Who: Orin and Adam What: Guilt trips and emotional disconnect When: The night of Orin's press release Where: Seattle PD and Adam's car Warnings: Angst, emo, mild sociopathy. The usual Morgenstern family shenanigans.
Adam parked his car, the sleek and polished Veyron, right in front of the police station. As soon as he exited the car, reporters were on him like white on rice. Their microphones shoved in his face, they bombarded him with questions and demands, wanting to know his opinion. What did he think of his cousin’s fit of rage? Did he know of his cousin’s activity as Batman? Brushing through the crowd, a pleasant smile on his face, he politely declined to answer each question. When a precocious young female reporter with the ABC logo stamped on her microphone jumped in front of him, he smiled and took her hand. He thanked her earnestly for her concern and begged her pardon, but he really needed to see his cousin.
Leaving the reporters behind him, Adam strode into the police station, and his entire demeanor changed. He left behind the persona of the somewhat nervous, concerned cousin and took on the mask of the determined, infuriated businessman. One police officer approached him, and a single look at his frozen expression turned the man away. But that look dissipated when he approached Orin.
Standing outside the cell, Adam sighed. “I got a call on the way over. You’re being released on recognizance. You won’t have to pay the rather admirable sum of money unless the court orders it,” he said, a weary, but relieved, look on his face. He stepped back as a cop quickly unlocked the cell to allow Orin out.
Orin stormed past the cop with no apology and no deference, and he was walking between the holding cells toward the locked door at the end of the hall without looking to see if he was being followed. He rubbed at his wrist, and he talked to Adam without turning. “We going to take this shit seriously now?” he asked, and it was more than tenseness in his shoulders. He still didn’t know about Aubade, but that reality was looming just outside the door on the consoles in the booking room, and he waited impatiently for the officer.
“Have you heard from Valerie or Willow?” Orin demanded, knowing Adam had said he didn’t know their contact numbers, but hoping all the same that something had changed on the drive. “And what do we know about that reporter? Kids? Family? The shooter? Kids? Family?”
Easily falling into stride beside his cousin, Adam lifted a brow. “We’ve been taking this seriously from day one,” he replied, his voice devoid of inflection of any kind. “And, no, I haven’t. Ms. Radcliffe’s email to me had Valerie and Ro copied, but I haven’t spoken to either of them yet. As for the reporter and shooter, again, I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to look anyone up.”
Adam hesitated, because he had heard the news about the lock down at Aubade, and he was searching for a graceful way to inform his cousin about the trouble. “You should know, however, that Aubade has been locked down. There is, apparently, someone in the building’s lobby with a weapon.” He reached for Orin, intending to grab him should his cousin storm out in the attempt at another crusade. And if Orin didn’t move, a comforting gesture wouldn’t be remiss. Their family had always been liberal with touches and hugs as a demonstration of affection. “The situation is under control, and no one is hurt. The shooter is contained in the lobby. He’ll be dead in ten minutes.”
Oh, Orin tried to storm, alright. He shoved through the door when the cop unlocked it, and he impatiently went to the counter to get the items that had been seized from him. He needed his damn cell to check on folks, and then he needed to change, and then he needed to get to Aubade before anyone else got hurt. He slammed his hand impatiently on the counter, and he was five seconds away from getting dragged back in a cell for his behavior. “I don’t have time for this,” he growled at Adam under his breath, and it didn’t make him look exactly innocent of any wrongdoing.
Standing beside Orin and remaining relatively impassive was an exercise in self control. Adam managed, glancing in a nearby mirror to discover he was doing so quite impressively, and he allowed the tiniest of smiles. When his attention shifted back to Orin, he was all business once again, doing his best to remain the calm center for Orin’s energy. “No, you don’t, but getting to Aubade in a rush won’t help. They won’t let you in, and right now it would do everyone a world of good if you calmed down. No one likes losing control, but now that you don’t have it, it would be in Valerie and Willow’s best interest that you not attempt to regain it,” Adam murmured. “The less ripples and disruptions that are made, the quicker the situation can be resolved. If you can promise not to crash through the front of Aubade, we can go there immediately so that as soon as the gunman is taken care of, you can see to Valerie.”
Adam referred to the gunman in an odd tone of voice, as though entirely disaffected. It was with that tone that Adam Morgenstern was at his most dangerous. Having severed himself emotionally from the situation, as emotions were damaging at best, he viewed it from a purely objective standpoint. Rational, logical decisions were the only ones he would allow himself to make, and if a rational decision required the gunman to die, then the gunman would die.
Adam’s words got through to a certain extent. They didn’t calm Orin entirely, but they at least made him realize that he wasn’t going to make it out of the damn precinct if he didn’t pretend to be calm and rational. And so he shut his mouth, and he glared instead of slamming his hand on things, and he signed the damn papers and did what needed doing. “Thank you,” he muttered to his cousin, and he really truly was grateful - it wasn’t that he didn’t. But a man had died on account of him, and he’d sworn that would never happen again. There was something in his demeanor that warned of imminent explosion, something he was keeping contained just for this show, this face he was putting on for the authorities.
“Of course,” Adam replied, stepping back to give Orin the space he needed to get things in order. When that was done, he shifted back to his cousin’s side. “There is a rather impressive throng of reporters out front. Do you think you’ll be able to ignore their idiocy until we get to my car?” The last thing they needed was Orin throwing another punch or losing it in public again. While Adam could understand the anger and the rage to some extent, he couldn’t understand the need to outwardly express it. His anger was a lens that focused and magnified his vicious nature, making it exact and direct. He preferred a swift, decisive attack, cutting quickly, incapacitating instantly.
Orin was already stepping toward the front doors of the precinct, and he shoved at them with a force that did nothing to hide his anger. “I’ll ignore them because I want to get to Aubade, not because I want to ignore them,” he said, because that was the truth. If he didn’t feel so strongly about getting to Willow and Valerie, he would have smashed enough of them in the face to end up behind bars again. “Don’t they care that one of them just died? That this is a damn dangerous story to chase?!” he asked, shoving forward through the first set of reporters demanding statements. Thankfully, the police cleared a path for them, but it didn’t calm his ire any.
Adam unlocked his car as they approached, the lights flashing the only indication of the change. “They aren’t paid to care,” Adam returned, opening his car door and dropping inside. “If they were friends with him, they’ll care after hours. Until then, they have a job to do, so they do it. All of them want the next best story. They want to be the next best reporter.” He dragged a hand down his face as he started the car amidst camera flashes and shouted questions he had no intention of answering.
Orin leaned his head back against the seatback, and he dragged both of his hands over his face. “I need to find a way to end this before more people die,” he said, and it was obviously something he was throwing on his own shoulders, something he felt it was his responsibility to fix. First, Aubade, then, this whole damn mess. “Don’t you go minding the speed limit,” he told his cousin.
“It’s not your fault,” Adam said abruptly as he pulled onto the street. “What’s happening here is not your fault. An idiot published an idiot’s article, and the sensationalist news is capitalizing on it. They’re revving people up, exciting them. This-” And there, Adam broke off to fix Orin with a stern gaze. “-will not be called your fault.” He turned back to the street, his fingers sliding around the circumference of the steering wheel. This, he was sure, went back to that feeling he’d had. He knew it was from Orin. He knew. The arrow, the location.
The dead boy put every thing into perspective. Adam just wasn’t sure it would be wise to admit to knowing that yet.
“It is my damn fault. It was my press conference that got someone killed. I’m not the damn Bat, and I get it isn’t me they’re after, but it still happened on my ground. And if we don’t find a way to make them quit going after Thomas Brandon, then this is just going to keep on happening,” Orin insisted. “How much liquid cash can we transfer to that reporter’s family without me losing the company or the apartment?” He wouldn’t have cared about either of those things before, but now there was Valerie and Willow to worry about supporting.
This was how people broke. All this emotion, this flood of feelings. It seemed to move through Orin wildly, uncontrollably, and Adam found it wholly disconcerting. There was too much subjectivity, not enough objectivity, not enough rationality. The dead reporter’s family didn’t need the kind of money Orin wanted to give them. “That much money looks desperate. Write them, tell them they have your condolences, and ask if there’s anything you can do. If they say no, you back off. If you find out their house is falling apart, you get them a new one, but not anything more than what they have,” Adam said firmly.
“And the more you try to make them stop, the more they’re going to fight you. Stay quiet, be polite, do what polite society requires you to do, and no more. You do more, you look like you’re compensating for something. Do just enough, maybe a little more than they expect to prove you’re decent, and then you back off and let them find another scandal to blow out of proportion.” Adam slowed for a red light, and in his head, over and over, all he could see was that little boy dying. This was about that little boy dying.
Orin slammed his hand against the dashboard without warning. “It isn’t enough,” he said through gritted teeth, repeating the slam of his hand on the console. “It will never be enough. You can’t get life back, Adam. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and everything changes, and there ain’t no going back. A new house won’t change what they’ve lost.” Outside the car, Aubade was nearing and the police had the building blocked off, orange and white barriers dotted the road, and Orin tensed beside Adam in the car. “Adam,” he said, knowing his cousin would have more pull in this than his own anger would, especially with the publicity of the forthcoming Mayoral race.
“Nothing changes what is lost,” Adam said quietly as he pulled up to Aubade, right outside the police blockade. He turned off the car, the quiet hum of the engine dissolving into the shouts of the police and the noise of people rushing about. “You can’t ever change it. You have to accept it.” He closed his eyes, completely out of his realm of comfort. He slogged through the mental mire of the conversation, desperately searching through the sludge for the right words. “It isn’t easy, but it makes you stronger. You accept it, you... you grow, and you continue. You don’t forget, because the loss defines you, but you don’t let it trap you and confine you. You let it shape you.”
Opening his eyes, Adam turned toward Orin, a tight, almost pained expression on his face. “If you take responsibility for the actions of everyone else, you’ll just kill yourself. You can’t do it. Holding that press conference was the best choice, and you holding it didn’t bring that gunman there. He went himself. You didn’t pull the trigger. You aren’t at fault.”
“I’m not real good at the accepting part,” Orin admitted, voice strangled and resigned, and across the police barrier, a sniper rifle fired and police and paramedics moved forward in a rush of activity. “I couldn’t stop my folks from dying either,” he said, thoughts far away from that car and Seattle, and beyond the boy he’d killed himself as a child. He looked over at his cousin. “You’re a good man, A, and you don’t bring death onto folks like I do. I got to make sure this stops,” he said, a tone of distancing in his voice. He opened the car door without warning, but his expression was calm once he stepped out onto the sidewalk. The man inside was clearly down, and there was nothing he could do about that, either. “Find out about the families and let me know,” he said, almost dead in tone.
The idea that he - Adam Morgenstern - was a good person was laughable at best. On the surface, he was a dick. To everyone. He had a chip on his shoulder, acted like an asshole, and had no problem with it. On a deeper level, he orchestrated organized crime - which, admittedly, he hadn’t done as much lately. He needed to get back on that. He helped people with enough money kill other people. He participated in racketeering and money laundering. He was an art thief.
To be fair, all that was secreted away from his family. They didn’t know. Orin didn’t know. But a heart-to-heart consisting of “Well, actually, I’ve killed people, too, I’m just borderline sociopathic enough not to care” didn’t rank high on his list of things to divulge about himself, even if it might help his cousin.
“If you want to make this stop, you have to kill all the morons in the world,” Adam said in a half-assed attempt to lighten the mood. “And I will. Don’t do anything stupid in the meantime. If you die and I have to take up the mantle of the Arrow, I will find a Creation with resurrection powers, bring to back to life, and then kill you again.”