propulsion | closed log } a good time was had by all.

Entry tags:

closed log } a good time was had by all.

About a week and a half after someone in Stark Industries HQ sent back an RSVP politely declining Tony Stark's attendance to a gala across the country, a helicopter descended atop one of the many black glass high rises in Gotham City.

Not only would it tarnish the shiny, state-sanctioned government friendly image that a weapons manufacturing company tended to try to maintain (Pepper had explained in franker words before she noted the hint of interest creeping into Tony's expression over the Ferrari 400 Superamerica he was refitting), but he was meant to be giving a lecture in Colorado on repulsorlift technology and its influence on military development earlier that evening. It's a good time for the Freedom Line and a good time for Stark Industries, and no time at all to plant any seed of doubt in the minds of the men and women overseeing contracts, regardless as to Rhodey's influence.

And, that city is just crazy.

Not that Tony, he imagines, has to worry about that when flying several hundred feet above it and touching down in the midst of the glitz and glamour of Gotham society. He arrives with two women, identical waves of Malibu blonde hair and skin a flush, beachy tan, and they don't mind a lot that he mixes up their names. The wind lifts the fishtail skirt of Gabriella's (Rebecca's?) dress and Rebecca (Gabriella?) clutches his right arm, laughing.

Inside, he knows fucking no one, which is nice, and the bottle of champagne he'd helped consume on the way over is agreeing with him. Currently, he is watching a woman -- German supermodel, or maybe that was the last one -- play with the StarkPhone, tapping its transparent screen. "Give it a year, everyone'll have one," Tony is saying, between sips of-- scotch? Maybe. "Call it the pocket rule -- technology's actually diversifying in every other way, and this little guy can uplink-- oh, uh." A flurry of text messages, Pepper's smiling face at a contrast to a few choice words scrolling by. "Let me get rid of that, that's-- I don't know why it has that feature, to be honest--"

But eventually -- and not too quickly -- his orbit will collide with the other gravitational pull in the room, introductions slowly pulling him in like a tide as much as his attention span seems to fall into the cleavage of every model in attendance. Eventually, to the German model, and within earshot;

"He's supposed to be dead, isn'e? Must be a theme, pretty sure most of Wayne E has a foot in the grave."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Where have you been?" Not a model - maybe an actress, this one, a local theater darling who bought most of her notoriety with her socialite status - dishes excitedly, puffed up about being the one in the know. "He's been back for a few months. He's totally insane, he got drunk and burned down the family's big mansion out in the Palisades and fired like, the entire board of the company."

They natter back and forth a bit on the subject of mad people and whether or not that's too insane to count as 'normal for Gotham' or not, until they notice the impending presence of one Tony Stark, and their collective attention is stolen.

Across the room is the mad person in (previous) question. Bruce Wayne, Gotham's prodigal son. (Sort of.) He was impeccably styled an hour ago, before Rachel Dawes stormed out and Vicki Vale took up an almost sentinel-like post at his side. Now his jacket's unbuttoned and the front of his tie's seen better days. He doesn't seem to mind.

"California boy at six o'clock," Vicki observes, still draped around Bruce's side. She looks more like Jessica Rabbit than a journalist, but she knows the room, she's nice to Bruce and-- well, she's honestly kind of a hilarious bitch, which Bruce likes. She's watching the rest of the party with hawk-like scrutiny, daring anyone to get close after having had to practically kick the last couple away, prying their fingers into awkward questions about What Bruce's Parents Would Have Thought. "What's a weapons dealer doing in Gotham?"

"Maybe he's taking notes," Bruce says dryly, managing to replace his tenth cocktail of the evening without actually having imbibed any of it. Pretending to be drunk is easy; he just pretends not to have a filter. It's the only thing that makes this act even remotely tolerable.

Tony's tie remains in place, occasionally straightened by helpful strangers, but doesn't quite convince anyone that he is wholly sober. Or at all. His attention span is distractable, his gestures taking on more flourish than usual, the rare laugh he indulges in a loud bark, and whatever filter exists between brain and mouth thin enough as to be see through. His thoughts dance in his eyes, frenetic, transparent, and it becomes progressively clearer, the more you talk to him, that you are the subject of a joke he has not shared.

And then he is in front of Gotham's favourite. "But look at him," Tony is saying, still talking to his latest companion as opposed to... actually... at Bruce, immediately. "He doesn't look like a total maniac. I have, for the record, burned down at least one property, just-- not according to the verdict, and look at me.

"Hi, it's Bruce Wayne, right. Right?" He twists a consulting glance to the German model who has way less accent than he remembered a moment ago.

