Mending Broken Wings [Barbara]

[Dick Grayson - Nightwing]

Everything seemed to be moving so fast. It had only seemed like yesterday that he had returned to Wayne Manor and was taking up physical therapy for his body and continuing his work in school from the Manor. Dick's body was progressively getting better and with all the therapy and exercises Bruce had kept him to a schedule of, Dick was starting to feel more like himself.

He was no longer using crutches to get around because of his beaten feet when he had hardly been able to work on his left foot. And he no longer had to wear the wrist guard on his right hand. The muscles were healing properly to his wrist that had been dislocated and then relocated again.

The wounds in his abdominal were still on the mend, with scars able to be seen and stitches that needed to be removed. There was scarring all over his body from the attack that was no left after his long time off. The lashes of the whip on his back were slowly fading away with scars leaving their mark.

And with more healing, his ribs were getting back into proper alignment and it didn't hurt so much to try and laugh now. Dick couldn't wait until he could start of the parallel bars again. And surprisingly, he was looking for to some proper combat work as well.

While he had been healing, his mind had as well. Not longer trying to bottle the event in his mind causing him more torture. His school work kept him busy and so did keeping Bruce off his tail over the whole Selina thing that wasn't adding up.

Dick was now just sitting in the main study on the first floor of Wayne Manor, bored out of his mind. He had been working to finish a paper for finals and was having trouble clearing his mind. He leaned back against the back of the couch to relax. Turning to then be laying on the couch with his laptop sitting on his abdominal as he searched the screen.

After thinking for a while more about it the equations for his research. He was getting mildly frustrated with the class work. Even when recovering from serious injuries, he still had to keep up on his life outside the vigilante work.

Dick grumbled about something as he scanned the screen with his sharp blue eyes looking for something to just jump out at him and help him out. After looking a the screen for a while, Dick reached up with his left hand and shut the screen on the laptop and carefully placed it on the coffee table before him.

When his computer was away, he returned to laying down on the couch once again. He ruffled his shaggy black hair as he closed his eyes after he had been looking up toward the ceiling. He sank deeper into the couch as he lay there. He hadn't heard the door opening to the room as he lay on the couch trying to forget about the project for now. He just wanted a break.

[barbaragordon]

Work was difficult to say the least. Well, not the actual work. It was just an overall feeling of helplessness, something completely alien to Babs. The idea that she was stuck there and couldn't do much to help Dick. She silently chided herself as she shoved files back into the cabinet, nearly crunching the papers in the process. It wasn't as though feeling guilty would change anything. God knows that she'd had the overwhelming urge to go out and hunt Joker down herself since it had happened- how she had managed to rein herself in so far, she'd never know.

Not able to take it anymore, Babs finally decided that enough was enough. She was leaving. If it bothered her boss? Well, it didn't really matter. It wasn't as though she was about to get fired, and if she was- good riddance. She didn't particularly like her job to begin with. As soon as she got out, she made a beeline for Wayne manor. Sure, she knew Dick was independent and that she didn't need to check on him, but it made her feel more useful if she did.

It wasn't difficult to find Dick, lying on the couch next to a closed laptop on the table. Trying to do work, she supposed...but it didn't look as though he was getting anywhere. She chuckled a little bit as she pulled a chair up next to the couch, settling onto it as she leaned forward and ruffled his hair. "Hello, handsome,"[/color] she said with a grin, leaning back as she turned her gaze back to all of his unfinished classwork. "I see you've been extremely productive today..."[/color]

Turning her attention back to him, she frowned a little bit. "How're ya holding up?" And again, that feeling of helplessness trickled in. ”I mean, if you need anything… at all,”[/color] she stopped short. She really wasn’t good at the whole…caring girlfriend thing. Not to say she didn’t care- she just wasn’t the mother bird type, try as she might. In her defense, she was doing better with this. She granted that if she were in his position…well, she would undoubtedly swear she was fine the entire time. She was admittedly bad at asking for help. ”Except your classwork…I won’t do your classwork,” she finally added, wrinkling her nose a little bit for emphasis as she teased him.

[Dick Grayson - Nightwing]

Dick had slight dozed off for a bit. But he did in a some what unconscious way sense some movement within the room closer to him. The noise stopped short, but his mind just wanted to relax and not think about anything. It was the vigilante side of him that kept his senses going.

Suddenly Dick felt a light warm hand fall upon his head and mess with his hair for a moment. Then a familiar voice came through his mind, breaking his peace his mind had fallen into with a light sleep that had come upon him. He opened his eyes and looked over and smiled. There was Barbara, sitting in a chair next to him.

He looked over at the pile of work that Barbara was talking about. A sheepish grin came to his face. "I'm about half way through with it," he replied in his defense.

Dick lay there looking up at Barbara for a moment more as she spoke. And when she ad finished, he moved around a bit so he was now at least sitting up as he now was half laying on the couch. "I'm getting there. Hopefully not too much longer on the rehab and sooner get on those streets again," Dick spoke up.

"What? Not interested in helping me get it done sooner," he said jokingly. "And no worries. I'm doing alright. I don't need anything at the time." Though his eyes said otherwise as he looked her over. It was always good having Barbara around.

His eyes remained of Barbara as he spoke. He now lost any drive to work on his research he had been trying to work on. Now he just needed to clear his mind. Though with Barbara around, it was going to be easier to forget about the paper all together.

[barbaragordon]

To be honest, she couldn't really blame him for only getting halfway through. God knows that while she had done well in school, she wasn't particularly fond of it. Although...she did like research. That was one thing she was particularly good at- finding information. Call it a talent. One of the few that was useful in her separate lives.

"You better finish up with the rehab quickly,"[/color] she said, the sparkling in her eyes belying the threat in her words, "Or I'll..."[/color] Well, she hadn't really thought that threat through particularly well. Or she'd...what? She quickly gave up on coming up with some horrible repercussion for recovering slowly and gave a mighty shrug as she sat back, crossing her leg, "Just miss seeing you out and about,"[/color] she finally said as nonchalantly as she could manage. She wasn't particularly good at admitting she needed something, but she really did miss being out at night in Gotham with Nightwing. Granted, it wasn't all fun and games...but there was something about it.

"Y'see, I would but that would be a little something called cheating, and I don't think that Bruce would be too happy about it."[/color] And Bruce would find out. It was kind of freaky...the man seemed to know about everything that wen ton, well, everywhere. It was impossible to get away with anything around here.

Now that Dick had sat up, there was more room on the couch, and Barbara took advantage of it, getting up from her seat and settling down next to him, cuddling up close. "So...how boring is it, not being able to go out and about? I'd be completely stir crazy from now...."[/color] Probably not the best thing to say, but then, Barbara wasn't always the best at thinking these things through, "I mean, not that there isn't anything to do around here..."[/color] I mean, Bruce had everything...she was fairly certain that entertainment wasn't difficult to find in the Wayne mansion.

[Dick Grayson - Nightwing]

Dick gave a slight smirk as she failed to carry on a threat against him. "Some threat," he joked. He looked at her. It was always quite fun to mess with Barbara when he got the chance. It was just their way of teasing each other and had been this way for years.

"I miss seeing me out and about as well," he replied. "I'm starting to go a bit stir crazy with the schedule of class work and rehab training. Not to mention the lectures, and not the ones in my classes. We're back to combat strategies again." He didn't mind it all that much, but after going over it day in and day out with no ease, it could take its toll.

At Barbara's next comment, he shrugged it off. "Let me worry about Bruce. I'd rather just get this finished and get on with winter break. I mean, it's not enough to have to be recovering from what happened. But to have this much homework as well," Dick replied, half jokingly.

When Barbara joined him on the couch, he was more than happy to share the couch with her. As she had come closer to him he put his left are over her shoulders to keep her close. "Stir crazy was stage one. I'd say I'm on stage five of trying to find anything to keep from running down in the Batcave and just suiting up. I'm still limited on how much I can do. So still no serious gymnastics for a while," Dick replied a bit unpleasantly about it with his own word for his routine lately. "Next stage is rearranging all the books in the library by title rather than author or subject and then putting them back. And that would be just for fun," he said sarcastically.

Though Dick knew if he did something like that, Alfred may not be pleased at all with new organization of the books. Dick just wasn't one to sit around and watch tv all day or sleep in until noon. Well, the only time he would do that would be when he had been on patrols at night, which hadn't happened for some time.

"Though there is always counting the floor tiles around the manor," Dick carried on with his jokes a bit more. "So what's it like in the civilian life outside of these walls?" Dick hadn't been into town for some time now. The main reason was avoiding the press. And the other, a while back it had just taken too much strength to just get around the manor at first from the attack.