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World's Fair. Sounds like all the world comes to New York instead of a lot of American corporations and Captain America's killer. Some positive spirit has to be exhumed. It's hot and the thrilling displays of rides and technology don't put much of a smile on a girl with a shock of flaming red hair. Not ginger, red like someone turned fire into slightly messy waves. Hope sticks out too for being alone. She's not tagging along after a crowd or ghosting in and out with teens. There's a kind of defiant independence there with her hands in her back pockets, wedged deep, and a look of outright suspicion sometimes showing up. Hey, when nature throws out a green-eyed redhead, run. It's never any good. Especially one wearing a t-shirt marked with a typical camper van and a big, cheerful smiley face on it. "Not your happy" is written across her chest, making some joke most people now just don't get. Because that's how it goes when you're temporally displaced.
Another loner making his way through the swirling vortex of milling pedestrians is none other than Reed Richards. His face has been plastered on a fair few newspapers over the last few years proclaiming him as "Mister Fantastic," and following that title up with praise or bigotry. Nevertheless, Reed eases through the crowd with a kind smile given to those who look his way, if the man does seem a bit distracted. His eyes do eventually find the red head walking alone, and his eyes take in that T-shirt with the expected amount of wonder signaling his failure to understand. He moves in her direction and slows his steps before questioning, "Not your happy?"
Daytime. Daytime in a crowded place. Daire's been making an effort to try and get used to both things, being out in the day, and being out around people. That doesn't mean that he isn't wearing his light grey sweatshirt, even in the heat, with the hood drawn up to conceal the horns on his head, and the strange unnatural lambent green of his eyes. Hands shoved in his pockets, he gears himself up to wander through the crowds. Overcoming one's aversions can be a challenge. He tries to avoid bumping into people as he drifts through the crowd. Out of the corner of his eye he notices Mister Fantastic, for the second time in as many days, and one brow lifts slightly, faint amusement in his expression.
Having already greener than green eyes gives a common element to at least two of the pedestrians. Hope scrapes her hands through her hair, pushing her bangs out of the way. It's a totally lost cause. The veil falls straight back into place. Her teeth grip her bottom lip in a firm bite, rolling the pink skin as she concentrates, looking down the intersecting avenues. Probably trying to get her bearings, it takes someone equally paranoid to realise she gauges sight lines and access points, escapes, and points of exit. Much more obvious? Mister Fantastic can walk by or talk to her, and she reacts to him as if she's been living under a rock on Mars for the past decade. "Yeah?" Oh, there's a challenge in there, typical late teenager. Looking up, her face is undeniably youthful… and those eyes belong to a soldier, a survivor, triple her age. Or three magnitudes, it's pretty flexible. "Not your happy camper."
Reed's eyes look the young redhead over for a moment, perhaps taken aback by that look in her eyes, perhaps just annoyed by the rebellious late teen vibe. His smile doesn't falter though, and his eyes even widen a touch in understanding as she explains the T-shirt. "Ahh, yes… clever," he says awkwardly, social engagements never really being his strong suit. He falters for a moment before he says, "Oh! I'm Reed Richards, by the way." He extends a hand out by way of introduction, his eyes watching the young girl before awkwardly shifting around and spotting Daire. Familiarity touches his features and he dips his head in a nod.
Daire's steps slow a little bit as he grows nearer to the pair and he grins a little lopsidedly. "Hopefully there's no outbreak of kittens and muggers here. That'd be a whole hell of a lot harder to get under control in a place like this." When Reed introduces himself he says, "Didn't get to say thanks for the help with that craziness yesterday before you headed out." He then looks over at Hope's t-shirt, having caught the tail end of that conversation and says, "Heya." Then to both of them, "Daire." No need for much more than that, it seems. He doesn't expect either of them to know who he is, clearly.
