slam_poetry | Eudio IC Inbox

[ Bruce reads everything on the network and scours the cuddlr app for new names daily - sometimes more than once daily, if he's bored. Of course he's going to recognize Cassandra Cain. She looks the same, she's close enough to the age he'd know her as.

... Wayne, though.

It takes him a while to decide to message her. ]

Everything all right?

[There's a decently long pause between when he sends the message and when she responds. At the same time, it may have something to do with the fact that text-based communication is not her forte]

Yes.

[The ... symbol is on there for a while. Clearly, she's having some trouble.]

What're you doing here?

[He'd just sent her off, after all. A hand on her shoulder from him, a video message from Barbara... they'd both wished her well. They'd both told her that if she needed to do this, then this was the best path. Barbara had clearly been more comfortable with the concept than Bruce was, but in the end, she'd convinced him. She'd convinced him that her hands had to belong to her. She could never doubt her own hands again. Not if she wanted to live up to her dream. Not when the chance was in front of her.]

[ --Shit. He's an asshole. Bruce switches over to video: sitting cross-legged on his bed in his sparse under repair bedroom, in the process of taking his reading glasses off. ]

Completing a contract.

[ Text-only is a habit, one born of understandable paranoia. ]

[When the camera opens up to her, it's clear that she has literally just arrived. For one thing, the apartment is neat. For another, there's an open suitcase where the faintest gleam of a batarang edge can just be made out. Clearly, she is not retired.

[Cassandra herself is obviously curious, dressed in mildly-sloppy civilian clothes, looking at him with some mild disbelief but more importantly, intense fondness. She's happy to see him. Honestly, she'd already missed him. After all, it hadn't been long at all since the Wayne had been added to her name. Since the day when he'd realized that the one thing he hadn't given her was a family to truly call her own, something to run to. That memory is tight in her chest, the feel of his arms around her, the peace of it--

[But a contract. He's here completing a contract. Why? What could he possibly want? He's a multi-billionaire with friends of all manner and stripe. What could he possibly need here?]

What for?

Edited 2016-01-25 23:12 (UTC)

[ How long has it been since somebody from Gotham has looked at him like that? From anyone else he could hide the quiet shock and near-disbelief at the recognition of her emotion, but probably not Cassandra, not even over a small video screen.

Maybe there's some reality out there where he doesn't fuck everything up. ]

Removing something. [ Quietly. ] We're from different worlds.

[Different worlds. They'd told her that when she'd come here, briefed her about that fact. But when it came right down to it, he'd known. He'd known words weren't easy for her. He'd known who she was. He'd checked in on her.

[It's not that such things are beyond her or that she can't understand the concepts. It's that they literally don't matter to her.

[The man on the screen was Batman. Bruce. The man who'd adopted her, given her a name and a home. The one who held her when she'd made the hardest decision in her life. The one who'd given her a new father, who'd opened his heart to her. In some ways, they'd always been from different worlds. That hadn't stopped them before.

[But more importantly, most importantly, she'd seen how he'd reacted to seeing her. 'Removing something'. What could he possibly be removing when it was so clear that he must have already lost so much? As always, it doesn't take her long to make a decision and she makes it, it's clear on her face. She looks straight into the video camera.]

Where are you?

[ His expression is blank for a small moment; he considers withdrawing. It would be easy. ]

I'll send you the address.

[ Easy has always been distasteful. ]

[The blankness steels her resolve. Something Is Wrong. And for some reason, none of the others have stepped up to do something about it. Well, she'd sure as hell do something about it.]

Do that.

[Then she turns the camera away from herself, towards the wall, and there's the faint shuffle of clothing. She's getting changed. She won't bring the batrangs since she has to go get her permit taken care of for them first, but the grappling gun and the rest of it... once she has his location, she'll be on her way. Except--]

Send it now.

[Oh. She turns the camera back around and there's a Batgirl in view, the only missing component being her mask. Because he should see her eyes, both in their determination... and the depth of the affection and belief and respect there. It's a small screen, but this is in fact her language.]

Please.

[ He'd forgotten how she can be - not because of disinterest, but distance. Cassandra is Barbara's, and he'd already taken Tim from her in a way. It was better, and safer, for him to have minimal connections. It still is better. ]

I have a dog, [ he says, after sending the address and an encryption for her to use, should she need it. (100% bomb proof. Because he's Batman.) ] Try to be obvious with the landing, he barks when he's startled.

