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tushanshu_logs2012-09-06 11:21 pm
controlledvariable) wrote in tushanshu_logs2012-09-06 11:21 pm
Entry tags:
[closed] and I watch you as you lose yourself
Characters: Stephanie Brown and Bruce Wayne
Location: Metal Sector, Bruce's suite
Situation: Steph goes to talk to Bruce after meeting Jason. This will go well.
Warnings/Rating: Probably talk of death, Bruce's issues, will update as needed
[This is a bad idea.
The phrase seems to run on an endless loop through her mind as Steph makes her way to the Metal sector, to the building she knows that Bruce is staying in. She'd waited until the party had petered out, until everyone had started drifting home, and it's early evening by the time she's approaching her destination. She'd kept an eye on Bruce, knowing that he must have seen Jason, even if she'd missed the actual confrontation. There's no way Bruce wouldn't have seen him there, and well - the way Bruce had looked during the rest of the party.
Steph might not know him as well as Tim, or Dick, or Cass does, but she's worked with him, she's been Robin, and she knows him well enough to see when he's hurting. It had surprised her a little, how bad she felt for him , despite the fact she's still somewhat sympathetic towards Jason. She wonders if that's a contradiction, or if it's how the rest of their family feels.
Not her family, she has to remind herself as she slips between buildings, keeping to the limited shadows. She has her own family, and anyway, she's never been part of that inner circle, for all that she's dated Tim, been Cass's best friend, worked as Robin. Bruce isn't her family, and the closer she gets to this conversation, the more she starts to question whether she has a right to bring it up.
It's a really bad idea.
But Dick isn't here, neither is Alfred, or Babs, and she doesn't know about Tim, which leaves it to her. Because god forbid she's going to let Bruce stew in this alone, for his sake, for Jason's, and for the entire city of Keeliai. Gotham can handle their family drama, this place isn't built the same way. Maybe she doesn't have a right to talk to him about this, but she cares enough that she wants to try anyway.
She's dressed simply, in "local" clothes, though she'd still been careful to make sure no one sees her, and by the time she's knocking on Bruce's front door, she's confident that her journey here has gone undetected. That doesn't make her any less nervous, and all she can hear is her heart beating too fast as she waits for the door to open.
She hopes this isn't a bad idea.]
Location: Metal Sector, Bruce's suite
Situation: Steph goes to talk to Bruce after meeting Jason. This will go well.
Warnings/Rating: Probably talk of death, Bruce's issues, will update as needed
[This is a bad idea.
The phrase seems to run on an endless loop through her mind as Steph makes her way to the Metal sector, to the building she knows that Bruce is staying in. She'd waited until the party had petered out, until everyone had started drifting home, and it's early evening by the time she's approaching her destination. She'd kept an eye on Bruce, knowing that he must have seen Jason, even if she'd missed the actual confrontation. There's no way Bruce wouldn't have seen him there, and well - the way Bruce had looked during the rest of the party.
Steph might not know him as well as Tim, or Dick, or Cass does, but she's worked with him, she's been Robin, and she knows him well enough to see when he's hurting. It had surprised her a little, how bad she felt for him , despite the fact she's still somewhat sympathetic towards Jason. She wonders if that's a contradiction, or if it's how the rest of their family feels.
Not her family, she has to remind herself as she slips between buildings, keeping to the limited shadows. She has her own family, and anyway, she's never been part of that inner circle, for all that she's dated Tim, been Cass's best friend, worked as Robin. Bruce isn't her family, and the closer she gets to this conversation, the more she starts to question whether she has a right to bring it up.
It's a really bad idea.
But Dick isn't here, neither is Alfred, or Babs, and she doesn't know about Tim, which leaves it to her. Because god forbid she's going to let Bruce stew in this alone, for his sake, for Jason's, and for the entire city of Keeliai. Gotham can handle their family drama, this place isn't built the same way. Maybe she doesn't have a right to talk to him about this, but she cares enough that she wants to try anyway.
She's dressed simply, in "local" clothes, though she'd still been careful to make sure no one sees her, and by the time she's knocking on Bruce's front door, she's confident that her journey here has gone undetected. That doesn't make her any less nervous, and all she can hear is her heart beating too fast as she waits for the door to open.
She hopes this isn't a bad idea.]
