Max Main ≡ Lois Lane (bylined) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-01-08 15:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | lois lane, nightwing |
Who: Max and Roger
What: Relocating and newspaper delivery Seriously
Where: Hamartia -> Bathos -> Aubade -> Warehouse (With bonus zombie!bites in between!)
When: During this mess
Warnings: Reavers being Reavers
Roger wished he had his Nightwing getup on him. When the first wave of Reavers hit, he was just getting off work and looking forward to a night of sweet vegetation in front of his tv. The week had been stressful with rescuing those little girls and he really just wanted to take the night off. He was even going to ignore that little voice in the back of his head that itched and scratched until it got him to suit up and go looking for trouble. He was even going to order some Chinese. But, no. A Reaver woman who looked coked out and dressed like she was about to hit the shittiest bar in the city grabbed his arm, pulled him close and then with a drooling snarl, smashed him into a brick wall. He remembered looking in her eyes and realizing almost immediately with quiet dread that she was not a normal street hoodlum. No, this was different.
Fifteen minutes later he was swerving down the streets of Seattle, listening in on the comm conversations and doing his best to cut off Reavers so people had time to run. Even on the cycle, it was pretty impossible. He was out numbered by one to what felt like a thousand and there was so much chaos that he couldn’t direct people to safety. And, despite all his instincts, he knew this wasn’t the best time to be a hero. He had stared down mooks with guns, but situations like this felt completely out of his control. Roger couldn’t stand that.
It was actually a blessing that Max let him help her out. If his need to save people wasn’t given a direction, there was a good chance he’d be swallowed up and torn apart by the mobs. The effort was a selfish one, too, since his first priority was to make sure Bat’s family was safe. He had seen Robin in action and knew that he could take care of himself. Usually, the same could be said about Max, but she was carrying the Bat’s kid. It was his duty as a friend of both of them to make sure nothing bad happened to her.
He caught sight of her truck and jumped his bike up on the sidewalk next to it. A Reaver lunged at him immediately, but Roger took his helmet off and smashed the monster’s face in. There was a visible moment of hesitation since he didn’t feel right killing it, but he also didn’t know if these things could ever be people again.
Max had just finished putting the papers out and had been texting with Mason when Roger pulled up on the bike, and she hadn’t seen one Reaver in the five minutes she’d been waiting. It had lulled her somewhat, and she just looked up when the Reaver lunged at the parked bike. “Shit,” she cursed, opening her door and lowering the window in one move, pointing her gun through the open space, while using the doorframe as a shield. She watched Roger smash his helmet against the Reaver, and when the thing showed no signs of being taken down by that alone, Max pointed her gun one of its shins, and she pulled the trigger.
The sound the creature made was inhuman, a screeching that made her think it was a woman, and Max slid back in the truck, all the way across so Roger could make a run for the open door and drive. Her heart was racing, but she was outwardly calm. Inside, she was panicked. She hadn’t heard from Thomas, she couldn’t be sure that Luke wouldn’t get hurt by whatever had attacked Quinn. Corbinian was probably out doing god knows what, and everything she’d seen at the hospital led her to believe these things were the fabled Reavers that had gone insane when crossing over from Musings.
Roger held his bike helmet up over his head, ready to smash the Reaver again, when it went limp under him after the sound of gunfire. He looked up to see Max and broke into a sprint to get into the truck before attracting any more attention. His bike was probably going to be thrashed by the end of this, but it wouldn’t the first time one of his motorcycles got totalled. Slamming the truck door shut, he turned his head to look at her.
“What are those things?” The only information he received was that they were dangerous and mindless. He knew if anyone knew what the problem was, it would be her or Oracle. Roger hadn’t been in Humanity for even a year now, so for all he knew, these monsters were a well-known, maybe even semi-regular thing. Events like this were completely unheard of back in Musings.
She waited until he pulled away from the sidewalk before talking. “We have to hit Bathos and Aubade first. I’ve got warning editions to get out,” she told him, and it was clear from the way she said it that it was too important to her for him to talk her out of it. “What I got from the hospital was that they’re definitely Creations, because they can immobilize people and be invisible. But I think they’re those Reavers,” she added, looking to see if he showed any signs of recognition before continuing. “I first heard them about six months ago, but there was no real confirmation they existed. The story goes that sometimes people get fucked up when they cross the portal, and they turn into these cannibalistic things. They’re supposed to live in the south, in small groups, away from society. This isn’t the fucking south, and these aren’t small groups isolated from shit,” she said, unnecessarily. “I don’t think anyone thought they were more than myths before now, and I don’t know of any scientific studies done on them.”
She was about to say something else, but they were approaching Redmond, and the sight in front of the truck made her go shock-still and quiet. In the center of the road, a Reaver was crouched over a woman in the center of the street, and he seemed to be eating her as she screamed and pleaded for mercy.
Roger’s hands gripped the steering wheel and twisted around the plastic. “If this lasts all night, the military is gunna do something about it and they’re not known for being particularly light handed.” He remembered a riot back in New York that wasn’t nearly as dire, but ended with a lot of fires, confusion and victims. “If not there’s going to be looting. Violent crimes. Shit like that. Don’t know what’s worse.” These were all things they already knew, but Roger needed to think out loud to get his head straight. This kind of situation left him feeling angry and useless, but a little foresight and maybe a plan usually helped remedy that.
Suddenly, there was a dying woman in front of him; desolate in the middle of the street with a Reaver. The pavement might as well have been a silver platter, because no one was going to help her. Everyone, including them, had to worry about themselves before a stranger. Still, his hand was on the door. He thought for a split second that he’d have enough time. Just run out there, grab the woman and then get back to the mission at hand. But, it only took a second for the Reaver to claw her stomach open, reach inside and tear out her insides. The woman gurgled and then died as the Reaver continued eating. Roger took his hand off the door and sped off towards the Bathos complex. He wasn’t going to let that happen to them and unfortunately it meant making allowing the sacrifice of people he did not know.
Max turned her head and watched the woman, the now dead woman, and the Reaver through the rear window of the truck until they were out of sight, and she didn’t turn back around until they were nothing but specks in the distance. “They had called in the National Guard by the time I left the hospital,” she told him, once she could finally manage to speak again. Her hand on the gun was shaking, and she put the firearm on the dashboard with the safety on. “If those things are contagious,” she started, fully intending to tell him to shoot her in the head, but her hand moved to her stomach, and she cursed as she looked out the passenger’s window. “We’re fucked, aren’t we?” she asked, looking back over at him. “Creations. They’re going to track this down to mutant freaks, and we’re going to be fucked, even if it isn’t contagious.”
Bathos was coming into view just over his shoulder, and it looked relatively quiet. There were no Reavers in sight, and she was hoping it would be an easy thing to grab the stack of papers tied together in the trunk and move them to the lobby. “Pull up close?” she asked him, already reaching for the gun again.
Roger slowed the truck, turning off the headlights as it got closer to Bathos and then gently angled it as close to the sidewalk as he could. “Should I come with you?” Admittedly, he didn’t know what went into getting editions out. He imagined it involved just throwing papers at the front door, but it was worth asking just to make sure. If this was going to take her more than a couple seconds, he was going to tag along, just for the sake of safety. A lot could go wrong in such a small amount of time.
She reached into the glove compartment, and she pulled out a very illegal concealed weapon, and she pushed it across the seat at him. “Just keep the door open and the engine running,” she said, taking her own gun as she opened the door and got out. It only took her a second to climb into the truckbed and grab a large stack of papers, and an added second to jump down again. The front of Bathos was a mess, and she didn’t even have to worry about using her key or getting buzzed in the mostly non-existent front door. She raised her gun, because something had obviously made it inside, and she threw the papers in without going in beyond the entrance.
She didn’t see the Reavers on the truck until after she turned.
Roger was trained to not like guns. He had never really given them much thought back when he was going through police academy, but Batman had always been so against them. He remembered the last time he pointed a gun at someone and Batman (despite being injured) stepped out in front of him to prevent Luke’s assailant from being shot. That’s how serious he was about it. But, Roger didn’t have his Nightwing gear and he certainly wasn’t prepared to brawl with the Reavers the same way he would with some street thug.
