by Michele | Jan 20, 2018 | Chronicles
Dick: At this point it seems like forever ago that the so-called ‘Bat Family’ was having a get together at Wayne Manor. Complete with costumes of a different sort. During which Damien had dressed up as an Assassin, from the League of Shadows. Now only a handful of weeks removed from that? I’m walking among a litany of dead bodies wearing that same attire. The Iceberg Lounge was once the peak of society in Gotham, I suspect it will be that again. It’s owner is connected, wealthy and one of the original families of Gotham. For some reason that tends to provide those few people with Teflon. Nothing ever sticks to them for long and that includes owning the site of one of the largest mass murders in Gotham’s History.
That is what I’m looking at. Mass Murder.
Bodies lay in random order in just about every place the eyes can travel. One murder is nearly indistinguishable from the other. Gotham City’s Police Department has called in all the over-time hours that anyone can handle. Crime Scene units have been brought in from all across the Country to collect evidence and work the case. A case that every single person here already knows the answer too. This wasn’t the act of just another of Gotham’s Rogue Gallery. This was a War, between several of them.
“Penguin’s Men were thrown to the wolves. Buying him time to escape. His body is absent, he’ll be back.”
It didn’t take your Bat-Computer to figure that out. What we’re having trouble with is who the hell killed these guys?
“Slade Wilson.”
Deathstroke? Why the hell is Deathstroke involved? He working for Penguin?
“No, he was clearly taking out any and everyone that got too close.”
So he was a free agent? What the hell is going on in my City, Batman?
The Commission’s question is troubling because I don’t have the answer. Bruce always seemed to. He always knew what was going on before anyone else did. It was like his very own super power. Despite studying with him for nearly three decades, I’m stuck with the thought that I failed to pick up the one skill I needed most. Because very little of this makes sense.
“The Joker has Talia al Ghul,” this isn’t a secret, it’s been all over the news, but I’m building to something. “He’s called out the League. The League was here because of whatever was in that room.”
The Commissioner and I have been standing at a doorway. It leads in to a room that at one time resembled some sort of private members only sauna. Complete with Hot-Tub. Apparently the best damned hot tub in all of the Free World, because the body count rises the closer you get to the room. Except that the causes of death change dramatically here. Out there in the Lounge, it’s mostly Mobster on Ninja violence, but starting just before the hallway to Penguin’s office the signs of Deathstroke entering the fray become clear. Crystal clear. Culminating here, at this doorway and ending just beyond it.
“My cowl has determined that there are trace amounts of the same substance Ra’s al Ghul uses to maintain his immortality, all over the room.” Turning away from the commissioner and toward the Penguin’s office. “When the Lab Results come back and confirm that, we’ll have one of the answers to this mystery. We’ll know why this place was more important to the ‘Demon’ than his own Daughter.”
That still leaves us with a shitbag full of other questions. Like where the hell the Penguin is now? Where’s Joker taken Talia? And why the fuck did Deathstroke get involved?
“I know where Penguin is, he’s not important.”
Says you.
“I’ll know where Talia is soon.”
Wonders never cease. Pray tell when are you going to let us average Joe’s in on the secret?
“As for Deathstroke. That is a mystery to me.”
God damnit, you spent too much time with him. You’re doing that thing..
. . .
Uh. Batman. When I start to rant you’re supposed to disappear. It’s almost reassuring. Why haven’t you… oh…
The Black Canary is why. Leading one to question how she’d gotten through a crime scene without arousing any notice. Especially dressed like she is. She’s certainly got the Commissioner’s notice. He no longer seems to be blaming me for not disappearing. I like Jim Gordon. Liked him long before I began dating his daughter. He could easily be one of us between background as a Marine and his skill as a Detective. The look he gives Dinah is somewhere between properly appreciative and a look I normally see reserved for Barbara. Does he know Dinah? That’s a curious wrinkle, I wonder if Bruce ever picked up on that? He wouldn’t have any way to recognize that look in Jim’s eyes.
“Can you give us a few moments, Jim?”
Sure, but make it quick. The S.I.’s are on loan…
The man is still muttering about budgets being blown as he wanders down the hall. Meanwhile I’ve allowed my eyes to trail up the long legs of the Canary, across to the doorway to the Penguin’s office. To the giant hole in the roof there, where a rocket is even now lodged and inactive. Back to the Canary and those long legs.
“Why is Slade Wilson here.” It’s not a question, just phrased that way, because I actually did know that answer. At least in part. “You’re the only connecting dot.”
Dinah: I’d be hard pressed to make a call on whether or not tonight was a success or a total, epic failure. It’s got the notes and highlights of both. On one hand, I got the answers that I came for. Not the way I’d intended to get them, but that’s the job. You adapt, you scrap, and you salvage. No amount of ego and a positive outlook is going to make what went down at the Iceberg tonight look good though. A lot of people died tonight. Some innocent people. A lot more not at all innocent people, between the League’s assassins, and Penguin’s goons. While I’m not one of those every lives is sacred kind of people, and the deaths of the ‘soldiers’ in this fight isn’t going to keep me up at night? It’s going to make me a hell of a lot more pissed at the generals.
Neither of which gave me answers. Not on purpose anyway. But the fallout was telling. So was what we found behind that door. There were also so many more questions. It’s not the ‘more questions’ that makes this feel like a fail, either. Tim getting hurt, though it could have been much, much worse, doesn’t feel great. It is, again, the job but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Once I’d gotten him settled, I’d left. With some hope that the kid will stay put and just recuperate. Maybe I should have followed through with the thought of drugging him. After taking away the utility belt so that he couldn’t just detox when he felt the weirdness that is ‘getting sleepy.’
I’m not hurt though. I’m not really even scratched, which wouldn’t be the case if it weren’t for my partner, and the fact that I’m a meta. Otherwise blown up, shot, and stabbed might have been on my list of nightly accomplishments. It was always a possibility I could still add them now that I’m going back. Unlikely though. The fighting’s done. Everyone’s either dead, run away, or Slade Wilson. No, I don’t need a monitor in place to know that’s what happened after I bolted with Timothy Wayne and his gaggle of other dates. This time? I’m in an entirely different revealing little number. A whole lot less classy, and a whole lot more leg when it comes to fish nets, combat boots and the rest of my ensemble.
How do I get through a crime scene without arousing notice? One part knowing where not to be, another part walking like I own the joint, mixed with the moon eyed, unfocused expressions on a lot of the poor ‘out of towners’ that aren’t used to Gotham’s level for potential lethality and mayhem. This is the kind of crap they tell you about in course work, or the blown up horror stories you assume are exaggeration. Except Jim Gordon. He knows. Does he know Dinah? Yes, actually. So does a lot of the GCPD. Any of them that have been around for a while, at least. My Dad was ‘one of them.’ And his Dad. And his Dad before him. I was going to be. Until I learned some things about the real world, and found I didn’t have a taste for it anymore.
Does he know that Dinah Lance is the Black Canary who’s now strutting up the hall she’s already been in tonight once? I don’t go in for masks. I wear enough makeup, applied in the right way, that between that and where most men, and many women, look no one is going to really pick me out for who I really am. He’s also an observant man, who already has seen behind the curtain of people far more secretive and with more to lose than me. I’d wager twenty bucks that if he didn’t know before? He drew the connection between Canary and my turning back up. Old enough to be my Father, if he were still alive, doesn’t mean Gordon doesn’t get an outrageous wink as he wanders past though.
“Because he’s working for someone…?”
That’s not a question either. That’s a trailed off set of words strung together to imply a ‘well, duh.’ Which is mostly just sass, piss and vinegar. All of which I’m overflowing with tonight. I’m not in a great mood, and that makes my tongue just a hair sharper than even it would be normally.
“He was here for answers that Penguin had, too. Normally I wouldn’t assume the same answers that I wanted, but he seemed perfectly happy to sit back and watch me convince Cobblepot to talk for both of us. Which means he must have thought I would get him to say the right things.”
And not knowing Slade’s questions, there’s no way to assume Penguin would give those answers, too.
“As for me being the connection… that I don’t know. He was being much more friendly than I expected. He also heavily implied that he knows about Ollie. But as far as the carnage out there goes? He was actually staying fairly neutral. Offered to help me put down some assassins. Offered to not interfere while I worked over Penguin. Seemed a little butthurt that I wasn’t interested, honestly. I think it would have turned into a game of watching us struggle to get out of here, until I asked him, but then one of the League was stupid enough to hit him with a throwing star.”
And then… that mess out there happened.
Dick: Gordon likely knows a lot of things that he either shouldn’t or even couldn’t ordinarily know. The Commissioner is no ordinary person though, is he? If he was Bruce would never have brought him in. The way in which he’s looking at Dinah doesn’t speak for someone that is falling in to her trap though. His glasses almost fall off his head from the weight of his eyes rolling over her theatrics. Nor does it take excellent hearing to pick up the man’s muttering about ‘bird brained schemes’ and half-dressed girls that are young enough to be his daughter.
“Deathstroke isn’t an intelligence grabbing tool,” barely turning towards Dinah as we speak of Slade. “He’s a surgical knife at best, a bazooka at worst. He is not the one you send, if you’re actually wanting answers from someone like the Penguin. That means he was here for something other than asking questions. Without more information all we can do is speculate, but…”
…there’s a lot of information she’s providing that I couldn’t glean from forensics. I’m not some all-knowing, all-seeing diety. In fact, I’m not even as good as Bruce was at faking it. Nor as gifted as Tim as intuiting it. There are other tools at my disposal though. One of them happens to be that I know how to pool the resources that I do have. Dinah is certainly one of them. As long as I’m not Bruce, hiding everything from the people I work with, she has no reason to keep things from me either. This is how it works now. How it has to work in order for all of us to keep this, the City of Gotham, safe from things just like this.
There is also one other thing that Bruce would have done that I won’t. Assign blame. No, I don’t think Dinah needs absolution for all of this. I just know that she’s all too aware that Bruce would have held her accountable for everything we’re seeing. Even if it wasn’t exactly true, she was the seasoned member of the team here. She should have found a way to not let people, innocent people especially, die in the crossfire. I can tell she’s armed for that particular fight too. It makes me wonder if she is waiting for it and wanting to see if I’m going to follow in those footsteps.
“This wasn’t your fault,” I’m not even defining the ‘what’ as to which I’m saying isn’t her fault, just blanketing everything. “The League was coming here regardless. Slade was already here. The people who made it out of here? They got out because you were here.”
Pushing open that final door. The one that Alfred kept working on long after Dinah told him it was time to evacuate. The interior might have one time looked like a very upscale Roman bath-house. With a pool that extends most of the room and wall of tensured glass to allow the Penguin to keep watch over those inside, without himself being seen. The Penguin surely thought it some sort of hoot that he’d be keeping members of the High Class Society in their very own cage. Like penguins at the Zoo. That was before whatever happened here.
“The men in the hall were guarding either this room or Penguin’s escape. We can approximate their time of death due to the coagulation of the blood. In contingent with the wall-clock that stopped working. We believe that Deathstroke did his business out there. Apparently after being struck with a throwing star. Then when he was finished he came here. Putting charges in strategic places.”
Crouching to put a fingertip upon the edge of what was once the pool, so that she can see the residue that comes away on those gloves. “Penny-One was right. At one time this pool contained the particulates from a Lazarus Pit. Someone, presumably Wilson, added something to the water to neutralize it’s effects. Then blew it up. This was very precise. He countered the Pit-water, so that after blowing the charges it wouldn’t seep in to the water supply and contaminate everything around here. This is the work of someone that didn’t want collateral damage from the Lazarus Effect being wide spread across the city. He then destroyed it, so that no one else would be able to take control of it.”
“I agree with you, he’s working for someone, but whoever it is? It is not Ra’s al Ghul or the Penguin,” turning over one shoulder to look back at her. “Throwing in Ollie’s name and the fact that he’s hanging out at your Bar? You’re even more the common thread, Canary.”
Dinah: “No, he’s not. Which means he was there, getting it for himself for a job, or he was there for pleasure. Sit down meetings weren’t his style for one of those, I didn’t think, and the other? That’s actually a little more concerning to me. They seemed to be mostly getting along until I showed up.”
But playing ‘nice’ isn’t the first route I would ever see him choosing. Unless it gets him something else that he wanted. So there’s a whole new round of questions. I’m not sure that Deathstroke is a problem that we have the resources and time to deal with right now. Story of the week, huh? A problem, after a new problem, combined into a whole different problem on top of that. With answers that we’re only really piecing together with educated guesses and intuition, and some knowledge of how these individual groups usually ‘work’ and/or do things. Then you add in chaos. With people doing things you don’t expect, and couldn’t have planned for. Deathstroke here on a job? That’s definable. There’s a guided sort of mayhem to that. If he’s here just because he wants to be? Fuck. What do we even do with that?
The way I purse my lips, lift an eyebrow and cock my head at Dick makes it pretty plain I’m about to say something snarky in response to his absolution. Namely that I don’t need it. In this case? It really wasn’t. The response/action times were too grouped. If anything, we had the misfortune of being there at the wrong time just like everyone else who wasn’t on one payroll or another. I keep that snappy commentary to myself, though, because while I know I don’t need it? I also recognize that Dick is giving it. So I take the attitude down a half notch and shrug my shoulder.
“It was definitely a situation that called for the tool of last resort.” I.E. the only thing I try to not do in Gotham. Scream. “It was sideways before the League even showed up, and then it was sideways and rolling down a hill. You might give that little talk to my partner though, next time you see him. He seems to be under the impression that he failed because he was in the position of having to protect a name and everyone else at the same time. But. Thank you. I do appreciate that you’re saying it just the same.”
Following Batman to that door, in a much more unlocked and bloodied state than last time I was here, I’m also not nearly as heated this time about what Dick should, or shouldn’t talk about with his brother. Much more well meaning suggestion this time, than an order, but this time I’m not feeling quite so much like Tim’s life is at risk either. Not anymore than the rest of us at least. But. I also think that Red Robin’s starting to get a better idea of what wasn’t working. And why.
“I’d assume his escape. They went from assault/defense mode to getting the hell out of Dodge within a time frame that I would assume allowed for Cobblepot to bolt. He was still in the office when I left. With the flamethrowing Actual Penguin. Wilson went out the window about the time I hit the next floor. This being here seems like it may have been above their general paygrade, anyway.”
I don’t come in closer than the doorway, I don’t really need to and there’s no sense in crowding. He’s better equipped for the close up examination, and we already knew what was in here before. There’s just assessing the aftermath and deducing what happened. Which Dick is already doing.
“So maybe this was the job. It sounds like Wilson was willing to deal with all of Penguin’s problems. The Joker. The Hood. Maybe the League, as well, and their attacking him first just gave him a plausible excuse, while making it look like he wasn’t actually targeting them specifically.”
Or. Maybe it wasn’t a job at all. Pleasure. Clearly? He knew the Mini-Pit was here, otherwise why would he be prepared to neutralize it? Or even know to do such a thing. So who was he dealing with it for? Or… acquiring it for? Or perhaps both. The only really startling thing that Dick has to say relates to Slade and… me again. It makes me blink, pulling my head up like I’m backing away from an unpleasant smell.
“He’s what?”
That should probably fall into the things I know about category. But I only go into the bar if I need booze or coffee, or maybe something to eat and I hadn’t been down there tonight. I have my own entrance in the back, and a set of stairs that go up to my apartment. There’s a moment of strange panic about leaving Tim there hurt and by himself, even though I know he can defend himself… but if Slade were coming in guns blazing he probably already would have done so.
“What are the chances that this is all just one bloody package? All of it? Not Joker, but the rest.”
Dick: “Ordinarily, I would say that none of this works together. Ra’s isn’t a puppet. Penguin might do it for enough money, but the amount needed for him to put everything he’s worked so hard for at risk is astronomical. Factoring in Lazarus Pit, Talia and now Slade? The odds become so remote that I’m not even sure Tim could compute them without a computer.”
“But,” said as more of a sigh than anything else. “A lot of things are defying the odds lately. Too many things to be random.”
Despite this conversation, I’ve barely turned away from the ruined husk of a pool. She went right to what I’d been thinking too. It’s why I’m here, instead of keeping an eye on Damien still. Though, actually, for now he’s the safest person in Gotham. Penny-One confirmed that his Grandfather’s men took him just as we knew he would. Damien wanted to have a communion. He’s getting it. Bruce would never have allowed it, but I’ve decided not to do everything the Bruce Wayne way.
Rising finally, but not turning, just speaking too over the cloaked shoulder. “He’s been in your Bar since roughly eleven minutes after you and Robin took off your commlinks. After he finished his work here, he took up residence across the street from your bar. He was watching you. Saw the boy with the S-Shield come, have a talk with you and go. At some point, he apparently got thirsty. He’s been there ever since.”
“He’s not following you, currently. Unless he’s suddenly able to go invisible. Penny-One says he’s making friends. Telling stories to your people about old times. With you and Ollie. And before Ollie. For someone that wears their whole life so openly, you certainly have a lot of History that none of us knew about. If you get back quickly, maybe you can stop Slade from telling the entire East Coast about it.”
Dinah: “I would have said the same thing about there being a group in Gotham, with the power to scare the Demon, that your Father didn’t know about, too.”
The Wild Card. The Big Random that’s making me think that everything that makes no sense, or seems to be out of pattern and order, is all related back to it. Gotham might be a chaotic, violent place but there’s still a rhyme to it most of the time. Before Bruce died, you could even count on the crazies like Joker to have a certain… theme as well. But now he’s gone, and so the Clown Prince has apparently started branching out and looking in other corners for his answers. You take a place like this, and then you factor in grief. Anger. It’s a seething mass of bad. Or a nuclear bomb that’s just waiting for the wrong little bump to set it all into meltdown.
“Seems like we have a lot of History that I didn’t know about either, then.”
Fucking Slade Wilson. I have to assume that none of it is so bad as to have warranted a more immediate response or I could have been reached before now in order to be warned. So either they wanted to hear what Wilson had to say, or they assumed it to be a bunch of make-believe and didn’t bother to stop him. Slade, for his part? I guess assumes I actually monitor the bar and is escalating his tales in order to make me respond. Which makes me not want to, but I need to find out what the man wants. Maybe get my answers about the ‘why’ of him being here in the first place
“If I get back quickly, then Deathstroke thinks he can bring me running any time he wants, too. So I’ll head back. Slowly. You don’t need me here.”
See. He can absolve me of guilt. I can attempt to not boss, or hover, or interject myself. Dick can do this. He was already doing it when I got here. I still can’t decide if that’s comforting, or making me think that my place really is going to be in the Nest, doing the training. Either way. I push off the door frame, and start making my way back the way that I came. Avoiding the spatter turns it into a bit of a dance of not further contaminating the crime scene but… I was already here once tonight. Now, I get to retrace my steps once again, back to Pretty Bird’s, to see what one of the only deadlier people on the planet wants.
Dick: “Canary,” I know she can hear me, even as she’s making her way back down that solitary hall. “Ordinarily, this might not need to be said, but so many things are out of the ordinary right now. I’m not sure the conversation should be between Red Robin and I, this time. He’s your partner right now. You haven’t had many of those, but I’m something of an expert. Trust me when I tell you this. He needs to know you trust him and his judgment. My opinion on what happened here? Is a far second to your’s.”
“We’ve talked about roles and responsibilities, but with a focus on the things I wasn’t doing. You need to consider the same things for yourself. The younger generation is going to look to you. Take their lead from you. Whether you want to be a Leader or not, they see you as one. What you do is going to be an example to them. How you handle this. All of this. Will play out in how they handle things in the future.”
“Also,” looking up from the display of the gauntlet that’s been displaying crime scene information. “Your new partner does not sleep. Nor does he take being sidelined well. In the time since you left him to recouperate? He’s tried to save Wonder Woman’s life. Picked a fight with Superman. And is now ‘under cover’ with the Cluemaster’s Daughter. Penny-One is monitoring him. As well as Damien, who’s meeting with his Grandfather. Keep your comm-link on, so that you can be updated if anything changes.”
“And. So that we can monitor you too.”
Dinah: “I’ve already told him as much. I can always tell him again for good measure, though. That’s kind of my M.O..”
Sometimes I just get the impression that maybe Tim Drake thinks I’m just being nice to him, or going easy. Which isn’t usually my way. I’m pretty much clinically incapable of not telling someone to their face if I think it’s a very bad idea, whatever it is that they’re doing. I suppose I didn’t tell him that playing at being Batman was a bad idea, but since I was in the roll of moral support at the time it didn’t seem wise. Maybe, in hindsight, I was being soft. I hadn’t felt like I was at the time, though.
“So what you’re saying is I shouldn’t go home and get drunk with Deathstroke. Check. I’ll do my best.”
It’s not what he meant, and I know it. Ideally the wink back over my shoulder would convey that kind of thing. This is a new gig for me. Role model. Ugh. Fighting? That I’ve been doing almost my whole life. Fighting real opponents with life and death stakes for coming up on half of it. Or it feels like it sometimes. It’s not just about kicking their asses either. That much I do know. Because I know why Ted Grant kicked mine as hard as he did. Because of those stakes.
“…okay, seriously what the actual fuck is going on with this city this week?”
Since he didn’t say anything about Tim going to Metropolis, and Conner was clearly here when I saw him last, I assume it’s all gone down in our fair city’s limits. Pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers, I take a deep breath. Maybe I didn’t drink enough to deal with tonight, and not the other way around. I already knew, or at least suspected that Tim doesn’t sleep. I’m rethinking not drugging him. I also know that Tim, tonight at least? Was pretty damn aware of his own limitations and so I’m going to have to trust that he thinks he can handle what he’s doing. Or maybe that he has a death wish if he’s trying to fight the Super, and throw himself in with that grade of problems. And Stephanie? Well. She’s the one out of all of those names least capable of handling herself, though she’s a whole lot improved since Red Robin drug his little foundling into the cave. Hopefully improved enough, depending upon what they’re doing but…
No. Dinah. Focus.
“Sure thing, Big Brother.”
