2012-11-02 - Kitty Brains, Puke, and Blood Memories

They've landed, they've traveled. And once they've gotten to the wilderness, they did what hundreds (if not thousands) of people do every year - backpack. Bundled up, with packs full of essentials. Only Pete's got something planned. Once they've gotten out far enough into what seems to be the middle of nowhere, Wisdom has been walking in a huge circle - over and over and over. He's stamping down the grass.

Stark doesn't seem impressed with the wilderness, but this is something Sawyer would have loved. So he sucks it up, and tries to restrain his technomancer abilities so he doesn't make Pete even more suspicious. He talks about anything and everything, but what really bugs him. He talks about his clean energy project, he bitches about the Skrull, he says how worried he is about Roger's girl missing, and how he couldn't find her...feeling guilty about that. It is only at night when he cannot sleep, that he closes his eyes and reaches across the world, accessing the Iron Man armor is actually doing a little bit of patrolling and minor superheroing, testing out his distance abilities with his powers where he cannot be caught (hopefully).

When the day comes that you start stomping circles like a strutting feline, Stark just stares at you as if you lost your mind. He then starts laughing, "You look like a retard, what the hell are you doing Pete?" His face already needs a shave.

"Shut it, mate. You got the walnuts and cat brains at the ready?" he asked. Yeah, that venture into the occult shop was an odd one - worse that it legitimately spooked the owner of the shop.

Pete kept wandering, but not quite aimlessly, back and forth, back and forth. But an image began to form in the pressed grass. It was a pentagram. Five points, with a sigil stepped within each arm of the 'star.'

"Umm....you aren't kidding are you. Dude, you aren't going to play with magic are? I mean, that stuff just hurts my head. I mean, I know fairies are supposed to be real and stuff in England....," but he then sighs, knowing he isn't going to win this battle. He gets the items out of his bag and holds them out. "Poor feline."

It took a while, but soon Pete was done. At each point, he thrust a long hot-knife into the point, and they stayed stock still, sharp 'rods,' better than candles for sure. He approached Tony, and accepted the items. "Be ready, mate. It's now or never. You want to be apart from the world - how about far away and closer to the people we save at the same sodding time?" As they approached with the jar of brains and nut sack, the trodden symbol began to take a faint, blue glow, and a soft buzzing in the teeth and ears could be heard and felt. The thrum of old magic.

"I don't know what the hell I want right now man. One point I don't want anything to do with reality, then all I can do is think about my responsibilities." And he never did clear with Pete that he is Iron Man...that may bite him in the ass about now. "Oh...great, and no sensor equipment with me." Stark eyes it warily. "Am I going to hate you after this like I often do with Thor when something screwed up happens with Asgard?"

"That entirely depends on how we're feeling," Wisdom said mysteriously. He opened up the jar of brains, crushed some walnuts in his hand, mixed the two together in an unhealthy-looking crunchy paste. "Standin the center, man. Come on. There's a good lad." Wisdom joined Tony, and, lifting one icky hand and placing it on Tony's jacketed shoulder, winked and grinned.

"Stop keeping secrets from me, you fucker."

And he dropped the mixture in between them. There was a rush, a sinking and then an odd, stretching feeling. And then gravity!

It's late night, a full moon. The woods are thick, the grass is tall, cold and damp. There is a tall, regal castle in the distance, and a small village some distance beyond. The expanse feels like it could go on forever. It is, quite in fact, like something out of a fairy tale.

Wisdom landed carefully, though he made a weird noise, like something invasive was happening.

"Ah! Fuck man!" Stark at least is in good shape, he has been able to keep up no problem the entire trip even when he started out looking exhausted. "Gross, and smells worse." He has jerked back from you, wrinkling his nose. But as the jar drops, "You keep secr...," and nothing comes out as his stomach feels like it is in his throat. He is suddenly on his back and staring up at a night sky that was not there before. Very slowly he moves to stand up, looking about in shock. And...if Wisdom is not fast enough, Stark will move suddenly to grab the front of his shirt, "Are you crazy?! Where the hell are we?!" There is no technology around! It's like part of his brain just got shut off!

Wisdom simply grinned at Tony, and pat his arm. "England," he said. "Or, well, the British Isles of yesteryear, or in dreams. We're in the collective subconscious blended with *all* the magic that our universe has to offer. We're in Otherworld."

He let that sink in for a while.

It takes a while, and Tony then finally shakes you again, "Are you crazy?! What if there is an emergency, what if someone tries to hurt Pepper!" Paranoid? Then again, he just lost someone he loved very dearly, and he still doesn't know who hired Bullseye."

"That's why there's the Avengers. Tony, don't you trust anybody?" Pete asked. "Don't you even trust Pepper and her capability and who she knows?" He freed himself from Tony's grasp, leaving slime from the remnants of the brainpaste on Tony's jacket. "You wanted to get away. You got it. You don't like it?" He got right up in Stark's face. "Figure out what you fucking want, mate. You got freedom? You found it, right here. Your wildest dreams and your greatest nightmares, all right here in Otherworld. And what's worse... it's all European." A joke against an American businessman.

