July 22nd
Flatwoods Kentucky
0630
They'd had another go after resting for a while, which had wiped the both of them out to the point of dehydrated exhaustion, but Deke had the presence of mind to take the aluminum foil off his windows. He didn't need it anymore, and it only served to mess up their sleep cycles, so when the sun began to rise the next morning, Barbara found herself waking up naturally.
She was rather sore after last night's activities, especially with the more aggressive approach he'd taken with her. It was absolutely worth the aches though, so she wouldn't see herself complaining any time soon.
While he slept, she silently withdrew clothes from her duffel and got dressed. She was happy not to have neighbors within a half a mile as she had slept in the nude, something she couldn't do in Gotham, not without running the risk of being spied on by someone in the building across the street.
She didn't know the area whatsoever, but she was determined to run some of the soreness out of her body, so she grabbed her phone and left the house after taking care of morning business and having some water, running down the long driveway and onto the country road. She kept the volume on her music down for safety, since she lacked any sidewalk, which forced her to run on the side of the road.
Even this early, it was growing oppressively hot and humid, causing her to sweat heavily after only a quarter mile. She soldiered on as she followed her navigation app, following a back country road well around the area. She giggled to herself as she realized she was fully and properly up a holler.
By the time she returned home, Barbara was thoroughly soaked in sweat, her hair almost colored black from moisture, and her sports bra and shorts were showing serious salt lines. "It gets too damn hot here." She muttered to herself as she walked inside and stripped, tossing her clothes into the washer.
She headed upstairs after getting coffee started, and slipped into the shower, noticing her boy was still fast asleep in bed. Their second round had been all him after she kept teasing him while they watched the porn they'd made. He'd definitely taken her for a whirl, but he was paying the price for it now.
She just rinsed off, getting rid of the combined sweat and sex. Barbara had plans for once she got her lazybones of a boyfriend out of bed, and they involved going back outside. A full wash up would just be a waste of time.
Finished washing, she got dressed in regular clothes, which in this case was the Alice in Chains tee shirt she'd been given, and some knee length capris. Like the dress and pants she'd worn last night, the tee shirt was a bit snug, but it was so comfortably broken in it didn't feel constricting.
Okay, her boy was a sleepyhead, there was no argument. She strolled into his room, intent on waking him up, when a smell assaulted her nostrils. There was no possible doubt they'd had sex in there the night before. Looking around, she found a long wooden box and was pleased to see some incense sticks contained within. She lit one, and set it on his desk, before she crawled into bed next to him.
"Are you gonna sleep the whole day away?" She asked sweetly, whispering the question into his ear.
"I'd kinda planned on it." Deke said, rolling over to look at her through sleepy eyes. "Can you conjure up a terribly compelling reason for me not to?"
"Did you just quote Firefly to me?" She asked. "Because here's your gorram reason!" She said, and assaulted him with tickles. This had him up and out of bed in an instant, trying valiantly to fend his girlfriend off. It didn't matter how he did though, one way or another, he was awake.
"You win." He said, throwing his hands up in defeat. "You leave me enough hot water?"
"Yeah, but I have plans, so you might want to hold off." She said. "I just rinsed the runner's sweat. You could've joined me if you'd woken up you know." She added, poking him in the stomach.
Deke made a face at her. "I was kinda worn out, and not sure if you noticed, I wasn't sleeping all night either." He said, gesturing to his torso, which bore little to no bruising whatsoever. He'd been busy.
"Okay, you get a pass. I'd rather see you not hurting. There's always tomorrow to run, and besides, I wanted you to take me hiking today." She said to him as he sat up and swung out of bed.
"That I can do." He told her as he looked for clothes for the day. "What are we doing for breakfast?"
"Coffee is on, and I've got some fruits and oatmeal." Barbara said as she watched him pull his clothes on. "I suppose you'll want a bowl of Super O's?" She said in a teasing tone.
"Well, yeah, but I can eat the other stuff too." He said, turning to wink at her. "I know, I know, I'm a garbage disposal."
"Yes you are." She said, running an arm across his shoulders as she left the room to get breakfast going. "You're cooking dinner tonight, by the way."
"Sure, you've been cooking too much lately." He called out after her, trying to get some socks on. He made a stop in the bathroom, and then headed downstairs to see her getting some fruit ready to be slices.
"Actually, you want me to get that?" He offered, walking up behind her and kissing her on the neck, below her ear. It was tickly, but comforting to her. "Take care of your light work maybe?"
