Summary:It sounds like a field trip to the Disaster Zone is in the works! Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Another quiet night at the Avengers mansion, it appears, with the summer heat finally breaking. The night winds are dropping to temperatures that require sweaters or warmer clothing and the trees on the property are beginning to take on their bright autumnal hues. A few skitter about in soft crackles on the sideway outside the fenceline and then dance up and over, piling in a corner of the yard. They'll require raking later, surely, and give the residents a chance to appreciate the finer arts of leafpile jumping.
Steve's ensconced in his office upstairs with a steaming cup of coffee. The holographically projected screen before his face teems with information and by the red outline of the files listed, it's…classified information at the very least. In a zip-up hoodie of navy-blue and jeans, his feet in white socks, he sighs and collapses the entire window. There are dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept well lately, but that's what coffee is for!!!
He can be heard, and seen, to exit the room, intending to head downstairs to the kitchen to prep himself a snack. Being perpetually hungry has been more of an issue lately than ever.
His head lifts as he hears an organic sound. "Evening?" His voice carries easily enough as he pauses at the top of the stairs, coffee in-hand.
"EVENING!" Thor calls back. His voice echoes, but is loosely from the vicinity of his room.
"My connection to the World of Wide Webs is NOT WORKING at present!" Thor announces as he stands in the doorway to his room. Thor's dressed comfortably in lounge pants - red plaid ones, a comfortable t-shirt with a yellow zipper-up hoodie; he's barefoot, and has a rather impressively large bag of cheetos. It's not really Thor's most regal or princely look that he's ever cut. He has Cheeto dust in the left side of his hair in a stripe up and around his ear. The reason why is revealed as he lifts his left hand to curl his hair back in the same motion.
Thor then starts to come over, in a manner that suggests boredom, or perhaps just the usual friendliness, to seek out Steve's company. "Forgive me, but you seem run ragged. Is there a foe that has you flummoxed?" Thor asks, with deep concern, brows lowering in seriousness, as he tags along towards the kitchen.
Apparently, Clint thinks that the refrigerator is something of a time machine.
"How late is too late to leave a pizza out and then put it in the fridge?" Barton's voice lifts from the kitchen likely spurred by the sound of other voices in the household. There's a clatter and a clink, the sound of glass and things moving around in the kitchen down stairs, the archer's voice floating upwards to the other Avengers present in the domicile.
Hawkeye just keeps talking at a volume that might actually be heard even if there aren't actually people present for it. "I got this pizza late last night, is it still good?" Roughly what… 20 hours later? "I'm afraid to take a bite of it, but I don't want to waste the whole thing, there are like six slices here, guys!"
Finally there's a loud clang kaclink as something is pulled out of the fridge and set aside that might suspiciously sound like a large bottle if someone had left something in the fridge of that description.
Then he calls out again, "Nevermind, I got it in there."
A little slip of coffee falls down the side of his mug as Steve keeps himself from levitating off the floor. Thor is present, he's realized how, and it feels like the God's voice is somehow even louder in its friendliness than usual.
"Thor, hey. You've…you've got something in your hair there," he says, unable to keep from half-smiling. The Captain gestures towards himself in mirror to the rather grandly orange streak Thor wear in his hair of Cheeto dust. "I look flummoxed? That's no good." A toss of his head encourages the Thunderer to follow him as Steve begins to descend the stairs.
"Gotta drink more coffee!" he adds, lifting his cup as if in salute. Hearing Clint, however, he calls out, "Unless you've licked it, Barton, it's about twenty-four hours. Something about how the cheese and meat are processed."
Steve arrives in the kitchen doorway and wanders inside. "I don't need to know if you've licked every slice of pizza, don't tell me if you have." The Captain reaches up and scratches at the back of his neck, his nose wrinkling; little blond hairs fall down and onto his shoulders.
"Oh, do I?" Thor asks as Steve tells him about his hair problem. "You are a true friend, Stephen. I appreciate knowing my hair is askew." Thor smooths his hair some, entirely failing to fix what's wrong with it, but he seems jolly about it anyway. Clearly all is better!
But then Clint is making interesting comments about pizza. "I will gladly test the pizza for your sake. Where is it?" Thor asks, using his long, energetic strides to come around Steve to look for where the pizza might be hiding. It's elusive, this pizza, and Thor immediately gets a puzzled expression when it isn't immediately obviously on a counter, where all pizza SHOULD be.
Thor sets down his bag of cheetos, setting the same hand on the counter, a print of orange. Later, they can play a game of 'where was Thor' by following a trail of magic dust.
