There were a few transitions Fade was still jumping hurdles over when she reached her twenties. First of which was the ability to legally drink, which meant she could go to bars, but she was still timid at such a location. Second of which, was her body. Growing had slowed down at this part, limiting her choice on junk foods. In her teenage years, eating anything and everything never made an impact on her weight, but now she found herself trying to slow down her junk food habits. At this moment, she found herself staring at an ice cream vendor in Central Park. You would think a park would be the perfect escape from junk food, right? The city had her cornered.

After a few mental moments of a gorey debate on whether she could use ice cream, she finally gave in and approached the ice cream vendor. He smiled at her, waiting for her to pick what she wanted and she looked at the flavors. Unfortunately, at this point, her ability to read had not developed much further. She could make out a few of the flavors, but she did not enjoy standing still while mentally sounding out the flavors. Maybe she should have stayed in school. It wasn't her fault her foster parents made her leave. Feeling embarassed and slightly desperate, she asked the vendor what his favorite flavor was. He told her it was cookies and cream and she settled her mind on it. She loved cookies and cream but she did not know how to spell it perfectly.

"I will have a scoop of that in a waffle cone, please," she smiled, rumaging in her pockets for her wallet. She hated purses, she always left them behind. It was better with a wallet. It was fairly inexpensive considering that it was in New York, but then again, everything seemed much cheaper when she stopped stealing and realized that she could have just paid only $6.43 for an ice cream cone instead of taking it while invisible. The good girl life wasn't bad at all. He passed her the cone and she paid him, depositing the change in her jacket pocket. Now she just needed to find some shade. She located a nice tree with a bench under it just 30 feet away and began to walk towards it.

After a few steps, a cold sensation stung her arm and she looked down to see the cone dripping ice cream down to her hand. The drip was moving rather quickly and she abruptly stopped in her tracks and brought her hand up to her mouth to obstruct the ice creams freezing trail her with her tongue. Just as she caught the drip with the tip of her tongue, she felt the weight of another person collide into her back and she stumbled forward. There were two choices. She could either save her ice cream and ruin her clothes or drop her ice cream and keep herself from falling into the soft grass. The decision was quick and she dropped her ice cream cone and extended her arms to rebalance her body, barely remaining standing. After the initial instinctive movements to keep herself standing had settled and her heartrate slowed a little, she began to laugh, channeling all of her sudden emotions and responses into laughter. Still laughing, she turned to see what had happened, completely forgetting about her ice cream cone.

"Whoops."

He hadn't been paying attention to where he was jogging. She'd literally came out of (standing there) nowhere. And now, her ice cream was on the floor.

Redhead. Shoulder-length hair. Nice lips. He'd spilled her ice cream? Yeah. What a jerkish thing for him to do on accident. "Sorry," Aurum frowned down at her, dressed in his gold zip-up jacket over a white shirt, and his gray sweatpants. "I wasn't watching where I was going. Are you alright? Do you..." His eyes hopped from her, to the deserted dessert casualty. "Need a new ice cream?"

She was laughing. She seemed fine. This probably wasn't as bad as his initial assessment. He could still do the right thing by buying her a replacement cone. That would be the right thing.

Maybe he would buy himself an ice cream cone, too.

Her currently green eyes took him in rather quickly. Jogging shoes, grey sweatpants and a zipped up gold jacket. She had to have been extremely stupid to not assess that he had been jogging when she abruptly stopped to save her clothes from cold, sticky ice cream. Then came his assessment of his face. Wow. Someone hot knocked something cold out of her hands. Well, she defintely felt herself much more flustered now that she realized just how amazing her ice cream assault criminal looked and she felt her cheeks color themselves pink. Suddenly, she felt the urge to turn invisible, just a little blink like what she did at the dance with Sam, but she resisted the involuntary urge. This was a public place and she was unsure whether he was a mutant or a human.

Oh no! What if he was not a mutant and he did not like mutants? She hated realizing that there were people like that in the world and she ran into them all the time outside of the Mansion. Taking a quick moment to glance down at her hands, she felt her body relax when she saw that her raptor talons were still invisible, simply giving her fingernails a metallic gray color. Her talons were the easiest to keep invisible as she spent most of her life keeping them invisible in the first place and they could phase before the rest of her body. She could make it seem like she did not have any talons if she really wanted to.

Her eyes on the other hand, now those might give her away if he notes her eye color at the moment and looks back after a minute to see them a light purple or steel grey or emerald green. "Yes, I'm fine and no, I stopped so suddenly to make sure my ice cream didn't drip all down my arm," she said, looking down at her ice cream as if she were remembering it betrayed her in the first place. He offered to buy her another cone and she thought about it for a moment before responding, "Oh, i'm sure I really didn't need that ice cream, maybe it was a sign to not eat it," she smiled. Still, he was offering and he was very good looking and now her mind had beem anticipating ice cream so she might as well take up his offer. "But sure, if you don't mind. I hope this doesn't make you late for anything else you have planned today. She picked up the ice cream and began to walk it to the nearest trash can.

