Author's note: Wow, thank you for all those kind words! Special thanks to cookies, SparkenRose and of course my beta UntilNeverDawns!
She had been internally debating with herself for the last half an hour whether to do it or not. Unfortunately her best friend Celeste, aka Kaitlyn, wasn't here or else she could have asked her for her opinion. Would she end up coming on too strong if she casually asked him to get something to eat with her after the show? But if she didn't, how else should she get to know him better?
Determined to not let herself spiral into another one of those internal debates with herself, she straightened her back and rapped at the door in front of her. It was shortly after opened by Stephen Farrelly, now dressed in civilian clothes just like her. He wore one of his trademark flat caps, a shirt with rolled up sleeves, with a vest and as her eyes wandered lower, she noticed his rather fashionably faded jeans.
"Hi!" she smiled at him, tugging a strain of hair behind her ear, feeling somewhat self-conscious, though his facial expression didn't give her any reason to. There was a friendly smile on his face, so she successfully fought down the temptation of tugging at the hem of her tight fitting Batman T-shirt and only looked down at the tips of her black Converse briefly to gather some courage.
"I was wondering whether you wanted to head out with me and grab something to eat. That is if you haven't got other plans. I mean, we haven't talked to each other properly ever since that promo tour to Abu Dhabi back in...," she narrowed her eyes, trying to remember the date, "When was that again? August? June? Wasn't it cool though? Do you remember..." There her voice trailed off. She had already said too much anyway. She didn't want to start rambling just because she felt embarrassed. The situation was awkward enough as it was.
"It was in July," he supplied finally and she smiled, not feeling like a complete loser for once.
"Yeah, sure. July. That's it."
"I remember, because it was right before I had surgery in August." Upon hearing that, her smile fell. "And I sat around on me arse for four months after that."
"Oh," she said sort of sheepishly and lowered her eyes, "I hope it didn't hurt too much. I mean not sitting on your ass obviously...the surgery and stuff. Erm... I mean, I'm sorry to hear that recovery was tough on you."
He actually had to smile at her behaviour. At present she was standing in front of him with her eyes downcast, probably feeling embarrassed for having inadvertently managed to bring up the topic of his injury. It struck him how different April was from the character she portrayed in the ring. AJ was like her evil twin, whereas April Jeanette Mendez was a sweet girl really, not crazy, but maybe a bit awkward and dorky.
"Well, I'm not gonna piss and moan. I've done that the last couple of months...," he rubbed the back of his neck. "You know what? I'm actually feeling a bit peckish, so I think I could go for a bite."
"Yeah?" she looked up at him with a smile. "That's cool. I'm going to grab my stuff from the locker room and meet you outside in five?" she suggested, already starting to move away from the door.
"All right," he agreed.
And so he found himself waiting for April about five minutes later at the back of the building. When she stepped outside, through on of those nondescript back door exits, he immediately noticed that she had put on her glasses and tied back her hair in a ponytail, which gave her an odd secretary kind of vibe. The air of strictness her hairdo and the glasses created was contradicted by the geeky T-shirt she wore and the rest of her clothes in general. Ripped jeans and Converse. To top off the look she wore a leather jacket.
"There you are," he greeted her.
"Here I am," she said and rocked back and forth once on her feet after she had come to stand in front of him.
"So where to?"
"I've got a cheat-day today," she told him with a proud grin. "I was thinking some fast-food place if that's all right with you?"
"We might as well," he shrugged his shoulders and she resigned herself to the fact that that was probably as much enthusiasm as she was going to get out of him.
"Where to?" he asked.
She got out her cell phone and typed something. After a few seconds she raised her head and smiled at him triumphantly. "Wendy's this way," she indicated the street behind him. "Seven Eleven's this way," she pointed behind herself.
"Wendy's and Seven Eleven," he replied, wrinkling his nose. Making this choice was something along the lines of out of the frying pan into the fire.
"Not much for fast food?" she looked at him, interpreting his facial expression correctly as one of displeasure.
