luke henry ; robin (notjustsidekick) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-03-02 23:14:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ratchet, robin |
Who: Luke and Bly
What: Male bonding, which includes talking about new suits and awesome ideas.
Where: Bathos 705.
When: Sometime after Luke borrows the Batsuit.
Warnings: None.
Now that he was officially banned from going to any of the warehouses, Luke no longer had the advantage of being able to get his hands on the actual Batsuit. He was still tempted to put it on again anyway, but that would be beyond stupid specially since half the vigilantes had to know Robin was the one responsible by now. Wearing a different suit, however, an original made specifically for him - that was different. Thomas may have grounded him for life but Luke couldn’t stay on the sidelines for very long, not when their numbers were stretched thin as it was. Maybe he couldn’t be the Bat but he could use a new suit all the same, something a little more high-tech and effective than his current one, and it could still stand for the same thing without being an exact replica.
Luke knew no one understood why he’d worn the suit, and he didn’t care. The vigilantes all had the same goal in mind, maybe, but each of them had different reasons and he refused to compromise his own just because everyone else thought he was an idiot for it. Thomas had every right to be angry, but that kind of thing went both ways and he was tired of feeling like a useless kid.
He headed to Bathos in early afternoon, possibly under the pretense that he was yet again going to the library to work on assignments (which still counted as school, thank you very much), letting himself into Bly’s apartment when he found it wasn’t locked. As promised he had a 12-pack of Coke and a bag of Doritos for sustenance, and he set them down on the nearest semi-clear table before looking around. Sometimes he did miss having his own place, and even though his old apartment hadn’t been half as cool as this one. “Hey,” he called out in greeting, snapping open one of the Cokes and studying one of the various items strewn about.
Bly was in his newly renovated work room, holding two wires in front of his eyes, debating what might happen if he touched the two ends together. There were two options, really. First, nothing would happen. Closed circuit, everything good, electricity would flow from one to the other and power the thinger he was making. Second, everything would short circuit, he’d blow a few breakers, and the Bathos would be out of power for a day or two. If he was lucky.
Thankfully, he heard Luke call out right before he touched the wires.
Setting them both down, far enough away that they wouldn’t accidentally brush, he stood and made his way from his work room to the kitchen. “Yo, man, sup?” he said, giving Luke a wave and a grin. “You ready to make some bitching awesome shit?” He went to the living room and vaulted over the back of the couch, picking up about six sheets of tracing paper. “I’ve got some designs if you wanna see.” He came around the couch on the way back, shuffling the tracing paper into the right order. The bottom two sheets were the base design, the other four were augmentations that could be arranged in various ways. Spreading them across the table, he grabbed a Coke and snapped it open, downing a mouthful and then wiping the back of his hand across his lips. “What d’you think?”
Fortunately it was near impossible to stay in a bad mood around Bly, and Luke found himself grinning back as though he hadn’t just gotten himself into a huge amount of trouble. “Hell yes. Dude, out of everyone I know your ability has to be the coolest.” He was pretty sure Bly could make something to imitate most abilities out there if he wanted to. It was perfect. He raised his eyebrows at the mention of designs, since he’d barely even thought up anything past a general outline, but he wasn’t very good at that sort of thing anyway. Plus his drawing skills were… lacking, to put it nicely.
He kept the Coke away from the papers and leaned over to get a better look, all his misgivings about going through with this fading away for the time being. He shuffled through the pile a couple of times, but it was clear he was impressed. “Nice. I can’t believe you came up with this stuff already,” he added, gesturing to the papers. “Something that works for me is the main thing, but not like… an exact carbon copy or anything. Something better. Like Iron Man, right? I mean, Kevlar and capes has nothing on that.” Which Bly would know, obviously, having been inside it.
“Oh, you know.” Bly shrugged. “Got a lot knocking around in here, you know?” He rapped on the side of his head with his fist, half sad it didn’t make a hollow ringing sound. Which was stupid, really, because why would your head be hollow, duh. “Yeah, dude, Iron Man’s friggen insane. I can’t even tell you, dude. Like, the stuff it’s made from is crazy. We’d definitely need to get in Mr. Sparke’s labs for that, but I think I could convince him to let me.”
He scratched the side of his head, shuffling the papers around a little. “So I think the best option for versatility is to, you know, combine air and ground add-ons. So I think the whole repulsor thing might not work so well, but, like, we can do little things to boost your speed when you’re on the ground, and maybe get a slave link to some kind of hover board or something. Dude, that’d be bitchin, right?” He grinned.
