13816/Billy Kaplan's Terrible No Good Bad Just Awful Day

Billy Kaplan's Terrible No Good Bad Just Awful Day
Date of Scene:	12 January 2023
Location:	Metropolis, an open-air mall.
Synopsis:	Caitlin and Kían try to rescue Billy, who isn't having a great day. Little do they know—
Cast of Characters:	Billy Kaplan, Kian, Caitlin Fairchild

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Billy Kaplan has posed:
    "So… uh—"
    The young man smiles at Billy, pushing his messy blond hair back from his face.  "Then when Franz Schubert was abducted by the aliens—"
    Billy Kaplan takes a polite sip from his coffee.  "Mhm?" he says, encouraging him on.
    "—er, he told them Take Me To Your Lieder!"  The young man beams.
    Billy stares, keenly aware that he must have missed the punchline.
    The open air mall is not too far away from Saint Martin's.  Usually Billy tends to stick to New York as his regular haunts, since that's where his team tends to hang, but he did get a match on a dating app, and he figured the trip would be nice.  It's certainly a nice day—unusually sunny for a January day, and even though they have to keep their coats on, it's a tolerable forty-five degrees that makes getting a hot cuppa out on the deck of the cafe worth it.  It's not supposed to snow until later tonight, anyways.
    All around them, shopping people stream across the pedestrian street, some coming out of the delicatessen, others from the fancy cookware and kitchen emporium, and even a few more across to the farmer's market stalls where the Winter Farmer's Market is in session.
    "Er…"  The young man looks a little nervous, and he waves his hands a little as he explains, "Uh, the thing is, Franz Schubert composed… he composed German songs, right?"
    "Right…" Billy says, sipping his hot chocolate.
    "Well, and in German, 'Lieder'—that's songs—it sounds like, uh… 'Leader', you see."
    "Oh!" Billy says, raising his eyebrows at this new piece of information.  "Wait, so Liederhosen are 'song trousers?'"
    "Oh no, that's Leder—that means 'leather'—"
    "OH," Billy says, and looks down awkwardly at his cup.  There is an awkward silence.

Kian has posed:
    Winter.  Absolutely not the birdman's favorite time of year.  How do you know it's cold?  Kían is wearing his shirt that actually has half-short sleeves, and a slightly longer kilt.
    And then he wraps himself in a cocoon of infrared radiation.  And the promise of something supremely sugary did the rest of the job of coaxing him out of the Tower.
    Not hot cocoa.  He'd have to be carried home, and even if that wouldn't be an exertion for his walking companion, it would be impolite to impose like that.
    "I grew up in a warm part of Kyshán," he explains to Cait, although she already knew that.  "I've heard about global warming, but it doesn't seem to be working around here."  He looks up into the sky with, well, mild distaste.  "I think the Gods took our ancestors away from here so they could live on a planet with decent weather."
    He sounds more amused than annoyed, though, and smirks slightly.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
    Caitlin, on the other hand, thrives in the winter.  The redhead runs very warm-blooded, and there's a finite amount of heat loss she can manage comfortably in the summer.  In fact, in the winter, her idea of 'seasonal' dress is fairly thin and light fabrics that make her metabolism easier to sustain.
    "Global warming's a bit of a misnomer," Cait informs Kian cheerily.  "It should be called global climate change.  Thermal trapping in the upper atmosphere leads to unpredictable weather changes.  Excess warmth gets trapped in the oceans, which changes the oxygen content of the water, too.  It's kinda like if you leave the fridge door open—it doesn't cool the kitchen down.  Right?"
    In the Tower her attire is usually tights and hoodies, but Caitlin is a natty dresser during the work week.  Grey knee-length skirt, pink blouse with white cuffs, and a colorful scarf wrapped loosely around her neck and hanging back over her shoulders.  She's even carrying a purse instead of a tote bag, her hair is neatly combed and straightened, and in her practical leather boots she looks like any other young professional slipping out of work to run some errands.
    "Hey, is that Billy?"  She squints.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
    It is, indeed, Billy.  Billy, who is trying to make a valiant effort to salvage this sinking ship.  He looks up.
    "Huh, actually," he says, "It doesn't make any sense for Schubert to say that to the aliens—"
    "No?"
    "No, see, that's what aliens say to people in old timey movies.  So.  Like," he begins to warm up to the idea, "The joke could end up with the aliens and him in his study holding a buncha sheet music, and the caption over his head saying, 'Well, you DID ask me to take you to my lieder.'"  He beams.  "That would work better!"
    The young man stares at Billy and frowns.  "…no, that's dumb," he says, clearly displeased at Billy Kaplan's editorial.
    "Oh," Billy says, fidgeting uncomfortably in his seat.  He looks around, anywhere except at his date, and spots a flash of red.  And a familiar face.
    Is that—?
    Billy Kaplan is no telepath, but there is a certain type of body language that, if it had a soundtrack, it would have Aretha Franklin standing behind him and belting 'Come on baby, and rescue me!'