Monitoring isn’t ever exactly what I want, but I also know the benefits of it. Especially right now. It’s why a comm is about the only piece of tech I’ll wear out in the field without a whole lot of bitching about it. There’s a sloppy little salute/wave, before I turn my ass around, no longer progressing backwards, for the stairs.
by Michele | Dec 4, 2017 | Chronicles
Steph: #FirstWorldVigilanteProblems
There’s a saying about Hell and a hand basket. The thing is, it doesn’t really every apply to Gotham, because one part or another of it is basically already always there. Another one about a fresh Hell. Again. Doesn’t work because technically none of this is fresh and/or new. Joker being a homicidal, creepy-ass freak? Bi-Weekly sort of engagement. League of Shadows has a ninja horde beef with someone? Semi-annual. Some D-List baddie has it in his mind that this is his moment? Normal Tuesday night. Or it was. Until Batman was gone and this weird sort of hush settled on the place. No one wanted to make a move, because no one wanted that spotlight of attention and blame. Apparently it was really just the eye of the hurricane settling over us. Because now? The rest of it’s rolled in.
And it’s like all the worst parts of every postal holiday, with none of the upsides all rolled into one. Complete with the forced spending of time with family. And like most of the rest of my life, I’m kind of helpless to do anything about it. ONLY I SHOULDN’T BE. For the first time, I’ve got training (some) and a suit (it’s still kickass) and all the gadgets and a circle of people that tolerate me that are much better at handling this crap than I am. They’re probably out handling it right now, in fact while me? I’m off the grid. Because I’m completely, and legally, on it.
Gotham City. Where the crooks are everywhere, and the legal system either is in their pocket, or wide-eyed and manically hopeful that this time… this time they’re going to have a poster child to use for their rehab programs and that this time, they’re going to have really made a difference. That’s me. Poster child and sacrificial lamb, because obviously a repentant criminal who’s seen the error of their ways, and is back on the straight and narrow should be able to appeal for joint custody now that they’re out of jail. And. Totes a good guy. Only he’s not. And here I am. Stuck with him just the same. One weekend a month. The first weekend since I caught onto the scheme (which was the last time I had to be here), and I fought with my Mom about it. Argued. Stamped my foot. But she’s got something going on this weekend, and doesn’t trust me at home alone apparently.
So. Daddy/Daughter time it is. Gotham’s imploding, but by all means… lets follow the Idiot Court’s orders. Great job, CPS. Kudos. Really.
I don’t want to be here, and I made sure everyone, and anyone, who would listen knew about it. Well. At school anyway. At home. I haven’t been able to get back to the ‘Batcave’ since the night Joker branched out into television programming, there was no side trips allowed by Mom between Mom’s place and my Dad’s. And seriously. Who has doors that lock from both sides? Oh wait. My Dad, the D-List not-so-supervillain. That’s who. On the upside, there were boxes of Eggo waffles in the freezer. Clear bribery. He gets better cable, too. Judging by the three hundred and counting flicks of nothing interesting that I’ve gone through, while silently counting down the time in my head.
Two more minutes.
Tim: There’s nothing on television. Nothing at all. Channel surfing is one of life’s little tortures. A good cable plan gives you hundreds of channels, but there never seems to be anything on. Until you finally find that one thing that doesn’t bother you. It’s not exactly what you want to watch, but it doesn’t make you angry having it on. For what is likely the nine hundred time this year. You know what it’s like. That one movie you liked the first time, but now you’ve seen it so many times you can recite the lines to yourself (or others if they’re in range of hearing). Sure, you don’t like it as much as you once did, but it doesn’t make your ears bleed putting it on.
One of the lines is certainly not, “Jesus. I never thought he would leave. That was painful to watch.”
Nope. That isn’t your movie Stephanie Brown. It’s the Boy Wonder. Who isn’t nearly as imposing when he’s not appearing out of nowhere dressed as a six foot bat that terrorizes the Gotham Underworld. This is a little bit of a different sort of impression. This isn’t even the same costume she saw me in before, when I first met her on the rooftops. This is version 3.0 of the Red Robin outfit. More in the style of a flight suit, less in the vein of ‘Scare you to Death’. It has some perks though, which was important for today’s outing. Between the stealth tech which turns the entire red-color scheme off, darkening it to allow for blending in to the shadows of her apartment and the technology that is woven in to the very fabric of the outfit itself? It shouldn’t be half as comfortable as it actually is. Nor as easy to move as it turns out to be. No cape to slip on. No horns to catch in closing doors.
With one hand, I flip what looks like a gameboy with a pok-e-mon skin to her. The other hand carefully remains at my side, even when I flip over the arm of the couch to crash down on it next to her. “Gotta catch’em all. Figured you might be a little bored. What with the whole mandated custodial visitations and such.”
That’s not entirely untrue, but it really doesn’t happen to cover the real reason I’m here. Instead of out there. The world out beyond the walls of this apartment is going to hell in a hand basket. The League of Shadows has descended upon Gotham. An alien space crafted landed in the harbor. Nowhere has arrested Dinah’s ex-boyfriend. Damien’s mother has been kidnapped by the Joker. It does not take a super-genius to know that I shouldn’t be here. Not right now.
“You’re one of the team now, Steph. Did you really think we’d let you disappear at a time like this without us noticing and looking in to it?”
Steph: The sound that comes out of me is about as far from ‘cool’ as one can possibly make. The combination of I just stepped barefoot on a slug and walking face first into a really big, really gnarly cobweb, with maybe a bit less disgust in the tonal mix. It also sounds suspiciously like a number at first, because I went from counting down the seconds since Dadmonster left the ‘condo,’ or what passes for one in this part of town. Row house is probably a better descriptor. Super narrow, which takes away from the multiple floors. Anyway. Not the point. He left, bolted the door, there’d been some carrying on about it that I like to think was pretty convincing given the looks I’d been giving the guy since I got shoved in the front door after school. He actually looked about as excited to see me as I was to see him, which had been a little confusing on my end.
If I was going to be stuck here all weekend, while everyone else was probably out dealing with the crapstick that is Gotham City right now? I could at least try to get some of my own work done. Not homework. I did that already. That was my method for ignoring Arthur Brown for the first stretch that I was here. When he finally left? I didn’t try any of the windows, or look for another means of escape. Unlike my Mom, and her very predictable shifts at the hospital, I have absolutely no way of knowing when he’ll be back.
Once I’m done flailing on the other side of the couch, and no longer threatening to tip over the armrest, I can properly side-eye the uninvited guest. Who has clearly been here a while, or I would have heard the window, exactly how long he got to watch the elegant ballet of two people who are stuck with one another and desperately want to be somewhere else…I couldn’t say. We’re just going to stick with ‘awhile.’ There’s so many options available to start my side of this conversation, probably something witty, or funny, or maybe we’ll just go with rude for scaring me like that.
“…how many suits do you have?”
Yup. Nope. Obviously and pointless. That was what we went with. I can’t help wondering if they do this all the time. The musical capes charade. Last time I saw him, he was Batman, and it kind of feels like some weird, mean practical joke may or may not have been going on at my expense. Except he was actually nice and encouraging with the black on. So…maybe the black Red Robin suit means I’m going to get something in between. Guess we’ll see. The hand that had the remote in it, before it went flying to who knows where in my spaz moment picks up the gameboy. Frankly. Looks a little low tech for him. Which means either that’s part of the joke, too, or it’s something else entirely.
“How do you know about… because you know everything. Right.”
That’s not even sarcasm right there. That’s just me honestly answering my own question before I flip the handheld game open. Even the things I thought maybe I still had as a secret have more or less gone out the window at this point. Which means somewhere there’s a whole lot written down about me, which isn’t that off base there was an awful lot of interviews with some really annoying social workers pretty much annually out there. Which I have no doubt they can get access to. All the boring bits about my life. This part? Probably wasn’t even hard to get to. Public record. And if you already know the name of Arthur Brown and Crystal Bellinger’s, formerly Brown, daughter the whole classified part doesn’t really matter.
“But um. Thanks.”
For the gameboy and…what he’s just said right there I suppose though I’m still looking out of the corner of my eye at him like Tim’s some weird bug. My face slowly turns in his direction as I talk though. I’m not entirely sure how to take that. I’m also very aware that if he was saying that with the Batsuit on, I would probably take it an entirely different way than my head wants to right now. Maybe it’s just my general mood, or some low-grade PTSD.
“I figured you guys were probably busy. But. No. I mean. It wasn’t exactly on purpose, I just don’t have the number for the Batcave. I didn’t mean to make anyone …’ Worried sounds too invested. Pick a new word, Brown! “Concerned. Wait. One of the team not like… sidegrade liability of the team? Gosh. I’d offer you a celebratory snack but I don’t have any idea how long that box of cookies has been in the cupboard. It was up there last time I was here and I didn’t want to touch it then, either.”
Tim: The look on my face tells the story of someone who isn’t the least bit phased by her commentary. Do I know everything? No, but I sure like people thinking I do. Most of the time. In this case though, Stephanie hadn’t known enough to conceal her identity when we first met. Not in a way that would or could stop me from looking in to her. Once I got her name, I was off to the races of finding out everything there is to know about Stephanie Brown. Not exactly an exciting autobiography, but at this age who of us can actually make that claim? Not me. Not until this last six months at the very least. Knowing who Steph is meant knowing her her life. Then finding out her Father’s identity meant having to dig deeper. I couldn’t bring her to the Nest, if she was a plant. That’s been tried before.
Fortunately for all involved, Stephanie’s disgust over her father’s faked rehabilitation? Is either Oscar Worthy or Genuine. Not many people can fool me once I’ve seen their face. “Counting the ones in my closet back home? I think twelve or thirteen. Unless we’re not counting the ones that include a tie? Then it narrows that number down to four. Though, I suppose one of those four is technically not mine. Never really was, but certainly isn’t now. So let’s call it three.”
Tapping the Gameboy with a finger tip, to bring her attention to it. “Covert Surveillance Computer. It plays games too. Geeze, you’re looking at me like I’m some sort of nerd or something.”
“While you and your Dad were playing the ‘Who can be more uncomfortable in their silence’ game. I was putting a microbe transmitter in to his Coffee. You should be able to track him with that,” pointing her in the direction of the disguised micro-computer. “The microbe isn’t powerful enough to show up on most forms of detection, but it should allow you to get a general feel for where he’s going, gone or when he’s coming back. If you have time this weekend, you should try to put some of the microbes on his cell phone or any sort of computers he might use. We’ll be able to hack in and see what he’s doing. Or listen to his calls.”
She’s giving me such a look, which she might think I’m missing but the fact is that I rarely miss facial cues. It’s one of the many little quirks that I’ve had for a long time. Reading people. They’re all like living crime scenes. Once you figure out the clues, you can know what they’re really saying. It tells a sort of truth of it’s own. Right now Stephanie’s face is a clouded mask of confusion, skepticism and her normal sense of generally being an open book.
Kicking my feet up on the inn-table and reclining back in a way that says ‘getting comfortable.’ That’s all a clue to the fact that I’ve got no other plans on being elsewhere. Not right now. At least. I’m half-way to putting my hands behind my head, when the rotator cuff flares with enough pain to leave me wincing. She’s not wrong, there are a hundred places I should probably be other than on Stephanie’s couch. But, after the Iceberg Lounge….
“They are busy, for sure. Right now you’re not the liability though,” rubbing at my shoulder, as I start to explain, honestly. “You might say I’ve been pulled from the starting line-up. Put on injured reserve. That wouldn’t be entirely untrue. But. I was worried about leaving you alone during all of this. I’m pretty sure I can beat your Dad up with only one arm.”
Steph: Oh, it’s genuine. So very, very genuine. My level of love and forgiveness for the man was pretty much exhausted when he went to prison the last time. On the upside, that time resulted in my Mom cleaning up her act. But whatever shred of positive feelings I might have been able to dredge up for Arthur Brown was drug out in the alley way and executed when I was here the last time and stumbled on this next, newest and greatest plot of his. Whatever it actually is. And that was a very small amount of feelings anyway. I’m not even pretending right now. I don’t want to be here. I didn’t understand why he wanted me here in the first place, and that made Tim’s theories about him and why I’d found those breadcrumb trails stick in my mind. Was it on purpose? And was it because he thought I’d be cool with joining the family ‘business’ or because he secretly wanted someone to catch him and with Batman supposedly gone there wasn’t anyone out there to do it?
I don’t think it’s the latter. As far as I could tell, he was seizing the moment because Batman was gone. Either way. I’m here, and this time? It was pretty clear that he didn’t want me here either. I bet because he has something more criminal he’d rather be doing than spending time with his teenager.
“Huh. That’s too bad. It was a pretty good ‘look’ on you.”
It certainly isn’t now? That’s kind of telling. Means someone else is probably wearing it, out dealing with all the usual Gotham crap, multiplied by four, and that’s why Tim’s here in my Dad’s house checking up on me. With presents. But I mean it. I thought he’d done a pretty good job as Batman, plus my time spent with him while he was wearing it? A hell of a lot more pleasant than the times he’s turned up in a version of what he’s got on now. Turning the device over in my hands, my eyebrows lift in an appreciative look while I let a low whistle out between my teeth.
“Niiiice. And you are kind of a super nerd, from my limited observation, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean. So long as you’re not using it for villainy. Sounds like a much more efficient method than count to six hundred Mississippi’s and pray. Especially since you made me lose count around four-eighty.”
I will most certainly be doing all of those things. And taking great satisfaction in it, too. Though the look on my face says I just spent a second or two contemplating where else he’s stuck those things. Invasion of privacy when it’s me. Justified when it’s against my Dad. I’d been wishing I had my suit, and all of its doohickies but there was definitely not any chance I was going to bring the thing here. I don’t even take it home, because I don’t want to risk anyone else finding out who’s under Spoiler’s mask. So the gift? Welcome. The ideas? I won’t even balk over them not being my own because they’re good. It still definitely doesn’t explain why I’ve got a Red Robin making himself comfortable in the living room, when I could literally see Assassins moving around out there last time I looked out the window.
The only person I’m really in any danger from would be Dad, here, and he’s gone for… a while hopefully. Staying off the streets and hunkering down is kind of a default mode a good and smart Gothamite falls back into in these kind of scenarios. But he’sRed Robin, and could probably have dropped off the hand held and left without me really having time to process that he’s here. I’m about to ask, when he starts to supply the answers on his own. Explaining the presence, and his wince. All makes total sense. Except maybe the worried part. Tim Drake was apparently from the Narrows, too, before he became a Wayne. He knows how it goes, then.
“…because you were worried that he would do something stupid, or because you were worried that I would?”
I’m okay though. Stir crazy maybe, but I was just waiting until I thought he’d been gone long enough to start doing some snooping. And then…subsequent freaking out over every little noise…Yeah. His way is better. With the tracker. And the nerd stuff. Harper’d love it.
Tim: Maybe there’s a momentary look at Stephanie that I couldn’t control. A pretty good look? I’m not sure how to take that really. Times like these make me think I should learn how to talk to people the normal way, instead of relying on deductive reasoning and logic to interpret their meanings. It leaves me a little clueless at times about the more simpler forms of communication. This leaves me thinking she’s trying to spare my feelings, but I already know the truth there. It truly is in the simple math of that problem.
“Do you mean it looked good on me, despite being six inches too short, a hundred pounds too light and about three Olympic weight lifter classes weaker?” Though I’m smiling, there’s a definite sense of displeasure in saying all of those things out loud. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to spare my feelings by holding off on the jokes. I never should have put the suit on, but.. y’know… the City needs the Batman. Not -a- Batman. The Batman.”
Some people don’t understand that. It can’t just be anyone in that suit. Hell, it shouldn’t be someone with the skills but lacking the personality either. Batman is the sum of the whole. You need to be smart enough to figure the job out. Skilled enough to get the job done. All wrapped up in the ethics needed to know when enough is enough. If you’re missing any one of those things, you’re just a guy in a suit. For better or worse, that’s what I was. Just a guy in the suit. Smart enough, sure. The ethics weren’t my problem. I lack the tools to do the job, the way that the Batman would do them.
While I’m mulling this over, I can’t help but notice that Stephanie is giving me the side-eye again. Her question is a good one, but I’m not entirely sure that I know the answer. At least, not entirely. “Let’s go with a little of both. I was worried that you’d do something to tip your hand and then he’d do something stupid that you’re not quite ready for. Yet.”
“I went through at least four alternative plans, before settling on the stealth approach too. There was ‘Batsuit, throttle Cluemaster while Stephanie swoons.’ That was my early draft plan, but … sidelined, y’know. Then there was ‘Wayne Foundation Scholarship’ plan, which involved showing up in a limo. But. Then I remembered where you lived. It was down to ‘Infiltration’ or ‘Wayne Foundation Internship’ plan. But you objected so much to being called Robin, that I was sure you’d turn down wearing a skirt and fetching me coffee during board meetings. Seeing your Face when your Father’s greed had him signing you up? Almost won out anyway, but I rolled some dice and voila… microbes, game boy and stealthy approach are what you got.”
Steph: See, now I’m the one getting weird looks. Like I’ve just said something in a weird, gibberish language and he’s wondering if I’ve been drugged or thumped in the head too many times. I’d say the latter could be a possibility, but brutal as Canary is? She doesn’t tend to leave bruises in places that will be visible at school, or cause lasting brain trauma. As a favor, of course, which she’ll spell out for you in the knocked you on your face debrief. I could have broken your nose and snapped your blahblahblah but… It doesn’t take a brainiac or ace detective to deduce that he doesn’t agree. I end up shrugging my shoulders, and not even making much in the way of the jokes.
“Okay, so you looked a little shorter but my only up close reference was like. Eight years ago so I just figured watching the ass beating, and the general state of Bat-looming made him look taller than he really was.”
Which wouldn’t really be that big of a deterrent I don’t think. Somehow, I doubt six inches of height and a hundred pounds lighter made that guy whose kneecaps he broke feel better about the situation. Most people don’t get close to Batman out there, and when they do it’s because they’re in deep, deep trouble. Or getting saved. In either case? Probably more worried about a lot of things, or grateful for them, than something like that.
“I’m pretty sure someone told me I shouldn’t have put on a cape and hood either.” Ahem it may have been you. Or everyone in the universe hypothetically speaking. “Hasn’t stopped me from doing it anyway. But. It did look good on.” Oh, God why Stephanie why. “And you were…different. Good different.”
I.E. Not a total dick. Dick that gave me a badass suit and signed me up for getting my ass kicked lessons, but…still kind of a dick. Interacting with him as Batman had been like a totally different person under there. Someone that made me feel like I could maybe actually do this. Though. Hearing what were definitely concerns about doing it himself, maybe a lot of that was projecting. I don’t know. Boy. I kind of masochistically want to hear the answer to that one, because vigilante self-esteem or lack thereof isn’t going to stop me from carrying out this vendetta of mine but… it was sure nice to have some for a little bit. It’d really suck to think he was only building me up to try and maybe do some of that for himself, too.
But as far as I was concerned, and for all that it mattered what I thought? Tim had been Batman. And I thought he’d been pretty good.
“Hah. Well. Luckily for everyone involved, it doesn’t take much acting to pretend like I don’t want anything to do with him, so we haven’t had any conversations about my fun, new extra-curricular activities. And he hasn’t startled me into judo chopping him in the throat. Yet. …kindahopingthatone’snotoffthetable … But this is the first time he’s left since I got dropped off.”
I feel like I should be insulted. I’ve gone almost a month without alerting the parent that actually knows jack about me. I can probably make it four days without putting up an ‘I’m Spoiler, and I’m going to GET you, my pretty!’ banner.
“Throttling is still on the table though? I bet I’d like it better this time than last time. Kind of would rather do it myself if we’re being totally honest. There’s so much wrong with all those other plans I like. Can’t even, though.”
Limo he eliminated himself, fortunately. Which is good. Because he knows all the reasons why that would probably have been a bad plan. Starting with ‘sore thumb,’ and ‘target for enterprising criminals.’
“You’d never get your coffee. I’d drink it. And it sounds like I’m out of the Robin gig anyway. Glad I didn’t get those shirts made. That would have been awwwwkward.”
Tim: “Bzzzt. Wrong, at least about some of that. It made a big difference. I couldn’t do the things Batman does. Not even close. I was compensating, constantly. Trying to hold it together like a magician, but being the Batman is a lot more than smoke and mirrors. Some of the people the Batman deals with are better than others. They’re intelligent, observant, and stable. Insane, sure, but they have the tools to exploit weaknesses. Two-Face would have caught on to all the things you did and more. Joker would have noticed in a heart-beat. Hell, from what I hear Penguin didn’t even believe it was the real Batman and he never even encountered me. So all he had to go on was second hand rumors and news clippings from Central City.”
What bothers me is that I know that I’m right, but I also know that Stephanie is too. Which is why I stop trying to prove myself right and accept what she’s said as her belief. She’s giving me what might be the only compliment that I heard about my amazingly short stint as the Caped Crusader. “I.. well… I know that the Batman was supposed to scare the bad guys, but at one time Bruce wanted the Batman to be about more. He saw it as a chance to give the City hope to believe in. I wanted to find that again. The City needs it, but so does the World. Our country is in a bad place. We don’t need our heroes giving our kids nightmares right now.”
“Oh. Uh. You didn’t mean… you meant I was different with you, specifically didn’t you?” Now I’m scratching at the back of my head a little uncomfortably. “Well. Uh. You see. I didn’t want you to be in this life. So I was trying to scare you away from it. But you didn’t scare easily. Or at all really. Then you made it through that first week with Canary and… you deserved a chance that Bruce never gave most of us.”
“Yeah. I mean. You’re barely skirting by in half of your classes. Who the hell would believe you won a scholarship, am I right?” When I flash the smile it’s because I’m giving as good as I’m getting for once. No somber, stoic Batman gaze that doesn’t react to any of her jokes. Just a quick return on the investment, with one of my own. “Yeah. So Limo was out. Scholarship was out. But I’m happy to re-evaluate the throttling plan. As long as we can negotiate. How about throttling is allowed, but only if you throat punch him with my half-full coffee cup, while wearing the intern skirt? If you can manage that I’m all in.”
Oh, I’d be laughing too. If it weren’t for the state of my ribs. Or my shoulder. One knee. Possible concussion. Yeah, no. I’m going to keep my belly-laughter to a minimum for now, thanks. “I wouldn’t cancel my order for those shirts yet, if I were you. But. Eggplant and Red Robin sounds like a dynamic duo of it’s own. Ugh. Nevermind. That just sounds like what one of those terrible fast-food joints at the Mall tries to sell for ten bucks a plate.”
Steph: “What do I know, right? I’m no seasoned, grizzled quadruple black belt that can do a Wuxi finger hold. Yet. I’m just one of the many non-criminal shmucks that happens to have the crummy luck of living down here. And believe me. I never cared how tall Batman was. Just that he was there. It is about more than making assholes wet their pants. It’s about people in the worst, most hopeless parts of Gotham thinking that someone out there cares what happens to them, and is willing to do something about it.”
