The Gifting

Two - Workout

Two

Workout

Jack stuck her head inside the office. "She takes off in five minutes, Rob!"

"I"m right behind you!" Robin grinned and hurried out the door. Following his assistant down to the first floor, they parted company when Robin turned to head for Pete"s office in the medical building next door. His assistant, Jacqueline, better known as Jack, chose to stand outside amid the crowd of NASA workers who’d gathered to watch from behind the roped-off area.

Pete was waiting for him when he arrived. The older man was already standing in front of the big glass windows where his second-story office gave him a grandstand view of the main testing area. When Robin rushed in, the man held out a cup a coffee, which his son accepted with a brief thanks.

Robin eyed the seemingly innocuous setup below. To the untrained eye, there appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary, but he knew the place was fully rigged and set to go off the moment breached the outer border.

"These monthly workouts are getting more and more elaborate," Pete commented.

"Yeah. They have to. She remembers each and every contact point. After last month, the guys know better than to try and repeat an attack they"ve done previously."

"You know, one of these days she"s going to miss. Either she"s not going to be fast enough, or she"s not going to detect one of those things going off in time to stop it." The physician cast an eye at his son. "You know that, right?"

"So what if she does?"

"Those things leave a whale of a bruise."

Robin snorted. "Pessimist." Leaning forward until his forehead pressed against the window, he tried to peer around the corner where she was supposed to emerge. The clunk of his glasses on the pane reminded him that his eyewear was in the way but he knew that if he removed them, his vision wasn"t keen enough to focus. Sighing, he leaned back and took another sip of coffee.

"Jack said five minutes. It"s past that."

"They can"t give her the okay to start until they"re sure all foot traffic"s been averted and the tram"s grounded," Pete reminded him. The base couldn"t have visitors traipsing between buildings and inadvertently putting themselves in possible harm"s way. Even though the danger of being injured was miniscule, no one wanted to risk the chance of someone getting in line of fire. Or the lawsuit that might occur if an outsider interfered and got hurt. Yet, despite the strict ban on visitors, it didn"t affect the regular employees, who stood sometimes three-deep behind the ropes to watch the workout.

"Looks like a good crowd today. This event is getting more popular every month."

"Yeah. would love to do this kind of training more often than once a month. It makes for a nice break from her daily regime, but it takes R and D a couple of weeks to come up with different tactical situations."

Pete glanced again at his son. "Still not willing to let the media cover some of this?"

Robin emphatically shook his head. "Tasha knows about these endeavors, but she understands why we can"t make them public knowledge."

A line on Pete"s desk lit up. The physician snatched up the receiver. "Okay. Thanks. We"re a go, Rob," he smiled as he hung up.

Robin glanced down at the slight shaking of his hands. To be on the safe side, he placed the mug on the desk and shoved his hands into his pockets as he went back to watch. It wasn"t that he was nervous about her performance. He was nervous for her. She prided herself in her training and abilities, and took these mockup attacks very seriously. Although they weren"t meant to stretch her powers, or in any way challenge their extent, she insisted these sessions needed to be as challenging as the ones she participated in on her home world, in order to keep herself in prime physical shape.

He spotted his wife almost immediately. To the casual observer, she appeared to be a regular employee out for a morning jog before reporting to work, as many did who took advantage of the gym on the grounds. She wore a plain, sleeveless white T-shirt and a pair of pale pink running shorts that showed off her long, beautiful legs. Her milky-white hair was pulled back into a ponytail that swished back and forth across her shoulders. A pair of light blue running shoes completed her outfit. She moved at a casual pace, her elbows tucked against her sides, her movements fluid and graceful, and appearing almost automatic, as if her mind was a million miles away.

She came between the office buildings, keeping to the marked sidewalk within the test parameters as required. In the bright morning sunlight, she almost glowed.

