15649/The Difficulties of Being Harvey Dent

The Difficulties of Being Harvey Dent
Date of Scene:	19 August 2023
Location:	Batcave
Synopsis:	Phoebe and Cassandra get caught up by Dick and Stephanie on the burglary of the campaign manager of Harvey Dent.
Cast of Characters:	Stephanie Brown, Dick Grayson, Phoebe Beacon, Cassandra Cain

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Stephanie Brown has posed:
It didn't really rate much in the news. A tiny blurb in the police ledger section of the Gotham papers that mentioned a burglary in a high-rise apartment building.

Though to people like Batman's entourage, the extra details brought it to more prominent attention. The person burgled is a campaign manager of Harvey Dent's campaign for re-election as Gotham's DA. Though some personal items were taken, the possibility it was related to Harvey's campaign was raised.

Nightwing and Batgirl had investigated the location previously. There were no signs of forced entry through the door, and it would take a daring burglar to come in through the window on the floor halfway up the tall building.

But their report on the incident indicated that was what happened. Some residue on the side of the building was a mix of dark paint and rubber that suggested the thief had used balloons to get to the window. The dark-painted balloons had rubbed against the building, leaving the residue, while the thief cut through the window frame. Removing the window frame, they then used the glass window itself to defeat the heat sensor in the room.

And from the best they could gather, the computer was accessed during the time of the robbery. Batgirl downloaded a copy of the computer without even the campaign manager being aware.

Now she's sitting at the Batcomputer, wearing jeans and a Gotham U tank top, as she goes through the material from the computer. Encryption on some of the files believed taken was easy enough to break. "Yep, donor lists is one of the prominent pieces of information taken," she says aloud as she lets out a sigh. "Someone's targeting Harvey and his campaign, looks like."

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Dick steps off the elevator carrying a couple travel cups. He glances to his right at a disused alcove of the cave with a small smile on his face, then shakes his head and heads over towards the Batcomputer dais, slipping into a chair next to Steph and putting one of the glasses next to the keyboard.

    "Smoothies a la Alfred. Likely to be dangerously healthy while also tasting good." He glances at the monitor, "Anything interesting come up yet?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Aren't the donor lists supposed to be open anyway?" comes Phoebe's voice as she comes down the stairs, hair in a tight wrap to fit under her hood, carrying her gloves in one hand and her boots in the other and a steel tumbler in the crook of her arm -- she's wearing bunny slippers.

    With the lack of chairs, she pulls up a section of rock and stretches her neck out a bit.

    "If they're targeting his donors, then they've got a list of pretty much every prominant family in Gotham City. Seems like everyone loves Dent." she leans over to sip from the tumbler, looking between Steph and Dick. "Which means they'll probably hit Bruce at some point."

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Stephanie Brown glances over from the Batcomputer at the question from Phoebe. "If he were running against Luthor for President, I think the federal stuff would have to be. But local races in Gotham? Like the wealthy here want that kind of visibility of what they do," she comments with a shrug. "Lots of other useful info for someone going after him as well. Campaign strategies, polling numbers, evaluations of the different voting districts. But they had to break through some extra encryption just to get to the donor files so they seem to have been a specific target."

Dick is given a warm smile as Stephanie picks up the smoothie. "Oh, with chocolate flakes. That I tell Alfred how good they are and that I'm surprised he included chocolate. And he just gives me that knowing and self-pleased smile back that tells me it's not really chocolate. Yet it's so good I don't care," she says, grinning as she takes a sip.

She leans back in her chair. "Bruce is pretty high on the list, yes," she agrees. "A few notable absences among some of the prominent families. The ones that we know things about already, or suspect. Allies of Falcone. The Montes family. Bet they are backing whoever runs against Harvey," Stephanie muses.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Dick snorts a little, "Yeah, love to see them come at Bruce. That would not go well for them in any way, shape or form." He takes a drink from his cup.

    "Heya Phoebe, how's things? Anything exciting come up while I wasn't looking?"

    He leans back in his chair, in one of the few places he can let himself relax completely.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Considering we're sitting under Stately Wayne Manor, I intern at Wayne Enterprises, I've fallen asleep in the Solomon Wayne library --" Phoebe breezily jokes, "I can't imagine what it's like to have your name up all over everything." she leans down to pull her slippers off and pull her boots on, securing them carefully. "I just really hope it's not Phillip Cupp." Phoebe gives a soft mutter. "He's already in-freaking-sufferable now."

    Phillip Cupp. LAwyer, contemporary of Dent, broke Phoebe's hand seventeen times while she was in The Silo, in Montana, previous to her joining the Bat Family.

    She gives a smile and a wave to Dick.

