Who: Ivy!Brielle, Selina!Wren, and Bruce!Luke (+ NPCs) What: Dealing with Brielle's husband does not go according to plan. (part 2) Where: Brielle's apartment. When: Continuation of this. Warnings/Rating: Violence.
All discomfort aside, Ivy wasn't much for writhing and wincing when forced flat against a wall. The gun at her back wasn't even as worrisome as the one in the bedroom had been earlier. These men seemed like professionals over ice, which Ivy found typically bought her more time than the shaky hands of a nervous thug who didn't know what he was doing. Time was a good thing, especially with the news coming in from behind them that the husband was potentially dead. Selina's expression of displeased shock was countered with a twitch of dark eyebrows and a faint shrug to porcelain shoulders. In the way a child would feign ignorance with wide eyes and a befuddled, I dunno. In Ivy's defense, when she killed people it was usually intentional.
Ivy could read Selina like a book, and she knew the stirrings of fresh violence a fraction of a second before the dominos fell. The man at her back loosened his grip on Ivy's arm when Selina turned on him with the gun, as if he only now began to fathom that he'd been focusing on the wrong I threat. He collapsed a moment later with a cry of agony, clutching his bleeding wrist. Ivy knelt and collected both guns, the one he'd grappled from her and now his own blood splattered copy. A glance down at the wound showed enough spurting red that Selina probably clipped the man's ulnar artery, and with a tired sound, Ivy pressed the pale linen of her knee against the inside of his elbow. An uncomfortable but effective tourniquet. With a gun pressed beneath his chin, and a whisper in his ear about how quickly he could bleed out if she moved, the man didn't fight her. "Trust me, I'm a doctor."
Common sense or not, Ivy had no intention of diving into the fray of fists, boots, and sporadic bullets. No thanks, she was just fine playing in the far corner of the living room while men went down with glazed expressions, cracked bones, and guttural yelps. It was all very Boys' Club, and while she would have been content with watching on like front row of the World Cup, the occasional pop of a bullet made her leery. She quickly worked the man's belt from its loops and tightened it around his arm, pushing the leather between his teeth like a bit before she scrambled back toward the hallway for cover. Guns still in hand, it took everything she had to grind her teeth and ease her finger away from the trigger when she heard a man falling against the kitchenette counter, sending all of the potted plants that had been so carefully balanced on its ledge shattering to the tile beyond.
Selina recognized the fighting style of the newcomer, rather than the appearance. She didn't have Blondie's help in recognizing Luke Henry, and she only had grainy youtube clips and Brielle's memory to go on. Still, she knew who had joined the fray, and she watched the man fall at her feet as he clutched his neck. "Not bad." She gave herself enough time to glance toward the kitchen when the plants crashed, and she shook her head at Ivy, seeing that grit of teeth. But she only had time for that much before one of the remaining men was slamming her into a wall and taking a swing at her jaw. She almost rolled her eyes at him, because really? The unexpected attack was obviously making them sloppy, and she shot out his kneecap before bringing the butt of the gun against his temple and silencing him temporarily.
By Selina's count, there were only a few men left standing, and she left the battleground to the Bat, striking out with an elbow when someone got too close as she made her way down the hall and into the bedroom, thankful for all the silencers on the guns. The man with the tourniquet was against the wall, trying to stand, and Selina just pointed the gun at him without even looking in his direction. "I wouldn't," she informed him, even as she crossed to Brielle's husband and began unwinding her whip from his limbs. He didn't move, and she couldn't feel a pulse, but admittedly she didn't linger over it. Once the whip was back in her hand, she tucked the gun away, and she didn't even look at Mr. Tourniquet before sending the whip slicing through the air and closing around his good hand, which he was trying to use to reach for her ankle. "I said don't," she reminded him, before gracing him with a kick to the face that would leave boot treads on his cheek. It silenced him, though, and she just stood there and looked down at the very immobile man on the floor of the bedroom, while she waited for the Bat to take care of what was left in the living room and hoping Ivy could control her plant-induced bloodlust. She brushed blood from the corner of her mouth, where it had pooled after a good hit to her jaw that was already threatening to bruise, and she uselessly nudged the nonresponsive man with her boot.
