capeandcowllogs | LIKE WARREN, KITTY CANNOT HAVE NICE THINGS :[

They'd started the drive once the two of them had gotten off of work, and the hotel room was a bit of a dissappointing sight after an exspectant journey. The pictures on the hotel's website hadn't been really recent, apparently.

Kitty was still smiling, though, and really they were going to spend the days out, so it was perfectly tolerable. When she went to take a shower, he did a once-around in the room and decided that he'd be fine for dinner if he just changed out of his wrinkled button-up shirt. (His tie had been abandoned in the car, already.)

The scream scared him, a lot, and it was very loud. He was only a few feet away from the door, and moved automatically, yanking the door open and maybe looking a little wild-eyed. There was nothing in the bathroom, like he'd instantly half-expected. "Jesus! Are you okay?"

Kitty was all but glaring at the shower head which looked fancy enough but brown, rusty water was coming out of it. In her panicked state she had phased-- but just a little, luckily-- through the bathtub and once out of it, became solid again. She was wet, naked, and displeased. But this was vacation and she had to be thankful!

"I'm f-fine," Wow, it was cold in the bathroom. Oh, it was because the window wouldn't shut all the way. Cool. "I think the pipes are just a little old, so..."

She rang out her hair over the bathtub. Maybe the water in the sink was better. She would just finish washing that way.

Gar only glanced quickly to the shower-head before his gaze returned, pretty impulsively, to Kitty. He managed to look plenty concerned for a moment, tutting at the nerve of those old pipes, but his expression soon drew closer to delight, or at least amusement. "That's terrible."

"Your concern for me is overwhelming," she threw a nearby hand towel at his face half halfheartedly. The water was starting to run a little clearer now, thank any deity that was listening, so maybe this was a sign that their trip was improving. The rain even looked like it was letting up outside!

Okay, this was good.

Right? Right.

He, of course, wasn't paying enough precise attention to avoid getting towelled in the face. He fumbled a little and caught it, though, and laughed with a hint of embarrassment. "Sorry. I just... Yeah."

He stepped forward, tossing the hand towel onto the counter around the sink. "It doesn't look that bad," he observed, now that he'd been called on not properly observing before. "Smells a little, but it won't kill ya." At that, he gave her a cheeky smile and reached up to pinch her cheek. "Maybe don't scream any more. We're going to leave a bad impression on our neighbors."

"Let me finish my shower in peace," she swatted him away. "I really doubt anyone in this place is going to pay attention to a little screaming." Someone was probably getting shanked next door, anyway.

Kitty didn't really want to smell like rust and whatever else was in these pipes, especially when the person she was with had an extremely sensitive nose.

"Fine, fine, fine," he pursed his lips and tutted as he was shooed out of the bathroom again. "If the cops show up, though, it's totally your fault."

Back in the main portion of the room, he was free to change clothes uninterrupted. Afterward, he sat on the corner of the bed and waited, finally falling back and closing his eyes. Drives wore him out, sometimes, even short ones and especially, he figured, when they took place right after his getting off from work.

The shower ended with relative peace and she was unscathed. Clean, finally, and not rusty, Kitty threw a towel on her body and another one to dry her hair. Looking around the bathroom, everything else seemed to be in working order. Thank God. She hoped there would be so more mishaps.

"Shower's okay," she announced grandly, as if she had fixed it, and noticed Gar lying down. Maybe he needed a nap. That was fine... as long as the bed didn't explode.

"Mm," Gar started, halfway into a lull already. He moved after a moment, shifting up onto his elbows and blinking his eyes open again. "Good to know." Sitting up fully, he raked a hand through his hair in an attempt to fix what wasn't mussed. "Wouldn't be any good to get out of the City to run into a million more troubles, would it?"

She sat down next to him, carefully so that her towel didn't open, still wiping her hair. It was going to take forever to dry, as per usual. "If you want to get some sleep, I don't mind."

The bed was a little creaky-- they both weren't heavy by any means but Kitty wondered if it was going to hold out through the weekend. But she just continued to beam at him because this was her birthday weekend and they were together, so it was fine.

"I just changed into my dinner clothes. They'll get wrinkly if I sleep in 'em." He reached over to hook fingers around the back of her neck, tugging her over to kiss her quickly. She smelled, thankfully, like soap and water. Crisis averted.

"When did you start to care about your clothes getting wrinkled?" she laughed, though it was muffled seconds later by the kiss. This wasn't too bad of a way to get distracted. And at least she didn't smell like gross-- because he would have probably recoiled if that were the case.

"I'm trying to go somewhere snazzy," he remarked, hand moving to her shoulder, and he smirked and kissed her again. "I gotta look nice for my lady, right?"

