Summary:Nightwing checks in on Orphan and Phobos. He R Disappoint. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The moon hangs heavy and seemingly low against the night time cloud cover giving some glimmer of light to the vacant lot on the edge of Staten Island. Close enough to the border to be considered part of a new territory, far enough away from the stomping grounds of other gangs, it was prime real estate to be taken up by the interests of someone…
But not the gang that Orphan and Phobos had been tailing this last week. Easiest way to tell? The fight was too easy.
The two vigilantes were there, standing around the rusted out cars, the broken down appliances. It had been a less than ideal battleground for two gangs to throw down. And once Orphan and Phobos entered into it they were quickly put down. So much so that only one was conscious, though he was already bound and readied or the police… though their response time this far out was a bit long.
Alexander, however, was dusting off his hands and looking around. Then he looked over towards Orphan and pointed at himself as he held up five fingers. "I got five."
A beat, then he adds. "I win." Though assuredly it's not a competition.
Orphan has her hood up and cowl on. In all that black she can be hard to pick out in the darkness, the yellow markings on her costume breaking it up a bit. At Phobos' claim, she crosses her arms before her and her weight shifts to a hipcocked stance and, if her face could be seen, she'd undoubtedly be giving him a Look.
When Cassandra said she'd help cover Nightwing's stomping grounds to help ease his workload, she didn't specifically mention she'd be having help. But Alex lets himself get dragged out night after night. That makes him the sidekick, right? There's a certain ease to Cassandra's manner about the young man that Nightwing can likely pick up on.
Orphan doesn't use ASL so much as she uses the signs of it. It's a bit jumbled to follow, but with practice it gets a bit easier to parse her intent. "« Because I stopped the one at your back. Sloppy. »" The mocking can almost be 'heard'.
Sigh. The hiss of escaping breath is audible in the relative quiet of the street, and when the pair bother to look they'll find Nightwing standing there amid the carnage looking around curiously, turning this way and that with an intent air. When he got there is anyone's guess. He kneels next to one of the downed men and begins to search him with a speed and thuroughness that bespeaks long practice.
"Someone wanna explain?" he asks curiously, hands emptying pockets until he comes up with a phone and moves on to the next guy to do the same. "I'm assuming he's with you." he says to Orphan, merely nodding Phobos' direction.
As for the blond youth with her, his mask is more of a desperado mask that just covers the bottom half of his face, his expressions are more easily read. Especially when he narrows one eye at her and points as he does the mental calculations again. She likely can read the small subtle cues of his stance shifting a little as he replays the fight in his mind…
And when he reaches the relevant portion his nose makes this little crinkling motion, and she knows she has him. "Ok, you win." His smirk isn't seen under the mask, but the sentiment is clear in his blue eyes.
Her 'sidekick' however, is wearing a black leather and kevlar suit similar to the Bat crew, but not quite as advanced in design. It also has a portion on the left upper shoulder that's likely been damaged and repaired. No ornamentation marks him with a theme or the like. Save, perhaps, for a small emblem of a black cat on a pink background of all things on the opposing shoulder.
Then he signs, « You get to choose where we eat then. »
But then a voice adds itself to the conversation and Alexander turns. Eyebrow quirked and curious but not startled or apprehensive for whatever reason. His brow knits a little as he gives the man a once over and lifts a hand in a semblance of a wave. "Hello."
The youth shoots a look over at Orphan, probably taking his lead from her as to who this fellow might be.
It's just a tilt of the head, the shift in the set of her shoulders as Phobos concedes, but the 'damned right' is there for him to pick up on. Watching him as he went through the fight again is actually interesting, and so she doesn't look over at Nightwing immediately when she does finally spot him.
The older vigilante gets a small wave by way of hello as she watches him start to search the unconscious thugs. "« Gang fight. Had to stop them before someone got hurt. »" Because once the knives and guns come out, it's just a matter of time before someone winds up dying. And Orphan will go to great lengths to keep people from dying.
A short bob of Orphan's head answers Nightwing, and she finger-spells his name out as he gave it to her. A-L-E-X. It's an awful codename. He should really give her a new one. While she might have been around while others have called him Phobos, she really doesn't hear it any differently than 'Alex'.
Dick Grayson catches the hand motions out of the corner of his eye, "Dead." he corrects her with the appropriate sign, "Hurt is what they got anyway." because the distinction is important to make. Doing the work is doing the work, but one should never lie nor make light of it, least of all to ones self. He can almost heard Bruce's words echoing in his head as he once said the exact same thing she did. He waves the phone over the bracer on his forearm and nods as his coms makes a soft acknowledging beep sound of having data mined it. He puts the phone back and moves on to the next.