"Total is pretty harsh," Bruce remarks mildly-- but it's overtaken by Vicki, bombastic as usual.

"Yes, look at you, all shiny and in one piece way out here in the frozen east. And he is Bruce Wayne." .. Who should probably look a little more bowled over by the Amazon still using part of him like furniture, but he seems used to it - or like he just doesn't notice.

"It's a pleasure, Mr Stark," he says, tone carrying some honesty and some of the unavoidable insincerity that clouds the minds of all grossly rich people, hand extended. "Welcome to Gotham. This is Vicki Vale." Vicki twinkles the fingers of one hand in hello.

(What is a weapons dealer doing in Gotham? Good question. Maybe he's just being obnoxious; if he's here to snoop around after the toy his ex-board authorized the construction of, Bruce knows a few building ledges Tony can be introduced to before the night's out.)

"Of course he is," Stark says, a smile at Vicki that is not wholly uncharming. He speaks in between other people, occasionally over them, at a constant commentary. His hand automatically takes Wayne's in a brisk shake, the other clapping over it in amiable over familiarity, palms very warm. "Pleasure's all mine."

Released again with almost a flourish. "Heard you had a hell of a welcome home. Oh--

"This is... my new friend," he is saying, of the girl at his side.

"Jessica."

"Really? Jessica, Ms. Vale, Mr. Wayne. Who came back from the dead and kicked in the door of his own company, makes it seem like the rest of us have got something to watch out for."

"Well, when home's Gotham - Jessica, hi--" Bruce shakes her hand, too, lopsided smile accompanying it (Vicki distractedly calls her Jennifer), "--it's all part of the package." He sounds wry, maybe even a little bitter. An entire borough of the city being assaulted by terrorists, people still in mass recovery, no end in sight. He doesn't actually have to be a crazy vigilante in a giant bat costume to be hurting for the city.

"I think they were using money as wallpaper while I was gone," he says, about his company. "But no, we're not getting into the war game, Mr. Stark."

That's all you, buddy.

"You're not? We're not--" And Tony addresses both ladies, here. "--all about the war game, gotta have a few divisions on the side to throw to the flower children." These are the kind of quips he would exchange with Obi Stane over a few scotches, probably not in front of a CEO and his media companion.

How much Tony means it, this flippancy, is impossible to gauge. "But oh, my god, are we really here to talk about work? Is that really what we're here for?" Maybe. "Actually, Jennifer--" Wait. "--and I were thinking about rounding up an after pa--"

"After... after--"

"After after party, I think the Tawainese acrobat triplets seemed into it. You should absolutely come along."

"See the hippies, I'll fight you for-ow, Vic," he can't help but laugh at her faux-socking him in the shoulder for that. "Share that, would you." Yes, go hit Stark, too. She rolls her eyes.

"Well if there's going to be triplets--" and this time he manages to get Vicki in front of him, hands around her waist, before she can whack him, "--then I'm definitely in. Vicki's in too."

"Of course I'm in!" She looks over her shoulder at Bruce, teasing. "But only because you need a babysitter."

"Bullshit, you want a crack at your California boy. Tony - can I call you Tony? - it's like roulette with her, seeing how many drinks it takes to get to which euphemism I could mean, there."

"See, I knew the icy wasteland that was this side've New Jersey could use a little Sunshine State. I brought--"

"That's Florida."

"--two more-- it is not Flora-- Florida, only sometimes Florida-- that I did promise would get to meet Mr. Wayne. I think they'd prefer to keep calling you Mr. Wayne."

Tony's arm, already set around Jennifer/Jessica's waist, cinches her in tighter in the amicably handsy way he generally is, the amber penny-sized finishing of scotch dancing at the bottom of near empty glass as he gestures with it.

"But you know, I'd love to hear about what games you're into. And what euphemisms you're into," inevitably, to Vickie.

Edited 2013-07-15 12:13 (UTC)

"Wasteland is New York," says Vicki, and Bruce follows up with, "Yeah, Gotham's the hellhole." (Muted in the background from someone or another, 'and nobody cares about Florida.')

Talk of an after-after party coupled with Tony Stark (a novelty in these parts) and Bruce Wayne (still a novelty himself) has drawn a little circle of glamorous interested people - completely unsurprisingly. At this late hour the respectable company has all withdrawn, leaving them with only the most determined social climbers and honest party animals. It's the sort of scene that Bruce would truly like to veer back from but-- it's a spectacle. Vivid and hallucinatory details will be all over every digital page six tomorrow, and it's what Bruce Wayne's image needs. Detached, he watches himself laugh and call over one of his standby concierges and ply Vicki with more champagne that costs more than some peoples apartments. He imagines feeling any of that acted humor with honesty, and finds he can't. He wonders if Stark can, or if he too is using it as some kind of shield - even a less fantastic one than his.

