etrayalogs | ( closed ) bred, born, and raised to kick your ass

As soon as you think you're capable of getting yourself back upright, you'll be out of bed and back in your suit.

( it's not a question, but a statement. damian won't go searching any further for wounds, and instead drops the tube of cream down onto the nightstand. reaches for the vacutainer and holds it up as he gets himself back up to his feet. )

I am going to put this in the refrigerator, then return. Do not get up.

( the look he gives this... child of his... )

You're just going to sit here until I'm marginally better than I currently am?

Would you prefer Goliath's company?

( don't think he won't sick his best pal on you, bruce. )

Can he even fit in here?

( that's sarcasm. )

He's a bed hog.

( a nonanswer, because he knows that done. at least bruce is managing sarcasm. damian turns around on his heels, and heads towards the door.

leaves for a few minutes to put the blood sample in the fridge as he'd promised. when he returns to the room, his cloak has been removed and he's putting it over the back of a chair. the chair which damian then moves to sit down in after. )

( in the time it takes for damian to head to the kitchen, bruce settles there against the bed as comfortably as he can. his fever still runs. his head still feels heavy. his skin's still damp and flushed. it's the waiting game he has to play now. to see if this cream damian had acquired will actually do anything or not.

he's closing his eyes when damian comes back to the room and he refrains long enough to watch him settle there on the chair. )

Didn't bring your book?

( the one he'd had with him on the steps when he first came... home. )

No.

( he has dozens of mental exercises he can go through instead, or several stretches he can move through to keep himself limber. damian has plenty of things to keep him entertained that isn't the book he'd left on the stairs; he hadn't been reading it when bruce had come in, after all.

how flushed bruce is concerns him. if they're lucky, his fever will break and the antibiotics will do their job. if they're unlucky, it might get worse. damian's mouth twists into a frown, eyeing the chair and then bruce himself before he's grabbing onto the bottom of the chair and dragging it closer to the bed. just to ensure he can keep a closer eye on that fever without standing and waking his father up every time he goes to check. )

( maybe he should have brought a damp cloth in with him, but. it's too late to try and get out of bed what with damian watching him like a hawk, and he's not about to ask him to get one. he'll just deal with it. push through. try and work some mind over matter magic while he's laying there in bed. it might work. or he'll pass out and leave it up to his body while he sleeps.

either way, he lazily watches damian pull the chair over to be closer to the bed and hums a little before slowly rolling his head back into the center of the pillow. eyes falling shut. )

If I fall asleep and something happens... wake me. Doesn't matter on my condition.

( damian hums an acknowledgement that he's at least heard bruce, even if he's offering nothing else. if something terrible does happen, damian's more likely to take care of it himself than wake up bruce, but he also trusts bruce to wake up if it gets loud enough damian does end up needing help.

his own eyes fall shut after a while; damian had been napping before, but it wasn't a particularly satisfying nap - especially given how soon it ended. after several minutes, he startles himself awake--but only long enough to reach out and press the back of his hand against bruce's forehead. checking his fever, then leaning forward to rest his arms on the edge of the mattress. his face scrunches up as he rests his cheek against folded arms, and damian goes back to sleep.

a little more soundly than last time, considering he doesn't wake up quickly from this nap.

instead, he falls asleep deep enough to begin dreaming.

damian dreams in green; a green bruce may not recognize, but may pick up from damian what it is: the lazarus pit, a pool of eternal life. one that his grandfather has been keeping to himself for hundreds of years. it begins as a swirl of colors: green intermingling with red, and a never-ending bleak darkness.

then it shifts into something softer. damian's outside wayne manor, petting a large black great dane. his name is titus, a gift from his father during a troubling time of his childhood. he scritches behind titus' ears, then reaches for a nearby ball, throwing it into the distance with a soft smile reserved for when he knows no one is watching. his father stands in the distance, a similar smile on his lips, with alfred lingering behind him. )

( he's not sure where he is. if this is a dream of sorts, or he's been transplanted into some other world. it's hard to tell when he's not exactly accustomed to this sort of... thing in the first place.

but he finds himself outside wayne manor. it's similar to the one he'd fallen asleep in — the one the bots had put together, but he gets the feeling it's also different at the same time. he stands there, a little ways from it, dressed in a suit and a long coat. no greasepaint smeared across his eyes and hair not looking a tousled mess as it often does when the cowl's come off.

he's very much bruce wayne here. or attempting to wear the mask of him.

it takes him a moment to spot damian with the dog — to see the way he gently smiles to himself as he plays with the great dane. he keeps quiet. watches. notices a man a distance away accompanied with another man and he stares to them both. he knows. or at least... he feels like he does.

after a moment, when he realizes the ball and the dog come towards him, he leans down. picks it up. looks to it. tries to see if it's real and if he's actually here... wherever this is. when he catches sight of damian, he looks up to him. still holding the ball. )

( titus takes off towards bruce, and damian's running after him. by the time he reaches bruce, he - looks at least a couple years younger. his hair's grown out a little less, there's an empty area where a cuspid had been before it'd been knocked out. his head tips up, green eyes focusing on bruce's, and there's - something older behind his eyes. damian has never been a child, has always been older than his years, and it shows in the focus behind those eyes.

his fingers, hidden behind the long sleeves of his turtle neck, are stained red up to the second knuckle. he keeps them under sleeves rather than reaching up for bruce. he's starting to recognize what this is, where they are, and it twists his mouth into a sour scowl.

takes several more moments, before he offers a steady, )

Are you going to throw it? Titus doesn't like to be kept waiting.

