15515/Who Mxyzptlk'd on my boots

Who Mxyzptlk'd on my boots
Date of Scene:	01 August 2023
Location:	Labs - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	15515
Cast of Characters:	Damian Wayne, Jon Kent

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Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian had messaged Jon from the labs, asking him to come meet him. The young Bat had been hard at work on some backlogged projects for the Titans as he waited, pipettes working overtime while he waited to compile the DNA. Lots of bits and bobs doing science things. He was without his helmet, which was sitting on the counter nearby, he had some goggles on while he was working with UV and some reagent.

Jon Kent has posed:
Jon is in his Superboy uniform tonight. It makes flying around less conspicuous. And he can't afford to Uber very often. He comes striding into the lab. He stops at the doorway and watches Damian for a few moments, then he enters. "Has anyone ever called you Ian? Like the last three letters of your name? I think it's cute."

He stops at the counter near Damian, not really worrying about any sort of eye or face protection. It's not like chemicals can hurt him. He leans on the counter with both elbows, with a mischievous smile on his face.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian had been titrating some reagent into a tube while Jon mentioned a nickname, he reared back a little, and looked up with a little confused look. "No." To what, he doesn't answer, just going back to his titrating. "Have you been pondering that for a while?" He asks, though he does motion to a file, stamped with a Bat symbol. "Found that on the Batcomputer." It was sparce, and not much information. 'Mr. Mxyzptlk, denizen of the Fifth Dimension. Extremely dangerous.'

Jon Kent has posed:
The terseness of Damian does nothing to deflate Jon. In fact, his smile broadens. "I have not. I'll have you know, Wayne, that my brain works at accelerated speeds. I thought of that in the elevator." He picks up the file. "Doesn't mean it's not cute." He flips open the file.

"Huh. A paper file," he teases. "2002 is on the phone, they want their hard copy of stuff back."

But the subject of Mister Mxyzptlk is serious biz, so he gives the file the attention it deserves. "See, it says here that when he visits there is a different trigger every time to send him back, and something you can do to turn off his powers for short bursts of time." Jon closes the file and sets it down while a smug look creeps over his face. "Ya boy found out just what those two things are from a witch he knows."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     "Whenever a copy of an ED file is taken out of the Batcomputer, it is always on a hard copy. Because you can destroy it more reliably. Anyway, seems our father's have had a couple run-ins with this creature before. And given his proclivity for reality manipulation, he is considered an ED threat. Luckily he seemed to only have it out for your old man...until now." Damian answers, placing the pipette down and removing his goggles. "So, seems you were right to be cautious and to offer me the...device."

  "So, what did you find out?" Damian asks, standing up in his Batwing attire, the red bat glowing slightly.

Jon Kent has posed:
"Yeah, alright," Jon concedes regarding hard copies. "I'm not well steeped in the cloak and dagger stuff, so color me out of the loop. So if agents were bearing down on you, you would, what, eat the file?"

Jon floats up off the floor and sits on the countertop. "Uh, uh, uh," the young half-Kryptonian says, waggling one finger back and forth. "I have information you want that is valuable. I don't plan on just *giving* it away." He peers at Batwing. "You have to make it worth my while."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian's brow furrows a little before one brow raises. "And what does Superboy want to make it worth his while? Tickets to the Metropolis game on Friday? Box seats to the new Nick Drago tour? The emergency five thousand dollars in my utility belt?"

  Of course, Damian was just playing coy. But he wasn't sure what he wanted.

Jon Kent has posed:
Jon is absolutely *not* money motivated, but a surprised expression lights up his face. "Wait, you keep five thousand dollars in your utility belt for emergencies? I don't...I don't even think I know what five thousand dollars *looks* like. That's...impressive."