Hope's expression, so carefully defensive, really doesn't change much when Reed gives his name. She might disappoint by failing to break into hysterics worthy of the Beatles or falling over in a swoon, unable to speak. A beat is missed when he holds out his hand. She looks at it a bit blankly, then up to him, then back down to it. Danger, Will Robinson, the teen has a social custom barrier or shares the same social awkwardness he does. Maybe shouting an equation will help? She holds out her hand as though expecting Reed's to grow a mouth and bite her or for him to fling her into the bushes over his shoulder. Credit where it's due, she approaches the situation with shoulders squaring back and mouth flattened. "Hi, Reed Richards. I'm just Hope." The direction he looks in she looks in as well. Daire isn't seeing things if he notes the same shade of his own eyes reflected in hers. Light hitting them gains a faint, ambient glow. "You're friends?" A question while she rubs her hand against the back of her neck, shoulders rolling under her t-shirt. "Or I'm missing something. Kittens are… they're tiny cats. Is that slang for a plague or something?"
Reed does not extend his hand out to reach for Hope's beyond where she places her hand, rather the gap is closed by Reed's wrist stretching from beneath his sleeve and grasping for that shake. He offers an awkward smile before he says, "Sorry. That's kind of a habit. It's a pleasure to meet you, Hope." His eyes return toward Daire and he says, "Well, I suppose you could say that we are friends. We twarted a criminal situation in the park yesterday together."
"No," Daire says to Hope, though he's taken aback a moment by his own strange eyes reflected back at him, and he smiles a little curiously, but doesn't comment on it, at least not at first. "Literal kittens, all up in trees in Central Park." He then glances over at Reed and says, "Partners in mugger mugging, as it were," with a little grin. "Start of a friendship if I ever saw one," he seems to agree. He doesn't seem particularly awkward, even with that hoodie pulled up and his aversion to the crowd as a whole. However, standing in a small cluster, kind of ignoring the rest of humanity passing by? He seems fairly confident. "Nice eyes," he says to Hope.
A blink and that glow isn't fading. Not at all. Hope raises her chin a bit and she awkwardly shakes Reed's hand in an unpolished fashion. Her fingers are calloused, and her grip is strong. The girl's arms show definite muscle tone and she moves easily enough. "Crime in the park? Say it isn't so. That place seems to be crime central, even though everyone around here is all on about Hell's Kitchen this, that, and the other." So she's not a complete alien, but it lies there. Her gaze never stops moving. Every person going and coming gets a once over, some longer than others. "Criminal cats in trees. They're clearly a distraction for robbery or something. No one ever believes me when I tell 'em the trees have malevolent intent." Chances are fair to partly sunny she messes with them. Or maybe not. Her humour is quirky and her clothes… they aren't really all 1964.
Reed offers Daire a smile and friendly nod in reply to his comment regarding the beginning of a friendship. That nod continues as he looks toward Hope and he chuckles saying, "Yes. I would agree with you there. Lately it seems that the park has seen a fair bit of its own crime equal to Hell's Kitchen. It is a bit surprising when the reputed bad side of town shares a crime rate with an area where people go to take picnics." He watches how Hope scans everyone that passes by brow furrowing thoughtfully before he says, "Are you expecting someone?"
"Prism figured they were a distraction for the muggings, but hell if I know how they got up there," Daire admits with a shrug of his shoulders and then a slight smirk over at Hope, but good-naturedly so none the less. "It's kind of crazy. I just went there to fool around on my guitar for a while and then.. chaos." When Reed asks Hope about expecting someone, he glances around and over his shoulder, as though perhaps to see if anyone was about to come flying in, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary, glances back. "So, what are you guys here to check out? Anything in particular?"
Prism, another name sailing right over her head. at least she's fairly good at making it seem that's not the case. Disregard the ongoing filtering system. "Weird. Why the park? I mean, other than being full of hiding places." The best guess she's got involves a shrug, shying her shoulder back. "Guitar?" Her hands scrunch up in the pockets of her jeans, and she keeps checking out the streets. "Looking for… not really, no. Too many people to know them all, anyways. I mean, there's more people here than…" She trails off for a lack of a comparison, the awkward pause deepening the brief frown showing on her lips. "I don't get what the thing is. Why they put this here. I mean, the rocket is cool and all if you think that's how rockets work but I don't get the rest. A giant tyre?"