"Why don't we get into my rental and drive around for a bit until we hit the next best diner?" he suggested.
"Okay. Works for me," she agreed.
He held out his hand to her wordlessly. For a moment she looked at his hand, contemplating what that was supposed to mean, but before she could put two and two together that same exact hand reached for the strap of her bag and gently pulled it off her shoulder.
"Oh, thanks!" she said dumbly and he only nodded before he turned around to head to his rental, some nondescript black SUV.
"I wanted to tell you that you really did a good job tonight. You're match against Natalya wasn't half bad to watch...," he told her casually as they both strapped themselves into their seat belts. She turned her head and threw him a surprised look. She reckoned that the words 'wasn't half bad' meant some sort of praise out of his mouth, which was why she eventually decided to smile.
"Yeah, and I meant what I said back there at the arena, it's really nice to have you back."
He let out a long drawn breath when he grabbed the steering wheel. For a moment he looked ahead, then at her, then through the window pane again, then at her again. What was going on? What was on his mind? She actually asked that question out loud.
"You wanna know what's on me mind, lass? Really?" he threw her a speculative look. "I don't know about you, but after roughly two hours in there, in that loony bin, I feel feckin' exhausted. Too exhausted to mince around matters and keep up pretenses..."
"What sort of pretenses?" she frowned. "What do you want to tell me here?"
He looked at her and it was the first time tonight, apart from that short eye contact in the ring, that there was something like a connection between them. "Look, in there," he nudged his head at the arena, "We've got certain roles to play all the time. It's been a long day and maybe it's because I have to get used to this circus again, but right now I'm sort a lackin' the will and the strength to be the polite and suave version of meself. So how about we cut straight to the chase and be honest with each other."
"Fine with me," she said after she had contemplated his proposal for a couple of seconds.
"Okay, then I guess it's no big deal if I tell you I don't fancy those two places you mentioned earlier," he admitted finally, which made her smile.
"I sort of got that impression already," she told him.
He raised an eyebrow. "I've got to work on being more subtle then."
She just shrugged her shoulders. "Or not. I like straight-shooters."
Stephen looked at her for a moment before he nodded and started driving. Eventually they found a diner a couple of blocks away. They parked the car in front of it and got in. The patrons gave the strange pair, the muscular giant of a man and the petite raven haired girl, some odd looks, but they lost interest after a couple of seconds.
They sat down left of the door. The diner was old-fashioned and looked like it had come straight out of the 50s. The seats they were sitting in were upholstered in red leather, the bar had so much chrome on it, that it almost looked like a Cadillac. Some rock n' roll tune was playing from a jukebox. April half-expected the waitress to come rolling past them on some roller skates.
Instead of a smiley 50s bombshell on skates they got a bored, middle-aged woman with a hairnet who shoved the menu straight under their noses. Stephen threw the waitress a disarming smile and a thank-you, which gave her some pause and managed to provoke some grimace akin to a smile, which was gone, however, just a couple of seconds later when she announced that she'd come back later to take their order.
"Sheesh! Whatever happened to hospitality?! I think she might have torn a muscle trying to smile at you..." April told Stephen when she briefly looked up from her menu.
He grinned. She liked it how his eyes did that interesting twinkly thing whenever he smiled one of those genuine smiles. "As long as she doesn't spit in me food... Talking about food are you ready to order yet?"
She nodded and they placed their orders soon after. To shorten the wait for their food they made some conversation. April would have expected some casual small talk, but true to his announcement earlier in the car, Stephen cut right to the chase again. "So what do you think about being paired off with me?" he asked. "Honest answer," he added and leaned on the table with his forearms.
April scooted around in her seat and grimaced.
"That bad?" he laughed. "Jaysus, you sure have a way to make a lad feel right at ease!"
