welcome to the justice lounge

Tak wanders into Jason’s side of the Arrow Penthouse, finding some of the cats and deciding to play with them with a feather toy. He watches how they stalk and hunt the feathers, fascinated.

Jason is asleep in his room, waking from his dreamless slumber when he hears someone moving around in the next room. With a yawn, he gets up, stretches and wanders out of the bedroom, faint smile sliding onto his face when he spots Tak. “Hey squirt. What’cha up to?”

Tak doesn’t look over right away, frowning as he tries to twitch the feathers in just the right way to interest one of the cats who seems bored by it all. “I wanted to see them,” he explains. “Sometimes it’s nice to play with animals who aren’t as desperate for love as dogs are.”

Jason meanders over, scooping up a gray tabby on his way and tucking her in tight against him. “Gonna have a hard time getting that one to play,” he says, nodding at the disinterested cat, a regal, darkly colored creature. “She’s kind of a brat about stuff like that, doesn’t like to play much unless there’s food involved.”

Tak stops swishing the feathers at the cat, regarding her for a while before putting the toy down. “I can respect that,” he announces, slightly pompously. “I’m like that sometimes too.” He sits down on the arm of a sofa, idly petting one cat who jumps up onto the sofa seat. “Do you like living here? I don’t mean in this city, I mean in this house.” Tak adds hurriedly as if he’d just realized how the question could be taken, “That might have sounded rude, I don’t mean to be rude. I only want to know if you like it here.”

( drop a drop on you )

Roy stands behind the counter of the pharmacy desk at the south (north? who the fuck knew, they were in fuckin’ space) end of Medbay. There is no pharmacist behind the counter—they are off for the night—but it’s easy enough, for him, at least, to get inside, as it’s all pretty much a formality at that point. For Roy, that is.

Roy’s expression is a study in concentration as he looks through the shelves, leaning forward and pushing through boxes and bottles, shuffling them around on an over-crowded shelf. Roy grabs a bottle, popping the top off and shuffles a few pills into his palm, tossing them back and swallowing them dry. He sets the bottle back on the counter, pushing his fingers through the ones next to it before picking up another and palming the thing, slips it into the side pack he’s gotten used to carrying back and forth from Earth to the Watchtower in his civvies.

Roy turns and opens up the pharmacy’s door, reaching into his messenger bag for a Nalgene of water. Unscrewing the top he finishes the contents of it, making a face as the pills sheath slide off in his throat, the back of his tongue.

Ollie almost bumps into Roy as he heads into the pharmacy, startled. “Jesus effing christ!” he barks. “What the hell’re you doing in here?” Roy opens his mouth to answer, but instead, coughs, the pills stuck. He tries to hack them back in vain, and searches for the nearest water fountain.

Ollie is startled by this but he moves fast, taking the Nalgene from Roy and filling it up in a nearby medroom before hustling it back. “Drink this, easy, don’t gulp,” he instructs. “Nice and steady.”

Roy does what Ollie says, even as he glares at him, and when he feels like the things are somewhat dislodged he answers, raspily: “..tryin’ to kill me, old man?”

( the drugs don't work )

Ollie sits with his laptop at a table in the Watchtower lounge, wearing his glasses, three different drinks and a package of red licorice on the desk with him as he works. Jason wanders into the lounge, clearly hungover again and wearing the same clothes from the day before. He spots Ollie, but continues on his way to the coffee machine.

Ollie likewise notices Jason, waiting for him to get coffee before he halloos at him. “Get some greasy food,” he advises. “Nothing better for a holdover hangover.” Jason replies with a wordless grunt as he trudges over and sinks into the empty chair closest to Ollie’s desk. “Not hungry. What’cha working on?” he asks, trying to sneak a peek at the laptop. Ollie lets him see it without any compunctions.

"Doubletime," he says. "Sorting through all the emails I’ve gotten about the Green Arrow thing, and looking at the reports of Hatter’s new drug formulations and what they’re doing." He offers Jason a licorice whip, folding one over for himself and gnawing at the looped end. "And of course you’re not hungry, but that’s what the food’s for. Once you start eating and the grease sops up the liquor, you’ll be good to go." He smiles, briefly. "C’mon, kid — if you’re gonna be a drinker, you gotta learn how to avoid the hangover."

