Owner	Pose
Luke Cage	It's two-for-one at Luke's, but the night is almost over. Luke's isn't full, but there's some stragglers here and there. Behind the bar, the man himself is leaning against it, wiping a glass down and watching the crowd. This is the part of the night when everyone's mostly drunk and he needs to make sure they aren't driving or doing something else that's dumb or dangerous.
Barbara Gordon	After the Negative Zone expedition the other night, Barbara had gotten more curious about the members of the Defenders. Luke and Jessica specifically. They were both very nice overall, but they were curious to her, their powers were so similar on the outside, but they also simply wore normal clothing, seemingly unconcerned with hiding their identities... She's a detective, and thus Barbara set out to learn a little more. Outside a black SUV finds a place to park, and a moment later a redheaded woman in a black denim jacket, black slacks, a form-fitting grey sweater and a small gold necklace around her neck... simply strides in to the bar through the front door. She stands at 5'11... thus she's not some small little bird... and as she settles in to the new locale, her eyes wander right to left, before she moves toward the bar with a friendly expression upon her lovely featured face. "Hello." She says to the man behind it, as she palces her hands gently upon its edge. "Nice place."
Luke Cage	Luke always pays attention at who comes in and who leaves his bar. When Barbara comes in, he sets the glass he was cleaning aside and then turns to look at her. "Hello." He folds his arms over the bar and smiles at her. His smile is easy-going and friendly. "Kinda late to be startin' up, but what can I get ya?"
Barbara Gordon	The response that he gives to her has the redhead showing another quick smile. She purses her lips then, as her eyes go over the variety of drinks. "Have any room temperature Cognac?" She asks, smirking softly. "A friend of mine said that it was best to drink when you got it warmed up a bit from holding the glass in your hand. I believed her at the time, but now I want to put it to the test." Take that Selina, wherever you are. Babs slides herself on to the bar stool beside her, perched on its edge now as her eyes roam over the interior of the place. "You closing up soon? Am I going to get kicked out before I finish one drink?" She asks, a playful expression touching her face.
Luke Cage	"I do." Luke turns around and reaches up to take the cognac from one of the higher shelves, bringing it down. While he prepares her drink, he watches her slide onto the stool and gives a little chuckle at her question. "Well, I _am_ closing up soon, but I usually take a while to put all the chairs up and wipe the tables down. So maybe, if I like you, you can stay for a bit before I gotta lock everything up. How's that?" Luke smiles at Babs and slides the cognac over to her.
Barbara Gordon	"Works for me." Barbara responds to Luke's good rebuttal, as her right hand accepts the delivered drink. She clutches it lightly, her gaze sweeping around the room again, now with the intent to discern how long it'd take to put this room up after hours. She draws in a breath, however, and returns her eyes to him as she smiles again. She samples the drink, handling her liquor better these days. With an approving nod, she lowers it back down to the bar top. "I'm Barbara, by the way." She tells him. "Gotham native. Quite a Negative Zone, you could say." She adds that last part, with a grin tacked on for him.
Luke Cage	Luke is smiling until she makes the Negative Zone crack, and then he gets a short-lived confused look on his face, before giving her a wider, broader smile. "Well, shit. You can stay as late as you want," he tells her with a laugh. He looks at his other patrons as if considering just tossing them out on their asses early, now. "So you decided to come by after all, huh?"
Barbara Gordon	For a moment, Babs' grin blossomed a little wider at his reaction, and noting him understanding her meaning behind it. "Hey, special treatment at a bar. I've never had that before. I feel important now." She states in a softly cheery fashion. Another sample of her drink is had, before she sets it down to hold it between both of her hands. "You and Jessica seem like good people. I wanted to reach out... and just, you know, not be a mystery anymore. It only seemed fair, I suppose?"
