metalogs | ( open ) and what's the worst you take

Entry tags:

( open ) and what's the worst you take

Who: Bruce Wayne/Batman

batsymbol
What: July Catch-all, Bruce assimilating to things, Batman being Batman
When: Throughout July, some August things too
Where: Primarily Central City, will mention otherwise
Content Warnings: TBD but let's just say Bruce being Bruce and Batman being Batman.

BRUCE or BATMAN

open to both [brackets] and prose, i'll follow your lead if you have a preference. if you want something else with bruce or bats, shoot me a PM or PP at

telekinetics to discuss. otherwise things we've planned/discussed can be dropped in here as well. starters in comments.

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( never before has jason been more grateful that the domino mask whites out his eyes. see? lenses are useful for plenty of shit. because bruce is right there, barely a breath's distance away given jason was working on his neck, and he--well, he can see the way jason's lips press tight together, how his brow wrinkles, but he can't see the hurt in his eyes. he can't see the way those tears that jason had been working to keep back start gathering in the corners of his eyes.

i won't give up on you versus the i was a fool for ever believing in you he'd last heard from his own bruce. jason's always been. . emotional. he feels strongly, he reacts strongly, he's loud. but this is one of the times when he wishes he was--less. less reactive, because he can't stop the way his lower lip begins to tremble. less loud, because the shuddered exhale he gives is a little too obvious.

the way he leans forward to press his forehead against bruce's shoulder isn't exactly stealthy, either. nor is the way his shoulders slump, or how he waits until after bruce can't see his face to reach up and pull the mask off, so he can wipe at his eyes. and while being more quiet may have been handy, the silence jason leaves between them is a little too telling. because there are several snarky little comments he could throw straight back at bruce, but he can't bring himself to voice any. not when he's--trying to hold himself back from crying. )

( everything about this should make him tense up — should make him stare like a deer in headlights almost and yet... he doesn't. there's something about this — about what they've both been through today and the previous time and the previous before that that has bruce sitting there. quiet. feeling some sort of way that makes him wonder if this is how it all starts. if this is how he starts to want to be there for them, starting with a young and newly orphaned dick at some point.

this connection so strongly felt through so much pain that he can almost feel it himself. even if different — even if not entirely the same, it's familiar to him and he hates that there are those around him who feel this, too.

it's then that a thought touches him. i do what you can't, jason had said to him and sure. he's right. so maybe for him it's more... i'll do what he — the other him — can't. or at least... try. no matter how tired it makes him, no matter how much he might wonder if it even matters. just like with gotham, he needs to try.

letting jason lean against him like he is — taking the moment to just try and keep it together in ways bruce has felt and done himself when it's just been himself alone, he lifts the hand up closest to jason, and gently presses it to the crown of his head, fingers softly carding their way through dark strands of hair as he does. unspoken, the sentiment is still there regardless; i've got you. )

( he feels bruce shift, and his immediate response is to tense up. waiting for the fight, for the hit, for something. it's--instinct, one he's managed to curb with some, but not bruce. because chances are high shit will turn into a fight with bruce, and maybe this is where it does.

it doesn't. fingers brush through his hair and it's the kind of soft touch jason only ever expects from--dick, when he's feeling affectionate. kyle is usually where it comes from, and it's still something jason's getting used to. he communicates with his fists, through fighting, through banter he's been using since he was just a kid with an attitude. this is new, slightly uncomfortable,

but it's still enough to cause the dam to break, for the tears to actually start falling. he'd been out there fighting for a while, taking down people's nightmares, getting civilians out of the way--taking down thomas and martha wayne, which is shit jason wasn't expecting to do today. he hurts, he's exhausted, he's got a kid running around out there that he let loose and who the fuck knows what dick is getting into, he's full of chaos and energy.

jason's here, leaning onto bruce, his fingers in jason's hair that's just barely long enough it's starting to curl again, and jason's pulling in a breath through his mouth before his shoulders start shaking. he doesn't reach for bruce, keeps his hands down on his thighs. doesn't say jack shit as tears fall and land on bruce's gear. doesn't say anything through the quiet gasping breaths, just breathes through it to try and keep himself from falling apart even more. )

