capeandcowllogs | I'm bored of cheap and cheerful, I want expensive sadness

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I'm bored of cheap and cheerful, I want expensive sadness

WHO: Jason Todd and You!
WHERE: Lower Manhattan, China Town.
WHEN: Backdated to the night of September 6th, morning of the 7th.
WARNINGS: Gang-related violence, bad language.
SUMMARY: Jason's Cityversary hit, he felt it, and decided to make the rest of the drug trade in lower Manhattan feel it, too.
FORMAT: Paragraph to start and then tagger's choice. I really don't have a preference. Just specify a timeframe (9pm to like... 4am) and we'll work from there!

It's was a night for early September, and for the first time in a while, Jason didn't feel incredibly aware of the heavy leather jacket, or the fiberglass helmet encasing his skull. It was effortless to leap from building to building, heading Brooklyn bridge and on uptown. He settled, finally, a few blocks short of Grand street, waiting for the remains of the Zero's Children gang to show up.

They were unaware and painfully disorganized since Bauer decided to have his party in bumfuck Eastern Europe, which was probably the point. Still, it's not like the former polices chief intended to let the Lower East Side go to shit, so Jason figured this is probably as good a resolution as any. Besides, he was getting bored just defending territory. That was never his game, anyway.

The first two to recognize him don't seem scared. They're blustering right up to the first shots fired and the bullet hits the bone, which brings the air of misnomer attached to that phrase to a new level, or takes it back to a literal sense, Jason isn't really sure which. It probably didn't matter much at that point, when one of them was crashing to the ground and he was warning the other to back the fuck up lest the same thing happen to him. Not really using the word "lest". Thinking it, maybe, but it'd be lost on the pimping, drug-dealing scum that worked these parts.

"You're alive for a reason. Tell your boss and whatever friends you've got left that you're working for me now. Now move. Shoulder wounds don't keep you from running." He knew, vaguely, that the commotion would probably bring out all kinds of hell. But then, if Jason wanted to be honest with himself tonight, he'd admit that he left Brooklyn looking for a fight. That was the only reason to come up here. But he wasn't being honest and he wasn't thinking about it. Honesty was for superheroes and chumps, sometimes both. The Red Hood wasn't either.

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She hadn't gone out in search of Red Hood. On the contrary, Helena had been planning to spend the last hours of her twenty-sixth year continuing her search for missing teenager Estefania Lopez. It's been weeks since Huntress and Batwoman started looking for her, following her trail across the City from the shadiest part of the Bronx where one of her friends had suggested she might be hiding to the better, shinier parts of town. It was a futile quest, one teenage girl in a City eight million strong, but she refused to give up. Estefania had to be out there somewhere, and while there was still a light of hope, the Huntress would keep looking.

But instead of the now familiar innocent face of Estefania in the distance, she was greeted by street lights reflecting off a red fiberglass helmet. It isn't a typical motorcycle helmet, she quickly realizes, once the figure moves closer. Momentarily she considers letting him on his way, to whatever cruel business might be on his agenda for the night. But she's curious, admittedly, and it's been a good while since she's checked in with any of the boys. With Tim in town, frankly, they're overdue for a chat.

Smiling faintly to herself, she begins to shadow him, wondering how long it will take him to shoot at her.

Estefania was nowhere near Jason's radar that night. By the time Helena had found him he'd migrated from China Town, to Tribeca, which, in turn, led into Soho. As such, by 11:16pm, he's leaning up on the raised windowsill of one of those towering, pre-war, multi-use buildings that seem to grow like fungus in that area. This one loomed ominously, the dim lights of whatever shop was closing reflecting strangely on the suspiciously empty lot between it, and the next, towering, less-than-stable-looking formerly residential monstrosity a few street numbers down. In that suspiciously empty lot were two of Jason's next targets for the night. They're quiet, ducking under shadows and obviously waiting for something. That's alright, he could be patient enough.

It's wasn't until Helena stopped moving that he noticed the purple and white of her costume. His eyes narrowed under the mask, mentally trying to reason through her game. Huntress doesn't do much on this side of town, as far as he could remember. Whatever, he could deal with the problems as they presented themselves. It was just a matter of staying ahead of whatever self-righteous, blindly moralistic idea had worked its way into her head this time.

Once he stopped moving, she figured she'd been caught. After waiting several seconds to see if he would pull out a weapon on her, she slips into full view hands raised in mock surrender. That didn't mean she couldn't have her crossbow aimed at him in a second if need be. Contrary to her better judgement and the advice of everyone else in the family, Helena would rather not needlessly provoke Jason by walking into the situation like she was expecting it to end in violence. People tended to cooperate better if you gave them the chance to act decently.

"We should talk." So much for an extended greeting, right? Dick was the one with the gift for gab. Helena excelled at getting right to the point. She assumed her adoptive-alternate universe sibling would appreciate that trait. "Do you have a moment?"

He cocked an eyebrow, not that she could tell under the mask. Who the hell asked politely if someone had the time, if you so please to chat before what was obviously going to be a firefight. Or just a generic slaughter, actually. It occurred to him a moment later that perhaps it was her intention to distract him from it. No, he was not having it. Not even if she was probably right. They probably did need to talk. Probably.

