theeyeofra (theeyeofra) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-11-22 23:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | bast, t'challa (black panther) |
Who: Bast and T’Challa
When: Late October
Where: Bast’s place
What: Show and Tell (it’s costumes, c’mon!)
Rating/Warnings: Low
Status: Complete when posted
T’Challa wasn’t a man that got nervous. Not really. Only around Ororo had he tripped over himself for proper words, and since then Bast was the only other person he ever had a similar reaction to. Ironically, both were goddesses in their own rights, so perhaps it made sense.
He pulled up to the address Bast had given him and parked, sitting in his car a few minutes. He’d had half a mind just to wear the costume there, but realized how silly he’d look driving in it. Sure it was near Halloween, sure it was Orange County where so much oddness seemed to exist, but still.
He glanced over at his carefully placed Panther suit and swallowed hard. Would she think it looked ridiculous? He’d always considered it looked pretty cool - though it’d taken him a while to get used to the skin tight aspect of it. Glancing out the car window, he knew he had to do this, and gathering his nerves, grabbed the suit and exited the car. Once at her door he knocked twice.
Bast liked to think of her home as being sensible. Mostly because she had kept herself within budget, which she’d set much lower than she could actually afford to be on the safe side. It was yellow on the outside and simple enough. She didn’t have a huge porch, but she had plans to eventually call someone to make it bigger. She had kept up the outside of the house and there was a small garden off to the right.
She already had her outfit on. It was a very tight outfit, but it was comfortable. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She’d wanted to be ready whenever he got there. Plus, it was her home. No one was going to judge her for what she was wearing there. Least of all Muffin, who was perched on the back of the couch.
The sound of the knock made her stand swiftly and Muffin hopped off the couch following her all the way to the door. She opened it just a touch and looked out. “Looks like you get to see mine first.” After a moment, she opened the door the rest of the way, looking at Muffin and silently warning her against trying to escape through the door. The cat stayed where she was, licking her side as if she didn’t notice the strange person in her home.
“Muffin, T’Challa. T’Challa, Muffin.”
Well this wasn’t awkward at all. T’Challa held his breath a moment, flushing with embarrassment insofar as one with his dark skin could. “I’m so sorry, goddess, I didn’t realize...I should have checked…that is...” He fell silent and cleared his throat a little, looking down at the rather unimpressed cat. “Muffin.” He greeted. He looked back up at Bast.
Okay, it did remind him a bit of the costumes in the CATS musical, but Bast made it work. The outfit didn’t look as cheezy as he’d assumed it would. In fact, it almost seemed a bit...artistic. And it fit her frame perfectly.
Realizing he was staring, T’Challa chuckled nervously, averting his eyes. “Uh, it does not look as...cheezy...as I had thought it would, goddess.” Feeling the bundle of his own costume under his arm, he said, “I can change quickly into this.”
Bast covered her mouth to hide the smile and muffle the laughter that she couldn’t keep from escaping. He very easily got flustered, but maybe that was just her experience with him. Muffin looked up for a moment offering a very small meow before turning around and jumping back up on the back of the couch. “Don’t mind her. She warms up eventually.”
Being stared at was not all that surprising for her. Not that she meant to be conceited by thinking so, but she barely noticed unless she had to notice. She hid another smile behind her hand and looked away for a moment all the same. “Well, I’m glad that you think so. I wasn’t so sure myself. It is very leopard print. The pattern can be a little much sometimes.”
Her eyes caught on the costume under his arm and she bounced up and down excitedly. “Yes yes. You should!”
Being in the presence of his nation’s deity did that to T’Challa; left him speechless. He sometimes had to remind himself she wasn’t his Bast, but a part of him that bled over from the dreams didn’t care and so the constant drive for showing respect was there. That this Bast was terribly attractive didn’t help anything.
He nodded and smiled as she grew excited over his costume. “If there is somewhere I might change?” He asked. He was still standing on the porch, waiting to come in.
Bast was probably just as guilty of not caring about not being from the same dream world. She counted T’Challa as part of her people even knowing it wasn't true. She was allowed to have Champions and magicians that didn't really belong to her.
“Oh, right. Up the hall. Second door to your left.” She pointed in the general direction of it as she ushered him inside and off the porch.
T'Challa nodded his thanks and stepped inside, heading to the room she indicated. Once inside he closed the door and quickly changed into the costume, taking a bit more time than usual to adjust it in all the places where a skin tight suit was prone to scrunch a little. He checked the flowing black cape with its dramatic collar, studied the gold details of the claw necklace and gold details on the elbows and knees. Finally deeming himself presentable he opened the door and stepped out.
“Goddess, I present to you the habit of the Black Panther.”
Bast waited with an air of patience that covered up the desire for it to be shown to her more quickly. But you couldn’t rush skin tight things, so she sat on the arm of the couch, reaching over to pet Muffin as she waited.
The moment he walked out, Bast thought she might have blushed were she the sort to blush. Her eyes lingered for a moment on his costume, taking in every detail. She decided he definitely had a nice body. You couldn’t really have anything else, she thought, if you were going to be in such skin tight clothes. It took some effort, but she resisted the urge to comment on his ass and smiled instead, finally lifting her eyes to his face. “Yes. I think this suits. I think you should wear it all the time.” A pause. “Though, I think it may cause more distraction than help in the office.”
T’Challa was grateful he had the panther mask on, else she might see him raising an eyebrow. Was she...no. It had to just be a mere compliment, right? He tried not to read too much into it.
