yelena belova {has a lot of pockets} (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} alotofpockets) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} chances_rpg,@ 2024-03-17 12:33:00 |
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| Entry tags: | dc: dick grayson (comics), dc: jason todd (comics), marvel: yelena belova (mcu) |
LOG: BATBOYS & YELENA
Who. Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Yelena Belova
When. BACKDATED December 28; late night
Where. The meanrooftops streets of San Francisco
Warnings. VIOLENCE lmao
Why can't Yelena just be allowed to do her damned job?
When. BACKDATED December 28; late night
Where. The mean
Warnings. VIOLENCE lmao
She didn't even need to clear a path, her contact had said. There was a second person on the ground and it was going to give Yelena a very tight window to take the shot from her position on the roof. It had all been carefully calculated and someone on the inside was ensuring the planned path was walked. No other entrances were going to be used because the target was going to be herded, for his safety, to the back. There was a contingency plan, just in case, because the man could not be allowed to leave the mainland. That plan was messier. So Yelena was giving up her weekday evening and night to handle business that she didn't even need the money for. All she needed to do was wait.
Dick, on the other hand, had been spending nights just trying to get a feel for San Francisco in a more solid way. The tone of the crime scenes, the ease (or difficulty) of his preferred method of travel, the way law enforcement worked… all of it was getting filed away the more he explored. And if he stopped some petty (and that not-so-petty one) crimes along the way, all the better for it. This world, he was finding, didn't have the same style of villains as Gotham. It was more in line with Bludhaven and that was both a relief and concerning all at the same time. He had no contacts here and no favors to call in. Bruce's shadow also didn't extend here but even that was both a comfort and a cool chill down his spine.
Running with Jason, though? That had enough familiarity while he learned how to work with this new version of the boy who'd been lost. The boy he and Bruce had failed. Dick paused on a rooftop and squatted, immediately missing the regular gargoyle. They weren't nearly as popular as in Gotham. "I'm not used to things being this quiet on a bigger scale," Dick sighed. And he didn't like that he was inviting trouble just by saying something like that out loud.
"Kind of..." Jason didn't want to say boring, even though it was. The thing was, this was what they were hoping for. This was why they did what they did, so people could live quiet, simple lives without constant crime and danger. This was the kind of place that they wanted Gotham to become and Jason was starting to doubt that, if they managed it, there would be a place left for them there.
That was nothing new. There wasn't really a place for Jason anywhere. Gotham was the closest he'd come, sure, but that was more familiarity than actually loving the city. He sighed. "Uneventful, I guess."
And yes, maybe they were borrowing trouble by commenting on it, but...
His eyes scanned the horizon, out of habit more than any belief that he'd find anything. When he saw a figure in the shadows, though, he nudged Dick and pointed. No one with any honest business would be on the rooftop at this time of night.
Uneventful was a good word for it, even with everyone claiming that magic seemed to run rampant and chaotic. That they'd chosen an apparently-quiet period to get a feel for their new city was just plain smart. Boring, but smart. At the nudge, Dick looked without a word and then frowned. They didn't need words when they'd spotted something wrong because noise just gave them away. While someone out on a rooftop at any time of night was weird, this time of night was suspicious. Add in the positioning and how the figure wouldn't have been seen from above? Dick drifted to the side and--yup. There it was. Light didn't glint off metal that was designed to be stealthy but there was a definite shape that spelled trouble.
The quiet exhale was half sigh of resignation and half sigh of finally. That was terrible, right? Hoping for someone with a gun to get the jump on? He didn't even glance at Jason and just moved; the other man would follow and take the proper track so they had their best chance at stopping whatever this was. The average person didn't deserve a bullet, in Dick's estimation, though he also knew he was being incredibly optimistic. It was probably a good idea to find out what the sniper was set up for but did they have that sort of time? Probably not. And it was a sniper; the way the person was laid out and steady there on the roof? This wasn't an amateur. He threw an object without any additional thought; better to stop the person before anything happened.
