2013.08.13 - After the StarkTech Presentation

Hammer makes a mental note to corner Howard after the presentation sometime. He has no hard evidence, but he wants to prod Cousin Stark, see if he can get something more to go on. Jazmin's comment draws his attention and he looks toward her with a raised brow. She's really going to call him out on being restless? He listens to the last few comments Howard has, then watches the dissipating crowd. "Well, he's a bit different than his cousin," Hammer remarks offhandedly to the heroine.
"Nice dodge." Jazmin comments almost absently as she starts to stroll in that window shopping sort of stroll, looking at booths and making it ever so slightly harder for people listening in on them. "I've only seen his cousin's public performance face, I've no idea what he's like in private. Either of them, to be honest."
Hammer takes up stride alongside Jazmin. He tosses the soda can he has in a recycle bin along the walkway, then slides both his hands in his pants pockets. He gives the young hero another look, but it's quick to fade back to something more neutral. "He's an odd one. I get the feeling something's up with him, but I can't tell what. I've run into him a couple times, and he doesn't act like the lab rat he claims to be."
"Wait.. he claims to be a lab rat?" Jazmin turns a moment, glancing to Justin. "I thought the 'Doctor' thing was the PR spin because he was a marketing and PR guy." She hunhs quietly, taking a long drink of her coffee and pausing by the trash bin to drain the last of it before throwing the cup away and taking a few longer strides to catch up with Justin again. "Lab guys I know do not have that sort of panache in presentations."
"That he does," Justin pauses to wait on Jazmin, then continues when she catches back up with him. He starts walking along the path, glancing idly toward the other exhibits while they walk. "Nope, not a PR thing. He's actually in Stark's R&D department. And you're pinging the same thing I am. It just doesn't jive."
"Well.. not /everyone/ in R&D are the nose to lab bench, sorts." Jazmin muses faintly and then shakes her head. "I don't know him well enough to have much of a ping, just a little bit of a puzzled 'hunh'. My techies.. well let's just say I'm not expecting any of my techies to turn up here, lure of shinies or not. This many people, I might as well suggest they swim naked in a shark tank after rolling in chum.. actually they'd probably /prefer/ I suggest the skinny dipping. Which is not calm and casual answers to rapid fire questions. And while I have yet another person who knows everyone handy.. did you know who the guy asking the questions was?"
Justin successfully divides his attention between looking toward Jazmin as she speaks and watching where he's walking. "That's the same way most of my engineers are," he replies idly, thinking it over. "There's a reason I handle the presentations." The unusual pair do get several glances from the general crowd of milling people at the Expo, and Hammer does a fair job of ignoring them. He's used to the attention. "The kid asking the questions? I saw him last night with Bruce Wayne. His name is Tim- Tim Drake if I recall, Wayne's personal assistant."
"We don't make presentations." Jazmin replies with a half chuckle and a shrug. "But we're not a weapons manufacturer, or a technology giant, or any sort of gadget, gizmo or sales thingie. I should be safe on the presentations thing." She doesn't seem phased by the extra glances that the unexpected pairing draw out, offering a couple of the folks giving glances a smile that has perhaps just enough of an edge to it that the other glances away first. "Tim Drake. I may need to see if he's working the Wayne Industries booth later. Seemed more astute than most folks my age around here."
Justin nods in agreement. "He does seem pretty sharp," he replies. For a moment it makes him reevaluate his stance on Cousin Stark. After all, Jazmin is pretty mature for her age, as is the Wayne assistant. Maybe Howard is the same, just an unusually smart and suave young man. After all, Tony was much the same way when he was younger. But that doesn't explain Howard's treatment of Pepper Potts or his passionate knowledge of the company's history. "So, how much of the Expo have you had a chance to see so far?" Hammer shifts the subject of the conversation, finding little more to glean from the previous topic.
"Precious little, to be honest." Jazmin answers as she accepts the subject change with a little nod, letting Justin muse on the oddities in his own time. "I tend to just get to looking at things, or get away from networking and meeting people and then something happens at HQ, and I find myself back at work." She glances to him then. "You? Got minions working your booth, such that you can be out and about and being social and letting insolant Legionairres monopolize your time a little while?"
Justin chuckles. "Of course I've got minions," he replies with a cocky smirk. "Besides, doing the social thing is half of what this shindig is about. Scoping out the competition, making new connections. Sure there's science here, but there's also big business." And while he would never admit it. Hammer is far, far better at the business side of things than the science side of it. Sure, he can come up with good ideas and even engineer a few, but the vast majority of what his company does is developed by people far more talented than himself in that respect.
"I am absolutely figuring out that the social thing is more than half of what this shindig is about." Jazmin agrees, her attention caught a moment by a display of bunnies, baby bunnies even and she reaches out to touch Justin's arm such that he realizes she's paused. The next moment, the bunny display goes a touch odd, when the enclosure that the adorable bunnies are in has the lights dimmed to near darkness and said bunnies /glow/. "Big business, people being seen, and seeing people. Making connections, networking.. and /glowing bunnies/."
Hammer is a bit surprised when the young woman touches his arm. He pauses, looking the same direction she does. He just stares for a moment, taking in exactly what Jazmin had described. Glowing bunnies. "Yep, welcome to the Stark Expo," he says to himself as he ponders the implications of the displayed genetic advancements.