Jumping down from his perch, he moved quickly, keeping to the shadows and moving closer to his targets. It was easy enough to pretend not to hear her. Probably less complicated, too. And hey, there were other ways of getting her to leave him the hell alone if she couldn't take a hint.

If that was an invitation for her to scram, it was lost somewhere in the translation. She frowned but didn't hesitate to trail him, putting enough faith in his humanity that he wasn't leading her into some sort of ambush. Probably not the smartest of moves, but doing this sort of thing night in and night out took more balls than brains, or so she could justify it if pressed later on.

"Those men will be there in two minutes," she said, more urgently this time, voice in a low, sharp whisper. "Or call it in if you're worried they're trigger happy. We need to speak."

Bringing a lead pipe to a gun fight is probably about the same as bringing a knife to a gunfight, but that was assuming that you A) weren't a 13 year old martial arts master and B) weren't stuck up on a freezing cold building waiting for the other half of the gunfight (or drug trade in this case) to show the fuck up.

There were three men down in the empty lot, two lookouts posted on either end of the block (who were really kind of shitty, seriously they need to train these people to look the fuck up). The car was pointed in the optimal position to blow the fuck out of Dodge in case things went bad, the motor idling quietly. Jesse was hunkered down in the shadows of one of the taller buildings. They were their for some kind of drop off. Jesse was there because the lot, besides being a popular spot for guys like this, was also as close as the makeshift baseball field of the neighborhood.

And the little leaguers were done with sharing their field with pushers and runners.

Which might be the only reason Jesse's still up there after waiting for almost two hours ( seriously?!), perched on a shadowy rooftop in clothes that are just a bit too light for the chill; dropping into an almost zen like awareness of her surroundings. Maybe she'd achieve enlightenment by the time the other side got there, that would probably even out the fight.

The other side, as it were, showed up about fifteen minutes later, and man did it make an entrance. Jason had been perched, waiting for the the goons down in the lot to make a move for the last half hour and apparently, he had less patience for that kind of thing than your average twelve year old because after seeing the taller one pick at his nose for the tenth time, he really didn't think he could take it anymore. This was a simple "shoot first, ask questions later" scenario and at that that point, he was too tired to be subtle about it anyway.

Dropping down from a fire-escape, he went for the nose picker first. It was just annoying, and he only needed one of them alive to answer questions after everything was said and done. His approach was direct, not bothering to check for prying eyes, or other witnesses on the surrounding rooftops. Still, it's over in less than a minute and a half and he's got the other kid, the lookout (if he really justifies that title) pinned against the opposing brick wall.

"It's late, I'm tired, so I'm only gonna ask nicely this once. Where's Kuznetzov?" The Batman-voice effect is probably lessened the helmet. It sounded muffled to him, anyway, but the lookout still sputtered and hissed. It was probably the rush, and the adrenaline finally catching up. Too bad for him that it was already too late.

Woah. She hadn't been expecting that and snaps out of her zen-like state as someone from the building across from her drops down. She stayed where she was until the bullets stopped flying, frowning. Maaaaan, now there were dead bodies. Dead bodies sucked...

She waits till the weirdo in the mask is done with the lookout before she calls out, "Heeey, did he say when the other guys are supposed to get here?"

She keeps her position on the roof, legs dangling over the edge, but ready to move in case the psycho in the mask turned out to be the kind of psycho that didn't like kids. Or liked them too much.

He froze as the voice floated down from the rooftop. Just how many people were out tonight, anyway? Were they always lurking around, and being this nosy?

"Who's asking?" He calls back, keeping just enough pressure on the lookout to hold him, pinned against the wall, but allow for enough movement that Jason can cast a good look around the lot and up to the surrounding buildings. His feelings on kids, in this case, were positive to neutral. His feelings on being watched, however, were not so great.

Since her question isn't immediately met with bullets, Jesse figures it's safe enough to show herself.

"Me. Wait, hang on, it's cold as balls up here." She's seriously going to get a cramp if she stays hunched over like this any longer. She jumps from her perch, landing on the railing of the fire escape below her and then lightly on the ground in between two of the bodies. The tiny, scruffy kid holding a metal pipe might not be what he's expecting, but she kinda hopes he keeps up with the not shooting her bit while she makes sure she's not standing on somebody's eyeball.

She looks up and gives him a wave, "Heya."

Seriously, what's wrong with people tonight? First Huntress, now this little tyke around cramping his style. Not only does the Red Hood not do sidekicks, but Jason just has no interest in seeing someone Jesse's age involved, in any capacity, in this mess.

"You're a little short of a superhero, kiddo. Why don't you head home and let the big kids with the semi-automatics handle this?" His voice is muffled underneath the helmet, but he's pretty sure the dismissive tone is conveyed well enough.

Jesse settles a hand on her hip, eyebrow raised. The very picture of condescending teen, if in miniature form. This was what she got for trying to be nice.

"Seriously? You couldn't handle shit if you stepped in it, dude." She gestures to the bodies bleeding out all over the infield, "You already completely fucked this whole thing up, the fuck were you planning on doing from here?"

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I'm bored of cheap and cheerful, I want expensive sadness

11pm is mine!

fine be that way <--- that is now an autofill for me. (unsure)

/is that way 8) also watch me switch tenses like a boss

tenses are for sheep and you're a shark, bb

/has no neck, is a shark

2 am

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