InsaneJournal

I want to play Words With Friends with you
Who: Charlie + Mia
What: Trying to get Mia a new phone number
Where: AT&T Store
When: Wednesday
Rating: PG; No actual scary stuff, but references issues of abuse
Status: Complete


Since getting his Starkphone, Charlie hadn't even considered any new electronics. It literally did everything. It probably opened cans. It kinda sucked that Mia was being forced to give hers up. The reasons behind it seemed like they sucked more. Sucked ass. But he wasn't about to jump into asking questions, not right away.

Dammit. Mia seemed so fragile lately and he felt useless. They were buddies. Buddies didn't get to do the kind of things Charlie really wanted to do for her. They went shopping together, which was okay. It was fine. But it also sucked that they'd probably never be more.

But he could accept that and still smile. He was happy when she was nearby.

Mia liked her Starkphone well enough. She'd had fun messing with Bronn via his Starkphone, and it had made Tony Stark her favorite crazy person. She didn't even care that much about the weird texting madness a while back. She hadn't even really thought about the phone itself much, when she'd made her decision to go phone shopping. Nothing on the market was better than the Starkphone, that was for sure.

She knew she couldn’t tell Tyrion or Bronn that her father had been sending her unwanted texts. They had made it really clear to her father that if he didn’t leave Mia alone, he would regret it. She didn’t want to talk to her dad, but she didn’t want him getting beat up, either.

For whatever reason, Charlie and Mia ended up shopping together a lot. Shoes, books, phones.. "I should drag you with me on Black Friday," Mia joked as they walked into the AT&T store.

“Pft,” Charlie scoffed. “I’d be the one dragging you.” He wasn’t kidding, at least not about the being into Black Friday part. He didn’t buy into it being heartless, evil commercialism. It was a good time, running from store to store in the middle of the night. And as someone who didn’t always know where his next paycheck was coming from, being thrifty was a necessity.

“So what are we looking for?” he asked, as the bell on the closing door jingled behind them. “Fancy flip-jobber? I think that one takes pictures.” He pointed to something with almost comically oversized buttons, clearly meant to appeal to a much older demographic.

“Yeah?” Mia grinned. “I didn’t think you’d be into that.” Mia thrived on that almost hunt-like shopping style. It almost felt like the few times she and Ollie had gone on patrol. She had no intention of trampling anyone else like you saw on the news. But it would be fun. Especially if she had someone to go with her. She was almost certain Ollie wouldn’t go (Heartless, evil commercialism, and all), and Tyrion and Bronn were pretty much lost causes.

She smirked at the phones Charlie pointed out, shaking her head. “I want one that has those fancy ringtones,” she told him, then shrugged. “I really don’t know.”

“Well, I say get the nicest one you can afford,” Charlie offered, not meaning anything by bringing up a budget other than trying to be helpful. “I want to play Words With Friends with you.”

Mia wandered over to the iPhones. She shrugged, not overly impressed. A new phone should be something she was excited about, right? She pulled her Starkphone out of her pocket. “I wonder if I could keep this, just get a new number.”

“What? Like switch out the SIM card?” Charlie asked, peering over her shoulder, getting as close to her as she would allow. He could smell her hair. “Maybe.”

“I don’t know how this stuff works,” she confessed. This was actually the first time she was in one of these stores for herself without her parents. She hadn’t ever paid attention to the fine print, she just picked out shiny phones.

“You know, I probably should’ve just called Tony. I bet he’d have already sent me a card or whatever.” Not that shopping with Charlie was a bad thing.

Charlie knew a few things about phones. He held out his palm. “Here. Give it over.”

Mia passed her phone to Charlie without hesitation. She knew a few tricks, but they were mainly geared at pranking Bronn. Anything actually useful would require outsourcing.

Charlie popped off the back of the phone and pulled out the battery. He smiled at the sight of the SIM card. All phones operated on the same technology, and even Tony Stark had to work within those parameters. “Yeah, so maybe they can give you a new number and a new one of these,” he said, slipping out the card. It was the size of a thumbnail. “Might as well make a query.”

“A query, huh?” Mia had to grin. Those little Britishisms. “Might as well, yeah.” She walked up to the counter, waiting to get a representative’s attention.

“Yes, a query,” Charlie replied. “And now, we queue.”

He waved down an employee, sort of taking over now that he knew he had a better idea of what had to be done. He described the situation. The employee looked blankly at the Starkphone.