"Don't think I did, Harman mighta, but she's weird." Clint says as he's actually caused a small conflagration of chaos in the kitchen having removed a good mess of bottles and two old servings of aged Italian food that were in tupperware though now… likely not anything anyone wants. But that's why they have a cleaning service, right?
He then stops and points at Cap with both index fingers, "Also, hey." Greeting deployed, social obligation alleviated.
Of course that's when Thor makes his presence more known, "Help yourself big guy, it's in the fridge. Possibly licked by a SHIELD agent. Not me." As if that made a difference, and as if 20 hours of exposure to the elements would phase an Asgardian's physique.
Hawkeye then looks between them both, "You guys beena around the disaster area lately?"
Steve's made his way to sit at the rounded kitchen table tucked into a corner, big enough to seat at least five comfortably. He eyes the Cheeto bag along with the bright handprint and sighs to himself. At least the robotic cleaning staff won't have a terrible time with the neon-orange dust left around. Now, those ancient tupperwares of Italian food…? As long as they don't have eyeballs and speak a language, they should still be safe for the biohazard bins.
He sips deeply at his coffee before seetting the mug down. "You're safe, Thor, Harman's harmless." The Captain returns Clint's greeting with a one-handed finger-gun — an actual finger-gun. "Clint, on the other hand…man's sass might be contagious."
Pot, kettle, black.
Still, Clint's observation has Steve frowning. "Not lately, why? Been…occupied with WAND 'nd a loose demon in the basement of the Trisk." Steve sighs long-sufferingly. Damn K'nerts. "WAND's the department of Wizard Alchemy and Necromancy. WAND," he explains for Thor in particular.
"I have seen it recently," Thor says. He is currently now shrouded by refridgerator doors as he rescues the pizza Clint just put in there. He's quite familiar with how it is eaten: no plate, just open on the counter in the box, a slice grabbed. He samples it, clearly chewing.
"This is not very good," Thor determines of his bite, swallowing, and making a sort of uncomfortable face, like one might if they got a shot of sour milk unexpectedly.
Thor then continues to eat the slice, while talking to them.
"I had the sensation of many sets of eyes peering out from the zone. Such as in the depths of a forest of many dangers, in the darkest of moonless nights." Thor picks up another 'awful' slice. "I should very much like to go defeat this demon." The slice's crust is thrown into the box.
"Let us go."
Settling back on the counter, and then accidentally getting cheeto dust on his hand, Clint's features twist a little as he scowls and wipes it off on his jeans. "The vibe there, it's… sort of weird." He folds his arms over his chest and makes sure to stay out of Thor's way as the deity bustles about the kitchen.
"I ran through there while I was en route to a meet. Just a quick stop in. The place is more a ghost town than normal. Things are locked up, closed up, battened down. Seems like…" He tilts his head in Thor's direction, talking to him a bit though keeping the same train of thought, so he feels included. "Like there's this tension there, a spring wound too tightly."
"It's because of a demon there? Or you're more talking like a metaphorical demon like my drinking and rampant womanizing?" Clint says that with a completely straight face.
Neither report from each Avenger, with the aspects of what could be an eerie, burgeoning battle-ground, make Steve any happier. He spans his face with a palm and rubs at his eyes with thumb and fingers. The slow deflation of his lungs contains a quiet groan.
"I wondered," he admits, then looking between Thor and Clint with a rueful light in his true-blues. "SHIELD's been watching the news. There have been reports of attacks around the area, something different. I don't think anyone there's going around three sheets to the wind 'nd chasing skirts." He gives Clint a flatly-amused look.
"Maybe it merits a recon. Figure we can keep it under the radar? If it's something bigger'n just a single demon, we'll want to regroup 'nd come back with bigger firepower. Not sayin' you're anything shy of a heavy hitter, Thor," Steve adds, lifting a hand in potential apology. "But it's something that can handle the hammer, we'd be wanting back-up."
"Are the demons wearing skirts?" Thor asks, confused by the reference, and frowning. There's no judgement there, that's fine, he's just sorting out what they're talking about.
"Perhaps it is a demonic kilt. I have seen such things," Thor continues more thoughtfully. He starts to suddenly go towards the kitchen's exit.
"I can handle it. I will change into my more appropriate battle attire," Thor says, tone unyielding. There is nothing beyond THOR, after all. He leaves the kitchen very abruptly on his newest quest of battle gear acquiring!
While Cap had been talking to Thor, Clint had given them both a look with a slightly scrunched up face. It's the one with one eyebrow raised and the corner of his mouth twisted with one nostril sort of lifted to the side as if he smelled something bad. It was a face that was meant to convey the sentiment of, 'I know that you know that I know what you're doing, but I just want to go on record that I know this.'
