Who: Luke, Eve and Thomas What: Eve stops by, Luke spots her, and Thomas ends up joining the party Where: Aubade 506 When: Thursday night Warnings: None
Days were far easier to handle than nights were. Even before the whole mess with the Mask Killer, the daylight hours were dedicated to work and school, with some occasional time with friends thrown in just so they didn’t ask too many questions about how busy his life was. Training took precedence over all of these things, though (except for school in most situations) but generally he managed fairly well to balance everything. If some things were neglected for others, well, sometimes sacrifice was required - the point was that Thomas’ restrictions barely affected him before the sun set.
It was after darkness fell that it nearly drove him crazy.
Luke’s initial plan was based on convincing Thomas to accept him as Robin, and once that happened he’d figured that the armor and staff would be returned to him. He’d even started planning how he was going to get down from the balcony (his grappling belt would come in handy then) at least until he moved out and back into Hamartia. Unfortunately all that went down the drain when Thomas went all drill sergeant on him and the only choice was to accept a compromise that left him following his rules. Even after the masquerade and the added headaches that added, he still wasn’t pleased and wondered if he should have just outright refused and gone on his own way.
Regardless, he hadn’t, which why he was in ‘his’ room trying to get a head start on one of his final papers instead of out on the streets below. The television was turned on low for company, and he was furiously typing away at his laptop like it had done something to personally offend him. Pathetically enough, it wasn’t like he had anyone or anything else to vent his frustrations on, so a keyboard seemed like a rational last resort.
She hadn’t intended it -- idle thought and then a masquerade apparently filled with events the Boy Scout inevitably got dragged into -- how could he not? He dragged trouble behind him even without wearing a target as a costume. Eve hadn’t quite managed to get all the information required (wanted -- but want was need, and need was get and they all worked out the same in the end, no harm no foul) As masques went, a little buzz, a little forgetfulness, nothing much of interest. But the kid -- he’d be out busting stitches if he could and so that evening, when dusk dusted the sidewalks, she had walked into the lobby of the Aubade and let herself into an untouched apartment and waited.
This street was too well-lit to make climbing the residence anything but work, in need of reason rather than pleasure. The buildings were too level in this district, too many people paid to keep a watch on shadows that fell in odd places and against the light -- a long litany of complaints recited against the back of the mind, grimly against the teeth as thin black gloves rasped against stone and she sidled from one level of the Aubade to another. Luxury had its upsides for the thieves as well as the occupants: better alarm systems, but the windows weren’t cramped in, side by side and looking in on busy and disordered little lives but wide-spaced and reflective of empty grand rooms, rife with things to take. A little sigh for opportunities lost, never had, and the security system that wasn’t so much a security system as it was a half naked man who moved like a ninja by night -- her feet found purchase on brick, toes curling to keep them there as she eased down from the upper balcony and with a soft sound, heavy but quiet, Eve landed, toes-to-sill on Luke’s bedroom window. Not intending to be seen but to do the seeing: give a girl a chance at getting a reassurance all by herself that the most hapless of the ducklings was in fact, safe, without the irritation of swinging by those in the know, and she took it.
In Hamartia, break-ins were far more common and almost unavoidable due to the non-existent security and the overall poor construction of the building itself, but Aubade seemed like one of those places where things like that just didn’t happen. Luke was aware of the fact that Eve had broken in once before, but he didn’t see her as a threat in the ‘armed and dangerous’ sense - besides, he hoped she’d have enough sense to stay away from Thomas Brandon in general. Hope wasn’t the same thing as belief, though.
His eyes burned from staring at the computer screen too long, and he finally tore his gaze away to keep himself from going blind. He briefly considered going downstairs, but instead he got to his feet with a stretch and headed towards the window - the view was nice and maybe the night air would help his focus a little. One hand was prepared to undo the latch before his vision focused and he realized something was outside his window, and it definitely wasn’t ‘just a shadow’ or anything he could write off as simply as that. Instinct took over and he managed to open the window while lunging backwards at the same time. Stitches or no stitches, he’d had plenty of time to heal and was immediately on the defense. “Any particular reason why you’re standing outside my window?” His voice was uncharacteristically hard, as he hadn’t yet recognized her.
Trust the damn Boy Scout to choose tonight to learn observation skills. But he didn’t come at her -- the last time she’d been caught in the act, they had leaned forward, made a grab, tried to drag her in. She’d been a lot smaller, the last time, but that would have been thought, thinking wasn’t reflex, reflex was reflex, and balanced on a sill-edge and surprised, she had to step forward or topple backwards and down. ‘Down’ wasn’t much fun from this height, even if you knew how to land. The windows were wide enough, high enough, she didn’t have to bend, or at least, she made it look as though she didn’t, climbing in as effortless as it had been the last time, only no glass broken in the entry. The way Eve sidled inside a home wasn’t usually seen: sinuous, like smoke easing itself under doorways, through cracks. It was peculiarly elegant, something that ought not to be and was anyway. Being watched didn’t change it, which implied it was long habit and didn’t require thought.
