Jay's training area wasn't much more than a few mats and a rack of weaponry against one wall in another closed-off area of the parking deck, adjacent to his private garage, but it'd sufficed so far. It'd do for tonight's rematch, certainly, even though he'd have liked to take this one to the rooftops to show her what a good moving fight could do at ten stories up.
Eh, there'd be time for that later, he supposed.
For now, he'd settle for a close quarters fight. It'd give him a chance to assess how well she'd picked up some of the techniques he'd taught her. Well. And other things. Maybe. Whatever the hell was bugging her would come out in the fight, he was sure. Kala tended to broadcast her emotions anyway, and sparring was too intense to keep them under wraps.
But that wasn't the point, he reminded himself as they got to the training room and he shut the door behind them. Cracking his knuckles, he circled her again, this time not in admiration of the way the costume fit her, but in anticipation of matching wits with her. He wasn't really all that worried about dealing with her powers. Most of a fight was about the mind, not the body, and Jay knew he had superior experience and training.
Following him visually, with just a turn of her head to track him, Kala smiled, settling into a fighting stance. "What are you waiting for?" she teased, amusement clear in her tone.
"Just appreciating the view," he said. It wasn't really a lie, but he'd gotten damn good at multitasking over the years, and in the space of just under a minute, he already had her number. Knew just how she'd attack him if he could get her worked up enough. Knew just how to get through her defenses, even without knowledge of the suit.
Oh yeah, Miss Kala Lane-Kent, Kryptonian Princess Extraordinaire, was going down.
Kala chuckled at him again, her body language turning predatory. "Think you can manipulate me into throwing the first punch, huh?"
"I know I can," he said. No point in lying about that, either. "Question is, when and how will you strike?"
"If I did, wouldn't you like to know? You're not gonna make me dizzy by circling me, by the way. I can dance in circles for hours without my equilibrium shifting."
This time Jay laughed, stopping in his wide circle to face her, and fell into a fighting stance of his own. "All right, then. Let's go."
"You sure you can handle it?" Kala teased, and he swore he could see bright amusement in her eyes even behind the lenses.
"Oh, I can handle—" he started to answer, and found himself lying on his back, the breath knocked out of him, and Kala's silvery laughter somewhere behind him.
Jay blinked, reconstructing what had just happened. He knew Kala would open with either one of those silly flying kicks she loved so much—heroes, don't let your babies watch kung-fu movies—or a straight-up punch. In either case, her initial target would always be his sternum. He'd mostly broken her of the kicks by now; smacking her into the wall of the parking deck when he grabbed her ankle and swung her whole body had taught her well.
In spite of that, he'd been expecting the kick, really. She did like them, they were pretty and impressive, and by now she figured she had advantage enough to pull them off. Jay had planned on not swinging her, instead grabbing her ankle and pulling it past his shoulder, rolling with her momentum until he could get his hands on a delicate wrist and bend it back. Joint lock, takedown in thirty seconds.
Instead he was slowly rolling to his feet, feeling the impression of her forearm against the center of his chest. She'd come all the way inside his guard and just shoved him. He wasn't sure whether it was strength or momentum, but he'd landed on his ass ten feet from where he'd been standing. And it had all happened so fast he hadn't even fucking perceived it happening.
And Kala was still giggling like a delighted schoolgirl, albeit one who was hovering two feet off the ground. Seeing that put the hairs up on the back of his neck, but not in trepidation. "Still wanna play?" she taunted.
Oh hell yes, did he ever. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this alive when he wasn't about to take down some deadly scumbag. And he knew why; he'd given her the skills, combined with her powers, to make her really and truly dangerous. Jay had always loved playing with fire. And that laugh—hot damn, she was having fun with this, enjoying the game as much as he did.
Jay feinted a rush, threw himself aside, and pitched the manriki he'd pulled at the spot where he thought her ankles would be if she'd come in to bust him again. He guessed exactly right and hauled on his end of the long chain as the other wrapped around one of Kala's ankles. She yelped in surprise as he yanked her into range, a fist already heading for the knockout-spot on her chin.
She caught his hand, stopping the blow with a solid thwack, and smiled. "Nice gloves." Then she was gone, tearing the manriki out of his grip.
He knew what she'd do, and dove and rolled to forestall her next attack, looking up when he came to rest. Kala hovered well out of range by the ceiling right where he expected, smirking devilishly. "Now what, Hood?"
