"Ohhh, I've got a signed issue three first edition! It's the one where she fights the doodler after he plots to blow up Blothem City! I have the whole rebirth arc, too if you ever want to borrow it- Oh, right... You probably have huh? I wonder if I got you into comics?" He paused, and turned to her, a thought occuring to him.

"I keep talking like I don't know you, but I sorta do, right? I mean, we just don't remember for a little while... SO... How about we finish our date before our memories come back? And we can laugh about it after. It'll be a cool thing to look back on!"

He turned and continued walking, nodding as she talked about getting into the danger room. "That makes sense." He was trusting, wasn't he? He smiled when she mentioned Serena. "Oh, I met her in the danger room as well! She's pretty cool. She's gonna help teach soon, too!"

They sorta lapsed into silence for a bit, and he looked around a bit. Were people looking at them? Huh. Maybe it was his imagination.
"Oh, I like vanilla! I guess it's sorta basic, but it has its merits!"

They were near Matteo's cart! He could see it from here. The older man was talking to a couple of customers when he saw them, and waved excitedly.

... And then Matteo noticed them holding hands and the waving stopped suddenly. Did he look... shocked? And then a little hurt, and then as if a lightbulb had gone off over his head, he looked suddenly very, very gleeful.

As they finished walking the short distance to his cart Juniper wondered about when the memories would come back. How close were they now? She hadn't been keeping track of time, honestly, but they were probably only like 15 or 20 minutes in, right? They still had the majority of time to.. uh... enjoy each others company.

She tried to ignore the fact that her face felt like it was burning again as the other couple walked away and they sidled up alongside Matteo's cart.

"Xavier! Juniper!" The older man shouted, looking like he was just filled to the brim with joy. Juniper tried not to snicker at hearing him pronounce X's name as 'Savier!' seeing as it wasn't any better than 'ginepro'.

He waggled a finger at them with a knowing smirk on his face and a glint in his eyes. "You tried to pull one over on old Matteo, ah? I knew better tho! I told you before, I could see it a mile away that you two were meant to be!"

He thumped his own chest and nodded to himself, already getting started on putting together a large, two scoop vanilla cone for Xavier.

Juniper just blinked a bit and shifted awkwardly as she dropped her gaze to their hands. Which were still together? She couldn't remember any instances of them both going to get ice cream together, due to the amnesia she guessed, so she didn't know how to reply right away.

"You- you did, Matteo?"

The ice cream vendor laughed loudly enough that his shoulders shook. I knew from the very moment the two of you appeared here together! I told you then, what I told you now; Matteo. Always. Knows!"

He shoved the first cone out at Xavier and got started on the second one for her.

"No charge for these tonight! My heart is overfull with joy at seeing such a beautiful thing come to fruition! You are on a date, no?"

The short meeting with Matteo was... confusing. Xavier didn't catch his shock and hurt expression from afar, though he did notice him stopping his waving for a bit. he smiled widely, however, when he seemed super excited to see them. He loved the way the man said his name, and couldn't help but laugh when he heard him say Juni's

His expression shifted to a confused smile when he started talking further, though. Pulling one over on him? Did... he not know they were together?

Had they been hiding it? He looked over to Juniper for a moment. He accepted his ice cream with a bit of hesitation, and then stepped off to the side a bit so the next person could order. "Thanks! Uh, yeah! So, I guess we were both stricken with a bit of amnesia, but we found out we had a date planned, so we are going on a date while trying to find out what's going on!" No subtlety existed in his mind. He simply did not know how to beat around the bush.

He looked to Juni, and leaned in a bit. "So... I guess we are a new couple, then? Maybe we weren't sure for a while? Woah! do you think this could be our first date?!" That would be a way to do it, right? Amnesia date?

She tried super hard to keep on smiling, but the more and more Matteo went on the sourer she was starting to feel. When he handed her the cone she just kind stared at it for a moment as they parted ways, mumbling her thanks and allowing herself to be ushered out of the way.