“So lucky I’m not a cop.” Roger teased and took the weapon. The problem with sitting inside of the truck was that his line of sight was skewed. Sure, he was probably safer and could make for a much better get away, but there was still a high risk of something getting the jump on them. He watched her carefully as she got to the door and prepared himself to just drive away, but then there was a suddenly howl. Like a pack of wolves, a chorus of more screams rose up that sounded both painful and hungry. “Shit shit shit.” Roger tore his car door open only to come face to face with a male Reaver. Stringy, black hair was pressed against a perpetually sweaty scalp. Teeth were bared with caked blood across its purple lips. Roger exhaled and fired the gun into its stomach. The Reaver twisted in pain and lunged. Roger shot again and it went limp against his body.
He just shot something- someone- to death. Maybe it was just a monster that needed to be put down like a rabid dog, but it still made his head spin. Dizzy and more angry with himself than the entire horde of Reavers, Roger climbed onto the truck and started just brawling with the Reavers. His gun was lost somewhere around the driver’s side of the car and the Reavers had turned their attention on him like a meal was just dropped in their laps. Stupid, this was so stupid of him, but he didn’t want Max to get hurt and he didn’t want to shoot anything either.
Max didn’t feel the dislike of guns that Roger did, which was something she and Thomas disagreed on vehemently. Still, there was no way she was letting one of those fucking sonsofbitches eat her or Roger. She could deal with her conscience later, when they were both alive (all three of them, really). She took a moment to check the perimeter, the odds of survival, and the best angle of approach. Then she took a moment to think about how pissed the fuck off Thomas would be if he knew what was going. And then she moved.
Roger was already outside the truck by then, engaged in unarmed combat with three targets. Not Creations, not people. Targets. Then, she moved forward, around the front of the truck, where the hood offered the best cover for the longest period of time, and she unloaded her weapon. Shots low, to the back, mission goal to remove all possibility of movement. It worked on one of the Reavers, but the other two apparently had abilities that made them immune, or they were just too fucking stubborn to fall. One turned on her, while the other kept on Roger, and it only managed one good claw at her arm before she was smashing it across the face with the pistol butt, blood splurting from its nose.
The Reaver hadn’t gone done with the pistol butt to the nose, and Max had the realization that this was exactly the kind of shit Thomas was worried about. They were going to fucking lose. It was as simple as that, and she was pretty fucking close to hyperventilating, even as she brought the pistol butt down against the Reaver’s temple.
Roger felt himself go into a bit of a frenzy. He snapped limbs, shoved bodies off the truck and indiscriminately wailed on anything that got close to him. Still, the sharp pain of his skin being ripped open and the swarming bodies still grabbing for him made him understand that this could be a battle he could lose. They were down to two moving Reavers. Roger grabbed the one on him by the shoulders and headbutted it like a Texan at a barfight. It slumped to the floor of the truck bed and Roger dragged the body off before leaping down and sweeping the legs of the Reaver that was going after her.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Roger gasped for air, wiping away blood on his forehead and then made sure she got into the car safely. He trotted to the other side of the truck, picked up the discarded gun and then carefully placed it on the seat next to him. The car started back up and he flicked the lights on. Even though they had only been off the road for a short amount of time, chaos was boiling over. More dead bodies in the streets. Stores and building defaced and broken into. Alarms sounding on every corner. Chaos that he hoped would never turn into a complete standstill. He had seen movies like this. The worst part was when there was no one left.
“Are you hurt?” Roger finally asked, throwing a hurried glance her way. He was probably much more worse for wear, but he had a lot more fight left in him. He could take more than a couple more hard punches, but she couldn’t. It was strange knowing how tough Max could be, but how fragile she was now. Roger obviously didn’t like babying her or even asking if she was hurt, but he knew she wasn’t the only person he needed to be worrying about.
She shook her head, even as she clutched at the marks on her arm, nails and teeth, because those were nothing compared to how he looked. “I’m fine. Unless we’re both going to turn into those things,” she said, true horror in her voice at the thought. She cleared her throat, tried to find that detached place where all this shit was happening outside herself, and she almost managed. “We’re just throwing the Aubade ones out,” she said, because she could get to them through the window at the back of the cab, and there was no way they were stopping this fucking truck again.
Her hands were a mess of blood from the Reaver’s face and bits of cartilage from its nose, and she left bloody handprints on the seats as she climbed over the seat and into the extended cab (with some difficulty). She made eye contact with him through the rear view. “What the fuck happens if we start going nuts, Roger?” she asked, and she was hoping he had a better fucking outlook than she did at the moment. A Reaver rolled across the hood, jumping into the road without stopping, and behind them someone chased the truck, begging for help as one of the creatures grabbed them from behind.
