I can cripple you from here.

ruega por nosotros los pecadores

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:40:00 -0500

She was a beautiful little girl.

Laying against the pile of scrap cloth, long lashes pressed against her cheeks in her sleep, Talia made no move to wake the girl from her slumber, not right away. Instead, she took her time to admire the dusky rose colouring across the high apple of the little girl’s cheeks, the cherubic pout of her mouth and the stubbornness of her chin. Oh, yes. She was a beautiful little girl, who would one day become a stunning woman. That is, of course, if she lived that long.

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Samuel: coatofskins
Damian: robindamianwayne

(warning: violence against children)

Samuel: He pulled the latch over the door upon re-entering the room, the metal grating against the stone and rough wood. Her displeasure stained his skin, it felt like, seeping in through his pores and finding its way into his bloodstream, darkened the colour of it to rust. His face was more pinched than it had been when he had left, the boy’s arms free from the ropes now; he would have to compensate for that.

“I’ve been given permission to break your other arm if you don’t tell us what we want,” Samuel said, quietly, and kicked the boy lightly between his shoulder blades. “Turn around. Face me.”

Damian: He’d endured in silence until he heard Lian’s scream. His name had reverberated from the stone walls of his prison, bellowed in her voice high and tight with fear, and that one word alone had caused him to panic where hours of torment had failed. The cracked bone in his arm throbbed in reminder of the cost of losing his composure.

Damian rose unsteadily as his captor entered the chamber again, bringing new threats with him. The ropes were scattered on the floor around his feet. ”Bring me to her,” he demanded, teeth grit against his pain and exhaustion. “I’ll tell you nothing until I see that she’s unharmed.”

Samuel: Samuel shook his head as his sneer climbed to onto his features.

“No,” he stated, simply, as he reached for the bindings he had wrapped around his hands, when he had been hitting the boy. It had all been below the shoulders and above the waist, as she had instructed, and really, he hadn’t meant to break the boy’s arm, when he’d had him up against the wall. He reached out, suddenly, with the cloth, and wrapped it around Damian’s neck, intending to fling him back, and towards the exact spot he’d been in when he’d twisted, and the bone had broken. He grabs it, hard, looping it into a knot at the bottom slope of the boy’s skull and chokes him.

“Your name. Your age. Where are you from.” He repeated, his voice dropping into the monotonous litany it had been droning on in, for the last ten hours.

Damian: He’s slower than usual, weakened by hours of ruthless interrogation and his broken arm, and driving his good elbow into the man’s chest as he approaches does nothing to prevent the strip of cloth from snapping around his throat. He grunts for air as he struggles to free himself, his useless limb held tight against his chest while the nails of the opposite hand claw at whatever part of his captor he can reach. “The girl,” he insists again, ignoring the inquiry that’s played in this room on a loop since they began.

Samuel: Almost as if on cue, Lian’s scream drifts up again, through the cold, stone walls. The sound is pained and without the formation of words, it sounds as if the girl is meeting a much more brutal reckoning on her end. Samuel’s expression darkened, when he realised how much easier it would have been to use her, from the beginning, even as Damian bucked against him, the boy’s anger rising.

“You hear that?” Samuel ducked his head, bringing his mouth close, near to brushing, against the boy’s ear. “There won’t be enough time for the way we will make her scream if you don’t start speaking, boy.” He jerked his arm up, bicep bulging as he pulled on back on the cloth, before slamming Damian into the stone wall, hard enough to dislodge a tooth or two.

“Your name!” He shouted. “Your age! Your city of birth!”

Damian: Damian sputtered as his face made contact with the unforgiving stone, nose smashing against it until he feels blood trickle down the back of his throat. He choked, his breathing already inhibited by the cloth wound like a vice around his neck, and Lian’s wail of agony pierced the otherwise impenetrable wall of his resolve. He cut his eyes aside to meet the man’s gaze, face still half-pressed into the stone. ”Khalid Bilal, 13, Khartoum.”

“Now, let me see her!”

Samuel: Samuel was not the type to lose his temper easily. It was, again, one of the things that She treasured in, one of the qualities he knew that She looked for in men. But, the boy’s lie, so very obvious, meant to placate him, as if <i>he</i> were some sputtering imbecile, a henchman with no other purpose than to torture a young boy, it made his blood boil.

