174/First Butt Kicking. Then Park Walking.

First Butt Kicking. Then Park Walking.
Date of Scene:	28 February 2020
Location:	Bryant Park
Synopsis:	Alexander is perhaps convinced to give vigilantism a try.
Cast of Characters:	Melissa Gold, Alexander Aaron

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Melissa Gold has posed:
    That had been a heady amount of fun. Going in. Kicking ass. Stopping robbers. Pretty much exactly what she'd done on the other side of the law, only this gets her accolades and makes her feel good.
    Except for that disappearing jerk. But hey, can't please everybody, right?
    Deciding that the night's work was done, she found a place where she could change out of her Songbird gear and just be plain old Melissa again, chatting away with Alexander, excitedly going over the evening's events. Then it was time for a walk in the park, and what better park than the park she'd first met the black goopy guy at? She was curious how well they'd cleaned it up anyway, given all the enormous tentacle segments (and bodily parts in one corner) that were involved.
    "See?" she says, pointing to the lawn, most of which had been cordoned off by crime scene tape and watched by dour-faced constables who really didn't seem to want to be there. "You can just make it out: the pentacle burned into the grass. I think that's where the tentacles came from, but I need to find someone smarter than me to track down what they mean and who they're from. I don't think this is over. I only got two tentacles myself, and black goophead got two more himself, and two we did together. This didn't feel like it was the end of thing."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    "That..." Alexander says as he walks along with her, footsteps even and quiet, "Is pretty cool, while simultaneously being super gross." But his smile is wry as he looks sidelong at her, hands in his pockets though occasionally there might be a casual bump of their hips or an affectionate touch. It was nice to have someone to share things with, and after flying around with her for a night... it had been so wonderful to see into her world.
    "But how did you take care of them? Sonic blast things?" And as he says that he walks toward the cordon tape and... just ducks underneath it, slipping into the area where the pentacle or pentragam or magic circle must have been.
    But, to Alexander's credit, he doesn't come close to stepping past the line of that external circle. As if he could somehow sense it. He holds one hand out and tilts his head, listening, perhaps perceiving. But then shakes his head.
    "I don't get a vibe, so probably nothing to do with my little corner of the crazy mystical world."

Melissa Gold has posed:
    "Oh, first I came in and goophead went down," Melissa explained. "I thought he got poisoned by the things so I used a blast on my first one. That hurt goophead a lot, so I had to power down the sonics and go physical, which is when three of them nabbed me. Two of them were goin' after him, so he cut one with an axe he suddenly had, then I stretched on of the ones on me out and he cut that, that freed an arm and I yanked another one while he was goin' to town on his second, then he got the second one I was holdin' and, well, a little Oopsie happened, I told him to run away, and blasted the final one with sonics again."
    She chuckles. "It was wild and wacky fun, truth be told. I've had better and more painful pins in the ring than those things gave."
    The bravado, naturally, to mask the seriousness of what she'd been involved in.
    "Woulda loved seein' you in action there. You'da probly just ripped one of the damned things out of the ground and beat the rest of 'em with the messy end!"

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    Turning back around he watches her as she regales him with the tale of the deed and she is /so/ animated, so vibrant and alive. He steps back out under that yellow tape and steps up to her, hands back in the pockets of his jeans. That grey hoodie still hugging his chest but hiding all of those lines of definition underneath. Perhaps she knows now why he hides certain aspects of himself. But not from her.
    But he saunters over and smiles into her eyes, "It sounds exciting. I bet you were impressive as all hell." He then looks down and then back up at her under the hooded lids of his eyes, almost devilish in his expression. "So you want me to go get a costume of my own? Start running around with you and we could fight crime together?" He asks that, and weirdly enough, the idea doesn't sound entirely ludicrous.
    Even as he steps closer and his hands slip from his pockets, resting on her shoulders as he smiles. "Run around as Songbird and Raven?" Probably not knowing that name is already taken. "Or, is this your way of asking me to go steady?" Since, to be fair, things were moving fairly quick for them. Not that he seemed to mind.

Melissa Gold has posed:
    "Hey, you'd look good in tights," Melissa says, grinning. "Or I don't know, maybe some kind of outfit in leather. Ask at the bar I bounce at. Loads of people there could help you out with leath..." And then her brain's metaphorical cylinders pop straight through her head's metaphorical hood as Alex downshifts the conversation from fifth to first. And she catches up.
    "Wait, steady? What?" She stops dead, looking surprised. She laughs. It's unconvincing. "We've just known each other for a few days," she scoffs. "I mean, you don't even know my favourite food yet."
    (Hint: It's anything. She's a bit low on cash at the moment. Spandex isn't cheap!)
    Yet, despite the breezy blowing off, her eyes tell a different story. She's shaken, yes, but intrigued. And it's not the first time she's made sudden decisions that some would term rash. The door is clearly open.
    "Raven would work, but I mean it's so obvious there must be a dozen guys in tights out there named Raven." A malicious grin spreads across her face. "We could dress you in black, but give you big red shoulder pads with yellow trim. Call you Blackbird! How's that work for you?"

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    Still resting his arms on her shoulders, he takes that moment of confusion from her to lean in and touch a small kiss to her brow, before he turns, arms sliding free and returning his hands to his pockets as he starts back walking along that path with her at his side. "Maybe a weekish?" He says, perhaps not really knowing how much time has passed. Assured somehow that's likely some sort of sign or something."
    "Blackbird?" He lifts those hazel eyes upwards, the irises catching the light of the streetlamps and the skyline as he looks back at her, giving a small shrug. "I mean, maybe. If you're serious. I could consider it. I mean, once a year or so ago I got the idea in my head to run around a little and see what I could see... but... I never found much crime."
    Then again maybe he was looking in the wrong places.
    "But I was figuring, if you're going to meet my dad. And if he likes you and all. And we end up spending more time together. Then I mean, sure?" He turns around and walks backwards away from her, smiling a little crookedly. "I know I'm not hugely interested in dating other folks. But I wouldn't want to presume about your feelings."

