WHO: Talia al Ghul and Jason Todd
WHERE: Yet another snazzy hotel, several miles outside of the City.
WHEN: Backdated to Monday night
WARNINGS: Who even knows.
SUMMARY: After a less than stellar meeting with Damian, Talia hits up her other info source on the way out of the City.
FORMAT: Para to start, then whatever
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So you think you can tell Heaven from Hell )
So, as the appointed time arrived, he drove outside the City to the designated generic and annoyingly opulent hotel. Once there, he parked (not valeted, much to the irritation of the over eager valet) his bike in the garage and headed up to what was either Talia's room, or a really dickish trap. Either way, he figured it merited being on his guard.
He raised his hand, dropping it momentarily as he debated picking the lock. It would be worth it if it was a trap. But after a fifteen-second whirl of internal turmoil, laziness and the dead of that coldly ( ... )
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"Come in."
Names were spared for the moment, even as her gaze trailed over him, attempting to place him based on appearance alone (from before she had left their home universe, or after?). There was still no promise her father or other enemies was not present, and while the hotel room had been thoroughly checked for bugs and other such devices and the door thick enough for comfort, the hallway had not been checked in its entirety.
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"So, you're here." There wasn't much else to say really, other than ask what the game was and honestly, Jason wasn't sure he wanted to know. The last thing T had set him up with had ended in disaster as had his own endeavors thereafter.
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But where are you from? Being uninformed wasn't something she was accustomed to, and it chaffed against her every thought. Grains of sand beating against the mighty mountain, wearing it down moment by moment. And nothing to be done for it but what she had chosen.
She turned her back on him, walking from the entry to return to her small living area. Nearly a challenge, the same she had given before her own men what felt so long ago.
"An original visit, at that. Unlike yourself."
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Honestly, thoughts of timelines and how they might play into her appearance had yet to occur. Jason was still caught up on why she wanted to meet and what her next move would be. He followed her into the room, carefully considering just that, and what his reaction should be. Did she know about the monster? She had to have heard. She'd probably know about the zillions and zillions of masks running around and just how different this place was from Gotham, or Blüdhaven or even Star City for crying out loud. Just what would she want out of a place like this.
"I will admit to being a little surprised."
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Here being the City itself, or in his case, the meeting. Unsurprising, considering Talia had never even lingered in Gotham when she could help it. Unlike the regulars of Arkham, she was capable of appreciating the fact business was by far more easily conducted outside of a driven vigilante's personal playground. Being thwarted by a man in a mask lost it's thrill when ones standard of living began to decline, no matter how striking that man may be.
"Or perhaps both. Make yourself comfortable, Jason. This may take some of the evening, depending."
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So, resolved, he took a seat in an utterly too plush armchair and unzipped the front of his previously mentioned jacket before kicking back. "I'm listening."
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She took a moment to make herself comfortable as well on the chair across from him, in no rush to get to the particulars. There were advantages to being known as useful, after all. One of them was to operate on ones own time frame.
"How long has it been since we last spoke?"
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He was behind the times even compared to her, which was indeed a minor disappointment as far as her own curiosity went. But the advantages outweighed it. There would be fewer unpleasant surprises on this end. Unless, of course, it was a lie. There was no telling what the future could do even to those she counted as known factors, but she had neither the time nor resources to allow that pet paranoia to fester at the moment. She'd admitted both her own time and that she hadn't had the capacity to discover what she wished to know in the City on her own. There was no retreat from that.
"But all of that is, for practical purposes, irrelevant now."
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"Then what is relevant?" He studied her face, but Talia was just as good if not better at masking her true feelings and intentions.
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She could admit a small amusement at all that. Aggravating self-proclaimed pillars of truth and justice was a hobby she'd dabbled in herself from time to time over the years, after all. Particularly when being forced to work with them towards some common goal. And it was, in some ways, a relief. With the Joker in the City and Batman in and out from all appearances, brewing over vendetta wasn't healthy.
But she hadn't been able to delve deeply enough into the underworld of the City yet to know what kind of impact he was making in ways that actually mattered. A city of a thousand masks and villains made determining who was responsible for what difficult even if one had an extensive information network at hand which, for the moment, she certainly did not.
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"I'd like you to work for me," she inclined her head slightly, one hand half raised to delay an immediate reaction as she continued. "In a... consulting capacity."
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"What exactly do you have in mind, before I politely tell you to go jump?"
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