capeandcowllogs | settling in

Entry tags:

settling in

WHO: Charlie & Babs
WHERE: the control tower and the mall
WHEN: today!
WARNINGS: none
SUMMARY: Now that Charlie's here, she's going to live with Babs, so this is them getting settled and going shopping.
FORMAT: para!

The main room of the control tower bore more resemblance to how the clocktower had once been than the place in Platinum Flats or the preceding apartment in Metropolis. Computers lined the walls, every available space loaded with touch screens, large screens, glowing keyboards, and all sorts of technology. One wall was completely taken up by a gigantic flatscreen that showed a view of the city outside the wall, as if there were no wall. Large and spacious, the room would easily be maneuvered by a wheelchair. Hallways on each side of the room led to bedrooms, a fully wheelchair accessible bathroom, a workout room, and a kitchen.

"I pretty much live here," Barbara confessed to Charlie, wheeling her way past several computer screens with only a glance at each. "But I do have to spend a little time at the other house, now and then, because I work for the police. So choose a bedroom — but not Cassandra's, please, in case she comes back — and then we can work on shopping."

She smiled a little sardonically. Shopping for Babs wasn't quite normal shopping, but she meant it in a fairly girly way, this time.

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Charlie was 'out of costume' now, although honestly that just meant she had taken her cape and mask off. The rest of her uniform was pretty much just normal clothing, a t-shirt, a jeans skirt, black leggings, and sneakers. It was simple, but it worked well enough.

"I wouldn't steal Cassandra's bedroom," she said, slightly huffy, although perhaps it was a valid fear. She'd tried to steal the others Batgirl title, after all. Although that had been more...cribbing than anything else, maybe? "Shopping, huh? Awesome, I'll be right back!" She knew it was a necessary thing...after all, she only had the clothes on her back. Man, she was gonna need a new Batgirl poster...

And then she bounced off down one of the hallways, peering into each bedroom until she decided which one was hers and then reappearing back next to Babs. "The second one over there isn't Cassandra's, right?" She pointed down the hall. "I want that one."

Poor Charlie's Batgirl poster was going to have to be handmade. Maybe Babs would photoshop one up for her.

Barbara watched her with visible fond amusement, resting one elbow on the armrest of her chair and her chin in her hand. "Then it's yours," she agreed easily. "Did you want to go shopping right away, or would you like a City tour? Red Robin would probably appreciate a chance to add you to the Titan's security system before you bounce in. By the way, we have three Robins here. But Batman may have been ported out again."

Mentally, she began listing things Charlie would need besides clothes. Her own computer system, of course, one personally outfitted for her. Toiletries. And probably it would be worth it to make her get her driver's license, because there could be times when she needed to transport other people around.

Charlie couldn't help but grin at the mention of a Titan security system. She could bypass whatever security the tower had, but she tended to set off the internet intruder alarms afterwards. That had been a pretty entertaining way to let the Teen Titans know she was visiting the last time she had.

"Shopping?" She finally took a stab at what seemed like a valid option. Frankly, she wanted to spend some time with Babs, and a tour of the city would probably just result in her bouncing places on her own with the Oracle chirping away in her ear. "I really need more clothing, Babs. And shampoo. And pajamas." She paused, her head tilted slightly to the side as she thought about it, and then she grinned. "And a cat, while I'm wishing for things."

"A wardrobe it is." But she made a playfully pained noise at the mention of a cat. "Oh, no, Charlie, can you imagine the havoc it would wreak by walking across one of my keyboards?"

As she spoke, she wheeled toward the elevator. The car waiting in the garage was made for her, of course, and she started them off toward one of the local malls. That would hopefully have everything they needed, including computer parts for building Charlie her system.

"A goldfish? A hamster? I hear rats make good pets... I keep imagining a cat transferring the national funds of Bolivia to Sandusky, Ohio, or something."

"Well, I could keep it in my room?" She really wasn't expecting this to succeed either way, honestly. And she suspected she wouldn't remember to take care of a cat...her mother had always fed her dog, after all. Still, cats could sort of...fend for themselves, right? Although the keyboard thing was an issue. "When I played with your computer, it just locked me out and got angry. What could a cat do?"