Bruce had trained his body to endure long ago, and it was fortunate that Luke had done the same, albeit having utilized different methods. Regardless, it meant that neither of them tired easily, whereas his opponents were quite obviously not accustomed to coming up against someone skilled and not easily deterred by weapons. Panic made them sloppy as more of their comrades fell, which resulted in bullets being fired seemingly at will. Considering where they were, it was foolish, but not surprising; cowards hid behind guns. Without them, they were nothing. Pain was something he barely felt, and had he had the time to dwell upon it Bruce might have wondered how the boy achieved such a disconnect. But there was not, and as the last man went down in an agonized heap, kneecap smashed, bone splintered, he surveyed the scene with a cool, impenetrable calm. It may have seemed that he was singularly focused on the now-finished fight, but he had noticed other things; Brielle's assistance for the man with the makeshift tourniquet, for example, and, most notably, her reaction to the potted plants, however subtle it might have been.
He rolled his shoulders to ease the tension before turning, following the hallway to the bedroom where Selina and Brielle had gone. Normally he would not have thought either woman was a threat, but circumstances were far from normal, and Bruce knew who they appeared to be was not truly who they were. The matter of the potentially dead husband concerned him, yet he paused nonetheless, regarding the woman impassively as he assessed her condition. "Put them down," he told her, referring to the guns, and his disdain for the weapons was clear. He'd already disassembled the others, after all, rendering them useless. Only then did he continue into the bedroom, sparing a loaded glance for Selina before turning his attention to David. He said nothing, merely crouched beside the body and felt for a pulse with gloved fingers.
While Ivy had no intention of using one of the handguns, she also wasn't exactly clear on when this man strolling through her apartment - as for all intents and purposes, it currently was her's - got to tell her what to do. Striding into the bedroom, she gave Selina a contemplative and somehow momentarily perplexed expression. There was a thoughtful twist to the mouth and a narrowing of hazel eyes as the formula developed, attention oscillating back and forth between Selina and a man. It didn't take a lot of thinking, the way he'd swept out of the dark and taken down a good half dozen men. Even Harley could have gotten this one. Unfortunately, after the fighting and the IDing of unexpected do-gooders came the complicated part. Bare feet led her across the carpet, where she welcomed a bit more light into the room from a lamp while depositing the guns on the bed at last.
"Don't move him!" She snapped when the man crouched beside David, as if the husband was some science project that they were going to destroy with their clumsy hands. Hefting the bloodied white of her dress up in both hands, Ivy settled in at David's side. Bringing her cheek down along his while her fingertips moved gently along the man's throat, searching. After a moment, she sat up and calmly swept the unfamiliar knots of dark hair out of her face while in regard of the others. "He has a heartbeat, but he's stopped breathing.." Rising quickly to her feet, Ivy strode to the closet while hauling the blood splattered dress over her head. "He needs an ambulance, which shouldn't be a problem. I'm certain the police are on their way since somebody decided to start shooting people." The pointed glance befell Selina, who had fired off that first round. Ivy wasn't one to forget, and even if she wasn't dressed, that look could have withered a field of grain. Turning her back on them, she pried a simple green sundress from a hanger and drew it over the top of her head. A second glance noted that nobody had moved in the entire three seconds it took for her to get clothed. "My recommendation would be for none of us to be here when that happens, so.. there's a broken window in the living room, if you'd like to find your way out."
Selina didn't need the look, thank you, and she just shot one back at Ivy that said really? She hadn't fired until they were good and screwed. "He was tied up and screaming when I left him," she reminded the woman in the white dress, and she shook her head. "I didn't do this to him, and If he's not breathing then he'll be brain dead, which you know, doctor. Just the amount of time we've been here talking assures that, and crawling out through a window doesn't change the fact that we're made," she told the other woman, because if it was something Selina knew it was being made. "Why didn't you tell me he'd have a agents as bodyguards? What does this guy even do?" she demanded, and maybe it wasn't time to argue, but not having all the details had turned this from a simple negotiation into something that was going to be very, very hard - no, impossible to wiggle out of. She didn't bother to look at the man at her side, because there was nothing he could say that was going to make this particular situation any better or any worse. The only plus side was with that mask, no one was going to put him at the scene; small blessings. "You think they aren't going to tell anyone what happened?" she insisted, pointing back to the collection of bodies that littered the living room and kitchen. "This isn't Gotham." And she didn't think there was much of a point in concealing anyone's identity. There was no way Ivy was going to think Luke was Luke, and there was no way Bruce was going to think Brielle was Brielle.
