[X] Call JARVIS : Your supercomputer AI buttler could hack every piece of telecomunication equipment in here and fast enough at data analysis to come up with answers for you very quickly. Plus having all the other things he can do to save your ass.
[X] - Write-In : Try to get a calm evacuation going with Hank and Reed's help. Our serious nature and Hank's obvious (if you look) injury should help convince Reed, and at that point we can hopefully get the general conference to get out of there. Having more brainpower working together can't hurt at improvising solutions if things go FUBAR even further.
Spoiler for this text-update (on how I determined the results) :
I rolled three dice - 2, 9, 20. The first made Reed's assistance impossible, the second basically screwed up JARVIS - but the third saved everyone's lives, so that's something at least! Anyway, I tried to incorporate as much of the write-ins as possible. This is probably the longest update so far, and the next one is liable to be a pretty neat one too.
Yeah, you were probably not expecting this so soon, eh? Gotta love the fact that you all decided to go for the first 'mission' you were offered. 
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"Guns are not allowed on the premises, you must know," Pym said distractedly, but you had known the answer before you asked - it made too much sense. Of course nobody had guns around here - considering how many of the local geniuses were critical of your military connections, it was no real surprise.
Freaking
liberals.
You slipped one hand into your pocket even as you grasped Pym by the shoulder, not too subtly dragging him along. Paranoia or not - you weren't taking any chances with a repeat performance of your own capture. "We get out - now. No waiting, no maybes. When I was taken, everyone else there
died. I'm not allowing that again - not here, not ever."
Pym didn't answer verbally, but his quick and nervous nod was quite enough.
"Hank - for pity's sake, stay behind me," you added after a moment. "We've got to work ourselves back outside. If whoever is after you is nasty, then we need to get you out - you're the target here. Everything else is secondary."
"Mr. Stark -" Peter said nervously, rubbing his wrist as he glanced behind him. "Shouldn't we raise an alarm or something, then? With all these people here, things might get hairy."
The boy didn't question your fear, however illegitimate it might be - in fact, he seemed to take it every bit as seriously. Neither had the boy stepped aside to let the probably paranoid people run off - instead, he was sticking around, looking ready to punch somebody if need be. Heh. You were beginning to like the twerp already. He reminded you a little of Rhodey.
"I know you mean well, Peter, but a panic would just make people run around and get hurt. As long as we don't know what we're dealing with, keep things
quiet."
The boy nodded in understanding. "...I know kung-fu. If we need it. I can totally kick ass."
"...Good to know," you said, grimacing to yourself when you realized that a sixteen-year old probably had more to offer than you did on that front. "Keep an eye out, will you? I'm gonna try and get us some recon," you muttered under your breath as you flipped open your phone. The holographic display came to life without even a flicker, and it took mere moment to type out a basic message, something pithy. You knew just who to call.
'> JRVS - got trouble - listen in & alert auth'
You didn't get a response beyond the briefest blinks of a LED, but that was quite enough - you'd designed the system to be covert. Getting a text to Jarvis was a little hypothetical you'd brought up in a lazy hour, just a week or two before - it was paying off far sooner than you'd expected. Of course, you hadn't expected a kidnapping scenario again so soon.
Seconds after you'd pressed send, the screen of your phone changed, and vague red text appeared, barely visible from more than a few inches away.
'I am linked in. Currently analyzing venue for escape routes, alerting local authorities.'
You nodded confidently, knowing that Jarvis was probably already hooked into every security camera around - he knew exactly where you were, after all. Judging from the crappy art style and the hideous paintings on the walls, the building had probably once been a museum - its security system had to be of some quality.
Pym didn't protest as you pushed him along through a throng of party-goers that clearly had no idea that anything might be wrong, and Peter dutifully made pictures, even though it was plenty clear that he wasn't paying attention to it in the slightest. His eyes kept focusing on the hallways that led deeper into the building.
