Rooms

[For the past three weeks, while Gotham's vigilantes have been experiencing the charms of Gotham U, the mob has been making inroads. After all, no one's been around to get in their way, and no one's been offering the citizens of the city any kind of out. By the time the month comes to a close, the Falcones have reclaimed all lost ground. They have their hands back in all the political pots, and they've dug their fingers into GCPD deeper than ever. The Egorovs are back in business, and the Maronis are working on getting their grubby little fingers in all those new charitable institutions that have been popping up.

There's an open call, whispered along the streets, for rogues and villains to join the Families in their efforts to take the city back for once and all.]

[Okay, so everyone knows the rule of three when it comes to telling a joke. The third prank? It's kind of a doozy. A few hours before dawn, the old Gotham U Clock Tower is lit up by two giant industrial spotlights below. They reveal that someone has painted green eyes and a big, red smile on the tower. 3, 2, 1 and then the surrounding speakers start to play a laugh track that loops endlessly.

But, the fun doesn't stop there! The clocktower's hands whirl and the Joker's voice plays over the loudspeaker as the laugh track continues:] Ahem, ahem. Attention students of Gotham University. Class is cancelled for the day so that everyone can enjoy extracurricular activities. Find all five bombs on campus by sundown or the whole place will be blown SSSSKKKKKYYYY HIIIIIGGGHHHH. Heheh! Have fun!

Who: Tiny!Donna Carroll
What: A visit from "her lawyer".
Where: GCPD
When: Roughly 24 hours after this.
Warnings/Rating: Nope. I just write too much. :/

( She really wasn't scared. )

[Early Tuesday evening, three police cars and a SWAT truck show up to the Freshman dorm at GU. Someone is being made an example of. From the fourth floor, there are loud protests from one of the female students trying to argue her way out of the inevitable arrest. "Some guy just died!" "There's a murderer out there!" "Your priorities are messed up!" "I didn't do anything wrong!" "I know my rights!" "Am I being charged with a crime?" Etc etc.

Regardless, a tiny nerd girl (Donna if you're nasty~) is removed from the building in handcuffs, along with any electronic devices she had in her room. The police make sure that they have made enough noise to get the building's residents' attention, answering any questions with vague reassurance that the immediate threat has been dealt with.]

[After this.]

Are you okay?

[Public]
[As a result of Emily going Deathly, reality shifts for "Ed" Nashton. His hands go transparent and then the game controller that he was holding suddenly drops to the floor. If she's Death, then he's got to be dead. And if he's dead? Then he's a full on ghost. He does his best to communicate with his electronics:]

W͖͕͍̪͉̟ͅe̴̮͇̤̹̫l̞͖͙͢l̵̦̰̟͔ͅ,͕̝͜ ͇s̘h҉̠̬͉͎͉̗i͙̰̘̲̜̳t͈̼̤͔̗͟.͍͇͈

Who: Emily (or is it?)
What: "Helping" someone out
Where: Gotham U dorms
When: During this "prank"
Warnings/Rating: Creepiness? NPC death.

( A new sound fills the hallway like a blanket over the ringing of laughter )

[Everyone knows the prank where you fill a bunch of cups full of water and put them down a hall, right? Well, think that, except instead of water, the cups all have about three tablespoons of sickening green Joker Venom in them. The boys floor is covered from one side to the other with these cups on Sunday night. One dumb kid actually drinks the stuff and dies laughing. Slow, painful, howling laughter.]

Who: Anyone who wishes to attend
What: A reluctant party
Where: Wayne Manor grounds (Exterior. The Batcave is inaccessible, and the Manor is locked to non-thieves and non-family.)
When: During the Gotham age-down plot
Warnings/Rating: This is a group log. Please place locations in headers, and use warnings where required.

Crowded, the party was upscale. College kids littered the grounds of Wayne Manor, but the decor was still the best Gotham had to offer, despite the relative youth of the attendants. The front steps were lantern-lit, and the stone landing and fountain circle were the center of the festivities for the evening. From the landing, a DJ played college hits, and there were two white tents erected for dancing. Around the twinkle-lit fountain, there was a well-stocked bar and an opulent buffet, and someone had even ordered an ice-sculpture swan to glitter in the lantern lights. Only the best booze, only the most expensive hor d'oeuvres, and it was a Gotham charity gala in miniature.

