#search and rescue au

[sgt-tombstone]

https://www. tumblr. com/tiktoks-repost/664415151341076480

saw this and now i'm picturing soapghost in this situation

link, you’re so right anon

I’m thinking an au where Soap is part of a search and rescue team and Ghost, who was discharged for medical reasons but still lives close to base, gets bullied volunteered by his old captain, Price, to be a casualty victim for the CSAR (combat search and rescue) drills

Ghost would hate it, because it reminds him of actually being injured, but Price always makes sure that his fake injury is vastly different from the real one that got him discharged, and he actually has a lot of fun playing a victim. He knows how real injuries work, how real victims act in the heat of combat, and he really enjoys getting to play “bad” victims (ones who refuse treatment or are combative, because the PJs need to know how to deal with that too)

He’s never really treated it as anything more serious than helping to train soldiers to do their jobs better, but then he’s leaning up against the side of a house in the middle of a field in the base training grounds, and he sees a pair of brilliant blue eyes approaching, startling in their intensity and almost scary in their conviction, and Ghost thinks that maybe, for the first time, he might be in over his head.

The soldier scans the area, gun at the ready, because the first step in a search and rescue situation is securing the premise (and fuck, this guy is well-trained, Ghost thinks to himself, half-sullenly and half-grudgingly impressed, he knows what he’s doing), and then he drops to his knees by Ghost’s side. His gaze drops to the card in Ghost’s hand, marking Ghost as an amputee with a sucking chest wound (a far cry from the brush fire that had caused 3rd degree burns along his entire left side and more skin grafts than Ghost could count). Ghost tries not to be upset about the loss of eye contact, especially when the man opens his mouth.

“I’m Soap,” he says, thick accent distracting from the utter ridiculousness of his call sign. He’s deadly serious, both his tone and face conveying his devotion to rescuing Ghost. “I’m gonnae get ye out of here, I promise.”

Normally, Ghost would thrash around a bit, maybe have some fun letting out a little cry (who ever said he wasn’t a good actor? Price kept bringing him back for a reason, and he was directly responsible for many CSAR operatives developing eye twitches. But they were better soldiers for it, so who really won?) but he can only stare as Soap starts undoing his tac vest (the only time he still gets to wear it) and pulling on gloves to start simulating treatment for Ghost’s fake wound.

He keeps one hand braced on Ghost’s chest, apparently where he’s decided the sucking chest wound would be, applying pressure while preparing a dressing (god, who approved the funds for all of the equipment they wasted in practice? Ghost wasn’t about to start complaining) and pressing a chest seal against Ghost’s bare skin. He tells Ghost to exhale, then secures the dressing. It’s a textbook treatment, as far as Ghost can tell (and he’s done this a lot) but there’s something about Soap’s sure hands, his unwavering haze, his steady presence, that makes it feel like something more.

When Soap moves down to pull up his pant leg, obviously intent on treating his fake leg amputation, Ghost stops breathing altogether, and if he ends the day by receiving very real CPR from a very concerned Soap (as well as Soap’s personal phone number), well… what Price won’t know won’t hurt him, right??

(he’ll be Ghost’s best man at the wedding two years later, and his speech will have many, many innuendos about a certain sucking chest wound, much to Simon’s mortification)

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Search and Rescue Au

Gai goes for jogs through the forest every day, always taking a different path so that he can see as much of the forest as possible and making mental notes of every cliff, turn and dead end he runs into.

There are clearly marked paths for people to follow. Tenzo makes beautiful signs so people don’t get lost and Gai puts them in any spot where people might be questioning where to go next. For various reason’s, people still end up off of the path getting themselves lost.

Every weekend Gai leads a group of kids through a small camp/learning session. Teaching them how to find their way through the forest, what plants and fruits are safe to eat and which one’s will make you sick, and other important survival knowledge.

Lee is his most excited student. He always has questions and wants to be the first one to answer, or to try out nee things that Gai is teaching them.

Neji is Gai’s brightest student, always knowing just how to handle every situation that Gai brights up to them.