Selina groaned, and she slid the whip through the beltloops on her shorts, and she glanced to the broken window and the escape it offered. "You need to get out," she said, turning to look at Bruce. At least that was easy; it was the rest that was going to be a challenge.
Bruce didn’t appreciate being snapped at, and the look in his eyes when his gaze rose to settle on the white-clad form of the woman who should have been Brielle said as much. Very little could compare to a giant Bat, but he managed to embody his usual cold steeliness quite well, despite being in a foreign body. “I’m not going to move him,” he said, each word slow and deliberate, and there was not even an attempt to pretend to be Luke. The boy was a furious, panicked presence in his mind, in no state to regain control even if he’d wanted to. He pulled his fingers back from the man's throat with silent disappointment, Ivy's declaration telling him nothing he did not already know. He let her words wash over him, contemplating the sheer depth of the situation, as he did with what Selina said, none of which helped their predicament. His mask ensured that Luke would not be implicated, but what concerned Wren concerned him, and he was now very much involved. Had neither of them, Selina or Ivy, considered that the man might not come alone? How could they have been so foolish, so blind, to think that this was in any way a viable plan of action? Yet, in truth, this did not surprise him. Disappointed him, yes, even angered him, but he wasn't surprised.
"Of course they will." He spoke as he rose from his crouch, making no move to leave through the broken window as indicated. “Regardless of who did this to him, and whether or not the police come now or when his men awaken, you both made yourselves easily identifiable. Selina is right. Leaving changes nothing. Run, and sooner or later they will simply follow.” If this had occurred in Gotham, it would have been much easier to deal with, but it had not, and Bruce didn’t have the same pull here as he did back home, both as himself and as the Bat. Even if David’s condition could be swung as self-defense, his lawyers would be ruthless, and more trouble with the law was the last thing Brielle and Wren needed, considering the former’s outstanding arrest warrant and the latter’s previous legal troubles. If suspicion could be cast upon a masked figure rather than the two women, perhaps they might have a chance; either way, it meant that he wasn’t leaving, not just yet. Frankly, he didn’t trust either Selina or Ivy to not simply cut their losses and kill the remaining witnesses. Dead men told no tales, after all, and they were already in far over their heads. “I need to get out,” he repeated, incredulous. “I am the only one none of these men can identify. What are you going to do?”
It certainly wasn't time to argue about what could have been done differently, and Ivy didn't buy into the Cat's line of questioning. She simply paced around the husband's unmoving body, all eyes for the fallen man even as plans failed to develop around her. She was probably going to have to give him CPR in a moment. Mouth-to-mouth, she grimaced and closed her eyes to try and keep from laughing. Her, Poison Ivy, the resuscitator. Oh, sweetest of ironies. "Brielle is already made, she was made from the beginning because this is her apartment." There was a twist of elegant fingers as she lifted her palm in display, end of subject. "That is done."
Moving for the doorway of the bedroom, Ivy cast a long glance down the darkened hall. Nothing and nobody stirred. "I don't know who they are, who is to say what they do is even legal? They might not talk at all," she said on a shrug while returning to the matching duo of black. She could feel Brielle in her head like a distant echo down a long well, screaming and weeping. Ivy rubbed a pair of fingers over her left eye, tired. "I do know that the longer we wait to contact the authorities, the more guilty she is going to seem. And, I very much doubt that many people knew that Wren and her were in contact once again. It has been months of irreconcilable differences.. they might not make you," she said eying Selina with cool eyes that reflected a kind of sadness before the muse straightened her posture with a shrug. "In the dark, you could be any hot tramp with transvestite boots." There was a glance down at the husband again, "In which case we'll just have to let him asphyxiate, he's the only one who could truly ID you." She was banking on brain damage already, and reflecting back on the strike she'd given to the back of his head, it was probably due to some cranial hematoma.
