Summary:Steve updates Tony on the going-ons of SHIELD's latest acquisition in both prisoner and tech only to find that the very prisoner, Baron Zemo, has escaped somehow. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
  |
JARVIS reports that Tony is, in fact, at the mansion. That's somewhat new lately: Tony had been off in the weeds for over a month, and is only recently showing up around the mansion. He hasn't just been missing, though: there were different events, parties, fashion shows, private jets and yachts — it was pretty excessive, and the news gobbled up the shameless Avenger's style with an eagerness of a thirsty desert dweller to rain.
Tony's relaxing, JARVIS reports: in the back pool area. There's no question what that means, and clear evidence when Steve arrives, and almost runs directly into a young woman in a peach towel and swimsuit that is heading back inside. "Oh, excuse me," the blonde says, embarrassed, sashaying out of the way back in. Beyond her, at the hot tub, is Stark himself, with glass in hand (bottle nearby), slid way down, eyes closed, smirk on his face very self-satisfied.
"Er — excuse me," manages Steve as he steps back and out of the way of the incoming blonde so she can continue back in. He blinks at her back before he then steps out onto the laid cobblestone of the back lounging area. He's in a plain Army-green t-shirt and jeans as he walks barefoot out towards the pool to find Tony precisely where JARVIS had so crisply informed.
"A good day for the Jacuzzi," notes the First Avenger even before his shadow slides across to block out the sun. With hands on his hips, he glances over his shoulder back at the manor briefly. "Am I interrupting anything?" There's a friendly blandness to the question as he returns his attention to Tony.
"Not anymore," Tony answers, lifting one hand to tip his sunglasses further up his nose, smile easy and breezy in Steve's direction. Whether he actually has his eyes open or not may be elusive, but probably not important: he's well aware Steve is there. He lifts his glass to finish what was left in it.
"But I guess it depends what you need. What's up, Capsicle?" Tony questions, with a comfortable, lithe stretch of his shoulder, sitting up just a bit more. That brings the arc reactor up some, making the light from it bubble interestingly with the jacuzzi water at his upper chest. "Do I need to send Ashley home, since we're to be busy saving the world?"
"Mmm, not saving the world, but I don't think SHIELD'd take kindly to her overhearing about their latest acquisition. Bit of a mess if it got out on Twitter or something of the like," Steve replies with yet another quirk-browed look over his shoulder at the mansion. "You mind sending her on her way for now?"
Regardless, he takes up a nearby folding deckchair and after setting it to neutral rather than with foot-rest extended, he brings it over near to the edge of the Jacuzzi and sits down.
"You act like she hasn't signed an NDA," Tony answers ruefully, amused, but he waves the fingers of one hand dismissively, and reaches out of the jacuzzi, twisting around, to claim his mobile device, and speaks into it briefly. "JARVIS, we've got business," he says into it. "Of course, I will send miss Stone home," the AI agrees.
Tony tosses the device back onto the towel at the side of the jacuzzi, and gives Steve a finger-gun — before he rescues the bottle. Steve might fear it's to have more, but Tony is only putting the cap back onto it and setting it back down. "Fire away."
"Appreciate that, JARVIS." Whether or not the AI can hear him during the brief time the mobile device is enabled is no big deal. It's just Steve being polite as he tends to be. The Captain then interlaces his fingers over his belt and sighs.
"Been working closely with the Prince of Wakanda, T'Challa, over some business about HYDRA getting 'hold of some tech I haven't seen before. Looks like what they used to have back in the war, but this time it's got the capability of ice — chilling the target to a point of freezing solid all the way through. Got a lead that took me 'nd Agent May along with T'Challa 'nd a consultant named Mari up into Canada. There was…a genetically-enhanced bear," the Captain continues in a manner suggesting even he's having trouble believing what his eyes saw still. " — 'nd a facility hosting the tech hidden beneath a lake up there. Got in 'nd out alive, clearly. SHIELD's got a prisoner now, a man named Baron Zemo. You familiar with the name at all?"
Tony releases a breath, lolling his head back, tilted vaguely towards Steve. "Another Nazi out of the past, right?" Tony asks, drawing one hand in to briefly rub his thumb and forefinger against his eyebrows over the ridge of sunglasses. "Couldn't we get luckier and get some more non-Nazis from that era," Tony requests. "Don't tell me you've run out of neo-Nazis to punch, and we need the old hits," he asks, wryly. He's joking, but he is listening.
"So SHIELD has him? That's a good start. How's he linked to this special bear and lakeview hidey-hole?"
"Wish those old hits would stay in the past." Drily, Steve agrees, shaking his head about the whole affair. It'd been a shock to see the Baron again, enough to cause momentary threat for the whole tac-team present.
