7721/Ice, baby, ice.

Ice, baby, ice.
Date of Scene:	07 September 2021
Location:	Iceberg Lounge
Synopsis:	SCIENCE, BITCHES!
Cast of Characters:	Shuri, Tim Drake

---

Shuri has posed:
It's not that ice is unheard of in Wakanda. There are mountains. If you have (real) mountains, you have ice. It's that ice for entertainment is unheard of. Ice is just not a huge part of the culture. So while Shuri was working in her lab on an AI that would recommend entertainments, when it popped up a suggestion of The Iceberg Lounge, she took a short look over the pictures and reviews and...

"We're going out."

The Dora Milaje bodyguards lounging in her lab look up. "Where, Your Highness."

"This nightclub."

The pair look at each other meaningfully. Look at the pictures. Look at Shuri's stubborn face. Sigh.

"Very well, Your Highness. We are naturally coming along. The car will be made ready."

Thus it is that Shuri finds herself striding up the steps regally, brushing past the bouncer at the door without giving it a second thought (with such entitled panache that the bouncer doesn't register what happened until all three of the guests were past him and deep in the entrance hall) and bursting into the hall as if she owned it.

And then desperately trying to keep on her feet as the unexpected slipperiness of the ice took her by surprise.

Tim Drake has posed:
    How the Iceberg Lounge remains in business despite Cobblepot's repeated breaking of the law (and subsequent stays in Arkham) is something of a local mystery. It's probably some combination of shell companies passing around ownership of the building and having more than a few dirty cops on the payroll, but given that the Penguin doesn't mix business with... less legal business, somehow it has remained low on the priority list.

    After all, the profit margins for restaurants and clubs aren't significant enough for it to be any real source of funding for his criminal empire. And if managing the club distracts Cobblepot even the slightest bit from planning his next crime spree, then it's probably worth letting it stay open.

    Which isn't to say the Bat-clan as a whole turn a blind eye to the place. Usually the spying is done in their usual clandestine way, though sometimes an opportunity presents itself that is too good to pass up.

    Hence why the most boring of Gotham's supposed eligible bachelors (so say the paparazzi, at least) is in the crowd tonight, at the edges of a group of students from Gotham University. These are the children of the city's upper crust; at least the ones who are either plainly not smart enough, or have parents who are alumni themselves. So most of them have at least enough social awareness to recognize the new arrival to the Lounge for who she is.

    "No way, is that the princess of Wakanda?"

    "What's she doing in Gotham?"

    "James, didn't you say your parents have a summer home in Wakanda?"

    "Uhh... yeah...."

    Tim slips away to the bar while the group is distracted, though rather than seating himself on one of the stools (thankfully not made of ice) he just hovers beside one, semi-awkwardly, in his puffy coat. At first it was nice to get out of the summer heat but now he's cold and miserable, and the bartender just stares at him when he tries to order hot coffee.

    His eyebrows draw together. "Well, it was worth a try," he says, and then begrudgingly requests an iced coffee instead. Caffeine is caffeine. He subtly angles himself towards the entrance, though he's not making it anywhere near as obvious that he's keeping an eye on Shrui and her escorts. And his interest is professional only.

Shuri has posed:
OK, that wasn't the entrance she wanted, windmilling and letting out an involuntary squawk. At least she managed to keep on her feet.

Her bodyguards, of course, do not laugh. It doesn't change the fact that a) they are intensely amused, and b) they are making that amusement clear both in their nearly-but-not-quite deadpan expressions, and, naturally, over comms.

~Be careful, Princess. It seems a bit slippy.~

~Would it be acceptable, Highness, if we carried you ... for your own safety.~

Neither of them flinches even slightly when Shuri darts a furious glance at them.

~I will be fine. I'm unused to ice.~

Then, oozing wounded pride like a cat that fell off of a bannister after misjudging a jump, Shuri steps into the room with more poise. More grace. And little miniature spikes in the bottoms of her shoes--suddenly appearing where they weren't before--digging into the floor.

Tim, on approaching, has an ice pillar briefly occlude his view of the pair.

Wait. Pair?

One of the bodyguards is missing from the... Oh. She's standing next to Tim and scowling at him, arms crossed.

