625/Gaining Perspective

Gaining Perspective
Date of Scene:	26 May 2017
Location:	SHIELD Helicarrier
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Nick Fury, Iron Man, Sibilance

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Nick Fury has posed:
"I'm glad you could make it, Tony," Nick Fury says, walking along a hallway in one of the middle decks of a SHIELD helicarrier. On the other side of the director is a snake-person. No big deal.

"This should be a good opportunity for the both of you. Given that we want to make sure all SHIELD operatives--or anyone who might find themselves working alongside SHIELD operatives from time to time--it's important to get a feel for the kinds of situations you might find yourselves dropped into."

Fury rounds a corner and steps toward a secure doorway. He places his hand upon it and a scan progresses.

<<Initial authorization accepted. Please provide secondary authorization.>>

"Authorization code Tango-Brimley-8-track-elephant-9er."

<<Secondary authorization accepted.>>

The door slides open with a soft hiss, revealing a small space about the size of an elevator carriage.

Iron Man has posed:
"Wait, wait..." Tony is matching Fury's pace step by step, but here, he stops in the middle of their corridor, his hand waving in the air. "You're actually expecting that I'm going to play nice with the unwashed masses." It's a statement, and without missing a beat, he continues, "I'm pretty sure you have a good grasp of reality, so I'm just going to suggest a week's vacation rather than offering the name of my shrink in town."

Tony begins again, rounding that self-same corner, and puts his own hands well into his pockets. He's dressed down, but not so far as jeans and a t-shirt. Slacks, good, buttondown, tailored shirt. With the authorization codes being bandied about, he's canting his head as he steps through, something of a smug smirk on his face. "Okay.. you first."

Sibilance has posed:
Sibil is that snake-person. She moves with her eyes pointed pretty much anywhere BUT in the direction of Tony Stark or Nick Fury, and she keeps herself quiet while Nick speaks about the opportunity. It can all be chalked up to her awkward or skittish personality, the way her snake-like face shows a frown and she tends to look at people's shoes as they walk.

Her silence is almost the polar opposite of Tony. Except for her muttering 'Unwashed?' to herself with a scrunch of her scaly brow, she hasn't said a word and seems deferent to Nick in every way. She has a Spanish accent, notably. She'll follow into the elevator carriage space, her tongue flickering just the once as she examines the unfamiliar space.

Nick Fury has posed:
As the other two enter the elevator, Fury stops just short of entering behind them. "Don't worry. I'll be with you shortly."

Immediately, the door slams shut. There's a klaxon that sounds.

"Welcome to SHIELD. I hope you survive the experience!" Fury's voice calls over an intercom.

Then, the floor opens up and the sky over Metropolis is suddenly visible, and open, below.

Iron Man has posed:
See, Tony had this feeling deep, deep in his gut where he usually simply suffers from agita. Nick is the walking, talking embodiment of indigestion, and this little stunt cements it. The moment he walks through, he knows it's a mistake, that he's been set up, and he turns to the door, hands lifting only to have it close in his face.

"Fury!" //What the hell kind of name is that? Really? He bangs on the door once, twice, and when he catches the pressure change? He takes a breath, and as the wind starts to whip around, he's letting his breath out simply to curse. "You are so going down for this..."

Tony scowls as he begins his freefall, but not before he hugs the wall and taps his watch. "Jarvis, get a lock on me please and do me a favor.. send a suit up. Thanks."

"Yes, sir.."

"Oh.. and send a secondary one for my partner in fall. I trust you, buddy. Thanks."

Off in the distance that is New York City, then, there may be some that catch what might look like a rocket departing the top of Stark Tower and finding a good cruising speed of a mach or two, and then a second..

It's a testament to Tony's relative ability to keep calm in the face of adversity, so Metropolis will see the form and figure of one Tony Stark doing a free fall, making himself as large as he can in order to catch some air-currents. "Grab my hand!" Tony calls out to Sib, "It'll give us more drag!"

Sibilance has posed:
Sibilance steps into the space that turns out to be an ejection airlock of some flavor in a moment, turning to give Tony a look of apparent confusion and worry from his reaction. Her worry turns to panic and then, oddly, to wide-eyed yet calm focus as her eyes flick over the skyline and search for ways she might deal with this situation. She knows she might be able to deal with this if she can slow her landing somehow, so she looks for things she can grab onto or spots she might be able to land in where she might soften the impact to somewhere not quite as lethal.

