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Summary: Tabitha encounters Pietro and his daughter Luna in the Zoo.
Log Title: A Day at the Zoo
Rating: PG
NYC - Bronx Zoo
The large zoo centered in the Bronx is open for everyone. There are many different exhibits and over eight hundred different species of animals on display. If you want to see Monkeys, Birds, Tigers, Pandas, Snakes or even Naked Mole Rats, all are on display here. There are several different areas for tourists to sit down, relax, and eat at the cafes through out the park. With most zoos, there are gift shops with plush animals, figures, t-shirts and much more.
Scene
While still chilly out, the sun is shining and Pietro is out taking advantage of this. Spring has fickle weather and he's not wanting to miss it. The man is easily recognizable with his white hair, but his attire is casual. Jeans, sneakers, a dark shirt, and over it all a jacket. His most important accessory is the nine to ten year old girl holding his hand. She's a beautiful little girl with bright golden hair, and large, blue eyes. Wearing yellow, if to celebrate the spring, they are checking out the pandas. Just out among the light crowds, ignoring those who might know who he is. Out of costume however, not many people seem to recognize the man for who he is.
Someone else is out and about today in the Zoo; Tabitha is currently wandering about, out of her usual biker-chick outfit. She's gone goth instead; that ought to be an improvement. She's meandering about in a damaged black skirt and similar top, though at least she hasn't gone and done anything silly like getting outrageous facial piercings. She's carrying an icecream cone, looks like chocolate, and laps at it periodically as she walks. She doesn't seem to have any great trouble getting where she wants to go, as people tend to sidestep around her and give her the hairy eyeball as she passes; especially parents with small children, who yank their charges well clear of her. Tabitha takes no notice, and just saunters right up to the Panda enclosure. She hasn't yet recognized Pietro, even standing right beside his small companion, as she gawks at the black and white creatures in the cage.
If there's anyone here who isn't about to freak out over you it's Pietro and his daughter. Not having lived with the Inhumans as long as they have. Tabitha wouldn't even get a second glance among them, excepting perhaps for being considered attractive. For the moment however Luna is gawking at the pandas. They are so cute! "Papa? Can I take one home?" Pietro however isn't paying the pandas much mind. No, he's looking amused. "Small world." To Tabitha of course. "Good afternoon, young lady. How did your appointment go?" Tony didn't talk about it, but then Pietro certainly isn't told everything Tony does during a day. "Luna, this is Tabitha. Luna is my daughter." And thus distracted from pandas, the girl blinks at the young mutant. Then she merely smiles, "Hi!" Not a bit of fear in her. "Papa, can we get ice cream?" That looks yummy.
The rat girl's ears perk up, and she tilts her head to look at Pietro; and then down at the child, and then back up to Pietro. Her tail twitches, and her jaw clenches for just a moment. "Hi," she replies, pleasently. "And, good to meet you Luna. I'm Tabitha, guilty as charged." She grins down at the little girl, and holds out her own ice cream, that's only had a bit taken off the top so far. "You can have mine, if your Dad will allow it. I only licked a bit of it. No rat drool, I promise." She looks back up, and nods once. "I'm accepted," she replies, quite simply; though her lips do quirk upwards at the corners. "So I'll be living at Barnes now; already moved in, so I'll be out of your hair, hmm?"
The reaction isn't lost on Pietro, but he says nothing for it. Merely holds his tongue as Luna shakes her head. "Thank you, but I like strawberry." Nope, really doesn't care about the rat part. And as she looks expectantly at her father, he proves a jerk again. If in the time honored parental manner. "Not until after dinner." Oh, she'll get her ice cream. If she eats her dinner anyway. As for out of his hair, there's a return of near smirk. "Oh, I doubt that." Mutant teens always turn up like bad pennies. He should know, he once was one. "I do believe you'll do better at Barnes. They will at least allow you your guns."
Luna sighs over no ice cream and pulls her father a little. Wants to go look at the next exhibit. And so he's pulled along, but that doesn't mean Tabitha is excluded. Pietro tilts his head in question. Coming along? "Would you like to join us for dinner? We were going to get something here at the zoo."
"My guns weren't what I was worried about," she murmurs. After a moments hesitation, she turns and steps quickly to catch up. "I… uhhmm…" The rat girl glances down at the little girl, then back up to Pietro. "Sure," she replies, and bobs her head. "Yeah, that'd be great. Ever since I…" She reaches up to scratch at the back of her head. "I dunno, what do you call it in polite company? Ever since my appearance decided to take inspiration from 'The Secret of NIMH', I've had twice the appetite I used to have." She licks the icecream, and looks down at Luna. "Chocolate is my favorite, by the way." She grins once more. "Well, mint chocolate, but they didn't have that here. Just that lame-oh chocolate pistachio abomination."
