gunslingerpose

"Umm, excuse me?" Kathy said, tapping her foot and looking annoyed. "I'm right here, you know. Just thought maybe I'd point that out."

"Now that we've established that I'm here, why don't we talk about why you are," she said, pointing at Barry. "How the hell did you even know--goddammit, Barry, are you tracking me? Is there a GPS on this thing? I am not a pet for you to chip!"

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"Yes. Because someone has to be your Q and make sure you're fucking doing this right," Barry retorted. "What if you get caught or hurt in Baltimore? Is Buckaroo Bubba here going to take you to a hospital?"

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"... Gorgon."

Yeah, it had nothing to do with the wild west, but if you knew anything about his powers or where they came from, it was pretty damn apt.

"And Buckaroo Banzai there and I aren't partners. I'd take her to one if she were to luck out and I'd find her, but that's a big damn if. Vigilantes don't exactly come with pagers."

Well...

"She might."

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"Its cell phones now," Kathy growled. "Because it's not 1994 anymore."

Someone was a little bit grumpy. With both of them.

"So, what? You're just gonna hang around every night, looking like some weird little kid on the off-chance I get hurt? Which, may I remind you, I've been doing for months now without a partner or backup and I'm fine?"

Yes, she was willfully ignoring how close that knife had come to parting skin as well as the fabric of her gi. "I'm faster than anything but a bullet and you said that I'm even safe from that, so long as I don't eat it blank range."

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"You're fighting people with guns and last I checked your head isn't fucking bulletproof," Barry retorted. "And normally I just keep tab on your vitals to make sure you don't die in some fucking alley. After last Friday where people kept fucking interrupting me and Elsa I thought I'd come into town and see how much risk you're taking on."

He shook his head. "Yeah, definitely a cowl," he said. "Definitely need more shielding."

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"Even I usually have a helmet," Gorgon offered, nodding. "I wasn't wearing it for 'standing on the roof not actually engaging any criminals' reasons, but I can vouch for the head protection thing."

As a guy who frequently wound up concussed, and all.

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"Well, I'm utterly thrilled to see the two of you getting along so swimmingly," Kathy muttered. "But don't you both have somewhere else to be? Like out posing for the pigeons and/or writing up blueprints for a fifty foot display that says 'I'm sorry for turning you into dinosaurs without your consent'?!"

And before she forgot, she added, "Barry! Tell N--Gorgon that I'm on the Ethics Committee and am really a good person!"

It was important.

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Barry sighed. "She is a really good person," he admitted. "Enough to make me hire her as part of my corporation so I don't fuck up ethically. However I worry about her enthusiasm overriding her sense of safety. She seems like the type of person who will risk herself needlessly for a kitten in trouble and get shot for it."

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"See?" Kathy said to Nick. "I told you I was--HEY!"

Edited Date: 2014-07-29 03:55 am (UTC)

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Nick wasn't going to make the obligatory, 'And a bit slow,' comment. You're welcome, Banzai.

"Well, that makes me feel better about any fears I might have had involving being jumped by murderous bitches in the dark," he offered, smirking. "I wasn't actually all that worried, Banzai. I can handle myself just fine."

Better than he could that weekend, at least.

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And Kathy wasn't going to point out that the last time he found girls in the alley, he'd been left blinded and would have been dead if one of said girls hadn't princess-carried him to safety.

"You seemed unwilling to take me at my word earlier," she said primly. "I was making sure a credible source assured you it was true."

This was the one and only time that she'd ever refer to you as a credible source, Barry. Savor it.

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"He just met me," Barry pointed out. "For all he knows I'm a fucking lunatic."

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"He was just standing around disguised as a young Ricky Schroeder, following you all over Baltimore with a GPS," Nikolai agreed. "You could both be fucking insane serial killers, here."

Now he was just enjoying this.

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"A young who?" Because that was absolutely the important part of this conversation, yes. "And Barry isn't crazy. A jerk with extreme boundary issues and the occasional failure to understand things like common decency, but he's not a lunatic."

She knew he was touchy about that, so, even while wanting to wring Barry's stupid neck, she was going to stick up for him.

Jerk. The pair of them.

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"Well that pretty much hits the mark," Barry admitted. "But I mean well. Most of the time. Well better than I used to. Really I'm a jerk but I'm trying, you know?"

...

"Wait, how did this get back to me? I'm not the one risking my life on a nightly basis in costume."

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"I'm kind of surprised," Nick mused, "that a girl wearing that many rainbows keeps turning the topic of conversation away from herself."

What did that say, anyway?

"But seriously. Head armor. You'll thank us."

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"Is it me or do you start hearing the 'Rainbow Connection' whenever you see her outfit too?" Barry asked. "I'm not sure if the rainbow motif will work cowl wise."

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"Reading Rainbow, here," Nick replied, shrugging his shoulders. "You could decorate her cowl with butterflies or something."

It would be so Kathy.

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"Then she'd have to change her name from Banzai to Social Justice Butterfly warrior," Barry said shaking her heads. "Hey. Can I ask you a question? How do you feel about pockets?"

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"Pockets?" Well, there was an odd question. Nick squinted at Barry, not that it could be seen from behind the mirrored lenses of his goggles. "I make sure they're deep enough in my duster for me to carry around at least the bare essentials for surviving out here, but aside from that I'm not, you know, fucking passionate about them or anything."

...

"Why? What the hell kind of question is that even supposed to be?"

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"Shut up, Barry!" Kathy shrilled. "You just shut up right now!"

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"Some people are very passionate about them," Barry explained... and really didn't need to explain further after Kathy's reaction.

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"Maybe if either of you had to deal with women's clothing on a regular basis, you'd understand!" Kathy grouched.

And in an undertone that Nick totally wasn't supposed to hear, she hissed, "No making me look bad in front of other heroes! Especially the one I seduced so I could try to murder him later!"

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Did Gorgon do a shitty job of hiding the fact that he overheard the basic gist of that? Well, yes. But really, how was he not supposed to make a snorting sound, here?

"Trust me, Banzai, I've listened to every possible complaint there is about female clothing. Pockets being the least of which."

The joys of representing divas in Hollywood. You got to be the sounding board for so many things.

So. Many. Things.

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