Damian Wayne (grownup_robin) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-02-23 03:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, damian wayne (robin), stephanie brown (batgirl) |
Who: Damian Wayne and Stephanie Brown
What: Orc and goblin killing
When: Backdated: Friday, February 21st. Evening
Where: Residential Area of Laguna Beach
Rating: Mostly Family Friendly
Status: Complete
Damian still couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. There were actual Orcs and other things running around Orange County. Actual Orcs from The Lord of the Rings. He really shouldn’t have been questioning how this was possible, because after a year in Orange County he’d seen some pretty crazy things; like the county looking like it belonged in Alice and Wonderland. Now that had been really weird. Now Orcs and goblins and things had been spotted in various places over the last twenty four hours and it hadn’t taken Damian long to decide that this was the a great opportunity for him to help protect other people. It also hadn’t taken long for Damian to decide to ask Stephanie if she wanted to join him. After everything that had happened on Valentine’s Day, he’d been reluctant at first, to ask her, but he knew that going on his own was reckless, he’d asked Steph and had decided that while fighting Orcs, he’d just picture Danny’s face.
And now, here they were, in Laguna Beach, fighting any Orcs or anything else they came across. The Orcs and Uruk hai were strong, but Damian was strong too and not only did he have his katana, but Damian was faster and more agile than the monsters. He hadn’t worn his Robin costume, but he did had his utility belt around his waist, over his hoodie, which was pulled up over his head and domino mask to conceal his identity just in case anyone saw them.
“I’m gonna need more of those, uh… Throwy thingys.” Stephanie knew they were called shuriken, even if Damian’s were bat-shaped and hers weren’t they were all still shuriken. But the momentary lapse in her ability to give things proper names was all thanks to the goblin that lunged at her from her right, she had been forced to sidestep but she took the creature down with the same speed her dream counterpart would have. “Anyway,” she said, taking a few steps closer to Damian. “Since we don’t have Batman to supply us, I know a guy that might be helpful. Dreams about being a monster hunter, has a trunk full of weapons and probably supply us or get us in touch with someone who can. I mean, I don’t even have a pair of handcuffs or zip ties, do I have to knock out everyone I want to bring in?”
She hadn’t wanted to go out in her Spoiler costume, mostly because having that long cape seemed like a bad idea in close quarters when she wasn’t yet sure how to make it work for her yet. Instead she had opted for modifying her street clothes and adding bits from her costume. The black leather jacket she wore over her stab vest had a cloth hood and she simply had that up over the black mesh hood from the Spoiler costume. She of course had her fully-stocked, save her dwindling number of shuriken, utility and thigh belts on. She’d kept the boots and the gloves too, mostly because they were perfect for this sort of work. The rest of her outfit was just jeans and a t-shirt. Danny, and possibly Damian, may have liked her in a skin-tight catsuit, but she was far more comfortable as she was.
“You know a guy who fights monsters in his dreams? That’s kind of cool. Well, he probably doesn’t think so. I mean, who wants to do that all the time?” Not that it was all that much different than what Damian and Steph did in their dreams except you just replaced monsters with crazy super villains. He had gotten pretty good at the whole talking while fighting thing without getting too distracted and smashed the end of his sword into the face of a goblin that had come at him as he talked to Stephanie, “But yeah, more bat-a-rangs would be a good thing to have.” He hadn’t used them much except for target practice in the Starks’ backyard, but he was sure that if he ended up using them when he was out, he’d probably lose a few, “You don’t have zip ties? My belt had zip ties.”
She had one thing right; Damian did like seeing her in a skin tight catsuit and while her Spoiler costume was nice, he liked her Batgirl costume better, but obviously she didn’t have that yet.
“Oh yeah, who wants run around beating up baddies? What kind of life is that, huh? I couldn’t even imagine.” She was grinning under her hood though Damian wouldn’t be able to see it. “I don’t think he runs around in kevlar and spandex and wears a cape though. Doesn’t seem the type, but him and his husband are absolutely adorable.” And hot too, but Damian didn’t need to hear that, strangely he didn’t appreciate Stephanie referring to anyone as attractive except himself. She had noticed of course, she wasn’t blind, but it wasn’t a topic she was going to be broaching any time soon, especially after talking about his abs had led to a discussion on Danny. She was never in the mood to do any kind of fighting other than physical fighting.
“Kinda the difference between the Robins and Spoiler,” she pointed out, ducking under a swinging orc only to pop up behind the creature and chopping the back of the thing’s neck with her hand. “You guys capture and contain. I just beat them up. Because I’m apparently the only one to realize that Blackgate is essentially worthless.”
It was such a mystery why Damian didn’t like hearing Steph call other guys attractive; especially Danny. It wasn’t that Damian didn’t want Steph to be happy, but deep down he wanted her to be happy with him instead. It was frustrating, but Damian was starting to get good at hiding his feelings. At least he thought he was. “Right. Who would want to do that?” He delivered a roundhouse kick to the stomach of a goblin, knocking it into a bush. “And that’s why we bring the really bad ones to Arkham.” Of course it seemed that Then again, Arkham didn’t seem to be any more secure than Blackgate, which Damian found just as ironic as the fact that his kevlar suit never seemed to be able to stop bullets when Jason shot him.
