Vance, Stark, Bruce, Steve
Aug. 20th, 2012 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aa_natashaBlya budu, save us from eager boys anxious to do the right thing. It's almost enough to make me appreciate Tony Stark.
8/20/2012
=NYC= SHIELD HQ - Midtown - NYC
Natasha corners Vance in the training facilities just after a hand to hand bout. She's been there for a while, watching, but she doesn't make her presence known until his instructor steps back and gives him leave to head for the showers. She's dressed casually, in tight black jeans and a tight green shirt with her hair a riot of red curls around her face.
Vance has been working hard, throwing himself eagerly into his training. It involves a lot of getting knocked down, but he is athletic enough - strong and quick and in good shape - that he's at least able to keep hopping back up to his feet to go try again. No pro, clearly, but a good student. He's dressed in gym shorts and sneakers, a grey tank-top soaked with sweat. He wipes at his brow with the neck and smiles at Natasha as he is cornered, greeting her with a lift of chin and hand, "Hey."
Natasha doesn't give Vance a smile, but that's nothing to be particularly concerned with. She steps forward, arms crossed over her chest, and says, "Not bad. Better than I thought you'd be." She tips her head slightly, considering, and then says, "You might even take Banner in a fight." Coming from Natasha, this is not that great a compliment, but Vance doesn't have to know that.
"Yeah?" Vance smiles widely, pleased. He clearly doesn't know that this is a crappy compliiment. Or he just doesn't mind. "I think I'm getting better," he says, "It's a lot to learn, but it's fun. I always wanted to do karate or something as a kid. This stuff is cool."
"Getting better?" Natasha looks briefly amused, if one looks very closely. "Cool. Well. Why not." Her brows quirk a touch and after a moment's pause she jerks her chin toward the door and says, "All right. Let's go for a walk."
"Well, I mean. A little better. Gradually. You know," Vance backtracks, shugging. He shakes his head and says, "Anyway," at the same time she says, "All right," and then nods, "Sure, okay." He turns toward the door, following (or preceding, whichever) her out, holding the door politely.
Natasha gives Vance a look as she steps forward, but she makes no comment as she passes through the door. In fact, she makes no comment as she leads him through the hallways and stairwells of SHIELD to the front door and out onto the street.
Vance starts to make a comment at least once, but shuts up instead, just wandering along in silence instead. Once they get outside he finally asks, "Where to?"
Natasha notes the moment, and Vance earns a slight glance of mild approval as he lets it pass by in favor of silence. Outside on New York's busy streets she says, "Taking a walk, Astrovik." She angles them toward Central Park with long, quick strides. "Tell me how things are going."
Vance ruffles fingers through sweat-damp hair as they go, scratching at the back of his head and saying, "Ummm. I don't know, I hope they're going alright? It's a lot to learn, right? I'm doing my best, trying to take it all in and pick stuff up as quick as I can. It's tough but it's pretty cool," he says, mouth cracking into another of those wide smiles, "It's really cool, you know, to have the chance to be part of something like this. So, you know, if there's stuff I'm missing or need to do better at, I mean, just let me know."
"So eager," Natasha murmurs, a bare breath of sound in the bustle of the city. She takes them around a corner, across a street, through a short stretch of silence before she glances at him. "You've been working hard. How's this fit in with the rest of your life?"
Vance laughs, smile curling into a sheepish grin, and shrugs, "Yeah, I guess I am. Whatever, it's awesome stuff." He looks over as she remains otherwise silent, and then goes back to idle people-watching, or maybe not-so-idle. Possibly he is practicing being more aware of whether random dogwalker guy or society matron exiting limo are about to kick him in the back of the head. "For now it fits alright," he says, "Classes don't start for another week or two. Not sure how it'll fit with that. Was thinking--" he hesitates for a moment, and then says, "I mean, if this is for real, right, and maybe I'm overestimating, so tell me if this sounds really dumb-- but I was thinking maybe I could take the semester off."
Natasha's brows slide upward a few centimeters. She pauses for a gaggle of tourists, then sweeps around them. "You'd give up your life for this?"
Vance considers this for a moment. "It'd be more putting it on hold for a bit so I could get up to speed," he says, "Was what I was thinking anyway. But-- yeah. Yeah," he nods, growing more sure, "I would. If that's what it took to really do it."
