Knowledge and Power

Magic is based on knowledge- so, for instance, somebody who knew a lot would be more powerful and more in control of magic than somebody who knew less. Type of knowledge doesn't truly matter, but relevant knowledge matters more than irrelevant knowledge- so, for instance, somebody with an encyclopedic knowledge of football would be more powerful than somebody with only a cursory knowledge, but taking a physics class would provide more power to most spells unless they were football related. This is because knowledge connects one more to magic, and obviously some types of magic are more related to certain knowledge. Theoretically, somebody who knew everything would essentially become magic- they know so much that magic is connected to them so much that it feeds them new knowledge as soon as it comes into existence. Connection to magic is also linked to lifespan, since magic can be used to heal and the more you're connected to magic the better it heals and preemptively heals you.

Back before literacy was anything near common but was an expected skill for mages, a mage was expected to take an apprentice but couldn't be bothered to actually teach all the boring-but-essential stuff, so he essentially bought a kid from somebody with too many mouths to feed and not enough money, and did a ritual to give the kid basic knowledge...only he forgot to put a limit on what was to be learned, so the kid learned everything.

All ideas are free for the taking.

AFS-verse snippet 2

Ryan really wasn't kidding about having to buy almost everything when he gets there; when Jake and his mom ("Call me Sherrie," she says, instantly taking a shine to the still-rumpled-from-the-plane Ryan) pick him up from the airport, he has the maximum allowed carry-ons of two bags, one of them a laptop case and the other full of enough clothes for maybe a week. And that's all of the luggage he has for the entire time he'll be here, or at the very least until Thanksgiving or the winter break (but considering he's outright said that all of his other clothes are either uniforms or not allowed by Customs, and a lot of the rest of his stuff wouldn't be allowed by Customs either, it seems unlikely that he'll bring anything back if he goes back for either of those). So they go shopping, because Jake needs to, and Ryan really needs to.

Sometimes Ryan looks like he's perfectly at home in the getting-ready-for-school crowds, but at other times he looks freaked out about them. He explains the dichotomy: "I grew up in the US, so it's not like Wal-Mart or Kohl's or anything is new to me, technically, but I haven't been in that kind of crowds in years. Atlantis is like a really small town, where everybody knows everybody else, so even when there's a crowd this large, which really isn't very often, it isn't strangers in the crowd. And I was in the Marines until we declared independence, so I'm kind of accidentally slipping into subconsciously thinking there's danger." He gives a wry smile. "A lot of Lanteans have issues like that…let's just say I have reasons for being a psychology major."

Ryan seems almost stunned at the menu, even though it's just MacDonald's- "It's been a long time since I actually had a significant choice in food. Normally in Atlantis it's either cafeteria food or a home cooked meal that you don't have options on. And either way, the cooks are kind of…creative, and it isn't always identifiable."

Eventually they finish their shopping, culminating in finding Ryan a car, and move into their dorm room. Ryan gets the bed closest to the window, because he has less stuff (even if he does have many times what he'd started out with) and the other side of the room has shelves and a desk with more drawers. Jake's almost all the way unpacked, but not completely, even if you disregard the box that he's not going to open until he needs something in it, when Ryan finishes unpacking everything of his that Jake had seen and takes out the last item: a mobile of some sort, made of wire and metal and what look like old, broken pieces of computers. And some sort of glass or crystals, all of it blue, some of it with a twinge of cloudy grey and some of it looking like it's been melted or something, with irregular smooth and shiny portions. It looks like nothing so much as scrap attached at random, but when Ryan hangs it in the window it floods the room with light that's sometimes blue and sometimes teal.

"That's beautiful," Sherrie says. "Where'd you get it from?"

"Beautiful and useless," Ryan says, an unreadable expression on his face as he touches a couple of the pieces. "It was a gift." And that's all he'll ever say about it.

A Conversation Over Coffee

"Can I sit here?" he asks the girl (and she really is a girl, not a woman; she must have skipped a few grades in school).