Tim Drake has posed:
    If Tim were anyone else, he'd probably jump at least a little bit. But he has a mentor who does this sort of thing on the regular, so all he does is turn his head, blink owlishly at the Dora Milaje at his side, and then tip his head slightly.

    "Ma'am."

    Unlike the group he arrived with, Tim has actual manners. Not fake, pretend-we're-nice-while-looking-down-our-nose-at-everyone manners. The bartender sets a glass (made of ice) down on the bar (...also made of ice) and Tim says thank you, even as he eyes his drink with trepidation.

    Then he pulls a pair of gloves from one of his pockets and puts them on so he can pick up the thing.

    The nose-wrinkling sniff he gives after his first sip seems to suggest that Tim is not finding the coffee to his tastes. But then again, he has expensive preferences. At least in that regard, he shares some similarities with the other Gotham U students out on the dancefloor.

    Again, though, caffeine is caffein. So he takes another drink from his cup before he looks towards Shuri again. He opens his mouth as if to say something, then seems to reconsider it, eyes narrowed at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

    Eventually, he settles on, "I hope you find Gotham to your liking, your Highness."

    And then, upon sensing that some sort of contact has been made with the current recipient of their attention, a few of the group he's abandoned come away from the dance floor with careful steps. Tim sighs heavily enough into his cup that it ripples the surface of his coffee.

    "Wayne! I didn't know you were friends with African royalty," a tall, dark-haired man says. He looks like he probably plays some kind of sports, but given that he also exudes the whole spoiled rich guy vibe, it's no doubt something like... water polo.

    Tim drinks more of his coffee.

    "It makes sense," says the blonde woman on water polo guy's arm. "He's Gotham royalty now too, after all."

    Tim stirs around the paper straw in his drink.

    Water-polo guy nudges Tim with his elbow. "Aren't you going to introduce us?"

    Tim lifts his gaze to level it at Shuri. "Sorry, I have no idea who these two are," he tells her, expression flat except for the vague amusement shining in his eyes.

Shuri has posed:
Shuri looks at Tim curiously as Ayo did her disappearing/reappearing trick, noting his lack of startlement. About to ask Tim what he wanted, dourly if her face was anything to go by, the appearance of the other socialites, the dynamic of embarrassment they were trying to shove on him, the mention of the name Wayne causing the Kimoyo bead connected to the embassy AI to start droning information in her ear (a sharp observer will catch her flicking her eyes up and to the right as if listening to someone briefly), and finally Tim's sadistic response to the teasing completely changes her demeanour.

Shuri smiles. And smiles in a way that makes her light up like a Kardashian being doused in diamonds or a pinball machine scoring that million point shot.

"Tim! Tim Drake! Why it's been ... forever! How are you?"

Shuri, to her bodyguards' surprised consternation, steps up and takes Tim by the arm, briefly kissing him on the cheek. "Don't worry about it," she says in reference to the pair, dismissively waving their way without even looking at them. "We have social climbers polishing their ladders in Wakanda too. Just ignore them and they'll go away."

Ayo and Okoye position themselves in ways that make it clear that smart people will choose to go away. Now.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Until Tim decided to look up at Shuri again, the way he's kept his attention diverted threads the needle between the purposeful power move of ignoring someone and social awkwardness. Neither of them are the truth but neither of them are entirely false. They've spent the evening so far treating Tim like a fancy accessory to show off rather than an actual person, which suits Tim's ulterior purpose for being here just fine.

    Still, it kind of sucks.

    "What the hell," says the guy at Tim's side, and he's got a few inches on him, so he starts up a very stereotypical sort of loom. He was definitely a bully in grade school.

    Tim pays him little heed. It's Shuri that has his attention, and he catches the quick averting of her eyes. it's a familiar gesture, since he's used to having more than a few voices in his ear. And then, quick on the uptake, Tim's leaning in so that it's easier for Shuri to kiss him on the cheek. "Princess," he greets warmly, touching her arm in reciprocation without so much as a flinch in either of the Dora Milaje's directions, even though he is certainly well-aware (and respectful) of their capabilities.

    He's just playing along.