Melissa Gold has posed:
    "Well, if you don't feel the call to dispensing with justice..." Melissa says, chuckling, and seemingly unaware of the malapropism, "...I'm not gonna force you to come out with me. I just ... well, I done a lot of bad things and then found out doin' the right things feels better. Got a lot of time to make up for."
    And, whispers her fear, a lot to atone for before people like me.
    She walks along a bit, leaning against Alex, head against his upper arm.
    "But I wouldn't say no if you decided to come. It'd be fun, like it was today. Though distracting me while I work might not be the best way to go about things if it's serious."
    Apparently four bank robbers with guns isn't serious...though the boss might be.
    "Anyway, enough about what I want. What do you wanna do with your life? You're at the university, right? Whatcha studyin'?"
    She tries on her joke she's been preparing since she found out what Alex really was.
    "Extinction of species-specific defense reactions in mammals through the application of blockers of the sympathetic nervous system?" She's saying that in halting tones, eyes rolled up, as if reciting a memorized sentence.

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    Walking along with her on his arm seems like just the natural state of things, gentle, enjoyable. He at times lets his head lean over and rests on hers, just giving a small smooch to the top of her head and that wild mane of hers. His lip twists as he murmurs, "I'll think about it. If you /need/ me though, if you're in danger, or something is up. Then yeah, I'll come." He takes a moment to catch her eyes, trying to impart the sincerity there.
    "And hey, sorry about distracting you. It just... I'm a fairly good read of situations, one thing my father really focused on making me better about. And there were so many markers there that those guys were chuckleheads."
    He then says with an almost too casual air, "I mean, if they had somehow through some stroke of luck hurt you, I woulda flipped out and probably killed them. But they didn't so." He grins at her and holds up a finger as he says weakly, 'Yay.'
    But then she asks him about university and he says, "Next semester actually. I'm..." His nose crinkles, "Going to this school that my dad asked me to go to. To help a friend of his and it's... meh. Not my cup of tea so far."
    Of course then she comes out with that stream of curious words all together and he asks, "The hell is that?"

Melissa Gold has posed:
    Melissa shrugs impishly, eyes lit as she watches Alexander's face. "Something I read on that Internet thing over at the library." She points to the NYC Library lit up in the night. "Controlling fear."
    And at that she laughs, watching Alexander's face. "I've been waiting for days to figure out a good time to ask you that one!" she chortles.
    She ducks what she expects to be a revenge-swatting, before looking more serious.
    "Bullets can hurt me," she says, "but usually they can't get close to me. With goopguy there, though, I had to turn off the sonics, so that was a bit more dangerous than those kinds of mooks usually are." She holds up her thumb and forefinger separated by a very short distance. "Only a little, though. You were right. I think they were set up, personally. That boss of theirs sounds like some of the people I've worked for. People who'd sacrifice a few mooks just to test something."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    His smile is wry, then he shakes his head as he lifts his eyes upwards towards the sky, as if he was so put upon by this woman, tasked with enduring her horrible sense of humor. And she does get a reprisal, but it's just in the form of a small hip check that might shift her balance for one step at most.
    "You are such a dork." He says, not for the first time, and definitely not for the last time.
    But then he nods, "Yah, you and the goop guy working together might not be tactically viable. Though he seemed nice." That said he scritches his chin and gets a wistful distant look as he hrms to himself. Then he looks back at her, meeting her eyes.
    "Is it horrible of me that after you broke that guy's arm I wanted to kiss you?"

Melissa Gold has posed:
    "Just kiss? Yeah, that's horrible!" Melissa says with a laugh. "I was aiming for gropes. Guess I gotta up my game." She makes a wry face. "Yeah, goop guy and I can't really team. He's pretty damn powerful. If it was just me and him without my sonics, he'd win. No time flat. He's good. But I turn on my sonics and he's screaming in pain and writhing around helplessly. So me powering up to his level leaves him weaker than a kitten. It ain't a good pairing. We met by accident, but I'm pretty sure he's regretted it a couple of times by now."
    She looks absurdly proud for a bit. "I've been in a few teams, though, starting with The Grapplers back when I was in wrestling. I think I'm a pretty damned good team player."

Alexander Aaron has posed:
    "Well, in this case kiss might be a euphemism, but I can totally believe you being a good team player." Though his lips twist with amusement at her answer. But he keeps walking with her hand in his and looks off into the distance. The blond youth nods a few times in time with her words, looking so terribly thoughtful as those green-blue eyes focus on the city's skyline. The rain is still there, thought his late at night it's more a misting, just that faint feeling of moisture in the air.
    "I'm not sure how good I'd be as a vigilante or the like. All I can really do is fight." He seems to have a curious idea about what vigilantes do. "I'm not a detective. Police work, taking apart a scene? Not so much. I'm horrible at puzzles, whenever I play a game online and it has a puzzle I just google it."
    He sniffs a little, as if clearing his breathing while he chews his lower lip then turns back to her. "But if you want me to give it a try with you, I can. Just... don't be disappointed if I suck at it. Alright?"
    That said he stops their walk for a moment, then turns her to face him. His smile curves up a little and then he decides that moment is ideal to steal a kiss from the Terrible, the Dangerous, the Deadly Songbird.