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

( 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.

( his own legacy is so much different than that which damian has. to walk in the footsteps of his father — thomas wayne — alfred is so desperately trying to get him to do better. to be better and be more than the batman, but. as far as bruce is concerned, doing whatever it takes to try and save gotham from itself is keeping with his father's legacy. even if it kills him, too, in the end.

watching damian make his way toward the hall, he follows after a moment. hands still there in his pockets. quiet. )

( the penthouse gives way into something - a lot closer to what batman would have. a large room, walls painted dark, a short staircase leading down to an area where there's a motorcycle and a batmobile parked. batman sits at the large computer, his cowl removed. it's clear it's not bruce, even if damian had already explained it: he's holding himself loosely, and while his face, too, is blurred, the smile in his voice is evident as he speaks to the same teen who had walked through earlier, who leans in against the back of the chair. the words aren't clear, but they're not what matters. )

We're in Wayne Tower. I'm fairly sure this is shortly after Red Robin lost his spleen.

( for everything that comes across as familiar, there are differences to go alongside it. similar enough for bruce to be able to recognize a place or thing, but not enough to really claim it as his own. from his gotham. so when they step into wayne tower, he simply lets his eyes scan over it. take in what looks and feels familiar and makes mental notes of what doesn’t.

another “batman”, for one.

the blurred faces he chalks up to being a sort of defence mechanism, what with their being inside damian‘s thoughts. dreams. memories. he notes the body language more than anything else and looks to damian after a moment. )

How many of you Robins are there?

I'm the fifth and current.

( counting just robins, which is all bruce is asking for. he could tell him about the batgirls, about stephanie's career as both a robin, and batgirl. or about thomas, the signal. but bruce asks specifically about robins, and thus, what he gets is information on robins. )

The first became Robin long before I was born.

( that's... a lot more than he anticipated? granted, he has no idea what he thought that number would be, but. the look on his face and the lack of words says it all, really. as with so much here, it's a lot to process. even for him. )

Why are we here?

( he pieces together the words quick enough. refers to their being in the tower. in this batcave. these are damian's thoughts, dreams, memories. he's the one leading them places. )

The one who had been Red Robin is on Etraya.

( the initial answer comes quickly enough, even if the follow-up is a little. . . slower to be voiced. )

We'd recently discussed his lost spleen. ( because it showed up, in a bag. ) This was right around the time I saw him after he returned from losing it. I'm assuming that's why we're here.

( and there's also the bit of, )

This is a lot safer than the alternative.

( the logical thing to ask would be what sort of lives are you living? but. considering the sorts of things that happen in his own life currently... if they're anything like him with that sort of lifestyle, well. he doesn't really need to ask that question. he already has an idea.

and he's not even seasoned with it yet. )

Not because it showed up here?

( only asking because of random things being found as of late. the R, for one. )

Yes. Because his spleen had showed up here.

( this is drake's fault. all of it is drake's fault. if drake would speak to bruce, if they would share what each other has shared with him, they would be on the same page regarding how far they should. . . identify each other.

and if they go too far into this conversation, damian's focus is going to shift, too. to the spine that had shown up with damage that damian could recognize as what he suffered. )

( deciding to shift the topic away from that, he looks around. takes a moment. looks back over to damian then with hands still there in his coat pockets. )

Can you control what we're seeing? Where we're going?

( again. it's not as if he has any sort of experience with any of this. )

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