multiversallogs | I know it's hard but...

Entry tags:

I know it's hard but...

Who: Steph Brown, others [closed]
What: Monster fighting, rescues, healing
Where: All around Baedal
When: Over a two week period since Hasi broke reality
Notes: Everyone has their own thread starter, which are in no particular order, if there are any problems/questions please let me know!
Warnings: NPC death, gore, violence, monsters, PTSD, my inability to be succint, if I've missed any feel free to tell me

The monsters are new for her.

It's not that she isn't used to dealing with all the assorted bullshit that Gotham can throw at a vigilante, but there's nothing quite like this. There are people like Killer Croc and Zsasz and Black Mask, who might be horrific, but they're still people. These monsters are more like animals, but they're huge and violent and they hunt people. She's not trained for this, she's not equipped for this and she sure as hell isn't prepared for it. Getting the gun and new batarangs from Rex helps, and she adds a large hunting knife to her array of weaponry, but it still doesn't feel like enough.

It's terrifying, in a way that she doesn't have time to deal with, so she pushes that down and focuses on doing what she can. There's moments, as she faces down things that eclipse her worst nightmares, when she wonders if she should be hiding instead of out here fighting. But there are other moments, times when she wins, when she gets to reunite a parent with their lost child, and it doesn't matter that Steph is bleeding, bruised and exhausted, because she did good.

At the behest of Babs, and the reminders her own body sends, she forces herself to stop and rest once in a while. Usually she goes back to wherever Babs is, or Kate, if she happens to be resting at the same time. Her sleep happens in small bursts, a few hours here or there, curled up near Babs or Kate and letting the exhaustion take over. She tries not to eat too much, because she has no idea how long these monsters will stay in the city and she's scared that food will start running out. She's already started collect supplies, bringing them to the safe places and distributing them to people.

She doesn't think about the dead bodies she sees, or the injured people. A lot of Baedalites can look after themselves, but some of them can't and it's those who end up as smears on a wall. Except for when she has to stop to throw up, after seeing half eaten corpses; then she thinks about it, and she doesn't know how long she can keep going out and coming back alive.

She hopes no one will hold it against her if she gets killed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tatiana herself is holed up somewhere less than secure - she stumbled across an animal shelter, and of course she had to help evacuate the remaining staff and animals. She's the only one left, now, tired but satisfied.

It's not the best place to be resting, probably, but it's better than being out in the open, and the old sofa in the entrance is relatively comfortable. So she leans back, and closes her eyes - never quite drifting off, but letting herself relax.

She's not sure how much time has passed when she hears her CiD beeping at her. Her eyes snap open at the sound, and she forces herself to keep calm as she pulls it out.

Her brow furrows as she reads the message, and she nods to no one when she finishes. Swift as she can, she types her answer:

On my way.

Then she jumps up, slings the pack holding her kit over her back, and heads out. Echomire isn't too far off; she should be there soon, if she's quick and careful.

The reply is a relief, and Steph lets out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding. She gives Carl a quick check over to make sure he's in a stable enough condition, and then she heads out to the front of the store to wait. She doesn't want to make Tatiana spend too long searching for the place; it's dangerous for everyone involved.

Her gun is drawn, ready to shoot anything that looks like it might try to eat her.

After her first close call, not a block away from the shelter, Tatiana realise being stealthy and avoiding crowds - a skill she perfected long before the Avengers - just won't be enough.

It's luck, really, that she finds a crumpled bird in the alley she's ducked in. She kneels down, whispering words of apology and thanks, and slips out the knife strapped to her thigh.

She's a clumsy flier at best - helped along by the fact that birds were never meant to be quite this huge, to have arms and legs to contend with - but she's above most of the carnage now, and she gets where she needs to go.

Her eyes pierce through feet like inches, and it's not difficult to spot Steph. Now she only has to hope she recognises the costume before she shoots her.

Well.

That's weird.

Her gun is trained on Tatiana, but Steph seems fairly calm. More wary than scared, and not likely to shoot. She's pretty sure that's Tatiana's costume but she's also not going to put the gun away until she's a hundred percent sure.

"Feral?" The codename comes without thought, it's instinct for Steph to slip into that mode while in costume, helped along by the fact she actually knows what Tatiana's codename is.

Steph - well, she figures it's Steph, this is where she said she'd be, and what she can see fits - doesn't shoot, so that's a bonus. Tatiana lands carefully, knees bending slightly.

She'll never get used to having a gun pointed at her, and she's glad her expression can't really be read this way, because it's not like she can begrudge Steph for it.

"It's me, yeah. I, um, went for the scenic route." Her voice is a bit off - harsh and hoarse - but recognisably hers.

