T/J quote a day keeps boredom away! #07
It's time for the Senate hearing! There's not much Tony/Jarvis action this time, but instead we get some insight in Tony's personality and a portable Jarvis. ;)
The quotes below are posted under the "fair use" rule of the copyright law. The sum of all the quotes does not exceed the limit of 10% of the book. The quotes are posted for the purpose of commenting on the particular aspects of the book and encouraging discussion and the creation of fan works.
It was not the first time Tony had testified before the Senate, but he had a feeling it was going to be the least pleasant. He was at a table more or less by himself. In the first row of seats behind him, a line of uniforms and gray crew cuts interrupted only by the presence of Pepper, who periodically bounced up to whisper something cajoling or cautionary into his ear. Behind that first row was a gallery of citizens who had waited in line to see the show. Tony wasn’t sure what to make of a person who would wait in line to watch a Senate hearing; he was all for civic engagement . . . well, no. Who was he kidding? He couldn't care less about civic engagement. These people were here to see him roasted by the slings and arrows of barbarian senators. Tony loved to mix a metaphor when no one was listening.
The trick here, he thought, was going to be to put his head down, let everything roll over him, and rope-a-dope his way to freedom. For it to work, he would have to get the crowd on his side. This might not be easy, since in the grip of a savage hangover such as the one Tony was at that moment experiencing, the human mind was not always at its most nimble and the human tongue was prone to damaging slips. So he would have to simultaneously wow the masses with his improvisational abilities and keep a lid on those abilities so they didn’t go too far.
As of right that moment, perhaps twenty minutes into the hearing, Tony thought it was working. He was getting laughs, and more importantly, the faces on the senatorial dais were getting more and more . . . well . . . stern.
His primary antagonist was a certain Senator Stern, or nondescript politics except for a notable skill at grand-standing. Tony decided to be nice to him. Mostly. He fiddled with the Tech-Ball he’d made the other day, putting part of his brain to work envisioning world-changing uses to which it might be put.
"I’m sorry we’re not seeing eye-to-eye here, Mr. Stark, but according to these contracts you agreed to provide the U.S. Taxpayer with - " He dipped through a file and read. " ‘All current and as yet undiscovered weapons systems? Now do you or do you not, at present, possess a very specialized weapon - "
“I do not," Tony said firmly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone enter the hearing chamber. The face was familiar but he couldn't place it right away.
"You are not in possession of said weapon?"
"It depends on how we define the word ‘weapon,’ " Tony said. From a certain perspective, he nearly added, the Tech-Ball could be a weapon. Clearly its intended function had little to do with combat, but you could hit someone with it. Did that make it a weapon?
"The Iron Man weapon," Stern said.
"My device does not fit that description."
"And how would you describe your device?" Stern's tone of practiced weariness grated on Tony. If they wanted a show and they were going to perform roles, he thought the least he could do for the assembled masses-not to mention those poor suckers who happened to be watching on TV-was shake things up with a little improv.
"I would describe it by defining it as what it is," he said.
"Which is?"
"A high-tech prosthesis." Laughter echoed down from the gallery. Tony glanced over at Pepper and saw that she had buried her face in her hands. This was his clearest signal yet that he had the rest of the crowd eating out of his hand, or would very shortly.
(...)
"My father conceived of the Stark Expo to transcend the need for war by addressing its sole cause: the coveting of resources," Tony said. He stuck the Tech-Ball in his pocket so it would stop distracting him, but the idea of using it to conduct energy stuck with him and the next thing out of his mouth was, "Primarily energy. If your priority in this hearing was truly the safety-"
"Our priority is for you to turn the Iron Man suit over to the military."
"I am Iron Man," Tony said. "The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself. And that would be indentured servitude or prostitution, depending on what state you're in."
Stern played along after a glance at the gallery told him he would have to. "I enjoy a good laugh," he said. "This, however, is no laughing matter. I am no expert in-"
"Prostitution? Of course not. You're a senator."
This got a bigger laugh than the prosthesis crack. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Pepper glaring daggers at him. I know, I know, he thought. I should reel myself in and act appropriately. But how can any of these people take this seriously?
The whole senate hearing scene brilliantly shows Tony's personality: a mix of superhuman genius and sheer, pig-headed stupidity.
On the positive side, he wants to be useful to humanity as Iron Man and as inventor and he's smart enough to divide his attention between observing the gallery, charming the crowd, engaging into verbal battle with the senators and thinking up possible ways of putting the Tech-Ball to use.