Luke Cage	"I mean, I'll admit that the mask and uniform was pretty hot," Luke says with a smile, "but knowing your whole face is pretty nice, too." He folds his arms over the bar and leans on it a little bit. "I can appreciate 'fair', too. Not a lot of people tryna be fair out there, you know?" He smiles. "Jess is great if you can get past the whole attitude thing."
Barbara Gordon	The compliment has her showing a warm expression before she glances at a pair of bar patrons already on their way out. She watches them pass by before she looks back toward Luke. "I don't mind her style. I know a lot of people just like her, though... most of them fully buy in to the Gotham theatrics, like myself." She states in a soft tone of her feminine voice. She swirls her drink glass a bit with one hand before shaking her head. "Where I come from, we have to adapt to a lot of crazy stuff to survive. Some of it is silly when you get out of our city's limits... but... inside them, you quickly begin to understand the game." She smirks once more at Luke. "Plus, I can't do the impressive things that you and she do. I have to fake it with fancy gadgets..."
Luke Cage	"Hey. I don't judge. You guys dress however you want. I own a bar in New York City. It may be Harlem but you got any idea how many comic book and science-fiction conventions happen all around here? Shit. I seen it all." He grins at her. "And like I said, doesn't hurt you make it look nice." He steps out from behind the bar and says, "Gimme a minute," before stepping over to some patrons. After a short conversation, a guy who has a wobble to his step gives up his keys, and they all leave. Luke wanders back to Babs. "Besides, I can't really criticize. You seen who I hang out with? Daredevil ain't exactly dressing normal when he goes out."
Barbara Gordon	Barbara watches Luke as he saunters off to deal with his late night patrons. She shows another quick smile before her eyes go toward a tv mounted on the wall. She can only barely hear the voice of the newscaster showed on the screen, but can see it is some crime scene report, which has all the elements of who she is triggered inside her mind. Not her city, not her issues to deal with, right? Maybe. She takes another drink of her Cognac, before setting it down again, her eyes watching the patrons pass on out in to the New York night. At Luke's return, she smiles a little once more. "I like his outfit..." She fires back. "Maybe I'm biased toward such things. Honestly, the one I wore the other night, I specificaly chose because it was similar to his. I thought we'd look as though we were 'cut from the same cloth' so to speak." She explains, a grin playing across her lips. "But, then there's you and Jessica, just wearing whatever... Breakin' up our vibe." She teases.
Luke Cage	"I'm sure you do," Luke says with a smirk, sitting down next to her. "Baby, if me wearing a pair of jeans is all it takes to break up your vibe, it ain't that strong a vibe, is it?" He teases back, smiling. "You all do a good job of not getting photographed or whatever during your normal hours in Gotham. I looked you up online. Couldn't find a picture at all."
Barbara Gordon	Barbara turns on her bar stool to face him more when he settles in on her right side. She leans a little more on her left forearm then, her hand holding her drink as she places the other upon her right knee. She laughs lightly at what he says, before drawing in a breath of air that raises her shoulders up some inside of her black denim light jacket. "It takes quite a lot to achieve that, if you can believe it. But with some technology involved? Gets quite a bit easier to erase photos off of devices taken within a recent span of time within a radius around your location." She grins at him softly. "Don't get me started on how AI has improved the accuracy of what I'm erasing versus allowing to remain too. I don't want to overstep my moral duty, afterall." She shakes her head softly. "I'm not as ... stringent with my identity as my mentor, who I am sure you have heard of, but... I've had my problems in the past, with people finding out who I am, and where to find me..."
Luke Cage	"Yeah, sounds like a lot of effort," Luke admits with a shake of his head. "I don't got time or patience for that stuff. But I guess it helps when most things can't hurt you. For normal people they gotta be more careful." Then again, Luke probably knows that being invulnerable doesn't mean he's immune to people hurting those he cares about. "Anyway, don't be surprised if Jessica figures all that out. She's good at that stuff. Me..." He shrugs. "I take it easy." He waves at the last of the patrons to leave, and then turns back to Babs, giving her a smile. "So when you're not fighting crime in spandex--" he knows it's not spandex "--or hacking people's phones to delete pictures of you, what d'you do?"
