2013.07.10 - Movie Night

Kara has been moved in with Karen for a bit now. The older of the two can afford a penthouse, but tries not to spend TOO much on herself. Starrware Labs is based upon philanthropy. While it might not be a big deal to live in a LITTLE bit of luxury, helping others is the primary reason Karen Starr is into making money. Even so, this apartment is probably much more spacious, much more nicely funished, and has a much better view than wherever the younger of the two blondes was living before. And while super heroics are nice and all, tonight is a night at home for both of them. It's been a hot Saturday, and not having to go anywhere and has left the two to their own devices at home.

Even if it's cooling off now that it's night, the fact remains that Karen is glad a swimming pool is located in this building. Invulnerability makes her immune, yadda yadda, but sometimes muggy weather just plain sucks and you want to soak in some cool water. But not tonight! No, no. Tonight is something special. A night for just the two of them. Two Kryptonians, and two versions of the same person (kind of)! Though there's a clear age difference between them (among other clear differences), there's still something that they both likely enjoy...

"Iiiiiit's movie time!" Karen announces as she strides into the living room with a gigantic bowl of popcorn. She's wearing a long button-up shirt that still doesn't come down further than her thighs, because screw being dressed up when she's at home and it's been lamely-hot all day. Besides, she and Kara are like sisters kind of. Sort of. No reason to be shy around each other! "Did you pick one out yet?" the taller blonde asks as she heads towards the couch. There's a glass coffee table with a stack of DVDs on it, and across from the couch is a huge TV.

What was that about only a LITTLE bit of luxury?

Kara's former apartment, which she's recently managed to get out of the lease of, was in the slums. It was small, had only three rooms, four if you counted a square 'hallway', plumbing that didn't always work, and a good view of a brick wall and an alley. It had sucked, but being an alien refugee didn't pay all that well, surprisingly enough. So the Kryptonian blonde (the one from THIS world) had moved her crap in less than a week after the offer had come, not that she had all that much: some discount furniture bought from a Goodwill and half of which she'd thrown out. Most of her money had been in her closet in the form of clothing.

Seriously, the girl was a shopaholic and kind of bad with money whenever cute outfits were concerned. Especially if they uncovered her bellybutton. Must be a teen thing.

She'd already patrolled the city, twice, took a trip up to the moon and back, just to check out the Watchtower, dropped by the Titans Tower. It was a blast. She'd even managed to make friends with a couple of her team mates! Sometimes superspeed rocked, it was when she was forced to 'slow down' that she came to really appreciate what set her apart from 'normal' people.

The blonde slaps a hand down on a DVD cover and holds it up over her head without bothering to look up from the fashion magazine she was currently browsing. She wiggles a DVD around, picturing Kiera Knightley on the cover in a Victorian dress. "Pride and Prejudice. Gotta watch it for my Film class."

She flips a page, her bare feet up in the air as she lies on her stomach. She was wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt that almost covered her midriff, almost, and a pair of Daisy Dukes that looked like they'd seen better days, frayed around the edges and with a hole in the hip and another on her thigh. She wiggles the DVD case sevral more times until it's taken from her, still not looking up.

"Do you think I'd look good in green?"

Karen plucks the DVD from the teenager's hand and nods her head. "Good priorities. Do you need to write a report too?" She sets the big bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table, and then heads for the DVD player. "Depends on the shade, I'd think. There's at least one shade of green I don't associate with anything good, if you know what I mean." Yeaaah. Kryptonite-green dresses would probably make Karen a bit queasy just looking at them. As she opens up the case, extracts the disc, and bends over to insert it into the player, she takes the time to look over her shoulder at the outfit her younger self is wearing. A small smirk crosses her lips and once she's sure the player is going to straightens up and heads back to the couch with remote in hand from where she grabbed it off the table along the way.

"Looking into green shorts that aren't full of holes or green shorts that are nothing BUT holes?" she teases as she settles down on the couch next to Kara and pokes a finger into the hole on the thigh. "Oh, did you want anything other than popcorn? I have juice, soda, water..." As she holds up the remote and clicks the TV on, getting ready to navigate the menu until she gets to the movie itself, she keeps glancing towards Kara with eyes an identical blue to the other girl's. Karen is still unsure how comfortable Kara is around her -- and around this apartment. After all, they may have had that heart-to-heart, but... There's still things they're going to need to get used to. Like the weird vertigo-like sensation Karen gets when she turns a corner and sees Kara standing there like some kind of time-clone or something. Sure, her hearing would let her know that the other Kryptonian is there, but if she's just waking up or not paying attention, looking up and finding that teenager there...