Kian has posed:
    "I think…?  Yes, it is!"  Kían is a telepath, but not freely with non-telepaths, and his grasp of Terran body language is not complete, but he waves and turns in Billy's direction as if he were mounting the desired rescue mission.
    "I don't recognize the person with him, do you?" he asks a little absently, and adds, "I wonder what his rhy'thar is."  Because Kían has a somewhat skewed baseline regarding the odds of someone being meta or not.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
    Caitlin squints at Billy.
    And squints more.  Hesitates.  Looks at Kian, then back at Billy.  Some pantomime occurs, trying to figure out what Billy is doing, and why he's doing it, and what he's asking her to do.
    It takes perhaps longer than it should for Caitlin to realize he's on a date, of all things, and then also that it appears to be bombing.
    "I think his rhy'thar is making Billy uncomfortable," Caitlin tells Kian, perhaps a little less surely than Billy might prefer!  "C'mon, let's go see if he needs help."  She puts her shoulders back and starts walking at Billy's table as fast as she dares.  The redhead's not trying to clear a path in front of her, but 'six foot five superheroine on an approach vector' tends to make people err on the side of caution as she lengthens her paces a bit.
    "Hi Billy—I mean, uh, hey, Billy," she says to him.  Caitlin pastes her friendliest smile on her face and looks down at the table, from Billy to his companion and back again.  "We're just—Kian wanted to do some shopping," she explains, improvising lamely.  "And we've got that thing later, it's—you know, Titans stuff, it's kinda urgent but it can wait," she offers.
    Caitlin is not good at even feigning duplicity.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
    Billy snaps up to attention as Caitlin comes to the rescue.  "Oh!  Right!  Yes!  The—Titans thing!"
    The young man looks back to Caitlin, looks away, and then does a double take.  And then he glances at Kian, and his eyes widen still.  "Wait—that's, you're.  They are—"  He points.
    Billy has taken the opportunity to gather his thing and hastily pack anything that might be loose into his messenger bag.  "Yeah, they're—er, sorry, I have to go do the thing with them, I didn't realize I was running late—"
    "Wait a minute.  How do you know the Titans?"  The blond youth stares at Billy, as if suddenly seeing him in a new light.
    "—I'm one of the top admins on CapeWiki—"  Which is not false, actually, has been for years, way before manifesting any powers, "and—" quick, Billy, think of something, because you're still pretty new at this secret identity thing, "—Doctor Fairchild reached out to me once to get some fact-checking and correct an entry, and long story short, well—"  Damnit, he is not good at this.  "—we talked.  And I started joining them when they do soup kitchens and stuff like that.  Gotta go, though, we have to go talk about the next thing—"
    The young man reaches out for Billy's arm as he stands up.  "Hey, do you think we could do this again?"  But he isn't looking at Billy.  He's looking, slightly, in Kian's direction.
    "Er, I'll let you know.  You know how schedules are—"  Yeah, he is definitely deleting that app when he gets home tonight.
    Smiling at Caitlin and Kian, he steps over to them, "Do we need to get anything before the… thing?" he asks, totally convincing.  Admittedly, he's hungry, but he wasn't going to prolong the coffee date by suggesting they go for food.  He wouldn't have survived it.

