2013.10.05 - A Spoiled Dare

It's just another Saturday afternoon at the Gotham Police Headquarters. Like most days on this side of the river, the skies are gloomy and a cold breeze is blowing in from the Atlantic. Now, Commissioner Gordon is supposed to work a nine to five. Monday through Friday kind of thing. People expect him to be the family man, taking his daughter to the park or inviting her over for a good home cooked meal. Hell, people might even understand if he took to the pubs, looking for a date.

Instead, in a manner that is just about as predictable as the homeless fellow who rustles for change every morning at the corner of 45th and Steele, Jim Gordon comes walking through the front door of the police headquarters. The hat is pulled from atop his head, the trench coat unbuttoned to fall easily against his frame, and a hearty smirk is fired in the direction of the lobby receptionist.

"I know, Kathy, I know," he defends, before she can even get out a complaint. "I've heard it all before, but... you know, there's some case file upstairs I need to..."

Kathy Battle, the middle-aged, African American who mans the weekend reception desk part time, peers up at Jim with a half-amused, half-disappointed look. She doesn't even need to speak.

Gordon sighs at Kathy, his shoulders slumping a bit. "The Joker."

"The Joker," she answers, with a baleful nod.

"Please tell me there's a pot of coffee brewing up there?" he asks, with hopeful eyes.

Generally the afternoon is not the chosen time for Gotham's vigilantes to be active -- but the night belongs to a certain pointy-eared crusader, and thus somebody like Spoiler, operating without the Bat's permission, must make do with those times when she feels it's less likely to run into him. Saturday afternoon. Batman and his associates are hardly going to be working on a Saturday afternoon, right?

Well, certainly Spoiler hopes so. She has thought long and hard about how to do this thing she's planning on doing. She's studied plans for the police department, located the commissioner's office, and has concluded that she can climb onto this dumpster here, and shinny up the drain pipe until she reaches the fire escape, and then take the stairs up to Gordon's office and let herself in. It's a Saturday afternoon. Surely the Commissioner himself won't be around, and she can leave her little present for the man.

Everything goes according to plan until she reaches the alley where the dumpster is located and discovers that has been moved about twenty feet further on than she expected, which means she's got a far longer shinny than she expected. She curses quietly under her mask, sighs, and then starts to climb the pipe. And of course, nobody at all will notice a girl in a violet cloak climbing a drain in an alley outside the police station, right?

They are possibly more likely to notice when, fifteen feet up, the same girl loses her grip and falls backwards off the pipe with a short, sharp shriek that cuts off when impact knocks the breath from her.

"Of course there is, Jim," answers Kathy, her grin widening. "Don't worry, I won't tell Benson."

Meanwhile, one of the detectives is hard at work going through some case files of his own, when something catches the corner of his eye. Rising, he moves to the window, only to see the violet-cloaked invader lying on the ground in the alley outside. "What the--!" Following a moment of shock, he darts over to his desk phone and punches the line to dispatch. "Dispatch, there's a girl on the ground outside my office! Looks like she fell."

Down in the lobby, Commissioner Gordon is halfway to the elevators when he notices a couple of uniformed cops grabbing their radios and responding to a call. He perks up when one of the officers runs right past him and is able to hear the dispatcher on his radio, calling for an ambulance to Precinct Alley.

"Precinct Alley?" asks Gordon.

"Some girl fell down," answers the cop hastily, before moving to the front doors with his comrades.

"Some girl...?" Following a moment of decision, Jim pulls the trench coat around himself and chases after the police officers, brow knit with concern.

Dear diary, That could have gone better.

Spoiler hears the activity coming from the front of the building and groans. It's hardly a difficult thing to do, since, left to her own devices, she'd probably spend a good half hour lying here groaning -- but being caught by the police in this position would be 1) embarassing, 2) possibly illegal, and 3) certain to get back to her father. And then she'd NEVER hear the end of it. She forces herself to get up off the ground and run back into the alley to hide behind the dumpster that some jerk moved. Jerk!

The officers are quick to respond, but by the time they reach the mouth of the alley, there's no sign of the girl. One of the officers reaches for his sidearm, drawing it and bringing it to a ready position, while the other goes for his radio. "Dispatch, Unit A-23. No sign of the girl. Please confirm, you said, purple cloak?"

"Copy that, A-23. Purple cloak, or cape. Possibly one of the vigilantes, advise caution."

"Copy that." The officer nods to his two counterparts, both now with their standard issue pistols drawn.

