2013.04.02 - Strays

Illyana figures that Dick has his little safehouse under surveilance nine ways to Sunday, and so she doesn't teleport in even if that would be the easiest way to go about things. Instead, she finds a nice spot a block or so away and actually *walks* that remaining distance. Even in Bludhaven she can manage to go a block without someone deciding to cause her too much trouble.

The blonde wasn't too surprised that Nightwing wasn't there when she arrived but figured that he'd know she was there. So she'd hang out. Time ticked by, and Nightwing hadn't shown. The TV got turned on and Illyana's blinking got longer and longer as she sat on the couch. And then stretched out.

Illyana doesn't sleep much. Not like a lot of say vigilantes, who live on about three hours of sleep a night. Illyana doesn't sleep as in she actually lets herself maybe one night a week. When you're the ruler of a hell-realm you can make your body defy the natural order like that. Probably part of the reason she's always so bitchy. It also means that when she does sleep, sometimes it just... sneaks up on her. Like when she's sitting alone. Watching TV. Waiting.

Illyana lies on the couch, one arm curled up under her head to use as a pillow, the other draped down off the side of the couch. She's in jeans and sneakers and a Metropolis U T-shirt. Occasionally, her hand that hangs down twitches.

Nightwing waltzes in sometime later with a bag under his arm. "Hey, sorry I'm late. Evil never rests, you know. You shoulda. . ." But his voice grows quiet as he notices she's sleeping. Great. She'd already been all up in his business about stalking her, and now she's likely to wake up with him just sort of lurking here. How uncomfortable.

He sighs softly to himself and sets the bag up on the small counter before making his way towards the couch, looking for the remote. He finds it, and -very carefully-does his best to liberate the remote from her in order to turn it to the Sports Channel.

Nightwing manages to get the remote, deft thief that he is. Unfortuantely when he changes the channel there's baseball footage on. There's the sharp crack of bat against ball and Illyana comes awake all at once, rolling off of the couch and into a crouch and then rising upwards and leading with an uppercut as her still sleep-addled mind picks up on the other figure but hasn't caught up to who it is. Or where she is, either.

Where Nightwing some normal guy, he'd probably be about to get his bell rung. Luckily for him, he's not.

Nightwing, from his position on the bed, leans backward into a roll and in a flash is up on his feet, putting needed distance between himself and the young woman. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Illyana! You're safe. It's me, Nightwing. You must have fallen asleep here." His hands come up in the universal sign of, 'hey I'm not gonna hurt you, don't hurt me, m'kay?'

Tension rides the petite blonde and for a moment as she stands there trying to get her bearings and get her brain to boot there's none of the sarcastic, smirking, mocking woman that Nightwing's seen. Without that to soften the glacial chill of her eyes the former Boy Wonder might briefly wonder if she's someone he should be saving... or if he should be saving people from her.

The body language is what does it for Illyana. Demons don't act like that. Slowly, she relaxes and steps eases back and away a few steps. "I... sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep." She wipes a hand down over her face and she still looks tired. Beyond tired, even.

"No," Nightwing says shaking his head and tries to be reassuring. "It wouldn't be much of a safe house if you couldn't sleep safely here." He approaches, doing those awkward on the bed steps until he can step down onto the floor. "Are you okay? Did you have a nightmare?"

Illyana's mental defenses are still down, and so he sees the slight flinch when he mentiones nightmares. It's why she doesn't sleep. They're that bad. That pervasive. "I'll be fine, dreams can't hurt me." It sounds more like she's talking to herself. A mantra that if you say it often enough, you might start to believe it. She shakes her head. "Dumb. So dumb." She avoids sleeping in Limbo, and with her dorm room not an option... It's no wonder she crashed out here.

Nightwing is no stranger to nightmares, so he can certainly empathize. "Listen, I brought some food. The Chinese I promised before. I brought some soda too. Caffeinated and non." Nightwing exhales and seems to be looking at her with some worry. "I can let you sleep and come back later, Illyana. I'm serious. I know that you're pretty tough, but this has to be sort of stressful."

Illyana shakes her head, an almost too-fast back-and-forth. "No. No, I didn't mean to fall asleep in the first place." She breathes out a sigh. "Food would be good." She tilts him a small smile. The hint of an actual smile, not her usual smirk. "You do huh? You're just saying that so I don't try to hit you to prove it."

Nightinw chuckles and goes for the bag, pulling out some food and some drinks. "No, actually. I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't be able to touch me. You've got some form of defense training, but I've been at this a long time." He grins widely, "Lo mein and spicy curry. Which one you want?"