Barbara Gordon	A little laugh bubbles up out of the redhead, who nods her head a pair of times. "I looked her up already, yeah. Private Investigator. A job I admire, considering it's roughly in the same ballpark as my own." She shows a quick smirk back to him then, before she draws in a light breath and indulges in another sip of her drink. "I uh..." She starts, lowering the glass again. "I spent about eight years in a wheelchair after an incident... But during that time, I built a business, made some money, taught myself a bunch about computers, about engineering... You know, the normal stuff you do in wheelchairs." She smirks toward him again, softly shaking her head at herself. "I got lucky enough to be an early adaptor to the neural implant technology that is taking off these days. The brain chips that help injured people walk again. I was a test subject, you could say, due to my technology know-how, I was a good candidate to help develop the software to advance it a little further. It let me ... get back in the suit, so to speak." She sips her drink yet another time, before setting it down again. "You? This a family business?" She asks of the bar.
Luke Cage	"You tellin' me that you got your back broken, spent eight years in a wheelchair, and when you got back on your feet you went right back to riskin' it on the streets of Gotham city?" Luke Cage raises both brows and then lets out a slow whistle. "That's both real crazy and _real_ hot, you know?
Barbara Gordon	A knowing smirk crosses Barbara's lips as she considers her responses to his question. She draws in a breath through her nose, and gently exhales it toward her left as she glances away for a moment. With a soft shake of her head, she looks back at him. "I was shot. Guy broke in to my place. Clown makeup, bad teeth. You may have heard of him. He got the jump on me. I rushed him with a pair of scissors, as I didn't have much time to do much else. He drew on me, I turned and... well... everything is kind of a blur after that. It wasn't great though, I can say that much, at least." She draws in another breath, and once more shakes her head dismissively. "I spent the decade planning, preparing, researching and learning. My whole business was built on the idea that I could put a lot of what I learned, the money I'd made, back in to the idea of becoming Batgirl again, in a way that Gotham really needed. Fully armored in a suit that could better protect me, provide me with strength that my natural form doesn't compare with even in the slightest... maybe more akin to your own strength, Muscle Man." She smiles at him softly after saying that. "It's uh... it's been a journey, I guess."
Luke Cage	"Listen, I ain't gonna judge. You do whatever you do, whatever you want, that makes you feel alive and worthwhile. That's the only way we can make this world make any sense anymore, you know what I mean?" Luke leans against the bar and smiles at Barbara. "But it's probably not a topic you like chatting about too much." He clears his throat. "So no, it's not really a family business. I bought it a while back. Always wanted a bar, you know?"
Barbara Gordon	The response that Luke gives to her, has Babs showing a light smile. "My therapist tells me I need to talk about it. I stopped going to see them not long there after." She states, a grin suggesting she's joking though. When he steers them back to the bar topic, she gives another quick look around, before her eyes return to his. "I understand the draw of it. It's a romantic thing, I think, isn't it? Owning your own business where people come in for drinks, but also because they want to get away from home. Find a place they can unwind and maybe a conversation to keep their mind off of other things. If I weren't such a reclusive weirdo, I might consider such a thing as well..." She smirks softly at him again, before finishing off the last sip of her drink, setting the empty glass down on the bar.
Luke Cage	"You know, no one's ever called it romantic before, but I think it is. Not in the, you know, romance sort of way. It's kinda to dive-y for that. But more in the other sense. Romantic as in having my own place, my own business, something to call my own." Luke smiles at Babs. "You schlepped it all the way here from Gotham, across state lines, to see me. You ain't that reclusive, Red."
