[Center] [I]Tim Drake is Red Robin
in
The Gauntlet: Prologue II[/I][/Center]

[B]Gotham City
Last Night[/B]

Why did it have to rain so much, Tim wondered as he exhaled a fog into the night air. It was coming down hard, uncharacteristically so. He wondered if it would flood, briefly considering it unnatural, perhaps even supernatural. But he let the thought subside as he spotted a certain hooded jacket, complete with snags in the right spots. His eyelids narrowed, zooming in on the young woman entering a boutique across the street.

"Hey Tam!" he yelled, completely drowned out by the sound of the busy streets and people on their cell phones. He began to reason, she'll never know who I am without the mask, yet his legs scurried in her direction anyway, forgetting who their master was as his disobedient heart hammered his blood through his veins.

We're both high society in Gotham High School, she's bound to at least know my name, he hoped.

He trampled into the shop she'd entered, scooping his own hood off his head and tightening the straps of his backpack before shuffling in her direction. But the only problem was what he'd actually say, and why he's in a beauty shop. But, he didn't think of that fast enough.

"Hey, Tam, how's it going?"

"Do I know you?"

Worst case scenario, it was his worst case scenario! His eyelids flashed apart and his bottom lip slacked as he came up with something to say. More accurately, it slacked as he tried to figure out what to say.

"Ehyeahh... well you might," he motioned with an upward palm, "It's-I'm Tim. Tim Drake; we go to school together and I just figured I'd say hi." He took a step back, "So Hi," he nodded before backing away.

Tam eyed him curiously before shrugging her shoulders and saying "Hi" in return.

At that, Tim decided to abort the conversation before going over to one of the shelves and snatching a trio of distinct perfumes, Halle Berry's 'Purrfect' among them.

"Good choices, are you buying these for your girlfriend?" the cashier, a twenty-something blonde beauty queen asked.

"Nah," he smirked, "nothing like that. Just for my mom." Telling her the truth, 'I'm going to use them to mask my scent so I can escape detection of an acrobatic vigilante, but I actually just came to say Hi to a pretty girl' seemed too awkward to explain.