All the world is a stage, and everyone has their part
Who: Jack Kelly [cowboy_newsie] and Batman [kingofrooks], Black Mask [ebony_mask] and Batman [see above].
When: The 16th, post-sirens.
Where: Black Mask's hideout.
Summary: Batman finally finds out where Black Mask is keeping Jack. He goes for a rescue. Then Black Mask comes back.
Warnings: Violence. Mentions/explicit descriptions of torture, gore, drugs and drug abuse. Stuff like ( Read more... )
When: The 16th, post-sirens.
Where: Black Mask's hideout.
Summary: Batman finally finds out where Black Mask is keeping Jack. He goes for a rescue. Then Black Mask comes back.
Warnings: Violence. Mentions/explicit descriptions of torture, gore, drugs and drug abuse. Stuff like ( Read more... )
People disappear everyday. The Core takes them, kicking and screaming or quietly in their beds, or they die and the Core doesn't bring them that. Bruce knows that, and he has experienced the aching loss of someone disappearing on him too many times for him to not be perfectly aware of how it feels. Damian, Jason, Carrie- the Core gives, and the Core takes away. Carrie is back, but Bruce barely knows her, and that is something that is expected too. He is used to it, and he has a list. Sheets of numbers telling him probabilities, based upon evidence and experience.
But Jack Kelly's disappearance disturbs him. His instincts tell him there's something wrong. The city doesn't laugh, and she doesn't tell him that he's wrong and he's being too hopeful. She keeps his silence. He hasn't heard a single word from her for at least ten days. Something is wrongDecember 7th. Matches Malone starts hearing news of a new ( ... )
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He doesn't jerk awake so much as shiver so. One moment he's lying against the wall, curled into as tight a ball as the chains on his ankles and wrists will allow-- and the next he's scrambling to stand, swaying as he does.
He's a strange dichotomy. Covered from head to toe in blood and vomit, clothes torn and filthy, body too thin, eyes dark with exhaustion and bright with terror-- but perfectly whole, perfectly healthy. There isn't an injury on him, not a cut finger or scraped knee.
He stares at Batman, dumbfounded, his chest rising and falling sharply in fear. For a few brief seconds, Jack does nothing but stare, trembling so badly the chains rattle against the wall.
Abruptly he falls to the ground, kneeling, his head cradled in his hands as his eyes close tightly.]
Go away-- go away, go away--
[He whispers it, chants it to himself, hoping it will work. If his hallucinations have gotten this bad, if the fantasy world he's been escaping to in his head is spilling over into reality, that means he's farther gone than he ( ... )
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Batman walks forward, and lets the anger he feels curl within himself, shoving it to the back of his mind. There is no use panicking or being angry; there is no use in feeling the hint of bile at the back of his throat, choking him and strangling his words until he can't even feel the edges of them. He no longer thinks in words, but only in pictures- in violence. ]
I'm not going away.
[ He can hear those little whispers, those little whimpers. Batman moves fast, and he's already taking the lockpicks from the slit in his armour, slipping them into the lock and pulling the chains away from Jack ( ... )
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And that's relaxing, in a way. If it's a dream, if this isn't real, then he won't make it. He'll wake up in that basement again, an IV in his arm, Roman grinning in the corner as he sharpens a blade or readies a drill. And that's the way it's going to be, so he might as well enjoy this now while his mind is caught here.
They're beyond the stairs when Jack remembers something.]
There's . . . the other man. Back there, in the . . . did you get him?
[His tone is calm, now, his gaze relaxed as he stares up at Batman. This is a dream. This is a dream and nothing truly matters.]
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I'm coming back to get him later.
[ So young. So incredibly young. Batman fades into Bruce for a moment as he sits Jack onto the motorcycle, and his gauntleted hand brushes his hair away for a moment. ]
Right now I'm getting you to the hospital. Do you have a favourite doctor?
[ He's speaking to Jack like he's a young child, far younger than the teenager that he really is. But there is something broken in those brown eyes so like his own that Bruce can't really help it, and he inhales in sharply again, and tries to stop his mind from imagining situations where he gets to beat Roman to death. ]
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Don't need a doctor. I can-- you know I can heal.
[He glances around him a bit curiously, his wariness growing as it slowly steals over him that this might not be a dream. He stiffens beneath the cape, his eyes darting up and down the road as if he might see Roman marching toward him that very minute.]
