It's Greek to Me: Lunch Break

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Molly, Billy, and Clint take a break from trying to figure out the mechanism and enjoy some lunch that Matt kindly provided.


Clint tossed a Skittle into the air and caught it in his mouth, chomping away in frustration as he pointedly did not look at the mechanism on the counter or the array of equipment that now filled the lab. He was just glad Matt had shown up with lunch. "Guys," he said, flopping back to lay on the floor. "Guys, I have this feeling I'm going to make some really ill advised life choices soon. Quick, somebody tell me not to!"

Molly let out a grunt. She could look at the device, but mostly just to make faces at it.

"Don't do the thing, Clint," she said half-heartedly. A moment passed and Molly suddenly sat up straight, her eyes widening. "Wait! What if we try to---" But her shoulders sagged and she quickly deflated. "Nevermind, we already tried that," she said before folding her arms and burying her head as she let out another grunt.

Popping his own Skittles in his mouth, Matt lay on the floor with his legs up on a chair. "Don't poke it, Molly, it's still doing nothing that I can tell. We should set up a skittles obstacle course," because that was a good, productive use of two engineers, a magic whatever and a vigilante lawyer. It wasn't any worse than doing nothing.

"I'm about ready to give up on magic and just zap the thing," Billy huffed as he flopped onto one of the chairs. Tiny arcs of electricity jumped back and forth from his thumb and index, and he stared at it intently, pointedly looking away from the device.

"No, don't zap it," Clint said. "And don't... I don't know, wish it to work better. Or whatever. All we need is a ridiculous inter-dimensional whatever opening up in the lab. I would never hear the end of it. Someone would tell someone else it was a dastardly plan conceived by SHIELD to infiltrate the mansion's subbasement for nefarious purposes." Reaching for a box that he hoped contained the remains of shrimp fried rice, he muttered, "Spoiler alert: It's not."

"Or it could turn into a gravitational singularity. Which would also suck. Literally," Molly said, picking up a pair of chopsticks and pointing them before giggling at her own joke and pausing to return to her super serious Molly face. "Also bad. Very bad." She rifled through the remaining boxes. "No sweet and sour chicken?"

"I finished it," Matt replied, unrepentant. He liked sweet and sour chicken. "And the egg rolls. So...." he munched on more skittles, "we just wait then? This is not the exciting science I was led to expect when I was asked to help."

"I didn't actually ask you to help," Clint pointed out. "I asked you to bring lunch and you volunteered to sniff the thing we can't get to work. There's a distinct difference. But thank you for lunch."

"Maybe it's a weaker version of an Immovable Rod," Billy suggested, reaching for one of the dumplings. "Or broken. Or... Wait, I know what it is! It's a wand of frustration!"

Molly was pouting, having completely forgotten about the problem at hand at the moment.

"But...It was MY sweet and sour chicken...." she lamented, lowering her chopsticks as she turned to eye the remains of what was left and took some stupid beef broccoli while grumbling.

Then she (lightly) punched Matt in the arm. "You owe me."

"You weren't eating it anymore!" Matt protested, "It was abandoned. I found it a good home. And anyways, it wasn't full of all the crap that was in most of the food," he could taste it. Why the chicken was less processed than the other food, he had no idea, but he appreciated it.

"If you really want more chicken," Billy said idly, chewing on the dumpling as he stood and wandered back to the counter. "I can conjure you some." He glared at the mechanism that lay there so innocently. "Gods know my magic hasn't been of much other use today."

"Sure, just don't summon it in here in case your chaos thingie hits and the universe drowns you in sweet and sour sauce," Clint said, shrugging. "Also, Matt, stop eating other people's food without asking, that's rude. But hey, Billiam, you gettin' any voodoo vibes off the mechanism?"

"Not really," Billy shrugged. "I mean, I'm not all that experienced with magical artifacts, but I'd think I'd sense something. And it doesn't seem to react at all to magic around it....so short of casting a spell directly at it---which I KNOW, I KNOW, is a bad idea---I've got nothing."

Gesturing expansively at one of the white boards off to the side of the room, Clint finished up his shrimp fried rice as he said, "Back to the drawing board, Billiam!" The actual board was covered in half-scribbled ideas that had, for the most part, all been crossed out. Multiple people had obviously been working on the issue over the course of several days, given the sampling of colors and handwriting up there, but nothing had panned out. Still, none of them were actually inclined to give up. Not yet, at least.