15002/The Crime Family Olympics: Hundred Meter Butt-Kicking

The Crime Family Olympics: Hundred Meter Butt-Kicking
Date of Scene:	27 April 2023
Location:	Columbia Point, Burnley
Synopsis:	Nightwing, Oracle, and Black Canary deal with a gang clash that turns rough, then have a few words shared between friends.
Cast of Characters:	Nightwing, Black Canary, Oracle

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Nightwing has posed:

The ground crunched under the back of the head as Antonio Beretti hit the dirt for the fourth time that night. He was woozy now, and he was a big fella. Stubborn is what they always called him. Which was why he kept getting up. His poppa always said you get knocked down you get back up, no matter what. He stumbled forward, his bare and bloodied hand grabbing a fistful of gravel off the ground as he tries to rise...

Which was the moment when the black leather gauntlet slammed hard into the side of his face, showing Antonio the truth finally.

That his daddy was a liar.

Nightwing spun in place, twisting his boot around and crashing it hard into the chest of one of the other gangsters that was rushing in, spinning the karambit in his hand and trying to slash it across the acrobat's chest. His target flipped back three times, landing in a fighting stance...

Which finally gave him a chance to respond on the comms, << Not sure what's up with these guys. These are Cosa Nostra guys, but they've got... /NNF/ >>

Nightwing slips to the side quickly as that blade slashes at him, ducking and countering with a knee-shattering kick that slapped the man off his feet and had his chin hitting the concrete floor of the foundation there in that construction site.

<< Some outside help. Odessa Mob maybe? Since they're Russian. I think. They feel Russian. Canary do they feel Russian to you? >>

While above them several drones of Oracle's design likely feeds her rolling intel on the fight as the vigilantes had interrupted a meeting between several groups of crime families. Identification was coming now likely through facial recognition as around twenty different gangsters were circling and attacking the two vigilantes on the ground.

Black Canary has posed:
"Better than the usual Russian types," the peroxide prize-fighter says, voice casual as she plays with three of the aforementioned outside help.

Make that two. The incoming truncheon loses all hope of contact as Canary steps inside a mook's melee range and starts playing with her food, using her infamous command of chisao to tangle the man's arms into a mess, with each such awkward placement emphasized by a strike to a joint, impacting it to make it bend in a direction it was not intended to bend. The man loses his temper and takes a step back to try and get Canary back into the swing range of the truncheon.

Tactical mistake.

Waiting for this very moment, Wing Chun becomes Kalaripayat and a booted foot lashes out in an outward swing, impacting the man's elbow and redirecting the truncheon...

...into one of his partners' heads. That bell well and truly rung, Canary is now facing two opponents as the stricken man falls to the ground. Well, one and a half, because the sickening crunch of an elbow breaking as the arm stops, but the directing boot doesn't, suggests that her truncheon-wielding friend is not going to be fighting at full effectiveness.

"Belarussian maybe? They've got some really kick-ass special forces I hear, and it's almost a recruiting mill for their mob."

Oracle has posed:
There were some nights Barbara was on the rooftops. Working with the crew, getting her hands dirty so to speak. She enjoyed those times. Some of her best memories were of her times as Batgirl. Memories she still could still add to.

Tonight was not one of those nights.

Barbara was inside her apartment, having flipped the switch and bringing out all the hidden equipment. Screens everwhere, some lab equipment, several machines running in tandem. Enough computer power to probably run a large country. She had feeds from all over the city, CCTV she could tap into in private buildings, even SHIELD satellites she could tap into if she was feeling particularly feisty. As Oracle, she was one of the most infamous and mysterious figures on the DarkWeb. She seemed to know everything, see everything. And there was nothing known about her. Thanks to the mix of Earth and alien tech that made up her system.

"Running photo recognition software now," she said, voice smooth on their commlinks as she quickly typed while her gaze flicked from screen to screen. There were more of the Crew she was monitoring after all, not just Nightwing and Black Canary. She could see the camera and HUD of the various bat members that had them running at all times when they were outside on patrols. Since one never knew what might come in handy later for analysis. The same options were available for the Birds but they weren't quite as fastidious about it as the Bats were.

The screen reflected off her glasses as she looked from one to the next. "Canary gets the cookie. Three I have found so far are Belarussian. Why are the two combining forces though?" And she was tappity-tapping keys as she sent a search string out on the DarkWeb to ping any talk of the various groups involved recently.

Nightwing has posed:

There's a resonant crack of a twisted humerus as one of those men with the grim eyes and the bumpy-ridged noses tries to get his arms around the circus-acrobat turned vigilante. His arm twisted and held out to the side, with Nightwing's arm coming down hard across it in a body posture that from afar might look as if he was just trying to help guide the poor agonized man across the road.

But any doubt would be dispelled as the man's arm hung free and his head was redirected hard into the pile of concrete sacks, his body going abruptly rigid and then relaxed as unconsciousness took him.

It gave Dick a chance to spin back around and assess the situation. "They're kind of tough, but they get distracted easily," His voice is heard over the comms and by the other fighters that are circling around Nightwing who has his hips turned, one arm forward and hand open, the other closed into a fist near his chin, very Jeet Kune Do.

There's a crack of gunfire from across the way as several of the Beretti's start to lose their patience, trying to pick shots out of the crowd but in such a mayhem melee their own people are going to start to get shot.

<< Oracle, you have an angle on the shooters? I'll start making my way that direction. >>

As soon as he says that he puts words into action, breaking into a run, partially running up along the wall then leaping off of it in a spinning kick to slam the head of one of the attackers into the chest of the other, giving him a small window to break into a run in that direction.

Black Canary has posed:
"Woohoo!" Canary shouts, to the confusion of the two (well, 1.5) men facing her. "Make mine macademan... macemde... Dammit! Make mine chocolate chip!" Anything to make the thug life more surreal apparently.

The third guy--the smarter of the trio, given that he stayed back to observe while the truncheon man came in full-tilt and the second guy ... well ... second guy didn't have much of a chance to do anything but manoeuvre before getting assist-clocked by his own friend. And while Canary is still dancing with her wounded bird, that quiet, smart one steps in with surprising alacrity and silence, unleashing a collapsible baton aimed for the back of her neck.

The fact that it was collapsible saved Canary ... quite possibly her life, definitely her consciousness. The slight metal hiss-and-click as the baton extended mid-swing gave her just enough warning to twist out of the way, taking the strike on her right shoulder instead of neck. Even through the armour padding concealed beneath her jacket, however, didn't stop her entire right arm from suddenly going dead as overloaded nerves scream at her and then stop working. A choked-off cry comes over comms, signalling her situation.

"Mother's got moves and strength," she mutters, leaping toward the less harmful of the pair and sweeping her left arm to push 'Lefty' (whose club she just joined) into Mister Three.

"Shit, I like Belarussians. Brutal and slick. This is going to be fun!"

Purest bluster. In the melee this isn't obvious, but over comms the strain of pain is clearly audible in Canary's voice.

"Take the shooters. I'll finish these clowns."

Oracle has posed:
"Huh."

Babs realized she was letting herself focus a little too much on the deep dive for info and not as much as she probably should be on the fight in progress. Not that she can really do much to help them personally. Until those shots come in. Almost at the same point Canary is dealing with a more skilled fighter than expected.

"Nightwing, two buildings to your left." The drones split, some moving that way, others staying with Dinah. "Brownstone style. First floor there are three heat signals and warm guns." Since those showed up in such lovely form on sensors. "There is one more on the second floor. No gun but...what is he doing..." She could see the posture the man was in and he was moving around--then he took a sniper position it looked like with his arm holding something out in front of him, the other curled with a finger in a trigger-hold. "I think we have a rifle on second floor coming to bear. Get behind cover if possible. Trying to get a better feed to see what they have."

Nightwing has posed:

Even as Nightwing is heading to the trio of gunmen who are taking aim on the vigilantes in the crowd, Canary will hear him as he darts by, leaping over the hood of one of the bulldozers, his voice calling out.

"Eyes down, Canary!" It's enough of a warning, especially considering how quickly the Blonde Bombshell has taken to Gotham Patrol. Enough time for her to recognize and respond as in mid-jump Nightwing hurls a trio of black spheres toward the attackers near Dinah that burst in a sharp staccato CRACK-CRACK-CRACK as the flash cartridges go off inside of them, bathing that area in bright light for a bare moment. But enough to blind those attackers, hopefully long enough to buy her some time.

Dick lands in a partial crouch and is already up and running, sliding his back along the edge of a car as those gunmen in the building start sending rounds his way down range. A glass windshield and window of the car shatters above him as he winces slightly, one of his own batons snaps into position from along his arm into his hand.

<< Oracle, I'm moving in three-two-one... >> And true to his word he breaks cover and moves, hugging cover and then twisting to send a whirling blade into the window the gunmen are using for a firing port, slicing past them and embedding in the wall nearby as it ticks down...

Before the concussion charge explodes.

Black Canary has posed:
Immune as she is to sound, closing her eyes (and for good measure covering them with the crook of her elbow) at Dick's warning is more than enough to survive (and indeed thrive!) the merry popcorn of pulsating light Dick gifts the fans with. Lefty is caught completely unawares and panics when they go off, running off, blinded, until noggin meets fire escape.

Now he has a cracked skull (bleeding profusely from the rusted corner of the dilapidated ladder -- time for tetanus shots!) to go with his broken elbow. It's probably merciful that he's also slipped rather quickly into unconsciousness.

"I could have handled that on my own!" Canary grumps over comms, though the warm laughter in her voice hints that she's thanking Dick for the assist while she pretends to complain.

And the assist is put to good use. Mister Three, not as badly disoriented as Lefty, is still, nonetheless at a decided disadvantage given the huge yellow spots covering exactly where he looks. His entire field of vision is taken out except for little bits at the edges ... which he uses to good effect. Unfortunately, while this would seem magically talented to your run-of-the-mill thug and make Mister Three a legend in the underground, against the likes of Canry, even with one arm out (though it's starting to provide signals again--Yay!--mostly pain--Boo!), it's just a parlor trick.

She doesn't even bother dodging or blocking. She stands a little out of his reach and kicks up her left foot, jumping with her right, until the toe of said boot impacts a jaw. This isn't enough to take out Mister Three (which is rather an impressive accomplishment!) but Canary doesn't do things by halves. The right foot swings up with brutal, punishing force while the left goes down for the landing.

Two kicks from Canary? Straight to the jaw? Yeah, Mister Three has joined the Sleepytime Brigade.

"Number thre..."

**BOOM!**

"Ooh! Pretty lights!"

Oracle has posed:
There were still a few of the two crews present, despite the gunshots and vigilantes putting a crimp in their evening. They were making sure to duck out into cover if they could.

The explosion ripped through the first floor of the building. It literally /pushed/ the three men that were firing out the broken window through it and into the street outside. In the process, two of the three los their guns. All three were stunned, one was even screaming as he clutches his ears where trails of red leaked down. Apparently his eardrums didn't make it.

Barbara could see the figure on the second floor still. They were staggered, fell back from their position. "Second floor sniper stunned." She sent the drones swooping closer. And saw the figure pause then draw a pistol through the heat sensors. Each time a drone got close enough they might get an actual camera view through a window so it wasn't obscured, they would be picked out of the sky. "Dammit, he's taking out my drones."

Then the figure moved back into sniper position. "He's preparing to fire again."

There was no sound. No warning. One moment the conflict was going as it had. The next, the head of a fallen Belarussian exploded into a fine red mist. Then one of the Belarussians who was still upright but barely behind a mailbox took a hit to the leg from the space under that box. Then as he fell, his head was revealed.

PFFT. Nothing but that light sound of the silencer from that second floor as the second man was eliminated.

Nightwing has posed:

<< Dammit. >> Dick's voice was strained as the others on the comm frequency heard him. He closed that distance and slammed his back to the wall beside the front door of that building, the sniper firing from the floor above, their rifle making those short suppressed pops as they made those shots.

<< Oracle I'm going to ask you to sacrfice one of those drones for me, hope you didn't name this one. >> As he says that he pushes the broken frame of the door open and out of the way, then took one of his remaining devices from the evening. It wouldn't eliminate the sniper, but it might serve to make the drone's distraction more palpable as he hefts it and in a hook shot to the side he sends another black sphere into the room above, the marble hitting the ground and starting to spew a hiss of smoke into the air. Not fast enough to fill the room, but perhaps making enough noise for when the drone makes its pass...

<< Moving. 3-2-1. >>

And as he hits that last digit he breaks into the building. The mayhem from the concussion grenade was... complete, he quickly secures that first floor with a smooth clearance before he hits the steps. Into the shadow of that stairway he disappears, waiting for the sound of the rifle firing...

And the slide working as they chamber the next round. That's the signal for Nightwing to move... and make his entry.

Black Canary has posed:
As much fun as it is to mix it up fist and foot and knee and elbow and forehead and ... you get the idea ... vs. others in the same melee, Canary isn't stupid. Reckless, yes. Overconfident, uh-huh. But stupid?

Not even slightly.

And if there's anything that will piss her off, it's killing people she's having a merry old time pulverising. The chatter on comms tells her where to look. The destruction of the concussion grenade gave her the location, paired with Oracle's intel.

"Cover your ears you two."

That's all the warning they get as Canary fills her lungs with more air than she should be able to. (Not Kryptonian grade, but still very impressive.) And then it comes out, passing over a little metagenetic organ she has that nobody else does (to her knowledge). An organ that has two ultra-tough vocal cords that immediately start vibrating ultrasonically in tandem. Then they separate, climbing down from the inaudible range into the very audible. Oh so very audible. So loud it's hard to think through it, the sound gets focused where Oracle has the sniper, and the frequency slides around until she finds it: the resonant frequency of the rifle; her ears catch the telltale signs of the rifle body beginning to vibrate in sympathy.

All this takes under a second as practiced vocal manoeuvres get her to where she wants to be without thought. Then, incredibly, the sound gets louder.

Oh so much louder. Oh so much painfully louder.

The rifle? It's a twisted mess now, having vibrated itself into smaller and smaller pieces, any ammunition in it cooking off in the face of the sniper.

The sound stops. Canary grins.

"Hope you covered your ears."

Oracle has posed:
"I do not name my drones. That's just stupid." Barbara replied as she fired commands to the drones in question. "Not since that first time." Because there had been a first time. Luke and Leia to be precise. And it had resulted in her realizing that she shouldn't give them any sort of something to humanize. They were tools. Like a grappling gun or a utility belt.

She sent in the drones ti distract the gunman, not caring that they would be eliminated. It just sucked cause she would lose those feeds to the situation. Yes, there were others on site but more information was always better. She wasn't sure if that was her viewpoint or Batman's. Either one, it was right.

As the countdown was given, the drones flew in on their mission to try to draw the attention of the gunman. And it worked. She could see him drawing that pistol and aiming it to pop shots...then he paused and looked over his shoulder. Only to get buzzed by all the drones at once, not allowing him time to register about the smoke grenade that is fizzing out mist behind him. Nor the man that came in the door.

Then the warning and all audio was shut off immediately on Barbara's side. She'd worked with Dinah enough. She didn't have to be told twice and she wasn't giving a few seconds cause if it was said, it was about to happen. She could still see around Canary from the drones there. But the drones that had gone into the building with the sniper were lost to her, their feeds a mix of shakey cam and smoke.

And where was Dick in all this? She bit her lip and waited.

Nightwing has posed:

It's just as Dick is telling Oracle that he's ready to go. But then on the comms Canary's voice is heard as she snaps off that warning. It's enough to check Nightwing's charge. He holds and covers his ears with those gauntlets, the earpieces within the canals doing a marginal job at protecting his hearing, but one can't hedge too much considering the power of Dinah's lungs in that moment.

The walls shake as the Canary's cry is heard and the Gotham vigilante in the building keeps to cover, holds... holds.

Then when the reverberations recede Nightwing pushes clear and moves to get up into that room, covering that last half flight of stairs and then bursting into the room with his shoulder, batons at the ready as he skids to a halt with weapons at the ready.

Only to see the man fallen on the floor, his suit rumpled, his weapon destroyed, and his hands covering his ears. Though that situation only lasts for a few moments as Nightwing is on him quick, one of the batons twisting into the man's arm and behind his elbow, locking it in place against his back as he retrains the man and then gets the zip ties in place...

And perhaps a little too snugly since this man was a murderer. The plastic teeth bite into his wrist a bit, but then the young vigilante rises, touching a hand to his ear as comms reestablish.

<< I'm clear up here. >> Which might be the moment Babs can exhale when he adds, << How's it looking from downstairs, Canary? We good to lock up and close up shop? >>

He starts his descent, dropping out of the front of that window and hitting the ground, looking across the way and seeing most of the gangsters... accounted for.

Black Canary has posed:
The pint-sized pugilist is standing in a pile of bodies, most unconscious, but too many dead, fuming, eyes almost visibly flashing as she calms herself, her breathing stabilizing as she brings in the disciplines taught to her by so many teachers in so many countries.

"Anybody still alive is down," she says tersely, the fury in her voice reaching through comms and throttling the listener, practically.

There's a sniper who should be thanking his lucky stars that she's with the Bats tonight, and in Gotham under the Belfry Himself's rules.

"Let's just say there's one too many alive and leave it at that."

Yeah, he should be very happy it's Dick who's got him.

"Bag 'em. Tag 'em. Who's talkin' to the cops?"

Oracle has posed:
As soon as her cameras had shown Dinah stopped screaming, Barbara turned back on all the audio feeds. She heard the comment from Dinah and would've smiled if she wasn't waiting for that other voice.

Who was holding their breath?!

Babs was. Yes, that's who. She let it out slowly when Dick spoke, making sure the mic didn't pick that up because she was not going to give Dick any sort of fuel to use against her later. "Glad you're both still standing. I am already splicing footage into local CCTV cameras so that they will have the video evidence of who is behind the fatalities." Keep it business. Can't be personal. Can't be people. Just details and data. If only it was that easy.

She was already frustrated she had missed the sniper until it was too late. That she hadn't spotted him. A personal demon to add to a list as she strove to improve her equipment to have more info next time. That'd be her pet project for the next week or three.

"Up to you both if you want to stay. Otherwise I can send an Oracle message over to them with all the pertinent details." Since the Bats didn't always wait around for the cops.

Nightwing has posed:

The former Robin gives Dinah a wave with one hand, then nods.

On the comms they'll hear his voice. << We'll take cover up on the Pertwee Complex, gives a good sight line so we can watch the squad cars as they move in. Canary, how's the arm? >>

A quick hint of concern, but tersely delivered, sounding more like the mentor than the sidekick in that moment. He turns and brings his arm up, grapple line ready and already connected to the side of his gauntlet. He fires the line and it's a single shotter, hits on the side of the building, embeds, retracts, tightens. Ready to go.

When Dinah draws near he'll say, "Need a lift?" Offering his arm. If she does then she'll get it, but if not then he'll make his way up as the line retracts and helps him leap upward.

Thirty seconds later they're squared away on the rooftop, out of sight, the secured prisoners observed even as the red and blue lights in the distance close in on their prey.

<< That was some good work. But we need to be better. My fault. I got lost in the moment, lost situational awareness. >>

Black Canary has posed:
For just a second it looks like Canary is going to refuse. There's that slight, momentary stiffening. That stubborn look that flits over her face. The subtle widening of the eyes.

Then common sense takes over.

"Yeah," she says sheepishly, lifting the injured arm experimentally, wincing, and taking in air hissing between her teeth. "Just let me get this dealt with."

Wait. Dealt with?

She heads over to the alley wall, muttering (seemingly to herself, but it's coming over comms) "Ooh, I'm really going to ha..."

Whatever she was about to say gets cut off by a sicking sound as she rests her hand on the wall and then suddenly lunges into it. To her credit no sound escapes her mouth, but even in the darkened alleyway the sudden pallor is striking.

"OK, it's back in place," she says with artificial cheer. "But yeah, best keep a load off it for now, so ... Express Elevator Nightwing?"

She holds out her good arm for the trip up.

Oracle has posed:
"Did you just pop your shoulder back in joint?"

The scariest part is that she hears such things often enough that Barbara knows what that muttering then pop potentially meant.

They really need to find more normal things to do with their lives. She'd already sent the drones buzzing off, leaving her with just the cameras in the area and Nightwing's mask for feeds. That and the commlinks. She didn't need GCPD picking up one of her drones and analyzing it. Not that they'd get much. Each had a fail safe and she could eliminate it should it be captured, before it was compromised. Course, with this crime scene, there was going to be the remains of quite a few that the bastard had shot. Though all memory from them was scrubbed. Not just deleted but erased utterly from existence.

"Was not your fault," came her voice over the comms as they reached the rooftop thanks to that quickly retracting grapple. "I need to get better intel for you before you go in. This is totally on me."

Nightwing has posed:

The grapple line retracts quickly, but not as fast as it can go. The rise up along the cable is less jarring than earlier trips most likely. It's a little over half speed, but Nightwing covers as he murmurs, "Slower with two people." Then he murmurs with a half-smirk, "I probably could stand to lose a few."

Which at a glance at the armored silhouette might well prove that to be a fib, though a kind one.

Then they reach the rooftop and he gives her a hand over the ledge before he flips back up and around to land on the roof as well. He gets to his feet and walks across, footsteps quiet as he touches a hand to his ear.

"Alright we're secure I believe, Oracle. Though negative on that." He dismisses her taking blame, "I committed early."

A pause, then he adds, "We'll keep a watch. Did you get anything on the deep search on why these groups might be working together?"

Black Canary has posed:
"Not on you, Oracle. Don't beat yourself up over that." Beat. "That's my job."

Canary laughs quietly into comms as the pair go floating into the air. If she's noticed that Nightwing is going gentle on her she's not letting on. "And yeah, Oracle. You thought I was going to wonder around with a dislocated shoulder? Hey, with some of my partners..." One. One of them. Name isn't being mentioned. Probably wisest not to mention it. "...the post-fight shoulder pops, spinal realignments, bandaging, and in especially good cases emergency suturing was all foreplay."

Yeah. Just one former partner. Don't mention him.

"Anyway, it'll be fine. A couple days of training and good as new. Loads of muscle to hold it in place." Which is true. "Anyway, probably for the best I was out with you two tonight. It would have been bad to get banned from Gotham by The Belfry."

She's not going to expand on this.

Oracle has posed:
"And since when have I listened to you?" was the response to everyone trying to lay claim to blame. Then she realized she wasn't being specific enough. "Either of you."

She turned her attention back to the search that she'd run. The algorithm had continued to run so there was a lot more to pour through later but she pulled up the bulletin board she'd found. It was obscure. A poor man's reddit and that was saying something. But it had some information about the two criminal families they had dealt with tonight.

"There was a hit put out on the Belarussians specifically. I suspect the sniper was not part of the warring parties but an outsider taking advantage of the opportunity to have others blamed for his activities."

A few taps of keys, the screens flashing through information. "Seems that Mikita Loban got a little too friendly with the daughter of head mobster Tony Beretti."

And she couldn't help giggling. "You walked into West Side Story. God, I would've paid money to see them break into a dance fight instead."

Nightwing has posed:

"You guys haven't seen me dance fight. I could take Shiva in a dance off, no problem." Those words come from him easily as he takes a seat on the edge of a cement 'picnic' bench on the top of that rooftop, someone's getaway from the world most likely with a handful of cages that at one point might have been where pigeons were kept. Now only a few wooden slats broken in those coops, and the signs of their... bathroom activities.

Nightwing pulls his leg up a little and crosses it over his knee, though he keeps an eye on the gathering police vehicles. He takes a deep breath. "You shouldn't worry, Canary. Things are a little more... are less regimented of late. But if you get static we'll speak for you. You're here as a favor to me."

At this point Babs probably has an angle to observe Dick touch a hand briefly to his ear, listening for what Barbara might say about that sentiment.

Black Canary has posed:

When you're a Jet

You're a Jet all the way

From your first cigarette

To you last dying day!

Yes. Canary went there. And not only is she singing the part, she's singing it in a veritable clone of the movie version voice. And doing highly-stylized martial arts moves. Then she joins Oracle in the giggling.

She sobers up at Dick's little speech. "I don't think it's become so sloppy that a straight up meat bomb would go without consequences," she says quietly. "And trust me. I had to will that up to the gun. I wanted that son of a bitch's head to go all Scanners."

Leaping up to the edge of the roof's little waist-height wall, Canary crouches and watches the cop cars gathering. "When the taxis gather in mock solemnity..." she sings quietly to herself, staring down with intrigue.

"Anyway, the op was fine," she says, her voice normal again. "Shit always goes sideways. What marks a pro from a rookie is how well you handle it going sideways."

Dick gets a side-eye. "Be happy she didn't hear you. Or you'd find out how good she can dance."

Oracle has posed:
"Don't even joke about Shiva," came some quick words from Barbara before she could stop herself. She did smile as Dinah joined in on the joke about West Side Story but the last line had her frowning a bit. Glad she was hidden in her room away from the comms. "He already has." And that was the end of that for her part.

She focused on the intel. "But once his sweet innocent baby girl was sullied by the evil Belarussians, it became all out war. They've been hitting each other back and forth for about a week now but it's all been minor stuff. Tonight, I'm not sure why the /other/ families were there though. But at least the mystery of the sniper is solved."

Below, the police were quickly gathering the various thugs into either transport vans to head to the police department or ambulances to head to the hospital. Detectives arrived and already were reviewing files of the footage, thanks to some mystery benefactor sending the footage right to their phones. How very helpful.

"It happens. We'll figure it out, do better next time. Canary you are more than welcome here in the city and I don't see that changing, even from the Belfry. It certainly isn't from where I'm sitting."

Nightwing has posed:

At Canary's words his eyebrows climb as he glances to the side, likely surrendering to the logic of her argument. "You're probably right about that." A meat bomb and exploded perpetrator would definitely draw the ire of a good number of the people in Gotham, himself included. Though his brow knits as he recalls the sniper's targets. Shaking his head he suppresses those thoughts then smiles slightly...

At the mental image of Shiva on Broadway.

He exhales softly, then says, "All in all, good work. This could have been a lot worse if we weren't here." He takes a moment after that, likely expecting one of them to pick up that train of thought. It's in that small selfish window of a moment that he draws his kevlar covered thumbs across his closed eyes, stealing that smallest hint of rest in that single bare instant.

Then he straightens, renewed silghtly as he adds. "Also, I spoke with Zatanna. She's doing me a favor and taking a mystical look at Gotham in case... in case something might be going on. But she also agreed to pick up some slack if we need added coverage."

Black Canary has posed:
THAT has Canary's attention. "Ooh! Zee's in town? The only woman who can wear fishnets and make me insecure? Cool!"

It's not QUITE squeeing fangurl levels here, but the mention of Zatanna definitely perked the Canary's mood from introspective and a bit weird to her usual bright and cheerful mask.

"Tell her I said hi. And tell her to stop making me look bad!"

And it's back to the chatterbox.

"And what he said," she adds, finger-gunning Dick. "Your 'bad intelligence' got us out here and saved, probably, most of those lives down there. Without us this would have gone a whole 'nother way and the perp would have likely got away with it. So I call this a righteous op and if you don't agree, Oracle, I'll stop you from beating yourself up by taking over the job from you."

She pauses, suddenly, her eyes widening. From one of the myriad of special pockets she's placed in her leather jacket of holding she pulls out a pair of...

...wait for it...

...opera glasses. Putting those up to her eyes she stares down into the milling cops.

"No way! Oracle, can you get a few shots of that uniform over there by the dumpster under the fire escape? I'll need a 3/4 facial, a profile from each side, and if you can get a shot of him when he's bending over ..."

She pauses then, and glances over at Dick. "What? He's hot!"

Oracle has posed:
"Zatanna?"

She hadn't gotten that memo apparently and Barbara suddenly was looking away from her search as she pulled up the week's patrol listing on the computer screen to her far right. She skimmed it and shook her head. "I wouldn't even begin to know how to put her in the rotation. Give me a day to figure it out. Then I'll let you know if it's needed. Or at least have a contingency plan for later should it become needed." Because plans inside of plans. They had been taught so well.

Then at the request from Dinah, she frowned and glanced at the feed from the mask camera. To see when those glasses were pulled out /if/ Dick was looking that way. But she certainly got the request.

No Way had her sitting forward a bit, immediately looking back to cameras in the area. Tightening focus in on that figure she mentioned, trying to run facial recognition in the thoughts that maybe he was someone from the community that they might know for Dinah to reach that way. Then when it moved to bending over, Babs caught on and laughed.

"I am not here for your personal voyeuristic tendencies." Then a two second pause. "What I could get is in your email."

Nightwing has posed:

"On that note." Dick says with a grin that spreads across his face under that domino mask while Dinah admires a certain police officer. He shakes his head and pushes up and out of that seat. Another deep breath is taken. "I'm going to take one last pass through the Narrows, see if I have any drops left for me, then I am going to get some sleep. I suggest you all do the same."

The tone of his voice is stern, firm, as if trying to impart some measure of importance. But then his visage breaks slightly as he smiles toward Dinah, "And look after that arm. Ya maroon." Those last two words with a hint of condemnation that is only partially sincere.

He turns and starts to walk across the roof, rubbing the back of his neck with one leather and kevlar gauntlet. "Good night ladies, if I'm needed gimme a ring."

With that he lifts the grapple line again and there's that bang-hiss of its firing. A few moments later and he's gone.

Black Canary has posed:
"Yeah, sleep sounds good. Even if it isn't with ..." Her eyes stray to the edge, but snap back. "... Know what? Never mind!" Her hands root around in her pockets, pulling out some knuckle dusters, what looks like a plastic jar of ball bearings, and finally some double-A batteries. "Oh good!" she says in obvious relief as she slips them back into her pocket.

"I'll take it easier a..." "...couple of days," she continues over comms as Dick sails off. "Maybe hit Ted's joint for old time's sake to work that shoulder back to peak. Is my room still there at the super secret hideout Oracle or will I have to find a motel?"

The last question asked as she herself makes her exit, though in her case, with the building so close together, she doesn't bother with a grapnel. No, she's old-schooling it with leaps from rooftop to rooftop to fire escapes to window sills to ...

And over comms ... *sigh* ... WHEEE!

Oracle has posed:
As Dick heads off, she adds his mask feed back to the screen with the others, each color coded so she knew them at a glance without having to read a name. It was like her own little version of the Brady Bunch but instead the Batty Bunch!

Then she heard that happiness in Dinah's voice as she too headed on her way. To the question asked, there was a simple answer.

"There's always room for one more."