InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "got any cheese?"

Tony Stark (sansiron) wrote in silverage,
@ 2011-08-10 20:45:00

Entry tags:

!log, selina kyle, tony stark

Who: Tony Stark and [OPEN]
What: This is my inadvertent way of letting everyone in the game know that on the 7th the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed giving the president free reign to escalate the conflict in SE Asia as he pleased and without boundaries, which was essentially the US declaring war on Vietnam. /history lesson.

Yes, this affects Tony. Shut up. >.>
When: Wednesday evening
Where: Tavern on the Green
Warnings: TBD

No one wanted to talk about alternative sources of energy or car engines during a war. And that was essentially what it was now, wasn't it? This was no longer a conflict. Congress hadn't declared war officially and they probably wouldn't, but the Pentagon and the joint chiefs weren't clogging his phone lines for nothing. The wanted their weapons. They could get weapons anywhere, but America had been winning wars and crushing natives with Stark Technology since Roosevelt's run on Cuba. They wanted Stark weapons.

But there was a hole in Tony's chest these days.

They'd called him unpatriotic before attempting gentle negotiation tactics, saying that maybe they could just take half their former orders. Maybe just the hand-helds instead of that 'repulsor bomb' he'd once shown them the plans to. Maybe he could just work on tweaking Agent Orange, the mustard gas, and a few other chemical agents for them. Couldn't he do anything?

Well, there was plenty he could do. But he had a hole in his chest.

Tony left the office early after one last phone call. He'd spoken with Johnson himself and he hadn't said no. Because even Tony Stark wasn't at the point where he would say 'no' outright to the President of the United States of America. He wouldn't say no, but he could certainly leave the office an hour early and not tell anyone where he was going. He needed a walk to clear his head and then a drink to slow the myriad of thoughts that insisted on running through it. Who could have guessed that having a conscience would be do difficult or so loud? And so painful? The scars around his chest almost felt as if they were burning, never mind the fact that they hadn't hurt since he'd returned from his first --and only- trip to Vietnam.

He headed into the park. It was still light out and Tavern on the Green was a good enough walk away to give him the time to think about what he was going to do. It also had a bartender who called him by his first name and a hostess who was intimately familiar with the interior decoration of his apartment at the Dakota. Always good to have a dependable source of stress relief if he found that, over the course of the evening, he didn't feel up to flirting his underneath another woman's skirts.

If he'd been a smoker there would have been one firmly between his lips by now, but instead he just walked. Quickly, with the knowledge that the alcohol would also dull the phantom burning that was his conscience.

Tony sat down on the last bar stool at the bar and signaled discretely to the bartender. One quick whiskey followed by a Manhattan or two or five and he would be well on his way out of his moral dilemma.

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thatdarncat
2011-08-11 01:39 am UTC (link)

Really it shouldn't have come as a surprise.

The escalating violence in New York City, alone, had confirmed to her that the world was headed in some awful direction. She was used to violence. She had grown up in its tangled clutches. But this...this was so different. Another war. Another thousand men shipped off. She understood the necessity of it, of course (or at least, that's what she told herself. It didn't seem very necessary to her, but what did she know about Communism? Not much), but it still caused an achy feeling in her chest. A true sense of dread that she hadn't been able to shake since the announcement had been made.

So she had taken most of her lunch and skipped coming in the rest of the day (Draper never asked about her if she didn't ask about him) to stroll around the park, admiring happy couples walking by, blissfully ignorant to the death and destruction the planet was spinning towards.

And it was in the park that she spied Tony Stark. That bastard.

She followed him for a long while. He seemed to be doing the same thing, meandering around the park with no particular goal in sight. She figured he would be one happy camper, seeing as this news probably meant another thirteen million in his pockets. But he seemed...distant. Almost melancholy. She was lost in a fog of questions as she followed him for almost an hour, wondering what could possibly be going on with his life for him to act like this.

As he slipped into the Tavern, she stayed behind for a few moments. She took a deep breath, reapplied her lipstick, and pretended she was completely nonchalant. She sat several barstools away from Tony, pretending she had no idea he was there, and ordered a gin and tonic. Admittedly, she couldn't help but glance at him a few times. He didn't just seem melancholy, he seemed downright distressed. Well, better now than never. She put on her best "pleasantly surprised" expression, and chirped -

"Mr. Stark?"

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sansiron
2011-08-11 02:00 am UTC (link)

He'd asked for a pencil after downing his first whiskey more quickly than he should have. With a pencil in his hand and a napkin beneath his nose he was scribbling things down. Pictures, words, just writing as things came to mind. Half a design for that bomb that everyone wanted, and half a design for the energy source that powered his chest and that he wanted to power cars and homes. The thing was, they were both the same design, just with different purposes and a few wires crossed. It was that easy to design a bomb that could easily wipe out a small country.

Well, easy for him anyway.

Tony reached for his Manhattan, about to lift it to his lips for a long sip when a female voice pulled him away from his thoughts.

He recognised her, and obviously she had done the same. Normally he would have immediately turned on the charm; his rolled up sleeves, mussed hair, and slightly unbuttoned shirt would have just added to his appeal. But with the day he'd had? He simply looked exhausted and not yet drunk enough when he turned to Selina and smiled just slightly. "Miss. Kyle. I didn't see you here."