“Thank you, goddess.” he nodded respectfully. The technology in the mask allowed him to be heard perfectly well, as if he didn’t even have a mask on. “But yes, it would be a bit much for the office. Even Stark Tower. At least here in this world.” In the dreams he seemed to wear it every damn place he went. He tapped at the base of his skull and the nano-technology swiftly retracted the mask into the neck of the suit in rows within seconds. He smiled at her. “None of this technology exists here. I’ve been trying to rebuild some of it, but it’s nearly impossible.” He paused, smirked ever so slightly, then reached for his waist where two nearly invisible daggers hung on each side of his hips. Pulling them out, the daggers glared to life with an unearthly purple glow. “Energy daggers.” He explained.
Bast started to walk around him in an effort to get a better view of the entirety. She could hear him as if he didn’t have a mask on, which was unusual from what she understood of masks. But then it was a bit of an oddity in this world. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to leave it for sparring, then. And whenever you wish to wear it.”
She stilled when the mask retracted, offering a bit of a smile in return. “That’s unfortunate. It would be an interesting technology to have here.” But she didn’t mind if there were few people with the technology. Even if it would be useful to have. Her eyes followed his hands to his hips briefly before they followed the daggers. “Well, they do seem to have a lot of energy.” She gave him a curious look before saying, “Hold on a moment.” She slipped out of the room and into another to grab her own knives before bringing them back out to show T’Challa.
“Normally they are in my sleeves, but I thought I should graduate to that.”
“All hope is not lost, yet.” T’Challa replied. “I’m working on a few things at the lab that have promise. It’s just some of the technology requires materials not found here, like Vibranium. It’s a very dense metal alloy. The suit is woven with it, the dagger hilts have it, but I couldn’t bear to take apart any of this just to experiment with the metal. So I will make do with what I can.”
He chuckled at Bast’s observation of the daggers. “Yes, well they make for surprisingly effective weapons. You wouldn’t think so by first appearance.” He nodded and waited patiently as she suddenly vanished to fetch something. When she returned with the slender, long blades his eyebrows went up. “I would think so. I’m not even sure I would dare to carry such weapons in mine. If I had sleeves.” They looked extraordinarily sharp and deadly. He clicked one of the energy daggers off and handed it to her handle first. “Mind if we trade for a moment?”
“Maybe if you’re lucky, the dreams will grant you some to experiment with!” They seemed to be able to do a great many things, so why not bring materials needed to make technology that might be interesting to have around. Of course, it could be dangerous, but there was always a little danger in everything.
“I think I believe that about them,” she replied. Knives were always a good weapon to have around. That’s why she’d kept them herself. She smiled widely as he commented on her knives. “Apparently I am a very daring sort of person. Well, goddess. Which should be no surprise to anyone since goddesses are clearly extra wonderful and amazing at all things.” She kept a serious expression for a brief moment before she broke into a smile. “No, but I do seem to be daring enough to keep knives in my sleeves.”
When he offered her a trade, she carefully handed hers over, while taking his, careful not to cut herself. She couldn’t say if she was to the ‘doesn’t die by mortal wounds’ part of her goddess existence. Anything could happen.
“Perhaps,” he smiled, but it wasn’t much of a hopeful one. He had figured out that while the dreams had gifted him a number of things - from his sudden genius intellect to his costume, gifting him a chunk of Vibranium seemed unlikely as he never really handled the raw stuff, only utilized technology that already had the processed ore.
When Bast joked about goddesses this time he shared in her amused look. He was getting the hang of her sense of humor the more time they spent together.
Examining the long, sharp blade T'Challa twirled and handled it with one hand as if he’d wielded it all his life. “Excellent balance, very light.” He just grazed the edge with a gloved finger. A soft metallic scrape was heard, sounding more like a song as the metal met the vibranium threads of his glove. “Exceptionally sharp.” He was very impressed. Handing it back to Bast he smiled. “I can imagine this will make sparring much more interesting.”
He had a nice smile. Bast was fairly certain she hadn’t mentioned it to him, but perhaps it was for the best...considering how easily he flustered. Even if the only way she knew was by studying him closely. Though, sometimes she couldn’t be quite sure. He wasn’t necessarily easily read all the time.
Bast watched as he spun the knife, smiling a little. “I wouldn’t fight with subpar knives,” she joked. It was a little true, but she liked to keep things light. Her expression brightened when he mentioned that it would make sparring more interesting. She took her knife back before studying the one he’d given her a little more, getting a feel for it. She moved it around, seeing how it moved. It was different from her knives, but that was to be expected. Still, they moved well. She decided against testing how sharp the blade was, but then she didn’t have a fancy suit that would protect her from it. She did lightly run her fingers over the blade, but kept it to a light touch. “Very impressive. I can’t wait to include them into our sparring sessions.”
“Of course not,” he smiled a little wider. “One would expect only the best from a goddess.” Once both parties got their respective weapons back, a little silence fell between them. T’Challa wasn’t entirely sure what to do next. He was a mostly quiet man and extensive conversation wasn’t really his thing.
Bast, on the other hand, had no real trouble with talking. She didn’t see that as a negative thing. She knew how to be quiet when she needed to be. But with T’Challa, she usually needed to use her ability to keep a conversation going. “So now that we’ve seen each other’s secret costumes - well, perhaps not so secret for you, given you are often fighting bad guys...and not exactly secret for me either, but nevermind that - how do you feel about coffee? I have a fancy machine and almost no one to impress with it. R is pretty much the only other person to impress.” She shrugged slightly.
T'Challa smiled. “Coffee sounds wonderful, thank you.” He didn't know who R was but planned on asking so over said proposed coffee. He gestured for Bast to lead the way and followed.