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

What?! is a good. Fucking question. Sunny can shoot the arms off monsters with rainbows and he also has an amazing memory and ear for voices. But before he can say something like when I said anarchist this was not exactly what I had in mind, there are at least three monsters still to deal with, one crippled and one convulsing with electricity. The first is killed neatly, then, its bony head forced to turn and crack its own neck with a raise of Sunny's palm.

The third doesn't seem to notice that its companions are dead or dying or injured; but it does notice when it's suddenly thrown off its feet, crashing into the side of a building and falling in a heap of muscle and bone, leaving cracks in the concrete where it connected. It gives a rumbling groan, claws scraping against the ground while it makes the arduous process of getting up again.

It gives them time. "Steph?" he asks, a little breathlessly, mostly because sometimes his human body does things, like normal organic responses; a racing heart or shortness of breath, and it it's allowed, sometimes.

"No!" She blurts it out without thinking, and then quickly adds, "Yes. Sorry, instinctual reaction." She doubts she could really convince him it's not her; once people clue on they tend to figure the whole thing out. And anyway, she's more concerned about whatever it was he just did.

"You're a meta- Sorry, Xenian?" There is a lot of apologizing going on, mostly because Steph's mouth is going faster than her brain. That happens when faced with monsters and friends who can throw them around with a gesture.

Well, 'xenian' is better. A catch all phrase. Sunny nods, mutely, that slightly dazed look ebbing away now that they have a sort of mutual understanding of one another (not really, but it's enough for him, for now). He says, with almost gentle and earnest concern, "What're you doing out here? It's not safe--"

And of course, his eyes fall upon the unmoving, electrocuted Deathclaw, and though he isn't sure he can say for certain that Stephanie vs. three of these bastards would be any kind of fair fight in her favour, taking down one is more than he expects of the average baseline human, particularly ones that sort books for a living.

So the sentiment, while not sheared of its words completely, sort of catches hesitation on the last syllable. She's killing monsters, obviously.

It's times like this she appreciates the Batgirl cowl over her Spoiler mask, because the full effect of her arched brow would be lost with her old mask. The only reason she doesn't snark at him straight away is because he sounds so damn earnest - rather than patronizing, which is what she's used to - and because of the hesitation.

"At least these things don't hurl insults at you and talk about how great you'd taste," she's thinking of Killer Croc back home, her nose wrinkled in disgust. She knows Sunny won't have any idea what she's referring to, but it's a statement calculated to reassure him that she knows what she's doing.

"I don't think they're very picky about what they eat," Sunny says, although he sounds a little like he's in space. Gaining a grip, however, enough to flash her a smile, scrubbing his hands over his hair before glancing over the two dead monsters, and looking towards the third that's getting to its feet.

Sunny isn't so used to monsters either. They're big, powerful, sad-- to him, anyway, that last one. They didn't ask to be here. But these three were crowding around a safehouse until Sunny practically forced them into chasing him, and that dead one over there came close to murdering a girl trying to help him even before she killed its packmate.

Speaking of which--

The one he'd tossed is on its feet, Sunny taking a step back. The heat of the moment is gone, so he's forced to consciously use magic in front of someone, which is fine if it wasn't for what his magic can really do, but-- the cat is a little out of the bag. He casts her an apologetic look, and lifts a hand. That same ripple and light-bend, and beneath the near invisible impact, the monster's head snaps back with a sickening crunch, enough to shatter the base of its neck.

It collapses in a heap of bone and muscle once more, this time remaining still and silent.

"I wish they were," Maybe they wouldn't enjoy the taste of kevlar, and they'd leave her alone. She definitely notices that he sounds a little off, and it worries her, but she's distracted from asking anything by the final deathclaw starting to get up.

Her hand moves back to the gun without her even thinking about it, before she remembers that Sunny is kind of ridiculouly powerful and she pauses to watch, trying to take in exactly what's happening. The light is interesting, and she's comparing it to all the other displays of magic and superpowers she's seen, but nothing really matches.

When it collapses, Steph turns back to Sunny, "Are--" she pauses to push her cowl back from her face, there's no one else around, and it suddenly feels really ridiculous to be wearing it, "Are you alright?"

His hand withdraws, stretching his fingers, before relaxing. It is has been-- to say a while would be wrong, because Sunny isn't sure he's ever gone to town on his own magic like this before, not in this lifetime, so all that doing so has the same familiarity as riding a bicycle. "Yes," he says, when Stephanie asks. Firmly.

He smiles at her, and it's not forced. "This week has been crazy, that's all. Man, you--" He turns on his heel, loose limbed, squinting up at the rooftops. "You came out of nowhere, you superhero."

That's not intentional - he sounds bewildered, affectionate, complimentary. That she is wearing a legitimate superhero costume is more incidental.

Steph regards him carefully for a few more seconds before deciding that he's telling the truth about being alright. The comment about her being a superhero gets a smile, wide and kind of dorky, she doesn't think of herself as one, but it's still nice to hear someone else say it.

"Showing up out of nowhere is kind of in my job description," It's also not as impressive ad whatever the hell Sunny did, but you can't win them all. "The tricky part is disappearing into the shadows." Not that Steph does that a whole lot.

"It is?" Sunny puzzles, the-- first part, smile going wry but universally Sunny isn't inclined to poke too hard into the business of other people in the abstract hope people return the favour. But as for the second half; "I could shut my eyes, if you want, but--" He makes vague hands.

That's probably not what she'd be going for.

"Yup, appearing out of nowhere, ridiculous costumes, punching bad guys in the face," Steph is mostly just amused, once the cat is out of the bag, she doesn't mind people wanting to know more.

She snickers, just a little, "No, no, I'm just messing around. I try not to disappear too much, I've been on the other end of it a lot and I know how annoying it is." Thanks Tim, for constantly vanishing into the shadows when Steph was trying to have a conversation with you.

So that would be the anarchist part. And maybe a mask wouldn't be such a bad idea.

"Well I'm glad you didn't do that," Sunny decides, casting a look towards the hulking corpses they took down, and then around the street at large. At the rumbling stampede of villainry, most people were wise enough to duck down and hide - but soon they might come out of the woodwork, poke at the dead meat, ask questions. "Although we should consider doing a similar thing."

"I like to stick around to give the damsel in distress a chance to thank me," Standing around looking at dead monsters is totally the appropriate time for teasing Sunny -- who happens to be the damsel in this situation.

She nods in agreement, but she quickly pulls out her CiD and snaps a few shots of the deathclaws to send to Babs, both for info purposes and so Babs can send someone to dispose of the corpses. "You any good with rooftops?" She feels safest up there, despite the creatures that can fly.

"Thank you."

This is said in all sincerity - cheery over reverent, but not disingenuous all the same. Never mind if he needed it or didn't need it, she still jumped down to defend him against three fucking monsters, and that's worth some gratitude.

Turning to look at the buildings approximately where he imagines Stephanie jumped down from, he gives a short nod and sets about climbing. There's an animalistic certainty to scaling upwards for the roof ledge, sure footed against window sills and drainpipes that creak and rattle in protest beneath his weight. If he's worried about heights, he doesn't seem it, pushing himself up onto the rooftop without glancing back to see if Stephanie needs help; he is relatively sure she doesn't. The cowl is convincing.

Still, once he's there, he does look to check. It's only polite.

"All in a day's work, citizen," It's a joke, obviously, and she sounds sort of like she's mimicking someone, although it's more a joke at the expense of every superhero ever. Except Batman, he never says anything to people that isn't a threat.

She's impressed at how easily he climbs, and it just puts more questions in her head that she's too polite to ask. She climbs with a little more care than Sunny, checking that nothing is gonna break under her weight - maybe Damian's Fatgirl jokes have made her a little nervous about that - but she makes it up in relatively the same amount of time it takes Sunny.

Speaking of cowls, Steph fixes hers up, making sure her hair isn't caught up inside it because that always ends up feeling awful, and it's been a long day. She looks fairly rumpled - there are a few rips in her costume and only some of them have been sewn up - but it's mostly on the surface. She's not injured badly at the moment, which is always a bonus.

"Where've you been staying?" She hasn't seen him around much, and it's always good to know where there are safe houses - if that's where he's been.

It's nicer, up here, closer to the sky by a fractional amount... even if the sky is acting the way it is. His hands seek his pockets, shoulders at a relaxed slope, and he sort of twists to indicate the general direction of Chimer, which is to say, always vaguely north. "There's a community centre that some of the people in Chimer are using to sort of wait things out," he says. "A lot of families. I've been staying there a lot."

He sweeps a proper look up and down her, as a sneakered toe goes out to nudge at an ancient cigarette butt that's been cast into a puddle up here, from some stranger seeking a moment's quiet. "What about you? When you're not rescuing damsels."

She runs through all the assorted places she's been the past week, trying to remember if she'd gone to Chimer and the community centre there. It does sound vaguely familiar, "I think I've sent a few people there when I found them trying to get somewhere safe." It'd been a slow process, the people coming out of their homes to seek safer places, but now its happening almost constantly and it's kept Steph busy.

Steph notices the look and gives Sunny a wry smile, well aware how ridiculous she looks to people not used to superheroes. "My friend Barbara offered her place up, so I mostly crash there when she makes me take a break." Because obviously she has to be made to, there's no such thing as a Bat who takes care of themselves.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I know it's hard but...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

SUDDENLY A LATE TAG OUT OF NO WHERE i lie down at your feet

hi hello I love you and late tags are more than okay

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject