1509/Red Handed

Red Handed
Date of Scene:	04 May 2020
Location:	Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Nightwing shows up looking for his missing T-Com, the day after it was used in a vandalism attack on Titans Tower. Vic and Donna come up with some suspects and the three formulate a plan of action.
Cast of Characters:	Victor Stone, Dick Grayson, Donna Troy

---

Victor Stone has posed:
Vic has spent much of the day modifying a squadron of roombas with suction cups, magnetic clamps, and an arsenal of solvents. Definitely not an inconvenient or annoying task to have dropped into your lap suddenly, or anything. But now that he has turned his pretties loose on the Metropolis-facing side of the tower to scrub away last night's impromptu art installation, it's time for him to look into just what low-rent Banksy went and perpetrated it. Thanks to the tower security system, he has a starting point, although he imagines this will NOT be a one-step process. A few seconds of swiping on his T-Com screen later, he notices with a bit of surprise that his target isn't far away at all.

A short elevator ride later, he arrives to find Nightwing already, conveniently, in the Tower. Vic didn't even get to rev up the car. :( "Hey, buddy," he greets his old teammate, drawing out the syllables and giving Nightwing an assessing look. "You doing alright? Get enough sleep last night?"

Dick Grayson has posed:
Dick had found himself looking around the main room of the tower. He is in his costume, in case newer members were around, he is going through the various couches and other furniture in the room, clearly concerned about something.

Nightwing is surprised by the arrival of Victor and raises a brow, "I am mildly irritated at the moment, I have not been able to find my T-Com. I have been searching everywhere, my chambers, here, everywhere. Have you seen it?" His tone seems sincere, and mildly irritated.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "The tracker is turned off." The voice is Donna's, it's not hard to identify. She always did sound a little exotic, and her accent has deepened in the three years she was away. She arrives up the elevator shaft that doesn't have an elevator in it, the show-off. "You did see the big red X painted on the tower, right Nightwing?"

    Donna walks into the main room carrying a heavily modified Roomba upside-down. It has little suction-cup legs flailing like an upturned turtle. "Just wanted to check, Cy. This is one of yours, right? It's hard to be sure these days it seems. I found it wandering in the lobby. Did it escape?"

Victor Stone has posed:
"A likely story," Victor tells Nightwing, his eyes narrow and his voice shot through with dramatic suspicion. Then, abruptly shifting to his normal expression and tone: "I mean, actually, it is. I just checked my T-Com, and the building security system said you were down here, but didn't detect your T-Com. So I guess you aren't the one who painted a big dumb-looking X on the side of the building?" He crosses his arms, sighs, and shakes his head with regret. "I guess I don't get to shake you by your ankles until the paintbrush falls out of your pockets."

As Donna approaches, he gives her a little two-fingered salute. "That's right!" he answers. "They were supposed to come all the way back to my room, but I guess that one got stuck. Maybe they all couldn't fit in the elevator." He hooks a forefinger over his chin. "Should have calculated the surface area of the lift car floor. Damn."

Dick Grayson has posed:
Dick blinks looks over to Donna after noticing her arrival, "No." A beat, "WHAT?!" He sighs and rubs his temples. "I knew something had to be up." He snorts in amusement at Vic's commentary, "If I was going to do such a thing, I would use blue, secondly, that is a lot of unnecessary work to make a splash." He affords a quick smile and looks back to Donna, "But yeah, if my T-Com is missing, something is up, then, judging by all this."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna examines the flailing roomba with some curiousity, then balances it on a finger and holds it out to Victor. "I assume they are designed to climb walls, yes? Perhaps you should have sent them to climb the empty shaft rather than taking the elevator itself. It is probably not wise to get them used to such luxuries, they may start to believe they are people.

    She turns her attention to Dick, regarding him with equal curiosity. It's probably her equivalent of Vic's dramatic suspicion, but she couldn't believe Dick would actually be behind this. "We should probably keep Dick's T-Com active, but set up a secure channel it has no access to. Let the pick-pocket think it still has some value and perhaps you can reactivate the tracker remotely, Vic."

Victor Stone has posed:
"Aww, you know I can't resist spoiling my babies," Vic answers Donna with a teasing tone, taking the roomba from her and tucking it under one arm. "Besides, imagine one of the new kids came flying up the shaft and suddenly realized it was infested with robots? Didn't want to freak somebody out twenty stories up."

"As for the paint job, yeah, the whole thing was pretty extra," he continues, agreeing with Nightwing's assessment. Then, raising one eyebrow, he adds, "Not that that /necessarily/ disqualifies anybody we know. Dick, do you think it might have been your shrimpy gun nut friend? The X kind of looked like that mark he had on his mask. And that hairy dragon thing he was riding around on would make it a little easier to pull off."

Tilting his head back to think, he finishes, "Setting up a secure channel on the Coms I have access to won't be tough. Tracking the missing one, on the other hand..." He bares his teeth for a second. "They're designed for that not to be possible. And the guy who designed them, I hear, was pretty smart."

Dick Grayson has posed:
"Still nifty little things," Dick says as he resumes digging in the couch again, because you never know where it could be. He frowns and flips the cushion over and says, "I am sorry about this, I do not know how it could have happened. I am normally pretty safe with my stuff, especially since it could be used against us pretty easily, as we have seen," he gestures towards the wall.

Dick takes a breath and says, "So, what other information do we have? Though the secure channel will work pretty well for this, especially if the culprit takes the bait."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "It is possible the perpetrator with the stolen T-Com will be sloppy," Donna argues. " Assuming it is no member of the team, they presumably disengaged the tracker without the instructions. It may come on-line again if they mess with it some more. "

    "We know that whoever did it had your T-Com, Nightwing. That's about it. The tower identified you being there, so it didn't set off any alarms while the deed was done. I wonder... we had a visitor a few days back who got past the security and let himself into the lobby. A kid called Samuel... Morgan, that was it. Had a strange story about being chased by spies. It may not be coincidence that the tower security was breached twice in short succession. Cait knew him. And the new one with the arrows, Hawkeye. We should ask them to investigate."

    Donna tilts her head curiously towards vic. "A shrimpy gun nut friend? He was small, or crustacean? And he had a hairy dragon? Dragons are not normally hairy." She tilts her head the other way, to look at Dick. "You keep strange company these days, Nightwing."

Victor Stone has posed:
"Fair enough," Vic accedes to Donna's suggestion. "Definitely can't hurt to have a sniffer on the old frequency, ready to give us an alert if the T-Com comes back online."

"Still, I think the prank tells us a lot. We know whoever it was got close enough to Nightwing to lift his T-Com. They're a skilled enough thief to pickpocket him, and he can't have gotten THAT rusty in just a few years. They know our security well enough to know they'd need one to pull off their little prank. And they were either able to fly or climb sheer surfaces well enough to paint the side of Titans Tower." Vic ticks off each point on his fingers. "We've got detective types on payroll still, right? They should check up on this Morgan guy and your little ninja friend. Small, not fishy, sorry."

One aspect of Donna's comments does elicit a puzzled look. "I mean... dragons normally just aren't. As in they aren't anything because they don't exist. Unless that's ANOTHER little secret you've been carrying around!"

Dick Grayson has posed:
"Perhaps," Dick nods to Donna, "And that is also feasible." He sighs and says, "I should probably get a second one, and we can feed false info over the old channel." The eldest Robin raises a brow, "We had a kid poking around? What was he looking for and why chased by spies? Do we have a profile? Also Hawkeye was here?"

Dick ponders a bit more after Cyborg talks a bit, "Also it clearly was not malicious enough to actually hurt us, just embarrass us. Pride can be healed. Hell, we've dealt with worse. Also yeah, I need to keep better company."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna beams a bright smile at Victor.. "Of course dragons are real, Vic. They just don't normally show up in America. I mean I /am/ an Amazon." That's a detail Dick had only the briefest introduction to on his last visit to the tower, what with the whole thing of entering Raven's mindscape to fight demons getting in the way of explanations. "Terry keeps calling my mother a 'legendary figure', and she's my mom. Other legendary figures are real too. Of /course/ there are dragons. You have been a Titan long enough to know the rule: If it would be inconvenient, it almost certainly exists."

    Donna walks down to the seating area, hopping lightly over the back of the sofa on her way. "Not the normal Hawkeye, Dick. There's a new one he shares the name with. The new kid we have, Kate. The archer. She's also Hawkeye. I think she met this Sam guy before. And Cait teaches at his school. I believe he broke into the tower in an attempt to impress us, but his story was strange and inaccurate. Caitlin said she knew someone she could ask for more information from."

Victor Stone has posed:
"We've been cranking out T-Coms like crazy, what with all the new recruits," Vic reassures Nightwing. "Getting you a spare shouldn't be an issue, just take better care of it this time." He waggles one robotic finger chidingly. "Can't argue you should keep better company -- I've barely seen you since I went active again. Whoever you /are/ hanging out with would have a hell of a time measuring up."

The talk about dragons just elicits a long sigh. "Yeah, and I'm pretty sure if these real dragons and I ever met, they'd inconveniently mistake me for a tasty snack just long enough to get a few chomps in. Like, hello? I'm practically a rock from their perspective, but find me ONE dinosaur or kaiju or whatever that won't stick me in its mouth faster than a baby with a McDonald's toy."

He shakes his head and moves back to the topic of their suspects. "I'll try to meet up with this Sam guy. Figure out whether we really should be impressed by his skills, on the one hand, and whether or not he'd have a reason to mess with us while I'm at it."

Dick Grayson has posed:
"Oh, very different, but duly noted," Dick notes and nods as it is explained to him who the other Hawkeye is, but yeah, breaking into our tower, not exactly a good way to get our favor, especially if it is full of lies."

Dick snorts as he is chided by Vic, "Fair enough. Also, dragons? What have I been missing? Was there a memo I missed?" He grins, "But clearly it was interesting."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Hey you two are the ones who saw this hairy dragon, why am I the only believer here?" Donna asks with a laugh. "Vic, remind me to tell you about the Doom Gate and the plains of Tarterus some day. Everything you meet there assumes that anything that moves is a tasty snack. The ourobouros worms even try to eat themselves - that is a sight to see. No memos Dick, just memories. You know, the whole I-was-really-an-Amazon-all-along thing. Before I met you guys, my life was pure mythology. "

    Donna settles down in the sofa and starts hunting down the remote for the screen. "He was a strange kid. He showed up talking about being on the kill list for HYDRA and wondering if we could offer him protection. When I suggested a SHIELD safe-house would be a better fit, he admitted he was already staying at one. It was hard to guage what he was really after. Much of what he said seemed like half-truths at best."

    It's as if the three years never happened. Donna was always prone to declaring whether things were true or not, and never provided the kind of analysis or evidence that would satisfy the instincts of a detective like Dick. He knows that if he asks for evidence now, she'll just say she could /tell/. The annoying thing is how often she was right.

Victor Stone has posed:
"Well, originally I was talking about dragons because that little guy you vouched for showed up riding one. Remember, that night when people were turning into gorillas?" Vic reminds Nightwing. "Do me a favor, while I'm looking in on this Sam character, check up on your guy, too. Not that I wouldn't be happy to play backup for you when you do." There's a bright gleam in Vic's mechanical eye as he says this.

"That does sound strange," he continues, nodding to Donna. "I'm no lie detector, but you'd assume they had a few at SHIELD, right?" He settles down onto the couch himself, flipping over his roomba, popping open a panel, and extending some kind of plug from one finger into its innards. His red eye flickers for a second, and then he closes the robot cleaner and sets it down to scurry happily off, making quiet suction pops the whole way. "Should get home safe now," he says to no one in particular.

"This Doom Gate sounds like my personal hell. And not just because it's called Doom Gate," he says to Donna. "Maybe that's where the little ninja guy was from, though. I don't know many non-mythological places where people ride around on big hairy winged beasties with bat wings." He takes a second to tap on one wrist, and his eye glows brightly, projecting a hologram still of Red X into the air, R2-D2 style. "Look familiar?"

Dick Grayson has posed:
"Oh yeah, that one," Dick realizes he has badly derped. "He's a decent enough kid, just... yeah. Does his own thing." He shrugs, and then frowns at the mention of the kid bringing up SHIELD safehouses, "Yeah, kid does not know jack about operational security, so if he is going to impress us, better raise that bar a kilometer. Because if he is going to pull that kind of stunt, I don't trust the kid with our secret information."

