Tonnage

Friday Night Fights.

>>

Tom finally makes it to the warehouse for the Friday night fights with fifteen minutes to spare. He double-checks his tablet on arrival because he's usually the first one here, and this time he can hear a full-blown conversation going on.

Spoiler: “I still don't understand why that wretched old cow is after him?! He isn't in prison, isn't that her thing? Cutting deals with scum and throwing them at things marginally worse than they are?”

Robin: “It hardly matters. The only leverage she could possibly get on him is his uncle. We have him under twenty-four hour surveillance and he never leaves the yard anymore without Tom or a crew from the yard. It would almost be worth it to see her try. Amanda Waller pitting her own stubbornness against the combined pigheadedness of Tom, his uncle, and Gordon would be something to see. Never mind us.”

Nightwing: “It might still happen. She can get downright nasty. I got a look at her current mandate, and she can't legally force him. But if you read between the lines, a parking ticket would be enough of an offense to go after him. If he ever gets cited for anything, that hag will leap on it like a starving animal.”

Jay-Bird: “Or if she can manufacture something to cite him for. She's a piece of work that's for damn sure.”

Then he hears a voice he hasn't heard for a while, and as he hears it he realizes that he'd stopped at the door and was eavesdropping. He hadn't really meant to, it just kinda happened.

B: “He's here. Come on in, Tom. We need to talk.”

>>

Tom rolls up the garage door he uses to enter and exit. The whole crew is here, minus Red Robin and adding in Black Canary and Batman.

Batman. Tom sighs as he remembers the flippancy with which he'd used the chat during the Arkham thing. He'd felt completely justified at the time, so why is he now feeling like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar?

“Hi, peeps. Who's Amanda Waller?”

Batman looks at him, his lips a grim line. “She's the head of a government agency that is tasked with attempting to rehabilitate criminals through using them against the enemies of the country or the world. Her mandate and what she is given to work with are often not in line with each other, and in the past, she has ordered everything from seduction techniques to cloning and mind control by way of brainwashing and 'grooming' children to get things done. Unfortunately, she has high-level government backing. So until she steps out of line and we catch her at it, no investigations from the government will be started. She has her sights set on you for reasons we can all guess.”

Tom nods slowly, a grimace flitting unbidden across his face. “The Arkham footage?”

Batman nods. “That was the start. We've also found footage of the fire online. Most likely copied from evidence, though you'd be hard-pressed to finger the culprit. Tom, she'll back off for a bit. Lois Lane will see to it, the woman is tenacious. But when things start to calm down, they'll try again with something else. Be careful, and if you notice anything strange let us know. But for now, we need to talk briefly about your tactics.” He looks at Tom forcefully. “You need to stop snapping bones anytime somebody annoys you, it won't turn out...”

Tom talks over Batman at this point, already becoming irritated at where the conversation is going.

“I don't. People annoy me all the time. You're annoying me right now. But you aren't hurting anybody. You aren't trying to kill anybody. I won't promise to not hurt bad people who are trying to hurt other people.”

Batman seems almost pained, something the rest notice.

“You can be better than that. Tom, they can't hurt you. There is no reason to be so brutal with the people you apprehend.”

Tom sits on the stairs as he usually does. “I don't apprehend people. I just stop them from hurting other people. Police are the ones that apprehend people, and they are welcome to it 'cause I don't want the job. I don't want to make my life about chasing after the worst people in the world. But, if I run into things like that? I try to talk somebody down without hurting them and there are fifteen more people running around hurting people, how many die while I am pussy-footing around with the one?”

Canary finally breaks into the conversation, nodding. “That's why we came tonight, Tom. Tonight isn't a spar. Tonight we teach class while the kids fix the grapple.”

Nightwing hops down from the ceiling support beam he'd been walking around on. “We found the big magnet when we were policing the area at the end of the fire. Cut it loose and collected more cable from the watchtower. It will be a quick fix, the cable is a piece that is intended to be replaced anyway. But you should have brought it up. You could have needed it in Arkham.”

Tom looks down, embarrassed. “Sorry. Things have been just nuts lately.”