Yelena jerked just in time to avoid her hand being, what, impaled? There was an impatient roll of her eyes from behind her mask, hair tucked up under it. In the movement she was making to get away from whatever was deciding to attack her, she checked her watch. Sure. She had time. She wasn't blown yet.
Jason was just as relieved to have something to do as Dick; he moved with the other man, setting himself up to flank their maybe-enemy. He didn't pull out his gun, not yet, but he checked it to make sure that it would come out of its holster easily if he did need it. This could be nothing, or it could be a bad situation that they were getting themselves into unprepared. Either way? It was better than an uneventful patrol around his new city.
He came up on the slight figure as quietly as possible, but she blocked his first hit anyway. She was good. Trained, probably extensively, and obviously not just at sniping. Jason lashed out with his foot, trying to get her off balance with a good sweep of the legs. It was a classic move, but that didn't make it any less useful.
Well that was fucking annoying. Yelena was outnumbered but it was only two-to-one so it wasn't like she was actually concerned, even when both men proved to be skilled. She'd avoided the leg-sweep because that was an easy thing to predict but the whole situation would be made better if she could remove one obstacle from the field. Yelena's feint on the larger man gave her room to make her move on the slighter one. It was a classic Widow move but there was a reason why they leaned on it.
Yelena's foot planted on Dick's thigh to give herself leverage as she came up and swung around to get her thighs around his neck while not losing any of her momentum. She heard the man make a surprised noise but she was already in the motion of throwing him down to the ground. Yelena immediately launched herself at the other man to keep him occupied while she threw an electrified disk at the one in black and blue.
Dick was never going to hear the end of this. He hadn't expected the figure - female, he was certain now - to move the way she did and he was about to get his ass kicked because of that inability to predict what he thought was an unarmed assailant. Years of training had him already moving to get up from the ground when electric pain slammed into him and Dick gasped, body locking up as he went back down. His suit was insulated, to a degree, and whatever had hit him had been aimed straight at the stripe of skin just above the suit collar. Maybe Jason had the right idea with a whole helmet. Pain he could endure; Dick could force himself to keep moving through what should have been debilitating injuries. But electricity seizing up his muscles? He had to wait that out while trying to work through it by sheer, stubborn will.
Okay, maybe it made Jason an asshole, but he laughed.
He defended himself, too, blocking her before she could reach him and throwing a few punches of his own to fend her off, but he definitely laughed as Dick got caught off guard enough to get thrown down and electrified. The first part of that maneuver wouldn't work as easily as him. He was bigger than Dick, taller and broader, and definitely a lot harder to throw to the ground than his lithe partner. The electric disks... he'd probably be okay? He kept most of his skin covered, but it really depended on the voltage.
He wasn't going to tell himself that was all she had up her sleeve, though. There was no telling what surprises she could break out next.
It took a little maneuvering, but he got up close enough to get an arm around her neck and pull her into a choke hold. She probably knew how to get out of it, but it gave him a second to tell Dick, "Rookie mistake, Wing."
Dick heard the laughter and would have flipped Jason the bird (ha.) if he'd had fine enough control over his extremities. As it was, it was a fight to get his arm to work enough to pry the device off and throw it to the side. Panting for a moment, allowing himself a second to remember exactly how the human body worked, he looked up to see Jason get the masked woman into a chokehold. "Bite me," he groused as he pushed to his feet. He'd hold. He had to. They always had to.
She'd gone up against bigger but bigger didn't usually come with talent and it was annoying. She knew how to get out of the hold but actually doing so was a whole other matter and there was still the concern about the other opponent having achieved a vertical stance again. A choice was made. She had to risk the one hand she had gotten up to avoid the current chokehold from becoming an effective sleeper hold but that was the hand that had the best angle to activate her bracelet. Yelena arched against the brick wall of a man and kicked out at the other one on approach, though he easily blocked it. With her twist, Yelena had just enough leverage to jam her fist against the larger man's torso to send a shock of electricity through him.