"You really don't look that eager to move right now," Kitty said wryly, though she wasn't moving so fast herself. She could definitely think of worse ways to be spending her time.

And how snazzy were they talking here? Maybe she should get a job at Tony's company, too... It probably paid more than Bruce did.

"I could go either way," Gar said casually, but he sank backwards again anyway, propped on his elbows. "It all depends on the decisions of the Birthday Babe. I'm pretty persuadable."

Dinner at one of the nicer restaurants that Selina had pointed out could always wait for tomorrow, after all, if Kitty was going to sit around in a towel and let him get all affectionate on her.

She rolled her eyes and all but loomed over him, still holding her towel closed. "Really? I didn't know you were so easily swayed."

Yeah, she knew it. And took advantage of it all the time.

Kitty leaned down to kiss him again, hearing the bed creak noisily. She tried to ignore it. Maybe the bed was sturdier than it looked?

Gar didn't have a whole lot of issues ignoring the noisy springs, even given his degree of hearing. "You obviously weren't paying attention, then." This was said in jest, of course, because he was well aware of the fact that she'd used the fact to her advantage once or twice. He couldn't say that he minded all that much.

He squirmed a little, sitting up for a moment to set a hand to one of her legs, hooking behind one knee in an attempt to get her over him. It all wasn't very subtle, and he caught her mouth with his again and tried to bring her with him as he slipped onto his back again.

She landed on top of him gracelessly and the bed creaked at her angrily. But still, it held up. Although Kitty wanted to concentrate on kissing him, she couldn't help but get the feeling something was going to go awry. This bed was not steady at all.

"Um," she said between kisses, "do you think that maybe this bed isn't steady enough for this?"

He shrugged, not really know a lot about beds. He did, however, have a few assumptions about hotels. "It's a bed at a big-time vacation-spot. A two-person-sized bed. I'm pretty sure, if it was all wrong for a little nookie, they would've figured that out by now."

He tried to sound a little more reassuring, then, hand creeping up to grasp at one of her thighs. "The mattress is just old."

Kitty was about to make a quip about the term nookie and how 90's is was but decided against it. She supposed she had little ground to stand on when her clothes were so outdated that her future self had to steal them and buy her new ones. Which, by the way, she was still angry around.

Although this wasn't the first time they were in this situation, it was still exciting/awkward/made her ridiculously nervous. It always hit her when she least expected it, just how much she actually cared about him. It wasn't the puppylove "against all odds!" feelings like she had for Peter or the rebellious "you all better take me seriously" feelings she THOUGHT she had for Pete Wisdom but something completely different. It was more... comfortable. But at the same time, it made her nervous to wreck the calm the had by maybe dropping the "l" word. When was the right time to say it? Was nine months into a relationship too soon? Or had she dropped the ball and not said it soon enough?

She moved to sit back a bit, his hand still on her thigh, so he could get undressed, looking thoughtful. The bed didn't particularly like the shift and groaned loudly but was still holding together somehow.

Gar just winced a little at the noise, but practically giggled as he moved to sit up half-way, reaching down to undo his belt. He took a deep breath while he got a couple of his shirt's buttons open, and then paused in that to kiss her again, deeper than casually and a little clumsily. He was getting steadily more confident about this kind of thing, to the point where he could initiate it without having to sneak around asking and his thinking about various intimate situations wasn't totally creepy. They were, after all, largely feasible.

Case in point: right now. He grinned a little cheekily and he got his shirt off, and didn't seem nearly as worried about it wrinkling as he was a few minutes ago, tossing it onto the nearby table. When he needed to move to get his slacks off, he was still smiling a little slyly, and he accomplished his goal by catching Kitty and unceremoniously switching places with her in one move, dumping her from his lap and onto the mattress.

The noise, again, was fairly terrible, a creak that might have bordered on a scraping sound. He paused, looking wary for a moment until it passed and then, after a moment of silence, he let out another snort of laughter. It struck him as more ridiculous than dangerous. Plus, he had other preoccupations, at the moment. Shrugging, he rubbed the back of his neck and looked back down to her, a little shyly, before cracking another smile. "Sorry. Where was I?"

His shyness, despite his confident demeanor, was adorable and it made her heart pound nervously. She really did care deeply about him. She should tell him that. He deserved to know, even if he didn't feel quite as strongly.

No sooner had the words left Gar's mouth then tragedy struck. The frame of the bed, shaky and wooden to begin with, snapped with a loud cracking noise. The mattress fell to the ground a good six inches and enveloped them in a cloud of dust and what smelled like cigarette smoke. Kitty had yelped and out of habit, had phased but unphased too quickly and ended up coughing when she inhaled the dust.

