by Michele | Mar 22, 2018 | Chronicles
Cassie: “Ahem. Now. Where were we…?”
Spoken like I’m not perfectly aware of what was supposed to be going on, or at least in possession of a reasonable guess as to the motivations that had brought us here. Here being pulled off the highway to one of the scenic parks that line the distance between Gotham and Metropolis. Like little buffers of nature, to form a lovely moat of trees against the dark and corruption and to keep it from reaching the bright, clean, energy efficient structures of the place I call home now. It’s so quiet here, barely even the sounds of the cars zipping back and forth on that highway reaching into the trees, and that is definitely strange. Maybe less so than it would be if the sun were up. There’d probably be people then, but for now it’s just Conner, me and the red sports car that had whisked us at what I assume was approximately one hundred and forty miles per hour from the outskirts of Gotham. A place I’ve been more times in the last three days than I had in my entire lifetime before then. A place I wasn’t supposed to have come even once, to be fair, so I don’t have much in the way of hurt feelings over Tim’s brother less than politely kicking us out. All of us. Even my Mom.
I’d been left with a lot to process, and I haven’t really been doing any of it. In the whole thirty minutes it’s been at least. Hm. Maybe more like an hour. It’s hard to judge. Leaning over the passenger door, I’m using the visor to fiddle with the golden adornment on my head that I’d been given by my Mother before we’d all be ‘excused.’ I’m not entirely sure how I’m meant to wear the thing, because it doesn’t seem to fit properly on top of my hair. Nor does it really seem constructed to be worn like a headband. Eventually I settle for nestling it across my forehead which.. seems to work. Mostly I’m trying to focus on the fact that it actually looks like maybe it was meant to go with my suit, and not the remaining bright pink color in my cheeks.
We’d stopped here, ostensibly, so that I could change into my Wonder Woman attire and out of the St. Mary’s uniform that I’d been wearing for the last two days straight while unconscious and being monitored by Tim and his family. Our detour had just gotten slightly … detoured. Because. Superman and Wonder Woman? Are more like Superboy and Wonder Girl underneath the holographs that protect our identities and. Well. Teenagers. But there had been a purpose in coming here before we’d been distracted. Conner’d dropped hints, but he hadn’t really needed to. He’d packed the Wonder suit for a reason, stopped here for a reason. At this point, I know when he’s angling towards something. Just in this case, he’d hinted that it could wait while we. Ahem.
“So. What are you scheming, Luthor?”
Giving the upper edge of my red attire a tug, that it doesn’t really need despite the shift in my physiology in the last few days, I turn to face him as I try to master the blush on my face. I’m teasing him though. There’s a big difference between a Luthor Scheme, and Conner trying to make a point. Even if you need a practiced eye sometimes to pick out the subtle cues. This, despite the willingness to delay, I think might be important. Most especially because of how the last couple days have actually gone.
Conner: There had been a point to the detour and for once in my life I’m not the one who called us in for a pit stop. That had been all about the blushing blonde and the fact that she’d been out of commission for almost an entire weekend while dealing with the strange malady that had been afflicting her. No one has really, reasonably, explained what was going on to me. They really hadn’t needed too. It was sufficient to know that Cassie was in peril and that the help was at hand. I was good knowing just that, even if I was less good knowing that for all my power? This was something that was beyond the scope of my abilities to assist with.
Knowing that and accepting it are two different things, by the way. Knowing, goes a long way to understanding. It does. The problem is mystical. I get it. Accepting that I can’t, ultimately, incinerate whatever or whoever is at the root of the problem? I’ve got a long way to go in to accepting that. I’m starting to think a lot of Cassie’s problems resolve down to no one ever trying to just obliterate the root of it. ‘Ancient, Unholy Power of the Gods blah blah.’ Fwooosh. Problem solved. Instead of turning it in to some Mysterious Quest of the Ages that all these magic types do… yuck.
Cassie suiting up? Pretty much the opposite of everything I’ve ever wanted when we’re alone. Ever. I’m more of a peel her out of that costume, guy. Maybe that’s why she let me at her, before getting in to it in the first place? Hah. Would not be the first time she’s gamed me, would it? All I’m really waiting for right now, is that moment when she raises up and identifies herself visually as ‘put together.’ That’s all the clue I really need that touching her isn’t going to devolve us back in to testing the durability of special reinforced shock system in the Ferrari my Father gave me for my ‘Sixteenth Birthday.’
“Less scheming, more of an ‘Up, up and Away,’ sort of thing,” the good nature of that comment makes it all the way to my eyes that are truly vibrant now and not even because of my looking through that costume as I might normally. “Can’t risk being followed or monitored though. So… it’s a very Up, Up, before Away, kind of moment really.”
Stepping in to Cassie is never a problem, but this is actually something a little different. She likes flying so much I normally never invade that space, but the mumbled words ‘Hold Tight,’ are the only real warning Cassie gets. All it really takes is for me to be in contact with her and she’s not going anywhere. Except where I go. Which is straight up. Higher and Faster than she could ever hope to achieve on her own. Beyond the skies, in to that sweet little spot where you can actually begin to see the curve of the world. To the point where it’s easy to tell that the only air to breathe? Is what remains in the little bubble of red telekinetic energy that surrounds us.
That’s the up, up… but the ‘away’ is almost as fast. Science says that the straightest line between two points is the fastest. Aerodynamics redefined that and Cassie gets to experience it first hand with the sight of the heavens that she’s never seen. Along with the actual speed with which the world beneath us passes. Green forests become blue ocean, which in turn transitions in to white ice… and before she’s really had time to ponder the sight of the universe to be beheld beyond Earth’s Atmosphere? We’re descending as quickly as we got there. To what makes for the strangest date I’ve ever taken Cassie on. Which is saying something all on it’s own. Because the only thing to see? For miles. Is the largest key she’s ever seen. Settled right in the middle of a whole lot of glacial ice. Though from the ground there’s a certain latticework to the ice. Making it take a sort of crystalline appearance.
Cassie: I know he doesn’t like it. Any of it. That’s not really even some sort of deep insight on my part, he’d more or less said as much a year ago when I’d been having issues with my half-brother invading my dreams. Conner’s got a lot of tools in his ‘kit,’ so to speak and it’s pretty rare that one or all of them can’t resolve a situation to his satisfaction. Note. Hissatisfaction, not necessarily mine or anyone else’s. In that instance, when he couldn’t fix it for me, he’d found someone that could. Which had been my official introduction to the rest of his team. Now? It’s easy to imagine that it may actually be worse, and that is partially my doing. Because I’ve been leaving him out of so much of what’s been going on. Which we’ve argued about, and discussed and… we’re working on. Figuring out who you are? Is hard. Figuring out who you are, with someone else, with superpowers and the fate of the ‘world’ on the line? Yeesh.
“Oooh, my favorite. Well. Almost favorite.”
I love flying. It’s my worst kept secret, and not exactly kept at all from him. It was the power that I got to use least up until recently, too. These suits? They’re like a green flag waving to say that suddenly it’s okay to be seen doing this sort of thing. Cassie Sandsmark can’t fly, but Wonder Woman? She’s supposed to. Blue eyes round just a little at the conditions he lays out there, though. I don’t need to ask what that means. It means going even faster than I can manage on my own, and that means it won’t be me doing the flying. Maybe a little disappointing normally, but I’m curious and never really mind being close to him. And holding tight? That I can do. Literally. Without any worry of crushing anything important like a rib. Or spine. So when Conner steps in, I wrap my arms around him, looking upwards towards the stars in preparation for the takeoff.
Not that there’s really any time for that. It’s more of a one moment you’re there, and the next instant you’re not. Were it not for the field he’s projecting, I’d be feeling it. I do when I take off on my own. Higher, faster than I’ve ever taken myself and everything changes. I tip my head back even further still, exhaling loudly at the view, for the moment it’s there at least. We’re moving much too quickly for any real sightseeing. I’d ask on the return trip for him to take it slower, but I’d have to assume the not wanting to be tracked will go both ways. Wherever we’re going? Is a real secret. Not just from any ordinary folks that might be watching us. He doesn’t really need to lay out the ‘who’ for me.
I’m exhaling again once we’ve slowed, in surprise, amazement. Whatever. What on Earth… or… maybe not Earth actually..
“…what is that?”
Conner: The trip isn’t for sight seeing. Otherwise I’d be more than happy to let her take it all in. We’ve flown together more times than I can count. I’ve encouraged her to explore this aspect of her powers as much as I’ve encouraged everything else, maybe even more so. I like to see Cassie happy. She is, by any reckoning, the only thing in my life that I’ve got at least one unselfish feeling for. I genuinely want her to be happy, for the sake of nothing more than seeing her that way. Taking her flying lessons was one of the first things we did as a ‘Couple.’ I mean, outside of those tutoring sessions, that she still denies as being our first dates.
“That? Is a key,” oh yeah I’m maybe milking this, but really. She got Olympus, right? I’m entitled to a little moment or three or indulging. “But, it didn’t take me to tell you that. That’s the key to what we’re here to see.”
That look on my face? Cassie has seen it before. I like things. Mostly I like things of value, truth be told. Material Wealth suits me well, because I’m an indulgent personality. What she’s looking at though just doesn’t fit in this place. It’s gaudy, gold and out of sorts with the tapestry of the Arctic Iceland around us. That is all part of the allure though, because it’s distinctly out of place and massive. Easily as large as a 747 jet, which we both know she can lift with ease. Yet that key isn’t going to move much even under her enhanced strength. There’s no trick, no test of worthiness. It’s simply too heavy.
“You’re a history buff right? Isn’t there a story about a God’s weapons that were forged in the heart of a dying star?” Making a little gesture to encompass the key. “This is made from the substance found in the heart of a dying star. Krypton’s Star to be exact. The original Superman made this. Because he believed that only another Kryptonian could lift it.”
“The problem is. He was wrong. So he did what most Americans have done since the 1960s. He bought an alarm system to go with his fancy Key. You gotta be able to pick up the key, to unlock the door… but you also need to know the code to get turn off the alarm system. It’s a whole thing.” Gently tapping a fingertip upon the big S at the middle of my suit. “The battle-suit I’m wearing? Came from in there. I think, if we can get Nowhere out of this suit. I can get in there.”
Cassie: “Well. Yeah. Okay. Sure. I can see that. Maybe you should consider putting up some kind of giant, Magritte-esque sign in front if that’s meant to be a secret, though.”
It looks like a key, after all, but maybe the massive size of it had made my brain just assume it wasn’t literally that in function as well as form. Keys, generally, are of a certain size in relation to the locks that they open. Mechanically speaking that’s just sort of how it has to be. So in order for this to the the ‘key’ to what he actually wants to show me? Means that it has to be massive. But. Why not, right? What else is there out here other than space, and ice. And us. He looks very pleased. Maybe even more pleased than when I was given my car, which I still have never driven because I’ve also never bothered to get my license. It’s probably a good thing he didn’t make the Olympus comparison out loud, though. It’s not exactly fair. I had to sneak in, and promptly got told to leave. They let me stay in Gotham longer, with more welcome.
But. Back to the key. How no one has noticed it by now… well, I guess that’s a testament to exactly where we are right now.
“There’s more than I know I’m sure. People like that kind of symbolism, and the power that comes from it.”
Pushing my hair back from my face is more an absent gesture than necessary, and my fingers settle into drumming almost restlessly against my circlet as I study the thing. Taking in what he’s telling me, as the thoughts and what those things could mean spin through my head. Had the original Superman, then, meant for only himself to be able to enter? Had he held out some sort of hope that there were other survivors? Does that mean that he knew of the female Kryptonian that’s here even now, or did she come after he’d left?
“…do you know what happens if you can’t turn off the alarm system? I assume something…huge and dramatic and messy, given what our friendly household guard-dog is capable of by himself.”
Turning away from the key finally, to face Conner once more I purse my lips. It’s only a precursor to the resolute expression that sets my jawline, though.
“So what do we need to do to do that?”
Conner: “Honestly, I’m not actually sure this was meant to be a secret, so much as secluded. I mean, I’m pretty sure he never meant for it to be a tourist site, but I think he actually went this route because he hoped that there were more of his people.” My people. Our people. Those like the girl on the News that I’ve yet to manage to track down, because my girlfriend was sick and the Alien Princess needed to watch Gilmore Girls to know how the world works. “Which kind of plays with the idea, that I think he wanted someone else to be able to get inside. Just the right people. People who were meant to have access.”
“While keeping out the people who probably don’t belong,” another long look at something, other than Cassie, as I take in the sight of the key and lattice of Crystalline structure in the distance. “From everything I’ve been taught -and- researched on my own? I actually doubt the big and messy bit. Honestly, old-Supes seemed like a little bit of a pussy when it came to big and/or messy. I’m thinking something a little more like ‘Eternal Damnation in a completely harmless stasis field of Doom’ sort of punitive measure. He didn’t really do Lethal.”
“More importantly though, every fiber of my being says he wouldn’t make this something dangerous. So much as make it something that put you in time out until he came to deal with you. In any case, the only reason I know about the alarm system? Is because when I tried to use the key? It stared sending out this ultra-high frequency signal… and the next thing I knew… Krypto wouldn’t stop growling at me until I put the key back and played fetch.”
“… what?” Opening my hands plaintiffly. “You never asked where he came from. I’m not the origin story kind of guy. I’m more of a ‘My Story’ type, y’know?”
What do we need to do? That I’m not entirely sure. Which is about as honest as I’ve been about anything. I really don’t know. So I start with what I do know and maybe we’ll go from there. “My new friend Kyle, from a couple weeks ago when you sent me to France so you could sneak off and go fight bad guys? He’s a Green Lantern and I think he can help me, get this suit ‘unlocked.'”
“Cass, this place isn’t exactly secret from Nowhere. They know about it already. My Dad knew about it a long time ago. I think one of the myriad of reasons I’m alive? Is because he wants in there. Coming here the way we did wasn’t about hiding it from Nowhere, it was about hiding the fact I’m showing it to -you-. I thought, with everything you’ve got going on, that we should start putting all of our cards on the table. I thought, with everything y’know, that I should go first…”
Cassie: “He definitely picked somewhere not easily accessible.”
Unless you can fly, of course. It’d be a serious expedition to even get equipment of any sort out here, let alone attempts at erecting any sort of amenities. Which explains why it isn’t also swarming with NOWHERE and their ilk right…well. Other than Conner. But he does have a point about the original Superman and the levels of permanent harm which he was willing to inflict, or not inflict. So his assumptions make sense to me. Something to delay, or hold an intruder.
“And since he’s not around anymore to un-spring whatever the trap might be… it’s a very bad idea to spring it in the first place.”
Waving a dismissive hand at Conner, for once this time I’m not actually even grouchy at him over the belated revelation of something I should probably have heard before now, especially since Krypto has been watching over my Mom since he joined the ‘family,’ too. Maybe a little unnecessarily but still.
“Given the eye-lasers and the fact that his name is Krypto I actually didn’t think I needed to ask. Believe it or not, that actually makes me feel better about him or would if he hadn’t already proved himself as A-Ok.”
The options were pretty slim really. Either NOWHERE had made the dog, like they had made Conner, or he had come from somewhere else. Not that hard to guess which option I liked better. I can’t help smirking a little about ‘his new friend Kyle.’ The designation is a little humorous anyway, more so coming from my boyfriend. Folding my arms across my chest, I should be doing it to ward off the cold but I’m simply not. Cold that is. It’s a pose that is a heartbeat away from a full on ‘thinker,’ with a fist nestled under my chin.
“So we have to make sure that they either don’t know you unlocked it, or that they can’t get into it once you have. I mean. I assume it’s not a one time, disposable lock so… maybe that last part isn’t a problem…”
So much as making sure they don’t do anything to Conner because he got into it and didn’t promptly hand over whatever tech and goodies may be hidden inside. If there even is anything. But. One would assume. You don’t lock up a place like that if there’s nothing of any perceived value, even if it’s just to you. When my eyebrow hitches upwards this time at his phrasing, it’s because my brain even now is starting to try to read ‘bait’ into that, that I don’t actually think was there. So I make my face a little pouty and apologetic for a moment.
“If you’re wanting me to take you to Olympus, no can do I’m afraid. The only door I knew of got obliterated when I came out. They’re actually even less inviting than Oh-Gee-Supes was. Very join the team, or get off of my cloud. I’m kidding.”
Which. Boy. I hope he knows. Not that everything I just said wasn’t truthful, but more that I didn’t really think this was what he was angling for. I get it. Or at least, I think I do. Because anytime he’s worried? It puts Conner Luthor into a little bit different gear than his normal, and our status quo which had been working so well for us for the last year has definitely been upset lately. Revealing that I couldn’t trust him, even if only in a very specific situation, maybe had hurt him a lot more than I’d intended it to. I don’t know. He wants to help me with my problems, so he’s showing me ‘his.’
“We kind of… touched on this back in Gotham but. The hamburglar problem.” My mouth curves a little at that private joke, but only a little because the entire situation makes me uneasy. And unsure. “If what I was told can be completely believed. We’re… connected somehow. Because of what Ares did. Tied together somehow, and that means that as he’s going around stealing power for himself it’s bleeding over to me. I. Don’t know if he knows that, but if he succeeds in going all Highlander on the Gods? That isn’t going to mean anything good for anyone on Earth.”
Conner: Telling her of my first meeting with Krypto had never really been the plan anyway, but having her actually be comforted by the knowledge of his origin? I don’t know, it sort of makes me a little more pleased that I’ve taken this step with her. She and I never did secrets before. Not the sort of secrets that were harmful to one another. In fact the only secrets I’ve ever managed to keep were the sort that kept her safe, the opposite of harmful. My problem has been, and probably will always be, that I share a bit too much if anything.
Her thoughts are running in tune with mine on all of this. Keeping it a secret isn’t an option at all. So we have to focus on the things we can control. Namely the Battle-Suit. My being outside of their control when we do get inside? That’s paramount to me. It has been for a long time. Where Cassie and I differ? Is that I’m still not convinced that Nowhere is the problem. People like that Terrorist Kid in Gotham? They’re why the world of normal people need a group like Nowhere to exist to keep them safe. Is that necessarily a good thing? Hell no. But this brings us back to why the Oh-Gee-Supes left, isn’t it? What do you do, really, when you’ve because the root-cause of the very evil you want to put a stop to?
“Heh. I’m still not convinced you didn’t dream your trip to Olympus, I mean that’s how you visited Hell too isn’t it? I’d need to sleep to visit and I’m all about maximizing my time…”
Right away I can tell that something has changed here. Between the two of us. It was barely a week ago that I was enraged by someone hugging her while she wore her cheerleading uniform. Today I’m actually listening to her to talk about being connected, bound even, to someone else. Maybe it’s different because the person we’re talking about is a murderer and therefor I’m reasonable sure she won’t spare a second look at him. But aren’t I a murderer in some sense too? No, I think it’s different because Cass went out of her way to convince me that jealousy isn’t my biggest fear with her.
“So. If this person is out there. Connected to you. Killing other Gods. Which is causing this bleed over. Then why don’t you trace the link? That’s what Raven did to help us find you in the first place. When your powers first started to manifest. She traced your very first outburst, right back to you.”
Cassie: “The ridiculously large amount of jewelry piled in my bedroom right now begs to differ. Unless I’ve got a new round of powers that involve manifesting my unconscious thoughts…in which case we have an even bigger problem. But. No. I was there. I went to the place that Raven stopped Black Adam and just sort of… followed my proverbial nose from there. I could feel it. But it was gone again when I came back out, and while I’m sure there’s other doors I’m not supposed to find them.”
I wasn’t supposed to find that one either, or go there, and each time I get more answers I’m not really sure I wasn’t better off before I had them. It’s hard to continue to go with ‘just doing what feels right’ when there’s so much at stake. I guess I don’t fully trust myself either, which is going to be an issue. If I can’t, why would anyone else?
“But. I did. Which means they can, too. I don’t know how many potential targets they have here, but once those are exhausted… I’m not sure how my ‘teacher’ knew the plan, but I don’t know the benefit in lying to me about it. Or telling me if it’s really him and…augh…”
Throwing my hands up in the arctic air, I pace in a little circle, the crunch of my footsteps sounding so very loud in the otherwise quiet solitude of the area around us.
“My kingdom for the days when the most complicated part of my day was avoiding Kelsey’s baleful glare.”
Though, honestly, that’s really not a trade I would make at this point. For all the frustration and doubt, I’ve gotten a lot of good things out of it, too. Knowledge. Love. Purpose. And those are, I have to keep reminding myself, are what’s important. Finishing my little bit of pacing, I round back to face him again.
“…two good ideas in one day? Who are you, and what happened to my boyfriend? Maybe that would work. We know he was in Fawcett. Or. I think that was him. So there’s a chance that…”
Wait. How long was it between Fawcett, and the surge in my powers? It was hard for me to pinpoint, really because at first… the changes had been gradual. It was only the other day when the surge had been so strong.
Conner: “Hey, I’m full of good ideas,” comes the response of one very uppity looking Superman, who’s put his hands upon his hips in awkward judgement of her statement. “They’re just very obscured by ideas of assorted eye-lasering and sex. And for the record, you tend to like the latter of those too.”
I’m going to kindly avoid any discussion of her problems with Kelsey, because I’ve never really been sure if those problems existed in reality. Or part of the role that was being played. Or even if they manifested out of my ex, disliking my current. I’ve never really felt that I needed to look in to such things any deeper than the surface issues. Kelsey was there to test Cassie. It was the Job that Megan was tasked with by our handlers and she did it, just as she did everything, to the very best she could. Whether or not it actually came with a sense of gratification in the end was happenstance in this situation.
Though with M’Gann, there’s very likely a lot more gratification than most people are aware of. “Look, this magic stuff is not my wheelhouse, but if I’m understanding things? Then you found this road home through some sort of connection to it. That more or less confirms the theory right there. Whatever connects you to this Killer, should be traceable too. Maybe it’s a matter of proximity?”
“Also. Speaking as a Luthor, have you considered that while there’s no benefit to lying to you, there may be a benefit to saving you? How does this teacher benefit from playing the role he’s cast himself in? I mean. This whole idea of being Superman, you came up with it because you wanted the world to accept me. So even if this teacher of your’s is doing it for good reason, you’ve shown that there is always a motivating factor. What’s his Game?”
Cassie: I shouldn’t laugh at him, but I can’t help it. He looks so affronted, and to have it followed up with honesty about why it might seem like he’s not as smart as I actually know he is at times, only makes for a second snort on the heels of the first. Which turns into another before I’m almost helplessly laughing, hands braced against my knees as I try to work my words out around the giggles. God, it feels really good to laugh, even if it feels a touch on the hysterical side right now.
“I do… I do… sorry. Sorry, Con…ahem.”
It’s not the only thing that feels good, though. Laughing. But letting go in general. I’ve been letting myself get so wound up and pent up, and no. Not in the way that he would surely seize on with eyebrows waggling suggestion if I was saying this part out loud. Words. Feelings. Not anything else. What I thought I had to keep to myself, or even keep from him, for whatever the reason might have been. Like all the rest of our … arguments… lately, though this hadn’t been one of them, once I let it go and started talking despite the misgivings and reasons? I’d felt better. Secrets had just never been a thing for me before the powers and the strangeness entered my life. I don’t like them. I’d liked them even less when I’d started having to keep new ones from the one person I hadn’t had to before. So whether or not this is his wheelhouse (and I don’t think it’s mine either, but it needs to start to be), the sounding board is wonderful.
“Maybe. Because unless he’s only just started his Godly Serial Killer thing, I would thing I’d have been getting… extra in noticeable amounts before now.”
And I don’t think it’s new, because otherwise why would my teacher be braced to warn me, or help me. That’s a whole different hitch in my ability to just take what I’d been told at face value though. A question of motivation, and timing, and knowledge. Suspicion that it’s just all some twisted game, while wanting to believe that it really isn’t. Finally straightening fully, and a little sobered again from my laughing, my hands take up place on my hips. A little less judgy looking than his own had been, though.
“Outside of hoping I’m going to keep him from being on the chopping block? I imagine Olympus is a pretty limited dating pool, without a lot of fresh meat. Maybe he’s trying to make a good first impression on a very long, long game.”