“Yeah, about Arkham.” She disarmed one and kicked it hard into another, both creatures falling over. “Did your dad like fund some sort of revolving door policy there, or did Gordon? Because how in the world has that place stayed open for so long if not? And good grief, we’re so lucky there’s only been one Harley Quinn, can you imagine more nutty doctors falling for their patients? I just… I don’t think I get Gotham.” She was clearly coming at it too logically.
She swung the sword in her hand, testing out the balance, contemplating if she ought to try to use it the way Damian was using his. It seemed like a bad idea, she wasn’t trained at all in it. “If I remember right though, your dad was all about not killing people, right? So what’s with the sword?”
“Nothing in Gotham makes any sense at all. Something that works one day doesn’t work the next. My father has captured The Joker a million times and he keeps getting out. I try not to dwell too much on it,” Damian took a quick look around at the unconscious Orcs and creatures on the ground, wondering what exactly to do with them now.
Glancing at Stephanie, he watched her with the sword, “I got it from the League of Assassins when they trained me. My father is against killing, so he wasn’t very happy with me when I decapitated this one bad guy.” When he’d first woken up from that particular dream, it had really freaked him out. To think that a ten year old was capable of something like that was disturbing.
Steph winced, he wouldn’t see it but he probably heard the soft hiss of her breath being drawn through her teeth. “Ooh, yeah I can imagine. You should have seen the look he gave me when I tried to choke out my dad with this big chain. Not a happy Batman. Then again, I think it might be more terrifying to see him smile in that mask.”
She had seen pictures of Bruce Wayne smiling on TV or in the papers a few times growing up in Gotham. It wasn’t a bad smile, he looked every bit the playboy billionaire he was trying to play, but she couldn’t imagine it while he was wearing the cowl. At least Tim smiled at her when he was wearing his mask, those were always sweet. Damian smiled at her when they slowed down long enough for him to get the chance. He had a nice smile too.
Jamming the sword into the dirt next to the sidewalk she looked back to Damian, thinking what he had been not so long ago. “What are we supposed to do with them?”
Damian frowned as he glanced around at the unconscious...or possibly dead, creatures. “This would be easier if they’d just melt or go poof or something.” He lowered the hood of his hoodie so he had better view and scratched his head, “I think all we can do is leave them here. We can’t just pile them up and burn them like they would in Middle Earth. Pretty sure that’s a crime out here.” He glanced at Stephanie and shrugged, a small smirk upon his lips.
“Since when are we that lucky?” Spoiler wasn’t so lucky in her dreams, and then there was always something going wrong, even when she and Tim did everything right. He had tried to explain it to her using game theory once, she had kissed him to shut him up. Having Tim about would have been helpful now though, after all he was supposed to be the clever one, surely he would have come up with something. “Yeah. Only thing we can do. Come on, I keep hearing that glass breaking from the next street over.”
Damian wasn’t sure if having Tim around would be good or not, but it would have been nice to sort out the crap that went on between them in the dreams. Damian was responsible for most of it and he was much more likely to apologize in real life than in the dreams. “Yeah. Lets go.” Fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of his sword, they headed towards the sound of glass breaking.
Thankfully the orcs and trolls and whatever else was there didn’t attack unless provoked, they seemed like they were more concerned with looting. It gave Damian and Steph time to be strategic, to plan how they were going to limit property damage and keep anyone else from getting hurt. It was easy to do when the things were roving the streets but when they broke into houses it was harder, and a lot more dangerous for the both of them. That glass breaking they had heard was a small group of the creatures smashing down a large window at the front of one good-sized house and it caused Steph to sigh dramatically under her hood. They were gonna have to go in there and clear out anything that was looting the place. “I guess I’ll take point this time.”
Damian didn’t know what Orcs and goblins would even be looking for while looting houses. They couldn’t know what a TV or stereo were and it wasn’t like there were precious gems or whatever they’d find back in Middle Earth, but then again, if they were out of their element, they were probably just looking for anything they thought was shiney. “I hope no one is in there.” He didn’t think the neighborhood had been evacuated or anything, but he was sure that some people had probably left before the falling ash got too bad, so he hoped no one was home, “Just be careful. Don’t need either of us getting too cocky.” He smirked, knowing that would be funnier if she’d actually dreamt about him yet.
“Getting cocky is your job, birdie. I’ve not been doing this long enough to be cocky.” She joked going up to the house and through the broken window. The place was a mess, glass and broken furniture everywhere, and the sounds of looting and those LOTR creatures echoing down the halls. She glanced back to make sure Damian was coming behind her then set off down a hallway, surprised to find only one orc tearing the large kitchen apart when she reached it. There was something off about it all but she figured she could take out this one then deal with any friends he might have had in the rest of the house.
