open } cause fit hot guys have problems too

[adultwonder]

WHO: Dick and OPEN
WHERE: Nonah: the zoo, rooftops, Fancy Lads Bar & Restaurant
WHEN: mid-late October
WHAT: Dick hates his job, loves animals, and deals with some dead folk. Also, Nightwing, who clearly isn't the same person, hangs around on rooftops. Catch-all, basically.
WARNINGS: dead parents, zombies, the next best thing to a strip bar

Fancy Lads Bar and Restaurant

Dick really needs to find another job.

His uniform, if it can really be called that, features tight leather pants, suspenders, and a bow tie. Not much else. Which provides a big problem, considering his secret identity. He has a lot of scars. Going shirtless can raise a lot of questions. Make-up to hide them is time-consuming and can rub off and raise more questions. Finally, he decides the best way forward is to lean into it. Some people dig scars, right? He hides some, but not all of the real ones, and draws more on as well. He switches up exactly what he does every night and makes sure to have the scars look good, but not so good that they hold up to too much scrutiny. Make it clear some aren't real, let people assume the same goes for the rest. It's not perfect, but it'll do until he has time to find a new job.

He wishes he'd thought to take a stage name, too, but most people don't actually believe Dick is his real name. So that's... lucky. He guesses.

Dick's enough of a showman that he does a pretty good job, and has good enough reflexes that he can generally twist out of the way and avoid people trying to break the "look but don't touch" rules. He smiles and brings people food and hates that this is his life.

Least he gets good tips.

Rooftop

Nightwing still thinks his second power, the one that makes him completely unrecognizable when he wears a mask, is a little redundant. Isn't the whole point of wearing a mask to hide your identity? But it is a power he has, so anyone who doesn't know his Nightwing identity already won't recognize him. Despite the fact that Dick Grayson and Nightwing both have extremely distinctive mullets, they can't possibly be the same person.

Dick patrols the rooftops of Nonah, keeping an eye out for crime. Look up, and you might see his shadow gliding across the sky as he makes his rounds.

When he sees a horde of zombies, he shuts his wings and somersaults down to the ground, landing gracefully in front of whatever innocent (or not so innocent) victims may be threatened.

Zoo

Dick has been stopping by the zoo a lot. It seems like the best compromise between animals constantly finding ways out of their cages to come help him and letting the animals be sad because they can't see him. That's what brings him to the zoo today, where he's sitting in the elephant enclosure, looking at jobs on a tablet while an elephant uses her trunk to play with his hair. Dick taps his stylus against his chin as he thinks.

"I don't know, Viola. I know any of these jobs would be better than what I've got now, but how do I choose?"

Viola doesn't respond, cause Dick can't actually communicate with the animals that love him. But she does twist his mullet with her trunk and yank.

"Ow! Not you too." Dick rubs the back of his head, giving Viola a hurtful glare. "My hair isn't that bad." She continues to yank. "Ow, ow, ow! Okay!"

Viola lets go of his hair and pats his head. Dick sighs, leaning back against her leg. "Why exactly do I keep visiting you?"

Nonah Streets

Dick's walking home, his head newly mullet-less, when he catches a glimpse of two familiar figures in circus costumes. He stops, his breath catching in his throat.

"Mom? Dad?"

The figures are too far away to respond, and anyway, they probably wouldn't recognize him now. He was a lot younger when they died. They keep walking. Before he can think better of it, Dick starts after them. It doesn't make sense... or does it? Considering how many people from similar but slightly different universes he's met, this is just close enough to possible that he has to check it out.

Wildcard

[Choose your own scenario, or poke me on plurk at antivillain for a starter!]

Comments

Zoo

[kid_flash_found]

Bart would never have mentioned it to Gar, but he liked animals. Their lives were so much simpler, and he couldn't help sometimes stopping by the zoo to just watch. Sometimes he'd feed the animals if appropriate food was available, or just sit in the petting zoo and get climbed on by the goats. It was a way to spend time at a slower pace without really feeling like he was wasting anything. The animals were happy, so Bart could be happy, too.

Of course, none of that prepared him for coming across the first Robin hanging out with one of the elephants. Well, his otherworld doppelganger, anyway. But Bart can't help but smile and snap a photo for posterity as her trunk tugs on that absurd hairstyle.

"Hey, Dick," Bart said, figuring that the Bat grapevine probably covered a certain out-of-uniform Kid Flash as much as he had known who and what Dick Grayson being here meant. And Tim had confirmed a bit of it by what he didn't say. But Tim just made him miss the Robin he'd grown up alongside, and it was hard to not resent him a little for not being that guy. At least he had less with Nightwing.

[adultwonder]

Yet another person who knows Dick that Dick doesn't know. Or, he supposes, a stranger who doesn't like him on sight and made a lucky guess with his insult. Either way, Dick just raises an eyebrow.

"Do I know you?"

[kid_flash_found]

"I know your brother. Tim. Both here and back home," Bart said."I think you might know my Cousin Wally."

It was a calculated guess. But he wanted to make a good impression. At least as good as Dick had made on him the first time they'd crossed paths.

Nonah Streets

[helpdesk_hero]

Not very often that he finds a reason to be in Nonah, but work brings him wherever he's needed. At least the tutoring service he works with tends to get him jobs only in Porter Cities, but they do love giving him the run around. And they do it so very, very well. Such as today, David is on his way back from a session with an unruly football jock who refused to pay attention. On his way home when he hears the voice.

There's just enough strain in it for David to sigh and move to stash his satchel under a bush so he can recover it. All these distortions and the way they're working on things around them, it's not safe. Not alone. And he's going to do his best to help whoever this is.

Which means coming around the corner and catching sight of the guy. Someone he doesn't know, but the guy looks distressed.

"Hey, sir? You okay? Everything alright?"

[adultwonder]

Dick's not slowing down. "Everything's great. I just have to catch up with them."

How could it be anything but great when his dead parents are here and alive?

[helpdesk_hero]

Catch up with them? David's eyes cast about, but either his timing is terrible or he's just not seeing it. Which only furthers his concern and David rushes to follow.

"Catch up with who?"

[adultwonder]

"My parents!" He says like it should be obvious. But he supposes this guy might not recognize the Flying Graysons. Even if he were from Dick's world... they've been gone a long time now. "They're here and I have to.... I just have to reach them!"

They're here. Everything will be okay if he can just reach them.

[helpdesk_hero]

Okay that sounds suspicious. But he doesn't have a definite answer for why. Which is a problem.

"You're an imPort then. You can message them on the networks if you lose them. They'd probably look for you."

Nonah Rooftops

[batburgers]

[Jason doesn't spend much time in Nonah. Maurtia Falls and De Chima keep him busy enough, but every once in a while something will come up the pipeline about a deal going down in Nonah, or some group having moved major cities to avoid the scrutiny they were getting elsewhere.

Sometimes the Red Hood needs to remind gangs that packing up and moving to another city won't keep him from finding them. So here he is on a rooftop overlooking a rather small warehouse district near one of the train stations. A train is going through right now, so it's perfect cover for him, letting him get set up in a shadowed corner by a noisy Central Air unit. He's got the digital lens of the rifle he's holding synched with his helmet. It's actually a listening device launcher, one he designed himself, but to someone else who sees it, the gun may not look so innocent.]

[adultwonder]

[Sure does look like a sniper rifle. So now there's a batarang hurling through the air to knock it away.]

[batburgers]

[Jason knows that sound more than enough and can hear it with the sensors on his helmet. He quickly dodges the batarang, rolling across the ground and flipping to his feet easily. He recognizes the guy immediately because it's hard not to in that outfit.]

Can't you see I'm working here, Wing-ding?

[adultwonder]

[Dick narrows his eyes, landing lightly on the roof.]

Yeah, working, sure. But on what?

[batburgers]

[Are they really doing this? Hasn't someone given him the head's up about how Jason runs things?

...Or maybe someone did and that's the problem.]

Look Dickface, I'm just finishing up a case that came here by way of the Falls. It doesn't have anything to do with you.

Nonah Streets (pre-ghosts)

[notafraidofyou]

It's late enough in the afternoon that even if Tim did happen to ditch school in order to practice his shiny new powers along with some skateboarding tricks, no one would be the wiser. He's having a pretty good time, and the locals are teaching him some new ones, when he sees a familiar face walk by.

A familiar face without the familiar hair.

He grabs his skateboard and waves at his new friends over his shoulder, before blinking next to Dick. "Let me guess. Someone was cold, and you donated it as a scarf."

[adultwonder]

Dick rolls his eyes, but at least he's aware enough of Tim's powers that he doesn't jump. He keeps walking.

"Actually, it's your Christmas present. A little early, I know, but you wanted it so badly."

[notafraidofyou]

"Golly, a scarf made of human hair. I'm the luckiest kid alive." He smirks at Dick. "So tell the truth. You lost a fight with a psycho hair murderer, didn't you?"

Rooftop

[by_candlelight]

So okay. She wasn't technically even supposed to be in the area that night - it was a school night, and she still had homework - but she'd been antsy. That usually meant that she just needed to get out and do something. But then, well, the anstiness persisted, and it was raining, so she went to Nonah on a whim.

While there she'd decided to go into some arguably restricted areas, maybe, just possibly, casing them for the future when she may just sneak in, plant a goofy sticker, and get back out. You know. Just casual breaking, entering, and trespassing. For amusement. Normal teen things when you have an urban exploration hobby!

She had sooner expected a police officer than a horde of goddamn zombies. She'd been prepared for police! Zombies? Not so much. So she had simply done what she could and pulled out a glass bottle full of oil and started to look around for something to beat them away with until she could get to the roof or start a fire she could teleport through, or whatever her chosen outcome would be once she was armed with something longer than her forearm.

So colour her surprised when she hears the sound of someone dropping down in front of her and she wheels around to find another person there.

"Please tell me you're not a zombie, because if you are this is going to be awkward."

She was about ready to throw the oil at him depending on the answer, though, really, the costume was a good clue he was probably safe.

[adultwonder]

"Have you met a lot of zombies with good gymnastics skills?"

Because none of these guys seem to have the coordination to do more than lurch forward and moan. He pulls out an array of batarangs and throws them at the zombies. Only one manages to land hard enough and directly enough to destroy the brain. The other two get lodged in shoulders and chests. Nightwing backs up.

"I'm Nightwing. I'm here to help."

[by_candlelight]

"No, but I would not doubt this world's ability to change that," She looked towards the oncoming zombies. "I can definitely use the help." She went back to looking for a weapon until she found what had probably once been a nice 2x4 and was now a partially rotted chunk of wood longer than her arms. "This'll have to do."

"The zombies that were at lake Tahoe were so much more docile compared to these assholes," she said with a grumble before trying to get a good look at her surroundings. "My preference for all of this is to get out of their attack range. Do you work better from a distance too?"