thearena | He's more dangerous than he looks...

Entry tags:

He's more dangerous than he looks...

WHO| Tony & Clint, Tony & Nick (L4D2), Tony & anyone else left standing.
WHAT| Tony's quickly becoming the Last Avenger.
WHEN| Throughout the last week of the arena
WHERE| Within the general vicinity of the Cornucopia/feast area
WARNINGS| Death, thoughts about death, Tony being murdery when he has to be.

So, about all the vodka (Tony & Clint)

To say Tony expected the flood of Vodka would be a lie, was he surprised by it? Not really. Not after the intense gin flood that he and Thor went through two arenas ago. As he picks one of the bottles up he actually thinks for Thor and frowns. They had only just become actual friends and not only had he tried to kill Tony twice in this arena, but it was Tony that killed him. That thought alone had him quickly removing the lid and taking a heavy drink from the bottle without so much as thinking about what Clint’s reaction would be let alone everyone watching him on the screens back at the tower.

“This. Is becoming a weird tradition.” Is all he says before all but nestling into the nest of bottles while still drinking. Then he blinks and looks at the bottle. “Or should we be using this on us first?”

He looks at himself a little tiredly, taking in the various cuts, scabs and burns he’s had to put up with since getting into the arena, almost looking forward to being killed, because some of the marks look pretty ugly. And he’d like to be rid of them.

That being said he simply drinks from the bottle again instead of using it to clean his wounds. Because really he’s just tired of caring, what with trying to avoid Yeti’s and survive one hell of an earthquake, on top of everything else, fixing his physical pain just doesn’t seem all that important.

Alone and Strung out

Tony had taken to doing a mix of hiding in bushes and just aimlessly wandering. He’s never lasted this long in any of the previous arenas, it’s nearly the end of the week and he knows there’s barely a handful of other tributes left. He at least knows at this point everyone is at their most tense and eager to strike out to win so the whole mess can be over and done with.

And he’s feeling the strain himself, as he wanders he leaves a large trail in the snow. He’s long given up trying to hide them because he really doesn’t have the skill to do it convincingly he’s waist deep and unexpectedly finds a dip in the earth as he falls into the snow while letting out a surprised noise, no doubt letting anyone in ear shot know where he is.
“Great. Just great…”

He half wonders if there are any Yeti still about that could of heard him and are now coming for him, but he hears an ungodly scream instead.

Really, this is how you're going to end this? (Tony & Nick)

Tony can easily say that the Mutts that have kept herding him back to the cornucopia have been an awesome experience. Freakish creatures wailing at him and attempting to call out to him are bad enough. But when they look bone-chillingly like his team mates it makes the whole experience nauseating.

So when he realises they’re trying to keep him in one area he takes the hint and heads more towards the cornucopia, it doesn’t take him long to see that there’s a table laid out with all sorts of food. As he hasn’t eaten since Bruce and Thor died –He’d been putting it off on purpose, he’s not even sure if he’s trying to punish himself or not- But the alluring smell and actual variety lure him in towards it so distracted he doesn’t immediately notice if anyone’s around him, either way, he still has the pocket knife Jolie sent him. It’s actually the only thing he’s managed to keep on him this whole time.

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Tony might not be surprised by the flood of Vodka, but Clint most certainly was. It's not the first time he's been gifted a bottle or two, and the previous moments had been brief bursts of entertainment in this place. But for now, Clint's surprised, and curious, picking up a bottle as if he can check it for poison or threat by sight alone. Nothing happens though, and Tony's over there taking long gulps from the bottle like it's all he needed to sustain himself. All told, Clint can't blame him.

So he opens his own, scanning the grounds outside, just out of habit, before settling in next to Tony. He takes a gulp, savors the burn, and favors Tony with a idly curious look.

"Tradition?"

He doesn't really care, not about some damn Arena tradition. It's idle chit-chat, something Clint's not the best at -- he'd rather focus on something else. But the truth is, Clint's been running himself into the ground ever since the caves weeks ago, where he heard voices long gone and found himself killing a kid just to escape. The bow at his back was bought with blood money, and he can't ignore it, even as he uses the weapon. He misses Natasha, she would have understood, would have seen the way he's falling apart and stitched him back together. He takes another drink, elbows resting upon bent knees, and can't quite hide the mirthless huff of laughter that escapes him.

"If y'want to. I can bandage you up, but we're running low."

He doesn't have to say that it doesn't really matter that they're running low, because this Arena's dragged on, he's pretty sure there can't be that many more of them left, and soon, the Capitol is going to want to shake things up. Clint's still new to this place, but he knows how these things work. He'll try and keep Tony alive as long as he can, but his medical skills aren't the best, and without Bruce, or Sam...

