The moment Avery stepped out of the soundproof room was the moment she decided she needed a legitimate distraction to keep her thoughts from wandering further into the deep, dark pit that was her subconscious. The first thought to come to mind was throwing herself into a drawing and just blocking out the world for a little while. The only question was for what to draw. The teen remembered Nightwing mentioning a personal beach that she was allowed access to, not to mention it was around the time for the sun to be setting. Perfect.
So she made a path back to her bedroom and grabbed a blank sketch pad, oil pastels, a pencil, and a small blanket. With all the items in hand she started wandering towards any door that might lead to a secluded beach. In the efforts of not getting lost again she ended up asking the first person she crossed for directions, which happened to be Jaime.
The prompt directions were given. Jaime walked away in slight confusion at the odd look that Avery's eyes held. She looked troubled but most likely wouldn't have bothered to talk about it. So the Hispanic teen walked on to the kitchen for a before-dinner snack. Bart was perched on the counter, eating leftover Chinese food from the night before.
The speedster perked up at his friend's entrance. "Hey, her-man-o," Bart's poor attempt at Spanish was still a welcome greeting.
"Hey, ese," Jaime started digging through the large fridge.
"Sound a little distracted there, buddy, what's up?" Bart dumped his empty container into the trash and stood waiting for an answer.
Jaime turned his head around to see how serious Bart was actually being. Then again, if Jamie was ever not acting happy-go-lucky Bart got nervous he was going to turn into a Reach agent again. "Just Avery, she asked for directions to the beach."
"Well that's not a big deal," Bart dismissed and reached around Jaime to grab a soda.
"She just looked a little on edge is all," Jaime explained a bit better.
Bart effortlessly raised a single eyebrow, "After a therapy session with the infamous Black Canary."
"Good point," Jaime grabbed out an apple and tossed it in the air, catching it and closing the fridge at the same time.
The speedster opened the fridge and grabbed a second soda, even though his previous one still sat on the counter unopened.
"What're you doing, hermano?" Jaime pointed to the unopened soda sitting on the granite.
Bart grabbed the soda sitting on the counter so he had a soda in each hand, "Just some regular damage control, no worries." With that only a Bart colored streak was seen disappearing with a breeze.
.:Back to Life:.
Bart found Avery sitting on the beach easily. She was sitting on a blanket with art supplies spread out next to her. Her bare feet were resting in the sand with her shoes sitting just off the edge of the blanket. As the speedster got closer he could see what Avery was drawing, the orangeish-pinkish sunset.
"Nice picture," Bart commented as he stopped his running right next to Avery, kicking up a tremendous amount of sand in the process.
"Nice entrance," Avery commented back as she tried to dislodge some of the sand now residing in her hair and clothes.
"I try my best," Bart shrugged and sat down on the blanket next to the girl, careful of not sitting on the art supplies. He offered one of the sodas as a truce.
She accepted the cola, "Bribing for forgiveness, are you?"
"Why would I need to be forgiven?" He cocked his head to the side, looking suspiciously like a confused puppy.
The black haired teen held up her sketch pad and box of oil pastels. Sand was stuck to all the surfaces the colored oil allowed.
"Oh," Bart rubbed the back of his neck, "Um, sorry?"
Avery laughed, "You are forgiven, I do not like this brand of pastels that much anyways."
Bart smiled, "Crash."
Avery blinked a few times in confusion, "Excuse me?"
If possible, the smile got wider, "The basics of my specific brand of lingo are as follows: crash is good and mode is bad."
"I will try to remember that."
"Even if you don't remember someone'll probably remind you, I kinda rubbed off on the Team a little."
"Is that a good or bad thing?" Avery mumbled as she tried to figure out how do salvage the picture resting in her lap.
Bart put a hand on his heart, "Honestly, I am hurt Cyla."
Avery's head whipped around faster than humanly possible, "What did you just call me?"
The speedster blanked slightly, "Uh…your name?"
The black haired teen looked back down at her drawing, "Nobody has called me by that name in a long, long time."
Bart grinned cheekily in response, "Maybe someone should then."
Avery wiped at her eyes with the sleeves of her sweatshirt. She whispered, "Thank you, Bart."
"Are you crying?" Bart asked, leaning in to see if his eyes deceived him.
"No, there is just sand in my eye, thank you for that too," Avery turned her head away from the curious speedster.
In response to the head turn Bart speeded over to Avery's other side, "Crying isn't a bad thing. It helps getting things out of the eyes actually, y'know, like that imaginary sand you just mentioned. Or it can be a healthy expression of emotion."
"Bart, can you do me a favor?"
"Yeah?"
"Just please shut up." A bubble of laughter escaped from Avery.
Bart laughed unintentionally also. Eventually both of them just ended up laughing for another minute straight, holding their sides in the process. They finally composed themselves.
Avery wiped a few more stray droplets from her cheeks as a few stray giggles still broke loose, "What are we even laughing at?"
"Not a clue, but it's fun," Bart began drawing patterns in the sand with a stick he found not two seconds before.
"Yeah," Avery agreed in thought, looking at what Bart was drawing. "Fun."
Bart sat doodling for another few seconds until he was surrounded by doodles he had done with his superspeed. It also set a record for the longest time he's ever been quiet.
Avery, ever having the artist's eye, saw Bart about to erase all the doodles to start anew. "Wait."
"What?"
"Do not erase them. Just sit still." Avery flipped to a new page in her sketchbook and grabbed the pencil from next to the box of oil pastels.
"Do you know who you're talking to, Cy?" He quipped back, a nickname slipping out unintentionally.
Avery rolled her eyes, "You ruined one drawing. In exchange you're going to let me finish this one, and it requires you to sit still."
Bart stayed where he was but still said, "No promises on how long this'll last."
"Never asked for a promise. Just stay still until I get the initial sketch finished," Avery tried to speed up while maintaining quality.
"How long is that going to take?" Bart resisted the urge to start tapping.
"Another minute."
Bart counted down the seconds aloud until he was told to shut up again, this time without a please.
Finally, Avery released him without looking up from the sketch pad, "Done, just do not disturb the drawings in the sand. You can move otherwise."
Bart stood up, tiptoeing through the doodles before running the distance of the beach three times. Once he got that out of his system he sat back down next to Avery and finally cracked open his soda. He took a swig and sneaked a peek at what Avery was sketching out.
So far she had a loose sketch of Bart sitting in the circle of his sand doodles, with his head down and the stick loosely in his grip as the tip of it rested in the sand in front of his crossed legs. A cool concept if he said so himself. As his interest was momentarily piqued he continued watching Avery draw. More and more detail went in with every swish of the pencil.
Bart eventually lost interest as expected and went back inside as he deemed his damage control done for the day.
When he woke up he found a sheet of paper slid under his door. It was the now finished sketch of him sitting in the sand. It looked better than he had expected, especially with how well the black-and-white coloring of the graphite complimented the picture in general. On the back was a note. It read:
We are now even. –"Cy"
A/N: I love this chapter and the last. Both for very specific reasons. The last one got more in depth with the character that I honestly feel is my best and favorite OC. This one because it was one of the first things I thought of doing when I decided to go through with this story. In all truth, I originally wanted Avery to be paired with Bart (even thought of a pairing name, EternalPulse. Yeah, I'm a dork), but then wanted her paired with Tim. Everything's just gotten complicated. I have to stop now before I start ranting on all the things I have planned for this story. Have a good day.
Read. Enjoy. Review.