2012-08-17 MacGuyvering a Car

"...I really don't think the SR-Ten...well, yeah, I like the Vipers, too, but...well, sure, it'll out-corner a lot, but if only if you power-slide just rig...what do you mean?...That would be interesting, yeah."Evening at a McDonald's. Tanya is off to the side, having already placed her order, and is waiting on her food. She's also talking to herself, though at least it's in low tones. She doesn't even fully remember anymore that no one else can hear the other half of the conversation, in this case coming from the star-esque tattoo around her navel.Other customers eye her warily; she's not exactly dressed by most people's standards of "normal", and then there's the whole "absolutely covered in tattoos, brands, and nearly every other form of body modification she could think up", but she's ignoring the way they stare, or oh-so blatantly ignore her.Finally, her bag is ready, so she takes it and gives the young man (who, to his credit, is /trying/ to appear nonplussed--even if he's failing horribly) a smile before heading toward the exit.
Late evening errands are the WORST. Why Tony can't get his own damned coffee and bagel Pepper will never understand. Hers is just to do or die... or something like that. So, she's /trying/ to drive one of her boss's insane cars, and after struggling with the clutch for the past ten minutes the vehicle finally makes a scary-loud grinding noise and she has to hastily pull into the first parking lot available -- a McDonald's. "God, what NOW?" Tony's going to kill her.
As she leaves the building, Tanya reaches into the bag and pulls out a few fries. Ah, limp, greasy, and soaked in more salt than has a right to exist. Got'a love McDonald's. She starts munching as she heads to her motorcycle--then stops as she hears that grinding. Looking around for the car, she tries to diagnose the problem just by sound. Of course, she's not the only one to think on it all."No," she says, looking down to the star on her right thigh, "I don't really think that's it; I mean--well, sure, could be mismatched components, but--nah, look at it--shut up and /look/ at it. Classic 'Vette, man, and l--no, shut up--/look/ at how well-maintained that is. Whoever restored it or kept it from when it was new wouldn't have allowed mismatched parts on it."As she has this discussion with her leg, she's heading over to wear Pepper is parked. When she gets there, she gives the woman a friendly smile--though staying back a good yard, just in case (she really doesn't need that anti-mutant crap tonight)--and says, "Umm. Hi. Sounds like your clutch. I can take a look at it for you, if you like." She gives the woman a sincere smile; she really does know her stuff, even if she looks like a refugee from Arkham.
Pepper Potts is just getting out of the car, wanting to curse at it and call Tony and maybe curse at him too a little. But then the Illustrated Woman walks up and offers to check on the car and she hesitates. Not because of the woman's appearance, that's the least of the possible bad things that appear on her mental list. It's the whole 'don't trust strangers' thing that's been programmed into her since she moved to NYC. But then, the woman mentioned that it's likely a clutch problem, and that's what she was fighting with when the car made that awful grinding noise. "Oh. Hello....no, no, it's all right. I don't want to interrupt your evening. I can just call T...um, a friend and get a lift and a tow truck."
It's probably a good thing that Tanya is gregarious enough to not let something like this slow her down. "It's not a problem," she says with a grin, reaching into the left outer pocket of her jacket. "Hell, it's my job, after all. Here." She pulls out a business card for Mack and Co. Automotive Repair. Below the address, phone number, and all that is her name: "Tanya Li", and below that, "Restoration Specialist".She'll go to hand the woman the card--then crouches and sets her bag aside. She's not /about/ to put that bag on the Corvette. "Just a minute and I'll see what I can see, okay?" she says as she gets on her back and shimmies under the car."Okay, let's see--no, the cable is just fine; no stretching. Ha, see? I was right--this is all original work; no mismatched parts..." She shimmies back and forth a little as she looks, and it might be noted that there are almost no sounds of her poking at the car itself; she does know what she's doing, and she has something of a reverence for such a classic car as this, so she's not going to just poke around blindly or without care.
Pepper Potts takes the card and looks at it, and is a bit irrationally relieved to see that her inclination to trust the woman was positively rewarded. She steps a bit out of the way to give the mechanic a chance to see what's going on with the car. "Do you need a flashlight or anything?"
