Night 45: West Wing, South Hall 2-B

[dualistic]

[From here.]

Now they truly were alone. Maybe Jason had made the right choice after all. Either they had beaten everyone else here, or this just wasn't a very popular place to go. He couldn't blame people for wanting to stay away from the experimental lab and animal kennel, seeing how the animals tended to come giant-sized and hungry in this place.

Which begged the question of why Jason wanted to go this way in the first place, but Harvey figured he'd see for himself soon enough. Since they were on their lonesome in this hallway, it seemed like as good a time as any to get to the heart of the matter.

"So, this partner of Batman's. Does he have a name? Just the alias is fine." Harvey doubted that Jason knew any more than that, unless he was really withholding from him. Still, even if the kid did know, there wasn't a chance in Hell that he was going to tell Harvey. The ex-attorney just wanted something to refer to their new target by to make this chat of theirs a little easier.

Comments

[no-ones-son.livejournal.com]

Jason frowned, staring into the darkness ahead, punctuated only by the beam of Two-Face's flashlight. Dent was finally satisfied that they had some privacy and was getting straight down to business at last. Shoving aside any lingering uncertainties about the different Gothams out there and what it could mean - Bruce had still known who Tim was when they spoke, this would work - Jason started bringing Two-Face up to date.

"Robin. He goes by Robin." Though the little shit had no right to the name. "But he's not the only one who goes by that name here. I think there's someone whose actual name it is too." When he'd posted the note for Drake on the bulletin he'd gotten an answer from someone else too though they hadn't seemed like part of the cape crew.

"But don't let the name fool you. He's no pushover - the little shit is smart-" Though not as smart as Drake would like to believe he was. No one was that good. "But he's not that great in a fight. I can take him on my own." Even with the year and a half Jason had lost according to Alfred, little Timmy wouldn't have improved that much. He was still as scrawny as ever, that was for sure.

[dualistic]

So there was even some name confusion that they had to contend with, then? It didn't matter too much, since it wasn't in Harvey's plans to start calling this Robin kid out on the bulletin or anything like that, but that sort of thing was still good to know in case it ever came up. "I'll keep it in mind," he said with a shrug.

Honestly, the setup that Jason had described was what Harvey would have preferred. Maybe the kid was smart—Harvey wasn't going to deny that, but he knew that he had a better chance of outsmarting someone than outfighting them. He could definitely hold his own when he had a weapon and his own resolve to fall back on, but there was a good chance that anyone who was teamed up with Batman had been trained to fight. Thinking up ways to back people into corners was what he really excelled at.

"All right... In that case, how should we plan to get our hands on him?" he asked as he kept leading them down the hall. Harvey needed a better idea of the current situation before he could come up with any plans of his own, so he was just waiting for Jason to fill in some of the blanks at this point.

[no-ones-son.livejournal.com]

That was the fucking billion dollar question, wasn't it? How to get the baby bird where they wanted him without tipping him off completely. Considering the beating Jason had given him the last time they ran into each other little Timmy wouldn't risk running into him alone. And if Bruce was being as unreachable for him too then he had shit all back up - nothing but a few crippled, brain-damaged metas from the Titans. With those odds Drake wouldn't risk an encounter with Jason period.

But Two-Face he might think he could handle. It would just be a matter of convincing the baby bird he needed to intervene and stop Dent.

"He hasn't got a mask to hide behind any more so he'll be trying to avoid anyone who could recognise him. He won't want to meet anyone who knows Robin in case they can put the pieces together." Jason followed Two-Face to the end of the hall, working through what he knew about Drake - which was plenty, he had made sure to do his research after coming back - and what was actually worth sharing.

"He won't risk a confrontation with me but if he thinks you're working alone he might decide he has a chance. But we'd need to convince him it was worth the risk." That wasn't his favourite choice though. Two-Face was a lot of things but a pushover wasn't one of them. The fake had to know that without any of his fancy toys a confrontation with Dent wouldn't go his way.

[dualistic]

So Robin also hid behind a mask. Harvey realized that was to be expected, seeing how he had an alias, but it was still enough to leave him with a bad taste in his mouth. He had always been willing to show his face, to be the person who would take the blame, and look where it had gotten him.

Now he was forced to hide his face behind bandages, but he would have been more than willing to give this Robin kid an up-close look at his burns at some point.

What bugged him about what his nighttime partner had to say was the implication that Harvey wasn't as much of a threat as Jason, but he realized that what the kid probably meant was that Jason knew who Robin was whereas Harvey didn't. Still, if they wanted to get their target properly scared, he would need to act like he had an idea of who Robin was, at least, and make the kid believe that he might be able to figure it out with enough time.

"If you give me enough information about him, he doesn't even have to know that I'm from a different... version of Gotham," Harvey pointed out. "It might be good to get him worrying about whether or not I'm going to work out who he is." It would give them the advantage, in any case.

The next hallway was the one that would lead them into the areas that Jason wanted to check out, and so Harvey was quick to move through the door once they reached it.

[To here.]

[full-score.livejournal.com]

((From here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/763211.html?thread=62599755#t62599755).))

The only times Claude had even come close to venturing into this hall were during the nights Ashton and Luke when they'd been taken for experiments. Come to think of it, his roommate had probably been brought up here last night, too. Claude suppressed a grimace. Even though he didn't know the man that well, he hated to think of anyone suffering alone up here.

But, as much as he hated to admit it, it was over now. The fight in the basement was over, too. Now all that was left for Claude to do was to look ahead and do what he could to help other people, to prevent these sorts of tragedies from happening again in the future. Escape was another thing he needed to focus on. As long as no one knew a way to get out, then stopping this madness was going to be impossible.

Realizing that Anise had fallen silent, Claude glanced over to her, growing a little concerned. No doubt this trek to the morgue was going to be hard on her. He hoped she was all right with agreeing to come. Not that he'd blame if her she regretted it. The closer they came to the morgue, the more unbearable his own sense of dread became. But, he already knew he couldn't go back. He felt like he owed Dias and Guy this much, at least.

"You holding up all right, Anise?" he asked her.

[gald_digger]

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Anise was only half-listening to what Claude and Celes were discussing. Her mind was becoming more and more occupied with the memories of all the injuries she had seen inflicted on Guy, and the way his body looked, lying twisted and broken on the arena floor... Knowing that it was partly her own fault just made her feel sick. If they found him here, she was going to have to face that same sight, only up close. Despite being determined to help however she could, Anise wasn't sure how she would handle it.

When she realized Claude was talking to her, the girl stiffened, then whipped her head up to face him. "I'm fine," she replied quickly. "I'm just fine!"

In an effort to look a little more lively, the girl straightened her posture and marched ahead, straight into the next hallway.

[to here]