3191/B&E Is Gotham For Hello

B&E Is Gotham For Hello
Date of Scene:	18 November 2017
Location:	Gotham City
Synopsis:	Caroline decides that Jim Gordon's daughter is the best way to get a message to the Commissioner.
Cast of Characters:	Nightwing, Oracle, Shatterpoint

Nightwing has posed:
After a quick shower to get rid of all the oil he'd collected working on the motorcycle engine, Dick switched to some more relaxed clothing, and met Babs in his living room. He waves those sweat pants at her one more time, adding "Look, just because I'm broke and don't have something to watch a movie on.. /doesn't/ mean you get away from these later..." He tosses the sweats down, adding "Called Alfred, he's got Die Hard on blu-ray, of course, and he said we can stop by to pick it up. So, I assume you drove here... I'll ride with you, grab some pizzas, the movie, and go to your place?"

Of course the option would be her place, because it has been a LONG time since Dick stayed at Wayne Mansion, and despite their current bridge crossing it still needs a bit of time before /that/ happens again. They head over, grab the movie, grab some pizzas, and start driving to Babs apartment.

"I mean, this is a great Willis flick..." Dick says, opening a pizza box and taking a LONG smell of the wondrousness inside, "...but I /still/ can't believe you are not a Pulp Fiction fan." He lets out an exagerrated sigh, shaking his head, "This is a serious issue we will need to resolve. Is it a Quentin Tarantino issue? PLEASE tell me that you can at least appreciate a Guy Ritchie movie?!!?" They aren't too far from Babs place when she gets the first of the alerts for her apartment. Of course the alarms are silent, sent to her phone as well as her smart watch, and Dick does catch the screen flash once on the watch. He raises an eyebrow in her direction, not quite sure what it's about, "No texting and driving..." he replies with a crooked grin.

Oracle has posed:
Barbara is adamant that she is *not* wearing sweatpants that Dick has sewn Nightwing's name onto the butt of. Ain't happening! As she drives, she laughs at him. "Pulp Fiction was okay the first time. It has a kind of appeal. But seriously, the jumping back and forth in the story was just not a method of storytelling that I'm fond of," she admits. "You can't put the timeline together until the end, and we do enough of that on the night jobs."

The flash of her watch catches her attention too, and when she glances at it, her expression lights up. "I got him!" she crows. "I finally set an alarm he didn't freakin' *find*. Woohoo!"

The advantage to having the whole building is that there is parking beneath the structure and Barbara is the only one who uses it. So as she parks the car and they get out with the pizza and the movie in hand, she's kind of bouncy. Getting the best of the Bat is, by definition, badass. "Let's see what Pointy-Ears is up to -- but don't let him guilt you out of a night off!" she tells Dick, slanting him a skeptical look. Cuz he'll bail. She's sure of it. If Batman calls, he'll totally bail.

Just before she unlocks and opens the door, she murmurs, "Let's let him think he wins again. I don't want to have to move that alarm! It's my new favorite alarm." And then she swings the door open, pretending not to have a clue someone's inside the place as she precedes Dick into the living room. "You load up the movie, I'll grab drinks!"

Shatterpoint has posed:
    Caroline is not entirely used to modern technology, but she's getting the hang of it. A lot of security tech is based off of old bank-tech from when she was a detective, and so a lot of things, she understands. It's not the window that catches her, or the pressure plates, or the thermals- the latter of which she actually hasn't been introduced to, but seeing as she's rather invisible to them anyways, it's not necessarily a concern.

    Had she thought to inhale and exhale at all, she would have caught the lasers sweeping the apartment, but it doesn't necessarily matter. This 'exercise' has demonstrated to Caroline a couple of things. First, that you can never assume that anyone is a normal person. Clearly, the woman that Caroline is here to speak to is some level of paranoid that Caroline doesn't know the reasoning for.

    Normal people do not have anywhere near the level of security that she -found-, let alone the amount that Babs almost certainly actually -has.- Caroline doesn't necessarily like to make assumptions, but the most plausible thing she can think of is simply that this level of security is for the Commissioner's Daughter.

    However, entering the apartment is another thing entirely. Caroline's been here for a few minutes, and that first few steps into the environs are certain to be a little... Tasking. First and foremost, it's a hair above freezing. The temperature outside nearing winter helps, but inside the apartment, it's like walking into an ice factory.

    Next, there's the darkness- it helps Caroline, admittedly, because she can see in it. Astute observers, however, will note the eyes. Glowing, blue. Maybe lost among the lights of computers or clocks or devices, maybe not.

    Eyes in the dark. Watching. Definitely not his. Were this actually just Jim's Normal Daughter and her Theoretical Beau, Caroline would be able to react and speak before they did anything about her being present.

    In all likelihood, that's not going to be the case.

Nightwing has posed:
"That's fair..." Dick nods about the story jumping around, "...Guy Ritchie does that way better. His lead-ins for the time changes are obvious, and makes it clear when it is going to happen. Tarantino is a bit heavy handed with it..." His hand deftly slips into a box, pulls out a pepperoni, and pops it into his mouth. "Ow.. hot..." and sucks in air with his mouth open. He chews, eventually swallowing the sizzling pepperoni, and grins at her excitement.

"Hmmm, this will be perfect..." Dick nods in agreement, "...it's been awhile since he's had someone get the drop on him. Maybe it'll put him in a better mood." After a moment's pause, he adds "Hmm, I'll have to make sure I remember this when /I/ come by..." a conspiratorial glance passed her way, "If I'm going to be sneaking up on you, I've got to make sure it /actually/ works."

He nods once, a small quirk of his mouth at her admonishment, and he answers honestly, "If it's Richard Dragon, I may have to go long enough to meet him, but I won't be gone all night..." He stops short of promising, because he really means it, but with the last conversation with Bruce he /needs/ to be ready for Shiva.

Dick chuckles, nodding once to her in agreement, "Unless he's someone tapped into your cameras, and is watching us. Wouldn't surprise me one bit..." As he moves towards the living room, Dick responds, "Got it. I'll try not to mess up your system /again/..." She can hear him chuckle, since he most definitely knows how to work the system, but as he makes his way further in he notices the temp change, and his senses go on high alert "Hey Babs, your thermostat broke?" His voice doesn't sound different, but there is something there that Babs will notice.

Oracle has posed:
The open floor plan of the main space leaves relatively few places for anyone to hide -- the paranoid daughter of the commissioner of police likes it that way. And she pauses to look over her shoulder when Dick asks her that, her blue eyes wary as they flit about the room. She backs slowly toward the kitchen's island, her feet sure even in the dark of the apartment. She moves as if she knows every inch of her space, acutely aware. "You know where it is," she replies, her voice holding a hint of tension. "Maybe I forgot to turn it up before I left." Because that ever happens.... "Hit the lights when you get to the wall," she invites him. It will bring on all the recessed overheads instead of just the nightlights that currently illumate her space.

Shatterpoint has posed:
    Caroline hesitates for a few moments. The two that enter are a little too... Practiced. It's not outside the realm of possibility for people who need to be paranoid, but she's starting to get a feel for how people... Well, deal with the level of crime in Gotham. It's gotten, perhaps, worse than she remembers. As they move around the apartment, Caroline stops hesitating. She's here to speak, and speak she will. Dick will recognize it instantly- because there's only one person with such a horrible "voice" to them that he's ever met.

    "Barbara Gordon." It lingers and hitches on certain syllables, dragging the name out longer than it needs to on the trailing A and N. It's this... Harsh rasp that, in the darkness, seems to come from everywhere. Truth be told, that effect is a surprise even to Caroline, but she's not going to argue with it.

    "I have been... Advised to speak to your father, the Commissioner. He is... Difficult to pin down." It's like a woman's dying noise, this death rattle twisted into words.

    "I am... Here in Gotham, to help."

Nightwing has posed:
Just as Dick reaches the walls to hit the lights that voice echoes out through the room. Dropping the pizza boxes as he jumps from the shock, and turning to find where the voice originates, "What the hell?!?" He shouts out, His back to the wall, his eyes perform a practiced scan until they fall on Caroline's figure in the newly lit apartment.

Thanks to years and years of work with Bruce and Alfred, Dick is more than capable of pulling off the WTF is going on look, and when Caroline says she's looking for Babs he glances in her direction. Instead of moving to where Babs is standing, though, Dick moves so that Caroline will have to swivel her sight between one of the two of them at all times.

"Uhm, you know breaking into someone's apartment is illegal, right?" Dick says, his voice betraying a little shake at the shock of her intrusion. He reaches into his hoodie pocket, pulling out his phone, "Look, don't cause any trouble, or I'll call the cops..." His eyes narrow at looking for Babs father, and here to help Gotham, "...right, lots of people help by stalking the Gordons'." Then he calls out just to make sure, "Babs, you ok?"

Oracle has posed:
The rasping voice brings up the hairs on the back of Barbara's neck and her adrenaline skyrockets. The up side of being a known quantity is that it's known she works with the police and the in-home gym would give away that she also studies martial arts. So the redhead doesn't have to find excuses for her reactions. But she's also well-trained by Batman to hide the full extent of her abilities when she's not masked. So her response to the surge of fear is at least in line with her public face.

The instinct of most people to being startled is to scream, and Barbara lets the scream fly. At the same time, she backpedals *behind* the kitchen island counter as the lights come up. Her eyes are locked on the intruder as soon as she locates the owner of the voice. And she's not half bad at the shaken look herself. "I'm okay," she calls back, a subtle wobble in her voice.

Then she visibly shakes herself just a bit and demands, "You can't just come barging into a person's home and demand the commissioner of police! But you *can* use a PHONE and make an appointment! Who the hell are you?? And don't try anything funny -- my father's a good friend of Batman, and don't even think he won't use that if something bad happens!" Usually that in and of itself is enough to keep people from bothering Babs, after all.

Shatterpoint has posed:
    Caroline's eyes narrow. Nobody as of yet has actually been this startled when dealing with her. It's a... Gotham symptom, she supposes. Softer people react softly, and she hasn't dealt with any of those yet. In a literal sense, too, because the two are acting- but for now, she believes it. She's a suspicious sort, and were it anyone else but the two eldest accomplices to the Bat, she wouldn't have believed the ruse. They know enough to keep some secrets from Batman- so Caroline isn't quite on the level enough to sniff them out, even if she did have actual -reason- to doubt them.

    "The legality of it doesn't stop most." she notes, and it may be difficult for the pair not to get annoyed over the whole ordeal, because as much as she doesn't have his level of skill or style... This is how -he- does things. Just -showing up- whenever he likes.

    Visually, however, she is much less striking. Standing next to the back wall and looking like a monotone painting in greyscale, with the exception of those -eyes,- Caroline only cuts an imposing figure if you find a woman of average height particularly imposing. Still, there's that voice. It's creepy and wrong.

    "I doubt I would be granted an appointment. I don't have a spotlight that he can turn on." There is a short pause, "The apprehensive man in the red mask informed me that I should speak to Gordon. This is the only route that I can see."

    Someone in this room, perhaps two people, are likely going to be making plans to re-kill Jason Todd.

Nightwing has posed:
Dick continues to follow Caroline intently as he keeps the distance between them, much like anyone in Gotham would given the regularity of psychos with powers or suits running around causing havoc. Since Caroline hasn't actually moved, or threatened them in any way, some of the standard Gotham kicks in, his voice steadying, "Yeah, and /most/ of those people go to jail, or worse around Gotham." Dick responds about people B&E activities.

Dick passes a quick glance to Babs, not stepping in on the conversation about meeting up with Jim, but he does tell Caroline "You can't trust most people wearing a mask around here. You ever think this guy may have set you up to get in trouble? Might even be some sick joke or something..." Oh, he plans on playing his own joke on Jason when he sees him again. Probably something along the lines of 'Little Drummer Boy' on his thick skull.

Oracle has posed:
Jason telling the woman to seek out Gordon means at least Barbara won't be killing the boy. After all, *he* told her to find Jim, not Babs. And now she lets annoyance crackle through her voice. "Well, the fact that you think you couldn't get an appointment tells me you're very new to Gotham. My *father* is friends with the *Batman*, lady. If someone called his number and asked for a meeting on top of the police building, I'm reasonably certain he'd show. It's not like it would be the first time, or the tenth time." She rolls her eyes. "Friggin' capes in this town. I am *not* a conduit into my father's good graces. In point of fact, using *this* avenue to approach him usually results in either an officer of the law getting nasty or the Batman paying you a nasty visit."

Shoving a hand through her copper hair, she pulls in a breath. "You want to meet my father. I'll give him the message. Now let yourself out the same way you came in," she orders firmly. "And if you ever break into my home again, you should be aware that I will *not* play nicely. My father's a cop, and he taught me how to shoot intruders. Be on top of police headquarters tomorrow at 9pm."

Shatterpoint has posed:
    The insinuation that she's new to Gotham irks Caroline just a tiny bit, but not enough for her to react. I just reiterates to her how much has changed since she's been gone. Fifty years will make a city turn all weird- or, in her case, will make a city that is gravely in need.

    "Batman never mentioned that. I will have to speak with him before I go." she notes, out loud. It's not really her name-dropping, necessarily, but more that fifty years of silence results in some amount of thinking out loud. She's going to need to speak to the Bat- who, probably, needs to speak to her at this point.

    Dick knows -who- Caroline is, of course. Mask facial-rec is a hell of a drug, and even if that's not one of the gadgets he had present when they met earlier, Barbara almost certainly studies history enough to know the face, even if Caroline Ramsey is only really a footnote.

    Will all of that said, Caroline makes her way over to the breach she'd used to get in, and leans up against the opening. It's late enough that nobody will see her hit the ground- and the two in the apartment are likely going to be looking for vectors of exit that someone can actually -survive-, so as such... It's entirely possible that she will effectively disappear, once she's out of the window.

3191/B&E Is Gotham For Hello

Navigation menu

Search