"I thought he weren't talking about work," Bruce says over his shoulder at Tony, migrating somewhere, he really doesn't know for sure but he assumes the party's hive mind does, "And otherwise that's too much from me on the first date." (Vicki gamely accuses him of being a liar and he kisses her briefly to shut her up; one of her friends squeals in delight at it.)

"We're not."

The line of continued conversation shimmers continual, tugging and testing the tide of moving, of aside comments, of Tony's attention span split several different ways. His mind is not on work, or Pepper, or the Colorado lecture he skipped and Afghanistan an impending landmark in the next couple of weeks. His line of thought veers instead down smoother curves, like Jennsica's cleavage, or the folded foil of coke he's pretty sure one of the Malibus still has tucked into some inexplicable piece of underwear, like it's a competition how many poor decisions one can make in four hours.

But he has also always been a multitasker, focus tipped over the frames of sunglasses donned at night at the back of Bruce Wayne's head. "So only tell me the fun parts."

Eventually there is a luxury suite, and soon after there is more alcohol and music loud enough to drown out the noise of one of the girls turning on the taps of the spa bath tub across the room. The front door stays propped open and Bruce recognizes the profile of a man he knows from security; at least crowd control is in effect.

"This-- is this not a fun part?" Bruce has to lean back to get a good look at Stark. "Between this and firing people I hated as a kid, I'm pretty set." Someone who is not Vicki is in his lap, he notices. Bruce looks forward and blinks. It's not Jessifer either. ("Hi." "Hi! I'm Susan." "Hi, Susan." "Do you have a lighter?" Alas, he has to apologize.)

"I don't really care where the company goes so long as it's not getting outsourced. I'm abdicating, actually, it'll - I dunno if we're interesting enough for that to be in a paper?" (Yes, they are, yes, it will be, and it will be pretty enormous news, which Wayne knows full well. The airhead apparently does not.) "How do you even find time for it?"

Susan is now drinking a glass of gin and talking to Vicki about room service. Susan hasn't moved. Bruce suspects Susan is an acrobat.

Jensica has stolen Tony's glasses. He allowed a moment to look put out by this, as if a $600 dollar accessory did not in fact look better on a tall leggy blonde lady than it does on him as she minces back, dancing alongside a couple of other women who have all taken off their high heels.

His glass has been refilled, also. There's a wet patch on his cuff where he's sloshed it. He also finds time to smile unabashed at Bruce's words; genuinely delighted rather than vindictively gossipy. Baby billionaire is adorable!

"Delegation's very important quality in a leader," he says, freely skipping some words, there, voice pitched loud enough over the music. "So's having private aircraft to airlift you out for emergency downtime. You could get used to it. Haven't fired my Board, though, might have to try it during a dull patch."

And then the liquid in his glass is efficiently almost entirely gone, funnelled down a single and expert gulp.

The 'baby billionaire' act is a rare part of Bruce's act that is not actually an act (!), seeing as a spoiled-rotten childhood was swapped for an angry anti-social adolescence followed by a brief isolated young-adulthood before he fucked off entirely. He has no experience running a company - or anything larger than a group project in high school biology class at all - and he has no experience managing his own money, as he's never had unlimited access to it as an adult before.

That doesn't mean he's as dumb as he's putting on - he's smart enough to be able to be a shark without having swum these waters before - but still. It helps ease a small amount of his personal bitterness not to be breathing lies all the time.

"I think I've had enough downtime," he admits. "At least away from Gotham. I'd probably do more damage than good if I actually showed up to work, though. I'm really only interested in--" woah, those sure are Susan's boobs. Briefly. She shrieks with not-very-sober laughter and her top goes back to where it's supposed to be. At some point, she found a lighter.

"Can I order a pizza?" she asks.

"Uh-- sure." Bruce looks puzzled but smiles anyway as she beams and escapes to one of the room's phones. ("That was sweet of her to ask," Vicki remarks, to someone else.)

"What was I..." at Tony.

"What you're interested in, but I think I have the basic picture."

It's easy to be friendly at people you think are idiots, but Wayne is largely inoffensive; throws nice parties, is affably charming (in Tony's admittedly narrow definition of what that means), shares some things in common. Even if he retires to being a glitzy socialite, it doesn't mean there isn't potential; Wayne Enterprises is an old juggernaut of a company planted in one of the most morally bankrupt places in the world. And this is interesting.

So they should talk more!, is what Tony thinks, maybe at a venue with quieter music and less tits (but still some of both of those). Maybe even when he gets back from Afghanistan.

Someone is in his lap, abruptly, one of the Malibus he brought with him, stealing his glass of liquor, replacing it with a bottle of vodka.

"Great, one and a half litres of waking up naked on a traffic island, count me-- oops, going down." This, in response to the lady gamely knocking back the rest of his whiskey, tilting too far back and promptly levering herself floorwards with a kick of long leg. Valiant attempt to stop drags Tony down with her, promptly disappeared from Bruce's periphery with a crash and clatter, a delicate tinkle of shattered glass.

He barks a dry laugh, shorter and quieter than her trilling cackle. "Clean up on aisle four."

Tits. Yes. Bruce Wayne sure is interested in those. Really, it's a lucky save - otherwise he might have actually started to go on about the Foundation and that is too close to having actual substance for tonight. Or ever, for him. This, just this, is what he's supposed to be. A borderline-alcoholic manic-depressive asshole grown up out of the shell of a spoiled, socially inept, inherently lackluster nerd. All his brief sparks of hope, from public school to Princeton, snuffed out in disappointment (but not surprise) in the face of a mystery set up as a smoke screen for what was, in all likelihood, rehab.

He watches Stark collide with the horizontal world and imagines enjoying himself (maybe by accident).

It's stupid. He spent nearly a decade as a ghost, isolated and anonymous, and he never left lonely then.

Bruce's head appears at the edge of Tony's field of vision.

"How'd you get on the traffic island?"

Edited 2013-07-18 05:00 (UTC)

Bruce is handed the vodka.

"Some nights, anything not captured on YouTube is a mystery."

So beats the hell out of him. Malibu is still under him, giggling, not being very helpful at all, and letting out a moue of dismay when a glass piece pierces the flesh near her elbow. "I guess it's that time of night. Okay, I have a plan." Kneeling, now, in between her legs, glasses missing (forever) and tie askew, Tony addresses Bruce, mainly, but as well as a few onlookers. "Why don't you get us set up with a few shot glasses, a couple of dice, we have pizza on the way, and I'm going to show Gabrielle--"

"Rebecca."

"--to the nearest bathroom, get her good as new. Sound good, are we all on board. Rebecca, of course you are." With a little help, Stark and girl both get on their feet, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, his hand on her ass, and neither participant seem to mind he is a good two inches shorter.

He twists a glance back at Wayne. "I'll be back in a minute, hang tight."

This will turn out to be a lie.

Bruce doesn't bother to hide his frown at Gabr--Rebecca's very minor injury. It's his party, so blood at all minor or not is probably the opposite of good. Right? Right. He watches Tony sweep her away with a slightly owlish look on his face, as if whatever mental process was running in response to 'omg injury' has crashed with the sudden derailment. He recovers a heartbeat later, gives Stark a wry smile and "Right."

The auto-accepted bottle of vodka is given its own spot on the sofa (wedged between cushions for lack of a cap). Bruce, standing, begins to move broken glass to the central impact area with his foot, a mission that is interrupted by the woman who isn't Rebecca (but who is also missing her footwear) all but sashaying over to him to see what he's up to. "Wait, don't--"

Honestly, she's probably happier slung over his shoulder, if her shriek of laughter is any indication.

While Tony is nailing one of the Malibus in the bathroom - presumably anyway, he could also be doing lines or composing her a sonnet, what does Bruce know - Wayne is wrangling a young woman eager to let him know she isn't wearing panties, a completely hammered Vicki Vale, shattered glass, and the longsuffering judgmental look of that security guy who'd been hovering outside the door. Once the mess is cleared away ("I can take care of it, Mr. Wayne--" "Please, I'd rather give you a hand than have one of the girls fall on it.") he ends up sitting with his back against the bath tub, the two relative strangers in it amiable enough company. They're nearer to sober than the others at least, and are just here to spend his money. That's fine. He gets pizza out of it.

Edited 2013-07-18 08:31 (UTC)

It definitely does not take this long to inspect for glass pieces and slap on a band-aid, but no one is surprised that the bathroom door stays sealed closed for as long as it does.

They emerge, fully dressed, although Stark's tie is now draped around her neck like a pinstriped scarf -- people keep taking things from him, souvenirs torn away, trophies kept in place of the memory he probably won't bother to keep for himself. Wayne goes ignored, vodka and whatever Stark had been imagining with shot glasses and dice entirely forgotten in the absence of its presence. None of this is very deliberate, on account of being high as a kite and being handed another drink.

He will drink it too. And the next one.

If there is a visible transition between this guy and the buzzed but largely sober Tony Stark who'd spotted something interesting in the heir of the Wayne fortune, even if he had only wrong ideas about what that was, then it's no more remarkable than any person who has had a few too many. He has given entire speeches in this state, of course, borderline incomprehensible, rambling, the frenetic way his mind tends to leap ahead losing its own sense of time and continuity.

When he finally crashes, it's on a chaise lounge, fully dressed in comparison to Rebecca (because Jensica had made off with his glasses about half an hour ago, spending Wayne's money on a private car home) who is curled up at his side in her underwear after several young ladies, including a couple of acrobats, had decided that was a good life choice. Someone's dress is strewn on the floor, damp with split wine.

His phone has fallen on the floor as well, set to silent, its translucent screen flashing now and then as people paid to care about his wellbeing continue, now and then, to get a hold of him.

Bruce doesn't drink. At all. No one knows that besides Alfred (who, universe willing, is asleep now instead of up worrying), because he has to keep up the act. He's gotten good at faking it; a teetotaler in wolf's clothing with expert liquid sleight-of-hand. He knows what he's actually like drunk - he was once a teenager, contrary to narrative belief - and that is 'asleep almost immediately'. Bruce Wayne, resurrected tabloid spectacle, is not a sleepy drunk. He is a scatterbrained, sarcastic, filter-free drunk who has 'COPING MECHANISM' stamped over his forehead. There is a meanness to him when he's had one too many, it's been said, that settles in like bad weather, taking over his sense of humor and making it wholly unpleasant.

Tonight he's quiet.

Stark's behavior is not new, or shocking, or even really that troubling. It's a little pitiable, in Bruce's mind, but not in a compassionate way. How is this fun? From where he's sitting, his expression twists slightly bitter - but no one's paying him any attention, so it's fine. Maybe, like virtually all substance abusers, Tony is trying to drown something inside of him. Memories, emotions, or even the unnerving echo chamber of emptiness. It doesn't really matter; he doesn't have anything to whine about, in his position, and Bruce has approximately zero sympathy. Still that... doesn't mean he fully dislikes him. He should, probably. Tony Stark is the opposite of everything Bruce wants to be, and is the gold standard of the rotten image he himself is faking. ...He seems so guileless about it, though. And maybe Bruce appreciates the trials and tribulations of being an asshole.

Who knows.

Two girls remain in the now tepid water of the bath. Bruce tries, soft-spoken, to coax them out (for their own good). It takes letting the more gregarious of the two pet his hair with wet fingers and kiss him for a while, talking to him in definitely-drunk-by-now coherency. She tastes like something sharp and sugary; cognac and pepperoni. It'll never sell. They're nice enough and he's sure by the time they're herded to the bedroom half of the suite that they sneaked into this party uninvited - he promises they can order breakfast in the morning. After, Bruce does a bed-check that would have appeared military-like had anyone observed it. Is everyone here? Is everyone who is not here accounted for in some still-breathing capacity? Is everyone who is here asleep and not medically-compromised unconscious? Injuries, breathing difficulties?

Rebecca has her pilfered tie-scarf confiscated (too close to an accidental suffocating hazard), and Bruce has to actually grab Stark's face and lift his eyelids up to make sure he's not on the verge of ODing or some other damn thing. The fact that Bruce accomplishes this without seeming to be noticed at all is faintly exasperating. He leaves his head slightly elevated anyway. Phone is rescued, barely-not rudely rifled through (habit - he stops, leaving it unbothered), set safely on the coffee table.

Hotel security (nodding off) is given an excellent tip, and Bruce Wayne vanishes with the rising sun.

He wakes up while it's still dark, and it's generally in these slices of time that ambient regret seems to texture the air. Feeling unwell is part of the charm, of course -- hung over, windswept, and interesting is definitely a version of Tony Stark that sells. He sits up, grinding his eyeballs with the heels of his palms, peering around the room.

"Well, that was fun."

He's probably going to puke into the nearest, likeliest place.

But after that, and after he's run the tap of the sink over his head, he collects his cellphone, absently tries to straighten a tie that is no longer there, and puts in a call; "I need a spirulina, codeine, a cancellation of meetings up until about 4 PM, and all of that on a helicopter to airlift me out of Gotham, pronto. Which you were wrong about, by the way, perfectly uncrazy. Except Wayne's a little off the rails if you ask me."

The sun is out by the time he is on the rooftop, tucking his phone into his pocket, and turning his back against any particular source of light. It'll take longer for Tony Stark to complete his own vanishing act, leaving on a small amount of chaos behind in his wake, approximately two women, and a couple of tabloids to enjoy later on.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

closed log } a good time was had by all.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject