The Streets of Baltimore, Monday Night

[gunslingerpose]

Against his better judgment (and when was anything Nikolai ever did really in line with his better judgment anyway?), Gorgon was back on patrol in the streets of Baltimore tonight. Granted, Monday nights weren't exactly the busiest nights for crime, so, as far as Nick was concerned, he was easing himself back into the swing of it.

And, hell, after flashing his goggles at a couple of muggers and leaving them zip-tied to a lamppost with a lit road flare marking where they were for any cops to find, he was even feeling pretty damn okay. A little stiffness in his shoulder, a bit of soreness, but a few more hits and even that would be gone until he dropped right back out of the power high again. For the time being he was back on his bike, making that slow, deliberate patrol around one of the neighborhoods he tended to frequent, making certain that any would-be criminals were well aware that he was back on the job.

Ah, the crime-fighting life. It was good to be back.

[OOC: Open to anyone who might happen to be in Baltimore tonight! Because... costumed heroing is something I keep meaning to post this guy doing more of.]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

"A posse?!" Kathy looked deeply insulted. Spreading her arms so he could take in the full glory of her gi, she asked, "Do I look like someone who runs around with a posse and jumps people to you?!"

[gunslingerpose]

Kathy, you were just going to get a silent deadpan from Nikolai, now.

"I dunno. Have you ever been?"

Because he could come up with one notable example, himself. If she thought that cute little mask over her eyes was masking anything he absolutely needed in order to place her face, she really needed to stop reading so many damn comic books.

[spin_kick_snap]

BUT LOOK AT HER CUNNINGLY HID CHEEKBONES!

"Of course I haven't--" she started, before really looking at the guy in front of her. "Ohmigosh!" she said, clapping her hands over her mouth. "It's you! The guy from the weekend! The guy who I--"

You know, whether she went with 'blinded' or 'seduced' that sentence wasn't going anywhere good.

"-I noticed at the hotel?" she finished, a bit feebly.

[gunslingerpose]

"Mmmhm." Very astutely noticed, Kathy! "By night known as Gorgon."

He stretched, and then cracked his knuckles before putting his hands back to his hips. Gunslinger pose. Fuck, he hadn't been able to do that in weeks. It felt damn good.

"And you? You have some sort of clever love-and-rainbows moniker I should be calling you by out here? Or is Dokkaebi actually your thing?"

Of course she was a super. Of course. He'd seen her barrel out of the Arms like somebody had lit her ass on fire, and that should have been his first clue, crazy fucking island or no.

[spin_kick_snap]

"No! I'm nothing like her, not even the name!"

It was very important that Gorgon knew that up front.

"I'm Banzai. Used to be Social Justice Warrior, but that was stupid so I switched it to Banzai," she babbled. "But I thought it fit because I'm a justice-fighting, socially-conscious hero-type! Not the drug-pushing, gang-leading, seducing, blinding, murder-type! Really!" She inhaled deeply before adding, "I'm on an Ethics Committee!"

Please, Nikolai. Would Dokkaebi ever be caught dead in rainbows? Rainbows?

[gunslingerpose]

Well, no, but that was mostly because everybody had been in greyscale that weekend.

Gorgon eyed her for a moment, not that she'd be able to see from behind those mirrored goggles of his, before making a 'tch' sound between his teeth and shaking his head.

"Could be a clever cover," he pointed out, shrugging easily. "There's precedent."

Now Nikolai was just being an ass.

[spin_kick_snap]

Even if they'd been in full Technicolor glory, Dokkaebi was not the type to go for bright colors. Especially a lot of them. Together. At once.

Kathy winced and looked away, stricken. "Look, I know I owe you a major apology for everything that happened that weekend, from the lying to the--okay, I'm pretty sure I don't have to go into all the things that I have to apologize to you for. But, please, you have to understand, that's not the kind of person I am, really it's not. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why the island would make me into someone like that and I'm still not entirely sure, but, believe me, I don't want to be anyone like that. Never. Not for any reason."

[gunslingerpose]

"No?" Nick watched her for a moment more, and then sighed, relented, and shook his head. "Fine. Look, I was going to talk with you about that back in the hotel, but you ran off faster than I was going to even bother trying to run, and I figured I'd let you go. You looked pretty fucking freaked out at the time."

To say the least.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Still kinda freaked out, if you must know," Kathy mumbled, intending for him not to hear that bit. Then, louder, she added, "I'm sorry about that reaction, too. I just hadn't expected to run into you, umm, ever and seeing you at the hotel was just too much."

