Who: Basically anyone at the Vaels (it's a tea and conversation thing, tag if you want to join in, or contact Marion / Sar) When: Current Where: Craigcrook Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland What: Tony Stark's planning to have some quiet discussion about medical stuff with Clint Barton and Stephen Strange in a corner. His alternate universe relative, Morgan, might join in. Meanwhile, there's tea, sandwiches, and cake. Balthier's got some books and homework going on in a spot under some trees. Rating/Warnings: Tony might get into discussion of chronic illness stuff. The Fryes might be talking about Victorian stress? Threads will be tagged. Status: Open
Ezio got more or less ordered to take a break, so there's a cluster of people doing prep work in the kitchen. The plan was that one tray of sandwiches and a pot of soup would go to Sebastian's job, to sweeten the pot in relation to him taking a day off to look at some museum thing with his husband.
And well - the assassins are still stressed out. Taking breaks seems wise.
Ezio’s honestly fine, for the most part. He hasn’t exactly been doing much in the way of field work or anything of THAT sort as much as keeping up with the apprentices, or trying to. Which is actually much harder said than done. They’re a fairly big group, after all, and there’s a LOT going on that he’s not sure HOW to start addressing. At the moment, he’s kind of glad that’s someone else’s problem, all the same. A day without worrying about that is nice.
“Let me guess.” Sebastian’s noticed the look on his face and been there before. And he has a pretty good idea of the other people involved with the current situation. “Thea?”
“Is DEPRESSING.” Ezio shakes his head. “It takes a lot to make someone THAT cynical.”
Tony volunteers from where he's working, "It sounds like her home life wasn't great, before things got worse for her, so I doubt that's helping. Has she said anything that she does like? Sort of - stuff she finds comforting?"
“I don’t know her well enough to guess at that.” Sebastian looks thoughtful. “Aedan’s mentioned she’s into fashion to a point. And likes shooting and she used to ride, when she was younger. Art too, to an extent. It’s more of the…”
“She’s given up.” Ezio sighs. “On the Sherr thing. That’s the problem, more or less. It’s not the rest of us, it’s not that she is going to run out quitting, it’s that she seems to feel like that’s not actually a choice but an obvious conclusion to the issue.”
“Aedan’s…not much better.” Sebastian frowns. “Nothing that can’t, presumably be fixed, but...Haytham’s getting nothing either. Abstergo are GOOD. Too good.”
"Has he tried something like suing Abstergo? Make it actually inconvenient to do business as usual when you've got Haytham making your bottom line more difficult?" Tony's moving to start filling sandwiches. "I doubt the entire company knows about their weird kidnapping thing, but I'd guess they care if someone's shutting down their business or burying them in paperwork."
“They’re not officially here, yet.” Sebastian frowns. “Under the radar, which makes it all the more difficult. It’s difficult to document at least. It’s not a bad idea with the right potential loopholes, I’d suppose. I’d personally, at this rate, just send Shay around for a friendly little chat. The modern templars LOVE using him to discredit the assassins. It’d be an in.”
Tony leans back. "I mean, if you want to play dirty, just - destroy their weird energy drink division. Sue them for the fights breaking out. It's not clean warfare, but - pick a bit of the company, poach the workers, destroy the experience. Force them to run a clean corporation kind of stuff."
“This would be why we need someone corporate in our ranks.” Sebastian looks thoughtful. “Or in the Assassins. I think it’s safe to say Abstergo are an embarrassment to every real templar. Of course, I can’t think of anyone who comes CLOSE but...it’s a nice THOUGHT isn’t it?”
Tony tilts his head. "I bet I could get some suggestions. But - the energy drink stuff is suspect. Why not attack that and see what comes up? Get the workers into an ethical job. I found out I had a bad case of kind of unethical jerks in my company, and it wasn't me doing the heavy lifting, but - we had to clean things up."
"I might know a bit about it? I know my family ran the numbers when we were doing a campaign against some bad companies doing milk in Lorena." Yvette's hanging up her hat and coat. "Hello. Anything I can help with?"
“That could do it.” Ezio nods at both of them. “None of us have any real clue how to go about...ah that IS an idea.” He’s waving Yvette over. “Discussing some strategies for getting someone to Abstergo, for the most part. Debating what each side might be able to manage.”
"I've no clue what they're like here, but my Abstergo was as awful to the innocent workers as they were to their enemies." Yvette shrugs. "So - I'm game for planning some vexatious litigation and poaching of workers. Maybe - Aedan would like in on it?"