The fourth small rock tapped the outside window to the Gotham University
Dorm. Barbara's cheek lean on her fist as she woke up, heard the noise,
and looked at the clock after removing countless papers from it.
Her blue eyes adjusted to the light in the room. She looked outside of the window, no one was there. It was 5:30. She was supposed to meet Dick at the Airport at four. She needed to brush her teeth before she got to the bus station, maybe even take a cab since she was running awfully late.
There was a loud knock on the door. She quickly reached over and put a piece of gum in her mouth.
"Hold on, I'm coming." She said as she reached to open the door only to realize that Batman's communicator and half of her Batgirl costume were laying out. In her messy room she tucked the costume in a laundry bag and threw a thong over the communicator on her night stand.
She opened the door.
"Grayson?" she said. "What are you doing here?"
Her eyes floated over to her room mate's mirror. She looked like she just woke up. Her hair was in a bun, with her glasses scattered in there. She wore a black tank top that had revealed more cleavage than her nervously blushing freckles knew and her pajama pants were sagging. Dick was wearing a classic sweater vest with a polo underneath and khakis.
"Well when you leave me hanging at the airport, I tend to stop by un announced. This might very well be the first time a girl has ever stood up."
She pulled the joking boy into the room.
"This is a GIRLS ONLY dorm." She whispered trying to keep a somewhat serious, somewhat intrigued tone. "How did you get in?"
"One of the girls in my ECON class from last semester let me in. Told her I'd give her a call. Too bad I don't really know her name."
"Oh." she said as he took a seat on her room mates bed. While she kept on letting the reflection in the mirror become the judge of her. "I'm sorry. If you couldn't tell I fell asleep."
"I tried calling but your line was busy."
"Really?" she said looking for the phone. "My room mate took it to Jenny's across the hall. She practically lives there these days with that whole soriety sister commitment."
"No big deal. I probably should have offered to have driven you in there in the first place. It was on the way and all."
"Don't worry about it Grayson."
"So Babs, is that what you're wearing." He said trying to pull off some charm with his one eye brow bit.
"Well I might just throw a t-shirt over this. I wear my pajama pants all the time."
"Even to dates?" he said.
Barbara paused. She remembered lying to Dick about having a date after the airport investigation. She only had one good summer dress in the closet, most of the clothes she had were GCPD apparel or mature clothes that she took to the library.
"You're going to have to go now. I'll meet you down stairs. It'll only take a minute to get ready, k?" she said as Dick got up and grabbed his arm taking him to the door.
"Alright, no problem," he said as she opened the door only to see the Resident Director outside. She slammed the door.
"I'm going to have to call my date and tell him that I have to change when I get back. Let's get going."
"What phone are you going to call him on?" he said pointing to the missing phone.
"Uh." she urged out, tangled up in her lies. "Do you have a cell phone?"
"No, I left it in the car."
"Listen Grayson, I'm going to have to trust you here. I know THIS is just something you've been dying to happen but you're going to have to ignore it." She picked up a pillow and gave it to him.
"Stuff your head in the pillow!" she said rolling her hands through his hair before pushing it hard into the cotton filled cushion.
"What's all of this about?" he said as he heard Babs take off her top and throw it to the ground.
"I'm changing, Grayson. That's what."
"What makes you think I would even think about looking?" he laughed.
She starred at the mirror, making sure that he didn't move a centimeter from that pillow while looking at herself in the light. She knew Dick was joking although unknowing of what he really would have done if she had done something like this without stuffing his face in the pillow.
She pulled down her pajama pants and kicked them to the side of the room. When she suddenly heard another knock on the door.
"Hey Babsy, it's me Sally. C'mon let me in. I forget my keys."
Barbara rushed over to Dick pulling his one had up with both arms. He dropped the pillow.
"Oh my god, he dropped the pillow." She thought quickly. "His eyes dropped down. Oh my god, his eyes dropped down. He saw my chest. He didn't mean to. Right? Right. He's nervous. He's embarrassed. God why did I lie? He's going to get kicked out of school if I don't hide him." She pulled the pillow up covering her chest.