(Or maybe he just likes to play with his balls, *cough*.)
On the negative side, he's irresponsible enough to appear on his own hearing while hungover, he feels entitled to crossing the boundaries set by social norms, he blatantly disregards Pepper's instructions and fails to present his point in a sympathetic manner.
Tony's unwillingness to share the Iron Man technology (including the arc reactor) is, actually, quite sensible. Its destructive potential is too great, the risk of its misuse is too big and the more copies of the arc reactor there are, the higher is the risk of someone stealing it and using it for nefarious purposes.
Tony totally fails to make this point, however; instead he ends up looking as a child unwilling to share his favourite toy.
(...)
Stern leaned back to murmur at one of his senatorial colleagues as Justin Hammer strode down the aisle. He was like a museum specimen of American Gladhander. subspecies Ivyleaguen-sis. His tie was a little loose, his pants a little tight, his hair a little long over the forehead and a little too willing to flip boyishly around as he nodded at acquaintances on his way to be sworn in.
This was Tony's successor at the top of the arms-industry food chain. In Tony's opinion, he looked like he ought to be selling Saturns. Or Oldsmobiles.
As Hammer passed Tony's table, Tony murmured. "Sloppy seconds," just loud enough for Hammer to hear.
"Blow me," Hammer said without breaking stride.
Tony turned his focus back to the committee. "Let the minutes reflect," he said, enunciating clearly into the microphone, "that I observe Mr. Hammer entering the chamber and am wondering if and when an expert will also be in attendance."
Senator Stern's gavel banged over another outburst of laughter.
(...)
Tony let Hammer talk. He was congenitally disposed to grandstanding, which was fine. The bit about Tony's father, now, that was different. Something would have to be done about that. Tony fiddled with the Tech-Ball, manipulating its shape and the consistency of its material. What a nifty little toy it was. One of these days he was going to figure out a way to make money with it.
Hammer went on. "Anthony Stark has created a sword with untold possibilities, and yet he insists it's a shield! He asks us to trust him as we cower behind it!" With a head shake angled exactly toward the main network camera feed, Hammer went on more slowly. "I love peace. But we live in a world of grave threats. Threats that Mr. Stark will not always be able to foresee."
Tony rolled his eyes. Anthony? Nobody had called him Anthony since maybe the first day of kindergarten, which he'd only gone to because other kids did.
I love Tony's description of Justin Hammer. And I'm amused at the way Tony is simultaneously thinking about getting revenge for Hammer's remark about Tony's father AND is playing with the Tech-Ball again. It's pretty much congruent with Rhodey's statement in the first novel that Tony's brain "never, ever shuts down".
(...)
Okay, Tony thought. This has maybe gone on long enough. He slipped his new PDA from a fancy bit of holo-enabled glass he and Jarvis had put together the week before. It was a rectangle of fiber optics, pure computing power that looked like a piece of Plexiglas.
And here we have a portable Jarvis v.2.0! And once again Tony credits Jarvis as a co-inventor rather than just an assistant. The PDA is not an invention "he had put together" or "he had put together with Jarvis's assistance", it's a device "he and Jarvis had put together", and by thinking this way Tony basically admits to himself that he consider's Jarvis's creative input equal to his own.
Senator Stern didn't bother to conceal his satisfaction at Hammer's theatrics. "Thank you, Mr. Hammer. The committee would now like to invite Lieutenant Colonel James T. Rhodes into the Chamber." He looked toward the green room door, where Rhodey was entering in full dress uniform, looking uncomfortable and out of place. Unlike the brass sitting in the front row, Rhodey didn't like being in front of people and he didn't like dealing with politicians. This would probably mean that his career was topped out at bird colonel, but he was fine with that. He'd told Tony on a number of occasions that if a promotion to general ever came up, he would turn it down. Rhodey wanted to stay active and in the field as much as possible.
Tony met him in the aisle and shook hands. It was a bit stiff, but Tony was glad to see Rhodey there. If there was any living human Tony knew he could count on to do the right thing, that person was James Rhodes.
On the other hand, it would have been nice to know about it ahead of time. "I didn't expect this," Tony murmured to Rhodey as Rhodey passed.
"Look," Rhodey said, "it's me. I'm here. Deal with it."
