GOTHAM CITY
AUGUST 4TH 2010 11:47 EST
"Tapioca?" asked Betty, and Miss Nettle hummed.
"Yes, fragolina," Miss Nettle responded, and she tossed the items in question into the bowl of ingredients. Betty wrinkled her nose and looked over into where the blueberry and instant tapioca sat ready to be mixed. "It's an essential ingredient in almost any fruit pie."
Miss Nettle handed her a whisk and Betty took it skeptically but began to beat the ingredients anyway.
"There we go, just like that," Miss Nettle said. Miss Nettle went along to the end of the counter where their two pie crusts, they had made sat unbaked in the pie tin. She brought it to where Betty was mixing the ingredients, and she motioned for Betty to pour the mixture into the pie crusts. Betty did as she was instructed and poured them equally, and Miss Nettle watched with a critical eye to make sure it was correct.
Once the pie crusts were filled to Miss Nettle's satisfaction, they placed the top covering of crust over them and set them in the oven. Betty stood over the oven for a few minutes, watching them bake through the oven window, concerned that if she looked away the pies would fall and be ruined. Miss Nettle made her way over to the kitchen table, where she sat down with a sigh, and a cold cup of coffee that Betty had seen her nursing since she first arrived.
"It'll be fine," Miss Nettle said. "Come, sit with me. I want to talk with my fragolina."
Betty had once been confused by what fragolinameant, but Miss Nettle had explained it was a term of endearment in Italian. It meant 'little strawberry', which while cute, Betty was not quite sure she had earned the endearment. She was just some random girl that showed up every once in a while, to make pies and cookies, not a relative or even a close neighbor or friend.
Betty sat down on the wicker chair with a lurch of her heart. Close neighbor. This morning she had finally broken down and texted Catherine herself, asking if it was okay to visit them yet, but had received no response.
"Your aunt tells me you got a phone call from your father," Miss Nettle started, and Betty shut her eyes. Aunt Melody was probably trying to help, getting Betty to talk about her father with someone else. But it was hard to do, not when you couldn't explain who your father was and why you came in contact with him. There was a large difference between a phone call like Miss Nettle believed, and a battle with his anti-Justice League weapon.
"Yes, uh, the other day," Betty said. "It's not a big deal." Miss Nettle raised a brow.
"Not a big deal? Fragolina, before now, I never even knew you knew your father – you never talk about him," Miss Nettle said. "This must be what, the first time you've heard from him in years?"
"To be fair," Betty said slowly, "I thought he was dead for the past year."
The news that Ivo was presumed dead came six months before Was – Mom died. With Mom, Betty often had to divide who her mother was and what her mother did. If she focused on it being Waspia, not her mom, not the woman who tucked her in and kissed her boos-boos as a little girl, the pain was almost manageable. With Ivo, there had been no need. Ivo had already left her, made her nothing by a footnote in his life. When he "died', there had been no fanfare. It was what it was. But now here they were, a year later. And now Mom was dead and Ivo was prancing around, planning God knows what.
So yeah, she really did not want to talk about him.
"C-can we please talk about something else, Miss Nettle?" Betty asked. Miss Nettle hummed once and took a sip of her coffee, narrowed eyes never leaving Betty's face.
"If you insist," Miss Nettle said after a moment. Her face broke out into a wicked smile, the fearless kind only the elderly could have and set her coffee cup back down onto the saucer in front of her.
"What about that boy you're always talking about – what was his name? R-Robert?" Miss Nettle bit her lip and then nodded. "Yes, Robert."
Betty sighed. She had been upset with Robin one day when she had come to see Miss Nettle, so in order to complain she had given Robin the fake name Robert. Now she wished she never had ever told Miss Nettle about him at all, Robert or otherwise.
"How's he doing? Is he still the, what was it that you called it, 'stubborn personal pain in your butt'?" Miss Nettle asked, raising a brow. "Or have you finally admitted you like him?"
Betty gripped onto a fistful of her dress under the table and looked away. Yes, Betty had once had a crush on Robin, but that was forever ago when she was eleven and he was ten. He had been the first sidekick she had been allowed to meet and work with, and she thought him being able to doo three backflips in a row and punching out two bad guys while doing it was just about the coolest thing ever.
She was fourteen now, and much more mature and selective in her crushes. Sure, every now and then a spike of that old affection might pop up, but that's all they were. Spikes, nothing more.
"I don't like him," Betty said. "Not like that. And yes, he still is a stubborn personal pain in my butt, but in a good way."
Miss Nettle tilted her head curiously.
"Can that be done in a good way?" Miss Nettle said. Betty shrugged.
"It just doesn't annoy me as much anymore."
Miss Nettle laughed, a good, honest laugh that had her leaning back in her chair and her whole body shaking. It was infectious. Betty laughed too, though a little more subdued.
"Oh, fragolina, you are something else," Miss Nettle said. Miss Nettle finished her coffee and stood to take it to the sink.
"Let me get that," Betty said, taking the cup in her own hands and walking over to the sink. Miss Nettle shook her head and sat back down with a grunt. Betty put the cup down in the sink, when a piece of paper by the sink caught her eye. It was some kind of deed for a new building a little closer to the edge of the Narrows, where it was less dangerous. Betty tilted her head to the side when she saw the buy date was last month. She picked it up to get a better look, confusion littering her face.
