Hard Work Hardly Works, or Does It?
So... yeah, okay. They'd still never had time to address the whole dating versus boyfriend/girlfriend issue yet, but Mason was content to let that wait a little longer. He'd never dated before.

But it was Valentine's Day, so the girl gets romance. That's just how it goes. He'd tried calling Dad to get some advice, but Mom had wrestled the phone away from him to stop him talking, and before he could build a new one, told Mason just to be himself. Which didn't help at all. So, he'd set to work on his own.

He'd automatically decided that something handmade was best. Of course he'd cashed in one of the vouchers from Jordie to set up dinner reservations, after some careful prodding in conversation to figure out what kind of food suited Marrina best, but he wanted do something on top of that. Money was money, and could buy very nice things, but he wanted to show the effort himself.

He'd torn apart a greeting card that played music, "Just what I Needed", to extract the audio component, and inserted it into one he made himself. Well, that was after a dozen or so papercuts and a lot of aborted attempts. (He wished he could reconstitute paper products, but his powers still didn't seem to be able to crack the organic/inorganic barrier. Oh well, that's what recycling bins were for.) It was a rather nice, if simple, card (he can't draw), brightly colored with a mosaic heart of various bits of construction paper glued on the front and with a brief note inside.

Marrina,

You are a very sweet, strong, and intelligent member of the team, and much more attractive and awesome than I ever expected anyone willing to go out with me would be.

XOXO
Mason

P.S. I'd like you even if you weren't a princess or a superhero.

He came within a hair of putting in 'Love, Mason', but chickened out just a little. He doesn't want to be too aggressive.

The homemade chocolate had come out well, according to the test pieces he'd sectioned off from the main assortment. Only a few burns, and no major kitchen disasters.

Finally, the 'hard' gift. A metal jewelry box lined with velvet (okay, so he couldn't make the velvet himself, he had to cut up some from a fabric shop). He'd used acid etching to decorate the surface of it, and again came out with only a couple minor burns, and scratches from the edges before he got them smoothed out. Now granted, his mutant powers made handmaking the jewelry box a little less of an undertaking than it would be otherwise, but he was quite pleased with how it came out. Inside the box were a pair of spiral shell earrings he'd plated with metal.

And so, he knocks at Marrina's door at the appointed time, dressed in the nicest jacket he has, arms full of his efforts, hands partially bandaged, and ready to take her out to dinner.