Red Hood meets Marvel

An Easy Night

A/N: Edited December 30, 2018

   In the street below them sat a little, aging diner; the kind with cracked vinyl booths, peeling paint, leaky, stained, ceiling tiles, and overly greasy food. The neon sign in the window pronounced the restaurant was open, but the five gunmen inside threatening the families and staff seemed to have the opposite effect of welcoming customers in. From where Hood and Nightwing were poised on the building across the way, Nightwing perched on a tiny window ledge several stories up, and Red Hood slightly below upon one of the city's many gargoyles, they could make out around twelve individuals being threatened, most huddling low, tucked into their booths, and if that wasn't possible, under the tables. Only two of individuals were standing, one who looked like a cashier and the other was another staff member that stood protectively next to them, both behind a wooden countertop.

The gunmen themselves were wearing deep bronze drama masks, and were waving around guns that Hood had never seen before, and taking into consideration the sheer number of guns that Hood had seen in his life, that was saying something. They reminded Hood of some of the alien tech that he had seen with Roy and Kori on some of their Outlaw missions, and yet none of the alien tech he'd seen before looked quite like this. The guns resembled a motherboard from the innards of a gutted computer; with wires twisting around the weapon randomly, and in the gaps between the wires at the weapons core shone a bright, ominous blue light. There were random bits of metal covering the weapon that seemed to be there to protect arbitrary bits of wiring, as well as to make a grip for the weapon, though not one suited for human hands. The way the grip was designed, Hood would say it was made for a much larger creature, as well as one with only three fingers. They were certainly not the type of guns that Hood was used to seeing. How these men had gotten a hold of the weapons was definitely a mystery, and one he was sure they'd be interrogating them about as soon as this was over.

"You ever seen weapons like that, Wing?" Hood asked. He knew Nightwing had had his own adventures beyond Earth, it was possible he'd come across something like this on one of his missions, even if Hood himself could not say the same.

"Can't say I have. I take that to mean you haven't either then?" Nightwing replied from his perch, the vigilante's eyes never leaving their prey.

"Never."

"Welp. Best avoid them in any case." Nightwing said, his voice uplifting into a chipper tone.

"Yes, because I totally wanted them to hit me before you said that." Hood said, rolling his eyes at his brother.

"And I couldn't have that could I!"

That one earned the blue and black clothed hero a sharp look, before Hood turned back to the robbery taking place below them. It was looking like the robbers were starting to get nervous, though one of them was more obvious than the others. The thief in question was shifting their weight back and forth, and kept anxiously glancing at the door every few seconds. That was always a bad mix; anxious generally meant trigger happy, and if Nightwing and Hood didn't step in soon they were going to get someone in there killed.

"You distract the robbers, I get the civilians out?" Hood asked, already shooting off a line and moving to swing through the restaurant's window. They'd get it replaced afterwards.

"Deal!" Nightwing called out after him, flipping off his perch and launching his own line to set him bursting through the same window. No need to cause more damages than necessary, even if they both knew the Wayne foundation would cover the costs. The Foundation was always willing to help with damage costs caused by criminal (and vigilante, though they didn't advertise it as such) actions.

Bursting in like this, Hood was able to down two of them with rubber bullets before the thieves realized what was happening, but they recovered quickly and immediately started firing on them with bright blue beams of light. Hood hit the ground rolling his momentum off, before springing up and kicking over a table to use as cover from whatever the fuck it was they were shooting at him. Nightwing, acrobat that he was, didn't have to do the same, already spinning, flipping, rolling, and twisting, and all in all contorting his body in quite impossible ways as he danced around the blasts from the robbers strange weapons.