"My room mate is here. You HAVE to hide?" she whispered as softly as possible yet trying to get the point across.
"Under your bed," he whispered.
"Yes, under my be." she remembered what was under the bed. "No. in my closet."
She said quickly dropping him from his crouching position closing his mouth with one hand and throwing him into the small closet with the other. She picked up the summer dress and pulled it on quickly before she took a deep breath and opened the door, and acted girly.
"Hey Sally, sorry. I was just changing."
"No, big deal Babsie. I have to get my keys and photo album before I go out for pizza with the girls. It will only be a minute and then I'll let you be."
She saw her friend rustle around her equally messy side of the room. Barbara tapped her bare feet on the floor, occasionally looking at the door. Her room mate looked confused and astonished at the same time.
"You look nice. What's the occasion?" her room mate said.
"Oh, I have a date." She said biting her lip.
"Well pull down your hair," her roommate said unwrapping the bun and letting it gently fall down to her shoulders. "And take away those dorky glasses." She said removing them from her hair.
"Gol, I wish that was all I needed to do to get ready for a date. You look amazing." Her room mate, who often kept a distance from the complete opposite Barbara said in a caring way.
"Er, thanks? You think I look ok?" She smiled inside, even though she knew that she was just going out with Dick and the date was a lie.
"Oh yeah. You're a complete knock out. The lucky guy wouldn't be Dick Grayson, would it?" her room mate smiled.
Barbara looked at the closet knowing that her couldn't see her flush.
"No Dick and I are just friends."
"Please, I gave up on trying to get his attention after I got tired of you making that jealous face. The only guy I ever hear you talk about is him. We all know that you like him. Every ex-girlfriend he's had you have something bad to say about and it's not like he's dating bad girls. You even said that that's why you go to all of those boring Charity Balls." Her room mate said mocking her voice. "I wouldn't go if Dick wasn't there with me. We have such an amazing time together. I wish I could find more guys like that. Wait no I don't I want to have a million of his babies"
"Um. take a nap with that gossip that you girls dream about." She giggled along with her room mate and then kept her composure. "Dick and I are just friends."
"SURE. Then who DO you write about in that secret diary of yours?"
"Don't you have to be someplace?"
"Listen, Babs. You two are flirting whenever you are together. It took us awhile to figure out why he was always telling us he was busy, but we figured it out. You know why he doesn't give call backs?"
"What are you talking about. why?" Barbara said looking at the defenseless closet.
"BECAUSE HE IS HOLDING OUT FOR YOU. His friends even say that."
"Well.I don't think that is.so."
"I guess, tell Dickie I said hi." She laughed as she walked out the door.
Barbara looked at herself in the summer dress, and rolled two fingers through her red hair. She wandered what would happen with her friendship after all of this madness that had just taken place. Taking a deep breath she opened the door.
They paused. He looked surprised. He was checking her out. Before he began to move his lips to say "wow" she interrupted him.
"Now I can see why you never called her back." He gave her an awkward look. " She is a complete ditz."
The stressed out Barbara paced around the floor acting like he was looking for something while Dick sat on her bed, trying to keep it cool so she wouldn't realize that he was in deep thought.
"You know her flight is coming in at seven?" he said as she stopped. "Let's see the work you got done and I'll show you what I have once we get in the car."
She stopped pacing. Her comfort level began to steady back to normal as she reached under her laptop and grabbed a thick tan folder and handed it to him on her bed.
"Wow. These are" he looked up to see that she was staring at him without much concern about the project. "uh.amazing. You have the actual notes and give a paragraph of personal analysis on each page. Who'd you pay at the department to get this done?" he laughed.
"I didn't PAY anyone. This is why I fell asleep and didn't show up." She said taking the folder back and heard the resident advisor walk down the stairs. "We better get going."
"Yeah." He said.
"Flight 152 to Metropolis is now on it's final call. Flight 152 is now on it's final boarding call." The announced said as Barbara and Dick split French fries while sitting in the fake leather lounge seats at the Gotham International Airport.
"It's almost seven." She said looking at Dick's watch.
