nextgenerationmarvel | Day at the zoo (intro and open to whoever's in the area)

Mrs. Grekova had told her she was in danger of growing roots herself if she stayed in the shop any longer that day -even though it wasn't even lunchtime- and had practically shooed her out the door with her pay for a full day, and the promise of a bonus if she didn't come back the next day, just for her own health, because working all the time wasn't good for a young woman.

So she'd laughed, as she always did, since this was something that happened every few weeks, and went home to stash the money she wasn't going to use and to collect Bob -who always passed as some kind of art project or puppet if he perched on her shoulder while she was out in public- so that they could go for an outing, she figured that a trip to the zoo would do them both some good.

She debated packing a lunch, but after re-counting her day's pay, decided against it, because she could afford a lunch at the cafe, or she'd stop for a sandwich on the way home. And so it was with Bob in a small dog harness that she headed down the street to hop the bus, too warm to walk the whole way to the zoo, even though it wasn't far.

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"I've seen many a strange thing, but that's no puppet." That it was something else entirely didn't remotely bother him. Jay figured it was par for the course in his life.

Rather than ask where he could get one, he carefully opened the backpack to see how out of it Boo was. He nodded to a spot that seemed less crowded and the possible avoid giant mentality might give them some space. "If you want to see Boo."

"There's a bench around the corner, usually abandoned this time of day." It was shaped like a stack of dinosaur eggs and didn't look very comfortable, but it really was, it was just that most people avoided it without trying it first, "Might be a little more secluded."

She was reasonably sure that Jay didn't have anything to do with the Program, and if he did, she'd handle that, too.

It was a good thing this young woman was a relative stranger. He might have had an eyebrow waggle and emphasis on secluded otherwise.

"Sure," he agreed instead. Jay headed toward the indicated bench around the corner. He wasn't paying too much attention as he was trying to carefully get a very floppy Boo out of the bottom of his backpack.

At the bench he glanced around to make sure people weren't in easy view of the miniature giant space hamster he brought out.

She blinked twice, "That's... well, I'm not really sure what I was expecting."

She reached up to tap Bob with two fingers, "Say hi, Bob." After a brief moment of what was apparently hesitation, a single tendril extended, looking like beanstalk or grapevine, or some sort of climbing flower, uncurling a few inches before bumping against his dome in what was apparently a salute, making a bubble-popping sound before flicking upwards as he blew a raspberry, which caused Lex to sigh, kneading at the bridge of her nose again, "That's, uh, yeah that was a rude gesture."

She shook her head, "I blame myself, really, never did get him properly socialized."

"I find most people assume hamsters from space are supposed to look like hamsters from Earth. So, you're not alone in the regard." Jay carefully tried to put Boo back into the backpack. Except the space hamster opened one eye and saw Bob's salute.

Boo blew a raspberry back as it grabbed the edge of the backpack to keep from going back in.

Jay chuckled. "Yeah. Socializing is possibly a problem with guys like these."

She nodded, "Yeah, and moving around a lot like we did when I was younger probably didn't help. He's, uh, okay so there's this thing called a Brain Moss? And he's kind of a super-brain moss. While still being kind of an idiot, which is probably from watching too much TV."

The tendril that he'd extended to wave with had curled slowly around the two fingers she'd tapped him with before retracting just as slowly, pulling her hand along with, slowly enough, in fact, that she didn't notice until he'd actually pulled her fingers in, whereupon she tugged them away again, wiping them on her knee with a: "Dude, seriously? That's gross."

"Rescue from a lab? I understand all too well." He was trying to put his rescue from a space lab back into the backpack and not really succeeding. Jay squinted at the back of Boo's head. Boo squinted at Bob instead of paying attention to Jay.

She nodded, and while it was on the tip of her tongue to say 'we both are', she didn't, because she wasn't entirely sure she could pull it off as having been a joke if he didn't immediately take it as one.

He seemed like the kind of person who would take it at face value, and she wasn't quite sure how to handle that. So instead she just smiled, "I can see that."

"Boo. In the bag. Or no LEGO Harry Potter later." Boo let out a huge sigh and let go of the bag. Jay managed to gently get the little critter in.

He missed any hesitation and gave Lex a grin. "So, this was my first time of I'll show you mine if you show me yours in pet form."

"Mine too." She replied with another bright smile, "And people keep telling me there's a first time for everything, I guess sometimes they're actually right, go figure."

She shook her head, scratching the back of her neck, "Threatening to withhold the video games, I might have to try that next time."

"Old wisdom, go figure." He shrugged. He tended to follow old wisdom, but that was a bit of a cultural thing.

He chuckled as he zipped up the backpack enough to keep his companion hidden. "When he's in truly serious trouble, I take away his mp3 player and headphones. Little Boo likes his tunes. Almost as much as he likes raspberries."

That got another smile, "Wonder if it's a former lab-rat thing. The video games and the music." She gave Bob another gentle, almost absent-minded pat, "This one likes both, too. Not so much the raspberries, jelly beans, though, I can get him to do just about anything if I've got jelly beans."

Bob had perked up at the mention of them, sitting upright-ish on her shoulder and leaning against her neck, making a bubbly little cooing noise which just made her smile, shaking her head, "Don't have any with me Bobbo, later."

Jay considered the not-quite-a-question. "Probably could be."

He chuckled at Bob's cooing noise. The super brain moss wasn't actually the weirdest thing he had ever seen. "I should probably get going. I mentioned the vaunted video game obsession at the moment. If he can't make Ron blow things up, I'll hear about it. It was nice meeting you, Lex mostly."

She grinned at that, "Hey, at least he's got good taste." She said before offering a hand, "It was nice meeting you too, Kermit. Maybe I'll see you around again, sometime." Not that she'd really be looking, but she knew that even in this city things like that happened a lot.

Jay shifted the backpack to rest on his back. Then he took the offered hand and gave it a shake.

"If you ever need help or anything, swing by the Avengers Mansion," he offered. "They'll figure out who Kermit is after a bit. Uncle Bruce doesn't like being called it."

He grinned and gave her a farewell nod. "Take care."

Then he headed out. He was kind of glad for no random hero throwdown or villain attacking the zoo today.

Day at the zoo (intro and open to whoever's in the area)

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