16424/Weathering the Races

Weathering the Races
Date of Scene:	27 November 2023
Location:	Gotham City Streets
Synopsis:	Candy in the Rain, a street race, and a couple of kids just doing what kids do.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Robbie Reyes

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Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Sometimes you just had to get outta the house to get into your head. And sometimes you had to get out of your house because a very polite text came from a certain pink-haired person with a tendency to forget to check the weather when she's not on a patrol night, and was wearing a skirt and on her motorcycle and pretty-pretty please if you're not doing anything important Jefe, could I get a ride (and thus spend additional time with you?). And for some reason just got a kick out of eating vegetarian-friendly gummy candy while sitting in a car that she's pretty certain actually runs on souls sometimes. She's never asked.

    So she was hanging out under the candy-stripe awning of Amin's Confectionary, which makes their candies sans animal ingredients, and it's one of the three places in the city that she can get gummy bears made with apple pectin and agar by the pound.

    Which she abuses by purchasing five pounds of gummies at once. Maybe that's why she's so sweet.

    She was wearing a tan knee-length skirt and her high bicycle boots tha tlace up over the knee, presumably with tights underneath, and a bright pink denim jacket that matches her slightly damp pink 'do, kinks and coils a bit all over the place. She has some bandages wrapped around her left hand as she contentedly leans against the brick work.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    It does not take too long for the hellpowered ride to roll up on Phoebe's location. The benefit of having a boyfriend whose ride does not need to follow the laws of physics. Or maybe he just was done dispenseing Vengeance for the evening, and happened to be in the neighborhood.

Either way, as Robbie pulls over to the curb, he lowers his window and hangs a bit to the side, calling to her.
    "Hey, chica, you wanna go for a ride? I can't promise it won't be bumpy, but I /can/ promise that every bump will leave you wanting more." He waggles his eyebrows a bit as he essentially catcalls.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe has been catcalled. Phoebe usually has to ignore it, but tonight?

    She almost chokes on a gummy bear as Robbie pulls up and leans out of his ride. She tries very hard to not get a gummy bear ejected through her nose as her cheeks and ears darken.

    "Ooh, lucky you I like bumpy rides about as much as I like smooth ones." She grins, coming out of the shelter of the awning a little bit, holding the bag of candy over her head to protect her hair a little.

    "Going anywhere in a rush baby or are you just out crusing for trouble?" she lilts, and her nose wrinkles, her grin spreading a bit.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    "I'm always in a rush, unless I'm convinced to savor the moment," replies Robbie as he leans over to unlock the door for Phoebe.

    He does not need to do it by hand, of course, but there is something about leaning all the way across a ride to open the door that feels so satisfying.

    "Hop in, and we'll see if you make me want to take it slow, or fast." A flick of a grin. "It'll be hard either which way."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    There was something about a manual car that entices people. Phoebe's fancy porsche had Power All The Things and a standard shift. Which she kinda learned how to handle. There's a reason she liked taking her Frankenbike everywhere.

    And Phoebe's just giving a girlish giggle and a smile that's saved just for Robbie when she comes over to the passenger side and jumps in, shaking off some of the rain and a little of the cold.

    "Thanks for the lift. I could have called for a car, but this is way, way more satisfying." she gives a bright grin, rubbing the back of her neck a moment as she turns back to the grinning face of Robbie Reyes.

    And she leans over to kiss innocently at his cheek --

    "Or should I have kept up the 'total stranger' act? 'Cause there's little that's stranger than us, Jefe." she jokes.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    The grin on Robbie's face broadens after the kiss, and the remark, and he shrugs a bit, straightening up. "Depends, Munequita, on how far you'd want to take the stranger act and what the stranger is willing to offer in exchange for the ride in the rain."

    There is another laugh before he straightens up and revs the engine, for the benefit of those watching outside as well as for his passenger, before he slips it into gear.

    "So, where to?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The HellCharger's a looker no matter what. All muscle, tough and lean and hungry. Not like the girl in the passenger seat who is giddily back to taking a bite out of a gummy bear as she considers.

