Summary:The Runaways' couch-surfing star-hopper offers to give Karolina a real introduction to the life of a superhero. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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.~{:--------------:}~.
*
Karolina's been in New York since the summer, splitting time between ESU's dorms and wherever it is the long since orphaned Runaways live. It's a division that's grown increasingly lopsided as the months have worn on, with Karolina spending more and more of her nights sleeping (crashing, at wee hours) in steampunk-soaked comfort.
The police scanner is definitely new. Cross-legged on the den's floor, right in front of a brass and velvet sofa, she's got the scanner in one hand so she can study it closely while nudging a knob in the hopes of getting something — anything — but static and intermittent bursts of— well, static, but with voices mixed in.
— a slight correction: the scanner's new to the Hostel, but it's held together with a little duct tape and some thrift shop owner's good will. Karolina's got money — a fact which she tends not to make a big deal of given the dearth of jobs among her pals, but she saw it, dropping a few things off, and— here she is.
Making noise for a good (?) cause.
*
Everything is relative, but if there's one thing America Chavez has learned since she started this line of work, it's this:
New York City - if it exists on whatever given Earth she's on - tends to be a hotbed for 'All the Fucked-Up Shit.'
Her words.
Eventually, you get used to spotting the signs of it. A sixth sense, if you will. Which might explain the star-shaped portal that suddenly spawns in front of Karolina as she remains tentatively and tensely perched in front of her police scanner.
Specifically, it might explain how a deluge of broken robot parts spew out of the thing as it shatters into a glimmering field of hard light shards like it was just vomiting an evil robot revolution in piecemeal.
Enter: America Chavez, following after the clattering remains of a robot uprising, a bag in hand and a pastrami sandwich hanging from her mouth. On the other side of the portal, there's piles of shattered robots, and the sounds of police sirens fast on the approach of what looks like somewhere in Brooklyn before the whole thing winks out of existence.
"Yo," she greets casually as she plucks her sandwich free, ignoring the sci fi mess she's made of the living area. "Got sandwiches."
A second passes. America looks at that scanner. Looks at Karolina, watching it with great intent. She squints.
"… looks like you're being productive, princess."
It's hard, to master such a deadpan so perfectly. But, America doesn't settle for second best, even in sarcasm.
*
Karolina isn't really sure when America first started crashing here, but she's learned how to adapt to what it entails. This means that— sure, the scanner goes flying when the remnants of woman-on-robot violence ran into the den, and a high-pitched note of surprise is mingling with the metallic clatter and hard light hum—
— but a stained glass web of exotic energy stretches across the ground to intercept what it can. Rather than duck and cover, Karolina glows and melts into swirling colors, newly freed hands spread wide on either side of her head.
Beat—
— beat—
— ** *wink!* **
"… hey, America," the blonde exhales with a big, sheepish smile.
The web winks out too, but Karolina lets herself stay radiant for now. Wherever America came from, however many pounds of busted up robot she brings raining into the Hostel, she hasn't tried to murder Karolina or Karolina's friends, so why hide? Rainbow waves flow through combing fingers as she tries to find— anything— else to do with her hands, just now.
"I was thinking, since we don't have any, like, non-laptop computers, or state of the art sensor suites," she quietly explains without looking at the other woman or the scanner, "that it might be nice if I maybe had a way to see what was… happening." She takes a second to make sure her totally subtle weighting made it through.
And to make herself look up at the person who's strolling in from fighting what she's going to assume were extremely evil robots while she explains herself.
"Only I probably should'a just bought, like, a good one," she then mutters. Once that bit of rue's out, she—
It's not so much hopping to her feet as it's lifting, drifting off of the ground, then remembering to stand afterwards. She closes in to reach for the bag and dig.
"Looks like you were busy," she says on the way in. "You're, like— okay, right? You sound okay, but— like, you always kinda sound okay, soooo…"
*
Who can say when America decided to start staying at the Runaway's Hostel, or why? Well — America can, obviously.
She won't. But she could.
At the end of the day, though, she's insinuated herself fairly naturally into the fabric of the group, save for her tendency to simply disappear for days or weeks or more at a time without providing much if any explanation before or after; one of her charming little quirks. The important thing is, she's helped where she can, and she hasn't tried to rain death or destruction on any of them.
Robot extremities nonwithstanding.
America is idly kicking one of said mechanical limbs aside when chocolate-brown eyes fall upon the practically liquid rainbow that Karolina has become in quiet scrutiny. Her sandwich pinched between her teeth once more, she pulls back the star-spangled hood of her sweater, shaking out thick curls of dark brown as the Majesdanian princess makes her explanations.
She doesn't reply immediately; instead, she passes off the bag to her (relatively) newfound friend and/or roommate.
"Worried about me?" she asks once Karolina has the bag and she can once more retrieve her sandwich. A single brow lifting, America makes her way to the sofa, flopping backwards on it almost bonelessly as she tears off a chunk of her food and chews.
"Don't; I'm fine. Those things didn't even rate Doombot level." Swallowing down her chunk of sandwich, she glances towards where the scanner ended up.
"Well," she begins, very slowly, "… if you were looking for a real kitschy white noise machine, you got it. Otherwise, yeah." A second passes. Those piercing eyes roll back to the prismatic woman curiously.
"How long've you been doing this? Working." 'Working' has its own, very subtle implication, one underscored by how America nods at Karolina's white noise machine police scanner.
*
"Where am I gonna find a roommate who brings sandwiches when she dumps robot litter all over the floor, if you get, I dunno, super-tetanused to death?"
Since Karolina's still dressing like it's her first day in New York - today, it's black denim shorts and a ribbed, cream halter - there's plenty of rainbow to scrutinize. Shining fingers dance through the bag until— there! A yellow pulse ripples through her skin; the bag flies towards the Yorkes' bar, nestled in a rainbow cradle.
"Like, a few months," she answers while unwrapping a bun stuffed with fried, strongly spiced tempeh, "kinda spread out over a bunch more months, three years ago? It was…"
Karolina just grimaces a moment after trailing off. Just shakes her head and goes with not dwelling on the panicked, guilt-induced sins of the past.
"I just figured that — like, maybe it'd be nice to…"
The bright blues of her eyes are only steady pops of color in the alien's evershifting palette, and they widen a touch when she looks up to see piercing brown already fixed upon and pondering her.
"… try again," she continues after a second, "only, like, maybe a little better than last time? Without getting stabbed to death."
Another brief beat.
"Or, like, at all, ideally? But definitely not to death."
*
One hand tucked into the pocket of her sweater, America leans forward in her seat until she can reach out and prod at the sad state of that vintage scanner with the pinky of her sandwich-bearing hand. And despite herself —
Where am I gonna find a roommate who brings //sandwiches when she dumps robot litter all over the floor, if you get, I dunno, super-tetanused to death?//
She snorts, exactly once. Is it from amusement? It's so hard to tell.
"If I ever get super-tetanused to death, you're gonna take it to your grave, or I'm gonna haunt the shit out of you."
So hard to tell. But there just might be a hint of a smile there.
And then she gives that scanner a mild smack. Mild, for her, which means she doesn't obliterate it. More Fonzi-grade.
With that, she leans back, hotpants-clad legs crossing over each other, red-and-white striped sneakered foot dangling nonchalantly off a knee as she watches those ever-present blue eyes with wordless thought. A solid ten seconds of silence passes between what Karolina last says and the parting of America's lips.
"You're gonna get stabbed." And then she takes a bite of her sandwich. How thoughtful! Clearly this is leading somewhere inspirational—
"And then you're gonna be grateful that's not the worst thing that could happen."
Or… or that. It could be that.
Still, she considers Karolina with the cant of her head for a few seconds more, before she nods to herself, as if coming to some internal resolution.
"… Yeah, okay," begins the mysterious young latina, setting her sandwich aside for a moment. "Next time I go out on patrol, you're coming with, Rainbow Brite. Step one is gonna be finding you some shit that actually works."
It's sweet, maybe, as an offer.
It doesn't -sound- like an offer so much as an inevitability coming from America, but.
Sweet.
*
** *KRAK!* **
** *kssh!* **
"… area, please respond, we have a 10-51 and the subject is believed to be posthuman…"
Luminous brows rise, and— America is— looking at her. Like, a lot, even though Karolina isn't actually saying anything—
"… yeah," she slowly murmurs, ten seconds later, "probably, but… I can hope, right?" Not that she looks all that inclined towards it at the moment as her eyes drift down from America's and the corner of her lip's drawn in. She doesn't need anywhere near ten seconds to remember all the things that would be worse than her getting stabbed.
As sweet as America's offer is, it only gets a muted smile thanks to those few seconds of thought. At least it's a smile— a declaration of new responsibilities that will be followed, but only after she meets the mysterious, experienced not-quite-stranger's standards could easily engender trepidation—
"Like a montage."
Karolina's deadpan is nowhere near as developed as America's because Karolina grew up around very earnest, upbeat serial liars who did a great job of teaching her how to be earnest and upbeat so as not to screw with their cover, but.
She tries.
"Okay! Deal— we do a costume montage, and you take me out to show me how to hopefully not get stabbed, and I watch out to make sure you don't, like, step on any quantum nails, because— like, I'd keep the secret, but for all I know, you'd get super bored being dead, and you'd, just, start popping up and being extremely chill on a wavelength that only I can see, and— "
Her smile's a little bigger when she finally takes a breath.
"Thanks," she then says.
*
America really has perfected the art of the staredown. In a lot of ways, for a lot of reasons she's possibly never going to go into, she has a way of looking at someone like she already knows them down to their core despite the fact that they've don't, technically, know each other that well. To say nothing of the intensity behind those dark brown eyes that just seem to be 'America, in her default state.'
All this to say, in the wake of
Like a montage.
and all the madness that follows after, America, for the longest time, just kind of… stares at Karolina with that piercing, utterly neutral stare, from the prospect of costume montages to the horrors of quantum nails and the resulting tangent that just naturally spirals out therein.
She stares that stare that should be a perfected art.
For about three seconds before she breaks into a sudden laugh.
It's a short but sincere thing, and one that has her squeezing those intense brown eyes shut as she wraps arms around her midsectino and shakes her head with the bounce of brown curls. It's amused. Maybe even a little fond. It might be best not to try to read into it too much, though.
But she's at least still smiling by the time she stands back up on the heels of her feet.
"Jesus," she declares. the star tattoos on the insides of her wrist glowing blue. When her eyes open, they're shining with that same white-cerulean hue.
"Eres una gran perdedora, Rainbow Brite."
She doesn't even look behind her at the star portal that sympathetically resonates into the fabric of reality on the pulse of dimensional power around her. She just flashes Karolina a grin.
"It's pretty cute."
And with that, she idly elbows that portal, shattering it into a corner in Manhattan where the sound of sirens are blaring.
"C'mon. Time for part one of the montage, princess." After all — the white noise machine was very clear. "Don't worry — I'll make sure you don't get stabbed too bad. Fucking montage."
She takes one step inside, then pauses, and glances back.
"Bring the sandwich, yeah? I wanna try it."
*