Woah. Down, girl. I realize my tone is starting to get…heated. Impassioned like I’m about to go on a rant to outdo my infamous soapbox speech when the school couldn’t find money in its ‘budget’ to maintain the coffee machine in the cafeteria anymore. Seriously. We’re teenagers, not idiots, and we know how vending contracts work. Clearing my throat, I pull myself back before spreading my hands with another shrug.
“When I was little, I used to sneak out on the fire escape and watch, because I really wanted to see… uh. You know what, nevermind. I don’t need to tell you about that. But, erm. Yes. I did mean with me. I guess you could have been different with everyone, but…wasn’t there. Small frame of reference. I kind of get the impression that all of you got the disapproving looks and then… here you are anyway.”
Because something was more important to them, too. Than any head shaking or judgement that came their way. I don’t know the specific reasons. Not for a single one of them. I don’t really need to, though. The determination and dedication is pretty easy to read. None of them are doing this because someone made them, they’re doing it because they need to. For probably all kinds of different reasons, that amount to the same thing. Showing up. Kicking ass. Apparently getting their asses kicked sometimes, if lame-wing Red Robin here on my couch is any gauge. Lame-wing Red Robin who very nearly gets me to rise to his teasing bait. Skating by in my classes. Hmph! My life would have a lot more sleep in it if I were just skating by with my school work. It’s a good thing I’m probably done growing already, or all the caffeine I’ve been inhaling might end up stunting something important.
“That seems like a really complicated, super situational set of terms.”
And I’m pretty sure someone will throttle my Dad, hopefully me someday, without any sort of hoops or agreements to go through. I can even bypass the throat punches, satisfying as that sounds, I just want him in jail where he belongs, and without the satisfaction of succeeding in his plan. Whatever it might ultimately be leading to.
“….yuuuuum…. ahem. Sorrynotsorry. I’ve been holding that in like. For a month.”
Hopping off the couch cushion, the gameboy’s shoved in the front pocket of my sweatshirt, with a moment spared to look at what the channel surfing had actually landed on. Hallmark channel and its countdown to Christmas. So many sappy movies. So many unrealistic stories. So much of an awful train wreck and oh God I need to leave right now, it’s sucking me in… spinning rather forcefully back to facing Tim, I jerk my thumb towards the narrow staircase in the back of the living room.
“So. Uh. You feel free to watch Romance at Reindeer Lodge …GodwhydoIknowthat… if you’re sticking around. I’m going to go see if I can’t find any of the things the douchemonster doesn’t want me to see in here. He was both super in a hurry to leave earlier and super unwilling to leave me here. The leaving clearly won eventually. Not that I blame him..”
Tim: What does she know? Well, the irony is that she seems to know quite a bit. Maybe not how to hack the NSA. Probably not how to pull a finger print off a car door without a kit or tape. But she knew all about how to get information without having to go through the City Planner’s office. She caught on to her Father’s machinations. It took very little for her to see the patterns and piece together that Red Robin and Timothy Wayne have the same jawline. How much does Cassie know? Maybe a whole lot more than the rest of us give her credit for.
She’s strolling down memory lane when all of a sudden she stops. Now a smart boy lets her finish doing as she will and changing the subject, but I’ve never been accused of being smart when it comes to the Ladies. “… you really wanted to see the Batman? Funny story. I did the same thing. Except one night, I actually did see him. Robin too. It was something special too. Every second of that first meeting is emblazoned in my mind.”
“Of course, it had to be. Given than I spent the next two years of my life examining the memory from every angle.” Watching her, as she is watching me and the rest of the room, leaves me with a canted head, plus a whole lot of refusing to let that be the end of this line of talk. “The only disapproving looks that I ever got were from the Batman himself. See, I didn’t have what you have. There’s no skeleton in my closet. No dead family member. No criminal undertow that pulled me in to all of this. So when I tried to make this my life? I didn’t just get old no, Steph. I’m one of the ones who got told to get out or else.”
“But. I wouldn’t give up. I couldn’t. I didn’t know why then and I don’t now. I just couldn’t stop myself. There was something driving me to help these people. Help people like you. Do something better. Make the world nice for about thirteen seconds. Batman only took me in after I kept going, and going, and almost got my entire family killed. He saved them. Saved me. He looked me in the eyes and knew it’d happen again. But that he might not be there to save them next time. So he took me in, like I took you in. He did it to drive me to fail, to wash out. I never gave up and I see those qualities in you too.”
“Those qualities and half-a-case of snark, a side of shade and two spoonfuls of spite. She’s got Red Robin jokes. Swell. Remind me again, Eggplant. Where’d you get that first cape of your’s?”
Then she’s up and starting to what? She’s going to snoop in to her father’s things. Pfft. As if she’s leaving me here when she’s doing that. Someone has to oversee, to make sure she’s not overlooking something. Albeit with some very ginger movements and more than a little grumbling about how I’d just gotten comfortable. “So. No skirt. No coffee. No romantic movie. No throat punching. You’re really making this in to a terrible date…. Gasp!.. and now I know the secret origin of the Spoiler name.”
Steph: I don’t need to know how to hack the NSA, either. Didn’t need to know how to do a lot of things before the last few weeks, though. I just have the skills and attention to detail that living in a place like this makes you acquire if you want to get out of it on the other side with only a mild case of psychological trauma. I pay attention. I listen, even when it seems like I’m not because I’m. Well. Me. And I store away those things I’ve heard and seen for later, on the off chance that I’m going to need them. I’d brought myself up short of sharing some sappy/embarrassing childhood memories, so color me more than a little surprised when he steers that bull back around to share his own instead of just trying to get me to spill mine. Still. I’m pretty aware that my face is flushing a little at admitting it.
“Yeah. I really wanted to see Batman. Probably would have had better luck in that neighborhood if I’d done more than just…watch the moon for a silhouette like he was Santa Clause or something. I mean. It’s the Narrows. Odds were always pretty good for a showing.”
And then when I finally did see the Bat? It was in my living room. Happy Birthday to Stephanie! I realize he’s spelling out what makes him tick, his why, and despite being pretty open about mine, probably to the point of dead horse abuse, I hadn’t really expected to get his. So maybe it wasn’t the change in outfit that changed our interactions after all. Just. Situations changing. Seems I wasn’t completely wrong either, about the projecting. But at least it’s not in a bad way. I remind him of himself. I guess for most people, that’d be reason to try and bully someone out of something. Maybe doubly so if you weren’t sure if you chose the best path or not. I purse my lips for a half-second when he talks about his parents because… he says Batman saved them but he was adopted by Bruce Wayne. Which means something happened to them after that, at some point. You don’t get adopted by someone when your parents are still alive. Even if they’re awful.
“I borrowed it from school. Also I’m really only one spoonful of spite. Maybe one and a half if I’m cranky at my Mom. You don’t have to get up, whiner. Don’t let me keep you from your sappy holiday movie. There’s a bag of peas in the freezer over there, Mr. Made It a Horrible Date All On His Own. And I told you the origin like. The first time I met you. Wait. Why are we talking about dates…”
I rather intentionally start wandering off on that last question because. That was out loud where it shouldn’t have been and boy. All the mortifying things I ever said to ‘Batman’ I have a feeling are about to start creeping back up again. Clearly I need a do-over with the New Batman, whoever that is. He might not have outright said there was one but… connecting the dots that have been put out for me there. Not actually up the stairs, instead I’m ducking around into the space behind them, peering at the super awesome, and super seventies wood paneling on the wall.
“Right..about…”
I look behind me, of all places, to the tiny little nook of a kitchen. Take a step to the left so that I’m even with the sink, and then another forward until I’m pushing against the wall. There’s a give to it. I can feel it. It’s a crappy old building so that’s going to happen some even on solid walls.
“…Here. Do they all do this?”
I guess I could be asking about the hidden doors, which I’ve now located, and pushed open so it swings out of the way and reveals a staircase.
“…not the lairs. I mean. You have a lair. The insanity. Exact same things, over and over again, thinking that this time? Oh, man, this time they’re totes going to win?”
It’s not the same house that we lived in when I was eight, but this whole neighborhood is basically cookie cutter, cheap ass row houses, crammed together with no originality or variation. I watched from the sink in a different, but totally the same, building while freaking Cluemaster got Batman’s fist fed to him, basically where I’m standing now. Right outside the door to his secret ‘lair.’ Clearly there’s just some things he can’t be bothered to be original about. At least right now he’s living alone. Except one weekend a month.
Tim: “Truth is, if he knew you were looking? He probably avoided being seen. Bruce never saw himself as the Inspiration he hoped to be. He hoped, but he grew up not far removed from a generation of Heroes that took the blame for everything that went wrong.”
He then lived long enough to see History repeat itself.A fact that is never going to settle well with me. I mean, how could it? Whatever has happened to him, I have to carry the knowledge forward that Bruce never got to make the Batman in to the Hero he always wanted to be. Or rather, he never knew the Batman was that Hero. Clearly some of us knew differently. Two prime examples right here. But then we’re a product of the Narrows. Where Heroes come in the worst shapes and sizes, because normal Heroes get chewed up and spit out here. There’s no Supermen down here, is there?
My Parents survived my first little effort to become a Super-Hero. She’s right though. Eventually something happened. I should have known that it would. You can’t live this life and come out of it unscathed. Truthfully, I’d known that intellectually. I just didn’t understand that it might not be me, directly, that would pay the price for my choices in the end. Sometimes your weakness is the people you love, who can’t defend themselves from the enemies you make of the world around you.
“Truthfully? Yeah. Most of them do. You can almost set your watch by some of them. It never really stops them from being Dangerous though. They make the same choices, same mistakes, but there is always a wrinkle. They’ll spend their time in jail wondering about what they did wrong. So when they get out, they correct their one mistake. The really bad ones. The Jokers of the World. They’re the ones who really make it rough. Because they never do the same thing twice. Each time you encounter them, it might be the same old smile or joy buzzer, but it’s like you’re meeting someone new under the hood each time.”
By the time I’m done talking she’s found the lever for her Dad’s secret lair. I feel like I should be joining her, but I’m moving a bit slow for more reasons than one. “I did not make this a horrible date, I brought you presents and everything. I was all ready to snuggle in with Hallmark movies, cheetos and lime soda, but you’re all ‘Secret Evil Lair’ and totes ignoring my torn rotator cuff, bruised sternum, separated ribs. Multiple contusions and lacerations.”
Steph: “That sounds better than I just never saw him because he didn’t fly across the moon when I was looking up there. Also less like I was six.”
Though the truth is, even after I saw him up close and in person, I still kept looking. I’m not looking for a light switch. In my experience, these houses like to make you trek to the bottom of the perilous stairs before you actually get a chance to find one. Plus, even if there was one up here? I may pretty much hate my Dad, and he may pretty much suck at everything, but this has all seemed very much more… long game than anything else I know of him doing before. Not just a bank heist. Not just a jewelry store robbery. Not just smuggling something into and out of a warehouse again. it’d been all those things, like some elaborate sort of shell game and it’s enough to have me a little…paranoid. Or maybe the image of Nightwing zapping the hell out of Canary is still fresh enough in my mind that I don’t want to touch much of anything.
So I’m pulling my cell phone out of the pocket the gameboy disappeared into, and turning on the flash to check the landing. Technically a lot more care and caution than I use like. Ever. But it’s my Dad’s place. I’m the only one in here. I’m going to be the obvious conclusion to draw for ‘who done it’ if he noticed his stuff is messed up.
“…like Clock King…? Heh.”
I couldn’t help it. Really. Some of the loons in Gotham are just an incredibly special brand of…whatever the hell that is. The rest of the world? They get the grand and destructive sounding baddies. Here we get a range. From ludicrous, to insane, to oh God please never let me get within two blocks of that out in the dark.
“At my Dad’s house. Also that sounds completely awful and intriguing at the same time.” Clarify, Steph. “The cheetos and lime soda combo. Not the snuggling and romantic movies. Which I have never even vaguely considered. Ever. Nope. I offered you frozen peas. And sitting there while I do all the hard work.”
I assume he’s just teasing about the whole date thing. Over and over. See? Mortifying moments coming back to bite me, just like I knew they would. If there was any way to make me feel more brave about trooping down into the evil lair of doom? Clearly, this is the tactic to take.
“Seriously, what did you do? Try to chest bump a moving semi? How do you even get that suit on with one arm? Not. That I’ve been checking out the suit. And you in the suit and… I have my own suit, I know how hard they are to get on with two arms okay? …stop looking at me…”
Going downstairs now. They’re rickety, but not actually as bad as the ones that go up. I don’t know if that’s from lack of use to creepy (presumably) basement, or because he’s actually been taking care of them. He hasn’t been here that long, six months?Maybe? I admittedly didn’t exactly keep track of him, or where he was, until he’d interjected himself back in my life again. Rudely. I might add. Once I reach the bottom, I shine my light around the space. It’s. Rather disappointingly empty, honestly. No doomsday devices. No ominous flashing lights. A table with some chairs, which is I assume the one that was up here last time I came in announced. A stack of long, slim cases with handles on them. I’d been kind of hoping for something… concrete. Incriminating. At the very least his computer which isn’t down here, and it wasn’t upstairs. I already looked.
Tim: “Really? You have a whole Arkham Asylum and you zero in on Clock King? That guy is terrible. I mean, your Dad’s like an A-Lister in comparison.”
If I sound incredulous? It’s because I am. The reference to one of the Worst in the whole Rogue’s Gallery is enough to have me dropping the subject. Not to mention, dropping down the chute behind Stephanie. The good arm is all I need to let myself down in a landing that doesn’t make every bone in my body feel like it’s being broken all over again. While this isn’t fun, I couldn’t very well let Stephanie come down here and be locked away in some insipid death trap of doom.
The moment I’m on my feet, grimace not withstanding, a flick of the wrist turns on my suit’s spot-light. It’s enough to illuminate most of the ‘Evil Lair,’ and then some. It also has scanning technology built in to it. While it does it’s work, “You know. Some girls would think it romantic. Having a boy trying to rescue them from being trapped in their Dad’s place, under house arrest. Bringing them presents and keeping them from dying.. to boredom. Not you, no sir.”
Wah wah wah you were so mean to me wah wah, she says as he gives her a half-million dollar suit. The Batman? He takes her to a Sewer and a Police Impound, but nooo. I’m offering hallmark movies and super-computers. All I get is some frozen peas and a musty basement.”
How exactly do I answer her question anyway. I mean there’s the truth and then there’s the truth. Neither of which is really appealing, one of them is slightly more mortifying than the other. If only slightly, truth be told. The actual -thought- of what happened, makes me wince a whole new level of wincery. In for a penny, in for a pound right? She might as well learn something from my mistakes and oh were there a lot of them.
“It’s a long story, but the short version is that I threw myself down two flights of stairs. On top of a fully armed Ninja, while I was wearing a three piece suit. To protect a Female Dance troupe from certain death at the hands of Deathstroke, Penguin, his men and the League of Shadows. Let’s just skip the part where I did that, after disarming a missile and slipping one of Penguin’s bodyguards a roofie.”
“How was your night, last night?”
Steph: “Oh, c’mon! I was riffing off the set your watch thing… Jokes, Boy Wonder! Jokes! Or at the very least bad puns. Very bad puns. Seriously. You’re going to have to lighten up if this date thing’s going to continue…”
As traps of doom go? This one’s pretty uninspired. A let down, even. For all the secret door and hidden basement set up that should have led to something we probably didn’t want to stumble into, I’m starting to think maybe I would have been better off with lime soda and cheetos (…seriously, that flavor combination…). Luckily for Tim, I’m not looking at him, his mostly graceful landing or the resulting owie pain face that he makes because I’m using my own two eyes and the light on my phone which…gets dwarfed by his suit’s light, which nearly blinds me a half second later when I turn around to look at the source.
“Well, I’d order a pizza, but the door’s bolted, and assuming they even brought the pizza complicated instructions like ‘throw a rock at the window’ or ‘just hand it to the mostly friendly vigilante’ are probably going to make them not bother. Talk about not enough bang for that buck…”
I’d been hoping to get to at least claim some sort of discovery or progress for my weekend, because I assumed they were all otherwise out there. Busy. Fighting the good fight. Trying to weed out some assassins, and sort out the Joker situation, because lets face it. Potential or not that is all way above my pay grade right now. But there’s nothing down here. Maybe my Dad’s smart enough not to keep anything incriminating on the premises but if that’s the case, why even have something like this? There’s push pins in the walls, like there used to be something there. Tiny scraps of torn paper beneath them that I go on tip toe to look at. They could have been maps. Maybe the blue prints we assumed were taken from the city buildings, if that ever was even a thing.
But there’s nothing to find. Not for his scanner even. Just dust that suggests things were here at some point, cleared in a rectangle on the table, or on the empty shelves on those walls. I’ve crouched down in front of them, getting ready to flip open the clasps and check inside when I pause to squint over at Tim. Then I laugh. Infinitely amused, until it starts to trail off.
“…oh, you’re not kidding are you? Yikes. Well. Um.”
How was my night? God was that a dare, a sincere question because he cares or are we starting a game of one upsmanship I’m totally going to lose. My serious answer is about to sound awfully stupid compared to his.
“I babysat three kids under the age of six, and then played ignore the not-so-super-villain. Your night might have been less stressful. At least I got paid, though!”
Tim: “Worst puns ever. You’re terrible at this flirting thing. Where’d you learn how to interact with Boys? Super-Villain school for the internal and external monologue?”
As good as Pizza might otherwise sound, I’m a little surprised to find nothing. Even if it was just a little something, I was thinking that we’d find at least a monument to his own greatness. Finding nothing is actually a little more suspicious than finding something, because this leaves us with some questions. Like for example: Did daddy dearest figure his daughter would go snooping? Or maybe, Steph was wrong and her Dad had learned from his previous mistakes. This is left unsaid, because I’ve already said what that could mean. The ones who learn are the actual scary ones. It happens to be what sets them apart from the other riff-raff.
I can’t even tell you the last time one of the dumb ones graduated to the class of smart ones though. This is a change and I’m wondering how closely it ties to what happened with my Father. “Hold on. Are you telling me a deadbolt lock is all it takes to keep you in line? Boy, if I tell Canary that I could have saved her a whole month of beating you up, by just locking you in your bedroom with a deadbolt. She’s really going to kick my ass.”
“Seriously. Flight of Stairs. Dance Troupe. Black Canary in a mini-skirt, with her nails and hair done. Deathstroke. Ninjas and Mobsters. Faux Penguin, plus two Penguin Actuals. One of which was armed with a rocket, the other with a flame thrower. I may or may not have gotten a pass made at me by one of a set of triplets. That’s the one I roofied.”
Offering little more than a shrug and a smile. Given her own descriptive weekend, I might not even trade her night for mine. She’s new to this not-a-game we’re all playing. Might as well prepare her for the insanity of the life she’s about to lead if she keeps going down this path. Also a good chance to remind her of the important parts of life.
“Yeah. Would you believe that’s not the most exciting weekend I’ve had this month? I rescued the Flash from a guy that could become any element he touched. Then fought a living computer virus. What I was done with that, I got a plane with Wonder Woman. Yet, my idea of being told to hit the sidelines and take a night off? Was bringing you a present and watching old movies. You won’t even bring me Coffee or let me see you throat punch someone. Mini-skirt not withstanding.”
Steph: “More like the local chapter of All the Guys I Know Are Douchebags or Drug Dealers or Both, with remedial courses in Ain’t No One Got Time for That. Next time there’s a break in Canary Beating Me With My Own Stick 101, I’ll ask her if she can give me some pointers. And then clarify I meant on boys before she stabs me with something.”
Not to mention the summer section of Daddy Issues, but we don’t like to talk about those. Why am I being held responsible for flirting skills?! This wasn’t in the syllabus. I’m also not totally sure I know what to do with this teasing and joking from him. This isn’t usually a problem for me! I’m a sassy, independent girl child! Right? Yeah. No. I’m just going to keep trying to run with this whole date is a a not-serious joke thing, but he sure is using it for all it’s worth. My make-believe classes may have trailed off into muttering by the time I actually flip the two toggles and lift one of the lids, revealing a…
I don’t know what the hell this is that I’m looking at. A pair of metal tubes, that almost look like the collapsible staff I’ve been learning to fight with, except there’s some kind of electronics on it. The whole thing looks…delicate despite being metal, with a clear toggle that I assume would be an on/off switch that I really want to push but… the thin shred of common sense I’ve still got in my head says Stephanie, No! There’s no cord that I can see. Battery operated?
“No. I already picked it to make sure I could if I had to. Or there’s the windows. The horrible parental figure that’s nominally in charge that I assumed would probably not be gone long was a much bigger contributing factor. Since. Y’know. That hand. Trying to not tip it.”
Scowling a little, though it’s much more at what I’m looking at in the case, which seems to be in all of the other five matching ones, I pull a face at Tim as I fish the gameboy out again, fiddling with it until I work out how to apply the microbes he talked about. Asking would have been faster but that’s me. Stephanie Brown. Not the best at anything, but pretty good at figuring shiz out. I kind of want to give Red Robin one of these suckers to go try and puzzle out what it does, but that would be a noticeable loss. Guess we’ll just have to settle for what he can tell from looking, and seeing where they go.
“You do realize you’re not exactly making going out with you sound like a super smart play, right? Maybe the musty basement and frozen peas are the universe trying to jump start my sense of self-preservation. Also, I’m betting you didn’t actually know what to do with yourself, and this was probably like…option three or four. When we’re done down here though, if you really insist, I can make you some coffee and then punch you in the throat.”
There’s a haughty sniff as I straighten up to a standing position in front of the cases, giving my blonde hair a toss.
“Except a finger jab is much more effective.”
Tim: “I’m pretty sure you just called me a Douchebag,” which from the sound of my voice may actually be a first time for me. “Since we know I’m not a drug dealer. If you’re going to ask a girl for pointers on how to flirt with guys, Canary is definitely the one to give it.”
Unless you’re wanting to actually have more than a night’s fun with the guy in question. Not for nothing, but her brand of flirting happens to be very direct. To the point. No holds barred. Let’s get it over with sort of flirting. I’m not even sure what Dinah would do with the sort of flirting that is the ‘Take me home to meet the Parents’ kind of stuff. Oh, wait. Yes, I do know what she’d do. My jaw throbs at the consternation of what just might happen if Stephanie pursues that line of training.
