[Closed] [Backlogged]

[crackingcases]

Characters: Naoto Shirogane, Zatanna Zatara, Jonathan Crane
Location: Kuzunoha Detective Agency
Rating: PG-13
Time: Backlogged; Sometime after this conversation.
Description: Naoto shows Zee where Crane is kept and allows Zee to question the perpetrator.

Comments

whoops, tuesday.

[fishnets]

It was okay for her to do it. She was a 'good guy.' When she did it, it was charming. Clearly, he needed to get the Supervillain's Handbook. "Really? Looks to me like you have a lot of free time on your hands." A whole lot. Didn't look like they had a television in the cell, though. He probably spent his free time reading creepy books. And... staring into space. She left it at that, though. Zatanna wasn't here to pick fights. Not yet, at least.

"Oh, well, it's good that it's only 'not particularly,' then." She'd detected the sarcasm from the moment she stepped in the door. He didn't even need to speak to give off that obnoxiously smug demeanor that probably got him beaten up a lot in high school. "I meant this incident specifically. And don't flatter yourself, you're B or C list. Usually minimal threat at best. Batman can handle you without the aid of anyone else." A bit of a stretch, but not entirely. He usually stuck to Gotham and his little plots were rarely ambitious. The JLA almost never stepped in.

"Here's how I see it," she begins, working on her 'good cop' again. "Why not just be cooperative? This isn't home. You get out, everyone knows who you are. Why not just lay low and act rational until we can all be returned to our respective homes?"

I wouldn't mind if Batman handled me by himself. did I say that out loud?

[ornithophobia]

Crane blinked and fell contemplatively silent. The second (stupid) question wasn't the one that intrigued him -- it was the implications of there even being a proverbial B or C list. Gotham was undoubtedly a seedy pit of embezzlers, drug pushers and petty criminals but his particular brand of terrorism stood out... Enough for, as she said, Batman to step in. Then the vigilante's presence began to attract crazies, like the one that called himself the Joker. It wouldn't have been too much of an extrapolation to say that if it weren't for this whole Death City business, he'd be hearing about a whole slew of new, dangerous criminal characters.

Far be it for him to say that he felt threatened by the possibility of "A listers" trumping him (the woman was surely lying about that), but the suggestion that there was a bigger collection of "villains" put some things in a worrying perspective. If the criminal element could play copycat and escalate, who's to say that there couldn't be any men (or women) equally as crazy as Gotham's first costumed crimefighter?

If insanity was the criteria, then this one certainly fit the bill -- if her story panned out, that is. He frowned and watched her from under half-lidded eyes. He even forgot to give a retort to the subtle snipe between her prattle.

When he spoke again, it was in a far more sober tone. "If you know as much about me as you say you do, then you already know I'm not one to let an opportunity slip out of my grasp when it's right before me." A wry smile. "'When we're all returned to our respective homes?' At the moment, home is a padded cell in my own asylum. At least I have the opportunity to stretch my legs here."

idk but i'm pretty sure that you typed it.

[fishnets]

Zatanna was pretty sure that there was a lot of inner-monologue going on right now. That was his strong point. Thinking, analyzing, being an overall smart-ass. Well, maybe not the last one. But this Crane obviously cherished that quality, didn't he?

Whatever. It certainly could be worse than dealing with a jailed-Crane. Amazo, Darkseid, and so on and so forth. Hell, even Hush and he didn't even have stupid feargasbombthings.

"You say that as if this was an opportunity. For what? To scare people then be tossed in jail? Sure sounds like a fulfilling life to me!" Because really, she couldn't fathom it. She couldn't understand them at all, all these supposedly 'smart' villains who weren't smart enough to do anything other than commit acts of terrorism that only brought them back to square one. "So rather than live normally here, you'd rather continue to stay in cells? I don't understand."