Iowa Bros in Space! The Spacening. Starring James T Kirk and Clinton Barton

[smartass_captain]

Fighting with Verity had done something for Jim despite all the vitriolic feeling swimming around his system. It had made him determined to go home. It wasn't as though he couldn't anymore. He knew exactly where the doorway leading back to the Enterprise stood. It was just...making himself open the door. Jim stands in the long hallway lined with doors to other worlds, staring intently at the 'Caution: Radiation risk' etched into the glass of his world's door. Shaking fingers reached for it, to push it open. Retracted.

He couldn't do this. No, bullshit. He was Jim Kirk, he could open a stupid door. Just. Not at the moment. Apparently. Jim shouts a string of fluent Orion curses at the door before stalking back off into the Nexus. To the plain door with the sideways 8 on it that leads to CLint's world. He pulls up a chair and waits. Clint would come sooner or later. He'd ask him to come with. Been meaning to show him around the ship anyway, might as well do it now.

Why couldn't his time have comms anyway? Jim smacks the back of his head against the wall while he waits, idly replaying the argument between himself and Verity in his head. What better way to kill time than to hate yourself?

Comments

[brave_heart_verity]

"To see what comes next." She gives a little shrug. "To see if new universes will be born out of the remains of the old, to see how many, how they might diverge and when... It would be interesting if there weren't so many deaths required."

She's not going to try to defend the people with the secrets because they clearly didn't do a good job with it. "Didn't Namor go Phoenix-crazy a couple of years ago?"

[aw_hawkguy]

Clint gives a shiver. "Hell. The Phoenix, yeah." He had a really bad time with the Phoenix, personally. Emma Frost set him on fire with her mind and kept him that way, maybe alive, maybe not, for who-the-hell-knew-how-long. "That, uh, was just last year, for me." Not long before he moved into this place, in fact.

"But yeah, Namor flooded Wakanda--so how the hell do he and T'Challa sit down at the same table, much less go in together on all this?" Clint is scratching his head again. "Okay, it looks like... part of the group gave up on saving the world, right at the end, and started work on a life raft to carry the best and brightest and also them through whatever happens. And part of the group... teamed up with Doom? To go try to kill the Beyonders?" He sighs. That's not going to be a popular option.

[smartass_captain]

"Okay but...how are they destroying planets. How is...whoever is doing this...getting worlds to collide. Or explode or whatever he's doing." Jim doesn't know who these people are. What they're capable of.

What he does know is that barring any major timeline changes Verity may have set in motion here, the countdown is two years to save Clint's world. Before that goes up too and Jim just moves both of them onto the Enterprise where alternate realities seem to be more stable.

"Find that guy and kick his ass. Or take a planetary core plasma drill and blow his planet up first with it. Or....fuck, I don't know, give him something else to do with his goddamn boredom."

[brave_heart_verity]

The details of what happened with the Phoenix Five are the kinds of things that don't get talked about on the news, but she can recognize that "I don't want to talk about it" tone of voice. She'll lean down to give Clint a hug.

"How it starts seems to be the more important question," she points out quietly. "Can we focus on that?" Going and destroying other planets doesn't seem like much of a solution to her.

[aw_hawkguy]

Clint is deeply appreciative of the hug, and the lack of other inquiry along that particular subject. And while he shares Jim's go-find-the-problem-and-punch-it attitude, he's still reading to try to find the problem's punchable part (which definitely isn't the Beyonder, or a bunch of them--he doesn't have a trick arrow for that*).

"Okay, this might be it," he hazards, opening another file to reveal... a wall of weird math. "Aw, hell, this is probably Reed's work. Bet he made up, like, three new kinds'a science just to write all this down. Getting it to him early might help. Or maybe you've got some future-science guys who could check the math?"

*: ...yet.

[smartass_captain]

"Fuck that cow skrull guy in his elitist neck." Someone still hasn't forgiven Reed for that, or for how he talked down about Verity. And Clint. Hmph.

The cool thing about being two hundred some years in the future is that all that 'invented new maths and sciences' stuff is just...Math now. Jim's skimming it with a thoughtful expression.

"Given enough time I might be able to do this?" Genius doesn't mean goddamn graphing calculator. "But I have a first officer who gets turned on by logic problems and a Russian whiz kid who's the youngest bridge officer ever and loves this kind of shit."

Jim pulls his PADD out and starts tapping away at it.

"We can figure out a way to convert these old ass files into something this thing can read and I'll get my guys working on it."

[brave_heart_verity]

Verity's just going to keep quiet about how much of it she understands. She reads math for fun, guys, she's not as dumb as people assume. "Every kind of science was made up nonsense until enough people had tested it," she reminds Clint.

"There are places in the Nexus that convert computer files. And remember, Jim, there are people to whom you are the backwards one." Jim could not handle Samus. Verity is certain of this. She'll take the spare drive and offer it to Jim. "You go get things converted, Clint goes to warn the Avengers. It'll go faster that way."

[aw_hawkguy]

Clint doesn't assume Verity's dumb, he just doesn't understand much of it (for all they used it, the circus was surprisingly sparse on teaching algebra, geometry, and physics), and Reed does like to mention offhand how he had to invent some new kind of math to deal with a problem irritatingly often. "And you... you've done a lot, Verity. Do you need anything?"

[smartass_captain]

"Yeah I bagged a MILF from like forever in the future about a month ago, I know how weird that feels." Worth it, too. Jim's tucking the spare drive into one of the pockets of his leather jacket.

Considering how often Verity is right around these two genius level delinquents, pretty much no one in the room thinks she's useless or stupid unless she does. Jim's just better at diplomacy (shockingly good at it when he tries) and leadership. Keeping a group together when shit hits the fan is pretty much his primary talent that doesn't involve the bedroom.

"I'll head back to the ship and get Spock and Chekov on this right away. Hell Scotty might be a better idea than Spock, even." Jim likes having so many specialists on his crew. He's always been the guy sort of good at plenty of things but never great at anything. Except leaping before he looks. He's pretty good at that.

"Need anything else, old man?" Jim gives Clint one last lopsided grin, trying to inspire some confidence in the two of them. "Or am I free to go if I promise t'be back by curfew?"

[brave_heart_verity]

There are just some things she doesn't need to know about, Jim. Him and Hips* is one of them. Try using some of those diplomatic skills, it's good practice.

Verity is certain she's useless. The whole purpose of her life was to be one person's friend and she fucked that up. She can't forgive herself for it.

The names he's rattling off mean nothing to her, except she vaguely remembers she's not supposed to flirt with one of them. But it's reassuring there will be lots of people working on it, so she gives them both a fragile smile. "No, I'm fine."

*: pure speculation because Verity hasn't met her and the player hasn't been stalking you. :P