"Up to speed." Natasha echoes his words again, still even-toned, still quiet. Her steps carry them through another group of people and across a street. Through another short span of silence. She slows for a moment, she turns her head to look at him with serious green eyes. "Why?"
"Because it's the right thing to do," Vance replies, greyer eyes equally serious, and a little puzzled that that needs to be asked. After a moment he shrugs and says, "And, look, I've got these-- powers or whatever you want to call them, right? How else am I ever going to get to really use them?"
"Oh," Natasha says, drawing the word out under her breath, "Steve is gonna /love/ you."
Vance laughs, embarrassed. "What do you do it for, then?" he asks.
Natasha turns her head to give Vance a dry look and does not answer. Instead she turns them past a long wrought iron fence and then through the gate to stop in front of an immense stone-faced three story mansion just this side of Central Park. She extends one hand and says, "I need your SHIELD ID."
"Sorry, is that not a thing I can ask?" Vance asks, looking at Natasha curiously for a moment. He sounds as if he is honestly inquiring as to boundaries, not just trying to be obnoxious. He looks up at the mansion as they stop, and looks around. "We're going to a museum?" he asks, pulling the SHIELD ID on its lanyard out of a pocket and handing it over.
"You can ask whatever you like," Natasha replies patiently. Doesn't mean she'll /answer/, mind. Her fingers wiggle for the ID, and when he produces it she tucks it away in the back pocket of her very tight jeans. "No," she answers, and extends a new card toward him. This one bears his face and a large, stylized 'A'. "Not exactly." Her head tips toward the door in invitation. "Open it."
Vance is in her pants. Heybb. He takes the new card from her, and brows rise. He looks at it, and then at her, and then at the door. His face has a 'is this what I think it is? for real?' look on it, but he manages not to say anything, just clearing his throat and turning to open the door.
=NYC= Great Room - Ground Floor - Avengers Mansion
The Great Room at Avengers Mansion earns its place namely by its size: the dining facilities are rather expansive, and consolidate several different purposes in one area. Apart from the large dining area, there is also a sizable kitchen off one end, stock full of buffed metal and shiny appliances. An entertainment room is on the other, with a television that is almost /too/ big, and just about every entertainment and video game console known to man.
The door swings open to reveal Tony Stark's 'look how cool I am guys' clubhouse, complete with expensive flooring and an AI that greets, "Good morning Agent Romanoff, Mister Astrovik." Natasha doesn't bother to be polite to Jarvis as she leads the way through the entry and into the Great Room with a note that, "You'll be training here from now on."
Vance steps in, looking like he just came from a workout as he opens the front door and steps inside, looking around with a somewhat wide-eyed expression. At the greeting he looks up, "Is that JARVIS? Hello." He looks around as he follows Natasha, lagging behind a little in his effort to SEE ALL THE THINGS. "What is this place?" he asks.
The thick, rich scent of espresso has taken over the air in the great room and seems to be working very hard on colonizing the rest of the building. Stark has one little cup at his elbow and another in his hand. How many shots of espresso does it take to get him up before noon? Clearly at least two. "--so I'm pretty sure that's what happened to the excess energy," he is telling Bruce. He is wearing an old black tee that has been scraped thin over the reactor so that the glow shines through. "Held the door open and he stepped on through to Arkansas." I bet Natasha might like to know the context for that.
Thhhp, thhhp, thhhp.
This is roughly the sound that Bruce Banner's knife makes as he slices through an onion. His sleeves are rolled up past his elbows and he has been peering through his spectacles as he works. While Stark caffeinates himself, Banner prepares to ignore a big pot on the stove for a good couple of hours before lunch. "--Would certainly explain the radiation spike, not to mention the, ah, weird weather event. Although I think I should probably not send SHIELD chasing after every weird weather event that pops up on google alerts. They'll end up chasing crop circles next." He looks up when the sound of new voices draws his attention, where he has been focusing on vegetables and talking to Stark without actually lifting his gaze. "I don't think SHIELD would like crop circles," he says, with a slight, wry quirk of his mouth as his dark gaze lights on Natasha and Vance. "Can't shoot 'em."
"Sometimes crop circles come with Asgardians," Natasha tells Bruce as she swans into the kitchen with a deft dodge around both the men and Vance's question. She tugs a cabinet open for a glass and then arches her brows slightly to query, "You cook?" before she remembers to add, "You know Astrovik." Or Tony does, anyway.