The gun is holstered as soon Tatiana speaks, and Steph manages something that attempts to be a smile, but is a bit more like a grimace.

"Thanks for coming. Uh," she doesn't know how to address the whole.... bird... issue. If things were less frantic right now, she could give it more consideration and come up with something than vaguely gesturing at Tatiana and making a what? expression.

She can't really do a rueful smile with a beak, so she just shrugs. "My powers. I turn into other animals. ...Almost." She closes those round, piercing eyes, concentrating.

At first, she didn't have any control over turning back. It's still difficult, and she can't do it right away. She can't stop herself from changing, if she touches blood.

But if she has time to think, to focus, she can be herself again. Which is good, because it's been taking long and longer to return naturally.

Slowly, she aspects of the bird fade away, leaving Tatiana in their wake.

She opens her eyes, blinking as she gets used to a human's vision again. "Most of the monsters are grounded - in this area, anyway. That might change, though."

"That would explain the codename. I'm Batgirl, by the way," she'd meant to tell Tatiana that eventually anyway, but obviously the whole reality explosion and monsters has gotten in the way of that plan. So the reveal has to come like this.

It's odd to watch Tatiana change back, but not the weirdest thing she's seen this week, so she tries not to make to many faces.

"Good to know. I've got an injured man inside, and there's a safehouse about twenty minutes away, but I need to stabalize him before I can move him." She delivers the infomration quickly, because the sooner they get to work the sooner they can get somewhere safe.

"Batgirl. I can see that." It's not - completely a surprise, really. Stephanie had accepted her own vigilantism pretty easily, and she seemed to know about it.

Her lips do quirk into a wry smile for a moment, though. All her friends really are super heroes, at least part time. ...Well, apparently Kiden isn't, but that's a whole different issue.

An instant later, she's nodding briskly, gesturing forward. "Lead the way. I've been using a lot of my supplies - " she nods to the pack strapped to her back - "but I haven't run out yet."

"I'll tell you the full story when the world hasn't exploded," The bat on her chest goes a long way to explaining the costume, but why a bat is a little harder to understand. Sometimes even Steph isn't sure about it.

She leads the way in, showing Tatiana in through the door and closing it behind her, then taking her to the back room where the man is lying. He's still unconscious, but his skin's pale and he's covered in a thin sheen of sweat. The bandage over his torso is already stained red with blood.

"I'm gonna hold you to that." Mostly so she'll be alive to tell it.

Tatiana follows, unhooking her pack on the way. As she kneels down next to the man, she pulls our her kit and sets it next to her.

"Hey there," she says gently. "My name is Tatiana. I'm here to help." She knows he can't hear her, but it feels nice to say the words, and if he does wake up she wants him to know he's safe.

She slips off her gloves, replacing kevlar with latex, and carefully begins to unwrap the wound.

"I still owe you that coffee date," Steph idly wonders if it's a bad thing, how easy she falls into banter like that when they're in the middle of a crisis. Maybe she should take it more seriously. Or maybe this is the only way she can cope without losing it. She'll give it more thought later.

Steph kneels down on the other side of the man, watching Tatiana. The wound was made by claws, cutting four lines cross the man's torso, three of which have opened to the bones of his ribs and the final deep into his left side. No organs have been punctured, and Steph's cleaned the wounds, but they start bleeding lightly when Tatiana pulls the bandages off.

"I don't have enough supplies to close them all," she's been running low all week, and it'd be impossible for her to make the medical thread she's got stretch far enough to stitch him up.

"We'll definitely do that if there are any cafés left." It disturbs her, a little, how nonchalant she sounds. She knows at some point she's going to break down - she's going to sob, she's going to be sick, she's going to break something. But right now she's cool, and it freaks her out a little.

Just another part of being a super hero.

"Maybe we can try a supply run after we get him to a safe house."

She cleans the blood from the wounds, quick but gentle, before pulling out her suture kit.

"I'll just have to hope they don't all get blown up," she even manages a smile to accompany that, although it's a little tense at the corners of her mouth, and it doesn't quite meet her eyes.

She nods firmly, growing more serious now that they're about to start working, "Glory Shada has been helping with supplies, if we can get there after this." It's a good plan, although they have a small stash at the safe house, it's fast running out.

She's also watching Tatiana carefully; it's not that Steph doesn't trust her, but she's interested to see just how good she is.

Tatiana nods as she opens a silk suture. "I wanted to check that place out, but I didn't have time before - you know, all this."

She pulls out needle driver, clamping them onto the needle before grabbing her forceps.

