Tracking a Hood

December 17, 2017:

Batman meets with Black Canary to discuss the new players in town, and the upcoming gang war.

An East End Rooftop

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions: Red Hood, Green Arrow, Deathstroke, Nightwing

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

Black Canary got the phone call from the burner that Batman had given her. She had been down in the Canary's Nest at the time, the lair she has for her Canary persona under the florist shop she has for her secret persona. She was doing some research into this man that called himself Red Hood. He moved too fluidly to be the same one as twenty years ago…. could this one be a legacy like she is? Bad guys have legacies too? Lovely.

After getting in costume and then looking over the monitors of the back alley of her shop to be sure there is no one to see her emerge, Canary gets her and her bike on the freight elevator up into the alley. With a roar, her Harley comes to life and she is off for the other edge of town. She drives like a bat out of hell. She loves speed and she loves taking risks, and her bike has been fine tuned to allow both. She parks her bike a block away, setting the security device as she walks away. Into an alley, she climbs a fire escape and then makes her way to the rooftop of the appointed building, using the grappling hooks she and Ollie would use. Ollie. Why did she have to go and think about him again. Dammit.

She's not surprised when Batman isn't there. He's incredibly suspicious about everything, even meetings he himself has asked for. So, she sits on a vent and waits, filing her nails till he arrives.

*

Batman likes to be thorough, it's true. His friends and allies call it 'being incredibly suspicious', but that doesn't bother him. Taking one high altitude pass in the Batwing to do some visual and spectral sweeps of the area for potential tails, it only takes about a minute for Batman to hit the dump switch, tossing Batman out through the bottom of his plane, going into a dive towards one of the skyscrapers of Gotham.

Landing on a protruding column, Batman then jumps off that skyscraper, his cape forming into a rigid glider by neural command as he takes a more controlled dive to the rooftop Black Canary is on…. landing with total silence in Gothams night.

His Voice scrambler is on as he looks around, the battle helmet he was wearing at the dock gone… replaced by his standard jaw cutout one. "I thought Green Arrow would be with you for this. Is he busy?" Batman inquires. No pleasantries from this one.

*

If Batman started using pleasantries, Black Canary would start suspecting something herself. Instead, she just smiles at his curt manner and puts her nail file away in an inside pocket of her leather jacket. "I don't know. Green Arrow and I … are working separately right now. I think he might be in Seattle." That's superhero code for 'Ollie and I are broken up again and I think the weasel is cowering back in his home state.'

Pushing herself off of the vent that she was sitting on, Canary closes the distance between herself and the Bat. "So, you wanted to talk. It's good to have you back. Nightwing and I had our hands pretty full without you. What's the plan?"

*

With the red screens in place, Batman rolling his eyes can't be seen, but the walk he does over to Black Canary is. His cape flutters in the wind as he goes. "With that red helmeted man in play now and being off grid for months, I'm out of date on the players in Gotham. First order of business is to find intelligence on him."

Batman reaches into his utility belt then, and tosses a small circular device down to the rooftop… and a projected 3d image of Red Hood appears. An obvious recording of Batmans fight with the man, from the way he moves and the camera does. From this angle, the sheer speed and skill being demonstrated shows what sort of mastery the Red Hood has that allowed him to go toe to toe with Batman.

"The man is near Deathstrokes level. If I was being serious and not trying to disable the man, this fight would have been a longer battle of attrition, and I would have used my Batclaw more. Instead, I was forced to keep him busy so he wouldn't shoot anymore gang enforcers and leave the rest of you alone."Batman narrates, the recording repeating, "The gangs, by all indications, have started to push out of their usual turf. I'm going to push back, once we have this information. As it is, I have… theories… on who he is, but circumstantial evidence only." Something in his voice is hesitant on the last sentence… like he doesn't want to believe his own theories. "Since the GCPD is being it's usual effective self… it's up to us to do the real work."

*

Black Canary smiles as Batman throws down his toy and the 3D display of the Red Hood is shown. From the toys alone, Canary can tell that whoever Batman is, he's of Green Arrow's level of wealth. She's had her suspicions on who it might be, but professional courtesy has kept her from looking into it. After all, she wouldn't want people knowing who she was either.

"I spoke with the previous Black Canary," she tells Batman. "There was a gang leader known as the Red Hood in her day. He had a liking for guns and killing, but he wasn't nearly this…. athletic." She watches the moves that the man in the red helmet makes and shakes her head. "This is either some copycat, or a legacy of his."

Canary gives Batman a momentary glare as he talks about the effectiveness of the GCPD. "It's not that they don't want to help, Batman. It's that they are in way over their heads. Joker, Penguin, Ivy. Gotham is like a vacation resort for the criminal element with either money or powers. They aren't stupid. Let us vigilante types do the dirty work and they'll play clean-up. And then go home to their loved ones."

*

"I know about him, but it's irrelevant." Batman ignores the correction on the GCPD, "There could be any number of reasons for using that, and he never told us the name he uses. It's probable this is a message, but there if that were the case, this 'Red Hood' would have been more chatty about the past. Instead, he was talking like I should know him."

Batman presses a button on his wrist-comp, then, and the holo-projector flips to a recording from the Batmobiles perspective… the initial drive up and the rubber rounds, along with the batarangs and Batclaw disarming Red Hood. Then, it fast forwards to when Red Hood is forced out of the maze, and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. "It's probable he was League trained, at least, though their MO is usually swords, so if he was, he branched out and learned firearms on his own."

*

Nodding her head to Batman as he claims that her intelligence on the criminal known as Red Hood is a red herring, Black Canary watches the holovid carefully. She may be a pretty decent investigator, but even she knows when someone outshines her like a supernova outshines a star.

"League? Of Assassins?" She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "If their here, there would be more then just the one, wouldn't there? And why would they bother with this weapons deal?" She doesn't know much about the League, having only rumors and hearsay to go by, but what she's heard isn't good.

"So, how can I help?"

*

"League trained. If the League of Assassins itself were here, Gotham would be very different right now, and you and I wouldn't be having this conversation. We'd be out there stopping League soldiers from tearing this city apart." Batman observes, "No, this is more likely a rogue member. Someone trained by them, but frustrated with their policies. That doesn't explain why Ra's is allowing it… but he might not know." Batman muses, before he presses the button on his wrist-comp again, and the holo-projector is turned off, "The shurikens Red Hood uses are custom, so that doesn't tell us anything. I ran their design against all major organizations that use them." Then, Batman pauses a moment, a scowl forming, before he looks over to Black Canary, "Do you have transportation, or do I need to call the Batwing for you?"

*

Black Canary looks thoughtful as Batman continues to explain. League trained, but not of the League itself. It's not like the League to just train people and let them go, so a rogue member makes sense, but how to manage to get out of their iron grip? "I thought the League knew everything that goes on under their roof."

"I have the bike a safe distance away, so I would know I wasn't followed," she tells him, her head tilting to one side. "Call the Batwing for me? Going to show me the world?" She smirks playfully as she teases him, pretty sure the Disney reference is going to go right over his head

*

"I have a robust support network, and even I don't know everything going on in the world. Gotham? I know most of what goes on here, but not the world. Ra's isn't clairvoyant, and doesn't have anyone in the League who is, to my knowledge." Batman continues, before he shrugs, "Could also have gotten that training on the downlow. It's unlikely, but it's happened before. It'd also fit with the rest of it."

Then, his wrist-comp is used once more, and within a few seconds, the Batwing is hovering over the rooftop. "I'll drop you off at your vehicle later. Come here."

If Batman knows the reference, he's ignoring it. Instead, his right forearm aims at the Batwing, and he launches a built in grapnel into the bottom of the aircraft… the floor of the pilot cockpit sliding open to allow for the line to get inside, before he accelerates upwards. Black Canary? A line drops from one of the passenger slots, a small foot platform folding out to allow her to stop onto it. The intent obviously to pull her up to it automatically.

*

Grabbing hold of the line, slipping her boot into the foothold, Canary looks up to watch her ascent. She's never been in the Batwing before. Chalk this up to another experience. Boy, won't her mother be jealous. She finds herself in the passenger seat of the Batwing and nods her head. "Impressive. I take it that wherever we are going is far enough away that we need the speed?"

*

"We need the equipment. I didn't bring the Batmobile for this meeting, and now that we have the time, I'm going to handle another angle I've been meaning to check." Batman informs her as the Batwing is turned in place 140 degrees. Turns out the Batwing handles like a dream. Batman -or whomever built this thing- knows what they're doing, "I didn't have time to do ballistics analysis during the fighting. Now's a good time for it." And it speeds off, Gotham city going by at a quick pace below them… and the engines don't seem to be taxed at all. This bird can fly a *lot* faster if he needs to.

*

Again, Canary's mind at work. Money, skilled at driving and flying, or at least having the tech to make it seem like he does. Okay, yes, she would never ask or pry, but she'd admit to being curious. Probably the detective in her blood, not being able to let a mystery go, even when she has decided it doesn't need to be looked into.

