Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-06-13 15:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, damian wayne, door: dc comics, red hood |
Who: Bruce & Damian & Jason
What: DaddyBats comes to check on his birds.
Where: Ivy's greenhouse.
When: Backdated to after this and Damian's Wonder City trip.
Warnings/Rating: None.
Damian was barely asleep for twenty minutes on a loveseat before the faint sound of purr purr purr and a fluffy tail in his mouth woke him up. Crawling across his face was one of Selina’s cats, which was more of a kitten, who was both unafraid of all the commotion and this new, broken bird. Instead of swatting the thing off, he reached up a tired hand to pet the kitten gently, making it purr even louder. “Good kitty.” Damian said, deliriously fatigued and eternally fond of cats. It wasn’t until a second later that he remembered where he was and who would be watching, so he sat up and held the tiny black and white kitten in his hands as it nibbled on his thumb.
“Jason?” Damian was having a hard time keeping his eyes open, squinting around the room for a trace of red. He wouldn’t be surprised if the ex-Robin had just left Damian with Selina and her less than friendly roommates. The kitten in his hand mewed, making Damian want to just curl up in a ball with the little thing and fall back asleep. But, he had a feeling this night wasn’t over and despite his body clinging to the idea of rest, Damian struggled to stay awake. His eyes finally adjusted, though there was still a bit of blurriness over them that came with the aftermath of drugs and being completely worn out.
The room was still mostly dark, and Jason was merely a folded shape in the dimness, sitting on a nearby chair with his legs folded up close to his body. He had a knife on his hand, the tip turning slowly against his finger. The gleam and shift of the blade stopped when Damian woke and began petting the cat, paralyzing the beam of light it reflected, pinning it to the ceiling. "Go back to sleep, bird," he said, glancing at his digital watch, glowing faintly from the floor. It had only been a few minutes, and the kid needed his rest. He had his helmet off and resting on the floor as well. There wasn't anyone in Gotham who didn't know who he really was these days, and he could sweep it up if he had to leave in a hurry.
For all his bulk and sheer weight of the armor he wore, the Bat made no sound as he entered the room. All that announced his arrival was the quiet creak of the window, and had one failed to hear it, they might have assumed he simply appeared, a shadow of inky blackness in the darkened room. He was silent for what felt like a very long time, gaze moving back and forth between Damian and Jason, eyes glinting like steel behind the cowl as he regarded the two and, in his own way, assessed their current conditions. He had a great deal to say, much of it things neither of them would want to hear, but between anger and concern lay a sort of no man’s land that he had very little experience with. Until recently, those who he counted himself close to was limited to Alfred--in terms of those who were present in this Gotham--and those whom he cared about were just as few in number. Fear was not something he felt often, but he felt it now; not for himself, but for another person, which was so much worse. It made him vulnerable, a state which he strove so hard to avoid.
He moved with ease across the room, sidestepping the multitude of furry bodies that seemed disinclined to move out of his path themselves. “Are you alright?” While a lecture was inevitable, he did have priorities. The question was likely directed towards Damian, though it could have easily been intended for the man--though the Bat thought of him as a boy--in the chair as well.
Damian wasn’t expecting Batman to show up in the lair of Gotham bad girls, but really he couldn’t be surprised. He had left his father out of the loop on purpose, asking only Jason Todd and Selina to pull him out if things got too messy. He could have counted on Batman to do the same, but it would mean being honest about his intentions and destination. “I’m fine.” Damian said after a moment, sitting up to look at his father and then over to Jason.
The Red Hood wasn’t who he remembered, but it was for the best. His Jason Todd was a moron, a jealous one at that. This one was just damaged goods with a broken compass. Damian could relate to that. “Jason isn’t going to want anyone to thank him for pulling me out of Wonder City. But, that’s what he did.” Damian said as if Jason wasn’t even in the room. It was his passive way of thanking the ex-Robin himself.
Jason watched Bruce drop into the room with a little surprise, but not much. He should have expected that word would get out Damian had been brought here the second he told Selina. It was a reminder that she was always going to side with the Bat, and a good one, bracing. He'd be careful what he said to her in future.
