Stephanie Brown (eggplantknight) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-12-20 00:46:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | damian wayne (robin), stephanie brown (batgirl) |
Who: Damian and Stephanie
What: Steph makes a delivery
When: Wednesday Afternoon
Where: The Stark's Home
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
The snow was trying to kill her, she was sure of that. Well, either that or the poor Californians that didn’t know how to drive in anything other than perfect weather, or even the cold that got too easily into her truck and froze her to the bone. She would have to speak to someone about a heater, and maybe pants that went past her lower thigh and long sleeves, if the weather was going to keep up like this. Of course she probably had about as much luck with that as getting to drive a Range Rover but a girl could dream, especially when it was all that was keeping her warm.
Stephanie was already behind schedule, forty five minutes already and she wasn’t even half way done yet. If she was lucky she’d find herself with a little overtime pay, if she was unlucky well, she’d probably get a balling out by her supervisor about the state of the truck. She was almost tempted to take out her phone and record the insanity on the roads for the supervisor to see, but knew what a pain they were about that sort of thing.
At least this street was quieter than the last, she hoped she could pick up some time here, make the deliveries quick and move on before the traffic got worse. And luckily for her everything was clearly marked and she got to the first house with no problem, the box wasn’t heavy but it was big enough that holding it wasn’t exactly easy. She didn’t trip or fall in the snow at any point though so she counted it as a win as she rang the bell. She felt a little less confident when the bell was met with a chorus of very deep barks, and could only brace herself for what was behind the door.
Damian was actually the only one at Stark Manor that particular afternoon. Bran, Rickon and Myrcella were at school, Bran's parents were out, Arya had gone out somewhere as had the older Stark children who still lived there so that left Damian alone with the animals. So when Summer jumped up moments before the doorbell actually rang, it alerted Damian that someone was outside. Of course when the doorbell did ring that caused Summer to howl and soon Nymeria was joining in from somewhere else in the house and then Cobalt was running out of Bran's room to see what was going on and barked.
"Seriously guys. It's just the doorbell." Damian sighed and headed down the hall, glad that he was at least wearing a hoodie, because it was bound to be cold out when he opened the door. Pulling it open, he was shocked to find Stephanie Brown standing on the front step. "Uh...hi..."
“Hi!” she tried to remain cheery through the snow and the cold and her momentary concern that some very large dogs were going to rush through the door and treat her like a chew toy. She’d been very lucky so far, a few dogs had offered to bite her on her rounds but none had done it yet. Apparently it was a common enough thing that there were pools about who would be bitten in a given week and what would bite them. She had always felt that was more than a little morbid so she stayed out, though she was quite happy to see her name had been dropped from the pool entirely.
“Good afternoon. Nice weather we’re having, huh?” she shifted the box to the other arm and pulled out her electronic clipboard with one hand. “I’m just gonna need a signature on my little thingymabob here and whatever this is is all yours.” not that she would have known that he wasn’t a member of the household or even the Eddard on the sticker, but it didn’t matter. Legal’s policy was to get signatures to prove packages were dropped off, as long as Steph was getting paid she really didn’t care if the system was a little flawed.
Damian had learnt that the only reason Summer or Nymeria would attack someone was if Bran or Arya were being threatened and since neither of them were home, the Dire-wolves were more or less just curious as to who was at the door, “Yeah. I expect this kind of weather back home in Chicago, but not here.” At least Damian didn’t have to shovel at the Stark’s. Shoveling that huge driveway would have taken every member of the Stark family plus him and Myrcella and probably a couple dozen more people just to clear it.
When she held out the electronic signature pad thing, he nodded, “Oh yeah, sure.” Taking the pad, he couldn’t help but stare at her a bit. He’d dreamt about Stephanie a few times since Bruce had died and he’d become Robin and she was now Batgirl. The first time they’d been in costume and he hadn’t realized that Cassandra Cain was no longer Batgirl and he’d been disappointed. Of course in his dreams, he was also a ten year old brat, so that explained a lot. She was prettier than in the dreams and he probably would have continued to stare if it hadn’t been for Summer shoving his head out the door, next to Damian to see what was going on.
The staring was different. She wasn’t entirely used to it, and probably never would be, but she took some comfort that he wasn’t staring at her uncomfortably-mostly bare legs as most seemed to when she was working. She’d had more than a few come-ons on this job, there probably something about a delivery girl that screamed ‘real life set-up for porn’ that she wasn’t aware of that appealed to some men. As long as they were fully clothed and kept any lewd comments to themselves she didn’t have a problem, even if the staring was unnerving.
“Woah,” she said softly, taking half a step back at the appearance of the very large dog. It looked an awful lot like a wolf to her, but she wasn’t an authority on animals. The training course had taught her that most big dogs were less likely to bite than the smaller ones but there was still some primal thing in her that knew big dogs could be bad. “That’s quite the dog.”
