Starlight meets Sunbright

Damian  glared out the window of the plane, mismatched eyes narrowed into an almost pouting fashion. ”Do I really have to ride in this slow thing? You know I can fly a lot faster than this.” He said with a sigh, stretching out in the seat of the personal plane, almost bored looking even. He was dressed in an unbuttoned flannel shirt, with a white t-shirt underneath and a pair of tan cargo shorts. This contrasted what looked to be a woman sitting across from him, dressed smartly with their hair kept in a respectable style.

“Yes you do. People have been growing…antsy about superhuman crossing borders lately and we cannot afford to draw any unwanted attention our way.” She responded, sipping on what smelled like a mug of hot cocoa. Just the smell alone was enough to peak his interest, causing the male to sit up a little as she offered the mostly full mug. ”We’ve already had a less than favorable incident with Lucius Alba and do not need anymore unwanted press. So try to stay out of the media eye, won’t you?”

Damian smirked, sipping the warm chocolate drink before nodding. ”Fine. Don’t want to end up in one of those weird anti-meta cells anyway.” He admitted, letting his eyes turn towards the window once again to see that the jet itself was beginning to descend. They were close to London, and another job for Atlas it would seem. ”I mean...he isn’t in the city is he?”

”Reports indicate that he is, so you might want to be careful.” She responded as they would land on the personal airstrip. Getting off of the plane was easy enough, the woman stepping down the little ramp first before him as he basked in the murky bleakness that was London. Honestly, he could feel that the sunlight was not that strong here and that only made him hate this place even more than he already did. This was made obvious by the fact that his lips were pulled downwards into a frown. ”I know you’re probably going to wander off, but make sure not to cause a scene.” Damian nodded likely not actually paying attention, scanning the area around before propelling himself into the air and beginning what he enjoyed to do most.

Flight.

If there was one thing that he loved doing, and that was flying. Breaking free from the bonds of gravity, and just soaring through the sky was a feeling that could not be beat, even by knowing that he could probably lift anything. The wind rushed past him, as the ground below blurred, becoming nothing but a grey landscape that stretched out beneath him. That being until he heard what sounded like a gunshot ringing out.

Even with the roar of the wind, his ears could catch something like that. Guns always had this sound to them, something that always grabbed a hold of his attention and would never let go. All at once he would stop in the air, looking around for the source of that sound and eventually coming upon what looked to be the thing that had caused it. A man holding a gun, along with a strange person trying to keep them in check, if they were even a person.

Honestly they looked like they needed  a little help and Atlas was always willing to help. In a dizzying display of speed, he quickly hit the ground, his arm breaking through the construct just enough to grab onto the wrist of the robber and force the gun away as it fired into the air. ”That’s not very nice of you, going around and threatening to shoot people." This person would find that the fingers wrapped around their wrist, despite how lax they looked were like implacable vices, tightening until either a bone broke or they let go of the gun.

”How about you let the lady go before things get ugly?”

Despite how much the man with the gun tried to get away, they would find that it was impossible to do. Damian easily heard the crack of bone, wincing minutely but not letting go of the man until they could be more permanently contained. Afterall, not like he would let some guy that just pulled guns on people get away. That wouldn’t have been very heroic of him at all, or so that was what he thought as his eyes then focused upon the strange white figure hovering in the air. It was just a hunch on his part, but they looked like the reason behind the strange energy constructs that let his hand pass through easily. Thinking back on that, he did feel this weird sensation when touching the stuff, one that was pleasant.

”Not that I know of but some people probably do.” Damian responded with a slight shrug, waiting until the cuff constructs were around the mans wrists before actually removing his iron grip. The woman voiced their appreciation and he smiled, resting his hands on his hips. ”It was my pleasure. We heroes gotta stick together.” Especially when hostage situations ended up happen, otherwise something told him this would have taken a darker turn than it did.

His overactive imagination thought it up anyway, and that only managed to softly sour his mood, though not visibly. A few people would then begin to gather around, some of them looking at both and them. Likely recognizing the more heroic looking of the two, though one or two did seem to recognize Damian from youtube videos, as low quality as they were. While he had been told any media attention was not always good, part of him enjoyed it nonetheless. Unless it was that one vitriolic Hunter guy that always spouted off their rather obvious hatred for metahumans.

The police would sweep in, take the criminal in and then the person he had briefly helped left. Damian blinked as he let his eyes follow them for a few seconds, and then decided he was curious enough to follow. Some people might have been bold enough to call him a stalker, but then again he didn’t think it was too weird at that moment. So he lifted himself off the ground, some people letting out soft gasps as he followed, not exactly making himself known just yet. This involved a lot of ducking around buildings quickly until he felt he could just go up and talk to them.

He was not very good at actually socializing with people.

The female did not really catch onto the fact he was following them, which meant at the very least he was not failing at the whole stealthy thing. That was a small win for Damian, but then again it did feel really creepy when he put some thought into it. Once they landed, he would see what looked like a rather radical transformation from the stark white being that he had seen into a rather normal looking person. Honestly, he was really interested in what he had seen especially considering that they were actually wearing clothes by the end of the transformation.

So that was when he would slink from his little hiding place, sorta hovering downwards and sitting midair, legs crossed as he waited for them to notice him. It only took a moment as they exclaimed something, turning around to see him with a soft smirk. ”Hi.” He said with a small wave, not really daunted by the person surprise about him suddenly appearing behind them. He trained mismatched eyes on them, narrowing eyelids ever so slightly.

