Tony is a terrible roommate

[highprofilerichkid]

Characters: Tony + his beleaguered dorm/roomates
Date: March 30
Location: The Dreaming Bridge
Situation: tony doesn't have a lab and his roommates must suffer for it
Warnings/Rating: none


I | Tony's room | Yato

It's not often that Tony's room in the Dreaming Bridge is empty – the hazard of being stuck with roommates – but, on one of the rare occasions that he has the place to himself, he has somehow managed to fill just about all the space that could be considered his with... crap.

It mostly looks like busted old yimos and other personal devices, probably salvaged from dumpsters and flea markets. They are all in some state of disassembly, though it's not clear what he's actually doing with the computer carnage he's created. Whatever it is, he's very absorbed in it.


II | The Dreaming Bridge cafeteria | Open

Tony had developed a comfortable routine in Keeliai. It could almost have been called a normal human adult schedule. Now, without that structure, he's fallen back into all his old (bad) habits, which mostly means staying up to ridiculous hours and consuming enough caffeine to kill a horse. Circadian rhythm? Never heard of it.

Anyone visiting the Bridge cafeteria late at night has a good chance of seeing him there, clutching a bag of precious interdimensional coffee and radiating the slightly manic energy of someone who has been awake for way too long and hasn't realized how tired they are yet.

Comments

[minorgod]

Yato was still getting used to the new digs, and as such tried not to touch his roommates' things, especially since one of them had apparently been here for a while now (while the other was just as newly arrived as he was). But when the former's projects has started taking up all available surfaces to the point where it became difficult to find anywhere unoccupied, Yato came wandering into the room with a bit of a frown.

"I feel like I should put a big sticky note on my phone so that you don't think it's hanging around for spare parts," he observed. "What exactly are you building in here, anyway?"

[highprofilerichkid]

You can't tell him what to do, Yato, he has seniority!

Tony doesn't even notice his new roommate walk in until he speaks. "Huh?" Tony looks up. "Oh, I'm not building anything yet. Just messing around with their computer hardware. It's different from what we have at home, but way more advanced than what we had in Keeliai. I can probably repurpose some of it for my armor, once I figure out how to get it to talk to my systems."

The answer is obliviously straightforward. If Yato had hoped to make a pointed statement on the state of their shared space, the nuance is lost on Tony.

[minorgod]

tenure, not seniority! you're a baby still compared to him~

Yato listens with some perplexity at the reply, picking up the nearest piece of mechanical guts and turning it over in his hand. It looks like a circuit that you'd find on Earth, except he's never seen metals that colour before.

"Resident techie, huh?"

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony grins. "Yeah, you could say that." Not to toot his own horn, or anything. "It's nice living at the tech level I'm used to again. I miss the exploding goo consoles a little bit, though. That was always funny."

[minorgod]

"Exploding goo consoles?" Yato echoed, eyebrows raised and glancing around as if expecting one to be half-assembled in the room somewhere.

A thought strikes him, and he pulls his own red, very normal, very Earth flip phone from his jacket pocket. "You don't have any kind of charger that would fit this, do you? It's just about dead now, I've been trying not to use it much since I got here."

[highprofilerichkid]

"The computers in Keeliai were... kind of alive. Biotech. Trying to get inside them usually made them, uh, melt." And it's honestly a miracle that Tony wasn't one of the Foreigners to goo a console.

He smiles again when Yato pulls out his phone. "I don't have one, but I can totally make one. I do it all the time. This one should be easy." He takes the phone and turns it over in his hands a few times. "Old-school," he says, chuckling. "So you're from Earth?" Not hard to recognize the technology, even if it is outdated.

[minorgod]

For a moment, Yato looks confused at the unfamiliar city name, and then he recalls some of the history displays set up at the Dreamfolk museum. "Oh, you're one of those displaced people who came from that other place," he said in realization.

He nods when Tony identifies the phone and the origin.

"It's not the greatest, but it's really useful and it's sturdier than the newer ones," he replied, nodding as he pulled out a seat across from Tony and dropped into it. "That's right, from Japan."

