rock and roll ain't noise pollution

[cowled]

Characters: Batman and open.
Date: The night of the 11th/morning of the 12th.
Location: All over the place!
Situation: He is the terror that flaps in the – wait, wrong caped crusader. Essentially, Bruce is running around being vengeance and the night and all that fun stuff.
Warnings/Rating: Bruce isn't really prone to excessive amounts of talking when he's Batman, so threads might run a little bit short. Rating... expect some violence, maybe?
Notes: Feel free to toss actionspam or prose at me! I'm good however. Bruce is going to be all over the city doing all sorts of things, just ask if you want me to set something up for you/your character, otherwise feel free to jump right in. \o/





[Even here, it feels like fighting an endless war. The city's been quieter after the war and most of the active gang members ended up behind bars, but the problem with that is the power vortex it leaves behind. He's spent the last few weeks fighting that momentum, to ill effect. People are still being robbed in the streets, and the brutality of those robberies has escalated. More than once he's arrived too late on a scene to do anything but damage control.

Long nights. Longer days, too. But the fight goes on, and Bruce wouldn't want to be anywhere else. The front lines have always suited him. Even now, he doesn't think he ever could be a sideliner. Those few months after Bane were some of the hardest in his life in terms of sheer personal inability. Bruce was so accustomed to pushing himself longer and harder than anyone else that finding out that there was a limit even to his tenacity had been terrifying in a way that not much else ever was.

Keeliai is nothing compared to Gotham. Compared to Apokolips. The Source Wall. It's nothing compared to Darkseid's siege on Earth, to losing his mind. To being lost in time.

He has allies here. Family. And although there is an omnipresent threat of danger hanging over all their heads, it doesn't have the aura of urgency or desperation that so often permeates the crises he's faced on Earth.

He wouldn't go so far as to say that Keeliai has made him complacent, because 'Batman' and 'complacency' are as far removed in meaning as any two words in the English language can be, but he is... calmer here, almost. After a fashion.

It doesn't mean he's lost his edge. It just means he's found a little serenity instead.

Lbr, he's still punching thugs in the throat, though.]

Comments

[wholenewstory]

[It isn't like patrolling Gotham or Bludhaven - not even in the Metal Sector, her focus tonight. It's the closest to home, with its gleaming spires and jagged streets, but the difference remains stark in her mind.

Part of it, she knows, is her. She hasn't worn the Bat since arriving; instead, she wears a simple black outfit, tailored for tightness, and a thick scarf to obscure her lower features.

It's not particularly protective, but then she doesn't need much in the way of protection, really. Even her Batgirl costume was tailored in favour of agility over defence.

These thoughts don't cloud her focus; the scuffle, at least twenty feet below, catches her notice instantly. Her eyes narrow, taking in all the information she needs, and then she leaps.]

[cowled]

[Bruce can't be everywhere at once. Would that he could be, but the laws of physics, space-time and simple mathematics say otherwise. He can't be everywhere at once.

It's one of the reasons he took a partner, in the beginning. It's why he built up his family the way he did. Playing with a stacked deck may not be fair, but when it comes to crime, Bruce doesn't particularly care about what's fair.

Cassandra came to Gotham during some of the city's darkest hours, and in the short time she'd been there she'd done so much good for the city--

Even (sometimes especially) when he couldn't see it. He remembers how angry he'd been at her failure, early into her tenure as Batgirl. He'd been completely prepared to give her a complete dressing down for it, but in hindsight it had never been her he was angry with. Maybe Barbara had known it at the time. Hard to say.

Still, when he watches her now, those old emotions are virtually flatlined. Now all he feels (all he allows himself to feel) is a faint sense of pride at how far she's come. And she did so much of it without his help.

Not this time, however. Bruce watches her as she leaps into the fray, and steps out of the shadows on the roof of the opposite building to follow her. They didn't have regular opportunities to fight side by each, but he can vividly recall each time they have. He and Cassandra understand each other's movements in a way that even his Robins never could.

Eight kedan. Three he recognizes as being true fighters, the rest are simple thugs. He drops sure and soundless beside Cassandra, sure in the knowledge that she'll recognize his presence before she attacks and will coordinate accordingly.]

[wholenewstory]

[It's not a smile most could see; the slightest twitching of her lips, the faintest crinkling of her eyes, as she instinctively adjusts for his presence.

Her movements, nimble dodges and swift strikes, quickly puts them back to back. She wouldn't fight with most people this way - she wants to see them, know what they're going to do - but she knows him, trusts him, more than -

More than she ever knew she could.

She's always known how to read people, but it was Bruce, Bruce and Barbara, who first showed her how to know them; how to put her faith in them.

She doesn't need to wonder if her back is covered as she whirls through the kedan - taking out the clumsiest first, hard and quick - any more than he does.]

[cowled]

[Bruce doesn't have her grace or delicacy, and doesn't pretend to. He isn't a brawler only by virtue of training and discipline. Cassandra... for her, this is like dancing. Her first language, elegantly scrawled across a battlefield of landed blows and broken bones.

He twists, catches a kedan in a flying kick aimed at Cassandra by their ankle and slams them hard against the nearest wall, which takes rather a lot of effort given the density of their bodies but puts the attacker down and out.

He and his-- daughter (his mind still stumbles over that word, though the sentiment has always come naturally, he isn't sure how to grasp it and pull it into the light) are oppositional forces. A curious gestalt. Greater than the sum of their parts, when they fight like this. It's a rare thing, but precious.

And he's smiling a little, as they go through the motions of the fight. It's been six seconds. He's guessing it won't last more than twenty.]

[hackingyoursensors]

[Dick is handling a few minor thugs. A well-placed kick here, a carefully-thrown Batarang there. He's not having too much trouble, but the thugs certainly aren't going down without a fight.

They weren't kidding when they said kedan were stronger than humans. At least Dick is used to facing people much bigger and stronger than he is.]

[cowled]

[Assessment. Reassessment. Bruce is in a constant state of both, where Dick is concerned. This one as much as the one in his time. He comes down hard on his oldest boy-- god knows that Dick's proved himself over and over again. That he's never given Bruce any reason to mistrust him, if he's being honest with himself.

Oh, he can find flaws if he looks. It's both a gift and a curse. 'Perfect' isn't a human concept, no matter how he pushes himself to attain the title.

Bruce comes close. Closer than most. In terms of deduction, ability, intelligence, reasoning, general knowledge of the world. He has several lifetimes worth of information tucked away in the back of his mind. But his personality is one area that leaves much to be desired. He is what he has to be. Who he has to be, to be the helmsman of his goal of a crimeless Gotham.

But while Dick falls short in every area Bruce excels, there is one spot where he's got him beat. He saw it in action, when he was observing the new Batman and Robin as the Insider. Dick brings people together in a way Bruce never could. He's been changed by this life, he's done some hard growing up and taken more than his fair share of knocks, but at the end of the day, Dick is... still one of the brightest people he's ever met.

He's never been destined for darkness and shadows. Maybe it was the circus spotlight, still a heavy presence from his youngest years.

Whatever it is, this version of him has it too. More-so, in ways that his Dick has long-since shed to stay alive.

So Bruce, perched in the shadows of a gargoyle, doesn't interfere with Dick's fight. He merely observes. If the boy needs help, of course he'll step in. But right now, he's learning. Despite his age, the fact that he became Robin younger than Nightwing shows. His moves are tighter. More studied, more practised. An acrobat's grace with a martial artist's edge. He doesn't have the outright mass to take down he kedan one-on-one like Bruce does, but he plays it smart.

It's... almost enough to make him proud.]

[hackingyoursensors]

[Dick, of course, isn't aware he's being observed by anyone other than the kedan he was fighting.

Three down for the count. Three left standing.

He could've finished this up faster, if he'd really pulled out all the stops. But he didn't want to waste supplies, not if he didn't have to. On top of that, he wanted to figure out the kedans' weak spots. They didn't have human anatomy, but how different were they? They probably didn't realize it, but Dick had been testing them, hitting them where normal humans would be weak and seeing if it had the same effect. If these kedan had been more than just run-of-the-mill thugs with sloppy fighting styles, he wouldn't have dared to do this.

Information about their fighting style. Information about their anatomy. Information about their organization. Dick was a tactician, through and through. One day, he might need this information. Forewarned is forearmed, etc.

Which is why he's dragging this out. One of the kedan tries to charge him, and Dick allows himself to be tackled only to use the kedan's force against him. The kedan has been flipped flat on his back and Dick is on his feet before the others can even react. That's how he fought. Adapt, adjust, use every advantage you have (and make some you don't). Unlike his older counterpart, he tends to keep his distance and wait for openings. He knows his weaknesses-- he's small and that can be a disadvantage.

Four down, two standing, and three more on the way, wielding rudimentary weapons.]

[cowled]

[Interesting to note how much more... calculating Dick is in this universe. Smarter, too. Would he run afoul of Two-Face in the same manner things had occurred back home? Hard to say.

Bruce studies him studying the kedan. Takes note of every blow and feint. Testing for weaknesses, learning their anatomy. Interesting that he'd rather do it himself than simply ask. Bruce could tell the boy eighteen different places that would bring a kedan to their knees with minimal effort. Is it a sign of mistrust, or independence? Bruce always encouraged Dick to learn things for himself, but he still expected him to listen to Bruce-- to Batman in the field.

But as good as he is, he can't take down five kedan on his own, on top of the ones he's already incapacitated. His games of bat-and-mouse will have worn his endurance down enough that he'll be making mistakes.

So. Bruce shifts a little, pulling darts from his belt-pouch. The compound is one of the first he created here, non-lethal and with no side effects save a headache, it takes the kedan down and keeps them there for some thirteen minutes, with variations allowed for body mass etc.

He takes down the three en route, precision throws that leave a little bat-winged dart jutting out from the sides of their necks. The compound takes twenty-two seconds to kick in. He lets his arm fall, shrouds himself in his cape and waits.

He'll see how the boy handles the rest of the fight, and then leave before Dick sees him. He'll know he was present, of course, but Bruce isn't feeling terribly conversant at the moment.]

[usavatar]

[The shell is still glowing when Steve finally abandons the idea of sleep and leaves his apartment. He's been up with only snatches of sleep for days now, his last full night's rest spent curled around Peggy. He wants to ask her if she'll come stay with him again. Will ask, today, because if he doesn't do it soon she's bound to either notice him looking haggard and take him to task for silence, or ask whose turn it is to share a bed.

It's a familiar routine at this point. Nights without sleep, either staring at the dark or reliving a cycle of memories that always wait at the edges of solitude. He doesn't know if it's punishment, maybe, for those things he considers failures. Punishment for sins he hasn't identified.

During one particularly long stretch of sleeplessness after getting pulled out of the ice, he imagined it to be a duty of sorts - the remembering. As fewer and fewer were left behind to do it, more and more of the remembering fell to him. Ridiculous, but when all he had was silence and memory, the ridiculous seemed reasonable.

There's a park he goes to on mornings like this, to set up the equipment he had the kedan make for him. Parallel bars, a pommel horse. He warms up with stretches and starts with the bars.

It one of those things that he put more focus on after getting woken up - boxing, yes. Hand-to-hand training with some of SHIELD's agents since they wouldn't allow him to work with the soldiers at Fort Hamilton, then. And gymnastics. Flexibility and agility have always been priorities.

Steve starts slow, a few handstands on the bars, sweeping up, sweeping down again, finding his way into a rhythm. When he does, he starts to pick up speed. It's the same kind of grace he has with the shield. The grace of juggled hammers, of a sword in motion. Something heavy and dangerous made light by velocity.

His legs touch the bars as he swings downward again and he grits his teeth. Do it better.

Again. Again. Again, until there's no pause between the downward sweep of his legs and the twist to rise back into a handstand with both hands on one bar. He has a routine in mind now, and repeats it with minor errors until he's able to sail through the entire thing without a single one.

Dismount. The impact of landing after flight.

Again. Do it better.]

[cowled]

[Bruce watches Rogers for a long time, perched in the shadows nearby. The Captain's form is almost flawless. A mark of strength and skill with the mind behind it to go beyond even that.

He's almost as driven as Bruce. The thought almost makes him smile. There aren't many about which he could say the same.

As much as he dislikes what the man stands for, as much as he's irritated at Clark's interference and Rogers' stubborn refusal to realize that there's no need for killing in this place--

He does respect the man. To a point. Which is what prompts him to step out of those shadows and towards him. Bruce throws a bag of chalk at him in an underhand. For his hands.]

Captain.

[His tone is still coiled tight with the tension and irritation from their last conversation, but it's... cordial enough. For Batman. Despite that.]

[usavatar]

[Chalk is certainly better than dirt. Steve catches the offering, surprised to be sought out instead of it being the other way around. His nod isn't quite wary, but it's guarded.]

Sir. [He dips into the chalk, smudging it over his hands. He mounts the bars again, keeping his motions simple enough to be a secondary focus. Even this is good practice - ability to balance physical and mental, muscle-memory training while conversing.] Did Superman tell you we talked?

[cowled]

[Bruce gives him an arch look.]

Yes.

[That is a yes that implies that he and Superman have no secrets between them.

Bruce has a room full of kryptonite back home that would beg to differ, but I digress.]

[flytoohigh]

[ Just a teenager on rollerskates out exploring the city. That was, until he was jumped by a group after his money. However, where most people would be upset with the sudden attention, Ikki only seemed to be excited.

He's never fought true non-humans before, but they aren't too difficult to dispatch. Ikki simply relies on his speed by his Air Trecks, the powered rollerskates he wear. He's like a blur as he throws elbows into faces, and knocks Kedans aside with powerful kicks. Eventually he just claps his hands together and generates a massive upward gust of wind in the alleyway, throwing the attackers into the air, only to falls painfully back to the ground.

Ikki's just wiping off his black leather jacket, laughing out loud. ]

You should know not to mess with the Storm King, now give me all your money or I'll be forced to get serious! [ So yeah, now he's gonna steal from them. ]

[cowled]

[Generally speaking, Bruce didn't tend to his own injuries until he's back in the privacy of his suite. But this one - a long knife slash that bit into his side and upwards - was causing trouble. It was just deep enough that it gaped, and it was too wide to coagulate on its own with the amount of movement necessary in his job.

So he found a relatively secluded rooftop with an upright venting system that provided adequate cover and sat down to tend to it. A field coagulant, a dressing with another waterproofed one over top, tape to hold the entire thing down. Stitches would come later, but for now--

He paused, halfway in pulling his shirt back down over the injury. The sounds of a scuffle, not too far from his location. The pain is forgotten as he moves across to the adjacent rooftop and then hovers over the alley in time to catch the last half of that exchange. He frowns. He's not really in shape to do any more fighting tonight, but neither is he going to tolerate someone terrorizing the local population like this.

He could call for back-up. But if he did that, he wouldn't be Batman.

He drops to the ground between the (teenager?) and the kedan, his expression set behind the domino mask.]

Leave. Now.

[His tone is iron and ice, hard-edged. It brooks absolutely no bullshit.]

[flytoohigh]

Oi, old man, this is none of your business. [ Ikki's surprised by the sudden entrance of the man, dressed in black. This is the first time he's seen a bat-suited person, but he's not really impressed. It's easy to tell that the man is older than him, something which doesn't exactly equal respect in Ikki's book.

He's not even sure which group the caped man is yelling at but Ikki is not listening. He's just yelling and pointing and stomping his foot as the Kedan seem ready to run. ]

[cowled]

This is my city. That makes it my business.

[It might not be Gotham, per se, but Bruce had always been territorial. Home was where you hung your cowl, as far as he was concerned, and for the time being that meant Keeliai.]

[knowsmadness]

[Since the riots and other criminal issues have mostly been put down, Kara's hands have been far too idle. She's a military woman at heart, and lives and thrives on constant action and movement. If she wasn't going through the militant routines on the Galactica before the Cylon War, she was training and beating the crap out of Helo in both cards and in the boxing ring.

After the war, Kara had been on constant alert and often went days without sleep, because there was too much to do. She was the Galactica's top pilot and shooter, better than Apollo himself, and that meant being on the Commander's beck and call list.

Here, she has too much free time, too much idleness and those words do not describe Kara in any way shape or form. Despite knowing that there is a lot at stake here, Kara is beginning to feel a little useless.

In a nutshell, she's out here doing the same shit Bruce is doing; patrolling and occasionally punching a thug in the neck.]

[cowled]

[He's coming out of one of the shadier brothels in the area. He's not Bruce Wayne at the moment - or even Batman. Instead, he's a naturalized version of Matches Malone. Same personality, same shtick - matches come in handy as more than just a prop, after all - but a different name and the background one might expect of a local thug.

The intel provided in the last twenty minutes of idle waiting has definitely given him an edge on the crime boss calling herself Razor Adina. Funny, what people will say in brothels. Sometimes subtlety goes farther than dangling people off buildings by their ankles. Frankly, even Bruce would be hard-pressed to lift one of the kedan one-handed.

He gives himself six blocks to ensure he's not being followed before he'll duck into a building, cut through it and several others, and to the place where he's stashed his costume. For now, he has a matchstick between his teeth and he's whistling low and off-key, hands jammed in his pockets as he goes.]

[knowsmadness]

[Idle hands, idle hands.

Said hands are stuffed into her own pockets as she leans against a building, only looking up when she sees someone coming closer. He doesn't reek of 'gang', but that didn't mean anything. Sometimes the most ambiguous people were the most dangerous.

She lifts a brown, and peers at the newcomer with evident suspicion.]

Late night?

[tactile_telekinesis]

[Kon always spent a few night out, checking over things. He didn't have Young Justice any more, so to keep him sane and safe from getting bored, he checked over the turtle now and then. He was out right now, cruising along, high enough that he wouldn't really be spotted, but low enough he could see what was going on.

He went in lower when he saw a shape of a familiar looking bat. He flew so he was in front of Batman and grinned.]

What drags Batman out?

[cowled]

[Not who he wanted to see this evening, but he supposed it was inevitable. The turtle was only so big, and to anyone with Kryptonian DNA that narrowed the playing field considerably.

Still, Bruce scowled.]

I'm sure you don't need me to answer that question, Superboy.

[tactile_telekinesis]

[He puffed one cheek and his eyebrows drew in as Batman spoke to him.

Well no duh he knew what Batman was really out here doing, but it was more a conversation starter. He snorts at his own thought process, Batman and conversation? Right, cause that would happen or make sense.

He rolls his eyes and floats a little lower, arms crossed over his chest.]

C'mon B-Man, I know why, but the details! Sniffed out some kind of drug lord? Busting up a meeting of head honcho-types?

on the 12th

[andaway]

[He really wasn't in the best mood to talk to people right now.

Whenever he got sad, or angry or simply homesick in their world he could just fly to the fortress of solitude and let his mind take over, let his worries disappear in the arctic. As long as he didn't make it a habit Lois understood.

In this place there simply wasn't a place to hide in, he couldn't just call in sick on his newspaper and get away with it because he was Mr Lane. He had to put on a smile only let it fad when he was among friends.

He's had to do that ever since Kara disappeared, ever since he stopped being able to hear her heartbeat. So Bruce's message to come talk to him is both appreciated and not, because he could really do without though right now.

He's wearing Clark's clothes when he knocks on his door.]

[cowled]

[Bruce is in his civvies as well, the genuine distaste for his task concealed behind a playboy's smile. He steps back and away from the door - notice the patched ceiling overhead? - and sweeps an arm to invite Clark in.]

Just the man I wanted to see. I have some ideas about--

[His attitude shifts as he pushes the door shut once Clark's safely inside. He doesn't even bother finishing his sentence. The renovations he was able to do while fixing his roof involved neatly soundproofing the rest of the house.]

I'm sure you've noticed Kara's disappearance.

[andaway]

[When he first met Bruce and they began doing this knowing-your-SI thing he was mostly confused by Bruce's ability to change characters. Eventually it just pissed him of- which one was his true mask? Did Clark ever got to meet the real one?

After years, decades of knowing each other he's just amused by it. But Bruce's comment about Kara makes his smile fade away just as easily as it comes.]

Of course I did. She's my family. But I thought she would eventually come back if... I gave her enough time.

We don't really know how these things work yet.