multiversallogs | "murder" sounds a bit fancy.

Entry tags:

"murder" sounds a bit fancy.

Who: Kate and Jason
What: a talk about morals, or possibly the lack thereof
Where: the Apache
When: late afternoon
Notes: this happens after Jason went to visit Steph and met Hermione, and also after he talked to Tim.
Warnings: vigilante philosophizing, moral ramifications, merciless rationalization

He doesn't think about it now, but he might later: Jason's actually really happy. Not the way you're supposed to be happy, maybe, but he's never put any stock in that. The thing is, he's busy and he has a purpose. His talk with Barbara went better than he could have imagined. Even Stephanie and Tim didn't go terribly. But it would be completely remiss to forget Stephanie's friend. He remembers the way she looked the night they killed Henry Jennings. In a lot of ways, he has no patience for that, no sympathy — the Militia are as bad as anybody he's ever killed before, and in certain aspects, worse.

However, he'd also seen how good she was. There's no lone rangering this shit, and she would be an asset, if he can convince her the cause is worthy. Maybe a part of him is still annoyed he never brought Mia around. Though he doubts this Kate is anything like Mia apart from their embrace of archery, it seems apt, in a slightly grim way, that he should be on his way to meet her at the Apache to make his case. This time, there will be 100% less kidnapping and blowing up of stuff. The context is completely different, and anyway, Stephanie would do her damnedest to kill him. If he can't convince her, he'll try his best to leave her in a better frame of mind. Refusing to kill is not necessarily problematic, in his mind. As long as she isn't going to pull a Batman on them, it's not a big deal.

Though Kate hadn't seen his face that night, he's wearing the same jacket, he moves roughly the same way. He glances around the bar for her as he heads towards a booth, where their conversation will likely go uninterrupted.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She's been in so many fights, both major and minor, but none of them have affected Kate in this way. The video, the hints of what really happened once the CiD stopped recording, should have been a warning she didn't ignore. She knew what happened to that woman, even before Jennings had the truth wrung out of him. Pushing it to the back of her mind only served to have it rush forth when the night was over. Sleep hasn't been easy, not with the nightmares she used to have coming back to her, the ghost of the smell of a long-haired man she never saw coming for her invading her nostrils. How things ended honestly didn't help. Being outvoted surely did not help her feel like she crossed her morals for justice. Justice never meant shedding blood until there was a permanent end.

Entering the bar after holding the door open for a drunken businessman to stumble out, she pauses there to glance around the room, not quite sure who she should be looking for. It's not like she texted Steph soon after she received Jason's message to ask what this guy looked like, if Steph even knew to begin with. Kate, herself, looks a little different than that night. Her hair is much shorter now, grazing her jawline, a change she hoped would throw her off the Militia's track just in case. Dressed in jeans, ankle boots, and a hunter green pea coat, she looks like any young woman coming in for an early drink. No vigilante who patrols the street at night, no person who disagreed with how to deal with a man who couldn't care less about her or people like her, no person who is silently slipping back into her old thinking patterns that she thought had she forgotten. Kate, for all intents and purposes, is just a librarian right now.

It's a good image to portray.

The booth he'd chosen affords him a good view of the door, naturally, and he's circumspect about examining the people who come in. There are one or two other women here who could be Kate, but he thinks it's the one who just came in. It does no good to make assumptions in Baedal, though. A few seconds after Kate enters, her CiD receives the following message: That you in the green coat? I'm in the corner near the pool tables.

Jason is taking off his gloves and only glances up after a moment, to see if she's also looking at him.

Her device has been set to vibrate so the only reply he gets at first is the sight of Kate reaching into her coat pocket to check the message. With a slide of her thumb, she closes out the screen and shifts her view over to the corner before swiftly walking towards it in a very no bullshit manner. She doesn't know what he could have to talk to her about; Kate feels she said all she needed to when she mouthed the words that clearly put her vote against Jason's. But still, she gave him her number for some insane reason she clearly hasn't figured out yet. And still even more, she finds herself sliding into the booth across from him, hands clasped and an expectant look on her face.

