j'onn's investigations (all this time)

[bossymarmalade]

pistas falsas

“Negative Watchtower” J’onn said into his comm link. “The local police have this all wrapped up. They do not need League assistance.”

The Martian Manhunter stood behind the police tape and watched the Medford PD take the suspect into custody. His name was Jackson Fleishman, 36 year old resident of this Oregon town. He had recently learned his wife of 12 years was sleeping with the young 19 year old star left wing of the Southern Oregon Spartans - a Junior A ice hockey team. Fleishman had shown up at the Saturday night game with two semi-automatic pistols and about 60 rounds of ammunition. A ticket agent had noticed him acting nervous and called in security agents. They were able to apprehend the would-be gunman without a struggle and hold him until police arrived. It was a textbook case of how the system should work.

J’onn had been monitoring the police frequencies in this part of the country as part of a larger investigation. The Martian believed a splashy, attention-grabbing attack was imminent but he could not pin point any solid evidence. He had been quietly pursuing leads and trying to get ahead of what his intuition told him could be trouble. So when he heard about this incident, J’onn took the zeta transport here as soon as he could.

But tonight there were no leads. Tonight was fruitless. Tonight was a bust.

( surely this time... )

virgin ground

[bossymarmalade]

It was starting to make him insane.

Nine going on ten months they’d been on the road. Nine going on ten months travelling the country and back again, saving people and camping in fields and sometimes bartering for their supper, squabbling and making up and quarreling about new things, and then, oh fucking then.

( no mountain though )

old friends and bookends

[bossymarmalade]

TXT: You know which windows are my study. I’ll get the coffee.

Minutes later, the curtains billow around the open window as Superman sails inside. He removes his cape and drapes it over the back of an armchair before sitting to wait, looking over the books and accent pieces lining the shelves set into the wall behind the desk. Bruce arrives shortly thereafter, bearing a tray of coffee and little teacakes, and Clark rises to help him with it. “Do I dare hope you called me over for a friendly chat?” he begins with a light smile, picking the corner off a cake and nibbling at it. “Or is the planet about to be swarmed by some intergalactic force of evil?”

Hilarious, as always. He handed Clark the usual mug, and picked up his own: with WORLD’S GREATEST DAD scrawled on in Jason’s messy cursive, and sipped it.

‘There is an intergalactic force of evil at work,’ he said. ‘It’s your wedding caterer.’

( wedded bliss )

talk is silver

[bossymarmalade]

capedcrusaderofgotham asked: I am home. Are you in your room? Where’s Dick?

Yes, Father, I’m in my room. The last I saw of Grayson, he told me to remain confined to my quarters and that I wasn’t to train or work on any case until I can treat Todd in a manner he deems civil.

You must inform Grayson that he no longer has authority over me when you are present, and that our definitions of civil vary greatly. And you must send Todd away as well. They were in the drawing room on the first floor.

Talking to Damian was like being tied to train tracks: that end was inevitable, and unavoidable.

He was sure Dick and Jason had never been this difficult, but going down to the living room directly was in and of itself another train wreck, except this one was waiting to happen.

He weighed his options.

And then knocked on Damian’s door.

( greek tragedy )

in meinem verständnis

[bossymarmalade]

“No Results Found” the laptop computer screen blinked.

J’onn J’onzz had grown weary of banging his head on the brick wall of dead ends - metaphorically speaking. And his efforts to track down this new mystery so far had proved fruitless. Sure, he may have saved lives and prevented crimes, while breaking up a food fight or paintball game along the way. But he still had a half-decrypted message and a stack of clues that pointed to something big, something terrible on the horizon. And he was no closer to discovering the truth than he had been when he started this trek.

So J’onn had decided to get out of the Watchtower and clear his head a little. He was not ending his pursuit, he just needed to clean out the mental cob webs. He took a Wayne Enterprises laptop with secure connection to the League’s databases with him, chose a nondescript male form, and headed down to San Francisco. Maybe a new perspective could provide him with a new clue or two. At least, that was the working theory.

J’onn found himself in a small, locally-owned coffee shop with the ridiculous name of ‘Web-accino’. He was sipping on his Yachil Xojobal Chulchan coffee and running a search matrix on patterns he had hoped to uncover. Still nothing. He had found another dry well. He was spinning his wheels and getting nowhere.

( gum on his shoes )

robindamianwayne ficlets

[bossymarmalade]

billionaire boys' club

The yacht rolled on a rogue wave, and the shift in balance gave Oliver the advantage he needed to lock his arms around Damian’s chest. The decanter in Damian’s hand fell to the floor with the sound of shattering crystal, prismatic shards of it exploding across the hardwood. The aged whiskey it had contained splattered the deck, its fumes quick to permeate the boat’s enclosed cabin. The glass crunched underfoot as Oliver spun Damian to face the wall and pushed him against it, pinning him from behind.

“Release me,” the boy bit out, one cheek pressed to the plaster and his eyes cutting sideways as Ollie held him tight by the hair, one arm pinned against his back. He was strong— Damian had always been built solid, even as a little boy, but he was all compact muscle now at seventeen. A cord of it strained in his twisted neck as he fought to free himself from the hold, and Ollie was quiet, watching Damian’s pulse thrum wild there in his throat.

As always, he underestimated Oliver, didn’t account for the power in his arms and shoulders built by years of wielding a bow. Ollie was patient, letting him tense and struggle and wear himself down. “Queen,” Damian rasped, lapsing into that petulant tone Oliver had heard plenty of times throughout the last seven years. “Let go.”

( scions )

unfinished business

[bossymarmalade]

[TXT:] hi batman! can i meet w/ u?

[TXT:] it’s about 2face

[Text] Sprang Bridge.

[Text] Half an hour.

24 minutes later…

The area was familiar to Captain Marvel, and he settled lightly atop one of the spires of the easternmost bridge spanning the Sprang River. From here he could see the Royal Chelsea hotel, a small and noble building in its day, now a run-down brick husk with a dilapidated façade. Still it had quite a lot of character, and the roof didn’t leak…at least, not in his room.

Knowing Batman, he was probably already here. Cap searched the length of the bridge for any sign, but realized shortly that if Batman wanted to be seen, he would already be visible. If he waited, the Caped Crusader would make his presence known soon enough.

He was at a rooftop overlooking the bridge from the east side, near where Captain Marvel was floating.

‘Captain. To your left,’ he said through the radio.

( rendezvous )

impromptu lunch

[bossymarmalade]

The corridors of the Watchtower were all a bustle in the middle of the day, and for once it had nothing to do with some grand crisis where the medbay was filled with team mates or heroes were rallying to face a foe as a united force. Simply the timing of shift changes and meal time were the causes of the hall traffic, and never did a routine and casual atmosphere feel so welcome a change around these parts.

Dodging an oncoming lab worker who was running late, Guy slipped into the open doorway of the security admin office in which Ollie was busily working, and rapped lightly on the inner wall as a means of knocking. “Hey, you wanna grab a bite to eat, or are you up to your spiffy eye-mask in paperwork?” he teased, leaning against the door frame.

Ollie looked up, blinking a few times to shake himself out of paperwork-brain and into “interacting with other human beings” brain. “Oh my god, yes to both of those,” he breathed, shuffling a stack of forms into a quick pile to lock away and closing the cover on his tablet. Guy was looking remarkably casual and relaxed, leaning up there watching him with a slight smile, and the easy line of his shoulder against the doorjamb made Ollie instantly crave a moment for refueling and taking a break from the administrative duties that were currently pinching at his brain.

Jumping up from behind his desk, he trotted briskly over to Guy, guiding him out of the office and down the hallway. “I hear they’ve got some kind of fancy burger bar going on in the cafeteria today,” Ollie suggested brightly. “Alien *and* Earthling toppings, too! We could check that out, or—” a thought occurred to him, “—get something and come back to the office if you wanted to, I dunno, talk in private?” Maybe Guy had something specific on his mind.

“I’m feeling adventurous enough to try Earthling toppings for a change” Guy joked, “But yeah, let’s get it to go. The Tower’s hopping today, it’s noisy, and besides, we haven’t talked much since the the whole switcheroo business, amiright?”

( thankless child )

chasing smoke

[bossymarmalade]

J’onn J’onzz was frustrated.

Ever since hearing the first few rumblings of a coming attack and intercepting the coded message, the Martian Manhunter had been on the hunt. But at every step his prey had eluded him. At every step, he ended up chasing the wrong lead, the wrong clue. They had remained out of his reach, steps ahead.

Until San Francisco. Until the bank robbery. He had them in his grasp. He had his hands on this mystery group. And now that lead was gone too.

J’onn had been lucky. He was nearby, and the crime had practically fallen in his lap. But after speaking to the local authorities and filing his reports on the Watchtower, J’onn had learned a frightening truth – his was only one of six bank robberies that went on that day. He had managed to clumsily stop the San Francisco robbery. But two banks were hit in Las Vegas, one in Tucson, one in Phoenix, and one in a West Texas town called Marfa. All six had happened around the same time on the same day.

This new organization was brazen, not even trying to hide their coordinated efforts. Even the most junior FBI agent could see that all six were connected. But that did nothing to answer the question: why? Why were they hit? What purpose would the money serve? J’onn had managed to make one of the San Francisco men talk. He had called the robbery “a means to an end”. He had admitted that another target and spoke of a “true attack”. All of this was incredibly troubling.

( piecework )

sharper than a serpent's tooth

[bossymarmalade]

On hindsight, lunch had been.. normal. Dick kept trying to start a conversation, giving up when neither of the other parties at the table responded. Alfred too had seemed unusually subdued. Damian presumably had not come out of his room all afternoon.

And Jason… Jason was finally home. Even if they hadn’t talked. Even if Jay hadn’t been to see his old room restored as it was, down to every last precious detail. Even if they’d been watching the computer screen (open on a drug cartel he’d been tracking for weeks) for the past thirty minutes - still not speaking.

The subject had to be brought up. Somehow. He needed to know where Jason’s true allegiances lay. Sooner, than later.

Without a word, he rose from the chair and walked towards the car, casting a glance over his shoulder - meeting Jason’s eyes. Then he pulled the cowl over his face and got into the driver’s seat, starting the engine.

Jason was rubbing his temple at the computer screen, a battle between the excruciation of sitting through Dick’s usual feeble attempts with the family thing and what was happening on the screen, until Bruce gave him a trigger that hadn’t been passed to Jason since he had donned the scaly panties.

He looked around, part of him wondering if this was a trick, if Dick or even Ace was about to jump him, before allowing himself to follow. He got into the passenger seat, his ass barely meeting the leather seat when they started speeding off and still he had said nothing but the question that had been going through his head at the lunch table; What could he say? No - if he was honest, what should he say?

( walls came tumbling )

on the hunt

[bossymarmalade]

J’onn arrived in Albuquerque during the noontime heat. He tracked down the address of the mobile home trailer registered to Kenneth Sturgell near the outskirts of town and found exactly the opposite of what he was hoping to find. It was crawling with law enforcement agents.

“Damn” he thought. “This makes things a bit more complicated.” J’onn had hoped to arrive unnoticed and inspect the trailer before alerting the authorities. No offense to the human investigators, but very few (outside of the Batman) had J’onn’s skill in detective work. And an undisturbed domicile gave many more clues than one after a federal investigation.

And now that the FBI’s investigation had brought them here, they were unlikely to let the Martian Manhunter join them. The federal agent who had interviewed J’onn in San Francisco had not been very pleased with his answers. She was frustrated, suspecting J’onn was holding back information. She was right. J’onn was certain that her report made him pretty unpopular with the Bureau. And it was not like the JLA and the government had the best of relationships in the first place.

J’onn was going to have to take a more subtle approach. He landed invisibly inside the police perimeter and sent out a mental distraction to the officers nearby. With their heads turned, he took the shape of the FBI agent that had interviewed him in California and approached the trailer door. “Sharon Redstone, FBI” J’onn said as he flashed an old gum wrapper at the officer on guard duty. “Here from the San Francisco office”

The guard, seeing the mentally planted credentials instead of a gum wrapper, allowed J’onn entry. Inside, J’onn saw the result of a thorough search. Every drawer, every cabinet, every place where clues could be found was open, out, or akimbo. Three FBI investigators were combing through the trailer. “Agent” J’onn called out to the nearest one. “Status report.”

( tailing and trailing )

by your side

[bossymarmalade]

Guy materialized on the Zeta pad in Bludhaven and made a fast beeline for Dick’s apartment, overshooting it as an afterthought before ringing on plain clothes in an effort to not give away his home as belonging to anyone other than an average Bludhaven police officer.

Once Dick let him in, he pulled him into a tight embrace, seeing Dick’s agitation. “It’s going to be okay. Whatever ya need from me, it’s yours. I’m here…”

Dick clung to Guy desperately, tears already spilling down his cheeks. He just stood there quietly sobbing as Guy rubbed his back, whispering soothing words to him. Once he felt he could speak, he pulled away from Guy and showed him the texts.

“I’m torn between saying maybe I should get it in writing so no one can come back and tell me I’m making it up, but maybe seeing him would help. Except I know it won’t.” He buried his face in his hands. ”Sometimes I wonder if I should just cut off contact with them completely. It’d kill me, but…maybe it would be better for us all. I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore.”

“Amato…I can’t mediate between you guys, you know that. I’m too close to this. But I’ll give you all the support I can, and I’ll give you all the advice I have to help you mediate this yourself. But before you do any of that, you have to decide what it is you want. What is your goal here, for yourself?”

He sucked in a breath, and spelled it out for Dick, as painful as it was inside himself to ask Dick this question. “Ask yourself: ‘Do I want Roy back as a friend, a lover, or at all?”

( phantom limb )