Soft feet hit carpet. Not far in, just inside the lip of the window, and she leaned against the frame with a wary tension easy to read in the black lines of her body. It ought to have looked odd, the tightening of muscles, the coiled and ready to move look to her position especially to one who had seen her before in laughing relaxation even when the relaxation was feigned. It didn’t: she wore this as naturally as she wore the other. She just looked the thief tonight, a professional. The voice was the same though, husky and dry and as if laughter had caught itself up in her throat but was on the edges of escape.
“You couldn’t have just gone on playing computer games, Boy Scout.”
Pulling a stranger into the room wasn’t really his style, and getting that close to someone without getting a proper look at them didn’t particularly appeal to him. He preferred to keep his distance so that, if need be, he could get out of the way in time and launch some sort of counter attack. Before she even got inside Luke was expecting someone experienced, because no amateur would choose the fifth floor of Aubade or even be able to get up there in the first place; so there was a distinct lack of surprise when she slipped inside. He didn’t move as he took in her appearance, and not even the familiarity in her voice was enough to get him to lower his guard.
“I wasn’t playing computer games.” It was dismissive, and his focus remained on her. “What are you doing here, Eve?” Better he encountered her than Thomas, and with any luck he’d never even have to know she was here.
She didn’t answer: the glitter-bright eyes behind the mask were almost-casually roaming the room but coming back to him more quickly than anyone casing the joint would have allowed, as if perhaps the boy backed up and in a ready position were of more interest than potential art on the walls or expensive nick-knacks scattered around. Boy Scout didn’t look quite so much like a target now and your typical college student didn’t react the way he had to intrusion. There was just a hint of approval in the curl of a smile; he looked about ready to try and toss her back out again, less lost little duckling and more capable than the last time. Her gaze assessed him with professional sharpness, clarity -- his movement was mostly unrestricted and his facial expression wasn’t showing signs of weakness. Either the kid had become better at hiding things than any of the others, Quinn included, or he wasn’t in pain. Eve wasn’t aware of the pull of thoughts at the corners of her mouth, that that had brought its own smile, too.
“Are you going to try and forcibly remove me?” She was more languid now, a subtle letting go of business-like stance and readiness. She sounded even more amused than usual. Skipping over the answer still.
Thomas was a lot of things, and not all of them were good, but when it came to the sort of qualities a vigilante needed to possess he was the best role model around - and one could learn a thing or two about what traits to avoid too, although that was more unintentional on his part. Eve struck him as the sort who liked to coax reactions out of people, so he was determined to do the opposite. Despite not being particularly worried about her physically attacking him, there wasn’t even the slightest chance of him completely relaxing his guard while she was still in the room. Hoping to avoid trouble but getting it anyway seemed to be a reoccurring theme with her, unfortunately - but he could hold his own if it came to that. His wound had been healing nicely and there was practically no pain at all, but he was still aware of the fact that it was a weakness; if someone delivered a direct punch or kick to that area, well, it was going to hurt like hell and might even bust open the stitches - thank God it was on his left side, so it was easier to defend.
Luke raised his eyebrows at her smile, but it was more curious than mocking. “No, I’m not going to try and forcibly remove you,” he sighed. “Did you just decide to stop by in between home invasions, or are you looking for something in particular?” He didn’t expect to get a specific answer out of her, but something was better than nothing.
“I was in the neighborhood,” she said with a sharp-brilliant smile, teeth very white in all that black. About a floor away, if it came down to the cold hard facts of things, but they rarely did and beside that, fact was so damn boring. A girl never liked to be pressed, it took all the mystery away. She inspected the very fingertips of the gloves she was wearing, as if the conversation were nothing more than a flippancy, and she leaned against that window as if she had any right to be standing there. The gloves themselves were not the kind bought in a department store, and they looked, if not old, then well-worn in. They had tiny spikes in the tips of the fingers, not something that would be any use in a fight unless put to particularly creative use, but the kind of thing that might well be used to aid in climbing up flat brick. Eve nudged one of the spikes (bent) with the flat of her fingernail, frowning. It was an expression gone by the time she looked up, fractionally business-like and back to mockery.
“Why, any recommendations?” she raised an eyebrow, took an obvious look around the room. “There’s not much market in dirty socks, pumpkin. Even yours.” A bite of laughter.
“I’m sure you were,” he remarked dryly, trying not to smile. When it came down to it she was still on the opposite side of the law, the side he staunchly fought against, but his mindset wasn’t so black-and-white that he hated her on principle. Besides, there were far worse people out there, who specialized in taking lives and innocence - things that couldn’t be replaced no matter how much money you had. “Nice gloves.” There was the tiniest hint of envy, since he’d been deprived of not only his armor but his grappling belt and staff, which hadn’t even come from Thomas in the first place. All he had was the stupid communicator, a reminder of what he was missing. Plus he was pretty sure the thing now had a GPS tracker in it, which made him want to throw it out the window on more than one occasion.
It struck him as kind of sad that, aside from Thomas and Alfie, Eve was really the only company he’d had - all other interaction had happened at the masquerade or online. “I don’t think there’s much that would interest you here, unless you happen to be a fan of video games. But the Xbox isn’t mine, so if you took it I’d be in some real trouble.” He regarded her with a hint of humor. “Did you end up going to the masquerade? It was a big hit.”