    "Nah, not really. Just regular stuff. Patrols, purse snatchings, meeting men who turn into a possibly enslaved Angel of Death." she shrugs. "The usual. Sup with you two?"

Cassandra Cain has posed:
"Why this important?" Cass says, from right behind the group.

SHE'S JUST THERE. You almost have to expect it around here, but really. The girl has this complete lack of presence sometimes. She's looking at the information that's displayed and being entirely unobtrusive, but she looks as if she's just come from a lesson. Soft ballet tights and shoes.

Which should be an excuse for how freaking quiet she was, but still. Sheesh.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Stephanie sucks on the smoothie through a straw, reaching down to hit the chair control that will let her tip the chair back. "Angel of Death?" she repeats. She gives a visible shudder. "Ever since the demon stuff at the museum, my love of the supernatural has diminished greatly," she says with a sigh.

The blond's head swivels as Cassandra makes her presence known. "It's important because Harvey is a good guy who doesn't give in to the corruption. And so they want to take him down. Keeping him from being reelected would be a boon to Gotham's underworld," she says.

Straightening the chair, Stephanie taps on the Bat computer and brings up headlines of Harvey's successes prosecuting members of Gotham's villainous cadre. Of course the Bats had a lot to do with providing evidence in a number of those cases. But still, he successfully carried them through the trial.

Stephanie chews on her bottom lip. "Cupp is running in the primaries for the other side," she agrees with Phoebe.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    "Yeah, it'd probably be good if we can keep Harvey in the office. It's kind of nice knowing there's at least one guy in the DA's office that isn't being paid by the other side."

    He takes a long drink from his smoothie. "Man, I should just have him whip up gallon batches of this stuff and install a tank for it in the kitchen."

    "But anyway, Harvey. We might want to take some time watching his home and office, try to prevent any more incidents like this from happening. Plus if we catch someone in the act, we can work on tracking down who's behind the whole thing."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "@*#& my liiiiiiife I should have taken Damian up on his offer to un-alive hiiiiiiiim after Robbie broke his nnnnnnoooooossseee..." Phoebe protests in a lack of serious and more act of levity, but she gives a smile over to Cass, trying to hide that she jumped when she spoke up.

    "Cupp's a dip, but there's a couple things up with him. One: He thinks Bruce is sick, because two: he knows I'm a metahuman with healing powers." she wrinkles her nose. "So he thinks Bruce Wayne is on the same evil person mailing list that he had access to once upon a time."

    Phoebe brings her arms up, stretching her shoulders.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cass is so proud that nobody freaked when she appeared. It's a combat reflex, and this team is the best. Except for Jason, but he's a special child in a lot of ways. She places her left hand on Steph's shoulder for a moment, then lets it slip away as she looks up at all the data.

She glances at Dick's smoothie, her face making a weird face. Nobody fully understands why she's so picky about what she eats, but there's some speculation that it's ...no, she's just weird.

She pauses, covering a yawn with one fist as Phoebe looks her way, and then she raises an eyebrow, challenging the girl. You saw nothing, I'm not tired.

Slipping over, Cass puts her hands on Phoebe's shoulders, then starts to dig in and massage out the knots. Not a word, and it might be a little creepy, but ...

Stephanie Brown has posed:
"It would be a lot more frustrating if we get people arrested and they just go free again. I mean, more than it already happen," Stephanie says in agreement with Dick. She blows at a stray wisp of hair in a way that sounds a little frustrated. For even with Harvey, villains seem to make it out of Blackgate and Arkham at a greater than expected pace.

The extra information about Cupp that Phoebe provides makes Stephanie's lips curl in distaste. "Yeah, really sounds like someone we'd want to keep out of office. Last thing that people already who suffer from some persecution need, is people in government who are going to make matters worse," she says. Metahuman rights!

The hand that briefly goes to Steph's shoulder gets a quick pat from the Gotham coed. And a quick whisper, "Your English is coming along wonderfully, Cass."

Stephanie focuses back on the Batcomputer then. "I'll put some watches for unusual events on the people on the donor list for now. And let Barbara know so Oracle can do her thing there too."

Dick Grayson has posed:
    "Yeah, she can keep an eye on everywhere Dent-related at once." He chuckles, "I'm too used to doing my own surveillance, I need to remember there's an easier way these days. It's almost sad, modern technology is removing the need to perch on gargoyles."

    He glances over at Cass and nods, "Yeah, soon you'll be as much of a chatterbox as Steph is." He smirks and prepares to dodge as best he can while seated.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Perching on a gargoyle never goes out of style." Phoebe states with confidence, and then her nose wrinkles. "... then again, maybe it's just me. Y'know. Dramatic and all." she states, and and she shrugs a moment.

