20128/Morning Patrol

Morning Patrol
Date of Scene:	24 February 2025
Location:	The Library
Synopsis:	It's life and death when the Rat Disaster known as the Momster fights to her last breath against Sandy the Pecan Piledriver! Meanwhile, the Doomies uncover a fortune that spells D-O-O-M!
Cast of Characters:	Cliff Steele, Larry Trainor, Kara Danvers
Tinyplot:	Threads

---

Cliff Steele has posed:
"My sister!"

SLAP!

"My daughter!"

SLAP! SLAP!

"I said I want the truth!"

CRASH!

"She's my sister and my daughter!"

Superdrool stickies the Cliffster's jeans as Nicholson savages Dunaway onscreen.

Our hero is silent, motionless, jaw open. It's not quite sleep he's experiencing, but something close to it. The midmorning sun's rays threaten from beneath heavy curtains, illuminating dazzling dust plumes that lazily dance in the spotlight.

Peace in the Manor, it seems, even as Jake Gettes's whole conception of the world is blown to smithereens.

"My father and I--undertand? Or is that too tough for you?"

Larry Trainor has posed:
The corpse of Captain Larry Trainor didn't have the common courtesy to die. So it's been hanging around Doom Manor for the past sixty years, give or take. Fortunately, people occasionally hang air fresheners from it, and spray Febreeze over the bandages that it's wrapped with, mummy-like. Unfortunately, at least for the corpse, it's actually still conscious and doesn't seem to be able to fix that. But that doesn't mean that Larry's half life is completely devoid of any pleasure. Sure, he can't eat, or drink. Sure, he can't be around anyone with his bandages off without poisoning them with lethal radiation. And sure, he's so horrifically scarred that nobody would want to see him without his bandages anyway.

But at the very least, he can do menial household chores. With his long-estranged wife also long dead, he has somehow become the closest thing that the Doom Patrol has to a housewife. For they are a messy bunch of confused layabouts.

With broom in hand, Larry sweeps yet another cookie into the dustpan, and moves further down the hall. Into the dustpan also go some hair clips, and some sort of partially-dried slime. For there is no mess that is a match for the irregular sleep schedule of Negative Man, as long as a depressive episode doesn't strike him before his task is completed.

Headphone cover ears that are also covered by gauze strips, connected to an old cassette player on his hip. And though he's pushing a hundred, Larry seems to have a taste for the modern music that the kids are listening to these days, as he sings along with this current gem.

"Everybody's searching for a hero
People need someone to look up to
I never found anyone who fulfilled my needs
A lonely place to be
And so I learned to depend on me..."

Kara Danvers has posed:
Ah yes. Everything is exactly as it's been, in Doom Manor, for quite some time. Cliff Steele is enjoying some movie, drooling on his jeans in some sort of state that exists between life and death. Something about... daughters and sisters, is blaring through the old television set, and Larry Trainor is doing house chores. While listening to music. Crazy Jane is probably upstairs somewhere quietly disassociating, and the illustrious Rita Far is... well. Nobody knows where she is, but that's not really unusual either!

Eeeeeverything is exactly as it should be. There is nothing out of place. And hey look, there's that reporter girl, Kara Danvers, walking down one of the stairs in a pair of silky pajama shorts and matching button up silk pajama shirt. With messy hair, done up into a bun, and those big-frame glasses perched atop her too-cute button nose.

"Hey Larry," she says to Larry in passing, as she heads down the hallway towards the kitchen. In doing so, she passes by the main living space, in which Cliff is currently just... zoned out, and watching TV.

"Hey Cliffy," she says as she passes. And then, it's down the hall, into the kitchen, to make coffee.

...Like she lives here, or something.

"Oh my /god/! Another one? Where do these things keep coming from, anyway?!" she calls out from down the hallway.

Cliff Steele has posed:
"Huh? Wha?"

The lumbering locomotive comes alive like Peter Frampton, lunging to his feet, fists raised, neck on a swivel for trouble. After a moment of disorientation, the half-dead dimwit lowers his paws, grumbling.

"Another what now? Cookie, rat, or sex ghost?"

