Summary:After being away for a while, Cassandra drops back in on Alex. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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A rainy and cold Autumn night is different from Winter. Not just in the difference in temperature or the presence of snow. There's a different feel to it, with the way the rain makes the brown leaves cling to everything, and the way the chill seems to get into the bottom of boots so that each movement feels at times swampy and squelchy. It's also in the way that during a storm in Winter things end up looking so pretty. But after a rain shower in Autumn… chaos.
It's such thoughts as these that prey upon young Alexander Aaron's mind as he remains perched where he is, holding that position on the edge of the rooftop with his hand resting almost companionably on the gargoyle beside him. At times he'd shift his feet and there'd be a small /sqquiiilch/ from the shift of water inside his own uniform that s not quite as nice as the Bat-Crew.
On the silent comms his voice breaks that quiet as it comes across, "Do you guys get swamp foot?"
Silence.
A few more minutes pass and then Alexander adds, "I should probably get better shoes."
And then silence once again. Though he'd been there for some time, watching the East River as the rainfall spatters down upon pier far below. No activity there, no illicit shipment, no docking. Just, for now, a wet God of Fear who extends a hand forward as if to catch the rain and rubs it between his gloved fingertips.
Cassandra has been absent for a while now. She let him know, in that oversimplified way of hers, that she was going to gone for a while but any details were beyond her. And the Bats tended to be closemouthed and haven't elaborated any. It's enough to vex a God of Fear.
Technically Cassandra has a phone. She mostly uses it for the Oracle app when she's not in costume and tends to forget it way more than any other young woman her age would, so it's not surprising that Alex hasn't gotten so much as a phonecall. Apparently, she finds FaceTime frustrating with it's narrow view of a person. It's like catching every third word spoken.
Suffice it to say, Alex is left in Limbo as to when she might return, so he's not likely to expect it when she shows up without any fanfare to speak of. There's silence, and then movement in his peripheral as she steps up onto the ledge with him and drops into a companionable crouch.
Hood down and cowl off for the moment, her cheeks are a bit pink with the chill of the night air. The quiet woman leans forward a bit, looking to where his hand rests on the gargoyle and there's the light of amusement in her dark eyes as she signs, "« New pet? »"
It's only after that, gaze dropping for a moment almost bashfully that before looking back up at him does she offer with a smile, "Hi."
At first she'll see that smallest jump of tension, just the subtle ratcheting up of awareness that lets her know she's caught him unawares. Most anyone else wouldn't see it or rather recognize it, but she can tell. And then it's washed away by a second jolt of recognition as he turns slightly, tilting his head and trying to look non-chalant as he says, "Oh." To her, the smile hidden behind his mask.
But Cassandra can read the sudden leap of joy internal to the deity, that instinct there to leap up and to embrace her. Though it's subdued. Held back for appearance's sake since he has to maintain that cool guy facade as he adds, "Hey. It's you."
But the smile grows behind the mask as he pulls it down and leans close to her, one hand coming up to her cheek to brush it with a short caress as he leans in for a soft kiss of greeting, ending with an instinctive nuzzle, that might be reminiscent of a feline marking its other.
Amusement dances through Cassandra's dark eyes as Alex startles. Yes, she did that on purpose. She's awful. As he restrains himself from a more exuberant greeting, she leans in to bump her shoulder against his, which makes it easy for him to lean in for that chaste kiss and nuzzle. It might look like she's laughing at him but really she's enjoying his happiness. It's all too rare in the circles she moves in.
Cassandra points down at his boot, and her nose wrinkles. Either she can hear that squishing or she 'overheard' his earlier conversation to himself. It looks like she definitely agrees that he needs better boots.
"« What have you been doing? »" Cassandra's signing is it's usual jumble of words and tenses, but Alex has gotten adept at picking out the meaning. It helps to not try to 'read' her words as a sentence, but just take them all in and get the gist.
At Cassandra's signed question he grins and looks away then spreads his hands wide, fingers uncurling to encompass, "« All the things. »" As he grins at her, then he affects a sort of smug look and makes a casual hand gesture as if there was a rope held taut and then suddenly gone weak as he adds, "« Picking up your slack. »"
But that's all the ribbing she gets for now, the casual hard time given as he looks back to her and meets her gaze, and for a moment she can see him take just a deep breath, hold it, then release it with a slowness that speaks of relief or a tension finally slipping away.
"Missed you." He says without signing, but it's a sentiment she can read easily enough as again his hand lifts to brush his thumb along her cheek, over the shell of her ear as he sighs again while looking into her eyes.
Then there's another kiss, but it's not as chaste as the first. Not aggressive. Just a whisper of lips and breath shared. A brief instant of stolen time before he draws back then takes a glance down at the pier… and of course that's when the boat shows up.
Cassandra rolls her eyes and tries not to smirk. "« All by yourself, huh? »"
The spoken words has the amusement slipping away and she gives a single nod, small and sharp. That was something different for her. She's not usually… lonely. She's too used to being alone. There was this Alex-shaped hole in her life. For someone used to being very independent, it's a little disconcerting. But that's not something she's going to bring up to Alex. Even with her limited ability to communicate, she knows in trying to explain that to him it's likely to go Horribly Wrong.
Gloved fingertips brush against Alex's jaw as he steals that moment, and then they're both turning to look down at the sound of the boat's approach. Cassandra reaches back to pull her cowl over her head and draw up the hood of her costume. Time to go to work.
His own mask is returned to its place, over his chin and lower face like some desperado out of the wild West. She can read him easily enough as he rises to his feet soundlessly, slipping over with a half hop past his new friend the gargoyle and then skimming along the edge of the rooftop to get closer to the water tower that used to offer trains a top off when they dropped their goods at the docks.