Vance steps in with Natasha and looks around, eavesdropping awkwardly and unintentionally on that tail-end of their conversation. He has the good grace not to ask about it, at least. "Uh, hey," he says, lifting a hand in a little wave to Tony and Bruce, "Do you guys live here?"
Stark seems singularly unsurprised to see Vance in the clubhouse. "You just made finding a bartender for the housewarming party so much easier." His eyes are half-lidded as he tracks movement in the room: his gaze settles on Natasha and Vance. He tosses back the rest of his overly reduced coffee in a quick shot. "You know there's some really interesting stuff going on with those Asgardian crop circles." He adheres to the topic with a sudden enthusiasm that suggests we should change the subject, Bruce, okay? "Fractals, math: I kind of want to cut one out and hang it on the wall in my workshop." He rolls a shoulder at Vance like 'close enough'. "Sometimes."
Bruce looks at his growing pile of onion slices, looks at his chef's knife, looks up at Natasha. Smile faint, he says, "Looks like it." He sets the knife down on the cutting board. "Hi," he says. He looks at Vance for a moment, trying to place him, and then gives up. He says, "Bruce Banner," and then slants a look sidelong toward Stark. "I guess that'd go with your modern art collection. Are we having a party?"
"Fury wants us recruiting," Natasha says by way of explanation for both Bruce and Vance, giving half a shrug as she spins toward the sink to fill her glass. She tips her head toward him. "Fresh-faced telekinetic. We're working on it. Barton and I'll break him in a bit more when we get back from Latveria." Her brows inch upward over her glass as she drinks. "I hope that's a joke."
"Vance Astrovik," he replies to Bruce, "Nice to meet you." He looks around a little more, and nods to Stark, "Nice place." He looks embarrassed at Natasha's description, and shrugs a little, conceding it anyway, and looking around some more, just listening except to chime in to Natasha, "I'm a pretty good bartender." It's kind of a joke.
"Why not? It's inert." It's inert...ish. Stark is beginning to look pretty caught up in the idea. "Could learn something about how their Bifrost works by working out the equations which produce the patterns we see. I could put it--" He draws his finger around the room and points to a blank wall. "--right there. What do you think?" He is asking Vance and looks to him with full expectation of agreement.
Vance glances around. Who, him? He bobs his head in a nod. "Sure, yeah."
Natasha gives Vance a very dry look. "If you're signing up, you've got to break the habit of agreeing with him just because he talks fast," she says, fixing on Tony for a moment before she slips sideways to find a bit of out-of-the-way counter and hefts herself up to settle there.
"Well, it beats the periodic table made out of elbow macaroni and lentils that we used to keep in the dorm lounge," Bruce says with a narrowing of his eyes. His mouth twitches suspiciously at one corner. High class. He picks up his knife again to resume slicing through the remainder of his onion. "Think you want to pull some variables from some of the other tech studies? Like Thor's funny armor party trick? Mandelbrot, eat your heart out." His smile tugs a little wider as he lifts dark eyes over the lenses of his glasses at Natasha. "What," he says, easy and ingenuous, "you don't like fractal art?"
"No, no, no. Break the bad habits, keep the good. Just because she talks doubt is no reason to agree with her," says Stark (fast) after Natasha talks. Returning to a subject they no doubt thought he'd abandoned, he asks her, "Know when you are back from Latveria? I'll have the alcohol delivered next day."
"Getting on a plane tonight," Natasha says, settling her glass against her knee. She gives it a little swirl, watching the water spiral. "If things go smoothly, a couple of days." Her voice has grown a bit tight, and she doesn't offer up alternatives.
Vance looks at Natasha, and then back to Stark, and then back to Natasha. "There a training class for this?" he deadpans.
"How's the Wasp doing?" Bruce asks genially. "Grandpa's worried." Steve would probably be hurt by this appellation, for all that Bruce's wryness remains good-natured. As he asks the question, he is turning his neatly sliced onions into neatly diced onions, knifework quick if casual across the cutting board. "If you're a bartender I'm sure you already have the necessary skill set," he says with a mild, easy blandness.
"Jarvis, you heard the lady," says Stark.
All Jarvis says is, "Sir," and then he goes back to silently lurking.
"No class, but tests every day." Stark leans his hip against the counter and pulls his phone out of his pocket to start poking around and figuring out where he can cut up a slice of earth to stick on the wall.