    "Cupp should never reach the office, he definitely should never be put in a position of power again." she states dryly, and rubs at her left hand... and then she turns, looking to Dick, and then looking to Steph, and she purses her lips in concentration.

    "Nah, Steph's not so bad." she decides.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cass nods. Cass pauses in what she's doing, then ambles over toward Dick's chair. Where she proceeds to fall over him from behind, pressing her chest into his head. It'd be weird if she wasn't clearly being a complete flop about it, arms splaying and her body weight hanging off of him.

Yes, her English has improved. Her maturity however, still needs some work. As she's being a ragdoll on top of Dick she turns her head to Steph and winks. Because reasons?

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Stephanie Brown tries to give Dick a little swat for his comment. "Loquaciousness is a sign of intelligence," she says, making up an appropriate adage on the spot. Phoebe earns herself a grateful smile from Stephanie for having her back.

Rather than her voice then, Stephanie fills the air with the sound of a straw trying to suck up the last bits of smoothie from the bottom of the cup. She sets it aside and then swivels the chair over to face the others more directly now the computer work is done.

"I still think the old methods are necessary. Electronics and computers lets us cast a wider eye. But I've learned the value of investigation. We're not going to get things like spotting those marks and getting the samples from the wall of the skyscraper from a drone. Or spotting the repairs to the window. Noting the door wasn't the point of entry. Lots of reason to be a detective!"

"We could assign Cass to shadow Harvey. Though I worry she'd end up scaring him half to death," Stephanie teases.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Dick oofs slightly as Cass drops onto his head, which of course means Steph gets to swat whatever she was aiming at. Sometimes it's handy having a distraction when you're about to strike.

    "Ah, now I see how it is. You women always stick together!" he declares in mock outrage.

    Not bothering to move Cass from her flopping place since really, she doesn't weigh that much, he returns to the previous train of thought. "Oh, I'm not saying we should all just sit here patrolling the city with Bat-drones, but to keep an eye on places of interest, Oracle's method is a lot more convenient." He pauses for a moment. "Hmm, I might have to see if Wayne Enterprises has any military spec drones, liberating one or two might give us some interesting options."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "And yeah, most of my other non-bat-time investigations? They can mess with tech." Phoebe states, holding her domino mask in her gloved hands as she worries at it a little bit, and brushes her fingers thoughtlessly against her own throat, and then gives a soft huff.

    "Don't look at me Dick. I'm really only sticky with Tim and Jason." she jokes, holding her hands up.

    "And Cass, of course, but that's just 'cause I make her look extra good."

Cassandra Cain has posed:
The fact that Cass has been relegated to 'not annoying enough to bother with' seems to annoy her. She puffs out her cheeks, looking at Dick, then stands up. Message apparently receieved, because she puts her hands onto her hips and stares at the data up on the Batcomputer, all work and seriousness.

Her eyes scan the information, trying to assess what she's looking at. She -has- been on monitor duty an awful lot of late. Bruce's idea, probably part of his plan to get her to learn more.

Unfortunately she's very quiet even for her at that point, not having enough dollars in her mental account to also pay for social interaction.

"What I watch for?" Okay, so she had been paying attention when Steph suggested shadowing Harvey.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
"Hey if it wasn't such a man's world we wouldn't have to," Stephanie teases Dick. She takes the opportunity to reach over to tickle at his ribs before Cass has given up on her Occupy Dick Grayson cause.

She sees Cassandra studying the screen and motions to the alerts she set. "So the Batcomputer will ping us for any news or events related to the campaign donors. Any crimes, if they get a parking ticket. If their businesses make the news for any reason. So we can sift it for possible connections to the break in," Stephanie explains.

She pulls up what the Batcomputer's alerts would look like and how to access them. While she does, she asks Phoebe, "How is Tim doing? He spends most of time Outside, don't see him as much," she says. Not talking about the outdoors with the comment.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    "We also need to try and find out if anyone is spying on Harvey or his campaign office. Though I think we're a little late on the office part of that, since it's already been burgled. Don't know if they got everything they wanted though." He takes a sip of his smoothie, then sits for a minute, thinking with one finger tapping the side of his cup.

    "We might want to actually set up some alarms, surveillance equipment and the like, just to try and make sure nobody gets a second chance at his info. And keeping his donors flagged as well is good. Keep a close watch on those, we'll want to know if anything unusual happens around any of them."

    He sighs slightly, "Unfortunately it can be hard to tell sometimes, I mean, if they get a blackmail letter in email or something, we won't know unless they contact someone about it or we're reading all their email, which is one, pretty creepy and two, not easy to do for all his possible donors."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... oh. Well, I mean, he's Tim. Managing the team. We recently did in fact binge watch the extended version of The Two Towers over like, a gallon of ice cream each." Phoebe comments, "I think he was sleeping off the three ciders he had at the graduation party." Phoebe comments chipperly. "We're considering drowning mutual lonely sorrows in either a trip to New Zealand or a trip to Japan, the former for Hobbits and the latter for martial arts study."

