Fourth Floor Common Room, Monday Night

[ultron_junior]

Victor -- like the good geek he was -- had spent most of the last several days working his way up the leaderboard in Game of Nerds.

He wasn't doing as well as he wanted to. There weren't enough questions about superheroes. Finally he gave up and went into the common room, where he popped a frozen pizza in the oven to share with anybody who wanted it before turning on the TV to find ... telenovelas.

Lots and lots and lots of telenovelas, on every channel except the one that was showing a Korean soap opera for the sake of variety.

He made the mistake of letting himself get sucked into one, so until he got distracted he'd be offering romantic advice to the characters. Sure, his own love life was a royal mess, but at least he wasn't having inappropriate sexual tension with his adopted sister.

[OOC: Open common room.]

Comments

[dollpocalypse]

"...Oh god, a soap opera."

No, Topher didn't live on this floor. Did it matter?

"The TV in a mood again?"

[ultron_junior]

"A telenovela," Victor said, glancing back and waving a hand vaguely toward the pizza. "It's not a soap opera, it's a muy importante part of my culture."

He sighed. "... and yes, the TV's in a mood."

[dollpocalypse]

"Dude," Topher said. "You're going to change your mind about that the next time the island decides to turn all of us into soap opera characters."

REALLY.

[ultron_junior]

"Is it going to make me be in love with my sister like this jerk?" Victor asked, frowning at the screen. "I swear, the writers must take so many drugs."

[dollpocalypse]

"...If you have a sister, you probably shouldn't have her visit that weekend," Topher decided.

Beat.

"Wait, do you? And is she also a cyborg? Can I meet her?"

[ultron_junior]

Victor blinked. "No. I mean, no, I don't have a sister. It was just an example."

"Why?" he asked. "Do you have a sister?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Nope. Fortunately." Well, if he had had one, he might not have grown up to be quite so afraid of girls. But still. "But anyway, I think the island just decided to make some people think they were siblings and long-lost twins and stuff that weekend anyway, so you might, you know. Get one. Temporarily. If that happens again."

[ultron_junior]

"I always feel like I got off easy so far when you say things like that," Victor noted. "I mean, other than the pony thing and the sunscreen raining at the picnic, and Karolina, it's been ... weird but not as weird as the temporary insanity stuff you talk about."

[dollpocalypse]

Topher groaned. "And now we're jinxed. Thanks." God, Victor. "Just wait, you're gonna wake up in like a week or something and find dark clouds trying to eat the multiverse again."

[ultron_junior]

Victor rolled his eyes. "Maybe the island just knows my life kind of sucked for the last year and it's making things up to me. Nothing is going to eat the multiverse." A pause. "Again."

[dollpocalypse]

"There's a pun in there," Topher informed him. Just in case Victor hadn't been aware.

Pause.

"Sucked how?"

[ultron_junior]

"I didn't know I was a cyborg until about a year ago, Topher," Victor said, once he decided it was worth explaining. "And part of finding out was that my mom got killed. I mean, there are awesome things about it, but it's been a rough ... while."

[dollpocalypse]

"Oh." Well. "Sorry. About asking. And about your mom. Also." Topher wrung his hands a little. "I guess, yeah, that wouldn't be the most fun thing to find out."

Irrational obsession with robots aside, and all that.

[ultron_junior]

"It's okay, I brought it up to start with," Victor said. "And ... yeah. Mostly the being lied to parts bother me. The powers, I'm cool with."

[dollpocalypse]

"Well, anyone would be cool with the powers," Topher pointed out. "The thing you did in our final was awesome. But... yeah. Do you at least know who, like... made you?"

[ultron_junior]

"Plus I spent most of my life wanting to be a superhero, so actually getting to be one, getting to meet Spider-Man and stuff ... you have to admit it's fun." Even if Victor's entire team rolled their eyes about it. "And yeah. Ultron. Evil robot guy. I was supposed to take over the world or something."

From Victor's tone, it was pretty clear he did not want that to happen.

[dollpocalypse]

"...You don't look like you're taking over the world to me," Topher commented, squinting a little at Victor. "Mostly you look like you're going to high school. Fail, Ultron."

[ultron_junior]

Victor managed a bitter smile. "Yeah, the taking over the world part was supposed to kick in when I was 21. I did some reprogramming to get rid of it. It was kind of a long-range plan."

Which always lead to Fail, really.

[dollpocalypse]

"Nice," Topher said, nodding. "Even though he probably should have left out that ability when he first programmed you. Villains are such idiots sometimes."