    "I'm *pretty sure* there's a LOT of 'adult movies' that start off like that. Wouldn't know for sure though." she states with faux innocence before biting off a gummy bear head.

    And giving him a sweet smile, clipping in.

    "I'd hate to get candy all over your back seat though." she jokes, leaaaning over on purpose as if to make sure there wasn't anyone back there, and she gives a shrug.
    "I dunno, don't really have anywhere I gotta be tonight. No classes for the rest of the week, and other than one new hire who we orientated, I don't have any Wayne Enterprises stuff to do." she breathes out. "And I have the night off from patrol. So we can just cruise -- I mean, unless you really *want* to go for some forlorn ridge overlooking the city, but fifty-fifty chance we're gonna have to fight a serial killer or something."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    There is a brief moment when Robbie watches Phoebe before he flashes a grin. "Who said anything about the /back/ seat?" Then he punches it, and the Hellcharger roars to life.

    In truth, he has no particular place to go either, and so he starts weaving down the roadway, allowing Phoebe to enjoy her gummy selections. "How'd you manage to square off a free night? I thought the fam kept you working the candle on both ends?"

    He takes a turn sharply, evoking a few honks from cars not quite prepared for the Hellcharger's deft manuevers as it darts in front of them.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "-AY!" Phoebe gives a brief yelp, a couple of gummies (bears and sharks) taking to the air as Robbie revs and guns it, feeling the car roar. It's a sound she's become so familiar with, it's almost comforting.

    Which is weird in itself, and she gives a laugh of delight, sinking a little into the seat, enjoying the feel of inertia on her body, and she offers a vegetarian-safe lemon gummy shark to her driver.

    "I'd hate to get candy all over your front seat too!" she replies.

    She gives a small shrug, her head turning and leaning just so as the Charger bullies its way through traffic, and she turns her dark gaze up to Robbie.

    "Sometimes things work out. And yeah, they've been keeping me busy. There's always cases that need to be gone over or re-checked, but... they know that you can't do it Every Night Forever... well. /Most/ of them know you can't do it every night."

    WE ARE SPECIFICALLY LOOKING AT YOU, BRUCE. TIM.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    Turning his head slightly so that Phoebe can get the gummy into his mouth while his eyes remain on the road, Robbie shrugs slightly. "I'm sure you'd be careful. Mine isn't the grudge you'd need to worry about if you got something on these seats." He reaches out to pat the seat with his hand for a moment before moving it back over to downshift as he takes a quick turn to move across a bridge.

    "As long as they know that you're not as crazy as they are, and that you get to take some time for yourself when you need it..." Robbie glances sidelong at Phoebe. "You've seen what a lifetime of that kind of crusade can do to a person, and there's good reason to try to avoid that."

    The Hellcharger take a bit of air coming off the hump after the bridge, and then he takes a turn uptown.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "It's the life I chose when I agreed to work with Batman. I knew what I was getting into at that point. The five-hour training sessions for a month straight were a surprise though. Gods, I didn't think I could withstand bruising on organs like that --" Phoebe gives a small 'eep' sound.

    "And yeah, I know. Your car and I already got into an argument, and now I have /pink hair/." Phoebe replies with a small smile, and she gives a small hum.

    "I think I know that car ahead on the right. Be careful."

    She slouches down a little bit as the light ahead of them turns red.

    "They're kinda..." she racks her brain for a moment.

    "/Pendejos/." she finally finds the right word. Assholes. Her pronunciation was even spot on.

    And it's true. There's three of them in an Audi A6. The car's been worked on, even a layman would be able to see that there's a lot of after market parts that have gone onto it. Better exhaust. Scoops for airflow. Lowered kit, and it's that bright, obnoxious red with the rattlly exhaust, slightly tinny. There's a red-to-gray fade alongside it that promotes AUDI RACING and some rich boy car place that soups up cars for... you guessed it -- rich boys who don't work on their own.

    Someone's opened the sunroof and popped their head out.

    "YO YO YO! I KNOW THAT CAR!" he snap-points "Seen it at GOtham U! Bruuuuuh why you drivin' some old car like that?!" he shouts out, and then points to the passenger side "An' still get a honey like THAT! Hot *DAMN*."