Conner: “Now you’re laughing at me? Who laughs at Superman when he’s having a good idea? This is highly undignified, I’ll say.”
That’s about where I leave the act of teasing her over the wording she’s chosen. I know I’m not the planner of this particular little circle of trust. More of a doer. If anything, I’m the eye-laser first and come up with a plan after sort of guy. In our little group of friends, I’m what you might call a tank. Jump in to the fray, get it’s attention. Take the lumps. So that someone else can figure things out. I do a good job at the role I’ve been cast in to.
Which happens not to be ‘Come up with a Plan,’ or ‘Work out the Mystery’ guy. I punch things, while leaving the detective work to the Detectives. But that has never meant I’m less intelligent than a man born of the genes of Kryptonian and Luthor DNA. “Hold on. You’re right. It’s possible he only just started, but it seems unlikely. Wouldn’t it be more likely that he’s done this before… and what is new… is the connection to you?”
“What changed? What’s new? What did you do that could have opened such a connection?” My eyes go to that little lightening bracelet for a second, before darting back to her eyes. “Was it when you came out of the proverbial closet as Wonder Woman? After that? Fawcett City? Before or after your trip to Olympus?”
“…nice. You just totally took me from trying to be helpful to back to ‘Eye-Laser’, Grunt and Scratch my balls.” Scowling at her. “Long-game. Ugh. Now I have to beat your teacher up. I’m sorry. It’s in the manly handbook.”
Cassie: “Wonder Woman does. Apparently.”
Wiping at the corner of my eye with a fingertip, the sigh I let out is mostly just a remnant of my giggles, and me trying to keep control of myself and my mood. I don’t remember that being such a difficult thing to do before, nor was I really prone to such swings and while these have all been shifts in emotions on the positive end, they’re still shifts. The power, and what it’s doing to me? Maybe linked to those as Conner had suggested to me before now, or maybe I’m just getting to that point of my godly-terrible twos. Ugh. I better not have to do puberty again because I’m still not entirely over feeling coltish and awkward.
“That seems a lot more likely. Because killing someone once, awful as it sounds, is something you maybe get away with. Especially when that person … God… is separated from the rest of them, and laying low or outright hiding on Earth. Or. Wherever. So if it’s started to get noticed, it’s probably not the first. Maybe not even the second. I didn’t notice it until … after all those things, actually.”
Absently rubbing the bracelet, and the power that is mine for safe-keeping and, hopefully, ultimately bestowing, when Conner’s look draws my attention to it. The timeline something I’d thought of in regards to what I was feeling, and how I was behaving but not necessarily in these terms. Of a connection formed somehow. If it was really because of Ares’ meddling in my head shoudln’t I have felt it sooner? So maybe it was proximity then. And maybe the proximity came because of the temptation of the power I’m carting around.
“The dreams started before Fawcett. We know, or assume anyway, that our Godkiller was in Fawcett before that from the camera footage. I didn’t know something was wrong until a few days ago but… I mean. Looking back I can see a lot of not normal me behavior cropping up in between those two points.”
Blue eyes roll slightly like I don’t have the time, or patience, for the ego right now but my tone’s light. At least, light as it can be with the things I’m ruminating over at the moment and the seriousness of them. Teasing.
“Or you just have to live forever. Possibly get yourself ascended on up to Godhood along with me. I’d think you’d probably enjoy that…”
Conner: “Living for ever starts with getting this suit fixed,” comes the all too honest reply, because she’s hit upon part of why we’re here at this location in the first place. “Or at least, living in to your mid-life crisis years.”
The way she’s rubbing at the bracelet now tells me something even more. I’m not a detective, sure, but I know my girlfriend. She’s nervous that she’s overlooked something. Now she’s starting to question things that she hadn’t questioned before too. That’s good. Questioning everything is something that I learned while trapped in that Virtual Reality training simulator. Only by questioning everything about that World did I ever find my way out of it and in to this one. Even now I question almost everything and everyone. People mark that up to my being a Luthor, but it isn’t genetic, that’s a learned behavior. I actually quite like the fact that normally Cassie doesn’t.
Which is why I’m also quick to intercede there too; “Start with the things we know. We know that the Dreams began before Fawcett City. We also know that the Amulet from Raven would have stopped such an intrusion, if the intent behind it was dangerous. We were also told that Magic isn’t as precise as Science, so there is a much broader sense to how spells work. Because the Amulet would innately work based upon what -you- considered Harmful. Tying those things together, we know that your teacher’s intentions are not something you’d think of as harmful.”
“So I think that eliminates him as a suspect, in the mystery of the Godkiller. Even if it doesn’t eliminate my new found desire to break him in half.” I’m counting these things off on my hand, as I walk nearer to the giant Key. “We also know that someone was manipulating Freddy’s Trials. We know that before you got the Amulet from Raven, someone came to you in a Dream in the visage of Black Adam. Who you now believe wasn’t the actual person. So someone wanted you to be oppose Adam. All of those things complicated the situation with the Witch, the Trials and would resulted in you taking part in the killing of a God. If not for interceding factors. I’m not Batman, but I think someone wanted you to have blood on your hands, God-Blood to be precise.”
“Getting your hands dirty could serve a lot of purposes, but what if it’s meant to make you Unworthy?” The hand I’ve been counting on is gently laid upon the Key, which I’d just spoken about Superman wanting someone Worthy to be able to open the door with. “When you came back from Olympus, you said your Dad had said something about leaving you the tools to overcome anything. These Gods of your’s, they’re big about stuff like Trials, Quests, and crap like that. What if the killer is part of one of them. What if this is some game you’re playing, without knowing it and the edge you have is because you’re ‘More Worthy’ to win than he or she is?”
“That’s what I’d do, Cassie. If I couldn’t beat someone fair and square? I’d either cheat or level the playing field.”
Cassie: “During which I’m sure there’ll be no living with me, if the last few weeks are any way to judge what’s that far down the road, so probably a great time to bail anyway…”
Welp. If I wasn’t already generally motivated to help Conner with anything (nearly anything) that he could even potentially use my help on, that right there was a way to get me there. I hadn’t known that it was an issue to worry over for long enough to really get myself worked up and anxious. He’d only just told me, on the drive from Gotham and up the coast, and then I’d gotten distracted on top of Conner’s trying to reassure me. If he’s got any reason to believe, any at all, that a means to make sure I don’t have to worry about losing him is inside whatever this key actually opens then I’m in.
“Especially when I didn’t even think they were,” Here comes the finger quotes. “Real in the first place. I didn’t really find anything odd or out of place about them until after I came back from Olympus. So. Like you said. The intentions weren’t outward, or immediately, harmful even if they may not be harmless.”
I don’t trust him. My magnanimous, timely teacher. It’s all too convenient, honestly. A year ago I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but then a year ago I probably wasn’t ‘worth’ the attention. But I’ve been pointed towards a problem that is a problem, regardless of who has told me about it. I could make a pretty good argument that Olympus’ problems aren’t myproblems, but I’m also not some butthurt juvenile who holds the radio silence from that half of my ‘family’ over them. Because I get it, I’m even glad for the time I had to be left alone. Olympus’ problem would very likely turn into Earth’s problem whether or not I was here, but I am and… so here we are.
Nodding my head in agreement with his summary and assessment, I watch Conner approach the enormous key, once again folding my arms across my chest though I stay in my place.
“I think if Black Adam had been the one messing around in my head, he would been sneery and honest about it. Just. Kind of the vibe I got, along with believing he really didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. It hadn’t made any sense for him to plant that Amulet on the woman in Fawcett in the first place. So this Godkiller was aware of me, and starting to set me up to distrust others long before even Fawcett.”
Unworthy of what, though? Zeus not saying anything about that doesn’t really matter, because he was cryptic and why would he? There’s some things that were just… understood. Especially if you knew anything at all about mythology of any stripe. Conditions that had to be met, or could not be met for those heroes to keep what made them special. And were I to no longer be ‘worthy,’ what would that mean? That Zeus’ chosen champion was corrupted for one thing, at which point do the broken trials become downright unsalvageable? And without knowing what’s at stake, either. We already know Ares is an asshole, and not happy with the current arrangement. And now his ‘son’ is going to to be up against the daughter of the one that made those rules.
“Bottom line, really then… is figuring it out and taking care of the problem before he does much more killing. Because I couldn’t hang onto the extra power. If he can, and gets too much stronger…”
Isis basically pimp slapped me. Someone with even more powers? But then, I’m not allowed to interfere with Freddy. Who says I can’t ask for help?
Conner: “Oh, Cassie. It’s adorable really. Almost as if you never realized how hard you were to deal with when we first met, but I loved you anyway.”
That time? It’s impossible to miss the look of pure pleasure that comes with turning our entire life on it’s head to make that joke. I’ve been insufferable one since day one and I’m aware of it. Though, there is some truth to what I’ve said. She made everything as difficult as possible. If she’d have just given in from Day One just think of where we’d be? ( Probably not where we are, to be honest. Part of what makes Cassie special to me, is that she is the first person to ever be genuine with me. )
Another little pat of the Key, for sake of symbolic gestures and then I’m moving forward, putting myself right in front of her again. How many times have we stood like this? Yet this is so very different than all those times, because maybe for the first time it is not Conner Luthor and Cassie Sandsmark, but actually Superman and Wonder Woman. Even if it’s really Superboy and Wonder Girl still at heart.
“Who told you that you couldn’t hang on to the extra power?” There’s this tone to my question, that imparts a dislike for someone telling Cassie that she can’t do something. “Just because you weren’t ready for it, doesn’t equate to ‘can’t.’ A year ago you would have told me you couldn’t save the world without me. Two years ago you would have said you couldn’t throw down with a bunch of Crocodile Men. Three years ago you didn’t think you could fly. Stop thinking in terms of can or can’t. You’re Cassandra Sandsmark. Daughter of Zeus.”
“You’ve never let that define you, Cass, but now I think you need to remember that more than ever. It doesn’t define you, but if Zeus doesn’t define you then why does anyone -or- anything else? Stop telling me what you can or can’t do. Stop telling yourself what you can or can’t do. Just fuckin do it, let the Historians sort it out later.”
Cassie: “Okay, pot, I’m kettle. Nice to meet you..”
I know he’s teasing me. Partly. Doesn’t for a moment slow the tart reply, though. It wouldn’t be me and him if it did. I made things ‘difficult’ because he’d swooped into my life, literally and figuratively, and wormed his way into my life while I was trying very hard at first to not let him. The big jerk had my mother on his side from the get go, too. From having to tutor him through playing dumb at history, to ‘suffering’ through his version of the best method of revenge against my private school ‘rivals.’ I just wanted them to leave me alone, and somehow ended up the ringleader. Wallflower, to poster girl, with a side of fighting with him for months over whether or not I was his girlfriend. Were they obnoxious? At times, yeah, definitely. Would I change them? No, not really. Especially not now that I know everything I do about him. It was really where I learned how to manage Conner Luthor and his ego and his ideas. Best as I could anyawy.
And here he is. Telling me off. Riot acting. Okay not really, but it’s a well meant equivalent. Despite our nearly incessant bickering and jibing and teasing? There’s a distinct difference when one of us gets to where we need the other to listen, and listen good. Like the very few times I’ve put my foot down on some scheme of his. I know he can be a SuperJerk, but honestly he’s encouraging of me. Even when I don’t want to be encouraged. Or pushed. Or to step out of my comfort zone and onto a stage in a bright red, spangly outfit and declare myself to the world.
“Okay, okay. No one told me I couldn’t. I didn’t like who I was with it though, and that’s different. I know.”
Crouching in the snow, I balance on my heels with my arms resting across my knees. Watching my breath mist the air in front of me. Just because I don’t feel the cold doesn’t mean that it isn’t. Kind of an appropriate symbolism for so much going on in my head, and around me actually. It turns into dragging my fingers through the snow which would probably be more hard packed glacier than powder but it’s not solid enough to resist my fingers. When I rise again, it’s with a resolute set to my jaw and mouth, and a snowball in hand. Which promptly gets zinged at his head with far more speed and force than I had dared use the last time we had a chance to have a snowball fight, in my front yard.
“The historians won’t get to sort out crap. I’ll be there to write it myself.”
Conner: “Oh hoo. I was easy to get along with. In the grand scheme of life, I’m pretty easy to manage. I don’t sleep. Barely eat. Give me a little sex and I’m basically a big puppy. You’re high maintenance, Kettle. All this bolstering your ego and building you up, when you tear yourself down or letting insignificant people do it. There’s dating, hand-holding, dancing and movie watching. Not to even mention this whole Superman thing. You’re a lot of work, Pal. So I hope you know you’re worth it.”
Watching Cassie is easy, I do it all the time. But there’s watching and then there’s observing. I’m better at one than the other. Because she’s way too easy to look at. Shorter than your average long-legged cheerleader type, she makes up for the lack of height, by packing the entire Amazon package in to five feet nothing. That leaves most people, including me, looking without watching what she’s doing. Ordinarily that’d be quite enough to be caught flat footed. Being splattered in the face with a snowball? Acceptable payment for the enhanced view of her breasts in that top as she kneels to scoop up the snow.
Except. That Cassie isn’t quite fast enough to have a real concept of how fast my perception of the world really is. In the time it takes her to lift the snow, cock her hand back and let it go? I’ve already looked from her hand to her breast sixteen times. I might not be as smart as Freddy or Tim, but being as fast as I am I’m able to apply my intellect to a solution faster than they can their own. She’s barely let the snow out of her hand, when I’ve taken aim for the purpose of eye-lasering.
The fact that I -don’t- hit it with Heat Vision. That the snowball isn’t turned to heated water that splashes all over and turns her already nice looking costume in to a wet swim-suit version? Is really telling of how much I’m invested in to what I was teasing about. Bolstering her. Letting the snowball crash in to my chiseled features? Is a good segue in to getting her back in to good spirits and distracting her from the problems we’ve been discussing. While I’m happy to ‘take one for the team,’ I’m pretty sure that Cassie knows where this was leading and expects me to ‘fight back.’
“Gah, cheap shot, Kettle, I was distracted by bewbs.” I’m moving now though; in to the air and over the edge of the key to use it for cover that is needed to build a supply chain of snowballs, which will be used to splaterize her with.
Cassie: “A big, aggressive, eye-lasering puppy. But you’re right.”
No, this is no trap. Those two words in conjunction aren’t things that usually come out of my mouth, in regards to Conner Luthor. Don’t get me wrong, all my feelings for him aside he just doesn’t need to be told that. He already thinks it’s true, and boy has ego for days that needs no polishing. Sometimes, I do it anyway though. Especially when he’s being sweet, or is extra deserving of a Cassie Cookie for a job well done. Positive reinforcement is basically my job. Sometimes negative ones are, too. What he’s right about though, judging by the smirk I’m not quite controlling isn’t that he’s the low maintenance one.
“I am worth it. So are you, though.”
I’d argue he’s complicated my life a lot, but he simplifies it for me in so many ways, too. Like just now. Squashing down all the many, many concerns and worries and complications in my head and bringing it to one important point. Not just that I can do this, but that he believes in me. The person that knows all my flaws, and the ins and outs of Cassie Sandsmark and still is counting on me to do all of this. Plus he gets brownie points for letting me hit him in the face with an ice ball. Which I am very aware, despite roughly doubling in speed lately, is not nearly quick enough to have gotten the drop on him. I’m not sure anyone could, except maybe Wally.
“No excuse, Pot! Eyes on the prize! No, not those…”
It’s like the laughter. It feels good. That impulsive throw, and what it leads into. Not thinking about what I should be doing instead right now, but just instigating, and throwing myself into, a fight that I know I can’t win but that’s not the point. It’s the game. And the fact that it’s just me and Conner at the literal top of the world, and how free that makes me feel.
by Michele | Jan 21, 2018 | Chronicles
Dinah: What’s the only thing worse than being stuck in a city that’s rapidly spiraling out of control, and towards imminent war-torn destruction? Being a person with the means, and a place, to bail on it for and being unable to leave because of assorted personal issues and hang-ups. Morals. Vigilante sense of justice, mixed with feelings of stewardship. Ownership. Whatever. Another step worse? Being the kind of control freak who’s used to being able to control the people around them either through skill, smarts, or wiles, and in that sort of situation. Frankly, it’s a wonder that Bruce didn’t have a coronary long before someone killed him. Still. I’d say he probably could have/would have handled this.
If it weren’t for the fact that none of this particular ‘this’ would have been happening if he were here in the first place. Of all of the things that have set Gotham to be the colliding grounds for so many forces, I would never have guessed Batman’s death would have been the cause of all of it. Not like this. What I’m most struggling with, however, is how everything wants to line up so neatly into one small package in my head, when logic says that shouldn’t happen. Not here. And yet…
Not rushing my ass back across the city to my bar and apartment isn’t actually that difficult. I’ve got a lot to think about. The fact that Tim’s not actually there anymore, apparently, dampens my sense of urgency quite a bit. Sure, kid can handle himself. He also went down a flight of concrete stairs with a ninja, and I know how his shoulder looked after. Probably only gotten worse since, and stiffer. Finding out he’s ‘undercover’ somewhere with Spoiler makes me feel better, but only because he’s not in the same building as Deathstroke. Not because I have faith she can look out for him well enough to make up for the shoulder.
With myself down one Red Robin worry, that leaves me with the people in the building. My technical employees and customers. If Slade was interested in murdering the lot of them, he probably would have already started to use that to get my attention. Once I’ve gotten back, it’s up the narrow stairs, the comm tucked back into place where it belongs, and the quick effort of de-Canary-ing. Which actually involves putting more clothes on, right now. A short skirt tugged up over my hips, a slouchy old Pantera shirt pulled over my head. The boots and fishnets may be the same, but I’m not exactly going for high quality disguise before I wander down the connecting flight of stairs to the well bolted connecting door.
It doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s often enough that no eyebrows are raised when I slink through the kitchen, slap together a sandwich with what’s out, and pick up a bottle of cheap-ass whiskey. This is why I don’t bother stocking my kitchen upstairs. My eyebrows are also not raised when I find him much where I expected him to be. Probably should. That’s my day though, right?
“Slade.”
I keep going past him, shoving a bite of my food in my face, as I make my way to my favorite corner booth. It wasn’t empty. It gets that way real quickly though, with a demonstrative jerk of my head. Clearly the look on my face makes the two guys that had been using it go from ‘ooh, our lucky day’ to ‘oh $%* run.’
Slade: Gotham City isn’t a tourist destination for normal people. Maybe the occasional loon wanting to get his brush with death in the form of a Rogue’s Gallery scare or someone wanting to catch a glimpse of Batman. What Gotham lacks in tourism as an industry, it makes up for in being the heart of commerce for most of the Eastern Seaboard. Sure, other ports might be safer, but few of them are as large or as well fitted with various levels of Wayne Industries technology. Outside of the Port there’s a certain amount of other industry attached to the city, most of those conversations almost always end with the same family name as well though. Wayne.
The one thing that that Wayne Family don’t control in this city is perhaps the one thing that booms even further than Technology, Shipping or the Labor Industry. One word. Crime. Once upon a time New York, even Chicago, were the hubs of the Mafia-world. True enough that have their fair share, but here in Gotham the Mafia has not been quite as harshly hit as the rest of those cities. Something or someone has always kept them at the cusp. Never quite defeated, never quite dragging the city in to total chaos. Using their means to control the levels of crime, so as to keep the Federal Government from ever truly being too interested.
In most recent times, since the ‘Death of Batman,’ the City’s fine line has been crossed often. As much by the likes of Joker and his insane telecasts, as by the veritable horde of Assassins flooding in to the City, but also by the likes of it’s own protectors who court the interference of the Federal Government with their own defiance. It all seems to be reaching a boiling point, doesn’t it? Like one of those old Indiana Jones movies, where everything that could possibly go wrong does. In catastrophic order. Until the Heroes are faced with the impossible, no-win, situation. In those films something always happens to give Indy his one chance at victory.
“Dinah.”
When you’re in the line of work that Dinah Lance is in, there are a handful of people in the whole world that you just know on sight. Her connection to the Police alone would have given her all she needed to know in order to recognize the Deathstroke in uniform. All of the other things in her life have given her the ability to recognize him out of that uniform. Sitting at the end of her bar, being attended by a veritable litany of fanboys who are clamoring to hear another story. Dinah’s bar is frequented by all types. From friend to foe, from vigilante out of costume, to crook looking for a safe place to grab a bite to eat without being gunned down by a rival. Not only has Wilson made himself at home, but he’s clearly been here long enough to have garnered some attentions.
And then there’s his tone. So cordial, with that hint of accent that speaks of being well born and raised, yet borders on being too familiar when he’s spoken only a single word. A tip of an empty shot-glass sends the bar-keeper for more, but as he does Slade is turning toward the only thing that’s stolen attention from his tales all evening.
“Finished with the bird bath. Figured you’d be down. Guessin you took a trip to the ‘Berg? Or maybe you had to talk to the Demon’s grandson, to stop him from picking a fight with the U.S. Government? Seriously. Alien Princesses. Gotham’s a lot more Fun now.”
Dinah:
“Little of column A, less of column B.”
At least he missed my brief interlude with the not suited up Superman, also known to almost no one as Conner Luthor for very good reason. Namely the enormous shitshow that would probably result in, were the news spilled by anyone other than President Luthor in a finely controlled fashion that fit his narrative in a finely groomed sort of way. If ever. It doesn’t take much in the way of paranoia to know that that is the kind of secret that can get you killed, even if you’re not a previously untouchable meta-human with the power to whistle slightly louder than your average person. Had Slade seen that, it likely would have gotten mentioned, too.
“Must be something in the water, which is why I’m sticking strictly to alcohol from now on. Really. You’d think people in Gotham would have better sense than to attract Government attention. Only so much temptation can go on before they’re going to stop pointedly looking the other way and pretending we don’t exist as a blight on… blahblahblah…”
Oh. The irony. Maybe less ironic since. Well. I have a feeling he knows that, too. Else why the pointed comments about me missing all my boyfriends, lately? I’d say maybe there’s a possibility it is paranoia causing me to read into something, because Star City’s been my stomping grounds the last few years, putting me, in Gotham, away from my usual company. The way things have been lately? It’s not really a possibility I’m going to allow for. To be on the safe side. And because Slade Wilson is here. Sitting in my bar. After being a little huffy about my not wanting help freely offered to me.
Mostly because it wasn’t free. I know better. And you know. Murder. Throwing back a swallow from my bottle, there’s a satisfied sound as I sink down into seat, sliding around into the curve of it lets me kick my feet up on the other side. It’s also the only booth in the joint that’s not fully bolted down, so I can kick it over if the mood and/or need arises. Also points my screamer a little better in his direction. Or lets me look at him while we’re talking. That second one sounds like better manners. Which we’re apparently pretending to have.
“But here I thought the only kind of fun you were interested in was the paid kind. Unless that’s gotten old finally?”
Slade: Another shot glass filled, another one emptied. This is how the story goes as Dinah speaks. Nothing she says is wrong, but it’s topical. She’s making chit-chat. Standard fair sort of stuff. Ordinarily that might be a cause for tension, but tonight is a different sort of night. Apparently Slade isn’t here to question her or try to get information. As she and Grayson had discussed, you wouldn’t send the Deathstroke for an interrogation. Wrong tool to be applied. No, he’s not bothered by her words or her lack of direction. In fact he seems to embrace this little time of talking, while saying nothing. Perhaps even taking this as opportunity to show her that he can play that game, should it suit him to do so.
“Not a bad plan, actually. Because something is definitely in the Water around here,” a moment’s hesitation leads him to reaching past the single shot glass for the entire bottle that other man’s holding. “Most everything gets old eventually. Being paid isn’t one of them, though. My ex-wife would always try to tell me that you couldn’t buy happiness. One of the many reasons I had to kill her, always lying to me.”
Taking not one but two of the shot glasses that the bartender had put in place, Slade runs the bottle across them. Not minding the mess on the way to filling each of them. One of which is offered to Dinah once he’s risen from that solitary stool and approached her booth. Nothing fancy, just a simple bottle of vodka. As cheap as the whiskey she’s drinking, but twice as hard to down. Such is the nature of those pesky Russians who invented the stuff.