She followed along absently, looking around as she went to keep track of what was wear in the building, and then plopped into the car and tapped her fingers againts her knees. She was a fidgetter, alright.

"If stuff is in a cage or a bowl I kinda...uh...forget about them. I never managed to keep fish more than like, two weeks..."

City traffic was, as might be expected, analogous to New York traffic, but Babs remained patient, appreciating the time with Charlie anyway.

"Hmm, me too." She commiserated on the pets issue. It was probably easy to imagine a poor rodent starving to death while Babs was completely caught up in computer stuff. "I can barely keep a plant alive..."

That wasn't entirely true, but only because she set up automatic notifications on her system to remind her to water them. "I did have Charlie for a while, and I never forgot him because he sang. But you'd like something you could pet, right?"

Charlie didn't really like car rides. There was entirely too much sitting still involved, honestly, and even if she had enough room in a back seat to bounce around it was still so...confining. She'd much rather just pop on ahead and meet someone wherever they were going. Still, she managed to sit still...mostly by sitting on her hands.

"I never had a plant. But yeah, something I can pet would be awesome! But not a dog." There was a very strong certainty in her voice about that. Charlie would never own another dog as long as she lived, she knew it in her very soul. Hence the change of attitude toward cats, in fact.

"We could name the cat Zinda. She'd get a real kick out of it when - " Charlie paused suddenly, frowning, and then stared at the older woman. "...You had a singing plant?"

Though she laughed, she recognized Charlie's feelings on owning a dog as a serious note from her past. It was just as well; a dog would need more attention than she could give, even if it were well-trained.

"Charlie was a canary," Barbara said with fond exasperation, "and we could not name it Zinda, it would be the most ill-behaved cat in feline history."

It might be nice to have something curled up on one's lap while typing away, she admitted privately. Pulling into the parking garage, she found a spot on the third floor and began the slightly complicated process of extracting herself from the car and into a wheelchair. It was something she was practiced at, however, and she didn't need or expect any help from Charlie.

"I suppose if you promised to take care of the litter box and food..."

"Oh, okay. Not a plant," well, that was immediately a lot less interesting. "And it might not be that badly behaved. Maybe it'll turn into a flying cat or something?" Okay, so she was kind of reaching now.

Charlie hopped out of the car and waited for Babs, hovering close enough nearby that if something did go wrong, she could help, but it was something she'd done before. It just meant she cared, she hoped.

"The litter box and food," she echoed this quietly, and then offered that big, winning-if-slightly-uncertain smile of hers. "I could promise to try and do those things..."

Babs made a huff of amusement, settling into her chair and then maneuvering out and toward the mall entrance. "I'll program reminders into your computer. Not that you're as attached to it as I am, but it does help. We can visit a shelter tomorrow, after you're back from school."

Ah, the dreaded 's' word, slipped casually into conversation. Tomorrow.

"Alright," Charlie wasn't the addict-to-her-computer sort, but like most teenagers, if she had one, it was on and connected and her friends could ping her and such. Not that she had many of those, but still. "I'll really try, promise." She added...and then wilted visibly at the follow up comment.

"Yeah, I was thinking about that. The whole, you know, 'school' thing...wouldn't it be better if I just, I don't know, learned from you? I could like...silently observe..." Yeah, because Charlie was just so very good at sitting quietly watching something.

Babs sighed a little as they moved past a group of teenagers playing hooky. She knew about Charlie's little tussle back in Platinum Flats, and with a superhero moniker like 'Misfit' it was understandable that she might not find it easy to get along with people.

"You know it wouldn't be," she chided lightly. "But like I said, the Institute isn't your normal kind of school. Everyone there has super powers and you can take all sorts of classes. I understand the mutant students are pretty much all used to not fitting in. Some of them don't look human, like the girl with pixie wings, or the guy who's made of rock. I think you'll like it. Is this your style?"

The question pertained to a store they'd come across, a slightly alternative-looking brand with lots of band t-shirts.

