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Tweak says, "I love Minas Tirith.."

Barbara Gordon (alwaysabat) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2010-05-12 01:55:00

Entry tags:

barbara gordon/oracle, xander harris

Who: Barbara Gordon and Xander Harris
What: Babs is being stubborn in her new apartment.
When: Evening, December 11, 2010
Where: Babs apartment and ?
Why: Because she's being stubborn, misses Xander and has sort of barricaded herself inside for the last 2 days.

For the last two days, while she had seen Tim twice no one else had seen Barbara Gordon. The last two days had been spent almost solely in front of her computer, ignoring the stinging of her forehead - but changing the bandages as need dictated. She'd eaten some but she'd been desperately trying to figure out what had happened! It didn't make sense. So far they hadn't met a Demon that could do this. She'd gone through was there was finished of Chloe's database, but it wasn't of any help and she was physically tired.

She'd gone over the video frame by frame - which was what she was in the middle of doing right now. But there wasn't anythign to be found. Nothing! It was if nothing had happened at all! Her satelite uplink didn't even ave anything. It was as if... as if something had literally shielded the city from sight! And that just didn't make sense. And when something didn't make sense she had to keep going until it did!

She sat back in the chair, hearing Virgil and Richie through the connecting door - undoubtably doing something like playing videogames. Her head hurt... not just her wound but her mind hurt. And there weren't any answers coming to her. She'd spent two weeks as an accountant, with Bobby as her paternal figure (which she actually liked), an ex and a boyfriend. Who came up with this! She didn't know... and it didn't matter where she went the clown still followed her. Barbara moved to rub her temples onlt to find the bandage got in the way... Why couldn't things here be easier?

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xander_shaped
2010-05-11 08:24 am UTC (link)

As of now, Xander found that he was feeling incredibly fortunate. Yeah, he got caught in the whole week of crazy shenanigans from...well, wherever all that crazy had come from to begin with, but he had come out of it with a lot less damage on his person than some of the other people around here. No sex tape scandals, no accidental marriages, no epically worrying experiences of fail that he had to deal with in association to any of those things or anything like those things. All in all, Xander thought that it was pretty safe to say that someone out there liked him enough to not fuck around with him as much as the others or someone out there just didn't care enough to. Quite honestly, at this point, Xander would take either option. So long as no one ever caught him on a sex tape. At least not unless it was on a sex tape with someone ridiculously attractive. Like Angelina Jolie. Or, ohhh, even that Megan Fox. Dear God, that chick was a ten and then some. Like a lot of some. In fact, she might as well have just taken the whole friggin' cake because that woman was -

"That'll be seven dollars."

"- huh?" Xander blinked.

The man in the funny pink hat sighed, then shifted from one foot to the other. "Seven dollars is your total, sir."

Xander rubbed a hand along his face. Crap. That was what he got for choosing to think about things when he was in a public place. Or choosing to think at all. He really had to stop doing that. It made his head all...itchy. Fishing out the right amount of money for his purchase (a box of donuts), Xander passed them over the counter to Pink Hat Guy and dragged the box of donuts off the counter. Right. Donuts. That was where he had been before all of the thinking had taken place. He had walked into the store, decided on grabbing a box of donuts for himself and Babs to split because he had been long overdue on a visit, and then...Megan Fox. Guh.

"Sir?"

"Huh?" Xander blinked again.

Pink Hat Guy sighed. "Here's your change." The man extended the handful of quarters and dimes at him. Xander balanced the box of donuts out with one hand and swiped the coins from him. Jamming them into his pocket, Xander turned and began to walk. No more spacing out. No more thinking. Otherwise, by the time he got to Babs' place, it'd be late. Really late. And the Pink Hat Guy might well huff at him again, which Xander didn't want because he sort of reminded him of a taller, but uglier version of Andrew. So, hiking up the box in his arms, Xander pushed out of the store and headed straight back to the apartment building. He knew that Babs had moved, so he changed directions from his usual route to her place and located the new apartment. Once there, Xander leaned to the side and began to knock at her door.

"Heya, Babs? It's me, Xander. Open up. I come bearing yummy, delicious treats of yummy deliciousness."

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alwaysabat
2010-05-11 09:10 am UTC (link)

She was halfway through day 12 of the building and surrounding area's trip into Lala Land when she keard the knock at the door. While she wasn't at first inclined to answer it, upon hearing the voice on the other side she knew that she couldn't say no, couldn't not let him it. It was Xander. And that by itself was enough to make her pause the feed and slowly wheel around.

