On her way to the zoo that morning, Laura had that distinctive feeling that someone was watching or following her. Her senses were on high alert, and her hands were clenched into tight fists as she braced herself to extend the metal claws in her hands. A block or so away from the zoo’s entrance, she waited until a couple passed by her and whipped around to see who it was that was following her. Only no one was there. People were walking past her like normal with some giving the girl with a deadly glare strange looks as they walked by. What she did see was a stuffed man with a weird straw hat a little ways back just staring at her. She stared right back at him, trying to figure out why he was there. She didn’t remember seeing him when she’d walked by that spot only moments earlier.
Laura hesitated for a second but eventually turned back around and entered the zoo. She still had that feeling of someone following her, but she tried to stay calm while walking towards some of her favored exhibits. She was going to visit the lions last before she left since that was always the best part, but for now she was headed towards the monkeys and other primates. They were funny. They liked to play together. Sometimes they poked or pulled each other’s tails and pretended it wasn’t them, or the babies rolled around on the ground wrestling. One of the gorillas kept pulling one of its babies back when it was running away. They had minds of their own, and Laura appreciated that about them.
After leaving the gorillas, she started onto the next place and had that funny feeling again. She ran along the trails and pathways to try to get away and then ducked behind a bathroom building to wait and see who it might have been. Laura’s heart started beating fast, and adrenaline started to pump through her veins.
It took a few minutes of waiting, but nothing came. Reluctantly, she continued on, but that feeling persisted. Disgruntled and annoyed, Laura decided to skip seeing the lions and to come back when she wasn’t feeling on edge. She left the zoo and ran out of the exit as fast as she could. She didn’t hear footsteps behind her, and when she eventually slowed down that feeling was back again. Hands into fists again, and the claws were poking out from between her knuckles.
Turning around quickly, she saw that stuffed man again only this time it was right behind her. Laura released a loud battle cry and jumped up, slicing the head off of the stuffed man and down the torso of its body. The thing crumpled to the ground, but there was no blood, only straw.
It was finished, she thought, so she continued on. Only it happened all over again, and another pile of straw floated down by her feet. Laura was breathing hard, and her claws were still out as she looked around frantically. Why was the stuffed man following her?
The scream is what got his attention, he was around the corner when he heard it and sprinted around just in time to see the stuffed scarecrow ripped apart by the claws of an angry young girl.
“Hey, kid,” Tommy said as he approached her very carefully. One thing was for sure, Laura wasn’t any little girl and honestly, Tommy was surprised the kid wasn’t in more training. She was a little dangerous, not that that was a bad thing.
“You okay?” He asked knowing the answer was no. “I think it’s dead. Gone. Just straw.” He crossed his arms and uncrossed them remembering something Eva had said about it not being the most friendly stance.
There was a small grunt or growl that Laura released when she heard someone approach and speak to her. She didn’t look at the person directly but still stood in a defensive stance, and turned her head towards him enough so that she could see him out of the corner of her eyes. She hadn’t exactly felt danger from the straw man, but they kept appearing one after another each time she turned around. She didn’t like it, and it set her on edge.
Slowly, Laura’s eyes started to raise to look up at Tommy. Her claws were still out, and she was still ready to strike at a second’s notice, but she nodded to the pile of straw at her feet.
“He will come back,” she said slowly. “He keeps coming back.” She didn’t know who or what he was or wanted, but it made no difference to the girl with the metal claws when she felt on edge.
“Reappearing scarecrows,” Tommy said simply nodding. This place had a lot of issues.
“Did it talk? Or is it just appearing to try and scare you.” He asked tilting his head. “Think it’d take a lot more than a bag of straw in clothing to get to you.” Tommy looked down at her claws as he said it.
“Come on, you hungry?” He didn’t know why he said something but he had a feeling leaving the kid alone wasn’t the right thing to do.
Laura shook her head. “No. It was just there.” It hadn’t talked, but then again the last couple of times she hadn’t given it the chance to talk. Finally, she looked up at the man. He was right. It did take a lot to scare her, but there was something about the straw man that set her on edge. “I don’t like being followed,” she said. It gave her flashbacks from when she and her friends had always been looking over their shoulders - like when she’d been with Gabriella, Charles, and Logan.
