(OOC: This takes place a day or two before the Mansion Raid)

The Long Island Botanic Gardens boasted twelve acres of outdoor gardens and lakes, two acres of indoor gardens, three indoor/outdoor event centers, an interactive children's educational center, an insect house, a butterfly house and a gift shop. Like Central Park, it was an oasis in the skyscraper and asphalt desert that made up a large portion of New York. The gardens themselves were divided into sections; roses, daylilies, conifer forest, rock garden, herb garden, medicinal garden, and countless others. There was even a bird feeding station near one of the lakes, frequented by ducks, geese, chickadees, sparrows and, of course, pigeons galore.

It was this bird-covered area that Iris eventually found herself wandering in. She was dressed a bit unusually for her; a long-sleeved shirt, grey sweater-jacket, and grey sweat pants were a bit out of place for the weather, but she wasn't concerned about overheating. As a matter of fact, she was feeling a bit chilled. Maybe she was getting sick....

She found an unoccupied feeding station near the lake shore, at the end of a fishing dock, stocked up with twenty-dollars worth of duck food, and proceeded to lose herself in her surroundings. She didn't even feel the pinch of duck beaks biting her finger tips as she feed them.

Her expression was oddly blank; so much had happened to her recently, her face had a hard time deciding which emotion it wished to express. So it settled for no emotion.

Most of her time recently had been spent in deep thought. Depression had set in, since she was still dealing with what she had done to the Mansion. Stress, both physical and mental. Homesickness, for both the safety of her home in the mountains, and for her friends at the Mansion. And....

Confusion.... Five years worth of confusion. Five years of forgotten memories to sort through, all of it thrust upon her at once, was..... exhausting....

Rupert was listening to The Academy Is. In specific, “The Phrase That Pays”. He might have even been singing along—it was hard to tell, since he was had the volume up too loud to hear himself think, much less sing.

“My eyes can't believe what they have seen
In the corner of your room you've stockpiled millions of my memories--”

He wasn’t here to feed the ducks. Not that he had anything against ducks, per se. They tasted good with bell peppers, and they didn’t make a mess of every statue in their path, like pigeons. He just didn’t really think much of them, at all. Ducks usually didn’t have much bearing on his life.

“--I'm going to ask you a series of questions
And I want them answered on the spot, right now—”

He was still in his work clothes; he’d come here straight from the job. Going back to his apartment meant taking Flipsy for a walk, and Flipsy liked ducks a little too much. She even skipped the peppers, and the cooking. The de-feathering she handled herself. He was taking care of his clothes about as well as he did when he was in his beaters, though—work was ended; he didn’t need to look official. So he was lounging underneath a fishing dock in a rather mossy, wet patch. There went his black dress pants. He was lying back, his eyes closed, with the slits of sunlight playing through the planks above striping his face. There went his white dress shirt. And he was using his suit jacket as a pillow—it didn’t even stand a chance. But that was what dry-cleaners were for.

“--Some things I may have taken for granted, again and again—”

He was fairly certain he was alone. But even if he wasn’t, he didn’t much care. So what if an NYPD officer was proudly singing under a fishing dock in the Botanical Gardens? It wasn’t like he was going to get arrested for it. And with his gun holster rather blatantly on display, anyone who took offense at his musical tastes probably wasn’t going to mess with him.

“--Is it serious?
I dunno what to think
Is it all a lie?”

This was Rupert’s stress relief. He wasn’t opposed to conversation, or human interaction—but he wasn’t going out of his way to find it, either.

“--Hold your head high heavy heart
And save your strength for the morning after
So take a chance and make it big
’Cause it’s the last you'll ever get.”

Iris heard singing coming from somewhere, but it had simply faded into the background as far as she was concerned. Many people tended to assume that, because she was from the mountains, she should be uncomfortable in such a noisy city. In truth, she considered the mountains every bit as loud as the city, just with a different 'melody'.

Melody.... those song lyrics sure sounded familiar.... She sighed. Well, like the saying went, there was a song for everyone.

However, some of the birds seemed to take offense to the singer. While the ducks were content to ignore the sound, as long as Iris was feeding them that is, the swans were not so happy. Perhaps they were simply tone-deaf; considering how awful 'swansong' sounded, it was plausible. Either way, Iris found herself watching warily as a pair of swans rapidly zoomed in on her locale. Having been on the receiving end of several such 'feathered attacks', she got to her feet, ready to depart rapidly if need be.

