The Park, Friday Afternoon

[justonecondition]

It was turning out to be a weird day for Bruce.

First he had woken up from a weird dream about truckers to find every electronic time-keeping device in his hotel room claiming that today was actually in 1970. After correcting all two of the timepieces, Bruce decided to venture outside for a while, an endeavor that began with a trip to the coffee shop that somehow resulted in Bruce shuffling around, blushing at the friendly barista who immediately started to ask him questions, and leaving without ordering anything.

Finally he made it to the park, figuring that that, at least, had to be manageable. Then, a dark-haired young woman with a three-legged dog in tow sprinted toward the very bench Bruce was sitting on, hurriedly tethered the dog's leash to the bench, and ran off, yelling, "I have to pee, don't let him get loose!"

Bruce blinked.

The dog blinked back.

"Uh," Bruce said. "Hello."

The dog licked his hand.

[[a part of this is method RP, but most of it is just me being weird. open! please entertain me.]]

Comments

[throughaphase]

So I don't have to switch logins, Kitty was cutting through the park on the way to run errands, and now she had to stop.

"Aww, doggie."

[justonecondition]

"It's not mine," Bruce clarified hastily. "Someone really had to go to the bathroom, I guess."

Did this park even have public bathrooms? ...He hoped it did.

"Kitty, right?"

[throughaphase]

"Yep," she said with a smile. And hey, if it wasn't his dog, then he probably wouldn't mind if she tried to pet Cliff. "How're you settling in?"

[justonecondition]

Cliff totally loved the petting, so that was fine by both of them!

"Pretty well, I think," Bruce said, nodding. "I want to say this place hasn't lived up to its scary reputation yet, but saying that might summon something."

He didn't really believe that, and his wry tone made it pretty clear, but he was humoring everyone who had hyped up the weirdness and going along with it.

"How have you been?"

[throughaphase]

Sorry, but there really was no better setup for this.

"Well, I was a lion for a week. Otherwise, pretty good," she said.

[justonecondition]

"Were you really?" That earned Kitty a look of slight surprise and a mild chuckle. "I guess you could say having the name Kitty is just tempting fate."

[throughaphase]

Kitty sighed. "I swear I'd yell at my mom for that if explaining this wouldn't be too weird. At least I got to be a little cooler than a kitten?"

Like a baby lion who made Simba roars.

[justonecondition]

Well, that just begged the question, "How big of a lion were you?"

Because being a fully-grown jungle cat in an apartment would be badass, sure, but mostly awkward.

[throughaphase]

"...Small enough for Clint to carry around all the time?"

She was probably still a totally badass lion though!

[justonecondition]

"Oh, that was you." He chuckled. "Well, I must be subconsciously acclimatizing if I'm expecting there to have been two separate lions in town in Barton's care."

[throughaphase]

"It happens," Kitty said. "The acclimatizing, I mean. One second everything's weird and before you know it someone turns into something in front of you and you don't even blink."

[justonecondition]

"Have you had a lot of experience caring for lions, then?" he asked with a wry half-grin.

[throughaphase]

"Well, I've been one twice and I took care of Clint when he was a hawk. So there's that," she tried.

[justonecondition]

"He was a-- of course he was." Heh. "I'm trying to figure out which would be more difficult to take care of, a hawk or a lion," Bruce mused. "I'm tempted to say hawk."

[so_hawkward]

Clint knew that dog, but he was surprised to see Cliff with Bruce. Lucky was just glad to see his canine friend. "Hey, are you dogsitting?" he said, coming over to Bruce.

[justonecondition]

"Sort of accidentally?" Bruce said a little helplessly. "Some girl ran through and tied it here on the way to a bathroom. Which I'm hoping is nearby..."

He checked his watch. Sigh, April.

[so_hawkward]

"Oooh," Clint said. "Uh, she's a little weird, so you might be here for a while."

Sorry April, but it was true.

[justonecondition]

"Well," Bruce said, sighing and leaning back against the bench, "at least I don't have anywhere to be."

April would probably be annoyed if she knew how calm he was about this whole thing.

"How've you been?"

[so_hawkward]

"I've been okay. How are you? Still glad to be here?" Clint asked.

[justonecondition]

"It's... definitely a change from rural India," Bruce said carefully. Which was to say that he'd really much rather be elsewhere but didn't want to go into it. "Being responsible for students is an experience."

A very, very weird experience, if his dubious tone was anything to go by.

[so_hawkward]

"The squirrels have made it sound like things are going well in your class," Clint said oh-so-helpfully. Or not helpfully at all.

[justonecondition]

"Some of the kids seem fairly into it," Bruce offered. "Like that girl Rilla you told me about. Your class sounds like it's pretty successful too so far."

[so_hawkward]

"Oh man, they're doing great," Clint said with a proud grin. "A lot of them are already getting better and it's great to watch."

Now that it was clear they were stopping, Lucky wandered away from Cliff to sniff at Bruce, and then sniff a little more. He was kind of an interesting guy to smell.

[justonecondition]

Yeah, he probably was. Bruce held out a hand for Lucky to sniff, wanting to pet the dog's head but managing to restrain himself.

"That's fast," he remarked, mildly impressed. "Did you learn that quickly?" Wait, that was probably a pretty personal question. "Sorry, you don't have to answer that..."

[so_hawkward]

"No, it's okay," Clint said with a shrug. "I learned pretty quick, but I was also pretty young and kind of a natural. Some of the kids in my class already know the basics, so they're just getting better. I had good aim to start with, and I just learned how to make it better."