Log: Matt & Adrienne

[x-daredevil.livejournal.com]

A few days before prom, Adrienne takes Matt tux-shopping and makes sure he gets the 3rd, 4th and 5th degree. Thankfully, he manages to survive.



Unsure and more than slightly worried about the shopping trip Adrienne had planned for him for prom, Matt was dutifully waiting downstairs at 4pm like he was instructed. He knew he needed to rent a tux and probably get Tandy a corsage, but he had no idea what else Adrienne was expecting. Tandy was her ward though, so he wanted to get it right. Plus, Adrienne and Tandy were both awesome. Still, awesome could also be terrifying.

"Ready to go?" Adrienne asked cheerfully, sashaying down the staircase in one of her many Bitchy Businesswoman outfits. "Do you have matching socks on? And clean underwear? Also, car or motorcycle?"

"Uh...yes?" Matt knew his underwear was clean, the matching socks part was debatable, but he didn't think Adrienne would want him to check. He did have an app on his phone that helped with that though. "Motorcycle!" he agreed quickly. They couldn't bring much back that way and it was fun.

"Okay, cool." Adrienne opened the door for Matt as they made their way towards the garage. "We'll take Scott's, then. The 'suped up hog has more storage space than my Panigale. I'm sure he won't mind." And if he did, she'd make it up to him. Or go to his wife to ask for mercy.

Because the motorcycle didn't lend itself well to having conversations, Adrienne jumped right into the grilling she needed to do. "So... why Tandy?" she asked without precursor.

Huh? Why Tandy? What? Groaning silently, Matt slipped ear plugs in his ears before putting on the helmet. He could still hear her well enough, but on the bike they'd help. "She asked for a date," Matt answered, a little confused. He knew Adrienne had seen the post, she'd commented on it.

Adrienne slipped on her own helmet, sending a skeptical look Matt's way. "She asked who wanted to go with her," she pointed out. "That could have meant in a general sense." That's how she'd interpreted it, which was why she'd responded. "Like asking who wants to go with you to a fair. Or Zorbing."

Matt was pretty sure she was reading too much into this, "I thought she wanted a date. So, I asked her. Not like I have one either," friends did that, right? He did it.

"And what are you expecting to get out of this 'date'?" Adrienne inquired in her best casual-but-I-may-destroy-you-if-I-don't-like-your-answer tone as she did her checks on the motorcycle.

"It's Tandy," now Matt was really confused. Adrienne knew him and she knew Tandy, why was he getting the third degree? "We'll dance and drink punch and eat that little finger foods that're awesome. You know, prom." That's what always happened. "Oh, and someone will probably have a powers malfunction at some point."

Adrienne actually didn't really 'know' much about prom- her only experiences with them were the ones at Xavier's and she'd only been to one or two of those since she always tried to get out of chaperoning. But despite her lack of experience at prom, she remembered being eighteen, and eighteen year-old boys, all too well. "Good answer," she replied in an approving tone, nodding. "Because I know you're both technically adults now," she continued, stony-faced, "but since Tandy asked for her guardianship to carry on, she's still my responsibility. Which means it's my job to maim, bury, or set alight anyone who participates in an experience she regrets later. And I will find out everything that you do, because I am all-seeing and all-knowing." Despite knowing that no matter what she said or did she couldn't spare Tandy bad experiences or regrets in life, it was still her job to give the threatening speeches, right? Just like it was Matt's rite of passage as a guy taking a date to prom to get that speech, wasn't it? "So it's really good that you expect to get some dancing and food and drink out of this thing instead of some maiming or being set on fire."

He'd been given this speech once before when dating Sue, but not quite so...graphically. "Tandy's awesome and if she wanted to date me, then yeah, I'd love that, but I'm pretty sure she's not into me," and that effectively ended that. "So I asked as a friend, nothing more. I got no expectations beyond having fun." And if there was a pleasant surprise, then that was on Tandy.

"Good answer," Adrienne repeated, giving him a Death Glare she knew he couldn't see. "So do you know what kind of flower you want to get her?"

Hopefully that ended the interrogation, "Um....her dress is blue, right? So blue flowers?" He knew nothing about these things other than it was important to girls and he didn't want to screw it up. "Have you seen her dress?"