Tenten is the one who’s trusted with any aharp objects. Somehow Lee and Neji always manage to injure themselves with a knife, but Tenten has no problem using one to do whatever she needs. She has even learned to whittle from Tenzo, which Gai is particularly proud of her for,

[number1villainstan]

star wars AU where like 6 months before the start of A New Hope vader finds out leia's his daughter

[methoughtsphantom]

typical Bats-don’t-know-he’s-Jason Red Hood surprise kidnaps Robin but has to wait to do his dramatic monologuing because the little bird is unconscious from where Jason found him with human traffickers. Hours pass, and the kid not stirring begrudgingly makes Jason feel a tinge of worry, which no, he doesn’t appreciate. He’d planned to beat the kid senseless, and now he’s here stuck with him while not being able to, kid is hurt already. Aaand why was that really? The time is the factor that gives Jason the space he needs to really ponder over where exactly Robin had been when he’d found him, how easy it had been to take him and why Batman had not been there to stop him.

among many others just,, imagine Jason seeing Robin for what he is, for what he was, and having a mini crisis about whether is okay to be mad with a kid who in this sorta mirror scenario batman was also not here to protect and stop the man who kidnapped him in the first place. …he recalls how he used to feel when he was the one hiding behind Batman’s shadow and well, he’s cringing over wanting to see this kid who’s wounds he wrapped boded against him. Now Tim’s perspective,, poor kid is super confused in the little time he’s been awake because the man B has been worrying about for months is asking why wasn’t he with Batman?? asking if the man had forgotten what happened to the last boy who worn those colors? if he even cared?? really just, picture Tim having to hear this random crime lord sounding all angry and hateful and making allusions to his predecessor’s fate and run as Robin without even waiting for any input (like this is a version of the dramatic monologue let my boy ramble) and 0 to 100 passing from panic alarm fear you know who we are?? to what the fuck are you defending me?? you mad in my behalf?in Jason’s?? what is this shit

[cacciocavalloblu]

I Tried to draw the whole inventors club

Seriously Why there is no fan art of all ten together?

I need of all 10 together

[deduction-substitute]

Dont be fooled i traced the in game models i still cant draw 💔

GUYS DONT MIND THE UGLY IBISPAINT WATERMARK IM POOR

[softquietsteadylove]

For the wildfire one. Gil’s alarm goes off. Out of instinct Thena slightly jumps ready to run out too. but when she realizes she may asks herself if she would go back

Thena slurped up her spaghetti loudly. It was just the absolute best whenever Gil made it, and it was everything she missed while she was out patrolling: it was hot, it was meat that wasn't dehydrated, and it was easy to chew.

Gil said nothing across from her. If he thought her manners were off-putting then he was too sweet to say anything about it. He ate much more politely, twirling his fork and everything.

This was their third dinner together this month.

She was circling tighter and tighter, going less far out each time. And she was stopping by his cabin at least once a week, sometimes twice if she was feeling restless.

He always greeted her warmly, welcomed her inside, asked if she'd eaten and if she wanted to shower. If she was outstaying her welcome with him, she had no way of knowing.

A sharp and rapid beeping sounded from close to the door.

They both looked up sharply, the sound eliciting an instant and instinctive response. They were both trained to recognise that sound above all others.

Gil leapt up from his seat, abandoning his meal and running to his beeper. "Brush fire, there are at least two families in the area we have to make sure don't get trapped."

Thena's gut clenched. Families getting trapped by wildfire were exactly the reason she was no longer part of search and rescue. If anything, her boys were probably already out there. Gil was part of local forces. She didn't have to go out there. She didn't even know if she could anymore.

"You don't have to."

She hadn't even realised it, but she was beside him, leaning over to see the info coming through to him. She had jumped up to respond to the call just like he had. It had happened as automatically as the breath she took.

Gil looked at her more directly. "Thena, look at me."

She must have looked insane for him to be speaking in soft tones, trying to talk her down like a caged animal. "I'm fine."

"You don't have to go out there," he reasserted, squeezing her shoulder. "You're not on rescue duty, you're patrol. The fire is a freak accident, probably a camp that wasn't extinguished properly. It'll be an easy job."

But all she could think about was the hot lick of flames around her, the harsh glow of red and yellow searing her eyes. It consumed her nights, kept her waking in a cold sweat. She loathed and missed it.

But then she thought of Gil. He hadn't been called out in the time she'd known him, at least not for her to witness so directly. He wasn't technically search and rescue--he wasn't a jumper. He was part of ground forces. He had a team, and reported to the local station, and he had training and turnout gear just like the rest of them.

