[Sunny Slater]

Oct 7, 2018 19:56:46 GMT Sunny Slater said:

"Like, ew, I hate offices..."

The Office Princess

Sunny didn't make a habit of visiting the Hero Program's San Francisco office. Office work just didn't suit her, and she hated the idea of ever being one of those dull, drably dressed drones stuck behind a desk all their lives. Of course, it helped that she was rich and wealthy enough to never have to actually think about an actual nine to five job. However, she had to admit, she did like the reception she got when she was there. People couldn't take their eyes off of her. Whether it was because she was there usually in her Gravity Girl costume, and it was the striking pink, or her natural beauty ('natural' meaning 'under several layers of make-up') of course, or because she was, in her own words, 'like, totally famous', she loved the attention she got. She felt like a princess walking among her subjects, and she ate up every moment of it.

Of course, the real truth was more likely something along the lines of 'who the heck is this ditzy blonde in that pink outfit that burns my eyes', but Sunny was totally unaware of that. Even those who were used to the self absorbed star moving around the building couldn't entirely ignore her. Sunny liked to think it was because she projected a celebrity aura, but the only aura that caused people to notice her were the waves of expensive perfume always pouring off her body. Sometimes it took them a week to get the scent out of the office...

Anyway, so while Sunny usually enjoyed the reaction she got there, unaware of any negativity, today she had been left feeling a little upset. See, she hadn't returned just to check Facebook and Instagram do some office work like she usually did, she had been called back for an advisory meeting. It turned out that a recent bank robbery she had stopped they had some concerns about. Sunny had thought she dealt with it brilliantly, in fact, her stopping the get away car was one of her most liked pictures on Instagram (and she had a lot of likes on Instagram) and had been shared all across social media and news websites, but apparently their concern was that she had held back allowing the bank robbers to escape before flying down and landing in front of the getaway car. With her powers, she was utterly invulnerable and the car had crumpled around her, causing considerable injury and property damage. Luckily none of the robbers had died, but since she was essentially bulletproof, they said she could of easily stopped them BEFORE they got in to the car. Which Sunny admitted was true, but then the photograph wouldn't of been anywhere NEAR as good. The press couldn't get close enough to see that and her just stopping some guys in balaclavas would be nowhere near as good for a shot as her smashing a getaway car. (Technically, Sunny couldn't smash an egg, she was so physically weak, but by making her gravitational field so dense and holding her arms out so it looked like she was smashing it, she had gotten a fantastic shot anyway!).

Cue the usual lecture, she was doing this for the wrong reasons, it wasn't just about the media, PR was good but not at the cost of the city, would she please put her lip gloss away and listen, yadda yadda yadda. Eventually Sunny had promised to try harder and not think about the media pictures so much and they'd let her go with a warning, but she wasn't very happy about it.

She left the office of the supervisor, still clad in her Gravity Girl costume, her ridiculously high pink stiletto boots clicking and clacking as she walked. Naturally, Sunny wasn't looking where she was going, mainly because much to the disdain of all the office workers around her, she had decided to freshen up her perfume at this point, and was busy spraying it on as she walked when she bumped in to somebody...

She took a step back, and being as light as she was and him being as large (not to mention those ridiculous heels), she might of fallen over, had she not subtly caught herself with her powers and floated back to her feet. Her bottle of perfume disappeared in to a convenient hidden pouch on her hot metallic pink utility belt and she let out a small giggle, pushing a strand of hair back. She wished she could pull out her compact and check her appearance, but even she knew bumping in to somebody handsome wasn't the time.

"Wow, um, like, hiya." She smiled, having to crane her neck up a little to see him. He was SO much taller than her, even with her heels. She recognised him immediately. By far the cutest guy in the office, not least because he at least understood fashion. And had a body to die for.

Perhaps this was where somebody might expect a spoiled, wealthy girly girl like Sunny to play the flirt, but the truth was, Sunny was terrible with boys. She just didn't understand them. They might as well of been an alien species to her. How was she meant to relate to people who had no interest in make-up, or heels, or hairstyles, or perfume or the colour pink?

"I'm... uh... Sunny. Gravity Girl!" She said, holding out her cape and doing a little nervous curtsy. As if he didn't know who she was already, of course, but she thought she was being cute introducing herself...

Stephen Steelman

"Hellooooooooo handsome!"

ulla

[Stephen Steelman]

In the police force, becoming involved in a shooting meant, among other things, mandatory therapy sessions and psychological counseling. It wasn't so different in the Hero corp- once you got past the fact that the shooting had been done with a laser from a fingertip instead of with a gun.

