12 / 20 / 08 - Ryan, Stark
This is a bar. Behind it, there are drinks. It is not a very stylish bar and tonight the women are only middling hot. But that is okay, because there is good alcohol and they will let you drink it. None of the middling-hot women are interested in Ryan, and that is even more okay with him, because women are TROUBLE, and he is here to drink. And he does, taking a prime spot at the end of the bar where he can lean a shoulder against the wall as he nurses his drink, looking thoughtfully down into the glass.
Stark's entrance lacks class: there is no fanfare from attendant musicians, no scattering of rose petals by nubile virgins. He just walks in, thumbs open his coat, and walks up to the bar. "Hey," he calls to the bartender. "Heard you got a bottle of--" He names something interesting, for serious alcohol-fans. I don't know what it is. It's probably pretty awesome, though. He then makes a 'pour some' gesture, and only then glances over those present. Women are disappointing. Ryan is ... male. Darn.
Bros before hos, Stark. Bros before hos. Ryan tips up his chin in greeting to Stark, and if there's the familiar pause and stare of celebrity recognition, it is restrained quickly and redirected to his drink quickly. "That's good stuff," he comments, casually.
"So I've heard." Stark fidgets impatiently as he waits for the glass, and pulls it close once he has claimed it. "I think it must be the one thing I've never tried," he muses, lifting the glass to squint at it a moment before taking a healthy sip. Not that he's an alcoholic.
Ryan nods, and does not offer further comment on the alcohol, preferring to take another drink for himself. As he finishes, he glances sidelong, curious and doing a poor job of hiding it.
Stark takes another sip. His gaze wanders the bottles behind the bars, tracing of familiar labels. After a moment or two, he turns to meet the weight of Ryan's sidelong glance with the arch of a dark eyebrow.
"What are you guys up to, now that you're not doing guns and bombs anymore?" Ryan asks suddenly, with the air of one perhaps a little reluctant to see the guns and bombs go.
Stark snorts. He looks down into his glass, and traces the rim with the sweep of his thumb. He looks over at Ryan again, expression reserved but voice touched with something dry: "Working on world peace. Why, are you an investor? Sorry about all that--." He wiggles his hand in a roller coaster fashion.
"No, an engineer," Ryan admits, his words slurring just a teensy bit. "Always wanted to work for you guys, you know. Get to blow things up in a lab for a living." Knocking them down is almost as good. "World peace probably doesn't need engines, though."
"What sort of engineering?" Stark asks. If he's been previously sampling various liquors, it doesn't show. His words are clear and his gaze is sharp as curiosity transfers to Ryan.
"Mechanical engineering -- specialty's hydraulics," Ryan explains, and empties his drink, pushing forward the empty glass to the bartender and nodding, significantly. More.
Stark finishes his glass with haste, so as to benefit from Ryan's attracting the bartender's attention. More! "So why didn't you work for us?"
"When I started out, the wife wanted to stay in Pennsylvania," Ryan explains, drawing his glass back to him, full of that lovely liquid again. "And now -- " He shrugs, and drinks. "Long story."
"Did you work for Shaw Industries?" Stark asks, just a hint of long-dead competitiveness giving an edge to his voice. Pittsburgh, after all, /was/ Shaw's home.
"A&G construction," Ryan answers, shaking his head. "Cranes. Dozers. Excavators." A small gleam enters his eyes, self-satisfied in at least that much.
"Oh." Stark's expression clears, and he goes, "Ah. Hydraulics, huh? We aren't out of the arms manufacture business, you know," he adds, straightening. "We're just taking extra steps to ensure that we not only lead the industry in safety and security, but set new standards."
Ryan smiles, just slightly bitter. "That's good," he says, lifting his glass in tribute to safety and security before tipping back another drink. "Good for you guys. I'm sure this -- " A twirled finger /probably/ indicates the economy. " -- can't keep tanking for too long. Things'll turn around."
"Maybe instead of buying a car, I can just buy a car /company/," Stark mutters into his glass. On the subject of the economy, he is careless and blithe. Jerk. "Stockton's got some smart people around him, anyway."
"Car companies are selling for very cheap, now," Ryan comments, with a short burst of laughter. "But would you really want one that was for sale? What would you even do with factories that were made for turning out Dodge Stratuses?" He pauses, reconsidering his glass, and amends. "Strati."
"Reconfigure them to make Sentinel body armor. Just imagine: a suit of armor for every family," Stark says with a spread of his hands in a happy rainbow arch.
"I don't know if I'd trust armor out of a Dodge factory," Ryan says with a shake of his head. "The transmission would flake out within the first year and the warranty guys would take one look at it and pretend that it didn't happen on every Sentinel, it's just you didn't know how to /drive/ one." No, he does not sound at all bitter from personal experience at all.
Stark slants a look at Ryan across the rim of his glass. "Oh. Well," he says, taking a sip and then lowering the glass to rest in a loose cradle of fingers. "I'll just have to think of something else, then. Above all else, we do want people to /trust/ the armor."
"Fucking Dodge," Ryan grouses, and drinks to that. "Well, Sentinel's got quite a bit of work left on it anyway, if you want one in every house, don't you? Too big right now. They'd just park it in the garage and forget about it, and then when there was a mutant attack, it wouldn't be handy."
"They aren't that big," Stark says, the mildest sort of defensiveness edging his voice. "They are /solid/." Big-boned, another might say. "It's not like you can just stick a suit of body armor like that in a briefcase and carry it around."
"Can't go through a doorway with it, either," Ryan rebutts, the alcohol rendering him honest. "Or onto the subway, for that matter. So why'd anybody want to buy it, if you'll be just like every other sucker when some mutant kid flips his lid? Don't get me wrong -- I'm glad the cops have got 'em. I just don't see how you're planning to market to anybody else."
"Can't go through a doorway with it," Stark echoes. "Well, we'll just have to build bigger doorways, won't we?"
Ryan glances around him, at where he lives, New York City, the land of tiny doorways and low ceilings. "Or smaller suits."
Stark doesn't look at all like a boy with two hands stuffed in the cookie jar up to the elbows. Not in the /slightest/. He is just drinking. He snorts. "Have any bright ideas on how to do that? Send your resume over."
"You don't want me to work for you," Ryan says with a shake of his head, considering his glass quietly.
"Ah, good. Crisis averted, then," Stark answers, dark eyebrows lifting just slightly.
Ryan drains the last of his drink and then pushes the empty glass away, rising to his feet with a suddenly grim expression.
Stark looks after Ryan with an expression of mild curiosity, but does not pursue: not in word, and not in action. Only his gaze asks questions, and even that is soon hidden behind the lift of his glass.
Ryan settles up his bill, quietly, and then steps out into the falling snow, jacket huddled close around him. THE END.
Old men. FIRST CHALLENGE LOG.