Love-Birds and Crushes (Tim)

[Cassandra Sandsmark]

Cassie was bored. She was also trying to sleep and, basically, there were only so many times a girl could literally rip a training dummy limb from limb before that got boring as a way to tire herself out. Really. She’d done it plenty of times since she got here. She knew. The first time, she’d just been mad. And she’d grabbed the arm and just pulled with Silent Armour-granted strength and that had proven to be much more than the dummy could take. The arm had come loose, the material just giving in under the strain, and she’d thrown it across the room – all without meaning to, actually. That said, she couldn’t exactly say the same about all of the other times.

A frustrated Cassie Sandsmark made for a lot of wrecked training gear.

And given that it was always replaced and nobody had complained yet, she hadn’t really worried about it. She could control her strength, after all. She could bash heads with just enough force to KO the bad guys in question, but it was just more fun to cut loose most of the time and she knew it. Also, well, being able to lift a dummy the size or weight of a fully grown man over her head and then do a backbreaker on it that really broke its back was weirdly fun.

Yes, the strength was definitely not the worst part of the Silent Armour, she’d always liked a good fight and she was weird. Deal with it. Or not. She didn’t care one bean. Gods knew that if that itch hadn’t been scratched here, though she wouldn’t admit it, there’d be one less reason to hang around this place. She could take care of herself.

Oh, and yes, it was both her way to tire herself out and a way to deal with bad dreams. One track mind? Possibly.

It was nearing midnight, according to the clock glowing on her bedside table, but Cassie just wasn’t tired it seemed. Part of that was definitely because the Silent Armour was being uppity tonight and she’d had to focus hard to keep it back. But now it had given up or was just waiting for her to lower her guard and Cassie was tired of playing. Growling softly, she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. It was bare. But looking at that killed another fifteen minutes before the blonde gave up. This time, her growl was louder as she rolled out of her bed and stood, stretching as she did so.

Muscles stretched and flexed under her skin as she did so, defining themselves in her biceps and thighs for a moment before she relaxed. Cassie had never been a size zero type of girl, not with the impressive rack she’d been either blessed or cursed with plus her wide hips. She was curvy, sure, but curvy with strong arms and thick, capable thighs. That was how she wanted to be. If others wanted to be all skin and bones, fine. Cassie liked herself just the way she was.

Pausing a moment, she glanced sidelong at herself in the mirror and grinned bleakly. Maybe she hated to think of herself as such, but damn. She was basically an Amazon.

And then, having nothing better to do and not being the sort to stare at her own reflection, she went walkabout. Well, somewhat walkabout. She went wandering, vaguely towards the kitchen. Maybe a drink would help.

But, as she headed that way, Cassie’s path took her into the ‘living room’ of the Tower. It was the main area where she’d expect to find any of the others, but at this time she’d thought it would be empty. It wasn’t.

"Red,” She said, neutrally. The curvaceous blonde powerhouse was only wearing a pair of sleeping shorts that left her strong legs bare from her upper thighs down and a vest that clung to her upper body but she didn’t let her state of semi-dress bother her. Instead, she put a hand on one hip and eyed her ‘team leader’ curiously.

"So why are you up this late?” She demanded, more than asked.

[Tim Drake]

The Tower is quiet, nearly all of its odd occupants soundly asleep in their beds. All but Tim, it seemed. He grimaces at the screen in front of him, obscure print and images flashing before his eyes as he types on the lit up keyboard on the desk in front of him. He pauses for a moment, running one hand through thick black hair, ruffling it into an even messier state as he yawns, perfect white teeth flashing in the soft glow of the computer screen. He stretches in his chair, feeling it all the way down to his toes. Popping his knuckles he straightens up in his chair, cocking his head to one side as his blue eyes scowl at the screen.

Tim doubts he’ll find anything else tonight. And sleep is unlikely to come to him tonight, not with the nightmare of last week still fresh in his mind. Scarecrows leering face flashes before his mind and he shivers. Scarecrow had single handedly managed to bring up some of the worst memories of Tim’s life, all within moments of being beaten by Croc. Tim had had worst beatings of his life, but even now, several days later, he still had sore ribs and an aching knee. Not to mention the damn nightmares. Now, every time he closed his eyes, images that he wanted to forget would rise back up, bringing bile to the back of this throat.

He shakes his head and scoots his chair backwards, typing a single command into the computer as he stands up, effectively shutting it down as he slips his mask back on and heads out of his room, thinking that a cup of hot green tea and a peanut butter sandwich would go a long way to helping him fall asleep.