She threw a glance in the direction of the console, evidently entertained. If she brought one back to the Hamartia, she’d never evict Kat from her couch. “I don’t take things from little boys,” she said, and the words were provocative, designed to stir but the tone was ...almost fond? A glance around the room for art, even the soulless, ‘picked out by a boring designer’ kind, purely out of habit. Apparently, Brandon kept the nice stuff out of the kid’s room. She flexed and unflexed her fingers, experimentally, and she smiled silky-sweet and dangerous at the compliment to the equipment.
“Oh yes,” she said, light and airy with abandon, “Miss out on seeing the great and good embarrass themselves? It was a party, Boy Scout. What did you dress up as?”
The ‘little boys’ remark earned her a look, which said quite clearly that he knew what she was doing. The quickest way to get under his skin was to emphasize the fact that he was viewed as a child by pretty much every single adult he knew, and even his best attempts had only resulted in painstakingly slow progress at best. Even if he didn’t show it as much as he used to, it still bothered him. Age was the one thing he was never going to be able to overcome, no matter how hard he trained or how many criminals he stopped. “Thanks. Good to know you do draw the line somewhere.”
That earned a laugh. “I think I prefer to remain anonymous. I was there, that’s all you need to know. If I asked what you dressed up as, would you tell me?” Not that an answer would automatically equate to the truth, at least not in his mind. “How do you know who embarrassed themselves and who didn’t? It was impossible to tell who anyone was, even more so than it normally would have been.”
A look, tipped down her nose to him, as though it were especially silly or unobservant a remark. Then, said lightly (almost maddeningly so) for Eve saw absolutely no reason nor a desire for secrecy, “I was Cleopatra. Most people made asses of themselves, pumpkin, that’s how I know. Most people don’t have sex at parties with strangers, but the Mezzanine was full all night.” She sounded condescending, but that was usual enough for Eve and she stretched up with a lazy enjoyment of the easing of muscles that was perfectly relaxed and almost insultingly so. Boy Scout wasn’t a threat, even when he was fully healed and fixed, but he was fine.
“Did you fall off the wagon again, and in public, too?” The sweet, mocking tone was back. “I’m surprised there wasn’t a picture in the paper of the public’s youngest masked heartthrob, knocking back the champagne.”
Luke gave her a long look, trying to decide whether there was any reason for her to lie or not. Either way he hadn’t talked to any Cleopatra, so it didn’t really matter - the one girl had been Sam, and the other had most certainly not been Eve. “Not everyone had sex. I didn’t.” Yes, he’d ended up in the Mezzanine, but that didn’t count because nothing had even happened. Of course, he wasn’t about to mention that part of the night to anyone, least of all her. He watched her stretch with a hint of wariness, well aware that she had no reason to view him as a threat. That kind of intimidation and fear had never been a priority, not like it was for the Bat; he preferred to use the fact that he tended to be underestimated on sight against his enemies - there was a strange sort of satisfaction earned by the look on a criminal’s face when the realization occurred. Not that he’d had a chance to do much in the past few weeks, but hopefully that would change soon.
There were two reasons why Luke was adamant about keeping his costume a secret. Firstly, he’d consumed far more alcohol than he should have which resulted in a splitting headache the next morning, and he’d been seconds away from using the comm link to demand that Thomas get him some aspirin until he’d finally found some under the bathroom sink. Secondly, he and the sugar skull girl had pretty much made out in the middle of the dance floor - and he wasn’t taking a chance that Eve might have seen that. “Even if I had, no one would have known it was me. I wasn’t bleeding this time.” His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he was trying to figure something out just by looking at her - but if he reached some kind of conclusion, he didn’t make it known.
“There’s more than one way to disgrace yourself,” and Eve’s amusement didn’t seem to leave her, her words idle as she watched the way he looked at her, almost as if the effort itself to do so was a joke that only she was privy to. She laughed outright at the remark, clapped those gloved hands together (evidently, the palms were thickened, toughened with something that meant falling, if it happened, could be made significantly less painful and her grip was better) and the approval wasn’t a hint so much as it was explicit.
“You do seem to wind up bleeding,” she agreed, “You and...” Quinn, but she hadn’t a name for Quinn that wasn’t her real one, and Eve ignored the dangling sentence as if it had never been there to begin with. “Robin red-breast, I don’t think that’s quite the way to take it, pumpkin.” If she was relaxed before, she seemed to be almost deliberately more so with each expression on his part that indicated he was not: it was an exaggerated ease.
Well, he couldn’t argue with that. He’d seen his fair share of embarrassing behavior that didn’t involve sneaking off to a curtained room with a perfect stranger, but he thought that his actions had been relatively tame in comparison. “True.” He frowned suddenly, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “I read about the washroom thing in the paper. With the guy in the riot suit and the one dressed as Death? Now that’s disgusting. Public washrooms are bad enough without people contaminating them even more. At least the Mezzanine was somewhat private.”
