2019-11-23 - Discount Donut Delights

Summary:

America and Zatanna enjoy some well-earned, slightly-old donuts after saving the day. Hurray! Slightly old donuts!

Log Info:

Storyteller: None
Date: Sat Nov 23 17:45:08 2019
Location: Quiet Room

Related Logs

None

Theme Song

None

zatanna-zataraamerica-chavez

Peter Pan's Pastry Pavillion is the shop Zatanna promised makes the best donuts in the city. Whether anyone's donuts are still good at 3pm is a question open for debate, but hey, Zatanna and America just saved the entire city block from being destroyed by an incursion from another realm, so carb-fried carbs are due whether fresh or not. Zatanna pushes open the glass door, setting off the old-fashioned brass bell dangling above it, and is greeted with a smile from a clerk behind a tablet-based register she largely ignores save for a quick, distracted return smile before turning her attention to America, whom she's holding the door open for. The scents of spun sugar, cinnamon, apples, maple, and fryer grease all linger enticingly in the air even though it's probably been ten hours since anything was last cooked. The air is warm and welcoming compared to the outside briskness. Booths whose seats are lined in pleather line the walls, as if this shop was or is some kind of diner.

"So, America, what can I get you? It's on me, obviously."


"Obviously."

The single word is delivered with a dry tone that must have taken years or simply trueborn, natural talent to perfect as America Chavez slips inside Peter Pan's Pastry Pavilion via the open welcome of the door Zatanna holds ajar for her. Hands slipped into her pockets, stance as casually confident as can be, it'd be easy to just interpret that single declaration as the height of cocky expectation made manifest — at least, if it weren't for the way the multiversal vagabond teasingly raises her brows at Zatanna as she passes the magician by, or the tiniest smile that graces her lips before she makes her way toward the counter with an upnod for the clerk.

"Awful generous of you," she finally amends, but only once she's turned herself around to lean herself back into the countertop, brows lifted now more in an expression of thoughtfulness than anything else as her flaring nostrils take in the lingering scents of confection and pastry and everything else bad for your body mass index. "You were talking about those maple logs, yeah? Gotta try one of those, now that you talked 'em up. Do they have those — shit, what do they call 'em here? The round ones? Donut holes, right? Maybe some of that. Like the assortment." One might question what she means by 'call them here' but, well — she seems to contentedly gloss over that.


That little smile puts a swagger in Zatanna's walk, straightening her back and shoulders. She walks slowly behind her guest, heels tapping the hard-tiled floor with each step, and smiles at the boy behind the counter, a young man far too skinny to work in a donut shop with a flop of blue hair swept away from one shaved side. Presumably a Lost Boy, but who knows. "You heard the lady," Zatanna says extravagantly, grinning, as she joins America's side. "But I think she also needs two chocolate milks and two apple juices, and make the donut hole order a thirty-piece." Her smile is almost a smirk, inwardly ironic, as she produces her credit card from her purse. The clerk, who is no one's fool, chooses not to comment on anything beyond the standard politenesses, and returns in a few minutes with a receipt to sign (discounted for the donuts' age, of course), a white bag turning gray at the bottom from the oil and sugar of its contents, and a cardboard drink tote. Zatanna accepts all these things with a short smile for him and a longer smile for America. "How do you feel about eating here?"


For the time being, America doesn't seem to pay much mind to the very probable time-displaced Lost Boy hanging out behind the counter, or even their impending, gargantuan order of donuts and donut-related products; her attention, instead, is on Zatanna. One hand lifting to comb through her wavy, only slightly disheveled brown locks of hair, the star-spangled superhero watches Zatanna with those piercing brown eyes like someone finally taking the time to assess for the first time. Eye contact is a thing. But it only lasts as long as it takes for the other woman to complete that order before brown eyes shut and America snorts in wry amusement.

"Pulling out all the stops, huh?" she wonders of her companion, one brown eye opening up just a sliver as the left corner of her lips tugs upward just so. "I like the way you think, chica." With that, she casts a look over her shoulder for the ever-diligent employee offering up that slightly-soiled bag of slightly-aged donuts with all due efficiency. She lifts a brow as Zatanna takes the full assembly of food and drink — and then pushes up off the countertop to step toward the magician, leaning in and reaching out with her hand to take the tray of drinks off Zatanna's hands.

"Here's fine," she announces only after the fact, sweeping the store with a curious gaze. "Nice and private. Got that real cozy after hours feel going for it." She glances back toward Zatanna, nodding toward a table. "What d'you say?"


Zatanna smiles at America, matching her eye contact with only a faint coloring of her cheeks, normally pale from years as a celebrity whose shows are mostly after dark. "I think private and cozy both sound great, America." She shoots America a grateful look as she gallantly accepts the burden of carrying the drinks, and chooses a booth by one of the windowless walls facing an alley. Private, like she said. She sets down the bag and begins digging out America's sugared rewards for her work. "So, I'm really grateful you were here with me. If it wasn't for you, I'd…" She pauses, thinks, and admits, "No, I wouldn't have been lost. I'm too good at what I do. But you made it a lot less painless than it would have been. Was it luck you showed up, or were you aware of what was going on?"