But the idea of him walking into that monster, flames biting at him like white hot teeth--she shook her head.

"I'll be back as soon as I can." He patted her hand, which she was just realising she had put on his arm. Her subconscious was clawing at him. He started to pull away, the soft cotton of his t-shirt sliding out from under her fingers.

"Don't." Both of them were surprised that she said it. She didn't sound like herself. She sounded like a trembling thing, begging him not to go and do his job. Her hand tightened against his arm, "don't."

"Thena," he lamented, already trying to gently peel her off of him. "I have to. But-"

"No!" she snapped, and at least sounded more like herself when she did. Last thing she wanted was to sound like some crying pup with him. "Gil, if it's a brush fire you know it's already twice the size it was when they spotted it."

"You don't know that-"

"Yes, I do!" she bellowed, stepping forward and forcing him back. "I know the wind, I know how it moves with the fire. I know how it swallows things and I felt the air out there today! It was prickly, I should have known better."

Gil's brow furrowed, "lightning? But the towers would have-"

"Sometimes they don't even bother looking, she dismissed. She had radioed in to them and been dismissed enough to know that they were not overly concerned with routine checks. "There must have been a quick strike that started something in the dry lands."

Gil looked at his watch. "That's a lot of time for it to spread, if it's not a small brush fire."

Thena looked out the window of the cabin. There wasn't any smoke, which meant the wind was in their favour. "I have to tell my guys. And you should tell the station to call and ask if there's been any precipitation reports from the other towers."

"What are you doing?" he asked as she went to her bag, digging through it. "Thena?"

"I'm coming with you," she snarled, digging out the heavy gear in her pack that took up more than half the room in it. It wasn't the heaviest, and it wasn't even necessarily the right suit for what they were going to face out there. But it was still fire protection. "You'll need a tracker with you if there are civilians out there."

"Thena, you're not cleared for duty."

She sighed as she pulled on a longer sleeved shirt and then her jacket on over it. She pulled off the elastic she had around her wrist at all times and dragged her hair into a low ponytail she could tuck into her jacket back. "I am."

"But I thought-"

"I was cleared for duty last year, but I didn't think I could take it."

Not even her old crew knew this. She had failed her initial psych eval after her last rescue had resulted in three very young casualties--that part was real. And she had been relegated to patrol duty as a means of sequestering but not firing her. It wasn't good PR to fire a rescuer with severe PTSD (or PTSS, it was being called now, she'd heard).

But she had been cleared to return to work last spring. Technically, she was fit for duty. The only one who didn't think so, was she herself. So she had asked to remain on area patrol. She didn't mention it to her old station, or her boys--no one. No one needed to know she woke every night, shaking and screaming. No one needed to know she couldn't search or rescue ever again.

At least not until she'd gotten Gil out of his cellar and he'd held her like she was the only thing standing between him and death. One stupid hug and she was going soft again.

"I didn't know."

"No one does," she sighed. She stood, kicking off her boots so she could get the incredibly heavy pants on and up her legs. She secured the suspenders and tipped her shoes upward again to jam her feet in. "But I think this is bigger than they even know right now. Finding those families in time will need all hands on deck."

Gil just nodded, also gearing up. He only ever lazed around in standard issue clothes until he could well and truly go to bed anyway. He got his own suspenders clipped as well. "You sure you want to do this?"

Did she see those kids' faces every time she closed her eyes?--yes. But would she think about these families as well if she didn't go with him now?--very much.

"I have to, and so do you," she sufficed to say. "You ready?"

He nodded, pulling his helmet and goggles off the hook by the door last. "You?"

She ignored the question, unclipping her helmet from the outside of her bag and fishing her goggles out of her jacket pocket. It felt familiar, but also foreign after two whole years without it. "Let's go."

They left, Gil not even locking up behind them. He all but threw himself into his truck, Thena climbing in beside him. He picked up the radio first and foremost. "This is Gil, two miles off the 147 southbound. I can hit the lake area and move from there, ETA ten minutes."

"Copy that Gil, we'll have units meet you out there."

He set the radio down, driving full speed as far as the truck could get them before they would have to go on foot. He barely even glanced at her. "Hey."

She didn't respond verbally, gripping the door as they bounced around.