This is the part of the work people rarely see, the collection of information, the sifting for clues afterward, the /real/ work of hanging with the Bats. Everyone wants to be a ninja, few want to be detectives, very little glory or glamor in that. "Nice to meet you Alex, I'm Nightwing. Wanna help out? I need each phone, don't forget who had which phone, ID's also useful assuming they're carrying any, most won't be. Put everything back where you got it from, don't touch anything if you're not wearing gloves." he pauses and turns to eye Cass, "Don't suppose you let any of them go?"
Alexander shoots a glance over toward Cassandra, and unless she supersedes the young man's request then his blue eyes return back to the man. A single instant is seen where he gauges the matter and the result he comes back with is a reply. "Yes, sir."
And with that he sets to, breaking away from the two of them to begin the required cataloging, pairing phones with IDs when possible and then combining phones with individuals with small clicks of his own cell's camera.
He makes sure to execute the orders thoroughly and with a steady focused pace. Perhaps surprising in some ways, then again perhaps not considering who raised him. But while he does this it leaves Cass and Dick time to chat.
Cassandra *is* known for being a chatterbox. The small woman repeats the sign, be that to get it right or acknowledging through repetition is a bit harder to discern. "« Can heal from hurt. »" Few can heal from dead. Except certain Special Snowflake Bats.
The question of letting any go gets a quizzical tilt of her head, and she shakes it. Instead, she points to the one guy off to the side that's still conscious. That's as close as anyone got to 'away'. "« Thought you were taking time off. »" Cassandra knows that Nightwing has another job, but she starts to get fuzzy on where one stops and the other begins.
When Alex starts to help, she turns her attention on him, the set of her body indicating a curious interest. It's that slight shift in him when he's offering someone respect. It's the focus he has when he's given a task. It's very different from how he is with her.
Dick Grayson sighs a bit and disappointment radiates from his body language at her responce. "You need more training." he says, "A lot more." he looks around at the downed thugs, the litered weapons, all of it, and shakes his head, a hand coming up to cup his chin as he considers. He shoots a look towards where Alex works, then back to Cass. "No time like the present." he offers to the air before turning to face Cassandra and instantly his body language is completely different, instructional, authoritative but not condesending. It's one of the few times he /doesn't/ look like Batman, sure, there's hints of Bruce in there, but he's made something more of it. "What is the mission?" he asks her, the question seeming to have more weight then the words imply.
As he goes about the downed gangsters, Alexander makes sure the zip ties are secure, checks their vitals, makes sure the wounds aren't dangerous. It's all done with the methodical precision of a war time field medic, just moving from point to point to point. There's no empathy in the way he does it, one might almost imagine it's a series of points on a mental checklist he has and he's simply ticking off each box as he goes.
It takes him a bit of time, and once he's secured the phones and the data in the pictures, he'll replace his own phone in the shoulder pocket with the plastic window. A touch keys the OracleApp and shares the data with the rest of the network, making the files available on the cloud.
For a moment he's looking the place over, and then shoots a glance sidelong toward Cass and Nightwing. And for a moment, just a small moment, he gets a smile that reaches his eyes when he looks across the way at her. But then it's back to finishing the work.
It's only after matters are fully secured that he starts to make his way back, though isn't quite there with them yet.
Orphan's stance stiffens a bit even as Dick gives that sigh. He doesn't need to say the words for her to see that disappointment. She was taken in by the Bats less than six months ago, and turned loose without any real training because in matters of combat, well, there's not much they could teach her.
But Batman didn't have the time to teach her anything more, between his family drama and needing to relocated Cass to somewhere that wouldn't draw the many watchful Gotham eyes to his house. Barbara has been trying to feel out a relationship with the quiet woman, more interested in helping her be a person than one of the Bat's weapons.
So while yes, Orphan does likely need training in the vigilante gig, that disappointment rubs her the wrong way. It reminds her of when she let her father down. By the turn and set of her body, Dick can probably tell she's eyeing him as he shifts mental gears and it's reflected in his own stance. "« Stop the bad guys. »"
Duh.
Dick Grayson lifts a hand and waffles it in the air, "Close." he admits, "The problem is partially in who you ask. Ask Batman, he'll tell you it's to stop crime. All of it. Everywhere. By /almost/ any means required." Nightwing shakes his head, "I feel like he's close too, but not quite correct. It's one of the reasons I-" he waves a hand at his current get up. They've buried that hatchet awhile ago, but it was a thing and as is always the case, one ought never lie to oneself. "Batgirl will tell you the mission is to reach people, the person inside behind all the bad things." he points at Cassandra's chest where her heart is with a pair of fingers, "To bring out the best, drag the light from the darkness. Something poetic and pretty. I think she's got a peice of it too, neither of them are anything but fully invested. Me? My mission lays somewhere between the two."