Luke was more than capable of poking fun at himself, especially since the whole mask killer ordeal was far behind him. It didn’t mean that he’d dismissed the risk or was any less aware, but being serious about it all the time was just plain disheartening. He’d had enough of all that pointed seriousness to last him a while. “It’s because of my age. The older vigilantes get to fly under the radar when they’re bleeding, because they can ‘take care of it themselves.’” The air quotes were implied, and he couldn’t resist a slight roll of his eyes. The night he’d met Thomas the man had been sitting in a warehouse with a bullet lodged in his side, ready to collapse from blood loss - but no one made a big deal about that. If the Bat or Rorschach or even Corbinian ended up hurt, they took care of it and moved on; but when he ended up getting shot, which was actually better than it could have been since the mask killer didn’t have a high failure rate, it was a huge ordeal.
“It’s been what, a few weeks since I was shot? And I’m still being treated like an invalid.” That was admittedly a little harsh, but Luke had absolutely no one to vent to but himself - and that wasn’t very helpful. He could have gone on a much longer rant, but he remembered who he was talking to and intentionally stopped himself. All he needed was to say something he’d end up regretting.
She was laughing, from the minute his facial expression broke the steely resolve that was no doubt an imitation of someone else, even if Luke didn’t know it himself and it only rose in peals as he went on, in true-and-tested fashion, with all the sulkiness of one used to lawlessness, now cooped up. Eve didn’t hold much to other people’s rules, nor to other people’s impressions. “You sound like a toddler throwing a tantrum, kitten,” she said, and she didn’t sound sympathetic in the least but very much entertained. “You don’t look like you’re in need of a nursemaid anymore, try not to sound like it, hm?” It was, if it had come from someone else, passably good advice. She hadn’t even given it thought.
Thomas found it extremely odd to that in between his scheduled daylight appearances and his night activities he had somewhere he needed to be, if only to make sure that Luke was not 1) bleeding on the floor somewhere or 2) eating too much junk food. He still didn’t think of it as “coming home,” but he was getting into the habit of looking up from his work and trying to find a clock to make sure he came back to the Aubade apartment every twelve hours or so.
The Bat did not want to be seen returning to the same building that often, so it was usually Thomas who arrived at all hours, by various doors, sometimes using the stairs, sometimes the elevator, and he had not as yet showed up to the extravagant apartment in armor. He heard voices from Luke’s room as soon as he’d come in, but this was not unusual, as there was always some kind of noise coming from the boy’s television or computer, a disorienting change that took a great deal of getting used to.
It was at the bottom of the stair that Thomas realized that the voice was an actual person, and the exchange an actual conversation. Wary, though not convinced of any particular threat, he came down the hallway to see who it was, and recognized the voice about three steps from the door. No pause, at that point. He came inside, looking halfway between the gray, grim “Thomas at rest” (in expression) and the white-buttoned loose-tie of “Thomas at work” (in appearance). “Nice job avoiding the pressure sensors,” he told her. “You missed one.”
This was a lie, of course, but there was no way that she could know that, and he didn’t want her getting too comfortable.
Despite Luke doing his best to drop hints, Thomas still didn’t see the need to announce himself when he stopped by the apartment. By this point it didn’t bother him anymore and he just accepted it as one of those things that wasn’t going to change, but in a situation like this it certainly worked as a disadvantage. Luke figured he and Eve would talk for a bit before she inevitably got bored and left, hopefully before Thomas decided to drop by. Clearly he should have known better.
He heard the older man’s approach too late, and by the time he’d turned around Thomas was already in the room. On the one hand, he hadn’t completely overreacted - but on the other hand, Eve wasn’t the sort of person who cared about tact or saying the right thing at the right time. She wouldn’t simply turn and leave, which is what Luke wished she would do, and he really had no desire to act as some kind of mediator between the two of them. Still, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. He had no idea if the pressure sensors actually existed, but decided it would be best to pretend like they did - which meant refraining from making any sort of verbal comment about them.
“Hi.” He kept his voice casual, shooting a quick glance at Eve in the hopes that she might refrain from trying to push any buttons, just this once.
Well damn. She hadn’t meant to set foot across the threshold (for it was one thing to stand outside and another inside, a tricksy little piece of detail-based argument but an argument all the same) but the boy had become more observant than he should (than she’d given him credit for being, but that would have put her at fault, rather than him). She’d almost forgotten where she was standing, almost but not quite and if Luke had noticed that with him, Eve’s posture had been all fluid lines and easy grace, she had quite another from the moment the footfalls had become audible. Now her body no longer bowed against the sill but was attentive, wary, a readiness for movement that was not the oblique reactive stance Luke had fallen into on her entry but something much less evident. It was noticeable only from contrast, and not at all if you had looked at her face. Traces of the laughter remained, the pull of her mouth and the look in her eyes and she only half-turned her head to look at Brandon.
“If there were pressure sensors,” she said, honey-rich and deliberately slow, “You would have been in here ten minutes ago.” There could have been: there had been no re-con beforehand, no intent to cross the window-ledge. She didn’t know but she smiled as if she did.
