One of the few times he felt truly free was in the settled chill of 1am. New York may not sleep, but it sure as hell settled down for the night.

Nolan boosted himself over a retaining wall, bounced with both feet on a pylon meant to keep cars from crashing through their front doors, and caught the upper lip of the residential second story balcony. He heaved himself up, tippy-toed over a houseplant, and then broke into a run along the wide rail so that he had enough momentum to jump for the next building.

Freerunning was the cherry on Nolan's freedom cake. When he couldn't sleep he turned to the highs and lows of climbing ontop of things and pushing his limits. The taller the challenge, the better. The more flair he could manage, the more style points he awarded to himself.

That was how, in the wee hours of the morning, Nolan found himself practicing the art of his wall up. He dropped to a freehang between two closely seated buildings and pushed off in order to hit one wall, bounce to the other, and bounce back dropping several feet each time. He jogged to the end of the alleyway, turned around and tried the same thing in reverse.

His foot slipped on the second bounce, but he managed to make it into a righteous backflip. He jogged out to the mouth of the alleyway and went back again for another go.

Another late night. It seemed like Agnes was having those more and more often lately. Her time with the X-Men was simply not satisfying her need to bring justice and even though she had managed to beat the Wolf Hound into a bloody pulp, she still wasn’t satisfied. Everywhere she looked, everywhere she could see that people were struggling to make it in the world. Mutants were being held down, organizations like S.U.P.E.R. were running rampant, and the X-Men themselves were forced to live like plague rats, nestling between the walls and in the musty attack of a hospital. It was ridiculous. The whole situation just made her…angry.

It was for these reasons that Agnes found herself going on patrol more and more. She was never one to just sit in one place for too long and sitting in her room at the hospital seemed counter-productive to the good that she could be doing in the meantime. So, slipping on her black and red hoodie, conforming yoga pants, her quietest shoes, and black scarf to hide her features, the ninja set off to the streets. She was a shark looking for blood now.

Her evening had started simply enough. Stopped a few robberies and now had found herself taking to the rooftops. She had moved so swiftly throughout the city. Even though she had only been in New York for the last five years, she made it her personal mission to learn the terrain and the structures by which she would be moving. She could move through most of it with complete and utter ease, slipping between buildings, leaping over gaps, and disappearing into shadows with the absolute best of them. The night, in this city, was her domain.

“HELP!”

The cries immediately drew her attention. Standing on the ledge of a building, Agnes’ gaze swept across the area, searching and scanning for whomever it was that had just cried for help. She ground her teeth, peering until she spotted what looked like a small gathering of people on a nearby rooftop. Craning her neck, she watched closely as a loose ring seemed to form around a single individual. Her eyes narrowed, she cracked her neck before she broke into a run towards the group who were accosting another on a neighboring rooftop.

It was time she introduced herself.

"What're you doing?"

The young man's voice was so unexpected that was Nolan audibly startled in return. This is his quiet hour. What was someone doing intruding on his me time? "It's exercise." He cheerily puffed.

"Yeah, well exercise somewhere else. I got things to do here." Nolan spotted the duffle bag in his hand, half zipped and all apparently full of spray cans.

"No." He smiled as he said it. The word sounded as smiley as he was.

"The **** you say to my boy?"

Nolan swallowed as a hand landed on his shoulder, but the Agent was no less smiley. The tone of his smile changed. "I said," he turned, put both of his gloved hands onto the man's elbow and dropped all of his weight that sent Nolan who was prepared to land on his feet and the man who wasn't expecting a fight both to the ground, "Nope!"

He stepped on the larger man's shoulder and bent his knees before the off-duty Agent used big poppa as a springboard in order to leap at the awning of the storefront of the building he'd been practicing against.

Their behavior was aberrant and dangerous. He was duty-bound to be a pain in their ***es.

It was a shame that people didn't make for great springboards.

It was also a shame that big poppa had more than a few friends watching Nolan hand him his hat.

Nolan caught a support rail of the awning, swung his legs forward until they were planted against the store's front wall, and launched himself back at the crowd. He used his hands to forcibly leapfrog over one and caught the next by his shoulder in order to swing him and the irate man around and change Nolan's momentum from crossing the street to running the **** away.

Handling one man and his punk kid was one thing. Handling the whole "family" was quite another.