"The bear, we don't know yet. Figure it's something to do with HYDRA's love affair about the super-serum 'nd augmenting strength." There's a low, resentful undercurrent there, surely sourced in one Bucky Barnes. "Didn't manage to catch the bear. It caught us, flipped the SHIELD car 'nd us in it out of the blue on the way into the site. T'Challa managed to get us out of the whole affair with a prayer." And Bast's blessing of teleportation away from metal bear-claws. "The site was a tech processing and testing site. SHIELD's also got one of the patients in their recovery ward. Still seeing if he's stable enough mentally to talk."
Steve takes a moment to run a hand down his face, eyes closed and jaw clenched. He continues regardless of the slip in decorum. "Zemo was at the head of it. He was up to his ears in chemical and bioweaponry back in the war. Figures he'd keep at what he knows best."
"So the bear is loose somewhere in Canada?" Tony questions, but then nods slowly. Not a lot they can do about a missing augmented bear, at least without more leads.
"What about the freezing tech? Did you find anything with that there, or did it end up being other types of tech processing and testing?" Tony has sat up, directing more attention to Steve, and losing interest in basking in the hot-tub, with the news, it appears: he's starting to engage with it.
"What happened to the 'patient'?" Tony asks, finally, tone more guarded, as he's quite aware of Steve's view of Hydra lab rat procedures.
Tony will probably still catch the subtle grit-grit of teeth about these HYDRA lab rat procedures, even if Steve directs the coldness of his regard away from the genius-inventor and towards the pool itself.
"The patient is stable, but last I checked, he was still in 'nd out of consciousness too regularly for interviewing. In the facility, he had an IV in him labeled…'Reverbium-Botannical Extract Version 15'. That's connected to the flowers of Wakanda, those which grant super-human abilities if they don't burn you out of your skull first. Zemo's probably been in contact with Ulysses Klaue — stopped him from getting a shipment of the flowers into New York a month or two back," Steve informs his fellow Avenger. "Insofar as the site, we were in 'nd out fast, more a snatch 'nd grab. Team was small to be infiltrating 'nd securing it."
By his frown, the Captain didn't like leaving so much physical information behind. "Nice part is T'Challa grabbed the drives from one of the computers in the medical facility. Gotta be information on the extract 'nd the freezing weaponry as well."
"Annnnnnd he's in a sharing mood about those drives? You wouldn't just talk about them in front of me without something to bat around, I'd imagine?" Tony chuckles, but stretches his arms out straight in the water, gives a deep sigh as if he were slightly put-upon, and gets to his feet, pulling his folded towel towards him to drape over his shoulders as he comes up out of the hot-tub. Swim trunks are black with yellow and orange interwoven stripes down the sides.
Steve lifts a hand off the arm of his lounge-chair. "Drives're all at SHIELD, not part of T'Challa's personal property. He's cooperating with SHIELD as far as I can tell. Nothing wrong with another set of eyes on the information. We managed to get one of the guns as well — saw what a bigger 'nd badder version could do, but there was no room in the Jeep we used to escape. Had to sit on Zemo instead. Kind of gratifying," the Captain admits with a faint, wry close-lipped smile.
"Regardless, tech's kinda your thing." His head tilt is friendly for the 'Captain Obvious'-like note. "You want to get your hands dirty, you have my blessing. We need to figure out a way to counter the freezing guns. It's no joke, Tony, how fast they drop a body. Klaue's still in the wind. He gets 'hold of this tech on top of whatever serum-replacement he's trying to concoct…it'll be bad," he says soberly.
"Now and then tech is my thing," Tony agrees. "Both Now /and/ Then," Tony clarifies more distinctly with a growing sly grin on his moistened goatee. He rubs the side of towel up over his face and into his hair as he drippingly comes out of the hot tub entirely.
"I'll look at what you've got, see what we can come up with to counter or nullify those weapons, and go from there," Tony says, in his usual entirely self-assured tone. If anyone can do an invention like that, Tony Stark is the guy. "Let me suit up. Lunch will be on you," Tony teases, collecting his mobile device and the bottle of alcohol.
Steve smiles faintly to himself. The whole affair with human experimentation still shadows his usually more positive air with a cloud of concern yet. He stands up from the chair and picks it up with two fingers given it weighs nothing in light of his strength.
"Lunch sounds good, name the place," he replies to Tony from the shade of an umbrella still left up and expanded. The chair is settled with soft clunks of impact on the cement and he makes to return to escort his fellow Avenger back into the mansion when the insistent pinging of his cellphone going off in his pocket resounds. By his expression, this is not some social nicety sound: this is Bad News Sound.
Plucking the phone from his pocket, he answers it. "Rogers." Whomever is on the other end is brief with their information. It still makes Steve close his eyes and press a closed fist against his mouth. "Right, on my way in." A beep of him hanging up and the phone is jammed away into his jean pocket again.
"Lunch'll have to be ordered to the Triskelion, Zemo somehow rabbited," the Captain growls as he strides past Tony, then muttering under his breath in Gaelic. "C'mon, Tony!"
Tony takes his time, instead, to stop and pour another drink, over the news Steve's provided.
"Language," Tony mildly teases Steve as he follows after him inside, downing the entire drink, but preparing.
Avengers Assemble, and all that.