"Wolf," he addressed more fittingly for the situation. He caught her eye darting over to him and decided it was enough. "There's no room for pride out there. It gets too much, you tell me and you fall back. Clear?"

She smiled. The last thing she needed was coddling, no matter how sweet, or well intended. And of course Gil - the big, sweet softie - knew that. She puffed, "clear."

"Copy," he also puffed out a faint, sardonic burst of air. They both had to steel themselves for the fight ahead. But at least they were on the same page. They were ready to be a real team.

And she could have no better partner out there.

[nerosdayinanime]

ok found The Tornado by owl city and it finally kicked me into finally fleshing out the little idea i had originally from Ao E Mukau-

Its a storm world constantly covered by thick clouds, ruins of towns and cities no longer used as the old societies broke down- Giyuu and Sabito were born on the knife's edge of that collapse before the constant deadly storms made living like they were nearly impossible

one of the worst thunder storms in decades ripped through a large swath of area; Giyuu & Tsutako's parents getting killed while Sabito's mother and little brother were killed hours later when it passed over them, they both continued on with what family they had left for a few years, just trying to get enough money for food on the table and a house over their heads

when they were 13 a massive, absolutely devestating tornado hit the town Sabito lived in in the middle of the night- he was making a quick trip to the store for midnight snacks and ended up dragging his bike into a little culvert under a road with him, it mostly protected one side but when it started getting really bad some small debris started flying through and one jaggedly cut across his cheek before he curled up to wait it out. Hours later when day shouldve broke & the storm had calmed, he crawled out to finally see the total destruction of the place he called home- there was almost nothing left. His heart broke as he realized just how lucky he is to be alive, and how his dad and little sister weren't. He ran into a group of survivors and got his cheek patched up by some of the medical professionals who stepped up to check everyone over; months later an earthquake hit the city Giyuu & Tsutako lived in, she had shoved a screaming Giyuu in the only little saftey box they had and Giyuu survived falling & getting violently tossed around when the building collapsed- he was stuck in it for a day or so, crying and screaming to be let out and for his sister to be okay, before search and rescue teams found him and pried it open. they thought he was dead at first before he woke up and started crying again when he saw the damage to the area, they treated the cut on his forhead and he ran away before they could put him in an orphanage with the other only-survivor kids

[musewrangler]

“They’re looking for you?” a Rodian had asked him one night as they all lay bonelessly in their wooden bunks.

“If they know I’m alive,” Matt had said. “Yes.”

He believed this with his whole heart.

But the thing was—-

The thing was…

He’d fallen over that cliff.

Maddy’s scream of anguish still burned in his ears as well as the Admiral’s desperate cry of his name.

As far as they knew, he was dead.

[gelu-the-babosa-multiversal]

Who was the user who made a post of a Rescue Bots x Trollhuntrs AU where Cody is a Trollhunter??'

Where are you? Come back, please. I want to know more about that AU!!

[choco-bloop]

y'know, looking at the fandom wiki page for the shugods, I really want an episode just dedicated to the kings working along side their kingdom's respective shugods.

because who was going to tell me that God Kamakiri can just sense people under rubble and can hear sounds of up to 160,000 hertz

or that God Tombo can see 2km in front of it?? Or God Papillon being able to camouflage?? ?

The things that can come up from this...

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Modern Au: Search and Rescue Kakashi + Forest Ranger Gai

Au suggested by @shinobimagpie

Kakashi works search and rescue. He’s the guy who’s sent in when a kid gets lost in a forest hike, or a hiker takes a wrong path. He has 8 specificlly trained dog’s capable of finding a person with just the smallest item that has their scent on it.

Gai is a forest ranger. He loves his job because it provides new challenges every day, he gets to excersis in nature, and it came with a home for him to live in so he didn’t need to mess around with housing markets.

The Konoha 12 are kids that regularly go for walks in the forest with their teacher Iruka, and the forest ranger Gai leading the way.

Gai has a giant tortoise he rescued when it was just little and helped to recover form an injury. He did try to release the tortoise when it was all healed, but it refused to leave his side so Gai made it a little outside area that’s safe from other animals.

Yamato is a sculpture who goes to the forest at least once a week to do woodwork. Gai has a collection of sculptures that Yamato has made that he’ll sell to anyone who wants them and save the money for Yamato.

