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

[starscheme]

Okay, so Starscream might not have weird Orion Pax specific gay-dar like Megatron has, but he does know his master's creepy quirks and habits unfortunately well. So when he slips off towards an unidentified avatar without so much as a word, there's really only one logical conclusion as to who the mystery bot is.

He waits a while after Megatron returns watches for Orion to be sufficiently out of sight from the rest of the group before slinking off on his own to engage him. Normally he'd stay away, but they haven't seen each other since they were both locked in a sweaty metal jail cell together, after all, and his curiosity is piqued.

He sidles up to the troll casually, keeping an eye out for any other autobots in the vicinity and making sure Megatron isn't getting wise to to what he's doing.

"That's an interesting choice in avatar that you've chosen there," he says conversationally. "Isn't the idea to better blend with the local life forms?"

[thanksoptimus]

He's genuinely wary and confused for a moment, but the voice gives who it is away fairly quickly. He doesn't know how to react to that. He's been on generally good terms with Starscream, so far as he's personally concerned anyway. BUT WHAT NOW.

He doesn't understand anything.

"I found that deception was not easily within my ability," he says, after a moment. "Better to at least be honest about my state as a cultural outsider."

And all that complicated social justice stuff, but he's not getting into that.

[starscheme]

"Indeed. I'm impressed you still have a taste for interacting with these locals on any front at all. Any interest I had was burned very shortly after arriving here." He smiles placidly. Starscream is probably the only one of all of them whose bluffing abilities are actually improved by the avatar, since he is short a huge pair of mood telegraphing slabs of metal jutting from his back in this guise.

[thanksoptimus]

Orion regards Starscream for a moment thoughtfully before speaking.

"Did something happen?" he asks. "I have found my interactions with the natives to have been nothing but pleasant."

[starscheme]

"You're joking, right?" he drawls, and the placid smile turns wry. "I've had more than my fair share of poor encounters with humans, but they pale in comparison to... That AI was certainly of human make, that's more than enough for me."

[thanksoptimus]

"Having had more intimate interactions with the creature, of that I am not entirely certain," Orion says earnestly, though he has no specific proof of it. No one even really knows what happened to the thing afterwards, which is frightening to say the least. "I take it you have had your alterations removed, at least?"

[starscheme]

Starscream's expression turns sullen, not exactly keen to dredge up even more of those memories. "As swiftly as I was able, yes. But enough about that..." he brightens back up a bit. "How have you been since you departed from the Decepticon fold. Getting enough Energon? You haven't run into any trouble, I hope." All casual harmless questions, but he delivers them in such a way that he's waiting for Orion to ask something more direct so that he doesn't have to be the one to do so.

[thanksoptimus]

"I have found myself more troubled by the state of this war than anything else," he says, after a moment. "Both sides have my sympathies, in their way. I would expect that sounds as objectionable to you as it has the others."

[starscheme]

Yes, it does, but it's not something that he's going to take as personally as Megatron did, plus putting up a stink about it would ruin the angle he's going for here, so he just frowns and nods shakes his head solemnly.

"Not at all... There's always understandable motivations on either side of a conflict, no matter the cause. That's what keeps the fight going, more often than not." He sighs, looking wistful. "That's something that I have tried to convince Megatron of, in the past. To no avail, generally."

[thanksoptimus]

Orion falls for that with total, blissful ignorance. He's inclined to take Starscream's word for that, and think that maybe not all of them are as determined as Megatron.

"There must be some way of changing his path," Orion says wearily, staring out across the field.

[starscheme]

"Perhaps... if there is, it has not made itself clear to me in the past several thousand years. You know him; he's notoriously stubborn." He sighs dramatically, looking off in the same direction. "Who knows though... perhaps, between the two of us, in the future a solution may become clear." He grants Orion a knowing smirk.