Just Your Standard Not-Date {reserved}

[Kori Ander]

Kori had spent something like three hours deciding on an outfit. This was, after all, one of the most serious and important aspects of the whole female/male relationship. Kori had known that even before she'd meet the Teen Titans and watched several hours of the television programming. Even back on Tamaran, there had been rules regarding what you wore, and you were encouraged to dress to impress people. True, Tamaranean fashion usually dictated that you wore a crown or possibly the flesh and blood of your enemies, but the principle was more or less the same. And since this was an important not-date, Kori had known that clothing would be most important.

She'd contacted Robin via his communicator some time ago, arranging this and setting the time so she'd have plenty of time. True, she hadn't quite figured on three hours of outfit selection. she'd planned for two and a half. Which meant that she was already half an hour late. This would be most unfortunate if Kori wasn't remarkably light on her feet, quite literally. Plus, she'd opted for something that left her legs fairly free to move. In this case, that meant a pair of moderately short shorts, which were not at all selected because they left a good deal of leg bared in the slightest. No, they were selected for mobility. As was the slightly breezy top. And that was why Kori's hair was tied up and pulled back. It certainly wasn't her dressing up with the hopes of getting at least a second look from the very cute boy whom she was most certain was actually her boyfriend from another world.

That would just be silly.

So now the light-footed girl was practically bounding toward the arranged meeting spot. Having found the theater earlier (and with another boy, a detail that Kori did not plan on doing much of the sharing), Kori had figured it would be a good place for them to get to know each other. She loved movies; she knew Robin at least liked them. He definitely liked dark places. So it was easy enough to call him up and suggest they grab a quick snack and then head to the movie.

And now there she was, looking around for him, trying not to be nervous about her outfit (which would be silly), but instead more nervous about the whole being late thing (punctuality was important!).

[Deleted]

((This is for me right? Just at a guess XD))

Robin, on the other hand, had not put nearly so much thought into the whole process. While he'd sort of guessed that Kori was used to them being more than just friends, he was content to let things develop naturally - if they went in that direction, well, that would be fine (albeit potentially awkward if they turned out to be from different worlds after all), but he was also quite happy to be just friends. Her enthusiasm was a little overwhelming at times, but it was nice enough, and he got the feeling he was used to people with overbearing personalities.

He'd just put on the first clothes that came out of his wardrobe, a nice comfortable pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt. He'd found he quite liked blue, it made him feel more confident somehow, more grown up. He felt so confident, in fact, that he'd chosen to travel to the destination on foot - or rather, on roof-top. He'd leapt and flipped and ran his way across town, having a little too much fun and arriving just the tiniest bit late, only to find that she wasn't there yet. He climbed down onto the overhanging entranceway to the theatre and crouched in waiting. It felt sort of... right, comfortable even.

When she appeared, he watched her approach with a faint smile. If he was being a total teenage boy about it, he had to admit the idea of being more-than-friends wasn't exactly unappealing, she was pretty hot after all. He didn't, however, want to be that guy, so he forced himself to stop looking and dropped down to the pavement.

"Hey."

[Kori Ander]

[good call; I totally meant to drop the link on your plot page, but you beat me to it.]

There was a bit of a slight jump as Robin dropped onto the pavement, but Kori recovered with remarkable speed. This was such Robin like behavior that she was tempted to jump for joy, squee, and then embrace him in the tightest of hugs. She settled for one of the three, namely a slight squee. Very slight, and not at all the type of noise that cute girls gave whenever they went to concerts involving cute boys singing catchy pop songs.

That would just be silly.

"Greetings friend Robin!" she called, her voice still shoved up a half-pitch thanks to the sheer glee of seeing him do the Robin thing. "I am most pleased to find that you are here for our hanging of the out!" Her excitement was making her grammar worse, and she was just barely aware of it. "There are many places to do the snacking and eat the foods before we head to the movies and watch the movies. Unless you wish to do something else, in which I would be most happy to do that, so long as the something else still involves the hanging of the out with the me," she finally took a breath, then beamed a smile that looked nearly wide enough to hurt. "You look the nice. I like your shoes."

[Deleted]

Robin couldn't help but smile, slightly satisfied, that he'd made her jump. It wasn't that he wanted to startle her as such, but it was almost like training, if he could sneak up on someone who was looking out for him, that counted as a success, right?

At least she didn't seem to have been startled in a bad way, in fact she seemed positively delighted to see him, though that might have just been her natural state of being, she'd certainly been pretty excitable every time he'd run into her so far.