It was a chase. Nolan used plenty of tricks to get him up and off the ground and out of the way, but he'd been practicing for a while and he wasn't as young as he used to be. It didn't help that he was only human as far as strength and speed and some of those kids were just so much more.

They caught him on the rooftop. A speedster wrapped one hand around his ankle as he vaulted a vent and Nolan nearly landed face first. If he hadn't been so flexible, the standing splits that caused may have emasculated him.

"So." He huffed as he jerked his leg back and the family started to close in on his location. Nolan turned and turned, looking for an opening. The last of them crawled creepily up the sidewall like a puppet with tangled strings. Hello nightmare fuel. "Is this the part where I shout for HELP!" Yeah. He was totally shouting for help now. "HEEEELLLLP!"

Who was he kidding? Nobody went out of their way to help their common man in this town...

Agnes was duty bound to help almost anyone who called for help. It was born and bred into her thanks to her Uncle Blood who had taken her with him across the world, running from S.U.P.E.R. and their agents. On their travels, they did what they could to help people in the towns that they passed through and it was a tradition that Agnes continued even after he died. She could have easily gone into hiding, kept a low profile and just stayed under the radar until the organization thought she was dead and buried. But Agnes had never been the type of woman to just sit back and let the world limp on by – not so long as she had the ability to bring whatever little change she could.

That was why she patrolled so much. Sitting in her room at the hospital would only continue to drive her more and more mad. She couldn’t take just sitting around, doing nothing and letting the world pass her by, knowing all the evils and traumas that were sitting out in the dark corners. Even though whatever she did was seeped in blood and anger, it was a case of she would rather condemn herself than had anyone else suffer. Innocence was something to protect and it was as righteous a mission as she could have ever asked for.

When she heard the shout for help, Agnes immediately threw her attention in search of it. Far off, on another rooftop, she could already see what was going on. There was a group of people chasing down a single person who seemed to have really pissed them off. She wasn’t aware of the entire story; maybe the man deserved it, but judging from the unfair numbers, she knew that she needed to step in. So, her fists balled up, Agnes took off in a spring towards the rooftop, parkouring around anything that got in her way.

Over air-conditions, swinging around flag poles, and leap across gaps, Agnes moved as silent as a shadow, sticking to the darkness until she arrived at the building just a smidge higher than the one she needed to access. Climbing onto the ledge, she peered down as the large group seeming surrounded the man who was crawling along the ground, screaming for help. She had to roll her eyes a little. Such a manly scream the guy had. However, as soon as she thought that, she apologized to the ether. It wasn’t her place to judge.

Securing the scarf that covered her nose and mouth, Agnes pulled a pair of short, black kunai from their belt sheaths. With a snarl, Agnes planted her foot on the ledge and kicked off into the open air, falling towards the crowd but not before she lashed out with her hands, sending both kunai down, piercing the ground with a KILK! KLIK! Landing on her feet, Agnes immediately ran into the scene, her kunai distracting the group from their targeting; by the time they comprehended her, it was too late.

Combatant threw herself into the mix, a battle cry on her lips and a heel driven into the chin of the nearest attacker. Straightening up, Agnes rolled her shoulders and tightened her fists as she planted herself next to the fallen man, her head turning and blue eyes focused only on the antagonized crowd around them.

”Are you okay?” she asked him. If he could run, then he should run now. If not, well, he was just one more thing to guard.

No one helped their fellow man, except the X-men.

Nolan flushed, embarrassed to be reminded of that fact when one of them showed up to help him.

He wasn't sure it was one of them, of course, but they had a rough dossier on the current membership. How many ninja could be running around New York at any given moment? And of that number, how many would help a poor schmuck like him? Nolan puzzled that through with wide eyes and he thanked every saint in heaven above that it had not been someone he knew on the X-team that had been near enough to help. Nolan would have to be more careful in the future.

And she should have been more careful who she helped.

"I'm okay." He was careful not to put any memories into his words. He could try to force her to be his friend for an hour, but he didn't want to risk it. He wanted something else more. More than getting out of this fight. More than forcing a friend. He wanted her memories.

It was a selfish want: just a little glimpse to see how they were.

Nolan stood and brushed himself off putting his back to the ninja's and raising his fists in a mirror to her stance. He could almost, almost pretend he was a vigilante again.

"I think we could hit an opening between poppa bear and freaky legs, but there's a speedster... somewhere." What he wouldn't give to have his tagging gun on him.

