by Michele | Oct 25, 2019 | Chronicles
Batman: Lately I can count the number of things going right in my world on one hand. It has seemed like a never ending streak of the worst luck possible. League of Assassins come to Gotham. Joker goes on an even more insane spree than normal. Bruce died. Don’t forget that the entire mess with the Cave, between it turning against us and being infiltrated while that happened. At this point keeping track of the things going right in my world are a lot easier than things going wrong. At least Barbara is back. I’m going to hang my cowl on that for the time being.
It’s almost reassuring to know that I’m not the only one having that sort of time of life lately.
Shiera thought she was alone, but ‘Batman’ has a way of sneaking up on people. The apartment is in only slightly better shape than her House is. Though I think that has more to do with the lack of a full scale war happening on the front lawn. Damien and I being there tipped the scales in the girl’s favor, whether she likes to acknowledge that or not. She wouldn’t have known they were coming, for one. Nor been able to take them all, by herself, for another. Clearly Carter hadn’t, which is plain to see even for an untrained eye. Yes, he put up a fight, but the numbers game was simply too much of a factor.
“Same squad that attacked you,” I’m just confirming what she already knows of course, but I’m trying to establish something here. “They’re called several things, but the moniker they use most is the Suicide Squad. Officially speaking they’re a rogue group of mercenaries that work off the books for whatever government pays them. Unofficially they’re a select number of meta-humans that the U.S. Government employs to look like Mercenaries. Most of their number are criminals, plucked from society and sentenced to long term imprisonment for their crimes. They’re given years off their sentences for work in this black books group.”
“As I was trying to tell you before. They’re not necessarily after you. They want your weapons. The business on the news. This War in Kahndaq, that’s ground to a stalemate? It started because they raided Kahndaq for the metal you and Carter are using for your weapons. I was approaching you, because you seemed like the reasonable one.”
Shiera: Better or worse is subjective, as far as the apartment is concerned. No, there’s no current war on the lawn, or lack thereof, but it looks like the site of a battle that’s happened, and then moved on. Neither one of us actually lives here, but it serves as a crash pad on occasion and storage if nothing else. More or less the summary of all the property that belongs to one or the other of us, or to one of our prior incarnations that we can lay claim to through a line of inheritance. They also function as alternate identities.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t have simply bailed on someone that was trying to help me, as I realized the two not actively trying to stuff me into a van had been, but Carter needed me or else he would have probably already been home. By the time I’d arrived at the downtown apartment there was no sign of him. Except maybe the blood splatter that I had my fingertips hovering millimeters over when I’m interrupted. Maybe it’s not his, but I have to assume at least some of the carnage across the front room had to have been.
The wings weren’t out when he came in, but the moment I hear a noise, or a voice in this case they appear. Not quite instantaneous, but still very quickly and in a much less defensive posture than I’d arched them in the house.
“Ordinarily, you’d be right.”
Carter’s many things, but chief among them is hot headed. He would have taken someone walking in unannounced as a threat. Or even announced, depending on posture and discussion. I just don’t know how reasonable I feel right now. I’d listened though, instead of attacking, though the wings are still folded down my back as I leave the smear of blood and stoop to shuffle around torn and littered papers on the floor. The desk is still mostly intact, if they were looking for something as he says, I guess it makes sense that they’d turn the place upside down. Sloppily, there couldn’t have been much time.
“There’s no getting them without getting us, I don’t think. At least not these. Why now?”
Maybe someone is more informed than I am, though at the mention of Khandaq a look of surprise and recognition had flown across my face. I’ll never be a person at this point who can insist there’s not a reason and a timing behind everything.
Batman: The ‘crime scene’ is such that I’m pretty sure even Damien could tell what had happened here. They were here first and were searching through Carter’s apartment, turned storage flat, for the loot they were after. Carter Hall was either alerted to it or happened upon it. The damage to this place is extensive, but not nearly as wide-spread as what was done to the home these two ‘Live In.’ Confined as it, I’d deduce that the Squad here simply overcame Carter through an extreme use of tranquilizers. Which is what they’d been aiming at Shiera, until Damien went kam-fuckin-kaza on them.
“Despite my many … misgivings… about Kahndaq’s dictator slash champion, Black Adam has been very adept at keeping the secrets of his homeland exactly that; a secret. I suspect that someone has been aware of the Metal’s existence for a long time. Personally, I can tell you that elements of the United States have been aware of it since the nineteen forties. However believe in the mystical side of our world was looked upon with a scant eye, even with people faster than speeding bullets or leaping small buildings and whatnot. Recently that has changed in America, I would propose the same could be said for elsewhere in the world.”
“Regardless of whether the knowledge of and interest in things of a mystical bent, I believe that the answer of ‘Why now’ is actually tied to the Alien origins, rather their mystical properties. It is my current hypothesis that Nth metal is being targeted currently because of what it can do, more so than what it is or where it comes from. If you’re after specifics? I’m talking about killing people like Black Adam, for good.”
“Which brings me to right now and something you just said,” the Batman doesn’t need to move or use gestures to make a point, so when I actually do it’s to simply highlight something. Right now, I’m reaching out from beneath the cape of mine to point at her Wings very pointedly. “You said they don’t get those without you, that may be true but once they have you do they need to keep you to keep them?”
“Personally, having seen you fight. I’d remove the you part from the Metal. If you want to find Carter Hall, we need to move very quickly. The tracker that I put on those men who attacked your House, won’t stay undetected for ever.”
Shiera: Of the two of us, Carter and myself, I am infinitely less impulsive but at the moment I’m finding it very hard to stay still. Agitation could probably be excused given the circumstances, however, if I actually felt the need to explain myself. Which I do not. As I listen to Batman’s explanation, I’m moving through the apartment, picking up a fringed and beaded dress with a little more reverence and care than I’d shown the papers I was rifling through, and trying to find the remnants of the garment bag it had been preserved in before the intruders had arrived.
“Nth metal. Yes.”
The word’s right, and falls into place in my head like a weight, or maybe more correctly the last tumbler on a lock and I look a little far away before gritting my teeth and turning from the dismantled closet to face him again.
“If they were just after the base material… no. I suppose not.”
We’ve never been sure if the metal. The Nth metal. Functioned as it did for us, because it is us or if that’s what it could do for anyone. If maybe our minds made the shapes, rather than just controlling their actions. But the salient and immediate point is that the harnesses, which make up the wings and armor, aren’t exactly removable like a coat, and I rather doubt anyone would live through the experience once it’s been fused.
Another reason to hurry.
“Lets go.”
There’s really not much more to it than that, is there? Yes, I have more questions but priorities say they can wait.
Batman: “They’re definitely after the base metal,” this is another point that I really don’t have to argue with her about, one of the few points I happen to know for certain. “Put frankly, they wouldn’t have even known about the wings, if you’d have come with me originally. They just knew about Carter’s theft from the Museum in Cairo. The Mace. Maybe some other trinkets. The moment you brought those out…”
No, I’m not actually placing blame. Not on Carter or Shiera at least. Had Damien not shown up, had things gone differently, perhaps we could have lead the Squad astray with some bauble of metal. That is now how the cards were played though and now this is what we have to deal with. Clean up, in fact. Which is why I’m equally accepting of Shiera’s transition to accepting my help this time around. Bruce was always right about this, he’d taught me long ago that if you present people with the proper case -and- demonstrate it’s veracity through your own actions, the truth wins out. I fought to help her, I’ve presented a case that is free of my own opinions (as much as I can) and allows her to draw her own. Now she believes me, at least enough to take the next step.
Not a word is spoken to Shiera, just a touch of my cowl at about ear-level. Then a swirling blue-white glimmer appeared in the open space behind me in the shadows. How had I gotten here? How had I snuck up on her during a state of heightened anxiety? The answer appears in one of Zatanna’s magical portals. Through which we step directly in to more shadows. Only these are in a much bigger place. A hangar to be precise. One that is currently filled with men and women in uniform that work towards one purpose: Loading Carter on to a private cargo plane. Hard to miss the carter-sized stasis pod being loaded in the giant bay doors by soldiers. Even harder to miss the problem between us and them: Suicide Squad members, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot and a caldre of soldiers that are all being directed by a very large, scary looking guy in soldier garb of his own.
The portal put us in the shadows, behind cargo containers and near the furthest reach of the hangar. “We need to disable the plane, release Carter and get then evac. The longer we stay the more out numbered we’re going to get. I’ve arranged for a distraction, but it’s not going to buy us much, if any, time once they see you again.”
“Since he’s your asset, we can do this your way if you’ve got an idea. Alternatively… I can call in my distraction, and I’ll cover for you, either way, you’ll need to get back to this exact point to catch the portal out of here.”
Shiera: There’s no small amount of my head that wants to explore that point further. What do they want to do with it? Something just as simple as killing the equivalent of a god on this Earth? There’s more to the metal than that, and possibly even more than we know still beyond. The connection that’s driven us to find these pieces, and the blanks that have been filled in when we have. Carter’s experienced that more than I have, but the piece that’s currently attached to my body had been a part of me before. The missing time that had slid into place like putting on a glove. We knew there was more of them. We’d actually been preparing another little ‘excursion’ before the attacks today, it’s why Carter had been in this apartment at all. Preparing. I’d done the grave robbing in London solo, but this time we’d intended to go together.
There’s nothing that I need from this apartment, not now at least, and there’s almost a sort of recognition beneath my skin as the portal springs up. I don’t think he’s the one that made it, the man doesn’t exactly scream ‘magic’ so much as skulking unholy terror if you’re on the wrong side of him. Which I suppose is its own different kind of magic. No chatter, just purposeful steps, which shift onto my toes into something more akin to sneaking as we slide into the shadows. I don’t hiss, so much as bare teeth and make myself breathe slowly as I watch what’s going on in front of us.
“I’m going to tell him you said that, after. He’ll love it.”
The dry sarcasm doesn’t last long, mostly because there’s something a lot more important at hand. Like not simply doing the equivalent of handing over more of exactly what they were after in the first place. There’s a shake of my red head, as I ease back on my heels.
“Once upon a time, battle tactics was my thing, but I’m probably a little rusty.”
The plane would seem like a priority to me. Otherwise they just take off with half the prize, and then deal with the rest of the problem. So the order he’s already listed should work. I have no idea what shape Carter’s in, but if he’s even have conscious he’ll probably become a very aggressive problem for them once he’s freed. Probably would like this plan, too. Smash. Grab. Bolt.
“Do it. I’m ready as I’m likely to be. I should be able to shred the plane’s engines on the way in.”
The wings don’t just work wonders on skin, after all.
Batman: A very direct nod of the cowled head is her response, I’m already keying the microphone, “Penny-One, bring the thunder.”
Very good, Sir. I must say, flying a drone is simply not as fun as the real McCoy, but I do quite enjoy the thrill of the hunt so-to-speak.
“We really need to get you our more, Penny-One,” the shake of my head in response to the voice in my ear is quite different than the one Shiera had gotten only moments before. A small ear-plug is offered to Shiera, as I’m stepping past her once more. “Wait for it. You’ll know what you’re waiting for.”
She won’t need to wait long actually. I’m dipping in to those shadows with a flutter of that cape she’d been admiring. Concealing myself in those shadows is something I do very well. Being Batman isn’t exactly what I wanted to do my whole life, but I definitely learned to love being able to blend in as Nightwing. It’s something that the Robins never get to do. Ever wonder why very few people are ever shooting directly at Batman? Your answer is the little Boys next to him in Bright Red and Yellow. Targets. Moving, Talking, Sassing, Smart Alleck, Targets. Look no one that knows Bruce would call him a saint, but he is right more often than not.
Que the Distraction. It comes in very simple terms. Taking the form of a Bat-Drone. Piloted by none other than Sir Alfred Pennyworth. It comes in hot and loaded. The attack is without warning and you betcha it makes for a brilliant distraction. With the air fire coming at the mouth of the open hangar, it pins the soldiers in with them naturally thinking that they are fighting this surprise battle on a single front. In front of them, since there was no natural way for someone to be attacking them from behind.
As Shiera does whatever it is she has in mind to ‘deal with the plane,’ she’ll no doubt have a good vantage point from above. Allowing her to see several little glimmers as I launch numerous batarangs out of the shadows. One specifically aimed at Deadshot‘s back. Hey, a fight has a winner and a loser. Hitting someone in the back, while they’re distracted? Assures us of not being drug in to a protracted battle with the deadliest man in the room immediately. The second hits the floor right next to the flashy Captain Boomerang. The two batarangs explode the second they make impact and Shiera will see a spray of taser wire envelope the two jerks.
That leaves a throng of soldiers and that massive one that was directing traffic. “Boomerang is down. Deadshot’s suit is insulated, it will absorb most of that. We’ve got maybe a minute before he joins the action.”
Shiera: Penny-One? Somehow it seems like an incongruous call sign, because I assume he’s speaking to someone and not himself. The sanity of anyone dressing up like a bat and skulking through portals and shadows might be questionable to many people, but I’m simply not one of them. It would be a hair hypocritical, even before you factor in what I still feel to be moments of my own mental instability. It actually got worse after finding the Nth metal that makes up my wings, but I had more memories and more lifetimes to contend with. There’s an almost terse nod of my head, as I take the offered plug and fit it into my ear.
It’s one thing to fight in response, to react to a situation as it rises around you with no other choice. I’m finding it’s another matter entirely to go in like this. To proactively attack. I’m not, in this lifetime, the one that used to be Kendra Saunders, a trained fighter. So what I have to go on is a sort of muscle memory and so far it’s served me fine, but I also know there’s the possibility that it won’t. I haven’t really taken the time to study and practice because there just hasn’t been any. Time. If we can reasonably expect to have people continue to come after us though…
It happens fast, and it happens loudly. The sound of the attack amplified in the enclosed space, bouncing off the walls and drowning it in distracting cacophony of shouts and fire. Everyone seems to be looking towards that, or maybe some stray ones towards the suddenly down members of the Suicide Squad, which hopefully means no one will be looking at me. Or firing on me, as I launch myself into the air. I don’t fly nearly as quickly as some of the costumed superheroes you see on the news seem to, but in an enclosed space like this and over a short distance there’s probably not much discernible difference.
I land on the wing of the plane, it should shield me from view at least in part, while I curve my wings downwards and then twist, driving lethal pinions into the metal beneath me. Testing mundane material against the Nth metal’s magic. I’d briefly thought about going for the engine, but I’d have to likely destroy multiple and I think it might still be capable of motion without one. You cannot fly with a broken wing.
Batman: From Shiera’s vantage point it is not that difficult to see Captain Boomerang. He had taken up station near the loading pylons, where I’d pointed her as soon as we arrived. His colorful suit makes him stand out normally, but right now the volts coursing through him that make him do this weird dance as he jitterbugs across the floor? That’ll probably give Shiera all the real view she needs to know that at least one of the creeps she fought at her Home is out of action. If she scans up near the doorway, where Deadshot took a sniper’s position in order to shoot down the drone Penny-One is piloting? She’ll see that he’s similarly down too, but she didn’t need visual confirmation. I’d already told her these important details. It just depends on if she trusts me enough to not waist that time.
Nothing actually stops her from perching on the plane, because nothing actually noticed her. Most of the soldiers had been focused outside the Hangar. Deadshot‘s choice of vantages took him out of the line of sight from those in front of him. It’s only Captain Boomerang‘s going down like a sack of potatoes that raises any red flags. The men nearest Carter’s little pod react immediately to raise the alarm, but again… not to call out about a bird-lady flying above them.
The reaction to Shiera comes after the sound of metal on metal shrieking gives the Mercenaries somewhere to look other than outside. Nth metal isn’t just naturally stronger than the plane’s aerospace engineered carbon-aluminum. It also happens to get a little bump from being magical too. Shredding through the plane’s wing takes only seconds, creating massive damage that will definitely cause them issues in taking off.
What’s more is that as she’s doing this, Shiera does for me what Alfred had done before. In her destruction of the wing, she’s become a distraction. The men who were working with Captain Boomerang are quick to use Carter’s containment pod as cover. Equally quick are they to start taking aim at her, their training tells them that there is only one reason for a Hawk Lady to be attacking them as they’re loading a Hawk Dude up for incarceration. Let’s be honest, they’re not stupid. She won’t do anything massively destructive, not when they’re putting the object Hawk Lady is there to save.
They do not, however, know about the Batman. I’ve been doing this a very long time and working with a team mate is literally how I grew up. The moment their attention is stolen, I take advantage of it. Leaping from atop a row of cargo containers, the ‘Batman’ descends upon them like a Hawk himself. Only I don’t have any shiny metal appendages to give myself away. The nearest one is down before his brain puts together the feel of a boot at the back of his head, being the reason for his face suddenly accelerating in the pod itself. It’s actually that man’s rifle that strikes the one to the left, just under the left knee with the sound of a crack that is almost as loud as the gun-fire. Before he’s finished screaming, alerting the others, a grapple shoots from beneath the cape in to the man on the third of the four corners. He’s pulled so suddenly that his rifle sprays bullets harmlessly over Shiera’s head.
It’s the fourth of the mercenaries that has the unfortunate luck of being the last in line. Leaving me the least amount of time to neutralize before raising anymore of an alarm that has already been caused. A swift tug of the grappling hook, jerks Merc #3 around and against the Pod itself. The kinetic force of which is used similarly to a sling shot, allowing me to springboard up, once more over the pod and give Merc #4 a different target. His rifle sounds a number of shots as they spray wildly up at the shadowed visage of the giant bat in the air. His scream is cut short by a a kick driving his teeth together with another resounding crack, that is followed by the cape and bat enveloping him. When I rise from the fourth Merc’s body, he’s clearly not getting back up either.
Unfortunately while satisfying and decisive, the interior gunshots have drawn the attention of the only other Soldier that really stood out. The unknown soldier isn’t someone you’d have seen on the news. He is only someone you recognize if you’ve done something so wrong he’s come to you as a nightmare. The literal boogeyman of the spook world. The moment we have his attention our comm-links go live,
Bloody ‘Ell, get the fook out o’ there, that’s Rick Flag.
Honestly? I shoot Shiera a little look and a shrug. Because I haven’t a clue who Penny-One is going on about myself, but I know better than to doubt Alfred when he’s going on about someone like this. Add in the fact that Deadshot should be rousing any second now. I go right to work on the locking mechanism.
“Shiera, buy me thirty seconds and I’ll get Carter out of this,” because as much as I’d love to have her use those wings on this Pod, something tells me if it was that easy to shred like the plane had been then they wouldn’t think they were safe storing Carter inside of it to begin with.
Rick Flag doesn’t have super powers. Not really. He’s a lot more like me than he is like these Hawk people. The difference is? The man’s a lot more like Bruce, with an actual super-powered gift of somehow getting other soldier-types to buy in to his decision making. Which is to say that moment he caught on to Shiera and I being here? He started to martial the troops away from Alfred’s distraction. So we’re not looking at one simple Soldier. We’re looking at all of them, being commanded by Flag to start focusing on us. He’s going to try to pin us down, neutralize us long enough for Deadshot to get back in the fight.
Shiera: At my home, they’d said they needed me alive. With how little time’s passed, I’d assume that’s still the case and that makes me just that little extra dash of brave in how I proceed. Not so brave that I think there may not be a sliding scale of how much they want/need me compared to how much trouble and destruction I’m causing, particularly since they already have Carter in custody for the moment. A body can also take a great deal of damage and still be technically living, as well. Consequently, I don’t risk standing still and testing how far I can go. I’ve no sooner destroyed one wing, then I’m moving again and rather unnecessarily using my wings to boost me up further onto the top of the fuselage and punching rows of holes in it as I go.
I don’t know who the voice in my ear is, other than the moniker ‘Penny-One’, or know what qualifications he has to need listening to, and the name ‘Rick Flag’ doesn’t mean anything to me. When you’re in the middle of a fight, and someone says something like that, however… there’s an answering shrug of my shoulders before I hop down the other side of the plane, continuing to drag and shred with my wings. Disable the plane. Retrieve Carter. Get back to Point A. And now, buy the Batman 30 seconds so he can accomplish bullet point number two.
We’ve got what I have to assume is an advantage that our opposition is coming from in front, if this weren’t a hanger maybe we could even bottleneck them. But it is, so I need a wider attack to keep an entire group of soldiers from interfering with Batman’s current task. That starts with a spin, pivoting on my feet and flinging out a wing which dislodges a salvo of razor feathers. A twist in the opposite direction does it again. I’m not necessarily trying to hit anyone but after what I’d just done to their plane, I’m hoping the soldiers may have the good sense to try to avoid being skewered.