( there's a moment where bruce regards him a little suspiciously. considering the fact that one, he's no longer in gotham to begin with. two, he'd passed out with a relatively high fever. and three, had been given an antibiotic he knows nothing about, he can't even put it past him for this to be something else entirely. for damian here to be someone or something else entirely. a hallucination of some sorts, maybe.

he squeezes the ball — lets himself feel the way the muscles in his hand and arm constrict gently in doing so, then tosses it off for the pup to chase after. a look to his now empty hand, he slips it into his coat pocket. looks to damian. )

You're smaller.

( younger still, when he seems to lose yet another year when the ball is thrown and titus takes off in the direction it's been thrown in. they're no longer at wayne manor, but inside of a penthouse. the kitchen has clearly had alfred's touch, whereas the area just outside it opens up into a wide area. there's a water bottle set down on the ground close to damian's feet. the robin gear he's wearing is slightly different, but he's still very clearly robin.

bruce isn't here, but there's the clear sound of taptaptaping on a keyboard from one of the other rooms. which damian's clearly ignoring, since he's busy giving bruce the stinkeye. )

I'm ten.

( several months after meeting his father, shortly after his death, when grayson had taken over as batman and begun working with damian.

there's a plate set out on the counter, and a teenager bruce won't recognize walks down the hallway, grabbing food off of damian's plate before he continues passed them.

if bruce looks close enough, he'll notice the teenager's face is blurred, features hidden. )

( the sudden change of environment has him look around in confusion. it's sudden and left little in the way of telling it would happen. the boy who walks by, who he can't see the face of... people with blurred faces isn't exactly the norm by any means and it has bruce feel a little on edge. )

Where are we?

( he doesn't necessarily mean the kitchen. he means... all of this. )

If I had to guess - my subconscious.

( the blurred face, the memory of playing fetch with titus with his father and alfred. because it's not that damian doesn't remember drake's face, he knows it too well. it's that when he'd first realized who decided to join him, his mind had automatically begun to filter details it knows better than to allow others to see. the penthouse is neutral ground.

damian hasn't figured out why they're here yet, but he can recognize the way years of training to fight off telepaths and other mindreaders are affecting his - memories, his dreams, if the green illuminating the windows and blocking the view of anything else has anything to say for it. )

Don't touch the windows.

( his... subconscious? right. that's not anything he's familiar with. in a few ways, really.

he takes a moment to look around. considers this a hallucination of sorts from either the fever or the cream he'd been given. looking back to damian, he furrows his brow. clearly confused and frustratingly so by all this. )

What are we doing here?

( as if damian would actually have the answer for that. )

I don't invite people into my head.

( works hard to keep them out of it, actually. has spent years training his mind to prevent exactly this from happening. works hard to ensure it stays that way, and yet, here they are - smelling breakfast as cooked by alfred, hearing the taptaptap of a keyboard followed by grayson's laughter and soft murmurs coming from drake in return. )

We must be here for a reason.

( a beat. )

Unless this is because of that cream you put on me. You also touched it in applying it to me.

( not that he's saying that's what this is, but. he's not exactly ruling it out either. )

Yes, of course. This is my fault.

( unfortunately, damian isn't wearing his mask and he can't quite hold back the urge to roll his eyes.

which means he does it right in front of bruce. )

Entirely on me.

That's not what I meant.

( it's said softly yet dryly at the same time and he takes a few steps around the kitchen. looking it over. )

I'm just trying to figure out why we're here. How.

What happened when you were fighting your feline friend?

( backtracking a little further, given he's fairly certain it's related to bruce's injuries. or the antibiotics. or aurora's clear need to get people here to bond regardless of whether or not they want to. )

There wasn't a fight. A cat was startled and it scratched me accidentally.

( he'd said as much before and it's the truth in what happened.

he's taking it upon himself to look around the kitchen — lets the tips of fingers gently touch at the surface of a counter and just... stands there. looking to it. it's not home but it's... still so relatively close to it. )

This is what you're here to protect. ( he looks to damian then. ) Your family.

I--. . . yes.

( it's their home. the place grayson had moved them to after bruce's 'death'. to create their own space, redefining what it meant to be batman and robin, because they were different. a new duo, doing their best to find their rhythm. )

My father disappeared shortly after I decided to leave Mother and stay with him permanently. ( he said he wasn't discussing her, but this isn't quite the same. ) He had his own Robin, and didn't intend to take me on with him. The Batman in the other room--he made me his Robin. Showed me I could be more than my bloodline.

( all this talk of batmen and robins is... a lot to process. the bulk of it making little sense to him. there are no partners, no children, no family outside of alfred for him back in his own gotham. to see how much it's expanded... how much the idea of batman has grown, if even in some other world which, as a thought itself, is not one he can claim to have ever believed he would have, let alone entertain...

he's still trying to wrap his head around a number of things here and just when he thinks he has it even relatively figured out or processed to the point of somewhat making sense, something else comes along to be added to everything else. never ending.

he pockets his hands. takes another moment to look around. to see what he can within damian's subconscious. within memories. within moments he seems to keep fondly. )

Family legacy.

( words soft. contemplative. )

I know about it.

I know.

( it goes without saying, but he points it out regardless. damian had been the one who was angered by seeing this child wearing his cowl. or something close to it. he was the one who had snapped at bruce about his legacy, his birthright. one he is still keeping claim to, even if it's one he has shared with grayson. one he would share again if it became necessary, but he knows well how little he had wanted it. how much better he is at being nightwing than batman.

the edges around the windows begin to blur, but it doesn't seem to bother damian any. instead, he's - walking past the kitchen area, toward the hallway further down. )

Don't touch anything.

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