pour one out for those of you living this irl tbqh

[commemeorate]

You were ready.

You packed! You made sure you had everything, and arrived extra early to safely get through security! It's only once you're through (and maybe after a connecting flight or two) that you learn your flight as been delayed. Maybe even indefinitely.

You now have to spend the next however many hours at the airport.

1. Leave a comment with your character name, canon, preferences, whatever.
2. Others tag in.
3. Meet new people? Entertain yourselves? Nap for a few hours?

Comments

[naz]

Maybe it's not the most glamorous place to have breakfast, especially when celebrating something as huge as the two of them deciding to move in together and, apparently, getting a vacation home in Paris. Sometimes, Caitlin forgets just how much money her boyfriend is worth and how easy it would be for him to make good on that offer.

"I...love that idea," she says, eyes widening with excitement as she looks up at him when they get to the restaurant and she waits for the hostess to invite them to follow her to their seat. "My laptop or yours?" she asks with a grin.

There's a part of Caitlin that she hopes she's hiding especially well which wants very badly to look at houses instead of apartments or, more likely, lofts and condominiums, knowing Tony. She'd rather just find a nice house for them to settle down in and start a family, but pointing out that she'd like a house would mean making obvious that she wants to get married and she's pretty sure Tony already knows that; that making it apparent right now would be more pushy than helpful.

The two of them sit in the boot and Caitlin takes her menu with a smile and a nod at the woman as her silent thank you. "I'll a mimosa and a glass of ice water with lemon," she orders her drink when the waitress asks.

[themanofiron]

Technically speaking, Tony could probably get them into a private lounge where they could have more privacy. For a moment, as he catches the host's eyes as they catch sight of his prosthetic and Tony sees the curiosity and what he guesses is pity flash across her eyes, he almost casually suggests it but he lets it go. He even does a good job at acting as if he didn't catch it, as if it doesn't bother him at all. Because, well, it's not like the world doesn't know about the fact that his right arm is made of the same materials as his Iron Man suit. It's not like it's not obvious, considering the fact that it flat out looks like he's permanently wearing a part of his suit, so there's no subtlety there, but sometimes it still catches him by surprise when new people take the sight in. He's constantly surrounded by his teammates, Caitlin, or their friends, to the point that he's not used to those new glances anymore from people that have never seen his arm up close, but he does a good job at not letting it ruin his mood.

He just finds himself thankful for the fact that he's wearing long sleeves, and their waitress is polite enough to hide if she notices that he's not just the average customer.

He's still riding that excitement, though, and it helps that he sees it in Caitlin's eyes, and he grins almost slyly as he pulls out his laptop once they're seated. "We can use mine. Is there a neighborhood or area in the city that you would prefer?"

Once Caitlin orders her drinks, he nods with a smile at their waitress. "I'll have the same, thank you."

Leaning back against their booth, he boots up his laptop but adjusts it so that Caitlin can start typing if there's anything specific she wants to look for. He's not particularly picky on where he wants to live, although he's definitely not thinking of a house. That's only because he has been living in apartments and lofts ever since he moved out of his parents' place, and somehow his brain is not making the connection to a house right off the bat.

"I'm assuming more than one room for whenever we have someone wanting to visit?" A beat. "...would you care if I turned a room into a lab?"

[naz]

Caitlin settles into the seat across from him and shakes her head a little. "I hadn't really gotten that far," she admits. There are plenty of neighborhoods she wants to avoid, but she figures she doesn't really have to say them because she imagines that Tony feels the same way about those neighborhoods. Honestly, her first thought is to research the school districts, but saying that is only going to raise the stakes of this whole thing and she's not sure that's a great idea right now. They're riding a high, she should leave it that way.

"Yeah, we should definitely have a guest room...or two," she agrees, carefully testing the waters a little. Having one guest room would be fine, except she's hoping that someday it wouldn't be a guest room anymore. "And no, of course not. I sort of expected you to, if I'm being honest, babe," she admits.

With a soft smile, Caitlin takes his hand on the table and she leans in to look at the computer. "Let's just look and not make any decisions until we get home, we'll get some ideas; do some research and see what's on the market and where. We'll find a place."

[themanofiron]

"Yeah, two guest rooms is fine," he says as he filters out available properties in the city for options. His brain doesn't make the leap as to why she would want more than one guest room; he's just thinking about maybe Janet or Rhodey visiting whenever one of her friends are over, too. While he has grown comfortable with the idea of a wedding, children is still not something that he is thinking about so he doesn't get much further than just 'guest room for friends' yet.

He smiles when she mentions that she expected him to have a lab, and gives her a wink. If she would have said no it would have been fine, he has plenty of other properties that he can use as a lab, but he's happy for the fact that he can have one at home as well.

Giving her hand a soft squeeze, he nods a little. "That sounds like a good plan." The waitress brings their drinks, and Tony takes the glass of champagne to lift it slightly for a toast. "Here's to a new life together."

[naz]

The fact that he seems to gloss over the extra guest room gives Caitlin more relief than it probably should, but she just knows that now is not the time to have the children discussion. For all she knows, there might never be a time to have the children discussion, but if there is, it isn't in an airport restaurant over cheap mimosas, that's for sure.

