Batgirl Begins (dbspock/WendyTheRed)

[dbspock]

Was she...threatening him? Rick heard her comment and glanced back at Barbara. of course, he fully intended to report this little incident, just perhaps not all the details, and buried in his weekly summary that he doubted Mr. Wayne ever read. But with his personal assistant now saying she was going to tell her boss personally what had happened, well, Rick didn't want Mr. Wayne to find out that way. Pete also overheard her comment and came running after them. The robot was his project, and while he wasn't sure what had gone wrong yet, that made it his responsibility. "Miss...the robot was..." Pete began, but Rick cut him off with a shake of his head. "I'll handle it, Pete." Rick promised, quickly followed by. "Don't worry about it." Petie glanced uncertainly between Babs and Rick, before his gaze settled on Rick and he smiled, then went back to trying to secure the robot.

Rick raised his eyebrow at Barbara when she seemed to expect him to know who the armor was for based off of the measurements. "I don't have the statistics of everyone who works here memorized." He told herm then shrugged when she asked about the rooms contents. "We have a contract with the TSA to improve the reliability of detection gear. It's amazing what some of the stuff you can fit into a shoe. And some of the shirts have a Kevlar weave to them. Great at stopping knives, not so much for bullets. We're trying to find a fix for that. And SHi...some organizations, love to see how small you can make a transmitter, and where you can hide it." He told her. He shrugged when she mentioned the 'delivery', but he couldn't keep the excitement out of his eyes. "I'm afraid the EMP might wind up killing someone anyway. What if the pulse hits an ambulance? Or a train? Or a hospital? Unless we can figure out how to reduce the range, it's not ready for field deployment yet." He raised an eyebrow when she said described the vehicle that would be used. "You mean the thing still runs? And someone actually wants to use it? Excellent." He said with a nod.

Her request about the buttons was a bit easier to handle. "Mary Ann?!" Rick called out to the nearly empty room, and a lady, who looked almost like a stereotypical grandmother, appeared at their side almost as if by magic. "Miss Gordon here has had a bit of a...wardrobe malfunction, and I was wondering if you might help her out with that." Rick told her, and the lady turned to Babs with a broad smile.

"Of course. What can I do for you, my dear?" She asked.

 

[WendyTheRed]

She saw the worried look on Pete's face and the reaction Rick had and felt ashamed. She could guess exactly what they were thinking. She needed to make that right and so when they were alone in the stairwell she looked at Rick. "I have no plans of talking to Mister Wayne about these events. Please tell...Pete, was it? Not to worry." She sighed. "One of your staff was being a jerk, flipping me off and stuff." She described Tommy to him. "So I said that for his benefit to try to make him nervous. It was me being petty because he was making me angry with his attitude."

She looked a bit confused by that reply. "I didn't think you did. I just meant that Sara is, what? 5'5"? The suit is not for her." She was kind of enjoying that he seemed to be missing it was for her but she saw no reason he'd jump to that conclusion besides her height. She heard him barely stop himself from mentioning Shield and spoke absently as she looked around. "Don't worry, I know about Shield. I've met two of their agents and one of them actually wanted to recruit me due to a computer program I wrote." It didn't even occur to her that she was essentially bragging. She was so distracted looking at the room and taking in what he'd said she barely even realized what she'd said. She turned to face him and nodded. "Well, it was just a thought anyway. Thank you for your honest thoughts. The EMP is off the table. So to speak." She nodded. "Yes, it still runs."

Barbara blushed slightly. "Well, I had an encounter with a rampaging robot and it was offended by my clothing. We haven't found my skirt yet and it took some buttons off of my brand new blouse. I was hoping to get them reattached." After a brief hesitation she unzipped Rick's jacket and retrieved the buttons from the pouch on her lanyard, holding them out.

 

[dbspock]

Rick glanced over at Babs uncertainly, but he thought she seemed sincere about not ratting them out, and a smile appeared on his face. "Pete will be glad to hear that. He's been working hard on this project, and while today clearly didn't go as well as he'd hoped, I think he's close to perfecting it. Be a shame to have Mr. Wayne shut it down when we're so close, and Pete will be relieved to hear he's not getting fired." The smile faded as she described the behavior of one of his staff, but she didn't even need to offer the description for Rick to know who he was talking about. "I'll talk to Mr. Fox about him. Problem is, Tommy is the son of one of the board members, who refuses to hear anything negative about his son. So trying to get him fired could be...tricky." Rick was better at working with machines than navigating the politics his position sometimes required.

"Well, that's too bad, because he do have her measurements on file, and could probably get her the suit in time...if she wanted it." Rick had broached the subject before, and been politely refused, and he didn't expect Sara to change her mind. "About who?" Rick asked innocently when she mentioned SHIELD, and he became intensely interested in the hallway as they walked. Clearly obscuration was not his skill set either. He did look back at her when she mentioned the computer program. "What kind of program?" he asked curiously. If she was good enough for SHIELD, perhaps he could poach her for his own department.

"Mary Ann *tsked* softly, but she didn't seem at all surprised to hear about a rampaging robot. She did smile a bit when Babs admitted she lost her skirt, and that Bab's wasn't trying to show off her long legs as a fashion choice. "Well, I think we can help out with that." Mary Ann said as she looked at Bab's damaged blouse. Rick looked as well, for a moment, before he remembered to look away. Mary Ann disappeared for a few seconds, only to return with a robe that would cover Babs from her shoulders to her ankles. "Here, why don't I trade you?" Mary Ann suggested. "And if you don't know how to sew, I'd be happy to teach you." She said with a smile, clearly believing it was better to teach someone something, than to do it for them.