"Nah, it's still light enough," Tanya replies light-heartedly. "Though you'd be surprised at how often I forget to pack a fla--oh! Here it is." Careful to avoid scraping the underside, she shimmies back out, though stays laying on the ground. "Do you have a, umm--pen? Yeah, that'd work. Ballpoint pen? Not one of the clicky ones; like, a Bic? About this big around?" Curling left index finger to thumb in the "O.K" signal, she lifts her hand to show what she means, though the "hole" is, well, about only big enough for a Big ballpoint pen.
Pepper Potts blinks. "Um... I doubt it, but let me look." She reaches into the car for her bag and starts rummaging through it. No, no, stylus, pencil, ... wait. She pulls the stylus out and offers it to the mechanic. "Will this suffice? It's the closest I have." The stylus is one of the nice ones, made from steel with a retractable point.
As she rummages around in her purse, Tanya reaches into an inner pocket of the right side of her coat, and pulls out her trusty "SwissChamp" Swiss army knife. She pops open the saw blade and reaches up for the stylus when it's offered to her. Umm--you're not going to get this back in one piece," she says, looking rather apologetic at Pepper. "Is that okay?" Granted, it's to temporarily fix the car, but still. She does want the other woman to know what's up.
Pepper Potts nods quickly. "That's fine." She doesn't admit aloud that she almost never uses the thing, especially since it was a gift from a friend. She's just /waiting/ for Tony's phone call asking if she got lost or is talking Hulk down from a rampage again or something.
"Awesome." Grinning, Tanya sets the stylus on her upraised knee and starts carefully cutting through it. "The problem, you see," she says as she slices through the thing, "is your hydraulic hose. It's got a tear in it, but that's to be expected. Looks like it's been sitting in a garage for a while, right?" And one end lops off, falling to the tarmac with a tinkling sound. She turns the thing around and starts sawing through the other end. "Now, this means that you'll get air inside it, which, basically, takes up space that the fluid needs to build pressure. Loss of pressure is why it made with the grinding and the fighting." And almost a third of the thing from the other end falls to the ground. "What I'm going to do with this," she says as she holds what's now just a metal tube up, "is use it like a splint. I'll have to cut through what's left of the hose to do it, but it'll let you get to a repair shop." She puts the tube between her teeth, and closes the saw blade, so she can open up one of the "normal" blades, then leans back on the ground and shimmies back under the car again.
Pepper Potts ohs, kind of following Tanya's explanation but not really. She IS right about the car having been sitting in the garage for a while. She really does know her stuff. "I'll ... make sure to let the car's owner know about that." She leans a bit, as if that'll let her see what the woman is doing to the underside of the car. "So... it wasn't my driving that caused this?" Yes, there's a touch of worry in that.
"Nope!" calls out Tanya from under the car. "Well, technically, fighting with the clutch didn't /help/, but it's not like you had much choice in the matter, so whatever." A pause, then a soft grunt as she cuts through the line. With some more grunting, she manages to get one end of the tube into the hose, then the other end into the other piece of hose. It takes a moment for her to scoot the hose ends along the tube to get them as close to each other as possible. "All done," she says brightly as she starts to scoot out again. "I wouldn't drive it any farther than your repair shop just to be on the safe side." Closing the blade again, she slips the knife away, grabs her bag, and rocks up onto her feet so she can stand up again.
Pepper Potts hesitates. She doesn't /know/ where Tony gets his cars repaired. She always thought he worked on them himself. "I...The car actually belongs to a friend of mine, I'm just borrowing it. I don't know who his mechanic is." Yeah, Tony is TOTALLY going to kill her for this. Well, kill her or die laughing. Maybe both. Maybe even both at the same time. THIS is why she's been wanting to invest in her own car, even though it would see almost zero use.
"In that case, I'd just drive it home, to be honest," says Tanya, sticking her right hand part way into her hip pocket and letting her arm relax. "Yeah, just take it home--or, well, you can take it to Mack and Company in the morning. We're in Harlem, close enough for you to drive there safely, and I'm actually going to be there tomorrow, so I can work on it for you." She's not above letting the woman help to not tell her friend about this, since it's obvious that the red-head is more than a little hesitant to do so. And, hey, drumming up business in the process! James'd like that.