"I KNEW this was going to happen!"

Kitty sneezed and tried to scramble off of the mattress, now right on the floor, trying to keep her towel in tact.

Oh, wow.

The sound of the bed-frame breaking had prompted him to step forward, maybe in an attempt to pull her up before it fell in. It happened too quickly, though, and he jumped back with a startled expression that soon sank into outright disbelief.

"Shit!" He cursed, trying to wave the dust out of his face. It was largely unsuccessful, and he fell into a short sneezing fit. "Are you--" Sneeze. "Christ. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she assured him, standing her hands on her hips still in her towel. She was getting THAT look-- the one where she looked indignant and someone was making her displeased. "I am going to talk to SOMEONE here about getting us a room with a working bed!"

The nerve!

Someone was totally getting yelled at.

Really, he wasn't going to argue her being indignant. This was just ridiculous. This might have been one of the more ridiculous things to happen to him, if he wasn't regularly involved in world-saving and changing into animals and... Well, stuff like that. It was all pretty ridiculous.

He nodded in agreement and, after a moment, lifted his eyebrows and attempted to lighten the mood by adding, "You might wanna get dressed first, babe." And then, after a slightly awkward and related realization, he reached down to re-fasten his pants.

"Oh. Right."

She changed into a casual skirt and blouse-- not his t-shirt, thanks-- but still donned her sparkly sneakers. What? They were comfortable. Kitty shook her head at the bed, laughing every so often. Really, what was their luck? She knew that bed wasn't going to hold. And she felt a little sorry for Gar-- his, uh, disappointment would be more obvious than hers.

"Let's go get a snack before we go, though. I don't like to manipulate on an empty stomach."

Gar had assumed their finer dining was to be pushed back to tomorrow night, maybe, and changed into more casual wear, jeans and a t-shirt. He might have raised an eyebrow are her sequin-covered sneakers, but didn't say anything about them. He thought they were kind of cute, really, but... It was Kitty, and he was pretty much completely done in, by this point.

"I like snacks," he commented optimistically, still embarrassed among other things. "I can definitely go for one."

She tugged his wrist and pulled him out of the room, glad to get out into the air. It wasn't raining anymore, thankfully, but even so it was humid and her hair was doing that whole frizzy thing that it loved to do. Sigh.

"I hope you like ices," she said cheerfully. "Because there's a really good place here!"

Kitty was determined to make this trip a good one.

He was able to perk up a little more readily at the thought of an actual treat. Never mind that the weather had been lousy. Ice and flavoring made life a little better. "Lead the way," he said smoothly, even though she kind of already was leading the way.

He was most certainly going to let her do pretty much whatever she wanted, birthday weekend and all. It was part present, part possibly-morbid matter of trust.

She led him into a very small shop, ordering pink lemonade ices for herself. "All the flavors are natural and good, you have my word," Kitty said, faux-solemnly. "I stake my honor and reputation on it."

After a few moments, while the girl behind the counter was busy, she whispered: "Are you mad about the bed thing?"

He laughed at the somewhat solemn vow and opted for cherry after looking quickly at their options. It was a simple, classic thing, cherry, the kind of thing that couldn't really go wrong.

The question caught him off, a little, just because he'd already considered the matter done with. Or... It would be done with, once Kitty had words with their hotel's manager. He shrugged and answered, "I'm mad at the bed. That was messed up."

They got their ices and sat down at a small table, their knees touching underneath. The air conditioner was making her damp skin cold but it felt nice. There was no one there except them. Although it was great to have fun and be loud with Gar, quiet moments like these were also nice. It gave her time to think and just appreciate being together.

There was a small, broken green crayon a few inches away from her hand, probably from a child that was there before. She picked it up and started writing on a napkin, the words that she wanted to say but somehow, at this moment, being quiet seemed more appropriate.

She folded the napkin and slid it over to Gar, as if she were passing him a note in class.

Sitting down, he dug in right away and, maybe a little loudly for the small and empty room, admitting that it was a good choice. There wasn't time for that idle conversation, though, because he'd realized her looking down at the table. At first, he thought it might be a bad sign, that she wasn't looking at him because he'd just said something wrong or done something wrong back at the room. She was writing, though, and he was about to ask her what she was doing before it was too late and she'd slipped the napkin over to him.

He picked it up and opened it. The words were written to be rather small, but that didn't affect their impact. He probably looked at it longer than necessary, re-reading a couple of times, spacing out, and re-reading some more. He took a deep breath in, out. Wow. Just... He mouth worked for a moment, after what was probably a ridiculous pause, but he couldn't get anything out or even think of what he might be trying to say.