The snow white birds made landfall right beside the dock and, to her surprise, disappeared under it. With her mind now sufficiently distracted from her disquieting thoughts, she peered over the side of the dock. Swans never nested under docks, did they?

A gasp escaped her as she saw the pair making a menacing, and fast advance on a figure lying on the wet ground, neck bent and wings wide.

"Hey! Watch it!" Her warning was accompanied by action. She swung over the side of the dock and reached out to grab for a birdie drumstick. Perhaps not a smart idea, but one attacking swan was easier to deal with than two.

Easier being a relative term....

"Hey! Watch it!" The warning cut through his music. He was on his feet in an instant, out of sheer force of reaction, and years in a touchy line of work. This was not a good idea, given two facts. The distance from the damp ground to the dock was four and a half feet. The distance from Rupert’s feet to his head was five feet and eleven inches.

crack

“Son of a--!”

hisssssss

“...You’ve got to be kidding me.” Rupert had time to say, before the furiously feathered white apparition was upon him. Under the dock, the swan was nearly as tall as he was. It also possessed something he lacked: murderous intent. He registered that a woman was taking on another of the feathered lunatics on his behalf. He was a little too busy at the moment to give his thanks, however.

There were feathers in his face, wings beating at him, and an alarmingly sharp beak attacking his shirt. Rupert’s first reaction was to cross his arms in a defensive ‘X’. His second reaction was to realize just how stupid this was. His third...

...And that is how one of New York’s finest ended up full-body tackling a swan into the muddy pond banks, and locking its writhing neck in an improvised headlock. He flashed a grin up at the woman, who was dealing with her own feathered foe. “You know, this seemed like a good idea... but damned if I know what to do with the thing now that I’ve caught it.” Underneath him, with its wings indignantly spread and twitching in the mud, the swan was letting out a continual hisssss. One thing was for sure: he wasn’t letting the crazy thing up.

Iris felt like a bull-fighter. Her reaction as the swan switched it's taget was to whip off her jacket, and hold it in front of her. However, swans were not bulls. Good news about that fact was that they didn't have deadly, maiming horns and stomping hoofs. Bad news? They did have clawed feet and snapping, pinching beaks.

The snow-colored ball of fluff charged angrily, and snapped at where her hands were holding the sweater. Then it began flapping its wings, clawing at her with its feet. With one hand she tried to toss the cloth over the bird's head; the other made a grab for its feet.

She couldn't see a thing as the angry feather-head beat at her with its wings and free claw. It hissed and honked angrily.

"Calm down, you overgrown feather duster!" Okay so maybe name-calling wasn't the best way to soothe the situation. Finally she released the thing's head and made a grab for the other leg. The swan tossed off the jacket and began attacking her head, yanking at her hair and biting the back of her neck. The man seemed to be having equal trouble as well.

"Ow! Oww!! Oww!! Stop it!!" With the legs pinned, she reached out and grabbed the beak, a considerably difficult task to do one handed. Once she accomplished it, she tried to retrieve her jacket. With both hands occupied she had to settle for using her teeth.

<"I hope no one's taping this...."> she thought to herself. If they were, there was going to be someone a hundred dollars richer in a few months.

By the time she managed to get the bird blindfolded, Iris was breathing heavily.

“You know, this seemed like a good idea... but damned if I know what to do with the thing now that I’ve caught it.”

She glanced up to see that the man had his attacker pinned as well. The hilarity of the situation hit her at that point, and she laughed aloud, shaking her head. "The sad part is, they'll come out of it better than we will."

She took another deep breath. "As much as I hate to admit it, I think our best bet would be to let them loose and haul tail out of here before they recover." She laughed again. "So much for mankind being superior to animals."

“One condition,” Rupert replied, joining in the woman’s laughter, “this is a tactical retreat, not defeat, got it? On three. One, two,” under him, the swan sounded very much like a firecracker about to go off. He took a deep breath—“three!”—and let the sucker go.

From the earbud that was now dangling in front of his chest, REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” started blaring. The swan stumbled to its clawed feet like an avenging angel. Rupert left his pride and his suit jacket in the mud, and ran. “Com’on!” He offered a helping hand up as he passed the woman, with a laughing grin on his face.

