Being Driven Batty: Story 21

First Day at Gotham College: Part 1

Dick Grayson slid his motorcycle into an impressive stop in the January snow of Gotham College's student parking lot. He didn't have a chance to remove his helmet before Jason skidded to a stop beside him, purposefully whooshing a spray of dirty snow onto Dick's leg. Dick scowled at his brother as he removed his helmet. He shielded his eyes from the blaring sun which glinted off the snow and other vehicles in the parking lot.

"Jason! What was that for?!"

Jason removed his helmet and shook out his hair. "I'm pissed at the world today. And you're part of it."

"Comm'on Jay, college is fun." Dick swung his leg over the motorcycle and bent down to brush the snow off his pants.

"Not when Bruce pushes you into it."

"We agreed to go back to school, remember? You're just lucky he didn't insist that you go back and finish high school."

Jason scowled again and wiped his nose which had started to run from the frigid air. "Still not cool. And the worst part is, I have to go with my childish older brother!"

Dick smiled. "You mean the best part is that you get to go with your awesome older brother."

Jason pushed past him. "Yeah, whatever. Just do us both a favor and don't tell anyone your name. And if anyone asks, we don't know each other."

Dick grabbed the backpack off the back of his motorcycle and followed his brother towards the school. He was determined not to take anything Jason said personally. For all their squabbles and differences, they had become fast friends. This is just how things went sometimes: people or situations pushed Jason a little too far and he lashed out at anyone within proximity. For his part, Dick didn't resent going back to school. In fact, he had kind of been looking forward to it ever since Bruce had all but begged him and Jason to finish their civilian education. He shrugged and kept moving.

Students swarmed in through the double set of black glass doors and into the entrance hallway alongside the athletic center. People pushed past him on all sides; some running to class, some trying to catch up with a friend, and some just not looking where they were going. He tried to keep an eye out for Jason, but he didn't have any luck. Dick sighed. He should probably get to class. Glancing down at the day's class schedule, he headed for applied physics in lab 410B.

Class: British Novels 103 Time: 9:25 AM

Jason hurried off to his first class before Dick would have a chance to see him. Ok, so he'd been a bit of a jerk; sue him. He didn't need his whole family knowing he had a secret love of literature and Shakespeare. That could permanently damage his reputation as the rebellious, intimidating, rude, I-don't-give-a-shit-about-anything boy he'd spent so long perfecting.

And his track-record was still intact. Jason pushed open the lecture hall doors fashionably 10 minutes late and flopped down at a vacant desk. The professor paused and raised an eyebrow at Jason who kicked his combat boots up on the desk and leaned back.

"You can go on Mr. Professor," said Jason casually.

Professor Faber shook himself out of his momentary stupor and fixed his glasses on the end of his nose again. "Right. As I was saying, I am not your syllabus…"

"That's good to know," interrupted Jason, "I'll have to make a note about that."

Faber glared at him. "Ahem. I am not your syllabus. If you have questions about upcoming assignments, please refer to the syllabus and your texts first. If you still have questions regarding the aforementioned assignments, I will do my best to help you. Are there any questions thus far?"

Jason raised his hand.

"Mr. Disturbance in the fourth row," Faber called out rolling his eyes.

"Just one sir. When do we actually start learning stuff?"

The whole lecture hall started laughing or rather attempting to suppress their laughter. For some reason, people are under the impression that kids get more mature in collage. Jason was there to disprove that misconception.

"What is your name, young man?" demanded Faber.

"Jason Todd."

Recognition seemed to dawn on the old professor. "Well Mr. Todd, I suggest that you stow your attitude and put your feet back under the desk."

"I like suggestions," said Jason, "they imply choice. I appreciate that. Thank you, but I'll hold onto the attitude for the time being."

"As you will," Faber ground his teeth. "Then can I continue my lecture?"

"I don't know; can you?"

The other students let out another round of appalled laughter which they attempted to disguise as sneezes or coughs.

Faber slammed his hands on his desk. "QUIET!" he screamed. "Jason Todd, how would you like to attempt teaching a class of 200 students?"

"Only after I've had a few beers," answered Jason.

