capeandcowllogs | Before you know it

WHO: Batman II and Batgirl
WHERE: a rooftop
WHEN: Feb 27, 2009
WARNINGS: Batfamily
SUMMARY: Batgirl decides she has mastered verbiage well enough to explain the multiverse to Batman II. This will go smashingly. Maybe she brought charts?
FORMAT: quickparagraphs? or whatevs!

The idea that this might be a trap had occurred to her a few times, but she'd read the rest of the post (or rather, had it read to her by the communicator) and decided the chances were low; still, there was a very nicely written note in the Cave with the coordinates and "be back soon, Cassandra" that, okay, she had partially copied from the comm, but felt justifiably proud of in regards to her (very long) name.

So. The second Batman. She'd been curious when he was here earlier, but they'd never met. Now that he was here again, she wouldn't let the opportunity to see him go by... in small part, she would admit to herself, to see how he measured up. But primarily to explain things, and see if he had anything to help find Tim.

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Terry had been fairly starstruck meeting Gordon, but as far as he was aware, there'd only been one Batgirl back home. That didn't mean that there weren't other Batgirls out there and it would be pretty interesting to get the point of view of someone still working. He'd never been much of a team player, too concentrated on going ahead and just doing what he thought was right, but then, so had the old man. The old man who was clearly not-so-old here. Major intimidation factor there. Still, the part of him that was more sensible rationalized it out as needing to go where the information is. Sometimes people are your best information resource, no matter what the brat says.

Pulling the cowl on and restless to get outside and explore, he took a slightly longer route to the co-ordinates she'd given him. It was always possible he was walking into a trap, but sometimes you had to take that change and just go straight in. He'd been told that once. He hit the top of the fire escape and scanned the roof.

She'd landed just moments before, and moved out into the open with her cape draped around her. It was easy to see how much her silhouette could resemble Batman's... at this distance, however, it was also easy to see that she was about six inches too short to complete the illusion. Not much like the Batgirl before her, but not entirely divorced from that image either, as the symbol on her chest testified.

He seemed younger than she'd expected, which was neither good nor bad (she'd be the last person to judge competency by age); it made her wonder how long they would all do this.

"Hi," she said softly, hesitantly offering him her hand once she was close enough. "Thanks for coming."

Small, dark and moving silhouette but the symbol on the chest unmistakable. Someone could compare it to a badge of honour, but that someone hadn't had to dig their way out of thirty Jokerz and a lot of cream pie. Tiny, but pretty lethal; seemed like a Batgirl to him. Other than that, he couldn't tell much about her except that when she opened her mouth, what came out of it was pretty polite and sounded closer to his age. Younger, then.

He stared at the hand a moment before uncrossing his arms and taking it hard. It was something his father had told him: you could tell a lot about someone from a strong handshake. "Operating blind wasn't much of an option. This is better."

There might have been a hint of a smile from beneath the cowl, but expressions like that were as well-covered as his. She nodded at what he said and glanced a little to the side: she'd swept this rooftop for bugs before, but the importance of secret identities had faded somewhat in this new world, where they barely existed in the minds of the bureaucracy.

"So the first Robin - Dick Grayson," she started, watching him for corroborating body language, "the second, Jason Todd. Also here, but not as Robin. The third, Tim Drake. He was investigating Dr. Crane, after which he disappeared."

The silence was slightly uncomfortable, but usually meant the person was trying to think of how to say something. What came out was interesting, to say the least. The mouthy Robin was Dick Grayson, he'd thought as much. The Commish had said he'd been bitter. If he was still Robin, that meant he had to be younger than the person who's suit he'd wore and didn't that just get really, really creepy. The second didn't bring any recognition. That was the first issue to address.

"As far as my-" Reality? "- Gotham is concerned, the second Robin was Tim Drake."

He felt a great deal less confused once he had a name for Mystery Boy Wonder. It wasn't one he recognised. Almost instinctually, he missed the voice in his suit. It felt like he was still operating blind to some extent without having Waynes knowledge there to fill in some old blanks.

He untensed his shoulders conciously when the alter ego of Crane finally hit through the bat computer in his brain, "Scarecrow."

Though she had no idea why Jason wouldn't exist, at least not within the same time period as the others, she had no option but to shrug it off. (And perhaps to choose to not tell Jason, should they ever ending conversing.) That settled, she moved onto current events.

"Yes. There's no evidence of foul play. Just... disappeared." She could feel her voice becoming more stressed, and tried to even it out instead of getting emotional, which wouldn't be useful. Between Tim and Marc vanishing, everything was going wrong. "I think we asked Blue Beetle to search for his energy signature. Does... your suit do anything like that?"

That wasn't good, considering what'd happened the last time Drake - a Drake? - had disappeared. He didn't like to bring that up if the Joker wasn't involved. It was a different time and a different universe. What were the odds it was the same schtick? "How old is he?" The question popped out before he'd had much time to phrase it better. He'd need to be careful of that.

"The suit functions more or less the same way the computer in the cave does. If there's tracers there, I can track them, same with something like a radiation trail." Even the suit had been a good ten years out of date to start with. Would there be anything there he could use? Weak as it sounded, it would be good to see a familiar face. "I'm not sure what Drake would have on his person that could be tracked."

She would have liked to nibble worriedly on one finger, but the mask prevented that... probably a good thing. His question worried her, if only (well, primarily) because he seemed to regret it immediately. It was an odd question, until you considered he was from the future. Surely they couldn't factor in events that happened in the City -- but there was no 'surely' involved with interdimensional transport, and not with so many of their home's people here.

"He's seventeen." Hopefully that wasn't significant. "He'd have tracers, but none activated, probably. Um. Maybe Batman had tracers on him --" Even as she made the suggestion, she twisted her mouth around and dismissed it. "-- no, Robin would have disabled them. If... if he found all of them. We have to ask Batman." She regarded him solemnly. "Come to the Cave."

Hopefully Batman wouldn't be mad. She could tell this Batman wasn't lying, but there were still dangers involved.

Before you know it

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I don't know what to do from here. Handwave getting to the cave, log meeting Batman separately?