Harry and Dana, Backdated to June 19th
Jun. 19th, 2015 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
om_starbuck posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
om_mainDana visits Oscorp with Harry, and may end up with a little more than she'd bargained for.
The general feeling around Oscorp was still a little subdued, but for the most part, no one there knew just how close they'd truly come to showing their asses. Just the board, and they steered clear of Harry since his most recent dictates (24 hour 'no comment' policy, and the subsequent ones about potentially stolen technology being used in that Times Square body armor fiasco--he planned to send out one confirming it next week) getting the Norman Seal of Approval. Fine with Harry.
After getting Dana a tour of some of the biotech divisions that had interested her, plus a few one-on-one moments with scientists focusing on immune system bolstering and a few other key areas for her, Harry led her to the glass elevator and held the door. "So, what do you think? Want to hang out and use some fancy equipment, sometime?"
No matter how much Dana suspected that there was more to this whole thing, both the company and Harry's generosity, than met the eye, she found herself nodding. She was even smiling, dimples showing because of her excitement. "Absolutely."
And wasn't that just adorable--not that Harry would use that word out loud to describe her, as he was pretty sure it'd make her stop smiling immediately. But he didn't mean it in an infantilizing way at all. Dana was capable, smart, and adorable all at once; entirely possible. "I'm glad to hear it." They stepped into the elevator and he told the lady on the screen, "Lobby." She said "Thank you, Mr. Osborn", and they were going down.
He turned back to Dana. "I meant what I said; when this is mine, I want it to be a responsible center for mutant research. Not that I plan on dropping anything else, but there's always room for expansion."
"Mmm." There he was again, offering her plausible reasons for his interest and his willingness to support what she was looking into. They were likely even true - responsible, mutant-focused research was absolutely needed - but something about how this whole thing had come about made her suspect Harry wasn't only interested for philosophical or philanthropic reasons. "Well, I appreciate your generosity."
"I don't know if I'd call it that, but you're welcome to it anyhow." Harry's smile shifted into a smirk. "Hungry?"
She quirked an eyebrow. "Why, are you offering to buy?"
"I am," Harry assured her. "And this is not part of the recruitment plan, for the record. I know we're not exactly friends, but, I don't know. We could be."
"Mmm." He was right. That they weren't owed more to both of their natural inclinations for distrust and privacy, so far as Dana could tell, than it did to any actual inability to get along. "I bet you say that to all the teenaged scientists."
"I do," Harry admitted with a chuckle. "But I only mean it with one or two of them. Including you. If it helps."
The elevator door slid open, revealing the slick, light-filled Oscorp lobby.
She smirked, just a touch. "Helps a little. So what's for dinner?"
"What do you like?" He led her through the lobby, nodding at people as they went, but not showing too much interest in anything but Dana. "Thai? Or--there's a great Italian place down the street from me, I could have them deliver."
They'd already discussed her unwillingness to be a tabloid Osborn arm-candy show, after all.
The ease with which Harry moved through Oscorp and the subtle interactions therein was not lost on Dana as they made their way across the lobby. "Hmmm. It's been awhile since I really had good Thai," she mused. "Unless it's terrible, in which case warn me now."
"You're in luck." They moved through the turnstiles and towards the front doors now. "I never do anything terrible."
"See, now that I sincerely doubt," Dana told him, her eyes teasing.
"Only one way to find out." He smirked.
* * *
The dining space was too impersonal--good for parties, but not so much for two people--so once they had their food, Harry set them up at the breakfast bar in the kitchen of his apartment. As he retrieved cartons of curry and noodles from the bag, he asked, "Drink? There's wine--Pinot Gris is good with the green curry, weirdly enough, and I've got a couple good bottles. Or cocktails, if you want to start there, then get to the food. Or Coke, juice, whatever."
Oscorp had been mind-blowing in the way that only a state of the art corporation could be, but Harry's apartment was equally awe-inspiring, if for entirely different reasons. She tried not to let her slight feeling of being out of place show, however. Right, what to drink? She had never really drank alcohol, before. It was illegal. She didn't plan on publicly running around and breaking laws any time soon.
On the other hand, they weren't in public now. She didn't want to stick out for her lack of knowledge - that would only give him the upper hand. Besides, behind the cold reason she usually relied on, there was just a curl of curiosity. "Whatever you're having is fine," Dana told him.
Harry ducked to retrieve the Pinot Gris from the wine fridge beneath the kitchen island, then started working on the cork. "Don't have to wait for me--dig in. What do you normally do on your weekends, when you're not being seduced by science?"