"It's not that," she tried to quickly appease him. "It just felt like I was finally in a spot where I could have made it without needing to be paired off with some guy. It would have been nice if the higher-ups had put some trust in me and my ability to shine on my own for a change," she said, alternating between staring out of the window and on the table surface in front of her. Now she finally found the courage to look straight at him. He nodded and she inwardly let out a breath of relief. "Well, at least it's not a romance arc again..."
"Thanks, I'm flattered, darlin'," Stephen said dryly and threw her a self-effacing grin.
"I'm sorry," she cringed, "please don't take it personally... I've just been put in a love story with so many of the guys, I must look like a nymphomaniac to the rest of the world."
"No worries. I understand. I'm only messin'," he reassured her.
"Oh. Okay. Good."
"What I do take personally however, is the fact that they feel the need to pair me off right after me injury. What's up with that, ey? Cena gets a championship opportunity on his return and I get...," he fell silent as soon as he noticed what he was actually saying there.
"You get stuck with AJ Lee," she finished the sentence for him. "It's okay to say it. I'm not offended."
He raised his eyebrow at her. "Please, I know how this works. You say that now, but I know how you women are. Every time one of you says she's not offended she's actually royally pissed off."
"No, really," she insisted, "I'd be bummed about not getting a title shot, too."
He looked at her for a couple of seconds. She could feel his eyes scrutinizing her features. Then he finally nodded.
Their food arrived and momentarily prevented any further attempts of having a conversation. April had ordered a milkshake, fries and a burger which she ate with a lot of enthusiasm. Being a wrestler she always had to keep an eye on what she ate, so when cheat day came around once a week, she celebrated it like it was a national holiday.
She dipped one of the fries in the foam on top of her shake and saw Stephen wrinkle his nose. He remained silent however and soon refocused his attention on the steak on his plate.
From time to time she would look up from her own plate to watch him eat. He was dissecting his meat with the precision of a surgeon. Eventually she became aware that staring at him while he was eating was rude, also it would probably lead to him catching her sooner or later, so she decided to talk to him instead. This way she would have a justifiable excuse to keep staring at him. "So what do you do when you're not clobbering people?" she asked out of the blue.
His eyes sparkled mischievously. "I knit and sew. Do ya want me to make ya a scarf?"
Now it was her turn to make a face. What a lame joke! "I thought you were into soccer. Well, I guess since you like knitting and sewing so much, you can make yourself one of those team scarves." The word "ugly" as a means to describe that type of fan merchandise was heavily implied.
"I am into football," he confirmed. "But those scarves are definitely not me cup a tea."
"A-ha," she said. Soccer might be an interesting sport to some people, but she certainly wasn't a fan. Where was the fun in watching grown men kick a ball around over 90 minutes?
In the face of those apparent differences between their characters and tastes she tried to find some common ground. "Do you read comic books?" He shook his head, which forced her to mentally rattle through the catalog of remaining questions she could ask. Naturally, since he disposed of a y-chromosome, it was out of question to ask him whether he liked artfully cutting up his T-shirts or anything that involved collecting little plastic ponies or sprinkling sparkly powder over things like she did. She chewed at her bottom lip pensively, trying to come up with another question. Eventually she did, even though it was kind of lame.
"Punk music?"
"Try grunge or metal," he said.
She nodded. It was a passable reply. "Video games?"
He grinned. "Actually, I don't go anywhere without my X-box."
"Really?" she scooted closer to the edge of her seat. Now he had her interested. "What sort of games do you play? Ego-shooters? Role-playing adventures? Jump-and-runs?"
Now it was his turn to be intrigued. So little April Mendez actually was a video game geek. He would have thought it was only a promotional gimmick for her character; instead her interest in video games seemed to be genuine. He hurried to answer her question.
"Anything really," he said casually, while his grin wasn't anything but casual. You could tell he was having fun talking about video games. "Have ya checked out the latest Far Cry?"
She nodded enthusiastically and actually bounced up and down on her seat a little, which amused him. "Yeah, I liked all that sneaking around and driving in those Jeeps. Also the storyline was cool."
"It was," he smiled. "Any other games you like?"