"I guess it's to showcase innovations and developments in .. stuff?" Daire says as he looks over and around "And corporate sponsorship?" He seems a little uncertain, himself. "Just seemed like something to do." But then, something catches his eye, someone that he recognizes, and his expression shifts a little bit. "Hey, I'll be right back… gotta catch someone." He heads over toward a dark haired teen standing a bit further away, pausing to talk to him for a bit about something.
Reed seems more and more intrigued by the young woman before him, his brows lifting in surprise before he repeats, "…If you think that's how rockets work…" His eyes track toward the rocket and he offers a smile Hope's way. "You understand how rockets work? If you have an interest in the sciences, you should visit the Baxter Building."
"Is that like a science building?" Hope tucks her hair behind her ears. Her hands go right back into her pockets again. "They're kinda funny looking, that's all. I mean, everything is gigantic. Not sure why the made it that way unless they basically want to waste a ton of fuel. I don't even think they use fuel cells." And there is the penny dropped, for those at least marginally wiser. Because what teenager knows about fuel cells? Welcome to the future, and she is its Messiah. True fact. "I'm not some super engineer or something. I just… like I said, some of these things look really odd. I still don't see the point in seeing a very big wheel."
Reed looks back to the wheel and says, "It is a Ferris Wheel… a common enough ride at these type of events. Have you never ridden one?" He looks back toward Hope, considering her before saying, "The top few floors of the Baxter Building are maintained by the Fantastic 4. It is a pretty advanced scientific facility where I do my work… Of course, then again it's also our home."
"No. Ferris wheel?" Hope wrinkles her nose, and her expression eventually smooths out back into general distrust for the world and all it holds. She's an honorary Australian at this rate. Her shoulders tighten a little under her shirt. "Never heard of that, but it's pretty fancy I guess. Not something that was around where I grew up. You do science stuff in a big tower somewhere, then? I thought that was mostly done in universities and funny grey buildings in disguise." It could be a joke.
Reed laughs and nods his head in acceptance of that statement, joke or not, for the truth that it holds. "Well, yes. Most of the time that is the case, I guess. The Baxter building is… well I guess it is more like a nice apartment building, more or less. There are a few others that live there on the lower floors." His eyes track toward the Ferris Wheel and he is silent for a moment before saying, "Would you want to go for a ride?"
"Is that thing even maintained or has it just the look of a big old tyre?" Hope delivers her question pointedly, flashing a frown at the poor Uni Royal creation. It probably never deserved that kind of treatment from someone with a bit of distrust. "Are you sure it won't fail or crush someone? It looks like it might."
Reed grins as he gestures Hope to come along with him. His disposition is certainly friendly, obviously holding no ill intent as he begins a slow stroll toward the Ferris Wheel. "Of course it is maintianed. It isn't the greatest bit of human technology in the world, but it is good enough to serve its purpose." He is silent for a moment before he looks back to Hope more directly and says, "I take it you are not from around here… what is your story?"
Hope trails after Reed like a hawk prowling after a goose. She really doesn't walk lightly, carefree or idle. Hers is more a stalking prowl. "I wonder how they do it with people riding it all day long. The wear and tear can't be good for the mechanical bits." Those glittering green eyes stay sharp for anything out of the ordinary, and meets Reed looking at her. There is nothing about her bearing that backs down. She meets his eye fearlessly, her chin up. "Yeah, I'm not really from around here. It's a boring story. I traveled around a lot."
Reed nods his head, his gaze looking back into Hope's without that challenging nature, but with no less resolve. His expression is more kind than challenging. "Interesting. Where all have you travelled? I have done a fair bit of traveling around in my time too… even been to space once or twice." He is not boasting, but rather with how he tosses the information out there it is more like he is testing her knowledge of who he is.
"Lot of different places. I don't know all their names, but I was pretty small for part of it. Throw something at a map of the continent, pretty good chance I went through or stopped for a bit. Space, though. Huh. That's fancy. Not much of a space program putting people up high, though I guess that's changing with the aliens." Her gaze goes up in case there's some kind of floating craft up there. "Wonder whatever happened to 'em."
"Oh, they're still around, I'm sure," Reed says, his eyes also going upward. He is silent for a moment, lost in thought as if considering their place in the universe or something equally philosophical. Finally they reach the line for the Ferris Wheel and Reed looks Hope's way, "Well, it is good that you found a home now… where are you staying here in the city?"
Hope's skepticism is probably more than a little well founded by that point. "Well, they probably don't vanish when we turn our backs but you'd think they would do something." As they walk, she mostly keeps herself and doesn't touch anyone, keeping out of the way. Anyone else that knows of Reed's celebrity doesn't get much of a look from her either. Fame and celebrity singularly fail to impress her. When they reach the line, she stands a little apart from the rest, not in a perfectly straight line. "Still moving around. It's a big city. Expensive. I don't live any one place."
Reed is silent for some time, though if one could hear the way that his mind fires rapidly it would likely be louder than all of the voices at the fair combined. He debates with himself, weighing social protocol for some time before he finally says, "And is that by choice? I suppose what I mean is your lack of a permanent place to lay your head by some desire to be a rambling soul, or is it simply because the city is so expensive?" His eyes do not travel back to Hope as he poses his questions, clearly expecting his question to come across as rude as is so often the case with his lack of social grace.
"I don't know what to do with myself." Hope shrugs her shoulders. "It's a great big city. Not like I have only one choice, but I don't have a clue what to do with myself. Work myself into a grave? Yeah, that sounds like fun." Typical teenager there. Her jaded expression and flat tone aren't beautiful. They do not have anything that would dispose a person to think she's playful or teasing. Her flat truth has no variation. "The great existential crisis. When there's no gun to your head, and you got all the choices in the world, what do you do with yourself? You do some kind of science. I don't even know."
Reed can't help but grin at the girl's jaded view of the world, not that he thinks she is wrong. He waits to say anything until they have reached the front of the line and the Ferris Wheel operator holds the car open for them. He passes across enough money for the ride and then gestures for Hope to have a seat. He scoots in beside her and soon the car starts moving, slowly going upward. "How is it that you do not know who I am?" he asks. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset in the least. But have you not heard of me? What I do? The Fantastic 4?"
|ROLL| Hope +rolls 1d20 for: 15
The ferris wheel car is not something trustworthy to Hope. She stares at it through narrowed eyes. Then she settles in, balancing her weight to the middle, sliding sideways. If there's any sort of restraining bar or seat belt, probably not, she's using it. Otherwise her shoulders don't touch the back of the seat. She leans forward slightly and stares out at the panorama of happy people. Some are pointing, shouting. They might want to know about the secrets of Mr. Reed and why he's riding around with random redheads. It's not until the wheel lurches and moves the pair up that she bothers responding, the field of the World's Fair around them. All those pavilions and all those markers, signs for companies on the rise, and the industrial and commercial juggernauts embodying everything that matters. Everything that is the US, reaching out into the world in a blue, white, and red cloud of stripes and stars.
"You're younger than might be expected. I mean, the only time it covered you, you had grey hair up to like here." She points to a spot above her ear. No eye contact. "Didn't really matter, though. Not like there were any firsthand holos or synthtech to rely on. I guess that's how it goes. The Fantastic Four were a long, long, long time back and you're dead."
By comparison, Reed is positively relaxed as he settled into the car and watches as they begin the circular trip upward. The journey is slow, the operator in no hurry and stopping the ride as each car reaches the top, insuring quite a bit of starts and stops. Reed is similarly enjoying the view… until Hope starts talking. His eyes move toward her, and there is an unmistakable intensity there as he listens to her tale. "The only time what covered me?" he question as he turns more directly toward her. "The Fantastic Four are here. We're alive."
