There are certain truths that hold, steadfast, across time and space and universes unfathomable distances from his home turf. The first of those truths is that the Batman is always prepared.
Being Batman isn't about the suit, the car, the high-tech toys. It's about knowing how to use those elements and when. It's about planning and strategy and an infinite ability to be patient, to calculate, to parse everything down to elegant lines of logic. Bruce survives the encounters he does not because he's fast or strong (though he is, for a human) but because from the moment the encounter begins he's planning how to counteract whatever's being thrown at him from every possible or potential angle.
He can't punch through plate steel, rip aircraft carriers apart with his bare hands, conjure constructs by sheer force of will. But he knows the exact places to set charges against that plate steel, or where to pour acid to weaken the rivets. He knows the fuel capacity of that aircraft carrier, each possible landing point in its flight path, how to narrow down his options until he knows exactly where it's going to be. And he has the resources to build real-world equivalents of any construct he damn well wants.
(He's been offered a power ring before, and he'd turned it down. The things are more trouble than they're worth)
Bruce has no illusions about the dangers he could pose to others if he ever slipped over to the darker side of his duty. And if it happens (he doesn't deal in absolutes, not Batman. Never say never. It's the reason he has a room full of every imaginable colour of Kryptonite sealed deep within the Batcave) he has people he trusts to stop him.
Plans within plans. Within wheels and frameworks that are a vast cat's cradle of all the things he's striven to be perfect at for most of his life. To anticipate, to act, to never be caught unawares. Even Tu Vishan isn't exactly a surprise. Just an inconvenience.
That hyperaware sense of foresight and planning is exactly why his suite in the Metal sector is rigged with the most sensitive motion tracking equipment he could build in this place. Pressure plates in the floors. Refractive panels (decorative, if anyone was casually inspecting his dwelling) with double-pulse uninterrupted light-beams and, of course, a thin line of dust (native to the Wood sector and thus more difficult to replicate if disturbed) across all the windowsills that would make Alfred positively scowl at him.
All but one of those warning systems are linked directly to his phone. Not that piece of trash that Stark calls a phone, but the one he brought from home and has relied on since.
He's on the coastline when it goes off, digging through the charred remains of what looks to be a boathouse. If it's an intruder or thief, he's too far away to make any difference. If it's someone he knows... then they're probably perfectly aware of what they've just done.
The only person who knows where he lives and would have tripped those particular alarms (as opposed to the one on the front door) who he can't hail is Stephanie.
She was supposed to be out patrolling the mainland today. If she'd hit a snag she would have contacted him if she were able – that she made it back to Keeliai tells him two things. Her methods of communication (Stark's phone, the Bat-delegated equipment) are destroyed or have been stolen. That she made it back to his suite tells him that she's injured or urgently needs him.
He's spent enough time not being there for Stephanie. So he goes.
Close enough to the shell edge that he can reach it by boat, and he has a motorcycle hidden at the edge that cuts the travel time to Keeliai by two-thirds. He's not reckless but he is fast about it. At the high, black-edged walls of the city he abandons the bike and takes to the rooftops. By the time he sets foot on the roof of his suite it's been three hours, nine minutes and fourteen seconds since the alarm sounded off.
When he props open the skylight and sees Stephanie there on the floor his first thought is that he's too late. Again. His mind goes carefully blank and he doesn't move and he wonders how he's going to explain this to Damian-- Damian, of all people, not Cassandra or Jason or Dick or Clark, but Damian, who's only just learning to like her.
Bruce blinks and her clothes shift to Robin-red and he thinks he must still be suffering the after-effects of his own encounter with a llothi because this whole thing feels like a fever dream, twisted and broken, one more good soldier thrown away out of ugly necessity.
He forces a breath that curls hard into his lungs and stops up his chest, and then he drops silently onto the floor beside her. He doesn't spare much time for frivolities, simply stripping off his gloves as he goes to his knees beside her and reaches out to check her radial pulse – weak and fast but present, at 108 beats a minute. Breathing rate is rapid and shallow, in excess of 24 a minute. Skin is cool, pale and clammy to the touch.