"I have before me," Stern said after Rhodey had been sworn in, "a report on the Iron Man compiled by Colonel Rhodes. Colonel, can you please read into the minutes page fifty-four, paragraph four?"
"Certainly, Senator," Rhodey said. "May I first point out that I was not briefed on this hearing, nor prepared to testify-"
"Duly noted," Stern said without looking up from his notes. "Please continue."
Ever the good soldier, Rhodey swallowed the snub and went on. "This paragraph out of context does not reflect the summary of my findings."
"Did you or did you not write, quote, 'Iron Man presents a potential threat to the security of both the nation and her interests'?"
By way of answering, Rhodey continued and completed the quote. " 'As he does not operate within any definable branch of government.' I, however, went on to recommend that the benefits far outweigh the liabilities-"
"Thank you, Colonel Rhodes," Stern said.
Undeterred, Rhodey finished his sentence. "-And that it would be in our best interest to fold Mr. Stark into the existing chain of command."
God love you, Rhodey, Tony thought.
"I'm not a joiner," he said, "but I would consider Secretary of Defense. Provided the hours could be-"
"This isn't a job interview," Stern said. Apparently, Tony thought, the senator suffered from some kind of interruption-related disability.
This is an interesting passage. Tony basically admits that he thinks of Rhodey as a decent, trustworthy person AND we can see Rhodey trying to protest Tony's interests, but boy, will Tony give Rhodey a hard time about his appearance at the hearing afterwards. Pepper, similarily, will fall out of grace because she'll dare to invite Rhodey on Tony's jet.
All in all, Tony is pretty easy to upset, and when he is upset, he can be really nasty even to people close to him.
Interestingly enough, this does not apply to Jarvis. Even though Jarvis occasionally does things that, considering Tony's short fuse, could result in Tony throwing a sulk (shutting off his armour mid-flight, slowing him down, playing a prank on him later in the novel and being in general snarky and sarcastic) Tony never seems genuinely upset. He's even able to admit that he appreciates Jarvis for his actions.
I've seen some fics where Tony threatens Jarvis with shut-down or mind-wipe, or in general is treated like a property more than a living person. This does not ever happen in the novels. While earlier on Jarvis had the "directives' to follow and asked Tony's permission before doing something drastic, by the time Iron Man 2 takes place Jarvis seems to be able to whatever he pleases and Tony trusts him to make the right decisions.
Another interesting thing is Tony mock-considering holding the position of Secretary of Defense. In the comics Tony eventually accepts the position of Secretary of Defense, hoping that in this way he'll be able to monitor and control the use of his technology. He is forced to give up this position after the mentally imbalanced Scarlet Witch manipulates him to appear drunk and aggressive at the United Nations gathering. Tony pretends to step down as Iron Man, but in reality continues to work as one, except his focus slowly changes from just apprehending villains to politics.
(...)
Enough, Tony thought. He fired up the mini virtual desktop on his PDA and set to work getting some visual evidence that would actually prove something . . . even if it wasn't what Stern and his colleagues had set out to prove.
"This has been corroborated by our allies and local intelligence on the ground," Rhodey was saying, "indicating that they are quite possibly, at this moment, functional."
Tony stood and touched an icon on his PDA. "Let's see what's really going on here," he said as he slaved the bank of monitors to a subroutine of Jarvis that ran natively on the PDA. "If. .. I.. . may," he said, vamping as a series of classified videos-some of them existing only on intranets behind security walls that the Department of Defense would never get through-loaded and began to play. At top left, a North Korean proving ground was hosting a test flight of a skeletal suit whose occupant looked deeply uncertain about his role in the proceedings. Something like a repulsor, mounted on a directional jet in the suit's back, fired, lifting suit and pilot into the air. He lifted one arm and fired off a series of mini-rockets from a magazine mounted on one forearm.
"You're right," Tony said, "North Korea is well on its . . . "
Suit and pilot disappeared in a flash of light that overwhelmed the camera. When the image resolved again, the smoking remains of the suit were being hosed down by firefighters.
"Nope," Tony said. "Whew. That was a relief."
And here we have some Jarvis-the-hacker. No government is safe. ;)
Hacking aside, this is a nice example of how ruthless Tony can be when he believes hhe is right. My first reaction to the passage above was the instinctive sympathy for the Korean test subject, who probably didn't even want to participate in the experiment, but ended up severely injured or (more likely) dead. Tony, meanwhile, is just relieved that Korea failed in their efforts to create a functional Iron Man suit.