Batman stands straight from where he had been leaning gently against a support. “We know, Tom. We've all been busy. I should have run you through all of this more than a month ago when it became obvious you weren't going to be able to stay clear of the insanity in this place. The fact that I wasn't as worried about you personally made me neglect the basic training that you needed. Something that was brought to my attention recently.” He sighs. “Even I miss a trick now and again. But it's time to fix this. If you could carry your bag over to the car? There is a small workshop worth of tools on it that they can use. Then we'll get started.”

>>

Batman and Canary both leave when they break for food, and for once Tom is... Well, not tired. Tired is kinda like pain, he doesn't really feel it anymore. But after dealing with Batman and Black Canary constantly for over two and a half hours, he's starving. He feels like he could straight-up eat a cow at this point.

Makes him think his body works on machine logic now. As long as it has fuel, it just doesn't care.

They had taught him a lot, but most of it he's not sure will work too well for him. It all comes down to his sausage fingers, really. The idea of deftly utilizing something like normal zip-cuffs in a combat situation is just nonsense, and a lot of the tools and techniques are like that. He's just too big and too strong to reliably subdue somebody without hurting them. Sparring and such is fine, and fighting for real is fine. But getting them locked up somehow without breaking something to stop them from struggling is a nightmare. Eventually, Batman had left it alone saying that he would get with 'his people' and see if they could come up with something that would work better for him.

The new grapple is basically the same thing as the old one, and the Bat Family notices and manages to also replace his spotlight as well. However, he's already thinking that somehow getting more light wouldn't be bad. But that will be something to follow up on another day.

He is sitting there eating a pile of sandwiches and about a half gallon of soup. Some kind of gourmet Reuben kind of thing paired with a light, creamy, cheese and broccoli type of soup. Except it isn't broccoli, and he has no idea what kind of cheese was used. The combination is fantastic though, whatever it is. After everybody has dished up their paper plates and Tom has taken his customary seat on the metal stairs that are the only thing in there he is sure will hold him, he has a pouch tossed to him by Robin. He misses the catch, but it lands softly on the stairs next to him. It looks for all the world like one of those bags that liquor can get sold in except it's brown, but when he opens it what it contains is very different.

“That is a pocket rebreather we put together for you based on the information we got at the watchtower. You hit the button, stick the mouthpiece in your mouth, and it gives you something to breathe for maybe fifteen minutes. That is so you have something you can use while you are getting your suit on. Your air supply is better. But it takes you too long to get set up with it. Now that we have your specs in the system, if you need another one just let us know. It isn't hard to make more.”

Tom holds up the other thing. “And this?”

Nightwing smirks as he takes a sip of water from a jug that came with the food. “It's a pay card for non-hero-type Watchtower personnel. It lets the Justice League pay people for services rendered without any way for it to track back to us and he was getting concerned that our need for ready cash twice a week might eventually tip somebody off. So from now on, at least until your building gets done, we'll just tell him how many times each of us were here any given sparring day and he'll see to it the money is on the card.”

Spoiler chuckles at his look. “After that, we'll just pay the gym fees.”

Tom is shaking his head. “Wouldn't I need to be working for the Justice League to use this? I don't remember signing up.”

Orphan's fingers fly, and Tom has to strain to follow along. 'It is effectively a prepaid card that they keep the information for so they can reload it every other week. With secret identities being a thing, there isn't any easier way to do it.'

“Well, it's been fun. But I need to head out. Need to confer a bit with Oracle about some things that are starting to make me nervous.” Jay-Bird grumbles as he makes his way across the warehouse to his massively overbuilt motorcycle.

Tom Can't help it. “What's up? I've lived here my whole life, maybe I can help?”

Jay stops and turns, a smirk on his face. “Careful Tom. That's the kind of thing a hero might say.”

Tom rolls his eyes. “Or an informant. Will you leave me alone about that if I demand more money or immunity to talk?”

Spoiler laughs. Robin and Orphan both roll their eyes. Nightwing and Jay look at each other for a second, and then Jay shrugs. “Sure, I can give you the highlights. Maybe you'll have some insight. The issue is that Penguin, Oswald Cobblepot, is buying up land on the East side here. Anything cheap he can get near Crime Alley, then going East to the ocean and North to the basin. Given what Firefly has been burning and how quickly it gets snapped up by real estate firms we are pretty sure answer to him in one way or another we're positive these aren't random. He's been working for the Penguin. What we don't know is why. The reason for getting real estate like this is to make money when the area increases in value. But he started this process six months ago, at least. So whatever else is going on, it didn't include you or this deal you have with Wayne.”