“Your name!” He spit, and reached for Damian’s broken, useless arm. He knew that it was getting the better of him, the boy’s eerie resolve in the face of it all. It was unnerving, to meet a child this dangerous, this undisturbed. Samuel wanted, no, needed to bring him down, bring him back to a—a human level where he could reason with him. Break him.

He yanked on his arm, uttering quietly, bringing his face back to the boy’s ear: “..when you give me what I want, I’ll bring her to you. If that means in pieces, you’ll know you waited too long.”

Damian: The wrench to his broken arm causes Damian to cry out, the yelp rising strangled and raw in this throat. He knows revealing his true identity will do nothing to aid Lian; it’s the only bargaining chip he has for gaining access to her. “And you’ve already taken too long, haven’t you?” he returns, words coming out between gasps of pain. He jerks his chin toward the other. “Whoever did that to your face certainly thought so. I won’t talk, and they’ll kill you for failing. Yes, I know how this works,” he adds in a hiss. He ought to, having been on the other end of tormenting a prisoner many times during his young life. “You can bring her to me and perhaps then I’ll be more verbose, or you can die at your master’s hand. If you think there’s a third option, you’re mistaken.”

Samuel: Behind Damian, Samuel’s eyes widen at the boy’s words. He understood then, just how badly he’d underestimated the boy, and how foolish, utterly foolish he had been in doing so. She hadn’t. She’d known from the very beginning who She had been dealing with, and why She had been so meticulous in Her planning. He glanced to the door, nervously, as if waiting for Her to step out, ready to, yes, punish him for his failure. The seconds ticked, nearly audible in their passing, and Samuel waited. Breathed, and waited for the door to shudder with pressure, Her delicate hands against the wood, Her beckoning call that he would answer, even if it meant his demise.

It doesn’t come.

Gradually, he eased back, off the boy’s body, the knotted cloth traveling to wind around the boy’s wrists. Once secured, he jerked on the boy’s arms, cruelly hard, and shoved him back against the wall.

“You move from that spot, and I kill her where she stands.” He breathed, very ounce of truth he could manage poured into the words.

It seems like a lifetime before he returns. Lian is in tow, her tiny body swimming in burlap garments; her bare shoulder is scraped raw to bleeding, the knuckles of her hands bruised from thin, tiny punches against an ungiving surface, and, most horrifically of all, a face print marks the side of her face, swelling angrily now, her lip split where it had clipped her teeth. A noise, wrenched from the base of her lungs, exploded forth in a burst of air at seeing Damian, and she ran to him, <i>her</i> arms and legs unfettered, wrapping him in an embrace, despite how the boy stiffened in obvious pain.

Damian: Damian barks one last groan of pain as his arm is twisted again before the assailant leaves the room, door slamming with a ring of finality in his wake. There’s a chance he may kill her, Damian realizes, even now. Bring her to him dead and broken in a further effort to intimidate him into compliance. But no— he feels certain his captor understands him now, and must surely realize Lian’s welfare is the only thing that could possibly secure Damian’s cooperation. He waits, therefore, where instructed, the cold must of the wall seeping into his skin and lungs.

And when the door opens once more, Lian there and broken indeed but alive, the boy breaks too, if only for a moment. ”Lian, habib albi,” he gasps as he turns to meet her embrace, both of them falling to their knees together. The softness in his eyes reserved for her alone disappears in a flash, calm resolve on his face when he stands and looks upon their captor again. “I will make certain you are dead before I leave this place,” he hisses in his native Arabic.

Samuel: The boy’s words made the man pause, something in them ringing familiar, despite all the logical contradictions to the opposite. He did not know this boy. There was no place in Samuel’s life where he would have known the boy, been around him long enough for the words to sound familiar, to resound inside his chest with such aching sincerity and truth behind them.

Yet, here he stands, blinking in the face of the threat in a perfectly spoken Arabic, the words sounding all too close to something Samuel feels, to something he knows or feels he should. He blinks again and then, his English heavily accented and hard, words dropping like stones into the darkness of the room. “Do so, and I will be sure to take you and your darling into the night with me.”

Over Damian’s shoulder, Lian’s swollen-shut widen when Samuel
turns and bars the door behind him again, the metal screaming against stone and echoing in the silence.

“Now. Your names.”

kylewithenvy: Me and Rex. Rayner is an acceptable sidekick.

Sun, 19 May 2013 17:50:29 -0500

kylewithenvy:

Me and Rex.

Rayner is an acceptable sidekick.

With Grayson and Rayner as my traveling companions, I visited a...

Sun, 19 May 2013 14:55:19 -0500

With Grayson and Rayner as my traveling companions, I visited a planet inhabited by dinosaurs last night. It wasn’t entirely as I thought it would be. The trees there produce fruit with the taste and consistency of gummi candy, and the lakes are filled with sugared water. But I conquered a village of Dilophosaurus, rode a Velociraptor, and led Grayson and Rayner in a successful battle against a mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was a productive venture overall, and I’m certain the dinosaurs acknowledged me as their new king before we left.

I brought a juvenile Rex home with me. His name is Mercutio, and he’s a bad thing. But he’s still just a baby, and I’ll teach him to be good. Unless he’s like Cordelia, who can only ever be naughty.

ruega por nosotros los pecadores

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:59:00 -0500

coatofskins:

The fervor in his blood isn’t calmed by the way he takes them; there’s no vicious elegance to be had in the tiny tranquilizer darts he shoots into their soft, gentle flesh, only a sense of necessity. He needed them. More than that, She needed and wanted both of the children who had just emerged from the ocean alive.

If She’d wanted them dead, any of the men or women in their group would have complied, without needing any other reason besides Her desire, but bringing them alive—to the old Spanish fort, hidden deep in the mountain side where they were holed up, for the time being—required the sort of cool-headed implementation he excelled at.

After all, he had managed to salvage what was left of the situation in Seattle, in the end.

So, he doesn’t use a gun, crude and rudimentary, but instead, a hollow piece of reed that makes the softest of sounds, but allows the hypodermic needle to bury itself in the boy’s neck, its venom emptying into his carotid: She had said to make sure he was the first he took, or things would get infinitely more difficult. She had never lied to him, and he wasn’t about to begin doubting Her.

The instant he’d felt the prick, the little boy in his sights had whirled around, preternaturally fast, pulling the barbed tip of the arrow out of his skin, and flung an armful of projectiles in the man’s direction. One of them, in particular, had nearly sung, a high twanging note of bending metal, as it landed in the bark above his head. The man blinked, Her wisdom guiding him, and could only smirk when the boy shouted in fury.

The words—if there had been any— slurred slowed when the altered neurotoxin worked it’s way into his brain, and he staggered, listed to one side. The dark-haired boy remained upright, impressively, for another few seconds, even as the little girl to the side of him at his arm, screamed his name, her eyes wide and bright in the dying light of day.

Even from this distance, he could tell that she would be a beauty one day, without a doubt, perhaps—with her high, slanting cheekbones and the wide, dark of her almond-shaped eyes—perhaps.. even enough to challenge Her own.

The needle sunk into her neck easily and she brought her hand up, as if to grab at it, but stopped, unsure if she should pull it out or not. Her hesitation cost her: she dropped to her knees, then slumped, onto the boy’s fallen form, faster than he had.

If he’d been the type of man to wax poetic, or even if he’d really known the two children, outside of Her need for them, he might have paused to look at the shape their sleeping bodies had taken, almost Shakespearean in nature.

Even in sleep, he curled around her, his hand wrapped around her ankle, as if to tether him to her, even in Darkness. And she, her long lashes fluttering, dusky against the honeyed tone of her skin, managed one last look at the man’s expression—memorizing the brown of his eyes, his hair, the plainness of his face that She so coveted— shifting her body on top of her companion’s with the last of her consciousness, as if she could protect him.

If he’d been any kind of man that would have cared, he might have been bothered at how infinitesimally light their bodies were when he flung them each, one over each shoulder, and marched through the jungle.

—-

He pours the bucket of water over the boy’s face. It’s spring-drawn, but that means little in the sub-tropical climate of the island. The water is warm, sticky-sweet, as it splashes over his upright body.

He’d tied the boy, at his wrists, ankles, knees, and across his chest, trapping his arms, as per Her instructions, in a specialized co-polymer blend rope. He hadn’t understood, at first, why it was important, or why he had to strip the boy of all his clothes, put him in a rough-spun tunic and drawstring pants, but he hadn’t question Her orders. He knew better than that.

Of course, removing the boy’s clothing, and watching in something akin to morbid fascination as weapon, after weapon, after weapon fell from within the confines of such tiny pieces of clothing, he wondered for the first time, who the boy was.

