Batman! ...again? | Open

[acrobatical]

Characters: Bat!Dick and you!
Date: Tonight (overlap into the start of the event)
Location: All Sectors, at differing times for each
Situation: He is darkness, he is the night -- and, yes, he is operating as a fully licensed Batman, TYVM.
Warnings/Rating: To be added as/if they arise

Dusk Until Midnight | Wood Sector
[The trees provide adequate cover where still the leaves cling and refute the pull of autumn's slow death. His grey and black blends within the shadows, lending a degree of stealth that is only heightened by years of practice.

Dick Grayson wears the cowl of Batman, prowling high above the illuminated streets to learn what he can of the late evening population. Eavesdropping is as effective as interrogation in the right circumstances and in a new city? Silent recon work is key.

He can be found between one and three stories off the ground, moving from branch to branch with effortless ease. His motion is mostly silent, only a stray leaf occasionally drifting down as show of his passing.]


The Midnight Hour Per-so-na | Metal Sector
[Here he feels more at home, the Metal Sector blending an aura of Metropolis, Gotham City, and Blüdhaven together to lend an odd sense of comfort. Dick rests on a ledge high above the streets, drawn back from the light of the shell as he silently catalogues his notes from the Wood Sector.

To the untrained eye, he is no more than a gargoyle sharped from an array of matte metals and bolted down to watch the kedan below. He crouches in such a way that the cape drapes over much of his body, allowing him to pull apart a small selection of sausage-stuffed pastries purchased under a civilian guise earlier that day. Every once in a while the heavy material parts and he lifts a piece to his mouth, chewing slowly as he considers the conundrum of this life, death, and dreaming that the kedan advertised Keeliai as.]


Midnight Until Dawn | Water Sector, Earth Sector
[The appearance of ghosts were what spurred him from his surveillance of Metal and midnight snack. That's... odd, and a possible clue to the nature of Keeliai, so it is only natural that Dick follow it, still clad and acting as the Batman he is back in Gotham.

He moves still in silence but, for the first time this early, early morning, he can be found working on the shell's surface in pursuing ghosts and conducting brief analyses of the areas that they seem to appear and disappear from. Samples are his focus, from prints to any substances that may lead into some conclusion about these weird ghosts.

There are times when some appear before him, but he does not jump. He regards them, takes note of their appearances and motion, then whispers a note into his audio log for later cataloguing. It's almost like he's seen his share of ghosts. Spoiler: He kind of has.]


The Pre-Dawn Hour | Fire Sector
[The first night's recon is completed and Dick is returning home, but he is employing a significant degree of caution by slipping into the Fire Sector and using the subtle lighting shift of the flames from the blue of night to the red of day to play havoc on eyes that try to follow him in the shadows.

Eventually, he will find an utterly private place to shed the uniform and return to being Dick Grayson, simple acrobat with a bag slung over his shoulder and exploring, but ultimately heading back to Wood Sector, where his suite is.

The choice is yours to encounter BatDick or, once the sun is up, Dick Grayson himself.]

Comments

this town ain't big enough for the two of us, son [Metal]

[cowled]

[Bruce knows this town inside and out. He damn well should - he's had three months to familiarize himself with it. For the Batman, that's more than enough time. He knows every street corner, every fountain, every gargoyle. Each brick, every flaw. The stonework and the mortar.

He knows it all because he has to. Because it's what he does.

And tonight something's different.

It's subtle. A shift in the air. An instinct. Maybe one of his well-placed microphones caught the suspicious almost-silent sound of silicone-soled boots, or maybe he's just Bruce Fucking Wayne and he deus-ex-machina'd the thought out of the ether but something is different.

And after a few hours of searching, he finds it.

He recognizes the figure. Of course, how could he do otherwise? They've been partners for so many years it would be criminal not to. He's known Dick now longer than he ever knew his parents. In some ways, this relationship has even been the more formative of the two.

But everything about Bruce is a test. A challenge. Which is why he comes up behind Dick and waits. Arms folded. Already counting the seconds.]

[Wood]

[hackingyoursensors]

[There's a small shadow dashing from rooftop to rooftop. It's hard to see except for the brief moments when the shell's glow illuminates a small figure in a cape. Most people wouldn't pay the small shadow much mind. He disappears so quickly that he could easily be mistaken for a trick of the light or (ironically) a large bird.

But he can easily be seen by a Bat.]

Water Sector, so late it's early o'clock

[littlecousin]

[After the fifth unsecured item (two potted plants, a deck chair, a single shoe, and finally, randomly, a frying pan) goes flying into the pool, Nita has had it, and she rockets out of the water, cranky enough to declare war on New York if anyone so much as at her wrong. The poltergeists will. Not. Stop. She is ready to choke a ghost to death, if that were a thing one could do, but instead she makes a strangled noise of frustration and stomps out of the yard and into the public square abutting her particular block of apartments.

Even if she weren't a particularly hard target, the Water Sector kedan are a mellow lot, and Nita feels safe sleeping in public. Her burns are still healing, and submersion is the best thing for them, so she ignores several perfectly nice benches and instead marches grumbling to the fountain in the center of the square.

It's perhaps not the most logical decision Nita's ever made, but she's tired, and she flops into the water, muttering to herself about exorcisms. She'll see if she can crash at a less infested location after the sun rises, but no point waking up her friends and making two people lose sleep.]

[Fire]

[plains_hunter]

[Catman is a bit of a night-owl...night-cat, himself. He isn't really out looking for anything in particular, he just needed to get OUT of that apartment of his and get the lay of the land at night. Cities could look very different in the sunlight and moonlight, which wasn't good when you had an emergency and needed to move fast.

When he sees this Batman, it's entirely by chance. He just happens to be finishing his climb onto the roof of a building, when he catches him moving by. He can't resist a small comment.]

Well, I'll be damned. A world away, and the city is still infested with bats. At least you're staying active.

→ Earth

[controlledvariable]

[Ghosts are - kind of new to Steph, honestly.

Her most memorable experience with one was Greta - Secret - whatever, and that involved her thinking she was going to get killed because some girl wanted Tim for himself. Which was ridiculous, and the reason Steph kept her distance from Young Justice after that.

The ghosts that have started appearing seem much less inclined to try to fling her off a roof, but she's still taken to the streets in order to investigate them a little more.

She's up on a rooftop when she spots Batman on the street below, which seems perfectly normal until she realizes that Bruce doesn't have the proper Batman suit here. It gives her a moment's pause, but after she takes a better look at him, his build, the way he holds himself, she's fairly confident that it's Dick under there.

So she jumps down, landing a decent distance behind him, just loud enough that he'll have heard it. She's not trying to sneak up on him, afterall, she just wants him to know she's there.

She's... still not sure how her and Dick are supposed to feel about each other, but that won't stop her from talking to him, especially not when they're all stuck on the turtle.]

Fire.

[demon_brat]

[Especially with the new apparitions? Damian stuck to his own sector tonight. Not like there isn't enough work, there. So the night was full - and then his suite brings no peace, a loud banging keeping him from focusing to research or sleep.

So he grabs a mask and neutral clothing (if not the full costume) and heads back out. Maybe heading to Wood, for a little more peace...

When the familiar shadow flits across his peripheral vision over the rooftops. Suddenly, all thoughts of sleep are forgotten. If Batman's here... Well. One thing for Robin to do, following quickly to see what the problem is.

It takes him longer than he would admit to realize it's not Father. Because he doesn't expect it, not tonight, and because he's tired. But then he does, the different way of moving, familiar like his own shadow by now, adds to a glimpse of the two spikes of his gauntlet, and suddenly he's not following - he's rushing to catch up. Just like that, all traces of tiredness are gone, and he's almost smiling. A little.]

[wholenewstory]

[Cassandra is wandering through Earth Sector in her simple black costume, lower face obscured. She's not prowling or stalking, at the moment; in fact, she looks almost entranced, though it would be dangerous to mistake that for distracted. (It's happened once. He's tied upside down to one of the sculptures.)

She's following the spirits.

That's what they seem to be, anyway. Echoes of life, going through the motions. It's - fascinating, is the word Barbara would use. They move like people, but they're so clearly not, not any more.

She catches a glimpse of movement on a rooftop, as another fades away. She follows it immediately, because that usually means someone else is on the job, and it's good to know who.

She wasn't expecting another Batman.]

PRE-DAWN PLAIN OLD GRAYSON OR PRE-DAWN BATMAN YOUR CHOICE

[daughterofelysium]

[Triela is chasing a ghost. It's one from the turtle's head. A kedan whose throat got cut. The one that died before Signore Barton - and she wants to know why it didn't come back. Why Barton did and it didn't. It smells like blood and has tears on its face, and it won't stop moving long enough for her to catch up.

Somehow she can't. No matter how fast she goes or how easy the path is, it always stays at a distance.]

Some time soon after midnight, Metal Sector

[whatfriendsdo]

[Murphy is stalking the streets of Keeliai, wishing she paid more attention to Harry when he talked about ghosts. They were pretty firmly filed under "things you can do nothing about", and therefore also firmly filed under "shit Harry gets to deal with".

A little, annoying, stupid, wrong part of herself thinks, if you had the Sword you could do something.

She flinches as a vacant-faced ghost walks through her.] I'm about ready to pack a shotgun with rock salt and see if that helps after all.

[Of course, that requires a shotgun to begin with.]

Fire Sector, Pre-Dawn

[usavatar]

[Steve has been balancing above the streets of the Fire Sector for approximately an hour and a half, staying as still as possible in a one-armed handstand and watching the streets below. There's plenty to see, between the ghosts, the early morning shoppers, the stores opening for the day or closing for the night.

He's not exactly being subtle. He's wearing the suit Steph made for him, red, white, and obvious, a declaration to the shadows below that this particular area is under his protection.

5400.

With a soft grunt he switches arms, pushing up into a bounce and slapping his fresh hand down in precisely the same place as the first. He clasps his other hand against the small of his back and goes back to studying the street with a meditative focus, taking it all in as he starts to silently count out seconds in the background. It's an exercise in discipline, this time. Discipline and multilevel focus.]