JLA Watchtower (Archive)

Fucking city no-smoking ordinances.

Max is huddled out of Gotham's rain under a local bar's overhang. Big downside of being the city's DA - you can't bring a suit against the people you work for, much less prosecute a law you promoted to get the job in the first damned place. Cupping his hands around the lighter to deflect the constantly shifting stiff breeze, he swears again as the flame sputters and dies once more, then snatches the unlit cigarette from his mouth in irritation.

He stares across the busy lunch hour street, focusing on nothing in particular. Bringing a suit against the people he works for. Ironic, considering he's thinking of doing just that. Or he would, if he had more to go on than a damn partial from a knife sheath. Even tiptoeing around the charges isn't getting him anywhere -- and someone on the inside knows he's thinking about making a case.

Nobody thinks this is a good idea -- not even his old campaign manager. "It's political suicide," he'd said over the phone last night. "Who really gives a fuck if this guy killed him? He did the world a favor."

This is all leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. It's too much like when he left the Army, and that incident still rankles. Then, his CO had vanished -- chickened out, he figured -- and let eight of his buddies get killed in a hail of RPG fire. He'd pursued it then, and it'd meant the end of his military career. He was told to drop it and take an honorable discharge or he'd take the fall himself. The only goddamn survivor of the patrol, three weeks in the ward with shrapnel to the leg, and he'd be the damn scapegoat because nobody else was alive to counter the CO's story.

Fuckers.

He took the discharge. He shouldn't have; but it was the only reason it hadn't made so much as a blip on his political radar. Personally? That was something else.

Now this Rooker case. He can drop it, tell Montoya to drop it. Some two-bit dealer with nothing to offer doesn't match up to the eight friends he lost.

The cigarette is shoved back into a pocket along with his lighter. So why hasn't he?

Max tugs up the collar of his trenchcoat in a futile effort to repel the rain before he makes his way across the road and back towards the office. Lunch is forgotten. He'd lost his appetite, anyway.

It's 11:30am at the Gotham City District Attorney's office.

Maxwell S. Hudson has only just arrived, having spent most of the morning at arraignments. He hasn't had a chance for a cigarette yet (damned restrictions around public buildings just get more ridiculous by the month), he's had time for perhaps one cup of coffee so far, the city elections are sneaking up on him rapidly, and he's in a suitably cranky mood as a result.

He cleaves his way into his office with the focused steel of a hundred knives.

Pauses at the desk.

Dammit, that woman's been moving things around again. He's sure of it. What, exactly, eludes him for the present. The briefcase is tossed onto a chair, the jacket shucked off with a gesture of his wiry frame. Shirtsleeves are rolled up to his elbows, the tie is loosened, and he sinks into his chair at the desk before clasping his head in one hand.

He can feel a migraine coming on. He could really use some coffee. Or maybe a mallet to the skull. Either would be fine at this point.