    "I'm good. Wrapping up summer classes. How've you been?"

    It's only then that he deigns to glance towards the pair of Gotham socialite offspring at his elbow, and he raises his eyebrows in faint surprise, as if finally noticing them. Just as swiftly, though, he looks away. "Some things are universal," he comments, then adds, "Can I buy you a drink? Maybe not the coffee." His nose wrinkles again.

    Though it seems like water polo guy is about to get in Tim's face, judging by his huffing and puffing, his date digs her manicured nails into his arm as she looks nervously between Ayo and Okoye, and then whispers something sharply into his ear before she starts to pull him away. She tries to aim a haughty look back towards Tim and Shuri, but with her pride wounded as it is, it doesn't quite land.

    When the two merge back into the group waiting on the dance floor, more than one person erupts into laughter. Water polo guy glares at the back of Tim's head.

    "You didn't have to do that," Tim says, hiding his mouth (and a twitchy smile) behind his glass.

Shuri has posed:
"No, I didn't," Shuri says as the pair get humiliated, put in their place (or dragged in one case) and laughed at. Her eyes are watching with undisguised glee. "But I wanted to. I hate that kind."

She turns back to Tim, then, paying him undivided attenion (aside from the occasional glance to the upper right, though she's obviously practiced: it's quick and subtle).

"So let's get the introductions out of the way. I'm Princess Shuri of Wakanda, but you already knew that. And to expedite things and make them more efficient, let me deal with your side as well. You're Tim Wayne nee Drake, the latest ward of Bruce Wayne and the closest thing the USA has to a crown prince. Am I close?"

There's an air of amused smugness around her without anything that you can quite point at coming to the forefront.

"If you'd like I can recite the litany of your favourite foods and drinks, as well as the last fifteen girls the press has mistakenly linked you with."

She pauses, frowning. "I presume they will assume I'm number 16. That will be entertaining to explain to my brother."

There's that smug look again.

"And yes, you can buy me a drink. Surprise me with something representative of the local culture."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's own amusement is muted, but certainly there. At the very least it'll be a good story to tell, and maybe keep the next few party invitations from landing in his inbox. Besides, it's the little things in life that make it worth living.

    He leans lightly against the bar's edge, even though he can immediately feel the slight chill of the ice through the fabric of his coat and whatever else he's wearing beneath. It's mostly an excuse to set his drink down, because his fingers have gone numb.

    The whole ice shtick really isn't for him. Tim peels off his gloves so he can rub his hands together, skin against skin for some proper heat-creating friction.

    Throughout Shuri's introduction of herself to him and then himself to her without any of Tim's input of his own, he's silent. The crown prince part has his mouth twisting in what is probably discomfort, though he blinks it away rapidly, and even gives a nod at the end.

    "I'm guessing those fifteen only include the ones I've actually met. Two weeks ago it was a model from Metropolis that I've supposedly had a whirlwind romance with since we met at fashion week, even though I was here in Gotham attending class the whole time."

    At Shuri's premonition regarding the appearance they're no doubt about to make across the gossip blogs, Tim has the good sense to wince. "Sorry," he says, and he sweeps a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. "Gotham paparazzi are practically a street gang."

    He turns away, towards the bar and the bartender, who is lingering nearby. Tim bites the inside of his cheek, brow furrowing with consideration, and he opens his mouth--

    The bartender says, "I know you're not 21 yet."

    Tim huffs out a breath. "I wasn't going to--just, can you make the Sailors Warning with sparkling water?"

    After a second, the bartender nods, and sets to work.

Shuri has posed:
"What is this 21 nonsense?" Shuri blurts out before her eyes do that flick again. "Oh."

She purses her lips a moment, frowning in annoyance. A sly look crosses her face.

"I, too, am under your age for drinking," she says imperiously, "but my companions..." Ayo and Okoye get indicated. "...are not. Mr. Wayne, please order for them as well. Alcoholic beverages. One that is the kind you would enjoy were you permitted to, and the other that is representative of the local culture. You and I will drink non-alcoholic beverages."

"But Princess, we d..."

Shuri holds up her hand and cuts off Ayo mid-word. "I have spoken."

