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School Gym - Monday Afternoon

Jack's knee was feeling good today. It wasn't giving him any problems, not even the usual dull ache he felt. He knew better than to push it too hard, but that didn't stop him taking some wide strides across the court to test it out. He bounced the basketball with each step and took the occasional shot. If he was going to play Bruce, even in a friendly game, warming up was a necessity.

[OOC: Jack's expecting Bruce, but he'll talk to/play with anyone else as well! I'm out for an hour and a half, but back after that.]

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Bruce showed up dressed for battle. Which, granted, in this case just meant that he was wearing workout clothes ~~but it was a badass way to ping in~~. "Hey Jack. I'm not late, am I?"

"Not even close," Jack replied. He retrieved the ball from his last shot and tossed it in Bruce's direction. "I'm early. Lunch at the cafeteria wasn't worth sticking around for."

"Call me a food snob, but I try to avoid the cafeteria whenever possible," Bruce said after catching the ball. He started dribbling to get a feel for the ball, how inflated it was, and other kinds of things that few people who weren't him would even bother trying to figure out.

All by dribbling. Pleased with his quick analysis, he pulled up for a shot that bounced off the side of the rim. "Have you been getting out to shoot hoops a lot recently? I want to know how much of a disadvantage I'm at since I'm a little rusty."

He went to retrieve the ball. "I come down a couple of times a week. I'm still used to a full class load, so I end up with having time on my hands." He gestured to the gym. "Good place to spend it." Jack bounced the ball a few times, then turned and shot the ball off the backboard and in.

"In that case, I'll do my best to keep up," Bruce said, retrieving the ball and tossing up a fadeaway from under the basket that went in.

"What's been keeping you busy this semester?" He went to get the ball and take it out to the three point line.

"What isn't?" Bruce asked, stepping out toward Jack to play some light defense at the moment. He was just going to try to challenge the shot whenever Jack shot it. "Classes, computer classes, independent study, club, girls. I'm a job away from being officially overloaded."

Jack bided his time by dribbling the ball casually. "I joined the Apathy Club." He grinned. "It's not too time consuming. Got an interest in computers?" He made his move, going for Bruce's left.

"Some interest, yeah," Bruce said, moving back and to the left to try to cut off Jack's lane. "It's Apathy Club doing something with computers?"

Jack found himself without any room, so turned the other way just enough to get a shot off. It missed. "Turning on a computer is too much effort for the Apathy Club. I was just wondering why you were taking computer classes on top of regular class."

"Ah," Bruce said, hustling back to get the rebound. "I meant the online courses we can take for additional credits. Sorry about that."

"I thought that was what you meant by independent study," he said, waving it off since it was his misunderstanding. "You're really not wasting any time."

"I have a real passion for learning," Bruce said, dribbling the ball back to the three point line. "My independent study tends to be anything that interests me that I can find some way to research and learn about. I probably know more about local plantlife by this point than anyone ever should."

"Why? Don't get me wrong, man, it's great that you do that." Jack probably would have too if he hadn't spent most of his high school career trying so hard to fit in and keep his head down. "You don't strike me as the academic overachiever type."

"Oh no," Bruce asked, smirking a little. "Just curious, what type do I strike you as?" Bruce broke to his left with a crossover dribble, hoping to catch Jack off guard.

Yes, he was rusty. But he had trained with the Globetrotters for a little bit. 'Rusty' was a relative term.

He did catch Jack off guard. Jack tried to go after him, but was a step and a half behind the pace. "Just a guy," he explained. "Good at most things, maybe excels at something obscure like archery or fencing."

As he started driving toward the lane, Bruce picked the ball up and leaped for a layup. After the ball rolled of his fingers, he glanced back to see if Jack would be able to block it before it went in.

"I'm trying my best to excel at everything, to be honest," Bruce said. "Sometimes that includes researching obscure topics."

Jack reached out, fingers outstretched, but he was out of range to stop the ball. "You're going to be the guy to beat when it comes to college applications."

"You won't have to worry unless you're planning on attending Gotham University," Bruce said, retrieving the ball after it went through the hoop. He passed it to Jack right away. "In my specific world. At the same time as me."

"I come from a complicated city, apparently."

Jack caught the ball and started dribbling it. "You're not going to try for anywhere else?"

"It's a Wayne family tradition to go there," Bruce said, taking a defensive stance again. Also, that would be the beginning of the next phase of The Plan. "And I'm more than happy to follow in my father's footsteps."

"Good reason," Jack said, conceding the point. "I don't know where I'll go. I had some opportunities, but they're gone now." He charged towards Bruce, but stopped short and tried to shoot the ball.

Bruce was moving backward when he caught Jack pulling up. He stopped and jumped forward in an attempt to get a hand on the ball, but wasn't able to. "Why's that?"

The ball sailed clean into the basket, leading Jack to applaud himself with a clap. "I was pretty good at running. There were talks about scholarships." Not that he'd ever told his mother about that.

"And then you suffered an injury, I'm guessing?" Bruce asked as he jogged to the ball. Athlete losing out on potential opportunities? Injury was an almost foolproof guess.

"Yeah. I got mugged after work one night." He could talk about it now, at least with someone he knew wouldn't give him that sympathetic, almost sorrowful look that people at home gave him. "It healed. I went back to competing too soon. I can still run, but I can't sprint competitively." He got ready to defend against Bruce. "I'll have to learn how to write a damned good admissions essay instead."

Yeah, no sorrowful look from Bruce. "Did they ever catch the mugger?" Bruce asked, pulling up right away to shoot the ball.

Jack tried to defend, but he didn't have a chance before the ball was already in the air. "The police weren't interested, but someone figured out who they were and confronted them. Doubt it did anything to stop them doing what they do."

The ball hit the square on the backboard and fell through the hoop. "That someone who confronted them wasn't you, was it?"

As he went to retrieve the ball, he shook his head. "I can't say I wasn't tempted, but they beat me to it. It was stupid. They could've figured out who it was and come after them, or after me. Our families. Not a good situation."

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School Gym - Monday Afternoon

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