Who: Alyssa Hamilton and Raven What: Random meeting. Alyssa gets a BRILLIANT idea from it. When: Early April Where: Coffee shop Warnings: Low/None Status: Partner thread | Complete!
With school on break, and not much to do, Raven found herself hanging around the coffee shop even when she wasn’t working. Mostly because it was familiar. She was slowly but surely getting used to living at Zatanna’s, even if she still was unimpressed with how it all came to be. Even if she still didn’t feel comfortable there. It had nothing to do with the setup or anything, and just that her abilities came from her emotions and being in control and as she had to readjust to her surroundings, that control was wavering.
So, sitting outside of the coffee shop and people watching was the way to go. As she wasn’t working, she was dressed as she usually was. Dark clothing, a bored expression on her face. It sucked because of her empathy, but if she could tune everyone out, then she at least was regaining her control. At the moment, the teen was reading, her tea on the table before her.
Alyssa had popped into the coffee shop to get a cup of tea before getting a jump on the homework that her professor had so graciously assigned for next term. Really, it gave her things to do and kept her from haunting Peeta’s doorway too much; she didn’t want to be that girl.
Which was why she was in the queue, checking her email on her mobile, inching forward bit by bit. As much as she complained about the weather, she was taking full advantage of its warmth by wearing a breezy sundress and her hair off of her neck.
Turning the page of her book, Raven sighed as she came to the chapter end. And someone bumping into her table. Glaring darkly at the jerk who didn’t even bother to say anything, the girl headed back inside to get napkins to mop up the mess of tea on both pages and herself. Really, this was not the ideal way to keep her energy in check. Not to mention a light bulb suddenly breaking.
Great. She’d been so jolted that even her control on her abilities had been messed up. She supposed it was good that the only thing that broke was the light and no glass or anything like that came down. Still, to get to the napkins, she had to reach across someone. A redhead.
“Excuse me…”
Annoyed with humanity or not, she could at least be nice. Ish.
“Oh, sorry.” The redhead in question was extraordinarily polite, and had the sort of accent that Americans tended to expect people from England to have. (Alyssa often saved time and simply said she was from London, as it was how most people seemed to interpret her country anyway. Just one huge city.) She handed over some napkins, figuring it was the polite and rather obvious thing to do.
One less person to be annoyed with, that was always appreciated. With a nod of thanks, Raven took the napkins and moved to the side to start the process of drying up the spilled tea from both book and corseted top, she was vaguely aware of what was going on around her. Which was why she blinked as she heard the name called for an order being ready. Alyssa. The name was familiar and it seemed to belong to the person she’d gotten the napkins from.
She was also familiar. Not her energy so she clearly hadn’t crossed paths with her before. But familiar. So it was sidestepping from the coffee bar to get out of her way.
Alyssa smiled and thanked the person who handed her a cup of tea, and moved toward the condiment bar to add a little bit of milk. She cocked her head when she saw Raven out of the corner of her eye, and figured she may as well be sociable. “I’m so sorry, but have we met somewhere?” Online or off, the girl’s dark eyes were familiar somehow. She was quite pretty, really.
“Hmm?” And there the redhead was again. Asking the very question that Raven had been contemplating herself. So it certainly wasn’t just her. That was a relief. Sometimes it felt like she was going crazy even though her dreams had been over for months now. Abilities could do that to a person, though. So could change. “I think it’s possible. Probably online if we have.”
Because Raven would have recognized her energy, that much was certain.
Blue eyes went wide, then Alyssa blinked. “Oh, right, you commented about those tights I bought! I’m Alyssa Hamilton, the Valarnet. Do you need help hosing off your table?” She couldn’t help but be gregarious, even though the girl would probably decline. She seemed a solitary sort.
Alyssa didn’t know if her energy seemed off because she was a Rooder, a soldier chosen by Heaven long ago through her bloodline, but she was peppy. That was probably enough to be noticed, right?