The sudden change of subject surprised her, and Laura’s brows creased together. Whether or not she was hungry probably didn’t much matter. Laura could eat most anytime even if she’d recently had a full meal.
“Okay.” She said and slowly retracted her claws so that only the hands of a little girl remained. “I like pizza.” It wasn’t a demand on where to go, but people usually asked that, so she figured she might as well tell him before he bothered asking.
“I haven’t met a single person who likes to be followed,” he offered. “Well, there were some slag footballer wives that love the paparazzi.” Tommy added after a moment of thought. It was a horrible thing to say and he was sure if Eva, Katie or Alura had heard him they’d slap him but he didn’t think the kid was going to be offended by that. He wasn’t in the mood to have little angry claws come at him.
“No pineapple on the pizza though okay?” He told her going with the flow of food. Tommy still couldn’t figure out why he was deciding to bring the kid along and feed her but even if she wasn’t scared of the scarecrow he felt like she should be with someone.
“Or apples, never understood the fruit on pizza.”
Laura didn’t have any idea what he meant about wives and the paparazzi, but she didn’t ask any questions. She was still sometimes looking over her shoulder to make sure the straw man didn’t come back. Usually, he came back when her back was already turned, but maybe having someone with her would help keep him away.
She made a face about his pizza topping objections. Not because she wanted pineapple pizza but because she agreed with him. Why would anyone put apples or pineapple on a pizza? She liked pineapples, and she liked pizza. She didn’t want to find out what the two together tasted like.
“Pepperoni,” she clarified her choice of pizza toppings and started back walking next to him. She didn’t know why he decided to stay with her or offer food, but he seemed nice. He was going to get her food, so those were already points in his favor.
“They have ice cream there too,” she said, only looking up at him out of the corner of her eye. Ice cream sundaes with whipped cream and a cherry. Or milkshakes. She really liked chocolate milkshakes.
“Pepperoni,” he nodded play thoughtfully. “That’s an acceptable topping.” He was a fan of any of the meat-based toppings. Usually did the trick.
“Depends on what kind of ice cream,” he added as they got towards the door he paused to open it for Laura. “I had a mate that only liked raisin ice cream, always thought that there was something off about him because of it.”
Laura made another face while walking into the restaurant. Raisin ice cream sounded terrible. “Why would you put raisins in ice cream?” She’d only ever actually had raisins a couple times, but both times she thought they tasted really bad. “Chocolate is better. With sprinkles.” And whipped cream and a cherry and sometimes M&Ms or nuts. The more toppings, the better.
They sat down and ordered, and Laura’s eyes scanned the room curiously. So far she hadn’t seen another straw man, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t come back soon. She did feel better, though, having Tommy with her. He seemed nice, and he liked pizza. Good kinds of pizza, not pizza with weird toppings on it. When the pizza did come to the table, her eyes widened in awe of all of the cheese and other pizzay things.
“It’s good,” she said after a bite.
"Don't ask me, kid. I prefer M&Ms when it comes to ice cream toppings." He said glad that the pizza came pretty quickly, more amused by her expression than the pizza itself.
Taking a piece himself he took a bite chewing nodding to her assessment of the pizza, he also wondered if he should contact Cat or Dyson but she seemed like she was happy and food was food right?
"Trying to inhale it?" He asked watching her eat.
So, he liked M&Ms in his ice cream too, she thought. Laura kept a watch on him out of the corner of her eye. She hadn’t mentioned those out loud, so either he really did like them or… He couldn’t read her mind, could he?
She was eating her first slice pretty quickly, and she paused when he asked if she was trying to inhale it. She shrugged and her bites and chewing became a little slower - but not too slow. “I dunno. I don’t want you to eat it all,” She said and even though she didn’t express humor the way most people did, Laura still meant it as a little bit of a joke.
She took her second slice and started munching away on that one next. Laura could normally eat a lot thanks to the way her body worked, but she wasn’t planning on eating too much pizza. She did want some ice cream, after all.
“Do you go on the missions?” She asked after a short pause. “Do you like them?”
