raindrops and coffee mugs.

“Okay, I’m gonna need a more detailed version of that story.” Amused as that request had sounded, Barry was genuinely curious regarding what all of that had actually meant. The story behind it could have involved two hall monitors, to two kids on a Superhero Club at school -yes, he had seen one of those in his school; no, he had not joined it-, to yet another two vigilantes in the area who were just not as concerned as the current ones about the concealment of their identities. He figured if it really were the latter, he would have heard about it on the news at some point, perhaps even read of it online. At the moment, he could not think about reading anything of that nature; nothing beyond the works of one they called the Hood, whose appearance had suspiciously coincided with Oliver Queen’s return from the dead. Of course it only looked suspicious now, from a distance, when he knew what all of that had been about. He shook his head, realizing how fast he his train of thought had sidetracked. “Hm? Yeah! No, yeah, I’m fine. I’m sorry.” He noticed, to make matters worse, that Blaine must have been speaking the entire time he was unknowingly dragging himself back into his thoughts. “So, where do you perform, exactly?” he asked in order to fill up the information he must have missed. “Now that you’re on a break.” Looking up at the sky, seeing nothing but dark clouds that displayed no intention of letting the sun show any time soon, motionless, like there was not enough wind to carry it away, Barry gathered they were in for quite a storm. Perhaps the wisest thing to do would be to accept Blaine’s offer. “I mean, I don’t wanna impose or anything, if you’ve got stuff to do…” He had run on water before, he could give it one more shot at doing it again. “But yeah. Yeah, if you really don’t mind, that’d actually be kinda great.” He could feel his phone buzzing in his pocket every couple of seconds, probably the work of his concerned foster father. “Besides, you’ve still gotta finish telling me that whole superhero story, so.”

Blaine gave Barry one more measuring glance to make sure that he was–indeed–fine.  Not that he’d push the subject if Barry preferred not to talk about it.  Instead–he jumped to the next subject as Barry changed it easily transitioning out of his wary look of concern with yet another smile as he started up the stone steps.  “The Manhattan Inn.  Pretty easy to find.  You’re more than welcome to swing by.  If that’s something that you think you’d like?  First drink is on the piano player.  And no–you aren’t interrupting anything.  I have nothing going on and the way this storm is picking up?  I’m hoping we keep the electricity on,” he grinned warmly and unlocked the door to a slender entry way with a staircase to the immediate right and a hallway stretching out in front of them.  “Make yourself at home.  I can get coffee going.  Let me warn you.  Unlike the tale of many-a-very-much-more-known superheroes?  Mine’s really not that impressive.  I promise,” Blaine toed off his shoes and kept his head down cringing at the can of worms he opened.  The idea of explaining his Nightbird days–as amazing as they were because Nightbird would always be dear to his heart–to a near stranger was only potentially embarrassing. Depending on how much he could keep himself from getting too nostalgic.  He made a promise to himself he’d keep the sighs of those were the days to a minimum.  “It was a high school phase..mostly.  But it was a great run with a very close friend of mine.  We even started a club and got other kids to join. You wouldn’t believe some of the secret identities some teenagers can come up with when they let go of how,” he made quotations with his fingers, “geeky they keep saying it is.  We even got to go on a secret mission once.  Super dangerous stuff,” he smirked.  Nope. So much for not waxing poetic!! Coming to a stop, he rubbed his forehead and laughed against the inside of his wrist.  “Oh wow. This sounds more nerdy with every passing second.  Not what I was going for.”  Glancing around his fingers at the taller of the pair–Blaine huffed shyly. “Regretting agreeing to dinner yet?”