2013-01-12 Incognito

A couple of months ago, Batman(/Batman/!) suggested that Spoiler visit Grant's Gym for boxing lessons; unfortunately, school, extra-curriculars, and teenaged procrastination pushed her sign-up date further and further back. Indeed, she may have /never/ gotten around to it, but a week or so ago, she caught her mother - in a rare moment of lucidity - carefully laying out clothes for an upcoming visit to see her father in Blackgate, and the lessons turned out to be a serviceable alibi for avoiding the trip.
Fortunately, when she then scrambled to make an appointment for instruction at the appropriate date and time, the gym's owner was accomodating.
Spoiler's choice of workout gear consists of a purple t-shirt, baggy black sweats and a black windbreaker, sneakers, and a simple black domino mask. Her backpack full of crimefighting gear has been stashed away in a locker for safekeeping, and so, with a purple towel wrapped loosely around her shoulders, she's making her way out of the changing area to the gym floor proper and already scanning around for gloves so that she can commence the punching.
The boy was already there when the Spoiler arrived. Going about his business off in a dingy corner of the gym, laying his fists into a heavy bag and ignoring the world around him. When she steps out of the changing rooms, he's moved on to a place less secluded to shadow-box. He's a little small for his age, his hair a little long and blonde. He turns his head slightly when he spots her, picking up his towel and draping it around his neck as he walks over to the only other occupant of the gym.
"Hey," he says with a good-natured and well-practice Gotham City accent, "Nice mask."
A disguise is the order of the day. Nothing fancy for Damian Wayne, just a dye job and a voice different from his own.
"Lotta weirdos out there" Spoiler dryly replies. "Gotta be safe, whatever it takes."
Her disguise doesn't go much deeper than the mask: the voice, the blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, the way her eyes instinctually flick over Damian's hair for blatant signs of bleaching or dying, it's all Stephanie Brown, through and through.
"Does anyone, like, work here?" she continues as she turns away from the boy to wander towards an equipment rack. "Or--train here?" She looks and gestures towards the empty ring briefly before turning her eyes forward again. "The phone conversation I had earlier this week kinda led me to believe that /one/ of those things would be true, but..."
"Yeah, there's Old Man Grant who owns the place," the disguised Damian answers, gesturing over his shoulder to the stairs that lead up to the office, "But he's out. I work out here sometimes so he left me a key to the place so I could get in."
The dye job on his hair is well done, having remembered to include his eyebrows as well. A trained eye could see that it isn't his natural color, of course, but lots of people dye their hair. He extends a hand towards the masked girl, offering a lopsided smile.
"I'm Alfie," he says, still smiling.
They aren't in a locker-lined hallway, and nobody is trying to make anyone else cry, or anything, so Stephanie doesn't even give the possibility of Damian's hair being dyed a second thought. She is just about to grab a roll of tape when Damian interrupts her with an extended hand of his own, so it takes her a split-second to actually turn and face the boy after peering at him over a shoulder. His smile is met with an upturned brow, but at least she doesn't hesitate to place her hand in his and shake it firmly.
"Spoiler," she replies, eyes briefly wandering towards the stairs leading to Grant's office before settling on Alfie. "I can come back, I guess," she continues, slipping her hand away. "I mean, I scheduled, like, a week in advance, so I guess I figured he'd, you know, /be here/, but--things happen. Whatever," she finishes with wrinkled nose.
"That sucks," Alfie answers, wrinkling his nose as well in response and crossing his arms over his chest, "Well, hey, I know a few things. Maybe I can teach you some stuff until he shows up?"
He grins, a little cockiness shining through this facade, "I promise not to make it too difficult."
Spoiler is /just/ about to offer a non-committal response of some kind so that she can slip away to practice on the heavy bag by herself for a while, and then he has to go and add that last little bit.
To the well-trained eye, the moment when the young crimefighter makes the transition from 'vaguely inconvenienced' to 'defiant' is palpable, and after squinting bemusedly at him for a second, she makes a somewhat stiff turn away to claim that roll of tape.
"'kay," she murmurs, back a little straighter now than it was before. She picks at the tape a little to get it started, then begins carefully winding it around her left wrist as she squares her shoulders and lifts her chin a little bit.
He's only a little taller than she is, and she's had lessons of her own; she's /sure/ he won't make it too difficult.
“Alright, Spoiler” Alfie says, back-peddling a little before turning to move towards the ring in the center of the gym, “Want to start off with a spar? Then we can see where you might need some improvement and we'll go from there?”
"Sure," Spoiler murmurs without lifting her head. Taping up without bunching, twisting, or otherwise fouling the roll up is turning out to take a little more concentration than she expected, so Robin will probably be waiting in the ring by himself for a little while as she works.
She still has to resort to her teeth a little more than she'd like, but--people do that in movies all the time; it must be an accepted part of the process, right?
Eventually, she's taped, gloved, and standing on the ring apron, where she just braces her hands on the ropes and experimentally tries stepping into, then over the ropes a few times before settling on just pushing them apart so that she can slip in.
"Okay!" she announces, tapping her gloved knuckles against one another a couple of times before sinking into a vague approximation of a proper boxing stance. "Ready!" A quick jab is thrown at the air, and then she bounces a couple of steps to her right.
“Okay, hit me,” Robin-in-Disguise answers, not taking up a combative pose so much as just standing there and keeping his eyes trained on her, “Any way you'd like.”
He squares his shoulders a little, deciding to raise his hands in an approximation of a boxer's defensive guard although it is loose and too far from his head to really do an adequate job.
