19962/The Magic of Birds

The Magic of Birds
Date of Scene:	28 January 2025
Location:	Generic Gotham Brownstone Rooftop
Synopsis:	Trouble ahead!
Cast of Characters:	Zatanna Zatara, Tim Drake

---

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The twinkling snow makes a grimy view look better than normal. Smudgy clouds could be smoke belched from an old chimney or someone trying to burn a tire. Maybe it's just pollution from factories lying hazy over the skyline of the city. Something rumbles, a collective whisper of trouble. But what else is new in Gotham?

Into the void falls a silk black hat. Out of? Perception is everything. One moment, the rooftop is occupied by slush and ice. Then a small object bounces off a brick and rolls, straightening by happy circumstance. It sits there, ready to catch snowflakes or feathers.

Light sprinkles soft beams in a shade of happy violet, bright and twinkling. Mist rises up from the hat, Seventies lava lamp-esque, organic lines swirling and curving around. No problem at all!

It keeps rising, until about six feet up, and looks awfully humanoid.

Tim Drake has posed:
All of this happens behind the crouched figure of Red Robin, in full costume, perched on the corner of a brownstone as he watches over the street below. It's something of a hot spot for crime, but not the victimless type. And with the weather the way that it's been of late, there's a distinct lack of people to fill that role. Even Red Robin is clad in more layers than usual, his short sleeved undershirt swapped out for a long one, and the fingerless gauntlet replaced with a fingered design. Don't take that out of context.

It's only when the light on the snow changes color that Tim notices something's off. Turning, he scratches the back of his head as the mist rises, backlit to give the snow and Tim himself a similar violet glow. "What's this?" Tim asks himself, aloud. A top hat? The whites of his lenses narrow, but he already knows what's about to happen.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Crime in cold weather takes on a stranger degree. Is it more thefts in buildings, snatching utilities, or computer crime than mugging, purse snatching, and the usual fights that spill into violence? Funny how the heat triggers certain behaviours.

The hat sparkles once more and shivers, spitting out a rabbit. It's merely the misty icon of a rabbit, the amorphous image bounding away to dissipate over the edge of the brownstone. Cue a woman not exactly dressed for the weather, though her signature fishnets are replaced by black pants, and honestly, a tail coat is not so different from an overcoat. Black, white, and an abundance of silky darkness resolve into Zatanna, who lands with a light thump. She reaches down to collect the hat, an arguably dangerous situation for any performer bowing with a flourish anywhere in this city. Good way to get robbed, shot, or subject to white-collar snow crimes, surely.

"Pardon my interruption," flits off her lips with a laugh, and rising, she faces Red Robin, obviously aware he's there. "Tight scrape."

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim stares at the rabbit's instinctive urge to jump off a high ledge, but is quickly distracted by the appearance of Zatanna. Tim grins and stands up straight. "Do I applaud, throw roses, what usually happens?" he asks lightly.

She mentions a 'tight scrape', and Tim's brow furrows. It mostly happens behind the mask, but that seems a little tighter as a result. "What do you mean?" he asks. "Are you in trouble, Zee?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The rabbit's nothing but mist and magic, so perhaps the intent is reincorporating itself with the sky. Or it's a rabbit. They spook so easily. Is reason ever involved? Zatanna scrapes the slush from her boots and a wrapper that wants to stick to the sole slides away, waiting to be put in the trash. If such a can exists up here, she'll do it, otherwise it can wait. "Roses? You are a gentleman," she replies, a smile soon to follow for Tim.

Pulling her coat a touch closer, she manhandles the top hat to sit jauntily upon her dark tresses at an angle. Voila, fashionable. "I heard something about Panem Studios, supposedly someone filming there. It hasn't been used in... well, as long as we've been alive. Nasty bit of security, dogs, the whole bit. Off the record. Dogs are such a bother when treated to snap at casual pedestrians, wouldn't you say?"

