Study Room - Fandom Community Center, Saturday Evening
After spending all morning and afternoon the controller discs, Tony felt it was about time to give them a test run. In town so, Mr. Rogers couldn't get upset with him for breaking improving school owned tech.
"You know, I didn't know this place existed," Tony said, voicing the thoughts of so, so many on the island as he tapped away at his laptop to take readings on the discs.
"You need to get out into the town more, Tony," Bruce said. Because of course he had toured through the community center. Handwavily.
"You missed out on a place where studying happens?" asked Stephanie, who had totally scouted out the building herself. Imagine that. "Wow, Tony. You're falling down on the job."
Ben also knew the building was there, but had slotted it into the area of his brain devoted to potential safe havens during an invasion that also had no food.
In other words, not that interesting.
"It's got a different ambiance than the abandoned warehouse district," Ben said, "and is a shorter walk I think. I'm not pulling up the map right now. I approve of shorter walks."
"You'd think they'd name it something more tourist friendly," Jack said. "'Abandoned warehouse district' is asking for trouble."
"At least you know exactly what you're getting," Ramona mused, hands shoved into her pockets.
"It's actually a pretty clean area in town," Tony replied helpfully. From all his experience there with the secret lab from which to fight crime. Laaa.
He cleared his throat before continuing. "Okay, controller discs on! Let's try to turn out the lights!"
A beat.
"Just in this room. I think more and the troopers would show up."
Ben fiddled with the totally silly headband thing. "Maybe someone who can't normally do that should try first, just to be sure," he suggested.
"Don't look at me," said Stephanie, who was headband-free and not really envying the others for it. "I'm light-switch-deficient on a good day."
Yes, that was sarcasm.
"I'll try," Jack said. "Tony, you really need to work on making your inventions look less dorky." Jack looked up towards the light and concentrated, trying to will the light to switch off.
"You have to start with something. After the technology has been worked out, then it can be repackaged," Bruce pointed out. What? He appreciated science at work. And yes, he was absolutely trying to turn the light off with his mind, even if he didn't call it.
"A lot," Ben added with a quick grin before focusing on turning off the lights.
"Hey, it's not that bad," said the kid who wore a metal suit of armor.
"Tony, I think we've safely proven that telling the difference between dorky and not isn't your strong suit, honey," Ramona drawled, before her voice faded off, and she went still.
"I'm still with you, Tony. This is perfectly acceptable for a prototype," Bruce said, that last word trailing just slightly before Bruce started sitting very still.
Ben's eyes went wide as his danger sense started blaring at him. "I have a--"
Alas, he went still before he could finish that thought.
Jack had still been focusing on the lights. The only sign that something wasn't right was the frown on his face fading to a completely blank expression.
That was a pretty clear warning sign that something was wrong. (No, really?)
"Tony?" Stephanie said warily, reaching down to curl her fingers around the strap of her backpack, where it was resting against her chair. "Tell me that wasn't in the programming."
"Um." Tony rushed around to his laptop again, looking over the overly complex readings. "This doesn't make any sense. It's like the discs were reversed and instead of the mind controlling the discs..."
WHAT. WHAT WAS IT, TONY?
"..the discs are controlling them."
OH GOD. WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED THAT A SHADY GUY IN A SUIT WOULD HAVE TRICKED HIM?
"Wait, wait, wait." Stephanie got up out of her chair, slinging her backpack over her shoulder as she came over to peer at . . . readings that might as well have been Sanskrit to her. "You're telling me something screwed up and now they're being mind-controlled?"
Aaaaaaaaand that'd be Stephanie swatting him in the arm. "God, Tony! You never saw that coming?"
Tony winced, glancing down at his own backpack. For no reason at all. "He seemed legit!"
Bruce turned toward Tony and gave a business-like yet very evil smile. "AIM thanks you for your work, Mr. Stark."
Jack's head turned but his body stayed where it was, making for a very awkward pose. "Unfortunately we are no longer in need of your services."
"I'd say you had a bright future ahead of you, but that won't be the case," Ramona intoned, her head tilting to one side stiffly.
Ben decided to horde his villainous dialogue for another moment, and instead launched himself bodily (if not terribly effectively, for once) toward Tony and Stephanie.
"Oh, that's not good," Stephanie announced -- unnecessarily, but sometimes you just had to say these things out loud for the benefit of the readers . . . something. To hell with secret identity worries; she couldn't just stand around and let creepily tech-zombified friends do something that sounded pretty terminal.
She reached out to grab Tony by the arm and hustle him out of the room and into the hallway. "Come on, come on, come on, let's move!"
Maybe she could shove him into a closet somewhere for his own safety and get away long enough to change . . .
"My backpack!" His deus ex machina in a bag! Why are you trying to take this from him? Tony struggled back into the area where mind controlled people wanted to kill him to grab the backpack before rushing after her.
Maybe he could shove her into a closet somewhere for her own saftey and get away long enough to change...
[[NFB or interaction, but OOC is always love. Preplayed with: batwaffles, momslilassassin, dabblinginbitch, notlikebobby, and willbethenight. Who all get cookies for indulging my crack.]]