A sketchy bar, Baltimore, Friday Afternoon

[soniaroadsqueen]

Dante had found them a great bar. Dingy, grimy, and cheap. In what Ringo was pretty sure was one of the worse parts of town. Despite the time of day, they weren't the only one's there. There were also the sorts of people you might expect to be in a sketchy bar on a Friday afternoon.

People who Ringo wasn't even paying attention to. "Is whiskey the best way to do this?" she asked, glancing over at Dante. "That's what you usually have, right?"

She probably shouldn't be getting drinking advice from Dante, but it wasn't like she had anyone else to get it from anymore.

[ooc: Expecting one.]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

In open spaces, Kathy had always been faster than him. Up close, though, where it was more reflexes than just general speed, Dante outclassed most people on the island. Maybe almost everybody. He didn't get crowded unless he wanted to be crowded.

He ignored the rest of the bar as he slipped right out of her trajectory, appearing behind her-- and tried to shove her into the wall. Not hard enough to crack it, but definitely hard enough to render her immobile.

[soniaroadsqueen]

She hadn't expected to get into a, well, whatever this was, so Ringo wasn't riding the Thorn Road. So she was fast, and flexible, but not at the top of her game. And the alcohol may not have been doing anything for the anguish that still came over her in waves, it had done a number on her reflexes.

Which meant that she barely had time to spin in place before Dante shoved her backward. Fortunately, Ringo had plenty of practice falling hard, so she her body went limp automatically. She slammed into the wall, but all that practice meant that she didn't even get the breath knocked out of her.

Now she was glaring at Dante, clearly contemplating something pretty ill-advised.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Kathy threw me away," Dante said flatly, closing in on her. "She threw Anders away, after promising the guy a future where he'd be safe. She threw you away, too. And why? Because she wanted to put on a fucking costume and play superhero."

He was watching her movements closely. He'd had to fight drunk too many times to count. "How the fuck are you still defending her fucking bullshit?"

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo went completely still. It wasn't that she thought Dante was right. Kathy hadn't thrown them away.

But she had decided that they weren't as important as saving strangers.

That would have been tough, but Ringo could have dealt with it. But Kathy also hadn't asked for help. Hadn't offered the chance to make that same decision.

She felt like her eyes were burning, locked on Dante's as she took a deep breath. Then another. Each coming faster and faster as she began to hyperventilate. Time to mount the Thorn Road. Once she was there, then she could present Dante with a counter-argument.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante frowned, taking a step back. He didn't realize he'd manifested Rebellion until he heard a loud intake of breath behind him, and the sound of the bartender picking up a phone.

"Ringo..." he said, warning in his voice.

[soniaroadsqueen]

She couldn't hear that warning over the sound of blood pounding in her ears.

And then she was rushing him again. Casual ATs or not, they were still a pair that she'd built, and they meant she could move almost as fast as Dante. Sure, changing directions was trickier for her, sure, but in a straight line that wouldn't matter.

[rebelseekspizza]

They were still in a small bar. There wouldn't be a lot of room for her to pick up speed.

It was still way too close. Dante managed to vault onto the bar a split second before Ringo hit him, yelling out a, "Woah!" as he nearly trampled the barkeeper. He could swear he still felt the brush of Ringo's arm against his.

Fuck the sword. The sword wasn't gonna stop her. He had Ebony and Ivory drawn on her within seconds. "Ringo, stop!"

He wouldn't actually shoot her if it came down to it. But he could blow out one of the chandeliers real easy if he needed to.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Stopping would be smart. She didn't even really want this fight. Sure, Dante had said something to piss her off, but not because he'd been totally wrong. In fact, it had pissed her off because of how close to right it had been.

Which was probably why she still wasn't thinking rationally. Well, that and the shots. Those kind of made it hard to make good decisions.

So she wasn't stopping, merely adjusting her trajectory to follow him up onto the bar, speeding along the wooden surface toward him. Her eyes were locked on Dante, tunnel vision in full effect. She was aware of her surroundings, but only in that she knew what was wear and how she could use it for mobility. No thought given to how the terrain might be used against her.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Get out of here!" Dante snapped at the bartender. And the rest of the bar, really. At least the former got the fucking clue, rushing out of the way and bursting outside through the back door.

Of course, that left Dante no time to do something like shoot Ringo's AirTrek. He was moving again, darting sideways, back over the bar, along the wall and straight past Miss Fucking Nuts over there.

Fine. Plan Chandelier it was. He backed towards the back of the bar real fast.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo was so focused in on Dante that she wasn't really cognizant of the patrons of the bar scrambling out of the way. Mostly because Dante was armed, though the crazy girl skating on the bar probably didn't help.

