Logs:Bones Not Bombs

Bones Not Bombs
Dramatis Personae Jax, Lucien, Steve	2023-04-30 "Expediting the downfall of your enemies through incompetence on an unforeseeable scale. Audacious, but intriguing."
Location <NYC> Rooftop - SHIELD Headquarters - Times Square
There's an unexpected oasis at the top of this gleaming high-rise, the whole of it carpeted in thick, soft, layered ground cover of sedums, grass, and moss. A small, carefully manicured grove serves as the centerpiece, with benches, tables and chairs scattered around in the shade. Beside it a professionally landscaped garden boasts a pond and quite a few planters that either used to hold plants or still hold dying ones. The greenhouse is somewhat sparsely and eclectically populated with tropical plants, flanked by garden beds even more sparsely planted. An open lawn on the side overlooking Times Square makes a great spot for a picnic. The otherwise unsightly structure housing the roof access, a single stall bathroom, and tool shed has been covered on three sides with turf and shaped into a little promontory offering a breathtaking view of the city. It's warm up here, bright, and on the SHIELD rooftop three dogs are -- okay, no, two dogs are romping, massive brindle pitbull and sleek shepherd mutt having themselves a real proper wrassle. The greying one-eyed beagle that snuffles along pleasantly in the wake of their tumbling seems pleased enough to be up here, maybe he's even excited that the playing is happening -- certainly his tail wags faster when he happens to bump into the other two -- but the bumping is really as far as his successful engagement seems to go. Occasionally he does try to pounce. Usually it is in the wrong direction. This does not dampen his good spirits. Over in the grove, Jax is perched on the table rather than at it, in colorfully flower-patched overalls, rainbow-and-silvery-glitter Chucks, a bright red tee shirt screen printed with 'ALL MY HEROES HAVE FBI FILES' around an image of a monkey wrench. His hands rest flat on the table beside him, and the large hat on his head -- currently straw, currently festooned with large sunflowers, though this is indecisively waffling together with his sunglasses, going through several incarnations before the glasses settle on a large red-rimmed pair with mirror lenses, the flowers showy red amaryllis -- sits just slightly askew, tipping up to give him just that much better view of the dogs. His nose has crinkled up, his smile amused. "... always do feel I should help him 'long just a bit, but he seems like he's havin' so much fun all the same. Y'think there's some kinda cut-off age for learnin' how to dog proper?" On the bench, if at its very edge where he can turn outward and so not have suffer such trials as Temporarily Looking Away From Dogs, Lucien is giving serious consideration to Jackson's question. "I am sure I was quite past the age anyone expected me to learn how to be a person properly when I..." His finger taps lightly once, twice, against his cheek, the faintest of creases briefly troubling his brow. "-- Oh, no," he dismisses that thought with slightly wider eyes, the hint of amusement in his voice contradicting the mild dismay in his expression, though easily discernible to those who know him well, "that is a terrible example, isn't it? I'm sure for Oberon there is yet hope, though." Steve is actually just sitting on the ground, presumably to make it more convenient for the dogs to trample him when their tussling drifts them near enough. He's dressed in a too-tight purple Chimaera Arts t-shirt, dark indigo jeans, and black combat boots, his shield propped against the bench where Lucien is sitting. "I think," he says, brows furrowed faintly as he studies Obie, "if we apply the principle that all does can be 'puppy' regardless of age, then there's no cut-off. Even the ones who seem very properly doglike?" He tips his hand at Flèche and Zenobia. The former has got the upper hand of the latter for the moment, which looks slightly comical with their difference in size. Zenobia's giant paws are flailing in the air, and Flèche's dainty ones barely touch the ground where she's gamely trying to pin her playmate. "Utter nonsense. They're still learning, too." Obie, for his part, is continuing to wag. Glances back at the People, panting happily. Turns back to the epic Proper Dog Battle unfolding before him. "Skittles definitely puppy and he's --" Jax furrows his brow, uncertain. "... 'bout ten million in dog years by now, I think that pup's a mutant too, ain't no way he oughta be alive." He leans slightly down, slightly over, his arm bumping playfully against Lucien's shoulder. "I don't think none of my friends all the way proper else they wouldn't'a lasted long 'round here." The text and graphic of his tee shirt, now, is printing itself bold and faintly glowing across the chest of Lucien's -- far more proper -- clothing. "... even Obie done come from doggie mad science jail, y'know," he's telling Steve earnestly, as a very overly-complex and very cartoonish series of flasks and beakers and twisting-spiraling connecting tubes, bright green fluid bubbling and smoking through it, spreads itself across the table. At one end an equally-cartoonish beagle wearing an eyepatch is looking alarmed as the green liquid forms a large