by Michele | May 9, 2017 | Chronicles
Tim : It all started with a text. The sort of text that interrupts some of the most fun moments a girl might have with their boyfriend. The sort that reads of the caller i.d. that identifies with your mother.
Mom: Saw your press conference.
Mom: You up for a little heart to heart?
Mom: Mother, Daughter talk?
Mom: No boys allowed.
Mom: Might reconsider that trip you wanted to come along for.
Mom: My office @ museum.
Mom: Bring. Cheesecake.
Alright, so it’s a series of texts. With Cassie moderately distracted, it allows for the entire discussion to be had without her reply. Leaving her to play catch up. To hop to what her Mom wants, because it’s a rare opportunity to maybe make amends for a situation that she hadn’t caused in the first place.
At the point of arrival though, it’s obvious almost immediately that Mom isn’t in the office. Given the time of night, it’s deserted. But that’s not really unusual. Cassie’s mother works late more often than not. Especially when she’s preparing for a trip. Truth is, she’s probably somewhere in the building for real. She just isn’t the one awaiting Cassie in that office.
Ordinarily (which is a word that applies to situations like this only loosely, and very recently), Cassie might have immediate cause for concern. Though her defenses might be up immediately, the reason for her arrival isn’t there to set a trap. Nor do I happen to be stupid enough to cause her to go in the fight or flight mode before I’ve even said a word. I’m sitting there, defenselessly, in her Mother’s desk chair. Clearly having rifled through the notes and information sitting there. But it’s not the clean cut schoolboy of norm. I’ve made this trip in uniform.
“Wonder Woman. Really? Don’t get me wrong. You’re pretty wonderful, but you don’t even have a driver’s license yet.” That dry wit is rarely mistakable, but even if it isn’t, I only make her wait a moment before I’m brushing the mask off of my face. “I’ve erected a bio-metric holographic overlay of the room. Anyone spying on us, is seeing your average girl next door having a discussion about keeping secrets from and with her mother.”
“Did you mean it?”
Cassie : We’re supposed to be studying. When one of you is smarter than the average bear, and has already had a high school education psi-jacked into your brain, and the other is a smarter than your average everyone girl that could have been teaching these classes rather than taking them, it just is a little hard to stay on task. To my credit, I made sure we got the homework portion done before we started on more important, personal subjects but there’s nothing beyond that we really need to do. Plus my Mom’s not home. At least one of us has a little bit of shame, so this wouldn’t be going on if she were home.
Because that’s just weird. No matter how open, accepting and generally cool your Mother might be.
One little jaunty jangle I ignore, even two because there’s not exactly many people who have my phone number that I jump with any level of excitement to respond to even in my least interesting moments. But when it keeps on going, eventually I have to extricate myself from Conner, and the couch cushions, in order to read them. Messages from the only other person that occupies the ‘drop everything for’ orbit.
“Oh, shoot it’s Mom. I gotta go, Con.”
Holding up a hand as I shove my phone in the back pocket of my jeans, and reach for a sneaker to stave off any sort of emergency reaction by the city’s newest Superman.
“Not an emergency, she just wants to talk. Just the girls. No Conner’s allowed. But she said she wanted cheesecake do you think you could…”
…maybe get one for me while I finish tying my shoes. I don’t get a chance to finish. Not only do I not typically encourage the guy to use his powers (exactly the opposite), but I don’t usually ask him to do things for me. I haven’t even finished tying the first one, and my hair’s not done shifting from the wake of his exit before he’s back. Cheesecake in hand, and looking pretty smugly pleased with himself. I guess I can’t blame him. I am right now, too, even if I am still a little grouchy at him over the Superhero Debut. Maybe that’s why he’s being so complaint…
All in all it takes him much less time to do my errand than it does for me to get out the door. And then for me to get myself to the Metropolis Museum, even though I fly most of the way. It’s dark, and late enough that I take the risk, and I know the area around the place well enough to know where it’s safe enough to land mostly unseen. With. Cheesecake.
I could have gotten there faster, but I’d taken my time just a bit. Agonizing over what I’m going to say, what I need to say, what she might have to tell me about what’s been going on lately. The walk from the parking lot in past the security that waves me through on seeing my face. Mom’s not in her office though, someone else is and I just about use it as the first salvo of a fight. Blue eyes narrowed in on the costumed figure.
“They don’t know that.”
I could have one. I’m old enough. I just haven’t really bothered, we don’t have a spare car, Conner has his own and likes to drive the flashy sporty thing everywhere because of the attention it gets. Oh, and I can fly. When the mask is pushed away from the eyes of the intruder, I look surprised but not surprised enough given what a revelation that should have been. I mean. I’ve talked to Tim on the phone before. I’m more caught off guard that he’s here, in my Mom’s office and that he apparently sent me for cheesecake.
“I feel like I ought to be mad at you for hijacking my Mom’s phone and getting my hopes up. Or for the snooping. Mostly, i’m just going to be huffy right now for accusing me of keeping secrets from my Mom. She knew before I did. I mean. She slept with my Father. She knew who and what he was, she just didn’t bother telling me. So if we’re going to get judgey about… you know what. Not the point.”
Pushing the door closed behind me, I set the cake on the edge of the desk and drop down into the chair on the opposite side that I’ve occupied so many times before. Just not with Red Robin on the other side.
“So. Hi, Tim. Welcome back to Metropolis. I like the cape.”
Shoving a hand through blonde hair puts it more in place, after getting a bit mussed from the flight and then rushing in here for my Mother/Daughter chat. It’s a pretty smooth setup, I suppose. Conner’s got almost zero boundaries and this is one of the few he actually respects, and wouldn’t get curious enough to follow along on. Though I don’t think for a second he’s still at my house right now.
“It. Which…it? The part where I said I’d help you if you needed it last time because, I mean.. I kind of guessed but that’s a kind of sudden hand tip. Or what I said on televison?”
Tim : “They know everything,” comes the counter before she’s even finished the thought.
We just happen to be talking about different people when we use the word ‘they.’ But for the moment that’s a sidenote to the overall situation that has brought me here. If I was here to talk to her about the coming out party or the name that she’s chosen to present herself? I could have done that as mild-mannered chum Tim. I’m here in the costume to make a statement of my own.
In a rather uncharacteristic show of emotions, there’s a legitimate scowl upon my face as she speaks about things. “It doesn’t work that way. If I were talking to Conner, I’d accept that he believes it does, but you’re not Conner. You know better. The world doesn’t work that way. Did your Mother know? Sure. Did she keep it from you? Yep. Was it crummy and did it suck? Uh-huh on both counts.”
“But. She’s your Mother. Protecting your life trumps protecting your feelings. Because that’s her job. Her niche. Her lot in life. It’s so much her job, in fact, that you don’t even really get to whine about it and call yourself a Woman in the same conversation.” Pausing, more so for effect than necessity, before allowing a subtle shift in my features to soften. “You’re definitely right though. This isn’t the point, but the truth is? You should lead with that. Telling her you finally understand that you have no right to be judgey about it. Opening that door for her, is going to let her know you’re ready to heal. Speaking from recent experience? You should do that, before you lose the opportunity too.”
Placing my hands, gloved as they are, down upon her mother’s desk. I make a show of pushing some of the papers aside before opening one of my hands up. People say that I’m a closed book, this is a metaphoric way of opening it, if only momentarily for the girl in front of me. Oh. Erm. Woman, I mean. Psh.
“I’m asking if you meant what you said on television. About being the ‘Leader’ of the next generation?” Again there’s a brief pause, but this time I actually shrug slightly and look away. “Not that it really matters if you did mean it or not. It’s too late. No take backs, so to speak.”
“Listen. I haven’t been completely honest with you, Cassie. The trouble is, I don’t think anyone has. But in my case, I wasn’t being deceptive in a really intentional way. I knew Con had powers. I knew all about him, actually. My … eh.. Father.. erm..-figure, warned me that I’d be on Conner’s radar. Just for different reasons than you. Con’s dad wouldn’t let the chance to make nice with the Wayne’s slip past. What I didn’t know, is that my… Father…eh…-figure, was doing the same with me. Getting me close. Using me to spy on the Luthors. Conner specifically.”
“My …eh… let’s just call him Bruce, okay? Has known about Lex Luthor’s Agenda and the people Connor work for. He’s known for years. I’ve got access to files, data, histories… the works. If you meant what you said on television, I know a few people who might be willing to ….. follow a Leader.”
Cassie : His emphasis hints that he’s not referring to the same ‘they’ as I am, but I don’t try to clarify what I meant. I have a feeling he knows what I meant, just as much as I get what he’s angling for. The more sinister ‘they,’ where I just meant the general populace. As far as they know? I am what I say. Both my costume, and Conner’s, have some subtle imaging of their own built in to mask who we really are. Otherwise the media would be having a flipping field day. Not about me so much as they would over Lex Luthor’s son being a super-powered Superman. Boy.
So I just shrug in response to his comeback before kicking my feet up on the desk. Carefully. In a spot that’s not endangering any of the papers or her precious knickknacks, some of which were gag gifts from me for one birthday or another.
“I know.”
This ‘knowing’ is about Helena Sandsmark and what she did, or didn’t do and her motivations for it. There’s another shrug, accompanying the earnest expression on my features.
“I got over it a while ago. Do I wish she would have maybe found a way to bring it up a little sooner than when long-lost Dad I didn’t want dropped a gift in my lap and my powers kicked in? Oh, yeah, sure. Absolutely. But I get why she didn’t. I should tell her though.”
The truth is I never actually had it out with my Mother over that whole thing. Conner talked me down off my proverbial ledge, while we were up in the literal sky, and made some of the same points. Tim’s just making them a little more eloquently. Maybe she’s picked up on some of it though, she is my Mother, and for sixteen years of my life we basically just had each other. By choice, not out of necessity.
“Bleck though. Really. It’s a stupid name, isn’t it? Wonder Girl would be a lot more appropriate but that was going to lead to the immediate sidekick connotation and…”
Pausing, I bite the corner of my lip and shoot him a half-sheepish look across the desk.
“…not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just don’t want to be Conner’s. Technically he’s the one that said that, not me. About leading, and the next generation and all of that. I just didn’t disagree.”
But subtle as that distinction might be, it doesn’t matter. Not in any important way. I’d been set up to be someone to look at, to look to. Whatever way that is someone wants to look; for guidance, help, heck maybe blame eventually. When it comes down to it I’m a high schooler, and probably not ready for that kind of responsibility but that doesn’t mean I can’t do it. Sitting up straight again, I lean against the desk more bodily, fingers starting an absent beat on the edge of it.
“But. If someone has to? I think it can be me. I’m not N.O.W.H.E.R.E.. I’m sure they are waiting for any kind of chance to change that, but I’m not into that koolaid and I owe that to Conner. I’m also… very painfully aware of what it feels like to have something you don’t understand thrust on you. I mean, I know you know, but I don’t know if you know how new this all still is to me. I have the scary feeling that I’m only just scratching the surface of what I can do. So.”
The whole thing hadn’t been my idea. Eventually would I have gotten here? Probably, yes. With or without Conner’s help I think I’ve got it in me. I apparently come from an ancient family that’s predisposed to that sort of thing.
“I don’t know that I know how to lead, but I do know that I won’t try to use them for any sort of agenda. And I’m not going to let anyone else either. Maybe that’s why it’s gotta be me.”
Tim : There is so much to what is said that we could probably discuss all night long. Cassie’s entire situation with her mother for one. I’ve never understood the real drama involved there, because up until recently I only knew Cassie had powers. I wasn’t aware of what they were or where they came from. That had come later.
“When we first met, I thought you were a mark. I thought your boyfriend was playing you. It made me mad. Real mad, actually.” A gesture of the hands around the two of them, to encompass the office. “The baffles that I used before. The technology that is keeping him from spying on us right now. All of that was born out of a desire to be able to save you.”
An admission, but one that I take a step further before she has the time to really work out what I’ve actually said. “I did this in a couple years. Bruce had a couple decades. He knew, Cassie. I’m starting to think he really, really knew everything. And I’m starting to think that’s the major reason he’s gone now.”
When she sets forward, so do I. Except that as we’re mutually leaning over the desk from opposite sides? I’m making the effort to truly make eye contact. To demonstrate a level of openness that I’m not known for as Tim, much less as the person I’m dressed up as before her.
“Wrong. Don’t lie to yourself. You have an Agenda. Or more accurately, if you don’t have one now? You will have one soon enough. Be honest. That’s your gift. Tell people the truth. Lead with honesty. Tell them what you stand for. Tell them what you plan to do. Put your Agenda on the table and let the people who believe in it stand with you. You come from the ancient Gods, Cassie. That radiance from their old, ancient, mythological, world is inside of you. Let people see the truth in you and they’ll follow for the right reasons.”
“In the next couple weeks you’re going to start receiving letters from schools you never applied too. It’ll be dossiers on the people I think you can help, first. If you agree, then make contact. If you don’t, that’s your call too. The first dossier is the only one you don’t get to Veto. She needs your help the most.”
At this I’m starting to rise up from her mother’s chair. Taking my full height leaves me a little short of her, but like most times I’m happy to let the shadows of the room obscure that difference for effect.
“One thing though. Well. Actually two things. First, maybe it’s the detective training that makes me a cynic, but have you noticed that your powers started almost to the day when your mother decided it was time for you to have a ‘Normal Life?’ I don’t believe in coincidence, Cass. Either she knew what was coming or.. she decided to finally allow it to happen.”
“Second thing. Wonder Girl sounds like someone who hasn’t quite made up her mind. I’ve been training to read people since I was nine years old. I figured out who the Batman was, by turning my gameboy original in to a mini-supercomputer and feeding it psychological profiles that I did in my spare time. So if I know one thing about you, in the time we’ve known each other? You’ve already made up your mind. You just haven’t figured out how to make up everyone else’s yet. That makes you about as wondrous as it gets.”
“If you need to contact me, without prying eyes or ears of any kind? You know how to contact me.”
Cassie : There’s a lot of what has been said here that, while interesting and something that might be nice to go into more detail on, has not been at all surprising. The big ‘reveal’ of Tim’s alter ego would have startled me before he went back to Gotham, when I only knew him as Conner’s classmate that knew things. That was why he’d been introduced to me in the first place. But when he’d left, something that he’d said had connected some dots that he, himself, had laid out in that conversation. I don’t know if that had been intentional or not and it’s a distinction that doesn’t really matter to me, either. When one of the talked of Bat Family turned up in my Mom’s office in the middle of Metropolis? I guess I knew. Taking off the mask was confirmation, but why else would he have wanted me to keep Conner out of Gotham? Not just Conner but myself, too.
Wanting to have a chat, subsequently, about the press junket? That makes sense, too. It’d be in his interest to know what’s coming. But what he tells me about when we met, and what he’d though? That surprises me. It also brings up the memory of the three of us jammed into Conner’s sports car with me on Tim’s lap the first time I’d laid eyes on him and that makes my face turn a shade of pink and Mom’s office isn’t nearly dark enough to cover it up. The truth? There was a point where Tim wasn’t even that off, though when I met him I think it wasn’t the case anymore. I also don’t think it’s quite the same type of ‘mark’ that he believed it was either.