Jason glances over the screen with a faint nod. “How many of the emails just say ‘I fucking knew it’?” His brow furrows a little at the mention of the Hatter’s drug. Though his stomach shifts uncomfortably at even the sight of it, he takes the licorice without complaint. “I know how to handle booze,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Just… I dunno, haven’t been real hungry lately.”

Ollie leans back a little so he can eyeball Jason. “You need to eat,” he says. “Even if it’s just fuel, even if you don’t enjoy it. Starving yourself and boozing ain’t the best way to stay alive in that city of yours, Jason.”

( change of pace )

Ollie has been in the safehouse for at least an hour before the appointed meeting time with Jason, although he’s been preparing in silence, without a word to Shado. For her part, the woman sits quietly in her cell, speaking to herself in a low wave of mingled Japanese and English, too low for him to make out anything in specific. Needless to say, as 11 pm draws close, Ollie’s nerves are sharpened to a fine point.

Jason arrives about ten minutes early, knocking lightly at the safehouse door only after checking several dozen times that he has the correct coordinates. Uncertain whether to show up in civvies or not, he has his armor on under his jacket, but the helmet stashed away for the moment, an actual red hood pulled up high to keep his face in shadow.

Ollie opens the door and beckons him in with a simple, “Hey, you’re here. Good thing, too, I was starting to go stir crazy cooped up with her.” If the informality of his demeanor doesn’t mark this as not being a Bat-style mission, the criminal they’re transporting does: Shado sits in her cell, yes, and she’s cuffed, but the bars are open and she could get up and walk around if she chose to. “Jay, meet Shado. Shado, touch a hair on this kid’s head and you’ll be giving me exactly what I need to put you down for good.”

shado makes a small mrrring sound. “I never taught you to kill those you love, Oliver,” she says, “so that’s an empty threat at best.” She smiles faintly at Jason. “I’ll behave, though.”

Jason nods as he steps into the room, eyes flicking to their prisoner. A very faint smile flickers across his face at the threat on his behalf, but it fades just as quickly as it appears. “I’d say nice to meet you, but I dunno if it is. And don’t worry about me, Jolly Green.” His eyes flick back to Shado, assessing her briefly. “We ready to head out now?”

( and in the morning i'll be gone )

Bruce smooths his hand against Kate’s hip, stepping up from behind her as he reaches around her to grab a coffee mug. He doesn’t speak, but kisses the side of her neck, under her ear, as he pours her, and then himself, a fresh cup.

Kate smiles a little, faintly, still a bit dozy, as she accepts the kiss, the coffee, and settles onto the not-that-comfy sofa. They really need to get better furniture up here. Bruce takes a sip and then clears his throat; he hadn’t spoken in a while. “Pass Ollie on your way here?”

"Not yet, but I assume he’ll be nearby." Kate waits for her coffee to cool a little, get to just-drinkable-without-b​urning-her-tongue. It’s an imprecise science. "I don’t have any good ideas, Bruce."

Bruce reaches out, and his hand is implacably hot, just from holding the coffee. He folds it, wraps it around the back of her neck, thumb smoothing down the tendon on that side, as he takes a seat besides her. The furniture, beside being uncomfortable, isn’t built for his bulk and frame: he looks a bit ridiculous, taking up a large portion of it without even trying. “We’ll figure something out.”

Kate shifts and leans naturally into his shoulder—it comes easily now, easier than she ever thought it would—before furrowing her brow in thought. “I guess with all three of us trying at once, working thoughts off each other, it might be easier, true.” She cocks her head slightly at him, though it’s probably easier to feel than to see the motion. “I’m glad you were able to talk.”

( is what breaks you )

Ollie scrubs his hand up through the back of his hair as he waits for Mar’i to let him in. It’s not significantly warmer in San Francisco than in Star, so he can’t even pretend that’s the reason for the flushed feeling that’s making him a little overheated even in t-shirt and jeans. He wraps his hand a few times over in the strap of the cloth grocery bag he’s holding, the feeling of the fabric digging into his palm calming him down a little.

Mari takes a bit to get to the door, but when she opens it up the reason is clear: the apartment floor where the open floorplan leads from the tiled kitchen towards the doorway is flooded with thick bubbles. “Dishwasher’s broken,” Mar’i says by means of greeting, even as Poppy zooms by, devouring a line of bubbles in her wake.

Ollie pauses before he comes in, slinging the bag he’s holding (carefully) onto a table before rubbing his hands together. “Okay,” Ollie says briskly. “You got a spare mop? Or hell, even a broom, or some rags? Doesn’t look like the Lizard Queen’s being much help with the cleanup.”

