InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret"

Harley Keener (sixyearsago) wrote in somerealityrpg,
@ 2020-03-07 20:13:00

Entry tags:

inactive: harley keener, inactive: jason todd

Who Harley Keener and Jason Todd
What Beta of the VR and just hanging out
Where Stark Industries and Harley's work area
When Saturday afternoon cause Harley hates fun
Status/rating On going and tbd

The movie was something else and some part of Harley had actually enjoyed the stupid thing. He had hated the club and being around so many people though. He was currently exhausted after socializing with far too many people. He still wasn't even sure why he had gone to the group hang out, but now he could at least he could say he wasn't being antisocial. Abbie was always on him about not having a social life. She might be a kid, but she was overly concerned about how much he worked back home. She wasn't here and Tony wasn't stopping him from working so he was content to chug a can of his Kickstart as he walked down to the front desk to gather up Jason. He paused in his walking to tip his head back so he could chug the last of the orange energy. It was his second one of the day, but he didn't care. The empty can was crushed between his fingers before he hurled it at a recycling bin. Score! Landed it on the first try.

Harley continued on to the front desk and spotted Jason easily enough. "Hey, think fast," he threw the second unopened can of Kickstart at the guy. "Come on, follow me." He turned on his heel without another word and started heading back to his lab. He only pulled his phone free to look at a message from Peter before snorting with mild amusement.

Peter was such a dork.

"This is us," he said finally as he pushed open the door to his work area. "I made some adjustments since the difficulty wasn't at the right level. It is still just a beta so sorry if shit renders sometimes. Everything is pretty realistic until it fucking pixels on me. Figure work out mechanics and I'll sort the graphics out later." Harley threw himself into his chair and wheeled himself over to a corner of his desk. For a kid that had bitched about taking a job at Stark Industries he sure had made himself at home at his desk. There were various pop culture figures and images around the desk. "Snag that visor over there, the green one. Controls are over there." He grabbed his metal water bottle as he turned fully to his computer to boat up the program.

"Try not to break my shit," Harley was an acquired taste for a lot of people. He threw up walls fast to protect himself and he didn't care if it upset people. He didn't care if Jason liked him. This was a business arrangement where Harley got to work on virtual reality, and he used it to spend time with Tony. The second plus side was he got to at least look at Jason while he fought. ...for science.

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jayyybird
2020-03-08 02:55 am UTC (link)

Jason caught the can tossed his way, sizing Harley up a brief moment before following him to the lab. He wasn’t on guard, not any more than usual when it came to meeting up with someone he didn’t really know, at a place he wasn’t overly familiar with, but he still kept a keen eye on the guy as they went down the hall. Cracking the drink open, he took a long sip as Harley let him into the lab. Did he need an energy drink? No. Was it a bad idea? Who’s to say! It tasted good, that was all he cared about.

The corners of his mouth twitched as Harley spoke, his gaze doing a quick sweep of the room out of habit then landing on the green visor that was mentioned. He took another drink before setting the can down -- not near any electronics, because duh -- and taking a step over to pick up the visor.

“I’ll try my best not to break anything,” he said dryly, lips curling up in a smirk as he slipped the visor on then picked up the controls. Truth be told, he was excited about the possibility. VR hadn’t been something he’d tried before, didn’t know how to develop it on his own, but this place wasn’t at all like Gotham in the crime department which was good but it meant he was getting twitchy. Too long without a fight, didn’t feel right. “There any weapons, or is it just hand to hand?”

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sixyearsago
2020-03-08 03:09 am UTC (link)

Harley's lips twitched faintly as he noticed Jason set the can of energy drink away from the electronics. He snagged his Bluetooth earbud off the desk and popped it into his ear before he typed quickly away on his backlit keyboard.

"Appreciated. I always feel guilty using Tony's money to replace shit," he admitted distractedly as he typed some admin codes into the program to unlock a new menu for Jason. He slammed a finger against the enter key and transferred the menus to the visor. "Glance up to the right, there is a menu. Just think about opening it and it should open. Pick hand to hand or weapons. If you don't see what you want I can add weapons later. ...most I know about weapons are from stupid comic books."

Harley took a swig from his water bottle before closing the cap. He focused on pulling up various windows on his computer to see what Jason could see in the game, plus read the data from beta. "I'm the none superhero of this group," he said blandly. "So I build shit and I'm good at it. So if the VR sucks I'll scrap it and start again." It wasn't that he wanted to be an Avenger, but it did rub at his nerves to be surrounded by so many people that had powers or suits. Sure, he could have built himself an Iron Man suit if he wanted, but he knew shit about fighting.

"Tim made suggestions, let me know if they work out for you."

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jayyybird
2020-03-08 03:20 am UTC (link)

It was easy enough to follow the simple instructions, his gaze lifting to where Harley indicated and scanning down the menu. Jason appreciated how intuitive it was, that all he had to do was think and things happened. It was the kind of tech he knew he was going to have to look into more, because nice. He stuck with hand to hand, because that was a good place to start. This was a trial run, he could switch it up if he wanted.

“I’m not a superhero,” he commented, though it wasn’t clear if it was to himself or to Harley. Both, probably. That was definitely not a mantle he could claim, not anymore. Maybe once he could have, back when he was Robin. That was a long way in the past.

He looked over sharply to where Harley was at the last bit he said. “Tim made suggestions?” he repeated. “Tim Drake?”

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sixyearsago
2020-03-08 03:29 am UTC (link)

Harley hadn't actually been referring to Jason, he had been more talking about the people he lived with. The only non-hero was Aunt May, well and Happy. Though, okay, Happy was a hero for putting up with Tony all those years and now putting up with Peter. So he just settled made a noise of agreement at the remark. He shifted in the chair to open a drawer to reveal a package of Red Vines, among other unhealthy snacks. He was used to squirreling stuff away like this to eat while he worked for hours on things.

