Who: Tim Drake and Barbara Gordon Where: Gotham City University When: Today, early evening What: Sparring and Shop Talk Rating: PG Status: Complete
"Do you need a break?" Barbara asked, slipping across the beat up gymnastics mat she'd laid out in the spare rec room at Gotham U. Her toes were light, and she kept an eye on Tim's shoulders even as she asked the question. He looked like the type to try and get a hit in while she was distracted.
"Nah, I'm alright," Tim said. His mouth was dry and his feet smelled of gymnasium mat, but he was more than alright. He wiped the sweat from his nose and waited for Barbara to settle up. "You good?"
"I'm always good," Babs said, a devilish grin crossing her features as she slid closer to him. Her leg went up for a kick to his ribs.
Tim turned to parry the kick with both hands, giving a hefty shove to Barbara's balance. Fighting with a girl -- with the intent to really leave a mark -- had been a weird feeling for Tim. Until the first kick to the face. Now, it was ok.
Speaking of hits to the face, Barbara used his shoving momentum to grab him by the shoulders and swing her head against his. "Shit." That hadn't exactly been flawless execution. Little spots danced before her eyes.
The whole room took a spin for Tim. Blood rushed to his skull and buzzed in his ears. He disengaged from Barbara, putting safe distance between them while his head cleared. "God! Fail! What're you doing!?"
Babs rubbed her forehead, moving to the side of the room. "You think criminals are going to go easy on you? We're preparing for a war, Tim, a war." Now where had she put her water bottle?
Tim rubbed his temples. "I'm not an idiot, ok? Who taught you to headbutt?" He wobbled over to the side of the room, grabbed the red blur that was his Gatorade form his gym bag and held it against his head. "Who needs criminals when I've got you."
"I was improvising....Are you okay?" Barbara asked, sitting down next to her water bottle. She hadn't realized how long they'd been going at it, but now that she was taking a break, she felt beat.
"Just my brain, nothing major," Tim said, coming out of the haze of the blow. "Like you said, they won't go easy on me." They also won't have the combat experience, Tim thought (slowly), to get close enough to me to headbutt me. "Hey look, we need to talk about something."
If Barbara could've heard that thought, she would've given him another smack to the head. It was dangerous to underestimate the criminals in Gotham, but she was no psychic. Instead, she lay there on the sweaty mat, hand over her eyes. "What's that?"
"Do you really, honestly intend to send me out on the streets of Gotham dressed like a damn Easter egg?"
"What are you talking about?" Babs blinked, turning her face to Tim.
Tim had the wherewithal to keep his voice low, not out of a desire for security but out of a desire to not be bitched at by Barbara. "The cape. Bright yellow, no collar? Am I a vigilante or a drag queen?"
"Well if you wanted to make some alterations, you could've just said that," Barbara grumbled, her eyes staring at the wall opposite of Tim as she muttered something about all her hard work.
"If I just asked, you'd tell me to get a clue. Or you'd call me Suzie Homemaker and ask me to make you a pot roast." Tim made pretty good pot roast, but that was beside the point. You couldn't fight crime with pot roast. "Black cape. High collar with a gorget."
"...do you really spend that much time thinking about my insults? Because they don't really work if they're not off the cuff," Babs laughed, rolling over onto her stomach. "Fine. Black cape -- with yellow lining, and your high collar with gorget for your delicate throat."
Tim gave a satisfied smile as he tucked one leg up and gave a stretch. "And when somebody goes for my delicate throat, you'll wish you had one, too."
"If it'd quiet you down, I'd do it myself," Babs grinned, the mean teasing now becoming a regular part of their routine. She set her water bottle down and began stretching herself out.
"Why do you think I want a gorget?" Tim switched legs. "Do you think there's a way to get our hands on kevlar? Because kevlar would be clutch."
"Oh yeah, that's easy," Babs replied, waving a hand in the air. "I have a bunch of leftovers from my suit."
Tim nodded for a moment and then stopped short. "So wait, you just have kevlar bits lying around? I didn't think civilians could get their hands on kevlar...not cheap or easy at least."
"Actually I think the whole bicoast rap war thing changed that...and you can get used kevlar at the police station," Babs sat up, rolling her shoulders. "See, when they upgrade all the new equipment, it's against regulations to downgrade officers to older materials so some of the stuff just sits around collecting dust until they can sell it. They're not the best, and they won't stop everything, but...saved my life. Fun fact of the day."
Tim nodded respectfully. "Well I learned something." It would be a lie to say that Tim didn't feel worlds better knowing that he'd have something other than a few layers of underarmour to protect himself. He fought the urge to do a handstand.
"I guess I should get going..." Babs said, glancing at the clock on the wall. "I need to pick up Jimmy from his afterschool stuff. Good spar today."
It was a compliment, honest and sincere and well-earned, and Tim tried to hide his thrill. "Thanks. How far are you walking? I'll walk with you." He pulled on a sweatshirt, emblazoned proudly with his previous school's name, mascot and a substantial XC scrawled across his back.
"Going to the park to pick up Jimmy and then heading home," Babs smiled, tossing the sweaty top half of her judogi into her back and pulling on a heavy sweater. She popped her bare feet into a pair of sneakers. "But I could use the company. Thanks."