Mari glances over to where Poppy is now rolling in a pile of bubbles near the offending appliance. “Well, I guess they just didn’t have dishsoap on her homeworld,” she shrugs, motioning to where she’s already begun to towel up some of the mess. “There’s a mop in the coat closet, too.”

Ollie bustles over to the coat closet and fetches the mop, swirling it in vigorous figure eights over the bubbly floor. “You need a new one?” he asks, nodding at the dishwasher. “You should get your landlord to replace that thing /and/ pay for cleanup. Only fair to compensate you for loss of use and the mess.” He ducks his head a little, grimacing; he can hear the grampa style ‘stating-of-the-obvious’​ words coming out of his mouth, but can’t seem to stem the flow. “I brought you some ramen,” Ollie blurts, eager to change the subject. “I figured you might not have much energy for cooking.”

Mari laughs a little and shakes her head, tossing down a towel near the dishwasher and moving it with her foot. “No, it’s actually my fault. The lid fell off the dish detergent while I was pouring it in and way more went in than I wanted. Besides, it’s only on the tile, so I’m not too worried.” She glances over at the bag, tilting her head curiously. “Spicy ramyun?” she asks, not even realizing how she naturally lilts the word away to a different pronunciation, a different language—the one more familiar to her.

"Tonkotsu, and I ordered it spicy." He pauses in swishing the mop around to grin at her. "I saw that movie Tampopo a long time ago and it made me think that good ramen has to be made from pork bone broth. Also it made me look at eggs in a brand new way."

Mari blinks and continues moving her foot circularly. “Tampopo?” she repeats, raising an eyebrow. “Should I watch that?”

Ollie gives her an impassioned look. “Oh, Mar’i,” he says. “Yes, you should. If you can find it anymore, you definitely should.” He slaps the mop down in a few places, flattening the bubbles, and then leans on it as he looks at her again. “I didn’t mean that stuff I said to you that time,” Ollie tells her, his voice doing the strained, rushed thing that it does when he’s anxious about something and feeling embarrassed. “I thought … I dunno, sweetie, I thought you might be drugged or possessed or something. I thought you might not be you, so I was aiming for the gut.”

Mari snorts. “I can find all the Asian films, man, I have the magic torrent touch.” She pauses then squints. “Don’t tell Bruce I’m torrenting on his tech. That might look bad.” But as Ollie switches so suddenly—a common motif in their interactions—her face changes subtly, shifting a bit darker and quieter as she listens. “You definitely know where my gut is, then,” she says finally, not quite facing him as her foot slows in its path. “But I said some shitty stuff too—tried to throw Dinah at you—and I’m sorry for that, too.”

( and light it up forever )

Dickiebird sits in the cafeteria surrounded by papers, pausing in reading to scribble down something on a yellow legal pad beside his nearly untouched coffee.

Ollie wanders into the cafeteria, looking vaguely towards the food, then at the tables. Then back at the food. He actually makes a start towards the serving counter before changing his mind and going to the tables, plopping down at the one Dick’s at. “Ngugh,” Ollie grunts. Dickiebird looks up, eyebrows raised in mild concern. “You OK there, Ollie?”

Ollie gestures at the paper mess strewn over the table. “Could ask you the same thing. Is this fallout from the thing that happened? I read the report last night, catching up.” He crinkles his nose. “Dirty cops and drugs, not a good combo.”

Dickiebird scrunches his mouth. “Not good at all. This is…” He looks around at the scattered papers as if they’ll give him a concise way to summarize them. “…Yeah, fallout, I guess, and new options. Or, potential new options. And…old options.”

Ollie blinks at him. “Huh?”

Dickiebird sets the papers in his hand aside. “I’m thinking about leaving the BPD, and maybe Blüdhaven altogether. Might not be permanent, but just until… Just for a while.”

( follow me show me what you can do )

Bruce knocks on Shado’s door.

Shado does not answer. In fact, there’s an eerie stillness to the whole penthouse, especially now that any of the actual Arrowclan are absent, half a world away.

Bruce removes the security fob from his utility belt, scanning it against the door to her room, letting himself in. He sets the bag of take-out food down on the table by the entrance.