Perfect. He said he was okay. That was all she needed to know. Now she needed to know if the man could get off his butt and actually follow orders. The second she gave him a window, she was going to order him to get off the roof while she kept this motley crew of mutant miscreants busy. She had no idea what was going on with them but they all seemed to be absolute monsters. Not because of their mutants, mind you (though they are creepy) but because of the intent that she could clearly see in their eyes. They were going to murder this innocent bystander and she wasn’t going to allow it.

As she slipped into an position ready of offense, her mind raced as she looked between those gathered. It wasn’t that large of a group – she had taken on bigger – but they were mutants (seemingly) and she had yet to know their abilities. Aside from the massive one, which she guessed was strong, there was a strange-legged one that looked as if they had stepped out of some Japanese ghost movie. Her fists tightened as she flipped through her mental rolodex for the best style to take.

”Listen…” she started to say. However, she was cut off before she could impart the plan to him.

>> "I think we could hit an opening between poppa bear and freaky legs, but there's a speedster... somewhere."

He was up on his feet, his back pressed to her and taking his own fighting position. He quickly informed her of what they were up against and even stated that there was an unaccounted for third mutant with super speed. She cursed under her breath because speedsters were always an absolute pain-in-the-a** to deal with. However, it wasn’t as if they really had a choice right now. They were going to be doing this, whether they liked it or not.

But, on top of that, the man proved to be surprisingly. With his back pressed to her own, her body was already reaching out, vying for skin-to-skin contact so that she could absorb whatever fighting skills he possessed. The clothing was the only thing that kept her from doing so but it proved to be a distraction nonetheless. So, rolling her shoulders, she nodded her head. It looked like they were working together.

”Go for Freaky Legs,” she grumbled back. Once the move, I’ll flank and hopefully take down Poppa Bear for a minute. Keep your eyes open for clouds of dust,”

[/color] she shrugged her shoulders. ”Dead giveaway for speedsters.” She breathed. ”3…2…” Without warning she turned and shoved the man towards Freaky Legs. That was the key to success, be unpredictable. If the mutant moved as she figured it would, she would be running up the flank to deliver a hard kick to the jaw.
[/div]

And just like that he was back, mentally transported to what were possibly the best days of his life.

Freaky legs. Got it. Nolan oriented himself toward the abomination of limbs and nightmares.

> "...Keep your eyes open for clouds of dust,”

"Dust?"

She clarified a beat later. Damn that was clever. Why hadn't he thought of that?

And then he was being shoved before his time.

He would have been offended if freaky legs didn't somehow have an arm capable of reaching out to grab at the front of his shirt.

Nolan was not super strong, super agile, or super anything that made him physically more capable— he was super practiced. In a fight, he knew just how to be.

Off balance as he was, instead of landing face-first in a pile of bad man, he tucked his body close to amplify his rotation and reached out as far as possible. He hit Freaky Legs hands-first and used the Iota as his launching point for a front handspring.

For most people, that would have put him well out of their grasp, but this was Freaky Legs. He didn't move like people.

Something grabbed his ankle and stopped Nolan's momentum arc from completing. He caught himself with his hands on the ground, tucked his head, and immediately dropped down to his shoulders in order to get better leverage to kick off... was that a bare foot? A fully articulated foot had grabbed his ankle?

"Man, that's nasty!" A hand snaked toward his front. From his inverted position, Nolan tucked again, fell feet-first toward FL, and used his leg strengths to launch FL backwards toward what used to be the center of a circle.

That left Nolan on his hands and toes in a runner's crouch, perfectly poised to leap over the lip of the building in order to catch whatever he could manage to grab on the next facade over.

Except, he noticed a puff of dust.

Nolan dropped his body flat against the roof, little pebbles of only God knew what digging into his stubble.

He thought speedbumpy thoughts.

They needed to move fast. That was the only reason that Agnes had thrown the guy towards the Freaky Legged man, with hopes that by moving fast they could clear out the most obvious threats and, from there, focus on the last and most dangerous, the speedster. Agnes didn’t like speedsters because they could be both predictable and unpredictable. They relied so much on their speed that you begin to predict the obvious moves they’ll make, but at the same time it was frustrating figuring out their patterns; they could both end up dead before it was gleaned.

