[OPEN] Oh, don't you dare look back (Just keep your eyes on me)

[her_own_rules]

WHO: Barbara Gordon Batgirl + You
WHEN: Now, Later, Whenever is Good
WHERE: Hundreds of feet off the ground
WHAT: It's time for slinging and webspinning!
NOTES\WARNINGS: Cats, kittens, bats, and spiders, there is now a two-island location called "Nova City" with big, empty skyscrapers just begging for some webbing and slinging about on to explore. Everyone's welcome!

[ She's up crazy early, to no one who knows her surprise, since it's hard to keep Barbara Gordon in bed at either end of the candle she burns like a torch. Getting a run in, which she's been doing without fail every morning from just before twilight since she stopped using the wheelchair. It's a long round trip, crossing three bridges along the way, with the middle point usually being a stop to stretch and get a coffee at the diner before heading back. It's a long run, but not for someone with a penchant for breaking running machines in her dedication to it.

And that is how today starts. Barbara makes it outside the diner.
But that's when she sees the high rises in the distant south.

It's a habit that she has her suit in a dash bag, along with her water and a small towel. (You never know when one of those insane missions or wild animals might just come out of the blue at you here.) And today, it's a bonus.

Within less than an hour—and with only one message sent stopping her as she speeds toward this new appearance—Barbara Gordon can be found scaling the buildings of the two newest islands, exploring Nova City's high rises, and getting absolutely lost in every free fall from the top of a building, waiting until the last moment to throw out her grapel line, laughing as the wind speeds through her hair, sending it flying, like a cape behind her. ]

Comments

[keepitgoing]

[Peter is finally in hog heaven, or whatever people say. He's not sure how the other Spider-Men feel about it — he never got to really have those lengthy, casual talks in the middle of so much chaos — but he imagines they all have similar rushes when they're out on the city, swinging so low that their stomachs practically leap into their throats. Seeing this place sprout up out of nowhere? What a dream come true, s'far as things that spark joy are concerned.

Sure, they're kidnapped and there's grim things happening around them at any given moment, but... towers to swing on. For once, even if just a little, he feels like he's home. Barbara isn't the only one who had immediately scoped the place out from afar, nor is she the only one who seems to enjoy freefalling off the sides of buildings. He's more obvious than her: his blue and red suit is bright against the city, as a white web slingshots him around a wall of windows. He doesn't stop when his feet meet rooftop, running to leap off with a long, contented fall into another pendulum swing back into the sky.

His spidey-sense does give him a small warning, though, as he goes to swing around the same corner as Barbara does. No biggie — he immediately releases his current web and falls just low enough to pass by her without any issue; instead, he lands down below on a shorter rooftop and looks up.]

Whoa there! You're pretty big for a bat!

[... It's gonna be real embarrassing if she's not a bat, he suddenly realizes.

Oh well! He's been way more embarrassing than that.]

[her_own_rules]

[ Barbara is a ribbon of movement; a mix of black, purple and yellow in flight. Whether Dick decides to come or not is a thought far behind her in these seconds. Along with the one about why a city has appeared so perfectly still and empty. Her feet slap across rooftops without the heed to be quiet, and each jump is prefaced only with the gauge for where she's landing—or if she isn't.

She'd thought about this too much in the maze. Back in her chair. Staring out the apartment's windows at the vast expanse of ever-spreading islands, but nothing with much height to it. Everything is the friction of her toes just before she leaps. The feel of her cape in her hands when using it to slow a fall. That zip in her stomach right before she steps off a ledge. The strength in her hands and arms, catching a ledge and climbing the last floor or five to a roof. Leap between roofs that aren't far apart. Up and down. The snap of her line. The buoying sensation as momentum slams her upward again, and she releases the line at each highest apex, her body a fluid roll and glide of freefall through the air until she needs to shoot it out again.

It's her and the wind and fre—

—some guy, in stop sign red, who almost drives right into her.

