Nightstar
| Landscaper / Window Washer
| DC
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Post by Mar'i Grayson on Jul 14, 2016 18:26:29 GMT -5
His anger was expressed by the crush of plastic. When he spoke nonsense to her like she was stupid, her response could have easily melted it. The hand that was between them flared up from comfortable fireplace to the less than comfortable heat of a flame inches away from the face. The light intensified and washed out their features, and likely would have been blinding, but she didn't count on it with the lenses in his mask. "Draw another weapon and I'll melt it," she warned, quite obviously not appreciating the aggressive tone he had taken with her.
Her feet were already off the ground when the light began to subside. She didn't fancy looking up at him anymore, and so took her defensive stance from above. The distance was for both their safety. Projectiles weren't as fast as he could strike within arm's reach, and so she quite literally had a better shot at knocking it off course. The consideration for his safety was not burning him outright if she decided to disintegrate his equipment.
Her fingers were curled at the ready, charged. "Of course you can't contact the Watchtower," she answered, not phased by this information. "The Justice League has long since retired. They wouldn't just leave it floating up there."
Truthfully, she didn't know what happened to the old Justice League HQ, and she never really cared much. Her business was the Titans, and her peers. The affairs of the more violent, problematic generation of heroes were hard enough to handle without adding retirees wistful for the glory days. Unfortunately for Nightwing, Nightstar was no stranger to fighting with fellow vigilantes.
As she glared down at him, considering if it was worth helping someone who kept threatening her when she'd done nothing to deserve it, she kept drawing her gaze back to the emblem. Why did he have to be Nightwing? She grit her teeth resigned and dropped one hand, one, to grab her own communicator. She needed to get in contact with the Titans. That was a team she knew still existed, and someone could get in touch with her and help her figure out what the heck was going on.
Except, it was a practically a dud in her hand when she tried to do anything with it; no calls, no signal, nothing. Anxiety's creeping fingers were back to crawl up her spine, and with some dread she tried to call someone else. It had been months since she'd gotten in contact with her father, especially after their last big fight, but she tried it now. He had always been more inclined to accept her calls, always willing to forgive her first. That's because she was always the one who was truly angry--angry at a father who wouldn't leave well alone and retire from a life of danger.
When it failed to contact him, she felt as though her stomach had dropped from out under her. "Maybe you're not so crazy," she said, returning the useless communicator back. "I can't even contact my father." The anxiety had lodged itself in her throat. "Try to contact him," she demanded. "Contact the former Nightwing. Just in case he's acting like the Dick that he is and avoiding my calls."
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Nightwing
| Mercenary
| The Regime
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Post by Damian Wayne on Jul 15, 2016 20:08:08 GMT -5
Her reaction, the threat, finally made sense. Damian narrowed his eyes at her, his shoulders tensing, as she moved up and out of arms reach from him. He waited, breathlessly, for her to attack. He'd learned he felt less guilty afterwards about killing another person if he let them attack first. Only a little less guilty, though. It was such a shame he was going to have to take someone so pretty from the world.
Then she said something crazy again. "Retired?" he echoed. What a strange way of putting it. They didn't call themselves the Justice League anymore, but all the members who hadn't died in the war were still active. Some of them, like his father, were on the wrong side. The Watchtower was certainly still up there, though, unless the Rebellion had brought it down.
It was her turn to try, and fail, to contact anybody. He watched her warily, his scowl deepening as she mentioned he might not be so crazy. "TT. I'm crazy?" he repeated in disbelief. Because she was the one talking nonsense like his father had brainwashed her poor tiny brain. Then she was demanding he contact her father, which seemed like a ridiculous thing to ask because he didn't even know-
"Richard Grayson was your father!?" Damian asked, his masked eyes widening. He could see it now: that resemblance. "He never told me he had a-" Nightwing shut down abruptly when he realized that the fact Grayson had a kid he'd never known about wasn't the weirdest thing about this. Nightstar was talking about her father as if he was still alive. Which made no sense. Was Bruce Wayne so horrible that he wouldn't even tell this girl her father was dead?
"Batman didn't tell you, did he?" the young man studied her face anxiously, the anger in the way he carried himself melting away entirely. His shoulders slumped in defeat, but his furrowed brows conveyed his frustration with the entire situation. "That ass." He glowered at the ground for a few heartbeats, angry at Bruce for pinning this on him, before he turned to look at Mar'i again. All the anger had been replaced with palpable regret.
"I'm sorry you have to hear this from me but Richard Grayson is dead," Damian informed her. It's all my fault. The familiar thrum of self-hate reminded him. "He was my mentor," the young Nightwing swallowed thickly. "I was there."
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Nightstar
| Landscaper / Window Washer
| DC
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Post by Mar'i Grayson on Jul 18, 2016 18:59:22 GMT -5
He was her father.
