tushanshu_logs | go ahead! panic! do it now and avoid the june rush!

Entry tags:

go ahead! panic! do it now and avoid the june rush! | open, with starters

Characters: ~~Eyebrow Squad~~ Gene, Jackie, Deon, and you!
Date: Throughout June
Location: Keeliai and the rest of the shell
Situation: June interactions for Eyebrow Squad. And Young Wizards references.
Warnings/Rating: None initially, but subject to change.

A. [Gene] House Iron Dragon | June 1 | closed to Tony and Pepper

Well...nothing like orienting the new roommate prior to signing the lease, right? Or whatever it is you kids do these days. In point of fact: Gene and Tony...haven't actually told Pepper as such that they're involved. Neither of them have found the right way to break it to her. But since she's moving in - well, she might not want to after this - may as well put all the cards on the table.

Gene's making tea. It might make the reveal go down easier. Or it could end up with both of them getting scalding tea thrown in their faces. Fun.

B. [Gene] Midnight Hotel | June 3 | closed to Valdis

Now that the business with Pepper was out of the way, for good or ill, Gene has someone else to talk to about his relationship: Valdis. None of the gory details, since she wouldn't care to hear them and he wouldn't care to share, but he has to thank her for giving him the push he needed to say something to Tony. They're the strongest together they've ever been, and he knows he has her advice to thank for it.

He seeks her out in the Midnight Hotel, knocking on the door of her room. "Valdis? Do you have a minute?"

C. [Gene] Dojo | June 15 | closed to Bakura

Gene has gone to teach at the dojo, but it's early enough that he can get some practice in against one of the dummies. And who knows, maybe he'll run into someone interesting here. And maybe he'll talk to Bakura.

Talking to Bakura is still weird. He's not sure he's going to get used to it anytime soon.

D. [Jackie] Central Sector | June 26 | closed to Valdis

Jackie's spent a little time in Zeshora, but he's not a huge fan of getting squid guts thrown at him, so he's been mostly keeping to Keeliai. It's in the Central Sector that he spots Valdis, but he's not certain if he should go up and say hello, all things considered.

OOC Note: If you want another starter, please hit me up over at

Chatvert and I'll pull something together for you! :>

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Pepper had been expecting something involving a stove, but apparently Gene is using the rings. To heat up tea. Um.

They are never buying appliances ever, ever again.

"He practically lived in his lab at home," she says, following Gene into the kitchen area to pour herself more tea. "After Justin Hammer bought Stark Industries, Tony lost the right to inherit the company when he turned eighteen. We spent most of the past year trying to get it back, but in the meantime Tony started Stark Solutions as a competitor," Pepper explains. "Plus, since his trust fund was with Stark Industries, he was like, dirt poor until he started selling his inventions. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to keep being Iron Man, and he couldn't fix Rhodey's armor or make mine and then bad guys would be running New York, if there was a New York, that is, since we stopped the city from being destroyed enough times that we've really earned a key or a medal or a street named after us or something so we don't have to keep breaking into buildings, not that it's all that hard. Given that his dad isn't really dead, and Hammer is AWOL, Tony'll probably go back to SI if we go home, so I don't know what he's gonna do with Stark Solutions." She shrugs, as if she hadn't just way overdone it with the explanation. "We should start it here, too, if this Zanru lady won't give him back his company."

~~He slices, he dices, he makes julienne fries!~~

"Huh," Gene says, sounding quite surprised. "I didn't know about all that." Though, to be fair, he'd had other things on his mind when all that was going down. Namely, the hunt for the rings. But there's a phrase that twists at his gut when Pepper says it - if we go home.

Everything's been pointing him towards this topic lately, and he's not certain he believes in coincidence. He doesn't want to think about the potential of going home and losing all he's done to redeem himself, but he hasn't really had a choice.

Then, because he'd rather focus on the hilarious mental image of Tony running a company, he laughs. "I really can't picture him running a company," Gene says, and pours for Pepper. Tony's too hotheaded; it'd never work.

"Yeah, well, you were a little bit preoccupied, weren't you? Something about space jewelry?" There's a hint of accusation in the words, but something akin to amusement in Pepper's voice.

Home has been on her mind constantly since crash landing here in Keeliai. She misses her dad and her room and her clothes and the armory and New York. Having Gene and Tony here is a balm to that pain, but it still gnaws at her every time she wakes up in a place she doesn't yet recognize.