"The last arena. Er. Well, Eleven. Before you got here, it was in a mall with a skating rink" He blinks when he realising he's starting to ramble so he takes an even deeper gulp from the bottle.

"It was about this time in the arena, apparently everyone got together and sent over six hundred bottle of gin to. Uh." He pauses, unwilling to really say the name but knows he has to. "To Thor. It was..."

He nods instead of finishing the sentence. It had been good, fun, great for their morale. It was actually how they ended up being actual friends instead of team mates who actively antagonize each other. And now he was Capitol property. And dead because of Tony.

At Clint's offer to bandage Tony up, he simply shakes his head.

"You'll need it more than I do by the end of the week. They don't reset you when you win." He takes another drink, he is more than aware of the fact that in no way is he going to live in the arena much longer, Clint's the better fighter, hunter, and runner. At this point Clint's the better bet.

Clint really doesn't know Thor. Back home, he'd been the one with an arrow pointed at the big lug's head, ready o take the shot and down a weaponless god. He'd also fought with Thor, though, aching and still coming down from the blue feverpitch of Loki's control. But even battleborn camaraderie doesn't mean you really know a guy. After the guy's death, though --

Well, Clint just eyes Tony, tempered and waiting him out. Yeah, he can parse the meaning, the end of that Arena months and months ago. So a tradition, made of getting drunk in the middle of a murdergame, hell he can't judge anybody for it.

But he can roll his eyes at Tony.

"Don't make assumptions. OPs have a way of turning, you never know what'll happen."

After all, Natasha was dead, wasn't she? And the Winter Soldier -- Barnes, his name was Barnes -- and Tony had killed Thor, Steve was gone, Bruce, Sam...Clint leans back, rubs at his eyes tiredly, takes another drink. This wasn't just another OP, but it's easier to consider it like it is.

"I know that between a businessman and a trained agent surrounded by snow and things with teeth. It's probably not going to go my way."

At least one thing he can be proud of is that he doesn't sound at all worried or fearful of his no doubt imminent death. He takes another swig to celebrate this.

"Not a bad thing really. Means I'll be waking up in a penthouse suite soon enough with waffles."

He gestures with his bottle, a humorless smile wearing at his mouth. While Tony speaks the truth here, Clint can't help but play the Devil's Advocate. It's a role he's well accustomed to, though that used to be just to make Coulson roll his eyes. Mostly. Here, now, it's not entirely different.

"Or they'll target me to get a bigger fight and more entertainment." Another swig of his bottle, even as he eyes Tony. There's something about the lack of worry, the lack of fear. No doubt the guy's just hiding it, but still.

And then the tables turn and Clint's the one rolling his eyes, smile kicking up into a more real grin. Whining in a thoroughly unimpressed manner.

"Damn, I could go for some waffles. Why'd you have to remind me?"

After a contemplative look, Tony tips the bottle to Clint for a moment, admitting the man has a point.

"Only because they've had less time to find out what to use against you."

He chuckles at Clint's whine, he could always get along with anyone who appreciated waffles.

"Because I believe in sharing my pain." He smirks, okay that was a dirty lie, but he did like making people long for the same food he wanted, mostly because it was easier to get his way when it came to getting said food item. After another long drink Tony looks up at the sky and calls out.

"You know! Some waffles would really help wash all this down!"

He's not expecting anyone from the capitol to listen, but it feels good to shout it out anyway.

Not the point he probably wants to win at? but hell, Clint's always been one to take anything he could get, it's not surprising. So he grins, takes another pull of his drink, leaning back against the wall as if this was the comfiest throne he'd ever had.

It's not, but it's also not one of the worst places he's had to sprawl. So it works, probably.

Here, now, Clint's laughing, a soft little snicker against the bottle in his hand. His eyes are little blue crescents, watching Tony closely as he shouts to the heavens.

"Pretty sure it's the other way, yeah?" Yeah okay, he's being technical. Mostly, he's just being a sarcastic loser.

"Probably." Tony gives himself a mocking scoff. He drains the last of the bottle then wings it in no particular direction it flies pretty far, but doesn't break for landing in a drift of thick snow.

"But the way I'm going." He opens up another bottle, giving the lip a careful thought before starting to drink from it. "I'm going to be able to be poured into one of this bottles, so waffles can wash down the vodka tonight."

Tony bursts out laughing at the thought. After all he's just drunk an entire bottle of vodka while operating on next to no food or sleep and is it a fairly stressful environment. So of course it's easy as hell for him to be on the road to drunk right now.

A pity. The shattering sound of glass would have probably sounded so nice right around now. But it also means they don't have to worry about broken glass getting into everything, so that's pretty nice too. Whatever, it doesn't matter much -- Clint just knocks back the last bit of his own bottle, flipping it before tossing it out in vaguely the same direction. His flies farther, and he's stupidly competitive okay.

