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eyrieofsynapses · 3 years

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so today I just watched the first episode of Almost Paradise! And I’ve gotta say, I am impressed. I already had it on my watchlist but I was planning to wait to watch it for a while until I could let Eliot fade a bit from memory, just so I wouldn’t automatically think of him while watching Kane. But I ran into an article this weekend about how it was filmed in the Philippines and the details of that, and my curiosity was piqued considerably more, so I figured... why not?

(I also started White Collar this weekend and that was very enjoyable, but that’s a post for another day.)

Anyway, my brain’s buzzing now, so have some first impressions and reactions, plus initial meta-analysis because I am intrigued. In hindsight I probably should have recorded first impressions while I was watching, but I’ll do my best to remember the bits that stuck out. Warning for... exceedingly long post.

ooo, okay, so he’s got a medical condition. I faaaaintly remember reading about this in the summary but I didn’t pay much attention to that, oops.

telling a guy played by Chris Kane not to get his heartrate up! that’s definitely gonna happen. definitely. one hundred percent. not like this guy loves fighting or anything

(also tbh the joke about, ah, sexual dysfunction admittedly left a sour taste in my mouth, because I do not go for that kind of thing, but... this is Devlin and Kane, so I’m trusting, based off Leverage experience, that they aren’t gonna be too inappropriate. [In hindsight there are actually interesting meta reasons for this so the sour taste has dissipated somewhat.])

this poor doctor. she’s so done with him.

...he’s definitely not gonna pay attention to the monitor is he

that journal’s gonna get zero use oop

(I was duly impressed when he actually did use it later)

huh, liking how we immediately dive into the effect tourism has had on the Philippines. so we’re getting some commentary here too? I can deal with that

...wow. bad shop. eek

I’m sorry but I am loving the touch with the floorboards and such breaking beneath Alex. the look on his face is just perfect

and the monitor goes off! for tbh the last reason I expected it to first go off for, excellent

MOTORCYLE? did they give him a motorcycle?!

awww no it’s the baddies who have the motorcycle :(

hmm this should be interesting. loving the look of this leader guy tho

--aaaand good asthetic guy is dead! with an ice pick! creepy and creative!

bar. no way this could go wrong

internal battle! understandable that Alex wants out, buuuuuuut if he’s anything like I suspect he is--

--yup, picking a fight, with a damn pool cue--

--not picking a fight?

...picking a fight. by being friendly. *sigh*

yuuuuuuuup. that’s definitely good for your heart

badass fighting scene! with a pool cue, that’s a new one! love seeing Kane take ordinary objects and turn them into fighting tools

(ngl this had Eliot vibes. that said I am thrilled to see how damn good these fight scenes are and this is making me even more excited for Redemption)

aaaaaaaaaand oh fuck this was a police setup. which. I actually did not see coming, huh

ahahah they’re pissed! because he messed up their bust? or because he just saved their asses?

...probably technically the former but I suspect the latter is also true

refusing to get Involved being foreshadowed by his indecision earlier! of course he’s going to get Involved anyway, only question is how

“hitter” I SEE YOU. I SEE YOU AND YOUR REFERENCES. I SEE YOU DEVLIN AND KANE

pfffffffffffFFFFFT the meditation, oh gods

that voice. oh Alex.

I genuinely cannot tell if this is him actually trying or if this is him begrudgingly making an attempt because he has to

lacquering(?) the doors, which, hey, actually look pretty nice--this place is gonna look good when it’s done isn’t iii--

oh fuck Alex is being attacked

(this is definitely something to be concerned about. yes. totally. not like we haven’t already seen him take down a bunch of guys.)

with a garrot! this is definitely totally not how he’s gonna get Involved

oh my gods the detail with the paint. nothing says Competent like getting irritated at how the baddie interrupted your house restoration

hehehehe Involved

oooh, hmm, he thinks they sent the guy after him? what kind of corruption has Alex faced? I mean it’s not an unreasonable fear, but jeez, it sounds like this has happened to him before. doesn’t say much good about the DEA...

huh, this is a level of disturbed I haven’t seen from Kane before. which, granted, I have only seen him in Leverage, but I’ve never seen him pull this out before. the voice crack is an excellent touch

also, worth noting, Alex is definitely a notable level of... hmm, paranoid? this is just a tad bit frantic, though that’s understandable from a guy who almost got killed while in the middle of an attempted meditation

oh god being cocky in the middle of a briefing. poor Kai

--being cocky and competence porn! of course he takes the watch and turns it into a lesson

...he must be a hell of a teacher

(also, bonus points for actually using the journal. maybe he’s taking this health thing more seriously than I thought he would?)

may I repeat: COMPETENCE PORN

uh-huh, you’re so not involved, definitely, Alex, not like you’re gonna get pulled straight into this or anything

Ernesto is just watching to see how things play out, Kai is... trying to do things the right way, and Alex...

...Alex gives precisely zero fucks. buddy you are so not subtle

right, walking straight into the lion’s den! radiating confidence! terrifying

this is a disturbing level of truth he’s sharing for this lie. I mean, best lies are crafted from truth, but... jeez

hm. so is Alex also a “I don’t like guns” type guy?

(probably not for the same reasons as Eliot doesn’t [his is definitely more in the “they make it too easy to kill” department whereas I would guess Alex has either more tactical or PTSD reasons], but, hmm. this is something to watch for)

(did they know they were bringing back Leverage when they set up Almost Paradise? I’m genuinely wondering if they didn’t write some Eliot traits into Alex specifically bc they knew Kane missed playing him)

this is a fantastically confident level of grifting--what exactly did he do in the DEA, precisely?

...ah. cool asthetic guy. stuffed in the freezer. gotta admit, I definitely didn’t see that one coming. creepy!

(and it looks like you actually managed to shake Alex a little, hah)

aaaaaand in the meantime we have Kai following his advice! in an... interesting way. hm.

(surprisingly this does not annoy me that much in hindsight. not sure why)

and understandably, this does not go over well! except, oh, fuck, DEA guy. this ain’t gonna be good

...worse. worse than I thought. what happened to you, Alex? former partner? whaaat

“attacks”?

this gonna be the typical “traumatized white dude has Anger Attacks” type thing?

honestly I immediately went “probably not” given how it was handled in Leverage. wasn’t sure though. but that does leave the question of what sort of attacks? it doesn’t seem like it’d be meltdowns, so what does that leave?

hmmm. DEA guy is an Ass. we Do Not Like him. I’ve known Alex for less than half an hour but you do not do that to him. you do not use trauma against your guy, Jerkface.

cutting a deal? this should be interesting

...well shit. I. am sincerely hoping Kai isn’t about to walk in on anything too bad

this definitely isn’t gonna be a fight though, that I called right off the bat

--bottles. dammit

oh, Christ. attempted OD or just drunk?

just drunk! good! well, very Not Good, but better than the other thing

pffffft dunking him in the water and then him going straight back to the water when he sees her, that is both absolutely hilarious and deeply concerning

aaand I’m agreeing with Kai but also, poor guy just got confronted with a hell of a lot of things that would raise his trau--

...mm. yeah. that’d be it.

...I. was. not expecting that much backstory info straight off. holy cow, Alex. that is. messed up. someone get this man a hug

“one of the guys that cared too much”

(...like you?)

(or is that why you won’t let yourself care now?)

fuck, there was a lot more to that boat scene than I thought. ow

partner who betrayed him like that? I’m just. gods.

Trust Issues is definitely gonna be a Thing isn’t it

can we just take a second to appreciate how Christian Kane is playing the absolute hell out of this character

aaaand Kai brings him back to the city for a Heartwarming Reminder of why he was in the game! this is very tropey but it is, as John Rogers has pointed out, an instance of the “well-worn writing tool” rather than feeling cheesy!

holy crap Kai has lost. a lot of people. oh man

ahahahaha classic “why did you bring me here?” line! you know why, Alex. you know why

oh, and Ernesto gets a chance to help him out! I’m already enjoying this so much

awww and Kai shows up to help encourage him! with coffee! supportive friend and very obvious but honestly okay love interest! good!!!

(what the heck is with Devlin and his crew and sticking Kane with two besties? based on Ernesto’s dynamic with him I’m guessing this isn’t gonna be an OT3 but. I am loving the trend)

“I’m gonna regret this in the morning” pfft

huh, working with the DEA agents. not like he’s gonna go off script or anything. that’s totally not gonna happen is it

hehe irritated look while they’re putting on the mic. he is so very unimpressed

--”little episodes”--episodes?

moment of appreciation for the un-forced-feeling diversity in these police squads

“how’s the anxiety?” I’m sorry what

hold up, when we say “episodes”--are we talking panic attacks? does Alex have actual goddamn anxiety?

...actually with PTSD? that would make complete sense. I am... intrigued. I am really hoping that that’s the case, actually, because having seen how well they handled Parker and her PTSD in Leverage (as well as Nate’s and Eliot’s) I have a lot of faith that they could pull that off really well, actually. That would be good.

ppFFFT TAKING OFF THE WIRES RIGHT OFF THE BAT

wait what. you’re telling them everything? what’s your game here?

“get that frikkin gun outta my face!” yup, not a fan of guns! no disarming though? huh

(also can we just. appreciate how Kane manages to make “frikkin” sound just as much like the cuss it’s replacing?)

(LET ALEX SAY FUCK)

oh. OH

hi Ernesto! hi Kai! I see what y’all doing

ohhhhhhhhhh Alex you goddamn genius. Getting rid of all of the drugs so there’s no way the precise thing he was claiming to be doing can happen. I like this

THE MEDITATION COMING ON ON THE RECORDING I CAN’T--OH MY GODS

Alex please tell me you know how to disarm a gun. please. guns are not effective at that distance

OH. OH I DID NOT SEE KAI COMING.

got ‘em! murder confession, how did I not see that coming? good stuff

Kai can fight!

KAI CAN FUCKING FIGHT WOW

I am very much appreciating Kai right now

also is that a FLYING KICK from Ernesto?

they better give these people more fight scenes

aaaaand straight into the water, oh god. I’m assuming this was a choice made because Alex is familiar with this territory? ...I do not think I want to know where Alex learned to fight underwater.

(I really really really want to know.)

how the fuck has your monitor not gone off by now Alex

choking him out underwater, okay, wow

what size are your lungs? this is long

extra kudos for excellent underwater filming and wow I am hoping the actors actually came up for air

(this is also unreasonably beautiful for a scene where you’re choking out a drug lord. the water is so pretty)

Evil DEA guy (no I am not going to learn his name, he doesn’t deserve it) is gonna be Alex’s Agent Sterling, isn’t he? this should be interesting

heh, police chief is taking his side! good stuff, good stuff

(it is very nice to see Alex getting some people in his corner after knowing what hell the DEA put him through)

Alex has fallen so damn hard for Kai. this is very very adorable actually

awww he’s really getting into fixing up the shop, isn’t he? I’m sincerely looking forward to seeing how he gets this up and going, it really looks like he’s enjoying himself

somehow I am starting to wonder if the cocky “oh yeah I’m opening up a gift shop how exciting huh” thing at the start wasn’t... actually genuine. he... is enjoying this, isn’t he? good. very good

I am unreasonably invested in this man’s wellbeing for one episode in

!!!!!!!!! HE GETS HIS PARADE

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

giving him his reason to keep going! yes! yessss

oh Alex you are attached now. you are very attached. good luck my dude and don’t let the trust issues get in the way

this is a good show. this is a heckin awesome show.

also, side note, it is SO PRETTY

I am just loving loving loving all of the scenery. competence porn AND landscape and city porn. beautiful. perfection. excellent

...that was. much longer than I anticipated oops

anyway, conclusion: hot damn this is a fun show! I am very excited to keep watching this. Alex officially has my heart, even if he’s a bit of a cocky bastard sometimes. Kane is fucking hilarious. (More reasons to be excited for Redemption!) Kai and Ernesto also have my heart, and I am extremely interested to see their character development.

Honestly, the beauty is surprising. I didn’t expect to just enjoy how pretty it is. The blues of the ocean, the intense tropical colors, even the run-down gift shop--there’s such a gorgeous aesthetic to it all. If I wasn’t already invested in the characters and plot, I’d be invested for that alone.

So... I have some thoughts on Alex and the show structure.

He’s obviously very disillusioned. There’s a lot of nods to the idea of war--he’s commonly referring to himself as a soldier, as a veteran, maybe as a casualty. I’m gonna take a totally wild guess here and say this show is going to be focused on the drug issues in the Philippines. (Wow, Synapse, how the heck’d you guess that?) I do find describing the war on drugs as a war, and going into the terminology that comes with it, very appropriate, and I like how this show is actively calling this to attention rather than using it as a convenient plot. They’re actually addressing the issue and discussing its impact. And given how overlooked certain aspects of the impact of the drug war on the Philippines is, this is a good choice, especially in order to alert American viewers to the issue. I’m curious to see how they handle that.

Again, interesting drawing parallels to war, too, and comparing it against the likes of WWI and Vietnam. It really gives that sense of weight to the issue and defines a vital aspect of it: the impact of the war on drugs on the people involved. It emphasizes that the people who are fighting it suffer consequences and PTSD just as a soldier in the field does, and it also emphasizes, with Kai, that it isn’t just the people actively fighting who bear the consequences. It’s also the people on the sidelines--it’s the families, the people on the streets by the gunfights, the economical impact, etcetera.

But there’s also an element to Alex’s character that automatically makes him relatable to a lot of people... and it has nothing to do with the PTSD, nothing to do with the war on drugs, nothing really to do with the main issues. It is, simply, the intense hopelessness and depression that comes with trying to make a difference. In his case it’s making a difference on a severe worldwide issue. But the vast majority, if not all, of Almost Paradise’s audience should be able to relate to a feeling of never doing enough. And there’s certainly a large section of that group who can relate to being part of a fight that never seems to end. Doesn’t matter what you’re doing--if it’s driven at helping, it rarely ever feels like you ever do enough. But the advice given is excellent. One of the best things to do, when you’re feeling hopeless over this, is to focus on and take deep joy in the impact you do make.

Alex is an expression of a frustration that a lot of people deal with. This, I think, is one of the reasons why he instantly drew me--and presumably the rest of the audience--in (outside of a fantastic actor and great humor). He’s relatable. He’s something that most people can see a part of themselves in.

Anyway, symbolism and real-world talk aside, this is just... fun. It’s genuine fun. We’re covering rough issues, but there’s a lot of well-written tropes in here too that are written in that way that makes them enjoyable to relive rather than painful. The humor is delightful and plentiful. There’s a lot of beautiful feel-good moments. I’m suspecting this’ll be a comfort show, and I am perfectly all right with that.

Onto the next episode!

#Almost Paradise #Almost Paradise spoilers #Almost Paradise 1x01 #reaction post #christian kane #(please please please let these be the right tags)#synapse reacts #this is a new thing!#hopefully y'all like the new thing!#even though I am exceedingly long-winded #I mean this is basically the equivalent of me yelling into the void #but I need SOME void to yell into #so this might as well be it #and perhaps someone'll get a kick out of it #so why not?

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theartofdreaming1 · 4 years

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Partners - Part 8: The Breakthrough

Rating: T

Pairing: DickBabs

Summary: Looking for ways to take down corrupt Chief Redhorn, Dick and Barbara make a surprising discovery. My DickBabs police officers AU.

You can also read this chapter at AO3 or start from the beginning on my blog

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Over the course of the next weeks, their regular jobs and their work for the Circle claimed most of Dick and Barbara’s time. While they were making good progress building their case for the feds, there was still one thing missing - even with their combined efforts, they had not yet managed to get anything substantial on Chief Redhorn himself.

“As long as we have nothing to charge Redhorn with, we can’t make our move,” Amy had explained in their last meeting with a grave mien, “it’s too dangerous - by the time something might come up to indict Redhorn as well, he could have figured out who supplied the FBI with the info necessary to take down his cronies and knowing him, he will have made some ‘arrangements’ so that won’t ever happen again - and frankly, I’m not willing to take these chances.”

Barbara’s “digital hunting expeditions” hadn’t yielded anything of interest either.

“Ugh,” she’d grumbled irritably after yet another attempt that left them with nothing to show for but an evening wasted,”this is pointless; Redhorn is of the old school - probably does everything face-to-face that isn’t already well-established in this syndicate he has been building up since the 90’s! He probably doesn’t even know that his computer has a calendar function!”

Barbara had closed her laptop with a huff.

“If we want to get our hands on some incriminating evidence, we’re gonna have to track down some good old-fashioned paper trail - and finding that is going to require a freaking miracle.”

***

“Hey, remember that miracle you mentioned a week ago?”

Barbara looked up from her laptop, her previous frustration from another pointless try morphing into confusion, “uh-huh?”

She looked at the bags with their takeout in Dick’s hand, amused: “Why, did you find our miracle while getting Chinese?”

“Maybe,” Dick replied, visibly excited.

“How so?”

Barbara stowed away her laptop in the compartment of the coffee table, while Dick was setting up their food on the table top.

“Well, I actually dropped by Hogan’s before getting our food and he told me something that could be a potential lead,” Dick explained, handing Barbara some chopsticks and her dumplings before plopping down on the couch.

“Spill.”

“Well, Hogan’s heard some rumors of Redhorn being in a pretty bad mood recently and that he seems to be on a pretty relentless search for someone…”

Barbara’s heart lurched.

“Well, that doesn’t sound exactly good for us, does it?”

“That was my first thought as well,” Dick admitted honestly, taking a bite of his spring rolls. “However, according to what Hogan picked up, it seems to be related to something or someone super personal to Redhorn - apparently Mac Arnot complained about getting told off for asking “too many damn questions”; and well, as you know, Arnot always prides himself on being all chummy with our dear Chief.”

“Ugh, terrible sycophant that man.” Barbara said, her disgust displayed plainly on her face.

Dick let out a chuckle.

“You don’t have to tell me twice - he was actually enrolled at the academy at the same time as me; despite rarely attending our lessons, he surprisingly managed to start off his career as an inspector, which is not even an official position at the BPD - but we’re getting off the track here. The real question is: Who is Redhorn looking for? If he’s that secretive about their identity and connection to him that he won’t give plain orders and explanations to his lackeys, it must be someone really close to him…”

Dick trailed off with a knowing look in his eye, clearly creating a pause for dramatic effect as he was preparing to drop a bomb on her.

Barbara couldn’t help rolling her eyes fondly.

Always with the theatrics.

She gestured for Dick to move on, almost dropping the dumpling that was wedged between the chopsticks she was holding in that same hand.

“Well, it’s conjecture, but Hogan remembered that, way back, when he was still in harness, there had been rumors of Redhorn having gotten married- what if he’s looking for his wife?!”

“His wife?” Barbara echoed, surprise evident on her face. In her mind, she combed through the scarce information she had gone over during her research, but she drew a complete blank on the chief’s marital status. To be fair, she hadn’t considered nosing around in such private, familial matters (she might act as an information broker, but she was no creep) and Redhorn didn’t exactly strike her as husband material or a family man, but now that she was looking back on it, the complete lack of information on his marital status was kind of odd-

“Now that you mention it, I don’t recall having seen any information on Redhorn’s marital status whatsoever,” Barbara said carefully.

She noticed the excited spark in Dick’s eyes.

“At the very least, it sounds suspicious, doesn’t it?”

Barbara nodded, “Definitely worth checking out.”

“Of course,” Dick mused, clearly trying to rein in his excitement over this new potential stepping stone in their investigation, “even if Redhorn is looking for his wife, there is still the question of why - has she been kidnapped by other criminals who could be blackmailing him? Has she simply left him and he’s trying to get her back?” He gestured vaguely, as if to illustrate the endless possibilities.“But my point is, if Redhorn is married, his wife could potentially have information that could be useful to us.”

“Well, how useful that could end up being for us really depends on how attached she is to her husband,” Barbara pointed out, “she could invoke marital privileges and refuse to testify against her husband even if she knows of his wrongdoings... If she wants to leave him, however, she might be more inclined to help us…”

Dick nodded, a grin on his face: “Should that hypothetical wife exist, that is.”

Barbara chuckled, already shoving the half-empty take out container to the side to make space for her laptop.

She snatched her computer from the table’s compartment, opened the lid, and booted it up: “Let’s find out, shall we?”

***

Now that she knew what she was looking for, it didn’t take Barbara long to unearth the sought-after information:

“Here we go: 23 years ago, Delmore Redhorn, age 31, married Mary Wallmer, age 20, in a private ceremony in the small fishing town of Snug Cay-” a few clicks on her touchpad and a couple of strokes of her keyboard later- ”Mary was born and raised in Snug Cay, born to Albert and Lucille Wallmer, recently deceased, no siblings.”

Barbara’s eyes raced over the texts and documents, sifting through them for relevant information.

“While in high school, Mary worked at the nearby summer camp as a counselor. After high school, she enrolled in an office course to train to become a secretary… Then worked as a secretary for a small housing firm in Blüdhaven for a while… until the owner of the firm was assaulted and shot dead in his office in broad daylight, with Mary right in the next room.”

Barbara felt Dick next to her shudder. What she read next did nothing to allay her own contempt for the perpetrators of this crime:

“Apparently, the firm had had a few properties over at Avalon Heights, in Freddy Minh’s territory, something the mobster hadn’t appreciated.”

Dick let out a sound of disgust.

Barbara read on: “First responder to the crime was a certain Officer Delmore Redhorn… the wedding took place six months later.”

Scrolling through the data, Barbara tried to find any other entry of employment for Mary. Nothing.

“Doesn’t look like Mary took up another job after that.”

“Not that surprising, considering...”

“From the wedding onward, there is very little info on Mary herself… hmm, a nearly dormant facebook account, maybe that’ll yield something later… oh, wait, here’s something!”

Barbara’s eyes widened.

“Oh.”

When no further elaboration followed, Dick shifted closer, trying to catch a glimpse of what she was staring at.

“What’d you find?!”

Barbara moved the laptop so Dick could get a better look at her screen: “A birth record.”

Looking up from the screen, Dick looked at her uncomprehendingly: “So?”

“It’s not Mary’s birth record - it’s from thirteen years ago; it’s the birth record of her son.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“And the father?”

Barbara tapped her screen, “Redhorn.”

“Huh.”

“Yup... A wife and a son would definitely qualify as “close connections”, don’t you think?”

Dick grinned: “Kinda.”

Barbara smiled back, buzzing with excitement, now that this angle opened up a whole new perspective.

“Give me another hour to figure out whether this is connected to Redhorn’s troubles,” Barbara declared confidently, about to dig deeper into the piles of data ready at her fingertips. She paused briefly, looking at Dick, who had moved to the edge of the sofa, about to get up, “would you-”

“- put on some coffee?” He finished her sentence for her, smiling.

”Way ahead of you.”

***

About one hour and two cups of coffee later, Barbara was ready to present Dick with the findings of her latest cyber expedition:

“Okay, so let me show you this online chat: It’s mainly frequented by well-to-do middle class moms in the Gotham-Blüdhaven-area and their exchanges are mostly a mix of discussions on the deficits and benefits of local schools, challenges of achieving a good work-life-balance, complaints about their unruly offspring, and tips on where to find an excellent yoga instructor - but one thread stood out among the rest: A concerned user talking about how the recurring rumors of corruption in the police department and mayoral office are worrying her because she’s afraid her husband could be wrongly accused of being “mixed up in such dreadful things”. The user name? SnugCayfish78.”

Dick let out a whistle.

