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[sub][ [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/4971305]Prev[/url] ]  [color=#9fc5e8]“[b]FEAT OF CLAY[/b], Part IX”[/color]  [ [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5006530]Next[/url] ][/sub][/center][COLOR=steelblue][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]B L Ü D H A V E N[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT][INDENT][sup][color=goldenrod]Kane Sports Complex[/color][/sup][/INDENT][/INDENT]
[INDENT][color=silver]Cissy Chambers couldn’t remember the last time that she’d gotten off work this early.

For that matter, she couldn’t remember [i]ever[/i] leaving the office before Commissioner Grayson. At least, until recently. Dick seemed serious about the foster parent thing, punching the clock and taking liberal leave so that he was working an actual [b]reasonable[/b] schedule. 

This had the unfortunate effect of causing her and the other lieutenants to actually do their jobs for a change, as Dick wasn’t always there to answer questions when they popped up.

She pulled up in a marked police cruiser, but was in plain clothes. The little league had taken the field, a practice game where the team was divided up against themselves. It was like a free-for-all of chaos involving a slew of boys, aged nine to eleven, acting like wild animals while dressed in baseball uniforms. Most of the entertainment was to be found in the adults who were trying to focus all that excessive energy into swinging the bat at the object that the adults wanted the bat swung at.

She found Dick on the Blüdhaven side, lounging in the stands watching lazily from the sidelines. “So which one’s Jason,” the woman asked, taking a seat beside the commissioner.

[color=#9fc5e8]“Perfect timing,”[/color] the man offered quietly. One finger singled out a gangly child that had popped out of the dug out and was approaching the plate. Cissy could see the back of his jersey was marked with the number 28. [color=#9fc5e8]“He’s up at bat now.”[/color]

The two were quiet as the boy stepped up to the plate. On the first pitch, it was a swing and a miss. 

[i]Calculated[/i], of course. Dick had talked to Toyboy about how [i]Jason[/i] needed to appear flawed. Build mistakes into the machine logic. Taking Dick’s words to heart, the doll had designed a random number generator as a sort of internal d20 system for determining success or failure, and then adjusted the physical output to correlate.

It was not perfect. Sometimes Jason meant to merely hit it toward first base and instead landed it in the outfield, but it had helped to build in missteps and errors that furthered the illusion of humanity.

The second pitch went wide.

The third was angling for the hit box and Jason’s internal calculations had arrived at a natural 20. There was a loud [b][i]crack[/i][/b] as the bat connected with the ball, sending it far and wide for the first home run of the game.
 
“I’ll admit, he’s not what I was expecting.”

The comment, or observation, from the Cissy Chambers peanut gallery caused an eyebrow to raise up along Dick’s already furrowed brow. Turning his head just slightly, the man echoed back the words as he uttered, [color=#9fc5e8]“You were expecting..?”[/color]

Cissy flashed the man a look that very clearly said she wasn’t buying it. Dick knew [i]exactly[/i] what she meant. “He stole the tires off a police vehicle in Trenton.”

She didn’t ask if he knew. She knew who she was dealing with, she’d worked for Dick Grayson since she’d joined the Blüdhaven Police straight out of the police academy. He knew. Probably more about the kid’s past arrests, juvenile convictions, and time spent in state custody than she did.

That boy-next-door smile that Dick wore vanished. Instead, the man seemed oddly stoic as he commented, [color=#9fc5e8]“I know that juvenile record access is for [i]official business[/i] only.”[/color]

Cissy pursed her lips, but decided against saying anything. The two sat in brooding silence as the gangly boy in the number 28 jersey completed his jog around the bases and was returning to the dug out.

[color=#9fc5e8]“I grew up in the circus.”[/color]

At the statement, Cissy turned to look back over at the man. [color=#9fc5e8]“Everyone sees the lights. The clowns. The bright veneer of the greatest show on Earth. The truth is, circus folk aren’t always the most [i]honest people[/i],”[/color] Dick remarked candidly. While candor had rarely been a problem, Cissy had to admit she wasn’t expecting him to just drop the other shoe. [color=#9fc5e8]“My parents are dead because of the organized crime that followed Haley’s Circus.”  [/color]

Out on the field, the coaches had called the game and were getting the boys to huddle up. 

In the stands, the awkward silence that followed Dick’s proclamation finally ended when he said, [color=#9fc5e8]“The point is, that boy’s not any different from me when Old Man Wayne pulled me up into that ivory tower of his outside of Gotham.”[/color]

It was a nice speech. But Cissy had done her homework on Dick as much as she had the young Master Todd. “You don’t have a juvenile record,” the woman stated flatly.