All things considered, Stephen didn't regret the decision he'd made during the hostage situation he ans Jossalyn had participated in. By acting as he had he felt- and still felt- that he had saved lives. Far from being ashamed, he felt proud, and the impression he got was that the brass mostly approved as well, though they couldn't exactly say they wanted their heroes going around blasting lethal powers.

He was leaving one of the sessions- in civilian dress, and wrapped up in his own thoughts- when something bumped into him. Caught off guard, he glanced down and saw a woman, and his first thought was how short she was. She was a tiny thing, even for someone like Stephen who was used to looking down on people, even with heels boosting her height. He recognized her, of course.

"Sorry!" He said, seeing her stumble and recover. He smiled a cocky half-smile. "I didn't see you there." She seemed nervous, which wasn't unusual for the women Stephen met. It came with being tall.

"Good to officially meet you," he said when she introduced herself. He held out his hand. "I'm Stephen- Paragon when I'm work."

Sunny Slater

[Sunny Slater]

"Like, ew, I hate offices..."

The Office Princess

Sunny smiled giddily back as he introduced himself back to her. As if she didn't already know and hadn't already Facebook stalked the hottest guy in the building. She might of blushed a little but such an action was hidden beneath her Sunny-levels of make-up.
"Oh, I know." She smiled back bashfully, before realising this was totally an awkward thing to say. "Uh, I mean, like, you know, I keep up to date... with all my fellow heroes. Uh, as like, a professional, and like, um, stuff. Totally." She said, her ditzy accent and stumbling voice making it sound like she was anything but professional. Which was accurate. Sunny was good at being a supermodel and celebrity. She wasn't so good in anything even remotely resembling a professional environment.

"I promise, I'm not intimidating. I'm just, like, an ordinary person. Just like you!" She said, which itself was an incredibly vain thing to do since at no point at Stephen implied she was anything but an ordinary person. "Except, y'know, like, a lot shorter." She joked with a giggle. "I swear, I am like, TOTALLY lucky I can fly, 'cause, like, otherwise I'd never reach anything on the top shelf. Not that you'd like, have that problem." She added with another ditzy giggle at her incredibly lame attempt at flirting.

"So, uh, like, what are you in for?" She asked, giggling again to try and signal it was a joke, although now she realised she was just giggling endlessly like a stereotypical ditz. "Uh, you, like, didn't get in trouble did you?"

Stephen Steelman

"Hellooooooooo handsome!"

ulla

[Stephen Steelman]

The girl was lively, he had to give her that. Full of smiles and giggles and a manner that might have been exasperating if it hadn't been so endearing. For so small a lady she seemed to have a great deal of energy. Stephen's grin widened as he decided that he liked her.

He chuckled at her statement that she tracked her fellow heroes for professional reasons. "Uh-huh. Professional reasons, and not to see how many likes they're getting?" It was a joke, though like most jokes it had an element of truth. He'd seen enough of Gravity Girl's social media to know it was important to her. He winked at her, a show he was joking in his mind. "Trust me, I don't think I'm really competing with you in the online department. You're a social media genius!" He was really smiling now. Her cheer was catching. The compliment was genuine, too- Gravity Girl really did do a great job curating her social media.

He snorted at her height comment. Not that it wasn't true; he'd just heard it too many times before for it to be funny. "Well, if you need something off the top shelf, let me know. I can definitely handle that."

His smile faltered just a bit when she asked what he was there for. It made him think of the hostage situation, and what he'd been forced to do. But the flinch only lasted a moment. "Not in trouble- just trying to sort out some stuff after a hostage situation went bad." He smiled a wan smile. "But that's something else. How about you? Trouble?"

He said it with a grin- he had no idea about what had happened with the bank robbery.

Sunny Slater

[Sunny Slater]

"Like, ew, I hate offices..."

The Office Princess

Sunny laughed a little nervously when he commented on her checking for likes. Which of course she did. She had to make sure nobody was competing with her. But she giggled, and looked up at him, with her big brown eyes, trying to give him her best seductive smile.
"It's not just to see the amount of likes. Sometimes it's just because I find someone..." Sadly, she lost her nerve, and her attempt at seduction turned in to a nervous little squeak when she finished with; "....cute." For a famous celebrity and model, most people would assume Sunny was good at flirting and talking to boys, but the opposite was true. Boys weren't, by their standard nature anyway, girly. And Sunny had no idea how to talk to people who weren't girly, and usually lost her nerve almost immediately.