I should warn her! Oh, right. She just called me a douchebag and offered to punch me in the throat. Kid gloves are off at this point in the dancing with sarcasm. I’ve moved over to let my suit take a full scan of the place. “Quantum Particle Scans could, in theory, give us a time-displaced map of what was here as much as a week ago. If only I’d been allowed to finish that paper, but noooo. I needed to go out. Live in the world. See the people I was saving. Meet people with like minded ambitions. Now we’ve got to wait on good old detective methods. Like running this through the Nest computers.”
“I’m going to need to take these scans to the Nest, directly. PennyOne is disconnected. Until we find out what got in to the Bat-System computers. He’s not on site at my bunker and we’re keeping it off the Grid, so that whatever or whoever is hacking in to the Bat Cave systems can’t get in to mine remotely. I feel a little blind out in the field, but I forgot to mention that someone dropped a Jet on Black Canary and Red Hood too.”
All of this is true, also it’s information that she didn’t have. I’m sharing, while also explaining to her that I’m going to need to take this information back to the base directly. Not just ask the man in our ears what we’re seeing. It’s also meant to tell her why I’m not just reading information off my Heads up Display. The computers in my suit are good, but they lack the database access to cross reference nearly enough information to tell us what we’re looking at. Not without going online and risking infiltration. Which sounds like a terrible idea right these days, more and more.
What comes next is a small smile, the sort of smile that’s far more ‘I told ya so,’ than anything else. “You’re right. I’m not, Steph. Part of me likes the idea, though. The other part still thinks I need to scare you in to running away, so you give this all up. Because I’ve got this innate desire to protect people. That innate desire grows in leaps and bounds, when I get to know the person I want to protect. Then you add in this White Knight complex. You’re lucky I’m not locking you in an ivory tower, that you’d have to climb down your own hair to escape from Goldilocks.”
“My point is. A guy would be crazy not to want to go on a date with a girl like you. But. I’m also trying to convince you to go have a normal life with a normal boy too.” My stream of conscious comes to a rather abrupt halt, as I look at the readings on the things we’re looking at. Every time I think this all can’t get any more weird, something new comes up. “Seriously. I’ve got to take these scans back to my Nest. You want to pick the locks, leave a note for your dad that you went out for Pizza with a Boy? Nothing too suspicious about that, is there?”
Steph: “Ehhhh…”
I waggle a hand back and forth at him. Like maybe that’s what I meant, and maybe he is, maybe he’s not. Jury’s out. Tim as Batman wasn’t a Douchebag to me. Tim as Red Robin before now kind of was. I’m still not entirely sure what to make of this one, maybe he’s being nicer to me now because he knows that I know who he is. Figured it out on my own and everything. Didn’t catch on to the whole Batman part until I was told, but in my defense he had a voice modulator and a much more covering mask on. Seriously. Look at him. That jawline and that little dimple in his chin? Erm. Yeah. Subject at hand. Retort! Retort, Brown!
“You did just admit to roofy-ing a waitress. Of the two, douchebag might have been the better category to fall into. In the sake of fairness, and because you did bring me a sick Pokemon gameboy, I don’t really know you. So. Maybe you can skirt past being stuck in either one. For now.”
Sure, I know his name. Both of them. Which can tell you a lot about someone when one of those parts is sorta famous, and the other is an urban legend, when you mix in some heavy google usage and social media stalking…which I totally haven’t done… but knowing about a person doesn’t mean you really know them. I know I’m not the sum of my parts. Or I too would be a douchebag and a drug dealer.
Quantum Particle Scans? Is…that a thing? Is he kidding and this is something pulled out of his ass or is that an actual thing? Because it sounds freaking fantastic. Like. I know someone that would be tripping balls over the concept. So I’m left falling back on that looking at him like a weird bug bit, as I watch him…presumably scanning the boxes. I can’t tell from here.
“…what the hell! Seriously! Why are you even here? They’re okay, I assume?”
Also WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS GOING ON? Ninjas and Joker problems are one thing, but it’s like someone got hold of the board of cosmic bad and flipped all the switches because. Screw it, right? I’ve thrown up my hands in exasperation at this new wrinkle in the lives of the Bat Family. I don’t want to ask if it can get worse. Gotham will say ‘hold my beer’ and then we’re all forked.
“Wait. What?”
Really? Now I’m pinching the bridge of my nose, before I close the case again, making sure it’s settled exactly where it had been in the first place. Like maybe that’s going to rein in whatever…the heck is going on with my night now, and this conversation as a whole. He likes the idea of …what? Going out? Is that what he really just said? I’m still stuck torn between figuring this is some really long game method of humiliating me and…what’s my option B exactly? I’m just…openly boggling at him because he’s saying nice things again. No black cowl on or anything. You know what? I’ve got nothing.
“Normal life with a douchebag or a drug dealer? Yeah. Hard pass.”
Wait. Was he doing my shtick and thinking out loud? That’s my best explanation, so I just turn around to troop back up the stairs.
“Teenage rebellion against the father I don’t want to spend time with, and make sure every fifteen seconds or so he knows that? You know..it’d probably be more suspicious if I didn’t. Lock picking and pizza it is.”
Arthur-
Child locks? I’m not six anymore. If you want to lock me in here, at least leave food. Gone to get some. Food.
Be back when I’m back.
– Steph
No. Really. That’s what gets scrawled on the back of the first piece of paper I find. Girly cursive handwriting, hearts for the dots on my I’s and everything.
by Michele | Nov 26, 2017 | Chronicles
Tim: Yesterday was a pretty terrible day in the life of being a Hero. Not just in Gotham, but everywhere. My friends have had it rough of late. Damien’s mother is being held hostage by the Clown Prince of Crime. Dinah’s ex was actually arrested and taken to a Black Site somewhere. Cassie and my super friends were off battling for their lives with Isis, the Egyptian Goddess. While some things played out in to happier endings that they began with? Not everything went well. Damien had killed again. Only this time it wasn’t going to be so easy for him to wash the blood off of his hands. This time, he needs help. Real help.
Which brings me here. So on the list of things in my life that I never thought I’d get to do? This is one of them. Taking an expensive luxury yacht out on to the Bay? I’ve done that before, but tonight’s company is a little different. Guys, let me tell you something. Black Canary might kick your ass in under three seconds. She might break your bones. Grind them in to dust. Snuff it up and spit you out again. But she sure cleans up well. Hot Damn. When I’d told Alfred to find her something appropriate to wear. Something that she’d still have a lot of free movement? Well, I just hadn’t thought he’d put her in something right out of a James Bond movie. The entire boat-ride out, I’d had nothing but trouble focusing on my computers. I’ve never seen a dress with the cut in the legs going up so high.
Are those stilettos? Gulp! It had taken at least three attempts to put the little micro-ear piece in place, because Canary’s boobs are at least six inches higher than normal. Which puts them right about… Hominahominahomina. One can only be so grateful for Alfred’s bone ass elbows and their precision strikes to kidneys at just the right time to stop a fellow from drooling. Because. Wow. I decided not to even try to helping her find a place from the telescoping quarter staff. I felt it was better for my ego not to even make that attempt and trip on my own feet, because I can’t excuse that with ‘the ears’ being too tall or the cape being too long.
By the time we arrive at the Iceberg lounge, they’re expecting us. No. That’s not quite right. They’re expecting me. Son of Bruce Wayne. Who’s being escorted by a veritable flock of birds. Each one as beautiful as Dinah Lance. I don’t even know where Alfred found them, but he muttered something about the being ‘Lucky’ that the ‘Royal Family’ had a showing in the area. I’m not even sure who that is, but I’m sure happy that Alfred seems to know everything, because they complete the ensemble. Getting the Wealthiest Son of the Wealthiest Family in the door. Giving Dinah a cover to getting past the first and arguably best part of the Iceberg’s defense.
Once we’re past the checkpoints, with the guards who are too busy oogling the girls to worry about the rich kid who brought them? It’s on to the actual Casino. Where I can deploy my cufflink drones and with a tap upon the corner of my needless reading glasses? I’m going to have eyes in the sky, everywhere. As with any Casino, once you’re inside if you’re going to gamble? You need a line of credit. Luckily for the Rich People, we don’t have to wait in line. We get taken on tours. We get shown around and all the leg work is done for us. You guessed it. I’m the distraction.
Penny-One’s calm, melodious voice is ever reassuring in their ears. ::Drones are in place, Ms. Lance. Interfacing with the security system now. Wait for Master Timothy to make a show of his checkbook. And… now. You’re free to break away from the group.::
Dinah: I’ve had a whole day to get over being nearly blown up/crashed into by a Batplane and past a whole lot of drinking. It’s much more than I need. If anything, a good near death experience has a tendency to get me all fired up for another one in rapid order. I suppose depending upon how this goes it may qualify. If you want a measuring stick of exactly how seriously I’m taking tonight’s task, however? Point A. I’d not only allowed someone else to pick out clothes for me, but agreed to wear a dress in the first place. Point B. There’d been minimal grousing (and what there was, was good natured) about being shipped off to be primped. Point C. I’m only moderately making this awkward for Tim on purpose.
It’s not that I don’t know how to ‘girl.’ I just don’t bother most of the time. Frankly I don’t need to, and I know I don’t need to. Nor is it really my taste, personally. I’m also the kind of girl that would normally get a little outraged about a Wane-tourage groupie having to look a certain way, because damn the man and then physically correct him of those false notions. This isn’t a normally kind of situation though. I get in the door, by not being noticed, by getting in the door looking like all I want is to be noticed by a very specific sort of very rich man. And I’ve got a whole gaggle of other ‘like-minded’ ladies to compete with.
I have to hand it to Alfred, though. He knows his slinky black dresses, and that they should come equipped with thigh holsters. The trip to the salon had left me buffed, polished, and shined until blonde hair almost competes with the metal on the staff that went into said thigh holster. I’m not new to stilettos or this might have made for an entirely awkward experience. You know. For someone other than Timothy Wayne, who I could practically use for an armrest right now. So maybe the heels were a little overkill. I suppose it plays into making him look like someone to be underestimated, when his date’s legs are about as long as he is tall. Slight over-exaggeration. Emphasis on the slight.
Getting inside is no trouble at all. They’re looking at me, oh are they looking, but they’re not looking at me. This may be the only night this month that is exactly what I want.
“By that I assume you mean Black Amex, because I’m fairly sure no one uses an actual checkbook anymore.”
Purring at Alfred isn’t my normal kind of gig, I mean. I’ll flirt with him about food, but otherwise there’s a line. But it keeps my voice low, as I do exactly that. Break away from the group. Take a slow, slinky meander around the casino. I’m not here to talk to just anybody though. And that particular waddling someone, who is even shorter than my own date, isn’t likely to be down here on the main floor with the shmucks. Fortunately, said Date’s tour of the place is going to get us into a better location. This place may have plenty of rich people, through work, inheritance or corruption, but it only has one Wayne right now.
There’s no sign of the misadventures that had clearly happened here. I’m sure that was cleaned up and wiped away within hours of it going down. Doesn’t do good business for the Penguin if people have reminders of what can, and does, happen in Gotham when the crazies get a bug up their ass. So I blend with the other hopeful eye candy. Staying in any place only long enough to flirt, make eyes, and move on, clearly not satisfied with my selection at any one place.
Tim: The easy part was getting in, the hard part is finding what we’re after. This place is actually pretty huge. We’d looked at the official blueprints, but that only lists three floors. The central floor, which is as large as any civic center you’ve ever seen. Room enough to be broken in to four sections, each large enough to contain hundreds of people. There’s the Casino itself, which dominates the center of the Iceberg itself. All along the outer edge of the Iceberg is something for everyone. A show room, where there was a small cadre of Dancers or Singers performing. Tonight seems to be some sort of famous Burlesque ensemble dance with men and women doing some rather unseemly things with their outlandish props. A restaurant and bar that could easy sit a dinner party for the social elite to dine or allow for some ornery curmudgeons to get a drink, somehow all within the confines of the same place.
Overseeing it all is the second story. Considered a V.I.P. area, one doesn’t simply meander up there without being important. Enter the reason for this particular version of a costume tonight. That is where, after seeing what the lower level has to offer, the entourage is eventually escorted too. The tour is being given by a young woman, named Lark, who could have easily given Dinah a run for her money as one of the prettiest of the bunch. She shows them about with the flare of an experienced sales person. Hitting the high points, while downplaying the lows. Up to the second level where we get to see how the ‘Other Side’ of life actually lives.
In the V.I.P. area there is a bar that positively dominates the entirety of a single wall. Once more the floor is divided, but this time it is clear that this is far more about the High Rollers. With the tables being occupied by fewer people, with almost no onlookers. It’s quieter up here for that. Allowing those few who can afford it to play in peace. Or play with one another, in games that host larger bets than Dinah has ever seen at one time in her whole life. On the other side there is not merely the show of Dancers, but the opportunity for a much more private showing in and of itself. Each dancer has a partner. A well paying partner that is taking them to perfectly lighted booths that allow for anonymity, in spite of being in public.
::Alright, Ms. Lance show time. The drones have located Cobblepot. He’s on level three. There’s a small door leading to a stairwell. You can find the door near the southern most stage. Where a young ‘Candy’ is currently engaged in dancing. With a pole. My word. They sure grow them limber in Lithuania.::
“I’ll create a distraction. You’ll know it when you see.”
My voice is as low as it goes without trying to do my Batman impression. A soft whisper between ‘Ooh’ and ‘Ahh’ of being shown around such an immaculate place. This is really no place for a Kid my age, I can’t even drink legally, but they don’t seem to worried about that. I guess money talks, in a place like this one. Why not? A couple years ago most of the people who work here were getting punched in the face by the Batman for one criminal enterprise of another. If you really think about it, this is a big step up for the Penguin and his lot.
Distractions come in many forms. Mine happens to come in the form of adjusting my tie. Which allows a momentary sleight of hand. Touching a wrist mounted controller, that keys the drones in to a new protocol. Which I’ve oh-so-helpfully named ‘Jackpot.’ Three of the four drones, each one formerly a cuff-link to my suit, immediately go in to action. One finds a slot machine. The player of whom is quickly rewarded with a jackpot. Another takes a momentary position needed to deploy a dart. Which strikes a burlesque dancer in the backside. Moments later she tumbles face first off the stage, in to a group of slobbering men who’d been only to happy to catch her. A third does the same, to a passing waitress. Causing her a misstep that sends her directly in to the path of Lark and her tour. As she stumbles, Lark bumps in to her. Sending her drinks all over the two of us.
Leaving me to cut of the quick round of apologies, “No no. It’s alright. Is there somewhere can ‘clean up?'” The way in which my brow quirks, is just so that I’m suggesting this Lark might be interested in helping me detox my suit.
::Very good Master Timothy. He’s only been trying to use this protocol he wrote for five years. Merciful heavens, that we’ve never had to endure this before.::
Dinah: All of this seems a little unnecessary to me. The sales pitch, when we’re already here, but I suppose one has to know all the possible delights before they can really know what they’re going to enjoy. Or not. And then avoid the ones that might make for a poor experience that would prevent a return of them, and more importantly, their wallets. The eye candy job is the same either way. Less potential distractions up in the VIP area, just higher caliber distractions. Must be positively panic inducing for everyone. Except me. I’m sure working with the benefit of knowing I’m in no danger of being passed over, because I’m here on a mission and not because I’m trying to move it on up in the world.
Higher value client, means higher value entertainment. It also means less beautiful faces and leggy dresses to blend in with. Good thing this isn’t the BatCo’s first rodeo.
“The Eastern Europeans don’t exactly have a corner on that market you know, Penny-One.”
Spoken behind a hand that’s ostensibly covering a giggle that would make me want to gag if I had to listen to much of it being done by someone else. Clearly, ‘Young Master Wayne’ has just said something terribly cheeky. That I had to bend down to hear. Tim? Doesn’t do things in half measures. Because distraction is putting it very lightly. More like a mini-disaster. One of these mishaps would have been sufficient. Two might be overdoing. The rest is definitely overkill. I’d say the set of Tim’s brow means he’d been hanging out with his friend Conner too much, except that I doubt that influence was needed. He had the rest of his family to teach him Playboy long before he left for Metropolis. And it makes for my cue to conveniently wander off. Not wasting time, which means perfecting a certain kind of gait. You rush? You get attention. You dawdle? Too long an amount of time for someone to not notice where you’re off to.
It’s only once I’m through the door by the pole dancer’s stage that I allow myself a snigger as I start up the stairs on the balls of my feet to avoid the clatter of heels. It’s only a slight tip forward in these, since they more or less already have me on my toes.
“Making plans for strip clubs at a rather tender age, weren’t you? Maybe if you’re a good boy I’ll take you to a real one when we’re done here.”
One flight of stairs is no problem, I make quick work of it without breaking a sweat and messing up my hair and/or makeup.
“Where to once I’m through this door?”
I never like going blind, if I can help it. That’s how you get surprised. I need a direction and quickly, because one has to assume that since I came from VIP? This is the staff floor, and no guests allowed. There’ll be no blending. Only getting where I need to be, with as little interference as possible.
Tim: To my credit? I don’t answer Dinah right away. Instead I manage to keep up the ruse, by virtue of focus. Playing it through to being shown to a small side room. Where Lark is able to help me take off my coat, in order to assist with cleaning the spilled drink off of the suit. She seems supremely confident about her ability to convince me not to leave, immediately, after being accosted in a such manner. Promising to demote or even fire the inattentive waitress. Both things I’ve got carefully worded declines for. Since I wouldn’t want someone being fired for no other reason than being a witless dupe in our scheme.
At the point of Lark offering to pour us proper drinks? Another little sleight of hand is all it takes to spike her drink with a little something that’s going to take her out of the equation. All I have to do is make an honest gentlemanly offer of doing that for us, while suggestively mentioning that she should get ‘more comfortable.’
“I think I’d rather like that,” is the answer to Dinah, but at the same time a very smarmy little suggestion to Lark as I pass her the spiked drink. Strip Club with Dinah sounds like a bucket list item.
Once up the staircase Dinah finds herself in a small hallway with only four doors. Two on the right side. One on the left side. One at the end. Only the singular door to the left is marked, ‘Private Elevator.’ However the one at the end of the Hall has an obvious security system to it, with a visible keypad needed for starters.
::Drone-3 has determined that Cobblepot is in the office on the right. First door. There are six heat signatures inside. One of which is Cobblepot. Two of which are … eh… Penguins. Emperor Penguins to be precise. The other three appear to be one male, two females. Average height, weight and over all build. Everyone in the room has a weapon, Ms. Lance. And I do mean everyone. Including the Penguins.::
Dinah: “I’m sure you would. We’ll have to pick you up a stack of grubby ones, though. Don’t know that your plastic is going to sing quite the same way.”
Also potentially less going to want to bandy about the ‘Wayne’ part of his name, but that’s not really the point. Or the matter at hand. I just like carrying on a conversation while I’m ‘working,’ and I’m about to hit the point of the night where I probably won’t be doing an awful lot of it. At least, not to Alfred and Tim. Now, the kind of talking that’s coming up very quickly here could go one or two ways.
“Do we know what the door at the end of the hall is? I’d like a secondary exit, ideally. It’s got a keypad though, and would need disabling. Or a code. So I’m betting goods, shinies, and illegal things.”
Option One. Guns blazing. Them, not me. In which case, this is going to the action route and fists doing the talking really quickly. The staff whipped out literally and physically. I’d actually prefer to avoid Option One. It complicates matters, and I’m not here alone. If I were, I’d be less worried about it but I have a whole bevy of other souls to get off this ‘berg with me. Still. Less desirable doesn’t mean planned for. A doorway gives me a point to originate a wide cone of of sonic force, with zero innocents in the line of fire. No. The Penguins aren’t innocents. Obviously. They have guns.
“Going in.”
Option Two. There’s a chat. Maybe friendly. Maybe not. Depends how persuasive I am, and how persuaded my opponent wants to be. Not actually my preferred method of talking to people like are waiting for me on the other side here. Less likely to potentially get me shot. Unless they open fire anyway. Which is why I’m not just going to throw this door open, no matter how much I might like to. Situating myself in front of the door, I take a moment to adjust myself. The dress, tugged into proper order, holster checked just in case, and blonde hair given a little bit of fluffing, and then arranging, before I give a delicate rap on the door.
“Mr. Cobblepot? My name’s Di. I have a business proposition for you.”
That tone of voice has probably only ever been used to say those words in adult films. Or maybe for a pizza delivery but this isn’t exactly the time or place for that.
Penguin: ::Drones are unable to scan the interior of that door, Ms. Lance. The second door however is interesting. It would seem to be something of a private media room. Perhaps where the Penguin watches his Red Box rentals? However, as secondary exits go you’re not lacking for choices. Back down the stairs. Down the elevator. There is also, of course, former Master Wayne’s exit of choice. The windows.::
By Windows Alfred means the large ones lining the entire wall of the Penguin’s office. Two of the walls in fact. One overlooks the interior of the Casino. While the other looks out in to Gotham Harbor, where the Iceberg Lounge sets as an island unto itself. True to Alfred’s words the Drones were correct. Within the room are six people. Oswald Cobblepot being the one who dominates the entire Office, despite being only a bit less diminutive than the Emperor Penguins at either side of his desk. Oh and they’re not sporting guns. One looks as though it’s out-fitted with a Flame-thrower. The other sure seems to be wearing an actual rocket. Along with those three are Raven and Jay, whom Dinah is likely to recognize immediately. As they happen to be the other two parts of triplets. Identical triplets, the third of which is Lark. Whom has been showing Timothy around all evening.
As Dinah enters there’s a legitimate squawk! of excitement out of Penguin. Though the two literal penguins barely move at all. Settled as he is behind a desk there’s no way to miss the ‘startling’ of Osward, as he seems just a little on edge with surprises given what happened so recently. He’s already up, before she even speaks, gun in hand and pointed suspiciously steady at Dinah’s chest.
“… who the bloody hell are you? Di? It better be a hell of a proposition to interrupt my meeting… is this one of the new girls Lark hired to replace the…”
The answer to all of that doesn’t come from Cobblepot. It doesn’t come from Dinah Lance. Nor Raven and Jay. Not even the penguins get an opportunity to tweedle their disappointment. The answer comes in the form of the man reclined on the sofa, along with the two women. His smooth white hair and eye-patch seem perfectly in tune with the accent that rolls off of his tongue.
“My. Word. Dinah? Dinah Lance. My word. Cobblepot. You’ve arranged for far more excitement tonight than I’d hoped for. This is an old friend of mine. She and Mr. Queen are old acquaintances, right Sweet Heart?”
Dinah: Of course Bruce would choose the windows. Bruce was probably, usually, in either the Bat suit, or a full suit. Knowing him, the latter had some degree of armor in its lining. I’m wearing a dress that exposes pretty much just as much as my Canary suit. Going through a window is going to be a last ditch effort because it’s got the potential to hurt just as much as whatever I was trying to run away from. Bullets at least have a high chance of going through. Glass? I don’t love glass.
Huh. Well. Undersold the weapons situation on this side of the door a little, Penny-One. I just can’t tell him as much right now. Flamethrowers and rocket launchers are a lot more worrisome than just guns. Which would make them a lot more terrifying than the Penguin. Unless you consider how someone who looks like a walking punchline has managed to get a toe-hold in a place like Gotham, where the rich and terrible come to him. I’ve got my hands up, palms out at chest height before the gun is actually even raised, though I’ve got my eyes on it. I’m a whole lot less concerned about it than Cobblepot seems to be about life at the moment, however. So what’s got a man so jumpy in his own highly secured office, in the middle of his iceberg playland/fortress?
My head cocks to the side as the ‘other’ man I’d been told was present speaks, blue eyes roving from Oswald and his gun to the rest of the coterie on the sofa. Well. Fuck. I’m changing my mind about which option I should have opened with. The sound I make in my throat is a whole lot more amused than I’m feeling. I can thank the veritable cavalcade of ‘weird and awful shit’ I’ve seen and done in my lifetime for the fact that I just don’t go out the window right now.
“Oh, Slade. I think we all know that only one of us fits that description.”
Old. I’d normally have called him ‘honey’ in response, but it’s a little more important that I deviate from my usual banter lingo to alert everyone else listening and present to exactly who else is in the room up here. Besides Raven and Jay anyway, who are approximately ranked fifth and sixth on my ‘concern’ list right now. Not because they’re women, but because flame thrower, rocket launcher, itchy trigger finger and motherfucker over there are a lot bigger problems for me right this second. Demonstrating a lot less concern than I’m feeling, I tilt my head in the opposite direction, turning my attention back to Cobblepot as if I hadn’t been interrupted in the first place.
“But yes. I thought it would be a pretty good deal for you, personally. I thought I might do you a rather large favor, in exchange for a little bit of information. Frankly, you’re probably getting the higher value end of the deal. I had heard you had a little bit of a Joker problem the other night. I’d like to make sure that doesn’t snowball into a problem with Capes and Assassins invading this lovely establishment.”
What the fuck is Wilson doing here? Clearly no one is happy about it. Well. Maybe Raven and Jay. They’re probably paid to look happy about everything.
Penguin: Squawk!
Apparently that is his version of a snort. It seems to only rankle Wilson when it happens. Though Copplepot isn’t wavering in hold on the gun. There’s something about the introduction that seems to ring bells with him, but the way he’s looking at Dinah Lance suggests that he doesn’t know her. At all. Which might be good for her, might be bad for him. With a group like this, there’s only so much that can be said for the element of surprise.
“Funny. Slade made a similar proposal about sixty seconds ago. Only his offer included a lot less to look at.”
On the sofa, Slade Wilson sits about as worry free as you could possibly get without sipping jin and juice with your feet kicked back on a porch somewhere. He’s surrounded by Penguin’s lovely girls. Paying very little obvious attention to the two armed penguins, not the armed Penguin. It would seem that he only has eye for Dinah, at least for the moment. Whether that be because he considers her a threat of he’s interested in this proposal she makes? Well that’s any one’s guess at the moment.
He just chuckles at her, “Let me guess. Earbud? Accomplices. Go on sweet heart, show ’em the weapons. Everyone here is wonderin where you’re keepin ’em. Might as well cut through the suspense.”
“Quiet, Slade. What the hell is wrong with this town? For Ten Years, I kept this place ‘neutral.’ Doing just enough legitimate business to keep the Batman off my arse and just enough illegitimate business to turn a keep the gangs of this City under my thumb. It was a good deal. A sweet arrangement. Even the Batman saw the profit in the Devil he Knew. Now look. All because of one damned Clown.”
When the gun moves it’s sudden. Slamming it down with such irresponsible force that only the Gods of Fate keep it from registering a shot off at Dinah. The Penguin throws his hands in the air. Leaving the two girls and both penguins gaping at him. “The Batman is gone and suddenly everyone loses their goddamned minds. It’s like everyone forgot one very important fact…”
“I’m the mother fuckin Penguin! I own this Town. I was born here. Raised here. When everyone else was being beaten to death by the Batman? I was carving a piece of the city out for myself. When the rest of them were locked up in the loony bin? I brought the crime families to their knees. Everyone comes to Penguin. The Mayor, the Governor. Even the Batman. Now he’s gone and… everyone forgot the pecking order.”
“The two of you came here for a deal? Fine. Here’s the deal. I’ve got answers for one of you. Last one standing gets them.”
Dinah: “Similar, but not the same? And I at least had the courtesy to not bring a gun into your office. It’s shocking the lack of manners. Really.”
I’m paying about as much attention to Wilson as he seems to be tallying up concerns. At least obviously, though I’m staying very aware of any peripheral movement. With a more complete read on the situation, I’m assuming Penguin already had the gun in hand before I’d even knocked in the first place on account of his current visitor. The question would be if he just dropped in, too, or if this was a pre-arranged sort of affair. The answer isn’t actually all that important right this second. I’d be a lot more interested in knowing why Deathstroke was after the information, or rather who was and paid him to get it. I don’t have any illusions of getting both sets of intel out of this one little gathering, though. I’m more interested in what I want to know, without getting shot, stabbed, blown up or singed.
That gun slamming down on the desk leaves me sucking in a deep, loud breath. That move could have startled anyone and made them gasp, clearly everyone else was. Except probably Slade. I was just preparing to defend myself from a stray gunshot with a pop of concussive force. It fortunately doesn’t come, leaving me to not tip my hand. One person in this room knows exactly who I am, but there’s five others including penguins-actual that at least I’ve got that card on. Penguin-not actual is going on about the Batman being gone which means either he hasn’t been paying attention to the one that’s been turning up again, or that he didn’t believe Tim was actually Batman. And now Dick, though that’s new to tonight. The latter seems more likely, and more concerning.
“In the middle of your office, Mr. Cobblepot? Forgive me, honey, but that seems likely to permanently ruffle an awful lot of feathers and I’d really hate to damage such lovely creatures.”
Through all of it, I’ve maintained the same saccharine sweet tone of voice, sometimes bordering on a coo. Who exactly I don’t want to ruffle is iffy. Mostly it’s anyone except Slade Wilson. I’d actually really enjoying wailing him right through that glass. I’m ready for Slade to make that move though, with the challenge in the air. Shrugging my shoulders as if I’m indifferent either way to how this plays out. Easy way or hard way. Or harder way, apparently.
“If that’s the way you want to play it. Your house, your rules. I’m not promising to keep the Hood out of your hair if I’m going to have to go to that much trouble, though.”
Penguin: “Oh, no. You see, I threw in offering to kill the Clown,” Slade says with a smile and a shrug that is far more impish than you’d normally think possible with him. “Maybe even bonus, for killing the Hood too.”
There’s nothing about Wilson that suggests he is perturbed by this development. If anything he seems highly amused by the whole affair. Dinah’s presence had certainly turned this in to a show for Wilson, who is soaking it up like one of the guys down watching the Burlesque Dancers. He only even seems to take offence to Dinah’s insinuation. “Gun. Singular. Always one for jokes, Sweetheart.”
Penguin is actually the least amused one in the room. Because at this point he’s waiting for the two of them to leap at the demand. Lips curling up in frustration. But it’s Slade once again that cuts in to the silence, with a gentle guffaw, “Fight to the Death, then? With her? But I’m wearing my suit and the ladies are very comfortable. Are you amenable to a counter proposal, Goldilocks?”
“Because I would much rather watch you beat the tar out of the Penguin. I’m here for answers. Doesn’t matter to me how I come by them. Whether it be from a fair trade with the Fat Bird or by letting the Pretty Bird beat the Fat? Answers is all I want.”
“Now. Wait. Just a minute…” Penguin says as he’s making a move toward the desk again and the gun. “…gah! No honor among thieves, girls you know what to do…”
::Ms. Lance. Sorry to bother you, but the Drone has been running through Red Robin’s decryption keys on the the security for that locked door. It is going to need roughly three minutes to achieve access. Master Drake is running interference on the Penguin’s security. Do be careful. We’re reading high yield explosives in the room with you.::
DInah: “And Batman, too? That seems highly unlike you to trade that much work for information that sharing is really only going to be in Penguin here’s better interest. Awful hard to be neutral ground with the League, Red Hood and everyone else knocking and sure that you’re going to be able to point them in the proper direction. And bad for business. But. Again. What do I know. I’m just the pretty one.”
Spreading my hands, both for the dissembling words and because I said he only had one gun. I know. Seems really unlikely, knowing him. I’m definitely not interested in beating the squawks out of Penguin for Wilson Slade’s entertainment, though my urge to do it for my own is rapidly mounting. See. This is what happens when you try to gather information responsibly and without your fists. Oh, what’s that? No bother at all, Penny-One. Just more bad news. Three minutes. Sounds short, but is actually a really, really long time when there’s flamethrowers, guns, knives, rocket launchers oh. And more explosives. That seems unlikely to be used while Penguin’s in the room, or in his club at all except as a last resort. Neutral ground. All that.
“Ladies, ladies, I don’t actually have any interest in beating the tar, or anything else, out of anyone.” There’s a pregnant pause before I make an ‘eh’ gesture with one of my still lifted hands. “Or I would have opened with that.”
How do you use up three minutes? You stall as long as you possibly can with some more verbal sparring, or at the very least swaying the majority to not be shooting at you in this situation particular situation. Or blowing up the room. While shifting your weight back on one foot, ostensibly to step back from the ‘threat’ of Cobblepot and his gun, which takes me that much closer to being able to simply sidestep the door and away from all of the rest of them in here. They could always go out the windows I suppose but…I only see Slade taking that option.
Penguin: “Batmans already dead, sweetheart, I assumed you knew.” How the grief in Slade’s voice conveys the sorrow for her loss, is by not exactly twisting in a chuckle, until after he’s managed to say the whole thing. “You’re running a little short on boyfriends aren’t you, Pretty Bird?”
Though the next thing Dinah says has everyone. Even the real penguins. Looking from one another, to Dinah and back again. You know you’re in trouble when absolutely every bad guy in a room laughs at the same time. Penguin hoots like he’s heard the funniest joke in years. Slade’s chortle is more restrained but just as offensive, given the chiming of the girls on either side of him.
Penguin’s constant stream of ‘Wah wah wah wah…’ is broken only when he lifts the gun back up in her direction a second time. There’s a turn of his nose that says something is far different than mere moments ago. “You think telling you my business with the League of Shadows is in my best interests? You’re either as delusional as the Clown or just plain stupid.”
How many people have actually called Dinah Lance stupid? The answer to that question is, ‘Not a lot that can answer you without putting in false teeth first.’ But he isn’t even teasing or taunting. For a murderous mobster, this is about as singularly direct and honest as the Penguin has ever been with someone. Leaving Slade Wilson chuckling in his seat, between the two girls again.
“She’s stalling, Penguin. Look at her positioning. She’s got someone inside…”
Slade Wilson, the Deathstroke, is actually in the midst of talking when one of the girls follows the Penguin’s cue. It just isn’t one of the girls he was expecting. It’s the Penguin with the Rocket. Tilting his head, squawking a chittering little ‘Wah wah wah’ of his own. Then FWOOSH! off goes the rocket, right at Black Canary.
Dinah: “Awwwww, Sladebaby that’s cute how behind and off you are on your information. On all counts.”
I was trying to be nice. Charming even. Accommodating. Even with the surprising and definitely unwelcome guest star of this little sit down. Well. Everyone else is sitting. Except me and the Penguins-Actual. There’s an abrupt one-eighty from that simpering, sweet tone I’d been using to the one that practically oozes mean girl condescension. Slade’s laughing at me. Raven and Jay are giggling at me, the kind of idiotic laugh that makes me want to slap people upside the back of the head. And Penguin-Not Actual I want to throat punch and then slap upside the face. This could have been so much easier. Yes. Something did change.
Just when I needed it to, in fact. He asks me a question. Calls me stupid. And like I didn’t understand what he said, my head abruptly cocks to the side again. A pale eyebrow hikes up about an inch, and the corner of my mouth follows suit. Telling me his business with the League. Bingo.
“Thanks so much, Ozzie. Was that so hard?”
She is stalling, yes thank you Slade. Another step backwards while he’s making that obvious statement of the year takes me completely into the hallway. Gunfire, sure, that I could probably have gotten some shielding from out here. I think none us expected Rocket Launcher Penguin-Actual to open fire though. I may not be the planning master genius that Tim is, but you don’t live long in this particular ‘job’ without having a whole lot of situational awareness and ability to make knee-jerk reactions that are intelligent. Deflecting the rocket down the hall? Too far, too unpredictable, high likelihood to detonate before blasting that locked door and even if it did, could damage anything valuable inside. Ducking to the side? I don’t know what these walls are made of. High probability of blasting me and my sexy dress.
Which leaves me with just one option. Short of taking it like a champ which is no option. This is all their fault. And clearly I should have just opened with this.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Penguin: Well. To be truthful. Slade is less of a guest star and more of a scene stealer, but that probably depends on who you ask. Dinah was certainly not pleased with his presence. Penguin was actually a lot more pleased to see the Deathstroke than you might believe, because he was seeing an answer to all of his prayers. Right before ‘Di’ broke in and made the whole thing go up in smoke.
Okay. Maybe not smoke. That’s not fire coming out of the Black Canary’s mouth. It’s the concussive blast of a sonic pulses that have a lot more effect than a good speaker. She had to act fast and sure enough she’s up to the task. It takes mere milliseconds for that Rocket to fire off the back of the actual penguin. Blasting through the air might seem like slow motion, but it is actually nothing of the sort. In the time that Dinah has to take that next step backward, it’s closed more than half the gap between them. She really only had one choice and she makes it just in the nick of time.
Hitting the rocket with enough power to send it off it’s trajectory. Not to mention sending everyone else in the office scrambling. It slams in to the ceiling of Cobblepot’s office. Where it blasts a hole half way up to the roof, before it’s stuck there, sputtering out. In time with Penny-One chiming in to Dinah’s ear.
::Good Play, Ms. Lance. Master Drake has managed to jam the arming sequence on the rocket, it shouldn’t explode unless someone triggers it manually.::
Even as Alfred is cluing in Dinah to why the Rocket didn’t explode when she diverted, even damaged it with the pure concussion shock of her voice? The people on the inside? Are neither aware of why it hasn’t exploded. Each of them has sought the safety of cover by this point. Penguin beneath his desk. The two penguins moved back, if only to avoid the blast radius and then Dinah’s scream. Slade kicked back the table before him, pulling a shade of heroism, by bringing the two girls with him when he up-ended the sofa to dig in behind it. Now, with it relatively safe from certain disaster? All of them are sneaking glances out from behind whatever they deemed was safety.
“Atta girl, Dinah. Now you’re playing for keeps.”
“Whaaah! My ears are ringing! What did you say Slade?”
::Two minutes more, Canary. A silent alarm was also triggered, but Red Robin was already working to divert it too.:: You know the shit has hit the fan, if Alfred has gone to code names instead of titles for the purpose of brevity. ::Slade Wilson. He is not affiliated with the League of Shadows. Totally free lance. I strongly advise that we abort this mission.::
If anyone, other than the Canary, can actually hear a damn thing being said? Someone might actually hear the sounds of a skirmish starting on the other side of the upturned sofa.
Dinah: There was shockingly little ‘boom’ in the middle of my screaming. It’s actually a little disappointing. Not that I was especially out to kill anyone inside of the office, I don’t do that sort of thing as a general rule, but I have no doubt that no one in this room has that aversion. Slade would probably do it. So would the rest of them. Rocket Launcher Penguin-Actual already tried once. The reason for the lack of explosions, which may or may not have led to more explosions, is supplied in my ear though. Which I can, actually, hear unlike the state of basically everyone else in the room. It’s nice to be immune to your own abilities.
Unless someone triggers it manually. I don’t know how you accomplish that. The Penguins Actual and Otherwise look to be a hair too short to do so at least. I’d try to take the opportunity to now beat the squawk out of Cobblepot, except chances are? He’s not going to actually be able to hear any questions that I might have for him. Which is going to lead to a lot of repeating myself, and then frustration, and probably some retaliatory yelling. I almost feel like I ought to call up Superman and tell him ‘Guy. Listen. I totally know how you feel right now. Tried to do the ‘right’ thing. Almost literally blew up in my face.’
I can hear the skirmish behind the couch. I’m not going in there to help. Not a one of those jerks is on my side, and whoever I liberate has a high chance to turn on me. Plus there’s still flamethrower Penguin to contend with if I were to get close. I at least got something to go on. It may not have been a lot, but what little there was? Pretty telling. Also makes me think that Penguin is the stupid one, because if Talia was here because of a deal with the League? They’re probably really going to be looking into Penguin now.
“Unless dollar signs have made him affiliated. Seems slim, though.”
Two minutes. How long is it going to take Slade to dispatch the two thirds of a set of triplets? I’m betting not terribly long. Definitely not two minutes long, plus the amount of time it would take me to rifle around, when I don’t even know what I’m looking for, and then still be able to get out. Probably with the same two available exits as before. No. I don’t need Penny-One to tell me it’s probably a good time to bail. I just needed that countdown. Besides. Maybe the drone can go and do…whatever they do… next time someone actually goes in the room. I take a step into the room again, but only long enough to grab hold of the door and yank it shut again. Reaching under my dress to produce the the collapsing staff. It doesn’t just collapse though. Positioning it in the door frame, my thumb finds the button that will make the weapon expand, hydraulically, rapidly and hard.
It’s probably not going to slow Slade or the girls coming this way, but it will definitely at this height and angle, make it really hard for any type of Penguin to just walk out. Not without the effort of moving it first.
“Headed back for the stairs. We all clear to rendezvous and blow this joint?” Not literally. “Or do I need to detour to help anyone?”
Wilson: The inner office is in a bit of turmoil. What with the penguin twins, protecting their Master. Dinah is rearing back to slam that door in to position, just in time. Because the FWOOSH! she hears, as much as feels the heat splash against the door? Tells her what would have happened if she went in any further. As does the sound of Slade Wilson cursing the Penguin over just that sort of move.
“How the Farkin Hell, you run Gotham is beyond me,” he actually seems quite a bit offended to even be in the same room as someone with misfiring rockets and flame-throwing wild animals, that nearly light the whole place up.
Oh and Party Favors for all. Cue in the Fire Suppression system. Sprinkling Water down atop everyone. Not just the Penguin, Slade and goons, but also the entirety of the Casino. Which sends people in to a flurry of movement. Not exactly a clandestine outing for the likes of Black Canary and her would-be sidekick the Red Robin (Yum!). Because it almost perfectly coincides with…
::Read you loud and clear, Canary. Unfortunately, Red Robin has… encountered a problem. A very large problem. Several members of the League of Shadows have arrived. Red Robin was attempting to see to the safe exit of the Ladies he brought in as cover, when the Assassins began to cut their way in to the club. They’re heedless of the casualties as they cut through Penguin’s roughians.::
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse. It gets a whole lot worse. People are fleeing, due to the fire alarms. In the room behind her, there’s a crazed Mobster with a penguin motif and a psychotic killer that she has History with. Capital H. Down below, a floor beneath her, is apparently her partner. Timothy Wayne-Drake, otherwise known as Red Robin and more recently the Batman. Is engaged with members of the League of Shadows.
What more could possibly go wrong? Well, since you asked. It happens just as Canary clears that little side door, out in to the V.I.P. room’s former arena for Lap-Dancing. That’s all gone now. Bystanders are doing what any reasonable civilian does when the Fire Alarms are tripped. They head for the door. Leaving no one there to really see Slade Wilson crashing through the windows of the Penguin’s office. Launching himself out through the glass, in to the very heart of the Casino. There’s no tuxedo now. Nor is there any mistaking Slade Wilson as anyone but the Terminator, Deathstroke that he is. Apparently the scorch marks suggest the tuxedo was burned away as he plunged through the fire, out the windows in to a controlled fall in the middle of a craps table.
“You didn’t think it’d be that easy did ya? C’mon. Whatya say, Sweetheart? Do you wanna dance with me or help me kill Ninja?”
Dinah: I’m a professional, so there’s no facepalming going on as I hear and understand Penny-One’s latest message. But I don’t need both eyes to be able to see my way down the stairs at a fast clip, so one of them squints down in an expression that would have been priceless for this moment. Were anyone around to see it.
“Let him know I’m en route.”
The fire suppression system? Is just perfect. No, really. Perfect. Nothing like a little rain on my parade, to raise the spirits, plaster my hair to my face and neck and make everything overall a little more slippery, difficult, and cold. Except, unless of course… you’re Slade Wilson. Who was apparently wearing his goddamn suit under his suit and has emerged from the ashes in a shower of glass and general jack-assery. Seriously. I’m not usually the one with luck like this, and I would very much like to know who I can blame for it so they can be hand and foot delivered a piece of my mind.
“Deathstroke’s on me. I’ll try to head off the problem, then find my own exit.”
I’m not leading him back to Tim. Not directly. Damn people and their armor that get to make dramatic entrances/exits. Well. At least he’s good for something. I know he’s not working for the League to try and get some sort of revenge on Cobblepot for whatever his part may have been in Talia’s situation. Chances are he probably wouldn’t be turning on his clients to do some ninja murdering. Who are doing mafia murdering. There’s an awful lot of murdering going on in the Iceberg Lounge right now, attempted and otherwise, and stopping all of it from happening? Not a proposition I’m actually very excited about right now.
“Tch. Tempting, but they’re not really playing my kind of music right now. Rain check?”
Pointing a finger up at the sprinklers overhead. Hah. No. Not the middle one. That would have been a good play, though.
“Besides. Last I checked you were a big boy that could kill Ninja all on your own.”
He’s also much closer to ‘between’ me and the way I want to go than I really like. Which means I get to start a wary skirting trajectory, not exactly trying to head him off so much as waiting to see if he’s going to go find his other kind of fun, or if Slade’s going to be ungentlemanly and impose himself on a ‘lady.’ As much as I’d actually like to scream him down, the more time I take here, the less time I’ve got to try and hem in the other member of my team’s problem.
