14503/Coffee In the Afternoon

Coffee In the Afternoon
Date of Scene:	26 March 2023
Location:	Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Cait needs coffee, Bart has fruit, Donna hates time travel, Terry found that there is such a thing as too much glitter, and Raven has a new ringtone.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Bart Allen, Rachel Roth, Caitlin Fairchild, Terry O'Neil

---

Donna Troy has posed:
    It's early-ish in the afternoon, one of the less busy times at Titans Tower. People are often at work, or school, or on patrol. It's a good time to be around the tower if you want to avoid the chaos that so often percolates through the building.

    Instead of chaos, the scent of coffee wafts its way outwards from the kitchen area of the main room, where Donna is busying herself with the elaborate coffee-making gear that every new Titan is told not to touch for fear of their souls being torn from their bodies, due to it belonging to Raven. She is using the beans, also belonging to Raven, that come with even more dire warnings. It's an elaborate process making this coffee, and the glasswork seems complicated and abstract. There may be those who suspect it's more alchemy than coffee-making, but that's probably more about Raven's reputation as the team magic user than anything else. Donna's no alchemist, but she knows how to make a good cup of coffee.

    Raven has made very sure this is so. This is why she's allowed access to said beans and glassware.

    Donna yawns and stretches as the coffee does its thing. She's in her armor, and has indeed returned to the tower after a morning of doing Superhero-ish things.

    Scratch that. Not so much a morning. Technically the mission she was on took some tens of millennia, but that's time travel for you. She has always seemed impressed by how Bart and Irie manage not to say too much, but her appreciation of that restraint may be a little higher than normal today.

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen is stopping by the tower with food. He does this one a month or so, and it is not so much normal groceries, but stuff he has went around the world to get. The nice thing about having a speedster around, while he may eat his weight in food a couple times a day, he does not know where all the good stuff is, and today is brings the fresh fruits and veggies, but also has a couple coolers with him, sitting them on the counter and opening them, with steam coming out. Bart bought some different street foods, and kept it warm "Hey, Donna, how are you doing?" He asks pulling out some meat on a stick.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Allowed access is something of a misnomer. Raven has not placed any sort of protective spells upon the coffee making apparatus and its associated coffee. One does not touch a bag of beans and be torn asunder in a physical and spiritual manner.

    She has, however, placed a number of alarms, both physical and magical, to inform her when the sanctity of her private cupboard has been breached.

    s Donna goes about preparing the coffee, there is a moment where the cupboard is open, and then in the next it is closed. Where there wasn't a Raven, there now is. She appears as she normally does- clad in her hoodie keeping her upper half cool- or warm, depending- and the lower half of her wrapped in a skintight pair of pants, and well fit, but imposing pair of boots, reaching up to her knee.

    As if a villain from a horror film, she stands there impassively for a moment, her expressionless gaze locked upon Donna, as if she were a stranger. Then, some scant seconds later, she speaks: "That's against the rules, Troia."

    She holds her poker face, waiting for Donna's reply, even as Bart makes his entrance. She does not regard him- not because she does not want to, but because for now, the act she is playing requires her total attention to be focused on her partner.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Apparently Donna has not a care in the world as she stands by the aforementioned nigh-alchemical coffee making equipment, waiting for things to drip, and is accosted by Raven. "It's my +1 spell of Raven Summoning," Donna replies. She never really did learn the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. "Totally legit. And it worked. Here you are. The power of coffee compels you!"

    It does smell like very /good/ coffee. For all of Raven's vaunted magical prowess, there's a distinct possibility the aroma alerted her before any magical alarums.

    Donna smiles a faint, beatific smile at Raven for about three seconds before her facade cracks and she grins wide. "Morning Rae," she says. It is morning, by Raven standards.

    The further facade of there not being a care in the world drops too, when Donna turns to address the arrival of Bart. "Bart! How do you do it? How do you avoid just saying /everything/? Time travel is so damn annoying. I've just been to three different time zones and gods, it was a nightmare. You have to think about the potential impact of every word that comes out of your mouth."

    She gives a small sigh and shakes her head. "Still we seem not to have damaged the timeline. Which is not to say we didn't change history several times, just we managed to not do it in a way that we weren't changing it into what it already was anyway. If you get what I mean."

    She looks back to Raven, possibly for sympathy. "Time travel sucks."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen looks over and says "Well, I think part of it, is even though lots of stuff is the same there are some details that are different, so I am not sure if it is total time travel or alternate time travel, but yea I slip occasionally but have gotten better." He admits. He will pull out some fruit on a stick with a syrup looking sauce on it offering one to each of the lady. Figuring candied fruit may help sooth the sppoky Raven.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin emerges from her room rubbing her face tiredly with the heel of her palm. The redhead's in blue scrubs and pink-and-white trainers, with a backpack over one shoulder and an oversized tote stuffed full of books, laptop and notebooks in the other. She's only put the bare minimum of effort into her appearance, with her hair back in a no-nonsense ponytail and no more than a touch of mascara.

She moves over to the island and drops her bags at the foot of a stool, then reaches forward until her chin's on the granite and her arms are at full extension. Fingers wiggle at the coffeemaker six feet away from her. "Coffecoffecoffee," she mumbles in the most pitiable tone possible, and looks at Donna like a starving kitten.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven has never learned the rules to Dungeons and Dragons. She has always had an affinity for real magic, and an oft-cursed penchant for getting into, well, /real/ adventure.

    Her expression remains that same sort of sour nothingness all throughout Donna's half of their little dance of sorts. She remains silent, staring at the other woman, while Bart puts away his groceries, gives his greetings, and so on- until Troia breaks.

    "Never do that again." No, she is not referring to the coffee. Instead, this weird jest that Donna attempted. That was apparently now off limits, as are most jests, japes, and practical jokes. It's no wonder why Terry as a person is essentially banned. From everything. Not that it stops him.

    "Morning." she admits, finally, turning her head to give Bart a nod of recognition. Then, the notion of time travel is brought up. Raven has little to say about this, save a bit of criticism. "That is because you are a novice at the art of walking the river of time against its flow."

    There is a cup of coffee in her hand now. When that happened is anyone's guess. Bart probably knows, seeing as he's constantly living seconds as if they were hours- but whether he reveals to the rest that she seems to have siphoned some from the pot into a cup she conjured is up to him.

    "Well. You started this. Now you have to feed it." she states, gesturing to Cait.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
There is one rule in Dungeons and Dragons that says: never underestimate a threat, becaue Game Masters just love that.

Ding goes the elevator, coming from the ground floor. Out comes the cat.

He is much more... colorful than usual. And sparkly. Which is saying something.

"So... there's a new minor villain-"

Plop. He sits down on a tool. Several sequins fall from him. "... I thought Condiment King was a nuisance..."

The Cheshire's uniform seems to have become /fused/ with rows and rows of sequins, making him look like he just came off stage from singing at the Copa cabana, "Her name is Lola, but she goes by the Craftmaster." He turns to look at Donna.

The yards of yarn that seem to have french-braided themselves into his hair flail around as he does so. There is glitter in his fur. Not in his color. /Foreign/ glitter. Glitter he can't control.

"And I'm not having a good day. Hey Bart. Donna. Cait. Rae." He sounds pitiful, "... could I have some coffee?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna stares at the apparition of Caitlin. "I'm sure you're meant to sleep first and then have the coffee when you wake up," she observes. "I suspect you forgot to do the sleep thing. As I know for a fact that you haven't slept for tens of thousands of years, this probably isn't advisable. However coffee will be ready shortly."

    She takes a stick of fruit from Bart with a smile of thanks. "You and Irie both do great," she says to him. "I'm not convinced there's a clear distinction between what's alternative time streams and what isn't. However I do know that the thing Cait and I just helped undo was definitely a whole lot more noticeable in its effects than anything that might happen if you were, for example, to let slip that thing about Terry and Gar having kids."

    Donna flashes him a grin and gives a nod to Raven in the direction of the other stick of fruit. "You could eat some fruit Rae," she suggests, possibly unwisely. "Good for you. You may need to build up reserves of energy for... later."

    She nibbles fruit and navigates a course around Raven to fetch coffee cups and start pouring. There's a certain degree of weaving in and out around the sorceress to achieve this, and it's possibly intentional. Terry's arrival gets a quick glance from her as she does this, but there's no instant reaction beyond that. "Coffee, Bart?" she asks. Yes, she's ignoring Terry's request. He has done something unforgivable, and found a way to bring in /even more/ glitter.

    "Diana's going to go crazy when I tell her all about it," Donna says as she hands a cup of coffee over to Caitlin. "We were in the present, only a different present, and there was a war going on in orbit. The defenders of the Earth were... get this... /space Amazons/. I'd say it's "Diana's dearest wish come true, except that they were fighting an army of evil Kryptonians, and that's nobody's idea of fun."

    Donna returns to the coffee for her own cup, and finally relents as far as the cat is concerned. Another cup is fetched, and she pours one out for Terry, sliding it across the counter for him. "Anyway. You guys remember how we hacked the Brainiac source code and defeated him with it? Yeah well that's no longer usable."