Cardboard drink trays — never has there been a more heinous villain. America, at least, seems to carry them with minimal fuss, setting milk and apple juice alike on the table top with nary a drop to be spilled before she slips into the booth after Zatanna. Making herself comfortable, the roaming Utopian leans back, hands slipping into her jacket pockets and dark gaze tracking as Zatanna procures that deep and plentiful assortment of pastries.

"You would've got out fine," she agrees with Zatanna's assessment with a remarkable amount of matter-of-factness for someone she has literally only just met; yet the casual air of confidence behind that statement sounds ironclad. "You've got a good head on your shoulders. And you know it, too. Always a plus." She pulls those drinks out of the tray, sliding one of each type Zatanna's way with just enough strength to let them settle just in front of the magician. Was she aware?

"Have a knack for that kinda thing, I guess," is her nonchalant answer, tilting her head the other woman's way. "Some fucked up incursion that shouldn't be? Shit like that is like nails on a chalkboard."


Zatanna does notice the drinks passed to her, and accepts the milk before America's fully released it, her fingers brushing the backs of the Utopian's. "Careful, girl," she warns with a smile. "You keep complimenting me like that, I might start believing you."

But she nods at America's explanation, face serious for a moment as she digs a donut hole out of the bag. It's fluffy, yeasty, flavored subtly with a sprinkle of cinnamon in the dough, and frosted lightly enough to not overpower any of the sweetness in the bread itself. "That's really impressive. Well, on behalf of everyone you saved, thank you. You did a lot of good today."


Fingers brush across hers. A ghost of a smile slips past her lips, the only betrayal to the look of pure, perfect incredulity she shoots Zatanna's way. There's the arch of an eyebrow, a tongue click, everything.

"Don't tempt me," is her rejoinder in that effortless deadpan as she snaps open her chocolate milk, "I'll kick that bikini-bottomed ass of yours with ego boosts."

She, of course, sounds serious as the grave.

It's only after that she takes the first sip of her drink, a small thing before she snags a powdered donut hole for herself. She plops the thing into her mouth, chewing on it considerately as she listens to Zatanna's own praise. "Huh. A little old, but not bad. Damn," she mutters, half to herself — and then sucks her fingers free of confectioner's sugar shortly thereafter, as if to wordlessly seal the deal on what she thinks of Zatanna's choice in pastry shops.

"Don't have to thank me. Just a part of the work, yeah?" she says off-handedly in the aftermath, as she wipes her fingers down with a napkin. "Shit's broke. You go in. You fix it. Get some old donuts after." She looks Zatanna's way, turning towards her just enough to give the magician the full breadth of her attention. "What about you? You normally go diving headfirst into scary-ass interdimensional rifts without backup?"


Zatanna smiles at America. "Well, sure," she returns with an odd mixture of lightness and earnestness. "There aren't many people who can keep up with me. And more seriously… well, if you see someone dropped a bunch of nails in the road, you can either get out and clean it up, or you can call the police and hope no one has a blowout before the cops get there. You know?" she asks, shrugging in the shoulders of her expensive sweater.

——

You know? Finishing off another donut hole in between Zatanna's answer to her question, America doesn't respond to her companion immediately. Instead, she leans forward, plucking up a glazed, chocolate variety out of that assortment of pastries, before tilting the sticky sweet upward and outward in offering to Zatanna with a little, inscrutable smile.

"Yeah," she finally answers, the subtle note of approval and appreciation laced in her typically dry tone. "I know." Donut offered up, America tilts her head. "So, you got the hero mindset all down pat. You got a fancy hero name I oughta be calling you by, too?"


Zatanna looks at the proffered donut hole with an astonished expression that she quickly masks behind a flirtatious glance. She leans in toward it, mouth open, but stops short of biting. Instead, she grins teasingly over the pastry and explains, "Just call me Zatanna, but really emphasize the Z, please. I get in trouble when people call me Satanna. They start thinking I'm a devil."

THEN she parts her lips and closes them over the offered confection, looking America unblinkingly in the eye.


"Yeah, I could see that," is America Chavez's glowing vote of confidence in Zatanna's ability to be mistaken for the infernal. That astonishment is a brief thing, but not one that goes unnoticed; despite it, the Utopian seems to take the exchange of banter in stride, pastry offered without a word to be taken or not at Zatanna's leisure. "Alright. Zee for Zatanna then." If she sounds like she's overemphasizing that Z sound, well, that's clearly just a trick of the imagination. Pay no attention to the rare glimmer of laughter behind those brown eyes.

But when Zatanna finally leans in, America doesn't so much as dare look away. Eye to eye, she watches as Zatanna takes the pastry with parted lips. The corners of her own lips tug upward; her thumb dusts brief over Zatanna's bottom lip before she pulls away.

"Okay, Zee. Maybe you can help me with this, since you seem like you're the expert here." She sounds as inscrutable as ever, but it must be for something important. Her voice pitches lower. She leans in. Maybe it's about magic, or the thing they encountered out there, or…

"Apple fritter. Donut, or not?" … or it could be that. Delivered with nothing more than the hint of a smile to ruin that poker face.

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