trans_9 | Date Night! [Closed]

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Date Night! [Closed]

Okay, so it wasn’t quite night, so it didn’t really count as date night. But! It was a date! Her first real date in…a very long time. So, being understandably excited, Kara had done the thing to do and had worn something different for the date. Well, okay, not something different. She only has the plantsuit. But! She’s ripped them up so it looks like she’s wearing hot pants and go-go boots. That’s right, Julian, she’s showing off her shapely gams, and she’s only done that for you so far. She’s still wearing the gold-edged cape, though. Coz, you know, it’s the Super thing to do.

She stood outside the media library, trying to be as cool as Kryptonianly possible, with her arms and legs crossed and what she hoped was a mysterious but alluring smile on her face.

Crap. Was she supposed to bring him flowers or something?

…

Please don’t bring that horrible sludge from the mess hall in place of chocolate.

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That was just fine with him. It gave his hand far more freedom, and they were more than happy to do some exploring.

It's right then that the door is forced open, and a robot rolls in, waving its half-finished corrugated arms ineffectually.

"BEEP BEEP BEEP WARNING FLESHLINGS BEEP BEEP BEEP! THIS ROOM IS HAZARDOUS!"

It rolls over and plugs itself into the media library consoles.

"I MUST SECURE THE AREA!"

Wait, what? No! There were no hazards! The place was entirely secure! And there was explorinating going on! Kara broke the kiss and turned her head to the side, furrowing her brow. "I, what?! You've got the wrong room!"

"Oh what the hell?!"

Oh he wished he had his tk. He'd toss that thing right out the room.

"BEEP BEEP BEEP FLESHLINGS LEAVE THE AREA! IT MUST BE SECURED!"

The robot starts flicking through different media and eventually stops on Battlefield: Earth. Try to make out while watching John Travolta's horrible acting, you two.

"Hmm. This is rather unusual behavior, but I can't seem to find the glitch in your personality engrams, scout-bot."

Yes, it's Brainiac 5! Who floats into the room and starts scanning the malfunctioning robot, completely not caring if he's interrupting something.

Kara's eyes flared a bright, pulsing red. "I'm pretty sure I can," she said icily. She pushed herself - and Julian, in the process - up off the couch. "Esppecially since it has your sense of timing, Brainiac 5. Shouldn't you be in your lab, getting off with your omnicrud or something?" Oh Brainy. You just pissed off a Kryptonian. One who's ancestors have a bone to pick with your ancestors, and one who currently has a bone to pick with you. And it's not the kind of bone she wants to pick just now. "Can you take your new toy and go elsewhere?"

"You have got to be kidding me."

There had been lots of tongue action. His hands had been having a good time. Several more minutes and he would have been in there ~~or sedated by Stacy~~.

He jerked his thumb at Brainy.

"Is that little baby skrull a friend of yours?"

"I'm afraid I'm rather occupied at the moment trying to work out the problems with this scout-bot's programming. I'll only be able to do so by observing its behavior and finding correlations in the data with certain programming functions," Brainy says, scanning the thing, and not looking at her, but somehow looking rather...smug.

"And I am a Coluan," he corrects Julian. "Not a 'skrull.' "

"He's not a friend," Kara replied, arctic breath punctuating each syllable. "He's a teammate of Kon's and someone I happened to podpop with." She turned to look at Julian. "Julian, meet Brainiac 5. He comes from a long line of mostly evil geniuses." She turned back to Brainiac 5. "And you couldn't find somewhere else to test him out? There's a lot of rooms here, Brainiac 5." Oh, she sees that smug look. She wants to superbitchsmack it off his face.

Julian pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Kon put you up to this, didn't he?"

"Mmm, unfortunately, the scout-bot will go where it will. I have no control over it, and to repair it, I have to monitor its natural behavior. It came down here on its own," Brainy answers, his expression very blank when she says he's from a line of mostly evil geniuses, and says they're not friends.

"And I haven't spoken to Kon in days. I have no idea what you're referring to."

"Well, your scout-bot just interrupted a date," Kara said. "A date that was going really well, by the way. Did I introduce you to Julian? He recently popped." ~~And he was about to pop again, Rao-dammit.~~ "So, you know, could you drag him out of here and let him go wherever else he may want to go?"

"Or we could just turn that busted piece of crap back into scrap metal." You think you know how to do smug, Brainy? Powers or not, you have not seen smug until you've seen Julian Keller.

"Maybe someone else could make something useful out of its spare parts."

"Actually it's rather vital that it's not destroyed, as I'm trying to turn this scout-bot into a viable alternative to crew members exploring the ducts of the ship. I would hate to have to report someone to Captain Picard for destroying such a vital piece of equipment, especially when components are in such high demand."

Brainy rubs his chin thoughtfully.

"Really, the only thing I can do under the circumstances is continue monitoring its behavior until a solution to its programming problems presents itself."

He turns to stare Kara down.

"Unless you'd like to explain to the Command crew why you found procreative activities far more important than our escape."

Okay. Now, it's not only Kara's eyes that were red. It was her face. No one took that tone with her. No one. "It's awfully convenient isn't it, Querl, that the robot chose this room to enter, right when there were procreative activities occurring? Activities that included me? Stacy's a big ship. The robot could have gone anywhere. And yet...here it is, screaming on about some hazard that it needs to secure. Tell me, what hazard may that have been?" In other words, Brainy, Kara has needs that you've made it clear you won't fulfill, and so far, she likes Julian, so butt the hell out.

Oh, Julian can certainly piece all of that together. "So skrully there has a little crush on you?"

And he grinned quite smugly at Brainy. Julian now had leverage.

"So you used a 'vital' piece of equipment to track down the girl you have a crush on and interrupt her date? I wonder how you'd explain that to the Command Staff? I don't think ~~the Professor~~ the Captain would take kindly to that."

He tilted his head a little.

"Either that, or you wasted a lot of resources building a piece of shit. I mean, look at it, it's watching Battlefield Earth. I'm sure Picard would thank us for scrapping it, and freeing up all those vital resources from such a failure."

There's a glare.

"I have no control over its actions, and it would be still be less of a waste of resources to spend a few minutes monitoring its activity to repair it than to start over from scratch, even if it would be more time consuming."

His chin juts out as he turns that glare on Julian.

"And I do not have a 'crush' on her."

There's a pause.

"But while we're on the topic, you should perhaps be informed that she's very manipulative and likes to to feign interest in individuals she's not actually interested in, for incomprehensible reasons."

"Bite me, Brainiac!" Within the blink of an eye, Kara's moved so she's right in front of him, and she's moving in for a punch right to the face.

Yeah, superspeed sucks. Those shields of his are only as good as how quickly he can get them up, and against people who can move faster than normal, unless he goes around in a perpetually shielded state, it's a mite difficult not to get punched. This is, oh, maybe the third or fourth time on this ship he's gotten punched, too. He reels back from the blow and falls on the floor on his ass, putting a shield around himself then, as Stacy's tentacles grab Kara and slam her into a wall.

"Stacy, you needn't--"

Too late.

||Kara Zor-El, you have acquired one Violation. Cease and desist violent activity against podmate Querl Dox immediately.||

Sitting there, shielded, he wipes blood from his split lip with the back of his hand, only succeeding in smearing it on his face.

"Is such violence necessary? Your behavior continues to be utterly incomprehensible."

"Kara!" Shit! Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!

This stupid fucking ship with its god damned tentacles and him with the fucking collar on and powerless-- literally-- to do anything about it.

He rushed over to Kara to check on her. "Kara, you ok?"

He kept his attention focused on her. At least until Skrully decided to open his mouth again. Julian turned around and glared at Brainy. There may have been a spark of green that flashed across his eyes, a pale echo of the power he has, but the collar made quick work of snuffing it out. The anger in his eyes, though, the collar couldn't do anything about that.

"For someone who calls himself 'Crainiac', or whatever, not only can't you build a simple robot that works, you aren't even smart enough to know when to keep your fucking mouth shut."

"I'm fine," she said to Julian, offering him a small smile. "I've got superstrength, amongst other things, so it's not...Stacy can't hurt me, much." She turned to Brainiac 5, the pleasant expression on her face fading to one of blank coldness.

"As for my behavior? Querl, you interrupted my date. You then wouldn't leave my date and I alone. And then you insult me in front of my date. I almost hate to admit it to you, but you deserved that punch, and a lot more besides. Be glad that Stacy's here to hold me back." She kneeled in close to her, her eyes flashing red, punctuating her words, "If you ever learned to relate to people on a personal and social level, Autism Lad, you might actually understand that. Maybe you can get one of your Legion buddies to help you out with that sometime."

"First of all, I am not a sufferer of Autism--it's been cured by the 31st century and more than that, it's very crude to use such a thing as an insult."

Seriously, they are very PC in his time.

"Furthermore, you can move to another Media room. I'll try to prevent the automaton from following. I would really much rather find a solution to its programming problems than scrap it, however, in the name of allowing you and this--"

He gestures at Julian.

"--this troglodyte to have time to engage in fornicative activities."

And here is the unexpected truth--he hadn't actually sent the robot. It had come to the Media Library on its own to assimilate information. His cover story is actually true--he'd just been smug as hell over the fact that it accidentally stumbled on her date. Of all places to stumble, it was the one most amusing to him, so he couldn't help but laugh at it cockblocking them.

But he hadn't actually controlled its movement, just followed the thing when it scooted off when he'd been turned away.

WHAT A TWEEST!

"You can move a door down to be left alone. I'll bar the door, if necessary, to prevent it from following, but I don't think it will as it seems to be attempting to assimilate information--"

He glances at John Travolta's terrible acting.

"--however useless. I believe I may have narrowed down the problem in its programming, however. It shouldn't be more than a half-hour of repair and reprogramming."

He bends down to open a back panel of the 'bot and plugs his omnicom in, crouching there to work on it, shielding both him and the 'bot in case she has another tantrum. Then, without looking at her, he says:

"It's always about you, isn't it. You are a very selfless and courageous person, I will grant you that, but you're also the most conceited individual I've ever met--I know a princess of a planet with more grace and humility than you have." He wipes at his mouth again. "If you don't get what you want, when you want it, you have a tantrum and threaten or engage in physical violence, you never approach any situation from the perspective of someone other than yourself..."

You didn't even bother to try to understand why someone might, say, misinterpret your behavior, and not be sure how to interpret it, and that those difficulties have to do with a far larger problem that the person might not instantly be able to get over for her...

Or, alternately, you might not see why leading on someone would hurt them--he still hasn't figured out what happened.

"I can't be here simply because something else has brought me--I must be obsessed with you, because your ego can't bear the alternative. The universe--" He yanks some wires. "--revolves." The robot's arms flail a bit, but he presses a switch on the inside and they drop. "--around you. Your wants, your needs, your perspective, your over-estimated importance to others."

Goddammit, his lip won't stop bleeding and he has work to do.

Kara Zor-El has seen a lot in her short life - some of which she remembers. She has heard a lot, and she's been told more still. Her blue eyes glittered with the pain and agony of remembrance as she flashed back to school on Krypton, at her classmates gathering around her, knocking her down, insulting her.

Little Kara, House of El - it's the family born of hell. If she looks you in the eye, in three days you'll surely die!

And three days later, she'd murdered each and every one of those classmates. She'd done the wrong thing then, at her father's urging.

The Kara that stood here today was a different Kara, in spite of her violent urges.

She slipped a hand into Julian's and held her head up high.

"Let's go, Julian. There's a lot of other places on the ship where we could be instead."

"Wait." This was obviously more her fight than his, but you do not go around insulting Julian's date and expect him to just walk away from that. For the moment, he pulled away from Kara and walked towards Brainiac 5.

"Look, I can figure out what happened between you two. Or, rather, what didn't happen. She used to flirt with you, didn't she? She flirted with you, and for all your supposed brainpower you couldn't figure out what the hell was going on-- probably cause you still think girls have cooties-- and you blew it. The hottest girl on this ship and and you fucked it up. But nooooooooooo, you're so smart that nothing is ever your fault. Isn't that right?"

He made a noise of disgust, and his expression certainly matched.

"But, frankly, I couldn't care less about any of that. I just want to make one thing perfectly clear to you, you little snot-colored cock-biting jackass-- and I'll use small words just to make sure you understand--

"If you ever talk to her like that again, I will find you and I will beat your brains right out of your fucking skull."

And he meant every last word of it too. That was not a threat, Brainy, that was a promise. And with that delivered, now he could go.

He walked back over to Kara, and held out an arm towards the door in classic 'ladies first' fashion. "After you, gorgeous."

Brainy's only response to that is a dismissive scoffing noise, and him returning to his work, as if neither of them is important.

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Date Night! [Closed]

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