Not Quite Oz

captain america fanboy

Crow Man didn't touch the clothes for a few days after Ximena had gotten them for him, and if not for how she now occasionally saw him munching on a granola bar, there was no way to tell he had ever received anything from her at all.

He had said thank you though, and Ximena had felt the sincerity in it as clearly as she had felt it in his apology for scaring her, so she figured he appreciated the gesture. Maybe they hadn't fit him. Not that she'd even seen him try it on, but well. She'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

As far as roommates go he hadn't been too horrible.

Ximena didn't particularly have plans to leave the warehouse that day; they still had food, and she had a stash of upwards to eighty dollars to use on snacks when she did need more food. Maybe, she thought, if she stayed in all day, she'd get an idea of what Crow Man did all day.

She was prepared to be very bored.

But when she rolled out of her pallet of blankets after having slept late into the morning, she found Crow Man standing awkwardly just out from under his stairs for the first time since he had taken residence beneath them. Ximena blinked, clearing the sleep from her eyes, and when she looked at him properly, she let out a delighted laugh.

"They fit!" she exclaimed, jumping up and stumbling a bit when her body decided it was not nearly awake enough for that type of movement. Crow Man took a step toward her, metal arm reaching out, but she righted herself before giving him a chance to help.

"They do fit, right?" she asked, squinting her eyes at him as she neared. He held still and didn't stop her as she walked around him. His left sleeve seemed a little more snug than his right, but it didn't seem like his metal arm would burst out if he flexed. Could he flex with that thing? She wondered if she could bug him enough to show her.

"They fit," he said quietly. Ximena stopped in front of him and threw her arms up in victory.

"Ha!" He lurched back with a wave of alarm, and she drew her arms back close to her body, eyes wide. "Sorry," she said. "How about the pants?" she asked, quickly moving back to a safe topic. "They fit okay?" They didn't look tight, but Ximena knew that with jeans, movement was key. "If you can do a squat without ripping it, I think you'd be good," she told him, giving him the a-okay sign.

He looked at her with a blank expression.

"You know," she said, and did a squat herself. The old overalls she wore - loose and stained and torn at the knees - gave her all the movement she needed. "At least that's what one-ah my foster lady's used to say. She was very into clothes."

She was less into having to deal with a perpetually angry twelve year old.

Crow Man didn't move for a second, and Ximena was about to write it off as a lost cause when he went down and then back up, just as she had.

"They okay?" she asked, and grinned when he nodded. "Why'd you finally change? You get bored with the emo look?" She didn't have to feel his confusion to know that he had no idea what that word meant. She sighed dramatically and let her head hang back. "We need to get you to some internet so you can look through Urban Dictionary, buddy." He continued to stare at her. "Nevermind."

"I have to go," he said, and Ximena snapped her head back down to look at him in surprise. Before anything stupid like disappointment could make its way to her, he went on. "Museum," he added, and Ximena's brows furrowed in confusion. "With the airplanes."

"The Smithsonian?" She had gone once on a field trip when she was still in school, and found the whole thing rather boring. She hadn't even gone into the Captain America exhibit, but that had been mostly spite. "Why?"