Wilson: Sigh.
“Playing hard t’ get isn’t really yer style, Birdy,” that one eye of his seems to narrow, but for the most part he makes no effort of heading her off right away. “Funny, just remember. That’s twice I’ve offered t’ help ya. Now yer gonna have ta ask me nicely, when you realize ya need it.”
Whatever that means? Slade is actually still not progressing on Black Canary. If anything, he’s just watching. Which is almost worse than attacking. This isn’t the sort of stalker creepy type of stare, but the sort that says he knows something that she doesn’t. Something that might force her hand, eventually. So he’s willing to play along, for no other reason than being all too willing to wait now. For her to ask for his help.
How long he’s going to have to wait? Might not actually be that long. Not once Black Canary makes around the corner and sees what Penny-One had been talking about. Down on the Casino floor was a virtual black masse of hooded assassins making their way inside. Cutting people down indiscriminately. Life long Criminal? Stabbed. Completely innocent Grandma spending her life savings on the slot machine? Shruiken to the throat. Penguin’s men are fairing only slightly better, due to being armed and seemingly prepared for a fight. Though they lack the combat prowess needed to fight off the League of Shadows? They’re slowing them down just enough to turn the whole thing in to a blood bath. Once more you can thank the penguin for that added bit of carnage.
Be that as it may be, the Ninja are hobbled only so much as they don’t wield guns of their own. So they have to make smarter plays. Like taking cover, long enough to fire arrows with unwavering precision in to mobster throats. Or by taking a hostage, that they use as a meatshield in order to get in close enough to give a go with sword. Last but not least? Are those few who came equipped with grappling hooks that seek to evade the gunfire entirely and come up to the second floor by way of the balcony overhang.
In the very middle of all this? Timothy Drake and the Royal Family dance troupe. Hobbled by his own Secret Identity, that they had used to seek entry. Tim was caught in a position of defending the Girls, while not giving himself away. That had left him struggling at first, but it would seem that at this point he’s started to care less about his identity and more about saving those lives he feels more directly responsible for. Even now he’s erected a small defensive position behind one of the High Roller tables. Which would probably be fine. Were it not for the fact that it was quickly taken by members of the Penguin’s security force. Since Tim had been trying to ‘run interference’ for Dinah. They started shooting at Ninja. Who now see the whole area as one that needs neutralized.
So what, if anything, is the Good News in all of this? Penny-One’s voice. ::On the bright side. Less than a minute until the final door is unlocked. On the not-so-bright side. Cobblepot is taking the Private Elevator to a previously unknown Fourth Floor. A sub-terra basement, that wasn’t on the blue prints. At this rate he’s going to be the only one to make a clean getaway.::
The moment that Tim sees Dinah? There’s a sign of relief that only momentarily passes his features. Then he’s right back to business. “Alright girls. You have to be brave.” They’re not brave. Not a one of them. Each one of them is taking a turn crying and being otherwise useless in a crisis. But then with this sort of carnage going on who can blame them? So he’s left giving Dinah the only information he’s got left. “Fire Escape is blocked. They’re fighting in there too. There is fighting everywhere. How the hell did the League get so many people in Gotham this quickly?”
Dinah: “Well, you see Slade. I was trying this new thing today. I hear it’s called being polite and asking nicely. But clearly it’s not working great for me, and I’m basically giving it up. And what you’ve offered hasn’t been help. You wanted me to beat the shit out of Penguin while you dandled floozies, and then you wanted me to help you kill League Assassins.”
I don’t like the look on his face though, or what he seems to be hinting at. Which I don’t think is a potential assist with however many ninjas there actually are here. I’m assuming it’s not ‘a few’ members of the League, however, for Tim to have gotten pinned down. Even with victims to protect. Once I get to the door, satisfied with my positioning to be willing, if not excited about, turning my back on Deathstroke I can actually get a view of…Jesus Christ. Time to play whack-a-mole, or more correctly a little game I like to call Target Triage. The goal’s getting Tim and the innocent’s out. The only ones really targeting them seem to be the ninjas, which means the mafia are spared my wrath for the time being.
“I think we can forget about the locked door for the time being, Penny-One. Unless there’s a potential of there being an escape jet inside it that we can use to get people out of here.”
Of course he’d have an escape. Goddamn Penguin. I’m not even actually shocked or surprised by that particular turn of events. It’s probably not the first time, or the last, that he’s fled carnage that erupted here.
“They didn’t. They were already here and working with Penguin. Until they got the impression that he turned on them. Still going to be less in the fire escape. Can you clear the bottleneck?”
At least the last part is my assumption, but I think it’s a pretty safe one. There’s too many in here for me to take on solo, not that I couldn’t make a dent the old fashioned way, there’s just not time. For every small group I could take down, more would be jeopardizing everyone else. Asking Slade for help? Isn’t actually that much of a temptation either. Sure. He’d help. Still a similar problem though. I’m trying to pick civilians out of the crowd, but most are probably not fleeing towards the ninjas. Even with fighting in the fire exit, I imagine it’s going to be less. The League knows tactics as well as I do. You don’t need many to take, or hold, something like that and they’re trying to come in, en masse from the looks.
Squaring myself in that direction, there’s a mutter before I suck in another breath.
“Hands on ears, guys.”
Though, the truth is hands over your ears does absolutely nothing if you’re in the way of the blast of force. Just dampens the volume if you’re out of it. I’m not aiming at Tim and his little foxhole though, so much as the area in front of it. Trying to clear them a path, only this time it’s not a short burst to knock a projectile away. It’s long, it’s wide and it’s of course, loud.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Tim: Timothy Drake is a man of many flavors. He was ready for a fight from the moment they stepped in here. Even if he had to play the part of a hapless, youthful, playboy. He’s still the son of Bruce Wayne, who never got taken by surprise or was never unwilling to put himself in harms way for a damsel. Much less a gaggle of them. By the time Canary makes it clear what she’s about to do? Tim’s giving her a quick thumbs up, followed by a short gesture to his ears. She’ll see the girls all covering their ears (and their heads entirely) on account of the gunfire, but more so than that? She’ll see that they’ve each been given a small ball of cotton. That Mr. Wayne has helpfully suggested would mute the ringing in their ears from the Gunshots. True, but also helpful for certain blasts of sonic annihilation from the Canary Cry too.
As soon as Dinah lets go with it, Tim’s quickly checking something on his wrist mounted computer, before hustling the girls to follow him. Brave Mr. Wayne that he is, it would seem that he’ll have no trouble leading them through the now mostly open space to the door of the Fire Escape. The moment they’re at the door, Tim pauses only long enough to peek inside, before pushing the door open. It doesn’t take the Canary being observant to see him moving at a slower than normal speed, playing at being scared just like he should be. But in doing so it frees the door open, before anyone else goes in to the Fire Escape, for the remaining drones to enter ahead of them. Dart-Gun Drones. Go!
Ahead of them is the rapid fire sound of Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Down goes a Mobster, then another. Followed by a Ninja that came up the stairs as soon as the shooting stopped. Tim himself has just stepped out, intending to lead the girls down with Canary taking up the rear when he bounces back, narrowly avoiding a series of shruiken that stick in the door was holding.
Through all of this? Slade Wilson stands a top that same table he landed upon. Not taking part. Not assisting the Penguin’s men. Nor taking down any of the would-be assassins. He just watches. As if he were waiting for something. His mask stops anyone from knowing that there’s a smirk hidden beneath it, but Canary knows it’s there all the same. “All. Ya gotta do. Is say pretty please, Birdy. Won’t even bill you for the spent bullets.”
::At the risk of sounding rather flippant about your last comment, Canary, the drone has opened the door to that locked room. I’m not quite sure what I’m even seeing here, but this looks like … I believe we’ve broken in to Cobblepot’s private uh … whirlpool? Bath House? Jacuzzi, I believe Master Bruce would have called it. He had one in the late nineties. Mrs. Vale and he used to… well, nevermind all that. I suppose you’re all much too busy for reminiscing. Cobblepot must not have paid the bill on his though. It’s exceedingly green. Glowingly, so.::
Dinah: If we’re being 100% honest here? I’m about 110% done with Tim and his act. Yeah, yeah. I know it’s necessary. I don’t want to blow his cover, not on any day let alone here in the middle of a fire/shuriken fight. It’s not in any of our interest and especially not his. He’s got a big enough target on his back right now just for being Timothy Drake-Wayne, let alone all the other things he may or may not be tonight. I just want him to get out of here, so that I can stop worrying about him and his Waynetourage. Any other time, I’d trust him to handle himself. But right now? He’s as much pretending to be something he’s not as he was the first night in the Batsuit.
I can’t see what’s going on inside the fire escape. I’d have to turn my head that way to do so, and that would mean turning what’s coming out of my mouth at the same time. What I do know? Is he’s still not through that door. And I’ve got this smug motherfucker standing on the craps table teasing me, and Alfred with his commentary that normally I would find really amusing but right now I’m dripping wet, and overall just not really enjoying my night. Men. When I stop screaming, I find something to duck behind. Mostly to avoid an unfortunate weapon headed my way as I respond to both the voices speaking to me.
“What the hell, Penny-One. Glowing Green? Get a drone in there to…I don’t know. Collect a sample!”
Slade’s answer is the middle finger I didn’t give him when asking for the raincheck earlier. There doesn’t appear to be anymore civilians on this floor at the very least, and that narrows the number of people that need direct protection. And would it really be so much to ask for one of the League to fling something at Slade and his perch? But the truth is? Tim’s got about five seconds to get that door cleared and his ass out the door before I’m going to swallow my pride and make sure the job gets done. With a little hop, I draw my knees up, hooking my fingers into the backs of my heels and getting them off my feet. They’re not called stilettos for nothing, and while they may not be bladed weapons they can inflict some damage, especially when hurled end over end at any exposed soft spots. Eyes. Throats.
I’m not headed for the fire escape, so much as advancing and moving to intercept anyone that tries to follow them. Closer to the balcony edge so that I can try to get a view of what kind of additional problems may be downstairs, working their way up here.
Wilson: Downstairs is a mess. Penguin is going to be out millions repairing the place. Not to mention the losses from the financial side of what’s being ruined in pure money alone. There’s a legitimate body count piling up. Between the Penguin’s men who are fighting a stalling tactic and the Assassins who are relentless, while being unafraid to give their lives for the Will of the Demon’s Head? It’s probably difficult to even count the dead. Although there are far fewer men in black masks, than there are in black armani suits that much is for sure.
The irony? Is that the moment, the very moment, that Penguin makes it to the underground submersible? Those mobsters get the call that all is clear and that means they stop trying to hold their ground. In a way this is equally good and bad for the Good Guys. As it means that the Penguin’s men start to flock to the escapes themselves. It also means that there’s far few things to dodge once the gunfire stops.
In the middle of all of this? Stands Timothy Wayne-Drake and the cadre of Dance Troupe performers. Who have still not made it down the Fire Escape, despite Dinah’s best efforts at covering them. Not for a lack of trying, but surely for a lack of Red Robin, due to being trapped in the guise of Philanthropist Teen Wonder. Though, much like Dinah, they are getting to the sure fire point of his being ready to throw caution to the wind. Another quick glance in to the Hallway, then Tim opens the door again. As he does? Two of the black hooded men from downstairs meet the door. Fighting with the young man to pull it completely open. With a sudden shove, he drives one back in the entry way. Then with a short charge, he takes the other down the staircase. Disappearing from sight entirely. Leaving the huddled girls behind, unable to overcome their own fear of what’s going on in order to follow their Hero. Leaving the door to clatter shut and Timothy Wayne disappearing from sight.
Dinah’s shoe weapons are going to find a sure-fire challenge in the making. As the Penguin’s men pull back. Seemingly heading to that same elevator, as much as they can. The Assassins begin to push forward. Giving her little in the way of an escape route herself. Unless she too makes for the elevator, fighting her way through gun-toting idiots. Or down the fire escape, in to close quarter combat with a bunch of assassins, while trying to keep a bunch of girls and one Boy Wonder from being mauled.
Dinah -does- finally get her wish though. Because the League of Shadows are now beginning to ascend the stairs on either side of the second floor. Along with coming up over the balcony as they had originally. With the Penguin’s men in full retreat? There are only two people left who aren’t retreating. A stilletto armed Black Canary and a man in armor toting a sword and guns. Guess who they take a first shot at? A no longer teasing Deathstroke. Who actually bats away a hailstorm of throwing stars with his sword, before being struck by a single shruiken. He barely even acknowledges it sinking in to the mesh weave of his Ikon suit before a single shot of that gun rings out. Dropping the one assassin that managed to strike him.
If there’s only one person in all of this that understands what has just happened? It is no doubt the Black Canary. Because there is a sudden, almost palpable lack of teasing now. Deathstroke hops down from the shruiken filled craps table in a deceptively nonchalant way. Giving the League about three seconds to continue mounting that second story. At which point a symphony of destruction begins, that Black Canary has undoubtedly seen before. Not a bullet wasted, not a slice of his sword out of synch with the rest of his body. Slade Wilson commits, entirely, to the total eradication… the termination of absolutely every single man, woman and child wearing one of those black masks. He goes about it with such merciless silence that it’s stark contrast to the way he’d been toying with Dinah.
Of course, that isn’t to say that Dinah’s out of the fire. There’s an awful lot of Ninja between her and any of the three exits from this place she’s got in her reach. But there is a distinctly a new level of distraction on the hands of the League. One that, should she play her cards right, might actually allow her to save the Boy Wonder and beat feet with a troupe of dancing ninnies. Whom are cringing away from the door that opens, until they see Tim Drake. Slightly battle-torn, but still standing, as he gives a two thumbs up sign in true Spoiler fashion. Once out of sight, the young man hadn’t been constrained by dual identity needing to be kept secret, but that hadn’t stopped him from tackling a Ninja down a stairwell, to get that privacy in the first place. He’s sure showing the ill-effects of it too.
“Stairwell clear… I may have broken my… everything.”
::Sample taken. Preliminary analysis suggests that the Penguin’s jacuzzi, was filled with … oh-dear… water from the Lazarus Pit. I suppose that tells us what Talia’s business with the Penguin was.::
Dinah: On the plus side? There’s a lot less bullets flying through the air, but on the downside… pretty much the same thing. There’s also a whole lot less targets for them to be aiming at, and about 80% of those I’d like to keep in one piece. At best. Still alive at worst. This time I can see from my vantage point the sheer insanity that is Tim’s attempts to get down that flight of emergency stairs. Unable to go rush to his immediate aid mostly thanks to the not so timely arrival of apparently the entire remainder of the League of Shadows. We’d already wondered at the numbers. Guessed that they were already here. Now I’ve concluded where they’ve been, and the more specific why. The ‘what’ had been something of a mystery, though.
This is even more than we guessed were here in the first place I think. We’ve dealt with them before, but this…?
I have to admit, as a practiced combatant in a dozen plus fighting forms? Watching Slade Wilson work is a thing of beauty when you’re not on the other side of him. I just usually am. It does my ego no harm to say that when it boils down to it, he’s one of the very few fighters who are better than me. Some of that may boil down to the lethality factor, it definitely doesn’t hurt. I don’t even stop to see what’s about to happen. The throwing stars sail through the air at him? And I turn and skirt/backpedal my way towards the fire escape. It’s the only feasible exit for me now, having Tim gone that way is only really secondary at this point.
The League has just instigated what I was about to open my mouth and do. It would have been a lot less bloody, since I was going to ask him to get this group out while I tried to take the stairs. Dodged a proverbial bullet there, I guess. Which the assassin? Does not. Slade’s getting down off the table, and I’m bolting for the fire escape. Kicking, short burst shrieking, and jabbing my way through anyone that gets between me, those girls, the door and Tim. Who’s now reappeared at the top of the stairs, and gets to see the squinty eyed look that everyone had missed as I descended from the third floor.
“Everyone, down. Lets go. Follow me. Tim, watch the rear.”
Which should ideally have a lot less potential trouble at this point. Or at least we’ll hear anyone coming through the door I slam shut behind the ladies, and boy, that I wave through the door. The cotton in their ears stopping them from hearing the stream of curses that come out of my lips as I hop past the rest of them to take point for our escape. Not at them, or Tim, but at Alfred.
“Well. There’s the why. Now we have to find the Demon’s Daughter.”
Not. That we wouldn’t have for Damien’s sake but. There’s really only one conclusion to jump to that would account for what we’ve been discovering lately, the League, Talia, and a Lazarus Pit jacuzzi hidden away here in Penguin’s place. And she’s likely the only one who who knows where that ‘why’ is hidden away.
Tim: Getting from the V.I.P. lounge, to the High Rollers room isn’t really a challenge. Not for Dinah. She may have inwardly accepted that Slade Wilson is better than her, but that doesn’t leave out the beauty of her own technique. A crunched nose for a goon that seeks to use her as meat-shield. A stilletto to the eye for an Assassin seeking to cut down one more infidel on their way towards Penguin’s secret lair. A mini-skree that shatters nearly every bone in another’s body, who was making a kamikaze run at the Troupe and awaiting Timothy Wayne. By the time she’s made it to the group, in order to take charge, she’s battled through enough of the jerks that all eyes have fallen upon her in slack jawed appreciation. All except Tim’s, who while appreciative? Is giving her a quick set of signals to tell her the numbers awaiting them at the bottom of the stairs. Two men at the bottom, guarding the staircase. They’re far too easy prey for her though, given that their real focus is no longer upon taking the stairwell, but upon what is happening up above them.
When Dinah and her band of merry makers get to the ground floor? There is a genuine twist of fate happening. In that there is no longer a surge of League of Shadows going in to the building, but the opposite. How many times in Dinah’s life has she seen the League of Shadows retreat? Most likely they give their lives to a man in order to die for the honor of having served the Demon’s will. Rarely is that will for them to spare their own lives. Leaving one to wonder whether someone signaled for a retreat or…
It’s almost a cacophony of death in the Iceberg Lounge. With the screams of the dying, clashing with the silence of the dead. Occasionally a shot rings out, but there are few of those. Fewer stragglers making their way out, by the time Dinah is leading Tim and the Troupe to the awaiting Yacht. Those she does see, do not require a scream to be dealt with. Not at the point which they’re the ones running for their lives.
Once they’re on the boat and safely heading back towards Gotham proper, Alfred’s voice greets her one more time. ::Do you think Ra’s brought the Pit to Gotham… or do you think Talia did so on her own accord? Does it even matter? With the men they just threw at the Lounge, the only way you commit to such losses, is if you have superior numbers in reserve. The whole League must be here in Gotham.::
“That means Damien and Dick aren’t going to have to go far, To have that talk with his Grandfather, after all.” Tim’s voice is a lot more somber than normal, for once, as he steps in closer to Dinah, pointedly turning off his com in a way that she can see. “Dinah. We’re going to need to go back to the Berg sooner than later. We have to figure out if that makeshift pit actually got used or not.”
by Michele | Nov 21, 2017 | Chronicles
Dinah: At some point, my movie had come to an end. Not really a problem, but it wasn’t one of those ‘new fangled’ DVDs, which meant that when the honest to god tape ran out of the VHS that I’d had literally forever, the whole thing clicked over to what few channels I actually get up here in my apartment. I learned very quickly exactly how fast it takes me to sober up from a bottle of cheap whiskey. The answer is: in the amount of time it takes for the Joker to complete one of his sick, twisted routines. What the #$&* happened? It’s Gotham, so you expect a degree of escalation but….that escalated quickly. The only flippant thought I really have a chance to have is that I’m glad we hadn’t dug into the good liquor that Tim had brought to help me wind down for the night.
“Go. Find your brother, and then point me where to go.”
Tim’s not dressed for this. I’ve at least got my suit here in my apartment, and for once I don’t really have to even boss the kid twice. He’ll be able to find where Damien is, far faster than I could the old fashioned way and time spent suiting up is going to be time in the way of that. Unless he’s got a robot that does it for him, which isn’t really outside the realm of possibility. I feel sick, and I know it’s got nothing to do with the alcohol I’ve had. Probably not the fancy French cookies either. I feel sick for Damien. I feel sick thinking about what Damien is probably out there doing right this second, too.
I’ve had years, and years of practice at high speed costume change, and this time I’m moving faster than most others. Out the door of my apartment, that Tim’s already left through, and down the stairs. I skip the last half flight and vault over the railing, on my bike and back out the door before the thing has even fully opened. Guess we’re not down out here for the night after all, only this time? I’ve got an entirely different sort of problem to tackle. Probably literally. This one’s just going to put up more of a fight than that entire room of mafia had earlier.
“What’s our status?”
Communicator on now, and I’m regretting missing the alerts that had been going earlier. We should have been more ready for something like this, but it was completely outside the pattern. Pattern. Joker. There’s the first problem…
Tim: Finding out what happened with Oliver Queen had taken me ‘Home.’ If by home you were to mean the couch at Dinah Lance’s House. I’ve been staying there since returning to Gotham, because it’s easier than living at Home. The Manor no longer seems like home-sweet-home to me, now that Dick and Barbara moved in. I feel like an intruder in my own Home and nothing seems to cure that. Even Alfred’s crepes are a wash. Dinah’s place is utilitarian. Providing me with a place to sleep and be seen coming to and going from as ‘Timothy Drake.’ With that acceptance of it being my ‘Home,’ for now, also comes certain knowledge that my housemate is hurting. Like all of the extended family, I’ve taken to keeping tabs on them through a network of drones known as Brother Eye. It might be a little big-brother-ish, but the fact is that with Bruce gone? I’m not willing to lose anyone else.
Comforting Dinah? Hah! That’s a misnomer. Showing up with a better booze, lending a comforting ear and offering her very detailed, intimate plans for extracting her friend. Not to mention making certain of the culprits paying for it? That was how you comfort Dinah Lance. Well, that and a half eaten box of macaroons, along with the entire bottle of terrible whiskey. Lucky for me, I keep some detox pills in my utility belt to mute the effects of such things. Otherwise I’d be under the couch, instead of on top of it when the V.H.S. player rolls over and the news plays. ( Honestly, this might be the first time we’ve ever been lucky Dinah wouldn’t let me upgrade her to free-cable. )
“On it,” is my response to Dinah before she’s even off the couch herself. “My gear comes with me.”