He knows they weren't high on the list, but it was one of the safer topics, yes? "Ever since your powers manifested." Pietro offers in way of describing it. "I'm rather sure you don't consider me polite company, but I thank you for Luna's benefit." Maybe he shouldn't be smiling at that, but he is. Luna pipes up after this, "You can't eat as much as papa or Uncle Tony." She makes a face at that, which has the man's smile spreading. Oh look, they are at a different angle of pandas. "Mint is okay. I guess." She sounds dubious of flavors. Pietro supplies, "She prefers pink." As if that explains her entire rational, which it does. "I don't always wear pink." The girl protests.
Pietro does further assure with, "Your appetite isn't a concern. My own is large due to my powers as well. We'll be fine so long as you don't mind being gawked at while we eat enough for six." And he doesn't mean Tab's appearance either.
"I used to like pink the best too," Tabitha confesses, looking down at Luna. "Drove my Dad nuts, he was always taking me camping and complained that I stood out like a sore thumb in pink." She pauses, and chuckles softly. "Maybe I should go get some more pink clothes sometime." She looks up at Pietro, and shrugs her shoulders lightly. "I'm getting used to being gawked at," she replies. "Probably helps that I'm a girl. You know; all girls sorta expect men to gawk at them…" She smirks, and turns her head to watch the way she's going, and flicks her notably long tongue over the ice cream once more. "We've just… had some differences, is all… that's how my Mom would've put it, anyway."
"Then why are you wearing all that black?" The girl asks, letting go of her father's hand. "Do your parents not buy you proper clothes?" Allow and she fingers a bit of Tabitha's battered looking clothing. Which of course earns her a chiding, "Luna." Pietro's tone is firm. "She is wearing it that way on purpose." He attempts to explain. "People want to look homeless?" She asks, looking confused. Hey, her father's daughter after all. Pietro however, can't explain that part other than, "Yes, some do. But stop now." Not insult the teen any more than the two already have.
Talk about differences. "That's certainly a polite way of describing it." Pietro can't help it and smiles. He should do that more often, for it makes his frown relax. "There's nothing wrong with having differences. It's how you react after them that's telling." And while he still disagrees, here he is. "So far you are showing yourself well." Luna meanwhile offers you her hand. Want to walk with her? "Let's go see the tigers." Papa is such a stink in the mud!
Tabitha adopts a bemused look, and shakes her head. "Not homeless," she replies. "Though I have been homeless, but I didn't dress this way when I was. This is called 'goth'. Your Dad can explain it to you." She pauses, and takes the offered hand. "This is pretty light goth actually, other people who do it wear more stuff like spikes and chains, and get lots of tattoos and piercings, but I don't wanna do that. At least not the tattoos and piercings." She shrugs her shoulders lightly. "I understand you were trying to protect your friend. It's cool, I got sassy with Envy in the park when she was threatening Mr. Stark, too." She pauses, and brushes her free hand through her hair. "I don't want to start that up again now… just… I've never meant to burden him. But we can talk about that later, okay?" The rat girl glances back down at Luna. "Are tigers your favorite animal?"
Dad isn't worried about goth and explaining it, to Luna's disappointment. "No, girl, it doesn't work that way." But his tone isn't hard. Firm, but not angry. "You don't get to bring something up, get the last word in, then claim you don't want to speak of it. If you didn't want to discuss it, then you shouldn't have spoken of it." The man's bright eyes are focused on Tabitha. Luna just sighs. "No. Lockjaw is." Her favorite animal. Pietro eyes the girl, but in amusement. Heh. Lockjaw.
"And I am quite aware you didn't mean to. I wouldn't be speaking to you know otherwise." Much less as politely as he has been. Pietro is stubborn. "It's more of that Tony is.. complicated. Which doesn't explain much, I know." Almost apologetic that. "He will accept everything thrown at him without complaint, then strive to do it all until it breaks him. Your problem is hardly a large one, for all it seems that way in your shoes. Nor do I mean to belittle your troubles. Your issues are real concerns. It's that there are thousands of people trying to do exactly the same thing. Tony fixes things. That's what he does, so they ask, and in asking, well. If it were one or two he'd handle it, but there are hundreds. Thousands. I am attempting to prevent the inevitable breakdown. Your troubles could be the last straw that broke the camel's back as it were."
