Disclaimer: "This place has great pie. I left that pie to come out here and talk with you, the crazy pieless man."
(An: This has much talk of pie because I read "Pie in the Sky" by Scribbler before starting it. Go read it. Her stuff is excellent. Also, Kid Flash starts out rather cynical, but he leavens out to his usual hyperactive self by the fifth paragraph.)
Clubs are boring. He'd forgotten that. Proves how long it's been since he last took a break from the "superhero" gig. He needs one, though. Even if the music's too slow and the room's too seamy and it's so damn cramped…
He perches on a table, watching everyone else dance. He could go out there, philander, have a little fun. He's not in the mood tonight. He knew that when he came here, so what was his logic again? Ah, yes, distraction. Distraction was always good, and with a mind that worked as fast as his, it usually wasn't hard to find.
But none of the girls on that floor had a badass grin, or a habit of smacking him with things, or disliked sandwiches at inappropriate times… or had hair the color of strawberry ice cream and a short black skirt.
He blinks, focuses, looks for that girl he just saw. It's not hard to find her. Goths don't usually have pink hair. She is standing in the middle of the dance floor, pointedly Not Dancing. She shifts from foot to foot to the beat, but that's not dancing, and her expression makes it clear. Well, clear to himself, at least. The guy who's talking with her doesn't seem to be getting the hint.
He grins. He told himself that tonight was his night off- no damsels in distress, nope, not tonight- and that he was not going to think about her- she was the one who had disappeared on him, so why was he the one worrying?- but he had also told himself that he wasn't going to let himself be cynical (as usually happened when he took a day off), and she's cheering him up.
He sees her mouth no, and the guy says something else, and she says it again. This time, she pushes him, and the guy (whose power must be absolute cluelessness) nearly falls over into another woman, whom he immediately starts flirting with.
He starts cutting through the crowd toward her. She starts shifting from foot to foot again. She's got that frown that says "I don't need anyone", but the way her eyes flick around the crowd begs to differ. She's lonely.
That's his interpretation, and he's sticking to it, dammit.
He skids to a stop in front of her (could have just zoomed over, but a no-heroics night also means no-powers… mostly) and grins.
Her eyes are on someone else, and then they snap back to front. She blinks. "What are you doing here?" she demands, putting her hands on her hips.
He takes up her job of shifting from foot to foot. He's never been good at standing still. "Same as you. Glaring at everyone, trying to pawn a drink off the barkeep, stuff like that."
"I don't drink," she replies.
"Neither do I. With my metabolism, it takes .5 drinks to get me sloshed, and I get the hangover ten minutes later."
She doesn't smile. Naturally. If anything, her glare gets worse. He needs to figure out a way to make her laugh. He's seen her smile- her laugh must be even prettier. "Don't you have stuff to do?"
"Sure I do. I could clean under the sink, or call my aunt, or-"
She interrupts, folding her arms. "You know what I mean. Superhero crap."
"It's my day off." He smirks, deciding to see what has become of her since she walked off from that fight a week ago. It's been bugging the hell out of him that he couldn't find her. "Don't you have supervillain things to be doing?"
Her eyes flick to him and then away. "Quit that gig. Not for me."
He claps once, twice, three times without taking his eyes from her face. She meets his eyes long enough to make an impolite gesture at him and resumes her shifting. They're swaying to the same beat now, and people might mistake it for dancing. He know's it's really just negotiations. It'll be a while before they can call this dancing, he bets, but he's willing to wait.
He waits what seems an acceptable time to him, and then he gives it the rest of the song just to be safe n (since an acceptable amount of time is about ten seconds). Then he asks her, "So what have you been doing?"
She shrugs. "Soul-searching. I ate a lot of pie."
He can't read her expression- she's gotten better at acting- so he settles for the neutral answer. "Pie is always good."
"I spent most of my money on it." She still won't look at him; she's focusing on something just to the left of his head. There's nothing there; he's checked. She's nervous, which is incredibly hilarious.
"Would you like me to buy you some pie? I know this heavenly place in Arizona…"
"Thanks, but no. I think I've had enough pie… you know, for a lifetime."
"There is never enough pie." She rolls her eyes, but she's almost smiling. "So, you're all pie-d out. How'd the other part go?"
She sighs. "How would you feel if you'd been doing something you enjoyed but didn't feel that invested in your whole life because you thought you had no other choice, and then someone shows up and goes, 'So do something else- I bet you'd be good at it'?"
"I'd get some pie from that person."
She smacks him upside the head. "I'm being serious here."
He exhales. Seriousness has never been his strong point. Never mind his cynicism of a few minutes before. He's in a good mood now- she usually manages that. "I'd feel eternally grateful?" A glare. "I know! I'd tapdance!"
She chokes, a smile breaking across her face. She covers it, quickly, but the damage is done. She tries to glare at him again, but the damage is done. He grins brightly at her, and she drops her hand, shaking her head. "I want what you're smoking."
"Absolutely nothing. A thirty-second high isn't that appealing."
"Sucks to be you."
"Not if you'll dance with me, it won't."
Her smile remains, although it turns confused. "We are dancing… more or less."
He rolls his eyes and takes her hands. "You know what I mean." As if on cue, a slower song (although they all sound slow to him, like fourty-fives run at seventy-eight speeds) begins.
Reluctantly, she puts her hands on his shoulders, although she won't move any closer than that. "Not on the first date," she scolds, when he tries to put his hands on her waist.
"I wasn't aware this was a date."
"It'll be a date when you buy me something to eat."
"Like…?"
Finally she laughs; finally she looks him in the eye and holds his gaze. "Anything but pie."
(Yeah, that was really short... I'm just currently battling writer's block, so there you go.)