St (bullies) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-08-13 03:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | !marvel comics, *log, bruce banner, helena wayne, selina kyle, steve rogers |
log, Stark Tower: Selina K, Helena W, Bruce B, & Steve R
[Stark Tower, a beacon of the future, an icon, a facet of the New York skyline that made it onto the foreign-made t-shirts, mugs, and magnets sold everywhere; big and ugly. It was lit up now in a dizzying fairy-blue, the building's self-sustaining electrical grid saving it and its occupants from the blackout that blotted out the majority of the borough surrounding it, all inky black on nothingness. The sign blared the name 'STARK' for miles and drew to it, like Death's-heads to the frizzing fry of a bulb, the few lost souls who still ranged over the carcass of New York City. Most infected were now in cots, masses on mats made mostly of salvaged cardboard, laid out on gym floors, scattered like a wide constellation throughout the various "quarantine" zones, in cycling states of lucidity and unconsciousness as the infection swelled their brains like blood in a blister, until, finally, they didn't wake up again.
But the City was all the quieter for it. People were infected or they were dead. The dead lay in gutters, though men and women in white came out by the hour to drag them, stack them, and carry them away in trucks; they lay in a splotch of skull or severed limb, faces gone or eyes gouged, victims of inexplicable violence. The world stank of them, stank to high heaven.
Steve was, in that way, grateful for the filter and buffer of suit that cleaved him from the bloody wasteland around them. It was alien, the distance. The man was used to the sights of war, the tactile impact, mud in boots, blood from burst lip—inside the suit, it was easy to separate. It was easy to feel alone, an island of black and blue, star on chest, this way, and Steve wondered, distractedly, about Tony. Did he feel this way? No. Screens were natural to him. It was different. To Steve they were still miraculous expressions. One day he should try drawing on one.
He waited at the foot of the building, a pinprick shadow against the glow of blue. However small he was, inside, cradled and soothed by an artificial voice, outside, no one would be able to tell the difference. His shield was secured to shoulder blades in slotted magnets retrofitted for him. He'd let Dr. Banner know he was here, and Alison was coming—in the black Hummer, she said (what did that look like? (Let me pull one up on the screen for you, sir.))—with Selina, with Crane's body.
And, oh, he was tired. The suit made him look big, but Steve was himself—his old self. He had to sleep. He hadn't felt this exhausted in literally decades. It was as if it went down to his bones and radiated outward in an ache. His calf muscle cramped and he bent to smack a metal hand against blue alloy.]