( damian's dressed down, wearing an oversized hoodie that's shoved over his head along with dark jeans and bright red converse. the kind of outfit one would anticipate from a kid his age, maybe, rather than the more professional button-downs and slacks he had been wearing before. it's - not intentional, he's just running low on clean everyday clothing and hasn't had time to stare down the laundry machine to figure out how that works just yet.
but he has decided to approach bruce on his home turf, rather than damian's own. he doesn't come for him in the manor, but stops by the tower instead. his trip upstairs gets delayed by one of the tower's bats lying on the floor, and damian - squats down beside it, lips pressing together before he reaches out and picks it up gently. he doesn't have anything to carry it in, so he rolls it up in the front of his hoodie instead. and given his grapple gun has been left at home, that means he's taking the normal person way upstairs by elevator, rather than climbing up the elevator shaft.
when he finally manages to get up to bruce, it's with a small bat swaddled in the fabric of his hoodie and a determined look in his eye. )
( he knows someone's here the moment the elevator starts up and, from where he is, it's easy for him to see who it might be when the doors come to open. a batarang in hand, when he spots damian stepping out, he sets it down. watches him for a moment. then goes back to what he was doing there.
crouched on the hardwood floors.
large round table shoved off to the far side of the room.
drawing out a map of etraya across the floor in white chalk. )
( it's a few hours after bruce has laid himself down when damian silently leaps up onto the top of his headboard from his bedroom's window. the soles of his boots are padded specifically to make himself as quiet as possible when he's trying to be, and it works well for him in cases like this: when he's sneaking from one area of the penthouse to the other from outside of it, checking on bruce before he makes any real effort to get his attention.
he crouches down low, enough that the strings at the front of his hoodie brush against the wood of the headboard when damian squints down at bruce's face. his face is still a little banged up, but it's, as he said after the incident, less bothersome than a paper cut on one of his hands that he's currently nursing. and that's why he's here, isn't he? damian is with bruce, nothing is happening to him without his father knowing. as much as he dislikes being babied, he's intentionally staying nearly to soothe that protective instinct he knows bruce is struggling with.
but that's not why he's crouching so close to his face. no, he's waiting to see if bruce is awake; if he's staying in bed to pretend he's getting sleep, or if he's tired himself out enough to get some rest. )
( he's not sleeping— well. he tried to, but. he'd been unable. since the destruction of his plush— since he'd witnessed the death of his mother, again, sleeping hasn't come easy to him. he knows it wasn't her. that is was just some twisted version meant to hurt him in any way that it could and yet... seeing her again... seeing her like that... it hasn't been easy to sleep.
the moment damian slips in, he knows. listens to the so very soft way he moves about. just... lays there. beneath the sheets of the large bed he has for himself here. on his side. quiet. staring off across the room in the dark. he can see. of course he can. with how long he's spent lurking within the darkness in gotham, he can see as easily as if it were day.
after a moment, he speaks. voice low. rough. not bothering to move or shift. just laying there. head on the pillow. )
Hey, it's Dick. The one that helped you with your car, sort of. I was just checking in to see how you've been since the whole disaster of stuffed animal things. I know it sucked for most people.
Just, thought of you and figured I'd make sure you're doing alright in that big tower of yours. ... The manor is pretty quiet now.
( it's true that since the whole plushie thing happened — since he dealt with a twisted version of his deceased mother trying to kill him — he's been holed up in his tower, barely coming out. it's also the closest thing he has to home here currently. his home. where ghosts quietly roam the halls and stairs as much as they do back within gotham. a familiar comfort despite the tragedy of them.
he's in one of the lush gothic chairs there, watching but not really the footage he has from the clock tower he'd obtained, running diagnostics on it, when he sees the message come through and he stares at it. debates whether or not to say anything. )
Do you need something?
( people always want something from him, don't they? )
[Bruce is probably just trying to have a relaxing night.
All of this changes when the worst kind of superhero foil appears, crawling across the windows like some red and blue Ju-On ghost. He stops crawling to look at Bruce Wayne through the window with his big white bug-eyes, his voice raised but polite.]