Finally, blinking more than what was normally necessary, he swallowed and held open his hand to her. "Hey," he said, and it sounded really loud to him and came out a little difficult, hoarse. "Let me borrow your crayon."

Green crayon, no less.

The pause was incredibly long to her. She was preparing to laugh it off as a joke if he looked too uncomfortable but Kitty couldn't bring herself to say anything when he looked down at the three small words that seemed to have such a huge impact. Her heart was beating right in her throat; she probably couldn't get words out at all right that moment.

Wordlessly, she handed him the crayon, her hand shaking a little.

He wasn't a jerk. He wouldn't just write No or something and hand it back to her. Still. This felt like waiting for test results.

Like cancer test results.

He took the crayon carefully and, with little more hesitation on the matter... Well, maybe while attempting to coach himself through it. He'd never gotten such a clear declaration before, but it honestly moved him. Something in him knew, with his luck, especially, this should scare the piss out of him. As long as he remembered to breath, though, he was fine.

Maybe he just hadn't figure that she could feel that much for him, or he'd assumed it was stupid to feel too much in a place like this, where one could get transported away at any minute. Still, when they'd both been swapped for other selves... Well, his fate was questionable, and hers was hopefully going to work out for the better, just not with him. Anyway! They had said that the moment was important, hadn't they? And if he could keep good terms up, maybe there wasn't a lot to be afraid of!

Not that he really felt afraid, now. It was just that he felt like he should, via common sense. Still, it wasn't very difficult to return the note, to quote her words in his bigger, simple writing and add ', too' to the end. Period, stupid-looking smiley face. In fact, he felt almost relieved once it was there.

He let out another deep breath, folded the napkin again, and passed it back. He felt a lot at once, then, like maybe laughing or crying... Not sure which, but he figured it was an alright sign. If it provoked feeling, it must have meant he meant it.

This was one of the few and extremely rare times that Kitty was actually blushing. The bashfulness only lasted maybe... three seconds before she grabbed him over the table to kiss him. The girl behind the counter was trying hard not to stare at them but, well, they were probably making something of a scene. But Kitty didn't really care. She felt incredibly touched, though she hoped that he didn't write it back just for the sake of not being weird. Gar wasn't really that type, though. He wasn't any good at lying.

She was proud of herself for taking it slowly, this time. The mistake of wanting to grow up too fast was a phase that she had already gone through and this had felt more... natural. Better paced. Comfortable. Not that they didn't have exciting times together but she wasn't with him to prove anything to anyone.

Even if this trip turned out to be somewhat of a disaster, it was worth it for this moment.

Really, after that passing moment of stillness, after she grabbed and kissed him, the whole thing felt really somehow normal. Like, maybe it was just a matter of getting it out there, and they wouldn't miss a beat. He hummed a laugh, mid-smooch, and sunk back into his chair with a dumb smile. "Thanks," he got out, which might have been for the enthusiastic display of affection or for the message written on the napkin, or both.

His face felt warm, and he didn't know how visible his blushing might be. He took a bite of his ice a little distractedly, but still smiling.

His goofy expression was even more endearing to her. He was so brutally honest-- his facial expressions said everything, even when he failed with words. Every stupid thing he did made her smile. Kitty felt stupidly smitten herself, to be honest. They probably looked like silly little teenagers, eying each other from across the table a little awkwardly. Was it a cop out not to say it out loud? Would that have been better?

"I have to be honest. My heart feels like it's going to explode," she said sheepishly. "I actually wondered for a few seconds there if you could hear it."

He didn't worry much about not saying it out loud. Not yet, anyway. At this moment, it felt like some kind of secret between the two of them, which only served to endear the fact to him. It wasn't for show or to prove anything to anybody else, and it hadn't been a ploy to catch him in front of other people with strong words like that. It was... Nice. He actually felt kind of safe in it, which was something he wasn't sure he'd be allowed again.

At her statement, he managed a bashful smile, looking away and, again, wondering how harshly he might be blushing. He felt hot, comfortably warmed from the pit of his suddenly butterfly-laden gut. "Nah. I didn't hear anything. Except, you know, the pulse in my ears."

"You're blushing."

Which was actually hilarious, considering he was green. But she could still tell it was blushing all the same.

"You're adorable."

Kitty was grinning widely at his discomfort.

"You're laughing at my embarrassment," he stated, tone mildly accusing. He kept smiling though, taking in deep breaths through his nose and hoping that the blush would go down. "I'm just... Flustered, I guess. A little. That's all."

LIKE WARREN, KITTY CANNOT HAVE NICE THINGS :[

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