“If I start going crazy, I want you to throw me out of the truck.” Roger glanced down at the gun. “Or shoot me dead. Whatever it takes to stay safe. You gotta promise me.” He sighed and realized there was a chance she would turn and that he wouldn’t be able to kill her or push her out of the truck. “I’ll find a way to knock you out if you-” he paused, looking for the right word, “turn.” There wasn’t going to be an argument about that. He’d never forgive himself if he killed her if she turned into a Reaver. No one would.
“We’re going to be fine. It’s going to be okay.” Roger’s voice was filled with assertion as if he was trying to change the universe with just a command. He didn’t know if they’d be okay. He didn’t even know how long he’d be human before he turned into one of them. But, if he didn’t keep striving to reach their goal of safety, he’d get sloppy. One more fuck up and he’d be lucky if he got out of a fight with all of his parts still attached.
She smiled at the assertion, even through she really didn’t believe any of it, and even though she knew he didn’t believe it either. She leaned forward and put a hand on his shoulder from the seat behind him, which was pretty affectionate for her. “If you weren’t here, I would have been toast two apartment buildings back.” She would have been, too, and she knew it. She held his gaze in the rear view mirror a moment longer, and then she sat back as Aubade’s gates came into view.
The gates were wide open, and the front glass doors and wall panes on the building were long gone. “Well, at least when he bitches at me, I can tell him I could have ended up just as dead if I had stayed at home.” That was the rub, wasn’t it? Being out here, it really wasn’t any less safe than being inside a building, not if the damn things got in. She opened the window connecting the cab to the truck bed, and she crawled through it, even while he was still driving. “You better comm him, because once you two drop my ass off, you’re going to meet up with him and work together. I don’t care if you do push each other off every building in Seattle; it’s safer than working alone tonight.”
She threw the papers out, trying to get them as close to the building entrance as she could with the ache in her arm, and she stared up at the roof corner for just a minute. Then she was slamming the cab window closed and crawling back onto the front seat. “My warehouse,” she said, because she wasn’t going to go to the paper now, not if she might turn, and at least she could defend the warehouse, if it came to it. She had transportation there, too, if she needed to leave, and a connection to the forums. She held her arm, and she flexed her hand, and then she brushed some blood off his neck to see the bite mark there. God, they were so fucked.
“We’re better. Not perfect. Better.” Roger said, about Bat. He didn’t really know how else to put it. Whether it was a common need to protect the same people or the fact that they just understood each other a lot better than the other vigilantes. If Bat needed an extra hand, Roger would always be there for him. He’d always do everything in his power to get the job done because he believed in the work they were doing. “And, you gotta promise to have your comm on at all times. You better believe we’re both going to be checking in on you all the time even if you sure as fuck don’t need it.” He smiled a little bit into the mirror and then went back to driving.
In the moments between driving to the warehouse, Roger started to feel the several different aches and stings the Reavers had caused. Her hand on his neck made him acutely aware of how likely it would be that he would turn if these bites really were infectious. Even if they weren’t, Roger foresaw them not healing for a couple weeks. As they approached the warehouse, Roger slowed the truck and turned the lights off. “If you got a flashlight, don’t use it unless absolutely necessary. I’m guessing they’re attracted by sound and light.” Wild animals were the same way. “You take point, I’ll watch your back.” She had the gun, after all. He could wrestle surprises away from her and she could take down targets from a distance. After hopping out of the truck, he quietly comm’d Bat to give him their location.
She was grateful to see that the warehouse was quiet and she hoped that meant it hadn’t been noticed by anything yet. The row of buildings was dark, and it was possible those things only went near lights; his caution about the flashlight was a good one. She reloaded her gun, and she got out of the truck and lead the way. She saw movement, once or twice, out of her peripheral, but nothing jumped out at them, and she opened the warehouse door with shaking, hurried fingers and walked in. She met Nightwing’s eyes. “He has other things to worry about,” she told him, thinking back to her conversation with Oracle about Kyle dropping everything to come for her. “Now, go,” she said, giving his shoulder a shove and locking up behind him.