Kakashi is the main guy who’s sent into the forest for search and rescues. This is because the forest Gai works in is exceptionally dense and easy to get lost in, so the hounds are one of the best ways to find anyone who has gotten lost.

There’s a coffee shop near the entrance into the forest that hikers, students and visitors can stop into and grab a drink and snack. It’s run by Nohara Rin who has the sweetest smile and a cute turtle of her own that Gai loves to dote on.

Rin’s cafe wall is full if pictures that are for sale. Everyone asks who took them because they’re really good, but Rin refuses to give up the person’s identity no matter how many times she’s asked. In truth, the pictures are from Kakashi. He likes to go on hikes and take pictures of the area on his days off. The money all goes to conservation and the cafe, because even though Rin has tried to give some to Kakashi in the past he refuses, stating he gets paid more than enough at his job.

[lovelesslittleloser]

All of my tabs died like a month ago and I wasn’t able to recover them but I just got a vague memory of a fic that I really liked but didn’t get the chance to bookmark on ao3 pls help

It was a dmsp fic where Technoblade went to a book club that had the rest of SBI & Nikki but all of them were actually vampires & they all thought he was a vampire too but actually he’s just an introverted nerd with a really bad sleep schedule who likes to wear black but none of them realized until like forever into the fic, and he didn’t stop coming (because it was very obvious that they were vampires and he definitely knew) because Wilbur’s book recommendations were good. I’m pretty sure it was a complete fic too, which I remember because I usually tend to not read those because I get sad that there’s no more, which does apply to this fic too because it was really good. Tubbo was also there I think

[weekend-conspiracy-theorist]

a cassandra cain detective story (technically set in the tim&steph role swap au)

"Look," Nightwing said. His voice was perfectly pleasant, even as he crouched, somehow menacing, near the shoulders of the man prone on the ground. Nightwing's black and blue toned fingers curled in the man's shirt, drawing it uncomfortably tight around the man's neck and holding him a few inches off of the ground. "The quicker you talk, the quicker this is over."

Cassandra melted out of the shadows, her footsteps silent and the tattered ends of her cloak swirling about her knees. Her Black Bat costume was not quite as hauntingly terrifying as her old Batgirl costume, a deliberate choice she had made in its inception, but she knew that the figure she cut remained... unnerving. Still, the man's eyes flicked, beseechingly, over Nightwing's shoulder towards her.

The expression that flashed across Nightwing's face in answer had too many teeth to be a smile. "Trust me, buddy," he said, his voice sinking into a lower register. "I'm the cuddly one. Where's the kid?"

"I don't--" He swallowed hard against the rasp of his voice, but Nightwing's hand only twisted tighter in his shirt. "Don't know what you're talking about," the guy rasped. His hands hovered in the air as if he wanted to grab at Nightwing's wrist but didn't quite have the guts.

"I don't believe you."

Neither did Cassandra.

Her eyes raked over the room; raked over the other groaning kidnappers that Nightwing had already bound and zip tied. The scene was not, for once, set against the backdrop of an abandoned warehouse--merely an abandoned storefront. By the empty plastic cylinders and bright but faded paint on the walls, she thought perhaps it had been a candy shop, once upon a time. Her gloved fingertips drifted through the air as she moved through the room, trusting the interrogation to her brother.

He had well over a decade of practice at being intimidating, even if he was the cuddly one.

Cassandra didn't try, actively, to figure out what was striking her as so odd about the tableau in front of her; she simply let the details wash over her, eyes dark behind the lenses of her mask, boots silent against the linoleum. The fight between Nightwing and the kidnappers was spelled out in scuff marks over the dusty floor, in the glitter of glass from the window he'd launched himself through, but--

This spot did not belong, she thought. She leaned forward at the waist, the ends of her short hair just long enough to brush against her shoulders as she read the story written in the dust. Someone had sprawled awkwardly to the floor here. They had scrambled for their feet. There were four streaks at the further edge, the desperate tracks of fingertips as someone clawed themselves into motion.

The streaks were quite thin. Too thin to have been left by adult hands.

