capeandcowllogs | Yes, he is thinking that it's a good place for a date. Fffffffff. [INCOMPLETE]

Yes, he is thinking that it's a good place for a date. Fffffffff. [INCOMPLETE]

WHO: Dick (Robin) and Layla
WHERE: Wherever
WHEN: March 24th, day
WHAT: Layla and Dick haven't talked since Dick was 18.
WARNING: None. Well apparently they're going to flirt. /flails
FORMAT: Para.

The City went to chaos and so Layla and Dick hadn't seen each other since after the age-swap when Dick had turned twelve again. And he wasn't even twelve anymore - which Layla had known. And Tim, apparently.

And then Batman had left and he'd gone back to living between the Cave and the Tower. He hadn't felt comfortable living with a Batman that wasn't his and his life going back to being without a Batman around simplified the matter of not caring about Batman too much.

In fact, he wasn't particularly hurt that he'd vanished and although he couldn't tell if it was because he was just starting to lack regular morality or if he just wasn't blurring lines and getting attached to any Batman ever, he chose to believe it was positive and so that it was because of that later explanation.

And so, now thirteen, Batman-less and thoroughly exhausted, Dick wandered in a small wood on the East side of the City, near a park. No one ever hanged out in the wood, sticking to where things were pretty and had benches to sit on, and so Dick liked to go there sometimes. There wasn't any snow anymore and it was easy to climb trees. When it'd be a little hotter, he could foresee himself going there to take naps and spend a lot of time just hanging from branches thirty feet above ground. And it was kind of beautiful and uh - well -

For now, it was a good place to expect Layla and wait for her.

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It was the first time Dick had someone on his bike with him and even though he knew the gist of it and what to do to make sure they wouldn't both die (which included a short detour to avoid the main road, apparently) but it was something else entirely to have Layla pressed behind him.

It wasn't unsettling, not exactly, Dick had been trained to be able to perform under very intense pressure and stress since he was born or nearly so. That had helped him with the meditation techniques a lot more than anything Batman or Tim had showed him.

Either way, it was weird but not bad and they made it to the Cave without any incidents. He entered the 'abandoned warehouse' with his bike and went through the security there to enter the Cave with the vehicle. There, he parked and turned around to look at Layla.

"That's the Cave. It's different than the one back in my universe but the dinosaur's the most important and Batman found one here, too. No idea how," he joked. And the joke meant way more than it seemed because the reason why Batman had gotten the giant dinosaur even here had been because Dick had told him he liked it before. Or - that's what Dick had guessed.

The ride was nice, and Layla managed to enjoy the scenery on the way to the cave. Even though she was born and raised in Hell's Kitchen, she still couldn't help but love watching New York. And since this was the closest thing to it, that didn't change. It was nicer enjoying the time with Dick too, and she was thankful that he trusted her enough to do this.

When they finally reached their destination and made their way inside, Layla couldn't help but smile widely. "Hey, you can never go wrong with dinosaurs, you know. Besides, they're way more interesting than door mats anyhow," she chuckled and folded her arms over her middle.

"Dinosaurs or not though, I'm ready for some crazy somersaults."

He smiled at Layla and gestured to her to follow him, bringing her a bit deeper in the cave where the training equipment was. Mats, weights, rings and the trapezes. There were two of them and they had magnetic control - they could swing without anyone's help. It made some fake-transfers possible even though Dick had no one to practice with.

"Give me a minute." He moved to the changing area quickly to put on tighter clothes that wouldn't bother his movements by moving around while he was in the air and wasn't wearing any shoes when he came back.

"All ready to show off for you," he said, grinning. He then went to the stairs and climbed up, looking down at Layla once on top. He grabbed the trapeze next to him and started the movement of the other one at the speed he knew he'd get himself. As soon as that was done, he had his poker face back on, concentrating enough. They didn't have safety nets in the Cave and that was fine with him. Even if he did fall, he could catch himself before hitting the ground. Hell, he'd fallen the night Bruce was there and his parents has been shot.

He timed himself and jumped gracefully from the platform with the trapeze a few seconds later, climbing over the bar swiftly before the swing was complete to he could go a simple transfer by letting himself fall onto the second one, his hands sliding down the ropes and griping on the bar at the last moment. He crossed his arm on it and pulled himself higher just enough to switch around and face the other swinging trapeze once again, the movement fluid and natural.

Balancing his legs under him to keep the swing going, Dick waited for both trapeze to be close again and proceeded to do another transfer - a double somersault this time - and grabbed onto the first trapeze, letting it bring him back to the platform where he stopped for a second and looked down.

"Triple and quadruple next?" he asked loudly.

Edited 2009-04-17 05:46 (UTC)

Layla followed him without a word, just looking around at all the equipment laying around the cave. Batman had Dick set up pretty good, Layla thought. The training area was also much less dangerous looking than the one X-Force had back home, so that was good too. She liked that Dick's exercise place was a more natural one that suited his skills; not relying on powers and an armoury of weapons was more impressive than most heroes would ever admit. That was definitely something that appealed to Layla about Dick.

When the boy stepped out fully changed and ready to go, she couldn't help but smile. "All right, you better make it impressive!"

And it was, of course. Just tossing himself from one trapeze to another was impressive in her eyes, but the double somersault just made her jump in excitement. Layla was aware that he would not fall, so there was no reason for her to be scared for him.

"Oh, please do!" she grinned up at him and blew her hair from her face. "That's crazy!"

The thing about longer somersault was that he had to get the trapezes going quickly enough to give him a lot of impulsion and momentum to make the turns in the air fast and swift. But at the same time, if the trapeze was swinging faster, it meant it'd be gone faster, too, and that it was easier to miss the transfer.

Dick knew how to deal with that, of course. He was small and light and that was probably what helped him out the most to manage these tricks: he could jump off in advance and just - be in between the trapezes for longer. The longer the somersault, the earlier he had to jump off and that was when he truly was flying, in suspension for a few exceptionally long seconds.

It was harder trick, still. He waited for a bit, concentrating more because he needed to, and took off holding the bar firmly. He jumped off higher, a bit in advance on the second trapeze, and did the triple somersault without thinking about it that much - he hadn't screwed up a triple in ages. Then, he let himself land on the platform on the other side because he was going to need the push to start off. He didn't look down - he was performing.

His initial trapeze made one full swing and Dick watched it carefully to be sure he would be leaving the platform at the right time. He still, sometimes, didn't jump high enough ot turn on himself fast enough and was forced to do a triple instead of a quadruple for safety issues. But, hey, if he was going to screw up now, Layla would know already so she wasn't going to be disappointed. He smiled at that thought when he pushed himself off and knew when he let go of the bar that it was going to turn out. Then it was as slow and fast as it usually was and he was back on the platform, grinning down at Layla.

"Was that impressive enough?"

He looked so determined and focused up there, and it was something else to see Dick in his element. Layla thought he made it look so easy. That kind of skill and exercise would take a life time to learn, and yet Dick flew and twisted with grace and ease. It was exciting to watch, really, and a lot better than just knowing he was capable.

So from the ground she stood and watched, eyes glued to his body as he moved and she couldn't help but grin. Mesmerized. As an orphan, Layla had never been given the opportunity to even see a circus before. It made her feel like a little kid all over again - which was something that didn't happen often to someone with the weight of the world's future on her shoulders.

"Impressive barely covers it!" she yelled up and clapped her hands at him. "That was awesome! Guess the codename really suits you after all, huh?"

Dick kept grinning as he started climbing down the platform quickly, after deactivating the magnetic system and putting the trapezes the way they were before he'd gotten on them.

