10654/Surviving Infinity: It's a Trap

Surviving Infinity: It's a Trap
Date of Scene:	06 January 2020
Location:	Khundian Empire
Synopsis:	Steve and Tony, portaled to a distant location, work together to escape from their immediate prison.
Cast of Characters:	Iron Man, Captain America
Tinyplot:	Surviving Infinity

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Iron Man has posed:
"I'd like a drink, please," Tony mutters, without opening his eyes. He's still laying on his back on the ground, where he'd been leaned after the arrival.

There had been a flash of those blue portals, then the green, and then both Tony and Steve had found themselves in another place entirely. It was dizzying, the travel, though Tony was not conscious enough to witness the travel or the new place or the dizziness. His dizziness is from being slammed unconscious.

They're in some kind of chilly cement building, or underground bunker area. There is an energy field within the bunker, creating pulsing area of repelling energy when the obvious exit is approached, or the walls. The field is being emitted from a device on the opposite end of the room: in sight but out of reach. It is clearly a prison, though no one has come to inspect the quarry inside the trap.

In addition to the two men and their immediate items they'd had in their hands, there is also a lump of tech from the machine that was generating the audio and visual items. It looks burned out for the most part, and is just laying on the chilly floor in a hunk of debris.

Captain America has posed:
The concrete flooring of the bunker won't show the path of pacing routed around and around the confines of the trap's interior. Steve, having shucked his suit-jacket and placed it overtop Tony's prone figure, still appears shockingly dapper but for a visible scuff to his cheek and dirt ground into the knees and one hip of his dress-pants. He's scowling at the repulsor barrier like it has brutally offended him.

And, in a way, it has. Those scuffs are from him lashing out at it in frustration; the same amount of force was applied back at him as his punch. It's between the clangors of him digging an attempted hole //beneath// the static horizontal bottom of the undulating field that he hears Tony speak up.

Turning and leaving the shield to wobble like an uprighted turtle, he darts over to the genius-inventor. "Tony...oh thank god," the Captain breathes, his hands moving to offer aid in sitting up if necessary. "I wasn't sure when you'd wake up."

He doesn't mention fears of the man NOT waking up at all.

"Can't get you that drink right now, though, you'll have to settle for one when we get back to the mansion." Because they are, damnit, and because Steve said so. "Dunno where we are right now though." He winces. It's an awkward and terrible truth. "Just remember the portal coming down 'nd here we are."

Iron Man has posed:
Tony waggles his hand at the offer of sitting up as if he had just been taking a nap and he's just fine. He rotates slowly to roll onto his side, though he doesn't disturb the suit jacket flung over him. His eyes open partially to take in Steve and the trap, with a bemused lack of surprise. As if to say 'this shit may as well happen'.

Tony pulls one arm up to prop his head on his hand, elbow on the concrete, and then rubs the back of his head with that same palm, making a clearly pained expression. Yeah, that's a very sore spot.

"That so," Tony sighs deeply. "Alright." There's a distance to the voice, but it doesn't last long, Tony's awareness is coming in. "So we're in a cement bunker... someplace." His eyes pick over the room. "Energy forcefield?" That's interesting, the tone says, then his gaze lands on the piece of torn up tech nearby, and then his other hand (still in the guantlet), then the first aid kit, and then Steve. "You injured, or is it just me?"

Captain America has posed:
"Just a scuff or two in my case." Testingly, Steve puts fingers to his proud cheekbone still beginning to bruise darkly. He winces again, a quick flicker of the corresponding eye above the mark. "Turns out the field's got oppositional force effects. You hit it hard, it sends the force back at you." One broad shoulder lifts in a shrug. Oh well -- at least he's not dead from it.

The flickering field does get another purely resentful Rogers scowl. "Been digging at the flooring with the shield. It's gonna take some time to get the tunnel big enough to get beneath the field. Not sure I want to be here whenever something shows up see what fell into the mousetrap." He looks back to Tony, smirking slightly. "Mean, we're a pair of mice they won't expect...but you hit your head hard, Tony. You dizzy still? How many fingers am I holding up?"

Steve holds up three before his own chest.