“If I thought you were so much of a threat to merit haste,” Thomas said, blandly, “I would have hurried.” He stopped about five feet from Luke, facing Eve and her window. He didn’t need to be directly in front of Luke to protect him, and he didn’t really need to think it through to make sure that he was at an angle to do exactly that. Though he was telling the truth that much: he didn’t think Eve was a direct threat.
Thomas was not particularly trusting, nor was he particularly forgiving. He expected people to behave in a pattern, and the pattern was established by their behavior over the course of a certain amount of time and any data he could accumulate about their actions. According to three different accounts, Eve had aided others with no benefit to herself. She had assisted Quinn without recompense. She had been sincere in her efforts for charity, though she’d gone about it the worst way imaginable, and though she was an unprincipled thief, Thomas could find no record nor sign that she had ever hurt anyone. (Apart from himself, of course. But Thomas never held grudges when he himself was hurt; that was not part of his nature.)
No, Eve wasn’t there to hurt Luke. Thomas was able to separate the instinctively territorial part of himself that made him so angry after her last visit, and that was the only reason he wasn’t trying to kick her back out the window. Literally. There was a certain wariness about him to match hers, however, and if you looked, you could see it in his feet, spread slightly with a bare majority of his weight on his back leg, in the calm set of his shoulders, entirely oriented toward her, and in the open-palmed readiness of his hands. If Eve made a move, Thomas was more than ready to meet her.
“What are you here for?” He looked, for the first time, at Luke, to assess his mood and perhaps look for an answer.
Luke was already well aware that Eve didn’t pose a threat, because she’d had numerous chances to hurt him in the past if that was what she’d been after. Their one brief fight hadn’t been personal - he stood in her way and refused to move, so it was understandable that she’d retaliated. It didn't mean he condoned her nightly activities in any sense, but it did mean that she wasn't the sort to attack unless it was in self-defense or she had good reason to. Thomas must have realized it too, even though he hadn’t dropped his guard either.
“She was in the neighborhood,” he said with a glance in Eve’s direction, raising his eyebrows before looking back at Thomas with a shrug. “Just decided to stop by and say hi, I guess.” He sounded faintly curious, but not necessarily bothered by the fact that she’d dropped by uninvited. The fact that she’d been standing outside the window until he noticed her went unsaid.
For a woman who liked to provoke, to find weaknesses in human pride and to play upon them, the ways to pull and twist at Eve were as evident as those of her easy targets: she liked being a threat rather than a non-entity and dismissal caught under her skin and needled. There had been a loose feeling of banter with Luke, not quite relaxed but comfortable and it had half-filled the air. Now her posture changed, a subtle shift in alignment but a tell all the same. It was no longer a defensive way of standing but nor was it a position to attack -- the look of a professional not quite backed into a corner yet but aware and ready and the smile turned sharp and dangerous. Declaring her harmless was the easiest (and quickest) way to provoking Eve to prove otherwise.
“I left behind what I came for on my last trip,” the sounds were all sharp points, delicate like teeth and sly, “And I came to collect.” The lie was fluid-smooth and she didn’t even look at Luke. “Your security system is just as piss-poor as the last time, although the service,” a soft sound of tongue against the roof of her mouth, “Much improved. I didn’t even have to break a window. So thoughtful!” She was watching Thomas, alert for tells of movement, but her eyes now flickered over to Luke so-very-briefly without thought (but no hint of apology) and back.
Thomas’ expression hardened visibly. “I’m not letting you take anything from here,” he told her, stating the obvious just in case she’d missed it last time. “You’re losing that touch you keep boasting about if you found the one lit window on the wrong floor to visit.” Thomas suspected there was some connection between Eve and Luke that he was not understanding, and though he didn’t think it could possibly be anything criminal in nature, there had to be some reason she was here. He looked again at Luke, but he saw no real sign of worry or fear, just discomfort.
Back to Eve. “What were you doing in the neighborhood that you couldn’t use the elevator, Kelly?” The use of her last name was, strangely, not an insult. A sardonic use of the feminine first name probably would have stung more, but Thomas acknowledged their connection like a businessman and not a criminalist; he used her last name.
It took a fair amount of self-restraint to keep from rolling his eyes. Whatever reasons Eve had for coming here (which he suspected weren’t as underhanded as she wanted them to believe) he highly doubted it was another attempt to rob the apartment. Even if that had been her purpose, Luke wouldn’t have let it happen without a fight. “She’s not here to steal anything,” he said with a hint of annoyance, shooting her a look at the implication that he’d invited her in. Despite the small chance that he might have been wrong, he was fairly confident that he wasn’t.
Thomas wasn’t going to get an honest answer, or at least not one that was entirely true, but if he wanted to try then Luke wasn’t going to stop him - not that an interruption on his part would be welcome. He could tell already that this was going to be loads of fun.
“Re-con,” Eve’s correction of Luke was tossed his way with a smile and a flippancy that let it slip-slide off the annoyance of both (mirror-images of one another, it had to be said, the tabloids hadn’t hit ‘love-child’ instead of ‘rent-boy’ yet but if there were photos of them standing like that with the same scowl settled in between the brows, the stories would jump) and went right back to kindling it instead.