Kian has posed:
    Kían is racking his brains for whatever 'Titans thing' is coming up that he's forgotten about, blissfully unaware that they are making a strategic extraction of Billy from a date that's not working out as well as he might've liked.  Bad dates don't happen among his people; they can't help but know, after all.
    He's even less able than Cait at dissembling.  Fortunately, his question is utterly innocent and gives nothing away: "Did I miss a notification?  Well, it wouldn't be the first time."
    He is aware that Billy's date is trying to look like he's not trying to look at him, and his wings straighten slightly, with a slight flexing and re-folding.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
    "Yeah, we should—yes," Caitlin tells Billy, nodding at him and Kian.  She doesn't stand on Kian's foot, literally or proverbially, but does move her purse from shoulder to shoulder in a way that distracts from Kian's confusion.  "It was very nice to meet you, take care," Caitlin tells Billy's date, and with a seemingly clumsy few missteps, ushers Kian and Billy into motion without making it look like she's pulling them out from trouble.
    "Golly, Billy, I'm sorry I forgot you were incognito," Caitlin mumbles at him.  "I thought I could help but me 'n Kian just made it worse, didn't we," she says with some dismay.  "If you want to cut and run it's totally OK.  We really do need to do some shopping here," Caitlin apologizes to Billy.  "Should we have not come over at all?"

Billy Kaplan has posed:
    "Are you kidding me, Doctor Fairchild?" Billy says, keeping his voice low until they have gone enough of a distance, "I owe you big time, that was a date from hell.  There was punning.  Punning in German.  I wasn't ready for that."
    He exhales, and then smiles a little.  "I mean… he wasn't so bad. We just weren't really right for each other.  We're… different kind of nerds."  He glances over at Kian and Caitlin, smiling a little.  "I don't mind shopping with you.  If we run into him we'll just say we're buying stuff for donations."  He pauses.
    He does feel a little bad about lying.  "…actually, we could buy some food stuff we can donate?  That'd make me feel better.  So… what do you need to get?"
    A little bit down the street, a young woman in a black-and-white hoodie detaches herself from the table she had been parked at since Billy started his date.  At first, one might think she is simply another pedestrian, but after a while it will become evident that she is tailing the team.  Or someone in it, at least.

Kian has posed:
    "Wait, I'm confused?  Donations for what?" Kían asks, completely seriously.  "What did I miss a notification of?  I'm sure I didn't see any messages in my inbox…."
    Looks like someone has just volunteered to explain little white lies to the alien.
    Some of the rest of the conversation finally gets through his fruitless wracking of his memory.  "I'm sorry your meeting didn't work out, Billy."
    He adds, after a moment, "And you say punning like it's a bad thing."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
    Caitlin is having to explain this to Kian?  Wonders never cease.  Although, this is definitely case of the one-eyed woman in the land of the blind….  She reaches down and loops her arm through Kian's amicably.  "Kian, Billy got stuck on a date with someone he wasn't interested in," Caitlin explains to Kian.  "And he didn't want to continue the date, but he didn't want to hurt the guy's feelings.  So we pretended that there was something urgent to do as a polite excuse."
    The redhead makes a face.  "I wish I had thought of that trick myself.  The last date I went on was an absolute train wreck and I couldn't get out of it until he dropped me off at home."
    The trio is certainly getting some odd looks; though perhaps the ginger Amazon and the bird-man more than the casually-dressed aspiring magus.  "But yeah, we can do some shopping for donate-ables.  I like playing the Titan's card, telling them we're doing some charity work.  Lots of stores will chip in on our fundraisers if I just ask them really nicely."  Caitlin beams at the two other Titans, seeing absolutely nothing unusual in that sort of largesse from the public.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
    "That's nice of them!" Billy chirps in, and he gives Kian a bit of a contrite look.  "And… yeah.  I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but we were getting on about as well as water and oil.  It's not his fault, I think the app's metrics need work."  And then, some amusement appears in his eyes.  "Maybe someday I'll find someone who looks at me the way he looked at you, though.  My god, could he have been any more blatant?" he chuckles.
    The woman has drawn closer now.  She has taken something out—a chicken caesar wrap, in fact, and begins to eat it casually as she approaches the trio.  It is just at a moment where the trio slow down a little right before reaching one of the store entrances that she bumps into Billy.
    "Oh!"
    "Ohmygawd!" she says.  The wrap falls on the floor, spreading its contents across the ground.
    "I'm sorry!" Billy says, turning and crouching over to try to pick up the ruined wrap, but the young woman just scoops it up and stuffs it into the napkin.  "'Sokay, I'm running late anyways!" she says and starts to take off in a huff, ready to stash the wrap in a nearby trash can.
    "Huh…" Billy says, rubbing the back of his head, "She looked familiar…."