Oh! Uh...! Good night! Just here to help a raccoon. [He holds up a small pet carrier that had been hanging off him, where a raccoon licks and gnaws at the bars. That explains the random scratches on Spider-Man's suit, then.] Don't know how it even got up here, honestly.
... Man, is there a better way to say 'hi' at night? Like, 'Good afternoon' is a way to say hello, but 'good night' just sounds like I'm telling you to go to sleep.
[He's just sticking there. A big bright bug on the side of the building.
Almost typed out 'like a pimple on the forehead of Wayne Tower', but that's really rude.]
( He's in the penthouse, not exactly getting ready for bed, but not exactly looking to go out either. Not tonight anyways. He's looking over something on his laptop there, remnants of greasepaint fading some across his eyes. That's when he catches sight of something— of someone there outside the windows... the windows that are quite high up and no one should be on. The last time he'd seen anyone outside these windows, they could fly, but they're not here anymore. Hasn't been for a number of months now.
But this isn't them — though some part of him wishes it was. This is someone he doesn't know, someone he can't claim to have seen around even with his lack of socialization skills, and with being where they are and this being his tower, he doesn't like being caught off guard like this. Especially in his own home.
Staring, he slowly closes the laptop with a hand, waits for the soft click to come from it, before he's rising to stand more upright and he's staring still to the sight before him across the room. )
( he's familiar with wayne tower. perhaps not one that looked the same as this one, given the one damian had temporarily worked in was more office space than empty floors including one full of bats, but it's similar enough to gain his attention regardless.
it's in the cover of the night that robin opts to see what he can discern from the inside of the tower. he hasn't been home yet, despite having noticed wayne manor on the map: after all, grayson had moved them out into the penthouse, their cave hasn't been underground since his father had still been alive around. it's on his list, but first?
he's climbing his way up the building from the outside, yellow cape flitting around behind him and making it almost impossible to blend into the dark but it matters not. damian isn't trying to blend in, he's trying to see who's home. )
( He doesn't know what day it is, they all seem to bleed together as of late. He's been working on getting his security system to both the tower and the terminal up and running, but. It's taking him a little longer than he thought it would. Doesn't help that he lacks everything he has back in his Gotham, but. It's still doable. Just... slower. Granted, it's giving him something to do, what with having decided there's no need for Batman here, so. It's handyman work around the tower that he's been up to... with little to no visitors. Unless you count the bats.
Maybe one day Bruce Wayne will only drink ginger ale disguised as champagne as a means to keep up public playboy billionaire appearances, but that day is not today nor is it anywhere in sight currently and so, he pours himself a glass of scotch and downs it as he stands there. Hand flat on the table. He's pinching the bridge of his nose — wondering if he should just get in bed and get whatever couple hours of sleep he can manage before he picks up... something there outside the building.
Heel of his palm pushing open one of the large windows, he stares into the darkness of the night and feels nearly blinded with the bright yellow catching in the breeze up here.
He doesn't notice yet, but. He will.
For now, he stares to the climbing figure with his face slightly scrunched up. )
[Since gaining a new name, earning the new gig, Jason has been tentatively more happy about where he's ended up. However, he knows that at any moment this could all be taken away from him, so he keeps his doubts to himself. He's on his way to drop in on Bruce-- to talk costume ideas, masks, gear-- and is once more at the base of Wayne Tower.
It still looks a bit too much like Titan Tower for his comfort, but right now he's got to ignore that.
He buzzes to be let up, offering,] Hey, it's Jason. Wanna talk about some stuff.
( For a long moment, there's no reply that comes from the Tower. No indication that Bruce is even there. Just silence. It's only after it seems far longer than it should take for any sort of sign of life to be shown that the entrance is unlocked and the elevator is there for him.
Bruce, however, doesn't answer.
The penthouse— well. The living area of it, anyways, looks as though a storm had ripped through it. Things knocked and broken on the floor, the large table shoved to the other side of the room, a bookcase tipped over, shards of glass and books and papers strewn about across the floor. It would be best Jason take care with where he walks, Bruce not having bothered to clean any of it up.