"I'll let you." She said, trying to give him room to work, but he stayed still, and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her from behind. She put her hands on his and held on, and then watched as the strawberries, cantaloupe, honeydew, and grapes she'd sat out began floating in the air, an inch or so above the cutting board.
For a moment, they did nothing, until a quiet screeching sound filled the air, like the sound of a knife being drawn across a whetstone. The fruit fell, struck the board, and fell into small pieces. "Showoff." She muttered, and turned in his arms to plant a smooch on him.
"Hey, I like showing off for you." He protested, after her lips had graced his cheek. "Besides, it's more efficient, no knife to clean up, and it's practice for me too."
"You had to make the rest of that up, didn't you?" She asked with an arched eyebrow.
"You'll never know." He said, lifting the teapot off the stove and floating it to the bowls she'd laid out, before pouring some hot water into each to let the dried oatmeal soak it up.
"You ass." She said with a giggle, tickling him again after he'd set the teapot down.
"Yep, but I'm your ass. Well, no I'm not, because then your pants wouldn't fit right." He quipped at her. "I'd be all yelling "Hi, I'm an intelligent fart!" at a random passerby."
"Would you stop that!" She said, trying to fight back a full blown fit of giggles. "I mean it Deke!"
"I do too! That'd be funny, I could have my hands pressed up against the butt of your uniform like your ass was possessed by the Devil." He said, pantomiming it, complete with ridiculous facial expressions.
That was it, she lost the battle. She was wracked by laughter, the sound of it joyous to his ears. He loved hearing and seeing her in a fit of giggles, though he tried not to do it to her that often. She could become deadly serious and intense at the drop of a hat sometimes, so letting her get the silly out was a fun experience.
Barbara had to sit herself down before she fell down, still trying to contain herself. Deke finished up breakfast, and had indeed also made himself a bowl of Super O's. Through her laughter, Barbara just felt warm inside. She didn't need a man to feel complete, but having one was nice, and having this one in particular was even better.
Once they'd finished eating, Deke laced up his boots and brought his beloved down her own boots. Barbara filled water bottles and they took off. Not even ten in the morning and the heat and humidity had climbed into the nineties. Barbara was beginning to regret asking for this, but her boy seemed not to notice. Once they got into the woods though, the shade of the trees helped.
Deke took point as they went, heading up the hill. Barbara steered from the back, wanting to see the accident site above the house. It was a steep climb, but nothing impossible. For a girl used to navigating the steel canyons of Gotham, it seemed almost too easy.
"Don't move." Deke said, coming to an abrupt stop about halfway up the hill. Barbara froze, and began glancing around, her trained eyes soaking up information immediately. For a moment, nothing happened, until a rust colored snake lifted up off the ground several feet over a pile of dead leaves, and was moved a couple dozen yards out of the way. "Copperhead." He said to her once they began moving again. "Their venom is really weak, and they're pretty docile, but a bite's a bite, so I figured it was easier to send him packing."
"How in the hell did you see that?" She asked. They weren't five feet from the thing.
"Same way you can pick a guy with a gun out of a crowd and I can't. Call it native environment." He said, and kept on. They went on longer, still climbing up and up, when she noticed the plant life starting to thin out as they went. Not much further and it turned into something of a free climb, all plant life dead and gone.
Finally on top, the first thing Barbara noticed was the crater. Deke had said the blast had taken the hilltop with it, but the shallow bowl shaped depression in the ground was a clear indication he might have misunderstood what had happened. Barbara reached into her pocket and pulled out a couple of items. The first was a dosimeter, a small device used to detect radiation. The other was a pair of binoculars.
"Of course you're investigating." Deke said, shaking his head at her. He left her to it, and began surveying the area on his own. There'd been plenty of rain and snow since the accident, plenty of seeds in the wind, the place shouldn't be completely dead, but there it was, a blighted empty depression.
"Do me a favor and go to the other side of the crater please." Barbara asked him, while she plugged some numbers into the calculator on her phone. Her boy just shrugged, levitated himself a few inches into the air, and drifted that way. She would have scolded him for showing off again, but it was more expedient.
She glanced at him through her binoculars, and tapped a button. An invisible laser beam shot out from the optics, and reflected off of him, back to the sensor, telling her the diameter of the crater. Deke floated back over towards her as she mathed some things out. She made a remote connection to a proxy of the Batcomputer, and accessed a database of known explosives, then cross referenced soil and water data to the local area, and began compiling a model.
Deke kept his mouth shut. She was doing some serious forensics, and he was having a fun time watching. He did keep moving as she worked, putting him between her and the sun, causing his shadow to protect her from the unmitigated light. He, thanks to some native heritage, handled sunlight like a champ. She, on the other hand, not so much.