"Ballistics will likely tell us that his guns are custom as well. We may, however, find his ballistics markings on the FBI database that will give us an indication of where he has been before coming to Gotham."

*

"We learn something either way." Batman finishes the thought for her. As they fly, the dock comes into view fairly quickly, before he brings it to a comfortable hover above it. Black Canary can feel the inertia slightly, but the hydraulics in the cockpit are top notch, at least. "You can drop down the same way, since you don't have a grapnel the Batwing will accept." And then the sounds of Gotham are heard as the floor slides out again and Batman drops down.

*

Black Canary says, "I'll look for bullets. You keep an eye out for fabric or hair remnants? You have better equipment then I do." Grabbing hold of the drop line, sliding her foot into the hold, she winks to Batman before she sinks down the street below. "Meet you down below," she tells him, looking down at the dock. The yellow police tape is everywhere. Unsurprisingly, the cops that are protecting the cordoned off area are nowhere to be found. But, if she was GCPD and saw Batman showing up, she'd likely go investigate a noise on the other part of town too. Well, no. She wouldn't and that's why she could never have followed her father's footsteps and join the GCPD."

*

The Gotham PD is nowhere to be found because Batman called the Commissioner ahead of time. Not that Black Canary would know that. Most of the evidence is left at the scene, too. "I'll check for all of it." Batman notes when Black Canary is down at the docks. The place is shot to hell, and it shows… and there are even shurikens still embedded in containers where the Bat and Red hood fought.

Batman himself is looking over the area now though, a bright glow coming from those red eyes as he examines it, "Particle vision will take some time to sort all of this out…" Batman muses as he brings down one of his gloves, taps his wrist-comp, and starts touching things. "I have a lot of different DNA patterns here, but I doubt any of them are Red Hoods."

*

As Black Canary starts walking about the crime scene, it's pretty clear that she has some knowledge of forensics. She takes out some Ziploc bags from one pocket on the inside of her jacket and tweezers with the other, and finally a pair of latex gloves. If she had known this was going to be a fact finding mission at the docks, she would have brought her kit, but it's in one of the saddlebags built into her Harley.

"Well, there isn't likely to be hair remnants. Not with that helmet on. He was pretty well covered, no skin showing, so we won't find anything there. He was wearing gloves too, wasn't he? So no finger prints… But… boot prints? Or… leather gloves have their own unique print too. If we can get a print of his glove lifted off the shuriken… " She frowns then… "We can find out only where those gloves have been before *IF* they forensics team bothered to record that information."

She carefully grabs one of the shuriken still stuck into a container and slips it into one of the Ziploc, still looking for a bullet for a ballistics study.

*

Mumbling to himself, Batman is looking over the area still. "Boots won't give us much besides his boot size, but it'll help with some theories." Batman notes, before he starts collecting a bunch of stuff from the ground, placing them in a bag, before he turns off those red glowing eyes and heads back to the Batwing, "Whoever he is, he takes pains so his supplies can't be tracked." With that, Batman grapnels his way back to the Batwing.

*

Getting what evidence that she can while still leaving the site as intact as she can for the GCPD, Black Canary goes to follow. "They can also give us weight, but since we've already seen him, you're right. It won't tell us much." She grabs the drop line and rises into the Batwing. "I thought you usually worked alone. Or is this an audition for the role of Robin?" she teases.

*

"This is me acknowledging that I'm not alone in this city. Most people can't keep up with me at all mentally, but more hands in a city this corrupt can't be a bad thing, and I'm willing to concede that point after all the mentoring I've done." Batman concedes as he turns the Batwing around, flying back over to where they were. "I work with the Justice League now, as do you. Sometimes, you can only get something done alone. Sometimes, you need a team, like that Red Lantern business."

*

Black Canary hands over half of the evidence she found, letting Batman know she is keeping the rest to examine on her own. She knows she won't find anything he can't find on his own, but it's a puzzle and she wants to see what she can find, even if he'll find all the same puzzle pieces she will. And probably in a fraction of the time too. "I grew up in Gotham. To be honest, I'm glad I'm not the only one doing this. Gotham would be a much sadder place without you and your family." Twenty years ago, it's quite likely that the original Black Canary was one of the few costumed crime fighters in Gotham. "Keep me posted about what you find. You know how to get a hold of me."

*

"It makes me sad that Gotham needs Batman and the Robins at all." Batman notes, before he sets the Batwing to hover over her motorcycle. "We'll talk later." Batman gives in reply as Black Canary drops down. Once she's clear, the Batwing takes off, into parts unknown.

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