Kian has posed:
    Kían's been on Earth almost three years now, but some things still elude him.  "Wait, I know what a date is, but why would you go on one with someone you're not interested in?  It—oh.  Right.  You don't have the mind touch.  But I don't see how that justifies a deceit… oh.  Right.  You don't have the mind touch, so you can."
    Kian of course does not eat chicken, but he recognizes the smell of it, and has turned away from the source so he misses the collision, and only turns back in time to see the woman's back as she hurries away.  "You're having less than a good day.  You weren't hurt, were you?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
    "Whoops!" is the entirety of Caitlin's contribution to the conversation.  She watches with concern as the woman skitters off, and shares a confused look with the two men in the aftermath.  But she does make sure Billy's clothing is OK, and fusses over him with a motherly sort of concern before taking a stray piece of lettuce and flicking it into a trash can.
    "This is why I don't go on dates," Caitlin explains to Kian.  "If it's someone from Church or a group I'm in, and they ask me nicely, I'll go, but I don't like doing the dating thing.  I've had too many guys start telling me how many babies we should have together.  And the last girl who asked me out got really offended when I told her I was Catholic."  Her nose wrinkles in a minute expression of frustration.
    "Anyway, let's stop in here, first," Caitlin says, and—oh hey, it just so happens to be Sur la Table.  Caitlin's favorite store in the world.  "I mean, they don't do charity here, but maybe they'll have… something… on sale," she says.
    Caitlin knows she's not selling it, so she gives the boys a thin-lipped expression, rolls her eyes at herself, and pulls the door open to walk into the garden of cast-iron cookware.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
    "Yeah—it's not been great so far, but—"  The young mage brightens up after dusting the front of the hoodie.  "It's bound to get better now that you guys are here."
    "Ooh, I remember this store…."  Billy looks around the store.  Sur La Table has a plentiful selection for those who make the kitchen their preferred demesne.  Billy isn't a slouch in the kitchen, but he knows he is nowhere near the same level as Caitlin.  He hasn't had a chance to sample her food yet, but he has heard talk of it.  Donna has mentioned it to the Young Avengers, and has often promised treats at a future gathering.
    Billy is looking forward to it.
    "Oh wow, that's a KitchenAid Artisan Mini Premium Tilt-Head Stand Mixer.  My mom's been eyeing buying one of these because our old one has started to smoke a little… it's older than me."
    The young mage grins and looks at Kian.  "Do you do any cooking yourself, Kian?  I'm pretty handy with a pan, but I wouldn't mind being a full-on kitchen wizard like Doctor Fairchild."
    For a moment, his voice sounds like it's doubled—it's almost like diplophonia, except that the second voice sounds lower, it echoes briefly, and it feels slightly unnatural.
    Billy blinks and looks around.  "This shop must have weird acoustics in this spot—"
    Unbeknownst to him, there is something clinging to the back of his hoodie, hidden in a fold.

Kian has posed:
    Kían shakes his head.  "The automated systems in my estate handled my meals.  I could make a quick snack, of course, but nothing complicated.  And the rest of the team has seen how I make Kool-Ade, and I think they don't want me cooking for them anyway."
    Blink.
    "It's not the acoustics of the spot.  My voice sounds normal.  Your throat doesn't hurt, does it?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
    Caitlin blinks at the noises Billy makes.  The redhead is a bit slow on the uptake where social niceties are concerned, but there's certainly nothing wrong with the mechanics of her hearing or her audio processing.  In fact it's one of her lesser-known metahuman advantages.
    "It's not the—" she says, a half-beat behind Kian's declaration, and gestures at him in support rather than echoing his words (hah).
    Caitlin lifts her chin, looks around, and even nudges Billy out of his spot so she can stand where he did.  "Hello.  Hello?"
    "Hello!" someone says from across the store.  Caitlin grimaces apologetically and waves him off, shaking her head.
    "'s weird, though.  Say something else," she urges Billy, and focuses her attention wholly upon him for the moment.
    SCIENCE!

Billy Kaplan has posed:
    Billy looks a little uncomfortable at being the center of attention, but he is a good sport and goes along with it.  "Well… eh, sure.  Something—"
    But then his voice suddenly comes forth out of nowhere, and it's not saying just 'Something'.

    "AKitchenWizardAKitchenWizardAKitchenWizardA—"

    Billy's eyes go wide as his voice is saying things he just said a few seconds earlier, but it's saying them in that tone of voice, and that means—"Oh no!"
    CLANG.
    CLANG
    CLANG
    Pots, pans, utensils vibrate and ring like bells, responding in sympathetic vibration to some unheard initial sound.  A skillet suddenly detaches itself from its display case (La Creuset, $174.95, now $119.96 for post-Holidays clearance!) and flies towards his chest.  A Viking Tri-Ply 11-piece cookware set ($899.95, practically a steal right now!) levitates off its display table and, likewise, begins to head towards Billy Kaplan at great speed.  He opens his mouth, perhaps to recite a countercharm,  but no sound comes from him as a rather elegant Maison hand towel ($21.96 if you buy the pair!) shoots out from a nearby cubby hole and wraps itself around his mouth, resulting in nothing but an urgent, muffled 'Mfffff!'

Kian has posed:
    Later, Kían will be a little disturbed at himself that he's getting used to weird things like this happening.  Then again, look who he's dating.  In fact, he takes a second to see if Terry has wandered into the area—apparently not.
    And speaking of science—metals really don't like being in the vicinity of changing magnetic fields.  Kían just tries to knock the cookware to the ground; he doesn't want to take the chance of hitting an innocent bystander.
    Alas, magnetic fields aren't much good against towels.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
    Caitlin swings at an errant saucepan, batting it aside.  There's a lot of flying debris, so Caitlin adjusts tactics; instead of blocking the cookware, Caitlin blocks Billy.  She unceremoniously pulls him into her arms and stoops over, forcing him to crouch.  With the redhead framed out around Billy, the heaviest of the objects are stuck contending with the most obdurate member of the Titans.  Caitlin could walk off anti-tank rounds; cookware isn't a problem.
    A stream of cast iron pelts her back and shoulders.  She turns just in time for the last item in the set to carom off her head, making a wobbling path of deflection into another part of the store.  Caitlin closes her eyes, sighs, and grimaces.
    "Ow," she announces.  When there's a fractional interlude, Caitlin reaches down and pulls the towel off of Billy's mouth with her bare fingers.
    "This is some Terry-level malarky," she tells Billy.  *THONK*—a pot hits her in the hip, barely enough to make her sway.  "Any chance you could, y'know, make it STOP?"

Billy Kaplan has posed:
    "I can try!" Billy squeaks out, "But Raven hasn't told me about counterspells yet…."  Still, no better chance to take the lead than on the field, right?  Kian's abilities allow the worst of the projectiles to go off harmlessly, even as new appliances take to the air to try to target the mage.  By this point the store is in pandemonium and patrons are streaming out in a panic.
    A straight twentysomething boy would probably not be able to concentrate much, or say anything much at all, if Caitlin Fairchild were to pull him into her arms.  Fortunately for everybody involved, Billy is not a straight twentysomething boy, and his flustered state seems to be due, mainly, to the fact that there is a runaway spell not of his own making, and yet of his making, causing trouble.  He begins to speak, raising his arms in a mystical gesture for emphasis and, well, confidence (Doctor Strange looks cool doing it, so why not him?)

