War Crimes begins (open)

[Dick Grayson]

Day jobs. Nearly everyone who spent their nights running around in a mask and cape had one, and Dick Grayson was no exception. He was on his way to work, being a Bludhaven detective. He wore a long overcoat, light brown in color, over a white button up long sleeve and a pair of khakis. He decided to walk today, rather than take one of his motorcycles. He needed the fresh air.

Dick reached the building in no time at all, and made a bee line for some coffee. As he poured the deep brown and piping hot drink into a paper cup he noticed something strange. Others in the building seemed to be looking at him..whispering to one another. Dick brushed it off and started towards his office, noticing the lights within were already on. He took one step inside and found himself facing three suited men.

"FBI", one of them said as he presented a badge. "We're going to be needing to speak to you Mr. Grayson."

Dick peered at the three of him carefully, and then over to his ransacked desk. Against his better judgment, Dick took a seat and waited. He was after all, very curious.

"As you may know..a number of former Untouchables have been causing chaos now that they have returned home. We have also found that many may be guilty of war crimes..", the man leaned forward. "We have also found out that you may be in contact with several of them under the alias Nightwing.."

Dick Grayson quickly found himself glaring at the men. It would be two hours later, after having denied having any contact with any of the wanted persons...and refusing to become an informant when the men finally took their leave. Dick decided to do the same, however as he started down the street he could not help but find himself being followed. He walked faster and so did the black car that followed. After gradually increasing his speed several times, he began to flat out run.

One glance behind him and he found militant hummers just at his heel. "Times like this I wish I could fly...", he said as he hurled himself in a narrow alleyway suddenly.

[Oracle]

Dick's cell phone begane to buzz. Back in Gothem Oracle was scrolling through page after page of fresh newspaper articles about the new installment of criminals. The untouchables? She could hardely believe it. Sure, the government had never made life easy for those who took the law into their own hands, but that they would blame the super powered population for doing their duty.

She shook her head, loking down at the communicator in her hand. The first person she had thought to contact was Batman, but Bruce was out of the country for the while on 'buisness.' So obviously she called Nightwing. If anybody would have information first hand, it was him, and for this she needed confirmation.

*c'mon.* she pleaded the machine. *pick it up.*

[Dick Grayson]

Dick Grayson jumped a fence with ease, unfortunately ripping his slacks in the process. A quick glance behind him and he seemed to have lost his followers. He breathed a sigh of relief as he continued carefully trudging through the back alleys and tight passaged. In the pocket of his now torn beige slacks his cell phone vibrated continuously. Dick ignored it for the most part, trying to decide where to go to now. They would most likely be at his apartment by now...

However he heard Barbara's voice pleading to his voicemail. He slipped the phone out of his pocket and, still slightly out of breath, put the phone to his mouth.

"Hello?"

[Oracle]

Barbara sighed in relief when Dick answered his phone. He sounded out of breath and the red head hoped she hadn't caught him at a bad time. Of course, sometimes it seemed he was always in some sort of bad moment or another.

"It's me, Babs." She said, a little rushed. "I've just gotten some files from D.C. about the Untouchables. They're lableing them all as having committed war crimes. It's going to be in papers around the country tomarrow morning, have you heard anything about it yet?"

In the background, Oracle was typing rapidly, the tik tik tik of the keys echoing loudly in the dark empty room where she worked.

[Dick Grayson]

Dick slid down into a sitting position, and played with the tattered side of his clothing. He shook his head and sighed. How many clothes did the average vigilante go through, exactly? Probably a million dollars worth.

"I know who it is Babs", he said with a tiny smirk as she explained who was on the other side of the line.

But she wasn't in the mood for his jokes or banter, she seemed worried, and he soon found out the reason.

"All of them?", Dick gasped in disbelief. "It can't be everyone, at least not all at once. They will start of small before the manhunt begins. Where did you get the files? Bruce?"

Dick looked quickly to one side as peeked around the corner to be sure nobody was listening.

"I'll say I've heard about it!", he exclaimed. "Agents at my office, wanted to turn me into an informant. Gave chase.."