She looks up from whatever she's scribbling in her notebook, and it takes a moment for her to come out of whatever place in her head she was and focus on him and the question. "Oh, sure. Just let me…" She starts moving her sprawl of papers and books over to her side of the table.

"Sorry about this," he says. "All the tables are taken."

"Not really a problem," she replies. "I need more coffee anyway. Watch my stuff?" She doesn't wait for an answer, just walks off with the empty cup.

He takes out his assignment and is working on it when she returns. "Oh hey, physics!" she exclaims. "What class are you in?"

"4710," he replies. "Foundations of theoretical physics."

"That's one of McKay's, right?" she asks like she already knows the answer.

"His reputation has spread, I see." Dr. McKay does not teach undergraduates.

She smirks. "You could say that. What do you think of him?"

"He's brilliant; I feel like an idiot next to him. Very impatient, though, and I get the feeling that my papers are going to be bleeding red no matter how small the errors I make are."

"You'll be a better physicist because of it though."

"Oh, I'm not complaining; he's the reason I'm doing my graduate work here."

"Oh?"

He smiles sheepishly. "My uncle used to work with him, and when I got into physics, well…" he shrugs.

"Who's your uncle?"

"Oh, he's not in physics or anything; I doubt you've heard of him."

"You never know."

"I'm just saying. My uncle's Evan Lorne; he used to be in the Air Force."

Her eyes go wide. "Your uncle's Lorne?"

"That's what I said," he says. "Why, have you heard of him?"

"Heard of him? My dad used to be his CO. I'm fairly certain he changed my diapers. He's pretty good at Trivial Pursuit."

"Must not be the same guy. Uncle Evan's terrible at Trivial Pursuit. Pretty good at Chronology, though; he claims he played it so much he memorized all the cards when he worked with Dr. McKay."

"Maybe there are two different Lornes or something" she says, and glances at her watch. "Oh hey, I've got to go. Maybe I'll see you around?" She disappears into a crowd of people coming out of a classroom, curly black hair bouncing as she weaves effortlessly between the students.

SGA lost scene #1

Andrew Spencer closes the door to interrogation room 2 behind him with a feeling of profound relief. Jane from the front desk is walking past, and he grabs her frantically. "You've got to get me out of this!"

"What's wrong?" she asks. "I thought you said you like kids. And you've only been in there for an hour."

"For all but five minutes of that hour, they've been playing a game."

"What's so bad about that? At least they aren't fighting or anything."

"It's a game where they guess which numbers are prime and which aren't."

"That doesn't sound so bad," she says. "Good use of their education, right?"

"You don't understand. The numbers they're using are mostly in the hundreds and thousands, and they're always right. The boy was wrong once, and she mocked him for five minutes. I am not kidding you about this. These kids scare me, but especially the girl and I'm not sure giving them caffeine is a good idea but I told them I was getting coffee and I'm too scared not to. They won't let us call their parents until four and there's no way I can last that long." He knows he must look insane, eyes wide with fear of these kids who play cutthroat number games at the drop of a hat and drink black, caffeinated coffee, but that's because he probably is going insane so he doesn't worry too much.

She looks at him with a concerned look on her face, because usually he isn't this excitable; he's easygoing and loves kids and she's never seen him this upset. "I'll see what I can do," she says. "In the meantime, why don't you take them their coffee? And maybe you can get them some Sprite, get them to drink something that's not caffeinated if you're so worried about the effects of caffeine on your sanity?"

"Thank you," he says with relief. "As long as I know the end is in sight…well, I'd better go get those drinks before they decide to come looking for me."

Trapeze

Frank was over again, because really, why go to the gym when he had a friend who was perfectly willing to let him use his totally awesome personal gym? Plus, Dick was an excellent personal trainer, even if it seemed like he was only doing it when he forgot to stop himself from giving Frank orders, which was okay with Frank because a Dick who was really working to get him to work out would be scary. Frank had seen Dick stretch, and people shouldn't bend that way. Dick's cell phone rang while he was doing pushups, and really it shouldn't have surprised Frank that he continued doing one-handed pushups while he answered it. Or that his pace didn't slow at all.