"History?" Hope shrugs again. The wisdom of revealing this while trapped in a coffin suspended over the ground begs /some/ kind of assessment. Maybe she's got a death wish. The redhead isn't moody but approaches the situation with flat, tactical bluntness that doesn't match most women in this time and place. "You're alive now, I guess. But you're definitely not then. So I suppose that answers your questions and you can appreciate the time you have."
Reed's brow furrows to match the narrowing of his gaze as he stares at Hope. "I'm alive but I'm not then," he says flatly. "So I am presuming that you are saying without actually saying that you are somehow from the future? And how did you get here? To this time?"
Hope doesn't smile. she can, and hell, she can even laugh. Just not at the moment. "See, that's the one thing everything agrees on. You're smart. Like, stupidly smart, smart like the kind of way Newton was. Apple on the head." Never mind Newton and William Tell are conflated in the same moment there, rightly. "Got it in one turn of the big tyre. Most do it much, much slower than that."
Reed is silent for some time, slumped into the corner of the Ferris Wheel car. He lookes intently at Hope, his expression quite serious as the Ferris Wheel begins to move again. "And how did you end up here, in 1964? Am I to presume that you have some sort of technology capable of traveling through time?"
Hope looks back for a moment or two. Those unearthly green eyes are plenty unsettling, especially with the thousand yard, thousand year stare. Up high on the rotating Uni Royal tyre ferris wheel, it's just them as the death car of doom rolls around. It's jerky because people are being offloaded and on loaded. "Sorry, but that's above current protocols to talk about. I'm not /trying/ to be a pain. Just not something. Because the next thing is probably asking me a whole bunch about it, and that's how we get complicated spatiotemporal paradoxes."
Daire had wandered off to go and talk to somebody about something, and then a thing happened, and apparently he knows people who are here, which he wasn't expecting. When finally the conversations are over, he goes drifting back around the area only to find that Reed and Hope have moved on. He wasn't particularly expecting that they'd still be there, but it didn't hurt to look. Finding himself alone in the crowd again, he begins a slow wander in the direction that just happens to lead him past the ferris wheel.
Reed seems a bit put out by Hope's answer, his eyes revealing as much, though whether it is because he is missing out on his chance to examine a piece of futuristic time traveling technology, or because he simply doesn't believe the red head is anyone's guess. Their trip around the wheel is nearing its end by this point, but that doesn't seem about to deter Reed from saying, "Right. So assuming all of this is true…. why are you here?"
Hope holds up two slim fingers. She's out the door of that damn car as soon as it's down, earning a shout from the poor guy manning it. Crazy girl on the loose this is not. Reed may be asked for his autograph, and that gives her time to take a quick survey. It doesn't help she already knows many of the ideal sniper havens and tracking her path out of there. Daire doesn't get to hide because the overly paranoid girl has him marked. Not in a bad way. She awkwardly waves her hand at him. More of a hallo, how you? gesture than 'come rescue me' or oh my god it's a famous person there too.
"That's the billion cred question. I go where I'm needed," she says over her shoulder, silhouetted against the grandeur of the skyline artificially built for the World's Fair. Very dramatic for those behind her. "Not sure what was so important my life had to get upended, ripped apart, run through the blender, and reassembled. It wasn't a holiday, y'know? It never is. I don't get holidays, and I don't breaks."
Daire waves his hand back when he notices that Hope and Reed are getting off the ferris wheel. He grins a little at both of them as he closes the distance and slides his hands into his pockets, tilting his head back to look up way toward the top. After a moment he asks, "So how was the ride? You didn't fall, so I'm going consider that a win?" He grins a little lopsidedly. He kind of hangs around in that casual way that one does when one is prepared to keep right on moving if it seems that they want some privacy. "That seems like a violation of state and federal regulations," he says to Hope when he catches on to the end of the conversation.