“Sounds like you’ve struck gold.”

Barbara grinned triumphantly: “Right? And there is more, my friend… Aside from recurring mentions of her concerns, SnugCayfish78 also dropped this bomb two weeks ago:

“He doesn’t tell me much of his work (I know that he doesn’t want me to worry), but I can tell that ever since another of his subordinate officers was arrested, something is weighing heavily on my husband… If only there was a way for me to ease his burden. Has anyone any ideas? Maybe the social calendars I’ve been keeping all these years will finally come in handy! Being able to show that my husband has only ever been in contact with the upstanding members of the public that have been so deeply invested in building up the Blüdhaven we know and love now, must certainly prove that my darling would never associate with such dishonorable policemen that are involved in corruption! Hopefully, this will be enough to lay my husband’s worries to rest.”

… and that’s the last entry from this account. Coincidentally, that is also the date Redhorn’s son posted his last picture on instagram.”

Dick gave her a meaningful look.

“Sounds to me like Mary just realized that her husband might not have been some innocent bystander in the sea of corruption that makes up Blüdhaven’s elite and decided to go underground. As an added bonus, Summer break started last week, so even if Mary just grabbed her son and left, there’s no danger of inquiries from school.”

“Would fit with what we have found out so far,” Barbara agreed, “of course, there is still the question of what Mary’s planning on doing with the information she has at hand and what Rehorn’s planning to do once he finds her…”

Dick hummed in agreement, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Considering how her entire world view has been turned on its head, she probably doesn’t even know what to do now that she has discovered her husband’s vest is anything but squeaky clean,” he reasoned,”but maybe she’d be open to handing over this evidence she’s kept unintentionally all these years.”

“Maybe,” Barbara agreed, “nothing I have found suggests that Mary had been involved in Redhorn’s illegal activities in any way; I guess she was truly ignorant of them until now. As for Redhorn - keeping in mind how he appears to be unwilling to deploy his goons in the “usual” manner, I guess we can assume that he actually does care about Mary and doesn’t want her and their son to get hurt… That being said, I have no idea whether his love for them wins out over his sense of self-preservation,” she finished grimly.

Dick nodded, steely determination displayed openly across his features: “Which is exactly why we need to be the ones to find her first.”

“Agreed.”

“You think you can find Mary and their son before Redhorn does?”

Barbara gave Dick a confident smile: “Even if Mary was a Luddite like her husband - she’s in hiding with a teen; I’ll find them, don’t you worry.“

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to be continued.... here.

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Notes:

Nightwing #33: Mac Arnot talks to Dick in the cafeteria of the police academy and Dick finds out that they are supposedly in the same class although he hasn't seen Arnot attend any of his classes; Arnot just shrugs it off, explaining that he's "kinda advanced"

Nightwing #42: Chief Redhorn makes Mac Arnot an Inspector (based on shifty recommendations), while Dick gets turned down when applying for a job at the BPD

Nightwing #47: Chief Ebersol (who was appointed Chief while Redhorn took off for some time, hiding from Blockbuster, I think) points out that the BPD doesn't have an official position of Inspector, while Arnot lets Ebersol know that *he* will be running things in the background until Redhorns gets back... oh and he vaguely threatens Ebersol's family (I flipping hate Arnot, ugh)

Nightwing# 71-74: Mary Redhorn (née Wallmer) is important in this story arc; she's Redhorn's wife and is from Snug Cay (although they got married 33 years ago in the comics), Dick followed her all over Europe when police and Blockbuster's goons were coming after her for having a journal that detailed Redhorn's social contacts with plenty of questionable characters; in the comics, Mary's just super naive and probably wanted to use this journal to clear his name, having no idea how closely her husband was entangled in the corruption that is running rampant in Blüdhaven - I wanted to make Mary a little less clueless and give her a bit more agency/motive by having her be protective of a son that I made up

Nightwing #59: Dick wants to drop by Freddy Minh's in Avalon, only to find that Freddy Minh has been dead for some time, his empire now run by his wife, Madame Minh (I assume Chuck Dixon is referring to Avalon Heights and not Avalon Hill, because Avalon Hill is on the outskirts of Blüdhaven, basically in the middle of nowhere, whereas Avalon Heights is situated a bit more centrally, with access to some docks, according to the map in Nightwing Secret Files and Origins #1)

#dickbabs #dickbabs fanfiction #dick grayson #barbara gordon #dickbabs fanfic #I write sometimes #my fics: partners

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marithlizard · 4 years

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Ace Attorney: Rise From the Ashes (part 1)

A couple of people expressed interest in a writeup as I play through the game, so I thought I’d give quasi-liveblogging a try. It might have come out to be too detailed - let me know if the result is amusing enough to go through the next part.

(I knew this already, but wow liveblogging is a lot of work. And it must take twice as much effort to do this for a show and to include screencaps.)

(I’ve tried three times now to put proper line breaks/spacing in, and they’re just not displaying, at least on desktop. I’m sorry.)

A brief, stylized opening designed not to give away much, except that a creepy-looking doll is involved.

Two months? Phoenix, you haven't taken a single client since Maya left? a) are you depressed, and b) how are you paying rent on the office?

Ookay, you're not going to tell us why you've been moping around. I don't think it's that you have a crush on Maya. Are you just not able to function without a partner? That's not great for your ability to survive, but I can sympathize.

New perky assistant, right on cue. (A partner who isn't a young girl would be a nice change now and then. (But not Larry. Anyone but Larry. In fact, I take it back, this girl with the pink sunglasses will do just fine.))

Oof, Phoenix still not being able to say out loud that Mia's dead.

In the first two minutes pink-glasses girl has asserted that he's his female boss, the coffee boy, and 'better than nothing'. Aha! The problem with all the clients he turned down was that they didn't insult him enough.

Kid, you can't be more than sixteen, and you have silly face buttons on your lab coat. You are about as much a scientific investigator as Photography Girl last episode was a journalist. ...But apparently you have a future job lined up in forensics, so you're more organized than she was. And this world certainly could use more competent crime scene analysis.

"I promised her I'd bring Mia Fey". Huh. Is Mia's murder not well-known to the public, then, even though the Edgeworth case apparently got famous enough to earn Phoenix a bit of a reputation?

A murder charge with an eyewitness, and an assistant who "kind of hates" her sister the defendant. Sounds hopeless, let's do it! Off to the Detention Center.

...Did we just overhear the defendant threatening their terrified guard with a pay freeze? Is she their boss? And if she's someone that high up, why doesn't she already have a better defense attorney?

I like Lana Skye's character design. She looks as though she should be starring in a Takurazuka revue show, swearing eternal star-crossed love to a princess.

She insists she did it. By genre convention we know that can't be the case; my first assumption is that she's being forced to cover for someone, blackmailed or coerced by someone higher up in the system. But it would certainly be interesting if it turned out she was covering for Ema.

Must....resist...plotbunnies...

Oookay. A prosecutor should certainly know ways to commit murder without getting caught, and this sounds like the opposite of those ways. WHY does she claim she did this? You're not even going to ask her, are you? *headdesk*

Ema: "Please ignore that totally gay statement by my sister, because I certainly plan to!"

Lana: "No don't help me, go away go away go away go away go awa-oh fine."

Hmmm. From Ema's description of the behavior change, Lana has been being blackmailed or coerced for a long time now.

Time to go investigate the underground parking garage.

Attorneys aren't supposed to examine crime scenes, and defense attorneys aren't entitled to a copy of the police investigation reports. What does a "normal" defense attorney in this world do for their clients then? Always assume a loss and try to negotiate a plea bargain? I wonder if we'll ever get to see one in action.

It's...a cop with a cowboy fetish? Do police not have dress codes here? Maybe they're waived above a certain level, and some people take pride in cultivating a unique style to show off that they can. It would explain Edgeworth.

You are dramatically pretending to shave in front of us. Also you just called Ema a baby cow. Although you know her and seem sympathetic - I guess Lana brought her little sister to the office sometimes? Not sure what I think of you, Jake Marshall.

I am revising my stance. Being Phoenix's partner on a case requires precise and narrow qualifications. Specifically, just enough sense to stop him from doing something breathtakingly stupid, but not enough sense to take the badge firmly away from him and do the job themselves. Ema fits the bill perfectly.

Ooh, new mechanic! And an ID card number for a Bruce Goodman who dresses like a white-hat agent in Spy vs Spy. (I was trained on games that would require you to write that number down and remember it later, but AA will certainly be more forgiving.)

Using the new mechanic on Phoenix's attorney badge, I deduce that at some point this game it will be stolen.

It doesn't explain Lana's supposed actions, but that red sports car does kind of scream "My owner is a jerk, stuff a body in my trunk." Instead of a chalk outline, they seem to have outlined the hanging body with string? Is that actually a technique, and how do they get the rope to stay put in precise outline?

And the cowboy gives them a hint. So he's on their side but constrained by rules?

Lady put the boobs away. Why are you selling sushi in a negligee under a fur coat, at a crime scene? And why would anyone trust food from someone whose nickname is "the Cough-Up Queen"?

Angel Starr, dominatrix lunch lady. It says something that this is not the weirdest witness in an AA game so far.

She hates prosecutors, and therefore especially Lana. Not a trustworthy witness. But it's probably no fun to cater for a group of (relatively) wealthy and powerful people you despise. Especially if they're smugly giving awards to each other as they eat lunches. (Eeeevil lunches. She probably coughs on them.)

"The rhythmic beat of Lana Skye's knife"... very poetic, but didn't Lana say the victim was stabbed only once?

We can't get back to the car, phooey, so up to the prosecutor's office we go.

Pink...everywhere...no question whose office this is, even if one of his outfits wasn't framed on the wall. (why do you frame an outfit?) I see a very ugly trophy on the sofa, so he's the one who won the award.

Ema: "this is the kind of room that just screams 'I can do the job'. Actually it screams 'I don't need to pretend to be heterosexual', but the two aren't unconnected.

Is it just me or is that trophy broken off at the top?

Edgeworth did you just roll with being insulted and make a joke about it? I'm so proud of you, you've clearly relaxed since your murder trial!

BWAHAHA of course it was Edgeworth's car.

Wendy the security guard from the Steel Samurai case is sending Edgeworth expensive presents?? a) that's both funny and a little sad, b) how can she afford it, and c) he keeps and displays them which is very courteous.

WAIT did you - did this game just heavily suggest Gumshoe hangs out in the office a lot? Twice, once when you look at the shelves and again when you look at the desk? I don't ship it, but this is the point where I start to see why people do.

Awwww he's embarrassed about the trophy, that's cute. So he's the one who "devours the evillest lunches of all", hmm? I wouldn't have thought the Cough-Up Queen's weird not-even-fresh lunches would appeal to Edgeworth's refined tastes.

Ema actually has a bit of a crush, from the way she's rhapsodizing about Edgeworth sleeping on the sofa. d'awww. And I definitely want to know the story behind the outfit. Made by his mom and too precious to wear?

Edgeworth, no one thinks you did it. Sheesh. He certainly doesn't sound happy about having to prosecute Lana, even though he believes she's guilty. His car, his knife... it almost seems like this is a plot aimed at him, or perhaps a plot against Lana with a healthy dose of fuck-you-too-Edgeworth to it.

Huh. Maybe it *is* aimed at him. I've been assuming all this time from his behavior on the stand that Edgeworth has indeed been messing with evidence to convict obviously innocent people, and also assuming that it's common practice in this corrupt justice system. (Much as it is in Japan and in the US). But the way he's talking about rumors right now, it sounds more like he's being slandered. And he thinks the award he was given was out of mockery. Ouch.

So yes, the trophy is broken. (In RWBY, you assume everything is a gun; in AA, you assume everything is a murder weapon. It probably broke when it was used to hit someone over the head.)

Evidence transferal day, huh? Was the murder timed to draw attention away from a case being closed? And Edgeworth parked his car only three minutes before Goodman was stabbed and thrown into its trunk? No way. He was there for the murder, or more likely that's not when the murder happened. (Is he being coerced like Lana? I don't think so, but it's possible.)

Enter an idiot mailman with a bandaged hand. And exit, with sniveling. What was that about?

And a hint to go investigate at the police station. Is Edgeworth being friendly, attempting to signal something, or merely aware that the most efficient way to get rid of Phoenix is to give him a clue to chase?

The police department entrance, with some sort of plywood jester figure in front of it. We're offhandedly informed that it took 30 minutes to get there from Edgeworth's office, which means that will be important later.

This is the creepy doll from the intro! It's clearly meant to be a mascot. Was it made by the sniveling mailman? There's a certain resemblance...

No, I should've guessed that Gumshoe made it. I mean ... mechanically it's pretty clever for someone who's not a craftsman or engineer? Moving articulated limbs and all. It's just the aesthetics and design he shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near.

Yes, yes it is odd that only the top-ranked people are being allowed to work on the case. Are they all in on it? A patrolman in charge of the crime scene instead of a detective - that suggests Marshall is part of the conspiracy. I'm thinking the dominatrix lunch lady is too.

Gumshoe is so happy about the prosecutor's award - Edgeworth probably didn't have the heart to say that for him it's a mockery. Daww. (Also there's something endearingly cheerful about his hopping-caterpillar eyebrows.) He's also being much more helpful than his superiors would want, probably just because he thinks of Phoenix as an ally in general now.

Back to the parking lot, with a letter of introduction in hand this time.

I genuinely can't tell if the lunch lady is a sex worker, if she actually has multiple boyfriends, or if that's code for her professional contacts in whatever she's really doing here. (And that's an interesting cultural bit, isn't it - any of those options seem possible, and I'm not expecting any of the characters to question her competence or morality because of it, not even in court. If this was a US-made game my expectations would be...different.)

"Good men always die young"...I see what you did there, Marshall.

Autopsy report confirms one stab wound. Lana and the victim worked together on "a case a few years back", ding ding ding. Someone didn't want the evidence for that case transferred. Or looked at.

Marshall used to be a detective but got demoted? And he's lying about why he was assigned to the crime scene, and telling us Gumshoe is off the case because he's friends with Edgeworth. The police chief, whoever he is, is now at the top of my suspect list.

Happily, the game will let me do dumbass things like show off Goodman's ID card without consequences. Marshall seems very uninterested in it and why it was found so far from the spot of the murder, which I take to mean "we have our official narrative, don't go messing it up with facts or evidence."

Finally we can examine the car! First up, Lana's cellphone. The whole business about hitting redial and somehow not knowing that Ema's phone rang was weird. Phoenix’s lie couldn't possibly have fooled Marshall, who is bizarrely claiming there's no way to know who the last call was made to. It's an odd thing to conceal, even given the “no facts please we have our narrative” stance. Maybe he's trying to protect Ema somehow?)

Marshall said the rumors about Edgeworth came from Lana. And we have a note found in the trunk: 6-7S 12/2, on a piece of Goodman's stationery.

Er, yeah, Ema, why didn't you mention your sister called you 3 minutes after the claimed murder time? If Lana hung up right away that's hardly incriminating for either of you.

End of Day One! We are, as usual, completely unprepared for tomorrow morning's trial.

#ace attorney #rise from the ashes #ace attorney spoilers

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aelaer · 5 years

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☕ Wakanda, controversy? Paradise? Unrealistic? Need-to-visit? What about their politics, what do you think about it? The way the ruler is chosen, or their view on outsiders? Or really just a comment on the Black Panther movie, if you so wish. xD

There's an ask I've been meaning to get to for a while but I can't be bothered to get my computer right now and I can't save drafts of asks on the phone. So here's one on the fly.

Anyway the actual ask. Note that I know absolutely nothing about Wakanda in the comics; this is all based on what we've seen in the MCU and what I know from history and current events.

Controversial: Not to me. They had the right to hide from the rest of the world. I don't think any one country "owes" other countries in the facet of technological development. Are individuals/organizations nice enough to share their medical and technical developments? Yeah, all the time. But no individual or country owes it to the world. I'm pretty big on countries retaining their own autonomy.

(Though ideally every government wouldn't be severely oppressing or mistreating their people. That'd be a nice world, wouldn't it? But we can't just... blow up every oppressive government. The States tried during the Cold War- though replace oppressive with communist- and that turned into a complicated, messy clusterfuck with unexpected consequences that the world's still feeling today 50-70 years later. Yeah it sucks that people are suffering, but when the West tries to police the world it all goes to shit. I don't have a good answer to this problem, I'm afraid.)

Paradise: I doubt it. Every country has problems, whatever they are. Every country has people who are rich, poor, healthy, sick. They're certainly one of the best, if not the best, well off in the MCU's Africa at least. Because they hid their technology so much their GDP must have been in the toilet before they started their outreach programs and (potentially) selling vibranium for silly high prices. I'd be interested in seeing what their tourism department post-reveal looks like; it's possible it's as strict as North Korea, which has its own downfalls.

I think I'd be most interested in Wakanda helping out stable and relatively corruption-free African countries with steady democracies in developing a solid infrastructure to grow from. It's hard to develop as a society when you don't have plumbing and electrical grids. Wakanda could help with that, and teach the much-needed infrastructure jobs needed to sustain such a life. From there, it's significantly easier to actually work on other quality of life issues, such as education and health. (When it comes to African charities, I'm always looking for those that teach the populace and support infrastructure as that's what will help in the long term).

Unrealistic: North Korea demonstrates that such a closed-off country is not unrealistic at all. Combine that with their cloaking technology and border guard and they're set. That said, like North Korea, it'd be harder to maintain in the 21st century.

Need-to-visit: Depends on the individual's interests and their tourism policies lol.

Wakanda politics: Not sure how long the system got choosing a new ruler will last in the 21st century onwards, especially as a battle of strength doesn't allow female victors due to the physiological differences between men and women. It seems like a tradition that will eventually die out as gender roles become more equal with the passage of time.

View of outsiders: I imagine it'll turn into something like Japan, which remains one of the most homogeneous countries in the world and quite stringent in who they give citizenship to. Citizenship to others will not be wide spread, if permitted at all in the first couple decades. But Japan's opened up very much on the tourism side of it; it might just take Wakanda a couple decades to get to that level of tourism.

Black Panther film: Fantastic film. Definitely top 3 antagonists (though the morons on Twitter who agreed that it's totally okay to kill people based on what some of their ancestors did really missed the point of the film). But he was sympathetic, though like I said, he very much embodies "the end DOES NOT justify the means".

Really loved all the actors. Tickled me that Andy Serkis (who've I've met, he's so awesome) and Martin Freeman were the "Tolkien white guys". I saw this in theaters in Spain actually, and I wasn't bothered by the Spanish subtitles at all (as I went for original English voiceover naturally!) Chadwick Boseman was an inspired casting choice. Shuri is the perfect role model. Brilliant writing and direction from the team.

Hmm. This got longer than I thought it would be.

#wakanda #mcu #headcanon #ask #answered #mdcbd

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robininthelabyrinth · 5 years

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Fic: An Internal Affair - Chapter 17 (Ao3 link)

Fandom: The Flash Pairing: Leonard Snart/Barry Allen

Summary: Leonard Snart, the CCPD Captain of Internal Affairs, is known as Captain Cold for a very good reason: He hates corrupt cops with a merciless vengeance, and once you’re on his list, you’re in serious trouble.

His next target?

A CCPD lab tech named Barry Allen who’s developed a suspicious habit of disappearing at random intervals.

—————————————————————————————————

Len is hovering by the door again, wondering if he should go in or not.

On one hand: it's Mick.

This is all so characteristic of him, really. Just when Len is losing hope, just when the doctors are starting to give up, Mick decides it’s time to defy expectations yet again and struggle his way back to consciousness in dramatic fashion. And not the momentary, illusory consciousness that Len's become accustomed to, moments where Mick's eyes would flicker open and his mouth would move in empty, meaningless syllables.

Real consciousness.

Mick's back.

He's alive, he's - not intact, no, but he's been acing all of the doctors' cognitive tests and he remembers all the facts and dates and events that he should.

He's grumpy and irritable over the food quality and friendly with the nurses while being a jackass to the surgeons and all in all is just so very Mick Rory that it makes Len want to cry just from sheer relief and having missed him so damn much.

(He may or may not have taken a few hours in a convenient hospital storage closet to do just that, father-imposed inability to shed proper tears aside; the world will never know for sure.)

So obviously Len should go in and talk to him.

On the other hand...this is Mick.

The man Len betrayed for years, being a cop without ever telling him. The man who rescued Len anyway. The man who paid the price for it.

And oh, what a price - two-thirds of his body covered in burns, now twisted into scars despite the best efforts of the medical establishment. Serious deterioration and atrophy of his muscles from being in a coma. Bed sores, a swollen throat from routine intubation, scars on his lungs, urinary tract infections...

His strong body, which he was always so proud of, decaying away around him like a living corpse - and all Len's fault.

Len was always willing to accept that bargain: that he’d take Mick's anger or hatred, whatever, anything, anything at all, as long as Mick woke up as himself. But sitting there with an unconscious man and wishing for that to happen is pretty different from actually having to walk inside the hospital room and face the music.

And so he hovers, wondering, debating, searching for some sort of sign of what he should do -

"Snart. Stop skulking around out there and get in here."

Well. That's certainly clear enough.

Len creeps into the room.

Mick is -

Mick is beautifully, wonderfully alive, and honest to God, everything else is so much less important that Len can't remember why he was so reluctant to come in.

Of course, then he tries to open his mouth and say something, realizes he has no idea what to say because months of rehearsing apologies is apparently rendered totally useless after a month of total panicked despair followed by frenzied overwhelming delight and relief, and he abruptly remembers what was stopping him.

What does he even say? How does he even start?

"Where are you showering?" Mick asks.

...on Len's list of ways this conversation could go, that wasn't really one of them.

"Showering?" Len asks incredulously.

"Showering," Mick confirms. "You like to shower in the mornings, it’s morning now, and your very friendly piece of skirt tells me you haven't left the hospital in days. So you gotta be showering somewhere here."

"There's a shower in the nurse's wing," Len says blankly. "Why - wait, what piece of skirt? Do you mean Danvers?"

"Yeah, her," Mick says. "Skirt. She was wearing one – red skirt, with mesh leggings underneath, and also a cute but very concealing sweater with the puppy holding the ice cream cone. She says you know the one...?"

Len is, in fact, familiar with that outfit; it's Danvers' go-to security blanket outfit, the one she wears when she's stressing over something. Usually over Len being dumb, if he's being honest.

Hmm. He really has been living at the hospital the past few days, hasn't he?

"Yeah," Len says. "Definitely Danvers. When'd you see her, anyway?"

His accent slips deeper whenever he's around Mick, he notices; a little less nasal overall, but affecting more words, adding more shortenings and dropping more words. A silent sign of how instinctively comfortable he is in Mick's presence, no matter how stressed he is.

"You were apparently unconscious in a chair in the hallway at the time," Mick says with shrug he aborts with a wince halfway through. "She wanted to introduce herself, set me up with a new phone and group-chat and some shit like that, have me sign some papers -"

"Papers?" Len asks sharply. He'll - deal with Mick actually having a chance to read Danvers' long-threatened group-chat logs later. As far later as possible. "What papers?"

"Apparently I've been suing the police department for being dickheads while I've been out cold and now that I'm awake she needs me to agree to keep it going," Mick says.

Len barely manages to keep from laughing. Of course Danvers would remember that lawsuit Len had some lawyer file in a fit of agonized grief right after it all happened, even though Len himself has long forgotten all about it. How had he ever managed without a personal assistant before now?