"Food and a movie sounds good to me," he agreed as soon as he could get a word in edgeways "let's just walk until we find a place and go there?"
Maybe kids his age normally thought about money, but it just wasn't something that crossed his mind, so there wasn't any difference, for him, to eating a diner compared to eating at the fanciest restaurant in town, it just depended on which they found first.

"Thanks, you look nice too, I like your..." he searched for something that didn't sound like he'd been staring "outfit, it's cute."
Did that sound flirty? He wasn't even sure how he felt and he didn't want to get her hopes up, but he wanted to say something nice.

[Kori Ander]

Kori fell into an almost too sudden silence the moment Robin spoke, practically staring at him as though he were the most interesting boy in the world. The moment he asked a question, she was ready with a response, which in this case meant some of the most enthusiastic nodding human beings were capable of. She also took a few steps closer to him, closing the distance without quite touching him. Kori's hands did raise for a moment, as though she seriously considered latching onto his arm before deciding better of it. She settled for lacing her fingers together, hoping to cover the motion as another of her several fidgets.

There was another long pause, both in said fidgets and in actual words, as Kori again hung on every syllable that dropped from Robin's mouth. As he complimented her outfit, she beamed that wide smile, the same sort of thing that threatened to consume her face, beamed and flushed. "Thank you most greatly friend Robin! I did spend the time picking it out, because I know that the dressing is quite important for the hanging out of the boy and the girl," she flushed as her thoughts caught up to the words, "not that we are doing the boy and girl hanging out of the out! We are doing the friend hanging of the out! And as friends, we should do the moving toward the food which is most certainly this way!"

She pointed, then turned, moving as though her pointing arm was capable of directing her entire body. The motions that followed were about as stiff as a wind up toy soldier, and she seemed to almost be scurrying away from Robin, as though she could physically put her discomfort behind her.

[Deleted]

The attention she was paying him every time he spoke was a little unnerving, but at the same time he sort of liked it, he had to admit it was kind of nice to have somebody's undivided attention, even for something as unimportant as deciding where to eat. Although he was beginning to worry that perhaps he shouldn't have said anything about her outfit, from the way she hung off his every word and how obviously excited she was by the compliment, he felt bad for unintentionally giving her the wrong impression - much as she tried to hide it, it was obvious that even the smallest thing might get her hopes up, and he didn't want to do that until he was sure how he felt. She was a lovely person, he didn't want to hurt her.

Still, he pushed those thoughts aside and couldn't help but laugh at her enthusiasm as she pointed dramatically and practically ran off in search of food. Shaking his head in almost fond amusement, he set off after her.

"Just let me know when you see somewhere that looks good, and we can eat there," he called out, picking up his pace so he could actually keep up with her.

[Kori Ander]

Kori heard Robin coming along behind her, and she couldn't help but sigh in relief. That sigh released all the tension, very nearly turning her limbs to jelly just with its expression. She pivoted on a foot, flashing another toothy grin at Robin. There was no pausing; they were not on the date; there was to be no pausing. But she did acknowledge that she knew he was there. Totally cool. It didn't involve more than that intense smile. Nope. They were doing the hanging of the out.

"Pizza!" she cried, turning again. Her hair followed suit, nearly whipping her in the face. As such, she needed to take a few minutes to blow it out from her mouth and pull it from her brilliant green eyes. "We should eat the pizza! That is what the friends eat when they are doing the hanging of the out! And it is in no way the romantic food, for this is the hanging of the out!"

Clearly Kori should just stop talking. Really. She was aware of this, but wasn't quite sure how she could actually stop talking. Ever since she'd learned the language... well, that had involved kissing Robin which was not something she should be thinking about now. And come to think of it, she hadn't begun as a chatterbox either. that had taken some time. No, she needed to focus, to not babble what was on her thoughts. To state only what was absolutely---

"Marshmallows! I enjoy marshmallows upon my pizza! There is a pizza place; we should do the eating there," she pointed, then moved to follow her finger, moving in a strange mixture of that earlier movement and... well, it looked like her feet seemed to sort of skim over the surface of the floor, honestly.

[Deleted]

Clearly it was just something he was going to have to get used to. Perhaps she would stop being quite so obvious over time, or perhaps things would develop, who knew? But for now he was just going to have to accept that she slipped up occasionally and move on.

"Pizza sounds great," he agreed calmly, smmiling as he followed her towards the pizza place. "Marshmallows, huh? That's... interesting." And by 'interesting' of course he meant 'really weird', but he couldn't exactly judge, one of his favourite things to put onto a pizza was cornflakes, and he knew everybody found that strange.