Barbara was clearly not in the best of sorts. She'd been up since early that morning and had been doing the same thing - with two breaks to see tim - for two days straight. She was hungy, and she knew that whatever he brought was another reason that he was getting entrance. It wasn't that she looked bad, she was just tired, and in a mess of pain. But still she managed to put a smile on her face as she came to the door. Unlike her other apartment, this one was painted a light shade of green. She wondered if Oliver had had anything to do with it, but it really accented the place well.

Pulling the door open she saw im standing there with a box in his hand. She brushed some of the hair out of her face, starting to wonder if she shouldn't have put it up,. "Hey," it didn't hurt to smile, but whenever she moved her forehead? It hurt like a bitch! And she was stubborn. It was not a good combination. She wheeled her self from the doorway and smiled - or tried to. "Come on in."

She waited for him to enter before closing the door. "Its not much different," she smiled trying to make it as genuine as possible. "But at least the place is painted, right?" Apparantly why she hadn't been herself she'd mahanged to get everything unpacked. Turning her chair around she watched ZXander for several minutes, trying to avoid the obvious questions about her forehead.

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xander_shaped
2010-05-13 12:10 am UTC (link)

Barbara had mentioned that she had gotten attacked during the entire alternate life filled with ghostly shenanigans fiasco, but she had failed to mention just as to how bad she looked. Xander couldn't help but stare at the bandage plastered across her forehead. That was not nothing. It wasn't something that a person could just shrug off and state was perfectly fine. Or, okay, maybe for some people - like Buffy - it was. But Babs wasn't Buffy. She was a regular person, who could easily suffer from brain damage or something to that extreme if she wasn't properly looked after. Or...maybe he was looking too into the situation. But one couldn't blame him for worrying, could they? Xander was a worrier when it came to those that he cared about. He most certainly listed Babs among that group of people. Clamping his mouth shut, Xander shouldered the door shut behind himself, set the box of donuts aside, and folded his arms over his chest in annoyance as he looked over at her. Who really cared about the paint? All apartments had paint in them. This one was different from the others given that she had moved in with it that way, fine, but that wasn't even relatively important in comparison to the condition that he was now finding her in.

"You said that you were okay," Xander said, raising his brows in irritation, "that does not look okay. Did you even go down to see Martha or did you just slap a band-aid on your face and decide that you were all fine and dandy?" He didn't even know what the damage was underneath the bandage. But if it was major enough for her to require a bandage on her face to begin with then, yes, Xander was going to worry. Most people shrugged off the bandage part of their healing process if the injuries on their faces weren't all that important.

...had she gotten stitches? Was that why she was wearing those bandages?

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alwaysabat
2010-05-13 03:20 am UTC (link)

She'd been hoping, praying that he didn't bring this up. But when there was an extra large bandage on your head it... it was like having a bullseye, wasn't it? You were bound to not only notice it but ask questions about it. And from the look on his face it was very clear to Barbara that Xander was concerned... moreso when he started talking. Even... irritated?

Had she gone down? No. She hadn't had time. But then again she was used to just ignoring stuff. She hadn't spoken about it, but now she really didn't have a choice.

"No," she sighed. "I didn't. Didn't have any time. I've been here for the last few days trying to get an inkling of what happened! But the survei surveillance lance tapes are just... they're blank! Completely blank!" She sighed. Maybe she was trying to change the subject slightly. "It hurts a bit, but I put antiseptic on it." It was one of those wounds that was on the borderline between needing stitches and not needing stitches. Instead of checking - even though she'd seen just how bad the wound was. The skin had been broken, she hadn't had any real trouble thinking. She'd been through worse back when she'd been swinging around Gotham.

She turned around to face him. "Its like something didn't want us seeing what happened... that they erased the tapes." She had to stop momentarily, smiling even though her head hurt slightly. And it did. She was stubborn. There had been times that she'd had to be ordered to go to Leslie for medical treatment, hell when she'd been taken over by B-13, she'd worked till she couldn't work anymore while infected!

