@inaceae: ❝ this will be seen as an act of war. ❞
a discovery of witches / accepting
“Only if they make it one.” He says it with the confidence of a man that hasn’t come geared for that war, but for him it’s true. He’s said it before, to more than just Gaea, that no one comes in peace with a warship and ground troops. The Brotherhood isn’t here for a Sunday barbeque, they’re on a mission of conquest. His logic here is simple: Call their bluff. Maybe not through means of aggression, but Iron Man is, and always has been, something of an aggression deterrent. It’s kind of hard to argue with the guy wearing a nuke-proof tank when you’re in last week’s recyclables with a base of operations that might not be as combustible as the Hindenburg, but all the more fragile for that fact.
He shifts his helmet in his hands a moment, an expressive gesture that says he wants to gesticulate, and needs to find an outlet for that particular habit of hand talking. “And if I play my cards right - and I usually do, I’m actually not terrible at this - it makes red and shiny here the fly in their ointment, and him alone.”
For emphasis he raps his knuckles against the helmet.
It’s not complicated or extensive as far as plans go; it’s suppression of that aggression through a demonstration of superior firepower in a way that (he hopes) isn’t provocative but enough to give pause. It’s why he’s hauled out the most heavy duty of the three suits he’s brought with him from the ruins of New York: It’s not bragging if he says he can do what a whole contingent of their Knight Paladins can, faster, and from the air, it’s just a statement of simple fact. They’re clopping around in hand-me-down power armor that even new has never measured up to the Iron Man, with their little laser pistols and rifles, when he’s carrying a trapped star between his ribs and what still remains the most sophisticated weapons system on the planet.
Besides, he has a feeling that most of the water treatment plant he’s seen their vertibirds sniffing around is salvageable and repairable. If anyone’s going to claim it, it should probably not be the quasi-religious militarized Johnny-come-latelys. He’s actually found, when he’s sat down finally and thought about it, he’s loathe to let them get their hands on any of the remaining possible usable infrastructure. He doesn’t like them. He doesn’t trust them to be a force of good. What he’s scouted from Nordhagen has left him uneasy, and it’s become his latest thing. Which for him means it’s time to face it head on and address it before they get too settled in.
It also means this is probably the first time - he’s pretty sure - he’s actually voiced said plan out loud. It’s going to piss certain people who shall remain unnamed off, for sure, but he’s fairly sure those unnamed certain people would try to get him to not do what he knows he’s going to do. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, anyway.
“Look.” He tucks the helmet under an arm, so he can gesture with both hands. “I’ve heard enough from some of the small scratch farms about ‘requistions’-” His tone holds a barb of disgust, and he uses two fingers on both hands to put visual quotes around that word. “-When they’re struggling as it is. I’m not going in repulsors blazing. I’m going to convince the super mutants that have decided to call the water treatment plant home it might be better to move along to somewhere else. And I’m gonna do it with them watching so they can see me plant my flag on it. And I’m gonna do it non-lethally. If they want to take that as a slight to their fragile egos, fine. They’ve already moved in on Fort Strong and that makes me extremely nervous. They don’t get to lay claim to usable infrastructure that I promise you is going to improve quality of life for the whole Commonwealth and dictate who can and cannot use it. If they can even get it running again in the first place.”
