[Closed] A fixer upper

[robintohood]

Who: Jason Todd robintohood, BatFamily members, and friends of BatFamily members who've been trusted with their secret identities
What: Jason's plan for a possible safehouse gets hijacked to multiple people's benefit, including himself
When: Early August
Where: Central City
Content Warnings: None for now. Will edit if something comes up.

[If you're a nocturnal vigilante patrolling or just taking a stroll at the edge of a seedy neighborhood tonight, you might notice that a large boarded-up brick warehouse has a dim light on. You can see what's inside if you take a peek through some tight cracks between the boards or from the open skylight window.

Inside the building is an abandoned dusty gym.

Taking up the most space is the gymnastics section. There are three balance beams, three vaults, two horizontal bars, a set of uneven bars, a set of parallel bars, a ring frame, and a pommel horse. There's also a small tumble track off to the side and mats scattered everywhere.

Behind the gymnastics section and closer to the rear of the building are exercise equipment. Specifically, there are three ellipticals, two weight benches, a rack of dumbbells of various weights, one 8-stack multi-station, two heavy bag stands, and two speed bag stands.

At the rear of the room are a dozen lockers lined up and five doors leading to the building's smaller rooms.

You may also notice that Jason, dressed in his Red Hood gear, is... trying to clean? Trying to renovate? You might've caught him vacuuming off some cobwebs on the gym equipment, trying to rearrange some mats, trying to hang a heavy bag onto a stand, etc. Whatever the activity is, it's evident he's got plans for the building.

Clearly this is a good opportunity to interrupt him]

((OOC: Feel free to mingle with each other too!))

Comments

[louder_than_words]

[Cass looks at Robin. He's avoiding her eyes. Worry-determination-frustration-fear.

He's not sure he's clean. Even with Kon checking. He's still worried. Scared. He has a plan. He's avoiding Cass. He doesn't want her to know his plan.

Too late. She nods at Kon. She won't throw the taser.

Cass pockets the stranger's batarang. She'll give it to Robin to look at later. To study.

There's no aggression in her body. No threat. She walks over to Robin. To check on him. She keeps her hands away from her belt.

It's easy to slip behind Robin. She's looking him over. It's easy to think she's making sure he's okay.

Her fingers slip to his belt. Light, barely-there, and not-noticed. The anti-tamp-thing is there. It's easy to ack-tev-ate. She uses her claws to breaks a few wires and takes a step back.

Before anyone can stop it, electricity spreads through Robin's body.]

Oops.

[mostdangerousbird]

[ The shock is a little more intense than the standard civilian-issue taser, about 50,000 volts, but it's supposed to be a deterrent. It's not meant to do severe damage, as anyone sufficiently motivated would cut the utility belt off him with proper protection after the first shock.

It will last a total of 30 seconds, usually dictated by attempts the duration of the contact. As Cass has broken it - and he's wearing it - Tim isn't able to break contact by letting go.

Can't take it off either. Within a second, Tim's stiffened up, everything arched and curled and clenched so that his body is convex on his toes for a few seconds. He's heard the normal descriptions - excruciating pain, a complete absence of any feeling whatsoever, brain rattling around like a peanut in a jar, like termites crawling under every inch of skin. Later, he'll concede that they're all true.

Now, well, there's an injured animal grunting before he starts to pitch to the side after about 5 seconds. ]

[lowercase_el]

[Kon's too trusting and Cass is too fast. After all she's always been fast enough to thwap Kon and bypass his TTK.]

Dude!

[The outrage is intense. There's a rush of air like earlier and then Kon is catching Tim with superspeed, his teke up so he doesn't get shocked too. He gently lowers his stiffened body to the floor, and places a hand on his now-busted utility belt, using his TTK to unclasp and remove it from Tim's body.]

[He knows Tim is still breathing and his heart's still beating because 1) Cass wouldn't have done that if it'd actually damage him, and 2) he can hear both. So he takes care of the belt instead. He closes his eyes for moment, feeling over it with his teke until he finds some of the mechanical components that are creating the charge. There are broken wires and that can't be right. He uses his teke to fix it instead of destroying it further, creating a connection between the wires again, wrapping the metal bits of the wires together. The electrical charge stops.]

[He's thinking ahead, to needing to carry Tim and the belt. He knows Tim won't want to abandon it, even if it's with other Bats. It's pretty much his security blanket.]

[He kneels there and gathers Tim into his arms. Then he glares at Cass and Terry.]

[To Cass, his body language will project rage and betrayal. Protectiveness.]

[And love. And not just love as a friend, more like the love that makes someone go absolutely feral with rage over someone hurting their partner.]

[Even going by weird timeline rules, it's been quite a while since she's seen the two of them together.]