”Been..floating here for about a minute or two I guess. Wanted to talk to you, maybe not around so many people but...I guess there were a few better ways to do that.” He said, seemingly to consider that exact thing, stroking his chin with an index finger thoughtfully. ”But that transforming thing you did, now that was really awesome.” He seemed to jump from one subject to another, grinning excitedly now.

The woman was defensive, saying something about not being the type of person he wanted as a friend. Granted, Damian was not exactly one to fully understand what she was saying, though he did surmise that she was  pretty against being friends with him. His ultra sensitive hearing caught the sound of her phone buzzing, vibrating as someone seemed to be messaging them, for one reason or another. ”yeah, I think you’re pretty awesome.” He confirmed with a pronounced nod, enthusiastic almost as he uncrossed his legs and actually stood on the ground. Gravity would claim power over him once again, as he let his eyes settle upon the female.

They then mentioned their identity, something that they wanted to protect and that he could  understand greatly. Not that he ever had to really worry about hiding his identity, but then again some people. ”Not gonna go about cutting myself and rubbing my cuts into anyone elses, though I won’t tell anyone.” He said, grimacing slightly upon thinking about the implications of doing something gross as that. He wasn’t sure if he could get any gross diseases through that, so it was better not to take that chance.

”I have my own identity I guess. Not a lot of people know me around here, but I guess i’m pretty big in New York. I...should probably introduce myself. I have a real name, but you would probably know me better as Atlas.”

The female sounded rather hesitant to even interact with him, something that only really managed to confuse Damian more than anything else. Maybe they had something deep on their mind, or maybe they were just like that. Some people were apparently just not into talking with other people, something that honestly he could just not understand. Granted that just came down to a difference within personality rather than anything else. Their response towards his statement about the whole blood oath thing was more favorable, though  the whole super sight did make the very slight shade of blushing obvious. Why that happened, he had to wonder to himself, but maybe they were just nervous. ”I know….I was being...um..sarcastic.” He said, not sounding sarcastic that time around. Sarcasm was somewhat a new thing to him, so maybe he probably needed to be a bit more obvious with the whole thing.

He thought about something, maybe the bad guys he had dealt with last week, but they weren’t really worth too much thought, so he snapped back to Uzma. They were holding their phone out to him, a large amount of results when looking him up apparent.

His expression grew pretty excited quickly, as his eyes took in a few of these results, none of them negative either. Maybe that stuff was on page two or something like that. ”Wow, I didn’t know I was that popular.” Damian noted, stroking his chin as he considered his sudden popularity, and maybe that explained why he was supposed to be more careful in how he operated in public. While he considered the logistics of being a well known hero, the female would say something about their own heroic name. ”Starlight sounds nicer. Stargirl sounds sorta…..lame.” he said, after thinking over that a few seconds, shrugging as if that was the best description he could come up with.

That was when they asked the question about why he was in London, something that required a little thought. ”Pretty important business. Political types flyin in from the states and apparently I have to protect them since someone wants them dead. Guess i’m one way to deter the whole assassination plots or whatever.”

Starlight recoiled with their phone, Damian pulling back a bit as he continued to consider the female. Everything about his manner had a carefree air about it, but that made sense considering just who he was. Her reaction to his explaining the business that drew his attention, well it was amusing more than anything else.  Sure, sounding like some kind of government bodyguard wasn’t exactly his cup of tea, but helping people still worked for him really. ”I guess I do. Don’t really think about the pay really.” Damian responded to the bit about him being paid.

For all he knew, he was getting paid a lot from all the protecting and serving. Part of him wondered when he would get some kind of call wondering where he was, though maybe they did give him enough credit to actually remember when he was needed. There were literally hours before whatever, so he had plenty of time to enjoy talking to a fellow hero.

She asked something about where to sign up, though Damian just assumed that was some kind of joke. He laughed along with her, not really sure how to properly respond to it. He broke out of the whole levitating thing and decided to stand rather than flying around.

”Yeah, I eat.” The question felt a little strange to him, though maybe that was just how people talked around here. ”Don’t really know about any placed to eat around here though. I guess people eat fish and...chip in London. That’s probably just a stereotype but anything sounds good right now honestly.” Sure, he may have not needed to eat, but good tasting food was still something he could enjoy.

”What about you? You like food, right?” okay, so his social awkwardness was showing.

The idea of just visiting a cafe sounded nice, so  he would let her lead the way to said cafe considering she seemed to know more about the place than he did. ”yeah, lets do that.” He said with a nod, lazily letting his attention scan about, every little detail being taken in. From the cracks within the brick of building, to the insects that occasionally fluttered by without a care within the world. Something about that aspect was something that he could truly relate to, if only because he enjoyed the idea of flying around. Uzma had said something about him carrying her down, something he didn’t really have a problem doing.

”I can do that.” He said, hovering a few inches above the rooftop and picking up Uzma in a bridal style, not really thinking anything of it. The manner of carrying a person just felt easier to him, and having someone attached to his back felt more like something that a monkey would do. Within a few seconds he touched down, slowly letting Uzma down onto the ground with a near infinite amount of care. He would let her orient herself, hands resting upon his hips as he waited for them lead the way to a cafe.

The sounds of the city reached at his ears, people shouting at one another and cars honking their horns. ”So I heard something about us and  a cafe nearbye.” He mentioned, imagining what a cafe would even have in it.