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim waits for Zatanna to make herself presentable. -More- presentable. He had not noticed anything wrong with her boots, really, but he chuckles as she picks a wrapper off one. "I do try.." he replies smoothly to her suggestion that he's a gentleman. He did not, in fact, bring roses. Maybe another time? With less vigilantism afoot?

Pulling his cape around him, a familiar stance to anyone who's dealt with Batman before, Tim hears Zatanna out about Panem Studios. "Whatever they're doing there, they don't want people to drop in uninvited." he muses. "Probably worth checking out just on the amount of precautions against being checked out, right?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Presentation is everything for Zee, and showmanship predicated on looking the part applies even in the street. Or rooftop. In lieu of roses, conversation apparently will do and Tim's not at a disadvantage or glared at for lack of flowers. Her mood is still sweetly bright.

"No, I doubt they would. The sound stages and the studios were boarded up ages ago. Never redeveloped, but that's Gotham for you." Her shoulder rolls; a shrug, marked at the state of the city. "It concerns me who they're using for actors If it has to be underground. Not a fun pseudo-horror in the woods about a fake witch. I got a glimpse of a roped up fellow carried from a van before the dogs came." Her gaze flicks back to Tim, calm and steady. "He showed up at a free bed in the hospital near Bristol. Best I could manage under short notice."

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim's jaw tightens. "Awake?" he asks of the person they had kidnapped. "Do they know how he got to the hospital, was he alone?" he continues, glancing at Zatanna. He's already running a dozen scenarios in his head about Panem Studios, from taking down a human trafficking ring to simply doing reconnaissance from the outside.

'That's Gotham for you' gets a wry smirk from Tim, nodding at Zatanna. "Yeah, well, it has every bit of potential to be better." he decides. Back to the studios in particular. "You think they're still holed up in Panem? Worth looking in anyway, I say." he suggests. "Doesn't sound like the operation involves any magic, so you wouldn't even have to waste time casting protections on me and whatnot." he offers with a wink.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna pulls at the collar of her shirt, lifting it slightly to protect the side of her neck from the ongoing chill lingering in the air. Panem Studios isn't a small chunk of property, all those various stages and buildings the dismal answer to Hollywood in much less sunny climates. Derelict buildings make for more trouble, of course. She rubs her hands together and then drops her arms to the sides, properly insulated against the cold. "Not likely for long. Sudden transportation by my methods can come as a shock, even for the prepared." Magic, by any other name. "He already was in a delicate state. I doubt they know. There one minute, gone the next? Many ways to fill in those blanks."

Especially when stealth is not on an order unknown to either of them, thanks to a big Bat rather obsessed with it. He doesn't twitch a smile out of her yet, the topic a bit too grim. "Who has a solo performance in a show like that? I imagine more, being lured by false pretenses. Not that I got a good luck around there."

She reaches into her coat pocket, eyes closed for a moment. the shift of her hand left to right indicates searching, but coming up with a pocket watch of all things isn't bound to be very exciting. Though it's a little brass thing, on a tarnished chain, no real consequence. "Hackles up, probably, but security is easy to check."

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim grins as Zatanna covers from the cold. "You would think there's a 'keep me comfortably warm' spell you could use." he muses, glancing at the pants Zatanna elected to wear. Then to the sleeves on his own arms. "I'd cast it at the slightest breeze if I knew how." he adds with a teasing lilt to his voice.

Tim enters some data into his wrist computer, uploading what he knows to the Batcomputer. "GCPD will likely be at the hospital already, but I'm sure Batman will want to do his own research." he relays to Zatanna as he types. "I wonder if the guy escaped or was let go. Maybe they got what they wanted and didn't want to catch a murder charge eventually." It sounds hopeful, like he wants this to be the case. Always the optimist.

When Zatanna retrieves her watch, his eyebrow raises. She's gonna do some magic right then and there, isn't she? "Should be." he replies, finding it a fairly routine practice even without magic pocket watches.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"There is, but it's callous of me to fix everything off the top by magic. You could fix everything in Gotham with its crime." Zee defers to the unspoken question between them, stretching her arms out to the sides to engulf the view of the city from their lofty-ish perch.

