Rise and Shine
Dick's eyes slowly opened, and he blinked and quickly squeezed them shut as the light from the window hit his eyes. He groaned slightly. After a minute he was aware he was holding something close to him. And it wasn't Alli. He opened his eyes slowly and saw that he was holding a pillow close instead of Jason's sister. Somehow she'd managed to switch the pillow with herself without waking him. He smiled slightly and shook his head. Sometimes, that girl was too damn clever and sneaky for her own good. It was frustrating. He stood up and poked his head out of her door, to make sure no one was watching and would question him as to why he was exiting Alli's room. He went to the small breakfast nook/kitchen to get himself some breakfast and some coffee. When he got there, he found Alli already there, just finishing her own first cup of the morning. He'd always questioned the necessity of the amount of coffee she drank, and wondered how she could drink so much and not get a sugar buzz. Now he knew why. She needed that much coffee to wake her up and keep her awake in the mornings since she had a constant case of insomnia.
"Ah, and Sleeping Beauty awakens." Alli commented as he walked in. "Good morning Sunshine."
As he stumbled to the coffee maker, still kind of out of it, Dick raised an eyebrow at her.
"Sunshine?" He asked.
"Yep. Because you're so bright and cheerful and obviously awake." She said sarcastically. He grunted and waved her off.
"Too early. Can't function until after my second cup of coffee. How are you so energetic?"
"I'm used to not sleeping and getting up near the crack of dawn for my job."
"Job?"
"Yeah. Even after Jason...died, I didn't want to go back to stealing. So I've been working any job I can get to get myself food. I always had to get up almost as soon as the sun came up. Sleeping in wasn't an option."
"Hm. Speaking of which, how'd you sleep last night?" Dick asked, taking his cup of coffee. She took a sip of her own before answering.
"Fine, thank you. I actually got a couple hours of sleep in." she said. He smiled. Alli looked down. "Look, this doesn't change anything. Just because you helped me get to sleep last night and were trying to comfort me, doesn't mean I'm going to be all cheerful and friendly." Dick smiled and nodded.
"Don't worry, I won't expect you to. In fact, I'd be a bit worried if you did." She scowled at him.
"Shut up! Like you're one to talk!" Dick grinned.
"Like Dick's one to talk about what?" Jason asked, yawning slightly as he stumbled into the kitchen, still not completely coherent.
"About how congenial he is in the morning. And general congeniality." Alli said, as she got another cup of coffee, and fixed Jason one.
"Hm..." Jason grinned slightly as he took a sip. "Alli's right Dickie-Bird. You aren't exactly a ray of sunshine before your third cup of coffee or so. And in general you're kind of hard to get along with completely." Alli smirked.
"Told ya so!" she said.
"Hey!" Dick protested. "I'd like to point out that unlike you two, I don't tell someone to fuck off, or something of the sort, whenever they try to make small talk!" The two blood siblings smirked. It was incredibly creepy, how similar their smirks were.
"Maybe so, but you're so damn cheerful all the time. Makes it hard to get along with you. Guess me and Jay are just too fucking cynical and pessimistic to understand how you can be so cheerful. It's a street rat thing, Grayson. Get used to it." Alli said, waving off Dick's attempt to protest.
"And there's also the fact that you always play the role of big brother, even when we just want to be left alone, and are too damn perfect. It gets annoying." Jason said.
"That too." Alli agreed.
"Hey!" Dick opened his mouth to argue back. He and Jason continued to argue, and Alli just rolled her eyes, and strode out of the breakfast nook with her coffee, to her current place of refuge: the Training Area.
She felt the corners of her mouth quirk upwards in a slightly smirkish smile. Oh yeah! Fully equipped, decked out with punching bags of all consistencies and weights, acrobatic training equipment, a full out sparring ring (which Alli often made good use of in group training to prove her mettle against Dick or Jason, or even, on rare occasions, Bruce), weights and other exercise equipment, and plenty of targets and weapons to go around. Not to mention the mission simulator to help her test her skills in a mock mission. This was where she could often be found, training long after the mandatory group or one-on-one sessions with Bruce were over. Constantly pushing. She figured it was a variation of all the running and jumping across buildings and other strenuous activities she'd put herself through in an attempt to exhaust herself into a dreamless sleep, a carry-over of an old habit into this new life. But it had always been futile, and was still proving to be futile. She almost never slept, and she was always, always, ever since Jason's death, jolted awake from nightmares. She'd stopped crying from them a while ago. Now they just filled her with a primal kind of fear and pain and guilt. Which she would work off here nowadays.
On bad days, it was best, and fairly easy, to stay out of her way. Upon losing control of her considerable temper, which at its worst could rival or even surpass Jason's, a feat and accomplishment of its own, she'd swear up a storm, turning the air blue with curses in multiple languages Jason had taught her and that she'd trained herself in, storm off, lock herself in her room for a while and kind of rage, crawl into the vents and over to the Training Area, and continue to beat the shit out of punching bags and sink knives and other deadly projectiles into targets, throwing some of these projectiles at anyone who dared come near and/or got in the way. Alfred was the only one she'd always make a conscious effort not to hit. Anyone else was fair game when she was in her moods. So far she'd had a couple bad days, and as soon as she calmed herself down, and swallowed her pride, she would always apologize.
The Training Area was her sanctuary and place of release in a sense. She could take everything, all her rage, hatred, bitterness, and regret and guilt out on the dummies and punching bags, several of which were shaped like The Joker, Ra's al Ghul, and various other villains and criminals. She started off with a few basic aerobic exercises before moving on to the very appealing villain shaped punching bags. She grabs several of the Joker and Ra's al Ghul shaped ones. They're her usual target. She despised Joker for obvious reasons, with a hatred that rivaled that of Jason and Bruce, and, despite being the reason she had her brother now, she'd always be bitter and angry at the Demon's Head for getting Jason killed in the first place. They'd never have had to go through all this if Ra's hasn't hired the Joker to distract Batman and her brother from his activities all those years ago. She started easily whaling on one of each of them at the same time, practicing her hand to hand skills. As she continued, her mind wandered to the completely unexplainable events the past night.
Dick sure did have a way of irritating and confusing her. That was...ok if she was being fair, the irritating part was fairly easy. But confusing her, she liked to think, was a different matter. But the first Robin seemed to always find some way to do both. Sometimes he'd act like he couldn't stand her, and ok, maybe sometimes she'd snap at him more than necessary, and then other times they were cool with each other, letting them do their own thing, accepting that they were very different people. And then, then, there were the most confusing times. The times when he was very caring, and almost, dare she say it, sweet. Times like the past night. She knew he snuck around in the air vents sometimes, she'd caught him sneaking out of one the other day, but had pretended not to notice. But the fact that he'd bothered to come, that he'd been so comfortable trying to comfort her, when most other people walked on eggshells around her, especially when it came to showing affection. People always just kept their distance. They only saw the hostility that she displayed towards others. Part of it was a defense mechanism. She didn't trust people easily, and she hated pity. But with him, it was like he never got the memo that she did not, repeat, DID NOT take pity from anyone, or completely ignored it, and just...was forward with her. Alli appreciated that he didn't walk on eggshells around her, or be cautious with how he acted, but at the same time, it irritated her. She may be a girl, but definitely wasn't the sappy one. That was Dick. By far. She didn't need babying or special treatment. She had survived without both for almost her entire life.
Someone cleared their throat behind her. She turned and saw Bruce.
"Excuse the interruption, but I think you've beaten the punching bags." He said, nodding at the now a bit more ragged and beat up looking Joker and Ra's al Ghul bags. He raised an eyebrow. She rubbed the back of her head and neck.
"Oh...yeah...whoops?" She said nervously. Bruce just shook his head.
"Don't push yourself too hard Alli." He said simply, before moving on. She put away the punching bags, and did a few more exercises, before sighing and grabbing a water bottle and heading out to the main hall. As she came down the stairs, she was greeted by a sight absolute chaos.
