Who is your austringer? [Hawkgirl]

[Deleted]

Question stood in the elevator as it went up. Normally he would've already set himself up in someone's apartment and wait for them to arrive, but Hawkgirl knew of him, and him being in her apartment wouldn't set her off balance. Instead, he chose to break the script by coming to her door directly. The Question is never one for niceties or to knock. Thus, for this to work, he needed to do the opposite of what was expected.

He walked across the hall and started up the steps, looking up, he knocked on the door. There had been enough time for things to settle, in Q's opinion. Now it was time to start getting answers to the questions. And there was no better place to start than the source.

[Deleted]

The faint hum of the elevator is all but ignored by Shayera at first: partly because that thing goes off constantly day and night (if a bit less often during certain parts of the day), and partly because she's neck deep in cooking her dinner. Tonight she's opted for a rather hearty breakfast-for-dinner with bacon, eggs, sausage, hash browns, and toast. All in rather generous proportions because she had a long day and her metabolism can take it easily.

In fact, she's pondering whether or not she has the proper ingredients to add pancakes to the list as she's working on the hash browns, when the ignored elevator catches her attention by arriving at the floor below - meaning whoever is in it is either headed for her downstairs neighbor's apartment or hers. Of course, that only gets enough of her attention for her to listen to which way the footsteps go, though she's not expecting them to go in the direction of her door because she's not expecting anyone at the moment. Yet that's what they do, and that's when they really get her attention.

Her attention shifts from the hash browns to listening carefully to the footfalls. Hmm, not someone she knows well enough to guess who they are by that alone. That plus the fact that they're coming that way instead of to the side-door that leads to the roof actually eliminates a huge chunk of the people she knows. Not a woman-specific shoe and a bit on the heavy side for a woman, so more likely a man. But beyond that she doesn't have enough clues to narrow it down further, especially because for all she knows it could be a particularly persistent fan that figured out where she lives.

At least the eventual knock on the door suggests that it's not some sort of enemy, who would be more likely to try and barge in. Not that it would be easy to do so, given the awkwardness of the door being above the person and the fact that she keeps five hundred pounds of weights on top of it - if anyone gets past that without her permission, any other form of door lock probably wouldn't help either. But since she has no idea who it is or if they're anyone she'd welcome, she returns most of her focus back to making sure that she's not burning her food as she calls out, "Who is it?" Some mysteries are best solved the simple way.

[Deleted]

"I never get tired of that Question." He replied, smirking under his mask. He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets, trying to access what was going on. He could smell food cooking from here. Something fried that reminded him of iHop. Interesting choice, loading up on calories so late in the day.

He wondered if she would know him by voice. If not, it would at least lead to further inquiry, which is never a bad thing. Still, he had work to do. 

"I think it would be better to ask Why am I here, and the answer for that I will give if you let me in." 


  

[Deleted]

While Shayera's ability to perceive sound is really quite impressive, her ability to remember what she's heard isn't necessarily on that same level. Yes, she probably remembers sounds better than your average human, but it's not like she has the equivalent of a recorder in her head, able to replay remembered sounds accurately enough to compare them - if so, she probably would have been able to tell who it was from his gait. But voices are much more distinctive than footsteps, and any uncertainty about who this one belongs to is easily resolved by the words that he says.

Back when she'd been in the Justice League, she'd worked directly with nearly everyone in the League on a mission or two at least, but she'd always been quite intentional about keeping all of her relationships completely professional - making friends when you're in the position that she was in just makes things complicated. However, though she'd failed quite spectacularly at keeping her distance from a few of her fellow heroes (and that had indeed made things very complicated), the Question was not one of those. If anything, in fact, keeping her distance from him had been child's play thanks to his personality - before more recent events she'd not been one to do much of anything to cause any sort of alarm.

Perhaps the main exception being the times that she's killed an enemy, though those were always cases when the enemy couldn't be reasoned with or contained and would therefore forever remain a threat even if defeated if they'd been allowed to live. And the main problem anyone ever had with that is that she would act without consulting anyone else first and often before her fellow heroes realized that there weren't really any other options - instead she would rely on the fact that everyone would agree that she did the right thing after the fact once they had a chance to think it over. She'd never been wrong about that, but her instant decisiveness on that issue always did rub the more conservative heroes the wrong way.

But as that had been the limit of her eyebrow-raising activities, no doubt the Question had other more pressing questions to ponder than herself, so aside from standard hero business there'd been no real reason for either of them to associate with each other at all. In fact, though she has her suspicions about why he may be showing up at her door now, she doesn't know him well enough to be at all sure how correct her guesses may be. Still, she's not the type of person who can't resist letting a mystery remain unresolved, so it's not her curiosity about why he's here that causes her to take the hash browns off the heat so that she can open the door, but something even more basic: he is an acquaintance who has never given her a reason to turn him away and he wants to come in, therefore she will welcome him in.