"Well, he didn't do a lot of 'running', unless you count running away from bad guys. Mostly just came up with stuff and sold it. It was just the three of us, although Rhodey and me were more like test pilots than employees, and it definitely didn't feel like we were ever working. He'd have to stop being Iron Man 24/7 to actually run the thing, which kind of defeats the purpose of starting the company so he could keep being Iron Man." She presses the tea mug between her hands once Gene fills it. This whole situation feels surprisingly...domestic. It's just really strange that Gene Khan, Mandarin and (former?) enemy, is making her tea. "Thanks. Wanna go see how many new things Tony's invented in the last hour?"

The ache will soothe with time. Gene hadn't been homesick per se; he'd never really had a home to go back to. But aspects of Keeliai had reminded him of happier times, until he'd accepted them as just things he was going to encounter here, with no bearing on his past.

Things had gotten easier after that.

"Sure," he says. "Come on, I'll show you where it is. But...we might want to knock first. You know. In case he's making something that might blow up."

Edited 2015-06-13 16:03 (UTC)

Pepper hesitates for a moment - she's still really upset with both of them, and it doesn't feel quite right to just carry on as if everything is normal. It's never going to be normal, though. Who am I kidding, it never was normal, so why would this be any different?

She might as well let Tony know that she's emerged and isn't planning on repulsoring them both (although the thought is, briefly, tempting).

"Yeah. Okay. Knocking." She frowns. Normally Pepper just walks in, unless the door is locked - if it's open then clearly it's an invitation to come in, or else just carelessness on the part of the room's occupant. "I suppose this isn't as explosion-proof as the armory. He better not melt my floor or something."

Holding tightly onto her tea, Pepper follows Gene towards the basement.

Once they're downstairs, Gene knocks on the door.

"Tony? I've got Pepper with me." He glances back at her, still holding her tea. At least she hasn't dumped it on him yet. "...she wants to talk."

Maybe it's smarter if Tony keeps the door closed.

"Coming!"

A couple seconds pass as Tony puts aside whatever he'd been in the middle of. Then the door opens - slowly. Tony sticks his head around the door, his expression falling somewhere between 'wary' and 'sad puppy.'

"Are you going to punch me?" he asks, jokingly. Sort of jokingly. Honestly, he wouldn't be surprised if she did. He probably deserves it.

Tony looks sufficiently uncertain when he peers around the door that Pepper thinks he might actually be a teeny bit afraid of her. She resists the urge to pour hot tea on him - if it were soda she wouldn't be so hesitant.

"Maybe. Probably not in the face though." Or, at the very least, probably not yet. Hitting people in the face hurt. She gets on her tiptoes and tries to look over him, ~~nosiness~~ curiosity overriding her anger for the moment. "What are you working on in there?"

Besides, it would be a terrible waste of tea.

At least Pepper seems to be distracted enough for the time being not to do violence to either of them, so that's a relief. Still, he's not holding his breath that it'll last.

"Yeah, is it something top-secret?" he jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

Of course he's afraid of you, Pepper. You're terrifying.

"Ha ha," Tony says uneasily. It's not a very convincing attempt at a laugh. He still thinks there's at least a 50% chance she's going to punch him.

"It's, uh... I'm working on a new 3-D printer." He opens the door the rest of the way and steps back to let them in. "The old one's back at SI. I sold it to them so I wouldn't have to move it here. This one's going to be more precise anyway."

Pepper walks into the lab when Tony finally opens the door far enough, but she stands a little further away from him and Gene than she normally would. The lab isn't nearly as big nor as decked out as the armory back home, but it's strangely comforting.

"That, um, cool," she replies, not at all awkwardly. "Why do you need one?"

Gene follows Pepper at a respectful distance. He's uneasy enough being here. It had been better at the old labs in Stark Industries - those had been made by the other Tony and weren't his Tony's space, really - but this lab is basically the closest thing Tony has to sacred space, and it makes him feel a little weird to be in it, like he's trespassing.

He occupies himself by examining the in-progress 3D printer...but not too closely. He doesn't want to break anything he hasn't already broken.

"Mostly fabrication of metal components. I can just print them in wax and cast them instead of having to machine them. Saves a lot of time and effort - and lab space." Metalworking equipment is not generally known for its compactness.

"But it can make cool sugar cubes too," he says, attempting a smile. "Want one?" He holds out a bowl of printed sugar cubes - it's been a standard feature of his lab almost since he arrived. And, right now, it's functioning as a very small, somewhat inept peace offering. He's not sure how to make things better - but at least some candy can't hurt, right?

"Ooh, look at you being all space-efficient," Pepper teases, but her heart isn't really in it. The 3D printer was a smart move, seeing as he doesn't have an armory to spread out into. She's just so frustrated and upset with them both that it's hard to be anything but icy.

The sugar cubes, however, are a tiny but welcome surprise.

