(Untitled)

[teambatgirl]

Batgirl is on the shoreline. She should be at her post outside the entrance to Rapture, no, she should be down there in the underwater city helping them, Jason and Bruce both. But she's not because fuck Batman and Bruce Wayne and, you know what, add everyone on the ITF who's keeping her topside to her shit list too

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[rage_andlove]

He stands and watches her for a long moment. He's boxed, in his time - mostly after he signed up. He's good, but he's also smart enough to realise that she's way better. His leg's still bothering him and it's enough to make him pissy.

"It's never going to punch you back, you know."

[teambatgirl]

She kicks high with her left leg, up enough to catch a grown man in the jaw then brings the same leg up for a side kick. Then she steps back away and takes a breath.

Stephanie raises an eyebrow at him as sh pushes stray hairs out of her face. "I've noticed that. It's one of the drawbacks of not having live opponents. But better punch something inanimate than...yoga or something right about now."

[rage_andlove]

That kick is impressive, though it doesn't really register on Tunny's face except for a slight raise of his eyebrows.

"I'll spar with you."

[teambatgirl]

She looks him over for a moment and then nods slightly, stepping away from the bag. "Sure." No reason to turn down a chance to spar, even if she's still got bruises coming up from her fight with Damian earlier. "Just straight up boxing?"

[slowspeedster]

Bart wasn't sure why Bob was tailing him today, although he had been clingy after Halloween. He'd long since stopped bothering with second-guessing the bat's mind, even when he decided to throw off his usual sleep schedule. Instead, they were just going along the beach, and he sometimes tossed up a piece of dried fruit for Bob to intercept for exercise.

When they came across Steph, he circled so he wasn't approaching from a blind side. "I'd ask if you were okay, but I think the answer is obvious. Need someone to hold the bag?"

[teambatgirl]

Stephanie hears someone approaching under the sound of her breathing and pauses, pulling back from the bag for a few seconds. Bart comes into view and she nods a greeting as she takes a few deep breaths and tries to get her pulse to slow. Trying to get the rest of her until control too.

"Sure," she says with a nod, slightly breathless. Gives a slight wave to the bat, who is undoubtedly her favorite bat on the island at the moment. Well, him and Damian.

[slowspeedster]

"He doesn't like getting out of sight, lately. I think he's trying to protect me from stray teddy bears. Or use me as a shield," Bart said, sighing slightly. But he moved to hold the bag for her.

"Should I ask what the mood is for?"

[teambatgirl]

Bouncing on her feet, she starts at it again, ignoring the protests of her muscles to do a set of quick cross jabs. For a long moment she doesn't say anything, simply glaring at the bag, as worry and frustration fight for mastery over her.

Steph can't even tell most people about what's going on, can she? Never mind that the whole secret identity thing is basically unworkable here, she can't go around venting about it until Bruce decides to tell people, which will never, ever happen. But at least Bart already knows.

Each word is punctuated by a hard punch to the bag. "The boss bat has landed."

[recanting]

He hates being cooped up, because Alex is a boy who was made to run around, and there's very little more exhilarating than hearing the sound of his own heartbeat and the good ache in his side that comes from too much movement. Stopping just by the beach, he takes a breather, body half crouched with a football held against his hip. But playing football (or, soccer, as most of the people on the island seemed to refer to it as) is no fun alone. And his mind is elsewhere, racing as usual, when it's directed to the sound of punches and kicks. The smack of a punching bag and heavy breaths. He knows it pretty well, by now.

Alex approaches carefully, watching her for a second. Just one second, and it tells him that she knows what she's doing, and also makes him wonder if he should be approaching at all. But his curiosity, as always, gets the better of him. The same curiosity that makes him stick his nose in where it obviously doesn't belong, always.

"You're good. But I bet you already knew that."

[teambatgirl]

Stephanie finishes with one last punch to the bag then turns around to the voice. She offers a little half smile and a bit of a wave, which is as cheery as she can manage under the circumstances. No need to take it out on this guy, though, he wasn't the one who completely disregarded her to go fuck things up with another one of his failed birds.