    "StopAllMagicStopAll-"

    And that's when Caitlin will notice, being this close, that there is a bright blue light on Billy's shoulder, just behind where he might be able to see it himself.  It looks like a star-shaped jewel with claws that cling to Billy's hoodie, no bigger than a quarter.  As Billy begins chanting, the blue light glows brighter—
    And that's when, out of nowhere, a teapot collides with the mage and knocks him out cold, sending his body to topple forward as the spell is interrupted.

Kian has posed:
    "Vic would have a much more satisfying word to use than malarkey!"  But, not all the patrons have cleared the area, so Kían doesn't try to use one.  "And this is why I don't like magic!"
    The problem is, there's so much going on it's hard to keep track of everything.  So maybe Kían missed the teapot entirely, or maybe it's ceramic and unaffected by magnetism.  He doesn't notice it until it's already hit Billy.
    "Ai, qokh!"  He still has never provided a translation for that.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
    "Billy!" Caitlin cries out.  She at least has the wherewithal to keep Billy from simply dropping like a sack of potatoes, and tries to keep him sheltered in her arms and using an empty display shelf as partial cover.
    "Gosh darn it, what even is going on?!" she demands of the room in particular.  She puts Billy down in a recovery position, and that's when she notices something strange on his on his hoodie—the glowing little blue jewel.  Whatever Billy normally uses for spell slinging, Caitlin figures out pretty fast that this isn't part of his kit.  She pulls it off his hoodie and holds it firmly between her fingertips.  Little claw things have a tendency to turn around and clamp down viciously on whatever pulled the off their perch.
    "Kian, come here!  I think this is the problem!" she calls over to the birb.  Caitlin could probably crush it in her fingertips… but magic is often better countered with someone else's magic, after all.  Even if the end result is the same.

Kian has posed:
    Kían reaches out with all his senses, mental and meta, and… "I don't know what it is.  I can't get anything off it.  And if it's channeling Billy's rhy'thar, I don't want to see what it might do with mine.  Can you just crush it?  Or is that going to be a bad idea?"
    He frowns.  "This is why I don't like magic," he repeats, and this time explains further: "I don't understand its rules.  If it even has them."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
    Caitlin grimaces at Kian.  "That's why I don't like magic," she grumbles.  "What you do is closer to magic than what I can do!"
    There's some non-verbal back-and-forth, trying to pass the proverbial potato back and forth.  Caitlin is the one who relents, and grimaces at Kian.  "This always blows back on me in the weirdest ways, so call Donna, and tell her to get Rae if something goes wrong.  Doggone Rachel never picks up her doggone phone, rassum frassum," Caitlin trails off grumbling.  She eyes the jewel, engages her safety squints, and flips it over between thumb and forefinger.  The redhead curls her wrist for some extra strength and grunts with exertion as she bears down hard onth e srtange object planted on their companion.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
    The jewel is clearly magical, but its construction leaves much to be desired.  It is clearly not magically tough, as it easily succumbs under Caitlin's thumb and forefinger.
    Snap.
    Just like that, its physical chassis falls away into tortured metal.
    At the same time, all floating cookware falls to the ground as well, lifeless and inert—just as inert as Billy, who will not be waking up from that conk on the head jus yet.
    But it's not quite over.  A mote of light, a tiny blue spark, remains in the air for a few seconds.  It seems to almost pulse angrily at Cait.  Then, it explodes into tiny sparks of light at her and it is gone, seemingly without causing her any harm.
    Or did it?

    *Clang*

    That's the sound of the nearest frying pan, flying towards Cait's thigh.  The difference is that unlike earlier, this was not an obvious flying attack, but simply the laws of attraction taking place.  Metallic objects in the vicinity edge towards her, some of them sticking to her arms, her shoulders, her back, even her head has managed to collect a rather fetching collection of demi-tasse spoons arrayed around her head as if she were the British Patron Saintess of Teatime, Saint Brewster, who lived oolong time ago and who paid a steep price to procure a husband… but it was a matcha made in heaven.
    In any case, Caitlin Fairchild seems to have acquired a magnetic personality of sorts.