tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

When; Tuesday, May 26th
Rating; PG
Characters; Kara

projectionary
Summary; Andy and Kara hang out.
Log; Kara hadn't been kidding when she told Andy that he was lucky she could change her outfit almost instantly. Fifteen minutes was so not enough time for most girls to pick out an outfit. You couldn't start early, either, because who knew how you'd be feeling by the time it was time to choose an outfit, you might start out the day in a skirt and t-shirt mood but be in a jean shorts and tank top mood by the time the date came around.

And this wasn't even like, a date or anything. Or was it? Kara wouldn't have minded if it was a date-like thing, but she didn't want to assume. A non date-like thing would have been fine too, since Andy was just fine to hang out with. But that was partially why picking out an outfit was such a nightmare. In the end she settled on the same pair of (relatively tight) low rise jeans and cute tank top she put on this morning, which just made her feel kind of silly about fretting, but there wasn't anything to be done.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she waited patiently for Andy to knock. She could have used her x-ray vision or super hearing to tell when he was near, but that just seemed like cheating. No, she would just wait patiently for him to knock.

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It had taken Andy a little longer than he expected to finish up with the room stuff (or, to put it more accurately, he'd decided to save most of it for another day), mainly because half of what suited the inside of his van wouldn't work in a room setting. Far from a designer, he was sure he would've realized this fact even if it was displayed on a neon sign outside his building. He'd had an hour to meet Ruby for the fighting lessons-- something he still wasn't sure about-- and had to rush the next hour before giving up and calling Kara instead.

Luckily, it looked like he literally had all the time in the world to flesh out the bedroom. It could wait for a day when he didn't feel like a jerk for making plans he almost flounced on following through with. Still funny to think that he was hanging out with Supergirl, but the divide between what was real and what wasn't was finally starting to blur. It was actually a bit disturbing, thinking that he was getting comfortable here.

Or about as comfortable as possible given the circumstances.

One thing he did know, though? He sure had no plans of being late. 'Comic book heroine' or not, Andy still enjoyed her company. Exiting the elevator, a quick scan of the hall found him room 414, and he knocked, wondering if Kara already heard him on the way up.

When the knock sounded on the door she waited for a count of four (she had no idea why you had to wait to answer it, maybe so you didn't appear too eager) before she got up and answered it.

"Hey there!" she said, smiling brightly at him. For some reason she thought maybe he wouldn't show up or... something.

Andy had stepped back just before the door opened, one hand stuck in the front pocket of his sweater. He waved with the other one, returning the smile with a casual greeting, "Hey-- you ready to go?"

He may have been slightly out of breath from the rush, but he still made it on time. Points for trying, more points for succeeding. Right then would've been the perfect time to swap mind control for super speed. Vaguely, Andy couldn't help but wonder if it would work on someone like Supergirl. It was more likely that he'd never know, since these days, he mainly reserved the 'mind thing' (for lack of a better way of putting it) for 1) dicks who deserved it, or 2) those times when he had no choice in the matter. It wasn't something he really needed to use most times, anyway; Good for a laugh now and then, and great for staying under the radar.

Even though there were always exceptions, he'd settle for the long-term curiousity on this one. Better to hope he never had to use it on Kara.

It's a good thing Kara didn't have telepathy, because wondering if your freaky demon induced mind controlled powers worked on the girl you were hanging with was not a good thing to wonder about.

"Yup, all ready," she said, beaming at him as she locked the door behind her. "So you need to like, pick out stuff to put up in your room?"

"Yeah, I only had a few ideas, but the whole thing was pretty plain, so," he shrugged, the minute old curiousity already slipping from his mind. When it came to intentions, the worst Andy would ever do fell significantly below the sinister level on the scale. Free backstage passes to a concert and a sneak peek at the county birth records weren't exactly the makings of an evil brain-controlling overload. The things Webber did, they were wrong. Killing people, 'pushing them around', the guy was insane.

As for his friends-- even when he wondered if it would work, why would he ever use it on them? Too much thinking. Definitely too much thinking. It'd always been a circumstantial ability for him, something on a had-to-be-used basis. With a little showing off thrown in, sure, but--he glanced from the elevator to the stairs, going with the former as he nodded towards Kara--who wouldn't? Maybe what he was wondering about wasn't his own strange ability, but the kinds that others here had. Like it was supposed to be common, like how casually Kara'd introduced herself as Supergirl. When he'd been told the bunch of them back home were connected somehow, his first assumption had been that whatever it was that caused his powers also caused the powers everyone else displayed.