He probably wasn’t supposed to know about the Iron Man suit and Anton Sparke’s connection to it, but Luke had no intention of ever saying anything so it was really no big deal. Still, fifty Batsuits couldn’t compare to one Iron Man, not according to the things he’d heard. Flying robots were unbeatable. “You think you could?” That was definitely impressive. “It must be so cool just to be around it. Figuring out how the thing actually works?” He shook his head. “Props, man. That’s all I have to say.”
Luke wasn’t absolutely sure what repulsors were, but he had a general idea and nodded along regardless. Obviously Bly knew what he was doing. “Yeah. Speed is good, and some kind of hoverboard thing would be awesome. I like the slave link idea. Kickass way to get around and you don’t see those every day.” Maybe he’d finally be taken seriously now. He didn’t have to rely on the Bat for everything, after all; he was perfectly capable of operating separately. “So, when you say slave link, you mean something that kind of connects the hoverboard to me? Not me me, but… you know.”
Bly grinned, nodding emphatically. The Iron Man suit was an engineer’s wet dream. And even better, a wanna-be astronaut’s, too. The latter was the more important, anyway. Since he totally wanted to fly among the stars. “Dude, it’s amazing. Yeah, one sec.”
He vanished into his workroom for a minute, and returned a second later with a remote controlled car and a remote control. “It’s kinda like this,” he said, setting the car down at one end of the kitchen. Making his way back to Luke, he pulled the joystick forward, and the car zoomed toward them. “See, the car would be your board, right? And you’d put a button, or issue a command, and it’d come zooming from wherever to you. I’d have to make sure it didn’t, you know, go through buildings or anything, that’d be bad. But I could do it. Radar and shit.” The car hit Bly’s foot, and he released the remote. “And I was thinking, too, that we could totally put stuff on the hoverboard. Flares maybe. Or those weighted rope things that zing around people and trip ‘em all up. That kind of stuff.”
Already he was considering the possibilities. No more running and grappling from rooftop to rooftop all the time; a hoverboard could make things far quicker and easier than even his motorcycle could. He could teach himself how to use it in no time, of course, and if he was able to control it then all the better. Luke glanced up from the papers when Bly returned with the remote control and the car, watching the demonstration with a slow grin. He got it now. “Radar. That’s so badass.” He laughed, reconsidering the idea that flares were a bad thing. Maybe not. “Yeah. Something to distract them, right and then bam! Hit them with the weighted rope. Or something.” The details could he figured out later, but the point was that he’d have an advantage now. It would probably be a lot harder to shoot someone zooming around on a hoverboard for starters.
Luke took another sip of Coke to swallow down some of his excitement, all thoughts of failed Batsuits and anger forgotten. “You seriously don’t mind doing all this?”
The excitement was building, and it was making Bly rock back and forth, from the balls of his feet to his heels. Luke was behind this, and that was awesome. So very awesome. Because he was stoked to be doing this. “Oh, dude, yeah!” he said, nodding. “This is going to be awesome. If you’ve got any ideas of stuff you want on the suit, we can totally try to add some of it. Obviously, we wanna go fairly light, but with the repulsors on the Iron Man suit on the hoverboard, you’ll be pretty much set. Those things’ll lift anything, dude.”
He crossed his arms and chewed on the inside of his mouth, pondering the designs laid out before him. “If you’ve got, you know, clothes or anything that are old or something? Drop them off with me sometime, and I’ll be able to start building the suit around that stuff. And I’ll, like, I dunno, make it sound like this is an independent study thing if anyone asks. Sounds good?”
Luke was thrilled that someone actually shared his enthusiasm instead of calling him stupid or trying to ground him for the rest of his natural life. “Yeah, okay. I’m thinking the suit doesn’t have to be too complicated, but something a little less… rookie, you know? I mean, I don’t mind the red and black thing but it could be better. Nothing exactly like Batman’s suit either.” He pulled a face. “However light you think it needs to be is good, man.” Bly understood what it was like, constantly surrounded by older vigilantes who looked down on the younger ones. None of them really tried to hide it.
He nodded quickly. “Oh, definitely. Batman was kind of pissed that I wore his suit, so the less people know the better.” With any luck by the time the suit and hoverboard were done he and Thomas would have reached some kind of understanding. “I’ve got some old clothes I can send over this week.” He grinned. “Thanks again. This is gonna be so awesome.”
Scribbling down a few notes, Bly nodded. “Alrighty, I will see what I can do, man. Gimme a few weeks and I’ll get something done.” Dropping his pencil, he eyed the cans of Coke and the Doritos. It had been a while since he’d chilled with one of his guy friends, just pigging out on awful food and talking about stupid things.
