What do stars do best?

“Ow..” Germaine reached up to rub ‘reflexively’ at his arm, feigning a terrible wound. “You punch like a professional boxer.” He ‘complained’, holding the door to the office building open with his ‘good’ hand. 

“Maybe not a rake. Regrettably, those are in short supply around here… but will you settle for walking face first into a closed glass door?”  

“Please, for the love of SHIELD, do not walk through a glass door. For your sake and everyone who has to clean that. And both my parents are sparring nuts so you better watch yourself.” Odette fake punched him 5 times for each of the last words she spoke, yourself getting 2.

She was right. The pain faded away, taking with it the sudden tension that had formed in his temples and forehead. What an ODD sensation. 

“If an Ice Cream headache is the predecessor to other things, I’m happy to allow him to experiment and take readings. I’ll have to remember to get smaller cones, or not to consume the whole thing in 3 bites.” 

He rubbed at his temples, shaking his head softly to clear the last of it out of his system. 

“I’m glad I could amuse you, though”  He humphed playfully. “But the fun is over, I’m afraid. Time to go back to work.” 

Odette playfully punched Germaine in the arm. 

“Jian.. ow.. that really hurts..”  He winced as it slowly faded away, pausing to toss the cone in the trash and take the wet wipe for his hands. “Jian is determined to map out the entire human experience in code. There are updates nearly every night. Some little tweak here or there. It wasn’t his original path of study.. technically?”  

He made quick work of washing his hands and deposited the wipe in the trash bin as well. 

“Biomimicry, but he started on the mechanical side of things. Now - he’s putting ice-cream headaches into if-then statements.” 

“What a cruel cruel mad scientist. I’m going to have to have a talk with this man. No one gives my Uncle Germaine ice cream headaches without my say so.” 

She was far too amused. Pain was what told humans their limits but why program it for something like ice cream? Sure, it made him more human but if he didn’t need it why add thorns to the rose that was something as beautiful as ice cream? 

“I had a friend teach me about color-theory back in the ‘old days’. He was a photographer.. of sorts. That’s why the charts are always so color-coordinated. I wonder what Ray is up to these days.”  

Germaine grunted softly at the quickly developing ice-cream dilemma he had .. literally… on his hands. 

“Do you know.. I don’t know if I can get Ice-cream headache? I suppose now is as good a time to find out as any..” 

That said, Germaine worked double-time on the quickly melting cone, taking large bites until there was nothing but sticky fingers and soggy cone left. And a piercing pain in his temples that spread behind his eyes and screwed his features into a mask of delighted .. obvious.. pain. 

Germaine laughed - two in one day. She was on a roll. 

“Spreadsheet, I’m assuming. With pivot tables and charts? Or do you want to organized the raw data yourself?”  He asked with a smile, before hastily slurping up a drip of ice cream making it’s way down his thumb. 

“You weren’t kidding about messy. Or ‘worth it.’  It makes much more sense now, why Alaskans eat the most Ice Cream per Capita of any other state in the U.S. They have time to enjoy it!”  

Odette laughed loudly, licking her fingers for a piece of rogue chocolate shell. She was almost done with her cone now, used to eating quickly between clean up jobs. 

“I’ve only had these taste buds for a week - I haven’t had much, yet. Would you laugh if I told you the first thing I tried was the cat food? Alacrity was beside himself. And. It tasted terrible.” 

The big black maine-coon, normally a bastion of patience and disinterest had been absolutely traumatized, and terribly concerned about the well-being of his caretaker. 

And the level of his dinner bowl. 

“But the best… I’d have to say, so far? This.” he too was struggling to keep his ice cream from dripping, but he was solving the problem by slurping it off of his skin with a child-like fervor. Probably she’d be just as horrified at that, as Alac had been about his trying the cat food.

“I want a week by week ranking of the best and worst foods you’ve tried every week and I will give you suggestions. But please, stick to people food. You’re only going to be disappointed with animal food after you’ve had this.” 

