Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-03-08 16:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, black canary, plot: switch |
Who: Luke!Bat and Nell!Canary
What: Hero-ing it up.
Where: Gotham.
When: Near the start of plot.
Warnings/Rating: None. Omg sorry for spamming the comm
The last place Luke wanted to be was in Gotham. After the two-week plague that had kept both him and Wren occupied, not to mention nearly killed her, the timing was horrible; Gus had just been re-adjusting to normal life and now his world was turned upside-down all over again, with no indication of how long this bout of insanity might last. To make matters worse, Jason Todd was playing the role of babysitter, and even if his intentions were good, he still wasn’t the most ideal candidate for the job. Batkids in Las Vegas, normal people populating comic book worlds; it was like something out of a bad movie, but then again most things associated with the hotel were.
Since Bruce in Las Vegas wasn’t something he wanted to deal with just yet, considering how few people were actually in Gotham just then to protect it, Luke decided the only thing to do was to make the best of the situation and hope it didn’t last long. And, of course, ‘making the best of the situation’ constituted putting on a Batsuit that wasn’t his and setting out to protect a city that he shouldn’t have given a damn about, but did. And the suit? Not only did it fit, but its weight didn’t hinder him like he’d expected to. He didn’t have years and years of practice working with the armor, but it didn’t seem to matter; he’d inherited Bruce’s skills in every single way, which meant he wasn’t just some guy putting on the suit.
No, he was Batman. He totally was.
Since Gordon didn’t seem to be around, either real-him or not-him, Luke-Batman stopped by the GCPD to turn on the Batsignal-- just to let people know he was still out there. And yeah, it was kind of awesome. Roaring through the streets on a Batpod? Even better. The police frequency was buzzing in his ear, he had an entire layout of Gotham on his phone, and it felt good. Like he had purpose, and that wasn’t a feeling he had often back in Vegas. But right, yeah, he was supposed to be finding Nell, which meant the Batpod was ditched and he went on foot. Grappling from building to building made up for lost speed, and once he got a definite location on her comm signal, it was a piece of cake from there.
“Hey.” Batman probably never smiled, but Luke grinned regardless, which made him look younger than Bruce truly was. “So, Gotham. This is nuts, right?”
Nell had been expecting to like Gotham more than she did. Her connection with Dinah was weaker than it had been with Arya, and all she really picked up from the other woman were strong feelings. Because of their weird link, the things she recognized were from the movies, and not Dinah, which was disconcerting, to say the least. But this what life was like for her, and all told, Nell knew she was luckier than most. Sebastian was stuck in Paris in the 1800s; at least she had a normal bed and hot water.
Of course, all the comforts of Dinah's apartment weren't enough to keep Nell in for long. She was a superhero here. A former member of the freaking Justice League, and all around badass. If everyone was where they shouldn't be, the godforsaken city would be running wild. Gotham needed Batman for a reason and well, Black Canary was going to help. She went through Dinah's things, and found the Canary costume in the bottom drawer of a chest. It was luckily the version with pants (Nell was used to fighting with real clothes, not fishnets), and it fit her like a glove, almost as though she was the real canary. Who was Nell to argue with fate?
Slipping through the rundown streets of Gotham, Nell squashed the urge to run to the rooftops to patrol. Dinah did hand-to-hand, not archery, which meant she'd need to stick to the ground where she'd be most useful. She'd figured out how to turn the tiny gold earring receivers Oracle had given Dinah on, but had heard nothing but radio silence since. Luke and Nell might actually be the only ones here.
Her friend popped into view without warning, and Nell broke into a smile without warning. He was fully outfitted, just like she was, but Batman was easy to recognize even for those new to Gotham. "It's fucking bonkers. Nice, mask though," she said appreciatively, eyeing Luke's get-up from head to toe. "I can see why people are terrified of you." She looked down at her own costume and shrugged. "I think Dinah aims to disarm with sexy, not scary."
Bruce might not have known Black Canary, but Luke did, and he recognized the costume almost immediately. Even though this was serious business, he couldn’t help nerding out internally over the fact that they were superheroes. Okay, so Batman didn’t have actual superpowers, but whatever. Same difference. Besides, considering pretty much everyone else was currently trying to deal with being in Vegas, he and Nell teaming up made sense. He shared Bruce’s apprehension over leaving the police (without Gordon, even better) alone to defend Gotham against whatever might happen.
“Thanks. It’s not as heavy as I expected,” he said, looking down at himself. “Or, it is, but I don’t really feel it.” He shrugged. He wasn’t about to question whatever made it easier for them to adapt here. “Nice outfit. I bet it works pretty well for her. Batman, on the other hand, could never pull off sexy.” The Catwoman thing aside, because he wasn’t getting into that just then. “So. Ready to fight some crime?”
"Yeah, it's almost like our bodies belong here, even if our brains don't. Does that even make sense?" She paused, before rolling her eyes with a sigh. "Does anything, anymore?" Nell had long stopped being surprised by the weird events that were associated with being on the journals. First there was that madness in Seattle, and now this. She was just hoping to get through it until things came to a close, because so far, they always had. And hey, if she got to run around with one of her oldest friends playing superheroes, where was the harm in that?
She cracked her neck to loosen her muscles. "I don't know, Batman was pretty hot in the movie. In that dark, brooding way." She flashed a grin. "Absolutely. I want to see if I've got Dinah's training. Oh, and the canary cry." Not really knowing what she could and couldn't do made this a lot more exciting than if she had known the full extent of Dinah's abilities. The mystery made her feel like a kid in a candy store. "Where's the best place to find some lowlifes in this town?"
“Makes sense to me,” Luke agreed. “Probably shouldn’t, but it does. It’s like we’re filling the empty spaces they left behind.” Of course, the hotel had caused those empty spaces in the first place, but most things that’d happened so far in Vegas seemed to share the same chaotic sense of disorganization. “Our lives are crazy. I think that’s pretty much a given by this point. Better to just roll with it instead of fighting it, right?” Because really, he could bitch and moan all he wanted, but nothing was going to change the fact that Bruce was going to be the one who walked into Vegas no matter how many times he went back and forth through the door. And not enjoying being Batman wasn’t going to change anything either.
He laughed as Bruce sputtered inside his head at the compliment, but didn’t comment on it. While practicing in the Batcave was nice and all, nothing beat actual, real experience, and he figured the best way to really find out if he had Batman’s skills or not was out on the streets. “Right, the canary cry. Lucky. You might have an actual superpower.” He pulled a face. Would’ve been nice to fly, but no use dwelling on it. As for where to start, that was pretty simple. Since Bruce didn’t shut him out most of the time, he was fairly familiar with Gotham and where crime ran most rampant. “The Narrows. Poorer areas are always more vulnerable, since people are desperate.” He grinned. “I’ll lead the way. Think you can keep up?”
Nell shrugged. "Remind me again how we signed up for this crazy? Because I distinctly remember absolutely no dotted lines." There was no bitterness or denial in her voice; the time for that was long gone. Like Luke, Nell had made peace with her situation. It might have taken her a long time to get there, but she had finally learned that life was a lot easier when she could accept things that weren't in her hands. And as far as the shit the Hotel had pulled on them went, things could have been a lot worse. Nell didn't know much about how Dinah would feel about being in Vegas, but she had a feeling that the canary would go with the flow and want her to do the same. "Rolling with it it is! There are plenty of other things for us to fight anyway."
"Hey, considering the fact that it was gone until the Lazarus Pit dip, I don't know how much of a superpower it is and how much just plain old creepiness." She shuddered. Dinah's feelings about the pit were clear and had been strong enough to pass through the barrier between them. But that was done now, and there were other things to focus on. "Absolutely. Dinah's been Oracle's brawn for long enough that she can take on pretty much anything. You wouldn't happen to know where her bike might be stored, would you?" Nell had only seen the motorcycle in the comic books, and couldn't wait to get her grubby hands on it. "We'd go a lot faster that way."
“I’m pretty sure we got tricked into it somehow.” Sadly, Luke was only half joking. It seemed like they all moved from one brand of crazy to the next, always coming back together under similar circumstances despite years spent apart. There was a sort of solidarity in it, at least, even though he would have vastly preferred normal lives for both himself and his friends. But nothing would be accomplished by complaining or fighting; no, like Nell, he saw that the only thing he could do was adapt and survive. Maybe he was embracing the whole Batman thing a little too much, but that need to act, to protect this city, was his now, and he couldn’t fight it. He didn’t want to. He’d been out of the vigilante game for awhile, and even though he was content to leave it behind in Vegas, things were different in Gotham. “Exactly,” he agreed. Plenty of criminals to find and stop. His streets. His city. Not theirs.
The mention of the Lazarus Pit made him pause. Normally, he felt like it was a personal choice, the Pit, and they shouldn’t be destroyed for the sake of one or two people when death was so prevalent in Gotham. But now... now he felt disgust and fear at the thought, and he wondered if he should seize the chance to destroy them all now, before any could be used again. But-- no, no, that wasn’t his choice to make. “The Lazarus Pits are nothing but trouble,” he sighed. “Too many people have experience with it on this side already. Sucks that Dinah does too.” But he assumed she was fine by now, based on Bruce’s limited experience with her. “Uh... I’m not sure. I’ve got one of the Batpods parked,” he said, jerking a gloved thumb over his shoulder, “but I didn’t see anything else in the Batcave. Oracle’s got her tower thing, though. Maybe it showed up there?”
"Yeah, Dinah's not a fan." Nell knew from the comics that the pit had restored Dinah's cry and her ability to have kids, but even that wasn't enough to change how her headmate felt about the things. Shaking off the effects had probably not been easy, and might not even have been possible had Dinah been anyone but herself. As far as constitutions went, Nell knew that Dinah's was as strong as they got, and was grateful for it. It meant that she could trust them woman to take care of their bodies and brains on this side. And it meant that people in Gotham knew Black Canary, and she'd have to skulk less in the shadows here than she did as Archer in Vegas. Just the thought of that freedom was exhilarating.
Nell walked towards the Batpod, considering. "Looking for it will take too long, and might not turn up anything. Can the pod handle both of us?" She grinned at the idea, remembering the last time the old friends had been thrown together by weird circumstances and gone for a bike ride. "For old time's sake."
Luke was pretty sure that Bruce had never taken anyone on a ride-along with the Batpod, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t capable of holding the extra weight. This would probably fall under what the other man considered ‘inappropriate use’ of his equipment, but whatever. Nell had a point. Looking was just a waste of time better spent cleaning up the streets, especially if their search yielded no results, and he wasn’t exactly in the mood to be patient just then either. “Sure, I’ll give you a ride,” he laughed, memories of past craziness flooding back. Maybe they just weren’t meant to lead normal lives. “For old time’s sake. Funny how these things work, huh?” Thank God being Batman came with having his knowledge, because otherwise it might have taken him a lot of trial and error to figure out how to get the damn Batpod to work.
He’d thought the cape would be a pain in the ass, but really, it was easy to work around once he got used to it, and he swung one leg over the Batpod before settling himself in the seat and flashing a grin. “C’mon. I hope you don’t mind breaking speed limits, because this thing doesn’t exactly follow the rules of traffic.”
Nell made a fist and let out a small "Yes!" Who hadn't dreamed about checking out the Batpod after watching The Dark Knight. That thing was built for speed and awesomeness, and had a turning radius like no other. This was a fanboy's dream come true. "Hey, if we got to go on motorcycle rides every time the world goes belly up on us, maybe we'd stop complaining so much. Let's just enjoy the fact that we're lucky right now."
She grinned as she followed him to the Batpod, and for a moment it was impossible to tell whether the expression was Nell or Dinah's. "I don't think Dinah knows how to drive below 120 miles per hour. I'd feel like I was betraying her if we didn't break a speed limit or five."
“Motorcycle rides definitely make the insanity a little more bearable,” Luke agreed, which was true. It was easier to distract himself from the possibility that they might be stuck here for a while, and he’d probably lose his job back home and find that things hadn’t waited for him while he was gone. And it meant less time missing Gus, less time wondering if the kid was even going to remember who his parents were at this point, or if he was going to develop some abandonment complex as he grew older. Everyone had their own coping mechanisms, and distraction was his. “As lucky as we’ll ever get, I guess.” It may have most closely resembled a motorcycle, but the Batpod was definitely in a league of its own.
The engine revved under his gloved fingertips, and he waited for her to climb on behind him before responding. “For Dinah, then,” he said with a laugh, and then he hit the gas. It took less than five seconds to gain speed, and he leaned forward as the Batpod went faster, navigating with ease; it was a smooth ride, despite the fact that it could easily leave normal vehicles in the dust. Next stop, the Narrows; time to kick some bad guy ass.