The Prettiest Goo

Characters: Wally West Dick Grayson
Rated:
Summary: Nightwing and The Flash interrupt a strange delivery, that has even stranger properties.
OOC Date: Fri Mar 16 20:45:16 2018
IC Date: Fri Mar 16 20:46 2018
Where: Central City

Funny how the wind seems a lot colder when you're standing still on a rooftop. And waiting. And waiting. And… even more waiting. "I'm giving this another 20 minutes before I decide this was a wash," Nightwing is telling his partner. They're in an industrial complex on the outskirts of Central City, where he's /relatively/ sure what used to be an produce packing plant is now supposedly processing things a lot less healthy than bagged spinach- and more dangerous than the e-coli outbreak that shut the place down last year. And, since it was bought by a company no one in the city had heard of a few months back, the rate of accidental ODs in certain neighborhoods has spiked- not normally the sort of thing that would get a Bat's attention, but he swears it's connected to a larger ring in Gotham.

"The truck's on it's way. Remember, wait until they start unloading things before you make any moves. I need pictures of them using company property to move this stuff."

Nightwing's 'partner', one 'Flash', is already bored. He was bored many minutes ago. Which is why he sped over to Flashy Burger, a quaint little local burger joint celebrating the Flash, and he's sitting down on one of the large and presently inoperative due to the season air conditioners, munching on burger #15, and talking with a mouthful of food, "Wash, huh? Where'd you get this information anyways?" He makes a wiggly motion with his hand, "Your fancy hideout computer or something?" Flash grins, and starts on burger #16, "Sure you don't want one?"

Then, Flash rolls his eyes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pictures are so sloooow though." With his free hand he holds up the tiny camera that Nightwing lent him. "You make this too complicated," he complains, good-naturedly.

"So like, do they just keep stuff under the heat lamp in case you drop by, or like-" Dick starts to wonder about the Fast Food bill, having done the math and concluding there was no way they were cooking fresh food for his friend every time he made the trip to and from the burger joint. "Nevermind. Look, if this just turns out to be a bunch of broke farmers selling weed, I'll cover your cereal budget for the next month, I promise," Nightwing assures him, and to his credit, he /did/ pay for those burgers, too.

Minutes pass as the truck backs its way into a loading back. Beep. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand. Beep. "Annnd here we go-"

It is definitely not broke farmers selling weed. Weed doesn't glow like that, generally. Or make you feel a little dizzy when you look directly at it?

"Okay. Two months."

Dick Grayson has reconnected.

Shoving the rest of the burger into his mouth with a few greedy gulps, Flash salutes, "Deal," he says, through a mouthful of burger and he picks up the camera, "See you down there. Try not to get in my way, rookie," he says cheerfully. Of course, Nightwing would be well aware Flash was a man of impulses, and didn't really tend to think before acting most times. That's why there's a movement of a red streak off the buildings roof and down to the ground.

Snap.

He zooms behind the truck and the crew. Snap.

Over to the other side. Snap Snap.

Then in front of the crew, and he snaps two more pictures, then calls, "Hey, guys, smile. You're on candid camera." And, as each of them turns their attention towards Flash? Well, he flashes them. But with the camera.

"The fuck-?!"

The flat, nasal Jersey accent is one givaway that they're not locals. They're also /surprised/ by the sudden arrival of the Flash. One of them flinches away from both the Flash and the flash, hurling the glass jar in his hand at the ground.

Nightwing certainly arrives slower, but the truck's driver is on the ground by the time anyone's noticed him.

Something in that jar is glowing, indicating that an old spaghetti sauce jar is /probably/ not the ideal vessel for the liquid inside it. It's actually kind of pretty- blues and purples and swirling dots of firefly lights.

What happens if this hits the ground? Do we want to find out?

Flash takes one more picture of the guy throwing the jar, and then the camera is tucked into his belt and the next thing anyone sees is him, holding the jar, and giving the thug who threw it a disapproving look. He makes a 'yuck' face, "I'm pretty sure that whatever this is, the glowing part means it's bad," he tells Nightwing, with his best matter-of-fact voice.

Curiously, he tips the jar from one side, then to the other, careful to 'not get any on him' but fascinated nonetheless the same way that a childhood boy would be fascinated with a 'slime' toy that glowed in the dark that might gross out his mom, or his older sister.

