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thejusticelounge2014-11-08 09:41 am
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2014-11-08 09:41 am
shake, rattle, control
Bruce hasn’t stopped moving. There’s a part of him that wants to thank Oliver for making him sleep those few, precious hours the night Tim had been taken, because he hasn’t had the luxury since then. Even still, there isn’t time, to stop, to send the message. Night’s fallen, and Bruce half jumps off the elevator as he moves to the first aid kit, his teeth grit. Blood is dripping down the outside of the armor on his arm, but he doesn’t pause to strip the gauntlet, shoulder piece off. He looks down, at the tray, passing over the prefilled syringes, because he knows Alfred better, by this point.. he knows Alfred better than he knows himself. So he fills a syringe and pushes it into his arm, right under his armpit, his expression going slack as he depresses the plunger.
Bruce exhales, and pulls the needle back, flicking the top off and into the orange sharps container on the medical tray. Then, with more calm than he had had, he pulls the pieces Kevlar-Nomex blend back, to look at where his arm’s been gored. Bruce pulls out a piece of metal before binding his arm, and moves over to his computer screen, still winding an entire roll of gauze over and over his bicep.
Jason is still passed out in his arm chair near the bar, the alcohol in his system making him sleep more deeply than usual. He starts slowly coming to at the sound of footsteps moving about the penthouse, though he keeps his eyes tightly shut, already feeling a hangover start to take shape. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he blearily looks around, stilling when he spots Bruce. Good he’s back. Then he notices the gauze on his arm. Swearing under his breath, Jason pushes himself up and out of the chair, despite the wave of nausea that threatens to send him back down as he approaches Bruce and the computer. “The hell happened to you?”
Bruce ’s voice is rough: “Gave a bear hug to some barbed wire on my way down a fence.” He hasn’t bothered to clean his arm, and has dripped blood from where he had been standing, all the way back to the computer.
"Uh huh. Gimme that," he mutters, taking the gauze from Bruce, his other hand already going to the wound, applying pressure to try to stop the bleeding. "You gonna sit still long enough for me to patch you up or do I hafta knock you out?"
Bruce looks at this, and then back at his computer screen, one handedly moving through some prompts, speaking to Jason. “I’m sitting still.”
"But are you gonna stay that way?" He releases Bruce, to grab the first aid kit, bringing it closer. Finding a bit of cloth, he presses it to the still bleeding wound as he searches for antiseptic. "Any luck?" he asks, glancing up at his former mentor, fairly sure he doesn’t have to spell out what he’s hoping he had luck with.
Bruce ’s growls, low and hard, even though it’s not directed at Jason, as he stares at the screen. “Not a goddamn thing.”
Jason grimaces and lets out a breath through his nose as he sprays the wound with disinfectant, doubting Bruce needs to be warned of the sting. “Guess since you saw him take Tim, he’s not gonna send you some clue to let you in on the joke,” he notes darkly.
Bruce responds, half-under his breath, his fingers stilling over the keys. “I am the joke.” He doesn’t linger on this, however, and he certainly doesn’t look anywhere else but the screen in front of him, and continues to type, one handed, not even batting an eyelash when the other man removes a barb of metal from his arm in the disinfecting process.
"You’re not, and I’m gonna shove this back in there if you say it again," he says, holding the barb up menacingly, though there’s no real strength behind the threat. His eyes stay on the injury, carefully cleaning it, looking for any other bits of metal caught in Bruce’s flesh. Cloth back in place to slow the bleeding, he goes through the kit again for a needle and thread.
Kyle is on the outside of the bubble dome, or whatever it is, looking in. He’s a couple hundred feet up in the air, and had steadily been trying out different constructs - a gigantic drill, then a version from the old Total Recall flick, then an ice pick, then a hailstorm of rocks flying at 200 mph. He’s resorted now to banging on it with a giant Hellboy-style fist, as if that would have any effect. Not in the least; but it does feel temporarily good to let out his frustrations. He can’t get into Gotham, and he knows now that Zee is in Gotham. She doesn’t respond to her phone or her comms - neither does Jason, Steph, Kate, Tim or even the Bats. And his constructs are not making any effect and deep down inside Kyle knows he’s going about this all wrong - but for now mindless physicality is all he can do until he can get the underlying current of trepidation out of his system.
Zee wakes up. Her cheek is firmly pressed into a damp spot on against the chair she’d passed out in. She’s maybe not as hungover as Jason, but still there’s a headache building with no connection to the dome that’s probably still over them. She stands up to check outside and see that yes, it’s still there. And there looks to be something green, like fluorescent green, floating either just below or just outside it. “Is Kyle trying to get in?” she asks quietly.
Bruce doesn’t move, looking at several screens of information at once, in front of him. In this instance, with adrenaline, pain, and pain killers floating in his bloodstream, Bruce has gone back to the puzzles, the pieces he hasn’t been able to solve.
Bruce responds, without looking up and outside, or even back at Zatanna. “Yeah. Probably.”
Jason glances up at Zee, his brow furrowing at her question before he spots the familiar green light floating in the air. “Can you do the bubble pop spell thing again? Or did that only work with the zeta tube?”
Zee sighs, resting her forehead against the cool glass peeking outside, “Awesome. And we still have no contact.” she glances over her shoulder when Jason asks her about her spell, “I dunno. Maybe.” she turns back to the visible green light, focusing in on that section of dome as she makes a light pop with her mouth.
Kyle pauses in incessant banging. Wait. Did the dome just…shimmer? Flashbacks hit him like lightening strikes, one after the other, of another time not so long ago with another mysterious dome, and no way in or out. And the way it had fissured under pressure. He crams those memories back into their solitary confinement and instead watches, breathing shallowly, waiting to see if it will shimmer again. Maybe he has worn it down or found its weak spot?
The bubble shimmers and then shifts, light moving over the iridescent surface, blinking at Kyle.
Kyle blinks back, hovering. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say this giant impenetrable jellyfish was trying to flirt with him. The dome sends a zigzag pattern of light across the space in front of Kyle. It skates over the curved portion, before shooting back: tiny chevrons of amplified starlight running away and then coming back towards the Lantern.
Bruce stares at the screens in front of him, ignoring everything else that is happening around him. It isn’t new or a shock to anyone, and that is exactly how Bruce wants it. He blinks, the pain-killers making his thoughts a bit more sluggish, a bit clearer, as he goes back to the place that he knows the answer will come: from his failures. Bruce stares at the diagram of the dome. The trail that Barbara had been able to dig up about the attack on his servos. The owners of the stocks that had exchanged hands, moved from monitored portfolios. The records of the fear attacks, amongst dozens of other, tiny events that hadn’t been solved, over the course of the past year.
"If I didn’t know any better…" Kyle says out loud, drifting off. ‘If Kyle didn’t know any better’ should be his anthem, really. Okay then - well, to him, it looks like a set of markers lit up like a runway or a target or a Vegas slot machine. ‘Please hit here’, it seems to say, as he watches the chevrons of light. "Here goes nothing," he murmurs, as an axe constructs elegantly in his awaiting hands. It was either that or a jackhammer, and Kyle wasn’t much in the mood for being phallic at this particular moment. Just very…choppy. He rears back a la Wile E Coyote style and then brings the axe forward with force, hoping to wedge the razor shape edge into the dome’s surface, right where (it seemed) the chevrons were indicating.
Ollie comes back in to the penthouse from his own night out on the street, similarly bloodied and grubby and looking pissed and excited at the same time. “You guys seeing that Green Spacecop lightshow outside?” he demands. “Does that mean Rayner got here finally?”
"I’m watching." she replies, not tearing her eyes away from the window for a second now.
Jason starts running the needle through Bruce’s skin to close up the wound, stitches neat and precise despite the pounding in his head. It’s far from the first time he’s patched up a wound hung over. “Think so yeah,” he calls to Ollie, never taking his eyes off the wound. “Dunno how long he’s been out there.”
When he strikes it, right where the arrows have pointed, the ax doesn’t bounce off of the bubble, doesn’t crack it, but seems to.. sink into the surface of it, the entire glossy curve of it, the green light being absorbed and dispersed across the bubble, the patterns swirling and morphing across it like soap bubbles in sunlight. Then, the sound comes. At first, it resembles the sound of brittle wood being snapped underfoot, but the echoes of it are deeper, and then deeper, until a whine—almost like a whale, really, a whale singing—joins the snapping, slowly arcing up into a keening howl, cacophonous and brutal and slowly.. Slowly. The bubble begins to lift up, pulsing Kyle’s green, towards the Lantern, and is taking the city with it. Water doesn’t drain from it, around the portion of the bay covered by the bubble, and instead, in the space that it is being displaced from, the water rushes in, under the city, where it has been scooped from the earth below like rocky road that’s been sitting on the counter for too long.
