15540/Raptors in the Park

Raptors in the Park
Date of Scene:	28 August 2023
Location:	Central Park, Manhattan
Synopsis:	Gwen and Poison Ivy.
Cast of Characters:	Ghost Spider, Poison Ivy

---

Ghost Spider has posed:
Central Park's lush greenery is alive with the hum of activity, families picnicking, children chasing after butterflies, and joggers setting a brisk pace along the paths. It's a perfect day for Gwen Stacy and her friend Kevin, who are stretched out on a blanket enjoying the sun's gentle warmth and discussing the latest indie music releases.

Dressed for a casual day out, she's wearing a baggy ESU t-shirt, denim shorts, and her signature light blue Chuck Taylors. Her friend Kevin -- a lanky, semi-nerdy guy with short brown hair -- is dressed similarly in a t-shirt and jeans.

"Have you heard the new album by The Spiders? It's amazing," Kevin says, leaning back on his palms.

Gwen is about to respond when a sudden, panicked scream pierces the calm atmosphere. They both turn towards the noise and freeze. Emerging from a thicket of bushes is an animated velociraptor skeleton. The once lifeless museum piece, devoid of flesh and skin, now moves with alarming agility. Its hollow eye sockets seem to fixate on a terrified family, which includes two young children, their eyes wide with horror.

Without hesitation, Gwen grabs a nearby stick and hurls it past the velociraptor, making a loud noise as it crashes into a trash can. The raptor's head snaps toward the disturbance. Gwen claps her hands, trying to pull its attention further away from the family. "Hey, you! Ugly bag of bones! Over here!"

Kevin, wide-eyed but quickly understanding Gwen's intent, springs into action. "Get to safety!" he shouts at the family, ushering them and several other nearby park-goers towards the park exit.

The raptor, now fully distracted by Gwen, starts moving in her direction, its skeletal tail swaying menacingly as it closes the gap. Gwen gulps, realizing the creature's size and speed up close. But she can't back down now. "Come on, then!" she taunts, her voice a mix of fear and determination.

With the raptor hot on her heels, Gwen dashes toward the park's lake, her heart pounding in her ears. The creature follows, its bony feet making an eerie clicking sound against the paved path. Just as it was about to nip at her back, she lunges up for the branch of a tree, grabbing on and using to flip backwards.. sending the raptor lunging underneath her as she lands lightly back on the path.

"Ole, Toro!"

Of course, just a few more paces in front of her, it turns and wheels on her again.

"Crap."

Poison Ivy has posed:
    Animate dinosaur skeletons. There's something you don't see every day. Weekly, maybe, but Ivy would have sworn the next appearance of animate dinosaur skeletons wasn't due until Thursday.

    Why is it chasing that girl? It's a skeleton. It doesn't need to eat. It can't even swallow, let alone digest. Anything it bites off will just fall out of the hollow V of its fleshless jawbone.

    "Probably some loser with a gimmick," Ivy mutters aloud, answering her own question dismissively. She's ready to keep walking, to let the scene play out however it's going to play out--to paraphrase some self-appointed guardian of morality or another, 'I won't kill her, but I don't have to save her'--when a reluctant, almost resentful thought occurs to her: it will cost her nothing to save the blondie, and it might build an in-road. Ivy's face twists into an exasperated expression that says 'ugh, fine' all but aloud, and flicks two fingers in the skeleraptor's direction. At that unspoken command, the grass starts growing at an impossible rate, gaining ten inches in just under a second, and writhing around the skeleton's lower legs. Anyone can break one blade of grass, but a few hundred? That makes a rope. Those are harder.

    "I wonder if that thing needs its legs to keep moving," Poison Ivy says aloud as she starts walking toward it, albeit walking slowly: heels aren't super appropriate for going off the paved track.

Ghost Spider has posed:
Gwen is already taking a couple of steps back from the steady clack-clack of the menacing, slowly advancing raptor's claw against the concrete when that grass started to grow... and grow.. and...