Odie watched him eat his cone, tilting her head to the side in amusement. 

“Mmmm… I’d only ever experienced the texture before. The crunch of the outer shell has an entirely different .. context… now.”   Germaine hummed with child-like delight as he worked on his own Chocolate dipped Vanilla cone. 

He’d spent so long -wondering- what things tasted like, and why certain things were combined the way they were, because they didn’t seem to make any sense on paper or in practice…  but he was beginning to understand. Just beginning. There was going to be a -lot- of experimentation in his near future. 

“I can see why you like these so much.”  

Their walk had slowed, but was headed back toward the office. He’d kept her far longer than he’d intended, but not as long as he would have liked. It was different when she was little - now that she was all grown up and living a life of her own, they spent a lot less time ‘hanging out’.  

He often spoke with Sterling about how strange it was… and how it hit him sometimes… that she’d grown and was doing things … well. Like dating. He -did- wonder how his old friend would react to the news that he was going to try - He was certain a little bit of pride, at the very least. Maybe even an ‘it’s about time’. If only he could be a fly on the wall for that particular conversation. Sterling’s encouragement still meant a lot to him. Even after all this time. 

“It’s messy, but it’s worth it. And you KNOW I don’t say that lightly.” She laughed. “I keep wet wipes in my bag for a reason.” 

Odette walked along, hand perpetually hovering over her ice cream to catch escaping pieces of chocolate or drips from her cone. she could clean her hands but it would be far more troublesome to have to go back and clean the sidewalk. Then people would really look at her weird. 

Germaine’s ears tinted pink and his smile warmed significantly.

He couldn’t have children of his own - he wasn’t certain he’d make a suitable parent, anyway. But she was as close to his own as it was likely he’d ever get - and if he’d ever doubted he could love, she reminded him that he absolutely could. 

That little wallet-toss and cheek-kiss had done more to ease his doubts about trying his hand at an ..’adult’ .. relationship than any amount of talking they’d done.

“What are we getting today?”  He asked, turning his attention and hopefully hers, instead, to the small selection available - pointedly ignoring the bad joke as if he hadn’t heard it at all. 

shieldlegacysterling​:

Odette giggled like a child as she stepped up and handed the ice cream man her card. 

“And don’t you forget it, with your unlimited storage.” 

“I assure you….” He shuffled back into place beside her. “I won’t.”  His faux annoyance was replaced with a crooked smile. “I’m glad you came by today. I was falling victim to the melancholy again. I needed this. Thank you.”  

“Aw man. Insert joke about you being Germaine Shepherd, not Border Melancholy. Bah dum TSH.” Odette hip bumped him playfully, taking her card back from the ice cream man. “I’m glad I came by today too. I miss my Uncle Germaine sometimes.” 

“I have unlimited storage on the clou..oy!” He exclaimed in mild exasperation as his wallet slipped from his fingers and flew like a lame pigeon to land open, face down on the pavement several feet away. 

He pinched his lips together, shook his head at her and strode after the expensive leather bi-fold. A gift he’d received nearly 20 years ago for one of his first ‘family’ Christmas parties with the Sterlings. It had been through hell and back - and it was starting to look like it, but he was loathe to replace it with another. 

He scooped it up, checked nothing had flown out, and tucked it back in his pocket as he headed back.  “Cheeky.”  

Odette giggled like a child as she stepped up and handed the ice cream man her card. 

Germaine’s smile broadened for a moment. 

“Uncomplicated. Straight-forward. No excess of ingredients. It doesn’t try to be something it’s not and it doesn’t haphazardly mix things together in hopes of a better flavor.” Germaine quoted.

He queued in line, fishing in his back pocket for his wallet out of habit.  “I remember you presented a whole dissertation on the merits of Vanilla in the great ‘Ice Cream War’ of your high school debate club. It was brilliantly written.” 