He rolls his eyes at the word Wayne, but Tom chooses not to respond. He's never met the guy, not really. Less than a minute at the gala hardly counts. Maybe he's an asshole in real life. He could see a hero who had been forced to deal with some rich guy in a crisis not having the best opinion, after all.

Tom shrugs. “So he must think he has a way to make the land worth more.” His eyes darken. “You don't think they are killing people in these fires on purpose so the poor people aren't in the way, do you? Penguin doesn't seem to me like the sort that would try to deal fairly with homeless people that were squatting.”

Spoiler grimaces. “We've considered the possibility. It doesn't really fit Penguin, he's usually better about keeping things from being so blatant. But he's also been a lot more active lately for some reason. We're following up on leads right now that make us think that new drug on the streets that got used in Arkham is actually something he brought in.”

Nightwing frowns. “We have a possible reason for the strange deaths I've been investigating that wouldn't include weapon smuggling. Nothing concrete yet, Batman is looking into it. He'll let us know what he finds if it's important. But the reality is that we thought it was weapons being moved based on the size of the crates we found at the drop-off where I found four dead guys. If they used something like that to haul drugs? There's a lot of it. A crazy amount. Enough to turn the state into temporary psychopaths. Probably not quite as insane as the inmates at Arkham, but it would be a bad scene.”

Tom's thinking of possibilities. “So, what if he did that? Found some way to put that stuff in the water or the air or whatever. What would that do? How would the city respond?”

Jay scoffs. “The city wouldn't. If something that big happened, they'd be forced to call the Governor. Something that big in this place, we'd be looking at martial law and National Guard. At least until things calmed down.”

Robin looks at Tom with dawning realization, though he schools his features carefully. “That wouldn't be all. The federal government would most likely send aid to get the city put back together afterward. And with the bulk of the rogues and their thugs most likely dead in the riots, if one man that owned a lot of property were to work with those efforts?”

Nightwing is nodding. “But drugs though? Anything that massive done with drugs would cause enormous systemic issues, and it would definitely get the attention of agencies he's not interested in dealing with. The rogues keep things local for the most part because they aren't stupid enough to take their show on the road and have to deal with people who can actually get a license to kill. Plus, it isn't like the stuff is cheap. It's synthetic, sure. But this stuff isn't getting made in bathtubs. Real chemistry and medicine got researched to make this hell-candy.”

Tom shrugs. “Maybe it's not an either-or kind of thing? Some drugs, some guns. Maybe something else too. Isn't that the buzzword these days? Diversification?”

Jay turns back to his bike. “That still doesn't explain buying all the property then. I need to scoot, let me know if you think of anything, Tom.” He turns back. “Oh, and Red Robin told me that if you were interested in survival, tracking, and basic medical information then he'd be available online this weekend. He took a little time brushing up himself and getting a lesson plan sorted out.”

Tom nods, a smile on his face. Then he frowns. “I'm due to go with Engine fourteen tomorrow afternoon. But I can work with Red Robin from maybe noon to five or so? They told me to show up at six.” He mutters. “Still not sure what they're planning.”

The lot of the Bat kids share a look. Nightwing is the one that turns to Tom, a look that speaks of understanding, sadness, and a bone-deep weariness that he rarely expresses on his face. “They are planning to help, Tom. But their methods aren't exactly approved by the therapists of the world. Not exactly. When you are done, call if you need to talk.”

The somber moment lasts for a few more seconds before Orphan flips her paper plate and bowl into the trash bag. Motioning to Tom with her finger to come and get it.

Tom can't help it and smirks as he stands, dropping off his own waste as he does. Hiding his face by wiping his mouth with his arm. Whatever else she is, Orphan is a damn fine-looking girl that is about his age and Lou's jokes have his mind wandering into dangerous, ill-advised, impossible, and not to be explored areas.

But it's still fun to look. Which is undoubtedly why her first attack included a giggle and a size five that slammed into his face.

She always, always catches him looking. It's freaking frustrating sometimes.

Spoiler is hanging back, laughing. “Oh no, save me. It's Anchorman!”

Tom's face immediately turns to her. Oh, hell yes. It is ON.