"Nightwing," she said, her voice quiet but cutting easily through the nonsense ramblings of the kidnapper. She did not say anything else, did not even wait to see if Nightwing so much as glanced up at her as she followed the desperate, flighty footprints--

Cassandra vaulted the counter much as the girl had, her own hand set deliberately to the side of the smudged handprint the child had left behind, leaving it intact, and raced, silent and fleet-footed through the backroom and out into the alleyway at the back of the building. There was no dust here to preserve the child's path. There was a security camera on the building across the street.

She tapped the comm in her ear. Oracle was busy with the Birds tonight, but she was not the only member of their team capable of accessing camera footage. "Agent A, pull any footage you can find of my location from the last half hour. Please," she added, belated, as she leapt up to catch the smooth metal pipe of a piece of scaffolding and pulled herself up onto the platform. The tarp attached to the next level up flapped in the chill Gotham breeze.

"What am I looking for?" Alfred asked crisply, forgiving her slip in manners without comment. They worked urgent, desperate jobs, which often left little room for niceties. Besides, even at her worst Cassandra was still more polite than Bruce.

"Thirteen-year-old girl, African American. Barefoot. Her mother said she was wearing a purple shirt and blue jeans when she was taken. She probably still is."

The child did not appear to have been pursued, based on the dust trail through the store; Cassandra believed she must have broken herself free in the chaos of Nightwing's appearance, unwitting or untrusting as to his ability to help her. She was unlikely to have made it far. Her dust trail showed clearly that she was no longer wearing the black converse her mother had described, though Cassandra had no way of knowing what had happened to them in the last six hours.

From the higher vantage point of the scaffolding--left behind after an ill-fated attempt to rennovate the building behind the old candy shop--Cassandra studied the nearby intersections of the alleyways. So many directions the girl could have run. Too many.

She was smart enough to use a distraction to run, and probably smart enough to head for her mother, but did she know where she was? Did she know which direction would take her back to her apartment?

Cassandra let the scene wash over her, trusting her body to sense more than her conscious mind could notice. It was different from how Bruce worked a crime scene, from her brothers and Stephanie and even Tim, though his deductions sometimes seemed similarly instinctive because of the speed with which his sharply analytical mind moved.

But then, Cassandra herself worked differently than they did. With effort, she could always puzzle out her own thought processes, painstakingly convert them to causes and effects and trains of logic which another could understand, but she was rarely conscious of them happening that way in the moment. The others saw the landscape with its subtle details and its clues; Cassandra saw how a person could, would, might move through it.

(For example: the child was thirteen, intelligent, brave, panicked. She would pursue distance first, before she slowed down to try and figure out her plan. She would avoid open space; empty streets. She would avoid the broken glass of the beer bottle shattered across the ground, and if she had failed to, there would be the sheen of blood in the distant light of the street lamp. All Cassandra could see was green.

Those many potential escape routes whisked themselves away, one by one, until Cassandra had just a few left to contemplate.)

"I'm heading east," Cassandra told Nightwing over the comms, her voice a murmur in the night. "Take the north when you're done inside, if Agent A hasn't turned up anything by then."

The comm double-clicked in confirmation, and Cassandra climbed swiftly and silently from the scaffolding to the rooftop, heading east along the alleyway, eyes sharp and ears sharper. The night washed over her, its chill seeping insidiously beneath her body armor but held at bay by the burn of her muscles from a hard night of patrol.

Nightwing was in Gotham for the week while Batman was out of town with the Justice League; he'd been flagged down by the stolen girl's determined, terrified mother even before the Bat Signal had lit the night sky. Tasha Martin said she was glad she'd found him and not the Bat, because she'd always found that Batman to be a very suspicious character. Forty minutes later, Commissioner Gordon had been briefly lost for words when Robin informed him, tartly, that Nightwing was already in hot pursuit of the men Leila Martin's father had hired to kidnap her two days before the custody hearing, and unless there was something else he needed to talk about, then Robin was too busy with his own cases to waste any more time talking to him.

(Oracle, always multi-tasking, had unmuted herself on their comms just long enough to laugh her ass off before she returned to whatever mischief Huntress and the Black Canary had become embroiled in.)

Nightwing had requested Black Bat for back up when the night stretched onwards with little progress. Kidnappings were incredibly time sensitive, he'd said, and clearly he needed another detective on the case. The words still glowed in Cassandra's chest, hours later. Even after years spent in this life, even having held down the entirety of Hong Kong on her own for months the way Nightwing held Blüdhaven and Batman had once solitarily held Gotham, it felt sometimes as if her value was located solely in her fists and not her mind.

