metalogs | ( open-ish ) dedicate and sacrifice my everything

( eyes fall shut the moment gentle fingers brush those strands of hair out of his face. a fleeting moment of what could be considered an attempt to relax. blue eyes flutter open a second or two later, however, and he looks to her with a sort of softness he doesn't often let himself feel.

glancing away, a quiet huff leaves him. )

Do you mean the hair or the sunglasses?

( because, honestly. she could mean either. )

The hair more than the glasses, but both, to some extent.

[ Are tinted glasses really necessary at night... inside.

She sets her hand back on the coverlet of the bed and leans on it, apparently content to keep the headband in her hair for the moment. This is... nice. It's rare to have quiet moments like this at home; rarer still to spend any of them with Bruce. ]

I'll have to pick up some matching legwarmers.

( another huff, but this time it's mixed with the faint sound of laughter there, just barely on his lips. reaching a hand up, he pulls the sunglasses off his face and looks over to diana, flicking some of his hair out of his face as he does. )

Maybe in bright yellow or neon green.

( those were considered colours of the 80s after all and often were found worn together. )

Or orange.

[ The large pink bow at the corner of her field of vision is a distraction, but not one she can't ignore. For a moment, she feels a pang of wistfulness for the Canary, who would no doubt leap at the opportunity to wear the most garish of styles possible.

Even so, she smiles over at Bruce, who seems willing to go along with the little joke. ]

It's nice to see your eyes.

[ He likes his walls, his barriers, just like the Bruce she knows. Even taking off his sunglasses feels like a small opening in the doors he keeps closed. ]

( her words leave him quiet for a long moment, the crinkling of the granola bar held there between his fingers filling that silence between them. swallowing some, he looks down to it — slowly turns it over a couple times. )

Nothing much to see in them.

( nothing anyone would really want to see, he thinks. )

Edited 2023-09-11 21:05 (UTC)

Rude as it may be to contradict someone, on this, I think, we disagree.

[ She reaches up to pull the headband free from her hair, shaking out the long dark waves. The pink band she sets on the loops of the lasso, glowing gently on the coverlet. ]

You haven't asked about the League's trip into the past before. Not curious? Or simply trying to stay focused?

Wasn't sure if I should.

( he softly answers, looking back over to diana. )

[ She meets his glance with her own clear and steady – and thoughtful. ]

It feels a little unfair, sometimes, that I know so much about you and you know so little of me. If you'd like to know, I'll tell you.

But I understand the desire not to know, as well. I fear there are no easy answers here.

If you want to tell it to me as a bedtime story, I won't say no.

( it's said with a faint smile there on his lips, despite the heaviness he feels more than likely comes with such a story, but. it's just typical bruce at the end of the day. sitting there on the edge of the bed. holding that granola bar. gently letting himself look over to her then. )

[ Her smile is wry at that, but it's good to hear him tease, to see him looking a little lighter. He's been carrying a heavy burden since even before coming to this place, with all its myriad complications.

Diana shifts on the bed, moving over to the other side, and pats the side she'd left, inviting. He may as well make himself comfortable. ]

Do you know anything about the city of Atlantis? Or has Kyle told you of a man named Arthur, called Aquaman?

( he watches as she shifts back — as she pats the space on the bed there for him and, after a moment of just staring at the way her hand pats that spot, he looks away. down to the granola bar. tossing it over onto the table there with the other goods he'd purchased and toes himself out of his boots.

standing, he goes around the bed and drops himself down onto the other side of it, back hitting it with a slight bounce, not even bothering to take his jacket off, no. arms draped over his torso, head pressed somewhat into the pillow, he looks over to her beside him. gently thoughtful. )

Just that he's part of the Justice League. As for Atlantis, whatever's in books. ( a beat, he cocks a brow some. ) Let me guess. It's actually, in fact, real, and Aquaman is from there.

A very good guess.

[ She stays where she is, sitting, legs crossed, her hands loose in her lap. But her amusement fades as she remembers, as she thinks back. ]

There had been a war. We all thought Arthur lost; Atlantis, too. But through devious magic, they'd instead been tossed back in time. By three thousand years.

( a brow raises as she goes on — as she gets to the three thousand years part. it's already enough to wrap his head around being in the 80s. but three thousand years ago is just... )

Sounds a little prehistoric.

Less than you might think. There were many civilizations at that time to rival those of the here and now.

[ But she digresses. ]

We managed to open a portal... Kyle didn't want to go. He'd been seeing... visions... of us, all of us, lying dead. But we went. The trip was difficult. Everyone fell ill for a short time.

[ She looks over at him, meets his glance with a crooking smile. ]

You were sick longer than anyone else. Several days.

This a bad time to tell you I picked up cold medication?