On "Three", Iris shot to her feet like a runner off the starting mark. She kept hold of the sleeve of her sweater, to pull off the makeshift blind fold. But the swan grabbed it with its beak, and Iris wasn't about to try and retrieve it.

She accepted the helping hand up, and followed the man toward the hedge that separated the lake from the rest of the gardens. Their feathered attackers stopped chasing once they were past the hedge, but kept up their indignant honking and hissing. Iris stared shook her head at them from the safety behind the greenery.

"I don't think they liked your singing...." she told her companion. She sighed deeply, and rubbed the back of her head to be sure she wasn't sporting a new bald spot. Usually she like birds, but..... "Fuzzbrains," she muttered.

Or maybe it was the song. She didn't mind the singing, but those song lyrics had been a bit too close to home for her. A slight frown appeared on her face as she stared at the annoying white trumpeters.

"I don't think they liked your singing.... Fuzzbrains." The woman at his side muttered.

Rupert was still laughing. That had just been... too ridiculous. “Do you ever get the impression,” he wheezed out, “that the world is just one big joke, but whoever’s running the show hasn’t got a sense of humor?” He leaned over, bracing his hands against his knees for support as he got his breath back. Since he looked only two or three years older than his swan-fighting companion here, it was probably going to strike her as odd that a feathered brawl and a short sprint had left him gasping like an old man. It put a rather sardonic smile was on his face as he spoke.

He glanced back up at the woman, and caught her frowning contemplation of the swans. “They got your sweater, didn’t they?” He made an effort to straighten himself back up, though his left hand went instinctively to his side to massage his scar. “Fluzzballs got my coat, too. How long do you think it’ll be before they shimmer down enough for us to go back? The name’s Rupert, by the way.” He offered his hand. He motioned loosely at his gun holster while he was at it. “Hope you don’t mind—I just got off of work. NYPD.” He’d met a young man the other day who’d told him he was bad at hiding who he was. This was pretty damn true. Really, though, he’d never seen the point to hiding who or what he was—it wasn’t like he had anything that needed hiding.

“Do you ever get the impression that the world is just one big joke, but whoever’s running the show hasn’t got a sense of humor?”

"You have no idea..." Iris replied in a jaded voice. With the exception of the past few minutes, she had seen very little humor in life as of late.

“They got your sweater, didn’t they?" She shrugged off the loss. It was only a cheap jacket after all. "Fuzzballs got my coat, too. How long do you think it’ll be before they shimmer down enough for us to go back?"

Iris turned to look at him, finally noticing that he was thuroughly winded. He looked like might have asthma, or something similar. She shrugged and gave him an almost apologetic grimace.

"Uh, well, actually? For birds with such small brains, swans manage to hold grudges for quite awhile...."

"The name’s Rupert, by the way. Hope you don’t mind—I just got off of work. NYPD.”

"Iris." She shook the proffered hand. "Nice to meet you, Officer. And no, I don't' mind." Despite the current Registration laws, and the rumors she'd heard of mutants being forced into camps, she was too concerned with her own problems to feel worried about being in the presence of an Enforcer. Besides, she wanted to hide her powers. She'd be happy if they'd simply vanish at this point.

"Well, I guess you'll definitely need that jacket back, then, won't you." She glanced back at the now-retreating swans. "Once they're in the water, and start heading in the other direction, we should have enough time to get it back..... ...... Are you okay?" He hand his hand on his side, as he'd hurt his ribs or something.

The ipod in his pants’ pocket switched over to “Downtown”, the cheerful Petula Clark version. The dangling earbud faithfully relayed it to the world.

“When you're alone, and life is making you lonely
You can always go
Downtown--”

“...Are you okay?”

Rupert self-consciously dropped his arm to his side. “Yeah; it’s nothing.” He was still wheezing a little, and that always left the scar on his lung feeling uncomfortably tight. He really had to stop drawing attention to that in polite company. His mind registered an earlier response of hers. “Though as far as ‘ideas’ go, I might just have a few myself.” She’d had a jaded tone: he upped the ante to a jaded smile that reached his eyes, and left them fragmented.