"I'm Jason." He doesn't offer his hand since she doesn't seem open to that, which makes no difference to him personally. "I talked to Stephanie, and she's agreed to work with us. We could use someone with your skill. But you voted no that night. I wanted to see if we could discuss that."

His voice is utterly neutral, which is revealing in its own right, if in a non-aggressive way. His posture is casual and laidback, slouching a little against the back of the booth with one hand on the table, CiD next to it. But the way he looks at her is watchful enough that it might be uncomfortable, even if it lacks challenge; his eyes have always tended towards coldness, even though he's not that way himself.

To say she's pissed at him is an overstatement. Kate isn't pissed. Disappointed, definitely, just like she would disappointed to find out Remy or Wanda or anybody else from their world killed another person. There are other ways to deal with criminals than dropping down to their own levels. What those are, at least in Baedal, she hasn't figured out yet. But if they just had a little more time to think about what to do with Jennings, maybe killing him didn't have to be the only option.

What's done is done, though, and the way he's watching her... Kate's not going to let that bother her. She'll stand for what she believes in for as long as she can. Convincing her otherwise won't be easy.

"Two things," she starts, holding up the index and middle fingers of her right hand, "Who's 'us' and why should we discuss this? You know where I stand already. I didn't agree then and I don't agree now."

Edited 2012-02-25 06:21 (UTC)

"You want to go against the stormtroopers and shoot to wound, that's your choice. You'll just have to do it on your own." There's no hint of scorn in his words. There doesn't need to be — he's sure they can both agree that's a harsh prospect, no matter how competent any of them are.

"But if you can accept the fact we're going to execute rapists and murderers once we've questioned them, then you can work with people like Stephanie, and the other woman there that night. Not just backup, but resources and information. That's why we're discussing this. Because none of us can do this on our own."

That sounds far too much like conceding and that's something Kate does not like. She didn't do it with Captain America and Iron Man. She isn't going to with Jason aka Whatever Codename He Goes By. If he wants to be the judge, jury, and executioner, that's on him. Kate's fine being the first two.

Her face changes from a neutral expression to one that has her brows coming together in the center. "Then I can work with people like Stephanie? For the record, I am already on a team. We. Don't. Kill. I don't see why we have to commit the same crimes we're fighting against."

Okay, granted, that team is just a ragtag bunch of teenagers and they are short a few members here, but they have rules. Young Avengers don't kill, except for that time with Kang, but the rule still stands. She'd be a hypocrite if she slapped Tommy down from vaporizing people all those times just to turn around and do it herself. Plus, there's guilt. There is always the guilt. And Kate's not sure if she can handle that right now.

"Good luck with that, then. But don't get in our way."

He's mildly disappointed, but she seems to be even more set in her ways than Tim, and he's never been in the habit of wasting his breath on those who will never be converted. Jason nods to Kate and slides out of the booth, heading to the bar. Mog Hill isn't exactly in his usual beat, and there are other things he can do down here even if this particular part of the trip was wasted.

Kate watches him take a few steps away from the booth before something about how this entire conversation went down bugs her. They could have saved each other the trouble and did it that same night. It has to be important enough to track her down days later and try to convince her to his side of things. Her device's still at hand and while he's at the bar, she sends him a quick one work message: why?

She isn't about to give in, but there are still things she's curious about.

Edited 2012-02-25 07:03 (UTC)

It takes him a moment to check the CiD, focused as he is on ordering a drink, but somehow, he's not too surprised it's her. And maybe it's easier this way for her, maybe this is how they should have had the conversation to begin with. He keeps his back to her until the drink comes, then he turns around, propping one elbow on the bar, casually texting like it's not to someone across the room. He doesn't look at her either, testing that as preferred form. If she wants to strike up the conversation in person, she'll indicate it, probably.

