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♤ Network || Log - Raise a Glass

WHO: Cayde-6 and erryone
WHERE: The Deep End (Orange-13 on map)
WHAT: Cayde doesn't like dwelling on negative things so HEY Bar Grand Opening ~~come drink away your sorrows and stress and enjoy company in general~~
WHEN: 'bout a couple of days after the storm's passed, time flexible thereafter
WARNINGS: N/A will change as necessary
NOTES: Use whatever format you want

[Network - Video]

[The image starts out crooked but the Exo's actively adjusting it before he steps back and gives someone a thumb's up off-screen.]

All right, so good news? Nothing sprung a leak despite prior circumstances, surrounding area's a little damp though, but all in all? Everything's pretty much how I left it. Even got some supposed cyanana booze that's been uh...going through this still since before we left for space. -okay I'm not exactly sure how that might taste? So in the meantime, I've got a backup plan.

[He seems to remember something then, coming up close to the communicator.]

But Cayde, you say, what's all this about anyway? Excellent question! I was so excited I forgot to say. Ahem. So, some of you- a good number, actually, might be aware that I have been in the process of putting together a bar-slash-common gathering area type of hangout...thing. It's pretty much been done, just not stocked- but now that we're finally back from...all that and then some, I've got a selection of fine drinks for your...uh... drinking pleasure. Also some non-alcoholic stuff for the non-drinkers and the under-aged. Oh, and there's tea and coffee too.

[Fishing around in his pocket, he holds up a map he's drawn up, the location circled.]

We're right down here, southeast sector, past the lake- I'm working on getting some kind of a landmark but this place is fresh out of neon signs. Anyway! I'll be around. Come as you please, even if I'm not- don't trip up the stairs, help yourself and uh, don't mind if the fish stare at you.

Making the network announcement had helped to fully kick his mood back into a semblance of normal. Truth be told, he just wanted to gather up people together, real people, and settle in with an ambiance of more pleasant times and warmer company.

The backdrop of the water-filled courtyard that made up the center of the nest of buildings had been something Cayde had at the time thought whimsical. During the daylight hours the light that filtered through the large window was a wavering green-blue, offset by the small sconces along the wall and a few individual lanterns at tables and flanking the bar area adjacent to the makeshift aquarium.

Cayde had set up the various bottles of drinks he'd acquired from their planetary pit-stop and scavenged from the cafe on a somewhat crooked shelf behind the bar itself. He'd been trying to go for rustic like those Old West saloons but in the middle gave up and just let things shape itself as he found them. The glassware is just as mismatched as the furniture, but everything's clean and ready to be made use of. If there's anything he really wishes he had, it would be an old-fashioned phonograph player or some kind of music source just to drive off the quiet that filled the space when no people did.

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Well, Tony can't be the only one accidentally blundering into soft spots. Wanda wouldn't have said it if she'd known, but their worlds really are very different and that's not an issue her Tony has to deal with.

But there's not much time to wonder at how she's suddenly rendered him speechless before Cayde comes in through the window like that's a normal thing to do when the bar is this high up. "Have a little more faith in me?" She does try not to be a walking disaster - things just tend to go not as planned around her. Side effect of being an Avenger.

"This feels like our ice cream adventure but with higher stakes. That one--" she says, pointing to the shimmery blue drink, "--is not fair. It has no right to be so pretty but so sour."

"Names would be good, I'll admit. The ones that do have labels, I can't read, but yeah, a menu would probably be ideal." The Exo raises his hands. "Okay, I kinda got in a hurry and totally forgot some basic things."

He leans against the counter by Wanda since Tony's hanging out behind it, looking over at the drink that's pointed out. "Is it? I didn't think it was that bad. Or was it another one... Maybe it's my taste buds." Do Exos even have taste buds? It's still a mystery how he even stomachs anything but Cayde moves on, these questions things he's simply stopped bothering to wonder.

"Maybe it needs to be mixed with something. What's next? You try the orangey one with the red swirl? I think that one was fruity. Fun to look at too."

Cayde may have easily moved on from the taste buds issue, but it had Tony glancing meaningfully to Wanda, eyes wide then brow furrowed with the question, does he have taste buds?, as though the mystery of Cayde's humanity was a secret they were keeping between them for his sake. A mix wouldn't be a bad idea if they knew what anything else in these bottles did, and that wasn't about to stop Tony who nodded purposefully and observed, "The lady drinks with her eyes first, of course, cocktails are the way to go." And adding a little sour to something fruity was a good start to one of those, so Tony spun on Cayde's array again to find that red swirl, twisting the bottle in his hand to watch the colour remain resolutely suspended with a curious pout.