I wonder if this could eventually cause a rift between him and characters like Pepper (who is shown later in the novel to believe that the villains should not be killed but held in prison for the rest of their lives) or Captain America (who is also stringly against killing and does not even carry a gun).
The same or similar results played out on the other monitors. "Let's see how Russia is doing ... oh dear," Tony went on. "Japan! Japan has to be closer-ohh, I guess not. India? Not so much. Germans are good engineers. Yowch. That's gonna leave a mark." Then he froze all of the looping videos except one, and expanded that one until it took up the entire bank of monitors. "Wait," he said. "The United States is in the game. Look, it's Justin Hammer."
Looking over his shoulder at the camera crews filming the hearing, Tony added, "Hey guys, you might want to push in on Hammer for this.
What unfolded on the single remaining video was a comic disaster. Hammer himself stood off to one side of the frame as a crew strapped a volunteer into an armored exoskeleton. It had clearly been constructed with the Iron Man suit in mind, but Tony could tell by looking at it that the weight distributions were all wrong for the location of the propulsion systems. Hammer stood back and winked at the camera.
The real-life Justin Hammer in the Senate chamber looked like he had a mouthful of spoiled milk. On the monitor bank, Hammer's prototype suit lifted off into the air over the proving ground, which was a sand pit out behind Hammer Industries' main manufacturing facility. There was a nice landscape shot of the hills behind it as the prototype's exhaust carved a perfect loop-de-loop against the blue sky. The prototype fired off a number of small rockets. As they detonated on the ground, Hammer whooped and said something self-congratulatory toward the camera. The loop-de-loop turned into a spiral at exactly that moment, and the thrusters cut out as with the operator moving parallel to the ground. By itself, this would have been unfortunate; when pieces of the prototype started to fall off things turned comic as the operator tumbled out of the air with a trailing yell. He landed in a sitting position, kicking up a huge plume of sand. Hammer could be heard yelling to cut the video.
Tony froze the playback on the moment when the operator hit the ground. He glanced back at the crowd and saw winces and grimaces as everyone present experienced sympathetic pains in their tailbones.
"I would like to point out," Hammer said, "that that test pilot survived and only suffered minor spinal bruising. He is currently white-water rafting with his family."
(...)
"You want full disclosure?" he asked. "I don't trust you. I'm sorry. You're creepy. I may be a little nutty. I may go off half-cocked sometimes, but-strangely-I am inherently trustworthy, and have been for the better part of six months." Tony turned to face the camera, which was still tight on him, broadcasting his image to whoever happened to be watching Senate hearings at the moment. "Look at me. Now look at him. Now look at him looking at me."
Stern's face appeared on the monitors.
"I think we've heard enough," the senator spluttered.
"The good news is," Tony said, recapturing the camera's attention, "I'm your nuclear deterrent. The goal of the suit is not to use it. And it's working. You're welcome. I have successfully privatized world peace. Not that I'm above throwing on the suit and breaking up an international bar fight here and there. But that's just putting my finger in a dike. No offense, Senator Buxton; I don't mean to belittle the ongoing issues you've had with your levee systems. The point is-"
Gavel poised, Stern said, "There had better be one."
"You want my property," Tony said. "You can't have it. I try to play ball with these ass-clowns and be their dirty little secret. Something goes boink overseas, I get the three-a.m. booty call. Usually from the Pentagon. Or, often from one of the faces you see before you."
He was starting to wonder how much more time he was going to have, as unrest spread through the gallery and Stern said something about producing proof. One of the keys to an effective speech was knowing when to end it. "My bond is with the American people, whom I will always keep safe," Tony said. "And I will serve the people of this great nation at the pleasure of. . . myself." He gestured for the camera to come in tight on him again. "And if there's one thing I have proven to the world at large by any metric, it's that you can count on me to pleasure myself."
And there was the gavel, hammering down as Stern said "Adjourned!" and rose to stalk off the committee dais. Tony hopped down from the lectern he'd taken over, flashed peace signs, blew kisses, the whole works. He caught Justin Hammer's eye and added a final line straight into the camera, just because he was Tony Stark and he could.
"1 don't know if I'm a sword or a shield," he said. "But I do know that Hammer is a tool."
On that line, coverage of the hearing ended and the Senate chamber erupted.