She overhears Tony, and the fear-induced calm gives away to similarly owlish confusion. She holds out her arms and legs and gradually moves through the air by shifting her body weight, being very careful not to allow herself to tumble. The cold of the altitude is enough to almost make her pass out, but the heat of summer still allows her to focus. "This is almost as bad as thinking I was caught in the middle of a HYDRA raid!" she shouts over to Tony, getting conversational so she doesn't have to focus on the concrete they are hurtling down toward at fatal speeds, "These people do not joke around about their training exercises!"

Nick Fury has posed:
As the two fall, they'll see, heading their way in addition to the two Stark suit-rockets ... a commercial airliner beginning its descent to Metropolis International Airport.

It's racing right at them, and far less than a minute will go by before the two trajectories intersect!

Meanwhile, on the Helicarrier deck, Nick Fury is strapped into a large contraption. When he's given the thumbs-up from his crew, he rolls over the edge as though he were SCUBA diving in the sky.

Retro-rockets alight and the SHIELD director is able to control his descent, following the two other airborne individuals.

"Tony," Fury says through a headset over a channel likely available to both of the 'trainees', "I hope your suits don't get identified as bogeys..." He pauses for a moment. "Sibilance, you tell me: is Stark's solution the only way out of this mess?"

Iron Man has posed:
Well, the wonderful thing about having an artificial awareness as a 'co-pilot' rather than just a dumb 'bomb', as it were. Tony shakes his head; right now isn't the time to chat, but instead he's working on trajectories, planning and executing as he extends and curls as he moves. The aircraft, well.. there's no changing their path, but as the suits get closer, their proximity programs start to execute their change in direction. That aircraft, well... Tony's going much to fast to be able to use that airplane as something of a landing perch without his suit.

It's when Nick emerges and flies around with his own suit that Tony looks up and stares at the man for about a heartbeat before he extends his shirt a little to try and get himself some lift and grab on to the smug bastard's suit. "If we're going down, why don't you join us. The view is great."

Sibilance has posed:
Sibilance hasn't got the self-assurance that Tony does about the suits, and when she hears Nick's voice through her own earpiece, a thing built into a little device seemingly stuck to the side of her head, she turns her head to the motion nearby. She knows she's seconds away from colliding with a plane, and she knows it's more than possible she's just going to get sucked into the turbine.
And she jerks her head aside as she realizes Tony is reaching out to snag the suit that Nick is riding down in.

She immediately lets go of Tony and goes for her second idea. If he's going to goof off, she trusts he knows what he's doing. She would rather not rely on this man's help, for more reasons than just his erratic reaction to what's going on right now.

She dives down to meet the plane on the way down. She doesn't impact it directly but grabs ahold of the wing, and pulls herself up to a stand by using the strength of her tail to keep her held onto it. She turns her head and spots a middle-aged businessman staring back at her through one of the windows. "You didn't see anything," she mouths to him, when she makes eye contact with him. She waves...

Then she abruptly kicks off the front of the wing as the landing gears come out, diving underneath the plane to grab ahold of the mechanism of one of the rear wheels and scurry her way up into the storage area for the wheel, holding on for dear life as the vehicle descends toward the landing strip.

Nick Fury has posed:
"What did you THINK that I was doing up UNTIL now?" Nick Fury shouts, trying to slap away Tony's grip on him. "And get your damn HAND off my jet-suit!"

His rocket-pack continues to fire, spinning the figures about in a spiral. "Stark, don't kill us BOTH just because this was built by a competitor!"

Despite the additional weight, Fury's apparatus DOES slow down the descent--just enough for the commercial airliner to roar by less than fifty feet beneath them. It's close enough that the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit can be seen clenching their teeth and squeezing their eyes shut in anticipation of a collision that never quite happens.

"This isn't going to keep us afloat forever, Tony," Fury chides. "You should..."

It's at just about this time that Sibilance has found a different solution to the problem. Fury's attention turns to her, and he nods once, to himself, his expression one of respect.

Iron Man has posed:
Tony's feet are pulled up as he yanks down, deliberately flipping the pair of them over and over until his speed is slowed to the point where he can actually think a little more clearly. In the next heartbeat, however, Tony's suit begins to deploys around the billionaire in a matter of milliseconds.

Leg. Leg. Torso. Arms. And with a *clink*, the face mask drops down in place. The thrusters then give him some lift; lift enough to be able to land on the wing of the aircraft in a tripod position. If Sib will remain still, the second incoming suit will do very much the same for her; forming around her to give her a little bit of protection, just in case.