Barbara Gordon	The agreement on the romanticism of the bar has Babs smiling toward the man before her. She nods visibly to show that was her intended definition in the use of the word. "It is as classic a story as you can find, really. Bars, pubs, public houses, have been a place of community since the start of communities all together..." She grins as she leans on the bar on her left elbow now, still perched on the edge of that stool. A laugh once more comes out from her lips as she tilts her head side to side at his statement. "Perhaps the reclusive nature is battled only by my unyielding curiosity. Or propensity for getting myself in to trouble." She smiles warmly toward him then. "Admittedly, I'm looking for a residence in the Manhattan area too. Be it Hell's Kitchen, Harlem, or otherwise. I really haven't decided. But yes, you were a man of chivalry the other night, so I thought I'd stop in, and ... I dunno... say 'hi? I'm Barbara'"
Luke Cage	"Hi. I'm Luke." Luke grins at her and then says, "And don't let people convince you they begin chivalrous when all they wanna do is pick you up." He pauses. "Me, I was one hundred per cent being chivalrous. It's other people, I mean, you know?" His smile gets broader. "You really planning on moving here or just have a place for when you come to the bar for a late night drink, so's you don't gotta make it all the way back to Gotham?" Rich folk are wild.
Barbara Gordon	A little chuckle comes from barbara when he mentions the picking her up element from the other night. "I'll admit," she responds, "That threw me off for a second. I'm not used to that, but at the same time... that particular outfit of mine was absent of the cape, which is my normal mode of travel. But when I was told we were going to a ... alternate dimension, I thought it prudent not to wear a cape. They have a tendancy of acting unpredictably in strange environments." At the bit about a residence, she smirks at him and inwardly groans a little. "I have a place in Metropolis... and a tower in Gotham..." She says meakly. "I'm sorry if that like... sounds, horrible. My business is a Green Energy company, and I'm dedicated to pushing tech toward people being in control of their own power bills, so they can cut ties with the power company, and their bloated utility bills... If that helps?" "Don't hate me too much." She adds with a restrained expression.
Luke Cage	"If you want I can pick you up more often, so you can get used to it, won't throw you off next time." Luke grins. "I don't hate you, Barbara. Some people got money. If what you do with it is worth doin', then that's okay. You know one of my best friends is fuckin' Danny Rand? I'd be a big ol' hypocrite if I looked at you sideways cuz you got more than a couple apartments."
Barbara Gordon	A slow grin rises across Barbara's lips then, as she slowly nods her head to what he replies to her with. "I've heard of the Rand name." She quietly says back to him. Her eyes go to her empty glass, then back over to him. "Can I get another?" She asks. "Or is it past the legal serving time?" She hands her glass out, and wiggles it side to side. "Just be careful about where you grab on my suit, for warning in the future. It has a built-in tampering system, with a high voltage security measure... Just incase I get dropped, and someone gets curious. I don't want to see you trying to help me, only to get treated like a cat biting on a Christmas tree string of lights." "And do you have any recommendations for good homes in the area?" She asks, a playful edge to her expression, and tone of voice.
Luke Cage	Luke gets up and walks around the bar, pulling down the bottle again. "It is," he says, "but this one's a personal drink, from me to you, no charge. And that, the law can't touch." He pours her another drink and smiles at her. "Tell you what," he says, "you tell me where I can touch you, and I won't pick you up from anywhere else." Yes, you /do/ have to have a lot of confidence to deliver that line straight. "Can't say I do. But I like mine. Then again, it's upstairs, so that's convenient." He shrugs. "For work."
Barbara Gordon	The confident questioning has the redhead showing the man a bigger smile. She gently nods her head to him, before she sits up a little straighter on her barstool. "I'll provide you with a showcase on the safe places sometime." She fires back, knowing internally that she is not the best when it comes to playful banter in a flirtatious fashion. She's a computer nerd, and a shut-in. She's seen movies with savvy people though, and as such, she feels she knows at least the basics. He speaks of his home being apart of the bar again, and it registers in her mind. Her green eyes look upward toward the ceiling, then back down to him. "Got anything to drink up there?" She asks him then, playing her part in this dance of verbal swords.
