[open] this time I'll be a little smarter

[controlledvariable]

Date & Time: First two weeks of Feb
Location: Training area, rooftops, other places!
Characters: Stephanie Brown AND YOU
Summary: Steph's finally settling into a routine in the city; see threadstarters for options or make up your own c: Or PM me if you want to work out something specific!
Warnings: Violence, will update if necessary



It's been over a month since Steph first stepped off that damn platform and into the Initiative Hold, and she's still struggling with it more than she' d like to admit. Time travel and the multiverse and strange creatures aren't exactly new to her, but they're all things she had minimal contact with, they're the things that the Justice League deals with. Batgirl might be a bigger player in the vigilante game than Spoiler was, and she's certainly noticed a shift in the sort of situations she finds herself in, but it's nothing compared to being pulled into another city to fight a war. That stuff happens to Superman, or Wonder Woman. Steph doesn't have the training for it.

But even if she's struggling, she refuses to let it show, and puts on a brave face to deal with life until things start making sense. Exsilium is depressing, with the constant rain and cold temperatures, with the citizen living in poor conditions, and all the Transports and their nonsense. It takes her a while to warm up to using the network, and to warm up to the idea of even getting to know the other people here, but she's getting there, and starting to maybe, possibly, sort of make friends.

That doesn't mean she likes it in the city, but at least she doesn't actively hate it anymore.

Comments

→ Training area

[controlledvariable]

Despite her reluctance to actually participate in any of the Initiative's missions as a soldier, Steph knows it would be stupid not to keep in shape, or to turn down the training facilities available, especially when there's the consideration of her 'weapon'. The small changes in her suit haven't gone unnoticed, and for all her distrust, she's curious, too, and maybe a little excited at having an evolving Batsuit at her disposal. Spoiler had to make do with homemade gadgets or whatever Tim would pass on to her, Robin had access to the best Bat-gadgets, as does Batgirl, but it always felt a little... borrowed. After Robin was taken away from her, she has a hard time not worrying that the same thing will happen with Batgirl, that Babs or Bruce won't one day decide she doesn't have a right to wear their symbol anymore and they'll take away all her cool toys and cars and hideouts. (It's not that she needs them, but they make life so much easier.) Spoiler has always been safe, always been hers, something they couldn't take away no matter what they tried, and she's starting to feel that way about her suit now that it's evolving with her own training.

So she trains, turning up both to the mandatory sessions, and spending her own free time in the training area. Most of the time, she's in uniform, her cowl up to keep her face hidden, though occasionally she leaves the cape behind, allowing herself freer movement, and sticking primarily to martial arts training. The few times she goes in civvies, she sticks to acrobatics, enjoying the chance to spend more time on the beam and bars than she has since she was fifteen; while the cave has gymnastics equipment, it's never her focus because she's already proficient. With no school or work commitments, she has more time to do things she actually enjoys.

[kneecaptain]

Bucky doesn't think hard enough about participating in the missions. He was a soldier, and fighting was what he was born for. Maybe what he was made for. Yeah. He doesn't like to think about it too much.

Still, he's in the training space often, because it was a way to fill his minutes up with something familiar. He doesn't wear a costume; he didn't do that stuff anymore. But he always notices the people who did. Bucky can't recognize the uniform, but there were a lot of costume types he didn't know, even back home.

He watches her practice kicks, appraising her form. ( It's kind of creepy. ) The girl is good, he decides. Well-trained.

[controlledvariable]

At first she thinks it's just paranoia, but after a subtle look around the room she realizes that no, someone is definitely watching her. It's put her a little on edge, even more so when she realizes it's a man, but she doesn't visibly react at first, simply watching out of the corner of her eye as he watches her.

She doesn't slow her practice, not wanting to show he's unsettled her, but after a few minutes she pauses briefly, turning towards him, "A picture'll last longer," Her voice is clear, a little sharp and pitched to carry. She doesn't wait for his response before going back to what she was doing, as if she doesn't care all that much.

[kneecaptain]

"Sorry—" he says, and he looks like he means it. He hadn't realized he was staring. "Sorry," he repeats himself.

"You're not bad," he adds, like an afterthought.

[controlledvariable]

The apology surprises her, and it's enough to make her soften and slow her movements so that she can come to an easy rest, facing him. She's a little out of breath, and there's a sense of exhaustion in her posture that says she's been at her practice for a while now.

"Thanks, I think," The apology has taken the edge off her tension, though she's not completely relaxed, "You fight?"

A lot of people here do, but she's come to realize that the Initiative is making use of a wide variey of talents.

[kneecaptain]

"All my life." He even adds a grin to that, beginning to seem like a real person. "I was in the service."

13th!

