alwaysroomforhope | (no subject)

(no subject)

Steph is really hoping this will just be a quick jaunt. A really quick one. She's still not sure why, exactly, she agreed to go with Babs to visit Gotham. Sure, she misses it, but - she still can't ever go back.

She's fidgeting with her security badge uncomfortably, half-turned to speak to Babs as the Door opens; she breathes in deeply before setting her shoulders and shutting her eyes and stepping through.

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Steph's looking up at the windows, too.

They've been features in her nightmares for years. But in nightmares, she never has a chance to hit back. Tonight --

Well, now that she's had a chance to get over the shock of it (really, would it have been so hard for Babs to warn her?) she's kind of looking forward to this.

"You should be okay here," she points out. "We're not letting him get as far as the street, are we?"

"Never."

Dinah gives Babs a quick 'You OK there girl?' look as she parks the bike again.

Then she runs striaght at the building, leps and pulls herself on to the fire escape, without looking back.

"Go, then," Babs nods, assuring Dinah that she'll be fine with a quick twitch of her shoulders. She reaches up and slips an earpiece into her ear. "Comms check?"

Steph doesn't have a comm, of course. She hesitates, taking a step after Dinah, and then glances back at Babs.

"I should go with her."

It's not really a question. She doesn't want to go - she wants not to go more than she's ever wanted anything else ever - but ... it's somehow not even a choice. It's not logical and won't help Dinah but she still needs to be there.

"Yes," Barbara nods. "You should."

All part of the plan, Steph. All part of the plan.

"Hear you, Oracle."

Dinah pauses on the outside of rht fire escape by the floor she thinks she's heading to, and looks back. "Is Spoiler coming?"

"Yes," Steph says, just a few feet behind and below her. She's climbing hte fire escape, but only because she thinks she needs to - her hands don't quite catch the rungs and she floats upwards anyway. "It's another floor up. Once we're in, I'll - be able to show you where he is."

"Got it."

One floor up? Dinah grabs the wibndow sill above her and pulls herself up, her lege out straight as she somersaults over the bar like a Flying Grayson, throwing both heels into the window with an almighty crash.

Babs moves her chair into a shadowed area. Hopefully that'll be enough to keep her from drawing anyone's attention. She's got a mission to run here, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't have other tasks, too.

She begins scanning through the comm channels to see if anyone needs her. She can't do too much, but chipping in here and there will help keep her mind off of the fact that there's nothing she can do if something goes wrong up there...

Up there, where Dinah pulls herself through the window, the room is empty of pretty nearly everything. Except an array of tools, both surgical and construction, and a generator, and some - stains.

She doesn't have too much time to look around. A door closes; a man comes through, up a flight of stairs, humming to himself cheerfully.

He does not have a face, only a black skull.

Babs told Dinah they were going to rescue Spoiler. She didn't tell her what from.

She doesn't need the time to take in the instruments; she doesn't care about the stains, or for the man coming supsatirs, although they all feature in her awareness.

She's looking at the chains hanging from the ceiling.

She recognises those chains. Knows them instantly. Knows what happened here.

(Hello, sweetheart. Did you miss me?)

The only sound on the line is a full intake of breath.

Babs raised her hand to her ear and clicked the volume in her earbud down to barely a whisper.

There was a price to pay for not warning Dinah about this particular little surprise. And Babs needs her hearing.

Steph had been moving towards the door, but when the man - Black Mask - comes out of it, she freezes like a deer in headlights, pulling back against the wall.

"Hello," Black Mask says, regarding his visitors with a faint curiosity. "You weren't invited, now, were you?"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

Well, that works. 'works' as in hurls him backwards across the room and most of the way through a wall.

It's super effective!

"Nice ... I was totally about to do that," Steph says, with a tiny little pleased smile.

Edited 2010-11-06 02:56 (UTC)

The scream continues for longer than it should, and Dinah doesn't acknowledge Steph straight away. She just needs to get it out of her system.

Before crossing the room in two leaps and pinning him against the wall, eye to eye socket.

"I hope you realise how lucky you are that I haven't got any time to break two hundred and six bones individually right now.

"Where is she?"

Black Maskand manages a choked little cackle.

"I'm sure I've no idea who you mean, chippie." He spits out a couple of teeth. At her.

Steph's voice is small, thin, sort of. Fading. Coming from the stairwell, which she's starting down.

"Dinah? Dinah!"

Dinah pulls a face of absolute disgust at Black Mask, and with enough force to potantially cause serious brain damage, she knocks him out cold.

Bruce would be proud.

"Spoiler?"

She heads towards the stairwell.

"I'm - I think something's - happening --"

Steph figured they were saving another timeline's Steph. But the girl at the foot of the stairs, bleeding and broken, just looked up at her and opened her eyes, and --

Something's happening. The ghost-Steph on the stairs is flickering, like bad special effects, and the solid-Steph on the floor is staring at her and through her in dazed incomprehension.

Barbara isn't there, but she can hear through Dinah's comms.

And now she's holding her breath.

Moment of truth...

Dinah picks up speed until she just jumps to the bottom of the stairs, by the broken body at the bottom.

She knows how this ends, but even with that knowledge, she needs reassurance. And she needs something other than to worry about the ghost from the bar.

"Oracle. Ambulance. Now."

"Just get her out here," Babs orders softly.

She's prepared for this. She's got transport parked half a block away. And she's already rolling out of her shadowed little corner to go get it.

Under normal circumstances, Dinah wouldn't dare move someone in this condition.

These are not normal circumstances.

"...Steph?"

But she's already halfway through lifting her.

"I'm not," ghost-Steph starts, and stops when she's not the only one whose mouth is moving. She stares at the this-timeline's Steph, who stares back at her.

"I don't want to forget," a Steph whispers. "I don't want to die again."

But there's so little of the ghost-Steph left that it's pretty much academic anyway.

"You're not going to."

That would be an empty reassurance, except Dinah knows.

"But you have to help us with that."

She curses her own lack of superstrength as she struggles out to the alley.

That ambulance better be there.