Illyana frowns over at Nightwing and it's almost like he can see her usual walls coming up. The more habitual body language. "You are good." She admits. "Better than most I've seen." Illyana's one of the most proficient actual fighters out of Xavier's, but she doesn't have to rely on those skills much. Not with her sorcery and teleportation to back her up. "Curry. And I could touch you." She adds, not being able to entirely let the prick to her pride slide.

"Yeah/yeah/yeah," Nightwing says as he hands the curry and a thing of rice over to her. "It aint gonna happen so we'll never know," he responds idly, going for what's left. "We have enough on our plates. We don't need to start the fisticuffs. Pun somewhat intended."

Illyana comes over and accepts the food, taking a seat as she chuckles. "What's never gonna happen? Us going toe-to-toe? Hopefully not. Or did you mean that because you're gonna disappear after this is done?" She lifts her gaze up to him as she takes a bite of food and chews slowly while watching him.

Nightwing opens his up, "Fight. We're not going to fight. At least not anytime soon. Unless you're some secret ninja looking to gain my trust so you can turn on me in the end. Unless then. But i think you'd have used different tactics last night."

"I'd like to claim that this is all an elaborate set-up so I could get close to you to betray you... But really. Way too much work." Illyana admits, leaning back in the chair and tipping it back a bit onto the back legs. "I'm alright with not fighting." She falls silent for a bit, eating, but still she watches him. "Sorry again. For the trying-to-hit-you thing. I don't usually sleep, let around people."

"Sokay. Most of the women I'm around are pretty violent and most of those have nightmares. So this isnt the first time." Nightwing takes a sip from some grape soda. "And seeing through your ruse would be too much work, so it's good none of it is the case."

"I'm glad we're both agreed to be lazy in this instance." Illyana says with the wry undercurrent he's learned to expect with her humor. It's followed with a slight chuckle. "I think I feel sorry for you, suddenly, that you're routinely attacked by sleeping women."

Nightwing nods slowly and sarcastically. "Yeah....don't feel sorry for me. Occupational hazard."

"If you'd stop being all creepy and lurking around them when they're asleep..." But Illyana's... smiling. Faintly. But it's an actual smile, and not a smirk. Not mocking just teasing. It doesn't last long though, slipping away. "Usually it's me people are calling creepy."

"Funny enough," Nightwing retorts, "No one has actually ever accused me of such until you. Makes you special, I guess."

"Maybe it takes creepy to know creepy." Illyana says with a guilty sort of shrug at his retort. "Though I'm guessing that a lot of the folks you watch never knew you were there."

"I'm not creepy. I'm chivalrous. I'm protecting someone who continues to jab at me, and refused to show me any gratitude." Nightwing grins, "I wouldn't call myself a hero, but I wouldn't argue against it either."

"I think chivalry involves opening doors for women and speaking in the Language of Flowers or something." Illyana points out. "And thank you. Even if it is nothing personal and you'd be putting yourself out for anyone."

Nightwing looks at her blankly. "Now you want flowers?" He sighs dramatically. "I thought food was enough. You know, that's what they say about your generation. Never enough."

Illyana ducks her head slightly in amusement, and then shakes her head. "No, no. The Language of Flowers. It was a popular thing during the time of chivalry."

Nightwing's shoulders pop up and down, "I have no idea what you're talking about." He munches on his food. "Do they have lots of words in the Language of Flowers."

"I... have the occasional weird knowledge." Illyana admits. "It's more, each flower had a meaning. And so by say, wearing a certain combination or sending them to someone, you could have semi-secret conversations. It's not like a normal language."

"That must be terrible knowledge to have for you in regards to love interests. I mean, you get a bouquet of flowers and it tells you, secretly, that he thinks you smell like chicken...It's nothing but drama," Nightwing reasons.

Illyana snickers a bit, and then has to catch herself so that she doesn't choke on her curry. She takes a few gulps of her soda and shakes her head. "Well, lucky for me I don't have that problem. No one sends me flowers."

"Well of course not," Nightwing replies. "You'd be reading it like a journal. Too much danger."

"That would be if they knew that I know. But I think you're the only one that knows. So I'd say I won't expect flowers from you, but I don't expect them from anyone so that'd be a bit redundant." Illyana says, setting her food down and coming forward so the front legs of the chair come back down to the floor.

"Well that's a relief," Nightwing says eating on the in between. "I'm not sure I could handle the pressure. Plus with my blossoming reputation as a creeper, that'd just make things worse."

Illyana gives a wave of her hand. "Alright, alright, I'm sorry. I'm... not used to people watching me. I don't like it." Too many secrets.

