#i hate literally everything with the exception of my hand picked tiny set of beloved things/ppl

[luv-again]

my mum singing jingle bells downstairs :

my immediate visceral reaction : UUUGGGGHHHHAAAARRRGGHHH

[hailing-stars]

@febuwhump day 10 : I'm sorry, I didn’t know keep moving forward summary

“Oh, look who it is,” said Tony. “The amazing Peter Parker and Iron Lad.”

“I’ve asked you to stop calling me that,” said Harley. He put his laundry basket down on the porch.

“Shouldn’t you two be off doing college boy things? Like blowing up your dorm rooms or terrorizing your professors into retiring early?” Tony’s eyes shifted to Peter. “Or not studying for your Chem midterm on Monday?”

Peter frowned, and dropped his laundry bag from his shoulder. It landed with a thud, next to Harley’s basket. “How did you know about my test?”

“Think it’s hard for this genius and savior of the universe to hack a lousy MIT server?”

A gentle breeze fresh off the lake blew through Peter’s hair, bringing with it all the familiar and welcoming scents of his second home.

He shut the door to Harley’s baby, a vintage red Camaro with black racing stripes, and immediately locked eyes with Tony, who watched them both walk the dirt path up to the lakehouse from his favorite chair on the porch.

“Oh, look who it is,” said Tony. “The amazing Peter Parker and Iron Lad.”

“I’ve asked you to stop calling me that,” said Harley. He put his laundry basket down on the porch.

“Shouldn’t you two be off doing college boy things? Like blowing up your dorm rooms or terrorizing your professors into retiring early?” Tony’s eyes shifted to Peter. “Or not studying for your Chem midterm on Monday?”

Peter frowned, and dropped his laundry bag from his shoulder. It landed with a thud, next to Harley’s basket. “How did you know about my test?”

“Think it’s hard for this genius and savior of the universe to hack a lousy MIT server?”

“Morgan’s right,” said Peter, having flashbacks to that time, a couple of weeks earlier, when she had called him from her closet to complain that her dad spent the entire day at her school. “You have boundary issues.”

“And I’m called Iron Man 2,” said Harley.

“Yeah,” said Peter. “Cause he’s the sequel.”

“Well you know what they say about sequels. They’re never as good as the original.”

“It’s cold here,” said Harley. He turned to Peter. “Why did we come here, again?”

“I dunno, my memory’s sort of foggy…”

“Oh, let me try,” said Tony. “Maybe cause you’re both broke college students who haven’t had a solid meal since the last time you drove four hours to do laundry, and you know on Friday nights I make my famous lasagna.”

“Yeah,” admitted Peter. “Sounds about right.”

Tony pulled him into a belligerent hug, knocking the air of him, and ruffling his hair with his prosthetic arm. Harley was nex

t, though he tried, and failed, to get away. Peter lifted both heaps of laundry off the porch. The three of them went inside, where the aroma of home cooked lasagna filled the air.

Peter breathed it in, and a peaceful feeling spread through his body. He was home. At least for a while.

*

The garage was dimly lit, but that was the way Harley liked it. Reminded him of home, and all those nights he’d snuck out to the garage after his mother went to bed to tinker until sunrise, working quietly by lantern and flashlights only, to stay hidden and unbothered.

It didn’t matter how much noise he made at the Stark lake house. He’d always be drown out by Morgan’s chaos or Tony’s rambling or Peter’s frequently moody loud thoughts. It was comforting, and annoying, at all once.

“Burning the midnight oil?” asked Tony, and Harley poked his head up from insides of his beloved Camaro.

Tony wore a robe patterned with tiny Spider-Mans over his pajamas, and Harley had never really gotten used to that, to seeing Tony Stark, Iron Man, walking around in goofy dad pajamas.

“Something like that.”

“I can help you, you know,” said Tony. He patted the red Camaro, and Harley swatted his hand away.

“No way,” said Harley. He knew what happened when Tony started tinkering, even when he’d claim they were only minor upgrades. “Touch her and die. I like her the way she is.”

“That’s not what you said when you asked for my expert advice about your suit.”

“One of my biggest regrets,” said Harley.

“Brat.”

“Old man.”

“I’m not that old,” pointed out Tony.

“But you’re retired,” said Harley. “And that automatically ages you up about twenty years.”

“I’m not retired. I’m a dad, thus making retirement impossible.”

Tony sat on a stool, and with his latest statement, his mood shifted towards something more heavy, more sad. Just the way conversation tended to go lately, as if someone had died. That was about right. Someone had practically died.

“You’re worried about Peter?” Harley guessed.

“I’m always worried about Peter,” said Tony. “And Morgan. But I actually came in here to talk about you.”  

“Me?”

“Yeah, you,” said Tony. “How’s MIT? How’s your first semester going? I need all the details.”