That was the intent, anyway. The grip around her neck didn't loosen even a fraction and she felt the pressure on her carotid arteries. Yelena made a second attempt, this time a more desperate one against the forearm that was restricting the blood flow to her brain.
Dick narrowed his eyes from behind his mask because it looked like a battle of wills for a good five seconds and the woman's feet went limp first. She was a fighter; he'd give her that much. He knew her thought process: focus on the arm, get free, then worry about the rest. Dick would have done the same. He was glad they hadn't skimped on Jason's nighttime attire and he relaxed just a little as the figure's hands dropped to her sides and her head lolled back just a little. "There it is," he remarked and finished closing the distance. "Also? Shut up, Little Wing." Dick was fairly certain that had there not been two of them to begin with and had Jason not managed to get an arm around her, the fight wouldn't have been over as quickly as it was. A lot of fights happened fast, more so than most people assumed, but this one could have gotten more dangerous. He had to hand it to Jason. Color him impressed.
Jason lowered her carefully, making sure that she didn't hit her head. "Oh, I'm not going to shut up about this for at least a week. She got you."
It had been hilarious, since Dick wasn't actually hurt. If he had been, that would have been completely different. As it was... "What do we have to secure her with? Get some answers once she comes to."
They'd have to be quick. Another thing the movies got wrong was how fast someone actually woke up once they went down.
"What," Dick scoffed, "you don't carry bat-cuffs with you?" He moved to the woman and crouched while simultaneously giving Jason his middle finger. His unoccupied hand reached out and grabbed the mask the woman wore, tugging hard until it slid off. "Ah, fuck." He sighed and straightened, taking a step back but making no other moves. "She's one of us. The 'apartment building' one of us. Not--you know." But he held up a hand to stay Jason. They needed to not make this worse.
Yelena was already coming to but her movement was sluggish to start, instinct driving muscle and mass rather than conscious decision.
"Hey," Dick said quickly, his voice quiet but firm. Green eyes zeroed in on him immediately and he watched her struggle to kick conscious into place. "Easy."
The woman tilted her head just a little and pushed herself to her knees though that was where she stopped. Her head tilted, eyes darting between the two though she looked too in-control to be a cornered animal. "в отставке," she said quietly and quickly. Russian. Vaguely slang for tactical purposes.
Dick moved immediately, grabbing Yelena by the front of her tactical uniform but then suddenly crouched as an explosion happened below and down the block. Without another word, he hauled the blonde up and threw her at Jason, taking off toward whatever had happened. The timing was too coincidental and people likely needed help. Jason could wrangle the woman and figure out what to do with her for the next few minutes while Dick assessed the situation.
Jason caught her easily, moving as soon as he figured out what Dick was doing. He held her in a restraint, safe but a little uncomfortable, and tight enough that she wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon. Sure, he didn't necessarily avoid lethal means, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to do no harm when he didn't need to.
"So what's the job?" he asked. "It is a job, right? Work, not pleasure?"
He had a million other questions to follow, but he'd give her a second to shake the last of it off and answer the first one. Or not. She could decide on the hard way.
"It's always a job," she replied. His grip was secure and it didn't surprise her in the least. Yelena knew at least three ways she could have broken free but she didn't even bother to stay tensed. Honestly, she just felt a bone-deep sort of weariness that had nothing to do with the too-fast fight. "This would have been cleaner if you'd kept your noses out," Yelena added after a moment, tone a little darker but still somehow bland. Either she was a numb sociopath or simply a trained assassin on someone's payroll. Maybe both.
When she spoke again, her voice was lower and maybe it was directed at the both of them. "Вам нужно надеяться, что взрыв убил его." The backup plan had been in place for exactly this reason. If she couldn't get her shot off, if the target deviated, the list was endless within the smallest margin of error. "Can you let go now?" Now she just sounded bored.