'All infrared sensors have been deactivated or uncoupled, sir - most of the security system has been physically disabled outside the main hall,' Jarvis reported, and you cursed under your breath. There went most of your reconnaissance.
'I am currently listening in on chatter - several people have mentioned a 'man in red' that was seen in one of the side-corridors.'
"Hank -" you said, and Pym started. "Did you get a look at who was stalking you? What was the guy wearing?"
"I don't know," Pym admitted. "I didn't see - it was dark…"
You frowned. "Right - that makes me wonder. What
were you doing back there? Anything beyond the main hall was cordoned off for a reason. There's not even any displays left, I'm guessing, if all the cameras are off…"
"...I don't suppose you'd accept curiosity as an answer?" Pym inquired a little sheepishly, before he looked away. "Alright… it was just, I thought I saw -" The man colored. "I thought I saw Janet, alright? She told me she didn't want to come with me, said she'd be bored, but then I saw her. I figured she was playing a joke on me, and slipped away into one of the back rooms to lure me over there. I thought she was trying to - um." He coughed nervously, his embarrassment briefly overpowering even the tinge of fear that wouldn't leave. "Well…"
"Lure you into doing unspeakable things in the strangest of places?" Peter said with a tiny smile. "I wouldn't know what that's like."
You would have told the boy off, but honestly your mind had landed in the exact same gutter.
"I'm guessing that just when you thought you'd be getting off, you were attacked," you concluded wryly. "That's low. Someone lured you in with the promise of booty, then just toyed with you instead..." You gestured vaguely to your neck as you stepped around a rather loud crowd. "It sounds like you've got some real crazies after you, you know. A proper assassin would have just killed you - and a proper kidnapper would have taken you in right then."
Pym gulped nervously as he nodded. "...It doesn't make sense."
Peter frowned. "Um, I don't suppose you happened to notice any - game show elements out there?" he inquired lamely. "Arcade type stuff? Funny hats and bright colors?" He quieted, scratching his head. "Ah. No, I suppose not…"
"Why would you even
think…" you started to ask, mystified, but your phone buzzed in your hand and you gave up on figuring out the weird teen for the moment.
'Transportation has arrived at the front of the building, sir. LVPD seems to be coping with DDOS attack and phone problems - likely intentional. It is doubtful they will arrive within ten minutes, even if I use alternative means of communication.'
"They got to the cops already," you said in realization, and a shiver ran down your back in recognition. That meant the attack was now. You glanced over the crowd to find Pepper, but you didn't have to look hard. She was already heading towards you, apparently keeping her word about keeping an eye on you. She had to have noticed his odd behavior. "That was quick," you murmured.
"Tony? What are you doing, stalking across the floor like that? There's still ten minutes until the first talk, you know." Her annoyance seemed to fade away into vague alarm, then, probably because she noticed Pym's blood-spattered neck, or Peter's nervous glances. "Um… Is something wrong here?"
"Everything." You turned. "We're leaving. Now. No questions." You didn't wait for her answer before you set off towards the exit, straight for the leftmost doors, closest to the parking lot. You strained to see any familiar faces, but even punchable Reed was nowhere in sight. You could hear Pepper asking you for an explanation, but you ignored her - right now, getting her and the others out was more important than playing nice.
"Hank," you said sharply. "You're being targeted here. Do you know
why?"
Pym hesitated momentarily, glancing to Peter and Pepper who were following closely behind you. "It's - that is, I invented something recently, something
big, so it might have something to do with that," Pym started. "My old boss tried to steal the formula, but he got sent to jail after he tried to kill me with my own tools..." He shook his head. "I didn't think he'd try that, honestly."
"That's probably not a coincidence," you said dryly. "I'm guessing he's back to finish the job, and this time he's taking his sweet time to play around first.
Wonderful."
Pym shrugged helplessly. "He's supposed to be locked up."
"What are you talking about?" Pepper demanded. "Who is targeting who?"
