Rooms

[Gatsby is glitter and glitz and glamour. It is a constant party, a constant high, a constant flow of liquor in her veins. It is getting lost in everything that everyone expects her to be. It is forgetting about a little girl at home, or about the man that reviles her existence in his life. It is about the buzzing in her mind, and the whispers of thoughts every minute of every day. It is booze and drugs and pretty people doing some not so pretty things.

Gatsby is escape.

MK has used this to her advantage as of late. The frivolity of Gatsby makes it all so much easier. All of it. Her fiance who doesn't love her, a niece who loves a coldhearted doctor more than her broken aunt, the loneliness, the thoughts of strangers prodding into her brain. She's gotten a little better at controlling when she wants to, but most days? She doesn't want to. She just wants the sharp taste of whiskey on her tongue and the opium highs that filled her brain.

She finds herself one day dragged to some show that she's too high out of her mind to even comprehend, dressed in gauzy gray that makes her bright red hair and pale skin stand out, scars scattered up and down her arm covered up by make-up. But she sits there, fake plastic smile and dazed gaze at the stage, and she loses herself in the spinning performers and the music. And then, she sees a familiar flash of blonde and her face falters. She squints, and she tries to focus on the thoughts, but she can't suss anything out. The plastic smile melts into a frown, and when the show is over, no one wants to even deal with that expression. They know, the friends she cultivated here know that the redhead has a darkness lingering, and no one has the patience to deal with that. So MK drifts, searching for a way to find Wren after the show is finished.]

Who: Helena and Death
What: Plans foiled again!
Where: Helena's penthouse
When: Current
Warnings/Rating: Suicide attempt. The sads.

( I've seen monsters, Helena. You're not one of them. )

[Two hours after the events here, the time delayed messages come through. If either is responded to, no response will come.]

[Locked to Bruce W]

I'm sorry. I know it's not enough, but I hope one day you can forgive me. I'm not in DC anymore and I won't bother any of you again.

I love you.

[Locked to Selina K]

I'm sorry. Your new boyfriend is a dick.

[Locked to Bruce W]
[When Helena doesn't respond.]

Is she dead?

[The Beast's letters are in Gothic letter print, transcribed onto paper.]

One of the kitchen servants is missing.

Given that I seem to be the only resident of this lovely little town, would it be too much to declare myself mayor?

[Death]

[immediately during this]

My sister?

[Bruce Wayne]

Talk to me, old man.

It really was a last resort. Before everything had changed, Marina never would have had this happen. She was a woman that required options; she had enough shoes to open a secondhand store, and enough take-out menus that she could go her entire life without ever having to order from the same place twice if she didn't want to. In Las Vegas, she would have had many different people that she would have called before ever even considering this.. but this Gotham shithole wasn't Vegas and Marina didn't have the time, energy, or the welcoming attitude to go making new friends. Not the kind that she could exploit at nine pm, anyway.

Which meant that when work called her in for some late-night criminal enterprising, she needed to find something to do with her son. Even though Marina knew that there was only one option, she exhausted herself while tearing through her closet, trying to think of something-anything else. She cursed Ford while she put on her lipstick; why did he have to be off adventuring with the living dead when he could have been her babysitter? Why did she have to rely on Russ? He might have been Nathan's father, but the idea of asking him for a favor made Marina shudder with anxiety as she struggled into tight jeans and atypical flats on her way out the front door. Nathan followed along like a chipper duckling, accustomed to this type of thing so much so that it didn't make him worry that anything was wrong. Adventures after dark and French profanity spit at the sky essentially were Marina, and Nathan chattered on to her about Godzilla -- the latest obsession in his life -- as she fastened him into his car seat.

There was only one place for her to look for Russ. She didn't know where he was living now, but she knew where he worked. She knew he stayed late unless he was going to hit a bar, and when she cruised by through the parking lot, she saw that his bike was thankfully parked at the former rather than the latter. She threw the sedan -- one that was a whole hell of a lot nicer than anything she'd driven in Vegas -- into park and got Nathan out of the backseat along with a little blue Monsters Inc. backpack. Then she marched into the shop, kid on her hip, cigarette on her mouth. Nathan made a face at the smoke before she pulled it away in order to call role call while she surveyed steel and oil-blackened concrete. "Russ?" And in case he was intent on trying to ignore her, "I know you're here. I saw your bike."

[Private to Selina K]

Checking in, meow face.

[Private to Diana P]

Br The Dark Knight is taking some time away from Gotham. Can I convince you to stick around in my lovely city a little longer in case something happens?

Who: Pepper P
What: Re-evaluating
When: Last thing Monday.
Warnings: N/A


( There would be jobs. But her job had become her life, and Pepper didn't know how you parsed the two back to their boxes without a vacancy opening up at her feet.  )

[Not checking the time first, so sending at essentially 11:00 PM.]

[Call to Pepper P.]

[No, he still hasn't checked his inbox. Ring.]

[Journal lock to Bruce B.]

Hi, I need some A+.

[Jason T., Bruce W., and Selina K. locked individually.]

Updates.

[Locks to Bucky B., Steve R., and Natasha R. (individually) are all begun but aborted before posting.]

God bless America and our troops.

( [Drawn on the page, a quick sketch.] )

[Locked to Mack]
Ma'am?

ETA: [Phone call to Bucky B]
Ring!

[Image found here.]