[slingshots]

[ Who even enters the training room from the main door? Not birds, that's for sure. She'd cracked a window open near the top of one of the vaulted ceiling, slipped into the rafters, and... paused at the sight below. It's not usually a popular time to train, so she hadn't expected to see anyone here. Least of all someone with a bright yellow bat on their chest.

Even if the body type is polar opposite, even if she's pretty sure Batman has never had a head of blonde hair like that, Carrie can't help the jump in her heart rate for a second. Four months is, after all, a long time for Robin to go without Batman. But it doesn't last. This, whoever it is, is definitely not Batman.

She's been watching from her twenty-feet-above perch for a while, crouched in a dark corner with her bright yellow cape tucked away, knees up and black pantlegs more or less covering the bright colors of the uniform.

...Man. This lady has got some serious moves. ]

[controlledvariable]

[As much as she'd like to, Steph can't train indefinitely, and breaks are necessary. She isn't quite aware that she's being watched, though there's that paranoid itch in the back of her mind that she really should pay more attention to.

When she's pausing to take a drink, she does decide to pay attention to that itching feeling, and casts a glance around the training area. Most people, when they're examining their surroundings, don't usually look up; Steph does, and despite Carrie covering the brightness in her uniform, Steph is trained to notice things like subtle shift in shadows.

She fixes her gaze on where she's pretty sure there's a person crouched in the rafters. Normally, she needs to physically gesture to bring her lenses down, but after over a month of training with her suit, the lenses come down in response to the idle thought that infrared vision sure would be handy right now.

Well, that makes her life easier, now that she can see Carrie's body heat. It's someone fairly small, a teenager?

Head cocked slightly to the side in curiosity, Steph raises a hand, and waves. She's not sure if the figure is watching her or not, or if they're a potential threat, but waving can't hurt. Hopefully.]

[slingshots]

[ She's only surprised for a second after being waved at. But really, that's perfectly fitting, isn't it? Batman would never not know she was there, so it makes a lot of sense that a stranger wearing the bat would know it too.

She moves hesitantly at first, picking her way nearer in a series of short hops and a swing or two. But curiosity wins out over the oddity of it before long, and the movements pick up. It's one last flip and a long swoop down on a grappling line that sends her into a crouch from a tight roll, about ten feet off. There she returns the wave, and adds a Charming Robin Smile. ]

Hey. [ ok good, didn't screw up the acrobatics, now say something cool. ] Nice moves.

[ not exactly... cool, but it will do. ]

[controlledvariable]

[Steph watches the progression with interest, noting how the figure - Robin? - moves, impressed with how easily they make their way down to ground level. She's seen a lot of fighters here, but there aren't as many acrobats, especially ones who move like a Bat can.

It's definitely Robin, and Steph suddenly has no idea what to do about that, as much as she'd been curious about meeting another girl who'd worn those colours. She has a lot of emotions tied up in Robin, in being fired from it, in seeing the boys wear the costume.

But, still, she forces herself not to get flustered.]

Thanks, you aren't so bad yourself.

→ Library

[controlledvariable]

Research isn't really her area of expertise. She's a good detective, and while she's nowhere near the same intellectual level of Tim, Bruce and Babs, she's good at figuring things out when she puts her mind to it, but, well. She's not at the same level as Tim, Bruce and Babs, so usually when serious research is needed, Batgirl isn't the one that people go to.

Unfortunately, she's the only one here (there's Dick and Jason, but she's... not sure where she stands with them) which leaves the research to her. At least college served as good practice, and her job at Gotham U's library means she can make her way around the Initiative one with relative ease. And research serves as a good counterpoint to the physical exertion of training; curling up at one of the desks with books stacked up in front of her. For someone who doesn't have a lot of patience, when she gets lost in a task she can spend a few hours reading through books and making notes in one of the various notebooks she's collected. If anyone gets a close look, they'll notice that she isn't writing in any intelligible language, but rather a combination of shorthand and code, something to make writing things down both quicker, and safer.

Occasionally she remembers that staying seated for hours at a stretch isn't good for her, and promptly takes a walk around the library as she sips a cheap coffee from one of the vending machines. She really needs to buy herself a thermos.

[chore_boy]

It was always to move back into reading after training on the long shift. Coby was panting when he got back to the library after a day full of physical training, wearing the bare minimum of sweat pants, a white t-shirt and his glasses. Pulling his glasses down, he wearily walked the halls upon halls of bookshelves, holding his tablet under one arm. He was looking for history--but, more importantly, military history.

Coby sighed with a relaxed expression on his face just across from Stephanie, holding a stack of books taller than himself in each hand after roaming the shelves. He set down both stacks and removed a handful of notebooks from one of the two stacks, unclipping one of the pens he set together with them.