"Whom," you corrected. "Are you carrying pepper spray? Anyway, to bring you up to speed - assassins might be here, and we have to get the hell out. I need to know if you have pepper spray, since it seems so appropriate for you. Or a taser - whatever. Something nasty."
She looked flustered as she dug into her little purse, which seemed entirely too tiny to hold anything of note. "I have - hairspray?" Pepper suggested distantly, holding up a unicorn-imprinted bottle. "That's it, though. This is a
convention, Tony - why would I have anything dangerous…?"
"Well, at least we'll look stylish when we die," Peter contributed distractedly with such a blank expression that for a moment you thought he was serious. "...What? I get quippy when I'm nervous. Like right now. Duh."
Well, it was a better reaction than that of some people, you reckoned. Your own version wasn't much more helpful - all you could think of was the frozen faces of the people who'd breathed Pyre, and you had a hard time ignoring the prickling in your side. Fun reminders.
You were utterly unarmed, and that was terrible news when nobody around had a gun either; not even a stun gun. For crying out loud, you didn't even have the benefit of
firecrackers.
"Jarvis, got anything for me, here? Because Daddy needs some good news right about now."
'I can be of very little assistance, sir. Some of the cameras in the main hall have infrared settings, and I am reading signals of what might be a person moving behind the walls on rare occasions - but they are faint and hard to track. I cannot be precise without detailed schematics."
"Which you don't have, because, let me
guess, they recently tore up this place to make room for a convention," you observed dryly. "Thanks anyway." You slipped the phone into your suit's pocket, sighing. "Well, we're pretty much on our own. If we can't make it out before they decide to screw the bystanders and make their move -"
"Then I'm dead," Pym said in a whisper as you reached the outer doors that led towards the outside. "I really -"
He didn't get to finish the sentence. You didn't even hear the detonation before the shock-wave slammed into you, and someone dragged you to the ground, out of the path of the explosive wave of debris that followed an instant later.
There was a brief, horrified silence as you felt Pepper besides you, thankfully moving.
Pym was on the floor on the other side, clasping hands to his ears.
Vaguely, you realized that Peter was the only one still upright, and that he had to have tossed you bodily away from whatever had exploded. That wiry build was hiding a
lot of muscle. Kung-fu indeed.
Then the reporter slowly toppled backwards, blood gushing from everywhere as his clothes smoldered. The thin stream of smoke joined a huge pillar of black soot that was billowing out above you.
Finally, at long last, seconds after the blast, something like reality returned to your senses.
Then the screams started.
XXXXXXXXXX
The air was filled with ash.
You didn't know how long it took before you were conscious again, but it couldn't have been very long, as you were still on the ground, still knocked silly. Someone stood near you, over you even, but your head spun too much to get any kind of directions.
"Well, howdy there!" That loud cry pierced through the screams of hundreds of party-goers as they made their way in a mad dash towards the other exits, fleeing for their lives. You were trying to focus on the here and now, still, but your sense of balance was entirely gone. You distantly realized that someone was firing a gun - or
guns - but you had no idea who.
"Yes, run! Run!" someone cried. "Makes it more fun!"
Peter was still on the ground, you noticed, but that told you nothing. It didn't help you make sense of what was going on. You could see a dozen people on the ground, perhaps dead - some of them were guards. Others - you didn't recognize them, but they had to be guests. A few people were still upright, but you had no clue who they were. Everything blurred together.
For a brief moment, you were back in the cave, back among the unknowing dead.
God damn it. This was
twice in as many months that you'd gotten blown up. You didn't know if it was bad karma catching up to you, but it sucked. The world turned off for a few moments - and when you came back, you felt something sticky on your forehead, and a dull pain. You'd smashed your face on the floor, then, and cut open your scalp.
But I'm still alive. We're all still alive. Right?
"Pepper," you whispered as you blinked the stars away, and thankfully you felt her squeeze your hand, even though she stayed perfectly still on the floor. Either she'd been knocked for a loop like you had, or she was playing dead - which was not a terribly bad idea. You'd just ruined your own chances by moving, of course.
It was only then that you realized someone was speaking.
Yammering, even.
"- really think that you're gonna get anywhere with those stupid little pop shooters?" the person standing in front of you asked loudly, gesturing with his over-sized gun. "Seriously, I could be fighting people with MAC-10's and other badass gear, and I have to deal with My First Second-Hand Glock? I was hoping for a bit of a challenge, here."
Oh, fuck - it was just getting through to you. There'd been a bomb, and the bomber was right there, right in front of you. You'd
failed.
The bastard was wearing red - that was the first thing you noticed. Then you saw the weapons hanging on his belt, and you gaped. For fuck's sake, the asshole was carrying huge bloodied
swords with him. You recognized it as weeaboo crap, katanas - but far too realistic to be fake. Now you knew what had cut Pym - even if it didn't make a lick of sense...
The man leaned down a little to look at you. "Well, lookie here - my colleague in kill-count is making googly eyes at me," the man commented from behind his face-covering mask, with two black circles around the eyes, surrounded by all the red.
Right at that moment, a bullet tore through the top of the assassin's shoulder with a spurt of blood - and the man didn't even
flinch. In fact, he smiled. He looked up, his gaze focusing on somewhere behind you, probably looking at the shooter. "Well, that was awfully rude, wasn't it? Hold on for a minute."
He loosed a single shot from his oversized hand cannon, and there was a solid thud somewhere behind you. A body.
"There. That's much better, right? That makes eighteen dead cops now, nice and symmetrical, don't you think? This is something like a museum, so I gotta keep with the artsy theme, I suppose. All the red really brings out everyone's - well, organs I suppose? Fits my suit."
"What the…?" Peter mumbled confusedly, still on his back. You could see blood all over him - he'd been hit bad, even if he'd kept standing in the blast. The boy looked up at the assassin with fury burning in his eyes, but his hands seemed to cramp up as he tried to move, his fingers twitching without effect. You grabbed him by the arm, shoving him down, knowing he would only get himself killed.
The masked figure rubbed his neck as he waved his gun around in slow arcs. "Anyone else wanna try anything like that? No? Excellent! Because I've still got a lot of bullets to spread around like candy." He gave a thumbs up. "Got the message?"
There was a silence that lasted for seconds, but seemed far longer. The hall was mostly empty now of guests - you had no idea if any security guards were still alive. If police were on their way, they'd take minutes to arrive given Jarvis's estimates, and the assassin probably realized that. And even if there were other people trying to help out, you couldn't rely on that.
Well, time to keep him busy then.
"Hey, bastard," you managed to blurt out. "What do you want?!" It sounded clearer and more challenging than you thought you could manage. You pushed yourself up, slowly, your ears still ringing loudly. You managed another sentence, then: "Who the hell are you?"
Some of the pieces fell into place slowly, given your addled brain, even as you stared at the clown in front of you. This man had gotten full access to Hank Pym before, at least long enough to toy around with him in the abandoned corridors of the museum. Yet, he had set up explosives at the exit, probably to cause as much collateral damage as possible. If not for Peter's reaction, you might well have all died.
This had to be about causing fear, making the assassination as public as possible. So, this guy was another straight-up terrorist wannabe.
You were getting awfully tired of those.
The red figure smirked below his mask, you could tell. "Ah, you want to know who I am? Well, I'm just the hired gun here, Starkypoo! Haven't come for you, of course. Us mercy types like you. You give us all our best toys, after all!"
You didn't know what to say to that. Something inside shriveled up in shame.
