[open!]

[cowled]

Characters: Bruce Wayne
Location: Whichever sector you fancy.
Situation: Bruce is braving the increasing hostility of the kedan radicals to be his usual arrogant, playboy self out in the public sector.
Warnings/Rating: None yet! To be updated if anything occurs.
Notes: I'll do action or prose with equal verve, so hit me with whatever you'd like. Just pop a note in your subject line about which Sector you want and off we go!






[Reconnaissance is more or less his superpower. He's reached the end of Devin Craig's immediate usefulness, and Batman can only do so much from the shadows. Sometimes, the man for the job is the one he feels least like being: Bruce Wayne.

The blood tests he took from the site of the executions were inconclusive. Hard to do much without the resources to run them through the proper battery of tests. The blood has abnormally low levels of albumin, but beyond that it's structurally similar to that of a human. Close cousins. It doesn't have any of the same markers in common with other shapeshifters he's encountered, and he can't do more without proper equipment.

What he does know is that the scraps of cloth he gathered from the bodies are congruent to fabric samples of the upper east side in the Fire Sector, which at least confirms their territory. A night's tracking lead him to the headquarters of the Black Kirin, formerly one of the most affluent presences in the sector. The place had been left in ruins, and was still a smouldering mess when he found it. Any insignia the gang had used to identify themselves had been smothered with graffiti, torn or burned.

Turf wars.

Not a thought he likes to entertain. Not when he doesn't know the locals, the customs, the movers and shakers of the underworld. Handling such events in Gotham takes every ounce of his not inconsiderable resources and the marshalling of everyone in his network. He has to operate differently here.

But that isn't why he's out here today. Today, he has business of a different sort to conduct. He needs to start amassing capital. Lieuen's little show of wealth wasn't impressive so much as tasteless and wasteful, and Bruce still hasn't abandoned the idea that the entire execution was staged between Lieuen and Evandau. But the question is - was it for the benefit of the kedan, or the 'foreigners'?

And what did they mean about saving? Everyone he's asked about it has been maddeningly vague, to the point that he's considering finding some unsavoury individual and holding them upside down off the tallest building in the Metal Sector.

Hm.

Still. For the time being, he's speaking with shop-owners, negotiating where necessary. He's chatty, amicable. If he happens across any foreigners, he'll smile and wave. Bruce Wayne, ladies and gentlemen. He's a charmer.]

Comments

[demon_brat]

[Yelp--

What is--

Damian freezes, his usually tense body whipping up to strain, registering that he must not comply with his reflex to fight it off before he registers what his Father is doing.

When he does, he lets out a breath, allowing some of the tension to drain out of him. Ever so slowly, he lets himself inch (expect it's in much tinier increments) closer...

This is. Different from Grayson's hugs. Father is even bigger, for one thing, and, for another, he doesn't glom onto him like some sort of... an octopus. But the intent, the-- the warmth is there. Here. (Making it different from other embraces that he's tolerated since he was five and was taught finally that such behavior was punishable...)

And then it hits him. His Father, Bruce Wayne, is holding him. A fact that he considered impossible, for a long while, and almost completely improbable, since. The small sigh that shakes him is completely silent.

But he's pressing close into it. And he lowers his head so it will rest on Father's shoulder.]

[cowled]

[And Bruce, for his part, simply holds him.]

Forgive yourself. The rest will follow.

[Hypocritical. But if any of his sons can learn from his mistakes, having made them becomes worth it. Bruce knows there isn't much about himself that he can change. He's trying. By degrees. Being here, doing this, that proves it.

(The first truth of Batman--)

But no. He's too old, too set in his ways. He will go to his grave with some tricks yet unlearned. Maybe if he could have forgiven himself decades ago, his path would have been a different one.

Because a child's helpless anger at a situation they can't change can fester and rot until the bones and sinews of it become guilt and shame-- being helpless always seems so shameful when it's your expectation that you should be otherwise. (And he had left the theatre feeling so strong--)

And Damian... he knew no better. Helpless? Perhaps not physically, but he had never been taught emotions by a gentler hand, and without that frame of reference he had... stumbled. Expecting someone to describe the ocean when they've lived their life in the desert is a folly. Bruce's own folly. He made so many mistakes with Damian--

But even Jason had known softer emotions before Bruce took him in. Dick had loving parents, and Tim's, for all their distance, still cared for him.

Damian was worse than orphaned. He was used.]

And Damian? It's your house as well.

[Bruce tightens the embrace briefly, and lets him go, sitting back until he's in seiza.]

[demon_brat]

[No, Damian's knowledge of softer emotions is remote, faint, and, until Grayson, understood as something to be avoided on pain of punishment. His understanding is still frail, experience - next to none.

And forgiveness is decidedly among those.

He has learned to react and punish (before), or to take things in and go on, more recently. He can take pain, and, while when it's inside, he is far less gracious at dealing with it, it as still something he understands. And is used to dealing with. Forgiveness... not yet. Although if - when - he thinks about it (and he will, when this conversation is over), he'll figure it out. That he has been forgiven by two people, at least, even if the words have never been said.

Three, now, maybe?

Forgiveness to himself? That is even more confusing. He has always done the best he has been able to. The mistakes he has made - they were in front of Father's eyes and Mother's (each of them pushing him away, in turns... though not now. Not now.)

He doesn't understand. But he doesn't dismiss it, either. (It is another rule, his mind says. But it is one he can tell is important to Father, means something to him. So he will comply.)]


I shall try, Father.


[Both his voice and his frown show his uncertainty. But he doesn't ask. He will think and meditate on this, and if he still doesn't understand, then - maybe - he'll ask. Grayson would have explained, the thinks. And it makes him have to force his thoughts away - he is not missing the preposterous, constant rambling, he certainly isn't...

Good thing Father is shifting the topic again. And this... this is easier. When they pull back (Father pulls away, Damian straightens), his face is... not calm, but definitely more open, the thoughts behind it turned away from hostility and failure and plots into things that don't make his teeth grind. Only that small crease between his brows crease as he processes. And his eyes are... open. Steady.]


It can be, now. When I understand that taking it is not the only option.


[The house. The world. There are things that he still things he must take, because they will not be given or shared with him. But he sees alternatives, now, in some cases. Sees, or can reason out, he doesn't need to fight everyone, everywhere, until he's established he's the top of the food chain.

He is not always the top of the food chain... and, some places, that is how things ought to be.

Even if habits die hard. Very hard.

Thoughts flit behind his eyes, fast and conflicting and some of them difficult, but he doesn't look away. Not until he realizes that he ought to do more than acknowledge the offer Father extended.]


Thank you. It is an honor... to be accepted as part of your household. It... [Words. What are good words?] It means a lot to me.

[cowled]

[Yes. Dick did good work with the boy. It's a responsibility that should never have fallen to him, much like the mantle of Batman itself, but... Dick's adaptable. He makes things work for him.

Sometimes, Bruce thinks he doesn't give him enough credit. And others he's worried he gives him too much. In this, the former. Dick's done something Bruce didn't consider to be possible for Damian. He's made him... human.

Performing as Batman in the same capacity he served in as Robin. Keeping someone with Wayne genetics sane. The thought makes him ache for his eldest boy, something bone-deep with sorrow and shame.

He stands, drops his palm against Damian's shoulder. He has nothing more to say, and he still feels beaten and bruised on the inside from even so brief a conversation.

(He should have done better--)

From there, he simply moves on to the rest of the groceries, silent and efficient in motion.]