science is fun [closed]

[wrathfulkhan]

Characters: Tony Stark, Gene Khan, Raine Sage
Date: Early September
Location: The labs in Stark Industries
Situation: "Hi, I'm Tony Stark, and welcome to Jackass." Hey you know those crazy-ass rings of insane phenomenal power? We should test them. For science.
Warnings/Rating: Idiot teenagers attempting Mythbusters science with technology beyond either of their ken. Watch what happens. someone's prolly gon git hurt and it's prolly gon be gene

So, things are weird.

Not much weirder than usual, granted, but weird all the same.

The weirdest thing, though, is that Tony has agreed to work with Gene. Doing science. Ring science. The last one's still locked up in Tony's possession, of course, and a good thing, too. But they both decided that they ought to test the effects of using only one at a time...just in case.

There's a whole section of the lab they have to themselves, which is great, because Gene is going to need a lot of room and a lot of test dummies to test out all the rings' powers.

Comments

huehuehuehuehuehue

[highprofilerichkid]

[Is Gene for real? Tony was just kidding...

But he gets distracted from tootsie pop science by Gene's... licking comment. He grins.] Oh, yeah? [he says with a raised eyebrow, snickering quietly.

And then he coughs and blushes violently.

No. Just stop. Tony. Stop saying words.]

[ruinsprofessor]

[And it's at this point that Raine knocks on the door, very briefly, and pushes it open, sticking her head in. She takes in the teenaged boys, the violent blush, and raises her eyebrows, but makes no other comment on that. For now.]

Is this a bad time? I can come back later.

MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE

[wrathfulkhan]

[What. Wh--what? Why is Tony going bright re--

Gene runs back through what he just said and practically winces. Wow. WOW. Wow. Before he can say anything to mitigate the situation or potentially make it worse, the door opens and HEY there's Raine.]

Uh...no, now's probably a good time, [he says, knowing his ears are beginning to burn and deeply thankful for the distraction.]

[highprofilerichkid]

[OH THANK GOD, RESCUE.

He has no idea who this woman is, but he is so glad to see her.]

Yeah! Now's a great time. Now is fine. Hi, I'm Tony. [Did he say that too fast? It sounded a little fast.

And he's still blushing, because now he's thinking about all the much cleverer and much worse things he could have responded to Gene with. He has never been happier to have missed the opportunity for a witty quip.]

[ruinsprofessor]

[It was definitely too fast not to be suspicious, but she's... not going to ask what she missed. Teenaged boys being ridiculous explains just about everything in the room, honestly. Raine quirks a smile, and comes the rest of the way into the room.]

Raine Sage. Hello, Gene. [And a little wave to acknowledge him, because she does remember him kindly.]

I'm a healer, primarily. I'm looking for assistance in analyzing and reproducing something I brought with me from my world. Would either of you have an idea where to start?

[If one of them can't help, maybe they'll point her at someone who can.]

[wrathfulkhan]

Raine, [Gene says, inclining his head and hoping she doesn't notice that his ears are bright red.

A thing! Yes. A thing. Let us see the thing, haha!]

I could take a look at it, [Gene offers.]

[highprofilerichkid]

[WOW YES. THAT THING. LET'S LOOK AT THAT THING THAT RAINE HAS.]

Oh, uh, yeah, sure. What is it?

[Gene offers to look at it - whatever it is - and Tony nods.] Can the ring analyze it?

[ruinsprofessor]

[Boys you are not making ignoring... whatever you were doing... easy.]

[Raine pulls a small, amber-colored oblong from one pocket, crosses to hand it to Gene. He'll find it a bit squishy, and pineapple-scented, if he's paying that much attention.] It replenishes magical energy, in a pinch. I'm down to my last. Given how many things have gone wrong lately, I'd like to have the backup if at all possible, but gel crafting isn't something I've studied.

[And she tips her head a little to one side, curious.] The ring?

[wrathfulkhan]

[They have noooo ideaaaa what you mean! Nothing! Nothing was happening!

Gene examines it. Well, shouldn't be too much trouble, right? And a real test of the ring's abilities - what can it tell him about something not even native to its own universe?