“You wanna play Black Ops for a while, man?” he asked, gesturing toward the TV. “Chill for a while and stuff?”
It actually felt kind of satisfying to be doing this on his own, without Thomas over his shoulder or anyone else telling him what he could and couldn’t do. This would be his suit and his hoverboard, so no one could take it away since they were the ones who gave it to him or anything like that. He was definitely going to have a hard time waiting, even if it was just for a few weeks.
Luke wasn’t too eager to get back home, and his social life had gone down the drain lately. “Yeah, sure.” He grabbed the Doritos and his Coke, settling down in front of the TV. Mindless video games and junk food needed to happen more often, in his opinion, and he could spare a little more time before he had to get back to his dull life as a grounded teenager.
Using his toes to turn on the XBox, he grabbed two controllers and tossed one to Luke. Then he dropped onto the couch, fishing the remote from between the cushions. As the game loaded, he dropped his feet on the dented and scratched coffee table and took a swig of Coke, kind of wishing it was something stronger. He reminded himself that he’d be 21 in two years. He could wait. Or he could see if Poe wanted to come over one day and play games mindlessly and bring beer. If anyone could get alcohol, it was Poe. Kid was badass.
For a ballerina.
“So how’ve you been, man? You and Quinn. She’s been alright, yeah, since... you know. Everything.” He didn’t want to pry details out of Luke, so he tried to keep his tone light, like everything was optional. No pressure.
Every once in a while Luke wouldn’t have minded something stronger than Coke either, but while Max let him have a beer on rare occasions there was practically no alcohol in the apartment. He was pretty sure Thomas never drank and he had no way of getting his hands on anything himself, not when he was still underage. It didn’t help that he’d be recognized even if he did try on his own.
“Yeah, pretty much.” He didn’t mind talking about Quinn, since there weren’t many people he could talk about her with. “It’s kind of complicated ‘cause, you know, but... it’s getting better.” Luke fiddled with his controller and shrugged. “You knew Wren, right? She kind of took off about a week ago, and she and Quinn were pretty good friends.” He’d been close to Wren too, but he didn’t want to talk about that. “What about you? Any special lady in your life?” He grinned, raising his eyebrows and casting a glance sideways.
Bly smiled, glad to hear things were good with Luke and his girl. “That’s good man,” he said, punching him lightly on the shoulder. “Good to know she’s bouncing back. That shit was...” He shook his head. “Still can’t believe that let that one guy go. That was bogus, dude.” And then came the confirmation Wren was gone, and that made him sad, because he’d really liked Wren. Not like-liked, because she wasn’t his type at all, but liked, at least. She’d been cool, and he’d made that bitching knife for her.
With a nervous laugh, he shook his head. “Naw, you know me. All about the older ladies, man. And none of them are interested in a kid like me, you know? Dude, makes me wish it was cool to be all like ‘Yo, sup, I’m Iron Man, biches,’ you know? Because then, oh man, babes would be all over me.” He laughed again, sounding surer of himself. “Oh well. Can’t say I’m Iron Man anyway, since he’s back now. But I should totally come up with another name. Ratchet’s kind of just... I dunno. Kiddish, you know?”
“That’s the legal system, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “I mean, there wouldn’t be much need for Batman and the rest of us if everything worked like it was supposed to.” So far, Night Terror had been pretty quiet, but who knew how long that’d last? That bastard was still out there biding his time, Luke was sure of it. The worst part was that there was nothing they could do short of death to stop it. He took a swig of Coke to keep from ranting on about it and turned half his attention towards the game instead. This kind of multitasking was manageable.
Luke knew even less about older women than he did about girls his own age, and the only ‘older’ woman he was really close to was Max, but he saw her as a kind of pseudo-mom so thinking of her as anything else was just wrong. “Some of ‘em might be. I mean, you hear about younger guys and older women all the time. It happens. Keep the dream alive.” He couldn’t help a small chuckle. “Dude, you’d be set for life if you could tell people you were Iron Man. Bet Mr. Sparke wouldn’t be too big on it, though.” He leaned back against the couch and shrugged. “Ratchet’s better than Robin. Man, I don’t even know why I ever thought that was a cool idea. You could call yourself, uh... something-Man, maybe. Or put a ‘the’ in front of your name. That makes everything sound cooler.”
He nodded. “Yeah, true,” he agreed quietly, kind of wishing there was a way for the masks to be as awesome in real life as they were in comics and shit. But comic book characters could get away with stuff because the writers didn’t want to write about all the consequences. Fighting crime in the real world sucked.
