multiversallogs | you've been warned if you've been born or if you conform

Who: ~Tom~ and Kalinda.
What: A stake out that goes horribly wrong!
Where: UUhh. S..omewhere that counts as down town. I will tag it.
When: Presently.
Warnings: References to domestic violence/police brutality, action movie violence otherwise.

It's been a long day - longer night. A woman and her children have been running from their estranged husband and father, an abuser, in a position of extreme power over them. Or so it was thought, at the onset of this; a day's observation has uncovered enough threads to piece together a rope that's lead Bruce and Kalinda to a different, but worrying conclusion.

He doesn't usually work with anyone else, especially not like this - light tactical gear, leather jacket, not so much as a ski mask, passing as a civilian as easily as he blends in with the shadowy rooftop they're perched on. For all Kalinda knows, he's just another mystery backer at Thames, some weirdo. He can't afford to let anyone more than Logan and Vanessza know about anything else, it's too dangerous; he tells himself this is just keeping up appearances within the organization, because Kalinda is competent, and not because of how she looks when she's wielding a baseball bat.

(But seriously, stake-outs are fucking miserable, and she's not bad company.)

"He's getting his former co-workers to let him pretend to be employed still," he muses, watching the boys night out gathering across the way. Five men - three Militia agents, one ex-Militia agent, and one city lawyer - are gathered on the patio of a down restaurant after hours, their own private party courtesy of a business owner too terrified to say no. The ex-agent is the one they're after: a the aforementioned estranged husband and father, who everyone up until now had assumed was still employed by the Militia. But no, it appears that the higher-ups in the Spire actually did the right thing with this one. It's just the rest of them, enabling and covering up their buddy's habit of terrorizing his family.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kalinda's determined that Bruce is good company himself. And if he's a bit odd (spoilers: he is), it only serves to make him more interesting. That she isn't sure exactly what it is that ~Tom~ does, or did before he came to the city doesn't weigh on her. It makes her cautious, but that's something of a default mode for her anyway.

Scoffing quietly, Kalinda shakes her head. "Charming bunch. Can't imagine they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. Maybe he has something on them?" She lifts the camera hanging from a strap around her neck, adjusting the zoom and snapping a photo.

"Could be." The look too at ease with each other though - body language relaxed, voices casual and reactions genuine; they aren't forcing it. He doubts it, though it might make for a less evil picture. "It would be preferable to them all being conditioned to narcissistic behavior because of their job."

Which is probably the real reason. The guy they're after is already working again in private security; nothing about this is good.

Bruce leans back against the wall behind him, vantage point not diminished. He's good at being patient, but that doesn't mean he likes to be - his outward presentation is unmovable calm, but inside, he'd rather be walking around, or working on something if he has to be stationary.

Kalinda snaps a couple more shots before she joins Bruce in holding up the wall. "Wishful thinking," she sighs somewhat theatrically.

She tilts her head in his direction, looking down her nose to the street through half-lidded eyes. "The Militia isn't going to do anything about this upstanding gentleman, so I guess that leaves it on the shoulders of those more conscientious." An assertion that has her gaze darting momentarily for the black duffel sitting nearby on the rooftop, containing that baseball bat she looks so good with.

"Satisfying as that might be, it'll probably be more effective to out their game to his old superiors." Bruce still sounds quietly amused that her first inclination is to break somebody's skull. And uh, probably more approving than he should. But oh well.

One of the men they're watching gets up and goes back inside the empty bar, and Bruce watches them mill around. They all seem pretty fine. So far.

Such a wet blanket, Bruce. One with some reason, yes, but that doesn't relieve any need for aggression that Kalinda's experiencing at the moment. Has she always been so angry? She'd like to think that this place has changed her in some way, and it has, but not in ways she would admit to.

This time she properly slants a look in his direction, taking her eyes off the bar and trusting hell won't break loose if she blinks. She smiles just faintly, sharing the violent joke. "I suppose we can let the law have first crack at them."

"It'd save us the pain in the ass and the resources." A verbal shrug. Not that he doesn't regularly feel like taking his anger out on any nearest deserving target (fuel Bruce Wayne will never run out of: pure bitter vindictiveness), but he knows better than to indulge in recklessness.

"Resources that we could use to pay stake-out professionals."

Not really a whine. Almost a joke.

you've been warned if you've been born or if you conform

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