revivalproject | Every hero movie needs a party

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Every hero movie needs a party

WHO: Anyone and everyone
WHERE: Some Ballroom
WHAT: PARTAY! AKA the Fundraiser Padme is throwing to raise money for Tony's philanthropic oopsie
WHEN: mid-April
WARNINGS: Nothing in general. Potential for villain violence.

((ooc: This is a general mingle post. Go forth and do whatever you want! I've set the scene for the party but what you do in it is up to you! Want to party and schmooze with some rich folks? Go for it! Want to be a bad guy and try to steal shit from under said rich people's noses? Fabulous! Want to be a hero and stop said bad guys. Awesome! Want to brood and sulk like the dark angsty DC character you've always wanted to be? You do you, boo. Go forth and have fun!))

Maybe you're well to do in the city. Maybe you just know a guy who knows a guy. Or maybe you just have the right connections and heard it through the grapevine. One way or another, you've heard about the party of the month. Padme Naberrie Amidala, on behalf of the Stark Industries Board of Directors, has planned the finest fundraising event of her career to help pay for the new wing on the children's hospital... And maybe some starving children Tony wants to save.

Arrival

The entrance sets the stage for the whole event. Lit posts leading up to a wide circular doorway. The red carpet from the sidewalk is lined with paparazzi looking to snap some primo pictures of the attendees. Pose for the cameras, mingle, or just grab a drink from one of the waitstaff as you head inside.

Dinner is Served

The tables are set with fine place settings and beautiful center pieces. Most of the room is decked out in black and white, so as to not draw attention to the lovely colored gowns worn by many of the attendees. The gourmet meal has several options to satisfy everyone. The deserts are even more elaborate. Grab a bite and socialize. Or steal a seat or a plate when no one's looking. I'm not the boss of you.

Time to Socialize

There might not be a formal dance floor but the string quintet is playing some lovely music while the guests mingle. Now's the time to grab a glass of champagne or something from the bar. Snag some fancy looking hors d'oeuvres from a wandering server and spend time with your fellow citizens of this fine city.

Auction!

It is a fundraiser, after all. Aside from the cost to get in (unless you're a filthy freeloader who snuck in the back door), there is also a silent auction set up for attendees. But there are no gift baskets or wreathes in this auction. Nay, my friends. There is a reason there are guards at the door. This auction includes such things as Rolex watches, diamond necklaces, ski trips to the Andes and other fancy rich people things.

But the cherry on top is Tony Stark's contribution. A car that mysterious billionaire Din Djarin is rumored to have his eye on. The car has somehow been brought into the event and is on display for anyone to admire. But remember, that car did belong to Tony Stark, so none of you villains even think about trying to steal it!

The Bar

Every formal event has to have a bar for people tired of champagne or those who just want to be antisocial and run away for a while. Does this really need any more description than that?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I tend to advice not to question the choices made by felines." Jon shrugs. "They are smarter than people give them credit for - And they have their reasons." The mothcat leaning against Stark's shoulder makes a happy little noise of approval, stretching one of its paws up and away.

Jon proceeds to tip his head a little and raise a single brow over the rim of his sunglasses. "Maybe she is missing your... Bodyguard. I, for one, have not seen the Iron Man around so far. You haven't possibly given him the evening off to enjoy himself." Of course he knows the true answer already. And yet Jon remains curious as of what sort of lie Stark has for him.

Much less cat experienced than certainly Sims, but just about anyone who had ever actually let a cat into their house, this advice sounded mildly threatening to Tony, and the small shift of the animal on his shoulder was not as obviously a pleased one and had Tony carefully manoeuvring to adjust his hold on the mothcat like he thought it might have been uncomfortable. Nevertheless, he left the cat to manage its weight in one of Tony's arms as Tony spotted another one lurking close to the base of the car's display, swooping down to collect that one as well with somewhat less success as he tried to balance it against his stomach, leaving one of its back feet drooping

"He's always close," Tony replied, with his own brow arched in caution for the line of questioning, assuming Sims was probing for his vulnerabilities. This would make for a spectacularly poor venue for a fight if that was what he was hoping for, with Iron Man only one of many watchful eyes on the dancefloor. "Maybe she found him. You'll have to ask her all about it in the..." he suggested, gesturing vaguely to the nearest door leading away from the public space where he intended to round up the mothcats, but unsure where it actually led. He was already on his way to find out with his two awkwardly contained charges, though.

