Logs:Kindling

Kindling
Dramatis Personae Ion, Steve
In Absentia	2019-04-09 "I'll be here. We'll have ourselves a feast."
Location Hellhound Bikes - East New York
Located not far from Jamaica Bay in a predominantly Latinx sector of East New York, this garage doesn't look like much from the outside. A low-slung squat dingy brick building with a hand-painted sign over front proclaiming it to be HELLHOUND CUSTOM CYCLES, this garage has a small office area with its own pedestrian entrance from the street at the front, containing a minifridge usually full of beer and beaten down old desk with a ledger and an antique cash register that no one ever seems to use. The rest of the space is roughly L-shaped, its walls lined with racks of tools and heavy workbenches with built-in steel drawers full of hardware and spare parts. There's a raised platform in the wider leg of the space for working on one motorcycle, and there's space in the narrower leg for parking at least three more. It's an unseasonably chilly day, and the streets of Brooklyn are a bit quieter than they might normally be in April. The weather hasn't dissuaded everyone from coming out to enjoy the spring, though. Steve is strolling slowly down the street, looking around He's wearing a brown leather jacket open over a red-and-black check flannel shirt, blue jeans, and black combat boots, a soft blue-and-white striped scarf wound loosely around his neck. He has his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, but he has a smile and a 'good afternoon' for everyone he comes across. He slows as he passes in front of the garage, admiring the motorcycles parked in front. The heavy metal door to the garage is pulled up, allowing a view of the workspace inside. The bikes outside -- a bright black and chrome Harley chopper with the license plate WIRED, a small silver and blue custom-frame thing that doesn't even seem to have proper wheels, just gleaming metal hoops semi-suspended where the tires should be, a green Ducati cruiser -- are all pretty modern things, though the Triumph up on blocks in the garage right now is a definite antique. Ion has clearly been working on the bike, judging by the grease smudges on his hands and jeans, the tools arrayed on the bench nearby, but at the moment he's rolling himself out for a smoke break. Dressed in warm grey plaid flannel, grungy white undershirt, heavy workboots, sturdy jeans, with his calloused hands and grubby face he looks the part of a greasemonkey. He has a broad smile lighting his face as he ambles towards the entrance of the garage, tapping a cigarette from a crumpled pack of Newports that he's fished from his pocket. "Ey, friend, don't I know you?" Steve is busy puzzling over the little silver and blue vehicle when Ion steps outside. When his eyes lift up, he catches sight of the Triumph and stops short altogether, his gaze distant. He snaps out of it when Ion speaks, though. "Hey there." He offers a nod and a broad smile. "I'm afraid I don't remember you, but ah..." He looks down, chuckles. "I've seen a lot of new faces lately. Name's Steve Rogers. What's yours, friend?" "Oh damn." Cigarette tucked into his mouth, Ion forgets entirely to light it. He snaps, points, actually bounces in place, his eyes lighting. "Oh damn for real son? Oh damn! Steve Rogers and you here in my hood. Is it true all they say?" He leans up against the seat of the Harley, looking over Steve with a bright curiosity and offering him out the cigarettes. "Ion. That's me." "Pleasure to meet you, Ion." Steve takes his hands out of his pockets and offers Ion one to shake. "You have a lovely neighborhood -- and an impressive ride!" He nods at the Harley. "A whole lot of people have been saying a whole lot of different things about me. It's definitely not all true. Anything particular you interested to know?" When Steve extends his hand, Ion taps out one of the cigarettes he's been offering, turning this over to the taller man in place of a handshake. "It's great down here. People they're like family. You get down here often? You should." Ion's grin broadens at the question. He tucks his pack of smokes back into his pocket, though in his next round of bouncing he forgets to extract a lighter. "Say you done rose from a fucking glacier just to smash nazis, man. We got hella nazis need a good smash." Both Ion's hands have curled into fists -- kind of absently he's knocking his knuckles together as he rocks up onto his toes. "And you can punch your way through fucking -- anything. 