Then, after a beat, he decided he didn’t quite much care.

“WAKE UP!” He bellowed, right in the boy’s ear, and when the tiny boy jerked back, his back against the stone wall, legs extended in front of him, arms behind his back, he watched the boy’s slate grey eyes appear, hazy, under a fringe of lashes.

“You’re going to give me everything I want to know, boy,” the man says, rising from where he’d been crouched, his eyes on Damian. “But we’ll start with your name.”

Name, age, place of birth, languages spoken, parents’ names, deepest waking fears, he would get it all from him. She wanted it and he would not fail.

(continued from Lian and Damian’s great escape)

Sea salt and mildew heady on the air; the scratch of burlap garments on his unprotected skin; the grit of coal dust between his teeth. He’s cataloging his environment before he ever opens his eyes, before his vision is clear enough to scrutinize his captor looming above him. The man isn’t very large or otherwise intimidating in form, but there’s something zealous in the focus of his dark eyes, something Damian feels he’s seen before.

He gathers from the air quality that they’re holed up somewhere not far from the ocean, an underground bunker or cave, perhaps. It’s dark and humid, the crude clothing sticking to his skin, and when he maneuvers against his bonds, a knot of synthetic rope presses tighter against his throat. He freezes, instantly; he knows this method of bondage. He’d been trained in it. He’d restrained victims in this criss-crossed pattern of cords himself, and he’d allowed one to struggle long enough to choke herself to death before she revealed the information he’d been tasked to claim from her. Mother had not been pleased with his failure that night—

He slams down a mental barrier against this train of thought. Talia has nothing to do with his current situation. The knot on his neck presses against his windpipe just enough to make breathing uncomfortable, but he doesn’t let it show when he glowers up at the man staging this interrogation. He doesn’t ask about Lian lest he make it evident he cares for her and have her used against him. He doesn’t question their whereabouts or the purpose of their capture.

In fact, he says nothing at all, allowing the set of his jaw and the defiance in his eyes make clear his refusal to comply.

The first blow lands on the side of his head, as he’d expected it would. He feels the rivulet of blood leak past his ear and down his neck, adding its metallic scent to the concoction in the air, and Damian is careful not to writhe and cause the rope on his throat to close even tighter.

Describe yourself in 3 media (TV, film, book, music) characters.

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:53:56 -0500

Just one, as a representative of Damian’s dual nature:

“Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee—but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.”

The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkien

Some moments from Dami-Gollum’s day:

Being taken to Tower School in the morning:

Squabbling with his classmates until one of them (usually Helen) cuts to the quick:

Being scolded by Father (generally a daily occurrence):

Sulking in his room for a bout of self-reflection:

Someone (ie: Grayson or Rayner) finally draws him from his foul mood with promises of dinosaurs and sweets:

[ENCRYPTED TEXT] Dinner. Seven PM.

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:40:00 -0500

Damian stands near Lian on the craggy rocks of Santa Prisca’s shore, both shedding the scuba gear they’d used to infiltrate the island once the submarine was no longer safe to be in range.

[TEXT] I’m busy with a project for school. I’ll eat in my room.

He re-routes the transmission’s source to the network in the Manor before hitting send and knows it won’t fool Father for a second.

the things we do

Tue, 14 May 2013 19:55:21 -0500

lilarcher:

Lian always marveled slightly at the different ways things were done here. She’d never been conscious of differences before, in people’s lives - not until she met Damian Wayne. Before that, she could’ve been living in a palace or a one-bedroom apartment and it would have always felt the same to her. Because the people were the same - Grampa; or Aunts Dinah, Mia; or Uncles Dick, Garth, Gar, Vic, Wally; or Dad, always Dad. People she loved and knew loved her back.

Damian’s home was different and so was he. Everything here was so…proper, like a storybook. Living with her dad or Grampa or on Titans Tower, it was always a whirlwind of unpredictable things, noise, smells. Wayne Manor was…airless. Shut up tight and still. It made Lian go still as well.

When they were alone and Damian snapped out of the storybook politeness, then Lian did too as she stooped to try and touch the fat goldfish in the pond.

She didn’t know what Santa Prisca was - so far she knew the geography of the US and some of the Asian continent, but not much else - but when Damian mentioned the prison, she perked up.