"Don't think a lot of people are, frankly." Nightwing chuckles. "The good news is it'll be over soon. In a couple days we'll throw down with whoever it is that's trying to mess with you, then I'll collect all my cameras and that'll be that."

"How would you deal with someone putting you under surveilience like that?" Illyana asks, curious and not accusatory.

"I wouldn't," he responds. "I would have found out sooner and prevented it." Nightwing laughs at this, leaning back and wiping his gloves with a napkin.

"So can you really blame me? You wouldn't have put up with it at all." Illyana points out.

"I didn't say I blamed you. I only mocked you for your reaction. Those are two different things entirely," explains Nightwing.

Illyana seems to ponder that for a bit, and then finally nods. "Alright. I can accept that. And I can hardly gripe at someone for mocking someone." She admits.

"True," Nightwing says, almost immediately as the words come out of her mouth. "You seem to have a gift, Illyana." Looking for a new topic, Nightwing asks, "So what are you going to school for?"

Illyana arches a brow at that. "For insulting people? Yeaaaaah. I've been told that." She's smirking again, but not at him. The question of what she's going to school for gets a hitch of a shoulder in a shrug. "I dunno. I don't really see myself in any kind of normal job."

"I see. Unfortunately insulting people isn't high on the list of most wanted attributes. Perhaps you should be in call-in customer service. They always seem to mock, without ever even trying." Nightwing offers some alternatives. "You're what year? Freshman? Sophomore? Gotta decide soon, I imagine."

Illyana wrinkles her nose a bit at the suggestion of career. "Yeah, I don't think so. I have some... other commitments. Makes most normal jobs kinda difficult. Sophomore."

"Other commitments?" Nightwing asks. "What, are you a bounty hunter?"

Illyana's brows go up at that and she can't help but chuckle. "I say other commitments and you automatically jump to 'bounty hunter'?"

"It was the first thing that came to mind." Nightwing grins and shrugs his shoulders. "Okay, the second. The first one was that you had to wash your hair a lot, but that didn't really seem like a reason to avoid making a decision on your future."

Illyana rolls her eyes at that. "My hair isn't *that* long. But no. Not a bounty hunter. I think I'd need to be, I dunno, more paranoid or better at avoiding getting jumped to be a bounty hunter."

"So bounty hunter is right out, then," Nightwing says. "Are you a truck driver? A /florist./ That's it. You're a florist."

"Now you're just being silly." Illyana says with a shake of her head. "No, and no. I actually have something of a black thumb so any kind of gardening is right out."

"Black thumb? I'm not familiar. You should wash it. Or see a doctor." Nightwing finishes up his meal and crinkles the napkin, throwing it in the tub. "You going to stay here tonight?"

"It's the opposite of a green thumb. So instead of making plants grow, I kill them." Illyana explains. She shakes her head. "Nah. It's too..." Empty. Quiet. Unfamiliar. "I'll find somewhere to hang out. Something to keep me awake the next couple."

"Well," Nightwing says with a nod. "Suit yourself. I've learned I can't really force you to do much of anything."

Illyana chuckles then and tilts her head in a nod. "People learn that sooner or later." She agrees. "But if you wanted to ask nicely about something, I might say 'yes'."

Nightwing seems a bit nonplussed, "I just meant that I think it would be smart, as tired as you are, to stay here. But if you'd rather head out, I'm not going to stop you."

"Tired is where I live. I'll get some coffee, find something a bit more engaging than infomercials and I'll be good for a few days before I fall asleep again." Illyana says with a shrug.

"As you wish. Just do me a favor and be careful. Next time you zonk out, it might not be me who has the gall to awaken you." Nightwing sips the rest of his grape soda and pitches it in the blue tub that serves as recycling.

"You're not gonna let me forget that, are you?" Illyana says wryly. "I'll be careful so I don't mess up your little investigation." She says dryly, smirking at Nightwing.

"Little?" Nightwing asks, pretending to be hurt. "You know, next time you get attacked, I'll be sure to wait until you get hit in the head a few times before I jump in."

"Nah, don't wait that long. One of them might end up seriously hurt and then you'd be all mad at me." Illyana says, smirking at him again. "Go on. I'll be fine without you playing Big Brother."

"Of course. You've already got one of those." Nightwing stands, "Okay, just make sure you lock the door on your way out, okay? Never sure what sort of strays will end up in here."

Illyana gives a soft snort of amusement. "If you're calling me a stray..." She hooks an arm over the back of her chair as she watches him leave.

"No, you're not a stray," Nightwing says as he stops on the stairs. "Strays usually want to stay." He takes the remainder of the steps and within moments his motorcycle can be heard above.