InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I'm such a stud!"

Ray Palmer is the (_atom) wrote in paradisolog,
@ 2016-04-01 11:46:00

Entry tags:

~maria hill (by_the_book), ~ray palmer (_atom)

WHO: Ray Palmer & Maria Hill
WHERE: Outside the camp, but not far from it.
WHEN: After this.
WHAT: Teaching Maria to build a shelter
WARNINGS: TBD
STATUS: Closed, Complete

welcome to my house.

Ray had spent much of his first day in the camp wandering around outside of it. He'd known immediately that he was going to need a shelter and he assumed they didn't have run of the mill rope. So, Ray had gone out into the jungle and started collecting palm fibers to make cords, something he'd learned back in scouts that he'd actually really excelled in making. He'd fashioned a little post out of a branch with a thick twig sticking up from it that he broke off to be a shorter length and, by morning, Ray had damn near a mile of cord to work with, thin but strong. Good enough to hold together a teepee. So he'd asked a fellow volunteer to borrow their hatchet and he'd moved onto the next step, heading into the jungle again to cut down branches he could use for posts as well as thickly-leaved palm branches that he could use for the cover since Ray didn't have a canvas drop cloth, which would've been ideal.

By mid-afternoon, all he'd had left to do was to finish actually hanging the palm branches for cover. So he'd taken a break and gotten on the network, which was where he first spoke with Dr. Jemma Simmons — whom he'd then joined for tea; quite a nice luxury to unexpectedly have, actually. Ray was more of a coffee guy, but beggars couldn't be choosers — and Maria Hill. He'd offered to help Maria with her own shelter tomorrow in exchange for her help with his own. Ray had already done the hardest part of making a shelter in this place, as far as he was concerned, because he'd made so much cord. He'd need to make more, and probably some four-ply, but all the same, that was the tough part, in his opinion. The rest would be easy.

Once he'd gotten back from tea and escorting Jemma to camp, Ray started to scan the faces of the people in the camp at the moment, looking for Maria. He grinned when he spotted her and approached. "Maria? Ray, nice to actually meet you, so sorry about the hiccup," he said, holding a hand out to shake. He'd meant to meet her before heading out to meet Jemma, but at the last minute when he hadn't immediately seen her milling about, he'd headed out to follow the smoke to find the other woman, worried that he would take too long or that she'd be too far out and they would lose the light on their way back. "I try not to be that guy, but extenuating circumstances and all. Should we get started?"

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by_the_book
2016-04-01 11:30 pm UTC (link)

Maria was the same. Until Thor and Loki she'd have said if there was a higher power in the universe they probably had better things to do than worry about one ant farm of a planet.

She was more prepared for his proximity this time so didn't tense up as much as when she'd been caught off guard. His suggestion made her smirk in amusement, and she let out with a quiet snort. "It would be more familiar territory if this place burst into a Thunderdome."

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	_atom 2016-04-01 11:44 pm UTC (link)
	At her response, Ray chuckled, nodding his head and cocking his eyebrows. "Yeah," he agreed. "Unfortunately, I know the feeling." But he supposed that was something that came with the territory when one decided to take on a superhero/vigilante persona to help protect his city and, later, the world. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

by_the_book
2016-04-02 12:05 am UTC (link)

"Oh yeah?" she asked. Her head turned the fraction it took to look at Ray. He had dimples. Not now! "And what exactly did you do back home doctor engineering and applied sciences that you're familiar with life in the active lane?"

Talking about work put her even more at ease. Fury used to accuse her of being all work and no play until she pointed out it was because he kept her so busy. But even away from Fury she never really stopped working. It was what she knew. All she knew. Familiar and comfortable. Could she relax? Sure! You couldn't spend any amount of time around Tony Stark and not. Did she prefer to? Not one bit.

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_atom
2016-04-02 12:31 am UTC (link)

"Well..." he started with a nervous huff of laughter. "There's the mission I was on. I'm on a team...we travel through time and space; we were tracking a man named Vandal Savage, set to destroy the world in the twenty-second century. So, we've been chasing him through time to stop his rise to power." That was safe to say here, right? As long as he didn't name names or get too much more specific than that?

Ray stopped working for a moment and looked down at her a little sheepishly. "I know that makes me sound like a lunatic, but I promise it's true."

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by_the_book
2016-04-02 12:47 am UTC (link)

She took all of that in as if receiving a debriefing from another SHIELD agent. It didn't even make her lift a brow. When he went quiet she looked back up at him and grinned for the meek expression.

"Doc, I helped save New York from an alien invasion with a team that included a super soldier from the past, a Norse god and a man with severe anger issues." She chuckled as she shook her head. "Time travel is the next logical step."

