(no subject)

[builds]

Who: Tony Stark and you!
What: Nightmare
When: Now
Where: Tony Stark's mind
Rating: R

It's a cave. Walls of rough, solid rock. The only exit is covered by a thick iron door and locked. It seems to have been converted into a workshop of some sort, with dismantled missiles, large amounts of scrap iron, and several workbenches and tools all scattered about.

Tony Stark is there, too. He hasn't shaved in a while, looks like he's been beaten pretty badly, and has a car battery, of all things, connected to his chest. He looks pretty miserable, all things considered.

The reason becomes clear, too, because at least in his dream, the mercenary terrorists known as the Ten Rings are keeping armed members inside with him. Try concentrating on building anything when there are men armed with fully automatic, Stark-branded weaponry watching your every move. And most of them don't even speak English.

These guys are tough and, while they need Tony, they have no qualms about killing any other prisoners, even just to make a point. Watch yourself.

Comments

[persequor]

"Tony?"

While Arya can recognize guards instantly, guns are entirely foreign to her. Thus she does not appear as concerned by their presence as she is by the battery. She tries to approach him, worry knitting her brow.

[builds]

"Arya." That's right, Arya had been captured too, hadn't she? If it weren't a dream, he'd question it more, but that's what made sense to him.

He followed her eyes, looking down at the car battery. "Tony Stark, kept alive by a car battery. How the mighty have fallen, huh?"

One of the guards said something, but it was in Russian. It might as well have been ancient Greek. The fact that they were watching wasn't lost on Tony, though, even if he didn't understand their words. He did his best to ignore it - unless they spoke to him, that was best.

[persequor]

Arya looks over her shoulder at the one who spoke. She worries her lower lip. Turning back to Tony, she stretches a hand out to him though hesitates from touching him.

"Does it hurt?"

[builds]

"Hurt?" Tony scoffed. "Well, it's keeping me alive, so it's a lot better than not having it." He pulled the collar of his shirt down a bit, revealing the wires and metal protruding from his chest. "Grenade left some shrapnel in there. Bits of metal, lodged in my chest. The battery keeps it from getting to my heart and killing me."

[persequor]

"We need— You— We need a maester!" She orders the closest guard. "Fetch one! Can't you see he's sick?!

[builds]

The guard reacted, immediately pointing his automatic gun at Arya. It was accompanied by a sharp order - given in Russian. The meaning was pretty clear, though. Sit down and shut up.

Tony stepped forward, putting himself between the guard and the girl, which prompted the other guard to shout something at Tony. In something not Russian, but still not English. Tony raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Calm down, guys. Calm down."

[persequor]

"What is that? Why are they here?" It does not make sense. She does not remember being brought here.

[builds]

The guards looked miffed, still pointing the guns. Tony looked nervous, though he did his best to hide it. "Those are guns, Arya. They can kill you just by being pointed in your direction if they pull the trigger." He looked at the guns nervously. Because they were pointed at him. "And they're here to guard us, watch us. We're hostages... no, prisoners."

[persequor]

Arya grabs the back of his shirt. It is her only outward sign of fear. She bites her lip on her first question, Are they looking for me?, and voices, "Are we to be ransomed?"

sorry for the stupidly long-time-later backtag

[builds]

"Doubtful," he said, glancing down at her. And then quickly back to the guns. Thankfully, the guards seemed to be calming down. "They want me to make them weapons."

And then they would kill them, in all likelihood. Probably best not to mention that part.

Yup.

[persequor]

Tony did not need to say it; she suspected it. Arya dropped her voice so it did not carry. "Can you make something to fight them?"

[inmylight_commander]

[Kat's not sure how she got here, but her training kicks in like instinct; assessing the room and the guards with quiet efficiency, a slow pan of her head.]

[She's without armor, a rather large inconvenience when dealing with bullets, and although her augmentations give her increased speed that might give her enough of an advantage, with Tony Stark present and clearly not at Green status, she's not risking him getting caught in the crossfire she would have risked on herself.]

[But, if there's one thing she does well, it's concentrate with electronics under intense pressure. Being sure to keep her movements slow and non-threatening to the guards, she approaches Tony.]

You need a hand with that?

[Not to say she wouldn't take the opportunity if it presented itself, but she's not gaming for a fight until she's got a better advantage in the situation.]

[builds]

[ It probably would have been a bad idea anyway, what with the locked door and armed guards outside as well.

If only they had, say, a suit of powered armor...

Tony glances over to his fellow prisoner, nodding a little. ]

You're only alive as long as you're useful to them, so helping out would probably be a good idea.

You know anything about disassembling missiles?

[inmylight_commander]

[Just a day in the life of, for Kat, but she's used to doing it in a few hundred pounds of state-of-the-art armor and enhancements. The last time she was unarmored for an objective, she was twelve.]