[Pepper]

Pepper Potts was sitting at her desk in Stark Towers, sipping coffee and scrolling through the list of emails she was going to have to filter through before reporting to Tony. There was a lot of junk mail, and she prided herself on being able to recognize and dump quickly. However, one message caught her eye. The subject 'Pepper' and the unrecognizable address led her to click on the message and open it.

The message contained a link and one word: "Beware."

Pepper clicked on the link and read the following.

She began to swear, forcefully and softly under her breath. She printed the page and leaped to her feet. She pulled open Tony's office doors to find he wasn't there, and turned and tore down to his workshop. "Mr. Stark!" she gasped as she practically fell in the door. She thrust the paper at him, eyes wide.

[Oracle]

"Nah," She said, calming down some. "Bat's is out of the country. Ted got it for me." She listened to him in silence. Behind her, one of her side monitors set off a beeping. It was the one in Stark Towers. The receptionist, Pepper Pots had an ungent paper for Tony. Zooming in Oracle read the email quickly.

"You'd think they'd to it that way," Barbara answered Dick, "But they seem to think if they can catch them by surprise they'll be able to get all the Untouchables in one fell swoop. How they plan to surprise them when it's going into papers tomarrow..."

She trailed off and shook her head. "We've got somebody on our side, though." She finally said distractedly. "Somebody's sent a warning note to Stark Towers, I'll bet some other's were sent out."

"Wait," She stopped, "They wanted you to play mole? How'de they find out that you were Nightwing in the first place?"

[Dick Grayson]

Dick buried his head in his hands. This was all so heavy, and he was horrified at what may happen. But none of it made sense. Not a lick of it.

"I don't think we should take this at face value", he said quickly into the phone as he stood up and peered down the empty alley, finally deciding it would be okay to continue walking.

"Something deeper maybe...", he whispered, half lost in his thoughts. "They know we would find out, there is no way they thought they could get by us...maybe they wanted us to know?"

Barbara brought him back though, and he cleared his throat to answer. "That is what I'd like to know", he paused and then sighed. "We may have a rat on our hands?"

[Oracle]

((I'm posting this simultainiously with Eliet Hacking which is how I get my info.))

"It's too possible to disreguard." She said back, skimming through her new information. "It would seem, though, that the Untouchable's were just a test run. I think they're trying to create a super army of those with powers. With something like that, our forces would be unstoppable, the stuff we could do with something like that..."

"What you're saying makes sense. If you're right they're just waiting for the news to get around to all the former Untouchables. The reaction will be aweful, then turn to population against recent acts. It would be too easy."

But listening to Dick, she said in a confident tone, "If someone's ratting on us, we've also got people in the high courts. People we can trust. For now, at least, it's just a matter of seeing who makes the first move."

[Iron Man]

Tony caught Pepper before she could fall and taking the at the same time "Where's the fire?" He asked as he helped her up then read the paper and swore "Where did you get this?" he asked finally wondering how Pepper got her hands in this kind of thing. "If this is all true we're going to have leave the tower its not going to be safe anymore. They'll send S.H.I.E.L.D. here to get us and I don't plan on being here." Tony said as he began to think of what he wanted to take he looked back at the suit wondering if he should take it with him then looked back at Pepper.

[Pepper]

Tony caught her and Pepper had the length of time for him to read the paper to straighten herself up. She pushed her hair behind her ears and cleared her throat, her body calming down from the adrenaline rush. Her hands were shaking and she clasped them in an effort to calm down.

When he asked her where she'd gotten it, she replied simply: "Anonymous tip. It was in my email box." She didn't mention it had been addressed directly to her or that the email - now that she thought about it - had a pattern she recognized. She just couldn't quite remember from where.

She noticed him eying the suit and looking around the Tower. "I can clear your computer and get everything on a couple of lockchips. I'm sure Happy or someone can help you load the suit into a car. You don't want to fly out of here in that, Tony. They'll..." her voice caught. She cleared her throat and continued. "They'll have no problem finding you. Um..." now her voice shook! What was going on? Just keep it together, don't panic! "after I put everything on the lockchips do you want me to wipe the hard drives? Or - I can put everything on a ghost drive."

She waited for orders.