"Yeah. It looks like Bullock and Montoya have checked everyone hand and foot that has come near the area."
"Maybe she has an inside source that they're on to her."
"Maybe she has something up her sleeve." He said taking a sip of his drink through his straw.
"I can't believe Bruce actually dated her." She said leaning over him while searching for the longest fries.
" Bruce has an interesting idea of a lifestyle," Dick mumbled as she munched away.
"What's it like?" she said softly as she swallowed.
"What's what like?" he said as he looked at the small editoral of the paper left on the floor. It was the old man Doyle Douglas talking about Batman again.
"What's it like living with Bruce Wayne?" she said stealing a few more fries.
"Life with Bruce Wayne is a life where you're constantly asked 'What is it like living with Bruce Wayne'" he said trying to make a joke out of it but only frowning.
" I'm sorry Dick, you and I always seem to be talking about other things. I often forget that you are who everyone sees you as."
"No. It's okay." He said. His eyes weren't scanning the floor any more.
"Bruce is mostly concerned with business." She looked disappointed. "But only because he knows that if it wasn't for him a lot of people would have harder lives. He puts it all on him to change everything. Social events are the only times he really gets away from our place. He likes small talk - I've always been about the opposite."
"Dad is the same way. I know.he wants to spend time with me, but he knows that if he wants to go to a gymnastics competition there might be 1 or 2 murders that won't be solved. Guess I've grown up really independent because of it, but on the other hand I have all of his morals and beliefs inside of me."
"Some night, when I'm working for him or with him. I get so carried away that when I take a moment to focus and reflect I realize that I'm becoming him. Alfred told me that I need to focus on what I want before this crazy lifestyle determines my future."
"He's right." She said as the two became laid back, shoulder to shoulder amongst the empty mile of open seats. "You ever have the urge to do something that you wanted to do but you're so caught up with what's going on in your life that you don't realize that that opportunity might be gone?"
"What are you two doing here?" Bullock said as he began to cough.
"Just here to..uh.talk?" Barbara said as she was noticeably trying to hide irritation.
"You talk at an airport?" Harvey said scratching his neck.
"Yeah, well we can't really get any privacy elsewhere. You know? Airports are always filled with tourists. People who don't know the secrets we hide?"
"And what kinda secrets would those be, kid?"
"Well. I guess I shouldn't be telling you this. But, we're trying to find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop."
Barbara tried not to laugh as Harvey walked away to his partner shaking their head. The plane Selina Kyle was supposed to take had left. Everyone was searched for IDs.
"I was hoping we could have had a case solved by today," Barbara said as she took out the last of the small fried at the bottom.
"Yeah, I was starting to get tired of the time we spend together." He laughed.
"You're so right, Grayson." She laughed. "I must say that I do feel the same way, too."
He smiled right in her face and grabbed her wrist. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"
She became excited and afraid at the same time. She couldn't look into those blue eyes, they were too powerful.
"Probably go home." She sighed as he loosened his grip. " I have to meet him soon."
"Dang," he looked at his watch, "I guess I wasn't keeping track of time. I'll take you back to your dorm. I should be back to work anyways. Have some major duty stuff to pull of when Bruce is gone."
Dick's hands were in his pockets as he walked Barbara to her dorm room.
"So I guess I'll see you in class," she said waving her hand through her hair.
"Well only if you don't make it too long of a night with your date," he said.
She bit her lip. " Dick, about everything that happened when my room
mate came in."
"I know what she was saying was true, Babs."
She paused. She didn't know what to do, he looked so confident in the dark.
"You.you.do? Cause."
"Yeah, you are a knockout" he winked at her. "Have fun on your date." He said as he kissed her on the side of the cheek and left.
"Well. uh.thanks grayson." She mumbled as she saw him walk away.
"See it's just one thing that I'm sure she got wrong and it's been on my mind for awhile. To think that she thinks." he stopped he bold march on the sidewalk.
"Yeah, Dick?"
"She thinks that those glasses are dorky. It's just insane."