Class: Applied Physics 310 Time: 9:50 AM

Dick absentmindedly swung his legs back and forth under the lab table. He wasn't really paying any attention to his professor. His mind kept wandering back to Jason's comment about having to go to school with his older brother. Maybe it was immature for things like that to bother him so much, but Dick had a tendency to take things to heart: good things, bad thing, things that hurt, and everything in between. But that's what comes of wearing your heart on your sleeve. He could hide pain behind a smile and good-natured jokes better than most anyone. But that was hiding. It didn't change the fact that what he was hiding hurt him in the worst ways.

He was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he didn't notice his professor standing directly over him. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he jerked back reflexively; knocking over a jar of variously sized steel pendulums on his way down to the floor. Dick looked up in a daze. The other students were laughing as he sat stunned on the floor while the boy beside him madly chased the spilt pendulums across the table.

"Mr. Grayson, do you intend to spend the day on the floor, or shall we get on with it?" asked Dr. Brower.

Dick could feel the heat rise in his cheeks. He imagined they were a lovely shade of Sephora pink right about now. He pushed himself off the floor. "Yep, I'm good to go." The he realized he hadn't heard a word the professor said. "What are we doing again?"

The class laughed harder.

Dr. Brower looked long suffering. "We're getting into groups of two today and conducting preliminary physics experiments with the ramp and weighted balls. You will build your ramps to the angle of decent where the ball finishes rolling at 10 MPH. It's all there on the handout."

Dick snapped up the handout from the desk and gave it a cursory inspection. This would be easy. "Who am I…?"

"You're working with Phillis Garner," answered Dr. Brower. He pointed.

Dick's eyes scanned the area of the room his professor had indicated. A lanky girl with long curly brown hair and thick, rimless glasses smiled eagerly at him and waved. Dick gave her a friendly smile and waved back. He noticed (unsurprisingly) that the two girls on either side of Phillis were trying to hide their jealousy behind masks of indifference.

Dr. Brower clapped his hands once loudly. "Right. Get to work people. Experiments don't conduct themselves." The room sprang into action as students began talking to their partners and gathering the necessary equipment.

Phillis grabbed her copy of the hand out and ambled over to Dick. "Hey, Richard Grayson, Mr. Wayne's son, right? I'm Phillis. Can I call you Ricki or I think sometimes you go by Dick, right?...That's ok if I don't call you Mr. Grayson, isn't it? I mean, Mr. Grayson sounds like an old man name or something…I should stop talking…I just can't sometimes…I get nervous and then I just can't stop talking…you don't mind working with me, do you?"

Dick blinked. Fortunately, he was used to interpreting an excited Wally West into normal English and thus was still able to distinguish individual phrases. "You may call me whichever you like," answered Dick. Just do us both a favor and don't tell anyone your name. He smiled at her. "And of course I don't mind working with you, Phillis. I'm sure you're a great lab partner."

The girl beamed. "That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me in forever."

"We should probably get working, don't you think?" asked Dick. (He didn't know how to respond to her last comment.)

"Oh, right. Sorry," laughed Phillis, "silly me. Dr. Brower said the things we need to build the ramp are in the utility closet in the back."

The two walked over to the closet and began grabbing their equipment.

Class: Geography 120 Time: 10:32

Jason rolled his eyes. He was taking a geography class only because it was required for all freshmen (especially rich ones who didn't even have a high school diploma). Jason drummed his fingers on the desk while glaring up at his professor from under furrowed eyebrows. The woman was so sleep deprived and pumped full of caffeine that Jason figured he could tell her Hong Kong was the capital of Denmark and she'd accept it as fact.

"Now, what we have to remember is that the importance of the Middle East is to keep the Far East and Near East from encroaching on each other," Professor Seirtsema was saying. She pointed vaguely to a map on the PowerPoint with a laser. "Now, as you can see…uh, where was I?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "You were in South America," he supplied doubting she'd realize the mistake.

"America, thank you," she said through a yawn, "I was in Latin America recently. My only regret is that I didn't study Latin harder in school, so I could converse with the people."

"Seriously?" grumbled the girl next to Jason.

"It get's better," he whispered, "just wait till she gets to the US."

"Why are you talking while I'm talking?" demanded Professor Seirtsema.

Jason spoke up. "We were just talking about how China is a big country inhabited by many Chinese."

His professor glared at him. "Did I get to that part of the class yet?"

"You must have," answered Jason innocently, "otherwise how would we know that?"

"Humm…I think I should go back to bed. I must be slipping." Mrs. Seirtsema shook her head. "I could have sworn we were talking about the Americas."