"Didn't really ask much past that," Mick continues. "You know I never miss a chance to stick it to the pigs."

Len flinches.

Right.

Trust Mick to bring up the elephant in the room right away.

Mick hates cops.

Len’s been one for years.

Mick just looks at Len steadily. "You never told me," he says quietly. "Why?"

"It wasn't true when we first met in juvie," Len says miserably, hovering by the familiar chair next to Mick's bed but not actually sitting down. "And when we hooked back up later on, started working together on jobs just once in a while, I was brand new and just absolute shit at it, paranoid as fuck. Barely even spoke to the one or two guys that did know, my handlers with the CCPD and the Feds; didn't feel safe enough. And by the time I pulled my head outta my ass, it'd been years and we were partners and I knew you hated pigs and I didn't want you to hate me and -"

Mick starts laughing.

Not in a scornful or miserable way, the way Len might have feared it would be, but actual real deep laughter of the sort he hasn't heard from Mick in far, far too long.

"What?" Len asks, suspicious. "What'd I say?"

"I thought it was 'cause you didn't trust me," Mick chokes out between belly laughs that are probably hurting him. "I shoulda known it was because you're just an idiot. Same as always."

"Hey!" Len protests automatically.

Not that he takes any offense - he knows Mick calls him an idiot because that's how Mick demonstrates affection, with friendly insults and ribbing and casual death threats.

But he's not an idiot!

At the very least he doesn't think he's done anything that qualifies him to be called an idiot at this exact moment, anyway.

"Fine, then," Mick says, getting better control over himself - probably better for his health and well-being - though he still has a giant shit-eating grin on his face. "Not an idiot. A goober that can't do social situations for shit, that better?"

"Not really."

"S'true though."

"It ain't! I can do social shit! I do social shit just fine!"

"Even when you're not conning someone?"

"Even when I'm not conning someone!"

After all, Len assures himself, Barry totally continued to want to date him even after he'd stopped trying to con him...

Maybe that's not the best example.

"Uh-huh," Mick says, looking amused. There are little wrinkles of laughter by his eyes; Len hadn't noticed those, before. Amazing what months of memorizing a person's slack unconscious face will reveal. "Lemme guess. That'd be this Barry Allen guy Danvers' chats keep mentioning."

"...you've read them."

That emotion he's feeling right now - is it horror, extra horror, or extreme horror?

Mix of all of the above, clearly.

"Oh yeah. I've definitely read them," Mick says gleefully. "But I wanna hear about it from you directly."

"Mick."

"Don't you 'Mick' me. I've got no other entertainment right now, and you know I like romance shit."

"You like pulp sci-fi and ninja romance stuff, not just romance," Len objects. "This story..."

He trails off, considering for a moment.

"Well, it ain't got ninjas," he finally says. "As far as I know, anyway, though there was a weird mention once or twice of something fucked up happening Starling, I dunno. And it might've been a bit romantic, but right now it's mostly just tragic."

"Tell me about it anyway."

"Tell you about what?" Len complains, finally taking a seat next to Mick on his bed. There's a chair, too, but chairs are for losers who don't get to sit on comfy beds with their best friends who, amazingly, appear to be forgiving them for - well, everything. How Mick can do that sort of thing, Len has no idea. "There's nothing to it. I got bored in between investigating the million and one corrupt assholes in the CCPD and find out this one guy who's been acting suspicious apparently disappeared for nine months, supposedly in a coma, but then reappeared with no damage and these amazing abs -"

"No kidding, I've seen the pics."

"Goddamnit, I’m gonna gut Danvers; those are technically evidence and she shouldn't be sharing them. Anyway, turns out he ain't corrupt, he's just a fucking superhero. Who'd have thought, you know?"

"Not really anyone's first guess," Mick agrees.

"And first I think he's okay, you know," Len continues. He's ranting. He's aware that he's ranting. He can't seem to stop himself from ranting. "Because he's kind and friendly and optimistic and he's got this stupid smile that lights up the room, but I'm thinking no way anyone's this perfect, he's gotta be up to something, but I get this idea in my head that it must be that he's investigating the superhero - this is all happening before I figure out he is the superhero, that is - so I start dating him anyway -"

"Dates go well?"

"Amazingly. He legitimately thinks my puns are funny."

"Clearly a match made in some level of punster hell," Mick says.

"Shut up, puns are funny."

"Lowest form of wit."

"Lowest circle of hell's supposed to be cold, so I guess it fits," Len says, rolling his eyes. "Did I tell you yet that he thought for a while that I was a supervillain named Captain Cold? That's my new nickname at the precinct."

"No, but that's hilarious. You always did like your cold puns. Actually, you probably didn't know it, but people – criminals, that is – sometimes called you Ice-heart Snart."

"That's...awful. I'm glad I didn't know about that."

"No kidding. Captain Cold's much better. So he thought all of that about you and dated you anyway?"

"No, he didn't realize I was the Internal Affairs guy at first; I didn't tell him ‘cause I was investigating him. Anyway - wait, where was I?"

"Amazing dates," Mick prompts.

"Well, they were," Len says. "Absolutely amazing. Best I've ever had - just talking and laughing and just being happy hanging out and all that stuff that comes right out of that romance stuff you're always on about - and then, of course, just as I start thinking that I finally got lucky, it all blows up in my face. Turns out he's just as bad as I thought when I first started looking into him, and I should be happy to be proven right except for some reason I'm not, and now I can't stop thinking about how awfully he's gonna do in prison when he finally gets sent there like he deserves. I feel like shit about it and I don't know why -"

"Of course you don't," Mick says, sounding amused. "You wouldn't."

Len eyes him suspiciously. "You say that like you do know."

No way. Mick's been in a freaking coma; how could he have figured out what the hell's going on with Len's emotional state before Len did?

"Lenny," Mick says, sounding just a bit patronizing. "I might be a blockhead, but I've been interpreting your emotions for you since juvie. 'course I know."

"You're not a blockhead," Len protests automatically, always on guard against anyone - even Mick - putting down Mick's intelligence. He hates it when people do that; Mick's one of the smartest guys he knows, even if he doesn't talk all that pretty. "You just don't got as much education as some, s'all."

Though Mick's got a point about Len's emotions.

Not that Len's going to ask him to explain.

It doesn't matter, after all, what's done is done. Who cares how he feels about it?

Who cares about understanding why Len feels like he got a shiv to the gut every time he even thinks about Barry - about Allen, damnit - and a feeling like he swallowed crushed glass but also a weird kind of happiness left over from when every thought of Barry brought him joy?

Who cares -

Len. Len cares. Len cares a lot.

"Okay, I'll bite," he says, giving in. "What the fuck is wrong with me?"

"You're in love with him," Mick says. "Obviously."

...what?

No.

Impossible.

In love? Len doesn't do love.

Len's never done love, or at least not love like that - love for Lisa, love for Mick, yes, but not the stupid sort of Valentine's Day love, the type you read about in novels that you don't admit to reading, the type that makes the world turn around you and leaves you breathless and chokes in your throat, ripping your heart out of your chest because it belongs to someone else who doesn't care as much as you care, and leaves you with an awful gaping hole in your belly whenever you think about the fact they're going to go away for good somewhere where you won't see that optimistic smile or hear that laugh or -

Shit.

"...I really am an idiot that can't do social situations for shit," Len says aloud, realizing.

"You really are," Mick says, but he sounds fond. "Don't worry; I came to terms with that years ago."

"But I can't be in love with him," Len says, trying so desperately to shove that knowledge back under the river of denial where it came from that he doesn't even make a de-Nile pun like he usually does. "I can't! He - he's - he's done unforgivable things – kidnapping, imprisonment, solitary – literal war crimes – and he should've known better, he's corrupt -"

"Sounds to me like he made some mistakes -"

"Mistakes?!" Len yowls.

Mick holds up a hand. "Okay, fine, yeah, some of those mistakes are crimes, some might even be war crimes, but seriously, Snart, if you stopped liking someone just because they committed a couple of horrific crimes, you and me, we wouldn't be friends."

"It's not the same thing!" Len protests.

"I'm an arsonist, Lenny; I literally murder people sometimes."

"Usually as an unintended side effect," Len says dismissively. Intent matters, when it comes to criminal stuff; most of the time Mick could be blamed for nothing worse than negligent manslaughter and that's only technically murder. Len checked. "He's corrupt, Mick. He put himself out as being a hero, as someone doing the right thing, as someone upholding the law, and all the while he's doing stuff like that in the shadows...I can't be in love with someone like that, Mick. I can't. Look what corruption did to you! Look what it did to me and Lisa, when it was my dad! Look what -"

Mick catches Len's hands, which Len has been waving angrily in the air.

"Don't move like that!" Len exclaims, losing his prior train of thought immediately. "Your muscles aren't used to sudden movement; you'll hurt yourself!"

"It hurt," Mick says. "It was still worth it. Boss, you're spiraling."

"I'm - what?"

"Spiraling. My shrink told me about it; you get stuck in a mental rut and you can't get out of it, so you just go in circles, on and on, torturing yourself with all your bad thoughts. In this case, it's me." Mick squeezes Len's hands. "You've been torturing yourself with what happened to me. Except instead of thinking about it and dealing with it and getting over it, you've poured everything you feel into your war on corruption, focused so much on it that you're seeing unforgivable corruption and betrayal every way you look. But you don't gotta keep doing that. I'm here. I'm okay. I'm alive."

Len stares at Mick.

His hands, still enclosed in Mick's, start shaking. His shoulders, too, and he can't seem to make them stop.

"You're alive," Len croaks, suddenly finding it hard to talk. He’d known Mick was alive and mostly well for a while now, couple of days, but it suddenly feels like he’s learning it all over again. "You're alive. You're alive and you're talking and you're you and - fuck, Mick, I nearly lost you."

"I know."

"I can't do this shit without you," Len says, desperate now. "Any of it. Life, the universe, everything; it doesn't matter. I need you by my side, Mick. I need my partner - I need my best friend. It all turns to ash without you."

"I'm here," Mick says, strong and solid and dependable as ever. "You've got me."

"I don't -" Deserve you, Len is about to say, only he chokes on it; he never knew he felt that way. "I lied to you. For years. By omission, by commission...I put my job above our partnership. I shouldn't have. I really shouldn't have. You're more important - you're the most important. I ain't never gonna put anything above you ever again. Not work, not romance, not anything nor anyone. Not anything. I'm so goddamn sorry, Mick. Not just for what I did to you, for what happened, but for the lying. For all of it."

"You're an idiot," Mick says, and he squeezes Len's hands again. "Total idiot. Boss, it's fine. Really. I get it. I get why you made that choice - especially now that I know it was all about your issues, not about me and what you thought of me. Even before that, though, I got it. I knew you were a pig and I came to get you anyway, remember? Through gunfire and furious Families, and that's saying something."

Len nods mutely.

"I did it because we're partners," Mick tells him. "And we're always gonna be partners. Always gonna be friends, even if you do something dumb like lie to me or fall in love with a target of your investigation before you finish investigating him -"

"Hey," Len protests, but weakly. Mick has a point. A very good point.

"No matter what, it doesn't matter," Mick concludes. "You and me against the world, remember? That ain't changed."

Len nods, and turns his hands to squeeze Mick's hands back.

"Now for the love of fuck can we please stop talking about feelings?" Mick asks, almost begging. "You really don't pay me enough to be your shrink. You couldn't. You could offer me all of Fort Knox and I wouldn't be your shrink."

Len snorts, maybe a little wetly but not from tears because he doesn't do tears, and pulls back his hands. "Yeah, sure, we can stop. I think I hit my yearly quota of feelings there."

"No kidding," Mick says fervently. "You hit yours, and mine, and then mine again a few time. I'll let you off the hook this one time, just 'cause I know you've been saving it up the whole time I was out, but still, for someone who likes to say he don't got a heart, you sure got a hell of a lot to say. Oh, and don't think I didn't notice you slipping that 'ash' pun in there."

"Ash is the right word!" Len protests. "Just because it's fire-related don't mean it's always a pun!"

"With you, it's always a pun," Mick says firmly.

Len laughs. If it's a little more hysterical and sounds a bit more like sobs than it normally does, they'll both be more than willing to overlook that.

As they like to remind each other, they don’t have hearts – or at least they know to keep them well hidden.

(God, Mick is Len's best friend - how did he last so long without him? No wonder everything's been screwing up left and right while he's gone.)

"Hey, wait a minute," Mick says thoughtfully, "while we're talking about this shit, before we shove it all down the memory hole, tell me - how come you never had to turn me in? I did plenty of crimes while we were running as thieves."

"Were running?" Len echoes, alarmed, and he looks down at Mick's legs to see if something's happened to them in the last few minutes. The doctors told him Mick would get his mobility back, or at least most of it, and his legs aren't as affected as his back and shoulders. There should be no impact on his ability to run, or at least to walk quickly. Or does Mick know something he doesn't...?

"Yeah, I hear through the grapevine that you got yourself a new job," Mick says dryly. "Not much thieving to be done there. Plus I figure it might be time to retire from the whole thief thing myself, too, all things considered."

"Ah. Right. I forgot."

Metaphorically running, right, that's an option.

"Don't go forgetting you quitting crime, boss; it's a kinda big deal. You really got a business card like Skirt says?"

"Yeah, it's awful," Len says. "Stamped, embossed proof that I'm legit now."

"Embossed," Mick marvels. "Now I know I gotta retire, if you've shifted over to doing the hunting."

"I'm Internal Affairs, actually," Len says. "I only hunt corrupt cops, district attorneys, and other government employees, not criminals."

"Really? Huh. Shoulda known you'd find a loophole – crime-fighting without actual crime-fighting."

"What can I say? I'm very good at what I do," Len sniffs, smiling when Mick laughs - finally getting the double meaning that's always been there. "And, uh, about your crimes -"

"Yeah?"

"So, I might've registered you as a CI couple of years ago," Len confesses, deciding that exactly how many years constituted a couple was an open question up for debate. Couple could totally mean a decade plus. "Proper legal confidential informant for both the CCPD and the Feds. Then after a few years of that, I got you swapped over to being classified as full undercover -"

"Wait," Mick says, alarmed. "You telling me the reason all of my prison sentences were so short was 'cause the judges all thought I was a pig?!"

"You didn't care about the reason back then!"

"I'm a pig?!"

"No, you never went to police academy, you ain't a pig," Len says, rolling his eyes. "I told 'em you were working for me as a non-officer agent, and it ain't like they really care about a few arsons when they've got the whole set of Families to take down. You're a snitch at best."

Mick considers this.

"I'm okay with being a rat," he finally decides. "I like rats. They're cute. Remember Axl?"

Len does remember Mick's pet rat Axl. Mick doted on him, and even Len got pretty fond. They ended up having to find him a new owner - a woman with a gigantic rat cage that took up half the living room, which both she and Mick agreed was the right balance of pet-to-owner space (Len thought they were both nuts) - and he lived to a ripe old age with god-knows-how-many descendants.

"But seriously," Mick continues, "they actually all bought that? Didn't they ever ask you why I was willing to do all that work without being paid?"

"Well. Actually..."

"Boss. Boss, no. I know that tone of voice. You telling me I got paid? Is there some savings account somewhere with my name forged on it that you conveniently never told me about?"

"Maybe."

Mick rolls his eyes, grinning; he knows that's as good as a yes. "Anything else you'd like to tell me while we're at it?"

Len considers this. "...did Danvers' group-chat mention my cold gun?" he finally asks, reaching down and patting the piece in question. He'd been carrying it with him in case Barry tried to come confront him or something, though luckily Barry hasn't.

Barry wouldn't. He knows that, now that he's thinking a bit more calmly. Not at a hospital, certainly, but not ever. He wouldn't force his presence on Len like that, thinking he was unwanted.

"At length, yeah," Mick says dryly. "Your new baby."

"Well," Len says, ignoring that. So what if his gun is the best, sweetest girl he's ever seen, once you exclude Lisa from the calculations? "What Danvers doesn't know is that it came as part of a set - one cold gun, one heat gun."

"Heat gun? Like a flamethrower?"

"Better - it manipulates the intensity of infrared waves. You can light anything on fire."

"Boss," Mick says. "I've already forgiven you for the whole pig thing. You don't need to heap on the presents."

"You saying you don't want it?"

"You bet your ass I want it!" Mick exclaims, laughing. "Man, I'm gonna need to thank this Allen guy when I meet him; you never used to give out such good gifts."

Len flinches. Just a little, but Mick notices, of course.

"Boss?"

"You won't, uh, you won't exactly be meeting him," Len says. "Anytime...ever."

"Why not?"

"Because after I found out about the secret prison thing, I had his foster dad arrested for corruption, got warrants to search the homes of his two best friends, and got Barry suspended from his job without pay pending investigation. So I don't think he's really in the mood to talk to me."

"...shit, boss," Mick says after a long few minutes. "You sure love to put the 'over' in 'over-reaction', don't you?"

"They committed crimes," Len says defensively. "Very bad crimes. And they should've known better!"

"Boss! Ain't you the one always telling me about how intent matters? Ain't they being manipulated by some mastermind creep asshole who's good enough to be playing the Families? Even criminal courts don't consider stuff done under duress and deception to be as bad!"

Len winces. That's...not actually wrong. Sure, they committed some fairly horrific crimes and they totally should've known better, but there were some extenuating circumstances he probably ought've thought a bit more about. Any man who could play not just one but multiple Families clearly had an edge when it came to mind games - and don't think Len hasn't noticed the way Barry'd described the toxic atmosphere and emotional jibes and the almost parental relationship the guy set up in his office, which is the sort of environment that can convince even otherwise intelligent people to do seriously shady things.

It's not an excuse, not at all. But it is something of an explanation. Probably not enough to knock down the charge from primary to accessory, but a judge could definitely look at that and find lots there to help mitigate -

"Boss..."

"I know, I know! You don't understand, I was just really angry -"

"Boss!" someone that is definitely not Mick exclaims, bursting through the door. "We've found something!"

Len is off the bed, one crutch in the air wielded as a club, before they even finish the sentence, and then he realizes it's just Detective Thawne and Iris.

"Oh, it's you," he says blankly. "How'd you even know to find me here?"

"Uh," Thawne says, eying the raised crutch warily. "Ms. Danvers told us. Pretty reluctantly. You - wanna put that crutch down? You're looking a bit unsteady."

Len rolls his eyes and does, sitting back down.

"Does that work?" Iris asks. "As an improvised weapon, I mean?"

"Better than you'd think," Len says dryly.

"How come he's still got crutches, anyway?" Mick asks from his bed. "Ain't it been months since he got fucked up?"

"Apparently he keeps tearing his injuries back open," Iris says.

"Damnit, boss..."

"That's not the reason," Len says, even though he kind of does do that more than he should. "It's because the second gunshot nicked my spine and it takes lots longer to heal from that."

"And you keep tearing your injuries back open," Iris says wisely.

"...and that," Len concedes grumpily.

"I'm Iris," she adds, waving at Mick. "Iris West. This is my fiancé, Eddie Thawne. We're helping Captain Snart here investigate the disappearances -"

"Heard of you," Mick says, waving in the general direction of his phone. "Skirt – uh, Danvers – she’s got a group-chat with running commentary up -"

"I want in," Iris says at once. “That sounds amazing.”

"- but you said West, right? Didn't the boss here just..? Why you still working with him after that?"

"Because my dad deserves to get into trouble over this shit," Iris says, an angry glint in her eyes. "Between the lying and the deception and the blatant aiding and abetting of human trafficking, I'm starting to wonder if I ever really knew him at all -"

"Hold up," Len says. "Fiancé? That's new. Congrats, both of you."

That works splendidly to derail Iris, who spends the next few moments showing them both her ring while Thawne blushes and smiles and is entirely unable to look away from Iris, stars in his eyes the whole time.

"Nice," Len says. "Tasteful - pretty, but with some class."

"I'd definitely steal it," Mick agrees.

"Definitely," Len agrees. “I could fence that in minutes.”

"You're both very sweet," Iris says. "And if it ever goes missing, I'll be sure to check with you two first. Anyway, not the point! We came here to tell you that we've figured it out!"

"The Families' 'big day'?" Len asks, immediately interested. "Or Wells' connection to it?"

"Both, actually," Thawne says, brightening. "It's complicated and - well, a little frightening, but we think we have an idea of where the rabbit hole leads, at least, although I wouldn't go as far as Iris and say we actually figured it out."

"We got a good start," Iris says, with dignity. "That's further than most people've gotten."

"And you managed to do it without being 'disappeared', well done you," Len drawls.

"He means that as a compliment," Mick remarks.

"Yes, we gathered," Iris says, grinning at him. "Listen to the tone, not the words, right?"

"Sometimes the tone'll mislead you, but yeah, generally. I usually use body posture - the more lounging, the better his mood."

Len pointedly straightens back up, causing Iris to snigger, Thawne to smile, and Mick to chuckle.

"What's this about Families, though?" Mick asks. "Thought Snart was focused on corrupt cops and government people now."

"I'm sure I can find a police corruption hook somewhere," Len says airily. "You know what they say, you can take the boy out of org crime work..."

"Not a real saying, Snart," Mick says, long-suffering. "Never was."

"Actually, you might have more of a hook than we originally thought," Thawne says. "You see, the Families -"

"Plural?"

"That's right, Mr. Rory -"

"Mick."

"Mick," Iris says with relish. She's going to use this to try to get permission to call Len by his name, he just knows she is. Pity she's doomed to disappointment. "Yes, Families, plural; we've confirmed that all the Families in Central have agreed to work together on this."

"All of 'em? Shit."

"Agreed," Len says.

"Shoulda stayed in the coma..."

"Don't say shit like that or I'll smack you with a crutch," Len tells him, then transfers his attention back to the other two. "So what is it? What's the big day? And, perhaps equally important, when?"

"We can answer your last question best," Thawne says. "We're still not sure exactly what the Families are planning - we know it involves a lot of movement, a lot of manpower, though probably a lot of that is just security - but we've identified what the major Central-wide event they're going to use to conceal their mobilization."

"You're not going to like it," Iris interjects.

"I never liked any part of this," Len points out. "Hit me."

"The Families' big day goes down on Election Day," Thawne says.

"...Election Day," Len says. "Election Day. Election Day?!"

He's pretty sure he's not adequately conveying the sheer horror he's feeling right now.

Election Day.

Not the one held in November, which is all well and good, but the important one for Central City purposes: the primary election that happens each year in May.

The day where the real candidate selection takes place.

Only one of the wildest days of the entire Central City social calendar.

Most of the country has faded into widespread apathy, not bothering with votes that they feel rarely matter, and all the more so when it's "only" a primary – but not Central City.

Oh, no, not Central City, with its still-functioning political machine with its armies of thugs available to help 'encourage' voting. Central City's government might be rife with corruption, yes, and one-party control is practically a given, but at some point some genius decided to deal with the fact that there are competing sources of corruption by allowing a total free-for-all when it came to who got the nod for what position.

Corporate candidates battle it out with nationalists and progressives and reformers and who-the-hell-knows-what-else. In Central, even the communists abandon their flag in favor of competing in the bloodbath of Election Day, knowing that the political machine would force the city - and with it, the state - to fall into line come the federal election day, a far less important date.

Election Day.

And the Families are moving.

Not a good combination.

Especially since –

“Election Day is tomorrow!” he exclaims.