"Yeah, kid was interested in and I need a victim before I tortured you," he popped the end of a Red Vine into his mouth and smirked. "Made me feel out of shape watching him. I can barely touch my toes." Okay, that was a faint lie since he could touch his toes when he bothered. Harley did work out... sometimes. Barely.

"Problem?" Harley raised an eyebrow in a sort of challenge before hitting a key on his keyboard. Music started playing from the surround sound system. He needed the noise to work or he started losing focus. "Tim seemed to enjoy the VR."

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jayyybird
2020-03-08 03:38 am UTC (link)

From what Harley had said about fixing the level of difficulty, and now knowing that Tim had already tried it out and made suggestions, Jason had a feeling he was actually about to get a run for his money. Not that he’d doubted Harley before knowing that, but he also knew the guy didn’t know where Jason was coming from. Tim, on the other hand…

“Tim’s a little shithead,” he said plainly, but there was a grin spread across his features showing there wasn’t any real malice behind his words. He rolled his shoulders a bit when the music started playing, squared up like he was ready for someone to come at him. And he was, even if said someone wasn’t real.

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sixyearsago
2020-03-08 03:46 am UTC (link)

Harley actually laughed and had to catch his Red Vine before it fell out of his mouth. "Noted," he spun back to his computer as he ate the candy. "Alright, round one," he typed in a command and let the first swarm of ninjas spawn. "Once we get further along you'll be able to start this on your own. Right now I control your fate."

His fingers flew across the keyboard as he started each program he needed to capture the data from this run. His extra harddrive was backing up the stream of the VR so he could rewatch if need be, to find glitches and such. Harley spun in his chair slightly so he could watch Jason fight.

"If you want I can set it up so you and Tim can fight side by side or some shit. Make an old school dungeon crawler for when you are bored. Save the princess, punch the bad turtle in the face." He didn't care if Jason answered right away, he was merely voicing his thoughts at the moment. Harley was really only animated thanks to the fact he was actually excited to see how well the program he worked on with Tony performed.

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jayyybird
2020-03-08 04:08 am UTC (link)

The simulation was realistic enough that Jason felt a surge of adrenaline when all those ninjas popped up. His grin twisted into more of a smirk, fingers flexing around the controls as the first one came at him and he took it down. Nothing outside of actual reality would give that satisfaction of what it felt like when a hit landed just right, the crack it made when his elbow drove into a cheekbone.

It probably looked ridiculous from the outside, though most VR had to, right? Jason didn’t give a shit, because it was fun.

“Dunno if that’s a good idea,” he finally replied with a huff, fists flying in quick succession. “Something’d probably get broken.”

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sixyearsago
2020-03-08 04:57 am UTC (link)

It looked a little ridiculous, but Harley was amused and maybe a little impressed. "Good point. If you two broke my shit then I'd ban you from my workroom and block your numbers." He threatened to block Peter's number weekly and still hadn't actually done so. "You'd have to find someone else to code and build you a VR and to be honest? No one is as good as me."

Oh, right, Tim had suggested adding to the difficulty. The young mechanic turned back to his computer and booted up operation 'The Floor is Lava.' The simulation started losing chunks of ground as lava appeared, resulting in safe spaces Jason and the ninjas would need to figure out how to get to while fighting.

"The floor is having emotional feelings," was the only real warning Harley gave with his twisted dry sense of humor.

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jayyybird
2020-03-08 06:04 pm UTC (link)

“Better at hacking than coding,” Jason said absently, ducking a punch and throwing one of his own. If he needed something seriously coded, his best bet likely would be Babs. Or Tim. But neither, actually, because he wasn’t about to ask either of them for shit. He did pretty well on his own, hadn’t come across anything he hadn’t been able to figure out yet, but he hadn’t attempted to do anything like what Harley had made.

He caught the movement of the floor around the same time Harley mentioned it and jumped onto a larger piece that broke off, steady on his feet. His gaze flicked up to the right, opening the menu and switching from hand to hand to weapons, a gun in each as he started picking off ninjas coming toward him, one shot each.

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sixyearsago
2020-03-08 08:49 pm UTC (link)

Harley leaned back in his chair and half watched Jason and half watched his computer monitors. Nothing seemed to phase the guy. He was already thinking up things to throw at him to try and make him stumble a little. No good video game was just a breeze, right?

"You are like fucking Mad Dog McGee," he finally remarked with a snort of laughter. Not many people got that reference and he didn't care. He was just impressed Jason had such good aim. He let the level go longer and found himself swearing as things started to render, causing the frame rate to drop. Harley spun back to his computer and yanked the code up to see what was causing the issue. "If shit gets weird, sorry." His fingers flew across the keyboard as he tried to get one step ahead of some broken code. He winced as he watched the ninjas on the other screen kind of mutate. It was hitting Silent Hill levels in his game.

"Shit, sorry. I was working on this instead of sleeping and I went horror movie it seems. Like I said work in progress."

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jayyybird
2020-03-08 09:06 pm UTC (link)

Jason paused when the images went wonky, not enough to be vulnerable but enough to adjust. He reloaded his guns, an eyebrow raising as the zombies changed. They looked freaky as hell, but nothing about their appearance changing did anything to their approach, how they were coming at him. He hopped from one piece of floor to another, then a few more to get to a better vantage point. There wasn't exactly higher ground but at least he had eyes on the whole thing.

“This is hardly the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” Jason said dryly, corner of his mouth ticking as he pulled the trigger, hitting a zombie coming up on his right and sending them into the lava. “Gotham’s like a fucking breeding ground for freaks that decide to go bump in the night.”

Then again, he probably counted as one of those too, huh?

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