[highprofilerichkid]

"Yup. Here for round two." Tony shrugs and his smile turns a little wry. It's frustrating to be stuck in Konryu again, but it's not all bad.

"New York, 2012," Tony offers. "Isn't Japan all about all the latest tech?" He asks, lightly teasing. "Our StarkPods always sell really well over there. You should just get something ruggedized."

[minorgod]

"This one's paid for," Yato says sheepishly. "Besides, I'm saving my money to build a shrine, so as long as this one keeps working, it'll last a while longer. Plus the number I've got is the one on all my advertisements."

He rummages in his pocket and pulls out a few plain business cards. "Gah, I don't have any English ones left..."

[highprofilerichkid]

"That's cool, I've got a text translation app," Tony says, and pulls out his beat-up StarkPod (speaking of outdated - he's been babying this thing along for nearly half a decade, now). He snaps a picture of a card, and a little processing icon appears over the image. "And if we're from the same version of Earth, hit me up when we get home. I'll hook you up with something new. What are you building a shrine for?" That sounds like a weird hobby.

The app finally completes its translation, and an English overlay appears on the screen. "You're a, uh, delivery... god? Did that translate right?"

[minorgod]

Yato double-takes at Tony's question, then realizes it's probably legitimate; somehow he doubts Tony would profess an adherence to what's now known as Shintoism.

"Same reason anyone wants to build a house - a shrine is a god's home," he clarified, and grins proudly when the translation app deciphers his card. "That's right! Delivery God Yato at your service."

[highprofilerichkid]

"Huh." Tony is briefly taken aback by this information. A processing icon appears over Tony's face.

When he'd first come to Keeliai he would have laughed at that assertion as absurd and impossible, but now it's just slightly unusual.

"Cool. What do you deliver?"

[minorgod]

"Anything you need! I'm used to taking all kinds of jobs for clients. I haven't seen any phantoms here yet, which is good since my Regalia isn't here either. But I figure there'll be lots of things that people need done in a city like this."

[highprofilerichkid]

It's cute that you think he's going to have any idea what that means, Yato.

"Okay, I know I'm a genius, but you're gonna have to use smaller words. I only know two gods and technically, they're both aliens. What are phantoms and regalia?"

[minorgod]

"Aliens?" Yato echoed, baffled. "There's no 'technically' about the kami. I mean, we get gods who have origins in places outside Japan that get absorbed, sort of. And new gods are still being born. But aliens are like... aliens."

He leans back in the chair, rocking on its two back legs idly to answer Tony's question. "Phantoms are like... corrupted spirits. They belong to the Far Shore, and they feed on negative emotion, and lead humans to despair. Regalia are deceased human souls that have been god-named and given form again. They serve as their master's weapons, and can slay Phantoms."

Among other things.

"My Regalia's name is Yuki, less formally Yukine, and the vessel name is Sekki."

"pet murder ghost" is probably not the preferred term

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony squints. "...I don't think we're from the same universe. Pretty sure we don't have any of that. Mostly just the aliens." That explanation totally didn't help, Yato.

"So does delivery god-ing attract phantoms? Is that why you need a pet murder ghost?"

[minorgod]

"We could be," Yato shrugged in response. "Most Near Shore folk - humans, the living - don't know anything about the Far Shore, and usually don't see anyone or anything having to do with it. You could be standing right next to a Phantom and you'd never know it." A beat, and then: "You're not, by the way. Just saying."

His mouth pulls down into a brief frown at the wording. "Hey. Yukine's a good kid, don't trash-talk my Regalia like that. And Phantoms are all over the place naturally. A pretty regular part of the work I do is slaying Phantoms. Either because someone's contacted me about something, even if they don't know it's a Phantom causing it, or it's a job that's been passed off by one of the shrines."

[highprofilerichkid]

"Still. Seems like something SHIELD would know about. I've seen a lot of weird dimensions, I don't think we could have missed one that spits out dementors all over the planet. Plus, I'm pretty sure you would have noticed the aliens." There was a big invasion, and the planet almost got exploded. It was a whole thing.

