Damian Wayne (grownup_robin) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-03-20 01:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, damian wayne (robin), stephanie brown (batgirl) |
Who: Damian Wayne and Stephanie Brown
What: Darkspawn Killing and an Akward Moment
When: Backdated: Tuesday, March 18th. Late Afternoon
Where: Near the Mine Where the Archdemon Was
Rating: Mostly Family Friendly
Status: Complete
Damian was pretty sure that the world was actually coming to an end. First there had been a volcano and Orc and other Lord of the Rings type baddies and now there were these creatures. Various creatures that made Orcs look like Care Bears. He’s lost count of how many he’d actually killed by now, but they just kept coming. They seemed smarter than Orcs and more focused, which ticked Damian off a bit, but it was proving to give him quite the workout and he’d been slacking a bit lately.
Once it had become clear that these creatures, Darkspawn as they were being called, were a threat and could do some real damage, Damian had contacted Stephanie to see if she was interested in doing some demon butt kicking and that was what had led them to where they were now, fighting the creatures near a mine. Damian was dressed similar to the way he’d been when they had fought the Orcs; jeans, a t-shirt, tunic from his costume and hoodie. There had been no need to cover his mouth and he’d decided not to wear his domino mask this time, “This is ridiculous." He said as he took the head off of a Genlock with his Katana.
Stephanie had essentially done the same when she geared up, this time forgoing the hoods and keeping the jacket over her stab vest zipped while still wearing her belts and gloves and boots. These were wholly different creatures than the orcs, they weren’t nearly as stupid, they were faster and meaner and required different tactics. That was fine with Steph, she had dreamed about training with Black Canary and Batman since their battle with the orcs and she had retained most, if not all of it. She was almost eager to show off her new skills, or she had been ages ago when they had started fighting. Now it stopped being a fun show of skill, there were just too many of them.
“No shit!” she agreed, dropping below the swing of a hurlock only to pop up and jam her blade into his neck, causing it to gurgle and spurt it’s black blood before falling over dead. All of her training had focused on non-lethal tactics but she had quickly dropped that and resorted to killing. After all these things weren’t people and didn’t stop until they were dead. “What the hell are these things?”
“I have no idea.” Damian impaled a Shriek then brought his foot up and pressed it against the creature’s body to disengage it from his sword. “I mean, didn’t we just do this a few weeks ago? First Orcs, now this? Is California literally turning into Hell on Earth?” From living in Orange County for over a year now, he knew weird things happened, but this was so much more than weird. “Where the hell are they all coming from?” Damian was stronger and had more stamina than most teenagers his age thanks to the dreams, but even he could get tired without much of a break between hordes of monsters and right now he was definitely running low on energy.
“Hell would be my guess.” she pulled her knife from the dying creature, having enough time to glance over at Damian before she noticed one of the taller archers draw back his bow. She ran at it, kicking both bow and arrow away, using her momentum to also kick at it’s knee and propel herself up high enough to wrap her thighs around it’s neck. Using her body weight and the creature’s surprise to spin herself and the darkspawn off balance. There was an unmistakable ‘crack’ before they hit the ground, the sound of the hurlock’s neck breaking. She quickly rolled away once she was sure the thing was dead, now wielding a dagger she had taken off the archer as she hopped back onto her feet. “Underground, it looks like, but why would they be underground in the first place?”
Damian was killing another couple of creatures while Stephanie was busy with hurlock archer, but he did catch her movements out if the corner of his eye and even as exhausted as he was and busy as he was, he could admit that her breaking the creature's neck with her thighs was kind of hot in a weird way. "I'm starting to think that Orange County is on top if some demonic portal or something. What else would explain the things that happen here." He glanced around at at the ground, which was littered with darkspawn bodies, "Will I jinx us if I say, it looks like we might finally have a chance to breath?"
“Yes. Shut up.” She shot him a smile, agreeing that they were in a lull for a moment as she jammed her knife and the one she had lifted off the archer onto her belt. Stepping over a few bodies she came to stand closer to him, knowing it would be easier to cover each other if something popped up if they were close. She wouldn’t give into the impulse to sit, instead bending over to rest her hands on her knees and take a deep breath, occasionally glancing at him and then over the area. “It least it smells better than Jersey.”
Damian laughed; he'd seen enough movies to know that the minute someone said, it could be worse, it suddenly got worse and this being Orange County, which sometimes felt like a movie, that very thing could happen. "What I wouldn't give to just go beat up some drug dealers or a purse snatcher." He slid his sword into the scabbard on his back in one go. "I'd guess that a lot of things smell better than Jersey."