More Tony in action. ;) No comments this time, but this passage will be relevant later.
And that's it for today!
The quotes below are posted under the "fair use" rule of the copyright law. The sum of all the quotes does not exceed the limit of 10% of the book. The quotes are posted for the purpose of commenting on the particular aspects of the book and encouraging discussion and the creation of fan works.
It was not the first time Tony had testified before the Senate, but he had a feeling it was going to be the least pleasant. He was at a table more or less by himself. In the first row of seats behind him, a line of uniforms and gray crew cuts interrupted only by the presence of Pepper, who periodically bounced up to whisper something cajoling or cautionary into his ear. Behind that first row was a gallery of citizens who had waited in line to see the show. Tony wasn’t sure what to make of a person who would wait in line to watch a Senate hearing; he was all for civic engagement . . . well, no. Who was he kidding? He couldn't care less about civic engagement. These people were here to see him roasted by the slings and arrows of barbarian senators. Tony loved to mix a metaphor when no one was listening.
The trick here, he thought, was going to be to put his head down, let everything roll over him, and rope-a-dope his way to freedom. For it to work, he would have to get the crowd on his side. This might not be easy, since in the grip of a savage hangover such as the one Tony was at that moment experiencing, the human mind was not always at its most nimble and the human tongue was prone to damaging slips. So he would have to simultaneously wow the masses with his improvisational abilities and keep a lid on those abilities so they didn’t go too far.
As of right that moment, perhaps twenty minutes into the hearing, Tony thought it was working. He was getting laughs, and more importantly, the faces on the senatorial dais were getting more and more . . . well . . . stern.
His primary antagonist was a certain Senator Stern, or nondescript politics except for a notable skill at grand-standing. Tony decided to be nice to him. Mostly. He fiddled with the Tech-Ball he’d made the other day, putting part of his brain to work envisioning world-changing uses to which it might be put.
"I’m sorry we’re not seeing eye-to-eye here, Mr. Stark, but according to these contracts you agreed to provide the U.S. Taxpayer with - " He dipped through a file and read. " ‘All current and as yet undiscovered weapons systems? Now do you or do you not, at present, possess a very specialized weapon - "
“I do not," Tony said firmly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone enter the hearing chamber. The face was familiar but he couldn't place it right away.
"You are not in possession of said weapon?"
"It depends on how we define the word ‘weapon,’ " Tony said. From a certain perspective, he nearly added, the Tech-Ball could be a weapon. Clearly its intended function had little to do with combat, but you could hit someone with it. Did that make it a weapon?
"The Iron Man weapon," Stern said.
"My device does not fit that description."
"And how would you describe your device?" Stern's tone of practiced weariness grated on Tony. If they wanted a show and they were going to perform roles, he thought the least he could do for the assembled masses-not to mention those poor suckers who happened to be watching on TV-was shake things up with a little improv.
"I would describe it by defining it as what it is," he said.
"Which is?"
"A high-tech prosthesis." Laughter echoed down from the gallery. Tony glanced over at Pepper and saw that she had buried her face in her hands. This was his clearest signal yet that he had the rest of the crowd eating out of his hand, or would very shortly.
(...)
"My father conceived of the Stark Expo to transcend the need for war by addressing its sole cause: the coveting of resources," Tony said. He stuck the Tech-Ball in his pocket so it would stop distracting him, but the idea of using it to conduct energy stuck with him and the next thing out of his mouth was, "Primarily energy. If your priority in this hearing was truly the safety-"
"Our priority is for you to turn the Iron Man suit over to the military."
"I am Iron Man," Tony said. "The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself. And that would be indentured servitude or prostitution, depending on what state you're in."
Stern played along after a glance at the gallery told him he would have to. "I enjoy a good laugh," he said. "This, however, is no laughing matter. I am no expert in-"
"Prostitution? Of course not. You're a senator."
This got a bigger laugh than the prosthesis crack. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Pepper glaring daggers at him. I know, I know, he thought. I should reel myself in and act appropriately. But how can any of these people take this seriously?
The whole senate hearing scene brilliantly shows Tony's personality: a mix of superhuman genius and sheer, pig-headed stupidity.
On the positive side, he wants to be useful to humanity as Iron Man and as inventor and he's smart enough to divide his attention between observing the gallery, charming the crowd, engaging into verbal battle with the senators and thinking up possible ways of putting the Tech-Ball to use.