Tabitha perks an eyebrow, "When I said 'let's talk later', it was because I wasn't seeking the last word," she points out, "Just to put the conversation off until later, for your daughter's benefit." She shrugs her shoulders lightly. "But, she seems pretty grown up anyway. Right, Luna?" She glances down at the girl, and flashes her a quick grin. "Honestly; after I fought Dingo, Mr. Stark was telling me that I needed to stop putting myself in harm's way and let people who are trained to handle things, just… handle them, and he was frustrated because I wasn't listening. So I wanted to show that I was listening. That's… that's part of it. I'm not trying to justify anything, I'm just explaining." She pauses, and shrugs her shoulders lightly. "Anyway. I'm at Barnes, now. And… I'm sure you'll tell me I'm out of my everloving rodent mind, but someday, I hope I can be the sort of person who is helping you and Mr. Stark *fix* people's problems rather than being a source of them." Her ears color as she blushes, and she looks back down at Luna once more. "Who's Lockjaw?"
"There's nothing here I'm concerned about Luna over hearing." Pietro insists. The girl rolls her eyes. Adults. That grin is returned, but Luna's main attention is on the tigers. Pietro meanwhile seeks to place a hand on that shrugging shoulder of Tabitha's. "A teenager who wouldn't listen. Imagine." The touch is gentle, and certainly not meant to be over bearing. His strange way of trying to comfort, for all it's brief. "You must be a mutant." Said because he's teasing. "And you explain well. We disagree, but I only ask you keep that in mind. I will be only too pleased to see you become someone who isn't burdening him with their issues. There are only too few of those."
Lockjaw? Luna answers that one. "He's my.. dog." There's an uncertainty there. "That's the only way I can explain it." She's apologetic there. Her father explains a little better, "Luna's mother is what amounts to an alien." "Alien princess!" Luna jumps in, which has Pietro smiling. "Excuse me, alien princess, my little princess. Yes. Lockjaw isn't a dog, but that's as close as description as you're to get without seeing him first hand."
Tabitha doesn't shy away from Pietro's hand, and she ends up shaking her head slowly. "Well, it's alittle late for me to take it back," she points out. "And I didn't know who else to turn to. I mean the cops don't precisely listen to mutants — or they don't in my experience anyway." She pauses, and is about to say something else when that little revelation comes along. "I… really? That's…" That's weird. But hey; mutants, men who make technological battle-suits, teenage girls who drink demon's blood… why not aliens, too? "That's cool," she replies at last, with a light shrug. "I hope I do get to see him sometime. And, I am gonna do it." She tilts her head to face Pietro straight on, and squares her shoulders. "I'm gonna be one of the best. and I really *will* be helping you and Mr. Stark. I promise."
"If you're concerned for your safety Barnes will take care of that." Pietro points out. "Unfortunately there's nothing that can be done at this stage. Take it from someone with an abusive father with diplomatic immunity, that fact gets entirely frustrating." Very much so. "And it doesn't grow less so." A sigh for that. "Try and be patient. If you are lucky you never encounter the man again. If you aren't, well, we'll have to deal with that should it happen." And no, he's not pleased with that having to wait. Luna smiles for that her mother might be neat. "We live on the moon." Said seriously. "When he picks me up maybe you can see him." Lockjaw /is/ neat! Going to be the best? That's a good goal. Pietro smiles in approval and asks, "Shall we move on? I don't know about you, but I'm hungry." Luna sighs, "You are always hungry."
Tabitha realizes that she's been neglecting her ice cream, about when it starts dripping on her wrist. She licks it off, and performs a hurried attack to keep any more of it from dripping. "…Did I just drip ice cream through my hair, too? Totally forgot I was holding this." She slurps off the rest of the top, and starts chewing at the cone. "I'm hungry too. Is there a good burger place here?" She turns to keep up, and shrugs her shoulders lightly. "If my Dad catches up with me, there'll probably be a gunfight. Unless if I don't have any guns, in which case…" She pauses, and shakes her head. "In which case it might be a really one-sided gunfight. Hopefully he never will, though. Or maybe he'll change his mind about mutants." She gazes down at Luna, and perks an eyebrow. "I'll have to visit you on the moon, sometime," she observes. "As soon as I can copy someone who can go there."
"No." Luna offers cheerfully. No ice cream in hair. Neither one knows if there's anything good around here, but with the nod of his head, Pietro makes his way towards the food court. His daughter takes his hand, and you three can walk together that way, Luna between you. "I doubt there's much here that's good in any sense of the word." It's a zoo! "There's no way to tell how things will unfold." Hey, Tab's dad could somehow get a battle suit, Tab could copy Gorgeous George, and there could be an epic goo battle in Central park. You never know. Visit the moon? Luna brightens, "That'd be neat." She likes it, but Pietro pointedly says nothing. Such visits aren't allowed, and he has no say in that.
