overjoyed_logs | [closed] no offence

Entry tags:

dc comics | carrie kelley

[closed] no offence

Who: Kara & Carrie
Where: Westerley
When: Week 2; Day 1
Summary: How did Kara get an apprentice this is ridiculous
Restrictions/Warnings: violence at some point probably, talk of non-consensual experimentation

[It's been a long, shitty week and the last thing Kara wants to do is get involved in any more bullshit, but Kara has a string of contacts she's asked to keep an eye out for certain names and faces, so when one of them hits her up with information, she has to follow it up.

This isn't quite the kind of thing she'd usually get Carrie involved with, but she knows that with Kara's little trip off-world, the kid is going to be itching for something to do, and a trade like this is relatively low risk. Kara's still getting used to having to consider someone else when it comes to her side job, mostly because she'd gotten used to doing almost everything alone. Relying on people is a mistake, and having someone rely on her is even worse. But Carrie is the type who's going to get into trouble regardless of whether Kara is involved or not; at least this way she can look out for her.

(She doesn't acknowledge the fact that Carrie reminds her of some of the younger soldiers who used to be under her command).

A text is sent with an address - a couple of blocks away from where Kara is due to meet her contact - and a time, so all she has to do is wait for Carrie to show up.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Wow, a couple bays away, not even gonna trust her to be right next door? But the caution is noted, if nothing else. She glances up to meet Kara's gaze as it finds her, and lies with as straight a straight face as has ever lied: ]

You got it.

[ And hey, maybe she won't need to show it's a lie. Maybe Kara comes out of this just fine, and Robin's kept the distance she promised. ]

[This is a bad idea and Kara is starting to wonder if it's actually worth it, but she's here now and she needs to know if she's in danger.]

Don't be seen.

[With that final word, Kara slips through a gap in the fence and heads towards the bay where Niels' ship is, drawing the gun from the back of her jeans and clicking off the safety, ready for whatever happens. The first guard she comes across isn't paying enough attention and so she snaps his neck without making a sound, lowering him gently to the ground to avoid a thud. They're wary, but not overly so, and it leads Kara to suspect that the doctor doesn't know she's here.

Which means she could leave right now, but that won't tell her why he is here, if it's not for her. If the Einherjar are reaching towards Westerley, she'd like to know.

The second guard doesn't even see her, allowing her to slip into the ship where she quickly and silently disposes of a third man. The ship is small, Niels is through the next door, hidden slightly from view of the guards outside, and there's only the pilot with him.

Both of them fall silent when Kara points her gun at Niels.

Kára. He looks surprised, but his voice is as cold as ever. So this is where you ended up. Have you decided to come back home?

She demands to know why he's here, and Niels only smiles before launching into a spiel about co-operation with the Company and aligning interests and their important work and it isn't until Kara hears footsteps behind her that she realizes he's distracting her. The worst part is that she fell for it, her curiosity got the better of her.

Without hesitating, she shoots both Niels and the pilot (she hates to kill someone just for taking the wrong job, but she can't afford witnesses), diving down to avoid the retaliating shot from the guard behind her. A bullet clips her leg, sending a shot of pain through her that she ignores in favor of rolling as she lands, turning her gun on the guard and shooting him in the chest.

The commotion is enough that she knows she has to leave now.

Darting out the door, Kara barrels past another guard and hopes he won't realize what's happened until she's cleared enough distance, not wanting to get into a gun fight out in the open. More importantly, though, she looks upwards, hoping to spot a sign of Carrie.]

[ The sound of gunshots, muffled but unmistakable from inside Niels's ship, had just about killed her. She abandoned her post in that first instant, of course she did, and now it's Niels's ship she's darting along the top of instead. But Kara reappears just as she'd been considering finding an entry, thank god, and her on-the-fly plans change yet again.

She races along the top of the ship just a few paces behind Kara at its base, with her slingshot out and already loaded. It's the explosive pellets loaded up, but she's got a couple smokes in hand too. Just in case. She doesn't look at Kara, too busy keeping her attention sharp on anyone around the woman that might be taking too violent an interest in her.

And — there, the guard just heading out the interior of the ship, he's got his gun out and taking aim. Robin doesn't even stop running, doesn't have to; she just twists, fires off a hit, and keeps up her dash.

The shot hits at his feet, loud and bright. He'll get a couple burns, sure, but more important is everyone who's gonna look at him and not at Kara — and his shot that doesn't get fired and isn't likely to, what with the barrel waving all wild like that.

She's grinning, like she always does when things get loud and quick. Man she loves this part. ]

[This is bad; a handful of guards appear from god knows where and Kara still can't risk firing a single shot, not when there's a few of the Company men coming to investigate the commotion.

This was stupid.]

Cover!

[The word is shouted up at Carrie, the meaning clear. They need some smoke to hide their escape.]

[ Oh, it's definitely clear. She catches the slingshot's pouch on its rebound and drops one of the three pellets ready in her palm into it. The next shot an instant later is silent, but comes with an explosion of purely smoke. It fills the area in seconds, helped along by two more shots of the same.

With her bird's eye view, Robin's still got a pretty good handle on the situation. She fires off two more shots, the bright and flashing kind, into the faces of two men looking ready to take their chances and fire into the smoke from the edge of the expanding cloud, and changes their minds.

She taps the piece behind her ear once to bring the channel to life, sending down a quick: ] Straight ahead 'n left, still clear.

[ By now she's out of ship, which doesn't stop her. A flying leap and a sharp twist through the air has her landing on the next over, gaining her a little more running ground. Her eyes trace a quick path up into the beams of the ceiling for even more mobility, if need be. That part depends on where Kara's headed. ]

[The instructions and distractions are both appreciated, though Kara stops for a brief second when she realizes that one of the guards, blinded by the flashbangs, is shooting up towards where Carrie was. The smoke might make it hard to see, but Kara isn't risking Carrie catching a stray shot, so she quickly eases a knife out of her boot and throws it back at the guard, catching them in the shoulder.

With that taken care of, she heads to their bikes, slipping through the same gap in the fences that got her in. There's blood dripping down her leg but that doesn't stop her hopping on her bike. What stops her from taking off, though, is Carrie.

The last thing Kara's going to do is leave her.]

[ Back to the bikes it is. She hasn't been spotted, as far as she can tell, except by the guy Kara kindly took care of — so she vaults herself a few stories higher with the help of a couple different docked ships, and hits the rafters running. From there it's a straight shot to an outside facing window, a few slides and a creative swing across and down rooftop, and she leaps the last ten feet to end it in a roll and pop up with a grin.

Any cool one-liners she might've had in mind falter when she spots some bloodstain on Kara's leg. Her stare only lasts a few instants, though, then she swings a leg over her own bike to gun it after Kara's.

There's going to be time for concern later. Finishing off a solid escape comes first. ]

[They have a headstart and Kara plans to take full advantage of it now that she's sure Carrie is safe; her bike is fast, but she relies more on knowing the streets than on speed. She has faith in Carrie being able to keep up, though she does toss the occasional glance over her shoulder to make sure Carrie's still with her.

After about fifteen minutes and a certainty they haven't been followed, Kara changes course to head back to her apartment. Another five minutes puts them in the garage beneath her apartment block, Kara cutting the engine with a sigh.]

Fuck!

[It's a rare burst of anger, punctuated by Kara slamming her fist against the handlebars. It's only the knowledge that she'd break the damn thing that stops her from getting off the bike and throwing it against a wall.]

[ Carrie eases her bike in after Kara's, still running pretty high on exhilaration. The last five minutes, sure by then that they weren't followed, were good for a start of a comedown, but not enough. No, enough is Kara's outburst, leaving her as concerned as it does wildly curious.

She's quiet on her bike beside Kara for a few seconds, watching, before she swings off, sets the stand, and heads over. ]

Let's see it. [ That's with a gesture toward her leg and eyes downcast toward it. If Kara wants to talk, she'll have plenty of opportunity while they deal with this. ]

[It's almost automatic, the way Kara shakes her head to dismiss the concern, only vaguely registering that Carrie's going to be in for a shock when she realizes the wound will already be partly healed.]

Just a graze.

[But she doesn't move, instead scrubbing a hand over her face as she tries to get herself to calm down.

The results are debatable.]

Are you okay? You didn't get hurt?

'M fine.

[ She's always fine — and if she weren't fine, it'd be some slip up and fault of hers, and she'd deal with it.

But regarding Kara, if she's not going to move to make this easier, Carrie will just drop to a crouch next to the bike in front of the leg in question. Seeing as Kara probably doesn't want to go pants off in a garage, she settles for a brief examination through whatever gash has been left in the fabric of them. Just to see what level of aid they're looking at, here. ]

[She considers pulling her leg away, stalking off and leaving Carrie here, but she's not that cruel and something tells her they're going to have to have this conversation sooner or later.

Beneath the torn denim, the wound is pink rather than the bright red to be expected from a half hour old bullet wound, and the blood is barely a trickle.

She'll be fine.]

[ At first she's not quite sure what she's seeing. She must have the wrong leg, this is an old cut. But — the blood stain on denim is still there. This was definitely bleeding not twenty minutes ago. Her hand had been halfway to the pouch that holds the gauze and disinfectants, but she pauses when she realizes there's really no need for it.

The sight gets a few seconds of consideration then, thoughtfully, she drops her hovering hand and leans back on her heels, shooting a look up at Kara.

There's a lot of questions in that look, but none of them make it into voice. They don't need to. She has enough faith in Kara to trust she knows exactly what Carrie's wanting to know. ]

The doctor's legacy. Nanites.

[It answers two questions, both of which she knows are inevitable because Carrie is almost insatiable when curiosity is concerned, and eventually she was going to ask about what happened at the dock.]

