This series of one-shots is dedicated to the Dick and Babs pairing :) I was just gonna do a whole collection with every single pairing out there but then I was like: then what would be the point of "Hazard To Your Health"?! So I'm starting another A/U series, but with Dick and Babs! It will be weekly, and I hope you like it! The show's universe won't show up here, hence the A/U warnings :) thanks for reading!
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A/U:
Middle School
"Class, this is Richard Grayson - he's a new student. Everyone say hi."Barbara Gordon tore her eyes away from the doodle she was making in the corner of her notebook paper and focused them on the new kid everyone had been talking about since she'd gotten to school. The boy standing at the front of the classroom, with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets and a friendly smile on his face, seemed nice enough. She'd talk to him even if he wasn't nice; she said hi to everyone (unless they were an absolute waste of space, as her father liked to put it).
Barbara turned her eyes back down to her paper, her pen resuming the little cartoon she'd been drawing of her boring-as-hell teacher snoozing while little stick-figure children sneaked out the class and out to the soccer field through the classroom door and the side exit to the left and down the hall. If she had kept her eyes on the boy (she had to admit; he seemed nice and sort of cute), she would have seen him look at her. And their eyes would have met.
"Barbara, please pay attention," Mr. Roach said in an exasperated tone.
Barbara looked up after a moment, huffing out a sigh and looked up to glare at her teacher before turning her attention to the new kid - Richard, right?
He was wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a black jacket. He had sunglasses (why did a sixth grader have sunglasses like those?) that hung from his shirt that peaked out from under his jacket.
Richard, instead of being hurt that she'd stopped caring about his presence for the time being, gave her some sort of crooked grin that she immediately decided she liked. She smiled - just a tiny bit - back.
She was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a navy blue t-shirt. Her binder was bright blue, filled neatly with papers and notes in an organized fashion that made even him feel messy - and he generally wasn't messy.
"Now, Richard, is there anything you'd like to say about yourself?" Short, weird-smelling, boring-as-heck-with-a-bad-haircut Mr. Roach asked, looking down his nose at what he would most definitely be calling a delinquent by next Monday. He called every single kid that wasn't a goody-two-shoes a delinquent. He was always on the verge of calling Barbara one, but her father was a decorated officer - and she was generally a good student.
Richard thought for a moment, and then said, "Nothing I can think of, sir." He flashed the teacher an all-too-smug-but-not-enough-of-a-smirk-to-get-into-trouble-smirk.
"Right then. Go sit next to Barbara - Barbara, raise your hand so Richard knows who you are."
The boy standing at the front of the classroom, in front of the chalk board, already knew who the sixth grade math teacher was. But Mr. Roach probably didn't know that. And neither did the redhead at the back of the room, in the corner - closest to the door. He took note that it was quite the strategic position; she could be the last one in and out and no one would notice. Well, maybe Mr. Roach would.
Barbara frowned at the teacher, but raised her hand anyway.
"Now go sit next to her," the teacher said, tapping his loafer-clad foot impatiently. As if he needed to be told twice.
He made his way through the row of desks, sending small smiles towards curious expressions and friendly waves, completely ignoring the few glares and the obliviousness towards his presence, and saved his most fantastic, crooked grin for the redhead named Barbara, who smiled back he plopped into his seat. Already, he could see himself and this girl passing notes and insulting the teacher. He didn't miss the funny little doodle of stick figures cramped in the corner of the math assignment - that she'd already started on.
"Right class," Mr. Roach said, clapping his hands together. "Now, Barbara, what can you tell us about finding x and y coordinates - "
The bell rang, cutting him off, and just as the dark-haired, blue-eyed boy had suspected, Barbara shot out of her seat and had vacated the space in an impressive time frame of four seconds.
But he wasn't slow.
He, too, shot out of his seat and out the door, looking around for a moment before he caught sight of the redhead's hair and went straight for her, even thought his was his first day, even though it had only been second period - even though he had no idea where he was going. Maybe he could get her to show him his next class, and then he'd get to talk to her. Hopefully.
As soon as he was close enough, he called out through the crowd of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, "Barbara!"
The redhead turned and stopped when she saw it was him. He grinned.
Barbara saw the new kid smiling at her as she waited for him to catch up.
"What's your next class?" he asked her, grinning like a fool. Which he could have been, because they were only in the sixth grade.
"I have gym class next," she said.
"Me too!" he exclaimed. She narrowed her eyes, suspicious. He was overly gleeful about something. And as much as she wanted to smile at his gleefulness, she wanted to know if he was up to something. "You're going to show me the way."
Barbara raised an eyebrow. "I am, Richard?"
"You are, Babs. And call me Dick."
"Dick?" Babs?
"Yeah, I don't like going by Richard very much."
"Why did you call me Babs?"
"It's short for Barbara."
"Since when?"
"Since now."
"Sure," she said, pressing her three-ring binder into her chest, smirking at him.
"Yeah." She began walking towards what he assumed was in the directed on the gym, and fell in step beside her. "So, Babs, tell me a little more about yourself."