“You have a Picasso in your living room, I thought I’d check out how easy it’d be to dismantle the security -- again,” a look at Thomas now that was both lacking in seriousness and utterly contemptuous, “To get it out, but the Boy Scout here and well,” she whistled soft and low, and with a peculiar little smile as though well aware whatever next was going to be nasty, “No wonder he keeps nearly dying if this is how you’re teaching him.”
That hit a very solid, very visible target that Thomas hadn’t been aware that he was showing, but he was too busy reacting to notice. The wary readiness sharpened into anger and real restraint as he moved three steps into Eve’s space, blocking her eyeline to Luke and putting a broad chest between the two of them. “Leave,” he said, in a voice that might have characterized whole battalions crossing fields.
At the sight of that little smile he gave her a look that clearly said don’t, but it was too late. Eve pushed without regard for limits or lines, apparently, but what caused his scowl to deepen was the fact that she only said it to get a reaction. In his opinion going that far was low, and Luke wasn’t about to argue anything in her defense. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Thomas was protective enough already, and she’d simply made it worse.
“Nice talking to you as always, Eve.” His voice was thick with sarcasm and the smile he offered wasn’t much better, even if her view of him was blocked.
To say Eve did not observe warning signals like those ones would be patently untrue: she observed them, she ignored them and the sly slice of a smile-that-wasn’t remained. Eyes slid past wide shoulders in an attempt to see Luke, but it looked little like it bothered her -- rather falling into a ready tenseness.
“Why you stand between me and him, I don’t know, pumpkin,” she said and her voice was the kind of sweet that was ice cold at the same time, so chill it was unnoticeable until you thought of it, “I’m not the threat, after all and there’s no one between you and him.” The notch of challenge, of enjoying sliding the blade of conversation up and under defenses and biting deep. It was a kind of punishment: claws from one dismissed as nothing but a kitten and scratching as hard as possible to prove it. Eve didn’t consider her weaknesses much, but they lay as bare as Thomas’s. With Luke’s words, however, she laid a hand against the window-sill, ready to duck through and out -- not without blowing an exaggerated kiss Luke’s way with one small-spiked gloved hand before.
“Luke is free to leave any time he likes,” Thomas said, looking like someone had recently died and sounding sepulchre enough to hint that if no one did, someone might. “At least he would be brave enough to use the front door.” Thomas didn’t have a rebuttal for Eve’s assault, and though he did his best to hide it, it was clear from the brief flash of expression that was available as he turned away from the window that it was because he agreed with her. He was doing as much damage as anything else, and there was a thread of guilt there that moved his gaze past Luke entirely.
Without a word further, he moved around the boy and again into the hallway.
Somehow Luke managed to bite his tongue until Thomas went back out into the hallway, although his expression made it clear that he wasn’t done with Eve yet. She could vanish into the night after he’d had his say, and he was frustrated enough to disregard the fact that she probably wouldn’t care anyway. “You’re a real piece of work,” he snapped, taking a few steps forward and trying to lower his voice. “Do you get some kind of kick out of screwing with people like that? Is it really so hard to know when you’ve gone too far and just shut up?” He inhaled sharply, eyes narrowed as he studied her intently enough to give the suggestion that he was trying to figure her out on the spot.
“He has enough misplaced guilt without you adding onto it,” he said bluntly, his voice slowly becoming more steady and even. “You know damn well he’s no threat to me or anyone else, and by implying something like that you’re just making things worse.” It was clear he was coming to the end of his little spiel, and wasn’t quite sure how to finish. “So just... stop.”
The expression, that ice-shard amusement had slipped as Eve (not slow to read people) caught the very edges of that brush of guilt and whilst she didn’t move --paused with one hand back against the sill and her body twisted, angled to see both Luke and with the turn of her head, Brandon’s leaving -- there was perceptible difference. Guilt had never been the intention, never the purpose of the pin-prick push. Anger, from one as shut-down as tight, yes and bland dismissal had made that instinct worse, but guilt made her mulish. She only half listened to Luke’s diatribe, but she took the hand off the sill, and curled her fingers tightly -- and at the beginning, the bright look had slid and by the end it was back, but changed. Eve wore masks behind the black one, slid between them without effort and now was no different.
With her attention drawn back to the young man in front of her, Eve did not look chastised, nor guilty herself, but the lilt to her voice was deliberate rather than easy and it disappeared altogether within a few words. “He makes it easy,” she said, because he did, and she looked at Luke -- straight, without the slippery glamors of false flirtation or mockery, and for a moment then she looked less of a deliberate caricature and something honest -- it was gone, almost within seconds, but it was present. “He’s a threat because you all trot off after him,” and there was a space where a pet-name’s absence could be felt, “And you got shot and you nearly died and that’s the second of you after him and I try not to know how many in total.” This was knife-balance between the sway and cadence of Eve Luke had met in streets and alleys and in a cramped apartment and something that wasn’t, and perhaps it was the lit room that made her more stark.
