tushanshu_logs | Tony Stark's 2:00 has arrived

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Tony Stark's 2:00 has arrived

Characters: Pepper Potts, Tony Stark, and Jack Frost
Date: Thursday January 10
Location: Stark International building
Situation: Pepper finally gets the chance to introduce Tony to ~~Their 12% son~~ Jack Frost. Hopefully Tony can help Jack with his little problem
Warnings/Rating: Rated S for Snark! No, no rating or warning as of yet.
Note: Tony and Jack could seriously be related with how alike they are. Just saying.

Pepper had decided not to explain very much to Tony in regards to his 2:00 PM appointment. In truth, she wasn't entirely sure how to explain to him that he was going to be meeting a legendary mythological bringer of snow, ice, and winter who, happened to be his assistant and girlfriend's good friend as well as the only person on the Turtle who she had actually told (mostly) about that fact that she and Tony were an item in any sense of the word. Clearly Pepper Potts was weaving tangled webs. Intended or otherwise. In truth, she hadn't really told Jack much about Tony either. So she felt it was fair that they were both entering into the situation mostly blind. Her only worry was that Jack's strange affliction would affect Tony and the man wouldn't be able to see him. That would make for an awkward 2:00 consultation.

Still, she stood in the lobby of Stark International with her hands white knuckling a black datebook and waited for Jack to arrive. In honesty, this wasn't just a meeting between a potential client for Stark International and the CEO of said company. This was also a meeting between someone who had very quickly become a good friend of Pepper's (really her only friend who wasn't involved in 'certain things' at home) and her significant other. It felt almost as if she were bringing her boyfriend home to meet her brother. Or something equally as strange considering said boyfriend was Tony Stark.

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Jack was glad that Pepper had waved the guards off, because he didn't want to cause an incident minutes after arriving but at the same time, he wasn't about to let anyone take the staff away, not with what Pitch had done to it so fresh in his memory. But ever one to focus on the positive, the winter spirit decided that this at least boded well for Tony Stark being able to see him? If people as humourless looking as those security people could see him, this place really did throw all his expectations for a loop.

In contrast to Pepper's ease at being here, Jack couldn't have looked more out of his... well, element. With the silence broken only by her brief explanation of their surroundings, he'd unconsciously started trailing his free hand was trailing along the wall as he followed Pepper, leaving fern-like tendrils of frost where he touched.

"Offended?" Jack echoed, looking up at her. "Uhh... all right." Then he gave her another smile to show that everything would be fine. "I've never turned down a challenge, why would I start now?"

Two o'clock meeting. The first viable meeting time of the day, as far as one Tony Stark is concerned. Mornings are for sleeping and brunch, because he has an invariable habit of staying up until the dawn doing, well, all the things a Stark does. In the B.P. (Before Pepper) era, that meant staying out or partying late. With the A.P. (did he really need to explain that one?) era underway, it means more monogamous pursuits. Oh, and R&D. Lots and lots of R&D, considering he is a one-man R&D division for the Keeliai branch of Stark Industries.

This responsibility (look at him, all grown up and being response already) meant late hours, late rising, and a pint-sized mug of coffee pinning down one corner of the core planning diagram of the next Starkphone he planned to ready and release to the population.

His office tried to be the epitome of respectable (Pepper's doing), but in the wait for his meeting, Tony has scattered a dozen or sets of phone schematics about and is currently looking at the open back of one of his prototypes, idly scratching the side of his nose as the considers how best to reroute the circuitry to prevent overheating and, y'know, shocking him again when he next hooks it up to a power source.

"Pepper. Good, you're here." He tosses down the prototype as he says it. "I was thinking we could sneak out for a late lunch. I'm hungry. Paris is a bit far, but I could pop us over to Water and we could do sushi. With that little slimy salad they make here. Brown, salty? I think they dredge it from the canals an--"

Tony stops when he sees his two o-clock. He does indeed see it, because after watching his future combat and alliances with gods of ye olde Norse pantheon? Belief in the legendary's pretty much a standard, factory build option. Seeing and believing, however, is not quite enough to comprehend why this... kid? Child? Minor? Is worth a meeting. (Because, please, short of ID he is not letting this guy into any of his office bars. Yes, plural. He hides them all over.)