A moment of panic flashes through her, but her Spider-senses weren't going any crazier than they were a minute ago. That grass, whatever it was doing, wasn't coming for /her/.. it was going for the dinosaur.

A raptor in the tall grass... but /stuck/. It's /so/ ironic.

What's probably even more puzzling is the way the raptor SCREAMS in rage (even without lungs), thrashing about and nipping with bony teeth at the blades of grass around it. It shreds a couple, but not enough to free it. Those teeth were meant for ripping flesh, not slicing rope.

"Uhhh..."

Gwen's head whips around towards the new click-click.. this time of approaching heels. Because who in the world would be CRAZY enough to actually walk towards her with a freaking VELOCIRAPTOR sort of 'accidentally' tangled up in some weeds??

And then those blue eyes fall on the red hair. The black jacket. The green tights.

"...Clever girl," are the first words of greeting out of Gwen's mouth, because apparently she can't control herself even out of costume. A small, appeasing smile plays over her lips, but she doesn't run. "You're Poison Ivy..." It's not a question. "Wow, you are /really/ pretty in person... hey, aren't you supposed to be letting this thing eat me?"

Poison Ivy has posed:
    "Still thinking about it," Ivy says laconically. Her lips twist like she wants to say something else, but she can't quite force the words 'get out of here, I'll protect you' from her mouth. She just keeps walking toward the skeleton fearlessly (and why not? If the skeleton escapes the grass, she'll just make the tree bash it to pieces), encouraging the grass to keep growing, keep entwining, keep entombing. Eventually, though--after an eternity of about two seconds--a frustrated growl escapes her and she manages to ask, albeit without looking at Gwen, "So who sent a dinosaur skeleton to kill you?"

Ghost Spider has posed:
Gwen's mouth drops open to protest that first response, but no sound comes out for a moment. She just lets that shock turn into a kind of wry curl of her lips.

"For what it's worth, I appreciate you not..."

There's more snapping, writhing, and noises made from the dinosaur, though it's also being rather quickly consumed, pulled to the ground and rather thoroughly locked in place.

"Honestly? I'm not sure. /We're/ not sure. It started a couple of days ago during my boyfriend's birthday party at the Museum of Natural History. Boys and dinosaurs, you know? I thought /I/ was being clever until they all sort of.. started chasing us around. Tony Stark was there. He's -- well, anyway -- he helped us figure out that it's nanobots of some sort on the skeleton. I'm just glad no one got hurt, but.. I guess they didn't catch them all, yet."

Mental note: Increase patrols around Central Park with a focus on dinosaur hunting.

"I'm Gwen, by the way... I really appreciate you stepping in there. I don't suppose you'd be willing to separate its head from the rest of it? That seemed to help, before..."

Poison Ivy has posed:
Ivy shrugs nonchalantly. "Yeah, sure. Hang on." She flicks her fingers toward the tree Gwen chose for her hiding place, which curls back one of its branches like a cartoon character winding up for a big punch and does...well, pretty much that. A big cartoon punch that socks the skeleraptor's head off. When the skull stops rolling across the park, you nearly expect to see little tweeting birds circling its crown, or maybe the its empty eye sockets filling with spirals. Poison Ivy has a sense of humor?

Ghost Spider has posed:
There's no telling what Gwen really expected to happen when she made that request. Maybe she thought it would be as simple as a little 'pop' of the skeleton's head from its neck as the grass that was consuming it did its thing. Whatever she /thought/ was going to happen, it wasn't an uppercut from a tree.

"Oh my God!" Gwen exclaims, instinctively taking a couple of steps back as her hands come up to cover her mouth.

At least the raptor had stopped moving, whatever connection the head had to the rest of the body successfully severed.

Laughter bubbles up a moment later, her hands gradually lowering from her mouth.