She wasn't really hungry anymore, honestly. The cold, sweet treat certainly looked good, but she just couldn't bring herself to take a bite. Xavier popped her melancholy thought bubble and she looked up at him.

"Yeah... That-" She paused, collecting her thoughts and slapping on the usual smile. "... that makes a lot more sense, actually. It was really hard to believe that this had been going on for a long while."

Was it their first date, though? She wasn't sure. Maybe he'd won her over with enthusiasm, or maybe this was another "date" she'd gone on just to get into his bed?

Ah... @#$%, she was such a terrible person, wasn't she? She didn't wanna think about that, or anything really. Push it down, bury it behind other stuff. She could think about it much, much later. Yeah. Future Juniper could deal with it.

She could do this!

"But, I like it. First dates are like, the most important right? So it's gotta be one to remember. What do you wanna do?" Bars were off the table because she didn't have her fake ID anymore, and she doubted he had or would use one himself. She knew of a few places to go an sit that she had been dragged to before, and plenty of places where you could pop in for great street food.

"Wanna do a dinner? I know a few places that are kinda nice. What kinda food do you like to eat?"

Finally, as it just began melting, her poor ice cream cone finally got some attention.

He had started to notice things were a little off when she didn't dig into her ice cream right away. He was already half way into his first bite when he realised she was just sort of frozen there a bit.

She animated a bit more when he talked about it possibly being their first date. It sorta made sense. Considering the sounds through the wall and all. It mean, it could have been something else she was up to... fierce baking compteitions... where they hard to stir harder? And... it was important to say it out loud?

He shook off the thought. That was silly. He wasn't one to judge, though.

"Yeah! You have to make a good first impression, after all. People put their best foot forward." What was his best foot? He didn't really date, after all... "Food sound great! Pick a place! I like pretty much anything." He dug into his own cone once more. He felt a little relief as she started eating hers as well.

Was he just imagining things, or was she a little stressed about things? Maybe she was just a nervous person, though... People who were attracted to him did seem to get a little nervous around him, or at least that's what he'd been told.

"I like to try new things. The city always has something new and interesting in it. It's one of the things I like about being here!"

Best foot...? She wasn't sure she had a best foot. She wasn't sure she had a best anything. She laughed nervously and focused on her ice cream.

Time to rely on the age-old tradition of Fake it till you Make it. If she didn't have a 'best her' to put forward, she'd just make one up. Yeah!

"I know a place that makes Chinese burritos!" She might have sounded just a bit too excited there for a moment and reeled the energy back in, but damn did she love Chinese food and burritos. Like, the super Americanized kind that didn't even reflect the culture it came from anymore. Because it was easy to win her over with carbs and msg. "Like... they take noodles and rice and stuff it all into a burrito shell. Its so good."

One big, exciting bite of ice cream later and she gave herself horrible brain freeze and suffered with it silently as she tried to shove her own tongue as far up to the roof of her mouth as she could. Gah! Almost every time!!

"It's certainly... interesting here. I don't know if I like it yet, necessarily. I kinda miss being a hermit in little tiny towns with like, one road and one grocery store. There are so many people here it makes my skin itch sometimes."

Also, the sweats, random panic attacks, blanks in her memory from how she got from point A to B... you know, the usual.

"I like that I have.. uh..." No, wait, don't- "... some friends now." @#$%.

Well, @#$%, that was awkward. Way to go brain. Way to drop the ball, tongue and lips. Super helpful outing herself as a loser like that.

"N-not that I didn't have friends before!" More nervous laughter, in a slightly higher pitch because why not. This was going to be a disaster from the get-go and her gut knew it.

.. Cat's count as friends, right?!

"Now that sounds cool!" Chinese burritos?! Heck YEAH! He lit up at the thought. "Yeah, let's go there! How far away is it?" He watched her get brain freeze, and smiled a bit as he took a bite of his cone.

And then he got brain freeze as well. Waiting it out, he winced a bit, though did it through a smile. He started walking with her toward the legendary sounding burrito joint. "I mean, over all, I definitely think I fit the city more. There's a lot to do in smaller towns, but I just... I dunno. You feel like you can grab destiny here, as where in mizzoula, it always seemed just out of reach."