He looks around them, "The mission is the same, and different, for each of us. I don't know what your mission is, though I feel I could hazard a guess I don't think that's my place. Question you have to answer for yourself. Stopping the bad guys isn't a bad idea, but you've stopped the bad guys here today, congradulations. Do you know who their boss is? Where are their headquarters? The infrastructure of their organization, how does it function? Which of these men is a hardened criminal and which are just impoverished kids trying to provide for themselves or others? Can you tell the difference?" he goes quiet for a long moment, "Because if your mission is just to stop the bad guys, I have bad news. Tonight was a failure. You stopped /these/ bad guys. But what about thre rest? The whole thing, top down, big man to small? You're trying to bring down an animal but all you've done tonight is wound it, and a wounded animal is more dangerous… and now you've lost track of it. It's loose in the city now." he gives her a look that's equal part firm and kind. "We are more then weapons Cassandra." that last bit is barely a whisper, meant just for her.
Walking up quietly, footsteps nearly silent, though he does scuff a toe slightly as if to draw attention that he's returned. Alexander rests his hands at his sides and looks sidelong toward Nightwing, then back toward Orphan. His eyebrow quirks slightly as he considers what little of the conversation he heard, though does not offer his own insight on the matter knowing that it is most likely unwelcome.
Instead he motions toward the fallen and lifts his voice to report. "Information is on the cloud, phone contents, imagery, identities as well as a placement against the backdrop." A snapshot provided in time for the conflict at its end.
Again he sort of shoots a look at Cassandra, then back toward Nightwing as he considers the man in this particular context.
Orphan is quiet as Nightwing speaks. Not just in words, which is usual for her, but in manner. She's much more still than usual.
While she can read a fight without even pausing to take a breath, interpreting what people are saying takes effort. It takes concentration. And it is still endlessly frustrating for her because she can't grasp a lot of what is said. She can get the fifty thousand foot level, but getting in more specific, that's hard.
It doesn't help that she *might* just be fixating on the part where Dick tells her she's failed. She drifted for years without connecting with people, without anyone having expectations of her. The last time there were expectations was her father, and so failure, of any kind, rankles.
There's a small almost twitch as Nightwing says the last, and she turns away to go… well. It's not clear. Brood, probably. But hopefully think as well.
Dick Grayson doesn't follow, watching her turn and go, "So." he says to himself, "That's what that's like." he reaches up to rub the back of his neck instantly questioning if he made the right call, said the right things. Bruce always made it look easy, but then he makes everything look easy. He was also often wrong. "Okay." he says, turning to look back at the downed and tied thugs, "Lets see what we can find out the not so easy way."
He makes his way among the wares on display until he spots one of them and with his toe, flips him over. Then slowly he grins a bit, "Two-Fer, well well well. What are you doing on this side of the rock?" he asks no one in particular. "You can go if you like, or stay, your call." he says over his shoulder to Alex, "I have to ask a few questions."
For Alexander there is certainly a draw to head off after Orphan as she makes her departure. His eyes distance slightly as she makes that turn away and watches her start to head off. But despite being no great reader of body language on the level of Cassandra… he can read her decently enough at times. And that… is her don't mess with me vibe.
Turning back to Nightwing the youth follows in his elder's footsteps, moving toward the fallen gangmembers and observing quietly for now. Though he does ask, "Of them?" At first thinking perhaps he needs to interrogate him, but then when he pauses to consider one of the fallen his lips part in a small 'oh' of understanding.
Though he does offer a small hint of what might be considered advice."She um," Alex says, pauses, then adds. "Has a hard time with spoken word. Sometimes." Like when it's elaborate complex languge or concepts.
But there, that helps. Then he adds, just for convenience. "On comms I'm Kitty." Weird. "If that makes things easier."
Dick Grayson nods his head at Alex's words, "I know. But everyone caters to that with her, they treat her like a child, ABC's, 123's, and that's good. She needs that, it will help normalize her. But she also needs people who will not recognize the limitation, who'll push her by treating her /exactly/ as they treat everyone else. If you were one of us I'd have given you the same talk she just got." he pauses leaning over the downed man and turns a baleful gaze on Alex, "And we /will/ be having a talk about your presence here at some point. Trust me, you'd rather it be with me then Someone Else." capital letters on the last bit. Nightwing bring strong Big Brother energy to his stare and words, and he's very good at the stare. Learned from the best.
He turns back to the downed man and lays his hand across the man's cheek lightly, "Two-Fer." he says, tapping him a couple more times. Against his palm he holds a cracked pack of smelling salts so that the vapors waft over his nose. It takes a couple moments, but soon the man jerks and writhes a little, coming to with a moan and a squirm, "Mu fuckin' aaaaarm…".