Tony put a hand over the napkins he'd been scribbling on. "Have a seat. Let me refresh your drink."
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thatdarncat
2011-08-11 02:27 am UTC (link)

Yikes. She had often seen millionaires drunk - she had often gotten millionaires drunk - but Tony seemed to be in a particular state. He was hardly the swingin' drunk she had always heard he was. What had happened to him? She took a seat next to him, and just as soon as she tried to study what it was he had been doing, he covered it up.

She looked at his face, instead. He was clearly in a bad place. His eyelids drooped, his usual self-satisfied smile was missing. His normal appearance of casual, roguish wealth had turned into mere abject dishevelment. No matter what money he was probably pulling in thanks to the developments of the day, he was clearly distressed about something.

She dropped the chirpy, coy voice, and switched to one of genuine concern. "Mr. St-...Tony? Are you okay?"

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sansiron
2011-08-11 02:50 am UTC (link)

Tony gave a short laugh and quickly reached past Selina to pull over the small bowl of nuts and pretzles sitting atop the bar. He left it to sit between them after taking a few. "'Okay' is a pretty broad term," he answered after a moment. "I have a piece of metal buried in my chest keeping other --smaller-- piece of metal from piercing me in the heart, resulting in a slow and likely very painful death. The piece of technology keeping me alive also has the potential to wipe a small country off a map if wired and packaged properly. A country about the size of Vietnam, coincidentally."

He finally took that sip of alcohol, topping it off with a pretzel. "I'm okay in the sense that I'm still alive and not being stabbed to death by shrapnel-- did I mention that it's Vietcong shrapnel? Or, rather, Stark Industries shrapnel as fired by the VC a few years back when they purchased my discards off the black market." Tony smirked, a look that was only becoming more and more self deprecating with every sip of alcohol.

"Lyndon --that's President Johnson to you-- wants more weapons, because apparently we can go to war without congressional approval these days. More weapons, more shrapnel to fall into the Charlies' hands. He wants this," Tony said, tapping the metal that peeked out from underneath the top of his shirt. "And the Pentagon's convinced him that if I make it for them exclusively, no one else will ever get their hands on it. As if my father didn't work on Hiroshima not more than twenty-five years ago. And you know what? I might give it to them."

Tony finished and leaned back in his chair, eyeing Selina. "So am I okay, Miss. Kyle?"

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thatdarncat
2011-08-11 06:23 am UTC (link)

Well Jesus.

Selina sat there as he spoke, saying nothing, and not letting her face betray her rather bewildered reaction to his spiel. Tony Stark, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, which he later turned into a platinum spoon, was actually a man of depth and guilt. She had grown up being told that the wealthy had it made - that living on easy street erased every human problem. And she had grown up knowing men who were wealthy and still unsatisfied, but she had always believed it, at some level. And yet here was the wealthiest (possibly second wealthiest - she didn't know how Bruce Wayne compared) man she had ever met, lamenting what was a truly sorry lot.

She responded by downing her gin and tonic.

She met his gaze with a solemn smile and, after several moments, replied, "Mr. Stark, you're much more okay than you ought to be,"

She tapped twice on her glass to indicate a refill.

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sansiron
2011-08-11 08:12 pm UTC (link)

Tony followed suit, easily tipping the rest of his drink to the back of his throat. "I think you're the only one who would describe it that way. Funny, I didn't take you as an optimist or a dreamer. You struck me as... practical," he said. His words sounded vague, but not yet slurred. That was still a few drinks away.

"Maybe that's what I need," he said, looking back at her. "A practical answer. I know what it would be... take the money, support your country, and give them the damn weapons." A pause before he remembered his manners. "Pardon the language."

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thatdarncat
2011-08-12 10:07 pm UTC (link)

Selina chuckled darkly. She wouldn't call herself an optimist, but she could certainly look at the brighter side of things when she had to. And she often had to.

"I can't say I know much about dealing with the President," she murmured, picking her glass back up, "But you can't refuse? Be a conscientious objector? That's what they're saying a lot of boys are gonna do, now that the draft's going to be in full swing,"

She realized this was naive, and swallowed hard. "Though I guess you're in a rather different place in this war, aren't you?"

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sansiron
2011-08-14 12:39 am UTC (link)

"All I can say is God's speed to those boys," Tony said, raising his empty glass in mock salute. It was easy for him to say, no one was going to come after him or his non existent sons to send them to over to fight the Commies. His intellect was the only thing he would ever be asked to contribute, and here he was reluctant to even give that.

He sighed and waited until the bartender had filled both their glasses before he spoke again. Bad enough that someone might overhear anyway, better to not make it easy for them. "Much different place. For one thing, I know Vietnam. I know the enemy, I know the terrain, I know what they're willing to do to win. I don't think we even know what winning is. Can't fight a war without an objective. Sooner or later one side runs out of weapons and men." And he had a hunch which side that would be.

"Funny... wasn't supposed to be thinking about this once I had the glass in my hand. That was the plan for the night."

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thatdarncat
2011-08-17 11:04 am UTC (link)

Selina raised her glass in a more sincere gesture, her eyelids lowering in solemn thought. She had never known what to think of the soldiers she sometimes saw passing her. They seemed like ghosts to her - probably a remnant of her few memories of her uncle, himself killed in the Korean War. She would smile at them as she passed, but thought of them not so much as fellow humans, but as symbols. It was a feeling she would have to shake herself out of, now that war was yet again on the horizon. She took a small sip of her cocktail.

Her thoughts of conquering Tony Stark as a target had all but left her, at least for tonight. Clearly robbing from him would be a real kick in the head for him, so with a quick clearing of her throat, Selina finally asked, "Would you like me to change the subject?"

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