"Of course." Tim wished he could offer her a ride, but he didn't have a vehicle. The Honda he and his father had gone to look at last week would have been a tight ride for two people, and certainly impossible for three.
To be fair, Jimmy was small. Barbara smiled, holding the door open for him. "I'm just gonna go return the room key." She scampered off to the front desk, trading the key for her school ID. She glanced around to see where Tim had gotten off to. "So. How's school?"
"It's alright, I mean, half of my classes are throwaway. Next year I can make my job count as a 'work study' or somesuch," he made the appropriate punctuation marks with his fingers. "And, you know, there's apparently only two pregnant girls this year."
"Only two! Things are looking up for Gotham's public education system," Babs snerked, working her way out into the brisk night air. "How is our D.A. doing these days?"
"Working. Working a lot. He gets very focused when he's working long hours, we all have to help him remember to do things like sleep and shave. But on the other hand, the dress code is a little less stressed." Which was good for Tim and his two pairs of Dockers.
"No wonder he and my dad get along," Babs smiled, shaking her head. "Though he remembers to shave. And trim his moustache. But then there's no Mrs. Harvey Dent."
The March afternoon outside was sunny but brisk, a stubborn wind snapping through the weary trees lining the street. "I thought he was kind of involved with Vicki Vale, they spend a lot of time, she visits and brings him food all the time. I guess I figured they were a ... thing."
"That's funny, 'cause she was giving Bruce Wayne the eye at Cobblepot's Halloween party," Babs observed. File it under 'W' for Vicki Vale's a whore... She smiled a little at her internal joke. "Either way, I've hardly heard of her putting any moves on Harvey Dent."
"It's not moves, she dotes on him. Feeding him and giving him a hard time for not sleeping. It's the way Mom used to treat Dad. And doesn't every woman in Gotham give Bruce Wayne the eye? I mean, he's loaded. He's like the money from the Geico commercial, just cash with eyes." Tim didn't read the gossip columns in the Gazette. No, not at all. Never.
"There's more to guys than money," Babs shrugged her shoulders. Give her the rugged, badass Batman over a cushy playboy like Bruce Wayne any day. "Girls who dote on men like Harvey Dent are never a long term thing anyway. It's that whole 'I can fix you' thing. Never good. Women like that are crazy." Nevermind that that had been almost exactly what she'd been doing with the nerdy JP. She was still going to judge Vicki.
"Well how about girls who giggle when you make a joke and declare you 'cutest reporter' at the school paper and then stand you up for an 8:40 showing of Twilight after you thoroughly humiliated yourself by buying the tickets? Are they crazy or just terrible human beings?"
"They are the worst kind of human beings, but trust me when I tell you their quality of life will take a sudden drop in their twenties and fall off a cliff at 30," Babs laughed, shaking her head. "Bitches don't play the dating game for the long run."
Tim smiled, but he couldn't help but sigh. His 20s felt decades away. "So when are we gonna work on this freedom running stuff you keep bragging about?"
"Free running?" Babs raised an eyebrow, glancing over at him. "Oh sure. We can practice a bit, and then I'll bring you to a club meeting. You have a gymnastics background and cross country, so you'll probably pick it up like that. The biggest difference is learning to recognize all the body physics, like when to shift your weight right."
"Very cool." Free running -- not freedom running, Tim had assumed it was something terribly patriotic to do -- just sounded so badass. He looked over at Barbara, her hair very, very red in the spring sun. "Um...thanks."
"No prob," Barbara smiled, shrugging her shoulders. "The philosophy behind it is very in line with what you're going to be doing...reclaiming all the unused spaces on the urban landscape, traveling where people usually don't."
Tim didn't know what else to say. The school was up ahead, a small throng of parents and kids milling in either direction from the entrance. He'd never walked to or from school at that age, it simply wouldn't have done. Most kids were picked up by a parent, sibling or well-paid caretaker. Even Tim's parents, unconcerned with the trappings of wealth, had made an effort to fetch him in Mom's new Toyota, rather than parade around his father's work truck. "Where's Jimmy?"
"3...2..." And Barbara's blond haired brother ran at her like a wrecking ball, latching onto her waist. They'd enrolled him in all sorts of afterschool activities and kiddie sports clubs to try and wear down his boundless energy, but it was all to no avail. "Hey Jimbo...this is my friend Tim."
Jimmy glanced up at the stranger and then back at Babs before proclaiming, "I thought JP was your boyfriend..."
Babs had to hold back an audible groan. "You met him all of once, and no JP isn't my boyfriend anymore, and Tim isn't either. He's just a friend. Now do you have all your stuff?" Her brother nodded, presenting himself for inspection. Babs checked him over before turning to Tim. "I guess we'll get going then. I'll talk to you online?"
"Yeah, you know where to find me," Tim said, a touch distracted at this new feeling in response to Babs' admonishment. What was it? Not anger, not frustration...disappointment? "Take care, I'll see you around. Nice meeting you, Jimmy."
"BYE!" The boy shouted. Barbara rolled her eyes and waved to Tim before dragging her brother off to the house.