Sirius. Take me home, I gotta-- and I need your NV, I gotta tell Bruce somethin', please--
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You're suffering from malnutrition. [ Flatly, and he's breaking several speed limits, but no one cares, in the Darkness. And he's leaning a little too close to Jack, so he can actually speak to him. ] You need a doctor.
[ They are almost at Skye's. Bruce swerves suddenly, losing the monster that's trying to pounce on them from the shadows of a building. ]
Sionis isn't going to touch anyone else. [ He's made sure of that. ] Tell Wayne whatever you like later.
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Tell Sirius-- tell him I'm at Skye. Text him. Please.
[He slumps against Batman, closing his eyes, nauseous from the movement.]
Daedalus. He's-- he knows me best.
[Another short pause.]
How-- how'd you know I were there?
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Black will be the first to know.
[ Bruce Wayne promised, after all, and he likes to think that he keeps the promises that he can. He's starting to slow down, reaching the emergency ward of Skye's, and he doesn't answer Jack's question. Instead, he swings his legs off of the motorbike, reaching out to sweep Jack into his arms again, and ducks into the hospital.
He's still a wanted man, and he knows that Yumeno isn't here to keep them off of him. He knows he's literally running into a well-lit area surrounded by people, with doors that can close with a flip of a switch, and he'll be fully out in the open.
Right now, he doesn't care. ]
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Now that he's a bit more coherent, it's slightly embarrassing to be carried this way-- but Jack's simply too exhausted to give much of a damn. The only move he makes is to glare tiredly at anyone who meets his eyes.]
You didn't answer me question. How'd you know I were there? I didn't-- nobody knew. Everybody thought I'd been ported out. Sirius thought that and he's got a million trackin' charms on me.
[He's becoming more coherent, his speech less slurred and distant as he grows more and more in touch with reality. His rough and tumble New York accent-- faded this past year-- is back full-force.]
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I wasn't looking for you. Sionis was too greedy, and he slipped.
[ There's a smile here, and it's an ugly thing. It promises pain, and vengeance, and many other unpleasant things for Black Mask. And he knows he's not telling the truth- but what reason does Batman have to look for Jack Kelly, when he barely even speaks to him? The only thing that ties them together is Black Mask, and Bruce is used enough to lying that the lie comes easily enough. ]
I'll find Yumeno and Black. Don't try to escape.
[ And he's pulling away, heading for the door. ]
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Oye!
[He hesitates for just a moment.]
Thanks. I owe you.
[Whether Batman realizes it and whether he takes it, the offer is legitimate.]
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No. You don't. [ And he flips something backwards- something he found on Sionis's table when he's carrying Jack out ( ... )
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Fiddling with slides, checking off checklists, preparing new vectors and forming ideal matches. The walls are white, this facility immaculate and sterile- sterile with the exception of the contents of all the carefully labelled, organized tubes.
There's a soft, droning, ambient pulse of noise coming from the smooth speakers in the ceiling, but other than that soothing rhythm it's peaceful, meticulous work, almost blissfully quiet in its solitude of bending over microscope imaging, in comparison to Skye Medical's ER and the constant clamor of trama.
Daedalus has almost relaxed wholly into his night job, and it's barely been a month into it. After being buried in the ground, he needs this kind of placid stability tonight ( ... )
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Batman doesn't say much, only striding forward. He ducks down, placing his shoulder against Yumeno's waist, throws himself forward then up, and he now has Yumeno slung over his shoulder. ]
Jack Kelly needs your help.
[ That's the whole of the explanation before he's flying down the corridors again, heading towards the exit of the building and his motorcycle so he can get Yumeno to Skye. ]
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But then his world is completely up-ended, shouldered with a strength he somehow never intended any man to possesses (A defensive-type entourage, perhaps, but not-) But this is Batman.
This is-
No time for speculations like that. His lab is getting further and further away down the hall, still unlocked, and Daedalus is still not entirely certain this isn't some new kind of abduction.]
But I can't just-! [He protests, clutching to the cape because that's the only way to stop the sensation of tipping, and there's so much he'd say if not for security and the racing fear they might be shot at by some security guards.]
I'm on shift! [He hisses, and it might as well be an explicative.
But the name finally connects, the message, his first thought is: Oh God, Jack Kelly- what has Re-l gotten herself into now?]
He's been found!? [Daedalus whispers, the minute they hit those doubled darkness sealing doors.]
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