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WHO: Adachi, Iris, and Bart
WHERE: Adachi's house
WHEN: Sometime in the late evening.
WHAT: That awkward first meal with grandma's new boyfriend.
WARNINGS: N/A; just Adachi embarrassing himself.

Adachi paused as he stared at the kitchen, trying to ignore the uncomfortable knot working it's way into his stomach.

This was entirely surreal, and he felt like he was a different person just wearing his skin as some kind of freakish suit. He wasn't supposed to have this kind of thing; he wasn't supposed to have a successful business, friends, and a job. And he definitely wasn't supposed to be hosting a dinner to meet his girlfriend's future grandson from an alternate reality of her home world, but that was honestly the least weird part of all this.

He let out a soft huff, trying to squash his fears and focus back on the task at hand. He wasn't much of a chef -- even now, his most complicated meal was boiled cabbage and ramen -- and Iris's cooking was a nightmare best left to legends. Take out was the usual in this house, but that wasn't something he wanted for meeting Bart. So that led to him poking at his communicator, frowning over a recipe and praying to whatever kindly deities that were out there that it would turn out good.

"Hey, Iris?" he called after a moment, poking at the simmering vegetables to keep them from burning. "When did you say he was going to get here again?"

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Bart was more than a little nervous. He could understand Iris wanting them to know each other better, since they were family no matter how removed, but he still wasn't sure how he felt. It wasn't like with Tim, where he kept having to choke back the bitter resentment that his friend wasn't here, but it was still hard. She wasn't the woman who had taken huge risks in breaking him out of the lab and using an illegal time-portal to get him to safety. But she was a truly nice woman, and he owed her the chance to decide how their crazy little family should feel.

Which is why he might have used a tiny guess and picked up a small bouquet of what he'd known as Grandma Iris's favorite flower, and figured that would be enough to try to be a polite houseguest if nothing else. It was with those thoughts that he finished the slightly rushed walk to the address he'd been given and giving the door a polite knock.

That was freakishly fast.

Iris glanced up from the mirror in the front as she closed the clasp around her lightning-bolt necklace. As much as she doesn't want to admit it, she's nervous too – especially since she has no clue how to even be a proper grandma. She was supposed to get a trial run with her kid, not dive straight in with the grandson!

"I think that's him," she called, already rushing to the door. "Sorry, I should've warned you!"

About his speed, probably, but Barry's (and now Bart's) secret had never been hers to tell. She had warned Tohru at least about making double the usual amount, with some excuse about a super-metabolism, and well, if that doesn't work out? She can summon all the brownies in the universe for dessert.

She swung open the door and grinned, "Hi, Bart! Come in; it's so good to see you."

He hadn't really been running, especially not since picking up the flowers. Which he held out as the door was opened.

"Hope I'm not too early. I was hoping to make it a change from being chronically late. Because I guess things could have happened to make me late, but nothing did," Bart said, and then he stopped, because he doesn't want to just keep talking a mile-a-minute. "Sorry, I'm just, uh, here. I hope you like them."

Gosh, that rambling felt nostalgic. Iris fought back a laugh as she nodded, accepting the flowers and taking in their scent. On the bright side, they weren't Irises. On the even brighter side, he remembered her favorite kind, with soft purple-and-pinkish hues.

"I do! Thank you so much; they're gorgeous," she admitted, stepping to the side to let him in. There's a pair of guest slippers already waiting for him, too, right by the other pairs of shoes. "Also my favorite, though I'm guessing that's a universal trait."

The upstairs was quite as Iris greeted Bart, at least at first. Before he could reply, or make a comment about the slippers, there was a loud clang, followed by a yelp, followed by a, "Riza no!"

He's fine. Things are fine.

Bart notes the shoes, and while a lot of western homes have the custom of leaving outdoor shoes at the door to avoid tracking mess inside, it's the guest slippers that catch him off-guard a little. Or that not all the shoes are in women's styles. Did he miss Iris mentioning she had a roommate?

"I figured it was a little more likely to go over well if I got Grandma's favorite, and I definitely know how she and Irey feel about their namesake. Couldn't be certain they were also yours," Bart says, even as he slides the house-slippers on and grins.

"So, since my best friend was trained by the world's greatest detective, should I ask who else is here, or pretend you're going to surprise me?"

But the clang and the shout has him raising his head, the tension of not reacting obvious in his stance, because he's not about to go running upstairs for something like that without more than a shout.

"No surprises," Iris reflexively said, glancing up the stairs as she led Bart. That noise couldn't have been any good, but she won't know until she headed up - "Um, unless I forgot to tell you about my boyfriend cooking dinner for us. The extra slippers, we got for you."

