fandomtownies | The Park | Friday Evening

Hey, guess who felt really guilty about impulse buying (...and giving away, oops) inflatable versions of all of Santa's reindeer?

Starlight was out for the third day in a row, now, this time taking up a post standing on a park bench for a vantage point over the snowbanks - all the better to spot the candy canes (which were more like some kind of pest than an actual enemy, at this point) and any encroaching inflatables.

What even was her life? Did Vought know about this? Would they want to hear about it? Could she tell them about it, or would she risk being disqualified for a team until they could give her a mental eval?

"You know they make white pants, right?" Oh, goddamn it. She'd already had to deal with one of these on the way from her apartment to here, and now there was another. "You look like an idiot in your little sk -"

The mistletoe did not offer further commentary, because the mistletoe was now a withered, slightly-smoking heap, but that was for the best since Starlight was now occupied with shaking a line of lights off her boot, stomping emphatically on them in irritation.

This had been a lot more fun earlier in the week.

[absolutely open, yes!]

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It should be known that Rey was going to be all over today, all day.

Because guilt. Sooooo much guilt.

Which was brought her by fighting an inflatable gingerbread man that she'd already poked some holes in, and he seemed to be deflating but he was still giving it his all.

"Backup incoming!" Starlight yelled, hopping off her bench and running over to fire a couple blasts towards the gingerbread man's feet (just for the sake of Rey's eyes.)

At least this didn't look like one of theirs. Someone else could be blamed for this inflatable, right?

The gingerbread man sort of toppled a little, listing to one side, and Rey took the opportunity to slice him cleanly through the middle.

"Thanks," she said. "Next year, no inflatables."

"To be fair," Starlight tried, her eyes still glowing as she watched the gingerbread man for a moment longer in case he got back up - she was putting nothing past this week, "they don't normally do this."

And it had been hilarious until this morning, okay.

"But yeah, no problem. I think we're pretty scarred on inflatables for awhile."

The gingerbread man seemed like he was maybe still trying to flail, but no. He was done.

"I've gotten rid of two reindeer so far. I don't know where all of them ended up."

"I gave away two," Starlight admitted guiltily. "Diego stabbed his, like, a week ago," which had not surprised her at all, "so that's one down, but - "

She looked over in the direction of the Devil's Nest. "I totally put one in Eric's office." Though Eric was a vampire, so honestly he was probably fine, but then she had a terrible thought. "Didn't a couple of them go to people with kids?"

"Only one. I checked in there already," Rey said. "Master Skywalker didn't take his, that was still at the warehouse. Liam took one for Nina... that's probably fine?"

It was so incredibly not fine.

"Nina can do magic, she's probably okay," Starlight agreed optimistically, because she honestly kind of felt bad for anything that got on Nina's bad side. "Lights!" She aimed a blast at the ground, bursting a few of the bulbs on the sneaky string of lights that had been heading for them.

She was trying to remember where else the reindeer had ended up. There had been so much drinking, and then such a subsequent headache after.

Rey glared at the lights like they'd done something to her personally.

Which they'd tried to.

"Did Stark take one? Wait, how many did Danny and Steve have?"

Starlight's eyes went wide. "Oh my God, they have at least two. I think maybe three."

Well. Had. Even with as rough condition as she'd seen Steve in last, she was pretty sure Steve and his cattle prod - not to mention Danny and his yelling - could take some inflatable reindeer, even if she was worried now. "I don't think Stark took one. He just cuddled it. Which, you know, not so much a thing you could do now." Unless that was the secret, and the inflatables just wanted hugs.

"...They had the cattle prod, right?"

Rey did not know where said cattle prod ended up.

"'Santa' gave one to Steve at the party, yeah," Starlight told her with a nod. "And I thought it was kind of a joke, but in hindsight that's amazingly useful." Thank you, Santa! Again!

"Okay, that's good. And they all seem to be accounted for, then." Also they'd probably had ten.

"Candy canes incoming," she warned, spotting a group of about six coming through the snow like a school of sharks.

Maybe they'd been given an extra reindeer due to the sheer quantity of holiday bullshit that had been purchased. Who could say.

"This is getting old," Starlight decided, angling both hands down at the candy canes and blasting a few into shatters as the nearest streetlight flickered in response. "Summer says to expect something big by Sunday, probably."

Because of course the inflatable nonsense couldn't just be the end of it, oh no.

Or one appeared during the party. Ya never know.

"Sounds about right. Usually we have to defeat what's causing it before it stops."

"That actually makes a weird amount of sense for how nonsensical all this is," Starlight admitted. "These," she blasted a candy cane for emphasis, "are probably symptoms, not the actual problem. People kept warning me something'd happen around the holidays, but - like, this is really themey."

"Last year was the goat man in the volcano," Rey said, watching one veer off towards her where she could clear me it neatly in half. "The year before that was snow monsters. I only heard that one."

"This seems like revenge for over-decorating." Was she taking it a touch personally? Maybe, but to be fair, she also felt really responsible for the reindeer. "The goat volcano thing sounded so crazy when I heard about it but like, this is giving it a run for its money."

"That seemed more traumatic. This is exhausting."

Some people maybe had trauma from this?

"It's just wearing us down," Starlight agreed. "I mean, the volcano thing did sound traumatizing, but also - like, evil goat Santa." Like that was just an absurd thing to say. "At this point I'm just - " a pause, a blast towards some approaching lights, "- getting tired."

"I'd say if everyone stayed indoors for a bit we wouldn't have to fight as much, but that would mean we would try to leave and find the doors blocked by lights." She'd been here long enough to know. "It has to almost be over."

"I feel like it'd just accumulate like the snow," Starlight nodded. "We'd have stacks and stacks and stacks of fruitcakes."

Which she had tripped over earlier, yes, of course she had.

"I mean, this is my first one of these," she added, managing a little smile. "At least it's kind of fun. It started fun." Wednesday even had been fun! But now this was day five.

"The big showdown might be fun."

Maybe not? Rey was an optimist!

"As long as no one gets hurt," Starlight allowed. There were entirely too many potentially breakable hero-types around here for her comfort level, Rey included.

"It really did happen on schedule." Like, the apparent routine of all of this was both bizarre and kind of comforting?

Edited 2020-12-19 02:12 (UTC)

"The predictability is both a blessing and a curse," Rey sighed.

The Park | Friday Evening

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