[color=#9fc5e8]“That [i]you[/i] know of,” [/color]Dick tossed back at the woman. Then the boy-next-door smile suddenly returned. A flash of movement was Cissy’s only warning, as a ten year old suddenly launched from out of the shadows to barrel at the commissioner.

It was the gangly kid in the number 28 jersey.

[color=#ffd700]“I hit a [b]home run[/b]!” [/color]Jason proclaimed proudly, seemingly ready to bounce into orbit with the plethora of excitement that exuded from him.

[color=#9fc5e8]“I saw!”[/color] Dick cheered, before hooking and arm around the boy. Physically turning the child toward the woman, Dick introduced the two of them, saying, [color=#9fc5e8]“Jason, this is Lieutenant Chambers. She’s a police officer with me.”[/color]

The boy’s face changed visibly at the revelation that she was police. Just like with Dick, it was all smiles one second and the next: [color=#ffd700]“Are you here to arrest me?”[/color]

Dick’s hand clapped down on the boy’s shoulder. [color=#9fc5e8]“No, she’s not here to arrest you,” [/color]he said. He was trying to force some mirth in his voice, but the already awkward tension in the air from the earlier conversation was only made more manifest by the fact that, not only was the boy serious, but they all knew [i]why[/i] he was serious.

[color=#ffd700]“Oh,”[/color] the boy uttered finally. Now, he just looked confused. [color=#ffd700]“Is this about the thing in Middletown?”[/color]

[color=#9fc5e8]“Middletown,”[/color] Dick echoed, doing a double take as the statement caught him off-guard. [color=#9fc5e8]“Middletown? [i]What[/i] [b]thing[/b] in Middletown?”[/color]

[color=#ffd700]“Nothing,”[/color] the boy chirped, even as his eyes darted off to the left. Then the floor. When he’d finally looked up again, he glanced at Cissy and said, [color=#ffd700]“[i]Uh[/i], [b]hi[/b]!”[/color]

Dick withdrew his hand just so that he could bury his face in it. With a long sigh, the man again placed a hand on the boy’s back as he looked over at Cissy. [color=#9fc5e8]“We were going to grab some dinner after this, care to join us?”[/color]

Mention of food made the kid all smiles again. Bouncing excitedly, the kid turned on Dick with a flurry of motion and energy. [color=#ffd700]“Oh! Can... can we, like... can we go to In and Out Burger? Bailey and Jaime both said they’re... they’re going to In and Out Burger after the game.”[/color]

As Dick looked from him to her, Cissy just gave a nod. “That works for me.”

Patting the boy on the back, Dick turned the boy back the way he had come. [color=#9fc5e8]“Okay, go change and we’ll head out,”[/color] the man said, pushing the boy off in the direction of the locker rooms.

As Jason bounded through the stands and then disappeared, Cissy heard Dick give another heavy sigh. [color=#9fc5e8]“I may be too old for this.”[/color]

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[s]Toyboy[/s] [i]Jason[/i] was [b]good[/b] at this.

With all the talking and running around, even Dick would have been fooled by how Jason played with the food without ever eating it. They’d gotten him a bottle of water rather than a soda, which had the benefit of being something that the doll could actually drink -- since it could be added to his normal water-fed cooling system.

By the time that everyone was done, Dick was confident that neither Cissy nor the other parents had any idea that Jason hadn’t had a single thing to eat the whole time that they were at the restaurant.

The Boy Wonder and the Toy Wonder were standing on the sidewalk, waving goodbye as Cissy Chambers got into her police car and drove off. Jason’s friends had already departed with their parents. After all, this was a school night for the real kids.

[color=#ffd700]“How was that?”[/color] Jason asked, turning his head up to look at Dick. 

Motioning the boy over toward the car, Dick offered, [color=#9fc5e8]“I thought the game went well.”[/color] As he made his way around to the driver’s door, Jason dove into the back seat from the passenger side.

[color=#ffd700]“So am I gonna get to play little league?”[/color] the doll asked. Dick heard a sound from the back and recognized it as that of a zipper being tugged open. 

As Dick started to drive away, he adjusted the rear view mirror to peer into the back. [color=#9fc5e8]“I figured it might help to fill your time with something other than video games,”[/color]the man noted.

Jason was changing in the backseat, donning the red and black costume. As he popped the domino mask into place, he started messing his head from how he usually styled it. [color=#ffd700]“Cool.”[/color]

That was it. All the effort Dick put into finding a little league that had a spot open. All the money that had gone into the registration, the equipment... falsifying a few medical documents... Those would at least come in handy if they stayed the course and Jason wound up enrolling in school.

All that for a one word answer. [i]Cool.[/i][/color][/INDENT]