"Miss Nettle, what is –" Betty asked, turning around to face Miss Nettle, deed still in hand.
Miss Nettle took in a deep breath and stood.
"I had hoped to tell Miss Melody by herself first, but I guess I can't anymore," Miss Nettle said. Miss Nettle put a hand on her shoulder and motioned with her head to the pies in the oven. "Set a timer on your phone so we know these are done, we've got to talk to your aunt downstairs."
My love was as cruel as the cities I lived in
Everyone looked worse in the light
There are so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven
I'll tell you the truth, but never goodbye
GOTHAM CITY
AUGUST 4TH 2010 12:25 EST
"Dick, why are we here?" Barbara asked, and Dick frowned as he opened the door to the diner. "It's like an hour from where we live."
"Bruce invested here," Dick said, "I figured might as well see what's the fuss is about."
Dick stepped into the Cookie Cutter Diner to find that it was actually very busy. Almost all of the tables were full of patrons, eating and talking and laughing. A brunette waitress stood behind the counter, stacking menus and refilling ketchup containers in-between serving tables.
"Just go ahead and seat yourself," she said, looking up for just a minute to see who they were. Dick and Barbara nodded as acknowledgment and went to a table in the corner. Barbara sat down and looked around with a frown while Dick pulled out two menus from the rack at the edge of the table.
The menu was regular diner fare, with a few specialties like alfredo and manicotti thrown in for good measure. A brief excerpt in the corner gave a brief history of the diner, and how it was founded by a Sabine Nettle a little over fifteen years ago after she came from Italy. All in all, it was nothing special. What could Bruce have to gain from investing in it?
Barbara bit her lip as she looked over the menu, flipping it over.
"Hey, looks like they got milkshakes," Barbara said. She smiled and pushed her menu forward. "I'm gonna get a strawberry shake. You?"
Dick looked over the menu again and shrugged.
"Probably the same," Dick said. "Maybe some fries too. And some for you, or you're going to eat mine." Barbara crossed her arms, and her mouth formed a small 'o' in offense.
"No, I won't!"
"Really?" Dick raised a brow. "We got through this every time. I say I'm going to get fries; you say you don't want any, and then you eat half my fries."
Barbara made an offended noise and pointed her finger at him accusingly.
"Well, you always leave half of them uneaten anyway!" Barbara accused. Dick rolled his eyes.
"That's because I know you're going to eat them Babs," Dick said. Barbara's brow furrowed and she opened her mouth to say something.
"Hey there, what can I get for you today?" a peppy voice asked suddenly, and the two turned to look at a blonde waitress at their table. Dick had to blink once to take in the woman before him.
She was blonde, with long hair just below her shoulders, and soft brown eyes. Her badge read the name 'Melody' and had assistant manager in small red font underneath it. He somehow found her familiar, the curve of her face and her posture looked like he had seen them before. He couldn't explain it.
"Two strawberry shakes, and an order of fries," Barbara said pointedly, giving Dick a stink eye. If Dick had been really paying attention to her he would have said something cheeky, but his focus was taken up by the woman in front of them.
"Alrighty," the woman said, writing it quickly down on her notepad. She smiled, the kind of fake smile all waitresses had to give and turned away from them. The lingering question of why she looked so familiar still lingered.
That is, until the backdoor to the kitchen opened.
"Aunt Melody!" The door swung open behind the counter, revealing a small girl with short black hair and brown eyes. She had a short stature, but stood straight as a board with a laser focus. And her dress, it was a soft blue and decorated with red polka-dots. He knew he had seen that dress before – it was the same dress another short-haired raven-haired girl wore to the Cave last week.
It was Honeybee. Honeybee was here now.
And now he knew what she looked like without the mask.
"Betty, what's wrong?" Melody said, and Dick felt his whole body was on fire.
He pulled out his phone and flipped the silence button on his phone, so as to make it vibrate like he got a text message, the whole while had it under the table.
"Hey Babs," Dick said, pulling the phone out from underneath the table, "Bruce just texted me, he needs me back at the manor like now. Are you fine heading home by yourself?"
Barbara nodded. "Yeah, I can call my dad for a ride if I have to. Go ahead."
Dick smiled gratefully and slipped out of the booth.
"Sorry Babs, I'll talk to you later."
Dick did not wait for Barbara's response, instead hightailing it out of the diner before he could hear anymore of Honeybee – Betty—'s secrets.
Clearing the air, I breathed in the smoke
Maybe you ran with the wolves and refused to settle down
Maybe I've stormed out of every single room in this town
Threw out our cloaks and our daggers because it's morning now
It's brighter now, now
Notes:
So...really short, I know, but this is one of the interlude chapters between episodes. We'll return to larger chapters next time, but I've decided for now that the chapters that lack any episode information will be in these shorter formats so they work more as interludes between them. Plot-elements will still be explored, but I just want to test this out and see how it goes.
If it ends up not working, I'll abandon this game plan.
Because of the short nature of these chapters, I'm going to hold off on review replies until the next chapter, as since they are interludes they will not be quite as long so they're kind of the "epilogue" of the story so far, so next chapter we'll start in earnest again and reply to reviews. I promise reviews will be replied too next chapter!
Questions, comments, or concerns? Let me know! Have a blessed day!
-PrincessChess