It didn't take long to arrive at the venue. As expected, it was exactly as grand as one would expect for an event of this magnitude.
I had come with about twenty minutes to spare before Stark began his speech, giving me ample time to pick up a drink and look around the room.
Not even a minute passed before people began approaching me.
A silver-haired man extended a hand to me.
"It's an honour." He said to me.
I shook his hand with a nod, not bothering to offer my name.
More Hellfire Club members approached me before I even managed to sit down. One was a defence contractor, and the other was a woman who kept trying to insinuate that she knew Shaw personally.
Seeing that there were plenty more people looking my way, I decided that meaningless niceties with random NPCs weren't worth my time.
"Ah, I've known Sebastian for decades, so-"
I cut the woman off.
"I'm busy."
She blinked, clearly not accustomed to being cut off mid-sentence by someone half her age.
It seemed that she thought that mere seniority meant something within the bounds of the club, an incredibly foolish notion, to say the least.
[+200 FP]
Looking around, the few people who were paying attention to our conversation awkwardly returned to their own conversations, not wanting to get on my bad side in the slightest.
I made my way further into the building, stopping right outside the doors to the main amphitheatre as a staff member checked my invitation on his tablet.
"Ah, sorry, sir, right this way." After a moment, his initial unenergetic tone was replaced with the utmost politeness.
Being a VIP had its benefits.
He led me past the general seating entirely, through a side entrance to a separate elevated seating section with considerably more comfortable chairs than those that lay below.
I settled in, playing on my phone for several minutes until the lights eventually dimmed.
Stark walked out to an immediate applause, no introduction needed.
"Three years ago, I made a decision that probably made every single one of you think I was either brave or insane. Jury's still out on which one."
The audience emitted comfortable laughter.
He moved through the technical content of his presentation with the expertise of a man who had actually designed the technology himself.
He went on about clean energy infrastructure, the arc reactor, sustainable power grids for developing nations and all sorts of technologies that, quite frankly, would have bored me.
Would have, if it were anyone other than Tony Stark talking about it. Somehow, he managed to make it interesting even to someone who honestly had no idea of what he was talking about.
The talk ran for forty minutes before he closed to a standing ovation from the crowd.
A several minute long QnA session began shortly after. I thought about asking a question to provoke him in some way, but decided against it in the end.
As the presentation finally closed, the room transitioned over to the dining hall, with the crowd distributing between the tables and the open bar.
I thought about how I'd get Stark's attention, but the answer came to me by itself.
Plenty of people I didn't recognise naturally began gravitating towards me.
The silver-haired man from earlier, the defence contractor, and several others whom I hadn't spoken to earlier. They were all Hellfire members interested in the new Black Knight.
It was an interesting feeling, being the most popular kid on the playground. Within fifteen minute a small crowd had clustered around my table, all of them competing for my attention in transparent ways.
"We've all been curious about you since Shaw made the announcement. Tell me, how exactly did you come to his attention?" The question itself was impolite, but the man clearly couldn't hide his curiosity.
"I have certain specialities," I said.
The people around me nodded as if I had said something profound.
"I've been trying to push a proposal through to Shaw for three months. Perhaps yo-" Another man began requesting me.
"I don't do that." I gave a blunt refusal.
He blinked in surprise, but remained near me regardless.
Various questions continued to come through, which I answered in plain, short sentences. My actions were undeniably rude, but these guys weren't in a position to do anything other than glaze me.
I picked up my glass and looked at the other side of the room, smiling slightly.
Tony Stark was standing twenty meters away, looking at me with a slightly confused expression. After all, how could he not recognise such a supposedly influential person attending his own event?
'There it is.'
He continued to stare at me whilst various scientists and CEOs clamoured around him for his attention, begging him to hear out their project proposals and business ventures.
After another second, he turned his head, returning to the various conversations he was expertly juggling.
Several minutes passed before he approached me.
As expected, Tony Stark wasn't the kind of man to leave things he didn't understand alone.
The small crowd around me parted to let him through.
"Okay, I'll bite."
He took a sip of whiskey before continuing.
"Who are you? Because I approved this guest list personally and I don't remember approving someone who apparently knows half the room better than I do."
The people around me went quiet.
"Varis," I told him my name simply.
"Just Varis?"
"Just Varis."
"Right."
He pulled out an empty chair across from me and sat down.
"Let's talk."