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

[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.]

[ruinsprofessor]

[No, that doesn't look much like fine. As much as Gene should have the best knowledge of his own condition, Raine's inclined to agree with Tony.]

There's no harm in taking some time to recollect yourself while not lying on the floor.

That is, unless you're well enough to get up right now? [She's pretty sure he actually isn't, but if he's intent on trying to prove it, she's fine with watching him run into his own limitations before healing him.]

[wrathfulkhan]

[Oh, Raine. You have experience with people who have more pride than sense, don't you?

Gene stands, letting go of Tony's hand in the process (see, he didn't even notice, nobody noticed, nobody noticed anything because there was nothing to notice so there), and, despite a little wobbling, he manages to make it to his feet.] See? [he says, straightening up.] I'm f--

[And as he stands up properly, the head rush blacks out his vision, and the next thing he knows he's back on the floor.] ...fine.

[It's unclear if he's finishing his sentence or admitting defeat. Maybe it's both.]

[highprofilerichkid]

[Tony tenses when Gene starts to stand. That seriously does not look like a good idea.] Gene— [It's not. As soon as Gene tries to straighten up, his eyes roll back and he collapses again.

Tony just barely manages to break his fall enough that he doesn't smack his head on the floor. The last thing Gene needs right now is a concussion, on top of whatever the ring did to him.]

Yeah totally fine, [Tony says when Gene comes around again. He narrows his eyes at Gene in a very obvious 'you are such an idiot' glare.] Now do you want to lie down on the couch?

[ruinsprofessor]

[Raine absolutely has experience with people with more pride than sense. Hence watching him fall over with a moderately resigned expression. She sighs just a little, and tosses another first aid at him just in case, though it did look like Tony caught him well enough.]

Experimentation can wait. Gene, Tony's right, you should rest.

[She stands up, offers a hand down to Gene. The couch is still across the room, after all, and he doesn't look steady enough to make it there by himself. The other option is probably being carried by Tony, so it's a matter of what his pride prefers.]

[wrathfulkhan]

[Gene's pride absolutely prefers help from Raine than being picked up by Tony.] Fine, [he grouses again, accepting Raine's hand and hoping he doesn't black out when he stands again.]

[highprofilerichkid]

[Tony hovers, ready to catch Gene if he falls again, as Gene takes Raine's offered support and allows himself to be led over to the couch.]

You should drink something, [Tony says decisively, once Gene has been safely delivered to the couch.] I'll go get you some water. [And he starts hunting the workbenches for a cup to fill up at the sink.]

[ruinsprofessor]

[Raine leaves her staff on the floor in favor of making sure she has a free hand to support Gene if he stumbles. While it may not do much for his pride, at least it's really obvious people care about his safety?]

I'll stay a little while. Just in case.

[Science is probably over for today. Raine watches Tony for a moment, then shifts her attention back to Gene, wondering about the dynamic between the two.]

[wrathfulkhan]

[KEEP WONDERIN', RAINE. Gene has no idea what to make of the fact that people actually seem concerned about him. It's weird, and he's not here for it.

He settles back on the couch, closing his eyes. Yeah. Still dizzy. And still too stubborn and practiced at hiding his pain (or pretending he doesn't feel it) to actively let on that he's suffering.]

[highprofilerichkid]

[Tony brings the water over and sets it down on the floor within Gene's reach. And then he... stands around awkwardly. Like, okay, what the heck is he supposed to do now? Sit and stare creepily at Gene while he recovers? Read him a bedtime story?? HELP]

I... guess I'll...? Be doing some work...? Over there? [He starts drifting over to one of his worktables.] ...Tell me if you, uh, need anything?

[dear god Raine please save him]