Reed does not wait for anyone to bombard him with questions or requests for autographs, merely waiting long enough to be polite to the Ferris Wheel operator, giving an apologetic look on behalf of Hope. His legs are already stretching though, even as he sits, planting his feet before pulling the rest of his body along to make up for the head start Hope got on him. He looks toward Daire distractedly, seeming surprised that he has resurfaced again. "It was certainly an interesting ride," he says before looking at Hope and saying, "You should really come by the Baxter Building."
Hope stuffs her hands in her pockets. "It's pretty tame. You can get good views up there, but not fast enough to feel sick or anything. I bet it beats re-entry." She nods to Reed. "You've been to space. Is the re-entry part worse than taking off? I mean, it looks pretty crazy either way." There's an underlying chuckle waiting to get out, fairly dark. "Tell you what. I want one of those things everyone has." She point at an ice cream cone. For love of all things holy, she clearly doesn't have a word for it. It's /that/ sad in the future. Or because her dad is a jerk who doesn't buy sweets, either way. "We get one of those. I'll think about it. So what's it that you two do? I mean, I get no lady is supposed to work around here or something, but what brings you out? I figure there should be some dogs and mobsters and flying sharks trying to eat us. If the sharks know we're here." Space sharks. An existential threat.
"Oh, yeah," Daire says as though two things just clicked in his head that should have some time ago. "You must know Johnny. Of course you know Johnny." He grins a little lopsidedly. Then he looks over toward Hope and nods, glancing up again and says "Maybe I'll check it out later." He falls silent when they start to talk about re-entry, just glancing between the two of them, kind of curious as to the answer on that, himself. "Ice cream cones? I think they're down that way," he says and nods further up the direction that they are walking when coming off of the ferris wheel. "Bet we can get some down there." He then says, "I uh, volunteer at the community center down in Mutant Town. And I play the guitar. I don't really have a job at the moment, not one that pays anyway."
Reed offers Hope a smile as he says, "Ice cream? Sure, I'll get you a cone and we have a deal." He begins moving in the direction Daire mentioned and says toward him, "Yeah, I've known Johnny for a long time. He's a good guy, if a little cocky. He's like a brother, I guess you could say." He falls silent as Daire tells what he does, before finally saying, "Before my trip into space I was just a scientist working for the government. Afterward… well, I just do what I can to help. Technology, disease, taking down criminals…"
"Johnny? Um, you realise like everyone here is named Johnny or Billy or George, right? I mean, there's probably as many Pauls." Hope allows that rare grin to show through, having caught Daire on a technicality. "That's gotta be a joke. Of course I know Johnny because that's like one quarter of all the guys here in the city. Though come to think, Johnny Daire sounds like a rock star name. You play a guitar, a… thing?" Put her out of her misery. Maybe it'll fly. "You could totally rock it. Johnny Daire and the Revolution. Get yourself someone who can rock out with you and it'll be like the coolest thing. Bit better than mugging, little less flashy than that thing." She points over her shoulder to the model for the Saturn V rocket she is so, so not impressed with. Hey, it's all relative when she's a tad more interstellar. "You got the guy who takes down the criminals, the other guy who takes down the criminals who by the way needs a job, nudge nudge, and me. I'm not the fun one here." Arms stretch over her head, and her shoulder blades roll beneath that t-shirt, affording her a deep and abiding level of relief when her back pops. "So like, at least you /have/ a volunteer gig. That's when you don't get paid and still do something. I'm still figuring out all this." Smirk for Daire there. "What's it you wanna do, anyways?"
Daire grins a little over at Reed and says, "Yeah, I got that. We met a couple of times and hung out a little. Seems like his heart is in the right place." He then listens to what Reed used to do. Of course, he knows a little bit about what the man does, and he nods a little bit. He glances over toward Hope when she chips in and he says, "I meant Reed but.. I'm sure you know a Johnny or two, yes." He chuckles at her grin, and shakes his head a bit. "I've got a buddy Jay, who also plays. I'm thinking if I can find enough folks who are musically inclined, I might try and start a band, or at least get together to jam. You know, between kittens and muggings." He smiles a little lopsidedly. "What do I want to do? I was in school for psychology when things kind of went to hell. I was going to go into counseling."