capeandcowllogs | Take yourself out to the curb...

Take yourself out to the curb...

WHO: Raven

darkprophecies, Spider-Man (616)

bythreadalone
WHERE: A coffee house/bistro.
WHEN: An hour after their discussion via communicator.
WARNINGS: ~~The fangirls?~~ None.
SUMMARY: Raven takes Peter up on his offer of meeting him for coffee - many awkward feelings and discussions will most likely occur.
FORMAT: Quick para/Para

How was it that days that seemed so beautiful weather-wise ended up being so... shitty, for lack of a better term? There were no proper words to describe the chaos of the last week of Raven's life, and this only seemed to pile more atop of it. She wouldn't be one to complain about it, however. There were others with much worse weeks than an aching heart and confused emotions - she had to remember that.

She slowly stepped into the coffee shop, letting the aroma greet her before she glanced around. ... Mm, he wasn't here yet. That was a plus for her, as the butterflies in her stomach would have possibly urged her to teleport away and leave him sitting there, afraid to talk to him after the humiliation she was feeling. But he wanted to see her, for whatever reason.

Taking a table as far back as she could, she sat, and released a slow breath to ease her troubled mind. She had nothing to be nervous about, at least not this nervous. Despite it, the emotion was written all over her face as her eyes followed the few employees that strolled about.

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Okay, okay. First meetings were always hell -- Peter knew this as a photographer, and a journalist, and he could control himself. Yeah. Deep breath, little sigh, one-step-in-front-of-the-other. It was easy.

He stepped past the swinging doors of the coffee shop's entrance, and scanned the crowd, trying to pick Raven out. It wasn't hard.

"Uh, hey. Des."

Walking up to her, though? Completely different story. He swallowed, once, and stood at the table she had chosen, feeling like that nerdy, fifteen year old dork asking the pretty girl out to the highschool dance all over again.

She looked up at him, feeling as if her heart had just plummeted into her stomach - his little nickname for her didn't help matters either as the butterflies only seemed to quadruple now. She managed a slight smile, but even that was a struggle.

A hard one, at that.

"... Hi."

The longer he stood there, the more curious it became, until she made a slight motion to the chair right across from her. "I hope this table is fine, we can move if it's not to your liking."

Talking about a lifeless piece of furniture, smooth Raven.

He felt like the worlds biggest ass. What was he even thinking about being here, and, and -- this was insane! It was a mistake; he could only make things worse by...doing whatever the hell he was going to do, surely. How could a cup of coffee even come close to making anything right between them, or less awkward?

Peter cursed underneath his breath, and stood his ground. This was just -- he was starting to hate himself. So much.

"Uh. It's fine. Iiii--," he cut himself off, and looked down at his feet. What was he doing? "--I just need a second to clear my head before I sit down, yeah?"

It took all of Raven's strength to not reach out and place a supportive hand on his arm - and even more strength to not attempt diving deep into his emotions to read them all. But she had more respect for him than that...

She managed a gentle smile at how nervous he seemed, though. It didn't take an empath to see he was probably feeling the same awkwardness that she was.
"Take your time."

She turned her attention to a window nearby, pretending to be looking out of it instead, more for his benefit than anything. Her nervous habit came back as she smoothed a piece of hair behind her ear.

With a tiny sigh, he took his seat, still cursing at himself. "I need a second to clear my head?" Really? How stupid did he think she was, honestly? Any person above the age of six could see that he uncomfortable, and that his hesitance to do -- well, anything, was making her just as uncomfortable as he was, if not more so.

"_{Sorry, sorry}," he said as he settled in in front of her. "I'm thirty but still act like a teenager. Sorry."

"I'm in my mid-twenties and I still look like a teenager, care to switch?" she attempted humor the best she could, flashing him another smile as her eyes slowly set on him again.

Humor and banter had somewhat brought them together in the first place, perhaps it could break the ice now.

He rolled his eyes, and smoothed the outline of his lips, already slowly starting to chant: "Be the adult, be the adult, be the funny and caring adult." over and over again in the back of his mind. Maybe positive reinforcement would make it true, for once.

"A-and miss out on the whole George Clooney look?" he asked, letting out a tiny laugh. "Yeah right."

"George Clooney, huh?" a small smirk began to pull on the corner of her lips.

Despite her hardest attempts at this, she found herself faltering - even just looking at him was starting to hurt a little bit. But she needed to get through this, they needed to be okay again - he was one of the few things she honestly enjoyed here.

... But no, Azar herself wasn't even on her side today, as without thinking it through she sighed gently, giving him an almost pathetic look.
"What are we doing?"

He scratched the back of his neck, trying to think of something -- anything that he could say to make her feel more comfortably.

Like usual, only jokes came to mind.

"We are obviously part of this great and varied experiment in superhero relationships." he explained, gesturing to her and then to himself. "You and me, kid, are the control and the hypothesis at work."

She felt a strange sense of relief wash over her as his joke, giving him a true smile, and the start of a laugh. She always did enjoy his sense of humor the most... it made her feel so much better, just like each of the times they had talked before.

Her muscles visibly relaxed a bit.

"Is there an opt-out available somewhere, or did I miss that memo?"

He could do this. Yeah. He could. Definitively -- just as long as the jokes kept coming, of course. He gave her a small smile, and stretched, his arms going high above his head as his joints cracked and popped.

"Don't know," he stated, letting out a small laugh. "Do you have a PhD or anything else that'd let you ask that type of question in public?"