(Or maybe he just likes to play with his balls, *cough*.)
On the negative side, he's irresponsible enough to appear on his own hearing while hungover, he feels entitled to crossing the boundaries set by social norms, he blatantly disregards Pepper's instructions and fails to present his point in a sympathetic manner.
Tony's unwillingness to share the Iron Man technology (including the arc reactor) is, actually, quite sensible. Its destructive potential is too great, the risk of its misuse is too big and the more copies of the arc reactor there are, the higher is the risk of someone stealing it and using it for nefarious purposes.
Tony totally fails to make this point, however; instead he ends up looking as a child unwilling to share his favourite toy.
(...)
Stern leaned back to murmur at one of his senatorial colleagues as Justin Hammer strode down the aisle. He was like a museum specimen of American Gladhander. subspecies Ivyleaguen-sis. His tie was a little loose, his pants a little tight, his hair a little long over the forehead and a little too willing to flip boyishly around as he nodded at acquaintances on his way to be sworn in.
This was Tony's successor at the top of the arms-industry food chain. In Tony's opinion, he looked like he ought to be selling Saturns. Or Oldsmobiles.
As Hammer passed Tony's table, Tony murmured. "Sloppy seconds," just loud enough for Hammer to hear.
"Blow me," Hammer said without breaking stride.
Tony turned his focus back to the committee. "Let the minutes reflect," he said, enunciating clearly into the microphone, "that I observe Mr. Hammer entering the chamber and am wondering if and when an expert will also be in attendance."
Senator Stern's gavel banged over another outburst of laughter.
(...)
Tony let Hammer talk. He was congenitally disposed to grandstanding, which was fine. The bit about Tony's father, now, that was different. Something would have to be done about that. Tony fiddled with the Tech-Ball, manipulating its shape and the consistency of its material. What a nifty little toy it was. One of these days he was going to figure out a way to make money with it.
Hammer went on. "Anthony Stark has created a sword with untold possibilities, and yet he insists it's a shield! He asks us to trust him as we cower behind it!" With a head shake angled exactly toward the main network camera feed, Hammer went on more slowly. "I love peace. But we live in a world of grave threats. Threats that Mr. Stark will not always be able to foresee."
Tony rolled his eyes. Anthony? Nobody had called him Anthony since maybe the first day of kindergarten, which he'd only gone to because other kids did.
I love Tony's description of Justin Hammer. And I'm amused at the way Tony is simultaneously thinking about getting revenge for Hammer's remark about Tony's father AND is playing with the Tech-Ball again. It's pretty much congruent with Rhodey's statement in the first novel that Tony's brain "never, ever shuts down".
(...)
Okay, Tony thought. This has maybe gone on long enough. He slipped his new PDA from a fancy bit of holo-enabled glass he and Jarvis had put together the week before. It was a rectangle of fiber optics, pure computing power that looked like a piece of Plexiglas.
And here we have a portable Jarvis v.2.0! And once again Tony credits Jarvis as a co-inventor rather than just an assistant. The PDA is not an invention "he had put together" or "he had put together with Jarvis's assistance", it's a device "he and Jarvis had put together", and by thinking this way Tony basically admits to himself that he consider's Jarvis's creative input equal to his own.
Senator Stern didn't bother to conceal his satisfaction at Hammer's theatrics. "Thank you, Mr. Hammer. The committee would now like to invite Lieutenant Colonel James T. Rhodes into the Chamber." He looked toward the green room door, where Rhodey was entering in full dress uniform, looking uncomfortable and out of place. Unlike the brass sitting in the front row, Rhodey didn't like being in front of people and he didn't like dealing with politicians. This would probably mean that his career was topped out at bird colonel, but he was fine with that. He'd told Tony on a number of occasions that if a promotion to general ever came up, he would turn it down. Rhodey wanted to stay active and in the field as much as possible.
Tony met him in the aisle and shook hands. It was a bit stiff, but Tony was glad to see Rhodey there. If there was any living human Tony knew he could count on to do the right thing, that person was James Rhodes.
On the other hand, it would have been nice to know about it ahead of time. "I didn't expect this," Tony murmured to Rhodey as Rhodey passed.
"Look," Rhodey said, "it's me. I'm here. Deal with it."
"I have before me," Stern said after Rhodey had been sworn in, "a report on the Iron Man compiled by Colonel Rhodes. Colonel, can you please read into the minutes page fifty-four, paragraph four?"
