628/Playing With Power (Girl)

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Playing With Power (Girl)
Date of Scene: 19 March 2020
Location: Forest Hills -- Queens
Synopsis: Peter Parker and Harry Osborn check out a failed bank heist and cross paths with a very-protective Power Girl.
Cast of Characters: Peter Parker, Karen Starr




Peter Parker has posed:
"Come ON, Harry!"
Peter Parker, photographer (photoJOURNALIST) bolted out of the front door. Another young man with short red hair bounded out after him, holding up his keys and unlocking the doors of the cherry-red SUV. "Get in, Petesky, unless you want to run the mile there!"

Pete COULD, but only as Spider-Man, and he wasn't about to clue in the son of his biggest threat on THAT little secret. So he bundled himself in as Harry cranked the engine, the SUV rumbling to life.

"Allons-y!" Harry crowed as tires squealed, and the SUV lunged out into the quiet street.

Three minutes later, the SUV pulled up next to the street where the action happened.
"Ah, MAN...the heist is over. I really wanted to pull up behind that armored truck."
"Why?" Peter asked as he got out, digital camera in hand.
"So you could say 'FOLLOW THAT CAR!' of course." Harry grinned.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Sometimes, you have to fly from one end of the city to the other, and there's the hassle of changing clothes, and so on. Super speed only means that the tedium happens very -quickly-, not that it doesn't happen. Sometimes, though, you're lucky, and a bunch of goons are mooking it up to try and rob a bank while you happen to be flying overhead.

    It was a simple matter of swooping down and just... Pressing her foot to the front of the truck. It's brakes became Power Girl, in that moment. She didn't move a whole lot, and the truck now had a boot-print dented into the front of it- but it stopped. Fast.

    The resulting arrest didn't take long either. Escaping from the bulletproof supersonic alien you didn't expect to come across today isn't exactly -easy,- and a group of Genuine Grade-A Expendable Help can't be expected to pull off such a feat, now that they're going solo.

    That's why, when Pete and Harry arrive, Karen is just standing off to the side, giving the requisite statements to the police that arrived to a group of unconscious former henchmen, an illegally parked armored car, and a crime no longer in progress.

Peter Parker has posed:
Peter sighed. "No action shots."
"Maybe not the action YOU are thinking of..." Harry says with an amused tone in his voice, and Peter looked to see Harry watching Power Girl. He had a dreamy look in his eye...yep, Harry has fallen in love. For the first time...TODAY.
Not that Peter didn't understand. Power Girl is, admittedly, impressive. Tall, muscular without sacrificing femininity...and spectacular structural integrity, leave us not gild the lily. Still, she's an A-list superheroine...

<So is Supergirl,> a rather sly part of his head reminded.
He shook his head. "Harry, I'm going to go around, try to get a better angle. If you must OGLE...OGLE QUIETLY."
"Yeah, sure, check the air bags..." Harry said distractedly.
Peter rolled his eyes and moved around, edging closer to the truck to get a good shot of the damage.

Karen Starr has posed:
    If only Harry were capable of higher brain function at the moment, he might have warned Peter that Power Girl's discussion with the officers was ending. Normally, this would be so that Peter could finish snapping photos and then depart without having to speak to an officer about what boundary tape means.

    This time, though, as the police huddle to discuss what to do with the suspects, Karen steps aside and then finds her way around to Peter, whom rather suddenly feels a hand on his shoulder. Running, turning, fleeing in most fashions will be difficult. She's not exactly squeezing, but one would have to maneuver out of a hand that, in this instance, feels like you're being halted by a steel statue.

    "Peter Parker. I've been seeing you in the news."

Peter Parker has posed:
The Spider-Sense goes off a moment before the hand descends on his shoulder. He is lining up the shot to get a good one of the totaled truck when it happens.

He freezes, then his finger tightens and the picture is taken. He slowly lowers the camera and can see Harry staring at him in shock. He had been waving his hands, trying to get his attention.
Parker Luck, you clocked in early.
He lets the camera hang around his neck, then turns to see...yep. There she is, in all her caped glory. In spite of it, she seems...familiar, in some way, but he can't put his finger on it.

"Oh, hi! Uhm...yes, I'm with the Bugle. I take pictures for them." Was he inside the perimeter? Yes, he was, wasn't he?

Then his brain picked up the words, and parsed them correctly. Not OF the news, IN the news. But where?
"Uhm...what news is that?" he asks, looking puzzled.

DAMN, she is strong.

Karen Starr has posed:
    There's this mild nodding along with Peter's statements. "Yep. You. Daily Bugle. Correct. Pictures. Inside the perimeter. Trespassing." It's all said in this informative tone, as if she's providing various answers to Peter that he'd been asking her for.

    All the while, her hand is on his shoulder. It doesn't seem as if it's capable of leaving- as if the laws of physics have decreed that Peter needs to be oppressed at this point in time.

    "The New York Post." There's a pause there. She waits- as if to let the fact that he was -in- the paper sort of catch up to him. "An article. About you. And Supergirl."

    Then, silence. Karen looms over Peter, like a mildly threatening deity.

Peter Parker has posed:
The POST? Who reads the New York Post? It's a tabloid with delusions of grandeur.
He is aware that Harry is making his way towards them, but he is still puzzled. But his face does brighten when she mentions Supergirl. "Oh. Yeah, I met her. She sought me out...we talked for awhile...and then I asked her out..."

And then Harry is holding up his phone, showing him a Facebook page with a picture of Supergirl embracing him, her cape fluttering.

...OH...

Karen Starr has posed:
    Karen, at that point, pulls her around around Peter's shoulders. Had the man wanted to get away, it had now become... Very much more difficult than before. "Mister Parker. I just wanted to give you a lesson or two about... Your future." she offers, gesturing broadly to the sky.

    "Have you considered what happens if you mess this up?" she asks, bulldozing forward with some flare, but not much subtlety. Harry, probably, is in earshot now. "It'll be a scientific experience. Once in a lifetime. A real Meet the Stars affair."

    That merits another silence, so that it can sink in. Are these threats empty? Yes. Karen isn't going to throw Peter into the sun should he break Kara's heart. Karen doesn't know Kara- they haven't met. Yet, Karen understands what it can be like to want happiness and not get it. It'd be different if Peter were some overwhelmingly masculine spacefaring superhero, she wouldn't feel the need to play the big sister role.

    Problem is, Peter's not that. If Kara sees something in this guy, it's like Clark and Lois. Karen can't help but want it to succeed.

    "Do you get my meaning, Mister Parker? Are we clear?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Peter gulps. This isn't exactly subtle, but a lot of people are looking at the guys being loaded into squad cars, and it's easy to mistake what Power Girl is doing as just a friendly chat with a photographer.

Are they related? He'll have to ask Kara...after he gets free of someone acting suspiciously like an older sister.
Except older sisters don't normally quote Ralph Kramden of THE HONEYMOONERS and are actually CAPABLE of sending him to the moon. Without the neccessity or the benefit of a spacecraft...or a spacesuit.

"...Positively transpicuous..." Peter squeaked.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Empty threats are great catharsis. "Think about it, Mister Parker. How incredible the understanding you'll develop regarding the surface of our life-giving local star will be."

    Another pause. She stops looking into the sky, and then looks at Peter for a moment. "You know. Like a school field trip. All for you. Alone. To the sun. You get a t-shirt, too. It'll say, 'I was dating Supergirl, and then I fucked it up.' What's your size...? Eh, it won't matter."

    Standing back up straight, Karen releases the photographer. "Have we reached a new level of understanding?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Yeah. A brand new level entirely. And he is never going to see even a picture of her without hearing Boss Music playing.

Peter steps back as Harry reaches him. "Hey, Petesky, you okay?" He looks from Peter to Karen, his eyes narrowing, his face darkening.

For a moment, it looks as though he is going to go right for her throat, Kryptonian physiology be damned.

"I'm okay...just a little too much sun." Peter speaks quickly. It takes a lot to rile Harry, but seeing Peter in potential trouble seems to cut the fuse from minutes to seconds. It is a loyalty that Karen could describe as fierce, intense...
...and for one split-second, homicidal.
Then he is looking back to Peter, concerned in spite of his happy-go-lucky demeanor. "Did you get the pics you needed?"
Peter nodded, looking to PG for a moment before saying, "I think I got the picture just fine."

Peter looks back to Harry. "Let's go. The sooner I get these pics uploaded, the sooner JJJ can bid for them."
"He still pays you chump change. You oughtta let ME negotiate for them..."

Harry walks with Peter, leaning slightly against him. One could almost forget how he had looked at Power Girl like he was ready to kill her.

...Almost.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Karen's hands are on her hips. There is... Experience, there. She's been doing this longer than anyone knows- and the stare back at Harry is a telling one. It's almost as if she's inviting him to make that Face-Heel-Turn. That sort of... See What Happens stare.

    "Yeah, he's a -great- photographer. High resolution. It's a very, -very- clear picture." she states, and as the two are departing, so is she. Rising into the sky, Power Girl flies off with a newfound understanding of her own- That this Parker kid might have some degree of dangerous friends. Might have to address that later. Hope nothing comes of it.

    Either way, she's hitting a little over fifty times the speed of sound to get back to Metropolis. Her secretary can't hold her calls forever.