SUPER BARBECUE SUPER BARBECUE SUPER BARBECUE [open as heck]

[hugling]

Who: SUPER HEROES!!!!!
Where: Ernest E. Debs Regional Park!
When: Sunday!
What: SUPER BARBECUE
Warnings: Superheroes...



It's a pleasant evening at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park, just a couple miles from downtown LA, which can be seen through the haze. Late March means spring is just arriving in LA and the trees are just starting to bud. Unfortunately, the grass is still kind of dead and dry.

The barbecue and picnic area isn't too busy, though the park does have the usual assortment of joggers, dog walkers, and cyclists. There are some balloons tied to picnic tables, and strung between two trees is a very homemade "SUPER BBQ" banner, courtesy of Hulkling and Starbreaker. There's still glitter glue on Milly's apartment floor. There's another posterboard with the rules written on it in big bold sharpie letters nearby, just in case anyone forgets:

• Don't be a jerk!!!
• Keep your weapons holstered please.
• Do not trash the park!
• ABSOLUTELY NO FIGHTING
• Anyone caught fighting will be asked to leave!
• Really don't be a jerk!

[OKAY GUYS!!! mingle! have fun! maybe some THINGS WILL HAPPEN, whoooo knows!]

Comments

[thelittlemerman]

"To annoy you? No," he says. He looks around at the people milling about the party. "No, I'm here to meet people. Socialize. Not whatever you're doing, which is... lurking?"

[neonmonstrosity]

Chris is there in full Neon getup, (read: the neon clusterfuck of clothes that he calls a costume,) a little - but not too excited to rub elbows with some of the other hero types. He's bobbing around the park, usually with a cigarette or a beer in his hand - nothing illegal though (aside from the underage drinking,) he knows better to do that shit in an open area full of capes.

He's kinda taking stock of all the costumes and trying to remember names, but more than that one can rely on him to a) join in any fun looking games, b) be kind of bouncing like there's music playing even when there isn't, or c) showing off his fancy robot arms to any children who happen to stare. Where are the children? Not in the park but on the street? Did Chris leave the party just to go show a kid his arms? You betcha. And he probably gave them a balloon too.

[hellacold]

Jon takes a sip and squints off into the horizon, considering what to say. It would have been easier just to talk about back home, but Sansa said if you don't know what to say, you can always give a girl a compliment.

"You must know your way around the city," he says. "I still have to use GPS."

[hellacold]

"How's that working out for you," says Jon flatly.

[thelittlemerman]

Finnick shrugs one shoulder. "It's alright. I'm still adjusting to this new environment, as you can imagine."

[squanderlust]

"I don't go many places," she says. Really interesting girl you've saddled yourself with, Longclaw. "I haven't even been to the movies in a few years. I didn't think anything was worth watching, aside from that Brave one you mentioned." She contemplates her bottle for a moment. "And that's not in theaters anymore. I'd have to watch it at HQ. With you." And while she takes another drink, she keeps an eye on Longclaw for his reaction. There wasn't any meanness in her tone; she actually is looking forward to the opportunity.

[hellacold]

It's kind of hard to read Jon's expression through his mask--and to be perfectly honest he's not very expressive, facewise, even under ideal conditions--but he's looking forward to the movie date as well.

"The Flying Mammal Man movies were pretty good," he says. "The Furred Knight trilogy. I don't watch a lot of movies either, except with my little brothers and sisters."

[hugling]

As a giant fucking nerd, Teddy totally knows who Reaphook is. "Right, yeah. Nice to meat you in an uh... official capacity."

He's kind of surprised not to have seen Reaphook around any of the times he was dragged down to CONDOR HQ for mission debriefings, although now that Teddy thinks of it he vaguely remembers one of the agents saying something about the Trailblazers having their own secret campus.

The fire is actually going by now, and Teddy has a few lopsided hamburgers sizzling away on the grill, just about ready to be flipped. "You want a burger? These are gonna be done in a second." He has no idea what Alternians eat, actually, but meat is a safe bet right?

[hugling]

Oh, god. There was something about his smile that kind of made Teddy want to do anything Finnick asked him to, but kind of in a way that reminded him a little bit of his ex best friend Greg.

"Yeah, sometime before next weekend, okay? I gotta get out there, I've been kind of out of the country for a while, so I'm pretty eager to get back in the zone."

[squanderlust]

Damn. Nothing. She was hoping to at least fluster him. Boys are dumb and hard to understand.

"You have siblings? I think you've mentioned that before. What's it like?" She sounds actually curious.

[hugling]

"Yeah! I kind of had to leave that building. I'm really gonna miss Mrs. Benitez; every time I went over to help her with the plumbing or whatever she would give me these amazing Colombian cookies."

Teddy stands up too, waving the newspaper smoke away from his eyes. "You brought--" actually, questioning the safety of bringing a child to this supposedly completely nonviolent and totally chill barbecue probably isn't a great idea. "Uh. That's a pretty good idea. Is the kid your sister, or...?"