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Hearing that outloud is... honestly, he'd have preferred the slap. It's better that she think of him this way. That she and the others never realize how close to killing the Joker when Jason died and so many times afterward. That showdown with the three of them in that old building--
God, he still dreams about it. About how things might have gone if he'd just shot the clown right there. A punctured lung. A ruptured liver. He's lost count of the times he's woken up from that dream, hands shaking as he fights down the urge to vomit. Not because of the violence of it all, but because of how desperately he wants to see that violence done.
If he could do it for anyone it would be for Jason. If he could rationalize going down into that darkness at all it would be for Jason.
He doesn't believe Jason can be saved because... in a way, the boy is the manifestation of every failure Bruce has ever had. Every mistake, every wrong decision, every bad call. He's a symbol as much as a son. A good soldier in a war that never ends, never stops-- there is no light at the end of this tunnel, and Bruce long ago accepted it would claim his life. His life, not-- goddamnit, not those of his children.
He doesn't believe Jason can be saved because the thought alone terrifies him. It would feel too much like a slate wiped clean and Bruce has no idea how to live without the blood he's had on his hands for years.
What's one more weakness? One more chink in his armour? He has plenty already. He can't even be angry at Stephanie. She's telling the truth as she knows it, with the pieces he's given her and when has that progressed to disaster before? His jaw tightens abruptly, and his knuckles whiten on his glass.
Three options. He can provoke her to the point where she storms out. He can order her to leave. Or he can discuss the matter with her like a rational adult.
Not alone.
Bruce breathes.
In another life, one where his parents survived that night and he grew up normal and happy, loved-- everything untouchably perfect, he actually saw therapists for that night in the alley. He remembers the facets of that life overlaid with his own, how easy and simple it had been to sit down against calfskin leather and talk about his feelings.
Funny, how a version of him that had never known darkness could do it so easily. It's not that he's never spoken to people about his problems before. Shondra-- she was a medicinal doctor, but her touch healed so much more than his body in the few short months of their acquaintance. He can still remember how he came alive in her presence, how deftly she stripped his defenses away, how willing he was to tell her everything.
And how freeing it felt, to have that option. Cathartic. Like lancing an infection just below the skin, it hurts for a while and then it starts to heal. He understands why people do it. And why he can't.
If he heals, if he stops digging at those old scars, if he loses his anger and hatred he loses everything that makes him Batman. And he can't live without Batman. Batman is everything he built himself to protect what he holds dear and at the end of the day it's no more than a thin veneer between who he is and who he's failed.
Jason. Barbara. Dick, in needing him to become Batman. Damian, for never knowing of his existence. He's the lord and master of a legacy built on blood and bones and bodies, noises like gunshots and falling pearls.]
He made his choice.
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Something in her relaxes when all he does is speak, but the anger remains, and it renders her speechless for a moment. She doesn't even know how to begin articulating all that's wrong with that statement. She could yell at him more, try to say the things that'll hurt to most to get him to give some kind of reaction, but what she really wants is for him to understand.]
Do you-- [she has to stop, breathe in, breathe out; she can't look at him as she talks] I'm sure I don't have to explain PTSD to you, god knows all of us probably have it in some form or another, but do you know what it's like to wake up screaming every night, for months in a row, feeling like those hands are on you again, like you're a second away from the worst pain you could imagine? To have to strip all the sheets off your bed 'cause if you get even a little tangled up, you spend the next day crying and feeling like your heart's trying to crawl out of your chest? To have to - ask the people you love not to touch you, and then when they forget, you have to see the hurt on their faces when you flinch, and you have to explain to them it's not their fault that you felt him in their touch? Have you ever had a panic attack every single day for weeks on end, until they have to sedate you to stop you hurting yourself?
[her hands are curled into fists at her sides, nails digging into her palms, her breath coming a little too shallow, and she's pretty sure there are tears in her eyes, half from anger and half from having to dredge this up. But she makes herself look up at Bruce.]
I can't pretend to know what Jason went through, but I know what it was like for me. The day I heard Sionis was dead? Was the first full night of sleep I'd gotten for almost a year.
Jason doesn't have that. I can't blame him for any choice he makes while trying to find some peace.
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He's probably always known on some instinctive level, but that's the first time it registers. It's like a blow. Because for all that Bruce is cold and hard and for all that he cloaks himself in terror and darkness he's never wanted to inflict it on anyone who doesn't deserve it.