Why ask you, why don't get in our way, why kill?

The wait is awkward and while she wants to turn and watch to see how long it takes for him to answer, Kate distracts herself with flipping through the network and sending a few more texts to people. One goes out to Steph in particular, asking if she wants to hang out later. They'll be doing something more serious than just hanging out, but how serious depends on how the rest of this conversation with Jason goes.

It's not easier for her; she assumes this is easier for him. The vibration of a new incoming text barely begins before she quickly punching in a reply.

All three. Though, she's pretty sure he's already said the answer to the first one.

It takes a while for him to type all this out, but he's never claimed he's not mouthy, even if the words aren't being spoken. He does it with as little expression as someone discussing sports. Less, probably, people feel free to make faces when it comes to that.

If you try to stop us from killing these assholes, you are going to get everyone killed/captured and they win. They're better armed, have better resources, have better numbers. We can't afford not to kill them. This is a fucking police state. There is no negotiation, no political means of wresting power from those who are raping, killing, and torturing more or less at will. We can't leave, we can't ask nicely. And we can't afford to have someone watching our backs who's gonna hesitate when it comes time to do what needs to be done.

What he's saying--typing--is the truth and Kate recognizes that. Call her an idealist and she'll agree, though she can recognize reality when it's presented to her. But is wanting peace without adding to the violence such a bad thing? Things are easier back home. There are cops to deal with the nuisances, to clean up the mess when the superheroes are done spreading it around like a toddler with their never-ending toybox. In Baedal, the cops are the nuisance. The options are truly limited. But maybe she doesn't have to be the one with red hands at the end of the day. It's something to consider.

She stares at the screen for a few long seconds, biting her lip in thought. Her thumbs fly with the speed that comes with being a tech experienced youngster and it's merely seconds later that she hits send.

Come back. Let's do this like adults.

He deliberately waits a beat before putting the CiD away, picking up his drink, and returning to the table.

"There are non-combatants associated with us," he says after a moment of looking at her. Though classifying Barbara as a 'non-combatant' is perhaps slightly disingenuous, it's not like she'll be out on rooftops with them. "They won't be doing any fighting, let alone any killing, if the rest of us do our jobs right. There wouldn't be an initiation ritual where we make you kill someone. But we can't have another night like that night, when the seconds it takes to come to an agreement about something might cost us our lives."

This time, Kate's patient for his answer, fiddling a rogue salt pack and rubbing the empty paper pocket between her fingertips to kill the time between him reading the message and doing what she requested.

"I don't want to kill. I am not going to kill. I just can't do it," she answers after a long moment, eyes and fingers dropping from the packet which quietly floats down to the top of the table. There is a firm emphasis on the I part of the sentences. It's different from what she said earlier, little more compromising and a little less stubbornness. "I take on the locating and capture, but I leave before anything else."

Keeping the killings out of sight won't keep them out of mind, but what Kate can technically say is that her hands stay clean. Well, as much as they can.

"Do you really think that'll make you feel any better? Because I don't know what you're going to tell yourself as you walk away when you know exactly what the result is going to be."

It's a slightly different argument than the one he'd usually make; he can understand this distinction, though it's mostly artificial to him. But already it sounds like she won't stop them from doing their thing, which is the least he wants, and this, to him, is promising. It's the possibility that in time, she could come around.

"How about recon. Information gathering, observation, communication, things like that."

"What I feel doesn't seem to be too important to you in this context, so why ask?" Oh, basically delivering a criminal to his death isn't going to be easy and Kate doesn't even try to fool herself into thinking that. It'll be a process, a long one most likely, but weighing the options of standing back and letting perps do what they want freely against at least trying to continue fighting for justice means she has to give up the one thing what has run her life for the last few years.

"Only if it means I still get some front line work." She's okay playing intel, but she didn't become a superhero just to tap CiD lines. If Kate gets shuttled to that only because she won't end a life, she might as well just keep on keeping on with the Young Avengers.