“But oddly not the people that live in Jersey.” She smirked, popping and rolling her neck. “That’s how it starts you know? Little things then all the sudden you have an arch-nemesis and you’re fighting in a zeppelin over your city trying to stop them from triggering a bomb or something. You win of course but then you get slapped with a bill for property damage so high you go bankrupt and have to go into superhero protection. Then you get older and start a family and your kids wanna get in on the family business when somebody from your past shows up and wants to wreck everything but that’s okay because the kids make good side kicks.” She stood up straight. “Yeah, I totally just smashed The Rocketeer and The Incredibles together, bask in my amazing pop culture skills.”
Damian had stared at Steph for a moment, trying to figure out what the heck she’d been talking about until she finally explained it and he laughed, “You should pitch that to someone. Could probably turn it into a movie with a few edits.” He ran a hand through his hair, wishing that he had something to drink, but that was going to have to wait. “Speaking of property damage, Gotham is always getting messed up, who actually pays to clean it up? Wait, it’s probably my father, considering how much money he actually has.” It only made sense now that Damian thought about it.
His laughter was nice, much nicer than the sick chuckles the darkspawn occasionally let out when they thought they had the upper hand. “Oh it’s totally your dad. Bruce Wayne has probably rebuilt the place so much they might as well call it Waynam City. Thousand times better at it than Luthor though. I mean, when it says Wayne you know someone, even if it was Lucius Fox, cared enough to take an interest. With Luthor you’ve gotta think ‘oh god, what is he doing now, somebody call Sups’. And that’s even without knowing that Wayne is Batman.”
Damian quirked a brow at Steph as she spoke and he shook his head bit, “You’ve thought a lot about this stuff, haven’t you?” There was a lot in his dreams that Damian didn’t like to think about so he didn’t dwell as much on them as it appeared that Stephanie had. He was about to say something else when a small group of darkspawn appeared from over a hill, “Looks like our break is over,” Reaching over his shoulder, he wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his katana, “Time to get back to work,”
Steph had, but it was easy for her. Her dream self had grown up in Gotham, had a frontrow seat to every little nasty thing that went on there. She had started crime fighting to stop her father but she kept at it because she cared about the decline of her hometown. But there had been some good too, mostly thanks to Wayne Enterprises though she likely didn’t know the whole of it. She only wished she had learned to care so much about Elizabeth where she had grown up in this world, it needed someone looking out for it just as badly as Gotham had. “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” she said drawing her own blades, “Maybe they’ll give up and run away.”
Damian glanced over at Steph as he unsheathed his katana, “How likely do you think that really is?” He quirked a brow at her, small smirk upon his lips, “Scale of one to ten and all?” He wished that they could hang out like this outside of fighting demons or sparring, but that would likely not go over well with Danny. It was one thing to kick demon butt and another to just hang out randomly.
“Positivity, Damian. You have to optimistic. I’m sure it conflicts with your Wayne DNA, but you have to try!” She liked to rush the archers first while Damian dispatched as many of the melee fighters as he could before Steph joined in. It seemed to work for them and this latest skirmish was nothing new. Or at least it would have been if this little group hadn’t been led by an emissary who had had decided to attack Steph after she brought down a bolter. The first fireball hit her square in the chest causing her stagger back in surprise. “What the hell?”
Her jacket was scorched but she was otherwise fine, though seeing the magic wielder charging another fireball gave her cause to worry. She took a shield from one of the bodies that littered the ground and dove down making her self as small a target as she could behind the shield just in time to save herself from a larger fireball. “Not fair! No one said anything about magic!”
Damian laughed and started taking down the various creatures as Steph went for the archers. He dispatched them fairly quickly, slicing and dicing where need be. He was gonna have to spend some time later on, cleaning his katana, but for now he wasn’t too worried about Darkspawn blood that stained the blade. He just had to remember not to get any of it on himself. He’d just beheaded another Shriek when he heard Steph and whirled around just in time to see the second fireball hit the shield.
“Hey, ugly! Play fair!” Damian charged at it as it started to form yet another fireball, but before it could use it, Damian hacked off both of it’s hands at the wrists then shoved the sword through it’s chest. Once it was dead, he turned and ran back to Steph, “You okay?”
She was glad she had worn her gloves, she could feel some of the heat of the hot metal of the shield through them. It hadn’t blocked the fire as well as she had hoped it would, the shield was red-hot now and there were a few parts of her that got a little singed but she was still alive and okay. She climbed to her feet again, fanning away some of the smoke from her burned jacket. “Yeah, yeah I’m good.” she looked up at him with a little half smile. “Do I still have eyebrows?”