Natasha shrugs, fingers tapping against her glasses. "She's smart," she answers Bruce. "And if we do this right, they'll never know she was there." Her gaze turns to Stark, and she studies him for a moment, frowning.
Vance chuckles at Bruce and Stark, and listens, looking around the room again in between watching the others. "What are you doing?" he asks, "In Latveria? Or is that secret?" It sounds like it could be secret.
Bruce takes his knife to a couple of cloves of garlic next. He glances up after minceing, dark eyes lifting toward Natasha; tracking her gaze, his glance flicks toward Tony. He finds nothing unusual in Stark messing with the phone, though, so he looks back at his cutting board. "It's secret," he says, rather dryly, "although if you're here, does that mean you get in on the secrets? Or just in on Stark's liquor?"
Catching Natasha's glance, Stark turns to study his reflection in some bit of shiny metal. Does he have an espresso cup in his teeth? Is his hair extra-fluffy? What? "Sight-seeing," he tells Vance.
Natasha remains silent, brows drawn down after a glance at Stark, and she lifts her glass for a fast swallow that drains what remains of her water.
Vance shrugs at Bruce. "I don't know," he says, "We just walked over from SHIELD. I have a card, I guess?" he says, holding it up, "To the front door of whatever this is. So I guess that's a definite yes on the liquor access, at least."
"I'm sure it's fine liquor," Bruce says as a man of very little awareness or experience. What next. Ginger? Ginger. He seems ignorant of interplay between the other avengers due to the allure of his cutting board. "So. Telekinetic? Like the actual application of force without any kind of physical leverage?"
"I got nothing off of him," Stark tells Bruce like Vance isn't even there. "Radiation was absolutely flat. No EM-emissions indicating local tech and he reproduced it in a controlled environment behind a Faraday shield, so it wasn't distant tech faking a local effect. I told Pym to dissect him." He pauses, fingers briefly stilled over the transparent screen of his phone, and gives Vance a brilliant smile. "Metaphorically speaking."
"Kind of interested to see how he does against Rogers," Natasha puts in, her musing low. "Or Thor." Her eyes flick toward Bruce, but she does not add a third name to the list.
It's at this point at mumbledy o'clock in the morning that Steve makes his way into the kitchen, looking clean and well-presented and generally presentable. "Oh," he says with some surprise upon seeing such a crowd. "Hello." You rang?
"That's ... kind of fantastic," Bruce says. Also a little like Vance isn't even there, although he does look up from his knifework to slant a smile over at the young man, somewhere between abstracted and apologetic. "What mechanism do you use?"
"Yeah, I guess technically that's what it is," Vance nods to Bruce. He doesn't seem to mind when he gets discussed like he's not there; it's awkward, but whatever. He scratches at his chest and asks, "Mechanism? I just... think about it." He turns to look at the couch, and lifts a hand, and the couch lifts into the air. "Hey," he says to Steve, the couch continuing to hover as he smiles a greeting.
Natasha slides from her perch with a little hop and leaves her glass behind in what is fast becoming habit. Someone else will clean up after her, right? She sweeps a glance across the kitchen and says, "I'll leave the new kid in your capable hands. Someone point him to the gym, hm? He needs a lot of work." It doesn't have the tone of criticism; from Natasha Romanoff, it's simple fact. She gives Steve a nod on his entrance and a "Captain" as farewell when she slips by and toward the stairs.
"If you want to take a look at the data--" Not that Stark would miss anything. "--I can send it over." His gaze sweeps past Steve without quite stalling long enough to greet him. "Could've been a signal lost in the noise, I guess, but I canceled out the local stuff. I have a good baseline for it, and I really don't think anything was hiding in the noise." Tipping his head at something on his phone, he says, "Oh, damn. SHIELD bought the land."
"What land?" Steve asks, curious, and wanders closer to Bruce and his kitchen implements. "What're you cooking?"
Bruce asks Tony, "Did you hook him up to an EKG or anything?" Barely missing a beat, he also arches his eyebrows and asks the air, "Jarvis, are there cashews somewhere?" Surely the handy AI knows where to keep all the nuts around here. He blinks after Natasha in surprise, and starts to say somehing else, and then clears his throat. "Oh. Good morning, Steve. Do you like curry?"
Vance sets the couch back down, and leans against a corner of the wall, though he pushes off again as Natasha makes to leave. Is he supposed to fol--no? Oh. Okay. "Later," he says in farewell. He watches her go, and then leans back again, watching Steve and Bruce and Tony in silence.