Germaine pulled a breath in through his nose and let it out slowly, nodding toward the cart ahead of them.  “I’ve seen a lot in the years I’ve been in SHIELD - dating civilians doesn’t have a very high success rate. But..!”  He offered a crooked smile. “… you’re in an entirely different field and things might be different for you.”  

To be honest, that was just another factor in the mountain of things he had to think about. Long hours, unpredictable schedules, and a surprisingly frequent element of very real danger. Then there were the things they couldn’t talk about - whole days or weeks that they either had to lie about or simply plead the 5th about. Dating a civilian could put them at a level of risk that they couldn’t defend themselves against - but dating an Agent meant taking as much as dishing. 

There was a -lot- to think about. For Odette - her job began when theirs ended. After the threat was neutralized, saving the world was over and everything was headed back to whatever form of normal it would be from that point on. He was glad she’d chosen a less inherently dangerous career. 

“Is your favorite flavor still vanilla?”  

“Yeah, I know the odds aren’t great but just because the odds say no, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t say yes! Well, the thing with my job is... crime scene cleanup is a civilian job too. And they probably get the same amount of intel I do for the scene so, it works out I guess. So I technically wouldn’t have to lie about what I do, just who I go it for. I guess. I gotta look at the rulebook again. Or talk to my dad. I’m sure he has it memorized word for word at this point.” 

Odette grinned, enthusiastic about her words, but it softened into a fonder sweeter smile with Germaine’s question. She shouldn’t have been surprised he remembered. He probably had a little mental file on her. Literally. All her favorites and things she said. The faces she makes and what they mean. Her uncle Germaine fascinated her. To think he and her dad didn’t get along once. 

They weren’t on Campus at the moment, so he let the ‘uncle’ slide. Besides. He loved hearing it, and she knew it. 

“How can I say no to a face like that?” He asked taking a left so they could circle back around to where the Ice Cream vendor had set up their little cart. It was a hot afternoon, but the canopy of the trees along the path bathed everything in patches of shade and blocked the view of the buildings around them. It wasn’t an overly wide walking path.. but it felt like stepping through a portal into an entirely different dimension -  if you could ignore the constant car horns and ambulance sirens. 

“..are you seeing anyone right now? Casually?”  He asked, looking to shift the attention away from himself.   

Germaine’s nodded and he absently smoothed the wild mess back into SOME semblance of control. As much as he could ever manage with it, anyway and glanced at his watch. 

He shouldn’t keep her too long. “I don’t know where to start, but I suppose that’s part of the whole process. We should head back. I don’t want to get you in trouble with the boss. Even if I do outrank him.”  

And avoid any further discussion of his personal life. Or his ears might melt off. 

She couldn’t help but smile when Germaine mentioned he outranked her boss. Lookit Shepherd, talking with authority. Big man on campus. She loved it. he was always so timid. She loved seeing him in his element.

Germaine was glad his hands were in his pockets. They’d have been tugging on his tie by now, otherwise. 

“I’ll be honest, Odette. I don’t know what I want or what I’m looking for. I’ve made very good friends - and in large part I’m happy. But I see couples walking together in the park…”   He nodded toward two love-birds leaning against one another, laughing and talking just a few yards ahead of them. “… or sitting in restaurants together and I wonder what it would be like to share that kind of relationship with someone.”  

He was artfully dodging the topic of physical intimacy, but his ears were turning a nice shade of horribly-embarrassed pink. 

“That’s as far as it’s gotten, so far.”  

“There is nothing wrong with taking it slow. Keep it casual. Just be up front, say you’re just interested in something casual and take it slow from there. Maybe not lay out the android thing on the first date though. Get a feel for their personality first and go from there. Some real weirdos out there.” Don’t want anyone to think he was some sort of sex bot and take it to a kinky place too fast. Germaine couldn’t even talk about that stuff, much less do them. “Maybe start with coffee. Move up to lunch. Move up to dinner. Dinner is more romantic. Coffee says ‘hey, this could be a date, this could be two buddies. Lets see where this goes.’ you get it?”