tushanshu_logs | (no subject)

[He leaps like a ghost from rooftop to rooftop in the Earth Sector, enjoying the soaring sensation every time he leaves the ground. It doesn't thrill him the way it used to, because he knows when and how he'll land - there's no visceral reaction to falling through open air. But still, there's that moment where he leaves weight behind before gravity catches up, and that brief freedom will never get old.]

[She was in a bad mood.]

[Granted, she had been in worse moods. But this one had been gradually building throughout the day. The kedan were starting to get vicious. One of her jobs had all but fired her due to 'cutbacks', despite deliberately hanging a help wanted sign in the window before she'd made it ten feet off the property. She'd been glared and shoved and judged since practically sunrise, and seriously needed to let out some steam.]

[In an ideal world, she would have been able to ~~steal~~ borrow another motorcycle, like she and Artemis had back home. But she lacked the funds to legally rent one, and she only took things from people she liked...so that option was out. Which left flying. All things considered, could be worse. It lacked the thrill of the wind rushing through her hair at 90 miles an hour, the sharp turns as she cut around each city street corner, but it helped. Enough that, by the time she parked herself on the rooftop of a random building in the Earth Sector, she was starting to feel better.]

[Then she caught a glimpse of who had apparently gotten a similar idea, and the better mood was gone.]

You.

[Oliver freezes, placing the voice and the face almost at once.

Crap.

This is one interaction he was hoping to avoid. Not forever, but a lot longer than this. He's not sure what he's nervous about, exactly. Just that he is.]

Hi. [It's a long syllable, almost a question.]

[He looked nervous. Good. He should not. Not that she was actually going to follow through with Kyle suggestion to turn him into a rabbit...but the thought was tempting.]

You tried to kill Jack.

[Might as well get straight to the point, in an oddly casual tone for the subject matter. Her expression was unreadable, body language displaying just a single hand on one hip.]

[He fidgets, unsure where to put his hands, what to do beyond stand there. He suddenly misses Thea, again, though he'd give everything in the world never to hear her talking about how he tried to kill anyone.]

Yes. [That's it. No excuses, no explanations.]

Why?

[Spoiler alert: most any answer you give will likely be the wrong one.]

He was a threat. [His tone is steady, even calm, though he feels anything but.] I was a prisoner.

[A pause.] How's he doing?

[Well, that made absolutely no sense to her whatsoever. Even worse, he looked like he wasn't joking.]

He's fine.

I was able to heal up most of the burns and the slash in his throat. [Meaning she was one of the few people to see the severity of those injuries up close. And, yes, there is a hint of accusation in her otherwise casual speech.] I also managed to get the blood out of his sweatshirt after a few hours.

[A w k w a r d pause.] Good. I'm glad.

[He's allowed to be glad about that, right? Oliver runs a hand over his face, painted with its usual green stripe, and gives up on having this conversation with the hood up. He tugs it back, and drags his hand through his hair.]

I'm... sorry. For going after him.

[He'd better be glad. In fact, once she's sure the apology is actually genuine, she visibly relaxes. Enough time had passed that she even thinks she can make it through the rest of this conversation civilly.]

You should be.

[No mincing words here. It was the truth.]

I don't know what you were thinking, but he really was just trying to help. That's what he does.

I. Wasn't. [Oliver tugs at his gloves to give himself something to do.] I didn't think. I reacted. I told him -

[No, he's not going to tell the teenage girl that he was imprisoned and tortured. Even if she is a superhero. He can't get himself to do it.] It doesn't matter.

Edited 2013-04-06 02:07 (UTC)

Actually, yeah, it does.

Some of us would like to know so that we can make sure it doesn't happen again. Because, believe me, it won't happen again.

[It's not often that she feels protective enough of somebody so actually make a thinly-veiled threat. Feeling protective made her seem hypocritical. For once, she didn't care.]

I know. I can't take it back. [He's heard much the same from Kyle, and variations on do no harm from Clark and Bruce. Oliver scrubs at his face again.] What do you want me to tell you?

[A shrug. He'd been oddly docile the entire conversation. She couldn't even maintain a solid glare. How boring.]

I've heard the whole story from his perspective. Kyle filled me in on a little more. I want to hear it from you.

[He's too tired for dramatics, too certain of his own guilt to protest innocence. Oliver tugs his gloves off entirely, looking out past the edge of the roof to the cityscape. He misses Starling, its warehouses and sky scrapers with highways painted through them in the dark.]

I... He found me in an alley going after some kedan. I made threats to do worse, he took me out to one of the burned-out villages somewhere on the turtle. It was snowing. He took my boots so I couldn't leave, and told me we were staying until we'd... [A small gesture at nothing. It's all events without emotion.] Until things were fixed.

[Oliver goes quiet, his focus drifting to the memory of firelight and cold. He blinks.] I tried to run, but there... I didn't get far. We didn't talk much. I didn't have anything to say.

[Admittedly, a darker version, but it mostly matched up with what she already knew. The part about the shoes was new, though.]

Yeah, Jack has this thing against shoes, apparently.

[A weak joke? Possibly.]

What were the kedan doing?

Nothing to deserve what I was doing.

[He tucks his gloves into a pocket.] I wanted to hurt them. He stopped me.

Well, at least we agree on that much.

[Wow, Ollie. Wow.]

He was right to stop you. I mean, doing the whole vigilante thing is sort of what we all do...and, yeah, okay, sometimes it's even fun. But actually wanting to hurt them? Kind of a problem.

[He braces his elbows on his knees, and his fingertips against the bridge of his nose. A growl:] I know that.

[The point has been made through repetition if nothing else.]

I can't change it. I wanted to hurt them. Sometimes I still do. [He gives Zatanna a level look, unsure what he's trying to do here. Drive her off, maybe.] I'm a murderer. It's part of the package.

[It might be more convincing if he didn't sound so bitter.]

[She probably should've been scared. Except she wasn't. And to prove that point, she approached. Cautiously--she might've not been scared, but she also wasn't stupid. Her hands were lowered and her eyes remained fixed on him to show she had no intentions of attacking.]

[Her next words were soft and low:]

Were you always a murderer?

[He raises an eyebrow, looking up at her sideways. A little surprised by the approach, but not enough to move.]

No. [The word comes out like a shrug.]

[Good life decisions: she doesn't always make them.]

So something changed you.

Maybe something else can change you back?

[The start of a laugh, though he cuts it off.]

No. [This time it's more solid, absolute.] It isn't that easy. And it's a part of who I... It's part of what I do.

[She doesn't think it's that absolute. Then again, she doesn't understand the severity of what happened to him and the true purpose of his 'mission']

Murdering people is what you do, and there's nothing you can do to change it.

[Slightly paraphrasing, to make sure she's up to speed with the conversation.]

Do you even hear yourself right now?

Protecting my city is what I do, and if that means killing people, I kill them.

[It's a minor correction, but significant to him.] I give them a chance to correct their mistakes. One.

ZATANNA - EARTH SECTOR

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