What do I say to that? Baww, you’re sweet? Insist that he didn’t need to do that and he doesn’t get Conner at all? Clearly he does. So like I usually do, when I can be anyway, I settle for honest and earnest.
“I appreciate that you were willing to go to the trouble for me, Tim. I really do. It says a lot about you, but it’s telling that you can be counted on to go to an entirely different level for a friend if you’d do that just for some girl.”
This time his clarification/correction, makes my eyes roll slowly as I cant my head to the side like it’s tipped with the effort. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Wording semantics, my expression says, I’m just not coming from the mindset or background where I would ever pair the word ‘Agenda’ with what I want to do with the situation in front of me. There’s a different implication.
“I’m a pretty awful liar, so I’ll just work with what the good God.. either a great saying for me, or just the worst… gave me. I’ll keep an eye out for them and stop pitching the mail sight unseen.”
No question of who, what, where, when or why beyond what he’s told me, because if Tim wanted to tell me right now we’re perfectly well situatied for him to do so. Maybe he’s trying to give me time to let it sink in, to really decide if I’m going to do this or not. If I ‘meant it.’ But it was more or less go time from the moment I got out of that dressing room at the convention. I just hadn’t known it yet. His ‘denial’ of a veto for whatever’s coming might stick in someone else’s craw, but in this case it doesn’t mine. He already knows I want to help, and if it’s someone that really needs it? I’m going to be practically unable to help myself.
“My personal thought is mostly option A. They kicked in on my sixteenth birthday. Like. To the day. I don’t know if it’s some magically significant age to that crowd, or some sort of agreement… I haven’t really asked. I probably should. I just wasn’t in a big hurry to get a handle on all of this. I guess I figured I had time.”
But you never can know if you do, can you? My lips purse, and I’m reminded of just how terribly I feel for Tim and what’s happened in his life. Apparently personal and ‘professional.’ He probably believed he had more of that as well, and here we are. I’m pretty sure none of us are really old enough for the situation at hand, and yet here we are. Fortunately he distracts me from the sadness that’s probably starting to show on my face by his talk of supercomputer hand helds and I let out a low whistle, accompanying a raised eyebrow.
“What is it with boys I know and not sleeping? I’m never going to buy you needing me to tutor you or show you anything ever again you realize.”
I’m smart. I’m very smart actually, and while some people like to tease me about it and how I’ll tell you to your face how clever I am? I don’t typically go into exactly how much smarter I am. I’m gifted in pretty much every sense of the word. Don’t need to be a rocket scientist (or a demi-goddess) to pick up on exactly how much of another level Tim’s on. He’s not even being braggy, so if I correlate that to how I talk about my intellect?
“Smoke signal and a thrift store pager? Laser eyebeam cloud writing? ..yeah I don’t have those still so probably not eyebeam anything. Are you going to join me for this cheesecake you wanted before you…”
I pause, mid-reach for the box I’d brought with me as my eyes sweep the room for some of the utensils that are invariably in here for hastily grabbed meals and snacks, and then purse my lips again. This time in thought as I focus on Tim, and with all the effort of coming here when we’re already secure and in privacy and not giving me the dossier now…
“Huh. Well. That’s crafty and a hair Machiavellian. Next time I see you in person, then.”
by Michele | May 7, 2017 | Chronicles
Steph : There’s always some little, teeny tiny part of me that wants to believe I’m wrong. That inner four year old that thinks their parental unit can do no wrong and worships the ground they walk on.. Not five though. Before kindergarten I was pretty sure my Dad was a Grade A Douche Rocket, I just didn’t completely understand why. I just knew we’d been ditched. Again. And again.
That’s the problem with addicts though, yeah? Even when they get clean, unless you’re an idiot you kind of get the feeling it might happen again at any time. You get suspicious. You start peeping on their private business in case it’s time to stage an intervention. This time, that intervention was me. This intervention also comes with a heavy dose of danger and adrenaline. I hear some people say addiction is a genetic thing…
I might have been wrong that first time. It was possible that maybe that bank robbery that I interrupted (that Red Arrow interrupted me interrupting) wasn’t on my Dad. He wasn’t there. None of those goons were his usual goons, but he’s a little too smart for that. I know what he’s doing, I just don’t entirely understand why. That first night, there’d been one group. Tonight, it’s two.
“Try to guess where the ball is…”
Muttering, I hunker down on the edge of the roof, watching the progress of the pair of dumdums cutting the heavy padlock and chain to the warehouse across the street. It seems empty, which could be an act but it looks way too unused to be easily faked. Maybe I’ve picked the wrong cup.
Either way, it’s more ‘pawns’ off the board. Hopefully. I even remembered to bring a grappling hook this time.
Tim: You pretty much learn immediately that there is a right way and a wrong way to do this vigilante thing. There’s the wrong way that has some schmuck going to the closest sporting goods store and putting on some second hand pads, carrying a hockey stick, in their zeal to fight the good fight. Then there’s the right way, which involves years of training and preparation. Not to mention Money. Lots and loads of money. Which are invested in to inventory that doesn’t come from Dick’s Sporting Supply.
Me? Well, I’m the show up two hours early for class type, just to read ahead. The stay after class to ask questions type. In short? Preparation is really the name of the game in my world. You might say my whole life was about preparing. Learning from the best, to become the best. Taking each lesson in order to apply it to whatever I was seeking to accomplish. Add that to a natural knack for all things computer and some people might think I prepped for a night out on the town like I was some geek prepping for a Warcraft Raid. Building up my supplies, in order to not go in to the field empty handed.
I always hated that guy who showed up without pots.
“I’m not sure where the ball is,” noting from above, but not far behind her in the shadows, concealed by the black cape that drapes over slim shoulders. “But if that’s a metaphor meaning you’re looking for something? I’m pretty sure you’re not going to find it in that Warehouse.”
“Too clean. Those guys are operating in plain sight. If there was anything worth stealing down there, the security would be much tougher to hack in to.”
Steph: I’d like to say there’s something stoic, smooth and put together that comes out of my mouth when it becomes abruptly apparent that I’m not alone up here in the dark and the wind, or that I manage some nonchalant look over my shoulder like, what up. I knew you were there. I just wasn’t acknowledging you. What comes out is some hybrid of a hiccup and a swear word, as I spin around on the balls of my feet, yanking a baton from my belt.
“Ho’Sheeeii…”
No, it didn’t come from Dick’s Sporting Goods. It came from eBay, thankyouverymuch. Great, Steph. While a face mask and hood should imply some level of mystery, I don’t think it’s nearly enough to overcome that moment right there. What was it Arrow had said about tripping over other vigilantes? I appear to be two for two, and since this one isn’t attacking me, blue eyes narrow over the top of the lower face mask in a bit of an accusatory look, before I turn back to watching them finish destroying what little barrier was provided on that gate.
“Not really a metaphor.”
But that ball must be under a different cup in this particular shell game. And my not getting what they might be after here isn’t because I’m slow on the uptake, but because there’s maybe just nothing here.
“Is there even any? The place looks empty. Why are they bothering…”
I’m not even really asking him. Or talking to him so much as muttering to myself, grumpy because there doesn’t even seem to be much worth interfering in. Other than out of a general sense of spite. And I’m not one to underestimate a good dose of spite.
“Maybe they forgot their keys. Wait. Hack into? Like. Speaking generally or did you already…?”
That time was directed at him. Subtle differences. There’s definitely no blaring of alarms as they roll the gate open, and the engine of the van they’d arrived in stops idling around the corner and makes its slow way over, and then through. Maybe it is just a warehouse. Maybe it’s even their warehouse but that wasn’t the impression I had gotten. They’re not supposed to be here.
Tim : “Yep. Already. Doesn’t look like there is anything there to actually steal. Which leaves me to wonder why those guys are trying. They’re either really bad crooks or…”
Or they happen to be better than they appear. Whether that means they’re more skilled or just well schooled. “If there’s something in there to steal, then it’s not on the Warehouse manifesto. Which means it’s off the books. That leads to a whole slew of questions. Like how they knew it was there, if no one knew. Inside job, maybe. It’s a bit of a mystery, I like those.”
“But, I suppose that leaves us with a choice. Do we wait to see if they’re just terrible at this or do we go down there an stop them?” There comes just enough of a pause, that it might seem this was a question for her to answer, before I’m moving right through and leaving it rhetorical. “It would be a shame though. To get all dressed up like this and then stand up here watching the whole dance like a wallflower. We did go to all the effort to get these suits. Seems like a shame not to use them?”
“You do know how to use that thing right?” By now I’ve stepped out of the shadows of the roof-access doorway and she can see a little more about who she’s talking too -and- see that I’m pointing to the grappling hook, more so than the baton she’s holding. “I can carry you down, but it’s going to look awfully awkward if we show up together. We really should try to keep up the appearance of not knowing one another. Just for sake of appearances.”
“Small town. Word gets around. We don’t want to start all the talk.”
Steph: “Or they’re not stealing anything.”
Which goes one of two ways, I guess. Either it really is a shell game, and they’re a distraction, or they’re bringing something here. Or maybe just gaining access to do that later? Except I would have said this was way too ‘small fry’ to attract any sort of attention from the caped crusader sort of crowd. Except y’know. Me. Judging by what steps out of the shadows, either ‘bigger fry’ happened to be in the neighborhood or the game’s working.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, these are my pajamas.”
I don’t dignify the question about my grappling hook with an answer, though what can be seen of my expression is telling enough I suppose. What with the ‘are you kidding, yes of course I know how to use this thing’ narrowing of blue eyes and all. Even if it’s new to the rotation of gear I’d packed for the night. Some recreational rock climbing, combined with gym class means that yes, I can in fact rappel down and scramble up ropes.
“Yeah, no. They’d probably get all kinds of wrong impressions. We don’t want that. Or you dropping me on my head on the way down.”
Shoving the baton back where it had been tucked in the first place, out comes the hook which I may or may not have practiced with a few times (okay just once) before I came out here tonight. But really. There’s plenty of easy enough anchor spots that I’m not worried about dropping myself on my own head. The descent just might be a little faster than really wise/necessary when I swing off that edge, and down the face of the building.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Inside head voice, Steph. No matter how tempting that rush of air makes it to turn it into outside head voice. I don’t wait. It was his idea. One I maybe probably shouldn’t have gone along with, since I was just originally planning to watch. Maybe do some light vehicular sabotage, and mostly just try to not get caught. Once I hit the bottom, it’s with a bit more noise than I really intended, but either it sounded much louder to my ears than it was and no one heard me across the street and inside the warehouse where the lot of them has disappeared, or they’re just not on the lookout for the likes of me.
Us.
Tim : If there had been any doubt over whether or not she could use the grapple hook? It wasn’t erased when she sets about using it. Not one bit. Part of me is sure that she’s going to go splat. The other part of me is preparing to swoop in before that happens. In the end I’m left somewhat marveling over the fact that she even survives, that I’m not overly displeased with how she’s managed to alert everyone in a two block radius of her arrival.
Or rather, she would have. If they were listening for the sounds of a small animal dropping from abnormal height. It would seem that they’re not. Another clue to the fact that these guys aren’t at all what they seem to be.
My entrance is a bit different. No grapple hook to the ground. Instead it’s a zip-line fired across from the perch we had been upon, to the building we’d been observing. On the way across, I’m pulling up the building schematics. Looking for points in the blue prints that might service a variety of things. Exits, of course. But also those sort of places you might want to hide something that wasn’t on the normal ledgers.
By the time I’m making a much softer landing on the adjacent building? I’m prepared just a bit more for what is going to go on in just a few moments. Sadly, where my erstwhile comrade’s inner voice is ‘wheeee.’ Mine happens to be questioning the fact that I just used her as bait.
I’ll have to worry about my moral compass later. After I finish opening the warehouse skylight to allow for roof access deployment. Strike from above. One of the first lessons that I ever got from Bruce. He told me it scares the hell out of even the most insane, to be attacked from the last place you expect. By a kid wearing a ninja suit and carrying a staff, no less.
Steph: I landed much harder the other night. Of course, then I was landing on someone (on purpose!), and from a much lower height. Air duct vs Roof top, I just slow my descent a bit…slowly and a little bit late, so there’s more momentum than there probably ought to be when I meet the pavement with my feet. My pause is not only waiting to make sure no one heard that and came looking, but watching the jerk launch himself across the street from the get go.
For two seconds I seriously consider using that outloud voice to say what I’m thinking. Oh, c’mon. A zipline? Really? You didn’t say you said a zipline!. Where do you even get one of those? Looks a hell of a lot more effective for entry, and getting around and just general fun. Two outings in a row I’m being shown up by stupid boys horning in on my action (so maybe Red Arrow got there before I did, but still) with clearly better gear than me.
I’d be offended, but I’m not exactly in this for the same thing I assume they are, and who am I kidding I’m still a little offended. This is my offended sprint across the street and through the little gap left in the gate after they’d closed it behind the van. There’s no one out here, and no sign of anyone as far as I can see. No alarms, speaking to the lack of security he’d mentioned. I get a lot less ballsy with my approach once I’m through the gate though.
Inside, the place is about as abandoned looking as it was outside. Disuse, misuse, and lack of general use at all showing in the dust. It makes the tracks of the van and the people inside of it fairly obvious as well. The loading docks on the other side, the general use entrance that I’m trying to make my way silently in through. An upper area that probably served as an office/supervisory area.
And crates. Uniform size, and shape, and looking far newer than the building and its’ use as a whole. Matching the ones in the back of the van that are being offloaded by the pair that had ‘broken in’ in the first place. The driver, having left his post in the vehicle, giving a shove to another box on the end of a row like he’s testing the weight and if he can shift it solo.
“This one, and the one on the end over there. Swap ’em and lets go.”
Tim : First order of business? Tracers. On the boxes that are pointed out. Easy enough. Shot from above, placed on the top of crates. A place where few people would even take notice of unless they were looking. Especially crates that seem to give the men trouble lifting solo. Men do not like to be shown up, even if there’s not a potential mate nearby to witness. So they certainly do not take the time to inspect the lids of such things.
Then it’s time to make a second entrance. Now as I’m descending from the roof, I could put one of the toys on the vehicle. That might seem like the smart play. As it could shut down the engine. Stop someone from making a getaway. But. That would also remove any chance these guys have of making off with the crates they’re targeting and taking one of the tracers with them.
So. Instead of disabling the vehicle? I go for the man in the lead. The one directing traffic. Dropping from the roof. Once more a tether line to the rafters keeping my fall controlled. Giving me enough force to bring the bo-staff to bear upon the leaders skull, but not enough to break my ankles on the landing. Which I’ve just stuck with Olympic precision.
Batman would have something to say right about now. Something threatening, scary. Me? Quite frankly, I don’t have that going for me. Most people don’t turn tale and run from me. Especially not hardened criminals. What I’ve got is the element of surprise and about one hundred and sixty more I.Q. points.
“You know who I am. You know who I work with. Surrender and you won’t have to eat tomorrow’s breakfast through a tube.”
Steph: Slipping inside? Easy enough I guess. They left the bay door wide open. That seems strange. Admittedly I’m kind of new to this version of up close and personal with criminals. I’ve dealt with another version of it basically my whole life, mostly focused around one particular criminal. This still is. Centered around that one, that is, I’m just not sure yet how it ties back. The entrance wasn’t really line of sight from the road so maybe they felt secure?