And as for Bruce, he's very much there in the penthouse — had been in and out of some sort of attempt at sleep when his laptop had informed him of somewhere there at the entrance and, after a long moment of just staring at it, cheek pressed to his pillow, he had opted to let Jason in. )
[ Dick's been thinking, on his way over to the tower, about how to approach this. He has no idea what state Bruce might be in at this point, if the recent developments with Damian have had any time to settle or if it's just send Bruce into an inward spiral, but in the end he ultimately decides to come to the door like a more or less normal visitor. He'll even knock, mostly out of habit, though he knows it's not necessary, and he acknowledges as much when he peers up at the building, at whatever cameras Bruce has on the door.
He's in the suit. That was less a deliberate choice and just a coincidence, he decided to come straight here rather than stopping to change. ]
Hey. Mind if I come in?
[ It seems like the best way to start. He'll wait for any kind of response for what he considers an appropriate length of time for a brooding Bruce to decide whether or not he wants to be reasonable. But hopefully he knows that Dick isn't going to be easily discouraged. If not, he's about to learn. ]
The moment he wakes, he thinks for a split second that it's Gotham he finds himself in, expecting Alfred to chide him for still being in bed when they have accountants or whoever making their way over for breakfast because of his lack of initiative in handling the Wayne finances. In that split second, he expects to hear the man's voice, but instead, he only hears the gentle hum of his laptop there next to the bed, keeping a watchful eye on everything while he sleeps and he remembers... he's alone.
Every time he wakes, he has to wipe the tears from his eyes — his head pounds and he can barely sit up sometimes. He knows he's out of aspirin — knows he needs to get some, but that involves leaving the tower and with everything that's happened as of late, he finds there to be no reason for him to. No reason for there to be Bruce Wayne. No reason for there to be Batman. No reason to be hope when his own — when his light — is gone now. Because what is Batman without Robin? Nothing. Just as he's become.
Fingers in his hair, head hanging between his shoulders, he tries to recall if maybe there's a willow tree nearby he can cut the bark off of and make do with that for pain relief when suddenly, his laptop alerts him to something and he slowly glances over to catch the video at the door. The screen glows soft in the dark room, a setting where it doesn't bother his eyes as much, and he sees the familiar costume there even from the bed, the black and blue difficult to mistake for anyone else.
For a long moment, there's silence — no reply — to Dick's inquiry with as to whether or not he can come in and it seems as if Bruce is either not home —hah— or outright ignoring the other man. It's only after what must feel like minute longer than it should usually take for him to give some sort of reply that the door unlocks with a heavy click and that's Dick's answer.
What he steps into... well. It's certainly not the manor. His own suffered severe damage when it had caught fire back when he was younger and his father had moved them to the penthouse in Wayne Tower. Since then, it's been his home and it's why he rarely leaves it. Despite this not being Gotham, this, however much of a replica it might be, is the closest thing he has to home here which, in itself, is often a double-edged sword for his feelings. But the design of the penthouse, when Dick makes his way up via the elevator, is everything gothic in terms of architecture yet very much Gotham despite.
And when he gets himself there to the penthouse... saying it's a light disaster is a bit of an understatement. The main room is in a state of disarray — things strewn about the floor, chairs tipped over, the large table shoved all the way to the wall, shards of glass still sprinkled about across the floorboards. Books and papers litter the floor — a board game he and Damian had been playing knocked over with all its pieces scattered. None of it looks fresh. It's been like this for some time now. Untouched. Without any signs of effort or desire made to fix it. Frozen in time. A sign of life does, however, make itself known in the form of a black cat with white little paws and touches of white underneath it. It meows the moment it sees Dick and lazily strolls its way over to greet him, graceful as ever with avoiding the clutter. That's when Bruce appears at the top of the stairs, disheveled, a heavy five o clock shadow happening there on his face, hands in the pockets of the sleep bottoms he has on. For a moment, he's silent, simply staring to the other until he finally speaks, voice a touch raspy. )
Take the cat with you. He belonged to Damian.