It's also a bit different living with someone now. Stinky doesn't quite count as far as human company goes. Speaking of which, the hideously orange scraggly cat is presently perched atop the back of the couch on Karen's side like an awful little gargoyle, just glaaaaaring at Kara. Aside from being very tense, he has not actually made any attempts on the teenager's life thus far, which is a good sign. It means maybe he'll accept Kara the way he did Karen.

"No, just have to discuss it in class on Tuesday." The blonde says. "Just have to hope no muggings happen like last time that make me need to spontaneously use the bathroom excuse. People already think I have the weakest surprise-bladder they've ever seen." She finally looks up from her magazine and realizes she's talking to Power Girl's butt as the other woman moves to put the disc in. "And summer classes only last a few weeks, not several months like Fall ones do. I don't want to have to repeat anything, even my art classes."

Then she rolls her eyes and looks back down at her questionable literature. "As long as it's not //glowing//, I don't have a problem with it. I just really like this dress- HEY!" The younger blonde squeals as she tucks her legs under her defensively and moves aside to make room for her interdimensional doppleganger, slap-slap-slapping at the offending hand. She moves from her stomach, to her knees, and finally settles back against the cushions on her butt with her legs tucked up into her chest.

"These happen to be coming back into style, something called 'gently worn'. Apparently it's 'hip' to look like you can't afford new clothes." She defends her outfit with dignity, turning her pert little nose up as her knees fall apart so she can sit Indian-style with the magazine in her lap. "Do you have any soda? I should have picked up some Sprite while I was out, but I got caught up at the Tower and forgot." A beat. "Now pass the popcorn, Chesty."

And then in comes Streaky, possibly the evilest cat in the world. According to Kara, anyway. Unlike Stinky, he didn't even like his owner, and if it weren't for the fact that she were Kryptonian, the Girl of Steel would be showing new claw marks from her daily maulings every time she tried to pick him up. He doesn't join them near the couch, just stops and looks at them blankly, as if telepathically asking what the hell all these people were doing in his apartment uninvited.

At least they weren't having to separate the cats in a brawl again. Yet.

"Ahh, yes. Surprises. One of life's many... ...Things." She doesn't want to sound like a downer, and some surprises can be pleasant, but when it comes to super heroes... Surprises tend to come in two flavors: 'Unpleasant' and 'inconvenient'. Sometimes these two flavors are mixed together and are especially unpalatable. It frequently requires coming up with spur-of-the-moment excuses to get out of the area and get into proper attire. It helps with super speed, of course, but you can't speed past life. Other people will start to wonder what's up. Or else form... Unfortunate opinions of your civilian identity.

Karen shrugs at the explanation of the outfit and just smiles. Yeah, fashions are something that change over time. "I was just teasing. You look good in it." Yes, she has soda, and is starting to get up to retrieve it when she's asked to pass the popcorn and given the name 'Chesty'. Blonde eyebrows go up and then come down at an angle as Karen's smile turns a bit meaner. "Oh-hoh. We're giving out nicknames now are we? Well, if I'm anything to go by, you're going to be Chesty 2.0 eventually. For now I'll just call you 'Tiny'."

Zing!

Streaky comes into the living room just as Karen is getting up. She picks up the bowl of popcorn, hands it off to her younger self and gives Streaky a look, like, 'Don't cause trouble.' Sadly, the taller of the blondes does not have telepathy or animal-talk-pathy, so the message will likely be ignored if it's even received. "Be right back with the soda, Tiny. Feel free to get started. It'll take a bit to get through the advertisements and previews anyway." Then she's headed for the kitchen!

"Hey! I'm not..." The younger Kryptonian pulls on the collar of her shirt and looks down inside of it with a bemused frown. "Shut up, I'm still growing." She snaps as she releases the elastic collar with the audible, if soft, sound of the material shooting back down to its unstretched size. "Am I really going to have to put up with that? I kind of like the way I am now! I'd hate to have to deal with all that... baggage. Doesn't it get in the way of punching?"

When Karen walks by, Streaky's receiver does not seem to have gotten the message. Instead, he rears up and takes a few swipes at the blonde's uncovered legs. All he really does is kind of sharpen his claws against the steel-hard skin with an angry 'MROWWWWWR!'

Meanwhile, Kara takes the bowl of popcorn and proceeds to take a double-fist out of it with her small hands, stuffing as much as possible into her mouth. "Cawn wee buff kip et?" She speaks around a mouthful of the popped kernels as she picks up the remote, pressing the 'Next' button to get right past all those boring ol' previews and such. They weren't like theatre previews, which told you what was coming out. These were DVD previews, which only told one what was coming to DVD and Blu-Ray soon.

