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thejusticelounge2013-07-24 04:13 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2013-07-24 04:13 pm
Entry tags:
track a ghost through the fog
[ENCRYPTED TEXT] Did something happen?
TXT: No.
TXT: I take it I need to book an appointment, then?
[ENCRYPTED TEXT] No.
[ENCRYPTED TEXT] Give me an hour. I’ll put you in the access list for the Cave’s zeta.
TXT: Bruce, you
TXT: Okay. Let me know when.
[ENCRYPTED TEXT] You’re in.
TXT: I’ll duck under the velvet rope shortly.
Kate zetaed in about five minutes after her pithy text; underneath her faintly amused expression, she wasn’t sure if she was frustrated that she hadn’t been on the goddamn access list or not. Then again, she was also telling herself she shouldn’t be surprised at this, at Bruce’s segmentation of an already intensely private life.
It was cool in the cave, of course, despite the summer weather outside, and she was glad she’d thought ahead and worn a cardigan over her blouse, put on closed-toed boots instead of summer sandals. Stepping away from the zeta pad, she then paused and surveyed the space around her before proceeding forward.
It was…atmospheric. Not entirely unpleasantly so.
"You’ve been hiding," she said to the familiar back in the chair.
He heard her coming from the separate zeta transport bay, the sound of her boots striking lightly against the ground painted him a clear picture of the treading at the bottom, her weight, the gait of her walk. He didn’t turn around, even when she spoke, but his hands, unseen, stilled on the keyboard.
"Working," he corrected, his voice deep into the cape-and-cowl. Not angry, no, but without the forgiving tenor notes that sometimes slipped when he spoke outside of it, in his normal tone. Whatever that was. It is all bass then, all business with that single utterance, and true to his word, the many screens in front of him displayed video footage and charts, release records, the spotted red and green lines of flight details, takeoffs and landings from major airports across the globe.
He turned around, after a moment, and glanced at her.
"Is there something I can help you with?"
"As I said," Kate noted, dryly, voice quiet and low, “Hiding." She walked forwards with a little more confidence then, making out what was on the screens in front of the figure in the chair. The tone of voice didn’t escape her, and she knew full well what she was getting into before he even turned around.
Fine, if she had to speak to Batman, so be it.
Despite herself, her mind tried to parse the data that was on display, figure out what he was looking for, how it all connected. A puzzle with about half the pieces missing, but it was impossible for her not to, the burden of having an analytical mind crossed with a very nasty need to know what everyone was doing. Motivation. Impetus.
What his was, she was beginning to see. “I wanted to see you," she continued, stopping short of him, not getting into his space as yet (even as much as she was already in it by virtue of being there). “Make sure you were still here, despite yourself." And Bruce was, under it all, by sheer fact that he’d let her come.
He’d been attempting to work again, his fingers moving over the keys to begin typing out the lines of command code when she stepped up. He could smell her, now. It was the sort of thing Bruce never admitted out loud because it was difficult to explain, but his sense of smell was one tool in particular that he had cultivated, honed over the years, that left him vulnerable to certain things. Right now, the smell of Kate—coffee, the edges of something sweet on her breath, the smell of ozone that accompanied using the zeta— was one of them. It wafted over in a gentle sheet of scent and dominated. Claimed. All while Bruce sat there, unable to do anything to ward it off.
The smell of her drove a lancet of hunger, deep into his belly, a hunger that had nothing to do with food at all, the blood in his body shifting directions, pathway transecting, bisecting themselves, it seemed like to Bruce, all in an effort to congest his chest, neck, groin with hot, flush currents. Tiny jolts of electricity. His lungs ached with the quickening of his breath, pupils dilating in the darkness of the Cave, mouth going dry and then wet, and he, sitting in front of the Computer allows none of it to the surface. His reaction was not under his control, but the demonstration of it was wholly his.
Bruce blinks once, and continues on, his tone, posture, breathing unchanged. He sublimates it all, smooths the surface of it with the broad stroke of an exhale and states: "..and you’ve seen that I’m here."
He grits his teeth, tilting his head to look at the screen and then her.
"Working."
Kate snorted a little at the exhalation—it read, to her, like a put-upon sigh, and the pause beforehand, that she could read a little even if he showed no other physical reaction. It didn’t take much to figure out she was getting to him by being here, though she didn’t know how.
She cocked her head a little, leaned against a countertop (after subtly making sure she wasn’t getting in the way of anything or pushing any buttons), crossed her legs at the leather-covered ankles. Her gaze appraised him for a moment: the very carefully schooled expression, the fact that irritation was all she was being allowed to see. She decided to permit him a faint snort of not-actually-amusement, in return.
"I’d like to note for the record, you decided to let me come here while you were working," she pointed out, pushing her hair back behind her ears. “Which is actually hiding. You didn’t have to. You could have met me elsewhere, at your leisure, whatever that might be."