And that explained it. A look of recognition dawned on Raven’s face and she nodded.
“Right.” The weird tights. And why would someone want to wear tights that had Batman’s face on them? Then again, Raven did tend to stick more with pants and boots and less with the dresses, skirts and tights. Still. Batman. Her mental link with Dick probably didn’t help the girl’s general distaste of him. She knew it was a complicated relationship in the dreams and well, Raven was protective of her Robins.
“Raven. And thanks, but I’ve got it.”
There was definitely something different about Alyssa’s energy, but as she had mentioned Valarnet, she figured it meant she was a Dreamer and had gone through what many did when on that thing. Dreams and changes from said dreams. But now she would certainly recognize her energy.
“I know why Damian reacted oddly, but not you. Are you from his dreams as well?” Alyssa Hamilton: Blurting Out Weird Questions for 19 years!
And she knew Damian, cue Raven perking up. Because he was a friend and had been the one she’d gone to when the markings had shown up as no one else would have known about him and even if they were from a different set of dreams, she had hoped he’d at least know something.
“Sort of. Different world, similar situation. Same people though in a way?”
Raven still didn’t know exactly what to make of that whole bit. All she knew was that Damian was a Robin. Maybe not her Robin and the one who was her leader, but a Robin all the same.
That made sense, in a strange way, and Alyssa nodded. “He’s one of the most genuinely good people I’ve ever met. It makes sense that would translate no matter where he is. I mean, he can be a bit of a brat, but he’s sweet deep down.” Even though she hadn’t dated Damian in almost a year, she’d defend him to the end. They were friends, and that was what you did with friends.
“I haven’t met him in my dreams, but he knows of me from his.” Because apparently Robin wasn’t a name but an alias. And Dick Grayson was her Robin. Dick Grayson who didn’t know about any of that yet and still she had a mental link with him that led her to him when he was in trouble. All of it was very awkward. “But yeah. I’ve gotten that feeling from him.” And he was one of her few friends, so that counted for a lot.
“So you’re part of the family, as it were. My apologies, then. I hope I didn’t upset you overmuch. Damian’s a bit silly, I once got him a Batman t-shirt for his birthday.” And a katana, because she was nice that way. “Nobody from my dreams has ever shown up here except my grandpa, but Damian helped me kill him, thank god.”
Wait. That sounded wrong. Eh, explaining it would be worse.
“In a way I guess.” She wasn’t a Bat. But she was a Teen Titan. She had helped form it and apparently at some point, she and Damian were teammates, even briefly. “But no, it was just odd to see.” Because really, seeing that sort of picture was just..unexpected on many levels. Raven was well aware that there were plenty of people who knew of Gotham but to see Batman on tights? That was weird.
“....Right then.” Not like she was much better. If Trigon ever showed up, she knew that she’d need to kill him. She already was worried she had done something irreversible when she’d become the Portal back in December, but beyond the birds, nothing had shown up. Didn’t mean he couldn’t though.
Smiling, Alyssa moved to sit down at a nearby table. “Sorry to bother you, then.” But then she paused, turning back toward Raven. “Wait, are you two ... you know, seeing each other? That may sound odd, it’s just that you’re very pretty.”
“It’s fine. Jerk who knocked my tea over is the one who actually bothered me.” Because really, she’d been reading and it had been fine. Now she was going to have to pay the school library a fine for the damaged book. At least her top wasn’t ruined. But then Alyssa asked if she and Damian were seeing each other and Raven started coughing. A lot. Because what?!. “Uh...no. No we’re not.”
Wow. That came out of nowhere. And she also heard the barista yelp because apparently she had just made the french press release steam in their face.
“Sorry, sorry. Just - I don’t know, sometimes I worry he doesn’t act his age? He should be dating, be young. He’s had so much on his shoulders and ...” And he deserved a better girlfriend than the one she’d been, and Alyssa knew it.
Looking back at the yelp, Alyssa blinked, hoping the girl wasn’t hurt. It would be hard to sort of make an excuse to go back and touch her and heal burns. Not very subtle.
