tushanshu_logs | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Characters: Oliver Queen, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Rikki Barnes, Zatanna Zatara, Steph Brown, OPEN TO OTHERS.
Date: Starting early April and serving as a catch-all log for general threads during the month.
Location: EVERYWHAR.
Situation: EVERYTHING...?
Warnings/Rating: None at the moment, will change as necessary.

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[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.

[She falls quiet for a moment. Pressing her lips tightly together, the only outward sign of hesitation. Her posture remains otherwise relaxed, if still a bit cautious.]

Vigilantes...don't kill.

It's what my dad always taught me.

[If she sounds uncertain, it was only because different universes = different rules, and she's smart enough to acknowledge that.]

Maybe other vigilantes don't. [He hasn't had contact with them in his world - he wouldn't know.] Your vigilantes don't.

[He can't say he has no choice when he swore, here, not to kill. Oliver shrugs.] I do.

[She wants to understand, but this was just like whenever she talked with Kyle about magic. It was hard to see things from such a different perspective than the one she'd grown up with.]

How do you...you know...decide?

Even you can't just go around killing anybody you feel like.

[A small smile.] 'Even' me?

[Oliver hesitates, long enough that he looks like he's going to sit there without answering at all. Then he reaches into his jacket and draws out his father's book, small, brown, water-stained and ragged. He holds it out.] Usually it starts here.

[Well, that explains...very little. She's tempted to reach out and take it, the urge to flip through the pages in search of whatever answer he was trying to give near irresistible.]

[Somehow, she resisted.]

A book.

My father's book. [Which doesn't explain much more. He turns it over in his hands, when it becomes clear she isn't going to take it.] He left it to me and told me to use it to right the wrongs that had been done to our city.

[He holds it up again, then tucks it back into his jacket.] So, the book is where I start.

So...you decide who lives and who dies...based on a book.

[The words come out slow and careful. She doesn't want to offend him, but when it was put in its simplest terms, it sounded even more ridiculous than the idea of him picking and choosing himself.]

The people named in it are criminals - arsonists for profit, assassins, slum lords, crime kingpins. Each and every one of them has had some part in driving Starling into the ground. I give them the chance to make amends. More of them do than don't any more.

[Not all, but most.] If I don't have to kill them, I don't kill them. If they won't stop hurting people... [He shrugs, getting up again.]

What else can I tell you? [It's rhetorical.]

[...okay, that was a little less psychotic than he had previously made it sound. She still didn't like the idea of killing, no matter who they were. Fight them, yes. Taken them down, yes. But murder?]

Are any of them here? The people in your book.