However, Agnes was not willing to just lie down and accept her fate. She was going to ensure that this bastard was stopped before either she or her rescuee wound up with a broken neck courtesy of whiplash. They needed to be smart, they needed to dispatch their more obvious foes, and it had to be done rather quickly.

Tossing the man to one of the nearest foes may have been a slightly sh**ty thing to do, but she needed the distraction. As the man fumbled, ready to take on FL, Agnes turned her attention to the big Papa Bear who was looming before her. The man snorted like an enraged bull as she threw himself at the woman, arms outstretched to grab her and tear her limb from limb. However, Agnes would prove to be far faster than the towering, strong man.

Slipping beneath his grip, Agnes moved fast, delivering harsh blows under his armpits and into those sensitive nerve clusters. His skin was thick and the muscles dense. A straight forward hit wasn’t going to do any good but a blow to the nerves was just what the doctor order to make the man twitch and cringe enough to cause a distraction. With a lead she climbed onto his back, legs wrapped around his neck, and suddenly allowed herself to roll her, her legs tightening enough to cause the man to grunt and fumble, his sudden top-heavy weight, bringing him down with a clatter.

With him down, Agnes turned just in time to see her new friend engaging with Freaky Legs who turned out to be quite disturbing to watch. The way that the mutant moved was enough to make the skin crawl but the man seemed to be able to hold his own to a certain degree, even knocking the mutant away and into the center of the ring where they once stood. As he clamored back up, Agnes narrowed her eyes and made for him but stopped when she caught the shift in the air around them.

Papa Bear was barely on his hands and knees and Freaky Legs was slowly standing but not advancing, even the man she tasked herself to rescue was still. With a grumble on her lips, she bared her teeth as the word speedster flashed through her mind. She barely caught sight of the plume of dust and gravel and snapped her attention to the man. He dropped down at the last mind, curling in and making himself low to the ground. It seemed to just do the trick.

There was a sudden whoosh of air. She could barely see it but she saw the body of the speedster as he zoomed in, ready to shove a fist into the man’s face. But once he was down, he had to follow through with his momentum and stumbled trying to not trip on the man. Agnes took her cue then.

Bolting forward, Agnes quickly closed the gap between her and the rescue and the speedster but instead of lashing out immediately she dug the cup of her foot into the gravely roof top and suddenly kicked outward. There was a spray of dust, gravel, and tiny stones, all of which buffeted the speedster, causing him to shout and cover his eyes. She didn’t know if the dust got in his eyes or not but she wasn’t going to wait around to ask.

Leaping into a turn, she kicked out with her heel against the speedster, hoping he wouldn’t recover in time to deflect.

Speedy took some roof dust to the face and Nolan got the peripheral sprinkle from it. Nolan knew only that the dust had been kicked in his direction, not by whom. But he took it as a sign that Speedy had realized he was about to hit a human speed bump and stopped. Which was a shame, really. Nolan would have gladly taken an extra forceful kick to the side in order to see him land on his face.

He didn't have time to do anything more that look back in a way that gave him five or more chins before Speedy was seen flying off his feet, back-first toward Nolan.

Everyone falls through the air at the same speed, thankfully.

He had time to roll over and pull his legs and arms in.

The speedster was quite surprised to land on something softer than rooftop and even more surprised to be immediately redirected into the air again. Up, with his feet over his head, the speedster traipsed in a lazy arc over the lip of the roof.

Nolan was left looking toward the ninja. He reached out a hand, ready to boost her off the roof too so that he could follow her and they could both gtfo.

"Fly, you fool." Because vigilantism was no good without snarky comebacks and everyone needed a little more Gandalf in their lives.

Her gambit seemed to work. Kicking the dust within the speedster’s direction seemed to knock him off balance but now he needed to be taken down otherwise their escape was going to be impossible. Once the mutant was distracted, Agnes went in for the attack, lashing out with a kick that managed to knock him backwards. While she was ready to go in to deliver the final hit, she was surprised to see her rescuee was taking matters into his own hands. She didn’t know what fighting style he possessed but damned if it wasn’t interesting.

She stepped back, watching as the speedster was kicked up and over the side of the building. She wasn’t the type to go out of her way to save bad people, but figured that the man would probably be okay. Speedsters were tricky like that and she wasn’t going to put the both of them into danger just to try and take some moral high ground. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter how many bodies were under her belt – she didn’t care about the dead anymore, just the living.

