Doug Ramsey (ciphersays) wrote in newalliance, @ 2012-05-13 02:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | batgirl ii, cypher, spoiler |
Worst Day Ever
Who: Doug Ramsey and Stephanie Brown, and Cassie Wayne
Where: Gotham Heights Track Field
When: Mon, May 14, Dawn; and then dusk.
What: A series of unfortunate events.
Rating: PG-13 for now, expected violence
Doug's GPS blocker did the rest. He sat, cross-legged on a section of dirt free from pieces of discarded food and spilled drinks, his eyes closed and his breathing steady, head leaning back slightly. He had been here nearly all night, working at his computer and phone constantly until he could finally find a way to bypass Edward Nigma's programs, and use them to point right back to their point of origin. Once he'd found the Riddler's code, he had to comb it for hours just to make sense of it. The key to Doug's success was hidden deep inside the programming.
As was something else. Oracle. And not just in his computer, in the phone. So he took care of both issues at the same time, able to toggle either off with a keystroke. It had made him angry, but at the same time he understood the hacker's motivations. And it wasn't the genius hacker who worked with heroes he was mad at. It was himself.
He thought he could reach out to Eddie, somehow show him he was capable of being better. Of not having to choose the life he was living. The stupid teenager who didn't even know what to make of his life right now, who had thought he'd been... what, dating? ... Batgirl, someone who could not show him who she was... and he hadn't seen her in weeks. He was an outcast in school, a mutant, a freak. He was a failure.
Shortly after the X-Men had visited, he'd talked with his parents, who decided that his own worsening behavior and now the mutant thing were 'just too much.' Ten minutes, and like that they told him he was on his own. Ten minutes, with not a raised word, just resigned voices and the body language to match. They were afraid of him. Afraid. They were moving to the West Coast, because of course dad had that kind of job flexibility at the company. Doug had the house until the end of the school year. Only, now that he knew it was being watched by Oracle, that wasn't much of an option either.
Here he was, having spent the night in one of the few places that no one could find him, planning to trap a man he had wanted to think of as a friend and a great man. The one person he felt connected to any more was gone, living her important life, doing what was right. He had no family, no friends... or at least people that wouldn't call him friend if they knew the life he'd lived the past few months now. And then the mutants, trying to recruit him for a cause he wasn't sure was his.
Early sunlight cut through the rafters to his eyes, rousing Doug Ramsey from his partial slumber. He held up his hand, spotting the shape of someone running around the bend.