"One would imagine I would." she laughed softly herself, relaxing her back against the chair she sat in. "But unfortunately, no."

... she had something she wanted to ask him - she honestly did. The elephant in the room wasn't going anywhere soon, but on the other hand she didn't want to ruin this mood. A snippet of when the only awkwardness around him was her own.

"Ahh, an interesting twist of fate that the two of us were the ones thrown into this sort of thing, out of all those here." she paused, realizing she was at the starting stages of babbling just to hear herself speak over what would otherwise be terribly awkward silence.

""

Peter started at her question, practically leaping up from the table in an effort to get what she had asked.

"Right, right! Sorry!"

He was such a spaz.

Raven gave a larger start at his immediate reaction, setting both her hands firmly on the table to make sure it didn't get shifted during his movement.

Well, she hadn't instigated such a violent reaction in a man since she crashed Dick and Kory's wedding those few years ago - it was a thought that made her smirk, yet frown all the the same time.

She released a gentle breath while he was away, going over the question she wanted to ask most of all in her head. It would be a difficult question, but one she needed to ask if she was ever going to get past this.
For the love of Azar, it wasn't as if they had been in an actual relationship, there shouldn't be anything to get over. It was all one-sided...

Edited 2009-03-27 07:19 (UTC)

He came back after several minutes with a small, warm smile on his face. The cashier had been -- well, angry at the world would be what most people would've called it, but Peter knew better than to take stock in what most other people ever did. It'd actually been fun to harass the kid. Somewhat. On a small, almost invisible level. Deep, deep, deep down. Deep down.

Yeah.

At any rate, was it his fault that he'd just been nice and obnoxiously attentive to counteract the kid's behaviour? Any other customer would have done the same in the same situation, he was sure.

Peter took his seat across from Raven with a small laugh, and passed her the coffee he had bought, hoping she would like it. "Uh, I didn't know whether you took yours black or not, so if you want me to go back and get sugar or whatever, I'll, ah. Do it. Yeah."

She gently took it into her hands, inhaling slightly before taking a sip. No, she did not often drink it black, but she would right now without a qualm. She had other things to worry about that a liquid she was drinking - besides, he had purchased it for her, and that... was somewhat soothing in a way.
"It's fine, thank you."

A long sip later, she set the cup down onto the table. Best get this over with.
She raised her eyes to look at him rather squarely, her words coming out in an oddly cool, composed way, as if the question she was asking held no weight at all to her.
"So... what's her name?"

Peter froze mid-sip, almost sputtering into his cup at her question. That certainly one way to take the elephant in the room and show it to everyone else.

He set the cup down, and scratched the back of his neck. "Des. That's -- are you sure this is what you want to talk about?"

"As... sure as I am going to be, Peter." her voice was much weaker now that she had actually said the words. They were real... and a dose of reality was what she needed.
Far too many nights had been spent in a daydreaming state about him, about something that was a fairy tale and would never come true. She needed to face reality before... it hurt any worse than it already did.

"Besides, it... needs to be addressed at some point."

This was more like leading the elephant to the slaughter, though. And almost twice as gruesome to be a part of. Peter thumbed the edge of his cup, slowly encircling its edge.

He tried hard not to smile when he thought of Mary Jane. Tried.

"Her name's Mary Jane. I met her when I was preschool."

Edited 2009-03-28 05:46 (UTC)

She caught the smile, and caught the emotion behind it even more so - she was briefly confused as to how she felt about that. On one hand, seeing and feeling him in such a way brought her a strange sense of joy - he seemed... peaceful when speaking her name.
On the other hand...

She wanted that name to be hers that brought forth that sort of reaction in him.

"That's quite a long time to know someone."
Just stay polite and kind.
Be supportive.
"You must really love her."

He looked into the depths of his coffee for a small while. It was true that Mary Jane was his everything -- no demon or demi-god or confused little teenage girl could change that; but, Peter also had to look at the reality of the situation.

He had left her in the hands of Mephisto, a demon second in power to almost none other in his universe. He had also let her sacrifice the chance that they would ever have a child just to save Aunt May and --

Peter closed his eyes, and let out a tiny breath.

"It's more than that."

His emotions had shifted so drastically that it caused her to reach out and put a hand on his arm. Her eyes held all the information he needed - she was genuinely concerned now.

The fact that her heart had been somewhat broken, the fact that they were talking about his wife, the major reason she would not have a relationship with him herself... it didn't matter.
He was hurting.

He put his hand over hers for a moment, and let out another sigh. It seemed almost moot to angst over something that had happened almost months ago. When and if he returned, then would be the time and place to mourn. Or to hunt down Mephisto and find a way to kill him. Either or, really.

"I'm fine. Sorry," and with that, he gently squeezed her hand. "Thanks."

"Do you wish to talk about it?" she still held the deep concern in her eyes and voice, resting her other hand on top of his. "Did something happen? I apologize if I brought forth something negative for you..."

Her coffee was now completely forgotten, her own problems pushed aside - it did not register in her mind that she was feeling this way until long after she had spoken.
It was strange. She cared for his well being more than she did her own desires or needs. There was only one, perhaps two that had garnered those sorts of emotions from her.

"Really, it's not a problem. At all," he reassured her, trying -- and possibly succeeding -- at forcing a smile. "Just this place and how it is, you know? It moves so fast sometimes that you forget about the things you've left behind."

He left it at that. Really, what else could he say?

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