His eyebrow raised a bit at her awkward sentence. "Didn't have a lot of friends growing up? I was always a social butterfly, I suppose. I know! We have a walk ahead of us! Tell me about yourself, Juniper!"

Cats totally counted as friends. Clyde was his bestest buddy, even if he did eat all of his food(aside from the veggies)

Yessss! Delicious burritos were on, baby! "Not too far, really. A few blocks up, a few blocks down, and it's buried in between a waxing place and a nail salon." Real crappy area too, but totally worth it. They even tried to make it look fancy and decorative inside, which was a plus.

"Montana, huh? I haven't been there yet." Someday, eventually. She still kinda wanted to hit up all the states, even if they were short stays like Georgia had been. "I'm from Yellow springs, Oh-io.. but, like a little backwater portion of it like an hour away from the city. I had more deer as neighbors than actual people."

She shot a slightly sour look at him as he hopped right on the friend thing and munched on a part of her cone as a momentary distraction. Didn't have to answer as long as she was eating, right!?

"There weren't a lot of kids around where I grew up. They lived just far enough away I never met them until like, the first festival I ever went to. I was pretty, um..." @#%%, what was the word? "... Isolated until I was a teen." Well shit, this was uncomfortable to a certain degree. She still didn't know how much he knew about her at this point, especially if they had only just decided to date. They must have been friends for a while though, so... maybe she'd told him a good portion of the only slightly traumatic things?

She flushed red and focused on her ice cream. "I used to have a rock garden that I talked too, and I named a good portion of the wild mushrooms around my house and pretended they were fairies."

She wasn't sure how much of herself she could safely share. She'd already gone over the generic bits earlier. What was left?

"So... um, like this is kinda a unique situation and I don't know how much you might have already known before, so I might not exactly be as open and vocal as you about a lot of stuff? Like, I don't wanna bring the mood down." She glanced at him and then quickly chickened out and suddenly her cone was really super fascinating again.

"Can you ask what you wanna know, and I can just tell you if I wanna talk about it or not?"

Oh, he knew the area she was talking about. There was a burrito place down there? "See, THAT's why I love the city. If you look close enough you can find anything, anywhere!"

He looked back over to her with piqued interest. "Yet? Do you plan to travel a lot?" He nodded a bit. "Montana isn't exactly densely populated, either, but there were enough people in the city, at least."

The tall blonde frowned a bit as she dove into explaining not having many friends. "Oh... Sorry. You, uhm, didn't meet anyone at school?" Everyone at all of his schools had adored him. It came with helping all of the sports teams win, and being generally likable and kind on top of it all.

He chuckled a bit at her rock garden and mushroom fairies. "That's adorable."

She stated that she wasn't sure she wanted to say much, and that she didn't want to bring the mood down. He frowned a bit, tilting his head as he walked. "Is... Do you have a sad story?" It was a bit of an odd question, but it seemed fitting.

"Kinda?" She shrugged helplessly, which was weird since they were still holding hands, and kicked herself to explain further. "A few years ago I and a friend made a promise to go out and see a bunch of places. Like, he wanted to see Paris and California, and all the usual places? I don't really have like a ton of want to go everywhere myself, but.." But... what? ".. I dunno, I guess I feel like I owe it to him. Clyde and I have been a handful of places to landmarks and stuff and I take pictures of it. You know, memories and stuff."

Was it weird admitting that she took selfies with her cat at state landmarks? It felt like it was weird. @#$% she was weird.

Not as weird as never going to school, but OH LOOK WHERE HER DUMB MOUTH TOOK THE CONVERSATION.

"I...hah... I never went to like, a real school? My mother homeschooled me through whatever her version of highschool was supposed to be. It's kinda why I'm getting my GED now, I guess. She wasn't exactly a non-bias teacher." Yeah, apparently the rest of the k-12 curriculum didn't focus on chemicals in the water or how NASA was lying about the planet being round. "It wasn't exactly legal, but my parents don't trust government anything and live off the grid."

