♫ | ms. grayson.
He’s heard of her, good. That would be less of a hassle on her end. Even if she’s not particularly pleased with the overall discomfort that fact seems to bring him. Gotham wasn’t a pleasant place for people with soft underbellies. If he was here for the money, she could easily fix that. However, that wasn’t something she was even close to being sure of. “I’m not threatening you, Rattle,” Riley clarifies after he pointedly dismisses the surname, making a point to round out her shoulders after his physical expression of discomfort.
“That contract seems to be put together by the father of a particular teenage nuisance who whined loud enough to get you here. The head honchos of the underground are nothing if not well versed in extortion,” She mused flatly before she takes a half step around the table, not close enough to reach him but a bit closer. Engrossing the space without completely enveloping it. She’d learned that tenacious business practice from the best.
The contract was a safeguard. Riley doubted the mobsters had any desire to press the DJ for all he was worth. They had much bigger fish to fry than to worry about one entertainer. Well, most of them should have, but getting into her brother’s background in the underground wasn’t first date talk for her. “I wouldn’t worry about it, I’ll have someone take care of it. They won’t bother you, it isn’t worth their time,” Riley assures, attempting to placate him to a degree.
“And I don’t want anything from you, I’m not particularly interested in hiring a DJ. No offense, but that music gives me a migraine.” She gives him a small smile, part courtesy to show it hadn’t been meant as an insult. After all, snooping through his things and insulting him in the course of two minutes might make things a little difficult. “Besides my sources have already told me about most of your antics. Mother, father, arrest records, businesses, assets..” She trails off briefly before returning her gaze to his things then back towards the door. “Then again, I didn’t bother reading most of it. I wasn’t interested in that, your metahuman abilities, however, were intriguing,” Well, damn Riley, don’t try and be subtle or anything.
“So do I have to crack you and shake you up to see, or is it more of a light switch flipping effect?”
HE WANTS TO be surprised. He desperately wants to be taken aback not just by the actions of his employer for the evening, not just by the fact that he’d walked into what was likely a trap that tied him coming back to play for an over entitled rich kid whenever they snapped their fingers, but also that there’s the bare bones of a hefty extortion racket laid bare on the paper in front of him. But somehow, nothing about this city surprises him anymore. It’s a hive of scum and villainy, he should’ve seen it coming. But at least the one thing they don’t have on him is the one thing that could potentially ruin him. He can take the hits about the drug arrest and circumstances about his father’s death, most people know about that anyway - it was his mother and sister’s details that were on the page that worried him the most.
“I fuckin’ hate this city.” It’s all he can really say about her comments and assurances. With a sigh, he pulls out the chair from under the desk and sinks down onto it, idly flicking through the pages of his own life story that had been put together in order to sucker punch him to the gut. It certainly did that. If anything, he’s left in such a daze that he almost misses the fact that the one of the richest heiresses had just said she’d handle it. He blinks, frowns, opens his mouth to say something, but all that comes out is “none taken.” An autopilot response to someone not being a fan of the music he’s famous for. He’s used to that, at the very least. All this is telling him is that he really needs to hire someone more competent to manage his personal details, as his current technician certainly isn’t doing the job he was hired for.
It was, perhaps, a good thing that he couldn’t get any paler because his blood all but turned to ice at the casual mention of ‘metahuman abilities’ and his attention snaps up to her face, somewhere between rabbit in the headlights and a severe glare. Partly he wants to recoil, partly he wants to snarl, in the end he merely bristles and stares at her utterly incredulously. There’s no point in denying it, it’s likely his medical records that she’d read and acting dumb would just prove fruitless because he doubts she’s the type of person to just let things drop. Instead he just gapes at her.
“N-no. No that’s – no.” He finally blinks, shaking his head at the suggestions that she’d need to crack and shake him. “You realise that I got that nickname when I was like six, right? I’m not an actual glow stick.” A beat. “Or a light switch.” There’s a moment where he has to compose himself, hauling himself out of the chair to give himself space, heading to the back of the room and pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s not something I can control. It just…happens.” Though he’s trying very hard to stop it from happening right now.