[Iron Man]

"Put what needs to be on lockchips wipe the hard drives have, Jarvis pack the basics and leave everything else you should get packed as well they'll becoming after you too. I don't think you want to end up in a womans prison." Tony said as he walked over and picked up a special briefcase he developed to keep the armor in and only he could open it by fingerprint if someone was trying to open it a knockout gas would may be emitted or it would self-destruct, to destroy both it and the armor. "You should pass that on to X-Men and anyone else you can at lest give them a fighting chance." He said as he began to pack the armor up.

[Pepper]

Pepper nodded and turned to leave, her mind racing ahead. She had no idea how much time they had or how long they'd be gone. She began to head up the stairs and a wave of nervousness clenched her stomach. She spun around and looked at Tony.

"Mr....Tony. Don't leave without me."

She hurried upstairs to her desk and grabbed a series of lockchips. Then, she marched into Tony's office as cool as could be, hating the fact that the entire back of the office was open to the city. All glass, all light, all beautiful...and there was no telling who was watching.

Pepper sat at the desk and plugged into the computer. "Jarvis?" she asked very quietly, hoping the computer would sense the need for silence.

He did. Just A Really Very Intelligent System indeed. "Miss Potts?"

"This is an emergency. Pack the basics. Shipping manifests, blueprints, current and past projects, government letters, the like."

"Are we going somewhere?"

"Unfortunately," Pepper began downloading files to the lockchips. "The Untouchables, Jarvis. The government is tracking us."

"That is not a pleasant activity," Jarvis replied, sounding somewhat concerned. "I will help in any way I can."

Which, Pepper knew, meant Jarvis would likely be downloading himself to Tony's suit as well as to one of her empty lockchips once she inserted it. She thanked Tony silently for giving Jarvis a sense of self-preservation. They would both need him in the time to come, she was sure.

Once she was done, with a quick apology to Jarvis, she wiped the hard drive clean. It was a huge moment, a huge thing for her to do, and she actually felt breathless with fear for a moment. She had checked every lockchip to make sure the files were backed up. Which meant, at the moment, she carried the entire knowledge of Stark Tower in her pocket.

I am in a lot of danger.

She ran to her computer and accessed her own personal files. From there she downloaded all of her own secrets from the jobs she'd done in the war. Propaganda, lists of members, targets, failures, successes...she put it all on one lockchip and stored it in a different place than her others. Then, she grabbed a few precious knickknacks from her desk and stood.

I have to get somewhere safe. We do. Now.

Praying Tony hadn't left, Pepper walked quickly back to the workshop.

[Iron Man]

While Pepper did what he asked he finished packing the suit along with a few other things he might need later before going into another room and coming back with a box full of small but powerful bombs and began placing one on each of his many armors. He wasn't going to let S.H.I.E.L.D. get there hands on this kind of tech and use it on him or anyone else "I really hate to do this but I don't have much of a choice." He said talking to the armors as he set the timers on the last bombs just as Pepper came back in. "There are a couple of watches on the table over there put one on and turn it on its a holographic image inducer as of right now Virginia Potts is dead." He told her as he came back down to join her and put his own watch on and turned it on changing his appearance to Robert Downey Jr.

[Pepper]

[OOC: I laughed so hard I fell out of my chair, Tony...'changing your appearance to Robert Downey JR.' Would be freaking HILARIOUS if someone godmodded Robert himself walking through New York for some reason...]

Pepper blinked as Tony changed in front of her to a starkly (no pun intended) handsome but unassuming young man, and then she reached down and picked up her own watch. Virginia Potts is dead. Now that was something she had never thought to hear someone say - literally or figuratively. She gulped hard and activated the watch, blinking in surprise as her looks changed as well. Her freckles vanished, her hair became more blonde, and she aged perhaps two years. Two years older, even if it was a hologram. Urgh, she didn't like that. But she also looked rail thin. Of course, so did Gwyneth Paltrow.

She looked up at Tony and half-smiled. "If not given the circumstances, Mr. Stark, I might start laughing."

She continued to smile, then added: "I think Jarvis downloaded himself to your suit, and if he didn't I've got him on a lockchip. I wiped the files form the computer and they're all safe here." She withdrew the lockchips, then placed them in a secret pouch in her purse. "I can lose everything but my purse and we'll be perfectly fine."

That being said, she added: "I can follow you somewhere or we can split ways. My car is upstairs so if you give me a meeting place I can meet you there."