He lets that be for now, however, until Thor starts to withdraw and it's then that Barton speaks. "You know who would be good for this." He says, not exactly bowing out of the operation, since he knows that his evening is probably already rather decided for him.
"Wanda, she usually has her finger on the pulse of that place."
The Captain's eyes watch Thor as he departs from the kitchen to better gear himself for the mission apparently suddenly at hand. Maybe. Maybe a mission. He blows a sigh and glances back at Clint. A shrug of his shoulders imparts an understanding acceptance of his words. The Captain did, after all, accidentally imply something was un-hammerable.
"Demonic kilts…" He laughs quietly. "Yeah, Maximoff would be a handy one to have if we were doing something official." The barest hint of a smile begins to show at the corners of Steve's lips. Somewhere, Bucky's wondering why he's suddenly got a migraine.
The blond super-soldier used to smile like this when wondering about sneaking off to dismantle Panzer tanks recently revealed by SSR spy-craft — explosively.
"This is just recon. More'n likely, all we're going to see is a patrol car drive by. Not looking to set off the spring you mentioned earlier."
"Cap," Clint looks off in the direction Thor withdrew to then looks back at the good Captain. "Not like we're gonna be able ta go in quiet, ya know?" He leans over to the recently recovered pizza and seems to be pondering taking the risk of a bite, but then shakes his head and for once chooses the less dangerous route.
"Subtlety isn't exactly in our wheelhouse at the moment." Not wanting to single out Thor, as it were. But well, they know who they're talking about. "But then again, if Thor drops in there and draws the ire of whatever, at least we'll know what's going down."
That said he steps over and checks the Italian food containers and… yeah quickly chucks it out.
Maybe it was the air leaving a crack in the tupperware's lidded seal, but it sounded like the Italian food squeaked. Steve squints at it before shaking his head. "Thinking about leaving Sharpies around for folks to label 'nd date their food. That about looked like it was growing limbs," he comments, glad to see the science projects tossed.
"But you're not wrong. Subtlety's not in the wheelhouse. However, you gotta admit he makes a helluva distraction. Could take a rifle 'nd pair of binoculars 'nd see what comes crawling out?"
More coffee disappears in a silent slurp. "It'd be better'n sitting around 'nd feeling like my skin's about to crawl off," the man grumps sotto-voce into his mug.
Thor returns. It's not a surprise: the whole mansion probably has a power fluxuation, because of some electrical disturbance that an eager thunder god is emitting. The kitchen lights lutter, a toaster makes a funny noise…. and then there's Thor, reappearing, in his full gear, red cloak flowing, and, most importantly, a hammer in the holster at his shoulder. There are no demons in the IMMEDIATE kitchen, so at least that is not at the ready. His helmet rests in his other hand, as he stands tall and imposing in the kitchen doorway.
With the cheeto streak still there, yet somehow it is just a touch of shiny gold in his hair, now. Only Thor can make cheeto dust look godly.
"Indeed, let us prevent skin crawl," declares Thor.
A small smirk touches Clint's features as he decides to just get rid of the other awful pieces of tupper-ware without even checking it, much safer that way. Once that's done he spreads his hands apart somewhat, "We should let HQ know our intentions a bit, just in case things go south. If it was just us doing our thing, sure. But…"
Then Thor enters and Clint adds with a little dose of pomp and theatrics, "We are the Avengers, after all." Heck yeah, they're the Avengers. He pushes off the counter and then it's his turn, "Alright, I'll go get changed. We can get out there, see what's going down. And if we fight demons, hey we fight demons."
With that, the archer heads off.
Clint, now leaving to exchange his civilian get-up for more appropriate gear, is given a long-suffering look to accompany the gusty exhale.
"When did Barton decide to be responsible…?" The First Avenger laments mostly to himself, but also partially to Thor, given the armored and caped Asgardian has returned. Steven rubs the back of his neck again, oddly only in one direction, as if he were smoothing down the fine hairs there. More show on his dark sweatshirt as he does.
"Skin crawl's no fun. He's got a point though. Better touch base with SHIELD before we go do any form of recon." By the Captain's expression, he expects to meet some form of resistance to his plans, potentially an abnormal state for him to be in. He kills the rest of his mug and then rises to his feet briskly.
"Well, if nobody's eating that pizza, I will." And damned if the man doesn't fish the entire questionable box out for himself. "Need some calories before we leave."
Thor gives only a minor shrug to Steve's question about Clint being responsible, as if Steve was actually directing that his way for an answer. Thor will answer those rhetorical questions if he can, by god.
Or shrug at them if he cannot.
"Good. Touch your base, and I will be ready on the lawn," Thor declares. At least Thor won't go off on his own, seeing as he doesn't know where they're going.
They have that going for them.