Luke Cage	"Yeah." Luke stands up and heads for the door, stepping outside. He closes the gate, and then locks door as he comes back inside, walking back towards Barbara. "Yeah, I do." He watches her a moment, and then smiles. "You okay to climb some stairs, or should I carry you?"
Barbara Gordon	At the response, Barbara slides her backside off of the stool, adjusts her denim jacket over her shoulders, and glances toward the glass on the bar. For a second she thought she had pulled her phone out, and set it on the bar, like she normally does when coming in to one of these places, but in the moment after, she realizes she hadn't. that was odd to her, but a passing thought. She puts her attention back upon him, and with a light laugh, she shakes her head gently. "One drink... one drink. I'm sure I'm not beyond a simple set of stairs..." She states, as she slides her left hand across the bar, moving with him should he lead her onward. "Depending on how steep they are, of course, and perhaps the lighting within... But, I'll leave it to you to decide just how high the difficulty slider is set on them." She states, slipping in a hint of her nerdy gamer girl knowledge.
Luke Cage	Luke laughs, and then reaches over to slap the lights off, leaving only the emergency lights on. "Come on," he says, leading her to the door that leads up the stairs to the apartment. The stairs aren't _badly_ lit, but they're also rickety old wooden ones. He opens the door and waves for her to go up first. "If you can climb stairs, I'm gonna take advantage and enjoy the view. C'mon, now."
Barbara Gordon	The sound of Barbara's laughter filters through the back of the bar, as the duo makes for the stairs. "Fair enough of a trade off." She states back to him, looking up at him with a smile as she moves. Her red hair is clipped back behind her head, but the autumnal locks are still in a rather unruly state of affair, messy, but in a stylish fashion, fiery against the dark fabric of her denim jacket. She steps in to the stairwell, her hand reaching for the wooden rail. "I'll admit, I like places like this. If I could stand to possibly feel comfortable living in such, I would likely enjoy it. But I need a lot of height, and a lot of doorlocks, cameras, laser traps... AI alarms, and otherwise, in order to comfortably fall asleep." She says all of this whilst taking the steps up, each footfall on the wooden step causing a soft thud from her black heeled boots she's wearing upon her feet, her black slacks slim to her form as she goes, ever providing likely just what Luke was looking to enjoy from his vantage point.
Luke Cage	Luke is a man who knows what he likes, will ask for it, and will openly enjoy it when it's provided. Why else be any other way? "Well, only thing lacking here is height, I guess, cuz the rest you could probably put in?" He makes his way up behind her, keeping to a good three to four steps behind. It isn't until they get to the top that Luke's hand finds purchase on Barbara's hip, and then around her waist, as he steps up to the penultimate step. There just isn't enough room on the stairs for them to stand side by side, so he wraps his hand around her waist and reaches past her with the other hand, sliding the key into the keyhole and nudging the door open. He doesn't pull his hand back, though. "Come on in."
Barbara Gordon	With the apex of the staircase reached, Babs steps off to the side, to give the large man room to step up beside her, and find the key to the door's lock. She smiles at him as he proceeds to open it, before she nods her head two small times. "You should see the absolutely insane levels that I've gone to in order to try and get a good night's sleep." She tells him as she stands up close beside him within the stairwell. When the door slips ajar, Barbara lingers for a moment before she passes on up and inside the man's apartment. She does the customary thing to take a few steps inside to give him room, before she moves with a sway to the side. Her eyes roam over the interior of his living space, before she regards him again. "It feels very much like a man's home." She says, gracing him with another grin as she places her hands flat against the front of her covered thighs. "In a good way, of course." She is quick to add.
Luke Cage	Luke steps in after her, and then closes the door behind him, hanging his keys from a hook next to the door itself. He waits for her to take the apartment in. It's definitely a bit barebones, but there's a collection of vinyls in one area with a record player, and several posters of 70s martial arts films. He takes a step over to Barbara while she's looking around and when she looks up at him he says, "Yeah. I like it."