5563/A Singular Vision

A Singular Vision
Date of Scene:	16 October 2018
Location:	New York City
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Vision, Hawkeye (Bishop)

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Vision has posed:
From his vantage point, hovering motionlessly a few feet above the edge of the Four Freeedom's Tower, the city far below is a sea of incadescant lights that shifts and moves like flotsam on the tide. The Vision seems unmoved by the bustling metropolis below, his pupiless synthetic eyes passively receiving hundreds of luminent and not-so luminent frequence, entire spectrums of electromagnetic energy unseen by human eyes.

He /is/ called the Vision, afterall.

But what is the Vision actually /seeing/ right now? Is he actually watching anything below, or is he fixated on an image within his minds. And if so, what mental image is he /fixed/ on? His expression is neutral, perfectly unreadable, so it is near impossible to tell.

Perhaps he is contemplating? Looking back on his actions of the past few weeks? His first public showing on months where he maimed a criminal, though not fatally, who took a family hostage outside the bank. Perhaps the following encounters that have run in the same vein. The Synthazoid swooping in silently to the rescue, not holding back on the criminal suspects. At least a half dozen crooks in teh ospital, serveely injured.. More then a few missing a hand, or burned through a shoulder or a leg by his solar beam.

Or does he even care abot that at all. No one /knows/. He hasn't reached out to ANYONE since he dissapeared three months ago, nor after his recent return. What is going /on/ in that synthetic brain of his....?

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
Kate Bishop had been pondering how to find this friend of Matt's. Well, most rightly, he was a friend of Clint's.. okay, his girlfriend's friend, but that was starting be a fine semantical difference, and the point was, she'd been trying to tackle the problem of where did one go to be invisible in a day and age where everything was so intimately in your face.

Technology had rendered it nearly impossible to be 'invisible', and off the grid just wasn't enough in most cases.

Except, she actually had stumbled upon what she thought might be the answer. It came out of her good deeds work she did. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday evening, the girl helped with the food truck missions that went to where the homeless were. Not just your regular street homeless, but the homeless for whom it had become their life. The homeless who had, in many cases, chosen this life path.. and as she had been brought to remember, where some people went to disappear or 'die'.

Not actually die. Just go away for long enough that they could reinvent themselves.

Though she doubted that this Genus friend of theirs was reinventing. Not unless he had a line on enough money for some serious plastic surgery. The files Matt had her read showed some pretty nasty people after him; people who had more than enough resources at their disposal to make this kind of disappearing the only choice left.

Tonight, though, she'd not made much progress with finding him, Just put a few bugs in a few ears. There were a number of the regulars who knew her well enough to vouch for her.

Kate was hoping whispers would carry into the tunnels and she might get some leads, if not some answers.

She was done for today, though, and has just finished packing up, intending on dropping the cube van back at the Mission, and then heading out on night patrol.

Vision has posed:
If anyone were to ask /him/, the Vision would say it's quite easy to be 'invisible' to society around them. It required a form of social/technological tai-kwan-doe, to be sure, but it was possible. But of course no one has ASKED him, since he hasn't been around. Thats not anyones fault but his own.

Not far from where kate has left the van and moved into her patrol, A pair of gang members have cornered a lone streetwalker, harrassing and threatening the partially strung out woman. Alas it is a scene that is far too common in these alleys, one that is constantly ignored, even when screams are involved.

ONe of the thugs has pressed the woman over a dumpster, his coarse hands tearing at her clothes while his partner rummages through her bag for her hard earned money and wahatever drugs he can fine. She screams again, but her assailants hand presses against he rmouth. He grins cruely.... "I've been watin' fer a peice of you for a while.." he hisses, his friend laughing as he pockets some small baggies. "Wait till ya see whut I got in store for ya..."

And then her tearstained eyes go wide.. One would think it would be in fear of what would happen next, but she isn't looking at her assailant.. Nor his accomplice. She is looking past them as a shadow drops from darkness above.. Green and Gold with a crimson face.. and a star alit on his forehead.

