2013.07.06 - Swimming with the Snarks

"C'mon, hop-along," Barbara Gordon says, wheeling her light, athletics chair across the pool deck toward the edge. In her bathing suit, legs bound together with spandex sleeves about her thighs and calves, she has a pool noodle in her lap as she parks her chair pretty solidly beside the ladder and glances back over her shoulder toward the change room. Its door still swinging slowly closed, so her voice will carry. "We've only got this place for an hour. And you don't want it going on record that a gimp like me beat you."

Huntress stands in the changing room still, a water-tight band protecting the bandages on her leg and wearing a borrowed two-piece bathing suit (because, hello, she can't FIND a one-piece for herself as tall as she is, there's no freaking way she could borrow one that actually fits). She's reluctant to go out there not because of the injury, that's annoying but to be expected, it's ... well, everything else. She looks like a freaking DALMATION and letting HAL see that she's got WAY more bruises than either Damian or the Fight Club could account for, that's what has her hesitating. Damnit. No real choice in the matter. She wraps the also-borrowed towel around her torso to stave off the comments as long as possible and pushes through the nearly closed door to follow Oracle to the swimming pool. "I want it on the record that I hate you for this."

"You hate me for a lot of things," Barbara says easily. "I've got broad shoulders. I'll cope." And, she's not actually wrong. While not butch, by any means, the woman's certainly got upper body strength. Between her workout regimen and wheeling herself around all the time? Yeah. Her shoulders are pretty sturdy.

She smiles, however, as the woman emerges from the change room. "Besides, it's good for you." A beat. "At least, that's why my physio guy always says." She arranges her towel on the back of her handle-less chair, and then picks up her pool noodle. "C'mon. Ditch the towel, and let's do this."

With that, she slides rather ungracefully out of her chair and into the water. There's a splash, and she goes under for a moment, but comes up pretty quickly, her hair slicked back against her skull. Grabbing hold of the ladder, she starts arranging that pool noodle under her knees, just to give her a little bit of extra buoyancy.

Huntress takes the moment that Barbara spends getting into the pool and surfacing again to drop her own towel and jump in as well, and hoping that the water's enough to conceal all the damned bruises. Maybe she should try to get out into the sun more, it just wasn't fair that her cousins in Sicily were all as brown as could be, but here she's more fishbelly white than anything. Well, maybe dalmation white is more accurate right now.

Once she's in the pool she reaches back out to try and rescue her towel from getting completely soaked sitting on the decking. Maybe she can fling it onto the bench against the wall? Wait, no, stupid. Then you'll have to go over there to retrieve it later.

Pool noodle secured, Barbara twists to give Helena an easy smile. "There. That wasn't so hard, was it?" If she notes the bruises -- and, let's face it, she's Oracle... she sees everything -- she doesn't immediately comment upon them. Perhaps, for the nonce, they resemble little more than shadows beneath the water. (Ri-ight.)

"Easy laps to warm up? Or do you think you can beat me cold?"

Huntress finally settles for just pushing the towel a bit farther away (but still reachable) and looks at Oracle with one hand still holding onto the edge of the pool. "Laps? Seriously?" She might have grown up in Sicily, but that doens't mean she spent a LOT of time swimming. At least not swimming laps. She's drown-proofed, but she's by no means got any kind of formal training.

"No?" Barbara says, pushing off the ladder and simply floating on her back, now. "Well, you're going to have to work that leg somehow," she notes. She eyes the other woman with a critical eye. "Looks, really, like you've got a few tight muscles to work out, unless I miss my guess. You're sporting quite the battle map."

Huntress's expression darkens, even though she KNOWS Oracle is only trying to help her out. Old habits are the hardest to get rid of, and guarding herself closely is one of the oldest. Defensiveness, there it is. Back-talking, coming up. "Yeah, so?" She pushes away from the edge of the pool and starts paddling toward the center, determined to not let every twinge from her leg show on her face. She swims like someone who learned at a beach, lazy and inefficient.

Barbara shoves off with her arms and starts a backcrawl along side of Helena. Yeah. Not the smoothest swimmer out there, our Italian vigilante. And Babs' practiced, economical movements make it easy for her to keep pace, even with dragging half her body weight and a pool noodle (which isn't all that aerodynamic... or is that hydrodynamic?) with her.

"So, nothing," Barbara says, turning her head slightly to avoid an inadvertent splash. "Just an observation. I don't know a single one of us that doesn't engage in a little freelance work on the side." As far as she knows, after all, Helena isn't given to abusive relationships. And, no, Babs doesn't check up on her that closely. "A few extra bumps and bruises are all part of the price." A beat. "Unless, of course, there's something more to it I need to be made aware of..."