He displays the ring for Raine when she asks about it.] We're testing it out. It should be able to analyze this and tell us what it is.

[highprofilerichkid]

[Nothing, nothing, tra la la!

Tony curiously inspects the little orange... gummy blob? It looks sort of like candy.]

Yeah, you probably want Gene to look at it first. Any tests I'd run would be destructive, and if I can't figure out what's in it I don't want to have wasted your last one.

[ruinsprofessor]

[If it looks like candy that's because it kind of is. Magical pineapple gummy candy.]

All right. [Raine takes a step back from Gene, regards him thoughtfully.] In that case, I won't tell you anything else about it yet. ...How does your ring work?

[Tony's tests will be a secondary option. There's always the chance she could get lucky at landfall, too, but that's not something she'd like to count on happening any time in the near future.]

whoopsie daisy

[wrathfulkhan]

I'm not sure how it works, [Gene admits,] but it hasn't been wrong yet.

[He puts the gummy down on the lab bench, looks at it, and queries the ring, ignoring his headache. What is it? How can we make more?

There's nothing for a moment. And then...too much.

Chemical compounds. Theory of mana. Gel recipes. Without the other rings to act as limiters, there's simply too much information for him to process in one burst, and it just keeps coming. He can't retain it; it's like trying to drink from a firehose, trying to fit the entirety of the ocean into an eyedropper.

There's too much. There's too much.

His brain pops the mental circuit breaker to protect against the onslaught of information, and he loses consciousness, collapsing and convulsing as the excess neural energy works itself out. He's shaking, his eyes are rolled back in his head, and the ring on his finger is flashing crimson as it tries to feed more and more information into his already overloaded body.]

relevant youtube.com/watch?v=d-4hgrfLH9o

[highprofilerichkid]

[It happens without warning. One second Gene's looking at the gel, calm and focused, and the next second he's unconscious and convulsing on the floor. Tony cries out in alarm and scrambles to his side.]

Gene! No, no, no, Gene, stop it, please, please wake up, Gene— [He grabs Gene's shoulders, trying to hold him still and keep him from hurting himself, and Gene's still seizing, his eyes rolled up, unresponsive.

Tony is terrified. He's never seen anything like this, and he doesn't know how to stop it; he's terrified it won't stop, he's terrified of losing Gene, and he's terrified by the realization of how much he doesn't want to lose Gene.

Finally, through his panic, Tony notices the flickering ring. He immediately yanks it off, hoping desperately that it will stop whatever's happening.] Raine, help me!

[ruinsprofessor]

[This is possibly the fastest she's ever seen a mostly innocuous situation go wrong. It's impressive in all the wrong ways.] Gene--!

[Light is spinning below her feet almost before Tony's said anything, white angular shapes in a steady circle.] Hold on. Resurrection.

[Insubstantial, prismatic wings fold over Gene briefly, and Raine drops to her knees beside the boys almost immediately thereafter, swinging her staff out of the way with the ease of practice. If there was something gone wrong in his mana, that should have cleared it, though with the varied reactions she's gotten to that spell she's not going to hold her breath. She reaches to check Gene's pulse, and there's already another circle beneath her even as she does.] Take a deep breath. Do you have any idea what could have gone wrong with the ring?

[Almost as an afterthought, she adds a quiet Heal, in case Gene injured himself falling.]

[wrathfulkhan]

[The light from the ring flares and dies when Tony yanks it off, and though it doesn't appear to have an immediate effect on Gene's well-being, it's the best thing that Tony could have done. Now his brain just has to work through the prodigious amount of input already fed into him by the ring instead of piling more and more data on top of it.

Raine's spell finishes the job, resetting his mental state, discarding the extraneous information, and he stops seizing and goes limp. After a few seconds, he opens his eyes.

That hadn't gone how he'd expected it to go. Not at all. He can't even remember any of the information that had overloaded his brain, but he could tell it had been nothing like his last brush with omniscience; rather than the intricate clockwork of the universe laid out before him, this had just been a jumble of everything.

His head's still pounding fiercely, but that's beginning to subside.] I don't...I don't know what happened, [he says weakly.]

[highprofilerichkid]

[...Whoa. Whatever Raine just did there was... that was something else.