    She trails off a moment "But he needed a bit of alone time. Can't blame him, so he's probably at the Roost burying himself in about ten times the amount of work he should be able to feasably manage..."

    Phoebe pauses a moment.

    "... can't Tim or Barbara trace the... uh... hashes? The sending information?"

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cass glances at Phoebe, then visibly sighs and looks back at the stuff. She gives a subtle upnod after she's told a few things, then wanders toward the changerooms. You know, where we keep our random outfits and stuff. Apparently she's going to get dressed, and needs something that isn't in her usual wardrobe.

It's okay, she'll be fine. She's her. But she really needs to learn how to state her intentions. Is she going to watch Harvey, or is this an ice cream run? Is she in need of shoes? Bueller?

Stephanie Brown has posed:
"Maybe we can get someone to go work in the campaign, keep an eye things," she suggests along the lines of Dick's comment.

In reply to Phoebe, Stephanie rotates her chair back towards the Batcomputer. It gives a little squeak. Or maybe that was Stephanie? She looks down at the chair though, rotates away and back again, generating another squeak. Nope, it was the chair. She mumbles something about oil and then taps a few commands on the computer.

The skyscraper blueprints and other info pull up. "It wasn't a remote hack," she tells Phoebe. "They physically broke into guy's apartment through his 19th floor window, and accessed the computer directly. So no transmissions to trace. The only evidence we had they did get into the computer, was the files had last accessed time stamps that got tripped when they downloaded onto their thumbdrive or whatever they plugged into it."

Dick Grayson has posed:
    "Not a bad thought, actually. Phoebe, do you think any of the Outsiders might consider working in a campaign office? Most of us here are a little too high profile to avoid recognition and disrupting the normal work of the office. We need someone who can just be anonymous intern number 26 and keep an eye on things from the inside, as Steph said."

    Thinking for a moment, he shakes his head. "Going over the list, Bruce and I are out due to the constant paparazzi, Jason doesn't really have the right personality for this kind of job, paparazzi are starting to follow Steph now that we're engaged. Tim's overworked already and I don't think Cass is quite ready for office work despite the progress she's making with the whole concept of talking. We need someone who can do the job but also keep an eye out for the unusual."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I'm the wrong person to ask." Phoebe admits, "They're all kind of frosty to me after the whole 'abandoning them for months' thing." Phoebe replies, clearly embarrassed. "Except Gabby, but y'know. She's like, in charge of a bunch of actual things." she considers "Laura might be able to, but she's not really a People Person."

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Sorry, Cassandra is not available at this time. She may in fact be trying on clothes. Like a girl.

OH MY GOD CASSANDRA IS A GIRL??? Wait, I knew that already.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Stephanie Brown lets out one of those breaths that dislodges the stray wisp of hair that is falling across her cheek. Her inner monologue slips out as she can heard to murmur, "I used to be able to be anonymous intern #26. I used to be able to hang a spoon on my nose without a photo being clicked of it..."

She glances over towards Dick. "Ah well, so worth it," she says aloud to herself, and reaching a hand over to rest on his knee as he sits nearby. "Maybe Charlie might be a good fit for it? Not well known. Right age to get overlooked as just another kid trying to get involved," she suggests, glancing to the others to gauge their reactions.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Dick covers her hand with his own, then considers the idea. "Yeah, Charlie could work." He shakes his head a little, "Secret ID's are a pain in the butt when you're constantly in the public eye. No wonder Stark went public so quickly, he's probably watched more than Bruce is. They've got very, VERY different personalities."

    "Steph, can you put together the info we have on the Harvey situation so we can catch her up if she agrees?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I'll take a folio too and see if we can't stir up a secondary. If only because Charlie..."

    She pauses a moment, and then presses her lips together.

    "Pretty sure there's still a burned-out patch of grass on Zatanna's lawn."

Stephanie Brown has posed:
A nod is given to Dick's request, and Stephanie begins pulling information out of files on the Batcomputer, coalescing it together for editing into an easily consumed form.

"Oh, I don't think I've heard this story," Stephanie muses at the mention of a burnt patch on Zatanna's lawn. "We were just there a couple of weeks ago too for a social visit. Must have happened after. Or, well, you'd figure she could probably undo it, at that."

She finishes the update and sends it out to people, then streeeeeetches her arms back and rises from the chair. "Right. Just enough time to get out and do a patrol. Let's do this!" she says, grinning to the others and heading off to change.