She couldn't blame that feeling on her family; her own doubt was too insidious. She knew she was observant and intelligent, more than capable of making the leaps of logic required for detective work, but she also knew that she struggled with the soft skills. She didn't have the network of informants that Red Hood had or the well-established, well-trusted aliases of Batman. She wasn't as effortlessly charming as Batgirl or Nightwing, or even as sharply meticulous as Robin.

Cassandra knew that she had her own talents. That she'd been the primary Bat of Blüdhaven, Hong Kong, and Gotham alike at various points, that she'd clawed together the clues to Batman's disappearance and simultaneously dismantled a large portion of the League of Assassins with minimal assisstance. It was still too easy at times to fall back on the first language she'd ever known and let someone else take point on the detective work.

But not tonight.

The red Impala caught her attention because it stopped for a stoplight. It had been close enough to the intersection when the light turned yellow that a brief, minor increase of speed could have easily kept it from being caught at the light--but it stopped, gently and easily and inconspicuously.

("Smart criminals," Bruce's voice murmured in her subconscious, a lesson from her Batgirl days, "don't drive like get away drivers. They do the speed limit. They use their blinkers. They don't give cops reasons to pull them over.")

Cassandra came to a stop, crouched on the corner of the roof overlooking the intersection. "Agent A," she murmured, "can you tell me what kind of vehicle Howie Martin drives?"

(She had covered several blocks now. It had been just over thirty-four minutes since Nightwing had crashed into the candy store. If the child had thought she had put enough distance between herself and her kidnappers, she might have ventured onto the main street, hoping for a landmark to turn her back towards her home. With the one way streets between here and the closest major interchange, her father would likely have ended up on this street on his way to the candy shop from another part of the city. How long would it take him to subdue a thirteen-year-old girl?)

"A red Chevy Impala," Alfred answered. "License plate--"

"C87 XJU," Cassandra murmured.

"Precisely."

"You have eyes on it?" Nightwing asked sharply.

"Yes."

Alfred rattled off Cassandra's location so that Nightwing could rendezvous, knowing that she had already tuned them both out.

The traffic light turned green. Before Howie Martin could take his foot off of the brake, the Black Bat had dropped from the sky to land neatly on the crosswalk, directly in front of his car.

They stared at each other through the windshield, Martin's eyes wide and bloodshot; the Bat's shadow stretching ominously across the ground from the single, flickering halogen street lamp that illuminated the street. The figure she cut was unnerving. Silent. Tattered cloak and bandage wrapped hands, dark hair, sharp mask.

Martin attempted to point his car around her, and the Bat stalked, silently, to keep herself directly in front of him. He swallowed hard.

His hand shook as he rolled the window down, but he did a decent job of holding his voice steady as he called out, "Look, I don't want no trouble, all right?"

"Where is your daughter, Mr. Martin?" Cassandra asked. She did not have to raise her voice for it to cut like a knife through the night. "Is she in your trunk?"

Startled, frightened, Howie Martin slammed his foot down on the gas pedal--

Black Bat was already moving, her leap taking her to the hood of the car and then sliding neatly to the roof, her fingers digging into the lip between roof and windshield to keep her in place as the vehicle lurched underneath her. She leaned over, fearless in her trust of her own grip, and reached through the open window to unlock and then open the car door--

Martin shouted something that she was too focused to parse, scrabbling to grab the door before it could swing too far open, and Cassandra obligingly slammed it back towards him. His elbow bent strangely when the door contacted solidly with his reaching palm, and Martin howled with pain and rage but had the forethought to slam on the brakes.

Black Bat rolled neatly as her momentum threw her forward off of the car, the rubber tread of her boots biting into the asphalt as she skidded to a stop. She sprang back towards the car, faster than any human without a metagene had any right to be, and bounced Martin's forehead off of the steering wheel before handcuffing him to it. Then she threw the car into park and stole the keys.

"Subdued," she said, simply, and Nightwing huffed a laugh over the comms. She could see the lithe shadow of him in her periphery, still several buildings away.

"Of course he is."

