stranger things | dick grayson

eight

Happy New Year everyone!

word count: 2.8k

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Sitting in the diner, barely awake, Eleanor stared ahead of her wondering about how she ended up in Ohio, with Dick, and a random child whose mother was murdered back in Michigan when only yesterday she was solving a case per usual at her desk. It's funny how quickly things can change. 

Feeling her phone buzzing in her pocket, Eleanor fumbled around for it and checked the caller ID. When she saw it was her brother attempting to contact her, she let it ring out and texted him right after, letting him know that she was busy and that she would ring him once she had the chance.

'Thank you... Want a hot chocolate or something?' Dick asked Rachel as the waitress put three green mugs down, pouring coffee into two of them.

'Just coffee. Black,' Rachel replied, still not taking her eyes off of her distraction that was the highway outside.

Eleanor picked up the cup that was filled to the brim and thanked the waitress quietly before taking a sip of the hot liquid. It was horrible and it took everything in Eleanor's power not to cringe in the face of the poor waitress. 

'I bet they have marshmallows?' Dick suggested, unsure of whether or not Rachel truly wanted black coffee. Eleanor tittered at his attempt to level with her. Maybe he was great at handling kids' cases, but he sure as hell wasn't great at talking to them. 

She finally looked at him and let her eyes bore into his own. 

'I'm not a kid.' The tone of her voice made Eleanor's eyebrows shoot up quickly as she brought the cup to her lips once again to hide her growing smirk.

'Okay. Same for the lady,' Dick told the waitress with a small smile.

Rachel took one sip of her drink and tried to make her small cringe go unnoticed. 

'My mom didn't like me to drink coffee,' she admitted as she poured almost eight teaspoons worth of sugar into the drink. She only stopped once Eleanor quickly leaned over and covered half of the cup gently.

'Sweet tooth huh?' Dick asked, grinning a little as she stirred her drink and gave him a pointed look.

Eleanor's grin grew even wider at the tension and awkwardness, so she turned her head to look out the window. Her eyes followed a passing car.

'Rachel... Has anything like, what happened, ever happened before?' Dick asked her.

'No, not like that,' replied Rachel, 'I didn't mean to kill that guy.'

Eleanor looked back at Rachel as Dick lent forward. So she did kill him herself, Eleanor thought to herself.

'How did you kill that guy?' He asked.

Rachel never replied, instead she took a sip of her drink and grew distracted by something at the next table over.

'She's probably just still in shock, let her be for a while,' Eleanor said quietly to Dick before taking another sip of her coffee.

'Well, we're gonna go see some old friends of mine. They're safe. They'll give us a place to lie low for a second and get our heads together. Figure out what to do next,' Dick said as he put his hands flat on the table.

Eleanor was curious as to who these friends were. She had never taken Dick to be the friend kind of person, well other than her, but she still thinks he hangs out with her out of pity most times, that or he's just unlucky and finds himself in various situations where he's stuck with her.