Shado asks, voice shaking, “Where is my son.” She is standing along the wall that the doorway’s in, with a bow — a takedown, one of Ollie’s own prototypes that he doesn’t use due to a design flaw that makes it collapse on itself at inopportune moments — held up and an arrow pointed at Bruce. There’s no pretense that she’s caught him off-guard, or that he couldn’t defend himself easily should she loose the makeshift arrow, but there’s a fierceness in her swollen eyes between the slots of gauze wrapping her face. “Tell me or I will shoot you in the heart. You know I’m capable of it.”

Bruce goes immobile, absolutely frozen, but does not raise his hands, like someone else might. Someone else might lift their arms, palms out, in a defenseless, I-mean-you-no-harm gesture. But Bruce does not. He meets Shado’s fierce gaze right back, the dark blue of his eyes frigidly cold as he speaks. “He’s on his way here.”

Shado remembers exactly where she shot Ollie, years ago, just shy enough of his heart to send him into shock without killing him outright. She remembers it as if it were ten minutes ago instead of ten years. And so despite the pain in her arm where the tattoo’s been removed, despite the compromised vision, she shoots her arrow at Bruce’s chest in exactly the same spot.

( inches away from murder )

There was, Ollie couldn’t deny it, a tiny voice in the back of his mind telling him that the boat would be gone, unmoored and scuttled when they made it back to the drop point. That they’d be stuck here, the three of them, and maybe for longer this time and with higher stakes than one less dissolute, useless boy billionaire in the world. But as the three Arrows made it up onto the southern beachfront of Starfish Island, Ollie took a deep breath. Took a good look at his two kids flanking him, scrubby red-brown head and wet sleek blonde, and forced his mind back to the present. They weren’t here floundering this time; they had a plan.

“So if my source is on the money – and there’s no reason to think she ain’t – we’re gonna be working our way up into that crater to find where Tak’s being kept.” Ollie pointed up the rising cliffside, shaking sea water from his arms. “There’s a road coming down the north face of the slope, but it’s well-guarded so it’s a no-go if we wanna hit ‘em by surprise. Lucky for you kids, we’ve got some climbing gear.” Ollie picked through his quiver and tugged out one of his line arrows, grinning at Mia and Roy. “Last time, I had to do it with my fingernails and bare feet.”

"Oh, so we’re even going to be doing ‘back in my day’ things here?" Mia asked throwing a smirk over at Ollie as they trudged through the sand. She imagined it was probably weird for him to be back here. She was aware of his aversion to island in the first place and this particular one? The blonde looked around curiously trying to imagine what it must have been like to be here all alone — well mostly alone back when he didn’t even really have any sort of survival skills at all. Scary probably.

Mia fixed her ponytail squeezing excess water out of it. “So, how long do you think it’ll take? Do you think we’ll be attacked? We should stay on our guard anyway, right?” She didn’t mean to ask so many questions that there were probably not definite answers to. But it was better that then going in with no estimation of information at all.

"Two days at the very most, yes we’ll probably do some fighting no matter how stealthy we are, and no, there’s no need to stay on our guard. I think we should break for a rousing game of charades."

( they grow a new arm if they lose one )

The long stemmed, red roses are left by her front door in Titans Tower in a striking dark red case. They are beautiful, breathtaking blossoms that glisten and catch every droplet of light, artificial or otherwise, around them: silken petals, laced with shimmering droplets of water. The smell of them is breathtaking, and they have been dethorned, every last one of them. It’s only when they’ve been brought inside is it obvious that they are not sitting in water. The vase, that brilliant red, is actually clear and the liquid inside cloying bright and musky is blood. Cups and cups of it. The note inside reads: “Things are never black as they are painted, time for you and joy to get acquainted.”

- - -

Once Mia had gotten off work she decided to head to the Titans Tower instead of home for the day. Due to certain company at the penthouse she’d been staying at the tower more often then not, even though she felt a little bad doing that.

Anyway, she about left the flowers put next to the door there because it wasn’t like it was every day things were put on her doorstep. They had a P.O. box for fan stuff, and too many sensors for random people to just drop things off. But Mia noticed the flowers and picked them up, looking mildly interested and brought them inside her room. A second later when she realized what the were sitting in, Mia quickly put them down on the nearest surfice and backed away.

"No." She said holding her hands up, and laughing in a mostly sarcastic way. Reaching over sure not to touch the vase, not that the blood would seep through it onto her, she picked up the note and read it frowning. "What the fuck. Jesus Christ."

( stems sunk deep )