Cassandra moved to the trunk of the car, where muffled banging and groaning was clearly emanating from, now that the engine had cut off. It was an older vehicle, maybe from the nineties or 2000s, requiring her to manually insert a key in order to open the trunk.

"Hello," she told Leila, as the child blinked up at her against the sudden light. Her hands were bound behind her, and she was gagged with a rag and duct tape. "Your mother is very worried about you."

[flatstarcarcosa]

They’ve barely had time to register the alarm ringing when Soldier Boy’s hand is clenched around their throat as he slams them into the wall.

“Who sent you?” he growls. His grip tightens, and Reese tries ineffectually to pry at his fingers.

“No one,” they gasp.

“Bullshit,” he snarls. “You show up asking very specific questions about very specific topics, and two hours later we’ve got infected inside my fucking fence?”

He bounces their head against the wall, and pulls the knife at his hip.

“Unless you want me to gut you and use what falls out as redirect bait, you better start answering,” he says.

“No one!”

“Bullshit!” he snaps again.

It’s then that he suddenly notices the emblem on the arm of their sunglasses; a small, silver V that makes him pause. His hold on them loosens.

“I- I didn’t-” says Reese.

“Close your eyes,” he says, gruffly.

Behind the black lenses, they blink.

“What?”

“Close your fucking eyes,” he snaps.

Confused, but acutely aware of the blade against their ribs, they comply. He lets go of their throat to yank the glasses of their face. Snapping the arm causes a small silver disc, roughly the size of one of the screw heads holding the frame together, to fall to the floor.

“Fucking Vought,” he hisses, before calling over his shoulder, “someone get me a pair of goddamn UV blockers!”

A moment later the uncomfortable, albeit familiar, feeling of plastic pinching the bridge of their nose and corners of their eyes settles into place.

“I liked those fucking sunglasses,” Reese snaps, opening their eyes. There’s a brief moment of disorientation as they adjust to the UV blockers. As the name implies, they block more light than glasses do, at the cost of feeling like they’re peeling the skin from your fucking face.

“Those sunglasses were bugged,” he says. He sheaths his knife, picks up a .45 from the table, and checks the magazine. “Someone’s known every move you’ve made since you bought them.”

“I didn’t,” they say. “I got them as a gift.”

He stops. “What?”

Gunshots echo faintly from outside. It’s a matter of seconds until the screaming follows them. Later, when the dead are ash and the ashes are bleached to the point of rendering the entire area lifeless for decades, he’ll find time to be pissed about several years without an outbreak getting ruined within three short hours.

“The retinal KA group, the whole reason I started on this, a bunch of us got them as gifts,” says Reese, adding, “anonymously donated.”

Soldier Boy’s lip curls.

He’d wanted to tell them they were chasing delusions, getting caught up in patterns that weren’t there, and have them fuck back off to wherever they came from. They show up with anecdotal stories and, at best, circumstantial evidence that people with reservoir conditions are disappearing at higher rates than normal people and he knows he wants nothing to do with it.

Ten minutes ago he could have confidently told them they were imagining it, but an entire group of the bastards getting an anonymous gift from Vought that’s carrying tracking devices is the kind of simple math even he can’t brush off.

The screaming begins to follow the gunshots. He passes them the .45 and crosses the room to pull another one from a weapons rack.

“You certified for that?” he asks, not really caring about the answer either way.

“Much as I can be while going blind every day,” they drawl.

“I’m gonna find where they broke through the fencing and plug the hole,” he says, pulling down a second gun.

“By yourself?” asks Reese.

“Cull whatever’s dead inside, and anyone about to be dead,” he continues, ignoring their question.

“Don’t your people need to know this, too?” they ask.

“They’re not my people,” he says sharply, adding, “and you’re the only one here who doesn’t know our outbreak protocol.”

“What?” they ask again.

Soldier Boy offers no further instructions, nor explanations. He pulls a shield from a spot closer to the door, and then kicks it open. Gunfire and screams amplify in volume, and Reese can’t help the way their gut flips in response.

They were born after the Rising. They’ve done enough field training for their weapons certifications, but it’s still not the same as a real outbreak. They blink, and Soldier Boy has disappeared into the chaos, leaving them no choice but to ready the weapon and step into it after him.

[victoriousfidelity]

verse drop, 3/7 (mcu au verses).