( open-ish ) dedicate and sacrifice my everything

[batsymbol]

Who: Bruce Wayne/Batman batsymbol
What: catch-all for the month, largely time travel and event focused
When: Throughout September
Where: Primarily the past
Content Warnings: TBD but let's just say Bruce being Bruce and Batman being 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.

Comments

Been thinking all night - Bruce and Diana

[forceforlight]

Morning dawns late in the first week when there's a knock at Bruce and Diana's door. He'd found a job as a bouncer. All cash in hand and under the table, but it paid pretty well. And left him a lot of time to think.

Which is why he's there, really. With a couple coffees from across the road. Since it's only right to do so since he might be waking them up.

[batsymbol]

As if Bruce ever needs more than a couple hours of sleep.

He's up, in the chair there in the room with his notebook there on his lap, jotting down some things when he hears the knock at the door. Given there's not much in the way of room service here, he figures it's probably Dick, but. Just to be sure, he takes a second to peer through a nearby shadow and double check.

Notebook coming to close, he rises from the chair, the television acting more as soft background noise than anything else and when he's opening the door, it's done so shirtless, but at least he has pants on. Pen held between his lips, he plucks it away, eyeing the coffee some with a slight squint of his eyes.

"Getting up or going to bed?"

They both know what it's like to work the night shift after all.

[avatarfortruth]

Diana emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of sweet-smelling steam, dressed in jeans and a tank top and rubbing at her damp hair with a towel. Her glance flicks to the open door and Dick beyond it, coasting over Bruce with faint exasperation before warming as she smiles at their visitor. On the neatly made bed sits her coiled lasso, gleaming gently next to a similarly glowing bow and quiver of arrows.

"Dick. Good morning. Would you like to come in?"

[forceforlight]

"Just getting in," Dick replies, offering one of the coffees to Bruce. "I worked most of last night, then took a long walk around the city."

He can't really patrol, so the walk is as close as he gets right now.

Diana coming out of the bathroom gets a smile and one of the coffees raised so she can see it past Bruce. "Honestly, could I? I kinda need to bounce some ideas off of people and Roy's in the wind at the moment." Roy has his own stuff going on, as usual.

[batsymbol]

Taking one of those coffees in hand, he waits until Dick's made his way inside after the invite before he closes the door behind him, turning some to catch sight of Diana there fresh out of the shower.

"Might as well," he murmurs, taking the coffee with him to set it down on the table near his notebook. "Not like we're here on vacation." Contrary to what everyone else around them may think.

[avatarfortruth]

"He keeps saying that," Diana tells Dick, smiling her thanks at him as she takes the coffee in one hand and drapes the damp towel over her shoulder with the other. "Even though I think we are all perfectly cognizant that this isn't a vacation."

She gestures for Dick to come in, not that there are too many places to sit; she perches at the foot of the bed, leaving the sole armchair for him to take. "What's on your mind, Dick?"

[forceforlight]

"Pretty sure Roy's here to make sure I don't overwork and to watch my back." Because Roy is still a good friend, even if he's Jason's best friend.

Dick's fine with standing. In fact, it's probably better because he's not good at staying still unless he has to. "I've left a few notes for Babs. Stuff she and TJ might want to look into in the future." Just because it wouldn't help them here didn't mean it wouldn't help. There were still explanations to be made. "But what I keep circling back to is this. What are two teenagers, not even out of high school, doing going to a family lawyer about trying to alter their own DNA to become more powerful?"

He pauses a moment in his pacing, taking a sip of his coffee. Then grimacing and putting it aside because it's still too hot. "Sawyer Douglas won't be born for over a decade yet. So what's happening that they're so keen on the idea of the next generation of heroes already?"

[batsymbol]

It's a little frustrating that communication between past and present — future, even — is one-sided on this mission, but. At least there's some to be had at all.

Grabbing his shirt off the bed, he's slow in the way he pulls it on, listening to Dick as he does, and makes his way over to the chair he'd been in prior to Dick's arrival, dropping himself down into it with a pensive look there on his face.

"You think it's more than just jealousy over Starstruck," he muses. "That it goes deeper than him?"

[avatarfortruth]

"Jealousy can motivate people to do terrible things," she murmurs, wrapping her fingers around the coffee cup and enjoying its warmth. "But this does seem like it's about more. About... legacy, perhaps."

And she, first daughter of Themyscira, knows all too well what the need for legacy can motivate in people. "Wanting to control the narrative."