"Okay, you're gonna have to slow down. Russian is my worst language," Jason told her. There was just something about it that didn't click right with his brain, enough that he only got about two thirds of what she was actually saying. Luckily, he was good at piecing things together from very little context. "What happens if it didn't? What's next?"
Was Dick heading into even worse danger? Shit, did Jason need to go back him up?
His grip loosened just enough that he figured there was no point in maintaining it at all anymore, by the time he realized that he needed to tighten it again. With a sigh, he let her go.
"But you do understand it," Yelena commented with a mixture of amusement and curiosity in her tone. The Russian accent was light when she was back into English, a near seamless transition and only because she clung to something that was her. If she truly wanted to lose the accent entirely, she would.
She didn't answer until the man released her. Yelena stepped away but was still very easily within his reach--just as much as he was within hers. "Contract kill, yes," Yelena said and tilted her head as she watched him. She could have just not answered, sure, and they could have launched into a true fight if it meant avoiding detainment. Yelena would have held nothing back then and she'd made quiet promises to people already. Murder should have crossed the line but... "He's a dangerous man and can't be allowed to leave the mainland. There are two contingencies. I am the first point. Sniper shot. If that failed," Yelena said, voice neutral though it went flatter at the last word. She'd failed because she hadn't been expecting Random Vigilantes to turn up in a right-place, right-time (according to them) scenario. "Car bomb." She looked off toward where the other man had run across the rooftop and disappeared. "And if that fails?" Yelena shrugged. "Each failure point comes with a larger body count potential."
Yelena looked at him again, vaguely hating how she had to crane her neck but it wasn't like he was the first taller-man she'd dealt with. "I don't know the second contingency. Silos. He's a Yakuza contact based in Hawai'i and deals in human trafficking. I'm a professional, not a monster." Alright, she might have accidentally sounded slightly defensive. But this wasn't Matthew. Yelena was sure he was new, though, and she had a fair idea because coincidences were never random in San Francisco.
"Shit," Jason commented. "We've gotta go. We've gotta... I gotta get to D—Nightwing."
Unlike Dick, the thought of killing someone dangerous didn't phase Jason. If it meant saving someone then, yeah. Jason would cross the line. He'd cross the line for a whole lot less than that, honestly, but he was working with Dickybird now. Closely, this time. He had to play by the rules, at least while they were learning the new turf.
"Do you know the location for the next contingency, at least? Where he's supposed to encounter the target?" That could give Jason what he needed to get to Dick before he could get into bigger trouble than he could handle. Human traffickers usually came with more trouble than just themselves. Contract killers, though?
They'd already ruined her shot. She probably wasn't going to be a threat to anybody else until she got her next job.
Yelena's expression turned flat and unimpressed. "The airport. Nightwing? Really?" Yelena asked and gave Jason the once-over with a raised eyebrow. "Who are you supposed to be? Redwing?" With the man clearly thinking in the right direction, Yelena moved away to collect her things.
"Red Hood, actually," Jason interjected.
"Airport. We can run a parallel if they're on the move," she said with a casual tone as her sniper rifle was packed up neatly and the case was slid between her shoulders in a just-so way. "But I'd recommend following the explosion first. Dick could be trying to pull people out if that's your line of work." Yelena raised an eyebrow at him, daring him to challenge the name use and deny it. "You'll get there faster from up here and I can pick you up from a block East of it if you don't mind being a backpack." Her smile turned placid and she waited for him to make a choice. "Or you can go it alone and I can meet you both later. Like I said. Contingencies." She clearly wasn't worried.
Jason hesitated, just for a second... but his gut said to go with it. "Yeah. I'll see you there, block to the east of the explosion."
And with that he was off, trusting the contract killer he'd just met with lives. Not the worst call he'd ever made, honestly.