On coming up with a new journal name for a new game ...

[oneslickedison]

[Takes out a cigarette, knocks out a match, lights the smoke and breathes out thoughtfully.]

All right - you've had me making plasma guns off of what I recall from Hydra technology. I'm building a kinetic energy field off of what I got from notes from the Doctor and Rucks. For godssake, I come up with nicknames for beautiful women like I'm Walter Winchell.

[A nice long smoke.] C'mon, Doll. You can come up with one simple yet clever journal name. I know you can. Just ... relax. Let your mind wander. I find doing simple algebra helps.

[A pause] ... yes I know you barely passed it but that's no reason to give me the lemon-face, Doll. Besides, we've got until June. Or July. One or the other. Time is literally relative.

Comments

[oneslickedison]

Puns are old. [A pause, and he stubs out his cigarette quickly. Good god, with all of Tony's problems, the last thing he needs is his kid getting second hand smoke.]

[fbitchesgtmoney]

Mine's a song. (Aaaand now he's sort of staring. And squinting. Seriously, Dad?) ...you can smoke around me, you know. You did when I was a kid.

[oneslickedison]

I've been meaning to ask you about that ... [eyes the name] Do I even want to know what that means? Would your mother glare at me if she knew? Bad enough you used the - the b-word.

[A deep sigh.] Was this before or after I knew about the dangers of lung cancer?

[fbitchesgtmoney]

Here. She claims they're two of my favourite things. Which, I suppose they are. (that makes him laugh) Very likely. And ground me. Even now that I'm almost forty two.

(shrug) No idea. I think they were just starting to realise it. Second hand smoking wasn't a big deal. That's a more recent thing.

[oneslickedison]

...That is horrifying. [just stares] What kind of jazz is that? [frowning faintly] All right - you're grounded. At least for listening to that kind of music. [Forget the fact that he's just past 25 now himself.]

Hm. Well. [He looks at the cigarette, sighs.] ... I'm certainly not going to expose you now. Not with the blood toxicity problems.

[fbitchesgtmoney]

It's modern. It's called rap. Hip hop. It gets big in the 80s and 90s. (...r u srs. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD 8() You can't ground me.

I fixed that. It's not perfect yet, but it's gone down. I'm on the mend.

[oneslickedison]

How can you listen to that? It makes my ears want to crawl into my head and die. [He gave him an exasperated look.] Why can't I ground you? Because you're 42? That's ridiculous. I'm your father. [More or less.]

[Eyebrow, spark of interest, cigarette forgotten.] How?

[fbitchesgtmoney]

I rarely do. But it's just one of those phrases you hear. Kind of like the I throw my hands up meme. (nodding) That would be one of the reasons. How are you going to ground me?

Your element.

[oneslickedison]

...what does 'I throw my hands up' mean? And what's meme? [He presses his lips together, thinking about it.] I could program JARVIS to lock up your cars? Or I could just take apart all the engines. That might be easier.

[He exhaled slowly, leaning forward.] It worked. The process worked? How? What did you use?

[fbitchesgtmoney]

It's just a thing on the internet. (oh my god dad get with the program B|) It's stupid. (and laughing more) You can try. Go ahead. I'd like to see it.

(and he's nodding. Slowly. And smiling. INSERT LONG RAMBLY SCIENCE-Y EXPLANATION OF WHAT HE DID OKAY)It worked.

[oneslickedison]

Ah yes. The internet. [This, at least, he knows about.] Huh. You really want to challenge my mechanical expertise? [Yeah, that's a smirk.]

[Howard is following every word of this rambly science explanation - with a few 'huhs!' and then a couple 'hah!' and a wide smile of his own.] ...That's brilliant!