She started enumerating a few titles, counting them off on her fingers with a solemn and concentrated face like what they were talking about was serious business. "Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Batman Arkam Asylum, Skyrim, anything Star Wars related..."
"You like Star Wars?" he wanted to know.
She gave him a look. "Please, who doesn't? Saying you don't like Star Wars is like saying you hate puppies or little babies."
"Ya might be right about that," Stephen agreed, but continued to watch her thoughtfully. There was something else about the list of games she had enumerated that interested him. "Any reason why yar so much into Batman?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Just that the comics are pretty cool, I guess. And I like the dynamic between Joker and Harley Quinn... In case you haven't noticed, I tried to fashion my in-ring character after her."
He nodded and gave her a long look. That explained a lot. Thinking about it, if they ever decided to make a new Batman movie with Harley Quinn in it, they should probably consider giving April a call. In spite of his appreciation of her acting abilities, one question still needed answering though. "If yar Harley Quinn, what would that make me?"
She gave him a long calculating look over the rim of her secretary glasses and pursed her lips thoughtfully. After some hesitation she finally announced her verdict. "Bane."
"Bane?" he repeated incredulously. "Are ya serious?" His eyebrows practically disappeared in his hairline. "All that fella ever says is one word..."
"Like Brogue?" she threw him a saccharine smile and closed her lips around the straw of her milkshake. There was a brief slurping noise when she emptied the glass.
"I was hoping you'd say Batman," he said and even though his pout was vastly faked, he actually looked a little crestfallen. After all what April had just done was a bit like telling a boy he couldn't grow up to be James Bond.
"Not everyone can be Bats. And by the way, Bane isn't such a lame character. He's really strong..."
It seemed like he was somewhat appeased by that, because the pout disappeared from his face, so they could continue their dinner without any further incident.
Afterward he drove her back to the hotel. It was easier talking to him now, but April still felt self-conscious. He was nice enough, but she had some trouble figuring him out, which really irritated her.
She usually was quite good at figuring people out, at least she hadn't been too far off the mark in the last couple of years. Daniel Bryan, or rather Bryan Danielson, even thinking those two names was a yoga exercise for the brain, was ambitious, like a lot of the guys, and sweet. Phil Brooks was, like his character CM Punk, snarky and a likeable jerk. Nick... She grinned. Well, Nick was just hilarious. During her time as the blonde's fake girlfriend she had had a lot of fun, especially thanks to his wacky sense of humour. It was easy getting along with him and sometimes he would even take her out for some much needed late night candy shopping at the petrol station, which was also a plus. Catering to her sweet tooth always was.
But what about Stephen? How did he fit into her world? After one day with him she had what on him? That he liked steak, video games and honesty? Okay, admittedly the last thing was valuable information, but still a tricky matter in real life. Sometimes people say they like honesty and directness and then, when you are being honest with them, they get all huffy and offended. Was Stephen one of those people? She had no idea. She had no idea how to behave around him, which made her feel out of her depth and a tiny bit insecure.
At least he behaved like the perfect gentleman around her, which she would have found rather nice, if it actually helped her figuring him out, which it didn't by the way. Give it some thought. Isn't it funny how you can still be a major ass-hole and be polite as hell at the same time? Not that Stephen seemed to be a jerk or something. But he potentially still could be without her being any the wiser. April had encountered a lot of people like that in her life, so the information that Stephen had manners wasn't really helpful. At least it didn't help her understand him better.
Well, on the upside she would have plenty of opportunity to have awkward conversations with him, while she tried find out more about him. And yet another one was looming in her near future.
On the way up to her floor they agreed to meet at the gym first thing tomorrow morning. It was a rather practical idea. They both had matches coming up at the next show and needed to rehearse their lines.
After he had escorted her to the door of her hotel room he gave her shoulder a squeeze, said his goodbyes and went his way. She watched him go with a pensive expression on her face. So Harley Quinn and Bane - she wondered how that would work out...