"Not that good. But I'm always pleased to get positive reinforcement." She smooths her hair out of her face. Her cheeks are flushed, but her breathing is steadying. "Kicking a ball around? How's that on sand?"

[recanting]

"Terrible. But right now the point is to not let it touch the ground," playing hackey-sack with a football was one of the ways they used to practice precision and control, back at Brookland. Or at least, they'd tried. The results were sometimes less than stellar. But it was fun, and without a partner to play with it was one of the only viable options.

"How's the punching bag?"

Obviously, there's something more at work here than the smiles and waves belied, but it probably wasn't even his business, anyways. None of it was. Honestly, he should probably just go back to kicking his football around somewhere else.

[teambatgirl]

"Reassuringly solid as always." She taps it lightly with one of her fists in an absent gesture of affection, then turns to give the guy her full attention. Stephanie tries to, if not be cheerful, than at least seem more perky than surly. "I'm sure there are a few fields that would be good for playing on, I don't know if there are goals set up or not. Baseball's a thing here, not sure about soccer."

[curiously_cora]

"Are you fighting invisible ninjas?" Coraline asked curiously, nose wrinkled as she stared at the girl punching and fighting with the air. "Only if they're invisible you should probably throw sand in the air, then you'd be able to see them and hit them. Wet sand would be better or flour. Flour sticks to everything."

[teambatgirl]

"Ah, but if I threw sand into the air, there's a good chance it might backfire and get into my eyes. Might be better off with a tiny smoke bomb so you can see where the smoke isn't, thus, invisible ninjas now seen." She lets her arms drop and rolls her aching left shoulder. Panting slightly, she finds a small smile for her. "Hey, Coraline. Practicing for class on Tuesday?"

Christ, class with Barnes after this is going to be absolutely unbearable. If this is even resolved by Tuesday, which it better well be or she's liable to grab a shovel and start digging her way into Rapture.

[curiously_cora]

"Yeah but where would you get a tiny smoke bomb from? Besides that's the type of things villainous villains carry," Coraline said before adding. "Or I guess like Robin or Batman. No one who would carry flour would be a villainous villain unless they were Captain Chef, the deadliest chef on the island."

Coraline quite liked Stephanie, they had more than a few classes together beside anyone else who took Arabic with her had to be cool. "No, I'm just practising. I have to be ready."

[teambatgirl]

"Hey now, Batgirl carries tiny smoke bombs too," Stephanie protests and, okay, this makes her smile. Really smile, not just 'being polite so I don't bite your head off' face. "And so does Black Bat, Batwoman, Huntress, all sorts of awesome hero ladies."

She nods. "That seems pretty sensible to me. You were okay after everything that happened on Halloween? I dig your blue hair, by the way."

[straightupbitch]

Santana is more of a scratch, claw, and pull hair kind of girl, she always has been, but she can definitely appreciate some of the more extreme outlets for violent impulses. If she didn't have dance to keep her fit and sane and wasn't worried about breaking a nail, she might have taken up kickboxing or something similar already. Her first inclination is to simply stroll on by and let Blondie McLikestoFight sort through her issues in her own way, but her interest is caught and held when she recognizes the girl working the punching bag. On a hunch, she asks, "So, whose face are you envisioning on that thing?"

[teambatgirl]

"Someone who could totally kick my ass if I actually tried to pull this on him," she says without skipping a beat, managing one more high kick before stepping back and taking a few deep breaths. Not that Bruce would actually kick her ass. Instead he'd just catch her fist and growl something deep and menacing, and in a few words make her feel about ten inches high. Cutting a person down, it's practically his metapower. It makes the times when he's kind that much more precious, the stupid jerk.

She sighs and gives her a wan smile. "You ever know one of those people who just- I don't know- he's infuriating. He is impossible to deal with and suddenly it's like he's my problem."