As he takes care of the roped victim, Tim gets himself another look. "I opened a portal under him. He wasn't escaping on his own without a lucky intervention. Three guys hauling him into the studio, that's what I saw before their four-legged security showed up." Dogs, always good, until they're on the wrong side of the law.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. She actually winds up the watch, chain looped around her fingers, getting the gears turning and the inner clockwork elegantly settle. Magic comes after. ".soidutS menaP fo setag eht em wohS" No razzmatazz needed there as the watch hand spins backwards, the glass face growing hazy. To heck with crystal balls.

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim shrugs with an easy smile. "I'd take callous." he retorts. "It's not like crime would just cease to exist in the hearts and minds of those who would commit them." he replies. "It'd just start over. Best leave that to Batman and the rest of us." he suggests. "Not- not that I don't appreciate you, or anything!" he adds quickly, grinning at the tuxedo-clad mage.

"Smart. Didn't even need to go in there." Tim praises, nodding. "Probably didn't even notice anyone was missing right away." He starts tapping into his wrist computer again, updating his last entry. "There. All caught up, I think." he muses.

His attention shifts again to the pocket watch, the spell being uttered just as he does. Tim wonders what's about to happen, but doesn't dare pull Zatanna out of her concentration. Silently he watches the watch face fog up. That's not a very useful spell, so far!

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"People ask me all the time. If you can do magic, why don't you fix the..." Handwavium for the topic at hand, though Zee turns her face, Italianate profile stamped on the dark in all its sharp, elegant contrast. "What meaning would death have if it was casually shrugged off? What is the value of toiling to learn and master something if I could make you an expert in three words? Such broad strokes don't fix things the way people think. As you said, we could eradicate the situation but it just pops up somewhere else."

Zombies. They pop up other places. She doesn't say it, but briefly emulates a shambling monster for the process. "I'm not one to leave civilians in harm's way, even when I have slobbery jaws nipping at my heels. Especially with great big teeth. I hope he's okay, that guy was having a time of it to be tied up and flung into a van."

She carefully tilts the watch while it ticks oddly, and there's a glimmer of a video camera stuffed in a corner. It's not high tech, more like one of the kits purchased from a big box store or a Chinese super-conglomerate. a red light blinks, reflecting on the glass, then the perspective jumps right back to show a batter bit of potholed road and a large shepherd-like hound slouching by, caught in black and white and grey. Another wobble of motion appears in the periphery of the field, a track pant-clad leg, a running shoe. She hums to herself and the faint amethyst glow over her eyes isn't merely for show. Another jump and the image resolves to a different view, another camera in colour -- Ring doorbell style, a bit fish-eyed -- peering out from above a cooler into a lonely, dark space where an ugly white van that's beat up by misuse screams 'I kidnap people.' A sound stage looms off to the side, ringed in boarded up scaffolding. "Better field of vision on this. Wonder if it's motion activated."

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim nods at Zatanna. "Nothing that easy ever comes without cost. Nothing that significant does, either." he notes. "Lazarus pits bring the dead back to life, but they're different from then on. Unhinged."

He shifts his attention to the watch again when Zatanna brings up the dogs. "Yeah, that adrenaline spike could win you the New York Marathon. Even in heels as tall as yours." he mentions with a sly grin at the mage's usual attire.

Something happens on the watch face in the corner of his eye then, an image. Several images. Like a security camera monitor showing one feed after another. "That's them alright. Still in there." he reasons. "Tracksuits, so.. either Russian mob or mercenaries." Or the early seasons of The Sopranos. He doesn't say that, though.

'Wonder if it's motion activated'

Tim grins. "Like a home security system? The fact they have all that set up is evidence they intend to stay, anyway. We should drop in sometime when they're out and see what's what."