( And he knows how much Damian loved his animals.
But at that, he turns — makes his way back to his bedroom to sink into the darkness of it all in his bed and try to salvage what pieces of happiness he can find within his nightmares. Because it's the only way he ever gets to see the people he loves and misses. )
( there are many subjects damian excels in. hand him a vehicle that needs to be altered, and he'll manage it easily. ask him to sketch a portrait of a suspect based off of a description, he'll do it. tell him to torture a man to get information out of him, and - he's been moving away from that level of violence, but he'll get what he came in for. leave him stranded on an island without supplies, and damian can not only survive but find his way off of it. those are all factors he's been trained to handle. to overcome. to find a way to thrive in regardless of how harsh the circumstances are.
which is just it: the league of assassins had trained him to survive anything, to not bend to torture, to overcome any challenge that comes his way - but no teacher talia had brought in had provided any level of emotional intelligence. that's - new, to him. something he's been working on under grayson's tutelage, but it's slow-going. he's never needed to know how to manage others' emotional well-being because it wasn't relevant to his own goals. he's never needed to know how to manage his own, because they've always been buried deep. they weren't important, weren't relevant to the mission at hand, weren't necessary.
but circumstances like this happen. he remembers talking to grayson not all that long ago about how he doesn't know what would happen to him, had his father come back. grayson not only tolerated damian, he patiently maneuvered around the years of training he had under his belt that taught him to be everything but what robin was meant to signify. he's spent months working with damian, learning his cues, learning when damian needed someone to listen to his actions and not his words, and when he needed the opposite. when his father had been around it had been - difficult. he didn't want another robin. didn't know how to handle the son he never knew he had until talia left them alone with one another. now there are two of them, both familiar with damian under different circumstances whereas damian barely knows either of them. yet he still doesn't know how to handle any of it.
despite the not knowing, and how badly things had turned out previously, damian - decides to show back up at the tower. he's never been one for obeying orders, especially not when they're issued like the one to leave had been.
instead, he shows up at the front door, wearing a hoodie that's significantly too large for him given he'd taken it from his own closet with the hood pulled over his head to cover the bruising on his face. knocking isn't the robin thing to do, so there's no need to bother with it. the door gets shoved open instead, so damian can walk in and -
- socialize with the bats residing on the first floor, he supposes, given that's the first thing he notices when he lets himself in. )
( Surprisingly, Bruce is not within the tower when Damian makes his arrival. He's nearby, of course, finding there to be no reason for him to leave until he's forced away from it by Aurora for whatever mission comes up, but. He doesn't see the need in being anywhere but here, is the point and so, since everything had happened, he doesn't leave.
He'd been a little ways around the tower — trying to see what trees had been placed here and if any of them happened to be willow. He's still out of aspirin and he still wakes with the pounding headaches every day, so. Should there be a willow tree around, he'd planned to use some of the bark as a natural sort of aspirin and go with that until he managed to get his medical kit restocked with aspirin... whenever that will be.
So he's coming in through the front, sigh on his lips and hands in his jacket pockets when he spots someone there on the first floor. At the sight of the hoodie, his breath catches in the back of his throat and, for a moment, he thinks he's seeing the boy who had become his son the past year here in Etraya — in this very tower he has that's the closest to home for him. But then reality hits him — he sees how much smaller he is and his heart twists up in a way where he thinks he can't breathe for a moment but it passes. Because he forces it to and his expression goes from broken to irritated to completely devoid of anything. )
I told you to leave.
( The words are muttered as he walks past the boy and heads for the elevator, not bothering to wait for him as he steps inside and hits the button to be taken up. )
[Jason tries to swallow down the heat in his throat as he punches in one wrong code after the other at the tower’s keypad. Finally he codes in correctly and sulks the entire elevator ride up. He’s not exactly looking for Bruce, but when he’s not readily visible, Jason forgoes saying hello at all and instead heads off to his room where he slams the door.
This is bullshit. This is all bullshit. They keep handling him like a bomb is about to go off or like a small child playing with matches. Fuck them. Fuck all of them.]