Bruce looks up from his computer screen when he feels the building sway, blinking, and glances, immediately, back at the medical tray, wondering if he’s finally done what Alfred had been warning him of, and overdosed.
Ollie lunges over to the window, unsteady on his feet. “What the fuck is he doing?” he yells, as if Kyle can hear him. “He’s gonna destroy the whole city!”
Zee eyes go wide, at the feeling of the building sawing beneath her. “He can’t have done that on purpose, oh my god.” he wasn’t that stupid, there was no way in the world he’d think this was a good plan. Zee presses her fingers to the window hard, as if she can suction cup herself to it.
Jason barely manages to keep his hands steady as the building shifts. Cursing under his breath, he cuts the thread and presses the cloth back to Bruce’s arm. “The hell is going on out there?”
Bruce states, plainly: “I think we’re being lifted.”
"What’s he gonna /do/ with us? He can’t just dump Gotham in the middle of the ocean or keep us suspended in mid-air forever!"
Bruce looks over at Jason, at his arm, and holds his hand out to take the rest of the gauze, the metal clasp to hold it in place.
"I got it," he mutters, removing the cloth and wrapping the wound quickly, clasping it in place.
Talia walks out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel, looking over at the group. “Is it another tremor?”
Kyle breaks out into a sweat. Or really, a drop that trickles down the side of his head, along his tensed-up temple. He feels strain, but he’s not pulling. He feels suction, but there’s no change in atmosphere. He feels like he’s pulling the plug on a bath he never wanted to take in the first place. It’s not a dome. It’s a freaking…”Snow globe.” Kyle’s eyes widen under his crabmask. “Hokay. I’ve completely fucked up an entire city and possibly completely doomed all of its citizens,” he says, his stomach dropping. But he doesn’t let go of the axe just yet; instead, he pushes back. Physically he’s not strong enough, obviously; but he sure as hell will push back against its negative force. In the hopes of gently trying to return that scoop of rocky road back onto its melty origin, even if just to let it float. The damage has already been done, after all. If Kyle has to provide the infrastructure for it to not crumble (let’s say, the metaphorical equivalent of a giant construct waffle cone), then he will.
Zee at Talia’s question, something finally clicks, “We’re in a snow globe.” smacking her hand agains the window she says it again, louder now, “We’re in a fucking snow globe!”
Ollie stares at Talia in utter disbelief. “It’s about a million times worse!” he declares. “Get dressed, jesus christ, woman!”
Talia opens her towel, flashing Oliver, in response to his demand.
The dome moves back, easily, under the push, back down, but not all the way, before it comes back towards Kyle. Then, without Kyle pushing, it moves back, and forth, and back again. Teasing. Playful.
Ollie hustles over to Talia, wrapping the towel and his arms around her and steering her towards the bedroom and some clothing because seriously, he’s just gonna lose it if he stays out here screaming his head off at a distant Kyle Rayner.
Talia mutters something low under her breath about Oliver, going with him.
Bruce attempts to rise in the middle of this movement by the dome on the second push, and as the medical carts begin to roll towards the left side of the penthouse, then back. He looks around at the group, feeling as though he should announce: “Only the counters and marble are bolted down—” And he doesn’t finish, his statement coming a split second before the entire bubble turns up and over, upside down.
Jason looks up at the sound of Talia’s voice just long enough to get a good look, then quickly turns away. Why is he even surprised? Letting out a little huff, he makes sure the gauze isn’t going to be slipping free before standing… and almost sinks right back down again when the snowglobe shifts. “If Kyle’s doing this, I’m gonna beat his—” but the building shifting again cuts him off.
Ollie wraps himself around Talia bodily as their feet leave the floor and they go tumbling, smashing against the headboard of the massive double king and then rolling over broken lamps and other ephemera to crunch against the thick doors of the wardrobe, sprawling onto the ceiling, dazed and cut and banged up.
Bruce looks outside at the horizon, watching the way the building turns, before he begins running, in the opposite direction. He dodges the medical cart as it zooms past him, then, up and over an arm chair, but doesn’t quite make it on the sofa, and instead, as the building continues to turn, shoots out a grappling hook, sinking it into the sheetrock with a little puff of cement dust, snapping his hand out to grab Jason’s wrist, lift him up as the room continues to turn.
"No time for games, missy," Kyle chides, as if he was talking to Helen. No, he’s talking to a giant snowglobe, treating it as sentient. And why not? It was responsive, it was reflexive, it was (yes, he’s gonna say it), flirtatious. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking, because he misses Zee so much, and the snow globe reminds him of her dream and Sindella, and…christ. "We’ll play later, just settle down. I won’t try’n bash at you anymore, I promise. Unless you like that?" Oh christ. Here’s hoping his voice isn’t booming across the city on the inside, for someone like, oh, say, Kate to hear him. But then one particular ‘bounce’ sends the entire city upside-down - UPSIDE DOWN?! - and Kyle releases the construct axe in horror, dissolving it. "WHOA - WHOA WHOA OKAY STOP, STOP!" This has gone from ‘will do’ to ‘absolute travesty’ in less than two seconds. This is a nightmare. No. This is worse than a nightmare.
Once Ollie realizes the room is still rolling, he grabs hold of Talia by the towel, reaching out to the wardrobe to haul the woman inside of it and smash himself into its confines as well, holding the door shut as best he can. The huge piece of furniture isn’t bolted down, but it’s big and it’s teak and it’s heavy as sin, so the effect is like being thunked around in a coffin as everything upends itself.
Talia grunts, as she smashes back into Oliver for what feels like the hundredth time, her hands scrabbling to wrap around his shoulders, as she links their legs together, her voice loud enough to sound over the din, but not too loud, as she settles her words into the archer’s ear: “..all we need is a little less clothing from you, and it’s like that time in the tower.”
Jason grabs at Bruce’s arm, gripping the older man tight as the building turns and he loses his connection to the floor. He looks about the room, feeling slightly relieved as Ollie gets himself and Talia somewhere somewhat safe.
The dome freezes, upside down, people and cars and buses and all other types of Gotham-city ephemera suspended in the air, at the Lantern’s horror. It all stops, like the little snowflakes inside of the water had been frozen in place, waiting for Kyle to say something else. Do something else.
Bruce grits his teeth, looking up at where the hook is in the roof, feeling a sudden rivulet of blood spurt from his new stitches, and sucks a breath down, shouting to the room at large: “Any serious injuries?!”
Ollie laughs breathlessly, jamming his elbow into the frame of the door to try and keep it shut as they go careening, the wardrobe starting to teeter on its edges at weird angles. “That’s certainly the most … novel way anybody’s described my lovemaking techniques,” he admits, and with her warm, naked curves pressed up against him in the dark, it’s almost, /almost/ like it used to be with Dinah, the two of them getting it on in the most inopportune of dangerous situations. He’s about to say something else when everything freezes, and Ollie buries his nose in Talia’s hair, waiting in their soundproof dark saferoom.
Zee begins to turn, to ask Bruce if he has any idea what they should do because he always has a plan- always. But the words can’t even leave her mouth before the world goes upside down. She can’t even scream as sofa hits her square her sternum, pinning her against the window she’d been looking out. The rest of the room’s furniture comes next, lamps, the glass coffee table, the bottles of alcohol all shattering around and against her. Once everything stops, she tries to think of what next. Because she’s stuck under all this billionaire bullshit. “I’m under your couch.” she hisses back at Bruce, not really sure what injuries she could account for yet.
Kyle hadn’t really expected it to listen. He stares in shock for a good thirty seconds feeling as frozen as the tiny particles of car and detritus and life within the snow globe. He can imagine the screams of pain and terror emanating within the globe, even though he can’t hear anything. Kyle raises his hand and opens up League comms.
Talia lifts her head when she feels his nose against her hair, breathing in the scent of her, and she gasps, softly, lifting a hand to curl around his throat. Her touch is gentle, and she settles it there, fingertips stroking the skin under his chin.
Kyle [COMMS] Green Lantern to Nightstar
Kyle desperately hopes she picks up. The dome remains frozen, and Kyle flies forward reaching out with a trembling white-gloved hand. His fingers careful come in contact with the surface of the globe, but he doesn’t push. It’s more like just to…reassure the globe that he’s still there, still wants to interact with it.
"Zee, you okay under there?" he asks, trying to spot the magician under all of Bruce’s furniture. Seriously, why does he even need so much? Looking up at Bruce and spotting the blood, he grimaces. Of course.
Bruce lowers Jason down, slowly, when he doesn’t feel the building swaying any longer.
