You've been "called on the carpet" by a figure of authority. Now what?

...and?


No, seriously, that happens all the time. I'm pretty sure Rhodey does it on a weekly basis. If you want to call him a "figure of authority." He is a Lieutenant Colonel, I mean -- Although that's a stupid phrase. "Figure of authority." Sounds like the next line of GI Joe action figures.

Hrm.

Note to self: no more apple martinis. Regular ones are just fine.


I stand by my original response.

And?

Tony Stark/Iron Man
Iron Man
74 Words

mood: drunk tags: realm of the muse

3. Write about a meeting.

A meeting? Really. Thrilling.

I have meetings. I have lots of meetings. I have more meetings than I know what to do with. Some I don't even bother showing up for. Pepper takes those. But asking the CEO of a multinational corporation about a meeting is like asking a bookie about a phone call. Too many to count and not any worth remembering. Not that I condone gambling. Wouldn't want to send that message to the little kiddies.

That's the problem with business today. So little time, so much minutiae. You wanna know why I drink? I drink because I don't care. I don't care about phone messages or thank-you cards or forms, or forms about forms, and I certainly don't care about going to a meeting that serves no point with some bean-counters so I can pat them on the head and convince them that I know what I'm doing. They should know that I know what I'm doing. My name is on the side of the building for a reason. I drink to numb my brain from the agony of having to justify myself and my actions to people who would rather spend their lives playing with spell check than actually doing something to contribute to the world.

You want to know about my meetings? Ask my assistant. I don't have time for that crap.

Tony Stark/Iron Man
Iron Man
223 Words

mood: cranky tags: aa muses

3. "When we forget God, He remembers us."

Ha. You know, that's cute. The whole deus ex machina thing.

Let's set one thing straight, okay? God didn't make me climb into this bottle. He's not gonna help me out.

...

No, you know what? Let's set a couple of things straight. God's not going to come down and make everything okay. He's not going to suddenly rid the world of terrorists, or repair the damage they did to the homes and families in Gulmira and the other dozens of villages just like it. He's not going to end world hunger or poverty. He said 'you guys are on your own.' We have to get out of this ourselves. So I think we'd be better off worrying about who's double-dealing weapons under the table, or how to put food on some damn dinner tables, rather than trying to remember some as yet unproven metaphorical figure who's not really doing much for us lately.

Screw God. If God really wanted to be helpful, Yinsen would still be alive. So would his family. Maybe I might still be a self-obsessed, shallow, egotistical playboy but that's beside the point. The only one that's going to save me is going to be me. God can go find someone else to play with.

Tony Stark/Iron Man
Iron Man
209 Words

mood: apathetic music: Human - Josh Joplin Group tags: aa muses

3. Describe your relationship with your sponsor.

He's dead. That's my relationship with him.

...

No, really. He is, in point of fact, deceased. Yinsen died buying me extra time to power up my original Iron Man prototype. It wasn't coming online fast enough and Reza's men were closing too quickly. I was inside the armor. I couldn't move. So Yinsen decided he'd grab a machine gun off one of the dead guards, and run out shooting anything he could find in order to buy me the minutes I needed.

I found him further down the tunnels, dying. He'd been shot several times. After saving my ass twice. He died in front of me. And that sealed this whole freaking thing.

At first I kept telling myself that it didn't have to be that way. I blamed myself for his death. While I still regret it I know better now. There was no other way to get out of there, not with things the way they were. If not for him I would have just been a spoiled engineer trapped in a big piece of metal until the bad guys came to execute him for insubordination. His sacrifice was necessary. It'll never be in vain.

...

My sponsor's dead. Let's move on.

Tony Stark/Iron Man
Iron Man
203 Words

mood: cold tags: aa muses

Hey, guys.

I'm sure you've all noticed Tony has been quiet lately -- well, I was trying to hold off making this post as long as possible, but it's time for me to take a break. I've been juggling my mother's health crisis for a few months now. Add that to some really screwed-up problems in a number of my friendships, and some unexpected RP difficulties that are meaning I might have to change a lot of things around, I'm just not in a good frame of mind right now. I know Tony hasn't been around as much as people would like, and I'm so sorry.

Hopefully, I'll be back from hiatus in a couple of days or a week or two. It depends on how long it takes me to get whatever I can settle, settled. And then I have some other muses that I need to decide what to do with. But he'll be back, I promise.

This hiatus also affects Mason (g_mason_ctu), Jack Harris (290_harris), and Scrat (musthaveacorn).

mood: cold

3. For some unexplained reason, you have developed a phobia or allergic reaction to one person or thing that you never had a problem with before.

It all started innocently enough. He can't remember the party or who invited him to it or anyone in the room. But as usual, Tony Stark stole the spotlight from the cause and the host, with everyone hanging on his every word and wanting to know what it was like to be both a billionaire playboy and a superhero. Several of them happened to be attractive, leggy and models, many of whom had come with somebody else.

All of this had happened before about a thousand times. Then something different happened.

Tony made polite small talk for a few minutes, maybe flirted a little, before he extracted himself from their clutches and walked his way over to the bar. He had his vodka martini in hand before Happy remembered to close his mouth from where it had fallen so far agape. "What?" he asked, taking a long sip off the martini.

"Since when do you turn down available supermodels?" his bodyguard replied.

"First of all, they're not available. The redhead came with that big Finnish guy with the tree for a neck, and I don't want to get punched in the face." He snorted. "All they want to do is get me into bed so they can say they've banged a superhero."

"All they ever wanted to do before was get you into bed because you're rich and famous," Happy pointed out, "I didn't see you objecting."

"I have other things to do," Tony continued. "Things that won't get me punched in the face."

Happy sat there for a moment and eyed him, then nodded his assent. It wasn't as if he wanted to see Stark get beaten up either. But he knew that look in Tony's eyes. The other man had been working harder than he ever had over the last few weeks, and he was close to something. If there was anything that could tear Tony Stark away from a pack of supermodels, it was the promise of a new technological breakthrough.

Tony Stark/Iron Man
Iron Man
334 Words

mood: bored tags: tbs

Tony vaguely remembered saying something to Tali about seeing the workshop. Vaguely, because after they had that conversation, he had a couple more martinis, another meeting with his top engineers, and a lot of late nights muttering at himself as he tried to figure out how to marry arc reactors to airplanes.

When he actually remembered what he'd said, and had cleared away all the bits and pieces from his current work, he set about keeping his promise. Thankfully, the door from the Bar happened to open into the workshop -- something akin to a very large basement, with all the concrete and the high vaulted ceilings and the robots and the cars, because it was also the garage -- and not into his living room.

(Tony had also forgotten to tell Pepper company was coming. Oops.)

location: the workshop mood: busy tags: milliways