Harley paused, wondered if it was alright to tell the truth, then realized he couldn’t help it. He broke out into a grin.

“It’s great,” said Harley. “It’s everything I thought it’d be.”

They spend the next couple of hours ignoring the Camaro in favor and talking about hated professors, loved professors, his favorite classes, parties, that girl in his Econ class that always seems to evade him whenever he’d worked up the nerve to ask her out.

“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” said Tony. “You don’t have to feel guilty about it just because -”

“-because Peter’s not?” offered Harley. “I’m worried about him, too.”

“He’ll be fine,” said Tony, but there wasn’t any reassurance in his words and his eyes looked a bit lost, evident even in the dimly lit garage.

“He’s depressed.”

Tony took a breath, as if he’d known along, but wasn’t ready to hear the simple, plain truth stated like that.

“Yeah,” said Tony. “I suppose he is.”

After several seconds of dead air, Tony stood up from his stool, and clasped him on the shoulder. “I appreciate you looking out for him, as long as you’re remembering to look after yourself.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Harley. “It’s really like we look out for each other, tough. Take turns being the responsible one. We’ve got a calendar for it and everything.”

Tony laughed, and got that far off look in his eyes. The one he usually got before launching into a story about his and Rhodey’s college days, but on that night, Harley was spared a story about good ole days. He suspected it was due to Tony worrying more about Peter than he was letting on.

*

Tony wanted to call May.

She was a beacon of parental wisdom, especially when it came to Peter, and Tony could really use the help. He was out of his league, here, but last time he’d call at this time of night, he hadn’t gotten advice about how to sooth Morgan through the sudden loss of her imaginary friend. He’d gotten yelled at, by her, and then by Happy, both of them grumpy about being woken up.

And since Pepper also didn’t like being woken up, Tony would have to go with his instincts this time. His instincts told him what Peter needed was a little bit of tough love.

So, he positioned himself on the stairs, just as Peter tried disappearing into his room for some sleep.

“Tony,” said Peter. “Please don’t be annoying.”

“Too late. I was born that way.”

“Please move. Tired.”

“MIT has really gone downhill since I left, huh,” said Tony. “Students can’t even speak in complete sentences.”

Peter groaned, and Tony slung his arm around him, directing him into the kitchen where’s set up the table with a variety of study aids and all of Peter’s school books.

“What is this?”

“Oh you know,” said Tony. He let go of him, and walked around the table. “You got your energy drinks, you sour gummy candy, your laptop, school books, day old pizza in the fridge, all the necessities for an all-nighter.”

“Why?”

“I’m teaching you how to be a real college student,” said Tony. “And I figured I could help you study for your Chem midterm, since you don’t seem to be interested in it at all.”

“I’m a genius. I don’t need study help.”

“Uh huh,” said Tony. “A genius who’s almost failing Chemistry, and will without a decent score on this test.”

Peter dropped his shoulders, and annoyance flashed across his face. Tony waited for him to yell, or start a fight with him.

He’d been so polite, for the most part, during his teen years Tony figured it was about time for them to be at odds over something, about time for Peter to go off the rails the way only a nineteen-year-old could.

“I was thinking,” said Peter, stating his discontent calmly. No yelling only meant it was gonna be harder for Tony to shoot this down. “I could just forget about school.”

“Forget about school?”

“Yeah,” said Peter. Like it was no big deal. “I could help you and Bruce figure what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you. Except for your Chemistry grade.”

“You know what I mean, Tony,” said Peter, a bite to his tone. “Find out what’s wrong with my powers. So I can be Spider-Man again.”

“Kid, we’ve been through this over and over again. Bruce and I, we’re handling this. School is your job right now.”

“Well I’m tired of just sitting around, and waiting -”

“-hence you being enrolled at MIT.”

Tony pushed Peter towards the table, and they both sat down.

“Listen, Pete,” he told him. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what it’s like to have these powers and suddenly have them disappear. It’s been… rough on you. And May and I get that. We let you mope around New York all summer long, but it’s time to pick yourself up and keep moving forward.”

Peter stared at the table, at all the study materials, and it was hard for Tony to interpret what he was thinking.

“Think of it as a shot at having some normalcy,” he said. “Before you get your powers back and with them, all of Spider-Man’s responsibilities.”

“What if,” said Peter. His mask of uninterest started to crack. “And what if they don’t come back?”

“They will.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” said Tony. “I literally saved this whole universe, and our friend Professor Hulk brought half the population back. I think we’ve got it covered.”

“Yeah,” said Peter, though he didn’t sound convinced. He looked away from Tony, and at his school books. “I guess we better get started.”

Tony frowned.

He had been hoping for more conversation, or at least to break through to the kid, in some way, even if it was just a talk and a vent.

Instead he had an almost breakthrough. A tiny crack in the disguise. And that wasn’t good enough, even if Peter was studying and allowing Tony to help him.