"Probably." she kicks at her feet, yes those still work, but they’re not touching the ground anymore. it seemed she hadn’t just slammed into the window, she’d gone up as well, her head just inches away from the ceiling. "I think I should try and fall out of the window." pressing a bare foot against the glass she tries to take a deep breath, but the couch and the accumulated crap against her is too heavy to allow for much, "It’d be easier than you digging me out."
Ollie feels his heartbeat ratchet up at the touch of Talia’s fingers, that soft little gasp, and he rolls his hips against her, pushing between her legs. “You lost your towel,” he observes, her skin bare and — dear god — still slightly damp under his hands.
Talia doesn’t spread her legs, keeps her fingers pressed against his throat. “And it seems we have stopped moving,” she murmurs, in response, dragging her touch down his throat to where his tunic forms a v, just below his collarbone.
Ollie looks up, around, gauging how stable they are. “Yeah,” he says. “Hold tight and gimme a minute.” He rocks his weight to one side, then the other, and then grabs onto Talia and throws them both against one side of the wardrobe. It teeters precariously and then thunks down more solidly, and Ollie opens the door, helping Talia out. “Grab one of Bruce’s shirts,” he says to her, and then hollers towards the main room, “You guys okay in there?”
Bruce lowers himself after Jason has touched the floor, hardly groaning, the drugs still working to keep his pain at bay, and he moves, immediately, over to Zatanna.
Jason is more than happy to have his feet on something solid again. He lets go of Bruce and moves through the debris to where Zatanna’s buried. “You think you can do that?” he asks as he eyes the furniture on top of her warily. “Pretty sure we can get you out… might just take a little while.”
Bruce looks outside, where there is a very.. amused looking young man suspended in the air, eyes bloodshot as he looks around. Bruce exhales. “We may need to fashion some sort of.. net, if we are turned around again.”
"Falling out of here is sounding more preferable than suffocating under a couch!” she wheezes. Long sentences were maybe not the best idea. “How does outside look?” Zee tries to turn her head to glance out the window, but, she can’t get a good angle to see outside.
Talia ignores Oliver, as she begins to pick through the clothes that are on the ground, some of which are obviously not Bruce’s. She pulls, from the discarded attire, a faded Bruce Springsteen shirt, slipping it on over her head, pushing her legs into a pair of slinky dress pants, and manages to find a pair of flats that more or less fit.. She makes a mental note to thank Kate, later.
Jason starts pulling bits of furniture off Zee, starting with the glass coffee table, and the lamps. “Yeah, we’re sorta okay. Zee’s stuck though. Ollie, I need your help getting this shit off her,” he calls back.
"Yeah, coming." Ollie turns to Talia and his voice dries up in his throat; the woman’s in Kate’s clothes, Kate who Ollie hadn’t been intimate with since they’d had their big fight months ago, Kate whose clothes Ollie hadn’t even known were at Bruce’s penthouse. This penthouse that’s so foreign to Ollie, he’s been here so infrequently. He feels a cold knot in his chest and turns away from Talia, mouth in a grim line as he makes his way into the main room and over to Jason. "You all right?" he asks gruffly.
"I’m not the one you should be worried about," he says quickly. "Grab that side of the couch, gotta get this off her now." He wastes no time in checking if Ollie listens to him, moving to the other side of the couch and getting a good grip. "Zee, we’re gonna get it off you now, okay, just hold on. Ollie, lift on three."
Talia follows after Oliver, her fingers twining in the hair that she has left, smoothing it over to one side as she fixes a quick braid into it. Walking over fallen furniture, she walks to Jason and Ollie are, and joins them in lifting.
Kyle feels a further sense of foreboding when Mar’i doesn’t pick up, and prays that it’s just a matter of neglectful hearing aid wearing or something. He’s gotta do something to fix this right now. “Okay giant weird snowglobe. It’s just you and me.” He places both his hands on the smooth surface. The place where he’d buried the axe is now completely smoothed over, indistinguishable from the rest. “Please don’t kill any of Gotham’s citizens. I just want everything to settle down softly, just like snowflakes in a snow globe, sabes. Just…placing you back on the mantle for display all peacefully and gathering dust. Por favor?”
Outside, the dome hasn’t moved, hasn’t budged, even when Kyle’s finished asking of it what he needs. There is no movement from it, not even the dashes of starlight, everything still for what seems like an eternity, but is quite possibly only a few minutes. Then, under Kyle’s hands, the bubble constricts, contracts, tiny bumps that feel identical to gooseflesh rising up under his touch. Inside, without warning, panic wells up inside of Bruce, so sudden and sharp that he makes a grated noise, his palms going slick underneath the edge of the couch.
Talia echoes Bruce’s noise as the overwhelming sense of fear makes her limbs go numb and she pulls back from where she is standing, subtly dropping her arms as she casts her gaze around the room, looking at Zatanna, Oliver, Jason.
Ollie feels the fear sucking at his belly, but it makes him dig in deeper, forcing his body to stretch and pull and lift the sofa to distract himself from his suddenly racing heart. He yanks at it wildly, all carefulness forgotten.
Zee the sound of the couch being excavated, and the continuing pressure of it being slowly lessened seems to send Zee’s heart into a panic, “I’m gonna die.” she decides softly, trying hard not to cry over the idea.
Jason feels the fear suddenly gnawing at him, his grip almost slipping for a moment before he hears Zee’s soft words. Taking in a sharp breath, he forces his side of the couch up and off of her. “Zee, move,” he yells, voice sharp, tinged with panic, knowing he can’t keep his arms from shaking and the couch from falling for much longer.
Zee feels momentarily paralyzed, despite the weight of the couch being lifted from her. It’s not till Jason’s command that she even considers trying to do as he instructs. On his order she scrambles out from under the couch, tears welling up over the pain that radiates from her sternum outward.
Bruce speaks out loud, his voice deepening, lifting louder than it’s normal, as he swallows the feeling, his eyes casting out, at the window, pupils contracting. “..push past it. It’s not rational.”
Ollie drops his end of the sofa once Zee’s out, backpedaling away from the rest of them. He puts himself in a corner, half-hidden, and shuts his eyes, mumbling something over and over to himself and digging his nails into his palms.
Kyle recognizes the feeling of the shift immediately, as a Green Lantern and as….something else that he’d once been. Something Yellow. His veneer of congeniality vanishes and Kyle grits his teeth, keeping both of his hands planted firmly on the globe. He pours - no, he unloads willpower along the surface in long streamers, almost like he’s trying to blanket (warm?) the surface of the globe, soothe it, allay its fears. He’s only one Green Lantern - he’s not a Corps and he’s no longer Ion - but he’s been only one Green Lantern before. Kyle concentrates, amping the willpower, covering sheets of green light like fondant over a cake.
Jason manages to keep his side of the couch up only a moment longer than Ollie, his arms already shaking as it crashes to what’s now the floor. Breath coming irregularly, he staggers back and sinks down, curling up on his side on the floor, scratching at his own arms almost absently as he stares straight ahead.
Bruce looks over at Oliver, and sharpens his voice. “It’s not.. There’s nothing—” He wants to say that nothing is wrong, but here they are, standing on the ceiling of his penthouse apartment, enclosed in a giant bubble. He looks over at Jason, moving towards his son, and takes a breath, kneeling to settle a hand on the back of Jason’s neck. “Breathe and push past it, Jason.”
Talia has gone still, appearing younger, her eyes looking larger, somehow—maybe it’s the falling of her jaw as she sets her teeth, looks around at all of them as she remains motionless, only her eyes move—as she takes in short, ragged breaths.
Zee lies on her back against the ceiling, and she finally cries, “We’re in a giant snow globe.” she wails softly, “Just like she wanted.”
Bruce looks up and over at Zatanna, his voice cracking as he rises from where he had been crouching, shifting towards Oliver. “Like who wanted?”
Zee tries to catch her breath, but each exhale comes out in short panicked bursts similar to a small child’s crying, “My mother.”
The bubble’s goosebumps are lowered, slowly, with every layer of Kyle’s willpower, the shuddering stopping, even as it doesn’t turn upright, not just yet. The yellow, the fear, it stops moving through the membrane, evaporating like water striking sun-baked pavement, and only then, does it begin to move, from under Kyle’s hands. It turns, slowly, every single person in the city held in place, until it has turned completely back around, and then, like a child gingerly setting a toy back on a shelf—a toy it was not meant to touch—are all set down on their feet, without further damage.
Ollie lurches forward from his corner, pushing against Bruce like a support for the other man. “Is it all back to normal?” he asks, looking around, sounding like it’s too much to dare hope for.
Jason tries to listen to Bruce, shutting his eyes tightly as he focuses on breathing. Then… the fear starts to dissipate, the nightmares coming to life in his head slowly fading. Slowly, he pushes himself up, looking gratefully at Bruce before he gets to his feet and quickly moves to Zatanna’s side, eyes flicking over her. “Are you hurt?” he asks as he moves to help her sit up.