"Yeah, well, I'm feeling more optomistic today than I have done in almost a year." Tabitha stuffs the rest of the cone in her mouth, and chomps it up noisily. "Hey, Neil Armstrong and his hairy bunch made it up there with no super powers and enough computing power to operate a wrist-watch. Can't be *that* hard." She gazes around the food court, and humms. "Lots of… zoo food," she observes. "Maybe I should go wrestle the tiger for that steak he had instead. I don't care if it was raw, he was getting the biggest portion in the whole zoo."
The girl giggles at the idea of a hairy bunch making it to the moon. "They went to the wrong side, silly." No, getting there isn't the problem. It's facing the Inhumans to get in that is. Pietro skips that part however and frowns at the choices here. He's thinking that Tony would love all this junk. "Would you rather go somewhere else? I don't mind treating you to a proper restaurant." There is amusement over stealing that steak from the Speedster, but Luna looks at Tabitha. "You wouldn't really take the tiger's dinner, would you?" No, doesn't at all doubt that Tab could. Tab has powers! Anyone with powers could take things from some old tiger.
"To the tiger, I probably am dinner," the rat girl replies in a dry tone of voice. "Cats like to eat rats. But I bet I'm quick enough to get it if I really wanted to." She chuckles softly. "But no, I'm not going to, I was just kidding." She looks up, and shakes her head. "I'm happy eating anything," she replies. "If you want to go somewhere else, we can go; or we can stay here. I'm easy either way."
"No, here is fine." Pietro just won't eat much. He leads the mutant human mutant train through the tables and to a place that looks like it makes hamburgers. While people are staring, he totally ignores them with the ease of long practice. Luna wrinkles her nose about being dinner. "Silly. No animal could get the better of you." So claims the princess, so it shall be! Right? "I'm glad." That Tab was kidding. After this she's picking what she wants from the menu, giving disapproving looks to the unsettled boy behind the counter. Pietro is ignoring him too really, "What ever you like, Tablitha." Money is no trouble, for really, he doubts you can order more than he can afford this once.
Tabitha blushes softly, evident in the coloring of her ears. "I'm sure there are plenty of animals that could get the better of me," she replies. "All that tiger would have to do is get his jaws on me and I'd be finished." She meets the gaze of the boy behind the counter, and brushes her fingertips through her hair. "Hey, Jimmy," she drawls, after her eyes glance at the boy's nametag, "I don't bite. But I would like to eat a couple burgers and a smokie — and no tomato, please." She flashes a big, toothy grin, before tilting her attention sideways and nodding to Pietro. "Thank you, Mr. Maximoff," she replies. "That's very generous of you."
Luna doesn't think so. "I bet you could avoid it." Not that she has any idea what abilities Tabitha has, but that really doesn't matter. Luna gets a kids meal, and her father orders four burgers for himself, on top of fries and drinks. There is an arched eyebrow as he offers the poor boy a credit card. "Buying you a meal is hardly what I consider generous, but you are welcome." Can't let you go hungry. As card is dealt with, he looks down and runs a fond hand over his daughter's hair. She leans against him as the three of you wait, and idly gets her hair finger combed back from her face. "Not everyone has issue with obvious mutants, Tabitha. As difficult as I know that can be."
Tabitha shrugs her shoulders dismissively. "I don't mind as much anymore," she murmurs. "It was pretty devestating at first, and I'm still not to keen on the occason where someone stuffs a gun in my face or pulls a knife or something. But as long as they just stare at me like I'm sprouting a third eyeball, then whatever, I can deal." She gazes downwards at Luna, and her lips curl upwards. "You've got a lof of faith in me," she observes. "I hope I can live up to that." The rat girl looks up once more, to observe the boy working on their order. "Actually, there's at least three other mutants here at the zoo. I'm not sure what they can do, I didn't copy them."
"And you are a horrible liar." Pietro notes with a smile. Knows very well what it means to be stared at for being a mutant, even if his physical changes are minor ones. His hair, and the color of his eyes, aren't natural. Still, hair color hardly gets the same reaction as a rat girl, and he knows it. Luna straightens and seeks to take your hand. "I think you're very pretty. You'll be an awesome hero I'm sure. My mother is a hero too. Maybe someday I can be as well." The food is quickly placed before you, but Pietro doesn't look surprised at this news. Fiona told him some days ago. Luna, it should be noted, is not a mutant at all. "That's the kind of information you may want to keep to yourself, Tabitha." He warns as he takes the loaded tray and nods towards the tables. Time to move!
~ Fin ~
