I was back on my feet extremely fast, so fast that even Bart was impressed with me. As soon as I had regained the ability to walk and run Kara and Megan treated me to a spa day that I desperately needed and Bruce paid our way through. We were each given the royal treatment, it included facials, pedis and manis, massage therapy, mud baths, mineral oil, full body waxing, getting our hair done, the whole enchilada.
Now I'm not a girl who is necessarily obsessed with the way I look, but I do like to feel clean, and it's habit now. I usually have to do what I can to stay looking good since I am the face of Gotham, or at least the daughter of it. The day was over by the time we walked out of the spa looking and feeling completely refreshed. Especially me.
"Wow, I never realized how great massages could feel." Megan giggled excitedly, it had been her first time at the spa. Watching her get her first pedicure was quite a show.
"I feel like I could just fly right now." Kara breathed quietly.
"But you can fly." Megan added innocently.
Kara and I exchanged a look and then laughed heartily. "My point is", she said, "I really needed that."
They both turned to me with smiles, during the entire day they'd been filling me in with more detail about what had happened during the 8 weeks I had missed and how I had been brought back. I was completely lost, what if years had gone by? I'd probably go insane, Bruce would be retired and old, Tim would be an adult, they would all be adults. And I would have missed my primetime of life. I was truly grateful to her for coaxing me out, even though I had no memory of it, and to Bruce since the final decision had been his.
We used one of the secret zeta beam transports to get us back to the Watch Tower. I had a 'date' with Tim. It wasn't really a date AT ALL, I swear. Kara just kept calling it that because she likes to be kind of obnoxious sometimes. All we were going to do was our little routine of getting to know the ins and outs of the Watch Tower, then he was going to help my brother retrain me.
He was already waiting for me on a convenient little bench by the transports. He smiled when he saw us and the girls quickly excused themselves.
"You look well rested." He teased.
I shrugged, "Well 8 weeks of a coma can do that to you."
He chuckled half heartedly and we started our tour of the new watch tower. I thought the last one was big, but this one made it look like a play house. It was more high tech, if that was even possible, with technology that NASA probably wouldn't be seeing for another 50+ years. There were bedrooms where we could stay, the cafeteria was bigger, the hangar was massive, and there were training and simulation rooms galore. It was like a giant superhero playground.
We didn't get to finish the tour, I don't think we even got halfway through it, but that was fine. I'd seen enough already. We went to one of the training rooms Nightwing was already there waiting for us. He indicated to our costumes at the side. Time to suit up.
Training was a lot more intense and painful than I ever remember it being. I'd lost some skills too, my kicks weren't as high as they used to be, my reflexes were slower, my punches were softer. They seriously kicked my butt! If I was in a real life situation I'd be dead. After I started to feel past exhausted I didn't stop, I hated feeling and seeing how much weaker I was. I felt so slow and I continued to get slower.
Finally Nightwing easily dodged a right hook I tried to land on him, got ahold of my wrist and flipped me over. I should've been able to recover from it, by just shifting my weight and sending a kick to his chin as I flipped up and around his arm. As simple and basic as a move that was for me, I couldn't manage it. I landed squarely on my back. My chest heaved as I panted, the cowl felt sticky and irritating on my face.
Robin knelt down next to me to help me sit up but I pushed him away and helped myself instead. Nightwing shook his head at me.
"Don't be tough on yourself, Sis. You couldn't have seriously expected to not be rusty on your first day. It's just going to take some time, that's all."
Time. I was so sick of that word. How much more time did I have to waste? 8 weeks were already gone! Plus another couple trying to relearn walking and running. While Scarecrow is roaming around scot-free. I wanted to lash out and scream my frustration, I wanted to cry, I wanted to be better already.
I bit my lip tightly and stared at my gloved hands on the floor. He patted my shoulder comfortingly. "I'll go get you some water." He said excusing himself promptly.
I sat there in silence with Robin for a bit before he sighed and leaned towards me. "So tell me, what's really eating you?"
"Enough already." I muttered bitterly looking away from him. Couldn't he tell that I obviously didn't want to talk about it.
He brought a hand to my chin and forced me to look into his masked face, "Weren't we having a good day, and you're going to let one training session ruin it?"
"That's the whole point! This isn't training, this is retraining!"
He lounged back coolly and shrugged, "What's the difference? They both have the word 'training' in them. Besides you took an 8 week nap, it'll take some time for your muscles to readjust."
There was that horrid word again. I groaned dramatically and dropped myself backwards on the mat. "I hate that word!"
He sniggered, "Quit being such a baby." He stood up and looked down on me, "You know what a waste of time is? Lying there, feeling sorry for yourself. DO something if you're so miserable. Make yourself fight again they way you used to, just like how you made yourself walk again."