There was definitely a limit to how much of this he should have been doing, for his own sanity, and Tony easily rationalized that doing any of the actual tasting must have been the damaging part, and pouring was just relaxing, he could have been pouring anything, it was fine. In a fresh glass, the mix of the warm coloured liquor with a shot of the sour resulted in an enchanting, glittery swirl that looked more like a snowglobe than a drink to Tony, but he pushed across the bar expectantly.

Wanda just shrugs at them both, looking for all the world like it's perfectly reasonable to her that Cayde might somehow be able to taste things. Why wouldn't it be? Vision sort of could, so it doesn't seem that odd to her that Cayde's creators could have figured out the same thing. "Maybe your sense of sour things is not as strong as mine."

Wanda watches Tony grab the next bottle with some interest - of course she does, that red swirl is rather reminiscent of her own powers - but when it's actually passed to her she does pause for a moment before picking the glass up and glancing between the two of them. If she knew what Tony was really struggling with she'd shut this entire charade down, but right now, despite her protests, it's still all mostly in good fun. "If I die, I'm going to haunt you two. You'll never find any of your things again."

She takes a sip, blinking as the flavor settles. "It is...interesting. A good interesting."

"Maybe I should just hire you to do the fancy drink stuff," Cayde suggests to Tony, not entirely joking. The man looks like he knows his way around a bar, right at home back there.

The resulting drink that's set before Wanda seems to seal it, and the look itself makes the Exo 'oooh' appreciatively. He turns his attention expectantly to Wanda, an eager grin on his face. "At least I'll be haunted by a pretty face," he counters, ever looking on the bright side.

The drink is given as good an approval as any. Cayde flashes a thumbs-up at Tony. "Interesting is good. Who do we name it after, you or Wanda?"

"You couldn't afford me," Tony readily replied, pointing the neck of the bottle he still held in Cayde's direction before recorking it with finality. The threat from Wanda only had him leaning closer with his elbows on the bar once his hands were free, chin in one hand and eyebrows raised, mouth open in a smirk that said he was ready to hear how much more scary she could be. "Will you keep me up all night, too?" he proposed with a very innocent flutter of his lashes.

He was straightening again abruptly with the energy of success, arms open to welcome Cayde's thumbs up and Wanda's lukewarm reception like they were honourable accolades. "Wanda's got to have the honours, it's the muse that truly deserves the recognition for the work."

Well, Wanda takes another sip of the concoction, so it can't be that bad. She just doesn't want to admit that it's actually tasty. Especially when Tony is being...Like This. She expects it from both of them, but she's much more tolerant of it from Cayde and so that mellows her out a bit. "You two remember I can pick you both up with a finger, yes?" she says, quirking an eyebrow, but there's no bite to it.

The glitter swirling in the glass does look very familiar, and as Wanda's gaze drops back to the drink an idea comes to mind. "...Chaos Magic. It's what Loki called my powers and it fits with the flavors."

"Promise?" Cayde beams. It however looks like they'll be spared a haunting, but he's always glad for the excuse to lighten the mood. He doesn't argue Tony's suggestion that Wanda get to pick a drink name, and so as she has another sip he sneaks a grin at the invading bartender.

"Ooh. Chaos Magic, I like it. What'cha think, boss?" he asks as he looks from Wanda to Tony.

"I think about it most nights," Tony replied at the same time as Cayde, so Wanda's tactic was going to need some work if she ever really intended to threaten them. The smile threatening to crack was tamed easily as Wanda produced her cocktail name, though, making him look to her more cautiously than he had from the warnings, glancing to Cayde and producing a reasonable facsimile of a smile for his enthusiasm. "Mysterious, sexy, sounds like a drink to me. Loki said that?" he asked rapidly.

Wanda huffs, and she decides to just ignore Tony's comment completely and look over to Cayde. "If you want to go flying someday, I can do that. As long as neither of you accidentally poison me today."

"One of them. We don't have a name for this," she says, producing a small wisp of scarlet power. "Strucker didn't...I never..." The memory seems to make her uncomfortable, and she dismisses the little display. "It is mine. That was all that mattered."

Cayde eyes Tony at that, but he's quick to grin at Wanda and the offer. "I can see how accidental poisoning can put a damper on that."

