Check-In: Not-Mother Hen

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty sat at the bar with a cup of coffee and her notebook, watching the 'welcoming committee' make themselves busy. Liz was here, as she'd promised Kitty she would be and Kitty gave her a quick smile of encouragement.

One of the worst things about Check-In Days was that you never knew whether it'd be a whole long day of no one arriving, one spectacular fall from the ceiling and dropping dead after another, or anything in between. It made it hard to know what to do with yourself. After awhile, you got used to it and just kept on with whatever you'd do otherwise, and know that if you didn't step up for a new arrival, someone else would. But for someone not used to treating it like a responsibility to be here, especially someone with Liz's anxious need to be perfect at it, Check-In Day could be emotionally exhausting.

So Kitty made sure to have milk warmed for hot cocoa and her plans for the obstacle course handy in case Liz needed something to do with herself. Otherwise, she was working on a modification of Cerebro to see if she could start detecting new arrivals.


[ooc: Regular check-in day gathering post. If you want Kitty, ping me.]

Comments

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

"You're a glass half full kind of person, aren't you?" Alec was a glass half empty, that was certain. He looked Thor up and down.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

"You don't get to be 1500 years old without figuring that out," he says, tipping the glass at him again. Thor drains the glass, then pours himself some more.

"My brother, Loki --" Thor feels his chest clench tightly at the thought of his brother; Thor wasn't sure if he was ever going to be over that. He'd mourned his brother before, but it was different this time. "-- thought we couldn't defeat my half-sister. He wanted to stay in Sakaar and take the place over instead."

Thor had suggested that he stay there; the place was made for him. Now Thor wishes he had, even though he'd been pivotal in defeating Hela.

"But we went back to Asgard and we defeated her. If we'd kept thinking there believing was nothing we could do, she probably would have slaughtered everyone in Asgard, then in the rest of the nine realms."

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

He took another look at Thor - he was doing that a lot. "You look pretty god fro 1500 years old." He briefly wondered what the full life expectancy would be for him then, if he looked the way he did at 1500. "That's not idealism. Idealism is believing there is good in her and trying to get her to change her ways. What you're talking about is optimism and determination. "

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

"Asgardians age at a completely different rate than most other species," he says. "It sometimes makes things complicated."

Especially if you had a human girlfriend. Or human friends.

Still, he lets out a bark of laughter at the idea that Hela might be reformed. "You're right," he says. "I still have a hard time differentiating who can be reformed and who can't be." He'd believed Loki wasn't capable of being redeemed.

He takes another swig of his beverage, then levels his gaze at Alec.

"What's the reason for you half-glass empty philosophy?"

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

"Experience." He finished off his glass and poured another one. He appreciated the pace that Thor was drinking - finally someone who could keep up. It was nice. "I'm not from your world with superheroes and whatever. My world the people generally suck unless they prove otherwise."

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor lets out a little "mmm" at that explanation. Alec is right; if people aren't trying to kill them, they generally aren't half-bad. At the least, most people are tolerable.

"That change here?"

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

"Here?" He paused. "Yeah. Most people here are okay. Everyone seems to have their own crap they have to deal with back home and no one seems excited to hurt other people." Unless you counted Rocket. Alec did, but he could just be being petty there. "It's like whoever's in charge is just picking up the not-so-crappy people."

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor drains the glass again, then pours himself another.

"You say most," he says. "Who don't you count in that list?"

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

"The moron is pretty annoying." Alec was perhaps being petty. "And the raccoon can definitely hold a grudge." He wasn't sure how he felt about Mildmay. He was pretty sure the guy could be dangerous if the right buttons were pushed, but he respected that, especially if it came out because he was protecting Corbie.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor might not have much of an opinion about the moron, but he definitely has Opinions about the Rabbit.

"Rabbit may hold grudges," he says, "But he's the only person who traveled with me to Nidavellir. He was a great comfort. He also--"

Thor suddenly and casually jams a finger into his side of his eye socket. He wiggles his finger experimentally trying to gain purchase enough to push it out. He can't quite get the tip of his finger behind the ball of it.

Thor frowns, then pushes his finger back further until more finger is safely nestled in his head than outside of it. He looks over at Alec with the one eye that currently doesn't have a finger in it and hopes he is not being judged too severely for not being able to pop out his mechanical eye with ease. He hasn't had much practice.

Then finally he has it. The eye pops out neatly out into his hand with an audible sound.

"--gave me this eye when I lost my last one." A beat. "Do you have a napkin? I've really been meaning to wipe this thing down."

