7451/POP: JacVac Pack Plant

POP: JacVac Pack Plant
Date of Scene:	19 August 2021
Location:	JacVac Pack Plant, Gotham City Outskirts
Synopsis:	Power of Prayer: Investigating a thinning of the veil in Gotham, Balm (Phoebe Beacon) and Red Robin (Tim Drake) not only share some moments with each other in the quite of the Gotham outskirts while setting up monitoring equipment, but Tim also encounters a Time Slip triggered by too much Light near the tear! There are sheep, and a very persistant dog.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Tim Drake

---

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    GOTHAM CITY

    This factory had been shut down decades ago, and nature had long begun to reclaim the lot it stood on. Vines and small trees obscure the fenceline, making it blend into the hillside. The roof had long fallen in, creating a dangerous and slowly creaking as corrogated roofing rusts and breaks down from neglect.

    The easiest way to get in was the spillway that lead to the river. Its opening was raw and wide, an empty, toothless metal maw six feet high.

    It felt good to be back in her 'work clothes. The matte gray armor, the hood and her mask. Phoebe dropped down into the tunnel from an access grate above, wearing her medical pack on her back. Her fingers curl in her gloves a moment as she considers.

    "... I kind of thought it would smell like blood down here."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim is not far behind, though he'd held back a moment purposefully, standing stock-still as he looks up at the rotting corpse of the factory. Behind the domino mask it's hard to get a read on his expression, but all he does is stare. And then he lets out a slow breath just before he steps off the edge, falling in a flutter of cape to fall just a step behind Phoebe.

    "It's been too long," he says as he rises up to his full height, from the slight crouch he'd landed in. His movements are careful, and though he's giving no obvious signs of exhaustion or pain, it's pretty easy to believe he's just faking it.

    That's a pretty common page in Red Robin's playbook, after all.

    He inhales through his mouth rather than his nose, and there's no metallic tang on the back of his tongue. Maybe there will be deeper in. "Just another forgotten place, it seems like." A beat. "Either way, not somewhere we should linger unnecessarily."

    He gestures forward, letting Phoebe take point.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "What, since the armor got used?" she jokes, looking behind her. She switches her mask to nightvision, a dull green glow coming over everything. She sees a rat skitter away.

    "... it has been a while. You ever feel naked without it?" she questions conversationally, adjusting her bag as she goes deeper into the bowels of the factory. The metal spillway makes a turn upwards.

    "So, I checked with some of my contacts in the nearest camp. Some of the guys who were using this place to shelter did report hearing odd things." she states, ducking beneath a partial collapse.

    "Watch your footing, it's slippery."

Tim Drake has posed:
    "...what?" Tim asks, and there's enough of a wrinkle to his brow to suggest his eyebrows have drawn together under his mask. It's several seconds before his head turns away. "I don't--uh, no, I meant," and then Tim takes another breath as he lifts a hand to make a circular gesture to their surroundings. "Too long for the blood smell to linger. Especially with the exposure to the elements, the proteins and lipids would have decayed."

    For a little while after, they walk, and it seems like maybe he didn't hear Phoebe's question. But of course he did, it's Tim, and he lets out a laugh that edges a little bit towards humorless.

    He sweeps his gaze around, on edge, as he steps down and beneath the collapsed debris that Phoebe's just ducked under. "All the time," is the answer he settles on.

    The rest of what she says gets more prompt acknowledgment, though it's just a couple of wordless sounds here and there. When Phoebe warns him about his footing, Tim immediately slips a little bit, but manages to catch himself on the wall.

    His laughter now isn't forced, though it wheezes out of his nose. "Yeah, it sure is," he agrees, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.

    "So. How's New York been treating you?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "It's all right. I almost didn't want to leave, promised Chas I would check in in an hour or two." she replies. "I found an awesome little Thai place that makes a decent spicy Pad Thai." she begins to ascend the spillway further, until it evens out beneath rusted grates. Here and there, the dying evening sun can be seen through breaks in the collapsed roof above them.

    "That is... one of the things I wanted to talk about." she admits.

    Tim might feel something tug on his cape. Maybe it's stuck on something?

Tim Drake has posed:
    Though Tim tries to keep it in, he doesn't quite manage to stop himself from letting out a huff of breath when Phoebe says she almost didn't want to leave. His head turns away again as he finds the opposite wall suddenly very interesting.

    As they start to move upwards, Tim's shoulders hunch a little bit, body bowing forward to shift his center of gravity and keep his balance. "I'm guessing you don't mean the pad thai," he says.