Kyle exhales a breath he doesn’t realize he’d been holding, once the contents of the globe are set back to its rightful place. The Lantern sinks down onto the globe, his arms extending as if he intends to hug the globe, the giant Free Willy to his earnest generic boy. With everything righted (subjectively), Kyle’s mind starts churning, starts the process of over-thinking that begins with ‘I really shouldn’tve’ and ‘This was my fault’. But at the same time, Kyle counterbalances his own attempts at negativity - this wasn’t a completely senseless disaster. That fear, the spreading yellow that Kyle noticed seeping on the surface like urine or pus…that meant this globe is something he had to investigate. It meant in some way, this bubble - perhaps something within the bubble itself, inside Gotham - is the thing that’s brought the Yellow Lanterns back to his sector.
Zee looks up to Jason as he crouches beside her, “My sternum stings.” she rests a hand just between her breasts, “What’s Kyle doing? Did he fix it?”
Bruce moves his hand around Ollie’s waist, without batting an eyelash at how public the display is, and looks out, at the righted horizon, his jaw bulging at the edge when he spots the tiny green fleck against the evening sky. “Zatanna.” He looks back at Zee, his hand smoothing against Ollie’s back before he moves, back over to the computer, that had, thankfully, stayed, bolted to the desk—and people thought he wasparanoid for things like that, he thinks, mildly. “Do you think you can attempt communication with Kyle?”
Ollie draws a shuddery breath, his nerves steadied by the closeness with Bruce. He gathers Talia and brings her into the circle of them all, moving over to Jason as Bruce consults with Zee. “Hangin’ in there, Quickdraw?” he asks Jason, giving the young man a swift, tight hug.
Jason gently grips Zatanna’s shoulder, eyes flicking to her chest as he gnaws at his lip. Stitches he can do, but internal injuries are a little out of his league most of the time. He’s pulled out of his thoughts by Ollie’s voice, blinking in surprise at the hug, though he returns it without hesitation, wrapping his arms tightly around Ollie. “Yeah, I’m alright. How ‘bout you, Jolly Green?”
Zee eyes flick up to Bruce, “Let’s see…” she purses her lips, concentrating hard on the image of Kyle- a green speck- just outside the bubble. “Klat ot em Elyk.” she casts softly, focusing on her memorized image of his ear. He better hear her.
Ollie snorts, looking around at the chaos and his own blood-spattered grimy self. “This isn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my fall vacation, but all things considered, I’ll take it.” He drops an affectionate kiss to Jason’s rumpled hair, scrubbing the spot with his hand afterwards.
Talia watches Bruce’s movement, then, watches Oliver and Jason, before she brings her own gaze to Zatanna, folding her arms over her chest, looking bored. She speaks to the other woman in attendance. “Do you need anything to help amplify your.. powers?”
Bruce looks over at Oliver when he embraces the younger man, from the corner of his eyes, and then promptly brings his attention back to the computer screen, attempting to reestablish his video connection with the Watchtower.
Jason is more surprised by the kiss, not exactly used to that much affection, and ducks his head a little to cover the smile he can’t quite keep off his face. “Yeah, no kidding,” he says with a little nod as he glances around the rather trashed penthouse.
Kyle startles, and rears back, staring at the globe. Did it just try to talk to him? In Zee’s voice? Using backwards speaking? Or…Kyle flies back towards the globe, putting his fingertips against its surface. Strangely, it feels less like a glassy surface and more like a suede-like membrane. “Zee?” Kyle says tentatively at the globe, looking down into the city. He flies over it, keeping his fingers over the globe, only slowing on instinct when he spots….ah yes. Wayne Towers. The tower is directly below him now, and Kyle constructs a pair of mega-strong binoculars, using them to try and peer into where he thinks might be the penthouse-y type area. Giant glass windows that are perhaps non-reflective? “C’mon Bats…” he mutters. “Have some conceit.”
Bruce manages to connect with the satellite, the image grainy, harking back to the days of physical antennae, bunny ears, fuzzy reruns of syndicated shows.. Bruce tilts his head, eyes narrowing as he watches, attempts to discern who is on the other end.
Zee slowly sits up, glowering at Talia as if she’s the reason she hasn’t received immediate contact from Kyle. “No distractions would be nice.” At Kyle’s reply, spoken directly in her ear as if he were sitting right next to her she grins affectionately, “Hi honeybear.” turning to Bruce, “Do I need to relay a message, or?”
Ollie keeps hold of Jason, casually, like he would with Mia or Connor, but his face gets tense and drawn as he looks at the satellite image. “Is it Ra’s?” he asks. “Is he jamming the signal?”
Bruce speaks over his shoulder, “Ask him to describe the bubble. What’s happening. If he’s been to the Watchtower and attempted travel..” Bruce pauses, and tacks on. “If he has any idea, experienced anything like this during his time with the corps.” He doesn’t look back at Oliver, even as he shakes his head. “I’m not sure, but there is someone there.”
Zee slowly smooths back her hair, still an absolute wreck from going upside down, as she relays the first of Bruce’s questions to Kyle, “Can you describe the bubble for me, Kyle? How’s everything looking from out there?”
Roy spots the little video at the corner of the screen where he’s standing and drags his fingers over his mustache and down over his beard as he plops in a rolling chair and rolls himself over, talking at the screen. “Howdy, howdy, don’t get rowdy..” He squints at the image, frowning, unable to make out any clear shapes.
"Describe it?" Zee’s voice is tinny, like she’s talking 30 feet away from him through a tin can. "There’s no sound coming out of the bubble, Zee, but you used a magic spell to speak to me, didn’t you? If you were able to do that, you able to teleport yourself out? I can’t get in. The bubble is, it’s unpredictable to anything I’ve tried. Gotham’s cut off completely, no one on the outside knows what’s happening. Your spell is literally the only thing that’s worked. Do more spells, Zee."
Ollie lurches forward, pushing against Bruce and grabbing the corners of the screen as if proximity will help any with the satellite picture. “ROY?” he bellows. “Roy, is that you? Can you hear me, son?”
Roy squints at the screen a bit harder, when he catches every other word—it doesn’t matter, though, because he knows who it is. “Yo! Old man!” He scratches at the side of his jaw, as relief floods him. He was alive. That was good. “Can you hear me??”
Jason doesn’t mind the closeness until it’s gone as Ollie charges off to talk to Roy. Hands tucked into his pockets, he turns away from the screens, moving to the first aid kit and digging through to find an ice pack before heading back over to Zatanna. “Here, this might help,” he says, keeping his voice soft to not interrupt her connection with Kyle.
Zee pauses, considering Kyle’s suggestion. A mischievous smile tugs on her lips as she looks up at Talia from her spot on the floor. “Hang on real quick. Also maybe get ready to catch me. You are still in the air right?” As she stands up, Zee gratefully takes the ice pack from Jason, pressing it firmly to her chest. Ice pack in place, she moves to the window, not wanting to chance her exit outside the bubble, she needs to visualize it right in front of her. “I’m going to be right back.” she promises the room as she fixates where the green speck that is Kyle hovers, “Tixe elbbub.” she casts confidently. If she could talk as a bubble, then she could leave it too. Right that’s how things worked.
Ollie bawls, “ROYYYYY??” yet again, before collecting himself. “You’re on the Watchtower — can you get a reading on what’s happening to Gotham? Are there Yellow Lanterns on earth? Has Ra’s al Ghul done anything? Tell me!!”
Jason moves to Bruce’s side, grabbing the first aid kit on his way as he wordlessly starts to undo the gauze wrapped around his arm to fix the torn stitches, needing to do something to make himself useful.
Roy shouts back at the screen, increasing his volume, as if it might help. “Gotham’s in a Stephen King novel! I haven’t heard anything about any Yellow Lanterns—is Kyle with you?” Oh jesus. “Is Kyle okay?” He continues. “Nothing on the demons, either. Everyone’s just freakin’ the fuck out about the bubble!”
"Yes I’m in the goddamn bubble! And we just got bounced around in it like fucking hamsters."
Roy makes a face. “Who’s with you?”
Bruce speaks, to Jason, quietly, as he continues to work on cracking through the firewall he’s been unable to get through for months, now, as if it will suddenly crack. “Thank you.”
Ollie looks around, as if he needs to remind himself. “Right now it’s Bruce, Jason, Zee, and Talia. Kate and Alfred are here too but not at the penthouse.”
Roy balks. “Talia? What the fuck is she doing there?” Then, he tacks on. “President has called for a national emergency, FAA’s grounded all flights.” A pause. “You guys were on the Daily Show last night?”