"Everyone's emotions affect the choices they make." Now there's a trace of impatience. That there's a lack of personal investment in her feelings is only appropriate, so in his eyes this is just Kate giving him attitude — something he understands to a degree, as the topic is obviously a sore one, but even if he were inclined to be kinder about it, they simply don't have that kind of relationship. They don't have any kind of relationship yet.

"If you want front line work, you'll probably get it until we have more people involved. But if you're not prepared to kill to save whoever you're out with, you'd better let them know that beforehand."

Personal feelings... Kate has a ton. It's what molded her into the person she is now. But discussing those secrets with a man she barely knows isn't going to happen, not right here or right now.

"I'm rather die myself saving somebody I'm out with. I'll put that on the planning table." Becoming the sacrificial lamb probably isn't what Jason wants to hear as an answer, but it's the best he's going to get from her.

It's not anything Jason expects, not even in the future. If you expect nothing, you can never be disappointed. And so, while he's not pleased, he isn't really disappointed either. This can go on the back burner.

"Not ideal, but acceptable for now." Barely, his voice says. "Whenever we have some alternate communications up and running, you and Stephanie can keep yourselves updated and update others with whatever you find. I'll let you know, or she will. If you're still working with your team, fine, but keep us to yourself unless you plan on making introductions."

It takes everything in Kate not to roll her eyes at his 'compromise'. It's not like she was searching for his approval, but at the same time she didn't want to let criminals run free. Rock and hard space here. Damn it.

"I don't want them involved anyway," Kate replies, shaking her head lightly. Especially Tommy. He would take far too well to the killing aspect of this ongoing war. At least with Billy and Teddy, she would have some people in her corner though involving them would still take a bit of work and they're still very much working on Tommy already. No need to add another battle to her plate.

"Are we done?" Her tone is not one of annoyance or boredom, but true curiosity. Is there anything more she should answer for him? Anything she should know about him?

Keeping Tommy out of this is probably for the best, even if Jason would love a speedster on their side. Then again, as soon as he met Tommy, he would probably change his mind.

"Unless you have any questions." Jason takes a drink, glancing briefly at the rest of the bar to make sure the people he's arranged to talk to aren't here yet. "I don't expect you to throw in with us just because some random guy invited you, but Stephanie can vouch for me." He can't help smiling a little at that, and it's not a very nice smile. 'Vouch' should have gone in quotation marks. "And while I'm not necessarily in charge, I am the one organizing this. For now."

Maybe somebody should introduce Pietro to Jason if he wants a speedster so bad. Actually, no, let's not. Pietro may just be as bad as his nephew.

She flops back into the cushioned booth seat, eyeing him carefully for a long moment. "Who are you?" Not that she wants to know who he is namewise, especially since he already told her, but Kate wants to know who he is where he and Steph are from, since she's assuming that's where they know each other from. What Kate really wants to know is what makes Jason Jason, what makes him a vigilante, what makes it so easy for him to kill without a second thought or guilt, what makes him tick.

He raises his eyebrows, but the question makes sense and is fair. The pause as he drinks again is as deliberate as the pause before, an I'm not answering this because I have to answer thing as much as it is selecting a way of presenting the information so it'll make sense. So much of who he is depends on contexts that don't exist here.

"Stephanie and I were associated with and trained by the same person, sort of. For a while. And at different times. I don't know what she's told you about herself, but we were both vigilantes working in Gotham, which is a shithole of a city and has a bunch of costumed psychopaths running around as well as all the regular scum you find in any shithole city. But it's my shithole city, so I kill them when I find them, and when more rise up in their place I kill those too."

Jason takes another drink. "And Gotham isn't as bad as here. Not by a long shot."

Gotham sounds like her own world, though New York is a little less of a shithole. And when he says Gotham isn't as bad as Baedal, that just leads Kate to another question.