So there's a huff of laughter even as Clint opens another bottle, held loosely between his fingers. He takes a swig, leaning in against Tony's side. They're both on the way to stupid drunk, really, if someone decided to take this time to attack then it'd be a mess. Clint could probably take them, maybe, but it'd be a mess.

"If that's what you really want." He is totally just egging Tony on, nobody should be surprised.

Even in his drunk mind Tony can tell that Clint's bottle had gone farther. Clint wasn't the only competitive one here, so there was a slight tinge of annoyance and a quiet tinge of determination to finish the bottle he had so he could attempt to lob it further.

As Clint leans on Tony, Tony's reaction is to lean on back, after all Tony is nothing if not a companionable and friendly drunk.

"The waffles or the being poured because." He stops as he appears to lose his train of thought before turning his face skyward again. "I'm still noticing a lack of waffles here!"

He hadn't so much lost his thought so much as decided to once again drunkenly protest to the game makers over his lack of dimpled pancakes.

"Don't forget the cream and Strawberries!... Chocolate too!"

What can he say? Clint never misses, even if it's simply a bottle and a bank of snow.

Still, he misses the companionship, the contact, that comes with having a large group. Clint's not actually the biggest fan of casual contact with people, but it'd been nice having the others here. Meant the cold of this Arena was a little less, meant the loneliness wasn't as sharp.

He misses Natasha, so goddamn much. But she's waiting for him in the Capitol, so it's an easy decision to continue, to watch over Tony and try to keep the both of them alive as long as possible. The drinks maybe aren't helping, but whatever, most people left are probably doing the same as them anyway. Clint simply snickers as Tony yells at the sky again, face turned in against his shoulder.

"Syrup," Clint reminds Tony, because clearly the best option here is to work with the crazy instead of against it.

Tony nods a little to enthusiastically as the cold and the liquor are getting to him more than they normally should, as he shouts for syrup too. He waits and watches, but nothing comes. Which he had expected.

So he just takes another swig and then just puts the bottle down in his nest. He's feeling the loneliness of it all too. It's a familiar feeling for him but right now, alcohol without the mindless party goers isn't being enough of a distraction.

"You know what?"

Tony doesn't wait for a reply he just stands straight up, he falls immediately over, because he's not only drunk and standing up too fast but he was standing up on a pile of bottles which never make for a good thing to stand on. He bursts out into laughter while his head is buried in snow, then scrambles up still giggling a little to himself as he starts lining up the bottles. He has a drunk determination to build a fort out of the bottles and starts babbling about dimensions and stability as he lines up bottles for a wall that seems to be going 3 bottles deep.

Well, this is definitely not what he expected. Maybe Clint's a little too drunk, but he goes with it still. Laughs outright as Tony jolts up and topples immediately over. Clint goes slower, steadily, and slinks over to help haul Tony out of his snowy bed and further line up bottles. The babbling goes over his head, dimensions and stability and all that junk. All he does is follow suit, stacking bottle after bottle.

"Do we have enough?"

He states, knowing that they've got way too many bottles on hand, but who knows what crazy idea Tony's cooked up in that genius, drunk, brain of his?

"Not enough to make a roof."

He states simply, because of course he's already done all the math needed and laid a design out in his head. Then he pauses, his body keening to the side slowly and he looks completely unaware of it.

"Unless we made an igloo with them. But I'm not doing that, too obvious considering."

He rights himself as he starts lining up more bottles to make a base about 4x4 feet.

"Do you know how to thatch?"

Of course that doesn't mean Tony hasn't thought of roofing alternatives.

Clint hums in agreement, looking over their army of bottles. It looks like quite a lot, honestly, but maybe not enough for the both of them. He has no idea what's going on any more, but really, working with Tony is kind of just enabling his crazy and trying to put out the smaller fires.

Or something like that.

"Do you?" He queries, unsure. Does he know how to thatch? Is that even defensible?

"The fundamentals. But I'm working here." He points to the bottles, knocking one over. Then he looks up at Clint with a drunk, but teasing look.

"But. If you don't. It's okay, you can just sit in the fort and I'll make it when I'm finished. It's okay not everyone's good at tying grass and sticks together."

Because even drunk, Tony knows how to throw down a challenge.

Ah yes, working so hard. Clint eyes the knocked over bottle, before looking up at Tony with one brow raised, sure, he totally believes you. Which is right about when Tony throws down a challenge and dammit Clint can't ignore one, especially when drunk. He smirks, gesturing with his own bottle.

"What, talkin' bout yourself? I'd believe it when I see it."

By the final week, Nick has practically run himself into the ground with hunger. The amount of killing and running he's done could get him a life sentence longer than a cat could afford to pay. At this point, he'd almost take prison. Prison has food and Nick hasn't even seen a goose to hunt for what feels like far too long. This Arena has stretched on too long, he knows that. If everyone is as hungry as him, they'll be easy targets too.

The allure of the Cornucopia is so strong that it overrides his suspicion. The weapons are tempting, but he doesn't even realise how low on bullets he is. He makes an embarrassing beeline for the food, but he barely finishes his mouthful before he spies Tony out of the corner of his eye. If the lack of a crowd around the food is any indication, they could be the last two people here.

A headshot would be easy, sort of. His hands are shaking from hunger, but it also lacks the gravitas that a smug asshole like Nick desires. So he steps out of hiding, gun raised as he lets out a hollow laugh and punctuates it will a bite out of the donut he'd almost abandoned.

"Guess you made it a little longer than a week, eh? That's a shame." He's trying to be smooth, but there's something wild and desperate about his expression. He's that tired and hungry and verging on delirious that he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Tony starts when he hears a voice. Dropping a sandwich he had half way to his mouth, when he sees it's Nick who's addressing him he looks incredibly suspicious. Knowing this is never someone to trust.

"Shame, huh? And how is that?"

He keeps his attention on Nick, forcing himself not to pay attention to the weapon in the other mans hand, hoping that by ignoring it Nick will be less willing to use it. He wants to touch his knife in his belt for some reassurance, but he keeps still instead, not wanting to give the guy any reason to shoot him more than the obvious 'it's you or me' tension the arena is thick with.

"Because me? I'm kind of enjoying the whole, not being dead angle right now."

"You know damn why." He spits out. Unlike Tony, he isn't going for the subtle approach. He's stalking forward, knowing he holds the advantage in his hot little hands. There's nothing Tony can do now, it's just the two of them and Nick is the one with the ticket out.

"You made it this far, now you're going home." He spells it out, lifting the gun so he can aim it at Tony. "I'll see you on the other side." It's the last thing he mutters before squeezing the trigger, only to be greeted with the gut wrenching click of an empty gun. The smirk drops from his lips immediately and a cold fear fills him. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. This is the absolute worst timing in the history of the world.

"GodDAMNIT." He spits, flinging the gun at Tony's head as a last resort before he fumbles for his knife.

"Looks like it." Tony says cautiously as the gun is aimed at him. He doesn't try to run or defend himself, after all he used to design guns so he knows that in any kind of hands at this distance anything he does or doesn't do is going to cause him to bleed.

He still flinches when Nick goes to pull the trigger, squeezing his eyes shut at the same time. Waiting for the bullet to rip through him. Only it doesn't. He hears the empty click and knows exactly what that means, Nick's got nothing in the chamber. Tony opens an eye curiously seeing Nick with only a curse on his lips.

When the gun comes flying at Tony however he does duck and instead of hitting him directly in the face it does hit his temple, cutting the skin open. He doesn't waste time worrying about the fact he's now bleeding and pulls out his own knife.

"Really not how I wanted to end my day for the record."

There is a moment of brief satisfaction when the gun hits Tony's head. It might not have been a square shot, but the sound is enough to give him a little bit of happiness.

"Yeah? Me either." He quips back, his knife is out and he starts to circle again. He's done this a hundred times, he's fought hoards of zombies off and he's stabbed plenty of fucking people. He doesn't need a gun, he just needs to act fast.

He steps in closer, slashing his knife intimidatingly at Tony in an attempt to spook him or make him back down.

While Tony didn't tend to be in all that many fights over his life. Tony at least knew how to fight a little after becoming Iron Man, so Nick slashing at him didn't intimidate him remotely, but it did have him anticipate the follow throw.

Leaning away from the slash, Tony slaps at Nicks knife hand to keep the momentum going as he slashes at him with his own blade.

He was better with guns in his opinion, but he knew arteries where and could probably get away with puncturing one of them.

Everything about Tony implies that he'd go down easy in a fight. Nick expects the slash to intimidate him, he doesn't plan for it to work against him. The slap surprises him enough to have him drop his fucking knife which leaves him even more vulnerable.

He steps back, glancing around wildly before he decides to say the hell with it and aims a swift punch to the side of Tony's head. He has no idea if he'll make it through this, but like he'll he's going down without a fight.

"Guess, 'don't assume' is the-" Tony starts as a reaction to Nick looking clearly surprised at Tony's ability to defend himself, but doesn't get to finish as the fist comes swinging at his face.

His initial reaction is to lean back and away from the fist, his knife hand coming up as a reaction. When he realises his hand is coming up he flicks his wrist to slash out at the arm Nicks using to swing at him.

Tony really has no want to kill the guy, and unlike the others he's killed in his life he's knows Nicks doing this to survive. Not because he's ordered to or has thirsted for Tony's blood for whatever reason.
So for the second he's out to wound, not kill.

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He's more dangerous than he looks...

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