Jason felt a mixture of emotions, seeing Bruce in the suit, though he wasn't Bruce, not really. True, he looked like Bruce, and sounded pretty much like him, but there was no doubt that he wasn't the same man. In some respects, though, he was just the same as always, clearly ready to unleash a torrent of scolding on them both, and Jason didn't intend to stick around for that. Or for Bruce's entirely likely attempt to grab him and incapacitate him, throw him behind bars as thanks for saving his son. This Bruce didn't know Jason any more than he knew Damian, but that didn't matter. It was obvious enough that he felt loyalty to his biological son despite not knowing him, but there was no reason for him to feel the same way about the adopted one. Especially the wayward adopted one. Maybe Dick would have better luck when he came around.
Swallowing bitterness, Jason stood from the chair, picking up his helmet and watch from the floor and backing a few steps away, quietly. He might have gotten out unnoticed, too, if Damian hadn't drawn attention to him. He straightened, staring back at them both. What was he playing at? Was that really a thank you in disguise? Now that was unexpected, and he glanced between them. Revealing any sort of vulnerability for Bruce to press at wasn't an option. "Yeah, well, keeping people from getting killed by assassins is supposed to be part of the job description, even if they are brats. Nothing personal."
The young man who looked at both of them was indeed young, perhaps younger even than the Bat would have expected, dark hair and shadowed eyes, waiting for the other shoe to drop, tensed. "It's nice, this little family reunion," Jason said, "But I should be going now that dad's showed up to pick up his kid."
‘Fine’ was subjective, and the Bat had no intentions of relying on Damian’s own assessment of his condition. Selina had mentioned drugs, which he suspected was only the beginning, but he would make no progress here, in a greenhouse inhabited by those whom the Gotham PD would scramble to get their hands on. His knowledge of its location was far more dangerous, but fortunately for Ivy she and Harley did not outrank the current situation. “You are fortunate to be alive,” he told him. Even if he was already aware of that fact, which he should have been, a reminder could do no harm. He needed a reminder, if he was foolish enough to go behind his back and take on the Talons himself despite being expressly forbidden to enact that plan of action. This merely highlighted the reality that he had no control over his own son, as well as the lack of trust between them. It was rather disheartening. “Once you’ve rested, we can return to the mansion. You’ll be able to recover properly there.” His tone suggested that it would be quite some time before he would be permitted to leave. Being grounded by Batman would be every teenager’s worst nightmare, and he wouldn’t soon forget Damian’s dishonesty.
He wasn’t well-versed in gratitude, whether he was on the receiving end or the one expressing it, and the shift of his attention from Damian to Jason was slow. There was no true recognition, not as there would have been had this Bat been the one Jason knew, and he was admittedly preoccupied, at least initially, with how young he was. So much potential and yet all of it was wasted on a twisted vendetta. Was that what the other Bruce had seen, the potential to be something great? Was that why he’d brought someone so young into his world? Perhaps the greatest difference between the Bat that stood there now and the other, the one the two boys knew, existed in those known at one point or another as Robin.
“Wait.” This Bat was in a sort of transitionary period between strict black and white and shades of grey, but he recognized that Jason was not like most of the criminals he dealt with each day. Murderer or not, it wasn’t quite so simple, and he didn’t need Luke to tell him that. Tonight, at least, he wouldn’t attempt to apprehend him. “Before you leave, I want to know what happened,” he said, and it was clear he meant from both. “All of it. Don’t lie to me.” That was, admittedly, directed more towards Damian.
Damian looked at Jason like if he was going to run, now would be a good time. His father wasn’t written for the Talons. His universe was supposed to be based in a Gotham grounded in what Vegas considered reality. There was never supposed to be zombies, immortality or sidekicks. It was going to be hard to convince him that killing, no destroying the Talons was the only way. “I challenged their leader. Like I told you I would.” Damian looked up to his father. Blue eyes unafraid, but perhaps a little disappointed. “On a hunch, I looked for a place built under Gotham a long time ago called Wonder City. I knew the Talons liked history and so I hunted them down there.”
He gently pet the tiny kitten in his hand with the bottom of his thumb. “They dropped me in a maze. A maze not unlike the one they dropped you in back where I’m from. It took me almost two days to get through and when I did, they pit me against their leader as I requested.” Damian’s voice darkened. “I cut his monster heart out. They were impressed enough to want to make me an undead, brainless killer like them. And, they would have if Jason hadn’t saved me.”