"Told you to stay still," Jason mutters, tiny, rueful smile on his face as he carefully removes what’s left of the torn stitches and disinfects the wound again, just to be on the safe side.
Ollie adds belatedly, “Oh, and Kyle’s outside the bubble somewhere.” He listens to the rest of Roy’s news and says sourly, “Well, at least we’re getting media coverage. I guess that’s something.”
Bruce exhales, and pulls the needle back, flicking the top off and into the orange sharps container on the medical tray. Then, with more calm than he had had, he pulls the pieces Kevlar-Nomex blend back, to look at where his arm’s been gored. Bruce pulls out a piece of metal before binding his arm, and moves over to his computer screen, still winding an entire roll of gauze over and over his bicep.
Jason is still passed out in his arm chair near the bar, the alcohol in his system making him sleep more deeply than usual. He starts slowly coming to at the sound of footsteps moving about the penthouse, though he keeps his eyes tightly shut, already feeling a hangover start to take shape. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he blearily looks around, stilling when he spots Bruce. Good he’s back. Then he notices the gauze on his arm. Swearing under his breath, Jason pushes himself up and out of the chair, despite the wave of nausea that threatens to send him back down as he approaches Bruce and the computer. “The hell happened to you?”
Bruce ’s voice is rough: “Gave a bear hug to some barbed wire on my way down a fence.” He hasn’t bothered to clean his arm, and has dripped blood from where he had been standing, all the way back to the computer.
"Uh huh. Gimme that," he mutters, taking the gauze from Bruce, his other hand already going to the wound, applying pressure to try to stop the bleeding. "You gonna sit still long enough for me to patch you up or do I hafta knock you out?"
Bruce looks at this, and then back at his computer screen, one handedly moving through some prompts, speaking to Jason. “I’m sitting still.”
"But are you gonna stay that way?" He releases Bruce, to grab the first aid kit, bringing it closer. Finding a bit of cloth, he presses it to the still bleeding wound as he searches for antiseptic. "Any luck?" he asks, glancing up at his former mentor, fairly sure he doesn’t have to spell out what he’s hoping he had luck with.
Bruce ’s growls, low and hard, even though it’s not directed at Jason, as he stares at the screen. “Not a goddamn thing.”
Jason grimaces and lets out a breath through his nose as he sprays the wound with disinfectant, doubting Bruce needs to be warned of the sting. “Guess since you saw him take Tim, he’s not gonna send you some clue to let you in on the joke,” he notes darkly.
Bruce responds, half-under his breath, his fingers stilling over the keys. “I am the joke.” He doesn’t linger on this, however, and he certainly doesn’t look anywhere else but the screen in front of him, and continues to type, one handed, not even batting an eyelash when the other man removes a barb of metal from his arm in the disinfecting process.
"You’re not, and I’m gonna shove this back in there if you say it again," he says, holding the barb up menacingly, though there’s no real strength behind the threat. His eyes stay on the injury, carefully cleaning it, looking for any other bits of metal caught in Bruce’s flesh. Cloth back in place to slow the bleeding, he goes through the kit again for a needle and thread.
Kyle is on the outside of the bubble dome, or whatever it is, looking in. He’s a couple hundred feet up in the air, and had steadily been trying out different constructs - a gigantic drill, then a version from the old Total Recall flick, then an ice pick, then a hailstorm of rocks flying at 200 mph. He’s resorted now to banging on it with a giant Hellboy-style fist, as if that would have any effect. Not in the least; but it does feel temporarily good to let out his frustrations. He can’t get into Gotham, and he knows now that Zee is in Gotham. She doesn’t respond to her phone or her comms - neither does Jason, Steph, Kate, Tim or even the Bats. And his constructs are not making any effect and deep down inside Kyle knows he’s going about this all wrong - but for now mindless physicality is all he can do until he can get the underlying current of trepidation out of his system.
Zee wakes up. Her cheek is firmly pressed into a damp spot on against the chair she’d passed out in. She’s maybe not as hungover as Jason, but still there’s a headache building with no connection to the dome that’s probably still over them. She stands up to check outside and see that yes, it’s still there. And there looks to be something green, like fluorescent green, floating either just below or just outside it. “Is Kyle trying to get in?” she asks quietly.
Bruce doesn’t move, looking at several screens of information at once, in front of him. In this instance, with adrenaline, pain, and pain killers floating in his bloodstream, Bruce has gone back to the puzzles, the pieces he hasn’t been able to solve.
Bruce responds, without looking up and outside, or even back at Zatanna. “Yeah. Probably.”
Jason glances up at Zee, his brow furrowing at her question before he spots the familiar green light floating in the air. “Can you do the bubble pop spell thing again? Or did that only work with the zeta tube?”
Zee sighs, resting her forehead against the cool glass peeking outside, “Awesome. And we still have no contact.” she glances over her shoulder when Jason asks her about her spell, “I dunno. Maybe.” she turns back to the visible green light, focusing in on that section of dome as she makes a light pop with her mouth.
Kyle pauses in incessant banging. Wait. Did the dome just…shimmer? Flashbacks hit him like lightening strikes, one after the other, of another time not so long ago with another mysterious dome, and no way in or out. And the way it had fissured under pressure. He crams those memories back into their solitary confinement and instead watches, breathing shallowly, waiting to see if it will shimmer again. Maybe he has worn it down or found its weak spot?
The bubble shimmers and then shifts, light moving over the iridescent surface, blinking at Kyle.
Kyle blinks back, hovering. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say this giant impenetrable jellyfish was trying to flirt with him. The dome sends a zigzag pattern of light across the space in front of Kyle. It skates over the curved portion, before shooting back: tiny chevrons of amplified starlight running away and then coming back towards the Lantern.
Bruce stares at the screens in front of him, ignoring everything else that is happening around him. It isn’t new or a shock to anyone, and that is exactly how Bruce wants it. He blinks, the pain-killers making his thoughts a bit more sluggish, a bit clearer, as he goes back to the place that he knows the answer will come: from his failures. Bruce stares at the diagram of the dome. The trail that Barbara had been able to dig up about the attack on his servos. The owners of the stocks that had exchanged hands, moved from monitored portfolios. The records of the fear attacks, amongst dozens of other, tiny events that hadn’t been solved, over the course of the past year.
"If I didn’t know any better…" Kyle says out loud, drifting off. ‘If Kyle didn’t know any better’ should be his anthem, really. Okay then - well, to him, it looks like a set of markers lit up like a runway or a target or a Vegas slot machine. ‘Please hit here’, it seems to say, as he watches the chevrons of light. "Here goes nothing," he murmurs, as an axe constructs elegantly in his awaiting hands. It was either that or a jackhammer, and Kyle wasn’t much in the mood for being phallic at this particular moment. Just very…choppy. He rears back a la Wile E Coyote style and then brings the axe forward with force, hoping to wedge the razor shape edge into the dome’s surface, right where (it seemed) the chevrons were indicating.
Ollie comes back in to the penthouse from his own night out on the street, similarly bloodied and grubby and looking pissed and excited at the same time. “You guys seeing that Green Spacecop lightshow outside?” he demands. “Does that mean Rayner got here finally?”
"I’m watching." she replies, not tearing her eyes away from the window for a second now.
Jason starts running the needle through Bruce’s skin to close up the wound, stitches neat and precise despite the pounding in his head. It’s far from the first time he’s patched up a wound hung over. “Think so yeah,” he calls to Ollie, never taking his eyes off the wound. “Dunno how long he’s been out there.”
When he strikes it, right where the arrows have pointed, the ax doesn’t bounce off of the bubble, doesn’t crack it, but seems to.. sink into the surface of it, the entire glossy curve of it, the green light being absorbed and dispersed across the bubble, the patterns swirling and morphing across it like soap bubbles in sunlight. Then, the sound comes. At first, it resembles the sound of brittle wood being snapped underfoot, but the echoes of it are deeper, and then deeper, until a whine—almost like a whale, really, a whale singing—joins the snapping, slowly arcing up into a keening howl, cacophonous and brutal and slowly.. Slowly. The bubble begins to lift up, pulsing Kyle’s green, towards the Lantern, and is taking the city with it. Water doesn’t drain from it, around the portion of the bay covered by the bubble, and instead, in the space that it is being displaced from, the water rushes in, under the city, where it has been scooped from the earth below like rocky road that’s been sitting on the counter for too long.
Bruce looks up from his computer screen when he feels the building sway, blinking, and glances, immediately, back at the medical tray, wondering if he’s finally done what Alfred had been warning him of, and overdosed.
Ollie lunges over to the window, unsteady on his feet. “What the fuck is he doing?” he yells, as if Kyle can hear him. “He’s gonna destroy the whole city!”
Zee eyes go wide, at the feeling of the building sawing beneath her. “He can’t have done that on purpose, oh my god.” he wasn’t that stupid, there was no way in the world he’d think this was a good plan. Zee presses her fingers to the window hard, as if she can suction cup herself to it.
Jason barely manages to keep his hands steady as the building shifts. Cursing under his breath, he cuts the thread and presses the cloth back to Bruce’s arm. “The hell is going on out there?”
Bruce states, plainly: “I think we’re being lifted.”
"What’s he gonna /do/ with us? He can’t just dump Gotham in the middle of the ocean or keep us suspended in mid-air forever!"
Bruce looks over at Jason, at his arm, and holds his hand out to take the rest of the gauze, the metal clasp to hold it in place.
"I got it," he mutters, removing the cloth and wrapping the wound quickly, clasping it in place.
Talia walks out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel, looking over at the group. “Is it another tremor?”
Kyle breaks out into a sweat. Or really, a drop that trickles down the side of his head, along his tensed-up temple. He feels strain, but he’s not pulling. He feels suction, but there’s no change in atmosphere. He feels like he’s pulling the plug on a bath he never wanted to take in the first place. It’s not a dome. It’s a freaking…”Snow globe.” Kyle’s eyes widen under his crabmask. “Hokay. I’ve completely fucked up an entire city and possibly completely doomed all of its citizens,” he says, his stomach dropping. But he doesn’t let go of the axe just yet; instead, he pushes back. Physically he’s not strong enough, obviously; but he sure as hell will push back against its negative force. In the hopes of gently trying to return that scoop of rocky road back onto its melty origin, even if just to let it float. The damage has already been done, after all. If Kyle has to provide the infrastructure for it to not crumble (let’s say, the metaphorical equivalent of a giant construct waffle cone), then he will.
Zee at Talia’s question, something finally clicks, “We’re in a snow globe.” smacking her hand agains the window she says it again, louder now, “We’re in a fucking snow globe!”
Ollie stares at Talia in utter disbelief. “It’s about a million times worse!” he declares. “Get dressed, jesus christ, woman!”
Talia opens her towel, flashing Oliver, in response to his demand.
The dome moves back, easily, under the push, back down, but not all the way, before it comes back towards Kyle. Then, without Kyle pushing, it moves back, and forth, and back again. Teasing. Playful.
Ollie hustles over to Talia, wrapping the towel and his arms around her and steering her towards the bedroom and some clothing because seriously, he’s just gonna lose it if he stays out here screaming his head off at a distant Kyle Rayner.
Talia mutters something low under her breath about Oliver, going with him.
Bruce attempts to rise in the middle of this movement by the dome on the second push, and as the medical carts begin to roll towards the left side of the penthouse, then back. He looks around at the group, feeling as though he should announce: “Only the counters and marble are bolted down—” And he doesn’t finish, his statement coming a split second before the entire bubble turns up and over, upside down.
Jason looks up at the sound of Talia’s voice just long enough to get a good look, then quickly turns away. Why is he even surprised? Letting out a little huff, he makes sure the gauze isn’t going to be slipping free before standing… and almost sinks right back down again when the snowglobe shifts. “If Kyle’s doing this, I’m gonna beat his—” but the building shifting again cuts him off.
Ollie wraps himself around Talia bodily as their feet leave the floor and they go tumbling, smashing against the headboard of the massive double king and then rolling over broken lamps and other ephemera to crunch against the thick doors of the wardrobe, sprawling onto the ceiling, dazed and cut and banged up.
Bruce looks outside at the horizon, watching the way the building turns, before he begins running, in the opposite direction. He dodges the medical cart as it zooms past him, then, up and over an arm chair, but doesn’t quite make it on the sofa, and instead, as the building continues to turn, shoots out a grappling hook, sinking it into the sheetrock with a little puff of cement dust, snapping his hand out to grab Jason’s wrist, lift him up as the room continues to turn.
"No time for games, missy," Kyle chides, as if he was talking to Helen. No, he’s talking to a giant snowglobe, treating it as sentient. And why not? It was responsive, it was reflexive, it was (yes, he’s gonna say it), flirtatious. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking, because he misses Zee so much, and the snow globe reminds him of her dream and Sindella, and…christ. "We’ll play later, just settle down. I won’t try’n bash at you anymore, I promise. Unless you like that?" Oh christ. Here’s hoping his voice isn’t booming across the city on the inside, for someone like, oh, say, Kate to hear him. But then one particular ‘bounce’ sends the entire city upside-down - UPSIDE DOWN?! - and Kyle releases the construct axe in horror, dissolving it. "WHOA - WHOA WHOA OKAY STOP, STOP!" This has gone from ‘will do’ to ‘absolute travesty’ in less than two seconds. This is a nightmare. No. This is worse than a nightmare.
Once Ollie realizes the room is still rolling, he grabs hold of Talia by the towel, reaching out to the wardrobe to haul the woman inside of it and smash himself into its confines as well, holding the door shut as best he can. The huge piece of furniture isn’t bolted down, but it’s big and it’s teak and it’s heavy as sin, so the effect is like being thunked around in a coffin as everything upends itself.
Talia grunts, as she smashes back into Oliver for what feels like the hundredth time, her hands scrabbling to wrap around his shoulders, as she links their legs together, her voice loud enough to sound over the din, but not too loud, as she settles her words into the archer’s ear: “..all we need is a little less clothing from you, and it’s like that time in the tower.”
Jason grabs at Bruce’s arm, gripping the older man tight as the building turns and he loses his connection to the floor. He looks about the room, feeling slightly relieved as Ollie gets himself and Talia somewhere somewhat safe.
The dome freezes, upside down, people and cars and buses and all other types of Gotham-city ephemera suspended in the air, at the Lantern’s horror. It all stops, like the little snowflakes inside of the water had been frozen in place, waiting for Kyle to say something else. Do something else.
Bruce grits his teeth, looking up at where the hook is in the roof, feeling a sudden rivulet of blood spurt from his new stitches, and sucks a breath down, shouting to the room at large: “Any serious injuries?!”
Ollie laughs breathlessly, jamming his elbow into the frame of the door to try and keep it shut as they go careening, the wardrobe starting to teeter on its edges at weird angles. “That’s certainly the most … novel way anybody’s described my lovemaking techniques,” he admits, and with her warm, naked curves pressed up against him in the dark, it’s almost, /almost/ like it used to be with Dinah, the two of them getting it on in the most inopportune of dangerous situations. He’s about to say something else when everything freezes, and Ollie buries his nose in Talia’s hair, waiting in their soundproof dark saferoom.
Zee begins to turn, to ask Bruce if he has any idea what they should do because he always has a plan- always. But the words can’t even leave her mouth before the world goes upside down. She can’t even scream as sofa hits her square her sternum, pinning her against the window she’d been looking out. The rest of the room’s furniture comes next, lamps, the glass coffee table, the bottles of alcohol all shattering around and against her. Once everything stops, she tries to think of what next. Because she’s stuck under all this billionaire bullshit. “I’m under your couch.” she hisses back at Bruce, not really sure what injuries she could account for yet.
Kyle hadn’t really expected it to listen. He stares in shock for a good thirty seconds feeling as frozen as the tiny particles of car and detritus and life within the snow globe. He can imagine the screams of pain and terror emanating within the globe, even though he can’t hear anything. Kyle raises his hand and opens up League comms.
Talia lifts her head when she feels his nose against her hair, breathing in the scent of her, and she gasps, softly, lifting a hand to curl around his throat. Her touch is gentle, and she settles it there, fingertips stroking the skin under his chin.
Kyle [COMMS] Green Lantern to Nightstar
Kyle desperately hopes she picks up. The dome remains frozen, and Kyle flies forward reaching out with a trembling white-gloved hand. His fingers careful come in contact with the surface of the globe, but he doesn’t push. It’s more like just to…reassure the globe that he’s still there, still wants to interact with it.
"Zee, you okay under there?" he asks, trying to spot the magician under all of Bruce’s furniture. Seriously, why does he even need so much? Looking up at Bruce and spotting the blood, he grimaces. Of course.
Bruce lowers Jason down, slowly, when he doesn’t feel the building swaying any longer.
"Probably." she kicks at her feet, yes those still work, but they’re not touching the ground anymore. it seemed she hadn’t just slammed into the window, she’d gone up as well, her head just inches away from the ceiling. "I think I should try and fall out of the window." pressing a bare foot against the glass she tries to take a deep breath, but the couch and the accumulated crap against her is too heavy to allow for much, "It’d be easier than you digging me out."
Ollie feels his heartbeat ratchet up at the touch of Talia’s fingers, that soft little gasp, and he rolls his hips against her, pushing between her legs. “You lost your towel,” he observes, her skin bare and — dear god — still slightly damp under his hands.
Talia doesn’t spread her legs, keeps her fingers pressed against his throat. “And it seems we have stopped moving,” she murmurs, in response, dragging her touch down his throat to where his tunic forms a v, just below his collarbone.
Ollie looks up, around, gauging how stable they are. “Yeah,” he says. “Hold tight and gimme a minute.” He rocks his weight to one side, then the other, and then grabs onto Talia and throws them both against one side of the wardrobe. It teeters precariously and then thunks down more solidly, and Ollie opens the door, helping Talia out. “Grab one of Bruce’s shirts,” he says to her, and then hollers towards the main room, “You guys okay in there?”
Bruce lowers himself after Jason has touched the floor, hardly groaning, the drugs still working to keep his pain at bay, and he moves, immediately, over to Zatanna.
Jason is more than happy to have his feet on something solid again. He lets go of Bruce and moves through the debris to where Zatanna’s buried. “You think you can do that?” he asks as he eyes the furniture on top of her warily. “Pretty sure we can get you out… might just take a little while.”
Bruce looks outside, where there is a very.. amused looking young man suspended in the air, eyes bloodshot as he looks around. Bruce exhales. “We may need to fashion some sort of.. net, if we are turned around again.”
"Falling out of here is sounding more preferable than suffocating under a couch!” she wheezes. Long sentences were maybe not the best idea. “How does outside look?” Zee tries to turn her head to glance out the window, but, she can’t get a good angle to see outside.
Talia ignores Oliver, as she begins to pick through the clothes that are on the ground, some of which are obviously not Bruce’s. She pulls, from the discarded attire, a faded Bruce Springsteen shirt, slipping it on over her head, pushing her legs into a pair of slinky dress pants, and manages to find a pair of flats that more or less fit.. She makes a mental note to thank Kate, later.
Jason starts pulling bits of furniture off Zee, starting with the glass coffee table, and the lamps. “Yeah, we’re sorta okay. Zee’s stuck though. Ollie, I need your help getting this shit off her,” he calls back.
"Yeah, coming." Ollie turns to Talia and his voice dries up in his throat; the woman’s in Kate’s clothes, Kate who Ollie hadn’t been intimate with since they’d had their big fight months ago, Kate whose clothes Ollie hadn’t even known were at Bruce’s penthouse. This penthouse that’s so foreign to Ollie, he’s been here so infrequently. He feels a cold knot in his chest and turns away from Talia, mouth in a grim line as he makes his way into the main room and over to Jason. "You all right?" he asks gruffly.
"I’m not the one you should be worried about," he says quickly. "Grab that side of the couch, gotta get this off her now." He wastes no time in checking if Ollie listens to him, moving to the other side of the couch and getting a good grip. "Zee, we’re gonna get it off you now, okay, just hold on. Ollie, lift on three."
Talia follows after Oliver, her fingers twining in the hair that she has left, smoothing it over to one side as she fixes a quick braid into it. Walking over fallen furniture, she walks to Jason and Ollie are, and joins them in lifting.
Kyle feels a further sense of foreboding when Mar’i doesn’t pick up, and prays that it’s just a matter of neglectful hearing aid wearing or something. He’s gotta do something to fix this right now. “Okay giant weird snowglobe. It’s just you and me.” He places both his hands on the smooth surface. The place where he’d buried the axe is now completely smoothed over, indistinguishable from the rest. “Please don’t kill any of Gotham’s citizens. I just want everything to settle down softly, just like snowflakes in a snow globe, sabes. Just…placing you back on the mantle for display all peacefully and gathering dust. Por favor?”
Outside, the dome hasn’t moved, hasn’t budged, even when Kyle’s finished asking of it what he needs. There is no movement from it, not even the dashes of starlight, everything still for what seems like an eternity, but is quite possibly only a few minutes. Then, under Kyle’s hands, the bubble constricts, contracts, tiny bumps that feel identical to gooseflesh rising up under his touch. Inside, without warning, panic wells up inside of Bruce, so sudden and sharp that he makes a grated noise, his palms going slick underneath the edge of the couch.
Talia echoes Bruce’s noise as the overwhelming sense of fear makes her limbs go numb and she pulls back from where she is standing, subtly dropping her arms as she casts her gaze around the room, looking at Zatanna, Oliver, Jason.
Ollie feels the fear sucking at his belly, but it makes him dig in deeper, forcing his body to stretch and pull and lift the sofa to distract himself from his suddenly racing heart. He yanks at it wildly, all carefulness forgotten.
Zee the sound of the couch being excavated, and the continuing pressure of it being slowly lessened seems to send Zee’s heart into a panic, “I’m gonna die.” she decides softly, trying hard not to cry over the idea.
Jason feels the fear suddenly gnawing at him, his grip almost slipping for a moment before he hears Zee’s soft words. Taking in a sharp breath, he forces his side of the couch up and off of her. “Zee, move,” he yells, voice sharp, tinged with panic, knowing he can’t keep his arms from shaking and the couch from falling for much longer.
Zee feels momentarily paralyzed, despite the weight of the couch being lifted from her. It’s not till Jason’s command that she even considers trying to do as he instructs. On his order she scrambles out from under the couch, tears welling up over the pain that radiates from her sternum outward.
Bruce speaks out loud, his voice deepening, lifting louder than it’s normal, as he swallows the feeling, his eyes casting out, at the window, pupils contracting. “..push past it. It’s not rational.”
Ollie drops his end of the sofa once Zee’s out, backpedaling away from the rest of them. He puts himself in a corner, half-hidden, and shuts his eyes, mumbling something over and over to himself and digging his nails into his palms.
Kyle recognizes the feeling of the shift immediately, as a Green Lantern and as….something else that he’d once been. Something Yellow. His veneer of congeniality vanishes and Kyle grits his teeth, keeping both of his hands planted firmly on the globe. He pours - no, he unloads willpower along the surface in long streamers, almost like he’s trying to blanket (warm?) the surface of the globe, soothe it, allay its fears. He’s only one Green Lantern - he’s not a Corps and he’s no longer Ion - but he’s been only one Green Lantern before. Kyle concentrates, amping the willpower, covering sheets of green light like fondant over a cake.
Jason manages to keep his side of the couch up only a moment longer than Ollie, his arms already shaking as it crashes to what’s now the floor. Breath coming irregularly, he staggers back and sinks down, curling up on his side on the floor, scratching at his own arms almost absently as he stares straight ahead.
Bruce looks over at Oliver, and sharpens his voice. “It’s not.. There’s nothing—” He wants to say that nothing is wrong, but here they are, standing on the ceiling of his penthouse apartment, enclosed in a giant bubble. He looks over at Jason, moving towards his son, and takes a breath, kneeling to settle a hand on the back of Jason’s neck. “Breathe and push past it, Jason.”
Talia has gone still, appearing younger, her eyes looking larger, somehow—maybe it’s the falling of her jaw as she sets her teeth, looks around at all of them as she remains motionless, only her eyes move—as she takes in short, ragged breaths.
Zee lies on her back against the ceiling, and she finally cries, “We’re in a giant snow globe.” she wails softly, “Just like she wanted.”
Bruce looks up and over at Zatanna, his voice cracking as he rises from where he had been crouching, shifting towards Oliver. “Like who wanted?”
Zee tries to catch her breath, but each exhale comes out in short panicked bursts similar to a small child’s crying, “My mother.”
The bubble’s goosebumps are lowered, slowly, with every layer of Kyle’s willpower, the shuddering stopping, even as it doesn’t turn upright, not just yet. The yellow, the fear, it stops moving through the membrane, evaporating like water striking sun-baked pavement, and only then, does it begin to move, from under Kyle’s hands. It turns, slowly, every single person in the city held in place, until it has turned completely back around, and then, like a child gingerly setting a toy back on a shelf—a toy it was not meant to touch—are all set down on their feet, without further damage.
Ollie lurches forward from his corner, pushing against Bruce like a support for the other man. “Is it all back to normal?” he asks, looking around, sounding like it’s too much to dare hope for.
Jason tries to listen to Bruce, shutting his eyes tightly as he focuses on breathing. Then… the fear starts to dissipate, the nightmares coming to life in his head slowly fading. Slowly, he pushes himself up, looking gratefully at Bruce before he gets to his feet and quickly moves to Zatanna’s side, eyes flicking over her. “Are you hurt?” he asks as he moves to help her sit up.