"Hello?" Dick said, sounding like he was just sitting around and hadn't been going through a strenuous workout for the past hour. "Hey Jay. Yeah, I'm at the gym…sure, come on over." He hung up and clipped his phone to his waistband again, still not pausing. "I think you're going to get that trapeze demonstration today."

Frank was taking a break and drinking water when the door opened, and it really doesn't surprise him that Dick's friend had an entry code; after all, he'd given Frank one too. Dick yelled a greeting and walked the newcomer over with an arm draped over his shoulders in that no concept of personal space way he had.

"Frank, Jason Todd. Jay, Frank. My partner."

"I wasn't aware you were batting for the other team now," Jason leered, shaking Frank's hand.

"My partner on the force." Dick swatted at Jason, but he ducked. "Frank wants a demonstration of the trapeze."

"Oh hell no," Jason said, backing away with his hands up. "The trapeze is your thing, not mine."

"Well if he has to wait for me to demonstrate he'll never get a demonstration." The hell? Frank thought. Dick mentioned his knee so rarely that it was the next thing to never, and he never did it this casually.

"C'mon, Dick, why can't Tim or Steph demonstrate?" Jason whined. "Or you could take him to a circus."

"You know Tim and Steph never leave Gotham."

"Yeah, 'cause they're freaking scared that you'll make them do the trapeze," Jason muttered.

"Oh, are you scared of a little bit of height?" Dick mocked. "Don't worry, I'll put the net up for you."

"Don't you dare!" Jason exclaimed. "I'm not some kid that you have to watch out for."

"Oh yeah?" Dick challenged. "Then why don't you show us?" Jason was already stalking towards the locker room. Dick smirked at Frank and took a seat on a balance beam.

***

None of the former Robins put up very much resistance to going on the trapeze for Dick any more, even if he was always such an ass about it, conducting the performance via yelled orders, some of them not even valid ("Do a barrel roll!" Dick ordered) and manipulating them into doing it. But it was worth it to see Dick's expression turn to joy, even if Jason knew it was only secondhand as Dick remembered what it was like. Even if Jason knew that Dick would cry himself to sleep again tonight.

Dick's Gym

"Oh man, I thought you were kidding about the trapeze," Frank laughed.

"Would I lie to you?" Dick asked, an expression of mock hurt on his face.

"Well, you still haven't told me the secret to your cocoa is," he teased.

"It's more or less a family secret."

"More or less? How can something be more or less a family secret?"

"Well, I learned it from Alfred, who was the butler of my adopted father."

"I guess I can see why you say more or less then."

"Alfred's family in all the ways that count. What I meant was, I don't think Bruce knows the secret."

"Bruce?"

"My adoptive father. He's probably living on microwavable food now that Alfred's dead."

"Oh jeez, I'm sorry…"

"It's okay, it was a few years ago." Dick changed the subject quickly. "So, what do you want to try out first?"

"I have no idea," Frank said, taking the hint. "I mean, I've seen gyms that were less well-stocked than this."

"And I don't even have the stuff I use for physical therapy here. But I get your point. I've had most of this stuff for a long time, since I first moved here. I'd get rid of some of it since I don't need it anymore, but sometimes when my friends come over they use it."

"The trapeze too?"

"You'd be surprised. Sometimes I can talk people up on it, if only for my own nostalgia." It wasn't the good kind of nostalgia, but the kind that renewed his hatred of his knee which was too stiff to bend enough to grab a trapeze bar with.

Frank laughed. "I don't think I'll be going up there, so don't even try to convince me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Dick grinned. "You aren't trained for it. And you're too out of shape."

"Out of shape?" Frank asked, outraged. "I'll have you know that I am in perfect shape!"

