somethingwithturquoise | MHA #4; Late Tuesday Morning [07/25].

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MHA #4; Late Tuesday Morning [07/25].

At this point, every return back to the apartment without incident after going somewhere that koala-Stark very clingingly insisted on going with Summer felt like a close call, and she returned to her apartment (gold-stickered koala in arms, of course) with a sigh of relief. But at least Summer could reassure herself that at least when it came to the gym, it was hopefully more about Stark just not wanting to let being a koala break up his sticker-streak than anything else. Like, Summer (with her own gold star magically managing to remain on her cheek even after her workout) got it, breaking the streak had to be a major bummer.

Besides, she had to admit, even if she was holding her breath practically the whole time he engaged in anything that might wind up being a comically terrible moment for him to change back, a koala trying to find good ways to sort-of work out was kind of adorable? She had some great potential fodder for her Insta and tumblr (lol, but, you know, with Twitter going the way it was....) for when Stark turned back and gave her the okay, and now? She was just glad she didn't have to run damage control on a mid-chin-up transformation for the whole gym to see, and could focus on prying herself free from a koala long enough to feed the cat, hit the shower, and then whip up some lunch.

[[ for the koala-alien, shocking, right, I knooooow ]]

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Honestly, Summer was kind of hoping there'd be a koala-nap in there before she needed to worry about a koala-feeding, but as she spooned some of Pancakes' food into her dish, she said, "Just give me a moment. Unless you want in on this..."

She turned the can toward her to make sure she read the exact title exactly right, "Tuna Feast with a touch of REAL MILK in a Creamy sauce. Mmmmm. Seriously?" she lifted her brows at the waiting Pancakes. "You live like this?"

Pancakes just meowed at her as if to point out that she wasn't the one buying this stuff.

"....it does sound like something I'd serve in jello, though, I gotta admit..."

Let everyone rue the day when she began dipping into the cat's cupboard for inspiration.

Did you know koalas could make horrified faces, Summer? This one could.

He hugged the pillow tighter as if to protect himself and shook his little furry head.

Summer didn't even need to see the horrified face; she could just sense that it was there, and so she finished setting down Pancakes' food for her with a smug, almost triumphant smirk, gave the cat a few pets before leaving her to it and going to fetch the bag of eucalyptus leaves from the cabinet.

She opened it up and held it out toward Stark and his pillow as she set on the arm of the couch.

"So," she said, "you managed to make it through the gym without embarrassing yourself too much; think you're going to go for broke and risk it all by coming to Shenanigans with me tomorrow? Assuming you're still like this, but that seems like the kind of situation that'll finally bring a person back to their normal form. And you'll have a terrible shirt to keep you partially covered, even, maybe."

Stark reached for the bag to grab a handful of leaves, stuck some in his mouth, and started happily munching them.

He shook his head at the idea of shenanigans. Think of what Anakin might do!

Which was, of course, a perfect time to start being himself again. With a mouthful of chewed leaves and an expression that said he regretted putting them in his mouth.

"Aw, damn," said Summer, whose brows lifted because it would never not be weird to just watch that happen when you were looking at someone, and also because she had been thinking of what Anakin might do, and now that would just have to potentially happen to regular-Stark and not koala-Stark.

And then she shorted with a realization.

"Boy," she said, "are you lucky I decided not to go for an extra hour on the treadmill now, or what."

Stark belatedly grabbed the pillow and pulled it in front of himself.

He nodded, mouth still full of leaves.

"Lucky," he said around the leaves which tasted much better to a koala than a Banik.

Summer had a smirking eyeroll at the pillow maneuver, like it was anything she hadn't seen about a bajillion times already by now, but she slipped off the couch to go get a small wastebasket to hold out to him so he could spit the leaves out.

All the while hoping in the amount of time it took her to fetch it, he didn't just go and swallow them anyway.

"Feel better?"

He had not swallowed them and very gratefully spit them out into the offered wastebasket.

"Much better. Thank you. For... taking care of me. Again. I didn't mean to do it!"

"Really?" asked Summer, lifting an eyebrow, and going to set the wastebasket down on the floor before thinking better of it and lifting it up onto the coffee table instead, lest Pancakes tried to get into it because she would still, clearly, be starving again mere seconds after she finished her food. "And here this whole time, I thought you were doing it on purpose."

She then went over to her gym bag, where she'd had his mask and some clothes for him in case he did change back while they were out and tossed at least the mask over for him, softly, underhand, to start.

She sort of felt like you had to make the other person squirm at least a little before the comfort of clothes if they were going to subject you to unexpected animal care for a period of time.

"If I were doing it on purpose I would not have changed when I did," Stark pointed out as he settled the mask back into place after catching it.

"Better. Thank you."

