For once in her life, Stephanie's first meeting with one of the Bats didn'thave anything to do with bullets or crime or bricks to the head or any kind of violence at all.

She was just checking out a once obscure coffee place that had exploded in popularity over like a week, you know, something completely normal.

Everyone she asked said the appeal had something to do with the foam art.

Well, according to her esteemed fellow scholars, it was the guy doing the foam art.

Stephanie, being the social, curious person she was went along with some college friends - and a not so friend by the name of Jordanna - one slow lunch hour to see what all the chatter was about.

She was just getting coffee, and unless you'd just woken up after a sleepover at Wayne Manor, getting coffee was supposed to be one of the least violent things a person could do. It was all the proof she needed that the universe had a weird, ironic sense of humour that it was when she happened to meet one of the supposedly most violent people ever.

She'd just looked up from their discussion about what to order when she got a glance at the guy behind the counter. Her mouth stopped working and she had to do a double take just to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing.

Jason Todd. Mister Scary mcShooty Stabby crime lord himself; chatting it up with his giggly customer while he worked on crafting her foamy latte into a cutesy rabbit.

Maybe she wouldn't have been as shocked as she was if it weren't for the fact that he was actually, you know smiling, resting against the counter as relaxed as could be, his teal eyes bright and alive.

He finished with a flourish and handed the girl her coffee with a wink and a crooked, flirty smile.

Steph's friends caught her staring and, misreading the situation entirely, immediately went to chattering about how she'd fallen in love with the mysterious foam guy at first sight. She didn't bother correcting them because that worked like, never. It was easier to just endure the good laugh they had at her expense. Besides It wasn't worth giving anyone more ammunition to use against her.

It was something she was sure they'd be forgetting about in a couple days.

Then they reached the front of the line and he directed that smile at them. Okay wow, his eyes really were stupidly bright and somehow really blue while also being really green.

"And what can I do for this flock of..." Jason looked up from rearranging his station and whatever he'd been about to say didn't't make it past his lips. He blinked owlishly at Stephanie, then the group of girls who broke into a new fit of giggles and demanded she be the one to place their orders with many nudging eblows and faux sly glances.

She listed off the various sugary concoctions they called out, and Jason moved with much less of a flurry than he'd shown his previous customers. He kept looking up and scanning the shop like he expected an army of ninjas to burst in through the windows at any second.

Or maybe she was just projecting, cause she was sort of expecting something along that line to go down.

When he was done he smiled charmingly at Steph's friends, who were less than satisfied with his lack of flare and offered them the coffee for free on account of their beauty making him speechless.

It satisfied her friends and ensured that Steph would be the victim of their teasing for many a day. Jason flagged down his manager, and after a hurried conversation spoken too low for her to make out, slipped through a door marked employees only with an apologetic smile at his fellow employees.

Steph didn't really pay much attention to her dismayed fellow customers, other than the fact they were, well dismayed. She was too busy watching the hurried movement of the hand Jason had raised to fire off a rapid flurry of sign language that she only barely deciphered.

With a huff she studied the shape of the little bird in her coffee. Sure, meet him out back, like she wasn't in the middle of some much needed social interaction outside of a freaking mask.

Jordanna was giving her the stink eye - but what else was new - as they moved to the assortment of snacks on display, and her friends were already working themselves up to another round of friendly teasing.

Steph claimed the need for a bathroom break and slipped out the window to see what Jason wanted.

O

O

O

He was resting in a plastic white chair, eyes closed and head tilted back to catch the sliver of rare Gotham sunlight that made it into the narrow alleyway.

Another state she wasn't used to seeing him in, though granted the little she knee of him 'had' been gathered from only a handful of far off glances and tiresome rants about his methods or attitude or well, whatever he did within sight of the other Bats.

She tried to commit to memory what was probably a rare sight, might have even snapped a quick picture if he hadn't straightened up and snapped to full alertness the second he noticed her approach.

In barely a second he'd tensed up, standing with his shoulders pulled back in a way that made him look even bigger than he was - and man was he big, those aforementioned far off glances really didn't do him justice.

"So where're the rest of your little friends, or they send you to make sure I'm not putting the blood of Gotham's scum in the coffee all on your lonesome." His smile - if something so bitter could be called that - was razor-sharp and his eyes roamed all over the alley.

Yes, this was a lot less weird and and a little more in line with what she would have expected from him. This, she could han...

"Wait, blood in the coffee?" Her face screwed up in disgust and she shook her head, shuddering. "Gross, why would you even say that? I still gotta drink it when I get in there? And did anyone ever teach you the term 'playing it cool'? Now my friends are gonna be on my case for weeks about my and Foamguy's 'instant connection'." She made air quotes around the last part, then propped her hands on her hips. He stood watching her she spoke, his smile now morphed into a scowl. Steph tugged on the hem of her sweater, resisting the basic survival instinct that demanded she avert her gaze.

"Also, it's kinda sucky of you to just assume I go around spying for your messed up family. I'll have you know, I am a college student with a very busy schedule."

"Then what 'are' you doing here?" He asked, looking less sure of himself as his eyes darted to the door that would take him back inside.

"Dude I don't know if you heard, but you're kinda the talk at Gotham U, and I go to Gotham U, and you were just supposed to be this hot guy that everyone 'has' to get a look at."

"Oh." He blinked at her and sort of folded in on himself, shoulders dropping and fingers hooking into his pants pockets. His face turned away from her and this little scrunchy thing before he looked back at her, rocking back on his heels a little. "Really?"

"Yeeeeaah." She drawled. "So what are you doing here anyway, the crime lord gig not working out for you, get laid off, or overthrown or... fake assassinated?"

Jason snorted and dropped back into his chair. "A certain someone thinks 'the crime lord gig' is beneath me, and I should be doing better for myself." He smirked as he said it, tucking his arms behind his head.

"So you took a minimum wage job out of spite?" Steph asked, raising an eyebrow.

Jason chuckled and nodded, then almost immediately let out a wince and pulled up his feet. "Didn't think it'd suck this bad." He said, wiggling off his shoes. "Still worth it for the look on her face when she found out." He looked back to Steph with a suspicious frown. "They really didn't send you here to rope me into taking on one of their cases or something?"

"Would that have worked, even? Like, you don't even know me." Steph cocked her head to the side and scratched her foot along some of the litter scattered along the ground.

Jason shrugged and raked a hand though his mess of curls, making the fabric of the uniform that was maybe a tiny bit too tight on him bunch around his arms, giving her a glimpse of the muscle definition beneath.

"Yeah well, like I said, I'm just here for the coffee, kinda disappointed in the eye candy part."

"What?!" Jason gasped, whipping his head back at her with his mouth agape in the most over the top expression of dismay she'd ever seen. "You wound me Blondie, truly and deeply."

Steph laughed, smothering the sound behind her fist as she took a step back toward the bathroom window while he lost the battle against letting his offended pout shift to a smile.

"I gotta go back before my friends think I ditched them." She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder as she backtracked.

He waved her off and settled back into his patch of sunlight to relax for the rest of however long his break was supposed to be.

By the time she got back inside, the foamy bird creation he'd left on her coffee had been stirred away. Which sucked because she'd barely gotten a couple seconds to look at it.

She'd just have to come back sometime for another one.

xxxxxxxxxxx

This is what happens when I try to write a fluffy one shot to fix writers block for something else.

There'll be about four chapters because there is not enough JaySteph in the world and the rest of the Batfam will make some appearances.

Also, there is not enough JaySteph in the world.