by Michele | Oct 4, 2017 | Chronicles
Damien: Damien Wayne.
The son of Bruce Wayne, The Batman. Heir to the cowl.
Damien stands in front of the glass display cases that holds his old outfit in the Bat Cave, along with his fathers. Looking into the glass at his father’s uniform, he stares at it for a long time. Seeing himself in the uniform in the reflection. Was this how it was supposed to be? Was this Bruce’s plan all along? Surely his father had someone worthier to become the Batman. Richard, in his mind, is the best candidate. But, would he take it?
He knew that the path he was treading was not one set by his father. But someone murdered his father. Someone was able to do something nobody else could have done.
Kill Batman.
Would his father condone his actions? More than likely, his father would be ashamed. Didn’t he understand? Sometimes you had to take the law in your own hands. To make sure that the next Joker can’t be born. To send such a deep chill down the spines of organized crime…that they rather go elsewhere, than to stay in Gotham. Damien had been raised by the League of Assassins. They’re very belief is to purge the world and to provide order to the chaos.
“Why, Father?” asking the uniform, putting his hand on the glass.
“I am your flesh and blood, it is my duty as your son to find who did this to you. My methods may not be what you wished for, but it is all I know.” glancing down for a moment, Damien squeezes his fists as he looks back up staring back at the reflection, seeing himself in the cape and cowl. “I will find who did this to you, father. And I will make them suffer for their egregious crimes.”
Dinah: I’ve been to the Bat Cave many times. Far less times since my return to Gotham City than all the years before that. The first time when I was in High School myself, still hellbent on revenge more than justice and making things right. The state of the police department now doesn’t exactly tell me that I was wrong at the time in thinking it wasn’t good for anything but tearing to the ground. Not that there isn’t good cops still, like Barbara’s father. I’d been brought around to seeing things in a better light though. During that time I’d become a regular here, and I’d done as much training with Bruce as I did training the others. In a way it’d become the home to replace all the other parts that make up a home I had lost.
And out of all of that, all that time spent, would you believe this is probably the fourth time I’ve come in through the front door?
I’d wanted to ride my bike, only to find an enterprising ‘friend’ had demolished it. Oh, I’m sorry, he’s improving it. Either way, it had led to a lot of colorful and ungrateful expletives. I coped with the improvements to my suit. The bike was proving to be another matter entirely. I wasn’t really all that much more excited to be chauffeured up to the Wayne Estate in a limo, either. It’s only Alfred Pennyworth’s charm and the fact that he fed me a better meal than I’ve had in at least two months that has me in my currently sunny disposition.
Given what we’re actually here for, however, I don’t know that it’s going to last.
“You do know there’s much better ways of making people suffer than just killing them, right? Oh, and hello Damien.”
No Hood tonight? God. I had so many great things prepared to say to him. Tim mellowed me out a little on the entire subject the other night though or he’d be getting a lot more sharply pointed barbs.
Tim: For the second time since Bruce’s death, I’m coming home. I’d been here for the official funeral, stayed long enough to talk with Alfred and make some arrangements. Then I’d set off. Dick and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye on the future. Damien and I have rarely seen eye to eye on anything. It made things difficult. Especially once the two of them found out that I was more interested in inheriting the Foundation, than the Bat Cave. I think all they care about is the Mantle. Maybe I’m wrong, but I couldn’t take the chance that I was. Someone needed to protect Bruce’s legacy, while all of us struggle to cope with the loss and worry about Batman’s legacy.
This second trip home? A little less gloomy than the last. Alfred was clearly thrilled to have guests. Even more thrilled to cook. I think he was absolutely Game to turn the Canary’s frown upside down. Especially once he intuited that I wasn’t the real reason for her displeasure. Bike dismantling aside, given that she knows that she’ll be getting it back new and improved. Okay, in the case of the bike maybe that doesn’t help mute her displeasure, but a good home cooked meal and some world-famous crepes have done enough to put the color in Dinah’s cheeks.
For the record? Damien owes me one. If we’d come in on the bikes, I’m half-way certain he’d have been getting a billy club to the head. I’d ruled out the possibility of her Canary’ing him, on account of him not being able to hear the lecture that is about to commence. Waiting for my opinion, I step in off the hidden elevator behind Dinah, with two hands in my pants pockets. Doing my best to ‘back Dinah up’ while being as non-threatening as humanly possible.
“Damien,” giving the other Wayne-son a nod of acknowledgement, before Dinah starts off the festivities. “How is the new helmet working? Does the Heads up Display keep your 360 degree line of sight going, despite the constricting Hood….?”
Oh. Right. That’s not at all why we’re here. Is it? Yikes. I should have taken this a different way. Flashing Dinah a moderately apologetic look, I try to correct course, “I miss him too.”
Damien: Damien doesn’t turn around as Dinah starts. Instead, he keeps staring at the outfit. “Dinah. Timothy.” greeting them the best he can at the moment. Slowly, he turns around, keeping his hands in his pockets. He’s not looking for a fight tonight, well, at least a physical fight. “The Hood is doing great. Thank you again, Timothy. It has been an excellent tool in my dealings with the underworld of Gotham.” explaining as he takes a deep breath, turning his level gaze from Tim to Dinah.
“You are correct, Dinah. I am sure there are other ways.” his tone is level, absolutely level. There’s no expression of regret, pain or anything. But, this was how he always was. When he was younger, he was full of anger and rage. Wanting to take the world and burn it. While, the anger and rage is still there. It’s much more channeled into his dealings with the mobs. “But. I do not subscribe to those ways.” offering as he moves closer to them, but staying out of arms reach of Dinah.
“I know my actions do not sit well with you. It is the best method of getting the information we need, and to keep the mobs, gangsters and other riff raff of this city under control. If you have no noticed, the city is slowly becoming worse. Even while Bruce would do as much he can, even he, saw the inevitable. I am doing what needs to be done. In the mean time, I am attempting to find who killed my father.” glancing to the two of them, but more to Dinah. Keeping his gaze level and emotionless.
“Please. Enlighten me of the information you have found using your methods. I am curious to see what you have uncovered, Dinah.” gesturing slightly as he pulls one hand out of his pocket before sliding it back in casually. Damien had accepted Tim has his brother, even if it may be a strained relationship. “I am glad you are here, Timothy. Our father would be proud of the steps you have taken to continue his legacy.” Damien knew that what he was doing wasn’t the Bat-Family way of doing things, but it had been a very long time since he considered himself part of the Bat-Family.
Dinah: I don’t think I need to actually say anything in response to Tim’s curiosity. The way my lips purse and pull to the side is an expression that he can surely read by now. Besides. I’ve heard that sometimes I’m much more frightening when I’m not being mouthy. It means I’m probably about to express physical displeasure instead of verbal. We have also already had a discussion about the subject, one that he actually more or less managed to bring me around to his way of thinking on. Okay. I wouldn’t go that far, but I understood his reasoning. It’s also why I’ve suddenly found myself back in the role of combat instructor, with two pupils. One of which is significantly better than the other. For now at least.
Believe it or not, I’m actually rather quiet as a whole once I get past my opening jab. Any great ‘discussion’ functions rather like a fist fight, though. You test the mood of your opponent, their reaction, how likely they are to waver or overreact when provoked.
“I have. I also noticed a general state of criminal hibernation while they jointly shoved their heads in the sand hoping that no one would think they were just ballsy enough to have actually been the one that took out the Batman.”
Like a pack of unruly kids sitting in class and wanting desperately for the teacher not to call on them because they didn’t have the answer to the test, and they didn’t want detention. Only the kids are the mob, Joker’s the professor and it’s death instead of detention.
“Up until they realized they were going to have to start defending themselves. And that behaving wasn’t actually doing any good.”
There it is. The inevitable. Trying to turn this back in order to prove that his method works better than hours, because we are lacking results. Which isn’t even untrue, and it frustrates the hell out of me. I know it does Tim, as well. No matter what leads we’ve chased down what alleys, they don’t seem to amount to much. We’d started with the plan of tailing the Joker through Gotham not long after I’d gotten here, and it’s what I’d been doing. It’s why I’d caught onto Damien’s actions, though maybe I should have expected.
“I’m wagering exactly as much as you and your new playmate have, kiddo.”
Tim: There’s no real denying the body language of my being pleased with his new gear working well. I mean, it doesn’t behoove me to make something that is going to fail does it? I realize we’re here to discuss his methods. I know that Dinah is actually right. Hell, I wouldn’t condone his methods myself any other time. But my point still remains the same as it did before and it seems like Damien is seeing it the same way. Doing things his way has at least had a result. My way hasn’t turned up a single clue. Dick’s? Seem to only be benefiting Dick and Babs. If I can assist him, even if only through keeping our Father’s name out of the muck when someone finds out that it’s Damien doing it? Well…
“Thanks, Damien,” shockingly enough I’m a little surprised by the praise. “I’m not ready to be the Bat, but Bruce put a lot of time and money in to making sure that I was ready to step in and keep Wayne Corp moving forward.”
For the most part Lucius Fox is doing all of the heavy lifting. Just like he did for Bruce. I’ve just stepped in to be a figurehead. To give people someone to look to that still has the Wayne name attached to it. Well, that and it allows me to control the R&D division. Which the entire family needs to continue it’s work. But again, I know that’s very much not why we’re here. I also know Damien paid me that compliment for a tactical reason. He does nothing without a measure of tactics involved. It’s what I like most and least about him at the same time.
“Actually, the ‘new playmate’ is one of the reasons that I’m here, Damien,” following up on what Dinah has said, I take a step closer. “When the Joker first showed back up, I asked Dinah if she would be willing to tale him. I didn’t ask her to bring him down. I didn’t send out the red alerts, so that we could all get together and kick his teeth in. I knew what he would do and all I asked was for Dinah to watch him. To tell me, in her own judgment, when Joker was branching out and going ‘too far’.”
“Sounds like I had the same thought as you then too, but… you know we can’t actually work with him right?”
Damien: Looking between them, he simply lifts a brow then narrows his eyes at the two of them. “The Joker is a psychotic lunatic that my father should have killed long ago. I do not consider him a ‘playmate’. At the moment, He lives only because I believe he can be useful. It seems, Joker is mourning. Letting him work the underworld in his own way can be for our benefit. This does not mean I trust him. This does not make him a friend. At the moment, our paths align and I intend on using him as a tool. Once he has outlived his usefulness.” shaking his head.
“Do you two have so little faith in me that you think I would consider Joker a friend? Or, as you put it, Dinah. A ‘playmate’?” asking. Though, the inflection in his voice didn’t change. Pulling his hands out of his pockets, he turns around and gazes at the costume his father once more. “Sometimes you must work your enemy to get to the end result.” licking his lips, he takes a breath. “When I was with father as Robin. There were times we had to work with the enemy. Not out of trust, or friendship. Because it was a means to an end.”
Turning around, he faces Tim.
“I do not think any of us want the mantle. But, I believe Richard should be the one who takes it. Though, I do not believe he will. If you do not want it. Then, I believe it falls onto me.” a shrug. Something he didn’t consider when coming back to Gotham, and to the life.
Dinah: God’s Honest Truth was Tim’s original mission for me, which had been as much my idea as it was his, had been proving so much harder than the one I’ve just gotten back from Metropolis on. I might actually choose picking repeated fights with Superman, even though the trick I used the first time will certainly not work again, over how I’ve been spending a lot of my nights here in Gotham. I hadn’t thought it would be so difficult. Following the maniac around and not engaging. Just watching who he’s crossing off his list, so that we could cross it off ours without getting our hands dirty. There comes a point though, where watching the bloodshed is too much. I know that most, if not all, of his so called victims are the scum of Gotham. But we don’t murder people.
Nor have I ever made a habit out of watching as someone else did it.
“Keeping your friends close, and your enemies closer? There’s a few other sayings that come to mine here as well. Like guilty by association.”
I’m trying to be nice. Well. Not nice. Civil. To at least listen to his side before I decide that yes, my side is right, his is wrong, and he needs his ass beat. It might be cathartic. Damien might give me a run for my money, even. Judgmental or not, with my arms crossed across my chest and my lips pursed, I’m also oddly understanding. He’s hurting. They all are. I am, too. Rage is one thing. Impotent rage has a way of chewing out your soul and then what is it replaced with?
“What if that’s what the Joker wants, Damien?”
Tim: Damien’s question is legitimate. Do any of us really think that he would become ‘friends’ with the Joker? No. Categorically ‘No’ is the only answer that I can come up with. However it’s not the easy. Dinah’s alluding to it herself, but she’s playing a game that Damien is going to win. Keeping this a discussion of ‘What if?’ instead of ‘What is?’ There’s no discussing the might be, could be, probably with Damien Wayne. Even when he was younger there a certain amount of unwillingness to entertain the notions of things being out of his control. What we need to deal with here, I think, is the literal situation as it is.
“Let’s set Sun Tzu aside for just a moment, I’ll discuss that with you later if you want. For now let’s pose this as a different sort of question.”
For that purpose I step in further. Making my way to the encased costumes and closer to Damien. I know that the two of us haven’t always (or even ever really) seen eye to eye in the past. We’ve had differences in ideology. What we’ve always had in common though? Is the family we’re associated with. The ones we’re loyal too. Even more important than the one we’ve lost, are perhaps the ones we still have here and now. I think that’s going to have better traction with him. So that’s where I start.
Putting my hand up on the case with Jason Todd’s costume, for the first time I’m going to tell these two what is on -my- mind, “The truth is, Damien. I want it. When I first came here, it was after your Father brought me here. I figured out who Batman was and I’d tried to force him to let me take Jason Todd’s place” Your Father refused me time and time again. He didn’t want another Robin at the time. He didn’t want to take a risk with attachments. He didn’t want to have a Robin because of the weakness it created in him. He also didn’t think I would live up to the Legacy, because I hadn’t lost my family at that point. He didn’t think I had the drive to be his equal.”
“It took my whole family almost being killed, because I wouldn’t stop investigating crimes. Without the tools to do it safely. Safely for them, not so much myself. He recognized then that I wouldn’t give up just because he told me no. So he offered to let me be his partner, on his terms. To train me, give me the tools that I was missing that would compliment the ones I already had. I wasn’t allowed to leave this cave until I was ready.”
This is when I turn from the case containing Jason Todd’s costume and take the few steps toward Bruce’s. The Batsuit which Damien is nearest dominates the Cave’s museum, as it should. “I want to take this suit and put it on. I want to make him proud. I want to preserve his legacy. It’s what I want with my whole being, Damien.”
“Everything I just said, applies to you a hundred times more than it does me,” there is this small, almost sad, shake of the head. “Can you do it? Yes. You could put this on and go out there as Batman, but would you be Batman? Would you preserve the Legacy that is Batman?”
Reaching out to lightly tap Damien’s nearest hand before continuing with a slightly lowered voice, “You have blood on your hands. Not old blood. Not blood you’re atoning for. You’re getting more blood on your hands every time you put on the Red Hood. There’s only so much blood you can get on them before it won’t wash off. Once you cross that line, Damien, you can’t ever put that suit on. Because you’ll destroy the one thing I know you want to preserve.”
“So. I’m going to make you an offer. Probably the offer I should have made you, instead of giving you the Hood. Help me. I’ll put the suit on, if I must or Dick will, but only until you’re ready. Only until you wash this blood of your hands and you’re ready to inherit the Legacy your father wanted you to take.”
Damien: Looking to Tim, and to Dinah, then finally back to Tim. There was a lot to process. “I do not believe I will ever be worth of the mantle, Timothy.” admitting. “I did not come back home to take the mantle. I may be his biological son. And that would make me the natural heir. But, He did not know of my existence until I was older. By the time I had arrived, I was already trained very well by the League of Assassins. As you, and Dinah knows.” gesturing.
“I came home to see what happened with my father, and to avenge his death. To find whoever did this and make them feel pain that they will never know.” that’s the honest word. “I am unsure if I feel worth of the mantle, due to the blood that I have on my hands, and the continuing blood. I believe he would wish for you, or Richard to take the mantle. You are his pupils more than I ever was. You were brought up with his ideals and his ways. I was raised by the most lethal assassins in the world. My grandfather is one of my father’s greatest enemies. Ra’s al Ghul. The demons head. My mother is Talia al Ghul. His daughter. Together, My education started in blood.
I was seven years old when I first stained my hands with blood.”
Looking down. “I was never meant to inherit the crown, so to speak. If I am to inherent anything, it would be to become the next Ra’s al Ghul.” lifting his head, he looks at Tim. “I wish for you, Timothy, or Richard to become the next Batman.” it was something he never aspired to. “As for the Joker. I have been keeping tabs on him as well. Though, apparently, not as well as you have, Dinah. The Joker is not a force to be reckon with. I propose while he does what he does, we send out tips on how to steer his chaotic nature.
Also, Dinah. I believe you and Helena need to have a chat. She has a contact that may know something, but she is unwilling to tell me. Afraid that I will… scare her away.” like Damien would scare anybody away.
“For the memory and legacy of our father, Timothy. And to our mentor, Dinah. I … will not commit as much bloodshed, as it seems you are wholly against it. But, I do not promise that some may not perish through my interaction.” turning around, he takes a deep breath, turning to look at the costume that makes the Batcave… what it is.
“After we figure out who murdered our father, Timothy. I am unsure if I will stay. But, we will come to that road when we come to it.”
Dinah: “And I was six the first time I shrieked down an entire roomful of people. Just because we started too early in this life doesn’t mean we haven’t, and can’t, learn to control it and aim ourselves better.”
There comes a point, even though I do love to talk, that my love of the sound of my own voice doesn’t trump sense and understanding. I would have made a great detective, if I could have stomached working within the law and the system that I don’t actually have all that much faith in. If it worked? We wouldn’t have needed Batman and the rest of us in the first place, would we? Not because I’m good at chasing down clues, matching them up into threads of an investigation. I am good at those things, but I’m an even betterreader of people. Some of them are easier than others. Our new Superman had more or less been an open book.
I would say that ordinarily Damien Wayne would be more difficult, but pain, loss and the need for vengeance have made him a bit more of an open book. I can rant, and lecture, and scold but the truth of the matter is? I’m an Exile. We have a great deal in common, all of us do, and while we did share a mentor as he says, I’m not one of the Bats. Gotham is my home, it’s where I was born, but I can’t belong here without bringing a whole lot worse on everyone’s heads if I stick around. Which is why tailing duty ‘only’ had been a good call. No reason or excuse to actually loose the Canary Cry on anyone.
Enter Timothy Drake-Wayne. I hang back while he moves in closer, letting the Once and Future Brothers talk without my interruption. A novelty that I hope they will savor and appreciate for its rarity, and how unlikely that is ever to happen again. But it’s the right angle to approach this with. There’s a sharply raised eyebrow at the back of Tim’s head when he offers to put the suit on though. That was maybe the last thing I expected to hear, because I know he doesn’t really want it. That’s not the role he seems himself in, and he’s pretty upfront about that much. Frankly I’d have expected me to have to put it on before he would. And that’s not happening. Far too covering. And I don’t think a cowl would go well with the fishnets anyway.
I’m an entirely good girl, and manage to keep my snark about him scaring people off to myself. And my doubt that someone like him wouldn’t know the line before you’re going to kill someone.
“Thanks for the tip, Damien. I’ll talk to her. And let you know what I find out. I’m not, by the way, opposed to you kicking the shit out of mobsters that have it coming. I’m actually a little jealous. But. As the wise one here said.”
Jerking my thumb at Tim.