"Oh really?" Dick asked, a gleam in his eye and a wicked smile on his face.

***

"That's it," Frank panted, collapsing onto the floor. "I'm done."

"I thought you were in perfect shape," Dick taunted, looking like he could go on forever even though he'd been pushing himself even harder than he'd been pushing Frank.

"I am," Frank replied. "You're just a freak."

"Like I haven't heard that one before." Dick rolled his eyes.

Late Night Surgery

They were working late, trying to figure out yet another serial murder. Outside, the rain that had started only an hour ago was coming down in torrents.

"Are you all right?" Frank asked, seeing Dick surreptitiously at his knee.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Dick replied, and the fact that he didn't bite Frank's head off was as great an indicator of his pain as anything was.

"No you aren't," Frank insisted, not allowing himself to be deterred by Dick's glare. "And you know it. I get it, you're tough, but you have to take care of yourself."

"Fine, I'm in pain," Dick snapped. "But that doesn't change the fact that there's a serial killer out there."

"And you think we're going to catch him tonight, when you're in pain and we're both sleep deprived?" Frank shot back. "Come on, I'll drop you at your place."

"I don't need a ride," Dick said irritably.

"Like I'm going to let my partner take a motorcycle in this weather," Frank said sarcastically. "Especially since I know what you call driving."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with my driving!" Dick insisted, just as he always did. But then he admitted, "A ride would be good. But I'm not going to let you leave me without transportation so you'll have to stay over. We can work on the case." He tossed the file into his backpack.

***

"This is it," Dick said. "You can park anywhere." Frank parked as close to the door as he could. At the door, Dick entered what must be a 20-digit passcode into a keypad, his fingers moving too quickly for Frank to catch any of the digits. Only then did he put his key into the lock. "Electrified if you don't do it right," he explained with a grin.

Inside the building, Dick stuck their umbrellas in an umbrella holder, and who really had one of those? The downstairs rooms seemed to be mostly unused, which was confirmed when Dick started up the stairs. Frank followed with a mental shrug.

"So what is this place?" he asked. "It looked like an apartment building from the outside, and I can see that a little on the inside too, but it's clear that you're the only one who lives here."

"It was an apartment building," Dick replied. "But I didn't buy it so I could collect rent."

"Wait, so…you're loaded like Tim is?" Frank asked.

"It isn't difficult to collect a bit of money when you pay attention," Dick said enigmatically. For a second Frank wondered if he was dirty, but it was Dick. There wasn't a chance that he was anything other than squeaky clean. "Make yourself at home." He limped into the kitchen and grabbed a pill bottle. "It's true, you know," he said, filling a glass with water. "The rain makes it hurt more. And not just my knee, although that's certainly the worst."

"You have other old injuries?" Frank knew he did; he'd seen Dick's arms, covered with old scars, when they were in Gotham.

"I broke a lot of bones when I was a kid." Dick was more relaxed here, to the point of hopping up to sit on the counter. Frank thought he saw a glimmer of what Dick had been like before the shooting. "I mean, a lot. My X-rays are interesting to look at."

"Why did you break so many bones? I mean, was it abuse or what?"

A private smile appeared on Dick's face. "No way. My parents were great. But we were trapeze artists in Haly's Circus. Then after they died I had a…very physical afterschool job. Like pro sports level of physical."

"You were a trapeze artist?" Frank had heard from the other detectives about how active Dick had been before he got shot, but he didn't think any of them knew how active he'd been before he'd become a cop.

"Like I said, when I was a kid." He smirked. "I'd offer to show you my trapeze, but it's in a warehouse."

"You have a trapeze?" The amusement Frank felt was evident in his voice.

"Doesn't everybody?" Dick tossed back with a grin, but almost immediately the grin was wiped off. "Did you hear that?" Dick asked, and didn't wait for a reply before he hopped down from the counter and began limping through the rooms. Frank trailed behind, although he hadn't heard anything. He hurried to catch up, though, when Dick stopped dead in a doorway and started muttering curses. On the floor of what looked like a den, in front of an open window through which so much rain was coming that the carpet was already soaked, was Batman. The water around him was already turning red.

