trans_9 | Summertime [Open]

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Summertime [Open]

Zouichi sat by a the mirrored black water of a small pond. Nearby, a wisteria plant was coming into bloom, dangling its delicate, curved violet flowers toward the earth.

As promised, a tray of chilled watermelon slices was set to the side, near the wooden steps leading down to the garden and free for any passersby to take. For his part, however, Zouichi occupied himself with feeding a small group of googly-eyed baby goldfish, who darted back and forth through the water to gobble up stray flakes of fish food.

It was nice to take a break from exploding ghost ~~wolves~~ lions once in a while.

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~~Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring bananafiiiiiiish~~

"Sorry," said Zouichi. "Only one name per customer. Although you can always plot to get someone else to suggest Salinger."

Don't make jokes about eating his fish, Tim! Zouichi already has to keep them safe from Howard and Emergency Rations. "They all seem to be getting along pretty well," said Zouichi, smiling a little. "I haven't noticed them chasing each other or nipping at each other's fins."

"Alright, that's fair enough," he said. It's probably best Zouichi doesn't get a gaggle of fish with American popculture references for names, anyway.

"That's good," Tim said, crouching down to look at the fish again while he finished his watermelon. "I'm not exactly an expert on fish, but they seem to be doing pretty well, at least."

Too late.

Zouichi nodded. "I think goldfish take a year or so to grow appreciably large. Perhaps by then, I'll no longer have to worry about Emergency Rations."

"Something like that," Tim agreed, pulling a cloth from his belt to clean his hand off. "What, the cat doesn't like the fish much? Or a little too much?" Figured that was a constant even out here. Tim slid his glove back on.

"The second option," Zouichi said, watching as Tim produced the cloth. "Do you have moist towelettes in there, too?"

"Anyway, she seems to want to eat just about everything."

"Obviously," Tim replied dryly, frowning at Zouichi. "They're indispensable when crime fighting, you know."

"Kind of ironic," he commented idly, watching the fish for a moment more before he stood up. "I think that's pretty much the norm for cats though."

"Of course." And jokes aside, they probably were useful. ...that didn't mean he couldn't poke fun at Tim for it, though. Dohoho.

"Is it? I've never really lived extensively with a cat before." But he had a feeling some cats were a lot nicer than Emergency Rations. "Especially not one that tried to chew on me."

At least Tim was used to having fun poked at him, whether he liked it or not. Whether he was serious or not about the towelettes.

"Neither have I. Prone to munching on me or otherwise," Tim admitted, though he rose an eyebrow at the comment. "I knew someone who redefined 'cat person,' though."

"Oh? Sounds like a story." Zouichi settled back on the bank. "So tell me about this 'cat person'."

Well, he did bring it up. He hesitated for a moment, wondering how much he should tell Zouichi, but the man already knew about his own secret ID. And it wasn't like he was going to be giving personal details about Selina and Bruce, or anything absurd like that.

"The city I lived in was a minefield of costumed heroes and villains," Tim explained first. "One such person was Catwoman. Her theme was built around the concept-- catsuit, cat puns and all. Even her work was often framed around the cat motif, at least in her earlier days. And I'm pretty sure she owned a dozen cats at any given time."

"Wait. Cat puns?" Tim... your world was weird. "So she was some kind of cat hoarder? Why all the animal motifs?"

He didn't care about the heroes and villains thing. What he did care about was why grown people were running around in animal costumes beating each other up. EXPLAIN YOURSELF, SIR.

"Sometimes," Tim said. He had, of course, been victim to a fair few bird puns as Robin, for his own part. He paused again, then said, "She was a cat burglar. Pun only sort of intended. The motifs... varied. Sometimes it was done as a symbol. Sometimes it was more an issue of psychosis." The last part is referring to the villains only. ~~Honest.~~

~~Suddenly it all fell into place. The late nights, the seclusion, the secrets... TIM WAS A BIRD HOARDER~~

"Oh, of course. Perhaps she and that Cazali would have gotten along. ...But you're talking about it like it was a widespread phenomenon."

~~CURSES. You have discovered his secret!~~

"Perhaps," Tim agreed, though he didn't know much about Cazali in the first place. Then he let out a half laugh, and said, "It... was, sometimes. Gotham had a high crime rate, and a fair few criminals took on a motif. The heroes did the same. 'Red Robin' isn't the first name I worked under, and I worked with a number of others there." And that was only Gotham.

"If there were so many of you heroes running about, why was the crime rate so high? Were these criminals all psychotics?" Zouichi tried to imagine a cityscape filled with people dressed as animals and disguised and found it all rather bizarre. And of course, he wondered how many of those heroes slipped into villainy and vice versa.

"A matter of proportions and persistence, in part," Tim explained. "They weren't all psychotics-- but the ones that were inevitably got out onto the streets again and weren't prone to giving up. Some had specific motivators." One of Tim's own rogues was out for vengeance on Tim himself. "Some others did it out of fear-- coercion. Some may have felt it was necessary; Gotham had a lot of rough times."

"Wait, if you captured them, how did they keep getting back out onto the streets? Their motivations shouldn't have mattered if they were imprisoned." This sounded like a very inefficient system to Zouichi.

And Zouichi hit one of the biggest problems right there. "Sometimes rehabilitation, sometimes breakouts were orchestrated, from either side of the gates. It was a major problem."

Zouichi wasn't going to ask then why didn't you just kill them?, but he was thinking it. Oh boy, was he thinking it.

"So your criminal justice system was basically a revolving door."

Tim frowned. This was definitely something that bothered him. "Sometimes, yes," he said. It was hardly in good shape. "There were certainly flaws. But that was part of the reason why we operated. To take care of any corruption the police couldn't get to, and to be equally persistent as the crooks could be."

"Right, but the criminals you brought in just went right back on the streets. Wasn't there a better way to deal with them?"

Like killing them okay no.

"Rehabilitation, with varying results," Tim grunted faintly. "Efforts were made to solve the problem, not the cause. My own work, though, was mostly focused on the more direct-- actually stopping the criminal acts themselves."

"Doesn't sound very effective," Zouichi said, going back to watching the baby goldfish zip around their new home. "Stop someone from committing a crime only to have them tossed right back in the water."

"It wasn't, sometimes," Tim sighed faintly. "It kept them off the streets for a time, and we did what we could both in and out of costume, but it could be an uphill battle."

"But you kept at it anyway," Zouichi said. It was part observation, part question.

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