Cassandra (predicted) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-02-20 22:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | batgirl, lois lane |
Who: Max and Quinn
What: Quinn goes to see Luke, meets Max instead. Girltalk ensues.
Where: Aubade 506
When: Saturday morning
Warnings: None
Daylight wasn’t a completely unwelcomed sight like it usually was, rather the night had cleared her head enough to feel ready to face the day. Every day started like this now, willing herself to stand and move aching limbs. The wolf had left before the dawn and she let him go, pretending to be sleeping through his departure. Dragging herself to her feet, she set out from the empty, abandoned building and limped her way across town. She didn’t have money on her for a cab or to take a bus, so Quinn walked from the back alleys all the way to the shining pristine building of Aubade.
For a brief period, Quinn hesitated outside of Aubade. She wanted to see Luke before she went home and faced Gwen. Lord only knew how much screaming she would endure from Gwen for pulling a disappearing act. It was better to talk to Luke face to face before she had to head home, although she probably should get herself checked out. Quinn pulled the threadbare, thrift store army green sweater over her hands as she headed in to Aubade.
The doorman still knew Quinn well enough to let her go upstairs with no issues. She took the elevator up to get to the front door and carefully knocked with a sweater covered fist.
Max was awake early, as was her tendency most days. The morning maid hadn’t arrived yet, Thomas had left for work, and Luke had made it home as the sun rose. When the knock on the door came it surprised her, since no one had called up to say anyone was coming, and her first instinct was the same as it always was, to arm herself. Gun in hand, she made her way to the door and peered out through the peephole, not seeing anyone at first and only noticing Quinn when she looked down.
Max considered calling Oracle right then, but she didn’t. Instead, she opened the door, holding it open with her hip as she ejected the magazine from the gun into her palm. She looked the small girl over for injuries first, any signs of new blood, and seeing none, she stepped aside. “Everyone’s been looking for you,” she said, and while she didn’t sound cold, she didn’t sound particularly inviting, either. She kept her voice down, kept quiet, and she closed the door. “Luke’s getting some rest. He was out all night.”
Quinn didn’t look scared at the sight of Max with a firearm, rather a little surprised that it was her at the door. The surprise faded fast in to a shy duck of her head and, shuffling her feet after Max to hide the painful limp in her step. She stood in the foyer and didn’t move any farther, close enough to the door that she could quickly leave. “I left a note,” she said in return, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly with a sweater covered hand. “If Luke sleeps...ah, I can go. Just...hoped to see him. Before go home and get yelled at.”
Quinn looked ready to turn and leave after she spoke. “Won’t bother you. Sorry.”
Max sighed, and she looked at the girl and her limp and shuffle a moment, and then she opened the door wider. “Come in, Quinn,” she said, expression softening somewhat as she moved back. She had noticed the young girl’s glance to the gun, and she gave her a small smile and a shrug as she tossed the now-empty weapon onto the table beside the front door. “It’s been a hard month,” she explained, explaining why she had the weapon.
She would have closed the door behind Quinn and ushered her into the living room, then, but the morning maid walked down the hall outside the apartment and cleared her voice from behind Quinn. Max smiled at her, and she nodded to Quinn. “I think maybe she can use something warm to drink,” she told the other woman, who looked surprised to see a conversation taking place in a doorway (an awkward one at that). “Can you bring us something while we talk?” she asked the maid, and then she nodded toward the living room. “Let’s talk for a minute before you go see Luke,” she said to Quinn.
Quinn followed Max and nodded a little as Max explained about the weapon. She gave Max a tired look of understanding at the explanation. “Yeah,” she replied with shrug. “Bad month.” It was possibly the largest understatement Quinn could ever give for how February had gone, but she wasn’t well known for being eloquent. She startled as the maid cleared her throat, looking as if she was close to whipping around and clocking the maid. With a wary step back, Quinn let the maid pass her.
There was a flash of her guard going down for a moment when the maid was going to bring her something to drink. Hopefully something caffeinated to keep her awake a little longer. She did want to see Luke and actually talk to him, not fall asleep on him. “All right,” she mainly seemed to agree to it as a step towards waiting to see Luke. Her steps towards the living room were deliberate, slow with the pain still shooting from her legs every time she put her feet down. There was a brief hesitation before she sat, very carefully on the edge of the seat on the couch as if she was afraid to sully anything in the room. She was mentally preparing herself for another person to yell at her, squared shoulders and focusing on a spot on her sneakers.
The room was pristine, all whites and creams and even Max was just now getting used to Aubade and the fact that it felt very little like home without the people inside it. She sat back on the couch, and she looked toward the back of the apartment, where Luke now had a larger room with more privacy, and then she looked back at Quinn. She didn’t speak, however, until the maid set down two hot teas, vanilla and sweet, and even then she waited until the warm mug was in her hand, wishing it was coffee instead.