“--When you've got worries, all the noise and hurry
Seems to help, I know
Downtown--”

“So,” Rupert said, shaking off his brief cynicism with the ease of practice, “once the feather dusters head back to the water, I can make my move?” He turned to look at the demonic pair. They were looking back. One of them flicked its head up, in what looked suspiciously like a swan’s version of flipping someone off.

“--And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you;
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along...
So maybe I'll see you there,
We can forget all our troubles; forget all our cares, and go
Downtown -- things will be great when you're
Downtown -- don't wait a minute more
Downtown -- everything's waiting for you...”

“Yeah; it’s nothing. Though as far as ‘ideas’ go, I might just have a few myself.”

Iris gave him a curious look, and caught the expression. It made sense too; no doubt her 'issues' faded in comparison to what an NYPD officer came across on a daily basis. Not that that made her feel any better though....

“So, once the feather dusters head back to the water, I can make my move?”

At first she didn't hear his question. Her attention had been drawn, yet again, to the song blaring out of his earphones, especially two specific lines:

“--And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you;
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along...

That was what she had thought she'd found at the Mansion. Others like her, who could understand her. Her frown deepened a bit more. Help was also what Kaz, and then Hunter, had claimed they were giving her. Their kind of help she could have easily done without.

She shook her head, coming back to reality.

"Uh, sorry. Interesting song." She turned back to the swans, considering their options. While they were no longer pressing an attack, the pair seemed equally uninterested in returning to the water. Notoriously stubborn, they probably wouldn't any time soon either. "Hmm... At risk of turning this into a Scooby Doo cartoon, I think we should split up. I'll distract them while you grab your coat."

She didn't wait for agreement before carefully moving around to the inside circle of the hedge. Idly she noted the height of the hedge; if she needed to she could hurdle it. The deceptively angelic imps saw her coming and spread their wings menacingly. She made her way slowly along the inside of the hedge, until their backs were turned to Rupert. She motioned with her head for him to make his move, and quickly.

"Hmm... At risk of turning this into a Scooby Doo cartoon, I think we should split up. I'll distract them while you grab your coat."

“I can’t think that’s a good—” Aaaand she was gone already. Rupert sent an amused smile after her as she edged towards the foul-tempered over-grown ducks. Why people liked these things, he couldn’t fathom.

He paused only a moment to twirl his ipod down to mute. And then... with a deep breath... he sprinted. He took the long way, curving around the swan’s location, to duck under the dock from the opposite side. Only the slightest taps of his feet against the damp ground gave him away. And his carefully regulated wheezing. He lost track of Iris’ battle with the pair of fiends as he ducked under the shadows of the dock. He grabbed his coat and her sweater in a flash. And then he turned—

honk

--and faced the ominous feather-ruffling of a third swan. Wet slaps of wings being shaken out for war and clawed feet gaining traction on muddy ground innocuously drowned out all other sounds under the fishing dock as five new combatants paddled in for blood. There were gray feathers mixed in with their white, and they were smaller... but the family resemblance was striking. Particularly in the villainously glittering eyes. The pair’s ugly children had landed.

“Iris,” Rupert called out, backing away from the slowly advancing brood, “it’s tactical retreat time, again.” He turned, and ran—straight towards Iris and the fight-picking duo. It was the lesser evil.

“Iris, it’s tactical retreat time, again.”

Iris spared a brief look in Rupert's direction, and saw him headed her way. And she saw why.

"Good lord...."

One of the full grown swans had spotted him as well, and was turning for an attack. She made a split second decision. She hissed at them, then leapt forward and slapped down on the top of the bird's beak, then lashed out and smacked the other one. Not exactly an inspired plan, but it at least distracted the pair long enough for Rupert to run by. She made another double-slap attack, then retreated as well. She jumped the hedge like a track runner doing hurdles. But this time she kept right on going until she couldn't hear the indignant honking.

Finally she paused at the edge of the rock garden. She leaned up against a nearby boulder, breathing heavily.

"Why the.... ugly duckling.... wanted to be.... one of those.... pillow stuffers.... I'll never understand...."

Once her breathing had calmed enough for her to say a full sentence, she turned to Rupert with a slight chuckle.

"Well, I don't know how long you've been on the force or what department you're in, but I'd say you're ready to help the ASPCA team bust up a c0ck-fighting ring now."