"You know," Flash turns to the throwing-thug, "You probably should be more careful with this." He clucks his tongue, disapprovingly.

The jar is warm to the touch. And something about the liquid inside is… strangely inviting. The moment Wally's hands close around the glass, something starts to suggest that whatever this stuff is- it's /really/ really cool. What would something like this look like under the microscope? It couldn't hurt to get a little sample to have a look at, right? It's almost like the ghosts of professors past are whispering in his ear- look at it. Study it. Visions of discovery and scientific journals and his name in so many papers- /his/ name. Not the Flash's name. It's practically a thesis in a jar.

Something about that seems way, way more important than the motorcycle engine revving up on the other side of the building. The one that Nightwing, on foot with no skyscrapers to swing from, has absolutely no way of catching up to.

Distracted? Wally? Highly probable. Especially in this case. His face slackens, and his eyes move into focus on the really, really attractive green gel. He asks, aloud, "Man, what -is- this stuff?" In a shockingly entranced, and mesmerized voice. Clearly, the mysterious goo has it's insidious hooks into his grey matter rather neatly. He swishes the jar a little bit, "Hey, you got a microscope on you?"

"What- no, let that go, jeez-" Nightwing starts to object, and the very fraction of a second he realizes the tone of Flash's voice has changed, he forgets about the escaping mastermind.
"Hey! Hey! Put that /down/, you have no idea-" his voice sounds distant. The ground sure is close though. How did it-

"I said put it DOWN." Nightwing leaps to tackle his friend, baton swinging down towards the wrist connected to the hand holding the glass- once he has him pinned.

Flash doesn't even hear Nightwing at first, and even when he's first pinned, Wally's brain is only slightly jogged as his vision is disconnected from the attractive green goo. "Hu—," he starts, and then, "Ow!" just as the baton snaps his wrist and causes him to drop the glass jar. Hopefully it's not going to shatter.

There's a few moments, and then his head shakes, and he gets a dopey look on his face, "Awww, man," he says, as he realizes what happened. At least, enough to realize he's been brainwashed. Again.

He facepalms his head, "What did I miss?" before yelling, "Ow," again at rubbing at his wrist, wincing.

Luckily, the jar doesn't fall far enough for it to break. It rolls in an awkward arc until it rests against the back left tire of the delivery truck- the truck with at least a hundred or so more jars of the mysterious goo. "I owe you a cereal factory, I think," says Nightwing. Lights shimmer in the jars, shifting between the shades of a sickly, radioactive sunset.

"Shit," he says, suddenly. "There's no way to track whoever that was." He hadn't even gotten a good look at whoever it was before he was having to stop Wally from opening the most dangerous jar of jam he's ever seen.

Flash frowns, then remembers — and he grins, "Two cereal factories," he says, with a wide, wide grin like he just won yet another race against another so-called Speedster. With his uninjured arm, he pulls the camera out from where it was snugged into his belt, and pulls up the digital end of the snapshots. "Bingo. Though, he didn't say cheese." And, the red speedster hands over the camera, and the full-frontal picture of a very surprised thug, prior to motorcycle-hopping.

Then, he sticks a toe towards the jar on the ground without touching it, "What is this stuff, anyways?"

"No idea. This was supposed to be weapon parts," Nightwing says, crouching down for a closer look- with no physical contact. "Huh. Camera doesn't like it-look," he holds up the camera Wally jut handed him- on the LCD screen, where the liquid in the jar should be, is just… dead-pixel dark. Shots from different angles have the same effect.

"Magic, probably. Look at the runes etched on the jar lid."

It's a familiar tone of voice- one can practically hear him rearranging puzzle pieces in his head. Not just the facts and names and dates, but the situations involved, the feelings, the potential motives, even as he assesses the damage around him- to property and people. "Ah- sorry about the-" he makes the motion of swinging the escrima stick down. "Is that going to heal OK on its own, or should I set it?"

"Weird," agrees Flash, about the magic jars, and the way they avoided actually being photographed. Then, he holds his wrist, winces just a little bit, "I'll be fine," he assures his partner with honest sincerity. "Grodd's given me worse," he says, mildly, the mind-controlling ape on his mind because he recently sent the jerk to jail, and he also messed with Flash's head.

"You know somewhere we can turn this into? Or, should I call the Defenders in on this one?"

"Make the call. But I'm keeping the pictures," Nightwing answers. "And start picking out your factories."

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