Who: Barbara Gordon, Dick Grayson. When: About a week and a half after the GCPD run-in. Where: Their respective homes. What: Dick gives Barbara a call and they make plans for a parkour outing.
It was about a week and a half after Dick had met Barbara at the police station; he'd meant to call that weekend, but then he'd received a pretty serious set of bruises fighting some muggers as Nightwing, and he'd opted to wait until they healed to go out for parkour practice. There were things that a long-sleeved work shirt would conceal that exercise gear would not.
As he dialed Barbara's number, he began to question what he was doing. She'd been a great girl, but was it really smart to go running with someone now that he had 'extracurriculars' to keep secret? And worse: Gordon's daughter?
In the end, he decided that it was too late - he'd been in the parkour club and a lot of people had seen him run. No secrets there. He'd just have to be mindful of what he was doing. And so, the phone rang.
Barbara sat perched on her wooden desk chair, legs criss crossed underneath her, fingers tapping a mile a minute as she poured over maps of Gotham: public transportation, sewers, electrical grid, the banks, the hospitals, churches, schools, stations, all of it. She figured if she spent a good two hours each day studying them, what she didn't know as an unusually precocious Gotham native would fill itself in or at least seep into her photographic memory. So she immersed herself into Gotham's landscape, not bothering to glance away from her screen as she grabbed her ringing phone and held it to her ear.
"M'yello?" She answered, reaching out for her cup of coffee as she wondered if it was too soon to try her hand at patrolling again. Even without the suit.
"Barbara? It's Dick Grayson, the clerk from the police station." The tone was hopeful; he wasn't honestly certain that she'd remember him. He cupped the cell phone to his ear and walked towards the window, which was cracked to try and circulate some of the summer heat out of his apartment. Muffled shouts could be heard in the background, as a loud argument was happening down on the street. Dick started to shut out the noise by dropping the pane and fixing the lock, but he hesitated and leaned against the glass. Nope. No weapons, no places to hide weapons. He closed his window.
"I was calling because I was considering going out for a run tomorrow, and I wanted to see if you were still interested in parkour practice."
It was some miracle of reflexes that kept Barbara's spit-take in her mug and not all over the laptop screen. "Dick, hey!" she managed, setting her mug down and letting her legs unravel until she could feel the cool of the floor on the soles of her feet. Honestly, the guy had left Barbara in suspense, and she had expected that to be that. She hadn't for a moment guessed that he'd be the person on the other end of the phonecall. "It's good to hear from you..."
Now that she was done being baffled by the idea of him phoning, Barbara let her brain play catchup to the conversation. She pulled up her digital planner, reading through the lines of inoccuous codewords--studying, writing, gymnastics, karate lessons--matching these to real-life and dual-indentity-life plans. She'd been planning on training tomorrow anyway. This would practically be the same, right? She knew she was bargaining with herself for a bit of normalcy, and if the Batman could see into her head at that moment, she could bet money he would cancel whatever orders he'd decided to make on her behalf. Still, Barbara reasoned she couldn't let herself burn out completely, and she wasn't letting herself get rusty--she was simply slowing down her usual pace for somebody else. Someone nice who could keep her tethered to reality. "Tomorrow, tomorrow...yeah I can do tomorrow. Where were you planning on running?"
"I hadn't really decided. Sometimes I run around campus because I know the terrain, but it might be nice to change it up. Do you have a favorite spot? I live in West Harlow, so we should definitely not run around here." Dick let out a little laugh, but there wasn't much humor behind it.
That was his concession to 'playing it safe.' No one would see him run the rooftops and railings or vault over barriers in the part of town he worked in costume, lest they make connections.
"I'm also free most of the day; I'm part-time at the Department and class was canceled for tomorrow."
"The U is always a good standby," Barbara added, standing up from her desk only to flop onto her bed. She gnawed somewhat anxiously on the pad of her thumb. "Or..." She closed her eyes, conjuring up the maps and google image searches and memories, forcing the chaos of her memories into rational order. "I just rediscovered this amazing section of Gainsly. It has all this...German inspired architecture and sculpture. It's fun to look at. Haven't tried it out for running though." She rolled from her stomach onto her back, staring up at her ceiling. "It'd be an adventure for both of us...unless you're more comfortable sticking to campus? I'm free anytime after two o'clock."
"Gainsly could work. We could go slow to start until we have a feel for the area." Actually, it would be nice to branch out; there were benefits to knowing one's neighborhood, especially when you spent a lot of time patrolling it, but Dick was honestly ready for some new scenery. "After two is fine, too. Maybe around five? It'll still be hot, but hopefully not as bad as at midday."
"Five it is," Barbara replied, smiling brightly against her phone. She turned to her side, grinning goofily and curling her toes. She'd have to find the cutest work out attire she could throw together from her wardrobe! "Thank you for calling, Dick. I'll see you tomorrow, then?"
"Tomorrow," Dick agreed. "I'll meet you at bus stop 41? I'm going to have to take public transportation over, and that seems like as good a place as any to use as a landmark." In spite of himself, he grinned at nothing in particular. Okay. Maybe this would be fun; he didn't need to feel guilty about it.
"Great, I'll see you then." Barbara replied into the phone. "Bye," she added softly, hanging up before she could embarrass herself. She laughed, flopping around like a fish on her bed for a moment. "Eeeee!" Even hard-working would-be female vigilantes needed to get out from time-to-time.