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Summary: Taskmaster goes to the Avenger Mansion for medical assistance after his fight in Hells Kitchen and to also give Iron Man valuable information on the entire event that transpired.
Date: June 21, 2011
Log Title: Of Flames and Frustrations
Rating: PG-13
NYC - The Avenger Mansion (Medical Facility)
This room is the essence of the sterile clinic, cold and metallic. There are several beds situated about the room, with privacy curtains available for each, as well as a wall filled with supplies and medications. The medtech is kept out of sight when not in use, but the facility is certainly state-of-the-art and able to handle the sort of injuries a troop of superheroes are inclined to bring in.
It's been a few hours since Hell's Kitchen caught on fire, and Taskmaster has somehow found a way to get inside the Avenger mansion without tripping all the alarms (again.) However, this time he's managed to get to the medical facility to take care of the injuries he'd sustained while fighting Tabitha. Taskmaster is standing in front of one of the mirrors in the room, shirtless, face clearly visible and is assessing the damage. Mostly, it's a few minor cuts and bruises and a few first degree burns here and there. However, his right shoulder is hanging unnaturally. He clearly dislocated it.
Surprisingly enough the mansion security has been programmed to allow Taskmaster entry for now due to the mans wish to be a part of the superhero organization. Limited access of course as Tony's far from stupid. Having been alerted to Tasky's presence at the mansion Tony's dropped in quite literally via the access from the Towers to the Avenger Mansion. The carpet of the halls is muffling the sound of metal boots heading towards the medbay so the armored man arrives and takes up a lean against a nearby wall. "Yes, you do look fat. Meant to tell you that ages ago."
Having been notified by Tony about this, Pietro arrives fashionably late. You know, breezing in a second behind Tony, just in time to hear that Tony thinks it makes Task look fat. There is no quip from the speedster. He's wearing casual attire, and is frowning over this all. "What's going on?" That Task has no mask on? Doesn't really care. Pietro never did worry about his own ID, so thinks little of it in others.
Having been training within the lower levels Vance was lifting weights hoping to improve his own physical strength. After a few reps, He wipes his sweat from his forehead. "Damn, I need to work out more." He stands p and stretches and using his telekinesis to lift the weights that he had some difficulty lifting under his own strength. However, his Avengers com goes off and also hearing from Tony that Taskmaster is present, Vance is surprised and then flies into the medbay after his teammates as he looks at Taskmaster never having seen the man maskless or shirtless. Blinking, "Um, did I miss something?" He eyes Taskmaster suspiciously.
"And you're ugly," quips Taskmaster back at Iron Man, as he studies his shoulder. He sighs with resignation as he mutters to himself, "This is gonna hurt like a bitch.." He, then, walks over to where there's railing built into the wall and grabs onto it with his right hand. "Ya missed out on an insane rat girl robbing a bank and then setting fire to Hell's Kitchen," answers the mercenary. He, then, dips and twists his body expertly, his shoulder resocketing itself with an audible *pop* "Ah! Sunovabitch!"
Tony reaches up a gauntlet to stroke his go-t thoughtfully. "I am at that, Tasky." Clearly Stark is far from ugly but it is rather fun to play around with the other Tony in the room. When Pietro arrives, "Not sure why we've got a half naked injured Avenger hopeful in our midst." Hopefully Vance caught that when he arrived to the very popular medbay. "I do hope your not body conscious…oww that looked like it hurt…" Tony trails off the moment Task resockets the shoulder. Shudders sympathetically. "No one invited me to the barbeque. This girl?" A screen near Taskmaster used for medical data flips on and a picture of Tabitha Jones is on the screen.
Pietro folds his arms over his chest. "Yes, yes, you're both very pretty, girls. Can we move on to something of relevance?" And content he gets. Doesn't even wait for confirmation before he says, "Ha. I told you." Speaking to Tony of course. Who else is a rat girl that makes trouble. "Certainly didn't take her long to show her true colors." For all the speedster felt she did that at the very beginning. And to think Tony tried hard to help her. The Speedster seems untroubled by the resocketing, but that's more because he can hide his emotions fairly easily with super speed than that he is unmoved. "Are we letting SHIELD take care of this?"
"Dude that looked like it hurt!" Wincing at Taskmaster's shoulder lock and pop, Vance looks between his teammates to Taskmaster and back again. Thankfully, Vance is not the attack first and ask questions later. And with Iron Man and Quicksilver here, he would only be back-up anyway. When he catches the 'Avenger Hopeful' comment, his expression shows his surprise, but then considering his own history. He makes no comment. He looks to Taskmaster, "You got beat by a little girl?" He asks Taskaster and asks Iron Man, "So what exactly happened in the encounter with the girl? If she can best Taskmaster, then, she's gotta be good." *pause* "or bad if she is robbing banks and setting fires."
Taskmaster takes a moment to catch his breath, and stands up again, straightening his back. The glare that Vance gets could burn holes in adamantite. "If you think it's that easy I'll take you on right now, and I'll make you wish you'd never opened that mouth." With that he walks back to one of the beds to where the rest of his costume is and he picks up his mask. "She wasn't in her right mind," he explains, popping out a small SD card from the mask, and flicking it over to Iron Man. "Kept goin' on about how she had to get to some transponder. In the bank vault. Somebody's been messin' with your girl."
Tony holds up his hands, "Alright children let's play nice and get to the matter at hand. Also not my girl. I would like to point out that she's not capable of taking Taskmaster on. Pietro of course knows this though Justice clearly does not. Just a bit of info there FYI." A SD card goes sailing through the air getting caught in one hand and accessed immediately. Dark brows narrow as the entire fight from last night plays back for him.
"Impressive restraint there Task. At some point she's come across Mindbender." The chip is tossed back over to the bed where Task has camped out his gear. "Though I do have to get a laugh out of you getting fired upon by two clearly dense teens who thought it wise to take a shot at a target in close combat with the person trying to put an end to the situation." Sad shake of his head, "Kids these days…"
His questions unanswered, Pietro moves out of the doorway to allow Vance a chance to enter. Pretty much plants himself against a wall and holds it up. "Are you certain of that?" Mindbender he means. "She does have a history of doing foolish things for those who ask, and for being excessive and violent. You are giving her too much credit I believe." Doesn't go one for now as there may be more to learn.
Shaking his head, Vance keeps his mouth shut when after Tony notes that the other Tony showed restraint and the girl (not of her own mind) could not take Taskmaster anyway, "Hey, no disrespect. You have taken on teams of Avengers before on your own." Though Vance thinks to himself that he was not on any of those line-ups at the time. "Well good luck on making the team, if Tony vouches for ya, then good for you." When Mindbender is mentioned, Vance questions, "Mindbender? Is that one of the villains from St Louis that was in the news? What was the other's name? Upgrade?" When Pietro moves to the side Vance flies into the room, "Thanks."
"Speaking of which," Taskmaster says, catching the card with his left hand. "Do you happen to know who they are?" He turns back to his mask and reinserts the card. At the mention of Mindbender he just chuckles humorlessly. "Yeah. I figured as much." He starts to don his mercenary's costume, clearly favoring his right arm as he does so.
"The flaming duo? No, thankfully. Task doesn't have my approval in case anyone was keeping tabs on the mans application status." Tony pushes away from the wall to stand in the center of the others which is also conveniently the middle of the room. "Mindbender and Upgrade are in fact the escaped villains from St.Louis. As for the rest it is easier if I just showed you all the events of last night." With that the monitors in the room begin playing the file Taskmaster had given to Tony a moment ago which clearly shows Tabitha insanity and her increased fighting abilities which only Pietro would know to be different as Vance has never seen Tabitha in action to his knowledge.
Arms refolded and Pietro decides to hold his silence. Nothing said as the footage plays, or afterwards. His lips are thinned however and he looks displeased. Then again in this situation who wouldn't.