"Uh, no. That's not a meeting." He gives Pepper a flat look. "That's daycare and I don't like to share my toys, you know that."

Pepper offers Jack an apologetic look before turning a subtle glare on Tony. She'd expected him to act this way when seeing Jack, but really, he could have had the decency to prove her wrong for once. To be a bit more professional at least when they were in the physical proximity of the office.

"First, it's kale, I think. Second, this is Jack and he's not here for daycare. He has a particular problem I thought you might be interested in. However, if you don't think you're up for the challenge I can always see if I can get him in for an appointment with Mister Wayne." Pepper actually had no issue pulling cheap shots against Tony while Jack was around. That was ... strange. Still, it was best to focus on the situation at hand.

Suddenly it made sense to Jack why Pepper had warned him not to be offended by Tony, but rather than be offended by the remark (really, calling him a child was hardly an insult to a Guardian, whose entire existences were about kids) he offered Tony a smirk.

"If you're not nicer to the other kids, someone will take you and your toys out of the sandbox and put you to bed for a nap."

"Wayne?" Tony stops. He shakes his head. He even offers a half laugh to emphasize how ridiculous the idea seems to him. "There's no way that Wayne could help this kid." A vague gesture is made in Jack's direction. "Unless his problem is that he needs birth control. Or midol. Which he really doesn't look like he needs."

He then holds up a hand, finger extended to pause this conversation as he looks again at Jack. He looks young, but what is with that hair? Maybe an albino, sure, or it's some form of anti-emo expression nowadays. Kids, huh.

"And I am plenty nice to the other kids," he counters. "I just don't share well with others. It's in all my profiles. Narcissistic. Volatile. Agent Romanoff could all too happily list them off if you need them." He waves a hand dismissively -- no point arguing with the truth.

Jack's comment, though, does catch his attention. He likes it when people can use their wits and not sound like completely deadpan newbies. In a sense, it endears him a degree -- enough to continue their conversation. "So, what's the big problem?" He looks at Pepper. "What's his problem?"

"Only a few people can see him." She'd demonstrate, but there aren't that many people actually in the building. Pepper moves to the side and quietly bows out of the conversation for now. It's best if both parties speak directly to the other. If Tony isn't nice however, Pepper will intervene. Before he becomes a frozen boyfriendsicle.

"It's not really a problem," Jack felt obliged to point out. Indeed, even with the issue of some people not being able to see him here (he had figured it was coming out to about 30/70 right now, with 30% able) it was still worlds better than he'd been used to for a long time. If anything, it was more frustrating not to be able to pinpoint exactly what the difference was with the adults. Some could, some couldn't; whereas the children by and large could.

"But it is putting a bit of a crimp in trying to get a proper job like we were told to do," Jack continued. "Pepper said you might be able to help with that."

For the record, being a '-sicle' is all the rage since one Capsicle turned up. Starksicle doesn't have the same ring, or so Tony would argue had he a clue of the risks inherent with bantering against Jack Frost, but ignorance is bliss and this is a rare case of bliss for him.

"Funny, because he looks there to me," Tony remarks, though he's not about to offer a hand to verify. Tony Stark has a personal bubble, thanks, and only a few have been permitted to breach it.

"Now, are we talking full on invisibility or camera-based?" He lookes Jack over. "You don't look like Samara, but this could be a whole new, ah, awkward horror angle for the preteens. A G-rated Ringu?" He shrugs.

With his curiosity about the invisibility piqued, Tony puts a pin in the job issue first. Science demands that he understand it better before he makes any sort of call about a career. 'Industrial espionage' stands a chance, but he's hardly concerned with Wayne overtaking him.

Edited (Phrasing; subject WHOOPS) 2013-01-12 00:37 (UTC)

Right, no one except the over a dozen women he'd slept with before he'd realized he was in love with Pepper. Pepper had been planning not to say much and to let the pair hash things out for but Tony had asked for a quantifiable example; which was something that Pepper could offer.