Iron Man has posed:
Tony has begun to sit up on his own, and rolls his eyes up to Steve when he presents the finger thing. At first there's a clear suggestion that Tony is about to snark, but instead, there's a real answer. "...Three." Because this is actually fairly serious.

"Not worse than one of my hangovers, just feel like I don't deserve this one. ....Welp. First things first," Tony says, matter of-fact. He flicks one hand up along the gauntlet, and it unfolds off his arm, allowing Tony to put it down. Tony pulls the bottom of his shirt from his pants, fishes up under his shirt, gives a pull and some cords drop out. They'd been providing power to the gauntlet off the arc reactor. Tony gathers the suit jacket over his legs to continue to stay warm by it, and pats down the inside of his own jacket that he's still wearing properly -- there it is. His mobile device is pulled, and he begins to poke at it.

"Mmmkay. No signals: which doesn't mean great things for us; give me a few to see what I do have." His eyes move to the hole that's being dug. "Then I'll see about this trap." Tony's relaxed confidence is often infectious.

"This isn't my first time waking up in a bunker in the middle of nowhere, after all." And he's trying to keep his calm about it. The anxiety in the back of his throat is not quite coming out yet. PTSD is real, though.

Captain America has posed:
Steve continues to remain crouched down next to Tony, his hands hanging between his knees where he rests his elbows. Good, the finger count was accurate, and that settles a very real fear in the back of the Captain's mind. His eyes flicker from Tony's face to the gadgetry suddenly appearing and at work with the speed of electricity and thought.

His lips rise into a faint smile. "Not my first time either. Never get used to it," he says drily as he takes a moment to peer around the cement cell again. "Force field's new though. I'll take over aggressive cell mates."

He looks back to Tony again and his brief moment of funning at their circumstance fades in solemnity. "I'll keep digging while you work. Make the hole bigger or at least breach the plane of the field." He can't keep still either, not in a place like this, where it's far too quiet save for their own noises and even those have him on edge -- like accidental attention could be drawn if they do so much as sneeze loudly. Rising to his feet, Steve in his suit-vest and white shirt, suit pants and dress shoes, goes back over to pick up the vibranium shield. Needless to say, the first continued impact of digging further into the cement is...a little loud.

Iron Man has posed:
"Urgh. Next time, I'll host a show carrying my helmet. It has noise canceling," Tony comments, not that he'll be heard over the sound of the new banging. When Steve pauses to ask him what he'd muttered, Tony will instead say, "Zilch from the phone because of the forcefield. But I've an idea -- I mean, obviously I do-- if you can do maybe six inch gap. Five if you want to challenge me."

Tony first sets down the phone, after pushing a few more things: it can be working while HE works. Tony pulls the jacket off his legs, and somewhat unsteadily gets up, to look over the big fried piece of tech, seeing what can be salvaged.

Something then comes to mind, and Tony stops, fishing in his pockets again. He approaches Steve, nudges his boot with a foot, and offers something small from his hand, clearly for Steve to accept. It's four pieces of dried fruit: Tony snacks, shared.

Captain America has posed:
Steve does indeed pause to check and see what the dark-haired man said. He laughs quietly and replies, "Five it is then. Can't make things too easy for you, you'd get bored." He does know the genius-inventor well. However, just as quickly, he goes back to digging the shield into the slowly-giving base of the cell. It crumbles and gives beneath the vibranium like over-aged cheese, not cleanly at all. Steve still reaches in and clears the rubble to one side before going at it again with blunt force, muscles of his arms and torso standing high.

Movement in his peripheral makes him pause in reaching cautiously towards a bit of rubble near to the force field. "Oh." His eyes from the dried fruit and up to Tony's face. "Thanks. I'll stash 'em for later. Still full from the buffet at the party." The bits of fruit are slipped away into the pocket of his suit-vest, heedless of grit from his fingers, and he eyes the amount of space he's made with a quizzical tilt to his head. "...'nother inch, I think."

CLANG. WHAM. BWONG. CLONG.

Iron Man has posed:
Tony is looking more at the distance between the hole to the other things in the room, specifically that control panel area across the way. Hmmm. He shrugs a bit when Steve doesn't elect to eat any, clearly chewing some that he'd put in his mouth, as he returns to his project.