“Dude, maybe I should just call myself The Man. I mean, that’s kind of, what. All-encompassing right? It says badass, but sensitive.” Bly pulled a face as he chopped some kid in half on Black Ops. “Or something, I dunno. Names are hard. But maybe you could do with something like... I dunno. The Hawk or something? Those periods are badass, and it fits the bird theme you’ve got going for you.”
“The Man?” Luke screwed up his face in thought while keeping one eye on the TV screen. “Well, it’s got the whole mysterious and all-powerful vibe going on. You know, like you’re the guy pulling the strings or something. And it is badass.” As for sensitive, well, he wasn’t too sure about that. “Yeah, they are. The older guys have such cool names – The Bat, Rorschach, Corbinian, Nightwing…” He sighed. “The Hawk? That’s not bad. Better a bird of prey than a bird that is prey.” He tried to imagine telling Thomas that he was changing his codename to the Hawk, unable to decide whether he’d think it was stupid or just not care. It really was too bad that Batman sounded so badass while Batboy was just lame.
He took a couple of guys out on-screen before turning back to the name thing. “You’re good with weapons and all that… maybe your name should be something like, uh, The Metal Monger or… okay, I have no idea where that came from.” He laughed and shook his head. “You’ll think of something.”
“Man, names are lame.” Bly whipped out a gun in-game, without really thinking about it, and mowed some PCs down. “We should brainstorm. If we come up with anything, we can tell each other, yeah? Cause it’s like. I think sometimes names are stupid until you say it enough, you know? Like Batman sounds lame on it’s own, but the guy’s totally backed himself up. He’s legit, you know?” He sighed and tossed back a mouthful of Coke. “So maybe we just need to be like ‘Yo, I’m Metal Monger’ over and over until it sounds cool.” He wrinkled his nose. “Or not. I mean, that might not work. Damn, how do people come up with this shit?”
Luke always preferred to use guns in-game. In reality he avoided them like the plague, having adopted Thomas’ disdain for anything that could prove to be fatal should the temptation arise, but real life always took a backseat in video games. It didn’t matter how many guys you shot, because it didn’t matter and in multi-player they just respawned anyway. “Yeah. I mean, if I went out and called myself Batman without backing it up, I’d be lame. But criminals actually fear him. It’s crazy.” He’d always wondered what the reasoning behind the name ‘Batman’ was, but for some reason or another he’d never asked. “Maybe it’s the reputation, you know? Even a really cool name won’t mean anything if you can’t go out there and back it up. So you pick a name like Metal Monger, and you prove that you should be taken seriously.”
Bly considered this. “I wonder if we could like... put out vids on YouTube or something of us kicking ass to start making a name for ourselves,” he said as he plowed through more people, glancing to the side to check his ammo a few times. He was going through it conservatively, making the best use of it. “We should totally do that, once your suit’s made and I’ve got mine, and we can come up with names and stuff.” With a wicked grin, he looked over at Luke. “What d’you think?”
“YouTube?” It wasn’t that bad of an idea, really. Everyone already knew who the main vigilantes were - the Bat, Rorschach, and Corbinian; but few were aware of the others aside from grouping them together as ‘babies with pacifiers.’ Maybe the Bat was most effective, but that didn’t mean he was the only one out there fighting for people who seemed more and more ungrateful by the day. Maybe they needed to take a step forward to show people that they were still fighting and they hadn’t abandoned anyone, not to mention the fact that they did know what they were doing. “That’s not a bad idea. Everyone goes on YouTube, and at least then people can start seeing that there’s more than two or three of us out there trying to help.” The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. No more Robin the little kid in a red suit - now he could be something more. Something better. “I say hell yeah. Why not?”
Bly lifted his hand for a high five. “Dude, it’ll be awesome, man, I can get some equipment and shit and we can film each other.” He had a friend in the telecom school for a film degree, or something, he wasn’t quite sure of the technicals, and could get a camera off him. They wouldn’t be able to mic anything, but that was okay. If they set whatever they filmed to some awesome music, that would be good enough. They’d be viral in an hour. Maybe two. So all they needed were some awesome name ideas.
“S’alright, let’s think on names, and then pool our brainpower in a week or something to see what we come up with. I’ll get the armor and stuff finished, and then get a camera from a friend, and we’ll become internet sensations. Oh, man, this is gonna be great,” Bly said, a stupid smile spread wide across his face. Oh, yeah. Absolutely awesome.