Burning Ice & Freezing Fire

Plan!?

It's hopeless!

That's absolute stupid and would never work!

With these dark thoughts Robbie throws away the third plan in a row.

Burying his face in his hands he forces himself to take deep breaths.

The felf knows that he can't afford to give up.

They'd be lost.

But neither can he try to go with a second- or even third-class plan like he sometimes used to when it was about chasing Sportacus out of town or teasing the kids. For those occasions he didn't have to try so hard to make everything perfect.

But using any of these superficial plans and inventions now would also be their doom...

The inventor takes another shaky breath in and wipes his face. Then he looks at the tightly sleeping hero lying on his side on the ground next to him. His expression is a somewhat painful frown and his open hands that are resting next to his head are lightly twitching.

A proof of his nervousness...of his fear even...

"...I'm sorry..." Robbie swallows thickly and very gently strokes through the blonde elvish hair, his voice a barely audible whisper "I'm so sorry that all this is happening to you... All because of me... I'll never be able to make this up to you..." a lonely tear drops from his eye, but the elf appears to calm down a little thanks to his gentle touches "You deserve the world...and then you chose someone like me...who can't even get you out of this damn cage!..." he hesitates "...Wait... I can't..." his eyes move back to the pile of random, apparently useless things and his voice falls under his breath "...But I don't have to..." he licks his lips and closes his eyes, gathering his thoughts.

Okay.

They're in an airship on their way to Iceland, and of course the only possible way for them to escape the situation is taking over the control of said ship.

Therefore they need to escape this cage.

Right?

Wrong!

That wouldn't be such a problem! Sportacus can easily crack the lock, Robbie knows that out of experience. But even if they got out, they'd still be outnumbered.

No.

The first step is to take out Nine, otherwise, he'd use the crystal on Robbie again anyway as soon as he left the safe cage.

And seriously, in taking out elves, Robbie has more than enough experience...

"...Why are the simplest things always the ones to think of last?..." he sighs lowly and lovingly strokes through Sportacus' hair again, murmuring "...I'm sorry, Sport... This is gonna be though for you too..." the inventor takes a deep breath in "But it's the only way!"

Determined but silently he rips a sheet of paper out of the notebook and folds it so it got the shape of a pot now. Then he puts the crayon in it and carefully crushes it with the back of the screwdriver until it's a fine powder. He folds more of these paper pots and nests them so they get more stable. Now he turns to the old caramel bonbons.

"...Pure sugar..." the felf smirks almost mischievously, takes a match and lights it, taking high care that none of the other elves notices while he now melts a little of the sweets and lets it drop into the empty pot.

It takes quite a while and several matches and he isn't completely sure whether he didn't use some of his own magic as well that appears to work inside the cage as long as you don't try to send it past the bars in any way to quicken the progress, but he couldn't care less right now.

Once he's sure he got enough he puts the bonbon aside and quickly mixes the crayon powder underneath the melted caramel with one of the pens.

Now he has to wait until the substance has cooled down completely again and gotten hard...

"...Let's just hope that this works and the crayon is really going to help make powder out of this again without having to use too much force...and make noise like this..."

While waiting he takes the bubblegum and starts practicing the second last step he'll use later on, after he woke up Sportacus as well, who will have to take responsibility for the last step to finish his plan...

The substance is cooled down and he starts crushing it to very fine powder again.

It goes pleasantly easy.

Now the felf takes a fresh bubblegum and chews it a little before taking it out of his mouth and rolling it in the red powder, kneading it a little until everything is well spread inside the gum.

His final action for now is to snap the handle of the plastic spoon and place the head of it next to the rubber gums.

"...So... That was that..." the felf puts the prepared bubblegum into the paper pot for now and puts it to the other arranged items.

Then he takes a deep breath in with closed eyes.

They'll have to wait for dawn so the plan can actually work.

'Actually'

He nearly laughs at this word not daring to do any calculations how unlikely it is that it really is going to work...

But it's the only thing he can think of.

With a mute sigh he lays down right next to his boyfriend. Their faces close enough that he can sense Sportacus' light breath tickling his lips.

Even now the former criminal can't help a mild smile.

He loves this man. And oh, how he'd love to kiss him awake, but he fears that with the sugary bubblegum he chewed on before he'd cause just the opposite...

Instead he reaches out to very carefully and lovingly caress the hero's cheek.

Robbie's voice is soft but also lightly shaking when he whispers "...Sportacus... Wake up. I...have to tell you of my...plan..."