Huntress glances over at Barbara as she keeps pace and makes it look way easier than it probably is. So, yeah, Helena swims like a great dane puppy in the middle of a growth spurt. Deal. "Like what? That my kitchen counters are sadistic bastards and their corners must be made out of something like adamantium?" Was that an attempt at a joke, or true snark? Difficult to tell as she's having to put more and more concentration on schooling her features at the same time as maintain her foreward momentum AND avoid getting water up her nose. 'Cause that shit there feels AWFUL.

Given everything Babs knows about Helena Bertinelli's history -- a fair to middling bit of which is accessible publically, if one looks back far enough -- she highly doubts the woman is the sort to put up with getting knocked around by anyone just for kicks. So, she takes it as a bit of both -- a snarky joke. Because, really, does Helena really have any other kind?

"Hey, don't laugh," she says lightly. "It's true! Those bastards are clever. They sit there in the middle of a kitchen, looking all pretty and built-in like, and then WHAM! They jump out at you and clock you on the chin for no good reason." She gives Helena a serious look... except that her green eyes are dancing. "You should try dealing with them from a wheelchair. All those ribshots? Total headshots. Some days, I wonder if I shouldn't wear a helmet in my own home."

It's true. After being sent to live with her cousins in Sicily, Helena leaned from the overwhelming number of male relatives there more than just how to ride motorcycles. She learned how to throw a punch as well as block a punch. Her American sensibilities -- already firmly in place by then -- would not tolerate the overbearing Italian machismo, and she did more than her fair share of putting boys on their backs, relatives and potential suitors alike.

Barbara's comment about the counters earns her another glance, but it's the 'WHAM!' that makes Helena bark out a surprised laugh. Problem is, that immediately causes her leg to REALLY complain, which disrupts her steady if uncoordinated swimming pace, which then results in her flailing for a second, going under for part of that, and surfacing again coughing and sputtering with her hair as much in her face as not. "GOD... why does water ALWAYS go up my NOSE??"

Barbara chuckles at first, but stops swimming as Helena snorts chlorine. The answer to the other woman's question, of course, is 'because you swim like fish flops on dry land'. But, graciously, she doesn't say it. Instead, she waits for the other woman to steady herself. She can see the strain on her face, despite the Italian's best effort to hide it. "I think that's probably enough for today," she offers generously. "How about we get outta here and grab a coffee somewhere. My treat."

H untress can tell Oracle is humoring her. Or at least she thinks the woman is. Here's where being tall is an advantage, though. She stops treading water and just stands there with one foot on the bottom of the pool supporting her weight while trying to clear the water from her sinuses. GAH. Worse than water in her ears. "Uh, yeah, okay."

Barbara isn't the type to coddle, really. But, Helena doesn't know her enough for that. Give them time. They'll get to know each other better. "Ok," she says with a light nod. "I'll meet you back in the change room."

Of course, the paraplegic will have to swim back to the other side of the pool to get to the ladder by her chair. But, that's fine. It's a quick crawl for her -- and a whole lot more graceful than if she had to do it on land. However, if Helena doesn't go bolting for the escape hatch, she'll quickly discover that, out of the water, Barbara's struggle to get back into her chair is far less graceful than even her ungainly drop into the water had been. It involves a lot of upper body strength, yes, but also a bit of clever gymnastics... and a good set of locking brakes on the chair. Talk about a fish flopping on dry land...

Huntress turns and follows Barbara back the way they came, because luckily the pool was only going to get deeper if they'd gone farther, and because when not actually forcing her leg to work, the support of the water helps. She takes a moment to pinch her nose and submerge so her hair isn't being a pain in the ass then tries to pretend she's not standing by in concern as the redhead laboriously gets back into her chair. She takes the time to squeeze as much water out of her hair as she can, hop up to sit on the edge of the pool, all of the more normal stuff just done spaced out far enough so that by the time Barbara is settled Helena is standing with the towel once again wrapped around her torso, ready to return to the changing room.

Barbara eyes Helena sidelong as the woman finishes wrapping her towel. She rubs her own towel briefly over her legs and then drapes it over her shoulders. "Thank you," she says presently, smiling so there's no hint of sarcasm in the tone. It's rare, the person that doesn't immediately move to help -- or who hovers without trying to make the effort to appear like they're not hovering. And she appreciates it. But, that's the only comment she makes about it.

Instead, she unlocks her chair, spins it around, and head for the change room once more.