    "Hey! That's the Wayne girl! Hay Shawty! Why don't you hop in the back seat of my ride an' we'll show you a good time! Ow ow!" the driver calls out.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    Rather than getting angry, Robbie just seems amused. He turns to regard Phoebe in her seat, squirming though she may be at being spotted. "You know these guys, huh?"

    He turns his gaze back towards the other car, and flashes them a bright smile. "If there was anything in that car that interested her, you think she'd be riding in this bucket of bolts?" He slaps the side of the Hellcharger affectionately as he watches the others do their performance.

    "Must mean you're /really/ low on the totem pole of dudes if you can't even catch some tail with that ride."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Yeaah. From college." Phoebe replies to Robbie, but she purses her lips in amusement.

    "Dude's right, his car's a bucket of bolts. I think he's got a ratchet strap holding his BTS in." the guy in the back seat leers over, and looks Phoebe up and down like she's a piece of meat.

    "C'mon Wayne, you know you're better than hanging out with some guy with an old-ass car!"

    The driver revvs his engine, and eyeballs Robbie, past Phoebe.

    "How 'bout this -- quarter mile, one way in front of us. We win, you give us a half hour with your girl. You win, we'll give you five hundred bucks."

    The guy hanging out the sunroof opens his wallet and flashes his cash, and then makes kissy noises.

    "Bruuuh I heard the Waynes are all freaky an' shit."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    There is something of an amused twinkle in Robbie's eyes as they advance their wager. He looks over at Phoebe, and then back to them. His eyes move over to their car, and then back to the driver, as he chuckles.

    "Are you sure you know what you are getting yourself into?" He revs the engine for a moment, and then looks over at Phoebe. She might be able to sense it, the unwillingness to back down from a challenge, before he looks back to them.

    "Works for me," he calls back over, turning his attention back to the light. He revs the engine again as he glances to the other streetlight, waiting to see when it turns yellow.

    When the other direction hits red, he calls out just before the green appears. "Although I don't think you're gonna like what you get out of your half hour if you win!" And then they are off.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe has the Utmost Faith that Robbie's going to ride off with five hundred dollars. That's why she's keeping quiet, though she sinks a little furhter into the seat, her shoulders rising. She gives a roll of her eyes at the trio in the Audi and rolls her window up as the guy out the sunroof sinks back in, and the guy in the back knocks against the seats saying 'go go go go go!'

    The other direction turns red. Cars stop nicely, and the one-way through a high-rise and business section of uptown drops the green, three lanes to work with, neither racers really wanting to back down.

    Some rich boy's souped up Audi A6 and a car that's driven the highways of Hell itself. There's a screech of tires as the Audi catches the road and takes off, giving a tinny whine as they go, giving whoops and talking excitedly about what they're going to do. Because, obviously, Phoebe had no say in it.

    "Smoke 'em." she whispers over to Robbie, and holds on to the seat between her legs like she might go flying back.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    There is nothing but amusement on Robbie's face as the boys hollar and hoot at their belief that they have already won a prize. Perhaps more amused at the notion of just what that 'prize' actually would be if they were to win it.

    As their car races away, Robbie looks over at Phoebe with a bit more leisure than perhaps seems practical. "Are you sure you don't want to teach them a 30 minute lesson on how to treat a lady?" he asks, before his lips curl into a grin and he turns his gaze back past the dash.

    And then the Hellcharger roars in fury as it blasts forward down the stretch.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "They wouldn't even get the full thirty minutes." Phoebe replies to Robbie with maybe a little bit of a boast, and she turns her gaze to the road ahead of them.

    She feels the roar of the engine, the rumbling of the steel around them, her hand gripping tighter on the seat and on the backrest as she holds tight, trusting in Robbie's driving.

    A quarter mile shouldn't take long.

    The boys think they got it made, more than halfway to the next stop light when they see the Charger coming in *hot* behind them.

