multiversallogs | open post ● we're about to get up and burn this floor

Entry tags:

open post ● we're about to get up and burn this floor

Who: Everyone.
What: The Grand Re-Opening of the Gravity Falls Station.
Where: Babylon.
When: Veerdi to Sukkardi.
Notes: Party post!!! Go nuts y'all.
Warnings: Probable alcohol (and drug?) use. Flag stuff in subject titles if it needs a warning and I'll edit it up in here.

It's clear from the first moment anyone even gets on the Skyrail tonight that the Stratosphere Entertainment Group's pricey investment is going to pay off - every rail car is crowded with people decked out and excited for the event. To natives of Baedal, the idea of a holiday is days off work, maybe some camping - escape is alien, a little frightening, and completely thrilling. Even when the Gravity Falls station had hosted other venues, it was nothing so ambitious as to capture the imaginations of the city as a whole. And to immigrants to the city who no longer have the luxury of even simple trips out of town - well, it's priceless. A bittersweet but suddenly vital excursion.

Doors open just as the sun begins to set, the light reflecting off the water of the ocean illuminating the great floating platform as if the entire sky was on fire, before slipping into deep purple then black, the ceiling of their experience dotted with brilliant stars. Staff members wrangling the hazards of the first night are anxious but excited, kind and helpful even if they end up frazzled by the overwhelming turnout. There is security, all sporting neon purple shirts with lion logos, but even by their own admission, they're only there to breakup fights - and even they're smiling all night, too.

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"I never got those lessons," she counters with mock gravity. "Do you know the Girl Scouts wouldn't have me? They said I was trouble, I have no idea what that's about."

She waits behind him as he gets the stairwell door open, trying to casually keep lookout. She's ready to walk through behind him but he stops short; at his explanation. Rachel's eyes widen a little, and she nods, understanding. They can't be on camera, there can't be any record they were here or any means of identifying them later.

She follows Bruce to the window, eyes tracking him breaking its seal and the window swinging out. She leans out to see what's beyond, and she has a brief oh holy shit moment. But then she takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and lifts her chin; the smile she summons is a near-perfect confident one.

"Okay. Ladies first, right?" She grasps the window frame and swings a leg out, planting that foot on the steel platform beyond before slipping the rest of the way out.

Ladies first is not what he'd have done, but stopping her mid-move isn't exactly safe - so instead he waits until she's on the other side and stable before hopping over himself, and closing the window behind them. (Is it weird that he can close a security window perfectly from the wrong side?)

"Hey, the view out here is great." Shut up, Tom. He pulls himself to the outside of the escape frame so that they aren't squished in together and off-balance. "We're only a couple floors up though, so this shouldn't be too big of a deal."

Better than the window into the courtyard right? ... Right?

It would be weird if Rachel had time to inspect the window frame or give the window a moment's thought once it's closed. But Bruce climbs to the outside of the frame, and the window is immediately forgotten.

"Oh, Tom, be careful," she says, not because she thinks this is a bad idea (she grasps that it's not, there's more room and better distribution of weight this way) and not because she thinks he's incompetent (he's proven he's anything but, and they were just talking about him rock climbing anyway). She says be careful because she likes him, and is therefore not only concerned for his safety and well-being, but would be genuinely bereft were he to fall and be hurt, and be careful is just an easier and less-time consuming thing to say on a fire escape.

Especially when hotel security might be at their heels at any second. She spares a glance back through the window to make sure the coast--that coast, anyway--is still clear, and then she turns back, meeting his gaze, nodding. She's ready, they should do this thing.

He makes sure that he moves with enough care to look competent but not alarmingly ninja-like, as is sometimes an issue with him if he doesn't pay close enough attention - but he has Rachel to look out for, too, so it's not that laborious of a task.

"Thinking about it," he begins, halfway down, making sure an extended ladder is stable before she steps on it, "They were so tanked we could probably have just taken the elevator down and walked out, there's no way they're communicating in an efficient manner."

.. He sounds kind of amused.

Rachel is also proving capable, if very, very focused on what she's doing. She's tentative as they start down, but by the time Bruce speaks, lifting her head to look at him through the rungs of the ladder, half-smiling, isn't alarming.