Kyle exhales a breath he doesn’t realize he’d been holding, once the contents of the globe are set back to its rightful place. The Lantern sinks down onto the globe, his arms extending as if he intends to hug the globe, the giant Free Willy to his earnest generic boy. With everything righted (subjectively), Kyle’s mind starts churning, starts the process of over-thinking that begins with ‘I really shouldn’tve’ and ‘This was my fault’. But at the same time, Kyle counterbalances his own attempts at negativity - this wasn’t a completely senseless disaster. That fear, the spreading yellow that Kyle noticed seeping on the surface like urine or pus…that meant this globe is something he had to investigate. It meant in some way, this bubble - perhaps something within the bubble itself, inside Gotham - is the thing that’s brought the Yellow Lanterns back to his sector.
Zee looks up to Jason as he crouches beside her, “My sternum stings.” she rests a hand just between her breasts, “What’s Kyle doing? Did he fix it?”
Bruce moves his hand around Ollie’s waist, without batting an eyelash at how public the display is, and looks out, at the righted horizon, his jaw bulging at the edge when he spots the tiny green fleck against the evening sky. “Zatanna.” He looks back at Zee, his hand smoothing against Ollie’s back before he moves, back over to the computer, that had, thankfully, stayed, bolted to the desk—and people thought he wasparanoid for things like that, he thinks, mildly. “Do you think you can attempt communication with Kyle?”
Ollie draws a shuddery breath, his nerves steadied by the closeness with Bruce. He gathers Talia and brings her into the circle of them all, moving over to Jason as Bruce consults with Zee. “Hangin’ in there, Quickdraw?” he asks Jason, giving the young man a swift, tight hug.
Jason gently grips Zatanna’s shoulder, eyes flicking to her chest as he gnaws at his lip. Stitches he can do, but internal injuries are a little out of his league most of the time. He’s pulled out of his thoughts by Ollie’s voice, blinking in surprise at the hug, though he returns it without hesitation, wrapping his arms tightly around Ollie. “Yeah, I’m alright. How ‘bout you, Jolly Green?”
Zee eyes flick up to Bruce, “Let’s see…” she purses her lips, concentrating hard on the image of Kyle- a green speck- just outside the bubble. “Klat ot em Elyk.” she casts softly, focusing on her memorized image of his ear. He better hear her.
Ollie snorts, looking around at the chaos and his own blood-spattered grimy self. “This isn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my fall vacation, but all things considered, I’ll take it.” He drops an affectionate kiss to Jason’s rumpled hair, scrubbing the spot with his hand afterwards.
Talia watches Bruce’s movement, then, watches Oliver and Jason, before she brings her own gaze to Zatanna, folding her arms over her chest, looking bored. She speaks to the other woman in attendance. “Do you need anything to help amplify your.. powers?”
Bruce looks over at Oliver when he embraces the younger man, from the corner of his eyes, and then promptly brings his attention back to the computer screen, attempting to reestablish his video connection with the Watchtower.
Jason is more surprised by the kiss, not exactly used to that much affection, and ducks his head a little to cover the smile he can’t quite keep off his face. “Yeah, no kidding,” he says with a little nod as he glances around the rather trashed penthouse.
Kyle startles, and rears back, staring at the globe. Did it just try to talk to him? In Zee’s voice? Using backwards speaking? Or…Kyle flies back towards the globe, putting his fingertips against its surface. Strangely, it feels less like a glassy surface and more like a suede-like membrane. “Zee?” Kyle says tentatively at the globe, looking down into the city. He flies over it, keeping his fingers over the globe, only slowing on instinct when he spots….ah yes. Wayne Towers. The tower is directly below him now, and Kyle constructs a pair of mega-strong binoculars, using them to try and peer into where he thinks might be the penthouse-y type area. Giant glass windows that are perhaps non-reflective? “C’mon Bats…” he mutters. “Have some conceit.”
Bruce manages to connect with the satellite, the image grainy, harking back to the days of physical antennae, bunny ears, fuzzy reruns of syndicated shows.. Bruce tilts his head, eyes narrowing as he watches, attempts to discern who is on the other end.
Zee slowly sits up, glowering at Talia as if she’s the reason she hasn’t received immediate contact from Kyle. “No distractions would be nice.” At Kyle’s reply, spoken directly in her ear as if he were sitting right next to her she grins affectionately, “Hi honeybear.” turning to Bruce, “Do I need to relay a message, or?”
Ollie keeps hold of Jason, casually, like he would with Mia or Connor, but his face gets tense and drawn as he looks at the satellite image. “Is it Ra’s?” he asks. “Is he jamming the signal?”
Bruce speaks over his shoulder, “Ask him to describe the bubble. What’s happening. If he’s been to the Watchtower and attempted travel..” Bruce pauses, and tacks on. “If he has any idea, experienced anything like this during his time with the corps.” He doesn’t look back at Oliver, even as he shakes his head. “I’m not sure, but there is someone there.”
Zee slowly smooths back her hair, still an absolute wreck from going upside down, as she relays the first of Bruce’s questions to Kyle, “Can you describe the bubble for me, Kyle? How’s everything looking from out there?”
Roy spots the little video at the corner of the screen where he’s standing and drags his fingers over his mustache and down over his beard as he plops in a rolling chair and rolls himself over, talking at the screen. “Howdy, howdy, don’t get rowdy..” He squints at the image, frowning, unable to make out any clear shapes.
"Describe it?" Zee’s voice is tinny, like she’s talking 30 feet away from him through a tin can. "There’s no sound coming out of the bubble, Zee, but you used a magic spell to speak to me, didn’t you? If you were able to do that, you able to teleport yourself out? I can’t get in. The bubble is, it’s unpredictable to anything I’ve tried. Gotham’s cut off completely, no one on the outside knows what’s happening. Your spell is literally the only thing that’s worked. Do more spells, Zee."
Ollie lurches forward, pushing against Bruce and grabbing the corners of the screen as if proximity will help any with the satellite picture. “ROY?” he bellows. “Roy, is that you? Can you hear me, son?”
Roy squints at the screen a bit harder, when he catches every other word—it doesn’t matter, though, because he knows who it is. “Yo! Old man!” He scratches at the side of his jaw, as relief floods him. He was alive. That was good. “Can you hear me??”
Jason doesn’t mind the closeness until it’s gone as Ollie charges off to talk to Roy. Hands tucked into his pockets, he turns away from the screens, moving to the first aid kit and digging through to find an ice pack before heading back over to Zatanna. “Here, this might help,” he says, keeping his voice soft to not interrupt her connection with Kyle.
Zee pauses, considering Kyle’s suggestion. A mischievous smile tugs on her lips as she looks up at Talia from her spot on the floor. “Hang on real quick. Also maybe get ready to catch me. You are still in the air right?” As she stands up, Zee gratefully takes the ice pack from Jason, pressing it firmly to her chest. Ice pack in place, she moves to the window, not wanting to chance her exit outside the bubble, she needs to visualize it right in front of her. “I’m going to be right back.” she promises the room as she fixates where the green speck that is Kyle hovers, “Tixe elbbub.” she casts confidently. If she could talk as a bubble, then she could leave it too. Right that’s how things worked.
Ollie bawls, “ROYYYYY??” yet again, before collecting himself. “You’re on the Watchtower — can you get a reading on what’s happening to Gotham? Are there Yellow Lanterns on earth? Has Ra’s al Ghul done anything? Tell me!!”
Jason moves to Bruce’s side, grabbing the first aid kit on his way as he wordlessly starts to undo the gauze wrapped around his arm to fix the torn stitches, needing to do something to make himself useful.
Roy shouts back at the screen, increasing his volume, as if it might help. “Gotham’s in a Stephen King novel! I haven’t heard anything about any Yellow Lanterns—is Kyle with you?” Oh jesus. “Is Kyle okay?” He continues. “Nothing on the demons, either. Everyone’s just freakin’ the fuck out about the bubble!”
"Yes I’m in the goddamn bubble! And we just got bounced around in it like fucking hamsters."
Roy makes a face. “Who’s with you?”
Bruce speaks, to Jason, quietly, as he continues to work on cracking through the firewall he’s been unable to get through for months, now, as if it will suddenly crack. “Thank you.”
Ollie looks around, as if he needs to remind himself. “Right now it’s Bruce, Jason, Zee, and Talia. Kate and Alfred are here too but not at the penthouse.”
Roy balks. “Talia? What the fuck is she doing there?” Then, he tacks on. “President has called for a national emergency, FAA’s grounded all flights.” A pause. “You guys were on the Daily Show last night?”
"Told you to stay still," Jason mutters, tiny, rueful smile on his face as he carefully removes what’s left of the torn stitches and disinfects the wound again, just to be on the safe side.
Ollie adds belatedly, “Oh, and Kyle’s outside the bubble somewhere.” He listens to the rest of Roy’s news and says sourly, “Well, at least we’re getting media coverage. I guess that’s something.”