"Now we find out if you're Daddy's little girl," Jay retorted, and fired from the hip with the gun he'd pulled while tumbling.
He wasn't stupid. He aimed for her center mass, where the armoring on the new suit would protect her. And she'd said she was partly invulnerable anyway, and they knew she could heal any wound with a little sunlight. But she had to learn that hovering and taunting wouldn't work for shit in the field.
Kala let out a very undignified yelp, and Jay heard the bullet ricochet. Of course it did; he'd designed the suit well, and he hadn't been nervous even for a second. Not at all. Not in the least.
He went rolling across the ground and thought it was his own idea until he realized his gun had gone missing. Well, this was turning out even more fun than he'd thought. Jay spun to his feet and found Kala right beside him, the sole of that brand-new boot headed for his face.
Apparently she hadn't learned as well as he'd thought. So he grabbed her ankle and started to twist, only she spun in midair and the other foot missed his nose by half an inch, thanks to his quick reflexes. Still holding one ankle, he tried to haul her closer with it.
This time was different, though; Kala didn't slide through the air toward him like he expected, like she always had. This was like trying to tow a car when the parking brake was on. Jay had to let go or be dragged off his feet, and she landed just outside his lunging range.
Hmm, what next? Jay threw himself at her, tumbling at the last second and coming up inside the punch meant for his chest. His kris whispered through the air, but her gut wasn't there, Kala vaulting over him and snapping down a knife-hand strike that would've gotten the nerve cluster at the base of his neck if he hadn't hunched his shoulders automatically. He felt her fingers graze his shoulder and ear, and wheeled to face her.
"Geez, I just got this outfit. Like I'd let you cut it up," Kala complained, dancing back like a boxer.
"More worried about the clothes than your own skin? Such a girl," Jay taunted back, advancing cautiously. This was way more fun than even he had expected. Sparring at full speed and strength against someone who could take it? Someone who could get shot at and not freak out about it? Someone he could trust to be up to a fight on this level? Oh, hell yes.
"You made it, you're the one who's gonna have to fix it," Kala replied, and suddenly she was inside his guard again, flipping the kris out of his hand. She stayed there, smirking, absolutely sure she was fast enough and strong enough and invulnerable enough to take anything he dished out.
Jay just grinned evilly. "You're right, I do know this costume inside and out," he said, and yanked the zipper down to her navel.
Three sensations hit his brain simultaneously: the sound of Kala's shocked shriek, the impact of her hand slapping his cheek, and the sight of her pale skin abruptly bared. She wasn't wearing a bra under the costume. She wasn't wearing anything under the costume that he could see. He'd seen it before, in that issue of GQ, but live and in living, breathing, vaguely-violet-scented color right in front of him was something else entirely.
Uh-oh, he thought, even while he realized that she hadn't slapped him as hard as she could've. His jaw wasn't broken, anyway.
…
For a second, Kala almost didn't react, almost let him get away with it. Her whole body yearned toward him, the air seemed to vanish—and then she came to her senses. This was Donna's damn ex, and her trainer, and just generally Jay. Kala smacked his face and shot backwards clutching her suit closed, and then jerked the zipper up as fast as she could without breaking it. "Jay, the fuck?!" she snapped, hating the yipping tone in her voice. That had been completely unexpected.
As was the goofy smirk he was trying to hide. "It's a valid technique. Maybe I should've put the zipper somewhere else."
Her earlier thoughts that he just thought of her as a kid flew out the window right then. Along with an echo of Dick's words to her in the diner and after. Maybe there was more going on there than she'd thought, especially in the way that Jay hadn't looked away once the zipper had come down. The thought caused more than a couple of mixed feelings, as well as a completely unexpected tug down below that went poorly with her current resentment. She tried not to think about the way she could hear her own heartbeat speed up. "You troll," Kala snarled defensively, her cheeks flushed. "You've been waiting to do that since you offered to redesign my costume."
"Nah," he retorted. "I've been waiting to do that since I saw that GQ. Wondered how much was airbrushed."
Since GQ? Uh-oh. And then the airbrushing comment registered. "Oh, you bitch," Kala growled, and came after him again, no subtlety, no cute tactics, just straight in fist-first at his throat.