Spoiler's right shoulder dips a little when Alfie says to hit him, but the punch she's telegraphing is stayed - briefly - to give him a chance to actually put his guard up when he moves his hands, and she settles for giving him a brief, tight-lipped smile instead. She keeps moving in the interim, continuing to bounce in an arc around the boy until he finally looks ready--at which point, she'll attack.
A quick - and somewhat telegraphed - pair of jabs are thrown right at Alfie's guarded face, and closely followed by a somewhat awkward left hook towards his body. Even if it connects, the way she tries to pivot at the waist to add more power to the blow is almost certainly going to leave her off-balanced--hardly an auspicious start.
Alfie ducks to one side, turning his head to allow the jabs to pass before his face and then ducking the hook. From a strange, leaning angle he juts out a hand and plants a palm against Spoiler's stomach. Not hard, not enough to even really hurt, but forceful to the point that it could take advantage of her being off-balance.
The blow drives the wind right out of Spoiler and causes her to teeter precariously on one foot for a second before she manages to catch herself--and even /that/ entails a fair amount of stumbling. She stops well short of having to catch herself on the ropes, though, and once she's properly stable again, she quickly shakes her head, starts leaning forward as if she's ready to charge right back into the fray, and then remembers where she is and begrundgingly hunkers back down into her stance.
The approach, then, is quick, but still somewhat measured: some quick shuffling of her feet to bring her in arm's reach of him, followed by another jab--which she's rather expecting him to breezily avoid, just like the first two.
That's why she plans to follow the jab with an uppercut; if he ducks again, she figures she might manage to bop him on the chin. If not, the belly; win-win, as far as she's concerned. Nevermind that it'll require her to drop her guard briefly.
Robin is well trained, and does indeed dodge the jab. He is already moving to avoid the uppercut, but something about the way Spoiler throws it leaves him momentarily disoriented. It catches him in the chin and though he rolls with the punch, barely losing his balance, a brief look of annoyance crosses his features. He quashes it though, his face turned away before it contorts back into a smile that he directs at her.
"Hey, good one!"
Even with the gloves, Spoiler can't help but wince when the punch connects; it won't last too terribly long, though. She flashes him a tight, prideful grin as she draws back, and where Alfie has to keep from letting his annoyance shine through, Stephanie has to stop herself from keeping her guard down long enough to brush imaginary dirt from her shoulder.
"You, too," she fires back, still grinning. The compliment is punctuated with a quick left jab meant to stop a foot or so short of Alfie's face, and /that/ is followed by a wild haymaker from her right. The goal is to press whatever meager advantage she imagines she's earned herself; however much she may want for raw skill, she at least has plenty of aggression and youthful exuberence to fall back on.
Alfie doesn't even flinch at the jab, seeing it for what it is as soon as it is launched. Instead he focuses on the haymaker, lifting his forearm to drive her wrist away from him and the punch off-target. Pressing his advantage, he darts forward to try and push her again. Not launching any attacks of his own, merely defending himself and trying to put her off-balance.
When her followthrough is stopped cold and her arm sent spinning wildly off course, Spoiler snaps her head quizzically towards Alfie, affording her a brief glance at the boy as he effortlessly slips in to use her own momentum against her. That push sends her squealing and stumbling and flailing backwards across the ring until she hits the ropes, at which point she manages to drape her arms over the topmost one to keep herself from tripping and falling all the way outside.
"Ggh--how is that /boxing/?!" she indignantly sputters once she's pushed off of the ropes to stand on her own two feet. 
“You're wearing a mask and calling yourself Spoiler,” Alfie says, chuckling as he rolls his shoulders, “Something tells me you're not interested in learning to box so you can prize fight. Mister Grant can teach you to box, sure, but I think I can teach you some more useful stuff for your chosen line of work.”
"Oh, whatever," Spoiler immediately mutters in reply as she brings her hands back up and moves back to the center of the ring, "Gaga can do it, but I can't?" Once she's a little closer, though, her expression softens a little, narrowed eyes and pursed lips giving way to grudging acceptance.
As she gives Alfie a discerning onceover, she begins muttering, "You're just some--" before stopping and clenching her jaw a little. Age aside, he's certainly /quick/; there's a reasonable chance, she figures, that he's been in his share of fights too, gym or no gym.
"Fine, I /guess/ you have a point," she quietly acquiesces. "These gloves are kinda stupid, anyway."
"I've never liked the gloves, personally," Alfie confides, offering another lopsided smile, "Personally, I prefer actual gloves. Maybe with a little plating over the knuckles."
He shrugs, moving towards the ropes and holding them open for her, "All the same, I think you've got some talent there. You'll pick up boxing no problem, but that's pretty limited. Have you ever thought about the other martial arts?"
"Wh--"
Wide-eyed, Spoiler just stares at Alfie and the parted ropes for a few moments before stiffly shaking her head and scurrying out of the ring. "I don't think that's, like, /legal/," she murmurs in passing. After stepping onto the apron, then hopping down to the floor, she thoughtfully adds, "--cheap, maybe, but--ah, whatever," then shakes her head again and looks up to Alfie.
"I have a purple belt in karate--honestly, I probably wouldn't have even gone for--you know, /this/, but--someone--uh, said it might be a good idea." Beat. "Kinda think boxing is a little lame, but don't, like, tell Ted Grant I said that, or anything," she quietly admits.
"It's a little lame," Alfie admits, "But it's a good way to get agile on your feet. Makes it easier to pick up other styles. A purple belt in karate is pretty cool but you could do a lot better than that."
He chews his bottom lip thoughtfully for a moment then speaks up, "How about we meet up again later? I've got something I've got to go and do, but I wouldn't mind teaching you a few things if you want to learn."
 
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