"Go home Grayson. You've had enough stories today." She smiled as she walked into the door of her dorm. Closed the door. And leaned back on it and looked into the sky as she let the moment go.
Her blue eyes adjusted to the light in the room. She looked outside of the window, no one was there. It was 5:30. She was supposed to meet Dick at the Airport at four. She needed to brush her teeth before she got to the bus station, maybe even take a cab since she was running awfully late.
There was a loud knock on the door. She quickly reached over and put a piece of gum in her mouth.
"Hold on, I'm coming." She said as she reached to open the door only to realize that Batman's communicator and half of her Batgirl costume were laying out. In her messy room she tucked the costume in a laundry bag and threw a thong over the communicator on her night stand.
She opened the door.
"Grayson?" she said. "What are you doing here?"
Her eyes floated over to her room mate's mirror. She looked like she just woke up. Her hair was in a bun, with her glasses scattered in there. She wore a black tank top that had revealed more cleavage than her nervously blushing freckles knew and her pajama pants were sagging. Dick was wearing a classic sweater vest with a polo underneath and khakis.
"Well when you leave me hanging at the airport, I tend to stop by un announced. This might very well be the first time a girl has ever stood up."
She pulled the joking boy into the room.
"This is a GIRLS ONLY dorm." She whispered trying to keep a somewhat serious, somewhat intrigued tone. "How did you get in?"
"One of the girls in my ECON class from last semester let me in. Told her I'd give her a call. Too bad I don't really know her name."
"Oh." she said as he took a seat on her room mates bed. While she kept on letting the reflection in the mirror become the judge of her. "I'm sorry. If you couldn't tell I fell asleep."
"I tried calling but your line was busy."
"Really?" she said looking for the phone. "My room mate took it to Jenny's across the hall. She practically lives there these days with that whole soriety sister commitment."
"No big deal. I probably should have offered to have driven you in there in the first place. It was on the way and all."
"Don't worry about it Grayson."
"So Babs, is that what you're wearing." He said trying to pull off some charm with his one eye brow bit.
"Well I might just throw a t-shirt over this. I wear my pajama pants all the time."
"Even to dates?" he said.
Barbara paused. She remembered lying to Dick about having a date after the airport investigation. She only had one good summer dress in the closet, most of the clothes she had were GCPD apparel or mature clothes that she took to the library.
"You're going to have to go now. I'll meet you down stairs. It'll only take a minute to get ready, k?" she said as Dick got up and grabbed his arm taking him to the door.
"Alright, no problem," he said as she opened the door only to see the Resident Director outside. She slammed the door.
"I'm going to have to call my date and tell him that I have to change when I get back. Let's get going."
"What phone are you going to call him on?" he said pointing to the missing phone.
"Uh." she urged out, tangled up in her lies. "Do you have a cell phone?"
"No, I left it in the car."
"Listen Grayson, I'm going to have to trust you here. I know THIS is just something you've been dying to happen but you're going to have to ignore it." She picked up a pillow and gave it to him.
"Stuff your head in the pillow!" she said rolling her hands through his hair before pushing it hard into the cotton filled cushion.
"What's all of this about?" he said as he heard Babs take off her top and throw it to the ground.
"I'm changing, Grayson. That's what."
"What makes you think I would even think about looking?" he laughed.
She starred at the mirror, making sure that he didn't move a centimeter from that pillow while looking at herself in the light. She knew Dick was joking although unknowing of what he really would have done if she had done something like this without stuffing his face in the pillow.
She pulled down her pajama pants and kicked them to the side of the room. When she suddenly heard another knock on the door.
"Hey Babsy, it's me Sally. C'mon let me in. I forget my keys."
Barbara rushed over to Dick pulling his one had up with both arms. He dropped the pillow.
"Oh my god, he dropped the pillow." She thought quickly. "His eyes dropped down. Oh my god, his eyes dropped down. He saw my chest. He didn't mean to. Right? Right. He's nervous. He's embarrassed. God why did I lie? He's going to get kicked out of school if I don't hide him." She pulled the pillow up covering her chest.
"My room mate is here. You HAVE to hide?" she whispered as softly as possible yet trying to get the point across.