Bart Allen has posed:
Bart Allen hmms and will put out a couple bowls, and sets the different foods on a stick out where people can get some. There is mostly normalish things but there are a few you might wonder what exactly they are. He shakes his head a bit to Donna at the offer of coffee. "Hey at least I did not say anything about the wings and gills." Is he adding on something to mess with Terry or did he let something sleep. He does look over to Terry and says "You going to have to get clippers to get that out?" He asks.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin wraps her hands around the coffee mug and drags it over to just below her chin. She takes a few careful slurps, not bothered by the temperature, and then just sort of hovers her mouth and nose over the piping hot coffee to inhale the warm vapor and rich scents. That seems to be waking her up as much as the caffeine.

Rae has *very* good taste in coffee.

She looks at Terry with bemusement when he explains his situation but at least quirks a smile at her friend's obvious poor luck. "Sorry Terry," she tells him with real sympathy. The foods set out by Bart are claimed almost instantly and Caitlin doesn't miss a chance to get a calorie boost in.

"Rae, hypothetical question?" she prompts her friend. "Can you work out a spell that will just skip me ahead to the end of my residency? Or at least make Donna stop nagging at me about sleep?" she says, and narrows her eyes comically at the Princess. "Because I've got med school, Titans stuff, savnig the timeline, and work at SI, and if she's gonna poke at me about sleeping in my VR chair, I might have to do something drastic."

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven takes a sip and stares silent daggers at Terry for a few moments. Her hand comes up towards him, and the last thing any Titan wishes to see directed at them- her eyes shift to jet black, as if her pupils had consumed the whole of the orbs. Surrounding this nothingness, is a corona of brilliant white, as a small orb forms around her hand.

    For the faintest of time, between the beats of one's heart, it seems as if Terry showing up covered in foreign glitter is the last straw. As if this is when she finally ends Vorpal.

    Then, with a high pitched noise in the air, not shrill, but not completely quiet, she encasses the cat in a bubble. He can still be heard, muffled, through it- but she is clearly not killing him. This time. Though he could rabbit hole out of it, and swiftly at that, Raven utters words of warning.

    "Don't track that through the tower- I don't want to have to have Troia clean up your remains."

    Then, she turns to the offered fruit from Donna, looks at it for a moment, and then looks at her cup. "I have coffee. No thank you." As if she had not just imprisoned a fellow Titan for possibly making a mess.

    Her attention shifts to Caitlyn, so as to end the conversation of fruit and the inevitable discussion of what she did to Terry before it even began.

    "I could shunt you to the future in which your residency has ended." The way she says Residency is... Odd. Residency at the tower? Maybe. Residency among the living? Also maybe. Perhaps, it seems, one should be more specific when asking Raven hypotheticals.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Hey, what gives!" Terry protests, muffled within his obsidian bubble. "Is this sympathy? Is this compassion? I have been turned into a fashion disaster in the pursuit of justice, and I get the bubble?"

He can't be seen, but he can be heard, sullen.

"Fine. I /won't/ bring the special tiramisu mom makes on my birt--" he trails off.

"I'll have some more coffee," he says, pretending he didn't say anything, the coffee cup poking out of a Rabbit Hole by Troia, but nothing else. He does /not/ want to get foreign glitter anywhere. Rae was very clear.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna pours more coffee for Terry with a smirk, and sets another pot going because this one seems to be coming to an end imminently. "Raerae. I know for a /fact/ that you've got a spell that defers tiredness for twelve hours. You could offer that to Cait. And I suspect it wouldn't be hard for you to you know... send Terry's glitter into another dimension while leaving him standing. In fact I suspect that would be easier for you than the bubble thing. Just... putting that out there.

    She slides the refilled coffee cup back towards BubbleCat.

    Raven gets a /look/. It's always hard to interpret the looks Raven and Donna give each other. They've developed some subtle and complicated language of looks that mostly convey to the outside eye that there is something they're missing. These looks always seem to convey complicated meaning, but exactly what meaning can only be speculated upon. It's not impossible the whole thing is an act and that Donna and Raven have no idea what these /looks/ signify either and are just very subtly trolling the rest of the Titans.

    "You were going to say birthday, right Terry?" Donna asks. "Do you have anything planned yet? Because if you do... well I booked a place already, but it's not a problem to cancel. It's a really nice place though, I think you'll like it. It'll make a change from pizzas and donuts. They're not used to holding birthday parties there, but I explained things to them and I think she has the idea. See, we think of birthdays as being the day of the month, not the day of the year. Like someone was born the fourteenth day after the new moon, that's when their birthday is. Fourteenth day of each lunar month. That would make far too many birthdays, so we don't really celebrate them unless it's the birthday of one of the Five. Nobody really thought about Birthday parties until Diana brought the idea back."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Oh poo," Caitlin tells Donna with a frown. "I was gonna ask Diana for permission to borrow the Jet," she informs the Princess. "Golly, I never think of anything fast enough." She sighs and slumps, propping her elbow on the counter and putting her cheek on her palm.