[ She watches Kara for a few seconds more, judging, considering. Then her gaze drops back down again to her leg, where it borders on appreciative. ]

Handy. [ Among other things. She rises from her crouch again, back once more to watching Kara. ] Gonna guess he added a couple other tweaks.

[ No one gets this level of pissed over miraculous healing nanites. ]

[At some point being Carrie looking at her and that unspoken question, Kara realizes this was inevitable. If she was going to keep working alongside Carrie, there was no way to keep all this a secret forever; either Carrie would accidentally brush against the wings at some point, or Kara would need to make use of them.

What she's less certain of is whether she can trust Carrie. This isn't like Ginshu, where she had an equally terrible secret to hold over his head, and there's a difference between trusting Carrie to work well and trusting her with this.

Kara pinches the bridge of her nose, frustrated, and then mentally switches off the cloaking device. Her wings are folded tight against her back, though they don't fit quite properly against her small frame, and the white feathers are dirty in places. She takes better care of them than she does most things, but Westerley isn't that clean.]

[ Although she doesn't make a sound, the instant Carrie's eyes discover the sudden addition and land on Kara's wings, they go wide. There's a silent breath taken in, a lip bitten, and instantly she shifts around Kara for a better view of them at her back.

She's not sure what to make of them, really, or why in the world a doctor would want to give someone wings, but she does know: they are cool as hell. It's entirely possible she's never seen anything this awesome before, actually.

She's got a hand outstretched without even realizing she'd moved, but pauses it before it makes any contact. ]

Can I touch 'em?

[Her first instinct is to say no, because they're more brittle than the rest of her and she doesn't like testing how well they heal, but she's... she's pretty sure Carrie isn't going to do anything stupid.

So she shrugs, the wings lifting a little as her shoulders do.]

If you want.

[ She definitely does want. Her touch is careful, fingers light against the feathers as if she were stroking the wing of a tiny, fragile bird. Well, they're not some kind of hologram — not that she'd really thought they were. Suddenly the way Kara stands off, her insistence on getting Carrie her own bike rather than sharing, all starts to make sense.

And though she's typically a pretty quiet kid, preferring to watch than ask, there comes a time for questions. Now is definitely that time. ]

What do they feel like? [ No, wait, she's thought of a better one. ] Can you fly? [ Hang on, better yet: ] Could we fly?

[It's the first time in over a year that anyone has touched Kara's wings, and for some reason a part of her expects to hear the caw of a raven to accompany the touch on her feathers, but she dismisses the thought.]

Heavy. Yes. Maybe, if there's a good wind.

[All three questions are easy enough to answer, though the first isn't entirely true.]

[ Heavy is a little boring of an answer, but yes and maybe are the best things she's heard all day. Her face lights into an enormous grin as she swings back around to face Kara directly. ]

Can we? [ A beat, and quickly: ] I mean — not now. When there's a good wind.

[ A noise further down the garage tugs her back into a more businesslike mode, though, and she steps quickly away to head back for her bike. If Kara made those wings appear as suddenly and effortlessly as she did, she's not concerned that she can make them disappear again in the same way. And the sooner they're back in Kara's apartment, where she can resume her delighted interrogation, the better. ]

[They're heavy is easier for Carrie to hear than they hurt, which is the same reason she's hesitant to offer an attempt at flying. The sound is a welcome interruption; the wings disappear and Kara climbs off her bike to wheel it the last couple of feet into the cage she had put in. It'd taken a little bribery for the landlord to okay it, but she feels better about putting their bikes behind a lock, when Westerley's the way it is.]

Don't get your hopes up, alright? I ain't tested it with someone else, but we'll try.

[She's carried things, but nothing as heavy as a person.]

[ Oh, her hopes are definitely up. She looks delighted, but has the good grace to do it quietly, head ducked down as she walks the bike into their cage. She's recovered and again back to her usual cool headed self by the time they make it to the stairwell. She stands with hands pocketed, like she's not bursting with about a million questions.

Once they make it to Kara's apartment, though, all bets are off. As soon as the door closes behind them, rounding to face Kara again: ]

How long have you had 'em? And — what do they look like all spread out, how big do they get?

[As always, the door is locked behind them, paranoia a familiar comfort for Kara. Unlike their usual debriefing routine, though, Kara would like to a) clean the blood off herself and b) change pants.

Luckily she can multitask, pulling off her boots as Carrie asks questions.]

About two years, I guess.

[She lost of track of time for a little bit, while she was travelling, but that seems about right.

The other two questions are answered without words. Kara moves so she's in the center of the room, then stretches her wings out as far as they can go in the slightly-cramped space. They're still bent slightly at the joint, but it's clear they're almost twice as wide as she is tall.]

[ Thanks Kara, she looks delighted all over again. She moves immediately to one of them, and this time doesn't stop to ask if she can touch. She's just as careful as before though, tracing a finger down one of the longer flight feathers. They're beautiful goes unsaid, but can be seen plainly in her face. ]

And you — don't like these? [ Since they'd been the answer to what else the doctor did... it makes no sense, though, as her perplexed glance over says. ]

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