Suddenly, she broke stride and dove forward, hitting the grassy turf bordering the sidewalk and rolling. She threw out a hand and the paintball exploded several feet above her in a puff of blue. Robin barely had time to take it in when she rolled to the side, throwing out her other hand. The second paintball sparkled and evaporated with a yellowish hue.

"Two for two," Pete muttered and loudly sipped his coffee.

paused, unmoving. Robin knew what she was doing. She was tuning her extraordinary senses to catch any sound or vibration that would alert her to the next barrage. The one thing she was forbidden to do was to erect a defensive shield. The training sessions were meant to keep her senses and skills razor sharp, and throwing up a protective barrier would defeat the purpose.

Being in direct line of sight, Robin resisted the urge to open up any mental communication with her to give her encouragement. She was already aware she was being watched by countless eyes, including his, as well as those monitoring via the security cameras and taking in all the data they would later extrapolate to judge her fitness and mental acuity.

Unexpectedly, she leaped to her feet and ran straight for the building fifteen feet away. Leaping into the air, she launched herself off the brick wall, her arms outstretched. A flurry of paintballs exploded like miniature fireworks a foot beneath her body. Robin didn"t know he was holding his breath until Pete commented.

"That"s a new one."

She somersaulted backwards, landing lightly on her feet. Another moment to assess the area and she started forward to return to the sidewalk. Robin felt himself tensing up, and realized it was residual. A small amount of her worry and restlessness was bleeding into him. He smiled and took a few slow, calming breaths. She glanced upward for a brief second, letting him know she had received his gift.

She has this, he told himself. Feeling more secure, he picked up his coffee.

She has this, A movement above them made her suddenly drop and roll backwards, then jump to her feet and throw both hands out to the side. With a wide, sweeping arc of her arms, the paintballs sent out a dazzling display of color, like pastel fireworks. Pete leaned against the window, glancing downward.

"Damn. She also took out the artillery with that maneuver."

Robin chuckled at the man’s remark.

Slowly, the star girl straightened and turned around. Once she felt it was safe to continue, she started to return to the sidewalk when her head suddenly jerked to the left. Robin saw the look of alarm come over her lovely features, and a ribbon of cold dread curled inside his stomach. She took off at the same time he leaned forward to try and catch what had alerted her. Beside him, his father swore under his breath.

"Where in hell did they come from?"

Two figures were emerging from the opposite side, casually strolling between the two buildings. The fact that they both wore military garb mattered little. They were putting themselves directly in the line of fire.

Robin saw the smoky puffs come from the guns camouflaged beneath the window just as reached the duo, leaping into the air to place herself between the couple and the barrage. Simultaneously, more paintballs were fired from behind the strangers, and Robin knew what was going to occur before it happened. Had his wife been on her own, he had no doubt she would have been able to disburse the ammo with little trouble. But with the strangers" entrance, her primary focus was not so much on removing the threat as it was to protect the couple from being hit. Not only did they put themselves in the automated guns" lines of sight, triggering the weapons prematurely, but they also were directly between her and the oncoming missiles.

The female of the couple reacted first, freezing at the sight of hurtling toward her and her male companion. A second later, the woman and man dropped to the sidewalk. Paintballs exploded in a riot of faint sparkles mere inches above them.

Robin felt the wallop hit the back of his arm, between his right shoulder and shoulder blade. The hard, sharp punch made him cry out, and he dropped his coffee cup. Without saying anything to Pete, he raced from the office and took the stairs down to the first floor.

As he expected, people were already milling around the military couple. The remainder of the training session had been aborted. Security started clearing everyone out, ordering the employees back to their work stations.

stood several feet away. A couple of technicians were questioning her, but she mostly nodded or shook her head in reply. She glanced up when Robin entered the area and waited for him to arrive.

He reached for her, letting her melt against him. With her hands pressing against the small of his back, he pressed his mouth against her ear.

"Let it out."