"Um, thanks." She picks one up and examines the shape; most of them aren't actually cubes. "You don't know how to do anything simply, do you?" It's an observation, not a jab, and her tone is flat. Pepper drops the 'cube' into her tea and picks up another to suck on. "I don't suppose you have any chocolate?" she asks miserably.

"We have something similar," Gene says, remembering the hot chocolate-like drink Tony had managed to cobble together some time ago, "but it's not actual chocolate. It's not bad, though."

He shakes his head. "Sadly, Keeliai still doesn't have anything like pizza. At least, not anything good."

Sticking to safe, neutral topics for now, since the atmosphere in here is still fraught.

Tony wilts a little at Pepper's frosty tone. But she takes some sugar cubes, and when she asks for chocolate, Tony is able to produce a small block of pseudo-chocolate from his snack stash.

"It's from some kind of nut, and I think they add spices to it. It's pretty close to the real thing. I can get you some more, if you like it."

Man. This is awkward. Pepper still hasn't said anything about the elephant in the room, and Tony's doesn't think he has the guts to broach the topic first.

The continued offer of sweets is a good start, Tony. And the psuedo-chocolate, while noticeably not a bar of Godiva, still hits the spot. Pepper resists the urge to take all of it and shove it in her mouth before running away to cry again.

And of course she rushes headlong into the elephant before it can charge her first.

"Sooooooo. How long has this -," she gestures to the two of them,"- been going on, exactly? I mean, it has to be pretty long, if you two are living together, Gene built an entire house for the two of you and I swear if you are getting domestic I will hit you both so hard you won't know the inside of your head from the out."

Gene actually has to stop and think about it, which might be a telling sign. "October," he says at last. "So...eight months? Plus a year, if we count the time we were stuck in the Dreaming." And he's not certain that he does. Especially since time got weird. He hadn't felt like they'd spent a whole year there.

"Building the house didn't take too long," he says, as if that makes things better. "I was building some other houses, too. It...made sense. We wanted to move out of the Hotel anyway."

You do not need to know how grossly domestic they've become, Pepper.

"Yeah, we developed the whole Sky Sector. We built houses for all the foreigners," Tony says, feeling the same impulse as Gene - as if there's any way to minimize the extent of their involvement, at this point.

But Pepper deserves better than that, and after a moment, Tony adds, "It... started a few months after I got here." Just about exactly three months, in fact. Tony's briefly shocked by that realization: had it really happened so fast? He smiles weakly. "It's worked out pretty well so far." Then he looks down, fidgeting with the sugar cube bowl. "I get it if you're pissed. I... we wanted you know, before you got settled in. In case... this makes you change your mind. About moving in."

He looks unhappy as he says it: he wants Pepper to stay. He's just not sure she'll want to stay.

Edited 2015-07-04 04:42 (UTC)

Pepper focusing on the pseudo-chocolate while they...explain. It's good to have something sweet to take the edge off of what they're telling her.

A few months. Was that all it took to go from murderous rage to playing house? They could be on Jerry Springer.

When Tony finishes, she's silent for a moment. Her sadness has been replaced by anger again, and she stalks over to Tony, glaring up at him for a moment.

And then she socks him in the jaw. She hits him so he'll reel away from the 3D printer and the lab table rather than into it.

"I'm not going anywhere." Pepper lasts only a few seconds before her hand hurts more than she can stand - as she heads for the stairs they can hear her muttering, "Ow, ow, ow, ow! Stupid boys..."

Gene is utterly unsurprised when she socks Tony in the face. He is surprised when she doesn't do the same to him.

Once she stalks off, he looks at Tony, moving to support him.

"That went about as well as we could have hoped," he says with grim humor. "At least she's staying?"

"That went better than I expected, actually," Tony says ruefully, rubbing his face. Pepper has an impressive swing on her. Her time in the suit (and all those years of pretending/aspiring to be a cop/spy/FBI agent/SHIELD agent/etc.) paid off, evidently.

"Better than it did with Dad," he adds, grimacing. "It'll be nice having her around - after she's done being furious with us."

Edited 2015-07-21 07:03 (UTC)

Gene winces. It's...best not to think about the disaster that was telling Howard, really.

"How long do you expect that'll take? Not like I'm not used to living with someone who hates me."

~~y u gotta make it sad, gene~~

"A week...?" Tony hazards. Pepper tends to change her mind about stuff pretty quickly - but she's also capable of holding a serious grudge, so, who knows, really? "She doesn't hate you. She's just... really mad at you. And me. Probably mostly me, right now."

~~he is an inescapable vortex of sadness~~

"Oh. Well. That's much better, then," he says, and the sarcasm is quite thick.

go ahead! panic! do it now and avoid the june rush! | open, with starters

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