"Under your bed," he whispered.
"Yes, under my be." she remembered what was under the bed. "No. in my closet."
She said quickly dropping him from his crouching position closing his mouth with one hand and throwing him into the small closet with the other. She picked up the summer dress and pulled it on quickly before she took a deep breath and opened the door, and acted girly.
"Hey Sally, sorry. I was just changing."
"No, big deal Babsie. I have to get my keys and photo album before I go out for pizza with the girls. It will only be a minute and then I'll let you be."
She saw her friend rustle around her equally messy side of the room. Barbara tapped her bare feet on the floor, occasionally looking at the door. Her room mate looked confused and astonished at the same time.
"You look nice. What's the occasion?" her room mate said.
"Oh, I have a date." She said biting her lip.
"Well pull down your hair," her roommate said unwrapping the bun and letting it gently fall down to her shoulders. "And take away those dorky glasses." She said removing them from her hair.
"Gol, I wish that was all I needed to do to get ready for a date. You look amazing." Her room mate, who often kept a distance from the complete opposite Barbara said in a caring way.
"Er, thanks? You think I look ok?" She smiled inside, even though she knew that she was just going out with Dick and the date was a lie.
"Oh yeah. You're a complete knock out. The lucky guy wouldn't be Dick Grayson, would it?" her room mate smiled.
Barbara looked at the closet knowing that her couldn't see her flush.
"No Dick and I are just friends."
"Please, I gave up on trying to get his attention after I got tired of you making that jealous face. The only guy I ever hear you talk about is him. We all know that you like him. Every ex-girlfriend he's had you have something bad to say about and it's not like he's dating bad girls. You even said that that's why you go to all of those boring Charity Balls." Her room mate said mocking her voice. "I wouldn't go if Dick wasn't there with me. We have such an amazing time together. I wish I could find more guys like that. Wait no I don't I want to have a million of his babies"
"Um. take a nap with that gossip that you girls dream about." She giggled along with her room mate and then kept her composure. "Dick and I are just friends."
"SURE. Then who DO you write about in that secret diary of yours?"
"Don't you have to be someplace?"
"Listen, Babs. You two are flirting whenever you are together. It took us awhile to figure out why he was always telling us he was busy, but we figured it out. You know why he doesn't give call backs?"
"What are you talking about. why?" Barbara said looking at the defenseless closet.
"BECAUSE HE IS HOLDING OUT FOR YOU. His friends even say that."
"Well.I don't think that is.so."
"I guess, tell Dickie I said hi." She laughed as she walked out the door.
Barbara looked at herself in the summer dress, and rolled two fingers through her red hair. She wandered what would happen with her friendship after all of this madness that had just taken place. Taking a deep breath she opened the door.
They paused. He looked surprised. He was checking her out. Before he began to move his lips to say "wow" she interrupted him.
"Now I can see why you never called her back." He gave her an awkward look. " She is a complete ditz."
The stressed out Barbara paced around the floor acting like he was looking for something while Dick sat on her bed, trying to keep it cool so she wouldn't realize that he was in deep thought.
"You know her flight is coming in at seven?" he said as she stopped. "Let's see the work you got done and I'll show you what I have once we get in the car."
She stopped pacing. Her comfort level began to steady back to normal as she reached under her laptop and grabbed a thick tan folder and handed it to him on her bed.
"Wow. These are" he looked up to see that she was staring at him without much concern about the project. "uh.amazing. You have the actual notes and give a paragraph of personal analysis on each page. Who'd you pay at the department to get this done?" he laughed.
"I didn't PAY anyone. This is why I fell asleep and didn't show up." She said taking the folder back and heard the resident advisor walk down the stairs. "We better get going."
"Yeah." He said.
"Flight 152 to Metropolis is now on it's final call. Flight 152 is now on it's final boarding call." The announced said as Barbara and Dick split French fries while sitting in the fake leather lounge seats at the Gotham International Airport.
"It's almost seven." She said looking at Dick's watch.
"Yeah. It looks like Bullock and Montoya have checked everyone hand and foot that has come near the area."