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_atom
2016-04-02 01:04 am UTC (link)

Her response made Ray relax. He grinned and chuckled again, nodding. "Fair enough. I'll take acceptance where I can get it. Sounds like you came from a pretty interesting life, yourself," he pointed out.

Finishing up the section he'd been working on, Ray moved on to the next, handing her another palm branch. They were making good time, he thought. They'd finished two in less than the time it had taken him to do one without the extra set of hands.

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by_the_book
2016-04-02 01:19 am UTC (link)

"Believe it or not, that seems like just a normal day for me." She huffed knowing that pretty much set her way out of the realm of normal. "I was Assistant Director for a world government agency that operated under the radar. Mainly we focused on the US, but our interested expanded. Before this assignment I functioned as AD but my main assignment was as liaison for said team. It was kind of a twenty four seven gig."

And now that she said it out loud she could see Fury's point. Damn it!

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_atom
2016-04-02 01:34 am UTC (link)

Ray understood about being on the clock 24/7. Back in his days as a CEO, he'd had many days like that. "That's impressive," he said sincerely, making a mental note of her leadership skills; having a position like that suggested leadership skills, a good trait to pass down the genetic line. Not that he was planning on telling her that, but it was a mental note all the same.

It didn't take a whole lot longer for them to finish his shelter working at the rate they had been. "...I think we're set!" he said cheerfully, looking back at her, taking a step back to look over their work. "We've got a little bit of light if you want to get started looking for the pillars for yours?"

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by_the_book
2016-04-02 01:49 am UTC (link)

"Thanks." She sounded a little astonished for the compliment. Even her smile reflected that. Usually she'd be getting an odd look as whoever she'd been talking to was slowly backing away. Especially a guy. They didn't typically like being around a strong woman. And just think. She hadn't even brought up her weapons specialties or her black belts.

She stood back to look at what she'd helped accomplish and grinned. "Sure." She didn't mind sleeping under the lean to again if it meant work being made on something more covering. "And if that falls down you can blame me. I'm getting used to it."

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_atom
2016-04-02 02:15 am UTC (link)

"You're welcome," Ray said simply, a genuine smile playing at his lips. Ray was impressed by powerful women, whether intellectually or physically. Felicity Smoak and Sara Lance impressed him in equal measure for different reasons. Ray wasn't intimidated by that strength, he was inspired by it.

With a soft laugh, Ray shook his head and started to lead her into the jungle where they could hopefully hack a few decent-sized branches down like he had the day before. "If it falls down, I'm blaming myself, since the structuring was all me," he told her firmly, in a tone that suggested finality but still didn't quite jive with the smirk on his face.

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by_the_book
2016-04-02 02:34 am UTC (link)

Maria chuckled. "Right. No arguing." She followed Ray with long strides, immediately on guard. Sure, they hadn't run into anything to threaten them, but she wouldn't feel right now being prepared. Each pass of her leg put that makeshift knife near her hand. Just in case.

"So what am I looking for?" It hadn't been meant as a loaded question, but with the perpetual undertones with everyone here Ray could be forgiven for taking that wrong.

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_atom
2016-04-02 02:57 am UTC (link)

Ray, ever the oblivious to innuendo that wasn't coming from him, looked back over at her as they walked. "We're looking for six to eight branches that we can cut down, thick enough to be sturdy. They'll be the base of the thing," he explained.

"Ah," he said finding a tree that looked promising. "Here, hold this for me?" he asked, handing her his hatchet and moving to the tree to climb it.

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by_the_book
2016-04-02 03:14 am UTC (link)

She took the hatchet automatically then her brows went up when she realized what he was about to do. "Wow. You're just going to...right up there. Huh?" Maria looked up into the tree as her lips pulled to one side. She thought they'd be looking for dead fall, not harvesting. "You got this whole Mowgli thing going. Your best friend wouldn't happen to be a dancing bear, would it?"

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_atom
2016-04-02 01:47 pm UTC (link)

Climbing trees had always been one of Ray's favorite things to do when he'd been a kid. He supposed some part of him had never really grown out of it, which was just as well, since he thought it was better to use fresh wood than fallen timber. That was just his personal opinion.

Ray jumped to grab the lowest hanging branch and pulled himself up with a little bit of effort, hanging onto said branch and using the trunk of the tree to sort of walk up the part of the way his upper body couldn't quite manage to bring him. Then he swung one leg over the base of the branch to steady himself. He could reach the ones he meant to cut down from here, anyway.

Leaning forward rather than to one side or the other, Ray let his arm dangle down with an open hand. "I think my life would be a lot more pleasant and whimsical if my best friend was a dancing bear, but no," he laughed. Truthfully, when he thought about it, Ray wasn't sure he had a best friend at all anymore, actually...at least, not since the break up with Felicity. It was more awkward than he would sometimes like to admit.

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