People like me, people like you

[Artemis Davon]

Time: 9:00 am
Date: September 3rd
Place: Union Square, Manhattan
Status: Open to any and everyone

The LL train breaks squealed and sparked as it slowed towards the Union Square station to offload it’s human cargo before squealing off again in a clanking manner. Here in the morning sea of bodies, Artemis was just one more added to the grind and no one bothered to take a second look at the tall woman with sunglasses and a scarf wrapped around her head, obscuring her features. The woman stepped from the platform and climbed the steps behind an elderly couple and the smell of the tightly compacted people gave way to the strange spice of exhaust and noise of the open air. Union Square was always packed at this time, especially with commuters coming from Brooklyn and making the train switches. A taxi’s horn blared and the blend of expletives were exchanged and no one bothered to look up.

Artemis glanced at her watch, noted the time and knew she had a few hours to kill before she had to make the meeting. Dressed in her work clothes, a simple attire of a gray skirt and white blouse with a matching gray jacket, she deemed herself more Casablanca spy then millionaires and that suited her fine. Get out, Geoff said, Get some air and for crissakes some sun. Her good friend had wandered into her office like a lost child and slid into her desk chair while she walked back and forth with blueprints in hand, two pens in her hair and a third in her mouth. She threw one of her pens to chase him from her chair and settled into it before unraveling the blueprints to find it was the wrong one.

She groaned and dramatically dropped her head to the table and was spared the welcoming pain by the quick hand of her friend. He cut off all rebuttal and threats of firing incompetent idiots and suggested she take a break. Working through the night warranted that. Get out, do the tourist thing, make it back to the office for a quick shower and change of clothes before setting off to a afternoon luncheon with a set of expensive foreign clients. Artemis choose not to reveal that she hadn’t been in the office the entire night and knew he’d frown at her suiting up for some nighttime activities. Instead she took to glaring at the unfazed man until he compromised if she got out for a few hours, he would not pester her the rest of the day. That was almost too good to pass up. It had been her suggestion to take the train, much to the chagrin of her secretary and with a quick wave and a promise to be back in time, she was out the door and bypassing her driver with a smile.

Now she meandered the square and paused to watch a small protest rally that had slowly navigated it’s way to the center. The mantra of chants bled into each other making them indiscernible until they passed with signs clarifying their protest. Artemis continued on and bought a coffee from a vendor and set her purse beside her as she rummaged through the creamers to find a full one before she caught the little hand that was reaching for her purse. The woman glanced down at the wide eyed little boy as she took a sip of her too hot coffee and swallowed. The boy, no older then seven stared back defiantly in a raccoon mask of dirt and sooty brown hair and arched his leg back intending to kick her.

“I wouldn’t do that, young man.” The grip on the boy’s hand tightened experimentally, not enough to hurt but strong enough to get her point across and Artemis glanced up past her brow and spotted an older girl staring at them. She fidgeted with the fraying edge of her filthy coat and glanced nervously behind her. The boy contemplated the stranger’s words and slowly he brought his leg down but sized up the pale hand on his and wondered if he bite hard enough, it would work. Just as he was opening his mouth the woman let him go and when he turned to run she caught the edge of his coat.

“Now, wait a minute and settle down,” the soft motherly voice drew sharply and like any child, the boy obeyed the inner rule of maternal command. He was thwarted by the thick buttons anyway and losing his coat now would be a extra burden on his sister. He stared at her as she steeled herself and marched towards the pair intending to grab him and run before she stumbled over herself when the woman looked at her again.

“Look at me.” The boy obediently, like a kicked puppy glanced up and glowered at the adult. His bottom lip stuck out fiercely and Artemis couldn’t help the upturn of her lips. “Are you hungry?”

[archer]

Protests were always hard for him. The journalist in him wanted to blend in with the crowd of faces contorted in shouts of various chants and catchy utterances. A part wanted to move into a sea of placards announcing the dangers or outrages inherent in the city’s socio-political structure; to wade through with pen in hand to take down the thoughts and feelings of the protestors and the protested.

