Fifth Floor Common Room, Saturday night

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

Now that he was back in town, Bruce had something to test.

After getting settled in earlier, Bruce picked up some Chinese food for anyone who might stop by the common room looking for some dinner, sat down, and turned on the TV, looking for some kind of interesting documentary or, at the very least, a marathon of something on Discovery.

Of course, the TV went straight to a Secondary School Operetta marathon, leaving him unable to change the channel, the volume, or turn the TV off.

"It's like I never left," he snarked to himself before deciding to focus on the food.

[OOC: CR is open and Chinese food is moddable! And the TV, as stars_and_money has pointed out, hates rich kids.]

Comments

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"...do you only watch bad TV?" Tony asked. Because this room wasn't rich enough yet.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Not by choice," Bruce said. "It's pretty well established that the TV hates me."

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Did you do something to it?"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"No," Bruce said. "But hatred can be an irrational emotion, stemming from virtually anything. And the television feels it toward me."

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Tony looked from him, to the TV, and then back again. "You're not allowed to claim I'm going to destroy things with technology when it hates you so violently."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I don't think I've ever claimed you'll destroy things," Bruce said, defensively. "I've only implied it."

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Same thing!"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"It wouldn't hold up in court," Bruce pointed out.

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Of course that would be Bruce's response. "It's totally slander against the Stark name."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I definitely wouldn't go that far," Bruce said. "It's just a poorly received implication against Tony Stark. And you set me straight on that anyway."

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"Considering I'm the only Stark left in the company, I think it works."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I still think it's a stretch," Bruce said. "But if you want a formal apology, I could write one up."

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

Tony crossed his arms over his chest, giving Bruce a completely serious look. "I think it would be for the best."

[batwaffles.livejournal.com]

Once you heard Secondary School Operetta songs, it was like you couldn't unhear them, so Stephanie definitely noticed the sound coming from the common room.

"Oh my god, really? Who would be watching th -- oh, hi, you're back!"

Meep and whew and yet meep again.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Hello, Stephanie," Bruce said. "And I am. I guess I missed the people here too much to stay away too long."

[batwaffles.livejournal.com]

Stephanie managed to recover fairly quickly from her mental flail, and glanced over at the TV with a slight grin. "Looks like the TV missed you too. How was your trip?"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Fairly uneventful for a mountain climbing expedition," Bruce said. "But I guess that's what you'd want."

Was he throwing that out just to see if the mountains clued her into anything? Possibly.

[batwaffles.livejournal.com]

Stephanie tilted her head slightly; she didn't know enough detail about Bruce's past to be able to guess Nanda Parbat, but she could at least make a pretty good guess that 'uneventful' for him meant something pretty different from the standard definition.

"In theory," she answered. "Some people like it eventful, though."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Eventful in the mountains means your vacation is probably being cut short," Bruce said. Not necessarily on the mountain he spent most of his time, but still. In general. "How was life here? I understand the island stopped a few places and there were mechanical spiders."

[batwaffles.livejournal.com]

"Sure, if you're into relaxing on your vacation," Stephanie maintained, although she did have a slightly chastised expression on her face. He had a point there, naturally.

"Mechanical spiders were about as eventful as it got," she added, because mentioning that his future ward and, for a while, his creepy future son were here definitely fell under 'eventful' but also under 'bad idea.' "Well, if you don't count the places the island's been, holy crap. Let's see. There was a funky Old West with steam technology that Tony geeked all over, Tokyo in the future that reminded me kind of like home if it rained all the time, ancient Egypt . . . it's been pretty cool, actually."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"And now we're in Atlantis," Bruce said. "I have to admit, it's not what I was expecting."

[batwaffles.livejournal.com]

Stephanie had, no lie, been contemplating emailing Tim to ask if he could pass on a "WTF?" to Garth about Atlantis.

"Yeah, me neither," she admitted, finding herself a chair arm to perch on. "It's fascinating, though. Did you know there's people here who jump over bulls in front of crowded arenas for fun?"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Somebody mentioned that to me," Bruce said. "I was thinking about giving it a shot tomorrow if the island hasn't moved yet."

"You haven't tried it, have you?"

[batwaffles.livejournal.com]

Stephanie laughed. "Not yet. The gymnastics team at my old school is one thing, but I think it's a pretty big step up from the vault horse to live bulls." She tapped a finger against her chin. "You might want to look into that pretty quick, though. We've been moving more or less on schedule and we're about due."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"When has it been happening? Sunday or Monday?" Bruce asked. It had to be one of those two if it was regular and Stephanie knew the pattern was about to repeat. The only question was if it began the week or if it switched halfway through the weekend.