In the distance, sirens wailed, and Ivy glanced back up at them both expectantly.
Selina didn't like feeling tricked, and she didn't like feeling trapped. It was why she always worked alone, because then the risks were hers, and the careless mistakes were hers and no one else's. She looked down at the man on the floor, knowing killing him wasn't an option, but knowing that Ivy was right; he'd known Wren on sight. "Says the flat-chested bride," she muttered in response to Ivy's slur, but it was half-hearted; Selina was already thinking it through. She could get Blondie to dye her hair, get her to give up thigh highs and halter tops, sure. There was no way someone could go without breathing as long as the man on the floor had, not without brain damage. Being identified by him was a long shot, and maybe they just didn't tell Blondie unless the threat seemed likely. Luke was fine; no one was going to recognize him in that gear, and Selina hoped Jack hadn't rented this apartment in Blondie's name, because that might be a problem. But not if Brielle disappeared, conveniently.
Selina glanced at Ivy over the man on the floor, even as the sirens neared, and she wondered what the real goal had been here. "You have to leave. Brielle, she has to disappear. It's the only way. Get papers somewhere else. Come back once it's cooled." Which she knew Ivy wasn't going to like in the slightest, but Selina couldn't see another out that didn't end with one (or all) of them in jail or insane, and that's what she'd been trying to prevent in the first place. "And we all need to get out of here before those sirens get here."
The situation had been handled so poorly that Bruce wondered what Ivy’s true intentions were, unaware that Selina was contemplating the same. Had she held back information willfully, in order to leave her compatriot in the dark, or had she been just as unaware that Brielle’s husband would bring underlings in his wake? Instinct made him suspicious by principle, but he made no accusations, asked no questions, as now was not the time. And, in truth, it didn’t matter. Whether this was what Ivy had wanted or not didn’t change that it was reality now, and they could do nothing to alter the events which had led here. “Their presence here is questionable,” he agreed, referring to the sprawling of men he’d left in the living room, all so silent now. “But we can’t assume they will keep quiet. Precautions need to be taken as though they might.” More for them rather than himself, as he was protected by anonymity. “No one will believe that Brielle was solely responsible for this,” he continued. “Even for two women, it’s easily cast into doubt, but whether she is the only one identified or Wren is as well, there is no way to avoid some sort of retribution.”
His gaze turned cold again when Ivy suggested that they allow the man to asphyxiate, and his voice was tightly coiled disgust, regardless of Luke’s insistence that he let the man die, let him die, better him than Wren.. “No.” The sirens were drawing nearer, but Bruce crouched next to the fallen man again, ignoring the boy’s struggles within, and began chest compressions, likely too late, but it was better than nothing until the police arrived. “Maybe,” he said coolly as he worked, “you should ask Brielle which course of action she would prefer, as she is the one who will be left to face the consequences.” He looked up, and it was entirely the Bat behind the mask, wrong body or not. “Your actions may have killed a man. You put not only yourselves at risk, but two innocent women, who will suffer for your mistakes regardless of what happens. This is not your world,” he said, and it was practically a snarl. “People are not toys. You are not immortal. Pretend you have some sort of regard for life, at least.”
The sirens were loud, almost upon the building, and Bruce stood with a supreme amount of effort. It was not all his, the anger; it was Luke’s too, and that was what made it so dangerous. He’d wanted the boy to return, to regain control, but not like this. He turned, acutely aware that he needed to remove himself from the situation, towards the window he’d come through without shattering glass, stepped onto the sill, and glanced back, prepared to haul himself upward and out of sight once he was sure the others had similar escape routes.
Pretend. "Oh, Batman," the brunette whispered. A sad and patronizing kind of thing where her eyes actually seemed to glimmer in the artificial light. Ever the fool, yet unmoving. Held in such esteem because he operated on some strange plane of morality where the lives of one were worth the lives of twelve thousand. He was correct in suspecting that Ivy had already contemplated killing every unconscious man in the other room to save themselves. That is certainly what a survivor would have done, and she was nothing beyond that. The reason she hadn't suggested or even acted on it was the knowledge that the man.. and maybe the woman she stood beside would not allow it. Even if Ivy refused the truth, some part of herself wouldn't allow it either. When the man in black knelt down to begin chest compressions, Ivy's expression disintegrated into one of utter disbelief. "Yes, by all means.. bring him back. Bring back the man that will set us," and this us was extended to the Cat and herself, "in a cell. I know I won't be missed by the likes of you," to hell with this Bat. She hated him on his misguided principles, he hadn't grown a fucking inch. "But if you want your Cat to go absent in an incarcerated mind, please continue.."