Then Mr. Playing It Cool picks the file back up again. "Nooooooo, I'm not interested in your money, Wayne, or the things it can buy." He opens the file up again and pretends to read. He does that old timey thing where you lick your fingertip and turn the page. "Gotta do better than that."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian reaches down for one of the pockets on the utility belt, and pulls out a stack of unmarked, non-sequential $100 bills. "Sometimes you have to pay a CI. Or more. Cash is still king for when you don't want it traced back to any source. Even in the digital age, hard currency will always have a use."

  "What does the world's third most unbribable person want?" Of course, Superman and Batman being first and second, respectively. "Cookies? Pie?"

Jon Kent has posed:
Jon's eyes open wide. He sets the file down and takes the cash, fanning it out in his hands. He looks at it intently, perhaps thinking about how even this paltry sum could make his life easier. But no, tall trees grow from the seeds we plant, and Jonathan Samuel Kent was not raised to plant that kind of tree. But it *is* literally the most amount of money he's ever seen. He hands it back to Damian.

"How little you think of me. Offering me money and food. I want a kiss." He smiles warmly at his friend. "Otherwise you'll need kryptonite pliers to pull the secrets out of me."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     "Oh, then don't look in the lead box in that corner." Damian says, pointing behind Jon.

  With that, should Jon turn around, Damian gets very close, right enough to give Jon a kiss when he turns around. "In my defence, you could bribe me with weapons, so my sense of what is an acceptable bribe is askew."

Jon Kent has posed:
The young half-Kryptonian mashes his mouth against Damian's for a goodly duration. Clearly he's been waiting to do that for a bit. "Weapons, huh? I could fly us to a vacation on a tropical island untouched by human hand where we could live like naked jungle children until we were ready to return to the world. But you'd rather have weapons?"

Then he gives Batwing a light, playful shove. "Alright, check it. According to my source, if we want to banish Mister Mxyzptlk back to the Fifth Dimension we have to get him to drink well water from a silver cup." He shrugs a shoulder briefly. "Not sure where to even *get* a silver cup. Or well water." He snorts.

"But if we want to temporarily stop his powers," Jon-El continues, "Someone has to sprinkle sea salt on him while wearing purple gloves. That will shut him down for JUST a few moments."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     "Naked jungle children? Did that. I'll pass." Damian quips before stepping over to the window, looking out. "We have silver cups at home. I've polished them enough times in these last three years to know. And the farm, does that not use well water? Pumped of course, but I doubt it's running municipal water from Smallville proper."

  "Oh hell. Purple gloves? Where can we find those?" Damian asks, looking to the box of several sizes of nitrile purple gloves on the lab table.

Jon Kent has posed:
Jon slips off the counter he was sitting on. "Okay, so we've sourced the stuff. Now we just have to formulate the plan. The big thing is that I have *no* idea if Mister Mxyzptlk knows about what will send him back to the Fifth Dimension. If he does, then he'll be on the lookout for silver cups for sure. If not, we have a better chance of tricking him."

Deception, of course, is not Jon-El's strong suit any more than it is Kal-El's. That might be why Mister Mxyzptlk is such a thorn in the side of the House of El.

"I wonder if he has to drink it willingly. Like, if we shut him down with the sea salt, can we force feed him the well water?"

Damian Wayne has posed:
     "Well, that could be easy enough to do. As far as deception, leave that to me." Of course, Damian's acting chops were high, much like the others in the Family. "A silver cup can be easily hid. Like...as a Yeti tumbler. Just a few moments is not long enough to force him to drink by cutting off his air. Perhaps another way?" He asks.

Jon Kent has posed:
The Superboy-clad Jon walks over to one of the utility sinks and peers inside. "Well, this guy came within literally five seconds of killing you. So as far as I'm concerned, all bets are off in terms of pulling punches. If we have to get forceful..."

Jon reaches into the sink and pulls out rubber tubing with a funnel attached to the end. "...then I'm ready to get forceful. I reckon it would take me about one second to get this tube down his throat."

Jon looks at Damian grimly. This is *not* his kind of fight, not the kind of fight that paladins engage in. But their choices are being taken from them.