Tony Stark (in_extremis) wrote in oh_marvelous, @ 2012-05-19 13:46:00 |
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Recess
Characters: Tony, Kate and Wicked, open to the peanut gallery
Setting: Avengers Tower, then the open road
Content: I'll keep you posted.
Summary: The last of the packing is done, time to tie up the loose ends and head out on the worst family vacation ever.
The roadways, to the best of Tony's hurried abilities, had been mapped and somewhat cleared to the highway that would take them out of the cramped downtown core. If this went well, they might be able to transport the whole growing community out of the red zone and head up North to somewhere less, well, dead, away from the immediate threat of a whole hungry urban centre. A trip to the lake house would be nice. It was summer, it deserved to see some use.
The truck was packed with restraint, assuming the trip could be short and sweet and, in the case that it was short and brutal, nothing that could be used by the population of the Tower got abandoned on the side of the road. Not that Tony was telling anyone the psychological background of his inventory. It presented as a recognizable personal incompetence and/or impatience, he was sure. Besides, Tony knew all he really needed to take care of his most precious cargo was the gas to keep them going. As long as Kate had enough arrows they could almost have a good time. It was going to be fine. Better, anyway, than staying here anymore. Tony had to calculate how long it had been since the quarantine started, one eye squeezed shut as he slid out of the garage and started up the stairs, pretending he didn't know exactly how long, to the second, it had been since he heard that first report of the breakout. The quarantine benchmark made the number a little smaller, just a little bit more tolerable and his complete failure thus far a little bit more...
Tony stopped at the top of the stairs, just inside the door to the penthouse, hand over his heart and chewing his lip as he looked around at too many people. This could have almost been a party if it weren't so quiet, anyone's back wasn't curved in anxiety, or anyone turned to greet him with a smile. There wasn't a number small enough to justify this. He backed out again slowly, before he could catch Pepper's eye, promising himself he would come back up in a second, after he dealt with this. Down again, through another door and an unlit hall, Tony took care to be quiet until the security panel beeped with the authorization of his hand print then prompted PASSWORD in neon green. "Stark, one-nine-two-zero," opened the tinted glass door with a sigh, flooding the hall with fluorescent light and making Tony squint as he stepped inside. "I'm going," he announced before his eyes had adjusted, striding confidently toward the chair he knew waited for him right under the electric hum of the light. He should have just reminded Steve to do a regular check and been done with it, but Tony sat, bowed, and dropped his face in his hands, deflating with a long sigh. "Last chance. I can get you..." he started, then looked up to twirl a hand in the air thoughtfully, chin still propped in the other with his fingers spread over the small smile he offered his prisoner in her glass cage. "Anything. A book, some weed, talk to me." Tony regretted it as soon as he said it, but maybe Mystique hadn't noticed. This wasn't about him.