That additional mothcat Stark decides to pick up is less thrilled by his action and reacts with an angry yowl and a set of claws being embedded into the pesky human's torso and leg before the animal starts putting up a hissing struggle complete with clawed kicks and angrily flapping wings.

Jon... Watches. Unimpressed but with a scowl forming on his forehead. "Close, right. But it appears not even he knows how to properly handle the Princess."

By that time the mothcat that has been very relaxed and comfortable on Stark's arm got agitated as well by its sibling's fit, digging jumpy claws into the man's shoulder and wriggling to get off the man and into the safety of the air instead, feathery tail swishing into his face in irritation.

In retrospect, it was entirely possible that Tony deserved that reaction from the mothcats and that leaving them alone would have produced less of a disturbance than the noises they were making and Tony's complaining, "Ow! Okay! Shit!," until they all managed to disentangle from each other and the animals were fluttering away, harassed and on edge. Tony was left slightly battered and dusted with fur and feathers for his efforts, and not one of the mothcats secured out of sight, only staring back at Sims with a similar unimpressed frown. The excitement, he thought, made Jon's statement slightly difficult to parse, not sure if he was reading the implication correctly or the lingering anxiety of that profound vulnerability was still nagging at him at the sight of the Archivist once more. It left him uncharitably unsympathetic as he pointed out, "Someone knows how to handle you," with a small indication with his chin toward the shiner that Sims was only drawing attention to with those glasses.

"Hrm. It's not a skill your Iron Man possesses, either." Jon remarks and steps close enough to Stark to pick one of the longer feathers clinging to the man off of him. But that is as much assistance as Stark can expect at this point. Not that Jon has had any intentions of actually helping Stark clean himself up, but it's yet again an excuse. An excuse to move close enough to the man to drop a little piece of information just between them. "I know what you are hiding, Stark. I have seen you." And in retrospect, he should have noticed it way sooner.

Tony rolled his eyes irritably, basically in agreement that he should have taken his chance to get a good shot in on Sims but more interested in finding out who did land that punch than navigating that argument, only to visibly hold his breath and go tensely still as Sims stepped into his space. His arm jerked, bicep flexed and fist not quite closed like he was considering getting that punch in anyway as Sims had the audacity to reach for him, relaxing only fractionally as the threatening hand drew away again with the feather. It left him keyed up to know exactly what Jon's threat meant in a spike of frozen panic, he had been seen, but Sims only got to enjoy that for a moment while Tony's icy calculation mapped his face. Logically, there were a myriad of secrets that Tony was hiding, and that didn't mean Jon knew a single one of them as long as this little shakedown wasn't allowed to play out in his favour and Tony let himself panic.

With his hovering hand poised for violence, Tony finally unfroze to grab Sims by the elbow to quickly start him turning before pointing back toward the door Tony had already been heading for as Tony demanded, "Move." This should have occurred to him sooner, anyway. Mothcats weren't really the problem. Remove Jon, all the animals would follow.

The hand on his arm has Jon flinch, then freeze, eyes squeezed shit behind dark glasses as his mind threatens to implode in on itself. Looking down at Tony’s hand on his arm doesn’t make it better.

No. Stark’s hand. Not Tony. Tony Stark. This is Tony’s hand, though. He knows that hand. He knows it well. But-

...Tony...

Grimacing against the pressure in his head, Jon blinks his eyes open slowly, glancing up at Tony over the rim of his glasses, their lingering glow more intense now.

“Tony...” He manages. “What.... What are we doing here? This- This is all wrong!”

The shift in tone had the tension strumming up Tony's spine faster than Sims actually using his name. Anything that wasn't some grumbled threat or snide comment from him never felt right, but this was so profoundly wrong that for a moment Tony thought his nudge had actually hurt Sims somehow with no other logical path to follow, making him raise his hand innocently, fingers splayed in surrender and ready to help. That Jon actually agreed how wrong it was was not reassuring.

"We're--talking, we're leaving," Tony reminded him, not sure if 'doing' or 'here' was the more confusing part to Jon. Tony's voice dropped pointedly and he threw a worried glance around at the few people close by enough that might have heard Sims and those secrets he had just threatened to divulge about Tony before starting to shout at him.

By that point a dozen pairs of eyes from mothcats scattered all around the room are trained on them and Jon makes a quick grab for Tony’s hand, nearly clinging to it. He shakes his head. “N-no. Not- I mean— This city. It’s all wrong, Tony! I just- I can’t- what have I done?!”

