Open

[demon_brat]

Characters: Damian and Bruce Wayne, Robin (demon_brat) and Robin (hackingyoursensors), and also Robin (demon_brat) and anyone!
Location: Here, there, and everywhere. Mostly rooftops, probably a lot in the Metal and Fire sections.
Situation: Meet Robin, if you wish!
Warnings/Rating: TW for child abuse. Because it's Damian.
A/N: Prose or actionspam welcome. Thread headers for Bruce and Dick, anyone else who wants to meet or talk with Robin, welcome after that!

It took Damian a couple of days after Grayson showed up to return to his, ah, usual levels of visibility. After that first conversation, he did his best to vanish out of sight, making sure not to fall into his usual patterns of anger at circumstances he did not welcome. Because neither Father nor Grayson would approve - his Grayson, this one had no reason to care - and the urge to not fail his Batman was suddenly double strong. Or, at least, more explicit.

Eventually, almost a full day later, he found his way to his Father's suite.

And the next night, and the one after that, he was cautiously back to patrol.

Comments

[demon_brat]

[The first word either of them has spoken shatters something, and Damian blinks slightly. It's been so easy, falling into action, into a fight. Taking his thoughts away from what they had been.

And now they come rushing in, and he has to resist shaking his head to clear it. Because this isn't how spars usually go (spars. Still new... as such. Practice fights tended to have an edge, always, before Grayson), except this part, and he has to take a deep, sharp breath. Because it's not the Again? he's used to hearing (too bare), and yet it's exactly as natural...

He nods, taking a step back and bowing first, this time.

But the easy focus is not coming back, words heavy in the silence around them for the first time in his life.]

[cowled]

[Briefly, he regrets speaking at all. Easy to see that Damian's focus is lost, and easier to guess at why. Bruce frowns.

He has no idea how to ask. What to say. Or even how to let Damian know that... he's here if he wants to talk. So instead, his shoulders tense, and he looks down at the boy.]

Damian.

[That one word has... damn near all of his confusion and concern and frustration entombed in it.]

[demon_brat]

[... and Damian tenses in turn, eyes widening. Did he do something wrong?]

Father?

[cowled]

Are you all right?

[Four words. They aren't easy to say.]

[demon_brat]

[... oh.

Open your mind, Damian.

The automatic shrugging off of the question gets mixed up. He does shrug, but also pulls back the defensive posture a bit, looking up.]

I should be. [He doesn't see why he isn't, not logically. And yet.]

I never thought he could be so... [young? innocent? careless?] ... vulnerable.

[cowled]

[And Bruce... understands.

He kneels in seiza on the mat.]

It's difficult to see your heroes as... less than what they are in your eyes.

[demon_brat]

[Damian... has to consider that. Because is hero what Grayson is, to him? He wouldn't have thought so, not really. But it's Father, and he considers the word.]

It is not... disappointment. I just... He's here, but I somehow notice his absence more?

[What am words?]

[cowled]

The man you've grown accustomed to is different. No one is the same at twelve as they are at twenty. He lacks the shared experiences that made you an efficient partnership.

[He nods once.]

I understand.

[demon_brat]

[Damian cants his head to one side, as the first statements process. Actually nobody has exactly said it quite this way to him before - and, for the first time, he wonders what he will be like, himself, at twenty. Because of the way father says it.]

But... he was always talking about how he started doing the thing he does... early on. I did not realize...

[... no. He hadn't thought it through. That is different. He ducks his head as he considers his mistake. Then... he takes a deep breath.]

Do you have... instructions, regarding him?

[cowled]

[Bruce watches Damian a moment, and then holds out one hand, palm-up.]

Would it be easier if I did?

[demon_brat]

[That... is not at all why he asked, and Damian recoils slightly, between the suggestion that he's looking for a way to make things easy and the motion, though he straightens again quickly enough.]

It would make going into avoidable mistake less likely.

[cowled]

[... well that's not quite why he offered, but Bruce isn't about to point that out. His conversations with Damian are always some strange mix of absolute understanding and little missteps that neither of them know how to fix.

Bruce purses his lips slightly, drops his hand down against his knee.]

Learning to deal with other people is a process that's fraught with mistakes and misunderstandings. It's the best way to learn one another's strengths and weaknesses. You can know someone for years and they can still surprise you when you go into the equation with incomplete information. This Dick is not from our universe, there's no guarantee that he's had any similar experiences save the formative one.

[It's not quite an answer, but the implication is that Damian should use his own judgement on the matter. That Bruce trusts him to do so.]

[demon_brat]

[And this is why he asked for instructions. Not for any help in dealing with Grayson - he'd take on that, either way - and not for help dealing with his own reactions - a reason that didn't even occur to him. He asked for clarity in the communication with his Father. (Maybe because he trusts that he can work out mistakes, with Grayson. Somehow. But mistakes between him and his Father... they tend to get really complicated, really fast, and he'd rather... not. Just a little.)

Damian lowers his head in a slight bow, but it has less to do with submission and more with simple agreement. Acceptance.]

Yes, Father.

[He even... smiles. Very faintly.]

I think Dick Grayson not surprising me would be... far more confusing than the opposite.