As the man offered his hand, Agnes reached down, gripped his hand with her gloved hand and hefted him up to his feet. However it seemed that he had other thoughts in mind as to how to escape the roof as he muttered to her in something that she guessed was supposed to be a reference?

>> "Fly, you fool."

She paused. She didn’t know what he was really saying and just shook her head. ”I don’t have that power.”

She then turned to looked down the side of the building on the other side of the ledge. They needed to go and it looked down this was going to be the most direct route. Luckily the fire escape was nearby for him to use. All she would need were the outcroppings of ledges and air conditioning units.

”Come on,” Agnes said. Without word, she hopped off the ledge and landed with a clang on a nearby A/C unit, steadied herself and made for the next one a floor down, but not before shouting to him. ”Take the fire escape! Before they recover!”

She helped him up. He could have tugged on her, but what was he going to do? Vault her like he'd done to Speedy Von Speedster? She smiled and shook his head at her response.

"Gandalf's so disappointed." He would have jumped.

Ninja-ette plopped down onto an AC unit.

He hupped over the lip of the building and tacked down the first flight of wrought iron before the family recovered enough to make it to the building ledge.


"Chika, some of those are window units." Did she weigh nothing? She looked like she weighed nothing, but window units weren't exactly secured enough to support--

Nolan launched himself half over the guardrail in order to offer a hand to his savior-ette when one of her landing spots lurched beneath her. And his own fire escape started rumbling as the fam clambered on and took the stairs full tilt.

Ah. Yep. Time to ditch the conventional and safe methods of transportation.

"Look, this building has Quoins." To her understandably confused look, Nolan motioned away from the safety of the fire escape (which was becoming less and less safe by the approaching horde) and toward the corner of the building which had a decorative lattice of bricks patterned most helpfully in an almost ladder-like pattern.

"Go, go!" She could probably grip and jump between window sills, but he was stuck until she moved. So she needed to move!

He didn’t seem pleased that she didn’t get the reference to whatever it was that he had said. Agnes merely rolled her eyes, shaking her head and focused on the task of trying to get out of here alive. If he wanted to give her a pop culture lesson later, then fine. But right now she didn’t even want to think about it. So, with a shake of her head, she ushered him off to the fire escape and proceeded to leap over the ledge, landing on an A/C unit. It buckled under her weight (even though she didn’t weigh a lot) and she moved one, leaping onto the next one, but holding onto the ledge around the window.

>> "Chika, some of those are window units."

”Yeah. Which is why I’m focusing on moving and shoulldn’t be distracted!” she grumbled back to him.

Agnes had been doing this for years. She knew how to get down the side of the building and, as a matter of fact, had been in situations remarkably similar to this. The woman knew how to get out of a jam and she didn’t need someone to question her, especially when she was in the middle of saving them. But now wasn’t the time for hurling insults as they needed to focus on escape.

As the man got lower, Agnes leapt onto a lower A/C unit and immediately regretted her decision. The unit buckled more than the previous ones, obviously already on its last legs. As it began to move, Agnes looked up to see the man offering his hand to help heft her up onto the fire escape. With a grumble at having to accept someone’s help, Agnes leapt up, dislodging the unit fully but catching enough air to snag the man’s hand. She held tight, ground her teeth, and pulled herself up and onto the railing.

Annoying.

Taking a second to breath, Agnes looked back up to the roof. She could already see Papa Bear was looming over the edge, staring down hatefully at them. The man slammed his fist into the ledge, causing it to crumble before he reached out for the fire escape. Judging from his size, Agnes figured the man probably had the strength to rip it from the wall if he wanted. So they needed to keep moving.

>> "Look, this building has Quoins."

Agnes snapped her attention to the man and then to where he pointed. She immediately spied the quoins and nodded her head. That would probably be the only way out. She would have normally suggested that he go first, he was being rescued, after all, but considering that she was both in his way and they needed to be nimble, she took the lead.

>> ]"Go, go!"

She didn’t need more prodding. Already Papa Bear was beginning to shake and quiver the fire escape so Agnes set her foot firmly on the railing and kicked off, towards the side of the building. There was a thump as her body slammed against the side, but her fingers found a grip on the quoins. Quickly she started to descend as she shouted back to the man, making room for him to make the leap.

”Come on!” she shouted.

Nolan had to grab onto the railing in order to not pitch over the side from all the bad vibrations the fam was racketing through. This was totally a mutual rescue now. She could thank him later for letting her go first.