[forceforlight]

Dick frowns at that, finding a spot to lean against the wall and cross his arms. "For Anne and Max? I'll be honest. I'm not certain they've thought any further than 'we're tired of being in Starstruck's shadow and will do anything to change that'. For all that they're star students, they don't strike me as mental powerhouses."

Not that Dick's talked to them, but he's overheard enough about what's gone on in those meetings to figure that much out.

His voice has also, unconsciously, dropped to Nightwing range. It's not a massive difference, not like Bruce sometimes does, but it's noticeable.

He shakes his head slowly, pushing away from the wall. The frown deepens as he considers something. "Diana. May I see the map?"

[batsymbol]

"No. But they're getting themselves involved in something they probably don't even know the extent of potential consequences attached to it all." At least that's how it seems to Bruce.

A glance between Dick and Diana, he goes about opening up his notebook — takes a look through it, goes over his things, letting Diana give Dick the map she'd been given by Cupid Eros after their little chat.

[avatarfortruth]

"Of course."

Getting up, she goes to where she'd stashed the map in the bedside table, next to the Gideon Bible, then offers the parchment to Dick. "This is where we'll find her."

[forceforlight]

"Thank you," he replies, along with a smile because Alfred raised him right.

He opens the parchment up, spreading it out on the coffee table. Just so they can all see it, even though they all know what it says. "So. We know, now, where this is at. Neil Perkins' house, right?" A quick look to each of them before he drops his finger to that point. "So. Why is she going to be there? He's connected, but barely, right? We've kinda been operating on the idea that she might try to stop the Douglases."

Or, at least, that HAD been Dick's thought at one point. "But she's almost definitely operating on other knowledge." A moment, then, "What if she's trying to stop a deal that Sawyer's parents made? Eventual fame and power for them for their son. Sawyer's life in exchange for Starstruck's?"

[batsymbol]

Thumbing his bottom lip, his gaze lingers there on the map in his silence — breaking it away after a moment to let it fall on both Dick and then Diana.

"It might have something to do with the Shining God as well," he murmurs. "She's the one Chaos Gate is here for. The one she wants to exact vengeance on."

[avatarfortruth]

"Do we have any idea who or where the Shining God might be?"

She turns to Dick, thoughtful. "You've been observing them. Would they accept such a deal? If her goal is to save Fantastic... she'd be willing to do anything it took."

[forceforlight]

"I'm pretty sure it definitely has something to do with the Shining God. I'm just not sure what. Or where she is."

He settles back in a crouch, still staring at the paper. "I ran into somebody from our time last night." --Or close enough for this sort of thing.-- "Apparently, he was able to talk to Chaos Gate before she came to this time. She's apparently responsible for the Confluences starting up again and bringing us here. Which isn't that weird, considering she was nominally able to stop them."

Nominally because Diana is here, after all. "There's more to what's going on in Chaos Gate's head than we know. And she's far more powerful than I think anybody had realized. Which is the same problem they ran into with Starstruck. Nobody realized how powerful he was until the day of reckoning." He considers a moment before he stands. "I don't know if they'd take the deal. But they don't seem to be her target. Not unless they happen to be at Neil Perkin's house when she's going to be there. Not impossible, but the meetings only happen at his office. Whatever her plan is, it may not involve them."

[batsymbol]

"No, I don't think they are either." Running a thumb along his bottom lip, lost in thought, he drops his hand away. "She may have figured out where the Shining God will be and it could be there. If she's not lured there somehow."

A glance up, he looks to the both of them. "Tracking down the Shining God might eventually just lead us there. We have a location of where Chaos Gate will be, at least."

[avatarfortruth]

"And a weapon that can reach her."

If necessary. And it may be necessary, although Diana promises herself she will not shoot to kill unless no other way forward reveals itself. "And Starstruck? What of him?"

[forceforlight]

"I'm not sure. I know the story, though." Of course he does. He'd researched the Godfall once he'd learned about it. "On April 2nd, his family is going to be killed by a villain that he had captured previously. And the next day, Starstruck goes absolutely ballistic. Nobody knows how powerful he is until anger and grief force him to let it all go."

And Dick knows how it is because he's been there. Been in that tornado of pain and grief that watching your family die to the bad guys causes. He was lucky that Bruce was there to help steady him. Starstruck didn't have that.

"I'm not sure what to do about that. I know what I want to do, but whether it would be prudent is an entirely different question."