milliways_bar | (no subject)

"Enzo!"

Bobby grins as he sees his friend, and walks over to talk to him. It can be noted that Bobby has an arm in a sling, and a t-shirt to commemorate the holiday.

"Have you talked to Bonzo lately?"

"Hey, Bobby! Yeah, why? And what happened there?" he asks, nodding toward the enslung arm.

"I was asking because Bonzo was with me when it happened. We built a hang glider out of ice!"

That pretty much explains it all.

"Dude! I haven't talked to him that lately! Sweet!" Beat. "Except for the arm."

"It was awesome! Until, you know, it wasn't."

The pain endured clearly did not outweigh the excitement of the event, in hindsight.

"What went wrong? Can you fix it?"

If so, can Enzo have a go?

"I have no idea. There was a crack in one of the wing panels that spider-webbed and crumbled out, then the top panel blew out of it, and when I tried to fix it, it made it too heavy on one side and it spiraled out of control and crashed. Bonzo slowed me down, some, but I still dislocated my shoulder and broke my arm."

He gestures to the sling, even though there is no cast evident.

"Jordan came along and set the bone and popped my shoulder in. I iced up my arm to keep the swelling down, and when I went to get an x-ray, the arm wasn't broken anymore! How awesome is that?"

"Majorly awesome!" Enzo agrees. "I didn't think that was part of your powers."

"Neither did I!"

He is clearly excited about this!

"The professor took x-rays and told me that I probably just bruised my arm, but it was definitely broken. Not that I want to try breaking it again, just to prove it, or anything. It doesn't even hurt at the break area, though the rest of me is sore."

"Think it just works on you, or other people too?"

"Well, my friend Hank said that it's probably because I can change my physiology at a molecular level, or something. I don't just cover myself with ice anymore like I used to...I become ice, somehow."

He doesn't understand how it works, he just knows it does work.

"Of course, Hank wants to do tests, but I don't know if I want to be his guinea pig."

"Well... I heard humans are mostly water anyway, right?"

"Yep. Most of them die if you freeze them solid, though."

Go figure.

"So I doubt freezing someone else would heal them, or doctors would already be using it as a form of treatment, right?"

"Hmm, yeah, that's true."

"Anyway, next time I should really have some blue prints or specs or something more than a picture and a little information I got off of the internet."

He scratches his head with hi free hand.

"But that's going to wait until I feel less like I got hit with a Mack truck, and after I make up with Jordan. I pissed her off while she was helping, and now I've got to find a way to make it up to her."

"Ouch. What'd you do?"

"Well, he set my arm and put my shoulder back in, though she did shoot me with some kind of pain killer."

Without asking or warning him.

"Then she asked me to UNice my arm, and I snapped at her that I was in enough pain, or something idiotic. She got pissed and left."

Enzo grimaces. Pain does tend to make one testy, but still, she was helping.

"What's good for apologizing to Jordan? Besides the plain old apology."

"Chocolate. Really, really good chocolate."

And stuff he will not mention in polite company.

What polite company? Anyway, obviously the apology has to be at least partially accepted before he can even start on that stuff.

"That works. Heck, it'd work on me."

Bobby laughs at that.

"I'll make a mental note. I should probably have the bar leave her some and write my usual, 'I am stupid, please forgive me.' note."

"How often do you leave them?"

"Not so often that it's habitual? I've only done it a couple of times, but I figure it'll happen again, eventually."

"Better to be prepared, I guess."

"There's no preparing for Jordan. Don't you ever get into hot water with your girl?"

"Not really. Nothing serious. Not yet."

Of course, this might be because at the first hint of having upset her, he goes into panicky apology mode.

"Good luck with that, my friend. Of course, Jordan's a little...prickly by nature. Makes things interesting, though!"

"Heh, yeah. I think Dani just doesn't bother getting too mad at anyone who's not evil or trashing her town, you know? She's got plenty of that to deal with already."

"A good policy. I seem to be especially good at pushing her buttons. Sometimes it's even fun."

What can he say? He likes a challenge.

"But this time, I really was out of line; she didn't have to help, and I was an ass about it."

Enzo won't bother to deny it.

"Well, that's a start. That you know it, I mean. Girls get extra upset when you don't get why they're mad."

He is reliably informed of this.

He laughs and nods.

"That is true, whether you're dating them or not."

The number of times he's gotten the rough edge of Jean's temper, or even his mother's for something he was clueless about is more than he cares to think about.

"A good rule of thumb? If they seem pissed at you, apologize and pray they don't want you to explain why you think they're mad."

"And if they do..."

Hmm. What should one do in that eventuality?

"Ninja smoke bomb?"

"I haven't tried that one, but it's worth a shot."

He wonders where he can get some of those.

"I've always just said, 'I have no idea what I did, but I'm sure it was dumb, and I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.' Sometimes it works."

Sometimes not.

"Honesty's gotta be worth something."

"You would think that, but sometimes it just gets you in trouble. Jean says that's because truth and tact have to be carefully balanced."

He lets out a sigh.

"Which basically means, tell the truth, but do it with a lie to make it sound better. Or something."

"Oh, yeah. Diplomacy."

"Whatever you call it, it's just another way of saying, 'Let's confuse the hell out of guys.'"

"Sometimes it's on purpose."

"Of course it's one purpose! It's a game that we can't win! It's a plot to get us to give up and do things their way."

Or spend a lot of time being glared at or otherwise punished. His expression is solemn.

"It's a trap, man."

"Well, I don't think it's always on purpose. Not consciously. It's just how they do stuff. Sometimes it's really on purpose."

"It's even scarier if it's NOT on purpose. That would mean that it's natural instinct, or something."

Do you get the feeling the women can sometimes scare the crap out of Bobby?

"I think it must be, man, or they wouldn't all do it."

Bobby shudders.

"Well, at least I'm not in that situation at the moment, since I know what I did and that it was my bad."

"Does that mean we're winning, or they are?"

"They always win, Enzo. One way or another--unless you don't care about their feelings or how they make you feel, anyway."

"And I wouldn't want to win that way."

"Nope. That's why we're not the bad guys."

Makes sense, right?

"Anyway. I should probably go and ask the bar to deliver something to Jordan, now. If I wait too long, it'll seem like I'm not sorry enough."

"Yeah. Good luck with that."

"Thanks. Hopefully I don't need too much luck. See you around."

Bobby heads over to the bar, already calculating how big a dent this is going to put in his wallet.