She opened her container of curry and rice, and began to mix them together. "Homework?" She smirked. "More science. What do you do when you aren't stunning the paparazzi or talking classmates into working at Oscorp?"
"Read the Wall Street Journal, manage my portfolio, go out and people watch, avoid my father--the usual poor little rich boy things. Lately, I've been doing the finishing touches on the place. Alice did most of what's already here." He waved around the open apartment with one hand, pouring with the other.
"She did a very good job," Dana admitted, looking around again.
"You approve," he said with a little smile. It was hard to tell; sometimes his taste was over-the-top enough that people were turned off. Sometimes not.
Dana quirked an eyebrow and, rather than answer, took a prim bite of curry. "I'm guessing your father being busy makes it easier to avoid him," she theorized instead.
"Oh, he excels in making himself easy to avoid," Harry said flippantly, bringing her a glass of wine and holding one for himself. "We've been practicing for sixteen years."
She was no psychologist, and certainly could claim no real expertise that would allow her to psychoanalyze him, but Dana still suspected that Harry and his father's estranged relationship could explain a fair bit about him. Daddy issues. She could almost relate, though she loved her father a great deal and his absence had to due with duty rather than apathy. "Something I guess they teach in fathering class," Dana finally offered, voice somewhat sympathetic.
She took a sip of the wine Harry had brought over, and let it roll over her tongue. She wasn't a connoisseur or anything, but she liked it.
Harry gave her a measuring look out of the corner of his eye before returning his attention to the food. Interesting. "Seems likely, doesn't it?
"But in my case, at least, it's a good thing. I get to have all this." He waved one hand vaguely behind him at the apartment. "Instead of having to deal with 'my house, my rules', like normal kids--whatever that is. So I'll take it."
"So it was never 'my house my rules'?" Dana couldn't imagine that level of freedom. Between her siblings and her mother, nothing had ever gone unnoticed.
"I don't remember, if it was." Harry actually considered it as he gathered up some green curried chicken. "I was sent for boarding at six, so..."
Dana raised an eyebrow. Really? "They have boarding schools for six year-olds?"
"First grade and up," Harry confirmed easily, after swallowing his bite. "For when you really don't want to bother with child-rearing."
The wealthy really did live in an entirely different world. "Makes you wonder why you'd bother to have kids, if that was your game plan." Dana took another bite of curry.
The game plan had not been for Harry's mother to die--thanks to him, technically, though he'd stopped blaming himself for that when he was all of ten years old. But all he did was smirk, raise his glass, and say, "Well, someone's got to inherit the fortune, and for some reason people think it makes them immortal if a little piece of their genetic material is involved."
"Evolutionary programming is a bitch like that," Dana replied dryly, but she raised her glass of wine in response.
He knocked back a good-sized drink before digging back into the curry. "What about you? Where's your family?" Yes, let's just get off the topic of the Osborns now, thanks...
Dana took a sip, and then set down her glass so she could do some more damage to her own dinner. "Right now? They're in San Diego." Well, most of them. Her father was out at sea, somewhere.
West coast girl. Interesting. "What do your parents do?"
"My dad's a captain in the Navy," Dana said, shrugging. It wasn't really a secret, after all. "My mom stayed at home with us."
"Ahhh, I see," Harry said. He didn't entirely--part of the 'dad' discussion made sense now, but he couldn't imagine the life of a military brat, apart from what he'd heard. Still, partially, that made sense. "Siblings, then. For a while I thought I wanted some."
The corner of Dana's lips tipped up and she took another sip of her wine. "Changed your mind?"
"Oh, yes," Harry said with a wry little smile. "I realized I'm not good at sharing."
"Maybe if you'd had siblings, you'd have learned the art of it," Dana suggested. She took another few bites of her curry. It was well-made, and the slow-heat was starting to make her fair skin flush a bit.
And he was noticing. He smiled--well, maybe it was a little bit of a smirk. It made her more adorable, though he doubted she'd like that word applied to her. Still, enough that he felt like testing the waters a little. "That presumes that I want to. Though, I'm exaggerating--there are a few things I'm very good at sharing."
That made her quirk an eyebrow, even as she gave him the slightest bit of a smirk in response. "What things might those be?"
"My wine." Harry chuckled quietly and took a drink. "My apartment. Peter has a room--it's the one back there. My girlfriend--she's a sharer too.
"I have also been told I can be something of a giver." Okay, now he was just being a shit. Maybe he wanted to see if she'd flush from more than just curry, though.