"Glad somebody saw the buffet; I didn't," Tony remarks with wry annoyance. He did eat, of course, but perhaps not as recently as Steve. "I..." CLANG CLANG WHAM.

Tony gives up on being chatty, and instead smirks and works to pull apart the fried tech, making a few piles as he sorts out the components.

From there, he picks through it, and calmly but quickly starts to strip some ends off of something. "Hey," Tony says, prodding at Steve in the same way. "Cut these with that shield edge, will you?" He puts some wires on the ground; half of them are wrecked and black on one end. "Here, above that fried zone."

Captain America has posed:
"Sure." Steve, paused in his excavation, brings the shield's edge to hover above where the inventor indicated. He squints and with an inhale, brings the edge down with extreme precision in counter to the brute effort being used to create the shallow tunnel. Snip: fried zone cleanly removed from the wiring extracted. He takes a moment to rest in his kneel before the hole and wipe a forearm across his brow and down one temple.

"You figure something out?" He eyes the wiring and then glances over the line of his broad shoulder towards the items collected in the space towards the back of the cell. "Can't guess what it is just yet. Not something to emit a signal..." Tony gets a curious little smile now.

Iron Man has posed:
"It's me: of course I have. Just saving the day, quietly," Tony smirks. Tony scavenges into the first aid kit for some small tools, including some scissors and forceps. He's made another long tool out of some fan blades from inside the tech pile, and attached a grip handle with medical tape made from a melted plastic who-knows-what. He's stripping some wire sections, much like the one he had Steve cut, and is chaining them together.

"So, don't be judgin' me on miracles over here, I have a headache bigger than this room," Tony smirks. He clips the wires to the glove, then adds them to the open ends on the arc reactor's leads. Then a second set of leads goes to a reciever, a makeshift antenna.

It's created a long cord from glove to Tony's chest, and then from chest to the reciever. He works with his phone now to interface with the reciever, and after a minute, the glove moves and the fingers react, and it pulses a few feet along the floor, dragging the cords. "Okay then. I've got a glove on a leash. Just no power sources to run the thing in here other than me, it's specialized for those fireworks I was doing. I can adapt it back but this was faster. Got enough space for it to go under, yet?"

Captain America has posed:
"Credit's given where it's due," replies the supersoldier in mild amusement as he watches Tony connect the wires to the glove as well as continue the connections through the leads disappearing to his chest. His eyebrows lift and he admittedly leans slightly away from the sudden rickety motions of the glove appearing to have come to unbelievable life. It's like some Frankenstein's Monster, or --

Steve can't help the huff of a laugh. Blame it on the stress of the circumstances at hand.

Bah-dum-pssht.

"Gimme one last crack at it 'nd your Thing can bypass it, I think." Someone took the time to introduce the Captain to the Addam's Family during the October holidays, it appears. With a final grunt, he does create the last quarter-inch of space needed for the glove to shimmy under. Steve then steps back and away from the shallow hole he created, the shield at home on his arm as it always is.

Iron Man has posed:
Tony fiddles with his phone, and the gauntlet-Thing moves... to give Steve a finger-gun motion.

Tony, though, just looks pleased with himself, smirking, and brings the whole situation over to standby near the hole that's being created. He lifts an eyebrow at Steve, as if to question if Steve is truly done.

Captain America has posed:
Steve rewards the smart little robotic gesture with a little shake of his head and fully-amused smirk. One dimple: earned. It's a pleasant familiarity in this place, the inventor's sheer panache.

"Hole's all yours, Stark," he then adds with a gesture of his free hand towards the chipped divot in the flooring of the cell. "Do what you gotta do. 'm itching to get out of here before someone comes peeking in." He peers beyond the force field's limits and listens into the ringing silence that has followed the end to his digging.

Iron Man has posed:
"Never say that to me again, at least not where anyone else, OR me, can hear it," Tony says, wincing at the phrasing about the 'hole' and making it dirty, but does move over to sit down near the opening, and very carefully feeds the glove through. Tony sets up the reciever just on the other side of the mess Steve made, using as much of the space to give the wire as much length as he can.