“I’ve never seen one of these before,” he said.

“You caught us. We’re time travelers from the future,” Mia confessed, deadpan. “I just need a new phone number, that’s all. This guy won’t stop calling me.”

“This guy?” he employee asked, pointing to Charlie and laughing at his own joke.

Mia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I brought the guy I’m trying to hide from with me.” Because stalking is funny! She hoped this guy wasn’t getting a commission.

The Employee of the Month (Not!) grimaced, chuckling awkwardly.

Charlie glared a bit. “Just... can you see if one of your SIMs will work with it?”

The representative shrugged, as if to say Why not? and took the Starkphone with him into the back. He reappeared less than a minute later, punching out the tiny card for a larger piece of plastic. “Well, it fits,” he said, slipping it into its proper slot.

"Cool." Mia was trying not to be annoyed with the guy, but she didn't have any interest in keeping up small talk with him. "It's working, and everything?" That was crazy easy.
The worker started to type things into a computer. His eyes went from the screen to the phone and back and forth, his brows getting lower and lower until. “No. It’s not. It’s not a compatible chip. I’m sorry.”

Mia sighed. “Okay, here.” She reached for her phone when it looked like the guy was done with it. “Thanks anyway. I’ll just talk to Tony Stark. I’m sure he has a fix.” He’d been helpful before. She was sure there were Starkphones on different networks, since it seemed like everyone was able to keep their numbers. He had to have a way to troubleshoot this.

Charlie grunted and turned to follow Mia. There was an idea coming to a boil in his brain, a simple solution that hadn’t occurred to him until now. “Hey, Mia,” he said, once they were back on the street and the bell on the door was muffled behind them. “What if you and I just switched cards?”

Mia tilted her head. “You don’t want crazy texts from my dad,” Mia said, trying to work that out in her head. It seemed kinda weird. She wasn’t entirely sure how she would explain it to Tyrion and Bronn, either.

He shrugged. “They’d probably just reassign your number anyway. Why not let me be the guy who tells your dad that he’s got the wrong person?”

“I guess that’s true,” Mia said, shrugging a little. It made sense. She was still a little nervous, since the guy getting her texts would be someone she knew. She just hoped her dad didn’t figure that out. “Do I need to delete anything from it before we do that?”

Charlie shrugged again. “Yeah, I guess you should delete photos you don’t want me to see.” He could have made a great joke at that point, but decided against it. This was sort of serious and he didn’t want to scare her away. “I can clear all my stuff, too.”

Mia chuckled a little. Charlie didn't have to say the joke outright for Mia to be amused. "Okay, let me figure this out." She cycled through the settings menus to do that.

Charlie went through his own things, watching Mia out of the corner of his eye. His phone had a few nicks here and there, but it was in good enough condition to pass off to her. Really, he was just glad he'd been able to come up with a reasonable solution. "So, when people call looking for me, just tell them they have the wrong number, I guess. I'll hunt down my friends and tell them I got a new phone. Easy peasy. If your dad calls me, I won't let on that I have any idea who you are."

“Sounds good,” Mia said, pretty sure she’d cleared the stuff off that she needed to. “You don’t want me to, like. Let you know they called, or anything?” Not like a secretary, necessarily, but it seemed like she could help out if it was something important...

“I guess you can let me know of someone’s persistent, but I’ll take care of informing who needs to know.” Charlie popped off the back of his phone and slipped out the SIM card. Pressed between his callused thumb and index fingers, he held it out to her. “Take the blue pill, take the red pill... You know, The Matrix?”

Mia smirked. “Okay, that one I know.” She’d seen the Matrix. She wouldn’t tell him that she had been in elementary school when the first one came out. She wouldn’t want to give the old man a heart attack. She took Charlie’s SIM card and handed over hers. “I think that’s good. Thanks for this, Charlie.”

“Don’t mention it.” He was just happy he could do something to help her, other than picking out shoes and phones. Which was fine. But... it was starting to get really hard to pretend he didn’t want more.

And maybe the damsel in distress thing was making it even harder, because now, on top of everything, he had reason to be seriously worried about her. Changing your number to avoid your dad was an extreme measure. There were so many questions he knew he couldn’t ask.

Yeah. All he could do was be her friend. It didn’t suck, but...

...Sigh. No. It pretty much sucked.