Her eyes lock onto Tim's with an amused glint, seemingly trying to project a thought or an idea.

Of course it's pretty obvious what she's doing. Tim's a bright guy...

Tim Drake has posed:
    The bartender, who is engaged in some sort of business with some citrus fruit, pauses. His head lifts, a narrow-eyed look already in place, which he begins to aim Shuri's way. Until he also catches sight of Ayo and Okoye, and then very quickly his attention shifts to Tim.

    "What would your friends like to drink, Mr. Wayne?"

    Tim's mouth opens and then snaps back shut. There's a sharp, speculative glint to the way he glances at Shuri in his peripheral vision, and then he purses his lips. "Well, one more Sailors Warning with sparkling vodka, and then..."

    His hands steeple in front of his face for a moment, letting his breath warm them as he thinks. "A Tom Collins with extra cherries," is what he decides on. And then, for propriety's sake, Tim tips his head towards the Dora Milaje. "If those are alright with both of you," he adds.

    At the very least, the bartender isn't going to argue. It doesn't quite look like he's bought into the ruse, but he has a multitude of reasons for pretending he does, and he starts mixing drinks straight away.

    Tim turns away from the bar to look up, towards the balcony overlooking the Lounge. It's usually where the Penguin himself comes to roost, but he's currently still locked up in Arkham, and right now it's set up as VIP seating. There are, at least, significantly less gossipy college students up there. Though no doubt plenty of Gotham's elite, who are absolutely full grown-up adults and thus have no excuse for why they, too, are gossipy.

    "I can go get us a table?" Tim suggests.

Shuri has posed:
"That sounds perfect. I'll join you. Ayo and Okoye can bring the drinks when they're ready."

This causes a slight amount of bristling with the bodyguards, and a quick glance between them. Ayo nods and Okoye turns toward Shuri.

"Ayo will bring the drinks. I will escort you, Your Highness."

The voice is level. Deadpan. Tightly controlled. With only a hint of the irritation that seems to be underlying it.

Shuri takes Tim's arm again. "So tell me, Mr. Wayne ... oh, sorry. For appearances. Tim. Tell me, Tim, what are you studying?"

Still playing the old friend in body language and facial expressions, making sure the crowd that Tim had been having problems with got the message stomped deeply into their psyches.

"Also, what's a Sailor's Warning?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    This is not an argument Tim's going to get in the middle of, but he is perfectly content to stand back and wait for it to be resolved. "Open a tab for me, please," and he slides a credit card across the bar, to which the bartender nods.

    And then Shuri has his arm, and Tim smiles at her. "Sure." His steps are measured as they circle around the dance floor, headed to the staircase with another bouncer standing guard. "Oh, mechanical engineering and computational mathematics," he says, in the sort of way that suggests he gets asked a lot and ends up repeating the same thing a lot. Mostly because everyone always expects him to say business management, or something. "How about you? Any plans for school?"

    When they approach, the bouncer doesn't say anything. He acknowledges them with a quick nod and an even quicker unhooking of the velvet rope blocking the staircase off, which he steps aside to allow them to ascend.

    "The drink or its namesake?" Tim asks. "It's--kind of a terrible joke, really. The only luck you get in Gotham is bad luck."

    He grips the (unfortunately, ice) handrail as they climb the stairs, but there is at least a carpeted runner for traction. Not that Shuri needs it with her modified shoes, though Tim isn't quite as stable.

    "Sorry, the drink is good, though, from what I've heard. It has blood orange and berries in it."

Shuri has posed:
"That sounds like an interesting mix of flavours. I look forward to trying it."

Once out of sight of the social leeches, Shuri's play-acting drops like a bee concussed by a cast iron pan. Still courteous, friendly even, she's definitely wearing her royalty garb now.

"I am long past my schooling," she says. "One of the advantages of being royalty is we get the best tutors teaching us at a rate customized to our specific learning strengths and weaknesses." Left unsaid, at least in words (demeanour has it shining through loud and proud), is the part where she says her learning rates and strengths are unparalleled and weaknesses nonexistent. "My speciality is technology." Yes. Technology. She doesn't narrow it down. Wakandan technology is so primitive, apparently, that she can study just that as a subject. "I am accounted quite good at it."