    "Bruh! Go, go go!" one hollers, shaking his friend's seat as they look behind them.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    It was never much of a contest to begin with, even with Robbie's stalling. As the Hellcharger roars down the street, overtaking the poor Audi, Robbie glances to the side.

    "More like 30 seconds," he says, winking at Phoebe, before turning his gaze out towards the boys outside his window.

    "You're lucky I'm the one embarassing you instead of her!" he says with a mad cackle as he guns it, easily surpassing their speed and making it well past their time on the quarter mile before he lets the Hellcharger slow down so they can catch up.

    They have a wager to pay, after all.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The Audi hard-brakes, and pulls off to the side a bit. There appears to be an argument going on, as the map light illuminates the inside, and the driver appears to be in a heated discussion with his friend who was hanging out the sun roof.

    And finally, after a moment, the passenger in the back seat gets out -- kicking the Audi's door -- and huffs to the driver's side of the Charger.

    "Yeah. Okay. You smoked us. Fair's fair. Five hundred." he states, and hands out five very crisp hundred dollar bills to Robbie, and he looks to Phoebe, and gives an upnod.

    "So... uh... we still meeting at the coffee place on campus for the bio-chem study group? Kinda think the testosterone took over a bit much on Kyle's part." he states in sincere apology. "But this is a sweet ride, bro. No hard feelings."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    There is a moment when Robbie thinks about not taking the money. But fair is fair, it was a bet, and he did earn it. He takes it and stuffs it into his front pocket. "I got no hard feelings, 'bro', because I know the value of what I have."

    He leans back a bit in his seat. "And I promise you, only reason why I left her out on the wager was because I knew she could take care of you boys herself. Don't go trying to make claims you can't handle, and maybe treat folks with some respect, huh?"

    He leans back a bit further in the seat to give Phoebe a chance to respond to them as well.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Yeah, I won't mention anything to the Biochem group. And he's right. Fourteen years of Aikido and three of Judo, man. What'd you think you were gonna do? Stop hanging out with Kyle and Ryan. You're turning into a jerk. Lindsay wouldn't want that." she comments, and slowly leaaaans over Robbie and fist-bumps the kid who came to settle up and give apologies.

    "Right on." he steeples his fingers, and points with both hands "Well. Ah. They're my ride home tonight, so see you next week. Thanks again for being cool man." he gives an honest grin to Robbie. Definitely trust-fund; his teeth are incredibly perfect. And then he ducks back into the rain to get back to the Audi -- which starts off without him until he yells that he still has Ryan's wallet.

    Then the car stops to let him in, and they make a screaming right on red to exit out of their embarrassment.

    Phoene, meanwhile, remains leaning on Robbie.

    "He's not too bad. Kyle and Ryan though? I have a feeling I'm going to see them again."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    Sliding his arm along Phoebe's back as she leans in, Robbie turns to brush his lips against hers for a moment.

    "Yeah, that kid seemed nice. Maybe that was the lesson he needed to learn. And if so, $500 is pretty cheap to learn it."

    He looks towards the retreating car and shrugs. "And yeah, maybe they'll come around, but I'm not worried. I should be worried about /them/."

    He straightens a bit, looking at Phoebe. "So. Any other excitement for tonight?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Them's a pretty big possibility in Gotham. Luckily, my whole team knows your car. And I'll probably just get a warning tongue-lashing from my guardian." she states, and Phoebe tults her head back after the kiss to brush her nose along Robbie's.

    "Well. There could be the excitement of digging those gummies out of the front seat where I dropped them." she gives a small smile as she straightens up.

    "Or we could pick up some Bat Burger, find a secluded spot in Robinson Park and see if we can't entice some serial killer to poke their heads out. -Or-..." Phoebe purses her lips in thought, and then just leans back in her seat.

    "You did promise a bumpy ride."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
    Robbie seems to sort through each of those options in turn. He does seem to give some pause and worry to the warnings of the guardian about his speed, but he hopes that the lesson taught to the rich kids will serve as a worthwhile explanation for the indiscretion.

    As far as the rest of the night?

    Robbie flashes a grin at Phoebe. "I always keep my promises."

    He turns his attention back to the road, shifts into gear, and peels out.