Charlie didn't want to go, but she also didn't want to disappoint Barbara. The woman, along with Helena and Zinda, was the closest thing she had to family anymore, and that made what she thought important. So after a few moments, the teen sighed. "Fine. I'll give it a try, at least." She didn't really mean that...if babs wanted her to go to school, she'd go, regardless of the 'try' part. But she couldn't just outright admit that!

Luckily the clothing distraction came along, and she nodded her head. "Sure." Most of her clothing was more the Good Will/thrift store/rag bin type of thing, a habit she'd gotten into after her apartment burned down but before Babs had taken her in. Still, finding real clothes would be a habit she was more than willing to pick up.

"You're paying, right?" She asked, half-joking as she started into the store.

"Good." It would be good for Charlie to have some semblance of normality, even if the Institute wasn't a normal school, but Babs saw it as a compromise. The students and teachers might be unusual in comparison to the rest of society, but the school atmosphere would still be beneficial. And, of course, learning and making friends was always a good thing.

"Go wild, this once," she answered, smiling slightly. "It's not every day you get to pick out a whole new wardrobe, right?"

All in all, she figured, being sucked into an alternate universe was a decent reason to be kind. Charlie adapted quickly, but she'd probably feel some whiplash sooner or later.

Charlie was doing her best not to dwell on some of the details of all this just yet. The fact that Helena and Zinda and Dinah and...everybody...except her and Oracle weren't here was very disorienting, but she knew that if she really sat down and thought about it she'd be useless for a while. And she should at least have settled in a bit before that happened.

She wandered through the store, picking out shirts and jeans and jeans skirts and leggings and such, all mostly in blues and blacks with the occasional bit of green or yellow. And she made Barbara hold stuff, of course...she did have a mobile lap!

"Oh, so," while she was looking at a rack of shirts, she glanced over at Babs, doing one of those 'casual conversation changes' that usually meant you were trying to get away with something. "A couple people suggested I might be able to bounce all the way to the moon. You think you could get me one of those astronaut space suit things?"

She managed to say this without looking away from the shirt and with a straight face. Go her.

She groaned in a way that suggested she was not entirely taken in, shifting around an armful of clothing. "Don't even joke. Though I do wonder what your limits are, since other continents are obviously no problem. —Actually, you can help me with something."

Absent-mindedly folding all of Charlie's clothes so they would form a manageable pile in her lap, Babs continued, "I don't know if anyone told you, but people who come here without powers get them. So now I have some. Teleportation powers, but not like yours. I can only move other people and objects. It's been interesting."

"Oh come on, it's not that bad an idea. It's only like...200 thousand miles or something. And I'd have a space suit! Plus like, if it worked I could make a fortune teleporting stuff to the moon for nasa or something." Okay, it was a terrible plan, but when were charlie's plans not terrible?

Still she let the topic change, and she nearly dropped the shirt she was looking at as Babs revealed she wasn't a mere mortal anymore. "That's awesome! What can I do to help? I totally want to."

Because of the way her brain worked, Babs had already begun to consider Charlie's proposal in detail, but she decided not to mention that she could probably have one of the Green Lanterns (most likely Kyle) floating around in space to make sure Charlie would be okay. Really, though, it was asking for trouble, so she just went with the new topic.

"I want to experiment with how far I can send things, so I'm thinking of sending you around with a camera. Maybe see what happens if I try to teleport you. All kinds of things." Babs grinned a little. "And we could work on your powers at the same time. I've always been interested in the magical aspect..."

Mentioning that wasn't entirely innocent, but she also didn't want to stress Charlie out by referencing anything to do with Black Alice. Still, this was one area that would not get better by ignoring it.

"Well, okay! You could send like, a chair somewhere. And then I could be there too, and take a picture, and then bring the chair back?" It seemed like what Babs was aiming for, anyway. "You mean you can teleport people?" She suddenly realized, frowning faintly. She wasn't jealous, not at all! Still...it would've been nice...

Okay, focus on something else. "Other than stupid mcgothybitch stealing my powers, I've never felt magical at all, you know." She still had trouble believing it was magic, really. She knew it had to be, since that's what Black Alice did. But still. "What would you want to test?"

