Morgan Stark (ironhearts) wrote in momadness_log, @ 2021-09-02 12:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | ~inactive: laura kinney, ~inactive: morgan stark |
And as Morgan had understood, Laura had never gone on a date before. So Morgan was determined to make it special for her. She’d talked to her mom and gotten a reservation for them at a nice Italian restaurant, and found a club for them to go dancing at where she knew it was eighteen and up, so they’d be able to get in. She’d been able to borrow one of the nice cars from her dad, and made her way to Little Wakanda so she’d be right on time at eight o’clock, just like she’d told Laura she would be.
Morgan had only changed her outfit a couple of times. Eventually, she settled on a nice silver and blue dress that was perfect a first date that included dinner and dancing, and a matching blue heels. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a half-up, half-down style, and she’d done her makeup so her eyeshadow matched her dress. She’d also stopped along the way and picked up a bouquet of flowers for Laura, too. She was determined to make sure that Laura truly enjoyed her first ever date.
Morgan arrived at Little Wakanda, and made her way up to Laura’s apartment. She’d texted her to let her know she was on way up, so she wouldn’t be caught by the door. Flowers in hand, Morgan grinned, knocking on the door.
Very little of practicality had gotten done that day as Laura tried to determine appropriate preparations and expectations for a date in 21st century America. The internet was endlessly conflicting, but she was starting to get the hang of that now, figuring out who was supposed to be reading any particular website and how it was written for their biases. That wasn’t to say she always understood them, still, but she could at least tell that search results claiming that teenagers loved hayrides at their parties were directed at parents who didn’t want to imagine their babies drinking or having sex, and that most major network tv shows aimed towards teenagers were far more glitzy and grown up than teenagers were for real. That was definitely a relief, at least.
After emptying out half her closet she’d finally settled on a dark red top with mesh sleeves and form-fitting lace-up trousers with black ankle boots. Easy to move in, colours she was comfortable with; a little touch of magic made her hair fall into perfect waves with the red showing clearly. She’d hoped to finish getting ready close to eight, but she ended up with nearly half an hour to wait before Morgan would get there, time she spent reading through her notebook on social observations and trying not to think too much about what she was getting herself into here.
For all her advanced senses she still jumped a little when she finally heard the knock at the door, pushing the book aside and grabbing her purse; she only realised as she opened the door that she probably could have waited a few more seconds to make it seem as though she hadn’t been standing there waiting. Oh well. Morgan looked really pretty, the colours of her dress suiting her in the way of someone who’d had years to learn what looked good on them and didn’t have to resort to just sticking to the colours she knew best, and when Laura saw the flowers her stomach fluttered a little. It was… a weird feeling, actually. Was that what people meant by butterflies? “Hi.”
Morgan couldn’t help but feel her cheeks get a little flushed when Laura opened the door. She tried not to stare, but Laura looked really good. For someone who had never been on a date before, she definitely looked like she’d put a lot of thought into her outfit. It definitely drew attention to Laura in the best of ways. She couldn’t help but feel some butterflies in her stomach, too. Suddenly, she was a bit more nervous that she had been when she headed out. She definitely wanted more than ever to make sure that Laura had a good time now.
“Hi!” She said after a brief pause, regaining her composure. “You look really nice. I like your outfit.” She extended her arm, holding out the flowers. “These are for you,” she said, her smile just growing wider. “Every good first date requires flowers.”
That part had been unclear in Laura’s research. It seemed like flowers were for when you were trying really hard to be romantic, or when you were meeting someone’s parents for the first time. Morgan definitely wasn’t ever meeting her parents, even if they’d still been alive. She wouldn’t allow that of anyone here except maybe Wanda. Between the two of them they should be able to keep everyone else safe. Morgan’s parents, on the other hand, were powerful in their own way and far more terrifying from her perspective. She hoped they wouldn’t be mad about this, as she accepted the flowers and couldn’t help but smell them. “Wow, they’re really nice. I wasn’t expecting…” She trailed off, not sure if she even had any vases to put them in. Well, rather than go searching, she summoned a red glow around a glass sitting on the end table, the shape twisting until it was taller, narrower, lip wide enough to settle the bouquet in it. “There.” She smiled back at Morgan, trying not to chew on her lip from nerves. “Is it time for dinner?” She hadn’t asked previously where they’d go; she didn’t have much in the way of food she didn’t like yet, and still enjoyed anything new.
Morgan smiled at her, trying to put her at ease. “I thought, since this was your first ever date, flowers would be a nice touch,” she said. “Also, they just made me think of you, too. I hope you like them.” And she meant that. She hoped she wasn’t trying to push Laura into anything. She wanted her to enjoy herself, but she also didn’t want the other girl to think that Morgan was expecting anything, either. “Okay, I know flowers maybe aren’t usually a first date thing, but I thought you’d like them. I just want you to have fun and enjoy yourself. That’s what dating is. We’re going to go out, have a good time, and get to know each other. And if anytime, you don’t feel comfortable, or want to go home, just let me know, okay? I know this is all new to you.”