She was barely back in to the Costume she’d been wearing for a certain amount of Mafia beating by the point that I’ve turned her coffee table in to a make-shift desk. Pulling things from my backback, connecting them to the breastplate of my uniform. Streaming data through the Wayne Enterprises satellites and down in to the portable dish that is erecting itself on the floor next to the couch. Furious typing is Dinah’s only answer to the parting ‘Stay safe,’ that we exchange before she’s off in to the night. Leaving me to work, all the more furiously on lines to our target.
“He’s disabled the tracking software in his uniform, same with the Red Hood helmet. Jesus. He’s even disabled the redundancy… and the redundancy’s redundancy. Standby,” it isn’t often that someone put the Black Canary ‘on hold’ but I need a moment to tap in the Nest’s server. Watch the last few moments before Damien left. Stephanie was still there. Good, I was worried she’d try to keep an eye on him. “Okay. Hold on. Drones had him, but… someone’s attacking them! Oh. Shitfuckballs. The League is already here. Er. There. Everywhere, I mean. They’re disabling the Drones.”
“I need a minute, he stole the prototype bike I was working on for you. Damnit, he disabled that tracker too. Boy. He’s really good at breaking my things. It’s a little disheartening. Still working. I’m triangulating the direction of the destroyed drones, in correlation to the fourth redundancy tracking system in the Canary-Cycle. I know, I know. But I’ve already lost one partner this year, call me a little paranoid about losing another one. Let’s focus on how lucky I am that I put four layers of tracking systems in to a bike, without you noticing the hardware shall we?”
“Okay. Got him. Sending you the coordinates,” there’s another hitch, a pause, then a low, low whistle. “This is strange. Someone has been monitoring my work… Canary, you need to hurry. Someone’s tapped in to my secure servers for the Nest. They know where Damien is too.”
Dinah: Should have known, really. Because I know Tim Drake-Wayne, and because I’ve seen it in action enough times. Guy’s more prepared than a whole jamboree of boy scouts on a bad day, and borderline precognizant on a good one. Today’s not really a good day. My bike’s taking me through the alleyway and out onto the street. Without a definitely direction to go, I start first in the direction of the Nest, because that’s where Damien had been. There’s this helpless feeling of spinning my wheels as I wait for a destination. I don’t like being dependent upon technology of any sort, because if it fails or you don’t have it with you, you’re lost. Good ol’ fashioned groundwork is more my style, but even I’ve gotten used to drones. And while there’s signs of a set of tires peeling out of the chute that we use for small vehicle/personal entry to Red Robin’s personal hideout?
Once they hit a certain point, I can’t really follow them. You can no longer tell which way they went, and I’m left one more with just a general direction in which to head.
“I had no idea he was such a tech wizard. That’s really inconvenient.”
All those boys are going to be, to a degree. They were trained by their father, after all, but finding all the work arounds and disabling them? I’m not used to hearing my friend and partner stymied. He gets to hear me do something that they’re all very used to though. Swearing. A literal colorful parade of foul diatribe when he says the League’s ‘already’ here.
“They were probably already here. And now Joker’s kicked the damn hornet’s nest.”
They must have been. It only makes sense. If Talia al Ghul was here to be nabbed in the first place, she was surely not alone. What were they doing? Probably the same thing we are, especially with Ra’s advice to Bruce before his murder that he would be best served by running. Whether they were digging on their own, or waiting for those of us left to fall? I couldn’t really say.
“I’ll bitch at you about it tomorrow. Tonight we’ve got bigger worries.”
I can still mentally grouse for a half second about how many times I’d told him to keep his hands off my bike. Bikes. I could admire his, but I still prefer mine. There’s the audible sound of brakes and tires complaining about the speed with which I’ve stopped, wheeled around, and then kicked back into gear again to head in a different direction, because my heading had been off.
“Not far. Three minutes tops.”
Someone’s already tapped into Tim’s stuff? Again, not something you hear him say terrible often, and I lean lower to my handlebars as I roar through another alley.
“What are the chances that someone is Penny-One or our newest Batman?”
Or the person who broke into the real Batcave, as Dick had told me earlier today. Jesus that feels like a long time ago. The someone that could maybe be a Ghost, and was the only simple explanation at all. My arrival is probably easy enough for him to discern. Between damn trackers, and the noise of my bike cutting off. I only get part way into the building before my boots skid to a halt. And skid they do, because the floor is blood soaked. Death? Is a feeling as much as it’s a smell or a site, and I almost audibly grind my teeth.
“Not in here. They’ve moved on or…”
Then I hear the scream. Up in the air getting higher and thinner, changing in pitch as the distance grows and grows. I get back outside the door in enough time to watch in momentary confusion, before the screaming stops with a spectacular, firey bang. The trajectory? Started from near here. The bodies are still warm. They’re here, or were a minute ago.
“Hood! I know you’re up there.”
I don’t chase him up to the roof. I’m not stupid. I just back my way out of the building, to where I’ve got another wall at my back, and a better view if they choose to simply ninja-run off the roof to somewhere else.
Damien: Damien was ready to jump when he heard the familiar voice from the other side of building. ”Stay here.” telling his group of League of Shadow Ninjas. Walking to the other side of the roof, he stops at the edge of the roof, then takes a step back, knowing full well what Dinah’s capabilities are.
Storm clouds start to converge overhead, with a strike of thunder, and a flash of lightning. Looking at her just over the edge, he yells down to her. “Do not stop me, Canary. I do not wish to hurt you. I assume you know what is going on. Tell Red Robin to stay where he is. And you as well.” but he knows Dinah, she’s not going to stop. Her method of tough love was literal. Turning around, he steps away fully from the edge and starts running towards the other side of the roof.
”Come. We are heading to the Iceburg Lounge.”
Dick: Red Robin was fast at work, already, tracking down the leak in his system. Checking, then re-checking to see who had accessed his ‘Private Server’ and how had they done it? Only a few possibilities presented themselves immediately. One of those scared the absolute crap out of Tim to even consider. He worked furiously for long enough that Canary was able to clear the building. She’d managed to find Damien, even engage him before she once again had a blurting of sound from her commlink.
“Canary, I’ve got a lock on who got in to my system, I think. It looks like Bruce left a backdoor in to my mainframe. So that he and Alfred. Ugh. I swear to god, if Bruce was alive I’d kill him. It’s actually called ‘Baby Monitor Protocols.’ I think you’ve got company inbo-..”
Though the sky has darkened and the storm is playing dramatically across the sky. It is perhaps only giving further cover to the moon, which blots out the sight of the sleek, black super-sonic craft. The crescent shape of the wings seem to give highlight to the canopy. Which isn’t normally open, as it is right now. In this case it’s open, because the passenger has already evacuated. Cape unfurled, giving a wide angle to the approach. Even as the Bat-shaped shadow descends toward Damien his hands unload a payload plasti-gel grenades at the feet of the League of Shadows.
“I’m not here to fight them,” landing in a perch at the edge of the building in full sight of Dinah Lance below. One by one those grenades explode, spraying the Ninja with high-tensil gelatin which will solidify almost instantly, to trap them in place. “But you’re not going down this path, Damien.”
Damien: Turning to look at Batman. Too tall to be Tim, must be Dick. Damien doesn’t even respond to the ninjas being enveloped in the gelatin. Slowly turning around, he stares at Dick through the helmet. Unstrapping it, he pulls it off as rain starts sprinkling down for a few minutes, then it starts absolutely pouring down.
“No. It needs to end. This all needs to end, Richard. Penguin has information on why my mother was at his lounge. And with the Joker giving his deadline, we do not have time to dawdle. You are either with me, or you are against me, Richard. And I hope for your sake, that you are with me.” telling him, hoping that by Dick seeing his face, Dick lets him go.
“The choice is yours, my brother. I do not wish to fight. But, I am in no mood to dawdle anymore.”
Dinah: Well, that’s definitely ominous and it’s hard to say if that’s just Gotham being helpfully thematic, or if somehow Damien’s mood has reached levels that allow weather manipulation. Mind. I understand. I really do. If I’d had the opportunity to save the life of either one of my parents, I would probably have been going berserk through the city as well. But I lost most of my family to the bitch that is life, and my father was murdered before I entered this life. He’s why I did. But I didn’t know it was going to happen. We just found out with a knock on the door. My chest hurts for Damien, but… that’s also why I’m not about to do what he says. We spoke to him about this line before. He’s already over it. And no matter how bad he hurts or how justified someone might say he is? This can’t stand.
He’s smart to back off, but the truth is if I wanted to scream him off that roof? I could do it whether I can see him or not.
“Well, that’s insulting.”
Whether that’s to Red Robin over the comms, or Damien himself is iffy. It works for both. The company inbound I have to assume is going to be whomever got in through his …whateverwalls. Which means I’m tensing for either potential. Fortunately? It’s the friendly sort, at least friendly to me. Usually. Unless you count what he did this afternoon with his damn escrima sticks. Batplane, at 3’clo…
“Company’s here.”
I take the opportunity of Dick up on the roof already and engaged, to turn around and run. Not away, but around. Finding my way to the other side of the building, before I launch and kick myself off one wall, twisting and grabbing hold of a railing on the other side to make my way up and head off any fleeing attempts. Ninjas or Damien but frankly…I only care about one of the two. The other’s are just worries by necessity.
Dick: “You’re right, Damien. It needs to end,” rising to my full height in order to let the storm frame the Batman, instead of Dick Grayson. “This can’t continue. What have you done?”
Down from the roof’s ledge, to the gravelly substance lining the roof. There’s simply no doubt about this. I’m not here as Nightwing. This isn’t some Halloween Costume Party, where I’ve come half-naked for entertainment value. My voice lends itself to seriousness, because this is just about as serious as I’ve ever been.
“Stop it. Stop the condescending. Stop the passive-aggressive, ‘I do not wish to fight’ garbage. Who do you think you’re talking to? I’ve been here. Right here, where you are right now Damien. Except I’ve been here twice. I’ve lost my parents twice. So I’m not going to stand here and lecture you about right and wrong. Because you damned well know the difference. Our Father showed you the difference.”
All of this talking, brings me closer to the other Man. My brother. The true son of the Bat, Heir to the Cowl. “No. I’m not going to lecture you. I’m going to play your game, Damien. I’m going to call your bluff. Go on. Walk away. Let your Anger keep controlling you. Go find the Penguin. Beat answers out of him. Because that’s a lot of time you can waste, Junior. Of course, you’d know that. If you stopped letting the emotions rule you.”
“Have you even asked them?” Gesturing a single gloved hand at the trapped Ninja. “Did you even think to ask the League of Shadows members you’ve been commanding, why their Leader’s Daughter was at the Iceberg Lounge? Or why -they- are here in Gotham? You think they have a super-sonic Troop Carrier in Nanda Parbat?”
That other hand reaches up and gently thumps the ‘Red Hood’ helmet that he’s taken off. “You’re not thinking, you’re feeling. Which way gets your Mother back faster, Robin?”
Over the comlink in Black Canary’s ear comes a hushed little voice. “ I’ve been running a triple diagnostic on my firewall. Something isn’t right. Alfred wasn’t the only one monitoring my systems.”
Dinah: It doesn’t take me long to get up to the rooftop, though it’s still longer than I might have really liked. Grappling hooks are a bat-thing, not a Canary thing. At least in ‘standard issue gear,’ though I know how to use one well enough. I can catch snatches of conversation, or argument perhaps, on the wind. The inevitable declaration that someone doesn’t want to fight, the answer that comes back to it, the rain starting to kick up in earnest and really, truly provide mood lighting and atmosphere that we really don’t need right now. We all can provide our own angst and noir, thanks very much. Still. When I get up there, the situation isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
For one, Damien’s taken off his helmet. Not immediately gone to attack Batman. I’m not entirely sure I agree with the challenge that’s being laid down because I know how I would have taken it, if this were me six or seven years ago. And that was before I’d even lost everything. I still had my grandfather, but I would have probably walked away and made a poor choice. I could pretend like the Shadows were responsible for everything that I just saw downstairs? But I’m not an optimistic idiot, no matter what my taste in movies might say to you.
“The Bat makes a great point. And I say that as someone who’s not real happy with him right now. They got here awful fast. Were you guys already having a Gotham family reunion, and they just happened to forget to invite you? I’d like to know how they beat those of us that live here to the scene, personally…”
Swinging my arms back and forth like I’m warming up my shoulder joints and getting ready to do some physical ‘asking’ of my own, of the good and stuck ninjas. I don’t, though, and there’s only one reason that I don’t. Damien. Not because I think he’d stop me, but because these should be his questions to get answered. And because I’m listening to the little Redbird chirping in my ear. Firewall. Right. That’s what it’s called. Alfred patched in and likely sent Dick here. So who else was in there? The mystery man from the Cave or something else? It leaves me shifting my stance. No longer facing Damien’s back, but twisting to the side, trying to get an opposite view of what either of the Wayne boys has. Is something coming..?
Damien: Looking at them both, and listening to Richard. Damien looks to the ninjas by his side, then back to Richard, shifting his gaze to Dinah as she speaks. They all have a point here. Grinding his teeth together, he steps up to Richard. Almost as if sizing him up, looking him dead in the eye. There’s a whirlwind of emotion in Damien’s eyes as he tries to figure out the best path for all of this. Damien isn’t aware there *was* an intruder into the Batcave, but for now, he didn’t care.
“The soldiers would know nothing. They are only taking orders. And they only take orders from very few. Me, My mother….” trailing off as he steps away from Dick, looking out over the city. Seeing various dark dots jumping through the city.
“And my Grandfather. Ra’s Al Ghul.” taking a deep breath.
“He’s here.” staring out over the city, rain pouring down over all of them.
“I will come with you. I will do it your way. But, Once I confront Joker? I cannot allow him to live. I do not care what you say. I will do what our father could never do. I will make sure Joker, and his band of misfits, no longer walk this Earth. Do you hear me?”
After that?
Damien may cut ties and leave. It wasn’t that didn’t feel like he belonged. Maybe it was that this city just had too much memories, to much emotion.
“I will kill The Joker.”
Dick: Do the grunts know why Talia was here? Doubtful. What they likely do know is where to meet up with the senior leadership of whichever Leader is here in Gotham. Whether that be Rhas or Talia, or whomever would take Talia’s place should something happen. The League has a hierarchy, I know because I’ve worked with them before. Before I even knew Damien existed, in fact. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll get immediate answers out of them. It it is however a start.
“Your Grandfather was here, I’m not sure he still is. He was here to talk with your Father, before he was killed. I just told Canary about it earlier, I came to talk with Tim, then I was going to hunt you down to tell you, but there was a crisis in Metropolis.” I’m not discussing, at least not yet, why I’m the one wearing the suit. This isn’t the right place to talk about Tim asking me to take it, before he got himself killed. Nor is it the place to talk about what we’ve found out about Bruce. There are too many eyes. “Just because you’re thinking with your heart, doesn’t mean you weren’t on -a- trail. Canary can follow the Penguin lead. We’ll meet with your Grandfather.”
“Oh and Damien. There was never a question of whether your Father could kill the Joker, so much as if he would do it. There’s a question about whether you should do something, just because you can and the answer isn’t always ‘Yes.’ It’s especially not the answer, when it involves taking someone’s life.”
Reaching out to put my hand on Damien’s shoulder, I want to give him a hug but there just seems like something wrong about doing that in front of these League of Shadow goons. Which reminds me. “I can’t have these guys running around the City. My City. I’ve signaled the Commission to send the Special Crimes division over to pick them up.”
“Canary, can you escort Damien back to Robin’s Nest? I’ll stay to insure GCPD doesn’t have a pro–…” Just as I’m giving out ‘marching orders,’ something changes. There’s a shrill whine in the background, that has nothing to do with the rain and storm all around us. I’ve heard that sound before and it has me grabbing Damien, to bring him with me off the side of the building.
Even as I’m reacting, Dinah’s changed her footing. She can see the steady hovering Bat-Wing, as it suddenly veers. Then accelerates. At the roof we’re all standing on. It’s twin jet engines going in to full thrust. In her ear, a little bird chirps once more. “…Dinah, someone’s jacking in to the Batcave’s mainframe now… they’re locking Alfred out of… sweet baby jebus…. get the &^%$ out of there…”
Dinah: “Ra’s is here? Well, today just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it? I hope Batman’s right and he’s not any more.”
Because even if in the loosest definition of the words he might be working on the same side as us? He’s still Ra’s al Ghul. I don’t even like that Talia is in town, or any of the rest of them. If anything, I think it enables Damien to give in to that side, and if they weren’t here in the first place? I highly doubt that Joker would have gotten his hands on her to begin with. Averting everything that is happening right this second. He would have found another target, but maybe it wouldn’t have been so personal of one.
“You continue to make the same thinking error. Over and over. It nothing to do with ‘could’ or ‘could not.'”
He could have ended Joker’s life at any point. I could have. We are not god, or judge and jury, to decide who lives and who dies. And you do that? You’re no better than he is. I held my father’s killer’s life in my hands once. Literally, throat in my hands, a far more painful death than what my father suffered. Damien’s killed. The more he does it? The easier it gets, the less he’s going to remember the other way he was shown. Those are all things I want to say to him but. Not here. And not while I’ve got an itchy paranoia creeping up my spine.
“Cobblepot does like Birds. I’ll make sure he’s doing the singing, though.”
I’m not going to just let this go. No. Not what Damien’s doing. What’s happening to someone important to Damien. His mother, no matter what else she might be. If for no other reason than her life might be worth keeping him from losing himself further. Maybe I can actually have this discussion with him, much as I hate opening up on principle, on the way to the Nest. Then there’s sound. That whine in the air, and Dick moving and taking Damien before I even really get moving.
“Go! Something’s hacked the Cave!”
I’m sure I can be heard. I’m not quiet, even when my voice isn’t vibrating with sonic force I can make it carry. It’s carrying as I throw myself off that edge that I arrived over. Sprinting and diving, in a way that’s probably going to hurt but not nearly as much as getting crusehd by the Batplane.
by Michele | Nov 20, 2017 | Chronicles
Dick: “So. That is Superman?”
Arms folded, I motion to the screen before us. On it happens to be a young man at a Press Conference. Being completely railroaded by Cat Grant, in to asking Pop-Star questions to the leader of the ‘Meta-Human Movement.’ He’s not much to look at on the outside. ( Yeah, right. ) Other than the fact the younger man is obviously chiseled out of granite that is. How does he manage not to be noticed as something other than what he appears to be? Well, that’s easy. Because ‘Conner Luthor’ has a greatest hits string that is a mile long. I’m bringing it up on the viewing screen even now. Since his Father brought him out of the shadows under the auspice of giving his son a ‘normal life away from the glitz and glamour’ that is being the son of one of the wealthiest men in the world? He’s been on the cover of magazines more times than most actors or actresses. Some of it for the Good, like his apparent ability to play Basketball. Some of it for the Bad, like his ‘not knowing’ he had to pay for things, roughing up bouncers for not letting him do what he wanted at strip clubs. Skipping out on his Secret Service details to party.
Actually the bad far out strips the good if we’re being completely honest. There’s very little good to be found, all told. “Curious. According to Timothy’s notes, your boyfriend started out on this path because he didn’t know any better. He essentially broke out of his test-tube with no grasp upon the reality he was stepping in to, due to the virtual reality he was being trained in, essentially teaching him nothing more than to take whatever he wanted. And, you also believe that at some point after meeting you, he began to know better but instead began to proliferate this behavior in order to embrace being ‘Conner Luthor’ to spend time with you. Now, it has entered a third phase. Where this version of ‘Conner Luthor’ is actually the mask. The real person is Superman, the one Black Canary met.”
“Red Robin’s threat assessment of him is extremely High, but it is moderated by you. Solely, by you.”
“Then there is Freddy Freeman, aka Shazam. We know very little about him. Bruce’s contacts made him aware of this ‘Shazam,’ the ‘Wizard,’ and this Trial, but beyond that we know essentially nothing. So we have a person, who is seeking the blessing of the Gods in order to be the Champion of Magic. Magic, not the stage-show variety, but the Witch and Wizard variety. A powerful tool that most people cannot even perceive. Locked away by the Council of Wizards, at the behest of the Gods themselves. Ages ago. In order to allow Humanity to chart it’s own path. The Champion’s purpose is the protection of the world from magic, as well as the protection of Magic from the world. Mr. Freeman is now beholding to four Gods, is it?”
“Have we discovered how it is possible for him to be going through these Trials, if this other creature. Black Adam. Is also a ‘Champion?'”
“Then there is the Flash. A member of the Police Force, Crime Scene Investigations. He’s your fourth member. Powered by the so-called ‘Speed-Force,’ he has only scraped the surface of his abilities. Him, we know quite a bit about. As he was preceded by another. One Barry Allen. Whom along with Hal Jordan, Bruce Wayne and Kal-El, formed the most recent generation of Superheroes. A failed generation, unfortunately. Wally has the ability within him to actually chance the past or visit the Future. So in spite of being the most annoying, least useful member of your team. He’s also the most dangerous -and- simultaneously the most in danger of being neutralized by the opposition.”
“Does that sum up your current team, moderately well?”
Cassie: “Yes, I’m not completely sure why he opted to turn up that way, though.”
Given that unnecessary work and Conner aren’t exactly the best of friends, unless there’s something in it for him. I didn’t even actually know he had a job of any sort, let alone at the Daily Planet. Why would he? He wasn’t even passing half his classes until I started tutoring him, though I happen to know that’s just because he didn’t actually see the point. He’s already done the whole school thing once, the last time may not have been physically real, but it was real to him. At the same time that it wasn’t. I find myself folding my arms across my chest a little awkwardly because I don’t know that I would have put any of what he says about Conner quite like that. I guess this is the conversation you have about him, when it isn’t between two people that are his friends and someone that’s looking at it a whole lot more objectively.
I know I’m not objective. I love my Superboy, but I’m also very aware of his flaws. The flaws were what I ‘met’ first, and learned to deal with before I got to see more and more of the good. And there is good.
“He started displaying what the world expected of him, because of who he is. Just like he pointed me towards being someone that made more sense to be with Conner Luthor. He did the same as Superman, too.”
Because he was doing what I wanted him to do, and the world already had a perception of what Superman should do and be. Just like it has preconceived notions of what a powerful Luthor scion ought to be doing, or the sort of girl he ought to be dating. I would have preferred to not worry about the latter part, but if it made no sense what he saw in me, then people would look. And people who were looking might see something we didn’t want them to see. As for which version is the mask and what isn’t? It’s much more complicated than a simple distinction, and I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.
“I couldn’t beat him in a fight. He just. He wants to make me proud of him. And I think he’s starting to care about other people more, too. So maybe, hopefully, it won’t just be me.”