It's quite clear that in the video Taskmaster did, in fact, hold back. There's a part of the video, near the beginning, when the mercenary could have put a bullet in the head of the mutant, thus saving who knows how many lives and how many dollars worth of property damage from the melee and resulting fire. Taskmaster scowls we he watches this, before pulling the mask back over his face. "I should have ended it right there," he says, voice low. "It would have saved everybody a lot of trouble."
Tony breathes out slowly with his shoulders sinking under an invisible weight. "Your seeing the other side of the coin for the first time, Task. It is your job to decide what the right course of action is for the situation weighing the pro's and con's as quickly as you can. Yes, the good guys" Using single finger quotes in the air to emphasize that, "tend not to shoot people in the back of the head." Knowing that Tabitha has been affected by Mindbender and having cost many their lives weighs heavily on the man. "Pietro, keep an eye out?" There's a very subtle nod from the speedster who takes his leave of the room in the next moment.
Never having encountered Taskmaster before in combat or in person for that matter, Vance has only heard his reputation as a mimic type fighter with the skills of Captain America, Hawkeye, an Daredevil to name a few. It is clear that Taskmaster held back. Vance shakes his head nodding in favor of Taskmaster, but that ends abruptly when he hears what Taskmaster, "We don't always win in obvious ways. What you think of as a loss could have ended worse. Much worse." Most likely for the others involved. "So who is this Tabitha? You know her?" Vance has not been by Barnes in awhile and so he is not familiar with the new students.
Taskmaster turns his mask to Vance, his voice as sharp as any knife. "Don't you lecture me boy. You haven't earned the right to it." The implication is that Iron Man has. Once he's done strapping the rest of his hardware to him. He walks over to where the prescription strength drugs are and unlocks it (How does he keep breaking into these things?) and roots around in it until he finds what he's looking for: Vicodin. "Anyway. It's your trouble now," he says pocketing the bottle. "Though I'm in mind to find out who those other two are and give them a lesson in small unit tactics they'll never forget."
Deciding to deal with the man who has a short fuse first Tony addresses Task. "They could probably stand to have a bit of a lesson. I have been thinking about your desire to join up with the team for a time, and though you've done about as well as can be expected in that situation last night," meaning Task did an incredible job not killing anyone when he easily could have at least three times, "I want to offer you an option. I'm sure some will just love this idea but I'm putting it out on the table. If I can get you in to a situation where you would be training others again would you accept it?"
The questions posed by Justice he decides to answer in the shortest fashion possible instead of giving the kid a history workup. "I know her, personally. She's a student that's has abysmal karma and a penchant for getting into trouble. I'll give you a file on her after we're done here."
Laughing when Taskmaster makes the comment an just shaking his head as he thinks, <God, why must they always have an attitude?> Vance shrugs and listens to Tony give an option to Taskmaster. Vance cannot protest Taskmaster's attempt to join the team. Vance was accepted and given he is an ex-con. The Avengers give people second chances, Pietro and Vance are examples of that. He says a silent mental prayer to himself, <God, please don't let him be an asshole. Please don't let him be an asshole> He nods to Tony, "Ok. I'll see if I can get any information on Mindbender and Upgrade as well."
Taskmaster starts striding for the door to let himself out when Iron Man poses a question that gives him a pause. "Maybe," is his answer. "I'd need more details before I commit one way or the other." He, then continues to stride out the door. "But not now. I've got other things to do tonight." With that, he just shoulders past Vance and makes his leave. Yup. He's an asshole.
A nod for Taskmasters response as the man is on his way out. There's no since in mentioning any details when the situation may not pan out. Tony turns towards Vance. "Don't mind him. That's more words than he's probably spoken in a six months. I've sent you a file on what we have on Mindbender and Upgrade as well as limited information on Tabitha." Vance could poke around the SHIELD database to gain information on Tabitha but it will be the same as what Tony has sent. What information on the teen that Tony has personally stays with him. "I'll be forwarding this all to the others as well. For now I suggest we see of what use we can be over in Hells Kitchen."
"Alright, I'll head over to Hells Kitchen and then review the files as well." He watches Taskmaster go and just shakes his head, "Well, you guys took me. So I guess everyone deserves a chance." Vance smirks and then heads out, "This should be an interesting time."