( He's currently in the middle of working on something when he hears the elevator start up and, for a moment, he'd almost forgotten what that was like.
It's Jason — he has a room here for himself after all. He glances over from his spot there with what he's working on and notices the sullen temperament he has going on as he stalks to his room and slams the door. Hm. He's... been here with Damian before, so. He has an idea of how to go about this. Just a matter of whether or not Jason even wants anyone there for him.
Setting his tools down, he makes his way up the stairs and over to the room Jason has for himself. A pause, he gives care in the way he knocks on the other's door, gently pushing it open just a crack and a bit in case he's changing or something. Also, just out of respect for his privacy. )
( One look at that username and he's slowly rolling his eyes as he goes back to working on what he has there in front of him; he was wondering when this would happen.
Of course, eventually, he makes his way over, though it's by no means with any haste on his end. He dons the suit, takes the car, and tucks it away within the shadows of the city. He's familiar enough with Nova City — has been for some time and he's also aware of the Tower of Justice the pin is close by to. For a moment, he remains within the shadows, like the car — wonders what the point of this is, but. Eventually, he steps out of them, steps heavy on purpose, and stands there, cape gently wrapping around him when a breeze drifts by.
He's staring ahead off at the tower when he then seemingly speaks into the shadows around him. )
( if there was ever a way to be pulled from any sort of slumber...
bruce had only finally fallen asleep twenty or so minutes ago and there's jason banging at his door, ripping him out of what little peace he might have for himself in sleep if nightmares chose to be kind and skip him on christmas. he's jolting awake — eyes wide and alert — and reaching for a batarang beneath his pillow when it dawns on him what's happening and who's speaking and he just hunches over some there in bed, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. it's just jason. nothing is happening. he's... still here in etraya. everything's... fine.
it takes him a second or two to get himself out of bed — to pull a shirt on over his scarred chest and slowly make his way to the door. when he opens it, jason's greeted with a somewhat groggy bruce, eyes slowly blinking. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tower.
but he has decided to approach bruce on his home turf, rather than damian's own. he doesn't come for him in the manor, but stops by the tower instead. his trip upstairs gets delayed by one of the tower's bats lying on the floor, and damian - squats down beside it, lips pressing together before he reaches out and picks it up gently. he doesn't have anything to carry it in, so he rolls it up in the front of his hoodie instead. and given his grapple gun has been left at home, that means he's taking the normal person way upstairs by elevator, rather than climbing up the elevator shaft.
when he finally manages to get up to bruce, it's with a small bat swaddled in the fabric of his hoodie and a determined look in his eye. )
Father.
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crouched on the hardwood floors.
large round table shoved off to the far side of the room.
drawing out a map of etraya across the floor in white chalk. )
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text » un: d.wayne
( not that he needs the help; it's more for her sake than his. )
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Who?
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tower.
he crouches down low, enough that the strings at the front of his hoodie brush against the wood of the headboard when damian squints down at bruce's face. his face is still a little banged up, but it's, as he said after the incident, less bothersome than a paper cut on one of his hands that he's currently nursing. and that's why he's here, isn't he? damian is with bruce, nothing is happening to him without his father knowing. as much as he dislikes being babied, he's intentionally staying nearly to soothe that protective instinct he knows bruce is struggling with.
but that's not why he's crouching so close to his face. no, he's waiting to see if bruce is awake; if he's staying in bed to pretend he's getting sleep, or if he's tired himself out enough to get some rest. )
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the moment damian slips in, he knows. listens to the so very soft way he moves about. just... lays there. beneath the sheets of the large bed he has for himself here. on his side. quiet. staring off across the room in the dark. he can see. of course he can. with how long he's spent lurking within the darkness in gotham, he can see as easily as if it were day.
after a moment, he speaks. voice low. rough. not bothering to move or shift. just laying there. head on the pillow. )
What?
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( text | un: kent )
Face to face?
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When?
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text « un: robin
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un: barbaragordon
And I have something I would like to show you.
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un: grayson ; text
Just, thought of you and figured I'd make sure you're doing alright in that big tower of yours. ... The manor is pretty quiet now.
