Lost Hero

Work

After her near-disastrous meeting, Percy fled upstairs, taking the stairs instead of the elevator. She was going to stick to the top floors for the rest of the day. After the scare with the hellhound and near run-in with her father's friend, she was done with risking anything else for the day.

To be honest, it was kinda boring, which is exactly what she wanted, but it was mind-numbing. Walking around and around, switching between floors. Whatever floors she was on were typically office doors with a conference and break room here and there. Pure boredom. At least let there be something exciting happening.

******************

"Hello there. Are you new here?" A voice says and Percy jumps, turning around while barely preventing an appearance from Riptide.

He was dressed in a dark blue suit and she felt as if his bright blue eyes were piercing into her, trying to solve her as a puzzle. So the stalker shows himself.

"Yeah, but not so new that I didn't notice you following me around. Why are you following me? Surely I can't be that interesting," Percy says, raising her eyebrows at the man.

"Sorry, Richard Grayson. I try to take an interest in all the new hires. Kaldur seemed distracted and I got him to fess up that he met you. I wanted to meet the lady who seemingly hated her boss, who is also my adopted father so I wanted to check her out," The man says, seemingly not impressed.

"I'm sorry. I was having a moment and when Kaldur found me, I was too embarrassed to tell him I was actually hiding because I was overwhelmed. So I made up a story about not liking Bruce,"

Percy stumbles through her lie and knows for a fact that Richard wouldn't believe her, not if he was intelligent at least. But with a thoughtful nod, Richard seems to believe her, thankfully enough. She had found that if she brought up something uncomfortable while lying and incorporate it into the lie, people tend either to believe the lie or be so uncomfortable that they don't ask about the lie.

"It's fine, I won't tell anyone. Although you seemed to send Kaldur into a tizzy, he couldn't focus during the meeting. Even Aq-Arthur nearly lost patience with him. I had no clue anyone could rattle Kaldur like that," Richard says and Percy nods, still confused.

"Okay? I have to get back to work now...unless you need security for something?" She asks, not wanting to come across as rude which she realized she was. Richard seems to think for a moment.

"Are you doing anything now?" He asks, thinking back to the file Bruce had given them all, even Jason surprisingly.

"Not really. Roy just told me to walk around and make sure nothing odd was going on," She says, looking around.

"Do you wanna go spar?" Richard asks, seeming startled that he asked. Percy could understand, she was startled at his request as well.

"Um, sure? Can I do that? I still have work," She says, looking down at her watch.

"Roy told you to take breaks, didn't he? And it'll be fine, with Roy in charge, let alone all the other security. Nothing happens here, come down to the gym with me," Richard says, trying to convince her.

Sure Bruce asked him to try and get a reading on her, but Dick doubt he meant sparring with her. But it was maybe the easiest way he could get to know her. A person's fighting style told you a lot about them. About their personality and their skill.

Percy seems hesitant, Richard notices. He didn't want to push her, but he had a feeling she wouldn't break.

"Mr. Wayne," The words felt funny in her mouth, "I don't think that its a good idea,"

"It's fine, I live in Gotham so I know how to take care of myself. And call me Dick," At this, he sees Percy raise her eyebrows with a crooked smile on her face. Something about what he said seemed to amuse her.

"Well, if you're sure,"

*********************************

Ten minutes later, Dick is wondering why exactly he had thought this was a good idea.

"How do you feel about staffs?" Dick asks, picking up two of them from the rack they rested in.

He felt them and felt confident. They were both well-balanced but light enough to not cause too much damage if he wasn't able to hold back. He turns around to see Percy slipping her shoes off and starting to unbuckle her pants, jacket already off.

"Woah! Hold on!" Dick says, spinning around.

"What? You don't actually expect me to fight in a suit, do you?" She says, folding her now shed pants. Dick is relieved to see that she is wearing some kind of bike shorts underneath.

Percy places the folded pants on the already folded jacket and her shirt soon joins the pile, leaving her in a tank top and bike shorts. Dick praises her silently, she was smart to wear something like that under her suit. But as he looks at her, he notices the lines that trace her body, the burn scars scattered throughout. And something was odd about her left arm, it moved stiffly and something about it seemed off. It made sense, thinking back to her file. She was a POW for eighteen days and was tortured during that time, let alone her time in the Navy before that. But looking at her body, at all the scars that crisscrossed her, he didn't understand how she was still alive. And the injuries didn't match her history, most seemed as if they were from her time as a POW, but there were other ones, paler and much older. All her scars seemed to be of different ages as if she had been receiving them since she was a child. He would have to look into the possible child abuse she suffered. 

"What, are you going to spend all day gawking or are we actually going to fight?" Percy asks, raising her eyebrows.

She didn't seem self-conscious about the scars, hell, she seemed to have completely forgotten about them. Dick shakes his head and tosses her a staff. She catches it easily, swinging it down, testing it out. A couple of swings later and Dick can tell she knows what she is doing, but isn't very comfortable.

"You are so going to regret this Richie," She says, shifting her center of gravity and sinking into a fighting stance.

"I think I can handle myself," He says, and with that, he charges.