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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"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.

No ambulance, but Barbara's dark-colored SUV is waiting, engine running. And Babs already has a route programmed into her GPS.

This only works if they get to Leslie fast enough.

The girl in Dinah's arms is limp, but struggling to help Dinah, to be let herself be moved. Tears of relief are running down her face, leaving cleaner streaks in the - everything else. She is ... not in good shape. But she's in good enough shape to grip Dinah's shoulder tightly for attention.

"Have to - have to warn Batman. About Mask."

The ghost is trailing behind, blurred and faded, flickering in and out of visibility (existence?) like a cheap television set. She hurts, too, but Dinah's holding her, and it's probably going to be all right. And - but - she doesn't - she isn't sure ---

(The timeline is flapping about wildly. One end is pinned down, but the next few minutes could mean anything - for all of them.)

"Oracle's on it," Dinah assures her. Babs had better be on it, but it's getting Steph to a doctor that's important. She helps Spoiler into the car behind Babs.

"Hospital first."

She says nothing to the woman organising all this.

"Leslie's clinic isn't far, we'll head that way."

She glances over at Steph, her expression carefully controlled.

Please let this work.

Dinah does what she can, in the meantime, to stop what bleeding she can and for first aid. It's the kind of thing you pick up as second nature in this job.

She does not, at any point, look at Barbara.

The ghost trails after them, nearly invisible now, just the barest sketch of a girl outlined against the seat from a future that almost doesn't exist any more.

She's saying something, but it's inaudible.

Maybe it's goodbye.

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