“There is a line. And believe me. I know how hard it is not to want to cross it. But your Father pulled me up short of that, once upon a time Damien. I owe it to him to pay that forward a little if I can.”
Tim: “Hold on, I’m not done.”
That’s me calling him off once he gets a head of steam, because I know what he’s saying. Hell, I deal with this all the time. Admittedly I’m coming at this self-depreciation from a different direction, but I’m still feeling the same things and the same way. In a lot of ways it’s surprising to hear him voice the same things I’ve said. I’ve said some of those things recently too. Maybe because of that I’ve got a lot more to say than normal.
“You’re right, in a lot of ways. I didn’t think you were worthy of being Robin when you first came here. For all of the same reasons you just laid out. I was against it, you were against me. So I’m pretty sure this is where I’m going to surprise you, Damien. -I- think everything you listed, everything that had me against you becoming Robin, are the exact reasons that you should inherit the mantle. When you’re ready. The same reasons that I argued against you taking my place as Robin? Are the same things that make me think you’re the one to carry the Cowl eventually.”
“Because I was wrong. I mean. You’re a terrible narcissistic jerk, with a self-aggrandizing penchant for violence and murder. But. You were able to conquer those things. You were able to overcome them for a time. You can again. You need time, I get it. We all do. When the time comes though Damien? Who is going to be better than you? Who is going to be more driven to overcome those challenges? You can’t look me in the eyes and tell me that you’re going to let your genetics dominate you. You can’t tell me that your ‘teachings’ are going to define you.”
It’s this small snort that sounds a bit like a half-laugh that emphasizes my argument to all of this. “Seriously, Damien. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you are still your grandfather’s bitch. You can’t. Your ego won’t let you. It won’t let your mother’s teachings rule you either. They’ll temper you, but you’re too stubborn to let them control you. If anything? You’re going to rail against them so hard that once you get control of yourself you’re going to be the Best of us.”
Taking my cue then from Dinah, I let myself go quiet for a moment. As much looking up at the suit, the cowl, as I am listening to the two of them for a moment. Filing away the information. The Huntress? By all accounts she’d disappeared shortly after asking Dinah to return. Curious that she would have some sort of lead but need to be contacted. Why bring Dinah back to leave her in the dark? That speaks of something a little more nefarious than I’d have wanted to ascribe to Helena. She’s been one of us a long time. Like Damien she’s got skeletons in her closet, but I thought she’d locked the door and thrown away the key.
As Dinah finds her footing and makes her point, I chip back in. Though this time I do it with a studious look at the Man next to me. “You’re actually wrong about a couple things, but one of them is actually important enough for me to argue with you about it. You actually were meant wear the Cowl. No, seriously. When we first met, I went to Bruce and told him I didn’t think you’d be a good Robin. He told me that I wasn’t looking at it clearly. That I was letting my emotions blind me to your actual talents.”
“That discussion with Bruce is when he told me about his plans. He sent me off to school, you became Robin. Dick went off to be Nightwing. He had me travelling the world. Learning the ins and outs of the Business, Technology and Science side of his world. He wanted -me- to be armed with the tools to inherit the Business. He wanted you to inherit the cowl. Because you have those tools. Bruce wanted his sons to work together, Damien. To work together to be better than he was.”
“We have a chance here, to not just protect our Father’s legacy, but to build on it. To further the work he started, not just continue it. So, like I said. I’ll take the cape and the cowl, but only if you promise me that you’re going to be ready to come take it from me.” Pausing for barely a heart-beat, before turning to him more directly. The next bit may sound like a question, but it’s not. “Do we have a deal?”
Damien: Honestly, Damien never really had friends. Often driving the ones he did have, or starting conflicts with them. It was hard to listen to both Dinah and Tim. Showing him that he could change. And at one point, he had changed. Damien never wanted the mantle, but Tim was right. He was groomed to become the next Batman, even if he had initially ran away from his father. To forge his own path. But, the fact that Tim wanted to take the mantle, and then give it over to Damien? That made him wildly uncomfortable, it was a legacy that he wasn’t sure he could uphold. If he was worthy of it. The skeletons in his closet were much more visible.
If he were to become the Batman. The League, his Grandfather and even his Mother could be very deadly enemies. For once, Damien’s level gaze broke slightly as the thought of him honoring his father in such a fashion took hold in his mind. That Tim, approved of the idea. Would Dick? He didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure where this faith from Tim was coming from. For the longest time, they clashed, fought. Sometimes with words, sometimes with fists. Maybe it was because they both have grown and become more mature? Going silent, for once. Damien didn’t have anything to say, he didn’t know what to say. It felt like an eternity before Damien found his voice again.
Instead of going in for a hand shake, Damien instead reaches up to slide his hand along Tim’s jawline. His large hand palming his brothers face as he tilted his head up so that the two were looking into each other’s eyes. To study Tim’s eyes, to determine if the young man was telling the truth. “We are brothers, Timothy. Now, and forever. If you wish for this to happen, then so be it. Father would be proud. I will… work on my habits. To curb them once more. To become someone worthy of the mantle. We have a deal, my brother.”
Then with a hint of a smile as he pulls his hand from Tim’s head.
“But, You are the one to tell Richard of your idea.”
Turning to Dinah, he offers his hand out to her.
“I… realize we have not always seen eye to eye. I wish for us to communicate better. To .. share information.” it was difficult for Tim to admit this, to want to work together with other people. For so long, he’d been on his own. Now, here was this branch being extended to him. “I know you will.. what is the phrasing… ‘Keep me in check?’…And I wish for you to help me with this, Dinah.”
Dinah: This really isn’t how I thought this was going to go. With how good I am at reading people and situations, that’s a little shocking. Sometimes you have to adapt on the fly with what’s in front of you, roll with any punches, and then comes up swinging regardless though. I think we may have just ended up doing the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine, and I didn’t even get to punch the guy in the face or rough him up in the slightest. That’s a shame. I guess I’ve already gotten to yell at someone this week, and that’s as full as my quota is likely to get. Damien’s actually going to try. Which is further than I thought we’d get in one outing. And apparently Tim’s going to put on the Cowl. Which is even less believable than a compromising Damien Wayne.
And yet here we are. Having an actually touching moment. In the Bat Cave. Night of firsts, isn’t it?
I’m actually laughing when I take Damien’s hand, a musical chortle over Tim having to be the one to break the news to Dick. Smooth. Or maybe it’s that I’m mentally hearing a phone call, complete with my roommate using the Batman gravely voice to just reveal it that way. I’m Batman, Dick.
“Oh, you bet I will kiddo. And I’d like that. The information sharing. I’ll try not to yell at you. Too much.”
There’s actually barely any age difference between us. It doesn’t stop me from the mothering nicknames though. Never has. My other hand comes up, no not to punch him while using our clasped hands to yank him into the blow. That would be completely unjustified right now. But to lay over the top of our hands, a show of sentiment if you will. I really dofeel his pain and frustration. Having gotten to deal with and bury mine doesn’t mean I don’t still remember what it was like. Letting go, I take a step back, stretching my arms over head as if I’ve just finished a trying workout, before pointing back the way we’d came.
“Now. If you’ll excuse me for a minute I think I heard Alfred saying the words creme and brulee in rougly the same breath.”
Tim: “This has to happen,” because I think this discussion is the only way to save your soul Damien, I just can’t say that out loud, “A wise man once said ‘Do or do not, there is no try.’ I know you can do this Damien. I know we can do this.”
Maybe it’s this moment of bonding. Maybe it’s the fact that this is the right thing to do. Whatever the case may be? I don’t want the Cowl and I’m only willing to even touch it, if Damien’s giving his word to come take it from me. Soon. In which case I’m nothing more than a placeholder, for the main event. That’s something I can deal with. I’m fairly sure, pretty, maybe sure, that the Cowl won’t crush me in the time it takes Damien to find himself. After all we’ve both grown up at least this much. Here we are having this conversation. Talking to one another without beating one or the other of us half to death.
While he didn’t shake my hand, he did the next best thing. For a weirdo. “It’s all settled then. Sure, I’ll call Richa… wait… I’m not calling Dick. Hold on. Where the hell are you two going?!”
“Guys.”
“Guys!”
The two of them are what? Leaving me here. One of them is going for creme brulee. The other is leaving me to talk to Dick? We came here to save Damien’s soul. That mission seems accomplished, but at what cost? A sideways glance at the Cape and Cowl hanging in the case, before I make a decision. I’m not going down this path without a drink. Creme Brulee my ass. I’m going to need something with a little kick before I do what Damien just said.
Sure enough. There the two of them go. Leaving me here. In the Bat Cave. With one task and one task only. “You guys are dicks.”
by Michele | Sep 28, 2017 | Chronicles
Dinah: All in all? That could have gone better.
Mission accomplished, though. I’d made myself a nuisance, and a sizable one at that, hopefully for long enough to get the job done. I hadn’t exactly gotten a precise timeline for how long I had to keep Superman’s attention pointed at me instead of anywhere else, so hopefully Tim’s friend had skedaddled and gotten on with what she needed to do. I’d anticipated getting back a bit later than I have, but I also figured I’d be taking conventional travel back to Gotham. Or alternately doing a little swimming and then calling for a ride, depending upon how things played out. Getting flown without an aircraft? Not actually something I’d care to repeat anytime all that soon. Maybe because I wasn’t entirely sure the guy wasn’t just going to drop me. Sure, he’d been trying to act good but it could have been just that. An act.
My jacket was still at the nightclub, and along with it everything else like my phone. It meant I didn’t really have any means of radioing in, or calling to let my roommate know that I was okay and I’d done what he’d asked. It also means that once I’ve been dropped off at the harbor? I’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of me. I don’t mind, lets me clear my head and work off the steam I’d build up in Metropolis. Gotham would probably be about the worst place to have to do a walk of shame, but there’s not one ounce of that in me, nor a reason to be ashamed. Plus I actually almost feel sorry for someone that sees this particular skimpy dressed blonde and thinks she’s going to be easy pickins. But being confident in your skills, knowing you’re more than a match for pretty much anything the street has to serve up, doesn’t mean you can be careless either.
The alleys, and back ways are more natural and normal to me than sidewalks at this point. It’s that proclivity that actually nets me a bit of a detour. A detour that sends me up a fire escape, and into the shadows where I can watch unobserved. You see. Normally there’s only really one reaction when you see a crime in progress, or just know there’s about to be one. We’re vigilantes. We do certain things a certain way. But I’m without my gear. More importantly, without the coat of makeup I wear to alter my features to the point of barely recognizable. It’s also not just anybody going into that Public House. It’s the Joker and his Loon Squad. I don’t need to be a tactical whiz kid to know how this is going to go. Even before the screaming and yelling starts.
Do I feel even a little bad about not interfering? No. I know exactly the sort of people that are inside that building. Most days it’d maybe be me kicking the everliving shit out of them. It’s the second party that has my attention and concern. Cocking my blonde head to the side, it doesn’t take me more than a moment to pick what I’m looking for out of the night sky. Once you know they’re there, it’s easy to spot Red Robin’s drones. Well. Guess that means he knows I’m back. Leaning against the railing more as a perch than a real hiding spot, I’m debating going into the building anyway. Just in case he’d needed help. The slow count that I’d begun in my head isn’t finished by the time I see one party…and then the other emerge. I don’t know, honestly, if I’m more relieved, or grumpy. That throttling can wait until another night though. Not that I couldn’t do it in my boots and mini skirt.
Kicking a leg over that railing again, I drop down to the concrete, bending my knees to absorb the impact as I bring my hand up to my cheek like I’m holding something in place.
“Kssssssht. Red Robin, are you aware that Red Hood seems to be making nice with the Joker-over. Kssssht.”
It’s that kind of night, isn’t it? I’m going to keep amusing myself by talking in my imaginary walkytalky the whole way back I think. Because Gotham and Crazy go hand in hand, and I think it’s really damn funny. It’s that or humming to myself.
“Kssssht. On my way in. Also your friend wasn’t very nice to me. Over. KSsssht.”
Tim: To say that I had been worried about Dinah is an understatement. We had done our homework. She had studied up on the target. When I asked Dinah to do a favor for me, I didn’t intend to send her in blind. So I opened the toolbox. Gave her every scrap of information on Conner Luthor that I’d put together, at Bruce’s direction, over the last two years. She went in armed to the teeth with enough tactical knowledge, that I was positive she would survive. Almost sure. Well, it was more like playing the odds. They were in her favor, because the deck -and- Dinah were stacked against the subject of her wiles.
Once the reports from Gotham had come in? I’d feared the worst, for about an hour. In that second hour, I’d begun to formulate multiple plans. From extraction, in case of capture, to vengeance in case of the worst. Not one of those plans, sadly, had involved ‘Pick me up at the Harbor.’ Whatever happened. However it came to be that Dinah was dropped off at the Harbor by the very person she was sent to distract? That’s a story I’m interested in. All I really know is that if the seismic activity in Metropolis was anything bad, she wouldn’t be walking back like she seems to be doing once my pretty little birds actually zero in on her.
Drones. They’ve been circulating around the City for weeks now. A contingency plan that Bruce and I had conceived a couple of years ago. We just never put it in to action, because Bruce thought it violated all sorts of privacy ethics. I’d agreed at the time, but re-thought my position after he was gone. Not because I thought we were wrong originally, but because I needed something to help me find the culprit. As time marched on and I became desperate for answers, I’d turned to the little drone army. Eyes in the Sky, that could help me a little more to be ‘Everywhere, all at once.’ These days, Dinah rarely sees me without a computer going. Constantly sifting through the drones information. Even though there’s very likely an app for that.
“Ugh. We spent millions of Wayne R&D budget dollars on those drones. They simply don’t do static.”
Oh, I’m not talking to Dinah. You see the little drones aren’t equipped with the ability for two-way communication. Although, in retrospect, that might actually be worthy of an upgrade. Instead I’m talking mostly to myself. Stephanie certainly has no idea what I’m babbling about. She hasn’t a clue that I’m listening to my little birds, whom are spying upon Dinah and Damien (not to mention the rest of the Bat-family and any criminal they can find). Now that I think about it though, I’m glad that I can’t communicate directly with Dinah right now. It saves me from having to answer Dinah directly. I’ll worry about that later, when I’m not demonstrating the basics of how to throw a punch.
By way of first letting Stephanie try one of her own, blocking it and then showing her how to do it for real. Over and over, until she manages to do one without locking her wrist. I’ve got some hope for Steph, actually. It’s only taken her the entire night ( of which she has been thrown, punch, kicked, tripped and choked more times than I think I want to admit ) to figure out finally how to throw right hook. Without breaking her own hand, wrist, fingers, or potentially just hitting herself. ( That only happened once, but it now lives on for ever by way of the screens that replay the video every few minutes. On a loop. )
“Take a break. We’re about to have company. The kind of company that might take offense to the fact you’re still not moving your feet the way I told you to four hours ago.”
Dinah: It could have taken longer to get there, but you get to know the shortcuts like the back of your own hand when you spend enough time making use of them to cut off criminals and lowlifes. It’s likely even faster when you use one of those computerized maps like Tim enjoys so much, but it’s cheating and I just don’t like them. Computers are his thing. A memory like a steel trap is mine. I probably should just go back to Pretty Bird’s. At this point in the night, the place will be full and loud and no one is going to notice me going up to my apartment over the bar’s second floor. Except I’m willing to bet what little money I have that it’s not where my partner in ‘crime’ is, and that he’s instead holed up in his little cave. I’m sorry. Roost.
There’s letting yourself in to a secret lair, and then there’s knowing you’re being let in and if you weren’t invited there was probably some elaborately abrupt defense mechanism that would have knocked you on your ass. By the time I waltz in, whistling like I’d been doing since I got bored of my staticy one sided conversation, I’m pretty happy to finally have arrived. Times like that makes you really appreciate your motorcycle for getting around Gotham. I really don’t know how those dummies who do it on foot manage, sometimes.
“Luuuuuucy, I’m home!”
The sashay is only partly for his benefit, the truth is it’s just kind of how I walk and being out at night only makes it worse. Habit. Part of the persona that’s really more me than Dinah Lance is at this point. There comes a point in a life like this where your secret identity is more like the costume than the name you picked out for yourself in the night. Being away for a few years hadn’t changed that, but then, the Canary hadn’t stopped stepping out just because she stepped out of Gotham. It, the strutting, comes to an abrupt halt when I see we’re not actually alone though. The purple clad girl’s slumped against one of the walls like she’s concerned at any moment someone’s going to make her get up again. It doesn’t take that practiced of an eye to figure out what they’ve been doing, and it’s got a lot more to do with punching than it does with anything naughty. Still. Can’t help the teasing. It’s my nature.
“Sheesh, I’m gone five minutes… what is it with you and blondes?”
Tim: The ‘Roost’ (it’s not a cave, damnit), happens to be buried beneath an old Warehouse. Owned by a subsidiary of a subsidiary, of another subdiary’s subsidiary. Once upon a time it was an R&D dump for retired equipment that Bruce either upgraded or did away with. Sometime later, it saw a little used as a backup point to house the Jet, Boat and Mobile. I’ve taken it over as a remote base, because the Clocktower is likely too busy and the Cave just seems… Empty without him there.
Ordinarily the place is little more than it’s original intent; a hidden safe house. Tonight though it’s playing host to Stephanie Brown. Recently it’s seen a bit of a make-over. I’ve been updating the place. While Bruce and Alfred created the place, I’m not sure anyone outside of them and I knew it was here. At least, until I let Dinah in. Then later Damien, so that I could get him outfitted in something that wouldn’t land him on the News as a masse murderer the first time someone with a smartphone got him on camera. Tonight? Well, tonight I put some of the out-dated training tools stored here to work. Much to Stephanie’s chagrin.
“It’s a lot like pok-e-mon, gotta catch’em all,” comes a tongue in cheek reply to Dinah’s teasing, “This is the one I asked you about. The one who is going to get herself or someone else killed if you don’t help her.”
Now that’s an introduction. It also happens to be a means to an end. Swerving Dinah a little off course, so that she doesn’t immediately go in to the litany of discussions we need to have. I need a minute, no more than that, to take stock of her. She looks alright. Better than alright, honestly. Which means that she’s not physically hurt. I have to be honest, with myself mainly, I’m having to stop myself from hugging her. Part of me also wants to apologize. Whether for what ever happened or asking her to go in the first place. Instead of doing that, I give her something that she will actually appreciate far more than a teenage boy’s hug or apologies.
“Wonder Woman made it to Fawcett City, she was able to make contact -and- she somehow managed to stumble upon a bank robbery / hostage situation. Whatever you did with Superman, you did it pretty well. I’d say mission accomplished, but.. um… you got a ride home from your target. I’m not the expert of course, but is that how this sort of thing is supposed to go?”
Dinah: And it also happens to be conveniently close to my Grandparent’s bar, which became my bar when my Grandfather passed. Managed by old family friends, and left to their care. I hadn’t known what to do with the place, and it made me a little sad honestly. It proved convenient enough to come back to though, a place that I could crash anytime I was in the city. That just hadn’t happened until Bruce had died, and Helena had called. Maybe it wouldn’t have for a while still if things had been different. Coincidence on the location? Maybe. But having met Batman I kind of doubt that.
“Hey! I am… not..!”