( he know what it feels like to keep it all in — to ignore it to the point of never really acknowledging it because it just hurts too much to and who the hell would ever willingly want to put themselves through such emotional torment? physical altercations? that seems to be more the way to deal with it — deal with the misplaced anger that's actually fear or pain. the last time he'd really been like this — where he'd really broken down as jason seems to be, is when he was still young, after his parents death, and had no one but alfred there to console him in whatever way he could.

[you needed a father, but all you had was me...]

he doesn't know what jason needs — doesn't know the words to say to make any of this better. so he just sits there with him, fingers slow and gentle in the way they rub his head in some quiet attempt to try and console him. fighting someone to make it better somehow seems so much more easier than this... but that's also why he needs to do this. because it's hard and difficult and teeters too close towards letting himself care.

but he does care. he's always cared. even when it seems like he doesn't. even when he's been callous with telling alfred how he's not his father. now he might lose him and he'd have to live with that guilt, too.

there's the faintest sound of discomfort there on his lips as he shifts some on the stool — as he shifts to face jason better and lets that hand there on the crown of jason's head drop down to rest at the nape of his neck instead. making it easier for jason to lean into him. to be held with the one hand there at the nape of his neck. no pushing away, no leaving him there to deal with what he's feeling on his own. eyes falling shut, he sits there with him, the sound of his laptop running the program it's working on filling the silence that hangs between them. )

( jason didn't grow up with a safe space to--break down like this. he had to take care of his mom, because she was too sick to take care of herself most the time. then she was gone, and jason had to take care of himself in a place affectionately named crime alley. where no one came out without getting at least a few scars, and jason has plenty of them to show for it. he had himself, then he had bruce and alfred, and as soon as he was starting to get comfortable, to find his footing somewhere he did have support, he was dead. he came back, and all he had was talia until he didn't have her, either. and by then none of it mattered. he was a nobody, and then he was red hood, crime lord turned criminal turned part time vigilante, and no one has time to let themselves fall apart. he tells himself to get up, pull himself together, and he tapes together the pieces of jason todd he can get his fingers on. calls it good enough and keeps going.

he's had people he trusts not to fuck him over since then. he had roy, who jason almost got killed. artemis and bizzaro, who jumped into a black hole. dick and tim have been. . trying, over the last few years. most of the bats have been. but jason's not a kid anymore. he never was. he'll tell tim and the rest of them over and over again that it's okay to not be okay, but he can't give himself that same space. because when jason breaks, he shatters. jason shudders on an exhale, still keeps himself quiet because he has to be.

sucks in another breath, before he's shoving off of bruce. keeps his head bent down, so his face isn't visible. raises a hand to wipe away tears, but it mostly just--smears blood over his eyes. pulls in another breath, steadying, before pressing the domino mask back on. another shaky exhale, and he's wincing as he pulls himself up straight.

stands up, shoulders squared, lips twisted into a little frown because it helps hide how shaky he is. he'll pull himself back together, he just needs another moment. jason's standing, he's steady, that's about as much as he's going to get right now.

and as if the entire incident never happened, he turns back around towards the batmobile. raises a hand to wave bruce forward. )

We've got shit to do.

( when jason pulls away, he lets him — lets him take that moment to pull himself together, arm slowly falling down to his side. he shifts a little there on the stool — slowly cranes his neck to the other side as a means to stretch it some and rolls his shoulders back some while looking around the "cave" he currently has. there's still a lot for him to do with it — things that will keep him busy in his so-called downtime around here. for the moment, however, it does what it needs to.

jason goes and says what he does and he knows he's right. there might have been a bit of a lull for them — bruce having clearly needed a second to pull himself together as well after seeing his parents as he had, but. they need to get back out there. things will only amp up again at some point after all.

boots heavy as they tap against the floor, he pushes himself off the stool with a low grunt and makes his way over to where he'd set his cowl and gauntlets down, pulling those on first. )

Where were you headed?

( because he doesn't think jason had been tracking him throughout it all. more like they'd simply come across one another. or he'd heard the batmobile and knew bruce was around. )

Nowhere in particular.

( he was tracking bruce, but he wasn't looking for him. anyone jason could shove a tracker on and keep it on them, he has. behind his mask, the hud lights up once more to display all the little dots where the rest of their crew have fucked off to.

jason reaches into his jacket, pulls out a small, dime-shaped disk which he holds between two fingers over his shoulder to show it to bruce, very pointedly, before he places it under the closest table. an emergency beacon of sorts, which doubles as a bug. he figures bruce'll find it quick enough anyway, may as well make his intentions known. it'll also help hide the one he's absolutely dropping in the batmobile. he showed bruce this one, clearly if he was going to put another, he'd show bruce that one too. right?

each step forward puts jason just that much closer to--putting whatever that was behind him. bruce isn't talking about it, which jason appreciates. because he definitely doesn't want to talk about how he just broke down and cried on some reclusive asshole who managed to find just the right way to dig into all of jason's bullshit without even trying. fuck him, really.

fuck all of it. bug planted, and jason walks himself around the batmobile so he can throw himself back into the passenger seat. winces again because--that probably wasn't the best way to sit down when he's a little physically fucked over. it's fine. )

I've got eyes on everyone. Might not be a bad idea to check through 'em. ( but-- ) Anyone give you access to the bat channels yet?

( with his cowl pulled back on and it fastened as best as it can be given the stitches he now wears beneath the tape, he watches jason hold up the small bug and his expression says it all: not surprised, heavy sigh just barely there on his lips. he knows they do this — he's caught a few of them already, but. for the most part lately, he just leaves them. after all, if he really wants to be left alone — to disappear or not be followed, he'll get rid of them or put them somewhere else. they're curious, he figures, and sure. he is, too, with them. which is why he has his own ways of keeping tabs on them.

still. if a bat doesn't want to be found, they have ways of doing just that.

steps heavy as he makes his way over to his laptop, he looks at whatever it's running for a moment before he heads to the batmobile, sliding into the driver's seat. )

Bat channels?

( he stares to jason in genuine confusion, it's almost innocent in a way.

door shut, key turned, the engine comes to life and he looks over to the stools there left by the table. nothing they need to talk about, because what needed to be said or left unsaid, has been. )

( that's a no if jason's ever heard one. weird that no one else has brought them up to bruce yet--he's shared them first with dick jr, but jason was also the one who found him first. bruce has been around a while, jason would have thought someone would have given him access by now. but jason's not going to be the person who does it, so he just--snorts.

tries to ignore the way the i won't give up on you settles deep in his gut and hurts. jason doesn't want to change, but bruce. . this bruce, saying he's going to try means more than he could put into words. means more than the embarrassment of breaking down and crying on him, too. jason's--tired, physically, mentally, emotionally, this is going to weigh on him for a while. but that's something he can handle later.

or he can just throw it aside, pretend it never happened, and never think about it again. that's likely going to be the easier, less stressful path. just pull a tim drake and shove it all in a neat little box to be forgotten forever until it becomes a problem. )

Yeah, you know. Batmobile, batarangs, batchannels. Gotta put bat in front of everything, don't we?

( his head leans back against the seat, injured arm draped across his abdomen. )

Ask Grayson. I'm sure he'd love to add you to the gossip chatgroups.

( gossip chatgroups. bruce looks over to jason with a somewhat perplexed expression as that's certainly nothing he's ever been part of, but. then again, who exactly would he have a gossip chatgroup with to begin with? alfred? again, nothing he really wants to think of at the moment, so. instead, he looks ahead, gloved fingers gripping the steering wheel. )

I'll keep it in mind.

( that's all he really says about that before he's taking them out of "the batcave" here and back ono the streets through the slick shadows. )

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