capitalh | SUPER BARBECUE SUPER BARBECUE SUPER BARBECUE [open as heck]

Entry tags:

SUPER BARBECUE SUPER BARBECUE SUPER BARBECUE [open as heck]

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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Everyone's favorite big green alien is currently crouched in front of a barbecue pit, swearing at it. It turns out it's a lot harder to get charcoal to catch on fire than the internet made it seem, and Teddy is really wishing he'd bought some lighter fluid, even though it's totally cheating. He was a cub scout, damn it. Why is this so hard?

Teddy stands up with a sigh, brushing his hands off on his pants.

"Is anyone here better at starting fires than me?"

Disciple hasn't been doing too much so far. Simply enjoying the nice weather and relaxed atmosphere. It's nice here, and it's a good opportunity to actually get herself out and living a life outside of the Sufferist movement.

When Teddy stands up she makes her way over to him, giving a friendly if uncertain smile. It was still a little strange for her to realize that she could do that without having to worry about being regarded as insolent or weak.

"I can help." From one green alien to another.

Teddy smiles back, and hurriedly holds out the lighter and the LA Times he was using as kindling.

"Oh my gosh, thank you. I obviously should have bought those little fire starter cubes or something, I thought this would be way easier."

"Not a problem."

Di was more accustomed to using old fashioned flint, but this would do. She took the newspaper, pull some pages around to roll and tie it up together.

"You're the host, right?" She set to carefully lighting up the newspaper and using it to coax a flame out of the coals.

"Uh, sort of. I mean, yeah, but I'm not really in charge or anything. I just thought it would be nice to do something fun, instead of fighting evil cyborg aliens. Like, for a change."

Teddy watches, fascinated, as the coals start to catch.

"Holy crap, you have like a gift or something."

She laughs "I've had a lot of practice I guess. Used to spend days on end traveling and camping." Her expression became wistful as she remembered those days. They had been the best of her life.

Once it looked like the fire was good and going she tossed the remains of the newspaper in and held the lighter out to him.

"It's a great idea--though does stuff like what happened recently go on that much?"

"That sounds... interesting." He doesn't want to say it sounds awesome - spending days traveling and camping could mean 'I backpacked in Europe' or 'I used to be homeless and on the run and had to sleep outside.' You never could tell, with this crowd.

Teddy shrugs. "I mean, not that often, but with so much superhero activity in LA it's kind of a huge target for supervillain stuff like that. There's always something going down somewhere. Not usually something so huge, though."

As an afterthought he adds, "Thanks a lot for your help with the fire, everyone would so have been eating cold hot dogs."

That might explain why Vanessa wanted to form her own little group of heroes. If what Teddy said was true then certain criminals could slip under the radar of others. CONDOR and the Trailblazers couldn't do everything.

"Not a problem, I'm glad to help." It'd be shame to go to a gathering with food only to have there be...no food.

"There anything else I can do?"

"You know that's why they sell lighter fluid in the grill section right next to the charcoal, right?" Araña asks, bemused. She's in a new costume, that's really more of something comfortable enough to wear outdoors that she's managed to pull together - black bike shorts, black sneakers, a black lycra top with a white stylized spider design on the front, and a black domino mask. It leaves her metal arm visible, but since she's been trying to keep it hidden out of costume, she feels like it's a safe enough move. (Not that the Trailblazers won't all fucking recognize her...) Tommy's got Matilda, and she figures the guy trying to light the pit is most likely to be the dumbass who thought this was a good idea.

She kind of hope his optimism plays out, if only because she doesn't look forward to hustling M out of there if things go south.

"I thought it was cheating! But obviously I was totally mistaken. You don't have fire powers, do you?"

It's amazing how Hulkling can be so large and look so much like a little sad puppy at the same time.

"If I can't get a fire going everyone is going to have to eat raw hamburger and cold hotdogs."

"Sadly, no." She crouches down to eye the unlit charcoal as if she knows anything about BBQ-ing. She doesn't. But come on, like she can resist helping the precious sad puppy?

"Maybe if you wadded up some newspaper on top and set that on fire?"

"Yeah, maybe. Here, I have a bunch of last week's LA Times." Teddy crumples up Tuesday's sports section and crumples it into a ball and sets it aflame on top of the charcoal, where it burns brightly for a few seconds and then disintegrates. The charcoal remains cold.

"God damn it." He resists the urge to kick the fire pit. "Stupid fire. I was a boy scout for like two months, you know. I should theoretically be able to do this."

Deep breath. "I'm Hulkling, by the way. And I'm usually better at stuff."

"Two months of your life wasted, clearly," she agrees with a laugh. He looks so sad - maybe she should offer to go find some lighter fluid...

"I'm Araña. The Hunter, we talked on the Watch when you posted about this."