Pepper Potts nods. "I'll do that, then." She smiles her thanks. "And if my friend doesn't already have a mechanic, I'll certainly make sure to bring the car by to you." She understands about subtly promoting businesses, and she tries to support locally owned businesses as best she can. "Thank you so much, Ms. Li." So, yes, she did actually take a moment to look at the business card.
"Awesome," replies Tanya with a grin, then she remembers her manners. "Oh, I'd shake your hand, but--yeah. Grease and all." She takes her hand back out and wiggles it, showing the dark smudges on her fingers and glove. And the red-head, while obviously competent, doesn't look like grease and oil are a part of her daily skin-care regimen. "I like working on cars, anyway," she adds, then turns to nod at the Dodge Tomahawk that's parked as close to the front doors as possible. "That's my baby over there; souped him up myself, so you know I actually know what I'm doing." Another grin, there, given with a lift of her pink eyebrows. As someone who drives a classic and (mostly) well-kept car as this, maybe the red-head can appreciate the Tomahawk.
Pepper Potts smiles and nods as Tanya refrains from shaking hands because of the engine grease, then looks over at the ... motorcycle? It looks more like Tron than Harley Davidson to her, but then she never tried to learn anything about vehicles beyond the bare essentials. "Wow. That's a very ... unique motorcycle." Yeah, she couldn't be any more obvious about her lack of knowledge if someone stuck a neon sign over her head.
That makes Tanya chuckle softly, brows lifting and scrunching in that humorous-yet-sympathetic expression, realizing just how much the red-head /doesn't/ know about cars. "thanks, but--it's okay," she says, canting her head a little to one side. "You don't have to pretend. You seem like the office type, and I can tell you now? I'd look at your desk the same way you're looking at my bike--you /know/ it's supposed to be efficient and cool and all that, but you just don't know /why/." She'd be as lost in the other woman's office as badly as the woman seems to be in the world of cars, so she understands, and hopefully shows that Tanya isn't going to hold it against her.
Pepper Potts relaxes, clearly relieved that the mechanic understands and doesn't hold her ignorance against her. "Very true. I think I'll return my friend's car and go back to just admiring these cars instead of trying to drive them." Next time, darn it, no matter what Tony says she's either asking Happy to drive her or making Happy fetch the coffee and bagels. Never. Again.
Another chuckle, and a sympathetic nod of her head, then Tanya says, "Sounds like a good idea, yeah." Oh, she noticed that phrasing, the implication that the 'Vette's owner had a potential fleet of classic cars like this--but she's also noticed that the woman has been otherwise very careful to give /no/ details about herself or her "friend", which is why Tanya hasn't pressed her for them, why she didn't even ask the woman's name. A beat's pause, then, "Listen, I'm'a get going, okay? Take the car straight home, and you can get it to a shop tomorrow without a tow truck scratching that beauty up."
Pepper Potts nods, moving to get back into the car. Stupid thing. "Okay. Thank you again, I really do appreciate your help." The noise of the engine starting more causes Pepper to wince than to appreciate the vehicle. Mack and Company. If Tony doesn't fix this car himself, she'll take it to Ms. Li's garage, if only to make sure she doesn't end up having something ELSE happen next time she's forced to drive this thing. Definitely getting a car for herself. Something reasonable. Smallish. Maybe domestic.
"You're very welcome," replies Tanya, lifting her hand in goodbye. When the engine starts she has to cluck her tongue at the sound; that's a damned finely-tuned engine, there. Whoever this mysterious owner is, he obviously loves his cars. She's half-tempted to see if she can find out about him, just to see what cars he has--but, the red-head is playing her cards close to her vest for a reason, Tanya figures. As the Corvette takes off, she heads back to her tomahawk, to grab the helmet on the seat and slip it on her head. She's still got her little mechanic's heart all fluttering--actually got to work on a classic 'Vette!
((Fade Out))
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