"Close the window and do what you can," Dick said, and left the room. Frank couldn't figure out why, but he did what Dick asked, but besides closing the window all he could do was turn Batman over and make sure he was breathing. He couldn't figure out how to get the armor off. He was reaching for the mask when he got hit on the back of his hand with Dick's cane. "Don't," Dick warned, and started removing things from the cart he had been pushing.

"I couldn't figure out how to get the costume off," Frank told him.

"Probably a good thing that you didn't try harder," Dick said. "It's booby-trapped."

"Who booby traps their clothes?" Frank asked. "Wait, how do you know?"

Dick didn't reply other than to start cursing under his breath again. He did something to Batman's belt, and then quickly removed the apparently disarmed costume to reveal a body with scars upon scars, and fresh wounds leaking a lot of blood. "Do you know any first aid or am I going to have to do this all myself?" Dick asked, then cut himself off. "Whatever. Just get the gauze out and apply pressure to the wounds and I'll do the rest." He started rummaging through the cart.

"Shouldn't we call an ambulance?" Frank ventured, applying pressure. "He doesn't look like he's in good shape."

"Don't worry," Dick replied. "I can handle a few bullet wounds."

"You do seem rather, um, stocked up on medical supplies," Frank said. His mind was still spinning. How had Dick known how to remove Batman's costume? The only possibility he could think of involved both Dick and Batman being gay, and Dick was too much of a ladies' man for him to believe that. "So do you know Batman?"

"I used to live in Gotham," Dick said as if it explained everything, attaching a bag filled with a clear liquid to Batman's arm with a needle and tubing. It looked like he'd done it before. He was wearing latex gloves now. He shooed Frank away from the wounds and peeked at them, and handed Frank a tray with surgical instruments on it.

"Somehow I don't think every Gothamite knows how to remove Batman's booby-trapped costume," Frank said pointedly.

"You're fishing," Dick growled, using something like pliers to pull a bullet out of Batman. It fell in the metal dish with a rattle, and he switched to a prethreaded needle.

"Do you blame me?"

"No." Dick's stitches were sure, his hands steady. "But the less you know, the less that can be tortured out of you."

"Just tell me one thing and I'll drop it."

Dick switched to the next wound. "What." It wasn't a question, wasn't a guarantee that he'd answer, but it was enough.

"Were you two, you know…"

"In a relationship?" amusement colored Dick's voice. "Not the way you mean it, no. I…helped him with some cases." Again there was the pause to consider phrasing that Dick used a lot when he talked about his past, like he wanted to tell the truth but not in a way that actually told anything.

Frank nodded and never brought it up again. In the morning Batman was gone.

Sparring

It still seemed odd for Dick to just sit there. It was just unnatural for him to sit still. But since the shooting, Dick's mobility was reduced to almost nothing. Most of the time, the most motion he made was limping and leaning heavily on a cane as he walked. And when he did, Tim could, through years of familiarity, see the pain written in every line in his body. He doubted many others could see it, but Dick was in agony whenever he walked. But he knew Dick hated being treated like a cripple, so he ignored it.

But Dick was still Dick, and so he fidgeted, played with the pictures on Tim's desk until Tim would almost be driven mad except that this was Dick, and the fidgeting was a sign that he was getting back to normal. And besides, he'd gotten used to Dick's constant motion and complete disregard for personal space. Mostly.

"What are you doing in Gotham?" he asked. Not that he minded seeing Dick, or saw him infrequently, but it was unusual for him to come during the week.

"Ah, there's a serial killer hitting Bludhaven and Gotham. Nothing major, but, you know, we have to share information. Probably going to be here about a week. On loan, you know."

"You here alone?"

