Summary:Logan and Thea chat over dumplings in a Chinese night market Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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It's another day, several after the last encounter between Logan and Thea. She had gotten a text, asking if she was free on that night and proposing a night out in Chinatown. It was a bustling evening in that part of town. Cramped walkways were crowded. Vendors were out on the streets, hawking wares and selling a variety of food choices not typically seen by the average American of non-Chinese ancestry. It is a bustling night market!
Logan waits where he was to meet Thea. He stands near the entrance to the Mahayana temple, a handy landmark at which to meet. He's wearing his usual workboots. His jeans are worn with the cuffs pulled over the boots, and are held up by a brown belt with a large silver buckle. He has a plaid shirt, buttoned down and tucked in. His leather jacket is worn atop this. He looks to be vaguely western in his aesthetic. Because nothing screams Chinese market like a wannabe cowboy.
In contrast, Thea will look like a city girl. Black knee high boots without a heel for walking, over jeans and with a silky midnight blue blouse. There's some silver accessories, but nothing overly flashy or tempting. There's no purse to risk getting snatched, either, so money and id must be tucked into a pocket.
She will smile at the sight of him, as she walks up. "Well hey there, handsome stranger. I'm supposed to meet my friend Logan around here…" She'll tease, eyes a bluish silvery hue this evening, and she's got on some makeup to enhance them and tint her lips.
Logan knows she's there even before seeing her. There is a subtle trace of her scent on the air. He turns to see her as she approaches, giving her a once-over before allowing his lips to curl into a grin. "Hey, Thea," he answers. "You're lookin' good." Her comment about his alleged handsomeness earns to reply but a faint quirk of a brow. "Figured it'd be fun to walk around, check out the market." He turns even as he says that, to fall into place alongside her, and to set a meandering, casual pace. "You ever make it to China in your travels?"
She will match whatever pace he sets, hair catching on the fitful bit of breeze now and then. "Why thank you. I do try to not look like a troglodyte when I leave the apartment." There's a mock trace of frost in her voice, before she's chuckling. "I did, indeed. Let's just say I didn't.. linger too long in country. It's a beautiful place, and I love the art and there's so much to learn.. but let's just say what I saw happening there to people like us.. was not terribly enrapturing, and I decided there were better countries, where I could feel safer." She will glace sidelong and up. "You ever been?"
Logan offers a wry smirk and a sidelong glance at Thea's mock frostiness. "Well, you nailed it. I ain't never seen less of a troglodyte." He doen't chuckle aloud, but he offers a wider grin as the two meander along, soon starting to pass stalls and vendors with a great variety of wares. He grunts and nods to the history Thea provides. At her question, he dips his head in the affirmative. "I lived there a while, yeah," he answers. "Not too much in the cities, but some." He looks toward her and then asks a more immediate question. "You hungry? We could grab some dumplings for while we wander."
Thea will flush, just ever so slightly. "Well, time well invested, then. I should at least look passable, walking around with a tall, dark cowboy." She will smirk, just a touch, pausing to look at lanterns in a stall. "You know, I'm super grateful I could just move into my apartment and not do all the furniture hunting.. but sometimes I wonder what I would pick." Would she go with an Asian flare? Perhaps something more Middle Eastern. French? She will turn her head, smile bright. "Let's go get some food. Maybe it will stop me from shopping. Right away, at least."
Logan again quirks a brow slightly, offering a grin before he looks down at himself. "Cowboy?" he echoes. Evidently the look wasn't altogether intentional on his part. Still, he lets the comment slide and focuses instead on what she continues to say. "Yeah, your place is nicely done," he affirms. "And if you want to add some more personal flair, you can do that. Maybe you'll find something here," he suggests with a shrug before he nods toward a vendor with a cart. "This place has good dumplings," he notes, angling her toward it. And once there, he presumes to order for the both of them, dropping his gruff voice into an easy, fluent Mandarin. The old woman operating the cart' eyes bulge and she laughs in surprise, clapping her hands together.
Thea will gesture with a hand. "Boots, jeans, belt buckly, plaid shirt, and a leather jacket. I assumed you had a look you were going for. Wild and a little rough around the edges." She will shrug, and let him angle her into the dumpling place. She will open her mouth, before he breaks into Mandarin, those eyes watching him with a tiny shake of her head, lips curved slightly. "Of course you speak it. I could have ordered, but not nearly as prettily as you did. "
"I don't gotta go for the look, sweetheart. I'm a natural," Logan asserts with a wolfish grin. The vendor natters back to Logan in Mandarin, and she deftly moves a collection of dumplings onto two disposable trays. Small, disposable containers contain dipping sauce. There are chopsticks too. Logan pays with a couple of crumpled bills, rumbling back in Mandaran before he hands a tray to Thea. "You can take from this one too," he tells her, nodding down to the one he holds. It's just a matter of luck, who has which dumplings on their tray.