He reaches blindly for the paper and stub that Tony had been using as he watches the wispy display, recalling when he'd last seen it in use, save it was by a different Wanda altogether. "Does it really need a name? I mean, I guess we name things right and left like void magic and arc energy, solar... Red magic? -okay, yeah, I was already having my doubts before that left my mouth. Ooh! How about crimson mystery."

Multiple Wandas and Steves he could deal with, but multiple Lokis was quickly becoming exhausting and Tony hadn't even met one of them yet. "Maybe we give a reasonable buffer of caution before we welcome Loki's input," he muttered first, glad to have Cayde rattling off some suggestions even if they weren't particularly inspired. And, hopefully, that particular Loki wasn't going to be haunting their doorstep any time soon. "You--we? I don't know who named it first, but we called it your 'hex powers'. Must have been you, you doubled down on the Witch thing for a while, couldn't have been your dad. He would have had you calling it your Divine Rights or something dramatic that he could yell at us."

"You see my trouble," she tells Cayde. 'Red magic,' 'weird wiggly woo,' and her 'thing' were about as far as anyone got in her world and none of those are particularly good names. "I don't know if you want to call a drink here a 'mystery' but I also don't know what to call this flavor."

But as soon as Tony mentions her father, Wanda stiffens, expression falling, her grip going white-knuckled on the glass. It wasn't this Tony's fault. It didn't even happen in his world. But this is still a Tony mocking a version of her father and it hurts.

"My entire family is dead, Stark," she says softly, too softly, before knocking back the rest of the drink because she is not in the mood to rip that particular wound open too. And this Tony doesn't deserve her anger.

"Not drink, your...with the fingers and the red thingy," Cayde clarifies. He shuts right up when Tony's latest comment barrels them into uncharted and apparently unpleasant territory. Just for a second.

"If I add a 'k' to 'magic' would that be too much? Maybe swap the 'c' in 'chaos' to boot?" he railroads on as he pauses in jotting down anything on the paper. "Next drink? Or are we one and done? I still call it a win, I didn't have a menu until now. -oh, I should probably put down the basics... Uuuh, we'll call this a rough draft." He jots down 'coffee' and 'red stuff' as he rattles on.

Right, the assuming thing that Tony wasn't supposed to be doing, shifting him into slow motion as he turned to pick another bottle. At least Cayde was there to fill the space with plenty of noise, stopping Tony from saying the next uncomfortable thing that might fall out of his mouth and leaving it slowly opening instead as he watched Cayde, not entirely sure if this was helping. They couldn't just ignore it, could they? He looked to Wanda for the answer to that, but that was also very clearly not the place to be looking for how to deal with the problem he had caused.

"Look at that, three makes it a club," and raising the bottle in a salute like he had found a great thing for them to share was probably not the solution either, so Tony then dropped his gaze to focus very intently on the next glass he poured as though it took plenty of concentration. This one wasn't nearly as enchantingly glittery, but he continued to stare at it for a beat before taking a sharp breath and looking to Cayde as though just noticing he was there and putting the glass in front of him instead.

Wanda, meanwhile, is staring very deliberately at a particular spot on the bar, unable to look at either of them. Really, if she could spontaneously borrow Vision's powers and sink through the floor, that would be great. Tony hasn't done anything to deserve having to navigate the minefield of her past and Cayde super doesn't deserve to have to watch.

It would be easier if this Tony would just give up on her so she could write him off. But he's not, and so she just...needs a moment to recenter herself. It's not fine, but it has to become fine. If he can try, so can she.

Wanda takes a shaky deep breath and chances a look up at Tony's new concoction. "Your turn now," she says to Cayde, still a little subdued.

The whole mood has shifted dramatically and although Cayde tries very hard to push it back to the levels it had been a moment ago, it's like he's bailing water from a sinking boat with a sieve. That doesn't mean he's given up, however. He will bail the heck out of that sieve.

Blue optics settle upon the glass set there in front of him and for a moment he joins in the staring. "Me? Really?" he says, but he reaches over to pick the thing up. "...okay, I don't remember if I've tried this one before anyway." He gives it a swirl, then shrugs and tips it to his mouth. There really is no delicate way to sip when you're an Exo, so about half of it's gone when he lowers the glass again. Yet he tilts his head in thought.

"Ooh. Kinda...smoky?" He taps a finger against the glass, then dumps the rest of it down. "Mm...nutty, maybe, with a little tease of sweetness."

That tone in Wanda' voice felt to Tony like he was holding them captive to experiment on, a comparison she probably would have found distasteful, too, dammit--the knot in his chest was so tight, by the time he eased it enough to try, "You don't have to..." with a gesture toward the door, Cayde was already committing. The depth of this review was enough to make Tony's smirk return at least. "Okay, but what about the drink?" he asked.