“One of the nuances you always missed, is that there are other currencies to be paid in. Money isn’t the only commodity that I’m willing to take a contract for.” There’s no flashiness to the turning of the shot glass up and downing it, but it is a demonstration to show her that nothing was done to the drink. But then she likely knows poisoning her isn’t how it would likely go with Wilson. “You’d be surprised at the things I’m given in payment. Weapons. Favors. Secrets. Sometimes I’m even willing to trade the things I have, for things I want.”
“You know we don’t have to keep dancing, right? If I was here to kill you, I’ve had ample opportunity to make the attempt. You’re hoping I’ll slip up and give you a clue, but we don’t need to play that game. I’m willing to just tell you, if you’re willing trade answer for answer.”
Dinah: “There usually is, I guess. To be fair. Just a question of whether it’s a body, mind altering chemical, body altering chemical, kerosene…”
I’d be twirling a finger to indicate the list goes on, and on, and on, depending upon which of the Rogues is responsible, or if it’s one of the crime groups, or just your average run of the mill corporate not-caring-pollution. Only one hand has a bottle in it, and the other my sandwich so I just end up gesturing vaguely with my dinner/midnight snack. This is kind of early to be dinner or my mid-night though. Like I’ve said. Gotham’s gone all weird lately, and I guess I’m going along with it.
“Depends on the kind of happiness I guess, and your definition of it. Some people think it only comes in that satisfied, peaceful soul kind of application. Pfft.”
The laugh comes out about the time I’m sipping from my elegant glass/bottle, right before it gets set down to take the offered shot glass. Am I worried about what he’s giving me? Not in the least. We’re in my bar. It’s ‘my’ booze’ and ‘my’ shot glasses and frankly that’s not really his style.
“Not in this job, amiright?”
Not that our jobs are exactly the same, except in the broad stroke label of ‘violence.’ That. We definitely both do. I’m not so high and mighty that I don’t recognize the similarities, but there’s also some very, very big differences. Mostly that come down to the fact that I don’t kill. And also that he gets a whole hell of a lot more money to do what he does, than I do to do what I do. Probably technically more thanks as well. Just in the dollar sign variety.
“See, I know about those other options, I just didn’t know you did. Learn something new every day.”
I don’t like Vodka all that much, personally. Not by itself. I’m sure someone out there would argue I don’t have much in the way of a refined palate for alcohol, especially given what I’m currently swilling, but I still have a preference. Vodka just tastes like a bare step above rubbing alcohol to me, and I don’t make a habit of drinking that either. That said? I was at college for the last three-ish years. There’s not much I can’t chug. So this, too, is thrown back. With a wrinkled nose look of disgust, and chased with another bite of corned beef and ham on mismatched types of toast.
“Oh, sure. I’m aware. Most likely before I, or anyone else that might get uppity (and we know how the Bats are) over you taking a hit in Gotham, knew you were even here. Not that the thought didn’t still cross my mind. I mean. You’re you. I’m me. But then there was you being so gosh darn persistently helpful.”
Hmmmmmmm. I don’t make the considerate sound out loud, but the way my blonde head dips from side to side, it’s a pretty clear contemplative debate going on here. Do I have answers and information? Sure, I have a lot of them. I know a lot of people, who have a lot of secrets, and then there’s my own. A lot of those answers and information not only aren’t mine to give, but even if they were I wouldn’t jeopardize the people they’re about even to sate my curiosity about why the hell Slade Wilson’s sitting in my bar.
“That sounds like a game that could be worth playing. But only if you ask your question first, and if I don’t give you your answer, I don’t get mine.”
Slade: “Hey, in Gotham? It’s just as likely to be all of the above. Bodies, Chemicals and Kerosene sounds like the start of a good night with Harley Quinn, from what I’ve heard.”
Banter. It’s easy to fall in, even for two people that aren’t exactly chums. In this case though, the banter is about recognition. Two people with similar backgrounds, even similar mentalities. Separated only by a thin perception of morality. In this case she has some and Slade doesn’t. At least, Slade would have people believe that normally. Dinah has seen it herself though, that the man does actually have a code. The Contract is everything. In any normal situation he won’t violate a deal once brokered. Though how he chooses to interpret the terms seem to be solely at the discretion of Deathstroke. A nod of the head tells her that she’s entered in to just such a bargain right then and there.
“Oh, Birdy. Don’t tell me you bought in to the Deathstroke mask, you of all people should know that reputation is something to be created. It isn’t necessarily always the truth. I buy, sell and trade in anything that gets me closer to the things I want at any particular time.”
The other side of her booth might look cozy, but Slade makes no effort to take that seat. Joining Dinah might be what any other male would do if given the right opportunity, with enough liquor at play, but not him. He’s all to aware of what proximity does for a girl with her particular set of lungs can do. He saw it first hand not so long ago. Instead of joining her at the table, he pulls one of the stools away from the bar in order to sit outside of the booth. Close, but not confined. Though at that same time, Slade’s making several mistakes if he were jockeying for tactical position. He’s leaving his back exposed. There’s no effort made towards eliminating her line of fire with that voice of her’s. Both of which are mistakes that he’d only make if he were doing it on purpose or already too drunk to be keeping up a conversation. Maybe not even then. So it should be fairly clear that a fight is not what he’s here for.
Chances are he could rise to the occasion quickly enough though. “This isn’t a game, luv, but your terms are more than fair.”
With a cluck of his tongue, Slade takes only long enough to speak again as it takes to pour another round of vodka in to the two shot glasses. “Do you actually remember how we first met, Dinah?”
Dinah: “Or a bad one. Mostly depends on whose body it is.”
It is what I do. Bantering. Chattering. There’s different reasons for doing it, depending upon who my particular sparring partner is. I might be trying to put someone at ease, to humiliate, tweak a nose, or glibly make a point. And that’s just in the ‘Bat’ cave, whichever one it might happen to be. Then there’s distraction and misdirection. More likely to be the case right now, except that I think we both know exactly what this is, and what it isn’t. At least at this moment. The Iceberg was sort of a testament to what our two particular brands of ‘living weapon’ will do if provoked into use. He knows I could scream at him. I know he could put all manner of sharp or shooty things in me just as quickly. If he had a reason to kill me, like he already said, there’s been time and opportunity. And I currently don’t have a good reason to provoke him.
Again. See example: Iceberg if you want to know how that goes. I’m cocky. I’m not stupid.
“Well, if that’s your question…”
I don’t think he’s being sloppy, drunk, or that I’ve successfully charmed him into letting down any sort of defenses. This might not be neutral ground, but I don’t want to hurt anyone in here, or rip down my own building. I would if I felt I had to, though. All things which Slade surely knows. Just like I’m probably the only even potential threat in the building, so there’s no risk in turning his back on everyone else, and a lot more to gain from doing what would normally be exposing a weak point. Picking up my shot glass again, it’s twirled for a moment as I consider exactly how much food versus liquor I’ve had tonight already. And decide I’m okay to down this one, too.
“As we were inevitably going to at some point. On opposite ends of a fight.”
Not my fight, mind you, but one I stuck my nose in anyway. I didn’t have the same initial stake in the game on the West Coast, not like I did here in Gotham where my whole reason began. But I couldn’t not go out there at night, and that lead to meeting Green Arrow. New playmate to learn. And tease, and antagonize, until we fell into being something other than foils. Then his fights were mine, because I wasn’t about to sit by. One of those fights brought me up against the third person in the world that I’d ever met that could kick my ass. Not in rankings of danger/ass-kicking, just chronological order.
“I don’t think you were there for the fight, I think Green Arrow and Shado’s little…spat… was mostly just in your way.”
The ones that suffered most in the offing were the Yakuza, frankly. The other two’s distraction with each other left at least Ollie thinking that wasn’t the case, but what little we’d really engaged with Deathstroke that first time? We lived through, and that meant he wasn’t there for either one of us.
Slade: Another little cluck of the tongue, this time it’s not so clear as to why it’s happened. Either her comment about a time with Quinn being a ‘bad one’ or maybe it has something to do with the way she took the last snifter of vodka. Though, in reality, it doesn’t really matter why he’s done it. So much as it matters that he has. This might not be a game, but there’s a hint of playfulness about it all. Is he testing her limits, in something other than a fight?
“Mmm. That was the first time you met Deathstroke, you don’t remember the first time you met me then.” That isn’t a question, she’s confirmed something that he was looking for.
Moving as carefully as you might expect someone with the man’s skill, the bottle of vodka is lifted and deposited back upon the bar. With the table before Dinah now mostly free, there is plenty of room for him to fish something from the only pocket the loose fitting silk shirt has. This isn’t part of the game. There’s no question being asked. In fact, by the terms of her own making it is now her ‘turn’ in this little back and forth. Though even as she’s being given a chance to ask whatever she likes? Slade has set a small item down in front of her. It looks harmless, for a microchip. Anyone who knows Dinah Lance would know that she’s unlikely to recognize such a thing at a glance, but the way Slade’s fixed upon Dinah’s features? Suggests that he very much expects her too.
“Something tells me that the question you wanted to ask fifteen seconds ago, isn’t the one going through your mind now.”
Dinah: It’s probably a good thing that mostly the only person’s opinion on what I do, and how I do it, that matters to me is my own or I might be trying to read something into that tsk. I may not like vodka, but I’ll drink it, at least as long as I’ve got something else to get rid of the taste with. Besides which, Tim may have ruined me for life when it comes to what whiskey should taste like. I didn’t even feel bad when I found out the relative sticker price of that particular bottle, either. My answer to his statement is a shrug of barely covered shoulders as I finish off the first half of my sandwich, flicking crumbs off the edge of the table as I chew. Obviously I don’t remember, if that wasn’t the first time. When did I meet Slade Wilson?
I’ve got a pretty good head for faces. My father always said it was a must have quality for a Detective, right up there with being willing and able to dog leads, and navigate your way through a crime scene. But he’s right. I don’t remember a time before that. After? Sure. That was the first time he registered for me though. Somewhere that I was training maybe? I’ve been all over the world, and studied under a small collection of other masters (which is where number two on the kick my ass list came in). Or it could have been somewhere innocuous seeming.
What’s he doing? Presenting me with more questions that can be asked. Ones that I think are going to be more important than the one that’s been burning in our collective minds tonight? Or something more personal and curiosity piquing? With my fingers cleaned off, and my mouth mostly clear of food, I pick up the microchip like it’s some nasty, ugly bug that may very well bite me. Do I know exactly what it is? No. Do I know that it’s a piece of electronics or tech? Yup. Which means that it falls squarely into the realm of someone else that stays in this building besides me.
“When you’re right, you’re right. What can I say… and yet…”
What is this? Where did I meet you before and why don’t I remember you from that time? Is it because I was too young, or because of something else? Those things are so much more personal, and immediate seeming. But that doesn’t mean they’re the most important.
“What were you trying to get out of Penguin tonight, Slade?”
More specific than my general question. But then. I know how I’d answer a general question like ‘why are you in town, Dinah?’ With something very general, and vague, and fulfilling the requirements but not really giving anything away that couldn’t be gotten through some other means. Like observation.
Slade: “I was contacted by a ‘blind client,’ about a contract with a peculiar target. Normally I don’t bother questioning, but this time I wanted some further details before decided whether to accept or decline the contract. Oswald has been asking me for months to work protection for something ‘big’ he had going. So I was allowing him to believe we were negotiating terms for that job, in order get information from him.”
There’s no hesitation in Slade about answering her question. Though it seems like he might be hedging, given that he doesn’t immediately tell her the precise ‘What’ he’d been after. In fairness, though she was specific in her question, his answer could be where he chose to leave it. He’s answered well enough and left it where she could follow up with more specifics. Yet after barely a moment to gather a breathe, he continues…
“It isn’t every day that you get asked to kill Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter and if you’re going to accept that contract it means you’ve made an enemy for longer than just life.”
Answering Dinah in such full terms may not be the first surprise of the evening for her, but Slade isn’t quite finished yet. As she’s looking at the first microchip, he takes another from his pocket. Then another and another, and another… until the number of them set before her is five. Once they’re lined up, all but the one in her hand, Slade casually tilts his head in her direction. His gaze is pretty intense, but there’s a sense of him sizing her up. More so a determination of whether she’s being honest about not remembering, nor recognizing the hardware she’s being shown.
“Fairchild. Bronson. Trevor. Waller. Wilson.” Each time he says a name he points at one of the chips, until the only one without a name is the one in her hand. “Lance.”
Once he’s said the last name on the list his hand shifts once more. This time it’s to the back pocket of his pants, where a small cut out of a newspaper clipping is held. It’s from the Daily Planet, years ago. An article written by Clark Kent about the ‘Department of Extranormal Affairs,’ being founded by the newly appointed Secretary of Metahuman Affairs. An African-American woman that Kent names ‘Amanda Waller.’
“Dinah, why did Talia al Ghul build a Lazarus Pit in the Penguin’s night club?”
Dinah: Part of me would wonder if that makes it easier. Not knowing who you were doing the wetwork for. Not having to wonder the ‘why’ of the motivation, if the person might be justified or not. I don’t see him being someone to be kept up at night one way or the other. It’s the job, right? He’s got his supposed code, and otherwise what matters is the contract. Ultimately, I suppose, it’s the person putting out the hit that’s setting things in motion. Except. That it is still murder. There’s been any number of people I’ve come up against that I am fairly sure I could have ended, and been justified to do so. I don’t. That’s a path that Bruce Wayne steered me off of. Now if only we could correct Damien’s outlook just a hair.
Is Oswald’s ‘big project’ the Lazarus Pit he’s had hiding there for who knows how long? That couldn’t have been months though, something like that I don’t think could have stayed quiet there for that long. The blonde eyebrow that hikes up on my face could be for a number of reasons, and I suppose it really is. Like the amount of information I’m actually getting here. About half of which is basically voluntary though…boy… I’m not about to stop him. Or maybe because someone asked him to take out Talia al Ghul. He said if you take it though. Which raises another question in the line. Did he? What happens then, if the Joker does it before he does? I don’t know where the boys are at as far as tracking her down. I do know we don’t have a lot of time either way, now.
Ooh, look. More doohickies… if I”m being un-Dinah-like levels of quiet, it’s because he’s giving me a lot more to chew on than the sandwich did, and laying out more and more of those little chips. This time, with names. Some of which ring obvious bells. All but one actually. My lips purse at my own surname, and I lean in across the booth’s small table to get a little bit of a closer look at the clipping.
“I’ve only really got assumptions there.”
And after what happened to said Lazarus Pit? Either she’s succeeded already, or she’s not going to get the chance to. At least from here, either because it’s gone, or because she’s not going to be in any fit state to do such a thing. Even if I felt like being as openly sharing as he’s being right now, I can’t be. Because I don’t have much. Talia and I aren’t exactly shopping buddies.
“I assume she intended to try to bring Batman back. As for why in the night club? Definitely about the last place I would have thought to look for a pit, Lazarus or otherwise.”
Talia. A contract. Which he may or may not have taken. And may or may not have found out who was actually behind it. The potentially separate issue with these chips. The article. His comments in Penguin’s office earlier, and questions about our first meeting. So many dangling threads and my head wants to seize on all of them. So which do I choose for the answer I’m due, and how long do we get to play this game that’s not really a game so much as an oddly amicable exchange of thoughts with a paid serial killer before he wants something I’m not willing to give? Puts a sort of priority on the questions one might want to ask.
“So. Where should I have remembered meeting you first?”
Something tells me that? Is going to tie into all of this. No, not necessarily Talia and the Bats and Gotham, but what he’s so carefully laying out for me here like breadcrumbs to follow into .. or out of…something dark and dangerous.
Slade: Again, as with before, the answer comes so quickly that it’s crystal clear that I’ve been awaiting the question. It was only natural for Canary to follow up on the things that have been plaguing her and her cohorts, but sooner or later she was going to have to ask about the reasons I was here. Here in the sense of ‘at her Bar,’ more so than here in Gotham. One may lead, even connect too, the other. Ever the Detective, she can’t really let it slide. It’s a thread, one that has very clear connections now that she’s been told the names.
“Two thousand and seven. Ra’s al Ghul was attempting to purge Gotham. The League of Assassins came here with the explicit purpose of destroying the City. Few people actually ever learned of the League itself or it’s intentions. Most believed the press. That it was just one more of the lunatics inspired by the Batman’s presence to rise up against him. The press painted the League as just another serial killer’s following, a cult.”
“Only a handful of people knew the truth about the League. Even fewer knew the truth about why they wanted to ‘Purge Gotham City.’ That Ra’s was trying to eliminate a rival. He failed and the repercussions were harsh,” lifting a hand to gently tap one finger upon those chips. “No one. Maybe not even the Batman, knew that he had some help that night. You and I met ten hours prior to the breach of Arkham. Inside of an airplane, that was in route to Gotham City.”
“Those other names were there with us. These chips? Were in our skulls.”
Dinah: “Let me guess. A rival group that somehow no one else had ever heard of, or managed to guess that they even existed, and likes to keep a certain sort of status quo in Gotham. And that even now apparently scares the demonic piss out of him.”
I was here for the breech. For No Man’s Land. It was a little bit before I started venting my spleen on Gotham’s police department, and the criminal element of the city, for my Father’s murder but I was still here. I’ve lived in Gotham more than I’ve lived out of it, and just because my family’s home was in the suburbs, it doesn’t mean that kind of next level crap doesn’t effect basically everything about your life. There wasn’t a day that it wasn’t discussed in school, if we even had school at the time, and I spent most of that time period with my grandfather because Dad was obviously busy with his job.
While that’s nice information to have, because backstory can be important for motives and methods, and how you’re going to interact with someone that you’re facing… I’m waiting for how it ties this all together. Because I’d been joking with Dick about this all being one neat, nice bloody package tied with a red ribbon. It was both too simple a solution/answer, and yet made a perfect sort of sense anyway. Gotham can be chaos incarnate. But then you look at the pieces that make it that way. The way they work and build off one another. Finding out there’s some group that’s been sitting in the shadows for maybe as long as there’s been a Gotham?
That neat bow? I’m kind of getting this sense of…dread. Because it’s being wrapped up here, in front of me, when the question I’d asked was about how Slade and I had actually met. And his answer?
“Hah.”
There isn’t a whole lot of actual humor to that laugh that sneaks out, it’s more startled, maybe with a hint of disbelief to the tone.
“Someone decided it’d be a brilliant idea to put a barely teenage me, an I’m assuming you were already merc-ing you, and a handful of other shmucks on an airplane to go help Batman…”
My incredulity isn’t actually at the potential for my involvement. I was probably fourteen. I was an early bloomer as it was, possibly thanks to the fact that my meta-gene kicked in when I was in kindergarten. I’d been training with Ted Grant for just as long as I had tutoring from the original Black Canary on how to use and control my gift. Add in both female figures in my life being dead at that point, and my having a whole lot of aimless rage from that? Even at fourteen, I was a highly lethal, highly developed Mean Girl. I just hadn’t consciously thought to use how powerful I was that way. Not until when my Dad was killed. Doesn’t mean I didn’t have the potential. I just don’t remember any of this.
Tetch made me lose ten minutes or so of my life not that long ago. Maybe it makes it that much easier to think that someone with the means, and reason, to make me forget a whole night? God. Why am I able to accept that so easily? Or maybe I’m not. I’m going back to my bottle of whiskey now, for a longer drink than just throwing back a from the bottle shot.
“I should probably apologize for the fact that teenage me was very angry, and hadn’t learned to be the charming vixen I am now…and people think I’m blunt force trauma at this point in my life… except obviously. I don’t remember any of this. So. If this all really happened. And I’ll admit I’m drawing a blank for what possible benefit there’d be in it for you to lie about it. Why do you remember this fun little trip and I don’t?”
Slade: The way in which one eyebrow climbs upward suggests that Slade is a little surprised at how Canary reacts to all of this. Throwing the ‘rules’ she set up out in order to ask another question, therefor putting her on the debt side of the equation. His head cants off to the side, but like before he answers almost immediately. There’s no reason to stall or hold back, because this discussion feeds in to why he’s here and is in turn getting him additional information, if only in the form of her clearly having no memories of what he’s speaking off.
Though, that’s a lot less surprising than you might think, given than… “I don’t, actually. Remember it. At least not all of it. Flashes here, broken dreams there. Fragments that might not be memories, but my own body’s way of compensating for what my brain can’t reconcile. What I know, now, comes mostly in the form of information I’ve gained. I told you, I don’t always deal in money as my own commodity.”
“Every time I’ve found answered, I’ve also found more questions. We were part of some sort of suicide squad. Expendable assets that wouldn’t be missed if things went south, nor trusted overly if they went sideways. I’ve been unable to ascertain whether the lost memories were from our handlers or from the people we were sent in to stop.” The news clipping is once again the source of Slade’s attentions, as he draws Dinah back to it with a tap of the fingers. “Ra’s and the League were intent upon purging the City, cleaning out this Rival of the Demon’s. Someone. Very high on the political food chain, made the decision to oppose Ra’s al Ghul. They set her in motion.”
“She was just a handler back then, but now she’s a player herself. You? Too young, no reason you’d have the memories if everyone else lost them. I wasn’t going to even approach you. Your morals will only get in the way of what I’m planning. At least. They would normally. But then I got word from a source that you’ve recently gotten Waller’s attention again. That you now know first hand, that they can make someone disappear. And maybe you’ve got motivation to not leave a highly skilled, but innocent, operative in her hands being forced to do who-knows-what.”
Dinah: “Suicide Squad? Now if that doesn’t have an alliterative ring to it, I don’t know what does…”
Yes, that was a bit of a slip up but… frankly if we were playing this strictly by any set of harsh rules he’s already given far more in the way of answers than I have. He has a lot more to tell on the matters than I have had. As he’d said. It really isn’t a game anyway. I think we’ve taken a step past that now, haven’t we? In fact, it sounds a lot more like ‘common problem.’ Slade made a point of his not only trading in death and coin. So to have something like this, involving yourself, and actions that you took that you have no memories of and were potentially not of your own free will? That’s got to rankle.
It sure does me, and it was half a lifetime ago. I also don’t have a livelihood or reputation quite like Deathstroke’s. I mean. Sure. We could have volunteered. If you asked me tonight to storm Arkham because Batman needed me to? I’d be in. He probably wouldn’t be, not out of the goodness of his heart. But chips planted in someone’s brain, and a shadowy group pulling government strings? Christ. I don’t even need to know what I do about NOWHERE to have that make me get my guard up. Fairchild. Waller. The former I’m just going to assume is Conner’s ‘friend’ and not assume any kind of coincidence. Not anymore.
“That I did. Apparently you don’t get to scream down someone in Metropolis and stay off their radar.”
I’m finding myself sitting here, bottle still in one hand, chip in the other, while my brain starts working up its own sort of chicken or egg conundrum. Was I an asset because I wasn’t on the lists, thanks to my Grandmother? Or was I not on the lists anymore because of what we’d been thrown in to do? Clearly it was a success. He’s still here. I’m here. Waller. Fairchild. The last name Trevor I recognize, though I don’t know the man personally. The last one was really the only mystery. Not enough of one to make me ask, though. Not right now. Leaning back against the seat of the booth again, I let out an exaggeratedly long sigh. Giving up my hold on the bottle, to push a hand through my hair, tousling blonde locks as I scratch.
“Well. You’re in luck, Wilson. I was already set to show them that there’s people you don’t just get to mess with, and make sure it was a lesson that stuck. Somehow it’s actually even more personal now than it was before.”
I’d say that I’m past personal grudges and kicking people’s asses over them. This one? Isn’t just about me, though. And if it’s about Gotham, too? Bruce. Tim, Damien and Dick. All of them? That’s an entirely different kettle of fish.
Slade: “Luck is one thing I never trade in, Lady Bird, but it has it’s place,” just not right now, there is nothing lucky about Slade Wilson being here right now this second.
The comment about screaming someone down in Metropolis seems to merit no notice, though Slade’s one of those people who files things away today and brings them up again in ten years. He very clearly doesn’t have all of the pieces to all of the puzzles. Just enough to tell him which way to point the gun, who to the sword too. Knowing just enough about Penguin’s operation to lure Canary in to a talk, because she had questions. Then just enough about Dinah’s situation to know that she’d have a vested interest in aiding him. Maybe, as an outside chance, she knew something more than he did and would share it once she realized that they did in fact have common enemies at the moment.
With a sweeping gesture of his hand the shot glass he had filled for himself is finally snatched up and downed, with barely a ‘salute’ to remember it by. Dinah’s keen, she knows when something has happened even if she doesn’t know what it is. She can see the wheels in Slade’s brain turning over and over as he processes what he knew, versus what he knows now.
“You’ve got some things to work through here in Gotham, obviously. Gives me time to pull a couple last bits of information out of my contacts. I’ll reach out as soon as I have a location on where they’re holding Oliver,” placing the shot glass down in the same motion that his hand scoops up all of the extra microchips. “Look, I don’t give a rat’s arse about Gotham but what’s going on here? It isn’t just all connected here, it’s connected everywhere.”
“Ra’s al Ghul made a play a decade ago to wipe them out. He failed and from what I’ve pieced together, he was punished for it. It seems pretty clear to me that whoever he was trying to wipe out had the cajoles to pull strings in the White House. The juice to green light Waller’s whole career and now this Clown is stirring them all up again? Sounds to me like the Batman had the right idea. Time to get out of this shithole.”
Rising to leave, Wilson pauses long enough in doing so to give Dinah another look. “I meant what I said before, Pigeon. If you need my help with all of this, the price is negotiable. You just have to ask. I’m sure you know how to reach me, if you really want too.”
Dinah: Maybe there’s nothing lucky about him being here. It might be lucky that I’d already, as I said, had my mind set on an outcome that came from NOWHERE messing with the people close to me, since they couldn’t apparently get at me directly. Does that, too, tie into this? Because why not just come after me? Clearly they’ve done it before, with no provocation required. Screaming in Conner Luthor’s ears was, as he’d told me himself, more than reason enough. What I did tonight at the Lounge was maybe more necessary to save lives, but still the equivalent of thumbing my nose at them. Except it had come after what they did to Ollie.
Which is why I haven’t done anything yet. I’m no genius, that’s my roommate, but I’m smart enough to know that just finding where they have Oliver Queen isn’t enough. Maybe it would have been once. It’s bigger than a one man rescue op though, especially now. The scope’s too big. There’s too many people in the offing to be effected, and so many more potential players. My plan had, until tonight, been a two step work in progress. First? I need to have said genius roommate work his magic. He already was, to a degree. The only way to really end all of it is exposure, and that takes more than me. Second step? I’ve been doing a lot of practicing in basement. Gotta get my lungs powered up even more.
“It was big enough when it was two separate problems. Knowing it’s one? Shit. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.”
Knowing that Ra’s was scared of them, scared enough to tell Bruce to run? That had been one thing, too. Learning more, finding out the scope and the reach? Knowing that Bruce was trying to work it alone and what happened to him for just maybe disturbing the balance of htings, or at least threatening to? I’m doubly not satisfied with Tim’s backup being Stephanie Brown right now, whatever it is that they’re playing at. I’m also not giving that chip back if he’s not asking for it. You know what they say about gift horses and their mouths.
“I’m a little better at playing with others than Batman was. And that means that unless they’re all migrating? Well. Guess it’s time to show what loyalty to the shithole means.”
It just probably doesn’t include hiring Deathstroke to take care of my problem for me. That’s the line we don’t go over, right?
“Thanks, though. Not so much for the offer but for bringing the rest of this to me.”
Me and my bottle, and my half a sandwich, are getting up, too. Both surely to be finished upstairs in privacy. Everyone else has eyes on them tonight, so God help us all if they end up needing mine, too. It is Gotham though. So we’ll see.
by Michele | Jan 20, 2018 | Chronicles
Dick: At this point it seems like forever ago that the so-called ‘Bat Family’ was having a get together at Wayne Manor. Complete with costumes of a different sort. During which Damien had dressed up as an Assassin, from the League of Shadows. Now only a handful of weeks removed from that? I’m walking among a litany of dead bodies wearing that same attire. The Iceberg Lounge was once the peak of society in Gotham, I suspect it will be that again. It’s owner is connected, wealthy and one of the original families of Gotham. For some reason that tends to provide those few people with Teflon. Nothing ever sticks to them for long and that includes owning the site of one of the largest mass murders in Gotham’s History.
That is what I’m looking at. Mass Murder.
Bodies lay in random order in just about every place the eyes can travel. One murder is nearly indistinguishable from the other. Gotham City’s Police Department has called in all the over-time hours that anyone can handle. Crime Scene units have been brought in from all across the Country to collect evidence and work the case. A case that every single person here already knows the answer too. This wasn’t the act of just another of Gotham’s Rogue Gallery. This was a War, between several of them.
“Penguin’s Men were thrown to the wolves. Buying him time to escape. His body is absent, he’ll be back.”
It didn’t take your Bat-Computer to figure that out. What we’re having trouble with is who the hell killed these guys?
“Slade Wilson.”
Deathstroke? Why the hell is Deathstroke involved? He working for Penguin?
“No, he was clearly taking out any and everyone that got too close.”
So he was a free agent? What the hell is going on in my City, Batman?
The Commission’s question is troubling because I don’t have the answer. Bruce always seemed to. He always knew what was going on before anyone else did. It was like his very own super power. Despite studying with him for nearly three decades, I’m stuck with the thought that I failed to pick up the one skill I needed most. Because very little of this makes sense.
“The Joker has Talia al Ghul,” this isn’t a secret, it’s been all over the news, but I’m building to something. “He’s called out the League. The League was here because of whatever was in that room.”
The Commissioner and I have been standing at a doorway. It leads in to a room that at one time resembled some sort of private members only sauna. Complete with Hot-Tub. Apparently the best damned hot tub in all of the Free World, because the body count rises the closer you get to the room. Except that the causes of death change dramatically here. Out there in the Lounge, it’s mostly Mobster on Ninja violence, but starting just before the hallway to Penguin’s office the signs of Deathstroke entering the fray become clear. Crystal clear. Culminating here, at this doorway and ending just beyond it.
“My cowl has determined that there are trace amounts of the same substance Ra’s al Ghul uses to maintain his immortality, all over the room.” Turning away from the commissioner and toward the Penguin’s office. “When the Lab Results come back and confirm that, we’ll have one of the answers to this mystery. We’ll know why this place was more important to the ‘Demon’ than his own Daughter.”
That still leaves us with a shitbag full of other questions. Like where the hell the Penguin is now? Where’s Joker taken Talia? And why the fuck did Deathstroke get involved?
“I know where Penguin is, he’s not important.”
Says you.
“I’ll know where Talia is soon.”
Wonders never cease. Pray tell when are you going to let us average Joe’s in on the secret?
“As for Deathstroke. That is a mystery to me.”
God damnit, you spent too much time with him. You’re doing that thing..
. . .
Uh. Batman. When I start to rant you’re supposed to disappear. It’s almost reassuring. Why haven’t you… oh…
The Black Canary is why. Leading one to question how she’d gotten through a crime scene without arousing any notice. Especially dressed like she is. She’s certainly got the Commissioner’s notice. He no longer seems to be blaming me for not disappearing. I like Jim Gordon. Liked him long before I began dating his daughter. He could easily be one of us between background as a Marine and his skill as a Detective. The look he gives Dinah is somewhere between properly appreciative and a look I normally see reserved for Barbara. Does he know Dinah? That’s a curious wrinkle, I wonder if Bruce ever picked up on that? He wouldn’t have any way to recognize that look in Jim’s eyes.
“Can you give us a few moments, Jim?”
Sure, but make it quick. The S.I.’s are on loan…
The man is still muttering about budgets being blown as he wanders down the hall. Meanwhile I’ve allowed my eyes to trail up the long legs of the Canary, across to the doorway to the Penguin’s office. To the giant hole in the roof there, where a rocket is even now lodged and inactive. Back to the Canary and those long legs.
“Why is Slade Wilson here.” It’s not a question, just phrased that way, because I actually did know that answer. At least in part. “You’re the only connecting dot.”
Dinah: I’d be hard pressed to make a call on whether or not tonight was a success or a total, epic failure. It’s got the notes and highlights of both. On one hand, I got the answers that I came for. Not the way I’d intended to get them, but that’s the job. You adapt, you scrap, and you salvage. No amount of ego and a positive outlook is going to make what went down at the Iceberg tonight look good though. A lot of people died tonight. Some innocent people. A lot more not at all innocent people, between the League’s assassins, and Penguin’s goons. While I’m not one of those every lives is sacred kind of people, and the deaths of the ‘soldiers’ in this fight isn’t going to keep me up at night? It’s going to make me a hell of a lot more pissed at the generals.
Neither of which gave me answers. Not on purpose anyway. But the fallout was telling. So was what we found behind that door. There were also so many more questions. It’s not the ‘more questions’ that makes this feel like a fail, either. Tim getting hurt, though it could have been much, much worse, doesn’t feel great. It is, again, the job but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Once I’d gotten him settled, I’d left. With some hope that the kid will stay put and just recuperate. Maybe I should have followed through with the thought of drugging him. After taking away the utility belt so that he couldn’t just detox when he felt the weirdness that is ‘getting sleepy.’
I’m not hurt though. I’m not really even scratched, which wouldn’t be the case if it weren’t for my partner, and the fact that I’m a meta. Otherwise blown up, shot, and stabbed might have been on my list of nightly accomplishments. It was always a possibility I could still add them now that I’m going back. Unlikely though. The fighting’s done. Everyone’s either dead, run away, or Slade Wilson. No, I don’t need a monitor in place to know that’s what happened after I bolted with Timothy Wayne and his gaggle of other dates. This time? I’m in an entirely different revealing little number. A whole lot less classy, and a whole lot more leg when it comes to fish nets, combat boots and the rest of my ensemble.
How do I get through a crime scene without arousing notice? One part knowing where not to be, another part walking like I own the joint, mixed with the moon eyed, unfocused expressions on a lot of the poor ‘out of towners’ that aren’t used to Gotham’s level for potential lethality and mayhem. This is the kind of crap they tell you about in course work, or the blown up horror stories you assume are exaggeration. Except Jim Gordon. He knows. Does he know Dinah? Yes, actually. So does a lot of the GCPD. Any of them that have been around for a while, at least. My Dad was ‘one of them.’ And his Dad. And his Dad before him. I was going to be. Until I learned some things about the real world, and found I didn’t have a taste for it anymore.
Does he know that Dinah Lance is the Black Canary who’s now strutting up the hall she’s already been in tonight once? I don’t go in for masks. I wear enough makeup, applied in the right way, that between that and where most men, and many women, look no one is going to really pick me out for who I really am. He’s also an observant man, who already has seen behind the curtain of people far more secretive and with more to lose than me. I’d wager twenty bucks that if he didn’t know before? He drew the connection between Canary and my turning back up. Old enough to be my Father, if he were still alive, doesn’t mean Gordon doesn’t get an outrageous wink as he wanders past though.
“Because he’s working for someone…?”
That’s not a question either. That’s a trailed off set of words strung together to imply a ‘well, duh.’ Which is mostly just sass, piss and vinegar. All of which I’m overflowing with tonight. I’m not in a great mood, and that makes my tongue just a hair sharper than even it would be normally.
“He was here for answers that Penguin had, too. Normally I wouldn’t assume the same answers that I wanted, but he seemed perfectly happy to sit back and watch me convince Cobblepot to talk for both of us. Which means he must have thought I would get him to say the right things.”
And not knowing Slade’s questions, there’s no way to assume Penguin would give those answers, too.
“As for me being the connection… that I don’t know. He was being much more friendly than I expected. He also heavily implied that he knows about Ollie. But as far as the carnage out there goes? He was actually staying fairly neutral. Offered to help me put down some assassins. Offered to not interfere while I worked over Penguin. Seemed a little butthurt that I wasn’t interested, honestly. I think it would have turned into a game of watching us struggle to get out of here, until I asked him, but then one of the League was stupid enough to hit him with a throwing star.”
And then… that mess out there happened.
Dick: Gordon likely knows a lot of things that he either shouldn’t or even couldn’t ordinarily know. The Commissioner is no ordinary person though, is he? If he was Bruce would never have brought him in. The way in which he’s looking at Dinah doesn’t speak for someone that is falling in to her trap though. His glasses almost fall off his head from the weight of his eyes rolling over her theatrics. Nor does it take excellent hearing to pick up the man’s muttering about ‘bird brained schemes’ and half-dressed girls that are young enough to be his daughter.
“Deathstroke isn’t an intelligence grabbing tool,” barely turning towards Dinah as we speak of Slade. “He’s a surgical knife at best, a bazooka at worst. He is not the one you send, if you’re actually wanting answers from someone like the Penguin. That means he was here for something other than asking questions. Without more information all we can do is speculate, but…”
…there’s a lot of information she’s providing that I couldn’t glean from forensics. I’m not some all-knowing, all-seeing diety. In fact, I’m not even as good as Bruce was at faking it. Nor as gifted as Tim as intuiting it. There are other tools at my disposal though. One of them happens to be that I know how to pool the resources that I do have. Dinah is certainly one of them. As long as I’m not Bruce, hiding everything from the people I work with, she has no reason to keep things from me either. This is how it works now. How it has to work in order for all of us to keep this, the City of Gotham, safe from things just like this.
There is also one other thing that Bruce would have done that I won’t. Assign blame. No, I don’t think Dinah needs absolution for all of this. I just know that she’s all too aware that Bruce would have held her accountable for everything we’re seeing. Even if it wasn’t exactly true, she was the seasoned member of the team here. She should have found a way to not let people, innocent people especially, die in the crossfire. I can tell she’s armed for that particular fight too. It makes me wonder if she is waiting for it and wanting to see if I’m going to follow in those footsteps.
“This wasn’t your fault,” I’m not even defining the ‘what’ as to which I’m saying isn’t her fault, just blanketing everything. “The League was coming here regardless. Slade was already here. The people who made it out of here? They got out because you were here.”
Pushing open that final door. The one that Alfred kept working on long after Dinah told him it was time to evacuate. The interior might have one time looked like a very upscale Roman bath-house. With a pool that extends most of the room and wall of tensured glass to allow the Penguin to keep watch over those inside, without himself being seen. The Penguin surely thought it some sort of hoot that he’d be keeping members of the High Class Society in their very own cage. Like penguins at the Zoo. That was before whatever happened here.
“The men in the hall were guarding either this room or Penguin’s escape. We can approximate their time of death due to the coagulation of the blood. In contingent with the wall-clock that stopped working. We believe that Deathstroke did his business out there. Apparently after being struck with a throwing star. Then when he was finished he came here. Putting charges in strategic places.”
Crouching to put a fingertip upon the edge of what was once the pool, so that she can see the residue that comes away on those gloves. “Penny-One was right. At one time this pool contained the particulates from a Lazarus Pit. Someone, presumably Wilson, added something to the water to neutralize it’s effects. Then blew it up. This was very precise. He countered the Pit-water, so that after blowing the charges it wouldn’t seep in to the water supply and contaminate everything around here. This is the work of someone that didn’t want collateral damage from the Lazarus Effect being wide spread across the city. He then destroyed it, so that no one else would be able to take control of it.”
“I agree with you, he’s working for someone, but whoever it is? It is not Ra’s al Ghul or the Penguin,” turning over one shoulder to look back at her. “Throwing in Ollie’s name and the fact that he’s hanging out at your Bar? You’re even more the common thread, Canary.”
Dinah: “No, he’s not. Which means he was there, getting it for himself for a job, or he was there for pleasure. Sit down meetings weren’t his style for one of those, I didn’t think, and the other? That’s actually a little more concerning to me. They seemed to be mostly getting along until I showed up.”
But playing ‘nice’ isn’t the first route I would ever see him choosing. Unless it gets him something else that he wanted. So there’s a whole new round of questions. I’m not sure that Deathstroke is a problem that we have the resources and time to deal with right now. Story of the week, huh? A problem, after a new problem, combined into a whole different problem on top of that. With answers that we’re only really piecing together with educated guesses and intuition, and some knowledge of how these individual groups usually ‘work’ and/or do things. Then you add in chaos. With people doing things you don’t expect, and couldn’t have planned for. Deathstroke here on a job? That’s definable. There’s a guided sort of mayhem to that. If he’s here just because he wants to be? Fuck. What do we even do with that?
The way I purse my lips, lift an eyebrow and cock my head at Dick makes it pretty plain I’m about to say something snarky in response to his absolution. Namely that I don’t need it. In this case? It really wasn’t. The response/action times were too grouped. If anything, we had the misfortune of being there at the wrong time just like everyone else who wasn’t on one payroll or another. I keep that snappy commentary to myself, though, because while I know I don’t need it? I also recognize that Dick is giving it. So I take the attitude down a half notch and shrug my shoulder.
“It was definitely a situation that called for the tool of last resort.” I.E. the only thing I try to not do in Gotham. Scream. “It was sideways before the League even showed up, and then it was sideways and rolling down a hill. You might give that little talk to my partner though, next time you see him. He seems to be under the impression that he failed because he was in the position of having to protect a name and everyone else at the same time. But. Thank you. I do appreciate that you’re saying it just the same.”
Following Batman to that door, in a much more unlocked and bloodied state than last time I was here, I’m also not nearly as heated this time about what Dick should, or shouldn’t talk about with his brother. Much more well meaning suggestion this time, than an order, but this time I’m not feeling quite so much like Tim’s life is at risk either. Not anymore than the rest of us at least. But. I also think that Red Robin’s starting to get a better idea of what wasn’t working. And why.
“I’d assume his escape. They went from assault/defense mode to getting the hell out of Dodge within a time frame that I would assume allowed for Cobblepot to bolt. He was still in the office when I left. With the flamethrowing Actual Penguin. Wilson went out the window about the time I hit the next floor. This being here seems like it may have been above their general paygrade, anyway.”
I don’t come in closer than the doorway, I don’t really need to and there’s no sense in crowding. He’s better equipped for the close up examination, and we already knew what was in here before. There’s just assessing the aftermath and deducing what happened. Which Dick is already doing.
“So maybe this was the job. It sounds like Wilson was willing to deal with all of Penguin’s problems. The Joker. The Hood. Maybe the League, as well, and their attacking him first just gave him a plausible excuse, while making it look like he wasn’t actually targeting them specifically.”
Or. Maybe it wasn’t a job at all. Pleasure. Clearly? He knew the Mini-Pit was here, otherwise why would he be prepared to neutralize it? Or even know to do such a thing. So who was he dealing with it for? Or… acquiring it for? Or perhaps both. The only really startling thing that Dick has to say relates to Slade and… me again. It makes me blink, pulling my head up like I’m backing away from an unpleasant smell.
“He’s what?”
That should probably fall into the things I know about category. But I only go into the bar if I need booze or coffee, or maybe something to eat and I hadn’t been down there tonight. I have my own entrance in the back, and a set of stairs that go up to my apartment. There’s a moment of strange panic about leaving Tim there hurt and by himself, even though I know he can defend himself… but if Slade were coming in guns blazing he probably already would have done so.
“What are the chances that this is all just one bloody package? All of it? Not Joker, but the rest.”
Dick: “Ordinarily, I would say that none of this works together. Ra’s isn’t a puppet. Penguin might do it for enough money, but the amount needed for him to put everything he’s worked so hard for at risk is astronomical. Factoring in Lazarus Pit, Talia and now Slade? The odds become so remote that I’m not even sure Tim could compute them without a computer.”
“But,” said as more of a sigh than anything else. “A lot of things are defying the odds lately. Too many things to be random.”
Despite this conversation, I’ve barely turned away from the ruined husk of a pool. She went right to what I’d been thinking too. It’s why I’m here, instead of keeping an eye on Damien still. Though, actually, for now he’s the safest person in Gotham. Penny-One confirmed that his Grandfather’s men took him just as we knew he would. Damien wanted to have a communion. He’s getting it. Bruce would never have allowed it, but I’ve decided not to do everything the Bruce Wayne way.
Rising finally, but not turning, just speaking too over the cloaked shoulder. “He’s been in your Bar since roughly eleven minutes after you and Robin took off your commlinks. After he finished his work here, he took up residence across the street from your bar. He was watching you. Saw the boy with the S-Shield come, have a talk with you and go. At some point, he apparently got thirsty. He’s been there ever since.”
“He’s not following you, currently. Unless he’s suddenly able to go invisible. Penny-One says he’s making friends. Telling stories to your people about old times. With you and Ollie. And before Ollie. For someone that wears their whole life so openly, you certainly have a lot of History that none of us knew about. If you get back quickly, maybe you can stop Slade from telling the entire East Coast about it.”
Dinah: “I would have said the same thing about there being a group in Gotham, with the power to scare the Demon, that your Father didn’t know about, too.”
The Wild Card. The Big Random that’s making me think that everything that makes no sense, or seems to be out of pattern and order, is all related back to it. Gotham might be a chaotic, violent place but there’s still a rhyme to it most of the time. Before Bruce died, you could even count on the crazies like Joker to have a certain… theme as well. But now he’s gone, and so the Clown Prince has apparently started branching out and looking in other corners for his answers. You take a place like this, and then you factor in grief. Anger. It’s a seething mass of bad. Or a nuclear bomb that’s just waiting for the wrong little bump to set it all into meltdown.
“Seems like we have a lot of History that I didn’t know about either, then.”
Fucking Slade Wilson. I have to assume that none of it is so bad as to have warranted a more immediate response or I could have been reached before now in order to be warned. So either they wanted to hear what Wilson had to say, or they assumed it to be a bunch of make-believe and didn’t bother to stop him. Slade, for his part? I guess assumes I actually monitor the bar and is escalating his tales in order to make me respond. Which makes me not want to, but I need to find out what the man wants. Maybe get my answers about the ‘why’ of him being here in the first place
“If I get back quickly, then Deathstroke thinks he can bring me running any time he wants, too. So I’ll head back. Slowly. You don’t need me here.”
See. He can absolve me of guilt. I can attempt to not boss, or hover, or interject myself. Dick can do this. He was already doing it when I got here. I still can’t decide if that’s comforting, or making me think that my place really is going to be in the Nest, doing the training. Either way. I push off the door frame, and start making my way back the way that I came. Avoiding the spatter turns it into a bit of a dance of not further contaminating the crime scene but… I was already here once tonight. Now, I get to retrace my steps once again, back to Pretty Bird’s, to see what one of the only deadlier people on the planet wants.
Dick: “Canary,” I know she can hear me, even as she’s making her way back down that solitary hall. “Ordinarily, this might not need to be said, but so many things are out of the ordinary right now. I’m not sure the conversation should be between Red Robin and I, this time. He’s your partner right now. You haven’t had many of those, but I’m something of an expert. Trust me when I tell you this. He needs to know you trust him and his judgment. My opinion on what happened here? Is a far second to your’s.”
“We’ve talked about roles and responsibilities, but with a focus on the things I wasn’t doing. You need to consider the same things for yourself. The younger generation is going to look to you. Take their lead from you. Whether you want to be a Leader or not, they see you as one. What you do is going to be an example to them. How you handle this. All of this. Will play out in how they handle things in the future.”
“Also,” looking up from the display of the gauntlet that’s been displaying crime scene information. “Your new partner does not sleep. Nor does he take being sidelined well. In the time since you left him to recouperate? He’s tried to save Wonder Woman’s life. Picked a fight with Superman. And is now ‘under cover’ with the Cluemaster’s Daughter. Penny-One is monitoring him. As well as Damien, who’s meeting with his Grandfather. Keep your comm-link on, so that you can be updated if anything changes.”
“And. So that we can monitor you too.”
Dinah: “I’ve already told him as much. I can always tell him again for good measure, though. That’s kind of my M.O..”
Sometimes I just get the impression that maybe Tim Drake thinks I’m just being nice to him, or going easy. Which isn’t usually my way. I’m pretty much clinically incapable of not telling someone to their face if I think it’s a very bad idea, whatever it is that they’re doing. I suppose I didn’t tell him that playing at being Batman was a bad idea, but since I was in the roll of moral support at the time it didn’t seem wise. Maybe, in hindsight, I was being soft. I hadn’t felt like I was at the time, though.
“So what you’re saying is I shouldn’t go home and get drunk with Deathstroke. Check. I’ll do my best.”
It’s not what he meant, and I know it. Ideally the wink back over my shoulder would convey that kind of thing. This is a new gig for me. Role model. Ugh. Fighting? That I’ve been doing almost my whole life. Fighting real opponents with life and death stakes for coming up on half of it. Or it feels like it sometimes. It’s not just about kicking their asses either. That much I do know. Because I know why Ted Grant kicked mine as hard as he did. Because of those stakes.
“…okay, seriously what the actual fuck is going on with this city this week?”
Since he didn’t say anything about Tim going to Metropolis, and Conner was clearly here when I saw him last, I assume it’s all gone down in our fair city’s limits. Pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers, I take a deep breath. Maybe I didn’t drink enough to deal with tonight, and not the other way around. I already knew, or at least suspected that Tim doesn’t sleep. I’m rethinking not drugging him. I also know that Tim, tonight at least? Was pretty damn aware of his own limitations and so I’m going to have to trust that he thinks he can handle what he’s doing. Or maybe that he has a death wish if he’s trying to fight the Super, and throw himself in with that grade of problems. And Stephanie? Well. She’s the one out of all of those names least capable of handling herself, though she’s a whole lot improved since Red Robin drug his little foundling into the cave. Hopefully improved enough, depending upon what they’re doing but…
No. Dinah. Focus.
“Sure thing, Big Brother.”
Monitoring isn’t ever exactly what I want, but I also know the benefits of it. Especially right now. It’s why a comm is about the only piece of tech I’ll wear out in the field without a whole lot of bitching about it. There’s a sloppy little salute/wave, before I turn my ass around, no longer progressing backwards, for the stairs.
by Michele | Dec 4, 2017 | Chronicles
Steph: #FirstWorldVigilanteProblems
There’s a saying about Hell and a hand basket. The thing is, it doesn’t really every apply to Gotham, because one part or another of it is basically already always there. Another one about a fresh Hell. Again. Doesn’t work because technically none of this is fresh and/or new. Joker being a homicidal, creepy-ass freak? Bi-Weekly sort of engagement. League of Shadows has a ninja horde beef with someone? Semi-annual. Some D-List baddie has it in his mind that this is his moment? Normal Tuesday night. Or it was. Until Batman was gone and this weird sort of hush settled on the place. No one wanted to make a move, because no one wanted that spotlight of attention and blame. Apparently it was really just the eye of the hurricane settling over us. Because now? The rest of it’s rolled in.
And it’s like all the worst parts of every postal holiday, with none of the upsides all rolled into one. Complete with the forced spending of time with family. And like most of the rest of my life, I’m kind of helpless to do anything about it. ONLY I SHOULDN’T BE. For the first time, I’ve got training (some) and a suit (it’s still kickass) and all the gadgets and a circle of people that tolerate me that are much better at handling this crap than I am. They’re probably out handling it right now, in fact while me? I’m off the grid. Because I’m completely, and legally, on it.
Gotham City. Where the crooks are everywhere, and the legal system either is in their pocket, or wide-eyed and manically hopeful that this time… this time they’re going to have a poster child to use for their rehab programs and that this time, they’re going to have really made a difference. That’s me. Poster child and sacrificial lamb, because obviously a repentant criminal who’s seen the error of their ways, and is back on the straight and narrow should be able to appeal for joint custody now that they’re out of jail. And. Totes a good guy. Only he’s not. And here I am. Stuck with him just the same. One weekend a month. The first weekend since I caught onto the scheme (which was the last time I had to be here), and I fought with my Mom about it. Argued. Stamped my foot. But she’s got something going on this weekend, and doesn’t trust me at home alone apparently.
So. Daddy/Daughter time it is. Gotham’s imploding, but by all means… lets follow the Idiot Court’s orders. Great job, CPS. Kudos. Really.
I don’t want to be here, and I made sure everyone, and anyone, who would listen knew about it. Well. At school anyway. At home. I haven’t been able to get back to the ‘Batcave’ since the night Joker branched out into television programming, there was no side trips allowed by Mom between Mom’s place and my Dad’s. And seriously. Who has doors that lock from both sides? Oh wait. My Dad, the D-List not-so-supervillain. That’s who. On the upside, there were boxes of Eggo waffles in the freezer. Clear bribery. He gets better cable, too. Judging by the three hundred and counting flicks of nothing interesting that I’ve gone through, while silently counting down the time in my head.
Two more minutes.
Tim: There’s nothing on television. Nothing at all. Channel surfing is one of life’s little tortures. A good cable plan gives you hundreds of channels, but there never seems to be anything on. Until you finally find that one thing that doesn’t bother you. It’s not exactly what you want to watch, but it doesn’t make you angry having it on. For what is likely the nine hundred time this year. You know what it’s like. That one movie you liked the first time, but now you’ve seen it so many times you can recite the lines to yourself (or others if they’re in range of hearing). Sure, you don’t like it as much as you once did, but it doesn’t make your ears bleed putting it on.
One of the lines is certainly not, “Jesus. I never thought he would leave. That was painful to watch.”
Nope. That isn’t your movie Stephanie Brown. It’s the Boy Wonder. Who isn’t nearly as imposing when he’s not appearing out of nowhere dressed as a six foot bat that terrorizes the Gotham Underworld. This is a little bit of a different sort of impression. This isn’t even the same costume she saw me in before, when I first met her on the rooftops. This is version 3.0 of the Red Robin outfit. More in the style of a flight suit, less in the vein of ‘Scare you to Death’. It has some perks though, which was important for today’s outing. Between the stealth tech which turns the entire red-color scheme off, darkening it to allow for blending in to the shadows of her apartment and the technology that is woven in to the very fabric of the outfit itself? It shouldn’t be half as comfortable as it actually is. Nor as easy to move as it turns out to be. No cape to slip on. No horns to catch in closing doors.
With one hand, I flip what looks like a gameboy with a pok-e-mon skin to her. The other hand carefully remains at my side, even when I flip over the arm of the couch to crash down on it next to her. “Gotta catch’em all. Figured you might be a little bored. What with the whole mandated custodial visitations and such.”
That’s not entirely untrue, but it really doesn’t happen to cover the real reason I’m here. Instead of out there. The world out beyond the walls of this apartment is going to hell in a hand basket. The League of Shadows has descended upon Gotham. An alien space crafted landed in the harbor. Nowhere has arrested Dinah’s ex-boyfriend. Damien’s mother has been kidnapped by the Joker. It does not take a super-genius to know that I shouldn’t be here. Not right now.
“You’re one of the team now, Steph. Did you really think we’d let you disappear at a time like this without us noticing and looking in to it?”
Steph: The sound that comes out of me is about as far from ‘cool’ as one can possibly make. The combination of I just stepped barefoot on a slug and walking face first into a really big, really gnarly cobweb, with maybe a bit less disgust in the tonal mix. It also sounds suspiciously like a number at first, because I went from counting down the seconds since Dadmonster left the ‘condo,’ or what passes for one in this part of town. Row house is probably a better descriptor. Super narrow, which takes away from the multiple floors. Anyway. Not the point. He left, bolted the door, there’d been some carrying on about it that I like to think was pretty convincing given the looks I’d been giving the guy since I got shoved in the front door after school. He actually looked about as excited to see me as I was to see him, which had been a little confusing on my end.
If I was going to be stuck here all weekend, while everyone else was probably out dealing with the crapstick that is Gotham City right now? I could at least try to get some of my own work done. Not homework. I did that already. That was my method for ignoring Arthur Brown for the first stretch that I was here. When he finally left? I didn’t try any of the windows, or look for another means of escape. Unlike my Mom, and her very predictable shifts at the hospital, I have absolutely no way of knowing when he’ll be back.
Once I’m done flailing on the other side of the couch, and no longer threatening to tip over the armrest, I can properly side-eye the uninvited guest. Who has clearly been here a while, or I would have heard the window, exactly how long he got to watch the elegant ballet of two people who are stuck with one another and desperately want to be somewhere else…I couldn’t say. We’re just going to stick with ‘awhile.’ There’s so many options available to start my side of this conversation, probably something witty, or funny, or maybe we’ll just go with rude for scaring me like that.
“…how many suits do you have?”
Yup. Nope. Obviously and pointless. That was what we went with. I can’t help wondering if they do this all the time. The musical capes charade. Last time I saw him, he was Batman, and it kind of feels like some weird, mean practical joke may or may not have been going on at my expense. Except he was actually nice and encouraging with the black on. So…maybe the black Red Robin suit means I’m going to get something in between. Guess we’ll see. The hand that had the remote in it, before it went flying to who knows where in my spaz moment picks up the gameboy. Frankly. Looks a little low tech for him. Which means either that’s part of the joke, too, or it’s something else entirely.
“How do you know about… because you know everything. Right.”
That’s not even sarcasm right there. That’s just me honestly answering my own question before I flip the handheld game open. Even the things I thought maybe I still had as a secret have more or less gone out the window at this point. Which means somewhere there’s a whole lot written down about me, which isn’t that off base there was an awful lot of interviews with some really annoying social workers pretty much annually out there. Which I have no doubt they can get access to. All the boring bits about my life. This part? Probably wasn’t even hard to get to. Public record. And if you already know the name of Arthur Brown and Crystal Bellinger’s, formerly Brown, daughter the whole classified part doesn’t really matter.
“But um. Thanks.”
For the gameboy and…what he’s just said right there I suppose though I’m still looking out of the corner of my eye at him like Tim’s some weird bug. My face slowly turns in his direction as I talk though. I’m not entirely sure how to take that. I’m also very aware that if he was saying that with the Batsuit on, I would probably take it an entirely different way than my head wants to right now. Maybe it’s just my general mood, or some low-grade PTSD.
“I figured you guys were probably busy. But. No. I mean. It wasn’t exactly on purpose, I just don’t have the number for the Batcave. I didn’t mean to make anyone …’ Worried sounds too invested. Pick a new word, Brown! “Concerned. Wait. One of the team not like… sidegrade liability of the team? Gosh. I’d offer you a celebratory snack but I don’t have any idea how long that box of cookies has been in the cupboard. It was up there last time I was here and I didn’t want to touch it then, either.”
Tim: The look on my face tells the story of someone who isn’t the least bit phased by her commentary. Do I know everything? No, but I sure like people thinking I do. Most of the time. In this case though, Stephanie hadn’t known enough to conceal her identity when we first met. Not in a way that would or could stop me from looking in to her. Once I got her name, I was off to the races of finding out everything there is to know about Stephanie Brown. Not exactly an exciting autobiography, but at this age who of us can actually make that claim? Not me. Not until this last six months at the very least. Knowing who Steph is meant knowing her her life. Then finding out her Father’s identity meant having to dig deeper. I couldn’t bring her to the Nest, if she was a plant. That’s been tried before.
Fortunately for all involved, Stephanie’s disgust over her father’s faked rehabilitation? Is either Oscar Worthy or Genuine. Not many people can fool me once I’ve seen their face. “Counting the ones in my closet back home? I think twelve or thirteen. Unless we’re not counting the ones that include a tie? Then it narrows that number down to four. Though, I suppose one of those four is technically not mine. Never really was, but certainly isn’t now. So let’s call it three.”
Tapping the Gameboy with a finger tip, to bring her attention to it. “Covert Surveillance Computer. It plays games too. Geeze, you’re looking at me like I’m some sort of nerd or something.”
“While you and your Dad were playing the ‘Who can be more uncomfortable in their silence’ game. I was putting a microbe transmitter in to his Coffee. You should be able to track him with that,” pointing her in the direction of the disguised micro-computer. “The microbe isn’t powerful enough to show up on most forms of detection, but it should allow you to get a general feel for where he’s going, gone or when he’s coming back. If you have time this weekend, you should try to put some of the microbes on his cell phone or any sort of computers he might use. We’ll be able to hack in and see what he’s doing. Or listen to his calls.”
She’s giving me such a look, which she might think I’m missing but the fact is that I rarely miss facial cues. It’s one of the many little quirks that I’ve had for a long time. Reading people. They’re all like living crime scenes. Once you figure out the clues, you can know what they’re really saying. It tells a sort of truth of it’s own. Right now Stephanie’s face is a clouded mask of confusion, skepticism and her normal sense of generally being an open book.
Kicking my feet up on the inn-table and reclining back in a way that says ‘getting comfortable.’ That’s all a clue to the fact that I’ve got no other plans on being elsewhere. Not right now. At least. I’m half-way to putting my hands behind my head, when the rotator cuff flares with enough pain to leave me wincing. She’s not wrong, there are a hundred places I should probably be other than on Stephanie’s couch. But, after the Iceberg Lounge….
“They are busy, for sure. Right now you’re not the liability though,” rubbing at my shoulder, as I start to explain, honestly. “You might say I’ve been pulled from the starting line-up. Put on injured reserve. That wouldn’t be entirely untrue. But. I was worried about leaving you alone during all of this. I’m pretty sure I can beat your Dad up with only one arm.”
Steph: Oh, it’s genuine. So very, very genuine. My level of love and forgiveness for the man was pretty much exhausted when he went to prison the last time. On the upside, that time resulted in my Mom cleaning up her act. But whatever shred of positive feelings I might have been able to dredge up for Arthur Brown was drug out in the alley way and executed when I was here the last time and stumbled on this next, newest and greatest plot of his. Whatever it actually is. And that was a very small amount of feelings anyway. I’m not even pretending right now. I don’t want to be here. I didn’t understand why he wanted me here in the first place, and that made Tim’s theories about him and why I’d found those breadcrumb trails stick in my mind. Was it on purpose? And was it because he thought I’d be cool with joining the family ‘business’ or because he secretly wanted someone to catch him and with Batman supposedly gone there wasn’t anyone out there to do it?
I don’t think it’s the latter. As far as I could tell, he was seizing the moment because Batman was gone. Either way. I’m here, and this time? It was pretty clear that he didn’t want me here either. I bet because he has something more criminal he’d rather be doing than spending time with his teenager.
“Huh. That’s too bad. It was a pretty good ‘look’ on you.”
It certainly isn’t now? That’s kind of telling. Means someone else is probably wearing it, out dealing with all the usual Gotham crap, multiplied by four, and that’s why Tim’s here in my Dad’s house checking up on me. With presents. But I mean it. I thought he’d done a pretty good job as Batman, plus my time spent with him while he was wearing it? A hell of a lot more pleasant than the times he’s turned up in a version of what he’s got on now. Turning the device over in my hands, my eyebrows lift in an appreciative look while I let a low whistle out between my teeth.
“Niiiice. And you are kind of a super nerd, from my limited observation, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean. So long as you’re not using it for villainy. Sounds like a much more efficient method than count to six hundred Mississippi’s and pray. Especially since you made me lose count around four-eighty.”
I will most certainly be doing all of those things. And taking great satisfaction in it, too. Though the look on my face says I just spent a second or two contemplating where else he’s stuck those things. Invasion of privacy when it’s me. Justified when it’s against my Dad. I’d been wishing I had my suit, and all of its doohickies but there was definitely not any chance I was going to bring the thing here. I don’t even take it home, because I don’t want to risk anyone else finding out who’s under Spoiler’s mask. So the gift? Welcome. The ideas? I won’t even balk over them not being my own because they’re good. It still definitely doesn’t explain why I’ve got a Red Robin making himself comfortable in the living room, when I could literally see Assassins moving around out there last time I looked out the window.
The only person I’m really in any danger from would be Dad, here, and he’s gone for… a while hopefully. Staying off the streets and hunkering down is kind of a default mode a good and smart Gothamite falls back into in these kind of scenarios. But he’sRed Robin, and could probably have dropped off the hand held and left without me really having time to process that he’s here. I’m about to ask, when he starts to supply the answers on his own. Explaining the presence, and his wince. All makes total sense. Except maybe the worried part. Tim Drake was apparently from the Narrows, too, before he became a Wayne. He knows how it goes, then.
“…because you were worried that he would do something stupid, or because you were worried that I would?”
I’m okay though. Stir crazy maybe, but I was just waiting until I thought he’d been gone long enough to start doing some snooping. And then…subsequent freaking out over every little noise…Yeah. His way is better. With the tracker. And the nerd stuff. Harper’d love it.
Tim: Maybe there’s a momentary look at Stephanie that I couldn’t control. A pretty good look? I’m not sure how to take that really. Times like these make me think I should learn how to talk to people the normal way, instead of relying on deductive reasoning and logic to interpret their meanings. It leaves me a little clueless at times about the more simpler forms of communication. This leaves me thinking she’s trying to spare my feelings, but I already know the truth there. It truly is in the simple math of that problem.
“Do you mean it looked good on me, despite being six inches too short, a hundred pounds too light and about three Olympic weight lifter classes weaker?” Though I’m smiling, there’s a definite sense of displeasure in saying all of those things out loud. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to spare my feelings by holding off on the jokes. I never should have put the suit on, but.. y’know… the City needs the Batman. Not -a- Batman. The Batman.”
Some people don’t understand that. It can’t just be anyone in that suit. Hell, it shouldn’t be someone with the skills but lacking the personality either. Batman is the sum of the whole. You need to be smart enough to figure the job out. Skilled enough to get the job done. All wrapped up in the ethics needed to know when enough is enough. If you’re missing any one of those things, you’re just a guy in a suit. For better or worse, that’s what I was. Just a guy in the suit. Smart enough, sure. The ethics weren’t my problem. I lack the tools to do the job, the way that the Batman would do them.
While I’m mulling this over, I can’t help but notice that Stephanie is giving me the side-eye again. Her question is a good one, but I’m not entirely sure that I know the answer. At least, not entirely. “Let’s go with a little of both. I was worried that you’d do something to tip your hand and then he’d do something stupid that you’re not quite ready for. Yet.”
“I went through at least four alternative plans, before settling on the stealth approach too. There was ‘Batsuit, throttle Cluemaster while Stephanie swoons.’ That was my early draft plan, but … sidelined, y’know. Then there was ‘Wayne Foundation Scholarship’ plan, which involved showing up in a limo. But. Then I remembered where you lived. It was down to ‘Infiltration’ or ‘Wayne Foundation Internship’ plan. But you objected so much to being called Robin, that I was sure you’d turn down wearing a skirt and fetching me coffee during board meetings. Seeing your Face when your Father’s greed had him signing you up? Almost won out anyway, but I rolled some dice and voila… microbes, game boy and stealthy approach are what you got.”
Steph: See, now I’m the one getting weird looks. Like I’ve just said something in a weird, gibberish language and he’s wondering if I’ve been drugged or thumped in the head too many times. I’d say the latter could be a possibility, but brutal as Canary is? She doesn’t tend to leave bruises in places that will be visible at school, or cause lasting brain trauma. As a favor, of course, which she’ll spell out for you in the knocked you on your face debrief. I could have broken your nose and snapped your blahblahblah but… It doesn’t take a brainiac or ace detective to deduce that he doesn’t agree. I end up shrugging my shoulders, and not even making much in the way of the jokes.
“Okay, so you looked a little shorter but my only up close reference was like. Eight years ago so I just figured watching the ass beating, and the general state of Bat-looming made him look taller than he really was.”
Which wouldn’t really be that big of a deterrent I don’t think. Somehow, I doubt six inches of height and a hundred pounds lighter made that guy whose kneecaps he broke feel better about the situation. Most people don’t get close to Batman out there, and when they do it’s because they’re in deep, deep trouble. Or getting saved. In either case? Probably more worried about a lot of things, or grateful for them, than something like that.
“I’m pretty sure someone told me I shouldn’t have put on a cape and hood either.” Ahem it may have been you. Or everyone in the universe hypothetically speaking. “Hasn’t stopped me from doing it anyway. But. It did look good on.” Oh, God why Stephanie why. “And you were…different. Good different.”
I.E. Not a total dick. Dick that gave me a badass suit and signed me up for getting my ass kicked lessons, but…still kind of a dick. Interacting with him as Batman had been like a totally different person under there. Someone that made me feel like I could maybe actually do this. Though. Hearing what were definitely concerns about doing it himself, maybe a lot of that was projecting. I don’t know. Boy. I kind of masochistically want to hear the answer to that one, because vigilante self-esteem or lack thereof isn’t going to stop me from carrying out this vendetta of mine but… it was sure nice to have some for a little bit. It’d really suck to think he was only building me up to try and maybe do some of that for himself, too.
But as far as I was concerned, and for all that it mattered what I thought? Tim had been Batman. And I thought he’d been pretty good.
“Hah. Well. Luckily for everyone involved, it doesn’t take much acting to pretend like I don’t want anything to do with him, so we haven’t had any conversations about my fun, new extra-curricular activities. And he hasn’t startled me into judo chopping him in the throat. Yet. …kindahopingthatone’snotoffthetable … But this is the first time he’s left since I got dropped off.”
I feel like I should be insulted. I’ve gone almost a month without alerting the parent that actually knows jack about me. I can probably make it four days without putting up an ‘I’m Spoiler, and I’m going to GET you, my pretty!’ banner.
“Throttling is still on the table though? I bet I’d like it better this time than last time. Kind of would rather do it myself if we’re being totally honest. There’s so much wrong with all those other plans I like. Can’t even, though.”
Limo he eliminated himself, fortunately. Which is good. Because he knows all the reasons why that would probably have been a bad plan. Starting with ‘sore thumb,’ and ‘target for enterprising criminals.’
“You’d never get your coffee. I’d drink it. And it sounds like I’m out of the Robin gig anyway. Glad I didn’t get those shirts made. That would have been awwwwkward.”
Tim: “Bzzzt. Wrong, at least about some of that. It made a big difference. I couldn’t do the things Batman does. Not even close. I was compensating, constantly. Trying to hold it together like a magician, but being the Batman is a lot more than smoke and mirrors. Some of the people the Batman deals with are better than others. They’re intelligent, observant, and stable. Insane, sure, but they have the tools to exploit weaknesses. Two-Face would have caught on to all the things you did and more. Joker would have noticed in a heart-beat. Hell, from what I hear Penguin didn’t even believe it was the real Batman and he never even encountered me. So all he had to go on was second hand rumors and news clippings from Central City.”
What bothers me is that I know that I’m right, but I also know that Stephanie is too. Which is why I stop trying to prove myself right and accept what she’s said as her belief. She’s giving me what might be the only compliment that I heard about my amazingly short stint as the Caped Crusader. “I.. well… I know that the Batman was supposed to scare the bad guys, but at one time Bruce wanted the Batman to be about more. He saw it as a chance to give the City hope to believe in. I wanted to find that again. The City needs it, but so does the World. Our country is in a bad place. We don’t need our heroes giving our kids nightmares right now.”
“Oh. Uh. You didn’t mean… you meant I was different with you, specifically didn’t you?” Now I’m scratching at the back of my head a little uncomfortably. “Well. Uh. You see. I didn’t want you to be in this life. So I was trying to scare you away from it. But you didn’t scare easily. Or at all really. Then you made it through that first week with Canary and… you deserved a chance that Bruce never gave most of us.”
“Yeah. I mean. You’re barely skirting by in half of your classes. Who the hell would believe you won a scholarship, am I right?” When I flash the smile it’s because I’m giving as good as I’m getting for once. No somber, stoic Batman gaze that doesn’t react to any of her jokes. Just a quick return on the investment, with one of my own. “Yeah. So Limo was out. Scholarship was out. But I’m happy to re-evaluate the throttling plan. As long as we can negotiate. How about throttling is allowed, but only if you throat punch him with my half-full coffee cup, while wearing the intern skirt? If you can manage that I’m all in.”
Oh, I’d be laughing too. If it weren’t for the state of my ribs. Or my shoulder. One knee. Possible concussion. Yeah, no. I’m going to keep my belly-laughter to a minimum for now, thanks. “I wouldn’t cancel my order for those shirts yet, if I were you. But. Eggplant and Red Robin sounds like a dynamic duo of it’s own. Ugh. Nevermind. That just sounds like what one of those terrible fast-food joints at the Mall tries to sell for ten bucks a plate.”
Steph: “What do I know, right? I’m no seasoned, grizzled quadruple black belt that can do a Wuxi finger hold. Yet. I’m just one of the many non-criminal shmucks that happens to have the crummy luck of living down here. And believe me. I never cared how tall Batman was. Just that he was there. It is about more than making assholes wet their pants. It’s about people in the worst, most hopeless parts of Gotham thinking that someone out there cares what happens to them, and is willing to do something about it.”
Woah. Down, girl. I realize my tone is starting to get…heated. Impassioned like I’m about to go on a rant to outdo my infamous soapbox speech when the school couldn’t find money in its ‘budget’ to maintain the coffee machine in the cafeteria anymore. Seriously. We’re teenagers, not idiots, and we know how vending contracts work. Clearing my throat, I pull myself back before spreading my hands with another shrug.
“When I was little, I used to sneak out on the fire escape and watch, because I really wanted to see… uh. You know what, nevermind. I don’t need to tell you about that. But, erm. Yes. I did mean with me. I guess you could have been different with everyone, but…wasn’t there. Small frame of reference. I kind of get the impression that all of you got the disapproving looks and then… here you are anyway.”
Because something was more important to them, too. Than any head shaking or judgement that came their way. I don’t know the specific reasons. Not for a single one of them. I don’t really need to, though. The determination and dedication is pretty easy to read. None of them are doing this because someone made them, they’re doing it because they need to. For probably all kinds of different reasons, that amount to the same thing. Showing up. Kicking ass. Apparently getting their asses kicked sometimes, if lame-wing Red Robin here on my couch is any gauge. Lame-wing Red Robin who very nearly gets me to rise to his teasing bait. Skating by in my classes. Hmph! My life would have a lot more sleep in it if I were just skating by with my school work. It’s a good thing I’m probably done growing already, or all the caffeine I’ve been inhaling might end up stunting something important.
“That seems like a really complicated, super situational set of terms.”
And I’m pretty sure someone will throttle my Dad, hopefully me someday, without any sort of hoops or agreements to go through. I can even bypass the throat punches, satisfying as that sounds, I just want him in jail where he belongs, and without the satisfaction of succeeding in his plan. Whatever it might ultimately be leading to.
“….yuuuuum…. ahem. Sorrynotsorry. I’ve been holding that in like. For a month.”
Hopping off the couch cushion, the gameboy’s shoved in the front pocket of my sweatshirt, with a moment spared to look at what the channel surfing had actually landed on. Hallmark channel and its countdown to Christmas. So many sappy movies. So many unrealistic stories. So much of an awful train wreck and oh God I need to leave right now, it’s sucking me in… spinning rather forcefully back to facing Tim, I jerk my thumb towards the narrow staircase in the back of the living room.
“So. Uh. You feel free to watch Romance at Reindeer Lodge …GodwhydoIknowthat… if you’re sticking around. I’m going to go see if I can’t find any of the things the douchemonster doesn’t want me to see in here. He was both super in a hurry to leave earlier and super unwilling to leave me here. The leaving clearly won eventually. Not that I blame him..”
Tim: What does she know? Well, the irony is that she seems to know quite a bit. Maybe not how to hack the NSA. Probably not how to pull a finger print off a car door without a kit or tape. But she knew all about how to get information without having to go through the City Planner’s office. She caught on to her Father’s machinations. It took very little for her to see the patterns and piece together that Red Robin and Timothy Wayne have the same jawline. How much does Cassie know? Maybe a whole lot more than the rest of us give her credit for.
She’s strolling down memory lane when all of a sudden she stops. Now a smart boy lets her finish doing as she will and changing the subject, but I’ve never been accused of being smart when it comes to the Ladies. “… you really wanted to see the Batman? Funny story. I did the same thing. Except one night, I actually did see him. Robin too. It was something special too. Every second of that first meeting is emblazoned in my mind.”
“Of course, it had to be. Given than I spent the next two years of my life examining the memory from every angle.” Watching her, as she is watching me and the rest of the room, leaves me with a canted head, plus a whole lot of refusing to let that be the end of this line of talk. “The only disapproving looks that I ever got were from the Batman himself. See, I didn’t have what you have. There’s no skeleton in my closet. No dead family member. No criminal undertow that pulled me in to all of this. So when I tried to make this my life? I didn’t just get old no, Steph. I’m one of the ones who got told to get out or else.”
“But. I wouldn’t give up. I couldn’t. I didn’t know why then and I don’t now. I just couldn’t stop myself. There was something driving me to help these people. Help people like you. Do something better. Make the world nice for about thirteen seconds. Batman only took me in after I kept going, and going, and almost got my entire family killed. He saved them. Saved me. He looked me in the eyes and knew it’d happen again. But that he might not be there to save them next time. So he took me in, like I took you in. He did it to drive me to fail, to wash out. I never gave up and I see those qualities in you too.”
“Those qualities and half-a-case of snark, a side of shade and two spoonfuls of spite. She’s got Red Robin jokes. Swell. Remind me again, Eggplant. Where’d you get that first cape of your’s?”
Then she’s up and starting to what? She’s going to snoop in to her father’s things. Pfft. As if she’s leaving me here when she’s doing that. Someone has to oversee, to make sure she’s not overlooking something. Albeit with some very ginger movements and more than a little grumbling about how I’d just gotten comfortable. “So. No skirt. No coffee. No romantic movie. No throat punching. You’re really making this in to a terrible date…. Gasp!.. and now I know the secret origin of the Spoiler name.”
Steph: I don’t need to know how to hack the NSA, either. Didn’t need to know how to do a lot of things before the last few weeks, though. I just have the skills and attention to detail that living in a place like this makes you acquire if you want to get out of it on the other side with only a mild case of psychological trauma. I pay attention. I listen, even when it seems like I’m not because I’m. Well. Me. And I store away those things I’ve heard and seen for later, on the off chance that I’m going to need them. I’d brought myself up short of sharing some sappy/embarrassing childhood memories, so color me more than a little surprised when he steers that bull back around to share his own instead of just trying to get me to spill mine. Still. I’m pretty aware that my face is flushing a little at admitting it.
“Yeah. I really wanted to see Batman. Probably would have had better luck in that neighborhood if I’d done more than just…watch the moon for a silhouette like he was Santa Clause or something. I mean. It’s the Narrows. Odds were always pretty good for a showing.”
And then when I finally did see the Bat? It was in my living room. Happy Birthday to Stephanie! I realize he’s spelling out what makes him tick, his why, and despite being pretty open about mine, probably to the point of dead horse abuse, I hadn’t really expected to get his. So maybe it wasn’t the change in outfit that changed our interactions after all. Just. Situations changing. Seems I wasn’t completely wrong either, about the projecting. But at least it’s not in a bad way. I remind him of himself. I guess for most people, that’d be reason to try and bully someone out of something. Maybe doubly so if you weren’t sure if you chose the best path or not. I purse my lips for a half-second when he talks about his parents because… he says Batman saved them but he was adopted by Bruce Wayne. Which means something happened to them after that, at some point. You don’t get adopted by someone when your parents are still alive. Even if they’re awful.
“I borrowed it from school. Also I’m really only one spoonful of spite. Maybe one and a half if I’m cranky at my Mom. You don’t have to get up, whiner. Don’t let me keep you from your sappy holiday movie. There’s a bag of peas in the freezer over there, Mr. Made It a Horrible Date All On His Own. And I told you the origin like. The first time I met you. Wait. Why are we talking about dates…”
I rather intentionally start wandering off on that last question because. That was out loud where it shouldn’t have been and boy. All the mortifying things I ever said to ‘Batman’ I have a feeling are about to start creeping back up again. Clearly I need a do-over with the New Batman, whoever that is. He might not have outright said there was one but… connecting the dots that have been put out for me there. Not actually up the stairs, instead I’m ducking around into the space behind them, peering at the super awesome, and super seventies wood paneling on the wall.
“Right..about…”
I look behind me, of all places, to the tiny little nook of a kitchen. Take a step to the left so that I’m even with the sink, and then another forward until I’m pushing against the wall. There’s a give to it. I can feel it. It’s a crappy old building so that’s going to happen some even on solid walls.
“…Here. Do they all do this?”
I guess I could be asking about the hidden doors, which I’ve now located, and pushed open so it swings out of the way and reveals a staircase.
“…not the lairs. I mean. You have a lair. The insanity. Exact same things, over and over again, thinking that this time? Oh, man, this time they’re totes going to win?”
It’s not the same house that we lived in when I was eight, but this whole neighborhood is basically cookie cutter, cheap ass row houses, crammed together with no originality or variation. I watched from the sink in a different, but totally the same, building while freaking Cluemaster got Batman’s fist fed to him, basically where I’m standing now. Right outside the door to his secret ‘lair.’ Clearly there’s just some things he can’t be bothered to be original about. At least right now he’s living alone. Except one weekend a month.
Tim: “Truth is, if he knew you were looking? He probably avoided being seen. Bruce never saw himself as the Inspiration he hoped to be. He hoped, but he grew up not far removed from a generation of Heroes that took the blame for everything that went wrong.”
He then lived long enough to see History repeat itself.A fact that is never going to settle well with me. I mean, how could it? Whatever has happened to him, I have to carry the knowledge forward that Bruce never got to make the Batman in to the Hero he always wanted to be. Or rather, he never knew the Batman was that Hero. Clearly some of us knew differently. Two prime examples right here. But then we’re a product of the Narrows. Where Heroes come in the worst shapes and sizes, because normal Heroes get chewed up and spit out here. There’s no Supermen down here, is there?
My Parents survived my first little effort to become a Super-Hero. She’s right though. Eventually something happened. I should have known that it would. You can’t live this life and come out of it unscathed. Truthfully, I’d known that intellectually. I just didn’t understand that it might not be me, directly, that would pay the price for my choices in the end. Sometimes your weakness is the people you love, who can’t defend themselves from the enemies you make of the world around you.
“Truthfully? Yeah. Most of them do. You can almost set your watch by some of them. It never really stops them from being Dangerous though. They make the same choices, same mistakes, but there is always a wrinkle. They’ll spend their time in jail wondering about what they did wrong. So when they get out, they correct their one mistake. The really bad ones. The Jokers of the World. They’re the ones who really make it rough. Because they never do the same thing twice. Each time you encounter them, it might be the same old smile or joy buzzer, but it’s like you’re meeting someone new under the hood each time.”
By the time I’m done talking she’s found the lever for her Dad’s secret lair. I feel like I should be joining her, but I’m moving a bit slow for more reasons than one. “I did not make this a horrible date, I brought you presents and everything. I was all ready to snuggle in with Hallmark movies, cheetos and lime soda, but you’re all ‘Secret Evil Lair’ and totes ignoring my torn rotator cuff, bruised sternum, separated ribs. Multiple contusions and lacerations.”
Steph: “That sounds better than I just never saw him because he didn’t fly across the moon when I was looking up there. Also less like I was six.”
Though the truth is, even after I saw him up close and in person, I still kept looking. I’m not looking for a light switch. In my experience, these houses like to make you trek to the bottom of the perilous stairs before you actually get a chance to find one. Plus, even if there was one up here? I may pretty much hate my Dad, and he may pretty much suck at everything, but this has all seemed very much more… long game than anything else I know of him doing before. Not just a bank heist. Not just a jewelry store robbery. Not just smuggling something into and out of a warehouse again. it’d been all those things, like some elaborate sort of shell game and it’s enough to have me a little…paranoid. Or maybe the image of Nightwing zapping the hell out of Canary is still fresh enough in my mind that I don’t want to touch much of anything.
So I’m pulling my cell phone out of the pocket the gameboy disappeared into, and turning on the flash to check the landing. Technically a lot more care and caution than I use like. Ever. But it’s my Dad’s place. I’m the only one in here. I’m going to be the obvious conclusion to draw for ‘who done it’ if he noticed his stuff is messed up.
“…like Clock King…? Heh.”
I couldn’t help it. Really. Some of the loons in Gotham are just an incredibly special brand of…whatever the hell that is. The rest of the world? They get the grand and destructive sounding baddies. Here we get a range. From ludicrous, to insane, to oh God please never let me get within two blocks of that out in the dark.
“At my Dad’s house. Also that sounds completely awful and intriguing at the same time.” Clarify, Steph. “The cheetos and lime soda combo. Not the snuggling and romantic movies. Which I have never even vaguely considered. Ever. Nope. I offered you frozen peas. And sitting there while I do all the hard work.”
I assume he’s just teasing about the whole date thing. Over and over. See? Mortifying moments coming back to bite me, just like I knew they would. If there was any way to make me feel more brave about trooping down into the evil lair of doom? Clearly, this is the tactic to take.
“Seriously, what did you do? Try to chest bump a moving semi? How do you even get that suit on with one arm? Not. That I’ve been checking out the suit. And you in the suit and… I have my own suit, I know how hard they are to get on with two arms okay? …stop looking at me…”
Going downstairs now. They’re rickety, but not actually as bad as the ones that go up. I don’t know if that’s from lack of use to creepy (presumably) basement, or because he’s actually been taking care of them. He hasn’t been here that long, six months?Maybe? I admittedly didn’t exactly keep track of him, or where he was, until he’d interjected himself back in my life again. Rudely. I might add. Once I reach the bottom, I shine my light around the space. It’s. Rather disappointingly empty, honestly. No doomsday devices. No ominous flashing lights. A table with some chairs, which is I assume the one that was up here last time I came in announced. A stack of long, slim cases with handles on them. I’d been kind of hoping for something… concrete. Incriminating. At the very least his computer which isn’t down here, and it wasn’t upstairs. I already looked.
Tim: “Really? You have a whole Arkham Asylum and you zero in on Clock King? That guy is terrible. I mean, your Dad’s like an A-Lister in comparison.”
If I sound incredulous? It’s because I am. The reference to one of the Worst in the whole Rogue’s Gallery is enough to have me dropping the subject. Not to mention, dropping down the chute behind Stephanie. The good arm is all I need to let myself down in a landing that doesn’t make every bone in my body feel like it’s being broken all over again. While this isn’t fun, I couldn’t very well let Stephanie come down here and be locked away in some insipid death trap of doom.
The moment I’m on my feet, grimace not withstanding, a flick of the wrist turns on my suit’s spot-light. It’s enough to illuminate most of the ‘Evil Lair,’ and then some. It also has scanning technology built in to it. While it does it’s work, “You know. Some girls would think it romantic. Having a boy trying to rescue them from being trapped in their Dad’s place, under house arrest. Bringing them presents and keeping them from dying.. to boredom. Not you, no sir.”
Wah wah wah you were so mean to me wah wah, she says as he gives her a half-million dollar suit. The Batman? He takes her to a Sewer and a Police Impound, but nooo. I’m offering hallmark movies and super-computers. All I get is some frozen peas and a musty basement.”
How exactly do I answer her question anyway. I mean there’s the truth and then there’s the truth. Neither of which is really appealing, one of them is slightly more mortifying than the other. If only slightly, truth be told. The actual -thought- of what happened, makes me wince a whole new level of wincery. In for a penny, in for a pound right? She might as well learn something from my mistakes and oh were there a lot of them.
“It’s a long story, but the short version is that I threw myself down two flights of stairs. On top of a fully armed Ninja, while I was wearing a three piece suit. To protect a Female Dance troupe from certain death at the hands of Deathstroke, Penguin, his men and the League of Shadows. Let’s just skip the part where I did that, after disarming a missile and slipping one of Penguin’s bodyguards a roofie.”
“How was your night, last night?”
Steph: “Oh, c’mon! I was riffing off the set your watch thing… Jokes, Boy Wonder! Jokes! Or at the very least bad puns. Very bad puns. Seriously. You’re going to have to lighten up if this date thing’s going to continue…”
As traps of doom go? This one’s pretty uninspired. A let down, even. For all the secret door and hidden basement set up that should have led to something we probably didn’t want to stumble into, I’m starting to think maybe I would have been better off with lime soda and cheetos (…seriously, that flavor combination…). Luckily for Tim, I’m not looking at him, his mostly graceful landing or the resulting owie pain face that he makes because I’m using my own two eyes and the light on my phone which…gets dwarfed by his suit’s light, which nearly blinds me a half second later when I turn around to look at the source.
“Well, I’d order a pizza, but the door’s bolted, and assuming they even brought the pizza complicated instructions like ‘throw a rock at the window’ or ‘just hand it to the mostly friendly vigilante’ are probably going to make them not bother. Talk about not enough bang for that buck…”
I’d been hoping to get to at least claim some sort of discovery or progress for my weekend, because I assumed they were all otherwise out there. Busy. Fighting the good fight. Trying to weed out some assassins, and sort out the Joker situation, because lets face it. Potential or not that is all way above my pay grade right now. But there’s nothing down here. Maybe my Dad’s smart enough not to keep anything incriminating on the premises but if that’s the case, why even have something like this? There’s push pins in the walls, like there used to be something there. Tiny scraps of torn paper beneath them that I go on tip toe to look at. They could have been maps. Maybe the blue prints we assumed were taken from the city buildings, if that ever was even a thing.
But there’s nothing to find. Not for his scanner even. Just dust that suggests things were here at some point, cleared in a rectangle on the table, or on the empty shelves on those walls. I’ve crouched down in front of them, getting ready to flip open the clasps and check inside when I pause to squint over at Tim. Then I laugh. Infinitely amused, until it starts to trail off.
“…oh, you’re not kidding are you? Yikes. Well. Um.”
How was my night? God was that a dare, a sincere question because he cares or are we starting a game of one upsmanship I’m totally going to lose. My serious answer is about to sound awfully stupid compared to his.
“I babysat three kids under the age of six, and then played ignore the not-so-super-villain. Your night might have been less stressful. At least I got paid, though!”
Tim: “Worst puns ever. You’re terrible at this flirting thing. Where’d you learn how to interact with Boys? Super-Villain school for the internal and external monologue?”
As good as Pizza might otherwise sound, I’m a little surprised to find nothing. Even if it was just a little something, I was thinking that we’d find at least a monument to his own greatness. Finding nothing is actually a little more suspicious than finding something, because this leaves us with some questions. Like for example: Did daddy dearest figure his daughter would go snooping? Or maybe, Steph was wrong and her Dad had learned from his previous mistakes. This is left unsaid, because I’ve already said what that could mean. The ones who learn are the actual scary ones. It happens to be what sets them apart from the other riff-raff.
I can’t even tell you the last time one of the dumb ones graduated to the class of smart ones though. This is a change and I’m wondering how closely it ties to what happened with my Father. “Hold on. Are you telling me a deadbolt lock is all it takes to keep you in line? Boy, if I tell Canary that I could have saved her a whole month of beating you up, by just locking you in your bedroom with a deadbolt. She’s really going to kick my ass.”
“Seriously. Flight of Stairs. Dance Troupe. Black Canary in a mini-skirt, with her nails and hair done. Deathstroke. Ninjas and Mobsters. Faux Penguin, plus two Penguin Actuals. One of which was armed with a rocket, the other with a flame thrower. I may or may not have gotten a pass made at me by one of a set of triplets. That’s the one I roofied.”
Offering little more than a shrug and a smile. Given her own descriptive weekend, I might not even trade her night for mine. She’s new to this not-a-game we’re all playing. Might as well prepare her for the insanity of the life she’s about to lead if she keeps going down this path. Also a good chance to remind her of the important parts of life.
“Yeah. Would you believe that’s not the most exciting weekend I’ve had this month? I rescued the Flash from a guy that could become any element he touched. Then fought a living computer virus. What I was done with that, I got a plane with Wonder Woman. Yet, my idea of being told to hit the sidelines and take a night off? Was bringing you a present and watching old movies. You won’t even bring me Coffee or let me see you throat punch someone. Mini-skirt not withstanding.”
Steph: “More like the local chapter of All the Guys I Know Are Douchebags or Drug Dealers or Both, with remedial courses in Ain’t No One Got Time for That. Next time there’s a break in Canary Beating Me With My Own Stick 101, I’ll ask her if she can give me some pointers. And then clarify I meant on boys before she stabs me with something.”
Not to mention the summer section of Daddy Issues, but we don’t like to talk about those. Why am I being held responsible for flirting skills?! This wasn’t in the syllabus. I’m also not totally sure I know what to do with this teasing and joking from him. This isn’t usually a problem for me! I’m a sassy, independent girl child! Right? Yeah. No. I’m just going to keep trying to run with this whole date is a a not-serious joke thing, but he sure is using it for all it’s worth. My make-believe classes may have trailed off into muttering by the time I actually flip the two toggles and lift one of the lids, revealing a…
I don’t know what the hell this is that I’m looking at. A pair of metal tubes, that almost look like the collapsible staff I’ve been learning to fight with, except there’s some kind of electronics on it. The whole thing looks…delicate despite being metal, with a clear toggle that I assume would be an on/off switch that I really want to push but… the thin shred of common sense I’ve still got in my head says Stephanie, No! There’s no cord that I can see. Battery operated?
“No. I already picked it to make sure I could if I had to. Or there’s the windows. The horrible parental figure that’s nominally in charge that I assumed would probably not be gone long was a much bigger contributing factor. Since. Y’know. That hand. Trying to not tip it.”
Scowling a little, though it’s much more at what I’m looking at in the case, which seems to be in all of the other five matching ones, I pull a face at Tim as I fish the gameboy out again, fiddling with it until I work out how to apply the microbes he talked about. Asking would have been faster but that’s me. Stephanie Brown. Not the best at anything, but pretty good at figuring shiz out. I kind of want to give Red Robin one of these suckers to go try and puzzle out what it does, but that would be a noticeable loss. Guess we’ll just have to settle for what he can tell from looking, and seeing where they go.
“You do realize you’re not exactly making going out with you sound like a super smart play, right? Maybe the musty basement and frozen peas are the universe trying to jump start my sense of self-preservation. Also, I’m betting you didn’t actually know what to do with yourself, and this was probably like…option three or four. When we’re done down here though, if you really insist, I can make you some coffee and then punch you in the throat.”
There’s a haughty sniff as I straighten up to a standing position in front of the cases, giving my blonde hair a toss.
“Except a finger jab is much more effective.”
Tim: “I’m pretty sure you just called me a Douchebag,” which from the sound of my voice may actually be a first time for me. “Since we know I’m not a drug dealer. If you’re going to ask a girl for pointers on how to flirt with guys, Canary is definitely the one to give it.”
Unless you’re wanting to actually have more than a night’s fun with the guy in question. Not for nothing, but her brand of flirting happens to be very direct. To the point. No holds barred. Let’s get it over with sort of flirting. I’m not even sure what Dinah would do with the sort of flirting that is the ‘Take me home to meet the Parents’ kind of stuff. Oh, wait. Yes, I do know what she’d do. My jaw throbs at the consternation of what just might happen if Stephanie pursues that line of training.
I should warn her! Oh, right. She just called me a douchebag and offered to punch me in the throat. Kid gloves are off at this point in the dancing with sarcasm. I’ve moved over to let my suit take a full scan of the place. “Quantum Particle Scans could, in theory, give us a time-displaced map of what was here as much as a week ago. If only I’d been allowed to finish that paper, but noooo. I needed to go out. Live in the world. See the people I was saving. Meet people with like minded ambitions. Now we’ve got to wait on good old detective methods. Like running this through the Nest computers.”
“I’m going to need to take these scans to the Nest, directly. PennyOne is disconnected. Until we find out what got in to the Bat-System computers. He’s not on site at my bunker and we’re keeping it off the Grid, so that whatever or whoever is hacking in to the Bat Cave systems can’t get in to mine remotely. I feel a little blind out in the field, but I forgot to mention that someone dropped a Jet on Black Canary and Red Hood too.”
All of this is true, also it’s information that she didn’t have. I’m sharing, while also explaining to her that I’m going to need to take this information back to the base directly. Not just ask the man in our ears what we’re seeing. It’s also meant to tell her why I’m not just reading information off my Heads up Display. The computers in my suit are good, but they lack the database access to cross reference nearly enough information to tell us what we’re looking at. Not without going online and risking infiltration. Which sounds like a terrible idea right these days, more and more.
What comes next is a small smile, the sort of smile that’s far more ‘I told ya so,’ than anything else. “You’re right. I’m not, Steph. Part of me likes the idea, though. The other part still thinks I need to scare you in to running away, so you give this all up. Because I’ve got this innate desire to protect people. That innate desire grows in leaps and bounds, when I get to know the person I want to protect. Then you add in this White Knight complex. You’re lucky I’m not locking you in an ivory tower, that you’d have to climb down your own hair to escape from Goldilocks.”
“My point is. A guy would be crazy not to want to go on a date with a girl like you. But. I’m also trying to convince you to go have a normal life with a normal boy too.” My stream of conscious comes to a rather abrupt halt, as I look at the readings on the things we’re looking at. Every time I think this all can’t get any more weird, something new comes up. “Seriously. I’ve got to take these scans back to my Nest. You want to pick the locks, leave a note for your dad that you went out for Pizza with a Boy? Nothing too suspicious about that, is there?”
Steph: “Ehhhh…”
I waggle a hand back and forth at him. Like maybe that’s what I meant, and maybe he is, maybe he’s not. Jury’s out. Tim as Batman wasn’t a Douchebag to me. Tim as Red Robin before now kind of was. I’m still not entirely sure what to make of this one, maybe he’s being nicer to me now because he knows that I know who he is. Figured it out on my own and everything. Didn’t catch on to the whole Batman part until I was told, but in my defense he had a voice modulator and a much more covering mask on. Seriously. Look at him. That jawline and that little dimple in his chin? Erm. Yeah. Subject at hand. Retort! Retort, Brown!
“You did just admit to roofy-ing a waitress. Of the two, douchebag might have been the better category to fall into. In the sake of fairness, and because you did bring me a sick Pokemon gameboy, I don’t really know you. So. Maybe you can skirt past being stuck in either one. For now.”
Sure, I know his name. Both of them. Which can tell you a lot about someone when one of those parts is sorta famous, and the other is an urban legend, when you mix in some heavy google usage and social media stalking…which I totally haven’t done… but knowing about a person doesn’t mean you really know them. I know I’m not the sum of my parts. Or I too would be a douchebag and a drug dealer.
Quantum Particle Scans? Is…that a thing? Is he kidding and this is something pulled out of his ass or is that an actual thing? Because it sounds freaking fantastic. Like. I know someone that would be tripping balls over the concept. So I’m left falling back on that looking at him like a weird bug bit, as I watch him…presumably scanning the boxes. I can’t tell from here.
“…what the hell! Seriously! Why are you even here? They’re okay, I assume?”
Also WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS GOING ON? Ninjas and Joker problems are one thing, but it’s like someone got hold of the board of cosmic bad and flipped all the switches because. Screw it, right? I’ve thrown up my hands in exasperation at this new wrinkle in the lives of the Bat Family. I don’t want to ask if it can get worse. Gotham will say ‘hold my beer’ and then we’re all forked.
“Wait. What?”
Really? Now I’m pinching the bridge of my nose, before I close the case again, making sure it’s settled exactly where it had been in the first place. Like maybe that’s going to rein in whatever…the heck is going on with my night now, and this conversation as a whole. He likes the idea of …what? Going out? Is that what he really just said? I’m still stuck torn between figuring this is some really long game method of humiliating me and…what’s my option B exactly? I’m just…openly boggling at him because he’s saying nice things again. No black cowl on or anything. You know what? I’ve got nothing.
“Normal life with a douchebag or a drug dealer? Yeah. Hard pass.”
Wait. Was he doing my shtick and thinking out loud? That’s my best explanation, so I just turn around to troop back up the stairs.
“Teenage rebellion against the father I don’t want to spend time with, and make sure every fifteen seconds or so he knows that? You know..it’d probably be more suspicious if I didn’t. Lock picking and pizza it is.”
Arthur-
Child locks? I’m not six anymore. If you want to lock me in here, at least leave food. Gone to get some. Food.
Be back when I’m back.
– Steph
No. Really. That’s what gets scrawled on the back of the first piece of paper I find. Girly cursive handwriting, hearts for the dots on my I’s and everything.
by Marc | Dec 3, 2017 | Chronicles
LIGHT: Not much time had passed between Koriand’r’s arrival when the D.E.O and N.O.W.H.E.R.E protocols being initiated. Of course, there were ways to handle things, official ways, but whatever the reason Superman decided that he would bring the alien to his apartment. Definitely against protocols, but given the satellite footage that had been reviewed it was there were more questions than answers that emerged. There were several individuals that wanted to know why such restraint was used.
The woman should have been brought to one of their secure facilities, after action reports filed and debriefing began while she was interviewed. Instead she was doing anything but that. That did not sit well with several individuals that knew of her arrival. Already the internet was being scrubbed to remove any images that popped. Discussions of the matter was shut down. The official story that was a weather satellite’s orbit unexpectedly began to decay.
Superman sighting in Gotham was normal. Saving the day is what he does. Why wouldn’t he intercept the satellite to prevent it from doing any damage? Besides, that was for the public relations department to deal with. That wasn’t the job that Arthur Light was dispatched to complete. His job was to ascertain what the presence of the newest visitor to earth meant for the country and the rest of the planet, among other things.
When the black SUV pulled in front of the apartment building Light stepped out holding his hand up. He didn’t want the entire team to head inside. That would-be overkill, besides he needed their eyes out here. The local office had already been notified, and their agents had already been put in to position. Why, because there was more than Superman and Wonder Woman on site to welcome the alien to Earth there was another individual.
Red Hood. He was on the radar for a number of reasons. There was little that the Company didn’t know about it especially with events in Gotham. Still, that wasn’t his concern as long as this Red Hood decided to follow the code of his colleagues. However, that was doubtful, because most of the time they rarely did so themselves when it came to traveling in and out of the city of others.
Better to plan for the worst. Hoping for the best got you killed.
Not that Dr. Light would be accompanied alone. Far from it. There was only so much that people liked to share. It was better M’gann was involved more so than Raven. Things usually took a turn for the worse when she was involved usually because of patience wore thin. There were always ‘better’ ways to make someone talk. That was the mentality and that’s how she operated.
M’gann could be reasoned with, and besides what did he have to fear? They were all allies here. They knew which side they were on? Of course, they did. He looked back towards the others offering offered the barest of smiles before waiting for his companion for the evening to join him.
“We have work to do. Items to collect. I’m sure Conner’s aware of our arrival, but be a dear and let him know that we’re on our way up and to make the woman presentable. If you wouldn’t mind.” He could call up, but there was no guarantee that the phone would be answered.
There was another reason why Light requested M’gann’s presence beyond her obvious talents. She was unique and best suited to aid with the interview. Opening the door, he motioned for M’gann to step through.
M’GANN: “Presentable to whose standards?”
I could call, too. I’ve got Conner Luthor on speed-dial, much to the chagrin of basically everyone at the Earth School I’ve been attending. I’m not sure how necessary it actually is anymore, with the cover blown but that’s not a point I’ve actually brought up. I happen to like going to school. It lets me practice. And show off. But mostly practice. Despite the fact that my cell phone is a pretty permanent fixture in hand, and my not actually looking up from it at nearly any point on the ride over here, or even now as I’m climbing out of the car, and then into the building that houses Conner’s pent-house apartment (which he never actually uses, ordinarily).
Celebrity gossip sites. Fashion. News. My thumb’s slowed down considerably on the scroll speed now that I’m in view of anyone beyond Dr. Light. Phoning? Very mundane. Especially when you’re used to working on a field team and operating with a link between the members. There’s probably only one mind I can find faster than ‘Superman’s.’
Dr. Light’s coming. He said to make ‘the woman’ ‘presentable.’ Have you been being a bad boy? I thought you weren’t into aliens anymore.
CONNER: The Penthouse.
That kind of undersells what it actually is. The entire uppermost floor of LexCorp is the reality. The entire floor, which wasn’t built originally to be some sort of luxury suite. This building was put together originally as an office building, a science laboratory and was meant to be the monument to my father’s legacy. A palace in the center of Metropolis. It’s shining beacon. At some point Lex himself had the upper floor retrofit in to living quarters, so that he would never have to venture away from his labs. At least until he made the requisite move to the White House. President for Life is a bit of a downgrade for the record.
When I was created, I lived in a laboratory. Ensconced in a tube where I was virtually raised over the course of two years. The virtual training was a simulator. One that gave me fifteen years of virtual life. Simulated memories from my genetic donors. The backwater town, I suppose came from the original Superman. While the ‘do whatever I want’ attitude was from Lex. Until finally, I could handle being toyed with no further and staged a break out. One that cost Nowhere an entire Lab and decades of research. A costly learning experience for both sides. As I was also forced to realize that the real world doesn’t just reset every time I do something wrong. Nowhere learned that I’m a bit more than just a sockpuppet soldier. Which made me valuable enough to become my Father’s son. A publicity stunt -and- a soldier at the same time.
Enter the Penthouse. Which has once more been remodeled. Because my trust fund spent the first year of my freedom being spent on every single thing a boy might want to indulge in for fun. It’s spent the last year mostly unused, as I’ve been staying a little closer to Cassandra. Now it’s a place of learning and safety for Koriand’r. Who, contrary to Damien Wayne’s warning, has had nothing to fear about this destination. Except for perhaps growing fat from all the Cheesecake, Icecream, Binge Watching and Video Games we’ve done the last twenty four hours. Most of which was spent with her in need of Human Clothing. Which only got remedied when I was able to super-speed out and get her some of Cassie’s things.
How was I supposed to know one-size doesn’t fit all? Pfft.
We’re in the middle of Stranger Things season two when the ‘Call Comes In.’ That’s no ice cream headache that has me grasping my forehead and wincing. It’s telepathy. [ I’m still working on learning how to be a good boy, bad is really my basic setting. She’s extremely presentable, if you ask me, but if you insist…” ]
“Hey, Princess. We’re about to have company. Would you like to put some of those clothes on that I brought or…?” Despite anything I may or may not have just communicated to M’Gann, I’m all too happy to let Starfire do what she wants. If for no other reason than because it’ll annoy someone else. “My friend M’Gann is coming up to meet you and she’s bringing pet, Arthur.”
KORIAND’R: The clothing was very uncomfortable. She had a great deal of difficulty understanding why it was more ‘acceptable’ to wear so many garments. It certainly wasn’t tailored to her form, the pants were tight and slid down her hips when she walked. The top was tight around her breasts and it rubbed against her skin uncomfortably. The only appealing thing she saw about human clothing was in a magazine she had found in the apartment. The pieces the women wore were much smaller and far more decorative. Imagine her disgust when she learned they were undergarments and they were typically covered by more layers of clothing. Were humans that squishy? Were they incapable of protecting themselves against the elements? It was almost sad.
It had been a nice time though. She was able to heal and charge up in the sun, she even had a proper bath and felt more like herself again…whatever it was she could scrape together after the ordeal she had been through. Things would never be the same, she was no longer a child or a teenager and she grew up during those years under very harsh conditions. A weaker mind may have broken within months, she always fought against it, she always had hope. It was probably the best that Superman behaved himself. An unwelcome touch may have sent a wall crumbling. Her rage was a terrifying thing capable of a lot of destruction. She had identified with the young girl in the television program they had watched, the girl’s rage was similarly destructive.
“I don’t like them…they itch. These ‘jeans’ are rubbing me in places that is very uncomfortable and it’s making it difficult for me to focus.”
She’d rather keep watching the program even though she had been watching most of it curled up and eyes wide and in a near constant mode of suspense wondering what was going to happen to the children.
“A pet? Like Dart? Does she bring him everywhere? What does he eat?”
LIGHT: “We shall find out won’t we?” He wanted to know exactly who and what he was dealing with. It didn’t matter what the woman wear. It was more of an inquiry than anything as they stepped into the elevator. He glanced towards the phone that the M’gann was focused on. Not that it mattered. It’s what people did these days get lost in their phones, their possessions. It’s the way of the world isn’t it?
“Curious. Was Cassandra in school today?” He was genuinely curious. Reviewing the images, she was there and then she was gone. He was certain that something took place, what he doubted anyone give him an accurate account of what happened, but this was the job. This is what he was paid to do.
Pressing the button for the penthouse he took a step back waiting for the doors to close. Protocols. Yes. They must be followed they had to be followed, because those were the rules. A decision would need to be made about to handle the matter. If he followed the protocol, then that would mean removing her from the building to take her to one of the facilities that she may or may not return from.
He had been here before in a sense. Before the incident. It wasn’t something anyone could have anticipated. Light knew that a certain point the woman would want to leave the apartment. That she would want to see the world that lie beyond the walls. They always did. He also knew that the Director would want her brought in to be processed. She was new, she was different.
It wasn’t that he felt conflicted, but Light knew things were changing. The world wasn’t the same as it was before. It was much different. “I would make a bet, but it would be a sucker’s bet. I’m sure he’s called me your pet or lap dog.” Same difference. He knew how this went. It wouldn’t be the first time. It didn’t matter the doors were opening and there was someone new to meet.
For a moment it almost seemed like he would have said something else, that there was a question on the tip of the tongue, but he switched it at the last moment. Company many through and through? Perhaps. One never knew when Light was involved. He did his job well. Asked his questions, made his assessments and shuffled off to his lab.
He could be cold. He could be distant. He also could be quite jovial when given the chance. Right now, he decided to smile, why not? It was a pleasant evening wasn’t it.
“Showtime I suppose.”
M’GANN: [ Excuses, excuses. I -don’t- insist, just passing along the message. Like. What am I? A glorified, unignorable , intercom? ]
The sarcasm and exasperation doesn’t entirely play out convincing though. It doesn’t actually offend me to be asked. It means I’ve got an excuse to use the power I get to practice with the least. Not to say I get to use any of them, except for rearranging my appearance on a daily basis. I’m wearing the face of Kelsey, former Queen Bee of St. Mary’s, who now has to share the title with some competition. It’s the easiest one to stick to for public outings, and is usually the way I look when I’m inside of NOWHERE’s facilities. It makes people a lot more uncomfortable if I look like myself, for one thing. I don’t actually like doing that. Making people uncomfortable. Sometimes I have to, though.
“Uh huh. History test today. She never misses history tests. Definitely less excited than usual about practice after school.”
Definitely looking like someone had done something to make her not super happy, too. But that’s actually not a total rarity lately. Talk about #FirstWorldProblems, right? As to his question about what Conner’s called him or not? I just shrug my shoulders. I either don’t know, or don’t care to know, or possibly don’t care to share, but it’s more likely the first two. Of the three of us, I’m actually the most prone to actually be helpful on our team.
I don’t knock, once we’ve ridden the elevator up. He knows we’re coming. I told him we’re coming. There’s also a million levels of security that would have kept Dr. Light at least out, if he didn’t want him in. That implies permission, to me. Showtime indeed.
“Knock, knock! Ooh, Conner you made a new friend. You can call me Kelsey. So nice to meet you.”
With the Kelsey face? Often comes the Kelsey manners. I’m looking Starfire up, and then down, and then up again, with a look on my face that says I don’t mean any part of this is actually nice.
[ Did you seriously put her in Cassie’s clothes? I’m pretty sure those are her favorite jeans, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to castrate you. Can I have your apartment when you’re gone? ]
CONNER: “Yeah. It was a pain to get used to real clothing at first. In the V.R. I didn’t have to worry about something fitting, it just did. Never had to worry about it chafing because it simply didn’t. I mean, I’m more or less invulnerable. So it sounds silly to me that I’m agreeing with you about clothing, but it’s more about comfort with me than anything. I think it’s the same with all Humans. Comfort. It’s comfortable to wear them, for most people. It’s also comfortable not to have to see each other. I don’t mean me, Princess, I mean that, that’s what I think it comes down to for the other Humans. One of the good things about my creation, was the gene-splicing. I’m as close as to genetically perfect as a Human or Kryptnonian can be.”
“Plus, I see through almost everything. So, my reality is a lot closer to what you’d consider normal. I see people are they really are,” a little smile says I’m being nice, but the truth is that normally it allows me to confirm people’s inferiority. Starfire is not inferior. Neither is M’Gann, who happens to be one of the only people on the planet who’s clothing I can’t see through. Since she’s not actually wearing any. At least, not normally. “A little like Dart, yes. Mostly? He eats Hopes and Dreams. He won’t bite unless you ask him too though.”
Inside of the ‘Penthouse,’ is much like you’d expect it to be. A bachelor pad. Except this bachelor happens to have a bottomless bank account. Yes, that’s a Pink Maserati parked in a corner of the penthouse, with no viable method of getting outside. Somewhere around here is six foot tall transformer model of Optimus Prime. There’s one of those ‘Almost Real Sex Dolls’ somewhere around here with a remote control in every orifice. The entire floor is mostly open floor plan, with only a handful of actual ‘rooms’ that afford any sort of privacy.
There’s a second story, but that’s mostly a bedroom. That I’ve been tempted to sue that movie Shades of Grey for ripping off and calling it a ‘Play Room.’ Throw a couple parties. Invite hack-writers over to worship you. Get your intellectual property stolen. Such is the life of a Luthor.
“Oh. They’re here,” I’m up off the couch at the speed of light, there’s probably still a fritos bag fluttering in the air as Kelsey makes her entrance. The living room area is conspicuously clean. All of a sudden. “Koriand’r allow me to introduce you to Kelsey Stevens and Doc Light.”
[ “Shhhh. She walked around naked for the first few hours. This was the only thing I could find! It was either than or I took the naked alien girl shopping… and then you’d have had to mind wipe half the city. No you can’t have my apartment. If she castrates me, you’re going to have to teach me how to be Supergirl.” ]
KORIAND’R: “I’ve been modified as well…but I was not created like you. My conditioning was…different.”
Kori avoided getting into the details as much as she could but she had dropped a few hints here and there. If this is what she thinks it is, she may have to reveal more than she might be comfortable with. They want to make sure she is not a threat to their humans, she understands that. She’s just worried that this may lead to a less than comfortable situation, trading one prison for another.
“Hello friend Kelsey, hello Pet Doc Light. As Superman has said, I am Koriand’r of Tamaran.”
She stood a little straighter and tried not to pick at the clothing. She was guarded, whereas maybe five minutes before she had been perfectly relaxed settling into the plans that Superman had made to help her acclimate to the culture.
“I apologize for any inconvenience my arrival may have caused. I had not expected a hostile greeting. I didn’t know what to expect when I set course here, I was under duress when I made the decision. As I told Superman and Wonder Woman, I come seeking sanctuary.”
LIGHT: Most would marvel at the apartment that they were walking into. An entire in one of the most well-known towers in the city. This was more than money this was what wealth could provide, but for Light the only thing he focused upon was the woman that was standing before him. He studied her carefully, with a smile that was both warm and pleasant.
Her response receives a nod and slight sound of acknowledgement. Light hadn’t actually met the young woman. He was informed that his involvement would not be necessary, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t keep tabs. Difficult not to, given the televised statement she gave.
“Conner.”
He kept his distance for Koriand’r. Given the way things were going the fact that she didn’t seemed to want to escape while change that? His intentions weren’t to create an environment where she would feel unwelcomed. Far from it. Conner offered her a place to stay somewhere where she wouldn’t have to be afraid or feel as if she couldn’t trust anyone. To come and shattered that, to force the protocol would create far more problems than they needed at the moment.
There was another cancer that they had to focus their attention upon. One that was growing and threatened to spread. Of course, that was something that he shouldn’t trouble himself with. He should focus on activities that he was more suited for. At least that is what he was told when brought his concerns to the assistant director.
However, this was neither the time of place for such things. While ‘Kelsey’ sized Koriand’r up Light took a step forward offering her his hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Koriand’r of Tamaran. Superman has shared with us your plight. That’s why we’ve come to determine how we can help you.” Light’s features remained the same as they were when the door open, warm and open. There was no ogling. No looking her up and down like a mean girl. If, anything, Light was concerned about her comfort level given that everything she was wearing was probably a size or two too small.
“I see. Perhaps we should get you some clothing that’s a tad more comfortable. I’m sure that Conner and Kelsey will be more than happy to take care of that for you while we talk.” There’s some boutiques in her somewhere that they can get a few things from isn’t there? The building was big enough to hold more than one and the good doctor was sure they would open up for Luthor’s son. It would be stupid of them not to.
“Unless, you object, Koriand’r. I just want to ask you a few questions. If that is okay?” Despite what most would think it was completely genuine. “And prefer to be called Doc Light.” Not really, but it’s probably the best that he would get from Conner.
“I’m very interested in how you came to be here. The organization that I represent is very interested as well. They’ve dispatched me to determine how you came to seek refuge on our planet. It will go a long way in determining how we might be able to help you.”
M’GANN: [ “Because you couldn’t just go to the store solo in the amount of time it just took you to clean your place. So you put the sexy alien in your girlfriend’s clothes. Sometimes you are Superdumb.” ]
Kelsey’s bitchy tones would probably have gone right along with those words, like peanut butter and bananas, but my mental voice is a lot more cheerful and amused, rather than judgmental. Conner’s my friend. Usually. The Supergirl comment still gets a very clear moment of surprise translated across the link though.
[ “What, you don’t know? I guess you’ve been busy with Naked Alien Netflix and Chill. -That- position’s already filled. And probably the only reason you’re getting away with adding to your harem right now.” ]
Because last night? This one may have crash landed in spectacular fashion but it was the take-off of another ‘S’ that had a whole lot more attention. I’m a lot more interested in Koriand’r of Tamaran than I might actually let on. Mentally, and certainly physically where I’ve got on a face of semi-disdainful disinterest. The truth is we don’t get terribly many aliens here on Earth. Not that aren’t invading, hostile, and therefor put down in an appropriate fashion. It’s almost an aside that I form a secondary link, this time between the Doctor, Conner, and myself. Running in tandem with the one between myself and Superman, and not to be confused with the casual listening I’m doing to Kori’s mind which I keep separate from the others. While checking my twitter feed. Or. Kelsey’s, I should say.
[ “Sincere. On all counts. No deception registered.” ]
“Ugh. I mean. I can. I guess.”
KORIAND’R: Conner had filled her in on their organization, on their purpose. This was their protocol, measures that must be taken and she was understanding of the need to keep their people safe. Her people might have done the same thing if they had been able to avoid invasion. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way.
She did reach out to touch Doc Light’s hand, being gentle with her grip but she was curious as to what she may pick up from him. Her hands were always warm, like skin touched with the warm sun. What she felt coming from him was not hostile, nothing she needed to be terribly concerned about. She finally returned his introduction with a warm smile. He had passed her test and perhaps she may be comfortable enough now to share her story.
“I don’t really need more clothing. I prefer to go without,” they were words of a soft protest, she may not have a choice in this particular matter. Humans were just so….reserved.
“We may talk, Doc Light. Are you a good Doc? I don’t want to end up like the girl, though it would be highly improbable.”
She just assumed everyone knew what she was talking about, she had just seen the show with Conner and for all she knew, all Doctors were bad people that liked to experiment on others.
CONNER: [ “I don’t even buy my own clothes! How the hell would I even begin to know what to buy a … a… would you -look- at her? Cassie’d probably castrate me twice for anything -I- picked out for her to wear!” ]
Believe it or not, I’m not actually being rude to Arthur, when I put my hand up and give him a very stern shush signal. The look upon my face probably gives the intelligent man a signal of it’s own. The Martian before us, has just said something in to my head that brings everything about me to a complete and total halt. Was Kelsey teasing me? Was that her doing to me, what she used to do to Cassie at school? I’ve never had a tough time reading the Martian because her internal voice is one that always speaks more clearly of her moods.
I’ve got to actually lick my lips, because they’re dry, for the first time in my existence. A lot of things in this world I fail to understand, to grasp the nuance of. Emotions. Manners. Those are things I’ve been taught, but was also taught that ignoring them meant what? Someone was going to scowly face at me? Woe is me. But, M’Gann just said something I’ve caught on too quick. Now there’s only one important question and frankly it is far more important to me than Starfire -or- Doctor Light, in any way shape or form.
[ “Pretender, Kryptonian or New Clone?” ]
Three options. One means that I’ve got to have stern words with someone about the gimic I’ve infringed upon, being infringed upon. The other two? Those are far bigger, far more immediate issues. A true Kryptonian could mean that Nowhere, my Father and maybe even the world itself, is in great peril. If Nowhere has finally been able to replicate me? Then Cassie could be in trouble.
It’s almost an after-thought, that I answer one other thing even if I wasn’t asked. “She’s here because a vigilante in Gotham, wearing a red helmet. Tried to convince her that we were going to put her in a cage. Maybe even experiment on her. I saw his face, if you need to run facial recognition software.”
“I’ve assured the Princess that she will not be harmed, so long as she is here under the banner of peace. I even called my Father to make him aware of the diplomatic potential, that might be gained from such a scenario.” Head canting to the side, because I want to be very clear about what I’m explaining. Doctor Light, I’m certain, understands the principle of ‘Royal Hostage.’ “I was thinking of taking her and introducing her, personally. Publicly.”
KORIAND’R: “You said if I stayed with him I would bring harm to his family, that I would be hunted and his family may be hurt in the process. I do not wish to bring harm to him or his family. Why would you reveal his identity? That would most certainly bring harm to him. He was not hostile, he was trying to help,” her eyes narrowed at Conner. He wasn’t playing very fair. She knew that the masked man was a vigilante, she knew he may even be a criminal but he did seem to have his heart in the right place.
“He gave me his clothing so I would not be cold because he knew I was weakened…and damp.”
Kori was touched by the gesture and honored the kindness in her actions now, if she could even protect him. She didn’t have much ground to stand on at the moment.
LIGHT: Kelsey was wonderfully bitchy, but Arthur knew better. However, rather than push the matter he kept silent. The time wasn’t right, there were questions to be asked and hopefully answered. He needed to know what would happen as he discussed the situation. There were some things that couldn’t be avoided no matter how one may want him to.
Arthur had not uttered a word as the information flew between the two. There were several conversations taking place. He knew that M’gann and Conner were having a separate conversation while she included Light on a few pieces of information that she felt was relevant for him. The Supergirl that was something that he was not involved in, because he had been directed to Metropolis to speak with the second alien. Which came first didn’t matter, there was potentially a second alien, more than that a potential Kryptonian.
It was probably one of the reasons why the assistant director sent him here. Rather than discuss the matter he wanted Light out of his hair. No need to raise the alarm, it would be handled. In the only way N.O.W.H.E.R.E knew how to handle it.
He wasn’t at the point where he wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose, but he was getting there. There were some things that didn’t need to be shared openly. “I’m am the doctor that I need to be. Good. Bad. That depends on someone’s perspective. What I an offer you is truth, Koriand’r of Tamaran. I think that may better than Good or Bad.” Arthur could be many things, but right now he was being as diplomatic as his position would allow him. He did not have the luxury that others did. There was more to consider than himself.
“Your protector that attempted to aid you in Gotham also murdered someone earlier the same day. Took command of a cadre of warriors that have been terrorizing that city. He breaks our laws. Laws that have been established to protect the general population. He does not trust law enforcement to do the job it has been trained to do. He thinks himself above the law as judge, jury, and now executioner.”
That is her protector. “He is a threat to the people around. Does not concern himself with the overwhelming danger he places others or entire city in. His careless actions have consequences. Bystander, friend and family alike.” That is the way it is seen by the authorities.
“So, while you see him as a kind soul, I see someone that is quite selective who he shows his kindness to.”
“As for your well-being? Superman, Conner, is this world’s protector. He handles threats that most cannot. If he does not see you as a threat, then I do not see you as a threat. However, I am concerned.” Quite concerned.
“I believe you mean this world no harm, but it is your request for sanctuary that concerns me. It suggests that you need sanctuary from something or someone. That is why I wish to speak with you. I want to know how you came to be here and why you seek sanctuary.” He paused for a moment and decided to go a step further.
“Are you need of a place to stay or are you seeking safety from someone, Koriand’r? Should I be concerned for my world’s safety?” He needed to know what they were dealing with.
It was his turn to hold his hand up for a moment signaling Conner to let this play out. He heard what he said. He understood what Conner wanted to do. Would the others be pleased probably not, but at the same time he had to consider how this would be received by the public at large. That could place Koriand’r in danger. The world, this nation was still a bit gun shy when it came to aliens. If their new Tamaran friend was running from danger and that danger came here the public would quickly turn upon her.
Though there was a chance a possibility to remind people of their potential. Of how great they could be when given the chance.
[Let us here her story first.] He said to them both and for a moment there was almost a hint of a smile directed at Conner. Not malicious. Not threatening. Genuine pride.
He’s learning. He’s trying.
M’GANN: [ Oh, I’m looking. And she looks like six feet and more of ‘no win situation.’ Unless you dump Wondy, I guess. Then you could maybe -salvage- one with this one. ]
He isn’t really wrong. If he dressed Koriand’r in new things that fit her, that’d say he was looking close enough to know what would fit her. Putting her in his girlfriend’s clothes, which don’t fit at all, and probably without asking may still have been the slightly better option. It probably becomes more and more clear that we’re having a conversation no one else can hear, when my head cocks to the side about the same time Conner puts up the shushing finger. It’s one of the reasons the ever-present cell phone makes a good distraction. I might be finding that terribly interesting and not the boy in front of me.
[ “Not a clone. Or not one they knew about. Which means not one of -ours- or not one at all. No Kryptonian energy signature. But no meta signature either, despite clear possession of abilities.” ]
‘Business’ M’gann sounds a lot more formal, even in the mind’s voice, than anything else that comes from me. He’s not supposed to know about this, I think, or they probably would have pulled him out of his Alien Princess rescue. When clearly no one even made him aware of what went on last night while he was in Gotham. I probably shouldn’t be telling him. But I would want to know if another Martian appeared.
As for the rest? I really don’t have anything else to say. Aloof on the outside, or maybe just incredibly self-absorbed once I go back to my phone but I’m waiting. Doing the job that I’m actually here for. Doctor Light can ask all the questions he wants, the answers could always just be lies. I’m here to discover whether or not they are. They didn’t say that. But there’s really only two reasons that I’m sent out for something like this. Listening to thoughts? Or erasing them.
CONNER: “Kori, on your planet, do they let criminals run around freely doing as they please? Or are you intentionally being obtuse to the fact that he admitted to being a criminal.” The sigh I make is almost dramatic, because I feel that’s how she’s behaving and let me tell you… that’s a surefire sense of Irony. “He gave you his coat, because he was hoping to track some sort of bug that he planted on it. Out of some sort of misdirected sense of seeking intelligence for further terrorist-ish behavior.”
“To be both fair? I told you that if you went with him those things would happen, for sure. I did not say, at any time, that the Authorities would not pursue a Criminal. I neither stated, nor even implied, protection from prosecution of a criminal from this planet. You’re who I offered to protect.”
Ugh. I’m getting angry and it’s bleeding in to the discussion with Koriad’r. It isn’t even M’Gann’s fault, but she’s sure the messenger I want to punch in the face right now. Especially when she keeps right on going. Dump Wondy? Doctor Light might not be at the point of pinching the bridge of his nose, but I am. Because I can feel my eyes itching with that solar radiation that wants to be expelled. Except, I am learning. That won’t solve anything. Having a ‘temper tantrum’ as Doc Fairchild calls it, will serve no purpose at all. None. In fact it’ll just create more problems. Like having to replace ‘Original-Alien-Friend,’ who by very definition cannot be replaced as she was the original. That only happens once.
[ “You’re not wrong. Koriand’r is definitely a no win scenario for me. Apparently the Tamaranian people have some sort of tactile empathy. When she kissed me, in front of Cassie, she was able to empathically absorb our language.” ]
I’d been wanting to test a theory, but there hadn’t been any way of doing it. Could Kori pick up every language I knew from a single Kiss? If she could, then it’s safe to say she knows most Human Languages. Because that was part of my cultural training. If not, then it means I would need to kiss her repeatedly in order to teach them to her. If ever there was a job for Superman, let me tell you. That’s one I wouldn’t have turned down even six months ago.
Now? Now I’m finding myself a little jaded about the situation. Especially since there’s a whole different topic that has me more than a little worked up. [ “No signature. Yet she had powers. That’s starting to become a frequent occurrence. Tech that could do that would be expensive. -I- couldn’t afford it for Cassie. Any sort of Magic that could manage it would be Raven’s territory. Can you have her look in to it?
And, if there’s any connection to Gotham City. I need to know before the rest of them.” ]
With that? I find myself falling silent. Giving the ‘good Doctor’ what he’s asked for. For once in my life I’m happy to comply with shutting up. Casually motioning to the Doctor and Starfire for the two of them to make themselves at home on the sofa. “We’ll be right back. Proper clothing shall be attained…”
The words have barely even settled in their ears, before the wind kicks up in the pure speed with which I’ve grabbed M’Gann and darted away. Kelsey can pick out clothing. I’ll pay.
KORIAND’R: She had no words about the man in the red mask. She simply didn’t know the circumstances from before that event, didn’t know his past actions or deeds. That ignorance came back to bite her pride. She had been hoping for the best and her judgement was sorely wrong. The wind was blown out of her sails but there were more important matters to speak about. Adding to that, Conner made her feel quite horrible about it. It was enough to make her cheeks redden in embarrassment.
“I was not aware of the scope of his crimes. I am sorry, Conner. I should not have defended him.”
Kori took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her hair before she began. It was a long story, it wasn’t a pleasant one and she may be able to spare the details of some of the trials she went through.
“I am a Princess in my planet, second in line as heir to the throne….or was. Our planet was invaded by great warriors, my parents were killed. My sister was forced into the throne. She was able to negotiate some terms that allowed her to remain the figurehead of our people while the new masters were able to benefit from the resources of the planet. The terms were only achieved by exchanging me as a royal hostage…to ensure compliance. I was young, a…teenager at the time.”
Kori nodded firmly but her heart felt like it was sinking when she started getting to the next part.
“They collected aliens from many different worlds, putting them to test in various ways. They tortured me, to test my endurance. They put me to fight, to test my skills as a warrior. Those that could not fight or endure the experiments were simply allowed to perish. They only kept the strongest. Surviving all those tests, they moved on to genetic modifications. Not many survived those trials. So….simply put, it was awful. Ten years of this with my captors. I was finally able to formulate a plan to take one of their ships, I set the course as far away as I could get. The Daem are cruel masters, strong warriors and masterful scientists. I can not return home or they will surely destroy my people. I have endured their trials and may be considered valuable, much of what I can do is shaped by their skill. If they capture me, I would be put back to the labs, to the pits and maybe worse as punishment for my disobedience.”
She didn’t know all of the answers, she didn’t know if they could have tracked her or if they would consider her valuable enough to retrieve her from this planet. It wasn’t likely but she was not aware of what future plans they may have had for their Starfire. She crossed her arms across her body. She hated feeling vulnerable, weak and ignorant of the information that they may need to protect this planet.
“I am sorry. I wish I knew more to help you. I don’t know where else to go. I have no home and no place.”
LIGHT: The entire exchange has probably been a bit much for Koriand’r. Light’s eyes flicker between the Conner and M’gann. Something’s shifted and Light could guess what that was about. He could give three good guesses, but probably only needed one. He said nothing. He didn’t even intrude to project his thoughts.
‘He’ll know if you don’t trust him. He’ll know if you begin withholding information. You’re still trying to control him instead of helping to guide him. There are some things he has to figure out for himself. He needs support not a manager.’
Those were things that got Light sent back to his lab to work. To continue working for the betterment of humankind.
However, as whisks M’gann away Arthur turned his attention back to Koriand’r. “It’s alright, Koriand’r. You’re new to our world and our ways. It will take time to understand, to navigate our customs. Conner, just wants to do right by you. He in his own way is concerned. If you allowed you remain in Gotham you would have been in danger and he’s right. He’s sworn to uphold the laws of his nation to protect people. Now one of those people includes you.” It’s a simple as that.
Walking over towards one of the chairs in the room Arthur took a seat as Koriand’r began to explain how she came to be on Earth. Upon hearing her tale, he considered it for a moment. Though M’gann was out of the room she was probably near enough to let him know whether or not she was telling the truth. Yet, there was something about the sincerity in her voice. Either way he would have it confirmed. He could not and would not let logic slip away. It helped inform him of the choices that he should make.
He remained silent while she continued to recount what happened to her family and her people.
“No, you’ve said enough. You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m sorry for all that you’ve endured. I can’t imagine what it must have been like.” Except Light knew all too well what it sounded like. It was like looking into a bit of a mirror. He could understand why she would not want to be subjected to any tests or examinations. There would be concerns over potential contamination, but that would be handled.
“There is a potential that your enslavers may come looking for you.” That possibility is what concerned, Light. How could he square this? They were going to want his assessment and he knew all too well what could happen. This was more than your typical asylum case.
“Alright. This is what we’re going to do. You are going to remain here for the time being. However, no matter what Conner says wear clothing. Conner and Kelsey will return with clothing that is less ill-fitting that then the clothing you have on now. Clothing is very much a custom on our planet.” They could start there.
“Two, we will need to talk about these slavers. Any information you can provide would be beneficial. It will help you and it will help us.”
“Three, Conner, wants to introduce you to the world, but he will need to do so as Superman. Which means that he will probably introduce you as friend, who is an alien. A refugee who has found refuge on Earth. There is someone else I would like you to meet, but it is not for me to initiate that contact on their behalf. Someone who can probably help you acclimate to life on earth. I will contact them and hopefully they will be available. They are quite busy, but I think it would be mutually beneficial for you to meet one another.” Officially.
“Let’s start with one and two. Work towards three and see if I can get that introduction made.”
[That is if you’re up for it M’gann?]
M’GANN: Sympathy actually manages to crack the uberbitch exterior of the face I’m wearing, as we’re related this alien woman’s story of how she came to be here.
[ “Her story is truth. She did not mean any harm to this planet. She did not have anywhere else to go. She went as far away from her captors as she could possibly get.” ]
Relayed to both Conner and Doctor Light, though I would assume Conner’s already formed his own opinions. Probably judged Koriand’r’s truth for himself with his own abilities. Heart rate. Things like that. Though the stress of a crash landing on a strange planet could have tampered with those sort of reactions. He also might not have really cared. I don’t know that I entirely understand Conner lately, or the things he’s doing. And that’s not something I get to say very often.
[ “In -front- of Cassie? And then you spent the whole day with her after? Hmm… perhaps you’re very lucky that your girlfriend seemed very pre-occupied today. Yes. I will ask Raven what she thinks. The only sighting so far was in Metropolis, though.” ]
“Wait. What? We are?”
Speaking out loud again, though I’ve already been carted out the doorway before the other two likely get a chance to hear them. It’s not exactly as jarring an experience as it would be for most other people. But my senses and reaction times are so far advanced beyond ‘normal’ human ones. I’m also letting him do it at all, rather than simply shifting my form into intangibility.
[ “Would it help her to understand why we have to do this, and the good that we’re doing, if I showed her she’s not the only refugee? She is so….sad…” ]
An earnest question, fed again into Conner’s mind, though the link that I maintain between the rest of us brings me Doc Light’s words as well, even with distance.
[ “If you think that’s best, Doc. I do not mind.’ ]
KORIAND’R: She was internally panicking a little. Murder was bad here, they didn’t like murder. How many did she kill with her own hand? By her own power? She had lost count, it was such a necessity for survival, so many that were like her, ended by her own hands. She had even thought for a time that maybe, maybe she was doing them a favor. They wouldn’t have to endure the torture if she ended them. She wasn’t speaking about it but the tears were welling in her eyes.
“Th-they’re reptilian in nature. They’re genetic sciences are very advanced, they’ve been using aliens to improve their own species for a very long time. They used that skill to enhance my own natural abilities. They have almost a…hive mind state. A tiny portion of that was passed to me, I am able to absorb some information from touch, language mostly…that is a Tamaranian gift, however I can also feel what that person is feeling. I am able to harness the ultra-violet radiation from the stars, that was further improved by turning that energy into a weapon. My Starbolts. Uhm….they’ve adapted to take host bodies. Highest ranking taking the most powerful specimens. They enjoy war, they enjoy destruction, better resources help them be stronger. I do not know what they had intended for me. I’ve heard things but I do not care to share that unpleasantness.”
Clothing may be a small price to pay, she did not object to that. Perhaps they would allow her to enjoy her freedom from their cloth while in a private area away from the public.
“I am attempting to assimilate what I can from the culture here, Doc Light. Conner has been most helpful.”
LIGHT: [I think it would help. I think it would be good for both of you.] He shares. [All of you.]
M’gann’s telepathic confirmation absolves Light of any doubts that he had, but there were few and far between, but it’s almost troubling how it relates to the darker aspects of the organization that he’s involved with. In steels himself focused on the matter at hand. Light had to wonder how many times Conner will be allowed to play this card.
As she spoke he considered the species wondering if anyone had come across them before. He couldn’t say that he was familiar with them, but it wasn’t like Arthur was privy to everything. There were archives to consult, but at the same time given their warlike nature he knew that would not set well with the Director. Light would have to determine how best to address the matter with the assistant director. Perhaps it will get him a meeting with the Director. This may not be the last time that this happens. They all knew it happened before. It would continue to happen. They couldn’t let fear be the deciding factor nor could they slide everyone into a lab to take what they want.
That wasn’t the mandate. They needed to ensure that they were prepared.
“I understand. It doesn’t happen in a day, Koriand’r. You will need to give it time, but you’ve already made one friend.” Two if you counted the Gothamite. He did want facial recognition and the jacket.
“Let us help you and I assure you that you will make more and I believe we will be able to work out an agreement that will be mutually beneficial to everyone.”
CONNER: We’re not gone long. Apple Pay and an iPhone make shopping one of the few things that I can do at full speed. More precisely, I can do it at whatever speed that M’gann can process the sight of the whatever it is she’s picking out. Then we’re through the register before anyone even notices us. Other than seeing the transaction pulling through on the tiller tapes a few heart-beats after their hair rustles. Most of our time isn’t spent shopping for Yoga Pants and half-tees. It’s spent pausing in the elevator that carries us up and down the LexCorp building. During which time we’ve got a few moments to converse without my worrying over someone catching even a facial expression.
[ “If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any at all, Meggy. The thing is? You know better than anyone that I mask a lot of insecurity by imposing confidence, even when it’s not there. Because shit, I’m Superman or I’m a Luthor. It’s different with Cass, I -know- she’ll understand.That I was saving this girl, giving her a chance, that she probably wouldn’t have gotten a year ago. Especially, when she finds out that the girl was naked most of the time she’s been here and I haven’t touched her. Not like that, at least.” ]
Once the elevator dings? This is once again someone else’s show. Because M’Gann has agreed to Doctor Light’s plan. While I actually don’t like this particular plan, I can’t really say I see any fault in it. Giving Koriand’r a potential friend, a real friend, could be beneficial. Especially if it frees me to get out of here and make deal with the newly presented problem. A literal Supergirl? Ugh. On top of my super girl being pissy. M’Gann’s description of Cassie being distracted makes me think, not for the first time, that I should ask a serious question that’s fraught with danger. I’ve held off before but now…
[ “Uhm. So. I’ve heard, that girls have girl-problems sometimes. And so. Well. If Cassie’s a demigod… does that make her girl problems worse? Less frequent? Could I be dealing with a case of Godly Girl-Problems? Is that even a thing? Hey, Doc.You’re a Doctor right? Is this something you’ve studied? A friend of mine said the Gods couldn’t allow Demigods to exist, because… of bad things. Was it Demigoddess Girl-Problems? Is that what broke the Olympians?” ]
KORIAND’R: “I don’t want to be a freeloader. If I can help, I wish to. I am strong and gifted and I do not wish for my abilities to go to waste. It would be a shameful thing for a warrior to do.”
Her attention shifted when Kelsey and Conner came back, she greeted them with a warm smile.
“Doc Light, you are an honorable man. I have faith we can reach an agreement that will suit our needs.”
Starfire just hoped it allowed her to retain the liberties she had been enjoying since arriving. She did want to get out and explore but it may take time and small steps to get to that point. There was a plan formulated though and she was satisfied with that plan. There was only so much she could hope for as a guest on this planet.
M’GANN: I suppose that surprises me a little bit. It’s not as if the world knows there’s another alien on the planet. One that’s been here longer, unknown, than the one they think they know that patrols the skies. And Conner isn’t even completely foreign. He was born here. He’s half Kryptonian by nature, not nurture or culture. Much like Koriand’r, I was born on another planet. Raised there. Learned a different set of customs and traits and setbacks. That empathy alone has me picking out things that should be comfortable for the other girl. If we were shopping for say…Cassie… I would have gone the other route. I make my own ‘clothes,’ almost all of the time, so I know very well how uncomfortable wearing manufactured ones can be. Yoga pants are basically the best invention humans have had. Soft leggings… so stretchy. So comfy. So good at showing off a nice figure…
[ “She probably will. Though. Maybe leave out the naked part. At least until you’re sure she’s over the -kissing- part.” ]
I wasn’t exactly happy about Conner and his girlfriend. At first. But I spend a lot of time in this boy’s head, and it’s impossible not to notice that he’s as close to happy as he’d ever been the whole time I’ve known him. And I’ve known him his entire conscious, cognizant lifetime. That doesn’t mean I’m nice to her though. That’s not the part I’m supposed to be playing. Shifting my ‘clothes’ and appearance? Takes less time than it does for the elevator door to open. Reverting to my ‘natural’ form doesn’t take thought. It’s a subconscious default. Green skin, red hair and a different face entirely than the one I’d been wearing when we left. I just happen to wait to do it until Koriand’r can see me do it. A secret identity isn’t exactly the same thing to me, as it is to everyone else. I can make a new face anytime I want. Take over someone else’s. Know their minds so well that imitation is nearly perfect.
The demeanor is so altered that the rest might almost be secondary. Most people notice the skin before anything else though. Maybe she’ll kiss me, too, and then I can have a conversation in my native tongue for the first time in…a very long time.
[ “Maybe you should just ask her. But please. Show me the memory of her face after you do. It is possible your girlfriend is just having a bad week too, though. No…hormones or reproductive cycle issues to blame.” ]
“I am a refugee, too, Koriand’r. I would be lost if it weren’t for these people. I felt like you do. I wanted to help when I first came to Earth. And prevent the same mistakes here that befell my own world.”
ARTHUR: When the elevator opens and M’gann and Conner return Light is about to speak, but he finds himself presented with an interesting question.
[Not my area of expertise. Dr. Sandsmark would probably know better than I would. However, I suspect this is more of a girlfriend problem. Your girlfriend just happens to be a demigoddess. When, you have these situations that occur with Cassie reverse your roles. Whatever you did, ask yourself, ‘If Cassie did X how would I feel?’ and go from there.”]
That was as far as Light was willing to venture into Conner’s Creek.
“Alright then. It’s agreed. I think for the moment you should see what Conner and Kelsey have got for you and I will start to put in a few calls.” Which meant that he would make use of the den that probably never sees any use.
Nodding as M’Gann reveals her true nature to Koriand’r, Light takes this moment to excuse himself. He would be near if needed. “Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.”
There was work to be done on multiple fronts. Either way Light knew that he had to work quickly to avoid things getting escalated internally. The fact that Koriand’r was already willing to use her skills was promising.
— During Koriand’r and M’gann’s get to know you session —
While Light had adjurned to the den to make his initial and Conner had taken the moment to consider the possibility of another clone, Kryptonian or false Kryptonian, M’gaan and Koriand’r were given a chance to bond over being aliens in a strange world. Both could bond over their differences, similarities and provide M’gann and Koriand’r something that they desperately needed at this time, a friend that could relate to them.
Despite being aliens from different words, that was not the only thing that set them apart. M’gann was a far more familiar with the inner workings of N.O.W.H.E.R.E whereas Korand’r was not. That said there were some individuals that were more familiar with those experiences than most. One such individual was about to walk back into M’gann’s life…all their lives.
Light considered them to be one big happy something. That was always the thing, they never knew what quite to classify themselves ass. There was always a question mark as to what they were to one another. Colleagues? Teammates. An unfortunate group of people that circumstance and current legislation bound together in an unholy union? There was at least one person that would consider that to be the most accurate description.
[Ring. Ring. Can anyone join in, operator? Don’t worry this is a secure line just for me and you. Hello, M’gann. Shh. That’s right I’m shushing you, because I know your first instinct.] The voice was familiar. Too familiar.
[I’m somewhere. Doesn’t really matter wear. Perhaps passing through. Perhaps using a relay of some kind. Wouldn’t that be quite fascinating. Either way, I thought it would be nice if we caught up sometime. I’m working a project. You know how I love my projects. You know how ‘they’ loved my projects.]
There was the sound of clapping in her mind for a moment, like a happy child that found their favorite toy.
[Yes help that’s what I need and you’re just…oh what was he said. You’re the right Ma’aleca’andran, to help me. However, I need to be going before you start to be a bad Ma’aleca’andran and try and find me. We’ll be in touch. Promise also because I know how much you love your phone I’ll leave you with another clue. Professor Yana. Google it.]
