( open ) it started with a spark

[brat]

WHO: Bats, birds, and friends.
WHEN: Late April into May
WHERE: Wayne Tower
WHAT: A Bat-Mingle.
NOTES\WARNINGS:

In the Northern section of Nova City, Wayne Tower stands tall above the multiple empty buildings that make up the cityscape. The top two floors consist of the Wayne Penthouse in gothic architecture while the lower floor and main entrance are largely abandoned and home to a number of fruit bats. A basement serves as a work in progress Batcave, complete with hidden elevator to the penthouse.

And within the Tower itself? Who knows how many bats and birds may be found wandering about. After all, it has WAYNE written in big bold letters right across the front of it. That means it's free real estate, right?

Comments

[leastdramatic]

[Jason can't help but smile at Haley. Some things just don't change. He bends down to pick her up and pet her]

Yeah, Tim hasn't gotten to it yet.

[her_own_rules]

[ Barbara watches them together, and maybe another small doubt hazards itself away. They've already settled into working well enough together when they have to—for the mission, for the family, as it is here—but there's something even more to watching Haley snuffle at him, briefly, and then decide he smells fine, even if probably somehow different, that shifts another something small somewhere.

Babs slips back out of that chair and past them. ]

You are a god among men.

I finished the one I made at home halfway here.



[ That it was, of course, nowhere near her first needs no comment. ]

[leastdramatic]

With the way we all function, I'd be concerned if we didn't always have fresh coffee on standby at all hours of the day.

[Especially at night]

[her_own_rules]

And yet, the necessity of asking.

[ And, of the whole world knowing the pot will vanish near Tim, or Barbara. Though with him much faster, and with her, it's more likely she'll have made the next pot before anyone realizes she emptied the earlier one (or ones) to begin with.

She busies herself with pulling out a mug,
and pouring herself a cup. ]

[leastdramatic]

[Jason gets a clean mug as well and will help himself to some coffee after Babs finishes]

True. At this rate, the old man might as well buy a coffee shop.

[her_own_rules]

[ Barbara gives a faintly affirmative noise as she turns to riffle the freezer for a ice cube. Impatient with wanting to be able to drink her coffee, rather than sit and wait for it to get to a drinkable temperature.

But also, because it doesn't evoke thoughts of a coffee shop. It makes Babs think of who used to keep the coffee pot full in the house, and, though she's holding together as well as expected, she doesn't think she can even lightly place her fingertips on that lie at the same time this morning.

She returns to the table, absently reaching down to stroke Haley's ears as she tests the temperature gingerly for a first sip. ]

[leastdramatic]

[The problem with being in a family full of vigilante detectives is that everyone can read reach other in ways subtler than civilians. Another problem is knowing how hard said family members try to hide how they're really feeling.

Jason silently helps himself to the pot of coffee after Babs is done before sitting with her]

[her_own_rules]

[ Barbara sips at her coffee, and then shifts. Snags a chair leg for a chair catty-corner from her, so she can put her feet up, shoes and all. (Don't think about how there isn't anymore to politely say Miss Barbara in polite, but pressed reminder. Not this last year, here in Etraya. Not in a very, very long time. No. No, don't think about that.)

Her feet stay up, and she leans back in her chair, considering Jason over her cup. And sometimes it is easier to just be herself. The herself that is Oracle—and sometimes more Barbara bleeding through the voice of Oracle. The one who fills the spaces and silences between information relaying and orders because the comm line is still open. ]

How've you been since getting back?

Everything still in order back at the Manor?

[leastdramatic]

Yeah, it's almost like we never left. Aurora, the bots, or whoever left the whole place in one piece.

[Jason takes a sip from his own cup of coffee]

Feels good to finally get some damn privacy again too.

[They've all been trained to always be aware of their surroundings and to be on guard but the level of surveillance happening during the last mission was still a lot for Jason. The inability to counter it was what made it exhausting]

[her_own_rules]

Touché.

[ Barbara toasts him with her cup. ]

I prefer to be the person doing it.
Not the person it's being done to.

[leastdramatic]

[Jason snorts as he toasts back]

Don't we all. I'd rather be the one to shoot a tracker than get one.

[her_own_rules]

[ There's a rye tip at one corner of her lips. ]

I'm tracking you.



I never did ask if you didn't want that. I should've.

[ It's not really a things she thinks about. With the family.
Except with Batman Jr. Who she's obviously tracking anyway.

He's just sort of the exception to her rules. ]

[leastdramatic]

[Jason shrugs, not troubled at all by Barbara's admission]

I'm not surprised and I don't mind. Stalking's almost a love language in this family.

[Jason does have boundaries that he'd rather most people didn't cross but he trusts Barbara not to abuse her abilities]

[her_own_rules]

[ Maybe that's why. But maybe she should have asked still. ] You're not wrong.

[ Very few of them as invasively as her, but all of them have been on the carpet for it. It's also been the reason any number of them have stayed alive in the diciest of spots because someone was tracking them down for the umteenth hundred reason in this life. ]

Though it's not like it isn't happening inside this bubble, too.
We've simply lost the screens and voting audience.

[ She considers her coffee again. The invasiveness of the system that still remains uncracked. The one that brought them all here. Keeps them all here.



Sent Dick—the literal best of them—away. ]

[leastdramatic]

[Jason nods as he sips more of his coffee]

We're still not in the greatest situation. We're just back to someplace that's comparably better than Aphaia.

[her_own_rules]

"Marginally."

She supposes she has to start somewhere after Damian.
It wasn't his responsibility, and she was so good with responsibility, wasn't she?

Even when she felt the last inclined toward it;
and selfishly so many other things in the bargain.

It wasn't just her loss, though, and she knew it.

It was why she was here.



"They sent back Dick this morning."

She can't let herself think about it in another way.
Not even if each optional end result is scored into her mind.

[leastdramatic]

Jason pauses. He's surprised by the reveal.

"What happened? Or was it just that sudden?" he asks, concerned.

[her_own_rules]

Barbara's too collected. But she had some of the morning and the walk here. Her voice is even after she takes another sip of her coffee. "I woke up alone. Both of Dick's comms were still here." She'd been pretty sure, even before— "Double checked with Aurora."

Even though she's still not fond of the tracking system here.

There's a gentle whine and headbutt at her calf, and Babs looks down. It cracks something just marginally loose for a second. The turn of one corner of her mouth upward, even if it takes her expression nowhere near a smile, as she leans down to scratch Haley's head. "Correction. I didn't wake up entirely alone."

[leastdramatic]

"Sorry," Jason says, deeply sympathetic. Of course he knows how close Dick and Barbara are. He's not surprised Dick's sudden departure is affecting her. "He's at least home now but not right he went alone. It must've been forced."