She saw that he had retrieved her sweater-jacket as well. "Thank you. Sorry for being rude earlier. Guess I just have a lot on my mind recently. Though I suppose it's nothing compared to what you have to deal with everyday."

Rupert sat down on a boulder across from her, wheezing, once more. There really wasn’t another word for the sound he was making.

"Why the.... ugly duckling.... wanted to be.... one of those.... pillow stuffers.... I'll never understand...."

Comments like that didn’t help him get his breath back, either. He laughed, wheezed, coughed, and laughed again. He was just getting his breath back, when...

"Well, I don't know how long you've been on the force or what department you're in, but I'd say you're ready to help the ASPCA team bust up a c0ck-fighting ring now."

...She dropped another little gem. Rupert doubled over laughing, sounding about as healthy as an asthmatic cancer patient with pneumonia. But an amused one.

"Thank you. Sorry for being rude earlier. Guess I just have a lot on my mind recently. Though I suppose it's nothing compared to what you have to deal with everyday."

Rupert waved her thanks off, offering out her sweater as he caught his breath once again. “Honestly, if you were being rude, I missed it.” He told her quite truthfully. Then he paused to gasp a little more, and continued. “Listen, here’s a tip—don’t start comparing your problems with others. It really doesn’t do much. Your problems are your own, and they aren’t going to get any smaller just because someone else’s are better or worse.” He shrugged lightly, to try and take any sting off of his words. “Anything that unloading on a random stranger would help with? Personally,” he said contemplatively, thinking of a certain wolf freak he’d been running into lately, “I’ve been finding random strangers to be a lot more helpful than therapists.” He shrugged into his coat. “Not that I've just been attacking innocent park-goers with my life story. I just seem to be running into a lot of people, lately. Which is a pretty nice change from running down mutie criminals, so you won’t hear me complaining.” He gave his pockets a quick check, just to make sure nothing had fallen out and been captured by the swan troopers. Notepad and clicky pen, check. Wallet, check. Cell phone, check. Folded up Church of Humanity newsletter, check. Pocket lint... he flipped the fuzz onto the ground. And a stray quarter. Everything present and accounted for. He looked back up at Iris, and flashed a sudden grin. “Kudos on the swan boxing, by the way. Need I ask where you learned to do that?”

Yet another item to her ‘Reasons to Feel Guilty’ list; Iris felt bad for making Rupert laugh when he obviously had some sort of respiratory issue. Some of the items on that list were beginning to head toward the ‘irrational’ side.

”Sorry,” she mumbled during one of his coughing fits.

“Honestly, if you were being rude, I missed it.” Well, that was good at least. She wasn’t turning into Crystal yet.

“Listen, here’s a tip—don’t start comparing your problems with others. It really doesn’t do much. Your problems are your own, and they aren’t going to get any smaller just because someone else’s are better or worse.” She blinked in surprise at the sudden mini-lecture, and especially at the content. ”Anything that unloading on a random stranger would help with? Personally, I’ve been finding random strangers to be a lot more helpful than therapists.”

That elicited an honest chuckle. ”I doubt therapists could help me at this point. Random strangers? Maybe. They seemed to be helping so far...” She shrugged and smiled a bit. ”Just dealing with.... distant relatives....” She stressed ‘distant’, as she still was not quite ready to accept Hunter as being related to her. ”You know how that goes....”

”Not that I've just been attacking innocent park-goers with my life story. I just seem to be running into a lot of people, lately. Which is a pretty nice change from running down mutie criminals, so you won’t hear me complaining.”

”Mutie criminals?” Her reaction to that statement came with a frown, and momentary flash of fire in her grey eyes, a reaction that could be interpreted many different ways, given Rupert’s statement. If she really wanted to get back at Hunter for all of the grief he’d caused her, this was the perfect opportunity; she could even lead the way back to the Labs if she wanted.

But....

Something deep down inside held her back, and she said nothing.

While her thoughts wandered, her eyes idly watched him check his belongings. There was a religious flier in among them; at least, she registered the word ‘Church’, so she assumed it was religious.

“Kudos on the swan boxing, by the way. Need I ask where you learned to do that?”

”Huh? Oh! Uh, my family owns a rescue and rehab center in the mountains, so I work with grumpy animals every day. At least, I usually do. I’m supposed to be on vacation right now, but I have yet to actually relax.....” she added cynically.