Jason was close enough to the door that he could make a break for it any time, and when he looked back at Bruce and saw that flat lack of recognition, saw that his reaction was curiosity and disappointment and reproach, by god, he wanted to run. He hadn't realized quite what it would be like, to not even be familiar enough to Bruce to draw anger from him. It was like looking at a stranger, and realizing that the person you had mistaken them for was dead.
Jason drew himself up a little taller. It didn't matter, in the end. All that mattered was getting out of here without getting cuffed. Hopefully Damian would be enough of a distraction to prevent that. He distantly listened to Damian recount what had happened up until Jason found him, and felt a touch of grudging appreciation. He wouldn't be lying, not to Bruce, and to take out the leader of those things was no small accomplishment, even he had to admit that. Bruce might not see it the same way, though. "They're dead already," he said, all too conscious of what that brought up, coming from him. "Not really alive, just evil puppets of some nasty forces. I showed up in Wonder City, found Damian in a trophy case, and busted him out. Killed a few Talons in the process, but it's not like the world's going to miss those guys." There was steel in his eyes, and challenge in his voice to Bruce to defy that, to try to defend the sanctity of unholy lives.
Disbelief warred with horror and, somewhere beneath the surface, repulsion as the Bat listened to Damian’s tale. His disobedience angered him, yes, as did his utter recklessness and lack of foresight, but when the boy spoke of cutting the Talon leader’s heart out, he had a very difficult time imagining it as an action he would ever condone. Trust only went so far; for the Bat to believe that these creatures were truly undead monsters, he would need proof, and nothing short of seeing them for himself would do. The importance of life, however tained it was, was so deeply ingrained within him that it simply couldn’t be any way. He couldn’t stand there and give anything other than disapproval for lives taken, even if there was no life there to begin with. “And I told you no, Damian. I told you we would find another way.” The Bat remained still as stone though he itched to pace, to move, and it was only his practised control that kept him in place, just as it kept his anger in check. “Was I wrong? You could have been killed, or worse, if they are truly what you say they are. I hope you realize just how foolish your actions were and why.” I cut his monster heart out. He kept his expression blank, shrouding the sheer incredulity that such an act could be spoken of as though it was nothing.
While the Bat was not reckless enough to go after the Talons on his own, he did think it might be time for him to investigate them himself rather than listen to third parties in their attempts to educate him on the subject. “You are not to leave the mansion until I say otherwise, do you understand? I want to know where you are and what you’re doing at all times,” he ordered, despite Jason’s presence. Perhaps it was unwise, to pile more restrictions on the boy, but he was hopelessly out of his depth when it came to fatherhood and giving Damian freedom to make his own choices had only ended in disaster. Clearly he couldn’t be trusted, and if he was going to go behind his back regardless, why not restrict him from doing so? In a way, it was a sort of test, and if the Bat was being honest with himself it was one he expected Damian to fail. He wanted him to pass, yes, but he did not expect it. “You need your rest,” he added a moment later, his voice less cold, some of the sharp harshness fading away.
Then he turned his attention to Jason, noting the way he drew himself up in the way that only the Bat could take note of such things. He wanted to help the young man, but the last person he’d tried to save had ended up dead, and he had been forced to take on their crimes on his own in order to cover failure with success. In this, the Bat’s faith in himself wavered. As Jason spoke, however, he wondered if he realized that the same could be said about him. Dead already, not really alive, just the puppet of evil forces-- the Lazarus Pit was unnatural, and it had raised a boy from the dead, one who stood before him now. The Bad did not see him as a monster, as something inhuman, but there were those who might. Would they be justified in cutting out his heart? Of course, he was wise enough not to say any of that aloud,though his silence spoke volumes on its own. There would be no condoning of death from him. “It’s fortunate that you arrived when you did,” he said, the closest to gratitude the Bat would get, as well as a deliberate refusal to agree that killing the Talons had been necessary.
Damian was too tired to protest against his father grounding him. He knew he needed time to heal and work on the Batwing anyway, but the fact that he was still being treated like a child threatened to eat away at him. Remember what you used to say? Let them think you’re just a worthless brat. Roger was still there, somewhere. Reminding him to play to what people thought was a weakness. If they wanted to keep treating him like a kid, let them. “Fine.” Damian said, after a moment of just sitting there talking it through with Roger. “I have other projects to work on in the cave. Roger is going to go out of business if I keep stealing his time, anyway.”