At the mention of dinner, Morgan nodded, her smile turning into a grin. “Yup! I got us a reservation at this really nice Italian place. Have you tried Italian yet? Like, spaghetti or pizza?” There was more to Italian food than just spaghetti or pizza, of course, but Morgan new that there was still a lot of things Laura hadn’t tried yet. And for a first date, Italian seemed like a pretty good place to start.
Deliberately over the top, then. Once she knew that was Morgan’s attitude coming into this it helped Laura’s nerves settle a lot. It would be okay - Morgan knew at least the brush strokes of her history, and from the impression she gave off this was at least part play-acting, part… making a friend? Testing the waters for real? It was meant to be fun, anyway, and she could go with that until any other possibilities became stronger, one direction or the other. “I like pizza,” she confirmed. “And-- May’s lasagna, that’s Italian too, isn’t it? With the good sauces.”
It maybe said something about her that she could catalog most of the cooks in the place by what dishes they tended to bring to group dinners, but the fact that several other people seemed just as interested in her as learning about the things they could eat made her less self-conscious about it. Food was like the universal language of hospitality, apparently, something she’d read somewhere that struck a note of truth with her.
Morgan nodded. She wasn’t really sure what would come from this date, if they’d just become better friends, or maybe start towards something more, but Morgan was just going to go with the flow and see where the evening took them. There was a small part of her that might have been overthinking things, but she would just chalk that up her DNA. Overthinking was in her blood, it seemed. She was going to try her best to not overthink the rest of it. She just wanted to have a good time with Laura, and see what came out of the evening.
“Those are both good examples of Italian food,” she said, “Though I don’t think any lasagna is as good as Aunt May’s to be honest. But there’s both pizza and lasagna at this place, and other kinds of Italian food, too. I made sure to check the menu. I like to know about places before I go there.” She offered her elbow to Laura. “Shall we?” Though she’d been tempted to offer her hand, she figured that might be coming off a bit too strong.
...Though if the chance to hold her hand came up later, Morgan probably wouldn’t object.
Arm in arm as they left the building, Laura suspected that even dressed up they gave off a vibe of ‘besties’ more than anything else - but then again, she’d been on the internet enough to realise that people dismissed female sexual relationships enough for it to become a joke, a ‘meme’. ‘Gals being pals’ captioned under pictures of women hugging and kissing or stories about ‘friends’ who were publicly known to be dating. She wasn’t quite sure why it was so common, though she’d occasionally seen it from the other side as well, ‘two guys in a hot tub five feet apart because they’re not gay’ - which lead her to suspect it might be one of the strange ways people felt about homosexuality. Just another thing that so far had been far too complex for her to completely understand. Everyone at the compound seemed blase enough about it, and she made a mental note to ask someone sometime.
“You’re more organised than me,” Laura commented ruefully, momentarily forgetting the half dozen different coloured notebooks she had to help her keep track of everything this place kept throwing at her. “I mostly just explore. But maybe it’s different when you don’t have as much background knowledge to base it on, all I can really do is write things down afterwards.”
Morgan couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle as they made their way to the car. “I can't live without organization,” she said, “I’m pretty sure I was born with a day planner in my hands, sometimes. Like, yeah, my lab is sometimes a little messy, but I usually know where everything is. I just like to stay on top of things. Especially when it comes to planning something out. Though sometimes, with dates, being spontaneous can be fun, But I thought for your first date, I should at least know the menu at the restaurant, just in case.”
When they made their way to the car, Morgan would gently remove her arm from Laura’s, and go to open the car door for her. She’d help her in if she needed it, and then get in on the driver’s side. Once she saw that Laura was all buckled in, Morga would start driving them to the restaurant. Luckily, it wasn’t really all that far from Little Wakanda.
Though not wanting a car ride of awkward silence, Morgan would strike up a conversation. Morgan wasn’t a big fan of the awkward silences that sometimes seemed to follow first dates. ““I really like your outfit.,” she said, as she pulled out of the parking garage. “The colors look really nice on you.” She chuckled softly. “I must have changed clothes at least three different times before deciding on something.”
The fact that Morgan had worried about what to wear as well relaxed Laura more than she’d expected, and she found herself ducking her head a bit to hide her warm cheeks and a smile she couldn’t quite hold back. “I wore red a lot growing up, since it goes with my magic. More gold highlights though and I think I like black better than that. You can do more with it, and there are more options. I’m pretty sure you could make a whole wardrobe out of black clothes if you wanted to. Not that it matters much when you can just… change it.” She emphasised the last with a vague gesture of her fingers to imply the use of magic. The reference reminded her of something, and she turned to give Morgan a considering look. “Is magic more common in the future here? There’s hardly any compared to what I’m used to. It’s all science and computers.”
Morgan nodded. “I always liked to wear a lot of red growing up, too, but that because it reminded me of my Dad. My armor’s blue, though, and I think it actually looks better on me. The good thing about black is it goes with everything, though.” She paused, focusing on a turn for a second before responding. “There’s a bit more understanding of magic where I’m from than there is here. But magic’s always been out of my area of expertise. I’d really like to understand it more. I’m definitely more of the science and computers type. You grew up around magic your entire life though, right? All of this, science and computers, it’s mostly new to you, right?”