8/20/2012
=NYC= SHIELD HQ - Midtown - NYC
Natasha corners Vance in the training facilities just after a hand to hand bout. She's been there for a while, watching, but she doesn't make her presence known until his instructor steps back and gives him leave to head for the showers. She's dressed casually, in tight black jeans and a tight green shirt with her hair a riot of red curls around her face.
Vance has been working hard, throwing himself eagerly into his training. It involves a lot of getting knocked down, but he is athletic enough - strong and quick and in good shape - that he's at least able to keep hopping back up to his feet to go try again. No pro, clearly, but a good student. He's dressed in gym shorts and sneakers, a grey tank-top soaked with sweat. He wipes at his brow with the neck and smiles at Natasha as he is cornered, greeting her with a lift of chin and hand, "Hey."
Natasha doesn't give Vance a smile, but that's nothing to be particularly concerned with. She steps forward, arms crossed over her chest, and says, "Not bad. Better than I thought you'd be." She tips her head slightly, considering, and then says, "You might even take Banner in a fight." Coming from Natasha, this is not that great a compliment, but Vance doesn't have to know that.
"Yeah?" Vance smiles widely, pleased. He clearly doesn't know that this is a crappy compliiment. Or he just doesn't mind. "I think I'm getting better," he says, "It's a lot to learn, but it's fun. I always wanted to do karate or something as a kid. This stuff is cool."
"Getting better?" Natasha looks briefly amused, if one looks very closely. "Cool. Well. Why not." Her brows quirk a touch and after a moment's pause she jerks her chin toward the door and says, "All right. Let's go for a walk."
"Well, I mean. A little better. Gradually. You know," Vance backtracks, shugging. He shakes his head and says, "Anyway," at the same time she says, "All right," and then nods, "Sure, okay." He turns toward the door, following (or preceding, whichever) her out, holding the door politely.
Natasha gives Vance a look as she steps forward, but she makes no comment as she passes through the door. In fact, she makes no comment as she leads him through the hallways and stairwells of SHIELD to the front door and out onto the street.
Vance starts to make a comment at least once, but shuts up instead, just wandering along in silence instead. Once they get outside he finally asks, "Where to?"
Natasha notes the moment, and Vance earns a slight glance of mild approval as he lets it pass by in favor of silence. Outside on New York's busy streets she says, "Taking a walk, Astrovik." She angles them toward Central Park with long, quick strides. "Tell me how things are going."
Vance ruffles fingers through sweat-damp hair as they go, scratching at the back of his head and saying, "Ummm. I don't know, I hope they're going alright? It's a lot to learn, right? I'm doing my best, trying to take it all in and pick stuff up as quick as I can. It's tough but it's pretty cool," he says, mouth cracking into another of those wide smiles, "It's really cool, you know, to have the chance to be part of something like this. So, you know, if there's stuff I'm missing or need to do better at, I mean, just let me know."
"So eager," Natasha murmurs, a bare breath of sound in the bustle of the city. She takes them around a corner, across a street, through a short stretch of silence before she glances at him. "You've been working hard. How's this fit in with the rest of your life?"
Vance laughs, smile curling into a sheepish grin, and shrugs, "Yeah, I guess I am. Whatever, it's awesome stuff." He looks over as she remains otherwise silent, and then goes back to idle people-watching, or maybe not-so-idle. Possibly he is practicing being more aware of whether random dogwalker guy or society matron exiting limo are about to kick him in the back of the head. "For now it fits alright," he says, "Classes don't start for another week or two. Not sure how it'll fit with that. Was thinking--" he hesitates for a moment, and then says, "I mean, if this is for real, right, and maybe I'm overestimating, so tell me if this sounds really dumb-- but I was thinking maybe I could take the semester off."
Natasha's brows slide upward a few centimeters. She pauses for a gaggle of tourists, then sweeps around them. "You'd give up your life for this?"
Vance considers this for a moment. "It'd be more putting it on hold for a bit so I could get up to speed," he says, "Was what I was thinking anyway. But-- yeah. Yeah," he nods, growing more sure, "I would. If that's what it took to really do it."
"Up to speed." Natasha echoes his words again, still even-toned, still quiet. Her steps carry them through another group of people and across a street. Through another short span of silence. She slows for a moment, she turns her head to look at him with serious green eyes. "Why?"
