Groovy Tunes, Sunday

[furnaceface]

So, Jono hadn't opened the music shop yesterday on account of yesterday being Hannibal's birthday, and everything that entailed. (Mostly, it had entailed a trip to the opera. Which Jono wouldn't have picked for himself, no, but again, Hannibal's birthday.) Which meant that today, he was working on placing an order that he should have put in yesterday evening, as well as the usual restocking, cleaning, tuning the instruments on the far wall, threatening the stereo, tidying the music books, threatening the stereo again, putting in earplugs, alphabetizing the heavy metal section, throwing his arms in the air, unplugging the stereo, taking the stereo apart, throwing the stereo's component parts into the rubbish bin, taking them outside, and burning them.

Okay, some of those things were more unusual than others.

But they were necessary. After the thirtieth repeat play-through of What's New Pussycat, with one random instance of It's Not Unusual thrown in midway just to give Jonothon a false sense of security, stereo murder had been inevitable.

So, it was a quiet afternoon at the Groovy Tunes.

This was for the best.

[OOC: Open! OCD-free!]

Comments

[imafuturist]

"Did the stereo offend you?" Why yes, Tony was checking in about that voicemail. Don't you judge him.

[furnaceface]

//You'd be offended too, if it put you through half of what it did to me,// Jono replied, wrinkling his nose. //Hello, Stark.//

[imafuturist]

"Ah, a malicious radio." Look, it was the least of their worries about technology. It could have been Ultron or something equally annoying. "Hello. You can call me Tony. I don't bite."

[furnaceface]

//Funny thing, neither do I,// Jono replied, though there was a note of amusement in his voice. //Anyway, I don't even call my best friends by their first names half the time. But if you insist, Tony.//

He shrugged his shoulders a little.

//What can I do for you, mate?//

[imafuturist]

"Well, the only people who call me 'Stark' want to kill me. Or strongly hope I fall down some stairs." It was his charm that did it. "You left me a voicemail. Or you left someone a voicemail and I got it. I wanted to see how."

[furnaceface]

Oh, now Jono was just amused.

//With my phone, Tony.//

See how helpful he was?

[imafuturist]

"Now you're just being mean."

[furnaceface]

//I do have a bit of a sadistic streak in me,// Jono replied, shrugging his shoulders and reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone. //A friend of mine rigged this thing up. It's able to pick up my telepathic voice as though I'm just speaking aloud. I wouldn't mind figuring out how to reverse-engineer it to work with more than just my phone, but... ah... that means I have no phone.//

And since his phone was all he had, he was a tad reluctant to part with it.

[imafuturist]

Tony made grabby hands for the phone in the most dignified way possible. Because he was an adult and... grabby hands. "And you didn't think there was anyone in town with experience tinkering?"

[furnaceface]

//Oh, there are plenty of them. The place is saturated with geniuses,// Jono replied, rolling his eyes, but handing Tony his phone. //The trick is finding one with the time and the willingness to take a crack at it. Maybe leave me some schematics when they're through.//

[imafuturist]

"I can do that." Though he might add unnecessary bells and whistles. "You thinking simplified for mass production? Might be good for other psychics."

[furnaceface]

//I was thinking more for personal use,// Jono admitted. //I'm greedy that way. But... if it could be put to use for other people who are limited to what they can say telepathically... I wouldn't say no.//

He wasn't that greedy, after all.

[imafuturist]

"Might be worth it just to see the board's faces." Tony was a cruel man.

[furnaceface]

//... Now I want to see their faces. You know, I don't imagine this is something you can mass-market, per se. There are a few telepaths out there, but not that many.//

Unless Tony got really creative and made a mind-reading device, but that came with its own can of worms.

[imafuturist]

That way lay Superior Iron Man. Don't go there, Tony. Don't go there.

"True. I'll make you a few spares, though. You know how things can get."

HOW MANY TIMES DID THAT SCHOOL BLOW UP?

[furnaceface]

LIKE, HOW MANY TIMES PER MONTH, OR...?

//Oh, yes. I very much know how things can get.// Jono shook his head a little. //The glamorous life of the idiots who wear an X.//

Jono, you were sometimes one of those idiots.

[imafuturist]

"You're talking to a founding remember of the Avengers. I'm not sure which of us is more suicidal." Probably Tony. "I'm going to fix the appearance of this phone too. It's just... I'm fixing this."

[furnaceface]

//Offends your sensibilities, does it?// Jono certainly wasn't complaining, at least. He did look somewhat amused, though. //You're welcome to do whatever you like to the exterior, mate. So long as it works, I'm happy.//

[imafuturist]

Tony didn't make an indignant squawk, but it was a damn near thing. "Of course it'll work."

[furnaceface]

//Well, good. I'd be rather inconvenienced if it didn't, you know.//

What with it currently being the only thing in the multiverse that he was aware of that could pick up on his voice, and all.

