15144/Laces and zippers, buckles and clasps.

Laces and zippers, buckles and clasps.
Date of Scene:	14 June 2023
Location:	Ops and Common Rooms - Historic Clocktower
Synopsis:	The Bird of Prey converge inside the Clocktower. Treats and tech, patrols and pixies. A potluck of items for the gals to digest.
Cast of Characters:	Harper Row, Barbara Gordon, Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe, Helena Bertinelli

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Harper Row has posed:
    In-between adventure, risking life and limb, there's time to reassure oneself that the tools of the trade will be dependable. Whether it's prepping to field test a new drone or whether that fab new fibre can turn a blade aside, montages are things that only happen in movies.

    Harper Row is half out of her Bluebird uniform. The waist down is all business with hook-toe boots and skin-tight vigilantism, with her absolute unit of a utility belt the demarcation line to the casual wear above that meridian. Tank top and faux-hawk and gloves is what's on the rest. And a snarl for the drone she's trying to operate on, half-strew across a table. There doesn't appear to be any anesthetic for poor ~Daisy~ the drone, whose propellers spin fitfully as Harper does some ungrounded electro-whatsits on part of its carapace.

"C'mon...no red light...no whammies...no whammies..." Bzzzzzzt! "Fffffff!"

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Babs emerges from the balcony level, one of the rooms that was converted from a guest apartment in to a library filled with boxes of books that she's been working on over time, putting them on shelves, after a small library in Gotham closed down. Anyone who knows Babs well enough knows that she was a librarian in the past, since her teenage years past the injury that left her in a chair, and up to the point where her Green Energy company got off the ground good enough that she left the dusty bookshelves behind... though she still loves them.

In fact, she's carrying a stack of books with her out of the room, holding them in front of her stomach as she starts for the spiral staircase.

Thunkity thunkity thunkity, comes the sound of Barbara rounding the stairs as she descends toward the main level of the clocktower's Ops area. Dressed in black jeans, a white and black tshirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse waving happily on the chest, she looks pretty casual.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    After an inquiry to the array on where if anyone is in the Clocktower on coming home Charlie steps forward from swapping out of her street gear into her civvies. She vanishes from one step to the next in a rush of pinkish purple smoke, appearing a heartbeat later in the Ops Room. "Bzzt indeed .. bzzt indeed..." she says gravely taking in what must have been a whammie curiously from a little ways off.

    Her civvies consist of stompy military style boots, some armor reinforced dark jeans, a cute wonderwoman hoodie, and with her goggles shoved up out of sight in her hair.

    Honestly her civvies are kitted out with gear, which is probably not really qualifying as civvies, but this is how she moonlights with the JL Dark and easier than multiple costume changes.

    "Whatcha doin' Harper?" before glancing to Babs and smiling happily. "Hey, I got an A in that awful math class.... thanks for the help this semester..." she was struggling something fierce with it, university level courses are a big step up from the prep school Babs was sending her to.

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Finding her way in, Helena casts a quick glance around the room. It's as much habit as a form of self-preservation. Knowing the personalities on the team, the risk for some sort of ambush is not outside the real of possibility. Playful or otherwise.

"Ladies" she offers with a light smile. She's dressed casually, a black teeshirt and blue denim with some canvas sneakers.

"How're we all today?" she asks as she moves to the nearest table to set down a box. "Fresh bomboloni. Come and get them." The small donnut hole styled treats are filled with a variety of fruit jams, custard, even Nutella. "Hmmm.." she looks to the floor's coffee pot. Because every level has its own drink service, right? "Need coffee."

Harper Row has posed:
    Harper lifts her chin from her work, and the sounds of feet on the staircase have her reel in certain words. She switches from working Blue to companionably compatible curses. Her fingers keep the hatch of the drone pivoted to the side, tension applied to keep it snapping back in place. The soldering iron is tilted away from a circuit board and a curl of smoke drifts up like she had an overly elaborate metal spliff between her fingers. The dark metal of the drone, its chassis' blunted to not be so refractively gleaming, shudders on the table as gyros insist it right itself prematurely. "Quiet you."

