15309/The Cosmo Situation

The Cosmo Situation
Date of Scene:	05 July 2023
Location:	Baseball Field
Synopsis:	Mantis mistakenly attacks Mary Jane Watson for absconding with what she thinks is part of her friend. Gamora intervenes and drink invitations are accepted.
Cast of Characters:	Gamora, Mantis, Mary Jane Watson

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Gamora has posed:
(PREVIOUSLY ON "YOU'RE EATING MY DOG")...

    Mantis comes at Mary Jane at full speed! "Cosmo!" she cries out. She can't hear Peter. She can't hear Gamora. It's just her, the red head, and bits of her friend in a little plastic baggie. Mantis is about to totally save the day, rescue what remains of Cosmo so they can give him a proper burial-at-space, and clobber Mary Jane into the ground thanks to her lifetime of martial arts training...

    ...that's locked away in that sweet, innocent brain of hers...

    "Huuuahhh!" is the guttural sound that comes from Mantis as Mary Jane Watson flips her over instead. Mantis crashes into a row of wooden baseball bats that have been carefully arranged by the home team's bat boy. Threat neutralized!
    
    ----
    
Mary Jane Watson would just shake her head over and let Mantis land. THen go to hold her hands up and over in the air to show she wasn't threatening. Then glancing over at Gamora over her shoulder, and moving to keep her hands over to the side and then there's fireworks, things burning, and chaos..
    Oh, wait, in ways that are normal for the Fourth of July. Well.. Mary Jane just shakes her head over at the disengaging Guardians, having a feeling that whatever is going on she really doesn't /want/ to know more. What she files in a completely mundane report at lowest level priority is something that is not going to get Abigail Brand's attention and thus her body intact for the forseeable future. "Uh.. Sorry." Is offered over to Mantis. And MJ has to wonder if that offer from the Asgardians is still open..
    

Gamora has posed:
Gamora, standing on the grass of the baseball diamond, sighs, putting on her serious face as she looks between Peter and Rocket. "Fine. But NO MORE VIOLENCE." She even points at both of them, one at a time, so you know she's serious.

And then she's running towards Mantis and MJ to try to fix /that/ situation...

Dark boots pad swiftly across the grass even as her friend goes head-over-heels into those bats. Black hair tipped in red like dark flames flies up around her shoulders as the green-skinned woman comes sprinting over, her own hands up, one finger pointing at Mary Jane.

"Stay back," she orders flatly, her expression brooking no argument on the matter. Yes, she could see that Mary Jane was just defending herself, but she had her priorities -- not that she was ready to apologize for anything yet, either. She'd just spent the last however-many-minutes wrangling her team back together, and this was the last loose thread.

Soon she's kneeling next to Mantis, taking a knee and reaching out her hands -- surprisingly strong hands, thanks to all of her enhancements. "Come on. Let's get you up. Are you hurt? What came over you?"

Mantis has posed:
    "Owwww!" Mantis complains as Gamora comes over to help her up. She's like a child that didn't know she was hurt until seeing her mother's reaction. Her hair is tussled and one antenna droops lower than the other one. Mary Jane Watson gets a glare!

    "I did not wish to leave Cosmo's body here on Terra," Mantis explains to Gamora. It's as simple as that. She turns to watch Mary Jane, suspicious of the one who apparently wanted to run off with a chunk of dead space dog.

    "Cosmo is our friend!" she cries out for Mary Jane's benefit. Like /that/ explains anything.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Mary Jane Watson would look over at Mantis in confusion. As Gamora approaches, she goes to take a few steps away and moves to put her hands up and over to the side to make a show of not being aggressive and to let Gamora put herself between Mary Jane and Mantis. A fairly normal de-escalation tactic. She doesn't go to joke or tease either, just watching over at the interaction.

"Are you all right?" She would inquire to Mantis. "And I'm sorry, I should have used less force there." Looking over at Gamora with confusion. Gamora may or may not be familiar over with human body language, but her look was fairly simple to translate 'Who and/or what is/was Cosmo'?
    "And I don't know anything about your friend, I'm very sorry. I haven't ever encountered them so there's no way I could have done anything to them." A very, very sincere statement said out of total confusion. But, she'd had weirder sorts of encounters.

Gamora has posed:
"No.." Gamora practically purrs. So, she /does/ have a side to her that's not just angry assassin/team mom. She can also be compassionate assassin/team mom. "Peter was just joking. It's not Cosmo. /None/ of them are Cosmo. They're just /called/ hot.. dogs. I'm... not sure why."

Her eye-contact lingers on Mantis for another moment to make sure she understood, the seriousness evident in her expression. Not that Gamora was known to be a big joker, anyway.

Finally she looks back at Mary Jane, and though the compassion in her features has faded, there's no hostility, either.

"I'm sorry. This was a misunderstanding based on a.. cruel joke," she says. "Thank you for not losing your temper." And then her gaze is on Mantis, checking on her, but also gently encouraging her to answer MJ. Apparently preferably without screaming about their friend who was definitely not turned into food. At least, not that she was aware of.

Mantis has posed:
    "Peter was joking," Mantis repeats, staring forward as she processes the implication of it. "...They're not Cosmo..." Blink. Stare. Huh. Mantis falls back into her usual demure and unassuming posture as Gamora takes control of the situation.

    "I am sorry that I said you were stealing our friend's body," Mantis tells Mary Jane, just matter-of-factly like it's a perfectly normal thing for one person to say to another. "Peter was joking."

    Mantis falls silent for a beat before a chuckle begins to bubble to the surface. She struggles to contain it before it becomes a full-blown laughter.

