2013-01-31 Winter Interlude

Midtown Manhattan. The sun is bright, reflecting off of the towering glass structures that reach upwards towards the heavens and the windshields of the cars that crawl along the congested streets. It's picturesque, really. It's also really, really cold. Wind whistles through the canyon like streets, whipping swirls of earlier fallen flurries here and there. And seeming to cut right through clothing, no matter how warm.
It would be a perfect sort of day to stay inside, but alas, Peter Parker doesn't have that particular luxury. Which is why he makes his way along the sidewalk, directly into the headwind, his head bowed, clutching at the scarf wrapped around his neck as it flutters behind him, trying to work it's way free, whipping wildly in the breeze. Cheeks flushed with the cold he lifts his gaze for just a moment, eyes watering at the blast of cold air in his face, looking for the sign of that particular coffee shop. Hunching his shoulders, his hand strays for just a moment from his neck and almost at once his scarf takes flight, fluttering across the street.
That's what helmets with visors are for. Carol is... well she is less affected by the cold than most, and any time there's less people going out, it gives her an excuse to get out on her motorcycle and try to set her record for traffic laws violated without being pulled over. However, she's just stopped at a red light when a scarf comes out of nowhere and wraps around her helmet and visor."The hell?" she asks as she reaches a hand up to grab the thing, the other hand lifting her visor as she turns her face towards the origin point, or at least... upwind.
Stretching and popping out the kinks, Caitlin strides down the sidewalk. Her attire is surprisingly sparse, considering the weather, but then again, she isn't your average little redheaded girl. She too seeks coffee after a long night of online courses, and morning classes at an annex that facilitates remote courses from Princeton. She probably could go without the caffiene and the extra heat, but the cold air helps wake her up, the caffiene will ensure she stays up, plus she has a resume to put together.
A laptop case hangs from her right shoulder, ready for her to jack into the coffee shops wifi for research, formating help, and the ability to send it to Stark Industries c/o Virgina 'Pepper' Potts, #5 most influential woman on the planet today. Caitlin practically squees to herself at the thought that Pepper Potts will be reading her resume, for a job, personally. She is almost to the shop when she sees the commotion, squinting to try to make out who is shouting... voice soungs familiar... through the flurries of powder.
Pepper Potts is just stepping out of her car, having been asked (pretty please, no less) to bring coffee from "that place, you know, over there" by Tony. To his credit, he's actually attended a few business-related meetings in the past two days, so she's willing to humor him. This time. Pulling a lacy-looking hood-ish thing up to protect her ears, she turns in time to gasp in surprise as a wayward scarf shoots past her face to attack a motorcycle rider at the traffic light. "What the?"
It's not that Peter has a desperate shortage of scarves, but his Aunt did make that one for him and, well, if he shows up without it this evening there will be questions. No more then mild chiding surely, but still questions and given the choice, he'd rather not disappoint his aunt. That, and it's cold out. Damn cold. You would think that have amazing spider powers would make one immune to the cold but no, no such luck. Already he can feel the chill sneaking down the collar of his jacket, sending a shiver through him and he turns his head to track it's progress as it soars... soars... and lands on the helmet of a nearby motorist. Ooops. A good thing traffic is slowed to a crawl. The flush in his cheeks isn't just from the cold any more and he trots over, slipping between a pair of parked cars. "Uhhh, sorry about that. It kind of got away from me. The wind," he says, motioning with one hand. Just in case, you know, she had missed the fact it was breezey out.
Having plucked the scarf from her helmet already, Carol managed to semi-walk her bike out of the traffic flow... even if there is very little to deal with. Her blue eyes inside that dark black helmet stand out as she eyes the approaching scarfless pedestrian. A smirk spreads over her face though the helmet doesn't really show it. However, it makes her eyes crinkle so those perceptive enough can certainly tell she's amused. "All good." She remarks as she holds it out in a gloved hand. Just because the cold doesn't affect her much, doesn't mean she wants to go out in it without covering up mostly. "The wind is making it hard to even steer. Kinda fun." she adds. Hey, Fighter pilots are a weird breed. "This hand made?" she asks as she examines the scarf in that gloved hand... but when it's reached for, she'll happily release it.