"If it's not, then why kill? I see your point with here, though I disagree for reasons, but are there no cops in Gotham?" Maybe the cops can't be trusted or maybe the cops are the costumed psychopaths, but Kate won't know for sure unless she asks.

"Corrupt ones, though they're better than they used to be." This careless if technically accurate assessment of most of the GCPD encompasses years of struggle and reform, something Jason can respect in the sense that he doesn't have the patience or discipline to deal with it.

"And even when they're good, they can't really deal with the costumed crowd. Some of them are mentally ill, yeah, and maybe not wholly responsible for their actions, but while we try to store them in the nuthouse, they break out and kill, maim, and torture more people. That's bullshit. They need to be put down. And someone who isn't sick in the head, who's making decisions to kill or rape or sell drugs to kids? There are consequences. I'm just one of them."

He's been calm throughout this entire speech, but it's that learned, measured calmness that isn't completely real. It's just that he has better control now, can sit here and drink and look at Kate like a person discussing a book. He hasn't snapped in a long time, and it's because of what he's doing now. The possibility is still there, however, waiting in the perfect, careful steadiness with which he talks.

Something about his calmness disturbs Kate, aside from him being super calm around the topic at hand. It isn't cold, calculated calmness, but some kind she can't quite put her finger on. She'll sit down and figure it out herself later or just ask Steph for details once they get through the inevitable awkwardness that's been hanging between them since that night. Right now, Kate just pushes it to the side for later as she shifts in her seat.

"And the guilt?" What about that? Does he ever feel guilty? Has he ever?

Jason shakes his head at the question.

"They deserve it. Sometimes they deserve more. And don't ask me who am I to judge — there is no higher power, there's only what we can do for each other. I'll never feel guilty about killing these assholes. What I'm concerned about are the consequences I don't calculate right, or don't foresee at all. Kill a guy, maybe that leads to someone else's death, someone who didn't deserve it. Maybe it puts someone in deep shit. Whatever I do, it could change a lot of things, and I can't know about all of them. That I'll feel guilty about. But I'm not gonna let these shitbags roam free to rape and kill. And here we just can't afford to do anything else."

Now he leans in just a little, barely more than a slight shift in his posture, the incline of his head. His voice doesn't get any lower than it was already, to keep their conversation between them; as calm as he's stayed, Kate has stirred up some intense feelings about the situation, and now he speaks with little awareness for their surroundings, just him to her.

"It's gonna be like that here. There'll be reprisals for what we do, they will crack down on innocent people when we hit them. And I'll feel guilt for that. I'll remember every name. But it can't continue like this, it's got to change."

She wonders what would they say knowing that she voted the way she did even though she was once raped herself and her mother killed. They'd probably look at her funny and tell her to get over it because those people clearly didn't care about her so why should she care about them enough to let them live. They would be logically right, but still, there is something inside Kate that just stops short of taking that fork in the road. Maybe she'll never get past it. Maybe she will. The future cannot be seen right now.

"You think killing them, reducing their numbers will make them stop?" She's not being condescending, just curious. The militia can recruit more and more soldiers however they do to replace the ones who aren't around anymore. It sounds like an endless battle to her.

Jason would never say anything like that, though until it comes up, that will remain a moot point.

"No, that's not even vaguely feasible. If it were someone else would've already done it. Five hundred years this place has been around, and the Militia's been in place from the fucking beginning. We are far from the first to try this. We need to learn everything we can and that's all I'm willing to discuss in public."

What he says makes enough sense to pass by Kate. Enough for now, anyway.

Reaching for her device and slipping it back into her coat pocket, Kate feels they've discussed all they needed to for the moment. She keeps her stance and so does he, but there's a compromise there that she'll need to get used to. "I'll keep my eyes and ears open."

She slips out of the booth, but turns around to look at him with a slight grin. "And ask Steph about you."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"murder" sounds a bit fancy.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject