[open] this time I'll be a little smarter

[controlledvariable]

Date & Time: First two weeks of Feb
Location: Training area, rooftops, other places!
Characters: Stephanie Brown AND YOU
Summary: Steph's finally settling into a routine in the city; see threadstarters for options or make up your own c: Or PM me if you want to work out something specific!
Warnings: Violence, will update if necessary



It's been over a month since Steph first stepped off that damn platform and into the Initiative Hold, and she's still struggling with it more than she' d like to admit. Time travel and the multiverse and strange creatures aren't exactly new to her, but they're all things she had minimal contact with, they're the things that the Justice League deals with. Batgirl might be a bigger player in the vigilante game than Spoiler was, and she's certainly noticed a shift in the sort of situations she finds herself in, but it's nothing compared to being pulled into another city to fight a war. That stuff happens to Superman, or Wonder Woman. Steph doesn't have the training for it.

But even if she's struggling, she refuses to let it show, and puts on a brave face to deal with life until things start making sense. Exsilium is depressing, with the constant rain and cold temperatures, with the citizen living in poor conditions, and all the Transports and their nonsense. It takes her a while to warm up to using the network, and to warm up to the idea of even getting to know the other people here, but she's getting there, and starting to maybe, possibly, sort of make friends.

That doesn't mean she likes it in the city, but at least she doesn't actively hate it anymore.

Comments

[kneecaptain]

"That's supposed to be my line." Hey, wow, creepy guy can smile— and he doesn't even need to be creepy about it. Stop the pressess.

[controlledvariable]

Well, she won't stop the presses, but he does get bonus points for the smile not being creepy.

"I don't think you can have a monolopy on not getting paid enough," There's something a little teasing in her voice, encouraged by the fact she got a smile. She still isn't sure if she even likes this guy, but it's easy enough to be friendly.

"But hey, maybe we should ask for a raise," It's a weird thing to be getting paid for fighting, though she supposes soldiers get a wage, she's just never gotten money for being a vigilante. There have been financial perks - Bruce and Babs have brought her gadgets and equipment and cares, but it's not the same thing.

[kneecaptain]

"The army gave me six hundred bucks a year. I've been needing a raise for a long time." He whistled, the kind that slid lower as it went on. "'Specially if they take inflation into account, which they oughta."

"But real soldiers don't do it for the money."

[controlledvariable]

"Jesus," Six hundred dollars a year is so little money, even though she knows it would have been more back then, hence - inflation, "That almost makes my mimimum wage jobs seem decent."

But she nods, a little more serious, "I'm not much of a soldier, but this is the first time I've been paid for this sorta thing."

It's not bragging, so much as making sure he knows that she doesn't really care about the money.

[kneecaptain]

Yeah, he didn't expect she was. "Most people who wear costumes aren't." That was the modern way of doing things.

"The army gives you room and board, so they can dock it from your pay. But it was never a lot." He knows six hundred doesn't seem like so much by twenty-first century money. But he doesn't really know when she's from: just that it's south of 1944.

[controlledvariable]

"Soldiers, or getting paid for what they do?" It's a genuine question, just to make sure they're on the same page.

She supposes it makes sense, about room and board, but it's still hard to wrap her head around living on six hundred a year, "I'm not sure what the average pay is back home, but it'd definitely be five figures. I think there's talk of soldiers still being underpaid, though."

It's the sort of thing that gets talked about on the news, sometimes, especially with the wars currenly ongoing. But while she could probably give the average salary of a police officer depending on their rank, she's not given a lot of thought to the army.

[kneecaptain]

"I meant getting paid. But, geez—"

He starts and stops, like he's not sure what he wants to say. Or maybe like he's not sure if he wants to say it. But eventually he spits it out.

"Back then, everyone called themselves a soldier. Not just the ones in the costumes. Or in uniform. Everyone was fighting that damn war. I guess this isn't our war, though."

It wasn't that he thought anyone was wrong about it. They fought the war to get to the peacetime, right? But the difference still struck him, sometimes. And Bucky Barnes had never gotten to the peacetime.

[controlledvariable]

That gives her pause, in part because the only thing she can think about is the plaque on Jason's case.

A Good Soldier.

And she thinks about Matches Malone, and Sionis, and that whole damn mess, "I fought in a war, once," The gangs of Gotham were the armies, the city the battlefield, "Not like this one."

And now it's her turn not to be sure what she wants to say, she's probably already said too much, and there's a shift in her posture, as she drops her shoulders so her cape covers her up.

"I think it's harder when you don't exactly sign up for it," Which is sort of agreeing with his point, even if she got a bit sidetracked, there.

[kneecaptain]

"You've got that one right." There were corners of his mind he was supposed to be owning up to, but Bucky still didn't like to visit them.

"I don't think anyone wants to fight this one. I think it'll probably screw us— I mean, more. More that we're already screwed."

[controlledvariable]

"Maybe that's why they grab so many of us. It's not about getting a variety of skills, but getting more people who'd be willing to fight," She's got a hundred different theories for how and why the Initiative are doing what they do, this is just another one.