Dana cursed internally as she felt her skin flush even brighter. Whether it was at the sudden realization of what he meant about his girlfriend or his last line about giving was impossible to say. She should be taking everything she was saying as yet another warning sign that Harry Osborn was something of a danger, but instead all she managed to feel was curiosity and even interest. "I hesitate to even ask what you usually give out," she managed to retort.
"Or put out," he corrected with a chuckle. God, she really was blushing harder and it was so sweet. But he didn't want to make her feel cornered, either--she was in his apartment, he was feeding her dinner, he didn't want her thinking he had any expectations. "You're blushing--I'm sorry if I'm embarrassing you. I tend to just say things. If you want me to stop, say the word. Or if you want me to keep flirting shamelessly, delay the word until you've had enough of it."
"I want you to be yourself," Dana said, not sure if that sensation in her stomach was nerves or excitement. "I'm in your house, after all."
"I'm aware that myself is a little much for some," Harry admitted, still smiling. "I won't take it badly if that's the case with you.
"But if you insist, then I mean to keep flirting shamelessly. What can I say, I have a thing for the smart ones."
Dana blushed, but raised her eyebrows as though daring him to continue. "The smart ones, huh?"
"It's a pattern." Harry cocked an eyebrow. "This excellent taste of mine.
"What about you? How does your taste run?"
At the moment, Dana would have to say her taste went to people who were, objectively, a very bad idea. Rather than say that, though, she just smirked at him.
"Gonna make me work for it?" he asked, obviously having a wonderful time, now.
"Why should this be any different than anything else?" Her voice was teasing, and internally Dana was a bit thrilled with her daring. She could feel her nerves in her stomach, but this was fun, and she was desired (if only temporarily, maybe), and she could ignore the nervousness for those other things.
Harry sipped at his wine, then licked his smirking lips. "Have you seen the view, yet?"
Dana cocked an eyebrow at his little display, but her own smirk didn't leave her face. "I don't believe I have."
He took another bite of his curry, then pushed it aside. "Grab your wine and come with me--if you're ready?"
She took another sip of her own wine, and then slid off her seat to follow him. "I'm always ready." She gave him a meaningful look. "For a good view."
Harry nodded towards the balcony, where it was just coming up on sundown. He grabbed the bottle with one hand and his glass with the other, and led the way.
The general feeling around Oscorp was still a little subdued, but for the most part, no one there knew just how close they'd truly come to showing their asses. Just the board, and they steered clear of Harry since his most recent dictates (24 hour 'no comment' policy, and the subsequent ones about potentially stolen technology being used in that Times Square body armor fiasco--he planned to send out one confirming it next week) getting the Norman Seal of Approval. Fine with Harry.
After getting Dana a tour of some of the biotech divisions that had interested her, plus a few one-on-one moments with scientists focusing on immune system bolstering and a few other key areas for her, Harry led her to the glass elevator and held the door. "So, what do you think? Want to hang out and use some fancy equipment, sometime?"
No matter how much Dana suspected that there was more to this whole thing, both the company and Harry's generosity, than met the eye, she found herself nodding. She was even smiling, dimples showing because of her excitement. "Absolutely."
And wasn't that just adorable--not that Harry would use that word out loud to describe her, as he was pretty sure it'd make her stop smiling immediately. But he didn't mean it in an infantilizing way at all. Dana was capable, smart, and adorable all at once; entirely possible. "I'm glad to hear it." They stepped into the elevator and he told the lady on the screen, "Lobby." She said "Thank you, Mr. Osborn", and they were going down.
He turned back to Dana. "I meant what I said; when this is mine, I want it to be a responsible center for mutant research. Not that I plan on dropping anything else, but there's always room for expansion."
"Mmm." There he was again, offering her plausible reasons for his interest and his willingness to support what she was looking into. They were likely even true - responsible, mutant-focused research was absolutely needed - but something about how this whole thing had come about made her suspect Harry wasn't only interested for philosophical or philanthropic reasons. "Well, I appreciate your generosity."
"I don't know if I'd call it that, but you're welcome to it anyhow." Harry's smile shifted into a smirk. "Hungry?"
She quirked an eyebrow. "Why, are you offering to buy?"
"I am," Harry assured her. "And this is not part of the recruitment plan, for the record. I know we're not exactly friends, but, I don't know. We could be."
"Mmm." He was right. That they weren't owed more to both of their natural inclinations for distrust and privacy, so far as Dana could tell, than it did to any actual inability to get along. "I bet you say that to all the teenaged scientists."
