2013.06.09 - A Shared Bench

It's something of a dreary day, but warm, and it's the warmth that has New Yorkers out in force in Central Park. While the sun plays hide and seek with the clouds, so does a group of children among a woodsy section of the open space. Fern doesn't have to work for a couple hours yet, so she's brought out her lunch, settled onto a bench, and is watching the game from a short distance away. The calls and bright laughter of the children has a smile on her lips, her expression musing as she watches one little blonde boy hiding his eyes against a tree trunk, counting loudly to one hundred. 
 
She raises a sandwich to her lips, taking a bite, letting her hands fall to her lap again with the food clutched in her grasp. Her clothing is nondescript, blending her in to the crowds, brown leather sandals with laces that criss-cross her legs until tying off just below her knees, a tweedy looking brown skirt, the ensemble topped off with a green v-neck t-shirt. Her red hair might be the only thing that would draw attention to her, a flash of color in the grey-ish day. Her feet swing lightly as she eats, a bit of dust kicking up as they scuff on the ground. 
Non-descript clothing, that might be a thing that Patrick should look into buying at some point. Except that few places make non-descript clothing that is any good for a daily workout. At the moment the auburn haired young man is dressed in what clothes he could find for cheap that would work at all for workouts, a tight fitting blue t-shirt with a red star in the middle of it and a pair of white basketball shorts. 
At the moment Patrick is not too far from where Fern is taking her lunch where he has been working on a fairly impressive looking set of exorcises. Between his looks, how he is dressed, and the workout he has been doing looking like one that would give a yogi a hard time he has collected a small crowd that only starts to disperse once he ends up on his feet and gathering up the small lunch box that had been sitting near him. 
The crowd gets a confused look form the auburn haired youth, mainly because he was so deep in concentration he did not notice most of them show up, before he moves off to find a place to sit. The nearest bench of course ends up being Fern's. "Um, excuse me ma'am. Do you mind if I sit here while I eat?"
Fern had noted the crowd from the corner of her eye, but her attention hadn't been turned away from the children and drawn to the young man at the center of it. It's his voice that manages that, as the young woman turns her head, tilting it back to look up at him. Her smile comes at once, surprisingly friendly and open for the middle of Central Park. Although there's plenty of room, she still scoots over a touch as indication of that fact, and she tosses back, "As long as you don't call me ma'am again." What might be harsh words from some come with clear good humor. 
Patrick gives Fern a small smile that somehow manages to be both sheepish and a little cocky at the same time. "Sorry M...Sorry about that. I forget people around here don't seem to think of Ma'am as the polite term it is back home." he replies as he takes a seat slowly opening his lunch. When he opens up his lunch it turns out to be less the typical western packed lunch but a traditional Japanese style bento lunch packed in a cheap Iron Man child's lunch box. "I promise I won't let it happen again if you're willing to share your name?"
"Oh, it's polite," Fern responds with a soft laugh, "And I do appreciate manners. But it makes me feel like a little old lady." Sure, she's got a couple years on Patrick, apparently, but let's not get nuts. He doesn't look that much younger than she does. She even reaches up, tugging a lock of her hair out so she can look at it before declaring, "Nope. Not blue yet." That same hand is extended toward her new benchmate, "I'm Fern." Blue eyes drop quickly to his lunch box, lingering a moment on the arranged food. Her own sandwich has come out of a paper sack that lies on the bench between them. 
Patrick does not look near as young as he really is, that is if you count only how long he has been alive instead of how old he is physically. Patrick grins and takes the offered hand for a firm but not overly so shake. "Patrick. No, you are definitely nowhere near old nor are many of the women I am supposed to call ma'am."
Fern's grip is a fair match, not mushy, her hand soft and warm. A light squeeze and she releases him, "Nice to meetcha, Patrick." If she realized this is the third 'Spider' she's met, she'd be a bit less casual about it, but, despite her uncanny propensity for running into those who have been gifted in some way, she still first assumes everyone just an average joe, like she herself. She nods, indicating his lunch, "That's a pretty fancy lunch. I think I've seen something like that, when I was looking through things on the library computers. And I like your lunchbox." Her grin surfaces with this. "I saw Tony Stark at a party once. He's pretty intimidating in the flesh." 
Patrick grins at Fern and nods. "Fancy? Really? It has always been fairly utilitarian to me. It is just rice teriyaki chicken and a couple of small vegetable dishes I know. Although it is a lot better and better for you than an MRE" He shrugs, not really sure what a normal person would be used to when it comes to a fairly simple and fast to put together meal. "I have met him before too, sort of. It was not at a party but he was a bit intimidating."
"Probably better for you than ham with honey mustard," Fern says, holding her own sandwich up for a second. "Still, it's better than a steady diet of cannoli." Which would be what she subsists on, in little care packages from her employer, along with the occasional meal that was fired 'accidentally' near closing time. 
"You would think someone would be less towering at a party, wouldn't you? I mean, he seemed nice enough from what I saw, but...." She falters, just adding, "He's Tony Stark." as if that explains it entirely. "How'd you meet him?" she asks curiously. 
Patrick nods at Fern. "Definitely a lot better for you. None of the additives or preservatives in most modern foods and a good balance of all the nutrition a human body needs." He can't help it, he had good healthy food and exorcise programmed into him. He would have an easier time going supervillian than he would eating a diet made up mostly of things like cannolis. "It was...as part of my father's work. He is part of a government think tank back home." The answer is both the truth and pretty much entirely a lie at the same time. While telling people he meets in costume the truth is fairly easy he figures explaining things to random civilians would not go over near as well.
Fern takes a bite of her sandwich as Patrick talks, and, oddly for ham and honey mustard, it crunches as she does, and some crumbs are dislodged, falling to the ground to be hunted out by the pigeons later. The bite is small, quickly chewed and swallowed. "Neat," she says agreeably, not prying in once government is mentioned. Still, there's a question she can't resist asking, and her voice lowers, tone taking a conspiratorial tenor, "Did you get to see the suit?" 
Patrick nods and gives a small laugh before leaning in to whisper in the same tone. "Yes I did." He then leans back and picks up the chopsticks he brought along in his lunch to start eating bit by bit. "The technology he has created is all amazing stuff. Part of me wishes I could understand it a lot better but I am not exactly built to be a thinker."
The eager anticipation on Fern's face gives way to a beaming smile at Patrick's reply, "That must have been cool." There's a sound from her that brings to mind the air rushing from a punctured tire, but shorter. "Psht. Everyone just thinks in different ways. It's doesn't mean you aren't a thinker, it just means you're a different thinker. Besides," she goes on easily, "He's, like, a genius." 
Patrick nods at Fern and shrugs a little. "The armors he has made are all fairly cool. I guess you are right. My brothers and I are more tactical thinkers than anything scientific the way father is. He is a genius as well, although it is mostly in genetics. Unfortunately he did not give my brothers and I his IQ." He shrugs a little again, no use being sad or upset over how one is made anyway.
"All?" Fern caught that, and she looks a little surprised. "I didn't know there was more than one suit." She's not really all that up on the superhero scene, although she's quite a bit more informed than she had first been upon coming to New York. "I wouldn't have thought he'd need more than one." She pauses to consider, then relents, "Well, ok, I guess I can see now how he might, now that I'm thinking about it. What if one gets dented? Then you need a backup." Now it makes more sense and she can move on. "You have brothers? I have three. They're all back home," she adds, probably needlessly, but she's not shy about sharing information. 
Patrick curses at himself a little inside, he has no idea if this world's Tony Stark is as much of a tinkerer as his own, although he would be more surprised if he was not than if he is. "I understand he has a number of them, one for every occasion from having to fight the Hulk to deep sea research. He seemed the kind to constantly be upgrading and redesigning too." He shrugs eating some of the cucumber salad he has as part of the bento before he goes on. "There are three of us, triplets. Mike and Van ended up staying back home."
Fern nods, seeing even more sense as Patrick goes on about the Iron Man suits. "I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, I can understand that now. And he sure doesn't seem like the kind of guy to just sit on his hands and not keep looking to improve his work." That was clear even from a brief encounter. "Triplets? Wow, that's neat. My brothers are all just older than me. Never fail to point that out, either." Her eyes roll with these words, but there's a fondness that comes through clearly. 
Patrick laughs a little and nods. "Brothers are the same no matter what. Mike never fails to mention that he was the first when he can." Actually, he was the second since MVP was the first but he got sent home to live with the biological parents of the guy Pat got cloned from. "It is actually the first time we have been apart for any length of time at all."
A touch of sympathetic sadness shows in Fern's eyes at these words, her voice softening again. "Yeah, same here. They're all still back home. I'm the only one who left to do something." There's a soft sigh, but she shakes off the moment readily enough, perhaps as a defensive measure so she doesn't dwell on missing her family while she's alone here in the city. "So what do you do?" Again, the sandwich comes up and a crunchy bite is taken. 
Patrick takes a moment to think about just how to answer the question. Really he can't tell the woman he runs around in a Tony Stark designed costume that is part Spider-man part Iron Man and uses his Captain America like skills and natural abilities to fight crime. "Exorcise mostly? I am really waiting for my family to finish up things back home and come collect me, or find a way to do a few things I need too in order to help them. Mostly I am just keeping myself busy and doing a little work here and there where I can find it."