"Oh thanks." She blushed when he commented on her social media savvy, although Sunny's heavy make-up mostly hid the fact. "I mean, I like, mostly just learned from my Mom. She's a marketing genius." Sunny smiled sheepishly, obviously bashful around the handsome man, which was unusual since it stopped her usual egotistical boasting.

"Oh, I've got the top shelf down." She winked, floating up in the air to his height for a moment, and then back down again. "But you've got muscles, and I've got..." She flexed her skinny arm, so smooth and toneless she almost looked like a skinny doll. "....So, um, maybe you can help me if I ever have to lift anything heavy?" She smiled, trying to flirt again, but doing it so badly most people could only roll their eyes.

He asked if she was in trouble, and she looked a little sheepish again.
"Kiiiiinda." She admitted, looking a little ashamed. "I mean, usually when they pull me in, it's just to tell me off for wearing too much perfume, as if that's even a THING that's possible..." Her current scent would attest that yes, she definitely wore too much. "But this time, it's 'cause I stopped this bank robbery, but APPARENTLY I didn't do it right, 'cause like, I thought it'd be better to stop the car after it left, as it'd look cooler in the photo and on the news, but they told me off and said I shoulda like, just stopped them first." She said a little sadly. "I just wanted a good picture for Insta." She admitted, as if this justified everything.
Stephen Steelman

"Hellooooooooo handsome!"

ulla

[Stephen Steelman]

There was something odd in her manner. The way her voice seemed to freeze for a moment over the word "cute", her floating up to his height, comments about muscles... wait, was she flirting? Was that what this was about?

"Your mom, really?" He said, genuinely surprised. He was trying to process what to do with her flirting. And it was obviously flirting, now that he saw it. He was used to getting some attention from women, of course, and he normally enjoyed it, but something about Sunny's manner struck him as off. It was like she was trying too hard, like she was desperate, clingy. He didn't like clingy women. Still, she was attractive in her own right, if a little smaller then what he normally wanted.

A grin lapped at the edges of bus features. "Sure, just call me if you ever need anything lifted." That shouldn't be flirty, he thought. He didn't exactly want to shut down her advances but he wasn't sure he wanted to encourage them, either. He didn't know Sunny very well. Was she always flirtatious? She didn't have the reputation of a slut, but-

If you don't know her, ask her to coffee or something, a little voice seemed to say. Nothing wrong with that, and you might find you like her. Well... there was probably some sense to that. It was better to know then to wonder, right? And she was cute...

"Insta... Wait, Instagram? You did it for Instagram?" He blinked. The sentiment was so far out of left-field for him that it took him a moment to recover. He knew that Sunny carefully cultivated her social media presence, but the idea it might be her primary driver hadn't really occurred to him. "You, uh, are you sure that was a good idea? Containing the area of an encounter is the most important part of limiting civilian casualties-" Wait, that was police nerd talk. Not her style at all. But she'd have heard it in training, right? She had been to training, right?

He struggled to find the next set of words and went with the first thing that came to mind.

"Hey, you want to get coffee or something? Bernardino's is just down the street..."

Sunny Slater

[Sunny Slater]

"Like, ew, I hate offices..."

The Office Princess

Sunny paused awkwardly,holding one arm in the other when he commented about her Mom. Was that kind of lame? That was kind of lame, right? Admitting that your Mom did a lot of your work for you. She tried to laugh it off with a nervous giggle.
"Well, Mom is... she's kinda this famous publicist, so she... you know, just, like, um, gave me some tips." Sunny had also been raised to never talk badly about her Mom, and she loved her to bits, but she wanted to try to sound like a little bit less of a child, so she helped playing it cool and making it sound like she just got a bit of advice, not that her Mom was her manager and only guide in life, was perhaps the best way to do it.

"Well, I'd need your number first." She smiled when he offered to let her call him for any heavy lifting. It was meant to sound seductive, but Sunny couldn't hide her cheerfulness, so it just came out bubbly and excited. She really was terrible at flirting.

Her smile faded a little when he criticised her for her attempts to save the day in the most Instagrammable way possible. Even Sunny knew when that was a criticism.

"It wasn't JUST for Instagram. I mean, I stopped the bad guys. That's what's important right? And if it made a great front cover for the newspapers, that just helps promote the Hero Program! And if people like the Hero Program, it gets more funding for more heroes to save more lives, right? So like, really, it was totally the heroic thing to do!" Or so her Mom had explained it to her, but Sunny thought that logic made sense. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that criticism had blown any of her chances with him, which was a shame, because for once she'd almost thought it was going well with a boy for once...