"Yeah," Iris says grimly. "Not good at all. Like Eddie says, we haven't figured out exactly what they're up to, but if it's on Election Day, dollars to donuts is that it involves the election itself."

"And with the Commissioner hoping to run for mayor while the mayor runs for governor, getting anyone's attention to doing anything to stop them will be a trick and a half," Len says, equally grim. "What'd you find out about Wells?"

"We think he's being used as a liaison between the Families and more legitimate entities," Thawne says. "Although why -"

He cuts off in the middle of his sentence.

Quite reasonably, in Len's view, given that they are no longer alone in the room.

The Man in Yellow is here.

The name Barry gave him is apt, Len thinks; far more than the Reverse Flash. Beyond the monstrous speed, there's nothing of Barry here at all, not even a reflection.

Standing in the middle of the room with his entire body vibrating at a consistent blur that Barry hasn't mastered, utterly human but for his demonically bright red eyes, the Man in Yellow smiles.

"Don't let me interrupt you, gentlemen," he says, his voice as blurred as his face. He's being obnoxiously courteous, in a sort of arrogant narcissist way that suggests he's entertaining himself in the moments before he plans to kill them all. "You were saying -"

"And lady," Len interrupts, rising to his feet.

"...what?"

"Gentlemen, and lady," Len says. "I believe Iris identifies as a lady."

"I do," Iris says, looking somewhat perturbed by Len's sudden interest in grammar. "‘Gentlemen and lady’ is in fact correct."

The Man in Yellow - Wells himself, or someone in his employ - blinks those shining red eyes, clearly taken aback.

Len assumes he had some sort of introductory speech planned out. Too bad for him that Len isn’t the type to willingly subject himself to evil monologues.

"Would you like to move on to the part where you threaten to kill us all?" Len inquires. "Or do you generally just go straight to the actual murder?"

The Man in Yellow laughs, the sound ringing through the room. "I usually like to make a point of it," he says, raising a vibrating hand. It's moving as fast as a sawblade - if he touches any of them with that, they're done for. "But I think you're right that I should just move on to the main event -"

Len shoots him with the cold gun he'd wrestled into position while the Man in Yellow was distracted by Len’s grammatical non-sequitur.

The Man in Yellow screams.

"Iris, Thawne, run!" Len shouts, keeping the cold blast aimed dead center at the Man in Yellow's face and torso. He'd theorized, based on what happened when it hit Barry, that a hit straight to the head would be disabling to a speedster as long as the beam was maintained; with such key areas targeted, the speedster's body would prioritize healing the damage over anything else, robbing them of the presence of mind they would need to either run away or attack.

"Come with us!" Iris shouts back.

Len centers his legs, which have started shaking, and exhales through his nose. He needs both hands to aim the gun properly - two hands, which leaves none for his crutches; that's why he's been using the braces whenever he's gone out as Captain Cold. Still, all that PT is finally coming in handy: even without crutches, he can stand.

But not for long.

The second he falls back to sit on the bed, his hands will slip, and the beam will drift off target - only by a little, only for a second, but that's all the Man in Yellow will need to escape.

If he tries to leave, he might be able to keep the beam on him until he reaches the door -

But there's one person in the room who can't leave.

"I ain't leaving Mick," he shouts back. "Get out of here! Find a place to hide!"

Even at superspeed, hiding would force the Man in Yellow to look for them - they certainly can't hope to outrun him.

"You get out too!" Mick snaps even as Iris nods jerkily and hurries out, urged on by Thawne. "Boss -"

"I ain't picking something over you again and that's final!"

"Damnit, Len -"

Len's legs give out.

The Man in Yellow darts out of the beam, snarling in rage, his face - and it does look like Wells under what little is left of that mask, or the pictures Len's seen of him - still covered in ice and burned by swiftly healing frostbite.

And then there's a swift wind.

Len closes his eyes, expecting to die so quickly that he doesn't have time to question it - or perhaps to be taken to be tortured, if that's more Wells' speed -

Heh, speed.

Wait a second.

He hasn't been moved - his side would've been protesting if he had - and he's not dead, because he feels moderately sure he wouldn't be around to continue sniggering at puns if he was.

He opens his eyes.

The room is empty.

Wells is gone -

- but so is Mick.

"Mick!" Len cries out, even though he knows it's futile. The Man in Yellow has him.

Wells has his Mick.

"Snart!" Iris cries out, bursting into the room. There are tears of terror and rage streaming down her cheeks. "Snart - he took Eddie! I saw him - the red lightning! He took Eddie!"

"He took Mick, too," Len says, barely able to process it. He just got Mick back - he just fucking got Mick back after nearly losing him to people who hurt Mick because of Len, and here it is, happening all over again.

Mick wouldn't have been a target to the Families if it wasn't for Len, and what he did and who he was.

Mick wouldn't have been a target to the Man in Yellow, if it wasn't for Len's investigation.

Mick -

Mick, who is still bedridden, who is still hospital-bound, who will die if he didn't have the treatment he needed -

Mick is gone.

#coldflash #leonard snart #mick rory #barry allen #iris west #eddie thawne #eobard thawne #Harrison wells #my fic #an internal affair

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sassyshoulderangel319 · 6 years

Text

Fictober18 Day 30 “Do we really have to do this again?”

Fandom/Character(s): DC Comics, BatFam - Dick Grayson/Nightwing

“Do we really have to do this again?” Nightwing complained. “Why can’t you just leave Blüdhaven alone?”

I snickered. “You’d miss me if I left,” I replied. “We’re like Blüdhaven’s Batman and Catwoman.”

“Except Catwoman is a thief. You’re something much worse.”

“Pfft. Nah. You’re wound too tight. I don’t even kill anyone. Never have. Probably never will.”

Nightwing narrowed his eyes at me. “No. You just scare and intimidate politicians to fulfill contracts. Sometimes you beat them within an inch of their lives.”

I shrugged. “Someone ought to. All the politicians in this stupid town are corrupt and trying to actively ruin people’s lives. I’d say I’m really doing you a favor, here, Wingster.”

Nightwing’s nostrils flared. “I don’t think so. There are better ways to improve lives.”

“Huh. Sure. When you find one, tell me. It’s not like you don’t beat criminals within an inch of their lives every night. And, by the way, last I checked vigilantism was illegal too. So maybe don’t be so self-righteous about my ends when our means are practically the same.”

Nightwing shook his head and whipped out his escrima sticks. “I really don’t want to do this tonight,” he said.

“Then you don’t have to. We can skip to the part where we make out somewhere private or you just... let me jump off the edge of the roof,” I said playfully.

“I can’t do that,” he said. “You’re too dangerous for that.”

I sighed. “Worth a shot,” I said, pulling my daggers out of my thigh holsters. “Okay pretty bird. Come at me.”

Nightwing cried out and launched himself at me. I laughed and dodged his first swing. The second one clocked me in the gut. Frustrated, I slashed at his arms and hands, trying to just disable him so he’d leave me alone. “You’re insufferable, Monarch!”

I shrugged. “The feeling’s mutual, Wingster. Nothing better than a playful rivalry with a hot vigilante who hates you and who you hate,” I joked, ducking under another swing of his escrima stick.

“Shut up!”

“Tsk. Touchyyy,” I teased. “Touchy, touchy, touchy.” I giggled.

We fought---but it felt more like sparring. We weren’t really trying to gravely hurt each other. Or even hurt each other at all. Okay that was a stretch. I was actually trying to slice at his hands and arms so he’d stop hitting me with those stupid sticks. But we were both pulling our punches. I was, and I could tell he was too. We’d fought before and his hits didn’t hurt as much this time.

As we fought, I worked my way over to the edge of the rooftop, holding off his escrima sticks with my daggers. I smiled. “Well, birdie, it’s been real. It’s been fun. It’s been real fun. But I got stuff to do. See ya later.” I winked at him and leapt over the side.

“Monarch!” he shouted after me.

Too late. I was already lost to the night.

^^^^^

Knock-knock! Knuckles tapped on the edge of my desk. I looked up from my screen to see a familiar face with a familiar smile. There was something shiny on the belt. I glanced at it. Blüdhaven City Police Department. A badge.

I pulled my headphones out of my ears by tugging on the cords---which was probably why mine broke every couple months. “Well, well, well,” I said to my old friend. “Look at you. A cop. I’m impressed.”

Dick grinned. “A detective, actually,” he corrected playfully. I rolled my eyes playfully. “And what about you, hmm? An up-and-coming reporter!”

I chuckled. “Yeah. I always loved writing and now...” I beamed. “Now I get to write all the time,” I said.

“Look at you. I’m proud of you,” he said.

“Thanks. So. What can I do for you? I don’t imagine you just stopped by to admire how messy my desk is and gush to each other at how we’ve actually established ourselves as adults with careers,” I said.

He snickered. “Always so smart,” he said. “I was actually wondering if you’ve heard anything about Monarch.”

“That chick who beat up the District Attorney on live TV while wearing a mask?” I asked, knowing full well that Monarch was me and that was exactly what I did, but acting like I didn’t. No way I was admitting to my cop friend that I was a masked criminal at night.

He nodded. “That’s the one.”

I shrugged. “Sorry, Dick. Gotta disappoint you. I’m not an investigative journalist. I’m still a junior reporter who gets fluff pieces about home improvement and holiday decorations. If you want anything investigative, you’ll have to ask higher up. But aren’t you the detective?” I teased. “I thought the investigating was your job and then my colleagues bother you for your information.”

That got him to chuckle. “True. But journalists aren’t bound to the same rules as cops are. You can talk to whoever you want if they say it’s okay and can enter places without a warrant.”

“Yeah but consent and professionalism and laws and rules and guidelines and stuff,” I said.

“Right. I just thought I’d come ask,” he said.

There was a moment of silence during which we both felt uncomfortable and didn’t know what to say.

“Crazy isn’t it?” I asked after a moment. “The world we live in? Vigilantes and metahumans and aliens and Amazons. Blüdhaven and Gotham used to be nothing more than crime-ridden cities and now they’re breeding grounds for freaks in masks and stuff.”

“Tell me about it,” Dick muttered, sounding tired. Poor guy. As a detective he probably got way too involved with the other costumed crazies in Blüdhaven. The ones I didn’t interact with. I had too much of my own stuff to do.

“You sound so dead inside,” I joked.

He gave me a look. “I’m not. Just sick of weirdos in costumes and masks wrecking havoc. The world used to make sense,” he said.

“Lucky you. It never made sense to me,” I said. “That’s why I like this job so much. It forces me to make sense of the chaos. Or... it will. When I actually get to write interesting pieces.”

He chuckled. “I look forward to seeing your interesting pieces,” he said. “But I should head out. Thanks for trying, anyway.”

“No problem. Good luck with the investigation.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s been real, it’s been fun. It’s been real fun, Dick. See ya later,” I said with a wave.

Dick stared at me for several seconds. Then he shook his head and left the floor I worked on.

“Who was that?! He was cute!” my friend and coworker, JJ, asked.

“That’s Dick. We went to school together,” I said. “He is cute but he’s a little flaky. Blowing off study groups, occasionally ditching class because he, quote-unquote, ‘forgot.’ That kind of thing.”

“Huh.” She shrugged. “I’d still date him,” she said.

I laughed. “Go right ahead,” I remarked before going back to my work and plugging my headphones back into my ears.

^^^^^

WHAM! Something slammed me into the wall of an alley on my walk home. I reacted instinctively, going on the defensive.

“What the heck, Nightwing?” I demanded.

“You’re Monarch!” he growled.

“What?!”

“You said the same thing to Detective Grayson that you did to me!”

“What? The real fun thing? That’s not an uncommon phrase! I got it from my mom, who got it from my neighbor growing up!”

“Don’t lie to me, Monarch!”

“I’m not Monarch!” I lied.

He elbowed me in the gut. I doubled over, coughing, the breath knocked out of me. He bent down so his lips were close to my ear. “One way to find out,” he said. I coughed and straightened up.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Time to skip to the make out portion.”

“The what?!” If I wasn’t in so much pain from that elbow I would have laughed.

“I’d know Monarch’s kiss anywhere,” he said.

“That sounds a little naughty,” I remarked.

“Prove you’re not her and I’ll leave you alone.”

“Fine.”

He grabbed my face and kissed me.

I didn’t know how to change my kiss so that he wouldn’t recognize me exactly, but with how tense I was, maybe he wouldn’t notice.

“Mm. It is you. You’re not a good liar,” he whispered.

Busted. Oh well. “Is this the part where we find somewhere a little less public than an alley?” I teased.

He narrowed his eyes at me through his mask. “Maybe,” he said.

I grinned. “Then what are we waiting for, handsome?”

#fictober18 #Dick Grayson #Dick Grayson Imagine #Dick Grayson FanFiction #Nightwing #Nightwing Imagine #Nightwing FanFiction #DC #BatFam

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bluraaven · 7 years

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Smoke and Mirrors

El Abuelo is the most notorious of crime bosses, and it falls to Special Agent Reynauld Maurouard to take him down. His only lead: Dismas, an ex-bandit whose outfit was in the mobster's hire. Things go downhill from there.

Chapter 1

Special Agent Reynauld Maurouard couldn't say that filling out forms was his favourite occupation, but paperwork was a necessary evil when you worked in law enforcement. When a shadow fell over him, blocking out the light, he put down his pen and straightened. Reynauld could have sworn that he could hear as well as feel some disks in his back pop into place. Or out of it. Something to worry about later.

"How's it going?" the man leaning on his desk asked, a faint smile playing around his mouth as he surveyed the battlefield that was Reynauld's workspace.

"How'd you think?" Reynauld grunted, rubbing his hands over his face until he saw stars. For the past hour the letters had been running together, but he needed to finish this before tomorrow or he'd have his superiors breathing down his neck. "I'm elbows deep in reports."

"Ain't we all?" Guyot asked. In the clinically cold light of the neon lamps the dark circles around his eyes were all the more prominent, and his freckles were a stark contrast to his pale skin. He looked just as exhausted as Reynauld felt.

As if he had read his thoughts, Guyot lifted a silver can, giving it an inviting swirl, and instantly the rich aroma of roasted beans permeated the stale office air. "Coffee?"

When he saw Reynauld hesitating, he was quick to add, "It's good, I tested it. On Marci." Guyot looked around, guilt written all over his face, but in the end he just shrugged and grinned sheepishly.

Reynauld chuckled. When some higher ups had thought it a great idea to put the PD and forensics in the same building – talk about corruption – and some of the doctors were evidently as mentally unstable as the criminals they pursued, caution saved you from getting yourself into a lot of trouble. "Is she still among the living?"

"Aye, the living and the conscious," Guyot replied easily.

"Then yes, please." Reynauld had to shift some folders to find his mug buried underneath them and held it out for Guyot to fill.

Which he did, right up to the brim, eying some of the papers strewn all over the desk in the process. "What'cha got here? Montgomery case?"

"M-hmm," Reynauld hummed and took a sip of scalding hot fermented–bean–juice. He closed his eyes for a moment to savour it.

"What a shitshow," Guyot observed. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we got him. Just because the man was in politics and old money, don't mean he's above justice." He stopped; they'd talked more than their fair share about it. The case had been all over the news for weeks, and by now everybody who had worked on it was fed up with it. It was time to wrap it up and to move on.

"Anyway, the guys wanna know if you're coming to the track run. We're up against the boys from Eastside distinct."

Track run. That rang a bell. Reynauld frowned; he had quite forgotten about the charity event. "When's it?"

"Next weekend."

"I can't," Reynauld replied and didn't have to fake the regret. Those competition between departments were usually a lot of fun and a good way to get to know new people, make some contacts. "Thio's over, and I promised him we'll go camping."

"Aw, damn. We're losing our best man." But Guyot said it with a smile. He knew how much those weekends meant to Reynauld. "How is the big man?"

"Growing bigger every day." The thought of his son never failed to put a smile on Reynauld's face. "I can't believe he's about to turn eight. Eve wanted to have a party. You're invited of course, provided you can stand a horde of children high on sugar.

"You know I'd never miss out, and Lucy's been wanting to visit anyway. We'll pop in, say hi, and evac if it gets too bad." Guyot laughed and Reynauld had to join in. Fair was fair. They had served in the army together, and when they had quit the force it had been his friend's contacts that had given Reynauld a job here in the city.

"Chin up, soldier. One more week and it's over," Guyot said. "Maybe the chief's even gonna give you a promotion!"

Reynauld snorted at the thought, which should be answer enough. If you couldn't find pride in the police work but wanted praise, you had to join the K-9 units. As a dog. On most days, Reynauld did enjoy it; doing something good, something useful. He thanked Guyot for the offering of artificial energy that would get him through the evening and waved when the other man took his leave.

Just a few more hours, and he'd be able to go home. Put a lid on the whole thing and give himself a pat on the shoulder. From a framed picture, one of the few private possessions he kept at work, Reynauld's family was smiling at him.

He sighed and picked up his pen again.

Reynauld wished a person could refuel on good mood like a vehicle could on gasoline, because Monday came cloaked in chaos, like a true harbinger of a bad week.

Over the weekend, he had taken Thio out of the city and to a natural preserve that had a nice lake and easy trails. Maybe when his son was older, Reynauld would be able to take him hiking in the Hinterlands, but that would be in a couple of years at the earliest.

Now, he was running late for work since his alarm had given up on life sometime in the middle of the night. Thanks to years of military service and an affinity for the early morning hours, he still managed to wake almost on time. Maintenance works on the train rails forced him to take his car however, and he promptly found himself stuck in an unmoving column of other unfortunate souls braving the morning traffic.

When he had finally made it to the intersection, he almost had an accident when some idiot on a motorbike ran a red light and cut him off, disappearing between a delivery van and a taxi before Reynauld had a chance to catch his plate number.

The rest of the drive passed without incident, thankfully. The RPD, the Riverside Police Department, was located some two miles outside of the city center, and just about ten walking minutes from the Riverside train station. The building had a long history, beginning with it originally being built as a summer residence for Emperor Harauld. Since then it had served as university, a hospital, and finally the casern it was to this day.

There was nothing inherently inviting about the grey and cheerless stonework, but it was far from the worst place to work. In the large courtyard, Barristan had some sweaty-looking recruits in training clothes lined up. Reynauld returned the wave the one-eyed drill sergeant greeted him with, and hurried on.

As soon as he pulled open the door, he was struck by the lack of usual activity. The quiet of the waiting room was disturbed only by the hum of the ceiling fan, its blades rotating lazily. The air was thick with the smells of stale coffee and smoke, even though smoking inside had been prohibited by law several years ago. Underlying those was a faint odour of office: a less-than enticing mix of sweat, paper, and cleaning agents.

There was nobody seated behind the two front desks, and that was unusual enough to make Reynauld double-check his mobile and pager, nervous about maybe having overlooked a message. Special Weapons And Tactics carried those to call them to operations too dangerous for regular police officers to handle. Riot control wasn't much of an issue these days anymore, so they mostly handled search warrants and cases that involved organized crime, which in turn were usually linked to weapon or narcotics dealership, or illegal betting. They had special training; and were authorized to carry military equipment, but the rest of the time, they were law enforcement agents like any other. Reynauld did his fair share of patrols, reports and other sorts of office work.

Both the pager and his phone's screens were blank, so he had not missed some emergency. He decided to go to his office first; maybe Guyot would be able to tell him what was going on. He never got that far though, because Reynauld almost collided with Marci when he jogged up the stairs.

"Where is everyone?"

"Mallory's office," the young police officer replied, sounding out of breath. "Linesi's taken out two teams – there has been another robbery."

Another one. Reynauld's heart sank. "Where?"

"Central," Maci replied, biting her lip.

Reynauld nodded, and hurried past her. Mallory saw him and waved from the door to her office. She was a tall, no-nonsense kind of person who wore her black hair short and whom he had never seen out of a suit. She had worked her way up to deputy director and it was generally assumed she would one day replace the Chief when he retired.

She was holding a meeting, and a grapevine of people was clustered in the room which seemed too small all of a sudden. Gatherings like this didn't usually happen unless it was someone's birthday or something bad had occurred. Reynauld didn't need Marci to tell him which one this was, he could have guessed by the absence of cake and smiles upon the faces of those around him.

Reynauld took up position in the back of the group. He had to stand on his toes to be able to look over all their heads and see what held their attention. The flatscreen was a video playing footage from what could only be a security camera. Reynauld had missed most of it, but he arrived just in time to see a black-masked burglar breathe steam on the camera's lens. The quality of the recording was not good enough to tell whether it was a man or a woman before fog was all they could see. And then a heart appeared where the condensation was wiped away with the tip of one finger. Seconds later, the tv flickered to black, and that was it.

In the silence that followed one would have been able to hear a pin drop. And that was saying something since the office was carpeted.

"When did this happen?" Reynauld finally asked when he realized nobody else was going to.

"We received the tape this morning," Mallory answered, and turned off the television with an annoyed flick of her wrist. "This was recorded on Sunday evening."

"I thought the cemetery had a security firm doing surveillance, and we'll get notified as soon as something happens?" someone to Reynauld's right called out.

A muscle in Mallory's jaw twitched, but her tone did not betray her frustration. "They disabled the security system," she informed them.

"Shit!" somebody else cursed, which earned them a glower from Mallory, but by then the room had burst into chaos; everybody was calling out ideas and talking one over the other.

"Rey." Mallory's hand landed on his shoulder a moment later, and her voice lowered, despite the chance of being overheard being close to zero. "The Chief wants a word."

Reynauld nodded at her and left the room, leaving her to bring back order to the meeting. His boss was not the most patient of men, and there was no reason to antagonize him, especially since he very much did not want to draw attention to his tardiness.

The Chief's office was at the end of the second story corridor. A golden plate was screwed to the door, but Reynauld did not even glance at it. His knuckles had barely made contact with the wood when he was told to enter, and he stepped into Chief Vvulf's domain.

The room was just like he remembered it. Most of it was taken up by a large desk, and the walls were lined with shelves that were slowly beginning to bend under their load. At some point an effort had been made to make the office look more homely, but the plants had not lasted long. The Chief had kept but one, and the fact that it was a cactus really spoke for itself.

He was in his middle years, with short grey hair and the figure of a powerful man who was slowly getting out of shape. "What did she tell you?" the Chief began without so much as a word of greeting. He was seated in a big leather armchair behind his desk.

Guessing that he must have meant Mallory, Reynauld answered, "The central cemetery was hit by a masked felon nicknamed the Graverobber."

The Chief nodded, then made a hand gesture for Reynauld to close the door and take a seat. "This ain't for anybody's ears," he grunted.

"Sir?"

Vvulf laced his fingers together on his stomach, fixing his unblinking gaze on Reynauld. "There's no point tiptoeing around it. I don't shout it from the rooftops, but my family's history goes back a long way. The mausoleum that was hit yesterday wasn't just anyone. These attacks are have become a personal matter now. We, the police, are being targeted, and the situation has gotten out of control."

Reynauld had not known that the Chief was related to any of the old nobility, but then perhaps the knowledge should not surprise him; one did not rise to the rank of Chief without some good connections. There was very little Reynauld actually knew about the man who was his boss, despite having worked for him for years. Vvulf was someone who valued his privacy and didn't get too friendly with his subordinates.

"So we take down the ones responsible," Reynauld deducted, still unsure why he was here. Certainly it was not so that his boss could make that little confession?

"You're a smart man, Maurouard," Vvulf pointed out, a hint of irritation in his voice.