"Nah, I'm paired up with a guy who's been on the force a couple of years. He asked to come along on this trip." Dick shrugged. "I guess he knows somebody who lives in Gotham."

"Not much of a surprise," Tim replied, idly correcting a paper. "Half of Gotham went to Bludhaven during No Man's Land."

"I suppose," Tim replied. "Hey, why don't you stay at my house? God knows we've got the room. Your partner can come too, if he doesn't have anywhere else to stay."

"Let me see if he does," Dick replied, and pulled out a cell phone. "Shouldn't you call Bernard?"

"I called him as soon as I knew you were in town," Tim smirked.

Dick dialed, and the phone on the other end rang. A ringing which was echoed in the hall. Dick pulled the phone back from his ear and looked at it oddly. Then he grabbed his cane and got up as awkwardly as he always did these days.

"Hello?" Dick heard on the phone and in person as he wrenched the door to Tim's office open to reveal his partner. They stared at each other for a second, and then hung up. "You know Professor Drake?" Dick's partner asked.

"You do?" Dick asked.

"Frank Nelson?" Tim said, slightly incredulous. "You're partnered with Dick? Talk about a small world."

"Yeah, we got partnered right before we left to come here. Wait. Did you say Dick?"

"Wow, you guys really haven't been partnered for long," Tim said, eyes dancing. "Did you take separate cars or what?"

"I took my bike," Dick said. "Since I knew I'd be stopping by to visit you and Steph."

"You and that bike…that sure brings back memories. Scary, scary memories of riding behind you." Tim grinned. "It's amazing that they still let you drive." Dick swatted at him, and he ducked with the ease of great experience and continued to Frank. "Dick's going to stay at my house. You should come too, if you don't already have someplace else to go."

"I was going to get a hotel," Frank started.

"Then it's settled, you guys are both staying at my place," Tim said decisively. "Frank, you'd better follow me in your car, since I know Dick's going to beat us home."

***

Tim pulled into the driveway, Frank's car close behind him. Dick's bike, of course, was already parked and riderless.

"Nice neighborhood," Frank commented, looking around at the display of wealthy-suburbia-in-the-city that was the neighborhood. "I didn't know the university paid this well though."

"They don't," Tim replied, bemused. "But the books have been selling well, and my investments have paid off, oh, a number of things."

"Do you have any kids, Professor Drake?" Frank asked.

"Tim, please. You aren't in my class any more."

"Tim." Frank corrected himself.

"No, I don't have any children. Though I certainly see Steph's kids enough. Bernard!" He said happily, seeing the blond man as he opened the door and going over to kiss him shortly. "This is Frank Nelson, Dick's partner. He was one of my students a few years back. Frank, Bernard Dowd, my husband." If Frank was surprised to find that Tim was gay, he didn't show it. "Is Dick in the kitchen?"

"Wolfing down food," Bernard confirmed. "He must be cooking for himself again."

"Yeah, he broke up with his girlfriend last week because he thought she was treating him like a cripple."

"Was she?"

"It's Dick," Time replied as if that explained everything, and perhaps it did to Bernard. Frank made a mental note to avoid anything that could even remotely be construed as treating Dick differently because of his leg.

***

"So are you guys brothers or something?" Frank asked, trying to figure it out. "I mean, you act like you are."

"In a sense," Tim replied. "Nothing official or anything, but I sure feel like he's my older brother." He quickly changed the subject before he'd have to elaborate. "Hey Dick, want to see what we've done with the gym?"

"You did something with the gym since the last time I was here?" Dick asked, interested.

"You haven't been here in a while, remember?" Tim reminded him. "There was Steph's last week, and the funeral the week before that, and the restaurant before that."

"Oh yeah," Dick said, sadness passing over his face as he remembered Alfred's funeral. "So what'd you do to the gym?"

"See for yourself," Tim said, opening the door to the largest room in the house. "The ceiling wasn't high enough for a trapeze, and that's always been more your thing, and obviously I don't have as good of equipment as he does, but it's pretty decent if I may say so myself."