Alexander doesn't need to communicate with her his intentions. She can read them easily enough, and their time working together lets him just assume she has his back as he makes the leap across the distance, landing on the spout from that water tower and then flipping over onto its roof only to drop off on the other side.
It's a small boat, with perhaps a crew of five. A drop off most likely.
"They're here, moving in." Alex's voice is heard on the comms as he does so, then finishes closing the distance to drop down upon the first slats of the docks, landing in a crouch and then straightening up. Even as the first figures are seen throwing a line over the mooring to secure their boat.
Cassandra slips easily into Alex's wake, silent enough to make it seem like she's not even there. He picks up on her following her more from the vibration through the soles of his (wet) feet when she lands behind him, the substrate shivering with the impact, than from the sound of her landing or any rustle of clothing.
Alex she's familiar with. She knows how he's likely to approach on top of being able to read him clearly. Those on the boat, they're new. She takes her time to watch them as they close the gap, lingering on the spout as Alex hits the deck. Knees flexed in a crouch, she watches.
Interrogation has not been Alexander's strong suit. His manner is so often direct and forthright. When tasked to gain what information he can from this situation he comes at it with a direct linear approach, checking off different aspects of what intel he can gather, sending it on its way, and then moving to the next point of interest.
Such as now, as several men step onto the docks, a few are pointing in his direction as he doesn't hide himself. One seems to speak to the other, the other shrugs as he points back at Alexander. The two men start to walk down the docks toward the blond youth.
Already an image is sent Oracle's way with the boat's registry number and information, and as the men approach Alexander lifts a hand in greeting, "Hello. What's your cargo?"
"Pardon?"
"Your cargo? What are you smuggling?"
"Are… are you Steve?" One of the men in rain gear asks Alexander.
"That's not, Steve, man." Says the other man. And Cassandra will likely see the other starting to reach for a weapon inside his heavy rain coat.
It's something of a comedy. The one man unsure, the other's body language screaming 'you idiot'. Were Cassandra more familiar with spoken language, she might find something interesting in the first man's use of 'pardon?', but it's just so much noise to her.
But when one start to reach for a weapon, that speaks loud and clear to her. A flick of her wrist and a batarang fall to her grip. In the same movement she's rising and whipping the sharpened piece of metal a the man's hand. Alex hasn't drawn any weapons, let's keep this fair.
Because five-on-one is totally fair.
It's in that split second that the revolver makes its first appearance, even as the man is bringing it up into line with Alexander, that his wrist suddenly sprouts a length of metal that juts from his arm and seemingly summoned by the sound of a /THOK!/
His eyes go wide, then his partner's eyes go wide. The pistol falls as he pulls his hand back with a shriek as he staggers to the side as if burned or suddenly having a porcupine squirming angrily in his hand… only there's no room behind him and just a lot of water and the lack of a pier as he falls with a splash.
And suddenly Alexander is running toward the other man whose response leans definitely more to the side of flight than fight as he snaps, "Fuck this!" And breaks away from Kitty and makes a run for it… right in Cassandra's direction.
But on the boat there are short sharp flashes of light and the bark of gunfire as several rounds are fired downrange into the night, aiming at the dark silhouettes in the shadows.
The dark figure that is Cassandra leans one direction, and then twists another as shots are fired her way. A beat, and then she's running down the length of the spout and leaps the distance to land on the boat's deck in a roll. More batarangs fly out, aimed for the hands and sleeves with weapons. Not to the vulnerable, more fatal points she could target.
Kitty's left to play with his prey. Or maybe she just wants to tease him later about the squishy running.
Cassandra slides from cover to cover as she works to close the distance so she can knock out those on the boat.
It's a relatively short race, despite the skish-skish-skish of Alexander's soggy shoes. He does make a /leap/ at the last moment as the runner just keeps trying to hoof it and catches the man from the back and pulls him down a little roughly but not as hard as it could be. The fallen fellow is flipped over onto his belly and a zip tie is wrapped around his wrists and his ankles with a faint plastic whirr before he rises up to cast his gaze in Cassandra's direction to see if she needs help.
She doesn't.
The three remaining men on the deck of the ship don't seem to see her at first, just a dark shadow amongst others until she's leaping across the distance. One of the men in those bright yellow rain coats grabs at the arm of the other and _points_ emphatically in her direction.
It's enough for the man to bring his arm up and fire without really aiming. The shot goes wide just as those batarangs flicker out and catch a wrist, the side of a head, the back of a knee. It all serves to disarm the one, to send the other reeling, and make the last fall half-kneeling all in various states of pain, and all lined up perfectly.
She makes it look easy. Almost lazy, despite shots fired and punches thrown. She just… moves out of the way, like she's got all the time in the world. This is why the Batman and Batgirl let her go out on her own without any real training from them. She's not much of a detective, but she can clear a room (or in this case a boat) like nobody's business.
Once the thugs are done in a neat little row, the slap of the waves against the hell punctuated by groans of pain, Cassandra follows Kitty's example and starts to ziptie them secure.
As she finishes, she looks over to find him watching her and she waves a whole arm at him, the motion bright. Bouncy, even. Then she points to the deck. What's inside?
Alexander's bright blue eyes light up with shared amusement, despite the grumpiness present in the fallen men. He half-jogs over to her, hopping that last distance across from the pier onto the boat and lands with a faint /skish/ before he steps over and grins at her, then stops his grin and fakes an affected neutral look as he crinkles his nose, shrugs, then waggles a hand as if to say, 'Ehn, you did ok.'
The door to the cabin is opened and within are a pair of crates that look like the shipment they were given the heads up about. He points at it, then nods and keys in on the comms, "Alright, we have it, notifying the police." Which with the miracle Oracle app just takes the swipe of a thumb. And voila.
Welcome back, Cassandra.