Hearing the scrape of the broom against hardwood and the skitter of an orangedoodle on hardwood, Cliff grumpily checks beneath the couch cushions.

"Got a macaroon, a black-and-white, and a... shortbread here."

Meanwhile, in the grand hallway of Doom Manor, the Negative Man approaches a side hall which leads to the back exit, sweeping along to the tops of the pops. Yet, he unwittingly draws near to a high-stakes drama that is unfolding at this very moment, as two combatants silently circle each other, both crouched and ready to pounce. A death-duel, determined by grit and the will to win.

"You think maybe we should give these to the homeless?"

Larry Trainor has posed:
"Miss Danvers."

It's not always easy to tell where Larry is looking, since his eyes are perpetually hidden behind dark goggles. But there's a conspicuous lack of interest in Kara's sleepover attire. But perhaps he's simply focused too intently on his task, slightly OCD individual that he is? Or perhaps he's simply a gentleman? Those have been known to exist. Not so much in New Jersey, but it's not like Larry was born in Jersey.

"Don't know if you're interested, but I made some hot cocoa with a little lavender from the greenhouse. A little experiment... probably terrible... I haven't eaten anything since the sixties, you know."

Probably just a gentleman.

With the dustpan full, he walks with their newest house guest, who's clearly making herself at home. He stomps on the trash can's pedal, and then dumps the contents of the dustpan into the garbage which is... mostly just full of cookies.

"I should have stuck Cliff's head onto a Roomba when I had the chance."

Kara Danvers has posed:
A gentleman indeed! And if anything is conspicuous, really, it's both Cliff and Larry's lack of interest in the fact that Kara Danvers seems to have just blown in on the breeze and... stayed. At least for a time. She kind of comes and goes as she pleases, and it's really only weird in the fact that it's not really weird at all.

"With lavender?" Kara repeats, from down the hallway in the kitchen. Her tone hints at equal parts of curiosity, disbelief, and a willingness to try it. "I wonder what that'd be like with coffee..."

This last question is quiet, barely-audible to anyone except for Kara and, quite possibly, Larry heading to join her in the kitchen to deposit those cookies in the trash. The coffee pot's burbling and Kara's drifted over to grab herself a mug and some of that hot cocoa, giving it a tentative sniff first before taking a small sip. It's then that Larry stomps on the trash can to pop it open, and unceremoniously dumps the cookies onto a mass grave of other cookies.

Kara's brows pinch together and she swallows. Cliff is still down the hallway, unable to quite tear away from his TV show. But Kara can still pick up what he says from down there. Probably a bit more crystal clearly than she should be able to.

"I don't think we should feed them to anybody," she says idly. And then she turns back to look at the Gingerbread Man cookie that startled her earlier. She leans over, getting her nose riiiight up close to it, with a whisp of suspiciousness in her tone.

"...Something's funky about these cookies. I think they might be up to something."

Reporter's instinct or--

"Woman's intuition."

Cliff Steele has posed:
"I mean, what's the fucking story here, you know what I'm saying?"

Cliffy crumbles a confection in consternation.

"Oh, look. A fucking fortune cookie."

A quick dig for treasure and a loose goodie is retrieved from a shelf. With fumbling fingers, the fortune unfolds as Cliff reads aloud:

"Get fucked -- the Clover Ten."

"What in the fuck."

Meanwhile, in an adjacent hallway...

In the right corner, weighing in at 11.3 oz and armed with a jeweler's screwdriver is Sandy the Pecan Piledriver and in the left, weighing in at 1.2 lbs and armed only with tooth and nail is Momster the Rat Disaster, defender of home and hearth from all invaders, delicious or otherwise. This is but one of many such skirmishes that have played out in the past week, and the bloodied but unbowed matriarch of the Manor steels herself for combat once more.

"Okay, that's not normal, right? You guys got any more fortune cookies in there?"

Onscreen, Jake Gettes looks over his shoulder with pain and regret. A pair of consoling detectives walk him away from the scene as the sirens howl in.

"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

And the saxophone plays on.

Larry Trainor has posed:
"Woman's intuition. That's what Rita gets after about six martinis, and it usually ends with me fetching her a couple of rotisserie chickens."

Larry's delivery is so dry that there's no way that it's a joke. But although this sounds like quite a chore, there's just a hint of bemusement behind those bandages, as if he's discussing a spouse, or some other family member that has been around so long that their foibles are both well known, and part of their charm.

Putting the broom away, Larry stands near the stove, where the pot of hot cocoa needs another turn of the ladle. Though he probably wouldn't admit it, Larry has seemed to really enjoy making large quantities of everything the past few weeks. It's nice cooking for people who don't just consume gin and rotisserie chickens. Or candy bars, but that's the other guy.

"God... what is he talking about out there?"

Turning to look over his shoulder, Larry calls out just loud enough to probably be heard over the television.

"Cliff! What are you talking about in there? We're in the other room!"

Shaking his head, Larry continues to stir.

"Deaf as a post, that guy. Which I think is actually what The Chief made his head from."

Kara Danvers has posed:
"I see nothing wrong with that," Kara Danvers quips, about Rita's rotisserie chickens. She's still squinting at the gingerbread-man a few inches away, as if maybe, just maybe, getting close to it will make it... flinch. Or blush, or something to let her know it's alive. After another second or two, she straightens her back and lets out a gentle sigh, turning around to lean on the countertop with her elbow as the last bits of coffee brbl out of the percolator.

And there is a smile on her face. Something... bemused at the bemusement. It's sort of charming, you know. That tone that Larry takes on, when talking about Rita. Love, after all, is not something only shared with a spouse.

Kara's head tips towards the other room, in which Cliff Steele is mumbling about something. Of course, Supergirl can hear every word. In fact, it's in that moment that she sort of catches herself. In her comfort, she'd let it slip -- responding to something the man had said, a room away. Thankfully, Larry didn't seem to pick it up. But it does make her back stiffen just a little bit, so that she can pantomime a sort of lean-in towards the direction Cliff is standing in.

"Something about..."

Kara lowers her voice to a whisper, as if she shouldn't be saying this next word...

"Fucking...?"

"Cliff?" Kara calls out, questioningly -- worry evident in her tone. "Everything okay in there?"

Cliff Steele has posed:
Momster's got weight and experience on her side, Marv, but the rookie cookie's got reach and speed.

And as winded as the Rat Disaster is, Chuck, I'm not sure she's got what it takes to clean her plate of our gritty little contender!

Sandy takes the initiative, lunging towards the snarling snout of the Momster with a savage thrust!

The matriarchial mouse of the manor sidesteps, strikes!

"Look! Look! There's a fortune in here--and I think it's meant for us!"

The Cliffster stomps into the kitchen, setting the cocoa a-quaking. He holds up a crumpled slip as proof.

"It says right here: 'Get fucked.' See?"

Cliff taps the trash pedal to toss away his couch collection--and starts as the lid swings open.

"Uh, didn't you guys just throw some cookies away? Cuz, um, they escaped."

"Hold on, there's a hole in the bag..."

The dunderheaded demigod leans in to investigate.

"Son of a bitch. Looks like we need a new trashcan. They're loose."

In the library, the TV cuts out as the credits roll, the fuzz, hurmm and click of the 20th century set shutting down. A low static-y hum is all that lingers.

Larry Trainor has posed:
"Hm..."

Turning the burner back to 'low' Larry looks as if he's ready to make someone a grilled cheese and impart some valuable life lessons. But as his life has largely been one excruciating series of shambles, it's probably for the best that he keeps his advice to himself.

"Remind me again who brought all these rats in here? I don't think we used to have rats before. At least not so many. No... I don't think we had any. I'd have noticed, I'm an observant guy."

An observant guy who leaves his lead-lined room once or twice a week, a schedule he's kept up since the sixties.

"You know... if we've got a rat problem... this is a terrible time of year for it. I'll have to move all of my plants so that we can fumigate, and the greenhouse is already full... the orchids REALLY don't like being moved... I think we should wait until spring to have a rat problem."

"Or maybe we should ask the Chief."

Kara Danvers has posed:
The tussling of the rats is not something that isn't observed by Kara Danvers. It's just... that in this place... there is a certain level of absurdity that one just becomes acclimated to. So it's not actually until Larry Trainor seems to be put off by the rats, that Kara purses her lips. "Wait... you didn't always have those?" she says with a frown. Some of the coffee is dumped into the hot chocolate with lavender. She takes a sip and makes a thoughtful 'hmmm' at the taste of it. The look on her face seems to suggest that she's not sure if she likes it more, or less, with the coffee.

"The fortune cookie said that?" she says, squinting at Cliff, as if she's having a hard time imagining a fortune cookie -- so often noted for their vagueries -- speaking in such vulgar absolutes.

She watches Cliff pad over to the garbage can and peer down into it. Kara leans forward on her tippy toes, as if to get a better vantage point. So tempting to just... hover. But she resists! She rocks back onto the balls of her heels and makes a face. Seeming, at least first, to be more or less following Larry's train of thought.

"Do you mean the... rats escaped? What do you mean they're loose?"

Like, surely, he can't mean...

Kara turns to look over her shoulder, to where the Gingerbread Man she'd stared down had been... and sees only a small pile of crumbs where once, he had laid supine.

"..."

Beat.

Kara shrieks!

"I KNEW THEY WERE UP TO SOMETHING!"

Cliff Steele has posed:
"Oh, we've had rats, Larry. I bury them out by the begonias. But yeah, they've been coming out of the woodwork lately. I think it's the cookies that are drawing them in or, I don't know, driving them out. Been a bit of a war, keeps me busy at night. Better than sitting with my thoughts."

An awkward pause.

"Aaannnyyyways, so um, I think this fortune cookie was sent by the town? Or, at least, maybe? But they misspelled 'Cloverton' as 'Clover Ten', like T-E-N. That's got to be a typo, right?"

Kara shrieks!

And a much smaller voice joins the chorus from the back hallway, a shrill squeak as the jeweler's tool hits it mark, lancing the Momster's flank with all the sword-skill the Pecan Punisher can muster. She snarls defiantly, not yet ready to taste defeat from that swashbuckling sweetmeat.

"Okay! Okay! Yes! That's what I was trying to tell Jane last night--they're alive! They're rising up!"

Larry Trainor has posed:
"Mmhmm."

It's probably not the best idea to let the guy with radiation-blocking bandages all over his fingers put away the dishes. But Larry seems to be the one who unloads the dishwasher most often regardless. And since most of the Doom Patrol doesn't eat, the number of people who actually care if the dishes are clean is, typically, just Rita. Jane is pretty used to a dirty spoon, after all.

"This all sounds like something that we'd be better off ignoring. It might go away on its own. Or someone else might fix it. Then we'll have put all that time and energy into it for no reason. Quit while you're ahead, I always say."

As he unloads the dishwasher, Larry organizes things in the cabinets with the precision of a man who has all the time in the world. And as far as anyone knows, he very well might. Immortality is wasted on the depressed, but at least there's someone to keep this drafty ruin in relatively livable condition.

For the people who actually live.

Kara Danvers has posed:
"They're rising up?!" Kara declares, clear surprise in her tone at the revelation. She gives a double take between Cliff and the pile of crumbs where the gingerbread man once was. There's a hurried little push of her glasses up along the bridge of her nose, and then a seriously deep drink of coffee + hot lavender chocolate. There's a little roll of her eyes at Larry, who is doing his bandaged-best to be a total wet blanket about all of this. But she can forgive a bit of wet blanket syndrome (WBS) for a guy who is such a gentleman and who makes lavender hot chocolate.

Kara pads over to the garbage can and presses her foot down onto the little flappy thing to pop it open, peering down into the garbage can to confirm that it is, indeed, completely empty. Which she does.

"Lemme see that fortune," Kara says, and doesn't so much make grabby hands at the fortune as she does just yoink it from the metal man's hand.

"...Yeah, wow. It really does say 'get effed'."

Beat.

"...I need to look something up," Kara says, and, coffee in hand, pads down the hallway and into the guest bedroom that she is (apparently) staying in (how long has she been here???) to grab her Daily-Planet-Issued travel-sized Lenovo Thinkpad. They spared no expense.

Okay, they spared some expense. Like a lot of expense.