“My mom sent it to me,” she replied with conviction and she showed him the phone, covering up the screen with one small hand. “You promise not to tell anyone this? I haven’t told ANYONE, Damian. So you have to triple-lock, super-duper, forever swear or you’ll die swear.”

“I do,” Damian replied somewhat impatiently, if a bit fervently.

Lian told him about the secret phone number her mom gave her two years back, which was the last time she’d seen her mother. ”It was just between me and her. No one else. It has to be her…”

Damian’s next question made Lian stand up, dusting her dress off and making a show of folding her arms. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m going to see her. I ran away before, I can do it again.” The fever she’d contracted that last time rendered her memory of their excursion a little skewed. “You are going to come with me…?”

It was a statement, but it ended upwards in a question, and Lian added with urgency. “I NEED you.”

“You have me.” Damian cups her hands with his own, the phone suspended in the middle of their joined grasp. He holds her gaze as he assures her, “I won’t tell anyone, and I won’t leave your side until we’ve found her.” Because he understands the desperate need to answer a mother’s summon. Because Father has taken his mantle and his place in Gotham City along with it. Because Lian is more lovely than any of the blossoms that surround her, and Damian can deny her nothing.

He doesn’t blink for several seconds until he becomes mindful of his own intensity, having learned from daily interaction with his fellow Watchtower students that the other children didn’t often appreciate his dramatic behavior. It only seems fitting right now, though, dressed in their fine frocks and conspiring alone near the babbling fountain. Damian thinks for a minute to stand and take Lian by the hand, to pull her along after him and disappear together into the trees.

But no— he must plan, he must be wise about this sojourn. He’s eleven now. He can no longer afford the mistakes he made as a younger man.   “Our journey won’t be easy. Santa Prisca will be difficult to infiltrate, and our fathers will pursue us the moment they realize we’ve gone. I need a week to prepare. “ He looks up as Pennyworth appears at the end of a lane adjacent to the courtyard, calling the children to return to the house for tea.

“A week, and then I’ll call for you,” Damian repeats, offering his arm again to Lian as they rise to meet Pennyworth.   There’s a rhythmic flow to his steps, as if he’s leading her down a wedding aisle. He imagines himself a knight escorting his princess back to the castle until they can safely abscond together, away from the gaze of the wrathful king. “When I call for you, Lian, you must be ready.”

——————————

He’s as ready as he will be, and he calls.

It’s exactly midnight when she materializes on the zeta pad in the cave, suitcase in hand. Pennyworth is upstairs, Father is on patrol, and Damian remains confined at home, his Robin costume unused in its display case. It’s more symbolic than practical, a means by which Father emphasizes his punishment— Damian already has a spare suit packed away in his own bag, and he boards both suitcases and Lian on the back of his bike before they ride off into the night.

Lian’s arms wrap tightly around his waist as they take the backroads that lead to the harbor, and Damian decides it isn’t an unpleasant sensation.   He stops only once, to dismantle the tracking computer from his motorcycle and dump it into a sewer, letting the current below take it where it will.

The pier they finally park beside is dilapidated, graying wood projecting at crooked angles from the water. The tide is high, crashing against the breakers, and there are no streetlights here as there are at the public marina several miles down the road. And Damian prefers it that way.

He helps Lian dismount with their luggage before revving the bike and jumping the curb to land upon the broken pier. It travels the length of shambled wood for only a few feet before Damian rises on the seat and flips backwards in the air, landing on one of the slabs of the pier that remain in tact while his motorcycle sinks into the sea.

It’s quiet, then, the water bubbling where it consumes the bike and Damian watching impassively as he clicks something in his hand.   A moment of silence passes, sea spray bathing both he and Lian as she carefully tiptoes on wooden planks that appear solid to join him, before the crest of a submarine’s cockpit roars to the surface.

The hull hisses open, the light inside pouring out like a beacon on the dark sea. Damian takes their bags in one hand and Lian’s elbow in the other to keep her from falling. “Get in.”

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:53:53 -0500

contacts Damian's comm link and sings loudly "Well I don't know why I came here tonight / I got the feeling that something ain't right / I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair / And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs / Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am, / Stuck in the middle with you..."

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:39:00 -0500

Are you speaking to me in code, Martian? Don’t clutter the frequency with your alien gibberish!

the things we do

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:16:00 -0500

lilarcher:

Lian got a message back.