Perhaps if Patrick knew that Fern is acquainted with Ben Reilly and his Scarlet Spider persona, he might volunteer the information, but it's understandable to not, considering. She grins, her good nature shining through, "Bit of a life of luxury?" It's a light tease, and she offers her own information. "I'm an actress, but I waitress more than act right now. It's kinda hard to get a break." She doesn't sound discouraged, just matter of fact. "But, it'll happen. Just a matter of time." The last bite of her sandwich is popped into her mouth, fingers absently brushed against her skirt to sweep away any crumbs that fell there. 
Patrick nods and smirks a little. "Yes Luxury, the kind that involves an apartment that even the roaches think is too run down to stay in." He says with a little bit of humor, not that he minds the shape his current home is in since it beats a large plastic tube filled with liquid. If he knew about Fern having a connection to Ben him might well open up more, but such is alas not to be. "An actress? You are beautiful enough for it. I am sure it is only a matter of time before you get your break. Can I ask, stage or TV?"
Fern giggles, "Sounds like home sweet home. I'm living in an apartment that's hardly as big as my bedroom at home, and it's hard to make the rent some months. I can't believe prices here." Patrick's flattering words bring a light blush and a wrinkle of Fern's nose. "Stage, but there's an agent who's been trying to get me some commercial work. There's just something.... odd about him. But still, if he can get me a job, I'm not gonna complain." 
Patrick nods and grins. "I can sympathize, although the rent is not too horrible because I am in the middle of one of the worst parts of Gotham. One of my neighbors keeps telling me that I should do some work on camera and keeps offering me a part in movies he makes but gets really evasive when I ask him for any details." He says with a simple shrug. He could probably tell some stories about odd neighbors, but telling other peoples secrets is rude. He takes only a little time to finish off the lunch he brought with him and ends up setting the lunch box it came in aside.
With her sandwich done, Fern picks up the crumpled bag from the bench, smoothing it out with her hands and folding it down. "I wonder what kind of movies," she says thoughtfully. "It's odd that he won't tell you." Her head shakes lightly, eyes raising to Patrick's. "I wouldnt trust that. People are weird in the city." So says the Princess of Understatement. There's a muffled ringing, the sound of an old fashioned telephone bell, and Fern slips her cell phone from her pocket. She frowns lightly, looking up with a quick apology, "I don't know the number so it might be a callback. Sorry, it'll just be a second." She hates ignoring people for the phone, but it could be her big break! 
 
Thumbing the button, Fern raises the phone to her ear. "Hello?" There's a pause as she waits expectantly, then her shoulder droop a little. "No, there's no Jenny here. You have the wrong.... no, whatever it said, there's no Jenny here," she says, slightly exasperated. The phone comes down, the off button pressed, and Fern notes the time before she slips it back into her pocket, muttering lightly, "I'm so tired of those wrong numbers." And her smile is back on Patrick, "Sorry. That was nothing, obviously." 
Patrick nods with a grin at Fern. "That's why I have not taken him up on the offer. The secrecy makes me weary." Not that he is anyone to talk about secrecy but if he were offering someone a job he would at least be up front and not be evasive about what he would have them doing. When the phone rings and Fern needs to take it he nods again, "I don't mind." He can't help but listen to Fern's side of the call and wonders why there would be a large number of wrong numbers sent to her phone.
Fern dismisses the errant call as easily as she does most things that aren't of real consequence to her, and she leans back on the bench. She looks back to where the children are still playing hide and seek, then to Patrick. "I should get going, I have to work in a little while and still need to make it over to Brooklyn." Her hand dips into a pocket on the other side of her skirt, and a little card is brought out and offered to Patrick. It's for a restaurant called Anita Bella. "This is where I work, stop by sometime if you're in the neighborhood. Best Italian food in Brooklyn," she adds with a touch of pride in her voice. 
Patrick takes the card with his small grins and looks it over quick. "Thank you for letting me join you. If I am ever int he area I will look the place up, I don't think I have ever had any Italian food. I hope you have an enjoyable day for what is left of it." He offers to Fern before she leaves.
Fern stands, again quickly brushing at her skirt, and smiles broadly at her lunch companion. "It was nice talking to you, Patrick. Don't be a stranger. Maybe I'll see you here again sometime, I'm a regular." Her hand lifts, a quick fingerwiggle wave before she turns on one foot, and lightly scampers off to the nearest subway station. 
Patrick nods and stands up as Fern does because it is only polite. "It was nice talking to you as well. There is every chance you will see me again, I am a bit of a regular here as well. The area is much nicer than the one near where I live for working out."
Category:Log