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xander_shaped
2010-05-15 12:49 am UTC (link)

"If they're completely blank, then there's nothing for you to really look into, is there?" Blank tapes meant zero. Nothing. Nada. Babs was aimlessly digging into something that she was never going to get answers out of. This was a complete and total waste of her time and Xander honestly wasn't sure why she was still bothering to begin with. She didn't look like she was feeling all that well; Babs really didn't need to be stressing herself over a big, fat pile of absolutely nothing. "You need to see someone," Xander pointed out, looking annoyed, "how do you expect to accomplish anything when there could be serious damage in your head right now?" She could be bleeding in her brain for all she knew. Xander really wasn't okay with that.

"I'm sure that they didn't want us to see what happened. And if this is because of someone powerful? Then I don't think digging around these security tapes - especially not when you're feeling like crap - is going to get us any immediate results. Why don't you let me take you down to see Martha? I should really take you down to see Martha." He didn't care about the security tapes right now. None of that mattered when Babs was hurt. Especially when that hurt looked kind of severe and was very, very worrying.

He had been hoping to come up here and share a box of donuts with her. Maybe even joke around about how weird the past few weeks had been. Instead, Xander had walked into a situation where he couldn't help but be majorly concerned. And could one blame him? After everything that had been happening lately, all Xander could do was worry. What was going to happen next? Who was going to give them their next alternate life or turn them into women or whatever?

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alwaysabat
2010-05-15 05:25 am UTC (link)

She'd seen the look on his face before. She'd seen it on Alfred's face when she worked herself too hard. She saw it on her father's face when she'd come home and said that she was limping because she'd just hurt her ankle, when in fact she'd nearly had her leg broken in a fight. He was annoyed and concerned and she supposed that she was giving him not just one but every reason to be. Sometimes she was too stubborn for her own good. But she couldn't stop. And she knew it.

"There could be undercoded data," she tried to make the arguement to stay, but she already knew that she had lost it. There was arguing when someone had that look on their face. It was just one of those things. His insistance only helped matters. Zinda had said that she didn't take good enough care of herself. Maybe it was a pattern. She really should start doing it, despite what she thought? She wasn't invincible. Perhaps her spirit, but not physically.

Closing the computer, Barbara nodded. "Alright." He'd used Martha's name twice, the emphasis was clear. She sighed, her shoulders falling in defeat. Xander was probably right. "Probably should practice what I've been telling the girls, right?" she asked with a near laugh. It wasn't really funny, but she wanted to at least try to lighten up the mood a bit. She stretched and started heading towards the door, trying to change the subject slightly as she rolled. "So? I wound up in accounting and you were a temp?" if memory served her correct that was it... right? "I can tell you one thing. If I never see another reimbursement request, it will be too soon." Maybe it wasn't the time for humor, she pulled her keys out, but she didn't want to worry him more. She was now feeling rather bad for making him worry the way he was now...

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xander_shaped
2010-05-17 06:03 am UTC (link)

Undercoded date. Right. Xander might have bought that if they were in some sort of movie filled with super spies and government conspiracies alike, but this wasn't anywhere near all that. It was far more likely that all of this had something more to do with some sort of pissed off spirit or supernatural being - at least in his experience - that no video tape could possibly begin to detect the presence of. Especially of said video tapes were coming up blank after being viewed initially. Xander would have been all for the secret agent spiel, along with any other cool James Bond, spy-like situation. But, for once in his life, he was choosing to be realistic. Babs was injured. She probably needed to be looked at. He could ramble on about crazy alien attacks later at her, but right now all Xander was worried about was making sure that she could get back to work in one piece rather than in several broken pieces scattered within her wheelchair.

Xander breathed out a sigh of relief when she started rolling for the door. At least he wasn't gonna have to drag her out. Or roll her out. Whatever the case, she was leaving. And Xander was going to personally make sure that she got where she was headed too. Yes, that's right - Babs was getting her own Xander-shaped escort. "Yeah, that was me. Temp guy. Really not the most thrilling of careers. I'd much rather be out hammering around for someone." He rubbed at the side of his face. "I mean, hammering something for someone. Like wood. With a nail. Not...hammering. In a weird sexual way or anything like that."

Because that was weird. Yeah. Xander skipped the facepalm though, opting to open the door for Babs instead.

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alwaysabat
2010-05-17 07:38 am UTC (link)

She laughed at his choice of words, taking a second to decode them before he himself did the task for her. It gave her an idea. A good idea actually. One that she filed away for later, given the date she might need it later. "Do we call that a Freudian slip?" she teased, smiling to thank him for opening the door. She couldn't help the chuckle that escaped as she rolled out.