It was the first time it ever happened, really. The number her mother gave her sent her a text back; and truth be told, Lian was pretty excited. It couldn’t have happened at a better time, really. Her dad coming back into town for Mia’s birthday (which totally sucked) and then leaving again after one stupid day (super-sucked), had made everyone else all annoyed and annoying. She was sure it was his fault.

Sure now he was sending her texts and they were so cute, but for whatever reason instead of making her feel better, they just made her madder.

So when she got a text back - from her mother, it had to be from her mother; who else would it be?! - Lian squealed in delight, hiding her face in her stuffed giraffe (the armadillo was now cast to the window seat, far from her cuddling needs). It was way more exciting than dad’s dumb texts. It meant mom CARED. At least she was TRYING. But she was locked up in prison, like Lady Gaga in that video with Beyonce. Lian giggled to herself, because she loved that video, and always imagined her mom in a cool prison like that.

The text was confusing though and for a heart-stopping moment Lian wondered if it was spam. It said ‘N16 10 20.9’ and also ‘W62.34.41’. It wasn’t IP addresses or websites or a phone number…

She’d have to ask someone who would know, and there was really only one person in the world right now who filled the quota of discretion, smartness and loyalty to her, as required for this task.

So, she called Damian Wayne.

Lian and Damian both fidget more than usual as they have lunch in the gardens that flank the Manor, pink poppies and white chrysanthemums bright in spring bloom around the gazebo that houses the picnic table. Lian squirms enough that the iron legs of her bistro chair scrape over the deck, and Pennyworth looks up from refreshing their lemonade glasses. Damian’s been subject to his care long enough to recognize suspicion in the elder’s eyes when he sees it, and as soon as Pennyworth returns his attention to his task, Damian hisses at Lian to be still.

She’s quite pretty in her lavender sundress, a ribbon of peach satin cinched around her waist, and Damian looks the part of their garden lunch date in his summer whites too, the mint green of his collared shirt bringing out the peridot undertones in his eyes. “Miss Harper” and “Mr. Wayne” they call each other, and they might enjoy it greatly if they weren’t so preoccupied. Lian’s worrying her hair until a pinwheel curl tumbles free of the matching peach bow that secures it, and the swing of it makes Pennyworth pause to look upon the children once more.

“We’re quite thirsty,” Damian explains, and their lunch proceeds without further strain.

Pennyworth finally releases them to take a stroll through the cobblestone garden paths, though they’re not to venture beyond the fountain in the courtyard and to return to the house within an hour. It’s enough time, Damian decides, as he walks arm-in-arm with Lian and chats about banal topics such as school and pets until he feels they’re at a safe enough distance.

“Coordinates,” he finally tells her when they reach the fountain and perch upon the edge of it. The goldfish that occupy it swim up to nibble at his fingers when he dips a hand into the cool water. “The text you received contains map coordinates that align with Santa Prisca. There’s a famous prison on the island— Bane, a criminal who operates here in Gotham, grew up there.”

He watches Lian’s face carefully. “Do you really think it’s your mother who sent you the message? And if so… do you intend to go to her?”

Alfred brings Damian a small couriered package that has arrived...

Mon, 13 May 2013 21:28:00 -0500

Alfred brings Damian a small couriered package that has arrived for him from Queen Industries. Inside is a tin and a handwritten note:

Hi, Damian!

I know you’re stewing at home right now so I thought you might get a kick out of these. Considering your temperament and the names of your menagerie, Willie’s insults should be right up your alley.

Best,

O. Spencer Queen

————————

Despite his persistent foul mood in the wake of having the title of Robin stripped from him, Damian does snicker when he sifts through the bandages. He selects one taken from Richard III, which reads “Thou poisonous bunch-back’d toad!” and sets it aside to stick upon the bandage over Father’s bullet wound when he’s asleep.

Thank you, Queen, he writes back. These will be useful, especially against the many dolts in our circle who wouldn’t understand them.

Photo

Sun, 12 May 2013 18:04:51 -0500

You are the mirror of your Mother, and she is the mirror of you/ And in you she recalls the lovely April of her youth.

Sun, 12 May 2013 12:53:17 -0500

She recalls nothing lovely in me, not anymore.

Photo

Sun, 12 May 2013 12:08:07 -0500

Photo

Fri, 10 May 2013 22:14:58 -0500

oodelollie replied to your post: “Robin” is a silly name. Why not something cool like “Razor” or...