There are no further messages. Instead, roughly twenty minutes later, there's a a noticeable thunk on the ceiling. A moment or so after that, a knock on the window. She could sneak in, but he'd made a point of asking for her to make noise, so she did. And she wasn't sure how the dog was trained and didn't want to hurt the poor animal, so knock she did.

Ace is the first to reach the window, the black dog staring at the figure outside with his ears perked to attention. Bruce hasn't tensed up or gone into an alert mode, though, so it's more curious than anything. When the human resident appears behind him, his expression is reserved - looking at her uniform, the differences. He tells Ace to go lay down, and opens the window from the inside once the dog retreats.

There are piles of wood flooring yet to be installed, and haphazard furniture. Still a work in progress.

It looks like her home in Bludhaven. If anything, it makes her feel at home. Comfortable. Seeing his face, even as reserved as it is, does that as well. She can't help the smile, and she doesn't really want to. It's small, careful; they've never been particularly simple or easy in their affection for each other. But he'd been plain enough.

Always home.

Always family.

She steps in through the window, watching him as she makes her way to the floor without a sound. Another step and another, soundless as the first, as she watches his muscles, watches the tension in him and the sadness and the strange, listless fatigue. Not quite circling but observing. Learning.

From a different world? And yet--

Which is when her steps go faster, two, three until she's in front of him and there's no hesitation, no pause, nothing stopping her from wrapping her arms around him.

She doesn't know what's wrong, doesn't know what drained him of something vital, but she knows that when she was there, when she was at the end of her rope, when she thought she'd come to that moment...

He'd given her this.

So she'll give it back. She'll be there for him.

However he came to be, however it happened, for whatever put that ache into his bones, it doesn't matter.

She'll love him back. She'll remind him of his promise. Of the unspoken promise she'd made in return.

For all his fluency in body language - learned secondary, contrasted with her primary - for a moment Bruce actually wonders if she's going to hit him. If maybe she sees the darkness in him for what it is suddenly, failed and corrupted, out of control, and that she's just going to do what no one else has had the spine to do (what Jason can't do) and end it.

He'd let her.

But then she's holding him and somehow that's worse. That level of perception cuts him to the core; he hasn't said anything, hasn't had so much as a goddamn facial expression-- hasn't thought anything. He can't hide from her, a warrior who can read him when anyone else sees a blank page. He doesn't deserve this. He's not her Bruce, he's not the one who gave her his name, but the knowledge of how he'd make her feel if he were to shove her away stills him.

He unfreezes by degrees, bringing his arms around her shoulders, his head bowed. "I'm sorry." Barely audible-- doesn't know why he says it or-- why it is, momentarily, difficult to breathe.

She waits. She'd waited the first time too, when they'd dragged each other out of the harbor, when he'd demanded she explain herself. She waits... and when he holds her back, she gives him a soft squeeze.

She hears him, but she doesn't say anything because she can't think of any apology he could give that she would accept other than for him. So she'll accept it in silence for a few moments and holds onto him until she feels that he needs her to let go.

She leans over then and kisses his cheek, pulling away to look at him again. Had she helped? Had she given him some, even a fraction of what he'd given her? She wants to. Not because he'd ask that of her, not because he'd expect it, but because everything she's ever learned about family, real family, what her heart says about family, is that you take care of each other.

She reaches up a hand and puts it to his chest. Her other hand goes to her own. It's about hearts. It's about bats too. It's about both of them, both of them, and she doesn't need words to tell him how she feels for any of it.

Of course she helped. What a brilliant girl. Briefly, Bruce raises his hands to frame her face - a barely-there touch that's all affection and acceptance, even though there's still something sad about how he holds himself. When she touches his chest he looks at her and doesn't have to say no, or shake his head. It's obvious.

That's not for him.

"I've got tea," is what he says, and steps away. The kitchen is at least sort of in order, electric kettle and refrigerator working just fine. The dog is laying on a blanket at the end of the kitchen, observing them. "That's Ace," is pointed out. Black ears twitch at the use of his name.

He doesn't have to say no and she doesn't have to say 'bullshit' because her lips thin and it's all the same. But she also knows when a discussion is over, when she's gotten in a few good, important shots to vital areas even if those shots are with love and affection instead of fists and feet.

Instead, she pulls something from her utility belt as she walks over and puts the little tin that holds four tea bags of her favorite assam onto the counter beside him. The dog gets a sideways look, indifferent more than anything, before she starts wandering around the space, getting a feel for it. If he doesn't want her doing that, he can say something.

She has the feeling he doesn't care.

He cares, but not in a way that would make him not want her to look around. Just in the way that, in general, he cares about her and would prefer she not hate the place. Somewhere buried too deep for anyone to read, he's shaken by her affection - though, like everyone, he's sure she wouldn't offer it she knew why.

(Ace is fine with indifference. He's not a cuddly dog; he's trained to do a job, and was never raised as a house pet.)

Bruce boils water and uses Cassandra's tea bags, eventually handing her a cup. There's a sofa shoved into the open space opposite the kitchen - probably not where it should go, but he's working on flooring in other parts of the townhouse - if she'd like to sit.

She folds herself into a seat gracefully, taking the tea with a quick flick of a smile before settling into her seat. She watches him, once she's settled. Watches to see where he moves, how he chooses to sit, where. There are places other than the couch, and he'd been on the couch in the video, so clearly it was a place he liked to sit. Would he sit there now? Or is he avoiding contact with her.

It's not something she intends to hold against him. It's a diagnostic. She's trying to figure out what's wrong, why he's sitting here in this perfectly delightful hovel (she likes it, still reminds her of home, thanks) instead of in the sort of places he's used to with Dick and Tim and who knows who else.

"What's different?"

About the world. About her. About his world. Another diagnostic.

The townhouse is the least inexplicable thing; he brought plenty of cash with him, but he's not funneling it into Eudio's economy recklessly, and living within the means he makes for himself. Bruce sits on the other end of the sofa, holding his cup between his hands.

"Is the Joker dead in your world?"

Probably not. Or if so, it happened differently. Tim is perfectly free to use Wayne if he wants, and if he has children or adopts, they're free to it, but he knows that's not what happened here. The way she looks at him is too familiar, when the Cassandra he knows still looks at him with a strange mix shyness and eager curiosity. Though he hasn't seen her in over a year, so who knows what she might think now. He hopes she's been working with Kate. She'll be better for her.

Edited 2016-01-26 20:37 (UTC)

She considers the question, both whether she wants to answer it or not and what it is in and of itself. She's not the detective he is, except in the sense that he had called her one, which really is the only way she needs. She's enough of a detective. She understands the important parts.

That that would be the first question--

Either the Joker has done something horrible to her or horrible to him. And he is almost certainly dead in his world. There's a way that people say the word 'dead', even if the sentence doesn't actually intend to tell you whether someone is or not. That was one word, one inflection, the body language around it, she'd learned well before the others.

She knows what the Joker did to Barbara, after all. She knows enough, has seen enough of the videos, looked into enough to know that the Joker is one of the worst. It hadn't ever really come up, but she knew that if there'd been a mission to deal with the Joker, her Bruce would have sent her away. And that, perhaps, she would have understood.

Perhaps.

Her answer is a single shake of her head. She could provide the basic information he'd requested.

"What did he do to you?" is her real answer.

That's too bad, his body language says. No disappointment or regret someone hasn't taken him out - for all his flaws these days, he doesn't wish becoming a murderer on anyone. It's just a shame that he hasn't slipped on a banana peel and snapped his neck, or something. Not that it would save anyone any suffering, given the way Joker's managed to send his shadow over Gotham even after his death.

Still, that's too bad.

"What he does to everyone."

Ruins lives.

Bruce takes a sip of the tea, a little too hot still since he hasn't been disturbing it. Something about the slight burn is grounding. He'll need pinpricks of reality; he's been thinking about it since she asked him for his location. She'll be out of the loop otherwise, or she'll end up with sensationalized half-truths, from one Jason or the other or nosy third parties wanting to stir up a soap opera.

He starts at the beginning - the end of Joker's life, and the illness he'd accidentally created, Talia's death. (He misses her. He shouldn't, but god, he does.) Giving up his civilian persona as his mind started to play tricks on him, isolating himself as he realized what was happening. The mysterious adversary who turned out to be Jason, destroying the steps forward they'd made in Gotham without the Joker. Barbara being taken, Tim being taken.

So he's here. Because he fucked up spectacularly, and Gotham needs to be free of the Joker.

It becomes abundantly clear, as he talks, that the man in front of her is as much her Batman as the one she left at home. Her hands clench and her focus on him is absolute, absolute enough that Bruce has to be able to tell that her anger isn't at him as much as it's for him. She thinks of his friends. She thinks of Dick and Tim at home, and the distant Jason she's heard about from the others. She thinks about her own suffering, her time under the serum, when her hands hadn't been her own, and the time after the serum, when she was never quite sure whose hands they were.

