anyone else useful to her, she's not really interested in continuing the conversation. "My name is Momoko. And we don't share any burden. We're going to be fighting for the same solution to our own, separate burdens. That's different."

He shrugs at her dismissal, but that doesn't stop him from continuing, "I was talking more about our forced captivity than the whole cage-match-death-battle stuff, but I suppose you have a point. I'm not here to steal your battle strategies, if that's what you're afraid of."

Not that she really has any to steal, a thought Momoko doesn't voice. Instead she shakes her head. "It's the same thing. Everything we do here affects what happens in there." She gestures at the screens they can see from their route, the screens you can find anywhere and everywhere in the city. "We're always supposed to be fighting each other for chances to survive or even win, it's the same in or out of the Arena."

Of course, she says this not having yet entered the Arena, but she's hardly going to be the one to reveal just how much of her persona right now is big talk.

"By that logic, I would think you'd be back in gym class like a good little girl, learning how to kill a man with your thumbs, or boil water, or something like that. If 'all that' matters, as you say, then forgive the assumption, but you look like you've already given up," he focuses his gaze more intently on her. "But there's always a way around the system. You just have to figure out how it works first."

He isn't sure if he's trying to comfort her, intimidate her or just figure her out. Maybe its a bit of all three. If she's a tribute - and she is - it's like she says. She's supposed to eventually have little more concern about him past the best way break his neck or something equally horrible. If there's no way out of this, and so far things haven't looked promising, then he's supposed to view her the same. Tony has a hard time being told what he's supposed to do and feel about things though...

"I know how to boil water," she mutters, meeting his gaze with a glare she's not quite backing up with true outrage. "And there are other ways to survive besides killing. That's part of the system too." She looks away to glance at the city and the building they've come to a stop in front of, the tribute quarters, then looks back at him. "I've been studying the system," she admits finally. Most of the people with the slightest investment in Momoko had given up on her having any chance of winning with strength or skill pretty quickly, so she kind of had to.

"I know there's more to it than just fighting. They say it's supposed to teach the people out in the rest of the the world a lesson or something, but for everyone here, everyone who matters to us, it's entertainment. A pageant. If you can put on a good enough show, if you make enough of these people love you, you can get away with pretty much anything." She stops, feeling uneasy even though she hasn't given away anything that's not obvious enough if you look for it. It feels wrong to be talking about her strategy even in such broad terms, but if Tony is serious about some kind of alliance, in or out of the arena, she's not sure she can afford to turn it down. Annoyingly chatty as he might be.

A part of her considers the idea that Tony might actually be able to help them out, help the tributes escape. He seems fairly confident that he can accomplish something at least. But that's stupid. Why would would the Capitol bring in a tribute who could do something like that? That wouldn't make any sense.

He can be a gentleman if need be. "Oh I can put on a hell of a show if I must," he insists as he opens the door for her. Making people love him? Well, maybe on a public front, sure. And he's been getting away with doing whatever he wants for just about... well, his whole life really.

There are people about who see them enter; give them odd looks because what on earth is a District 7 and District 12 member doing walking around together - NOT in the training room?! None of their damn business, really, so Tony just sort of grins at them. "What about you, Cupcake? You planning to knit their way into the hearts of the masses?"

"I think you must," says Momoko, looking at him closely for the first time as they enter. He's older than most of the other tributes she's seen around, she realizes, and with his clothes she can't really see his build. He doesn't seem like a fighter to her, though that may not mean much with her limited experience. "Just be careful that they don't want to see you die just to make you stop talking. Unless you're going to solve our other problem before then."

Ladies have doors opened for them, that's how it goes even if gentlemen and for that matter ladies were in short supply back home, so she doesn't blink when he holds the door for her. And as a lady she ignores the rude stares of the other tributes in the room. She can't quite ignore Tony, unfortunately.

"My name is Momoko," she says firstly, because Cupcake? "And I don't knit, does this look like--" she begins to gesture to herself, but she's still wearing the awful training clothes. She frowns. "I need to change."

Tony chuckles at her... well, he doesn't think it's a threat. A warning maybe. Or just some way to tell him to shut his trap. Larger and more impressive people have tried, and failed. But this isn't... it isn't working. He's not sure just yet what he's looking for from her, but she's shutting him down before he can figure it out.

Some kind of truce maybe? She's a little firecracker that's for sure. Maybe even endearing in a collectors item kind of way. Just a high school girl who likes to embroider....he doesn't want to underestimate anything around here but she's not given any indicators that she would be a strong ally to him. But Tony's pretty damn sure he doesn't want her to come to harm either.