Great. Now she was a loon who used to talk to mushrooms and who's parents were equally as crazy. A lovely way to start off her first date literally ever.

Also, that was a really odd question. Was her story sad? Like, yeah, she supposed so. Honestly, she just tried not to think about things. Like, ever. Toss it into the slowly filling pit of her mind to be dealt with later. Preferably much, much later.

That didn't stop her from full-on cringing while trying to figure out how to respond.

"I mean... yeah, there are a lot of sad parts. It's just not a story I'm used to sharing, or... really comfortable repeating yet." There were still invisible roadblocks that popped up every time she tried. She hadn't even been able to touch on some of the more traumatic things with her therapist yet.

"I'm sorry... I probably trust you a lot already if I agreed to a date anyway. I'm sure I'll feel stupid later about it, but... I just can't talk about certain stuff. Like... my throat won't let me? I'm sorry, I probably sound really stupid."

Shoot, her ice cream was trying to melt over the side. "... They have crab rangoon on the menu, too..."

The Rangoon, Mother. The Rangoon!

So, she had a friend, and she made a promise to see the world with them, but they couldn't go, so she went and saw the world. Did he pass on? He came to that conclusion based on how she was talking about it. "There's nothing wrong with honoring someone's memory. You should be proud of that. I bake because it reminds me of my mom." He squeezed her hand a little bit in encouragement.

His eyebrow raised a bit in spite of himself. Off the grid? Like... Like doomsday preppers? "Sounds like an interesting upbringing! I guess my life's kinda boring in comparison." He scratched the back of his head a bit, chuckling.

He felt sort of bad for asking such a direct question. That sort of stuff made people a little uncomfortable, and he could tell he'd put her in that spot. "No no no! That's totally fine! I get it. At this point I'm a stranger, and it can be hard to talk about those things to people you trust." He'd been there for his father... waiting in those moments of silence. He could only imagine how they felt for his father.

She changed the subject, and he sensed the conversation was getting a bit heavy.

He lit up. "Ohh, Rangoons!" He was already done with his ice cream. Where had it gone so quick?

In his tummy. That was where it went. He really liked ice cream. He could also have a perfectly serious conversation while eating ice cream. It was a talent.

"So how do you like the school? I thought it was fascinating, being around so many other people with powers. I sorta geek out about that stuff, if you didn't notice, so... I dunno, it was really neat for me to meet others who are developing."

While his words were encouraging and very kind, she didn't make any moves to reply back and looked away.

Yeah, normal people might be proud of doing stuff to make someone who had passed along proud. Honor the memory and all that Jazz. She didn't feel like it was fair for her to jump on that excuse. She did it because she was guilty. Guilty that he had died because of her incompetence at getting help for him. It was as close to a penance as she could get. She hadn't exactly made something of herself like Mason had wanted, regardless of if they had made that promise as teens.

"Yeah.." She managed to weakly squeeze his hand back, and the physical reminder that someone else was there helped to shoo away the dark thoughts. "You bake? That's really cool. I suck at baking. Too much math."

She tried not to openly cringe at his comment about how she grew up, and flailed at how to respond to that. Flat out saying 'Heck no, it was awful and I hated every minute of it. It was my own personal hell' just seemed... a bit extreme for the current scenery. "It... uh... was something, alright." Something awful. Something terrible. Something she didn't wish on any of her own personal enemies. "Though I would have rather had a nice boring upbringing instead."

She wasn't able to finish her ice cream, especially is she wanted to have room to actually eat dinner, so she deposited the rest of it in the next trash can they walked past. If there was one thing about the city she did like, it was the numerous readily available trash cans and recycling receptacles on almost every street. 

"Schools pretty cool. I've met some decent people there, obviously." She managed a grin and aimed it at him. He went to the school, after all. "I'm still getting used to being around so many people and stuff."

She spotted the nail salon just ahead and pointed at the tiny sign of the restaurant they were gonna be eating at. "There it is!"