om_main | Kitty and Doug | Backdated to 10/26/14

After an all nighter and pizza, Doug and Kitty pronounce X-Cape ready for beta-testing!

Seven in the morning, and Kitty was wired. She'd been up for twenty-four hours straight, working with Doug for over fourteen of them, camped out in her lab with an array of computers and Stark screens spread out around them. A pizza box on the edge of the desk held one cold slice and a few discarded crusts, and she absent-mindedly grabbed the last slice, taking a bite as she squinted at one of the screens. The smell of coffee was in the air, and it tempted her away from the bank of computers to the happy little Keurig in the corner.

"Hey, you want another cup?" she called back to her friend.

"Yeah, please?" Doug replied without turning around, his eyes locked on the screen as he groped for his own slice of pizza and picked it up. "I'm not seeing any flaws in the code. Still not sure I like the color scheme, though." He made a face. Design wasn't exactly his best skill, but the font didn't show up as well as he'd prefer. Or possibly, his vision was starting to blur, but they were so close to done it'd be stupid to stop now. Besides, if it was the latter, the coffee should fix the problem.

Kitty lapped at the end of her slice while she fiddled with the coffee-maker, chewing and swallowing thoughtfully before glancing back over at the screens. "The brushed steel was cool, but too harsh. I think we should go with the cool blue-gray with bright turquoise accents. Clear white text and the proxima-nova font, maybe two points up in size. Make everything big and bright, easy and inviting."

"Got it." Doug nodded and took a bite of his pizza, then set it down and started typing in the changes as he chewed, glancing over at one of the other screens where he'd left open a list of color codes. "Oh yeah, that's better," he confirmed a few moments later as he brought it up for her to see. "What do you think?

Kitty grinned manically around the lip of her coffee mug. "Perfect. Right? I mean. Yeah. Perfect. Now all that's left is testing."

"Piece of cake. We can have that done in an hour or so, then dump it out to beta testers." Doug spun his chair and grinned at her, holding up his hand for a high five. "And we are still the Team Supreme."

Okay, so, maybe it was kind of lame, but they'd come up with it in middle school. Besides, corny or no, it still fit.

She laughed, clapping his hand with hers after setting her pizza down. "Who do you think for testing? I mean, Lydia obviously. Arthur. We should have someone try to back-door so we can test the security. This thing needs to be air-tight."

"Tim," he suggested without hesitation, and grinned as he retrieved his pizza. "It'll drive him nuts until he gets in. Maybe Angie or Claudia?" He probably knew them both better than he did, he figured. But based on what he did know, either of them would be a good choice. "We should probably have a couple of the social media addicts give it a shot, too, just for design."

"Tim!!! And Tony. Definitely. And uh. I guess Claudia, but she'll probably give us like ten pages of notes on everything she thinks is wrong with it." Kitty sighed. "Angie yes. And Pietro loves his social media. Anyone else?"

"Tony'd be awesome," Doug agreed, ignoring Kitty's comment about Claudia. Who...yeah, okay, she'd definitely give extensive feedback, but that was what they wanted, right? "What about the new crown prince of Halo?" he said after a moment's consideration. "Considering all the videos he put up on his intro, he should give it a real workout."

"You mean the prince of Asgard?" Kitty still couldn't believe that was a thing. And, maybe a little, she hoped that his brother would follow. Because she had seen all the videos, and not the ones Loki had put up in his intro. Still... "I don't know that we should entrust the community to someone we don't know that well before we know it's secure."

"There's nothing in it yet, though," Doug pointed out, then pursed his lips to consider it more seriously. "Maybe send him a screen shot, see what he thinks of the interface? We can always say it's not functional yet and that all we've got is the outer shell."

"Ugh, I'm up to my ears in lies already. No, you're right. If we're going to beta-test we'd better do it right, and 'Prince Odinson' definitely seems like the social media diva," she smiled and reached for her pizza again. "Add Loki to the list."

"List. Good idea." Doug grabbed a piece of paper of the desk and started scribbling notes, then peered up at her. "What's with the up to your ears in lies thing?"

Kitty looked a little uncomfortable at that and plopped her but down on a stool. "Illyana and I kind of terrorized one of the new girls."