Look, she'd been all hopped up on friendship and karaoke, okay? She had hardly been in control of her actions, then.

"I was still confused and feeling horribly guilty about what I'd done and so running seemed like the best option."

And avoiding the hotel forever and always.

[gunslingerpose]

"Yeah?" Even if his eyes were obscured by the goggles, at least his eyebrows were there to be seen as he arched one up at her. "Feeling better about that now, Banzai?"

By day known as Katherine?

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy. Ugh, Katherine sounded like a ninety year old woman who smelled like cats, Nikolai..

"I'm not running?"

That wasn't exactly an answer.

[gunslingerpose]

"It'd be bad form to tackle a guy on a rooftop and then take off running," Nick pointed out, smirking a little. "It's good to know I have options and all, but I might get the wrong idea if you don't actually stick around to make sure I know what they are."

Nikolai was still an ass. But seriously, he was lucky he was up a few tiers, or she might have damaged his shoulder again in the process.

[spin_kick_snap]

Gee, so sorry she was trying to save your life, Nick! Some people were so ungrateful.

Her mask was doing a subpar job of hiding how much she was blushing. "Well, if you were going to commit suicide, I'd do my very best to help however I could. But since you weren't, apologizing for uhh, knocking you over and then all the rest of it just seemed like the thing to do."

[gunslingerpose]

"There's something to be said for talking first, then barreling into someone like a cracked-out superball," Nick pointed out, clearly amused. "But hey, I appreciate the sentiment. It's been too damn long since I had a girl sitting on my chest yelling good-feelings into my face."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, I didn't know if you were about to pitch yourself over the edge or something!" Kathy protested, hands coming up to rest on her hips. "Or if I might startle you into falling."

Beat.

"...And I really don't need to know about that last time this happened to you, either."

[gunslingerpose]

"Then I won't tell you," Nick replied, clearly all heart. "Either way, no actual harm done. Might want to be a little more careful on the mount, though, if you don't want to crack someone's skull open on the rooftop next time around. I'm pretty hardy, but that would have fucking sucked if I was just some guy standing on the edge of the roof."

It would have fucking sucked if he hadn't been knocked up a tier or three, because he was finally more or less done recovering from a concussion and she could have re-dislocated his shoulder.

[spin_kick_snap]

"And how many people just stand on the edges of rooftops in the dead of night?" Kathy asked, exasperated. "Posing?"

[gunslingerpose]

It was impressive how Gorgon could give her a deadpan look even from behind the goggles.

"I haven't heard of many jumpers doing it," he pointed out, "but it's a pretty popular pastime among the superhero set."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Maybe in comics!" Kathy protested. "And even if it were, how many superheros do you know of in Baltimore? This isn't L.A. The Mighty Dragon's not about to come swooping in and pose for a cameo."

[gunslingerpose]

The corner of Gorgon's mouth twitched.

"I dunno. Maybe the Awesome Ape travels."

Yeah, he knew the name of the Mighty Dragon. What better way to let her know that fact than to drop the name of another hero from his reality? Small fucking world. Maybe the island had thrown them at one another on that fucked up weekend because of something like this?

Or maybe the island was just completely fucking sadistic.

"But really, how could I be so stupid as to assume that the major city that borders Fandom - an island where I'm willing to bet a third of the population wears costumes and moonlights as a hero - would happen to have two or three that come out to patrol from time to time?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"You've heard of the Awesome Ape?" Kathy asked, forgetting to be annoyed and embarrassed for a moment. "And the Mighty Dragon? Really?! You're the first person I've ever spoken to who knows them! We could be from the same dimension!"

[gunslingerpose]

Lucky... them...?

"Or at least a similar one," Nick agreed with a shrug of his shoulders. "There are probably at least two or three out there with a bunch of heroes running around by those names. You're the first I've met who knows them too, though."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Still, similar is better than nothing!" Kathy said, basing that on absolutely nothing concrete at all. "Don't you think so?"

[gunslingerpose]

"Uh... sure. We're practically kindred spirits."

By virtue of being one of the billions of people from a reality that had a Mighty Dragon in it. That was totally sound logic there.

[spin_kick_snap]

And of those billions, they were likely the only two on the tiny island off the coast of Baltimore that served as an interdimensional nexus.

But sure. That wasn't horrifically improbable or anything.

"You're one of those super-cool guys who's never impressed by anything, aren't you?" she asked, flat. She'd met a thousand like him in L.A. They were the kind of guys who worked in a Starbucks on the Strip just so they could brag about working in Hollywood.