“And he doesn’t tell you to go and he doesn’t teach you to cope and he leads you into playing heroes as if it’s all noble and selfless... and I don’t give a damn,” and the last sounded more like a reminder than anything to Luke himself. A look back and the flash of a smile, but one with something caught in it. “You’re still alive, despite him.” She ducked for the window again.
Luke paused, having expected an entirely different reaction from the one she’d given. He felt like he’d caught a glimpse of something rarely shown - that elusive something that Wren seemed to hold out so much hope for. “I know he does,” he admitted, because it was true, but that didn’t make it was a valid reason. She’d meant to push him but maybe it hadn’t entirely been intentional, judging by the albeit subtle change in her demeanor. Eve tried to make it obvious time and time again that she didn’t ‘give a damn’, and for the first time he wondered if she was trying to convince herself just as much as everyone else.
“You give him too much credit, Eve.” He spoke with the carefully controlled patience of someone who was accustomed to attempting to explain the same thing over and over without success yet still strove to give it another shot. “Even if he didn’t exist, we’d still be doing what we’re doing. Maybe you don’t believe that, but it’s true, and our reasons go far beyond the scope of one person’s example. I can’t speak for all young vigilantes, but I can speak for myself and the ones I know.” Batman and what he symbolized might have been part of the reason he’d wanted to wear a mask, but he wasn’t the reason - there was far more to it than just that.
“We’re not sheep, you know. No one leads us anywhere - we go where we choose and we do what we choose.” Luke shrugged. “I put on a mask and that awful costume long before I met him, and I would have kept doing it even if I’d never met him at all. It wouldn’t have been easy, but that wouldn’t have changed anything.” He paused. “So if you and I run into each other out on the streets again you won’t mind, right? Because you don’t give a damn.” There was a hint of something like amusement in his voice, and his return smile came with surprising ease.
“You didn’t have to meet him,” it was all voice, she was half in, half out and Eve slid almost completely from view as she spoke, “He was a symbol and I’ll come back for the Picasso,” she was laughing, and she was outside the window or just below it, “Because the pressure sensors were bullshit.” She was gone, with the soft scrape over brick and a no longer there presence.
Luke couldn’t help but give a small laugh at her parting remark, although he was amused by the thought of her assuming that he’d actively gone looking for the Bat and met him that way. “Pressure sensors,” he muttered, shaking his head and turning away from the window. His good humor quickly disappeared now that Eve was gone and he was left with the aftermath. He entered the hallway with brief hesitation before stating the obvious. “She’s gone now.”
Thomas was at the top of the stair. His arms were folded, and he did not pretend that he hadn’t been listening. If she hadn’t gone, he would have returned to make her leave, as they were all well aware. He’d been looking down the stair the way he had come, not focusing on what he was hearing but rather on the thoughts the argument brought to mind. Thomas did a great deal more thinking than doing, and when you thought about the number of things that he did even in a day, that was saying a lot.
He turned his head toward Luke, belated, and nodded slightly. “Why do you think she came?” he asked bluntly, looking now with that intense iron glare he used when he was after something difficult.
He knew that Thomas would have overheard everything even despite his attempts to lower his voice, but it hadn’t seemed very important at the time - and he hadn’t said anything that wasn’t said before. Luke watched him carefully and considered the question, because his view on Eve had changed from what it previously had been. “Honestly? I think she came to see how I was doing, but didn’t want me knowing that was the real reason.”
Thomas looked briefly surprised, and then thoughtful, and then slowly he nodded. “Maybe.” That hard cold look was gone, and he stood there for a while longer, thinking. “Why wouldn’t she use the door?” Thomas tipped his head toward his shoulder and looked sideways at Luke as if this was an afterthought; Luke, the one who must understand women better than the rest of us.
Luke raised his eyebrows, since he’d figured the reason she didn’t use the door had generally been established - but apparently he was wrong. “Visitors use the door, Thomas. People who plan on breaking into apartments use windows. If Eve used the door, then her excuse of being interested in your Picasso or whatever wouldn’t have been very convincing.” He considered leaving it at that, but couldn’t resist adding, “Besides, it wouldn’t have bothered you as much either.”
Thomas scowled. He couldn’t deny that he was bothered, of course. He was unhappy about it. “Is she going to steal the Picasso to make a point?” he asked, sounding resigned to the idea of losing the investment. Thomas never had time for beauty.
That was a good question. He felt like he understood Eve a little better than he had before, but she was still unpredictable. “Maybe. She might try, at least. Was that what she tried to steal the first time she broke in?” Luke knew very little detail-wise about that, aside from the fact that it was a failed robbery and it gave Eve reason to believe he was a vigilante.
“She didn’t get past the living room,” Thomas said, ominously. There was something in expression that said the living room had been quite far enough. “Are you going to let her in next time she feels like dropping by to pick something up?” he asked sardonically, beginning to descend the stairs.
“Right.” It was funny how so few words could explain quite a bit, and he didn’t feel the need to pursue the topic any further. “I’ll keep her locked out next time, don’t worry,” he retorted, rolling his eyes even as Thomas descended the stairs. “But if you keep making it easy for her to get to you, she’s going to keep pushing.” Luke knew he was probably saying more than Eve would have liked, but he had to at least try to point out what he was doing wrong even if it didn’t end up making a difference.
“I know,” Thomas said restlessly, descending into the ground floor and shooting a dark look at the window Eve had first used to enter, which now did not open (because the repairmen had done a bad job, not through any intent of his). “She’s angry at me for something I can’t fix.” Prowling some like a cat now, trying to find something to tear at, but eventually he just went to the kitchen to stare blindly into a cupboard. “She’d just find something else if it wasn’t that. She’s good at that,” he added bitterly.
He stood at the top of the stairs and watched, trying and failing to understand how Eve was even able to get under his skin in the first place. Sure, she knew how to push people’s buttons in a way that made it hard to not be bothered, but he never usually took what she said too seriously. So she was angry at him - ‘ignore it’ would have been his advice, but that sounded too patronizingly grade school and it had never worked for him back then anyway. When it came to mask killers, murders, and criminals dressed like clowns he was fine - but women eluded him completely.
Luke didn’t say anything until he’d reached the kitchen and rested his elbows on the counter, frowning. “Yeah, she is.” A minor observation before he thought of anything else. “You know what the problem is, though? You believe what she says.” It was much easier to dismiss things that weren’t true as opposed to those that were - or at least were believed to be - and he’d caught Thomas’ expression before he left the room. “But she’ll play on what you already think to drive the point home, whether it’s true or not. So stop listening to her, or at least make an effort to try, and it won’t matter if she’s angry or not.” He sounded entirely matter-of-fact (which was intentional) and made his way over to the fridge as though he didn’t expect a rebuttal (even though he did), pretending to study his drink options.
“A lot of people don’t like me or what I do,” Thomas said, giving up on trying to find something that would tempt him to either eat or drink, and settling on a plain water in thin plastic that he took to the edge of the table for his lean there. “They have called me a lot of things. Nothing Eve says is new. That doesn’t mean she’s wrong.” He twisted the plastic cap from its mooring and the tearing sound seemed to satisfy him somewhat.
“You wouldn’t have got this idea in your head if I hadn’t put it there. You would have gone to college and you would have joined the police force or the military. In either of those roles, you are less of a target than you are now.” He had thought all this through, you could tell. Over and over and over.
He settled on a can of pop and made a face at the interior of the fridge before turning around, back pressed against the closed door. “Doesn’t mean she’s right either,” he said. “No matter what you do, there’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like it.” It was clear that, whatever he thought of Eve now, he still didn’t agree with her any more than he had before.
Luke snapped open the lid of the pop can with a frown. “Huh. That’s funny - you never told me your ability was precognition.” After a moment he glanced up, shaking his head. “Being a target or not being one isn’t what matters. If you care about something enough then you do it despite the risks - and you’re not the only one who cares about doing the right thing.” He frowned again. “Why does it always have to come back to you anyway? What is it that makes you actually believe that you were responsible for what I chose to do?”
Thomas’ blank, measuring stare came back up to Luke. “I came first,” he said, simply. In assembly it was one of those default answers, the ones that were like ‘I said so’ and meant just about as much, but the way he said it put more meaning and understanding into the reply. He meant that he had set an example; he had left New York, left Musings. He had established himself there, knowingly, as a target and as a vehicle for change, but here something else had changed, and he had brought with him an idea that had changed them, and he wasn’t convinced it was for the better.
If something happened to anyone who had used Batman--the Bat, here--as a model for their lives, Thomas would take it as a personal failure. It was what made him such an easy target for Eve, and it was what made him so angry when things happened outside of his own ability. He cared too much.
“You came first,” he repeated with clear disbelief. What was he even supposed to say to that? ‘I don’t care’ probably wouldn’t end up going over very well, although it was closest to the truth. “You’re not the only one anymore, though. There are others now and they’re not just going to go away because you want them to. Maybe some of their methods are questionable, but when it comes down to it we all want the same thing. What you did is like... setting down the foundation, but the ones who chose to build on that did so of their own free will and for their own reasons, not yours.” Luke pushed himself away from the fridge and shrugged. “Things have changed, and they’ll keep changing. You can’t stop that.” It was almost apologetic, but not quite.
“I realize that.” He didn’t smile. In fact, he said no more, really. He had been over this, over and over it, and he had tried to find ways to stop it, to prevent anyone from being hurt, and had come up with only one very dark extreme that, in the end, might not work anyway. Thomas was very far from suicidal, and he wanted to be a symbol and not a martyr. He wanted to prove to these would-be heroes that all heroes were mortal, but if a gunshot wound wouldn’t do it, he doubted that even his death would have enough of an effect to reverse what he’d done.
After a moment more, he turned away with his water. “Let me know how it goes with your stitches at the check-up.”
Luke gave him a long look but simply shrugged again. Realization and acceptance weren’t the same thing, but he couldn’t make the latter happen. No one except Thomas himself could do anything but try, which happened to be one of the most frustrating things he’d ever encountered. “Yeah, I will.” He was tired, and whatever paper he’d been working on before Eve showed up could wait until later. “See you,” was his only addition before making his way back upstairs and into his room.