Barbara, oblivious to much at the moment, just kept crunching data, occasionally looking out over the valley beneath her through her binoculars, taking measurements and making observations while her algorithm worked independently on her phone.
How she could do all this with a cell phone was beyond Deke however. He knew she had a pretty badass mobile, but a phone was still a phone. He chalked it up to being one more reason she was truly an exceptional woman, and let himself feel lucky for having her.
They were up there for a good while, over an hour, before she was satisfied with her data. "Let's get back to the house to cool off before I explain anything." She said to him. Despite his efforts to shield her from the sun, which she both noticed and appreciated, she was already feeling herself starting to cook, and it was edging towards noon.
The trip down, though more treacherous, was also more exciting. She talked him into scree running to the treeline, which was about as much sliding and falling as it was running. They laughed and cheered as they went down, but Barbara at least kept her eye on things. He might not mind much hitting a tree too fast, but she would.
Downhill, the hike itself went more quickly, especially as the base of the hill began leveling out to their advantage, the grade becoming much less steep. When they finally got home, they were both good and worn out, and seriously hot. Upon entering, the cool air gave them pause, just reveling in it. Deke stripped down to his underwear, and Barbara followed suit, both too wiped to really enjoy the view.
They sat down at the table with several water bottles, and Barbara began explaining her data. "Something's fishy about what happened up there." She said, and put her hand on his. "I'm not accusing you of lying or anything, I think you were lied to."
Deke put on a poker face, and looked at his love. "Okay, I believe you. What do you think?"
"Well, industrial drilling would leave holes deep enough to remain, even after the couple of years it's been. A chain reaction explosion would have caused different damage too. Also, the complete lack of growth on the top of the hill is evidence of something else at play. Percussive damage wouldn't create a near perfect ring of blight. We went from green, to dead, to nothing in a pretty measured distance." Barbara said, sparing him the technical details. She didn't think he wasn't smart enough to get it, but there was no real reason to break down the math.
"So, it wasn't a drilling accident?" He asked, still poker faced. He had a million questions, he wanted to get furious that his mother might not have had to die. Instead, he just kept a lid on it.
"No baby, I don't think so. You and your mom got hurt with shrapnel from the explosion. Given the distances and the way explosives work, the blast would have had to have originated in the center of what they were calling industrial bores. Plus, their lawyer, how long did it take for him to show up?"
Deke pondered that for a moment. "Few hours, tops, I'd guess." He said, sipping at a bottle of water.
"Which makes me think they were prepared for that happening. Also, they opened with a pretty fair sum of money. You said it was enough to get the place fixed, but I noticed all the appliances and everything are still pretty new and fairly high quality. Your mom was able to do a full remodel, wasn't she?" Barbara asked. She'd noticed the newness of the interior, which had contrasted with the postwar construction of the place. Once they'd knocked the dust off, it became even more jarring.
"She never said exactly how much, but yeah, it was enough to pay for her car, plus half the mortgage after the work got done."
"So, the lawyer shows up, hands over a check big enough to make your mom not want to seek out any legal assistance, he probably told her that it was all he was authorized to do and hiring an attorney would eat a third of it. He gets her to sign future liability rights while he's at it, and you two had no reason to push it far enough to warrant investigation. Cowboy, I'm sorry, but after you'd told me about a foolish accidental millionaire looking for diamonds, I had a bad feeling you and your mom had gotten played. Now I'm sure of it."
"Kinda blows holes in my origin story, doesn't it?" Deke asked, his poker face slipping. He was fighting hard to keep his emotions in check. He was just as capable of projecting his feelings as any other person, but if he wasn't careful, his could become contagious.
Barbara stood up and walked over to him, placing her hands on his shoulders. "This is probably confusing, and I really hope you're not upset with me, but I thought you needed to know." She said, and then leaned down to hug him
"Darlin', I ain't mad at you. I don't really know what I'm feelin' right now." He grumbled, and rose from the kitchen table.
"If you want to talk about it, I'm here." Barbara told him, her tone kind. "If you want a distraction, I'm here for you too."
"I don't much wanna talk about it right now, and I really don't want to take you upstairs in this mood. You don't deserve what I'd probably do." He said, and kissed her on forehead. "I love you though, that doesn't change. I think I just need to figure out who I am again."
"Deke, that accident didn't define you. You're still you, and I love you too."
"Yeah, you're right. I just need to think about this for a while."