droplet about to splash down on him; at the other a stereotypically goggle-eyed messy-white-haired labcoated scientist is cackling soundlessly. "Honestly, he should be an inspiration to alla us, they stucked him in testing and he took one look at Science and was like, from here on out I'mm'a just never be a single use to anything, ever. If we managed collective ineptitude on his level we'd be havin' this playdate at home now." Lucien glances at the words by now quite familiar on Jackson's shirt and then the same ones -- somewhat less so on the subtly striped button down he is currently wearing. A very small twitch pulls up at his lips. The languid shift of his posture to lean back a little further against the table only serves to broaden his chest just so, pull the glowing message that much more conspicuous. "Expediting the downfall of your enemies through incompetence on an unforeseeable scale. Audacious, but intriguing." He's eying -- first the cartoon beagle and then the real one, panting somewhat vacantly in front of them. "Possibly-Oberon, you are a true revolutionary. You have much to teach these callow youths, I believe." One finger is lifting to somewhat lazily indicate the bigger dogs wrestling behind Obie. Steve looks up at Jax, eyes wide. "Wait, he was --" Looks at Obie, studying the dog's blank if somehow still pleased expression. Back at Jax. "I thought you were joking about him being a mutant." Then, quickly, but not quickly enough to avert blushing, "You were definitely joking." He admittedly does not sound quite as confident about this as he feels he should. "Just regular, non-mutant mad science, on dogs." His head gives a short, jerky shake. "Not sure what scientists like that might want out of Zenobia, but whatever it was she would cave immediately for treats and scritches. And then she would see a squirrel outside and accidentally liberate herself trying to chase it. Not quite as exportable as a strategy of resistance, though." "I think finding out the optimal number of scritches and treats to keep a dog happy is real important science. Zenobia could provide some important data points." The glowing droplet coming from the bubbling beakers is falling now, falling -- it bursts when it hits the cartoon beagles, turning into an entire pile of bones and sausages and bacon strips that the dog begins nomming his way through happily as the scientist continues to tap steepled fingers together and cackle. "May have to give up my art career, go into STEM after all." His face tips up, slightly, sun glinting with an exaggerated cartoon twinkle off of his large sunglasses. "... may not break the cages, but I think finding yourself some joy is a real underrated part of the revolution." "He was not joking about Skittles, though, that dog may yet outlive us all." Lucien does finally bring himself to look away from the other pups, if only to watch the ongoing horrors Obie's cartoon counterpart is being subjected to on the table. He opens his mouth -- quite quickly closes it again, fingers pressing briefly much harder against the table -- and watches the dog gobbling up its cartoon snacks with a somewhat undeserved solemnity. "Bones not Bombs. -- Oh, no," he sounds just faintly dismayed, "that works a little too well, that could end up quite a successful New Leash fundraiser." "I don't know if it's your parents doting on him or the clean mountain air or if he actually is just a mutant dog, but I'd love to meet him." Steve's shoulders tighten, but this doesn't stop him breaking into a smile at the cartoon scientist's fiendish experiment. Arches an eyebrow aside at Lucien. "Well, if Jax doesn't want 'Bones not Bombs' for his anarchist mad science petcare collective, I'll gladly pitch it to New Leash, not that they're hurting for funds these days." His smile softens when his gaze slides back over to Jax. "Yeah. It sure is." "I'onno 'bout no mad science but a pet collective sounds like a fine sorta thing. Could collaborate, anyhow. Collect pet food, toys, treats an' all, to give out 'longside what we already done, for folks struggling to buy their own. Does kinda got a ring to it." Jax's illusory hat is fading, and though his sunglasses stay firmly in place they lose some of their cartoonishly accentuated gleam, as he hops down from the table to go give Obie a scritch behind his floppy ears. The dog's vacantly pleased panting continues. "The air is nice up there an' my ma is a chronic doter," he agrees thoughtfully, "but Skittles was there takin' me to my first day of school and I don't think no amount of chicken soup an' clean country living'll see no dog through that long." The Doggie Mad Science has given way, on the table, to glimmering-light silhouette, now, an enormous shaggy dog with very small backpack'd child riding it up to an old-timey school house. The whole scene shimmers and fades away. "Anyway, who knows. If I'm ever back out in the world maybe you'll meet 'em all." A small crease pulls at Lucien's brow, but it is fading away with Jackson's ephemeral light show. "When you're back out in the world, I will make it my personal mission to remind you of this conversation, before you go filling twenty hours of each day back up with work. I'll pencil it into your calendar myself. Very important to the revolution that you leave time for joy."