"Ryugasaki, yeah," Tony just shrugs. "I know your name. District 7. Your teammate, little Norman Bates, murdered the girl he was paired up with last time. Straight up murdered a slew of people without blinking an eye. Actually? I think he might have smiled a little. I watched the footage this morning. Just be careful, alright. Might be superfluous advice at this point, I know. But the point is... question the hell out of anything anybody tells you. Even the people who say they're on your side."

"Murdering is the point of the arena," says Momoko, but it's a weak retort. She's seen the footage too, watched some of it live, so she can't fault Tony's logic there. "But," she continues reluctantly. "Tate might be...more than just trying to survive." She shrugs, trying for flippant and missing the mark. "I don't leave training early just because I don't like fighting."

She hesitates, debating with herself for a long moment, but this is the first time she's had a chance at an alliance where she can actually bring something to the table. She takes a step closer to Tony, lowering her voice. "I don't like him. He's too much like the people here. But I do watch him train. I have an idea of his strategies." This is possibly an exaggeration. Most of what Momoko's actually caught sight of is generic combat/survival training much like her own, but still. "If you're really interested in some sort of alliance and you're not just talking for the sake of talking."

She takes a step back and gestures at the elevators. "I need to change, before anything else." She wrinkles her nose. "At least the uniforms at school I never had to wear for more than an hour."

Tony pulls a face, a smirk of sorts, though it isn't so much of a smile as it is a 'yep, that's what I'm telling you' face, "I did notice the murder thing, yes. And though it may be a surprise to hear it, I don't talk for the sake of talking. Much. Some people would argue against that I'm sure."

"Why don't you go put on something more comfortable and you can I could blow this popsicle stand for a few? Grab a bite to eat and see if they have a decent martini around here," he offers her, not sure if she's going to agree to this at all or not. Quite frankly, he hasn't really decided if he cares if she does or not, either.

It's on the tip of her tongue to point out that she's several years shy of the legal drinking age when she realizes she's not in Japan anymore and so far she's been refused nothing when she asked, aside from a ride home. It might be nice to have a glass of wine for the first time before her inevitable, if not permanent, death. She could eat as well. "Alright," she agrees, already moving towards the elevator. "Deal."

She changes quickly once she gets to her rooms, more out of a dislike of her current outfit than because of Tony waiting downstairs, but regardless it's less than fifteen minutes before she's heading back down in a yellow and pink version of her usual lacey Lolita fare, with a matching parasol to boot. She's not really certain what this Tony can offer her--mostly he's made obvious comments about their situation and who to avoid in the arena--but it's not like talking with him could make things any worse.

Last time he'd been in Tokyo, he'd seen girls dressed like her, so Tony isn't exactly surprised when she comes down dressed like a porcelain doll. But he isn't quite sure what he actually thinks about it yet. To each their own really... it does amuse him to picture Natasha dressed in a get-up like Momoko's. Imagining Pepper dressed like that though, feels weird and inappropriate somehow. And he's actually quite accustomed to inappropriate thoughts and Pepper, but there are boundaries or something. Tony isn't really sure.

"I'm impressed," he offers her. "Even I have a hard time changing that quickly."

Momoko smiles and preens, just the slightest bit. "I'm used to it," she says simply. "A true Lolita has at least three outfit changes each day." They're still inside but she flicks her parasol open anyway, enjoying the feeling of security it gives her. "What's a martini?" she asks absently, moving towards the door and assuming he'll follow. She doesn't really know much about alcohol and has never really cared to look into it before. She only knows that martinis are alcoholic thanks to movies.

Lolita. Right. He knew there had to be a term for... that. "Well that seems... fluffy."

He steps out of harms way of her parasol, blinking up at it for a moment and, deciding it's probably best not to spew out whatever superstitious mumbo-jumbo that pops into his head about bad luck and opening umbrellas indoors and that it probably isn't good to push her luck, but he isn't really superstitions and he'd rather talk about martinis anyway.

"And they're delicious," Tony answers. "But maybe we'll start you out with something a bit sweeter. Chocolate or strawberry something or other."

Momoko frowns slightly but decides against commenting on 'fluffy'. She's beginning to wonder if he even pays attention to what comes out of his mouth. What exactly is fluffy about her clothes?

"Sweet is good," she says instead, flicking her hair over her shoulder. Apparently they were forgoing Arena strategy discussions for the moment to talk about Momoko's alcohol education. Considering how she preferred to spend her time pretending her time in the Arena wasn't rapidly coming up, she was rather okay with this. "I like sweet." She glances down the street when they exit the building and frowns again.

"I don't know any place to eat," she confesses. "I eat in my rooms. Or at," she wrinkles her nose. "--the 'parties'."

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oh god i apologize for basically the latest tag ever

ha oh its fine we can be slow together

awww yeah \o/

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