log: tim & steph get caffeinated Who: Tim and Stephanie What: Getting coffee with the quickness Where: Capital When: Pre-plot. Warnings: Just a little awkwardness.
Not a motorcycle, but an actual bicycle bike, fyi. Even if it was bound to only add to Steph's nerd-centric view of him, Tim chained the thing up out front of the destined coffee shop of the morning. Anyways, this was the city, it was socially responsible to bike. And he wasn't the only one that thought so, as his bicycle was chained up alongside a couple of others, even at this early hour. And okay, so maybe Tim had none of Jason's 'tough guy' ingredients, and even if he'd managed to scrape by with a few crumbs that the after-product left behind? It still wasn't enough to pull off anything reckless like a motorcycle. Not with the 'hedge fund manager in a square-knot tie' look that he had going for himself these days.
Yes, it was official. Tim Dawson had traded in his body armor and kneepads. Now, his work shirt was a gentle blue that bordered on lavender, totally non-threatening with these gentle sort of white hatch-patterns worked into the fabric. He had on gray slacks, red sneakers, and black rimmed glasses. Really, he looked like any other tech guy when he walked up to the ordering counter and got a latte(extra espresso, extra whipped cream). He ended up sitting near the ordering portion of the counter, at a little two-top table. He synced up some Tetris on his phone while waiting for his drink. He needed something to do with his hands to keep from obsessively watching the door.
Stephanie was another ball of nerves as she drove her shitty sedan to the coffee shop. It had been more than a decade since she’d laid eyes on Tim Dawson -- her first love, her cheerleader, her critic, her heartbreak. She wasn’t worried about seeing him and having feelings beyond sadness or annoyance. Maybe a little happiness. She loved Eddie implicitly, even if they were still trying to navigate around some difference in each other and the baggage from the past. But, Timmy was still a divisive person in her life. There was sure to be some sort of calamity of emotions, if not a full-blown tornado. It’ll be fine, she had to keep assuring herself while looking at her rear view window. As if it were a mantra given to her by some Buddha like calming guru or some shit.
She had been working at the clinic in the morning patching up a couple of kids who’d gotten into a scuffle, but she didn’t come in her usual scrubs or legging/shirt combo. Steph looked presentable, but not overly dressed. She didn’t want him to think there was any effort put in for him (because there wasn’t). No, it was to get rid of clothes that smelled like cigarettes and musk from the lingering smell of Karma’s Bite. Clearly. She strolled into the coffee shop, flowing white shirt not clinging, lion mane hair pinned back with some bobby pins so it wouldn’t fly in her face, and just enough makeup to cover the purple bags under her eyes. Nothing over the top. Her jeans were black, her flipflops were black, and her toes were painted a bright purple.
Steph made her way to the counter, but before she could get to the barista, she saw him. Stopping dead in her tracks, she stared for a moment before smiling. “Timmy. Look at you. You’re a grown-up now.”
Somewhere around 350,000 points, a woman walked in the coffee shop door. Even in his periphery, Tim could see that her hair was that certain shade of blond that he'd always thought of as Stephanie-blond. His line of sight drifted away from the rapidly rising Tetris blocks on his phone screen, instead settling on the woman that was more than just Stephanie-blond, she was Stephanie. The decade's worth of aging hadn't done either of them any disservices. Tim probably looked a little more mature with deeper angles in his facial structure and shoulders that filled out in a way that only time had been able to accomplish. Of course, considering that Tim had a habit of looking her up every six months like clockwork, he'd already known what she would look like after all of these years.
Tim was looking at her when she stopped in her tracks, having already noted the little things like that purple polish and how she seemed awake despite the early hour… awake but not well-rested. She smiled, and his own version flickered like an echo after the fact. Tim stood from the chair, edging away from the table so that he could greet her. He didn't reach for a hug or anything, but rather crammed his hands down into his front pockets. His smile widened into something that showed more teeth when she called him a grown-up. The look was actually sheepish when he said, "Yeah, almost." He'd always been the smallest kid on the block, and even after all of his 'growing up,' Tim was still dancing somewhere between 5'6 and 5'7, depending on the generosity of his sneakers from one day to the next.
"Can I get you some coffee?" He asked before turning with a palm out offer toward the barista's counter.
Steph’s smile warmed a little more once she sensed his nervousness, as she saw him shove his hands in his pants pockets. Okay, she was supposed to be mean and resentful. Even grown, this was the man who shattered her heart into pieces multiple times. But, she couldn’t help herself. She smiled, and she dropped her bag into the seat across from him, and goddammit, she was kind of happy to see him after all these years. “You still got some growing to do?” A smirk. Stephanie herself stood no higher than 5’4,” so she had not grown much since he’d last seen her either.
“Can we add whiskey to it? It’s been a morning,” she said with a grin. Her fingers curled against the top of the chair as she looked at him for a moment. He definitely had the sheen of someone that left the “family business” long ago. He didn’t have scars all over his face and arms. He didn’t have the remnants of muscle definition from trying to stay fit for years for vigilantism’s sake. She couldn’t tell about the internal scars -- hell, maybe he had a time just as hard as her -- but on the outside? Well, he looked good. She almost begrudged him for it. To him, she probably looked old and tired.