"That is the most ridiculously creepily awesome thing I've seen in a long time." Jazmin has paused there, caught by the almost universal temptation to just pause and d'aww at baby animals laying around looking adorable. She isn't even thinking as she laughs in delight, watching one of the glowy fuzzballs fail to successfully hop in an excess of cute, and she reaches out again to touch Justin's arm and point to show him. "Yes, I'm having a teen girl moment over bunnies, but even you have to admit that they are /adorable/."
Hammer just arches a brow at the whole thing. He's not big on cute animals, but he'll humor Jazmin. Why? Because it's good karma and publicity. Make friends with the hero-types, it'll help you in the long run. He doesn't react to the touch, though he doesn't complain either. "I'm not sayin' anything," he says with a smirk and a slight shake of his head. "Though it makes you wonder about the next generation of designer pets."
"C'mon.. really? The facade doesn't even crack for glowing bunnies?" Jazmin looks at him and grins. "I bet you have a bookmark to one of those baby animal a day website, that you're just not admitting to." Her tone is entirely teasing and she shakes her head, stepping away from the booth. "Choose your own glow and colour? Get a bunny instead of a nightlight for your kid? Do you have kids?"
There's really no way for Justin to respond to that. He finally lets the business demeanor fall, and shakes his head, grinning. "No, no kids," he replies. "My company is my only legacy." Honestly, he's happy that way. Kids are responsibility, and he has more than enough to worry about with his company.
"It's not a bad thing. Although at risk of making this awkward.. you're not exactly one foot in the grave to be making those sorts of assumptions /quite/ yet." Jazmin points out, the grin making her smile, returning to the strolling and looking at things. "I suppose unless you're not into women, and then it's an easier assumption to make."
The sprightly young heroine is a master at getting the slightly scowling look from Justin this evening. He gives her another at her words. "No, trust me, I'm into women," he comments pretty flatly. He is, it's just his usual demeanor and work obsession has a tendency to drive most of them away. At least when it comes to long-term relationships. "And yes, this just did get awkward." Not the conversation he expected to have with the leader of the Legion of Superheroes while looking at glowing bunnies.
"What!?" Jazmin really does look baffled at that slightly scowling look this time. "I didn't think /that/ was the awkward point in this conversation, or is that .. uh.. I /really/ should have paid better attention in history class. I knew there were points in time where it was a taboo subject, I just didn't think we were in one of those points." She twists a rueful smile. "So if it is, whoops. Call it culture shock, and I'm sorry." She moves a little further along, as not to traumatize bunnies with awkward, or perhaps simply to minimize the bunny handler's gossip potential. "And if it isn't, I've still hit on a touchy subject, and you probably /wish/ you could zot me in the back of the head like Loki did at the coffee shop, hmm?"
Well, in the 31st century, it only makes sense that those sort of subjects probably aren't strange or awkward. It's easy for Justin to forget that the heroine isn't from this time period. "No, no," he says, shaking his head and holding his hands up defensively as he turns to follow Jazmin away from the glowing rabbit exhibit. "I don't wanna zap you." He's just really not used to people talking to him in this manner, especially not ones that are that young and female.
"That's good. That really sucked, the getting zotted thing. Messed with my head for the whole day." Jazmin muses faintly as they get back to walking, her perspective seeing nothing all that odd with getting zapped by a God not being a very final and solid /end/ to ones life, rather than simply a daylong worth of headache. She is quiet for a few moments, as they walk together, no matter how unlikely it might be and then she asks, with that irritatingly keen insight she seems to manage. "No one but me is bold enough to ask about your private life, are they, Honey?"
At least Jazmin has brought up Justin's ex-wife. At least, not yet. He looks toward her and gives a sigh. "Nope, you're the first one to wield that crow bar," he comments in a tone that's hard to read. Even Fern, whom he actually talks with a lot, hasn't been so bold. He checks his watch out of habit, then looks around to try and gauge where they're at in the Expo. It's about time that he wander back to his own pavilion and pack up for the evening. "That's a pretty big feat, ya know, getting struck down by a god, twice, and living to talk about it." Another less than graceful subject change, darting back to Jazmin's comments about being zapped.
"I'm not quite just a pretty, crowbar wielding, pain in the tush. I am, technically, a professional superhero, which does give me a wee bit of an advantage in the whole 'living to talk about it' lottery." Jazmin points out, leaving the challenging conversation lie, for the moment. She does, however, reach out to touch his arm, giving a squeeze if he lets her, and then notes. "I should probably get back to HQ /before/ the phone calls for once. I'm glad I bumped into you, and once the Expo has settled a bit, if you don't carve out some time for a coffee, I will come kidnap you for a coffee break." It's a light delivery, offered with a grin. She's joking, right?
Justin draws to a stop, turning to face Jazmin. He nods. Again he doesn't really react to the contact, but he doesn't object either. He offers a bit of a lopsided grin. "Y'know, if you keep stalking me like this, your teammates are going to start talking," he says in a jesting tone, or at least what passes for one with him. "But yeah, we'll have to do coffee again soon. But please, go easy on the kidnapping thing. My security detail is already having fits over trying to keep track of me."
"I'll leave them a note." Jazmin quips and then grins. "Later. Have fun playing CEO, and i'll see ya later." She waves and then turns and calmly heads off into the crowd, and presumably, to fly on home and deal with whatever the crisis of the day is at HQ.
Category:Log