(mingle) It must be party time

[forethinking]

Who: Ren Amamiya, Wanda Maximoff, you!
When: 12th of September
Where: Good Harbor Beach
Summary: Here's the barbecue log! Eating, playing games, having a bonfire and sleep-over on the beach!
Warnings: Alcohol? Ghost stories?



ɪ. ᴡᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇ

Congratulations, you've made it to the Good Harbor Beach September barbecue! With the weather cooling, but still pleasant enough, it's a pleasure to have a hangout involving ADI's residents and those who live at Bonnie's. There are still so many people who don't know one another, and many to strengthen bonds with, so the hours your dearest Wanda and Ren spend cooking and flipping and seasoning are nothing but rewarding! Seeing people enjoying themselves is great and it's motivating for them to keep doing these encounters every now and then.

On the menu, we have:
- Burgers;
- Steaks with jacked potato sides;
- Ribs;
- Zucchini-and-Pecorino fritters;
- Several different salads, including ovcharska;
- Aubergine kebabs with charred onion salsa;
- Salmon yakitori;
- Takoyaki;
- Cupcakes
- Apples and honey;
- Cherry dumplings;
- Sarmale filled with rice;
- Bundevara (pumpkin pie);


For drinks, there's a selection of alcohol, as well as coffee, water, tea, and a variety of sodas. Take in the nice view, jump on the ocean, sink your toes in the sand and enjoy yourselves. There aren't any usable tables, but there are several blankets on the floor for your perusal.

ɪɪ. ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ

With bellies full, now it's when the real fun begins. There are a few decks of cards being passed around, as well as one of their single tables now organized to a beer-pong competition. Individually, games such as Never Have I Ever, as well as Truth or Dare can be seen, and those who wish to use their skills for entertaining are more than welcome to do so.

A little bonding here, a little drunken chatting there, this is your time to shine!

ɪɪɪ. ᴀ ʙᴏɴꜰɪʀᴇ

With those who have a curfew to worry about in mind, a bonfire is lit, and a few tents are set around the beach (may have to be shared). If anyone's got a nice story, now it's the time to share it, or perhaps if anyone can play an instrument, it's about time to break it out of its case. The night will be lively until the early hours of the morning, and of course, mindful of those who couldn't stay up this late.

The next morning, everyone will be properly thanked for their attendance and tupperwares will be distributed with leftovers for those who'd like to take some food home, the beach will be cleaned impeccably and everyone will go their own way, hopefully with smiles and a new sense of unity and connection from the amazing night they've just experienced.

ɪᴠ. ᴀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴏᴏᴄ ɴᴏᴛᴇ

(Please put in your top-level subject line or prompt line whether it's okay to threadjack! Just to keep things more dynamic, we encourage it!)

Comments

[henchgal]

"Bruce? He's your...adoptive father?" Of course, on some level she knows that asking is going to lead around to him prying about Michael Belcora at some point, but like. Tim doesn't let things slip often at all, so she's going to call it out when it happens.

[ployboy]

"I told Malcolm I had emancipated," he says for no reason other than... it feels good. To talk. Sometimes. And this is safe, at least, because odd as it all is, it's out in the open.

Tim sits, trying and failing to not get some sand on the blanket. Sorry.

"I did, by the way, but... yeah, he's my father." And Tim's head will never stop spinning. "If Bruce was here, he'd have everything figured out. Trust me."

[henchgal]

"I know that feeling." Regardless of what her boss gets up to when he's not at the office, he's a genius, someone who she can rely on to comprehend things she never will.

"But the people brought here, for whatever purpose this universe has for us, are you and me. And we're not useless, for figuring things out."

[ployboy]

He crosses his legs, because the alternative is to want to knock a foot against her. He offers a short lived, rare half of a smile. It's got hope.

"I know. I also know I said I was going to get us out of here," he says. Meeting this one in a server room? Hard to forget.

Seems like forever ago already.

He needs to get to work.

Jeez.

The smile wanes. They never live long in Tim Drake. "Spill. Who's Belcora?"

[henchgal]

"My boss. Tech CEO. Brilliant man, but very demanding." She can sketch the rough outline, but without those key details, Tim's not getting the full picture at all.

"And you don't need to feel solely responsible for getting us back home. You're helping me while we're here, and that really counts for a lot."

[ployboy]

Yeah, he knows. Both those counts. Funny how he doesn't stop to care. Tim just nods and (sneakily? it's literally right there) grabs another snack.

"CEO? Careful, I hear they've all got big heads," and then, "Must be a bigger ego than mine if he's tangling with- who was it? Torch Singer?"

Ballsy. Not like he doesn't still feel like a? jerk? an ass? at subjecting the apartment to true torture film. But then again, Meredith got her revenge. Tim ponders watching his back for whatever Bright's got in store.

[henchgal]

"When did I say he was tangling with her? I don't recall saying anything like that."