He blocked and locked her wrist, yanking her close. For the second time in five minutes, her skin got hypersensitive. "Nice to know it's all real and unedited," Jay whispered, and the huskiness of his voice made the hair on the nape of her neck stand up. Her breath just wouldn't come for a moment, all of her at full awareness. This is a bad idea, a very bad idea, she told herself, and feinted a strike at his chin to twist out of the joint lock.
"And all natural, too," he added, dropping back to regroup as she put some distance between them. "Not like some other plastic and clay types I've met."
Clay? Seriously!? Kala's mind caught up with the reference quickly enough that she couldn't help feeling the little stab of jealousy again that Dick and Tim's warnings the other day had brought up in her. "Did you just seriously compare me to Donna Troy?" she said, not believing his audacity. It had irritated her enough just to have the image of Jay and Donna shoved into her brain, but to be physically compared to her—even in a favorable way—was enough to drive a metaphorical knife between her ribs.
For a moment Jay looked even more taken aback than she felt, his face contorting with confusion. "What, I try to give you a compliment, and you think I'm comparing you? Get real."
All of a sudden, everything Dick said seemed to slam into Kala's brain at once. Jay knew. Jay had to know about Donna chewing her a new one. And here he was comparing her to his ex and expecting her to take it as a compliment? "You get real," she snarled. "I know you knew, Jay. Why I came to Gotham in the first place. Why I wanted the training. You damn well knew I was the loose cannon Troy couldn't stop bitching about because you heard it first-hand, didn't you? You were seeing her back then. Thanks for telling me. No wonder you were an asshole the moment we met."
He stopped to simply stare at her, his face unreadable, and then Jay said in a flat voice, "Yeah, and probably half the reason she and I split was because I read her the riot act over it. She's a control freak, K, always has been. And no, I wasn't being a dick because of that. I just figured you were another good kid that Bruce was gonna get killed, and everyone's so damn eager to sign up for his program despite the cost." On that, he lunged at her again, real anger behind the first blow.
Kala parried and dodged, trying to fight through a morass of tangled emotions. Jay had stood up for her back then? Or was it just that he couldn't stand that kind of controlling personality, either? She didn't know what to think—except that if she didn't get her head in the game, Jay might actually win this rematch. "You should've told me, Jay. I don't need someone training me because they feel sorry for me." Her turn to throw a punch, hectic patches of red on her cheeks while she returned the blow. "I thought you were too good for princesses with superiority complexes and she's a textbook example." She punched him again before he had a chance to retaliate, emphasizing the last word.
Jay rolled with it and struck back. "How d'ya think I figured that out?" he snarled, trapping her in an elbow lock. Swift blows rained down on her shoulder and her side as she twisted, the suit taking the worst of it. Jay's voice was harsh with exertion. "The big crush of my teen years, and she drove me fucking nuts when we were together. Think she felt about the same about me—except the crush part."
In a calmer moment, she would have really felt for him on that count, but now wasn't the time. "Still doesn't mean I wanna be your pity-protégé," Kala shot back, breaking his grip and shoving him. With her flight and strength, that forced them apart.
"Pity's one thing I don't ever have," Jay retorted, and lunged for her, his hand whipping out to throw a knife he'd pulled from a sleeve as he came at her. Kala dodged the lunge easily, grabbing the knife out of the air with a turn and spinning back around to land in a crouch and whip the blade back at Jay's legs, hilt first to punch him with it, hard. Angry as she was, she still wouldn't stab him.
He skipped aside enough to lessen the blow, and fetched her one hell of a punch upside the head. His gloves must've been kinetic-dispersal weave, too, to use that much force and not break something. Kala shook her head to clear it, and Jay called warningly, "You know better than to fight angry, K. Get it under control or I'm gonna wipe the floor with ya."
"The only one wiping the floor will be you," she promised. It was a monumental effort to shove her irritation aside—along with all the other troublesome feelings he called up—and get her head back in the game in time to block his next strike. Angling for the advantage, Kala added, "And don't mistake me for Troy. You're really in for it if you think I'm anything like her. For one thing, I'm faster." She blurred in and smacked him, open-handed, before landing behind him. "For another, I'm meaner." With that she kicked him right in the buttocks while he was still turning.
Jay spun around, two knives landing right where Kala had been standing seconds ago. His mouth twitched as it was obvious he was searching for just the right comeback, her remarks and attacks throwing him off. The look of it sent a sense of satisfaction down Kala's spine that all but wiped out the jealousy and twinge of want that she'd been fighting since he'd opened her suit.