Screams fill the alleyways... But not hers.

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
Kate has spied that little altercation going down. It was early in the night for it, but it got dark earlier in October, so it was to be expected. That, and the drop in temperatures generally thinned the usual crowds of people out and left less safety if you had to be out at night.

This was why she did what she did, though. Making sure dinkwads like the scum who had that lady in a hold and were preparing to have their wicked way with her understood that their behaviour just wasn't acceptable.

She's just narrowed her sights down on the one, a blunt ended arrow knocked, preparing to render the coarse handed thug into unconsciousness, calling down the alleyway, "Funny, I was just going to say the same thing to you and your buddy there. Wait till you see what I got in store for you..."

Only that's when the screaming starts. And it most definitely isn't aimed at the thugs. Or herself. And that's gonna be a big problem, because Kate really doesn't want to drop sights on that man, but neither does she want whatever it is that's worse than a certain molestation to meet up with her.

"Ah, screwit," Kate mutters, turning quickly to to what's behind her, and working to reorient her mark.

Vision has posed:
The Vision is not aware of Kate.. or maybe he is and again doesn't care. or maybe he is just so focused on this scenario everything else is just.. unnoticed. The assailing thug looks over his shoulder, the woman writhing in his grasp, and his eyes go wide as he watches the synthazoid reach down and pick up the criminal's partner by the scruff of is neck.

The purse the crook had been rooting through is dropped and it's contents scatter over the ground and the crook himself screams like a little girl as The Vision is fully airborn again, flying them into into the darkness above. The woman and her assailant both become very still, unable to move, shocked...

Then there is another scream from the man, a distant scream that gets louder and louder and louder, redshifting, and there is a CLANG and a sickening crunch as his unconcious body falls from the darkness and bounces off a dumpster.... and remains on teh grund unmoving.

The assailant fearfully pulls the kicking woman infront of him, reaching behind himself with his free hand to pull out a knife. He forcibly moves the woman around as he furatively stares at the dark sky above.

"NO! NO! WHERE ARE YOU! KEEp AWAY! I'LL GUT THA BITCH!" he cries out at the shadaws... but gets no reply

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
Well, there went the neighbourhood. Things are happening fast, and much as Kate tries to get a ping on Vision (who she's not yet identified as Vision), he's already taking out his complaints against the thugs. And.. while she normally wouldn't be on the side of the thugs, she's also not sure if tall, synthezoid, and damaging is on her side or not. For all she knows it has its own agenda and cutting down the criminals fits right into that, but isn't necessarily a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Carefully, she trains her bow the frightened thug. Kate's pretty sure you don't take something like the synthezoid down with an arrow, but she's also pretty sure that she can annoy it into paying attention to her, long enough for her to take a shot at thug-boy, knocking him out.

She really didn't want to deal with any more crazies at one time than necessary.

"Hey, buddy. Totally appreciate the helping hand, but how about we move away from the from the frightened human beings now."

"And you," she hisses at the remaining thug. "You are not helping."

Which is where she shoots the thug with the arrow to knock him out, because really, his yelling, and holding the woman at knifepoint, was just exacerbating matters. One psychopath at a time, and frankly, the one floating up in the air and dropping criminals like kids drop pennies off of balconies, onto the ground below, was the larger concern. Maybe if thug-boy was out of the picture, her angry floaty friend might stop 'helping'.

Vision has posed:
Well that is that, yes? Kate's appareance REALLY threw the remaining crook for a loop, twisting around suddenly to face the other (and lets face it, better) Hawkeye. "WHO ARE...!" he begins to scream at /her/ bringing his knife up to press it against his hostage.. but the blunt arrow takes the bastard RIGHT between the eyes and he is flung back against the wall of the alley, where he falls into aheap on the ground.

So, we have two unconcious (well, we /hope/ that first one is only uncocious) thugs on the ground, and a mewling and sobbing hooker scrambling to grab her stuff and run off.. He went up and didn't come down...

"Your /assistance/ was /not/ required, Katherine Bishop.." a deep, synthetic monotone voice informs her from /behind/ her.. And if she deigns to turn around she will see the Vision floating there, a foot or two off the ground.. as if it isn't just literally bug /figuratively/ beneath him. There is no wind in this alley but his cape BILLOWS as if there were. His face, his eyes, betray no expression, cold and inhuman...

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
By this time, Kate has drawn another arrow, and turned on Vision, who she now knows is Vision, leaving the young woman to utter a low curse, "Jesus, Joseph, and Mary Mother of God, Vision??"

Really, there arent enough question marks to follow her incedulity with what she's seeing. Sure, she read the news account of that bank robbery and what the reports said he did, but she'd not really put two and two together and come up with dropping people from several stories up as a viable method of crowd control. And certainly not one she would have ever expected of The Vision - sometimes described as more humane thn humans.

It wasn't adding up.

Worse than that, though, she was now in the very, very awkward spot of having to defend two unconscious thugs, and one very frightened lady who Kate really hoped would just run away already while she and Vision were talking and get the heck out of target range.

"Heck yeah, my assisstance was necessary, and I believe I got here first. Just what the heck was that dropping that man from the sky like he was a rag doll. Since /when/ do we.. You might have killed him. Do you get that? What the HELL is wrong with you?"

Hell, Kate still insisted inwardly, wasn't a swear, even if it really really sounded like one right now given what was going on.

She trains her arrow on him. "You need to back right off." For all he knows she's got some energy interrupting arrow nocked. At least a girl can hope he thinks that.

Vision has posed:
The Vision's expression does not change. Not an iota. If someone had evey hewn a statue with a more perfect unfeeling or uncaring visage, it was probably destroyed moments after it's creation. It's not a cruel expression, Or a hated expression. It is the complete LACK of any emotion.

Those pupiless eyes seem to bore right through the archer, like icicles. He doesn't spare the crooks a glance, nor the woman as she scurries off. He just stares at Kate for a few long moments...

And no, of he DOESN'T think she has an energy disrupting arrow noctched.

"I calculated to within Ninety-Seven point Three Eight Two Nine percent, based on numrous factors such as height and weight and probably landing position, how much greivous bodily harm he would suffer. He is not dead. He will /not/ die so long as medical services arrive within teh next twenty two minutes.. Which they will now that I have sent in an anonamous dispatch." he informs her. "I would have similarily dispatched the attempted rapist, though I admit his probability for survival would have been a considerable percentage less than his compatriot's. Acceptable, in either case."

His eyes look down to the arrow for a moment.. then back to her face. "Why would I need to back off. I am not advancing on you. Perhaps it is you who should.. back off." Is it possible for an emotionless voice to get even LESS emotional.. when there wasn't any emotion to begin with?

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
"Twenty two minutes, huh?"

Kate knew New York. She'd also 'dispatched' with enough criminals and babysat the unconscious or tied up bodies to know they didn't have twenty two minutes (which was good for thug the first), maybe ten on the outside, and that neither of them might want to be here when the authorities arrived.

"Why you need to back off? I don't care about your math. That was a human being you just dropped like that. You can't account for every single factor there is. Do you even care about the margain of error with a human life?"

She stares at Vision, appalled. "This isn't you." Which gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Maybe that was it. Maybe this wasn't Vision - even if he did know her name.

"No.. you need to back off. I mean, you need to not be near either of those bodies. Or that woman. And you need to explain yourself. I'm sorry, but you just made me their protector. I can't trust you."

To her credit, her bravado score is high, and there is not even an iota of a quiver to the arrow she has trained on him. Even if she probably should be more than a little bit terrified by the way his voice just got even less emotional.

Vision has posed:
If the synthazoid is surprised by her response, he doesn't /show/ it.. floating there as if he is somehow above everyone.. or at least /apart/ from everyone.. Which one it is? He isn't giving off any of the signs a human would. He just floats there, damnit,.

"You would equate these criinals with the rest of humanity?" he asks, neutrally. "Think on this very carefuly, Katerine Bishop. They were going to rape and, most likely, murder that woman. Are those truly deeds you wish to relate to the rest of your species. If you and yours continue to see such as these as just abberations among the whole, to see them as people, you empower them. You try and reform them, yet they do not become reformed. They must be either reformated.. Or erased. So far I am just.. reformating them." he tells her evenly.

He then narrows his eyes on the archer. "Human life itself /is/ a margin of error. Do you not see it. You patrol these streets. You see these glitches among society, and you do not truly fix them. You are attempting to treat the symptoms, not actually cure the problem. "

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
"I think," Kate says very carefully, and with an earnestness that both betrays her youth, and her idealism, "That you're the one who needs to think carefully on this. Don't you understand it? You've been trying to be one of us. You've been trying to understand what it is to be human."

She lowers her bow, but doesn't yet un-nock her arrow.

"Don't you see? If you take a life, how can you ever be truly human? I know what they were going to do. That's why I was stopping them. But if I pass my judgement on them of what it means to be alive and human, then what does that make me? It makes me worse than them. It makes me a monster."

She shakes her head.

"Don't you see, the symptoms are the problem. The cure is to fix them. We can't be the monsters that they are and then try to tell them that we're better. The only way to be better is to be better. To not let them turn us into them."

"Don't you see," she whispers now, "They do what they do because they believe their judgement is better. That our choices don't matter. We can't - we can't be them. Please don't be them, Vision. Please?"

Vision has posed:
For a moment, just a moment, that cold veneer seems to crack.. just a little.. It isn't a real expression, just something like.. like a vibe. A shift o his energy.

"No. I have not tried to be like you. I have tried /to be /better than you." His voice has a bit more color to it now, if thats a thing. Hinted with the barest taint of emotion. "I have yet to take a human life. And if I did, if I took teh life of someone deserving, than how does it make me /less/ than human. Are /police/ inhuman when they have to shoot a suspect. Are soldiers inhuman when they fight for your freedom, killing your enemies. Are they /less/ than human." he asks. "You focus so much on 'what it means to be alive' yet you protect those who would take a life. These men were going to kill a woman whom /someone/ loves. Someone's CHILD!" he says, his monotone voice getting a bit more heated. "You let it happen again and again and again. You slap them on their hand and they return just as bad as before. Just as much a killer. Did 'being human' towards them fix the problem? Did it? They do not /learn/."

And at his sides, his hands ball into fists.

"How does one learn, if they won't be put down? By /pain/. By /suffering/. By experiencing that the pain THEY cause has REAL consequences. EQUAL consequences..."

Then his eyes narrow. "So the only way to show them, to teach them, is by BEING an inhuman monster. Because that is all I am."

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
"Of course I protect their lives!" Kate protests. "Didn't you listen to me?"

As she listens, she fully lowers her bow, un-nocking her arrow.

"You don't get it, do you? You dont get to be better than human by killing the people you don't agree with. Dead people can't make changes. Dead people are just dead. And your version of what is right and wrong is just your version. It takes all of us - all of us working together to make a world."

She looks well and truly pained at what she's hearing. "All those things you mentioned are inhuman. But if you let them make you inhuman too? Then who wins?" She glances back over her shoulder at the crumpled body of the man whose minutes are ticking out. "He was rifling through a purse. Stealing some cash. He didn't deserve to have his life calculated down to the minutes he'd need for emergency medical care."

Her pained experession turns to one of sympathy for the body lying on the ground. "Someone hurt him when he was younger. Someone made him that that's how we act. That he had a right to act that way. And he'll never learn another way if we prove to him that this screw the world thoughts are right."

And then it hits her, and she blinks, turning slowly back to Vision. "Who was it? Who hurt you?" Because if there was one thing she did know, it was this: even if the sythazoid shouldn't feel emotions, he was reating like someone who had been cut deeply to the core, and wounded without knowing how to react to that fact without lashing out.

Vision has posed:
Vision 's face finally cracks, the epression becoming one of anger.. pain and anger.. SHe can hear his fingers CREAKInG, the ball so tightly against his hip. He hears what she is saying, hears it and somewhere, deep down, something agrees with her.. But it is like it is being.. overridden.. being drowned out by something.. The roaring in his syntehtic ears a hash.

"/FATE/ hurt me!" he growls, his voice deeper now, pained.. "You do not understand. You /cannot/ understand. You have always BEEN human. I am /not/. I saw one glimpse of it. I saw an entire lifetime, single path that might have led me to become so, but it is /gone/. What once may have been possible soemwhere else, somewhen, is now NOT POSSIBLE. Fate has /shown/ me that. I cannot /be/ human. So all I can do is make sure that tose who /are/ human get to remain so and those who aren't...."

He motions to the prone crooks.. "Those who are not learn through their errors to be human.. or become extinct. These two may have bee hurt in their past, but they should hav LEARNED from that. They should have striven to be HUMAN. They /didn't/."

"Now /you/ back off, Katherine Bishop. The police and ambulances are less than five minutes out now."

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
Kate's features vacillate between pained and a deep, regretful stubbornness.

"Nobody taught them to be human. They were only taught to be other than human. Just like you."

She shakes her head. "I'm so disappointed in you. You had a chance to be better. Being human isn't an accident of birth. It's what we do. It's what our entire lives are. Don't you get it? We live our lives learning to be better. Learning to be human. We make mistakes and we get up again. And every time someone kicks someone else when they're down, that's one less opportunity for them to learn better. That's just one more person being not human."

She unstrings her bow and puts her arrow back.

"I will not back off. I am better than that. You should have been too." Then she laughs softly. "Maybe you are. Maybe you're more human than you think. You should have learned from your pain, too. Striven to be better. Striven to be human, as you say. Instead, you turned into them. You didn't."

Vision has posed:
Vision doesn't step back.. He just narrows his eyes on the archer, his anger a cold hard thing once more. "They knew enough. They live in a society shows them what it means to be human every day. Do you believe that every person they met, that every perseon they encountered, taugt them otherwise? They chose to ignore the obvious. The real humans around them on the streets, on tekevision, the radio, in newspapers. They were flooded with just as much if not /more/ examples of humanity than not."

He then grits his teeth. "We can agree to disagree on my methiods, Katherine Bishop. I don' not need your approval. I do not need /anyone's/ approval. You think I may be more human than I believe... Well you are wrong. I have learned that much. So now I will show everyone else what I learned, to make sure they don't become like these miscreants.. or like me."

And slowly he begins to float upwards, though his gaze never falls from her. "When the Avenger's first met me, one of them called me a Terrible, inhuman Vision. Who am I to dispute the truth, Katherine Bishop... Who?"

And with that his cape bilows once more as he speeds off into the night sky.

Hawkeye (Bishop) has posed:
When he's out of her sight, Kate slumps in something of defeat. And very much in relief. She really hadn't been sure he wasn't going to attack her too. Not to mention, she was pretty sure he'd not only not heard her, she might have made things worse. Which was bad all on its own, and left her pondering her own beliefs.

She still didnt' believe kililng was the answer. But what if he was right. What if people chose not to learn. What if it wasn't about learning at all? What if that was it. What if he was wrong too, and it wasn't about learning, it was all about choice. Choosing to be human or not.

Kate frowned. Vision had been one of the good guys. Everyone knew that, didn't they? And what of the Avengers? Why weren't they worried about this? .. Okay, their mansion was gone, and that might actually have a bit of their attention at the moment, but hadn't anyone noticed the dramatic and drastic changes in their team mate?

How did any of them think this was okay? Kate had no answers. But one thing she did know, she was going to find out. After she got out of here.

She had four minutes. It was going to be tight, but she'd done worse.