He's not like Black Mask. He's nothing like Roman Sionis. But Bruce is well aware of the fact that he's very alpha male, and that-- that correlation alone can't be pleasant.
So he's silent and very still while she speaks.
He's been tortured before. By people who knew what they were doing and some that didn't, but physical pain has never troubled him. He fights through it, or past it, or ignores it-- whatever's necessary, when it's necessary. That's how he's always been.
But it wasn't like that with Bane. Bane did more than hurt him, though he still has - his mouth twists into a grimace - nightmares about that fight. About how weak and helpless he felt, the relief at the thought that the battle might finally be over--
And God, he knows. He knows perfectly well what she means. If he closes his eyes he can hear the crack when Bane broke his back, the whistle of sound an air when he threw him from the roof. Everything that followed. Alfred-- God, he remembers Alfred sitting beside his bed, tears in his eyes when he thought Bruce was unconscious and how little he could stand it all. That feeling of being trapped in his own body, claustrophobic and cloying. The terror and the pain and the panic, he remembers all of it.
But they're just kids, and he brought them to this.
People call him a hero. He hates that word.
He and Stephanie have had their differences. They'll probably never be close. But he still steps out from behind the counter and - gently, as alien a concept as it is to him - wraps her in his arms.]
I do know. I'm-- [He closes his eyes, just briefly enough that he can imagine Alfred frowning at him] -- sorry.
[For so much. For everything he can't say. For the fact that at the end of it all, he still never wanted Bane dead, and he... he can't condone Jason's desire to kill the Joker. Even for the sake of peace.]
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The last time (the only other time) Bruce held her like this was when she'd collapsed in his arms after running from Black Mask, and by then she was barely holding onto consciousness. Her memories of it are fuzzy at best, making her feel like this is an entirely new experience, and for a moment she's not sure how to react. It doesn't help that even the size of Bruce is someting different; Cass and Tim are both smaller than Steph, so she never feels as... encompassed by someone's arms as she does right now.
She wonders if this is what children feel like when their dad's hug them.
Eventually, after what feels like an hour but is really only a few seconds, her breathing evens out and she brings her own arms up to wrap around Bruce in return, her hands gripping to the fabric of his shirt.]
Thank you. [she refuses to let herself cry right now, but her voice is still a little choked up.] I wasn't trying to make this about me, I just want you to understand.
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I'll speak with him.
[It won't change anything. But he'll do it.]
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For a long moment, she doesn't do anything except breathe, and it occurs to her that she doesn't want Bruce to let go just yet. This is the first real hug she's had since waking up in the ocean, and it feels like something missing has finally slotted into place. (She's always been a physical person, it's why she'd hated it so much when even the littlest touches set off her panic)]
I'm sorry for - everything, with the gang war.
[Not just for starting it, not just for Orpheus dying and so many people getting hurt, but...
For herself nearly dying, for staying hidden when she could have come home. She's spent a lot of time thinking about how it must have affected Tim, Cass, her mom, but - she realizes it must have hurt Bruce, too, to lose another Robin, even if she wasn't Robin when it happened]
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He's never forgiven her for that. He still goes to her when he needs a bullet pulled out or a wound stitched up, but he's never forgiven her for calling attention to something he already knows more intimately than she could ever hope to understand.
That this is his fault. That he created the Joker, that everyone he's ever killed is on his head. That in a way he created Dent, had a hand with Isley and Crane-- everyone. And that he has to keep fighting now just to hold back the floodgates that he himself opened.
The first time he met Shiva, she was with an old man who told him a parable that related to his life. He thought then that it applied to Talia. Now he knows better.
He releases her after a long moment, and turns back into the kitchen.]
Don't.
[Don't apologize. Don't try to set things right.]
That was my failure.
[He should have trusted her.]
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Except then he says that, and all other thoughts fly out of her head.
It's not much of a shock that Bruce takes the blame for everything, he's got a worse guilt complex than a Catholic, but...
Everyone told her it was her fault. Leslie reprimanded her, Tim said a lot of cruel things, even Cass told her she should have been more careful. Steph honestly isn't sure how to process Bruce telling her that she shouldn't apologize for it. That it wasn't her fault.