On the other hand, there were always going to be opportunists: those who feed off of the collected, pent-up anger of the masses for their own benefit. Turn a peaceful demonstration into a rioting mob so that they can have an excuse to loot storefronts for a shiny new television. It was people like that who made him want to bring his quiver out. It was the push between the idealist, the beaten down trying to change their lot and the pull from the realist who says that in any number there will be the black sheep wanting to set the city ablaze.

Before his sister was taken from him, he rarely operated in the daylight, regulating the fourth holder of the Archer name to night patrols while Juan Ramón spend his days pouring over fonts instead of pounding in faces. More and more, however, the pursuit of justice was pushing out the man behind the mask. He knew the nature of this business was violence. He knew what was in store for himself and his family by choosing to fight the worst the city had to offer but it was consuming him. Every day a little bit more of Juan Ramón was buried under the weight of el arquero’s mantle.

He decided to move on with his patrol. The social protest against South African apartheid was more or less peaceful and didn't seem like it was going to be exploding any time soon. Plus, he would be near by if his instincts were off.

El granate leapt down from a fire escape with the dramatic flair he usually accorded such things. A well placed hand a bit of luck were all the kept his wig and cordobés from tumbling to the ground without him. He let his silver half-cape fall to his shoulders dramatically before flashing his pearly whites toward an onlooker and fading into the crowd, as well as a man dressed as garishly as this can with the sun still out.

Social interactions: It was this sort of thing that always leads to complications. The golden rule for heroes -- and one would assume for the other side for much the same reason -- was to never, ever reveal your civilian identities to outsiders. This is simply enough when you’re out on patrol: wear a mask, try to change your voice, even your posture. Do anything that would make the average observer disregard any connection between your face and your mask. Even when they were dealing with a threat from something as high as a costumed villain or as low missing a few dimes by way of greedy hands, consistency was the key. It would probably end your career if your foppish persona started veering into your normal street slang

The Archer maintained the voice distinction, in two separate languages. He went for a deeper and more authoritative grain to his vocalizations when speaking as the Archer this was both a reflection of practice, trying to be a threat to the villain and someone who gets things done to the victim. But it was also cultural, playing up machismo for all its worth. Additionally, while the accent remained the same in English, in Spanish the Archer spoke as a Mexican would, while Juan Ramón’s accent was his natural Castilian-influenced accent. The trouble came from his eyes.

This was another one of the cardinal rules of costumed hero-work. Never get involved with your clients. Never. Never. Never. For one it was unprofessional and could get you slapped with law suits. Gone were the days when the Green Avenger could get away with busy hands. Secondly, and just as important was that romantic entanglements lead to messiness down the road either through black mail, nothing said trouble like a jaded lover finding out your identity; or through either party having the same extracurricular activities which can range from awkward to deadly depending of if they work for the same side. Finally, they could be put in danger if you get too close, as the lesson from his family showed.

It probably didn’t help that he decided to start playing up the flirtatious nature he often affected with the Archer. Even if he usually just did it with disinterest, lying to his charges for the sake of mystique. This one got the mixed signals between his characteristic affectation of charm and interest and the fight between a need for disinterest and a want for something more. Flecha ran his fingers across the brim of his hat, before tipping the cordobés up a bit to reveal his jade-shaded mask and a set of pearly-whites. In his younger days he would have clicked his heels dramatically and fell into a bow but he had been clubbed in the skull one too many times to continue that, so an additional nod would have to be sufficient.

“This thieving little boy is not bothering you, is he, señora?” While the woman was going the maternal route, Juan Ramón decided to give the children some tough love. "You know, you are lucky that it was someone as kind as her you were trying to rob from and not somebody like -- have you kids heard of a man named Reed? -- Maybe you haven't. He's a man like me, who dresses in a mask and fights the bad guys just like me. But, he doesn't like when little boys and girls steal. If you were caught by him, he would have taken your hand at the wrist." He grabbed the boy's hand in illustration, assuming that Davon does not intervene. Flecha also kneels to be eyeball to eyeball with the boy to really hammer in the point. "And cut it off right there." his finger slides across the boy's skin. "So, we're going to be careful, aren't we?" The masked sociopath would probably find it a point of pride that the Archer was using him as a boogie man but, that was neither here nor there.