    Even when they transition onto the rusted grates, his steps are near-silent. At his sides, his hands have balled into fists, an overly obvious sign of his unease.

    "Ah-!" It's another huff, this time out of surprise, and Tim twists as he reaches for his cape to try and tug it free from whatever's snagged him.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "And risk Onion Maiden losing their most valuable customer?" she asks, and then Tim gives a huff of surprise.

    The cape tugs back. As if something's got a hold of it, and begins to sloooowly pull backwards. The back corner of his cape is, in fact, oddly hanging in the air.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "Pretty sure I keep them in business," Tim grunts out as he tugs a little harder on his cape. It legitimately takes him a moment before his brain snaps back to reality and realizes that something is very much wrong about this.

    Even as he's inhaling to (not scream, that's not a thing Tim does) alert Phoebe, Tim's reaching up to undo the hidden clasp of his cape from around his throat, and then he's tumbling forward, just barely managing not to stumble right into her. "Balm," he says, warily.

    He's already too washed out, the lack of sleep showing in his skin, for any sort of fright to make him go pale. But there's more tension in his form than before, especially without the comforting weight of his cape around him. Hands still squeezed into fists, shoulders curled up and inwards.

    The fact that any of this is showing is a real lack of control on his part.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The corner hangs as the rest of it falls into the recent rain water that's gathered in this top part of the spillway. There's a little shake against it, and Phoebe reaches out with an arm, her hand lightly brushing against Tim.

    "Easy, take a breath." she commands softly. This isn't like Tim. NOt at all. There was a gentle touch against him, and she crouches down, and picks up a stick -- and then giving it a wiggle she gives it a toss.

    THe water splashes in the darkness. The cape drops as suddenly as it was picked up.

    "... well. That's weird." she states, marking the occurance with a number.

    ". . . do you want to sit down?" she asks, looking to Robin in such a manner that it might not actually be a suggestion.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's head snaps to the side to look at Phoebe, and then with a grim set of his mouth he turns back to look at his cape, hanging somewhat suspended in the air. Right, astral plane stuff. Magic. Spirits.

    His breathing is steady though, if the tiniest bit shallow. The mask hides the way his gaze narrows. "Weird," he echoes, almost in disbelief.

    Well, they did fight a chaos god (or watch another god fight him, sort of) just a few days prior, so.

    Yeah. Weird.

    He steps forward to pick up his cape and gives it one quick shake to rid it of rainwater. It's lined with hydrophobic material, so it's not sopping wet as he sweeps it over his shoulders and buckles it back into place. "I'm fine," he says. "Just tired. I'd rather keep moving, get in and out of here as fast as possible."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Baaaaah!" comes the sound of a sheep from somewhere above aand to the side.

    "... this place is already weird." she states, adn she brings out something from her pack, turning on a little meter-thingie. "Electromagnetic field is going wild. You make good stuff if the masks aren't affected by it." she states with a smile, trying to reassure Tim.

    She pushes up on a grate -- weighty, with some difficulty, and she breathes out as she hops up, pulling herself out of the spillway.

    "But... I'm considering Asking John if... after all this is over, I can stay on and learn from him. Still going to be part of the team. Just more on-call."

Tim Drake has posed:
    The sheep-call makes Tim's mouth drop open, but nothing comes out, and eventually he just lifts both hands in a sort of 'I give up' gesture. "Meat packing plant," he says to himself. It's the best explanation he's got.

    He starts to cycle through the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums of light in his HUD to see if any of his optical sensors are going to pick up... anything. Admittedly, he's not particularly equipped for ghost hunting.

    "Most of the equipment we use is shielded, yeah. Otherwise a single handheld EMP device could knock out a bunch of our capabilities. And it is shocking how easy it is to get your hands on one, or even manufacture it yourself with equipment any civilian can buy." As he speaks, the tension slowly begins to drain out of him. Trust Tim to be easily distracted by tech-talk. When he climbs through the grate after Phoebe, he briefly has to brace one foot on the wall and dig his elbow into the ground past the grate's edge before he's able to pull himself up. "Gotta stay ahead of the curve," he adds, with a small smile.

    He's dusting off his hands when Phoebe continues, and his expression drops. There's a frown visible on his face for a split second before he's not showing any emotion at all. The tension's back, though.

    "Of course. He's helping you learn your powers, right?" Tim asks, head tilted to the side in a fair imitation of sincere interest without anything else mixed in.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... that doesn't explain the dog." Phoebe states.

