ArchivedLogs:Do Better

Do Better
Dramatis Personae Peter, B, Tony Stark	2013-11-08 (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <NYC> Tony's Penthouse - Stark Tower - Midtown East
Accessible only by private elevator, this home takes up the top four floors of Stark Tower. Three of them are residential, a luxurious sprawl of space equipped with state of the art technology and a wealth of comforts. Private gym, terraced pool room whose glass walls can be rolled back in summer to turn it into an outdoor balcony, full bar equipped with robotic-armed bartender, extensive home entertainment system. For all its opulence, the place is decorated tastefully, careful coordination through its wood-and-stone look. The views, through many windows, terraces, balconies, might be the best part of all of it; from this perch high atop the tower, the city spreads out beneath. The lowest floor of the home is less residential, more technologically bent; packed with a host of robotics, monitors, equipment. Where Tony does the bulk of /his/ personal work, it may well be the real heart of Stark Industries' R&D. There aren't many signs of life at Stark Tower at the moment. A few isolated rooms throughout the tower with lights still on; Tony's home is largely dark, though. Save for a few windows on the workshop floor -- closed, blinds drawn, but there's light visible behind them. With his father dragged out of the house on the verge of perhaps going nuclear and the dead hungrily wandering the streets outside, Sebastian has grown /restless/ for lack of some way to /help/. It's this restlessness that has brought him in a likely ill-advised trip out of the Village, webslinging his way above the city to the familiar locale of Stark Tower. With the tower shuttered up, it’s not the ground floor he enters on -- he makes his way up to the penthouse stories. From there it takes some while, poking around at various windows, frowning for signs of life, before he finally drops down onto one of the many balconies to tap. Tap, tap, tap. Not with his claws but with a small hovering dragonfly robot that he pilots down beneath to the balcony he stands on to tap at the window. Tap, tap, tap. Not very far behind Sebastian is one Peter Parker; though you wouldn't know it to look at him. The boy is clad in a ratty, torn black hoodie and matching sweat pants -- covered in small tears that expose the blue and red body armor beneath. On his face, he wears a ridiculous black luchador mask -- black, with buggy white eye lenses and a respirator over the mouth. Unlike Sebastian, Peter is clinging to the wall above the window, his head peeking upside down and in. He kind of might look like a very unusual burglar or looter. For a time, there is no answer at the window. The dragonfly is left to tap at the window for some while before finally the blinds are twitched aside -- by a long robot arm -- revealing the workshop beyond. But it’s a while longer before the window cracks open to allow Tony’s voice out of it: “Can zombies climb walls?” “Well -- well probably, actually,” Sebastian has to call down from above. “But I don’t -- I don’t /think/ they’d have the coordination to um -- no, I’m sorry, sorr -- ah. Um. It’s Sebastian, sir. Sebastian Holland? And Peter Parker. We need to talk to you.” "I'm not a zombie," Peter comments, before adding: "I guess that's what a zombie would say except I don't think they say -- um hello sir I'm sorry we missed, uh, work today--" He stops there, as if realizing how silly this sounds. “You’re apologizing an awful lot, didn’t you hear you’re not supposed to say those words?” Now Tony’s face appears at the window; he’s dressed down in jeans and an AC/DC t-shirt, and pulls the window open far enough to pluck the dragonfly out of the air. “Wow, you’ve really gotten this thing polished, haven’t you?” He pushes the window open wider -- wide enough now to come through. “If you two turn zombie on me I will put you straight through the window this is an undead-free zone.” “If we turn zombie on you you /should/ put us through the window. And we might. We’re both sick. But --” Sebastian quiets as he stretches out a wrist, thwipping his way off the balcony to swing down and through the window, leaving a dangling handhold of glue-string behind him. “-- but, sir, have you /seen/ the city -- city -- city --” He grimaces, shaking his head after this. “People out there need help.” "If we turn zombie on him I think he might have trouble doing that," Peter admits, before adding: "I don't think I'm going zombie yet, though." At Sebastian's mention of the city, Peter bristles, slowly following inside -- crawling under, then over, up the wall and toward the ceiling. "Things are really bad, yeah, and -- the shooters just hold people for an hour--" Tony turns with arms crossing over his chest at Sebastian’s repetition, head lifting slightly as he regards the two boys. Up at Peter, down at Sebastian. “I do watch the new -- take off that ridiculous -- you look ridiculous.” His hand gestures at his face. “We know who you are. Get rid of it. People out there need a lot of things, I don’t think that --” “-- I’m not talking about the news,” Sebastian cuts in. “I mean have you really /seen/ it. We’ve just been out there there’s people getting /eaten/ and my dad’s --” He stops, scuffing his fingers through his spiky hair. “They’ve shut the city off, nobody has anything to /do/ here except sit and wait to get eaten. But the projects we work on -- you could help. Keep the streets safe.” "I've been messing with improving my suit," Peter admits, a little embarrassed, even as he pulls off the mask, unplugging it in the back. "I mean, uh you probably noticed, cuz I --" He turns violet. "--kinda used company stuff to--do it. But not just that, I mean, you probably have all sorts of amazing things here and we were thinking maybe uh something here, it could help, maybe -- save -- people." He remains perched on the ceiling, knees bent, one hand against the ceiling, the other clenching his mask, letting it dangle. “You know I pay you to make me money, right, not to --” Though Tony’s look just shifts, a slight furrow of brow, a slight press of lips, “-- whatever the hell that is. Get down off there --” He gestures from the ceiling to the floor. “Did you guys really come past -- how many zombies -- to try and play superhero?” Sebastian blushes at this, the dark flush tinging his cheeks near to purple. “I mean -- y -- we --” His hand drops lower to rub at the back of his neck. “No. I don’t know. No. We came here to get /you/ to.” Peter slips off the ceiling -- reluctantly -- hitting the floor with a whump, twisting with ease to land in a crouch, knees bent like a frog. His own blush has deepened to a vivid indigo; at Sebastian's comment, he immediately reaches back to scratch at the back of his head, looking down. "Everyone's so busy just trying to -- and we just thought--" He finishes his thought here, shrugging. Tony isn’t answering for a while, here; instead he’s circling Peter once the boy lands on the ground, frowning critically at the tears in his clothing to peer at the red and blue armor beneath. For a time it seems almost like he hasn’t paid attention to what the boys are saying at all; he turns aside to pull up a large display in the center of his room -- in the hologram there he brings up schematics of various things. Sebastian’s robot. Peter’s suit. Theoretical smaller versions of his arc reactor. “-- We can do better than that.”