"I could only hear him at first, and a good number of the natives seem unable to see or hear him." Pepper politely ignored his crack about the Asian horror film. Hopefully Jack wouldn't get the reference. Even if he did, she was getting the feeling that he was able to handle himself against Tony. Something which endeared him to her even more then before. Not many could manage to take Tony and hold their own against him in a battle of wits.

Jack holds up his hands in a 'stop right there' gesture. "Hey, if there's going to be anything relating to being down a well, I'm going to stick with bringing the kedan kids snacks during their recess, thanks. Water and I only get along when it's frozen."

He gave Pepper a slight apologetic grin, having remembered startling her during their first meeting. If he'd been completely honest, he wouldn't have figured either Pepper or Tony, just based on what he knew from them, would have been able to see him -- and yet both were capable of it, further confusing him as to what kind of guidelines for being real he was working on here.

"You don't mind if I sit, right?" Without waiting for an answer, Jack planted the base of his staff lightly on the floor and released it, but the gnarled wood stayed perfectly upright as though it had suddenly taken root. The winter spirit sat uncannily balanced on the rounded part, bare feet curling slightly against the staff's surface as though it were nothing stranger than a regular chair, even though neither the physics nor gravity should have allowed such a thing.

"Because I get the feeling this is going to take a while."

Edited 2013-01-12 16:54 (UTC)

Frozen water? That officially labels Jack as an on-the-rocks sort and that is a point of approval in Tony Stark's books. Technically, he isn't supposed to enable underaged drinking, but if the lad has a preference, it's not his place to judge him.

"Then what's the key?" Tony shrugs as he tosses the reply to Pepper. That seems the easiest way to answer this life-or-death situation. "Find the key and boom, you unlock the problem and that's assuming he's not a Loki-wannabe and is trying to say he can't control i--" Hold on a second. Did Jack just... balance on the staff?

Tony stops and looks the sight up and down, gesturing to the staff. "Okay, now that is a neat toy. I want one. Pepper? I don't remember a New Year's Gift on the table." Hint, hint.

Pepper can't help smirking at Jack's display. She'd be surprised, but really, when you're dealing with someone who can't be seen by half the world around you, anything goes. "I'll make arrangements for Jack's place of residence to be changed then, shall I?" She even goes so far as to make a note in her ledger.

"Jack, do you remember a correlation between the people who can see you verses those who can't?" Clearly it wasn't gender specific if both she and Tony were seeing him. "Also, has anyone stopped being able to see you?"

"The key used to be pretty simple: all someone had to do to see and hear me was believe in me. Here... it's all over the board. Some people can't see me at all, some people can and then don't think I'm telling them the truth which is really weird. And nobody's stopped being able to see me -- at least, as far as I know."

Clearly this issue was going to be taking precedence over the job situation, so Jack sighed and shifted his position atop the staff to one a little more comfortable. Although he tilted his head at the offhand reference amid Tony's rambling.

"Loki? Funny, you don't exactly strike me as the Nordic type," he mentioned. "But maybe that's why you could see me right away... Jokul Frosti?"

Edited 2013-01-12 19:22 (UTC)

Tony may be distracted by the staff, but one novelty is hardly an obstacle for the processing power and overdrive of his brain. Part of it is working on the laws of physics being defied by the position, another part on how to recreate it, a third on the issue at hand, and a fourth toying with the Loki reference, because any mention of Loki, even self-inflicted, is worth the caution of a second thought.

"Seeing is believing, believing is seeing?" Tony's tone is borderline mocking, but that's mainly because he's not often confronted with Peter Pan folklore. "Are we talking like a fairy dies every time someone says they don't believe in fairies." A pause, a shrug. "That makes my first fairicide."

The issue is still turning over in his head. It's not from a lack of belief, per se -- he's seen Thor in action, even in the third person -- but with the effort to apply his grasp of reality and this belief to that of Jack's world.

