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One minute waking up on Barbara's couch, the next -- flash bang -- in New York? And not only New York, but an abandoned New York that looks like Poison Ivy's just had a party?

Okay ... well, I've probably dealt with weirder.

Dick lifts a hand to scrub his head, shaking sleep out of his eyes, and sets about finding several things. First, food. It'd be a damn crime if there were no Big Belly Burgers left at the end of the world. Then a place to finish his nap. Then maybe someone who can tell him what's going on.

But really, really, first food.

The boy has his priorities right.

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She scratches the back of her head and shrugs openly.

"Not a fucking--'scuse-me-- clue," she admits in a soft, cheerful English accent. "After we fought off the triffids we've been scrounging for what we can get, hoping to find a car that works well enough to take us out of the city, and maybe some gas if we're lucky; the place seems to be damn-'scuse-me short on both."

Yes, Darla excuses herself after profanity. It's a thing.

"Wait up."

Fingers are held out, and Dick ticks these things off.

"Triffids?"

Okay, he got to one tick without a question.

She nods firmly. "Triffids. In Central bloody Park."

Okay, the accent may be English, but the tone is that of an aggrieved New Yorker. Triffids do not belong in Central Park, dammit!

Dick looks like a completely innocent bystander, but he's noticing.

"Triffids," he repeats, without the disbelief this time -- just a sigh. "Damn. Okay, moving on: "Scrounging? There's nobody else?"

"Chandra and I have seen one-- well, two other people since we got here, and if we never run into him-- them again, I will be absolutely bloody-'scuse-me ecstatic. Other than that? Empty streets from here to everywhere."

"That's not wonderful."

Dick frowns, but he might as well be talking about the weather for all the upset in his voice.

"Still -- there's food? And what were these other guys like?"

She snorts. "A friend of mine who came here with us decided he'd like to rip my head off. In a very literal sense. I got away, and the next thing I knew there were two of him. I got away again, but it was strange. Everything in this place is strange. My house isn't even here."

Slight shrug.

"As for food, we manage."

"... Okay, head-ripping-off people."

They are on Dick's list of People To Avoid!

"How do we make sure we avoid them, and get to some place we can make safe?"

It's we now! If people are trying to rip off her head, she gets stuck being a 'we' with Dick. It is a thing. Sorry.

She looks him over once, categorizes him as Not Likely To Be Criminally Insane, and nods.

"I'll take you back to where I'm staying for now with Chandra. As for avoiding them-- if I hear him coming I'll let you know."

Where by hear she means sense with biokinesis, but she's not quite ready to bring that up until it becomes obvious on its own.

And because context is wonderful and shiny: "Chandra's another friend, of the non-head-ripping-off variety."

"Definitely my favourite kind," Dick agrees, glancing at her thoughtfully. "Sorry, I haven't even introduced myself yet. I'm Dick, Dick Grayson."

Handshake?

Handshake!

"Darla Wood. Nice to meet you."

...she's just going to avoid using his name where possible.

She'd be tempted to excuse herself afterwards.

He tried Richard, and Rick, and Rickie, and they just didn't work for him. Poor boy's stuck being a Dick. (It was fine in 1943, it's just ... quaint. now. Yes, quaint is a good word.)

"Sure is. I was starting to think nobody else was alive in this place." He gives her a lopsided, lazy smile. "Who's your friend -- Chandra? ANother drop-in, or you came together?"

"We showed up together, yeah. We knew each other back home through Gabriel. Er, head-ripping-off-guy."

"...yeah, I guess that could help with bonding," Dick remarks, screwing his face up expressively. "So head-guy is here as well somewhere -- two versions of him? -- but you're not sure where? Does he have any other talents besides the head thing?"

"Telekinesis, cryokinesis, and hyelokinesis," she responds automatically. "Chandra wrote a book on it."

Pause.

"--okay, somehow that came out wrong."

"Moving things with his mind, ... instant freezing?" Dick guesses. "No, moving instant freezes? ... I'm not even gonna guess at that last one.

"Or exactly what you meant." Grin.

"Moving things with his mind, freezing things with his mind, and manipulating glass with his mind. Glass, of all things. I don't even know why we needed a word for that, but we have one. Chandra wrote a book on," this next part sounds like a quote, or at least a paraphrase, "the potential of human beings to develop superhuman abilities."

Dar drops the quotevoice.

"And Gabe decided that the book was a good reason to kill people with powers and take theirs. Hence the triad of 'kinesises."

"...so he's a meta, and he can acquire other abilities by killing people who have them," Dick says. Which is exactly what she just said, but he's clarifying for himself.

"Definitely sounds like a Bad Guy to me."

"I don't know if he had one to start with or not, but he sure as hell does now."

She fails to comment on whether or not he's Bad. He's certainly annoying, and also quite scary. Bad? Well, that will have to wait.

"Does that make you a target?" Dick asks, the thought only just now occuring to him. He frowns at the landscape as if it might be hiding a head-ripping-off vengeful monster. "How about your friend?"

"Chandra isn't."

Regardless of necessity, it's damned uncomfortable discussing her power in the open. Rather than respond directly she flicks her fingers at a blade of grass ascending stubbornly from a crack in the sidewalk.

It leaps upwards in a highly improbable growth spurt, nearly doubling in size.

"Gabriel was holding off on me because we were friends, but apparently now that I know what he's up to that goes out the window."

Bitter? Darla? Naaaaah.

Dick nods,not particularly surprised or bothered by this.

"Okay, so first priority is get you guys to somewhere he can't find or can't attack. Any ideas?"

"No good ones. Honestly, I'm more concerned about the triffids. He's tried for us twice and wasn't much trouble either time. They, on the other hand, nearly got us."

And she hasn't seen any since but that doesn't mean they're not there.

"Right, triffids. I forgot those." He shakes his head, half-laughing. "Are we talking -- triffids straight out of John Wyndham? As in Day Of The? Walking plants, right?"

"Walking plants," she confirms. "Stingers, little rattly bits, the entire proverbial nine yards of ambulatory herbiform death."