Pepper Potts sees the young man chase after his scarf and steps away from her car so the driver can move out of the way of traffic, closing the door and shouldering her bag. She looks about to call out a hello to the scarf's owner, but then hesitates. Is that Parker, or Reilly? Damn. A quandry. Well, one way to find out. "Mr. Parker! Hello!" she calls, hopefully loudly enough to be heard over the wind and the traffic.
Slowly, Caitlin moves to find out if everything is okay. Maybe she misheard what Carol was saying, wind does alter words, and somethimes the imagination makes things worse then they are. She debates if she should intrude as she moves a bit closer, "Everything okay? Didn't hit the curb or something with the scarf across your face?" just checking, then she hears Pepper, and her cheeks flush... could be the cold, but probably not... she looks over, "Hi Miss Potts. Shouldn't you have an assistant or some other subordinate to go out in this weather for you? Or are you meeting someone really important and just couldn't reschedule?" not mentioning whoever would make Pepper come out in such weather has to be a jerk.
With a grateful nod, Peter reaches out for the scarf and quickly returns it to it's resting place coiled around his neck, tucking the dangling ends down into his jacket to hopefully make it a little less prone to escape. "Yeah, my Aunt. I have about ten of them I think, but if one of them goes missing I swear she'll know it the moment I walk through the door," the young man admits wryly, hands quickly stuffed back into his jacket pocket to ward off the chill. "Thanks for catching it," he says about the time that Caitlin nears to see if everything is alright. "Yep, it was my bad. My scarf just got away from me," he explains, ignoring the few looks tossed towards the little gathering. At least until he hears a familiar voice nearby. Lifting a hand, he offers a smile to Pepper. "Miss Potts. Good to see you again," he says. Even better without the 'clone confusion' this time. That, however, goes unsaid.Pepper Potts smiles, inwardly glad she chose correctly, though at Caitlin's reminder that she's on an errand for coffee, she waves to the others and hurries toward the coffee shop. The longer she spends away, the more time Tony has unattended, and heaven only knows what he might do.
Well, she was mostly muttering under her breath at first. But now Carol is speaking a bit more openly. "Well, we can't have that now. No doubt your aunt would send you to your room without dinner if you showed up without her handmade scarf." She chuckles softly and adds, "Though, I'm considering offering to buy it now. It looks nice and cozy and would go great with my lucky hat." she adds. And as Caitlin approaches, she turns her eyes towards the large woman and raises a brow. "Seeing as I was stopped at the time, no, I didn't drive into anything. Quite fortunate that." she adds.
Nodding, Caitlin starts to turn back toward the coffee shop, "Probably be good to get off the road anyway. Looks like the snow is only picking up more, and low visibility with increased windshear and lower traction just sounds like a formula for insurance rate raising wrecks." she waves to Pepper as the busy woman rushes off, sighing, as Caitlin misses out on an opportunity to pick Pepper's brain for what qualities to hype the most in the resume. Pause, she looks back, "I hear this coffee shop has some really good sweet items, definitely worth checking out while waiting out the worst of the weather."
"If it was a little warmer I'd gladly give it to you and risk my aunt's wrath," Peter replies wryly. Though really it wouldn't be so much wrath as a hurt expression -- and in all likelihood even that would pass quickly enough when he explained why. "But I'm not sure that I'd make it to my Aunt's place to be sent to my room without dinner without it," he says, wincing just a little as a particularly gusty breeze whips along the street, a light shower of flurries dusting them and the nearby vehicles. Turning, Peter quirks a brow at Caitlin's words though he lets them pass without comment. "I was actually just on my way there," he agrees. I pay for the coffee just to warm my hands for a few minutes at this point," he admits with a smile.