When they’re done, Peter disappeared to his room to get some sleep, and Tony sat up, at the table, sipping on a god-awful energy drink and wondering who he’d have to bribe to become a professor at MIT.

[gwydionmisha]

Personal: Gothmas Breakdown Saga

While I was sleeping, tavy stole and attempted to eat a comic book.  *facepalm*  I know it was Tavy because he was still sporadically blerping up paper mache/kibble all over the apartment while I was trying to do the following, which meant I kept having to stop to do that.  I tried to medicate him, but he scraped most of it off, which I also got to clean. I also had to change the fireplace tank because it was overdue and couldn't wait a few more days for Gothmas break down to finish, and best to spill and wipe up water first, than to hve fish water in everything,

Today I dragged all the storage boxes out and cleared the closet generally.  Onto my bed. There was an exhausting wrangling of flats.  As I write this, my bed is still full of boxes and there are stacks of them eating my tiny living room.  Trying to get the bedroom window lights down ended up having to be a whole Thing involving storage reorganization which definately needed to happen and led to me finding some things that had gone walkabout, but added more boxes to my bed, ate spoons, and created chaos.  Oh, and I dropped an end, shattering a bulb in the approximate area Livia destroyed my Tesla Globe.  I keep sweeping and sweeping, but I know full well I'm going to end up with glass in my foot at some point in the next week.  My lungs hate all of this by the way.

I came out and sorted the storage boxes in prep for breaking down Halloween town and the trees.  The first thing I picked up was the DS-9 space station.  My hand tipped and a ship fell.  And disappeared.  Of course it did.  I moved things.  No ship.  I swept and sorted through the trash three times, no ship.  Sigh.

I have this all set up to do modularly over the course of several nights.  Hahahahaha!  No.

I take apart the the things that have to go in small protective boxes with styrofoam first, because it's both more efficient for packing them in the big boxes with smaller less fragile things as fill, and because those things are fairly easy to lift out of the display without getting into the rat's nests the trees become.  I get the big halloween village peices and the associated little pieces into their boxes.  The pumpkin is away.  I get up to pull the crystal icycles from the mantle, carefully picking them out of the wiring and balls.  I have just sat down and got the bubble wrap ready when big tree goes over.  I hadn't touched it.  I had no chance to get up and save it.  I couldn't hve made it around the living roo table even if this wasn't a day when every second standing is agony and my legs barely obey.  It flattened the wee white tree (which was literally from the dollar store and very bendy, so unharmed), smushed the side of the big tree and sent big tree ornaments flying.  Amoung the casualties were two of my beloved dark purple glass ornaments with glitter spider webs.  Dammit.  A legacy bear from wee white tree lost his head, but I'll likely be able to fix it next year.  Another of the particularly pretty electric blue glass balls with snowflakes died too.

I couldn't leave it like that as it could easily roll off the side and smash.  All attempt to stand it up failed, as the balanced was completely borked by the crushed side and too many flying ornaments from one side.  Which meant I had to stand there in an astonishing amount of pain and carefully unhook all the lights and support rope one handed (the other holding the damned thing up) so I could sit on the floor with it and take all the lights and ornaments apart.  except I couldn't because I couldn't get the one prple connecting light to disconnect one handed from that angle like at all.  I did manage to get it loose enough to reach the floor eventually.  Only my water and the remote were nowhere near and I literally couldn't leave until I was in the middle of a nest of dis-guarded lighting and ornaments.  I very much wished I'd taken a good pain pill before the crash, but I had not.  Ooops.  Stuck now.  Oh, and a bunch of smaller branches and one larger one are now off my irreplaceable big Halloween tree and a major branch is cracked.

It was now 10:30ish.  The problem is, once you have that many glass and fragile ornaments lying around you, you are committed until it's sorted out.  *facepalm*  I had everything but the window lights sorted and rationally packed by about 1:30AM.  I needed to sweep for glass again, so I did that.  If I took down window lights, I could put all the boxes away and have my bed and living room back.  So I took the front window lights down, packed it all up, and put it away.  I then broke down all the spare boxes I had from not knowing how the integrated collection would fit together with the things in storage and stowed the flats.  Finally!  Only not.  I'd forgotten the ones in the livingroom from when I realized I needed a larger box from the bedroom instead of two small ones.  Flattened and stowed.  Only... fuck!  I hadn't done the exterior lights when I did bedroom window because boxes were in the way of egress.

Those are officially tommorrow's problem.  I think they may fit in Halloween exterior decorations bin, which would be dramatically less work than any other option.  Sigh.  I have swept bedroom and livingroom again, but am still expecting a glass landmine.  Also, I'm kind of bummed out that my Mummy lights are dying.  They are permanently installed over the livingroom window and were a gift my first or second Gothmas here.  They are LED and like the TARDIS lights designed not to be replaceable.

So that's why Thursday's news is barely touched.