And then he asked her for coffee.

And Sunny just stood there, blinking for a moment. A date? A real live date!? She had never been asked on a real live date! Ohmigod! She had to get changed! She had to pick out an outfit and re-do her make-up and her her hair done and-

She realised she might of been SLIGHTLY over-reacting. It was just coffee. She couldn't run off to change. Besides, maybe it'd do her profile good for Gravity Girl to be seen with a boyfriend?

She smiled ridiculously over-enthusiastically.
"Ohmigod, I've love to get coffee!" She practically squealed.

Stephen Steelman

"Hellooooooooo handsome!"

ulla

[Stephen Steelman]

He wasn't quite sure what to make of Sunny. She was bubbly, petite, and more than a little cute, all of which he liked. On the other hand, she also seemed... a little airheaded? Like, of course she could fly so it probably didn't matter much... but heels on a hero outfit? Really? He couldn't help but wonder if that was a little impractical, ability to fly or no.

“Number? Sure, I'll text it to you.” He pulled out his phone, not entirely oblivious to what she was doing but also telling himself that if she had wanted to contact him she could have looked up his number in the Hero program's private directory. It was one of those situations where he couldn't quite be sure if she was flirting, or if she was naturally just a friendly and outgoing person. Well, obviously she was the latter, the question was if she was especially friendly and outgoing with him. Which was hard to judge.

However, her explanation of her choices in stopping the getaway car made him raise an eyebrow. That kind of explanation was foreign to him. It didn't sound completely right, but at the same made sense on a level Stephen rarely spent much time thinking about. Sunny clearly occupied a very different world than he did. “Huh... I never thought about it that way...”

Her excitement when he proposed they get coffee pushed the meter all the way from “ambiguous” to “definitely flirty”. Well, that was something he could worry about later. She was cute, but he hadn't seen a ton in her to indicate that she would be a good choice long-term. No doubt she'd want endless selfies and be high-maintenance. And then there would be the gossip columns... Well, he was probably getting ahead of himself with those kind of thoughts. Coffee first, and see what happens.

He'd totally sleep with her in a second if she let him, though.

“Awesome! There's this place down the street called Cole's that has this great...” his voice trailed off as an idea struck him. He liked it at once. It had the makings of something that would satisfy Sunny's love of social media and amuse him with the romanticism of it as well. He grinned.

“Okay, idea: How about we start from on top of this build and slowly float down to the front of Cole's, hand in hand? Then we walk in and order. There's usually a bit of crowd this time of day but it's not so big the line takes forever.”

He didn't say what he was sure Sunny would notice- that this would be a perfect opportunity for some pictures that would definitely show up on social media soon. What the heck, he could do with some improvement to his public image, and Sunny was definitely good for that.

“What do you think? I'll buy.”

Sunny Slater

[Sunny Slater]

"Like, ew, I hate offices..."

The Office Princess

Sunny couldn't hide a big smile has he text her number, because of course that also meant that he had memorised her number! Sure, maybe he was pulling it out of a database or something, she suspected that the Program had something like that, but she preferred to think it meant he had his eye on her for a while. In fact, it even made swapping phone numbers feel like a cleverer ploy. These days, you just got added on Instagram or Facebook, but asking for a number took extra effort, and the fact he was willing to do it? Well, that was a good sign!

She was completely oblivious to any disapproval when he mentioned he hadn't thought of heroing in the manner she had mentioned, so she just offered a bright, cheerful smile.

"See? People think I'm ditzy, but I am like, totally smart really!" She beamed, obviously proud of herself. Let all those people who said she was a stereotypical blonde be darned! She was clever and she had just proven it!

When he suggested flying down in front of the coffee shop together, her eyes lit up. Just like he thought, she was thinking about how great that'd be for her profile. Sunny Slater, dating a fellow superhero, descending from the heavens together as everybody tried to snap their photo! It was too good to be true! She was practically beaming a smile.

But wait. Hang on.

"I didn't know you could fly!" She was actually super excited about that. Flight was an amazing gift, but one she didn't really get to share with anybody. If Stephen could fly too, then it'd be great for them. As a couple. Because they were totally dating now, right? This was gonna be SO awesome!

Then she realised that saying she didn't know he could fly totally revealed she'd only checked out his profile because of how cute he was, not because of his powers. She hoped he wouldn't notice...


"C'mon! Let's go!" She beamed, excited, taking his hand to lead him out of the building, practically over-flowing with bubbly joy...

Stephen Steelman

"Hellooooooooo handsome!"

ulla