He was so right, yet I couldn't really find the strength to let myself up. I did however have enough strength to stare at him for bit, and the way his suit just kind of curved over his muscles. I can't believe I never really noticed that before. No wonder Arianna had been so infatuated with Tim, I wonder how she'd feel about Robin. Too bad for her, I know both of them very well. No matter what happens she's always going to have some sort wave of secrecy coming off of him. I'll bet she's going to hate me when school starts too, my Dad is going to make Tim show me around. I almost can't wait to see the look on her face.
"Earth to Batgirl?" Robin said in a sing song voice.
I snapped out of it. Holy crap! I couldn't have seriously just been thinking all that. Thank goodness there were no mind readers nearby, I would want to slip back into a coma if there were. He reached his hand out to me.
"Get up!" He smiled, "It'll be just like old times."
We clasped our hands together and he pulled me onto my feet. As soon as I was up I wasted no time swinging my leg around as high as I could get it--for now--to kick him. He saw it coming and ducked. He was going to try to trip me while he was down, so I easily flipped back and away from him. Such a predictable move.
We locked eyes just for a moment, before he charged at me. Throwing punches left and right while I dodged every last one of them. He was going easy on me, I could tell, and it was really starting to infuriate me. I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed his wrist quick as lightning, quicker than I'd been all day and flipped him over. Of course he was too smart to go down on his own, I was dragged to the floor with him. But the whole point was, for a moment, I had regained my quickness.
We landed with a thud, then the room was filled with his laughter. He was laying flat on his back, I was just too his side, half of me on his chest thanks to the fact that he had pulled me down as well. My nose had collided with his chest when I landed so I had that fuzzy feeling of wanting to sneeze but nothing was really there.
He paused when he noticed I wasn't laughing, "See?" He said tightening his grip on my wrist. "You still have it!"
I couldn't say anything to him about our little spar right now though. Because as I looked at him just then, feeling the pounding of my heart in my chest and the rhythm of his as well, that perfect jaw line I'd woken up too, and those green eyes--that were covered by his mask now, but I knew they were there--watching me with that distinct spark in them, I remembered a conversation we'd had weeks ago. In a safe as we sat there with a psychotic woman and a time bomb waiting to die. He had told me he may be in love with someone else, and that there was something he needed to get off of his chest. At that moment, for some reason, I just had to know what it was.
"Tim?" I said, "Remember a few weeks ago at the H.I. building in Nevada, when we were in that safe? What were you going to tell me, right before J'onn showed up?"
His smile faded and he sat up. "You remember that?" He looked away from me towards the door.
"Yeah, and I want to know what you were going to say."
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?" I demanded. It was weird, that incident felt like such a long time ago. Yet, it was only a couple months ago and so much had happened since then. Normally I wouldn't be demanding him to tell me stuff, because he kind of just does it on his own and I didn't use to care about his drama with Arianna. I mean, I did care but I wasn't exactly fond of hearing about it. But knowing what he was going to say was so important to me suddenly that I felt like his answer could either ruin me or heal me.
"Because you're putting me on the spot." He turned to face me with a bit of a smirk on his lips like he had some kind of plan.
"So?" I pressed on a bit suspiciously. I knew that look anywhere.
He shrugged, "So, don't you know that actions speak louder than words."
"Wha-?" I didn't get a chance to finish my question, and I honestly completely forgot about it within the next couple seconds too as his lips came onto mine, and before I knew it we were kissing.
We were kissing right there on the matt in the middle of the training facility, we were supposed to be sparring. Yet, this was definitely NOT a waste of time and it totally beat training. I had never actually kissed anyone I wanted to before, so I technically was learning something new. He lead me through it. My heart thumped even harder than before, explosions went off inside of me. He slithered his hand into mine and our fingers intertwined around one another, while the other rested on the small of my back and pulled me closer to him.
I was rather enjoying myself, and I knew he was too. I could tell by the sense of urgency and built-up tension he had as moved his lips against mine that this was something he'd been holding in for some time now. I didn't ever want to lose this feeling of complete freedom with him. Of all people, it was him, my best friend, my partner in fighting crime. I couldn't have asked for a better person to share my this with.
"Ahem!"
The cough for attention pulled us out of wherever we'd been. We simultaneously turned to the doorway and my heart and everything in me just halted! Nightwing stood there holding a glass cup of water in his hands with a perplexed look on his face. But he wasn't the scary part. Next to him, with a look like he was going to kill somebody, was my father, Batman.
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DA DA DUMMM!! (suspenseful music) :p
What did you guys think? How would Batman feel about his only daughter locking lips with the boy wonder? ;)