In the kitchen he warms up water, slipping a tea bag into the cup as he makes his peanut butter sandwich and heads into the living room to sit on the couch. It’s still dark outside, no sign of dawn approaching quite yet. The Tower is still and quiet as he turns on a lamp and grabs a book he’s been reading off the shelf. Settling onto the couch, he sips his tea and eats his sandwich, allowing his mind to settle as he reads.

Somewhere in the Tower, he hears a door open and close and knows he’s not the only insomniac in this group. Cassie strides into the room and Tim has to exercise a lot of self-restraint to keep from drooling over her gorgeous legs.. Not to mention the rest of her body. He half listens to her as he eyes her little shorts… He likes those shorts. She should wear them more often. Tim blinks, trying to bring himself back into the present.

“Cassie.” He clears his throat, setting the tea and the book down, the sandwich long gone. “Can’t sleep. Why’re you up so late?” He turns the question around on her.

[Cassandra Sandsmark]

Unlike Cassie herself, who was dressed for bed, Red was clearly still up and about. The black hoodie wasn’t too odd though the mask wasn’t exactly standard issue. Of course, neither were the elaborate Amazon war bracelets wrapped prominently around her wrists. She couldn’t take them off, of course, while he probably could, but it was interesting to see that slight similarity between them. Even if he was sat down, reading a book, while she was standing, hands on hips, across the room.

There was more than a hint of suspicion in the way that Cassie found herself looking at Red Robin’s masked face. There was a problem of course, one that basically read ‘masked face’, because that made it impossible for her to be sure. Red’s mask had those opaque lenses, the ones that made it so that nobody could see exactly where he was looking. That was probably really useful for him in all sorts of ways but, right now, it was just making her vaguely sure that he… Well. Let’s just say that she didn’t think he was looking her in the eye right now. She couldn’t be sure because of the mask, but… Intuition. Girl’s intuition.

But, by the gods, she was far too tired to deal with denials, truthful or not. If he wanted to stare, he might as well take the opportunity.

And that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that maybe, just maybe she found the idea that he was staring pretty damn flattering in its own right. Gods, no and the mere idea was almost enough to make her call him on it anyway just to prove a point to herself. But she didn’t and Cassie was realistic to know that, really, she didn’t exactly mind. Once, back when she’d just met him, she would be right up in his face, demanding he look her in the eyes.

"I can’t sleep either,” The blonde girl admitted after a moment, crossing the room from the door towards where he was sitting on the couch. "I was bored. So I thought I’d take a walk. And you thought you’d… what? Work?”

The blonde powerhouse snorted with amusement, shaking her head as she did so. "I don’t think you ever stop, Red. You ought to come watch me wreck the training dummies again. Anyway – you never did take me up on talking.” As she spoke, Cassie sprawled out on the couch opposite, one foot resting on the edge of the table, an arm resting on the couch’s back. Elegance wasn’t exactly a word one could apply to her, particularly not the way she was stretching out now.

It pretty much escaped her notice that it left the bare expanse of her legs right where Red would see them, but Cassie wasn’t one to bother with flirting in such a subtle way.

"Does now work for you?” Again, there wasn’t really any suggestion in her tone that it was an offer. It was more suggesting that this better be a good time for him.

TAG: Tim

[Tim Drake]

Tim cleared his throat, working quite a bit of his legendary self-control to drag his eyes away from Cassie’s magnificent attributes. Thank god she had no idea where he was looking due to the opaque lens in his mask. He taps the cover of the book sitting next to him on the couch as the blond super human crosses the living room towards him, “Relaxing, actually. Even the members of the Bat Family have to stop for moment and chill once in a great while.”

He watches in amusement as she sprawls herself out on the couch, admiring her for her self-confidence in being able to just be herself, unlike so many of the women he had known in his life so far. So she was the one who had been destroying the training room. Thankfully, he had bought quite a large surplus of them, so they just kept getting replaced once she had literally destroyed the ones in place.

Tim stretches his body, arcing his back and enjoying that unique feeling that only a good stretch can give you. He settles back into the couch, swinging his feet up onto the coffee table, the picture of handsome relaxation.

Once again, he totally loses his concentration as even more gorgeous.. Beautiful… Heavenly legs are revealed as she makes herself comfortable on the couch across from him. Tim might seem perfect and untouchable most of the time, but right now he was completely caught off guard.

It takes him longer than a moment to realize she had had spoken and he has to literally shake his dark head to clear his thoughts before he comes up with a reply. Her tone and body language implicitly say that ‘no’ is not an acceptable answer in this instance, and he might as well get to know her better.

His bright blue eyes focus on Cassie, not that she can tell with his opaque lenses in, as he formulates a reply. “Yeah.” He says, gazing at her, “Yeah, we can talk now.”