For a princess.

"I have what you might call a minor," she adds. "In science."

Sigh. Better just play along.

"This is one of mine."

She points to one of the many beads on her left arm. "I'm still tinkering with it, but I'm mostly satisfied with it now. The rest is refinement."

The train wreck of a conversation is rescued by Ayo's (annoyed) arrival with a tray containing four drinks: two alcoholic, set down in front of Tim and Shuri respectively, and two non, held by the bodyguards.

"I'm also very good at making people do things my way," she adds with a wide, self-efacing grin. "Enjoy your 'Tom Collins' Tim."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's own play-acting is a little more set in stone, since he spends far too much time around the sort of people who make it necessary. Even up here, he can feel the weight of at least one pair of eyes belonging to some mutal acquantaince of his, no doubt through Bruce.

    They don't seem as likely to try to insert themselves into a conversation, though, so Tim escorts Shuri and Okoye to a table and even pulls out a chair for the Princess... then he has a momentary pause of indecision as he looks from Okoye to one of the other chairs. "Sorry," he says. "The only time I have a bodyguard is at press conferences, and they're not really there for me."

    He shuffles himself awkwardly into his own seat, and then looks over at Shuri. Whatever he thinks of her explanation regarding her schooling doesn't show on Tim's face. He's well-practiced as remaining perfectly pleasant. "Do you have any particular field you find most interesting?"

    When Ayo arrives with the drinks, Tim bites the inside of his cheek. "Thank you," he tells her, and then his shoulders bunch up slightly. He pulls the glass towards himself. Then he gestures to Shuri's drink, which has a layer of blood-red syrup floating atop a good amount bubbly, faintly blue-tinged sparkling vodka. "I think you're supposed to stir it."

    If-slash-when she does, the blood orange syrup swirls down into the vodka, turning it red.

    "Red sky at night, Sailors delight. Red sky at morning, Sailors warning," Tim repeats the old adage, before he takes a sip of his own drink. "Morbid, but we like our dark humor in Gotham."

Shuri has posed:
"Oh, I see!" She doesn't see. "That's very ... clever." She doesn't think it's clever. Good as she is at interactions, she's terrible at hiding from Tim's trained behavioural eye. Dubiously, now, she eyes the drink and elevates it to her lips, tasting it briefly...

...before breaking into a wide smile. "And it's absolutely delicious!" she enthuses. This is honesty.

For their parts the bodyguards wait discreetly, standing, facing away from the table, and surveying the people in the club. Message delivered: don't touch, don't die.

~I'd have preferred the alcohol,~ one mutters...it's unclear which...to the other.

"I'm most interested, I think, in computer engineering and science. I also find biology quite fascinating. It is amazing how many ways the natural world has solved millions of years ago problems that have plagued us. There is a lot of wisdom to be found in nature if we know where to look."

Ah. One of those 'mother nature' freaks.

She taps the bead that was 'one of hers' that she'd indicated earlier and almost instantly a three-dimensional display is projected over the table. Tapping the display--it turns out to be hard light--she pulls up something that starts to fill in part of the display with what looks like ... viscera? All the while, next to it, text streams constantly.

"This is you," she says, pointing to the visceral part of the display. "There's your heart. Your lungs. Your spleen. Your liver..."

Here she pauses and zooms in.

"And this is what I wanted to show. The liver is an amazing piece of filtration that we, to match, need bulky machinery ten times its size to get one tenth its function." She zooms in closer until traffic inside of veins capillaries is shown. "So if I design a new filter mechanism, obviously I'm going to aim for filters from nature, right?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    "It's an old sailor superstition. There's some truth to it if you look hard enough, which I think can be said for a lot of things we dismiss as folk tales." Tim slides the maraschino cherries off the cocktail pick and into his drink. "Red skies in the morning can, under certain meteorological circumstances, indicate that the sunlight is being filtered through storm clouds. Though it's really only accurate if the wind is traveling west to east."

    While he speaks, Tim pokes at the cherries bobbing in his drink distractedly with his straw. At least Shuri seems to enjoy hers, and that prompts him to take another drink.