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he's in one of the lush gothic chairs there, watching but not really the footage he has from the clock tower he'd obtained, running diagnostics on it, when he sees the message come through and he stares at it. debates whether or not to say anything. )
Do you need something?
( people always want something from him, don't they? )
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text » un: d.wayne
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text » un: d.wayne
I have information to share.
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action. :)
All of this changes when the worst kind of superhero foil appears, crawling across the windows like some red and blue Ju-On ghost. He stops crawling to look at Bruce Wayne through the window with his big white bug-eyes, his voice raised but polite.]
Oh! Uh...! Good night! Just here to help a raccoon. [He holds up a small pet carrier that had been hanging off him, where a raccoon licks and gnaws at the bars. That explains the random scratches on Spider-Man's suit, then.] Don't know how it even got up here, honestly.
... Man, is there a better way to say 'hi' at night? Like, 'Good afternoon' is a way to say hello, but 'good night' just sounds like I'm telling you to go to sleep.
[He's just sticking there. A big bright bug on the side of the building.
Almost typed out 'like a pimple on the forehead of Wayne Tower', but that's really rude.]
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But this isn't them — though some part of him wishes it was. This is someone he doesn't know, someone he can't claim to have seen around even with his lack of socialization skills, and with being where they are and this being his tower, he doesn't like being caught off guard like this. Especially in his own home.
Staring, he slowly closes the laptop with a hand, waits for the soft click to come from it, before he's rising to stand more upright and he's staring still to the sight before him across the room. )
Who are you?
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text » un: robin
You were right: I was unjustly taking out my anger toward someone else on you.
It won't happen again.
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Are you ok?
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I’m listening.
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un: Oracle
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( is this a chat or in person thing? )
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tower.
it's in the cover of the night that robin opts to see what he can discern from the inside of the tower. he hasn't been home yet, despite having noticed wayne manor on the map: after all, grayson had moved them out into the penthouse, their cave hasn't been underground since his father had still been
alivearound. it's on his list, but first?he's climbing his way up the building from the outside, yellow cape flitting around behind him and making it almost impossible to blend into the dark but it matters not. damian isn't trying to blend in, he's trying to see who's home. )
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Maybe one day Bruce Wayne will only drink ginger ale disguised as champagne as a means to keep up public playboy billionaire appearances, but that day is not today nor is it anywhere in sight currently and so, he pours himself a glass of scotch and downs it as he stands there. Hand flat on the table. He's pinching the bridge of his nose — wondering if he should just get in bed and get whatever couple hours of sleep he can manage before he picks up... something there outside the building.
Heel of his palm pushing open one of the large windows, he stares into the darkness of the night and feels nearly blinded with the bright yellow catching in the breeze up here.
He doesn't notice yet, but. He will.
For now, he stares to the climbing figure with his face slightly scrunched up. )
What are you doing?
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action (tower)
It still looks a bit too much like Titan Tower for his comfort, but right now he's got to ignore that.
He buzzes to be let up, offering,] Hey, it's Jason. Wanna talk about some stuff.
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Bruce, however, doesn't answer.
The penthouse— well. The living area of it, anyways, looks as though a storm had ripped through it. Things knocked and broken on the floor, the large table shoved to the other side of the room, a bookcase tipped over, shards of glass and books and papers strewn about across the floor. It would be best Jason take care with where he walks, Bruce not having bothered to clean any of it up.
And as for Bruce, he's very much there in the penthouse — had been in and out of some sort of attempt at sleep when his laptop had informed him of somewhere there at the entrance and, after a long moment of just staring at it, cheek pressed to his pillow, he had opted to let Jason in. )
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cw: drugs
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text; (after the fight)
I trusted you. But no. Not anymore. Fuck you.
Note (after the mingle)
text; un: j (after the talk with babs in the woods)
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action > tower
He's in the suit. That was less a deliberate choice and just a coincidence, he decided to come straight here rather than stopping to change. ]
Hey. Mind if I come in?
