MC #0, Wednesday afternoon

[grenadesandohana]

Right, so. Danny hadn't been at work and wasn't answering his cell phone but Steve was totally fine with that! Completely fine. It had only been a few hours, and the chances of Danny being kidnapped by Wo Fat from Fandom were really, really, low.

But Steve was checking the weapons anyway, and reorganizing his bedroom, and then Danny's, to make it more defensible in case of a sudden nighttime attack.

These were all totally normal ways to spend time!

Sorry, neighbors, about the banging. Steve was putting weapons into the ceiling.

[OOC: Open for neighbors!]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

Rey got home from training... to that sound.

So before she even set anything down, she went downstairs, staff still slung across her back, to knock on the door.

[grenadesandohana]

"It's open!" Steve said, because despite the huge weapons cache, he never managed to lock the front door.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey opened the door to poke her head in with a, "Is everything okay in here?"

And she only felt slightly weird about doing that. Still getting used to having neighbors, apparently.

[grenadesandohana]

"Just doing a bit of home renovation," Steve said with a grin.

In the ceiling. As you do. "It got louder than I meant."

[thatwaslucky]

"Are you renovating the ceiling?" Rey asked, joking, until she looked up and said, "Oh."

[grenadesandohana]

Well, the axe had definitely been inspired by Verity, but the rest were mostly him. He smiled, looking slightly abashed. "Never can be too careful around here, right?"

[thatwaslucky]

"You know they have cabinets for those, right?"

She had one. You couldn't have it. But they existed.

[grenadesandohana]

"Yeah, but that's where they're expected to be," Steve said. "Sometimes it's nice to have a surprise for people who aren't supposed to be in your house."

His house had gotten broken into a few times. It was kind of a thing for him.

[thatwaslucky]

"Why not just set traps outside?"

...Totally normal answer, Rey.

[grenadesandohana]

"Well, Danny's the building super, so I can't set too many," Steve admitted. "He'd yell if I caught one of you."

[thatwaslucky]

"Does he live in here too?" Rey asked, honestly considering the trap thing.

Not something she needed to worry about for herself anymore, but it was still habit.

[grenadesandohana]

"Yeah, we're roommates," Steve said. "He's not home right now, so I did some cleaning."

Which would explain the overwhelming smell of bleach because Steve learned to clean in the military and came from a "bleach the hell out of it" tradition that makes sense when you stuff a lot of sweaty men into a tiny ship.

[thatwaslucky]

That was such a damn domestic thing to say, Steve.

"And what's he going to say about ceiling weapons?" she wondered.

[grenadesandohana]

"He'll yell," Steve said, grinning, "but he'll be glad if we get invaded by something that can only be killed by an axe."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey paused, now having a question she really didn't want to ask.

"...Is there something that can only be killed by an axe?"

[grenadesandohana]

"I have no idea," Steve admitted, "but this place feels like the place where we'd find out, doesn't it?"

[thatwaslucky]

"It feels like we're going to because you're putting an axe in your ceiling, yeah," Rey nodded. Sorry. You jinxed it. Deus axe machina and all.

[grenadesandohana]

"Well, I can't be the only one," Steve said.

Steve was...hopefully wrong?

[thatwaslucky]

Rey didn't answer that, but her face probably held the answer.

"How much more do you have to do?" she asked instead.

[grenadesandohana]

"A few more things, but I can stop now," Steve said. "Would you like something to drink? I think we have iced tea."

[thatwaslucky]

"No, thanks. You don't have to stop. I'll only be around here so long today anyway," she assured him.

[grenadesandohana]

"Big plans?" Steve asked, smiling.

[firstofitskind]

Liam, not being a resident of this building, would not normally have noticed the banging. But Steve and Danny's apartment was on the first floor, and Steve had left a window open (proper ventilation was important, after all!), and Liam just happened to be walking by just in time to hear a particularly loud thump from inside...

Frowning, he made his way over to the lanai patio door. "Everything okay in there?"

[grenadesandohana]

"Fine!" Steve called back. "This thing is just a little less stable than I thought."

The thing, of course, was a fake vent he was putting into the ceiling. "C'mon in."

[firstofitskind]

Liam slid the door open and peered inside. "Would a second pair of hands help?" he asked.

Not questioning why someone would be installing a fake vent, notably.

[grenadesandohana]

"Actually, yeah," Steve admitted. "Mahalo."

[firstofitskind]

"Not a problem," Liam nodded. "Just tell me where you need me."

[grenadesandohana]

"If you can hold this up, I can screw it in," he said. "I can't do both without the other side moving."

[firstofitskind]

“Sure,” Liam nodded, moving to support the fake vent thing. “Project day?” he asked, glancing around the living room of the apartment. The fake vent didn’t look like the only thing Steve had been working on today.

[grenadesandohana]

"Something like that," Steve said with a shrug. "Danny wasn't home, so I moved some things around and cleaned."

To a military precision, actually. It was spotless.

[firstofitskind]

Yeah, you know. Liam had picked up on that.

"Well," he said slowly. "I think you're covered in case of a surprise barracks inspection."

[grenadesandohana]

"It's the overwhelming smell of bleach that always gets you a pass. The tears aren't from pride," Steve said, chuckling.

[firstofitskind]

Liam could have made up some story about his own supposed similar experience. Might have, had he still been in his world.

But he wasn't. Pretending to be the 'Liam Kincaid' of record really didn't matter here the way it had back home.

"You gonna tell Danny you 'moved some things around' to the ceiling?" he wondered.

[grenadesandohana]

"Nope," Steve said.

He'd probably figure it out because Danny was an excellent detective.

[firstofitskind]

"I'm sure he'll be pleased."

[grenadesandohana]

"Oh, definitely," Steve said. "I've rearranged things for greater sight lines to the windows and doors, too."

As normal people do!

[firstofitskind]

Liam nodded, because that made perfect sense.

Look, you didn't survive living amongst people who tended to try and kill you on a weekly basis without developing a healthy sense of paranoia.

"And I'm being polite and not asking where else you've stashed weapons," Liam said, because that would be rude. A secret weapon stash got less secret the more people knew about it, after all.

[grenadesandohana]

"Appreciate it," Steve said, grinning, "because then I'd have to move them afterwards."

[firstofitskind]

"Though if we're ever invaded and your place is the nearest source of weaponry, I'm absolutely going to ask you to share," Liam pointed out.

He would, naturall, reciprocate.