There’s a helplessness to his voice that Jon doesn’t like, yet also won’t even try to hide. Instead, he tries to cling to that hand. To that one piece here that makes sense as memories and knowledge from different worlds mix together wildly in his head. Nothing makes sense any longer. But everything is wrong.

“Please, Tony.... I.....”

Outside of a select few colourfully costumes heroes that spent most of their time watching his back in a fight, anyone grabbing Tony's hand like that a) did not get that far and b) squeezed Tony's heart so tightly in a panic from the contact that it might have been a diamond. It was only Sims' frantic spiralling that kept Tony from snatching it away, he was pretty sure, frustration gone and raising the other hand instead to try to soothe Jon while Tony worked on convincing the locked tension in his fingers to squeeze back around Jon's reassuringly, shifting anxiously to try to put more of himself between whatever this breakdown was and the rest of the party before anyone other than the mothcats got curious.

"Hey, okay, sure," Tony was muttering, happy to agree to whatever Sims was pleading for if it was going to fix this problem. "Here's the thing: nothing is happening right now, it's all very stable, all of these nice people are just having a good time and we've got plenty of space to talk it out," he tried to smooth out, doubting it even as he was saying it and considering if Sims was the type of lunatic to plant a bomb then get cold feet the minute before detonating the entire city.

Jon shakes his head repeatedly at Tony’s words, though his eyes keep getting caught by the man’s other hand and he struggles against the urge to try and grab that one as well. But just seeing it... those hands are real. Unlike almost everything else around them.

„No. No, Tony. Nothing is stable. This place.... It’s wrong. I have... seen- What’s wrong with it. For a bit I understood, but—“ He is still shaking his head. „Nothing makes sense. Aside from-“ He takes a deep breath as if struggling to say those next words. „-you... You’re real. But wrong. Still, you... you’re important. I don’t- Understand? Don’t you see it? Everything being... False.“

It was possible that whoever had punched Jon had knocked some important brain matter loose. Tony tried a slow nod, then narrowed his eyes to listen very intently to the insanity that did feel very immediately important to Sims, but aside from being sure in his concern for Jon's mental well being, Tony was not following. For a moment, the briefest flutter of pattern recognition tugged at him, the robot showing up on his doorstep insisting something was wrong, but the robot had been reliably coherent.

"Let's get you some water," Tony decided, because that was actionable, carefully manoeuvring Jon's hand into his free one as he took another glance around the room, so he didn't fall apart any further as Tony got a gentle, leading hand on his back. One of the circulating waiters wasn't far, and experiences enough to sense that searching look as well as try to keep the confusion from his face as Tony asked to be brought a bottle and that they would be 'in there', landing on the door again as some kind of retreat.

It became clear why the waiter hesitated when Tony managed to coax Sims along enough to discover that the door took them to the back of the coat check, but it did feel secure and, importantly, away from other people who might be freaked out by nothing making sense. This wasn't the ideal venue for that kind of conversation to circulate.

It doesn't make much of a difference to Jon whether he remains among all those party goers or steps out to be among their coats - One thing is as false as the other and he simply doesn't put up a fight as Tony leads him into the secluded area. Though he will try to maintain his hold on the man's hand.

Why does Tony suddenly feel so important to him? And why is he one of the only people in this place that feels real?

Once away from the main gathering of people, Jon reaches up to remove his glasses so he can rub his fingers over his own eyes as he shakes his head with that lasting grimace of agonized confusion. "Tony, I... I don't know what this is. But- something... It doesn't want me to accept these lies. Doesn't this just- Feel off to you as well?" There is the faintest tickle carrying those words, ever so slightly nudging at the back of Tony's mind.

Ducking into a closet with Sims certainly wasn't on. They were supposed to trade a few chilly barbs and disengage before Tony had figured out his way in, and instead Tony was readily stroking Jon's hair back from his temple with his free hand to try to minimize that pained look on his face before they all found out that this was what happened to his Institute and those floating eyeballs started coming out of the ground. That wouldn't make this the worst party Tony had ever been to, but not ideal.

He was already talking before he had fully realized it, focus still on the wrinkle of tension on Jon's brow. "I woke up thinking about you weeks ago and haven't really been able to sleep since," should have been a more embarrassing thing to say. "It's like I'm...lagging, I wiped all my cookies and I have to remember all of these little, annoying details that I shouldn't have to think about." That wasn't abnormal for insomnia, but Tony had never been compelled to tell Sims that before.

