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Times Square. About 4pm in the afternoon.
New York was as busy as ever! People still honked and yelled at each other as everyone tried to get home. But there was still one person who was protecting all of them to make sure they all made it in one piece.
The Man of Steel: Superman.
That S on his chest heralds the arrival of hope as he flies overhead, the classic red and blue causing people to look at perhaps the most popular superhero (aside from Captain America). With a smile on Kal-El's face, he hovers in the air, listening and hearing for any trouble that may come about.
New York is full of noise, thick with pedestrians. Times Square collects people in clots, tourists standing up gaping at the buildings while tired locals just try to push through. They want to get home before the light fails and the temperature drops some. October flirts with heat in the day and the nights turn out much crisper than most.
One woman moves through it all alone. That in its own right might not be very strange. She avoids contact with anyone else, her hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans. A heavy brown bomber jacket hanging open probably belongs to another person of similar stature as her, but wider shoulders. Her aviators are on and it helps conceal the fact her eyes dart around constantly. Flashing tickertape signs for the latest news tend to pull her attention more than buskers and the latest protesters, the acts and the people around.
How is it possible in a sea of people to be so utterly alone?
Seeing that nothing was the matter, Superman changed into his Clark Kent outift. He actually just walked out of the store whose bathroom he borrowed before he bumps quite literally directly into Carol! The force from either of them could of knocked someone straight into oblivion. But instead?
Equal and opposite reaction.
"Oh goodness! so, so sorry. Are you alright?" Clark says in that kind voice. but he knew one thing: Carol was different.
Nothing stands out for trouble initially. It's wholly up to the eye of the beholder if a tense young man means to be violent or the fight between a pair of irritated women not much past nineteen speaks to any actual danger. The masses move. Lights change. Headlines blare out in lights and sound above the heads of those blind pedestrians uncaring of this thing in Vietnam or that thing with a president. Their lives are smaller.
Mostly. The bump into Carol pulls her out from scouring every facade, trying to put a sense of direction together. The skyscrapers are a bit bewildering. She has no real sound escaping when knocked into. Her arms go flat to her sides as a matter of defense. Hands hooked in her jeans slip free. Her golden brows descend, a forked line of a few notches. Now would be the time to stumble or say something.
No. She raises her chin. Traffic flows around them, all people, no vehicles. "I'm fine. It's cool." California girl voice, clear as the day is long. Not the valley, more breezy and beachy than that. "Where did you come from?" Where indeed.
Clark looks relieved as he smiles at her, though when she looks like she's about to knock him the heck out, Clark seems to chuckle nervously. "Oh, uh, Smallville Kansas?" nervous laugh? No? Well okay then.
"Sorry, just walked out of the store without looking and…" Clark sighs, before he looks up again and takes a good look at Carol. "Whoa." even Superman needs a double take! Eventually though, he extends his hand to her. "How about I make it up to you? Have you ahd lunch yet?" he introduces himself. "Clark Kent. Nice to meet you miss..?"
"Afraid the best I know about Kansas is more Lawrence, Topeka, Wichita. The… other one." Left fumbling for an answer, Carol trails off as the final city dips from her tongue and vanishes. Her frown isn't any closer to vanishing as a result. Sliding her hand to the back of her head, she pulls the loose golden blonde waves of her hair out from under the collar of the leather coat. It lacks any sort of flight patches, any namesakes to tell the world whom she or its owner is. Probably not that surprising, really.
His surprise brings her attention out of whatever she's navel-gazing at. Pushing the sunglasses back up, she raises her head to Clark. "Something wrong? I'm probably keeping you here while you have places to go, aren't I?" The bruises on her knuckles, the skinned scrapes barely visible under her sleeve. Not something she's looking to attract attention to. "Lunch?" A startled sound out of her. "You're jumping all over. Sure I didn't knock you harder than you're letting on, Kent?" Still, he has his hand out. She needs to finally respond to that, doesn't she? Slowly she offers the damaged hand. Both of them are, it won't make a difference. Her skin is warm though, like a sun-baked stretch from sunbathing. Not totally unnatural. Not at all. "I'm…" A split second pause. A longer pause than anyone really would have. The tells of a lie aren't audible, not that speeding up heart rate or the shift in breathing. This is different, it's more like groping around. "Carol." She almost says Kara. Almost pronounces it the same. "Carol Danvers."
Giving her hand a firm shake, even for Carol, Clark gives her a smile. "Carol Danvers. Nice name." Clark says with a warm smile as he eventually releases her hand. "Oh, no, no…nothing wrong, just…erm.." he rubs the back of his neck all nervous. "Sorry, you're a very pretty woman." Clark admits shyly before he shrugs. "Nope! I'm good, I'm good, promise!" he knocks his forehead with his knuckle. "Hard head."
"so…lunch?" he smiles to her, "I know the best steak place in town."