The words caught in her throat, 'is, is my father', she wanted to protest. The one hand still raised to fight him flickered off, their meeting place becoming darker in the absence of her light, and slowly lowered to her side. Her lips parted in the unspoken questions, not knowing where to start with this young man who knew her father by name, her brow pinched in thought. He struggled with his words and she struggled with the enigma.
How could her father have a young apprentice, who didn't know her, and she didn't know him? The very idea felt like betrayal. She didn't know which was more perplexing; that her father was such a man, or that he could manage to hide it from her given how well connected she was to the community. She would know of a man who claimed Batman as his father, and so would her peers.
In that vein, there were many things Batman didn't tell her, but when he posed the question to her she could feel her throat tighten. Somewhere deep down she had a feeling of what he was going to say, but she wouldn't recognize it on a cognitive level. It was impossible for her to accept, it was crazy.
Why was he looking at her like that? The fear was already creeping into her expression. He was giving her all the signs, but she just couldn't accept...
The moment he said it, all thought crashed around her. She could hear her pulse, and felt breathless. It was a human reaction to panic, for a woman who didn't need to breathe. Her expression crumpled to grief, green eyes growing glossy reflected in the little light there was to be had. She lowered to the ground, and such a contrast to the power she projected just before he struck her with the revelation. She looked lost, and vulnerable.
"No," she choked out, her hand to her heart. The shock, the confusion, was the only thing keeping her from having an absolute meltdown in the wake of her worst fear realized. "No... it can't be... how? He was fine... he was fine..."
Is that why there was a new Nightwing? When did it happen--why did no one tell her?! She would know. She would know if something happened to him, she would know...
"No," she insisted, stronger this time. The stages of grief may be inaccurate, but Nighstar was going from denial to anger right away. "NO!"
Her teary eyes flashed at him. "You're lying! Nothing you've said makes any sense!" She advanced, making her hands to fists. She stopped in front of him, getting well in the way of and not caring about personal space. She didn't even notice that the ruckus that she was making was drawing attention from upstairs, with people peering through the window.
"Who are you?! My father isn't a mentor to anyone--he didn't want to be like Bruce," she insisted in her rant of outright denial.
"And even if he did, he was always so proud of me, everyone knows I'm his daughter. He wouldn't hide me from anyone," she insisted. Her father always reminded her of the missions they went on together, their little adventures, and he always spoke with such pride at her accomplishments. He even claimed her as his daughter in his public identity rather than Nightwing's, so he wouldn't have to hide it from the world.
Her fist raised, but it landed weakly on his chest, over the insignia. Her head was tilted down so that he could only see the crown of her head. She was crying. "He's not dead. He can't be dead. Why would you say that..?"
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Nightwing
| Mercenary
| The Regime
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Post by Damian Wayne on Jul 25, 2016 18:11:03 GMT -5
She was crying and he had no idea what to do about it. Damian watched her warily, his brow pinched in sympathy, but very aware of how stupid grief could make people. He couldn't believe that Bruce had kept this from her for five years. He almost couldn't believe that Dick would keep a daughter from him, especially considering that he wasn't the best at keeping secrets. Still there wasn't much to do about the oddity of the situation when he now had a sobbing, emotional wreck of a woman to deal with.
He didn't move when she seemed to come in for the attack. Every harsh memory of his training screamed at him to eliminate her, but he didn't, because Dick Grayson was dead and it was all his fault. For a strange, and sadly not rare, half-second he wished she would kill him too. She didn't. He reached for the hand on his chest, across the inherited insignia, but simply to grab her wrist and remove it from his person.
"Richard has been dead for five years," Damian said with a clinical coldness. Like Alfred he did not use her father's nickname. "He was one of the first casualties in the war," the young Nightwing had plenty of time to consider how things might have been different if Dick hadn't been one of the first to die. He'd also had too much time to consider how he should have chased after Father. How he should have used his connections to find a Lazarus pit to bring Grayson back.
Now, faced with the grief of the man's daughter, all the regrets rushed to the surface again. "I'm sorry. Father should have told you."
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Nightstar
| Landscaper / Window Washer
| DC
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Post by Mar'i Grayson on Jul 25, 2016 20:09:01 GMT -5
He raised her wrist, but unless he intended to push off the rest of her, Nightstar remained fixed in her position, desperate for support as her world was falling to pieces. In an unexpected turn, his cold words made it stop. Her sobs went quiet, and the limp hand he had so easily manipulated became stiff in his grip. Nightstar didn't know if she wanted to laugh from relief or pummel him into the ground, or some combination of both. Her teary eyes lifted, expression deadpan when the human side of him remembered sympathy. "I spoke to my father a few months ago," she said flatly. She shoved him from her space, remembering but not caring that he was injured. Quietly, she composed herself, straightening and wiping the tears with the back of her hand, her mouth a stern line. Nightstar regarded him critically from a distance. "Talking to you is useless. Even if you're brain damaged and delusional, it still wouldn't explain what we're doing here," she said. "I have a contact in New York who would let me use her apartment."She paused, considering as she continued to regard him in all sternness. "I don't believe it's entirely coincidence we wound up in the same alley. I would recommend staying together until we get something sorted. If you really know my father, then I believe he owes us both an explanation."