"Really think throwing tidbits of my personal history in my face is gonna distract me?" he said at last, as he started to circle her again. "Not like any of that's classified info. And now who's comparing you to Miss Sparkly Princess? Sure as hell ain't me," he finished with a dramatic shrug, hands out and all.
That one hit her right in the gut. How dare he throw that back at her!
"And by the way," he added, "you should've gone for a throat punch while I was distracted by the view, instead of that prissy little slap. Getting sloppy, K."
That was it, this was on. If he was going to be petty, she could go for her own low-blow, Kala thought as she set her stance again. "Oh, sorry. You're right. Maybe if I had, you wouldn't be able to talk." Coming in hard and fast, she didn't give him so much as a pause for breath, feinting and striking and kicking and once just whipping past him close enough to smack him with the air pressure. Jay stood up to it well; Kala was discovering the joy of a sparring partner who could handle her. Not even Jase could anticipate her moves this well.
It was exhilarating to know she could use her powers, not even have to hold back, and Jay could handle it. He had an answer for everything, some of it with weapons she hadn't bothered to search for with x-ray vision—and she would not make that mistake again, she told herself as she deflected and dodged a couple of batarangs.
Some of it was pure technique and experience. Kala had figured out that he knew her so well because he'd been the one to train her these last few weeks. He knew how she moved, he knew which attacks and parries she preferred, and he knew what she'd do when he presented her with a given situation, because he'd taught her what to do. It felt like she was fighting a psychic, Jay having the counter ready for most things before she could follow through.
So she got creative again, and did things that would be completely stupid without her powers. Like freezing stock-still just inside his attack range and waiting until the last possible second to block his hand from sweeping toward her throat. Or flying into the stream of bullets from the gun he'd recovered—note to self: don't let opponents get weapons back after you disarm them—and swatting them casually into the ground, since she was moving twice as fast as they were.
If they'd been out in the open, she would've just soared up out of his sight-range, and come in fast for each strike, but he would've teased her about not being able to use those tactics in the field. On rooftop runs, she certainly could—and it would be nice to take this up onto the roof some night—but not in here.
Speaking of things he wouldn't expect, Kala swept past the weapons rack and plucked out a short, wickedly-sharp knife. She was quick enough that he probably hadn't even realized she was armed, but one of Jay's training rules was that anything was fair game. It was pretty much his only rule.
Two passes later—a nifty feint at his eyes and kick at his knee, both of which he blocked—Kala whipped out the knife. She had no intention of actually cutting him; drawing blood wasn't her thing. What she wanted was for Jay to see the blade and jump back, seeking space to deal with another move he was unprepared for.
When he did that, for a second he was completely open. Then Kala dashed in and grabbed his shirt, pulling it hard away from his body and running the knife over the fabric. Like all of Jay's blades, the edge was as keen as a razor, and suddenly his shirt flapped open in two pieces.
"Payback, huh?" Jay laughed, not even bothering to zip up his jacket as Kala retreated. Instead he had another of those lightning-fast slinky chains wrapped around the knife while Kala was still admiring her handiwork with a self-satisfied smirk.
And admiring his chest and abs, which really, she shouldn't have been doing. She shouldn't have been thinking those thoughts, not about Jay, not after she'd managed to dump her issues all over him and get stung for it, and not while they were sparring. Certainly not when he was playing just as rough as she was. He was just messing around, and she had enough drama in her life. Still, it was fun to play with him, even if her distraction cost her the knife.
"Still fighting sloppy, K," he admonished her, rushing back into her space. "Unlike some other princesses I've sparred with."
"You ass," Kala hissed, dropping back and dodging him. Somehow it had stung less—or maybe she was just distracted.
"Think so? I've been paying attention. Another move like that, and I'll have you."
Jay almost got close enough to take her down while she was reacting to his cutting remarks, and that just wouldn't do. So Kala acted like she was going to close with him again, then shot completely across the room in the blink of an eye. She landed laughing with the thought of what she was about to do, whirled on tiptoe, and rushed Jay with every ounce of speed and strength she could safely use. Just like her opening move, only this time she wasn't going to flatten him on her way by.
This time she tackled him flat on his back, his wrists pinned beneath her hands above his head, her knee pressing down on his thigh. Kala smiled evilly down at him, using her flight to back up the power of gravity and keep him shoved tightly down on the mat. "Nope. I've got you. Let's see you compare me to Princess Donna now."
…
Finding himself pinned beneath both Kala's weight and her added force, Jay blinked in shock. No way had she been able to get one over on him not once, not twice, but three times now. Damn speed. He hadn't been counting on her using it so consistently to her advantage, even if he'd known she'd throw it in there every chance she got. He should've realized it; he was the one that taught her to play dirty, after all.
Only one solution, then: take the option away from her. And get her to let up on the pressure.
"Hey, you're the one that brought her up," he said, reacting to her continued harping on the subject of a long-ago relationship that had gone up in so many flames. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were jealous."
The blush that moved up Kala's cheeks with his statement was exactly the reaction he'd hoped for, and he couldn't help a smirk as her grip on him loosened fractionally. "That's what I thought. I mean, why else cut my shirt off? Clearly you like what you see, or else you wouldn't have done it."
Kala seemed to sputter for a moment, before her eyes took on a wicked gleam. "Maybe I just wanted a level playing field. You got a peek, I got a peek. Tit for tat. So to speak."
Jay raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh. Seems like I'm the only one still half-naked here."
A shrug. "Works for m—"
But Kala's sentence was cut off as Jay twisted, getting just enough leverage to flip them, pulling her off-balance with his legs until she rolled and wound up pinned beneath his weight. The indignant squeak she let out was entirely too satisfying.
"You were saying?" he taunted her, gripping her wrists just a little tighter so she knew she wasn't gonna get out of the hold easily. Or at least, without doing him physical damage.
Kala's expression darkened and her lips twisted in a smirk, and she started squirming beneath him, trying to get leverage that he knew from experience she just wasn't gonna find. And her speed was gonna be absolutely no advantage this way.
"It's no use, K. I've got you, fair and square," he shot down at her with a laugh, pinning her with more of his body weight, rather than just the force of the hold.
Her evil smile told him she still had a few tricks in store, right before he felt the mats sinking away from under him. Or more correctly, he was rising up, Kala nonchalantly hovering. The pressure points were all off, and Jay let go before she could smack him against the ceiling.
That meant he dead-dropped ten feet from an awkward position, but he'd been Robin and tumbling came naturally. Jay rolled to his feet just in time to catch Kala incoming again. She grabbed his jacket and slammed him up against the wall, all fierce grin and flashing eyes. "Gotcha! Again. Now what, Red?" Kala laughed.
Shoving her away wouldn't work, he couldn't spin her around from this angle, but that didn't mean Jay was giving up. Oh no, not by a long shot. He knew a few tactics that weren't in the standard Bat-book.
Jay's hands dropped to Kala's hips and he yanked her close. The way he'd learned that move, he should've head-butted her next, breaking her nose and possibly some facial bones. But then she fell against him, warm and sleek in the suit he'd made for her—the suit that had almost nothing underneath—and he could picture her creamy skin…
…Kala gasped, her eyes flying wide, and all of a sudden Jay knew. They both knew, what was on his mind was showing in his eyes, and a spark leapt between them. In that moment, everything froze and shifted for Jay, even time.
What surprised him more was that she wasn't forcibly moving herself away despite the fact that they both knew she could. Her lips curved into little grin and she laughed soft and low in her throat. And she didn't look away.
Jay let his hands slide around to the small of her back, tugging her closer. Small hands against his chest, Kala trying to steady herself. Hazel eyes fluttered closed and her breath stuttered. It was pretty damn clear that she was just as affected by this as he was. "Evil," she breathed. Brow furrowed, still not even trying to move away.
"Takes one to know one," was his only reply. Jay could feel a shiver running through her like an electric circuit.
Kala's breath shuddered softly before she looked up at him again with those huge eyes of hers. "Still not gonna be a notch on your bedpost, Jay," she said, her voice going quiet.
"Not looking for notches, Kala. Or sparkly princesses, for that matter," he replied, matching her tone as he fought the redirection of blood from his brain. But the drain was too damn complete, and the next thing he knew, he was an inch from her face, his eyes glued to hers as he could taste the sweetness of her breath, her lips just below his.
He could've sworn she was raising her head to meet him halfway when all hell broke loose, the comm on the wall blaring to life in a burst of static and Oracle's computerized voice.
"Hood, Blur, we have a situation. You're needed uptown."