"Certainly, Senator," Rhodey said. "May I first point out that I was not briefed on this hearing, nor prepared to testify-"
"Duly noted," Stern said without looking up from his notes. "Please continue."
Ever the good soldier, Rhodey swallowed the snub and went on. "This paragraph out of context does not reflect the summary of my findings."
"Did you or did you not write, quote, 'Iron Man presents a potential threat to the security of both the nation and her interests'?"
By way of answering, Rhodey continued and completed the quote. " 'As he does not operate within any definable branch of government.' I, however, went on to recommend that the benefits far outweigh the liabilities-"
"Thank you, Colonel Rhodes," Stern said.
Undeterred, Rhodey finished his sentence. "-And that it would be in our best interest to fold Mr. Stark into the existing chain of command."
God love you, Rhodey, Tony thought.
"I'm not a joiner," he said, "but I would consider Secretary of Defense. Provided the hours could be-"
"This isn't a job interview," Stern said. Apparently, Tony thought, the senator suffered from some kind of interruption-related disability.
This is an interesting passage. Tony basically admits that he thinks of Rhodey as a decent, trustworthy person AND we can see Rhodey trying to protest Tony's interests, but boy, will Tony give Rhodey a hard time about his appearance at the hearing afterwards. Pepper, similarily, will fall out of grace because she'll dare to invite Rhodey on Tony's jet.
All in all, Tony is pretty easy to upset, and when he is upset, he can be really nasty even to people close to him.
Interestingly enough, this does not apply to Jarvis. Even though Jarvis occasionally does things that, considering Tony's short fuse, could result in Tony throwing a sulk (shutting off his armour mid-flight, slowing him down, playing a prank on him later in the novel and being in general snarky and sarcastic) Tony never seems genuinely upset. He's even able to admit that he appreciates Jarvis for his actions.
I've seen some fics where Tony threatens Jarvis with shut-down or mind-wipe, or in general is treated like a property more than a living person. This does not ever happen in the novels. While earlier on Jarvis had the "directives' to follow and asked Tony's permission before doing something drastic, by the time Iron Man 2 takes place Jarvis seems to be able to whatever he pleases and Tony trusts him to make the right decisions.
Another interesting thing is Tony mock-considering holding the position of Secretary of Defense. In the comics Tony eventually accepts the position of Secretary of Defense, hoping that in this way he'll be able to monitor and control the use of his technology. He is forced to give up this position after the mentally imbalanced Scarlet Witch manipulates him to appear drunk and aggressive at the United Nations gathering. Tony pretends to step down as Iron Man, but in reality continues to work as one, except his focus slowly changes from just apprehending villains to politics.
(...)
Enough, Tony thought. He fired up the mini virtual desktop on his PDA and set to work getting some visual evidence that would actually prove something . . . even if it wasn't what Stern and his colleagues had set out to prove.
"This has been corroborated by our allies and local intelligence on the ground," Rhodey was saying, "indicating that they are quite possibly, at this moment, functional."
Tony stood and touched an icon on his PDA. "Let's see what's really going on here," he said as he slaved the bank of monitors to a subroutine of Jarvis that ran natively on the PDA. "If. .. I.. . may," he said, vamping as a series of classified videos-some of them existing only on intranets behind security walls that the Department of Defense would never get through-loaded and began to play. At top left, a North Korean proving ground was hosting a test flight of a skeletal suit whose occupant looked deeply uncertain about his role in the proceedings. Something like a repulsor, mounted on a directional jet in the suit's back, fired, lifting suit and pilot into the air. He lifted one arm and fired off a series of mini-rockets from a magazine mounted on one forearm.
"You're right," Tony said, "North Korea is well on its . . . "
Suit and pilot disappeared in a flash of light that overwhelmed the camera. When the image resolved again, the smoking remains of the suit were being hosed down by firefighters.
"Nope," Tony said. "Whew. That was a relief."
And here we have some Jarvis-the-hacker. No government is safe. ;)
Hacking aside, this is a nice example of how ruthless Tony can be when he believes hhe is right. My first reaction to the passage above was the instinctive sympathy for the Korean test subject, who probably didn't even want to participate in the experiment, but ended up severely injured or (more likely) dead. Tony, meanwhile, is just relieved that Korea failed in their efforts to create a functional Iron Man suit.