Damian glanced down at Summer and placed his free hand on the wolf’s head lightly. Despite the fact that he’d been living with the Starks for awhile now and had been friends with Bran for almost a year, sometimes he was still a little worried that Summer would bite him or something, but so far the dire-wolf hadn’t tried to do anything to him, “Ah...yeah. This is Summer. He’s actually a wolf.” A very big wolf. It was obvious that the dire-wolves were bigger than normal wolves, “He won’t bite. Unless you try to hurt his master.” Of course he doubted that Stephanie would hurt anyone unless they were one of the bad guys. Unless she was the complete opposite of her dream self, but based on her post on Valarnet, he didn’t think she was suddenly one of the bad guys.
“Ah, okay.” Of course it really would be a wolf. She never got why rich people needed expensive pets but then again she guessed keeping pets at all was kinda weird to a lot of people. And really, she was quite guilty of enjoying her mother’s cat. But the wolf looked well trained at least, which she was more than a little thankful for because that was not an animal you wanted excited in any way. The guy in front of her seemed at ease with the animal so her hopes for not getting bitten were going up tremendously. “Well, Summer, you don’t have to worry. Even if I wasn’t mostly harmless I wouldn’t go around hurting anybody. And may I say that you’re a very pretty wolf, as wolves go, you know. Bet all the lady wolves love you.”
Damian smirked as Stephanie talked to Summer and suddenly he understood those storylines in movies and tv shows when guys tried to use cute dogs or kids to pick up women. Of course that wasn’t what he was trying to do, but it made sense now, “I’ll be sure to tell his master that you think so. His master is actually my best friend. I just happen to be home with the animals today.”
“You mean there’s more of them?” she asked, meaning the wolves. “Well, looks like they’ve got plenty of room here.” she looked down at Summer, smiling. “I bet you and the others love this snow, hm? Running around, biting snowflakes out of the air, making snow wolves. Well, maybe more like snow bowties cause you probably just wiggle back and forth on the ends like dogs do, huh? Yeah. But I bet they’re like the best snow bowties ever right? Yeah.”
“There are two wolves and a pitbull,” Damain said, still smiling as Stephanie continued talking to Summer. It was possible that this was the most he’d smiled since his breakup with Alyssa. Sure, he and Bran had joked around an awful lot, but there was something about Stephanie that made this smiling different. If Stephanie had already started dreaming, “They’ve been enjoying it, yeah. The cold doesn’t seem to phase them at all.” The two dire-wolves had extremely thick coats of fur, which apparently made them able to withstand the extreme winters that happened in Westeros, were Bran and Arya’s dreams took place.
She turned her smile on Damian, if only she was dreaming already, how good and rare it would be to see him smiling. But as it was he seemed like a nice boy with a sweet smile so there was no harm in her returning one. “Quite the menagerie.” Pitbulls usually weren’t little either so they had some heavy-duty critters running around. She couldn’t help but pity the poor idiot who tried to break in there some night, between those animals there probably wouldn’t be enough left to bury. “Much better suited to cold than us silly humans, huh?” she glanced down at the dog then down at her mostly bare legs, she was going to have to do something about that soon. “Oh right, this is yours,” moving the box to both arms she offered it up to Damian.
Between the three of them, if someone ever tried breaking in the Stark Manor, there definitely wouldn’t be much left. When Stephanie held out the package, Damian remembered that he was holding the electronic pad to sign and quickly signed his name then placed it on top of the box before taking it back from the blond so that she would be able to easily take the pad off the top of the box. He had a sudden urge to ask her if she wanted something warm to drink, part of him not wanting her to leave, but he was pretty sure that she’d find a random guy inviting her in kind of creepy and he didn’t want her to think he was creepy. “I hope your truck has heat in it.”
“If you wanted to be generous you could call it heat.” she smiled, tucking the pad back onto the holster on her belt. “But I’ll be alright, my shift will be over soon enough then I might wait out the snow in a nice hot bath, maybe see if I can get my hands on some hot chocolate while I’m at it.” which sounded so good, she would have to make some cookies while she was at it too. Jalapeno chocolate chip sounded absolutely divine right about now. “Anyway, you and Summer and the rest of the pack have a good afternoon. Don’t forget to stay warm.”
“You too and drive safe.” Damian said, holding the package as he watched Stephanie, “Everyone else forgets how to drive when it snows.” Then again, most people in California probably didn’t even know how to drive in the snow. “I’m Damian, by the way.” He wasn’t sure why he’d said it, but he’d felt the urge to do it; partly because he already knew her name, so he felt that she should know his too.
“Stephanie.” she told him taking a few steps backwards. Maybe later, when she found out how they had been together in the other world this moment might feel silly, but for the time being it was just a friendly moment. “It was nice meeting you, Damian!” she said with a wave before turning and heading back to her truck. Maybe this wouldn’t be her fastest shift ever, but as a worker that prided herself on her good customer relations this was a win in her book.