Fandom Island and Town

Don's bad leg did best with regular exercise, so here he was, taking himself for a walk in the park for his health, even though the very act of doing so had raised some questions in his mind.

"If it's psychosomatic, why is it worse when it's cold?"

It is not psychosomatic. It is magical in origin.

"Same difference."

No.

"I'm not arguing about this right now." Not least because he was in public. At least it was sunny and above freezing?

(Open park is open!)

Okay, the deer were cute. Weird, but cute.

Don was out for a morning amble through the park, coffee from Stark Industries' Starbucks in hand. (He'd indulged in a peppermint mocha in honor of the season, but no one tell the other surgeons. He'd lose his street cred.)

"They're making me hungry," he complained to thin air. "Maybe we stop by the bakery after this." Because he sure as Hel wasn't going to try to bake cookies. That way lay setting off Mini Stark Tower's fire suppression systems and endless mockery.

(Open park is open!)

There hadn't been any servants around this morning, so Thor had had to get himself ready with the advice, if not assistance, of what he had decided was not a dread spirit but rather his imaginary friend Don.

Despite finding being relegated to imaginary friend status kind of hurtful (though he found tiny Thor adorable and hoped someone got pictures), Don, not trusting tiny Thor in the kitchen at all, had directed him to the bakery, and so there was a tiny prince of Asgard inspecting the baked goods on display thoughtfully, trying to pick the very best one(s) with which to break his fast.

I don't suppose you can lift Mjolnir like this. Actually, from what Don remembered of its history, Mjolnir shouldn't have existed yet, but Thor didn't bat an eye at the question.

"Oh, no. I'm probably centuries off from that."

Great. Maybe it wouldn't last long? What about the blueberry muffin?

"Hmmmmmm..."

J,GoB is open, and currently hosting a very small prince of Asgard and his 'imaginary friend' for breakfast.

(OOC: For those who can see ghosts and such, Don will be tagging along with Thor in his (glowy and transparent) spirit form for the weekend, the better to at least try to supervise!)

Don had spent most of yesterday stuck on the phone as what had started as a quick check on the status of his case had turned into being given the runaround by the professional licensing arm of the New York State Education Department for quite some time (long enough he'd had to apologetically text Jane that he couldn't make class) before he had finally managed to piece together what they were trying not to admit: that someone had "lost" all of his paperwork a few months ago under the assumption that there was no need to process it as Tony Stark was about to drag him off to super jail.

The person he had been speaking to at that point, who he thought might have been the head of the entire medical licensing division, had been very apologetic, but the fact remained that they couldn't reinstate his license if they didn't have any of his paperwork. So he had spent most of this morning on the phone with Roberta at the Manhattan DMV (he hadn't known she could swear), a very helpful guy at NYU's med school's records office, and, again, the New York State Education Department. In theory, his license was actually being processed this time. They had even promised him rush processing. He'd believe it when he saw it.

He didn't just need this coffee, or the pumpkin muffin he'd ordered with it. He deserved them. And no, Thor, he had not ordered the apple coffee.

...the apple chai did sound kind of good, though.

(Open Perk is open!)

Don had skipped the gremlin Starbucks at the towerlet, hoping to avoid the onslaught of specialty fall beverages, but he still needed coffee, so he'd stopped in at the Perk, where...

"No, I don't want an apple crisp latte. I just want coffee! Who puts apples in coffee?...Sure, you drink coffee with pie, but...actually, do you have any pie?"

Now he wanted pie, and Thor was curious about the apple crisp latte. He should've gone to JGoB. Well, at least he had finally obtained a plain black coffee and a table to drink it at.

(Open Perk is open!)

Don had not had a good night. Adjusting to having a body again didn't seem like it should be as much of a struggle as it had been, especially when it came to making it rest. The sensory input was too much sometimes, particularly with his leg beginning to itch as his new tattoo healed, and his brain tended to chuck up nightmares as it tried to process his time in the void, most of which was really not something a human brain was ever meant to process.

When Don had given up and offered to tap Thor in at two AM, Thor had refused on the basis that the thunder that accompanied their switching places might have woken the tower's other residents and, more mercilessly, that Don had to adjust. He was alive; he had a body. He had to remember how to live in it.

Which was why he'd picked up a coffee from the gremlin Starbucks in Stark Towerlet's lobby this morning and dragged said body out for a walk to further familiarize himself with the town before eventually stopping to rest on a bench in the park.

"Okay," he said to the ghost of a god sitting beside him, his face tipped up as if he, too, could feel the warmth of the sun on it when Don knew perfectly well his current state did not allow that. "You were right. This doesn't suck."

(Open park is open!)