He then goes to this phone, and pilots the gauntlet out of the hole's other side, and then with a series of little repulsor bursts, sends it across towards the controls on the other wall.

The wire is a little short, but Tony adapts to lay down, giving it another foot or two, and pilots from laying next to the energy wall, focused on putting in commands into the phone to get it there, then drives using all five fingers of a hand on the surface of the screen. He drives it up, and clamps the hand down on a lever, and pulls with a firm motion and tense expression.

With a low sound of powering down, the field drops. Tony sits up, brushing bits of floor off his coat. "Glad to be of service. We don't want you itchy."

Captain America has posed:
That puckish little smile on Steve's lips is absolutely unrepentant...and proof he deliberately chose the wording. Poor Tony. Stuck with this guy, this paramount of patriotic majesty who hasn't lost an inkling of his Brooklyn attitude even after over a century.

Still, the Captain's quiet in respect for the finesse needed to pilot the creation beneath and beyond the force field. He watches the traveling of the gauntlet with bated breath and isn't too pride not to sigh in audible relief when the Franken-Thing does its job well.

"Don't want me being itchy either," he mutters, quick to slip to the framing of the cell door and take a cautious look left and right. "Don't think we tripped any alarms. You good to beat feet if we need to run?" As he asks this, he jogs past Tony to quickly grab up his suit-coat because any layering might be necessary for weather beyond this place -- or for making tourniquets -- or the various other things a fine JVD suit might create when taken rudely apart.

Iron Man has posed:
"Just because I don't run laps in front of /you/ doesn't mean I'm out of shape," Tony replies smoothly, as he sits up a tad painfully. That head injury is a real thing. He unplugs the various wires, collecting them to drape as a sort of odd tech scarf, and puts the gautlet back on his arm, hooking it back up, though the wires aren't inside his coat this time, they're more visible branching from hip to the top of the gauntlet to power it.

Tony does know what Steve is asking. "You won't have to drag me." He gestures to the first aid kit's box. "Check up ahead if you're eager, I want to bring some parts in case I have to build a signal. I made a pile." Tony starts to empty the first aid kit items he doubts they'll need (priorities) and uses the kit to collect the tech parts and the tools he'd made.

Captain America has posed:
Steve nods curtly towards the inventor and his efforts. "I'll be just a sec." Not literally, but he still pauses again at the door to the cement 'mouse trap' to look back over his shoulder at Tony. "If there's anything out there..." He pauses with his lips parted before he frowns. "I'll deal with it. Back in a sec."

Stepping out and into the short hallway with his shield upraised and ready, the dapperly-dressed man quickly makes his way out into what appears to be...a pristine northern rainforest of sorts. He inhales sharply, thrown back into memories of the forests of northern France, but, in the same instance...no mushrooms are that color -- and no ferns he's ever seen grow higher than his own head. At least he can still breathe properly!

Steve appears in the doorway to the cell again. "Tony, it's...forest out there. We're in the middle of nowhere. I can't see any sign of any civilization anywhere." By the divot between his brows, Steve can't decide if he's relieved or more concerned by this fact.

Iron Man has posed:
"Worse than that. Not earth, not by a long shot," Tony reports, lifting his phone to waggle it as if that were the explanation for how he knew. He's bringing the first aid kit along, as well as the wires he'd draped over his neck as if he were wearing a towel to go to the beach.

"Let's not hang out in this trap, though. Best I have right now is compass so that we won't go in circles, but.." Tony looks at the forest as if it personally was frustrating him.

"Guess you finally got me camping in the woods," the Indoorsy Tony says ruefully. He picks a direction, and starts to walk in it.

Captain America has posed:
The waggle of the phone gets a grimace. Steve's got no immediate comment, not in the face of that immutable fact. He's silent until they reach the edge of the thicker growth beyond the isolated bunker.

"It could be worst. Mosquitos could be the size of mastiffs. Could be allergic to one of the common plants around here. Somebody could've showed up before you got your gauntlet twitching around." Steve pushes aside one of the huge fronds of fern-plant as he steps into the damp cooler shadows of the gigantic redwood-like trees beside Tony.

"Could also be raining," he adds as if to tempt fate with his persistent optimism.