Stark Industries, Tuesday

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

Jessica was doing some testing of her latest idea for jail improvement when the power suddenly went down in the shop. She sighed and went outside to check out what happened, but at least she knew there had to be a backup generator or twelve. Sure enough, power was back up by the time she got to the door. And then it immediately went out again.

After a surprisingly small amount of effort, she found the culprits: a pair of squirrels, their fur sticking straight out but otherwise okay despite the mild electrocution. "I'll call the clinic to pick you up," she told them after giving them rags to wrap themselves in.

One of the squirrels made a noise. "And I'll call a bar to deliver rum to the clinic. But it's getting charged to the station."

More noises. "Charge is not a trigger word. Just stay away from electricity."

[OOC: Open shop. cybersquirrel1.com is my favorite thing in the world right now.]

Comments

[imafuturist]

"What is happening with my power?" IF THIS WAS SQUIRREL GIRL'S FAULT, SO HELP HIM.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Squirrels, boss," Jessica answered. "Either they had a little too much rum before starting on their beat, or they're normal squirrels who thought they'd chew on things they really shouldn't chew on."

[imafuturist]

Tony was just going to give the singed little rodent a deeply disappointed look. "I knew I should have installed more redundancies."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"On lunch I'm going to get a few bottles of rum and place them in the alley, nowhere near anything electrical," Jessica said. "That should give us time to work something out."

[imafuturist]

"I have scotch." But he didn't look like he wanted to share. Also, he didn't know that there was way less scotch after Steve met Pinkie Pie.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"The squirrels are very particular about preferring rum," Jessica said. "I think it's a pirate thing. Don't get me wrong, they'd still drink the Scotch, but they'd probably glare at us afterwards."

[imafuturist]

"Philistines."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Do you want me to put your Scotch out for the squirrels?" Jessica checked.

[imafuturist]

"Let's keep it for an emergency," Tony decided after a moment.

[ungue.livejournal.com]

The name alone was enough to drag her in. The seemingly shocked squirrels being carried away was something of an added oddity that reminded her she shouldn't get her hopes up of seeing a familiar face.

Laura stopped for a moment. Tony Stark's face was anything but familiar. She was in no position to demand something closer to home, though...

Peering in, she quickly found the only person there (that she could see, and probably reasonably smell; smoked squirrel made detailed sniffing difficult). Certainly not Tony Stark, unless the island was really up to that sort of shenanigans. "There were squirrels being... carted away." It took some effort to finish that sentence, but Laura did it. "Does that happen often?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Not that I've seen," Jessica said. "But the clinic seemed a little too prepared to help them out, so it might be an ongoing thing I didn't know about until today." Listen to that sigh. That was the sigh of somebody who didn't need to know that squirrels had their own secret side plots in the background.

"Do you need help with something?"

[ungue.livejournal.com]

She could sympathize with that sigh. "I see," Laura said quietly. "I saw the name and... I suppose I thought Tony Stark would actually be here." Silly her. "Are you her secretary?" She looked like the sort of woman Stark would employ... although maybe a few years older.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Nope. Definitely not a secretary," Jessica said. She didn't exactly appreciate the assumption, either, but she had a good poker face. "I manage things around here when Tony's busy or disinterested in doing paperwork. Which is most of the time. If you're looking for him specifically, he's probably working on the electrical systems somewhere to keep us from going down the next time a squirrel bites something it shouldn't."

[ungue.livejournal.com]

"Oh, sorry." She knew about the man to assume why would someone wouldn't want to be related to him. She still worked for him though, so there was that.

Shaking her head, Laura made the rest of the way in. "I do not know him that well. He is hard to not know about, though." There was also that time she got arrested...

"What do you sell here?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Not a problem," Jessica said. "We mostly sell services for electronics. Repairs, we've built some robots in the past. Pretty much anything mechanical you might need, we can do it." Portals to other realities, law enforcement tools, alarm clocks...

"So you're one of the lucky people from a world with a Stark? Congrats on being from a place way crazier than a lot of people here have to deal with."

[ungue.livejournal.com]

"Sounds like a business Stark would do." If he retired to a tiny island on the middle of nowhere and wanted to play little Shop owner with the locals. Which he did?

Laura was inspecting what looked like a toaster but had no interest in making sure when she turned to face the girl. "Yes, I do. He is an Avenger back home. I know him mostly because of my... my Logan." she seriously needed a better way to call him.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Someday I'm going to meet someone else from a world where they're called Ultimates instead of Avengers. That day is not today," Jessica said. "But you know Wolverine?"

Jessica had never met Wolverine, but she had Peter's memories of him. He smelled so bad.

[thatwaslucky]

After going through the junkyard, but not bringing anything in quite yet, Rey stopped in. "Do you trade here?" she asked.

Worth a shot.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Point of clarification before I answer. Do you mean trade as in you give me a thing and I give you a thing in exchange? Or as in one of us gives the other a thing and then money changes hands?" Jessica asked. "I ask because somebody wanted to exchange an ox for an wagon wheel last week and I don't think he understood any part of what happens here."

[thatwaslucky]

"Exchange a thing for... money?" Rey went with that, given the ox story.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Good. I really don't need an ox," Jessica said. "If we have something you want, I might be able to sell it to you if we don't need it for something. If you have something you want to unload, it's possible that we'll buy it. I don't know that we ever have unsolicited, but we live in a crazy world. Anything's possible."

[thatwaslucky]

"What sort of things would you take?" Rey asked curiously. "I'm used to bringing things in to sell. I'm learning it's not quite the same here."

Which was great, except that she didn't really have work skills.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"It would be pretty particular, depending on what we were repairing or building," Jessica said. "Nice, clean parts, maybe? Broken machines that we could strip parts from? Engine parts are often in demand."

"Are you mechanically inclined, or do you just have a stash of shiny metal things?"

[thatwaslucky]

"I little of both, I suppose," Rey shrugged. "I can make things work when I need to. Nothing serious."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"You should talk to Tony Stark. Be a little less modest and you shouldn't have trouble convincing him to give you a job," Jessica said. "It pays better than trying to sell spare parts."