Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Sunday

[sharp_as_knives]

It was a lovely day out, and the ride to the national mall had been breezy and warm. Now, with their bikes parked nearby, Hannibal stowed his helmet in a locker and spent a few minutes setting his hair to order again. Not everybody preferred to rock the electrical socket look, Jono.

"Where shall we start? Fossils, gemstones, plants?"



[OOC: For the one mentioned! NFB due to distance, but if anyone else is at the museum or wants to call - why not?]

Comments

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal gave him a curious look. "What did he think of you then?"

[furnaceface]

//Mostly... he was just surprised that I was a grey face. Starsmores are never grey faces. It just... doesn't happen.//

The lesser houses rarely had enough of Apocalypse's blood in them for that particular mutation to manifest.

//He was still my Granddad, though. Wouldn't hear any of it when Karla's parents started questioning my worth at the head of Glacia's army, going into the war. Wasn't exactly thrilled that that was what I was going to do with my life, but that's more... concern for my well-being.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"It's good to know that you had at least one family member to look out for you," Hannibal said. He glanced at the nearest dinosaur before looking up at the vertical timeline of Earth's history. "It gives quite a sense of perspective, doesn't it?"

[furnaceface]

//It does,// Jono agreed, looking up at the timeline as well. //I heard somewhere that, if the entire history of the universe was condensed down to a calendar year, humans as a species would exist only within the very last few seconds of it all.//

Cosmos. He'd learned that by watching Cosmos.

//It's all so bloody fleeting before the next thing comes along. Most of humanity thinks of all dinosaurs as just... dinosaurs. But most of them existed tens of millions of years apart, as well. Tyrannosaurus would have had problems eating a stegosaurus beyond just the fact that it was well-armoured.//

Jono, your nerdy side was showing.

[sharp_as_knives]

Fortunately, Hannibal adored Jono's nerdy side.

"And when you consider the number of different worlds out there, now that we know we're not alone, and the size of the universe..." He shrugged. Some people might feel it made them small and insignificant; Hannibal wasn't some people. The sense of perspective was exhilarating.

[furnaceface]

//'We are made of star-stuff,'// Jono quoted, reaching for Hannibal's hand. If it made him feel small and insignificant, he'd long accepted it as a matter of course; these days, it simply helped him to feel less alone. //Hell, it's practically a miracle anybody exists at all.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"It is." Hannibal smiled and squeezed Jono's hand. "Life is a fragile and beautiful thing."

[furnaceface]

Jono nodded faintly, content to stand there and just sort of... bask in all of it. The Smithsonian was a beautiful museum; it was a wonder he'd never managed to find the time to visit it before.

//Here would be a wonderful place to bring the students for that class you suggested,// he offered, after a moment. //There's no shortage of inspiration in a place like this.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"It would be," Hannibal agreed. He shrugged and gestured around them. "We could have an entire class simply for visiting a different Smithsonian museum each week, if we wanted to. Although," he acknowledged wryly, "some of our students might be singularly unimpressed with the Air and Space museum, except as history."

[furnaceface]

//Some,// Jono allowed, //though with the assortment of students we get, there'll be a few who've never seen anything like it, either. Really, we could say that about practically any--//

Whud.

//--thing?//

What in the name of...

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal frowned and glanced around; there were a few other people - mostly families - in the exhibit, but nothing seemed particularly amiss.

"True," he answered Jono. "I imagine Cosette and Rapunzel would adore it." And possibly Elsa, but she would be much more sedate about it.

[furnaceface]

//Almost certainly,// Jono agreed, though his brow was furrowed now, and he was sort of... checking over his shoulder, trying to puzzle out what the hell was going on. //We can't win every week with everyone, but every museum should at least be a new experience for some--//

WHUMP!

//Okay, I'm not just losing my mind, here, am I? You hear this, too?//

[sharp_as_knives]

"While I make no judgement on the former, yes," Hannibal answered. Another glance around and... He frowned. "Is the stegosaurus moving?"

Dear lord, he'd tried so hard for a sedate world, too.

[furnaceface]

//It...// Jono squinted. //... Apparently is. It isn't animatronic, so far as I'm aware. Wasn't moving when we walked by it...//

WHUNK.