There's blood on her sweatshirt, but not enough to suggest a massive injury. Or that she'd bandaged it before coming here. He brushes her hair away from her neck, presses his fingers along her cervical spine. No obvious deformities or swelling there. He doesn't like the idea of moving her, but he'd rather not do a full examination with her three-quarters prone on his floor.
He lifts her carefully, one hand under her shoulderblades (dressings and bandages, four separate location. Llothi claws) and carries her into his bedroom. His bed isn't an operating table by any means, but all of his medical resources are at his sundry warehouses, and he isn't going to pack Stephanie through the streets to the nearest one.
He sets her on the bed, tugs the cowl down (he's got his Batsuit back now) and pulls his first aid kit from his belt. Hands washed, gloves on, trauma scissors first as he cuts her shirt away. It was less than ten days ago that he was the patient in this scenario, with 'John' being the one to patch him up. Stephanie, at least, is unconscious while he works; peeling back the dressings she'd applied.
The wounds are already showing signs of infection and haven't been properly flushed out. Bruce leaves her side briefly to set water to boil and to gather towels, and then he sets to work.
→
Sometime later, he wipes his hands a final time on one of the towels and slumps into a chair at the side of the bed. Delicate medical procedures are something he generally prefers to leave to Alfred, but in his absence...
The injuries have been flushed, cleaned, treated with supplies from his utility belt, dressed and bandaged. He's set up a saline drip to keep her fluids up, laced with antibiotics. Her vitals are stable all across the board and Bruce can breathe for the first time since getting the alarm. He's been some thirty-eight hours without sleep – usually nothing for him, but in the wake of the infection he had to deal with even that amount is pushing himself too far.
So he folds his arms across his chest (he's still wearing the Batsuit, minus gloves and cowl) and falls into a light doze. If Stephanie moves, he'll be up in an instant. But for now, she's safe and he's done all he can.
no subject
Being Batman isn't about the suit, the car, the high-tech toys. It's about knowing how to use those elements and when. It's about planning and strategy and an infinite ability to be patient, to calculate, to parse everything down to elegant lines of logic. Bruce survives the encounters he does not because he's fast or strong (though he is, for a human) but because from the moment the encounter begins he's planning how to counteract whatever's being thrown at him from every possible or potential angle.
He can't punch through plate steel, rip aircraft carriers apart with his bare hands, conjure constructs by sheer force of will. But he knows the exact places to set charges against that plate steel, or where to pour acid to weaken the rivets. He knows the fuel capacity of that aircraft carrier, each possible landing point in its flight path, how to narrow down his options until he knows exactly where it's going to be. And he has the resources to build real-world equivalents of any construct he damn well wants.
(He's been offered a power ring before, and he'd turned it down. The things are more trouble than they're worth)
Bruce has no illusions about the dangers he could pose to others if he ever slipped over to the darker side of his duty. And if it happens (he doesn't deal in absolutes, not Batman. Never say never. It's the reason he has a room full of every imaginable colour of Kryptonite sealed deep within the Batcave) he has people he trusts to stop him.
Plans within plans. Within wheels and frameworks that are a vast cat's cradle of all the things he's striven to be perfect at for most of his life. To anticipate, to act, to never be caught unawares. Even Tu Vishan isn't exactly a surprise. Just an inconvenience.
That hyperaware sense of foresight and planning is exactly why his suite in the Metal sector is rigged with the most sensitive motion tracking equipment he could build in this place. Pressure plates in the floors. Refractive panels (decorative, if anyone was casually inspecting his dwelling) with double-pulse uninterrupted light-beams and, of course, a thin line of dust (native to the Wood sector and thus more difficult to replicate if disturbed) across all the windowsills that would make Alfred positively scowl at him.
