Rooms

[Posted anonymously.]

Have a collar for someone. Came in a package.

[James B.]

Let's do a checkup. Come armed. (Ha ha.)

[To Pepper, Faol, Penny, Bruce, Selina, and Bucky. Separately, of course.]

( No card. )

[On a much needed break from Gotham's chaos, and she figures it's been long enough. Tony's name is included on the lock, and maybe that's a tiny little tell, her hope slipping through and making itself uncomfortably obvious.]

[Group: Tony S, Pepper P, James B, Faol R, Robert B, Penny R]
Well?

[Locked to Helena W Hels]
Did Eddie Were you in Gotham?

[Locked to Declan M]
I know you ain't concerned in the slightest, and you wouldn't worry over me, not even a lick, but I'm getting moved to protective custody. Think that might mean no working til they tire of watching over us like hawks, and reckoned you might notice my pretty face missing round the firehouse.

[Locked to James B & Matt M]
Getting moved into protective custody. You two make sure that apartment gets cleaned some while I'm away. And toss out the food gone bad. And both of you shower regular.

[Sigh.]

[James B.]

Oh, James.

["Delivery," James B]

[After this, the original of that cold war photograph everyone keeps talking about is left in his tent. It's reported missing, but there's nothing leading back to who appropriated it, and rumor lays the blame at the door of the murderer. But, there it is, on his makeshift bed, and another burner number is written on the back, phone untraceable, script familiar and undisguised.]

[In the early hours of Wednesday morning, 'Zoya Abdulova' is found dead by her security team in her Manhattan penthouse at the top of an expensive, luxurious hotel. She died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

There are signs of a struggle, including overturned furniture. The bed is completely flipped over, and her dead body is lying half-on, half-off the flipped mattress. Police are quick to state that they have several suspects, but no evidence, trace or otherwise, has been found. No skin under the victim's fingernails, no blood or fingerprints. The bullet that killed her is remarkable, an untraceable thing with no signs of rifling from the barrel that fired it.

The intelligence community murmurs about the hallmarks of the death, and the unusual amount of disturbance at the scene for a killing attributed to this particular assassin.

By evening there are reports that 'Zoya Abdulova' may in fact have been a false name, and an unidentified source claims there were documents left on the victim's body that pointed to her work with the former Soviet government. The Russians quickly refute this, and state that this individual had absolutely no ties to their intelligence machine. But rumors persist, backed up by the victim's striking resemblance to a famous Cold War photograph from the 1950s of a pair of dashing, infamous intelligence operatives. The photo is of a man and a woman, known only, and collectively, as 'Dyatlov.']

[Once the plans had been made, the cars came. Each was unobtrusive, sleek and gleaming and the interior smelled like upholstery shampoo and money. The ride to the facility was two hours from the center of Manhattan: long enough to be out of the way of tabloid journalists and scandal, beyond the Hudson and the decimation of the laboratory that lay beneath the iron-grey water. From the outside, the building looked like a home. Modern by design but unobtrusive in a landscape mostly scattered.

The door refused to open other than to an iris-scan, the familiar holographic blue of Stark technology and it would admit only one at a time.

Upon entry to the building, it became rapidly apparent that this was not a home. To the right, what had once been the living room had been stripped out and replaced with a bed: the kind found in discreet and eye-wateringly expensive clinics in Switzerland. Tech surrounded the bed: screens that monitored for signs of life, the majority of which were quietly humming with no apparent significance. A drip hung above the bed, and a ventilator stood by.

The presence of medical staff - the kind who ran the equipment and attended to the man in the bed - was undeniably obtrusive. White coats, and they were within the place. Not by the bedside currently, but Pepper was. There was no press-release to explain absence, but the press were now used to Tony disappearing frequently for unexplained periods and Pepper could run whatever was required from whatever location was required. It was easier than she had thought it would be.

She wasn't business-meeting appropriate now. She was black on black and she sat in the sort of low chair drawn up to hospital bedsides all over the world, except this looked as if enough money had been spent to make it comfortable.]

["Delivery," James Barnes]

[Left in the tent he's been calling home. No note. Not so much as a red hair left behind. Don't worry, James, HYDRA knows your size, but they don't leave local store labels. Have fun tracking.]

[Proactive.]

A small encounter only, not meant for the world's viewing. Be not alarmed nor [er] feel some necessity to educate me on street lights and phone videos.

[After this. Succinctly:]

Require assistance with Stark?

[All these come once she wakes up from her strange dream, and while she's still figuring out what the hell happened in Gotham. Eddie, she assumes, is as hungover as she is, but she hasn't looked around the apartment above Enigma & Graves yet to be sure.]