She opens her mouth, closes it, then brings up her hands to cover her face, pressing her fingers against her closed eyes and brushing away the tears that are threatening to spill. She was prepared for an emotionally intense conversation, but this has been something else entirely.
The thing that finally gets her to speak is the fact that she doesn't want him to have to bear all her guilt.]
I think we both made mistakes.
[Maybe guilt is easier when it's shared.]
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[It's neither agreement nor disagreement, not directly. Instead, he just picks up his glass and takes a drink and doesn't look at her. It's obvious that she's on the verge of tears and it's the only semblance of privacy he can offer.]
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It takes her a little while to feel like she can open her eyes and talk to him without breaking down, but she does manage it eventually. And then she steps back up to the kitchen bench, wrapping her hands around the glass without lifting it, or even planning to drink from it.
She feels like she's twisted and pulled, wrung out and left to dry, and she's honestly not sure what she's going to do when she goes back to her suite. Maybe she can find some kedan criminals to beat the crap out of until she feels better. For now, though, she just gives a shaky laugh, the bitterness in it directed mostly at herself.]
I swear I didn't come here meaning to dump all that on you. I really did just want to make sure you were gonna be alright.
[She probably should have known better.]
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As I was saying, about the gang activity. The Black Kirin have split into three splinter cells, each seems to be under the control of a former lieutenant and has focused on one particular venue, likely whichever one they were in control of before the dissolution of the primary gang. Our goal over the next few weeks is going to involve crippling their industry--
[He pauses. And he just... looks at Stephanie a moment. He purses his lips.]
I'll give you the details tomorrow.
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But then he stops, and she blinks in surprise at the fact he seems to be willing to give her a break. Or maybe he just doesn't think she can handle it, but that's mostly her pride speaking. Still.]
I'm fine. This is important.
[Never let it be said that she let her emotions get in the way of the job (except for when she does)]
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[The way he says her name is almost a warning.]
Tomorrow.
[Bruce isn't stupid. He knows that for him, throwing himself into his work is the best and often only way to deal with things. But... not everyone is the same. And holding others to his standards is exactly how they get hurt. He's seen it happen too many damn times already.
Stephanie taking one night to herself won't make or break his plans. And he's not doing it for her. Because she's weak.
He's... doing it because he's learning how. And this seems as good a starting point as any.]
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But - after everything else that's happened tonight, she thinks he's probably doing this for the right reasons.
She nods.] Tomorrow.
[She's finished with the protein shake, and she places it back on the kitchen bench, fiddling with the glass a little. It might be pushing it to keep talking about this topic, but there's one mor ething she wants to say] I'm gonna try to talk to him, too. There's... a story I need to tell him.
[about how her father killed someone for hurting her, and how it didn't make her feel any better]
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Which?
[Though he probably already knows the answer, doesn't he.]
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Talking about it peripherally is one thing; she's not sure she actually wants to tell Bruce this. It would be different with Jason, he grew up on the streets, he'd understand in a way Bruce probably can't.]
One of my own. About a man named Jim Murray.
[It's a way of testing the waters. She has no idea if Tim might've told Bruce, or if he would have known anyway (How far back into her life did he look when she started as Spoiler? Would the death have raised red flags for him, too? Murray never used drugs until his overdose) but she's not ready to explain straight away.
She realizes her hands are shaking, and clenches them into fists to stop it.]
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His jaw tightens briefly. Friends with her father.
There had never been enough to suggest a homicide, though the overdose was unexpected and the man had no history of prescription drug abuse. The way she says his name suggests nothing else. Though murder was rarely a high priority for the Cluemaster, he still racked up a body count over the years, and Bruce has never doubted him capable of it.
How many reasons would there be for father choose to kill a close acquaintance? Especially a father who's as otherwise unconcerned about his daughter's welfare as Arthur always was?
Bruce looks at her, actually just looks. He's done that so rarely, despite the years he's known her. Hard to miss the shaking hands, the way she clenches them to stop it. His tone when he speaks is as gentle as he can make it.]
Do you think it will help?
[He doesn't push her about the subject matter. She'll talk about it if she wants to.]
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There's a long pause before she can speak.]
I don't know. Maybe it'll help, to know there's someone who understands.
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Or it could make him angry, to feel as if someone else's father loved them enough to-- seek the sort of justice that Jason wants.