"Doom Gate definitely sounds bad," Dick remarks and looks at the hologram, "Not immediately, but I will see what I can figure out."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "We don't know that it was him," Donna counters. "The only connection is that he breached tower security a week earlier. He seemed rather confused to be honest. Perhaps being on the run from Nazi secret agents does that to you. Caitlin seemed to consider him a nuisance rather than a threat. I believe it would be best to ask her to look into whether there is a connection first as she knows him. If she feels the need for your detective skills, she can ask.

    Donna finds the remote and switches the big screen to television, though with the sound off. She goes through the channels finally settling on a news program, which she watches still with the sound off. "No ninjas came through the Doom Gate. Nothing comes through the Doom Gate. It is one of our sacred duties to ensure that never happens. That duty is my personal hell."

    A little more quietly, Donna adds "It's what I was doing during Doomsday."

Victor Stone has posed:
"Sorry, Donna -- I didn't realize," Vic answers with a wince. "Still, could have been somewhere else myth-y." He shifts his holographic projection to show the bat-dragon Red X had been using as transportation and backup that day. "Maybe you know where this guy might have come from?" He gives her a quizzical look, then continues, "As for Sam, I'm happy to let Cait take the lead there." He glances at the news with a rueful half-smile. "I guess I'm just antsy to get back into action. I guess if the people following either lead end up needing muscle or tech backup, they'll know where to call me." He holds up his own T-Com.

Dick Grayson has posed:
"I see," Dick says, with a bit of concern, "Still, yes, I am curious to see what Caitlin says, because either way, kid needs some talking to at best." He looks to Donna and frowns, "I am sorry. It was certainly not my intention to cause offense." Dick takes a deep breath and says, "But at least we have some leads to go off of, and yeah, Vic, you're always good to have on a case, I just do not know which lead to pursue first."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna raises a hand. "Nothing like that. It's fine. You guys actually had to face it, I only had to face the guilt of not being there. But that's the past."

    She studies the holographic projection for a while, then shakes her head. "I am not familiar with this creature. It does not look entirely like a dragon." She gives a shrug and settles back in the sofa. "I don't think this quite counts as 'action', Vic. It doesn't seem like a real attack. More like a rather childish challenge. We should get back to doing patrols. That's where the action is, yes?"

    "I'll ask Caitlin to look into the Sam kid. Dick, if you look into the dragon - " she may not have entirely understood the connection there " - and Vic, see if you can harden the systems a little, set up some cameras that are sandboxed from the network and set up a silent alert if Dick's Friend or Foe signal registers again... I guess that gives us a place to start."

Victor Stone has posed:
"Maybe it's not car chases and explosions action, but figuring stuff out is half the fun," Vic says with a grin. "Tracking down leads, identifying the bad guy, inventing weird gadgets -- and getting to know each other better along the way." He chuckles at his own corny line. "Just like old times."

He settles back, deactivates the holographic projection, and adds, "Not that I'm complaining about the patrols, mind you. And yeah, I'll add some countermeasures to our security system. Honestly, they'd never have gotten that far if we were fully online."

Turning to Nightwing, he finishes, "When you decide, just say the word and you know I'm there, buddy." He holds his knuckles out for a fist bump.

Dick Grayson has posed:
Dick nods to Donna in understanding, "I'll talk with him, hopefully we can get something figured out, maybe he has an idea." He scowls and shakes his head, letting it dissipate. "Good idea, Donna, let him think he's actually Nightwing, a dummy signal to hopefully create a ruse." He grins and gives the requested fist bump, because Dick does not leave friends hanging. "Well, it seems like we have a plan then."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna watches the fistbump with a fond smile, then turns away sharply to stare at the screen, or possibly hide the hint of dampness in her eyes. "It is just like old times, isn't it? " she says. "I never thought... but somehow, here we are. Back in the tower, looking for problems to solve. We really are back, aren't we? The Titans, together again."

    She's silent a moment before turning back, wearing a grin. "And yes, it seems like we have a plan."