The firm shake is met in kind, bit for bit. None of this limp-wristed helpless business that so many girls have, not that one. Forget that her skin is broken in places, bruised, healing. The sunshine allows that. "Just Carol's fine. Or Danvers if you want to shout at me over a room." Who does that? Her nod decides that then. Clark's compliment just sails right over her head, suggesting she might be the trope of a pretty woman who has no idea of her appearance. Totally possible. "You don't have to apologize. In New York, they… I don't think anyone ever does." Her shoulders form a solid line, weight thrown into that belief. Right, no one is polite. "Steak, huh? Sure, why not?"
Clark seems to chuckle to her. "Carol it is. You can call me really whatever you like." Clark didn't have a preference! Though he does turn to her side, offering her his arm if she felt like taking it….was this an impromptu date? did she just get asked out by the biggest dork in New York?! "Right this way." and Whether or not She accepted Clark's gentlemanly gesture, he'll lead her down to the steak place across the street.
Lunch sounds like a good prospect. Somewhere that serves as a pretty filling spot will do just fine for it. She doesn't take Clark's arm though, her hands back in the pockets of her coat. Less chance someone will take note of the mild wounds there, that look like she got into a fight with a cinderblock rather than someone's face, for all that means. "What do you like being called?" she asks. Forward woman for the times, right? Her shoes hit the ground in regular strides, a bit heavy on the soles. It's an easy pace.
Clark smiles very softly to Carol as she asks him what he likes being called. "Clark is fine. Or Smallville." He shrugs. "Usually those are what I'm called at work." Clark looked big enough to be his own personal hit squad. Though his eyes fall upon Carol with a bit of a smile. "So….can I ask what happened to your knuckles?" he didn't seem like he was judging her. Woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do.
"They call you by your hometown? That's different. I guess if you have an awful lot of one name, it happens. Lots of Clarks or Kents there?" So says the aviator with her own call sign, no less. No dispute on her part there. "What's it that you do, anyway?" Falling into the usual patter of discussion comes less easily than some for the blonde, mostly because it requires her to remember how that manner of speech goes. She's just not given to natural chatter. Maybe she never was. Some folks simply lack that kind of skill for conversation. Neither big nor small, though, she maneuvers well through the crowd without bumping into people, though it helps having a Mack truck to make way. "Not really sure. I guess I scraped them up."
Riiiight.
Clark looks at her knuckles before he seems to not quite believe her. "Scraped them? did you go too many rounds on the boxing bag?" he chuckles very softly, before Clark smiles to her. "I work over at the Daily Bugle. I'm a reporter." he keeps near Carol as they make it through the crowds pretty easily. "Well, they live in Kansas. I live here. Not a lotta people from Kansas trying to survive New York." he winks to her. "What about you? What do you do for a living?" he doesn't quite, for obvious reasons, tell her he's superman.
"I don't like boxing much. Ugly sport. People use it to hurt one another in a ring for money and there's something dirty to that. Cheap." Carol doesn't guard her words greatly, and she isn't given much to doing to even in company. Her dark eyes flicker somewhat as she considers the overall effect of how that might be received. "Hitting things is…" She shakes her head, unable to continue. The weight of her blonde hair sways down her back. "You're a reporter, huh? That sounds like a busy job. Do you go out and talk to everyone to get a story or is it something else? Everyone says there's so much news right now." Not that she seems to mind they're literally under the effect of the New York Times, for whom the square is named.
"Me? I don't do much right now. Trying to get my footing in the city. Find out what I should be doing." The angels might remark that is no lie.
"Ugly sport indeed. I actually reported it and we discovered there was an entire fighting underground. Everyone there got arrested so…score one for the good guys, right?" Clark smiles to her, giving her shulder a playful nudge. Either way, they soon arrive at the restaurant and are sat down by a waiter. When she speaks and asks about his job, Clark smiles. "Yeah, I kinda walk around. I ask questions when I think I have a good story. Then I write about it…boom goes the dynamite." he shrugs. "It's not the best job ever, but it helps me get by. No job? Well, how about you come be a photographer at the bugle? it pays good for a starter job."
"People fight underground? They don't have enough to battle on their own, do they?" The comment passes without much force from the blonde California girl, walking evenly in time with Clark. He might have a hell of a gait but she can make it even if she has to speed up a little bit. The nudge to her shoulder doesn't knock her off balance. It does put her on her back heel to compensate for movement, though. Hardly a comment passes as they slip into the restaurant, and she is woefully underdressed for steak. No pearls, no gloves, no dress. They probably look at her funny if it's upscale, and at least a bit odd if it's not. "The Bugle? That's a lot of work and I still need to find everything where it was. I've… I don't even own a camera." Yeah, that's about right. Her brow dents a bit as she stiffly finds a seat, sinking into it. Poor server, he has to figure out what to do with this odd duck of a person. Water is given a cursory look after it's poured. Not suspicious. And finally it dawns on her to remove the aviator sunglasses, so she slips them into the jacket's front pocket.
Clark smiles to her softly. "Yeah. But, whattyagonnado?" Clark lets a bit of his Kansas slang come out before he seems to look at Carol. "What about if I bought you one?" his eyes never left hers for a moment. Those beautiful eyes like the most entrancing dance. "is everything alright, Carol? You look kinda uncomfortable." Clark asks her, worried that he made her so.