Out of the mouths of future world-dominators.

[ultron_junior]

"Well, robot," Victor pointed out. "They aren't exactly known for creative thinking. I don't think he realized my mom would actually have an influence."

[dollpocalypse]

"Yeah, except duh," Topher pointed out. "If he wanted to be the only influence, he could've just made you at twenty-one. Otherwise obviously any half-decent cyborg would've learned from experiences and stuff in the meantime."

Topher, please stop giving this so much thought.

[ultron_junior]

Yeah, the interest was getting a little creepy, but Victor passed it off with an amused grin in the end.

"Guess I'm flattered I pass as half-decent, man."

[dollpocalypse]

"Not that I would know without seeing your circuitry," Topher added hastily. Yes, thank you, Topher. "But yeah. Good job not being evil, anyway."

[ultron_junior]

"I'll try to keep it up." And Victor was not commenting on the circuitry thing, because that so wasn't happening that he didn't want to encourage Topher to think about it.

[dollpocalypse]

"By superheroing," Topher supplied. "With Spider-Man. Is that awesome, by the way? Because sounds awesome."

[ultron_junior]

"It wasn't bad," Victor said. "The main thing was that he took us out for sushi. Spider-man eats raw fish."

Yeah. Victor still wasn't that into the whole concept.

"I mean, it was cool, but it was just, like ... a couple hours."

[dollpocalypse]

"Oh. Ew, sushi." Huh. "So normally you're all solo and stuff? Apart from random lunches?"

[ultron_junior]

Victor shook his head. "Nah, I'm on a team. There are ... well, now there are six of them, plus me."

He managed to remember Klara.

"The lone wolf thing seems like it'd get lonely. Besides, all the best heroes are on teams."

[dollpocalypse]

"Except, you know, Tony and stuff." Sigh, Topher. "Are there a lot of those team thingies in your world? Mine is... pretty lacking in superheroes."

[ultron_junior]

Victor shrugged. "Define a lot," he asked. "I mean, there are enough, yeah, especially in New York. But I'm from L.A., and there are, like, three good heroes in the whole city, not counting us."

He glanced over. "Do people in your world have powers at all?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Not that I know about," Topher said, with a little twitch of jealousy that Victor's universe got all the fun. "But I decided, like, forever ago that if my world randomly started to have superheroes and powered people and stuff, I'd be a technopath or something. Which I'm not. So clearly we're just normal."

...Great reasoning there, Topher. Really.

"And I'm from L.A. too," he added. "Most boring city ever."

[ultron_junior]

Yeah, that logic was something special. On the other hand, maybe it was better Topher hadn't figured out other people could have powers and be keeping them quiet; it probably led to less sulking.

"It's not that bad, just ... less cool than New York," Victor told him. "Where in L.A.? I went to East Angeles High before here," he said, then realized something. "Which you might not even have in your world."

[dollpocalypse]

"Westside," Topher said after half an hour of Shanie's careful guidance in picking a neighborhood, because I am lazy and Shanie is the best. "Brentwood. But I mostly went to a bunch of different private schools before I came here, and not always in L.A., so I'm not sure what public schools there are, especially on the Eastside." He shrugged. "Was yours okay?"

[ultron_junior]

I did SO MUCH begging Shanie for background on my first pup from L.A. I feel you.

"Yeah," Victor said. "I mean, it's public school, so everybody kind of assumed I was a narc and they'd just about decided to put in metal detectors when I left, but it wasn't, like, a problem going there."

He smiled a bit. "Kind of doesn't surprise me you were a private school kid."

[dollpocalypse]

"Dude. It's a good thing you left before they could do that." Because seriously. "That would've led to a seriously awkward strip-search."

[ultron_junior]

Victor snorted. "Yeah, my mom was driving me crazy trying to talk me into transferring. I mean, I was going to do it, but I thought she was one paranoid lady."

[dollpocalypse]

"Yeah, I guess it'd be hard to just jump to 'basically a giant magnet' as an explanation for that," Topher granted. "...But wow, now I've got this mental image of you stuck to the top wall of one of those things."

[ultron_junior]

"I'm not actually sure if that would happen or if it'd just buzz for a million years," Victor said idly. "Either way, yeah, it'd be a lot to explain. I wonder if you can get a religious exemption from going through metal detectors."

[dollpocalypse]

"Maybe stick to Portalocity as a travel method from now on," Topher suggested. "More likely to dump you in the middle of the Congo or something at random, but way less obsessive with the security thing."