Commissioner Gordon draws up behind them as they begin advancing into the alley. He frowns at the sight of sidearms, but there's little he can do about that. It is standard procedure, after all. "Fellas..."

"Commissioner, you should stand back for your own safety," answers the leading officer, before calling into the alley. "This is the Gotham Police. Come out with your hands in the air, slowly!"

Yeah, this is going to go well. Because for heaven's sake, a teenaged girl in a leotard and curtains, her best weapon a length of broom handle painted black, is totally a match for a bunch of armed cops. Totally!

But, while she tends to embarass herself with a frequency measurable in megahertz, Spoiler is not stupid. And she is a teenager. And teenagers, every cop knows, are stupid. And thus she has a plan.

"Stop, please!" yells the girl in the violet leotard. She's removed her mask, much as she's loathe to do so. It was made from the foot of a pair of black tights anyway. She can replace it. There's still the other foot. She rises from her place in the alley with the hood of her cloak around her neck, still kicking the mask under the dumpster. Her hair is in total disarray, but to all appearances she's just a pretty teenager with her hands raised and looking terrified.

As soon as the girl exposes herself, the cops for a moment look surprised. The leading cop is delayed for a moment, before standing at ease and motioning for the other two to holster their weapons. "Are you hurt?" asks the officer, while approaching the girl with his lantern still held in hand.

At this point, of course, Gordon sees no point in obeying the cop's advice. The brow knit in concern? It's now spread to a full blown expression. He comes up alongside the officer, even going so far as to advance beyond him somewhat, waiting to hear her response.

The sound of an approaching ambulance bounces across the tall walls to either side of them.

Stephanie looks incredibly sheepish. "Just had the wind knocked outta me for a minute," she says. "I'm sorry. It was a stupid dare!" She has cooked up a whole story on the spur of the moment. Slowly she lowers her hands and steps out from behind the dumpster, casting a look over her shoulder as though she expects to see somebody there, and her face falls when she doesn't.

Her eyes return to the front of the alley then, and her expression is even more forlorn when she sees the ambulance. "Oh, man, this sucks," she mumbles sadly. "My dad's gonna be so PO'ed."

"Well, just to be sure," offers the Commissioner, "we're going to have the medics take a look at you. Okay?" Jim turns to the officers next, nodding his head in an encouraging way, before turning to approach Stephanie with an expression that easily mixes concern with his own natural, amicable politeness. He reaches to put an arm around the girl. "Don't worry, I'm a police officer too, just like those men in uniform. You look like you can walk well enough, do you think you can walk with me to the front of the alley?"

While Gordon is also curious to know her name, he tends to take situations like these carefully. Cops may think teenagers are stupid, and in the case of the uniformed GCPD, that may be the case. As for Jim Gordon? He's not your typical cop, and his experience with an atypical daughter has taught him a thing or two about teenagers.

Well, Gordon was the one Steph was trying to contact anyway -- though not under THESE circumstances. She'll have to find another way to leave her 'present' for him. It's a flashlight. With a purple 'S' made of a section of theater gel taped over the lens. The Spoiler Alert. That's the way you get respect in this city, right?

"I can walk," she agrees, allowing the commissioner to put his arm around her and lead her toward the mouth of the alley. "Really, I'm sorry about this. These girls from school dared me to climb up the pipe." Her nose wrinkles in annoyance as she casts a look behind her again. "And then they ran off when I fell. Some 'friends'."

Jim has to fight to suppress the sigh that wants to come loose. Stephanie's story is bought hook, line, and sinker. "Yeah, well, sometimes your 'friends' don't stick by you when it gets real," he answers. "What's your name?" he asks while leading her toward the ambulance as it pulls up to the mouth of the alley. "I'm Jim Gordon. Police Commissioner of Gotham." He releases his hold around Stephanie's arm, now giving her the dignity to walk on her own, but takes the moment to shoot her a surprisingly coy grin. "Don't worry, I can help smooth things over with your father. I'll bet ten donuts and two cups of coffee he'd be a lot more 'pissed off' if you were seriously hurt."

Stephanie Brown has partially disconnected.

Name. Yeah. That's a thing. In a split second, Steph concludes that the best option is going to be the truth, at least in this much, because it's easy enough to look up the names of students at Gotham Heights High, and neither 'Stephanie' nor 'Brown' is a particularly uncommon name. And should he manage to connect her to Arthur Brown, he'll likely only feel more sympathy -- it's good to be blonde and innocent-looking.