Ivy was already moving for the door. The two of them could stand around debating the situation, but she was out of here. If Selina wasn't smart enough to follow, that was her problem. She tossed a regretful look the blond's way, knowing that the Cat should have wisened up and been out the door five minutes ago, but was still hanging around for the Bat's input. "Brielle wouldn't say anything, because if it was up to her, she'd be on this floor with a bullet in her chest fifteen minutes ago." Hazel eyes moved back and forth between the two for a moment, feeling judgement from all sides when, in case the Cat forgot, this hadn't even completely been Ivy's plan to begin with. "To hell with you both." Vanishing down the dark hall, Ivy headed for the busted window. She would have to scale a ledge to a neighboring fire escape, but she was up for the challenge.
Selina listened to the lecturing, which was admittedly ill-timed given the situation at hand. She'd never had regard for her own life, but regard for lives in this desert had forced her hand tonight, and she didn't bother reminding Bruce of that. He always thought the worse of her, in every situation. After seeing that movie she thought maybe he could grow out of that; the movie version of him certainly had, and she hadn't done anything as egregious as hand him over to have his back broken. But, no, he lumped her right in with Ivy and her thorns, and that stung. As for Ivy, the Cat was stuck feeling the same way she always felt with the redhead; she had no idea whether to trust her or not. If it was clean cut, if she was sure Ivy couldn't be trusted, then she never would have walked into the apartment. But it wasn't as simple as that, and maybe she just wanted to give Ivy the benefit of the doubt. The information Damian had given her certainly implied that was the case. But tonight, tonight she felt betrayed, and wronged, and she was fairly certain she and Ivy would both be rotting in the back of Wren's and Brielle's minds in prison. The kitty cat wasn't feeling very positive, and she just wanted to go lick her injuries in peace and quiet.
She waited for the Bat to retreat, and she watched Ivy vanish down the hall, and then she made for the kitchen, where she climbed onto the counter and slipped out the window, just as the front door was broken in by those sirens that had been drawing ever nearer. She'd steal that Hopper, and it would make her feel free, she decided. It might be the last time she got a chance to breathe the night air, and she was going to make the most of it. Maybe she'd make sure Blondie got a little time with that kid, before everything went down. Because Selina was pretty sure nothing was going to get better after this.
If Ivy’s words had any effect at all, Bruce gave no sign of it. He watched her expressionlessly, crouched like some sort of oversized shadow on the windowsill, the boy’s anger making him tense. Regardless of what she thought, it was not his intention for either of them to face a future behind bars. He would do whatever he could to prevent that, but not this. Not taking a life. Standing by and allowing the man to die made him as guilty as pulling the trigger, and he would not, could not, do such a thing. “No, Ivy,” he said, almost wearily, even as she turned her back. “By not allowing him to die, I haven’t chosen this man over the two of you. I simply choose life. It’s not for me to take it away, or for you, or anyone else.” He shook his head. “It didn’t have to come to this.” Yet she was gone, and he wondered why he cared, why he bothered to attempt to make any of them understand. That was not the purpose Batman served. He did not need to be understood. He made the choices no one else could make, ones which earned him nothing but hatred and derision. What Ivy thought of him, or Selina, even, did not matter. He was not a hero, after all, nor did he claim to be.
He looked back at Selina once, a brief, fleeting moment of doubt in which he asked himself if he had assumed too quickly, judged too harshly, but she was quiet, and containing Luke was becoming more difficult by the second. As the sirens wailed he turned, rose, and disappeared from the windowsill, scaling the side of the building with ease and let some of the tension loose as he traversed across the rooftops. The sooner Luke returned, the better. Bruce missed Gotham, as strange as it might seem; for all its downfalls, it was preferable to this place. As he’d said, Las Vegas was not their world, and that had been more than proven tonight.