    "Hey!" she calls out to Babs, and then flinches at Charlie's unique manner of getting about. "Oh, I'm trying to make this little sucker be a bit more stable in the air. Sounds like a hangry hornet rather than a whispering wasp." A pause. "Oh hey, congratz. Math is brutal. If anyone can help soften a subject, it's Bar-"

    The sentence is cut off, Harper's eyes focusing on the box of bomboloni. Her chair makes a hideous protesting shriek of friction as it's pushed back and Ms. Row exits it, going to loom like a praying mantis over the treats. "Huuungry. Helloooooo."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
As she descends the last few steps, Babs sees the friendly faces within the Ops area. It causes her to smile warmly, a pair of thick framed glasses over her green eyes and her red hair tied up in a messy bun atop her head. "I expect nothing less, Charlie." She shoots over to her fellow redhead with a little glimmer of a grin. "I was hoping to hear how things were going in that regard, rather than have to pry for answers." She adds in a playful way before she approaches the table where the drone work was being done. Babs sets down the stack of four books she was carrying, then regards Helena and her box of treats.

"God." She says with a little exhale. "The temptation... to eat the whole box." She looks to Helena then and smirks at her before she offers up. "Coffee? I see a need for coffee in those eyes." She says of the young Miss Bertineli, already turning to walk to the other tables in the Ops area where the fancy pantsy coffee extreme machine 3000 is already waiting. She's soon to set in to brewing up a pot.

"How are things?" She asks over her shoulder, to all three of them!

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    "Pfftsssss I mean you can always ask but I just got the final grades back after finals and wasn't about to hide it." she smiles cheerfully. "Also pretty sure you have the school tapp'd to keep an eye on me." teasing. Probably teasing. Not that she would be surprised or upset if the mom figure in her life did that.

    She gets out of Harper's way when she is clearing back to get at food. "I imagine Babs can help with silent rotors, the little oracle drones are freaky quiet." following towards said food but not as rushed.

    "I'm excellent .. summer break means more time to patrol and hunt down trouble."

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Helena Bertinelli smiles to the others then casts a playfully dour look toward Barbara, "Don't you dare. You'll make me cry. You don't want that. Italian women cry ugly" she jokes.

As Barbara nears, Helena smiles and bumps the redhead's hip with her own. "Help yourself. I brought plenty. Even for you.." she says with a smile that turns serious again. "Yes. Coffee. So much coffee.

Glancing toward Charlie, she smiles. "Summer break is the best time of the school year, isn't it?" So says the teacher. "Even if it means I'm already working on next year's outline and education plan.."

Looking to Harper, she grins. "Hungry Hungry Harper. Everyone be careful you still have all your digits intact...!"

Harper Row has posed:
    Harper makes a dire decision to only select one treat. Barbara's voice feel like, to her, it's like her conscience speaking to the room in a way. She grunts, and grabs a jammy yum-yum. "You." she intones with gravitas. "The chosen one." The Chosen one is bitten into, and the second half quickly follows where the first blazes a trail to her tummy. Oh no, they're so easy to eat. They're gobble-sized. She raises her gaze to Helena. Her eyes say, 'Thank you for this new addiction'.

    Harper start licking off a powdery pad of her thumb, her stomach already gurgling. A playful gnashing of her teeth like she's go for fingers next!

    She nods to Charlie's suggestion. "I'm envious of her engineering, but old habits are hard to break...like if I get a bit obsessed with solving a problem, smoothing out a wrinkle, before I go begging for an easy answer. It would be totally time-saving if I went to her first." she smirks and glances over the assortment of books Babs has brought down. She runs a finger over the spines like they were a washboard. "Patrols will definitely take care of whatever we pack away from Helena's boxes. Jeez, Summer break never seems to last too long."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Helena gets a big smirk, a huge smirk, from Babs who just gets the coffee brewing, then picks up a little plate beside the machine along with a tinsy tiny fork. She steps over to the pastries after the others have at them, and forks one, two, three, before the third is put in her mouth and she saunters over to the drone that was being worked on. "Mmmmmh, god." She says after enjoying the first of the three that she swiped.

She glances the little drone over, already spotting like fifty things she'd change, but she doesn't comment directly on it. "I can help, but I don't do this stuff for you, you gotta do it yourself and the only way to really learn is to do it with your own hands."

She says while forking the second pastry off of the little plate in her hand, and smiling at what Charlie had said. "I promise I'm not watching every corner of your school like a Hawk watching over its Hawklings."

And then the second pastry is enjoyed by the redhead who just seems to melt while eating it, her body just visibly loosening up where she's standing.

"God..." She says again moments later.

The books she brought down are all about gardening, and plantlife, oddly enough.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    The sheer joy the others seem to be having with the pastries gets her to pop one in her mouth and try it out. She chews and nods "That'll do.. that'll do..."

    Then she grins "I am pretty darn sure you lowjacked me.." is said to Babs, and well, she did, so that is fair probably to accuse.

    "I get that.. I mean I swipe drones to use but I am not a drone inclined engineery sort... but I'm defo made to learn other stuff through trial and error..." so much error. So so much error.

    "We should do more team up patrols Harper."

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Helena Bertinelli seems innocently oblivious to Barbara's smirk. Coffee is as much a part of Italian life as delicious treats.

As the others enjoy the gift of treats, she smiles more in satisfaction.

"There is a great little pastery shop in Little Italy. These are the best you can get outside of Tuscany" she says with every bit of pride in her little discovery.

GRabbing one for herself, she nibbles on it slowly rather than devouring it in one bite, which she certainly could. She takes time to savour it.

She looks to Charlie and nods, "We need to set up a new rotation for patrols. Teaming up is a good idea. With all of the drones, now, we can still cover the same territory but with better support." A glance toward Barbara to see her reaction to the suggestion.

Harper Row has posed:
    The books that Harper gets a bit too handsy with are left alone after she's satiated her urge to feel the textures. She's honestly the same with anything that sits on shelves or displays, but books do have an weird quality. tangible Wiki pages that can't be editted without new editions.

    Harper side-eyes her cornflower blues in Barbara's direction. A mixture of gargantuan amount of respect for the other women, but speckled with the foamy bits of Harper's pride in her own MacGuyver'd creations. Barbara is speaking truths that aren't as easy to swallow as the bomboloni, but worth digesting. Harper licks along her chops and sighs. "Yeeeeeah."

    Her expression goes into a wry grin and she gives a moist thumbs up to Charlie. "Abso-tutely. Hey, I'll tether one of my ducklings here to you when we do. See if it can keep up, reacquire, shadow you like a helpful little devil while you do what you do. A little sister, not a big brother."

    Harper turns her attention to Barbara, echoing Helena. Waiting for her seal of approval.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Babs is just standing there seemingly lost in the wonderful world of sweets and what they do within her, dancing like pretty people in fancy clothing... pretty tuxedos, and giant poofy dresses... all fluttering in the wind, and glittering in the li--

People are talking to her.

Babs flutters her eyelashes and looks up at the other three. "Mmm?" She catches up. "Oh, yes. I highly encourage people never go out there alone, though I know in this group that's like asking a Camel not to hump things." Har har.

Babs steps over to the computer station she most commonly uses here, and sets down the small plate on the desk there as she settles down on to the edge of the chair. She keys something on the keyboard, then speaks again with her back toward the others. "You know, when I was in Budapest earlier this year, I was only able to put together four drones that I bought from a hobby store, and linked with my own stuff for the various missions I was running there with ..." She leaves out Elektra's name because it's just more boring information!

"Anyway... it's shocking how reliant I'm becoming on these things." Babs says as she works on her keyboard now, bringing up various windows on the tri-monitor display before her.

"Especially with the Blimp servicing the drones throughout the city now. Harper, if you need some of my routines for that, you can link your own drones to the Blimp, where they can fly up to... recharge and get minor maintenance done, if needs require it." She states, glancing over her shoulder.

The coffee machine makes a melodic chime, and speaks in Italian indicating that its done, almost like it was speaking directly to Helena.... Little Italy eat your heart out!

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    She squints at Babs. Was that a dirty camel joke. It kind of seemed like maybe one. She isn't positive though. So she just blinks for a moment.

    "I do like the little drones and the goggles HUD.. like over watch and eye in the sky. There is definitely something about some kinds of magic that act like bad reception feedback though. Also pixies... I've found that pixies and drones do not mix at all... though honestly pixies and everything don't work well.. they totes bite."

    She steals a second treat. "I'd like that Harper." about the patrol run and her offer for shadows.

Harper Row has posed:
    Harper adopts a mafia-esque accent. "Dah muthahship." she gives a firm nod and then makes a B-line back to that tasty box. Another treat and she's back to her Gotham vocal fry. "That'd be freakin cool, and useful." But most importantly, it brings up all sorts of comparisons to retro coin-op video games. The 8-bit drones are already shuffling up to the Blimp in her brain along with beep-boop noises.

    "Pixies? Oh my gawd..." That adds another dimension to her fictional mental video game. "Worse than Gotham pigeons?"

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Helena Bertinelli was about to take a bite of her own treat when she pauses to look at Charlie. Pixies bite. What? It had to be a joke. Right?

"I'm suddenly thankful I've not had a reason to encounter pixies.."

Popping the last of the bomboloni into her mouth, she hovers near the coffee maker which is, thankfully, almost done brewing.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
With a few timely keystrokes, Babs sits back from the keyboard and watches as something starts to program itself in a coded LLM that she designed herself within the Oracle AI systems that operate the Tower, the Blimp and quite a lot of the Bat-family computers around the city now too.

She reaches for her plate, and that last pastry on it, then toe-tips her chair in a half circle that leads her facing the other three again.

"Pixies?" She asks as she picks up the last pastry between thumb and forefinger. "Is that some new gang I haven't heard of?" Oh god, she doesn't know what a Pixie is? "Are they tough?" She asks as she raises the jelly donut deliciousness up to bite it in half, and chew all proper like with her pink lips clsoed shut.

Her green eyes go from one of them to the other before she clears her palette and speaks again. "Got a bit of software designing itself to upload in to your drone, Harper. It should know what to do as far as interfacing with the Blimp now, once you install it anyway. Super easy, barely an inconvenience." The redhead states as she glances back down at what remains of her sweet treat, then pops it in her mouth and moves to stand up to walk to the coffee machine also.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    "They are so much worse than Gotham pidgeons... elves and faeries are not your friends is what I always say. So many of them are way Grimm and bloodthirsty little monsters..." she just looks distant for a moment, like she is remembering something fairly horrific.

    Then the moment is gone and she is popping another treat in her mouth. At Babs question she almost chokes on the treat, coughing a little bit and managing to live, somehow. "Oh .. uh.. well sometimes they seem to form gangs... but I meant the little flying pests with the small swords and sharp teeth..." she waves hand. "Magic stuff.. not a gotham problem don't worry... though if you see one in Gotham.. comms me right away please."

Helena Bertinelli has posed:
Helena Bertinelli looks back and forth like a game of four-square as everyone talks about pigeons and pixies.

"Worse than pigeons, definitely. From the sound of it." She looks to Barbara, "Didn't you go as an elf to that convention last fall?" It has to be the same thing, right? It's really just some sort of adult dress up. Right?

With no time like the present, she distracts herself with another couple of the little bomboloni while the conversation flows. It was nice to just chat with the girls from the team and not always be planning someones impending doom or what criminal to be taken down this week.