"He doesn't seem to grasp the concept of a team calendar," Caitlin informs Donna, rolling her eyes to her friend. "It's been on the Tower alert for a week now. How else can we keep track of everyone's special days if we don't carefully log and announce them?" she asks plaintively.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    After another sip, Raven responds to Vorpal. "It is justice. Preventative justice. You did not avoid the glitter, so it is your mess." A short pause. "And you were a disaster of all kinds long before this most recent incident." She does not need to bring up the initial reports of Vorpal's appearance. She does not reference the croissant era of his costume. Not vocally, anyway. She will never allow him to forget.

    "Troia, remind me to inform Agatha of that threat when next we go over for tea." Is that a thing? If it's not a thing, is she threatening to make it a thing? Can Terry afford to take that bet?

    "The spell I use to remain conscious for days at a time comes at a grave risk when used in that manner." The risk? Cait being awake for days at a time and both Wally and Barry visiting to tell them to stop giving Irie and Bart sugar in the form of baked goods. The oven, itself, certainly could not handle the strain, which in a domino effect would cause Vic and Gar to do /whatever it is they do/ when something in the tower needs to be upgraded. All she knows is that it is very loud. "As for Vorpal- I could remove the glitter, but it would be best to use a spell to shave him in case there happens to be any remaining stuck to his fur. Or skin." The latter is this small implication that she /might/ just remove the first layer of his skin.

    Raven returns the look, adding in a small but urgent lilt of her head. It is the look that she gives when she has predicted that Troia is about to make plans for the both of them. Troia, dutifully, is going to ignore it.

    To head off the discussion, and doing her best to make it look like an accident- which is to say, she is not doing that at all and very intentionally waving her hand to begin the motion- she sets the sphere that Terry is in rolling about.

    Now that he has the coffee.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry's hand vanishes back into the rabbit hole when he gets his coffee, and he seems at a loss for words when Donna speaks. Then, he begins: "Donna, I'm not entirely sure that's a really good idea because like I mean would they really because i totally can't see if they would let us waitwhat-"

The one breath soliloquy is brought to a halt the momennt Raven decides to Let The Good Times Roll. It is hard to see anything through that bubble, of course, but by the sound of it ("Ohgodohgodohgodnononono") Terry is now trapped inside the mystical equivalent of a very large and opaque hamster ball, and he is running as fast as he can to keep up with the ball's rotation, in order to not spill the precious and /very hot/ coffee! "Ohgodohgodohgod-"

Donna Troy has posed:
    "He also doesn't seem to grasp the concept that a team that has access to huge information databases and regularly follows slender threads of evidence hidden by expert criminals would be able to find out when his birthday is," Donna tells Cait with a laugh. "Of course he's not going to look at the calendar."

    She takes a sip of her coffee, and nods her head in Raven's direction. "She'll complain you know," she replies. "She has this weird thing about you not tormenting her son /too/ much. As she serves us tiramisu, she'll admonish you for being slightly more cruel to her son than she thinks he deserves, and then promptly forget all about it when I hand over some more of that Themysciran wine she liked so much."

    Either it is a thing, or Donna's going along with Raven's ploy.

     Or both.

    "It's fine Cait. Terry can Rabbit hole us over. Or Rae..." Donna pauses a moment to raise her cup high, out of way of the rapidly hamsterballing chaos cat. "...can teleport everyone." Which is probably Donna's ruse to rope Rae into it, and probably won't work. There will be further ploys employed, which will no doubt also be resisted. There may eventually be an attempt at a less metaphorical way of roping Rae into things, but we'll draw a discreet veil over what that might entail.

     Donna dodges the Catball again. "Gaea's sake, Terry. Can't you just rabbit hole out of that thing and into the showers before you crash into something?"

Rachel Roth has posed:
    After setting the ball rolling, Raven had casually kept one hand free to slip into her sweater pocket. It remains there for a short while as Terry starts hamstering about, before eventually she pulls her phone from her pocket.

    Tap, tap, tap.

    Then her phone plays a soundbite of Terry's muffled voice calling "Ohgodohgodohgod-"

    She sets the phone back into her pocket. She will make use of that later, and doesn't comment on it, instead allowing Terry's spherical misery to unfurl.