I don’t need to see be able to see all of the girl’s face to make out the expression she’s got under that half mask, the hood of her cloak is pushed back away from decidedly disheveled and sweaty blonde head. She’d probably be a whole lot cooler and more comfortable for practice if she took it and the mask off, but I’m actually assigning her micro-props even as I judge her on nearly everything else that I can see. If you’re going to insist on wearing something out on the street? You have to be able to fight and move in it. To know what you’re doing enough to not get fouled. Take my high heeled boots. They could be a liability, but I’ve practiced in them enough to make them more a weapon than something to trip me up. I should probably be a little annoyed that she’s here, and that I’ve walked in very much in Full Dinah Face. I have to assume, however, that if Tim thought she was a risk for tattling? She wouldn’t be here in the first place.
And if she does? Well. I know where he sleeps. Leaning over, hands on hips puts me pretty close to nose to nose with Red Robin’s stray.
“Well, hey kiddo. I’m Black Canary. I suggest you eat your Wheaties every morning, because I’m going to kick your ass. And then kick it while you’re down, because if I don’t do it, someone out there will. Difference is, strong chance I won’t make you dead. No one out there’s going to do you the same favor.”
Grey blue eyes, which are about all you can really make out of her face go wide in surprise, and it’s a little comical because she looks like she’s trying to decide if I’m kidding, and maybe Tim had told her before basically the same thing but she thought he was kidding, too. Nope. Not kidding. Not joking. There’s not much of a better motivator than pain. When you’ve got a younger pupil, sure you do things a little differently. Their bodies are still growing and muscle memory is an easier thing. Ted Grant didn’t start out beating me bloody when I was six years old. That waited until I was a teenager, should have known better, and had to get the lessons the hard way. It’s definitely not going to feel like it, but she wants to do this? I’m doing her a favor doing it my way.
The shock is short lived, before a gloved hand is lifted in an A-OK symbol and a chipper voice makes me snort. Well. At least she’s got that going for.
“Sure, no problem, breakfast’s my favorite. Breakfast four meals a day…”
Straightening upright again, ignoring the show I might have just been giving and frankly not really caring. I might be wearing not much but I wear even less a normal night. And I kick people in the face while doing it. I don’t plan on kicking anyone in the head right now. Certainly not Tim, anyway, who I’ve turned on a bootheel to face and approach, leaving his still winded sparring partner in the corner. For her sake? I hope they’d been going at it for hours or I really might accidentally end up killing her.
“I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” Waggling my eyebrows demonstratively, and rather suggestively. “Which he was all over and then refused. He then proceeded to try to save me from my life of mediocrity, threatened me with N.O.W.H.E.R.E., had a bit of a fit after I yelled at him for it, then we made very nice and brought me home. I’ve got some additional notes for your little fun files.”
My tone is sing song in relating the bare bones of the evening. I’m all for him interpreting and guessing a little. I might spell it out more, or maybe tease more, if we didn’t have extra company but either way I’m entirely cheery about it as I move to commandeer a seat and kick my feet up on the closest flat surface.
“The suit? Records everything. Also he recovers from double ruptured eardrums disturbingly fast. And while he was with me he was not in Fawcett City, and paying direct attention to me and nothing else, so I’d say that was mission accomplished indeed. You’re welllllllcome.”
“….heh, I love that song.”
“Right? Me, too kid.”
Tim: It’s all too easy to figure out why Stephanie is here. Other than the fact that she needs the help. I mean it, she really needs the help. Like more than anyone I’ve ever met, that wasn’t a toddler. In fact she happens to be a lot like a toddler. Helpless. Drooling. Flailing around blindly. Not really accomplishing anything. But being very fulfilled not to have died while doing it. Yeah, that’s about how I summarize my meetings with her so far.
She also serves as a bit of a distraction. I could have sent her home when I heard the comments about Damien on the drones, but I didn’t. Because this very much keeps the things Dinah verbally abuses me about to a minimum. For now, at least. I’m a little thankful, honestly, once I see her eyes waggle. Offer he couldn’t refuse? But he did? Or he didn’t? What does it even mean?! He ‘report’ about the mission is little more than gibberish, honestly. I’m about to tell her so too, when I pick up something of even more importance.
“You ruptured his eardrums. Dinah, I thought we agreed you weren’t going to beat up Superman unless you had no other choice?” Now it’s my hands on that are on my hips, my tone that takes a bit of a lecturing one and also happens to project just a little more so that Stephanie can hear what I’ve just said. “Okay. Actually, I’m going to assume you didn’t pick a fight with a Superman. Instead, I’m going to focus on … you know what? I’m completely confused. He tried to save you. Then he threatened you. Then he saved you. All the while he refused your overture. Until you made nice, excuse me.. very nice.. and he brought you home?”
“It’s times like these, that I understand why you drink. None of that mad…. holdup… did you say his suit records everything? Or were you telling Stephanie that mine does? Because if it’s the latter, you should know it does actually. If it’s the former? Then it means he’s being monitored.”
Dinah: “I didn’t beat up Superman. Sheesh.”
The scoff in my tone says it would be very hard for Tim to have said anything more ridiculous than what just came out of his mouth. And the way I absently bounce one booted foot, and check under my nearly non-existent fingernails could almost say that I’m playing coy, or even a little shy about what I’ve done except two of us in this room know I’ve got little to no shame, and if I’ve actually done something? I’m just going to own up to it, because I don’t act on something unless it’s really what I felt I needed to do in the moment.
“It’s not like I capitalized on him being down on the floor with his ears bleeding to inflict more damage. I bolted. Or I would have, except he threatened to bring the building down on everyone’s heads unless I came back.”
“What the fuu..”
“Right? I know. And I didn’t feel like I had any other choice. It was go along with what he wanted, or incoming NOWHERE in three minutes. So I acted. I wasn’t going to divulge your little secrets until at least our third date but if that’s what you want we can just all play Truth or Dare right now.”
I’m all over the place, and it’s entirely by design. Mostly because there’s a third set of ears here, or I would have told him that I’d assaulted Conner Luthor, not Superman, just for a little more background to the actual story. Or I might have spelled out further how I’d gotten Superman’s attention in the first place, and how there was an open ended offer for shenanigans that definitely shouldn’t take place when you know that under the suit? The other person’s in high school. Which he still made very clear he wouldn’t be necessarily opposed to at a later date.
“But yes. Bingo. The latter. He pegged me as a meta, but not a recognizable one with their database. He was trying to offer to help put me in touch with someone who could train me …haha right?… and then he was trying to connect my band to his family to protect me… all in all, that intel you gave me kind of left me woefully unprepared for the guy that I actually ran into. Well. Up until the death threats.”
“…I thought Superman was the good guy…”
Dropping my feet to the floor, I lean forward. Propping elbows on my knees to look up at him with a degree of actual seriousness, I start ticking off talking points on my fingers.
“Suit monitors everything, unless he’s up in the stratosphere. And either that girlfriend of yours has Supes wrapped around her pinkie finger so tight that he’s acting against his nature for her…”
“..there’s a girlfriend? Er. Just. Asking. For a friend.”
“… or you’ve pretty seriously misjudged your buddy. Maybe both. I wasn’t actually settled on which option I was going with before he brought me back here to keep me away from the incoming Big Brother Swarm.”
Tim: “My intel is good,” there’s a quick response if ever there was one, without an ounce of offended tone. “He’s self-centered, even self-absorbed. Little or no emotional attachment to the concepts of right or wrong. He acts without thinking, normally, then deals with the consequences by daring someone to put a stop to him.”
Truth be told? I’m torn. It makes sense that Conner’s dedication to Cassandra Sandsmark would play out in to a desire to please her. However I’m a little surprised that someone like Dinah couldn’t persuade him to do something that he would surely be able to get away with. Either she didn’t try very hard or he was a little more dedicated than I’ve given him credit for… or he’s working an angle. Maybe he thought that by rescuing someone, like Dinah, he’d earn some sort of reward. From Luthor or Cassie or both. That sounds more like the Boy that I know. It also fits perfectly in to the mold that I want to cast him in. Which makes me feel just a little bad about it, maybe I’ve not given the guy a fair…
Oh. There it is. Death threats. Right, bringing the whole place down unless she doesn’t run away. That sounds like the guy I’d gone to school with for a couple of years. “Mm. Alright. I’m seeing the pattern here. You made contact. His suit records it. Now he knows that they know. Which means he either had to help you or let you get scooped up. He didn’t have any way to know that Wonder Woman was out of town yet, at that point. So he assumes that she would find out. You put him in to a position where he had to act in a manner fitting to Wonder Woman’s vision of him.”
“It makes sense, but if there’s even a chance that Wonder Woman has succeeded in curbing him?” It doesn’t take an expert detective to see that what I’m about to say takes some work, apparently it tastes bitter. “Then we need to find a way to cement that.”
In that moment I was talking out loud, but not really talking to either of them. This was something that hadn’t truly ever crossed my mind. I thought the super boy was just about as irredeemable as possible. My only hope had been to somehow break the control over him that N.O.W.H.E.R.E. had. Maybe even neutralize that control Luthor had, so that it would in turn take away tools at the disposal of a superman. I hadn’t even really considered that it might be plausible to save the actual Boy himself. If Dinah had seen the things I’ve seen, I’m sure she’d think the same thing.
“He’s dating Wonder Woman,” growled over at Stephanie, on my approach to Dinah so as to put a fingertip upon the tip of a bouncing boot. “You’re good at this. Reading people. Plus, you’ve had time to think about it on the way home. Was my intel bad, outdated or does the girl have her hooks in him deep enough to make a difference if push came to shove?”
That other gloved hand rises in a silent signal to Stepahnie not to make a joke, yet. “Oh and uh, slightly more pressing question. If all of this went sideways, does that mean you’re on the database now? Do we need to get you out of the Country? And, yes. She babbles like that, non-stop, but she’s actually got something. Maybe intuition, maybe luck. Either way, she’s going to get herself or someone else killed working it through.”
“She’s also got a family history, like the rest of us,” lowering my voice to a mere stage-whisper. “Spoiler alert, Canary, her father’s on page three of her file. You might want to skip ahead.”
Dinah: “I don’t doubt that it was. I just think you may have undersold slightly the kind of influence a good woman can have on a royal douchebag if he actually cares what she thinks. Or at least that you didn’t translate that knowledge into concrete words in your files there.”
Really. I need to meet this girl at some point just so that I can truly understand what she’s working with. Maybe it’s the whole literal goddess part, because blonde with a body I’ve already got down. Sass, attitude, check. Not because I want to compete with her, I don’t need to compete with anyone. It’s curiosity more than anything, because I really don’t doubt Tim’s observations. Even factoring his own feelings in, he’s perceptive enough to be able to set things like that aside for the facts of a matter. But I won’t lie, the way he growls at the girl that’s looking like she’s at least recovered some oxygen enough to sit up a little more straight and gather her feet under her in a cross legged position I almostlaugh at him. Almost. My foot kicks a little bit harder under the tip of his finger just to make it bounce once before I subside, and there’s a muffled little mutter from across the room.
“…is he talking in third person now or…oh Superman. Yeah. No. My friend was talking about….nevermind.”
But as to his question about Conner Luthor, our current Superman, and his motivations?
“Look, I may not know him like you do, but I do know bullshit when I hear it, and he seemed pretty legitimately angry because trying to do something her way, and help someone, was backfiring pretty spectacularly on him. And putting her in danger. I think he actually wants to try to believe her way works. Do I think he’s there yet? No. But I’m pretty sure he’s going to do whatever the Hell he has to in order to keep her safe. Even if it doesn’t make her happy. Red, it may have been legitimately the only time I have ever felt bad about screaming in someone’s ear. Especially … er… point blank. I think not disappointing her a real motivator for him. Which works for us, unless keeping Wonder Woman safe is ever going to require working in opposition to us.”
I also legitimately don’t want to make Tim feel bad. Correction. Worse than he probably already feels about having to say out loud he needs to make sure the First Hottest Blonde’s relationship with his psuedo-best friend stays happy, healthy and lasting. But from my run ins with Superman? I think I can pretty safely say Wonder Woman is the only reason we’re not seeing a whole different sort of monster in that Cape right now. You don’t need to see Stephanie’s mouth under that mask to know she was about to say something and is only held off by Red Robin’s hand. But only for a few moments. Long enough for him to finish anyway.
“…She she or she me? I’m so confused…are you complimenting me or insulting me? Or she? Wait. Who’s file? My file?! I should get to see my file! Why do you have a file?!”
At this point, Spoiler’s getting up and with much less wobble in her legs than I might have expected. She is blonde and she is a girl though. Chances are Boy Wonder may have been taking it easy on her like I’m not going to. Maybe that’s why I got recruited for the Fledgling Vigilante Reformation Club. I still more or less ignore her though, to answer the actual important question in what he’d said.
“Yes, but I led him to believe I had a super minor whistling louder than average power with little or no training. The volume part he doesn’t believe, but the no training part he may have. He seemed to think he could handle it by checking up on me. Which means we can plan on a visit in the future…sometime. Might I suggest that by then you cook up one of your little doohickies to block out his suit? I think it’d go a long way for everyone’s interests. Either I can give it to him, or you get it to his girl to pass along.”
What else was there that I’d deemed in my own personal debriefing as I walked across Gotham as important, in between inappropriate ‘radio’ transmissions to his drones?
“Oh. When I told him I’d be safe here, there was a very obvious and clear lightbulb moment and gears turning in that dense skull.” Not even being rude. It is incredibly dense. “He knows he wasn’t supposed to come to Gotham, and now an undocumented Meta thought she was going to be safe from NOWHERE there. I am betting he put two and two together, but he got six instead of four.”
Tim: Ugh. With every single word Dinah says I’m getting a far worse feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s a really good thing I’ve kept the suit on. That may be the only thing keeping both women from seeing me turn a little green. The irony in all of this is that I like Conner, that’s the truth. The parts of him that are normal, are actually great. There just happens to be so few of them. When we first met, I could not for the life of me understand why Bruce insisted that I visit that particular school. Make those particular friends. If anything, he was a standard Luthor. He was all the things I said he was moments ago, but in Luthor-mode he also intentionally dials all those personality quirks up. His secret identity? Is all about being the worst possible person, so that no one would ever suspect him of being anything good.
Frankly? It works. Because even now, right this second, I’m hard pressed to think of a single redeemable quality about him. He’s a blank slate though or he was. Which leads to that singular saving grace; he didn’t know what love really was. His meeting Cassie had gone poorly at first. Continued that way for a couple months too. Somewhere around Homecoming our first year at St. Joseph’s, the two of them clicked and it stopped looking like a hostage situation and became a Stockholm situation. It was only because of the strict orders from Bruce that kept me from intervening. Now though, right now, I’m once more rocked by how good at this Bruce was. He knew. Somehow he saw it in the cards, forced me to play the hand. Now, if what Dinah says is true, there is a real chance that Cassandra Sandsmark might actually save the world from a threat she keeps from every materializing.
“That’s a puzzle for you to work out,” is the only real comment for Stephanie, as to whether I’m insulting her or complimenting her. “Everyone has a file. You can see them when Canary says you can handle seeing them.”
For a time then I’m quiet. Leaving the ‘Roost’ to the sounds of Stephanie and Dinah, while I look absently at the methodical way my hand bounces under the force of Dinah’s movements. It’s soothing. Having that point of focus as my world spirals out of my pretty little box that I’ve put it in. Damnit. Everything fit so well. Everything had a place, every place had a thing. Now I’m faced with the very real reality, that I’m going to have to sacrifice something important to me personally, to someone that I was pretty sure from the start was a monster. How can I do anything else? There’s a very real chance Dinah’s right and that disappointing Cassandra is something important enough to forge a real Superman out of Conner Luthor. How do you turn away from that possibility? Especially when you know the world just lost a Batman. The Batman.
“Stunting his suit shouldn’t be that difficult, but if they’re monitoring it? We need to do something better than block it. We need to make it so that they’re unable to monitor him, but don’t actually know they’re not monitoring him. Until…” Taking a deep breathe and a step forward, trails that fingertip down her boot until it’s about to touch Canary’s actual skin. Then I give it a gentle nudge off of the computer terminal. “… you think Superman doesn’t need to be monitored. You’re going to be meeting with him again?”
A jerk of the cowled head in Stephanie’s direction, if only to make a point. “If Wonder Woman has her hooks in him and he thinks saving you is a good way to get in to her graces. Maybe you can work that angle. Show him the benefits of doing things Her way. You’re already going to be teaching one Stray, why not two? Reinforce Wonder Woman’s point. Let’s give him as many reasons to buy in to Wonder Woman’s philosophy.”
I’m about to go on, say something more when I find myself staring at Dinah for a different reason. Recognition. She already thought about that, didn’t she? It’s why she had him bring her to Gotham. Because it gives her a chance to follow through on meeting him again. Instead of it just being a ploy before she disappeared. Dinah was working the angle, before I even knew there was one.
“You already think he’s ready to have it blocked don’t you? Huh, he turned down sleeping with you to impress her. That’s not exactly the empirical data, I normally like to work with but… I’ve got to admit, it’s compelling. I’m not sure I would have turned that offer down. Alright. I’ll work something up, you can give it to him. If Wonder Woman gives it to him there’ll be more questions than I think she’s ready to answer.”
“In any case, we’ve got some more immediate problems to work through. I heard what you said. About the Joker. There’s something I think you should know…” She’ll understand then, why I nudged her foot off of the edge of my desk, when I tap in the command to show her the Roost’s internal cameras. Playing back Damien’s visit for her. When he picked up his new suit and hardware. “. . . so . . . this happened.”
Dinah: “Ugh! If I wanted to be confused and yet still soul crushed I could have stayed home and watched K-Dramas…instead I picked fictional study group with Mr. Rogers and the Chuck Norris of vigilantes… not that I’m not grateful for the opportunity to be. Y’know. Beaten up and downtrodden.”
I’m still not paying that much attention to Stephanie, though what Tim had said made me curious enough to want to dig her file up on the computer right now and take a looksie. Family issues, yeah, none of us enter into this business without it. In fact, I can’t think of a single person that I know in this line of work that took it up voluntarily, or not so voluntarily, that has a happy, safe, sane childhood. And frankly at least one dead parent. It’s a little shocking that there aren’t more of us for that reason alone, especially here in Gotham but maybe it takes a certain suicidal bent to a personality to get you here. Or we were just some of the few who were lucky enough, had enough skill, to make it until Bruce took us in. Tim told me he didn’t want this one getting herself killed, and that it’d be his fault if he let it continue. I’m sure that’s true enough. I can’t help wondering if it’s also because it’s what Bruce did.
“I assume I’m the Chuck Norris. I look horrible in cardigans. Covers up everything important and exciting. I’ll remind you how grateful you are when we’ve gotten you a little more trodden though.”
That, however, isn’t something I’m going to ask him. As I demonstrated with my abbreviated, field psych eval of his Superfriend, I don’t really need to ask many questions to put together the pieces and clues that are in front of me. Even if I don’t know the subject all that well, and I know Tim Drake a great deal better than I’d gotten to know Conner Luthor in half an hour. Or maybe he sees something in her besides a utility belt full of optimism and a woefully blank slate. Cocking a thumb and forefinger into a finger gun, I pull the imaginary trigger at Tim as he works out what kind of tech we’d actually need to accomplish what I was suggesting.
“Attaboy. A feed loop of some sort maybe, but nothing to make them think it’s broken and they need to fix it. Long enough for you to finish recruiting Red Robin’s Angels, and there’s enough of them that the scales can be tipped. At least, I assume that’s what the end game plan is here.”