“I’ll take a pumpkin spice latte, since I’m basic and I know it.” The barista nodded, and then Stephanie took her seat across from Tim. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment to wake herself up a little better before opening her blues again. “How are you doing?”
"Latent genes permitting," he said of the prospect to keep growing. That would be pretty impressive, but he wasn't exactly keeping his fingers crossed for anything in the realm of vanity. He'd save all of his wishing well coin flips for stuff like world peace so that he might feel like a little less of a jackass someday. Which, he supposed, was still selfish reasoning. The potential awkwardness of this morning was beginning to weigh in on Tim like the most unwelcome kind of internal monologue voice(This was a bad idea, a terrible idea, she definitely hated him, resented him, etcetera).
Stephanie's glib mention of whiskey remedied that, it even made him grin. "Does that go with pumpkin spice?" There was teasing scrutiny in the way he narrowed his eyes at her. Then he did one of those hand-out gestures that suggested this was her world, he was only living in it. "Hey, help yourself. None for me, I've got to head to work after this." His coworkers probably would have found buzzed Tim an improvement over his usually overcaffeinated mania, but he'd never developed an interest in dulling his perceptions, even if the prospect of shedding some of the anxiety made it pretty tempting.
It was true that most of Tim's scars were the emotional kind that didn't show, but that those were just par for the course when it came the ways in which they spent their teenage years doing all of the self-damaging stuff they'd done in the name of vigilantism. "I'm good," he said from over the lip of his own coffee as the barista behind him began grinding espresso and steaming milk with that mechanical hiss. "What about you, what made it a morning?"
“Anything goes with pumpkin spice, Tim. You should know that.” Stephanie grinned, and she hated how easy this was, even for just this collection of moments. There was this pang of guilt -- not that she was doing anything wrong like cheating -- but more like not holding this man across from herself culpable for his actions. Her stomach fluttered for a moment, and there was an internal groan. But, she also knew that she desperately needed to be better about making connections with people, especially with family.
In the end, she shook her head. “Yeah, I probably have to go back and fix things up, too.” There wasn’t a lot of time to drink away the stress down in Karma’s Bite. She was too busy running the clinic and being Mrs. Mayor to have time to unwind. It felt like a good thing, being able to lose herself in work and good deeds like back home. “I’m sure, however, you’d be a delight with a spiked coffee at work.” A smirk, and she shook her head slightly.
“I’m glad,” she said, of him being good, and it didn’t sound like a lie. The barista came over with her coffee, and she smiled and thanked him with a nod. Steph took a moment to sip her warm drink with a look of sated pleasure. Then, there was a weighty sigh. “Two kids got into a scuffle -- a lot of punching and improvised weapon usage involved. I patched them up and also put them on probation. Their parents are at least pretending to be very unhappy with them, which I appreciate.” Another sip, and then before Tim could become confused. “I run a clinic down in Second City. Eddie and I are living there.”
"No, I don't know that." To Tim, the pumpkin spice phenomenon was both bizarre and unwelcome. He'd thought white chocolate mocha was going overboard back in the day, but the flavor combinations that were being touted on coffee shop menu boards in this modern age… they were just twisted. It was coffee, not pie. Was nothing sacred anymore? When Stephanie's abomination arrived, Tim leaned with curiosity into their little table's edge. There was a speculative sniff, putting him on the receiving end of way too much cinnamon nutmeg sweetness. The resulting expression on his face was reminiscent of gagging, but he was only joking.
Being good wasn't a lie on Tim's part. Anything that wasn't bad was pigeonholed into the category of good, and Tim might have been a lot of things these days, but he wasn't bad. Bad was reserved for that final godawful year in New Jersey when all of his friends were dying.
He actually hadn't known about her clinic. Tim might have been somewhat notorious for invading people's privacy, but he also tended to backpedal like crazy upon learning any detail that he most definitely did not want to know. This was why he didn't look into Damian's friends anymore, and also why he left Stephanie to her secrets. He nodded along when she mentioned the clinic, but mention of Second City made him balk. He sat back in his chair and gave her a careful look that was without reaction except for how non-reactive it was. Intentionally blank. He figured that he knew why somebody why Eddie would be living there, but Stephanie? He was still working out the details of how to ask her why she would be living there when his phone went off with a little alert chime.
Upon checking it, he pocketed the phone and explained, "Work. I've got to go." There was some reluctance to his smile then. It was like something tangible, something that could felt as real as gravity tugging on the weight of his body - they might have run along the same line before, they'd been pulled in the same ellipse once, but it was really like the opposite now. "It was good to see you, Steph. We should do it again sometime." Then, he grabbed his coffee off the little table and booked it for the door, ignoring the sense of relief that came over him when he escaped the coffee shop and breathed in the city street.