19850/Clocktower Shenanigans

Clocktower Shenanigans
Date of Scene:	11 January 2025
Location:	Barbara's Penthouse (Clocktower - 25th Floor)
Synopsis:	Tim visits the Clocktower to catch up with Barbara, and they agree to meet at the Roost for sparring.
Cast of Characters:	Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon

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Tim Drake has posed:
It's been a good while since the New Year's party. Tim Drake hasn't really been in the Clocktower since then, even though he's usually in radio contact with it when he's out patrolling the streets and alleys of Gotham City. It's that very realization that finds Tim here today, dressed more casually than the NYE party. A simple hoodie over jeans and sneakers, with a black t-shirt visible at his neckline.

Leaving the Redbird behind in the garage, Tim presses the button for the penthouse in the elevator. He's left alone with his thoughts for a while, causing him to realize that he's a bird-themed vigilante, but he's part of the Bat Family, but not a member of the Birds of Prey. Huh. Maybe he should not be left alone for too long.

Luckily the elevator reaches the penthouse before too long, and Tim steps out into the penthouse's bottom floor. "Anyone home?" he calls out. "Babs?"

Barbara Gordon has posed:
The foyer and lobby of the Historic Clocktower is done up like a Noir Police Detetctive headquarters, since that is where its roots were in. It was made to look like a functional high end residential apartment building lobby too, since that was the public perception of the building too.

The elevator, however, once inside of it, the car's interior became a shimmering display of screens on all sides of Tim, showcasing a live image of Gotham in every direction. As the elevator rose, the car's display showed tim the view of flying higher and higher up, while various heads up display windows popped up, informing of actual events happening around the city right now, or news blurbs about events that have happened today, or coming up soon. this transformed a ride from the ground floor, to the 25th floor in to an informational experience, and a possibly stomach turning ride up in to the sky, since it made one feel as though they were just shooting straight up in to the sky itself, with no building around them at all.

Of course, it was all just high definition screens, and when Tim reached the Penthouse level, the doors opened, and he stepped out on to the balcony that overlooked Babs' living room. A small set of polished wooden stairs lead down in to the living room, where its chocolate hued furniture had been returned to its proper place in the center of the floor, on a plush rug draped over the hardwood. Any signs of Christmas were gone from the penthouse decore, and it was back to standard decorations.

Across the room, there was movement in the Fallout-series-themed kitchen, with a small Mr. Handy robot moving along the counter, putting dishes in to a drying rack. It spun around on its wheels, and raised one small robotic arm. "Greetings, Master Drake!" The Mr. Handy robot called out. "Mistress Gordon is out on the balcony, I do believe." It said in a hoity British accent.

It was only a second later, that the double glass doors on the east side of the penthouse opened up, and the redhead appeared, wearing a dark grey navy peacoat, her fiery hair tied up in a bun on the crown of her head. She smiled across the room to Tim, and waved. "Hey, whats up?" She said, as she started to pull her coat off, to drape it over the back of one of the dining room chairs that sat beside the doors out on to the viewing balcony.

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim tilts his head with an amused smirk at the Fallout robot. Because of course Babs would see one in a video game and television series and want one of her own. Probably even made it herself. When Barbara appears from her balcony, Tim grins. "That elevator never gets old, does it?" he starts, returning the wave. "Thanks." he asides to the wheeled robot assistant before turning his attention to Barbara Gordon again.

"It's a quiet night, you know, and I figured I'd swing by and see how you're doing. It's been a few weeks, I mean. " Tim grins slightly and moves further into the spacious room. "Besides, if anything major were to happen, I'd rather be up here than somewhere out on the town." he notes with a glance at the city outside. His vigilante uniform is always nearby, but he's not the type to pop into a phone booth and change in a matter of seconds. Do they even still have functional phone booths?