All but one of those warning systems are linked directly to his phone. Not that piece of trash that Stark calls a phone, but the one he brought from home and has relied on since.
He's on the coastline when it goes off, digging through the charred remains of what looks to be a boathouse. If it's an intruder or thief, he's too far away to make any difference. If it's someone he knows... then they're probably perfectly aware of what they've just done.
The only person who knows where he lives and would have tripped those particular alarms (as opposed to the one on the front door) who he can't hail is Stephanie.
She was supposed to be out patrolling the mainland today. If she'd hit a snag she would have contacted him if she were able – that she made it back to Keeliai tells him two things. Her methods of communication (Stark's phone, the Bat-delegated equipment) are destroyed or have been stolen. That she made it back to his suite tells him that she's injured or urgently needs him.
He's spent enough time not being there for Stephanie. So he goes.
Close enough to the shell edge that he can reach it by boat, and he has a motorcycle hidden at the edge that cuts the travel time to Keeliai by two-thirds. He's not reckless but he is fast about it. At the high, black-edged walls of the city he abandons the bike and takes to the rooftops. By the time he sets foot on the roof of his suite it's been three hours, nine minutes and fourteen seconds since the alarm sounded off.
When he props open the skylight and sees Stephanie there on the floor his first thought is that he's too late. Again. His mind goes carefully blank and he doesn't move and he wonders how he's going to explain this to Damian-- Damian, of all people, not Cassandra or Jason or Dick or Clark, but Damian, who's only just learning to like her.
Bruce blinks and her clothes shift to Robin-red and he thinks he must still be suffering the after-effects of his own encounter with a llothi because this whole thing feels like a fever dream, twisted and broken, one more good soldier thrown away out of ugly necessity.
He forces a breath that curls hard into his lungs and stops up his chest, and then he drops silently onto the floor beside her. He doesn't spare much time for frivolities, simply stripping off his gloves as he goes to his knees beside her and reaches out to check her radial pulse – weak and fast but present, at 108 beats a minute. Breathing rate is rapid and shallow, in excess of 24 a minute. Skin is cool, pale and clammy to the touch.
There's blood on her sweatshirt, but not enough to suggest a massive injury. Or that she'd bandaged it before coming here. He brushes her hair away from her neck, presses his fingers along her cervical spine. No obvious deformities or swelling there. He doesn't like the idea of moving her, but he'd rather not do a full examination with her three-quarters prone on his floor.
He lifts her carefully, one hand under her shoulderblades (dressings and bandages, four separate location. Llothi claws) and carries her into his bedroom. His bed isn't an operating table by any means, but all of his medical resources are at his sundry warehouses, and he isn't going to pack Stephanie through the streets to the nearest one.
He sets her on the bed, tugs the cowl down (he's got his Batsuit back now) and pulls his first aid kit from his belt. Hands washed, gloves on, trauma scissors first as he cuts her shirt away. It was less than ten days ago that he was the patient in this scenario, with 'John' being the one to patch him up. Stephanie, at least, is unconscious while he works; peeling back the dressings she'd applied.
The wounds are already showing signs of infection and haven't been properly flushed out. Bruce leaves her side briefly to set water to boil and to gather towels, and then he sets to work.
→
Sometime later, he wipes his hands a final time on one of the towels and slumps into a chair at the side of the bed. Delicate medical procedures are something he generally prefers to leave to Alfred, but in his absence...
The injuries have been flushed, cleaned, treated with supplies from his utility belt, dressed and bandaged. He's set up a saline drip to keep her fluids up, laced with antibiotics. Her vitals are stable all across the board and Bruce can breathe for the first time since getting the alarm. He's been some thirty-eight hours without sleep – usually nothing for him, but in the wake of the infection he had to deal with even that amount is pushing himself too far.
So he folds his arms across his chest (he's still wearing the Batsuit, minus gloves and cowl) and falls into a light doze. If Stephanie moves, he'll be up in an instant. But for now, she's safe and he's done all he can.