( it's said a little dryly — meant to tease some at the fact that he'd be the one to get sick, but. any sort of amusement is relatively fleeting there as he looks to her still. )

What happened then?

[ Her smile flashes, warm and bright as a lit candle. ]

A very good time, I think.

[ But he isn't sick this time, and, yes, the prospect of having cold medicine is a relieving one, so she turns once more to her story. ]

The time and place where we were... they'd had a prophecy, one which named the Justice League as destroyers. They built a League of their own, one with godly powers, and came to fight us. We were... scattered. Weakened.

( he lets her speak — lets her say what she needs to. only thinking to say something when there's a break from her words. )

But you're here.

Yes. But first, I died.

[ Her words are soft, but matter-of-fact. ]

So did you. We all did. The last thing I remember from that battle was feeling your – Bruce's – hand in mine. Then there was nothing, for three thousand years but a dream of the Elysian Fields, until the new League – the one Bruce, our Bruce, had arranged to take our place if needed – re-animated us to fight the same threat, all over again.

[ Her mouth quirks. ]

From re-animation, we were brought back, whole, to life. But I don't recommend it. It wasn't a pleasant experience.

( three thousand years into the past. dying. coming back via re-animation... it's difficult to wrap his head around — to really understand and think of as something that happened to some version of himself and to others this version of him knows. when the most he's had to deal with thus far are the likes of the joker in terms of extreme cases... this all takes the cake... and he's not so sure he wants it to.

for a moment, words are lost to him and his gaze drifts past her — taking it all in again — before it returns to her face. before he's almost gentle in the way he speaks. )

Are you worried that's what'll happen this time around?

( a beat, a moment to clarify. )

That we'll all die here?

[ She gives him the time he needs, the space he needs, to think. To let it all sink in. And when he asks his question, she gives it due deliberation, taking a long moment to consider it, carefully. ]

It's a risk that's never far from us. One we all take with our eyes open. Death on the battlefield is all but an inevitability.

[ Meeting his glance again, she smiles, slight. ]

But I hope that it does not come on this one. I hope, for all our sakes, we may avoid battle altogether.

( the chances of this being a one-way trip for them all is a high possibility — one he'd taken into consideration at length before deciding to come here. death... it's never removed from the equation for him — something that doesn't even scare him when it concerns himself, but. when it concerns others... alfred... it's a fear he still hasn't mastered. that fear of losing someone else in his life who means something to him... who could mean something to him.

pulling himself up to sit, he looks to her with such a fierceness in those blue eyes that are all too genuinely earnest as he leans in some — as he gently reaches out to place his hand over hers. )

Even if it comes to that, I'll be there with you.

[ There's a fire in Bruce that's always called to the one burning in her own chest: a shared mission, a shared goal. She sees it now in his eyes, clear and steady, as he sits up, as he reaches for her hand. And even with that certainty, that fire burning, his hand on hers is gentle.

She turns her hand beneath his, laces their fingers together as they had once before, three thousand years in the past, and smiles at him. ]

And that is a very great comfort to me.

( the gentle way in which her fingers slide between his stirs something within him he long thought gone — lost within the shadows of the batman much as bruce wayne himself tends to be and has been for the past two years especially. the reclusive prince of gotham who is hardly ever seen in public — who is hardly ever seen even within the halls of the manor he lives within over looking gotham, lost in the shadows of the vigilante stalking gotham and doing whatever it takes to try and fix it.

staring to their hands there on the bed in a motel that is so far from home in a number of ways, he's here in a place he never thought he would be, facing things and about to face things he never thought would ever be a possibility for him to.

pad of his thumb so very gently brushing along her thumb, he lifts his gaze from their hands — brings it up to meet hers. )

Try not to take too long tomorrow. If you need backup or... anything goes wrong...

I won't.

[ The edge of before, the annoyance, seems to have dissipated, leaving – as always – the truth beneath. His worry, his misgivings. Concerned for her, even though from his perspective he hardly knows her. Worried despite her own not-insignificant powers.

His thumb tracing over hers is as light as a butterfly – or, she supposes, the brush of a bat's wing. ]

Three hours.

[ It serves as both a gentle reminder and a promise. ]

If I'm late, if something happens, you'll know where I am. But so you know... there is very little that could keep me from returning, when my mind is set on it.

( for all the flack he might get about not caring, the problem is that he does, even if some angry part of him maybe wishes he didn't. he cares and that care allows him to still feel pain, to still feel guilt... to still feel fear in ways he'd hoped he'd mastered by now.

what's happened to alfred, the thought of what could happen to any of the adopted kids under his care in some other world so close to his own...

his gaze on their hands again, it lifts when she speaks and he looks to her with a quiet understanding; he's much the same way. )

I'm gonna hold you to that, just so you know...

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