It came to him, no longer held in check. Her pain was a bright, hot ache centered in the exact same place where he"d felt it. By not wearing any protective gear, she had freed herself to do the kind of tumbling and jumping she needed to do during the session, but she had also opened herself up to the kind of pain she felt now. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed the wide green splatter still oozing down her back.

"Rob." It was .

He whirled on the tech and motioned toward the unidentified couple with an angry nod of his head. "Who the f**k let those people through?" He made no pretense of being civil. He knew good and well that everything had been cordoned off prior to the training session. But he also knew the military brass could be stubborn jackasses when it came to being ordered about by civilians. He didn"t have to be informed about what he already knew, that the couple had disregarded the signs and warnings.

Without waiting for any further explanation, he slipped his arm around his wife"s waist and guided her through the crowd, who parted with murmured apologies. Once they were inside the office building, Robin ushered her into the elevator.

"You looked great out there," he murmured, giving her waist a slight squeeze.

gave him a wan smile. She was holding back her pain again to prevent him from feeling any further discomfort. "I would like to find out who those people were. They could have been seriously injured."

"Don"t worry. We"ll get to the bottom of it," he promised.

Pete was waiting for them when they entered his office. A first aid kit was opened on his desk.

"Help her off with that shirt, would you?"

Carefully, Robin helped the woman remove the stained T-shirt, guiding it over her head and down off the arm she couldn"t move. Pete gave the reddened flesh a dark look.

"You"re not going to be able to use that arm tomorrow, or the day after from the looks of it. Hold still. This will hurt a bit, but I have to clean it first." He tried to dab the moistened cotton ball across her shoulder to remove the paint. flinched, and Robin felt the agony shoot up into the back of his neck and spine.

"Stop, Pete. Let me," she told the physician. Reaching behind her, she tried to remove the paint residue with swipes from her fingertips, but she had little success. Without a mirror to guide her actions, she couldn"t reach it all.

"Hold on. I"ll get the rest of it," Robin told her, taking the cotton from his father. Pete stepped back. Instead of pressing directly on the bruise, Robin poured a bit of the hydrogen peroxide over her skin and used the cotton to wipe away the excess with light strokes. From their connection, he could tell how tender the skin was. He could also tell he wasn"t hurting her as badly. Pete watched him as he gradually removed the lime green paint, when the desk phone rang.

"Dr. Gray. Yes, they"re here. All right, I"ll tell him."

Robin frowned as the man hung up. "Let me guess. We"re to report to Mason"s office."

"When we"re done here. Take your time, Rob."

"What do you think will happen?" finally spoke, addressing both men.

"One thing"s clear," Pete observed. "If those two military types hadn"t intruded, you would probably have finished your training session by now, and with flying colors."

"But they did, and they"re probably raising Cain," Robin muttered. She didn"t flinch beneath his ministrations but he was aware of the sharp, shredding pain knifing through her muscle tissue. She"d been hit nearly point blank.

Pete peered closer at the wound. "That"s be a deep tissue bruise. You might want to take her over to have the shoulder x-rayed. Make sure there"s no fracture to the scapula."

Robin agreed. Throwing the wad of used cotton into the trash can, he went to pull more from the kit, but held up a hand.

"No more. Please."

Her eyes were clouded as she attempted to keep the worst of her discomfort from him. Nodding, Robin clasped her hand and brought it to his lips, lovingly kissing her thumb and index finger.

"Okay. Do you feel up to going over to Mason"s office, or would you rather rest on the couch until I get back? Once I"m done with whatever he wants, I"m taking you over to get that shoulder x-rayed, and then we"re going home afterwards."

She gave him another weak smile. "Let me rest for a moment."

"You sure?"

His wife nodded slightly and another twinge of pain zipped through him. He gave her a warm smile. "Okay."

"Hey, Rob?"

He paused and glanced over at his father. "Let me guess. Stay off the dragon?"

"Actually, I was going to say give " hell."

Robin snorted. "Don"t worry. I plan to."