And really, Tim, what Meredith did with Jeff wasn't aimed at anyone, not revenge. It was just...well, it was fun. Or it was supposed to be. Or maybe it was, in the end.

[ployboy]

True, and the runaround is less than amusing though Tim would bet anything she figures the contrary. And, well, any bet of his will have to be capped to about twenty bucks-- tragic.

Speaking of tragic. "Oh, come on. They're intimate enough for her to be a hot topic of conversation."

Phrasing.

[henchgal]

"Well, everyone talks about heroes and villains. They're almost more like celebrities than movie stars, back home. Especially those who operate in Hightower."

She shrugs, not making eye contact.

[ployboy]

She's worse than Tam.

Tim wants to point that out.

"Tell me about the Midnight Detective."

[henchgal]

"Why do you want to know about him? Or my world in general? What does it matter to you?" She feels a little like she's walking into a trap, somehow. Which she is, really.

[ployboy]

"Because,"

did she think he wouldn't have rehearsed this?

Tim gives in to temptation and stretches out a leg to knock his foot against her. Gently. Naturally.

"Because Gotham City and Hightower are significant points of divergence. We're not New York, we're not Tokyo, we're clear off any other map but our own. And in my world--"

he's not bitter he says, bitterly

"sometimes people punch time. I just want to know what might be significant."

[henchgal]

She nudges his foot with a hand gently in return, and shakes her head slightly. "There's powered heroes and villains in my world. The Titans are a team of supervillains themed on Greek mythology. One of them is a sorceress who goes by Medea. There's a hero in the Galactic Guardians who's called Oberon. As far as anyone can tell, he might actually be a fairy king in exile. But not everyone who gets involved in that sort of fight is powered. The Dastard's a villain who's just got a techy supersuit and a thing against vigilantism, for example."

[ployboy]

Clown that he is, in earnest, Tim brings his leg in and murmurs an Ow. Because Meredith is vicious, apparently. But he positions himself to tuck both legs in, knees up, and he loosely... hugs? them, hunched over in that sloppy posture endemic to the careless youth everywhere.

It's a fantastic cover for how he straight-up flinches, like an ice was dropped on him and ran down the knobs of his spine. The Titans are a team of supervillains-- and then nothing more that could connect them to that team he, in the future, in a future, led.

"There's a creative name and motive," Tim drawls, minutely amazed at his own ability to, y'know, speak. "But my world has Bat-man and Super-man, so I guess I can't judge. One dresses as a bat to beat people up at night and the other is just super."

Both men command a... haziness, to any serious thought about them.

"The Justice League of America has Wonder Woman, an Amazon and daughter of Hippolyta. Aquaman, an Atlantean king. Flash, Green Lantern, Manhunter, an actual Martian."

[henchgal]

"I feel like your world and mine are...kinda-sorta neighbors, somehow. Like even though the geography's different and they have different heroes, they resonate somehow. Thematically. Does that make any sense?

She didn't notice the flinch, but she sees how he's curled in on himself, immediately concerned. Because that's a self-protective posture, it really is.

[ployboy]

Thematically.

"You'll lose me if you start talking about themes. I wasn't any good at deciphering the plays in Language Arts."

Scale it down, scale it up, twist it all around some god's ego and pinky finger... there's a lot of fighting. There was... he wonders if there's some Anti-Life equivalent in her world, wonders if she would agree with the equation as much as he had before it ever even took hold.

The theme: there's a lot to fight. There's a lot to fight for.

"Enjoying the sea breeze?"

[henchgal]

"Changing the subject."

She's at least got to call him out on that. It was damned blatant.

"And no, not really. It reminds me too much of being a seal. But I'm coping. I'll be fine, I'm always fine. You know."

[ployboy]

Pot, kettle.

"Uh-huh." The only one of them who may be dogged enough for this brand of curiosity would be Not-A-Cop. Tim's eyes crinkle a little bit in a quiet smile. Gotta have some things in common; he likes to be perfectly fine too. Even when he spirals.

"Exposure therapy?"

[henchgal]

"An attempt at it. On the one hand, I feel safe with everyone here. There's more than a couple people here I'd trust to protect me if things went wrong. On the other, it smells like the bay."

She shakes her head, picking up another slice of apple and dragging it through the honey. The food, the bonfire, they're all things that don't smell like the ocean. They help.

"Maybe the best thing to do is to just keep distracting myself." Like she was with Jeff. That's a distraction...

[ployboy]

He supposes the next question is, "Is it working?"

It's too easy to point out ADI's counseling center and their insistence to use it. And hadn't people abducted been subjected to examination by the medical team after, and been offered sessions? Tim figures, cruelly, he could quip about kidnapping insurance. But that's not him; he doesn't want to joke about this.

He shakes his head, hair a mess because of the hours of sea breeze. "Can't help you with distractions. I was always told the opposite, so that's what I tried to do. I thought obsessing over things was the only way to figure out how to get through them. I know it sounds counterproductive. But I think I liked deconstructing the issues."