"Why don't we just forget class and all take a nap session?" Jason suggested.

"Don't be absurd young man," gasped Mrs. Seirtsema, "then everyone will go to sleep!"

Jason allowed his head to slam loudly on the desk as his professor started talking again. He was walking out of the classroom and going to the bar in ten minutes; and there was no way in hell anyone would be able to stop him.

Class: Applied Physics 310 Time: 10:57 AM

"This was a great idea Ricki," Phillis babbled on, "I mean, I never would have thought of using a car jack to raise the base of the ramp. This is like so ingenious!"

Dick looked up from his calculations as she continued talking and pumping the jack higher and higher. He raised an eyebrow. "Hey Phillis, you should probably keep an eye on the height. If you raise the elevation of the ramp above 3.45 feet, the ball will role too fast," he warned.

But Phillis didn't seem to hear him and continued pumping the car jack's elevation. "I didn't think of you as the intelligent sort," she continued as if he hadn't said anything, "I'm sorry, please don't take offence, but I thought you were just another pretty face…I mean, you did some modeling…you're like the hottest guy ever!... Wait, I didn't mean it like that…it's just that I always thought beauty and brains didn't go together. Yeah, that's an unfair stereotype…"

"Phillis!" cried Dick.

"Huh?" Phillis looked up. The ramp was at about a 5.6-foot elevation with a 68 degree incline. The 20 pound metal ball, which had been perched at the top, wobbled and started down the ramp.

"Oh dear. This can't end well," muttered Dick.

Dick and Phillis watched with open mouths as the ball gained speed rapidly down the ramp and continued rolling across the floor. The little speedometer they had set up for the experiment flashed "48 MPH". The ball kept rolling towards a door that read "Dr. Brower's Office" in big black letters. It had just enough velocity to crash through the thin wooden door and take out the legs of Brower's chair. There was a shrill yelp from inside the office accompanied by the sound of a heavy thud and a loud crash.

"What in Newton's name just happened?" screamed Dr. Brower.

"Shit!" cursed Dick.

"Language!" Phillis admonished him.

"What idiot fouled up the simplest physics experiment in the books?!" demanded their professor from the sanctity of his wrecked office.

Phillis and Dick finally joined the other students crowded around the now broken-in door of their professor's office. Dr. Brower, glasses askew across his shocked face, was sprawled on the floor atop the remains of his desk chair, covered in papers. Beside the door, the bookshelf on the opposite wall had been wrecked and the floor was now covered with textbooks, papers, and odd instruments. The ball which had caused the problem rolled slightly back and forth under one such pile of junk.

The man fumbled to his feet with Dick's help and adjusted his glasses. "I demand to know who will be paying for my chair!"

"That would be my fault, sir," answered Dick.

"Well Mr. Grayson, it would appear you have a mess to clean up," said Brower casually. He stepped over the broken pieces of his chair, "and don't think duct tape will solve all your problems."

Dick sighed and bent over to start picking up the papers. He blinked as the flash of a camera hit him in the face. He looked up.

One of his classmates smiled. "Just a picture for posterity, man. This is soooooo going in the yearbook!"

Dick smiled good naturedly. "As long as you didn't get my bad side," he joked.

"You don't have a bad side…" sighed Phillis leaning in the doorway.

"Umm…" Dick and the boy with the camera looked at her.

Phillis snapped out of it instantly. "What I mean is…er…ah…you're so nice you don't have a bad side too you! I mean not everyone would take the fall for something they didn't do…you know?"

"Wait, you didn't do this?" asked the boy, "dude!"

Dick smirked. "I got my picture in the yearbook, didn't I?"

"Man, you are crazy!" The boy set the camera aside and started helping Dick and Phillis clean the office. "Name's Jake, by the way."

Dick shook Jake's hand firmly. "Name's Richard, but I go by...Do us both a favor and don't tell anyone your name…Dick."

Jake let out a hearty laugh. "Dude, you are too funny. We gotta' get lunch together now."

Author's Note: Hey guys, sorry updates are so hard these days due to being in school. Anyways, if there are any classes you think would suit either Dick or Jason, let me know. Since you get to choose your classes in college (well, aside from the core courses), it could be a fun way to see each of their inner personalities come through. Personally, I'd love to see Jason in philosophy, but maybe that's just me?