    Tim would be able to see things in the Infrared spectrum. There is... a flock of sheep. Just sheep, a couple stragglers trailing around. They are floating in various places three or four feed above the ground, with variations. They appear to be eating.

    Still creepy to see ghostly sheep.

    "In all honesty I'm surprised I haven't broken anything yet. You make really solid gear." she smiles back at Tim with a little bit of pride in her face. She's proud of his work.

    Phoebe can sense the tension is back, and she breathes out.

    "He's keeping me safe so that no one else gets pulled into the mess with my cousin." Phoebe states, maybe a little more tersely than she intended to. "Impulse took off before I could explain it to him. Orphan showed up out of the blue. I... realize you are all worried about me..." Phoebe states as she climbs to a spot, feeling the warmth of a bit of crushed roof before she begins to set up a solar panel.

Tim Drake has posed:
    And once again Phoebe says something that manages to thoroughly confuse him. "What dog?" Tim asks, voice flat, but at least this time he's a bit quicker on the uptake. By his next breath, he's figured it out, and his tone has taken on a touch of hysteria. "That was a DOG grabbing my cape?"

    He takes one shaky breath before he says, "I think I actually do need to sit down."

    Not that he actually does. Though he does lean against a wall, gingerly letting his weight rest on it. His head shakes back and forth a couple of times.

    "You realize we all get pulled into each other's--."

    But then Tim bites his lip. His hand comes up to press against his face, which is a mistake, but the resulting wince is at least hidden by the gesture. It drops back to his side. "Look, Balm." He glances around. Just the sheep that he can only see in infrared, and that's honestly unsettling enough that he toggles his HUD back to the visible light spectrum. "Phoebe. I--I know I can't understand what it must be like for you, to have powers that you're not certain of. But there are people on the team who do, and yeah, they're as worried about you as I am."

    Tim folds his arms together and presses them against his midsection. The hunch of his posture makes it read less as angry or upset and more defensive, withdrawn. In fact most of his body language comes off that way.

    He's not really the type to dole out punishments or put on the disappointed act. That's not the kind of leader he is, or the kind he wants to be.

    "I know this guy, John, is--he's helping you. But you're putting a lot of trust in him after knowing him for such a short amount of time, and it's... you know, kind of concerning."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... I trusted you the moment you used your body to shield mine. You didn't know I could heal myself. To you," Phoebe takes a breath, and she pulls back her hood so she could turn and regard Tim. She lets the concern touch her eyes, and she slides down off the patch of roof, through one of the sheep, and she sits, her hands in her lap.

    "To you, in that moment, I was a girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And a couple months later, you came up to me and asked me if I would be willing to die for Gotham, because that's assuredly what fate has in store for everyone who does what we do." She pauses, and then takes a deep breath.

    "I trust you. With every fiber of my being. I have trusted you with every one of my secrets. My identity, the hurt I felt, even my doubts of anyone -- including you -- actually feeling affection for me." she states, and she holds out her hands, palm up.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "That's... a little hard to fathom, for me," Tim says in reply to Phoebe's admission of immediate trust. When she sits, he grips his arms a little tighter, but then he's sliding down the wall he's been leaning against to mirror her posture, knees nearly touching.

    Maybe there's a sheep grazing through their heads right now. He's just going to pretend there isn't, for his own mental well-being.

    He chews on his lower lip some more as Phoebe continues to speak, and his shoulders bump up slightly at the word death. It looks like he has something to say, but whatever it is he must think better of it, because ultimately no words come out of him.

    Instead, Tim sits there.

    The tilt of his chin suggests he's considering the splay of her hands spread out before him. "You're still my best friend even when you're up in New York and all we're doing is sending dumb memes to each other," he tells her. "You're my best friend now even when you don't have an aura to bring me up from 'lie down, try not to cry, cry a lot' to 'this is fine'."

    He reaches out to slot his palms against Phoebe's. "If you think this is what you need to do, then I'll... support you," he manages to grit out, despite very obviously not wanting to.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe doesn't have her aura -- it's being contained, hidden, no longer a beacon and more of a little firefly... a glowworm against a thousand other sparks. But she does still have her powers.

    And this she focuses. Tim would be able to feel both warmth and cool, water running through his veins the wrong way, tingling against shot nerves and a million little aches and pains.

    "I asked John for help to hide, after the fight at the school, with the two dogs. Knowing that we were all out of our depth in the Outsiders. You can't analyze a ghost, or slash those dogs a thousand times, or use Conner's powers to mentally blueprint some place that no longer exists. I joke about being the Team Mom... but we both know it's my job to keep you all alive. Even if it means having to remove myself so that you're safe." she breathes out. "I let him tattoo me so I can hide. It is a /temporary/ measure." she states with emphasis.