"Because it's the right thing to do," Vance replies, greyer eyes equally serious, and a little puzzled that that needs to be asked. After a moment he shrugs and says, "And, look, I've got these-- powers or whatever you want to call them, right? How else am I ever going to get to really use them?"
"Oh," Natasha says, drawing the word out under her breath, "Steve is gonna /love/ you."
Vance laughs, embarrassed. "What do you do it for, then?" he asks.
Natasha turns her head to give Vance a dry look and does not answer. Instead she turns them past a long wrought iron fence and then through the gate to stop in front of an immense stone-faced three story mansion just this side of Central Park. She extends one hand and says, "I need your SHIELD ID."
"Sorry, is that not a thing I can ask?" Vance asks, looking at Natasha curiously for a moment. He sounds as if he is honestly inquiring as to boundaries, not just trying to be obnoxious. He looks up at the mansion as they stop, and looks around. "We're going to a museum?" he asks, pulling the SHIELD ID on its lanyard out of a pocket and handing it over.
"You can ask whatever you like," Natasha replies patiently. Doesn't mean she'll /answer/, mind. Her fingers wiggle for the ID, and when he produces it she tucks it away in the back pocket of her very tight jeans. "No," she answers, and extends a new card toward him. This one bears his face and a large, stylized 'A'. "Not exactly." Her head tips toward the door in invitation. "Open it."
Vance is in her pants. Heybb. He takes the new card from her, and brows rise. He looks at it, and then at her, and then at the door. His face has a 'is this what I think it is? for real?' look on it, but he manages not to say anything, just clearing his throat and turning to open the door.
=NYC= Great Room - Ground Floor - Avengers Mansion
The Great Room at Avengers Mansion earns its place namely by its size: the dining facilities are rather expansive, and consolidate several different purposes in one area. Apart from the large dining area, there is also a sizable kitchen off one end, stock full of buffed metal and shiny appliances. An entertainment room is on the other, with a television that is almost /too/ big, and just about every entertainment and video game console known to man.
The door swings open to reveal Tony Stark's 'look how cool I am guys' clubhouse, complete with expensive flooring and an AI that greets, "Good morning Agent Romanoff, Mister Astrovik." Natasha doesn't bother to be polite to Jarvis as she leads the way through the entry and into the Great Room with a note that, "You'll be training here from now on."
Vance steps in, looking like he just came from a workout as he opens the front door and steps inside, looking around with a somewhat wide-eyed expression. At the greeting he looks up, "Is that JARVIS? Hello." He looks around as he follows Natasha, lagging behind a little in his effort to SEE ALL THE THINGS. "What is this place?" he asks.
The thick, rich scent of espresso has taken over the air in the great room and seems to be working very hard on colonizing the rest of the building. Stark has one little cup at his elbow and another in his hand. How many shots of espresso does it take to get him up before noon? Clearly at least two. "--so I'm pretty sure that's what happened to the excess energy," he is telling Bruce. He is wearing an old black tee that has been scraped thin over the reactor so that the glow shines through. "Held the door open and he stepped on through to Arkansas." I bet Natasha might like to know the context for that.
Thhhp, thhhp, thhhp.
This is roughly the sound that Bruce Banner's knife makes as he slices through an onion. His sleeves are rolled up past his elbows and he has been peering through his spectacles as he works. While Stark caffeinates himself, Banner prepares to ignore a big pot on the stove for a good couple of hours before lunch. "--Would certainly explain the radiation spike, not to mention the, ah, weird weather event. Although I think I should probably not send SHIELD chasing after every weird weather event that pops up on google alerts. They'll end up chasing crop circles next." He looks up when the sound of new voices draws his attention, where he has been focusing on vegetables and talking to Stark without actually lifting his gaze. "I don't think SHIELD would like crop circles," he says, with a slight, wry quirk of his mouth as his dark gaze lights on Natasha and Vance. "Can't shoot 'em."
"Sometimes crop circles come with Asgardians," Natasha tells Bruce as she swans into the kitchen with a deft dodge around both the men and Vance's question. She tugs a cabinet open for a glass and then arches her brows slightly to query, "You cook?" before she remembers to add, "You know Astrovik." Or Tony does, anyway.