    The brief wrinkle of his nose suggests he's not much of a drinker, but he takes another sip pretty much immediately.

    He doesn't interrupt when the topic shifts to biology, but he does nod his head slowly to indicate he's following along.

    And then the expanse of the table in-between their drinks is filled with a holographic display that, upon Shuri's poking, Tim reveals is in fact not holographic at all. His eyes narrow as he takes in the view of what turns out to be his own internal organs.

    Which are healthier than he expects them all to be, given the amount of blunt force trauma he's put them through.

    His curiosity piqued, Tim leans forward as he studies the display. "Some sort of means to replicate bile production?" he asks. "Given how many different substances the liver filters out, if you could discover a compound that can basically be customized on the fly to target whatever toxins you want in the same way, it would be revolutionary."

    Tim's shifted, nearly managing to pull his legs up into his seat before he remembers where he is, and forces both his feet flat to the ground again. "The applications would be endless, I mean, purifying contaminated water is the obvious one, but...."

Shuri has posed:
"You've got the right idea," Shuri says, after a moment's pause to assess the sudden change the conversation has taken. "Fluid filtration of all kinds: water, fuel. That's all in the cards. But think bigger. MUCH bigger. Think solar system."

The display flares as Shuri starts tapping again, diagram after chart after blueprint after diagram flashing up and disappearing as her deft fingers manipulate it. Finally she has it: Tim's liver superimposed over a representation of the Solar System.

"This is my pet project. I mean obviously I'm nowhere near complete on it. Barely even started. But I'm getting results in simulations that are promising."

A network of satellites, each first being depicted with labels that rapidly appear and disappearb before the picture falls into a dot on the display, starts to shape up with nodes that have an eerie similarity to Tim's still-functioning liver.

"The solar wind. It has a lot of things we can use, energy for starters, but also a lot of rarer things like deuterium or tritium. In much higher relative concentration than here on Earth. And quite a few things that are harmful to our planet as well. Picture an array of satellites firing finely-tuned and tuneable lasers 'filtering' the sun's output and redirecting 'toxins' away while selecting for 'nutrients' to be properly delivered."

She leans back in her seat, arms crossed, mouth opened in a wide, proud grin.

"Easy nuclear fusion, protection from CMEs, almost for free in actual operation."

Tim Drake has posed:
    As the display switches rapidly between different views, Tim doesn't blink. His hands are still cupped around his drink, fingertips gone red with the cold, like he's entirely forgotten about it.

    The way his whole expression has honed in on the projection of the solar system is enough to suggest he has at least some small measure of understanding in regards to what Shuri is proposing.

    "Of course. One of the chief drawbacks of terrestrial-based solar farms is that they're beholden to things like the day-night cycle and weather patterns. There's plenty of technology in the works for large-scale energy transmission," he muses. "Though the last I heard the projections top out at something like two gigawatts. But there's always room for improvement."

    Tim's fingers pry themselves off of his glass and he flexes them, before he sits back and folds his arms together, tucking his hands against his sides.

    He goes quiet, descending into a thoughtful silence as he lets his hands warm, blood trickle back into his fingertips. They sting, but it doesn't show on his face.

    Then he leans forward again. "So, how would you account for the size of a potential CME? Most solar prominences average out around a hundred thousand kilometers or so, don't they? And that's just the plasma release."

    One of his hands reappears long enough for him to pull his drink closer and polish it off in a few swallows, mostly so that he doesn't have to keep touching it. And then he perks back up. "I've looked into some research with ENZ metamaterials that can be used to redirect electromagnetic waves. Right now it's only been tested in laboratory conditions, but if we explored their behavior in canonical geometries...."

Shuri has posed:
If there was one thing that Shuri wasn't expecting from investigating a trendy, silly-themed nightclub it was...

...TRUE LOVE...

...for SCIENCE! with a capital "BITCHES!"

Where most people go to clubs to drink, dance, and be seen, Tim and Shuri spend the evening bonding over an electronic display, then another, then a heads-up display, then a credit card-sized ... well ... card that projected an even larger display as with animation and slow, thoughtful consideration, Shuri and Tim work through her little long-term project.

The papers were going to have a field day with this!