Oh, my knight in black leather

[heliophilic]

WHO: The Midnighter and Rupert von Hentzau
WHERE: Mooney's Alehouse, a gay bar in Nonah
WHEN: Beginning of September
WHAT: Rupert finally meets the leather man of his dreams
WARNINGS: Violence? Rupert? Will update as/if necessary

[Were Rafael not a close asset and good friend, M might believe that the bartender for the first floor of Mooney's Alehouse was mocking him. M sits up at the bar, a familiar duffel bag under his feet, while Rafael works, trying hard to ignore the throngs of people surrounding him. It isn't the fact that the bar was more crowded than usual that M was trying to ignore, but rather the bar's preferred choice of clothing. Of all the nights Rafael could have called him here, it was on "leather night."

Decidedly one of the few people not currently in some form of leather anything, M sticks out in his white button-up shirt and jeans. The bourbon in his hands helps, but as he can't get drunk, it's a temporary distraction at best.

Finally, Rafael has a moment to swing back over to M's side of the bar.]

Rafa, you know I like you, but this is a bit much.

["It wasn't on purpose, I swear," the bartender replies with a sheepish grin, knowing the other man's supposed reputation all too well. "But I need your help."]

So you've told me. What's up?

[Because Rafael wouldn't have called him if something wasn't seriously wrong.]

Comments

[heliophilic]

[For a brief second, M's eyes dart in the direction of Rupert before returning back to the fight. It gets him back on target just in time to dodge one of the remaining ones spit some sort of sticky goo at him.]

You kiss your mother with that mouth?

[Rather than spit at him again, the goo guy changes targets to attack the bar, while a stone-skinned attacker rushes M. He catches the guy's grip in his hands and starts to grapple him backwards.]

[leatherboots]

[ Now that he's been spotted there's no real point in hiding; Rupert slams a hand on the bar top and vaults neatly on top of it to take a stand and survey the scene all the more clearly. It draws attention to him, sure, but Rupert likes attention. Even from goo-spitting villains.

With a swordsman's keen reflexes he jerks aside as a gob of sticky liquid flies past him, aimed at the space where his portal-casting shoulder had been moments ago. With a fiendish grin he throws out his hand and yanks it sharply across once again, portalling the villain to land directly on top of the first one he'd dumped on the dance floor, who was starting to struggle to his feet. The pair slam together, the second on top of the first, and they go quiet. ]

Watch your step, [ Rupert calls breathlessly to M; there are now two large squares of empty space on the floor: the left-open portals, that Rupert is conveniently leaving there just in case they're at all helpful. ]

[heliophilic]

[M's eyes dart from the 3 conscious assailants--the gun guy wisely not removing the knife in his hand while he nurses it, the spluttering, bleeding firebreather with shards of glass sticking out of his face, and the man with the stone skin that he currently avoids with a well-placed side-stepped paired with a burst of super speed, to Rupert, to his portals. The computer runs through a variety of different scenarios and plays out a variety of conclusions, some (most) more fatal than the others.

Even if he wasn't playing nice for the sake of the import community as a whole, these idiots didn't deserve to die for this.]

You make too much noise, you know that?

[M says, ostensibly to the stone-skinned man as he reorients himself for another charge.]

Sometimes there is merit to the subtle approach.

[Like the Roadrunner to Wile E. Coyote (not that M would know the reference), he once again side-steps the stone skin man, this time first faking him out with a feint, letting him fall right into one of Rupert's portals. But at the exit of said portal, a large, golden portal appears beneath it, and exits perpendicular to the floor. The result leads the stone skinned man to drop into one portal, only to slide out of the other one, where his momentum knocks over and traps the man with the knife hand and the firebreather beneath his weight.]