[She takes a seat and peers over the scraps gathered, poking bout with her robotic prosthesis.] Are you kidding? This is my bread and butter. [She seems to have no worries about being useful. ]

[builds]

[ Tony nods, not questioning the fact that the prisoner seems to actually know what she's doing. ]

All right. I'm going to need some palladium. There should be a gram of it, powdered, in each of the missiles here. I'll need a gram and a half, so... two missiles.

[ The guards watch over them, but hey, they seem to be working, so it's just watching. No threats or aggression, for now. ]

[inmylight_commander]

[Kat nods and gets to work. She's efficient, falling into her own little world while she carefully pulls the missiles apart. Almost literally, as her augmentations and prosthesis make it possible to tear at the thinner metals. As she finishes gathering up the required amount, she casts another glance at the guards. She'd never been in a hostage situation and the longer she's aware of it, the more antsy she's getting. She's hoping that dismantling bombs will keep her distracted enough from doing anything stupid.]

Okay, what else?

[builds]

[ Tony nodded at her work. Good, good. ]

Going to need the highest grade wiring we can get now. Scavenge what you can, I'll start making the chassis.

[ The guards are still watching them, making sure they're working. Making sure they don't act up.

Isn't it swell, being locked up by terrorists? ]

[inmylight_commander]

[Kat nods, getting up and then rifling through the scrap. She keeps glancing at the guards, making a mental note of each of them, trying to ascertain strengths and weaknesses.]

[Eventually she'll return with a the wire.]

[Instead of sitting, she leans over the table, conspiratorially close and keeping her back to the guards, speaking just a breadth above a whisper.]

What's the external security like, do you know?

[builds]

[ Tony speaks quietly as he begins hammering on some hot metal. Time to make an arc reactor. Hopefully it's not too loud that she can't hear him - but it'd mean the guards can't, too. ]

Not really. Long complex of caves, one exit - that I saw. They walked me and Yinsen out. Had bags over our heads.

Outside, a lot of guys, a lot of weapons. Stark Industry weapons, so it's all top quality. Naturally.

...Wonder where they're keeping Yinsen now.

[inmylight_commander]

[Fortunately, the augmentations that Kat's endured allow her keener hearing, and she's quite able to pick up Stark above the din he's making. She keeps her voice conspiratorially low in reply.]

We'll find him. When you're ready, give me the word; I can take out these guys without any trouble.

[howruthless]

Tony has a cave and Tess has an island. The two situations aren't really all that different -- the oppressive heat, the men with guns. The only thing that's really missing is the sun.

Also, the hostage of the hour is hooked up to a car battery. That's new too.

Tess Mercer doesn't really do well with sitting on her hands. She doesn't know this man, or what he happens to be reliving in this particular castle adventure, but she isn't going to sit and wait for one of the men surrounding them to shoot her or anyone else. He looks like he's in bad shape. Tess has steady hands and a sharp brain.

She's no Tony Stark, but she can take direction.

Eventually she'll get up and make her way over. "Do you need a hand?"

[builds]

Well, at least his fellow prisoner-slash-hostage was better looking than the doctor. Still, this was offput by the fact that Yinsen wasn't with him any more. That was discerning. And he didn't have anything other than a car battery and an electromagnet keeping him alive, that was too. Oh, also the armed terrorists.

"I'd say so," Tony replied evenly, "because they'll probably end up killing you if you don't at least look like you're helping." He sighed, rubbing a temple. "It's our job to build a missile for them."

[howruthless]

Well. If Tess didn't have any incentive before that, she did now. She moved closer to the table, looking over the parts, before dropping her voice low.

"Are we actually building the missile?"

Because Tess Mercer usually doesn't make a habit of negotiating with terrorists. Or giving them what they want for that matter.

[valuedstrength]

Steve is confused as to how he got here, but that is a running theme by now. He might have taken it all in and tried to work from there if not for spotting Tony and the guards right off the bat. Looks like he is here to stage another daring rescue. While he would like to be confident about that the shape of Stark and being sans his shield or any other weaponry makes a daring rescue unlikely. A smart one, on the other hand, is a possibility.

He calmly tries to walk over to Tony and hopes against all hope no one tries to shoot him. Duck and find cover may not work so well in a cave versus a plant. "Mr. Stark."

[builds]

Tony had to blink a few times to make sure he was seeing right. This was... this part wasn't right. He wasn't supposed to be there. Captain America was not kidnapped by mercenary terrorists and held in a cave with him.

The nightmare made him remember things differently, made him think he was back in the cave with the Ten Rings again, but just seeing Steve there was jarring him out of it. Making him realize the dream.

"What are you doing here? You're... definitely not supposed to be here."

[valuedstrength]

Steve stops just short of Tony. He's not being attacked yet so he will take this as a very promising first step. Steve nods in agreement and tries not to look too much at the car battery. He gets the feeling that will lead to a very unpleasant explanation.

"If I had to guess, I'm here to get you away from them." Steve tilts his head in the direction of the terrorists. He isn't going to pretend he actually understands how he got here and how this happened to Tony without anyone knowing. "You up for it?"