She waited for him before starting to roll herself down the hall. The stairs were always an issue. She couldn't wait until they finally installed an elevator, but there was no telling just how long that might take. Generally she got someone to help her when she really needed to go out, but it was another reason she's generally stayed inside more than she went out. "For someone so used to working with their hands, it must have been weird doing... well that. Though I don't think I've ever been in a weirder job than that," she frowned before smirking. "Bobby's offered to let me shoot Betsy - his gun - for real, becaue in lala land he kept teasing me about it and shooting Mal if he didn't treat me right." She smiled. "Its actually scary how much he sounded like my dad." She shook her head.

She'd spent the last several days going through everything she'd seen in the database when she'd been up at Bobby's looking for answers. "I'm really starting to wonder just what could have caused this. It had to be something really powerful in order to completely blank everything like that." Seeing the stairs approaching she steeled herself. It was like they were a nemesis that she couldn't defeat. The one and the few. She knew that given the circumstances therewas only one way down... she'd just have to make it up to him.

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xander_shaped
2010-05-17 09:43 am UTC (link)

"More like a Xander Sucks With Phrasing Sentences Thing," Xander replied, rolling his eyes in embarrassment. He was glad that she took the slip in amusement though. It was way better than her thinking he was being creepy or weird and getting all kinds of offended. One hand slid into his pocket as the other pulled the door shut behind them as soon as they were both safely out in the hallway. "I wasn't used to working with my hands when I was there," Xander pointed out, shrugging, "nope, I was a completely different Xander with completely different experiences. I think I even worked at a strip club once." He wrinkled his nose, then shook his head. Well, it wasn't like he hadn't done that before in his life either. But that was not something that he was willing to share with Babs. Why? Because he didn't want to embarrass himself even more than he already had. Again.

"Bobby, huh?" Xander didn't really know that guy too well outside of the training stuff. It was weird to think of him as a father figure, but Xander shrugged it off. That was kind of like thinking that Giles was a father type figure. Maybe it worked for Buffy, but kids in general? Nah. "You gonna give old Betsy a try then?" He put on a country accent at that, grinning in amusement. Betsy. Who in the heck named their gun Betsy? Or anything, for that matter? It was like Kendra and her stake. Mr. Pointy. Kinda weird.

"Not too sure on it myself," Xander said, shaking his head, "I figure it's definitely something bigger and badder than either of us are." He frowned. "Probably a lot uglier too. The big bads usually are." Then there were the few that surprised you. Like Anya. Of course, when she had her demon face on - ugh, no. No, Xander wasn't going to think about Anya. He cleared his throat awkwardly and looked ahead. Stairs. Poor Babs. She really needed an elevator installed here one of these days. This building really wasn't handicap friendly. "All right, let's park the chair over here." Xander grabbed the handles from behind her and pushed her to the side, right where the wall was before it split out into the stairwell. He'd have to come back up for the chair. Right now? He needed to worry about getting Babs down safely.

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alwaysabat
2010-05-19 05:36 am UTC (link)

There were very few people that Barbara would willingly let take her out of her chair. Dick was one, Bruce was one, Alfred, her father and even Tim if it was necessary. But recently Xander had - whether she realized it until this point or not - been added to that group. They were people that she trusted (who could lift here, that was mostly the reason for it being men...) It was a good thing, she decided. It was a show of complete trust, because although she knew how to defend herself, this was when she was at her most vulnerable.

She put the brake on her chair, ready to push out of it when the time came. This wasn't the first time she'd had to do this dance with Xander. She hoped that soon it wouldn't be necessary... it was stupid but it made her feel weak, having to rely on another person to move in the building. But she didn't say anything on the subject.

"I'm not sure... I'm now rather curious about that rifle. And, if I'm being honest with myself? I need to help finish up that database Chloe was doing becfore she disappeared. We're nearly done, but not quite. One more trip up should do it," she tried to smile. It really was bothering her that they didn't know what had caused this. Was it possible that there was yet another group out there? There was no way of knowing.

Waiting as he seemed to prepare, she knew that she wanted to do something nice for him. "Hey..." she started gently. "After this," she had ever confidence that she would be cleared medically. "Do you want to get something to eat?" she asked. "My treat."

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