9854/Knightfall: Curtains of Shadow

From United Heroes MUSH
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Knightfall: Curtains of Shadow
Date of Scene: 31 October 2019
Location: Batcave - Wayne Manor
Synopsis: Jason and Dick fight over common ground, and their mutual pain about Bruce.
Cast of Characters: Nightwing, Red Hood
Tinyplot: Knightfall


Nightwing has posed:
The lowest level, containing the vehicles, has a very specific sleek black and blue addition. The gleam of running lights reveals a somewhat battered Nightcycle, some long rakes of damage along one of the rear sections of the high tech motorcycle showing it recently had some sort of problematic run-in. But more than that, the bike proves the arrival of one of the Bat-family that has been woefully absent lately. Since well before Batman's 'death', the eldest of those under the bat's care had not appeared.

A section of the screens and terminals is lit up with current research of the city's problems, as the new arrival no doubt has worked to catch up. Still, there is nobody actually at the screens at the moment. The place appears vacant enough, though for the screens to be in that state, it cannot have been long since they were in use.

Red Hood has posed:
A roar sounds through the cave as Jason guns his bike into the cave, his red and black bike coming to a halt beside Dick's battered blue and black.

Jason removes his helmet, revealing a shock of dyed blonde hair instead of his usual black, with the patch of white up front. Looking at the bike beside his and frowning Jason exclaims, "Yay. Dick's home," in a tone that would make Raven sound enthusiastic.

Well, he had better get this over with so as he heads up into the upper levels of the Cave, he calls out, "Hey dancing Esmerelda, you around? Or are you still fighting video store themed villians down in Bludhaven while the rest of us put in the real work."

Finding the chair at the Batcomputer empty, Jason frowns, where was he, he really hoped Dick heard all that.

Nightwing has posed:
"I'm here," Dick's voice carries, from one of the deep storage lockers. It echoes off the locker itself, and into the cave proper, which may or may not make it confusing where he is. But the elder Robin isn't concealing his location on purpose.

"While the villain is in jail, I had some time. What 'real work' are you putting in? Did it need bullets?" Dick's answer comes. It's teasing, his tone friendly enough, but it lacks any real clout just as much as it does depth. Dick isn't in the mood to actually get into a snarky contest with Jason.

A little bit later, Dick surfaces from the storage area, casting his gaze down to look for Jason from the upper level he's currently on. He has a metal crate, easily carried in both hands, with a mix of small objects in it from the storage.

Red Hood has posed:
"Not helping," Jason calls back to the echo, which itself echoes around the cave.

He wanders up to the computer to check what Dick's been working on as he does, "It always requires bullets," Jason snarks."And Princess, you better be joking right now. What work? Let's see uh," he pauses a moment when faced with the list of things assailing the family, but pushes on. "Demons in Coventry, Harley's loose, Ivy's taking parts of the city, finding Bruce a sorcerer, and oh yeah, reminding the scum of Gotham there's still a Batfamily even if Batman is 'dead'." He even does the air quotes.

"But I am sure Bludhaven was super important," okay that bit was a little bitter.

Nightwing has posed:
There's a little pause.

"You're really contributing," Dick comments, pausing, with evident surprise. It might have been sarcastic if it wasn't quite so honest. Perhaps Dick didn't expect Jason to actually be doing all of that to help the family. He pauses. "That sounded sarcastic, didn't it," he asks, sarcastically. "It wasn't. I didn't expect you to be helping here," Dick says, as he moves through the upper area of the batcave, his voice fluxing with the echo as he comes around and down to the computer level. "I was about to look at your reports; are they more than annoyed descriptions with commentary of what you'd rather be doing? Perhaps selfies with vague indications of things in the background?"

The metal bin is brought to one of the nearby tables; unknown treasures of long-lost gear, perhaps. Dick stops, though, and sets his palms slowly down on the top edges of the box. His gaze moves to the bin itself, but he's looking through it. Bludhaven was super important, asks Jason? "Yes," Dick replies, in a way that closes the book a little firmly on Bludhaven as a topic.

Red Hood has posed:
Damn, Dick was really trying, Jason could hear that much, even through the reverb. Jason frowns, clearly processing as he leans against the Batcomputer.

Though he soon finds a new thing, no wait, two things to latch his anger onto. He almost breathes a sigh of relief.

"Of course, I'm here to help. Bruce can't walk, Dick, fuck, he can barely move. You think I am going to let that stand? Or let Babs burn herself out trying to fill in?" he says with arms crossed. As Dick appears again with the box, Jason runs a hand through his hair suddenly self-concisous about having putting in a temp dye in to disguise himself at the meeting with Constantine. He really should have washed it out before arguing with his 'big brother' he felt like he should be the lead singer of a boyband.

As to the other thing to hitch his anger on? He prys the cover of the book of Bludhaven open again and then gets the volume about the Titans off the shelf as well. "The mission is here, Dick, not Bludhaven, not with the Society of Second-Rate Sidekicks., here. Sure, I breeze in and out, but right now, when the family's in danger, I'm here."

As for his reports, Jason pivots and pulls them up spreading them across the screens. "Take a look for yourself," he says. Dick was half right, no selfies, but there was plenty of bitching about how he didn't want to be doing this.

Nightwing has posed:
Dick has noticed the hair, but didn't take any easy jabs at it: at least, not yet. To what purpose, at this point? The sarcasm is almost going through the motions. Dick didn't have a lot of will to rise to a fight with Jason, but he'll do what needs to be done.

In this case? Normalcy for Jason. So, a weird pointless fight, it is. A glance over the reports, and Dick moves, leaving his bin of parts to come over and look through them. Dick and his obnoxious way of quickly reading and tearing apart evidence with a rapid intuition: and he does it in the way Bruce taught him. The other detective with that same 'look' is upstairs in a bed.

"If you're really going to push me about protecting innocents in Bludhaven as a priority, you haven't learned two things - that what we do requires sacrifices - Bruce knows this, /teaches/ this - and to trust the rest of the family with the emergency. I do trust all of you."

"Attacking me won't make things better," Dick adds, a stress to his voice and his jawline, as emotion creeps in. The reality of the situation isn't lost on him.

"Have you visited Him recently?" Dick asks. There's only one person that would get the sound of a capital letter on his pronoun, and in this case, it isn't to God that Dick is referring.

Red Hood has posed:
Remember that really bad advice they used to give about bullies? Ignore them and they go away? In reality it usually ends with trying to ignore that bully giving you an ass kicking. With Jason though, Jason though, Dick's like of fight takes the catharis of being mean to the too-perfect son of a bitch.

"Fine, whatever," Jason says of the lecture, he listens to it all but, he only really hears the last part, since it echoes his own thoughts on the subject, fighting wasn't going to make things better. At least not today.

But fuck he needed something. So, with a head check for Alfred, Jason reaches into his coat and pulls out a pack of Luckys he bought on the way back from seeing Constantine, then Jason lights it up.

"Yeah, yeah, kill me later," he says to Dick, with a look, an offer of a detante, the smoke gets ignored and Jason will stop verbally punching away pointlessly.

That last question though, whatever Dick does about the cigarette, it takes the fight out of Jason too. "Yeah... a couple of days ago, when he sent me to find him a wizard. The swelling in his back is getting worse, Leslie, says if it's not stopped, he could be like," he jerks his head upwards towards where Bruce was laying even now. "That, forever," his face goes cold then, whatever feeling stirred up by that thought being locked deep away.

Nightwing has posed:
If looks could maim, Dick does send one over at the cigarettes. "Yes, /they/ will," Dick agrees of the killing source: cigarettes, not him. "But fine. My other attempts to keep you safe aren't working, can't imagine why a caution against smoking would." Yes, too-perfect son of a bitch is being too-perfect again. Dick rolls his eyes, but leaves it alone. He can accept that Jason needs something as a crutch. Dick could use an emotional crutch at the moment, but there isn't one available. He'll just have to suffer quietly in a deep place that he isn't going to expose to Jason.

"I was just in there to see him," Dick replies. "Did he come back to us that way, or has it been steady deterioration?" he asks, moving into a firmer tone: the same one he uses to analyze facts. If he can. The raw emotional place is very close underneath that levelheaded question.

Red Hood has posed:
Jason meets that look with cold blue eyes and shrugs, "Blame Constantine and his magic limey cigarettes," he says by way of explanation and then ashes his cigarette into an abandoned mug. As it was, Alfred's butler senses must be tingling, he didn't want to actually bring the man down here by ashing on the floor.

Nodding quietly, "How is he?" Jason asks, even if he wasn't sure he wanted the answer, Bruce and his condition was best as this nebulous thing at the back of his mind, not illuminated by image or detail.

Jason too slides easily into detective mode, "He was out when I showed up, breathing and eating through a tube, then he woke up... not sure much beyond that, other than the swelling is increasing and Leslie can't stop it."

Though that reminded him of something, he digs around in his pocket for the white noise generator he brought to the meeting with Constantine and flicks it on. "There's another thing too, Dick, Babs found something while looking into the demon thing, the first demon attack happened at the same time Bruce was revived, to the second. We don't know what it means, but, I figure you should know."

Nightwing has posed:
"He's not entirely coherent, mostly due to medications, I think," Dick replies to the question about condition: but he gave the information even if Jason may not want it. It was asked for, and Dick will share. He certainly won't hold back information about Bruce from Jason.

The white-noise generator appearing makes Dick's eyebrows fly up, and he moves over towards Jason, stopping somewhat closer to the other tall young man. His expression is clouded, as he takes in the information. There's no laugh of disbelief, no roll of eyes here. He nods once, crossing his arms, head inclined fowards towards the noise generator. It is a steady, calculating look, but the generators is only somewhere to set his eyes while he goes through what that suggests.

"Have we checked Bruce for any signature of demonic energy? If we get one of the sorcerers in here, we should," Dick says, his tone private. "If there's something driving him to be worse off, and we just can't see it..."

Red Hood has posed:
Jason takes that news in without outward reaction, "Still needing that mask half-the-time to breathe?" he asks, "He actually half-rolled over when I was there, just about scared me to death, he shouldn't be doing that."

As to the demonic problems... "I didn't flick him with holy water or anything, but, I'm pretty sure he's not possessed, the possessing demons are dumb as shit and I don't think they have full access to their host's memories, and when I talked to Bruce he knew something only, he, Alfred and I would know." Yeah there were a lot of 'thinks' in there, not facts, which becomes apparent when he says it all out loud. "Carrie and I got Constantine to help us, I'll get him to check Bruce out when he's here."

Nightwing has posed:
"Yes. Pulled the mask off while I was there. Passed out," Dick reports, his tone sounding numb. The trade of information isn't what either wants to hear: that Bruce was trying to roll over with his spine problem causes a little jerk of Dick's head, back, as if he could pull away from the facts instead of letting them land. A flinch. Because none of this is easy on Bruce's boys.

No child is truly equipped to deal with the shift of a caretaker from caring to needing care.

"I don't think he's possessed either, but I don't want to assume all of their behavior is the same, whatever these things are. They're connected to Bruce somehow. If it's easy to check, I don't want to pass up the opportunity to be sure about it," Dick nods. He looks to his crate, now. "I was pulling some aeration devices. The idea is Holy water into Holy mist. Since we don't want to go weapons-hot if not all of the people in an area are infected, we need some ways to separate them if they're clumped. From your experience with them, do they take hostages? Do they hide behind people?"

Red Hood has posed:
"Fuck," Jason says at the news of Bruce passing out. It wasn't a good sign, he was getting worse. The flinch is met with an understanding nod. "Yeah, so if he does it when you're around, hold him down or something."

Jason certainly wasn't ready for caring for Bruce, there was too much anger, too much unresolved, things he couldn't say when the man was laid out on a bed.

He knocks the long strand off ash from his nearly forgotten cigarette and takes a drag. "No clue if it's easy or not, but it needs to be a priority, and they should check all of us," he says. "I probably checked you out, but you were such a pain in the ass about my smoke, I knew it had to be you," he remarks with a listless sort of humour.

Jason does lean forward to eye the kit, "Smart," he says. "Put the stuff in the air and the people who start screaming bloody murder are our targets," he follows that with a nod of respect. Hey, good ideas were good ideas. "Hostages? Not that I've seen, or hiding behind anyone, all of them I've seen, when they get going, they go for the kill."

Nightwing has posed:
"Please never say aloud that you are checking me out, even if it's for valid reasons," Dick fires back automatically. There isn't a tiredness to the tone, but an emotional weariness, maybe. Dick is physically in really good shape, no dark circles under the eyes. Mr. Perfect still rests, somehow. A lack of nightmares does sleeping beauty good.

"Right. We might be able to clear a building with, say, one in the air conditioning vents, pick up anything that comes out." Dick suggests, moving back to rest a hand on the bin edge once more. "Good to know that they don't do that. That they're hard to identify is difficult enough. I had another thought: maybe we can calibrate our thermal goggles to spot them, too, if they're puppeting the deceased. What do you think?" Dick asks. He may already have his own thought on it, but a good leader pulls in everyone: and Dick is adjusting. Even if he'd rather Bruce be at the helm.

Red Hood has posed:
Jason manages a smirk around his cigarette at Dick's retort. "Dat ass tho," he says with a snort.

The lack of tiredness is noted., and Jason makes a face, Jason felt like he was dead on his feet and all bed promised was memories of waking up in his grave and Joker's crowbar.

He takes a long drag of his smoke, causing it to burn down almost to the filter.

"Yeah, that'd work a good way to herd them into a trap," he agrees of using them in a building's air system. The follow up question is recognized for what it is and Jason goes quiet a moment, weighing response, not to the question, but what it represented, Dick being in charge. "No matter what it says on the case with my old uniform, I'm nobody's soldier," he warns, letting him know he saw what was happening. "But yeah, the thermals should do the trick without much modification, they're cold, they'll ping that way."

Nightwing has posed:
Dick opens his mouth to try to retort. Dat ass indeed. Instead it's a mix of confused uncertainty. That was a compliment. But it wasn't. It's upping the stakes quite a bit from being checked out into something Dick doesn't have a response for.

Fortunately, the topic moves. Even if it's not necessarily to an easier subject. "I'm not going to convince you to be a soldier: for me or Bruce, or to be anything you're not. Either you'll help because you want to, or you won't." Dick clenches his teeth briefly, which makes his cheek and jaw move some. He's sleeping, sure, but that doesn't mean he's relaxed.

"You've done well directing traffic so far, which I know isn't your thing. You'd rather be out there. You can get some rest, now, and give this to me for a little while, Jason." Dick lifts the bin of parts, but only to move it more out of the way, partially under the desk, moving to sit back down at the monitors.

Red Hood has posed:
Jason cracks a smile at Dick's reaction. He got him, so hey at least he had that.

The smile is short lived. "You don't get it, never have," he says. "I'm always going to help, but in my own way, and without taking orders from you and Bruce."

The rest it's taken in for how it was meant, still there were things to say: "I actually sort of like running things, really, I'm the one who should be. Bruce picked you to be the light to Batman's darkness, but what we need to be right now, is the darkness to Batman's light. The city thinks were weak right now, Dick, Ivy's taking parts of the city, Harley's escaped, I'm pretty sure Catwoman knocked over Gotham National, the criminals of this city don't need light, they need to be reminded why they're afraid to go out at night, they need to know whatever they do /we'll/ be there to make them hurt, and they need to pray for Batman to come back and save them from us."

"Anyhow, I know none of that is going to happen, so, yeah, I'll get some rest and carry on taking care of business."

Nightwing has posed:
"Restraint doesn't mean weakness. Neither does mercy," Dick answers, chilly. It's automatic for him to defend Bruce's choices and way. Resistance from Jason is always where they've clashed, and they clash again now. Like always.

"/Bruce/ is the one running things," Dick reminds, his chilliness of tone turning into something more aggressive. He doesn't like the direction of conversation that leads towards one where Bruce isn't leading, where Bruce isn't /there/. "You /do/ need a rest if you're forgetting that. Maybe stop by His room to remember it," Dick suggests. So much for common ground for a little while.

But there's a comfort in the fighting: that they still have energy to do it. And the disagreements aren't going to upend things, not really. "I /am/ going to do what needs to be done. I know I have to turn my 'light' down to do that, right now." And it's going to be heavy on Dick's back, isn't it. He turns away to the monitors.

Red Hood has posed:
The argument had the feeling of inevitability, that whatever moments of common ground Jason and Dick found it would only be temporary. It was comfortable in a way, in the midst of all this chaos, that at least one thing hadn't changed. The world still had the familiar in it.

"You know what I think," Jason says of mercy and restraint. They'd been down this road so often they could fill in all the blanks of the other's argument.

That blow about visiting Bruce gets a flinch, though the retort that follows is without heat and tinged with sadness. "No, Dick, it's us, we're running things now, the city, the mission, it's on us." He'd had more time to process it, to face the realities that for now and possible forever, Bruce's fight would be theres, though it wasn't until now that it really hit and it chilled Jason to the bone.

Jason takes his cigarette and dumps it in the empty mug. "Good," he replies to Dick. "Then maybe the city has a chance."

When Dick turns around to go back to his work, something they'd both seen often enough from Bruce, Jason shakes his head, heading back down towards the bikes. "Going to crash in the city for a couple of days," he calls back to Dick to add: "But let Damian know I'll be back to help him with the Batmobile."

Nightwing has posed:
Dick doesn't answer. Much like Batman wouldn't. In his frustration, Dick's getting back to work.

Maybe the city has a chance, but there's a cost. To all of the family.