"I have," the math teacher nodded, smiling pleasantly. "Do you get any images of flowers when you use your sonar power thinger? Like, shapes and stuff?"

Matt shook his head, "Not really," he replied, "Flowers are all flimsy and delicate and stuff. So they don't really bounce sound off them too well," maybe fake flowers were better in that respect. Either way, he didn't get colour. He could touch them of course, every flower was a little different.

Adrienne nodded again. "Okay. Cuz naturally blue flowers are kind of... not awesome for corsages." But now that she knew he couldn't really tell what different flowers looked like anyway, it was less of an issue. "And her dress is a really light shade of blue, which is hard to find naturally in a corsage flower. Our best bet is probably a white flower that's been dyed blue? I know lilies are her favourite flower, so maybe a lily dyed blue? Unless you wanted to go with a yellow or white or red one to go against the dress colour instead of with it. Up to you."

"I'm not picky about dying flowers," he had no idea how that would happen, but if it worked, then it worked. "Or white. I like red, but....do red and light blue go together?" He wasn't sure. Maybe. This is why he asked these things. Red was his favourite colour though.

"I suppose it would depend on the kind of statement you want to make," Adrienne replied, finishing her check of the bike and climbing onto it. "Do you want the colours contrasting so they stand out? Or do you want something more... classic and elegant?"

These things made statements? Crap. Getting on the bike, after Adrienne, Matt made sure his cane was secure and so was his helmet, "I think....elegant..." it was somewhat phrased as a question, but not entirely. "Hope's elegant. Tandy is...I dunno. Cool." Neither was better than the other, just different, "So maybe something trendy?"

"Trendy's a fun word," Adrienne praised, firing up the engine of Scott's bike. "And very Tandy. I can work with trendy."

Matt had no idea where they ended up in Salem Center, but soon enough there was a very helpful gentleman suggesting tux styles and colours, "Am I supposed to match her or can I wear what I want?" Matt asked, interrupting the conversation going on over his head. He wasn't too picky about things so long as it didn't itch or get too hot, but he had some ideas that involved not wearing a bow tie.

Adrienne looked over at Matt and blinked a couple times, as if, in her deep concentration of talking to the salesman, she'd forgotten Matt was there. "You can wear what you want as long as it doesn't clash with her," Adrienne informed him matter-of-factly. "So, if you wanted to wear black trousers and a white jacket, Bond-style, that would work. But a copper-red 70s suit, Ron Burgandy-style, would not. Whyyyy?" she questioned suspiciously. "Do you have ideas about what you want to wear?" Her tone indicated that she hadn't yet decided whether she was comfortable with the idea of Matt having his own ideas rather than just wearing what she told him.

"I just wanted to wear a red vest..." Matt trailed off quietly, unsure if he was going to get lambasted for daring to have an opinion or not. "And you can't tell me it's red and it's not because my phone can read a colour and tel me what it is," just in case that thought crossed her mind. Maybe this was a bad idea. He rarely had a lot of opinions on clothes, but sometimes he had preferences for his own.

"I bet I could cheat a phone," Adrienne retorted confidently, thinking that might be a neat challenge some day. But she didn't need to do it today. "Red vest should be fine," she assured him in her businesswoman voice, squinting at the far end of the shop to see what colours of vests they had on offer. "We'll find a shade that goes with the blue dress. Bow tie or not bow tie?"

Oh, good. Red was his favourite colour. "Uh....not bow tie," Matt said that more confidently. He didn't want to look silly and bow ties seemed kinda silly. Plus, he couldn't tie one. He could tie a tie, barely. It was a work in progress since he rarely had cause to wear one. "I can't tie one of those."

"Well, there are lots of people around who could help you," Adrienne assured him. Garrison was very adept at tying a bow tie, and she was sure Wade had probably worn one or two on undercover mercenary-type outings. "But it's not a necessity. You can wear a necktie." She scrolled through a palette of colour swatches she had in an app on her phone until she found the one she wanted, then snapped her fingers at the clerk waiting on them and sent him scurrying off to find a vest and necktie in that shade. "Black or white jacket?"