Laura didn’t think she’d seen Tony in his armor before, but it wasn’t much of a surprise that it would be red. It was pretty obvious to her that he was half of Sigurd and red was the dominant colour on his Iron Hammer armor as well. It was a colour all four of them shared to some degree, in fact, which now that she thought about it was quite the aesthetic coincidence. Maybe it was just proof that it was an objectively good colour. “Probably something to do with warm colours and cold colours. It sort of feels like there should be someone who designs costumes for superheroes to make sure they look good. They had that in a movie I saw.” She couldn’t quite remember if it was one she’d seen here or back home; part of the problem of trying to catch up on so much was that after a while it all started blurring together a bit.
She shrugged a little at the question. “Mostly. My mother was a geneticist. They had this whole thing about merging science and magic, but her equipment was really all just in her lab and she didn’t do much with computers and engineering. And Peter’s the technical one on the team but he’s also the busiest so I never got to spend a lot of time with him.” Especially when you factored all his different personalities into things. The Peter here at least seemed to be fairly consistent, though it was strange seeing him so young - younger than her, even.
Morgan nodded, as she stopped at a red light. “I think my mom said that red is a good color for superheroes because it makes them stand out, and look powerful. Or, maybe not powerful, but confident, I guess. Or it’s just a bold color. I did give a lot of thought to it when I was designing my armor, because I wanted to honor my dad’s legacy, but also wanted something of my own, too. So instead of red and gold like he has, mine is mostly red, but with blue accents. And a little silver. I think most superheroes like to go with something that makes them look good. Though I think it depends on what you’re going for, I guess. If you don’t want to really stand out, I can see where someone would maybe something black.”
Morgan raised an eyebrow. “I’d be curious to see how science and magic could be merged, actually. That sounds like it’d be a really fun project. Maybe we can try and find a way to do that sometime. If it’s okay with you. I can understand where you maybe wouldn’t want someone just poking around and experimenting with your abilities. But it could be really fun to see how magic could enhance science, or vise versa.”
She laughed, as she pulled up to the restaurant. “I’m sorry,” she said, “This is a date, and I started going to science talk. I don’t know if that’s the best first date talk. I just...really love science, if you couldn’t already tell.”
That made sense, with the colours. Laura had never really thought about if certain colours did things to people’s heads, like psychological stuff, though if she considered it now she did realise that sometimes different shades were used for different things, like wall colours and packaging. Another thing she was going to have to read about. Her notebooks were starting to get really full, and she still felt like she didn’t know anything about anything. She really needed to prioritise a bit more. “I think Ghost Panther’s the main one who wears black. That can’t be about standing out, though, since his head is on fire. That’s hard to hide.”
She listened to Morgan talk about experiments with a bit of a smile - it might have been reasonable to think that she’d be leery of people wanting to do things like that, but the way she got all lit up was very different than how her parents used to talk about her being the perfectly imperfect meld of science and magic and all that. They’d always been more… fanatical. Morgan wasn’t the same, she just sounded like she wanted to figure things out because it was fun.
“I don’t know what people are supposed to talk about on dates anyway. Science is probably okay. It’s more normal than anything I know about. Which is mostly a lot about magic.”
Morgan laughed at the image of someone with their head on fire. “Yeah, I could see where if your head is on fire, you really wouldn’t need to do much else to stand out. Though I’d be really curious to see how that works, honestly. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone who’s abilities allow them to set their head on fire.”
Morgan shrugged as she pulled into a parking spot across the street from the restaurant. “The way I see it, people can talk about anything they want on dates. The point is to get to know each other and see if you click romantically, I guess. I’ve never considered myself a real big dater, but I’ve had a couple of girlfriends, and I always loved the getting to know you process of dating. For me, science is just something that I naturally default to talking about. Though if it gets a little too much for you, let me know.”
Morgan put the car in park, turning off the engine, and looking over at Laura. “Well, we’re here,” she said, unbuckling her seatbelt, and getting out of the car before going to open Laura's door. “Shall we?” she asked, extending her hand instead of her arm this time.
“Well, it is hellfire,” Laura clarified, as though that was somehow more reasonable than it being normal fire. “From Zarathos. She’s his patron god, he uses the power she gave him to punish sinners and she brought his father back to life as a demon panther.” She knew the panther was some kind of symbol of Wakanda here, though T’Challa clearly hadn’t made the same deal as her version had.
She hesitated a moment before taking Morgan’s hand, suddenly struck by the notion that she wasn’t actually sure she’d ever done that before. Maybe while pulling someone out of danger in the midst of a fight, but other than that… she thought maybe Speed Demon had done it a couple of times when she wasn’t moving fast enough (not that she could ever move fast enough for her little sister), but both of those situations were purely functional. It felt… strange. Deliberately wrapping your hand around someone else’s, for no reason other than to maintain a skin on skin connection with them. She could feel Morgan’s pulse slightly, probably a result of her enhanced senses rather than something anyone would be able to do. “I don’t mind. I like listening to people talk about things they’re interested in. It must be weird being in the past though, with all the old technology and so many people not being born yet or just little kids.”