"That's /so/ cool. You just turned that tree into a Whomping Willow! Sorry.. I don't mean to.. I'm just working on my doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology, and that's... I've never seen anything like that, before. You can do that with /all/ plants?"

Poison Ivy has posed:
"No, only the ones with thick enough branches. A dandelion wouldn't generate enough force," Ivy deadpans.

Ghost Spider has posed:
Gwen blinks, opens her mouth, closes it again.. blinks again. Then a grin slowly twists her lips.

"Okay, so Poison Ivy saved my life, today, /and/ she's got jokes.. I feel like I need to buy you a hot dog or.. wait.. do you eat plants? Or meat? Both? This feels rude. Maybe I should have stuck with a heart-shaped keychain."

Even as she's rambling, though, she pulls her phone out of a pocket of her backpack and swipes it open, tapping out a quick message.

"Sorry.. just letting the museum know where to collect their exhibit from."

Poison Ivy has posed:
Ivy snorts. The idea of the museum having to send someone to dig up the skeleton she half-entombed is very funny to her. It passes, though, and she says, "Yeah, I'm vegan. You kill fewer plants eating them than feeding them to animals to eat." She pauses, then begrudgingly admits, "I don't think it's rude to ask." That was hard enough for her to say that she has to fold her arms and look away at nothing in particular for a bit.

Ghost Spider has posed:
"Well," Gwen says gently, rocking forward a bit and leaning gently to the side in the direction Ivy's gaze had ventured over to. Still, it seemed to be encouraging more than anything else, as if she sensed the other woman's discomfort. "/Are/ you busy right now? I'm serious -- I'd happily buy you a churro. Or some onion rings? Or something else, if you wanted. There's a couple of really good food trucks that park just up there..."

Gwen points, and sure enough the trucks are still there. They even seemed to have little lines despite there having been a dinosaur running amok. It /is/ New York, after all. If it's not a full-scale alien invasion, people don't really give up their place in line.

She takes a picture of the thick bundle of weeds with her phone, a few bones barely seen poking out, and then attaches it to a message.

"What are the..." She makes a cutting motion with her fingers. "..big scissors?.. Hedge trimmers.." Then her fingers are flying over the screen to type out the rest of message, grinning.

"I'm Gwen, by the way."

Poison Ivy has posed:
Ivy bites back an 'I know, you said that already' because that would be unnecessarily rude; though the effort of suppressing it does make the grass around her feet grow a bit. She manages to just nod say, "Hi, Gwen. Yeah, sure, churros sound nice." There's a noticeable pause before she remembers her manners enough to add, "Thanks."

Part of her wants to crawl out of her skin at spending time with this unknown human. Part of her wants to give Gwen's chin a little thumb caress to see what she'll do. Most of her is just tired of wondering why she's like this, so she settles for nodding in the general direction of the trucks Gwen was indicating, and saying, "Your choice, since you're buying."

Ghost Spider has posed:
"Does that happen when you stay in one place too long?"

Gwen's eyes have lifted from her screen to the rising grass, as if she'd caught the movement out of the corner of her vision and been compelled to watch out of pure, insatiable curiosity.

Because, well, that's exactly what happened.

"That's the expression, right? Letting the grass grow under your feet?"

That playful little grin never leaves her lips. Was she /teasing/ Ivy or just being awkward? It's hard to tell, sometimes, and it's not at all impossible that it's both.

"Yay! I /love/ churros. And besides, I nearly got eaten by a dinosaur. I feel like I deserve a churro after all that."

She tucks her phone back into her backpack without looking, turning to start towards the trucks as she looks over at Ivy.

"So... do I call you Poison Ivy? Or.. Ivy?.. Or something else?"