She thinks about her father, the girls he and Deathstroke had tried to make. The weapons. She thinks about the man who'd raised her to be a weapon, about his face in the rain as she stood over him.

About the arms that pulled her in after she'd made her choice. The man who'd helped her find her way as a hero.

He'd built a family, taken in all of them in his own way, taken them literally under his wing. But whose wing was he under? Had he had anyone to run to when things like this were going on? She knew he had friends, but even among those friends...

She thinks about why she's here. And why he's here. And ultimately, they sound very similar to her.

She finishes her tea, puts the cup down, and unfolds from the couch in a single smooth motion. He's not far, so it's only a few steps to walk around to stand in front of him, stare down at him, hear the story in his muscles and his bones and the way he sits, the shame.

She presses her lips together, determined, and leans over to carefully place her hand over his heart. She leaves it there for a moment, looking into his eyes, willing the words she can't find in her awkward second language. Then, slow and deliberate, she leans further and presses a kiss to his forehead.

His hands were dirty. So were hers. And they were both doing the only thing they could to try and fix what could never be fixed, death and suffering that could never be erased. But she'd known this pain since she was eight years old. She'd been avenging her own soul since the day she'd first reached over and ripped a man's throat out with her tiny hands. This is her place. This is her pain. And for this, her wing is large enough for one.

I never wanted you here. But you're not alone here. I'm here too.

To explain that story takes a lot out of him - not as much as it used to; since getting it out to Clark the first time, and allowing bits and pieces of it to be shared for the purposes of potential exorcism, and from therapy, he's become more numb to it. But it still leaves a cold, nauseous feeling in his center, and it makes him want to withdraw from everything. It's not that he's afraid - after his overdose on the toxin, he's not sure he can feel fear - but a kind of scrambling anxiety he doesn't have words for. Like his defense mechanisms are so worn and so tired that there's nothing else to do but try and leave.

Cassandra's acceptance moves him, but it confuses him too. (If one person's embrace could fix him, wouldn't that be a lovely world.) He looks at her in silence, and there's nothing much to read off of him. He's tired, and for a while, his brain fails to come up with any response at all. He doesn't understand why the fuck she would accept him. He's not some lost child who needs guidance, he's a grown man who put himself in every single one of these situations, he's Batman, and he doesn't have any excuses. He's not sure if he even wants acceptance-- and that's the thing, isn't it. Bruce doesn't know how to do anything but torture himself over his mistakes. He can forgive others, but never himself.

Quietly,

"Why are you here?"

He's just explained himself and there are... so many words there. So many words and her own story will be so many words too. She steels herself, breathes in deep, considers again, and sits on the ground across from him.

"David Cain made me a weapon," and this he knows, but-- "and when I wouldn't give in to be that weapon, he and Deathstroke used a chemical to take over my mind. Control me."

She closed her eyes.

"I killed. I killed and I led the League of Assassins. My hands were not my own. That was the only thing I'd ever had." And she's so angry about that. So quietly angry. "And they took it." Like he tries to take everything else. "Destroyed the trust I'd built with you. With the others. And even after it was neutralized, there were lingering affects."

She opened them again, looking up at him.

"Red Robin trusts me. Nightwing does not trust me. You trust me." Adopted me. Took me in. Showed me love. "I trust myself... but I trust myself more here. My contract will make me immune to mind control of any kind, magical, meta, or chemical.

"My hands are mine. And they'll stay mine."

Bruce listens, his attention grave. He knows words are difficult for her, that every one is agonized over in some way, and that words for this must be costing her. Admitting so much to him shows so much trust and faith it cuts cleaner than her acceptance of him (if he could accept himself, it'd be easier, but since when is anything about Batman easy). He is who he is-- most people would think that odds were better than even he'd reject her for allowing herself to be taken over, for the failure of it. And maybe she does think that, but is trusting him not to.

It makes him so angry that they did that to her. Will Cain try it in his world, too? Can he, without Deathstroke? (Because surely that idiot has different clientele, being shacked up with Jason's militia.) How low, how cowardly, like a child having a tantrum and destroying a toy because he's been told he has to put it back on the store shelf. If he treated Cassandra like a weapon, maybe he'd treat her with some measure of professional reverence; what he's done to her now is worse than that.

Silently he extends his own hands, offering to hold hers.

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