Gene goes limp as the... spell? drapes over him, and for just a second Tony's terror ramps up to a whole new level. But then Gene opens his eyes, and Tony lets out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding.]

Gene, are you okay? What— [he has to stop himself from asking "what happened?" because that would be an incredibly stupid question right now, since "I don't know what happened" was literally the first thing Gene said upon reviving. Instead, he goes with:] Has anything like that ever happened before?

[ruinsprofessor]

[Oh, good, it actually worked as intended. Raine relaxes a little, a barely noticeable shift in the line of her shoulders.]

[She doesn't want to overload him, even if there are a lot of questions to be asked here. She sits back on her heels, watching Gene for any sign of continued problems.]

Do you remember anything?

[Tony hit basically everything else she would have asked.]

[wrathfulkhan]

I... [Gene closes his eyes and shakes his head as another wave of nausea washes over him.] No. Never happened before. [Full sentences are hard.] Don't remember anything.

[highprofilerichkid]

This is all my fault. [Tony looks shaken and upset. He'd unconsciously grabbed one of Gene's hands at some point in the past few seconds, and he still hasn't noticed.] We shouldn't have been testing the rings like that. I'm sorry, Gene.

[Testing the limits of mysterious, unstable alien technology, using it outside its normal parameters without any knowledge of how it functioned? Yeah, that was a great idea. He never could have foreseen that going horribly wrong! I'm such an idiot, he silently despairs.]

[ruinsprofessor]

[Science is always the best idea, but better to test one parameter at a time; she might have a few words about their methods.] If you aren't sure of their full capabilities, it's smart to test them thoroughly before they're needed, though this particular outcome is obviously undesirable. What's different from previous tests? The origin of the item, of course, but anything else?

[Raine eyes Gene for a moment. He... really doesn't look well.] I'd like to keep an eye on you for a little while, Gene, in case of lasting ill effects. How do you feel?

[wrathfulkhan]

[Gene shakes his head again and immediately wishes he hadn't. His inner ear is lagging about half a second behind the rest of him, giving him the illusion of being on a wildly pitching ship's deck.] I think I asked the wrong question, [he says at last.] Too broad. The other rings couldn't...filter the things I didn't need away.

[He feels like hot garbage, is how he feels, but he's not about to admit that in front of Stark, who is...holding...his hand...???] I'm fine.

[Yes, because nausea seafoam is such a lovely shade on the Mandarin.]

[highprofilerichkid]

[Despite Raine's healing spell, Gene is still looking seriously under the weather. And Raine's continued concern, though appreciated, is not doing much to relieve Tony's anxiety and guilt.]

Maybe you should lie down? I mean, like, not on the floor. I have a couch.

[Yes, there's a couch in the lab. A very comfortable one. Which he sometimes sleeps on instead of going home. DON'T JUDGE HIM.]

[ruinsprofessor]

[Right. The other rings. They were definitely trying to test too many things at once.] If you feel up to it -- later -- it may be worth trying again, with the others to filter. The set were intended to be used in conjunction, correct? That's almost certainly for a reason.

[If they're cautious there's no reason not to try again, probably. It's absolutely up to Gene, though, since it's his brain.]

[have they even noticed they're holding hands.]

[wrathfulkhan]

[Gene has noticed but he is resolutely ignoring it.] Yeah. I think I'll...do that, [he says to Raine. He's glad that they stopped before getting to the black ring. That one would have probably killed him outright.]

I'll be fine, [he says to Tony. He's been humiliated enough for the day, lying down like a sick child would be just the last straw.]

[highprofilerichkid]

[Tony has just now noticed the hand thing, and he blushes a little, but he doesn't let go because now he's worried that'll draw more attention to it. He's kind of hoping nobody else notices until there's an opportunity to move his hand without being really, really obvious. Sorry, Tony, already too late for that.

Anyway, then Gene starts talking, and Tony, too, decides to resolutely ignore it for the moment. ]

You look like you're gonna hurl, [Tony says skeptically. He's pretty sure Gene is not "fine." He glances to Raine for backup: surely the healer isn't going to let Gene walk all the way home to the Fire Sector five minutes after he'd had some kind of major seizure.]