She glances around, spotting a couple other grilling groups nearby. "You want me to see if anybody else in the park has starter fluid? I see a couple of families just from here..."

He perks right up at her introduction, even cracking a smile. "Right! It's nice to meet you in real life, Araña. We talked about old Latina neighbor ladies too, I think, like ages ago. That was you, right?"

Teddy glances over at the nearest grilling family, who have been eyeing the crowd of superheroes nervously. "Yeah, maybe. They'd probably be less scared of you than of me."

"Dios, you're right, that was you!" She laughs, her nose wrinkling. "I had almost forgotten, probably 'cause you went off to space or classified reasons and weren't around to chat with."

She stands and stretches, waving with a grin at the uncertain soccer mom watching them. With her non-cyborg hand. "I can give it a shot. If they're too nervous, I could always send mija over. A wide-eyed six-year-old can put any soccer mom at ease."

(no subject)

hugling - 2014-06-08 00:24 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

cazamitad - 2014-06-14 01:49 (UTC) - Expand

Karkat is pretty okay with the idea of a barbecue, as Earth things go – even humans can't really fuck up heating up meat, even if they tend to cook it more than he personally would prefer, and it takes place in the evening, which is always preferable for Nocturnal Guy over here.

He is definitely not coming along in case any of the more Earth-human-shindig-minded friends of his who are attending this get together end up in trouble or something.

He is loitering around waiting for it to get darker and for the meat to happen and/or for some dumbshit supervillains to show up when he notices there is something a little familiar? about Hulkling? He probably wouldn't have noticed at all if the dude hadn't straight up opened a conversation by telling Karkat he was a Skrull, but knowing someone is a shapeshifter kind of opens out the possibilities a little more.

He sidles over, ears pricked forward under his hood. He knows his own outfit doesn't do a tremendous job of concealing his secret identity on a planet where his own species exists in such tiny quantities, which is possibly why he feels less sensitive about questioning other people's. But then again, it's not like the guy actually even introduced himself by name, so really it's not like Karkat actually knows his secret identity.

"Hey," he says, frowning. "You're the Skrull guy."

Teddy's own observational skills are pretty awesome and there are only like 6 Alternians in LA, so it's not that hard to recognize the Alternian from the park from a couple months ago. Also, domino masks are kind of shitty. Teddy has an inner moment of panic - he can't remember if he told the guy his name or not - not, he decides as he turns around to face him.

"Hey, you're the Alternian guy."

Shit. He really shouldn't have slipped up with his secret identity like that. What a rookie mistake, Flying Mammal Man would sooner let the Humorist kidnap Bluetit and burn down Punkham than step in it so badly.

"It's uh, my name is Hulkling. Not 'the Skrull guy.'"

Karkat considers him for a moment, and then shrugs, and says, "Yeah, okay. I'm Reaphook. You know, with the Trailblazers." There is every chance this guy does not know, of course, and Karkat is well aware – although being conspicuously Alternian makes him one of the more recognisable trainees, the most notable and newsworthy thing he's actually done lately is get briefly kidnapped by TRIDENT...

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?

He peers at the burgers thoughtfully, and then says, "Yeah, I'll take one now, humans always cook meat way too much."

He puts like five gross processed cheese slices on the burger, and more relish than any reasonable person needs.

"So how long do you think before Team Magma or whatever worthless asshole supervillain crew got ahead of themselves this week shows up to steal your ketchups," he asks, looking around at the assembled hero folk.

Teddy is about to say something about this being really cheap meat and probably full of bacteria, but he figures Reaphook probably knows what he's doing, and just hands over a half-raw meat disc.

"I mean, hopefully they're not dumb enough to show up with like half of LA's superheroes all in one place. I'm pretty sure we could take them all in like ten minutes and get back in time for some cake. Team Magma are pretty bad at actually fighting."

It's true, they are.

"Bunches of them are totally that dumb," says Karkat through a mouthful of half-raw meat disc. "I bet multiple douchesticks show up thinking this is going to be some kind of cool challenge or some shit."

"Hulkling!" Milly breaks away from a conversation with another hero to bound over to Teddy, grinning as she slings an arm around his shoulders. She's no good for helping with the fire, but honestly, who cares? She just wants to hang out with one of her best friends, especially after he'd been gone for so long. Sure, they'd spent some time catching up while she helped him get things ready, but that's not nearly enough. "Have I mentioned how happy I am to see you around here again? Seriously, no checking out like that again for a while, okay? I missed you!"

"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."

Milly lets out an undignified squeak when Teddy lifts her off the ground but to her relief, he doesn't say anything. Whew, close one. She's still beaming when he puts her down, dusting off her costume. "I don't know, they must have like, fancy space phones or whatever! And I totally respect the super space emergency secrecy. But..." She doesn't quite frown, but she looks curious. "I didn't even know you worked for CONDOR. I mean, you're not a Trailblazer..."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only