Caitlin lifts her own glass to his toast and echoes the sentiment before bringing the glass to her lips to take a sip. "What did you find?" she asks, scooting so that she can try to see the computer screen as well, even though they're sitting across from one another. Tony will have set the filters he was interested in setting and Caitlin trusts his judgement — and taste — so she doesn't bother asking what he narrowed the search parameters with before peering at the results.

The waitress returns a few moments later to take their orders and Caitlin, not wanting to overdo it before getting on an airplane for several hours, decides on a fruit salad and a crepe. "So, we're looking at four bedrooms, right? I'm just sort of assuming that you're going to convert a bedroom into a lab, because banking on an extra room that isn't a bedroom is probably not going to yield consistent results in an online search, right?" Not that she'd know; she's never searched like this, before. Just for a one-bedroom near S.T.A.R. Labs and, more recently, near the Academy.

[themanofiron]

After taking a sip of his mimosa, he makes a mental note to have the airline get them better champagne once they're actually in their seats. He pushes the thought aside, though, as he configures the filters for his search.

"I found," he says as he turns the computer in her direction. "This."

There are definitely condominiums, lofts, and fancy apartments, but there are also houses. Said houses are not necessarily in traditional suburbia, though. They're not necessarily as enormous as the mansion that the grew up in, but they are considerably bigger than a regular house. Especially with the acres of property that come along with them that accommodated swimming pools, hot tubs, and some even with fire pits.

Watching for her reaction, he keeps his eyes on her as he explains, "We don't have to get carried away, but...why not look, right? We can start small, but we're just looking, so..." He trails off, a smirk growing on his face that looks more mischievous than anything else. Because, if he's going to use his trust fund for something, it'll be to buy the house of their dreams.

[naz]

Caitlin leans in a little when Tony turns the computer and she's actually a little surprised to see that there are some houses in the mix. She'd just sort of assumed Tony would've gone for lofts and apartments, maybe a townhouse or a condo, but she wouldn't have thought he'd include houses. These ones are practically mansions, though, so maybe it shouldn't surprise her too much, since that seems to fit his style.

Then again...houses are far more permanent. It'd be a hell of a lot harder to rent out a mansion if things didn't work out than it would be to rent out an apartment or a condo. So yeah, she looks surprised, but her cheeks are pink, as are the tips of her ears, and she's smiling a little to herself.

Her eyes shift up to meet his over the top of the computer and she rolls them, grinning before she looks back down at the monitor. "Oh yeah, 'we can start small,' he says after filtering in these monstrosities," she teases. He ought to know from the smirk and her tone that she's just kidding and she doesn't see anything wrong with any of these selections. Quite the contrary, it's really exciting to her that he's even included houses at all.

"...is that a fire pit in the middle of a patio? Oh my God, that's a thing people do?!" she squeals, suddenly realizing a new trend she'd been unaware of that is quite literally the coolest thing she can even think of for a place to entertain guests. Her eyes snap back up to meet his again. "Seriously? I need that in my life. I don't care about anything else, I need a fire pit. If I have one of those, I don't care if the rest is pitching a tent in a backyard," she says and she's really only half-joking. There are a million ways she can make a patio like that a really fun place to host parties and she's already got several of them dancing through her head right now.

[themanofiron]

He can't help it; the moment that look of surprise crosses her face as she smiles, he can't help but smile right back. His expression is warm, happy. It's like crossing off one more little checkmark in the 'list' of things to make sure of before asking Caitlin to marry him. Not that he was expecting her to choose a house - really, he would have been happy with a simple apartment if that's what she would have wanted - but considering what a house means... It's another sort of reassurance, in a way, that she wants a future with him.

"Hey, those are small," he says with a laugh as he takes another sip of his mimosa. And, well, it's true. But, then again, the house he had grown up in was double the size of the small mansions they're looking at on his computer.

Tony grins at her squeal, thankful that he has swallowed the swig he had taken otherwise he would have definitely choked on his drink. "Yep, that's definitely a fire pit. It'd be awesome for whenever we host people, or hell, even just for us whenever we want and just want to sip a drink by the fire. Outside." He leans forward, his grin growing a little bigger. "So...wanna look at it when we get back? To see if, you know, we like it when we see it in person?"

[naz]

This time, Caitlin laughs out loud, rolling her eyes. "Those are not small, Tony," she counters, shaking her head. There's nothing small about those houses and she's pretty sure he knows it. Even if he'd grown up surrounded by money, Tony isn't an idiot and he's self-aware. She cannot imagine him actually thinking those were small houses he'd filtered into the search. They might be small compared to what he's used to, but they both know that they're no small, generally speaking.

Her eyes shift up to him with surprise again when he asks if she'd like to look at the house in person when they get back, like he's already ready to make a purchase. Sure, Tony is loaded and Caitlin's always known that — it has nothing to do with her feelings for him, but she's aware. — but buying a house is still a big deal. It's a big commitment and a long process. She hadn't expected him to be ready to dive in that quickly, even though they've just established that they do, in fact, want to move in together officially.

The surprised expression settles into something warmer and more genuinely happy as Caitlin nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I really do," she says honestly. "As long as you do," she adds quickly, because knowing him, he'd want to look at it whether he liked it or not, just because saying he didn't like it after realizing how fond of it she was wouldn't been disappointing to her. She's long since known that Tony hates disappointing her, even if it's out of his control.

Caitlin leans over the table and presses her lips to his chastely. "You're kind of amazing, you know that?" He knows that. They both do.