Steph had gone over it more than a couple of times during the drive to Arkham. Her name for the evening was Connie Aberthine (an old alias from Bruce) and she was a stand in nurse on the ward. In reality, Bruce needed intel on the staff's treatment of inmates when they didn't know he was watching, and what better way than become the staff? Some part of Steph held onto the hope that this was for Jason's sake, though.
The trick, though, was to keep the guards from not recognizing her from her recent visit. Steph had pulled her hair back in a ponytail and bought some fake glasses, lilac scrubs completely the impromptu disguise as she adjusted her ear piece connecting her to Oracle. Keeping her head down had been easy enough as she made her way to the nurse's station, but the real challenge laid in flying under everyone's radar. The night played out as such in her report back to Bruce:
11:00PM Sign in for graveyard shift (haha) at Arkham and am thankfully not recognized. Oracle's forged credentials allow me to blend in without question and I'm given the task of helping deliver everyone's meds for the night.
11:28PM I and a middle-aged woman named Kathy who's been pocketing oxycodone since we clocked in distribute to the lower risk inmates first. Looks like everyone is getting a slightly higher dosage tonight since a thunderstorm is coming and it "makes them harder to keep in their place." Kathy needs further investigation.
12:14AM I check his chart and Jason isn't on anything mind altering, just a sedative to keep him sleeping through the night. I guess even if they don't now who he is or what he's done, the doctors are cautious of their quieter patients. Probably smart. He's no better than when I saw him last time: So angry with himself and full of guilt to the point he hardly looks like himself, just lies in his bed without a word. He breaks my heart.
12:55AM Kathy and I move on to the higher risk inmates and I make an excuse to keep from visiting Joker in case he would realize what was going on. I thought for sure Victor Zsasz recognized me, but I acted frightened enough he dismissed the connection between me and the girl Robin he fought a couple of years back.
1:07AM I'm left completely alone for the first time all night to do some grunt work filing and I plug Oracle into the system directly to do some digging. Almost half of the staff (guards, nurses, and doctors) have been accused of multiple accounts of assault and battery in and out of the asylum. It's that nice?
2:16AM Calendar Man is woken by thunder and he screams about an anniversary today none of us have heard of. The guards rough him up more than necessary before another nurse can give him his tranquilizer and he will probably have a black eye by morning.
3:02AM A guard has me and another mousy nurse named Annie check with him on all of the sleeping inmates as a "medical precaution." If you ask me, most of the guards are decent people, but they're just itching for a fight 24/7. Everyone was asleep and no guard brutality this time around.
4:25AM Time for my dinner/breakfast break. It seems like around a quarter of the nurses are openly stealing prescription drugs.
5:19AM Hugo Strange wakes up long before the other and reads and rereads whatever books he has in his cell before he can swap them out that afternoon. He tells me I don't belong on the staff as I haven't threatened his life or "looked at him as though I were judging a genius I could not understand." I'll take that as both a compliment and a warning about the rest of the the nursing staff.
6:36AM A doctor tries for the fourth time apparently to interview Jason about his name. No luck, the guy is practically catatonic, regardless of his tranquilizer that night. Robins always were impossible to interrogate, even in a dank Arkham cell with nothing to lose. I leave him an extra blueberry muffin on his bed.
7:00AM I'm off the clock and free to come home and call in sick to school. Apparently I'm welcome back to work there again sometime. Possible connections for the future? I'll go back undercover in there again any day.
Happy birthday, Steph! I look forward to your party, and hope you're responsible in your choices (and with your alcohol intake). See you then!
Thanks, Babs! I promise not to have more than one glass of sangria (all that Alfred would let me serve). I can't wait to see you there! Bring a suit, we hang out in the hot tub.
I was just listening to this today, and I realized how poetic, but completely understandable these lyrics are. Which, of course, made me think about how true poetry is completely understandable, it just phrases what we already know into a prettier way. But it's so...I don't know if I can explain. When I first listened to it, I thought of people; "love" was a person who the singer was trying to wrap their head around, like, how could they be so perfect and so right? But now, maybe it's just "love" as a general concept, not necessarily someone specific, but all those things we attribute to love.
Anyway, I thought you might appreciate the poeticness, Guy!
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Funny How Love Is by Queen
Funny how love is everywhere just look and see
Funny how love is anywhere you're bound to be
Funny how love is every song in every key
Funny how love is coming home in time for tea
Funny funny funny oh
Funny how love is the end of the lies
When the truth begins
Tomorrow comes, tomorrow brings
Tomorrow brings love in the shape of things
That's what love is
That's what love is
Funny how love can break your heart so suddenly
Funny how love came tumbling down with Adam and Eve
Funny how love is running wild and feeling free
Funny how love is coming home in time for tea
Funny funny funny oh
From the earth below to the heavens above
That's how far and funny is love
At any time, anywhere
If you gotta make love do it everywhere
That's what love is
That's what love is
Funny how love is everywhere just look and see
Funny how love is anywhere you're bound to be
Funny how love is every song in every key
Funny how love is when you gotta hurry
'Cause you're late for tea
Funny funny funny oh
Tomorrow comes, tomorrow brings
Tomorrow brings love in the shape of things
At any time, anywhere
If you gotta make love do it everywhere
That's what love is
That's what love is
Creeper loooked over Babs' shoulder grinning. "Hey, this thing got any good games on here? I like those Team Fortress 2 vids but that whole capture the flag thing was never me. Lemme guess you're more of a MYST kinda gal?"
Zatanna was starting to feel as though she was drowning in a sea of papers. Form after form to sign, with mountains of paperwork to read through to ensure she was doing right by her magic show. A dozen or so checks lay off to the side as well, she had to still send off the paychecks for her most recent show back in LA before she took off for the rest of the summer. Dragging her hands across her face in frustration after signing another piece of endless paper, she almost felt like Backwards Speaking it all away for another day- when her phone vibrated sharply against the coffee table sitting in front of her.
The screen blinked the name 'Damian' to which Zee only groaned, leaning back against the couch yelling, "Damian- you can just ask me to make you another sandwich! This place isn't that big!" her voice echoed against the walls for a moment, yet no reply was given. Not even his signature "-tt-" which Zee had slowly begun to get used to from her relatively short stay at Wayne Manor.
Getting up from her seat, Zatanna reached for her phone to see exactly what the boy had wanted. Clicking through she read his message before dropping the phone in complete horror. He'd left. To go skiing. With Creeper and Billy. "Oh my god." she repeated over and over, soon finding herself sprinting through the house to try and stop him. Despite her efforts to keep Robin grounded, Zatanna soon knew it was already too late. He wouldn't have sent his message till he was already long gone and far from her reach. Racing back to her phone she scrambled to text both Babs and Steph in a panic,
[TEXT] DAMI GONE SKIING W/ CREEPER. I HAD NO IDEA. HELPHELPHELPHELP.
Collapsing down to a seat admits the paper piles she had been sorting through earlier, Zatanna let her head fall into her hands. Her hair pooling down across her arms and hands, while she tried to come up with something other than racing after the threesome. "I knew I should've put a bell on that kid..." she moaned to herself.