"Nordic? No. I just had -- will have -- a close encounter of the Loki kind. Turns out I'm buddy-buddy with his bro, Thor." Another pause as he glances at Pepper, than Jack, a small smile creeping up in one corner of his mouth. "Jokul Frosti? Are you kidding me? Old Man Winter? Son of the Frost King?"

That's a venue that his brain dashes down and there's a dawning of understanding that appears in his eyes. "That's it. And you're saying some of them don't believe you, but can still see you?"

Pepper makes a face at the mention of Thor and Tony being 'friends'. The pair are hardly friends. More rough acquaintances.

Pepper continues to stay quiet though, waiting for Tony to put two and two together and come up with Jack Frost. There was a clear reason why she hadn't mentioned Jack's last name. She had been one of those that didn't exactly believe that he was who he said he was at first. The whole thing was entirely unbelievable by normal person standards. But she did believe in the impossible. In fact, she lived with it and slept in the same bed with it every night. Tony shouldn't be alive and the sort of things that he could do shouldn't conceivably be allowed to be done by a normal man. Especially when it came to the Avengers.

"That's it." The words were very quiet as Pepper pursed her lips, thinking through the thought that had just dawned on her. "I didn't believe that you were that Jack Frost, but I've seen plenty things that make me believe that the impossible exists."

"Hey, you'd better believe in fairies. You do not want to see Tooth go all molar on you."

A grin crept across Jack's face as Tony listed off some of the other names that had been ascribed to him. "Now you've got the right idea," he said, shooting a look at Pepper as though to say, 'you didn't tell him my full name on purpose just so you could watch'.

He nods at Tony's question, and when Pepper added her own observation, Jack's eyes lit up as he also starting putting the pieces together. "That's right. Some people just, you know... scoffed but they could still see me. So I guess they have to believe in something... maybe it's strong enough in another spirit that I'm getting what's left over?"

Edited 2013-01-12 22:29 (UTC)

Tony leans back as his mind connects the dots in rapid succession, putting together far more complex of calculations than a mere one-and-one making two. "Tooth and molar, huh. I guess that makes you buddy-buddy with the Tooth Fairy. You have a line on Santa too?"

Half of this is verbalised conjecture as he waves a hand dismissively at the other apparent problem. The conclusions are apparent to him, though he has yet to properly explain it. "Belief's the key. I bet belief in spirits and the Great Pumpkin is the turtle equivalent of belief in the great Jack Frost. Believe in one and, voila, you believe in your nose being nipped at."

"But that doesn't help us in the grand scheme of things unless Jack does something to ...." Pepper's eyes go hard for a moment before she turns directly to Tony, almost glaring. "No." It's a flat and solid no. The no Tony was given when he had asked for Natalie as his personal assistant. Only this time it was a no that was going to stick.

"Buddy-buddy?" Now this is an interesting reaction, as Jack's expression distinctly takes another route. "Well, yes, we're friends now. And, uh, coworkers. Sort of; we're both Guardians. I mean, she has been for a long time and now I'm one too, but-- and it's not really work, so coworkers might not actually apply."

He cleared his throat, focusing on the rest of Tony's extrapolation before he got too much off topic. "And yes, with North as well."

Jack looked at Pepper with a shake of his head and a faintly wry smile. "Don't worry, I can't do anything like that. There are.. rules. Believe me, if I could have just written 'hi I'm Jack Frost' on a wall a few hundred years ago, things would have been a lot different. And if I've still got the Wind here with me, it's not so much of a stretch that the Man in the Moon is still watching... I don't want to undo everything that's happened."

The lightening in Tony's expression meets a solid wall in the reply Pepper fires before he can even suggest what comes to mind. He looks at her, briefly agape and with an air of absolute innocence. "But, Pepper, it's a great idea. Why the immediate 'no' to it? Negativity ages, you know." He looks at Jack and nods his head towards her. "Help me out here, Frosty.

All the while, he's cataloguing these mentions in his head; a tooth fairy, okay. North probably means the big S.C. up at the pole. All he needs is the Easter Bunny for a matched set, but--

"Man in the Moon too? You're serious?" There's a stumbling of belief there, because it's one thing to believe in Santa and Asgard, but another thing entirely to believe there's a man in the moon that just tolerates people stomping about his face. Tony looks to Pepper. "He's serious?"