The doors to the big house were locked tight, but the grounds were unguarded (save for a certain inaccessible Batcave). Beyond the verdant and unlit field, a gamekeeper's house sat locked, and the stables housed a horse or two, empty stalls and impressive hay stacks. The greenhouse was warm, even in the evening, the day's heat still holding onto leaves and blooms. All around the property, the largely-untamed gardens were barely lit and perfect for slipping away, benches and trees and shrubs to hide behind. Early in the evening, and they were already crowded, the gardens, with pawing teenagers two-bottles deep.

Beyond the gardens, trees grew tall and eclipsed the moon and stars, and the loud music from the party barely carried there, where the canopy shut out the world.

[Bruce tries to lock the invitation to Gotham only, specific Gotham onlys, but unbeknownst to him it fails.

The invite is simple. A party, on the grounds of Wayne Manor. Friday night at 7. Music, food, and booze (Ed made him put it in) are promised, but feel free to bring your own, kids.]

Despite all things said on the journals, Destin - who wasn't really Destin, like Emily wasn't really Emily - had all the game of a blind geek with a magic phone. At least the damn thing seemed like magic, because he knew all the words that flowed across the screen without actually reading a single letter. It wasn't close to normal, but it didn't feel off. It felt - right - and it was one of the few things that did.

Much like it felt right to talk to her - Stephanie - even though his palms felt slightly damp and he was currently staring at his closet - where he knew his closet to be, the phone informed him, as if it held some secret. He reached out, fingers running over shirts that he knew the composition of - 95% cotton, 5% spandex, 50% cotton and 50% polyester, 100% cotton (that one, it felt smoother under his fingertips). The phone told him it was white, but the one two hangers down was dark gray and that seemed to be the better choice if only because it was more forgiving than white. (White being the color that showed lipstick and coffee stains - as the phone also informed him.)

Gray it was.

And dark blue jeans that had probably been ironed (no, said the phone) - if they'd ever been worn (correct) - but it wasn't as though he could check himself in the mirror. (He looked clean and preppy - or so he was informed by the thing chained to his wrist.) The last thing to go on were his sunglasses that he wore around campus, and out he went, no stick in sight, nothing to help him but the steady flow of information from the phone about where to go, who was coming, which corner to go around - don't trip over the passed out fratboy - and to her dorm.

One nervous rub of his palms against his jeans, a deep breath for courage, and he knocked, lightly, all knuckle on manufactured wood.

[Days after the collapse of the underwater lab, Bruce had been too many places. The Hulk had carried him up out of the bay, and didn't stop until he'd traveled far. Far, far. Following some sort of internal compass even in his hurt and grief. He had to stop, sometimes, just to shout again, trying to let out the tightness and awful feeling at the back of his throat, but the sound never worked. Neither did striking anything - trees, old buildings, the ground. Most often, the ground, and never anywhere with people or anything that would lead to anyone being hurt. He followed the compass - north, south, north, west, west, west. He stopped with his feet in the water, salt in his throat, a rocky cliff at his back. And he knew, somehow, that the place he'd found was the right place to be. So he stopped. And sat.

Bruce woke among the rocks, salt still in his throat, feet in the water. The ocean lapped at him, and far above, perched on the cliff - in the cliff - was a familiarly rounded building. Edged in glass and modernly west-coast, even from the strange angle, Bruce knew Tony's Malibu home.

It was awkward, climbing up, finding his way toward an entrance. He was tired and hungry, and thankful for JARVIS letting him inside. There was food. There was a change of clothing. Everything around him screamed Tony, and Bruce did his best to wade through it while forcing back that same raw pain that had driven his counterpart. It was too much to be in Tony's space, at least a space that was so much him. Down to the sometimes-lingering traces of cologne and shop grease in the air. He couldn't stay. If he stayed, the Big Guy would make a reappearance, and he didn't really want to tear the Malibu house apart. He needed to leave, even if the only place he had to go would also hold traces of his friend. It wouldn't be quite as bad as his one-time home.]