Provided, he wasn't dead. |
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Nightwing
| Mercenary
| The Regime
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Post by Damian Wayne on Jul 28, 2016 19:43:51 GMT -5
"A few months-" Damian echoed, but wasn't given much time to ponder her strange words because he was moving. The young Nightwing hit the brickwork behind him with a thud, his armor making a scraping noise as he slid, dazed, into a sitting position. He stared at her, his masked eyes wide, before his expression flattened to mirror hers. Damian slowly got back to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall, and scowled at her words.
"TT," he made his clicking noise. "Your father isn't intelligent enough to contrive something like this. This isn't his fault," Damian defended him. He also couldn't believe Richard had been secretly alive and hiding from him for the past five years either. "He's not the sort of man to hide in the veil of death when the world is collapsing on itself either. You spoke to him a few months ago?" the young Nightwing pressed. He had an idea, but it sounded just as crazy as she did.
"What if you're from the past?" It was possible that Dick had a daughter his age, and had lost her, long before he mentored Damian. The dead may have lined the walls of Wayne Manor but nobody really spoke of them. Plus, when you're ten, everybody over the age of twenty seems ancient. "What if we were brought together to stop the future I live in from happening?" he conjectured, hope leaking into his voice. "What if we can stop the war from starting and save your father?"
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Nightstar
| Landscaper / Window Washer
| DC
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Post by Mar'i Grayson on Aug 13, 2016 21:09:19 GMT -5
Mar'i didn't think it was a question of whether he was clever enough; her father wasn't cruel enough for such a plot. They could still agree that whatever this was, it wasn't his fault.
Damian had a theory. Her gaze snapped to him, but she wasn't looking at him like before; as though he was crazy. No, their situation was so bizarre that his radical suggestion was actually plausible. Despite her lack of a gaze, the pinched, intense expression made it clear that she was seriously thinking about it.
Time-travel wasn't an impossibility. She'd heard stories but never had a case of it close to home. Assuming that he was her future: that her father was dead, and there was a war between Batman and Superman, then no matter how ridiculous or contrived she would do almost anything to stop it from happening.
"What happened in New York?" she questioned. "If what you're saying is true, that the universe threw us together for that purpose, then wouldn't it stand to reason we'd be brought to a specific place and time?"
They needed to investigate. "We need to find out more: when, and why." She paused a moment, looking at him with slight regret. She had been so angry that he made her so vulnerable by voicing on of her greatest fears. He was a stranger to her, and she broke down in front of him. Even so... She regretted using force against him when he was injured.
"I'm... sorry I pushed you," she apologized. "Will you be able to get around? Our first priority should be getting you patched up and rested."
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Nightwing
| Mercenary
| The Regime
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Post by Damian Wayne on Aug 20, 2016 20:42:02 GMT -5
"TT, I don't know," Damian admitted when she asked what had happened in New York. While he'd grown up studying the classics, and had a firm understanding of history, the more recent events of the past baffled him. Especially the ones connected to too strong a negative memory to attempt to relive. Now that she was asking him to he grimaced.
"Maybe the nuclear weapons Joker used to destroy Metropolis came from here," Nightwing suggested. "I don't know much about it, Father was investigating it when..." the former Boy Wonder trailed off with a wince. "When your father died."
He accepted her apology with an incline of his head, but that didn't necessarily meant he wanted her back within striking distance. "I don't need rest," Damian protested shaking his head. "I'm fine. The mission is more important."
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Nightstar
| Landscaper / Window Washer
| DC
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Post by Mar'i Grayson on Aug 21, 2016 20:36:17 GMT -5
A destroyed Metropolis, a nuclear bomb, and a dead father; the more she learned about his future, the more she wanted to stop it in its tracks. Even then, her expression fell to uncertainty when he protested getting rest. He was right. Finding out more was the most important task at hand, especially if his theory was correct, but she wasn't indifferent about his state. He would be a lot more help if he wasn't hobbling along in pain, or worse passing out on her. That, and he hadn't yet given her a reason to enjoy seeing him hurt.
Acknowledging his decision was set aside as she turned her head to the direction of a sound. "Do you hear that?" she asked, brows furrowing for a moment. The sound of New York and the many cars on the street were all background noise, but being in the hero business the sound of heavy tires was familiar alarm. They were coming closer. She waited to see if it was a mistake; if it would pass, but that would be too kind for such a whirlwind of a night.
A sudden, blinding light had Mar'i throwing up her hand to shield her eyes. She stepped in front of her injured ally protectively as she tried to squint past the gaps between her long fingers. Something told her the washed-out silhouettes weren't New York's welcoming committee.
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