Tim crosses his arms across his muscular chest, one eyebrow raised as he watches Cassie.

“So, where were you born?” Tim already knows this answer of course, he had done more than enough research on everyone on this team. But… Right now it was the principle of the thing. If he wanted them to trust him, then he was going to have to work for it. Obviously Cassie wasn’t going to just trust him for no reason. She had her doubts about him, and he could work with that.

Besides… He wanted her, out of all of them, to like him, to trust him… Why, he wasn’t quite sure yet, but hopefully soon the answer would come to him. Tim didn’t really like not knowing the answer. He was the kind of person that always knew what was going on, what was most likely to happen, he knew what people were most likely thinking just by the slightest facial expression, the slightest motion done involuntarily by their body.

But now, he was confused. No, not really confused. He knew how he felt about her. The confusion was how to deal with it. After all, he was her leader. Morally, he couldn’t justify acting on it. Ethically, he couldn’t act on it. Emotionally, and physically, he wanted to act on it. But could he?

Tim brings one pale, strong hand up to run through his dark hair, messing it up even further.

[Cassandra Sandsmark]

Well, it turned out that she was wrong. From under arched eyebrows, the blonde powerhouse regarded the Boy Wonder as he explained what he had been up to, following his finger as it tapped once on the cover of the book by his side.

"Chill.” She repeated dubiously, head cocked to one side. "Given you already come across as an icicle in a human suit some of the time, Red, I’d say you need to thaw a bit instead. Though I agree on the unwinding. If you wound up any tighter, you’d pop.” She chuckled. "Nice to know you’re all warm and squishy on the inside like most of us and not a robot after all.”

Not being a nun, she watched him stretch with some interest, before waiting for an answer to the non-question she had offered.

Now, see, this was where he dropped the ball. In fact, Red didn’t just drop the ball, though that would have been bad enough. No, this time, Red Robin managed to drop the ball square on his foot as well. It was, perhaps, an understandable mistake under the circumstances, but he was assuming that the fact that Cassie couldn’t see his eyes behind those lenses of his made him safe. Well, true enough, they made it impossible for her to be sure where he was looking. On the other hand, that didn’t stop her being suspicious as all Hela when it suited. And now it definitely suited. People tended to look at Cassie and just see her golden hair, her well-curved form or her muscles and assume because of it she was stupid. Or, if not stupid, at least not particularly bright.

She wasn’t. She was brilliant, in fact. A genius she might not be, but Cassie Sandsmark was clever, far more clever than most of her acquaintances gave her credit for. And, given her ‘it’s clobbering time’ attitude to battle, perhaps that was fair enough. But it was still a mistake to forget it.

So, given all of that and Red’s status as a teenaged boy (definitely not a normal one but still…) with the way his head was angled and the… awkward silence between her question-slash-demand and his answer – well, let’s just say that she was rapidly going from suspicion to as close to certain as she could be. So, as he answered, saying they could talk, the blonde gave him a knowing smirk. Then she jerked a finger at her clear blue eyes.

"Eyes up here, Boy Wonder.” Her smirk widened, full dark red lips peeling back to bare just a hint of perfect white teeth. This time, at least, Cassie was clearly more amused than angry – which was excellent news for Red. "Oh, and before you ask? Yes, they’re real.” Oh, Diesel had asked her that one when they’d first met too. Of course, she hadn’t had her Armour then, so it didn’t smash his jaw when she punched him as hard as she could (love at first sight or not, there were some things a girl didn’t like being asked to her face). Chalk up one point for the evil thing, incidentally – she didn’t exactly have to worry about back pain.

Just seriously dark humour some of the time. And that was an improvement.

Regardless, her smirk simmered down to her looking rather more bored and she slumped back into the sofa again, crossing those muscled arms over her chest, watching him ruffle his hair with eyes turned steely hard. "Where was I born?” She snorted, forcing air out of her mouth in an expression of mixed amusement and scorn. "Scraping the bottom of the barrel, Red? Or didn’t you manage to find that one out when you went through my files?” Shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "Fine. Sure. Whatever. Athens. Now my turn.”

At that, Cassie paused and frowned, biting at her lower lip as she thought. And thought hard. What could she ask…? More importantly, what could she ask that he’d answer?

"What’s your first name?” Maybe he’d at least deign to give her that much and there was now a challenging edge to her gaze.

TAG: Tim

[Tim Drake]

Tim smiles, revealing perfect white teeth as he props his feet up on the coffee table in front of him. “It’s easier to stay calm and collected when you’re in my line of work.”