    And the oddest thing happens. Perhaps with the amount of Light in the air around them, the environment has changed. Dust motes float in the lazy late afternoon of summer. Sheep, recently shorn, graze nearby. A black dog with crazy fluffy hair hops up, running back with the stick that Phoebe had thrown, and lays it near by, apparently taking a break from its usual job of watching the sheep.

Tim Drake has posed:
    It's a feeling Tim's familiar with. Of the Outsiders, Red Robin is one of the most likely to be injured simply for the reason that he is an unpowered vigilante that puts himself out there side-by-side with his superhero teammates. So despite the internal sense that tells him to resist any kind of external influence, the sense that was more or less beat into him through rigorous training and more than a handful of unpleasant experiences, all he does is take a slow, deep breath.

    The ache as he does so starts to fade, bruised and broken ribs mending. Contusions hidden on his face beneath a layer of concealing makeup disappear. A deep cut just past his hairline knits back together. Those are the most pressing concerns, and then various other aches and pains go too, some newer than others.

    He's still pale. Still functioning on too much caffeine and not enough sleep. Tim is keeping his thoughts and emotions in check through sheer force of will.

    But at least he doesn't have to do that and pretend he's not in pain at the same time.

    "Thanks, Pheebs," he murmurs, even as he sounds guilty. For her using her energy on him. For hiding how badly he was hurt. For being sloppy enough that he was injured in the first place.

    He doesn't let go of Phoebe's hands, though. "You know that's just as much my job as it is yours, just done through different methods." Then his attention shifts, to their surroundings. Tim's mouth opens and after a moment he finds his voice, to ask, "Is... this the astral plane?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe gives out a small huff of breath. The strong desire to eat oreos lights on her tongue, and she rolls her tongue against her cheek a moment, and she gives him a serene sort of smile. She can't sooth all of the hurts in her teammate, but she can at least ease the physical ones.

    And then Tim looks around.

    "Huh." she states, and looks at the sheep and the meadow, and the dog patiently waiting for Tim to throw the stick.

    "... I don't think so. It's supposed to be pretty wrecked right now. This is... oddly pastoral?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's right hand twitches against Phoebe's left, and then he's pulling away. To sit up on his knees and reach for the stick, which he weighs in his grip a moment before he tosses it in a wide arc, over the sheep.

    He shrugs. It's a dog. Tim loves dogs.

    For a moment after he sits there, hands against the armor plating on his thighs, and then he leans forward, hands braced against the floor. Up he goes.

    "Come on," he says as he offers a hand down to Phoebe. "We're rapidly exceeding my ability to process weirdness I can't punch."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The black dog barks happily, and as he goes to chase the stick, the sheep splitting and bleating in protest as the dog goes to chase the stick, and as Tim pulls away and Phoebe stops bleeding energy into him, the vision of GOtham's long-gone pastoral pass fades, along with the smell of grass and the barking of the dog.

    And they're back in the ruinous JacVac Pac Factory, with its collapsed roof and decay.

    Phoebe breathes out. "Right. So, this one's thin, reactive to magic..." she trails off, reaching to pull her hood back up over her hair, and reaches for Tim's hand.

    "... does that mean we're going to go punch things after I check in with Weirdness Central?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    This time around Tim doesn't look down at Phoebe's hand, he just reaches to take hold of it and squeeze it once, gently. "Does that mean this was a sheep farm at one point in time, sort of a--a glimpse into the past?" he asks.

    His expression shifts into a perplexed but thoughtful moue as his free hand rubs against his chin before he continues with his line of questioning: "Or is the astral plane not a one-to-one representation of our world? I'm assuming they have some sort of effect on each other, but... well, if you go back far enough all of Gotham was temperate deciduous forestland."

    Trust Tim to want to logic his way through this, and also trust him to have a pretty decent understanding of the local history. "The local native population might have traded for sheep brought over from Europe after New Netherland and New Sweden were established...." He frowns.

    "Are we just going to set up the monitoring equipment?" is not an answer to Phoebe's question, but it is what Tim says after she asks it.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Those are probably Rotterdamn sheep. Might have been a farm ont he banks of this river once. Would make sense that the sheep were floating before we realized how much hillside they might have taken away." Phoebe replies, equally reasonable. "I think it's 'roughly' congrouous, but from what I know you mostly see the 'present' represented, sometimes with extra parts. Ghosts, spirits -- but I've never seen the astral. I'm pretty sure I just saw the dog because how being closer to the tear than you were." Phoebe reasons, "So proximity and sensitivity, maybe?" she states, and she squeezes his hand, her dark eyes, hidden by the lenses of her own domino look up to Tim.

