273/Its Gotham

Its Gotham
Date of Scene:	04 March 2020
Location:	Coventry - Miagani Island
Synopsis:	Lara runs into THE QUESTION and finds out he has no face! He's also a very effective hostage negotiator, so it seems. She doesn't arrest him, because he seems nice tho and she's new to this SHIELD thing.
Cast of Characters:	Vic Sage, Lara Croft

---

Vic Sage has posed:
    Deep into the night in Gotham's Coventry and the Winter has reasserted itself with an almost virulent malice. Long tendrils of ice have frozen along the edge of the rooftops, and a steady sheen of white cascades down from those overcast clouds so far above. The skyline is barely visible, the greater buildings of Gotham just faint silhouettes against the tableau of cold and Winter. It's a harsh night with few people out, only a handful of vehicles brave the roads and the patches of ice. But that's better. Less people to interfere that way.
    Beneath a decrepit brownstone that had last seen better days before the quake, perhaps thirty years ago. A faceless figure stands in the middle of the road casting his gaze upwards, gloved hand rubbing at his chin thoughtfully as he hums to himself and murmurs quietly while taking stock of the building.
    "Can't read my. Can't read my. No he can't read my poker face." The lyrics delivered with the same casual flat voice as he walks around the building, into the alleyway, disappearing from view for a bit. Though his voice can be heard faintly in the alley.
    "She's got me like nobody." As he slips back into view, dragging an old mattress along the ground with one hand, sliiiiiding it through the freshly fallen snow as he walks along and hums casually. "Can't read my, can't read my, poker face."
    A step back as he lifts his head up and holds up two fingers of one hand two fingers of the other, forming a box as he gauges the distance, the size of something on the building. A touch of his leather shoe kicks the mattress over another inch or two. Then he stuffs his hands into his pockets, now humming the refrain as he walks up the steps and disappears into the building.
    Two minutes later, the upstairs window shatters and a man flies hurtling out of it, screaming all the way until he hits the street and the snow, smack square into the mattress. And stops moving. While inside there's the sound of a scuffle.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara was still in her first handful of weeks on the job with SHIELD. She'd been doing a lot of training. Being one of the few Agents that didn't have a military background, Lara was having to catch up in a lot of things - though still being quite experienced in many others that military types were not - it was a strange measure of inexperience and an abundance of experience.

One thing Lara had over a lot of the younger new members, was experience in the field and in hostile situations. Lara has killed people, she's been in live fire moments with her own life in tremendous amounts of peril. And she lived through them. It was one of many things that got her brought on to SHIELD, got her into the 'eyes' (pun not intended) of Nick Fury.

But tonight? She's here as a favor to one of her new friends at SHIELD who was supposed to be here instead of her. Was supposed to be watching this sight himself. Lara's black Jeep is parked across the street from the building that the Poker Face singer is preparing his entrance into, though he's out of her field of view...

What isn't though, is when the body is launched out of the building. The sounds of glass, and his screaming, causes Lara to look up from her tablet computer. She sees the man pass by and disappear behind a fence to hit the 'groound' and it makes her react.

"Shit." Lara mutters as she opens her door and feels the cold winter air rush over her. She tries to keep quick, but precise, her hand going for her sidearm as she rushes across the street and slips past the fence... her eyes looking down at the mattress the man landed on... then up to the window where she can hearing the...

"A fight?" Lara looks for a way to climb to get up inside, moving to try to scale the building.

Vic Sage has posed:
    With all of the old stonework and the way one wall twists slightly outwards, perhaps from the quake, it's not horribly hard to climb the building. A quick ascent, skittering as bits of grime and dust fall, bringing her ever upwards and closer to the third floor.
    At first there's nothing, insight as to what's going on inside. But then there's a /crash/ as some sort of glassware shatters, a scream of pain, another sound of stumbling and an impact into wood as she gets up to that third floor building with its soaped over or boarded up windows. No easy ingress... unless she can shimmy over toward that fire escape around the corner.
    Yet inside she'll hear the voice of the singer. "Leonard Patrelli. You are supposed to be in the Caribbean."
    "Fuck you! Fucking faceless freak! What do you want!" A voice filled with something wet is heard to say.
    "That is the question, isn't it?"
    Then there's another crash and the sound of a grunt followed by an impact against the wall that Lara clings to, shaking it slightly.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara is an extremely capable free climber and if there's anyone who can shimmy... its she. She can shimmy.

So when the wall is rocked behind her by whomever just slammed into it, Lara turns and darts to the fire escape. She makes one surprising leap up off of it and scales over it to the metal steps leading up to the roof - but she doesn't go up there. She just braces herself on the ice cold metal, causing the loose frost and snow to fall off from where her hands impact against the metal poles!

Lara gasps lightly and turns to the window into the floor where the fighting is going on. She looks left and right... then up. There. Up there. She darts up the stairs after all... but is only up there for a few moments before suddenly the window is smashed INWARD this time by a 2x4 that was laying on the side of the roof's ledge!

"SHIELD Agent, put your hands up!" Lara shouts into the building as she keeps her gun up and her eyes staring straight down its sights into the darkness inside.