Poison Ivy has posed:
The good thing about a chatterbox asking you a lot of questions is, if there's one or two you don't want to answer, you can just pick the one you do want to answer. Ivy selects, "You can call me either. They're both my name." Not according to the law, but she's kinda famous for not giving a shit what the law wants. She shoots a sidelong glance at Gwen as they walk, sees the obvious follow-up questions brewing on the human's face, and realizes her deflection wasn't good enough, so she seizes on the first idea that comes to mind: she holds that sidelong look just long enough for Gwen to notice it, and adds casually, "But yeah, if you're going to get eaten, you should definitely try to be eaten by someone more considerate than a dead dinosaur."

Does that even count as a double entendre? It would work on a man, but women usually have dignity. See, this is why Ivy uses chemicals for flirting.

Ghost Spider has posed:
Oh, Gwen definitely had follow-ups...

Was Ivy your name before?
Did you come up with Poison Ivy yourself?
Do you like being Poison Ivy?
How did you gain control of nature?
Is that body paint?

They're all there in her eyes, and the first of them is on the tip of her tongue when she looks over to meet that eye contact and then...

...she stumbles on a crack in the sidewalk she'd just been too distracted to notice, and the words die in her throat.

She blinks, just a little color touching the backs of her cheeks, and then she laughs. It's a warm, bright sound.

"You are not wrong," she answers, smiling. "Can I just say something? Women from Gotham are /way/ cooler than I ever realized. Harley Quinn jumped up on stage during one of our gigs and then glomped me at the next show -- which is not a phrase I ever thought I'd say -- and now you've saved me from the jaws of what was sure to be a /very/ selfish and very dead dinosaur... and let's face it, enthusiasm can only make up for so much."

Dignity, you say?

Poison Ivy has posed:
Well, shit. She's cute AND funny AND a good sport. How is Ivy supposed to maintain her pathological misanthropy? She permits the tiniest smile to tug at the corners of her mouth as they approach the churro truck (which is probably a more-than-churros truck, but Ivy is a goal-oriented gal) and she asks, "Gig? So you're a musician or something?"

Ghost Spider has posed:
"Oh! Yeah. Drummer. I've been in the Mary Janes since high school. None of us are career musicians or anything, but we've got a couple of tracks up on Spotify and we play a lot of local places."

Gwen rounds the end of the relatively short line for the truck and tucks her hands into the back pockets of her shorts, her weight rocking up onto the balls of her feet for a moment. It was like she had an excess of energy she just didn't know what to do with, so it came out as a bit of fidgeting.

"Most of my money comes from modeling, oddly enough, even though that's only part time, too. I'm also an assistant researcher at Alchemax while I'm finishing up my thesis."

She shrugs. So, she was rarely bored, then.

"What about you?"

Poison Ivy has posed:
"I'm not a musician," Ivy deadpans. "Played a little piano as a kid but stopped as soon as I could. You know." She considers, and amends, "Or maybe you don't, if you actually liked doing it."

Ghost Spider has posed:
Gwen laughs, moving up another place in line. "No, I mean... what do you do? I mean, I recognize you because I don't have my head buried completely in the sand..."

Beat.

"Or, in the weeds, I guess, considering the company."

She smiles a bit.

"But, the media's not super reliable, you know? I don't really... assume anything."

Another person finishes at the window, and then Gwen's stepping up to it, smiling brightly at the man behind the counter inside the food truck.

"Two churros, please. And, whatever she wants." Yes, those two were for her.

"Oh, hey.. nice cosplay. You look just like that plant chick from Gotham," the man inside the truck muses at Ivy.

Poison Ivy has posed:
"Uh, yeah. Cosplay. Gimme two churros and, uh, some napkins. So I don't get my body paint on them." It's possible to sound less convincing than Ivy's hesitant flatness, but it would take serious effort.

