gunslingerpose | Baltimore, Wednesday After Dark

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Baltimore, Wednesday After Dark

Gorgon was in a pretty decent mood tonight. He had his bike, he had the open road, he had a friend along that he'd lured out with promise of a motorcycle ride and some ass-kicking. Sure, he wasn't up even a single tier yet - they were just getting started and Wednesday evenings were slower than some - but even if they didn't encounter a single mugger over the course of the night, it was still good to just get out and ride around, sometimes.

"Everyone's still sleeping off the long weekend," he mused, driving at that particular pace that he fell into when he did his patrols. "Of course they are. Slackers."

Yes. Yes, he was complaining about a lack of crime tonight. So sue him.

[OOC: For one, and NFB for distance!]

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"I don't know," Allie said, leaning in so Nick could hear her over the sound of the bike. "I'm sure people appreciate being rescued, but they'd probably like it if they didn't need rescuing in the first place."

"Oh, I'm not complaining," Gorgon laughed, giving his head a shake as they rounded another corner along his usual beat. "I can get behind a slow night. We don't have nearly enough of those. But it means tonight is gonna drag, if all we're doing is driving around in circles until something happens."

"Maybe that something can be me driving? Maybe?" Yes Nick, she was really hanging out with you for your bike.

Nick really had to hand it to her- Allie was a dreamer!

"We'll see," he decided, because come on, like he ever gave anybody a straight answer about practically anything. Nikolai just didn't roll that way. "We could probably handle a highway run before the night is through, at least."

We. Still totally not a straight answer.

"You can't distract me with speed," Allie grinned. "I want to drive."

"Please?"

"I dunno. Maybe you need a pop quiz, first," Nick mused. "What's the rule about dropping the bike?"

It was a pretty easy rule to remember. Nikolai only shared it every single time Allie asked to drive, after all.

'Don't.'

"Don't," she said immediately. "Vamp speed and strength. Your bike is perfectly safe with me."

Oh, Allie. You knew exactly what Nikolai liked to hear.

"For a while, then," he decided, already pulling the bike over to the curb. "You wanna drive while we patrol, then? If nothing else, we can kill more time swapping off."

"It's not as much fun as tormenting bad guys." It totally was. "But I suppose it would pass some time."

She was off the back of the bike almost before he'd come to a complete stop.

Nikolai chuckled and shook his head a little as he shifted his weight back on the seat.

"What a hardship, huh? Forced to drive a Yamaha all around Baltimore with nary a criminal to be seen? I suppose it could be worse, and we could be running into one of the half-dozen other heroes that run around the place these days. They could all want rides."

"Other heroes?" Allie asked as she slid back onto the bike. "I didn't realize Baltimore was such a super hero hotspot. I'd think it would be someplace like New York."

"You'd think so, right? So far as I can tell, they're all crawling here from the island. I've met three besides us in the past month alone."

A beat, and then Nick was putting his arms around her waist. Because he wasn't riding any tiers yet, and falling off the bike was the last thing he wanted, tonight.

It made a certain kind of sense given some of the stories Allie had heard about people on the island. "Anyone you know back there? Or is everyone all geared up and disguised?"

"Mostly they're all geared up," Nick sighed, shaking his head. "I wouldn't place any one of them at 'graduated high school' age yet, so I wouldn't know most of them. One, though, I recognize from some weird shit on the island."

A beat.

"A few different instances of weird shit on the island. I'd worry she was secretly out to kill me, except I think she's actually just Fandom's chew-toy through the worst of it."

"Kids today," Allie laughed, as she put the bike in gear and slowly pulled away from the curb.

"Of course now you have me curious what weirdness and how you met."

"That weekend where everyone was running around as private detectives and mobsters, and it was just... dark and washed out the whole damn time? Yeah, she maybe seduced me and then tried to have me killed," Nick sighed, rolling his eyes toward the sky. "Didn't work, but I got to discover the joy of being blinded by hot opium resin, which is something I'd be happy to never repeat again."

There was a long moment while Allie processed those words.

"I honestly can't even begin to pick out what the weirdest part of that sentence it." Seduced? Hot opium resin?

"I could go on," Nick offered. "I was a private detective at the time, and she came in as a client, but was really some kind of crime boss with a vendetta against me for trying to bust her drug operation."

There was another long moment, and then he added, "I said it was a weird weekend."

"I think I spent that weekend lurking about being angsty because I was a mysterious creature of the night," Allie chuckled. "Which, if I'm honest, probably isn't all that different then any other weekend."

"Yeah, but you're our mysterious creature of the night," Nick decided. Because he was just too kind, really! "And some nights, you get to drive the bike, which just adds badass points to all the mystery."

Pep talks by Gorgon, folks.

"I do have the cool and swishy black coat, plus the katana. I'm badass." She turned the bike down another street, watching the road and glancing down alleyways to see if anything was going on.

"But which one of us is the sidekick?"

She could grind him into paste pretty much any day of the week, but that really wasn't going to stop Nick from laughing and shaking his head.

"There is no way in hell I'm going to be the sidekick here," he declared, "on account of this being my goddamn bike."

He did have a point. Allie really did need to get a bike of her own.

"Fine. But I'm not the funny sidekick. I'm the serious one that keeps you in line."

"And who says I need to be kept in line, anyway?"

Common sense, Nikolai. Common sense said that you needed to be thumped upside the head at every possible opportunity.

"No one. Just one friend looking out for another," she said lightly.

Nick wasn't buying what you were trying to sell him here, Allie.

"... You think I need to be kept in line, don't you?" He sounded amused, at least. "C'mon, Allie, I'm not that much of a loose cannon."

"No, you're not. At this point you need to be kept in line just about as much as I do." Which meant his own conscience should keep him in line but the occasional moments of adrenaline induced stupidity and recklessness could still be a problem.

Nick gave a thoughtful frown at that, and then sighed and shrugged it off.

"Fair enough," he agreed. "People can't be perfect all the time, much as I like to think I am."

"Only about 99% of them time," Allie teased. "And for the other 1%, you've got me. I think it works."

"You know, even if it's only the one percent? I'm glad that's the case," Nikolai replied, allowing himself a moment to be just flat-out frank about it. "You're one of the very small number of people who could actually take me down if it came to that. You're one of the even smaller number of people who would."

And under a lot of circumstances, that would almost seem like a backhanded compliment. But in this case, it was high praise.

Hell, it was thanks.

"Damn straight I would." It was a both a statement of truth and a promise. "Then I'd kick your butt again for being dumb when you came down off the high."

"And I'd be asking for it," Nick agreed. "You know I'd do my damnedest to do the same, if it came to it."

He couldn't kick her ass on a good day. But he'd figure something out, if it was actually important.

Ass kicking might not even be necessary. "Believe it or not, the one time I came close to losing it? Kaidan didn't have to do anything except except talk to me to get me to stop."

"Even better," Nikolai replied, smiling faintly. "I think I have half a chance, if it comes down to talking. And it was only the one time. Might be a moot point anyway, from here on out."

Might. He put a little more stress on that word.

"Hopefully. But I'm honest enough to admit there's always a chance." A small one, but still a chance.

Another turn, another dark street. "See anything?"

"Nothing," Gorgon sighed, shaking his head. "You wanna take us out to the highway, I think at this point it's probably a safe bet we're not going to find anything exciting here tonight."

Allie gave him her answer by picking up speed and heading towards the interstate. Better hold on Nikolai.

Well, that was answer enough! Nick's grip around her waist tightened a little, and his own answer to the burst of speed was a laugh.

Yeah, he could get behind a night of highway driving. Good choice, Allie.

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Baltimore, Wednesday After Dark

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