Superman from the comics: Starting with the Black Robe

Chapter 149 The Simple and Honest Folks of New York City

Chapter 149 The Simple and Honest Folks of New York City

Tony Stark, in his sleep, only felt someone pushing him forcefully:

"Wake up, Tony!"

"What?"

Tony forced his eyes open and saw Pepper. She was holding a stack of documents, looking at this seemingly perpetually immature playboy with a weary expression, her voice filled with helplessness:

"Wake up! Coulson from S.H.I.E.L.D. is looking for you again. He says it's important, something about national security."

Agent Coulson stood politely outside the living room and offered a reminder:

"It's Coulson, ma'am, Coulson."

Although their names are just code names, Coulson still likes his name very much.

Still dazed, Tony rubbed his slightly numb face and looked at Coulson, who had returned:

"Alright, Coulson, what's up now? Didn't you just leave? Have you changed your mind and are planning to have a drink?"

"No, Mr. Stark, I didn't just leave recently."

Coulson looked at the drunkard in front of him, who was completely out of control, with a speechless expression, but only through his extremely strong professional ethics did he manage to keep his composure:

"This is already the second day."

"the next day?!"

Tony sprang up from the sofa, looked around, but couldn't find the person anywhere.

Where did Joey go?

Yes, Coulson was just waiting for him to say that.

He strode forward, pulled a photograph from his pocket, and held it up in front of Tony:

"Is the 'Joey' you're talking about this person?"

Tony looked closely and saw the figure in the photo wearing a red cape, holding up an old-fashioned car. He picked up the photo and fell into deep thought.

"Um...

.

After pondering for a long time, Tony looked up at Coulson with absolute certainty and conviction, his eyes full of sincerity:

"No, I've never seen this person before in my entire life!"

At this moment, Joey and Starfire are wandering aimlessly through the streets of New York.

Fortunately, it's currently winter, and the near-freezing outdoor temperatures in New York City provide a convenient camouflage for Joey and Spark.

Joey, wearing a thick, short down jacket and the jeans he used to wear in Kansas, and a pair of black-rimmed glasses symbolically hanging on his nose to cover his face, swaggered around the city.

Xinghuo's outfit was a bit more complicated; she wore a long purple down jacket over an orange turtleneck sweater.

A bluish-gray scarf and a wide-brimmed sun hat covered her unusually orange skin, while sunglasses concealed her emerald green eyes, leaving only her long, smooth, orange-red hair visible.

"To be honest, you don't need to go through all that disguise. After all, it's Christmas, and even if you dress up a little strangely, it won't seem odd."

Joey's eyes swept over the 17th female Christmas reindeer that walked past him, and he politely declined a female Santa Claus who was trying to ask for his phone number.

Sweating profusely, Joey reached out and grabbed Spark's small hand, which was already heating up to over a thousand degrees Celsius, and pulled her into a sparsely populated alley before she could explode.

He brought Xinghuo out to ease the other party's emotions, not to add fuel to the fire!

"Oh well."

Pulled into a small alley, away from the crowd, Xinghuo hummed softly, pulled off her large sun hat and sunglasses, revealing her true appearance.

Unlike Joey's concerns, she wasn't angry that Joey was hit on by a girl on the street; she was just having some difficulty adapting to the new environment.

Although she enjoyed spending some private time with Joey, after her home was destroyed and she had been wandering in deep space with the Green Lantern Corps for a year or two, she couldn't help but feel a sense of alienation and fear towards the noisy crowds outside.

Now, finally having a chance to catch her breath in the alley, Xinghuo steadied her heart rate and breathing, and began to learn about the customs of this planet:

"Is Christmas just what it sounds like? A holiday established to commemorate a saint?"

"It was like that at first, but then it changed."

"In reality, not many people really care about the carpenter's birth date or any random religious customs. People are just looking for an excuse to reunite with their families or relax."

Because of the nature of her work, Joey's impression of Christmas is limited to gatherings, toasts, drinking, and the apple tradition that was inexplicably exported to the West.

Yes, in Joey's previous life, some of his foreign colleagues had also started to get used to buying a strangely expensive apple on Christmas Eve.

Joey figured that if he hadn't been taken away by that shell, maybe in a few years he would have seen those whimsical foreigners start eating dumplings indiscriminately.

It turns out that people tend to overthink when they have free time. Joey, who hadn't been pressing for anything important, was stirred up by Starfire's casual question, which brought back many memories of the past, and her mood suddenly became melancholic.

"Sigh~"

Hearing Joey's soft sigh, Xinghuo's mood gradually eased, as she began to adjust to the noisy crowds outside the alley.

Holding his hand tightly, she pressed herself close to Joey's side, finding a strange sense of security only in this way.

She doesn't need any holidays to relax right now; just standing with Joey is enough to make her feel relaxed.

It's hard to imagine that just a week or two ago she was desperately trying to kill him, but now she's leaning on her enemy's son, comforting each other's lonely hearts.

A person with his own cousin, father, and the entire El family and the entire Kryptonian race, Starfire, who can read emotions, can still sense the endless loneliness in the other person's heart through contact.

As the last member of her kind, Starfire knew where her loneliness came from, but she never knew where Joey's loneliness came from.

Just as she didn't pry into other things, Xinghuo chose to suppress her curiosity and never delve into the details.

If the time is right, Joey will tell himself one day.

As for now, with a flick of her wrist, Yixinghuo pushed Joey against the wall deep in the alley. She genuinely didn't care about Christmas, but she could also pretend to care:

"Merry Christmas! Want to relax a bit?"

Why not?

Away from another world where he was constantly on edge, Joey was finally able to relax once more. He wrapped his right arm around Starfire's waist, while his other hand moved downwards, their lips drawing ever closer:

"We can still take advantage of...: um!"

Joey had originally planned to say that he and Starfire should take advantage of the holidays to travel to the Arctic again and see the real Santa Claus and the magical reindeer, but Starfire had already come close and shut him up.

Just as the two, deeply in love, were preparing for the next step of their intimate conversation, a loud shout shattered the ambiguous atmosphere:

"Robbery!"

The gun's owner, trembling, pointed the weapon at Joey and Starfire, who were oblivious to their surroundings and even continuing their passionate kiss under the gun's barrel, and shouted again:

"You two over there, put your hands up and take out your wallets!"

Then came the click of the pistol being pulled off its safety, a testament to the robber's determination.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!"

Interrupted from their intimate moment, Joey reluctantly separated her lips from the still-lingering spark of affection, turned to look at the armed thug, and for a moment, didn't know what to do with him.

"No, man, it's Christmas!"

What else could Joey say?

He could only marvel at how genuinely kind and honest the people of New York were.

Christmas holds a special meaning for Westerners, being one of the most important holidays of the year. In Chinese terms, it's like asking, "Why is this unlucky guy out robbing people during the Lunar New Year?!"