Granted, that is an odd response to receive and the words effectively have Jon stop basically everything to squint his glowing, clearly befuddled look upwards.

“Uh...” Is his very eloquent response combined with a positively flushed expression filtering through what may be a massive headache Jon is struggling through.

Eventually, Jon glances down, feeling pretty much unable to pull away from Tony and those hands that feel like that come delivering memories. “I mean... Y-you certain you’re doing okay yourself...?”

The awkward reaction made Jon's flush contagious as Tony realized just how strange it was for him to have said any of that, and concluded that he must have been too drunk to be dealing with a crisis like Sims losing his mind. He finally tried to tug his hand free to scrub at his own eye and force himself to focus, though he didn't feel particularly unfocused to start with and was sure he was a normal amount of confused for the situation. What would Cap do?

"Always," he was already armed with, at least, because he wasn't the one producing an incoherent conspiracy. "You're going to be embarrassed that you asked in the morning, so maybe it's about time we got you out of here, maybe a coffee, you know, get it out of your system..."

With Tony pulling his own hands free, Jon's are left to themselves and he pulls them in to himself while his eyes remain on the other man. "...you don't believe me. You can't... See... But--" He ends up making a face torn between anger and that still pressing headache. "I'm NOT lying! I don't- Make any of this up! It- It's all wrong! H-Hardly any of these people in there are real! I KNOW they aren't!" And he just knows Tony is real. Why can't he see that himself...? What is going on here and why does it look like no one else notices anything?

Jon's spiralling was stressful enough, but Tony preferred it when he wasn't also angry and yelling in a closet where everyone else was having a lovely evening. "Okay! Okay, okay," Tony conceded before Sims got any more frustrated with him, balling both of his hands together between his own since that seemed to be doing...something. "I don't think you're lying, I think you're--..." Crazy wasn't much better, so Tony worked his jaw hoping any other option would form that sounded more sympathetic and less likely to get Sims to lash out at him.

It wasn't coming fast enough and Tony had to press on before it was incredibly obvious what he was trying to avoid saying. "How do we make sure that someone is real?" he offered, nodding slowly again to try to encourage Jon to agree and resolve this episode logically. If Jon was telling Tony that he was covered in bugs, they could check for bugs, which would have been a much easier problem to solve, but maybe the same technique could be applied.

“I-“ Jon starts, but yet again Tony’s hands holding his hostage prove ridiculously effective, allowing that odd outside force he keeps feeling to dig its metaphorical claws into the edges of his consciousness to peer even deeper into his self. Why does Tony prove to be such a catalyst for that sensation? Why does he feel answers creeping up on him from some far off depths?

“I, uh... I just... know.” Is all he can reply. Which may not be accurately convincing, even with the little ripple running down the wall closest to them. “...I can see it. The... Wrongness. In those that aren’t- That shouldn’t exist.”

This was not a reassuring answer, especially if Sims was absolutely convinced that all of those happy people out there were lies and he was the only one who could see through it. It left Tony without much practical recourse to help him come around to believing there really were happy, breathing human beings out there, just trying to live their lives, however extravagantly. Tony grimaced, and said lightly, "I hope you can appreciate that, from my perspective, this is just my personal experience here, that you telling me a bunch of people shouldn't exist is some textbook supervillain ranting. You know, after the thing with the eyeballs and all that weird shit you keep on playing with, you can understand why I might be a little on edge, and you're going to have to help me out here. Are you sure those aren't, uh, Glasses of Seeing or whatever? Your eyes are...they are doing something. To me, personally, all of the time, sure, but more generally."

“Wha- ah- No! They are- They’re normal sunglasses!” Jon exclaims, freeing one of his hands to take off those very sunglasses and practically hold them
Under Tony’s nose. This leaves his own vision somewhat blurry, but overall he isn’t further handicapped.

Tony’s other set of words are what bring a brand new grimace to Jon’s face and the held out pair of glasses end up lowered. “I’m not evil, Tony. I- I just know- Something is wrong. And that that boy you rescued.... He is powerful. He influences- Reality? It sounds absurd, I know, but- Only a few of people in this city are real...”