[He doesn't stumble over that word, 'love', even if he knows it doesn't quite apply to Stephanie and Arthur's relationship. But that's always been one of the things that hurt the most, regarding Jason. That the boy saw the Joker's continued existence as a direct correlation to how much Bruce 'didn't' care about him, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.]
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[There's anger there, and a not-very-subtle dig at Bruce, just in case that's what he'd been thinking.]
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[He's just gonna point that out.]
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It's not his fault, thinking about Murray always makes her temper shorter than usual.]
Sorry. I just - [sometimes she feels like she has more in common with Jason than some of the others do.] I wanna try to make a difference, and I think it might help for him to know that what he wants doesn't always make a difference.
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I'm not saying I know you. I know Jason. Knowing that you've been through something even tangentially similar, knowing that you were Robin will only make him hate everything you stand for. The Lazarus Pit didn't leave his mind--- well.
[Bruce reaches up, pinches the bridge of his nose to ward off an incoming headache. Years too late, honestly.]
Jason died for a woman that... looks very much like you.
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It's on the tip of her tongue, and maybe an hour ago she would have said it, an hour ago she wouldn't have been so sure. Sometimes she's wondered if her and Bruce really stand for the same thing, when he does things like rescusitating the Joker, when he yelled at her for nearly killing Zsasz while trying to save him.
Maybe that's why Jason has always - interested her.
But for the first time in her life, right now, she actually feels like Bruce cares about her, and that makes a difference. And then there's that last little fact. It hurts, somehow, even though it doesn't make sense that it does.]
I didn't know. About his mother. [she almost echoes his gesture, rubbing the back of her hand against her forehead] You really don't think it'd make things worse?
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[He closes his eyes briefly.]
I found her prior to him. She was still alive.
[And if he hadn't stopped-- if he'd just kept looking for Jason-- God, the boy's body was still warm, the blood still bright. If he'd been just a little faster. A minute? Two? Mere seconds? If he'd had the foresight to start CPR-- the brain isn't dead until it's been four to six minutes without oxygen, if he'd been able to get Jason's heart restarted there might have been a chance--
But no. He panicked. The sight of Jason lying there had broken him more completely than Bane could have hoped to accomplish. All of his training, all of his smarts and his skills had amounted to nothing. Nothing but a man who held his son and said his name over and over like a prayer to some deaf god.
He has so many regrets about that day. But all he had to do was live with them. Compared to Jason, he got off easy.
Not a day has gone by where he doesn't wish it had been him. Sometimes he dreams about that, too -- enduring the same brutal beating that was the precursor to Jason's death. If he could have traded their places he'd have sold his soul to do it, and done so gladly. But the world is never that simple, or kind. The world keeps spinning even when the people you love are dead and buried in the ground. No matter the loneliness or the abandonment or the guilt or the pain or the shame you feel, the world spins on.
Even here.
He pushes those thoughts out of his mind. God knows they've never lead him down any path save misery. Instead, he looks back at Stephanie. One of the things that made her such an effective Robin was her boundless passion. Stephanie... she inhabits the moment she's in so completely. It's been a shortcoming often enough in the time he's known her. It's one of the things that gets her into trouble.
But it's also one of the reasons he's talking to her now.
They all do what they do because they care. Bruce has spent years building himself up into something great and untouchable, but the fact of the matter is he knelt in the wreckage of Gotham after the quake and sobbed. He's strongest when he knows eyes are on him. It's when he's alone that he surrenders to his emotions, and those emotions have always ran hot.
But he puts on the cowl not because he enjoys it (though some part of him does. Some part of him relishes fighting back against the crime that took his parents) but because of the people he can help. The lives he can save. The children who won't have to grow up alone, the husbands that can go home to their wives. He does it because he cares, because he always has and despite his best efforts, always will.
Dick is the same. But unlike Bruce, he wears his compassion on his sleeve. Tim, Stephanie, Jason-- one of Jason's shortcomings wasn't that he didn't care enough, it was that he cared too much. Jason saw himself in the weak and the downtrodden and that made him rattlesnake mean when backed into corners.
But Stephanie... maybe she understands more than he's given her credit for. Than he's ever given her credit for. It's a hard pill to swallow, and bitter besides, but maybe he was wrong about her.
Maybe he wanted to be wrong.]
If you want to speak with him, I won't stop you.
[It's not quite the same thing as answering her. But it's the best he's got.]
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