"Stephanie Brown," she says. "It's nice to meet you, Commissioner Gordon." After all, it's not as though Jim Gordon evades the news -- probably gets his name printed more frequently than any cop in the city. You hear good things.

Except, admittedly, from her father. "I'll be honest, Commissioner -- my dad..." How to put this. "He doesn't like police officers very much." Or people in bat costumes. Or... well, the list of people her dad doesn't like is long. Very long.

"Nice to meet you too, Stephanie Brown," answers Gordon. As they draw near to the ambulance, Jim quietly excuses himself for a moment to speak with the EMT. "This is Stephanie Brown. She might have taken a nasty spill, can you provide her with a field examination? I think... it'd be best to avoid a trip to the hospital unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Sure thing, Commissioner," answers the EMT. He walks up toward the girl, smiling. "Stephanie? I'm Matt." He motions toward the bumper of the ambulance, then bangs on its steel frame twice. "Hop on up, we'll get you checked out."

As the EMT's begin their procedure, however, Jim stays close by. "So, your dad doesn't like cops, huh?" he asks. "Lot of people don't like the police, for different reasons." He pauses for a moment or two, letting the EMT's work, while considering things. With a last name like Brown, it would be virtually impossible to come up with a list of potential enemies... though a handful come to mind. While tempted to press her further, he hangs back for a moment and gives Stephanie a grin. "Let me guess. One of my officers gave him a speeding ticket?"

Stephanie hops on up, as requested. She even reaches back to unpin the cloak from her shoulders -- doubtless the cloak would get in the way of their inspection. "What the Commissioner means," she says with a sigh, "is that I got dared into scaling Police Headquarters and fell off a drain pipe. I've probably got some major bruising on my back, but my breath came back and I don't think anything's broken." Best to lay it all out there, in case there -are- problems.

"Something like that," she tells Gordon. "Frankly, he doesn't like much of anybody, 'cept maybe mom." Any teenager who suggested her father actually liked her isn't worth the name teenager -- and Stephanie is fairly well convinced that her father really -doesn't- like her, even without knowing her nightly extracurriculars.

"Well, well," quips Matt. "Thanks for the advice, Doctor Howser." He looks toward the other EMT with a grin and remarks, "Oh, she's probably too young to remember Doogie Howser."

While the EMT's share a laugh and continue their examination, Commissioner Gordon remains attentive to Stephanie's conversation with him. Now, of course, there's a growing concern in the back of Jim's mind that, perhaps, Stephanie's home life isn't what it seems. It might explain why she was climbing up a pipe outside of GCPD Headquarters, and it could even lend to a fresh suspicion that she's lying about those other girls, the ones who dared her.

Ah, to be so mistaken. But what's a cop to do?

Jim just can't keep the frown from his face, and he remains silent for a moment while the EMT's finish.

"Welp," says Matt, "no broken bones, and I don't think there's any internal bleeding, but we'd better take her in to have some tests done, just in case."

Nodding to the ambulance driver, Jim says, "I can take her to the hospital." He looks back to Stephanie with a grin. "That way we won't have to charge your dad for the ambulance. Sound like a plan?"

Stephanie blinks at Matt. "Doogie Howser? The Neil Patrick Harris thing, right? I saw Harold and Kumar." She's never seen the show in question, but there are enough adults who think their childhood heroes were so much more awesome than the current ones that it's hard to avoid some knowledge of such things.

The look on her face at the suggestion that her dad not get charged for the trip to the hospital is one of both relief and gratitude. The blonde hops up off the ambulance's bumper lithely -- her pains are not going to be a problem very long. "Thank you, Commissioner. I hope I'm not dragging you away from important police stuff, though..." She wouldn't want to inconvenience the man.

While the EMT's begin packing up their gear, Matt in particular laughs to Stephanie. "Harold and Kumar," he answers, smirking. "Right. Kids these days! You be safe now, alright?" With a nod to the Commissioner, Matt and the EMT's begin packing up the ambulance.

"Don't worry about that," answers Jim. "Miss Battle? She works in the lobby on weekends, and she's upset at me for coming in on a Saturday anyway."

A few moments later, Stephanie is in the back of a cop car. Fortunately, of course, she's not in cuffs! Jim is riding shotgun up front with one of the uniformed officers driving. As they peel out into traffic, however, Jim turns around and looks at the girl. "That's certainly a good costume," he remarks. "Reminds me of something my daughter might have worn one year for halloween. Did you make it yourself?"

