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"No. Way." Charlie kind of freezes when she walks through the door, because what. What. While she's still staring, one of the waitrats approaches her to tug on her worn-out jeans and hand her an information pamphlet.

"...Am I a Disney princess?" she blurts out. (Animals are walking up to her and helping her. That seems like a pretty Disney Princess thing to happen.) But okay. Who is she to deny small fuzzy creatures helping her out? She reads the pamphlet.

This? Is. Awesome. She's kind of not sure what to do first. The urge to run around and see everything is definitely there, but on the other hand, free food. She kind of hasn't eaten in... uh, yesterday. Which is cool. It's like a fast. She's fasting to get the creative juices flowing while she brainstorms ideas for her new costumed identity. It's artistic and monk-ish and oh god she is so freaking starving, she needs burgers STAT.

So yeah, the first thing she does is sit down at a booth and order a giant burger and fries and a milkshake. And while she's waiting, she's kind of attempting to dry-clean off her Bat symbol t-shirt, because she just noticed there's a funky stain at the bottom hem and ew.

[tiny tag: Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe]

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"Sure." There's something about her that's bothering him and it might be helpful to watch her interact with the drones.

He gets up, finishing his coffee and replacing the ice-pack with a fresh one. "Come down the garage any time." He watches her carefully from the corner of his eye, interested to see how eager she is. Judging the way she's attacking that burger, she might not have eaten in a while. "After you've finished your lunch."

She's kind of tempted to abandon the burger entirely, because hi? She's going to meet cool drone mechanics? But the part of her that is still attached to her stomach says absolutely not, she is going to finish her ginormous burger first. "Gimme five minutes?"

He might want to retreat to a minimum safe distance.

"Seriously, no hurry. Enjoy your burger." Definitely someone living between regular meals.

He asks the Bar for something and something that looks like a cheap fashion watch appears next to her plate, matching the colour of her shirt. "If you press the face, it will give you directions to the workshop. Come down whenever you're ready."

"Thanks."

Given the option, she takes a whole fifteen minutes to eat, and then an extra few to reduce the stain on her shirt to something more along the lines of 'barely noticeable'.

Then, tack on a couple more for Charlie to play with the not-watch. So twenty-ish before she finally wanders down. Fun fact: her jeans and sneakers totally match her shirt, in that they're all so obviously second hand that they've crossed over into thirdhand.

Jay's workshop is a canvases off space about the size of a suburban house block these days. Hardly any space compared to the infinite horizons of the garage.

He's set up in a corner, surrounded by work-benches and motorcycles, with a parked RV forming part of a wall. The rest of the space is a mess of interesting parts, strange machines and stacks of... well, stuff. Flying back and forth are cream coloured ovoids, about the size and shape of footballs. Some are carrying things, long pincer arms extended or just floating with them in some sort of force field. Some have markings on their sides, others are smooth and clean as eggshells.

At the centre is a blue glowing spire, honeycombed with niches, all about the size of the drones.

Jay waves from where he's tuning a motorbike - something black and sleek and very fast looking. There are no Bat-symbols on it but it looks like there should be.

She kind of feels like she is descending into a sci-fi movie right now. (Totally the wrong genre for a Disney Princess but whatever. She's kind of giving up on that.)

"Hi?"

"Hey." He gestures to a seat if she wants one. "Welcome to the workshop. Feel free to ask questions, it's a lot to take in all at once."

She kind of wants to go Bouncing around to explore the hugeness, but shhh. Secret identity.

"So, artist drones?"

Jay whistles a long, low tone and a drone comes zipping over, carrying a glass bottle of an interesting green colour. "Lock, this is Charlie. She's new around here. Charlie, this is Lock. He runs the artistic area of the workshop. Lock, why don't you show Charlie what you're working on?"

Lock nods enthusiastically and bows to Charlie, letting out a happy chitter of welcome. He extends a manipulate arm to her, offering to take her hand.

Socute.

Charlie gives a little bow back because oh gosh and extends her hand for him to grab and show her around. This is totally the best day in - okay, maybe not the best day, the one where she met Babs and Dinah and Helena was pretty awesome, even if she got shot and Babs kicked her out of the cowl - but this is also a pretty great day.

Lock leads her over to a corner of the workshop, carefully guiding her around piles of stuff and machinery. Some of it quite dangerous looking.

Laid out over a series of large benches is a massive stain glass panel. Or more accurately one of a set of panels. Each one depicting a scene that seem to form a story. It's hard to make out as they're out of order at the moment but it looks like it might be about the drones themselves. Lock passes the bottle to another drone who examines it, then clamps it down and starts cutting shapes with an intensity accurate little laser that seems to be inbuilt to the drone's body.

Jay follows them, moving very quietly out of habit. "It's coming along well, Lock."

Edited 2016-01-16 01:19 (UTC)

Whatever it is, it's really cool. Like a giant stained glass window in a church, except... not.

"What is it?"

"Their story." Jay explains, pointing to the panels stacked against a wall. "Their history. They've been through a very rough time to get here so Lock's helping them record their history in colour and light."

He turns to Lock. "Got one set up?"

The drone nods and leads them to another part of the workshop, curtained off with heavy black drapes. A single panel has been braces upright with something set behind it. When Lock activates it, projected light shines through the panel, the facets and textures seeming to move with it. It shows a great ruined dome, parts of it seeming to fall as the light catches them just so. And two human figures, their arms full of drones, running towards a door and safety.

One of the figures is recognisably Jay. "Oh hell, Lock. It's beautiful." He seems genuinely touched.

Okay, upgrade pretty to beautiful now. Charlie kind of awkwardly hugs an arm around herself and shifts from foot to foot. Sometimes, she's not oblivious to the mood of the room, and she's not totally sure what to do now. She feels sort of intrude-y.

Jay notices her discomfort and nods towards the door. "Lets get some air." He gives the drone a warm scratch as they pass.

He leads her back to his area and the motorbikes, pulling a bottle of zesti from a fridge under the bench and offering it to her.

"Thanks," she says to Lock, quickly. And then to Jay, later, before opening the soda and taking a sip.

"What happened?"

"Something bad. Some kind of worldwide holocaust. Lock and four others made it here at the time. Gav, the other guy in the image has magic, made it possible to speak the them. He found out the story and Stock, their leader, took us there. We managed to rescue twenty survivors but the rest of the hive was destroyed. They're pretty much the last of their race."

He cracks a soda of his own, nodding to the bottle. "So you are a Gotham kid?" Only Gothamites drink Zesti. It's just one of those things. He keeps them down here for Tim.

She's way quieter and less bouncy now than she was starting out this thing, but who wouldn't be. "Yeah."

Or, well, Metropolis, but. Gotham for right now, totally counts. "You?"

He nods. "Born and breed. But I haven't been back in a year or so."

"That's cool."

Or something. Words came out; she wasn't really paying attention to what they were. It happens.

Jay cocks his head, watching her with rather piercing blue eyes. "Charlie, you okay?"

She blinks. "Yeah? I'm good."

Beat.

"So what are you working on?" Stealthy topic change for the win?

"Just tuning one of the bikes. I build a lot of this here but the bikes are my passion." He rests a hand on the bike's flank. "This one was designed by someone I use to work with. I've been adapting it ever since."

"That's cool."

Even actually cool this time, instead of just stuff that pops out of her mouth.

"Do you ride?" He ask, still watching her face from the corner of his eye.