He made it sound like he knew he went too far. It wasn’t completely lying. Damian had tried to talk to his father about this, but hadn’t tried to see it from his perspective. He wanted him to just change overnight into the person he knew back home. “I’m taking this cat.” Damian said defiantly, like it mattered. The kitten in his hand kept purring and rubbing against his wrist and fingers like this was obviously the right choice.
The hardening in Bruce's eyes, his unwillingness to admit the Talons deserved death, that even the undead ought to die, seemed like a signal to go, as far as Jason was concerned. He was never going to understand, always a fool too absorbed in his ideals to see to the right or left of himself. When Bruce scolded Damian and grounded the eighteen year old to the house, Jason caught Damian’s eye. The look said, See? He's always going to treat you like this.
"Don't let Selina see you with it," Jason warned, dry, as if the cat was the only part of the somber conversation that mattered, undead assassins aside. "Don't think she'd be too happy if she heard you were stealing her pets." Jason offered a sneer to Bruce. "You should really discipline him," he said, pointing Damian. It was all laced with more than his usual measure of bitterness. Nothing he ever did was right, of course, not even with a Bruce who could have been a clean slate. He didn't even know why he bothered. Nothing was ever going to change.
Jason backed the door open, pausing in the doorway a moment. "There is no other way, Bruce. One of these days, you'll get that." Yeah, right.
Damian’s agreement came too easily. The Bat had expected an argument, or some sort of protest at the very least, and the lack of both was not as reassuring as it should have been. This would not be the last time his son disobeyed him, he knew. There would be other close encounters, more foolish mistakes, and as a father he should have known how to prevent it. Should have, yet he didn’t, and he adopted it as a personal failure, which he had an unfortunate tendency to do more often than not. “Good,” he said with a nod. He was, at least, wise enough to refrain from outright accusing Damian of lying simply to placate him.
The cat was grossly insignificant in the grand scheme of things that he almost didn’t bother dignifying the very teenage-like declaration with a response. Maybe he should have said no, but doing so seemed like a petty and altogether ineffective attempt at punishment. Grounding the boy would be enough, and hopefully Damian would eventually understand the true gravity of what he’d done. Jason spoke before he could respond, however, and the Bat bristled at the bitterness he heard behind his words. It came naturally, his reaction, a defense mechanism which had a great deal to do with defense, and he regarded Jason for a long moment before turning away. "Fine. Keep the cat, Damian," he said, his voice an expanse of cool nothing as he found himself a chair in which to wait. Damian was too weak to travel now, yes, but he wasn't leaving until that changed.
He looked up at the angry young man in the doorway, and in that moment the Bat felt a sort of inexplicable sadness that he suspected most people thought him incapable of. “No, Jason. That’s not true.” The day he crossed that line and agreed with Jason’s mindset was the day he gave up the cowl and everything that made him who he was; death was preferable to such a loss of identity.
Damian had a new-found respect for Jason that couldn’t be shaken, but he still thought the ex-Robin was wrong. While the young Wayne snuck behind his father’s back and had a hard time trusting him for very long, he never wanted to leave the family completely. Batman’s methods may not have been right for Gotham in the long run, but burning the place to the ground wouldn’t work either. Roger had told him about his own future. His time as Batman and complete loss of anything that made him human. Damian was trying to avoid that, in his own way.
But, Jason was still a moron, wasn’t he? Not like Grayson, who could see the smallest appreciation for what it was. Damian turned his body towards the belly of the couch, letting the kitten curl up on his back as he tried to continue sleeping. This thing with Jason and his father wasn’t something he could help. At least, not while they were still in the room.
Jason looked back at Bruce, and he saw that sadness, and for a moment, he seemed like Bruce again. The real Bruce, the one he'd known. And how sad was that, that seeing that look was what reminded Jason of the man he'd known most? He hesitated in the doorway a moment, a flicker of something betrayed and pained going across his face, alongside regret. Then he lifted the mask and pulled it over his head, obscuring anything more behind scarlet metal sheen, and stepped out the door. He was gone within the minute.
Perhaps he should have said something else, something more, or kept Jason from leaving outright. That flicker of emotion visible in his expression, however briefly, suggested that all hope was not lost, yet the Bat wasn’t sure how to close the distance between them. He wanted to, but that wasn’t nearly enough, and by the time Jason left the silence still hadn’t been broken. He looked away, towards Damian, but the boy appeared to be sleeping, so rather than disturb his rest (even if it was feigned) the Bat remained silent and waited for time to pass.