"Whichever," Matt shrugged, "You're the one making the decisions, right?" He had his one preference, which was a red vest, beyond that, he was trusting Adrienne. He was even flexible on the shade of red. "They have pants long enough to fit me, right?" He was tall and thin, sometimes finding pants with his measurements wasn't easy. Thank goodness for the internet.

"Uhh, yeah," Adrienne answered distractedly, squinting at the jackets on the rack. She decided to go with the black and started checking sizes. "That's sorta why we're at an actual tailors' instead of, y'know, Banana Republic or whatever. They'll tailor stuff to fit you here. Cool, huh?" Even if they didn't, Adrienne would, or she'd ask Clarice or Megan to do it. "Are you guys going to dinner before the prom?"

"Only if Tandy drives or we ride with someone else," Matt didn't mind paying, but he really didn't want to do the cab thing to a restaurant, "but we could," it was a flexible sort of thing to him, "Also, Banana Republic is crazy expensive! It's silly to spend that much on clothes. Especially if you're going to only wear it once or twice," now that he had his adult height, getting something nicer wasn't quite the waste it had seemed when he was younger. "But...yeah. Lots of places only have my size online, so I just order them that way. Saves a lot of hassle for like, shopping." Matt was the kind of guy that bought a couple pairs of jeans in the fall, then cut them into shorts for summer.

"Convenience is nice," Adrienne replied indulgently, still looking through jackets. She was getting a little frustrated with the fact that she couldn't pick out what she wanted immediately, as she'd spent years doing, but she was having trouble picking out the subtle differences in sizes that she could usually see right away. "Does 'ride with someone else' include taking a limo? Isn't that what promgoers usually do?"

"Well....yeah, I guess," Matt shrugged, he hadn't gotten a limo for prom before, but this wasn't his first one. That was how Xavier's was, "I didn't think about getting a limo just from the school to dinner and back. We could...I'm guessing you've already ordered it," that was very much Adrienne. Idly, he traced his fingers along the racks of jackets, feeling the different materials.

Adrienne finally found the jacket she'd been envisioning for Matt and returned to him. "Uhh... yeaaaaaaah, I did," she answered, sounding a little guilty. "But I could've cancelled it if you'd already gotten one. White shirt or black shirt?"

"Thanks," Matt meant it too. He did want to do this sort of thing right, "And uh...white? Will that look okay?" That was traditional, so it should. He hoped.

"You're welcome. And yeah, it will." She wandered away again, examining shirts this time. "I wouldn't have given you the option if it wouldn't look okay," she murmured distractedly as she searched. The clerk had returned with the vest and tie in the shade Adrienne had specified and she gave him an approving nod as he held them up for inspection. She waved him away so she could focus on her own task and he returned to Matt. "Hold out your arms at your sides, please," Adrienne called out to Matt when she guessed the clerk had gotten close. "I didn't actually make dinner reservations for the two of you, though," she informed Matt from across the room. "I'm trusting you can handle that part?"

"Cats' place?" he joked, knowing that both Adrienne and Tandy expected better than a deli. "But yeah, I can figure something out. I guess cooking is out?" there were plenty of places in town though and with a limo there was no problem getting anywhere. Doing as he was told, Matt let the tailor measure him, feeling very odd about the entire process. "I guess black then. Whichever. I'm not picky on my shirt colour."

"Black... so you don't get food on it?" Adrienne questioned, cocking an eyebrow at him. That would be classy. Not. "Sure," Matt agreed, thinking that was a good idea. He wasn't prone to wearing his food, but at the same time, accidents happened and this would be the worst time for it to happen. "Black and red. Gee. That's familiar," he grinned, those were his go-to colours really. "At least I know I look good in them," they made him feel awesome so that counted as looking good. "There ya go. That's the most important thing we're going for here. The suit should make you feel confident, feel that you look like a million bucks. Well," Adrienne mused, "maybe the second most important thing. The most important, of course, is that you don't make your date look bad."

Laughing, Matt just agreed. "I promise not to make her look bad," he agreed, amused, "No more than I do in general anyways. I make no overarching promises I can't keep."