Though the five hundred pounds on the hatch that serves as her front door isn't nothing to Shayera, it's also not so heavy to her that she considers it any real feat to remove it. It takes her all of two seconds to move it aside, open the hatch, and offer her hand if he wants to use it - the last few steps on the ladder to get into her apartment are a bit tricky. "Well, you're interrupting me making dinner, but I can forgive that," she says with a grin.

[Deleted]

"I'm glad" Vic replied in a neutral voice. He finished the climb up the steps and stepped into the apartment to take it all in. It was... simple. It had everything a person would expect to find in a room, which made it even more suspicious.

"How have you been holding up?" He asked her, putting his hands into his pockets as he started to walk around the room, "Your dismissal was a surprise to most of the league." He commented, turning to see her reaction. He wasn't surprised by her being dismissed. Shayera was too much of a loose cannon, much like himself, but he was still a member. He figured his continuing membership was more attributed to how little of a threat he posed to the league as a whole, in comparison to someone such as Hawkgirl.

[Deleted]

Once he's inside, Shayera closes the hatch and returns the weights to their position over the hatch. Then she wanders back over to the kitchen area to finish working on her dinner - she sees no need to follow him around as he looks around her apartment, partly because it's all one room and she can see most of it from the kitchen and so keep an eye on him that way, and partly because she really doesn't have much of anything she minds having someone look at. Some of it she would object to him touching, but if he's not wise enough to figure out which things those are then he'll soon find out.

Resuming her cooking, she answers his question by simply saying, "Fine." But far too quickly to have actually given the question any serious thought - that's simply how you're supposed to answer questions like that, isn't it? His words afterward, on the other hand, prompt far more of a reaction. Looking up at him for a moment, an instant frown has come to her face and she remarks, "I was dismissed? That's news to me - I distinctly remember quitting." Of course, for all she knows they would have officially dismissed her if she hadn't quit.

For that matter, for all she knows they counted it as a dismissal anyway, and that possibility causes her frown to continue until she asks, "They said I was dismissed?" Just to be sure that she's understanding that right, she has to ask. The thought clearly bothers her, and more than a little, though at the moment her feelings are confined into a pensive frown at the food she's working on as she keeps all the further thoughts that causes to herself.

[Deleted]

If Question had any reaction to her statement, he didn't show it. Instead, he only nodded, "Perhaps that is the way you remember it." He said calmly, "But I can't think of a time when Superman told a lie. But I'm not a part of the inner circle of the League... That doesn't exist, of course." he was playing it now, showing he knew a little more than he should, but also striking at what bothered her about how the story went down.

"Dismissed. They didn't give a reason as to why, however. Everyone thinks it had to do with the mission that allegedly saved Earth from invasion." He went back to pacing the room. It seemed so hollow to Q. Most people fill their walls with personal affects. A home defines a person, but Shayera's said little about her. Almost like an undercover agent would have in their own 'home'.

"Some were bold enough to call you a traitor. Some have this theory that maybe you were an agent for this invasion force, and when push came to shove, you betrayed the league long enough to get close to bury the knife in the invaders backs. Or you and John Stewart had a falling out." He looked back at her, "But, I digress, you're a hero to the people of Earth for helping us by pass an alleged invasion."

[Deleted]

As he confirms his words, Shayera's lips form into a hard line and she lapses into a brooding silence. Up until this point, if you'd asked her whether or not she thought that she deserved to be in the League, she'd have told you that she wasn't sure and that it was a premature question anyway since she's not sure if she even wants to eventually go back. Now that she's hearing this, however, she suddenly finds herself upset that she may be barred from returning. Or is it simply that it rankles her for that option to be closed to her, whether she wants to choose it or not? Yes, she made some terrible choices, but she did mean well at least and certainly learned not to make the same mistake again, and she's now saved this planet how many times and yet they dismiss her? Of all the ungrateful, hypocritical things to do - plenty of people in the league have had to ask their fellow heroes for forgiveness about something or other...

Somehow she manages to keep her anger in check, but not without signs of the internal boiling leaking to the surface. An angry, unsettled mood has overtaken her, visible in the way she suddenly has a hard time standing still, the feathers of her wings bristle a bit, and the hardness in her jaw. Perhaps because her teeth are clenched, she doesn't respond at first as he mentions her last mission with the league, but she really doesn't have anything to say about it anyway.