[ It seems like the best way to start. He'll wait for any kind of response for what he considers an appropriate length of time for a brooding Bruce to decide whether or not he wants to be reasonable. But hopefully he knows that Dick isn't going to be easily discouraged. If not, he's about to learn. ]
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The moment he wakes, he thinks for a split second that it's Gotham he finds himself in, expecting Alfred to chide him for still being in bed when they have accountants or whoever making their way over for breakfast because of his lack of initiative in handling the Wayne finances. In that split second, he expects to hear the man's voice, but instead, he only hears the gentle hum of his laptop there next to the bed, keeping a watchful eye on everything while he sleeps and he remembers... he's alone.
Every time he wakes, he has to wipe the tears from his eyes — his head pounds and he can barely sit up sometimes. He knows he's out of aspirin — knows he needs to get some, but that involves leaving the tower and with everything that's happened as of late, he finds there to be no reason for him to. No reason for there to be Bruce Wayne. No reason for there to be Batman. No reason to be hope when his own — when his light — is gone now. Because what is Batman without Robin? Nothing. Just as he's become.
Fingers in his hair, head hanging between his shoulders, he tries to recall if maybe there's a willow tree nearby he can cut the bark off of and make do with that for pain relief when suddenly, his laptop alerts him to something and he slowly glances over to catch the video at the door. The screen glows soft in the dark room, a setting where it doesn't bother his eyes as much, and he sees the familiar costume there even from the bed, the black and blue difficult to mistake for anyone else.
For a long moment, there's silence — no reply — to Dick's inquiry with as to whether or not he can come in and it seems as if Bruce is either not home —hah— or outright ignoring the other man. It's only after what must feel like minute longer than it should usually take for him to give some sort of reply that the door unlocks with a heavy click and that's Dick's answer.
What he steps into... well. It's certainly not the manor. His own suffered severe damage when it had caught fire back when he was younger and his father had moved them to the penthouse in Wayne Tower. Since then, it's been his home and it's why he rarely leaves it. Despite this not being Gotham, this, however much of a replica it might be, is the closest thing he has to home here which, in itself, is often a double-edged sword for his feelings. But the design of the penthouse, when Dick makes his way up via the elevator, is everything gothic in terms of architecture yet very much Gotham despite.
And when he gets himself there to the penthouse... saying it's a light disaster is a bit of an understatement. The main room is in a state of disarray — things strewn about the floor, chairs tipped over, the large table shoved all the way to the wall, shards of glass still sprinkled about across the floorboards. Books and papers litter the floor — a board game he and Damian had been playing knocked over with all its pieces scattered. None of it looks fresh. It's been like this for some time now. Untouched. Without any signs of effort or desire made to fix it. Frozen in time. A sign of life does, however, make itself known in the form of a black cat with white little paws and touches of white underneath it. It meows the moment it sees Dick and lazily strolls its way over to greet him, graceful as ever with avoiding the clutter. That's when Bruce appears at the top of the stairs, disheveled, a heavy five o clock shadow happening there on his face, hands in the pockets of the sleep bottoms he has on. For a moment, he's silent, simply staring to the other until he finally speaks, voice a touch raspy. )
Take the cat with you. He belonged to Damian.
( And he knows how much Damian loved his animals.
But at that, he turns — makes his way back to his bedroom to sink into the darkness of it all in his bed and try to salvage what pieces of happiness he can find within his nightmares. Because it's the only way he ever gets to see the people he loves and misses. )
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tower.
which is just it: the league of assassins had trained him to survive anything, to not bend to torture, to overcome any challenge that comes his way - but no teacher talia had brought in had provided any level of emotional intelligence. that's - new, to him. something he's been working on under grayson's tutelage, but it's slow-going. he's never needed to know how to manage others' emotional well-being because it wasn't relevant to his own goals. he's never needed to know how to manage his own, because they've always been buried deep. they weren't important, weren't relevant to the mission at hand, weren't necessary.