[So, yeah, he's pissed. If it was anyone other than Cass that had done it, like Batman Jr. himself, his eyes would be glowing bright red. He reins it in because even despite this, she's still a friend and doesn't deserve his full rage. He knows she did it because Tim might be at risk and also might keep fretting over the whole thing himself.]

[But there are still little flecks of red in his pupils, a sign of the anger he's holding back.]

[Also, in true super fashion, there's one other feeling he's projecting with the slope of his shoulders: disappointment.]

[He knows Tim's a squirrely little ball of a nerves that might have tazed himself later but he was hoping to have a chance to talk him out of it or talk him into a saner way of checking that it's safe. And he doesn't like other people doing this, creating this kind of situation outside of Tim's own control.]

Why are you all like this?!

This is why Kid Flash and I wanted him to stay with us in the beginning!

[Because sometimes the Bats are fucking cracked. Kon knows they couldn't bundle him in flannel and keep him there forever, but that he'd have other Bats tazing him like two days into getting back to his normal life is agshkgshkqgkg.]

[Kon drapes the utility belt around his neck and starts wrapping Tim's cape around him in a way that'll make it easier to fly him home.]

[robintohood]

[From Jason's point of view, so much happened in the span of what? Two minutes maybe? By the time Jason realized Tim wanted to tase himself, Cass already did it. It was a surprise but he gets why she did it now. When it comes to checking for the Joker's presence, it's better to be very thorough.

As frustrating as tonight has been with his safehouse already compromised by four uninvited people, it's been a very enlightening experience. It was one thing to know that each of his siblings and one non-family Bat protégé were trained by Bruce. It's another to see them in action during noncombative vigilante situations. It's been interesting to know how much they were all on the same page. Frankly, he would've tased Tim as well if no one else was going to do it.

And then of course, a Super is upset about the Bats' approach. Jason doesn't flinch from Kon's anger. He's not sorry for being a part of this]

He'll be fine within a couple of hours.

[knight_shift]

Yes, because that's the reason.

[Terry hadn't really wanted to have to tase Tim, but it was going to be in the service of preventing something much worse than an electric shock happening to him.

He still realized it was still a pretty crappy thing to do to a person.]

For what little it's worth, I'm sorry about all this.

[louder_than_words]

[It's smart to remove the belt. She should've thought of that.

She sees anger-fear-betrayal. Doesn't react. Isn't very bothered. This was... needed. Ness-ess-air-ee. Safer to do it here with all of them than Tim doing it himself alone.

She sees love. That's... not new, but different. More? Changed? Evolved. Kon will kill and die for Tim. She can see it. Will do anything for him.

Good.]

Wait for him to be able to speak before you leave.

[Robin should have a say in where he goes.]

[mostdangerousbird]

[ Speak? Tim would like to make a good joke about The Princess Bride, but he’s too frizzled to make quippy references.

When the belt comes off, everything melts. Tim feels as floppy as a suit full of overcooked noodles, and there’s residual tingling that has to be in his head. Kon stopped it. He’s not getting zapped anymore, but it still feels halfway between ants and a charlie horse. He’d been winding up his night when he entered the warehouse, but the side effects of the taser will linger and leave him feeling like he’s had the longest workout of his life for a day. Maybe two.

So, he appreciates being caught before he hit the ground. Tim can handle the rest. Really. It’s not swaddling in his cape levels of damage. Don’t pay too much attention to how thus far the attempts to free himself amount to “stirring”. More important is clearly pissed Kon is and reassuring the red of his eyes. Which minds finding the tongue he almost swallowed. ]

’s fine. I can make it home.

[ Just don’t ask how because he forgot to buy a surge protector for his brain. ]

Still staying with you.

[ So Kon can make sure no one else tazes him and then everyone’s satisfied. ]

[lowercase_el]

[The flinty anger in his eyes fades when he looks down at Tim.]

I'll give you a lift. S'no different than any other time I've given you a lift. I'm heading to our place anyway.

[Kon is usually automatically Tim's choice of flyer to grab onto when the team has to fly somewhere. The teke means he can support him with a touch rather than Tim's shoulders taken on all the weigh.]

[And "still staying with you" is permission enough to take him home. Staying with him means going where they're staying, the rinky dink apartment they're scratching away a living in.]

Let's go home.

[The Bats all get one last glare. Cass gets an extra squint and little head shake with it because he's more annoyed at her in a friend way than deeply angry. And then fwoosh Superboy and Robin are gone.]

[robintohood]

[Jason watches Superboy fly off with Tim and relaxes slightly. There's no Joker chip on Tim and he'll recover. That's what matters]

Well this evening has been enlightening.