fandomtownies | The Park, Sunday Afternoon

Pulling her leather jacket tighter around her shoulders, Hayley Fitzpatrick went and crouched at the edge of the duck pond. She watched her breath in the cold air, rubbed her red-wool-gloved hands together for a bit more warmth. It wasn't any colder than it could get in Gotham, this time of year, but then again she tried not to spend too much time outside during the winter in Gotham.

She stayed for a moment, looking past her breath into pond itself. Thoughts whirled in her head. Doubts, anxieties, fears, wants, desires. All the questions she had for herself, why did she leave Gotham, what was she wanting here, why hadn't she called any of her old friends? There weren't answers in the pond, in the cold, and she didn't have any answers for herself in her head, either.

She reached into the pocket of her jacket, tugged at the red silk hood that she kept in there. Why was it she felt better with the mask on than she did as plain old Hayley Fitzpatrick? Another question she didn't have an answer for. She sighed a bit and stayed there at the edge of the pond, trying to answer all those questions in her head.

[ooc: Open post!]

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She was putting words to a lot of the fears in his own head, too, for that matter.

"People don't change all that much in a short time," he agreed. "Unless something big happens, that makes them change that way."

Voice of experience, right there. Jonothon frowned thoughtfully before pressing on. "Though... sometimes, the way we see them can change that much, even if perhaps they haven't changed at all."

"And that's the worst," Hayley said. "Because it's the hardest to change, too. Sometimes people get images in their heads that just stick no matter how you try to shake it loose."

She shivered for a moment, not entirely because of the cold. "And sometimes those images are in your own head."

She spoke freely not because she had trust in Jono, but because she had no reason to hide these things. They were at the surface for her, scratch at her skin and the greasepaint was just waiting to get out.

And some days, he still looked at his hands and saw blood. There were moments where he was positive that he'd bleed in gouts of flame, if someone were to rip his chest away.

It was easy to talk when you were convinced the world could see straight through you to the other side.

"Images of yourself? And closing your eyes can't do anything to make those images change?"

"And sometimes it only makes them brighter," Hayley said with a sigh. "But things change. We said so, right?"

She was almost insistent in tone. It was going to get better, wasn't it?

It had to. It wasn't as if it could really get much worse from where it was now. Right?

"We said so," Jonothon confirmed with a small nod. "It might take some work, but things change."

"Work, yeah," Hayley said with a nod. "Guess nothin' good comes easy, right?"

The fun stuff was easy. The good stuff... took work.

That was more or less what it boiled down to, yeah, and Jono's wry smile confirmed that much easily enough.

"Not in my experience, at least."

Hayley huffed out a long breath and nodded.

"Almost makes ya want to take up smoking again," she said, having nothing more insightful to say.

"Almost," Jono agreed, smirking faintly. It had been years since he'd smoked. Well, since he'd smoked a cigarette, right along with most other filthy habits that had been kicked for him when his powers had manifested. "But I think perhaps I'll settle for going in out of the cold. Care to accompany me to the Perk, or were you planning on staying out here for a while longer?"

Walking.

"Coffee is the next best thing," Hayley said. "Especially the kind you can get nowadays. Sixties coffee just really doesn't compare."

She rubbed her hands together and nodded. "And coffee with friends is even better."

"Brilliant," decreed Jonothon, with about his usual level of enthusiasm as he nodded toward town, waited a moment, and then started walking. "I'll treat, then. To commemorate this new friendship."

And also because he just liked doing nice things for people he got along with, dammit. Even if he'd never admit it.

The Park, Sunday Afternoon

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