Sibilance has posed:
Sibil does not react well to the rescue armor ending up on her well into the middle of what she was already planning to do. Most of it fits -- the chest portion makes her frown, of course, since it doesn't connect together completely behind her lower back. She almost swats a gauntlet out of the air and it corrects and snaps to her hand immediately on impact with her, prompting her to shake her hand to try to remove it. The helmet does not fit at all, not really built for the shape of her head. And the legs fit reasonably well, but now she's in the wheel well of a plane wearing armor that feels somewhat awkwardly fitted.

"<I am not going to miss the training exercises,>" she mutters in Spanish.

Nick Fury has posed:
The SHIELD director manages to pull his rocket-pack out of the death-spiral that Tony nearly sent the two of them into, once the latter finishes getting 'dressed'.

Fury doesn't really make a solid landing on the plane as it passes beneath him, but his foot-panels do lightly scrape the top of the fuselage. He manages to veer to the side before the tail would shear through him.

The plane, meanwhile, seems to be piloted by competent enough individuals that they don't crash the aircraft despite the bizarre situation. The landing's as smooth as is can be, but that doesn't mean it's like drifting onto a pillow.

Nick Fury slowly descends behind the plane, landing on a nearby spot at the airport normally reserved for helicopters.

"Well done, agent," Fury says through the comm. "Stark, you really know how to play to your strengths. Or would that be to Jarvis' strengths?"

Iron Man has posed:
Tony is used to fancy landings; he does them all the time when there are people around. And he's got a whole aircraft of onlookers that feel just 'a little bit better' (maybe) to see Iron Man on their wing and not some creepy gremlin out of old TV programs. As the aircraft comes in for its landing, Tony is flying beside it until it lands safely. Once it's down on the ground, Iron Man veers off to the side, his arms behind him as his thrusters give him a little bit of lift. Once in a good spot, he begins his hover, the correction flares firing off every once in awhile to keep him upright and stable.

"Not my first rodeo, Fury. Though, I'm gonna remind you, if you ever decide to off me, my company is still going to be in good hands where no one can touch it." Not even his brother. "And I've left a codicil in my will that states if you or SHIELD do me in, you guys are going to get a surprise. Courtesy of my ghost." And Virginia 'Pepper' Potts.

Now, however, Tony looks for the other that had gone down with him, his voice quieting such that he's only talking to his suit now, Jarvis within. "Okay, buddy... where is she? Did the suit get to her in time? I'm not seeing any snakey bits on the tarmac. Give me a quick scan."

"Sir, the suit did not miss its intended target, though the feed back from the environmentals are curious. It did what it could to seal, but I'm afraid there is a great deal more work to be done in order to be able to assure an air-tight seal for protection."

Sibilance has posed:
Sibil climbs out of the wheel well of the plane after she's given her 'Well Done' by Fury. She looks a bit awkward in the armor, waddling a bit like a wet cat because of the extra weight put on her by the armor not really meshing well with her comfort. She tromps her way along to find a place to stand and try to actively remove the armor pieces.

She hisses a little sigh to herself when she realizes both of the gauntlets are on her, and she just stands there scowling until the armor is removed from her. Her tail even actively rattles like an actual rattlesnake, to portray her distress.

"Sir," she says into her comm, "I will dodge every attempt you make to put me on the helicarrier again." And that's about all her input on the experience of getting dropped out of a helicarrier. She sounds exhausted as one should when they think they were going to die, again, for the fifth time this month.

Nick Fury has posed:
"I'm hurt, Tony," Nick Fury replies. "If you thought for a second I was really going to kill you, I'd never have let you know it was me. And you wouldn't have been conscious for it. Come on, now!" he proclaims, chuckling quietly.

Then, his laughter stops cold. "Just keep that in mind the next time you lie down on those ultra-high-count silk sheets your maid replaces fresh each day." He puts a finger in front of his eye and then points it in Stark's direction, and then back and forth a few times.

SHIELD technicians begin to roll up in relatively unassuming ground vehicles, two of which come to a halt near the plane. Half a dozen individuals jog toward Sibilance, ready to provide first aid and check vital signs.

"Congratulations on surviving this particular exercise, Sibilance," Fury states as he unharnesses himself from the jet apparatus. "Next time we'll try and give you more of a challenge." He offers a half-smirk.