I wonder if this could eventually cause a rift between him and characters like Pepper (who is shown later in the novel to believe that the villains should not be killed but held in prison for the rest of their lives) or Captain America (who is also stringly against killing and does not even carry a gun).
The same or similar results played out on the other monitors. "Let's see how Russia is doing ... oh dear," Tony went on. "Japan! Japan has to be closer-ohh, I guess not. India? Not so much. Germans are good engineers. Yowch. That's gonna leave a mark." Then he froze all of the looping videos except one, and expanded that one until it took up the entire bank of monitors. "Wait," he said. "The United States is in the game. Look, it's Justin Hammer."
Looking over his shoulder at the camera crews filming the hearing, Tony added, "Hey guys, you might want to push in on Hammer for this.
What unfolded on the single remaining video was a comic disaster. Hammer himself stood off to one side of the frame as a crew strapped a volunteer into an armored exoskeleton. It had clearly been constructed with the Iron Man suit in mind, but Tony could tell by looking at it that the weight distributions were all wrong for the location of the propulsion systems. Hammer stood back and winked at the camera.
The real-life Justin Hammer in the Senate chamber looked like he had a mouthful of spoiled milk. On the monitor bank, Hammer's prototype suit lifted off into the air over the proving ground, which was a sand pit out behind Hammer Industries' main manufacturing facility. There was a nice landscape shot of the hills behind it as the prototype's exhaust carved a perfect loop-de-loop against the blue sky. The prototype fired off a number of small rockets. As they detonated on the ground, Hammer whooped and said something self-congratulatory toward the camera. The loop-de-loop turned into a spiral at exactly that moment, and the thrusters cut out as with the operator moving parallel to the ground. By itself, this would have been unfortunate; when pieces of the prototype started to fall off things turned comic as the operator tumbled out of the air with a trailing yell. He landed in a sitting position, kicking up a huge plume of sand. Hammer could be heard yelling to cut the video.
Tony froze the playback on the moment when the operator hit the ground. He glanced back at the crowd and saw winces and grimaces as everyone present experienced sympathetic pains in their tailbones.
"I would like to point out," Hammer said, "that that test pilot survived and only suffered minor spinal bruising. He is currently white-water rafting with his family."
(...)
"You want full disclosure?" he asked. "I don't trust you. I'm sorry. You're creepy. I may be a little nutty. I may go off half-cocked sometimes, but-strangely-I am inherently trustworthy, and have been for the better part of six months." Tony turned to face the camera, which was still tight on him, broadcasting his image to whoever happened to be watching Senate hearings at the moment. "Look at me. Now look at him. Now look at him looking at me."
Stern's face appeared on the monitors.
"I think we've heard enough," the senator spluttered.
"The good news is," Tony said, recapturing the camera's attention, "I'm your nuclear deterrent. The goal of the suit is not to use it. And it's working. You're welcome. I have successfully privatized world peace. Not that I'm above throwing on the suit and breaking up an international bar fight here and there. But that's just putting my finger in a dike. No offense, Senator Buxton; I don't mean to belittle the ongoing issues you've had with your levee systems. The point is-"
Gavel poised, Stern said, "There had better be one."
"You want my property," Tony said. "You can't have it. I try to play ball with these ass-clowns and be their dirty little secret. Something goes boink overseas, I get the three-a.m. booty call. Usually from the Pentagon. Or, often from one of the faces you see before you."
He was starting to wonder how much more time he was going to have, as unrest spread through the gallery and Stern said something about producing proof. One of the keys to an effective speech was knowing when to end it. "My bond is with the American people, whom I will always keep safe," Tony said. "And I will serve the people of this great nation at the pleasure of. . . myself." He gestured for the camera to come in tight on him again. "And if there's one thing I have proven to the world at large by any metric, it's that you can count on me to pleasure myself."
And there was the gavel, hammering down as Stern said "Adjourned!" and rose to stalk off the committee dais. Tony hopped down from the lectern he'd taken over, flashed peace signs, blew kisses, the whole works. He caught Justin Hammer's eye and added a final line straight into the camera, just because he was Tony Stark and he could.
"1 don't know if I'm a sword or a shield," he said. "But I do know that Hammer is a tool."
On that line, coverage of the hearing ended and the Senate chamber erupted.
More Tony in action. ;) No comments this time, but this passage will be relevant later.
And that's it for today!