The thank you got a nod as Summer moved around to the back of the couch, leaning forward against it, just off of his shoulder, which could be a good potential vantage point at other things if she wasn't looking over at him.

"I don't know, man," she said. "Straightforwardness isn't exactly your strong suite. Could've been trying to make a hint."

"No," Stark said with a sigh. "I was looking forward to everything after paintball. I wouldn't have missed it."

He turned his head to look at her better. "Not on purpose."

And Summer looked back at Stark for a moment before a grin tugged at the corner of her mouth and she cocked her head, generically, in some other direction. "Wanna go get some paint and roll around in some mud a little and pick up where we left off?"

"I wouldn't mind skipping the mud," Stark said, shifting the pillow he was holding a little. "Or the paint. But if you really want to..."

"I mean," said Summer, whose weight shifted a little, too, almost as if to make the most of her cute little gym outfit, "I am still pretty sweaty from my workout. That's...kind of close enough, right?"

"Close enough," Stark said. "I think."

"If you aren't yet tired of having me so close..."

He was reasonably sure she wasn't based on the suggestion. But you never knew!

Summer was just going to look at Stark for another, long moment before she shook her head.

"Yeah, you know," she then said, pushing herself up from the back of the couch and drifting back over to where her gym bag was, "now that you mention it, actually..."

She went to pick the bag up, to start rooting through it for his clothes.

"It doesn't count if I'm not really me," Stark protested quickly. He was already standing, still holding the pillow with one hand.

The very stretched out and torn koala gym tank was doing its best to stay together but it was fighting a losing battle.

Look, the tank top had seemed like a good attempt at the time! It was probably faring better than all those adorable little Hawaiian shirts would have!

"If it doesn't count," Summer retorted, with a pointed lift of her brow and a timely toss of a pair of pants his way, "then why would I have gotten tired in the first place, hmmm?"

Stark grabbed for the pants, dropped the pillow as he did so, and nearly fell over in the process. Oops?

"I... don't know! I just said it without thinking! I'm sorry."

Summer was doing a spectacular job of failing at trying not to look too amused by this fumbling and bumbling response, a small smirk on her face as she held a shirt neither tiny tank top or Hawaiian at her side with a popped hip like a threat.

"Just because you spent a long weekend as a koala," she stated, "doesn't mean I'm going to let you just backslide on all that self-doubt bullshit."

"I'll do better," Stark promised. "If you'll give me a chance."

He wasn't really making a move to put those pants on. He was just sort of holding them in a useful position.

You know, there was sort of a point of diminishing returns on something like this, where it sort of threatened to go from all fun and games to just kind of sad and pathetic, and, reminding herself that this poor did only just turned back from being a koala,Summer felt like they might be traipsing dangerously close to that edge right about now.

So she sighed and tossed her gym bag and the shirt down. "Well, then," she stated, looking at Stark for a moment with her head tilted. "Are you going to help me get out of these tight, sweat, form-fitting clothes....or nah?"

She was pretty sure she knew the answer, but, whatever it was going to be, she was already turning to head to the bathroom anyway.

It was hard to feel confident when you'd just spent several days as a small furry animal and now you were mostly naked aside from an adorable tank top.

"I think I should," Stark said. "Yes. You always have the best ideas."

He was going to drop the pants eventually but first he needed to look, respectfully, at the clothes in question.

Respectfully? Respectfully??

Had the last few minutes taught you nothing, Stark?

But Summer lifted her chin importantly after a pleased, accepting nod of this observation and the fact that Stark's koala brain hadn't completely forgotten it.

"It's true," she said, simply enough. "I do, don't I?"

"Some of my very favorite ideas," Stark said as he followed, slightly less respectfully now.

"And it's been so many days since I could really appreciate those ideas. Or you."

"Well," said Summer, glancing over shoulder a little, to grin back at Stark, maybe with a particularly innocent sort of flutter of her eyelashes, "I don't really have any other plans for the day..."

She stopped, turning around to face him. "If you wanted to make up for lost time."

"That sounds like another very good idea."

It seemed a bit odd to be holding the pants in front of himself at this point but it also seemed odd to drop them.

"Holding on to you as a koala just isn't the same."

Would it help it to feel less odd to know that Summer wasn't paying any attention to the pants whatsoever at the moment, her attention entirely on Stark as she stepped in closer, sliding her arms up to drape over his shoulders?

"I am so glad you're not a koala right now."

But, hey, this would be one helluva time for her to go squirrel, wouldn't it?

Well, now seemed like a good time to just drop the pants so they weren't in the way. He needed both hands to pull Summer in anyway.

"So am I," he said in a low voice. "I like being me-shaped. Even if koala-me gets to be close to you. This is much better."

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MHA #4; Late Tuesday Morning [07/25].

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