Also, it was pretty late for them to be making all that noise. "Expect police soon." He didn't care if they heard. Actually, it'd be better if they did.

He swung his legs over the rail and shimmied out onto a naked window ledge no thicker than half a brick. With gloved hands he was able to grip the lentil and make his way across to jump to the next window. And the next. By the time the family had reached the landing they'd hopped out of, Nolan and the ninjaette were across the building and partially down the laddered quoins.

Nolan worked confidently and tried not to be too impressed with his ninja friend. She looked just as confident in jumping off of buildings as he was, which was saying something.

Once he was confident enough that he wouldn't die from the fall, he pushed off from the wall, bounced against the opposing building (which was further away than he was comfortable with and had estimated), and stuck a rough landing on the ground.

His joints ached from the impact, but he was grinning 'cause he still stuck the landing.

"You ever been to the cathedral on 42nd? If she was any kind of free runner, she would know the place. It was practically a jungle gym for grownups and within spitting distance from a local precinct. In other words, well out of this gang's territory. "Race you."

She could follow or not, but Nolan was already gone.

>> "Expect police soon."

Agnes smirked under her mask but it was only for a moment. They needed to keep moving because if they allowed themselves to stop for too long, they were going to quickly find themselves beset upon again. Because of that she didn’t offer her rescuee another glance until she pushed away from him, kicked off the rickety fire escape, and grabbed ahold of a nearby window sill. Shimming with the expertise of a true artist, Agnes made her way to the quoins and proceeded to climb down.

It was long before her companion had also cleared the gap and started to climb down. She had to admit that she was fairly impressed with his abilities. The man was clearly a skilled gymnast and parkour artist. Watching him made the young woman wish she possessed some of his ability but knew that her own skills were on par, maybe a smidge better. It was a strange feeling to admire another person, especially a stranger, but Agnes didn’t think too hard on it; lives on the line and all.

As they made their way down, Agnes let go to the quoins the second she felt close enough to the ground and landed with a dull thud, flat on her feet. Once she straightened up, she stepped aside, watching the man as he leapt off, bouncing against a neighboring building, before he landed as well. He was grinning, wide, and seemed almost relieved he had made it.

Agnes arched her brow. She didn’t say anything. As a matter of fact, it probably time for them to leave. The sooner that they got out of this territory, the sooner that she could ensure the man’s safety and she could resume her patrol.

>> "You ever been to the cathedral on 42nd? Race you."

Her eyes squinted in confusion. Of course she had been to that particular cathedral. During her patrols she usually made sure to swing by there as it provided an ample playground for training with her more energetic fighting skills. She would have gladly just said nothing except for a stern command for the two of them to go, but the man’s devilish smile and the challenge that followed were more than enough to spur the young woman on.

As he bolted off, Agnes stood there, watching, her eyes following his every movement. Glancing between his fleeing form and an empty alley (the next on her path of rounds) she finally just rolled her eyes; she was never one to back away from a challenge. Shaking her head, she ran off after the man, her young and lithe form slipping through the darkness but running with the skill of a true artist as she leapt, spun, and rolled enough to allow her to catch up to him.

Running along side him, Agnes felt her heart quicken a pace (clearly just from the running), as she grabbed onto a sign post, swung, and threw herself forward thanks to the provided momentum. Catching a few feet in front of him, she smirked under her mask, her crystalline eyes sparkling. ”On your left…”

What good would it do if he lost her straight away? He ran. He ran hard. But he did not run his most bestest until he'd passed her.

Nolan grinned and put in his all not stopping for the crosswalk, the guardrail, or the road cone in his way. He darted through the first to a chorus of honks, vaulted the second, and did a running kick up behind him with the cone as if it was a soccer ball so the orange mushy plastic fell straight in ninja-ette's path.

He whooped when the cathedral came into view. Checking his speed, checking his competition, and then saving his last burst of energy for the tall fence which he caught, but hadn't quite managed to get the momentum to swing over. Instead, he had to walk his way up and hop down among carefully pruned and shaped shrubberies.

First one there, right?

He hopped with both feet up and over a concrete bench and lunged in a puff of loose dirt and dust in order to reach out to touch the church wall.

Did he do it? Probably not. She was younger and more agile, he guessed. But he sure as hell wasn't going to just give it to her.