"Wow." Dick was impressed. "Are you going to use all of this, though? You aren't in that business anymore."

"I can still keep in shape though," Tim replied. "And even if I didn't, Steph's kids will."

"With supervision, I hope." Dick cast a longing look over the uneven bars but knew he couldn't land without screaming anymore, and that kind of took the fun out of it.

"Are you kidding? They'll be watched like hawks. Do you know how pissed Steph would be if I got one of her kids hurt?"

"That would be a sight to see," Dick said. "Hey, wanna spar? I think the kid needs to be shown how it's done."

"Needs to be shown you getting knocked on your out-of-shape ass, you mean." Tim's eyes gleamed. "You know where your equipment is. I have to get changed." He disappeared into another room. Dick went into what looked like a locker room. A locker room in a house? Frank was learning more about his partner and his former professor than he'd ever imagined.

"Armed or unarmed?" Dick shouted.

"How about unarmed to start with, and then we can switch to armed when we really want to give Frank a show?" Tim shouted back, reentering the gym in a sleeveless shirt and shorts. Bernard tugged Frank over to sit where they could see the mat well as Dick came back into the room, attired similarly to Tim but with a knee brace.

"Fine with me," Dick replied, stretching in a way that made the observers wince. Tim's stretches were only a smidge shallower. Finally they finished, having stretched thoroughly, and Dick actually put his cane down. Frank was surprised; Dick didn't seem like the type to use a cane if he didn't absolutely need one. On the mat, the combatants dropped into what Frank recognized as ready positions. Beside him, Bernard grinned.

"I love it when they do this," he explained. "There's nothing else like it."

Tim and Dick wore identical blank expressions, all traces of their former teasing wiped clean. They circled for a second, and then closed in a flurry of blows too fast to follow which ended with Tim in an upright pin until he threw Dick onto the mat. Dick flipped upright without any delay and they closed again, this time separating by flipping in opposite directions, Dick landing on only his good leg. It seemed to be the only concession he was making to the pain he must be in every time he used his leg. Without speaking a word, they each headed to the edge of the mat and grabbed a weapon, Tim something which lengthened to become a staff and Dick his cane which split into two escrima sticks at a practiced twist from his hands. And then they were at it again, as evenly matched with weapons as they were unarmed. They kept sparring, sweat flying off of them, until Dick forgot and made a landing on his bad leg. Before the cry of agony he couldn't prevent from coming out of his mouth had stopped, Tim had dropped the staff and was catching him as he fell.

"Shit," Dick cursed, involuntary tears in his eyes. "I hate this."

"It isn't your fault," Tim said.

"It's not that," Dick replied. "I could stand it if it had happened in the line of duty, or if it had been personal, or if the bastards had been caught, but it was just a random drive-by shooting and the perps got off scot-free. And I can't do anything, anymore."

"It was the only way they could have ever put you out of commission," Tim teased. "Besides, it just brings you down to the level of the rest of us."

"If that's the level of the rest of us, you must have amazingly high standards," Frank interjected, still stunned by their fight. He wished he could have seen Dick fight before he'd gotten kneecapped.

Dick offered a weak smile. "I don't go that far very often anymore. It takes too long to recover from to be worth it. But I teach some of the officers, so if you want to learn you can join the classes."

"Definitely," Frank said enthusiastically.

Alien Species

"You act like this is the first time I've enslaved an alien species!" he burst out angrily.

She raised her brow. "I hardly think your roleplaying games count."

"And what, you writing science fiction that wasn't even good enough to get published is?"

"That was fanfiction, it couldn't be published," she said, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms. "And that wasn't my point anyway."

"Your point was that you think you know better than I do."

"Maybe it was," she admits. "But this species lived in temperatures a lot warmer than this."

"What's our point?"

"My point is that they're getting frostbite because all you've allowed them to wear is bikinis."

"What? They're hot!"