Settling herself in, the younger of the two does her best to ignore the cats and balance her newly-acquired bowl on her flat stomach, stretching out her legs and turning sideways to take up as much of the couch as possible while leaving a spot near her feet juuuuuust big enough for Power Girl's butt to go. A little less than half a couch cushion, really.

Karen comes back with a couple cans of soda, since Kara hadn't said what kind she wanted. The taller blonde is starting to explain that she isn't sure if they'll necessarily have the same build if there are dimensional variations of some kind, but she's no space-time-ologist so she can't really be sure. But around the end of that explanation she finds the couch is suddenly almost entirely occupied. She could complain, she could try to tickle Supergirl over to her side of the couch... Instead, Karen goes for the straight-forward approach that she is so well-known for.

She arches an eyebrow, tosses one of the sodas to Kara, with the call, "Catch." Then she leans forward, hooks a few fingers under the bottom of the couch, and lifts it to try to dump the teenager onto the other far side of the couch. If successful, she puts the couch back down and seats herself nonchalantly, cracking open her own soda in the process.

The younger blonde looks up in time to stop a soda from hitting her right in the FACE. Not that it would have done much other than dent the can, but still. No one likes to be hit in the FACE with things that aren't already attached to their heads. She starts to pop the tab, with an audible hiss as the gas trapped inside begins to escape, and lift the can to her lips. That's when the entire world tilts as the couch is half-picked up.

Kara Zor-El goes hiney-over-hind-parts as her legs tumble from the end they were on to suddenly having her feet near her face as she folds almost in half from the unexpected change in central gravity. She lets out a surprised, gurgling sputter, as it's hard to squeal in shock when one's face is suddenly getting sprayed with soda. "HeeeeEEEEEEY!"

She tumbles to the floor in sugary, sticky disgrace, regaining her feet and stumbling a bit backwards and to the side, holding onto the arm of the couch for balance as she wipes wet hair out of her face and plucks at her now-sticky shirt, glaring at Power Girl. Oh, if looks could kill. After a moment of that, she lunges for Power Girl's soda without a word. Provided she grabs it, it'll receive a super-shake, before she pops the tab and aims the spray right at her arch-rival!

And, after a thoughtful moment, she'll probably aim some for the cats, too.

Well, that was a bit more than she had been planning on. She just wanted to dump Kara over to the other end! She actually winces a bit at the choking-on-soda and the mess that has been made as a result, but she's already seated. Stinky leapt down from the couch with a completely furious yowl, his aura of menace and hatred going up several notches as he descends to the floor and navigates to some shelter from which he may plot his vicious reprisal.

"Do you need a towel?" Karen asks, perhaps a bit more faux-innocence-and-attempting-not-to-laugh than she had intended. But! But then! But then but then but then! Supergirl gets up and lunges! 'Power Girl' may not be in-uniform, but she has not lost any of her fighting skill or powers. Further she's plenty experienced enough that her trained response is to defend herself! So she raises an arm to try to block what she is sure is a rain of Kryptonian super-strength-powered blows, only to have her soda snatched from her hand, shaken up while she's still surprised, and then sprayed all over her face, hair, and body with the carbonated beverage! "Hey wha--pfff pfff pfff! Hey stop!" She is indeed soaked, half-blinded by a sugary drink in her eyes and her own hair hanging in her face, and she reaches out to grab at the soda to prevent any more messes from being made of her high-class apartment.

"Okay, that's enough of that!" she announces as she tries to grab Kara by whatever is closest and most convenient to grab and drag her younger self off to the bathroom. "Shower time. I'll clean up the other mess later. I'm not going to watch a movie while I'm wet and sticky, and neither are you." Seems that as much as super heroes have a tendency to mess up the city while out doing super heroics, they are a bit more careful about messing up their own homes. What a lame double-standard!

"HA!" Looking a little less murderous now, Supergirl grins through the sopping strands of soda-stringy hair at the now-equally sopping Karen Starr with a smugly superior expression. She tosses the soda can over her shoulder, because hey, she's not a clean freak at ALL. Plus there's already soda all over the carpet and couch anyway. A can won't hurt it any. "Had enough all rea- HEY!"

And then she's yanked off-balance by the taller blonde grabbing her forearm in an iron crush of doom and dragging her towards the bathrooms! "Hey, what is this, prison!? I can watch a movie any way I want, wet or not!" She protests, trying to pry the fingers off her arm.

But that's the problem of dealing with people who were just as strong as you were: they were just as freaking strong as you were! Protesting, ignoring scratches from the cats as she's drug past, trying to point out that the movie was already starting were all to no avail. So much for girls night in! As long as she didn't get billed for the upholstery cleaning of the couch...