The other maybe is that I got this all wrong and that they’re not stealing, and they actually belong here and what…forgot their key? Maybe they just figured this would be a quick in and out. Inside the warehouse is dim, light from the overcast moon and not much else outside of headlights that are illuminating the crates they’d come for. It means they’re not paying any attention to me when I sneak in through the doors.
…or it’s because there’s a ninja dropping down from the roof and landing with a whud that makes less noise than the crack of Bossy’s skull, and his subsequent dropping to the ground like a sack of potatoes. God. I feel like I should applaud right now, maybe hold up a sign with the American judges score, with a tenth of a point deduction because he’s not perfectly centered in the spotlight of the van’s lamps. It’s like he planned the whole thing.
As for the two still conscious thugs, jury’s out if they’re shocked, impressed, or also contemplating scoring numbers from Russia and Italy (if we’re being judgey about their complexion/build/nationality anyway). The crate’s released with a thud by one of them, and a ‘watch it fuckwad’ from the one who was trying to set it down carefully. Clearly they don’t really know what they want to do either, and their final ideas are as mismatched as their builds. The crate dropper turns tail to run. The more cautious of the two throws that care to the window and charges Red Robin with a bellow. Probably more impressive if he’d had time to work up some speed.
The Russian representative from the Warehouse Entrance Committee seems pretty hell bent on just getting the hell out of Dodge, and not doing much looking except over his shoulder, and in front of where he’s going. Which leaves me lined up to do a little of my own charging. Well. Lunging. Going from a three point stance, to launching my smaller body into a passing set of knees. Sure, he’s bigger but if you’re not expecting someone to crash into you there’s kind of one inevitable response.
I hope.
“What, no ‘this is a terrible misunderstanding, bro?’ I mean, you could at least try. He’s not that scary if you’re innocent… thoughthestrawthingwasalittleintenseo of…”
My merry bit of conversation and admonition, as I’m righting myself after the tackle is interrupted with a knee coming up and shoving a bit of the wind out of me. Mostly because it caught me off guard than out of any real lasting injury, and I double over for a moment before coming back upright with baton in hand.
“Rude. Seriously.”
Tim : In reality this all boils down to planning and skill. With a bit of excess in the planning stage. Hacking in to the computer system of the Warehouse, if only to find what wasn’t on the manifesto and to find that there was very little in the way of security to bypass. Then a tap of the mask to switch through several fields of vision, so make a count on the men inside. A little night vision to make certain of what it was they were after, specific crates. Tagging them to insure we’d find them even if they escaped. Back to thermal, in order to account for radiation and positioning, before dropping in to the room with purpose.
First the leader. The threat, infighting terror. People fear Batman to such an extent that most don’t know or believe him to be gone. Even though he has been M.I.A. for a bit. At any moment it could be his return, it’s happened before. That splits the difference. Planning, once more, positions my back to the Van’s lights and leaves the brave one charging in to them.
So. When I sidestep like Caytona Ordonez the swish of cape allows only a moment of darkness before the van’s lights spray the man in the face. The butt of the bo-staff is then quick to catch him in the chin, to rear him upwards. So that the heel of a boot can catch him in the back of the head. Putting both his own momentum and the swing of a back-kick in to driving him face first in to his own van.
In turn, it leaves me once more facing away from the van’s lights and taking a visual scan of the young woman’s efforts. “I’d get a sippy cup delivered to your hospital room, but I did warn you.”
I’m far too far away to directly assist, Stephanie. But I’m perfectly distanced away that I can fire the grappling hook in to his back, for a yank. She needs an opening and it’s really the best I can do from this far away.
“Knee. Then Ribs. You need one of them able to talk.”
Steph : It’s all very impressive, and smooth I might add. Or would if I was watching anymore. Stepping out of the way at just the right moment to let environment and positioning be taken full advantage of. Red Robin over there is occupying the opposite side of the fighting spectrum than I am. He’s acting and forcing reactions, which leads them into an impromptu ‘trap.’ While I’m not really on the defensive, but still reacting to the actions of someone else. Namely tall, pockmarked and mule kicky here. At least I think they’re pockmarks. Either that or he’s gotten a whole lot of shmutz on his face.
Jeeze-o-Pete. I was trying to avoid fighting but this Robin guy is clearly a really bad influence. Fighting leads to bruises I have to lie to my Mother to explain, and while I’m a pretty great liar (thanks Dad) I don’t like doing it to her. I guess if I was really all that worried about what I was going to ‘do to her’ I would have taken up a new hobby, though. Not the point. Taking the baton in both hands lets me use it to ward off another kick that seems to have been attempting to knock it away from me.
Luck, more than skill but whatevs. I’ll take it. Puts me in position to yank the telescoping end out and then… I really don’t want to hit him in the knee because he just told me to like some sort of fight coach/shot caller, but it’s right there. The crack makes me let out an almost sympathetic noise to the howl of pain, which gets cut off about as quickly as my banter did when the next swing connects across what’s now a really easy target.
Followed by another knee for good measure. And because I want to feel like I did something under my own initiative here. Kicking over the writhing goober probably doesn’t really make him more capable of ‘sharing time’ but…it feels kind of good.
“I had it. Thanks. Hey, bro. Sounds like he’s got questions for you, maybe sippy cup’s still on the table for you.”
Fuck you, bitch
“Ouch, really? That’s what you’ve got? Unless the question is ‘what is the most expected and least emotionally damaging thing you could say to me,’ I don’t think you’re getting the two hundred… Jeopardy? …okay never mind…”
Tim: Zzzzzzzack!
That’s the sound that emits from the grapple hook’s tether, miliseconds after Stephanie’s jerk spends a few moments being juiced with the taser element. I’m not sure, really, if he actually heard anything that she said to him. But that’s more or less immaterial. The point of this exercise was to let him know that he was going to be jolted, perhaps repeatedly, until he actually shares the information that we’re after. However, I’ve yet to ask a question.
On the flip side? I’m also showing Stephanie that she was actually in no real danger just then. Quite the opposite. I could have tasers the jerk if she couldn’t have handled him once the hook got it’s grip on him. So then that makes the rest of what happened a test of her skill or maybe her ability to follow directions. Probably both. I’ve spent way too much time with Batman. Actually. I have literally spent way too much time around Bruce, I’m doing exactly what he’d do. Except I’m a little ashamed that I’m immediately recognizing that he did it for good reasons.
A couple moments later, I’ve secured the other two readily enough to be sure there will be no recovery. Then I’m making my way in her direction. Juicing the man up every time he says anything that sounds remotely like it’s anything but the information Stephanie was looking for. Even though I haven’t a clue what it is she’s looking for. And I’m getting pretty sure that she doesn’t know either.
By the time I’m standing near again the cape has once more settled around my shoulders. Draping me in the black veil that conceals everything beneath. It doesn’t stop people from recognizing that I’m ‘a stupid kid,’ but it does leave most of them wondering what’s going on beneath the cape.
“I’ve alerted G.C.P.D.. So they’re on their way. So if you have any useful questions for this one, you better ask quickly. Otherwise, if you can keep up, I’ll tell you what’s in those crates over a root-beer float. My suit should be done scanning their contents by the time you’re done asking questions.”
Steph: Boy. I don’t really know if I want to feel irritated or victorious right now. I mean, yeah I clobbered the hell out of the guy, but it becomes pretty clear pretty immediately that Red Robin let me. Which. Is fine. I guess? Except when it comes with the realization that he probably also would have stopped any of the fighting at all if he thought he should or needed to. So I just settle for hands on hips, hooded head cocked to one side as I watch our poor new ‘friend’ writhe from the taser.
And decide yup, it’s fact. Everyone has better gear and cooler gadgets than me. But this one gets to shop at Bats’r’Us, so I guess I shouldn’t really try and compare.
“What’s in the crates, sparky?”
We could probably open them ourselves and look if we really wanted to, and I kind of do but that can wait a minute. Interrogation, huh? Well, this is new to me but I suppose it’s like playing a really aggro game of twenty questions. Since what I get is mostly swear words, and return questions. Not tellin’ you shit. Why are you taking them? Don’t know. Where are you taking them? Don’t know. The answers, after repeated jolting, are getting increasingly frantic and emphatic though. Alternating panting, howling, and swearing that they were just swapping the boxes, and he was just there to do the heavy lifting.
“I don’t think he knows anything. Plus I’m starting to imagine this smell of toasty wet Russian in the air and I mean… I can’t smell it but it’s probably really unappealing…”
P.S. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I just knew there was something going on, and assumed I could wing it from there. Eyeballing Robin sideways around the edge of my hood is partly cape appreciation, maybe a bit of jaw profile, and lingering resentment about being bosses around by someone horning in on my night. Without being asked. If I had to guess I wouldn’t pin him as a whole lot older than me, if older than at all. No grizzly, well worn look to him or the gear. Letting out a soft huff of air through my nose, I walk briskly while he’s talking to the crates they were going to make off with.
Curling my fingers into what looks like the place the lid should pry up, I give it a test before I start looking for something resembling a crowbar. The lid doesn’t come up, which was to be expected. The fact that the whole thing shifts startles me into dropping my hands. Just for a second anyway, before I’m rocking it back and forth again.
“…I don’t think there’s anything in here… were these dummies really stealing empty boxes?…”
Mostly rhetorical with a side of my thinking out loud and forgetting about the inner voice/monologue options available to me. But there’s no noise, no feel of anything shifting inside.
“I don’t even get to call the cops? I suppose you’ve got a button for that, too. Wait. If I can keep up? You have a freaking zipline. How am I supposed to keep up? And seriously. What is it with you guys and wanting to go out for snacks after the asskicking? Is that like. A thing that no one told me about?”
Clearly I’d ignored the suit scanning bit, in favor of doing some of my own checking. Because I’m really starting to feel superfluous here. But the two they’d indicated taking are well and truly what I’d guessed: empty. Without even packing material to indicate what was in them previously, if there was ever anything at all. The ones that they’d brought with them are another story. Those are well padded and secured to prevent the shifting of bottle after bottle of Metopryl.
Tim : “You didn’t ask the right questions.”
It’s a soft correction, but a correction none the less. One that is offered in the midst of a round of tasering the guy. “You want to know what’s in the crates, but we already have access to them. Along with the truck. What you want to know is where he was delivering them. Who is paying him. Who contacted him for the job in the first place. We have pieces of a puzzle in front of us. If you want to put them together, you need to have the context.”
In spite of that coaching, I’m not really asking the questions myself. There’s a rather arched brow that is afixed to her the entire time she gets side-tracked with the boxes. Then there’s a soft, slow, shake of the head that does manage to wait until she’s not looking. Rookies. Ugh.
“I also have a motorcycle parked around the corner. So you’re not supposed to keep up. It was a test. All of this was a test. To see if you’re ready to be out here. I wanted to know if you’re one of those starry eyed girls who is trying to do this to meet their heroes. Cape Groupies are the worst, aren’t they Tracksuit?” He’d answer if he wasn’t being tasered again. “I’ve decided you’re not. By the way.”
“A cape groupie. Or. Ready to be out here. So you either need to get ready or you’ve got to go. Which is going to depend on how you answer the next question.”
“Why are you here?”
The intonation is made perfectly to emphasize specifically what I’m after. Why is -she- out -here-? What is she doing? Why is she doing it? Is there a real reason or is she just some adrenaline junkie. More importantly, is the shift in stance. Because it says very clearly that the wrong answer is going to mean she’s left here for the G.C.P.D. to be picked up too.
Steph: I mean, I’d like to tell the guy he’s wrong, or dumb, or I don’t know. Have some sort of rebuttal to anything that he’s saying. The problem is that he’s not really wrong. Those would all have been good questions to ask, and great answers to get. If the thoroughly zapped goober on the warehouse floor had them anyway. And while Robin’s not asking the questions, aforementioned goober is trying to provide them anyway. Or at least to provide the right combination of words to convince us that he just doesn’t know. Shifting the blame/responsibility to the one that paid him, who was apparently paid by someone else to make the swap. He’d been under the impression it was not quite legal. Just not with any idea that what they were taking was just a big empty set of boxes.
“…ugh. Wait. You mean like….you? Batman? Yeah, no. Do people really do that?”
There’s got to be way easier ways to do that. Like. I don’t know. Committing a minor, misguided crime or putting yourself in harm’s way in the hope of a rescue from someone tall, dark and brooding. Or in this case, not as tall, broody and kind of cutely insufferable. Or just insufferable. The latter part needs to the muttering under my breath as I collapse my baton again and make my way back over.
“…yeesh, vigilantehallmonitorwhoknew…Ahem. Seems like we need your landing mat conscious to get a lot of those answers. Seriously, who steals empty boxes and if you’re going to drop something off to hide it, how do you know about the empty boxes to swap? Did your fancy computer, whereeveryou’vegotthatshoved, tell you who owns the warehouse?”
I think I probably should process some of what he’s actually said to me, rather than just word vomiting my thoughts on what’s going down here around us which. Hey. He probably knows because apparently this was just a test. It can’t be though. Just a test. Maybe his following me here was, but this was setup by someone else. And this is my business just as much as it is anyone else’s.
“Go…where? Like. Vegas? Home? I’m here because something fishy is going on and I’m going to ruin it…are you trying to menace me? We’re kind of on the roughly same side here.”
I hesitate for a second in putting the baton back into my belt. I might be a little…uh… new at all this but I’m not stupid. He’s got a taser and fancy gear and seems pretty clearly more capable at kicking my ass than I would be his. I mean. Not in a head on fight for sure.
“The other night was a bank break in where they seemed to think they were going to get something really great. There’s these punks, and their dumb empty box swap. Who I picked to pester tonight, because it seemed more legit than the boat I heard about at the docks. It’s like they’re fishing.”
There’s a pause and a roll of my eyes, as I realize that maybe it sounds like I meant something other than I really did just then.
“Not the guys on the boat. I mean. Maybe they are, I’m here, not there. There’s your metaphor.”
Tim : “No. Not why are you here in this moment.”
Taking a step away from the Russian, towards Stephanie. Menace has nothing on the way I’m going all Gandalf at the moment. Making my size appear to grow as I ‘menace’ closer to her with each footfall. Of course this is nothing more than a trick of mind, the shadows cast by the van’s lights feeding in to it. This is a trick that I’ve seen a thousand times. Sort of like a Batman Mind Trick. It lacks only in the hand waving, but makes up for it in the simplicity of the fact that she’s genuinely aware I can throttle her.
“Why are you here? Normal people have no business here. Wearing the pajamas out to the scene of a crime. Two crimes apparently. Are you an adrenaline junkie just out spoiling for a fight? Because you’re green. You almost died jumping off that roof. Your gear barely took that shot to the ribs. You’re exuberant, sure, but you’re not trained. So that means is you’re eventually going to get yourself killed.”
“Or. Worse. You’re going to get someone else killed.”
“That is why I want to know what you’re doing out here. Because if you’re just out here for the thrills then if I don’t put a stop to it? Whoever you get killed is on me.” This time when I stop? It’s to let her see my hand sliding out of my cape, so that she can see what’s in my hand. “Gas pellets. Neuro-toxin. I’ll give you the antidote if your answer is a good one. Otherwise you stay here, for the G.C.P.D. to pick up.”