Batman: If only we had someone that was an expert in Hacker-work. This would be an opportune time for that person to be tasked with doing this work for us. If only. Instead what we’ve got is the fourth best computer in the Bat Family at this stuff, having to do it on site. While having eleven different soldiers taking aim and one of those happens to be someone that scared the piss out of Alfred from long-distance. Score one for improvisational battle-planning, Dick. I’m so good at this.
Truth be told, I’d actually be impressed. Genuinely. If I were even looking up to give witness to Shiera’s awesomeness. Whether it’s some sort of inner mechanic of a past life coming out in the heat of battle or what, when I do look up it’s only because of Alfred once again making a noise over the comm-link. This one sounds a lot like a gasp-guffaw, that I’d only heard when someone managed to get Damien to do something kind and generous. The kid just isn’t wired that way.
There was eleven hostiles at the Hangar doors. One of which was Rick Flag himself. Not counting either of the two temporarily downed members of the Suicide Squad. When I look up from my work using my costume’s fiber-optic connections to wire in to the containment pod? I see a litany of them being drug back in to cover by their squad-mates. The front of the Hangar looks like a bomb went off. Silvery shrapnel is literally everywhere the eye can see.
“Impressive.”
“Impressive.”
The compliment comes in concert, as Alfred chimes in at the same time. She essentially did exactly what I asked, by buying me time and sending the entire squad floundering for cover. The -problem- with that, is that they were already behind cover. It just happened to be facing out, while the attack was from within. Shiera’s aim might have benefited from Alfred’s earlier distraction, but the attack she made was just short of impossible. Half of Rick Flag‘s squad is down and Flag himself is caught right across the left eye with one of those feathers.
Flag is absolutely not an idiot like a good number of confetti bad guys. He might just be the deadliest person in the room on any given day. Despite half of his troops being taken out in a single swoop of her wings, he’s already moving on to a new plan. His men aren’t going to be an easy target like that again. They’re busy pulling themselves inside the doors, so that Alfred’s drone can’t attack them, while also using their own men to cover against Shiera too. From their vantage points they bunker down and start spraying bullets everywhere.
Seems rather silly. Unless you consider the one thing I said about a minute ago. Something that Flag has already did the math on too. He only needs to delay us long enough for Deadshot to get on his feet. Which happens to be something that the man is working on right now.
Luckily for Shiera and Carter? I don’t have to hack anything trickier than a door, because this would all be going sideways fast. A click, followed by a hisssssss of pressurized air being released is the sound you only want to hear when you’re talking about a door unlocking. Once the pod unseals, it’s time to go and by go? I mean…one hand is literally grabbing Carter Hall a shoulder and the other is dispersing gas pellets out all around me. They’re shooting indescriminately, but Deadshot won’t be once he’s in the fight. So I need him to not have me or the large Hawk Man as potential targets.
“Don’t inhale the pellets. It’s mercantile gas. Throws off heat tracking. Get to the evac point. We’re leaving.”
Shiera: From an emotional point of view, it should perhaps bother me exactly how effective that actually was. It doesn’t, because it needed to be done, and this is a them or us situation. With the way the bullets have started to spray they wouldn’t probably have shed a tear, because I’ve very likely now pushed into the ‘forget alive’ category. Logically, though, I don’t need to add a heaping death tally on top of the reason they already want us. That’s why the first two flurries aren’t followed up by even more, despite my having plenty more Nth metal crafted feathers where that came from.
“And clearly pretty effective, too.”
The explosion of deadly metal doesn’t simply stay in place, either. I’m not about to give them any of what they came here for, if I can help it. It’s magic, and for whatever reason it’s linked to, and almost behaves like, an extension of my soul. As the soldiers retreat from the next attack that should be coming from flared metal wings, instead the quills that had been flung at them before fly through the air once more. Reversed, and back into place. I could do it all again, but now they’re firing indiscriminately and I don’t want to test how many I can deflect or avoid. It isn’t just me here being shot at.
I may not hear the hiss of the door releasing over everything else that’s going on in the hanger right now, but it’s an easy assumption to make that he’s completed that particular task. Otherwise I assume we wouldn’t be going yet. How long has it been? He said we had a minute. It must be near to that by now. I take to the air again, just not moving as quickly this time because I don’t want to leave them behind. In the air, bullets sprayed towards me won’t also be sprayed at Batman, and Carter.
“I can carry you both…”
I don’t though, I’m used to one man with a very prickly sort of prideful disposition. Gods know I don’t need to alienate another one, but the offer’s still out there in case something happens. I can retreat to where we came from at the same time either way.
Batman: This isn’t actually your standard type of retreat, but then nothing about this has been standard has it? Normally a retreat involves simply making a rush for your evacuation point, but we don’t want to do anything in a straight line. All we need is to give Deadshot something to lock in on and he’ll have a shot. What actually happens is more of a zig-zag pattern. One that doesn’t give Shiera an answer right away.
Not until we’re behind the cargo containers like before. Despite the gunshots I can hear (thank you sensory enhancement tech in the suit) Flag barking orders. The men that weren’t injured are being pooled in to three teams. Two teams of two are sent searching for us, with the third team being put on rescue duty for the men that are down. So far I’m not hearing anything about fatalities but I’m not exactly sure how much Shiera cared about that, having seen what she did with those wings.
If our method of escape was anything but the instantaneous pull of a magic portal? I don’t think this would end as well as it’s gone up to this point. I’m also not sure what pandora’s box we’ve opened by utilizing magic like this. But I’m rationalizing now, as I had before, this Nth metal is considered magic by most of our world. These people who involved normal non-magic faring people like myself in this, opened the door. I’m merely making use of the tools at my disposal. Yeah, it sounds like bullshit in my head too.
The very moment that we’re through the portal, this time, Shiera is getting the chance to meet someone new. “Shiera, this is Alfred Pennyworth and Helena Sandsmark. They’re going to take Carter and put him back together again. You’re welcome to stay with him. You’re safe for the time being. Flag is going to put my presence in that skirmish together with the one at your home. N.O.W.H.E.R.E. is very logically going to make me their biggest clue to finding you. They’ll start with Gotham.”
“Which is why I brought you here. To Coast City. Welcome to Titan Tower, Shiera you’re our first visitor. Please do me a favor and once Carter is awake, keep him from breaking anything. We’ve not yet even had an opportunity to christen the place.”
You might actually call the look on my face a little bit smug. It just has nothing to do with the lavish Titan Tower, because really the place is only half-built and partially functional. This look? Is directly in response to the look on Shiera’s face when Helena Sandsmark scoops Carter Hall up with one arm and maneuvers him toward the half-functional medical facility. While Alfred Pennyworth starts working field medic magic on Carter. Neither of them seem the least bit phased by any of this.
“Oh, don’t worry. She can carry you both, if you’re feeling faint.” Yeah and -that- look on Shiera’s face is the same one I had when she made the same offer in the Hangar. Smirk.
Shiera: No small part of me had wanted to simply grab hold of both men and get us where we were going faster, but I’m fortunately capable of letting other people do for themselves. As it turns out, there was no need for me to hurry us along regardless, and I’d spent the very brief time getting myself back to the entrance, while keeping a hawk’s eye out for any pressing danger to my impromptu companion or Carter. It’s a distraction I actually appreciate more than maybe I should, given the situation.
As abruptly as we arrived, we’re gone. I’ll marvel at the amount of destruction and chaos caused in a very short time later. Wherever we are now has my immediate attention, the people more than the setting.
“Ah. Penny-One. A pleasure. Thank you for your help.”
In advance, and maybe a little terse but its still a thanks. Seemingly out of immediate danger, I have more focus available, and less adrenaline, to see me through actually looking over Carter. It’s never a pleasant thing to see someone you care about so still, but I’m finding it even harder right now. Tamping down my panic, I tear green eyes away from them and back to Batman. I’ve seen him die far too many times to want to experience it again so soon after we’d found each other once more. Or at all.
I let out a tired wuff of air that could be a laugh, or maybe a resigned sigh.
“I’ll do my best, but smashing is terribly second nature for him.”
My head tilts to one side and my answer had become almost absentminded as I watch Helena move the bulk that is my other half.
“Mmn. I should hope so. I don’t weigh that much.”
It’s been months and months since I felt like I wasn’t the strangest character in a room. There’s a sort of… ease of tension I hadn’t been aware of in finding I’m not the most interesting anymore. Or maybe it’s just the lethargy following what feels like days of violence and stress.
by Michele | Oct 21, 2019 | Chronicles
Slade: “Hmph. You sure know how t’ keep a guy waiting, Birdy.”
Slade Wilson. Assassin. Mercenary. Professional Do-Whatever-The-Fuck-You-Pay-Him-To-Do. Also certified bad ass of extremely epic proportions. Last seen taking on the entirety of the League of Assassin -and- the Penguin’s goon squad at the Iceberg Lounge. Now waiting all too impatiently at the top of the one Dinah Lance’s place of residence and Bar.
Not known for his manners, most of the time. Nor is he usually the type of guy that waits for a Lady to be ready. All of these things tie in together to truly explain what it means that Slade is here in the first place. He didn’t come to Dinah with his hat in hand, he came with something that he knew would entice her. Furthermore he’d come willing to help her, before she helped him. Every little clue tying back to one simple fact: Deathstroke was actually going to be doing something that he needed help with.
“While you’ve been playing patty cake with Bat v.2 over your young stud v.2, I was getting some intel together from my source in Star Cityyyyyyyyyyyy……………”
Superman: Superman. Superhero. Photographer. Doesn’t-know-or-care-how-scrary-Deathstr oke-is-or-should-be. Just threw Slade Wilson 15 miles due north, in to the Gotham Harbor. Doesn’t seem to really blink much over the thought that a normal human body probably can’t handle that sort of fall. Also a badass, doesn’t have a problem reminding people. Frequently. When the opportunity calls for it.
“You live the worst neighborhood, with terrible neighbors.”
There are entrances and then there are entrances. My predecessor would have made with polite chatter and asked Slade to excuse them for a private chat. Or hung there in the air like some monolithic God, waiting for the two Super-Ninja to have their tete-a-tete. Luckily I’m not that ass-clown. My arrival goes from my simply not being there, to Slade simply not being there. Fluttery cape not withstanding.
Once I’ve landed, I simply give her a long look. With absolutely anyone else that looks like Dinah. I’d be looking right through her clothing. With Dinah, I’m intentionally looking at what she is wearing instead. “Star City. What is it is with you and terrible choices? That place is a car fire, stacked on a dumpster fire, being juggled by a clown that’s also on fire. Being chased by a flaming, pink, Bat-like-Vigilante. That’s also on fire.”
Canary: “In the words of far, far too many of my current companions: ‘uh, duh.’ You do pointy blades assassin, I do blunt objects tease. If we all just stick to our roles, everything be fine.”
It’s not as if I’m the old lady of the Gotham Gang. That job falls squarely to Dick, who is probably scowling somewhere about now. But with the teaching role I’d fallen/been asked into, I’m once again stuck with badgering/beating the younger generation. Five-ish years is a vigilante generation? Actually, that sounds sadly about right. But no one told him he had to skulk up here, I would have preferred if he hadn’t. Despite it not exactly being any sort of secret that the place is mine, and frankly at this point my identity is more courtesy than fact to the majority of the supercrew, it’s not the best for business or my healthy sense of paranoia. My demeanor says ‘bored’ more than ‘bothered’ though, as I shake blonde hair back out of my face, and roll blue eyes at the old man’s talk of patty cake, and next I expect to hear about some philandering, so I distract myself with making sure my jacket’s how I want it. I am still listening about the source, however.
Until there’s a very unDeathstroke yelp, a whoosh and when I look up in wide eyed surprise, body already shifting on its own into the defensive posture I should probably have had around Slade in the first place, if I hadn’t already figured out he needed me for all of this. That’s as close to ‘phased’ as I get by what has just happened, I spend a moment looking for whatever trajectory Deathstroke had been sent on, momentarily concerned that something permanent might have just happened.
“We can’t all have penthouses in Metropolis. Then they wouldn’t be fancy. They’d just be normal, and I don’t think you could handle that.”
It’s apparently costume night, at Pretty Bird’s Bar & Bistro, though the last part no one actually uses, and I’m fairly sure half the ‘neighbors’ wouldn’t know what one was, anyway. Higher education and culture wasted on this place. The fact that Superman’s in his is of course much more interesting to me than the fact that I am also in mine, the fishnets, the boots, the not exactly just a corset anymore suit that Tim’s been pathologically incapable of not messing with and beefing up the construction of. None of it’s really what it looks like anymore, though. The fishnets don’tn exactly need constant replacing anymore, on account of how they could probably stop a knife. He’s not here in plainclothes, like the times before, and that makes me just a tad wary/curious all at the same time.
“You’re being awfully judgemental tonight, Supes. Must be Tuesday. I just don’t do nice places, apparently. Or I muck them up when I’m there. A pink one, now? I clearly have been away too long.”
My tone’s got a sing song lilt to it, the Canary persona out to play, just without the edge that takes it from joking and having fun to you’re half a second from my fingers in your Adam’s Apple.
“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but…”
Superman: “…but why am I here, in Gotham, in plain sight, wearing this?”
Frankly, this is comfortable. More comfortable of late than my actual costume, Conner Luthor. Everything has gone sideways or backwards or some other way than how I want them of late. Yet being Superman? Has gone strangely right. To a very surprising, waiting for the other shoe to drop sort of way. Do I say all of this? Hell, no. What Dinah gets is no less the truth, but not exactly the whole truth.
“I’m starting to learn that there are times people listen to me a lot more seriously when I’m wearing this.” A flick of my finger against the metallic S-shield makes a very audible tink. “People who otherwise might not always listen to a guy that ordinarily looks sixteen, going on seventeen.”
“Kind of like the way your pupils dilated when you saw it. Your heartbeat picked up noticeably, after you saw it. It didn’t pick up because of the potential danger, either. It was a good six one hundredths of a second -after- you took a defensive stance. Fear doesn’t move you, Dinah. I’ve known that since we first met. It’s one of the many, many reasons, I’m particularly fond of you.”
“You know if I’m here wearing this, I’m here for something serious. And I am. Part courtesy, I wanted you to hear it from me. One of your people has been arrested. He fashioned himself as a sort of Red Hood, of late. When I heard, I decided to get involved. Personally. He’ll be working in Kahndaq and if he assists with that, I’ll see to it that he is released back to Gotham. Back to you. I’ve arranged for all charges to be dropped and for things to go back to the way they were. Your people police Gotham. We stay out. My predecessor had that arrangement with your predecessor, I’d like to think we can come to a similar agreement.”
“That’s the first part of why I’m here. Dressed like this.”
Black Canary: “All those muscles. The good looks. The money. The ability to pull off that kind out getup and you’re a mind reader, too? Tch. Talk about uneven distribution of luck and talents.”
I know he’s not really. God, I hope he’s not really. The last thing the world needs is a telepathic teenager who can also hear and see everything the regular way from hundreds of miles away. And I say this as someone that actually likes this kid. Again, generations. I get to call him kid. Hell, we’ve practically got two generations between us. More if you go off his chronological age. I feel old, all of the sudden. Not the point though. Banter aside, he’s probably right. Conner Luthor doesn’t scare people who don’t know what he actually is. No one’s going to actually listen to him. Everyone listens to Big Blue. Everyone pays attention. Symbols do that.
Now. I actually have demonstrated that I will listen. Which is telling, because he’s turned up like this regardless. Now. It could just be that it’s what he was already wearing, he’s been all over the news doing Superman Things in Khandaq, so that’s reasonable. But it’d probably take him just as much time to change into plainclothes as it did to do whatever it was he actually did with Slade Wilson. My money’s on ‘it’s on purpose.’ And since he’s here talking to me, instead of wearing his ‘listen to me, jerks’ suit over in the direction of a Bat?
“Awww, you like me. You really like me.”
He’s not wrong, fear is something to ignore and deal with later because reacting to fear, in the face of whatever caused it, probably gets you dead. My new and improved suit might be a lot more resistant to a lot more things, but I don’t rely on that to protect me. That’s also how you get dead. So, I listen for the ‘why’ that he’s here. The courtesy. And as he goes on to tell me, there’s a distinct twitch to my right eye. Damien. Apparently can’t stop himself from getting into it with the flying caped crowd, and that might be more than slightly problematic.
“Mmmn. And the second part is where you tell me what you want me to do for you, because otherwise you’d be talking to BigBat about this and not me.”
Oh, I’m not offended, or miffed, or hurt. No ‘but I thought we were friends!’ whining. Conner’s already done me a favor by warning me about Oliver Queen before now. I also ruptured his eardrums. Even if I wanted to ignore what he’s doing for Damien, though that’s mostly in Damien’s court, I owe him.
Superman: “No, the mind reader is actually a snotty cheerleading shapeshifter. She’s the first real person that I ever met, actually. While I was in the virtual reality simulator, she would use her telepathy to enter my mind and present me with problems. So that the scientists could test my reactions to stimuli.”
See this? This isn’t something just anyone is told. I only talk this openly when it’s with someone that I believe can handle the truth in a very unfiltered way. Conner Luthor is the filter, the mask, the human side of this world that needs boiled down and made pretty before being spoken about. Ironic then, that everyone thinks of him as the crude asshole in this little sideshow.
“She’s also why I’m still alive. Once the scientists realized that my natural reaction to annoyances was to kill the offender, they were planning to abort my project. Megan saved me. She’d realized at some point that my senses were so acute, I could actually hear the real world -through- the fake one of the Virtual Reality. They thought I was some sort of psychopath. Megan realized I was treating the VR like a video game. Resetting the game any time I got a result that I didn’t like.”
“So. When I broke out the V.R. she’s the only one I didn’t murder for real when I leveled the place. Martians don’t like heat vision, you should put that in the old Bat Computer.”
By the time she’s gotten to nudging me about the second part, I’ve floated closer to her. Only letting boots crunch upon the gravel of the roof once I’m within arms reach of her. Those perfectly sculpted features soften quickly once I’m close to her. She’s still defensive. I really do appreciate that. As if she could do anything, should I really choose to be an attacker. I don’t see that at foolish, I love the fact that she is exactly what I said. Not fearless, but not controlled by it. Dinah is able to look past what I could do and I think she really does see what I want to do.
Which is quite simply: Be worthy of Cassie Sandsmark.
That requires something much different than what I’ve been talking about though, doesn’t it. “Buzzzzzz. Wrong. That would suggest that I’m only doing what is right, because I’m motivated by what it gets me in return. I’m helping your friend, because he and your whole group have the wrong idea about Nowhere. At least, part of Nowhere. But talking to you or any one of you about it? Is just going to get me … no where.. fast, pun not intended.”
“The only way I’m ever going to convince any of you, is if we stop talking and start doing the right things.”
“So, no. Part two is not about what you can do for me. Let’s stop making this a habit, could we? People find out that I’ve turned you down twice and it’s going to ruin one of our reputations. Probably your’s.” There’s the charm, the grin that threatens to be a smirk. Teasing the teaser is not exactly something I get to do often and fewer people do it to Canary. “The second part, is also about you.”
“I told you, before. You’re much more than you know. I can’t always be around to protect you. It’s time you started to learn how to use…” fingertip up and pointing at her face, lips, down her throat. “… for something other than being a smart ass.”
“… ahem… not that I’m one to talk, really, but… it’s kind of shitty that the only type of friendship you know is the sort that only does something for you, if they think you’ll owe them something. The way I understand it, friendship starts with trust.” Transitioning from the joking gesture to a very simply, elegant even, open hand offered to a lady, like a proper gentleman. “And ends with it too.”
“Have you ever looked at the drum set on stage while your band is playing? Or the speakers when the bass rolls through them. If you put a quarter on top of them when it’s happening, it’ll bounce. If you direct the bass. Control it.” The grin isn’t just charming, it’s downright obscene. “Before I could fly, I started by leaping over small buildings. I didn’t have someone to help me and make sure I wouldn’t fall.”
Canary: Now that sounds like an even bigger problem for humanity, for many different reasons, and the cynic in me would like to point out to Conner that a shapeshifter, in the employ of NOWHERE, is probably not someone who should be counted on in order to be a ‘real person.’ But it didn’t take long to figure out he’s not half as dumb as he pretends to be, and he might actually be even more suspicious than I am about some things, so I suppose I have to go with his version of what happened to him. I have a whole lot of questions about the wisdom of subjecting a developing mind to that sort of situation, and that’s probably the least of what they were doing. I don’t know if it’s to my credit, or a mark against me, that I don’t even flinch when he offhandedly drops the fact that he killed who knows how many people at a scientific research facility. But. We are talking about the same sort of people that took a teenage meta, put a chip in her brain, and sent her into Arkham with Deathstroke and a pack of others, and then made her forget about it so…
“Now, I didn’t say that. In those exact words. But there’s a whole lot of leeway in being amenable to doing a thing, and seeing the benefit in what people might maybe do in return if you do.”