It really is lucky that Cayde's here. He gives Wanda a safe, uncomplicated place to refocus until she feels ready to meet Tony's eyes again. The waves of tension coming off him aren't exactly helping matters either and unfortunately for Wanda, there's no one else here for her to ground herself in. Cayde feels like something she can't quite describe, but being an Exo, he shouldn't have anything at all for her to sense.

It's easier to retreat to the mask of helping flesh out the menu. "So is it the Agra 10 Special? It sounds like you just described this place."

Edited 2020-12-27 04:35 (UTC)

There's no forcing the near-cackle that escapes him at Tony's response. Cayde grins impishly as he wags a finger at the man. "Cute, Stark. Real cute."

Exos are a fun little puzzle that Tony's been eager to try cracking from day one of meeting the Hunter. Even Cayde can't say how it all works, but he still has a human brain and whatever the Light accounts for besides that, so his presence is sure to throw a lot of people expecting robots not to ping any radars aside from the electronic sort.

"Not bitter enough," he says with a smirk at Wanda as he chuckles. "I woulda thought the Agra 10 special would be more the red stuff. Local to boot."

That wasn't a bad assessment from Wanda, making Tony give her an appreciative pout for the suggestion. "That's not a cocktail," he pointed out to Cayde, "but it definitely needs a better name. Hold on, though, you're not just going to let her get away with that, we can't ignore this. Red, sweetheart, who's been making your stay here so sweet?" Tony's expression went quickly from far too innocent inquiry to devious curiosity as he uncorked another bottle, tipping it from side to side as he weighed which of them deserved to bear the tasting burden, and how much he enjoyed this gossip was going to tip the scales.

"Don't get excited," she says flatly, tone at least restored to a normal response to teasing. But it's a few seconds into her response before she can properly look at Tony again. "When we left the Drift Fleet and Vision and I decided not to go home, there were people I thought I was never going to see again. I wish I could have said goodbye to Sansa this time but at least I know she is okay at home. Last time I just had to hope. And I am glad to know Billy and Tommy, even if we have to say goodbye when this is over."

She exhales, something just short of being called a sigh, before turning back to Cayde. "If it isn't the Agra 10 Special, your bar still needs a signature drink. Do you think this could be it?"

Cayde smiles that lopsided smile of his as Tony turns another question towards Wanda. Her response has him looking down at his glass again in awkward silence. It's not exactly what he expected to hear, not that he knew what to expect. He didn't know that they'd had options to leave or stay from their last venture. And while he supposes it's no surprise that there should be an ending to things and everyone should just get shuttled right back to where they're supposed to be, the thought leaves a bit of a hollow feeling.

"Huh?" He looks up when he realizes Wanda's talking to him again. "Oh, I dunno. I think a signature drink needs to be a special mix, don't you? Think that one was fine as it is."

The metronome of the bottle Tony offered slowed to a stop as Wanda spoke, not expected such a heavy answer either, which Tony realized was pretty unforgivable at this point. He thought himself a much faster learner than that. He did know from Steve about the choice that group had been given, but hadn't really processed that this could have meant Wanda also chose to stay--two for two, so far. That was what had him glancing to Cayde, then also down at the bar, staring blankly until he realized maybe he should have been doing something like maybe finding another glass. The Wanda he knew probably would have made the same choice, he was at least more confident about that than being blindsided by hearing it from Steve, but only because she had already kind of made that choice, hiding wherever she was from all of them. It was getting more difficult not to think this pattern was very much Tony's fault.

He poured his glass of the next mystery drink, hoping very much that he could trust Wanda's confidence in Sansa going home, and raised it to the other two this time instead of offering it to either. "We'll have to keep experimenting," he suggested to Cayde, then more loftily toasted, "To impossible unions, and bittersweet goodbyes."

Wanda glances between them and fidgets with her rings. It was an honest answer but she's gone and killed the mood...again. And this time it's entirely her fault. She could have, should have, made up some other answer. "I'm sorry, I...don't do this often."

Obviously. Though surprisingly not because of accidental killjoy tendencies.

"What's in that one?"

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deal_me_in - 2020-12-29 07:52 (UTC) - Expand

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in_extremis - 2020-12-31 04:32 (UTC) - Expand

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♤ Network || Log - Raise a Glass

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this icon forever lol

XD

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this is subject to retconning if wandavision gets into it

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