Vic Sage has posed:
    Meanwhile, inside the building, the faceless man is now roaming a room with four men in various states of pain. There's one on the floor writhing with a broken nose, two that seem like they're out and draped over the arms of a sofa like human doilies, and a third that's been apparently launched somehow into the decrepit bathroom and left sprawled in a tub. Yet none of the latter have the Question's attention. Only the man with the broken nose.
    "I would like to know where you took that shipment to." Footsteps are heard as he walks toward that fallen Patrelli with the bloodied nose. "Do you think I wouldn't have known you were back in town, Leonard?" His voice is deadpan and calm as he kneels down. "I know everyone in Gotham."
    But that is the moment when Lara makes her entrance crashing through and turning the faceless man's attention onto her. There's a beat as he stands up. Then he points at her and says in that same steady tone. "I don't know you."

Lara Croft has posed:
Its true. She's new around here.

Lara stands on the broken glass and splintered wood from the window she'd just burst through like a hot British female version of the Kool-Aid Man. Her gun is trained on the first man she sees as a threat and that is... Vic.

He has no face. What the hell?

Lara's eyes squint at where Vic's should be because its only natural for her too. "I'm Agent Lara Croft with SHIELD." She answers his non-question. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to end this little gathering you've orchestrated here." She'd caught enough of what he'd been asking to know that her friend at the agency was right though, the shipments were in fact real. "What is your name?"

She asks the question of him now... "What exactly are you doing here?"

Vic Sage has posed:
    "Many questions." The faceless man lifts what would be eyebrows on any other visage. "But I am just the one. Question." He says even as Leonard lifts his head and says, "Lady you gotta save me from this sick fuck! He just busted in here, started beatin' hell outta me and my friends!"
    And then there's a subtle crunch as Question rests his weight on the man's knuckles, joints crackling as he stands there, conversing as if it were only a natural normal day.
    "Leonard Patrelli. Late of the Patrelli crime family. Disowned by his father for stealing from the family business and wasting it on heroin."
    "That's bullshit!"
    /CRACKLE!/
    "He has been plotting with his cousin to stage a coup and take control of the syndicate. It's a small syndicate, to be fair. But if you put two monkeys in a cage they'll fight over their own feces."

Lara Croft has posed:
Well this is right out of an American Crime Drama isn't it.

Lara hadn't really expected this job to turn in to this. Her friend, Miguel, had been nice to her since she'd gotten to SHIELD but he was one of those Agents who seemed to not be quite on the up and up with his 'hot takes' on what was going on. Meaning, nobody believed him that this weapons shipment thing was going down, and sadly even Lara really didn't. But in truth she didn't know as much about it as she probably should.

'Look, Lara.' He'd said several hours ago. 'I was just going to go down there and do a stake out. Eat a sandwich, stare at the building. Leave around midnight. Its not a big deal!'

So much for that...

Lara feels no pity for the person that Vic is crushing the hand of. This isn't a Starbucks, this plade is shady central and he's likely Slim Shady himself. So Vic can do as he pleases with the man, one less likely threat for her to deal with should things go any further south.

But Vic?

"Caaareful." She warns Vic. "Look, this is something I'm calling in to my authorities. The GCPD as well. Whatever is going on here has to stop, immediately." Thats the best she's got. Though push comes to shove and she's got quite a bite too.

Vic Sage has posed:
    "Please do." That same little sing song voice is heard as he turns away and starts to walk around the room, footsteps light as he decides that now is the time to start going through the end-tables, the drawers, to wander around and start poking around at the desk where some papers are left. He flicks through some, feathering through some envelopes and tilting his head thoughtfully.
    And, if she doesn't stop him, he'll actually pocket a few of them. The jerk.
    But he straightens up and holds out his hands. "I'll be going then. Unless you're arresting me." He turns and stops his walk around the room, hands at his sides and his head tilted slightly. "I hope you aren't arresting me. I have a lot of things to take care of tonight."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara doesn't stop the man from taking things from the drawer. But what she does do is call for backup on the SHIELD Agent number, it only takes a few seconds and she doesn't have to give much info out at all, her phone is the beacon they'll use to find her. She also - while he's across the room from her - snaps a picture of him before she puts her phone into her jacket pocket.

"I'm not arresting you. I'm not interested in making this get any crazier than it already has." The British woman says. "These men here, however, are going to have a lot to answer for in a small amount of time and... well... I would appreciate what information you have to voluntarily be given to me. In the case, or situation where you do decide you would like to talk, of course."

Lara's not experienced at arresting people. She has no desire to try to get this man into cuffs when she has no backup. He's too... cold, calm, he's professional. She's not here for this. This is Miguel's thing. Not hers.

"So go if you must, but if you get in over your head, please consider me a contact." She doesn't expect that to mean much of anything to this man, but then again she's pretty sure he just busted up a warehouse filled with criminal weapon smugglers. He must be one of Gotham's vigilante's, right?

Ahhhh, America is so damn weird.

Vic Sage has posed:
    "Well. That's good." The Question says as he looks to her, then down at the fallen Patrelli. "I've already told you enough. If you want something further, ask him." He gestures to the man on the ground weeping and grimacing at his crushed hand, looking entirely pitiful with his bloodied nose. But after he says that, Question steps away, pausing as he looks toward the shattered window before turning that empty face back to her.
    "But I suggest you ask him about Paolo Sandoval and why he would be funding his little insurrection." With that small tidbit imparted, the man in the fedora and trenchcoat starts to walk toward the door. "Also." He pauses and looks over his shoulder from the doorway. "Thank you for not attempting to detain me. Now I can use the stairs." As if he... couldn't before?
    But then he steps through the door, starting his way down, hands slipping into the pockets of his coat.
    And as he walks she might catch him humming to himself, 'muh-muh-muh-muh poker face.'