"What, and miss this view? You were right, by the way--it's lovely from up here."

He's right, too, about the state of the partygoers in the hall. Between the four of them they couldn't even find their room key, and it took them how long to grasp that Rachel was telling them to go away, get another room, get out? It's likely they're still at the front desk, trying to explain what happened.

"Probably," she allows. "But better safe than sorry, right?"

Because a fire escape is so totally more safe than just walking out of the place.

...At least it's not the window to the courtyard.

"Entirely better." The last bit is, of course, the part with the taller-than-a-person drop, to prevent anyone from getting up and breaking and entering. "Hold on-" To give her a warning, before he drops down, landing neatly and steadily then standing back up, like it ain't no thang.

Up at Rachel: "You can aim for me, if you want."

This will end well.

She hovers there, up on the ladder, frowning. It's clear there's some internal debate going on--it's a thoughtful frown on her face, weighing options, not the this guy's nuts, I'm not doing that sort of frown.

Except that she is not doing that, because as much as making that drop is a thang for her, it feels worse to take advantage of someone's indulgence by flattening them in a side alley. But she can't stay on the ladder. But she can't just aim for Bruce and hope for the best, either.

"Okay, so. I will aim for you, but there's something I can try to do so it's not me coming down full weight on your head, but... are you, like. Freaked out by displays of superhuman ability? And an attendant lack of full mastery therein?"

Pause.

"It won't kill you or anything."

Bruce is never surprised anymore when someone admits to having supernatural powers - there was a time when it bothered him, but he's moved on to apathy. He's not in Kansas anymore, or whatever. So he shrugs, though she probably can't see it.

"Well if it won't kill me, I can't complain."

"Okay." Rachel moves around to the side of the ladder Bruce just vacated, her feet on the very last rung before the drop.

There's a light shining down from somewhere above, blue, as much for setting the festive-yet-relaxed mood around the hotel as it is for any kind of security. Her hands are on another rung, at about her chest level. She opens her right hand, studying it for a long moment; he probably can't see from below, but she's inspecting the shadow it casts on the steel. It's not much since the light source is neither strong nor crisp enough for this to work perfectly, but maybe it's just enough.

She leans back slightly, concentrating on her right hand. And then she releases her grip on the ladder, left hand opening as she steps off that last rung. She drops... but only halfway to the ground, downward momentum suddenly arrested.

She hangs there for the space of a few breaths, right arm stretched up as if it's holding to something, as if she's hanging from it. But it's not her hand, it's her shadow, stretched up from the hand open in mid-air, existing where it should not, until it reaches the spot where it is legitimately being cast.

It's just enough--but only just enough to keep her from hitting the ground directly from letting go, not enough for the cautious lowering-herself-to-the-ground she'd hoped to pull off. She hovers there, flailing slightly as her shadow fades, and then she drops the remaining distance.

It's just enough that, should he actually be somewhere near or under her trying to break her fall, Rachel hopefully won't crash into him with enough force to do him any harm.

Fortunately for them both, Bruce happens to be fuck mothering Batman, so when Rachel lets go of her shadowy hand-hold and falls the rest of the way down, he's able to catch her without incident in that obnoxiously perfect Hollywood-impossible style, with barely a stagger.

Still, he makes a little 'oof' noise for comedic affect.

"You should carry a flashlight," he observes, hair still slightly screwed up from the windforce of her fall very near his head.

In other words: neat trick.

If Rachel had any idea he is in fact fuck mothering Batman, she might've kept that trick to herself, and not worried so much about aiming for him.

...Might've. Look, even if a guy is a badass superhero, it still seems rude (to her) to just drop yourself on his head.

He seems satisfyingly unharmed by the experience, so Rachel does what fussing over him she can. Namely, his hair, reaching up to smooth it back into place.

"I usually do," she confides, with a little shrug. "Sometimes several. But I hate bringing a bag to a club and it's always hard to hide a decent one on me without a bag."

Bruce tolerates the hair fussing as he sets her down, pleased that went down without a hitch, though he does take a look around and start leading the way out around the building before carrying on the conversation. Best not to loiter at the scene of the crime.

"So this crawling around in unexpected places is a normal thing?"

"An occasional thing," she corrects, very gently. "I think if I keep practicing, I might be able to use it to open doors, like slip it in the gap," and here she gestures as they walk, her hand flat and perpendicular to the ground in a slipping-it-into-a-tight-place kind of motion, "and turn the lock over or whatever."

Everyone's got life goals, right?

"But I mostly carry flashlights for protecting myself. Just in case, right? Though, like, when the sky broke open that one time I was able to punch out a--I don't even know what it was, but I punched it out and saved myself and my--a friend."

Did Bruce's typist forget that he already asked that a while back? Perhaps. But that's okay, he can do with looking a bit dopey. It's better for his cover.

"I think that's a pretty pragmatic goal for it." It's sort of refreshing to hear someone talk about a supernatural ability that way. It sucks all the mystery out of it, which is something Captain No Fun Allowed here appreciates without irony.

And then- "Man, that whole thing sucked." Which is the most genuine bit of sudden emotion he's expressed all night.

But it REALLY SUCKED, okay.

Cover to be protected or not, it's no thing, seriously.

She shrugs as they walk. "I figured, if I'm stuck with it, I might as well learn to do useful things with it, right?"

Never mind that this frame of mind where her ability is concerned is a very recent development, brought on by the monsters from the hole in the sky and aided with Raylan's acceptance and Charles Xavier's guidance.

"You know. Defend myself as needed, punch out horrifying creatures, refine my breaking and entering technique... speaking of--"

She glances over at him, half-grinning. "Do you make a habit of raiding housekeeping carts at hotels or were you just feeling daring tonight?" The way she says it implies that she wouldn't react badly if it was the former over the latter.

"You'd be surprised what they teach you in boyscouting," he says - and of course Bruce has done enough research to be able to pass himself off as a legitimate member - as they walk. "I've found myself doing it more often since showing up here. Baedal has more weird stuff than Maryland."

Maryland: completely harmless, east coast, plenty of pleasantly middle class towns. (It's also where Sol is from, so yeah, Bruce is kifing some of his friend's context, which got a little weird when the Sol in Baedal turned out to be an alternate.)

"I bet I would be, since I was never a boy or a scout. The things I miss out on, man. Also, I thought California had cornered the market on weird."

It's probably been evident to Bruce all along that that's where she hails from, Southern California accent/word choices/cadence with the odd San Francisco pronunciation here and there. So she has no idea about anything in Maryland, and takes his suggestion of there be weird shit at face value.

"Though not even California compared to this place."

"Everywhere has its margin for weird," and he sounds so normal saying it - reflective, almost. Not like someone who's been to every corner of the planet, neck deep in insanity. "I keep telling myself I don't want to know what qualifies as genuinely insane here. Hotel rooms can't hurt, right?"

"After some of the things I've seen? Hotel rooms can't hurt at all." This city. After a moment, she adds, quietly: "...I guess I worry for the day, if it ever comes, where I don't think most of the things here are weird anymore."

They're nearing the end of the alley and where it opens onto the area leading up to the hotel. "It's good it's so busy tonight. The two of us appearing out there from here probably won't be noticed."

"There's nothing wrong with being acclimated," he says, sort-of-gentle. "It's self-preservation. And someday you'll go back and have this whole mess of experience."

Big words for a guy who's been through fucking Stockholm Syndrome, but he feels it's a worthy distinction. (Or maybe he's just jaded. Eff off, Cthulhu.)

"I'm sure we could have played drunk for that, too." But it is easier to just slip back into the crowd.

"I guess that's true." She just doesn't like the idea. Settling in and coping is one thing but somehow giving up on the idea that this place is weird and things are weird feels like giving up too much.

"We probably could've. I know my make-a-scene strategy is less useful in a huge crowd. You're less intimidating that way." ...Look, she really is a nice person, it's just that sometimes she really really wants her way, is all.

Hey. It's good to have these life skills.

Bruce nods in agreement. Then offers up one hand. Fistbump for a job well done?

Fistbump for a job well done, incoming. And then she waves, stepping away--look, if he's followed along all this time, he gets that they can't stay together out here in front of the hotel, just in case security comes looking.

She'll look him up again sometime.

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open post ● we're about to get up and burn this floor

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i thought i replied to this ages ago.. /slide in to wrap

never fear, it is all good