DC Snippet: Sunshine 2

“Ah, crap...” I said wearily as I rubbed my face, pissed at myself at just how badly I’d missed the obvious in the privacy of lower earth orbit. 

Even with a Kryptonian brain and what might very well be what this reality called an eighth level intellect… I’d flown away from that base with no idea of where I was and not even a scrap of clothing on me. Not one. Bad idea.

Sure, that scientist (I’d never got his name. Rude of me) might have urinated in his pants...repeatedly...but I could have at least taken his lab coat or something before I flew straight through the ceiling and artistically set the place on fire with my laser eyes.

Modesty. I had it...and wow. LEO was fucking cold. How was I even breathing out here, honestly? Eh… Probably better if I just didn’t think about it and chalked it up to the narrative. Kryptonians were weird and I didn’t need to start choking on space because I proved the air I breathed didn’t really exist.

Anyway, I needed clothes...and I couldn’t just go back down to the base again. The League most likely had their eyes on the scene already, and I didn’t really feel like having their first impression of me being my cup sizes. Sports cup or otherwise...and, damn. The comics and shows didn’t put across just how healthy Karen actually was. Not even close.

Fucking Cadmus.

Anyway, going back to the base wasn’t going to happen...so, instead, I was just going to have to find a back alley idiot with a gun and not a lot of sense. Maybe two or three, just enough so that I could get my feet under me.

It wasn’t stealing if they pulled a gun on you first, right? Right. Now, where was I going to go? … Somewhere. I don’t know. Whatever. I’ve got time...and I really need to make sure I know how to bank first. Instinctual or not, some practice flying wouldn’t hurt.

Popping up in some guy’s living room though? Completely different.

======================

“Oh for God’s sake,” I muttered as I tried to wiggle myself into my newest pair of pants. Tried and failed. Miserably. As expected.

Three muggers in three different cities. Exactly...and not a single one of them had pants that would fit me or that I could, at least, force myself into...and I was already frustrated as all get out.

I knew that I wasn’t exactly shopping at a clothing store or anything, but you’d think I could squeeze into one of these things. I'd got this pair off of someone nearly twice my weight and a head taller than me...and it didn't matter.

Damn my bombastically curvy and womanly hips. Damn them!

Another 'gentle’ tug led to me ripping the waistband right off, leaving me with a handful of denim as the rest of the lot fell around my ankles… Just like the last two, just about leaving me flapping around in the breeze except for the mostly clean, if a little tight, jersey I'd picked up.

The erstwhile mugger groaned...and another flick to the forehead, bouncing his skull off the brick wall he was slumped against shut him right up.

DC rules. He’d be fine. He still had all his teeth and everything… Well, all the teeth he'd had when we'd met anyway. He'd been missing a couple already. Honest.

Anyway, back to the real issues. I was stuck in the “No Shirt, No Shoes” paradox. I needed clothes to get clothes. I would rather not steal anything. Because of the narrative. I could already see how it would play out.

I would steal something off a clothesline. Then, somehow, a Superhero would find me doing that instead of the numerous other more serious crimes. We would get into a fight. Misunderstandings. And now I’m branded a villain until I'm 'redeemed' somewhere around the end of the arc.

Comic book writers are hacks like that.

It was then, while I lamented what my life had become that my salvation came. A subtle gust of wind. A loud flapping in the breeze. A drop cloth, covered in paint that, I assumed, had come off of a painter’s van, just with a quick look at the logo.

I don’t know who you are Larry, or how well your painting service is doing... But your mild inconvenience in losing this is one hell of a lucky break for me.

==============

“Hey. Are you guys still open? I hope so, because, I really nee- Oh for fuck’s sake!” I clapped an exasperated hand over my mouth as I took in the scene I'd walked into. “Did I walk into Gotham or something when I wasn't paying attention?”

It was an honest question. I didn’t actually know where I was. I just saw the poor, shaking cashier. The man holding the gun up to said cashier’s face.The general feeling of desperation and stupidity. Very Gotham, much wow.

… Okay. I might have been overstating things. Seriously though. Who robs a fucking Target fifteen minutes before closing? They’ve already closed down and deposited the money from most of the registers. This was pretty much the worst possible time for a robbery...but a damn good time to showcase the new hero in a low stakes environment, and they’d nailed that.

This was as low stakes as it got.

The robber whipped around, pointing the gun in my direction, his eyes wide behind his ill-fitting balaclava. A good reaction, but the wrong one.

The second he’d taken the gun off the cashier, he’d lost. I didn’t even think about it. My hand shot over, faster than the human eye could track to take a shopping basket in hand. Then, with an impressive curve to it, I threw it, causing it to perfectly collide into the robber’s hand, cracking what might very well have been bone as it forced him to let go of the gun with a scream.

Funnily enough, the gun fell perfectly into the basket and joined it on its long distance flight into the electronics section, as safe as it was going to get...and I totally did that on purpose. No one can prove otherwise, shush. I was feeling powerful, stop harshing my buzz.

Before anyone could literally blink, let alone myself, I had grabbed a second basket, with this one whipped directly at the robber’s head… Which is when, with a rather disappointedly gentle sounding smack, he fell to the floor, unconscious. Definitely.

Comic book rules. Don’t have to worry about a brain bleed. If we did, then Batman would have had a body count in the thousands.

Now, after everything was said and done, silence reigned on the floor of the Target. What few customers and staff that remained slowly started to pick themselves up, not quite sure what had happened as they gave me apprehensive looks.

Understandable, seeing that this probably was Gotham, now that I actually paid attention and took a quick look outside, only to see gargoyles. Or Bludhaven. Not exactly good places. There was a 50 percent chance I was a superhero. 45 percent chance I was a villain who was upset that someone got here first. A 5 percent chance I was...something or other.

Now, time to reassure them before the screaming started and they attracted the Joker. Fuck that guy.

“Look,” I said reassuringly. “I just want some pants. A decent pair of pants.” They all looked down at my drop cloth. “And a shirt. Is that too much to ask?”

“... Okay. Yeah.” The cashier flatly said, regaining her voice as she put back the shotgun she’d pulled out from behind the counter as soon as the robber had pulled the gun away. As if that had been a signal, the customers went back to shopping and the rest of the employees came over with rope to hogtie the robber. “I can do that for you. Cash or credit?”

Yep. This was Gotham alright.

==========

I looked at myself in the mirror, finally happy now that I couldn’t feel a brisk breeze in places that shouldn’t be feeling a brisk breeze while in public.

I looked kinda frumpy and unappealing. Just a little, what with the cheap, grey hoodie and the, even cheaper, pair of of grey sweatpants I was wearing… Not that I minded or anything. That was exactly what I had been shooting for. I was as far away from looking like Karen Starr and her civilian identity as I could get without plastic surgery.

And it only took some trial and error. A men’s undershirt and a pair of pantyhose. Tights or whatever... Apparently, tactile telekinesis meant that whatever you want to wear suddenly becomes skin tight or form-fitting, no matter what it was...and boy was that embarrassing. It was one heck of a thing to see a pair of baggy sweatpants look like they were painted on. It might have explained why Supes always wore his outfit underneath his clothing…. And why he wore his underwear on the outside.

He was already pushing the limits of public indecency as it was. Being able to read every line on his sack was too much for anyone to stomach, world-saving hero or not… Now, to get some shoes. Didn’t need them, not really...but something told me that stubbing my small toe would still hurt like hell. Also, fitting in. People wear shoes. That was a thing.

I open the changing room door, turned to the grimly resigned fitting room attendant, and saw a herd of armored gorillas go by the entrance… Which is when I paused, thought about fighting Gorilla Grodd for all of a second, then hid back in my stall.

This was Batman’s city. Didn’t want to step on any toes if I didn’t have to… and I had to get out of here as soon as possible. Gotham was where everything good went to die after all and I was… Not bad? Close enough.

And, of course, almost as if someone had heard me, that was when someone threw a car through the window and right into my stall, messing up my new clothes and covering me in a ton or two of burning metal and gas before the ape army ran in and started wrecking the place.

Escalation. Delightful… Self-defense was on the menu...and I guessed that I would never escape the trucks.