"You don't think they're acting out of their own agenda," Reynauld deduced, remembering the video Mallory had shown them. The Graverobber's actions had struck him as being... provocative, almost. They certainly had wanted to be seen, maybe to send some kind of message.

"No. I do not," the Chief confirmed with a pleased nod. "Whether we like it or not, the old families are the foundation which this city is built upon."

Reynauld noticed he spoke as if he did not belong to one of them, despite his earlier admission.

"And there are those who would benefit from weakening it, from sowing discord, uncertainty and fear. From making us look weak and incompetent. If the people do not feel safe," the Chief said and leaned forward on his elbows as if he was to share a great secret, "Whom will they turn to for protection?"

"So these attacks are not a coincidence," Reynauld summed up. Everybody had presumed as much, but they still lacked solid proof. "And you suspect one of the northern cartels?"

Vvulf was shaking his head before Reynauld had even finished speaking. "Not just any one of them." Reynauld wanted to ask if he really thought he could be behind all this, but the Chief continued. "El Abuelo has plenty of reason to target us," Vvulf pointed out. "We may not know what his final goal is, but men like him feed off chaos. They always look for weaknesses, for a way to expand their power. We need to stop him – ," the Chief broke off abruptly, and Reynauld imagined he could hear the ghost of an at all costs.

He did not comment. El Abuelo was one of the, if not the most notorious of crime bosses. Reynauld was still trying to come to terms with everything he had learned, when Vvulf said,

"I want you to be the Special Agent in Charge on this case."

"Me?"

"Do you see anyone else in this room?" Vvulf demanded to know. "Yes, you."

"Why?" Reynauld blurted out, which, in hindsight, probably wasn't the smartest thing to say. He was still reeling from all the information – a moment ago he had not even known there was a case; now he had been told he was to lead a major investigation that involved one of the most dangerous men in the North. And was not the most experienced man the Chief had, and huge cases like this were usually given to the senior officers.

Vvulf's lips pursed in thought. "You did some good work," he finally said, but even guff praise from the Chief was quite something. "I like that you are efficient and discreet and I trust you to handle delicate matters without causing a scandal. This is your chance, Maurouard. Prove me I'm right, and who knows, this seat might one day belong to you," he added and laughed at his own joke, a rare sign he had a sense of humour, buried somewhere deep inside.

The corner of Reynauld's mouth tugged upwards. "Thinking about retiring, Sir?" It would be hard to imagine the PD without Vvulf there to lead them, he was such a huge personality. A tough boss with high expectations, but a fair one.

"There's one of them Southern beaches that has my name on it," Vvulf said, but his eyes were already narrowing. "You look like there's something on your mind. Spit it out, what is it?"

"I was actually hoping to take some time off," Reynauld confessed. He was tired from merely thinking about the upcoming work load. He deserved a vacation, and he still had three weeks good from last year that he was going to lose soon – as his boss knew very well.

Vvulf leaned back, making his leather armchair creak. "Tell you what," he decided. "If time wasn't of the essence, I'd let you go right now. I will let you keep your three weeks, and if we get El Abuelo, I'll top it off with a month of paid leave extra, so you can spend some time with your boy – family's everything, after all. How does that sound?"

"Sounds like a deal, Sir." Reynauld could barely believe the offer he'd been made; it was quite unheard of. But he trusted his boss not to pull him over. And if they got El Abuelo, Vvulf would be basking in the attention of the media. He might even be hailed a city hero.

"Excellent," the Chief said, sounding pleased. "You'll be happy to know we already have a lead."

That certainly was news. "We do?" Reynauld asked, cocking his brow.

"The Graverobber is not operating on his or her own," Vvulf replied. "There is no way they could disable the security system and rob the mausoleum in time before we were alerted of the shutdown. They have an accomplice." The Chief turned and got up, reaching to take a folder off the shelf behind him. He dropped it on the table and flipped it towards Reynauld who opened it.

The first page was taken up by a close-up of a man's face. For reasons unknown the photograph was black and white, but Reynauld did not need colour to recognize him.

"Dismas," he said, remembering the name because it was actually that of the penitent thief from the Verse of Light. An alias then.

Reynauld wasn't sure if the rogue was ballsy, or merely an arsehole.

"Aye," Vvulf confirmed, his greying brows drawing together. "One right bloody fucker. He's guilty of more than some harmless misconduct too. The man's an ex-bandit, and former member of the Wolves."

Reynauld flipped the first page. There was a list of information they had managed to collect on the man. The first line read:

Real name: Valance Paixdecouer.

"Paixdecouer," Reynauld said slowly, thinking. "Is the name given to orphans raised by the Order."

Vvulf nodded. "I see I chose the right man for the job. Pick your team, Maurouard, and get started straight away. This has top priority from now on until I tell you otherwise. "

Reynauld closed the folder with a snap and picked it up, resting it against the crook of his elbow. "What about the Montgomery case, Sir?"

"Just hand it over to someone else," Vvulf said. "Mallory will handle it, if no one else will. You can report to her, if I'm not here."

Reynauld nodded, "You said Dismas ran with the Wolves?" He had heard a lot about the gang, but it had fallen apart and its members had scattered when their leader had disappeared. Apparently there had been some sort of falling out between who they only knew as the Wolf, and El Abuelo.

"The Wolf was El Abuelo's hireling," the Chief said after a brief pause. "Therefore, if we find him," Vvulf said, tapping one fat finger against picture-Dismas' temple, "Maybe we can retrace his connection right back to the source."

"Do we know his whereabouts then?" Reynauld wanted to know. Despite himself, he couldn't help but feel a spark of excitement. The Wolf had disappeared a little bit over a decade ago – either laying low, or killed by El Abuelo himself. Even if he was alive, he had had enough time to cover his tracks. It was unlikely they would find him – unlikely, but not impossible.

"Unfortunately, we do not," Vvulf confirmed Reynauld's suspicion. "Every time we were tipped off and the team's gotten close, he has slipped through our nets. Man doesn't hang out in one place for very long. The good thing is: We got somebody who was close to him."

"How do you know-"

Vvulf waved his hand in a dismissing gesture and Reynauld dropped that thread to ask a far more important question.

"Has he told us anything?"

"Not yet," the Chief said in a tone that made it crystal clear he would, sooner rather than later – even if he had to wring the answers out of the prisoner himself. "But he will. And when he does, I want you and your team to be ready. This could be the biggest strike against organized crime in fifty years!"

"Yes, Sir!" Reynauld saluted the Chief with the folder and turned on his heel. Guyot was the first one on his team. They had an uncatchable criminal to capture. Reynauld had always liked a challenge.

AN: You can also find the story here, on AO3!

#blu's corner #writing #fanfiction #darkest dungeon #dismas #reynauld #Reymas #alternative universe #Modern Setting #Grave Robber

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kerahlekung · 5 years

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Panglima Bugis kena tengking dengan bini....

Panglima Bugis kena tengking dengan bini.....

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Mengikut rakaman perbualan telefon, yang tidak diketahui penghantarnya, kepada SPRM, Rosmah Mansor dikatakan berang dan tidak berpuas hati semasa membuat panggilan kepada suaminya Najib Razak pada 27 Julai 2016. SPRM, yang mendedahkan kandungan rakaman itu kepada media hari ini, yakin rakaman berkenaan adalah tulen. Jom dengaq... Rosmah: Hai. Najib: Hai. Rosmah: Apa cerita? Boleh saya nasihatkan kamu, boleh saya nasihatkan kamu tentang sesuatu? Najib: Sebentar... ya, ada apa-apa? Rosmah: Kamu, jangan, dengar cakap saya, mereka beritahu kamu untuk jaga (Ketua Pesuruhjaya SPRM) Abu Kassim Mohamed. Dia banyak membuat kenyataan (audio tidak jelas) ambil gambar dengan Pak Lah apa semua. Mereka buatnya, jadikannya seperti wira, dan kamu pula jadi penjahat. Dan semua lima orang ini, bolehkah mereka lihat keutamaan mereka adalah kamu, bukan orang lain?

Najib: Siapa mereka? Rosmah: Pejabat kamulah. Shahlan dah yakin, Tengku dah yakin, Ahmari dah yakin. Macam kita dah jadi penjahat. Najib: Tidak, tidak, tidak, saya benarkan Azwan membuat kenyataan, kesannya baik. Rosmah: Tidak, Azwan OK. Hari ini Abu Kassim di Berita Harian dan mereka benarkan Abu Kassim ambil gambar dengan Pak Lah. Dan ada muka dia nak berterima kasih kepada Pak Lah dan semua orang lain kecuali kamu. Ini tidak adil. Najib: Hmm, hmm, faham. Rosmah: Tolonglah, darling. Najib: Tidak, saya sudah tandatangani surat pelantikan Dzul. Rosmah: Dan Abu Zahar boleh buat kenyataan, oh, mesti (tak jelas) sebab mereka dah melobi, tahu? Mereka tahu mereka dah melobi. Najib: Abu Zahar jangan buat kenyataan, biarlah. Rosmah: Ya, tapi Abu Zahar dalam Berita Harian. Dia tahu ke dia cakap apa? Najib: Itulah dia. Okey, okey. Rosmah: Saya tak suka ni. Darling, awak PM, awak patut kawal, bukan orang lain. Najib: Ya. Saya faham. Rosmah: Dan awak ada orang-orang bodoh (goons) di sekeliling awak untuk nasihatkan awak. Sebab saya beritahu Shahlan, kalau nak tolong, kenapa tak tolong minggu lepas bila benda itu terjadi? Kamu (Shahlan) sepatutnya datang pada saya ‘Datin, bagaimana saya boleh bantu?’ (tak jelas) Lepas satu minggu, saya kata, kamu tak patut cakap (tak jelas). Saya tak faham. Sebab ada orang buat aduan ke atas Abu Kassim, dia dalam masalah, oh baru kamu nak datang nak bercakap. Kenapa kamu tak cakap seminggu sebelum tu? Najib: Hmm hmm...

Rosmah: Yang kita ni dah satu minggu sakit hati, sakit badan, sakit kepala. Najib: Hmm hmm... Rosmah: Hmm... Najib: Hmm...

Rosmah: Jadi saya dah beritahu Amhari, perkara ni tak susah pun. Tarik sajalah arbitration (timbang tara) (tak jelas). Mereka perlu percayakan kita sebagaimana kita percayakan mereka. Najib: Betul. Sebab tu Amhari beritahu saya. Saya kata, kamu pergi cakap dengan Khaldoon, cuba yakinkan dia. Tak guna buat arbitration. Saya kata, kamu buat arbitration, semua orang sakit. Nampak? Saya boleh cakap dengan putera mahkota. Putera mahkota (tak jelas) akan ulang cakap “Oh, saya kena runding dengan Khaldoon”. Balik pada kat situ. Rosmah: Awak tak boleh salahkan dia, itu budaya dia. Jadi kita kena buat kerja sekitar budaya itu. Mungkin Khaldoon patut datang sini dan bercakap dengan awak, dengan Amhari, untuk selesaikannya. Itu apa saya rasa, bukan setakat bercakap di telefon, tak jadi. Najib: Kita boleh jemput dia. Ya, sudah tentu. Rosmah: Jemput dia dan selesaikan semuanya sekaligus. Dia kenal kita, bukan tak kenal kita. Kau dah makan minum rumah kita semua. Tolonglah jemput dia. Najib: Itu idea yang bagus, kita boleh jemput dia ke sini. Sudah tentu, saya akan beritahu dia. Rosmah: Awak dan Amhari, duduk untuk selesaikannya (tak jelas). Dan sementara tu, kita boleh selesaikan Riza. Riza punya masalah, bukan payah. Masalahnya hanyalah, ada benda dalam proses tu (along the line) yang tak lengkap. Itu saja. Najib: Sudah tentu. Sudah tentu. Rosmah: Saya fikir jalan terbaik adalah beritahu Khaldoon. Dia boleh bawa peguam dia datang sini. Saya rasa banyak perkara boleh diselesaikan. Berbanding Amhari cakap dengan dia dekat LA, dia nak tunggu siang, tunggu malam. Awak tahu? Najib: Saya boleh cadangkan kepada Amhari, jemput dia ke sini. Rosmah: Kemudian kita beritahu putera mahkota, Khaldoon ada di sini bercakap dengan kami, untuk selesaikan semuanya sekaligus. Kita dah bazirkan satu minggu dah. Najib: Ya, ya. Kita boleh jemput dia ke sini. Tak bazir, banyak benda dah bergerak dah. Mereka ni, dia nak tengok ada pergerakan di belah sana, belah China. Belah China sudah bergerak, tahu?

Rosmah: Itulah sebabnya, darling, tak banyak benda boleh kita cakapkan di telefon. Najib: Kita boleh jemput dia ke sini. Rosmah: Jemput dia ke sini segera, kemudian kita boleh beritahu putera mahkota, beritahu dia yang Khaldoon datang sini kita selesaikan (tak jelas). Saya tahu dan pasti Sheikh Mansour mahu selesaikan ini (tak jelas). Saya tahu putera mahkota mahu selesaikan ini. Tapi mereka bukanlah jenis orang yang duduk dan bercakap dengan awak, tahu? Najib: Hmm.. Ok. Kita boleh buat itu. Rosmah: Dia (tak jelas) ada duit saja. Najib: Saya akan cakap dengan Amhari selepas ini, saya akan beritahu dia untuk jemput Khaldoon. Rosmah: Atau awak cakap dengan Khaldoon. Tak apalah, darling, kita tak payah nak (tak jelas). Selesaikan perkara ini. Tolonglah datang sini, selesaikan semuanya sekaligus (tak jelas). Ini siang tunggu malam, malam tunggu siang, kamu tahu? Siang ke malam, ada senggang 24 jam. Najib: Ok, ok. Rosmah: Please darling. Najib: Saya akan cakap dengan Amhari. - mk

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Perbualan didakwa antara Dzulkifli, Najib dan Rosmah

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When can Khaldoon come here? - Najib Razak

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Thats why your highness is important for us" - Datuk Seri Najib Razak

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Perbualan didakwa antara Datuk Seri Najib Razak dan Ketua Eksekutif Mubadala Development Company, Khaldoon Al-Mubarak.

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"Dua kekal, kita tambah lagi dua" - Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad.

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Najib minta pinjaman UAE untuk filem Riza Aziz

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Perbualan didakwa antara bekas Ketua Pesuruhjaya SPRM Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad dan Tan Sri Shukri dari pejabat Perdana Menteri.

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"Mr Khaldoon, this is Najib once again"

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"I can arrange a conversation with you"

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Perbualan Azeez dan Dzulkfli bincang siasatan 1MDB, kaitan Tabung Haji. (Andainya rakaman2 video di atas berulang/repeat, gua minta ampooon, gua pun dah jadi konfius...T/S)

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Rakaman penuh...

SPRM dedah 9 rakaman audio didakwa konspirasi jenayah tertinggi. Sembilan set rakaman percakapan selama 45 minit yang didakwa konspirasi jenayah pada peringkat tertinggi didedahkan oleh Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia (SPRM) pada Rabu.

Sebahagian daripada petikan rakaman percakapan berkenaan ialah bekas Ketua Pesuruhjaya SPRM, Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad, mendedahkan maklumat siasatan mengenai skandal dana 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) kepada bekas Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, pada 2016.

Recordings Show Najib’s Effort

to Seek Help on 1MDB Scandal...

Malaysian investigators played audio recordings of former premier Najib Razak seeking help from people including a member of Abu Dhabi royalty and former prosecutors to try to untangle himself from the 1MDB scandal in 2016.

One of the clips show Najib reaching out to Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed to secure a meeting to discuss how to resolve the “impasse” relating to 1MDB and Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Co. in a July 26, 2016, conversation. That followed the U.S. Department of Justice filing lawsuits to seize assets linked to 1MDB and saying $3.5 billion

had been misappropriated from the Malaysian state fund.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission has verified the recordings and can vouch for their authenticity, Chief Commissioner Latheefa Koya told reporters in the administrative capital of Putrajaya. The agency will hand the clips to the police as they show elements of abuse of power, obstruction of justice and fabrication of evidence, which fall under the penal code, she said.

Najib is undergoing trial to face dozens of charges linked to his role in the troubled state fund 1MDB, which is at the center of global investigations into corruption and money laundering.

“I am shocked by the revelation and I am studying its content and I have referred the matter to my lawyer,” Najib said to reporters outside the Kuala Lumpur courtroom. He said he needed to review the matter when asked to confirm the veracity of the clips.

The nine clips also show conversations between Najib and people including his wife Rosmah Mansor and former anti-corruption chief Dzulkifli Ahmad.

Investigation Papers

In a recording dated Jan. 5, 2016, then-public prosecutor Dzulkifli said to Najib he was worried that the 1MDB investigation papers were known to about 20 people, and asked, “how can we cover this up?” Dzulkifli also said to Najib that he and former Attorney-General Apandi Ali can handle the matter on the legal side. Dzulkifli was appointed as chief commissioner at the anti-graft agency the following August.

On Jan. 26 of that year, Apandi held a press conference clearing Najib of all wrongdoing.

In Najib’s July 2016 discussion with Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, he sought help signing a loan agreement for his stepson Riza Aziz’s movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Najib said such an agreement would “show it’s a legitimate financing package, it’s not money laundering.”

The former premier said he was worried Riza would be made a scapegoat.

“I don’t want him to be a victim when he was totally unaware of the source of money,” Najib said in the conversation with Abu Dhabi’s crown prince.

In another recording, Rosmah told Najib to withdraw an arbitration between 1MDB and IPIC. They discussed inviting representatives from the United Arab Emirates to settle the matter without arbitration. - Anisah Shukry,Hadi Azmi,Bloomberg Business

Nama2 yang disebutkan dalam 9 rakaman audio dipercayai cubaan menutup siasatan kes 1MDB/SRC International pada 2016. Tu pun dok kata DAP pengkhianat negara...

Amazing video of Qasim Sulaimani’s assassination...

cheers.

Sumber asal: Panglima Bugis kena tengking dengan bini.... Baca selebihnya di Panglima Bugis kena tengking dengan bini....

#Blogger

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thebarsondaily · 8 years

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The Chocolate Bribe by svu-stories

Title: The Choolate Bribe Author: @svu-stories Rating: T (to be safe) Prompt: Chocolate Characters: Benson, Barba Word Count: 3,758 Warnings: Mentions of Car Accidents, Head Trauma Summary: Valentine’s week was meant to be boring for both Rafael Barba and his best friend Olivia Benson, but when an accident strikes, Olivia has to find a way to pick up the pieces - falling back on the only comfort that never fails: chocolate.

February 10th. 11:42 PM.

The world moved in slow motion as she parked her squad car in the emergency room lot and threw the door open. Her hair flew behind her in the wind as her feet carried her quickly through the doors and up to the triage desk. Without thought - and possibly more out of habit than necessity, she flashed her shield at the nurse and leaned against the cool counter.

“Lieutenant Benson, here for Barba - Rafael Barba.”

The nurse clicked her tongue as she stared at the screen on her computer. Her pleasant demeanor quickly shifted, causing tension to fill the room. She swallowed hard before looking up at Olivia. Her eyes were dark and they knocked the wind out of the officer. Olivia could handle almost anything, but finding out Barba had been rushed to the ER in the middle of the night and having no other details left her shaky on her feet.

“Are you here on police business, Lieutenant?” The nurse asked quietly, her voice dripping with the knowledge of Barba’s state, but unable to reveal anything.

“No. I’m here as his emergency contact,” she breathed, the heaviness of the moment weighing on her as she closed her eyes and let out deep sigh

Why he would pick her made little sense. Why not his mother? Or anyone else, really? But when an emergency room nurse called, stating that there had been an accident, and that this was the emergency number in the patient’s iPhone, Olivia knew she had no choice but to jump. She had to be there for him if no one else was. Though, Lucia needed to know. She frowned, not even knowing the number to call for the woman who had raised him.

She put that on the list of things to deal with - have someone find the number and call his mother.

“Right,” the young girl in front of her hummed. She clicked through on the computer again, Olivia’s weight shifting awkwardly. “I’ll have you take a seat and someone will be out to talk to you in a moment.”

“I’m sorry?” Olivia asked quietly.

The nurse smiled sadly, “Mrs. Benson-”

“Olivia, please. And I’m not married.”

“Olivia,” she corrected herself. “I can only tell you that he’s being treated and that a doctor will be out to give you more information about Mr. Barba’s condition shortly. If you’ll just take a seat over there,” she finished, motioning to the chairs supporting masked flu victims and teary-eyed family members, “we’ll fill you in as soon as we can.”

Benson’s head hung low on her shoulders before she nodded, turning on her heels and finding a seat slightly secluded from the other patrons of the emergency department. She swallowed hard, dropping into the chair and crossing her legs. Picking at her fingernails, Olivia waited, eyes glancing up with each new movement in the room.

After a few moments, she dug through her purse, finding a Hershey’s Kiss tucked into a pocket. Her fingers deftly pulled the silver wrapper off of the chocolate and she popped it into her mouth, letting it slowly melt on her tongue.

Let the waiting game begin.

February 11th. 12:18 AM.

“The family of Rafael Barba.”

Olivia’s head shot up. She had been staring at her hands, eyes fixated on each ridge of aging skin as she thought through the possibilities of what the night would hold. The word accident played over and over in her head, her mind racing as she tried to figure out what was wrong. She couldn’t focus - she couldn’t breathe. The fear that he might not make it was saturating her very being. She was no medical professional, but she’d seen her fair share of medical emergencies over the years.

She rose from her seat, purse clutched tightly in her hands as she approached the doctor, extending her free hand in greeting, “Lieutenant Benson. I’m his emergency contact.”

The doctor shook her hand firmly, a tall man in his fifties. His hair was starting to grey and his eyes reflected calming waves. For a split second, Olivia thought that all was fine. She would be driving Barba home, lecturing him for tripping over a crack in the sidewalk while multitasking by trying to strike a plea deal at the same time.

“Lieutenant?” The doctor prodded.

“Hmm?” She sighed, looking up with wide eyes. She saw the concern etched into the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes.

“I need you to follow me, ma’am.”

Olivia swallowed hard, dropping her hand to her side and following him into a tiny consult room off of the waiting area. He motioned for her to sit, and again she fell into the uncomfortable sea-green hospital furniture. Her legs crossed involuntarily as she gripped the armrest gently, “How is he?”

“Mr. Barba sustained significant injuries in a hit and run involving the taxi he was occupying. There are a number of minor injuries, but the main concern right now is that there’s a small contusion on his brain,” he said gently. His deep voice lulled Olivia right past the anxiety and fear she should have been feeling. The words swirled through her brain, trying to help her understand.

“A bleed,” she murmured, finally looking up again. For a moment she was distracted. She should have heard about the hit and run, known that something was amiss. One of their own - though not in blue - was injured at the hands of this driver. Why weren’t they searching for the offender? Realizing she was being watched, she cleared her throat and refocused her thoughts. “Does he need surgery?”

The doctor shook his head, “Not at this time. We’ll watch for swelling, a change in the status. He’ll be monitored very closely. We’ve admitted him to the ICU for now.”

“I want to see him,” Olivia insisted, pushing to the edge of her chair. She started to drift into officer mode. “He’s alone and probably scared.”

“Lieutenant,” he continued firmly, his hand reaching out to land on her knee. She looked from his long, slender fingers to the name on his white coat - Matthew Eriksen, M.D. - and waited, though rather impatiently, for him to continue. “He’s still unconscious and, until we can ascertain that the bleed will resolve itself, we plan to keep him sedated.”

Olivia licked her lips anxiously, and continued to stand. She took a step toward the door before turning back to the doctor, “So, are you going to take me to him?”

Eriksen sighed and nodded, pushing his own body from the chair he’d occupied and opening the door, leading the way through winding halls and past the rooms of sleeping patients until they made it to the ICU.

Olivia pushed past the nurses’ station as soon as she recognized Barba’s hair. She sunk into the chair by his bed, eyes taking in the currently stable vital signs and hand reaching out to grasp his. She took out her phone, immediately calling Rollins to send her on the goose chase for Lucia.

Her next call was Fin, mobilizing the unit to begin gathering as much information about the car accident as they could. She might not be able to fully investigate this one - and with more people in the city than she cared to let herself wade through, she knew they may never find the car that was turning her world upside down, but they could still try.

And try they would until Barba was back fighting beside them.

Content with the efforts of her squad and finally reunited with her best friend, she dug out another Hershey’s Kiss. The night was still young, and chocolate was her only hope of comfort.

February 11th. 1:47 PM.

“Okay, Barba,” Olivia murmured, sitting across from him. She set the bag of Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Squares on the bedside table, listening as the steady beeping of the heart monitor assured her that he was still alive. She plopped into the chair, digging out her iPad and slipping her glasses on over her nose. “We caught a new case today, so you’ve got to get your lazy ass out of this bed and help me out. It’s tricky, and without you, we’re never going to win.”

She reached into the bag, taking out a square and nibbling on the corner.

“We were all sitting around the squadroom this morning, you know, checking in, getting the day started, making sure we had all the information we needed about you, when who should wander in? The Mayor’s daughter. Right? Of course, Rollins and I took her disclosure, but you’ll never believe who she’s accusing,” she paused, glancing at the sleeping form in front of her. She debated a subject change. Maybe work was too much for him. The debate lasted only seconds, though, as she realized he would want back into his normal routine as quickly as possible, “That’s right. Daddy dearest.”

Her rambles continued, listing off details of the accusation and how Carisi was heartbroken once again as power appeared to corrupt those he once considered inherently good.

“I think he’ll need to get advice from you as soon as you’re up to it,” Benson offered. “I’ve tried, but once Carisi makes up his mind, he’s hard to persuade. He likes you, though. Admires you, even.”

She paused again, reaching out to rest her hand over his, “We all do. So you need to turn this around quickly, all right?”

Her brown eyes refocused on the tablet screen as she set to work, filling out what paperwork she could from his room. Her mind strayed with each new dinging of a machine. She ate three more chocolate squares before packing up.

“I’ll be back later,” she promised, watching Lucia slip in the door and take a seat on the other side. “I brought you some Ghiradelli. Carmen let it slip that dark is your favorite. Just ignore that it’s opened and I helped myself to the first few pieces, okay?”

Olivia gave Lucia a fleeting smile as she waved and left the room, leaving mother and son to their own devices. Her phone rang as she left the ICU.

“What is it Carisi?” She barked, immediately regretting her tone and setting off down a rabbit trail of complications with a painfully imperfect victim.

February 12th. 7:16 PM.

Olivia pressed on the tape that held the colored picture up on the dry erase board in his room. She smiled as she took in Noah’s messy artwork. As soon as Olivia told him that Mr. Barba didn’t feel well, Noah had set to work. His drawing had captured Barba’s bright ties and socks perfectly, the ADA standing in a park throwing a ball to him.

The two had grown in relationship over the years, their mutual adoration for each other shining behind built up walls of fear. Barba had never become openly comfortable with Noah, but Noah wasn’t afraid to chip away at the discomfort brick by brick.

Benson would never complain that her two favorite people were getting along better.

Noah’s smaller body was waiting to catch the ball in the picture, his lips spread wide in a messy grin. Olivia was sitting on a bench. She was almost certain that Noah had her watching Rafael closely, but she never asked if that was the case. She could imagine all she wanted, but Barba would never see her that way.

Not after their run-in with IAB over her relationship with Tucker.

She knew they were just lucky to have rebuilt the foundation of their friendship after that. She had no intention of taking any steps forward too quickly. There was no point in putting their camaraderie at risk again.

“Noah wanted to come tonight,” she told him cheerfully. Olivia was certain that he could hear her, and she wanted her demeanor to be light and easy. She wanted faith that he would be fine. The doctors had told her that the contusion was clearing on its own, but he hadn’t woken yet.

His body is still recovering, Lieutenant.

It takes time.

Let’s not worry about lasting damage until we have to.

Their comforting words hadn’t stopped her worries, though. She knew full well she couldn’t live without him.

“I told him that you needed more time to get better first,” she continued. “That soon he could come and sit with you and we could maybe even read a book together. He already started going through his collection to pick one out. It was so adorable, Barba. That little boy is smitten with you.”

Olivia took a moment to glance at the monitors again. While they’re consistency provided a source of strength and comfort, they also plagued her with the fear that this was all the vibrant ADA had been reduced to. While his slumber was peaceful, it wasn’t fair. Too many victims needed his talent, his expertise, his passion.

She still needed him.

She dug through the bag she’d brought once more and laid a box of truffles she’d purchased from a local chocolatier next to the Ghiradelli. She smiled, noticing a few more missing pieces. She reached for a scrap paper out of her bag, leaving a note for the nurses to help themselves. She popped an espresso flavored chocolate into her mouth and fluffed Rafael’s pillow before falling into the chair.

“Look, I brought more chocolate. I hung up Noah’s picture. But it’s just not the same when you’re not awake to ask me if I would ever convince my son to color inside of the lines or complain that you don’t like the coconut chocolates and hand them to me while you steal everything that even remotely resembles a coffee flavoring,” Olivia insisted. “I’ll come every day, Barba. I’ll never let you go through this alone, but I need something.”

She paused, waiting for any reaction. She prayed silently for an eyebrow twitch or the bending of a finger.

Realizing she was asking for too much, that the doctors were right and he would wake in his own time, she sat back with a book and a coconut chocolate. Without thinking, she read aloud, her voice filling the room as Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater filled the room.

February 13th. 8:12 AM.

“So I was going to bring you coffee, but I didn’t know if that would work, and if I drank both of our coffees, I’d be peeing like a race horse all day,” Olivia mused. “So instead, I got your favorite, but I’m going to drink it. It felt like a fair compromise.”

She tucked a leg beneath her as she spoke, glancing at her watch. “I only have a few minutes today,” she explained apologetically. “It’s why I came early. I’m going into the precinct to mediate another argument between Carisi and Rollins. They argue like an old married couple. Then we’ve got to break in your substitute. She’s something else, Barba. I can’t stand her.”

Olivia paused, brushing her hair behind her ear and smiling sadly.

“It’s all right, though. We know you’ll be feeling better soon.”

She waited for a response, as it had become her custom, but she was greeted with only the sounds of his IV signalling the required dose had been administered. She sighed, “And this afternoon I have to go to Parent-Teacher conferences at Noah’s school. He’s coming with, of course, but I’m definitely more nervous than he is.”

Olivia licked her lips before taking another sip of her coffee, “That’s what parents do though, I think.”

She started to gather her belongings, chuckling as she saw the red foil sticking out of her bag. She reached in, grasping at the stem of a chocolate rose and laying it with the other sweets that had been collecting. They were slowly disappearing as she reminded the staff - and Lucia and her squad - to help consume them.

If Barba did ever wake up, he wouldn’t be able to eat all of the chocolates that were piling up.

“By the way, I brought you a rose. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, I didn’t want you to forget,” she reminded in a hushed voice, bidding him farewell before somberly leaving the room.

The journey was far from over, but the light at the end of the tunnel was dimming a little more each day.

February 14th. 6:45 PM.

Olivia had relieved Fin from his post nearly twenty minutes prior, Chinese takeout in hand and iPad loaded with My Big Fat Greek Wedding Two. She set up a viewing spot, moving the bedside table so she could see better, positioning it as though Barba might watch, too.

“I realize this isn’t your style of film, but I thought we could both use something funny with the week we’re having, right? The case is falling apart, you’re not around to mop up the mess, and I’m starting to think my gifts of chocolate aren’t enticing enough to convince you to wake wake up,” she mumbled sadly, popping open the styrofoam container of Kung Pao Shrimp and fried rice.

She tore open a soy sauce packet with her teeth and dumped it liberally over the food. Swallowing hard, she started to mix it together, ignoring the lack of appetite taking over.

She reached forward, bumping the play button on the screen and sitting back to let the movie take over. Nurses popped in and out, smiling and making small talk as she propped her feet up on the edge of Barba’s bed. If he couldn’t be bothered to wake up, she wasn’t going to continue using proper manners either.

At least, that’s what she told herself to numb the constant fear that was starting to take over.

As the movie progressed, Olivia couldn’t find herself engrossed in it. She ate tiny bites of her dinner and glanced regularly at Rafael, silently willing his green eyes open. If only for a moment, a brief second to see that he was still there.

“Noah is having a Valentine’s party with Jesse,” she told him, the movie giving a gentle background noise. “Carisi helped plan it,” she smirked. “I don’t think Rollins thought about the moment he answered her door when I dropped off Noah, but I think I’ll turn a blind eye for now. When you wake up you can knock some sense into me, though.

Olivia paused again, turning her attention back to the screen, setting the half-eaten entree to the side. She waited several more minutes before fidgeting anxiously, digging through the day bag she had continued to pack and bring with her.

“I’m running out of bribes to wake you up,” Benson rambled. “But I saw this chocolate wine at the store the other day, so I picked it up. It’s kind of the perfect thing to try on Valentine’s Day, right?”

She set it to the side. It had been cheap and she was certain it wouldn’t taste like anything she usually enjoyed - a dry red wine tended to be more her style. “Valentine’s Day sucks when you’re like this,” she mumbled.

The door slid open, causing her to jump and glance over at a nurse.

“Oh, Lieutenant, we don’t allow alcohol-”

“Let her have the wine,” Barba grumbled, his words coming out in more of a mumbled moan than coherent sentence. “It makes her slightly less incorrigible.”

Eyelids pried themselves open as Olivia found herself frozen, staring at his features with a gaping jaw as he turned to face her. She set the wine down, a laugh escaping her lips awkwardly as she took his hand, squeezing it. Wide brown eyes filled with tears, “Damn it, Barba. Took you long enough.”

A bustle of activity took over as the on-call physician came in to examine Barba and the nurse took his vitals. They checked for cognitive deficits, explained what had happened, and answered all of his questions. Olivia sat back, My Big Fat Greek Wedding Two the only sounds that registered as she watched as a bystander. She caught a glimpse of Noah’s picture, smiling softly as she imagined what it would be like to watch that scene unfold.

As Barba’s caretakers took their leave, he reached out to Olivia, eyes meeting hers.

“Liv,” he whispered softly, motioning for her her with the flexing of his fingers. She leaned over, her hand falling into his again. “How long have you been here? You look like hell.”

She let out a bitter chuckle, “Thank you so much, Olivia, for bringing me presents and giving up your every free moment to be with me so I didn’t waste away alone in an ICU room.”

“Stop it,” Barba insisted, his voice serious and heavy.

Olivia frowned, but nodded her agreement, “I’ve been here every day - as much as I could be.”

“You need to sleep,” he whispered.

“I couldn’t,” Benson admitted quietly, sitting on the edge of his bed carefully, never breaking eye contact. “I couldn’t imagine going to sleep and getting the call that you’d never wake up again. It was too much.”

Barba sighed, “So you just bought all of the chocolate in New York and thought that would wake me up?”

“I know your sweet spot, Barba.”

“And I know that you always reach for the Hershey’s when you’re stressed,” he countered.

Olivia shrugged, watching silently as a yawn escaped his lips.

“You need rest,” she encouraged.

“How could I ever sleep with that awful racous in the background?” Barba moaned, glancing at her iPad.

She laughed, shaking her head, “How about this? I call your mom, let her come see you now that you’re back amongst the conscious world, and I’ll be back first thing tomorrow?”

“With Chocolate Chip Pancakes?”

“If the doctor says you can have them,” Olivia agreed.

He looked thoughtful, but eventually nodded, giving in to her request, “But only if you stay until she gets here.”

“Do you think I’d ever leave again?” Olivia asked reassuringly, the answer hanging in the air.

Barba let his eyes drift closed, grip tightening around Olivia’s hand to keep her from leaving. She leaned down, kissing his forehead softly as she dialed Lucia’s number.

If he would have her, she’d never leave his side again.

#barson #olivia benson #rafael barba #valentine's day ficathon 2017 #submission

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tortoisesshells · 4 years

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“I don’t know why these radio messages started, either.” Park Hae-Young asks the real questions - Signal eps 3&4.

Spare thoughts from last time: Kim Gye-Chul’s rage at the DNA evidence coming in a minute too late, Kim Yoon-Jung’s mother’s grief that her daughter’s murder will never be prosecuted for that crime - as the series wears on, and Park Hae-Young & Lee Jae-Han deal with the consequences of changing the past, the idea that there’s some things that can’t be changed, or disappointments that are inevitable, feels even harsher. Still, it asks the question: what does assuage that raging grief? Is it that the guilty need to be punished for their crimes - and if so, to what end? It’s not something that the show has a good answer for, especially with Kim Yoon-Jung’s murder, though the later corruption cases I think are a different story?

Also, I totally missed that Cha Soo-Hyun thought Kim Yoon-Jung’s murderer might have been responsible for Lee Jae-Han’s disappearance in 2000.

no, Netflix, I will never skip the opening credits. stop asking me about it & stop automatically doing it for me.

Park Hae-Young reacts pretty appropriately to the timeline changing in front of him, I must say - and, as a little over the top as it seems at first, I’m glad the timeline changes have a tell - that when something changes in the past, there’s a breeze rustling through the cold case files’ paperwork.

I nearly titled this recap section for the South Gyeonggi case “It’s all that bastard cop’s fault,” because it completely took me by surprise the first time through, and writing this as a US American in the middle of 2020, Lee Jae-Han’s conduct through the investigation in 1989 doesn’t feel admirable; moreso than the Kim Yoon-Jung kidnapping, this case has serious police problems in both 1989 and the 2015 cold-case investigation. While Park telling Lee, via walkie-talkie, where the next victim would be found meant that Lee could stop the killer and save Hwang Min-Joo, it also meant that Lee would chase down the suspect but apprehend the wrong man, Choi Young-Shin, - who other officers would beat in the course of interrogation, and (accidentally) kill. One life saved, another ruined. The officer in charge of Choi’s interrogation blames Lee for this, naturally. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

TRANSMISSION! (#4 for Park, #2 for Lee) Lee tells Park he caught the killer, but Park, looking at the evidence from 2015, knows that Choi is the wrong man and is going to be killed by the police AND that the timeline of the murders has changed - the next murder is not in a few days, but due to happen right then. If Lee really is in 1989, then shouldn’t Lee be able to stop either of these two events?

Lee cannot, in fact, stop either of these events.

Meanwhile, in 1989, Park and Cha Soo-Hyun try to piece together the case from the remaining files and re-interview witnesses, which most are reluctant to do; Park is perturbed by his new-found ability to change the past, and not necessarily for the better - the police killed Choi when he survived in the initial timeline, even if Hwang Min-Joo and her unborn child were saved from the serial killer - and asks Cha what she would do, if she received a message from the past, or could send one. Cha, whose personal cold case hasn’t been spelled out yet in narrative (but I think the pieces are there, by this point), replies that he’s being ridiculous, but she’d ask to look after someone she cared about. Park, still troubled, asks what if it changes things for the worse. Cha only replied that it’s better to try, and she’d regret doing nothing. Good thing that’s just a hypothetical, huh?

it’s this willingness to gamble that, ultimately, changes Lee’s fate, of course - when it’s Cha who tells Lee from 2015 that he shouldn’t go to Seonil Mental Hospital, Lee actually listened. Kind of.

but this is at the heart of the narrative, isn’t it? that the state of affairs in the present with the cold cases is untenable, unbearable even: isn’t it better to try to change rather than just accept what is out of fear?

Cha flashes back to the last time she saw Lee, August 3rd 2000, and his last living words to her: “When it’s all over, we can talk then.”

THIS IS DIFFERENT THAN THE FLASHBACK IN EP. 1. perhaps significant? (recap here)

Meanwhile, in 1989, rookie beat-cop Lee continues to try to flirt with Kim Won-Kyung, by giving her a stun-gun and telling her to be careful with the killer on the loose. Thankfully, she’s into it.

Both Lee and Park realize the killer WAS on the bus simultaneously, but before Park can really do anything with that information, the killer strikes again, after a 26-year absence - the victim, Jeong Kyung-Soon, was a bus porter on the route the killer stalked. Hmmm, thinks Park, but alas: the higher-ups in the department, Ahn and Kim, don’t allow them to investigate her murder as part of the cold case.

For some reasons, the Gyeonggi detectives recognize Cha, but I don’t recall a case where she would have been in contact with them? At any road, she apparently “hasn’t changed a bit.”

Park, incensed at not being able to do anything about Jeong Kyung-Soon’s murder, takes what the Gyeonggi detectives tell him to heart: this death is on them for re-opening the serial murders case.

TRANSMISSION! (#5 for Park, #3 for Lee) - Lee’s been locked up in 1989 for knowing too much about the murders, but the radio’s nearby enough for him to hear Park’s transmission, warning him that the next victim will be Kim Won-Kyung, found at 9:30 the next day.

I think this is the first time we’ve got explicit confirmation that, for Lee, the transmissions aren’t always at 11:23, as they are for Park (which he noted, this episode). The clock is past midnight in 1989.

There’s a breeze. I’m still not sure what changed, but I’m pretty positive that it’s the time at which Kim Won-Kyung was discovered dead?

[ep. 4]

Lee Chun-Goo, the bus driver from 1989, is definitely Jeong Kyung-Soon’s killer, but Park puts it together - he’s covering for his son, Jin-Hyung. For Park, he thinks Lee Chun-Goo had “no choice but to lie”? For the sake of his son, but Park also seems to think that Lee Chun-Goo’s actions are despicable.

Lee Jin-Hyung tries to kill Cha by strangling her. Who knew this would turn out to be foreshadowing?

TRANSMISSION (#6 for Park, #4 for Lee) - Lee couldn’t save Kim Won-Kyung, despite knowing where and when she would die (in part because he was in police lockup until he broke out [which honestly ... shouldn’t he have faced some backlash??] and because Lee Chun-Goo misdirected him to save his son from being apprehended) and isn’t taking it well - asks Park who the killer is so he can stop them by killing them. Narratively, we’re supposed to at least ... sympathize? with his frustration, since we’ve seen Lee Chun-Goo lie to the police and destroy any chance of arresting his son, all the while saying it’s not his son’s fault he’s murdered nine women. That, and it’s Lee’s grief that’s pushing him, I think - his own sense of inadequacy compounded by the loss of someone he cared about on his watch. Park, for his part, at least tells Lee murdering Lee Jin-Hyung is a criminal act.

Lee Jae-Han describes Kim Won-Kyung as “an ordinary, diligent person” in the conversation with Park, and honestly, that’s stuck with me.

Lee initially says that Park’s reaction to the case is different than his own, because Park is at a distance, only seeing photos of crime scenes and brief victim bios, where Lee’s in the middle of it and knew at least one of these women while they were alive. Which is ... hmm. Funny. All Park has of Lee is a voice at the other end of the line and his personnel file, and by the end of the series, Park describes Lee as one of his closest friends.

the track plays after this conversation, I think for the first time? “For Those Who Are Left Behind” on the OST, or “THE ETHEREAL SYNTH TRACK THAT MAKES ME BUY THE PREMISE” as I described it in my liveblog diatribes @ a dear friend.

ah. It’s sometime after Oct. 22, 2015, in the present.

the taser that Lee have Kim Won-Kyung turns out to be the decisive evidence. this doesn’t make anyone feel any better.

Meanwhile, in the past, Lee’s figured out who the killer is and, believing he’ll never be able to convict Lee Jin-Kyung, decides to cut out the middleman of arrest and trial by jury, going after the killer with his service revolver which ... narratively, I think we’re supposed to approve of, given he’s been stonewalled at every angle in 1989? But Park was right, before. Lee chases Lee Jin-Kyung through a construction zone to the rooftops, where the two scuffle before Lee gets the better of Jin-Kyung, and before Lee Chun-Goo comes to defend his son, swearing he’ll lie to cover for his son until the end. Lee responds that leaves him no choice, and goes after Jin-Kyung again, only for the latter to fall off the edge of the building, breaking his back.

In the present, Park frames Lee’s actions as ... almost admirable; in the past, Lee’s conduct makes him think he should resign. Confronting Lee Chun-Goo, the latter asks what was the point of re-opening the case?

Cha tries to counsel Park on the case, thinking that this is his first murder case and dead body, which is always unsettling; Park, flashing back to his brother’s suicide, replies it’s not his first body and flips her concern back on her in a kind of unsettling way.

Cha, for her part, flashes back to her first body (or rather, the aftermath, presumably at some point in 1995?), and sees herself as a rookie, crying on the stairs at the station to avoid the notice of her co-workers. Naturally, this is where Lee finds her, and somewhat awkwardly asks if she’s eaten. When she replies in the negative, he realizes all he’s holding is two liters of OJ and cigarettes, so somewhat awkwardly gives her a liter of OJ. He ... tries, one suspects.

his pep-talk, though, is kind and kindly meant: that everyone cries, even the “beastly detectives” in the bullpen, and that everyone finds their own way of coping - but she’s going to have to find her own method, because the job has to be done. If they’re taking it hard, he reasons, think how hard it is for the families. Cha said nearly the same thing to Park at some point this episode, I swear.

Park goes to see Kim Won-Kyung’s aunt in 2015, trying to put the case to rest (and his mind at ease, regarding Lee Jae-Han’s actions in the past), setting up a flashback to how Kim Won-Kyung and Lee Jae-Han initially met in 1989: Lee, as a patrolman, refusing to be bribed out of a parking ticket while Kim Won-Kyung looked on. There’s ... a lot of meet-cutes for such a dark show? The aunt tells Park that she went to see Lee after everything, to thank him for trying to get justice for her niece, and to pass along the gift Kim Won-kyung had bought Lee to thank him for the stun-gun: movie tickets. Spotting the letter of resignation on Lee’s table, she tells him that her niece thought very highly of him, and that he always chose to do the right thing.

TRANSMISSION! (#7 for Park, #5 for Lee) a short one: Lee too broken up over the case to do much more than ask where the evidence to convict the killer is, and Park ends in the agonizing position of having to tell him that the evidence isn’t usable in his time (without DNA evidence) - but promises him that it was his actions that led to the case being solved: it was the stun-gun that Lee have Kim Won-Kyung, that she used on the killer, that closed the case.

is this ... actually comforting? I wonder - why didn’t Lee resign here, originally, without the transmissions? Was it just the aunt’s words? Are we supposed to understand that it was Park, too, that kept Lee from quitting and pursuing some other life?

Lee goes to the cinema alone.

Stray thoughts from 3&4: OUCH. This case is hard, because I do think it shows Lee Jae-Han at his worst, but also because it seems to ask a kind of terrifying question. What if he had saved Kim Won-Kyung? He probably wouldn’t have resigned, but you can’t imagine he’d be the same person - so much of his baggage about solving cases seems to come from this case, his first. (and where would that leave Cha, if he was in love with someone else?) I ... almost can’t imagine the narrative would play out the same.

The question of why solve cold cases comes up several times here - sometimes, as when Lee Chun-Goo asks, we’re meant to find the question frivolous and victim-blamey; but the question is still there: what does solving a cold case mean, when the families have already buried their dead? What’s closure?

the next episode is Cha’s rookie flashback, and I am ready.

#polkaknox watches signal (2016)#polkaknox talks

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ifilmadvisor-blog · 7 years

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Does Gotham actually need Batman?

Spoiler alert!!!

I have just finished watching again ‘The Dark Night Rises’ and a thought came to my mind during the scene when Alfred is leaving Bruce Wayne and implying that he is not actually helping Gotham or himself.

Is Alfred right here? (It looks like this guy is legit in giving advice and seeing the situation from different angles) Let’s see who Batman is fighting against: Joker, Penguin, Bane. Even altogether, these 3 villains could be stopped by the police forces of Gotham (about 3k police officer and swat), they will simply be outnumbered and eventually brought to justice. But why is it so hard to stop them in the movies? Because of their followers, that usually come from poor districts of Gotham, the people that do not see any other way to earn money or survive in this unfair world. There is a small percentage of psychopaths that do it for fun (the ones that “just want to see the world burn”), but it is not sufficient. So basically, most of their followers and most of the criminals in Gotham could have not existed if they had other choices of earning money. This leads us to the problems that Batman aka Bruce Wayne could solve, that would lead to less casualties, less crime, and potentially improvements in economy and level of life in Gotham. I am talking about poverty and high unemployment rate. Is it possible to solve these issues within a city for a billionaire and his billionaire buddies that he always invites for fundraiser parties? I believe so.

Okay, now the police, why won’t Bruce Wayne use his R&D capacity to develop better equipment for the police, or fund the police departments increasing the salaries of cops, thus reducing corruption and increasing the quality of recruited officers, who will be able to take down any villain without help from without. The technology that Batman uses is so advanced, however he is not planning to share it with the special forces or the police. Isn’t that called greedy? Well, he explains that actually, saying that such technology in bad hands can cause many troubles. And ironically such technology gets into wrong hands (Bane’s mercenaries taking everything), but not from the police to which Batman graciously gave all his gadgets (didn’t happen), but being taken from the dark knight of Gotham himself. Hmm… Let’s imagine that Batman shares his technology developed by Fox with the police and FBI, we are talking here about a machine that can recreate bullets and reconstruct fingerprints from that bullet just using the hole in the brick, advanced search engines(fingerprints, facial recognition, dna), freaking neutron reactor that can lead to sustainability of energy in the world, not mentioning all the guns and all sorts of transport vehicles. What is the point of having it all for “personal use”, if you do not use it to its full capacity (with only one exception, being Catwoman shooting Bane). How many crimes would it help solve? How much more efficiently would the police investigate everything? Could it change the world in a positive way? Could all this tech lead to a better and safer world? Probably…

Let’s assume police forces are not able to deal with the villains themselves, what can a billionaire do to help? Possible solutions: 1) Pay an army of high-level assassins to eliminate the baddy or baddies, who are threatening the safety of the city and population (which will endanger little or none of the citizens). 2) Become a vigilante himself, spend his resources on different bat costumes and cool batmobiles with the gun power to destroy buildings, but which he is rarely going to use because he prefers good old fist fights. (which will endangers everyone around and we see it in movies -npeople(policemen and just witnesses) being killed all the time here and there) Choose the most rational solution…

The argument for Batman might be that it is more of an idea, showing the citizens that there is hope in brighter future, than a person dealing with cities problematic characters and. But if Bruce Wayne would make the city bright now, there would be no need in trying to sell them just hope for it.

Don’t get me wrong here! I love Batman movies, especially the Dark knight trilogy. ‘Batman: The Dark Knight’ being one of my favorite movies of all time. However, I don’t want my tastes to bias rationality in this case… So what do you think? Does Gotham need Batman? Or maybe it needs more rational Bruce Wayne? P.S. 1) I know that it is not reality and that billionaire investing his fortune in education or police or infrastructure is not going to look as awesome on the movie screen. 2) My knowledge about Batman and Gotham is based on the movies about them.

#batman #millionaire #gotham #superhero #reality #curiousity #movies

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johnchiarello · 7 years

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CRISIS IN CORPUS CHRISTI

ONGOING CRISIS IN CORPUS CHRISTI TEXAS- CORPUS CHRISTI POLICE DEPARTMENT- CHIEF MIKE MARKLE

Isaiah 48:16

Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me.

Psalm 72:4 He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.

Crisis in Corpus Christi Texas- https://vimeo.com/238319185

https://youtu.be/myu0mUYa9FM

.Henry

.Corpus Christi Police department

.Timons

.Toomey

.Suicide case

.Prison rape

.Is the Corpus Christi Police Retirement going to go bankrupt?

.Black kid murdered by cops [Fox News]

.The dream

.My friends brother was executed in Texas Thursday night

.He claimed ‘actual innocence’ that the other prison guards killed him

.They tested the shank [knife] for DNA

.His was not on the knife- yet- there was the DNA of a woman on the knife

.The investigators admitted it’s probably the DNA of one of their own- unbelievable!

.Huey

.The pier

.Chris’s story- he claimed for years that a Cop from the Corpus Christi Police Department wanted to buy the house he was living in- but it was not for sale

.Chris claimed THAT COP had him arrested- while he sat in jail- THAT COP bought his house

.The CCPD- code enforcement- mailed my friend Don [Mailed it] a subpoena to show up in court- for a code violation

.I read the letter- it threatened him with arrest and I think a felony- if he does not show up

.I took this same friend last year- for a code violation- for high weeds!

.I took him to get a lawyer- he had to fight it like a criminal case- and won

.Where in the country do you get a subpoena like this- by simple U.S. mail?

.No proof the resident even received it

.If he never got the letter [people steal from mailboxes] he would be sitting in jail- facing a felony- and yes- maybe his Neighbor across the street would by the house.

.Simply unbelievable

.CORPUS CHRISTI TEXAS IS NOT A VIABLE PLACE TO MOVE- LIVE- OR INVEST

.Unless they solve the crisis within the CORPUS CHRISTI POLICE DEPARTMENT

1Kings 13:1 And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.

1Kings 13:2 And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.

Did Chief Mike Markle use code enforcement to retaliate against his neighbor?

https://youtu.be/tZ_18bFZglU

https://vimeo.com/238391473

.Whataburger cop case

.Code Enforcement debacle!

.Did CHIEF MIKE MARKLE make the anonymous complaint-

.That lead to a search warrant-

. And a subpoena to go to court-

.With the threat of imprisonment-

.Over weeds and a pier- unbelievable!

.Stewart Street

.We call on D.A. Mark Gonzalez to immediately investigate this possible retaliation by Chief Mike Markle- against Don Winton- who both reside on Stewart St [Mark- look up the case before the chief gets it dropped to cover it up]

.Code Enforcement [run by CCPD] told my fiend their was a complaint that someone saw a person throwing something off the pier

.They FISH OFF the pier- maybe it was fish guts?

.My friend asked the the name of the person who made the complaint

.They told him he would have to file a Freedom of Information request

.Welcome to BACKWATER U.S.A- also known as AKA LITTLE MEXICO

Isaiah 41:25

I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name: and he shall come upon princes as upon morter, and as the potter treadeth clay.

Police chief caught masturbating on vidoe in front of female cop-

https://youtu.be/pJ29GdRm1r0

https://vimeo.com/238409086

.They have since removed the actual video- and the links from the Orange Grove newspaper- here’s the only link left- http://www.kristv.com/story/34726112/orange-grove-police-chief-placed-on-administrative-leave#

.Kings 13 preview

.Prophet speaks judgment to the chief [King]

.Aransas county- Gregory

.They managed to purge the links/articles already [google]

.Code Enforcement- Taco benders? [sorry]

.The bridge and the rocks

.CORPUS CHRISTI POLICE DEPARTMENT- COLLUSION CODE ENFORCEMENT- CORRUPTION- RETALIATION- OFFICIAL OPRESSION [I think I got it all in?]

.Jersey Shore and North Beach

CORRECTION- I have since found the link- it was the police chief of Gregory- not Orange grove- the county is Aransas- http://www.mysoutex.com/san_patricio_county/news/gregory-police-chief-placed-on-administrative-leave-following-allegations-of/article_6c7d7914-9fbe-11e7-b7f3-678f40721622.html

I mentioned walking thru that area- below are those walks

https://ccoutreach87.com/hurricane-harvey/

Isaiah 41:2

Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? he gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow.

Why did he do it now?

https://youtu.be/RMgl-v3RRo4

https://vimeo.com/238425721

.Crisis in South Texas

.Top officials fleeing the region

.Prosecutor [DA] goes on public record ‘I will take not more criminal cases’ [Aransas DA]

.Huh?

.Is that why the chief did it?

.Total and complete meltdown in this region

.Cop at Timons

.Retaliation against family members [kids- women and children] sad- but true and documented BY ME!

Luke 21:15

For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Texas-cop-resigns-after-putting-woman-in-choke-5934775.php I believe This was under former chief Simpson- he did hold his officers accountable- he also died in a motorcycle crash- a truck hit him and killed him. No charges were ever filed in the case.

Experiences-

https://youtu.be/VOMBGtkdQhE

https://ccoutreach87.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=3007&action=edit

I just talked about some recent experiences with friends- and how they both knew ‘by the Spirit’ certain things-

Yet- the things they learned- were actually verses from the bible- though they did not know it was ‘in the bible’-

Then how did they learn them?

By communion with God- by being in the kingdom- by being born of God- and having fellowship in the Spirit.

Being This post is a roll-out, I won’t do a whole teaching thing right here- but I did add some verses below-

John

https://ccoutreach87.com/christian-recovery-from-addiction-long-version/

FINAL NOTE- Right before I upload this- just a few notes-

I actually spent the afternoon with some of my friends- yes- on the street.

I met a new brother- I wont share his story yet- but it is one of the most interesting I have heard in a long time. Hopefully you will see him tell it on his own some day.

Ok- why so tough?

There are many- much more serious cases I have talked about over the years- things that are indeed at the crisis level.

One short one- in all the death penalty cases in the U.S.- there is one that the anti death penalty people use- and yes- it’s from Corpus Christi-

Carlos Deluna was executed by the sate of Texas- he was convicted of murder- and the case went to court here in Corpus.

Carlos claimed innocence- and said the other man he was with that night- stabbed the woman.

Hmm?

The other man’s name was Carlos Hernandez.

In court- when Deluna told this story- the CCPD said there was no such person as Hernandez- Yet- Deluna and others said the CCPD were lying.

They executed Deluna- who claimed innocence till the day of his death.

Did CCPD lie?

Yes- there was a Carlos Hernadez- he was more than likely working with the CCPD as an informant-

And yes- friends of both men said Hernandez bragged of getting away with the murder.

Now- whether or not Hernandez did it- I don’t know.

But CCPD openly lied in court- on a death case- and said Hernandez was a quote ‘phantom of Deluna’s imagination’.

Where are the cops who lied today?

They have either retired- with fat pay checks- or still in the upper ranks of CCPD.

They seem to take all of this as a joke-

I could go on- but why?

VERSES- [news links below] These are some of the verses I quoted on video today-

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

13 For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause.

14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

16 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.

17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

2nd Cor. 5

2 Corinthians 3:17

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Proverbs 16:3

Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.

1 John 3:18

My little children, let us not love in word, neither intongue; but in deed and in truth.

NEWS LINKS-

http://thecoastalbendchronicle.com/25221/301544/a/police-chief-video-recorded-masturbating-in-office-by-police-officer-ranger-inve [he blames the victim]

http://attorneys.lawinfo.com/police-misconduct/361/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/georgia-police-arrest-5-including-2-law-enforcement-officers-1983-n810666

http://abcnews.go.com/US/arrested-1983-racially-motivated-murder-23-year-black/story?id=50473548

MY SITES

www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com [Main site]

https://www.facebook.com/john.chiarello.5?ref=bookmarks

https://ccoutreach87.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4GsqTEVWRm0HxQTLsifvg

https://twitter.com/ccoutreach87

https://plus.google.com/108013627259688810902/posts

https://vimeo.com/user37400385

https://www.pinterest.com/ccoutreach87/

https://www.linkedin.com/home?trk=hb_logo

http://johnchiarello.tumblr.com/

https://medium.com/@johnchiarello

http://ccoutreach.over-blog.com/

https://www.reddit.com/user/ccoutreach87

https://ccoutreach.yolasite.com/

https://ccoutreach87.jimdo.com/

https://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/jchiarello

Note- Please do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on- Copy text- download video links [Wordpress- Vimeo] make complete copies of my books/studies and posts- everything is copyrighted by me- I give permission for all to copy and share as much as you like- I just ask that nothing be sold. We live in an online world- yet- there is only one internet- meaning if it ever goes down- the only access to the teachings are what others have copied or downloaded- so feel free to copy and download as much as you want- it’s all free-

Thanks- John.

#police #bible #God #religion

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fathersonholygore · 7 years

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Sky Atlantic’s Tin Star Season 1, Episode 7: “Exposure” Directed by Giles Bannier Written by Tom Butterworth & Chris Hurford

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Cuckoo” – click here * For a recap & review of the next episode, “This Be the Verse” – click here A molotov cocktail’s been tossed onto North Stream Oil property. A fire starts. Knocking on a door inside is Jim Worth (Tim Roth). He doesn’t wait long before kicking in the door. But wait. Not yet. Let’s head back 24 hours prior. At Randy’s (Lynda Boyd) place, strippers dancing onstage, Elizabeth Bradshaw (Christina Hendricks) meets with Jim, who’s crawling as far back into the bottle as he can manage. She says she’s looking into the accusations he made against them. She’s found out things about a town named Reverie, where there were some mysterious deaths. Jim warns her: “Your boss is a murderer and there‘s a witness out there.” Things get uncomfortable for Jim when his daughter Anna (Abigail Lawrie) is coming up to see him at his hotel room. Because he also finds an unconscious naked woman on his floor, along with one in the bathtub, a note from Jack Devlin on the mirror to find Reginald’s buddies. He manages to keep things sensible for all of a minute and then Anna stumbles onto the scene in the bathroom. She wakes the women, helps them gather their things. What a thing for a daughter to have to do. Can’t help her perspective on men much. In the meantime, Constable Denise Minahik (Sarah Podemski) calls Chief Worth to let him know of a crime scene on a desolate road, an SUV with a burned body inside. Obviously he knows. Simultaneously, Constable Nick McGillen (Ryan Kennedy) still has a shit opinion of his current boss. Well, he and Denise have to question Jim about being seen leaving with a man matching the corpse’s description, so, y’know, things at the station are tense. Liz has made her way out to Reverie, heading for the First Nations police headquarters. Hoping to dig out more information, and dirt, on Louis Gagnon (Christopher Heyerdahl). She meets with the Chief of their department, he’s cryptic. Although she notices an expensive watch, wondering if there’s corruption in their neck of the woods. This gets her no further than when she started. Angela Worth (Genevieve O’Reilly) goes in to give an alibi for her husband. She claims he was home all evening with her. They “made love” – or, sorry, they “fucked,” she corrects herself. Nick asks if he’s a violent drunk, Denise questioning her, too. They show her Roger Crouch, a.k.a Reginald; the ID she’s seen, covered in blood. Naturally, she wants the men who killed her boy dead, so she gives the alibi, wondering if her husband’s still got any control left over the situation. Creepy to see Whitey at the grave of Pete, his half-brother, with his half-sister who’s mourning, and whose hand he’s holding. All so strange. Particularly when he says the bullet was meant for Jim. She doesn’t necessarily see that as an admission, just common sense: dad’s always the target. Gagnon finds out Frank bought himself a viper on his way into town, among other things. He warns the London gangster that he must be careful, to not buy weapons from the wrong people, to not get caught. They’ve got work to do and the tall Frenchman wants the copper dead. If not, he’ll also wind up the same way. On her way out of Reverie, Elizabeth keeps asking questions. She also runs into none other than supposed-to-be-missing Jaclyn Letendre (Michelle Thrush). Hmm. This alerts the Reverie First Nations PD, in turn they alert Gagnon. This is getting worrisome. In other news, Jim’s busy trying to track down clues Jack, his second self, has left him. He finds a phone number to a private investigator on Reginald’s ID, a case number beside it. But he also has to Denise, still curious about the truth. She did find a Wild Buffalo bottle of liquor in the burned out vehicle, she knows. There’s a part of her that wants to help the Chief. So, he takes her over to the hotel where he explains his past, as an undercover cop, a “criminal, really, licensed by the state to catch other criminals.” Two years in the game, a long time for a UC. All this only make Denise more inclined to stay on his side. Now, Jim is up at North Stream Oil, looking for information on Reginald, his trailer, so on. Gagnon stops him, piling a threat on top, too. Y’know that ain’t gonna stop our copper. It’ll only put more logs on the fire. And, will Jim be the one to show up next time? Or will Jack? Whitey and Anna get physical. Her first time having sex; he treats her like utter shit because of it. Is he feeling guilty for having sex with his half-sister? At home, Jim and Angela are unaware, discussing what he’s doing next in the search for their boy’s killer. That’s when he makes her aware it’s most definitely linked to Mr. Devlin. This also brings about the realisation they have bring Jack out, on purpose. Because “he gets things done.”

Back to the beginning, once more. Jim, controlled by Jack and the booze, goes to North Stream. He tosses a molotov cocktail to start a fire. In he goes, to find Reginald’s old room. There he finds a biker’s cut, which after he talks with Denise about; he wants to know about the bullet in her shoulder, if he can make a match. Following that, he heads down to Randy’s Roadhouse, where he knocks over all the biker’s hogs, causing shit. He tries getting a bit of info from Randy, though he doesn’t realise she’s in bed and in business with Frank. Randy’s worried the “debt of honour” her new man talked about might involved the Chief. This gets the London gangster on edge. So Randy starts helping Frank, trying to throw Jim off the scent. That’s until she starts hearing more about young Petey’s death, how the boy was killed instead of him. Will she continue helping? Or will guilt swallow her whole? Because Jim, Jack, they’re too smart to let any of this go. Another spectacular episode. Others have a different opinion – Father Gore loves every second. Tim Roth is fantastic, as are Genevieve O’Reilly and others. What a tour-de-force for Roth. Gets more intense each episode, as well. “This Be the Verse” comes next time.

Tin Star – Season 1, Episode 7: “Exposure” Sky Atlantic's Tin Star Season 1, Episode 7: "Exposure" Directed by Giles Bannier…

#Alcoholic #Criminal #Jack Devlin #London Gangster #Murder #North Stream Oil #Reverie #Tim Roth #Undercover Cop

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robininthelabyrinth · 6 years

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Fic: An Internal Affair - Chapter 5(Ao3 link)

Fandom: The Flash Pairing: Leonard Snart/Barry Allen

His next target?

A CCPD lab tech named Barry Allen who’s developed a suspicious habit of disappearing at random intervals.

—————————————————————————————————

"I can't believe you sometimes, boss," Danvers complains. "You're just unbelievable."

"But Danvers," Len says, widening his eyes, "if you don't say 'I believe in Leonard Snart' and clap three times, my inner light will fade and then I'll die -"

"You are not a fairy!"

"Only technically true," Len says. "I'm pansexual, while that term is generally used -"

"You know what I mean," Danvers says, giving a playful push to his shoulder. Danvers is ridiculously strong and has issues remembering that sometimes, so the push is enough to send a lesser man toppling down to the floor. Luckily, Len figured out the strength thing pretty early and he's learned to compensate for it, relaxing his muscles and going with the flow of it, so he's able to straighten up again pretty easy.

He hasn't told Danvers that he knows, of course, since she's so obviously embarrassed by it.

Just like she's too embarrassed to admit that she's hidden a microwave somewhere in her office that she uses to heat up his coffee or hot chocolate whenever he happens to arrive, since there is no way she's good enough at guessing when he'll arrive to make sure that stuff is always warm.

He keeps trying to hint to her that he really doesn't mind microwaved coffee - especially since Danvers has a knack for making it taste freshly brewed - but she keeps looking vaguely confused whenever he brings it up.

"Yes, I know what you mean," Len allows. "And just why am I being unbelievable this time?"

"You're planning on going out again," she says, throwing her hands in the air. "With the mask and that stupid parka -"

"I’ll have you know that the parka keeps my core warm against the gun," Len points out. "Besides, it's the only winter coat I have out of storage right now."

It might be the only winter coat he owns, but that's a minor detail.

"You know the media is calling you a supervillain, right?" Danvers asks, crossing her arms.

"And by ‘media’, you mean that one specific blog, right?"

"...yes."

"That blog also thinks I derailed that train by icing the tracks," Len says, rolling his eyes. "Despite the fact that the official investigation concluded that it was a combination of a mechanical issue and human error. That one?"

Human error, of course, is a reference to the fact that the transportation department couldn’t be bothered to keep their trains in sufficiently good condition that a miniscule spot of ice – no more than a foot or two – was enough to keep the damn thing on the line.

Ice. Len can scarcely believe it, but there it is, and it at least goes some ways to explaining why the kid could have thought that Len was the one responsible for it.

Though if a train can’t run over a few feet of ice without jumping a track, there’s a problem that speaks of years of sustained incompetence anyway.

Still, whatever the reason, the derailment would have been a total catastrophe if it wasn't for the Streak - no, the blog is calling him the "Flash" now.

It makes for a troublesome dilemma. On one hand, it seems like this Flash kid is actually doing good things, like rescuing the people on that train.

On the other hand, he's still taking the law into his own hands.

Violence is still violence, even against a criminal.

Len's list of corrupt cops to take down includes a good number that seem to have forgotten that their right to be violent extends only as far as it takes to fulfill their duties and no further. When you apply the same principle to a civilian who lacks any authority or right to use violence as a means of enacting law at all -

Hmm. Alternatively, Len could just charge the Flash with multiple counts of assault and battery the next time they meet. That might even work.

"Okay, I'll bite," Len says, finally giving in to Danvers' pointed glare. "Why is it unbelievable that I’d go out again? What’s unbelievable about it?"

"Uh, the part – make that the whole thing – where you're considering getting further involved with this whole Flash thing, obviously!" Danvers says. "Boss, what part of 'the Families want to kill you' is going over your head here?"

"I'm your boss," Len mock-grumbles. "Be respectful."

"Not in a million years."

"I don't see what the problem is, though," Len says. "It’s not like I’m going totally solo on it or anything."

"Boss," Danvers says flatly. "You convinced the Commissioner that the Flash incidents represented a possible threat to the overall impression of city security because someone, somewhere, was probably following along with his exploits on secret police radios -"

"The Commissioner is running for office this year," Len says dryly. "Anyone who offered him a method to haze the Families by sending people in to investigate the illicit police radios we all know they have was going to be able to convince him of just about anything, including an invasion from Jupiter."

"True," Danvers allows. "Though to be entirely correct, that would be an invasion from the moons of Jupiter, not Jupiter, since Jupiter is a gas giant and not – wait, no, not the point I was trying to make. The point is that you also got him to agree that because there is the possibility that the Flash is working with a cop to get on the police band, thereby making it part of your jurisdiction, that meant that you could help sponsor a Flash-related task force."

"Co-sponsor," Len says. "Singh signed on."

"Yeah, to keep an eye on you."

"Noticed that, did you?" Len says, pleased. "We'll make a proper spy out of you yet."

“Aw, thanks, boss,” Danvers says with a smile, complimented, but quickly goes back to being annoyed with him. "I heard him talking about it in his office. He's not really in favor of catching the Flash - he thinks the Flash is doing more good than harm - but he's willing to back you so that he can figure out what scheme you're up to."

"My reputation precedes me, clearly."

"Boss..."

"Relax. I'm one step ahead of him - he offered me Joe West to be on my team, which is pretty obvious sabotage given how much West obviously hates me; I told him I'd take Eddie Thawne instead. Since they're partners, he wasn't really in a position to refuse, and Thawne's a good kid."

"Coming from you, that's high honors," Danvers says, but she's smiling again.

"You're not bad yourself," Len says, smirking when she squeaks and blushes. "Your compilation of weird incidents with multiple uncoordinated eye-witness reports was key to convincing the Commissioner that there was something there worth checking out."

"It's my job, boss," she says, grinning.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not part of a secretary’s job.”

“Admin assistant, boss.”

"Well, while we’re at it, thanks for letting me borrow that mask," Len says. "Turned out there were some Family guys looking for me that night." His contracts had been very specific about that, since D'Angelo let slip he'd be meeting with Len, but it’d been a risk Len was willing to take.

"Made you borrow it, more like it," Danvers sniffs. "I can't believe you were just going to - to go out with your face just, like, right out there in the open - it's like you never even read a comic book -"

"I'm not actually a supervillain," Len reminds her, deeply amused. Danvers could probably take over the world if she found herself in a world that worked on comic book logic instead of real world logic. "I'm not doing anything illegal; I'm just policing in a creative and out-of-the-box way –”

Danvers snorts.

“–and meeting my community’s needs in dealing with a vigilante like that,” Len continues, cheerfully ignoring her. “Anyway, the mask was perfect - total anonymity without any obstruction of function. Why'd you have it lying around, anyway?"

Danvers turns red and starts spluttering something incoherent, which means it's one of those things she's weirdly embarrassed about.

It's like how she claims she takes the train to work, but manages to be there on time even when Len knows there's been a massive train delay.

Honestly, he has no idea what's going on in Danvers' brain sometimes. It's not like there's a stigma against carpooling or anything...

"Never mind, don't care," Len interrupts, waving a hand, and Danvers looks at him gratefully.

They talked about it, once, all these unusual reactions that she has, the way she gets flustered and evasive about the weirdest things. She'd come into his office late at night, jaw clenched with determination and fists shaking with anxiety, and offered to explain it all to him, because she didn't want him to think she was lying to him. He was, she explained, her only friend in Central City, and she was pretty sure she was his in return right at that moment, and she didn't want him to start suspecting her of betraying him by keeping secrets.

He'd taken one look at her, seen all of that anxiety and how she was forcing herself to take a step she clearly didn't want to take but felt she had to, and he'd promptly told her that he didn't care if she was a little green man from Mars as long as she did her job and didn't sell him out.

She'd stared at him blankly, so he'd explained: she very obviously didn't want to tell him whatever it was she was offering to tell him, not yet and maybe not ever; rather, she just felt that she had to. But Len doesn't believe in outing people over anything before they're ready, so whatever it was she felt she had to tell him, she could tell him whenever she really wanted to. If she was more comfortable with him not asking, well, then he wouldn’t ask - as long as whatever it was didn’t involve him getting sold out, which he was pretty sure it didn’t, then he honestly didn’t care.

Of course, then she'd burst into tears and Len had hidden under his desk in an attempt to get away from the rampant display of emotions, yelling all the while that he would add a no tears clause to her contract, which had the side effect of making her start to laugh even as she'd cried.

Ultimately, she'd decided she really wasn't ready yet, but that she thought she might be, eventually, and they'd gone from there.

To be perfect honest, Danvers has always been something of a mystery, right from the first time they'd met. At first Len assumed it was because she wasn't from Central - Danvers is from the area around National City, some small town in the outskirts, and she'd done some work there in various administrative assistant roles before she'd abruptly moved to Central only a few months before Len discovered and hired her away from the court reporter temp pool she'd been working in.

At that point, all he'd cared about was finding someone who wasn't very obviously a spy planted by either the Families or the other police departments. Danvers had been the court reporter at his first corruption trial; she'd been fast (she had to be, being a court reporter), efficient, unafraid of the Family connections of the cop on trial, and had trouble hiding her smirks when Len made a particularly snarky comment.

More importantly, she had a clean background – as far as he’s concerned, anyway; he hadn't quite gotten used to working legit at that time, since he'd been less than two weeks out of the hospital and spitting mad, so he'd just had those of his illegal contacts that hadn't heard the news check her out and confirm that there wasn’t anything criminal about her - and anyway Len got along with her the few times he'd dragged her into various conference rooms to do some freelance transcribing of plea deal negotiations and deposition testimony.

So he'd decided to take a gamble and asked her if she'd like a thankless job saving the city where everyone would take her achievements for granted and turn up their noses in disdain at her failures, plus a small pay increase and shitty health care.

Amazingly, even with a pitch as awful as that, she accepted.

Apparently, Danvers enjoys fighting the good fight for barely any reward.

That, or she really needed the steady paycheck.

Len honestly doesn’t care which.

It’d been a little rocky at the start, but they got used to each other over time. Len's an abrasive asshole and doesn't know how to use the services of a secretary, but Danvers spends half the time acting like she's invulnerable and the other half acting like she’s afraid she’s going to break everything just by breathing on it, and that’s also pretty annoying. Luckily, after some encouragement, it turned out that she had the guts to stand up to him and call him out when he’s on his bullshit, and ever since then they’ve worked well together.

Now Len likes to think that they’ve even become friends.

Danvers even eventually opened up a bit about her history.

Apparently, her abrupt shift from National to Central had followed a pretty terrible blow-up with her sister and mother. Danvers hadn't given all that many details, but from what little she'd said, Len gathers that the sister had accepted a position based on some trait of Danvers' that Danvers would have preferred to keep quiet, a position that involved using Danvers as a case study, and Danvers hadn't taken it well when she'd found out.

"I know exactly what you mean - fucking shrinks," Len told her after that particular confession, nodding vigorously. They'd been having drinks in his office at the time, since the last time they'd gone out to a bar some Family grunt had pulled a gun on Len and Danvers had managed to get in between the guy and Len. Luckily, the gun jammed or maybe the guy missed, but either way nobody seemed like they’d gotten hit with a bullet, and Len hit the guy over the head with his crutch, but he'd decided not to risk Danvers doing something that stupid again. "Just because you ain’t neurotypical makes 'em think that they can push you around. S'like they totally forget that you’ve got feelings, or at least they pretend to themselves that you wouldn't care about that type of shit at all just ‘cause you’re different. Mick had one of those - a foster mom that adopted him because she wanted to write a paper about pyromania. He liked her right up until he figured out that she just wanted his cooperation so she could do more observations. Never even occurred to her to think about how he'd feel when he found out she used him to get ahead in her career."

Danvers, halfway into a bottle of tequila and a pint of Ben and Jerry's, giggled a little hysterically. "Yes," she said. "That, it’s like that exactly. I never thought there'd be a parallel – but yes. That. It's just like that. She's my sister, you know? She should be on my side, not – not using me to get, I don’t know, up an extra step on the ladder!"

"Hell yeah," Len said solemnly, clinking glasses with her. He wondered a little what unique trait Danvers had that her sister had tried to take advantage of – some form of autism, maybe? ADHD? He’d heard that manifested differently for girls, and anyway it made sense given how she clearly had some sensory processing issues, hearing things louder than he did and flinching at relatively mild sounds and sometimes getting overwhelmed by emotions, not to mention the way she sometimes didn’t quite get certain basic social conventions – but he wasn’t going to ask or anything; that’d be seriously rude. After all, he certainly didn’t care what she had as long as she kept doing her job, and he was pretty sure by now that she knew that if she needed any accommodations, she only needed ask for them and he'd do everything in his power to get it done.

He did make a mental note to see if she’d like some more pillows to go next to her desk for her to fidget with, though. She liked those.

"And she even made it out like she was just doing it to protect me!" Danvers exclaimed. "But if she was, she would've asked, right? She wouldn't have lied about what she was doing. She wouldn't have - she wasn't ever planning on telling me. Not ever! I only found out because I was looking for where I'd hidden her birthday present and we've always used the same hiding spots and I found a file. On me. Who even does that?!"

"Bullshit," Len agreed. "Total bullshit."

"And then Mom got involved and she was just pissed off about Alex's job, not about the fact that she was studying me, except it turns out that when Alex gets frustrated, she blames me for taking up all the attention and, like, I don't know, ruining her life by making her not an only child or something stupid like that. And – and – and while we were all blowing up about that, it turned out that mom's also been lying to us – both of us – for literally years about what happened to Dad – about how he died – and then Alex starts blaming me about it because the trouble all started after I got adopted -"

“Ouch. Below the belt.”

“I know! And – and what’s the worst part, you know – they’d always been on my case about being ‘normal’. Both of them. Normal, normal, normal, normal, until I was ready to scream, and the whole time they both know so much more than what they were telling me – and taking advantage of the fact that I’m not normal – and it’s just not fair!”

Her lip was trembling again.

"To shitty families," Len said, raising his glass. He'd already told her about his dad, since he wanted her to be on the look-out in case Lewis reared his ugly head anywhere near Len's new job, and she'd been great about not blatantly pitying him too much about it. One of the reasons he liked her so much. "And the lies they tell."

After a minute, he added, "Lowercase 'f'."

"Uppercase 'f' Families lie too," Danvers pointed out.

"They're not who we're toasting. C'mon, don't leave me hanging."

Danvers giggled and clinked glasses with him. “I still miss them, you know,” she added. “I think I’d have forgiven them, eventually, if I’d stayed. Probably way earlier than I really should have. Like, five minutes later.”

“Socialization and habit,” Len says solemnly. “Heard it’s worse for girls; you’re raised to be all forgiving and shit, yeah?”

“Yeah, basically. That, plus, you know, I did always feel guilty about how I just showed up on their doorstep, so I’ve always kinda tried to play the peace-maker, you know?”

“That’s the habit half of the equation.”

“Yeah…anyway, I probably would’ve found a reason to forgive and forget and everything, but, ugh, I was just so angry. I just – I was in between jobs at the time, too. I mean, I had an interview scheduled the next day with CatCo Worldwide Media as Cat Grant’s personal assistant. No guarantee I’d get it, of course. But there was like this moment where I realized that if I was fighting with my family then, well, I didn’t really have anything keeping me there. In National City, I mean. So I just packed a bunch of my stuff and flew away. Ended up at a hotel in Central.”

“Tell me you didn’t use your credit card.”

“I’m pretty sure that particular hotel didn’t even accept cards,” Danvers said dryly. She was familiar enough with Central City’s extremely shitty hospitality scene now for it to be a joke, though Len suspected it hadn't been when she first arrived. “It wasn’t exactly good quality, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, do I ever.”

“Anyway, I was still steaming angry the next morning, so I pulled a bunch of cash out of my account, canceled all my cards, got myself that temp job as a court reporter, and grabbed the first apartment that came on the market, and, well, by the time I calmed down enough to start feeling guilty about our fight, I was pretty well rooted here and wasn’t really in the mood to go back to National and be the first one to forgive. Again.”

“Totally reasonable.”

“They haven’t even apologized, you know,” Danvers said, draining her glass again. She had the alcohol tolerance of a mule. Len was just drunk enough at this point – thank God he isn’t macho enough to think he needed to match her shot-to-shot or else he’d be dead – to think about how much Mick would enjoy that quality of hers when-if he woke up. “I reached out to them eventually and they just started worrying about me being all on my own in a big city, how will I be able to handle it on my own, is this going to make it hard for me to stay normal without support, yadda, yadda, stupid yadda, and when I pointed out that I was still really angry at them, they just, I don’t know, wanted me to get over it - they even got my cousin to come try to, quote, talk some sense into me, end quote.”

“Rude.”

“They keep comparing me to him,” Danvers added bitterly. “He’s much better at being normal.”

“Ain’t he some sort of weirdo Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist that works almost exclusively in Third World countries where there ain’t no modern internet?” Len asks skeptically. “That ain’t exactly what I’d call normal.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t really come back to America much anymore,” Danvers says with a shrug. “And when he does, he avoids cities whenever possible, even though he used to want to go work in a big paper in Metropolis. He even had a job offer from the Daily Planet! His original set of foster parents would’ve wanted him to take it, but they died and he came to live with – well, with my family – and they all convinced him it’d be too much for him, so in the end he didn’t take it. He’s – he’s like me. Not normal. But apparently it’s okay to not be normal as long as you do it where no one can see you or report you or something like that.”

“Wow,” Len said. “What fucking assholes. I hope he told you to carry on.”

Danvers grinned. “He told me to do what I thought was right, no matter what anyone said. And that’s when I signed a year-long lease – not on the first apartment I snagged, don’t worry, I’m in a much better area of town now –”

Good, Len was about to ask.

“– and also changed my phone number so my mom and my sister would stop harassing me at work.” She drained another glass. “And that’s why we’re still not talking. Not until I decide that I’m ready to talk to them again.”

“I don’t recall them harassing you at work,” Len said.

“I mostly ran out the back to take their calls,” Danvers said. “The one time they tried to call you instead of me, you’d just come back from PT and were super grouchy, so you told them that you would bring the full force of the FBI on their asses for wire fraud if they didn’t fuck right off.”

Len – vaguely remembered that. He’d thought they were telemarketers or possibly evangelists.

“Don’t worry,” Danvers added, grinning. “I appreciated it.”

It was a good night, even if Len distinctly remembers getting increasingly drunk as it went on (Kara didn’t, but again she has that ridiculous metabolism) and telling her about the first time he met Mick and some other unnecessarily soppy stories about him.

Either way, though, that background made Danvers understandably touchy about people who lied to close friends and family – and that, in turn, made Len feel more like he could trust her…

"Mask or no mask, I still don't like the idea of you going out in person, you know," Danvers says, snapping Len out of his reverie. "You're still fragile."

Len makes a face at her. He would love to dispute that, but he used his new braces for less than two hours yesterday, just for the not-really-maybe-kinda-sorta-masked-supervillain-superhero-confrontation-thing, and he's already got cramps very nearly everywhere to show for it.

Fucking bullet wounds. Hollywood is a filthy liar when it comes to recovery time, especially for ones that nick your spine.

Actually, that reminds him that he needs to call Lisa again – she’s still incredibly pissed off at him for getting hurt after having promised time and time again that he’d be fine doing his thing and that getting her the money to go off and live straight was worth the risk.

She refuses to see him again until he’s better, even though she demands regular phone calls. He knows it’s irrational, she knows it’s irrational, but he can’t begrudge her whatever superstitions she relies on as coping mechanisms to deal with a father as awful as Lewis and a brother as reckless as Len, even though he does miss her.

"You could always let the beat cops do their jobs," Danvers continues, sounding almost wistful about it even when she knows there's no chance. As it happens, she and Lisa get along great, albeit only by text message. "It's what they do, you know. Especially if this Eddie guy's good..."

"And miss out on the adrenaline?" Len asks, arching his eyebrows at her. "No, seriously. I can't step back now; I sold the Commissioner on me supervising this personally, and Singh only agreed to back me once I specified that I'd take the fall if anything blew up in our faces - which it won't, even if we do find that this Flash guy is up to no good -"

Danvers makes a face. Subtly - it's barely a wrinkle in her nose - but Len still catches it and interprets it.

"You have news," Len says, interrupting himself. He knows all of Danvers’ tells. "Tell me the news."

"It's not definite yet," Danvers demurs, but Len's already waving off the disclaimer.

"I'd take initial results from you over a definitive say-so from any cop in this division, Eddie Thawne included," Len tells her when she seems resistant to continuing. "I'll keep in mind that it's preliminary. What's up?"

"There’s been a noticeable increase in missing persons reports in Central since the Particle Accelerator explosion, for one thing," Danvers says. "Noticeable. Even if we only track the period since the Flash has been known to be active, there's - well - a lot. More than usual."

"Correlation doesn't mean causation."

"Do I teach you to pick pockets? No? Then don't lecture me on statistics. I'm getting to the point. The point is: I've correlated instances of people seeing blurs of light or lightning with those missing persons' reports, and there's a link."

Len straightens up at that. "How much of a link?"

Damn, and he'd really been starting to think of the Flash as harmless, or at least starting to hope that he'd gotten to the kid before he started letting his worst instincts take over. But if he's already a murderer...

"No deaths," Danvers says, clearly divining his thoughts from his face. "Just weirdo disappearances - sometimes of people who'd already gone partway off the grid already, even. But we're talking eyewitnesses putting the Flash - or someone like him - at ground zero of some of these disappearances. We're talking credit card purchases stopping the day after a Flash sighting in some guy's last known vicinity."

"Damnit."

"Yeah," she says with a sigh. "I was really hopeful, you know?"

"You were hopeful about the Hood guy in Starling before the murders started, too."

"This one seemed nicer," Danvers says firmly. "Less intimidation, less judgment, less 'you failed this city' –” Len will never tell her, but Danvers cannot do a spooky intimidating voice to save her life. “– more actually stopping crimes by dumping perps at the station door."

"Thereby eliminating the link between them and the crime scene and letting them plead out on technicalities," Len says dryly. "Remember that jewel shop case? If we hadn't had camera evidence from the CCTV, we'd be up the creek and the perps in question would be free as songbirds. And remember, like I told you -"

"Just because he's going after criminals doesn't mean he's not just trying to take out the competition," Danvers recites. "I know, I know."

"Good. You got anything else for me?"

Danvers makes another face. "We-ell..."

"Danvers."

She sighs. "Okay, but one question first."

Len arches his eyebrows at her.

"Is there any chance you're going to be so focused on this Flash thing that you'll ditch the Allen investigation? Because in comparison, Allen is really small stuff -"

"None," Len interrupts. He knows his voice has gone a bit icy. "Allen's corrupt; I'm sure of it. It's just a matter of proving it."

"But you actually like him!"

"I like lots of people -"

"Please remember who you're talking to here," Danvers says dryly. "I know for a fact that you don't like people. Any people. Your list of people you do like can probably be counted on the fingers of a man who’s had a few cut off - and I'm including your regular information contacts that you don't actually like on that list."

Len makes a face at her. Sadly, she's not wrong.

Worse, he reaches the same conclusion even after adding Barry Allen to the list of people he likes.

"You're usually better at prioritizing your investigations, that's all," Danvers adds, apologetically. "I just - it's pretty obvious that the only reason you're going after Allen is, well, you know..."

"I've got a few more investigations already up and running," Len points out, feeling a little guilty. She's not wrong about his reasons. She's also not wrong about the fact that in a normal situation, he wouldn't have thought Allen's bizarre brand of hard-to-spot corruption was bad enough to get this obsessed over. Especially not once he found out how unbelievably friendly and bright and funny Allen is...shit, Danvers is right. Len really needs to figure out how to make more friends. Not to mention how to get a real date rather than whatever-it-is he has with Allen on Friday. "The DAs already have enough info to take three corrupt cops out of active duty, which they have, and I've given them enough to get wiretapping warrants out on another three -"

Central's so goddamn corrupt.

It's a good thing Len knows how to play the system and make sure the occasional corrupt DA that gets assigned one of his cases is either scared into working it straight or that the case they get involves corruption by an opposing Family, so they’re incentivized to press on, because otherwise he wouldn't have enough DAs to handle all of the cases he's feeding them – and all the while he’s building a body of law that he’ll one day use to take the corrupt DAs down, too...

"- so all in all, they're actually pretty happy that I'm taking some time to do my own projects, like Allen and the Flash," Len concludes. "Hell, Singh definitely thinks I’m up to something, and even he’s relieved that I’ve taken up some ‘normal’ policing instead of harassing his officers left and right. I've got the time to do both of 'em and I intend to. Now, why do you ask?"

"But you’re so cute about him," Danvers grumbles. "It's not fair."

"What ain't fair, Danvers?" Len’s not touching that.

"The comms system the Flash uses," Danvers says, finally giving in. "The one we couldn’t hack into? I've managed to triangulate where the other end of the signal originates."

"You did? That's great!"

"And I think I've located those people you gave me sketches of," she adds, nodding at her desk. "Though next time you go out, I'm equipping you with cameras - your artistic ability definitely lies in blueprints, not portraits."

"Next time I go out Flash-hunting, I'll have official CCPD backing rather than implied," Len says with a shrug. "You can put all the cameras you like on me then. You've tracked them all down?"

"Yep."

“And they’re associated with the same place the signal comes from?”

“Yep.”

"And that is - where?"

Danvers sighs. "I think - and no absolute guarantee, but I’m moderately sure – that the other end of that signal came from STAR Labs."

Len freezes.

STAR Labs.

Technically defunct after the Accelerator explosion, property of the now disgraced solitary genius Harrison Wells, and private "clinic" of only one patient: Barry Allen.

Of course.

"He's in on it," Len says, starting to get angry. "Allen. He's involved with whatever the hell new Family unit Wells must be trying to put together or whatever’s going on there. Allen's using his CSI skills to help get this Flash guy to would-be crime scenes - figuring out where their rivals are and sending the Flash to set them up - or, worse, covering up the disappearances and murders the Flash has already set up -"

At least the existence of this law-breaking Flash kid means that there's still hope that Allen hasn't moved into full assassin territory yet. If he hasn't crossed the line to targeted murder, then Len can make sure his sentence isn't too bad - some minimal prison time, maybe, definitely a lengthy parole period, and of course he'll never work in the police again, but at least Len won't have to think about smiling, friendly Allen locked behind bars for years and years, having his spirit crushed under the abusive steel boots of the prison guards...

"Certainly seems like it," Danvers agrees, glumly disappointed. She'd really been hoping for Allen to be clean, Len knows. "But it's still just a guess, boss. I don't have anywhere near enough for a warrant, either on the Flash stuff or Allen."

"Looks like Friday's still on, then," Len says. He's going to find out everything he can about what scheme Wells and Allen and this ‘Flash’ are cooking up in STAR Labs, and he's going to put a stop to it. He reaches out to grab his crutch, using it to lever himself up.

"Where are you going?" Danvers asks with a frown. "It's not Friday yet."

"Different lead," Len assures her. "Same endpoint. You want anything from Jitters?"

"Cupcake," Danvers says immediately. "Like, four of them. Oooh, and one of those crullers. You owe me sugar. So much sugar. In the meantime, I'll go back to putting together that list of sightings for you. I know I said the preliminary list was all I was going to do, but I swear I think there's something weird there and I want to follow it up."

"I trust you," Len says again. He likes saying it: he almost never did, for most of his life. He's trying to be better about it now so that he'll be able to say what he needs to say to Mick when (if) he wakes up. "Let me know if anything new comes up."

With that, he heads over to Jitters. It's late, but his contact was busy during the day and late evening was the earliest time that she would agree to meet with him.

Better yet, she's already there when he arrives, typing away on her laptop.

Len makes his way over and settles down in the seat across from her.

"Miss West," he says with his best charm-the-marks smirk fixed firmly on his face. "Thanks for agreeing to meet with me. Big fan of your blog..."

#coldflash #leonard snart #barry allen #kara danvers #iris west #an internal affair #my fic

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