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"I could be in the movie."
Mabel's head is turned and she only catches the last part. She's getting used to filling in the blanks when she misses words. "They rewrote your character. You're a blind girl named Susan." She has to fingerspell some of the words when she notices Theo can't read her lips.
Theo sighs in annoyance, and she can't blame him. But she asked Bev and likeness rights are a thing even in true crime. Marshall's latest draft has Susan stalking Mabel at the top of the Arconia, tapping menacingly with her cane. Marshall's ideas get stupider with each draft. Mabel's sure Theo had a better role in the first draft she'd read but that had been pages and pages ago.
Mabel says, "If it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure we're going to get sued over it by someone."
Theo doesn't laugh but he puts on a satisfied, almost smug smile. Almost. "I could be an extra."
"I might be able to arrange that one. Wear your glasses for the audition. You look hot in your glasses."
His smile grows. "You think I look hot?"
"You've got nerd charm with your glasses on. I'll ask Bev if you can be Second Nerd From the Left holding a prop comic book."
"The role I was born to play."
His ego assuaged, they settle in for their movie night. Theo's showing her some superhero film he has memorized. She used to hate watching things with captions when she'd been a kid. Now they add to the charm, though not half as much as watching Theo's face light up when they get to what he thinks is a good part. Tonight he's imagining himself there on the screen, running away from the giant robot in the fleeing crowd as the musclebound maniac in the title credits punches bad guys. More likely he's pretending to be the musclebound idiot who hides his secret identity behind hot nerd glasses.
Mabel doesn't want to be a superhero. She doesn't want to be a movie star or a household name for that matter. (Fine. She wanted to be Scully when she was a kid. That's different.) She does want a place she can afford and a career that makes her as happy as the podcast does. She'll sort those out later. For now, she nods along as Theo gestures at the screen, signing at her excitedly about the metaphor of the giant robot with respect to Cold War nuclear fears. (She's a little unclear about some of his words.) Like the glasses, nerd happy looks good on him.
She likes seeing him happy, and she doesn't have any other plans for the evening.
"Tell me more."