At a billion feet up. He narrowly dropped whatever he'd been using, and it was almost tandem for being so unplanned. He drops, and Barbara pulls up, feet and knees into her chest, body twisting for upward momentum, then straightening her knees, toes, and a pivot to catch herself on the side of a building. Hand on her line, and one foot flat on the side of the building. ]

I could say the same for you.

Been a while since I've seen a spider that big. Or one that could talk.

[keepitgoing]

I'm just a really cool spider.

[To demonstrate, he hops over to her building and starts crawling on all fours up it, so he can talk a little closer to where she's positioned. A sticky dude, this one — without the added legs and beady little eyes. A win-win for most arachnophobes! Once he's close enough to have a normal ("normal") conversation, he stands up sideways on the surface of the brick.]

I love the cape, by the way. Knowing me, I'd just get it caught on my face all the time, but you make it look totally cool. Yours isn't alive, though, is it? 'Cus I know someone who has a really sassy one.

[her_own_rules]

[ He talks a lot. But Barbara's used to Dick Grayson and the long stream of commentary and puns that can fill the silence of both the sky high above the city or her earpiece, so most of it lets slide by because she's busy studying just what he's doing, and.

Well. That's different, isn't it?

Barbara's nose scrunched, but it'd be hard to tell much through the half mask and the white-out eyes, which were so very like his. Barbara maintains her position. Only one hand was being used to balance her at this precarious angle, hanging on to that thin line of cord, but there was no shiver in the arm's hold, the brace of her feet. Only that cock to her head. ]

How are you doing that? Some kind of adhesive?

[ Wouldn't he get stuck to everything if that were true. ]

Magnetism, or a field of some sort?

[keepitgoing]

Uuuh! No, just sticky. I stick to stuff.

[Peter, that is the most unscientific response ever. But it's the truth, one that he hasn't really been able to totally understand. Even his shoes stick to surfaces? His clothes? Do we really want to dive into the bizarreness of Spider-Man's butt being able to stick to brick when he sits and eats a hoagie sideways? No, no we don't.

But just to show more of this so-called 'sticky behavior', he proceeds to do a handstand sideways on the wall, too. Just in case she needed to see another example of it.]

Just part of who I am. You could probably consider it more of, like, a superpower.

I'm Spider-Man, by the way. Uh. That's probably an easy guess, but I figure I'd just confirm any suspicions. It's nice to meet you, Batlady!

[her_own_rules]

[ Well, that's ... informative, Spider-Dude. But Barbara's seen some bizarre powers in her days, and he's not from her world, so who is she to say that's not a thing that could be. Gar'd probably be the first person to tell it's absolutely doable as a large spider. Not that this guy looks like the kind of spider Gar would turn into it, but same-difference. ]

Batgirl.

[ It's a correction, but with a smile. Sure, she should have corrected higher, even in her teens,
but it's fine. And there are people with that trademark now. And she loves and respects them. Gosh. ]

It's nice to see our world isn't the only one where people do this kind of thing.

[keepitgoing]

[He nods, and corrects himself:]

Nice to meet you, Batgirl.

... It's so weird, but I don't know that many heroes like me who have a secret identity.

I'm kinda relieved to know there's someone else here who gets the idea.

[Genuinely, he sounds really pleased about it. He's had a habit of feeling kind of alone in the last few weeks, thanks to all of the stuff that happened at home.]

[her_own_rules]

[ There's the raise of one white eye section. ]

People don't protect their identities and the people attached to them where you come from?

[keepitgoing]

Uuuuh, honestly? It's pretty mixed. But most of the heroes I'm familiar with have their identities out there. I don't really have a lot of friends in the superhero world that would have the same identity struggle...

[Peter, you don't really have any superhero friends, period. Maybe... Dr. Strange still counts...? He would remember Spider-Man, right? Or did he forget pretty much everything that didn't involve him in a mask? Man.]

I don't get how they do it, honestly. I had my identity revealed to the public once, and it was pretty much the worst few months of my life.