[imafuturist]

He really needed to stop insulting Tony's engineering skills. It would only end in someone pulling an all nighter and improving on the phone through sheer spite and the usual desperate need to prove themselves.

A real mystery who it might be. Yep. Reeeeal mystery.

"I'll bring you a prototype tomorrow."

[furnaceface]

Jono's eyebrows raised a little. That soon? But he didn't bother rubbing in any more insults, at least.

He sometimes knew how to behave himself.

//Well... I look forward to seeing what you come up with, then. Ah... Thank you.//

[imafuturist]

Tony waved him off, eyeing the phone like it was challenging him. He didn't take thank you's terribly well. "It'll be interesting."

[furnaceface]

It's okay, Tony. Neither did Jono, really.

//Well, I hope so. If you bore yourself half to death, how will I be able to coerce you into doing me technological favours again in the future?//

[imafuturist]

By playing on the pathological issues inherent in most Tony Starks. Duh.

"I'll have JARVIS alert you if death occurs," Tony replied solemnly. "Hopefully he won't start the robot uprising when it happens."

[furnaceface]

//At least if he starts the robot uprising, I won't get bored.// A beat. //Anyway, I have a way with troublesome tech.//

He was nodding toward the melted slag that once was a stereo, yes.

[imafuturist]

"You'll be the first I call when it begins." If he was alive for it.

[furnaceface]

//Not if you don't finish my phone first, you won't.//

They were bantering now, weren't they?

Tony, this was how awkward cross-title teamups started.

[imafuturist]

Well, at least neither of them were DC?

"Then you better keep an eye on the machines until then." Until tomorrow morning. God, Tony.

[furnaceface]

//I think I can handle that. If nothing else, they've probably gotten whatever it is out of their systems since Friday.//

... Well, they could only hope. The stereo certainly hadn't.

[imafuturist]

"Any idea what it was all about?"

[furnaceface]

//Not completely sure. It just happens from time to time. Usually about once a year, I think.// Jono shrugged. //Knowing this place, it could be anything from gremlins to the island being bored, and I personally try not to think too hard about the island being bored.//

This from a guy who taught part-time in a school that was currently sitting on top of a baby Krakoa.

[imafuturist]

At least it wasn't the Savage Land. That place sucked.

"This place is full of those kind of days."

[furnaceface]

There were so many things there that wanted to eat you. And not all of them were dinosaurs.

//First rule of Fandom, really,// Jono agreed. //Learn to be suspicious of too many normal days in a row. That can't possibly mean anything good.//

Like a calm before the storm, but with pudding rain and child invasions.

[imafuturist]

But that meant Tony had to notice normal days. "And Pepper thought this place would be a calm break."

[furnaceface]

And now Jono just had to give you another amused look, Tony.

//Yes, but for you, or for her?//

See Jono. See Jono be a little shit.

[imafuturist]

"...okay, fair point. Explains how I got ganged up on."

[furnaceface]

//I find it difficult to believe that anybody working so closely with an Avenger would send him off on vacation somewhere to relax without first at least checking if the place is prone to invasions,// Jono replied, shrugging. //But sometimes people miss these things, I suppose.//


[And now I'm off to work! AFK until this evening!]

[imafuturist]

"Apparently two previous Tony Starks was a glowing recommendation." And not a warning.

(no worries!)

[furnaceface]

//Two previous Tony Starks should've been a warning,// Jono replied with a psionic chuckle. //They're not still here, are they?//

Apparently, Jono agreed with the narrative and his mun was too stoned on DayQuil to catch that it was there before.

[imafuturist]

"They did show up one weekend," Tony replied brightly. "One threatened a really narcissistic threesome abd the other was about twelve."

[furnaceface]

Jono needed to pause and squint for a moment before venturing, //He... threatened a threesome with the twelve-year-old?//

TONY. TONY NO.

[imafuturist]

"He might have been in his twenties. Same thing." YOUTHS.

[furnaceface]

//So, barely legal, as opposed to highly illegal,// Jono noted. //Even so... there's a limit.//

Said the guy who was marrying somebody who was a decade? Two decades? Older than him. It was hard to tell, between all the physical reboots, time spent in other realities, and brainwashings. An amount. Jono was at least not twelve.

[imafuturist]

Just a romance between a mutant without a lower jaw and a two decade older cannibal. Taylor Swift probably wrote a song about it.

"Hyperbole," Tony replied dryly. "Maybe you need to stop believing tabloids about me."

[furnaceface]

They were totally the inspiration for Love Story. Probably.

//Tony, I've met enough versions of you, between the island and my own world, to be able to form opinions without reading tabloids. Anyway, I've wound up in too many of those things myself to ever be able to take them seriously.//

Thanks for that, Sugar Kane.