somethingwithturquoise | MHA #4; Saturday Afternoon [07/15].

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MHA #4; Saturday Afternoon [07/15].

To say that this week had been an off week felt like a bit of an understatement, and the fact that Summer didn't even think of this until she decided to do terrible things to eggs yesterday was a good indication of just how off it really was. But also, in a way, she'd had a week to sort of...process things and had a better understanding of where she was mentally, physically, spiritually, blah blah blah, so now it was just time to smooth out the rougher edges in the best way she knew how.

By making some pot brownies.

She considered trying to do something fancy with it, but since Stark would also be baking something (she was putting money down now on what color his baked goods would be), but decided to just stick with something nice and classic. And honestly? By the time she was pulling them out of the over, she was already feeling better than she had almost all week.

Whether that was from the catharsis of baking or some liberal taste-testing of the batter while she was working was impossible to determine for sure, but did it really matter anyway?

[[ expecting an alien, but open if anyone wants to @ her before he shows up, and, clearly, a little CW for recreational drug use ahoy ]]

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Stark offered a hesitant smile. "I'm glad you like them. And chocolate and strawberry go well together."

He took another bite, swallowed, and then popped the rest of the brownie into his mouth.

"Do you make these often?"

Had you been holding out on chocolate flavored highs, Summer?

"Not too often," Summer said. "It's usually too much hassle, and between Wednesday's jello and things for class, that is already way too much of my time being spent in a kitchen. I am, however, kind of mad at myself for not thinking of introducing you to this sooner."

But maybe it had just been waiting for the right moment when it would really be needed.

"Then you wouldn't be able to introduce it to me now," Stark pointed out.

When maybe they both really needed it.

"Thank you. For asking me to come over."

He'd been so unsure of things this week. He still was but just being here helped. He reached for one of the strawberry brownies.

Well, at least he wasn't alone in that uncertainty, although Summer herself was feeing a little more...understanding of everything by now. She smiled a little. Nodded.

"Thanks for taking my eggs and giving me the idea," she said. And, after maybe a slight hesitation, "I think we might be a little overdue, for something like this, anyway."

"Something like relaxing?" Stark asked. He was pretty sure that wasn't quite it.

"Or something like...talking?"

"Something like," Summer said, grabbing another strawberry brownie before sort of settling back into her corner of the couch, "a little bit of both? Maybe?"

That maybe sounded a bit like a probably. A probably we will, a probably we should.

"Should I have another of your brownies before we talk?" Stark asked softly.

"So I know I'll stay relaxed?"

Summer took a moment to consider how potent she made the mix, how delayed the effect might be, and everything that might come up.

"Maybe," she suggested, "just a little one."

Just in case.

Stark nodded and reached for a medium-sized brownie. Just in case.

"All right. Is there... anything you want to say? Or should we wait? Should I say something?"

He shouldn't feel so nervous. She wouldn't have invited him here if she was just going to tell him to leave her be. Her apartment was a good place full of good memories and she was his best friend.

Everything was going to be fine.

Wasn't it?

Summer looked over at Stark again, thoughtful, and very aware of the fact that she had the benefit of a little pre-gaming.

And that there were a lot of directions this question could take them. But, without much idea of exactly where she wanted to go right now, that gave it just that right amount of appeal to convince her to ask.

"Is there anything you want to say?"

There were so many things Stark wanted to say.

"I... should apologize. For last weekend. Again. I didn't mean to impose, or to upset you. I didn't stop to think. I should have and I'm sorry for that."

That was only a very small part of what he wanted to say.

"She did enjoy meeting you. She liked you."

And out of all the things Summer thought Stark might say, that was sort of what she'd been hoping for the most. Mostly because it was the easiest to handle, but not just because of that.

"I am glad to have finally met her, too," she said. "I just wish...I wish it could have gone down differently."

She chewed on her lip and dropped her eyes toward the space on the couch between them.

"I'm honestly kind of pissed off about it," she admitted.

"It was a mistake," Stark said, looking down. "That I should have known not to make. I was just...I don't know. She was here and she asked and I didn't even stop to think I just came down the stairs."

He took a sad little bite of his brownie before continuing.

"But that's not an excuse."

"Well " said Summer, pulling her other leg up, folding it in with the other, leaning forward a little with her elbows on her knees, "not like we can go back and change it or anything. And not that it really matters that much now, anyway, I guess..."

"I'd like to make it right," Stark said quietly. "But we can't change it so I can't. Is...is there anything I can do? To make it better, at least?"

Apologies were good. But apologies weren't everything.

"The brownies are a good start," Summer said, after a moment, tempted to grab another one, but holding back because she knew, when the others kicked in, she was probably going to just fucking destroy them. "And, like, there's not really much you can do? Because you can't exactly unring that bell, and everything else is just kind of...me stuff. Things I'm sort of figuring out."

"What sort of things?" Stark asked. He might regret that.

"You don't have to say, if you don't want to. I just...if I can help, at all..."

"Things like," Summer sighed, leaning back again with her arms folded in front of her and her eyes rolling to the side a little, "being pissed off when someone tells me to do something I was going to do anyway, because then it feel like an obligation and an expectation and makes me not want to do it anymore out of pure spite."

"I feel like I missed something," Stark said, frowning slightly. "Did I...I didn't think I did that? If I did I'm sorry. I wouldn't ever want you to feel obligated."

"You didn't," said Summer, and apparently the batter-buzz was not nearly enough to keep the scoff out of her voice. "She did."

"What did she say to you?" Stark asked, frowning more. "I thought she just wanted to meet you!"

"Meet me," said Summer, "and assess me and analyze me and go on and on about making you happy, and it's just all, yeah, obviously, that's what I've been doing, because I want to, not because you told me I should."

"You wanted to make me happy?"

Yes, that was what Stark was going to focus on out of that.

Which meant Summer was just going to give him a mildly incredulous look as she tried to figure out if she should even dignify that with a response.

"Stark," she said, reaching for one or her brownies. "Come on. You cannot be serious with a question like that."

"I...I just hadn't thought about it that way. Not in those terms."

Stark took another bite of his brownie.

"I try to make you happy. When I can."

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