driftfleet | ᴏᴏ2 : ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ/ᴛᴇxᴛ

Who: Tony Stark

privatizes and you!
Broadcast: Fleetwide.
Action: S.S. Pathstone.
When: Now!

[ tony is currently on board the pathstone, if you want to bother him in person. sitting in his captain's chair and fiddling with something in his hands, as he usually is. he's been working on a large variety of projects lately, including (but not limited to): a hovering wheelchair, reversal of brain control, and trying to reinvigorate his arc reactor that the emotional tree of life had given him for holding hands.

god, he misses home.

but as his current projects are 1) a work in progress, 2) practically non-exsitent, and 3) almost there (in that respective order), tony requires the help of the population. especially since he doesn't have the engineering augment and the pathstone lacks an engineer. figures, right? god.

anyway -- ]

Soooo...

[ he pauses ]

-- I'm just going to cut to the chase and say that I need stuff, and you all might have that stuff. You should give it to me so I can make even better stuff. It's going to be for the good of the general population, I promise. [ no, really ] And -- who do I have to kill to get an engineer on board? Because this would all be a hell of a lot easier if I had what Atroma considered an engineer on board.

[ is tony stark still salty over the fact that he is not, apparently, considered an engineer by the standards of the atroma? you bet your ass he is. ]

The list is gonna be sent out in a text -- if you want to part with any of it or trade for stuff, let me know. I'm Tony Stark. Captain of the Pathstone. Don't ask me why I am, or how I got there. The question is getting old. Thanks.

[ and the video feed cuts, only for a text to be sent out: ]

[ NEEDED.TXT]

- soldering iron
- spark plugs
- electrical tape
- copper wiring
- steel (approx. 4.5 kgs, can be scrap metal)
- batteries (any size, lithium ion)

[ and, once that is sent out, an additional encrypted feed pops up: ]

[encrypted to: the pathstone + the avengers]

[ tony holds up one of the bugging devices between his fingers, lips pursed into a frown ]

Captain speaking. Or... whatever -- found this in the communications station, and no, I didn't ask permission before I yanked it out because I don't have to.

[ somewhat blithely ]

I haven't taken it apart yet, but if you find any more of them on board, hand them over and I'll see what I can do. No one weird has been on or off the ship that I know of, and I checked the logs. Anybody else have any solid ideas about where it came from, because I'm betting the answer begins with 'A' and ends with 'troma', and that's probably not good.

[ pause ]

Oh, and my superhero friends can see this, so if you're going to spill any deep dark secrets to me, in the pretense of honesty, I guess I should probably let you know that Captain America will know about it.

[ another pause ]

So. Anybody? Bueller?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If they weren't there previously, there was certainly an opportunity during Calibrations last year, as the ships were refitted and redesigned at that time. I wouldn't have thought to look before the issues with the Golden arose.

Cute.

[ the atroma are too powerful for his liking. and he dislikes feeling like a puppet. ]

So Atroma rearranges the ships because they feel like it, plant some bugs, and then... what, exactly? For what purpose? They're already recording us. Supposedly. There's gotta be cameras all over the place that we can't see, in addition to the ones we can. It's like Big Brother on steroids; so what's the purpose of bugging the ships?

[ he's just working it through now, talking to himself, examining the problem -- ]

That's just a waste of resources.

[He shrugs elaborately.]

It's possible it wasn't even them, but that is the most logical time for them to have been placed here. I've no idea how many layers to it all there might be; one suggestion I've heard is that they are omnipotent beings who are very bored, which would explain a great deal.

I'd be bored if I were them. Nothing but watching TV all day when you have superpowers?

[ omnipotent beings tend to be bored, tony has found. that's why they try to blow shit up a lot. ]

There's got to be more to it than that.

Consider that they also appear to be able to transport us between systems without any of us noticing a faster-than-light transition.

[After all, there's no way these systems are only a week or two apart, even at very nearly the speed of light.

He frowns, then.]

Or sending us home to regain new memories, while little time passes here and a great deal may pass there.

[ -- that gives tony some pause, because that sounds suspiciously like a lead in to a new conversation, and he shifts to look at vision, a little suspicious.

but he sets down the bugging devices, playing along on the stream of thought -- ]

Messing with memories isn't hard, in theory. It's just tricking the mind into thinking something happened or didn't happen. The government has been doing that since the forties.

[ pause ]

Do you actually go home, physically, or do you just know things?

It's difficult to say, as we were both unconscious for some time before anyone discovered us. [Which is to say, he has in fact gained new memories. Even so, he frowns and touches the gem set into his forehead.]

I'd thought this might make it more difficult to interfere with my memories in any fashion, but I'll be the first to admit my understanding of it is far from complete.

Can't help you there.

[ despite tony kind of having a role in creating vision, he had no idea what he was doing. obviously. given ultron was born of it. but bruce and tony together could probably figure out something -- if they were trapped here together and had nothing to do.

anyway -- ]

We? Who's we?

[Now Bruce is the one person the Vision fully expects never to see here. The Hulk on a spaceship is a recipe for disaster.]

Er, Mr. Barnes and I had something of an accident on the last planet.

[ tony misses bruce that's his buddy :(

at the mention of winter's name, tony immediately frowns, crossing his arms over his chest, and his tone becomes slightly more -- well, not quite accusing, but certainly irritated -- ]

What'd he do?

[The Vision answers promptly.]

He fell down a long embankment and was in serious danger of striking a rather large rock. I cushioned his fall, but took the brunt of the impact. I didn't sustain any damage, but was unconscious for several hours here.

[ ah, right. tony vaguely remembers hearing about that. but -- ]

And -- what, you got memories drilled into your head by Atroma? Or went home?

[He inclines his head.]

A year's worth of memories. From what I can tell, my body didn't physically leave at all.

ᴏᴏ2 : ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ/ᴛᴇxᴛ

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