capeandcowllogs | A constellation of tears on your lashes

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A constellation of tears on your lashes

WHO: Roy Harper & Laura Kinney
WHERE: Dallas BBQ Restaurant
WHEN: Friday night
WARNINGS: Discussion of non-con/abuse.
SUMMARY: Roy takes Laura on an ill-planned date and talking happens.
FORMAT: Tagger's choice.

Their brief encounter at the auction left Roy with more questions than answers about Laura, though one thing seemed certain: she didn't at all strike him as the roller rink type. It took a little thought, but he'd come up with the barbecue place as an alternative, figuring that there would be good food and tasty frozen drinks, and if they decided to go elsewhere after dinner, it would be a fine preamble.

He'd arranged to pick her up at 8pm and had arrived casually dressed in jeans and a plain red teeshirt. He seemed laid back, much like the establishment. It was busy, but not overwhelming, with the smokey scent of babyback ribs wafting through the air and the laughter of college kids tipsy off daiquiris filling the room. It was fun, and Roy sincerely hoped it would translate to his evening with Laura.

"You gotta try this one drink they've got," he said, pointing to the list of frozen options on the menu. "It's called Miami Vice. It tastes like how being on a vacation feels."

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Laura had spent the better part of the evening fending off Jessica and her attempts to 'make over' Laura for her date, and the end result was a bit more make-up than she typically wore, a mid-thigh length black skirt, and one of her better purple tank-tops. She had chosen her own clothing, and gotten Jessica to back off by agreeing to let her to do her make-up.

And promising not to wash it off.

The restaurant itself seemed harmless enough, though Laura didn't really care for all the drunken college kids, but they were easy enough to ignore, provided she pushed the smell away.

"I will try it," she agreed, because she was trying to be civil. "But I cannot get drunk." Not that she wouldn't, but unless one of the magical-booze providers were present, it was almost impossible. Instead of saying anything else she just studied Roy, trying to decide what she thought of him.

He wondered what she meant by that, waiting until after their perky waitress had taken their drink orders before asking.

"You can't get drunk at all?" What a weird concept. Was it beneficial to her, or some kind of detriment? Considering his own past and struggles with substances that could get a person high and hooked, Roy thought it was probably the former. "How'd you manage that?"

"My body cleanses the alcohol before it can have a detrimental effect on me," she explained, and then seemed to decide that, as far as answers went, it wasn't really going to explain anything.

"I am a mutant, with an enhanced healing factor." She set her glass down and held up one of her hands, palm down towards the table. After a few seconds, one of her claws slid out, only an inch or so, so that people wouldn't see except for him.

There was blood on the blade, and she slid it back away again, and as he watched the cut in her hand were the blade was healed back over. And then she picked up her napkin and wiped it off.

Roy watched this with intense curiosity, a slow grin spreading over his face. He had his own healing factor her in the City, and while it wasn't quite as impressive as hers, it had still kept him out of a pinch or two. But what interested him more were the claws.

"Did those claws come with the mutation?" He asked, not meaning to sound flippant. "Because those are intense."

She hesitated again before answering, trying to decide what she thought of his reaction to her claws. She didn't usually get grins like that when she showed people, typically they were surprised, or frightened, or sometimes disgusted.

"The claws are part of my mutation, but they are typically bone," she said as she took a careful sip of her drink. "The metal was added when I was a child."

That part sounded a lot less fun. In fact, it got Roy slightly agitated, and he sat up straighter in his seat. Unless there was a valid medical explanation for coating her bones in metal, he couldn't fathom why something like that would be necessary. Still, he got the sense that asking about it might be prying, and he had a healthy respect for privacy. If Laura wanted to offer more, he'd listen, but he wouldn't press her to talk if she wasn't comfortable.

"You must be pretty durable," Roy said, taking a sip of his own drink. "So, what do you do for fun?"

"I am," she agreed. She wasn't actually certain what could kill her. "The man I was cloned from survived a nuclear explosion, theoretically I am capable of the same thing."

It was not particularly a theory she wished to test, though. And his question made her pause, because...well, she didn't do fun things, not really. Sometimes Jessica made her.

"I...teach at the dojo. And train."

Roy was taking all of this in, trying to guess as to whether or not Laura was being serious. She didn't seem like the type to deadpan oneliners like that, but he didn't know her well enough to say for sure.

"You were cloned from a guy...?" How did that even work? He knew cloning was possible, but how that translated into a woman being cloned from a man, he just wasn't sure.

Hands resting under his chin, he considered her idea of fun. He had similar ideas, though his activities weren't simply limited to shooting and fighting. Surely she must like other things too. "Okay, but besides that. Like, what do you normally do on a Friday night?"

"Yes. It...is complicated," she frowned faintly. "My mother was a scientist, she experimented, I was the end result." Gee Laura, way to leave out all the important evil-organization-of-doom bits. "If you ever hear of a man named Wolverine, he is my..." She never quite knew the proper term. "Relative. He is here from time to time, but never for long."

And she let out a slightly relieved sigh as the conversation turned away, although the new subject wasn't any easier. "I...watch television? Or read, if Jessica is at Jason's."