Edited (A ha duck!) 2021-05-29 00:06 (UTC)

Tony drew his head back away from the glass, standing taller and nose up with some long-suffering impatience, clearly unconvinced that Sims was above wearing Socks Of Endless Stench if he got the right crew together. The glasses would have to be an unknown element for now. That was about as irritated as Tony was expecting to get, though, readily saying at the same time Jon was, "No, I know--" to assure him that Tony hadn't meant to imply he was evil, just that this current discussion had some evil overtones and Sims did not give himself a lot of room to manoeuvre at that end of the spectrum.

It was probably a surprise to them both, then, when he rapidly backed away, bumping into a rattling clothing rack and knocking a jacket to the floor with a muffled thump. "What are you talking about, that boy I rescued?" he asked. He knew exactly what Jon was talking about. Between the crawling sensation up his spine as he flew away from the Archivist in the middle of that dark street, and Sims assuring him the he knew, the performance was probably more embarrassing than effective, but Tony had some stubborn hard wiring that he had to work through before he could properly process the rest of what Sims was trying to tell him. "It does sound absurd, I'm having a hard time..." Believing any of this, but it didn't sound like Tony's scene in the first place, presuming any part of it wasn't just a psychotic episode. "You're the magic guy," Tony concluded, hands up with some surrender to Jon's expertise.

"It's... That eye." Jon says after Tony has backed away sufficiently and the frame of wood and metal has settled again. His voice is calm as he says this. Pensive, even. And he lifts the sunglasses back up to replace them over his own two eyes. "It sees everything. It knows everything. It- It doesn't appear to understand anything, however. It only knows, bound to facts and reality as it is meant to be. This false setup confuses it, because it- I don't think it can see any of it."

Does this sound absurd? Oh, it certainly does. And that fresh wince on Jon's face only reveals that he is just getting aware of that particular circumstance. He tries taking a deep breath followed by a step forward, hands open before him. "Yes, I KNOW that's you in that armor - Always has been. Which- It's a needlessly dangerous pastime if you ask me, but- That bit is true."

It should have been more reassuring that Sims was less frantic and more focused. Nothing about that horrible eye looming over the Institute was reassuring, though, and having to deal with it being involved was less appealing than some terrible concussion side effects. Jon's very mundane concern for the how safe Tony's hobbies were wrenched a bubble of hysterical laughter out of him that died as quickly as it came, and didn't leave Tony with any relief from the tension that hummed through his bones and left him looking with what he was sure was a pathetic, pleading expression at Jon without the actual words for what he wanted; not sure if it was for Jon to not tell anyone, or to just do him the kindness of forgetting somehow.

That was its own problem. The fact was, there was any number of ways that Sims could have found out about Iron Man, but that didn't mean he, or the eye, or whatever this was, knew everything. "Okay," Tony accepted, in the same clipped, just for the sake of argument voice, and made an aborted move to grab at the sleeve of a random coat hung up around his shoulders. Asking Jon who it belonged to sounded like an effective test, if he was meant to know everything, but if it wasn't real then that would be the only answer Jon had, which sounded very convenient for him.

He was very insistent that Tony was real, though. With his fingers still idly curled around the fabric, and with a small frown of frustration at the barrier of the sunglasses that made it difficult to watch Jon's eyes, Tony asked, "That night that we were in the lake, and had to get to the bottom to get that...I told you to go on without me, because it was so clear I could see you, all the way down, do you remember that?" Tony didn't entirely feel like he did himself, unable to conjure what it was that he was sure Sims was digging up out of some volcanic dirt to add to his collection, something massive and alien sleeping at the bottom of that lake. How had he convinced Tony to come along with him that time? It didn't matter. What did matter was that there was no way that Jon should have known, "What was I hoping you would do?"

That laughter has Jon take a step back again and grimace out of pure reflex. "-Jesus, you're-" Jon starts, but doesn't finish that particular sentence. Instead he falls silent somewhere between Tony's silence and that somewhat odd and very specific question he starts laying out between them.

"...uh..." Is Jon's initial reaction and he looks at Tony, blinking twice at the man. It's strange to admit even to himself that he does have the answer. The answer along with the certainty that it's true.

Finally, Jon glances away, a faint blush spreading over his cheeks. "I misread you at the time. But- I know now. And-" He pauses, hands fidgeting with one another in indecision. "Doesn't that seem... Off? Considering our... We aren't exactly friends. Not... Here." Not in this very wrong reality. "You had no plausible reason to wish for any physical displays of affection from my side."

Every hero movie needs a party

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