He supposed falling and losing one's lunch was embarrassing. How else would one explain the flush of pink on the woman's face? Or the glancing at her hands, off to the side, towards the ground... other strange behavior? He dismissed it all under the umbrella of embarrassment. If she had enough energy to be embarrassed, she was fine.

Absolutely fine.

With very interesting eyes.

He waited while she decided on the ice cream offer, thankful at the moment he hadn't been running faster. There could have been skinned knees, ruined pants, or a whole range of other things to make the situation worse. If all she'd lost was some ice cream, and she could laugh about it, they were doing alright.

He smiled back at her when she commented on something akin to 'fate'. She didn't need it? But she'd take him up on his offer. "Sure, I don't mind," Aurum replied with a small laugh. "I was only jogging. I've got the time."

He waited for her to toss the ruined cone, then glanced towards the ice cream cart. "Shall we?" He gestured towards the cart with a sweeping upturned palm.

He assured her he had the time and that she wasn't holding him up for anything. Well that was good, she'd hate to make him run late for something...pun intended in every way. "Well, if you're sure, she smiled, walking along side of him towards the ice cream cart. What had she ordered last time? Cookie dough? Cookie bites? Cooooookie Crisp? When she reached the vendor, she immediately remembered what he had suggested, but before she could speak up, the vendor spoke.

"Drop your ice cream? Was it Cookies and Cream?" he asked, knowing full well it was. Fade had been his last customer so of course he remembered. She nodded as he pulled out a cone and began scooping another one. She looked back to her ice cream buyer, wondering if it was polite to offer him some ice cream if he was paying for it. Deciding to take her chances, she spoke up, "Do you want any ice cream?" hopefully, he wouldn't take it as 'want some ice cream since you're paying for it?' And would rather take it as her asking if he'd join her in eating ice cream.

"Absolutely," Aurum grinned. He turned to the vendor. "I'd like a scoop of chocolate in a waffle cone, please."

The vendor nodded and handled Aurum's cone once he was done with the woman's. Aurum paid for both of them, took his cone, and thanked the vendor. Then, he turned to the girl. Aurum held up his cone in a sort of salute. "Cheers."

He dug in.

The ice cream was really good.

Where had her manners gone? Had they fallen out of her hand with her cold ice cream? Perhaps, but it was no excuse to carry on a semi conversation without actually knowing his name or even informing him of her name! At the moment, though, she could make it wait another second for an actual lick of her ice cream. Truth be told, she only got to taste the bit that was dripping down her arm from her last ice cream so she was all too ready to eat it. After a couple licks, she stopped and looked back to him.

"By the way, I'm-" she nearly tripped over her words. She had become so accustomed to introducing herself as Fade, but she had to use the name Jenny when she was unsure of another's mentality on mutants. Mutants were known for taking codenames and saying that her name meant to turn invisible was probably not the best idea for a new acquantance. "Jenny," she finally ended, trying to come up with a reason why it took her so long to say it. She did not use her last name because, quite frankly, she used it so little, she occassionally forgot it. Was it McGee? McDonalds? McCul...McCullen! Well, she had already ended it with Jenny, no sense in adding a last name unless she wanted to sound like Forrest Gump.

"I'm Aurum," Aurum replied. "Like the Latin word for the color gold."

He gestured at what he was wearing. The colors matched. Gold-man in gold shirt. But not Stripper-Aurum gold. Not like gold glitter, no.

... How had that come to mind again?

"Think we can find a bench, Jenny?" Aurum asked her, changing the subject because he didn't feel like remembering ginger ale pants and TASER-blonds. "After all the jogging I've done, it might be nice to sit down for a bit."

Everyday, there's something new to learn, right? For example, Fade most certainly did not know that Aurum was the latin word for Gold, or anything in latin for that matter, English was hard enough for her without the proper education and it's her first and only language. Still, she liked the name. Maybe she'd enjoy her name more if it mean something, but she was unaware if it meant anything other than 'that girl'. "Aurum, I like it, it's not typical and boring like Jenny," she smiled.

He asked if they could find a bench, which was perfectly fine with the redhead. She shifted her eyes around the park, looking for somewhere to sit down. There were a few places where rock formations had risen above the grassline and plenty of smaller children were having fun running across them, but there were some benches just down the walk a little bit. They were only a few feet away. "Yes we can, I'm a little sore from working out earlier today," she agreed. Her morning in the Danger Room definitely woke her up and prepared her for the day, though she could feel the burn in her calves.

"So what do you do then, for a living?" she asked, unsure if that was too forward of a question. It was a basic enough question, but if it were to be reversed on her, what would she reply with? She did not really have a job, at least not one she could say outloud. 'Oh yes, I'm an X-Man and I work with NYPD using my mutant powers to keep humans safe from other humans or mutants.' No...it did not really sound that great saying to someone she had only just learned their name.

>>"Aurum, I like it, it's not typical and boring like Jenny," she smiled.

Aurum smiled back, and arched a brow at her with a small chuckle. "Jenny can't be that boring."