While the guy makes food be in waxed bags to be eaten from, Ivy shrugs at Gwen. "I'm an ecoterrorist. I do heists when I have to pay bills or whatever, because there's really no job prospects for a green woman who's done what I've done, but that's fine. I'm here to save the planet, not to get matching donations to a 401K." She accepts her parcel of churro from the guy at the truck, ignoring the stinkeye he's giving her at the parts he overheard. "It's just, I'm trying to kind of develop some dimensions, you know? I used to let ecoterrorism be, like, my whole personality; and it's kinda pathetic when your job is the only thing you are, the only touchstone you have to hang an identity on. So now I'm a convicted murderer (among other things that probably don't matter compared to the murder part) trying to figure out how to grow a personality about twenty-five years later than I should have." She sighs, shrugs, and cronches off a bite of fried sugardough.

Gwen asked, after all. Twice. So no complaining about getting an answer!

Ghost Spider has posed:
"Oh, she's..." Gwen starts, but she just lets it trail off. There was really no sense in startling the man if he really wanted to believe she was just a cosplayer.

Food order placed, Gwen tugs her phone back out and taps it on the pay-thingy with a pleasant little beep. That done, she tucks it back into the side pocket of her backpack so she has both hands free with which to receive her yummy foot-stuffs.

And listen.

You'd think it'd be off-putting at least a little. Or, surprising. Or galling. Or.. something.

"I mean, personal growth is never a bad decision," Gwen says cheerfully, starting to walk again once they've both gotten their snack. "But you seem like you've got a pretty good personality to me already. Are you thinking about picking up any hobbies? I could send you an invite to our next show if you want a reason to get out and meet people."

Then she's biting off some of her churro, too, chewing as she walks.

Poison Ivy has posed:
"Yeah, I guess I should get hobbies or something," Ivy admits begrudgingly, walking away from the truck and from the people within-slash-around it who're probably calling the cops right now. "I don't know what. Most things seem stupid in that way where I'm not sure if they actually seem stupid or if I just tell myself they are so I don't have to risk failing at them." She bites a churro with more physical vigor than is probably required. "I used to kind of rely on my girlfriend for that, but we're broken up, so I guess now I have to actually do the work myself instead of letting someone else labor for me." She snorts, but delicately: she doesn't want to spray crumbs.

Ghost Spider has posed:
"I'm sorry. Break-ups are no fun, but good on you for getting out and turning over a new leaf."

The puns. Gwen just doesn't seem to be able to help herself, and she blows past that one as if she didn't even realize it.

"There's a lot of hobbies you could pick up that you don't have to be great at, though. I mean... there's yoga, picking up a cooking class, gardening..."

Gwen's eyes cut over for a second, her smile broadening just a little at that one. Okay, so maybe she was doing some of it on purpose.

"I mean, basically anything that doesn't involve murder is a pretty good hobby. And you're pretty good at the heroing stuff. There's probably room in New York for another vigilante. You could always go around saving people as a hobby."

Gwen shrugs, then, smiling and taking another bite of churro.

Poison Ivy has posed:
Ivy grimaces, as if the churro suddenly went bitter in her mouth. "Yeah, no thanks. People can get themselves out of the problems they got themselves into. Plus, if I became a vigilante, I'd have to wear a costume, and then some loser on the the internet would draw me wearing lingerie made of leaves, and then I'd have to find and kill them as a message to all the other losers, and then vigilantes would be coming after me..."

Maybe the churro did turn bad in her mouth. Ivy seems to have lost her appetite.

Ghost Spider has posed:
Gwen bobs her head a little back and forth as she walks along, chews, and listens, obviously processing the series of consequences and the thought process that gets Ivy there. The mention of killing them as a message has her eyes cutting over through a thin veil of blonde hair, a playful grin on her lips.

"It does seem like a lot of paths lead you back to murder. Have you considered anger management? I mean, I get that New York isn't really like /the/ go-to place to find your inner peace... and besides, maybe you look good in leaf lingerie. Have you ever /tried/?"

It's clearly not an actual suggestion, but at least Gwen seems to continue to try to lighten the mood... even if she may not be particularly adept at it, in this case.