"Okay," she murmurs, turning to the man and bending over the gouges. With delicate precision, she pulls up the skin with her forceps and threads the silk through.

"You could probably go in as a volunteer now, I doubt they're checking references when there's a crisis on," Maybe Tatiana can make something good of this - building up a reputation for being a good doctor with the staff of Glory Shada could help her get an official job there.

He's still unconscious, but Steph keeps her hands firm anyway; one his hip, one on his shoulder, just in case he wakes with the pain and starts to move.

"Not a bad idea," she murmurs as she finishes her first instrument tie. She leaves just enough suture for the knot; she wants to conserve as much as she can.

She does three more before cutting the thread and starting the next stitch.

"Do you know what got him?"

"No, he was bleeding out in the street when I found him. There was this... horse thing sniffing around, but it flew away when I approached."

The thestral might have scared off whatever got Carl, and it was apparently content to let Steph have him. Maybe it wasn't that hungry.

She's impressed with Tatiana's handiwork, but now doesn't feel like the time to comment on it.

Tatiana nods as she pulls the thread. "Too bad. It doesn't look poisoned, though. Hopefully that keeps up."

She's clearly focused, but she seems strangely relaxed, too. She's always been most at peace when she's healing; it used to be animals, but when she got used to working with people, that became a safe haven too.

It's not that it's easy, or simple - but when she's in the midst of it, she feels more herself than anywhere else. She feels like she's doing what she was always meant to do.

The man moans, muscles tensing; Tatiana's hands pause, but when he doesn't wake, she continues her work. She'd risk anaesthesia if he wasn't in and out of consciousness already.

"There are healers - the magic kind - around the place, if it starts to look bad I'll ask one of them for help," She'd have brought them here, but she knows how busy they are dealing with more serious injuries. Things that can't just be stitched up.

Steph tenses when he does, her grip firming, ready to hold him down, but she realxes when he doesn't wake. She lets go of his shoulder for a brief moment, to brush the man's bangs away from his forehead, "It's going to be over soon." It's said to him, not Tatiana. Steph needs to say it, even if he can't hear her.

"Yeah, I met one - it was amazing, what she could do." There's more admiration than envy in her voice; every doctor wishes they could do more, but Tatiana is largely happy with the skills at her disposal. It seems like magic would involve more - more distance, than using her own two hands to close someone's wounds.

She smiles, just slightly, at Stephanie's gentle assurance. If nothing else, Tatiana still has good taste in friends.

"Do you have any plans for moving him? I could change again, if I - um." She hasn't explained how her powers work, yet.

"Amazing is a good word for it. I owe Hermione my life," It's unlikely Steph could have gotten to a doctor in time, if she'd even trusted them enough to go. Without Hermione she probaby would have bled to death.

"I was gonna carry him," which sounds so ridiculous now, but she looks up, curious at what Tatiana says, "How does that work, by the way?" Steph hates to pry, but there are some things that she needs to know if they're going to work together properly.

"...You know Hermione?" It would make her glance up, if she wasn't in the middle of another stitch. "That's who I was talking about. She - was really good out there."

It makes her wonder just how many of them have experience with brutal violence. If that's why they're here in the first place. It makes her feel a bit sick.

She bites at her lips; she's always a bit reluctant to tell people how she changes. "I - I need blood. When I touch it...well, you saw." Her lips quirk in a wry smile. "I found that out when I was fourteen. A dog got hit by a car, so I took him to this clinic I volunteered at." She won't lose herself in the memories; she's too focused on what she's doing. And thank goodness for that.

"It didn't happen straight away, that time. It didn't happen until I got to class."

Steph laughs, a tiny, huff of a thing, but a laugh all the same, "Small world, huh?" Small city, small cohort. It's not surprising Tatiana ran into Hermione, but it's still amusing, in it's own way.

She sobers up again as soon as Tatiana starts explaining, her expression carefully neutral until the end, when she frowns in sympathy, "I'm sorry, that must have been awful." She can't imagine, especially considering what she's heard about that world.

"I don't know if there's anything close by, I can carry him for the twenty minutes t'll take to get to the safehouse."

Tatiana manages a wry smile. "You never know who your real friends are until the blood-thirsty riot happens." The answer, at the time, had been "none". It wasn't devastating, really - she hadn't been particularly close to any of her classmates - but it was disappointing.

The smile warms, though, as she continues her work. "It was how I met Kiden and Laura, though." And Cameron, but she's not going to think about that.

"If you're sure. I didn't actually see any - you know." All this time and she still can't say it. She shakes her head. "I tried using blood vials for a while, but apparently it needs to be fresh."

(no subject)

controlledvariable - 2012-03-19 13:18 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only