[Before stepping through into the DC door to go to the lab in Gotham:]

[JARVIS]
JARVIS? Let me know what people are planning for a funer-- [...] for services, okay? [That's all he can manage to say about that.]

[Selina, Bucky (as James), Gwen, Pepper]
I have to go for a while. I hope everyone's okay. I just [...] have to go.

I'm sorry.

[What's a college campus without a good prank? Ever heard the one about a cow that can't go down stairs? In the dead of night, the cry of a nice moo-moo being lead upstairs of the dorm can be heard. By the time it's four stories up, whoever brought it up there can't be found, but there's a pretty big knife duct taped to the wall with graffiti that says "PUT ME OUT OF MY MOO-SERY."]

[While Bruce had a nerd-fantasy future mapped out for him on the journals, Edd had a feeling he wasn't so lucky. The word rogue stuck with him like a thistle. A silly, old fashioned word that had never meant anything to him in his whole life until someone accused him of it. And in this Gotham Steph had painted with vigilante bats and "colorful" villains, he couldn't help but worry that he'd be on the weird side of things. He never grew up in this awesome manor and he never felt a deep desire to help everyone in the city. Kids like him? Were too busy trying to survive. The more he thought about his childhood, the more it felt like a super villain origin story.

But, Bruce was his best friend and if they found a Batcave and a costume below this ancient house? Maybe that would set Ed's life on a new track. Maybe he could prove all of them wrong. So, he came over to Bruce's giant manor with two backpacks full of video games and consoles like they were just going to have a nerd weekend. His sixth sense pricked at the back of his neck as he approached the manor; ghosts of every possible generation swirling around inside like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. Some of the voices were loud, others so soft that a thought could drown them out. It was kind of a ghost hunter's dream, but Ed knew this was not the time for that kind of thing.

He walked up the stairs to the manor, felt really silly about knocking on the massive doors, but did it anyway.]

[It happens while they sleep (or while they do not), in those dreary moments where the deep black, smoggy sky begins to hint at shades of pink and orange. Just before another Gotham morning arrives, some residents suddenly find themselves not in their own beds or on rooftops peering over the city or surrounded by the glittering lights of money being gambled away, but in the dormitories of Gotham University. Each in their own room. And, regardless of how young or old they should be, they now all are incoming freshman, just beginning their first year at university. No one, really, remembers who they were before beyond the memories any 18 year old has. Gone are years and years, erased by the hotel’s need for balance. You see, one rogue too little to be any rogue at all, and the whole world goes off kilter. So, adjustments are necessary, and many, even those who might not call this city their home, pay the price.

Gotham filled to the brim with teenagers? Oh, this is bound to be interesting at the very least.]

Who: Bruce.
What: Narrative: making plans.
Where: Gotham.
When: Nowish, pre-bb plot.
Warnings/Rating: Nah.

( Bruce does stuff. )

[During this.]

[Locked to Bruce W]
That idiot clone is talking of coming to Gotham, to help.

[And after some consideration...]

[Locked to Selina K]
What happened to Tony?

ETA: [Locked to Dick G]
Grayson.

ETA 2.0: [Locked to Barbara G]
Is Montoya still stabled at the manor?

ETA 3.0: [Locked to Tony S]
[After Selina's... comment, he decides to try this. Because.]

Hello?

Who: Joker
What: mistaken for the red hood :0
Where: Gotham
When: recently
Warnings: pretty mild for Joker

( The dead boy transformed! Quiet whispers into carnival madness. )

Who: "Alexei," Vanessa, Victor, Mina
What: Exploration, part deux
Where: Gotham Cemetary: 1 and 2
When: Immediately after this hallway interlude
Warnings/Rating: Likely none

( I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - )

[A scuffle outside a cheap motel at the edge of the business district results in six men in the hospital and a Cadillac buried in the side of a building. Interviewed witnesses claim it was Superman "on his day off."]