[ and then Cachement, whoops ]
TXT: No.
TXT: I take it I need to book an appointment, then?
[ENCRYPTED TEXT] No.
[ENCRYPTED TEXT] Give me an hour. I’ll put you in the access list for the Cave’s zeta.
TXT: Bruce, you
TXT: Okay. Let me know when.
[ENCRYPTED TEXT] You’re in.
TXT: I’ll duck under the velvet rope shortly.
Kate zetaed in about five minutes after her pithy text; underneath her faintly amused expression, she wasn’t sure if she was frustrated that she hadn’t been on the goddamn access list or not. Then again, she was also telling herself she shouldn’t be surprised at this, at Bruce’s segmentation of an already intensely private life.
It was cool in the cave, of course, despite the summer weather outside, and she was glad she’d thought ahead and worn a cardigan over her blouse, put on closed-toed boots instead of summer sandals. Stepping away from the zeta pad, she then paused and surveyed the space around her before proceeding forward.
It was…atmospheric. Not entirely unpleasantly so.
"You’ve been hiding," she said to the familiar back in the chair.
He heard her coming from the separate zeta transport bay, the sound of her boots striking lightly against the ground painted him a clear picture of the treading at the bottom, her weight, the gait of her walk. He didn’t turn around, even when she spoke, but his hands, unseen, stilled on the keyboard.
"Working," he corrected, his voice deep into the cape-and-cowl. Not angry, no, but without the forgiving tenor notes that sometimes slipped when he spoke outside of it, in his normal tone. Whatever that was. It is all bass then, all business with that single utterance, and true to his word, the many screens in front of him displayed video footage and charts, release records, the spotted red and green lines of flight details, takeoffs and landings from major airports across the globe.
He turned around, after a moment, and glanced at her.
"Is there something I can help you with?"
"As I said," Kate noted, dryly, voice quiet and low, “Hiding." She walked forwards with a little more confidence then, making out what was on the screens in front of the figure in the chair. The tone of voice didn’t escape her, and she knew full well what she was getting into before he even turned around.
Fine, if she had to speak to Batman, so be it.
Despite herself, her mind tried to parse the data that was on display, figure out what he was looking for, how it all connected. A puzzle with about half the pieces missing, but it was impossible for her not to, the burden of having an analytical mind crossed with a very nasty need to know what everyone was doing. Motivation. Impetus.
What his was, she was beginning to see. “I wanted to see you," she continued, stopping short of him, not getting into his space as yet (even as much as she was already in it by virtue of being there). “Make sure you were still here, despite yourself." And Bruce was, under it all, by sheer fact that he’d let her come.
He’d been attempting to work again, his fingers moving over the keys to begin typing out the lines of command code when she stepped up. He could smell her, now. It was the sort of thing Bruce never admitted out loud because it was difficult to explain, but his sense of smell was one tool in particular that he had cultivated, honed over the years, that left him vulnerable to certain things. Right now, the smell of Kate—coffee, the edges of something sweet on her breath, the smell of ozone that accompanied using the zeta— was one of them. It wafted over in a gentle sheet of scent and dominated. Claimed. All while Bruce sat there, unable to do anything to ward it off.
The smell of her drove a lancet of hunger, deep into his belly, a hunger that had nothing to do with food at all, the blood in his body shifting directions, pathway transecting, bisecting themselves, it seemed like to Bruce, all in an effort to congest his chest, neck, groin with hot, flush currents. Tiny jolts of electricity. His lungs ached with the quickening of his breath, pupils dilating in the darkness of the Cave, mouth going dry and then wet, and he, sitting in front of the Computer allows none of it to the surface. His reaction was not under his control, but the demonstration of it was wholly his.
Bruce blinks once, and continues on, his tone, posture, breathing unchanged. He sublimates it all, smooths the surface of it with the broad stroke of an exhale and states: "..and you’ve seen that I’m here."
He grits his teeth, tilting his head to look at the screen and then her.
"Working."
Kate snorted a little at the exhalation—it read, to her, like a put-upon sigh, and the pause beforehand, that she could read a little even if he showed no other physical reaction. It didn’t take much to figure out she was getting to him by being here, though she didn’t know how.
She cocked her head a little, leaned against a countertop (after subtly making sure she wasn’t getting in the way of anything or pushing any buttons), crossed her legs at the leather-covered ankles. Her gaze appraised him for a moment: the very carefully schooled expression, the fact that irritation was all she was being allowed to see. She decided to permit him a faint snort of not-actually-amusement, in return.
"I’d like to note for the record, you decided to let me come here while you were working," she pointed out, pushing her hair back behind her ears. “Which is actually hiding. You didn’t have to. You could have met me elsewhere, at your leisure, whatever that might be."
[ and then Cachement, whoops ]