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

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.

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"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.

"She's not shooting repulsors at either of us, so it can't be that bad, right?"

Ah, yes, inappropriate gallows humor. That's definitely what this situation calls for, Tony.

"...I don't know about you, but I'm not sticking around to wait for her to armor up and test that."

There is something to be said for self-preservation, after all.

"Are we turning the lab into a bunker and hiding out until further notice?" Tony asks, working up a small grin. "I think we can live off my snack stash for a couple days, if we're careful."

"That might be advisable," Gene says. "Either way, we should probably keep clear of her for a while." Beat. "Unless you want seconds on that knuckle sandwich."

"No thanks," Tony says with feeling, rubbing his sore jaw. "I know I've got Extremis now, but— ow. I think she punches harder than I do."

Not technically true, though Pepper would probably appreciate the compliment.

Tony sighs. "I guess I'll stay down here for a while. Give her more time to cool off."

While disappearing entirely would probably, in reality, be counterproductive, he definitely plans on being scarce for a few days.

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

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