Chuckling he nodded. “Fair enough, guess I’ll have to speed up so you don’t eat it all.” The kid was amusing at least.
He looked up at her when she asked about missions.
“Yeah, I run a team, we go on missions sometimes, personally I’d rather go out more but that’s not how it works.” He shrugged. “I like it, it’s usually interesting, see different shit, err stuff.” He shrugged deciding the kid probably heard a lot of language.
She could eat it all, she thought to herself. If he got up for whatever reason, she’d probably have it nearly finished by the time he got back. She didn’t say that out loud, though, because if he did get up for a minute, she didn’t want to tip him off.
The curse didn’t phase her even a little. She heard that plenty around here, and her introduction to Logan had been full of colorful words. They were just words to her. “They don’t let me go out at all,” she said with a shrug and took a sip of her drink.
Something about her age blah blah blah. She might have been trained to be a weapon, but Atlantis sure didn’t see it that way. It wasn’t like she could get hurt more than just a couple seconds, and she couldn’t die. Oh well. It didn’t bother her exactly except for the fact that she had to go to school instead of go to training like everyone else. She was supposed to start middle school in the fall, and she wasn’t sure what she felt about that.
“Some of them look fun.” Especially the outer space ones.
“How old are you anyways?” Tommy once would have been much better at pinpointing ages, but ever since he left the family and went his own way he didn’t spend that much time around kids and didn’t usually pay much attention.
He nodded. “They can be fun, they can also be a little dangerous, but I imagine nothing worse than the shit Atlantis likes to think up.” He did think that was true if the kid with claws could handle scarecrows she should be able to handle a mission.
Laura studied him for a second, wondering if she should tell him her age, but she finally figured it wasn’t something he wouldn’t be able to find out elsewhere if he dug for it. “Twelve.” She would be thirteen in a few months, but age was different to Laura than most people. She knew she would live a long time past any normal lifespan. Like Logan. Until he went and died.
“They do have weird shit here,” she said, repeating his wording and shrugged. “Dangerous to other people. Not me.”
Nodding he chewed a bite swallowing before answering. “So, you’re twelve, have claws and are they at least letting you train?” He said more matter of factly than as a question. He was curious though if they let her train. It’d be stupid not to.
Laughing, he liked he confidence the kid had, but he figured there probably were some things here that were actually dangerous to her.
“I train if I want to train,” Laura said firmly. She wasn’t a part of any official training sessions, but she went in on her own sometimes or would challenge someone else. Sometimes they took her up on it, sometimes not. It depended on the person. Sometimes it was fun to challenge people that didn’t know her very well because they weren’t expecting her to be better than them. Their faces were always funny when they found out.
“Have you ever used the Danger Room?” She asked him. It was a room that had been used back during the days of the X-Men to help them train and a version of it was here. She wasn’t sure what the official name of it was in Atlantis, but the idea was basically the same. Real world simulations to help in the actual real world. “I use it sometimes. It’s better than just hitting stuff.”
He was going to ask how formal the training was but decided against asking the question he mildly wondered how well she’d take to a more formal training schedule.
Nodding at her question, he had. “The two on my team are,” he paused trying to think of the right word “powered, so we use it to see about their skills and throw tests at all of us.” It was a little bit different for him given he was just a normal human but he did find it useful.
“It’s good for trying different techniques, which is essential.”
Laura finished up another piece of pizza as she listened to him. Watching and listening, she realized that he hadn’t been scared of her when he first came up on her, claws and all. Most people here even without powers weren’t. Some probably thought she was weird, but not so much scared. It was so different than home. She wondered if it bothered him that they were powered and he wasn’t. Not that he didn’t like them but if he wished he was different. She wasn’t going to ask that though because she didn’t want him to turn around and ask the same question to her but in reverse.
“I like it,” she said. It could be a challenge even for her, and it didn’t matter if she ripped the simulations to shreds. They weren’t real people.
Seeing that there was just one slice left, she nodded with her head towards it. “You can have the last piece if you want.”
Tommy nodded, he liked it too.
“Nah, kid, it’s all yours.” Tommy offered pushing the last piece towards her, he could always get more later and if the kid really did eat that much, he figured it was only fair she got the last piece.