Vance steps in with Natasha and looks around, eavesdropping awkwardly and unintentionally on that tail-end of their conversation. He has the good grace not to ask about it, at least. "Uh, hey," he says, lifting a hand in a little wave to Tony and Bruce, "Do you guys live here?"
Stark seems singularly unsurprised to see Vance in the clubhouse. "You just made finding a bartender for the housewarming party so much easier." His eyes are half-lidded as he tracks movement in the room: his gaze settles on Natasha and Vance. He tosses back the rest of his overly reduced coffee in a quick shot. "You know there's some really interesting stuff going on with those Asgardian crop circles." He adheres to the topic with a sudden enthusiasm that suggests we should change the subject, Bruce, okay? "Fractals, math: I kind of want to cut one out and hang it on the wall in my workshop." He rolls a shoulder at Vance like 'close enough'. "Sometimes."
Bruce looks at his growing pile of onion slices, looks at his chef's knife, looks up at Natasha. Smile faint, he says, "Looks like it." He sets the knife down on the cutting board. "Hi," he says. He looks at Vance for a moment, trying to place him, and then gives up. He says, "Bruce Banner," and then slants a look sidelong toward Stark. "I guess that'd go with your modern art collection. Are we having a party?"
"Fury wants us recruiting," Natasha says by way of explanation for both Bruce and Vance, giving half a shrug as she spins toward the sink to fill her glass. She tips her head toward him. "Fresh-faced telekinetic. We're working on it. Barton and I'll break him in a bit more when we get back from Latveria." Her brows inch upward over her glass as she drinks. "I hope that's a joke."
"Vance Astrovik," he replies to Bruce, "Nice to meet you." He looks around a little more, and nods to Stark, "Nice place." He looks embarrassed at Natasha's description, and shrugs a little, conceding it anyway, and looking around some more, just listening except to chime in to Natasha, "I'm a pretty good bartender." It's kind of a joke.
"Why not? It's inert." It's inert...ish. Stark is beginning to look pretty caught up in the idea. "Could learn something about how their Bifrost works by working out the equations which produce the patterns we see. I could put it--" He draws his finger around the room and points to a blank wall. "--right there. What do you think?" He is asking Vance and looks to him with full expectation of agreement.
Vance glances around. Who, him? He bobs his head in a nod. "Sure, yeah."
Natasha gives Vance a very dry look. "If you're signing up, you've got to break the habit of agreeing with him just because he talks fast," she says, fixing on Tony for a moment before she slips sideways to find a bit of out-of-the-way counter and hefts herself up to settle there.
"Well, it beats the periodic table made out of elbow macaroni and lentils that we used to keep in the dorm lounge," Bruce says with a narrowing of his eyes. His mouth twitches suspiciously at one corner. High class. He picks up his knife again to resume slicing through the remainder of his onion. "Think you want to pull some variables from some of the other tech studies? Like Thor's funny armor party trick? Mandelbrot, eat your heart out." His smile tugs a little wider as he lifts dark eyes over the lenses of his glasses at Natasha. "What," he says, easy and ingenuous, "you don't like fractal art?"
"No, no, no. Break the bad habits, keep the good. Just because she talks doubt is no reason to agree with her," says Stark (fast) after Natasha talks. Returning to a subject they no doubt thought he'd abandoned, he asks her, "Know when you are back from Latveria? I'll have the alcohol delivered next day."
"Getting on a plane tonight," Natasha says, settling her glass against her knee. She gives it a little swirl, watching the water spiral. "If things go smoothly, a couple of days." Her voice has grown a bit tight, and she doesn't offer up alternatives.
Vance looks at Natasha, and then back to Stark, and then back to Natasha. "There a training class for this?" he deadpans.
"How's the Wasp doing?" Bruce asks genially. "Grandpa's worried." Steve would probably be hurt by this appellation, for all that Bruce's wryness remains good-natured. As he asks the question, he is turning his neatly sliced onions into neatly diced onions, knifework quick if casual across the cutting board. "If you're a bartender I'm sure you already have the necessary skill set," he says with a mild, easy blandness.
"Jarvis, you heard the lady," says Stark.
All Jarvis says is, "Sir," and then he goes back to silently lurking.
"No class, but tests every day." Stark leans his hip against the counter and pulls his phone out of his pocket to start poking around and figuring out where he can cut up a slice of earth to stick on the wall.
Natasha shrugs, fingers tapping against her glasses. "She's smart," she answers Bruce. "And if we do this right, they'll never know she was there." Her gaze turns to Stark, and she studies him for a moment, frowning.