"Finally," He spoke to himself, snatching one of the leather-bound tomes, going through and looking for anything remotely pertinent to the situation he was in. With one hand, he drew his hand into his sweat pants and removed a can of soda with a Skull and Crossbones on it, the other hand drawing up his next pen and clicking it so he could begin writing at the table.

[controlledvariable]

Steph watches the whole procession with slight concern; that's way too many books for a normal person to person to carry, and she rises from her seat slightly as Coby starts to put the books down, just in case he loses them. It's possible she's been working in a library too long, if she's so worried about a bunch of books.

Once she realizes there's not going to be a huge disaster, she settles back into her seat, though she can't help making a remark on all the books, "You're gonna have a long day ahead of you."

[chore_boy]

Wincing at the taste of the drink, Coby finished it and then set it down on the table before him, his eyes falling to Stephanie the moment she spoke up to him. His hand, thumbing his pen, seemed to become a bit more busy because he was being spoken to. The distraction itself was welcome--in the wake of so much information, he was feeling pensive.

"I hope it's a good workload, actually," Smiling faintly in response, Coby fixed his glasses with the end of his pen. "This is a new world entirely for me. Since this history is so well documented, I should make use of it."

[controlledvariable]

"A lot of it's bullshit," It's not even a comment on how the Initiative operates, but Steph is from Earth and she doesn't put a lot of stock in history books, "History is written by the winners."

Not that it hasn't been interesting to look through the history books of this alternate Earth - things seem fairly similar up until the late 20th Century - but she takes it all with a grain of salt.

→ Rooftops

[controlledvariable]

Compared to Gotham, Exsilium is practically crime free. Where she usually expects the background noise of sirens and screams and gunshots, Exsilium feels silent and empty, more like a ghost town than anything. That's not to say there isn't crime, but it's nothing compared to the constant mess that is Gotham City. There's no Joker, no Two-Face or Ivy or Killer Croc. There's an army potentially waiting across the Channel, ready to attack at any moment, but that's a different sort of threat, and definitely not one that gives her something to do at night.

Still, Batgirl patrols the rooftops at night, slipping silently across them as she learns the lay of the land. When something catches her attention - usually a bar fight gotten out of hand, or a simple mugging - she intervenes just the same she would back home, except she can't leave them with a note and a call to the GCPD. She'll have to find out how the Transport organized police force feels about vigilantes leaving gifts for them. Until then, she usually just lets people off with a warning, since they're mostly committing petty crimes.

At least there are plenty of tall buildings in the city. There's nothing she enjoys more than flying between buildings on a zip line.

[whatsupcroc]

Collette has her own patterns, not all of them overlapping. Her nighttime habits were erratic, going between a restless activity without great focus to extensive bouts of lazing around and counting the number of times someone repeated themselves in a conversation on the network.

When it felt like it might be one of those nights, she couldn't stand the thought of laying around any longer. Propping her window open wit the lights off and the curtains mostly closed, she breathed in the scent of rain and stone with a certain expectation of excitement.

She hadn't gone out as a bat since she'd run into Alfred the other week. Mostly it was coincidental -- she'd been distracted, and more often she stuck to four legs getting things done around the city -- but tonight she wanted to fly.

When the leaf-nosed bat tumbles over a window ledge on the fourth floor of the Transport Apartments, she does so with a quiet mental yell for the thrill of getting out into the cold night air. Bats didn't fly with the same grace and surety as a bird. They dipped and curved and whirled almost like leaves on a mission, one that usually meant bugs were on the menu.

Disinterested in moths and gnats and other such delicacies, it leaves Collette to her own decidedly more human amusements. Including darting down and rolling off to the side as something entirely unexpected comes flying by.

< Woah! >

She calls out, reorienting and flapping her wings all the harder to gain altitude. She has no idea what just passed by, but it was big, and moving fast. High pitched squeaks carried back a sense of the area around her, noting that one line she'd seen seconds before was no longer there.

She alters course, determined to track down what it is that flew by in the night. She thinks she has a handle on whatever, or whoever, it is (too small for a dragon, too -- well, too something for anything else), and by the third time of creative flying after them she figures she has their landing enough in sight to call out.

< Nice night for a roof cruise! Though really, we've got to do something about this air-traffic control! It's terrible! >

It's also non-existent.

[controlledvariable]

The small creature in her vicinity catches her attention, but she dismisses it just as quickly, since she's used to bats flying around Gotham at night. She doesn't consider that she hasn't seen one in Exsilium yet, which is probably an oversight that Babs would scold her for, she's just so used to Gotham, especially when she's flying on a zip line.

The voice in her head, however, doesn't get dismissed, although she doesn't really register the words.

Mostly because as soon as the intrusion comes, she disconnects her line, flipping in mid air to land in a low crouch on a nearby rooftop, the grapple gun swapped for her bo staff. She extends it as soon as she's on solid ground, her whole body tense and ready to spring into action as she scans the night sky trying to pinpoint the voice's owner.

"Who's there?" She speaks out loud, but the words are clear in her mind as well; she has some experience with telepaths.

[whatsupcroc]

Collette clung to the side of a brick chimney, ears straining to catch what her unknown friend had said. Her one way Thought Speak would give her nothing of Stephanie's mind, but the spoken words were certainly heard.

< Just a friendly, neighborhood bat. >

She's amused enough to be literal, wise enough to keep still now that she's obscure in the shadows. If her friend got violent, it didn't take much to injure a bat -- and Collette figured belatedly she'd need time to get away and morph out, depending on how bad injured might be.

But that's presupposing a negative encounter, something she wasn't inclined to assume.

< Couldn't help notice you flying around! Thought I'd stop by and say hello. >

[controlledvariable]

The words - thoughts? - seem friendly enough, and they aren't exactly threatening, but it doesn't do much to ease Steph's tension. She stays in her ready crouch, flicking down the night vision lenses in her cowl to scan the surrounding area, but she hasn't quite connected the bat to the voice.

"You're in my head," She doesn't sound entirely impressed with this turn of events. If Collette was a telepath, she'd notice that Steph's mind has gone blank aside from the words she's thinking (Bats are taught a few tricks).

→ Elsewhere around the city/housing complex/her apartment/anything else

[controlledvariable]

When she isn't patrolling, training or researching, Steph tries to build herself a routine in the city to help her stay grounded; she buys groceries, drinks far more coffee than a sensible person should, and explores Exsilium. She's learnt the rooftops, but she takes time to learn the streets as well, having no qualms about walking into potentially dangerous parts of the city, since she knows she can take care of herself. When she's being honest with herself, the general state off semi-impoverishment tat seems to cling to the city reminds her of Gotham, and there's something comforting about it, as much as it's distressing as well.

The apartments are different from the rest of the city, nicer, cleaner, newer, all which hasn't escaped her notice, but she can't find it in herself to complain when it means she gets a big kitchen and a comfortable bed. Sharing her space with people is strange, which often leads to her avoiding her apartment when her housemates are around, but she does show her face occasionally.

some time on the 11th!

[implying]

[ He hasn't been to see Equius yet, which means he's limping. It's not too noticeable, especially since limping is terribly unattractive and he takes care to keep it out of his stride. But going for a walk with one of his legs less than perfectly functioning was... perhaps not one of his brighter ideas.

Steph isn't the only one that finds an odd comfort in the dirty, falling-apart areas of Exsilium. It's reminiscent of the areas of Oramm that he'd been allowed access to back in his own world, which had quickly become a solace by virtue of being the only freedom available to him. It's reminiscent of a time without boyfriend troubles, too.

He hasn't registered Steph yet as he approaches from the opposite direction. The nose of his mask points down at the cracked street as it passes below his umbrella, and the hand not holding it is shoved deep into a pocket. He should probably find someone to go be social with; moping is the most useless activity known to man. Maybe the gardeners on the corner of Market Street... ]

[controlledvariable]

[In Steph's opinion, umbrellas are for wimps, which is why she hasn't even bought one, and has just invested in heavy, rain proof coats with hoods to keep the rain off her braided hair.

(If she's being honest, she'd admit she just doesn't like having one hand occupied with someone that isn't a weapon.)

It means she's a kind of curled in on herself, head turned down to protect her from the rain, but even so, it's a little hard to miss Vanadi's mask. It worries her a little that she's actually glad to see him, since he really is one of her few friends here.]

Hey. [She speaks up when she's close enough to be heard, stopping a few feet ahead of him] What's a kitrite like you doing in a place like this?

[Since it - isn't the nicest area. She just hopes he won't ask the same question of her, when she doesn't have much of an answer.]

[implying]

[ He blinks under the mask, surprised at the sound of her voice, but a smile is quick into place. Why, that's even better than the gardeners on Market Street! They may be hilarious, but having a pretty friend around really does trump a pair of amusing old men. ]

Why, Stephanie! [ His smile widens, and he steps over quickly to extend the reach of the umbrella over her head too. ] Would you believe me if I told you the best breakfast sandwiches in the entire city are made just down the road from here?

[controlledvariable]

[For all her unnecessary disdain for umbrellas, she doesn't hesitate to duck under Vanadi's, even if it puts her a little close.]

I think I'd need proof before believing a claim like that.