The mercenary drew up his mask a little, exposing a malicious grin in a pockmarked face. "Example
Uno. See this? This is what the good old US of A did to me - or Canada, but who cares about the details? Military experiments, you know, ever since the Forties. Fun stuff, making human weapons! I hear that your daddy had a lot to do with it…"
A shiver ran down your back as you remembered the stories of the Second World War, and the projects that spun off from there. Vibranium, its alloys, the illegal experiments with super-formulas that were stopped not long after, when HYDRA got eradicated. This was about Weapon Plus, the attempts to remake Captain America. Fuck.
"I see that you know what I'm talking about," the scarred man said jovially. "There were a lot of failed
upgrades from that little horror-zone your dad inspired. We had a betting pool, see who would die first out of us failures… but I didn't." He grinned. "That's how I got my nickname, y'know. Seemed fitting."
"Whatever," you muttered distractedly as you stared at the man.
"Ah…" The mercenary said. "I see not everyone is paying attention…" The man's foot shot out and you cringed, but his kick landed squarely in Pepper's ribs, and she cried out in pain. "Well hello, sunshine - yes, I knew you were awake. Hi! My name is
Deadpool." He licked his lips, smiling, and then turned to Pym, drawing one of his swords. "And 'ello there, Henry - or should I say Henrietta, after I'm done with you? Won't matter in a few minutes, I suppose. But sheesh, the man who hired me is one sick puppy..."
"You - won't -" You managed to get to your knees, panting, and Deadpool paid no attention to you except a sort of passing interest, perhaps curious to see what you would do.
Best not to disappoint - or you were very dead.
XXXXXXXXXX
Everyone you know survived the blast! But you only get one shot here. What do you do?
[ ] Hidden Tiger, Crouching Techie : Look, you don't have a lot of options right now. You're in no shape to fight, and you don't have a weapon, but if you do nothing then you'll all probably get shot. Some attempt is better than nothing, and maybe in the struggle the others can get away. Besides, who knows who might back you up if you decide to go postal on this guy?
A good chance that any of the superpowered characters previously mentoined might step in to support your blind heroism.
[ ] Talk it Out With the Madman : This Deadpool fellow clearly loves the sound of his own voice, and he's already yammered on longer than you thought. Perhaps if you get him into conversation, even something utterly inane, it might buy you enough time for some solution to become apparent. Who knows, maybe Peter can pull another rabbit out of his hat.
Deadpool likes to talk - and Peter's recovering. Do the math. Also, if you get a good roll, you get good press too!
[ ] Makeshift Badass [Evacuate] : Pepper has a bottle of hairspray, and you're pretty sure you have a lighter in your pocket somewhere. Peter has a camera with a quality strap on it, and your opponent has a throat. Make it happen.
Get a shot at a tech bonus for weapons.
[ ] Operation Overload [Write-In: Call JARVIS] : You still have your phone in your pocket, and Jarvis is listening in. He might not have access to anything on-site, but he's still got access to your phone - overloading that puppy would probably ruin someone's whole day. or their face for that matter. Not that Deadpool needs much help with that.
Same as Makeshift Badass, but for AI.
[ ] Get the Hell Out [Ruthless] : Deadpool's already stated that he's not interested in killing you in particular - and he's probably just focused on Pym as his target. If it means sacrificing one person to save Pepper, Peter and yourself - perhaps that's an acceptable loss to take. Too many people have died already over this mess.
[ ] Write-In
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If you try to take Deadpool down and get a chance to take him out, how do you handle it?
[ ] Lethal : He's an
assassin who just killed a bunch of people and is threatening your life. Of course you're going in this without reservations! If you can get a good shot in, taking his life is totally not a problem.
[ ] Nonlethal : The objective is to get away, not killing. If you have a nonlethal means of keeping Deadpool down or out, at least you won't be responsible for even more deaths. Besides, police is probably close enough that they could take him in afterwards.
[ ] Maim & Torture [Ruthless] : Killing's fine, but really hurting the bastard is no problem either. Nobody who attacks you or the people you care about is getting out of this with all their teeth, fingers, or reproductive organs intact. That's a promise.