[Group: Pepper P, Bucky B, Robert B & voice transcript to JARVIS]
So, Tony? Not dead. Apparently, he took some thing his Valentine gave him, and that thing was supposed to make him better. So, if it's magic? Maybe less science to fix it.

[Locked to Faol R]
Hey, handsome. That medical help you offered me once? Does it mean that's your mutant thing?

[Locked to Stephanie B]
Kitten?

[Locked to Robert B]
[Added after talking to Faol.] Robert? I know talking to me might not be on your to-do list, but I have someone who wants to help with Tony, and I need to know if I should have them talk to you, or to some medical women Pepper keeps mentioning. So, let's just have this conversation, shall we?

Who: Bucky Barnes/Matt Murdock
What: Bucky is having a stakeout party.
Where: Disused office building across from a major Manhattan hotel.
When: After rescuing Tony.
Warnings/Rating: TBA.

(  He watched her in the scope. Did he train her? Did it matter? )

[Public.]

Steve Rogers. He's [...] He is gone?

[James B.]

[After speaking with Sharon.]

James. I need your help.

[Days after the collapse of the underwater lab, Bruce had been too many places. The Hulk had carried him up out of the bay, and didn't stop until he'd traveled far. Far, far. Following some sort of internal compass even in his hurt and grief. He had to stop, sometimes, just to shout again, trying to let out the tightness and awful feeling at the back of his throat, but the sound never worked. Neither did striking anything - trees, old buildings, the ground. Most often, the ground, and never anywhere with people or anything that would lead to anyone being hurt. He followed the compass - north, south, north, west, west, west. He stopped with his feet in the water, salt in his throat, a rocky cliff at his back. And he knew, somehow, that the place he'd found was the right place to be. So he stopped. And sat.

Bruce woke among the rocks, salt still in his throat, feet in the water. The ocean lapped at him, and far above, perched on the cliff - in the cliff - was a familiarly rounded building. Edged in glass and modernly west-coast, even from the strange angle, Bruce knew Tony's Malibu home.

It was awkward, climbing up, finding his way toward an entrance. He was tired and hungry, and thankful for JARVIS letting him inside. There was food. There was a change of clothing. Everything around him screamed Tony, and Bruce did his best to wade through it while forcing back that same raw pain that had driven his counterpart. It was too much to be in Tony's space, at least a space that was so much him. Down to the sometimes-lingering traces of cologne and shop grease in the air. He couldn't stay. If he stayed, the Big Guy would make a reappearance, and he didn't really want to tear the Malibu house apart. He needed to leave, even if the only place he had to go would also hold traces of his friend. It wouldn't be quite as bad as his one-time home.]

[Before stepping through into the DC door to go to the lab in Gotham:]

[JARVIS]
JARVIS? Let me know what people are planning for a funer-- [...] for services, okay? [That's all he can manage to say about that.]

[Selina, Bucky (as James), Gwen, Pepper]
I have to go for a while. I hope everyone's okay. I just [...] have to go.

I'm sorry.

Who: Clem, Penny, Pepper, Bucky (+ not!dead Tony Stark)
What: Checking Tony's non-vital vitals
Where: Graham & Shane's old place
When: Recentish
Warnings/Rating: Don't think so

( Clementine, she wasn't sure of any damn thing. )

Need a favor.

[James B. & Clementine M.]

[After returning and finding the apartment very still and unoccupied. Worried.]

Thy business has not yet completed abroad, I find?

[The coordinates that Robert provided were on the water, just at the river and overlooking the murky blue that Selina assumed hid Tony's bay lab from nosy eyes. And, honestly, what had the man been thinking? Building something down there. It seemed the most unsafe thing a person could do, and it didn't surprise her at all that Tony had done just that. Oh, she'd known about the lab when the last version of Robert Banner had been working on it, but looking down at that murky water made her comprehend just how deep the thing had to be.

Alright, so the kitty cat was fond of taking risks, but she was as hypocritical as anyone else. And right now? Right now she wanted to hiss at the tin man. It didn't help that she was tense, and that her mood wasn't precisely buoyant. And maybe she was a tiny bit concerned with what they'd find inside the lab itself. JARVIS had all but confirmed that Tony was inside and not doing well.

Impatient, she settled her hands on her hips. She'd taken a few minutes to change into skinny jeans and a simple t-shirt in black, her whip looped through the jean's beltloops, and heeled boots on her feet. And unlike the hotel lobby, now it was her turn to pace.] What's taking them so long?

[She assumed they'd let JARVIS know when everyone was there, and commence this farce of mortal danger that somehow involved six people who hadn't even been in the same space prior to said mortal danger occurring. And the fact that JARVIS went for that? It was the most worrisome thing of all.]