    "Peter was joking and I acted stupidly!" she cries out, her smile hardly contained by the muscles of her face. Mantis looks over at Gamora, as though there's going to come a confirmation that, yes, she acted stupidly.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Mary Jane Watson goes to glance over at Gamora, "It's fine. So long as your friend is okay." Hard to say if she means Cosmo - likely moreso Mantis. "And it's okay. Jokes can sometimes be mean. You just want to figure out your own way to get back at them. I'm not hurt, and I'm okay." She's not quite sure what the group d ynamics are of Mantis' and Gamora's friends, so she doesn't want to say something that might embarrass Mantis more.

"And they're just called that for sake of being called that. No greater meaning to it. Things can just be called them for no greater reason. It's just a name." That's something simple and hopefully safe to go with. "And I've learned that better to keep my temper down in case things are a misunderstanding, like this was."

Gamora has posed:
"Peter... gets into enough trouble without help." Gamora wasn't really the type to get locked into a back-and-forth practical joking match, though the hint of a smile suggested she didn't hate the idea of /someone/ getting back at him.

Dark eyes contrasted against green skin turn to focus on the light chuckling from Mantis, confusion evident at first, but at the woman's exclamation, a soft, reassuring smile once more reappears on her lips. "You.. tried to respect your friend. That's not stupid." Then her eyes roll up and to the side. "It was.. inconvenient. But it wasn't stupid. Peter's the stupid one."

The explanation about the hot dog, though, has Gamora looking back at MJ and frowning. "Then why not call them something useful? Like meat stick?"

With the field cleared, the game was starting to resume and the crowd was cheering. She turns her gaze briefly out to the field and then back again.

"We should get back to our friends. I apparently need to make sure they all stay in their seats." Mantis gets a brief little side-eye. "Thank you for understanding. Hopefully you won't have to worry about any more incidents from us."

Mantis has posed:
    "Gamora is right," Mantis adds, giving Mary Jane a pitying sort of look, as though it was she who named them hot dogs in the first place. "Why are they called dogs if they are not dogs?"

    "Terra is a strange place," Mantis stage-whispers in Gamora's direction. She shakes her head disapprovingly. This only lasts a moment before her smile returns. "But it is fun to be here!" Mantis adds with no shortage of enthusiasm.

    While Gamora continues discussing things with Mary Jane, Mantis falls silent again. After standing patiently for a few seconds, she opens her mouth and bares her teeth at Gamora again -- so scary! -- and then closes. Mary Jane is given a brief bit of eye-contact before Mantis, once again, silently growls at Gamora while she works to set everything back to normal with the human. Grrrrr.

Mary Jane Watson has posed:
Mary Jane Watson would sigh, "Well, I suppose that's a question fora notehr time. And there are meat sticks, but they're something else entirely. Who am I to know what sorts of euphemisms and cultural references originate from over time or make sense?" She would say over in defense.
    "And you look like you've had a rough day having to keep your gang in check." She's not -quite- sure what they are. Bounty hunters maybe? She's seen Rocket wandering around with a gun before looking for a job. Mercenaries?
    "How about I offer to take you out drinking sometime? You can just take some time for yourself. I know this place that has /very/ strong stuff. Strongest stuff you'll find all the way out through Shi'Ar space."

Mantis has posed:
    "Oh yes, we are very difficult to handle," Mantis answers Mary Jane, as though it was she who was being addressed regarding what a rough day it must have been, but without anything but good cheer in her tone.

    She makes another scary monster face at Gamora!

    But then... the offer to take them for drinks sometime is made.

    Mantis' antennae rise in unison as her mouth hangs open. She steps forward so Gamora can see her enthusiasm for the idea. "Oh, yes, let us do that, Gamora. I have never had a drink before!" she points out, almost breathlessly. Her large, black eyes seem to be just a touch larger... whatever the weird alien version of doe-eyed is called. Fplbarkoid-eyed, maybe.

Gamora has posed:
Gamora's eyes move in such a way that it becomes obvious she's /seeing/ Mantis make those faces, and though she lets a soft, exasperated sigh pass her nose, there's still a hint of affection in her lips. However annoying Mantis or the rest of the crew might be at any given moment, they were still her family.

"Meat stick is a euphemism? For what? Fingers?"

The Most Dangerous Woman in the Galaxy(tm) did not, apparently, have the most vivid imagination in the galaxy. Of course, it's possible that she just spent most of her time trying to keep herself away from Thanos and her crew flying -- instead of extracurricular activities. Unlike some members of the crew.

And for that reason, the notion of having had a 'hard day' and the offer of a drink gets a weak, appeasing smile.

"You go out past the boundary of Shi'Ar space often?" No doubt a specifically targeted question to figure out who she's talking to.

"As much as I..."

But then Mantis is jumping at the opportunity, and Gamora turns to face her, that impatience weighing a little more heavily on her features. You know that look that moms get when people invite their kids to go do something fun without checking with them first? So then the kid gets all excited, and the mom has to be the one to either be the bad guy or give in? That look.

Seconds tick past with Gamora just staring. Doing the math. Could she leave Peter and Rocket alone for that long and still hope to have a ship left?

"Fine." It's almost a sigh.

She looks over at MJ and pulls an info card out of a belt pouch, handing it over. "After the game. I need time to make sure everyone makes it to the ship. Send me the details, and we'll meet you there. We can discuss more about your explorations over drinks."

It's all very matter-of-fact, though she does offer a little quirk of a smile at the end. In the same way a shark might if it had just promised not to eat you.

After that, though, Gamora is turning and holding an arm out to steer Mantis back towards their seats. "Come on. Someone needs to tell Drax the truth about the meat sticks."