Buttercup is inappropriately excited about getting to see the rain of frogs.

Harry is more irritated than excited, but Buttercup's cute. He'l allow it.

Mouse is also excited! Also, he has warmed up to Buttercup through a combination of exposure and evidence that he is not a creature of evil.

"So is it strictly a rain of frogs or are there other amphibians involved?" he wonders from the passenger seat of the Blue Beetle. "I guess we'll find out when we get there."

"Usually it's closer to toads, really. Public perception of frogs isn't that clear."

"Public perception of frogs," he giggles. "You're adorable, Harry. I adore you."

"Thank you! Those are certainly words that I said."

"Pretty sure they don't have a central nervous system. If they do, this is a way bigger problem than I thought."

"...Like, fake magic frogs? That's a thing? Somebody's raining fake magic frogs? Why the fuck?"

"Easier than real magic frogs?"

"...okay," he concedes, "if I had magic I'd probably rain fake frogs with it at some point too. Is that a thing? Can I rain fake frogs? Just, like, a little fake frog rain." He gestures the smallness of the intended fake frog rain. It is so small. "Not enough to freak anybody out."

"Not really. 'Little' and 'rain of frogs' don't go well together, conceptually. Also, I don't... think you have magic. I probably would've noticed when you hugged me. Unless I was distracted by the sizzling noise, which, I mean... maybe? D'you want me to check you for magic?"

"Sure!"

Buttercup giggles when poked. "Cool! But we should probably check out this rain of frogs before I start trying to learn how to duplicate it in miniature. One thing at a time."

Buttercup exits the car too. A toad falls from the sky. He dodges, tries to catch it, misses, sighs at its splatted form, and takes a look around.

There's a bag lady over there who looks super weird. She might have a hunch, or something. Other than that, the park's weirdly empty given the fact that it's raining goddamn frogs. The only other people are this very tiny pretty man standing next to a figure in... what is that, a burqa? Doesn't look exactly like it, but it's not showing any skin, whatever it is. Odd.

"Yeah. I've been checking them out with magic and all, and they're actual frogs. And toads, I guess. Which... is bad. Very bad. Something is wrong."

"Well, I wouldn't want to get in the way of that. D'you want to do that while I take Mouse for a walk around the park? I mean, the world may be ending, but that's no reason to neglect pet care."

"Aww, you're a sweetheart," he says, and bounces over to give Harry a hug. He is of course wearing his mandatory fluffy sweater.

Harry hugs him back! He's been getting practice, lately. Then he tugs Mouse away from worrying at a mostly-splatted frog for walking purposes.

The becloaked figure mutters something to him.

The extremely cute guy blinks and half-shrugs in acknowledgment.

"Hi!" greets Buttercup. "You're amazingly cute. Wanna get a drink sometime?"

"Um. No, thank you," says the extremely and/or amazingly cute guy. A small grey cat climbs up to perch on his shoulder and meows inscrutable commentary. He gives her absent-minded scritches.

Buttercup shrugs philosophically. "Well, I tried. Bye!" And back to Harry he goes.

"That dog of yours barks at the weirdest things," calls Buttercup.

The cowled figure snarls loudly, blurring into action. He bounds towards the gunmen, taking a few moderately irritating bullets to the torso, and starts savaging one of them.

Which incidentally ruins a moderate fraction of Buttercup, but it's the sweater part that makes him snarl and go for her throat.

The extremely cute guy is left crouched beside a park bench, watching the action with worry and confusion and no way of helping.

Oh, nice. Now Buttercup is grinning, bright and wild. He didn't know it was going to be so much fun.

Milo yelps when Leo hits the ground. He runs to his friend's side.

Harry runs over to the odd couple. He shouts back towards Buttercup, "Try not to kill her! Questioning the assassin is a useful thing to do!"

"Fiiiiiiine," Buttercup shouts back aggrievedly. He pins the ghoul against the ground and grins in her face and drinks her fear.

Milo stands warily between Leo and the tall stranger.

Harry pinches the bridge of his nose. "Nobody likes a smartass, kid."

Milo is beginning to be slightly disgruntled about the tall stranger totally ignoring him.

"And you. You... are not a vampire, for various obvious reasons. What are you doing hanging around with some Red Court goon?"

"He is my friend," says Milo, with an aristocratic lift of his chin somewhat ruined by the fact that Harry is a clear two feet taller than he is and he has to crane his neck pretty far already just to look him in the face.

"Alright, don't break your neck. You realize he doesn't have a soul, right? 'Friends' is kind of a foreign concept to Reds."

"How do you know the state of his soul?"

"My mother has a three-legged horse," Milo counters immediately. "Gets around on a wooden crutch. The stable boys call him Stumpy."

Harry rolls his eyes. "You know how they have hooves? Look, it's literally just a basic feature of the species. More like horses not being able to talk. Unless their name is Mister Ed, I guess, but that show was always pretty dumb."

(Leo snorts.)

Leo sighs. "Alright, not that this isn't fucking hilarious, but I'm sick of this cloak-and-dagger shit. The Disney prince comes from a different universe. Not an Outsider, as you can tell by the fact that my brain isn't dribbling out my ears. And he's got some kind of weird magic that lets him give people souls. And he gave me one. I wasn't happy about it. I'm learning to deal. Feel free to soulgaze me for confirmation. Incidentally, you're also hanging around with vampire scum, so, uh, not to call you a hypocrite or anything, but you're a massive fucking hypocrite."

Milo shrugs. "Can we get my friend out of the sun now, or do you first need to deal with the whatever-it-is that your friend is sitting on over there?"

Leo stares back neutrally.

Harry flinches. "Vampire with a soul. Something new every day. Well, uh, feel free to get on with your unlife. As long as you're not killing any more waitresses, which you seem to not be doing."

"Of course he isn't," says Milo.

"Oh, I'm very sorry for implying that something he did three weeks ago might be something that would happen again. Don't know what I was thinking."

Milo looks up at Harry. Milo can look damned princely when he tries. "He is my friend," he emphasizes.

Leo winces a bit. "I, uh, really don't mind as much as... you seem to think I do. I mean. I killed people. It was a thing."

"I certainly acknowledge that, but you're different now, and that's on me even if I did it by accident. Which makes me responsible for both your safety and your conduct, which means I am offended when this enormous scarecrow implies you might decide to start down that road again."

"Alright, Prince Grumpy, let's all just calm down here. This is America, you don't have vassals, and I'm not going to make fun of your not-vassal anymore, but it's super weird that you have that reaction and you should probably work on it. That's your homework for today, stop being creepy about your pet vampire. While I go do my job. Elsewhere."

"Sounds just fine to me."

"Still alive," Buttercup reports cheerfully. "Regretting her choices. I don't know what you're talking about, he was pure adorable when I said hi."

"Play nice," Buttercup chides gently, shifting his weight a little in a way that happens to put more pressure on several of the ghoul's broken bones. Her fear is delicious. "No spitting."

"Not very nice, though."

"Eh. She was a contract killer, I recognized her from another job. I'm not losing any sleep over keeping her from killing dozens more people."

"Suits me," he shrugs. "Beating her up was fun and all, but I'm pissed off that she ruined the nice sweater your friend gave me."

"It's fine. Charity Carpenter is an endless font of sweaters. She'll be happy to help. Especially if you visit her and she likes you better than me, which is likely."

He giggles, and dodges a frog. "C'mon, let's get outta the weather here."

"Probably for the best." He extends a hemispherical "umbrella" over them both from his shield bracelet; a frog skitters off of it just in time.

Buttercup cracks up and heads for the car.