But not paying attention was pretty dangerous when you were going as fast as Ringo was, and one of the regulars made a huge miscalculation. He must have thought he could dive across to cover faster than Ringo could get down the bar, and he was wrong. She noticed he sprawled halfway across the thing, right in her path, a heartbeat too late.

Her toe clipped his shoulder. It wasn't enough to actually knock her down, but it the instinctive movement she made to recenter her balance threw her off her intended path of movement, and she skipped off a table to one side and then landed on the floor. Since she was pointing the wrong way, she had to spin and slow down, reorienting herself toward Dante again.

At least he was hard to miss.

[rebelseekspizza]

It bought Dante all the time he needed to line up his shot. Not that he really needed a lot of time for that, period. He waited until she spun and slow and got ready to get at him again. There was a sweet spot of timing between 'not doing much' and 'actively hurting Ringo' that he had to hit, and it was coming...

right...

now.

The hand holding Ivory shot up, firing a rapid-fire burst into the mixture of cable and wire that kept the shoddy, cheap chandelier tied to the roof. It came crashing down with a loud, lurching noise, slamming into the ground.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Had we mentioned that Ringo wasn't paying enough attention to her surroundings? Because she still wasn't.

And Dante had timed things perfectly. The chandelier came down almost behind her, but it bumped her back on the way down, throwing her balance forward, and then managed to tangle with her ankle. She could have recovered from that bump easily, but with her ankle suddenly caught, she couldn't pull it forward to catch her weight, and she tumbled to skid across the floor, coming to a stop in the middle of the room.

And she stayed there, breath coming heavily, but seemingly drained. It was like all that anger, all that aggression, had just seeped out of her there on the floor.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante slid his guns back into their holsters.

He walked towards Ringo without saying a word. Squatted. And tried to lift her right up off the floor.

They couldn't stay here.

[soniaroadsqueen]

She looked up at him, expression blank, but let him scoop her up. She didn't seem injured. At least not physically.

Given that this was Ringo, and given how furious she had just been, she seemed awfully biddable. She was staring up at him, eyes wide, but didn't say anything for the moment.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante gave the general devastation of the bar one more look. People staring at them, people running outside, a chandelier broken on the floor, a bunch of shatered beer bottles.

Yeah. That seemed about right.

He carried Ringo out the door like she didn't weigh more than a feather. "Hold on," he said tersely, looking up. He jumped, the air solidifying for a moment under his feet as he pushed off a second time, and landed neatly on the fire escape.

(He thought for a second about Kathy bitching up a storm about gravity, the first time he did it, and then rudely shoved the thought aside.)

[soniaroadsqueen]

When he told her to hold on, Ringo sort of automatically reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. Not that it seemed like he needed her to to keep her in place.

She stared up at him, expression softening.

"Sorry," she mumbled quietly.

Not a word she used very often.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah," Dante said.

He went up the fire escape pretty quickly, not stopping until they hit the roof. "You gonna take the AirTrek off if I put you down?"

[soniaroadsqueen]

She stared at him in silence for a couple of long seconds, then nodded ever so slightly. "If you want."

It'd leave her barefoot, bu she wanted him to know she really was sorry.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yes."

Barefoot, they could handle somehow. Maybe Dante'd have to sober up and then drive them back to Fandom, or something. But Ringo on AirTrek was clearly a bad fucking idea right now.

He set her down gently.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo took a deep breath and slowly bent forward to unlace the ATs. Funny. Her fingers seemed to be shaking. When did that start up?

It made it a lot harder than it normally would have been, but she eventually managed to get the first off, setting it next to her and turning her attention to the other foot.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante let out a soft sigh.

He walked to the edge of the building and peered down, trying to see how bad the chaos was. "Cops are going to be here soon," he said.

Good thing he'd parked the bike in an alley a little whiles from here.

[soniaroadsqueen]

She finally manage to finish unlacing and pulling off her other AT. An action that took a lot more concentration than it should have, really. Ringo set it aside as well, then pulled he knees in and wrapped her arms around them before looking over at Dante.

"Hmm?" She hadn't exactly heard what he said there.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Cops are going to be here soon," Dante repeated. "We can't stay here."

His expression was hard and completely unreadable. "Let's move."

He walked away from the edge, speedwalking towards the next rooftop.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Oh." Right. Because she'd started a bar fight.

Well, that was a first.

Ringo stood up, her ATs dangling from one hand, and took a couple of careful steps to follow Dante. Socks weren't the best for walking around on roofs, but she didn't say anything. After all, this was her fault, she could deal with walking around in socks.

[rebelseekspizza]

If he'd been in a better mood, Dante might've made more of an effort to make sure she wasn't uncomfortable, at least. But pain and sadness were boiling over into anger, still, and she'd just cut off his usual diversion something fierce.

She was lucky he hadn't just bailed on her. He was tempted.

"We need to get the bike," he said. "Then we'll hole up a few blocks from here, wait for it to blow over."