Pondering something and watching Barbara hang up her coat, Tim adds, "I'm sure you were thinking the same out on the balcony just now."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Anyone in the know about Babs, know that after her wheelchair became a necessity, she fell in to two things really hard. The Bat-family stuff, the Birds of Prey included, and her work on her computer. From engineering, programming, to video games. Fallout had been a major mental steam release for Babs, and it has been her favorite thing for over a decade. She was a super fan long before the tv show, and admittedly she doesn't even like the tv show that much. She's one of those fans.

At the top of the little staircase that leads down from the balcony level, Babs strides down it, and moves toward where Tim is near the kitchen. Mr. Handy produced a glass bottled soda, a Nuka cola, and offered it up toward Tim. "Master Drake, wet your whistle?" the robot asked, while Babs approached.

Barbara glanced over her shoulder, toward the view outside, before she looked back to Tim. "Ah, no. A friend of mine brought his family over, to go on a blimp ride. His little girl has been sick recently, and he thought this might be a way to cheer her up." She explains, as she joins him at the kitchen area, beside the bar stools that rest beside the island counter that Mr. Handy was rolling around upon.

She smirked at him. "The elevator is pretty fun. Though, I still primarily use the stairs, since being back on my feet. Why shirk off the exercise I dreamed of being able to do again, some day, now that I finally can again."

She set her phone down on the counter edge, and pushed her dark sweater sleeves up to her elbows, now that she was back in the warmth of her lavish penthouse interior.

"So, what's up? Just stopping by? Or are you about to try and convince me that there's something out there that I really need to leave my home to do?" She asked, grinning at him. "My dad was here earlier, wanted me to go to a Police function with him later tonight. I told him... I'd think about it." She shook her head gently. "He is always trying to set me up with one of his cop buddies."

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim graciously accepts the Nuka Cola bottle, holding it by the neck as the bottom is too wide and adorned with little glass fins to hold comfortably. "Opener?" he asks, holding the bottle to the Mr. Handy once more. It quickly uses its claw hand to open the bottle with a satisfying hiss as the pressure from the carbonation escapes. Tim takes the bottle cap and places it on the counter next to the helpful robot. "Don't spend it all in one place." he quips, before turning to Babs again. "Feels weird to offer you your own soda, but don't you want one? I feel like if I'm about to get irradiated, I shouldn't do it alone." He winks and takes a short sip from the bottle.

When he's free to speak again, and Babs almost made his soda spill out through his nose with her talk of 'cop buddies', Tim grins. He wipes his upper lip on a sleeve quickly and replies, "You don't like your dad's cop friends? Are any of his buddies even near our age?" he asks with a smirk. "Because if they're not, and they're -old-.. I'm free to be an excuse whenever you need it." What an offer. So selfless. What a guy. "So was your dad thinking 'beat cop' or 'detective'?" he continues, playfully needling his friend.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara accepted the bottle of soda from the offered hand, and with it, she softly smirked at him. "Thanks." She quietly said, before she took a swig of it, and set it down on the edge of the counter. she stepped further in to the kitchen, and took out a plate of cookies that had been resting under a glass cover. She carried it over to offer it to Tim, and set it down on the counter too. "White chocolate macadamian nut. Best cookie." She told him, displaying a lopsided smirk.

At his question about the police setups, Babs let out a breathy laugh. "It used to be a lot of patrol officers, when I was younger. Now it has moved on to a more experienced, and advanced position cop. Since I'm not getting any younger, myself." She smirked to tim. "But it's fine. I do like a lotta them, but I don't want to worry about my husband being gunned down in an alley by a meth dealer. It's why I haven't married any of you guys either."

She grinned at him again, being ever laced with that sense of humor.

"What about you? You wanna date a cop?" She asked. "I can ask my dad if he has any your type too."

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim happily takes a cookie. "If these are half as good as the ones they make at the sandwich place by the Roost, I'm never going there again." he tells Babs. "Except maybe for the sandwiches." he teases, taking a bite of the cookie and catching the crumbs with his other hand. He's not messy like that, after all. "'S good." he remarks with his mouth full. "I like that it's soft."

