Summary:Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, and Tony Stark talk shop over their various workouts. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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When he's not in the labs, Tony Stark can sometimes be found here, trying to keep at peak health physically as well as mentally. He runs on a treadmill in sweats and a t-shirt, the gleam of his arc reactor visible beneath the thin black fabric. No music, for once, just the whir of the treadmill and the thud of his feet upon it.
*
Arriving in a red t-shirt and black sweatpants, dark in counter to his briskly-white sneakers, is one Steve Rogers. Over his shoulder, a sandbag doomed to death by repeated pummeling and sure to spill its sandy innards all over the designated section of the workout area. In his hand, a small duffel bag containing all he needs to work out some stress.
"Tony, hey," he calls out over the hum of the treadmill. He sets the duffel bag at the edge of the boxing arena and then lifts onto his toes in order to clip the sandbag in place, manipulating it as if it didn't weigh several hundred pounds. A test-push at it, to make sure it's properly hung, and then he stoops to grab up a ring of white tape to wrap his knuckles in. "Long day?" he asks, glancing up as he unwinds a long length of tape before spinning it around his hand in turn.
*
Natasha walks into the gym dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a matching sports bra, black with red stripes along the sides of the legs. When she sees the gym is already occupied, she grins, "turns out it's the unscheduled workout days, live with a bunch of guys long enough, training cycles match up, huh?" She jokes, before heading towards the mook yan jong against the farther wall, clearly intending to partake in some martial arts training.
"You guys got my report about Nightfall?" She muses, while starting her move, the sound of her strikes against the wood ringing about the room.
Tony Stark upnods to Steve, then says, "You know, every time you destroy one of those bags, cleaning staff sends me a strongly worded letter." He sounds a little winded. He's worked up a sweat already. "It was long enough. Should I be asking you the same thing?"
He glances over at Nat. "A riveting read," he tells her. "Couldn't put it down."
*
There's a quiet laugh from the blond over by the slowly-swinging sandbag.
"Swept up the last time I broke one," Steve idly comments to Tony, glancing up from wrapping his other hand up. The roll of tape is tossed into the small duffel and he pulls out a water bottle, sets it aside on a nearby bench. "Can always do it again. Turns out it's a good cool-down. And yeah, long enough. 's'why I'm down here." He executes a few stretches and while he's doing this, the Widow appears.
"Magical how that works out, isn't it?" the Captain quips back drily to Natasha. A small smirk curls his lips before smoothing away. Far more seriously, he replies, "Yes. Glad you made contact with Batman, same with Spider-Man. Kid's young, but he's got heart. Good that Agent Koa's in on it. He's got fingers in pies I don't know about, in regards to the magic, and his head's on a swivel." Popping his knuckles off each other, Steve sets and then throws a light punch at the sandbag. It clanks and begins swinging in place as he picks up a stready rhythm of blows.
*
"I just wish it wouldn't all be so supernatural this, and magic that, I feel much better knowing I can shoot the threat I have to deal with," Natasha admits, as she keeps moving in and out of the wooden dummy, switching from shadow blocks to deliberate strikes, each movement dealing with at least three limbs at a time. She starts slow, and gradually builds up her pace and force.
"Glad you enjoyed, Tony, always glad to give you something to help you not die of boredom," Nat quips back at Tony, "so, your scientific mind has any suggestions about those group of Harry Potter wannabes?"
*
The treadmill beeps and starts to slow down, so Tony does as well. He lays a fingeritp on a panel to take his pulse. "I don't know, you throw enough energy in one form or another at anything, that's bound to ruin its day. What does Wizard Watch have to say about it? Has Turner mentioned anything?"
Once the treadmill stops, he steps off and keeps walking, hands laced behind his head. "If it's good old-fashioned iron you want, that's even easier to do. I mean, it's not as strong as steel, and getting anything made of pure iron anymore is practically impossible, but it turns out I know a guy who owns a lot of the stuff. Me."
*
The mounting in the ceiling above the sandbag creaks ominously as Steve lands a spectacularly hard blow, enough to rattle it in its moorings. At least it's been reinforced to withstand him after the first ragged hole of failed installation.
"Got a point, especially with iron," the Captain puffs as he dances, throwing an uppercut that would have left a floating rib buried somewhere godawful in an opponent. The sandbag perserveres. "Hit anything hard enough with iron knuckles and it'll sting. Bless weaponry, if you can. The stories out of old Europe, ones Mathair used to tell me, those've got kernels of truth buried. The ones out of Russia." Steve's eyes flick to the Widow in passing. "Kernels of truth in there too about dealing with magic." The sandbag lets out a WHUMP as he lands a haymaker. "Talk to WAND."