If there was anything he'd learned from the month here, it was how wrong that assumption was. Kind of a recurring trend, and-- and it was probably easiest to stop thinking about it before a headache decided to spawn.

"It's not really hard to work with," man, but picking out room decorations? The feeling he was getting now was that he should've gone with an invitation that was less lame. Which could have been anything. Asking her to a movie or something, going for a walk.

"Yes, when you don't have anything at all, it's easy to improve it," she said with a laugh. Not decorating your room was such a guy thing though, the first thing Kara did when she moved in was personalize her space. That was okay though, seeing what types of things Andy wanted to get would give her a good idea of what kind of guy he was.

"The tiger was a good choice though," she said as she followed him down the hall. "Much better than some tacky poster from a swimsuit calendar. Do you have like... a dresser and a clock and stuff?"

Dresser; check. Clock; nope, he'd been using the one on his PDA. Stuff? Working on that. It was only when she asked the question that Andy realized how much there was to add. "Unless the guy organizing it sucks at decorating, that's a no contest."

Part of the reason he'd waited so long was because he didn't wanna wreck the room for the next guy-- the whole not planning on staying in the City idea. Since it looked like leaving wasn't much of an option, well... "You like it? I had one like it--uh, not the white one--painted on the inside of my old van," he had to admit, it was damn awesome Kara thought it was a good choice. If they agreed on that much, the room upped its chances of getting a kickass do-over. A more welcoming turn from his thoughts a few minutes back was wondering what she'd think of his overall plan for it.

So far, he wasn't getting the feeling that there'd be anything to worry about. Variety and the element of surprise: if she had any suggestions, Andy decided that as long as none of them involved putting up cartoon bunny posters, he'd go with them.

"A dresser, a bed, some clothes, and-- you know what? We'll tear that place apart."

"You had a tiger painted on the side of your van?" Kara asked, laughing at the idea of it. Okay, so it was kind of dorky, but in a cute way. She wondered if the van also had a bed in the back, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

"I would say that's kinda dorky, but I know a guy that has like... freaking everything shaped like a bat, so a tiger on the side of your van actually strikes me as kind of cool," she told him.

"We totally need to find you a lava lamp to match your tiger."

"Well, the inside," it was the Barbarian Queen on the outside. Andy nodded in answer, raising an eyebrow when she got to the part about the bats. Being called dorky would've been half-way offensive if she hadn't said it was cool afterward, but he didn't think he would've minded-- the lava lamp idea? Genius. "I wanna ask... Batman?"

He laughed off the suggestion with a mock thumbs up, "You got it, lava lamp it is," and then a thought, more to see Kara's reaction to the question than anything else, "Say, what would you think of a disco ball?"

Well done not mentioning the Barbarian Queen on the outside, that one may cost you a few points. Kara was already getting the idea though that Andy was different. And she really liked that about him.

"Yeah, Batman," she said, brushing her hair back out of her face. "Do you know him?"

While the Dark Knight had initially distrusted her he had come to be like a father figure to her. An OCD father that was constantly testing her, but a father all the same.

"And I think not many people could rock a disco ball," she confessed. "But you might be able to pull it off, Andy. You just need to make sure you have something from a decade beyond the 70's in there too."

"I've, uh--" he'd already decided against mentioning any of the comic books and movies. If it were him, Andy wouldn't like being told that he existed as fiction for somebody else. Screw the line between real and unreal, at least in this case. All he knew was that here, in this city, Kara was definitely not a drawing on paper. "Heard stories about him too."

There was a brief moment where he was tempted to ask about the other superheroes she might've known, but he shook it off fairly easily. Imagine how awkward it'd be to explain how he knew about so many of them.

Of course, that? That got a laugh. It went back to how a room was a lot more to work with than the inside of a van. Maybe letting loose with the plans would work better than trying to recreate the last one. "Seventies, eighties, nineties, whatever. We'll take a look and see what blends together, huh?"

"Yeah, he's kinda famous," she said with a nod. Kara knew that even in worlds that didn't have Batman, they'd hard of him, which wasn't surprising. After all, he was Batman.

"So," she said, giving him a cheeky grin. "Does that mean you've heard stories of me too?"

Before he could answer though, she just laughed. She didn't want to force him into an awkward situation. Okay, that wasn't true, she sorta did but she would give him an out.

"How about we just find cool stuff for your room, regardless of what decade it's from?"

"A few, yeah," he responded evasively, taking the laughter as his get out of answering cue. Andy got lucky with the fame aspect-- it should've been obvious, of course Batman would've been commonly known in her world. He existed there. Like, actually existed.