Her eyes narrow even more. Careful Tony or you'll only have twelve percent of the bed tonight. She carefully crosses her arms to accentuate her negativity in this situation.

She continued to listen as Tony switched topics, knowing that he hadn't given up on his idea. Tony never gave up on an idea. He'd chew it and gnaw on it till it was nothing but marrow, but he wouldn't give up on it. "He looks serious to me. Jack?" She turned her attention to Jack, her expression softening, but still saying. 'See, he's impossible.'

"I can answer for myself," Jack says dryly, as it was the second or third time Tony had asked him a question only to turn around and prompt Pepper for the same answer. "Yes, I'm serious."

Although he didn't want to get into any particular discussion about the Moon. So instead he asked, "So that's well and great, but how is this supposed to get me a job?"

The antic is akin to fact-checking and shock value, for Tony Stark is a diva in his own strange right. Protests against it are often dismissed without so much as a gesture, much as he does now -- in part because there are bigger fish to freeze.

"A job's the easy part," Tony said with a wave of his hand, still contemplating the Moon, Tooth, and North issues in tandem with the visibility dilemma. "You work for Stark Industries, I pay you, boom! You have a job and everyone is happy."

A glance is shot at Pepper. "Beats Natalie, don't you think? He's not as pretty, but I don't think Fury's got Jack Frost on his payroll." A pause and a look to Jack. "Does he?"

Pepper knows right off the bat that Jack would make a horrible assistant to Tony. They'd never get anything done. Still, she wasn't against keeping Jack close, and having him as an employee of Stark Industries did just that. Still, Tony had opened a can of worms and she would rise to the bait. "And here I thought you and Natalie got along."

There's a subtle smirk. Once, not too long ago, Pepper had been extremely jealous of the attention that Tony had paid to Natalie, but now that was water under the bridge and something she was able to joke about. "Or is that only when you're dying and not telling me?" Yes Tony, she's still sore about that whole thing.

Edited 2013-01-14 07:28 (UTC)

Jack suddenly realized why this feeling was familiar: it was the same one he'd had in the Pole's workshop, when North had launched into the Guardian ceremony with all the pomp and circumstance it had entailed while Jack was still trying to get his bearings and figure out what was going on. He'd been essentially a prop; an accessory in something he was supposed to be part of and it had only exacerbated his issues with being there but not acknowledged.

And now Tony and Pepper could have been having this exact conversation whether he was standing there or not, and he slid back to the ground from his position on the crook of his staff to grip the wood in his hand. A path of jagged ice danced across the floor between he and Tony, up the front of the desk and froze everything on its surface. Everything from stray papers to Tony's Starkphone blueprints instantly became covered in a brittle layer of ice; the coffee mug cracked as its contents froze solid.

"Great," Jack said with a cold smile, though his blue eyes were hard. "Thanks for the offer, I'll think it over."

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Tony Stark's 2:00 has arrived

perfect!

eternal apologies for this

At least one of them is used to it.

and the other well on the way, lol

nice and adaptable, kid; Tony might like you

Pepper knew he would

the beginnings of a beautiful

failship?

Spying on Bruce Wayne is not very childlike.

It could be if there was pranking involved.......

pranking would HAVE to be involved, lbr

Pepper will pretend she doesn't know you people

look what you have wrought, Pepper. LOOK ON YOUR MIGHTY WORKS.

LOOK AND BE PROUD... or facepalm, if that's your thing

Facepalm, walk away, and order a very dry martini with about five olives.

sorry for short reply, dashing tag between errands

totally all the coolness! get it? COOL? 8D

Sadly, Pepper KNOWS she's going to lose this battle .... again.

with a pun war like that, winning is a dubious honour :P

a dubious honour is the best honour

Many things in her life are dubious.

no subject

no subject

Mommy and daddy shouldn't fight in front of the kid

yeah guys take some parenting classes already jeez