but circumstances like this happen. he remembers talking to grayson not all that long ago about how he doesn't know what would happen to him, had his father come back. grayson not only tolerated damian, he patiently maneuvered around the years of training he had under his belt that taught him to be everything but what robin was meant to signify. he's spent months working with damian, learning his cues, learning when damian needed someone to listen to his actions and not his words, and when he needed the opposite. when his father had been around it had been - difficult. he didn't want another robin. didn't know how to handle the son he never knew he had until talia left them alone with one another. now there are two of them, both familiar with damian under different circumstances whereas damian barely knows either of them. yet he still doesn't know how to handle any of it.
despite the not knowing, and how badly things had turned out previously, damian - decides to show back up at the tower. he's never been one for obeying orders, especially not when they're issued like the one to leave had been.
instead, he shows up at the front door, wearing a hoodie that's significantly too large for him given he'd taken it from his own closet with the hood pulled over his head to cover the bruising on his face. knocking isn't the robin thing to do, so there's no need to bother with it. the door gets shoved open instead, so damian can walk in and -
- socialize with the bats residing on the first floor, he supposes, given that's the first thing he notices when he lets himself in. )
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He'd been a little ways around the tower — trying to see what trees had been placed here and if any of them happened to be willow. He's still out of aspirin and he still wakes with the pounding headaches every day, so. Should there be a willow tree around, he'd planned to use some of the bark as a natural sort of aspirin and go with that until he managed to get his medical kit restocked with aspirin... whenever that will be.
So he's coming in through the front, sigh on his lips and hands in his jacket pockets when he spots someone there on the first floor. At the sight of the hoodie, his breath catches in the back of his throat and, for a moment, he thinks he's seeing the boy who had become his son the past year here in Etraya — in this very tower he has that's the closest to home for him. But then reality hits him — he sees how much smaller he is and his heart twists up in a way where he thinks he can't breathe for a moment but it passes. Because he forces it to and his expression goes from broken to irritated to completely devoid of anything. )
I told you to leave.
( The words are muttered as he walks past the boy and heads for the elevator, not bothering to wait for him as he steps inside and hits the button to be taken up. )
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tower
This is bullshit. This is all bullshit. They keep handling him like a bomb is about to go off or like a small child playing with matches. Fuck them. Fuck all of them.]
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It's Jason — he has a room here for himself after all. He glances over from his spot there with what he's working on and notices the sullen temperament he has going on as he stalks to his room and slams the door. Hm. He's... been here with Damian before, so. He has an idea of how to go about this. Just a matter of whether or not Jason even wants anyone there for him.
Setting his tools down, he makes his way up the stairs and over to the room Jason has for himself. A pause, he gives care in the way he knocks on the other's door, gently pushing it open just a crack and a bit in case he's changing or something. Also, just out of respect for his privacy. )
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UN: Batman | text
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Of course, eventually, he makes his way over, though it's by no means with any haste on his end. He dons the suit, takes the car, and tucks it away within the shadows of the city. He's familiar enough with Nova City — has been for some time and he's also aware of the Tower of Justice the pin is close by to. For a moment, he remains within the shadows, like the car — wonders what the point of this is, but. Eventually, he steps out of them, steps heavy on purpose, and stands there, cape gently wrapping around him when a breeze drifts by.
He's staring ahead off at the tower when he then seemingly speaks into the shadows around him. )
What do you want?
( Because he knows you're there, bud. )
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Forward-dated a week; text; j;
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audio | un: batman | backdated to the mission
Come get your Robin.
text (post mission 011)
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I don’t know what that is.
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action; christmas morning
Hey! It's Christmas! Wake the fuck up!
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bruce had only finally fallen asleep twenty or so minutes ago and there's jason banging at his door, ripping him out of what little peace he might have for himself in sleep if nightmares chose to be kind and skip him on christmas. he's jolting awake — eyes wide and alert — and reaching for a batarang beneath his pillow when it dawns on him what's happening and who's speaking and he just hunches over some there in bed, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. it's just jason. nothing is happening. he's... still here in etraya. everything's... fine.
it takes him a second or two to get himself out of bed — to pull a shirt on over his scarred chest and slowly make his way to the door. when he opens it, jason's greeted with a somewhat groggy bruce, eyes slowly blinking. )
What time is it?
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