"Gotta show ya I can keep up in the language department. Also helps that, if we want to talk about somebody here, we can just use Arabic." He grins across to her at that, picking up his chopsticks in one hand while holding his tray in the other, content to wander and eat at the same time.
Thea laughs, tucking hair behind her ear. "I'm sure you are a natural." She can't seem to help smiling. She doesn't remember the last time she felt this… easy around someone. It's been a long time. She doesn't have to be anyone but who she is, right now.
She doesn't hesitate to use chopsticks, plucking up a dumpling to dip and bite into with no self-consciousness. "Mmm. Food in places like that is always the best, you know? So many good little food stalls and carts have given me some of the best tasting food." She smirks, lashes lowered. "We can, indeed."
He meanders alongside her, content to browse among the stalls, people-watch, and enjoy the warm dumplings. He likewise seems relaxed, comfortable enough to be in the moment. He decides to drop a bomb on her after a few minutes. "I met somebody interesting the other day," he offers. If she chooses to ask who or to remains silent for long enough, he will supply additional information. "The original boyscout himself, Captain America."
She will look up when he offers that statement, a glance up from under lashes to indicate interest despite her mouth being full of dumplings. Then she swallow, before she's laughing, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Yeah? I met the guy not long ago. Black ice, nasty car pileups. Lots of people hurt, EMTs were having a hard time getting in… so I was doing my thing, and he noticed. Gave me a card and everything." There's a smirk. "I'm sure he was thinking that a person like me could be…useful."
Logan's brows arch at the news that she too has met the star-spangled captain. His grin is wry and he nods in agreement. "Likely. He seems to be all work, that guy. Though… I don't know, he seems all right," he adds with a shrug. There's a glance aside, a gauging of Thea's demeanour before he switches to easy, fluent Arabic. "He knew who I was. Said he and I did some fighting together in '43. And before, from the sounds of it."
She thankfully not bitten into her next dumpling, when he's switching languages. She will easily slide from English to Arabic. "1943? I mean, everyone knows about him, and you said you didn't remember much but.. " There's a low whistle, as she looks up. "I so need your skin care routine, looking as good as you do." Yep. She just made fun of it. Why get freaked?
He smirks again at the joke she makes, now taking a moment to pluck up another dumpling in his chopsticks. He dips it into the sauce held on his tray and then he answers offhand, "Simple, just need to have a mickey of whiskey and a few stogies a day. Kills off all the stuff that'll age ya." e grins aside to her, bringing the dumpling to his lips. He pauses for just a moment before he reveals, "Didn't have any metal on me in '43. Turns out you're right about that being… added." He pops the dumpling into his mouth at that.
"Well of course I was. I can see right into you, after all. IT's kinda like seeing through you, but less metaphorical." She seems to be at ease with everything he's telling her, but then again, she's seen a lot of weird things in the last handful of years. "I guess I will have to depend on whiskey and facials. Stogies are just not my look."
Logan pushes the dumpling into the hollow of his cheek and mutters, "Suit yourself. It's not as effective," on the subject of facials. He pauses and turns aside to allow a couple of kids to race past him in the crowded walkway. "Anyway, I got his card too," Logan notes. "He said he'd look, quietly, into things for me. See if he can give me any kind of lead… or find out if anybody's huntin' for me, government-side. Not that I'd necessarily trust someone who's been doing the government's work for them for so long. Still. Might get something out of it."
"Well, if I start the anti aging stuff now, maybe I can keep myself looking young enough to hang out with you for a while yet." She chuckles, plucking up another dumpling. "Isn't there something they say about brothers in arms, or bonds from a foxhole or something? I've never been to war, I admit. But no one would want me to go to war."
"Yeah, so they say. I don't know, I don't remember ever goin' to war," Logan answers with a shrug. He extends his chopsticks out toward her tray then, interrupting his train of thought to say, "Here… gimme one o' them," falling back into English to do so. Then it's back to Arabic as he adds, "And I don't know how tight me 'n Cap were. He seemed… I don't want to say nervous, but he seemed wary at least. I don't think he would be eager to go toe-to-toe. I didn't get the sense of us bein' besties, but if I was a government experiment at some point, I'm going to be distrustful of government until my trust is earned, you know?"
