Tony Stark (in_extremis) wrote in oh_marvelous, @ 2012-02-19 19:44:00 |
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Refinery
Characters: (New York) Avengers! And anyone nosy enough to come find them, you are welcome!
Setting: An abandoned sugar refinery in Queens, late afternoon.
Content: Smack-talking? Devious tactics?
Summary: A team-building training exercise out in the fresh(ish) air for the Avengers.
There must have been raw sugar still sticking to the floors or heaped and forgotten in storage because the air in the compound smelled thickly sweet under the smokey belching of the smokestacks around it. The walls of the two buildings that the Avengers were invited to stand between might have been white once, but had long since been layered and smudged with grey, almost black at the base as if an accidental touch might be enough to leave a smutty mark on the skin for weeks, and the ground was uneven and rocky where it wasn't a thick, sooty mud. Even the sky in the East was a dirty grey, and the sunset in the other direction barely cast a blush on the clouds the colours were absorbed into the grime of the district instead of reflected. The Iron Man, in effect, stood out cartoonishly red as Tony strode toward the group from the quinjet landed in the empty parking lot, helmet under one arm and something fluttering in the other hand as he walked. He glanced around like he was rethinking the locale as he joined the team, but didn't say anything about it, just nodded to Spider-Woman and handed her a blue square of fabric. "Team Captain," he said, then held another, this one red, against his chest and repeated, "Team Captain. Fair skies."
When he pulled the flag away, the muted glow of his RT strengthened and projected a holographic blueprint of the area for the four Avengers to acquaint themselves with. One half, Building A, was lit in red, and the other, B, in blue, designating the teams' turfs. "This is Capture the Flag. Each team establishes their home base within their territory," Tony explained, flicking a finger and changing his glowing display into a circle of what appeared to be rocks and debris with a flag pitched in the centre. "The goal is to collect the opposing teams' flag and bring it back to your base before the other guys can do it first, by any means necessary." That seemed to be it, because Tony pointed to Spider-Man next and offered, "What do you say, dude? Brains vs. Beauty?" It couldn't have been that easy, though. Each of the buildings around them loomed at least eight stories, with towering smokestacks above that, connected by two strange, long pipes that must have been used to shuttle the sugar. The doors were graffitied and windows broken or blacked out, and that sickly sweet stench got stronger the closer you came. Inside, it was just as dark as the dirtied walls, and alien equipment, old, broken furniture, cracked beams and dripping ceilings all made strange sounds in the shadows, like something always lurked or the walls were ready to come down around them. The sun would be below the horizon soon, taking with it what little natural light that they had to work with. Tony didn't seem concerned. He winked at Cap, its message obscure (either a cheeky chaser for designating him a 'beauty' or a bold challenge to seek him out during the game), before taking Spidey's shoulder to draw him away and whisper against his covered ear, "Follow the flag, don't get seen." The red scrap in Tony's hand was clutched tightly, safe in his care as long as Spider-Man did his job efficiently. Tony wanted to get this done before he was in that creepy, cockroach-y factory alone in the dark. "Ready?" he asked the other two brightly.