14056/Fire and Water

Fire and Water
Date of Scene:	06 February 2023
Location:	Johnny's Room - Four Freedoms Plaza
Synopsis:	Kitty comes to visit Johnny and they have a swim
Cast of Characters:	Johnny Storm, Kitty Pryde

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Johnny Storm has posed:
Johnny Storm had decided to do swimming in the team pool for his daily workout. He had the place to himself, with everybody else out doing hero stuff. He's wearing a trim professional grade set of trunks, unstable molecules giving him incredible speed in the water. Of course he's good at swimming. He's good at most everything athletic.

He gets out his phone and takes a selfie in front of the blue water, sending it to Kitty Pryde, his...well, she wasn't his girlfriend, but they were definitely friends and occasionally more than friends. Maybe more than occasionally. They did what beautiful people with commitment issues do best - just not talk about it.

-Wish you were here- he texts, not knowing that Kitty was actually not very far away and able to drop in on short notice. What a nice surprise he'll have, especially since he's already put her on the pre-approved entrant list with the security system.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde runs her badge over the sensor of the exit at Stark Tower, then inputs a keycode. The security in the part of the company she works in is kept a little tighter than most of the other areas. The exit opens and she passes out, joining the exodus of people done for the day and heading home.

She reaches the sidewalk when her phone chimes with a text message. She pulls it out while heading over to the garage she's parked in. The picture and the note draws a smile from Kitty. A swim sounds so much better than the drive through end of the working day traffic back to Salem Center.

She changes direction, heading over to a small boutique. It'll be pricy in downtown Manhattan, but she was going to get a new suit before summer anyway. Twenty minutes is all it takes her to pick out something and then she's on her way over to Four Freedom's Plaza, pulling into the parking garage there without having sent a reply back.

So it might be a surprise when the door to the swimming area opens and Kitty steps in. She has a grin as she mentally estimates the length and depth of the pool. "At least 40 thousand gallons, which would come in at around 2.6 million pounds of water," she says of the swimming pool occupying one of the floors way up in the skyscraper. She chuckles and shakes her head. "Glad I'm not a civil engineer or an architect," she says as she walks over to the edge of the pool. Kitty is wearing grey slacks and a white blouse, her long warm jacket over her arm, and carrying a bag from the boutique in hand.

Johnny Storm has posed:
Johnny Storm gives a laugh of surprise and delight as Kitty comes to join him by the pool. He ducks under and swims rapidly across the floor of the pool, coming up at the edge and slicking his blonde hair back as he rests his forearms on the side.

"Well, if it isn't the modern woman on the move, fresh from her high-powered job and taking a break for a brief bit of relaxation," he says in his best TV voice. He may have done a few TV commercials here and there.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad to see you. Hope I'm going to get to see more of you. You can get a suit in the dressing room, there's an unstable molecule generator in there. Unless...?" he says, looking at the boutique bag.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde grins at Johnny as he swims over to the edge of the pool near her. "Quite a way to relax," she says, turning to take a look at the view out of the glass wall that runs down a side of the pool room, a balcony outside and then just that view of the city from high up. She turns back towards Johnny again, and then looks down at the bag she has.

"Unless I decided I might as well make my normal spring bathing suit purchase early so I had one on hand?" she finishes his thought. "100 points to Johnny Storm," she says with another grin. "This seemed like a better option than fighting the rush hour crush heading out of the City," Kitty tells him.

She looks about to get her bearings, seeing a sign that indicates a locker room. "Alright, let me go shed my Stark employee drone attire and get into it," she says. "Got lucky that you caught me on one of my days in the office," she adds as she heads off to the locker room. Giving Johnny some time to himself before she'll emerge.

Johnny Storm has posed:
Johnny Storm makes a playful, startled glance at Kitty, "Stark makes his drones wear clothes? That sick weirdo. I knew he was a freak." he says.

He nods at where she's pointing, calling out loud enough to be heard while he swims on his back, even keeping his eyes closed so he doesn't accidentally spoil anything. "You having a good time at the new job? Haven't been kidnapped by any of his loonies? We've all got them. I'm sorry if Annihilus ever tries to drag you to the Negative Zone, it's not about you, I promise."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty's voice can be heard calling back through the door. "I am! While I'm far from a stranger to getting to work with high tech items, it's still a whole different size of eco-system than what we have in our base. Things not just focused on team needs, but commercial products and all. I've gotten involved in some pretty interesting things!"

Within the changing room, Kitty gets out of her work attire and then pulls out the bathing suit. She doesn't have scissors to snip the tag off, but then it's simple enough for her to just phase the bathing suit but not the plastic holding the tags on it. She deposits the latter into a trash can and then holds up the suit to look at it. She calls through the door, "And having the pay check isn't bad either!" She smiles, the particular bathing suit not being an expense she would have sprung for just on what she makes working as a guidance counselor at the school.

Johnny Storm has posed:
Johnny Storm nods, "I can imagine. I'm lucky enough to have been wealthy as an adult, thanks to Reed and Sue. Well, and Ben. And those Calvin Klein ads I did in the 90s. Can you believe they almost used Marky Mark? We would've lost a generational rapper to modeling and acting!"

He climbs up out of the pool, standing on the edge and drying himself off just a little bit, shaking out his hair, "You gonna keep me waiting or do I need to try to peek through the door? I do know all the passcodes. Uh. I think."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
"I can't claim poverty," Kitty calls back through the door. "Though not skyscrapers and private stealth jet money either," she says, and it still makes her grin and shake her head as she thinks about what she's had access to since coming to the school at the age of 14. She begins donning the bathing suit.

"Dad's side of the family owned a bank," she calls while getting dressed. "Though it had some troubles along the way. Dad took some investors. From Japan. Who turned out to be Yakuza and started making him launder money for them." She shakes her head as she glances up at the mirror, though looking back into her memories rather than at her reflection.

After a moment's pause she gets into the bathing suit. "I was home for Christmas break and stumbled into a meeting he had with them. Heard them threaten him. And... ah, stowed away on their flight he took with them back to Japan. Ran into a sorcerer ninja who achieves immortality by taking over other's bodies and transferring his mind into them. Which he tried to do me, and nearly succeeded but for Logan who got my message and showed up after I'd been brainwashed."

The door opens and Kitty steps out, wearing a blue bikini, the tops and bottoms pleated bands with a faint bit ruffle along the edges. "But you know, the normal kind of growing up stories everyone has," she says with a grin.

Johnny Storm has posed:
Johnny Storm manages to get at least the last few snippers of the words she says. The suit leaves him appropriately stunned, but then he comes to his senses to answer her fairly rationally.

"My teenage years were a little bit like that. Even before the Four and the cosmic rays, I was chasing around behind my sister's superscientist boyfriend and trying to get as many adventures in as I could before I had to grow up and get a boring regular job. When all I wanted to do was race cars. Which I, at least, eventually got to do and still do."

"But you've got me beat, no doubt. I did not encounter any ninjas, that I remember. And if I have since, I doubt they lasted very long against me. No offense to ninjas, but...ninjas burn."