Tim grins at Barbara's description of her potential suitors. "You're not -that- old. I mean, you're a -bit- older than me, but you're not going grey and into retirement anytime soon." Considering her -real- reason for not wanting to be with a cop or a Batperson, Tim nods. "See, I get that. But then, if you're still Batgirl at that time, wouldn't he worry the same about you, if you told him about your secret identity?" Tim pauses for a moment. "..I would."

Tim peers at Babs when she turns the line of questioning around on him. "Me, date a cop? I don't know.. And I think it's for the same reasons, but, well, imagine I'm out there, as Red Robin, and Joker pulls his long revolver on me and manages a hit. That thing packs enough punch to take down the Batwing, you know? So I take a shot like that as Red Robin, and then Tim Drake never comes back home." He pauses. "It'd cause resentment if I never told this imaginary lady. I couldn't trust her with this?" Tim shakes his head. "I don't think I could hide it, to begin with, but you say something and the thoughts start rolling around in my head." He glances at Barbara with a wry grin. "Did you know I overthink things all the time?"

Barbara Gordon has posed:
"They're good, I swear it." Comes the response from the fiery redhead. As he spoke back, she gathered up her drin, and stepped over to one of the stools beside the bar, to slip up on to the edge of it, her hands pulling her phone from her jeans pocket, and sliding it on to the counter's polished surface. Mr. Handy had slipped back over to the sink, where he was running a towel around the edges of it, drying up the water droplets.

"You would have to tell your spouse, if you married someone outside of your alternate lifestyle. It would assuredly destroy your marriage, if you even remotely /tried/ to keep something like that a secret. And yeah, I have thought about that. It is another reason I don't want to get hooked up to someone at this point of my life. It'd be horribly unfair to them, that they have to sit back, and watch me... strap all of that ridiculous equipment on, and go out in to the night, to fight against murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and child molesters. There's no way that doing that, would lead to me having a happy home life, with someone who didn't know how it worked. I mean, maybe I will get my come-uppins. It's not like it takes a lot to die out there."

She took another sip of her soda, and shook her head from side to side. "Hell, I was just watching a video about how easy it is for people who street fight, to knock someone out, and that person falls on the ground, impacts the concrete on their head, and boom. They're dead. It's a wonder we haven't gotten people killed like that. I mean, I've been /aware/ of that possibility, and I've tried to make sure to down people properly... But when the shit hits the fan out there? You know how it is. Death is right there, always on the blade's edge."

She smirked at him, and reached up to brush some of her hair out of her face.

"Anyway, yeah. Maybe I will go to the police thing. Just to get out, and not be an absolute recluse..."

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim grins and nods. "I wasn't arguing, these are great!" he reassures the redhead as he joins her, pulling up a barstool around the corner of the counter and quickly climbing it. Like Barbara, Tim retrieves his phone and puts it face-up on the counter.

"That's why I feel like it'd be better to date someone who already knows beforehand, or even another vigilante or someone with powers." he muses. "But.. I don't want to talk about either of us leaving grieving families behind." he decides suddenly.

"I've considered that, actually. I try and take the bad guys out as comfortably as I can, it's why I use a staff instead of my fists or a pair of sticks." He makes a gesture, his arm outstretched and hand lowering. "See, you can just kinda.. lay them down. And then knock them out properly." With a shrug, he straightens back up and glances at Barbara.

"It could be good for you, and I want good things for you. I liked the New Year's party you hosted." he offers with a smile. "You're good at socializing, I'm.. you know.. not so much."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara's phone was scrolling all manner of information, since it ran on a custom operating system, designed specifically for her life. It was monitoring the tower, the city itself, and everything related to GGE itself. She wasn't looking at it, though, as she was a lot better than most, about paying attention to the physical person she was sharing a space with. Sure, sometimes she had her phone up to her nose, but she was still a relatively young person, who has spent half of her life attached to a smart phone, and computer, in some capacity.