"That too. But have you ever thought about how you decide where to go?" She rested her hands on top of the pile of clothing Charlie had picked out. "You bounced to me even though you didn't know where I was, and you'd never met me. You can bounce to places you've never been, seen, or even have any idea where they are. I can't do that. It seems like I need to be able to see where I'm teleporting someone, or have been there myself. So maybe if you take a video camera somewhere I haven't been, I'll be able to teleport something there."

Pausing until some people had passed them by, because their conversation wasn't really good for public consumption, Babs continued, "And on your side, you may not feel magical, but I've noticed you tend to heal up after you bounce somewhere. Does that seem right to you?"

"Uhm," honestly, Misfit didn't really worry about 'how' she got where she wanted to be. Ignoring the fact that she always got there regardless, a little voice pointed out that thinking about it too much might make it not work. "I don't know?" She finally offered with a little smile. "I mean, I just...I want to be where you are and then I am." She shrugged. "It doesn't work like that for you? I mean, we can totally do the video camera thing, sure, but..." Sometimes Charlie worried she really was a bit strange. Her teleporting, however it worked, was a lot more powerful than anyone else she had heard about. And that wasn't normal...

Okay, distraction again. "Yeah, I heal up. That's how I fixed that gunshot. Or when you snapped my ankle." Here, have a little half-glare, but she's easily distracted away. "It's always worked like that, even little stuff like cuts and bruises fixes itself..."

As if attune to that little inner voice of Misfit's — well, it'd been something she also thought of when she broached the subject — Babs said, "It's not important, just something I noticed. But great, we can work on that some time... do you want to try another store? You need some other shoes, maybe."

She'd never been crazy about shoes the way some women were even before she was paralyzed, but Babs was accustomed to having more than a few pairs and figured Misfit would be the same.

"There may be some teleporters at the Institute you can compare notes with, but I think you're unique in that aspect. Oh, gosh, that reminds me —" This was only mildly disingenuous, because Babs didn't often genuinely forget things. "— the Institute's having a prom. It might be fun to go to. We could pick up a dress while we're here."

Her voice was innocent.

Charlie just nodded at the shoes suggestion, though they had to wait while Babs paid for what she had picked out here. Charlie had never had a whole lot growing up, so she'd never been one of those 'lots of clothes and shoes' girls. Sure, she liked clothing, but she was probably not going to fill a closet with 'outfits' any time soon.

"I talked to one of them, I think her name was Pixie?" She said as she followed after Barbara. "She seemed kinda cool, she teleports in pink stuff too." Whatever else Charlie might have said was cut off at the suggestion she go to a prom, and she just blinked at her mentor a few times.

"Uh. I...don't know how to dance?" Okay, probably not the greatest reason not to go. "I've never even been to a dance..." It was actually kind of a scary prospect.

Hanging the bags off of the back of her chair, Babs glanced at Charlie curiously, a bit calculating of her reaction. It wasn't terribly surprising, but you never knew. Charlie was pretty bold socially, not reserved or afraid of people, but that didn't mean she didn't care what people might think of her, or feel unprepared for something like a formal dance. Babs kept her voice light.

"Well, it's not a big deal, and you don't have to go, I just thought I'd check. In a way," she confessed, "it can even be seen as training. There are times when I need to infiltrate high society, and Helena would be my first choice for that kind of thing. She has the acting chops and she's used to that kind of thing. Not that Dinah couldn't do it, but you know her sense of humor."

Or maybe she really wanted an excuse to pick out a dress for Charlie... no. She wasn't that transparent, was she? Well... it would be nice, but— ... hmph. Babs filed this away in her head under 'possible signs of sentimentality'.

Okay, Charlie wasn't stupid, and considering how rarely Babs actually let her go out and do mission stuff, this 'training her for espionage' thing was kind of a flimsy reason to get her to go to a prom. Still, it seemed like the other did want her to go buy a dress...

And she did owe Barbara a lot. She was the closest thing Misfit had to family, at this point. Well, her and Huntress and Dinah and the rest of the birds, but still...Barbara was top of the list.

"Well. I guess we can look at dresses?" She finally offered with a weak sort of smile. "Not that I'm sure I wanna go to a prom or anything but we can look..."

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settling in

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