*
"That's funny, it's almost like it's in your name," Natasha quips at Tony as she delivers a sidekick at the 'head' of the dummy, remaining on one foot, while turning her head to look directly at Tony, "so anything you could hook me up with? Bullets, blades, anything goes.." she then sets her eyes on Steve, "how about that SHIELD of yours? Think that'll do some damage?"
Nat smirks at the rattling of the mooring after Steve's latest punch to the sandbag, and she teasingly notes, "at this rate you might be on Thor's footsteps for causing real damage to the Mansion, Steve, ever made a section of the roof fall off before?" She lowers her leg from the dummy, and moves a bit closer to Steve, appraising his movement more so than his actual punches, "never cease to amaze me how perfect your positioning is, Rogers," she notes, before grumbling, "I really don't like dealing with the WAND guys…"
*
"Yeah, well, it sounded cool," Tony says with a crooked smile. "I'll set you up with what I can, but the reason the world moved away from iron is because it's only real advantage is being more advanced than bronze. It's brittle. It's a little too hard to make good projectiles. That's why bullets were traditionally made out of lead. It's heavy and soft. Honestly, gold's your best metal for bullets. I don't suppose any of the old tales mention gold as a projectile?" He glances between the two of them.
He snaps his fingers and says, "Iron makes good shrapnel, though. All you need is a good old-fashioned bomb, or grenade for ease of handling. I can get started on those tomorrow, if you want." As for the WAND guys, he adds, "Not it. I still hold that magic is for children's birthday parties."
*
Steve pauses, fists upheld before his chest, as Natasha addresses him directly about his legendary spangled disc. "It's vibranium, it should put a dent in just about everything," he replies with a wry little grin. His breathing is up, but he hasn't broken a sweat just yet. "It fell to the floor one time a few years back. Had it mounted in steel up there, can't see it with the boarding."
The sandbox rattles again and one can hear the metallic base hidden beyond the wooden ceiling. "Positioning comes from practice and application. You'd know about that." He shoot Natasha another half-smile. "You live to see another day if your footing's right."
He seems to be thinking over Tony's question as he works the bag over and finally pauses again, knuckles indenting the canvas as he glances at the genius-inventor. "Gold's a hard one. I don't remember anything exactly. Again, WAND," he reiterates with a little shrug towards Natasha. "Agent Koa in particular. He doesn't bite." A beat. "…that I'm aware of. Or there's the Sorcerer, yeah."
*
"I just so happen to know a bit," Natasha muses at Steve's keen reply, as she turns to look at Tony again, "the data collected specifically said 'iron', not sure about other metals, I really don't know much at all about magic stuff, I'm very much with you on that, Tony, best left at children's birthday parties." But she's Russian, she knows some tales, and worse, she's met a Doctor Strange, and his existence is tough to refute. She then move to an open space on the mat, and goes about her stretching routine. "I really hope we can shake those guys good, they're running quite the shady company…indoctrinating children never leads to good things," the resident expert on the subject notes.
*
"I can give you grenades," Tony says. He continues to pace, cooling down from his run. "Arrowheads, too. While I can't do you bullets, getting shot at might ruin their day anyway. I just have to wonder if iron has some specific quality, or if those stories mention it because, at the time, it blew bronze out of the water. Still, there's nothing preventing us from hitting them with everything we have. See what sticks."
"And I know, I know. Agent Koa doesn't bite. I'm sure he's very good at what he does. If he wants to get me a list of things we need to blow these guys out of the water, I'll be sure to put together a shopping list, but magic? That's not in my wheelhouse."
|ROLL| Steve Rogers +rolls 1d10 for: 4
*
Steve pounds on the bag while the other two talk. He glances up before puffing a short sigh. A narrowing of his eyes at the bag and…
WHAM. A helluva hit, but still checked enough that he only pops one seam on the canvas cover. He's quick to pinch the section shut to allow minimal sand spillage and looks over at Tony and Natasha.
"We'll get 'em, one way or another. They made a mistake when they got onto SHIELD's radar, much less into WAND's list of interests. Get a list of what we need and we'll gather the folks necessary to make a raid happen. We'll leave 'em wishing they'd never tried to touch the kids." He reaches out as far as he can manage and snags his water bottle by luck alone. A squirt of water into his mouth and he continues standing there, holding the sandbag shut without a care in the world about it.
"Somebody hand me the sewing kit that's in there? I'll get this shut and sweep," the Captain explains, smiling to himself. He'll spare the cleaning staff…this time.
*