She creeped in low, moving until she was able to crouch in front of what she guessed was the pantry door and pulled out one of her shuriken from her belt. Her aim was perfect, her technique was perfect, the only problem was that the thing wasn’t a human being. It didn’t pierce the flesh in the right way, didn’t bring it down as much as it made the creature scream and flail wildly at the back of his neck to get it out. This brought his friends running, one bursting out of the pantry behind Steph, causing her to roll clumsily away, narrowly avoiding getting impaled by the splintering door.
This put her into the path of one that charged in wielding an axe, he was more than happy to take up for his friend by cleaving Spoiler, still on the floor, in half. He was about to bring it down and split her skull in two when she kicked up at the handle and brought her hands up to grab at it, stopping the blade less than a hair’s width away from her nose.
Damian made a face at Steph before following her into the house, holding his katana at the ready in case they got ambushed, but it appeared that the coast was clear, at least in the living room. All the sounds were coming from the kitchen so he continued following Stephanie, turning his back to her as he moved just in case. Reaching the kitchen he frowned when he saw the lone orc, but before he could do anything, Stephanie threw one of her shuriken and he winced slightly at the sound it made as it sank into the creature’s skin, but wasn’t exactly surprised when it didn’t fall, “That’s not good.” As its friend appeared out of the pantry, Damian jumped over the kitchen island sliding his katana through the orc’s back, between its shoulder blades in an attempt to shut it up then turned to the one that had attacked Steph, swinging the sword around in an arc towards it’s neck as the ax fell from its hands, towards Stephanie.
Thanks to Damian she was able to take control of the axe and roll away until she was up on her feet again. The axe was heavier than it looked but Steph had no problems wielding it well enough to take down the one that had burst through the pantry door, embedding the blade deep into the creature’s skull. After that the kitchen fell quiet and she, leaving the axe in the Orc, came to lean against the island, hands shaking a little and she pushed her hood back then pulled off the black one that had covered the whole of her face.
It probably wasn’t wise uncovering her mouth, even indoors, but she had to see the state of it. Looking close she was able to tell that a few fibers of the mesh had been frayed a little thanks to the blade that had nearly split her skull. “That was… Shit.”
When Damian saw the ax fall, he’d been worried about Stephanie, but was relieved when she jumped up, ax in hand and it wasn’t until the Orc was dead did he release the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. If something happened to Stephanie after he’d asked her to come kick Orc butt with him, he’d never forgive himself. “You okay?” He asked, pulling down the piece of material he’d wrapped around his nose and mouth earlier. He couldn’t help but notice the way Steph’s hands shook and he had the urge to reach out and steady them, but he refrained, not wanting to make things awkward no matter how worried he was about her.
“Yeah.” she said, probably a little too quickly, but she knew she would be fine. “I really, really hate close calls, you know? They make me a little nuts. The whole you should be dead thing,” She looked up at him then back down to the hood in her gloved hands. “Or worse, the whole if you were better that wouldn’t have happened. Yay, doubting myself. And not to talk bad about the dead or anything, but that one I always hear in your Dad’s voice. Shelve it, tonight. You know.” she puffed out her cheeks as she exhaled. “Whatever, I’ll be okay. Didn’t actually get through my hood but got close. I think I’m just going to stick with my knife, seems to work better.”
Blue eyes moved from her hands to her face and back and Damian had to continue to fight the urge to reach out and take her hands. “You shouldn’t doubt yourself. You’re amazing and you know it.” He gestured towards the dead orcs, “Who else could do that? And I mean, catching that ax was pretty bad ass.” Dream Damian would probably have given her a compliment that doubled as an insult, because he wouldn’t have wanted her to catch on that he had a crush on her, but real Damian wasn’t like that and wasn’t just complimenting her because he had feelings for her. He really did think she’d been doing an awesome job tonight.
“Yeah,” she said unconvinced. Steph fighting to earn the respect and approval of people she idolized was a pretty common theme for her, both in her dreams and in her real life. She was also just as hard on herself as in both, but she also didn’t give up. She could be better. Would be better, and she wasn’t going to let another close call happen again that day. Damian was sweet though, and really she did deeply appreciate his words of encouragement. It was more than having at least one member of the Wayne family approve of her too. Damian was highly skilled, knew what he was doing, and probably wouldn’t have bullshitted her if he really thought she was that bad. He wouldn’t have invited her out if he hadn’t already known she could take it. She did smile at him though, “Thanks, Damian. I… It means a lot to hear you say that.”
When Stephanie smiled, Damian smiled back, which probably looked odd with his domino mask, but how could he resist when she was smiling at him? “And I mean it too. I mean, you’re the only person who has been able to take me down.” Okay, so Alyssa had before, but that was before he’d really gotten used to his new found strength and abilities. Now, he was almost up to par with his dream self, “So, you wanna keep kicking some orc butt?” He didn’t think there were any other creatures in this house, but he was sure there were some more on this street.
“I’m good at knocking people off guard.” she smiled. She was going to have to buy him lunch, or a waffle or something when this was all over for how nice he was being to her. She might have seriously considered a hug in that moment if she hadn’t had that long talk with her fiance about setting boundaries with the young Mr Wayne. She pulled the black hood back on then followed it with the hood of her jacket. “Right. Yeah. I think we haven’t taken nearly enough down yet.”