Vance chuckles at Bruce and Stark, and listens, looking around the room again in between watching the others. "What are you doing?" he asks, "In Latveria? Or is that secret?" It sounds like it could be secret.
Bruce takes his knife to a couple of cloves of garlic next. He glances up after minceing, dark eyes lifting toward Natasha; tracking her gaze, his glance flicks toward Tony. He finds nothing unusual in Stark messing with the phone, though, so he looks back at his cutting board. "It's secret," he says, rather dryly, "although if you're here, does that mean you get in on the secrets? Or just in on Stark's liquor?"
Catching Natasha's glance, Stark turns to study his reflection in some bit of shiny metal. Does he have an espresso cup in his teeth? Is his hair extra-fluffy? What? "Sight-seeing," he tells Vance.
Natasha remains silent, brows drawn down after a glance at Stark, and she lifts her glass for a fast swallow that drains what remains of her water.
Vance shrugs at Bruce. "I don't know," he says, "We just walked over from SHIELD. I have a card, I guess?" he says, holding it up, "To the front door of whatever this is. So I guess that's a definite yes on the liquor access, at least."
"I'm sure it's fine liquor," Bruce says as a man of very little awareness or experience. What next. Ginger? Ginger. He seems ignorant of interplay between the other avengers due to the allure of his cutting board. "So. Telekinetic? Like the actual application of force without any kind of physical leverage?"
"I got nothing off of him," Stark tells Bruce like Vance isn't even there. "Radiation was absolutely flat. No EM-emissions indicating local tech and he reproduced it in a controlled environment behind a Faraday shield, so it wasn't distant tech faking a local effect. I told Pym to dissect him." He pauses, fingers briefly stilled over the transparent screen of his phone, and gives Vance a brilliant smile. "Metaphorically speaking."
"Kind of interested to see how he does against Rogers," Natasha puts in, her musing low. "Or Thor." Her eyes flick toward Bruce, but she does not add a third name to the list.
It's at this point at mumbledy o'clock in the morning that Steve makes his way into the kitchen, looking clean and well-presented and generally presentable. "Oh," he says with some surprise upon seeing such a crowd. "Hello." You rang?
"That's ... kind of fantastic," Bruce says. Also a little like Vance isn't even there, although he does look up from his knifework to slant a smile over at the young man, somewhere between abstracted and apologetic. "What mechanism do you use?"
"Yeah, I guess technically that's what it is," Vance nods to Bruce. He doesn't seem to mind when he gets discussed like he's not there; it's awkward, but whatever. He scratches at his chest and asks, "Mechanism? I just... think about it." He turns to look at the couch, and lifts a hand, and the couch lifts into the air. "Hey," he says to Steve, the couch continuing to hover as he smiles a greeting.
Natasha slides from her perch with a little hop and leaves her glass behind in what is fast becoming habit. Someone else will clean up after her, right? She sweeps a glance across the kitchen and says, "I'll leave the new kid in your capable hands. Someone point him to the gym, hm? He needs a lot of work." It doesn't have the tone of criticism; from Natasha Romanoff, it's simple fact. She gives Steve a nod on his entrance and a "Captain" as farewell when she slips by and toward the stairs.
"If you want to take a look at the data--" Not that Stark would miss anything. "--I can send it over." His gaze sweeps past Steve without quite stalling long enough to greet him. "Could've been a signal lost in the noise, I guess, but I canceled out the local stuff. I have a good baseline for it, and I really don't think anything was hiding in the noise." Tipping his head at something on his phone, he says, "Oh, damn. SHIELD bought the land."
"What land?" Steve asks, curious, and wanders closer to Bruce and his kitchen implements. "What're you cooking?"
Bruce asks Tony, "Did you hook him up to an EKG or anything?" Barely missing a beat, he also arches his eyebrows and asks the air, "Jarvis, are there cashews somewhere?" Surely the handy AI knows where to keep all the nuts around here. He blinks after Natasha in surprise, and starts to say somehing else, and then clears his throat. "Oh. Good morning, Steve. Do you like curry?"
Vance sets the couch back down, and leans against a corner of the wall, though he pushes off again as Natasha makes to leave. Is he supposed to fol--no? Oh. Okay. "Later," he says in farewell. He watches her go, and then leans back again, watching Steve and Bruce and Tony in silence.