"Tell you what." offers Carol as she steps off her bike and grips the handlebars to push it into a parking slot. She smirks a bit as she reaches up to take her helmet off. One thing about having long blonde hair, it doesn't like being restrained under a helmet. As she removes the helmet, she shakes her hair out a bit and hooks the helmet to the handlebars before reaching into her little side bike pouch and pulling out... ta-da! Her lucky hat. It really is a bit ugly, but it's got earflaps and such. Great red, blue, and gold color scheme too! "Well, I tell you what, let me buy you a cup of handwarmer, and maybe your aunt a cup of tea?" she asks as she heads for the door. She wasn't planning on it, but hey... she's here now.
Smiling, Caitlin waits until the other two are close before opening and holding the door, since she didn't want to hold the door open for long to keep the snow out, but least she can do is hold it once they're close. She looks at Peter and smiles, "So, do you work for Miss Potts and Mr. Stark, or just a freind?" perhaps hoping to mine a bit of information from Peter that she didn't get the chance to get from Pepper. She smiles and nods to Carol, since their paths seem to keep crossing, and better to be cordial to the powerful blonde, then to make an enemy of someone who actually shows common sense and restraint instead of shooting first and never asking questions or giving stupid orders that make almost as little sense.
A little grin slides over Peter's face as that rather... distinctive hat makes an appearance and he gives a small shake of his head -- in part at the thing's appearance and in part because well, damn it looks warm and today that seems like a particularly great thing. "Nice hat," he murmurs before dipping his head and turning towards Caitlin and the coffeeshop. "That's awfully nice of you, especially since I'm the one that inconvienced you," he offers in reply. But he doesn't refuse. Hey, destitute college student here. He's not in a position to turn down a free anything. Waiting for the other two to slip into the storefront, he follows quickly on their heels, closing the door behind him. "Oh, I applied for an internship at Stark Industries last summer. I eventually met Miss Potts later for something entirely different though," he explains, quirking a brow towards the redhead once more. "You know her as well I take it?"
"Hey, anyone with an aunt who handmade ten scarves, deserves a free cup now and then. Plus I'm hoping that if I get into -your- good graces, I might get into hers too... and maybe I'll get a handmade scarf one of these days." Carol smirks as she pulls those earflaps down to cover her ears and heads inside. She would've followed Peter, but he seemed bound and determined to let her go first. Rather than freezing EVERYONE, she decided that discretion was the winner today. "So you see, my motives aren't entirely pure here." And she nods to Caitline, "Nice to see -you- without all the stupidity and chaos of Micromanaging officers trying to control the whole world. Thank you for trying to help last week."
Blushing at both comments, she nods to Carol, "I just figured that if something like that was landing in the middle of the park, something was up, and better a little more brains and brawn to handle a crisis then not enough." she doesn't add that obviously there wasn't enough even with her there, but that would just be rude. Then to Peter as he acts the gentleman and takes the door from her, she smiles, "Actually only met Miss Potts and Mr. Stark at the huge release event he had for the new StarkPhone Mark IV series models. Mr. Stark ended up giving me a card that told the store to give me the 1TB memory, Jarvis Assisted, Ultra Elite model with every perk, extra, and package deal possible. They also mentioned I should send them my resume about a possible job." Caitlin adjusts the strap of her laptop on her shoulder and gets in line, "I was going to ask you if you knew of anything in particular they're looking for, so I can atleast tailor my resume to a position I have some chance of being good at."