As Steph stood up, Damian let out a sigh of relief when he saw that she was alright. When he’d approached where she had been crouching with the shield, his first thought had been that she’d been burned or worse and then he’d blame himself, because he had been the one to ask her to come fighting with him. “Yeah. Yeah, you do.” Seeing her there, all in one unburnt piece, Damian was so relieved that he didn’t think before leaning in and kissing her.
There was a height difference between Damian and Steph. He didn’t have to bend over or really lean down to kiss her, but she had enough notice when he came in for the kiss that she could have backed away or stopped him or done something else to keep it from happening. She didn’t. In fact her eyes had gone closed and she found herself returning the kiss, a hand coming up to cup his cheek. She was alive, still breathing and mostly unburnt. That required celebrating that fact, only the one that had reached out to her in a life affirming moment wasn’t her Danny.
That realization snapped her right out of it and she pulled away as quickly as she was able, her eyes wide as she brought a hand up to cover her mouth. How was she ever going to live this down? What was she going to tell Danny? How could she keep going on patrol with Damian after this? The only thing she could get out in response to all those questions running through her mind was a muffled, “Shit.”
It wasn’t until Steph’s hand came up to cup his cheek that it dawned on him what he was actually doing and even though he knew that he should probably stop, he couldn’t. He’d been wanting to kiss Stephanie ever since they met and he might never get this chance again. As Steph pulled away, he blinked at her, attempting a surprised expression, but he never got the chance, because over Steph’s shoulder, he saw another darkspawn, a fireball between it’s hands and as it sent it their way, Damian grabbed her shoulders and pushed her, rolling with her just as the fireball sailed past the spot where they had just been.
That was unexpected. It wasn’t until they had come to a stop at the bottom of the small hill did she realize what had happened as the emissary had come to the top where they had been and was now looking down at them, prepping another fireball. Steph didn’t waste any time. First she tried to move but found herself weighed down, there wasn’t time to deal with it so she went for a weapon. Pulling the dagger she had stolen from the archer from her belt, she took a split second to aim and throw it hard. Thankfully the thing had taken a step or two forward during that time allowing the blade to pierce it right between the eyes and make it fall over dead. Of course now with the danger passed she turned her head finding Damian’s face dangerously close to her own. He had been the heavy thing that kept her from moving earlier and in light of what had happened before they were attacked she wasn’t all too happy with the closeness. When she spoke it wasn’t a request but a demand. “Get off me, Damian.”
As the Darkspawn hit the ground, Damian was about to compliment Steph on aim when he suddenly remembered what he’d done and was on his feet before Steph finished talking. Once on his feet, he started to extend a hand to help her up, but thought better of it, certain that she wouldn’t want his help, “Steph, I’m so sorry. I didn’t….I don’t know why I….I didn’t mean to do that.” He was sure that he’d just messed everything up worse than when he’d sent the flowers and he wasn’t sure how to fix this.
She might have accepted that help, but it was better that he didn’t as there was every chance she would have decided not to and leaving him hanging was too harsh. She was still feeling a little overwhelmed though, best to get some distance between herself and the situation before she headed home to her fiance. Her fiance who she had no idea how she was going to explain this to, if she was going to tell him at all. “I know. I mean, it was an accident. Uh, no harm done or whatever, right? Right. Let’s make sure the area is clear then maybe call it quits for the day, okay?”
Damian nodded, running a gloved hand through his hair. He didn’t know if what Steph was saying was true or if she was just trying to spare his feelings, but either way, he’d messed up and the worst part was that deep down he wasn’t really sorry. He knew it was selfish, but he’d been wanting to kiss Steph for a long time. It might not have been how he’d expected it to happen, but it had happened and he wouldn’t take it back. “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”
She headed back up the hill but found nothing waiting for them at the top. It wasn’t exactly a relief, it would have been nice to stab something after that. To get out whatever it was she was feeling. She didn’t meet his eyes when she looked back to Damian, “Well, I guess that’s it for it then. I’m, uh, I think I’m gonna head home.”
Damian had hoped that there would be some more Darkspawn, because it would have meant spending a little more time with Steph and possibly getting them through the awkwardness that was now between them, but the Darkspawn appeared to have moved somewhere else, “Yeah. Alright.” He bit his bottom lip, trying to think of something to say to try and make this situation better, but there really wasn’t. He could only hope that he hadn’t just ruined things between them for good.