There was no denying that Damian had a lot on his shoulders. Especially with what he had told her about his latest dream, about Dick dying. It hadn’t helped that then Raven had ended up healing Dick because he’d been shot. And it wasn’t like Raven acted her age. She was pretty certain that anyone who dealt with Gotham or some subset of Gotham in their dreams would carry a lot on their shoulders.
All she could do was nod slowly as she got her emotions under control. Then again, Raven didn’t date and she really had no idea where Alyssa had gotten that idea from beyond her concern for Damian.
The girl who had gotten steamed seemed to be okay though. Glasses fogged but no damage so there was that.
“Oh.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t interfere.” Alyssa sighed, amused at putting her foot into her mouth. “It’s a bad habit, trying to make everyone happy.” And she felt like she’d given Damian only sorrow, and that she had a lot to atone for.
“It’s fine…” Really, Raven was more stuck on the question of where did that come from to realise that Alyssa might very well be planning to interfere. Because to her? It was just a very strange proposition that made no sense. “I guess there’s nothing wrong with trying to make everyone happy…”
There wasn’t. Raven just...didn’t do happy. Not in the conventional way so it was more of a foreign concept to her.
“Well, there’s a lot wrong with trying to get people to do things that they don’t want to do. Even if it’s got good intentions.” Alyssa smiled, leaning forward conspiratorially. “It’s just - you’re pretty, and he’s an idiot who wouldn’t know if a girl fancied him or was about to be sick.” She rolled her eyes. “If I hadn’t snogged him, he probably wouldn’t have gotten that I had a crush on him.”
“Point.” Because Raven well knew how things could go wrong when forcing someone to do something even if it was with good intention. Wasn’t that why she was so conflicted with this whole moving to Zatanna’s? Because no matter the intent, it had basically been decided when Raven had been too tired to fight and against her concerns? Though this whole..her fancying Damian thing seemed to still come out of nowhere. Not to mention she was caught off guard about the fact that Alyssa had been together with Damian. “Wait, so you two were…”
Now she had to wonder if she was the one that Damian had mentioned that once on Halloween and why he didn’t feel like doing Halloween the past year.
“For a while, but then I broke up with him. I still feel guilty about it, but - I don’t know, I think I’d have felt worse if I’d stayed and pretended. I think he would have too in that scenario.” Alyssa let her hands rest on her cup, warming them. “I thought he’d hate me forever, and I wouldn’t have blamed him.”
And now they were veering into territory that Raven really wasn’t familiar with. At. All. She was the creepy girl who kept to herself. Dating and what relationships entailed? Not really something she knew about, she only knew what she observed. So now she was once again uncertain of what to say.
“Oh. Well...pretending does no one good though. It just ends badly.” Okay so for Raven pretending meant suppressing emotions and saying she was fine and then fear manifesting into monsters…. but the idea was still the same? “I guess it depends on how it was done. I don’t know.”
Because really. Raven. Dating. Those two words did not belong in the same sentence.
“I could have done better, but I didn’t know how.” For Alyssa, breaking up with Damian had been like trying to do the foxtrot without knowing how to dance at all. She’d just sort of winged it, looked like an idiot, then hid for a while. “But we don’t have to talk about that, I should let you get back to your book.” Raven looked remarkably uncomfortable talking about this sort of thing, but the way she’d perked up about Damian... Alyssa would have to explore this.
“Life is learning, basically.” Well that was one way to look at it. Besides, given Raven didn’t know about the whole...dating thing and thus break up thing, perhaps there was a learning curve to it. Who knew. People and interacting with people was weird. That and Alyssa was mentioning letting Raven get back to her book. Right. That was one of the reasons she was here. “Probably. Enjoy your tea.”
“You as well.” The redhead deftly maneuvered around a chair to find a corner spot so she could drink her tea and read her own book. But she found herself a bit distracted and started jotting down a to-do list.