Steph: Who died and made him the King of telling people who they’re allowed to snoop on and what they get to do with their nights? Especially when coming down here and fighting was actually his idea. I was just going to watch and tail from the rooftops originally, or creep in after they were gone and see the aftermath. But I wasn’t originally going to get so hands on at the bank either. Someone else just walked into my ‘trap.’ Even standing here right now though, really can’t deny that whole adrenaline thing. It’s just a side bonus for getting in the way of whatever big plan this is that’s trying to unfold. I’d just be better at obstructing it if I really knew what was happening.
I’ve already stood next to this kid, unless he’s got hydraulic lifts in his boots (not discounting the possibility, it seems to have basically everything in it) I know he’s not really getting taller than he was then. It still looks like it though, and it’s hard not to react to that. Psychological responses, probably some fight and flight, who knows. I force my face into something a whole lot more stoic than what I feel like, and it probably isn’t totally convincing but hey. Scowling is better than shrinking away like I’m about to turn tail and run.
Which might not be the worst plan but hey. I already watched the Taserface Show, I don’t want to be next in line.
“…seriously? You do realize how creepy that sounds or does your suit not have a Jimminy Cricket in the souped up package?”
Starting to sound a little frantic there, Steph and he hasn’t even buzzed you yet. I’d be so dead. Like. Beyond dead. Grounded, ground up and dead. Assuming at least that I make it to GCPD and then get turned over to one of the parental units. Well. To Mom. There’s not really any reason it’d be Dad. Not unless some judge was smoking something really potent. So what have I got to tell him to pass his stupid little test?
“It’s personal, okay? Which is why this…”
Making a wide gesture to take in the warehouse, the goonies, the van and crates. All of it.
“…is something I have to do.”
Tim : What happens then and there is the equivalent of ‘Parental Figure folding his arms in awaiting of more.’ Only I am not folding my arms, but equally making no effort to do anything else either. The longer we wait the closer the G.C.P.D. is to making their arrival. Which leads to a ticking clock that is not even of my doing, but it’s good enough.
“I’ve seen Batman break someone’s knee(s), plural, to send them home and save their life. Not to mention the lives of others who they might have gotten killed. A little neurotoxin is actually a step up in the Humane department, really.”
“Personal. Hm.” There’s just enough worry in her voice to tell me that she’s at least speaking the truth about that. She used the right key words too. ‘Have to do,’ instead of want to do. “Alright. if this is something you have to do then you need to learn how to do it right.”
“The first lesson is free,” pointing with the free hand at the pills in the other, which I’m summarily tossing to her. “Those are gummy poppers. You didn’t even look. I could have demanded anything. You’re not very good yet, so you need to make up for that by taking stock of everything. Make a plan. Even if it’s just a small one. Make people play your game.”
Turning just slightly enough to fire the grappling hooks’ auxiliary cable up at the roof we only just recently vacated. “Second Lesson. Always have an escape plan. Need a lift or do you want the cop-cams to see you scrabbling up the side of the building?”
Steph : “You guys have a real knee thing going on, don’tcha? I mean. Won’t deny it’s effective…”
Given how I just kneecapped the Russian myself. Twice. Painful, and makes it hard to do anything important very easily. Like running, for example, or fighting back effectively unless you have a gun. Not that I’d really know about the latter, outside of knowing how to fire one properly. Again. SuperthanksDad. Clearly I learned all my useful/worst skills from the man.
But at the very least, out of all of this, he at least seems to believe me enough that I’m still conscious and not in a heap waiting for the police to roll up and apprehend the assorted crew of ne’er-do-wells in the warehouse. The shoulder slumping sigh I let out is just as much relieved as it is exasperated at Red Robin. Especially with the revelation of what the ‘pills’ actually are. Really. I mean. Really. All I have to say to my credit is that I manage to snag them out of the air.
And then resist the kind of childish urge to chuck them at his head.
“How do I know you guys don’t manufacture your knockout drugs in gummy form? Maybe Batman’s the Willy Wonka of crime fighting.”
Here’s the thing. Even when you know you’re not very good at something? It still pretty much sucks to have someone tell it to your face no less. Talk about smug superiority over there. Fortunately I’m not stupid enough to discount what he’s saying because of the delivery. I can still be grouchy about it, and just a hair on the ungrateful side though. Lips pursed, thankfully hidden underneath my mask, I spend a moment considering my chances with option two.
“…Ineedalift. Please.”
by Michele | Apr 16, 2017 | Chronicles
Conner : It isn’t easy being a super powered person in this world. It all started in the good ol’ forties, when the War was winding down and people were just starting to think about what would be the next step in the arms race. Nuclear power was in it’s infancy, but it had already been accomplished and America won. Just ask Japan. What or should I say ‘Who’ was next?
The Justice Society had gone in to the Great War as unknowns, but came out of it heroes. The spotlight was on them, yet as soon as the ticker tape parades ended they were under a very different microscope. Eventually their fame faded and they were forced in to the shadows out of a sense of self-preservation. Nuclear Weapons gave a country power, but only so much as mutual annihilation would allow. There had to be a next step and that proved to be right in front of the politicians faces.
At first it began as nothing more than observation. The Senate created a policy allowing for the monitoring of meta-humans for the purpose of collecting data in order to properly plan for the contingency of ‘What if?’ What if the next Atom was a bad guy? So began the ball rolling. As time passed, the politicians were able to slowly put focus not upon the many good deeds, but draw out the drama of the few bad. Giving life to the one thing that drives Humanity most: Fear.
Enter the Superman. Loved as a Champion. Favored as a deity. His story was the tipping point. As with any great Hero, you must have a villain. Superman had many. Each one nastier, trickier and more deadly than the last. With each Victory, Superman created the momentum that would power his greatest adversary to victory. My Father. Alexander Luthor. Better known as President of the United States of America. For Life.
Each battle Superman fought, and won, still came with casualties. Luthor highlighted each of them. He became the Voice of the Voiceless. Framing himself as a Hero in his own right, he battled for control over Metas as if they were any gun. Still Superman persevered. The adulation of many kept him above reproach. Until one day he simply …left.
No one knows why. Although the story that the Daily Planet told is that he chose to leave before he was forced to pick between being Superman and being a weapon for the government. Any government. They sold the story that he would return one day. When the time was right and the world was ready to accept rise above the pettiness of politicians seeking power. If the story is true? Then little did Superman know that he had played right in to the hands of his greatest enemy.
Free of Superman’s vigilance, Luthor was able to effect change. Preying upon the fear of what might happen without Superman to protect them? He empowered an Agency meant only to watch, to observe and catalog to act as a tool with which to build an army of super powered soldiers. Furthermore he did not need the Superman to bend his knee to the authority of the United States. Not when he had his very own Superman growing in a vat beneath Capitol Hill.
“Come on. Keep up. And stop pouting. This,” pointing toward Cassandra Sandsmark, but not at her so much as the outfit that she is wearing, “Was your idea. Oh don’t even try it. All that talk about the good I could do with my powers. You know damned well that I am not ever gonna do that without the proper motivation.”
“Blah blah blah, with great power comes even greater responsiblaaaaaaaaaagh…… your ass in spandex motivates me. Not some loser quote out of a poorly written comic book. Besides. What else were you going to do tonight? Sit on the couch and beg your mom to let you skip your Senior Year, to go on the big dig in Khandaq again for the six thousandth time?”
Cassie : I missed a lot of the hubbub about Superman. As much as you can really miss something like that, I mean. He was global news. But there’s a degree of frenzy that comes when you’re dealing with a Hometown Hero, when you actually have the possibility of seeing the Man of Steel during your daily commute, or maybe being part of the fallout of something yourself. He was gone by the time that Mom and I settled here in Metropolis, in hindsight I can’t help but wonder if maybe that was part of the reason she chose it. The timing and the location. Or maybe it was just removing a last hesitation she might have had, because the rest is too easy to explain. The Museum she is posted with is prestigious, the amount of ancient material there pretty astonishing. I only had two years left of ‘high school age’ so that too was kind of a now or never situation if she really had wanted to continue the grand scheme to force me through the high school experience.
It’s not that bad. Really. High school. I doubt St. Mary’s is really a true experience for American High School, more like greatly amplified stakes and bitchery. If one thing’s true here that I’m sure is also true in public school though, it’s the fact that if you run the place? It’s a lot easier on your sanity. It’s not exactly what I’d wanted, I had wanted to just get it over with, with minimum participation from me. But here we are. Not literally though.
Where we are right now is something entirely different. With nothing to do with why I’d originally just wanted to blend in. Now it’s just that much more important. There’s absolutely no fitting in right now, with anyone except the boy I’m with. Normal people don’t wear spandex. Not unless they’re at the gym or making questionable wardrobe choices. And I’m fairly sure this goes beyond spandex. Plucking absently at the fabric on my hip is kind of an exercise in futility, it’s almost too tight to even pull at.
He’s right. I am pouting. Just a little. It happens anytime I get cornered into doing something I don’t really want to. And this time it really is my fault. I manage Conner. It’s like, a full time job. And sometimes all that expert managing means that I have to do something absolutely ridiculous like let him dress me up like a superhero, even though I spend 99% of my time making it look like I’m just what I should be. A normal, if smart and talented, teenager.
“I was not. I wouldn’t even have to skip it, I could pass all of the tests right now. People test out and graduate all the time. Some much younger than me, I mean. I’m practically underachieving for what I’m capable of.”
Giving up on messing with the red material, I let out a huff of air and plant my fists on my hips.
“And with the time difference, if the school thing is really her reason I can’t go, I could totally do both. It takes me almost as much time to get to school in the morning as it would to fly back and forth.”
For once, this round of ire isn’t really directed at Conner. He just happens to be here to hear it. I’m just grouchy, and it isn’t fair.
“Whatever. Lets just…do this…but. Really. This thing couldn’t have been cut higher?”
I don’t even try to tug the top of the ‘uniform’ up higher. I’ve tried a million times. It’s secure and not going to budge. Which is…good and bad for my self-esteem and sense of modesty.
Conner : “You know as well as I do that you’re not there to get an education from the professors,” because if there’s one thing anyone knows, if you’ve ever spoken to Cassie for more than a heartbeat, is that she’s smart and you don’t even have to ask her for her to tell you. “You’re there for the experience. Which, I might add, is why your Mother happens to love me.”
“I make you experience everything.”
There’s no blush. Why would I blush about stating the absolute truth. So what if there’s part of the experience(s) that should be mortifying. It isn’t to me. I’m pretty much oblivious to the social nicety of being abashed. It’s not my forte. But that gives Cassie something to do. She worries, a little too much, about what people think. Or how other people feel. In a way, it makes up for my sociopathic lack of the very same sense of ‘give a damn.’ Cassie cares about people, I care about Cassie.
The real problem for the two of us? Is that I’m not a sociopath. They lack the ability to care for social norms. In many cases they lack the ability to care for others. That’s not the case with me. I can feel all the emotions anyone else can. I just grew up in a holographic representation of this world. Where the programmers coded in things just to test my reactions. So much, so often, that once I was empowered with my abilities enough to recognize the world beyond the holograms? All I actually learned was how to numb myself to the world around me. I suppose that makes me something of a highly functional sociopath, with psychopathic tendencies, but.. whatever. That’s not what I am Today!
Today, I’m Superman. And what better place to come out of the proverbial super-closet?
Comicon.
“Also. How come it’s okay for you to use your Goddess Brain to graduate early? But you say it’s not okay for me to use my powers to read the test answers?” Oh, this is one of those perfect times when I’ve got her right where I want her. Because she can’t really argue with me on this. “Hey. We’ve been over this before. Can you prove you’re not super-smart because of good old fashion godbrain? Cheaters never prosper, right?”
With that I’m darting closer. Close enough, in fact, just to get my hand upon her’s in order to tug her out of the dressing room. Dressing Rooms, that are normally reserved for V.i.P types. Of which we are. Or rather, I am. I’m an invited guest after all. Here at my Dad’s request. He wants the world to see that America hasn’t lost it’s Big Gun. It’s all an act, that I wouldn’t be bothered with. If not for the girl next to me. She’s the only thing super about this Boy, really. That same tug that pulls her in to the air, sends us swooshing toward the entrance to the stage. Which leads out to an official looking press conference. All of whom are waiting for the big unveil.
They have no idea what’s coming. And neither does Cassie. Until we fly right through the big ‘curtain’ and the lights of cameras start to go off. “Golly. Your Mom is going to be so pissed.”
Cassie : “I can experience it, and still experience some other once in a lifetime things! I thought you wanted me to use my powers more. That would definitely be an exercise in flight practice. High speed flight practice.”
He’s not the one I need to convince though, we both know that. And if I’ve learned anything lately it’s that my Mother isn’t going to have her mind swayed unless she was already inclined in that direction anyway. She doesn’t seem to be this time, and I don’t like it. At all. The only other time she’s put her foot down like this was when she insisted on school in the first place. I’d always gotten to go on digs with her before. I’d always gotten to be there, and the fact that I’m not being allowed this time makes me more suspicious than sulky, to be honest.
“Yes, I can. Because Mom’s smarter than I am and she’s one hundred percent mortally normal. And even if there wasn’t that, I can’t help the brain. It was like this before the physical powers turned up, if it even is a power, and if you go by mythology there was a whole lot of pretty dumb Gods. And even if we ignore that, it’s active versus inactive cheating. You would consciously be taking someone else’s answers. And we both know you don’t need to.”
I started jabbing a finger into his chest at some point in the middle of that rant, and I hadn’t really meant to. Not like I’m going to hurt him, but again the arguing is more just a manifestation of my frustration. Something that the costume and where we are isn’t really helping. Now, him in costume? That’s something I’m on board with. I mean. Look at him. Then I realize I’m only really jabbing him in the chest because he’s gotten close enough for it, and that jabbing hand is all too easily grabbed and used to haul me out of the ‘safety’ of the dressing room. Out into ‘public’ in what’s more covering than my school uniform I suppose, but leaves nothing to the imagination because. Spandex.
Fine. We’ll go show off for the geeks in the area, pose for some pictures with people that think we’re dressed up and… oh…crap… we’re in the air? We’re in the air. Not a strange place for me, I can fly just as well as he can, but not in public. Not when anyone can see and certainly not through a curtain and straight into the flash of bulbs. Gods. I’m not sure which is happening faster, the color draining from my face, or it shooting back up into my cheeks.
“Oh. She’s…not the only one. Did you know about this?”
This. Right here. Is a rhetorical question. Duh. He knew. He planned and maneuvered the whole thing. Me asking the question means I know he knows and I want him to admit it.
Conner : “Are you asking if I actively knew or inactively suspected that this is what was out here?”
See this smile? You cannot fake this smile. It means that I’ve actually gotten the better of something for once. In the War of Words, this time. Honestly, I’m not even just thinking that. Cassie let herself get to the point of ranting. Once she does that it’s pretty easy to maneuver her, because despite being one of the smartest people I’ve ever met? Well, the truth is she manages to also be pretty trusting. Even when she knows better. Letting her rant is the key to getting her off balance, but first you have to get her to rant. I picked the topic that I did, because I’m all too aware of how much it bugs her.
Getting her dressed this way, on the other hand, was multi-purpose. It got her even more off balanced, but it also served to make her think we were going to do something at Comicon that would be innocent. We should blend in here. But right now? We very much don’t and at least one of us is all too happy with that.
“Because, if you really think about it? I actively knew there would be cameras and photographers at a comicon. But did I really, actively, know they would want take our picture? Not really.” There’s not even an effort to be humble about the smile on my face. Humble is for suckers. Another tug brings Cassie along, through the air, towards the podium. “At least not until I saw you fidget with the top on that suit…”
“But. Really. What else would I expect when my father booked a press conference to show off his new Superman?”
With a little quirk of the left eyebrow, I’m giving her what the reporters will later compare to the look Superman gave when trying to be encouraging, in the face of adversity. Cassie will know it differently though. This is the face I usually make just before suggesting we do something naughty in the restroom at School. Her school. But with a shrug, I take that final move towards the microphones.
Cape billowing for me. Blonde curls swirling for her. Uncharacteristically though, I’m not seizing the spotlight. I’m sharing it, even as I tap the mic nearest to insure it’s on before speaking. “Um. Hi. I’m the new Superman and this? I’ll let her introduce herself.”
This is the moment the Cassie has waited all of her life for. She just didn’t know it. Actually, come to think of it now. It’s also probably the moment I’m going to remember most for the look upon my girlfriend’s face.
Cassie : There’s a fairly predictable reaction that would normally come about when he makes a comment like that. Saved for those moments of smart-assery when I don’t truly have any good response to make, because he’s turned what I said back on me. It’d be double swift in delivery for the smirk he’s aiming at me. Normally? Right now I would have punched him in the shoulder, with a fair amount of oomph in the delivery, in the way I can’t exactly ‘jokingly’ punch anyone because I’d send them through a wall or break their shoulder into pulverized bone bits.
Except we’re on stage. In front of like, a billion people and cameras and I probably shouldn’t start this…whateverthisis… by punching my boyfriend. Not that they know he’s my boyfriend. Hmmmmmmm…
“You’re so full of crap.”
Hissed between my teeth at him, and it’s only all those great acting skills I’ve honed over the last year that keeps the expression of displeasure being very, very obvious. It’s not perfect though, I think the best I’m really managing beyond that is just looking startled. Which I am. We’ll pretend it’s all the cameras and flashing lights though, more than I would have expected for a comic book convention. Conner not thinking people want his picture on a normal day? I wouldn’t believe that. Thinking they wouldn’t want it when he’s dressed up? Bologna. But the part about Luthor and the press conference? Double bologna. With a side of mild concern. If it’s actually true that he’s wanting to show Conner off? Something’s happening. Or happened.
He’s put me on the spot, in more ways than one. I may have talked about him using his powers for good but this? Is not a moment I anticipated us having for a few years at the very least. What do I even call myself? For a moment, there’s a petty want to introduce myself as myself, just to get back at his father and all the questions that would raise. But it wouldn’t just be his parental figure that’d come into the crosshairs, and mine doesn’t have an army of lawyers and PR people.
So what do I call myself? His is so easy it’s practically cheating. He’s got the symbol, and a name to go with it. I can’t also be Super something, then I’m just the other half of his coin and I can come up with something better. I hope. So who am I? Cassie. High school student. Daughter. Demi-goddess, and apparent eighth born wonder of the modern world. Wonder. Wonder Girl.
No. No. Superman and Wonder Girl? I’d sound like his sidekick. His subordinate. And if we’re really starting this? Boy, we are not starting it that way. Maybe it’s my general grumpiness that lends the oomph and certainty to my voice when I step forward to the microphone.
“You can call me Wonder Woman.”
Conner : With Cassie at the microphone and my cape swishing behind me, almost offering some form of cover? I give her a super-speed pinch of the butt when she finally belts out her proclamation. It isn’t that I knew what she’d pick, but I did know what she wouldn’t go with. She’s called my Super Boy more than once. Even her Superboy. But we both know my Father didn’t have me created to be Superboy. I’m meant to be something more. Superman, but his Superman. Controlled. Used for the explicit purpose of showing the world that meta-humans are best served when controlled. Wielded like any other weapon. With her though? She could have gone with anything. Any number of homages to the Gods, to her Father. Something for her Mom even.
After another round of flash bulbs, digital flickers and the chorus of questions that are sent our way all at once? I settle on one of them. Raising a hand to call for some semblance of silence, in order for us to even be able to give an answer. Superman? You look sixteen. Why are we just seeing you now? Where are you from? Where is the president? Are you forming a new Justice League?
“We’ve been training,” that’s the one I offer to the press. “Learning. How to use our powers responsibly. We needed to learn how to use our abilities. Before we could help you Folks, we had to learn how to help ourselves.”
So now you think you’re ready? What’s next? Are you forming a new Justice League?
“No. We’re not forming a new League. We aren’t here to replace Heroes of the past. We’re want to pay homage to those who paved the way, but we want to show the world that we can be heroes all on our own too. How can we fail, with Wonder Womanleading the new generation of titans to defense America and the world.”
With that? I’ve sealed both her fate and mine. Because for every eye that turns her way. Every single person who gravitates toward the person that Superman said is going to lead the new generation. Well. The truth is? I’m one more step in to the dog house that is to be my life for a while. Maybe that’s why I take a step back. Maybe that’s why I slowly slip in to flight and hover behind her. Giving the cameras a show of a POTUS proclaimed Superman behind a self-proclaimed Wonder Woman. This validates what I’ve said. Posing her as the leader, that I’ve suggested that she is. It shows difference. Alternatively I’m getting a headstart for when she decides it is time to punch me.
Probably a lot more the latter than the former.
Cassie : Conner’s in trouble. Big trouble. Trouble to the level I don’t think he even fathoms right now, or he would probably have skipped the handsy moment. …nah even he wouldn’t have, but still. I’m attempting to put on a good face or I’d be seething right now. I know about the group his father’s spearheading, where he was created and why. It’s nothing that I’ve wanted to be a part of and that played into me agreeing to lay low. Not a hard bargain to make, because the truth is this is all new to me, and it wasn’t something I was ready to show off to the world. I think I’d have to understand what I am far better than I do right now before I’d have even considered it. And even then? It wasn’t going to be this public. I haven’t even done anything to earn this level of attention.
But I can clearly fly, and I came her in a spangly outfit with the new Man of Steel. Would they take us so seriously if they knew we were just a pair of superpowered teenagers playing dressup? Because that’s what I thought we were when we showed up today. At least most of what he’s saying is true, or true enough. We have been training, usually up in the woods in Canada where no one was going to see us. One of us is responsible, and no we’re definitely not forming a Justice League. We have to graduate high school.
Wait. With Wonder Woman doing what? What am I doing? Other than once again being abandoned to the spotlight while he backs off in completely uncharacteristic fashion. So. In trouble. Well. Like so many times in the last year, I find myself with the option to look like a very public idiot, or to play the part Conner’s angled me into taking for one reason or another. This one just comes with a lot more rapid fire shouted questions. Where I’ve come from, where I’ve been up until now. What do I have to say about a superpowered arms race? I came here today expecting to have to make up an answer about where I got my costume, not any of this.
“While our sincere hope is, of course, that you do not need us… we will be here if you ever do.”
That sounds lame, and stiff, and not at all like me but I don’t really feel like telling them how I’m an actual, honest to goodness demi-goddess and how I still haven’t graduated high school and that I barely know what i’m doing. Yup. I’m going to be leading the folks that save the world, too. Apparently. He’s so dead. I’m not the trained PR showpony that Conner is, and so left in the forefront? I don’t stay there. Clearly thinking I’ve said enough, I join him in the air. Only I don’t stop, I keep going upwards.
This? Is probably the highlight of the day. Doing one of my very favorite things, and not having to hide doing it. Up, and out, over the crowd and away. It’s not anywhere near the fastest I’ve gone up to this point, but it’s certainly fast enough to leave a wake.
Conner : There isn’t a single thing about this that I regret. Except maybe the part where I let this all go without taking the time to oogle her in that costume before she tries to say she’ll never wear it again. Except, that I’ve already got her in checkmate on that angle. What’s more is that I didn’t even do that myself. She did. With that little promise she just made to. Well. Everyone. Anyone. Who sees the news or reads a paper or looks at the internet.
Her exit is actually pretty dignified. I was half expecting her to knock me in to the middle of next week. But what actually happens. The way she glides in to the air, then makes a display of her power, while doing what is always best (leaving the press wanting more, not less). It’s perfect. How long has she waited and wanted to do that? Without fear of being caught flying? Much less doing it in public, in costume, with cameras everywhere. The crowd we had just from a POTUS announcement probably dwarfs what has grown before us by the time she does that.
Leaving me in the odd position that I’m not used too. Holding the proverbial bag, so to speak. With a shrug to the crowd, ever the theatrics, I give them the moment that I know they’re waiting for. “Up up and away? Heh.”
The whoosh of air from my following her out is slightly slower, if only because I want to measure the sound of reaction. Is it applause or just a chorus of questions? In fact I’m much more curious if the reaction -I- wanted comes about. Namely the positioning of Cassie as a public icon. Irreversibly tied to the President’s home grown Superman. People at the comicon were wanting to know her name, but the people I wanted to one-up already did. And now she’s front and center. Positioned as one, if not -the-, leader of the next generation.
Whatever Cassie thinks. As dead as she might think she’s going to make me? I’ve all but assured that N.O.W.H.E.R.E. doesn’t make her disappear. They literally can’t now. Doing so would be the same as attacking Luthor himself. At least for now. So long as we actually keep Cassie’s promise.
Once I catch up to her there’s really only one thing for me to say in a situation like this when I know she’s ready to punch my face. “Is this a bad time to mention that I love your ass in that costume? And eh… that I told your mom to tune in to the news for the Press Conference?”
Cassie: I want to knock him into next week. I really do. But experience has taught me that he’s quicker than I am, unless I get the jump on him, and so I probably wouldn’t have connected unless he let me. And someone letting you punch them isn’t exactly satisfying. Plus we have an audience, and starting a superbrawl in the middle of a press conference probably isn’t the sort of tone we want to set for the future. A future that apparently is going to have me stuck in the forefront as the one to look to. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
Am I even going to be able to manage this and not get cornered into folding under NOWHERE’s umbrella of influence? If I wanted to be extra grouchy I’d ask what was the point of the last year, if this is just where I was going to end up? But the truth is, while I’m furious with Conner for setting me up like this right now, I do still love the dumb jerk. He isn’t something I would have wanted to miss out on. I’m just going to casually set that aside in a corner of my brain right now. And try very hard to not want to read the news that’s probably already exploding onto the internet about who just showed up at Comicon.
I don’t know why I don’t simply rocket the hell out of there and away to…God. I don’t know. Khandaq? I guess it boils down to me enjoying the flight, the rush and feel of the air in my face for the first time ever without being concerned about who can see me, and who shouldn’t be seeing me. I guess right now they’re meant to. It makes me easy to catch up to, since I’m not bolting.
“Mmmyup.”
Normally a girl would probably like to hear that sort of thing, especially if they’re already a little self-conscious about how they look in a ridiculous getup like this. My trajectory slows a bit as I rotate so that I’m more facing him, because while I might have grunted off his compliment right now, the latter earns him the full brunt of the scowl that’s been percolating for the last ten minutes.
“You had better be about to follow up that statement with ‘and I talked to her about the bomb I was gonna be dropping before I dropped it,’ Conner Luthor.”
Conner : “What do I look like, a total asshole?”
Of course there’s a half-smirk that says I know precisely what she’s thinking about that right now. Whether or not that she answers. I’ve done something there is no going back from. Not to mention that she’s been working hard, very hard in fact, to keep everything under the radar. We’ve had this ‘pseudo-fight’ so many times I can practically have it in my own brain right now with unerring accuracy over every point that she would make. If she weren’t so angry that she wants to punch my lights out.
“Of course I told her, Cassie. Gods Almighty, it’s not like I haven’t learned anything from you. While you were in getting dressed, I shot over to the Museum and told her all about it. How you’ve been wanting me to ‘Help’ the world. How you think it’s my duty to use my gifts. How you want me to subvert my Father’s plans for N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and how you’ve been maneuvering me in to being the Man of Tomorrow, by stringing me along. While you fret over every little nuisance of your powers. How you hate not being able to fly sometimes. You know, because you’re managing me in to being something other than a ticking time bomb. While also living vicariously through me, because you’re afraid to be the one who does all those things you want me to do.”
“She muttered something that sounded a lot like it being ‘about time,’ and told me to watch for your left hook.” Wisking up close to her, ever defiant in the face of anyone’s fury, but especially Cassie’s. She’s positively intoxicating when she’s angry. Well that or I’m minimizing the potential for lightning impact. “Oh. And she kind of liked sticking it to my Dad.”
“But you’re probably in for a sound talking to when you get home. Mom had no idea you wanted to come out to the world. She also didn’t know you were struggling so much with hiding everything. Or that you were holding back to protect her.”
“Oh and she said something about how she thought you were smart enough to realize she’s used to taking care of herself. Since she handled your Father well enough.”
“Actually. Come to think of it. You might be grounded. So we should enjoy the flight while you have a chance…”
Cassie : He’s smirking at the same time that my mouth is making a similar, but opposite, move. Pulled in and turned down at the corner because yup, he does look like a total asshole right now. I ought to at least be more used to it, or maybe a little more expecting of moments like this, because he’s really damn good at doing something infuriating and at the same time passing it off as ‘no, really! I was being a good guy this time. I promise.’ Maybe when I get over feeling as if I had the rug yanked out from under me I’ll simmer down, but it was him that stressed having to do as much as I could to fit in. To make the whole him and me thing work. The cheerleading. The ‘friend’ making.
I’m also not sure if I am more or less mad because of the timing of his speaking to my mother about this whole debacle. Was it while I was getting dressed because it only then occurred to him that she might need some warning? Or was it just the convenient timing he chose because I would be too occupied shimmying into this ridiculous thing to notice that they were plotting?
“I didn’t say any of that! Oh my God! I didn’t want to come out to anyone, let alone everyone!”
The problem with shoving someone when you’re flying is that physics, no matter how much we might defy them otherwise, has a way of making it less impactful. I just end up drifting a little more backwards until our paths bring us back in close all over again. The upside, I suppose, is that I don’t need my arms to propel me forwards so I can just fold them tightly across my chest instead.
“And yeah, sure she can take care of herself. Until everyone we piss off, and you piss off a lot of people, comes after her. It’s not the same thing!”
There’s a great deal of grumbling, muttering and ineffectual huffing going on because I don’t know what else to do. Not only has Conner managed to corner me into some premature superheroing, but he also got me in trouble by putting words in my mouth. So maybe one or two of those things are true or half true, namely the flying part, but those are things I can live without for now. I mean. The operating suspicion is that I’m going to have a very, very long time to make up for whatever limits might be imposed on me right now.
“She voted for the other guy. This kind of feels more like playing along than sticking it to, Conner. I’m not ready for this. Unless it’s going to be all kittens in trees and old ladies wanting to cross the road.”
Conner : “You said all of that. In the same way you say things like, ‘We can’t go to Gotham, because reasons! Or ‘Look at my boobs, instead of eye-lasering the jerk who’s trying to flirt with me.’ Don’t forget the, ‘You shouldn’t abuse your father’s money Conner, let’s stay in the rattiest motel ever because I don’t want to even compare myself to the rich twits at school! You do nothing but say things without speaking. So don’t get mad at me when I start listening.”
Shots fired. Her arms are crossed, but actually so are mine. Just a slightly different way. Infuriatingly enough, I’m adopting a very familiar and judgmental Superman pose. I might be wrong, even totally wrong, about what she wanted. But I’m not wrong about -this-. She does this all the time and I’m not going to let her actually be mad at me for trying to read between the lines. Not when she told me that she was teaching me to be better. _This_ is what she’s taught me.
“Playing along, ugh. What happened to the Goddess Brain thing? You’re Wonder Woman now, Cass! You’re bound to his Superman. Unveiled at his press conference for me. If you disappear now? It’ll be seen as him either being too weak to control you or breaking his own promise. Since you spoke for him back there. The only thing he can do right now is back you. Try to control you, sure. You won’t disappear now. You have a seat at the table and you’ve got a chance make it mean something.”
“You weren’t ready for me either that first time we met, on the roof. You handled me fine. Besides what can go wrong? I’ll be right beside you.” There’s a small pause there, more for effect than necessity. Another smile. Just as cocky as all the rest, but warmer. “Also. For the record. I’m a sociopath and I can see that if you keep trying to live your life protecting your Mom? She’s going to push you out of the nest that much harder. For a girl who brags about how smart she is? You’re not too bright about reading her signals. She told you to pick a school, you’ve drug your feet. She made you move to Metropolis, took a desk job… and now she’s suddenly going on a dig she won’t take you on?”
“Your Mom slept with a God, the God of Gods, babe. Do you think Daddy Wardrums picked her because she’s a helpless hot blonde milf who can’t take care of herself? Actually. You know what, I take it back. I’m not sorry for reading between the lines wrong. You suck at teaching me how too. Suck.”
“Also. Just for the record. I’m totally winning this argument. Which is actually not good for me. So can we get to the part where you say I’m wrong, because I’m a big dumb jerk and storm off. If I keep winning, we’re probably never having make up sex and then I wore the fancy cape for nothing.”
Cassie : “Oh please you love it when people flirt with me because I hate it. And I’ll be mad if I want to because you’re choosing when it’s convenient and useful to listen!”
This would all be because I won’t let him invade Gotham City, wouldn’t it? Tim owed me big time already, he might owe me even worse now but I suppose there’s no way to even attempt to collect on that for the time being. I guess I could text him, but then he’ll just hole up in that place forever. Conner has taken things that I’ve said, or done, and taken them a bit to the extreme with a side of mixing them together. And none of those motels were ratty. Even I have some standards. Just. Maybe ratty if you’re used to penthouses.
“I thought I wasn’t going to anyway. I didn’t think we were going to have to worry about any of this for a while yet. My powers didn’t come with a manual, or even a quick start guide and I’m still figuring them out.”
Though, really, if we’re being completely honest me with the training wheels on is still more than sufficient in most cases for some hero work. I can already more than bench a tank, and we’re figuring out that I’m getting faster to go along with the flight and other things. I don’t really have anyone to compare myself to, other than him and he’s had nothing but training his whole life.
If it were possible to stomp one’s foot midair without looking like an idiot? I’d probably be unable to stop myself from doing it right now. Fortunately I show at least a little restraint and just keep flying. And haranguing.
“Ugh! You guys can’t have it both ways! Low profile and fit in Cassie, now tada! Superhero! No, you can’t finish school early Cassie, but GTFO!”
I’ve gone from making the highly displeased face at him, back to just scowling with an entirely stubborn set to my jaw. No, I’m not just going to say he’s right, though he’s maybe a little bit right about some things, but not about the entire issue at hand. And now I can’t say he’s wrong and storm off which is what I’d actually like to do. So I settle for something else, sniffing loudly and twisting around in the air once more into a more ‘normal’ flight position.
“Not for nothing. Kittens and a car wreck at four o’clock. Dibs on the wreck.”
It’s not storming off if you’re plummeting at high velocity out of the sky to save someone’s life. Page four of the Wondergirl guide to superheroics.
Conner : “That’s a terrible example. No. Really, I’m serious. You can’t finish school early, because you’re wanting to do it just to tag along with your Mother. Who wants you to be your own person in the first place.” There is part of me that thinks she’s losing this argument on purpose, just so she gets to punish me more by refusing to make up for longer, later. “And. The other example sucks too. You’re supposed to keep a low profile. As Cassie. Wonder Woman gets to have a high, nice looking, profile.”
Oh. Now I’m starting to be sure of this. Sinking feeling alert. She never argues this poorly. Something is amiss. Quick, review the argument and discussion up to this point. Look for potholes, footfalls and classic feints. When sure of those being non-existent, check to see if Cassie has been replaced by a White Martian. Hrm, nope. This is not how I imagined this would go.
“Uh. So. You’re still figuring them out. Are we talking about the ones you have or the ones you don’t know if you have? Because I mean you’ve been pretending to be a normal girl for the last two years. A normal cheerleader, who happens not to throw the class bully in to the rafters. A normal girl who doesn’t somehow land too hard when she’s thrown in to the air for a triple. And uh. What part of control am I missing out on you having, when you’re somehow not throwing snowballs through entire houses because you can lift a mack truck?”
“Oh and for the record. Can’t have it both ways? Hellooooooooo. I was happy to be Conner. You were pushing me to be a Hero. That’s both ways. Now I want us to have it both ways together and you’re mad? That’s actually not just a bad argument, it’s not even fair! … and would you STOP RUNNING AWAY, I want to re-check to be sure you’ve not been replaced by a shape-shifting alien…”
Ugh. She’s doing the thing. Where she storms off. Except not. Because she’s manufacturing a crisis. Right now. With how poorly she’s battling me verbally? I’m not even sure she didn’t cause both crisises, just to avoid this discussion.
“Fine. I’ll save the Cat. But that just means I’ll be home to talk to your Mom before you can.” Up up and away, my ass…
by Michele | Apr 2, 2017 | Chronicles
Dinah : There’s nothing quite like the dedicated ‘hobby’ of vigilantism to remind you exactly why you’ve never been a fan of ‘the system’ and cooperating with ‘the law.’ Just how many ways the rules that they’re there to enforce can also tie their hands. Once upon a time, I thought it was a path I’d be able to follow. That I’d be next in the line of a long family tradition of Detective Lances. Like Dad, like Grandpa, like his father before him. Maybe I could have succeeded at it, too, had I gone about my life in a different order.
Maybe trying to work a criminal justice degree while you’re moonlighting as a masked, powered ass-kicker doesn’t exactly set you up to succeed. School? That’s back in Star City. Along with a lot of other things that should probably have been harder to leave with Helena called me than they were. Taking orders and following the rules just wasn’t going to work for me anymore. Not after all the personal examples I have of it failing, and my successes in walking in the grey areas.
To say everyone in the GPD knows me would be a stretch, there’s new faces or officers from different precincts than my family had traditionally work. But there’s enough of them who know me, or were like part of said family in all but genetics, that there’s no sneaking around in broad daylight at the station trying to find out what I want to know. There’s talk to pick up on, but not enough to give me anything good and mostly? Just the irritation of the person I need to talk to not being there. I don’t leave a note, or even ask after the Detective I’m seeking. I don’t want to tip anyone off.
You never know. And you can never be too careful. Still. Leaves me wanting to go punch something in a place that’ll make it squeal. Maybe twice. Gotham isn’t my place anymore, even though I’ve just as much historical claim to the place as Batman ever did. It leaves me feeling in a weird sort of … limbo, and the sun’s not nearly low enough in the sky for me to be able to function in the way I really want to just now.
“Did you have anymore luck than I did today?”
Hanging out with a minor in a bar is normally not the best idea, even if you are fast and loose with rules and regs. It’s not late enough at night for ass kicking, which means that it’s also not late enough that the Pretty Bird is serving alcohol either. I guess that means that we’re both safe in here right now. Heavy enough on the espresso, and while it might not burn the throat it at least has a bitter enough taste to make my senses upset with me.
Tim : “Learn anything? No, but that doesn’t actually mean that I do not have anything.”
Despite this being a bar it’s pretty clear to even the casual glance that I’m right at home here. That or I don’t know enough about the seedy element of Gotham to have learned to be afraid, yet. On one hand it speaks of familiarity, perhaps with the owner who happens to be talking to me. On the other hand, I’m all but asking for trouble at the same time. It happens to be a fine line here that I’m walking. Asking for trouble, yet putting it off too.
This is topped off by the manner in which I’m sitting there. The nonobservant would think I’m a school kid doing his homework on the counter top before him. They wouldn’t be wrong, actually. The notebook has some scribbled names, which are then being cross-referenced with connection that were known before I left Gotham to go to school. Along with those is a series of marker points that tell the story of people either no longer in play and those whom still happen to be active. Detective Work, more so than homework. The purest kind too. Boots to the ground sort of work that isn’t done from a Bat Cave, with a Bat Computer.
Although, in almost the same breathe, the trained eye would notice quickly that those scribbled notes are only footprints. Everytime I make a connection or cross one out, I’m entering the data in to the mini-computer on my forearm. Much like the act of seeming to be an innocent schoolboy to lure someone in to a fight, there’s no true effort put in to hiding my expensive computers. All but daring someone to try to take it from me.
“For example. There’s no reports of some of the usual suspects being at play, at all. No Penguin, no Two-Face. In some cases, there’s even hints at a couple of the usuals being angry that someone else did the dead. Also? Despite being a bad ass, you eat some of the worst things I’ve ever seen consumed. This is likely due to your inability to cook. Which likely stems from the familial connections to Police routine. No, not all Cops are terrible cooks, but they have a preference for things you can get out of a microwave in under four minutes. This is caused by the innate need to be ready for any call that comes in.”
“Oh. You have a lot of people who know your name, remember the cute girl who’s daddy brought them around the precinct, but otherwise know so little about you that they’re more acquaintance than friend.” Looking up, if only briefly, to peer toward Dinah’s face in curiosity at how she’ll react to this. “You also sleep in the nude. Snore slightly. Think you’re much quieter than you are at night. Oh. And. Uh. I have eliminated you from the suspect pool. Officially.”
Dinah : The raised eyebrow and slight tilt of my head says the words I don’t think I need to out loud. Enlighten me, kid. No, they’re not the same thing. Learning and having information. It can mean that you’ve just confirmed something you were already aware of and wanted to double check for safety’s sake, or to quell any doubters of your intuition. I just continue to drink my espresso like it’s regular, watery coffee. I’m fairly sure at this point, my taste buds are approaching ‘dead.’ Maybe it’s a sort of karma for the sharpening of the other ones. I’ll take it.
We’re not exactly busy, but there’s been enough people in and out that I haven’t helped at all because…I have people I pay to do that. They got along fine before I turned back up, they’d probably be just as happy if not happier if I was gone again and that little ecosystem works for me. They can handle their shit. I’ve got mine.
“Why even bother with the notebook? Visual thing?”
Or it could be the act of doing it twice, like copying ones’ lecture notes, to commit it even better to memory. Tim makes his way from information that’s actually pertinent to what I was wanting to know…
“Which ones? I’m not as up to date on the patterns of the ‘regulars’ as I used to be. But it seems like there’s a bit less bedlam that I might have anticipated. I don’t know if that’s because Damien’s out venting his spleen, and everyone else is back in town or because they’re all waiting for someone else to make the first… well.”
My mouth pulls to the side that’s a grimace over what I’m speaking of, rather than the drink I’ve polished off.
“Second move. Or because they’re all scared of who exactly it was that made the first.”
And from pertinent, he moves on to things I already know because it’s all about me and when it comes down to it? I’m pretty wise to most of my quirks and bad habits. I just don’t care to do anything about them.
“Woahwoahwoah.”
One hand on my hip, the other is held up in front of me in a defensive, halting gesture.
“Can cook, just don’t. I’d like to say it’s because I’m a firm proponent of combating food waste, but mostly it’s because I’d rather spend my time doing other things. Except maybe on special occasions. And when you look like this?”
That halting hand shifts to gesture demonstratively to my figure. Which right now, in an old concert teeshirt and a pair of jeans isn’t exactly shown off to best advantage, but most of the criminal underground (and all the bats) have seen me in what amounts to little better than fetish gear and combat boots.
“You sleep however you want and the Universe thanks you for it.”
Propping my elbows on the counter, I cradle my chin in the palm of one hand and flash him a grin the walks the line of flirting and threatening his life depending upon which ‘mask’ I’ve got on at the moment.
“You’re welcome. Perv. And boy, thanks for the name clear. Do you want to just stay with me instead of where ever you holed up since you’re keeping an eye already?”
Tim : For a moment longer than is actually needed I’m settled there looking at Dinah in such a way that suggests that is being re-measured. Weighed in a manner than going to determine whether she is worthy of the information that she is asking for. We both know that she is, but there’s actually a moment’s hesitation. Simply sign that She is not the partner I’m used to working with. Not the one I’d answer without a second thought.
Just as telling though, is the frankness with which she is then given an answer. “Joker. Near as I can tell from the underground. He’s actually hunting the killer. And he’s not being sidetracked, having to wait for leads. If what I’ve been told is even half true he’s gathering funds for a Bounty on the killer. A big one. Like.”
Her theatrics are just that. A put on show for people to watch. She’s just as good at what she does, as Batman was at what he did. There’s simply a difference in how they did things. Her game is one a sort of magic show. Slight of hand. You look at her. You focus on those theatrics. How she looks, how she dresses, how she saunters. Then you’re not quite as focused on her. It bridges the gap in skill. She doesn’t have to be an unmatched martial artist, when you’re distracted by the sway of her hips just enough for her to kick your ass.
Me? I’m fine watching the show. But only because I recognize she’s putting one on. Theatrics which are matched only by the Cheshire grin she is given once she’s finished. “Thank you.. Speaking for the Universe at large, of course.”
“Oh,” having almost forgotten to answer the original question she’d posed, perhaps having been distracted after all. “The notebook is actually for … well… I’m keeping a journal. For Him. Chronicling what I can of his last moments. Piecing it together. A case file. A real one. For the Cave, when this is over.”
If that was a small crack in the armor, a look behind the ‘Mask’ named Tim Drake? Then the mask is back in place soon enough with a soft, chiding, “Hmm.” That is soon followed by a grin that would melt a polar ice cap. She’s in trouble.
“Certainly. I’ll put my bag back in your closet.” That little journal is flipped open again, but this time to one of the loose pages in the back. With no effort made to conceal the pen scratching out a line of text that reads ‘Get picked up by hot Cougar.’ The top of the page says Bucket List. “Alright. So. Are we calling it the Canary Cave? Canaries and caves seems like bad kharma, given their years in the Mines. But Canary Cage? Given your preference in attire, that’s going to give people all the wrong ideas.”
“Or the right ones. Who’s to judge? Canary Cage it is.”
Dinah : “Mmrm.”