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

Alec watched first with perplexity and then resigned This is what my life has been reduced to expression. Thor seemed to really be having a hard time taking out his eye. Strangely enough, that wasn't the weirdest thing he had ever seen, but it was definitely up here.

"You should probably disinfect it with some alcohol too. You know, to clean it." He reached for a napkin and held it out to Thor.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

"You're right," Thor says, and he unceremoniously drops the eye into the glass. It bobs listlessly inside.

Thor lifts the bottle, and drinks straight from it. "Probably what we should have done from the beginning. Drinking straight from the bottle, I mean."

His Asgardian constitution has lots of advantages -- being able to float aimlessly in space without dying is one of them. Unfortunately, it makes getting tipsy fairly difficult.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

"I like your style." Both with the weird eye thing and the bottle-drinking. "The kid gives me a hard time when I drink like that. He starts giving me this look like he's worried and I'm going to somehow die of alcohol poisoning."

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

"One of the kids you babysit?" Thor asks, still drinking. "He probably thinks that because he hasn't drank enough himself."

A beat.

"Or maybe he's drank too much. Could go either way."

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

"He definitely needs to learn to drink more." He nodded in agreement. "He's kind of a lightweight though. Thankfully not a sad drunk - those are the worst." Women crying because they had too much to drink got really dramatic really quickly.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor never knows what to do when people start crying. Especially women. That was probably part of the reason for his and Jane's definitely, totally, and completely mutual-dumping. That and the fact that he disappeared sometimes for months on end. And that she couldn't contact him. And that for all she knew he could be dead. And that she met someone else.

Thor takes another swig from the bottle, briefly looks down at the eye still bobbing in water, then redirects his gaze back over at Alec.

"You seem to be able to hold your drink, though," Thor observes. "Most humans aren't. The last time the Avengers all got together for drinks--" That felt like ages now. "--Banner and Barton were on the precipice of tipsy and toasted before the afterparty started."

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

Crying definitely sucked.

"That's probably because I'm not entirely human." He shrugged. "My body is able to repair itself really quickly which includes my liver. My body doesn't seem to get the memo I'd like for it to be drunk once in a while." Or a lot.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

"I was told that no one wants for food or drink here," Thor says. "So what's stopping you from getting drunk?"

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

A teenage boy with puppy-dog eyes.

"Fair point." He paused. "But drinking's only fun if someone else is getting drunk too." Which was an invitation.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

"Well, then," Thor says, "let's get this started!"

And with this particular pronouncement, Thor jovially lifts the bottle, then guns down the rest in one go, his Adam's apple bobbing with every swallow of the beverage.

He sets the bottle down. "Another!"

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

Drinking with a god was an interesting experience and lent itself to actually getting his buzz on. He hadn't been that drunk since he first arrived and Moana found him outside in a bush.

"So, I shit you not, there actually is a mermaid at the strip club. I'm talking underwater and gills - no tail though. She's smoking hot. And while we're casing the joint, Max has to pretend to be a stripper because that's the only way girls can get inside. So we're about to break her out, right? And this guy shows up. We think he's the bad guy so we kick his ass. Turns out, he's her mate. By the time we get back inside, she's been taken by the actual bad guys and we have to break into this water plant, kick a bunch of douche-bag's asses. We get her and her mate or whatever out. Big happy family. Who just happen to have a bunch of fish/human hybrid eggs to take care of." So eventually the ocean really would have mermaids in them.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor lets out a bark of laughter at that. "Is that a normal day for you? Mermaids and strip clubs and such?"

Thor, like Alec, is enjoying a bit of a buzz. This is not a normal day for him. First Thanos, then arriving here, then meeting a bunch of weirdos.

Okay, maybe the meeting a bunch of weirdos part was normal. At any rate, he's happy to get toasted. Especially given the day he's had. And the week. And the last two weeks.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

"More or less." He nodded. "Strip clubs most definitely." All the time possible, really, especially if Sketchy had money he wanted to burn. "Sometimes I have to go on missions with a surly lizard man who likes to smoke cigars." Alec's world was... weird.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_ormbreaker]

"On Sakaar, I met this insect with knives for hands. Miek was great. I'm glad he didn't get crushed."

Thor smiles lightly.

"Your friends, are they aliens or something?" Technically, he's an alien to the people of Midgar, too, but he considers anyone who isn't Asgardian to be alien.

Re: Comparing Sizes - Tag Thor

[st_x5_494]

"We're made in a lab. Home grown aliens, maybe, if you want to look at it like that. Made to be good fighters and whatever." Uncharacteristically, perhaps because he was buzzed, Alec turned his back and ducked his head, revealing his barcode on the back of his neck.