Who the heck says that? That they hope their boyfriend will look for gratification and recognition from someone besides themselves? I dunno. Someone who wants their loved one to be a whole, rounded person I guess. Unfolding my arms, I push a hand through golden blonde hair.
“Despite where I came from, I’m still learning the magic stuff. I think Tim, and your father before him, knew more about it than I do. But I spoke to my Father about it. Our world isn’t so simple as the one that the Trials were originally arranged for. They’ve….evolved.”
That sounds better than saying ‘crap’s all busted, nothing makes sense, sorry!’
“And Black Adam is no longer the champion of these same Gods. He gets his powers from a different pantheon. Not how it was supposed to work, and yet…here we are.”
What he says about Wally is… maybe a little harsh but some of the other bits are both interesting and concerning. Future. Past. Something that had actually been an option for us tonight, and one that I’m glad I didn’t choose since our doorway had closed once we’d left it. Not to mention the potential for mucking up the world. Anyone that’s read a book, or watched a movie, knows that messing with history is not a great idea, no matter what the reasons.
“Wally isn’t annoying, or useless. He was freaked out, and he’ll learn. I think most of them are used to working solo, or in a much smaller group. And that’s something we’ll have to work on.”
My expression gets a little bit droll as I look away from the screen to answer Dick’s last question. Does that sum up my current team moderately well? There’s a short, amused laugh. Mostly at his choice of words.
“Moderately, yes. In the quantifiable fact department, at least.”
Dick: “While I will give you that anyone with Powers can in fact be useful, that does not actually change whether or not they’re an annoying element. It is perfectly alright. Annoying people get powers -and- wealth sometimes too. Most of the time, in fact.”
That is neither here, nor there. It simply is what it is. We have to accept such things and move on. Which is what I asked Cassie back for when the conference was done. Sending her a ‘Bat-Signal’ message over her new phone. To have a discussion about what she knows, what she doesn’t know and what she needs to know. This should be Timothy’s job, but as I’ve already explained? He’s busy with something equally important. So what she’s left with is me. Me and the Butler who’s been trying to get her to try his sweet cakes for the last half hour.
“You’d be surprised, actually. I suppose we should talk about him, given that he too is a member of your ‘Team.’ Tim Drake knows a lot, about a lot of things. No question about it. Technically, he holds six degrees, but you could attribute six more to him because while Bruce had him out in the world learning, his education was very… unorthodox. He’s a natural programmer, a gifted scientist and psychologist. While he was abroad, Bruce had him study the science of medicine, law and finance. All of this built upon an I.Q. of 142, which hasn’t been measured since he was twelve. He was also diagnosed with a high functioning form of autism. If he had been born in previous times he would have been recruited to the U.S. Military as a Code Breaker. He sees the patterns in everything. He can’t help himself, he just sees them. That goes for everything. Whether it is Science, Medicine, Law, Programming or Fighting. He sees the patterns, he deduces the answers.”
“This also plays in to Tim’s limitations. For example. If you gave him ten minutes he could see how to beat even the best fighter in the world. That does necessarily mean that he could achieve the result he’s seeing. That is an important thing to remember. So is his biggest limitation. Chaos. You said a moment ago that my Father and Tim both probably know more about Magic than you do. That’s probably correct, but that does not mean he understands it. Magic is Chaos, there’s often no pattern to it. Putting my little Brother at a distinct disadvantage.”
Part of me thinks that Cassie was expecting me to go easier on Tim than I did on Wally, but that’s -not- what I’m here to do. This is about educating Cassie. More importantly it’s about giving Wonder Woman the tools to carry this further than she’s already made it. Tim spoke about other assignments, others for Cassie to seek out. Before she finds more, she needs to understand what she has and what she is going to be up against.
“Alright. If this is your Team, then it’s time for you to talk about what you’re up against. You met Agent Grunge when you rescued the Flash from him,” tapping one of the controls to make the screen begin to follow along as I go over some others. “Johnny Grunge has the ability to absorb the properties of any element that he touches. That is not limited to natural elements, it is also not limited to solid ones. According to Bruce’s files, Grunge is also the trainer for Nowhere’s team. Including your Boyfriend. He is able to adapt to their powers, then exploit them. This is used to teach his people how to overcome their weaknesses.”
“This is Doctor Caitlin Fairchild. She is one of three Scientists believed to have created the entire science behind your boyfriend’s Birth. In addition to that she is one of Thirteen Generations of ‘super soldiers,’ that LexCorp began working on after the first Alien Invasion. We’re not entirely sure of her abilities, but we do know that she was one of their initial human trials. Because she took the initiative and did it to herself, before they were officially approved. Before that period she was enamored with Meta-Humans. Believing them to be the embodiment of the old gods in a new form. Your boyfriend killed the previous Project Leader. Leaving on Fairchild and President Luthor with the knowledge on the final generation of the so-called super soldiers.”
“According to Tim’s notes. You’ve met Codename: Raven and one of their shape-shifters. Both of whom we have very little intelligence on. We know that they’re often paired as a team. Specifically when dealing with people like you or Shazam. When Magic is involved. We also know that Raven was powerful enough to force Black Adam to agree never to violate U.S. Airspace again. Solo. As for the shape-shifter, everything we know comes from recent history. She was inserted in to your School to do advance recon on you. Which she did extremely well, because by your own account Conner knew more about you than you knew.”
Cassie: The teenage girl in me wants to retort that clearly, people without powers can be annoying and wealthy, too, but I restrain myself. The night as a whole has been trying, no. The whole day has been, and I don’t want the grumpy way I’m feeling to get in the way of trying to get business done here. Especially not while I’m working with a new person. Besides. There’s just something about mouthing off with Alfred here in the room, I don’t know what it is. And I really do want to try the cakes but…business first. Snacks later. Still trying to be a professional here, in a way I didn’t feel necessary in front of Tim. But. Again. Tim was my friend before the costumes. I just need to get to know his brother.
“He’s really great. At most everything. In short terms.”
I can’t help smiling at that, because. He’s my friend.
“One of the few people I’ve met that I’d admit is a lot smarter than me. But. I get it. Behind all the brains, and planning, you throw in things that you can’t plan for and he’s not invulnerable to withstand that first surprise hit and plan for the second one.”
No, I didn’t really expect to have weaknesses laid out in front of me with such no punches pulled clarity. Because it is his brother, but maybe that’s also why he’s doing it this way. The whole point of being a team is working together and protecting each other from the things we’re individually weak against. You can’t do that if you don’t know what to look out for. Now we move on to the new stuff, not the people I know, and the files that I’ve read…well. I do know some of these people he’s talking about now. The opposition.
“He was able to absorb and use the material from my suit against me, too. That street went both ways, fortunately. He was clearly really good at adapting on the fly. Fairchild, Conner’s talked about more than most of the others.”
She also gives me the willies the most, but maybe that’s because I’m never entirely sure what the motives are. Sometimes, it seems like maybe she’s helping Conner. Othertimes, I just get this red flag that says ‘favorite pet’ waving in my head. But I didn’t realize she also had powers. As he goes on with the list, I’m really starting to think that maybe the handful of us still aren’t enough. I didn’t think we’d have to be ready for anything so soon, though. There’s just never enough time, is there?
“Except for during school I’ve never met them apart. And M’gann knew more about me than I did, or let on, I’d assume because she’s a telepath and I didn’t know I should control the mental freaking out I was doing. With the background info they probably had, it was probably easy for her to make the report that he had on me before we met the first time. Raven is…”
Wrinkling my nose, I’m caught because I want to stick to facts here, like Dick has been. Quantifiable things. But while I’m good with those, I’m better with other things. Like gut feelings.
“Raven is scary. And. I think she likes being scary. M’gann…I’m not so sure on. I think she thinks she’s doing the right thing. She’s not from Earth, and everything she learned about being a ‘real girl’ she got from shows like…well. Gossip Girl.”
Dick: “Not from Earth? We know that before the Invasion, Nowhere would recruit Aliens as much as they did Metas, but after the Invasion we weren’t aware they kept any of those affiliations. It’s been a more or less strict sterilization policy ever since. If this girl was something new, a child. Someone they could raise, train like they did with Conner? That makes a lot of sense. Being a telepath she would have seen through virtual training, so that would leave them with an interesting problem as to how to bring her up. Television as a training tool though…”
Not only does that make me cringe, but it also makes me pretty sick to my stomach. These people, this group called Nowhere, is insidious on a new level every time I encounter a situation involving them. Yet, I’m struck by the alternative facts at work here. They really -do- defend the Country. Maybe even the entire planet. We’ve seen the good they can do, time and time again over the course of History. It leaves any sane person to ask themselves, what makes -us- the Good Guys and them the Bad Guys. How can we be so sure we’re right?
“You share something in common with Raven. According to our contact, she is similar in nature to you due to her parentage. Her mother is something of a ‘Warrior Monk.’ Who was raped and impregnated by a Demon, Trigon. Trigon is an Arch-Demon. One of the Gate-Keepers to Hell itself.” How do you say something like that and keep a straight face? You do it while dressed up as a walking, talking Bat, that’s how. “I know, that sounds inconceivable, but our source is someone of learned knowledge in the realm of Magic.”
“Also, just for a matter of record. It is doubtful that you’ve ever met them apart. It is our assumption, based on our Source’s ability to monitor them that the two of them share a psychic link. This link is shared by all members of their field team.”
Another click of the button and several other images come up on the viewscreen. “Which brings us here. Nowhere’s field team is called the Ravagers. You know M’Gann and Raven. There is also Garfield Logan, another shape-shifter but he has the unique ability to inherit the material strength and density of whatever creature he assumes. For some reason, he is limited to creature shapes. We’re not sure why, but we assume it has to do with Nowhere’s attempts to stabilize his nucleic matrix. He is one of their success stories. When they found him, he was unable to hold even his own basic human form once he became a Meta-Human.”
“Then there are these two. Thunder and Lightning. Twins, Siblings. Alyna, known as Lightning. Alexei, known as Thunder. The two of them were also out-of-control metas. However they were not ‘helped,’ so much as exploited. Years of genetic testing augmented Alyna’s control of electricity to the zenith. She can both control it and produce it, along with physically taking a purely electric form. The Brother can control sound waves. He can intensify the sound of a pin dropping, to the magnitude needed to cause an earth quake. The tsunami that struck Japan two years ago? We believe was caused due to the testing they performed on Alexei. As a note, Japan embraces ‘Meta-Humans’ much as they do professional wrestlers and rock stars. It’s a cultural embracing, that Nowhere might deem dangerous.”
“Warblade. Identity unknown. Powers unknown. The files stolen from Nowhere’s servers, indicate that he has bio-morphic liquid armor. Which is the product of testing shape-shifter genomes and melding them with synthetic metals during their liquid state.” A shrug of the shoulders suggests that I’m not joking or playing it close to the vest. We know very little about this one. “Leash. Psionic Energy manipulation that manifests in the form of energy tethers. Once connected to someone, he can teleport them anywhere he can think of. Anywhere. He is one of the most dangerous of Nowhere’s numbers and should be considered analogous to your Flash. His attacks move at the speed of thought.”
“This brings me to their final team member. Omen. Have you ever wondered, outside of tracking technology, satellites and science. How does Nowhere seem to know when and where to be, before it’s even really possible? It’s her. Omen is an omega level telepath, with a side of telekinesis, but those are her side games. She has a precognitive ability, that Nowhere uses almost exclusively. They rely on her. Without Omen, they would be severely hampered. Maybe even crippled, from being the Agency they are at current.”
“While she is the last of their team, she is not the last threat. The director of Nowhere is a man known as John Lynch. He’s nasty. Sworn to Conner’s Father. His loyalty isn’t a question, it’s written in stone by the Fates themselves. I am not exaggerating. Additionally, I spoke a moment ago about the thirteen generations of super soldiers. I told you about Grunge and Fairchild, you already know that number thirteen is Conner. So you guessed it, that leaves ten other created metas. Of which we have almost no intel on.”
Cassie; “She’s Martian so. Shapechanging, mind reading, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more to it than that because…why wouldn’t there be, right? Conner tried to get me to go easy on her at first, after I found out, said that it wasn’t her fault that she thought that was the right way to interact with other people. I’m kind of sensing a common theme in the way they set their agents up to behave, here…”
It’s hard to feel terribly bad for someone who’d spent the last six months making an already unwanted situation into the closest thing I knew to a living hell at that point. I didn’t fit in, even ignoring the powers, at that school and the bullying was merciless, endless, with extra salt in the wounds when my need to hide my new abilities meant I had to not only take it, but pretend they actually physically hurt me. The cheerleading thing had fixed it, and I’d run with it from there. Anyone who treated another student the way M’gann and her flunkies had treated me had Cassie Sandsmark, head cheerleader to answer to this year. Dick’s mental quandary is one I’ve had myself, but not for long. I know how I was treated on first approach. What they did to get to that point. And by all accounts, I’m a special case that got their nice faces. Other people don’t get a choice. And even if they do some good things? That’s not right.
How do you listen to his summary of Raven with a straight face? Easy. I went to Olympus today. I saw the Gods. Once you accept them to be real, it kind of follows that everything else is, as well.
“Not that inconceivable. I just got told today that I’m basically the chronological and developmental equivalent of a newborn infant. So. Perspective.”
The psychic link I knew about, too. More information that I’ve gathered without actually really trying to, over the last almost two years of knowing them. Much as I care for Conner? I don’t think I’d want to have to listen to him in my head all fo the time. Sometimes him verbally is bad enough, I can only imagine what him without even a little filter would be like in your brain. My arms are folded again, though not so awkwardly this time. Now it’s more because I’m focusing, leaning in for a closer look at the screen as he shows me people I don’t already know. Not needed, my eyesight is better than 20/20 now.
The more he goes on? The heavier I feel. I’d just had what I’m going to call a success out there in front of the cameras, on the heels of a team success dealing with Isis and the Amulet. I’m not sure if he’s trying to prepare me, or scare me, but if it’s the latter, it’s working and I can’t go out there scared. I’m left blowing out another heavy breath of air and rubbing one side of my face with a hand. We’re not enough. We’re still not anywhere near enough, even if Freddy passes the last of his trials that still leaves a few of us, up against what may as well be an army. Which means head on isn’t going to work, not that I would have gone that route to begin with.
“So. What you’re telling me, in short, is that our best chance is going to be to find a way to deal with Omen first. And that we’re leaning towards hopelessly outmatched at the moment, even if we don’t factor in the potential for Superman to be batting for the other team.”
Dick: “Martian. Interesting, believe it or not? That is information we didn’t have.”
There are of course holes in any form of intelligence gather. You have to learn how to piece various forms of intel together, a lot like a puzzle. In fact, I won’t even try to lie about it. This is Tim’s particular point of expertise. He’s simply better at putting these sort of puzzles together. Only Bruce was better and that had a lot to do with the fact he had so much more experience on his side. Tim in twenty years is going to be scary. Like scarier than this Cape and Cowl.
For now though, we have to accept that in any scenario we’re not going to know everything. As well as accept that, right now, there’s a real chance that they know a whole lot more than we do. “There’s no denying that we’re behind the eight-ball, Wonder Woman. They’ve been doing this since the forties. They have been building an insurmountable force. They’ve been doing it under a flag of protection, but you’re lifting that veil is the first step.”
“Also, I didn’t ask you here just to give you a healthy dose of reality,” taking a moment to re-adjust the monitors, only this time I’m turning them off. “You’re not nearly as ‘On your Own’ as you think. Shazam, Flash, Wonder Woman. You’re the nucleus. Then there’s Tim, in whatever guise he takes. Tim believes that he can take Superman off the table, if for any reason they force him to work against you. I’ve learned not to discount my littlest brother. He tends to work miracles.”
“That’s not all, though.”
By this point I’m circling the table and making my path to take me directly before her. It does not escape my attention that Alfred has actually stopped trying to console Cassie, because he’s gotten some sort of call over his ear piece. For now I have to let that pass, because I’m standing in front of Wonder Woman. Having spent the last twenty minutes building up to give her a dose of reality, to show her that they’re very much in a precarious position. Now it’s time show Cassie our hand. Most of it.
“When the time comes, our Mystic? Is a woman by the name of Zatanna. Her Father was a member of the same council of magicians as the Wizard who’s putting Freddy Freeman through the Trials. She and my Father used to date, with his passing she’s pledged to help us finish his ‘Final Case.’ She is not the only name I’m going to tell you, Cassie. I don’t know how much you know about the formation of Nowhere, but the original ‘Mystery Men’ that they recruited in to the Project? Were part of a society of sorts. Many of them chose retirement, but a couple accepted roles in the project. Because they were men and women are great vision.”
“One of them? Is Alan Scott. The original Green Lantern. He’s the one who gave us most of the intelligence I just gave you. He lives in Gotham and he’s the one who put Bruce on this path. Which Tim is now following and what lead him to you. He’s retired from the ‘Mystery Men’ business, but he still wants to see this world turn around.”
Cassie: “…that’s kind of nice to hear. Mostly I’ve spent the last couple weeks feeling like everyone knows more than I do, and just trying to process all of it.”
Up until a couple days ago I think that a lot of people knew more about me, and where I came from than I did. Knew more about the Gods, that I grew up studying without the knowledge that they were real, and that all the stories were in fact more true than I might have imagined. Today, I met my Father and found out that my Mom is an unmitigated badass and better fighter than I am. The last part isn’t terribly hard though. I’ve been training with Conner, but I’m realizing now? It’s not been nearly as seriously as it probably should have been. Hard to believe that you really, really need to prepare to fight something that’ll hurt you when the only person that could really hurt you? Wouldn’t. I know now how incredibly naive that was, and narrow.
I’ve got a lot of faith in Tim Drake-Wayne. He helped me with a horrendous problem I’d been having when we first met, and I’ve seen time and again how resourceful and smart he is. But I still get an un-ashamedly dubious expression on my face at what Dick says about him taking Conner ‘off the table.’ That’s not really my only concern, so much as Conner taking me off the table as well. Which I know he’d do rather than fight me, or let anyone else try to hurt me.
Even with everything going on? Hearing about magicians and wizards is still more than a little strange to me. It really shouldn’t be, especially because I know that magic is the only reason I didn’t spend my whole life with the powers I have now. Suppressing and fighting that divinity that’s inside of me, until it was allowed to come out, or forced its own way free.
“I looked into it a lot more once I had reason to last year. The Justice Society. All of it. Like…so many things through all of history not a bad idea at the beginning but…”
There’s an almost helpless spread of my hands between us. It is what it is, I suppose. Good ideas, minds in the right place, until they weren’t anymore. Until they felt they had reason to cross a line, and once they were over it, the lines got smaller, and easier to ignore. Until we got to where we are now, with people losing their freedoms and choices because of how they were born, or something that wasn’t inside of their control. It’s easy to think that they aren’t doing bad work, necessarily. But I also know in my heart that the way they’re doing it is wrong.
“That’s…good to know though. Thanks for giving me a little something to stand on, after yanking the rug out. I appreciate it.”
I’m joking. A little bit anyway. This has been a bit of a roller coaster of a conversation, but I’d much rather Know than not know.
Alfred: “…uh… forgive the intrusion…”
Alfred Pennyworth, known to some as Penny-One and to others as the Butler of Philanthropist Bruce Wayne. A man of many hats, some of which he wears all at the same time. One thing that can be said for him though, is that he is never, ever, rude. Until now. When he is sweeping aside his offers of crepes and instead intruding in to their discussion entirely. All but ignoring the withering look from Dick Grayson, whom though is much more light hearted than Bruce, does not like having someone interrupt a very important briefing.
Whatever heat was in that look died as soon as Pennyworth’s hands skim across the console to bring up the news feed from Gotham. Joker’s insidious message is playing out, in living color on the screen. By the time the first ‘Episode’ has finished playing? Batman is gone. Leaving Alfred there, standing with the color drained from his face and an honest to goodness sense of terror playing across his features.
“Thank you, Ms. Sandsmark. You were about to offer your assistance, but…” a quick flutter of his hand toward where Dick was standing only seconds ago. “… this is most certainly a family matter.”
“You should go home. Get some sleep. Someone should enjoy the victory of the day.”
Cassie: It becomes apparent pretty quickly that there’s nothing to forgive. Because in this particular moment? There’s something more immediately important happening on that screen in front of me. NOWHERE isn’t going to move on us, not tonight. It’d be stupid of them to act on a handful of us that at least right now? Are still basking in the heroes glow, the event and what we did too fresh in the minds of the citizens for them to not be grouchy if something were to happen. They already watch the sky now for Conner and I. Now they have other faces to be looking for.
…and Batman is gone again. Alfred clearly hadn’t been joking about all the boys in the family being trained in that particular disappearing act. The look of fear on Alfred’s face is probably more disconcerting to me than what I just saw on the screen and that had been awful enough. I suppose he could tell I didn’t just want to watch. Probably by the set of my jaw, or the fact that I realize right now my hands are balled up into fists, ready to go fight.
“Right. And I already got the I can’t be in Gotham line from Tim a month ago. I’ll. Stay clear.”
I don’t like this feeling. Knowing I could go do something, and not doing it. I bet Conner could eliminate that ‘little’ problem of theirs faster than the time it takes for him to sneeze. But we can’t. That’d make us the same as the people we’re trying to fight, I think. And Gotham has Batman. Two Batmans, apparently. Not to mention all the other vigilantes that call it home. Which means until someone from Gotham calls and says it’s also a Wonder Woman problem? Which…we all know they won’t… I get to… go home. And sleep.
“I’ll try. I think I’m going to look for my Mother first, though. Maybe study for my chemistry test…”
I’m starting to ramble. I am tired. And frustrated. But there’s nothing that can be done about any of those problems right here, or now. So all that’s left for me is to leave the jet once again, so that Alfred can return home.
Alfred: “… fear not, my dear. This will all work itself out, I assure you.”
Though, I do not at all sound very convincing about that. She says something that has me snapping my fingers, clearly I’d forgotten something. “Fiddle-sticks. I almost forgot to tell you, I dispatched Mr. Wayne’s personal jet to pick your mother up in New York. She is visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When they arrive, I’ll drive her directly home. She’s a charming woman, your mother. We’ve been exchanging recipes.”
“I brought her a bottle of ’96 chardonnay, from Carneros. We were going to share a tasting, … perhaps I’ll leave the bottle, I shouldn’t doddle now and the two of you have much to talk about, I’m sure. Good evening, Ms. Sandsmark.”