So. It sounds like someone has actually been listening at least a little, and is even trying, because he’s right. It does start with trust. Not the least of the reasons that I’d prodded Tim about being honest with his supposed friend. If I were actually leery of the man. Boy. In front of me, this conversation would probably be going differently. There’s fear of a thing, or a person, and then there’s healthy respect. Which is what I actually have of our current Superman, because I’m fully aware he could eyelaser me with no warning, and no amount of training I’ve done can stop that, or protect me from it. We’re very, very lucky that he currently has a reason to want to be better. But underneath all of that, he’s still a person. So I interact with him for who and what he is. I do actually have friendships that are built on that, though. Trust.
Not many, mind you, but it takes a lot for me to let someone in that close and allow for that vulnerability. When I do? They become the M word. Mine. And whatever he may be saying about us having the wrong idea, his people currently have one of mine. Well. Two. Apparently.
“You wound me, Blue. Make a girl think she’s going to have to actually try harder, and that’s about where I lose interest.”
The dubious look on my face as he gestures towards it is one part ‘you think you’re going to what?’ with a side of ‘you do realize I’ve taken your advice and pushed my lung capacity up another few notches, right?’ But it ends with a shift to surprise and amusement, as I take the extended hand.
“…somehow I doubt falling is all that problematic for you, except maybe in the ego department. Are you actually proposing to teach me to fly or is this a metaphor?”
Superman: A lot of the people that I associate with think that I don’t listen to them. They couldn’t be more wrong. I listen to everything and more importantly everyone. On a very world wide scale, I’m listening a lot more than anyone would ever be comfortable with knowing. Sure, a lot of that time it’s nothing but garbled, overlayed, background noise, but as I’ve gotten more and more used to focusing on the sounds I want to hear? I truly do listen to far more than I ever should. The secret, I found, is that once I know the voice? I’m able to listen for that specific voice or a tone or even a heart beat’s specific rhythm.
Just because I’m hearing what people say, does not always mean that I’m taking it to heart. Psychologists say that you can never really change the foundation that your personality is built upon and if that’s true, then I’m always going to be the little boy that was raised mid-western parents, with wholesome values at first. Then learned very early in life that consequences for people like me are far and few between. Nothing I’ve learned outside of the Virtual Reality has changed that understanding. If I killed Dinah right this second, what would happen to me? Nothing. I’d fly away from Gotham and the people here would investigate it. While the people at Nowhere would be very happy that I’d removed someone like her from the game board. The two sides would cancel themselves out and life would essentially go on just as it always had.
The true consequence, which I really have learned, wouldn’t come for weeks or months. When Cassie found out, I’d have a lot of explaining to do. With the inherent risk associated with that, in that I’d need to either tell her the truth and risk her unhappiness becoming nuclear or I’d need to lie convincingly enough that she’d believe me. With all my super powers, apparently I have a genetic incapability of lying very well. I’m fine with that, though, because lying to Cassie is one of the few things in life that actually does feel wrong to me.
“No argument there. My observation is that most people do things, whether in general or specifically for someone else, to engender a sense of mutual cooperation. Whether they’re after a favor in return or a payoff in the relationship. And maybe you could say that’s my end game too. I might actually like having a certain beautiful kung fu master as a real friend, but for once.. I’ll let you in on a secret; I didn’t actually put that much thought in to the payoff, because seeing your face when I show you this? Is about as far as I got.”
That’s another thing I’ve caught on too in all my ‘listening.’ Dinah Lance does not have a lot of friends. There are people she’s friendly with. Not to mention the whole bat fam that she’s close enough to that they’re part of her inner circle. I’ve not yet found anyone that she’s close enough to that she opens up, trusts them enough to actually open up too. I get a distinct feeling that one of the rare times she’s shared anything of substance with someone, happened when I took her up in to the stratosphere.
“Mhm, yeah-yeah, save the ‘girls don’t like to make an effort’ routine for someone that hasn’t seen you dismantle an entire Russian flop-house. To get that good you tried very hard and you’ll do it again, if you think it’ll help you learn something that would give you an edge.” Flicking my head back over my shoulder in the direction that Slade Wilson went flying. “You’re hob-knobbing with the likes of that clown, so you’ll take an edge you can get and that means… trying harder is just what you do.”
This? Is the rare side of me that few people other than Cassie get to see. I can count on one hand how many people know that I’m not just some meat-head, that says the first crude thing to come to mind. Kyle saw it. Megan knows the inside of my head better than anyone. Cassie sees it when we’re alone. Somehow, though I still struggle with how, Freddy managed to see through my ‘secret identity’ too. Dinah Lance might be the only one of that list that I make any effort with trying to show it to. In a way I feel like she understands me better than any of them. Even Cassie struggles to see why I can’t be like this all of the time. The world that I live and work in wouldn’t allow it.
My Father wouldn’t allow it. And the truth? The downright scary truth is that I’m not sure I want to be this person all of the time. There is just no reward in it.
“The first step here, is going to be learning the right amount of base to use to get off the ground. Since you’re neck isn’t reinforced with super-strength, you’ll want to be careful at first. Until you learn the right amount to use, but there’s a trick to that too.” In one of my hands is her’s, with the other I gently put it at the small of her back. Looking at us from the outside you might think us about to dance. “I generate a tactile field around my whole body. That’s how I was able to keep a small pocket of air for you to breathe when we were up so high. You don’t have that power, but your Grandmother was able to simulate the same thing by creating a envelope of sonics around her entire body. She would hum. Deep, deep down. Simon Cowell calls it singing from your diaphragm.”
“That’s the easy part, the sonics of you voice will reverb through your whole body. It’ll reinforce you, so that when you start to direct your sonics at pushing? It won’t tear your head off. And… you can thank me later, when you take this lesson and realize you can use it to shield yourself in a fight too.”
“You’re looking at me like I’ve grown a third eye,” one brow raises up, but I can’t help it now, I have to smile at her. “I know. You think of your gift as something to break out when natural skills need just a little boost or a surprise, but… there’s more to it, to you, than that. If you learn this and choose never to do it? Cool. But, after our talk about whether you’d be helpless in a fight against someone like me? Knowing what’s going to happen if things keep ramping up between … people like Luthor and people like your friends here in Gotham?”
“I want you to actually have the choice, Dinah.” There is a timber to my voice in this, that isn’t normally there. I’m too young for regrets that would make me sound so old and sad about the past, but Billy Batson didn’t get the chance to learn his powers. Nowhere sent me to bring him down before he was ever able to harness them properly. They punished him, by way of me, for his inability to use his power properly. “Besides, just imagine Big Dick the Batman’s surprise when he realizes you can fly.”
Black Canary: “Krav Maga is actually my style of choice but. You’re not wrong.”
On the exterior, I look a little young to be a master of two martial arts styles, let alone the dozen I can actually boast. I’ve never been a barbie girl, and when you have a cop for a father that had the raising of you for most of your childhood, your interest in a little physical training may start small but it’s only going to bloom. I always liked the physical portion, and maybe a small bit rather guiltily may have liked throttling the boys my age, and older, because I shouldn’t have been been able to. Before I was even at my angriest, I was put into Wildcat’s ring. You can blame him for a lot of my teaching style, too. I may only be in my early twenties, but I’ve been training since I was four. I’ve been at this for longer than half the Batcave’s been alive.
“And believe it or not, I might actually kind of enjoy your company. But I find that all my best relationships are founded in a little casual assault and battery.”
I think the guy needed someone who took him for what he was, proverbial warts and all, and just listened without a lecture, or a pursed and pinched expression and while I can definitely say whether or not Tim did that from experience, I haven’t met the First Hottest Blonde in person. I’m not sure even she does that. Despite the pretext of our first meeting, I’m not interested in Conner Luthor for any of the reasons people usually are. Maybe it’s going to be kind of a weird friendship, all facts and figures considered, but it’s still shaping up to be one just the same.
“Oh, I meant with the flirting. I’ve been trying very hard to be very good at beating people up for a very, very long time. And anytime I can find a new way to do it? Sold. Dinah’s in. The better I am, the easier it is to look out for the people who need it.”
I.E. my friends. See. I do have a heart, and that’s mostly an admission of it. Even if it had been spoken in a much more general sense. Did I have other things I was planning to do tonight? Yeah, but they can wait, and while he’s said, and I believe him, that there’s no real ulterior motive here the tactical part of my brain always analyzes and measures the timing of things. He has other things he’s supposed to be doing on the other side of the world, faster than a speeding bullet be damned, so I’m just going to take the opportunity as presented. My grandmother was actually alive for most of my life. Unlike a lot of metas in the world, not only did I have someone to help me practice with my powers, I also had that same someone who had the same powers as me, and a particular insight in things to do with them. Was this something she’d ever tried to teach me? Instinct is to snort and blow him off because this is my thing, not his. Except he’s got access to information I do not.
And it’s very believable that Grandma may have tried to show me this, but I was much more interested in screaming the walls down in the basement of their shop. I.E. the building that we were standing on. My head’s cocked to one side, a plain look of consideration over what he’s saying, as the cogs spin. I’d honestly never considered using my powers defensively. Not like that. I should have. Especially since my preferred method of fighting is rooted in defense and aggression in the same motion.
“Actually, I’m thinking you better not let anyone know you actually have a pretty sharp brain up there, or they’re going to expect all kinds of things from you and that’s bound to be exhausting. There’s a reason for that logic, though. Beyond not needing to use it, most of the time, I didn’t want to attract a certain kind of attention, and generally I try to avoid kicking off the escalation here myself. Though we might be a little beyond that, now….”
I.E. NOWHERE’s. His. Which I guess makes a glaring testament to the import behind my actually using them on him. In Metropolis. While I was pretending to just be there for a show. Now, the band is another way of practicing that power that I can do out in the open, with a little bit higher stakes. When I was little, I couldn’t scream without using my powers, and for a long time the solution to that was focus. Willpower and personal control. Then as I got older, it was honing the gift so it only functioned when, and if, I wanted it to. The rock band’s made a perfect outlet. So has playing harmonica, but that’s much, much lamer and we don’t talk about that.
There’s actually a lot that could be unpacked from the last bit. From the tone of voice, and I can’t help wanting to dig into it some, but instead I just opt to go along with why he’s here. What he wanted. A half-gloved hand may just be getting laid on his shoulder in a moment of silent reassurance before I do start to hum. A look of concentration because I have never even attempted to do something like this. Direct my powers outwards explosively, or mute them entirely? Yes. Letting the sound build around me, rather than throwing it out and it’s a very, very peculiar feeling. Then I hear his very, very last comment. For a moment, I’m laughing internally over that, because I do owe Dick Grayson one for tasering me, still, but then blue eyes widen and I’m rattling my own teeth, and brain, with the sonics.
“…what…?”
Does he know who’s under the suit? I had the impression that had been kept from NOWHERE, and that transition is recent so if they’re that aware of what’s going on here, we probably have a larger problem than guessed. Or maybe he was just calling him a name, not knowing it’s his actual name. Either way… this isn’t a sensation I particular enjoy. I’m actually normally immune to the force of my powers, which lets me use it in enclosed spaces without fear. So it must be something with the way I was channeling it. The hand that had been on Conner’s shoulder moves to pinch the bridge of my nose as I steady myself with a breath and wait for the world to quit spinning for a second.
“I swear. This never happens.”
Superman: “Batman. The cowl is lined with lead, but the rest of the suit isn’t. Faces are not the only identifying mark people have, Dinah, and honestly I thought you’d be the last person I would need to say that too. Original Batman? Well, hung but old. The one with Wonder Woman and Flash that I met? Eh. The one I met in the ruins of Coast City? Brick shit house. Dude’s jacked and must not do steroids. Me? Genetic perfection, no brag Dinah, I’m designed to be just about as perfectly proportioned as possible. The guy you people have pretending to be Batman right now? His proportions are way off. He doesn’t have to fake that deep voice like the first one I met.”
Head tilting to the side just a bit, so as to show her that I’m being serious and not joking about a word I’m saying. I’m well aware that Timothy Drake was the first Batman that I met, the little jerk told me so after he passed the cowl off to someone else. I’m also well aware that he’s got two older brothers, but -I- am not a detective. Nor do I want to be. In fact after a discussion with Cassie, I’m not entirely sure that I even want to know who’s under that cowl at this point.
The whole thing is a little worrisome, truth be told. Because if Nowhere found out for certain? I’m fairly sure this little truce I’ve negotiated would be a thing of the past. Just as I know they’re working several different angles on finding out the inner workings of the so-called rebellion. Huntress and Miss Martian, are both working in Gotham city currently to that very end. Even as I’m running through all of this, I can’t help but think about how convoluted all of it is. How very close to exploding it all could be.
“Your equilibrium might be thrown off by the act of keeping your sonics internalized. When I first started to learn to use my abilities, I had to learn to focus on the specifics I was looking for or listening for. You wouldn’t believe how shitty it is to walk around seeing everyone’s internal organs and not be able to turn it off. When my hearing first started getting acute, I thought I was going insane. This isn’t going to happen right away. Like I said, leaping small buildings is our first milestone. We’ll get closer to flying by lesson three or four.”
“Here. Let me show you a trick that Megan used on me.”
We were working from a stance that was almost like dancing. The next step is a little different. A hand brushes along her jawline, nudging her to make eye contact with me. “When you’re first learning to dance, that first inclination is to always look down. You want to see where your feet are. But, if you actually want to learn to dance you have to stop looking at your feet and start trusting yourself to move the way you’re supposed too.”
“Follow my lead,” for effect I start us off with a very soft hum of my own, Blue Danube is one of the most famous Waltz renditions of all time and I’m sure that Dinah would know the classics even if she didn’t want the Bat Clan to know she was even an ounce sophisticated. “Doesn’t this make you want to laugh? You’re dancing with Superman on the top of your Family Business, in the middle of Gotham.”
Ah, but if she were to look down she’d realize that I’ve said something slightly untrue. We are no longer on the roof of her building. The solid ‘ground’ beneath her feet is a layer of telekinesis that has expended around her from contact with me. “I’m going to tell you a secret, Dinah. One of the best, cherished, little secret pleasures of my life? Is being equally my father’s biggest success and failure. He loves having his own Superman, but it grinds his gears that Conner Luthor is just another dumb jock to be manipulated to his end goals. He doesn’t even suspect that I’ve been working him, because he thinks I’m just another Dolt in an S-Shield and cape. With no more careful planning than it takes to get my next payoff. Whether that’s a piece of ass or whatever else I can dream up to ask for.”
“To some extent, everyone buys in to Conner Luthor, I think you’re the only person in my whole life that even has a clue.” Clearing my throat finally. “Normally at this point in the song, I’d either kiss you or let you go.”
Canary: “Aaaand we shall file that under ‘more information than I wanted to have, but now do, and can’t un-imagine.”
Especially because I do know who each one, in the progression of Batmen, was. Well hung but old. Christ. That’s going to be a potentially humorous discussion to have at some point. So, boys. It’s not just your facial features you might want to think about covering up, because Superman’s noticed some other identifying features. I’d say it must be a guy thing, but I haven’t bothered with a mask in a long time. There’s other ways than the eyes and cheekbones to identify a person, I rely on makeup to shift and smudge and look just different enough. It’s not as if I’m posing for pictures when I step out in the fishnets. I suppose superheros as a lot have evolved in that respect. Some of them, anyway. I know what the Superman in front of me looks like, what Wonder Woman appears to be, are not what the kids underneath those monikers actually have in the way of features. It’s possible they might eventually but not now. There’s a shrug of one shoulder, as much as I can move without making me shift positions otherwise.
“Literally, I’m sure. I temporarily deafened or knocked out my whole kindergarten class so. No stranger to losing control, I just got a tutor very, very quickly after that. And learned it. I’m not worried.”
I think most of what just happened then was what amounted to a startled sputter, or spraying a drink you’d just taken a sip of, only it just happened to be the Canary Cry’s back-beat I choked on instead when Conner shared his new fun nickname for Batman. Supes also isn’t apparently worried about my controlling it either, because he’s in front of me, still. And he, with all that incredibly amplified hearing, has felt a point blank demonstration before. There’s also a little general level of absurdity going on here, and I hadn’t needed it pointed out to me as we shift stances. If anyone is paying attention, which I’d imagine they have to be because the SupermanInc! Alert has probably already blared.
It always seemed pointless to me, because if he was coming with a head of steam he’d be here faster than it would have a chance to do any good.
I do know the waltz. I know it well, actually, and I do know how to waltz. You want the core conundrum that is me? Clinically unattached, and also a big gooey romantic at heart. I did this with Ollie many times, though the song wasn’t always the same, and the memory makes emotions tug and quirk the corners of my mouth and eyes. Amusement, sadness, tense threats at anger and back again, before I push it all out of my head.
“And I’m actually letting him lead, too. Must be his lucky day.”
I’m not looking down. I don’t need to in order to perform the steps, nor do I need to in order to know we’ve risen off the roof. I take over the instrumental portion of this little scene we’ve set, humming the Strauss piece. It would work without an actual tune, it would also work without me making any sort of audible sound at all, at least not to normal ears, but this is fitting. It’s low, as I shift, and fine tune the vibrations in my throat and out of it, still listening to Conner’s admissions as we go. I have to stop in order to chuckle at him, though.
“Talk about a potentially ominous double meaning. No thank you. On both. Last time you kissed another girl here, I was pretty sure your girlfriend was about to go thermonuclear on the city. But what can I say, you remind me of me. Can’t bullshit a bullshitter, right?”
Superman: Ah, but if I wasn’t looking to steal the kiss then why am I smiling so much once more? The point of this wasn’t a kiss, nor was it that Dinah would suddenly manifest independent flight. It was to get her thinking about something else. Distraction. A tactic that she knows all too well. Good conversation and a little music, has her thinking of far more things that the harmonic vibrations that were tossing off her equilibrium and making her head swim. We’re now hovering above the block and she’s no longer commenting on it, nor forced to stop.
Step one achieved.
“Well, for the record, I’ve been told that I’m an excellent tutor,” you just can’t fake the wolfish grin I’m showing off right now, the tutor thing is apparently far too humorous to be anything but an inside joke she doesn’t get yet. “You should probably make sure that Wonder Woman knows how well I’m doing tutoring you.”
We come to a bit of a stop, such as it is given that we’re airborne. At this point the wind rustling past us is movement of it’s own. Between her hair and my cape there really isn’t a stop. The point is exactly that though. The wind is touching her, no more field from the super boy protecting her from the elements. The chance isn’t something that can hidden, at some point the weight distribution shifted from a sort of second gravity to my arms holding her in the air. What I wanted is for her to feel the actual, sensation of her own sonic field keeping things like the friction of movement, even the breeze, from affecting her too much. Much like the age-old saying that someone must learn to walk, before they can run.
“According to the database, your Grandmother wore a choker necklace that had a harmonic stabilizer in the crest. It did half the work for her, but bringing something like that with me would only make you dubious about where it came from. One of your boyfriends can make you a new one, if you can’t find the old one in that chest of her things you keep in the basement.”
We’ve reached the point in all of this where the casual onlooker that knew me would be waiting for the inevitable moment when I let go. Dropping Dinah would force her to sink or swim and that’s basically my whole M.O. It just never happens. Not with Dinah and it has absolutely nothing to do with fear of the repercussions. Our waltz is nearing it’s end when her boots crunch once more softly upon the insulation of the building we’d just left.
“I’m sure you know this already, but visiting you wasn’t about bringing a gift. It’s about the dance Din-…” In the span of moments between syllables, I turn my head just enough that my eyes aren’t precisely upon her and a blast of heat results in the voice of Slade Wilson letting out a surprised yelp, before the fire escape melts away from the building, depositing him on the ground, in a heap. “..-nah. You’re about to do something dangerous, even silly, but for the right reasons. If something of mine was taken from me, I would do no less. But… isn’t that a little funny? If you really think about it. The reason we met, is because you were sent to distract me from doing exactly what you’re doing?”
“You’re not going to like what you find in Star City, Dinah. You’re going to like what Wilson shows you even less. You’re not in the V.R. but you may as well be. Someone is marionetting you and in my experience that’s more about seeing what you’ll do than caring if you do it.”
Canary: “If I ever talk to her, I’ll be sure to do that. Should I throw in some outrageous winks and an elbow nudge or two?”