Stark stumbles back when you pull away and then falls down to his rump. Did his backpack he removed earlier fall through? He isn't even sure anymore. He stares at the ground. "Trust," a bit of a broken laugh then. "You know the cost of trust Pete...Mr. Secret Agent." He looks back up at you, "And the cost of secrets. What am I supposed to do? Nothing, nothing will bring her back! But...," he waves his arms about, "But...what's here for me? I don't know. It's silent...silent...no information. Never been this silent since then." Since what? "How much would you pay for these secrets? How much did Sawyer pay?" His voice choking on that last part. "I should have protected her...I froze...I...I /froze/. I had the /power/ and I did /nothing/ with it."

Pete Wisdom reached into his coat, and he drew a revolver. He spun it, and held it by the barrel, pointing its handle towards Tony. "You see this, Stark?" Pete was cold. "I had the power and I did /everything/ with it. This stopped Martians from taking over the Earth, starting with Britain, using a clairvoyant named Maureen Raven as the key to power their gateway. She was going to commit suicide, Tony." Wisdom remained as matter-of-fact and cold as ever. "She took the gun. I lied to her. I told her we found a way to fix it. I took the gun from her and told her to head back and wait for me. As she ran, excited and elated, I blew her fucking brains out. I shot her from the back, took the sin of suicide from her with my own of murder. Gordon Bennet, she had a little boy. I had the power and I did what I could with it. Not one of us is innocent."

A horrifying gun barrel, and Stark raises a hand to half cover his face, tears starting to fall down his cheeks. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry...there had to be a way, there had to be." Stark, the idealist, the one filled with hope for the future. "Sacrifice after sacrifice, and I...I can't stop it. Why...what makes /me/ so worth while that they sacrifice themselves for me!" Is this not the first time? Apparently not. "Gawd, I'm so damn pitiful...," and he laughs, a hysterical sound. "I didn't even hold the gun, and I feel like I murdered her...and she's not the first. One after another, because of /my/ screw-ups. It's not saving the world Pete, I can't even dress it up. This isn't the first girlfriend I buried, others I've put in jail, and another in an insane asylum. Why?! Because I try to have a normal life like an idiot?" His eyes look haunted as they look up at you. The secrets are there, just beneath the surface, trying to claw their way out.

"Sari St. Hubbins. When I was doing clandestine shit, she was a mercenary. We were in love. She was hired to kill the Queen. I put her away. We can do this for *weeks*, Stark. Stop blaming yourself for this bullshit. My mum was killed back in '87 during the Hungerford massacre because we'd had a row and she still thought I was going to pay her a visit. Instead she took five bullets." Wisdom coughed. "I saw her again, in my dreams. She talked to me on Pantagruel. Said she was so proud of me, but it was just a fucking dream, Stark. You can either sit there and rust like a fucking tin can and your can do all you can *because* you can. And if you can't, then you *can't*, but be a fucking man about it, Tony!"

And then Pete swung. Anywhere. At Tony. Away from Tony. Just to get it out.

Tony is on his rump, so it swing over his head, and he watches Pete's anger, a mirror of his own, the pain in his voice, the cold rage at how shitty life was. And he laughs, that bitter mocking laugh he has picked up recently. His voice is so quiet then after the laughter fades, "I'm Iron Man." Thrown out there on the ground like a gauntlet. "I wasn't the one and only Iron Man ever, but I was the first, and I am the current." His voice is rough. "Iron Man burn from the fires of being tortured by a madman, with the help of a doctor and scientist I greatly admired...one that sacrificed his life so I could do something with my life other than screw it up. He was my mask, my salvation, then my prison...as lovers and friends died because of errors. And I finally ran from it all...only to be drawn back, because I thought...I could really make a difference again." He then laughs, "But I was crippled. And then an old friend, Dr. Maya Hansen held my salvation...and I put her behind bars for her actions...she believed the ends justified the means, and caused the death of dozens upon dozens of FBI agents." He smirks, "It sucks, betraying those you care about, and being betrayed by them in turn. And yet she knows my secret. And you know what? I believe she won't tell a living soul. Fool? Perhaps I am." He closes his eyes. "It never gets better though, even when you think you punished those that took away your parents, it still doesn't get better." Wait, didn't Stark lose his parents in a car accident? His eyes then open again. "How do you deal with it? Just ignore it, just laugh it away? How do you keep going on after each time piling up on top of each other?"

Pete Wisdom fell down to his hands and knees on the wet grass, and he threw up. More of an after-effect of the magical transportation... maybe. He fell back on his ass, and wiped his mouth, messing up a sleeve.

Then Tony asked The Question. "What else is there to do?" Pete asked. "We have a duty. And... we have loyalty. That's it. And that's enough for me." Simple, isn't it?"