She had hoped, really hard, that she hadn't forgotten - but she had mentioned him in the invite, right? That she lives with him and–

"Oh, and Riza's his Pokemon. A Poochyena, I think? The dog kind." She paused, calling out as she ascended, "Tohru-kun? Everything okay?"

"Fine! Fine! Everything is-- ghk?! -- fine!"

It definitely didn't sound fine. It did, in fact, sound like the absolute opposite of fine, something only compounded by the fact that, as Iris reached the upstairs landing, Riza came trotting over to greet her, looking quite proud of herself as she showed off her captured prize: the wooden spoon Adachi had been using to stir dinner with.

Bart trailed after Iris, a little worried about just what kind of trouble a Pokemon in the real would would get up to, and whether it would be bad. But the sight of the canine-ish animal with her prize has him dropping to one knee, holding a hand out.

"Hey, Riza is it?" he asks, smiling slightly at the sight. "Sounds like you're getting into trouble, huh?"

"Oh, girl..." Iris laughs, stepping to the side and shaking her head fondly at Riza. "You know how much Tohru needed that."

Speaking of–

"I should make sure he's okay," and that nothing beyond his dignity was taken from him tonight, because that might be an actual concern, "Think you've got it with Riza?"

The moment Bart held his hand out, a low warning growl escaped from deep in Riza's throat. No, you're not supposed to take! She is too proud of her prize to just give it away!

Adachi, meanwhile, was frantically looking for another wooden spoon while trying to keep the food stirred. He glanced over at Iris as she entered, looking exasperated.

Bart lets his hand go limp, palm-down, in reaction to the growl, and looks up to Iris. "Doc Helen got me a dog for the first birthday present I ever got. If I can manage a Jack Russell Terrier, I think I might survive this."

Well, at least he's fast enough to. Although he switches so if he has to push off, it won't be his bad knee that he starts running on, but other than that, his posture and body language are fairly relaxed and easy.

"Whatcha got there? Are you a good girl?" His tone is gentle, but he manages not to descend completely into babytalk with the not!dog.

Surely they had to have more than one wooden spoon. Iris quickly set the flowers aside on the kitchen counter before she too joins Adachi in this search. While she's far from a kitchen expert, by now, she liked to think she knew the lay of her (forbidden) land.

After a few moments, she opens a drawer meant to hold measuring cups, odds-and-ends for coffee brewing, and baking supplies, and retrieves another wooden spoon, "Here?"

Riza let out another low growl, her tail swishing back and forth suspiciously. Who are you, funny smelling human?

Adachi, meanwhile, wilted a little as Iris handed over the spoon he was looking for.

"Thank you," he replied, quickly taking it and switching hands to keep it stirring. "Apparently she was upset that no one was paying attention to her, so she decided to grab for the spoon. Because I'm not panicking enough over this."

Flash Fact: Hanging out with the one-man-zoo that is Garfield Logan exposes you to a lot of animal behaviors, both good and bad. So he was willing to keep his posture as small and not-really challenging as he could, not looking directly at the pokemon, but definitely not turning his back. That tail was making him a little more wary. He was on her territory, after all.

"Like it or not, we're going to be seeing a little bit of each other. But I get it, your space," he continued, trying hard not to smile and bare teeth in a way that could be construed as a threat or challenge when he's already got Riza a little keyed up. "So, how do you want to handle this? Am I supposed to go back downstairs? I figure the kitchen is totally out of the question since you're between me and it."

Sure, he was just babbling, but sometimes that could work. And focusing on the situation helped with staying calm, since him smelling of nerves wouldn't help anyone.

"You're doing great," Iris assured him on reflex, glancing back over her shoulder at Bart and Riza. "I mean, dinner smells great, and... honestly, I'm panicking too."

Sure, she didn't make much of a habit of revealing her less-than-capable states to the world, but even now, her hands had been trembling and her voice had been a bit higher than normal.

As she looked back at Bart, though, her expression softened, melting into one of relief. "But then again, it would be weirder if we all treated this like it were normal, right? Anything I can do? Any last minute place settings...?"

Riza stared Bart down, as if quietly challenging him to try and find the right way to please her. After a moment, she stood on all fours, her front leaning closer to the ground, tail wagging in the air, before she took off toward the back of the living room. She paused at the door, as if checking to see if Bart was following, her tail wagging enthusiastically.

Adachi, meanwhile, turned toward Iris, offering her a small smile. They could do this. This was fine. Right?

Bart couldn't help a soft huff of a laugh as Riza clearly expected him to follow. He would have, anyway, because he wanted to see if he could get the spoon away before the pokemon started chewing on it and risked swallowing splinters. No sense letting things get too far out of control. He did stick his head in to look at the two adults.

"You got any treats i can use to try to get that spoon back?"

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/re-emerges from the void

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