Normally, people would probably argue that it’s really unwise to goad someone who can crush your skull without too much effort. Especially when that someone is apparently some degree of a God, and only likely to get more powerful and have a very long time to hold a grudge. I’m not really in for all that, but there’s something that makes her more powerful, just like the alien that crash landed here, or the engineered half-alien in front of me. I do a whole lot of things that conventional wisdom wouldn’t consider all that smart, though, and I make it work. There’s an expression of almost detached fascination as I watch around us. I’m actually not a very big fan of flying like this. I don’t like doing anything that I’m not in absolute control over. This is a little bit different, and it’s not even difficult. Yes, it’s a new power application but that gift is something I’ve been honing just as long as my body. It’s still singing, just a different melody.
“Give me some credit. I ate the cookies without even a stray thought they might be poisoned or drugged. I trust you farther than I can throw you. And I don’t have boyfriends. I have partners. Roommates. Family. And then people I blow off steam with on a very limited and trial basis.”
But I will look through the things in the basement. Something I probably should have already done, but I just hadn’t had the heart at first, and then I didn’t think about it. My grandfather died right before I bailed on Gotham to go to college on the other side of the country, leaving all of it to me. And I do trust Conner Luthor, something very few people would actually say I think, because I trust him to be himself and everything else fits into a narrative around that. When we step down again, combat boots meeting roof, I tilt my head in to give him a shockingly chaste kiss on the cheek. Translation: the thank you that I’m not going to say out loud right now. In part because he’s finally getting to what I was waiting for. The reason for ‘why now?’ in his visit. Because the rest of this could have been done anytime. Any place. And he’d shown up right as I was speaking with Deathstroke. Right as I’m leaving to handle my business.
I don’t care who you are, the eye lasers from that close up? That’ll make anyone flinch, and I don’t even think they’re aimed for me in the first place. My head’s craned over my shoulder, to the slag of my former fire escape and the sound of the least dignified sound I’ve heard Slade make. Something I’ll surely find a time to mock him over. When I face Conner again, my mouth is pulled into a displeased, if determined, little line. Full lips tight and set.
“Your something wasn’t taken against its will while I had you looking at my tits, Conner. But the rest of that… I know you would. I already don’t like everything I know about the situation with Wilson. Hate it, actually. Knowing there’s missing time there makes me more than a little insane. So why did you tell me in the first place? About Ollie?”
Though I’m actually fairly sure I know the answer.
Superman: “Wasn’t it? My life was all about spending the week pretending to need a highschool education, so as to con my girlfriend in to scandalous situations for sex. Now it’s about capes, tights, tactics, and choices people our age haven’t a right to be make. I’m fairly sure our lives were stolen out from under us, while I was looking at your tits. Before that, a child’s innocence was taken away…” This draws me up just short of outlining the whole example, a shake of the head puts me back to the explaining from a different direction. “… the point is that this business, this whole super hero business. Whether it be a vigilante, a cape or even a policeman, it takes and takes.”
“We have to come to terms with that.”
Just before breaking contact with Dinah, I give her shoulders a very serious little squeeze. “Coming to terms with it, doesn’t mean accepting it blindly. It doesn’t mean rolling over and showing them your belly. It means, that when it’s time for righting the scales you don’t just restore balance. You put so much weight on their side, it takes them a lifetime to even restore balance. Much less hurt you again.”
Why did I tell her about Ollie? That’s not such a difficult answer, actually. When the Huntress was being given her time away for her Father’s death, Nowhere was looking at means of destabilizing Gotham. Yes, yes, that’s ironic because Gotham is never stable in the minds of people who live here. To those of us on the outside these people juggle chaos brilliantly at times. The answer to her question, then is actually about as straight forward as possible. But explaining it… doesn’t do much for my desire to get these people thinking we’re the good guys. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can choose not to answer her. Even if I wanted too, I just can’t.
“Okay. Before I answer you, let me give you just a little background. Your Dad was a cop, I know. When the Police thing a group of individuals are bad, but getting credible intelligence on them proves difficult the police send in an under cover unit. Take it a step further, when the FBI finds a terrorist cell, they use infiltration as a means of connecting one cell to the network. You need to accept that the U.S. Government views the Vigilante group here in Gotham on a level beyond that. You’re a terrorist cell that has proven to have connections that aren’t known or even totally understood. You’re insulated from standard action by connections to the GCPD, and through the civilian government. The only way to deal with your group at this point? Is through infiltration, intelligence and disillusionment.”
“While I understand that they have to take this path, as surely as the cops have to use undercover agents, I couldn’t be party to it. I certainly couldn’t condone. I don’t think all of you are the bad guys, but… I don’t think all of us are the bad guys either. So right now, I’m just trying to protect the people I can. While I try to find a way to make this work for all of us.”
“Not exactly the way I wanted to end this Date, Dinah, but I should let you get back to playing with Deathstroke. Remember, be home by eleven. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Actually, on second thought, specifically do nothing. Nothing at all. That I would do. He’s very old, and wrinkly. Things that make you go… eww..”
Canary: “So stop.”
I could debate some semantics with him, because he’s taken the comparison I was making and then shifted it into something else, but like most things in life, I cut straight through to the blunt end. There could have been time spent pointing out that from my understanding, he was the one that kick started that life for his girlfriend. Maybe he didn’t have the exact luxury of making the choice how he wanted to make it, and maybe she could have chosen not to do it again after getting pushed out onto that stage and into the lights of the world’s view. Spotlights definitely don’t bother me, but I sing in them. Not fight. Unless you count that one time with the pit fighting ring.
“Shit. I feel like a broken record lately, because I’ve been saying this to a lot of boys… you’re right. It does take. And take. And it’s impossible, and hard and it’ll kill you or someone you care about if you’re not in it. Really, really in it. Whatever reason it is that you’re in it for. And sometimes, it’ll still manage to do it then anyway. For the people that are really, really in it together? That makes a brotherhood unlike anything else.”
It’s why soldiers are so loyal to their unit. Cops. Vigilantes. Why the death of one, or the betrayal, hits the rest with such personal vengeance. Vengeance won’t keep you in the life if you weren’t already a permanent fixture though. In a way, Batman made sure with one hand that I’d stick with this, while the other was trying to shoo me out the door. Avenging my father would have been an end. I had to have another, better, reason. I’m actually still waiting to see if Tim’s protege is going wash out when her own Dad’s hoisted by his own petard, though there’s still some internal debate on which way I hope that it goes. The smirk on my lips, for the words he’d said after squeezing my shoulder, is much more predatory wolf than a flirtatious one.
“See, now. There you go again. Reading my mind.”
Because I could probably find the black site where they’ve got my. The Ollie. I’ve got resources that are even more resourceful than I am. But breaking in, breaking him out, achieves what? Making NOWHERE right, ruining Ollie’s cover story of a life. Another reason for them to come after us here, despite the fact that I’m the only one that really, technically, falls under their usual purview and I was supposed to be untouchable. I’m going to Star City first to do some recon. To gather some information. Because when I do come for them, I am going to not only make it hurt, I’m going to make damn fucking sure it sticks.
“Infiltration. Interesting.”
There’s a lot of room for debate, again, but on the exterior of all of that, I know it’s not exactly his call despite all that power he has, and he did warn me when he didn’t have to. Another note I’m going to file into the folder labeled ‘Things Tim’s Wrong About,’ and another reason that I do actually like this kid a lot. Whether or not I agree with his analogy for our situation in Gotham, I can see the validity of the comparison. So I don’t argue it. I just tick my head to one side at his word choice. Reaching up a hand, I pat where I’d smooched a minute ago but it’s a fond gesture, not one of condescension.
“I don’t think you’re a bad guy, either. Secret’s safe with me, and if I can help you keep yours safe, you let me know. I won’t even expect anything in return. Friends, and all that.”
Blue eyes roll after that, and his teasing, before I step backwards from Superman and pivot on a bootheel with a jaunty, and sloppy salute.
“You probably broke the old man’s hip, he may not even be any fun anyway.”
by Michele | Jul 13, 2019 | Uncategorized
Dick: “So. You’re heading off with Slade Wilson. To track down a part of your History. This is where I’m supposed to ask you if that’s a good idea.”
Things have not exactly gone according to plan for me of late. The investigation in to Bruce’s death has hit a wall at nearly every pass. Given the combine ability of every Bat-family member involved, it is nigh-unto impossible to calculate the odds that we’d all be getting no where fast. Yet, here we are. Made all the more confounding by the ramp-up of Nowhere. Which has now played in to Damien getting himself in trouble with them. A fact that brought them in to Gotham. Damien doesn’t even realize his mistake there, with the Princess from Outer Space. He’s essentially erased a decades long agreement between Black Canary, the original version, with Nowhere to leave Gotham effectively out of their crusade.
Oh and let’s not forget. Hawk-Lady literally flew away, while I was stuck dealing with the after-math of an all out assault on her. Damien’s involvement there was absolutely baffling and with her ‘getting away,’ I’m left back at the basics tracking the Hawk-people and their ‘magic metal’ down. I’m not even sure how Damien got involved with that, but… I do know who to talk to about being in charge while I was gone. I’m looking at her.
Or rather, I’m looking at the person I thought was going to be in charge. She’s apparently got something to do too. “Dinah, do I really have to tell you how preposterous it is that Slade fucking Wilson shows up. With the kind of information he’s throwing to you. At exactly the moment we need you in Gotham most? Much less with his hat in hands and willing to help you with Ollie?”
“…and Tim is letting you just… go off on your own?”
Dinah: “I wouldn’t call it with so much as Deathstroke adjacent. And when is anything we do a technical good idea?”
Because on paper, going to a concrete war with mobsters and psychopaths toting guns and acid while wearing lingerie and boots sounds like an absolutely terrible one. Fighting an army of criminals with minimal, no matter how skilled, backup to call on is essentially in the same boat. We could go on to talk about well armored Halloween costumes and not sleeping while maintaining double lives. The list goes on. And it doesn’t stop a single one of us. So really, the determining characteristic of whether or not an idea is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in these parts seems to come down to whether or not you’re the one doing it.
“And no. You really do not. Why the hell would you even think that I haven’t run all that through the over-thinker a time or six? It boils down to what it always boils down to, and I shouldn’t have to tell you that. It’s about what’s in it, or not in it, for him.”
Clearly he’s been talking to his brother. Or alternately getting into the computer, though I have to assume it’s more of the former. There’s a pause in my unceremonious packing of a duffel bag, aka cramming clothing in a wad into its interior, and a puff of breath to get blonde hair out of my face as I look over my shoulder at Dick. The last time we had a one on one conversation I had the distinct impression that he was trying to get a certain answer out of me, and not listening to the words that I actually had in his quest to get them. I also ended up very annoyed, and so here I am. Debating already if I want to instigate a fight or to not give anyone else a reason to try and interfere in all this. Especially when I’d managed to get out of one round of this with his brother better than I’d expected.
“Y’know. I really can’t decide if I want to coo at you over actually saying out loud that you need me, or go the righteous indignation route for using ‘Tim’ and ‘let’ in a sentence. Tim wasn’t invited, and hopefully will stay busy with his protege and not try to tag along anyway.”
Neither is anyone else, for that matter. But I think he’d gotten the message well enough. Gotham doesn’t need to be involved in this, and no matter how much I might insist that Gotham is as much my home as it is any of theirs, that one little gene makes for a line. A line that also was, up until lately, an unspoken boundary around the city. One that doesn’t need to get any more blurry than it already is. Besides. I’m actually quite good at identifying my personal quirks and foibles, and I know I can’t sit on this particular situation any longer.
“They’re threatening family. So I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. That’s how you get bit. So why are you here, exactly?”
Dick: “We both know, maybe better than any two people have a right to, that there is absolutely no such thing as Deathstroke adjacent. The man utilizes over ninety percent of his brain. Most people never use more than ten percent. Me and you? Forty, tops. He’s next level and he’s got some sort of an angle in this. Engaging him, even adjacently if it were possible, without knowing his angle? Is like hugging a hornet nest with the hope of not being stung.”
By this point in the conversation I’ve switched from hanging out at the doorway, to actually making sure she has to see me by crossing in to her line of vision. I want her to see that I’m not in the Batman’s costume. Nor am I here with that stone cold face of distance. I don’t want her to do this and I’ve come without a mask so that she can read my features and know the truth. First rule of engagement with Dinah, pick your battle wisey. Second rule is to choose the right weapon.
“A lot of research was done on those implants, Dinah. Tim told you everything he could find, but did he tell you that Bruce knew about all of this?”
Clues within a clue. I’m giving away something for free; Tim didn’t go behind Dinah’s back to give me a total debriefing of their discussion. At the same time I’m also laying on the table that I know more about that aspect of it than Tim could have uncovered from notes on one of Bruce’s files. Bait, that’s what a comment like that is and I’m not an idiot, so I know that Dinah knows exactly what I’m doing. Which is why I have to throw something else out there.
“I know my little brothers, Dinah. As good as you are. You couldn’t stop Damien or Tim from being Damien or Tim, without permanent damage. Maybe not even then. So. Yeah, I’m asking if Tim let you go. You’re choosing to take it as my saying he could prevent you, but I mean it as a question of whether he is allowing you to go without a struggle of some sort? No argument? No drones keeping tabs on you?”
This is the second time I’ve felt the twitch of the detective side of my brain screaming at me over this topic. Unlike last time when I couldn’t put my finger on it, this time … I came a little better armed for the discussion. Pick your battles -and- your weapons, remember? “One of the most frustrating things I’ve dealt with since getting in to this life? Is this whole ‘Family’ idea. Bruce hated it, you know? I mean he thought of all of us as family, don’t get me wrong, but he thought of the whole idea of us being a ‘Family’ as a bad idea. Alfred pushed him in to it. He knew Bruce needed an anchor. Something to keep him from crossing that line. A tether of sorts that would hold the darkness at bay. Originally that ‘Family’ started with me, Dinah.”
“I’ve been the one pushing this family agenda since day one. I’ve fought for it. Pushed it. Kept it alive. Time and time again, Bruce would pony up to the table and tell us all to go away. Or worse, he’d put the weight of the entire family on his shoulders. Lock the rest of us out and go cowboy on some issue to protect us. Time and time again, until I had enough of it. Until I couldn’t take it any more and walked away.”
“Who drug me back? Who made the big speech about doing my part and protecting my family when they needed me most? Spoiler Alert: It was you. Now you are going to go maverick, with Slade Wilson and you think. Wait. Here’s the Clown Prince of Jokes. You actually think that I’m going to let you go off half-cocked when this City… and this Family needs you most?”
“So. I’m asking you. Seriously. Did Robin give you permission to go?”
Dinah: “So if you have to hug that hornet’s nest, you go in with a suit and do it at arm’s length. There’s any number of easy angles, which means that they’re probably not the correct, or only, ones. Whatever it actually is, he’s motivated.”
Information is a good one, and even if they hadn’t started messing with people that I care about and pushed the issue, information would have eventually led me down this path. Knowledge. You can’t brag about knowing yourself, only to then find out that you really don’t, and not have that stick in your craw. I might have been able to hold off a lot longer, go about it in more long game ways and taken time to gather resources that were not homicidal mercenaries, but it was still only a matter of time before I did it nonetheless. That was when it was just about me. But it’s not anymore. It’s about Ollie. It’s about Roy. It’s about that blurred line. Because if they’re targeting non-metas, no matter their reasoning for that targeting, then who’s next? Tim? Lian? Dick and Alfred?
There’s a very high probability that this is a trap. I’m not stupid, I’m not even especially trusting. That’s why I’m still alive. And if it is, their choice of bait has only made me even more certain that I’m going to make them pay for this. And it’s going to hurt. And it’s going to stick and the whole damn world is going to know about it.
“No… but I made an educated guess.”
And I was even butt-hurt about it for a minute or two when I realized it. Those minutes weren’t even when Red Robin was giving me the information that he had in the first place, so much as after my initial discussion with Slade. There wasn’t much that went on here that Bruce hadn’t known about, but knowing him made it absolutely impossible to believe that he would have missed that assault on Arkham. And having not missed it, that he wouldn’t have found out about the participants. Which leads to…
“I’d even bet you five bucks that it’s actually why he brought me in, in the first place. You know. Adjacent to the fact that he couldn’t seem to help himself when it comes to orphans, and not wanting me to really futz up the status quo with my wanting to be heard.”
Because it had never been just to help me. That was an end result of course, giving me that family which he supposedly hated and seemed to instinctively amass just the same. I really can’t fault the reasoning, and maybe were he alive I’d get a little more righteous about him not telling me. But…
There’s no skulking in the shadows of my apartment, or even especially looming which means I can’t really call him Batdad, but it also means that he’s got a reason. Or maybe just knows that trying to get me to not do something by trying to order me around in the cowl is only going to push me in the opposite direction. So I do him the moderate favor of pausing in my preparations, straightening my posture with hands on my hips. It’s a more relaxed posture than one of defiance, mostly because of the inquisitive tilt of my head. Even if I am muttering under my breath.
“Drugging doesn’t even work, either… Drones are kind of a given, especially now that he’s sonic proofed them, and he didn’t argue so much as spin out my logic and then not really fight me on it.”
Honestly, he’d fought me on it a lot less than I expected. Because what I’d expected was bribery. Of him withholding his help on the technical aspect that I didn’t have a prayer of figuring out on my own, unless I took him along even though I hadn’t thought Tim was in any shape for much of anything. I’d tried to bench the guy after the Iceberg, and the second I’d turned my back he’d gone out anyway, with someone that really wasn’t good enough to pick up the slack and keep him safe.
“You were half-back on your own, Dick. And even me ranting and scolding couldn’t make you do this if you didn’t have your reasons. So while I appreciate the warm welcome, and have every intention of being here for my family, I’m not exactly the only one with multiple irons in the fire here.”
He’s doing it again. Asking me the same questions over again, when I already gave an answer and Dick’s a lot of things but forgetful and dense aren’t really among them. Barring some sort of cranial injury that has messed up his short term memory that I hadn’t heard about… there’s a clucking sound of annoyance as I suck my teeth at him, arms moving from my sides to folded across my chest.
“We discussed it. He told me to go and that he’d man Fort Gotham until I got back. Why are you harping on this? I don’t need any of your permission.”
Dick: Drones probably are a given. Honestly. That’s beside the point that I’m making here, but I should really look in to the whole drone thing. Oh, hey. Irons in the Fire, by example. Right, so I’m going to need to escalate my plan of action here aren’t I? “Sucker’s bet there, Dinah. I was there, remember? I was always trying to get in his head. He was always trying to let me, too. He wanted me to become him. Oddly, I’m unique in that way. He never wanted this life for Tim. He regretted that Damien was forced in to this life before he even got a choice. You? He wouldn’t have gotten his friend’s Grand-Daughter in to this life. You were already in. He brought you in to protect you.”
“…and to get to the bottom of the whole mystery…”
“Which brings me back to the point. I was there.” Two of us can put our hands on our hips and I just might be the one person she knows who has more shapely ones than herself. “I was there and you haven’t asked me what I know.”
“Wait. Stop. You’re going to launch in to some witty retort. For once, let me talk. Not just because I like the sound of my voice, but because I’m good at this Dinah. I want you to think about what I’m saying and what I’m about to say. Really. Think about it. Walk through it like Bruce taught you. Like your Dad would have. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane. You’re not the side-kick type. So what is Tim? A friend? Little brother-type? I’d buy it. He needs a Batman, you’re his best option. But you care about him. Natural. Makes sense. We have a similar connection, but… if I tried to take you out of the field and make you a trainer you’d kick my ass. Or at least, you normally would.”
“That was actually the first clue. I couldn’t understand it. Barb thought maybe you were crushing on my little brother, but I couldn’t see it. Until I started to look closer. But then you denied it. Hard. I mean like stone cold hard. So I started to re-examine my clues. There were a number of them. I started with your return to Gotham. Then I started to piece oddities together. Your shift from keeping Tim at arms length to letting him slowly open the doors. You two became the new dynamic duo. But I couldn’t get past your denial. You’re self-awareness is keen, even more so than my own. So I started to back-track. When could I pin-point your first shift…”
“Moping around the apartment, when Tim didn’t listen to you.
“Coming to me to protect Tim.
“Not breaking Damien’s arms for murdering people.
“Letting me taser you.
“Taking in Tim’s stray to train…
“Staying in Gotham, to be Robin’s partner in the field.
“Everything. Every little squiggle of this centered around Robin. Robins. So maybe you were just being protective. Momma Bird. Right? As much as I wanted to think that, you’re more of a mock us until we do what we should have done in the first place -or- go do it your damned self type. So.. I just couldn’t let it go. Not after our last talk.”
Gesturing finally for Dinah to follow, I take about three whole steps needed to cross her floor and point to the little eye-in-the-sky drone that most people wouldn’t notice out across the street. “You’re the one who said it yourself. Drones were a given. They have been since he came back to Gotham. So, I took a page out of the book of the guy that’s been hacking the Batcave’s system. I asked Alfred to access them.”
“Fifteen Seconds. One of Tim’s drones tracked you. You were with Jervis Tetch for fifteen seconds according to that drone. Then Robin interrupted him. You told Robin that you had no memory of what was going on for those fifteen seconds. But you’ve been nicer to the three Robins in this City than you’ve ever been before.”
“So. Dinah. I have a hypothesis. Ready? Can you keep packing that bag, if I tell you that Robin is lacing himself with a chemical that is going to drive him insane in order to repair his body. Because -he- can’t stand the fact that you benched him? Listen to me closely. Can you even try you finish packing with the idea of leaving? You know, intelligently, that I’m capable of stopping Timothy. But can you, are you capable of even thinking of leaving without tending to it yourself?”
Dinah: He’s right, I was about to retort and it wasn’t going to be witty in this instance so much as snotty, because no. I don’t remember and that’s the entire problem. It was also before my first introduction in a personal way to anything Bat, or Batlike. That I knew of. So while I might have learned the timeline after the fact, I couldn’t have known for sure if he had been there or not. Now. Maybe if I wasn’t still a little pissy about him tasering me I might have thought to ask but I hadn’t needed to, because I had Tim and he’d been pretty damn happy to have me actually ask for his help on something.
I do actually let him talk. Much to my credit, right? I may like to talk, but I don’t need to in order to make a point. I do that with fists. Though not right now. Right now I employ my expressive face, and some body language so that there’s no missing what I think about any number of his points with quirks of my lips, or what starts to threaten to be blue eyes rolling to one side or the other. So I let him talk. And I wait. And I build up my tirade of a reply one little building block at a time. I’ve got a good memory, after all, which is another reason why the entire situation with the Suicide Squad was so goddamn obnoxious.
“I did not mope, he was going to get himself killed and me telling him so was only going to wreck his confidence and make it happen even more quickly, one of you two ought to muzzle Damien, but mostly we didn’t need our ranks thinned mid-ninja invasion, Stephanie Brown is also going to get herself killed without a whole lot of instruction, and Bruce was my family, too. Just like Gotham is my home, and I’m not staying for the purpose of being anyone’s partner.”
Okay so maybe skipping over the letting him taser me bit was telling, but if I’d protested that I hadn’t let him, then that would be admitting the lack of the ability to anticipate it, or to prevent him. I definitely haven’t forgotten. Oh no. I’m biding my time for a suitable opening on that slight. And as glorious as that imagined revenge has been in my head a time or two, it’s really not what I’m going to dwell on right this moment. Because I’m trying to understand what he’s getting at, without having to insist for what feels like too many times that I don’t have a ‘thing’ for his brother. He’s a little young for me, for the least of the reasons I might want to throw out there.
Gah. The damn drones. I’d gotten good enough at spotting them, that I think i’ve stopped trying to do it, and so…
“Is this a hypothetical situation or is he actually…”
The speed and sharpness with which my eyes have narrowed, and my brows pulled together actually makes my forehead feel a little twitchy, because I find it hard to believe that Tim would do something so stupid, unless he felt he didn’t have a choice, and then I’d like to think he’d invent or devise another one anyway. Or that someone would stop him. My expression stays focused and pensive, and my lips parted mid sentence as my brain… I realize it’s churning through its own hypothetical like it can’t puzzle out a result when it’s a very simple question he’s asked me. Of course I can finish packing. There’s not even much to finish, because I don’t really travel heavy. Don’t require tech and gizmos and gadgets when my weapons are usually just me, myself and I.
“He told me to go.”
Why is that my answer? Whether I was told or not has zero pertinence, because I was going to go anyway. I had just done Red Robin the courtesy of warning him. Mostly because I wanted to make sure Spoiler was getting training from someone who wasn’t me. I’d been so frustrated and in need of a pressure release after the phone call I’d gotten from Fake Oliver that I’d taken a sparring session far, far too . Well . Far. If I hadn’t told him, and he realized I’d gone, it would have only made it that much more likely that he’d follow me, and we couldn’t all be gone.
Dick: “Mm. Do you know how many times Barbara told me to go when she stuck in that wheelchair? I lost count. She meant it too. It was actually more painful for her to know that I was witnessing what she was going through, than it was to actually go through it. Babs wanted to be out there. Doing what we do. It got taken away from her, when she wasn’t even in uniform. She just opened the wrong door and bang…”
We’re not normally the close knit types. Oh, family might be what we say but it’s not always what we are. Our sort of little family talks usually involve teasing one another until the other submits. Or beat the crap out of each other in a spar/fight or video game. We don’t have heart to heart talks like this. So why are we having this one?
“Tim got put out of the game, when he wasn’t even in uniform. Doing something he’s done a thousand times. He took a fall the wrong way, because he couldn’t give away that he knew how to take a fall. He was protecting us. All of us, but mostly you at the time. He probably needs surgery. We all know it. You know it, you’re the one that pulled his wings. Why did he tell you to go, Dinah? Do you think he wants you to see him like that? Not a chance. He wants you to believe in him, Dinah. His time as Batman was singularly fueled by your belief in him…”
“And he’s going to do whatever it takes to make himself good enough to be that partner. Including the use of experimental Wayne Corp nano-probes that are fixing his shoulder. Lucius Fox reported it missing from the lab, during Tim’s overnight disappearing act while you grounded him. He went ‘shopping’ while he was out on the town. Lucius’ report to Alfred says that all the trials have resulted in ‘aberrant behavior’ in the test subjects, prompting the tests to be black listed.”
One thing I -do- know right now, based simply upon the look she’s got on her face, I’m not going to be able to break through what Tim said to her. I’ve got to do this a little bit different. “Back to my hypothesis. The Dinah that I know would never leave Tim to something so dangerous. Even if her mission was important, it’s been laying dormant for years so it’s not time sensitive. That means you don’t have to go. Unless you have to obey Timothy. He did tell you to go, like you said.”
“That Dinah. Always obedient. Sounds just like her. That’s what they say.”
Dinah: I could continue to argue this with him, but it feels much like our last conversation. Only this time he’s not in a cowl and interrupting my movie. I’m going to answer his questions, that I don’t actually have to answer. He’s going to ask them either in a different way, or more irritatingly the exact same one, over again. It’ll turn into a cycle that will continue to ramp until one of us gets irritated enough to cut our losses and bring it to an end. Tim and Barbara aren’t the same people. No matter the similarities he’s drawing between these two particular events. I’m clearly not the only one concerned about him, and if his actual family isn’t moving to put a swift stop to his behavior then why do they expect me to do it?
“Well. My personal guess is that he knew full well that I’d be going anyway whether he said it or not, and it was a way of taking on what I’m foisting back onto him without saying as much. Or because it’s a way of seeming to acquiesce while having every intention of meddling via tech and drones and whatever else he has at his disposal because medi-nano-whatevers? I’m sure there’s even fancier things in those vaults.”
I make a show of snagging the trailing sleeve of a dark sweater that I’d actually discarded from my planned packing, wadding it up and cramming it into my bag. See? I can pack just fine, thank you very much, even though I know he couldn’t have meant the physical aspect of it, so much as the mental follow through. But the act is.. actually more difficult than it should be. Not physically of course. I had no problem taking this course, and nothing Grayson’s actually said is enough to sway me because I don’t intend to be gone that long. His disapproval actually is a non factor. That much I know for sure. The fact that I hadn’t had to argue and cajole his brother to stay in Gotham had been a surprise, and if anything his willingness to stay and keep things safe (ish) in Gotham had been like a giant weight off.
“Are you really accusing me of being obedient over something I decided to do, marched into the Nest and told him I was doing…” Okay not really in those exact words… “And am now trying to get onto doing, even with you standing here griping at me about it? It stopped being dormant, and something to be backburnered Dick, when people’s real names started getting named. When me being here is going to bring them here again, and I assume you know they really don’t need much of a reason at this point.”
Superman’s already been and gone a few times. Wonder Woman turned up. The alien that crash landed. I made myself a little too interesting and tipped the balance of my grandmother’s agreement.
“Do you want to maybe just tell me in simple terms what it is you’re actually wanting me to say right now? I really don’t actually have to explain any of his to you, but hey. I might also point out that the ‘Dinah you know’ has bailed on Gotham before without actually having intentions to be back. So unless you have advance knowledge of the League coming back for round two, or some other immediate looming threat that is something you want to tell me you cannot handle…?”
Dick: “You’re not wrong. There is a lot worse in those vaults,” it almost seems to be an after-thought, the topic of the vault. “Or rather, there was. It would seem that Timothy took somewhat took care of that issue. As a means of preventing whomever has been attacking the Bat Cave from finding that sort of weaponry.”
Her point is actually a really good one. Timothy is my brother. Just as Damien is. I -should- be there for him, physically in person, but that’s the strange truth of Bruce’s philosophy. Doing that would take me away from what is actually going on out there, beyond Gotham City. A point that I think Dinah herself was espousing to Tim and I not so long ago. Her own argument about this Slade-business is that exact point of view; She could back burner it until it began to impact more than just herself.
“You’re going to have a hard time swallowing this right now, but I can’t. I’m pursuing a lead that might flesh out the entire situation in Khandaq. I only even became aware of the situation in Gotham, because Damien showed up at a location that I was investigating. Apparently your Kryptonian boy-pal decided to give him a choice between being useful in Khandaq or being put in jail for the entire Alien debacle there in Gotham.”
“Dinah,” starting over after a brief pause to pivot my approach to something a little more palatable to her. “I want you to say that you’ll tend to this Timothy matter, but I don’t think you can. Tim told you to go, so I don’t think you’re actually capable of doing anything but exactly what he said.”
Dinah: “And the situation in Khandaq is your problem why?”
I don’t actually need him to answer that question, though. Because he’s following through, once again, with something that Tim started. Tim, as the Batman, ventured out of Gotham and publicly worked with this Wonder Woman. With the new Flash. Why settle for one Pandora’s box being thrown open when you can manage a baker’s dozen? I know Bruce had his fingers in all the pies, but he’s not Bruce. He doesn’t have to be. That was where Tim was going wrong, even as I think he was also going right in other things.
“That does sound like my Superfriend. But let me get this straight. You had enough time to watch drone footage, do some other research, and drop in to badger me about this, and yet not enough time to go have a bro-talk with him yourself?”
The set of my mouth is expectant, if not exactly patient as he tries to swap tacks again. This feels like bait, like he’s trying to provoke me into a certain reaction only I cannot for the life of me fathom what it is. No, that’s not true. I just don’t know the purpose. Is Dick trying some reverse psychology bullshit to steer my actions? There’s a low, soft growl in my throat as I yank the zipper on the duffel closed, and push a hand through loose blonde hair to try to calm my irritability a little.
“Jesus Christ, Dick, do you hear yourself? You can’t say I’m someone’s puppet for doing exactly what I was already doing before they were even aware or involved. I. Will. Handle. Tim. If Tim is something that still needs handling when I get back, even though it shouldn’t be me that needs to do it, and with the track record of him not listening to me last time. Do you want to also tell me that I’m going to watch my ass around Wilson only because someone else told me to be careful? Or maybe breathing only became a good idea after some stray ‘deep breaths’ comment??
I don’t need to be half the good read of people that I actually am to know that Red Robin wouldn’t be at all pleased if I were to suddenly and abruptly reverse course to hang around and mother, and scold and nag and hover over him.
Dick: The snort that makes it past my otherwise unemotional veneer is simply because, “Wait. You don’t get to ask that. Not when you talked me in to taking the mantel over when I thought he was doing a good job. Making the Bat a symbol for hope again. It’s the only reason I agreed to do it in the first place.”
One thing that people easily mistake about Dinah, she’s as good with her mouth as she is with her firsts. Equal opportunity weaponry. She’s using the former as a means of trying to knock me off the path of attack. All deflection without actually answering my accusation. That part, I at least understand. Because she’s right about a lot of things. We three brothers haven’t exactly been playing the part very well. Who would have thought that Bruce was the glue binding the three of us together. These days we work independent of one another to such a large extent that none of us even know what the other is doing most of the time. Unless you account for the spying on one another. Which is mostly Alfred doing it, then sicking one brother on the other to keep them in line.
I’m not rising to that particular bait though. Not this time at least. “Despite what a couple of my ex-girlfriends might think, I actually can’t walk on water. Compliment noted however. Chicken or the Egg question, by the way. I’m not going to follow you down that rabbit hole Alice, beyond pointing out that if you had made up your mind to go? Your normal m.o. would have been to blown town before a loved one could try to stop you. Taking your own argument for example, you went against your own nature by going to Tim for permission.”
“But,” a hand finally comes up to make a very soft gesture to the packed bag. “The truth is, I really don’t have time to go have a bro-talk with him. Nor do I have time to keep trying to get through to you. So I’m going to make this easy Dinah. You might not even need to go with Slade, because we have the case files from Bruce. If you’d have come to me, I’d have shared them with you originally. Take care of Tim, Alfred will bring you the case files.”
“Here is where you lash out again. Bark at me some more about your mind being made up. Here is where you argue with me, when presented with an opportunity to have actionable intel, in order to do as you were told.” With this comes a resolved shake of the head and a soft sigh that brings a hanging of my head with it and the rummaging of a hand in to the vest pocket for a thumb drive. “Alright. Well, if you’re going at least take the intel from Bruce’s case files…”
Dinah: “He was doing a good job. He was also trying way too hard to be an ideal, and wasn’t playing to the strengths that would have kept him alive while doing it.”
I still can’t believe he was trying to do the job without his ‘signature’ weaponry. Maybe there would have been the crook out there who would have picked up on the fact that he was fighting differently than Batman used to, but chances are that crook is also one that likely already had noticed that something was up in the vigilante corner of the ring. Or maybe Gotham would more correctly be a Thunderdome. I might not often use my meta-powers, but I’ve had every bit as much practice, maybe even more, in using fists and feet and the rest of the my body.
“And you and I both know how that would have gone, Dick. I didn’t want him following me when he realized I was gone. Or saw me heading towards the city limits with a drone. Not when I already don’t think he should be anywhere but resting that shoulder, and here there’s at least other distractions. So, sure. I made a tactical choice.”
Tim doesn’t want to hear from me that I don’t want him slowing me down. That’s not something you say to a partner. Not if you want to maintain that relationship at any point in the future. And that’s what we’ve been working as. And we were before my run in with Tetch. I let the guy crash at my place before that, too. We’d been unable to figure out what exactly, if anything, the Mad Hatter had been able to talk me into during that time I don’t have memories for but it’s completely ludicrous to believe that it would have been to obey one of the Bats. Or all of them. I think my interactions ought to be proof enough that it’s definitely not the latter.
“You’re busy. Remember?”
Okay, so that isn’t fair entirely and while I’m not going to apologize for making it sound like I’m faulting him for being occupied in doing something that I actually do think is important, and good, the cluck of my tongue and the momentary wince is at myself and not Dick.
“No, I’m not going to, even though I’m pretty sure you’re actually trying to bait me into screaming you out that window over there. Barking at you is working as well as cajoling did on Tim. I’d worry that I was losing my touch if it were another week than this one.”
And I am going. So I hold my hand out, palm up, expectantly. It isn’t just about intel though. There’s a lot of this I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain or justify, and maybe he’s just caught up in this nonsense. To go from accusing me of having a thing for a teenage boy, to deciding that it must be mind control. There’s some things you can’t get just from information, like sussing out what Wilson’s part in this is. That? I need to be there for. I also need feet on the ground to make someone hurt for hurting Ollie. And past all of that? It’s just the way I work.
“So if you were there, why didn’t you bring it up before now? I know why Bruce didn’t. Because he’s… was… you know what, never mind. Apparently ain’t no one got time right now.”
Dick: “Originally I never brought any of this up with you because Bruce would have never allowed it. Not to mention, I actually sort of agreed with him. We didn’t really know all we know now about Nowhere, so all we knew was that some very highly placed government officials sanctioned a squad of suicidal super-people to do something in Arkham. We didn’t even know what at the time. Faced with the very real possibility that a headstrong Girl with a bad attitude might get herself killed trying to find answers? Bruce did what Bruce does and kept it all internal.”
“And for some real full disclosure, Dinah, I really hate the fact that once again Bruce is right. A decade later, he’s still right.” One more sigh for the road, but this time it comes without the hung head as I put the thumb drive in to her hand. “In more recent times, I didn’t bring it up because… because the real truth is that we, collectively, have a lot of things pulling at us. You wanted me to step in to the mantel, Dinah, right? You knew what that meant and frankly, I think you’re being a little silly about not at least giving me a little benefit of the doubt here. Being the Batman can be about inspiring Hope, it can be about solving crimes and cleaning up the City… yada yada yada… but it’s also at the very core? About being the Leader. Hell, you make fun all the time with your Bat-Dad jokes.”
“I made the choice to prioritize the problems, the cases, we’re all dealing with. Starting with ‘the potential end of the world as we know it’ crisis in Khandaq. Does that mean I love my little brother(s) any less or that I don’t want to help you with all of this?”
Has this discussion spiraled a little too far abroad of the reason I came here to begin with? I don’t like what I’m becoming reasonably sure is the situation before me, but I really do have to prioritize. I can’t drop every single thing I’m dealing with to try to convince Dinah that something is wrong. Just like I can’t stop pursuing these Hawk people just to stage an intervention for one of my little Brothers. I’m realizing all too quickly what made Bruce in to the man we all love/hate. These decisions eat at you, you can’t stop that.
So you just have to make the decisions be something you can live with. Right? “One thing. Just to be clear. You never asked for my help. Not once. Not even a hint at it. Yet, I’ve found the time twice now to be here trying to offer it. How do you even know that I haven’t tried to do the same with Tim or Damien?”
“When you’re ready to ask for help, I’ll be there. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel,” pointing the finger-gun at her duffel bag on my way through the door of her apartment. “For someone that isn’t hung up on someone, you may have just packed Tim’s underwear in your overnight bag.”
A few seconds later, from just beyond the door of her apartment. “Hah! Made you look.”
Dinah:
“And my inner cynic can’t <i>not</i> chime in with ‘and not at all because it would make for juicy just in case leverage to use later against one of the only operating metas in the city.'”
Cynical sentiment or not, I can’t even really fault it. One of the many reasons besides his not being here any longer to be mad at that I’m not. Mad. Now, Dick would make a better target for it, but with my not remembering it could also have just been a matter of why bring it up if I don’t need to? There’s any number of reasons to not share something like that, and while I would have preferred to not have been caught flat footed when Slade Wilson showed up wanting to be chummy old pals it is what it is.
“The moment I stop making fun of you is when you can bet I have <i>actually</i> been mind controlled. Or whatever this is you think is supposedly going on. You’ve got a lot on your plate, I get it. I can juggle plates, too. Ollie and Roy and Diggle are <i>my</I> family, too.”
And frankly I trust the Batcrew in residence a whole lot further than I do the Arrows at this particular moment in time, to be able to keep their shit together long enough for me to deal with something else. How do I know he hasn’t tried to bash some sense into his brothers already? I don’t. Though if it’d come to actual blows I think I would probably have noticed the marks on someone, especially as much time as I spend around the youngest of them.
The only ‘looking’ that goes on with his jab is an exaggerated eye-roll towards the ceiling, as he’s on the way out. Psh. Please. Has he not seen that Red Robin suit? Even if there were underwear under that thing, Tim is far too OCD to leave any laying around. That’s <i>my</i> shtick, not his. Once I’m alone, I steal the luxury of wasting a few moments rubbing my face with the heels of my hands. Letting my brain tumble at a less aggressive responsed pace to the suggestions/accusations that he’d just made. Yeah, no, still sounds just as crazy as it had at first blush.
Maybe I should just go have a nice, quiet chat with Tetch on my way out to settle this once and for all.
by Michele | Mar 4, 2019 | Chronicles
Damien: Being transported to St Roch was .. interesting. It was a sensation he’d never felt before and something he didn’t wish to experience again. The feeling of not having control was a big one. Adjusting his jacket, he looks around a moment. The city was small, but just as dark and gloomy as Gotham was. It’s architecture a mix of spanish gothic and early english gothic. Two very different cultures that once held. Pulling his phone out, he finds the address that he was looking for. Where one Kendra lived. A part of a duo named Hawkman and Hawkgirl. The tricky part is to wait when Hawkman was away as he could be a bit … temperamental when anyone but him talked to Kendra.
Though, she’s been working on him.
Damien didn’t know what to expect. But if anything he gained from his conversation with Superboy, er, man, was that Nth metal was being used. If that was the case, then Damien needed information right from one the sources. Kendra and Carter. Though, once again, it was easier to approach Kendra about this, rather than Carter. What he didn’t expect was to find another lurking figure as he approached the Hall Residence where the pair lived. The house wasn’t big, but with it being just a couple blocks from the Stonechant museum, it was perfect for the pair.
Right now, Damien was tracking a figure that was using the shadows of the night to skulk around the dwelling. This couldn’t be a coincidence. Nothing that the Son of the Bat couldn’t take care of. Using his training, Damien followed the other figure, waiting for the perfect time to strike. Then suddenly, the young man sprung into action, going to tackle the figure from behind. Except, this person wasn’t just anybody. The figure twisted his body while in the air, to then flip Damien off of him. The figure hits the ground in a roll as Damien also turns, landing on his feet about ten yards away. Now facing the other man.
Pausing, Damien scrunches his face slightly in confusion and thought.
“Richard?”
Dick : You wouldn’t think that tracking down two people with enormous wings on their back would be a problem for just about anyone. Much less two people with the deductive tracking ability and resources of the Wayne Family. Apparently no one gave these Hawk-People the memo. Because Dick Grayson has been all over the globe in search of them. From San Luca, to Cairo, to Athens… one jet ride to the next has taken him around the globe and away from Gotham at a time when it was most inconvenient. As it turns out though, the pair seem to be able to completely hide their wings. Otherwise they’d found some other manner of travel, because they weren’t showing up on any sort of Airport Security. It might be a bit on the nose to jump to the conclusion that the pair would use those same fancy wings for travel, but by all accounts and scientific extrapolation those wings didn’t provide them with the speed needed to manage some of the Museum Robberies they’d pulled. At least not in the time they had managed it.
Finding out that one of those Dick had needed to be on the ground in Gotham, keeping the city safe in his absence, was actually following much the same trail? Surprising, but not nearly as much as you might think. Damien has always had a habit of showing up where he’s least expected. Or wanted. Depending on your view point. Being attacked by your kid-brother, from out of nowhere? That’s where the surprise levels kick up.
It might be one of the rare times in Damien’s life that he too gets surprised, because Dick doesn’t just get tackled. No sooner has he rolled through the attack from behind, but he comes up ready to attack. The last few months wearing Bruce Wayne’s costume, being the Batman in a City that has been teeming with a new level of violence, had left Grayson more than a little on edge. Damien is sure to notice that his ‘Brother’ wasn’t just ready to try to disarm, but was clearly about to go on the offense with razor-bats in each knuckle.
The coat doesn’t conceal much of the Nightwing costume and it surely doesn’t prevent movement. Dick was ready for a fight, but didn’t come dressed as the Bat. “…Jesus! What the hell are you doing here…? You have the worst timing… get down.”
Even as Dick is barking instructions he’s moving. It happens so fast you might liken it to a professional quarterback’s throw, the way his arm cocks and unleashes those razor bats. Not at Damien, but above him. Three of them thrown, but the sound of only one of them making metallic contact is the reward. Until the next sound is a razor-sharp Boomerang implanting itself in the solid stone near Damien tells the guy what Dick was doing.
All of this, just seconds before “Kendra’s” front door explodes and the squad of armored insurgents start to pile in through every entrance.
Shiera: There could be some argument of semantics when it comes to categorizing what’s been going on lately as ‘robberies.’ My own solo ‘expedition’ had been more along the lines of grave robbing, or as Carter would maybe call it ‘liberating the past and bringing it to light.’ I don’t know that I entirely see the difference, because the only line seems to be whether or not the grave in question is clearly marked, and perhaps different layers of dirt over the top of it. My trip to London, cracking the mausoleum, and walking out with what I’d thought was an amulet could maybe have been dubbed either. I don’t consider it stealing, if only because what I took from those damp stone walls was mine.
Or it had been mine, in 1943. The end date stamped on that life, and that crypt. It wasn’t a point I was going to argue with anyone when it came to going in ‘legally’ though. Which brings us back to robbery. Something that we’ve been planning to do again, more liberation, more reclamation of things rightfully ours. Not because of greed, or pride, or heritage. But because somehow, everything gets less crazy the more of our pasts we find.
Actually. It gets more crazy by the same measure. This is Carter’s home. Since we found each other again, I stay here. Most of the time. The truth is, I hadn’t had much to leave behind. This time I had been born as Kendra Saunders. This time, there wasn’t anything especially heroic, or daring about me. Cello isn’t exactly an exciting pastime to devote oneself to, and it was the way I’d set up to spend what I’d hoped was a relaxing, quiet part of my day to, since Carter’s out of the house. He probably would have noticed something coming. I’m not exactly the hair trigger that he is however, and so the detonation of the downstairs entry, along with what sounds to be the back door as well certainly takes me by surprise.
The instrument is rather unceremoniously dumped over as I jerk to my feet, I have no idea who or what is coming, but it sounds like a lot more people than I would have thought I’d made angry. Probably can blame Carter for that. The closest thing I can lay claim to as a weapon is the baseball bat in the bedroom, and that’s two doors down the hallway. An easy enough sprint to make, as well as the closest one with an ‘exit’ in the form of a window if I have to take it.
Damien: Damien was about to counter Dick’s comment about him being here. But decided to drop it. Instead, pulling out a domino mask and applying it after the explosions rocked the front and back doors of this home. Looking over his shoulder, he lifts a brow at his brother. “We have much to discuss. But, clearly it looks like our friend inside may need assistance first.” It seemed NOWHERE was here first, at least it’s who he could only assume whom it was. Moving around to the front of the house. Damien didn’t have any of his normal things on him. That didn’t make him any less dangerous though.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
Once all the men are in the house that were at the front door, Damien goes in behind one of them, keeping his stance low. The art of surprise doesn’t last long as one of the men coming from the otherside of the house and spot Damien about to bring down one of the men. Usually Damien is equipped for whatever the situation is, but this time he was completely unequipped. No armor, no sensors. Just him.
Honestly, he liked it this way. Made the pain feel real.
“Nightwing. I count fourteen. Apparently they have the same idea we did.” commenting as the man Damien was about to take out turned around, swinging his weapon to clock Damien. But, the young heir was better than that. Leaning back enough for the weapon to miss him. Damien’s able to bounce back easily enough to push him back into his compatriots. Then, they decide to open fire.
Carter was not going to be happy.
Dick: The response that Damien gets? Is in the form of a baton going past him through the door. He was following Damien, although keeping his distance in order to not cause exactly what was happening with Damien’s friends. They’ve made the mistake of coming in from two sides and that puts them at cross-fire to one another. They can’t shoot or they’ll take out their own people. That’s the good news, because neither Damien or Dick have to worry about friendly fire from their particular arsenals.
“That Boomrang came from the roof of the building. That makes fifteen accounted for. There was also a suspicious looking van circling the block.” Which, as Dick’s tone says, he only knows about because he was casing the place. Instead of being quite so abrupt as Damien in his approach. “Too late for subtle.”
Even as Dick speaks he’s in motion. Entering the home through the ruined door behind Damien, but where the little brother goes low Dick Grayson goes high. Using his brother’s back to run right up and spring over him, in to the throng of armed men. Nightwing makes a very brilliant target. An armed and armored target, as opposed to Damien who’s running a little light today.
Boomerang: As the Bats are working on the men in the front, Shiera is getting an eye-full of the men from the back. Despite moving like trained professionals they’re not quite so organized as to be S.W.A.T. for the Police. They’re not clearing rooms, which is why she’s able to dart for that baseball bat. Albeit with a trail of ‘Paft-paft-paft’ that follows her along. Those are not bullet holes in the wall behind her as she moves. They’re darts and those men aren’t bothering to clear the rest of the home, she’s presented herself as a target and they’re swarming towards her.
“Wot have we got ‘ere then? Buncha wankas breakin up me barbeque? Listen mates, e’re not takin interviews t’day.”
There’s number fifteen. His voice is booming all around them, even if he’s not yet in sight. It almost sounds like he’s speaking the lot of them through the comm-units of the men breaching the House.
Shiera: I hadn’t really needed encouragement to run quickly in the first place, but the sound of air that doesn’t usually accompany a bullet so much as something else goads me along even more quickly. As well as making me instantly rethink the plan of going out the bedroom window.
It’s no less clear, and much lacking in cover out back. Shouldering open the ajar doorway, and fumbling inside for the aluminum baseball bat. No, it’s not nearly as effective as my other half’s choice of weaponry, but it’s also a great deal more subtle and less questionable to have out in the open. The stairwell makes a decent enough cover for me to lean my head around and confirm what I suspected. There’s far too much noise for this to be one potentially random sort of break in. There’s also a lot more than I might have expected, and to add another element? They appear to be fighting each other. Or at least part of them are. Two groups at the same time? Argument among the same that’s devolved to violence? Either way, I guess it’s as good a time as any.
There’s really nothing about me that screams superhuman of any sort at first glance, other than the fact that all redheads are technically superhumans. No wings, no costume, just a tank top and a pair of yoga pants as I come barreling down the stairs barefooted and improvised weapon raised in hand, in a posture that isn’t exactly batting stance so much as someone who’s ready to attack or defend as necessary.
I wasn’t prepared for this. Or really for the way this is making my pulse surge and blood roar. ‘Kendra Saunders’ might not have been born for this sort of thing, but that hardly seems to matter much anymore. The real me, under this form, takes great offense at the intrusion into my home, and doesn’t hesitate for even a second before cracking the closest head I can reach as I vault over the last bit of bannister.
Damien: Damien feels Dick vault over him and into the other men. It’s funny how well the two men operate together with effortless efficiency. No matter the circumstances. The way Damien takes on the men is more with fast and fluid movements. A different style than what he usually uses. It was meant to be mobile, attack while moving. Disarm and disable. Then he sees Shiera vault over the staircase and join them on the ground floor. A metal bat in her hand. A smirk crosses his lips.
“For as long as you have known me, would you have ever considered me subtle?” asking as one of the men attempts to take him on in a one on one match. Damien is too quick for the man. Instead of clocking him, Damien uses the man’s armor against him. Unbuckling and unstrapping him, then rebuckling so that he couldn’t move. Once he was done with that man, Damien moved in tandem with Nightwing. Then that voice goes over the comms and Damien exhales through his nostrils.
“I like her style.” gesturing to the man who was rolling down unconscious on the stairwell. His helmet nearly cracked in half from the impact of Shiera’s bat. These men didn’t have a chance between the three of them. But, someone like Digger Harkness. He could tip the scale. “This was far too easy.” while the men had the numbers advantage at the moment, their numbers were quickly thinning.
“I apologize about the intrusion, Shiera. Once this encounter is over. We need to have a discussion.” after all, Damien was on a time crunch.
Dick: Subtle? No. But Dick also never imagined Damien as the type of traipse half-way around the world following him either. If that is, as it seems. Saying that to Damien only seems to court even further discussion when they really need to work on getting this situation under control. While they’re on the topic of ‘Having known Damien’ for something, the idea spawns that perhaps the real question is… ‘Since when are you apologetic about anything?’ But that too is going to have to wait for another time.
The herd of men may be thinning in the front, but that’s only half of the man-power they knew for a fact was here. Just as Shiera’s man rolls to a thug at the bottom of the stairs, Dick is evading a series of darts flying all around him by once more vaulting over one man. Turning that same man in to a living shield and a weapon all at once. The captive thug takes the blast of darts in his armor from behind Dick, then becomes a projectile as he is hurled down the hallway in to the path of the men coming from the back of the house.
“What my miniature, unintended, companion means, is that these men are part of a larger group. They’re here for you and/or the items you and your cohort have been procuring. You have a bounty on your head that is large than the gross national product of most small countries right now.”
“You can come with us or…”
Really, Dick Grayson of all people should know better than to ape Arnold in times like this. Nothing good has ever come from it. This is just one more example of it, because as Dick, Damien and Shiera look around at the fallen seven men from the front of the house? A second boomerang of the night makes it’s appearance. This one sails in through the front window, curves through Carter Hall’s living room, before strategically impaling itself with precision on the staircase right next to where Shiera descended.
Unlike the first, that Dick had deflected away from Damien’s back, this one is beeping. Beep. Beep. Beepbeep beepbeep. Beepbeepbeepbeep. Beeeeeeee….
BOOM!
Shiera: Intrusion? That seems to be putting it very, very mildly. Comically so. Also, words that come loaded with so many additional questions. Does that mean that they’re on my side? Are they trying to play this good cop, bad cop? Is it just a swerve to get me to stop fighting them, and then allow for an easier fight? All in all, I’m not entirely inclined to discuss much of anything. Unintended companion. More words, that paint more contextual blanks for me to fill in. It makes me grateful for the things that my body seems to know how to do on its own now, without requiring a whole lot of thought from me. While the motions I make may be those of someone who seems accustomed to a level of violence that nothing in my own personal ‘biography’ might suggest, it’s more savage accuracy than practiced finesse.
“That sounds like the beginning of an ulti-…”
The crash of breaking glass is much softer than the other explosions that have rocked the house in the last minutes, but still present. Maybe if only because of the momentary lull in the room, like the eye of a storm, and my head whips around to where the boomerang has sunk into the wall. I’d moved some small distance from it naturally, but not nearly far enough. Especially once it starts beeping. Faster, and faster, and there’s really only one thing that can ever mean. Most people would probably run. I don’t think I’ve got enough time to get far enough for it to be any better than my alternative.
“Get down!”
Dropping to a knee, in the shattered remnants of my front door and entryway, I turn a shoulder into the direction that explosion is surely about to come from and press a hand to my chest. Metal exploding, with more grace than violence, out of my back. Up and out, curving around me in a pair of enormous wings that change color, fading from silver to glossy hues of brown until they look for all the world like ordinary feathers. They’re a great deal sturdier than what they appear, though.
Damien: Damien doesn’t have the luck of having armor to absorb most of the blast. Instead, Damien attempts to clear distance between himself and the bomb. While, he escapes the initial blast, the shockwave does enough to propel him through the house and into a wooden bookshelf. With the shelf then creaking over and falling onto him. His ears are ringing, pain is shooting through his body as he attempts to crawl out from under. It’s hard at first, Damien can feel blood trickling from his nose.
Is this why they couldn’t have nice things?
He was having trouble thinking clearly. When this is all over, he’s going to have strong words with Conner and his Suicide Squad. Right now, he had to ignore the pain and get up. Thankfully the blast, while strong, wasn’t enough to break any bones. “Ri….Night…Nightwing. Are you well?” asking as he finally gets out from under the bookcase. This needs to end now. Before the house before the supports of the house. Captain Boomerang. The man might be a laugh because he throws Boomerangs, but just like Green Arrow and his arrows. Digger has a boomerang for every occasion.
The one occasion he can’t rely on is Damien needing to take things into his own hands and end this now. Instead of relying on mental preparation, he fights through the pain and switches to instincts as he swoops up a large shard of glass, wielding it like a dagger as he charges towards the window… or rather what’s left of it. Leaping through it, he lands with a roll. If Digger is out there, Damien is intending on charging him and stabbing him with the shard of glass. No matter the cost.
Dick: Much like Damien, there is nothing to really protect you from a bomb in the old Nightwing kit. The one damned time that he would have truly used that damn cape and he left it on the plane. Leaving him with a terrible choice of standing his ground or doing something stupid. Since standing his ground is only helpful if he’s taking the brunt of the blast to protect one of the other people in the room? It’s really just a series of stupid choices, leaving you to pick between the worst ones. As Damien is being thrown one way, Shiera is covering herself with… ah… there are those wings. Leaving Dick to be propelled, because he’s turned to hurdle down the hallway as the bomb goes off.
Stupid choices? Damien is going for the band leader. Dick is smashing through Carter Hall’s surprisingly solid dining room table. At least the maneuver has a touch of grace to it, because of throwing himself in that direction it was much more of a controlled fall than what Damien took. The landing was still bone-jarring and leaves him momentarily propping himself up to look at the pool of blood escaping his lips.
Hey! But he doesn’t have Damien’s ringing ears and the Nightwing armor mostly took the lethality of that fall. It’s the little things that lift you up, especially when the Backdoor Thugs opt to press their advantage. Right then. Pumping the Boy Wonder full of darts right then and there.
Shiera is the least bothered of the three and she’s the target. Funny how life works, huh? She’s in far better shape than Damien who’s charging out on the the lawn to confront…. The man who Dick told him was on the roof. Don’t worry though. The next Boomerang doesn’t hit Damien as soon as he’s in sight. It hits the grass in front of him. This time he can’t hear the beeping as it winds up to shoot electrical taser wire at the other Boy Wonder’s chest. Zzaaaap!
“…Multiplex. Get cher arse up and finish this Mate. We need the bird alive.”
Oh. Right. Those thugs? No one really took the time to notice they’re all identical copies of each other did they? The not so useless thugs are showing exactly none of the effects of the bomb. Unless you count the fact that the concussive force of the explosion just created about a whole new set of 14 more of them.
Shiera: Maybe later I’ll marvel about how well that actually worked. I’d spent so much of the last few years overthinking it all of this, convinced that I was crazy. When I managed to embrace what I was thinking, and feeling, those foreign things that I hadn’t thought were mine floating around my mind, it had all gotten better. Maybe that’s something a crazy person would say. Or maybe I can simply chalk it up to following Carter’s… impetuous is the kind way to put it… example. Either way, there’d been danger, and I’d let myself react. Everyone else runs from the blast, and the only real damage I suffer is the way my ears are ringing in the aftermath. Maybe worse than the others would have been, had they stayed so close, proving the only real downside of having hearing as sharp as I do. One hand rubbing at the side of my head, while the other discards the bat that I was only half holding anyway. End over end like a blunted tomahawk at one of the men in the room with me, who.. I hadn’t heard come in and I’m fairly sure were not there a moment ago.
I don’t need it anymore, because it’s unlikely I’m going to be fighting off the whole pack of them with just a bat. The wings serve as weapon enough for my needs. Part of me thinks the best move here is out that destroyed front entryway and up into the sky. The garbled words of ‘arse’ and ‘alive’ are enough to put more pieces together. I’d been hearing darts, which means they’re not just here to take what I have. We have, I suppose. Maybe that also means that they know it won’t be so simple to take it from me. If I’d realized what a target that Amulet would have made me, perhaps I would simply have hidden it again. Left it stashed in what protection the walls of the Museum had seemed to offer the rest of the pieces for so long.
Moving once more, I bolt through the front door. Wings curved around front both to make it through the opening and to protect me from any more darts. Then it’s up into the air, a leap to send me skyward as I look for the source of that booming voice. My eyes still function, even if my ears are a little iffy. And if I can spot the one that seems to be giving the orders here, I’m intent on taking him for a little ride.
Damien: Normally, Damien would be more than prepared for something like this. But, when he was abducted by Conner. He couldn’t be prepared. So, he was currently fighting a concussion and now the ringing in his ears had stopped…. Just in time to feel the electricity from the taser coarse through his body. Falling to the ground again, he’s not quite down. Smoke rising off his body as he struggles for control over his body. “..Sh..On..Roof.” he could barely speak, but he hoped the girl with wings could hear him.
This just wasn’t Damien’s day, or even Dick’s as he watches him get pumped full of darts. The Son of the Bat collapses to the ground in a feint attempt to draw attention off himself. The guy said Multiplex. Usually a Flash villain, it was clear, that Flash wasn’t here to assist with this. From what Damien knew was that there’s one guy that controls all his dupes. Find him, and you find the source.
Damien focuses on his breath. Pushing air out, pulling air in. Concentrating on pushing out all the pain. Techniques used by the monks he was trained and raised by. Control your heart, control your blood. He could still feel the metal prongs connected to his shirt. The heir of the demon would look into the house. Letting his eyes study his targets, look for that one. That one that stood out from the rest in a sea of identical twins. While twins looked like each other, they were near carbon copies of themselves.
Except for little things here and there. One could be just a inch taller, so on and so forth. Damien needed to find that one to help Dick. but running in and taking care of fourteen dups didn’t sound all that delightful.
Boomerang: It isn’t difficult to see Digger Harkness once you’re above him. The trouble Shiera has with that is getting out that front door. While those original insurgents are still down, the ones born of the kinetic energy of that bomb are all looking to be in pretty tip-top physical health. The way she wields the wings though, is enough to keep her from any true harm. They’re all between her and the door, so none of them get a real chance to shoot her in the back. Not when they’re too busy being bowled over so effectively.
That doesn’t stop them from trying though and take-off is going to prove difficult when all seven of the newly made duploids pile on to her. Seven fully armed, fully capable, men who take to any means of stopping her. Close quarters darts meant specifically to pierce thick skin. Electric batons meant to stun people just like her. Hands that seek to choke. Feet that last out with kicks. No, Multiplex is not in himself stronger than your top-level Olympian, but when you start dealing with the strength, speed and effectiveness of seven men the numbers game does have some advantages.
Oh and let’s not forget that the man she was looking for? Is standing up there on the adjacent roof taking his time to line up every throw. As if it couldn’t get any worse for Damien and Shiera. Another set of boomerangs is raining down on them. As the rangs near both targets they spring open, propelling large nets at the two of them, clearly not caring if he catches the duploids in the process.
Shiera: There’s been an awful lot of upsides to this Amulet and what it had done to my body. The notable and large downside being this particular situation that I’ve found myself in just now, but I’m stronger, tougher, with keen senses. The whole flying thing is my obvious favorite, and the wings that go with it as well. All usually packaged into a neat, glittering adornment that I have to keep hidden because it’s fused itself to my body. Not hidden well enough, clearly, but all it takes is a thought to call it up. Like I had to shield myself. The metal is mine to command, and when it becomes clear that no matter how strong I might be compared to these men individually, their pack methodology is proving to be a bit too much for me.
Hands clawing at my throat, glances with those stun batons that don’t hit home well enough to put me down, but do offer up more than a comfortable level of electric jolt. It’s become very clear, very fast, that a little more forceful defense of my life might be necessary. Even if they do, seemingly, want me alive. As my fighting and wriggling becomes more desperate, and flying elbows, fists and gouging fingers aren’t enough anymore, the edges of my feathered wings grow sharper and sharper. No longer buffeting and blocking alone so much as slicing and shredding, a whirling dervish splattered with blood that’s not mine, and that I don’t spare an instant to feel badly over. The rising feeling of a victory cut short with a high pitched, angry shriek as the net tangles me. Leaving me frantically trying to cut with more purpose and shred the material so that I can get free.
Damien: Damien’s feeling a little better. But the net is a problem. Then he sees Sheira plummet to the ground as she thrashes, working on cutting the net. Meanwhile, Damien stays calm. Batman put all the boys through various kinds of net training. This one was a poly-mesh kind. So, his glass shard wasn’t going to cut through it. Grabbing the boomerang wasn’t going to help, it was the only thing not killing Damien. Slowly, he uses the glass shard to cut the taser lines to the boomerang. Once those were cut, he’d work on finding the edge of the net and tug it off. Doing this was going to expose him to the tranq darts.
The bat that Sheira used was laying on the front steps. If he could just reach it, there might be a chance of him using it to find the one Mutliplex. From what Damien could tell, he didn’t see a unique figure amongst the fourteen dupes that were in the house. So, that must mean either he was somewhere else. Or he was ontop of the roof. Where Digger was. Damien would run towards the bat to pick it up mid stride as he kept close to the house. Wanting to use it for cover. To keep himself from being potentially shot at by the tranq darts. It’d also buy him time for the dupes to get out of the house. If Damien’s ever out of sight, he’d use this opportunity to “vanish” in plain sight. Much like how Batman would do.
Neither of the men had any kind of jumping ability, and if you were going to get ontop of a house. You needed a ladder. Assuming the van was too far for them to use to jump from one to the other. So, this is what Damien is doing. Searching for a way to get onto the roof as quietly as he could. Learning the ways of stealth was beat into him shortly after he learned to walk.
Boomerang: “This lil’ bugger just won’ quit, will ‘e mate?”
Digger’s a little boggled by the manner in which Damien struggles. But there’s a very key aspect to this that Damien isn’t accounting for, for once he isn’t the target. Hell, as far as Digger is concerned he’s worth exactly nothing. Dead or Alive. So once Shiera is actually netted, Damien’s where abouts are only a cursory problem for Boomerang. For once it has absolutely nothing to do with under-estimating his opponents and everything to do with getting out while the getting is good.
“Bird’s down. Wrap ‘er up boys. Let’s get a move on.”
While Damien has been through more than his fair share of training in how to escape all manner of traps? Shiera’s multi-lifetimes are not preparing her for a group that are hunting her very specifically. Slashing at the net is accomplishing nothing. The blood (and gore) from the duploids she slices and dices only makes it that much more slippery. Even if the netting wasn’t specifically designed to bring her down, it’d lose a lot of traction with the lack of friction it can generate to slice anything.
That doesn’t mean she makes it easy for anyone. Duploids are having a terrible time getting to her, even from outside of the net. Forcing them to wait for backup, in the form of the Squad that was coming in the rear of the House. Just as they’re rounding to the front, toting a near unconscious Nightwing, the Van that Dick pointed out before rolls up to the curb. As Damien is working his way around the building? Digger and the previously unseen Multiplex are starting to leave their perch. It’s all done but the wrap-up.
“…put cher backs in ta it, lads. Hawk-One is putting up an even better fight downtown.”
Dick’s one and only contribution to the fight at this point? That shifting his finger to the small, hidden, little link-up on his gauntlet. “Z, pleh rouy deen eW.”
Zatanna: Dick had an ace up his sleeve, a little trick to pull him out of a really awful situation. She always said she was a whisper away and she only gave such a favor to good friends that she could trust. There was no hesitation in the flurry of speech and movements it took to get into ‘work clothes’ and transport herself right into the scene in a plume of white smoke that radiated out. She arrived right beside Dick, expecting to see him standing there but was immediately concerned when she looked over her shoulder and then had to look downwards to find him face down on the ground.
“Yekaw yekaw, Yob Rednow. Tell me where the bad men are.”
He said ‘we’. Her pale eyes were already searching through the cloud that gave them a slight amount of cover and a distraction. Who were the others? She’d rather have a good idea of where her allies were before she began waving the wand without a thought to any bystanders.
Shiera: Boomerang isn’t the only one not paying much attention to what Damien Wayne is up to. In my defense, however, I’m a lot more preoccupied with my immediate plight. The more I struggle, the more clear it becomes that the razor sharp edges of my feathers are a lot more likely to shred me than they are the net that’s pinning me down. A fact that is both boggling and infuriating, and leads to no small amount of my continuing to try regardless because… why on earth would it not cut? Because they’re prepared for you, or I suppose for anyone who might have a bladed weapon on them.
At this point, the incidental carnage I’m causing with my thrashing? Becomes a lot more intentional. I hadn’t been trying to kill anyone. I may not have the rage fueled tendencies of Carter, but I’m also not a pacifist by any stretch of the imagination. They started this, not me, and if I inflict a lot of damage in the process of defending myself, that’s just simply my right. So I switch tactics. I may not be able to fly, but I can still jump. Flexing the wings, I send them out against the confines of the netting. Forcing the razor sharp pinions out, jabbing no differently than someone would with a spear as I gather my legs beneath me and try to launch myself upwards. Worst case, I give them hell when it comes to actually getting a handle on me, and taking me anywhere.
Damien: Damien is quiet as he finds a way onto the roof via a ladder on the backside. Once he’s on the roof, he pushes the ladder away. No need for them to get down. Using whatever stealth advantage he can get, he finally sees his targets. Digger and Multiplex. When he crests over the middle of roof, where it peaks together, Damien smirks as he starts down the roof, and towards this. Now he wasn’t being completely stealthy, because by the time he reaches Multiplex, Damien’s going to use that bat and strike it as hard as he can against his back. Not caring what damage he’s inflicting to the man.
“Give up, Digger.” Damien says, twirling the aluminum bat with one hand as if it was an extension of his hand. His ears are still ringing, but nowhere near what they were before. If Digger tries anything, he’s going to get met with a bat on forearms followed up with a hard job to his stomach with the top of the bat. They had their fun, and it seemed Sheira was having a hell of a time. Hopefully with his attack on Mutliplex and Digger, it’ll sever the connection to his dupes and make them vanish.
This was the only thing Damien really could do. If he’s too late, then he’ll have to figure something else out. Maybe hurl the bat like a spear at one of them. Right now, he was looking to end this fight before any of them can get away. And maybe help Carter wherever he is. They mentioned Hawk-One, he could only assume that Carter was putting up a hell of a fight against a couple other members of the Suicide Squad. There were a lot of questions, but it’s not like they could just throw them all into jail and let courts settle it.
Dick: With those words a gasp sounds from Nightwing, who was until that incantation barely lucid. Knowing only what was going on, but being out of his ability to do anything to influence it. Such was the state of a normal person being pumped full of narcotics meant to bring down one of the Hawks. As quickly as the words spill from beautiful lips though, Zatanna cleanses the body. Magic, who would have thought that would be saving the Boy Wonder’s butt?
She did not, however, heal him of all that ailed him, leaving him to recover the physical injuries that come with the pummeling of seven duploids. That may mean he’s not ready to charge off, to save the world on his own, but he can put his eyes, ears and mouth to use. “Suicide Squad. Captain Boomerang is the house across the street. Robin,…. the other Robin… is working his way to them.”
“Those soldiers aren’t real people. They’re digitized copies of one another and they seem to be able to replicate at will, I’m not sure how their power works.” Lastly he points at the Hawk-Girl, who’s struggling with the net but seems to be making quite the mess of Digger’s efforts to have the duplicants put her in a Van. “They’re here for her. Well. Her wings. They’re made of the metal we talked about before, Z.”
Boomerang : “Aww y’ got me Mate. No tricks now.. I’ ain’ gonn’ move a muscle…”
Any time a man like Digger says that, you know something is wrong. For once though, it’s not because -he- is the one pulling a fast one. Captain Boomerang kinda gestures with his chin for Damien to look at Multiplex. Oh, sure. He did a number on the one that was controlling the rest. Took him out like a right proper ninja, he did. And sure enough, all the duploids that Multiplex was controlling disperse.
Except that Damien hit Multiplex with so much force that kinetic energy sends more duplicants in every direction. It’s like Damien was playing whack-a-mole and when he hit the first Mole, it splintered in to five more. The difference now? Is that -these- duplicants were created without someone controlling them. And boy are the mad at Damien.
Harkness simply backs away, until he can leap off the roof.
Zatanna: She nods quickly. Injuries she could work with later but she knew even injured, he was capable of taking care of himself as long as he wasn’t in the drugged state he was in before. She was already taking little notes as she strode to exit the building in the direction that Nightwing had directed. More mental notes quickly taken with every step. Ultimately, the mission was very clear. They were not to get the woman or her wings.
The quickest way to the where all the action was up. Not up the stairs and through whatever bodies may be waiting along the way. Up, bending the laws of reality around mystic energy and sheer force of will. The words were whispered and she floated right to the top. Perhaps it was poor luck, or great luck that she would come to that edge right where Boomerang was attempting to make his exit.
She reached to the brim of her hat, tilting it downwards as she scowled. She was not happy with this situation. The fact Dick was in such a state that he needed to call her was more than enough to piss her off. And anger sometimes led to unpleasant thoughts on how to twist his spell, how to render him incapable of causing any harm ever again. All things that she sought to work against but there was always that taste of darkness at the tip of her tongue.
““S’hes ton eht tegart. llac meht ffo”
She knew the consequences of getting involved in this. There would be ripples. They would come back. It didn’t appear like anyone was up for a longer fight and she wasn’t about to hold them all off on her own. As easy as it would have been to tell him to just fall, it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do.
Shiera: This time, when I come down, I find myself without any suitable targets to try and land on. As abruptly as they’d appeared in the house in the first place, in the wake of the explosion, they have now disappeared. I’d question the way they went about it, but I have giant wings, which look like feathers but are really made out of mind-controlled metal. There’s a great degree of just accepting the weird and inexplicable, rolling with, and then coping with it to my life right now. I may not be able to take off truly, but my wings slow my descent at least a degree. Allowing me to land with slightly more grace than a sack of wet towels.
Apparently whatever, or whomever, had been driving that van was now no longer there either. I’d scarcely hit blood splattered lawn, and begun to try to find the bottom edge of this net, before I realize the exact trajectory of the now rogue vehicle. Battlefields are treacherous and require sure footing on the best of days, and this? Is not me at my best. I’ve managed to foul myself even more and a foot slipping out from beneath me stops another skyward jump from going quite as smoothly. Instead, I end up doing my best bird into a car windshield impression, wings destroying the glass more than the impact. It wasn’t going nearly fast enough to really do any threatening amount of harm to me. It’s more insulting, scratches from shattered glass the worst injury. Except maybe my pride as I roll over the top of the windshield, a terrible screech of metal on metal.
Damien: Damien had his own host of problems. Watching Digger get away, he muttered to himself. Falling from a two story house wasn’t an issue. It was the five dupes that were now glaring at him. Taking a couple steps back. They were too spread apart for him to take them off all at once. But, Damien didn’t mind these odds. Nothing new, really. Only problem was that he couldn’t hit them with any kind of force. So, improvisation was the only thing he had. Dodging and weaving their attacks, Damien would then unbuckle his belt capture one dupes hands between then, cinched it closed.
One down. Four to go. Using the bad to deflect punches, he needed to maneuver himself so he could backflip off the roof. That meant dodging, jumping over and sliding out of the way. It was hard, but once he got to the roof, Damien would do a perfect launch. Arms out, feet straight as his back arched slightly as he then tucked into a roll once he hit the ground. If he had his sword, he wouldn’t feel so bad taking these things down.
Hopefully they won’t follow him, Damien landed a little weird on his feet. But, nothing a day or so could fix. Moving over to Sheira, he starts helping her with the netting as fast he could. Maybe later he’ll train her how to successfully get out of a net. Though, more on Damien’s death wish, later. “Are you okay, Sheira?” asking, wanting and hoping she was.
Boomerang: You just know the level of person you’re dealing with when they’re faced with a levitating woman, speaking magical words and the only thing their eyes meet are the breasts that costume puts on display. Hell, that trumps just about any amount of fear you might otherwise merit from one Digger Harkness when he’s spun around in the midst of making his escape. Zatanna’s actually getting a smirk from the old Australian. He never does actually make eye-contact though. Sizing her up and down, then up and down again.
“…blimey, look at ‘t’e norks on this’un…”
His face screws up for a moment as he finally realizes that she’s speaking to him. Or is she? The expression on his face says that he is registering that Zatanna has spoken to him, but hasn’t a bloody clue what she’s said. Whatever magic it is that weaves itself all around the brain waves of one Digger Harkness, they just don’t manage to take root anywhere. Other than that look of momentary confusion, which followed that look of appreciation, Digger just simply continues on his merry way. Dropping off the side of the building.
The difference is that he knows Zatanna said something. She was clearly waiting for those words to mean something to him, even if he hasn’t a clue what foreign language she was speaking at the time. Doesn’t matter, she wasn’t helping with the procurement of the package. That’s why the moment his feet touch the ground and he’s done rolling through the two-story drop, those hands of his are each tossing a boomerang. One in each direction.
Each boomerang has a different target. The first goes in through the open window of Carter Hall’s home. The second goes through the front window of the house Damien and the duploids are fighting. Remember the beeping? Those who can actually hear the noise probably remember what the hell that sound is for sure. With that Captain Boomerang makes off in the direction that Carter Hall had gone earlier in the morning. Not even bothering to call of Multiplex.
Beep beep beep. Beepbeep beepbeep. Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep…
Shiera: Among all the possibilities for ways my day could have gone? This was not really one I could have picked out. Sprawled on a van, having to stop the gut reaction to skewer someone who’s trying to untangle me from a giant net. It’s only the obvious fact that he’s not trying to hurt me, and is clearly trying to get me out that stops more blood from being added to what’s made a rather horrific splatter painting of my face and arms and… well. All of me.
“I’m fine.”
It’s a rather terse response, and one I might feel badly about in any other situation. But I don’t know these two. No, three now from the view I had during my first jump. They turned up just as unexpectedly, and uninvited as the other group, with words like ‘come with us or…’ Anything else I might have wanted to say is cut off by the escalating sound of beeping coming from far, far too close. The van had glided/crashed to a halt into what remained of the front entry to Carter’s house, and that put us once again all too near to the exploding boomerang. This time I don’t just cover myself, though. Wings losing their razor edges as I come up out of the loosened netting, bowling Damien over and shielding him at the same time.
Only there’s no explosion. I’m braced for the detonation, for the way the boom will surely disorient my senses for a few moments and instead there’s… the smell of cotton candy overwhelming even the metallic tang of blood in my nose. I don’t even question it. Not out loud anyway, in my head there’s a litany of confused curse words, as I unfurl my wings from around the prone man, gather my legs under me and launch skyward. A different kind of adrenaline mixing with the other that was already fueling me, and this time I actually manage to get up into the sky. Downtown, the Australian had said…
Maybe I should have offered a thank you. I wasn’t going to stick around for the ‘or else’ I heard in the opening conversation, even if it wasn’t said out loud. Not when Carter might need help.
by Michele | Oct 15, 2018 | Chronicles
Tim: It has been a whirlwind of a last couple weeks. Months, even. Starting with the Death of Bruce Wayne the city of Gotham had gone crazy. Culminating in the invasion of a clan of killers, known as the League of Assassins. We’ve been on a merry-go-round of insanity through it all. Discovering more new questions than uncovering answers. We still don’t know who killed Bruce, but now it is worse than that because some of us aren’t sure he’s dead. Or, rather, I’m not sure. Since I don’t know that the others believe me. Just like no one seems to buy in to Stephanie’s suspicions about her Father.
Not that I blame them in either case, to be honest. I mean the whole idea of Bruce still being alive is insanity on it’s own. If you can’t accept that, then why would you even even think of Cluemaster upping his game to real player status? Rhetorical. You wouldn’t. The evidence at hand for both of those ideals is murky, with the line of thinking on Bruce forcing you to consider that he also was behind the hacking of the Bat-Cave computers. That perhaps Bruce felt the only way to control the evil of this city was to become the the truest version of a Dark Knight. Thus making Stephanie’s dilema even more of a curious offering, because it would be a tale of two father’s changing their acts entirely.
These are the thoughts that plague a certain teenage genius in the middle of the night, while he toils away in the lowest levels of the Nest. Yet another puzzle really, if you consider that the Nest itself is build beneath the city of Gotham. In one of the many station dumps for Batman’s original network of railway cars that allowed him to traverse Gotham City so quickly. A supply depot that was by it’s very nature already deep beneath Gotham’s sewer and rail system, that boasts an impressive four levels. The upper most appears to be a run-down gymnasium, bearing the face of a certain Cat-themed Boxer of Black Canary’s past. The second is a true basement, which is mostly a security level people have to pass through in order to begin a search for the levels below. Then there’s the upper level of the nest beneath those, which boasts an impressive computer system on par with the Bat-Cave. It also has housing elements which once served as a certain Boy Wonder’s home away from home. Then there’s the training and equipment rooms.
Below that? Is the room where no one else ever bothers to go. Call it the Garage if you must because this is where that aforementioned boy wonder comes when he wants to work on various items. Tonight’s project is more a retooling than a rebuilding. With a new face being put on the bike of old, if the sparks flying in all directions is any indication. In spite of the welding mask he’s wearing and the sweat that trickles down his arms and chin. Not to mention the strange garble of nearly unintelligible music that blares from the speakers. Somehow there is still a glance in the direction of the stairs just as the silhouette of a visitor appears.
“Sorry, I disabled the elevator,” calling out above the din of the music. “Most people who come to the Nest are too lazy to take the stairs.”
DInah: “We both know that’s not true. The sorry part. Not the rest.”
Being heard over the music, no matter how loud and awful it might be, is about as much of a problem for me as descending the stairs had been in the first place. I’ve always been loud in basically every sense of the word, the trick for me had been in learning how not to be when I wanted. Volume, without the sonic projection that used to go along with it every time, was impossible when I was younger. I was okay with that back then, because I was angry and blunt force trauma, volume cranked to eleven suited my wants. I may have had skill starting very early, but age has brought finesse. Or at least the years and years of practice that goes along with it has.
Maybe the second part is partially untrue as well, but in general? It still fits. Either reading the disabled elevator, in the midst of the techno-marvel of the obsessive Tim Drake as what it really is: deterrent. Or maybe not having a good enough reason to bother. Often when I’m here, my attire is decidedly non-formal. At least for visiting the ‘lair’ of a typically masked vigilante. Hell, yoga pants and workout gear are non-formal anywhere you go, I just happen to be someone that gets away with wearing whatever I want. It’d be more concealing than what I’ve got on now, the latest iteration of the Canary suit. Everyone that comes here knows who I am at this point, so I don’t feel the need to hide it from anyone.
Which means I was probably ‘working’ before I came over here. Or en route, as it were. It’s not exactly hard to find places to blow off that kind of steam in Gotham City in the best of times, and I wouldn’t call now that. Maybe that’s why I felt the need, if I’m being honest with myself. Having things that I need to do elsewhere, with the timing of it? Frustrating. But Tim looks like he’s been working harder than I did. Maybe it’s just the power tools involved in what he’s doing though. Which. I’m fairly sure he shouldn’t be doing with his shoulder. My judgement, for the moment, rests only in the set of my mouth though.
“Please tell me you’re just reinventing your color scheme and that you didn’t somehow wreck that thing…”
Tim: “It kind of depends on how you phrase the question. Was I involved in a car wreck with it? No, but I did sort of wreck it first in order to rebuilt it…”
The original iteration of the Cycle was this sort of wicked little crotch rocket. The kind you might find on the roads anywhere. A little suped up by Wayne R&D to be a gulch runner and cliff jumper. The project had been abandoned when Wayne Corp decided not to pursue that particular government contract. I then inherited the blue prints. One night, I added rockets. A couple weeks later, I needed a security system. Then a rebreather for underwater submersion. Some rockets, just in case…. eventually a third wheel was needed to hold the balance. Then the Bike was more of a Trike. Which in reality was more or less a tank on three wheels.
And now? Now it’s undergone some more changes. The bright reds and yellows have been replaced with blood-red and black. The weight has kicked it up another couple notches, what with the added armor I’ve been welding on as Canary sauntered down the steps. I may have replaced the blunt rockets with sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles. And maybe there’s an outfitting for a railgun (or two), but it’s mostly the same bike. Er. Trike. If you look closely enough.
“No no, I’m genuinely sorry. It’s not untrue. I truly did think I locked the stairwell doors too,” she can’t see the smile beneath that mask, but I know she’ll hear it in the banter. That’s what we do, after all. “Nice pick up though, it’s a little more invasive than a color change.”
Putting down the soldering tool with one hand and lifting up the mask with the other, gives way to both laying eyes on the canary -and- wiping the swear from my brow at the same time. Those gloves are next, because they’re big and bulky. Good for keeping you from being burnt by the work, but not really good for anything else. Especially conversation, if thats what Dinah is hear for. Another long look at her tells me a little more to it than that. She’s in uniform. That makes this either an official visit or she’s playing the ‘more distracting than usual’ card. Hell, it may even be a both scenario in which case I need hands free and mind focused.
“Plus, I wanted to test out the microbes,” there’s a momentary hitch, then a sigh, before explaining a little more. “Bruce’s oldest friend, Lucius Fox, had been working on an experimental microbe. Once injected in to your system, it repairs damaged tissue. Speeds up the process. His microbes are rebuilding my shoulder. Much more efficient than being sidelined.”
Dinah: “I guess I’ll take it. Plus, this way you’re busy with a machine that’s not mine.”
There’d been some death threats involved the last time I thought he was about to get to chasing that wild hare. Part banter, every conversation I have ever had with Tim Drake has been at least 50% that, part very, very serious. I guess that’s how you know when I really mean it. The sliding scale of sass to whatever else is mixed in with the conversation. I’m the only one of this family, extended weird cousins or otherwise, that isn’t all in for making use of his many, many upgrades. I like my bike as she is, much like most of the rest of my gear. And no amount of gratitude would really offset my healthy, or maybe paranoid, dislike of advanced technology. It’s mutual. We just don’t get along. Anything involving insides that are more electronic than good ol’ fashioned mechanical is exponentially more likely to implode in my presence. Invasive. His word for what he’s doing to his trike makes me smirk because… that’s about what I think of it, too. He’s just into this kind of stuff. He really can’t help it.
“Just a sorry, not sorry situation. Well. Then I’m sorry, too. Lost opportunity to test out me versus your door.”
I would have, after all, just seen it as a challenge or an admission that he was doing something he shouldn’t be down here and therefor I needed to pry. The latter isn’t necessarily out yet, but I was headed this way regardless. His explanation? Necessary, as one eyebrow lifts, the other squinching downwards in accusation because that just sounds like he’s testing… well. No. Maybe it’s exactly what it sounds like.
“How experimental, Tim?”
Going back to the not trusting tech bit… it’s not even just that, though. He’s only barely been taking it easy since his injury, despite my getting bossy about it, but I know putting him down in any real way is going to involve me doing more damage to him in order to offset… everything that makes up Tim. Still. Are these ‘microbes’ of theirs good enough to repair tissue even as he continues to maybe injure it?
“Because I gotta tell you. Trying new things in Gotham lately doesn’t seem to be working out well for anyone. One of the gangs out there tonight was showing both a shocking amount of subtlety and ineptitude at the same time tonight. Don’t be like the gang bangers, Drake.”
Tim: “For the record, the next time I upgrade your bike? I’m going to be so subtle about it, you’ll never know. Just to prove how subtle I can be.”
See? Two of us can play the game of words. Because in a single swoop I’ve all but promised to test her boundaries, just as she did about the door. And I’ve made it clear that I already did. Not to mention set up a challenge of her even discovering if I had or will do so in the future. It’s a good thing I took off that soldering mask, because it lets her see the sheer amount of smirk involved with this bit of gaming with her. This feels a lot better than being told to sit on the sidelines.
I may or may not hate being told what to do. Especially by someone that doesn’t heed their own advise. That doesn’t mean I lost the ability to see their rational truth of their worry. Nor that I’m unaware or unappreciative of the concern that drives it. Maybe that’s also why I answer her next question. “Experimental enough that Lucius was making a Locutus of Borg joke in my ear when you tripped the alarms by entering the stairwell.”
“There’s nothing to worry about, said only the stupidest people ever. Which is why we hard coded a kill command. Lucius can terminate the microbes with a single word. I’m an evil genius, Dinah, but I’m not stupid. The government wanted the OMAC project to create repairable super-soldiers. Wayne Corp dead-ended the project when they tried to strong arm Lucius in to not putting a kill-switch in. With it, even the government knew it was more or less harmless. No evil robots. I promise.”
“Nothing to worry about. My arm will be as good as new by tomorrow. Better than new.” Waggling my brows. “Let’s stop talking about my arm and talk about the real best application of these babies. Let’s just say no one is ever going to need the blue pill again…care to give it a test drive?”
Dinah: That judgmental, displeased set of my mouth? Yeah, it’s back. If only for a very brief moment. I let him see that, more than let him get the reaction out of me because he may just be trying to get a rise out of me, and if that’s the case I don’t really want to give him the satisfaction. We’ll just let him think I might believe him. Mostly because I don’t doubt that he may try. It’s easy enough to let that look be wiped away by one of blank incomprehension though, like I do not get the reference he just made.
Because I don’t get the reference he just made.
“Well. That sounds like something only you special supernerds would understand soooo…”
But government projects and why they’re not great things to want to facilitate for us? That’s right up my alley. In fact, it’s part of why I’m here right now in the first place. Making sure he’s not doing what I already suspected he was probably doing? That was happening anyway. I already knew he’d been going out. Maybe not throwing himself down any stairs to save the ladies this time, but there’s still the threat anytime you go outside. Or. Live in Gotham. I know that. But I also know heknows that, which is why I didn’t break his knees for him to keep Tim ‘safe’ and at home. Do I think his current ‘partner’ for these excursions is fully able to look out for him? Well. No. I don’t. But I also don’t think she’s so inept anymore as to be an actual threat to Tim out there. Which is the other reason I’m actually here.
“That sounds like something an evil robot would say.” Pause. Coupled with an overly dramatic roll of blue eyes as I park my half-covered ass on top of a crate, emblazoned with the WayneTech logo that I can only assume had something in it that is now inside his ride. Or is going to be later. “And that sounds like something a teenage boy would say. Who should have no reason to know what a blue pill is even for. Maybe you should see a doctor…”
And no. I don’t mean Dr. Drake, with his half dozen phds, if he hasn’t increased that number in the last month while we’ve all been distracted, self-diagnosing in the mirror. But I know he’s not going to, if he hasn’t already, and so it’s a tease. Accompanied by the grin that’s every bit as shit-eating as the one he was aiming at me.
“Tempting as that offer might be to someone else… not why I’m here. I need you to take over with your Spoiler for a little bit. Teach her a weapon. I don’t really care which one, though I wouldn’t really recommend anything pointy because… well. You’ve met her.”
Tim: “Oh, come on. Do you really expect me to believe you’ve never seen the single greatest storyline in American television History? When Captain Picard becomes the bad guy, it’s the most riveting moment… oy, this is what they mean about knowing the customer you’re selling too. Gotcha. Not a Star Trek fan. You’re more a 90210 kinda girl.”
The whole point I was trying to make, was in fact that I do not need to see a Doctor. I’ll take the happy side-effect that she’s at least moderately playing along with the blue pill commentary, that means we’re not about to fight. At least, not a fight that she’s going to start. I can feel the room spinning, so to speak, as she gets to the point. One of the points.
“Take over with my Spoiler? You said a whole lot of things in those five words. First, she might actually punch you right on the nose for saying she’s my anything. Second, taking over with her means you’re going somewhere that won’t allow you to keep doing it. Starting her on a weapon, means you think she’s ready for the next step. Just not a big pointy step.”
“..and this is where I should start by telling you that you shouldn’t go. Or that you should let me go with you. Except that you didn’t let with where or what you’re going. So while you’re ready to accept that I won’t be sidelined, you’re still not ready to accept that I’m ready to be back entirely. Which means that you either don’t think I’m ready to be back enough to help you, which would be insulting and lead to our fighting about it. Or, perhaps more likely, you’re using it as an excuse to not let me put myself in more danger.”
“Or. You’ve thought this through and have decided on a proper allocation of resources,” it’s the free hand that gestures to her at this last bit. “Which would also mean you’ve finally decided to take an active, even decision making, role. Which is what I’m choosing to believe, whether or not it’s true. Because… I really don’t want to fight tonight. Not with you at least.”
Giving her this half-incline of the head, that says I’ll struggle no more with that decision of her’s. Whether or not any of my ‘deductive reasoning’ was sound or just an elaborate mental construct that allows me to compartmentalize her not taking me with her. I realize, this is what I used to do with Bruce too. When he was the partner that didn’t want me along for the ride.
“So. Ollie or Slade? Because I’ve got the information on those tags you wanted me to look at.”
Dinah: “Uh. Yes. I do, in fact, and I’m not even going to get into arguing about using Star Trek and ‘greatest American anything’ in the same sentence with you, either.”
See, he’s baiting me again and while I definitely know what 90210 is, both iterations in fact, they’re not exactly my jam. The guy’s been rooming with me, or at least sleeper sofa surfing in a long-term kind of way. Which should really be the first of the questionable choices he’s opted to make we talk about, but at the time it was having a skulking ex-Robin hanging around my place, or just keeping him where I could see him. Since then, well. I actually don’t mind the company, also there’s perks. Poor boy’s OCD takes care of my usual mess, and keeps the fridge stocked. I happen to like Tim, and when I don’t think he’s too injured to be in the field, I like working with him, too. See? Far cry from my outlook a half-dozen years ago when I treated him like the annoying kid brother. To be fair, that was kind of how Dick looked at me when he was around so… vicious circle I suppose.
“She could try. Does that pretty regularly. She’s just hasn’t managed to succeed.”
Then I find myself letting him… go. I mean I partly want to interrupt because he’s getting going about like ‘his’ Spoiler does. In the you’re probably not going to get in a word, and she’s not actually going to notice if you try because something’s either gotten her so excited or riled that she just can’t. The truth is, I’d only assigned ownership in that he brought her in, in the first place. His problem, that he made my problem because.. well. He’d asked, and I don’t want anyone getting dead out there anymore than he does.
Watching and listening to Tim’s mind spin out all the potentials and angles to be read into a ‘simple’ request from me might be even more funny, if I wasn’t fairly sure this was like a duck floating on water. Relative ‘calm’ on the surface, and paddling like crazy underneath. I’m sure that for as many points as he’s verbalizing there’s twelve more he’s gone through, discarded, and reworked. It’s what I do with a fight, and my angles there. I’m pretty it’s what he does with everything. Evil robot genius and all.
I didn’t lead with where I’m going because… I really don’t need to. I’m not going to sneak and hide, because even I’m not good enough to escape all his eyes in the sky, and… maybe he did mess with my bike so he’d figure it out anyway. As for all the rest… typically I don’t feel I owe anyone an explanation ever, and it’s not why I answer his rumination.
“Believe it or not, this time it has nothing to do with the fact that I might kind of like to punish you for not listening to me lately. You wouldn’t be coming even if you were 110%, because it’s not in anyone’s best interests. Mine. Yours. Gotham’s. Take your pick.”
This isn’t just some fight. Which is probably why I’m so cagey over the whole thing. ‘Just a fight’ I could handle in my sleep. Most of us could. They had to go and make it bigger than that. And so the way I need help from Tim isn’t in the backup category so much as those tags I’d given him, which Slade had given to me. Which apparently he’s already handled.
“Unless I want to teach Spoiler a different fighting form, which I don’t because I think it’d be counter-productive right now, she just needs repetition and practice as far as hand to hand goes. But something else she can use out there as a tool if she needs to…”
It’d also seemed something that might be a suitable distraction for him to occupy time with. I hadn’t known he was down here reinventing the Big Wheel so to speak. If the two of them were in the Nest, working on a ‘project’ then that meant they weren’t out there, one of them lacking a functional arm and the other half-trained. If he picked up on that, at least he didn’t say it out loud, and I guess I further soften the potential with an… admission made as I fold my arms and have a moment of almost sheepish expression cross my face.
“I also may have taken it a little… too hard on her yesterday. For once, not even because she deserved it. So she could probably use a little change of pace from Dinah’s School of Hard Knocks, and I realized it was kind of telling that Ineed to go handle this.”
Reactionary, despite how I might act, isn’t really me. I provoke and make others react. Not running off after that voicemail, and subsequent throttling of someone who I wasn’t actually angry at, took some self-control though. Buttons clearly have been pushed.
“Little of column A, little of column B, but mostly A. If they weren’t basically the same problem, anyway. So I’ll happily take what you’ve got. And maybe even say thank you.”
Tim: “Alright,” now my head is cocked to the side and looking more than a little unhappy at several of the things Dinah has said. “So. Now I’m settling upon ‘She’s already realized that while she could kick my ass ten ways to Sunday, as much better she is at fighting I’m that much better at following people who don’t want to be followed.’ Which means… that you’re taking a different route to waylaying me.”
While not being sure if I should sigh or grin, I do the only thing left to me. Rise. Standing up and stepping around the bike itself. Snatching a towel along the way, from one of the other crates littering the garage-like room. It’s hot, dank and dark here. All the things a Batman would like. As much as I seem at home here, it isn’t until the light is behind me that Dinah can see the bruising along the shoulder is actually gone. I may be playing upon that, to amble closer to her. Piece by piece picking up armor that’s been discarded as I worked in the heat. The wrist mounted computers being the most important, as I need them to put the projected computer image along the walls for her to view.
“Let’s start with the fact that I was able to confirm that the tags were legit. They’re not forged. These are some sort of microchips implants. The were filled with a neurotoxin of some exotic sort. Only trace elements remain, not enough for me to isolate and track. Along with that are lingering traces of DNA, which allowed me to identify who had each implant. Somewhat. A couple sets of DNA belong to people that Bruce had no files on.”
“You and Slade are definitely two of the bearers.”
“The chips track every thing. I mean. Everything. From your heart rate to your serotonin levels. They knew what you were doing, saying, everything. This is next level tech and it’s fifteen years old or more. Thats where it gets a little crazy. I tried to jack some of that information out of them and right away they shorted themselves out. One by one. Each time I got a little more. Until finally, I got a location.”
Pause for effect? Yeah. Also to put myself close enough to Canary that she can see a ripple of movement along my shoulder. Beneath the skin. “I thought I knew everything about you, Dinah. Then I find out you were in Prison? Jail Bird. Tch. If Dick knew he’d have a crush on you. Why were you in Belle Reve Prison? And who is Kurt Lance?”
Dinah: “And I’m also telling you that ass-kicking, and sneaking skills on our parts aside, I don’t think you coming with me. This time. Is the good play. Because that thingthat’s pretending to be Oliver Queen right now is naming names.”
There’s a lot of reasons for Tim to get honest ‘whys’ out of me right now, as much as I might not normally like to operate that way. Biggest of them possibly being that I don’t want him trailing behind me because he thinks I’m excluding him because he’s hurt. Or because he thinks I think he’s not good enough. Which I would just tell most people, but… I guess I’ve got kind of a soft spot. Just not the one that his brother might like to tease/accuse me of.
I’m not into all this tech. I don’t use it. I can’t deny that other people using it that know what they’re doing? Useful. So I’ve uncrossed my arms and leaned in towards the projection, as if that’ll help me see it better than I already can.
“Fairchild. Bronson. Trevor. Waller. I don’t have first names for them, except Amanda could… or might not be… the same Waller, and our good buddy Superman works with a Dr. Fairchild. Again. Could or couldn’t be the same, I don’t know, but frankly when your circles are small, things are pretty rarely coincidences. Which means those are probably ones you do have files on.”
There’s no hiding, or even trying, the mounting annoyance and frustration on my face now. I’m a control freak on occasion, a fact that’s no mystery to Timothy Drake or really… anyone in his family at this point. I hadn’t been able to come up with any possible reason why it would benefit Slade Wilson to make this whole thing up, or come to me with it in the first place, if he wasn’t telling the truth as he knew it. What I’m being told right now erases any small, comforting doubt I might have managed to summon up. He’s also making as many new questions as he is filling in blanks. That’s a lot of information, and price probably paid for tech, for it to have just been that one night in Arkham. Which means more time lost and missing. More unexplained.
When he stops, I’m waiting. Eyebrow lifting again as I pull my eyes from the projections to look at Tim properly again. It’s probably only the seriousness of what we’re talking about now that keeps me from commenting on his shoulder, and the rather unsettling sight of something. Things. Wriggling under his skin. Microbes sound tiny, so I can only assume what I’m watching is muscles and tendons being rewritten and repaired like they were no more than one of his strings of code. I can’t decide if that’s creepy or amazing or both, so I keep Alien references to myself. Can’t quite manage to skip clucking my tongue about his brother though.
“Oooh, Grayson likes the bad girls, huh? It explains so much… if I’d known, I’d have a crush on me too to be fair. I mean. Look at me.”
The blank on drawing, which is clear enough on my face, is legitimate.
“I don’t know, Tim. On any of it. Frankly I’d been hoping Wilson was tripping balls on some bad combination of drinks and ninja blood from the Iceberg. I’ve got no memory of any of the things he said happened. Or of being in any prison for any reason other than the usual here in Gotham for us, or the couple of tours I went on in Star for school. Whatever reason I was there, I assume is the same reason that we were all made to not remember it after.”
Tim: “Actually, that explains the neuro-toxin,” keying a couple touches of the wrist controls the illuminated screens turn upon the tiny pellet-shaped microchip. “See this? It contained two small amounts of toxin. Each of them with a purpose. I think one of them was putting a timer on you. You had X amount of time to finish your assignment and get the antidote. Which was the other. Once triggered, I think it stopped the toxin from killing you by eliminating the poisoned brain cells.”
“Sinister, but effective. Either you died or succeeded with no memory of succeeding.”
“Hmm. Interesting. Soo…” Another set of touches along my wrist and faces start to splash the wall beside Canary. “… so if we extrapolate your timeline, this happened a little more than a decade ago. You were Stephanie’s age. That means the Dr. Fairchild that I know from Conner, would have been eight. Too young, so perhaps this means our Fairchild in question? Is one Alex Fairchild. Caitlyn’s Father. He works, currently, for the project that created Conner.”
“Bronson? There’s a Bronson in Bruce’s files. Part of the overall same project that Alex Fairchild and his daughter work for. That created Conner. According to our intel on that Project, Bronson was some sort of early subject of testing for majestic gene therapy.”
“I don’t need to research Steve Trevor, Captain Trevor. Decorated U.S. Army, Green Beret special forces. Because he happens to be one of the sources of Bruce’s files on the entire project. Somewhere along the line, Captain Trevor discovered the fountain of youth. He’s been alive since the 40s, and he looks like he could still go ten rounds with you. In a ring or bed. Take your pick. Maybe even both. He’s gone silent since Bruce’s passing. I’ve been unable to make contact, but I’ve actually been working on the assumption he just doesn’t know me or trust me. If you could make contact maybe that could be changed….”
“As for Waller…” That’s where I just turn the gauntlet’s projector off. “It doesn’t take a detective to know you’re right about it being Amanda Waller. It makes sense when you connect the other dots. They’re all interlaced. It also solves a mystery that Bruce has never figured out.”
“Your Grand Mother. She made a deal with the Agency, scored her whole family immunity for her service. A little more than decade ago she suddenly quit…. and… not too long after that, you know.”
Arms crossing over my chest, I take a moment to nudge my jaw at the trike and the work I’ve done on it. “No fight this time. Go, I’ll hold down the fort while you and Dick are gone.”