[liberaition]

Photos from today only, hmm? Smart kid. Kit snags copies of the pictures and gives the rest of Miko's phone a cursory probe, but she's not especially interested in downloading her contacts or her Tetris high score.

"Good for you, I hear it's not easy to land a job in print media these days. I had you pegged more for a blogger type. Are you planning to write a big story about the barbecue?"

One of the healing nerve grafts in Kit's new leg sends a twinge shooting down to her carbon fiber foot, and she winces and shifts her weight to her other leg. Maybe she shouldn't have left her crutches at home so soon.

[nailsandglass]

"Yea! I came with" And she takes a moment to search through the crowds before pointing out Aña and Tommy. "Them!"

She turned her gaze back to Jon. "They're mind friends." Guardians as well, but given that they were both young too, Matilda thought it best not to add that. She didn't want to get either of them in trouble.

[thelittlemerman]

Finnick hums some vague assent, putting the prospect of all this out of his mind for now. He wants to take this opportunity to learn more, not to stew on the possibility that yet another person wants him.

"Out of the country?" he says, all conversational.

[thanksoptimus]

Orion accepts her hand easily enough and starts to get to his feet, carefully observing the disks from a safe distance. He does seem relieved about what it actually involves, though.

"It reminds me of a Cybertronian hobby called 'lobbing', albeit less potentially damaging." He looks at her and smiles very slightly. "I am not sure of the extent of my control over this body, but I will, as they say, give it my best shot."

[scribes]

"Well, these things are just made out of plastic so unless one of us starts throwing it at an incredibly high velocity it shouldn't be damaging at all" Di joked.

It did make her wonder just what the hell a size of a frisbee, or similar object would be for Cybertronians to toss at one another. More damaging indeed.

"What did you use for lobbing?" She picked up one of the frisbees available and held it out to Orion so he could inspect it for himself.

[hugling]

"Starbreaker!" Okay, he just saw her like an hour ago and he's been staying with her for the last week, but Teddy stands up and gives Milly a big hug anyway, lifting her feet a good couple inches off the ground. She feels kind of weirdly heavy, but most girls are kind of sensitive about that stuff, so Teddy doesn't mention anything.

"I told you, it was a super secret space emergency! But I promise to text you updates next time, even if I have to smuggle a phone inside one of my armor plates or something. Do phones work in space? The CONDOR agents' phones worked."

[hellacold]

"You're an only child?" he asks. "I have two little sisters, two little brothers, and a brother about my age. They're great."

He's not sure what to say that won't sound weird.

"We all have these big dogs. My dad rescued a litter of puppies from a supervillain's lair. There was one for each of us so nobody wanted to give them away. I brought mine to Trailblazers HQ."

He casually points out Ghost, who is sniffing around the ground below the food table for scraps.

[thanksoptimus]

"A ball of scrap metal as large as my torso," he says, and then pauses for a moment. He takes the disk and inspects it, briefly. "...My other torso, I mean."

[squanderlust]

Okay, that's adorable. An entire litter of puppies, all of them as cute as Ghost? Impossibly adorable. Severa doesn't let that show outside of the corner of her mouth turning up.

"My mother breeds horses, so she always said we don't need any more animals. I assume she meant puppies and siblings." Her upturned corner turns to a full smile, which is rare enough, but especially uncommon when talking about her family. "Daddy could have handled it. I don't know why she was so against it."

[scribes]

Were she of appropriate size, that actually sounded kind of fun. Dangerous, but hey that just made things a bit more exciting, didn't it? Di leads them to an open area.

"Did you ever try your hand at it?"

[thanksoptimus]

"Only technically," he says. "One of Megatron's associates from Kaon decided to involve me in a game and I think it was at risk of removing my entire processor."

[pullingamiko]

As is often the case, she chooses not to mention that technically it's just an internship, because 'job' sounds way more, well, professional. And doesn't bring to mind as many images of coffee runs and peering over other people's shoulders to figure out how to do things around here.

"Probably, yeah! Assuming nobody else gets to it first..." After all, she wasn't technically assigned to do this. But then, she isn't assigned to do most of what she sees as the really good stories.

"Maybe if-" She pauses, brow furrowing slightly. "Hey, you okay?" Maybe there's something wrong with that leg?

[scribes]

Di didn't really understand what that meant but it was obviously not good. Breakdown had used that term too. He had wondered if she had overheated her processor back when she had...made some not so good decisions so maybe it was the equivalent of a brain? It did fit the name.

She would have to ask Orion about it at some point. Curious as she was, now that they were going to be playing and needed to put distance between each other, shouting out questions and answers about Cybertronian anatomy might just be a liiiiiiiittle suspicious.

"This seems like a good spot." She jogged a couple feet ahead of Orion and turned around, holding her arms out. "Try tossing it!"

[hellacold]

Jon beams, both charmed by her smile and relieved she didn't ask how two brothers can be 'about' the same age.

"We had to get up before school to walk them," he says. "They were so little when we first found them, we had to bottlefeed them for weeks. Nobody got any sleep. Ghost was the smallest and the only white one. At least he didn't bark."