(Untitled)

[heartofthedemon]

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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[undeadsidekick]

Jason had been-- yeah, okay-- pretty freaked out to see the email appear. At first, he'd dismissed it as something he'd imagined. Maybe the stress of tentacled monsters and teenage gossip was getting to him. But no, five minutes later it was still there, marked read, but unreplied. He hadn't know Talia was in the City, but then, why the hell wouldn't she be and it wasn't her style to speak up about it. This was probably the closest he'd get to a formal greeting ever, actually.

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

[heartofthedemon]

If Jason's intention was to avoid that look, he was destined to be sorely disappointed as Talia, only a few moments later, calmly opened the door and stepped back to allow him to enter. Well, the first moments were by far a more agreeable meeting than the talk with her own flesh and blood son had been. If nothing else, at least Jason had managed that.

"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.

[undeadsidekick]

Or he could be bugged. He wasn't, but he knew why she would call him in, rather than sticking her neck out to meet him. Jason smirked. Even across time and space, he could sort of figure out her thought process and that was something. Maybe his initial concussion and subsequent poor life decisions weren't so terrible.

"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.

[heartofthedemon]

"So I am."

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."

[undeadsidekick]

His shoulders shrugged under his heavy motorcycle jacket, not that Talia could tell unless the porter had given her eyes in the back of her head (which would be apt, really). "Things work differently here."

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."

[heartofthedemon]

"That I'm here, or that you are?"

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."

[undeadsidekick]

It took a certain amount of self-control not to heave a hideous sigh at that. But there was nothing to be done. Talia had something on her mind and he could fake some emergency and duck out but the curiosity would get to him eventually and Jason didn't feel like crawling back any time in the next century if he could help it. Responding to a mysterious email was one thing, running away and then begging to know after the fact was entirely different.

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."

[heartofthedemon]

"Ah, I'll require more than that."

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?"

[undeadsidekick]

The ease and amount of time she took settling in wasn't missed. Talia was using a pretty standard manipulation tactic on him, which while not unusual for her, implied that she didn't know if he was trustworthy and non-dangerous to her as of yet. And that in turn, given the question, made Jason kind of wonder just what the hell happened between them in the future. He mimicked her standard eyebrow lift, considering the insanity that had befallen him prior to being (more insanely) pulled into an alternate dimension with a bunch of goddamn, spandex-clad superheroes. "Eight months, but only then via email. It was important to keep communication minimal. I haven't seen you in over a year, at least on my end."

[heartofthedemon]

"A shame. I would have been interested in hearing of Gotham's madness which ended in my allowing Richard Grayson to dress my son in red and yellow."

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."

[undeadsidekick]

"Dunno, sorry." Although, he had his own theories and questions about why Dick was running around in the cowl, Robin or no Robin. In Jason's humble assessment, even if he was physically capable (and that was, at times, quite debatable) Dick wasn't mentally suited to being the Batman and last time Jay had seen him, didn't seem to care one way or the other about it. Of course, he'd heard allusions to Bruce's death and Tim's getting kicked out (about damn time), but if his adoptive family was good at one thing, it was keeping a secret and even someone as chatty as Dick wasn't willing to give something so important away like that.

"Then what is relevant?" He studied her face, but Talia was just as good if not better at masking her true feelings and intentions.

[heartofthedemon]

"What happens now. What have you been doing with yourself, Jason? Other than amusing yourself over text."

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.

[undeadsidekick]

"Sleeping. Trying to avoid creatures from the deep and the stuff of B movies. And there's a drug op in Bed-stuy that needs to be watched or their pointman gets sloppy." Which meant swinging by BF-Brooklyn every few days just to make sure the guy wasn't sleeping or shooting up himself. Never could trust a dealer who was also a user. "I was trying to break into an op out of Red Hook and Tribeca, but that kind of got blown out of the water, no pun intended, by big, bad and eight-tendrilled."

[heartofthedemon]

No sudden revelations, then. And no need to dance around the point. A crime lord he'd been in Gotham, which was precisely what was required in the City now, if she were to be able to achieve what she intended.

"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."

[undeadsidekick]

"I'm not a hands off kind of guy." The thought of working for Talia rather than just functioning around her was a little different. Ideologically, they differed a hell of a lot and Jason was pretty unsure they'd be able to get past that for more than a week. But then, Gotham wasn't involved in this, Batman wasn't involved. Yeah, okay, Dick's phony-ass Batman might rear its all-too-pretty (and much too short) head and try and get involved, but Dick didn't matter to either of them the same way Bruce did. Maybe it was worth a shot.

"What exactly do you have in mind, before I politely tell you to go jump?"

[heartofthedemon]

"I'm not proposing to clip your wings. I have no more interest in remaining here than I ever did in Gotham. However, this City, like that one, has certain items of interest in it. My agents in Gotham were there before Wayne manor was conceived of. Obviously, here that isn't the case. I need information and updates beyond what observing idle gossip can provide, and, eventually, someone to deliver all the gifts I have to give to. Your name came to mind."