Room 317, Monday afternoon

[notmyownage]

For once, Claudia actually wasn't tinkering with something on the floor. Artie had her running searches for any pings on Ben Franklin's kite string -- she could have sworn that whole thing was a myth! -- so she was lounging on her bed while her handbuilt computer program trawled across the web for anything that screamed "two-hundred-year-old electrified twine".

Such was life as a Warehouse intern.

[ooc: expecting one, but also open.]

Comments

[notmyownage]

"It was supposed to be for the sauce," Claudia explained. "That's actually a thing. I just . . . added it super early."

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry I wasn't around," Matt replied. "I would have at least tried to stop you. Or at least help remove the grape jelly."

[notmyownage]

"That's alright. I'm pretty sure enough people saw me make a complete ass out of myself while drunk on virgin cider."

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"Well lucky for you I wouldn't be able to see you at all," Matt teased.

[notmyownage]

Claudia winced. "True," she said. "Unless that means you have, like, a super-nose or something? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I burned the hell out of at least something."

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

So that was what smelled so bad.

"A super nose?" Matt chuckled self-consciously. "That has to be the worst power ever."

Heh. Heh. Heh.

[notmyownage]

"I know, right? Especially in a dorm. It'd be all 'ah, so half the guys decided to skip showering again, today'."

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"Well I'm sure at some point you'd learn to block that kind of thing out."

Though some days? Eww.

"But yeah, I'd hate to be that guy," Matt said with a shake of his head. "One smelly sock and you could be down for the count."

[notmyownage]

"Your arch-nemesis would be, like, a stink bug."

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

Or a really large mobster. Or a guy with stilts.

Stilts? Oh, Marvel.

"And his love interest would smell like bread. Or maybe pudding."

[notmyownage]

"Bread pudding," Claudia offered. "Although then he might just walk around salivating all the time. Or get really horny when he passes bakeries."

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"See that's just plain awkward. It's probably the reason why Ratman and Flying guy wear capes."

And we won't go into why Matt loves to stand on the roof of J'GOB for a good twenty minutes before running off to patrol.

[notmyownage]

"Right, so I'm going to assume you mean to wipe their mouths on when they're salivating and not . . . the other reason I thought of. And then change the subject to 'if you could have any super power, what would it be?'"

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"How about the ability to make a conversation awkward at the drop of a hat?" Matt joked. "I didn't embarass you did I?"

[notmyownage]

"No more than any other teenage boy," Claudia assured him. "And you're not, like, snickering weirdly, so that's actually a bonus."

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"Rats. There goes my future as the Superhero known as Captain Awkward."

[notmyownage]

"Captain Awkward would only be a d-list superhero, anyway," Claudia decided.

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"Yeah but he'd get a cult following as soon as some big crossover event killed him off."

[notmyownage]

"Yeah, but then he'd be dead. What good is a dead superhero?"

Claudia did not read a whole lot of comics, no.

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"Ohhhhh, even the crappy superheroes come back to life after a while," Matt said with a grin. "At least in the comics."

[notmyownage]

Claudia wasn't actually sure how she felt about that one.

"Well, either way, you deserve a way better superpower and superhero name than 'Captain Awkward'. He can be your sidekick or something."

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"All right then," Matt said with a smirk. "What power would you choose?"

[notmyownage]

She was tempted to say teleportation, but he wouldn't get the joke.

"I've already got one," she said. "Super-techno-computer-genius. Hell, I've managed to cook up a holographic projector that builds full 3D images out of a handful of digital pics in a matter of hours."

Yeah, she was still pretty proud of that one.

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"Wow," Matt said looking impressed. "I gathered you were a techie but I didn't realize how much."

Matt nodded in the direction of the computer that he heard humming away.

"Is that what it's doing right now?"

[notmyownage]

"Nah, it's just . . . running a search."

A very, very thorough search working simultaneously through a large number of restricted databases Claudia had no non-top-secret reason to have access to.

"I'm looking for a good deal on eBay," she lied. "Mint condition campfire girl badges. An obscure set from the eighties." Okay, she needed to stop now. "You've probably never heard of them."