Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.
DoorMan #41
Stark Industries HQ[January 28, 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
Colin sighed and collapsed on the bed as soon as the door closed to his hotel room. He only had the weekend left in this hotel room before he was moved to the official Stark Industries housing, which was just a series of residential buildings made exclusively for use by Stark Industries' employees or guests and whatnot.
The accommodations were more than generous enough but for some reason, he did not feel like moving to the official residence. It was….vexing.
He had thought that this would be one of the first few steps he could take to learn more about the things happening inside a company that might help him better but he was just realising that his entire school of thinking was flawed.
Stark Industries was an old company, like pre-WWII company and while it did only grow exponentially in the past couple of decades, that root, that history allowed it to create a stable foundation, a sense of trust that was very important, perhaps even more so than the product, for a publicly traded company to thrive.
He did not want that, not in this form anyway.
"Argh," He groaned into the pillow as the choices became too many and his thoughts became jumbled. He couldn't even ask Jin'Ya for advice because the Dragon had no frame of reference for this. Jin'Ya thought that it was all just a giant waste of time. He couldn't fault the dragon for lack of trying as he had combed through the memories of multiple people on the Wall Street and in the end had come to the same conclusion as he did.
It was all f*cking pointless, at least to some degree.
He sighed and turned around, facing the ceiling now, already missing his own personal artwork on the ceiling that was most definitely going to deplete his deposit given to the landlord as the cost of repairing that was substantial.
He closed his eyes and despite not wanting to, he cycled CHI in his body. He was not really tired per se but he really needed the mental clarity that could only come with happy chemicals in his brain, something that always happened whenever he cycled CHI in his body. It never really got old, the rush of happiness that was accompanied with literal life force flowing in his body.
It could become a dangerous dependency but he made sure to have weeks between each session, just in case, to monitor his mental state during that time and he had Jin'Ya in his corner, the de-facto Astral expert on Earth. According to Jin'Ya, substance abuse is as mental as it is physical and as such, shows up in their Astral Form and can be detected by Jin'Ya with ease.
So far, he was clean.
He jerked a bit as he heard a knock in his mind, for the lack of a better term. Knowing who it was since JIn'Ya never bothers knocking, he opened the link and greeted Dr.Banner.
"What can I do for you, Dr.Banner?"
"Ah, Colin, I was just reaching out to ask about the shipment."
He sighed once more as he got up and trudged towards his personal laptop, "Just a second, I'll check."
Waving his finger over the laptop's body, he activated the enchantments on it, connecting to the invisible network in Kamar Taj using the planetary shield as a global wireless network.
"Uh, Bad news, Dr.Banner. The shipment's being delayed by a week because of some customs issue. It should be here in the first week of Feb, according to the latest update from the supplier."
"..Oh…Okay. Just let me know when it's here. I have a lot of ideas just sitting around."
He winced as he sensed the hope dwindle from the man's voice. His finger twitched as the enchantments faded away, returning his laptop to the normal mode as he spoke through the link, "Speaking of which, how goes the setting in? I know you have started exercising and made some exciting new discoveries."
He smiled as the excitement came roaring back. Scientists, a very easy bunch.
—-
"Thank you," He took the absolutely massive order of 5 Hamburgers, 2 Cheeseburgers, 2 cokes, 3 Large fries and a Lava Cake from the room service guy, who was subtly trying to look into his room to see who was going to eat this food. Smiling politely at the guy, he shut the door before any inquiries could be made.
After all, it was clobberin' time!
….Clobbering the food, that is.
___xx____
–Shuri Udaku–
"How many times do I have to tell you that I will come back once I want to," She explained patiently to T'Challa, even as she continued working on stuff that she would never want to see the light of day. Having Bast's blessings enhanced more than just her body. Her brain was shooting off ideas every which way and she needed to write them down, or else, her brain refused to settle down.
"I know, I heard you the last three times but come on! Baba is depressed and nobody knows why. It has been almost a week since you left and things have changed so much. At Least tell me what happened between you and Baba," She sighed and dispelled the holokeyboard after hearing the pleading in T'Challa's voice.
Looking at him, she paused a beat before replying, "Look, you'll know once you become King but for now, let's just say that I disagreed with one of Wakanda's long-standing policies and Baba did not agree with my request to put a stop with that practice."
T'Challa looked at her with an incredulous gaze, "W-What? You went ahead and became the strongest Black Panther Wakanda has ever had, just because you had a disagreement with Baba?"
She snapped at him, "It was not JUST a disagreement. It was physically revolting to think that Wakanda–" She stopped, took a deep breath, and said with a stoic face, "If you want to know more, just become King as soon as you can. Then you can order me for all the information you might need."
T'Challa, seeing that his transparent attempt at goading her was seen right through, chuckled nervously and replied, "Even I know that the Black Panther is not beholden to the King or even the Royal Council, should the King and the Black Panther not be the same individual."
She rolled her eyes and waved her hand, shutting down the video feed. She did not need the law recited to her verbatim. She memorised that thing when she was six and had nothing else left to read.
____xx_____
–Tony Stark—
His eyes snapped open as he took in deep breaths and then slowly turned to the side, looking at Yinsen, the man who saved his life, the man who didn't even remember meeting, "How long this time?"
Yinsen looked at his watch and then began scribbling on a small notebook that his captors gave them. Apparently, guns and missiles were aplenty in this place but ask for a pen and notebook, these guys had none of it so they had to ration fucking paper of all things in this god forsaken hell hole.
"4 hours 23 minutes and 17 seconds." Yinsen replied and he cursed. That was too much. Removing the tapes attached to some of the wires, he sat upright from the bed and held the battery in one hand and began hobbling towards the workspace created for him. It was a very generous term, to name it as a workspace when it was just a bunch of tables attached together.
"Come on, Yinsen, we have work to do. Who knows how long they'll keep me alive once they know I have to go under every day with a real possibility of never waking up." He bitterly remarked as he began working on the newly arrived Jericho missiles, his mind working as he tried to come up with a better plan than just making an exosuit and blowing this whole place up.
He did not have enough time, materials or even hands for two whole suits and it put an ugly feeling in his heart to explore an option where only he lived.
"Don't lose heart, Stark. You still have a lot to gain if you manage to get out of here. After all, you have nothing, so this is rock bottom and I don't know much about American culture but I do believe they say from this point onwards, it's only up, right?"
He chuckled at Yinsen's relentless hope and his deep speeches that somehow all hit dead centre and made him look back on his life and how he had basically squandered most of it, not making any connections, meaningful connections in his life.
It was all….so sad.
Shaking his head, he dumped the battery keeping him alive on the desk and watched it ominously move due to the weight imbalance, "SAve for the speeches for later on, Yinsen, preferably over a glass of ridiculously overpriced Wine and the best steak money can buy."
Yinsen adjusted his glasses as he looked over all of the plans they made to appease their armed overlords for the moment, "Ah, that is a nice scenario to imagine."
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