"That's such bullshit. You shouldn't have to train this guy who's obviously not quite thinking straight," Dinah said from her seat, cross-legged on an empty spot on my desk.
"I know." I rubbed my eyes. I was going over the fight footage that Bruce had used to train me. There were hours upon hours of video and I knew Bruce would know if I half-assed something. Just because I didn't want to play along, or knew why he was doing what he did, didn't mean I wouldn't try.
"And you don't even know who he is?"
"Batman's going off the whole Dick Grayson angle, which doesn't add up at all." I paused on a tape where I managed to dodge a series of arrows and added it to my teaching list. "There's no way a guy could take a beating and go back to perform the way he did."
"Dick Grayson? The guy in the circus commercials?"
"Yeah, him."
"Oo." An impish grin slowly spread across her face. "I could go with that."
"You haven't even gone over the file."
"I don't need to go over a file when I can see that ass on a commercial almost every night. I rewind and watch the part where he does that backflip sometimes. It's like a master sculptor created his ass. I would train him. But by train I mean screw senseless."
"You have a boyfriend!" Well, sort of. She and Ollie's relationship had evolved so much that I could hardly keep track. First she hated him even though she thought he was hot, then she found him sweet, hated him again, then somehow ended up sleeping with him exclusively. It wasn't uncommon for two people in the vigilante community to have a relationship like that, but I still worried for her. He was known for being a player in his civilian life, where he was basically like the guys I had to go on fake-dates with—heirs who were too rich with too much free time.
"Doesn't stop me from looking. I hope it's him so you can give me updates on his hotness as you train. Send me that file when you get the chance."
I opened it up on a screen and turned it toward her. "Do you want to go to the circus next Friday, by the way? He invited me again."
"Yeah, definitely." She sucked on the end of her fork. "So he asked you out?"
"He asked me to come to the circus." I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. "Nothing weird about it. The Wayne Foundation sponsors the whole thing, so he's probably trying to stay in our good graces."
She grinned and said, "Oh, I see."
I glared at her over the top of my glasses. "Purely business."
"Mmhm." She skimmed the file.
I compiled a few of the tapes to review and intensify for Batboy tonight while Dinah went over the file. We didn't work on every last case together, but the two of us and Helena Bertinelli, who went by Huntress in the field, sometimes did. One lesser mob boss said we were like birds of prey on his operation, so we started calling ourselves the Birds of Prey. Had a better ring to it than a lot of other vigilante groups, in my opinion.
One of the cases we were working involved a string of burglaries in university labs across the east coast. So far no areas had had a sudden uptick in Meta activity and there wasn't any contraband movement in the seaports. The things that were stolen weren't particularly scandalous either—just tools, not information. I had my eye on it, but right now things were pretty calm across the board aside from the Batboy case and smaller crimes that were easy to take care of.
I went back to Dick Grayson's file. I'd added a few more things at Bruce's request, mostly about his parents' death. Both had died from falling from the trapeze without a safety net—broken necks. Witnesses said they were pretty normal before the incident, aside from the fact that they fell on such a routine trick. I went over the witness statements again—falling on a routine trick for two lifelong professionals was weird, especially if they were confident enough to not use a safety net.
One of my screens suddenly flashed with a new message from Bruce, which I opened.
DNA was a match. The impersonator is Dick Grayson. Begin a surveillance file immediately and review the new training plan I put together.
"What?" I opened the attached file where Dick's DNA had been analyzed and went over it. "This has to be wrong."
"Hm?" Dinah looked up from her phone.
"Batboy is Dick Grayson." I leaned back in my seat. "I need to set up more cameras and trackers. Now I see what Bruce is getting at—something has to be up with Dick that's making him practically superhuman."
I opened Bruce's new plan. Instead of just training him, I had to try to get a blood sample to see if he was a Meta. Easy enough if I got a good punch to the face in. Then I could see how quickly he was healing with cameras I had to put up. And I could leave a tracker on his suit. But as for the training…I was basically just supposed to beat him up and see if he was just holding back for us. Which could be dangerous if he was just luring us in.
But why would he care about us? He was a circus performer. His parents had just died, which pushed him to be a vigilante (allegedly), which I could definitely relate to seeing that that was kind of how I'd become Robin. Why would he sabotage us? Unless he felt that we were part of the problem. I thought back to his warm smile in his dressing room, and the way it made me go a little soft. I couldn't trust that feeling anymore.
"Want to train a bit?" I asked, reaching for my contact case. Dinah pushed me in ways Bruce didn't and was a lot more fun to workout with. "I need to get loose for tonight. It might be a tough one."
He was in the alley before me, wandering back and forth aimlessly. I startled him and he jumped, which gave me a tiny twinge of satisfaction.
"I didn't think you were going to come," He said with a relieved smile. He was wearing a domino mask so I couldn't see his eyes clearly, but I could tell it was genuine. I tamped down the blush I felt coming over my cheeks.
"Well, I'm here. Come on, we aren't training here." I pointed to my bike. which was parked down the street in another alley.
He followed wordlessly, his sneakers clunking against the pavement. It was slightly comforting to hear him walking behind me because I usually couldn't hear Bruce or Dinah or Helena because of the shoes we wore.
"Wow, this is yours?" He said, when we got to my bike.
"Yep." I hopped on, leaving space for him to get on behind me. I grabbed a blindfold from my utility belt. "And put this on."
"Taking me to a surprise party?" He smirked and took the band, sliding it over his mask.
"If a surprise party involves getting punched in the face." He wrapped his arms around me, his arms brushing the bottom of my breasts. "And just because you're wearing a blindfold doesn't mean you can't feel that you're touching my boobs."
He slid his arms down. "Sorry."
I started up my bike and pulled out onto the streets. Even through the lightweight armor on my suit, I could feel his body warmth. He wasn't a huge guy, but he was big enough to envelope me comfortably. He wasn't shy about getting close.
The training facility was just a converted old warehouse that we sometimes used as a resting spot for long patrols, hence the secrecy surrounding the location. Dinah had helped me move some punching bags and other training tools there just after we set up security cameras to watch Dick earlier in the evening. For a place that had a lot of expensive gear, the circus had fairly lax security. Dinah had snuck in under cover and gotten out without a single problem.
I took off his blindfold when we got inside, then took off my utility belt.
"Okay. Let's get started." I faced him on the mat. "Punch me."
"Where?"
"Anywhere." Even from his stance, I could tell where he was going to throw it. He aimed at my stomach, which wasn't the best choice, because I could easily dodge it. Plus, my body armor absorbed most of the shock, even though it was a hard punch. "Again."
He kept throwing punches and I kept dodging them or absorbing the shock. Eventually I caught a punch and bent his wrist so that he fell to his knees immediately with a groan.
"Okay, first thing—how to throw a punch against someone who knows what she's doing." I pulled him back to his feet.
"If I'd known I was going to get taken down so easily by a beautiful girl, I would have studied up a little more before showing up."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked, trying to ignore the 'beautiful' part of the sentence because he couldn't even see my entire face. "The girl part."
And I was starting to like him. Well, as much as I could like someone I was investigating.
"I didn't mean it that way," He stammered, his face going red. "I'm sorry. It was half-flirt, half-joke and just fell apart. "
His apology was so ready on his tongue and sincere that I calmed down a little. At least he was the type to admit he was wrong.
"It's fine. Let's get to work."
I showed him how to throw a proper punch to various body parts and he caught on immediately. Soon enough, he was landing a few punches when I let my guard way down. Way, way down.
"I'm a quick study," he said when we stopped for a water break.
"Don't get ahead of yourself," I said, almost smiling before I remembered my mission. Being smiley wasn't exactly Bat-like. "I'm surprised you've made it this far with that form."
"I'm lucky." He shrugged. "Well, mostly."
He turned his water bottle in his hands and looked down, his brows furrowing slightly. He felt so open for someone I'd just met. I could tell something was bugging him, and it wasn't just his raw knuckles. I almost touched his arm in a friendly way and told him it was going to be okay, but stopped myself. Instead of asking him about it (I would probably find out about it on my tapes anyway), I stood.
"Ready to get back to it?" I adjusted my gloves.
"Yep."
I watched his form as we practiced more moves to see if he was faking his inexperience, but I could see he wasn't. The way he was focusing and slowly, but believably getting better as the night went on…there was no way he could fake it. Unless he was incredibly good, which wasn't out of the question.
Around three, his response times started to lag and he kept missing me. It was time to get the blood sample. He threw a punch at my face, which I dodged easily before sinking a punch into his nose that would make it bleed badly, but not break it. He stumbled back, obviously shocked.
"Sorry! I thought you were ready to dodge it," I said, turning to get a cloth from my utility belt. "Let me help."
I rushed back to him and pressed it to his nose. He seemed to lean into my touch, which made me realize how intimate the gesture was. I quickly wiped the blood away to break the contact and pulled out another cloth that he could keep.
"Can we call it quits for tonight?" He asked, his voice thick from his injury.
"Sure. And tomorrow?" I pushed the bloody cloth across the floor toward my utility belt.
He paused. "Are you going to beat the crap out of me again?"
"Yeah, unless you practice." I let myself smile. "So you better get working."
He smiled, but winced when it jostled his nose. "Deal."
