Your nightingale series is 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼
I literally read through every chapter you’ve posted in 2 days! I love love love it !!!! Can’t wait to see more <333
aaaah! thank you so much!!! as a treat, enjoy some Ollie and Birdy bonding!
......
"Okay, Kid, Dinah said you're almost street ready, which is great, but before we set you free on the city we need to make sure you're able to get around," Oliver stood tall beside you as he led you through the now abandoned (and slightly decrepit) Queen Manor.
"If this is about the maps, D said I aced her ‘I'm lost, Birdy, where are we?’ tests," you shoot back with narrowed eyes.
"Yes, we're very proud that you can mentally navigate, I meant physically traversing," he clarifies, waving his hand around.
"Are you gonna teach me how to drive?" your eyes had blown wide in excitement.
"Absolutely not," he negates, smiling at the way your expression dropped into a pout.
“We will be waiting at least until you’re 14 for that,” Oliver adds on.
“That’s not fair, how am I supposed to get around if I can’t drive,” you counter.
“A normal person waits til sixteen,” he shoots back, and you shut your mouth for the moment being. “now, as I was saying, traversing, as in grappling,” he clarifies.
“grappling?” you repeat.
“Yep!” and he leads you up the stairs.
He finally stops in the attic and stands next to a broken window, looking out you see a gymnastics net has been set up on the ground below you, the same used in trapeese acts.
"That's a long way down," you note cautiously.
"It is," he nods. "How far do you think?" he asks with a quirked brow.
"Well we're about four stories up, a story on average is about fourteen feet, so we're about, what? fifty-six feet up?" you estimate, taking a second as you go to do the math.
"sixty-five, but your math process is spot on," he nods.
"sixty-five feet," you repeat, looking out at the ground, which seems to spin a bit the longer you look down.
"And this is the short end, when you're out there, you're grappling from, around, and between sky scrapers," he adds on.
"oh," you say softly, rolling the tip of your shoe against the floor. It's a bit of a tick, Oliver's noticed, not directly obvious which works in your favor, but something he's going to have to talk with Dinah about for sure.
He sighs and takes a knee to be closer to your eye level. You're still so young, so small, barely nine years old, "look, kiddo, today... today and for this training I can't be your friend, Ollie, okay? I have to be a little harsher. Grappling is an important skill, but it's also dangerous and Dinah and I need to make sure you're ready to move through the city like this, that you're trained properly for it," he explains, a hand on your shoulder.
"okay," you nod, voice soft.
"Okay," he repeats back, standing back up and leading you a table, there's a bow, and a grapple gun. "Here's how the next few weeks are going to go. First we're going to learn with the gun, make sure you're able to hold it, that you understand how it works. we are going to take this thing apart and put it back together until you can do it in 30 seconds or less. then, we're going to work on shooting, on testing what's a solid grapple point, and once we're confident in our choices we're going to work on actually using it, swinging around and stuff."
"Is that why there's a gymnast's net outside?"
"uh, yeah, about that..."
your brows furrow down, and if he weren't so anxious about what he had to share with you, he'd probably be cooing at the expression of distrust, "what?"
"Dinah thinks it's important to learn how to... fall," he says slowly.
"fall?"
"fall," he repeats, nodding and looking out.
you pause for a second and he can see the gears turning and sees when you put it together.
"you want me to practice.. falling," you say again.
"yes."
"as in, i will be falling down onto that net, from up here?" you ask.
"yes."
"This was Dinah's plan?" you squeak; the look of betrayal on your face forces him to choke down a laugh; your eyes are so expressive, and sometimes he is just stuck in awe of you.
"yes," he nods again; he’s not going to tell you that they both did this; he rather likes being the good cop.
"I do not like this," you decide.
"yes, we didn't think you would," ollie admits. "I am however, incredibly proud of you for saying so," he smirks.
"you would be proud, stupid pysch based child rearing," you scoff.
"Have you been peaking though Dinah's books again?" he asks, lips quirked in a knowing smirk.
you roll your eyes, "maybe."
"our smart girl," he smiles.
"So... when does the falling come in the schedule?"
"With the shooting," he admits.
"Not today?"
"No, not today," he reassures you.
"What if.. what if I want to try today?" you ask, he notes that your shoe is rolling again.
"kiddo you don't have to-"
"I want to, I want to know what I'm getting myself into," you tell him, tone resolute, and that's a pretty fair request.
"Okay, after we work on assembly and disassembly, at the end, you can try take a dive," he nods, and he can see you nodding back at him, trying to hype yourself up. "I'll do it with you," he adds, and your shoulders seem to lose some of the tension they were holding as you nod back.
...
wc: 921
synopsis: ollie introduces birdy to grappling
main masterlist
codename: nightingale series masterpost
...
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