"Ugh...that's disgusting man." Suddenly, Stark is really happy with his enhanced healing so he didn't lose his lunch. He does slide away from the mess though with a kick of his feet. Well, Pete doesn't seem too surprised about the Iron Man bit, and he laughs again at the thought. He flops back and looks up at the sky. "What else is there to do? Get drunk, live in a bottle...that worked for a couple years at least...," bitter hatred toward himself for that weakness. A silent moment and then, "When did you guess?"

"But what does that accomplish?" Wisdom asked. "All it'll do is turn me into my father, and I'm not content to rot on a fucking couch until the end." He coughed, and spat the remainder into the grass. "I suspected for a while but was too fucking nice to call your sodding arse on it. Look, mate, you hang around this fancy piece of tech, but you're a bloody showboating cock and you need somewhere to crow. Where better than inside one of those giant Lego suits?"

A laugh, "That's ironically the least reason...I even tried mass producing them into The Guardian Suits...but it backfired and murdered a friend. The bio-technology I used in it wasn't ready for mass production," bitterness again. "It almost hurt War Machine's operator too...," he then sighs. "And I mean the other thing."

"Which other thing?" Wisdom asked, puzzled for the moment.

Stark half sets up on his elbows then to stare at you, "We smell like cat brains," just making comment! But then, "Wait, you didn't mean it? The Technomancer comment?" He appears almost confused, wondering if he just got ganked!

Pete Wisdom grinned. "I said I suspected, I never said I knew." Maybe he did pull a fast one on Tony, but it wasn't a malicious trick.

A snort at that. "Top secret, only the U.S. Government and perhaps S.H.I.E.L.D. knows. The creator of the base super soldier serum is in prison for treason." The woman he betrayed that saved him. Wait, did he say super soldier?! "I edited it, to meet my needs. I didn't like the idea of spewing out fire too much."

"You edited a super soldier serum for yourself, Stark?" Wisdom asked. "That could have helped more than your Guardian suits. Do you have any idea of the potential medical benefits of that?"

"Ya, except, it's too easy to edit in the raw form for those with the knowledge. Mallen...he was a super soldier. Burning people alive like a living and breathing dragon, running at sixty miles per hour, the constant regeneration...she wanted to use it to cure cancer. They were shutting down the program, so...she let it slip out into terrorist hands. A lot of innocent people died. And you know the ironic part? If she had the funding...I really believe she could cure cancer," and he laughs at that. "It's her dream. But she isn't getting very far with it now, huh?" Ironic, no? He then moves to stand, "I was a cripple, the surgery with the chip was a failure. I could walk a little, but barely. I needed to be healed, to be able to communicate with the Iron Man suit faster, more efficiently if I could keep up with Mallen. Even then, I couldn't stop him without killing him."

Stark chuckles. "It was like looking into a twisted mirror. His rage and passion, his anger at losing those he loved...it was me, but...without hope, without the brain to open new doorways." He shakes his head, finally back on his feet as he moves a hand to help you you back to your feet as well. "I guess...that is what I need to do. Open new doorways if I'm drowning in the current ones. Loyalty...duty...perhaps they will be enough, perhaps it's all I have left. I'm not sure anymore." But Pete can see why he gave CEO position over to Pepper.

"Is there any left?" Wisdom asked. "Duty, and loyalty to it. That's all I've got, mate. That's all I've ever had. Love's always let me down. Maureen, Sari... going into just casual dating in my age. She-Hulk, fuck, even Power Girl. Do you," he chuckled, "do you know how many teenaged boys would kill to be where I am? And look at me, sitting near my puke, spilling my bleedin' guts out to Tony Stark, who might even be a fucking Skrull. But I don't bleeding care. Cuz if you were a Skrull, I'd kill your infiltrating, crevice-faced alien arse." And he started laughing up to the sky.

Goddammit, it started raining. How cliche.

Stark laughs, "You moron. You are as fucked as me, if not worse off for your cynicism. How the hell did that Cass girl manage to write that idealistic piece of shit article about you?" And the rain. "Well, least we won't smell like feline brains and puke anymore," looking on the positive side of it. How fucked up is that? In either case, Stark finally does find his backpack and manages to pull out an a garbage bag? Nope, it's a black raincoat, a shapeless one with a hood. He rezips his back and covers the zipper with the waterpoof fabric and tugs on the raincoat. "Well, let's go find this bleedin' exit man. And I sure as hell am no Skrull, a Skrull couldn't operate the newest Iron Man suit without killing themselves. To operate it properly requires full mental interfacing with it. The armor I can form over my body helps, but I can do it remotely if need be." He has never had anyone to talk to about this before.

"How do I know that isn't some Skrull trick?" Wisdom asked. "After all, I didn't know you were Iron Man. You could be feeding me any old spoonful of bollocks." But he was obviously kidding. Looking up at the rain, he sighed, and shut his eyes. And then he started steaming, like, everywhere. A mild use of thermokinesis. "Drying off as the rain hits, mate. I'm good."