Nightwing grins down at him, "Heya Two-Fer." he says, reaching over his shoulder to calmly pull free a stick that looks for all the world like a length of high tech pipe off his back. He rests it against his collarbone, bouncing it lightly as he crouched over the zip-tied thug. "I distinctly remember having a conversation with you about your chosen career path, do you remember?" the thug blinks through squinting eyes, "Man fuck you!" he says vehemently, but his tone wavers. Nightwing just grins wider, the bouncing of the stick becomes more pronounced, "Come on, I'm sure you can remember. I was on the edge of the Freedom Auto Parts warehouse rooftop, you were roughly two and a half feet in front of me, wreaking of urine and a need to not make intimate friends with gravity." He leans in a little closer, and the head of the escrima stick in his hand stops bouncing, something about the stillness becoming instantly ominous. Two-Fer swallows audibly, "I 'member." he mutters, looking away, checking the area for help.
"I thought you might. If you 'member' that conversation then I feel like this one should go much quicker. Usually I have a chat, talk with whatever shitstain I run across, work on a carrot and-" bounce bounce bounce, "stick motivational method. Today I'm training in a rookie." he motions to Alex with the stick without breaking eye contact on Two-Fer, "which means I can't afford the carrot. So how about this, today it's stick and /no/ stick motivational methodology. Which would you prefer Two-Fer? Stick." bounce bounce bounce, "Or no-stick?" bounce bounce bounce.
Gulp can be heard a second time as Two-Fer realizes he's basically alone with the two vigilantes. Terrified eyes turn back to Nightwing, a shiver runs through him and he stutters, "N-no stick?"
Alexander keeps a respectful distance away as he says in a calm but friendly tone, "Oh, I don't know. I get along with most everyone." At least he thinks he does at the least, though he does look a bit over Dick's shoulder trying to watch and listen attentively. Though, curiously enough, he seems to not hold much fear about the prospect one way or another. Some would imagine one in his situation might well at the least have some trepidation.
When the interrogation reaches him in its context, being the rookie under training, Alex lifts a hand in greeting to the man now that he's an entity beyond combatant. "Evening." He offers.
Two-Fer spares Alex just a glance, looking slightly confused by the polite greeting, then back to Nightwing, "See? Rookie. He's still the nice one. Also preceptive it would appear, he thought you might pick no-stick too. Top of his class, gotta admit." Then Nightwing leans in closer, "You know what comes next Two-Fer." he makes a rolling motion with the stick as if to say get on with it. And get on with it Two-Fer does.
A few meeting places are dropped, and a couple of names. After a bit of this, Nightwing just nods, waiting. Two-Fer wriggles a bit more looking more scared, and the vigilante reaches out to patpat the thug's cheek almost gently, "You're shit at being a criminal Clarence." he says after a long moment, "You keep getting caught. Maybe it's time for a different career path, try making an honest living and /not/ being beaten to a pulp on a semi-regular basis. If I were you, I'd look /hard/. Harper's on Vanderbuilt hires con's so long as they're clean and willing to work the night shift. Maybe start there, but I wouldn't screw them over. Harper is honest but less forgiving then I am about liars and theives. Just a thought." another pair of pats to the cheek, then he stands, "Come on, rookie. The night's not over yet." the stick is returned to his back as he walks away, "We need to see if we can't tag us a mid level moron before the sun rises."
The blond youth steps forward a little and says, "Sorry about the bruising. If you'd like, there's a recipe for an ointment online at…" He starts to explain to poor Clarence about the URL when Nightwing tells him to snap to. He steps back and says, "Just check Olympia.org, I think." Was where his aunt had it, if he recalls correctly.
But then he's turning and jogging after Nightwing, reaching to his hip and extracting the grapple line (one of theirs) from its holster and loading it, setting it. After a few strides he slips into place at the other vigilante's side and a step behind.
"Mid level moron, roger that." Though he's probably going to catch some guff from Cassandra later.
Dick Grayson nods his head, eyeing the graple, "Yeah… no. It's like a mile and a half to where he met his mid level moron, that's for short travel, chases, or approaches, not long travel unless there's no other option." he walks around the edge of a dumpster and comes back out with a leg tossed over a blacked out motocycle. He slips a helmet on, it's super high tech, slim fit and sleak, and he holds out another one that matches, having detached it from the side of hte bike. "Hop on." The bike, for it's part, doesn't rattle or purr, instead it makes the softest of humming sounds, barely even audible.
"Ah," Alexander replies succinctly as he then keys down the grapple line and replaces it on his hip. He accepts the helmet and adjusts his mask a little bit before pulling it on, checking for an internal microphone and making sure it has an interference-free feed. Once that's done he'll swing a leg over the bike and seems to have no hesitation about holding onto Nightwing's waist for the travel.
"Quiet. Electrical?" He asks out of curiousity. Then there's a slight twitch to his lips unseen behind that helmet as he asks in the same tone, "Nuclear?" Making a joke but perhaps not discernibly so.
But he falls quiet once the bike starts moving.