"You know what?" he gave Kara a smile, remembering to hold the door to the building open for her, "My thoughts exactly. That's gotta be the best idea yet."

"And the theme of your room can be cool stuff," Kara said, beaming another smile at him as he held the door open for her. "So if someone tries to tell you that it doesn't go, then you can tell them it does because it's cool, just like all the other stuff in your room."

The idea of helping Andy pick out stuff for his room was getting more fun all the time, and the more she was getting to know Andy the more she was liking him.

"So," she said, casually slipping her arm in his. "Where were you planning to look for this cool stuff?"

"I dunno, weren't we thinking of doing the broken stuff thing? Shredded curtains, shattered glass instead of carpet..." while he could've told her that he didn't care what anyone else thought as he long he was happy with it himself (that was all that should matter when it came down to it), Andy had the feeling that she'd caught on to that much already. He let the door fall shut, betraying the serious tone he'd tried to use by grinning.

Yeah, cool stuff sounded about right. If it fit, it was fine for his room. What distracted him now, casual or not, was that Kara had hooked one of his arms-- even if the room ended up looking like a tornado went through it when they were finished, there was no way he'd count the day as a loss.

One last look back at the building, and the psychic shrugged with his free arm, for the moment unsure of how he should take the cue. "I thought we'd go with the unplanned angle," she totally had that one coming, "But as a backup? I'm sure I walked by a few places the other day. You know how there's that carousel at the center of the city-- all around it, that whole area's like a shopping center."

"How do you work with the unplanned angle?" she asked. Kara was glad that he didn't seem to be weirded out by the arm thing. Really, she sucked at this whole flirting thing and usually ended up half throwing herself at someone. Or maybe that was just with Thelma and Emille.

"Do you spin around with your eyes closed, stop, and then just walk until you find something you want to add to your room?" Kara said. That almost sounded kind of fun.

"I was thinking more along the lines of walking into a random store and picking what looks good without making a list first, but we can work with that as long as it's without the prospect of blindfolds," a brief snicker, and then more seriously, "'You break it you buy it' sucks if you ask me."

Much as Andy was enjoying the humour, he knew it was about time he actually got around to a plan-- or something close to a plan. A half-plan would still be better than nothing, details could sit it out this time in favour of the bigger picture. The bigger picture being that, though he usually just went with whatever spoke to him when he saw it, dragging Kara around the City because he was being picky was off the list before it even had the chance of getting onto it. Getting the spur-of-the-moment plan in motion was sitting at the top.

"You know where that lava lamp might be?" it was a first step, some kind of direction that beat out wandering aimlessly. The last thing he needed was to end up looking like a creeper for inviting her out for an afternoon of nothing, 'hi why don't you hang on a few hours while I stare at you'. Here was hoping it didn't seem that way-- but the good part? At least it didn't look like he was boring Kara out of her mind.

"I think I might know where we could get you a lava lamp," she said with a nod. Really, she would have been content to wander around aimlessly, she was along less for the shopping and more for the company. And if he wanted to stare at her a bit... well, she didn't wear the snug jeans so that he'd ignore her.

Not that she didn't enjoy shopping too, but she could do that on her own. Maybe she'd take him next time she got a new swimsuit. Right now it was nice being with Andy just talking.

"And they might have a disco ball too," Kara added.

"Right, sounds great on both counts," he gestured with his free arm to the path in front of them, perhaps a little excessively (as was often his tendency-- he knew but didn't always catch it right at the time). Now that they'd gotten some direction, Andy was noticeably more relaxed-- get the worst out of the way, save the best for last. Figures of speech were usually reserved for sarcasm on his part, sure, but that was one he didn't mind applying to this particular situation. "It's an open road, just lead the way."

In spite of feeling more relaxed, he still had to take what felt like a year long minute to decide if he'd chance trying to slip his hand into hers. This was another of those times where he suspected she wouldn't mind too much. To prove the point? She already had his arm.

So why not?

If you decide on something, better to just do it. Thinking things out is only good as long as you don't keep it up until the opportunity's blinked out. Which would typically defeat the purpose of making the decision. Still, regardless of that thought, Andy tried to pass it off as a casual movement, quickly tossing in an addendum, "I mean, unless it's like, in the opposite direction."

Kara felt a little flutter in her stomach when he slipped her hand into his. It was seriously cute because she could tell he was kinda nervous about it, which made it all that more impressive that he did it.

"Nope, that way is good," she said, swinging her hand out that was holding his to point the direction they were going. She also gave his hand a little squeeze to let him know the hand thing was okay.

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