driftfleet

Who: Jason Todd, and whoever wants to bother him.
Broadcast: None
Action: VRD // Waystation
When: 4/21, in the wee hours of the morning // 4/27, mid-afternoon.

{{ It's two, two, two events in one! The first will be a lovely VR romp through Gotham at night, set up for his new friends, but open to anyone who feels like crashing the party. The second, taking place a week later in honor of Jason's Death Day (4/27), will involve a lot of alcohol. OMG SO MUCH ALCOHOL. And as many fights as he can get away with starting at the nearest Waystation. }}

[ For the moment, half of the VRD has been turned into a little slice of Gotham, all gargoyle-encrusted skyscrapers and gothic splendor. There's a full moon overhead, and only the smallest shreds of cloud. Between that and the ambient light from the city, visibility's pretty good. It's a gorgeous summer night, and Jason's relaxing for the first time since he got here.

It's a cheap trick, but he's willing to be soothed by this little taste of home, especially since this place should allow him to run the way he's used to. He even went out of his way to pick a time when there would be less competition for the space, and less chance of someone turning his city into a beach mid-jump.

Robins need to fly, after all. ]

[A week later: Jason hasn't had a chance to earn much money yet, but he's spent some of the past week working security, picking up what he can. And now that he's got money to put towards things not a ship upgrade, he's gone and spent it on alcohol.

Yes, all of it.

This isn't a good day for him. This is the day that Jason Todd, Age 15, got beaten nearly to death with a crowbar and then blown up. He's been increasingly keyed up over the past couple of days, the nightmares getting more frequent, and generally he's been feeling like there's a scream trapped in his throat, getting louder and louder...

So obviously, the solution is no sleep, and lots of alcohol. He's got a few bottles of something that might be space vodka, or might be industrial strength engine degreaser with a vodka label half-assedly slapped on the bottle. It tastes foul, either way. He's sitting in the central courtyard of the waystation, already halfway through the first bottle. When not sending drunken text messages with his communicator, he's been harassing random people. ]

Hey, you. Yeah, you.

Fight me.

[ Is he talking to you? A random passerby? A potted plant and/or especially lifelike bit of statuary? YOU BE THE JUDGE. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nah, it's a friendly barfight.

...Or it would be if there was a bar. I'm makin' do.

[ He puts the bottle down and gets to his feet. This takes him a moment, and there's a bit of a wobble when he does, but... Ah, there. He finds his balance, and drops into a fighting stance. The Batman's paranoia extended to making sure his Robins knew how to fight impaired, just in case someone tried to drug them, and that's a skill he's planning on making use of today. ]

You get first punch. Wanna be sure I'm not hitting anyone who's not looking to get hit. [ He makes a little 'come at me' gesture, grinning in a way that's not entirely sane. ]

[ She raises an eyebrow at the wobble. Not surprising, if he's been drinking that much, but she does wonder a little if he'll even manage to throw a punch without toppling over. ]

How very gentlemanly of you.

[ But hey, the kid wants a barfight, Carol will give him a barfight. She matches his grin with one of her own, somewhat less psychotic, and swings for the side of his head - it's gentle for her, barely more than a lovetap, but enough that it'll set his ears ringing if it connects. ]

Happens on occasion that I am a gentleman.

[ And they're off. He dodges the first punch, but not without overbalancing... But fine. Use the momentum, don't fight it. He rolls, comes up, and she's conveniently in reach, so HERE COMES A FIST, right at her stomach. ]

[ Carol lets him have the hit. It doesn't seem to hurt her at all, and it might be more like hitting a wall than a person, but he can have it. She uses the proximity to aim another punch at his side, doing her very best not to break a rib or something.

When was the last time she sparred with anyone more breakable than Captain America? It's probably been too long. ]

[ Between the brick wall feeling of punching her, and the fist that slams into his side too fast to stop, he's starting to get the feeling superpowers are in play, here. Awesome.

He knows how to take a hit, and she's obviously holding back, so he just moves to absorb the force of the blow and tries to get some distance between them. ]

Kryptonian? Or home-grown super powers? I never can tell.

[ With Bruce's training, he might be able to take someone super-powered when he's sober. Fight smarter, not harder, and all that. But he's not sober.

...As it happens, he's not that interested in winning, either. Though her ability to take a pounding means that he doesn't have to hold back. Which means he can run on pure instinct, instead of keeping it friendly and nonlethal.

This could be fun. ]

[ Carol grins, letting him back off a little without pursuing just yet. She's not sure what a Kryptonian is, and she'll probably ask later, but she can guess at his meaning. ]

Kree, actually. You still want to do this?

[ Jason's not sure what the hell a Kree is, but okay, good. Powers of nonhuman origin.

That doesn't change what he's here for: a fist still feels different than a crowbar. Blood still tastes different when it's gushing from a broken nose or a split lip than it does when it's bubbling up from the back of his throat. New pain overwrites the memory of the old, reminds him where and when he is, and that he's not dying in a warehouse or waking up screaming in his coffin. ]

Yeah. I still want to do this. [ He grins. ] Besides, you being all super-whatever means I don't have to hold back. ...Not that it'll do shit for my accuracy, so for all I know you knock me out ten seconds from now and we laugh about it later, but it's reassuring anyway.

[ Once upon a time, his trained reaction was to avoid the moves that would kill, would maim, would cause crippling pain. Batman trained his Robins to subdue, and that was it.

He's spent a lot of time recently retraining those reactions, getting past the last lingering bits of old training that would make him shy away from the lethal moves.

When he comes at her again, he's not fucking around. She can shake off a fist to the gut? Let's try pressure points. Applied leverage. Exploit the design flaws in the humanoid shape, tap into all those reactions trained too deep for even terrible maybe-vodka to wipe out completely.

As he said, his accuracy's for shit, but he's hitting harder, faster, and with no hesitation. Maybe a few strikes will connect. ]

[ Oh. He's good. Still very drunk, but underneath the effects of the alcohol, she can tell he's got some serious skill. Carol's a brawler - you don't really need much technique, usually, when you're as strong and indestructible as she is - but she's trained with Cap and Black Widow and Iron Fist, and she knows real talent when it's coming at her.

Sometime, maybe, she'll have to see what he can do sober.

She's still moving slowly, careful with her strikes, and that leaves her plenty open to his attacks. Hard as she is to hurt, she's still human-sized, and no heavier than that implies - unless she's digging her heels in and using her powers, a hard enough hit or a good throw can send her flying just as easily.

Eventually, that's exactly what happens, Carol landing on her back not quite hard enough to knock the breath out of her. She lies there for a moment, a little startled, and then laughs as she pushes herself up on one arm. ]

This isn't your first time fighting a superhuman, is it?

[ It's the laughter that reminds Jason that, even if he has the brakes off, this is a friendly fight, and he gives her space to pick herself up. ]

You called it. Mostly I go up against ordinary humans -- crazy, but mostly ordinary -- but my old partner was the kind of guy who trained his sidekicks to go up against anything and everything.

[ She raises an eyebrow as she pushes herself up. Heroes in her universe don't do sidekicks so much - none of them have ever been able to forget Bucky, even since he came back - but making sure the kids they can't stop are that prepared doesn't sound like a bad idea to her. ]

Smart man. Wish I taught my kid as well.

[ His mouth curls up into something too broken to be a smile. ]

Yeah. He left some holes in his training, but the stuff that would keep you alive? Not one of them.

Of course, if you decide the "trust no one" philosophy is bullshit and decide to trust the wrong person... you're dead no matter how much training you have.

002

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