Stephanie manages a salute toward Matt, confirming that she will be safe. She probably won't be, but the EMT doesn't need to worry about that. "Well then," she tells Gordon, "I guess this works out well for both of us." And she allows herself to be herded into the police car.

Lack of cuffs is definitely better as far as Steph is concerned. She's never been handcuffed herself, but the thugs she's cuffed with plastic ties are always whining about it. "Yeah, it was part of the dare," she says with a sigh. "I was supposed to make it look like I was one of the Bat-types, you know?" The blonde is far from a bat-type. For one thing, she doesn't brood nearly enough.

"Oh yes, the Bat-types," quips Jim. He looks toward the officer driving the car with an amused grin. "You know, they say that we have a light on the rooftop of headquarters, the one that shines the bat sign up into the sky?" He shakes his head. "Nonsense. I tell people, City Council would never sign off on that in the capital funds budget. But do people believe me? Nope."

Of course, when Jim looks back toward Stephanie, there is an altogether conspiratorial look in his eye.

"Anyway. Listen, before we get you to Gotham General, I should give your parents a call." He reaches for his cellular phone, and offers a comforting smile. "Should I call mom, or dad?"

"Mom," says Stephanie promptly. "She works there, actually. She's a nurse." Her mom will give her hell for this, and raise all kinds of questions about the costume, but her dad... her dad might recognize the costume, and that would be even worse.

As for the Bat-Signal, Steph has to observe, "It's totally ridiculous that the city'd pay for that kinda thing... but you can see why people'd wonder, what with the giant bat shining in the sky when there's trouble."

"Mom it is," answers Jim, and when she says that mom works at Gotham General? That makes it even easier. While punching the number into his phone (he has it memorized, after all), he carries on their conversation for a moment.

"That's what I'm saying," he answers, with a bit of forced excitement. "I keep telling people, I understand that it looks like it's coming from the police department, but it's obviously coming from the building next door. I mean, from the wrong angle, sure, but if you look at it the right way, it's clearly not a police department asset."

Fortunately, knowing that mom works at Gotham General is going to make the real reason why Jim is sticking to Stephanie like glue much easier. He's worried that Stephanie may be being abused, of all things, by her father. It's a natural cop response, after all, and this way he can confront Mrs. Brown about it, rather than Stephanie herself.

Soon enough, Gotham General is on the phone. "Yes, this is Commissioner Gordon. Could I speak with... one moment." He puts his hand over the receiver. "Stephanie, what's mom's name?"

"Crystal Brown," Stephanie replies promptly, glancing back toward the police station. Sure. Bat signal comes from the building next door. And she's the Queen of England.

Abused by her father, no. Disliked by her father, yes. Totally dislikes everything her father represents, yes. But not abused by him. Not directly.

"Crystal Brown, please," echoes Jim. A moment later, "Yes, Crystal? My name is Jim Gordon, Commissioner of Gotham City Police." Beat. "Yes, everything is fine, thank you. I am coming to Gotham General with your daughter, Stephanie." Beat. "Well, yes. We found her at the police department. There are some minor injuries, nothing serious, but the EMT's decided it would be best if we had the ER give her a thorough examination."

There is a long pause, before Jim turns and offers the phone to Stephanie. "She wants to speak with you," he whispers.

And yeah... there's apology on his face. Unfortunately, that call just had to be made.

Stephanie sighs, covering her eyes for a moment, but takes the phone. Before her mother has a chance to say anything she's speaking. "I'm fine, mom. It was stupid. Some girls from school dared me, and I fell. I promise I'm okay. The Commissioner's been very nice and he's bringing me in to make sure there are no internal injuries, but it's just some bruises and my pride, I pro..."

And here her mother can be heard tinnily yelling at her daughter. The words are indistinct. Maybe the occasional phrase -- 'when I get home' and 'ass is grass' and so on -- but it's the ranting of an angry parent who's worried about her child, not something more troubling. Stephanie's eyes may be visible in the rear-view mirror, a little wry, a little tired, mostly apologetic.

During that time, Jim looks back forward, giving Stephanie some privacy. However, from the corner of his eye, he glances toward the officer driving the car, who gives Jim a knowing glance. Cops have their own way of speaking that often borders on telepathy, it's true. Jim knows he shouldn't meddle, and the cop is trying to tell him just that. Perhaps he won't have to speak to Crystal about this, but... there's still something about this all that just feels off. It was the way Stephanie spoke about her dad.

Thing is, there's enough to go on to figure out who her dad really is. So, in that moment, Jim looks back forward, giving the cop enough of a signal that he'll lay off. At least for now.