Had he opened some can of worms he shouldn't have? Roy wasn't certain, but his curiosity was getting to him. But the way she frowned and seemed on edge had him deciding to simply Google everything later, and maybe ask Ollie. Scientists and Wolverines, it was past the point of being weird and into a whole new territory.

Glad that she was taking the bait and shifting the subject, Roy nodded along with her. "What kind of shows?" He raised a brow, taking another swing of his drink. Sweet. Fruity, with a nice punch behind it, almost enough to make him miss her saying 'Jason'. It's a common enough name. There was no real reason to suspect Laura knew Jason Todd, his best friend's little (formerly dead and now somehow totally alive) brother. "Okay, remind me who those people are again."

She had expected him to push, everyone was always curious, so when he didn't she was relieved...if a tad puzzled. But she could work with that, and she took another moment to sip her drink before she answered.

"Mostly reality television. Or dramas. Whatever Jessica wishes to watch," Laura didn't care. Unless she missed an episode. Which no one would ever know. "Jessica is my roommate, and Jason is her boyfriend. Although he is in prison at the moment, so she has mostly been at home." Or moping.

"Is your roommate dating Jason Todd?" Roy finally blurted out, a look somewhere between baffled and horrified on his face. He wasn't judging. Well, he wasn't judging Laura at least. Though it did sort of raise questions about who she surrounded herself with.

"I don't watch a lot of TV," he added quickly a moment later. "Just, you know, regular stuff. Sports, most often. I like to have it on in the background when I'm working."

Laura would have laughed if she...ever did that. Instead she just nodded and sighed slightly. "Yes." Despite her better attempts at making it not happen. "For a while now."

"I prefer to watch the news, if I have the television on at all," which she didn't, really, unless Jessica was home or she was in one of those occasional funks she got where she would lay around doing nothing.

"Eh, it's background noise," he nodded in agreement, still trying to think through how Jason managed to find himself a girl crazy enough to date him. "But you mentioned you like books, too."

She just nodded. "Yes. They're...relaxing," she wasn't entirely picky about what she'd read. She'd even been forced to read a terrible vampire book by Jessica. "Mostly fiction," she added after a moment's thought. "Or history books."

Or war books, but she wasn't going to bring that up.

"What do you do?" And now to get the topic off herself. Somehow.

"Me?" Roy smiled, happy to have her attention on him. "I work on cars and computers, and lucky for me, I get paid to do it here. And I play music, but that's just for fun."

Of course, that was leaving out the most important hobbies of his life, shooting arrows and shooting guns. But truthfully he hadn't been doing much of that lately, in favor of playing the part of Kato to Tony Stark's Britt Reid. Roy missed shooting though. It was a part of himself, as natural to him as walking was to other people, and he longed to get back into the habit.

"I've never tried to do any of those things," though she could use a computer, she had basic hacking skills from the Facility.

"Do you fight?" It was bound to come up eventually, right?

A sly smirk tugged at his lips and he inflated a bit. "Hell yeah, I do. I've been working the hero beat since I was thirteen years old."

When he spoke, there was a distinct sense of pride in his voice, and while Roy could certainly brag about his achievements, he didn't quite stray into that territory. After all, Laura owned a dojo and apparently enjoyed kicking people's asses on the regular. He wanted to impress her, not goad her into a demonstration that would result with him having his ass handed to him.

"Hmm. I did not do so until I was fourteen," was her answer, although her heroing in new york had mostly been protecting other prostitutes. Which was one thing she preferred people not know, she wasn't even certain she had ever told Jessica.

"I would like to see you fight sometime," she added. There weren't many people who started that young, Laura wanted to see how it effected someone.

"Yeah?" He raised an eyebrow, smirk twisting just a little. "Anytime you want, Laura. I'd never turn down a chance to show off."

And he wouldn't go easy on her, either. If she was a clone of a man who would withstand a nuke, she could probably handle a fight against an average baseline human.

"But if you use your claws, it's only fair that I can bring my bow."

"You may use whatever weapons you wish," she said, and she meant it. Laura was nothing if not confident, and it wasn't even overconfidence, not when you had her background and her training and her abilities.

"If you like, I will not use my claws regardless. I would not wish to permanently injure you."

"I'm not too worried about that," he said cooly, taking a chunk of the cornbread the waitress had brought to their table. "I got a little something like what you got."

"Hmm," a thoughtful pause as she considered him, her head tilted slightly to the side, her green eyes narrowed.

"We shall just have to see how it goes, then." Assuming the date went well enough that either of them wished to speak to the other afterwards.

Roy decided he liked the sound of this, almost as much as he liked the idea of testing himself against Laura. He liked sparring almost as much as he liked being the best at everything, and he didn't mind her for company, even though she was a lot less talkative than he was.

"So, where are you from, originally? Me, I'm from out west. I grew up in Arizona, on the Navajo reservation, actually." He shook his head, wondering if that land is much different here than back home. "But I bounce around a lot. Star City, Metropolis, New York, I get around."

Another question about herself. She supposed it was inevitable, but it still left her without much in the way of an out. "I was raised in a laboratory," she finally answered. "My mother helped me escape when I was fourteen. I lived in New York and California after that, until I was brought here. That was almost two years ago."

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