shatterverse | (no subject)

It's fairly early in the morning when Mel, Sokka and Steph crest the final hill and find themselves looking down from the Heights towards Gotham City. Mel is keeping the girls happy in the back; Steph's driving. She doesn't ask before slowing gradually to a stop, eyes on the vista before them.

Gotham. Smoky, dark, twisted, gothic. It almost looks organic, lumpy and misshapen as it is, every building sprouting gargoyles and added wings, twisted into fantastic shapes.

It's so familiar it makes Steph's heart lurch; she hasn't been home for almost a year. She knows the skyline inside out, knows exactly how it feels to leap from the casino to the street below and swing up exactly in time to land on the train, knows where the instabilities in the gargoyles are and just how hard to throw a grapple to get from one end to the other of Ninth in under two minutes. It's filthy and ugly and disease-ridden and smoky and it's home.

Except ...

... this isn't the home she left.

It's with a sigh of pure relief that she realises, slowly, that this is Gotham before the quake, missing the light-filled spires of Luthor's redesign, all the old buildings still standing tall. This is Gotham before she had the baby, before the No Mans' Land.

This isn't her world.

The grin she turns to Sokka is enormous and full of relief.

"It's not mine. I won't find th— her here. Oh, thank fuck for that."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Since they don't seem to be having private discussions any more, James joins them, blanket still over his shoulders but looking much less pathetic now.

"They're still alive," he says, looking from one to the other of the people he doesn't know, boggling only a little at the babies. "The bodies. Some of them, anyway. People just ... stop doing anything. They die eventually. Dehydration. Or stray animals. As far as I know I'm the only one still alive."

His voice is flat, toneless.

Steph and Marie arrive in time to catch the end of that, and Steph looks at the others with obvious anxiety. But they already know her position on this. She stays quiet.

Slight frown.

"Any idea what's causing it?" she asks quietly.

It's tempting to squint citywards and try to see for herself.

"At first we thought it was a disease. Now we're leaning towards a nerve gas or some sort of purposely-released toxin. It seems to follow the thickest mist."

Mel is IN CHARGE.

It's still weird and she's not sure she likes it yet, but she's hopingthe other her that Erin knows went through some similar changes, so in charge lil'sis won't be a total shock.

"Doesn't seem to be affecting us right now,so I'm going to assume this is out of the influence. Erin, Marie, uh..." she never did get the name of 'tache guy. "You should stay with our supplies. Keep guns and zappers primed 'cause it's still not safe. First sign of trouble, Marie, flash all three of you back to Metropolis.

"We're heading in, 'cause Steph's the one know where we're going. In, check the house, out. If we're more than a day, Marie, come get us. But I want you waiting out so it doesn't get you."

The division is obvious to her. That the girls are going into danger with Mom is non-negotiable.

Nod!

"I'm cool with that," says Marie, which is the closest to a yessir anyone will ever drag out of her.

Gordon nods, looking at Steph curiously for a moment.

Very reluctantly, drawing his coat a little closer, he says "I'll go in with you, if you want. It's my city."

"That's okay, Commissioner." Steph grins at him, and glances at Mel to confirm when she says "We'll move faster with just the three of us, really. I know the city too."