“I would have been fucking livid if they’d released that man after what he did, if I was you,” Max said, no preamble, no explanation about who they were talking about. “And I would have been terrified. Hell, if I was you I would still be terrified,” she admitted, her voice calm and quiet, no screaming or agitation in it. “Disappearing like that, though, you’re only letting him get the upper hand. I get needing to be alone. I go hide a lot, too, but next time, a longer note, huh?”
Quinn reached out to take the mug, finally letting her sweater fall away from covering her hands that still showed busted knuckles and bruising with a glance of the way her wrists still carried the angry lines of rope burns overlaying furious red scarring from where the metal manacles bit in to the skin. She took the mug in her hands and focused on holding it, letting the warmth soak through. “I’m mad,” she did agree, “But not scared. More....” She faltered as she tried to figure out the words, “More something. I know he’s coming. He’ll be back. Can’t even fight it.”
There was another pause as she sipped her tea before she continued. “He lived in Bathos,” she started as she finally looked over at her. “Couldn’t be there. Knowing he’s upstairs. Free. And can’t do anything.” She looked her age for the moment, a tired and resigned look on her face. “Didn’t think. ‘m not smart like that. Just...went on guts. Guts told me to run.”
Max could understand that, could understand guts and instinct and doing stupid things without thinking. It was funny, but when she did things like that she didn’t worry. When other people did it, she got angry at them for thinking they needed to go it alone. She was stuck, though, between a rock and a hard place. She thought Quinn took too many risks, though she should be somewhere watching movies and playing video games. Quinn didn’t have a mentor, she didn’t have the Bat, and she didn’t have anyone watching out for her out there but Luke, and Max didn’t like the thought of Luke feeling responsible for anyone else in his life. Not when the kid had enough shit on his shoulders already.
And then there was the matter of the Night Terror. Max couldn’t disagree, couldn’t even argue Quinn’s point. Of course the man would be back, if not physically in dreams, and no one could protect her from it. She, herself, wore a monitor that woke her if she dreamed, but that couldn’t go on forever, and it was one of her concerns with the baby, admittedly. She didn’t have any believable words of calm or reassurance, and even the rumors that an organization was being created to deal with such situations didn’t offer any immediate help.
“I get that you’re used to doing things on your own,” Max said. “That’s par for the course in our circles, but we have to get better about not just blazing out there on our own. That goes for you and for everyone else,” she said. “People worry about you, and they get freaked out, and they worry about what’s happening to you out there alone.” Alone with the Night Terror, was the implication. She shook her head, trying to think of the right thing to say, which never came easy for Max. “Luke’s- I want him to have some downtime. Too much shit has happened all at once, and I think he needs some quiet. I think you could use some, too,” she added. “And I know you’re probably going to want to get this guy before he gets you, the Terror,” she said, looking at the visible cuts and bruises. “But chances are he’s going to hang low for a little bit, use that time, get some rest and get better. And Quinn? There’s more to life than this shit. I promise you.”
Quinn rubbed the back of her neck with her free hand. “I know,” she told Max, “People worry, but. It’s...new. Still. Used to alone, now there’s many.” She shrugged helplessly at that being part of her excuse. It seemed weak, but it was the truth. Everything changed for her when she came to Seattle, even before living with Gwen was different than it was now. “I try,” she insisted as she followed her words up. “I try be...normal. And do normal things for Luke. I don’t...know how. Never really had friends. Never went school.”
She looked up at Max again, gesturing vaguely with her hand again. She couldn’t really convey to people how out of her league all of this was -- having friends and a family. Having someone who wanted to kiss you and told you how beautiful he found you. It was all over her head. “I know more to life. I do. I don’t...know how to make it,” she paused as she sipped her tea, trying to search for the right words. “Used to being punching bag. All life. Being more is....new. And scary. More scary than fighting.”
Max could understand the confusion of finding oneself in an unfamiliar world of emotions and feelings, of being more than a weapon, and she nodded, even as anger flared in her eyes at any father harming their daughter the way she knew Quinn had been harmed. “It’s hard,” she admitted. “Really fucking hard, learning to be something other than a weapon or a fighter.” She took a sip of her tea, trying to find the right words. “You need to spend time focusing on it. Okay, it isn’t going to save anyone’s life, and it isn’t even going to protect anyone, but it’s important for you. And if you aren’t okay, if your shit isn’t straight, you really aren’t going to be able to do what you do at night as well as you could. So take some time and figure out Quinn. It might seem like a waste of time or a pain in the ass, but it isn’t,” she told her, and yeah, it would give Luke the chance to do the same thing. Right now, she would take anything that gave the kid a break from being reactive. “And normal is overrated - none of us are normal. I’ll take happy over normal any day for you guys.”
Looking down in to her mug, Quinn nodded a little. She knew she needed to take time for herself finally. It’s something that had been on her mind since before her birthday party. As Luke had wanted to speak to her about them and for once she thought about herself as a person, not the vigilante. When Max mentioned being happy, Quinn couldn’t help a tiny smile. “I am happy,” she told Max, “Other than things that happened. With friends and...Luke. He makes me happy.”
There was an awkward pause after she admitted that. She shifted in her seat before she told Max, “I won’t hurt him. I want to be really...good for him. He makes me feel different. Good different. Wouldn’t....wouldn’t ever hurt him. Promise.”
“I know,” Max said, because she did. Her concern wasn’t that Quinn would hurt Luke intentionally. It was that she wanted something normal for him. Somewhere along the line she’d started to think of the kid as family, and that meant wanting a different kind of life for him. It was just like Audrey, who she would try to keep away from the vigilantes with every fiber of her being. She wanted her kid sister to live a normal, boring safe life, one that didn’t involve grappling guns or the inherent danger of dating a Mask. She wanted that for the baby, too, and seeing Quinn - a young girl who thought she could be the Bat - just terrified the fucking shit out of her. She spent enough nights watching the sun come up and worrying about the Bat coming home not to want that feeling doubled for Luke. “And I know you make him happy. I just want safe, Quinn.” She nodded to the marks on the other girl, the injuries. “Somewhere that doesn’t happen, and if I could have it for everyone I care about, I would.” It was a far cry from the hero worship she’d felt eight months before.
Quinn pulled a little face in to her mug and told Max, “Sound like Gwen. Said same things about us.” Wanting them to be safe and normal kids. There was a heavy sigh but she straightened up and looked as if she was taking on a challenge. “I can keep him safe. And make him happy.” A bold little statement, but she would do it. She’d go to the ends of the earth to do it and it showed.
Max grinned. “I think it’s a mom thing,” she explained in regards to the comment about Oracle. “Keep yourself safe. Find a way to be happy yourself. Don’t run off and give Oracle a heart attack.” The last bit was said with the worry of a parent, because she was thinking about how she would have reacted if she’d been Oracle in that case. And if she’d had to deal with a missing child that she couldn’t go get on her own two feet? She was fairly sure she’d ground the kid for life - eighteen or no eighteen. Luke, thankfully, always let her know where he was. And if he didn’t, Thomas would find him anyway. Oracle didn’t have that luxury. “You have to take care of you. He has to take care of him. And then you can help one another.”
Quinn looked a little concerned at that advice. “Can be safe. But...I dunno how make self happy,” she explained, looking a little put off by admitting it. “Making other people happy...makes me happy. That’s okay?” It was a tentative question. She didn’t really seem to know how to take care of herself on her own. Not in the ways Max was asking of her. She never was able to connect and go out without someone leading her in to it. The only things that really did make her happy was being useful to someone else. “Happy when useful,” she explained, “Do things. Take care others. Like that more than...” She searched for an example, “You know. Focus on me, don’t like. Not bad thing?”
Max wasn’t sure how to explain self-worth to a girl who didn’t have any that wasn’t tied to wearing a suit and fighting crime. “You can’t depend on other people to be happy,” she said, because that was true, even if she didn’t expect it to really help much in this case. She shook her head, and she looked toward Luke’s bedroom and then back. “Let me think about it. In the meantime, no running off into danger by yourself,” she cautioned, sounding stern when she said it. “Alright?”
Quinn couldn’t see why you couldn’t depend on others to be happy. She wasn’t happy alone, but other people gave her some form of meaning finally. Even beyond the fighting, doing things for Gwen in a sense that was just being useful around the apartment made her happy. She spent so much time alone and miserable that it made sense that others would give her something she was missing. “Okay,” she agreed finally, giving a firm nod of her head. “No more trouble.” At least she would try.
Max smiled at the nod, and she chuckled as she motioned toward the back bedroom. “Go on. Not too long, though. Oracle’s probably worried sick,” she cautioned, motioning again and smiling as she took a sip of her tea.
Taking another sip of her tea, Quinn set the mug down and nodded. “Okay,” she agreed again as she rose to her feet. There was a brief hesitation before she took a step towards Max and wrapped the woman in a brief hug, like she learned it from other people that it was completely how to show gratitude. “Thank you,” she said quietly, more talking in to Max’s shoulder than to be heard too loudly. As abrupt as the hug began, it ended with her straightening up and turning on her heel to limp her way towards the back bedroom.