He’s got the information. She has the status, and the ability to proverbially rub that status off on someone else. I assume by being seen with them, associated the same way Luthor was trying to get me to do with him. So that people would notice if they went missing, would ask questions that someone wouldn’t want to have to answer. And they’re going to have to do it at a pace that NOWHERE doesn’t think something is up and act before the setup is secure to wipe them out. That could mean slow and steady, one at a time, or maybe a group unveiling when it’s too late and unable to be spun anyway but what it is. A co-op of heroes, independent of Lex Luthor’s agenda.
“Yes. I don’t know when, but I don’t doubt he’ll turn up again so that he can show he was reporting and they still think he’s in line with the program.”
I can’t help laughing, as my foot hits the floor of the Roost with an echoing thump because I haven’t bothered to slow the descent from anything but a dead weight drop.
“He’s going to be a little confused when I switch tacks from ‘You’re Superman, you can do whatever you want!’ and ‘Is that a sidekick in your tights or are you happy to see me?’ to ‘Great Power and Great Responsibility.’ But I can give it a go. Sorry kid, not going to proposition you and boost your ego anymore. And not you either.”
“Uh.. yeah… boy. What a disappointment but… I think I’m good.”
Waving a hand absently in Stephanie’s direction, as I lean in to look at the monitor Tim’s nudged my boots off of.
“Yeah, I do. There was literally zero reason for him to be honest with me, I just ruptured his ear drums and made his day difficult. None. But he got me where they couldn’t hear, and did. You don’t have a girlfriend that can crush your skull if she’s angry with you. But you do know even better than he does how great I am.”
“…so there’s not a girlfriend…”
“If he doesn’t think he needs to follow NOWHERE’S orders all the time in order to protect Wonder Woman from their attention? I think he’s going to be a whole lot more likely to be…well. Superman.”
I think there’s something you should know. Literally nothing good ever follows that statement. Ever. Deaths. Disasters. Disappointments. That’s what follows. And what he shows me has me inhaling sharply through my nose. For a drawn out amount of time, that might indicate I’m about to use all that air for some lung power. Or, as it turns out, to let out an equally long and drawn out sigh.
“So you’re aiding and abetting even more idiocy? …no offense.”
“…none taken. I. Think.”
“Did you know he was using it to commit murder with the Joker? Or were you just thinking some solo action? Christ. I understand frustration and anger and not having a concrete way to channel it but Jesus. He’s going to get himself somewhere you don’t go back from.”
I’d know. I was almost there once, too. But I never went in on homicide with the other side.
Tim: “You can’t be the Chuck Norris,” said with little more than a wolfish smirk, “You are far too pretty to be the Chuck Norris. But there’s a certain Irony you can work in someone calling you Mrs. Rogers.”
While the clowning has it’s purpose; Distraction. I’m not overly keen on letting it through my thought processes. Which is why I encourage it, but I only indulge a little before I put myself back on the proper track. Making a loop of some sort that would block the true monitoring of whatever Conner was doing? That’s easy. Simulating something; something believable that only the best sleuth in the world would actually uncover as a deception? That’s a real challenge, but the solution rests in what I’ve just said about Irony.
“They raised him in a cloning tube, educated him with a virtual reality program. One of the first things Batman had me do, after meeting the new Superman, was to track down his true origin. It lead me to a little place in Nevada. Where a laboratory used to exist. I say used too, because the place was a heap of rubble. I spent three days sifting through it and by the time I’d left? All I recovered was some trace element programming from the tube that held him. It only survived because it was in proximity to him. It was the virtual reality program that he woke up from. I think, with some modifications, I could adapt it to project that back to his handlers. It’ll take me some time….”
Another look, flicked back over a shoulder to Stephanie, before returning my gaze to the busty blonde in front of me. “Time you can spend making sure she doesn’t get herself killed. I gave her a suit, but it’ll only protect her so far. It won’t likely protect her from herself at all… uh, wait, uh…you told him he could do whatever he wanted? With everything or.. you specifically?”
“I’d like to reiterate that I’m dumbfounded at his refusal,” the shake of the head is paired with the slow exhale of breathe that once more serves as my pulling my thoughts off of a track they’re threatening to go down and back to where they need to be. “Skull-Crushing Girlfriend sounds like either an excellent code name or the finishing move of a terrible professional wrestler. Though, I’m not sure that actually works out if you’re Superman. She can’t crush his skull…”
A quick turn in Stephanie’s direction let’s me take a sum of her recuperation. “She’s talking about Him not Me. I don’t have a girlfriend. Skull-crushing variety, most especially. But, I think she was also talking about propositioning Him and You, although if she were, I would more than willing to surrender the Roost to the two of you.”
“Call me a sucker for idiocy, but I can’t let Damien go out there and get himself killed any more than I can let Stephanie. The difference is that I could tell in a heartbeat that Stephanie’s too stubborn to give this up. Even though she’s so under-trained that she’s more likely to break her own neck on that cape she bought at a Halloween prop-shop, than to get killed in the line of duty. Damien’s almost the opposite. If I didn’t help him, he’d go out there and do the same things. He’d just do them without the Hood. What do we gain by that? Our Father’s legacy drawn in to the mud. Not one step closer to his killers? Plus, there’s a good chance he ends up dead, right along with Br…”
“Besides. You don’t get to lecture me on this one. What did you do to stop him? No, not tonight. I mean when you saw him on your return to Gotham. You just read a guy like a championship profiler, in thirty minutes. Don’t tell me you didn’t know Damien was going to do things the League of Assassins way. It’s Damien. But you didn’t kick his ass and put him in time-out. We’re both equally guilty of whatever he does when we chose not to stop him. I’m just hoping we can get something useful out of Damien being Damien…”
“It’s not just frustrating, to not have any movement. Dead ends at every turn. It’s damning. Because every day we go without a lead, is another day that the rest of the world goes down the tubes while we hunt for those clues. The world isn’t waiting for us to find out who killed our father. It’s moving on. Faster than I can keep up. As demonstrated by how woefully out of date my intel on my Best Friend was today.”
Without warning, I turn, flicking my wrists out simultaneously. Hurling two of the discs off my belt at Stephanie. “Clearly, I’ve been wrong before though. If you think Damien’s actually working with the Joker, as opposed to using the Joker like a rabid dog on a leash. Then let’s bring Damien in. Let’s talk to him. Let’s convince him that there’s another way.”
“But, I’ve got a strong impression that you know I’m at least partially right about this. Our choices are ‘Help him,’ ‘Stop him,’ or ‘Get the fuck out of his way.’ In no particular order.”
Dinah: “Are you telling me, a liberated free woman, that I can’t be anything I want to be? Tch. Someone probably should have raised you better than that. Someone definitely should have raised Superman better than that. There’d be a definite style to using something that used to be used against him to fool NOWHERE. Maybe he’ll even appreciate the irony. If nothing else, hopefully he’ll just appreciate the help, or at least use it for our benefit with no spoken thank you.”
I’ve got the vantage now that Stephanie’s moved to be able to see both of them at the same time without having to turn like Tim does. She’s in the process of spreading her arms out in a ‘hey, c’mon!’ gesture like all this constant dogging is actually starting to offend her a little. Or maybe she’s just unable to passively take the comments. I know someone else like that in this room, and they’re also blonde. Lot less fond of purple though. And while she’d insisted she wasn’t going to get herself killed, she’s also here. And still here after the threats, which tells me two pretty important things; she knows she’s not good enough for this, and she wants to learn. I can work with that. She just may not enjoy the pace.
“Everything, but the me was heavily implied. Especially when he started to pull the well, gosh ma’am I’d love to fuck you right over the … ahem. Children present… moving on… but I really probably shouldn’t. I was pretty flabbergasted myself. How do you know she can’t? Has she tried?”
“…what kind of relationships do you people have!? And that’s …too bad about the girlfriend. I mean. Unless you’re happy about that and… I’ll tell my friend. I’m going to stop now…”
Stephanie’s hands on hips posture has what looks a lot more to do with general awkwardness of not being sure how to stand in a get up like that, while not engaged in anything else, rather than because she’s still trying to catch her breath. I can’t hear her panting anymore, or see any shifts in the face mask that indicate she’s puffing. I take the time to size her up again a little more fully with Tim’s back to me. I actually let him carry on about his reasonings without interruption from me because I think I need to hear it fully to understand.
“…I did not. I borrowed it from school. And I wasn’t actually out to punch anyone…”
The girl may be defending herself but she’s doing it in a glowery sort of way as she folds her arms across her chest that’s coming off as more to herself than justification for Tim, and not meant for anyone else to have to overhear. I’d say we’re both caught flat footed with his sudden turn, only I’m not the one that an attack’s being flung at and she wasn’t expecting it in the least. Arms go up, though her posture prevents her from moving quickly enough to get more than one forearm in the way for the discs to bounce off.
“What the hell was that for!”
“Huh. Not bad. More elegantly avoided if you’d just pivoted to the side and let them go past. Unless you knew they’d just bounce off your suit that is…”
She didn’t know that.
“…yeah I… will read the manual when I go home.”
“It’s Damien. I can’t put him in time out unless all the rest of you are going to help, unless I get to maim him first and I’m not going to do that, and he’d probably only take kicking his ass for encouragement to keep doing the same thing he already wanted to do. And I know it’s hard. I do. With all the tech, tools, and manpower we’ve got working for us to have nothing can make it feel like there is nothing, or that the longer it’s taking the more something that you’ve missed is going to slip away forever.”
My exhale is a lot more resignation than exasperation this time, and I scrub a hand through my wind and walk tousled hair, ignoring Stephanie’s harumph as she pulls her hood back up once again. So much purple…
“I couldn’t see what went on inside. I didn’t have any of my stuff. It could have read like they just picked the same target, cooperated, and then went their own ways. I didn’t stick around after obviously to sort it out. Option three there, I’m afraid, has the very strong possibility of leaving Gotham with two rabid dogs before this is over. And one is difficult to stop as it is.”
Tim: Actually, I would never tell a woman that they can’t be anything they want. Because I believe in that. Anyone that thinks otherwise? Hasn’t met Barbara, the book-smartest person I’ve ever met. Nor Dinah, who can throttle just about anyone (including Superman apparently). There’s no limit to what a female can do, except the societal constraints that hold them down and their own ambition. That said, I’m pretty much in complete agreement with her assessment on the tech problem. Utilizing what NOWHERE used on their Clone in the first place, which kind of gave us our rotten apple, would be the best sort of irony.
“Wait, you mean to tell me that Children being present keeps you from saying what he was going to fuck you over, but not that he was going to fuck you to begin with? I know at least one set of teenage ears that most certainly would have rather had none of that information. Absolutely none of the information about Conner Luthor putting his hands on … all of that.”
There’s a sideways glance at Stephanie once more, but otherwise I’m leaving that alone. For now. The questions and the manner in which she throws them out in her fishing expedition. Instead of that, I let my focus remain on her abilities or lack thereof, for now. “Well your new cape is flame retardant, projectile kinetic diminishing and bladed weapon deflecting. So give them back their terrible bath towel. Because -that- was your first chance to actually use the cape functionally, instead of as a fashion accessory. We don’t wear capes just because they look neat. As Dinah will tell you, if they’re not fulfilling a function then they’re actually a detriment. From now on, if you’re keeping the cape, make it your new best friend. An extension of you.”
“She didn’t know,” following up on something Dinah said, “Even though I told her to read the manuals. She was barely out of my sight before she was changing in to it, the night I gave it to her.”
She’s nailed it. The main reason that I took to outfitting Damien. It’s difficult to be back in Gotham. To face the loss of my Father, for the second time. Knowing that there’s a kiler out there, but not being able to find it would be maddening enough. It’s actually worse than that. I’ve been able to turn up nothing. Not a thing. As far as I can tell, Dinah has turned up nothing. Damien is the same. If Dick has found anything then he’s kept it himself. The only person making any headway in the whole damn city on this case? Is the Joker (and now Damien), because they’re doing the one thing that the rest of us can’t do. Eliminate suspects from the list, by eliminating the suspects entirely.
“Look, I don’t actually agree with the methodology. But we both seem to agree that it’s the only thing that’s gotten any results at all. Maybe we can talk to him. If we can’t stop him, without breaking him, then maybe there’s another option. Maybe we can aim him. Limit the collateral damage. I mean, that’s one of the reasons I gave him the tech in the first place. To keep the collateral damage down.”
Except that I was actually thinking too shallow. I’d been trying to reign in the damage Damien could do to the Wayne name and legacy. I hadn’t considered, even for a moment, that he would actually do something reckless like work with a madman. The City can’t handle two of them. It has barely handled one before and she’s right about that. Batman had a hard enough time controlling one of them. This could turn in to a catastrophe.
“Damien would tell you that you’re highly over-estimating yourself if you think you could maim him. Even with all of our help. Lucky for me, I’m not about to call that a bluff.”
by Michele | Sep 14, 2017 | Chronicles
Steph: It was just supposed to be one time. Famous last words of every kind of junkie that there ever was. I wonder if The Douchebag ever said that to himself, before he started making a crapton of really wrong choices, that he seemed to think were the right choices at the time. And also now despite having repeatedly gone to jail for them. I mean, maybe I ought to be grateful for his perennial awful example. It taught me what not to do with my life, and it’s not like he’s a serial axe murderer. That I know of. Just a tool, that had some really great things going for him, but those really great things didn’t matter enough when he got his feelings hurt and wanted to get some good old fashioned revenge.
(…wait a minute…)
Well. It’s completely not at all the same thing as what I’m doing. I’m not doing anything illegal (..ehhhhtechnically?..) for starters, and I’ve got absolutely good intentions (…onthesurface…) to go along with my questionable life choices. I’m out here to stop crime from happening, and even though it’s kind of harmless in the scheme of how bad it could be? It’s still hurting someone. Not even just me. And I’m going to do it. God. My Mom would be so pissed. Maybe even more pissed than The Douchenozzle would be if he ever found out, because he’s sure never seemed to enjoy being thwarted. Being thwarted by me might make it extra awful.
Good. That’s the point. Perfect world he’s not going to find out though. Not until I get to have some kind of grand AHA moment that I haven’t fully made a plan for just yet. Gives me time to perfect my heroic victory laugh. Which currently in my head sounds a lot more like dastardly melodrama villain. Sue me. I’m new at this. Something that’s been more and more clear to me each time I have gotten rudely interrupted by some jerk/punk/vigilante. They’ve all got way fancier gear than me and my grappling hook from the sporting goods store, and my improvised brick weaponry. Or the ‘borrowed’ from what passes for a drama department in a crummy public school outfit.
Maybe it’s paranoia, but I’m actually kind of starting to think that it’s on purpose. The interrupting. Hence the super circuitous route to my destination tonight. Which seemed like a way better idea at the start than it is right now at the peak of my building jumping, alley swinging, dumpster dodging (…please not diving, can I even wash this cape?…) trek across the even seedier parts of Gotham than I actually live in. Starting from the opposite side of an abandoned building that I crawl through to reach what little gear and getup I have, and then onwards to an address that the DoucheRocket thought he’d secured.
Seriously. I need a bike. But there’s something kind of humiliating about a Huffy.
Tim: Who needs a bike? Not this guy. I’ve got one. Along with all the other gear that Bruce put in to play for me. Along with that I’ve got some that were improved upon by your’s truly. Funny thing that, I’ve turned in to the guy in the know about that sort of thing. Funny. All of the folks in the extended family and I’m the only one that every really paid attention to how we got all the things we get. Lucius Fox may have may have made some of the tech, but Bruce designed most of it. He was doing a lot of this long before Lucius was in the picture. I’ve picked up the ball on that and ran with it. Lucky me.
Mind you. It did afford me the chance to setup a discussion with Damian. He’s been doing some pretty bad stuff to the criminal element of Gotham of late. A lot of people think they can curtail him, I’ll settle for helping him not get himself killed and not being in jail when the dust clears. Until he gets this all out of his system, because I learned a long time ago that you’re not telling Damian what to do. You’re just not.
Now, in stark contrast to that. I had some hope for this one. She showed a lot of heart, promise, if not a lot of brains in our first meeting. The plan had been to arrange for her training, but then she went out and started doing this all on her own again. Lucky for me, not so lucky for her, that she’s one of the people I’ve got drones trailing. It gives me a good idea of where she’s at. Which allows for me to plot an intercept course that, unless she does something crazy, should put me right in her path.
Or. Rather it would. If I didn’t do what I’ve been trained and plant myself on the next roof in her path. That way when she comes full tilt over the side, she gets to walk in to the shadowy, ominous figure of…. well. Me. But I’m sure to look ominous with the shadows and such. Maybe I’m not a six foot bat, but I’m a near six-foot Red Robin! It’ll have to do.
“Hey,” no lecture, no tone of judgment, just a quick greeting and then, “If you can keep up, follow me.”
There’s nothing more. If she follows? Great. If she elects not to then our next meeting will involve a slightly different tactic. Either way I’m turning, dashing and diving over the edge of the building. Unlike her though, there’s a bit more safety involved when I’m doing it. Not just the tether that I could shoot out at any moment, but the cape functions as an air foil. Allowing me to glide downwards to a soft landing next to a bike. My bike. Call it a Hog. Built for speed, made for endurance.
Steph: I’m a lot of things, clutzy isn’t usually one of them. If it were my choice of hobbies and nighttime activities would probably have gone from possibility to already happened and six feet under the ground. Maybe an overreaction to something that I didn’t expect would send me off kilter every now and again, but under my own steam I’m pretty great on my feet. Now, believe it or not I’m actually pretty aware that I don’t fully know what I’m doing out here. Down for ill advised plans and schemes? Yup, you betcha. Stupid? No, not really. That still doesn’t mean I want to look like a dumdum in front of anyone. Bad guys. Other vigilantes. Alley cats (…they judge and you know it…). So in about five seconds when my arms stop their idiotic windmilling as I work at keeping my balance after crashing into a not brick wall person (…though, whoosh is he solid…), and I regain my footing, and drop out of being about to sail a left hook? I’m going to be kind of mortified and a little grumpy about making myself look like (..you guessed it…) a dumdum.
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
And that was your out loud voice, Steph. Hey. Who just says hey like, sup, super casual meeting we’re having here, when I was probably laying in wait to ambush you for some bro-class upnodding and… yeah he’s already taken off. With a grunt of annoyance that I hope is a lot more quiet than it sounded in my head I start running again. I mean, what else am I going to do? I stand there, or take off in another direction and that implies that I can’t, in fact, keep up with him. And while I don’t really want to end up following another dude around the city doing what he wants instead of what I came out here for I think my ego’s winning this battle for control of Stephanie’s brain.
I don’t have a tether. What I do have is a lot of experience in climbing out of and around windows, hopping off and over railings, and the lack of just enough self-preservation to not question whether not I’m going to stick the landings I’m aiming for. I don’t get down there as quickly as he did, but I guess it’s good enough. And that was a pretty short goose chase (…thank God because I’ve already been at this for like fifteen minutes…). The last half dozen feet find me with feet on the pavement, knees bending to absorb the impact before I tilt my hooded head at his… is that even a motorcycle? What the hell?
“So is there like. A secret, member’s only Costco for Capes somewhere that you guys all go to? Because I need to get me a card.”
Tim: “Yes.”
It would be a lie to say that this meeting wasn’t on purpose. Maybe more so to intimate that I hadn’t planned carefully to meet her exactly where we did. Though a little gambling in whether she’d actually follow a pattern or not. Then following the drones, to put myself in position. So. Yeah. I’m exactly where I want to be. She’s where I intended her to be. All of which is on purpose.
What that purpose is? She’ll find out once she’s actually made it to the ground. Which is thankfully not by way of going splat. Again. If anything this is the first element she’s shown that demonstrates practice. Doesn’t actually take a detective to figure out how someone might learn how to scale a building to the ground. Especially in this city. Especially as a teenager with a life outside of your parent’s apartment. I learned when I was barely ten. The reward for completing this feat is a lot like an achievement that comes in a low, yet appreciative whistle. Not the cat-call variety, but the ‘I’m impressed, you didn’t die. Or break your ankles.’
“Actually. Yes. There is. That’s why I’m here. To give you your card.”
No, really. I’m not even teasing her. Because before she’s even had a chance to start piping in with her witty reparte, I’m opening the bike’s saddle bags. This isn’t a game. I’m not hiding anything. She’ll see items being pulled from within. First is a long telescoping staff, collapsed in it’s current form it looks more like a billy club. Then there’s a small utility belt, appropriately colored to match what she wore the first time we met. In addition to that is a well folded set of what looks like spandex, but upon inspection is a fiber mesh of polymers that serves to make up most of the Bat-costumes. Diverting bladed weapons from being lethal and hopefully blunting the penetration of all but point blank or high caliber gunfire.
Once set upon the seat of the bike, I turn slightly enough to see her out of the corner of my eye. “Like any good Costco, there’s a membership form and signup fee. Lucky for you though. We’re currently running a promotion. Sign up today and you get free training with the Black Canary. Gotta hurry, it’s while supplies last and they’re going like hot cakes in this city.”
Steph: “Wait. Really?”
Like anyone expected a straight forward answer there, especially not to a meant to be inside voice that turned into an out loud voice rhetorical that happens way more often than it probably really should. I mean, I sure didn’t. I kind of expected him to be all cryptic and judgey again. Maybe that’s not fair. He did try to poison me the last time. Even though I’m actually pretty sure he was making all that up in hindsight. I mean. What would that have accomplished? If he was aiming for keeping another vigilante off the streets there were probably less nefarious ways that had less potential for going wrong. Or. Alternately he does that all the time (…in which case, yikes…)
The whistle earns a dramatic flourish of my cape forwards and into a bow. Lowering my forearm after a moment because that pose was reading a little vaudeville mustache twirler, but I’m also fairly sure that’s the whole purpose of a cape. Dramatic flourishing. Because I can tell you, my school has never, ever put on any kind of period play with anything close to period accurate wardrobe to go along with it. Seriously. I’m shocked this thing was even in there without some kind of vermin having bitten holes in it.
“…wait. What?… I know I just said that but. Seriously. What? There’s actually a card? And a Costco?”
Of course there’s not, but my chattering carries on almost autonomously from the actions I actually am focused on. Like pinching the bridge of my nose through the lower face mask I wear out at night (..sporting goods find, not dramaflop department..), and some actually serious thoughts on why he’s telling me about the repository of heroic gear goodness, and what kind of serious mega-catch is about to be revealed to me. I didn’t exactly make the best impression last time, I’d bet. Or maybe I did! Since I didn’t get left for the back of a police cruiser. I’m also rambling away while he’s digging out goodies like some sort of shadowy Equipment Fairy that visits good little girls who leave thugs’ teeth under their pillows (…ew…). Are those…really for me? So it really was on purpose but I’m having a bit of a hard time grasping the why. Or what it’s about to cost me.
Because it’s pretty damn unthinkable to believe there’s not something in it for him. Still. It’s kind of all I can do to not snatch and grab at the proffered loot, like a kid that knows he who acts last goes hungry. Clearly building facade monkey bar hijinx was not the only skill you could pick up from a misspent childhood. I restrain myself into leaning forward to peer at it all though, and I don’t need to touch or be in any kind of nice lighting to know this is serious upgraded shit. Like, much closer to what he’s wearing than forgotten public school auditorium closet. Now it’s my turn to whistle. It probably sounds more like cat-calling though, because… Damn.
“Black Canary? Like… the Black Canary? I’m pretty sure she’s screamed at… ” The DouchePrime. Too much sharing, Steph, keep that one to yourself. “..a whole lot of people that thought better of making her mad agaaaain and… I thought she was gone?”
I mean, it’s been a couple years. I’ve got a pretty good education on the city’s lowlifes, and do gooders though it’s possible my information’s a little out of date I think I would have heard rumblings of her being back in action. Gotta respect a lady that can run around kicking ass in undies with no apparent self-esteem issues. Or a dude. No judgement here. But why would she care, let alone bother and I’m not sure that I… See. I might say to myself right here that I don’t need the training, but I really am not a dumdum. I’ve got a pretty mean hook, a nasty sucker punch and my knee is a ball seeking missile in its’ own right, but there’s a reason I try to avoid direct confrontation when I’m out here like this. Actually knowing what I was doing? Man. I could do so much more.
“…uh yeah? No. Not a question. Um yes.”
Because I’ll take a few fighting lessons as a payment for shiny new toys. Still seems like too good of a deal to be true.
Tim : “Really.”
Why would I lie? She’s in my city. Untrained and untested. Picking fights with people that could be her end. Or worse. I wasn’t fibbing last time when I said that if I allowed her to continue then her fate would be bound to me. I’d take whatever happened to her personally. A failure of my own to not put the brakes on like Bruce taught me. Even if I can’t say that I control people’s decisions, Batman proved long ago that you can in fact control someone’s ability to get themselves killed. He once told me, after a particularly nasty encounter with a guy in a hockey mask, that he let the bad guys beat the would-be hero to smithereens, because walking the rest of his life with a limp? At least meant he walked the rest of his life.
So if I’m not going to put a stop to this kid’s ambitions, then I’ve got to make sure she’s prepared for the life she’s wanting to lead. She convinced me before, if only of one thing, that she would continue doing it so long as she was able. No matter what I said or did to the contrary. So I’ve either got to put her in jail, let her get hurt or… I’m back to helping her prepare. People with the drive are few and far between. This girl kept going even after falling off a building.
“Really-really. There’s a membership card and everything.” The steady look, monotone voice, and lack of efforts to be a wise ass suggest that I’m actually speaking the truth. “Gone? Not exactly. Off the radar, is a little more apt. She’s actually a card carrying member of the franchise. Alright. More like a free agent, but I’ve already asked her if she’d be willing to train with you.”
“That kind of brings us to the terms of your membership. It’s non-negotiable, but I think you’ll find it slanted heavily in your favor.”
Taking a single step back, I clear the way for Stephanie to actually approach the gear. I’m not locking it down or telling her no. If anything this is a little bit of a sales pitch. Tongue in cheek, sure, but I’m not hiding anything about what I’m offering. It is exactly that: An Offer. She can take it or leave it. This is an effort that clears my conscience, if anything. There’s also the added benefit, that if she succeeds in what I’m about to tell her? That she’ll make a good asset in the field. Without the Batman? We need all the help we can get. More than we even really know yet.
One hand casually gestures to the gear, the other to Stephanie. “It’s your’s. So long as you do everything the Canary says. Until she says you’re ready. The moment she says those words? All of this is your’s. You can walk away from Batco with the merchandise. You quit? You wash out? Then we agree your heart isn’t really in it. Then you either find somewhere else to play dress up or you go find some other way to fill that desire you spoke about last time.”
“One more thing. You’re not going to want to stop what you’re doing. I get that. So I’m not even going to ask for you to wait until you’re trained. I’m just going to make it clear. Right up front. You won’t be able to keep a secret if you work with us. If you think you can, okay. But like I said, I’m not a fine-print person. I want you to know what up front that it’s better to tell us everything. Put your spin on it. Might as well use all of the tools at your disposal.”
Steph: “Huh.”
You’re not only one who can use one syllable responses Red Robin. Though by the way my jawline shifts under the mask, and how my fingers fidget on the opposite forearms in their crossed positions? It’s probably pretty obvious that there’s a whole helluva lot more I want to say. Or ask. Like maybe another few ‘wait, really?’s for good measure. I have a feeling, conditions or no, that even one piece of this gear is probably more valuable than everything else anyone’s ever given me in my whole life. And those other folks weren’t basically strangers in the night (…heh. Well. Now this guy’s got a theme-jingle in my head, and it isn’t yuuuuuuum anymore…).
A brown eyed squint is checking the invisible bullshit meter over his shoulder, because God. At this point I don’t know if there really is a card or not, and I’m not totally sure that it matters. It’s definitely been more than enough to distract and detour me from my really round-about way of getting where I was going tonight. The trip’s going to be even longer because if I take this stuff you bet your ass I’m going to go put it on right damn now. To my credit, or maybe it’s a credit to my general life experience so far, I’m actually quiet and attentive as he spells out the deal itself. Because I’m looking for loopholes, or things that are going to bite me in the butt later
“As long as I do everything the Canary says for combat training.”
Because I’m not in for any weird kinky crap, or dumb enough to tell anyone that I’ll do anything. Not even for some straight up superhero accessories. The huff of air that I suck in, and then push out again is a very audible harumph like I’ve just been mortally insulted. I mean, this guy doesn’t know me, but it’s like he doesn’t know me.
“I’m not quitting. I don’t know how.”
Even when I should. It’s probably the most honest thing I’ve said about myself all week. How’s that for a way after school special type of moment? Unfolding my arms from across my chest, I pick up the folded clothing, and bring it closer to my face. I can’t feel the fabric itself through these crummy gloves but I can always do that later. It’s lighter than I expected. I shift from examining it, to eyeing Robin sideways and then back again a few times. Better to tell them…. Everything. That could mean a lot of different things, and cover a lot of aspects of my nighttime activities but. I’m in. I can throw in a bone when I’ve been given what’s basically a smorgasbord. Even though I don’t really wholly agree with his reasoning, I’m not really going to judge. I mean. I’m benefiting here.
“Cluemaster’s up to something. Been up to something.”
Tim : “That’s kind of why we’re here.”
I knew right away she wouldn’t quit. At least not without coming to a point where she physically or mentally couldn’t handle going forward anymore. Batman might have been willing to take her to that point himself. I’m a lot less willing, maybe a lot less able, to do something like that. Above all else, I can understand having the need to be out here. Doing something, anything, to help make your own world make sense. That said, I still circle back around to not wanting her (or any one else’s) death on my conscience.
Hence. Gift bag.
“I’m not locking you in to doing her laundry. But, I’m also not letting you re-word my offer to be only combat-training. Whatever training she thinks you need to be out here? That’s her prerogative. Not your’s or mine.”
This has an air of finality about it. I think I’m clear enough that this isn’t some deal with the devil. In fact, not one ounce of this benefits anyone but Stephanie. Loop holes? Only in so much as being a agreement that if she washes out, she’s done. But even that is entirely in her control. It’s all up to her. Which is also why I won’t let her whittle down the terms to be only combat. If Canary needs her to learn how to be a Detective? That’s all part of the job.
“That doesn’t surprise me. He’s not the only one who has gotten active recently. What you probably don’t know, is that your window to make a move on Cluemaster is probably closing faster than you think. Joker and Red Hood are roughing up or taking out just about anyone with a past connection to the Batman. So, I think we better fast-track your training. Take the gear. In the belt is a transceiver. It will chirp, unless you silence it like a cell phone. When it goes off, answer it and either Canary or I will let you know where to meet us.”
“Go on. Go put it on. You’ll get the call soon. If not tonight, then tomorrow. Try not to kill yourself with the grappling hook before we get to teach you how to use it.” Because it’s very clear, to me at least, that this isn’t the type of girl who’s going to tuck all that in a drawer to wait for when she’s read the instructions or been shown how to use it. “Let me know if the suit needs any alterations. I put it together with approximations based on my assessment of your shape the first time we met.”
“Yes. That means I checked you out. Yes. There may be a bike in in it for you, if you pass Canary’s boot camp. Yes. There actually is an instruction manual. If I were you? I’d read it before you accidentally poison yourself. Or taser yourself. Or gas yourself. Or mace yourself. Stab yourself. Really. Read the manual. Stop checking me out. Just because I did it, doesn’t mean you get too. I was assessing. Read the manual. Stop grinning like that. you’re not going to read the manual are you?”
Steph: “Well. Good! I… think.”
He probably thinks he knows that you’re going to get yourself splatted, pasted, shot, axed, run down or otherwise murdered. And since he has a conscience that goes above and beyond what you’d expect out of a lot of people in this city, with some kind of moral code, that’s led him to being here. I happen to think that’s not a totally fair assessment, since it’s hardly been my fault that things haven’t totally gone as planned and all (…well, nearly all there was that time the other night. And the one before that…) of the violence involved has been thanks to some other vigilante stepping on my stakeout toes.
“Alright, alright, alright. Whatever training the pro thinks I need to be the best kind of kick ass I can be.”
That’s good enough for me, and enough of a defining limit to settle my peace of mind. Though the woman (..assumptions again but…c’mon really…) did run around town in fetish wear so who the hell knows what she’s going to think of as necessary for the job. I’ve been waiting this whole time for the rug to get yanked out from under me and so far? It hasn’t. I don’t see any candid cameras. It’s not April. So I have to kind of assume that Robin? Is being legit. That the rest of this is legit. And that it’s not going to be some weird freaky cult crap I’m about to get involved with. (…please don’t let it be some weird freaky cult…)
“But he’s not even really being active. Just encouraging other people to be. The warehouse where we met. Jewelry store last night. They’re doing shady crap, ob-vee, but they’re not doing anything.”
Which is super weird, right? It ought to be for something. I just haven’t been able to figure out what that might possibly be just yet. I’d say maybe there wasn’t anything. That there didn’t necessarily have to be some menacing, over-arching plot except I just don’t think he’d be bothering otherwise. I happen to know for a fact that the Douchebag doesn’t do anything unless there’s something way better in it for him. For now though, I can let myself lose mental sight of the Great Lack of a Caper Caper, and focus on my fabulous door prizes. Which is good, because what he’s told me about losing my window’s actually set the most determined look on my face yet.
“Do we get our own jingly ringtones? Like Kim Possible? Or Go Go Power raaa…nevermind.”
Approximations based on his assessment of…that’s a really out of the way method of saying he checked me out. A lot. Not that what I’m wearing is exactly concealing, except the cloak and hood and my head doesn’t really need measuring. It’s not fat or anything. His admitting that he checked me out makes me let out a staccato ‘hah!’ Though, I mean. That could be good or…bad? I don’t know who that is under there. He could be old (…he doesn’t sound old…) and a perv (…come on it was totally flattering…) And another, more enthusiastic ‘haha!’ for the bike. Jeez, he really is the Gear Fairy. Instruction manual? Pah. And technically I was grinning from the bike potential before he actually gets to scolding me about manuals, or questioning whether or not I will. I’m just scooping up the rest of the gear off the back of his own motorcycle like now I’m worried about the change of heart.
“Just debating whether or not I could whack you with my shiny new stick and make even more candy fall out. Reading. Hah. Life’s too short for that kind of nonsense.”
PSA, kids. Life is not too short for that kind of thing, and learning is not nonsense. Especially if you’re the daughter of a recently, supposedly, mostly reformed drug addict and a career criminal that only reforms himself long enough to break promises and parole, and aren’t especially interested in growing up to be a criminal or a drug addict. I will be reading the manual because what the hell good is a suit full of gadgets and gizmos aplenty if you don’t know what they are, or how to get them to work? Just. Not tonight.
“No peeking, sorta tall, dark and loomy!”
I’m bolting with my haul, and while I don’t intend to change anywhere near here? I’m definitely definitely changing and he’s got a so far uncanny ability to turn up where I don’t want anyone to turn up. I’m already around the corner and out of sight before I remember to tack on the acoustically muffled.
“And thank you!”
by Michele | Sep 10, 2017 | Chronicles
Cassie: Adults like to drone on about how they expect great things out of today’s youth, and how we have such bright futures ahead of us. That we should be focused on homework, and learning the lessons that they have to teach us that will prepare us to fully embrace our destinies, and move us towards piloting the world into some great, shiny tomorrow. It wasn’t a schpeal I actually ever had to listen to for most of my life, because I was ‘home’ schooled until I was sixteen, and even though I didn’t have powers and the weight of a lot of other things on my mind back then? I still wouldn’t have bought it. I mean, it’s an awful lot to put on someone who barely has come out the other side of puberty. Then you add on a ‘greater purpose/higher calling’?
No matter what grand opinion my AP Calculus teacher might have on the importance of what they’re teaching me? The only thing it’s ‘good for’ is to get me college credit. Thank someone somewhere for my History teacher, because it’s literally the only subject I can stomach so far this year. My tolerance had been thin from the moment I was enrolled (against my will) at St. Mary’s, and lately it’s grown worse. It was always hard for me to want to be there. Finally making some friends had helped, but hadn’t changed the classwork. Now I have not only my powers to keep secret, but another identity to juggle. Two lives, that aren’t exactly what I expected or wanted on either side, but here I am.
If there’s anywhere I can count on Conner to not interrupt me in the middle of something it’s…well. Nowhere. He’s a Luthor, and so in addition to his lack of respect of boundaries and limits comes everyone being totally willing to let him get away with that lack. But if there’s anywhere that it’s less likely to happen, it’s in one of the media rooms at the school’s state of the art library, where I’m pretending to study for my biology test, but in reality using the excuse to use my forbidden cell phone, that everyone blatantly and openly carts around anyway. Last year I would have gotten called on it. This year, well. Somehow this year I’m a Big Deal.
So about those schools you said I should consider…
When Tim and I had our face to holographic face talk before on the subject I’d been more or less in. I’m pretty aware of what a slim margin I skated past getting sucked into the NOWHERE situation, and why I did. On one hand, I’m grateful to Conner for that and on the other? Right now it’s a little grating that it’s because of Conner. It puts me in a kind of unique situation, though. It’s something I’d been thinking about, too. More and more this week especially. That maybe this is something that is literallyand figuratively within my power to do, and that maybe that’s all the reason that I really actually need to do it.
Tim: “Standby.”
Normal friends chit-chat with one another. Especially when the subject of discussion is about school. Future, Current or Past. There’s old friends, new friends. New adventures to talk about. Old ones to relive. Casual friends are a thing of comfort. They’re there to take part in your life on the peripheral, to lend solace and spirit, but ultimately they’re ships passing in the night. Rare are those friends you meet in High School that carry on through out the intervening years in to twilight. Rarer still are those who respond with barely a double syllable response to the first time you dial their number.
“School library. Media room. Excellent choice. Place the phone down on a flat surface.”
The moment that she has done this the little ‘Cellphone’ will begin to shift. It’s parts moving, not unlike one of those devices Cassie had seen in the transformers movie that Conner took her to. Reconfiguring itself, albeit not in to a killer robot, but giving itself legs and antenna. A small cone-shape dish forming at the base to amplify signal. The phones cameras shift as well. One remains on Cassie; while the other points to an open space near by. Soon there after it begins to project the image of Timothy Drake. As if she needed more confirmation that this was no ordinary burner phone, the image of her friend is higher definition than your standard iPhone and the picture quality looks three dimensional.
“I took the liberty of upgrading your cellphone on our last meeting,” there’s a hint of charm to the tone that might not always have been there, but it only does so much to mask the fact that he’s again letting her know that he’s anything but mild-mannered Timothy Drake, flunky side-kick to a Luthor. “Yeah. No. Not that meeting, I mean the last time we met in person.”
“You look good, Cassandra. It looks good on you. Wonder Woman. Maybe not my first choice, but it’s certainly applicable.”
Whether she’s seeing a facsimile of the projection’s programming or the real Tim Drake, he’s dressed in a far different way than he was last time. It would seem that he is not that out of place in black, but the style of suit is far more three-piece than costume. He’s been busy, but clearly not as his own alter ego. While some might say that Tim Drake dresses up well, they’d be understating it. Like Conner there’s no doubt that the young man plays the part of millionaire’s son well. Though it’s a stark contrast to Conner in the way that Tim doesn’t seem comfortable in it. Not the same way he did the night in her mother’s office. He wears the burden of ‘Wayne’ far heavier than he does that of Robin.
“As to your question,” as Tim moves there’s a subtle whirring of the cellphone, so that it might track with him and keep the projection fluid, allowing him to draw closer and spread his hands along the media room’s nearest wall. “It depends. Are you feeling up for some sun or is your mood a little more…green?”
Cassie: “Uh huh, sure.”
Most people would probably say ‘hold on a minute,’ or ‘let me call you right back,’ but let’s be honest here. Neither of us is most people, and we both know that about the other, one of us just had the advantage of knowing it a whole lot earlier than the other. Still. That seems a little bit formal and beam me up, than I was expecting to hear.
“Seemed like the least likely time and place to tempt Conner into coming and checking out what I was doing. I mean. It might but…oh. Okay.”
Not that the thought actually prepared me for something a whole lot more sci-fi movie than I was actually ready for. Nor does it stop me from thinking that clearly <i>everyone</i> knows more about what’s going on in my life, and where I am, than I feel like I do sometimes. Being good with a computer doesn’t really prepare you for what whiz-kid-genius-Tim can do with one, however. Even when you’ve already seen some pretty impressive things that he’s managed. So I go along, not even being a smart ass and sliding it under the table, just settling my phone on the surface in front of me. And then very nearly smashing it with an incredibly quick movement of my fist. It startles me enough to begin the motion, and my brain kicks in quickly enough for me to stop it again. Good thing my thoughts seem to keep up with my enhanced reflexes.
“What the …?!”
I may have stopped from crushing the little techy marvel, doesn’t stop me from leaning back in my seat away from it with a wary, if interested, look. Nor do I stop myself from leaning in once again, and jabbing a finger at the projection, like I was going to actually poke him in the arm. I don’t even let Conner upgrade my phone, but then I guess Tim didn’t ask, and I didn’t even know he’d done it. The last time we met?
“You weren’t even actually… yeah.”
There. For the last meeting. It had taken me almost the whole time to realize that it hadn’t been him, or at least not in person, but I’d been off guard from the get go. Expecting my Mom, then getting Red Robin and while I’d already put two and two together that they were on and the same? I’d been pretty damn shocked to have him confirm it himself. Wrinkling my nose, I flick at a piece of fuzz on the hem of my blue plaid skirt. I’m not sure that I’d say anyone looks good in a school uniform, except that I see Conner in his everyday, and before he’d left Metropolis I’d seen Tim in one enough times. He looks <i>better</i> in a suit, though I’d say he’s about as happy to be wearing it as I am to have on this wannabe Catholic Schoolgirl getup. The tip of my tongue peeks out the size of my mouth in a grimace when he calls me by my full name.
“Ugh. Don’t. Only my Mom calls me that, and only when it’s going to be followed by something I don’t want to hear. And. Thanks? I mean. You look great, too. I’m not interrupting anything am I?”
If I was he probably would have called me back, and he’s not in his <i>real</i> uniform. I guess it’s daylight out there, too. Getting more comfortable in my seat again, I prop my elbow up on the table. Casual posture because I don’t need to be anything else, and so that if there’s any x-ray laser snooping going on, I’ll just look bored. The next wrinkling of my nose would certainly go along with that, but really it’s at the title.
“You think so? I feel like maybe I could have come up with something better if I’d had more than three seconds to prepare. I was kind of trying to riff off the whole… Super thing. Plus, who doesn’t love a good alliteration, amiright?”
Maybe something based in Mythology? Except knowing what I do about my own heritage, and how very real a lot of those figures were, and are? I wouldn’t want to be stealing someone else’s name and using it for my own. I guess that’s what Conner’s doing, but that seems more like stepping into a mantle than just deciding…hey. I like your name, Titania! How about I use it, you don’t mind right? My eyes dart to the camera, and it’s new parts and features as it makes a sound, but then my attention is back on Tim.
“Um. Usually those go hand in hand. Photosynthesis. So I guess this is an either or kind of thing? Sunny I suppose.”
Tim: There is rarely a time you can avoiding tempting Conner in to elicit behavior. He needs almost zero tempting or provocation. It’s a state of being for him. Easier to accept than now and work around it than try to work against it.”
In so many words Tim has explained to Cassie the entire summation of his friendship with the young Super. Accepting the guy as he is, allows one to work with his short comings and curb them to your own designs. Which is equally great for his friends and certainly Cassie, but it’s precisely what makes him a dangerous creature. Luthor had how long, exactly, to be an impression upon him. Curbing those behaviors in to what exactly? Does anyone know? Tim has an inkling, but it’s only that. An inkling. Cassie perhaps knows the most, but there’s little doubt in Tim’s mind that her feelings cloud judgment where that young man is concerned. At least she’s got the guy’s eye. It keeps his interest squarely away from Luthor’s for the time being, but it is anyone’s guess as to how long the President would accept such a thing. He at least believes Cassie to be harmless, for the most part. Or at worst, he thinks she’s the one under Conner’s thumb. Which works. For everyone involved.
While Tim is working through those thoughts, Cassie seems to be working through some of her own. She’s clearly piecing together what has been said, drawing the conclusion that Tim had not lied when he said before that he’d kept her under observation for a long time. If he’d replaced her phone the last time they’d met, in person, then he means the time before he’d left Gotham. Which says quite a bit about his own protective nature. While also giving a clue in to just how secretive he’s willing to be to achieve the result he’s after. What’s more is that he makes no effort to treat her like some child that needs platitudes and excuses. She was told before that he had been spying on her out of a desire to protect, he now has faith that she’ll make the necessary leaps in logic to understand why he do as he does.
“When I call you that it isn’t for the same reasons, it’s a beautiful name. Worthy of a Goddess. When I say it, you know I’m speaking to you as someone that I respect. Cassie is your mask, Wonder Woman is you aspire to be. Cassandra, is who you are. All three are something to take a measure of pride in.”
Those spread hands shift once more. It takes little effort to see that Tim is sporting something on his forearms that functions a lot like she’s seeing her phone behave. Wrist mounted gauntlets, that connect him to the supercomputer beneath his clothing. Used to dial in to her phone and direct it in to projecting even more holographic imagery. She might even start to recognize the scenery as those images take shape. Mind you, she can’t touch the images herself, not even the one of Tim, but anyone looking in to the media room would see Cassie being tutored perhaps. Someone using X-Ray vision wouldn’t see anything, as the photons making up the imagery wouldn’t be visible to that level of vision.
“Sunny. Well, pack a bikini then. Honestly, I should have known fate would bend you in this direction. Your first stop should be Fawcett City. Very little remarkable about it, honestly. Except that it was the Home to another … Titan. Of a sort. Batman’s records of subject of Shazam are spotty, at best. Which isn’t something I would normally attribute to Batman about anything. It would seem that Fawcett City was the lucky recipient of a blessing from the Gods. Several of them actually. I’ll transfer what I know to your phone, but the short story is … well… short and the long story isn’t much better.”
“Your contact for the ‘Tour of this particular school’ is going to be a young man. Fred Freeman. Heir apparent to the powers of the Gods. Wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules, stamina of Atlas, the power of you Zeus, courage of Achilles, topped off with the speed of Mercury. That’s the good news. The bad news? Well, there’s something about a Trial needing to be passed before his abilities stabilize. Which means that if you don’t make contact with this one sooner than later, if he sneezes wrong.. you’ll be in direct opposition to your boyfriend’s mandate.”
Softening from ‘lecture’ mode Tim’s features slowly become that of a bit concerned for what he’s just said, “Are you sure you don’t want to start with something a little… easier?”
Cassie: “Boy. Don’t I know it.”
What starts as a heavy exhale as I flop against the back support of my chair, turns into a pause, and then a rapid coloring of my cheeks as I realize exactly what I’ve said, and what the connotations might have been in saying them… Tim’s words were innocent enough, and could have meant normal bad behavior. Which Conner certainly is down for getting involved in at most times. Something you can really blame his psi-jacked upbringing for, because it led him to treat so much of everything like there’s no real consequences for anything he might do. There really isn’t. He’s got the powers of Superman, and the power of being a Luthor. There’s really no one that can touch him. But with the tech of my phone, knowing that Tim spent a long time spying on me, I realize he’s probably very, very aware that the other kinds of illicit behavior go on.
There’s a soft, uncomfortable clearing of my throat before I let that subject go, and focus on what he’s actually saying rather than my thoughts.
“Well. Can’t really argue that one. I mean. Goddess. Present. Or demi at least. Uh. Thanks, Tim. I mean it. Also are you aware of how smooth you are, or is this just accidental charming?”
It’s a little funny, I suppose. I know lots of guys (well, relatively for my age and experience, and the fact that I attend an all girl’s school anyway), but those two are the ones I know best. My boyfriend, and his best friend, and they’ve got a lot of things in common. They’ve got a number of incredibly stark different qualities and quirks, but they’re loaded. Good looking. Athletic, attend the same school have incredibly influential families. And they’re both very smooth, though in oddly entirely different ways. Conner would have gone through that speech and left me with the impression that I ought to know how great he was. Tim’s managed to fluff my ego, while deflating any irritation I might have had at his using my full given name.
“In September? I’m pretty sure there’s still one in a bag from my little college road trip tour this summer. Legit colleges, I mean but… yeah, you know that never mind.”
It’d be really easy to think that he’s making this up, or that he’s mistaken. Or maybe even pulling my leg. Listening to a guy that’s so brilliant with facts, and technology talk about Gods and legends. Except I’m a literal daughter of Zeus, and Tim was actually who Conner had introduced me to when I was having a little bit of a problem with someone intruding in my dreams that wasn’t welcome. For some information at least, even though he wasn’t the end solution. So I find myself leaning forward again, chin in hands as I listen in obvious rapt attention. Mouth only pursing in something of a grim expression because he’s right. Conner protected me from NOWHERE because he liked me. He’s not going to be under any such compunction for someone he doesn’t know, or that could be a threat to him. We talked about leading the next generation of heroes at that press conference, but while I love the guy… I also know the guy. So I’m left simply nodding in agreement and understanding.
“So, ASAP. I got it. I can do that.”
There as a lot of playful grimaces, and looks during this brief conversation (and any number of other times we’ve teased before now) , but this time I actually bristle in irritation and indignation.
“Why? Why’d you even give me the choice if you really think I can’t…”
As quickly as I’d blushed a minute ago, my expression pales and I pull myself up short as a hand claps over my mouth to physically end the little tirade before I can really get going.
“…I’m so sorry. I’m. I didn’t sleep really well last night I guess. Or maybe I need a snickers. I can do this, Tim.”
Tim: Boy, doesn’t she know it. Where there is normally a schooled look of dispassionate intellect, is now a smooth grin that threatens to become a rueful smirk at any moment. Banter is not something that he’s a stranger too, but it’s not something he does when he’s actually trying to ‘tutor’ someone on a matter of importance. There’s rarely a missed opportunity for flirting though and right now the threat of giving in to it, is pretty high. Enough so that it’s only because Cassie finally clears her throat that I let her off with a single slow, but appreciative whistle. ‘Damn, don’t you know it, girl.’
As fun as it might be, to be the one actually teasing her for once? Tim is quick to let her off the hot seat, when she follows it up with something akin to a genuine compliment. “Philanthropist, Playboy, adoptive father as my role-model. While you were taking classes at the foot of a master in history? I was learning the seven deadly arts of charming the pants off of debutantes. Quite literally, if I’m being honest. Bruce had a way of getting what he wanted, no matter what, no matter who he was wanting it from.”
“But. For once, I wasn’t being suave. You never give yourself the credit you deserve. I’ve seen you tame a superman. Navigate uncharted waters with your parentage. Not to mention the way you’ve stood up to those nightmares from a literal God you overcame. Some people might toot your horn, Cassandra, out of some desire to stand near you. It’s how the Gods became Gods in the first place, if the stories are true. Which is why you’re having such a hard time at school this year. You’re discovering another facet of your power-set. As your confidence and competence rises, so too will your spirit. People will feel a need to cater to you. They’ll bend to your will, give in to your wants, lavish praise upon you. Everything is going to be easy, too easy.”
“It’s your first trial. Much like this young man ‘Freddy,’ your life is going to be a trial for a time. Each new power you discover if going to test some part of you. Your ‘Presence’ as a Goddess, will be a trial. To see how you handle it, to see how you deal with it. Only if you pass that trial, will you unlock the next ‘gift’.”
Which is exactly why Tim had said this might not be the best target for her to approach. Given her recent college road trip, he’d naturally assumed she would want to take a little different approach. Leading her with a choice, that he would hypothesize on her taking the natural selection. But, Cassie is not one to follow the statistical standard of life. She’s anything but predictable most of the time. It’s not just part of her charm, it’s what keeps her from being crushed beneath the chaos of the life she lives.
Does he explain any of that? No. Because Cassie is all too quickly apologizing for the snappish response. There is something to be said for self-awareness, but Cassie doesn’t get to close the door on it that simply. Tim’s face shows a different sort of look to it. One Cassie hasn’t seen before. She’s under a different type of scrutiny than he’d normally brandish with her.
“Don’t. Don’t apologize. You do that too much. When I offered you the choice, I wanted to see where your mind was. Your boyfriend likes to watch you at Cheerleading practice. He’s scoping you out, because that’s the tantalizing part to him. On the other hand, I happen to like seeing how your mind works Cassandra.”
“Which is to say, you’re right. I shouldn’t offer you a choice, if I don’t think you have an equal chance to complete both tasks. I not only think you can, I believe you can. I believe in you or we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But, it hadn’t occurred to me just how close to home this assignment might be for you. I’d been to focused on… other hurdles you’d encounter on this one.”
There’s a certainty that if Tim were actually there, in the room with her, that he’d have approached. Maybe even offered some sort of consoling touch. As it is, he’s unable to do that any more than she was able to poke him moments earlier. His photonic self is a necessity for avoiding her boyfriend, but in yielding to that necessity it denies him the opportunity to be the friend he wishes to be at times like these. Leaving him to cant his head, to show his concerns in a more visual way. Luckily for them both, Tim is also quick to realize when he’s playing his hand too openly. Sending him back to business, with a clearing of the throat similar to her own just moments before.
“This is where things get ‘tricky’ for you. I wish I was there, but… business in Gotham is taking a protracted turn.”
Cassie: At least I have that going for me. The fact that usually only I can embarrass myself, and most of the time I can deal with other people doing it. It wasn’t always the case, I’ve just gotten a lot better at reacting to, and dealing with, the sort of situations my boyfriend might try to wrangle me into in order to get a reaction. In a way, I kind of miss that time because things were weirdly simple then. In comparison, I mean. I was just learning my powers and how to use them, and dealing with attention from my Superboy but that was really all my worries. Now I’ve got to convince a whole lot more of the world that not only do I know what I’m doing with my life, but that I know what I’m doing with their lives. As much as I don’t like NOWHERE, or what it does, I guess I can marginally say a silent thank you to them that most of the bad deeds of people like me are handled or dissuaded so I don’t have to take on more than I’m really ready for right now.
“It makes me miss my eating lunch solo in the corner days, sometimes. That’s just not how life’s going to be for me, and at least I’m usually perceptive enough to pick up on the difference between friends and the people that just want some of… I don’t know. The glow. I think it just feels like this isn’t my life right now because it’s so new, still.”
And from what I’ve learned, or pieced together so far? I’m probably going to have a very, very long time to have that balance flip on me. Where the sixteen years I spent as a ‘normal’ girl are going to have been a heartbeat. I don’t ever know if that’s encouraging or sad to consider, and I’m definitely not going to dwell on it right now in front of him. Instead I fix on the task, and the way I’d reacted to what I intuited as him doubting me. Maybe he’s right, I do apologize for a lot of things, things that aren’t even my fault. Things that aren’t even Conner’s fault sometimes, too. But it still leaves me feeling really out of sorts. I spent a pretty good chunk of my first year at St. Mary’s being bullied mercilously and I managed to hold my tongue, and temper despite knowing I could crush any one of them if I wanted to.
I just flew off the handle at one of my best friends, over something I may have taken the wrong way. That’s not like me. I’ve just started to get so… frustrated with feeling like nothing is in my control, or of my choosing, so to have him question a choice I did get to make had just triggered something kind of ugly. So I drop my hand from my face, and hold it up palm out to stave him off interrupting me.
“I mean. You’re right. I do. But I was also raised with some manners, and I am sorry for not responding a bit better than that. Maybe it being hard will be good, and I know we wouldn’t be. Other hurdles?”
But I have to kind of wonder… if he didn’t have me to believe in and trust on this then who does he actually have? Conner? Obviously not or we wouldn’t have been having to meet up secretively like this, and have conversations that he’s intentionally excluded from. I need to not think like that. Tim came to me on this, tipped off his secret to me, because he knows I’m the one that’s going to do be able to do this.
“I won’t lie and say I don’t kind of wish the same. Not just for me. I’m pretty sure he misses you. I’m guessing you don’t need me to tell you that he doesn’t exactly have what I’d call a lot of real friends. Or that he wouldn’t understand at all why you don’t want that bull in your china shop.”
He’s not the only one looking like maybe there was some ability for contact, because I wish I had some means other than the verbal to comfort him. It’s a lot easier to do that kind of thing, I think, just with a well meaning hand on the shoulder than to go in-depth into what someone’s going through emotionally or situationally. Also a bit less awkward. My mouth’s pulled to the side a little as I cock my head in a kind of mirror of his own body language.
“No progress, or just not enough to satisfy?”
The guy just lost his Dad, and mentor in more than just one aspect of his life and now he’s probably trying to figure out what to do, as well as sort out what happened. And worrying about me, and all these other metas. Frankly, even if I didn’t already want to do this for their sake, and because I dislike NOWHERE so much? I’d do it for Tim.
Tim: “No. It doesn’t.”
There it is. One of those moments when someone contradicts Cassie about something they shouldn’t have any right to do so about. Except, normally it happens from people who think they’re better than she is. At some facet of life or another. In this instance, it is a guy who just confessed to being a little awe-inspired by the majesty of what she is. Or what she will one day be. Tim isn’t the sort to take an attitude with her, nor with most anyone else, unless they’re a criminal. He’s a little more apt to sarcasm, than serious rebuke normally. But this? This he takes a stance with.
“You think you miss those times. Almost. Except, I knew you then. Probably better than you anyone else, including Conner. You didn’t enjoy those lunches alone. You were miserable then, just a different sort of misery. Now instead of ‘Why am I here,’ in reference to St. Mary’s, it’s ‘Why am I here,’ about this new life you’ve been thrust in to. If you really, really think about it? We’re both just experiencing the same woes we had a couple years ago, on a different level. Except when we were having them the first time, we’d never had them before so we lacked the perspective on how good we had it at the time.”
“You’re going to have a long, very long, life Cassandra. In ten years time, you’ll be telling me about how you miss these problems. Because you’re completely tired of all this Goddess attention and worship, you get from mere mortals. Or you’ll have discovered how difficult it is to train in Olympus, where they don’t even sell brassier much less wear them.” For but a moment he pause, considering what he’s just said then finally smirking for some reason, before continuing on. “I’ll be telling you about some new case that is confounding me. Some new girl that I’m having trouble getting to notice me.”
“Don’t forget. Conner is only four or five years old, in ten years you’ll be going through puberty with him. Talk about a new level of problems to commiserate over, you’re going to need an Olympic shrink.”
Whether it’s a surprise to hear that she misses him, that Conner does as well, or not is actually masked by the previous comments. There was a chance of Conner going off the rails while Tim was in Gotham, but some things were simply too important. He’d known the moment news of Bruce’s death came, that he had to trust Cassie. He already believed she could manage the super clone, but now he had to trust her to actually do it. He’d done so and so far she hadn’t let him down. What Cassie doesn’t know, of course, is that Tim had actually his doubts. Not in her ability, but in her whims. Would she be able to stand up to the whims of a Luthor, such as her boyfriend, or would she crumple and give in to his every desire?
It was that gamble which lead to the original offer. To the trust he displayed in sharing his secret. She’d passed a test that neither of them exactly knew she was taking. Leading them to this point, right here. Where he was so quick to dispute whether he believed she could do something or not. Tim believes in her. In no small part because of her ability to overcome his so-called Best Friend. It leaves him with more than a little guilt. He knows what test she’ll have to face in seeking out this Freeman fellow.
“There’s been very little progress at all, much less any that manages to be satisfying. Everyone is blaming everyone else. From the good guys to the bad guys. There’s little proof, pointing to anyone definitively. About the only person I’ve pulled off the suspect list is the one person who’s most likely to have done it. But the Joker has shown himself to be consumed by finding the culprit. More so than any of the rest of us.”
“So the only progress I’ve made of late, is rescuing a co-worker a mind-controlling jerk and trying to be a good influence on someone that reminds me of you. She’s a good kid, I want to save her from this life especially because of what I’ve seen you going through. But she’s defiant. Willful. Sarcastic. And blonde. If she was half as pretty as you are, I’d be in trouble. Luckily, I’m mildly positive you’re at the top of the gene pool in that regard.”
As quickly as that, Tim subtly shifts the subject away from his own pain. The loss of his ‘Father,’ is a subject that lingers like an open wound. Having no closure only means bitterness about it. Which is not a side of himself that he’s willing to put on display here. Not now, not when there’s every chance he’d both need and accept a hug from this particular woman. At a time when it’s actually not even possible. Instead he shifts the topic to something more comfortable. Then lightly settles it back where they came from originally. Suave.
“Listen. We’re getting pretty far abroad from the topic of Fred Freeman. There’s one thing you need to know before you go on this mission. According to Bruce’s files, the reason that this kid is being put through the trials of the Gods? Is because his predecessor ran afoul of your boyfriend’s employers.”
Cassie: “Okay. I’m not going to say you’re probably right because you are right. But it’s easy to be wistful for a time when your ‘why me?!’ pity party was a party of one, when you’re still psyching yourself up in order to be mentally up to the task of that pity party meaning a lot of people’s lives. Knowing I’m a total badass doesn’t necessarily mean I’m completely cool yet with putting that into action. But I guess that just means I’ve got a conscience that I’m worried about it at all.”
It’s not that I’m insecure because really, I’m not. I never have been. Confused maybe, but I’ve never doubted whose opinion’s were important, and what voices did or didn’t matter. Like he said, it’s on a much larger scale now however. Knowing there’s other people counting on you. Maybe a lot of other people. I’ve never really needed to feel needed. Maybe these other metas don’t even know they do need me, and what help I can give. Heck, maybe they won’t want it either but that isn’t really going to change anything. Tim asked me, after the news debut, if I’d meant it. I may not have been the one that actually said ‘it,’ but soon as Conner had said the words at the press conference? They were basically my new paradigm. I’m just…having a little bit of growing pains with fitting into it.
“Maybe there’ll be bigger, badder Goddesses around by then and I can pass the peasants off to them. And…how do you know they don’t wear bras? Wait. Some new girl? Is there one you’re having that problem with right now? Should I come over and slap some sense into her?”
All I can do at the suddenly very vivid mental image of my boyfriend going through puberty, if he’s not already gone through it and this is just his ‘child’ state? Goodness gracious.. I don’t think I can survive the mood swings. Then there’s the physical development and… I pull another face, though this grimace is a much better humored one, as I can’t help laughing a little. The lightening of this particular mood was probably a good thing, and welcome in the moment at least before we’re back to something a little more serious. We may be a pair of teenagers with the weight of a whole lot of big problems on our shoulders…but we are still just teenagers.
“The Joker? Is… there any chance that maybe he did do it and doesn’t remember? Or is he like. Not the multiple crazies in one head kind of crazy?”
I’m not as up on my knowledge of Gotham’s creeps as maybe I should be, given who my friend is, but he’s also made it abundantly clear that I, and Conner as well, should stay the heck out. While my approach wouldn’t quite be as scorched Earth as ‘Superman’s’ would be… I can understand wanting to solve your own problems. And this particular one is surely something a whole lot more personal than any other crime he might end up fighting.
“Yeesh. Well, it sounds like you’re finding some things to keep you busy anyway. And I am a Goddess, so I wouldn’t hold that against her. It’s not very fair. If she’s like me, though, you telling her she shouldn’t be doing something isn’t really going to work. Not if she thinks she needs to or it’s right.”
I know how I respond to that kind of thing. As our conversation bounces between serious, painful, light and teasing, it eventually is cycling back to why I had actually called in the first place. The ‘mission.’ This Freddy guy. And when I’m being told ‘there’s one thing I should know,’ given all the other information I’ve gotten so far? I pay attention. Maybe even a little more sharply when I hear what it actually is. Blue eyes narrow in suspicion that’s not directed at the image of the boy in front of me, but at the who he’s referring to.
“And. That means there’s every reason to suspect they’re aware of this guy, or if they aren’t that they pretty soon will be. And I know how they handle powerful people they’re aware of.”
Ran afoul. I don’t need that spelled out for me. There’s a lot of things it could mean, but maybe it’s Tim’s situation with his deceased father being such a fresh topic that leads my thoughts to one place. That they probably killed him. If that’s not reason enough for me to feel the need to do this? Nothing is going to be.
Tim: Tim likes being right. The smug look is very telling of how much he likes being told about being right. Most especially by this particular person. See the way those dimples plunge that much further in to the set of his jaw over being told not once, but twice in one setting that he’s right. This is a very good thing for a young man’s ego, at a time when he might just need it most. Try as he might to change the subject, she was still right about the weight of Bruce’s death and the constant source of frustration that comes with it not being a solved case yet.
“As amusing as it might be to see you slap yourself, I’m not that sort of masochist, Cassie.” At this there’s an even deeper level of pleased, smugness to the look than before. As well as two holographic hands demonstrating his intangible state. “But, I’m obviously not going to stop you if you’re determined…”
Without being there in person it’s slightly more difficult to see if Cassie is putting together the pieces of the puzzle as they’re being laid out before her. The truth is though, Tim is confident that she’s getting the jist of it. All flirting aside, all floating of ego aside, Cassie Sandsmark is intelligent. She was smart before all of this ‘super’ stuff started to impact her life. If there is one thing that Tim respects even more than super-powers? It’s intelligence. Batman proved that a mind driven by the charisma and necessity can overcome any super power. Cassie’s got them both. Smarts and Powers. She tends to favor one over the other, thankfully enough.
“It’s my understanding that Bruce was only a few steps ahead of them. He’s been gone for weeks now. So to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how much, if any, of a head start you’ve got on this. Which leads back to why I was apologizing before about giving you this case. I had only been thinking of your similar situations were with Freeman,I hadn’t really even considered how this one is going to impact your situation with Conner. I feel like I should I apologize again, but I don’t want you to think it’s you I’ve got doubts about.”
“As for the Joker, if you knew him, I think you’d agree with me that anything is possible. But forgetting that he managed to kill Batman? Is extremely unlikely. If anything, I think he might be mourning the loss even more than we are. Than I am. It’s like he’s lost a part of himself. The two of them were connected. Two sides of a very warped coin. The Joker was every bit the Chaos, that Batman was the Order. I think Joker, and maybe Bruce, were not really even aware of how they might exist without the other. Batman would have handled it. Order would prevail. The Joker? I think the Chaos is going to consume him and if he doesn’t get closure, it might consume the rest of Gotham too.”
“Which… is why I haven’t really got a choice. I can’t leave. I’ve got to protect this city. Even if it meant losing Mister Freeman, he’s one man versus an entire City of souls. Lucky for me, there’s someone I know can handle it, huh?” There’s a small smile to that. Everything that has been said; from the Joker to the Chaos and the threat to Gotham, has left Tim drained of much of the humor he’d been feeling only moments ago. In it’s wake though, comes pragmatic awareness and an idea. “Actually. If you need a distraction for Conner, I’ve just gotten an idea. Better you not know the details, for plausible deniability, but… let’s just say I know someone. Who’s very distracting and can take care of their self.”
Cassie: “Slap myself? Why would I… Oh. No. I’m good. Thanks.”
That smug look on his face pulls me up just as short on that line of questioning, as the pieces clicking into place in my mind does. And once again, the pink tip of my tongue makes an appearance as I stick it out at him. I’m very aware of a lot of the things that I am, and what I am to a lot of people. That just isn’t a frame of reference that I ever have for myself, however. I didn’t quite catch on with Conner at first either, and he was a whole lot less subtle about spelling it out for me. Part of me is really inclined to argue with him, but that won’t end well for me. The fact that he’s smirking is a pretty clear indicator that I kind of followed exactly where he was attempting to lead me with those words. And insisting that I do notice him is kind of moot, just like reminding him that I have a boyfriend. Which he is very aware of. So the juvenile expression is what I settle for.
“If it goes anything like it did for me, and I think I got more leeway than most..” At least most on my power level. If someone’s metahuman ability is to give teeny papercuts with supreme concentration I’m not sure that they’d bother. “Then the first time there’s any real display of power there’s a chance for some knocking at the door. So I need to get out there before that happens.”
I don’t know if Conner’d been watching, and just happened to pick when I had flown myself up to that rooftop for a shake and fries in privacy and peace to interrupt me, or if it was the act of flying itself. It doesn’t really matter to me at this point enough to have ever asked him about it. There’d been lots of little things up till then to get attention, but nothing so blatant as that.
“I’ll handle Conner. It’s okay. His morals might be a little…iffy, but I’m pretty sure he wants this for me. After that really, super public setup he really can’t fault me for pursing it, either. He just doesn’t need to know you were pointing out the targets right now.”
Do I like keeping things from him? No, not really. Especially since a lot of the control I do have over my Superboy comes from the fact that I’m upfront and honest about what I’m doing, and how I feel about what he’s doing. I’ve got to be the moral compass for both of us sometimes, either because he can’t or won’t differentiate between what he wants and what he should do. But Tim wouldn’t have asked me not to if it wasn’t important, and I wouldn’t still be doing it if I didn’t agree.
“I guess anyone can get so used to their life being one thing that they have a hard time knowing what to do with it when it’s not. I’d say they’re in good hands if it were just you, but I know it’s not. Still. I’ll say it again. Not that I think I need to but… if you need our help… that’s kind of what we’re trying to build towards out here. Folks that can and will help.”
It’s a hell of a choice to have to make, even knowing that tens of thousands of people are going to always have to outweigh one. No matter who that one is. And it’s really, really crappy that he needed to possibly make it just the same. It’s also really unfair.
“Hey, that’s what friends are for, right? Especially ones with ancient Gods as parents. Well. Parent. My mom’s kind of a force to be reckoned with too, though.”
Tilting my head at his image once again, my expression grows curious as he potentially presents a solution to the only immediate problem I was really concerned with. I can’t take Conner with me. Not only would NOWHERE likely get suspicious, but then he’d be on scene to act in…maybe not the way I want this thing to go, because he’s supposed to thanks to the marching orders of those awful acronyms.
“…who can take care of themselves when we’re talking about Conner? I’d ask who but… yeah. No details. And that’d be great.”
Tim: For the second time in the same conversation Tim is left looking at Cassie in that strange, ‘Are you really that blind?’ sort of way. Eyebrows up. Lips thinned. Head canted to the left, akin to the way a dog looks when not understanding a command. The little froof of his hair dangling just such a way as to frame his face in almost cute curiosity. Leaving nothing said about the slap, nor about the way people react to life-changing events. There’s just muted silence, consideration of whether she really is that blind. Then…
“Okay. This is the second time we’ve gotten together and both times you’ve totally missed the obvious. Have you ever read the actual stories of the Greek Gods. I’m talking about the actual History, not Wikipedia or a Google Search.” Both hands immediately rising to stem the tide of another Cassie verbal lashing, staving them off with an unoffensive motion of putting his hands out plaintiff. “You father was part trout, if even half of the tales are true. Spawning more off-spring than even a king fish.”
“But he only ever got ‘romantic’ with a handful of mortals. Each of which was either special before he touched their lives or were special afterwards. I don’t mean the special Olympics, nor do I mean really great in their field of work. I mean special. One of Kind type of people. To put it in the vernacular of more modern day religion? They achieved near saint-like levels of special. Now don’t take this the wrong way, but either your Mom is the most unremarkable mortal that your Dad has ever gotten ‘romantic’ with.”
“Or you’re still not asking her the right questions. Because, I’d be willing to wager a large sum of money that ‘Force to be reckoned with,’ does not quite cover it. There’s more to her story and take it from me, Cass, you only have so long to get that story from your parents before they’re gone.”
That last question though? Is definitely the right sort of question. Once more there’s a shift in the conversation. From the stark serious disbelief in Tim over Cassie continuing to refuse to really question her mother, to the almost cat-who-ate-the-canary look when she puts that rhetorical question out there. Who can take care of themselves when you’re talking about Conner? Not many people, truthfully. Maybe not even Tim. But if there’s one person who can do the job and live to talk about it? He’s got an idea. Two years spent as the guy’s ‘side-kick’ were spent studying more than the books after all.
“You are definitely right about that. From everything I can see, he definitely wants this for you. Normally I would question his motives, but they’re fairly obvious this time. He wants you safe from the very thing he works for. There isn’t really any other way for him to achieve that, unless you can either join them or achieve some manner of immunity from them. He’s got Alien Brains enough to know you won’t join them willingly. Being coerced or brainwashed is going to change the person you are. So he’s left with the only thing that holo-upbringing really taught him. Manipulate the System, to achieve the result he wants. The trouble with this is that we’re not living in a predetermined virtual reality here. In that virtual reality whenever he caused a systemic destruction, someone pushed the reset button. We don’t have one of those out here.”
“For now, let’s just focus on the things we can control in this moment. For you that’s a visit to Fawcett City. For me, that’s a visit with leggy loud mouth meta, who’s going to give your superboy a reason not to be watching you for the next day or two.” On his side of the projection, Tim reaches for the transceiver phone on his end, only to hesitate just before touching it. “Cass, you do look good. I’m not even flirting for once. I wouldn’t have deduced that you hadn’t been sleeping as a reason for snapping at me. You look good, more confident and comfortable than I’ve ever seen you.”
“If you start having the dreams again,” you know the dreams Tim shouldn’t even know she was having once upon a time. “Let me know. I know a guy.”
Cassie: He doesn’t need to speak his skepticism. I can pretty much read it loud and clear from his posture and facial expression alone. It makes me not feel even a little bad for my exaggerated sigh, or the way that I roll blue eyes at him.
“Uuuh, yeah. I have. I knew them better growing up than I knew freakin’ Disney Princesses. I also know that there hasn’t exactly been a lot of well. Me’s that have been talked about in the even close to recent history, and I have a feeling there would have been at least a little blurb about something crazy happening. Which means that not only did he not screw around with a whole lot of mortals, but it’d been a long freakin’ time since someone even tempted him so. Yeah. I thought my Mom was the most amazing thing before I woke up with Godpowers. And I mean. You’ve met her right? It’s pretty clear where I got my looks from.”
Maybe I’m not asking the right questions. The truth is I haven’t asked a whole lot of them period because I don’t know where to start. Where I should stop once I do. She kept the truth of my father from me for my whole life, and even once I had powers only talked about it when I confronted her. Maybe everything else going on has taught me that there’s probably a reason that’s got nothing to do with embarrassment or shame, and a lot more to do with protecting me and maybe some self-preservation. It kind of feels like a box I shouldn’t open until I have to. At the same time though, Tim’s right. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe it’s something to do with why she’s pushing me away.
“You know. You badgering me about smoothing things with my Mom is one thing. The fact that Conner’s said it, too? Makes me want to say you’re both in on it. Because the other option is that it’s really that obvious. And I’ve already told you that you’re right more than the weekly quota today.”
I’m back to teasing now, because I know he’s right. And Conner, too. I’ve just been busy, and I really don’t entirely know the questions to ask. Maybe this little job of mine will prove enlightening in more than one way and area of my life. Or I’ll just have to start with what I’ve got, and ask her to tell me the bedtime story of Cassandra and Helena Sandsmark.
“I think the whole Superman thing was my fault. Or at least him embracing it on his own. I’ve been trying to get him to do good things with all those powers of his. And I’d definitely rather he did it on his own, because he thought I wanted to do some Caped Crusading than because his Dad has talked him into it. He just needs some help.”
Not physically that’s for sure. But that’s not what he gets that’s positive out of a relationship with either Tim or I. Yeah, I’m muscle, and Tim’s brains, but we both seem to have picked up on the subtle way you have to guide Conner, his powers, and his ego. I don’t think that’s something NOWHERE really has a chance of mastering in the way it needs to be done, and that gives us the edge that we probably sorely need. Leggy loud mouthed meta? It’s probably a good thing I don’t have a confidence in my relationship issue or I might be a little bit concerned with where that meeting might go. But Tim said she could handle Conner, whomever she is, and anything that happens from there…well. I’m going to be in Fawcett City with a job to do, and I’ll just have to not worry about the things I can’t control. Though I don’t like it.
“Thanks, Tim. Back at ya. I’m not even flirting either. And I will.”
He knows a guy. I hadn’t told him about those nightmares, and this isn’t at all the same thing. These dreams have been pretty. Um. Great. Sometimes the waking up from them has been the crappy part. I wonder if Conner talked to him about it, or if he just eavesdropped on a conversation that was had about them. I pretty quickly decide the latter’s more likely. I’ll keep the offer in mind either way though.
“My phone’s not going to self-destruct in five seconds or anything…is it?”
Tim: “Oh. No. I wouldn’t dream of destroying a quarter million dollar piece of Wayne Tech so haphazardly.” This too brings a wide-smirk to the face. Cassie’s used to Wealth in the form of Conner’s toys, but she’s always refused his expensive gifts. Now though she has no idea how long she’s had something of that value in her possession. Doing god knows what with it. Goddess, such as it were. “It’s much more likely to grow sentience and try to take over the world, if you leave it unattended or feed it after midnight.”
“Y’know, the truth is, Con might do a half-way decent job at being Superman. But, I’m not sure he’s ever going to do it for the right reasons. For every ounce of the Superman that was altruist, Conner got an ounce of greed from his other gene donor. I mean that literally. Our Pinnochio is always going to need a Jiminy Cricket, Cass. So it’s a good thing one of us is immortal.”
This is not just a good way to sign off the ‘Call,’ it’s also sage advice to her. Without commenting any further about how Tim plans to distract the super boy she calls her’s. That is a topic best left unspoken. Not just because of any sort of jealousy she might feel. The truth is what he had said at first. Best that she has a true sense of plausible deniability. Because it keeps her clean. Keeps Cassie from needing to tell a lie. Though there’s little doubt she could do it, convincingly enough to have the boy eating out of the palm of her hand? Sometimes there’s a principle to the thing. She holds sway over one of the most powerful metas still on the planet. Best not to endanger that sway by having her break the guy’s trust.
Leaving Timothy Drake with the need for another discussion. This one? Thankfully needs a lot less build up. Given that the person who needs drafted in to all of this was no more than five feet away during this entire ‘Phone Call.’ Sometimes secrecy is a necessity. Other times it happens to be a hurdle to jump over. Dinah Lance can normally keep a secret and right now she’s in a position where keeping them from her only enhances her curiosity. Which is why Tim made no effort to hide the entire call from her when she stomped out of her bedroom in the middle of it. No doubt wanting something for the headache that accompanies the handover she’s been nursing since Noon. At first caught by the interest in whom Tim was talking to, then lured in by the holographic display cast across her living room. Hard to believe the conversation itself was probably only the third reason she lingered.
It isn’t really even eavesdropping when the person you’re spying on knows you’re there the entire time. “Don’t worry, Dinah. This will be fun. Mostly. Except for the tears. But those will be mostly his. And you did say you wanted an excuse to try on that suit I made you.”
This is going to be a long night. Not the sort that revolves around good dreams, but the type that is a nightmarish twist of explaining to the second hottest blonde in your life, that she’s going to pick a fight with a nearly-psychotic, definitely sociopathic, Superman.
by Michele | May 9, 2017 | Chronicles
Tim : It all started with a text. The sort of text that interrupts some of the most fun moments a girl might have with their boyfriend. The sort that reads of the caller i.d. that identifies with your mother.
Mom: Saw your press conference.
Mom: You up for a little heart to heart?
Mom: Mother, Daughter talk?
Mom: No boys allowed.
Mom: Might reconsider that trip you wanted to come along for.
Mom: My office @ museum.
Mom: Bring. Cheesecake.
Alright, so it’s a series of texts. With Cassie moderately distracted, it allows for the entire discussion to be had without her reply. Leaving her to play catch up. To hop to what her Mom wants, because it’s a rare opportunity to maybe make amends for a situation that she hadn’t caused in the first place.
At the point of arrival though, it’s obvious almost immediately that Mom isn’t in the office. Given the time of night, it’s deserted. But that’s not really unusual. Cassie’s mother works late more often than not. Especially when she’s preparing for a trip. Truth is, she’s probably somewhere in the building for real. She just isn’t the one awaiting Cassie in that office.
Ordinarily (which is a word that applies to situations like this only loosely, and very recently), Cassie might have immediate cause for concern. Though her defenses might be up immediately, the reason for her arrival isn’t there to set a trap. Nor do I happen to be stupid enough to cause her to go in the fight or flight mode before I’ve even said a word. I’m sitting there, defenselessly, in her Mother’s desk chair. Clearly having rifled through the notes and information sitting there. But it’s not the clean cut schoolboy of norm. I’ve made this trip in uniform.
“Wonder Woman. Really? Don’t get me wrong. You’re pretty wonderful, but you don’t even have a driver’s license yet.” That dry wit is rarely mistakable, but even if it isn’t, I only make her wait a moment before I’m brushing the mask off of my face. “I’ve erected a bio-metric holographic overlay of the room. Anyone spying on us, is seeing your average girl next door having a discussion about keeping secrets from and with her mother.”
“Did you mean it?”
Cassie : We’re supposed to be studying. When one of you is smarter than the average bear, and has already had a high school education psi-jacked into your brain, and the other is a smarter than your average everyone girl that could have been teaching these classes rather than taking them, it just is a little hard to stay on task. To my credit, I made sure we got the homework portion done before we started on more important, personal subjects but there’s nothing beyond that we really need to do. Plus my Mom’s not home. At least one of us has a little bit of shame, so this wouldn’t be going on if she were home.
Because that’s just weird. No matter how open, accepting and generally cool your Mother might be.
One little jaunty jangle I ignore, even two because there’s not exactly many people who have my phone number that I jump with any level of excitement to respond to even in my least interesting moments. But when it keeps on going, eventually I have to extricate myself from Conner, and the couch cushions, in order to read them. Messages from the only other person that occupies the ‘drop everything for’ orbit.
“Oh, shoot it’s Mom. I gotta go, Con.”
Holding up a hand as I shove my phone in the back pocket of my jeans, and reach for a sneaker to stave off any sort of emergency reaction by the city’s newest Superman.
“Not an emergency, she just wants to talk. Just the girls. No Conner’s allowed. But she said she wanted cheesecake do you think you could…”
…maybe get one for me while I finish tying my shoes. I don’t get a chance to finish. Not only do I not typically encourage the guy to use his powers (exactly the opposite), but I don’t usually ask him to do things for me. I haven’t even finished tying the first one, and my hair’s not done shifting from the wake of his exit before he’s back. Cheesecake in hand, and looking pretty smugly pleased with himself. I guess I can’t blame him. I am right now, too, even if I am still a little grouchy at him over the Superhero Debut. Maybe that’s why he’s being so complaint…
All in all it takes him much less time to do my errand than it does for me to get out the door. And then for me to get myself to the Metropolis Museum, even though I fly most of the way. It’s dark, and late enough that I take the risk, and I know the area around the place well enough to know where it’s safe enough to land mostly unseen. With. Cheesecake.
I could have gotten there faster, but I’d taken my time just a bit. Agonizing over what I’m going to say, what I need to say, what she might have to tell me about what’s been going on lately. The walk from the parking lot in past the security that waves me through on seeing my face. Mom’s not in her office though, someone else is and I just about use it as the first salvo of a fight. Blue eyes narrowed in on the costumed figure.
“They don’t know that.”
I could have one. I’m old enough. I just haven’t really bothered, we don’t have a spare car, Conner has his own and likes to drive the flashy sporty thing everywhere because of the attention it gets. Oh, and I can fly. When the mask is pushed away from the eyes of the intruder, I look surprised but not surprised enough given what a revelation that should have been. I mean. I’ve talked to Tim on the phone before. I’m more caught off guard that he’s here, in my Mom’s office and that he apparently sent me for cheesecake.
“I feel like I ought to be mad at you for hijacking my Mom’s phone and getting my hopes up. Or for the snooping. Mostly, i’m just going to be huffy right now for accusing me of keeping secrets from my Mom. She knew before I did. I mean. She slept with my Father. She knew who and what he was, she just didn’t bother telling me. So if we’re going to get judgey about… you know what. Not the point.”
Pushing the door closed behind me, I set the cake on the edge of the desk and drop down into the chair on the opposite side that I’ve occupied so many times before. Just not with Red Robin on the other side.
“So. Hi, Tim. Welcome back to Metropolis. I like the cape.”
Shoving a hand through blonde hair puts it more in place, after getting a bit mussed from the flight and then rushing in here for my Mother/Daughter chat. It’s a pretty smooth setup, I suppose. Conner’s got almost zero boundaries and this is one of the few he actually respects, and wouldn’t get curious enough to follow along on. Though I don’t think for a second he’s still at my house right now.
“It. Which…it? The part where I said I’d help you if you needed it last time because, I mean.. I kind of guessed but that’s a kind of sudden hand tip. Or what I said on televison?”
Tim : “They know everything,” comes the counter before she’s even finished the thought.
We just happen to be talking about different people when we use the word ‘they.’ But for the moment that’s a sidenote to the overall situation that has brought me here. If I was here to talk to her about the coming out party or the name that she’s chosen to present herself? I could have done that as mild-mannered chum Tim. I’m here in the costume to make a statement of my own.
In a rather uncharacteristic show of emotions, there’s a legitimate scowl upon my face as she speaks about things. “It doesn’t work that way. If I were talking to Conner, I’d accept that he believes it does, but you’re not Conner. You know better. The world doesn’t work that way. Did your Mother know? Sure. Did she keep it from you? Yep. Was it crummy and did it suck? Uh-huh on both counts.”
“But. She’s your Mother. Protecting your life trumps protecting your feelings. Because that’s her job. Her niche. Her lot in life. It’s so much her job, in fact, that you don’t even really get to whine about it and call yourself a Woman in the same conversation.” Pausing, more so for effect than necessity, before allowing a subtle shift in my features to soften. “You’re definitely right though. This isn’t the point, but the truth is? You should lead with that. Telling her you finally understand that you have no right to be judgey about it. Opening that door for her, is going to let her know you’re ready to heal. Speaking from recent experience? You should do that, before you lose the opportunity too.”
Placing my hands, gloved as they are, down upon her mother’s desk. I make a show of pushing some of the papers aside before opening one of my hands up. People say that I’m a closed book, this is a metaphoric way of opening it, if only momentarily for the girl in front of me. Oh. Erm. Woman, I mean. Psh.
“I’m asking if you meant what you said on television. About being the ‘Leader’ of the next generation?” Again there’s a brief pause, but this time I actually shrug slightly and look away. “Not that it really matters if you did mean it or not. It’s too late. No take backs, so to speak.”
“Listen. I haven’t been completely honest with you, Cassie. The trouble is, I don’t think anyone has. But in my case, I wasn’t being deceptive in a really intentional way. I knew Con had powers. I knew all about him, actually. My … eh.. Father.. erm..-figure, warned me that I’d be on Conner’s radar. Just for different reasons than you. Con’s dad wouldn’t let the chance to make nice with the Wayne’s slip past. What I didn’t know, is that my… Father…eh…-figure, was doing the same with me. Getting me close. Using me to spy on the Luthors. Conner specifically.”
“My …eh… let’s just call him Bruce, okay? Has known about Lex Luthor’s Agenda and the people Connor work for. He’s known for years. I’ve got access to files, data, histories… the works. If you meant what you said on television, I know a few people who might be willing to ….. follow a Leader.”
Cassie : His emphasis hints that he’s not referring to the same ‘they’ as I am, but I don’t try to clarify what I meant. I have a feeling he knows what I meant, just as much as I get what he’s angling for. The more sinister ‘they,’ where I just meant the general populace. As far as they know? I am what I say. Both my costume, and Conner’s, have some subtle imaging of their own built in to mask who we really are. Otherwise the media would be having a flipping field day. Not about me so much as they would over Lex Luthor’s son being a super-powered Superman. Boy.
So I just shrug in response to his comeback before kicking my feet up on the desk. Carefully. In a spot that’s not endangering any of the papers or her precious knickknacks, some of which were gag gifts from me for one birthday or another.
“I know.”
This ‘knowing’ is about Helena Sandsmark and what she did, or didn’t do and her motivations for it. There’s another shrug, accompanying the earnest expression on my features.
“I got over it a while ago. Do I wish she would have maybe found a way to bring it up a little sooner than when long-lost Dad I didn’t want dropped a gift in my lap and my powers kicked in? Oh, yeah, sure. Absolutely. But I get why she didn’t. I should tell her though.”
The truth is I never actually had it out with my Mother over that whole thing. Conner talked me down off my proverbial ledge, while we were up in the literal sky, and made some of the same points. Tim’s just making them a little more eloquently. Maybe she’s picked up on some of it though, she is my Mother, and for sixteen years of my life we basically just had each other. By choice, not out of necessity.
“Bleck though. Really. It’s a stupid name, isn’t it? Wonder Girl would be a lot more appropriate but that was going to lead to the immediate sidekick connotation and…”
Pausing, I bite the corner of my lip and shoot him a half-sheepish look across the desk.
“…not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just don’t want to be Conner’s. Technically he’s the one that said that, not me. About leading, and the next generation and all of that. I just didn’t disagree.”
But subtle as that distinction might be, it doesn’t matter. Not in any important way. I’d been set up to be someone to look at, to look to. Whatever way that is someone wants to look; for guidance, help, heck maybe blame eventually. When it comes down to it I’m a high schooler, and probably not ready for that kind of responsibility but that doesn’t mean I can’t do it. Sitting up straight again, I lean against the desk more bodily, fingers starting an absent beat on the edge of it.
“But. If someone has to? I think it can be me. I’m not N.O.W.H.E.R.E.. I’m sure they are waiting for any kind of chance to change that, but I’m not into that koolaid and I owe that to Conner. I’m also… very painfully aware of what it feels like to have something you don’t understand thrust on you. I mean, I know you know, but I don’t know if you know how new this all still is to me. I have the scary feeling that I’m only just scratching the surface of what I can do. So.”
The whole thing hadn’t been my idea. Eventually would I have gotten here? Probably, yes. With or without Conner’s help I think I’ve got it in me. I apparently come from an ancient family that’s predisposed to that sort of thing.
“I don’t know that I know how to lead, but I do know that I won’t try to use them for any sort of agenda. And I’m not going to let anyone else either. Maybe that’s why it’s gotta be me.”
Tim : There is so much to what is said that we could probably discuss all night long. Cassie’s entire situation with her mother for one. I’ve never understood the real drama involved there, because up until recently I only knew Cassie had powers. I wasn’t aware of what they were or where they came from. That had come later.
“When we first met, I thought you were a mark. I thought your boyfriend was playing you. It made me mad. Real mad, actually.” A gesture of the hands around the two of them, to encompass the office. “The baffles that I used before. The technology that is keeping him from spying on us right now. All of that was born out of a desire to be able to save you.”
An admission, but one that I take a step further before she has the time to really work out what I’ve actually said. “I did this in a couple years. Bruce had a couple decades. He knew, Cassie. I’m starting to think he really, really knew everything. And I’m starting to think that’s the major reason he’s gone now.”
When she sets forward, so do I. Except that as we’re mutually leaning over the desk from opposite sides? I’m making the effort to truly make eye contact. To demonstrate a level of openness that I’m not known for as Tim, much less as the person I’m dressed up as before her.
“Wrong. Don’t lie to yourself. You have an Agenda. Or more accurately, if you don’t have one now? You will have one soon enough. Be honest. That’s your gift. Tell people the truth. Lead with honesty. Tell them what you stand for. Tell them what you plan to do. Put your Agenda on the table and let the people who believe in it stand with you. You come from the ancient Gods, Cassie. That radiance from their old, ancient, mythological, world is inside of you. Let people see the truth in you and they’ll follow for the right reasons.”
“In the next couple weeks you’re going to start receiving letters from schools you never applied too. It’ll be dossiers on the people I think you can help, first. If you agree, then make contact. If you don’t, that’s your call too. The first dossier is the only one you don’t get to Veto. She needs your help the most.”
At this I’m starting to rise up from her mother’s chair. Taking my full height leaves me a little short of her, but like most times I’m happy to let the shadows of the room obscure that difference for effect.
“One thing though. Well. Actually two things. First, maybe it’s the detective training that makes me a cynic, but have you noticed that your powers started almost to the day when your mother decided it was time for you to have a ‘Normal Life?’ I don’t believe in coincidence, Cass. Either she knew what was coming or.. she decided to finally allow it to happen.”
“Second thing. Wonder Girl sounds like someone who hasn’t quite made up her mind. I’ve been training to read people since I was nine years old. I figured out who the Batman was, by turning my gameboy original in to a mini-supercomputer and feeding it psychological profiles that I did in my spare time. So if I know one thing about you, in the time we’ve known each other? You’ve already made up your mind. You just haven’t figured out how to make up everyone else’s yet. That makes you about as wondrous as it gets.”
“If you need to contact me, without prying eyes or ears of any kind? You know how to contact me.”
Cassie : There’s a lot of what has been said here that, while interesting and something that might be nice to go into more detail on, has not been at all surprising. The big ‘reveal’ of Tim’s alter ego would have startled me before he went back to Gotham, when I only knew him as Conner’s classmate that knew things. That was why he’d been introduced to me in the first place. But when he’d left, something that he’d said had connected some dots that he, himself, had laid out in that conversation. I don’t know if that had been intentional or not and it’s a distinction that doesn’t really matter to me, either. When one of the talked of Bat Family turned up in my Mom’s office in the middle of Metropolis? I guess I knew. Taking off the mask was confirmation, but why else would he have wanted me to keep Conner out of Gotham? Not just Conner but myself, too.
Wanting to have a chat, subsequently, about the press junket? That makes sense, too. It’d be in his interest to know what’s coming. But what he tells me about when we met, and what he’d though? That surprises me. It also brings up the memory of the three of us jammed into Conner’s sports car with me on Tim’s lap the first time I’d laid eyes on him and that makes my face turn a shade of pink and Mom’s office isn’t nearly dark enough to cover it up. The truth? There was a point where Tim wasn’t even that off, though when I met him I think it wasn’t the case anymore. I also don’t think it’s quite the same type of ‘mark’ that he believed it was either.
What do I say to that? Baww, you’re sweet? Insist that he didn’t need to do that and he doesn’t get Conner at all? Clearly he does. So like I usually do, when I can be anyway, I settle for honest and earnest.
“I appreciate that you were willing to go to the trouble for me, Tim. I really do. It says a lot about you, but it’s telling that you can be counted on to go to an entirely different level for a friend if you’d do that just for some girl.”
This time his clarification/correction, makes my eyes roll slowly as I cant my head to the side like it’s tipped with the effort. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Wording semantics, my expression says, I’m just not coming from the mindset or background where I would ever pair the word ‘Agenda’ with what I want to do with the situation in front of me. There’s a different implication.
“I’m a pretty awful liar, so I’ll just work with what the good God.. either a great saying for me, or just the worst… gave me. I’ll keep an eye out for them and stop pitching the mail sight unseen.”
No question of who, what, where, when or why beyond what he’s told me, because if Tim wanted to tell me right now we’re perfectly well situatied for him to do so. Maybe he’s trying to give me time to let it sink in, to really decide if I’m going to do this or not. If I ‘meant it.’ But it was more or less go time from the moment I got out of that dressing room at the convention. I just hadn’t known it yet. His ‘denial’ of a veto for whatever’s coming might stick in someone else’s craw, but in this case it doesn’t mine. He already knows I want to help, and if it’s someone that really needs it? I’m going to be practically unable to help myself.
“My personal thought is mostly option A. They kicked in on my sixteenth birthday. Like. To the day. I don’t know if it’s some magically significant age to that crowd, or some sort of agreement… I haven’t really asked. I probably should. I just wasn’t in a big hurry to get a handle on all of this. I guess I figured I had time.”
But you never can know if you do, can you? My lips purse, and I’m reminded of just how terribly I feel for Tim and what’s happened in his life. Apparently personal and ‘professional.’ He probably believed he had more of that as well, and here we are. I’m pretty sure none of us are really old enough for the situation at hand, and yet here we are. Fortunately he distracts me from the sadness that’s probably starting to show on my face by his talk of supercomputer hand helds and I let out a low whistle, accompanying a raised eyebrow.
“What is it with boys I know and not sleeping? I’m never going to buy you needing me to tutor you or show you anything ever again you realize.”
I’m smart. I’m very smart actually, and while some people like to tease me about it and how I’ll tell you to your face how clever I am? I don’t typically go into exactly how much smarter I am. I’m gifted in pretty much every sense of the word. Don’t need to be a rocket scientist (or a demi-goddess) to pick up on exactly how much of another level Tim’s on. He’s not even being braggy, so if I correlate that to how I talk about my intellect?
“Smoke signal and a thrift store pager? Laser eyebeam cloud writing? ..yeah I don’t have those still so probably not eyebeam anything. Are you going to join me for this cheesecake you wanted before you…”
I pause, mid-reach for the box I’d brought with me as my eyes sweep the room for some of the utensils that are invariably in here for hastily grabbed meals and snacks, and then purse my lips again. This time in thought as I focus on Tim, and with all the effort of coming here when we’re already secure and in privacy and not giving me the dossier now…
“Huh. Well. That’s crafty and a hair Machiavellian. Next time I see you in person, then.”