//Bloody hell.//

Yes, Jono was grudgingly letting go of Hannibal's hand in order to head over and investigate. He... sort of wished he hadn't, once he got over there. A little boy in a bright orange shirt had weaseled his way over the barrier, and was trying to goad the stegosaurus skeleton into... coming to life and taking a swing at him or something. Made doubly absurd by the fact that there was a fully fleshed-out sculpture right across the hall from it, but there was a small crowd of people looking at that one, so presumably the child hadn't been able to get through.

"Come on! You aren't even moving! Come on and eat me!"

Jono winced as the dinosaur took another punch to the ribs.

//Bloody hell, 'es an herbivore. He wouldn't try to eat you even if he wasn't 150-million years dead!//

Where the hell were this kid's parents??

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal followed Jono and frowned at the boy. "This wall is here for a reason," he told him sternly. "Which is that you should be on this side of it. Come out of there."

Someone clearly needed to keep better track of their children.

[furnaceface]

The boy took one look over at the pair of men who were talking to him, squinted a little, and then decided that they weren't any threat to him, since he was on this side of the wall, and both of them, clearly, were not.

"You're not my mom," he informed them both, in case they weren't aware.

And then he hit the dinosaur again.

Jono was looking a little greenish.

//Thank bloody god,// he muttered, looking around. //Where is she?//

Because he needed somebody he could take by the shoulders and shake, right now.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Your mother would hopefully also be appalled at your behavior," Hannibal said. And in lieu of her presence, he was perfectly willing to take hold of the back of the boy's shirt in a twist and lift him out himself.

[furnaceface]

Well... That was a... a noise that child made, knowing that he'd get everybody and their camera's looking his way, right then. Jono reached a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

//Oh, fuck me...//

... Meant as an exasperated expletive. Not as an invitation.

"Hey! Hey, get your hand off my son, pal!"

//Fuck me.//

Very much an expletive.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal set the boy down firmly and turned to face his father, stern look still in place. "As it happens, I didn't touch him. But you might want to pay closer attention that he stays to this side of the barriers. I doubt the museum would appreciate him knocking over an exhibit."

[furnaceface]

"And who the hell are you, telling me how to raise my kid?" The man made his way over to pick up the boy, who had worked his way up to a good, dramatic wail, now.

Jono's teeth would have ground together if they could, once he realized the boy was occasionally pausing in his sniffling to make certain people were still giving him attention.

And of course they were. People loved a good show.

[sharp_as_knives]

"Among other things," Hannibal said, all bland politeness, "a psychiatrist who's worked a number of cases of court-ordered therapy for troubled children."

[furnaceface]

Pinching the bridge of his nose didn't seem to be working. Jono could feel a headache coming on anyway, not helped at all by the people all thinking loudly about what they were witnessing, here.

"Is that supposed to be some kind of a threat?!"

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal gave the man a patient look, the picture of reason. "Do you feel that it needs to be?" He spread his hands. "It's entirely possible your son has never learned proper behavior in a place such as this, or the value of these specimens, and that in my effort to prevent him from destroying history I startled him badly."

He shrugged. "If that is the case, he only needs to have these things explained to him, after which he can indicate his understanding by apologizing for his behavior, and I shall apologize for having startled him, and we may go our separate ways."

The people around them seemed to approve, more than a few looking with distaste on the child's hysterics. Hannibal let the back of his hand brush Jono's, hoping the contact and Hannibal's familiar calmness might buffer him somewhat from the rest of the room.

[furnaceface]

Jono closed his eyes, taking that brush of the hand and clinging to the familiarity of it in the face of all of the attention turned this way. It wasn't as though it was the first time he'd had all eyes directed at him, at least.

The man's gaze traveled downward, and Jono caught the thought about their hands and what that meant about them a beat before he opened his mouth to say something that would have been... Well.

//Don't.//

The man paused, mouth still open, halfway through a "You" that would have continued on into something awful. Instead, he mostly just looked confused. Was he hearing things?

//You're going to say something about two men holding hands,// Jono continued, in a voice for only Hannibal and the child's father to hear. //And I promise you you'll regret it if you do. Don't.//

The man looked around now, concerned. Didn't anybody else hear this?!

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal suppressed a sigh. They weren't even holding hands, only letting them touch. Was the man so bigoted that even that would set him off?

He didn't mention it, though; if the man didn't know where Jono's voice was coming from, Hannibal wasn't going to enlighten him. Let him think he was hallucinating.

"Well?" he asked, still polite. "Would you like to explain the problem with your son's behavior to him, or would you prefer I do it?" He looked around. "Or a museum employee, if you would rather."