She smirked at him, after setting her can of soda down once more. "I like your staff style. I thought about ... emplying some of that too, but, I'm relying more and more on my drones, to do the bulk of my work for me. It is just safer, and well... It's the future, right? A future where we don't have to do this stuff anymore. It's what Batman was pushing for, just maybe not exactly how any of us may have envisioned it... Okay, well, he definitely envisioned it. Because, he's him."

She smirked, as she glanced toward the kitchen interior again. "You hungry?" Babs asked, as she slipped off of her stool, and swept herself over to her sky blue fridge, entirely designed to look just like those sci-fi fridges from that game series. She opened the freezer compartment up, and drew out a couple of wrapped steaks. "Want me to fry these bad boys up?" The redhead asked, holding them up for the man to view.

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim's phone is just dark, only lighting up when it -thinks- a face passes the front camera. Tim is a practical thinker. Any message he'd receive that'd be worth looking at at the moment is one Barbara would receive at the same time, and it would likely show up on her large operation on the other side of the penthouse.

"Hey, I'd be happy to have you over at the Roost sometime to spar and show you some tricks I've picked up." Tim offers. "I'd ask for some drones in exchange, but.. I generally already get to use them. Right?" he asks, with a pointed glance and a smirk directed at Babs. "I'm not -entirely- sure Batman would want a future where drones do our work for us. Ideally he'd want a Gotham where neither we nor the drones are necessary anymore." With a shrug of his shoulders, Third Robin adds, "But I don't see that happening anytime soon.."

When Barbara offers a warm meal, Tim perks up. "Well, I wouldn't want to impose, but if you're offering how can I say no?" he muses, nodding at Barbara. "Need me to do anything while you're cooking?"

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Babs had her electric grill going while he spoke to her. She had her back to him, her hands working on preparing the food. She glanced back at him, as he spoke of Batman, and what he'd desire. "You're probably right about that." She replied, before shaking her head. "Don't worry about it. Just sit, and relax. Wander around, if you'd like to." She added, as within moments, she had the steaks on the grill, and the grill was heating up.

"My drones are always on-call, waiting for you guys to say you need the help. Heck, most of the time, it is how I am viewing the ongoing situations now. With them being linked in to my car, the blimp, my computer stations here, I don't even really use city cameras anymore. Not that much anyway. My stuff has much higher pixel counts, resolution, and such."

Clanking of silverware, a couple of plates retrieved, and Babs is well on her way to getting them some tastey food.

"How are things at your little Roost? Been awhile since I stopped by there..."

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim grins at the fact that the both of them know Batman so well. "Yeah, I didn't really think there was much to do, but it'd be rude not to offer, right?" Tim notes. It's a pair of steaks, after all. Done in a jiffy. The former Boy Wonder stays seated, drinking his soda and even daring a glance at his phone. No notifications.

"Yeah, that's what I meant. They're such a vital part of what we do now, already. The only way is up. I don't know how I'd feel about just leaving the vigilantism to the drones, though. Sounds a little dangerous?" he remarks, his voice growing questioning at the end, as if he's trying to gauge whether Babs gets where he's coming from.

As Barbara starts setting the plates and cutlery, Tim keeps an eye on the stove. "Oh, yeah. It's still there. Still -huge-!" he retorts to her little jab at his home. "Really though. The team's got their own stuff going on, and there haven't really been suitable missions for us of late. You know how we fall kinda between the Justice League and the street level? Like a black ops Titans group, really. There's not been need for it, with the space invasion and all that. And that's fine, I don't want to jinx it. Not being necessary is the goal, right?" he notes. "And yes! You're always welcome, for whatever reason. Even if you just want to sit back and watch a movie on the big screen."