He noticed that she didn't see to be quite touching the ground as she walked, and he watched her feet with interest. Did she know she was doing that? Was it a normal talent? Did he fight alongside people who had actual powers? ...Did he? He knew they'd mentioned when he arrived that people often experienced a limiting effect on superhuman abilities, was it a possibility that he had them, he just didn't know it?

"...Did you know you're almost floating?" he asked her impulsively, interested to get onto the topic.

[Kori Ander]

Pizza sounded great, and marshmallows were interesting. It took all Kori had not to start squealing at this newfound information. That and possibly start skipping with far too much glee down the aisle, possibly while singing a pop song at the top of her lungs. This was not helping her levitation issue; if anything, she seemed to be even lighter on her feet. As for noticing it...

"Hmm?" asked Kori, turning with an almost too smooth motion (which was fairly easy when your feet really weren't touching the ground in the strictest sense). She looked down, noting that her feet were, well, more in contact with the ground than strictly touching it. The position was not unlike a hovercraft or bumpercar type thing: with just the smallest bit of air between feet and ground, enough to produce smooth motions, but not enough to be called flying in the strictest sense. "Oh, that," she said, tilting her head. The moment she seemed aware of it (and the moment she switched from nearly skipping with glee to being serious), she seemed to descend slightly. "That is a small portion of my powers returning to me," Kori explained, nodding. "I am an alien princess from the planet of Tamaran. At least, I was the princess, and I am still something like a princess. I am not sure how much of the alien I am any longer, since the Shifting did unusual things to my body," she held up her hand, wiggling a few fingers. "I can no longer hurl the star bolts of energy nor blast things from my eyeballs. There is also none of the super strength or the hard skin..." she paused, lowering her hand. A slight flush came on Kori's cheeks, and she turned her head slightly. "Tamaraneans have many of the abilities. That is what I used to fight the villains when we were on a team together. You did not have the abilities," she looked back at him, a slightly different emotion in her eyes for once: respect, respect mixed with admiration that wasn't wholly the gut-instinct emotional attachment that seemed constant with Kori. "You did not need them."

Kori spared a beat, before whirling, her movements still graceful, though decidedly more solid now. She started walking back toward the pizza place, her eyes already heading toward the menu.

[Deleted]

He was fascinated with her description of her previous abilities, even if he was probably used to them where they came from, here the information was new and interesting and pretty amazing. He wondered if a lot of people had those abilities, if he knew many aliens - seriously, aliens, how cool was that? - or if she was special. Well, obviously she was pretty special even if there were others around, but the query still stood. He didn't want to grill her too much, he was still determined to remember most things on his own, but he definitely wanted to know.

All his speculation dropped away in an instant when she began a sentence with 'you', and he waited eagerly, hoping she was getting on to the other reason he'd brought up the subject. He tried not to look too disappointed when she revealed he didn't have any abilities. He had sort of guessed, but he couldn't help but hope, that would have been pretty amazing. When she spoke again, he paused mid-step and stared at her retreating back. After a moment, a small smile spread across his face and he followed her.
When an alien princess with more superpowers than you could count told you that you could keep up without needing powers? That was a pretty good feeling.

[Kori Ander]

Kori, being Kori, did not immediately notice that Robin had fallen behind. She'd kept walking for several more steps, as lost in her joy as people with headphones were in their music. When she turned to begin talking again, Kori noticed a decided lack of Robin. A brief feeling of alarm shot within her, but she recognized the disappearing thing all too well. If anything, that was the most Robin thing he'd done in some time. Kori turned to look around, not immediately thinking to look just behind her. When she finally saw Robin, she looked almost disappointed that he had merely lagged behind.

"Is something troubling you, friend Robin?" Kori asked. She moved as if to walk back to him, only to find that he had started moving on his own. Her pause made it easy for him to catch up, and soon they would be in step with one another. "Perhaps you are feeling the void in the stomach? The hunger for the pizza can be quite overwhelming... oh!" she clapped her hands, "is it the distress over not remembering of what it is that we are doing the speaking? Do not fear, friend Robin, I am certain the memories will be returning. And I do not mind helping!"

Kori practically skipped as she moved alongside him, her pace quickening. They'd be at the pizza place soon enough. It wasn't altogether spectacular; not like it had much in the way of competition (yet). so it just had a simple sign: Umberto's Pizza. An appetizing smell was wafting from it, however, so that was something.