    She could trust him with the last two secrets.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "It was pretty common for the Europeans to clear uninhabited islands and dump sheep onto them, too. I think that might have happened with at least one part of Gotham." Tim removes his hand from his chin, but it doesn't come to rest in a natural position. Instead it hangs in midair. "This is about where they were standing, right?" he asks.

    It's a pretty good approximation, as Tim is generally capable of managing. The benefits of his iron trap of a memory.

    Then he lets his arm hang by his side, and he twists, looking around. It makes his hand and Phoebe's, still held together, swing a little bit with the movement. "...I bet I could make an estimation of when our ghost sheep lived based on how much the land has eroded."

    And then he puts his hand back up in the same spot and... rises up on his toes. "Sorry. Need an accurate reading on my Z coordinate and the sensor's in my chest emblem," AKA the disc with the Red Robin symbol. Tim makes note of the height measurement on his HUD and then drops down onto his heels.

    "Okay," he says. Does it really matter when these sheep lived? Probably not. Is it the type of question Tim wants an answer to anyway? Yes, of course.

    He turns to Phoebe. "Makes sense. You said your contact is going to work on closing them?" It sounds like he's hesitant, maybe not totally happy with the idea of leaving the tear to be monitored, but it's not as if the ghost sheep or the ghost dog were threatening. Maybe a little mischievous, on the later's part. There are worse things to be in Gotham.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "True, common lands and such." PHoebe confirms, and she gives a slight smile as Tim takes his measurement, and she lets him get his measurements. Grounding technique as she hops up to finish setting up the solar pannels to power their monitoring equipment.

    "The bad tears, yeah. This one might just be a little one, but I wasn't able to get anything that would indicate their severity -- also wasn't thinking about the idea of ghost sheep either. That's ewes to me."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim has his moment of nerdery, but then he steps up to assist Phoebe with the equipment setup. He's quiet again, though now it seems like a more thoughtful silence, and his hands don't even shake all that much when he holds down buttons to start syncing up signals.

    It's sort of like getting a second wind -- though in this case Tim's lost count of how many winds he's burned through -- having all his pain whisked away. Best to make good use of it, not let Phoebe's effort go to waste.

    "Oh no," he groans, and he works himself up, breath huffing out of him as he shakes his head. All for show, though, because he comes back with, "That was a sheep shot, Balm," and then he snorts.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "A more sheepish joke was never herd. I don't know what would behoof me to make such a wooly racket." Phoebe continues, looking over her shoulder at Tim with a bright grin.

    "Also. When you get back tonight... you need to sleep. I'll stay up a while before I head back to New York to monitor."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Both of Tim's hands come up in surrender. "Okay, okay. You really don't need to RAM your point home," he answers, and there's breathy laughter laced underneath his voice. He takes a step back to check the feeds coming through, and then gives Phoebe a thumbs up.

    His face drops a little bit when she mentions sleep, but he recovers smoothly. "Okay," he says. That second (sixth, seventh, whatever) wind fades abruptly, and he just looks tired again. "I'm getting a clear reading. We good here?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe can feel the tired coming off him.

    "Well. At least I know there will be some sheep to count for you." she gives a slight smile to Red Robin, and gives a breath out.

    "Trust me, Tim. You, of all people, need to trust me when I say that I'll keep an eye on things." Phoebe states, hopping off her section of roof, and going for the grate again.

    "Otherwise... what even is the gosh-darn point?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's brow furrows above his mask. "Of course I trust you. Whatever this is," he gestures to their surroundings as a stand-in for the entirety of the situation, which is well beyond the ken of Red Robin's experiences. "It's your show. The team's here to support you in keeping it from Gotham, and however else we can help outside of that too."

    He rubs the back of his neck, above the top of his cape's collar. Just the mention of sleep has his hackles up, but he's not letting that get aimed at Phoebe. For all of Tim's control issues, keeping his temper in-check has never been something he's really needed to control.

    Mostly because he just doesn't have much of a temper in the first place.

    "Come on. We should head back, if we're done here."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... thanks. I..." Pheebs pauses. "... I actually did need to hear that reiterated." Phoebe gives a slight smile, and then follows Tim to retracing their steps.

    And in a different plane, a black sheepdog has returned with a stick, and looks mildly confused about the loss of playmates -- before lifting his nose, giving a bark, and running after the scent.