Oh crap. She had caught him staring. How could she not have caught him staring? Jesus, he had been staring like a seven year old. Tim jerks his eyes back up to meet Cassie’s brilliant blue orbs. He flushes, his skin turning a slight shade of delicate pink at having been caught staring. Whoops. He was a guy after all… Who could blame him for staring? The situation worsens for him slightly at what she said next and his skin darkens even more. Now he resembled a slightly pale tomato with a thatch of black hair. He clears his throat, apparently having developed that little nervous tic around her. Tim had been taught by the best to never show little tics or to develop characteristic habits that could easily identify him out of uniform. And here he was having to clear his throat constantly around her.

He smirks, bringing one hand up to cup his chin as he watches her through his opaque lenses. “Yes, I already knew where you were born. I was being polite.. It’s what most people ask when they don’t have the ability to hack into other peoples lives like I could.” He cocks his head to one side, a lock of black hair falling across his eyes. “Well, like I do.” His smirk is purely cocky now.

It falls into a frown at her question. He stays quiet, thinking, weighing the options. On one hand, he had a lot to hide. A lot of people to protect. He wasn’t the lone ranger, alone in his job. Bruce was adamant about people not knowing who he was. However… Selina Kyle knew his name. Hadn’t Bruce told her? Or had she figured it out? Tim couldn’t recall. Tim was pretty sure that his older brother, Dick, who was Nightwing, had told a couple now who he was. Like Starfire. And Tim didn’t know who else knew.

Anyway, on the other hand, the team definitely didn’t like being in the dark about everything that was Tim/Red Robin. If they were to survive, to become an actual team, then Tim needed to give some of himself up. Otherwise, how could he really ever lead them? You had to trust to follow, and this group of teenagers weren’t going to go for following blindly for very long.

He sighs, it was time to finally tell her what she wanted to know. He clears his throat, more for delaying this moment than anything else. He had never told anyone outside of the Family his name before… And it felt different.

“Tim. My name is Timothy… But I go by Tim.” He watches her from behind the opaque lenses. “My turn.” He brushes the lock of hair out of his eyes, dang, he needed a haircut. “Why are you sticking around? You make it seem like you don’t want to.”

TAG;Cassie

[Cassandra Sandsmark]

Cassie’s eyes narrowed as he boasted. ”Well, next time you feel like taking a stroll through my files,” She told him with maliciously sweet tones. "Don’t. Or maybe I’ll try hanging you upside down off the top of this place until you learn some manners.”

Well, she probably ought to be grateful that he didn’t just say ‘no’ or shoot the question down the second she’d asked it. Hela, that’s pretty much what she expected – another line on the ‘too compromising’ story he’d spun her the first time she’d asked. So, yes. She ought to be down on her knees, thanking the gods that he hadn’t just turned her down flat. Again. Except that she wasn’t, because the frown told her that he was thinking about just that. He was thinking about a way to turn her down without going with the same old story. Or so Cassie thought, watching him think. She’d leant forward now, resting her folded arms on her knees and eyeing him darkly.

The seconds ticked by and she was just about to stand furiously – literally, she had already tensed to push herself to her feet – when he sighed. And Cassie paused in her interrupted departure, settling back down again as he cleared his throat, as if putting something off for just a few seconds more. Her eyes narrowed, gleaming blue between their lids as she glared at him, before she went to stand again, muscle bunching as she began to shove up from the couch. Patience hadn’t ever been Cassandra’s strongpoint and there rapidly came a point when she just… didn’t have any left. And right now, she was about to hit that point. If Red thought he could just sigh and clear his throat and look all uncomfortable and she’d drop it, well, he really didn’t know her at all well, did he?

She froze though when that word cut into her awareness. Tim. His name was Timothy. Tim. The blonde slowly slid back into the seat, surprise written all across her features now, lacking either the mask or the training that the boy across from her used to hide his emotions so unsuccessfully to hide it. Not that she particularly minded if he saw it, because she was surprised. In a good way, it had to be said. Definitely in a good way. Tim was a much better name than ‘Red’. Not that she was going to tell him that, though she couldn’t help but give him a grin, initially ignoring the question he chose to ask her in return.

"Now wasn’t that easy?” Cassie told him, smirking just as cockily as he had only moments before. "Gods, you’re so much more attractive when you’re actually normal and don’t pretend to be all holier than the rest of us. And I stick around here because this seems to be the best deal on offer. If I didn’t want to be here, I’d be gone already. Simple as that. And this is a pathetic game anyway.” She scowled. "Hmm. Do you actually have a real life or is this it? Friends? School? A girlfriend?”

TAG: Tim