The noise I make in my throat, and through pursed lips, is equal disgust and understanding. Straightening upright again, I shuffle my emptied cup towards the end of the counter so that it’s out of the way, and out of my immediate sight like that will keep me from helping myself to even more caffeine that I do not at all need at this point. More effective would probably have been the sink behind the bar, but I’m just not that ready to be done.
“It makes sense. If anyone was a true nemesis it was him, and frankly would have been my first guess. Except that we would probably have had giant shrieking monstrosities in various forms around the city immediately, to make absolutely sure we all knew who was responsible, if it was him. I’m not sure I like even vaguely being on the same side as the Joker, or I’d suggest we take advantage of his generosity.”
There’s pragmatism, and then there’s morality and insanity. No matter what your end goal is, and how important it is, there’s some lots you just don’t throw in with or you’re going to be forever tainted by the association. Figuratively and perhaps in this case literally as well. That’s a line that’s easy to cross when you’re already taking part in the violence. Tim’s thanks are met with a curtsy, dipped and swept with all the grace that belongs on stage by a songbird after she’s finished some truly impressive bit of vocal acrobatics. Just, y’know. Sans microphone, and dress. Stage. Unless you consider that basically everywhere is my stage.
“I think that’s a nice idea, Tim.”
In complete and utter opposition to the behavior before, that’s said with simple sincerity because I mean it. We’ve all got our different walls to hide behind, and some of us do it so well that sometimes? It’s easy to believe that someone isn’t erecting that facade to cover up something vulnerable and raw. Helena may be who actually asked me to return to Gotham, but I’m here for all of them.
Well. Maybe not Damien. He’s a twatwaffle. Tim’s on his way to earning an ‘endearing’ nickname or two himself. Blue eyes roll at his next page of text, but if I take offense to it I cover it up just like I do everything else.
“Well, you’re half right. Isn’t there some sort of age requirement before you can really be a cougar though? I don’t want you to take credit and pass up an opportunity later in life if a real one comes along.”
Hell, a few more years from now and we wouldn’t even get that many raised eyebrows. I’m not that far past twenty, and he’s not that far below it. Far enough below it, however, that I’m not even a teeny bit interested in justifying any sort of…behavior.
“It might have been pretty apropos before you cleaned it up, to be fair. Maybe the Nest. Then we can brag about how cozy it is, and I can take care of the baby bird.”
Reaching over to pinch his cheek, maybe just a little harder than is strictly necessary.
Tim : Once more there comes a pause. Only this time there’s genuinely no way to discern whether or not I’m giving genuine thought to one question or the other. No tells. No give away. That same grin remains, though there’s a tensing of the eyes that belies seriousness. It’s a pick’em as to what I’m actually considering. Right up until I slap the notebook closed and give the Canary my undivided, full attention.
“Truth is, I’ve been thinking the same things. Joker’s insane, but he’s got no moral constraints. I’ve even wrestled with the mortal dilema of knowing that if I do nothing, then whatever I let that madman do unopposed, is as good as my fault too. I think, to tell you the truth Dinah, given the circumstances here? I could probably live with it, if I knew where it stops. That’s the problem for me. I don’t know where it stops.”
“I mean the bounty itself is going to get eyes on it, all through the city. But. Also from outside of the city. Every bounty hunter, every half-assed detective, every assassin for hire. They’re all going to come looking for the payout. The City could be pushed in to absolute insanity, quick. More than we can handle too, if it brings in people of your… particular meta-human skillset. It’s Bruce’s end-game scenario. And if that wasn’t enough to make me worry? Because it is. It really, truly is. Unlike some of my other comrades, I’m not insane enough to think I could possibly take it all on.”
“If we could eliminate his bounty, contain the potential for it spilling out of Gotham. Going world-wide? Then maybe we could take advantage of it. Of him.” Maybe for the first time, ever, I reach out to touch Canary’s hand without being invited to. “I can’t tell you how important it is that we contain this. All of this. To Gotham. I’ve met people. People we do not want to have turning their eyes on Gotham. So we need to contain this. Contain him.”
“If you know a way to do that and still make use of him as a source for leads? I’m all ears.”
Which leads the way back to the smarmy grin and the shift in tone for the discussion. “Oh. Eh. Don’t you worry about the Bucket List. Good eye, by the way. You’re not really the classic definition of a Cougar, but you’re trying awfully hard to be the Momma Bear of the Cave. What with you rushin home to take care of us. Offering me a place to stay. Worry about whether I even have a place. That kind of puts you in the same bracket. You know. Being hit on by the sexy pseudo-Mom-like figure? I’m countin it.”
“Don’t worry though, Dinah. Even though you’re older and think you’re unavailable. You’re still the second hottest Blonde, I know. So I’ll say Thank You again, if you like.”
Dinah : “He can, and will, do the things that we won’t and shouldn’t. To people that arguably deserve everything that they get. But you’re exactly right.”
I’m more or less recapping what he’s said, just different words for the same thing. The Joker doesn’t have to wait to speak nicely to a detective for the information that they have. He busts into the GPD, or worse, abducts and tortures the information out of someone. That could be some asshole that’s going to be on the receiving end of a Batarang from one of the flock anyway, or it could be a GPD Detective. I doubt very much the madman cares who as long as he gets what he’s after. We let him do what he wants and reap the benefits? It means we’re allowing him to do what he wants to get what he wants. A loose cannon, loosed on the city, is a terrible proposition.
And it goes a step beyond that. I didn’t know about the bounty until now, and consequently I hadn’t considered the latter half of what he has to say on the matter. The Out of Towners. I’m an in towner, who saw the logic in leaving when Bruce had very frankly spoken to me of it. The presence of the Batman had brought people like the Joker, the Penguin, all those others to more prominence but they’re all non-powered. It stands to reason, then, that powered individuals would bring a suitable response.
“Newton’s Third Law. On a Meta-Nuclear scale. You been making some high-flyin’ friends out there in Metropolis, Tim?”
I may have powers, but I’ve never really run with anyone else that does. I worked with Batman and Co. here in Gotham, after he brought me into the fold, but in Star I’d worked solo except when someone else butted in. I haven’t run into many folks who belong in the wild and weird crew like I do, but it’s impossible not to have heard about the Superman and the like. That craziness just seems to keep itself around Metropolis, which I suppose doesn’t disprove Bruce’s theory.
“He’s not likely to be terribly clandestine, maybe it’ll be easy to tail and observe. Stay out of the way, make sure that whoever he’s getting his information from is …suitable. Put a stop to it if it’s not and then run with that bit of string.”
Clucking my tongue, the shit-eating grin on his face earns another eye roll but it’s all in fun and good humor, as much as I’m still absolutely serious in my reasoning.
“I was angling more for cage match referee, but yeah sure. We’ll go with that. And someone’s got to, for all the reasons we discussed the last time.”
I don’t refute the hitting on him part, I hit on everyone. It’s both how the persona and I operate. There’s a very big difference between words and actions, and arguing and denying simply plays into the banter. I know better. Sure, I could probably ‘win’ but I”m not going to go to that point with a teenager. Even I have limits.
“Aww, thank you, so sweet. Know just what to say to a gal. Who’s this first hottest blonde? You’ll have to introduce me so I can check out the competition. Maybe get a phone number…”
Tim : With a subtle nod there’s confirmation that we’re of one mind when it comes to the Joker. The downside of using him -and- the potential repercussions of allowing him to spiral out of control. In a way, there is also unspoken acceptance that she’s got an idea of how to corral the psycho without actually trying to take him head on. Which leaves me only agreeing that I’m going to let her make a play at it.
Understandably, there’s a not-so-subtle moment of my hand squeezing her shoulder that is meant to also convey something else. A reminder of the surveillance. That I’ll be watching out for her, as she watches out for others. A gentleman’s agreement that goes beyond the playfulness that distracts at least one of us from the Death of the Batman.
“Not just Metropolis. All over the world. When Bruce suggested that I go away to further my education, at first I had thought I was being snubbed for Damian. Sending me away to make room for the real son. I was bitter, for all of about a week. Then I started to piece it together. He wanted me to see the world. Not just see the sights, but the world outside of Gotham. He wanted me to apply the tools he’d been cultivating, on that world beyond.”
“I’ll tell you something, Dinah,” leaning closer still, but it’s no longer in an effort to flirt or put the moves on her, this is a genuine secret to be shared. “We all thought he was laser focused on Gotham, but he was keeping an eye on everything. Everything. He knew about the Capes. He knew about some people who didn’t even know they were Capes.”
“And. He knew about the group that’s been tracking those people. So I think, maybe, that was part of the education. Making friends with the High-Flying variety. Which, I was only to happy to do. When they’re leggy, blonde, athletic, cheerleaders that can toss around cars like soft-balls.”
Settling back in the seat for a moment, long enough to gather the things that have been strewn about in to some semblance of a pile that could be carted off in a moment. He was right. You know. About you. About asking you to leave. There’s a boogeyman out there, Dinah. Someday they’ll come for you and when it happens, it’ll be too big for Gotham to handle. Those are the words I’m chewing on, wanting to say but not actually doing so. Instead of saying it, I’ve wormed my way in to her temporary home and graces. All because she thinks she’s protecting me. If she knew the truth, that I’d maneuvered her in to letting me protect her without her knowing? I think she’d probably punch me. Or worse.
“Hey, Dinah. Don’t worry about the flirting thing. I don’t have any false notions,” rising up off the stool, in the same fluid motion that both hands sweep up my notes and books. “Like I said, you’re hot for a number two, but after spending time with a Goddess? I’m pretty sure you couldn’t handle me.”
Dinah : The move of my hand that leaves it patting his on my shoulder is almost absent, almost a ‘yeah, yeah, okay..’ but not quite. The last pat lingers just long enough that it’s more ‘I get it.’ I’ve worked solo, and I did okay. But I’ve also worked on a team and it doesn’t take a brilliant observer to know that there’s a lot of benefits there, like someone watching out for you sometimes even when you don’t know you need it. That requires trust, but if you can give it and get it in return? More than worth the vulnerability.
Maybe even worth the emotions like the sadness that we’re all feeling in different degrees, that brought us back together right now. Something that sets us apart from what we’re fighting.
“I’d say that I’m surprised, but knowing him I’m really not. There’s a lot more to the world than Gotham. A lot more ugly, and a lot more beauty. A lot different.”
I’m taking in every word he says, and I do mean every word. I know I’m not the only meta out there, obviously. They existed before I was born, it runs in my family. You just didn’t much hear about them, for good reason. Either they were a secret government group or… maybe that group never entirely went away. With the way the world works now? Hell, maybe it’s turned into something else.
“Well she sounds lovely. I guess I can’t be too upset if that’s what I’m up against. It is a she, yeah? I mean… not that there’s anything wrong with it if it’s not…”
Sidling out from behind the counter, I round to his side. I can come and go as I please. I just write the checks, and I don’t even actually do that, because management does that part, too. But he’s talking about a Goddess. So I suppose that does mean it’s a girl, and I can’t help but be more than a little curious. It makes a good subject to move onto instead of more eyerolling that I’m rated second best by a teenage boy.
“Wait, like. An actual Goddess or figurative because you’re in looooooooove? Has she been handling you, you scamp? This calls for pizza. To the Roost!”
It’s not the most dramatic exit, though I gesture with some flair. If nothing else, ‘girl talk’ and pizza will allow for some time passing before we really get to prime action time. For crime fighting. Not for anything else.
by Michele | Mar 5, 2017 | Chronicles
Cassie : “Congratulations, I think you may actually pass World History this semester.”
Feet kicked up on the coffee table in the living room, like I wouldn’t dare to do if we were in the kitchen and it was that table because A. Manners, and B. Mom would murder me where I sat. The tone is a lilting bit of sarcasm, because he didn’t fail the last one either and the implication that he might at all is a little silly. It’s a matter of whether or not he puts in the effort, not intelligence. He’s already done all this, after all, or at least he has the memories to tell him that he did. Force fed into his developing brain by scientists, or put there by actual educators the result is the same. I mean, I imagine it would be anyway. Especially if, unlike Conner, you weren’t aware there was a difference at all.
He doesn’t need me to do this. The tutoring. We both know it. I knew it before we even started, but it was an excuse. An alibi. At this point it’s almost ritual more than education, some sort of barrier that we create for ourselves before we get to move on with what we really want to do for the evening… no. Not that.
“I think we’re going to need a little more dedication if you want to manage early release from the awful prison of private school.”
He’s technically a junior to my senior, but with my late birthday we’re not all that far apart age wise. If you go by how old Conner Luthor is supposed to be, at least. If we go by actual time on Earth? Well. That’d probably put me beyond pedophile status and into something that man doesn’t even have a full definition for yet. Tossing my obnoxious red marker down on top of the pile of our assorted textbooks, I trade it out for the soda cup that had come with the takeout we’d ordered in. Even though we could have picked it up faster than it took them to get in the car and drive it over here, either one of us. We’re playing at normal, after all.
School work and studying has always been something I’ve made certain we do, but today? I’m dedicating a little more effort than usual. Call it deadlines from the school year that are out of my control, and definitely not my farewell visit with Tim Drake.
Conner : The little creatures who’s psionic training I had endured while in that cloning tank were very thorough. Not only do I have all the memories of a life that supposedly ran the course of fifteen years, at that time, but I’ve also got the emotions of it. The trouble for them, and frankly everyone else, is that my teachers under-estimated their creation. It had always a world of layers. Much like the real world. The virtual reality, psionic impression, whatever. As my Kryptonian side began to display itself, I was able to begin picking things up that didn’t make sense. Sounds, impressions, sights, that went beyond the scope of the training scenario.
Eventually, I’d begun to test the boundaries of the world I found myself in. Surprisingly, the boundaries had surrendered pretty easily. I could ‘cheat’ in the training room. Enhanced Vision could peer through the illusions. Enhanced hearing could hear my trainers discussing the potential results. At that point it became a game to me. What could I accomplish to please. How could I fail that would merit punishment. Could they force me to take part in their tests?
Unfortunately for the real world, the true results were that I came out of that cloning vat with a lot of knowledge but almost no emotional connection to anything. At the time, I just didn’t care about anything. There was as little sympathy for the bad guys that my handlers sent me after, as there was for a kitty in a tree. Meaning to say, none at all.
I’m pretty sure that’s why N.O.W.H.E.R.E. originally fostered my connections to Cassandra Sandsmark. That too had, in a way, backfired. While they believed themselves able to use her against me, they hadn’t realized that my lack of fear meant that I wasn’t easily controlled. Over all, I think we had come to a stalemate of sorts. Until my Father stepped in. Seeing the opportunity to use Cassie as the carrot, upon the stick to directing me in to keeping his popularity soaring.
“It was already a lock,” there’s a dimple in the smirk she’s affixed with. “We have a game next week. Coach took care of it for me.”
There was a time when I might not have told Cassie of this. She’s not one for the cheating. More over she seems to hate it when I invoke privilege. Whether it be my father’s name or something like my Coach insuring his star player makes it to the next game. But, I’ve also learned that Cassie is starting to realize that this is all a charade in the first place. I’m pretending to be a student. In fact, I’m pretending to be a bad student and an awful person, because it is the role I’m cast in. My ‘secret identity,’ happens to be that I’m the son of Lex Luthor. President of the United States. Metropolis’ first Son.
“Cass, if I get any more dedicated I’m going to have to buy a pocket protector. This is all just silly stuff anyway. We all know the Victor writes the history. So in a couple years I’m going to have to re-learn all of this in Chinese anyway.”
While the studying isn’t my gig? Take out food is one of the few loves in my life. One does not jest about Delivery Pizza, or in this case Delivery Indian food. “Let’s talk about something really important. Like what the … &^%$… is this red chickeny goodness?! My tastebuds are overloaded with spices. I don’t know whether to heat vision it all out of existence, ask you to kiss it better or eat more…”
“You. Really. Should. Kiss it all better. I mean.”
Cassie : Rolling my head to the side, the purse lipped look Conner gets is plainly my going through the thoughts of ‘haha, really?’ to ‘no, you’re kidding,’ to remembering that yes, I absolutely believe that could have happened, and therefor ‘nope, you’re not kidding,’ onto ‘ugh, Conner…’ I’d like to say it’s much harder for me to believe that than it actually is. But the combination of who he’s supposed to be, with who he really is, means I just happen to know better.
“He shouldn’t have done that, you’re totally capable of doing this.”
Capable and motivate are different things. Here’s a fundamental difference between the pair of us though. It would really bother me to get a failing grade, hell even a C, even though I’ve had about exactly the same amount of exposure to ‘actual’ school as he has. Before last year, I was ‘home’ schooled, just a global never in the same place sort of home. With different teachers sometimes, but usually just my Mom or some self-motivated studying. Conner is smart enough to do this, he probably knows the information already. He just doesn’t have to try because someone else will try for him.
In this case, someone went to the effort, to reward him for/make use of his half-assed effort on the basketball court and this is a game that works for my boyfriend. Anyone who plays into his ‘player’ reputation frankly has no idea how deep the game goes. But then, why should they?
“You will not, you don’t even have a pocket in the right place to need one.”
The sigh of frustration is much more at his selection for winning country than his general attitude towards our high school level educations.
“China? Not likely. Not unless we magically end up in Asia. Then it might be more of a threat. Unless you mean Economically instead of on the Military front.”
Plucking the carton in question out of his hands lets me peer into it, to double check the contents before fishing out a nibble of it myself. It’s a riot of spices, but not in a way that threatens to overwhelm me. My globe trotting upbringing with Mom meant I was introduced to a lot of different types of food, and none really ever became default normal for me. I am not actually much of a fan of many ‘American’ classics, because I find them bland. But, I also don’t have quite the same level of heightened senses as Conner does.
“What, the tandoori? Cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cayenne… baby need some yogurt?”
It’s not the term of endearment version of the word ‘baby’ so much as my teasing him as I put on a look of overdone sympathy for him and his poor tongue. I may be rolling blue eyes at him, but I leave off licking the chicken’s coating off my fingers to lean over and give him that requested kiss anyway. At least for his lips. The rest of his mouth is just going to have to deal.
Conner : “Listen, Cassie, he wanted to do this for me. I didn’t want to do the test. When our wants align, we become Captain Planet. So we made it so.”
If the nonchalance with cheating was one thing, then casual manner in which I’m blowing the whole thing off? Is sure to make the girl next to me twitch in all the right ways. Or wrong ones. Depending upon your vantage point. But the deeper side of this all? Is that Cassie really has to wonder about it all. Am I blowing it off? Do I know the information? Could it be that I’m abusing my Name or is this really about playing the role. The answer might be any of those, but since she loves to manage the person I am? I take a great deal of pleasure in making her work for it.
“Pocket Protector. Right here. Maybe some glasses. Actually, I bet that I look even better with glasses. Have you ever noticed that any time there’s Hotness, you just add glasses and it dials it up ten percent. Why don’t they ever do math problems like that? If you take one hot Cheerleader. Add blonde hair, but subtract a Bra, while supplying her with glasses and a libido. Does she Rule the World?”
The kiss is taken, appreciated for what it was and eye narrowing accusation for what it was not, before I’m on to drowning the spices out with sweet tea. Sweet Tea and little bit of a snort over her for the baby comment.
“Everyone knows China is going to rule the world in the next ten to fifteen years. It’s inevitable. Just look at this growth. In economical and financial merit alone, they’re the only threat to the American Way of Life. If they weren’t my Father wouldn’t spend so much time having his PCTSA devising plans for the ‘China Solution.’ So far they’ve come up with something a lot like your Ancestors employed. Salt the Earth, I think your Father called it.”
Snatching Cassie’s hands in an effort to lick away residue. Either to prove that I’m not a baby or to tease her, maybe both. “So. Wanna put on the costumes and go out for a Fly? I hear Gotham is nice this time of year.”
Cassie : “Uh huh. Which one are you? Full of wind, and Coach is Heart?”
In this case, I think it’s some of all of the above. Most people don’t like taking tests, your average jock probably wants to even less and for Conner it’s a pointless exercise to show that he knows something he doesn’t need to know, coupled right along side with it being perfectly normal and expected for him to not do it at all. Maybe if the teachers couldn’t tell that he’s smart they’d try harder, or maybe if his father wasn’t Lex Luthor…
That’s not a string I get to pull. I mean, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. Maybe that’s a good thing, since in the grand cosmic scheme of things when you’re looking at influence, and power, my father may actually be one of the only people that could outstrip his in the first place. But if I started demanding my math teacher let me out of a calculus test because the God of the Gods decreed it so, they’d just send me to the nurse’s office thinking I was having a psychotic break.
“No, she doesn’t. Because she’s responsible with no world-conquering desires. She might flex that nerd cred to wrap some unsuspecting meathead around her little finger though.”
I ignore the lewder part of that comment, because fussing or commenting on it would just make him latch onto it even more. Besides. The commentary on China is enough confirmation that he does actually pay attention to things outside of what’s just going on in the ten feet around him. I know he does. It’s why I don’t get as upset as I could about the whole test situation. I get it. I do. I also know he’s putting in way more effort for my benefit than he actually needs to.
“Scorching to precede the salt? Maybe a little Patricide as a warm-up?”
Another point towards the argument that he pays attention outside of the immediate area, and further reason to internally grouse and grump at Tim’s methods when a phone call would probably have been more likely to escape Conner’s notice. I let myself be distracted for just a moment by what he’s doing, and not focusing on what he’s saying even though I heard perfectly clear. The attention leaves me clearing my throat softly, feeling my cheeks get a hair warm.
“Where’d you hear that, and was it Opposite Day when you heard it? Gotham is awful.”
He’s never expressed even the slightest interest in Gotham. Like ever. While logically I know that not everything we hear on the news sums up the city, and that it likely has its bright spots? Here in Metropolis you just don’t really hear about them unless you’re hunting. Whereas this boy very likely put a two and two together of his friend wandering off to ‘somewhere’ in connection with other things and now is curious about the whys. But you don’t tell him no without offering an alternative. You just don’t. People like the Luthors don’t get told no without it tripping their ego/power switch.
“But I do want to go flying.”
Leaning more into Conner’s side than into the back of the sofa, I nuzzle my nose along his shoulder and hip his neck. It could probably be more overt flirting, but if I oversell the snuggling he’s just going to know I’m trying to pull a fast one. Or at the very least distract him.
“We could go get some legit kulfi? They didn’t have them at this place. It’s like the best Popsicle you could ever have.”
Conner: “Isn’t that cute? It’s like you haven’t even ever met me before. I couldn’t be one of those jerks. I wouldn’t combine my power with someone else. I’d just handle the problem. By myself. It’s what I do. Coach is all heart though. You should have seen the way he was grousing about my spending all my time with my tutor, but not learning anything but how to ogle my girlfriend.”
“Lookit you thar, being all smarmy and egotistical all at once. Who said anything about you being the nerdy cheerleader, ruling the world?” Clearly having it not occur to him that she might be suggesting he were that meathead. “Besides which. If you think about it. You would do such a good job at it. You’ve spent your whole life learning about all the Historical things that the world should never repeat.”
“Plus. I mean. Have you considered how much you’d enjoy taking this whole high road, holier than thou routine on the road? You’d have the whole world to boss around, sass and correct whenever they do anything wrong.”
If I were smirking before it’s grown by a factor of ten now. Not only do I like teasing her, but I love it when she makes it easy for me. Sure, I’ve got to deal with being teased about my burning tongue to get there, but once we make it I get the payoff of watching her flush. Sometimes she even sputters. But if the worst case happens and Cassie gets mad at being teased? Well then the makeup activities usually more than makeup for everything else anyway.
For more than a few moments I’m really concerned about getting every last bit of spices off of her fingers. One at a time. Focused, in fact. To the point of letting the conversation take it’s own course, with Cassie turning aside my ideas about Gotham. Then as she is making her own round about counter-idea? I let my touch wander up her arm, skimming across clothing to the side of her neck. I’m just about to sneak a kiss from her, when I settle back rather suddenly and give her the one thing I know she isn’t counting on.
“Okay. But. Only if you let book the night at the Marari.” A fingertip lightly taps her upon the nose, then trails down across her lips, silencing her immediate acceptance of the terms. “And. Pack your bags.”
You see. There are consequences to managing your boyfriend. Especially when he knows you’re doing it. This is merely a question of negotiation now. How important is denying me access to Gotham. What can I get out of it and will Cassie make it worth not pursuing what I’m really interested in? No matter how she responds to this, I’ve gotten information -or- I’ve gotten a large payoff. The only thing I know for sure, is that she’s not going to call my bluff. Because she knows I don’t actually bluff. My complete lack of shame, patience or material attachment affords me no reason to actually bluff.
“What. Haven’t you seen the news? They’re having so much fun over there! All those crazy costumes. Criminals in every corner. It looks like a job for Superman… just the sort of thing you’ve been wanting me to do with my powers.”
Oh, yeah. That’s right. Add a side of her words against her. Push the angle of doing the right thing. I’m going to India tonight, folks. I don’t win these very often. So when there’s opportunity? I’m letting the smirk out in full two-dimple force. The kind of smirk that says I’ve already packed her bag, I just can’t wait for her to unpack it.
Cassie : “Hah. If you’ve ever said a more true thing than that, I don’t know what it is…”
He’s not joking, and while he’s teasing and answering my banter, it is precisely what I said. True. When you’re a Super and a Luthor there’s not much that’s outside your ability to grab and/or do, so why do you need to share or lean on anyone else? I guess it’s fortunate for me that I fill a niche that he can’t just get for himself or we probably wouldn’t be together. And the fact that I’m not much in for being used makes this a bit different than most other relationships with people he’s got right now. I’ve got my own powers, I don’t care about the influence of the money.
“I would probably make a pretty great Benevolent Overlord. History just also says that never really ends well for anyone. So I’ll just settle for bossing around my very own Superboy.”
All through this, I’ve gotten a little more progressively pink in the face, up until I’m to the point of attempting to reclaim my fingers from him, but when it comes down to it Conner is stronger than me. For now. And the amount of struggle I’d have to put up to win that mini-battle isn’t worth it. So I’m pretty grateful for the moving on to kissing again, for a whole variety of reasons. You know. Up until he just stops. Leaving me huffing in disappointment, and narrowing my eyes at him. That was too quick an agreement, so I purse my lips, blue eyes flicking towards the cellphone that is all that had stopped my marker from rolling onto the floor. I don’t know the name. That makes me want to stoop to Google before I agree to anything here.
Turnabout is not fair play and no one that’s ever experienced it would ever say so. This is a big circle of flipped ideas we’ve got going here, from turning the Gotham trip to India, to where we are now.
“Uh huh… it is…”
I don’t even try to hide my suspicions as to what he’s up to. He’s probably up to many things right now, and the number of dimples is exponentially related to how much trouble I’m going to be in. But if there’s no trip to the other side of the world tonight? We’re going to Gotham. This probably should be a no-brainer. I should just text Tim and say ‘sorry, pal I tried, really I did’ and just go with it. But he’s not the only one I want using their powers for good, and I really do actually like a great Indian dessert. Especially when you get it in India.
“Fine. But you have to call my Mom.”
Conner : “You’d make an excellent ‘Benevolent Overlord,'” there’s seemingly no teasing about it, it was after all my idea. “Think about it. Between the pedigree you’ve got and the chops you’ve earned from bossin me around? You’d be a natural.”
Alas, we both know the discussion about her being the Overlord has passed. What with the kissing, the exploring, the moment when we were about to take our playfulness from smooching to make out session. Complete with more than a little bit of blushing from one of the two of us. Only for the entire thing to be denied in the face of her having this entire thing turned around on her.
It doesn’t happen often. Me winning at something like this. Not to say that I don’t win, because I do. Fairly often even. This is just the exception to the rule, that says Cassie always wins when she’s the one employing the tactics of seemingly giving me what I want, while getting what she wants. This must be a bitter medicine, in a way. Especially once she recognizes it for what it happens to be. That’s the worst for me too. When I realize she’s gamed me. I like that she has Game, I just don’t like it put forth upon me.
At the moment, the exact moment, of agreement? I’m swooping in to sneak a kiss. A real kiss. Soft at first, but putting coal upon the fire of the heat in her cheeks that was only beginning before. There’s something more to all of this. Not only did I buy in too quickly, but I’ve not let up upon getting what I want. If anything the kiss is as much celebratory as anything.
“No worries, Brighteyes. I talked to Mom earlier and told her we were taking a ‘cultural road trip.’ She was worried about it being a school night,” flashing that charming smile, which involves more than a little batting of the eyes. “But I promised to talk to you about not forgetting the ‘Potential of Schools Abroad,’ too.”
“I’ll grab our swim suits from California. Put a couple things in there to keep us busy on the flight over…” Fwooosh! Cassie’s hair rustles in the displaced wind from my speeding away.
Cassie : “Maybe I’ll work up to that. Do Overlords have Consorts, because I think that title would fit you pretty well. You know. Unless you keep teasing me…”
It’s all rather rhetorical though. The teasing and banter results in a lot of those questions, and in many cases goes until one or the other of us has to shut the other up in creative, affectionate ways. Well, usually they’re affectionate. I was all ready for it to continue in that direction, too, up until Conner put on the brakes to frustrate me and capitalize on a moment when things were decidedly in his favor. Very like him, really. Damn it all.
“Hmph.”
I’d say that the kiss is my reward for going along with what was maybe his plan all along, and in part? Maybe it is. But it’s also about throwing me off. Keeping me off balance until the moment where there’s simply no getting my footing back at all. I wasn’t ready for the kissing to resume. Into it enough that once again, I’m not ready for it to stop, so that once again I’m letting out a soft complaint. But there’s no denying Conner’s pleased. Too pleased, for this to just have happened to go his way and that concerns me. A lot.
“How nice of you. Always thinking about my future…”
My tone is dry, and a little bit exasperated. He’s already talked to my Mom? Definitely up to something, and I’m replaying the day to see at what point I started tip toeing into this trap, and wondering how obvious it was before the moment it sprung closed on me.
“On the flight over? We’ll be flying on the flight… hey!”
Double damn it.
With a much louder noise of frustration, I toe his textbook cover closed, the rest of the pages had flipped in his passing and lost our place as it was. My stomping of displeasure as I go upstairs in a normal, teenage girl sort of antic. I just have to make sure to stomp gently, but quite loud enough that he’s going to hear it just the same.