Laughing quietly, Peter nods towards Carol, hands rubbing together as he seeks to warm them a little now that they are out of the wind. "Fair enough. Something for everyone. Best of both worlds," he agrees wryly as he starts towards the counter, the line not too terribly long. "I'll put in a good word for you if nothing else. But I suspect it won't be hard. I have this suspicion that my Aunt would make scarves for everyone if she could get away with it," he admits with a wry smile. He listens with interest to the pair's conversation though no more then that, curiousity restrained and only chiming in once more when Caitlin gives her explanation. "Lucky," he says with an envious note. "I'd give you pointers if I could but honestly by the time they got around to calling me back I'd already found a job. As cool as it would have been to work at Stark Industries, well, gotta pay the bills."
Ironically, with all of Carol's ups and downs, all of her problems she's had... she never had a difficult time remaining employed. She even gets these small checks now and then... royalties on that book she published a few years back. Turns out some folks are still interested in the whole glass ceiling tell all stuff about NASA. At least her SHIELD suspension is over. She gets into line beside Peter and nods to Caitlin. "Well, I barely know Mister Stark. I think I met him once on the helicarrier. "And awesome luck on the new phone. I've heard those things are selling like hotcakes. I'm perfectly happy with my older model one." She shrugs, "Fact is, I don't want to pay to get a new one y'know?" She slides her AMEX card over the counter and orders her own drink. Coffee... black... "Honestly, I'd love something in a scarf that matched my hat, and I'd even pay your aunt for her time. Gotta pay the bills as you say, right?" she asks with a smile.
Glancing at the scarf, Caitlin nods, "Never really thought about a scarf, but they look awesome. If your aunt likes making them, maybe you should make her a website to sell custom made ones as well as more generic ones." she smiles, "I definitely need to find some work, my scholarship to Princeton covers books tuition, but not much else." she stretches a bit, and brushes a stray lock of hair from her eyes, "So, since you got a job, what do you do... um..." she offers her hand, "Miss Potts called you, Mr. Parker, right? I'm Caitlin Fairchild, but Caitlin or Cait is fine."
Hellicarrier? Cooooooooooool. Despite the fact that Carol might have been on the Hellicarrier -- might have been on it on a regular basis by the sounds of it -- Peter resists the urge to go all fanboy, something that is made a little easier by the hot cut of coffee handed over the counter to him. At once he wraps both hands around the cup, the heat radiating through it already doing a great deal to warm him. "She does like to do it and it is a pretty good idea," he says, nodding to the pair of them before hesitating for a moment. "But I'm not sure if she'd take money for something like that or not. She loves to do it, loves to give them away. I'm not sure she'd give that up," he admits. Though, truthfully, the extra money definitely wouldn't hurt. "Either way, I suspect that I can at the least wrangle you two up ones," he promises with a faint grin before extending a hand to Caitlin. "She did. I'm Peter, or Pete," he offers in return. "And I'm a bit of a freelance photographer. Pretty much with the Daily Bugle though."
"Oh, the competition, eh?" asks Carol with a smirk before she offers a hand in turn. "Carol. Carol Danvers." she adds. "I do some freelance journalism for the Planet over in Met. Nice thing about the internet, I can email in my articles without having to relocate." She's not really going into the whole SHIELD thing here. Really, SHIELD, Journalist, Novelist.. too many damned hats in the first place. She looks to Caitlin and nods, "Well, it's certainly nice to officially meet you, and for there not to be a whole firefight going on at the time Ms. Fairchild." But then she looks back towards Peter and grins, "Well, I bet we can be sneaky enough that maybe you'd let us buy the materials, and then you just kinda slip them into her supplies... then she makes'em and thinks she's giving them away and yet.. there's still some compensation. See? One stone, two birds."
Giggling, she offers a hand to Carol, "We actually met officially once before, about two weeks ago, but it was sort of brief. I remember recognising you from the back cover of your book. Though at the time, I didn't know you were with SHIELD." Caitlin pauses, and doesn't want to touch on a possibly sore subject, and decides to spin the meeting in a more positive way, "You were probably real exhausted at the time, all that heroism and SHIELD work must be tiring, so perfectly reasonable to not remember me." cause there are loads of nearly six and a half foot tall redheads in New York.
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