Though as he continues the hot anger stewing inside of her starts to cool, only to be replaced by a certain sickly sort of sadness. She goes from being restless to not moving at all, as if she's suddenly run out of energy. When he finishes by calling her a hero, she sighs heavily and mutters, "If you say so." The hash browns are done, so she slides them out of the frying pan and onto her plate, looking down at her meal without enthusiasm. Let's see, what else was she going to make for this meal? Oh yeah, toast... Does she even want toast? She's not really hungry enough for toast. In fact, what she's already made looks unappetizing now - maybe she should just skip dinner. Nah, waste of perfectly good food, and she'll regret not eating in the morning. Rummaging in one of the drawers, she pulls out a fork and carries it and her plate over to the bar so that she can eat it, whether she's hungry for it or not.

[Deleted]

"What's my opinion matter?" He asked her, "No one listens to me. I'm a crack pot, remember?" He could see her tense and flare, and then just like that, the flame disappeared. Blown out entirely.

"Some of the worst prisons are the ones we put ourselves in." He told her, "So why maintain a lie and add to your suffering?" Question's voice was curious as he watched her eat, becoming more of a voice than an actual presence.

"I don't trust Superman. I don't trust anyone. It's a superpower, really. I'm never satisfied with what I'm told. Seems irrational, but I'm never wrong to question. So why don't you tell me what really happened and we can go from there."

[Deleted]

Seating herself on one of the barstools, Shayera's lack of appetite can clearly be seen by the way she picks at her meal at first, though it only takes her a few moments to convince herself to eat. Though she continues to listen to him and responds when she needs to, it's as if a part of her mind has gone elsewhere, leaving a skeleton crew behind to keep her animated.

"What lie is that?" she asks as she nibbles on her sausage, because she really doesn't know what he's talking about. Or, more specifically, which lie he's talking about - especially since it sounds like those that now know about her lies don't seem to have talked much, and she's pretty sure that other than that she'd kept them pretty well under wraps. And it's not like she's some amateur about keeping lies under wraps either.

His last words cause her to suddenly pause in her eating and stare pointedly at him as she responds by saying, "Why don't I? Because I don't want to talk about it, I don't need to talk about it, and if I did need to talk about it, you're one of the last people I'd want to talk to about it. Like you just said - you don't trust anyone."

[Deleted]

"It's just a saying." Question replied to her about the lies question. "But it is nice to know there is a lie. And where there is a lie, there's truth to be found." His voice was still plain.

"I don't trust anyone, which is why I'm the best source of information. Trust is a nice luxury, but it makes too much room for lies to grow. You lie for those you care about, to protect them. Like the eyes that watch our every move, lies produced them and created our acceptance. Mistrust is truly the most honest way to live." He said, "Again, I digress. If you didn't need to talk about it, then why did you tense up when I mentioned the league? How bad was this separation? Who did you kill? Or better question, who did they kill?"

[Deleted]

Openly scoffing at his response, Shayera sees no reason to comment any further on the subject of lies and truth. That and his whole spiel about trust is listened to but doesn't seem to have any impact at all on her. What does he know about truth and trust anyway? If he was Thanagarian, he'd not even be old enough to start proper training yet, and now he's sitting here talking about things that require actual life experience to understand as if he's an expert. So she listens, but her only response is to pick at her food.

At least until he starts asking her questions, which she sighs at before saying, "Because I don't think I deserve to be dismissed. And it was bad enough that I quit. And I didn't kill anyone." There, now he has a few answers - can he be satisfied with them? Of course they're rather vague answers, but then again those weren't exactly very specific questions. Then again, she's not likely to answer any specific questions anyway.

[Deleted]

"So they did it. And here I thought I was the madman." Question turned on his heel, starting for the door. He frowned a little at the weights put in place. "If you'd be so kind..." he said, gesturing to them. "I have a group of murderers to apprehend."

[Deleted]

The way he reacts to that causes Shayera's eyebrow to lift. Now what is he talking about? Though in spite of how much he's befouled her mood, there's an inner part of her that can't help but be amused when he heads for the exit. Wait for it... Ah, he wants help with the door, does he? One advantage of how she secures that door is that her guests can't leave very quickly - which is a good feature to have for all sorts of strategic purposes. Of course he could still leave under his own power by tackling the weights individually instead of lifting the whole stack like she does, but even then it would take some time.

Setting her fork down on her plate, she starts to get up but purposely takes her time because now she has a question or two of her own. "Murderers?" she asks, "Who was murdered?"

[Deleted]

Question was pleased, she took the bait. He wasn't a fool, he'd noticed the weights from the very beginning. While Shayera may have intended it to be tactical for her own purposes, Question was exploiting it in reverse. And now she was taking her time, which bought him even more.

"I'm guessing someone you cared about. Before being sent here. Maybe you'd grown apart from this Hawkman since you've been here, but cutting that tie still hurt. Why else go through the trouble of trying to hide yourself from the creature you created? I read the papers. 'Hawkgirl, No more'. Has a nice ring to it. Draws the reader's attention in."