Thea will pause long enough to let him snag a dumpling off the tray she's carrying. She smiles watching him eat, though she's not sure why, exactly. "Well, you seem to me like a bit of a guy who knows what he's about. I don't imagine war would be any different. Might not have been your first, from the healing you've got. I can't even begin to ballpark how old you might be." She shrugs. "I wouldn't trust them either. Hell, I don't, and I wasn't an experiment."
Logan nods to Thea's sensible comments, pausing for a moment to swallow his dumpling. "Well, if I go missing in the next few days, you know who to start with when tryin' to avenge my vanishing," he notes. Meandering his way along, he is content to change the subject. "How 'bout you?" he asks in English. "Good week? Any craziness?"
There is a quietly pleased look up at him, a hint of a smile. "At least you're smart enough to know that I would go looking, and woe betide anyone that wanted to try and give me shit or stop me from it." She shrugs. "Nothing at all, really. I went to visit my grandfather, he's been sick the past winter, so he's still recovering. Other than that.. reading, pondering what I want to do next with my life."
He gives a half-snort, half-laugh in respnse to her words of praise. "Well, Cap better pray to his star-spangled Jesus that I don't go ghost mode and decide to go on a retreat with a vow of silence or anything," he offers with a grin, plainly playing at a joke. He adds, "And you can tell your gramps, next time you see him, that his restaurant makes a damn good spread. Your new pal approves."
"Well, do poor Cap a favor and tell me before you just vanish, or I'll be taking on the Avengers all by my lonesome." Thea says with a teasing smile. "Wrong one. Paternal grandfather. Maternal is the Greek. And I already told him you enjoyed the food. OF course, now I have to deal with him asking me about you when I go for dinner next. That won't be fun."
"Well, we'll see what kind of info he digs up. Maybe I'll sick you on him, just for laughs. See how the super soldier handles a Greek woman." He grins wolfishly at that. "Though… I guess you're a half. So half as scary, I suppose. What's the other half, anyway?" He doesn't touch the topic of her enduring questions about him.
"It's not the Greek so much as the trained biokinetic that's scary." Thea corrects him playfully. "English and Irish and a smattering of this and that, as far as I've been able to dig up. Never mattered as much to me as the Greek half."
"I dunno," Wolverine answers thoughtfully. "Greek women are pretty scary." He feigns some deeper introspection at this before he grins again, glancing sidelong toward her. He is content to let her choose when to stop to peruse a stall's various offerings. He, after all, has little need for interior decor and can afford little, even in a market such as this. He asks, "So, come to any realizations, as to what you're gonna do with yourself?"
"You've met my grandmother then, I see. Tiny little thing, but runs everything with an iron ladle." Thea will grin, offering him her last few dumplings as she gets full. "Not yet, no. I mean, I'm sure your friend Cap would love to hear I'd like to become an asset or whatever. But then again.. I could always pretend to be some normal girl and try college or something."
"Why not?" he answers with a shrug. "It seems like a tough, dangerous gig, that Avengers business. You should just live your life, do what you want. You got the money, right? So why not?" He takes her up on her offer, plucking a choice dumpling from her tray and scarfing it down. He shuffles the remaining ones all onto his tray so she can free her hands up for the browsing and buying.
"Because it is a tough, dangerous gig. I've never been the girl content to sit and be pretty and rich. That's just not who I am. I spent the first few years of my life with my single mother working to make ends meet. Having the money to fall back on and give me the time to decide is nice… but what is college going to teach me, when I already know who I am?"
Logan lofts a brow, taking a moment to chew and swallow his dumpling before he asks, "You think you got it all figured out? At whatever you are, twenty-one or something?" He shakes his head with a grin. "Come on, you could learn somethin' in college." He pops another dumpling in. He's going to eat all of them.
"I don't have it all figured out, no. But kids go to college to figure out what they want to do, or get a degree to do it. I don't have those needs, was my point." Thea elaborates, smiling at him just popping in another dumpling. "I am who I am, and my powers inform a certain amount of what I should do with my life."
Logan grunts in response, noncommital but not argumentative on the point. It's then that distraction comes in the form of someone hawking their wares, getting Thea and Logan's attention. And, from there, the routine evening of night market shopping continues…