Stark Industries, Saturday morning

[kenselvren]

Jalian eyed the still-sticky electronics that Peridot had either given up on or not gotten to, dumped them into the largest box she could find, and shoved them to one side.

"JARVIS, is there a shower in the building?"

That was how they ended up with a box of sad-looking electronics in the chemical shower, sitting and soaking.

She'd be damned if she was going to scrub the things. She had a Doorway to work on.



[Open post!]

Comments

[imafuturist]

"Why are there electronics in the emergency shower?" If it was the random fruit again, so help him.

[kenselvren]

Jalian made a disgusted noise. "They were sticky. The water couldn't do worse."

[imafuturist]

Tony closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. "Right. I'm sure that was the best option."

[kenselvren]

Jalian shrugged. "They'll get cleaned, or they'll still be ruined."

[imafuturist]

At some point Tony had to admit that Pepper was probably better at hiring people than he was. This was that point.

"Well, that's probably true."

[kenselvren]

Hey, Jalian was a great employee! For certain definitions of 'great'.

"They'll be out of the shower soon," Jalian said. "Unless they're in the way?"

[imafuturist]

Uh huh. Suuuuuure.

Tony gave her a look that was somewhere between amused and indulgent. "Just try not to flood my shop."

[kenselvren]

"Of course not!" Jalian said, exasperated. "I won't let it spread. They should be nearly clean enough now."

She had contained the Canadianism.

[imafuturist]

Had she? Had she really? For all he knew, Wolverine was lurking somewhere nearby.

Or worse, Deadpool.

"Scavenge what parts you can from them then. Never know what'll come in handy."

[kenselvren]

Jalian nodded. "Internal parts shouldn't be too bad."

[imafuturist]

"Save for the water saturation." Tony, don't tease. "How's your doorway going?"

[kenselvren]

Jalian rolled her eyes and allowed the change of subject. "I've got the vacuum tubes I need, and the larger circuits are done. There are still connections to complete, and then the probe. But the last one took ken Selvren months to complete, so it's going well."

[imafuturist]

"I think I have a few leftover from Jessica's experiments."

To her weird, weird world.

[kenselvren]

"What sorts of things?" Jalian asked. "Do you think they'd be compatible?"

[imafuturist]

"Probes," Tony replied, twirling his fingers in the air to bring up a holographic projection of one of the designs. "Sturdy enough and they'll send back video. Just try not to put them in the middle of a star or anything."

[kenselvren]

Jalian studied the image. "These will have to be able to withstand timeline changes and different physics, adjusting to several hundred thousand per second."

[imafuturist]

If that didn't make physics cry so much. Why did it have to make physics cry?

"Several thousand what?"

[kenselvren]

"Changes in physics and timelines," Jalian said again, as patiently as she could. Which...was probably not much, unfortunately. "The Doorway cycles through timelines; the probe finds the one you're looking for."

[imafuturist]

Yeah, it was making Tony miss Reed something fierce. Science was hardly any good if you needed to be rude about it.

"What you want isn't currently possible," Tony replied, politely ignoring the tone. "If I had the proper materials..."

He shrugged. There were limitations on what rules could be bent or broken, even for him.

[kenselvren]

Yeah, that got Tony another eyeroll. Hey, Jalian was trying! (Very.) She just wasn't very good at anything other than blunt.

"There's enough here. It will just take longer to build them from scratch."

[imafuturist]

Blunt and rude were different in Tony's experience. But then again, he took a large brunt of both things in his life. Though his patience did not last forever with these things.

"Best of luck then."

[kenselvren]

Jalian nodded her thanks. "Once it's built, it's only waiting." She hated waiting.

[imafuturist]

"Well, that's life," Tony muttered. "Hurry up and wait."

He was still stalking any HYDRA movement because 'soon' could mean within an hour or within a month, it seemed.

[kenselvren]

"Waiting is the worst," Jalian said with a grimace. "I would rather be doing something."