He followed the direction she was looking and spotted benches. Jenny asked him a question, and Aurum looked to her, then started walking, matching her pace. "I work at the Full Circle book store as a barista part-time. I also apprentice with a law-firm. What about you?" Jennys couldn't be that boring. There had to be something interesting about her. She had good ice cream taste, after all.

He casually licked his cone as he walked, glancing at her face between licks. He listened to her response.

He was nice, he at least tried a little to make it seem like Jenny was not a boring name. What was a barista? Fade's past jobs were never exactly jobs. Even the one she worked at the moment, she did not exactly have a precise title. He worked with the law as well, that much she understood. Lately, the law had been a big help for her. And just as she hoped he wouldn't, he flipped the question on her. "Oh, um, investigative work," she said, landing on her answer firmly. Hopefully, he wouldn't ask any further.

She crossed her legs and leaned back into the bench. Though she did not think he was a mutant, she was comfortable around him. Though she had spent the last few years defending the human race, she had really not spent that much time with them. Sure, she had lived on the streets before, but since she started working with the X-Men, she saw humans less and less. She needed to get out more often. It was never good to become alienated from the people you've sworn to protect. "So what do you like to do other than eat ice cream and jog around Central Park?"

>>"Oh, um, investigative work," she said.

"Oh?" He replied. His tone was generally interested. "What kind of investigative work?" Did she work with the police? Was she a detective? Did she have a sleuthing hat, and if so, why wasn't she wearing it?

She asked him a question. Aurum thought a second, working on his ice cream. It had started getting lopsided, so he switched to the other side. "I read," He commented. "And watch movies. I like detective stories. Hardboiled, Holmes, or other. Occasionally, I play a bit of soccer. I also cook." He looked at her curiously. "What about you? What else do you do for fun?"

Of course. Of course if she gave a broad term of her career field, her barista, lawyer friend would want to narrow it down. "Well at times, I work with the police. I'm not a detective or private investigator really but if need be, I'll help out the force," she shrugged. She did not really handle all of the paperwork or legal documents and had no idea if really she was allowed to do what she did. Citizen's justice was better than no justice at all.

He enjoyed reading. If Fade ever learned how to read at her age level, maybe it would have become a passion of her's, but unfortunately, she was not the most educated person in the city. The part about how he enjoyed detective stories definitely explained why he was curious about what she did. It would have made much more sense if she could just tell him she was a mutant that could turn invisible, but she was afraid of how he felt towards mutants, so she remained silent on the matter. "Other than running into men and getting them to buy me ice cream?" she laughed. "Well I enjoy rock climbing the most and I like watching movies as well. Sometimes, I like to get lost, like on purpose, and then try to find my way home, just to see places I've never seen."

She helped out on the force. "That's pretty cool," Aurum commented. It wasn't the same as being a detective, but still. It was interesting. This girl had things going for her.

Shame she wasn't a detective, though. Red-headed detective lady was a winning combination. Eh. Red-headed police-woman was on par with it. He just liked detectives more. It must have had something to do with all those books he read.

Yeah. That must have been it. He knew what he was interested in. But what was Jenny interested in...?

Hm. "Rock climbing can be fun," Aurum agreed. "As can seeing things one has never seen before. You know, it's funny but in all my time in New York, I don't think I've every actually gone to see the Statue of Liberty?" He laughed weakly, then turned his attention to a dribble of ice cream. It dripped onto his hand and his pant leg. "Whoops..." Aurum looked to Jenny for help. "Got a napkin?"

Never been to the Statue of Liberty? What New Yorker had never been there?! Then again, it was quite the tourist attraction, in the long boat rides of people visiting the Statue, only about 5% of them are actually from New York. The only excuses to go to the Statue if you lived in New York was either for research or it was a date. Fade herself had been countless times. She even climbed it all the way to the top and sat on one of the spikes. It was not one of her smarter ideas since it was a windy, cold day, but she had her claws firmly intigrated in the copper to keep her from falling off.

"Really, you'll need to go some day. It's not much when you see it up close since you see it all the time from office buildings or sidewalks along the edge of the city, but it's interesting to stand it and look back at the city from a different angle. Really, you should go," she smiled, taking another chunk of her ice cream with an impatient bite. Some of his ice cream dripped down his arm and Fade looked around to find her purse before nearly smacking herself on the forehead. She never carried a purse, she always lost them. Still, purses definitely held napkins, along with chapstick, breath mints and emergency make up. Less than an eighth of a woman's purse actually carried monetary value.

"Hang on," she said, pulling herself off the bench before he could dissuade her. She darted up to the ice cream vendor and took a napkin while he nodded to her, his face lit up for a second under the impression that she was going to buy yet another ice cream cone. When she returned, she looked down and saw she grabbed quite a few napkins, maybe ten, and really only one or two was needed. Still, just in case anything else that needed cleaning occurred, they had some spares. "Here, sorry, I'm not much of a purse girl, I always leave them places," she smiled, using the napkin to wipe the ice cream from his hand. The pants on the other hand, "You might want to wipe your own pants," she laughed, passing him one.