"Maybe she has an inside source that they're on to her."
"Maybe she has something up her sleeve." He said taking a sip of his drink through his straw.
"I can't believe Bruce actually dated her." She said leaning over him while searching for the longest fries.
" Bruce has an interesting idea of a lifestyle," Dick mumbled as she munched away.
"What's it like?" she said softly as she swallowed.
"What's what like?" he said as he looked at the small editoral of the paper left on the floor. It was the old man Doyle Douglas talking about Batman again.
"What's it like living with Bruce Wayne?" she said stealing a few more fries.
"Life with Bruce Wayne is a life where you're constantly asked 'What is it like living with Bruce Wayne'" he said trying to make a joke out of it but only frowning.
" I'm sorry Dick, you and I always seem to be talking about other things. I often forget that you are who everyone sees you as."
"No. It's okay." He said. His eyes weren't scanning the floor any more.
"Bruce is mostly concerned with business." She looked disappointed. "But only because he knows that if it wasn't for him a lot of people would have harder lives. He puts it all on him to change everything. Social events are the only times he really gets away from our place. He likes small talk - I've always been about the opposite."
"Dad is the same way. I know.he wants to spend time with me, but he knows that if he wants to go to a gymnastics competition there might be 1 or 2 murders that won't be solved. Guess I've grown up really independent because of it, but on the other hand I have all of his morals and beliefs inside of me."
"Some night, when I'm working for him or with him. I get so carried away that when I take a moment to focus and reflect I realize that I'm becoming him. Alfred told me that I need to focus on what I want before this crazy lifestyle determines my future."
"He's right." She said as the two became laid back, shoulder to shoulder amongst the empty mile of open seats. "You ever have the urge to do something that you wanted to do but you're so caught up with what's going on in your life that you don't realize that that opportunity might be gone?"
"What are you two doing here?" Bullock said as he began to cough.
"Just here to..uh.talk?" Barbara said as she was noticeably trying to hide irritation.
"You talk at an airport?" Harvey said scratching his neck.
"Yeah, well we can't really get any privacy elsewhere. You know? Airports are always filled with tourists. People who don't know the secrets we hide?"
"And what kinda secrets would those be, kid?"
"Well. I guess I shouldn't be telling you this. But, we're trying to find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop."
Barbara tried not to laugh as Harvey walked away to his partner shaking their head. The plane Selina Kyle was supposed to take had left. Everyone was searched for IDs.
"I was hoping we could have had a case solved by today," Barbara said as she took out the last of the small fried at the bottom.
"Yeah, I was starting to get tired of the time we spend together." He laughed.
"You're so right, Grayson." She laughed. "I must say that I do feel the same way, too."
He smiled right in her face and grabbed her wrist. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"
She became excited and afraid at the same time. She couldn't look into those blue eyes, they were too powerful.
"Probably go home." She sighed as he loosened his grip. " I have to meet him soon."
"Dang," he looked at his watch, "I guess I wasn't keeping track of time. I'll take you back to your dorm. I should be back to work anyways. Have some major duty stuff to pull of when Bruce is gone."
Dick's hands were in his pockets as he walked Barbara to her dorm room.
"So I guess I'll see you in class," she said waving her hand through her hair.
"Well only if you don't make it too long of a night with your date," he said.
She bit her lip. " Dick, about everything that happened when my room
mate came in."
"I know what she was saying was true, Babs."
She paused. She didn't know what to do, he looked so confident in the dark.
"You.you.do? Cause."
"Yeah, you are a knockout" he winked at her. "Have fun on your date." He said as he kissed her on the side of the cheek and left.
"Well. uh.thanks grayson." She mumbled as she saw him walk away.
"See it's just one thing that I'm sure she got wrong and it's been on my mind for awhile. To think that she thinks." he stopped he bold march on the sidewalk.
"Yeah, Dick?"
"She thinks that those glasses are dorky. It's just insane."
"Go home Grayson. You've had enough stories today." She smiled as she walked into the door of her dorm. Closed the door. And leaned back on it and looked into the sky as she let the moment go.