[Message... sort of received?]

[cowled]

Touché.

[Since really. It's always been Dick's speciality.]

[demon_brat]

[A moment. And then the acknowledgment registers, and Damian's eyes widen.

He was never trained to touch. It was never fencing - neither verbal nor physical. It was always actual, brutal, all-out fighting. No quarter. No mercy.

Managing an actual fine point, even as it is? Takes him by surprise. And feels... good. A little warm and easy and nice, making him want to do it again, this time actually meaning to, and makes him duck his face to hide the smile that actually brightens it, if briefly.

Makes him - reckless? illogical? enough to reach and place his palm on top of Father's. He doesn't know why - and that's... almost scary. But he's done it anyway.]

[cowled]

[Bruce stills briefly. He's... still not used to this. Thomas wasn't a particularly physically affectionate man, though his mother was, and Bruce just never acquired the ability (or saw the need) for it. Some eighty percent of the times he touches each of his children it's because they're injured or in pain, it's a hand offered when they're falling or one to the shoulder when they're upset.

He's not good at touching for touching's sake. So he is startled, a little. Insomuch as Bruce ever is. And then he quirks a brief smile at Damian.]

Have you eaten?

[demon_brat]

[And if it's rare for Bruce, it's pretty damn close to absurd for Damian. And yet... a lot of these talks are, and he is still new to both time and space shenanigans, much as he's read up on both. And alternate universes.

So he retracts his hand, carefully, and nods in... gratitude for not making him try to explain this. Because he just can't.]

I was... out.

[No. Not really, he hasn't eaten.]

[cowled]

Mm.

[Bruce stands, fluid and graceful despite the kneeling, and pads towards the kitchen.]

I'm not the chef Alfred is, I'm afraid.

[demon_brat]

[Damian's lips quirk in a not-smile. That sounds... a whole lot like an apology, and that is... strange.]

I have lived off field rations, Father. I just prefer not to.

[And, after a moment, carefully.]

I could... help?

[cowled]

Mm.

[In answer, Bruce opens the fridge and tosses a bag of strange vegetables needing to be chopped up at Damian. Animal protein is quite a bit more rare here than it would be back home, and he generally abstains. But hey, steak sounds like it's a good idea today, and he pulls a package out of the fridge.]

I'd never truly learned how, before Alfred left for England shortly after the incident with Bane and Azrael.

[He remembers standing helplessly in a room filling up with soap suds from the laundry machine and having a phone cradled against his shoulder (he'd been talking to Barbara at the time) while he was trying to figure out just what he was supposed to be doing with the mess he'd made.

He was one of the world's smartest men, but household chores were quite beyond his ken. At least back then.

But he'd learned.

Alfred wasn't going to be around forever. That had only... driven the point home. Bruce would never care to devote significant amounts of time to domesticity, but at least he doesn't overfill the washing machine any more, and he can make more than tar-black coffee.]

[demon_brat]

[Damian catches the bag easily and sets to it - he finds the knives much faster than the cutting board, but he settles soon enough.

He still tastes a thin slice of each vegetable before decided which way to slice, dice, or chop.]

Survival training. And poisons training, the preparation and the detection parts. Had to be able to tell small variations in taste, for the latter.

[It's... matter-of-factly, actually, with only the barest tinge of smugness that he can't keep out of his voice whenever he is better at something than somebody. Can't suppress it, but he can tone it down, not trying to aggravate anyone.

And he keeps stealing glances, because the way Father moves, regardless of what he does?

Grayson has grace, a lightness to his motions that turns all of his motions into a continuous dance, a language that translates, even to Damian, much more about his state than he ever lets his words tell.

But Father? Father has a different kind of grace, the powerful kind of a predator in his habitat. The kind of movement that could grab Damian's attention on a video display of a room full of nearly identically-clothed men. That he could almost call beautiful, if asked under the right circumstances.

He still has so much to learn.]

[cowled]

[Bruce smiles a little. There's no mistaking the slight smugness to Damian's tone an Bruce... has no desire to take that away from him. The boy is arrogant, yes, but it so rarely manifests in positive ways that even Bruce knows when to leave well enough alone. But what Damian is talking about, he considers that training, and he's always excelled at that. This is... gourmet cooking. Quite different.]

I think Alfred would probably be insulted if you expected to find poison in his food, Damian.

[demon_brat]

[He was supposed to rule the world. He wasn't trained to recognize (or blend) poison in camp food. Of course it was gourmet food. Added a lot to his friction with Alfred for a long time, how capricious Damian can be.]

>Tt.< Pennyworth... If he wished me dead, he wouldn't have to resort to poison.

[Which is as close as Damian gets to saying that Alfred is one of the people he trusts. And that the butler already has saved his life. More than once.]

[cowled]

No. I imagine not.

[He's been on the receiving of one of Alfred's right hooks only once in his life. The man had done his fair share of pugilism.]

[demon_brat]

[Damian presents the chopped vegetables, neat and separate.

He meant... that Pennyworth could have just done nothing on any number of occasions, and Damian's life would have been forfeit. No need to bother with poison. But that's not how the butler works. And, by now, Damian is grateful.]

He's saved many lives.