'Zat true? Come on come on come on," He sounds terribly excited about this possibility, the small tap-tap-tap of his knuckles growing more rapid, "punch on me lessee it." "Oh, thank you!" Steve accepts the cigarette without hesitation. "I did come out of a glacier, or so they tell me. Why's an open question, I suppose -- who can know God's will? But I am eager to smash some Nazis." He blinks at Ion now. "I can punch through...more things than most men, I suppose, but not anything. And I'm not sure it'd be a great idea for me to punch you." "It's fine it's fine I'm hard to punch come come come. Oh I ain't no nazi though," Ion is quick to assure Steve, as if the -- general latinidad did not give it away. "Don't you never just punch on things for fun? Like bam bam bam?" This last bam comes with a demonstrative punch -- firm but not particularly forceful, it nevertheless comes with an odd jolt of muscle that gives it a stronger kick than it should have. Ion dips his head after this, cupping a hand around his cigarette to light it, take a quick drag. It's only after this that he extracts an actual lighter from his pocket, flicking and offering the light to Steve. Steve laughs, bright and amused. "I do! Though, not recently -- been a bit busy." He almost starts to dodge Ion's punch, but seems to make an effort to just take it. His eyes go wide at the jolt. "Whoa." Then even wider. "Whoa!" Amazement notwithstanding, he lets Ion light his cigarette. Though he's clearly not a seasoned smoker, he takes a long drag without choking and blows the stream of smoke up and away. "You ah -- how did you do that? With the smoke. And the punch..." "How I do what?" Ion looks at Steve, puzzled. Then down at his hand. "Shit did they not have lighters back then damn! When they get invented were you using like a fucking --" He mimes a quick striking motion. "Flint or some shit that's rough. Here," Earnestly, he presses the lighter (it's a solid-feeling gold thing with a repeating 'C' design in small gemstones) into Steve's hand. "They're great, you take it. Light so many things on fire, yeah?" "No, but you lit yours..." Steve gestures with his cigarette at Ion's. "...without this." He holds up the lighter. "Oh, and -- thank you. Are you sure? I -- we had lighters in my day, but I didn't come out of the glacier with one and...haven't had much need of lighting fires, you know?" He considers Ion for a moment. Pulls on the cigarette. "Oh that yeah yeah -- yeah sure," Ion waves his hand dismissively. This time, a crackle of blue-white sparks dances visibly between his fingers. "You keep it, me, I can light plenty my own fire. And I got more lighters." His brows furrow, though, smile dimming for the first time since greeting Steve. "Not much fires? Don't sound like you been living your second life right huh? Look, you come, this evening, here," the wave of his hand generally in a circle around the block is maybe not the most helpful indicator, "we gonna cook you up good food on the fire pit, sing some songs, tell some story, all the right good fire things." Steve takes a step back, eyes even wider now. "You -- you can -- make electricity? That's amazing!" He relaxes. Tosses Ion's lighter up and catches it before slipping it into a pocket of his jacket. "I ah...can't say that I've exactly had an easy time of it since coming back, no." He looks down at his feet for a moment, brows wrinkling, shoulders tight. Sucks in a deep lungful of smoke before looking back up. "But. Yeah! I'd love to come by, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. I really appreciate it." "Hell fucking yeah s'amazing! Is goddamn badass is what it is." The next snap of Ion's fingers comes with a briefer brighter shower of sparks that scatter and dissipate harmlessly in the air. "Light so many cigarettes you got no idea." He takes a deep pull of his own, his dark eyes flicking over Steve and then up to the sky as he exhales his own stream of smoke. "Friend I don't even know how to cook for anything but a crowd. You no trouble. My people, we always got some extra room at our --" His hand seesaws in the air. "Actually we don't got much of no real table. Some crates, some rocks, you don't mind no?" At the electrified snap, Steve -- doesn't quite flinch, but it's a near thing. "Well, you're still way ahead of me. I can barely cook at all." He takes another drag of his cigarette and huffs it out in an abrupt laugh. "Mind? Friend, I spent most of my last three years roughing it behind Nazi lines. Whatever you have, and whatever you serve it on? It'll be a banquet to me." "No? Maybe you come by, maybe I show you something. Is one of the most basic stay-alive skills we got, yeah? And if you can feed people and have them like it --" Ion's waggled finger-guns come with a bright grin, a trickle of smoke leaking out through his teeth. "I don't know about no banquet but we'll have musics though. You know any songs? You bring some song. Makes it like a feast, yeah? With, uh -- what's it. Minstrel and all. Only we taking turns being the entertaining." "I'm glad to learn." Steve nods, more in command of himself now. "I can boil any old food, but no one wants to eat that if they have any choice." His eyes brighten. "I know some songs -- old ones, but good ones. Can even sing them decently, or so I'm told." He takes a long drag on the cigarette and salutes Ion with it. "I'll be here. We'll have ourselves a feast."