"I could probably come up with some routine if you want at some point," he said, on the ground one again. He could even go back up there and improvise something right on the spot instead of making that half-suggestion. Possibly. He hadn't used the trapezes like that forever. Or used them at all, really, other than for cardio. Exercising.

"I'd suggest to get you up there and make you try out a thing or two but we don't have a net and - yeah. You know where I'm going with that."

He tilted his head a little, squinting just barely, suddenly studying her. "I can't tell if you have any strength in your arms or not," he said finally.

"Hey, I bet a routine would be cool!" she grinned at that and placed her hands on her hips and she watched him tidy up. "I've never seen one before. What you did right there is it! Well, besides the TV and all that."

It was kind of exciting that he was opening the door to something new for her. While Layla held a lot of knowledge about things, she didn't have much experience in anything at all, really. She was a regular kid until her parents died, and when she turned into a mutant at the orphange it was worse. No one liked to see a fire-breathing little girl running around in public, especially one that didn't have the proper supervision. Circuses were just a no go, and now it was like Robin had his own little show and that was cool. Layla liked that, as well as the probability of a routine.

As for strength though? She scoffed. "If I do, it isn't much. I'm not like the rest of you jumping around, flipping, and fist fighting all the time. I prefer prank phone calls and rigging bets, thank-you very much!"

Dick's thoughts went through a lot of possibilities about what he could do and what she could do with nearly no strength in her arms. Even the most simple transfer would be hard because she'd still have to hang on the bar with one hand at some point.

And that made him wonder about his own limits - could he hang on the bar and hold Layla's waist at the same time to give her some support until she grabbed the second trapeze with both hands after a transfer? He was already way ahead of himself though - he didn't even know if she was interested into any of that. For Dick, that was just someone he loved, it was part of his life, and it felt natural to want to share it with her. And he was doing so and was going to keep on doing so by performing himself, but in no way that meant she'd want to be up there.

And anyway, he'd need to put up a net. It'd have to be high, a few meters under the platforms only so that falling down wouldn't be dangerous at all and would be a short fall -

Yeah. Ahead of himself didn't even begin to describe it.

"You don't have an offensive power and.. aren't likely to get into lots of fights? So that's logical. You could probably manage to kill someone without fighting just by knowing where to place yourself or what to move where, anyway."

He swiped the sweats off his hands on his shirt. He hadn't stayed up there for long enough for it to get bad, but if he'd planned on something longer he'd have used chalk powder to keep himself from slipping eventually.

"I'll come up with something and we can come back here some other time." It was easier to push the thought of what-Batman-would-have-to-say-about-that away as he spoke.

"Yeah, fighting isn't really my thing," she agreed with a nod and left it at that. The idea of announcing deaths she'd been responsible for in the past wasn't exactly appealing. It would make her a hypocrite considering all the stuff she and Dick had talked about over the months. The killing, the Joker, preventing and evading him from becoming said Joker. It just wasn't a very comfortable conversation. Though she'd been able to kill people without a flinch, it didn't mean she liked bringing it up. "But you're probably right; some people would underestimate me in a situation, I guess."

Smiling again and the topic of a routine, Layla folded her arms over her middle as she watched him tidy up. "As long as your team is up for it, fine. I'd be more than happy to come back!"

"It's not as if I rally had a team right now. Not one that hangs out here, anyway."

Tim did spend enough time in the Cave and on the computers, but Dick didn't intend to hide that from him. Batman would probably mind random people in the Cave... but Batman wasn't here. And Layla would know where it was, even without Dick bringing her here.

"I'll tell Tim. He'll be okay with it." Or, more likely, he would say something but wouldn't stop Dick anyway. A few seconds went by that made him uncomfortable because he had no idea where this was going, now. But his attention had been driven away from anything important and that, for him, was considered a success.

"Do you wanna stay here? Or - we could go out again. To do something really cliché like getting ice cream."

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Yes, he is thinking that it's a good place for a date. Fffffffff. [INCOMPLETE]

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