Simplicity

First Meeting

For once in her life, Stephanie's first meeting with one of the Bats didn't have anything to do with bullets or crime or bricks to the head or any kind of violence at all.

She was just checking out a once obscure coffee place that had exploded in popularity over like a week, you know, something completely normal.

Everyone she asked said the appeal had something to do with the foam art.

Well, according to her esteemed fellow scholars, it was the guy doing the foam art.

Stephanie, being the social, curious person she was went along with some college friends - and a not so friend by the name of Jordanna - one slow lunch hour to see what all the chatter was about.

She was just getting coffee, and unless you'd just woken up after a sleepover at Wayne Manor, getting coffee was supposed to be one of the least violent things a person could do. It was all the proof she needed that the universe had a weird, ironic sense of humour that it was when she happened to meet one of the supposedly most violent people ever.

She'd just looked up from their discussion about what to order when she got a glance at the guy behind the counter. Her mouth stopped working and she had to do a double take just to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing.

Jason Todd. Mister Scary mcShooty Stabby crime lord himself; chatting it up with his giggly customer while he worked on crafting her foamy latte into a cutesy rabbit.

Maybe she wouldn't have been as shocked as she was if it weren't for the fact that he was actually, you know smiling, resting against the counter as relaxed as could be, his teal eyes bright and alive.

He finished with a flourish and handed the girl her coffee with a wink and a crooked, flirty smile.

Steph's friends caught her staring and, misreading the situation entirely, immediately went to chattering about how she'd fallen in love with the mysterious foam guy at first sight. She didn't bother correcting them because that worked like, never. It was easier to just endure the good laugh they had at her expense. Besides It wasn't worth giving anyone more ammunition to use against her.

It was something she was sure they'd be forgetting about in a couple days.

Then they reached the front of the line and he directed that smile at them. Okay wow, his eyes really were stupidly bright and somehow really blue while also being really green.

"And what can I do for this flock of..." Jason looked up from rearranging his station and whatever he'd been about to say didn't't make it past his lips. He blinked owlishly at Stephanie, then the group of girls who broke into a new fit of giggles and demanded she be the one to place their orders with many nudging eblows and faux sly glances.

She listed off the various sugary concoctions they called out, and Jason moved with much less of a flurry than he'd shown his previous customers. He kept looking up and scanning the shop like he expected an army of ninjas to burst in through the windows at any second.

Or maybe she was just projecting, cause she was sort of expecting something along that line to go down.

When he was done he smiled charmingly at Steph's friends, who were less than satisfied with his lack of flare and offered them the coffee for free on account of their beauty making him speechless.

It satisfied her friends and ensured that Steph would be the victim of their teasing for many a day. Jason flagged down his manager, and after a hurried conversation spoken too low for her to make out, slipped through a door marked employees only with an apologetic smile at his fellow employees.