Who: Damian Wayne and Raven What: Random meeting When: 11 February 2015, afternoon Where: Coffee shop Raven works Warnings: None Status: Partner Thread | Complete
One of these days, Raven would find a better job. One where she didn’t feel the need to claw out her ears because of comments on her lack of smiling or the general chipperness of customers. Or the annoyance that she wasn’t chipper when serving self righteous customers their coffee. Sadly, she had yet to find something and so the sixteen year old was stuck behind the counter, taking coffee orders after spending all day at school.
At least it kept her from home.
Marking the latest order on the cup, the dark haired teen turned her attention to the next person in line. Who was.. Damian.
“Don’t say a word.”
It wasn’t like they even really knew one another. But he probably had a better idea than most that chipper barista was one of the furthest things ever to be associated with Raven.
Damian had known that Raven worked in a coffee shop, but he hadn’t known exactly which Starbucks it was, so when he walked in and saw her behind the counter, he’d been somewhat amused. He couldn’t help it. Knowing the Raven that he did from his dreams, seeing her there was just too amusing. Trying to keep the amused smirk off his face, he stepped into line and waited until he was next. Of course, as soon as she spoke, the smirk reappeared, but he shook his head, “No. No, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Eyes narrowed slightly to see if he meant it, Raven decided that so far he wasn’t going to and relaxed. Slightly. Or as much as anyone who was an empath could relax in a damn Starbucks with all the chattering and peppiness going on.
“So. What can I get you?”
Damian was extremely amused, but at the same time, Raven was his friend so he certainly wasn’t going to make fun of her. He might tease her a little, but wasn’t going to be mean like his dream self might have been. When asked what he’d have, he told her his order then leaned against the counter, checking first to see if anyone else was behind him, which no one was, “So, this is the Starbucks you work at huh? I’d almost forgotten that you were a barista.” With all the patrolling and studying Damian had been doing, he was surprised he remembered his own name half the time.
Telling Damian how much he owed, she marked the cup so that it could be passed along to the girl working the cafe press, Raven nodded. He seemed to have hit a lull so that meant a little time to talk. Well, at least he wouldn’t be like the annoying people with the high shrill voices that made Raven want to claw her ears out.
“Have to make money somehow.”
Says the sixteen year old who probably could have used her father’s money if she had no moral standing. Then again she also had used a fake ID to work in the first place.
Damian handed some cash over to Raven and glanced towards the person who was making his drink then back to Raven, “So, have there been any more problems here lately?” He now recalled a post she’d made not too long ago about a disturbance at the cafe. This whole spike in the crime rate was beginning to remind Damian of Gotham just without the crazy villains. Then again, Harley Quinn was in Orange County so there was at least one crazy person there.
Putting the cash into the cash register and handing Damian any change he might have, Raven just shrugged.
“Nope. It’s been quiet here.” Which was good. That whole smoke bomb thing had been a headache in and of itself. Then there had been the reconstruction. Basically it had been way too much to deal with and the crime just continued to get more intense. Much like Damian, Raven was seeing parallels between Orange County at the moment with her dreams and Jump City.
“That’s good. I’ve been out almost every night patrolling.” As if on cue, Damian yawned. He was so exhausted, he didn’t know how he was standing, but he couldn’t afford to go home and take a nap, because he’d be going out patrolling in only a few hours and while he was exhausted, he was also too awake from the workout he’d had not too long ago. “I’ve caught so many thugs and would be criminals that I can’t believe anyone else is left.”
There were times Raven thought she should be doing more to help with the whole crime thing. She had the ability to. Mostly. The problem was that her abilities were of the magical variety. Even without the demon part added in, Raven didn’t have the physical capabilities to fight, and that would be a bit more complicated to deal with on the law enforcement side.
“They seem to come out of the woodwork, yeah.”
“They’re like cockroaches.” Damian was just glad that they were all fairly mediocre thugs. No one was hopped up on a serums that would make them incredibly strong or crazy gas or had gadgets that could hurt him, aside from guns, but his suit had kevlar and the majority of the time, he was faster than them anyway and they didn’t get a chance to shoot before he knocked the gun out of their hands with a well placed batarang or his foot. “And if I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was all starting to bleed over into my dreams or something. Just arrived at Arkham Asylum. Pretty much every bad guy in Gotham is in there and it’s one giant riot.”
Arkham. She knew that name vaguely. It was more from news reports and going into Dick’s mind and less from her personal experience in the Dreams, but she knew enough. And really, if they’d been dealing with people like the ones from Jump City or Gotham, Raven would feel a lot less bad about having to use magic against them. As it was, she would just keep to herself and help if she was there by random things.. but she knew better than to hunt it out.
“Don’t jinx it.”
No one ever said Raven was known for speaking a lot. Really, Damian’s comment was one of those ones where if one was in a movie or book or television show, they would be inviting things to get worse with the crazy type of criminals with powers or whatever.
Or if they simply lived in Orange County, California. Over the last two years Damian had definitely seen worse things than a rise in the crime rate, but he wasn’t about to get into that now, “Right. Sorry. If I jinx us then you have permission to kick my ass.” He smirked as the other barista called his name. “That would be me.” He stepped away from Raven for a moment to grab his drink then returned, “Hey, you should come out patrolling with me one night. Or, if you ever want some self defense lessons, I could teach you.” Yeah, he knew she had magic, but it never hurt to know self defense.
The ability for people to ignore what they didn’t understand was truly astounding, power of the human mind and all of that. Still, dark tendrils of kinetic energy and all that? Not so easy to explain. Oh well. She would make due with what she had.
“Remember that you said that.” And then Damian was mentioning patrolling as well as the possibility to learn self defense, both of which gave her pause before she nodded, “Yeah, that might be a good idea. Both I mean.” Got her out of the house and it would be good for her.