"I do," Harry admitted with a chuckle. "But I only mean it with one or two of them. Including you. If it helps."
The elevator door slid open, revealing the slick, light-filled Oscorp lobby.
She smirked, just a touch. "Helps a little. So what's for dinner?"
"What do you like?" He led her through the lobby, nodding at people as they went, but not showing too much interest in anything but Dana. "Thai? Or--there's a great Italian place down the street from me, I could have them deliver."
They'd already discussed her unwillingness to be a tabloid Osborn arm-candy show, after all.
The ease with which Harry moved through Oscorp and the subtle interactions therein was not lost on Dana as they made their way across the lobby. "Hmmm. It's been awhile since I really had good Thai," she mused. "Unless it's terrible, in which case warn me now."
"You're in luck." They moved through the turnstiles and towards the front doors now. "I never do anything terrible."
"See, now that I sincerely doubt," Dana told him, her eyes teasing.
"Only one way to find out." He smirked.
* * *
The dining space was too impersonal--good for parties, but not so much for two people--so once they had their food, Harry set them up at the breakfast bar in the kitchen of his apartment. As he retrieved cartons of curry and noodles from the bag, he asked, "Drink? There's wine--Pinot Gris is good with the green curry, weirdly enough, and I've got a couple good bottles. Or cocktails, if you want to start there, then get to the food. Or Coke, juice, whatever."
Oscorp had been mind-blowing in the way that only a state of the art corporation could be, but Harry's apartment was equally awe-inspiring, if for entirely different reasons. She tried not to let her slight feeling of being out of place show, however. Right, what to drink? She had never really drank alcohol, before. It was illegal. She didn't plan on publicly running around and breaking laws any time soon.
On the other hand, they weren't in public now. She didn't want to stick out for her lack of knowledge - that would only give him the upper hand. Besides, behind the cold reason she usually relied on, there was just a curl of curiosity. "Whatever you're having is fine," Dana told him.
Harry ducked to retrieve the Pinot Gris from the wine fridge beneath the kitchen island, then started working on the cork. "Don't have to wait for me--dig in. What do you normally do on your weekends, when you're not being seduced by science?"
She opened her container of curry and rice, and began to mix them together. "Homework?" She smirked. "More science. What do you do when you aren't stunning the paparazzi or talking classmates into working at Oscorp?"
"Read the Wall Street Journal, manage my portfolio, go out and people watch, avoid my father--the usual poor little rich boy things. Lately, I've been doing the finishing touches on the place. Alice did most of what's already here." He waved around the open apartment with one hand, pouring with the other.
"She did a very good job," Dana admitted, looking around again.
"You approve," he said with a little smile. It was hard to tell; sometimes his taste was over-the-top enough that people were turned off. Sometimes not.
Dana quirked an eyebrow and, rather than answer, took a prim bite of curry. "I'm guessing your father being busy makes it easier to avoid him," she theorized instead.
"Oh, he excels in making himself easy to avoid," Harry said flippantly, bringing her a glass of wine and holding one for himself. "We've been practicing for sixteen years."
She was no psychologist, and certainly could claim no real expertise that would allow her to psychoanalyze him, but Dana still suspected that Harry and his father's estranged relationship could explain a fair bit about him. Daddy issues. She could almost relate, though she loved her father a great deal and his absence had to due with duty rather than apathy. "Something I guess they teach in fathering class," Dana finally offered, voice somewhat sympathetic.
She took a sip of the wine Harry had brought over, and let it roll over her tongue. She wasn't a connoisseur or anything, but she liked it.
Harry gave her a measuring look out of the corner of his eye before returning his attention to the food. Interesting. "Seems likely, doesn't it?
"But in my case, at least, it's a good thing. I get to have all this." He waved one hand vaguely behind him at the apartment. "Instead of having to deal with 'my house, my rules', like normal kids--whatever that is. So I'll take it."
"So it was never 'my house my rules'?" Dana couldn't imagine that level of freedom. Between her siblings and her mother, nothing had ever gone unnoticed.
"I don't remember, if it was." Harry actually considered it as he gathered up some green curried chicken. "I was sent for boarding at six, so..."
Dana raised an eyebrow. Really? "They have boarding schools for six year-olds?"
"First grade and up," Harry confirmed easily, after swallowing his bite. "For when you really don't want to bother with child-rearing."
The wealthy really did live in an entirely different world. "Makes you wonder why you'd bother to have kids, if that was your game plan." Dana took another bite of curry.