Yato takes some offense at Tony's colorful description of 'Regalias', which hadn't really been his intention. "Sorry. How does that work, though? Are they like a servant? A sidekick? Partners?" There's something a little unsettling about someone's actual soul being described as a 'weapon'.

[minorgod]

"A shield?"

The apology does the trick, and Yato's fine to continue the explanation without any further evidence of ire. "A Regalia's relationship with their master varies from god to god. There are definitely some out there that treat them like tools only, but I'd say that they're a minority."

(He remembers Hiyori grabbing his face and scolding him fiercely. "Yukine is Yukine. Treat him like an actual person, not a Shinki!" when she thought he was being too cold. )

"Partners is more the right idea. Gods and Regalia need each other in different ways, so it makes sense to have a working relationship."

[highprofilerichkid]

"S.H.I.E.L.D. It's an acronym. Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. It's a... military slash law enforcement agency, and they handle extraordinary threats across the globe. Criminals with superpowers, mostly." And the occasional alien invasion.

"So... how many 'gods' are there? That seems like a job where you'd run into some market saturation issues."

'Delivery god' is already pretty niche. Wouldn't you run out of significant things to be a god of at some point?

[minorgod]

"Huh... that's a mouthful. Guess it's luck that the initials lined up like that," Yato said cheerfully, and looks like a total nerd when Tony mentions superpowers. "Really?? That's awesome."

He raises an eyebrow at the question. "I'm sensing skepticism in the way you said that," he huffed. "As for how many... 8 million. Give or take," he adds. "But lots of gods have multiple names, so that's part of it. And there's always overlap, but that's normal. Like there are seven major Gods of Fortune, but they're not the only ones out there."

He rocks back on the legs of the chair again. "Plus new gods are being born all the time. I met one recently who's not even a decade old yet. As long as people have wishes, gods are going to be around."

Tony canonically hates Hamlet and cheated on his theater final

[highprofilerichkid]

"Awesome until someone wants to go all Temple of Doom on you or turn New York into a high-powered-space-laser tag arena," Tony says dryly. Supervillains are terrible, Yato. You don't want supervillains.

"Eight million?" Wow... He was thinking, like, a few hundred at most. Okay.

Still, he shrugs, taking the information in stride. "I think you guys just have different ideas about what makes a god," he says, which is... a surprisingly nuanced take on the situation, for Tony.

He's come to recognize that there are plenty of things that don't mesh easily with how he conceptualizes the metaphysics of the universe, and sometimes he just has to take that for what it is and move on. Stranger things in heaven and earth, Horace, or however that stupid quote goes.

Pffft

[minorgod]

"Probably," Yato said easily, not seeming offended by Tony's handling of the concept. "A lot of gods take on representation of natural things, like oceans and plants and the skies. Different people put importance on different things."

[highprofilerichkid]

"So do they just pop up out of nowhere? Are there gods of stuff like... I don't know. Lasers?" What a delightful concept. Tony grins. "Because that would be awesome. I want to meet the god of lasers."

[minorgod]

Yato laughs at the thought. "If there is, I haven't met them. The new one I said I met, her name is Kiki, and she came into existence as a sort of internet god. She helps track down information on people. She helped me with a stalker," he added with a grimace.

[tombadgerlock]

II

Fitz starts his work early in the mornings in the garden area around the arts centre, and when he cannot sleep, he sometimes gets up early and walks.

It can be surprisingly peaceful in Aifaran at night, and he haunts the occasional 'cafeteria' to obtain drink or food when he requires it. He has a small bag of not-quite-tulip bulbs in his hand, idly tossing it up and down, up and down, as he strolls into this one. Perhaps there will be something he can eat -

Or a man who looks somewhat stressed.

"Is all well?" Fitz enquires as he eyes the choices from the vending machine. He continues tossing the bulbs up and down, up and down.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony blinks and looks around, making sure that the guy who just walked in is actually talking to him. Why wouldn't things be 'well'? Is it because he's still awake at dawn making his fifth cup of late-night coffee? Naaaaah.

"Oh, yeah, good. How about you?" Tony is clearly a little baffled by the greeting. He starts to measure out his coffee beans. He needs more caffeine for this.