Doug grinned skeptically. "What'd you do, make her wait a whole hour before you popped in to introduce yourself?" Because honestly, he couldn't see it. Oh, her cheerleader friend, maybe, but Kitty? Torture seemed unlikely.

Kitty's face twisted in shame. Yep, this was her, a terrible person, and Doug thought the best of her and ugh. "In my defense, she's all kinds of judgmental and narrow-minded!"

What?? Doug blinked, then looked at Kitty, genuinely concerned. "Hey, c'mon, I was just kidding. Whatever you did, it can't be that bad. What happened?"

"Ugh," Kitty sighed and pushed to her feet, reaching for her coffee. "It doesn't matter now. Let's just concentrate on X-Cape. I'll go ahead and type up an email to people. Is the test server live?"

"Yeah," Doug said, head turning to glance back at the monitor attached to the server. "Up and running, it just needs to be plugged into the school's network." He turned back to her, though, eyebrows rising. "You're not getting off that easy, though. C'mon, spill."

Kitty made a face at him. "Played loud questionable music when asked not to, then told a good, Christian girl that I was doing drugs."

Doug managed, barely, to stifle a laugh. Mostly, admittedly, at the thought of Kitty doing drugs, which he couldn't wrap his head around at all. "Y'know, I'm thinking compared to a rack and thumbscrews, she might possibly forgive that? Unless you were playing it at two in the morning or something."

"You didn't see her face!" she protested. "She cried."

"She...cried over music and you saying you do drugs?" Doug repeated, trying to wrap his head around this. "That's..." Okay, there had to a word for that. Somewhere. He wasn't finding it, though, or at least not one that seemed like it was a decent thing to say over someone he'd never met. "Maybe she's just stressed out from whatever happened before she got here?" he guessed instead.

"Maybe," Kitty agreed, then huffed a sigh and pushed to her feet. "Anyway, I need a shower, and then I need to set up user accounts and contact people about this beta test."

Doug wasn't sure that was the whole story, but it was obvious Kitty didn't want to talk about it anymore, so he let it drop. He cocked his head, though, and smiled crookedly. "You got a sec, first? About something else?"

She paused, blinking at him. "What else?"

"Umm...the else where I kind of have a date for Halloween?" he said, his hand automatically moving to the back of his neck.

Kitty blinked again, but a grin spread out from there and she hopped back. "Oh my gosh, Doug! That's awesome! Just please please please tell me it's not Cersei..."

"Yeeaaah, no." Doug made a face and shook his head. Definitely no with the rich cheerleader. Call him paranoid, but...no. "No, umm...River, actually. You know her, right?"

Wow, he was on a roll with the surprising her thing today. Because out of like, almost every single girl in the school, River Tam would have been Kitty's last guess. "Are you...are you serious?"

"Well, yeah." Doug shrugged awkwardly. "I mean, yeah, I know it's hard to believe she said yes, but...she did?"

"That's not..." Kitty frowned a little. "I just...are you sure? She's...been through a lot."

Doug nodded. "Yeah, I know. I've kind of pieced most of it together." He smiled crookedly and shrugged. "I just...I like her. I keep doing stuff I haven't even thought over when I'm with her, y'know? Like dancing on the roof and making pizza with beansprouts. And, well, asking her out. Though I did think of that one beforehand," he admitted.

Kitty still wasn't entirely sure. River was an awesome person, but Kitty had always had trouble communicating with her in a way that wasn't disjointed. But, obviously, that wouldn't be a problem for Doug. She breathed deep as she realized that, then sighed. "Just...be careful, okay? She's...she's really sweet. You should have fun."

He smiled, despite the fact he realized Kitty wasn't exactly thrilled. And he could see that, he guessed. He wasn't kidding himself that it was going to be easy, not after River'd made such an effort to point out it wouldn't be. But...

"Yeah. I honestly think we will." He smiled, then sighed and raked his hand through his hair. "Anyway. You were saying, test server, right? I'll get it connected to the school's network if you'll send the e-mails?"

She grinned and leaned over, briefly kissing his forehead before heading to the door. "Shower, then emails. I'll include River on the list!" And Peter, she decided to herself. "See you soon!"