The game plan had not been for Harry's mother to die--thanks to him, technically, though he'd stopped blaming himself for that when he was all of ten years old. But all he did was smirk, raise his glass, and say, "Well, someone's got to inherit the fortune, and for some reason people think it makes them immortal if a little piece of their genetic material is involved."
"Evolutionary programming is a bitch like that," Dana replied dryly, but she raised her glass of wine in response.
He knocked back a good-sized drink before digging back into the curry. "What about you? Where's your family?" Yes, let's just get off the topic of the Osborns now, thanks...
Dana took a sip, and then set down her glass so she could do some more damage to her own dinner. "Right now? They're in San Diego." Well, most of them. Her father was out at sea, somewhere.
West coast girl. Interesting. "What do your parents do?"
"My dad's a captain in the Navy," Dana said, shrugging. It wasn't really a secret, after all. "My mom stayed at home with us."
"Ahhh, I see," Harry said. He didn't entirely--part of the 'dad' discussion made sense now, but he couldn't imagine the life of a military brat, apart from what he'd heard. Still, partially, that made sense. "Siblings, then. For a while I thought I wanted some."
The corner of Dana's lips tipped up and she took another sip of her wine. "Changed your mind?"
"Oh, yes," Harry said with a wry little smile. "I realized I'm not good at sharing."
"Maybe if you'd had siblings, you'd have learned the art of it," Dana suggested. She took another few bites of her curry. It was well-made, and the slow-heat was starting to make her fair skin flush a bit.
And he was noticing. He smiled--well, maybe it was a little bit of a smirk. It made her more adorable, though he doubted she'd like that word applied to her. Still, enough that he felt like testing the waters a little. "That presumes that I want to. Though, I'm exaggerating--there are a few things I'm very good at sharing."
That made her quirk an eyebrow, even as she gave him the slightest bit of a smirk in response. "What things might those be?"
"My wine." Harry chuckled quietly and took a drink. "My apartment. Peter has a room--it's the one back there. My girlfriend--she's a sharer too.
"I have also been told I can be something of a giver." Okay, now he was just being a shit. Maybe he wanted to see if she'd flush from more than just curry, though.
Dana cursed internally as she felt her skin flush even brighter. Whether it was at the sudden realization of what he meant about his girlfriend or his last line about giving was impossible to say. She should be taking everything she was saying as yet another warning sign that Harry Osborn was something of a danger, but instead all she managed to feel was curiosity and even interest. "I hesitate to even ask what you usually give out," she managed to retort.
"Or put out," he corrected with a chuckle. God, she really was blushing harder and it was so sweet. But he didn't want to make her feel cornered, either--she was in his apartment, he was feeding her dinner, he didn't want her thinking he had any expectations. "You're blushing--I'm sorry if I'm embarrassing you. I tend to just say things. If you want me to stop, say the word. Or if you want me to keep flirting shamelessly, delay the word until you've had enough of it."
"I want you to be yourself," Dana said, not sure if that sensation in her stomach was nerves or excitement. "I'm in your house, after all."
"I'm aware that myself is a little much for some," Harry admitted, still smiling. "I won't take it badly if that's the case with you.
"But if you insist, then I mean to keep flirting shamelessly. What can I say, I have a thing for the smart ones."
Dana blushed, but raised her eyebrows as though daring him to continue. "The smart ones, huh?"
"It's a pattern." Harry cocked an eyebrow. "This excellent taste of mine.
"What about you? How does your taste run?"
At the moment, Dana would have to say her taste went to people who were, objectively, a very bad idea. Rather than say that, though, she just smirked at him.
"Gonna make me work for it?" he asked, obviously having a wonderful time, now.
"Why should this be any different than anything else?" Her voice was teasing, and internally Dana was a bit thrilled with her daring. She could feel her nerves in her stomach, but this was fun, and she was desired (if only temporarily, maybe), and she could ignore the nervousness for those other things.
Harry sipped at his wine, then licked his smirking lips. "Have you seen the view, yet?"
Dana cocked an eyebrow at his little display, but her own smirk didn't leave her face. "I don't believe I have."
He took another bite of his curry, then pushed it aside. "Grab your wine and come with me--if you're ready?"
She took another sip of her own wine, and then slid off her seat to follow him. "I'm always ready." She gave him a meaningful look. "For a good view."
Harry nodded towards the balcony, where it was just coming up on sundown. He grabbed the bottle with one hand and his glass with the other, and led the way.