Wed, 08 May 2013 22:33:23 -0500

oodelollie replied to your post: “Robin” is a silly name. Why not something cool like “Razor” or “Mantis” or “Clayface”?

“Rex” is a good one! For myself, I would’ve chosen “Green Allo”.

But when you say it aloud, people might think you’re called Green Aloe. It would be a suitable name if you were a healer, perhaps.

If we’re ever dinosaur vigilantes together, I’ll call you Al.

"Robin" is a silly name. Why not something cool like "Razor" or "Mantis" or "Clayface"?

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:17:39 -0500

Grayson chose the moniker, not me; I’m merely a victim of tradition. If I had my choice, I’d be called Rex (as in Tyrannosaurus).

This City Never Sleeps; Batman and Robin // Continued

Tue, 07 May 2013 20:40:58 -0500

neverwasoneforgrandgestures:

Oddly, it’s the low rumbling of the plane that wakes Bruce. A searing lancet of agony slips itself under his left eye, a vise of pain wrapping around his head and making the vibrations feel like a car’s, as the plane begins to make the descent into the Cave. A strangled noise that doesn’t sound like himself slides, bloodied, out of the corner of the man’s mouth and plops, sickly, onto the floor before he pushes strength into the muscles of his neck, rolling it to the side. His chest crackles with every breath, his pelvis throbbing like a heartbeat.

A shadowy figure moves, above him, saying something that Bruce struggles to hear, let alone understand, over the sound of rushing water in his hears. A hand reaches out towards him, looming enormous to the man’s upturned eye and before Bruce can stop himself, survival instincts flood his veins, the fibres of his muscles, rendering them nearly plump with adrenaline and he flips over with a roar that echoes off the confines of the cargo bay where Damian had left him, doubling, tripling, amplified until it is nothing but a hoarse and wordless cry of fury.

The massive grip of his gloved hand slips neatly around the boy’s neck, slamming him against the wall, covered in emergency jump packs, before the man can gauge who it is, and by then it’s too late. His hand spasms, a voice, thin and ragged, shouts commands in the back of his mind, ghostly fists beating at his downturned shoulders as he squeezes.

Damian. It’s Damian. It’s DAMIAN.

Groaning, Bruce released him and dropped back onto the floor, leg trembling under the weight of his body, the hand that had been wrapped around his son’s neck, choking the life from him, stopping the collapse entirely. He pants, head swimming as the space in front of him swung violently on an uncontrolled axis.

”..Damian,” he chokes, wetly (that ragged thin voice sliding out of his mouth instead of where it belongs, buried in the back of his skull like a sniper’s shot), “You—”

It all comes back in a rush: the ambush, the searing blasts of bullets penetrating his armor, the grenade and.. out of his peripheral vision, Damian lunging at him, brandishing a.. skillet in his hand? Then, nothing.

Darkness.

“—you knocked me out,” Bruce wheezes, the filter in one eye socket flickering—on and off, off on, on— with the damage the cowl had sustained from the boy’s attack. His attack on Bruce.

A coldness, the likes of which Bruce had not felt in days unnumbered seeps in through his teeth from the outside, a cold that tastes like laughter, maniacal and untamed, insidious and sliding serpentine down his windpipe, burning through his lungs like a plague. It renders the pain of the bullets lodged in his side, his hip, obsolete in the wake of its arrival. Slowly, he gathers himself up, arms and legs leaden, heavy, leaning against the curved wall, until he is at his full height: all six feet of him looming, terrifying, monstrously huge in the dark confines of the plane’s belly, face obscured, shoulders hunched, and the words scrape along the edges of his molars, slicked bloody and raw over his tongue.

“You hurt me.”

In the dark, the socket flickers, detached and demonic, as the plane descends and the cabin is plunged into darkness.

During the nights when sleep eludes him, Damian sometimes listens to the scrape of the sycamore branches on his windowpane and ponders who frightens him more: Mother, or Father. They’re easy to envision in the darkness of his bedroom, phantom images with eyes of amber flame or cobalt steel, arms that stretch over and around and beckon him to follow opposite paths that lead to demise either way. He never knows in those fitful moments which mammoth figure in his life is ultimately the more terrifying.

But if he were asked right now, with Batman looming over him in the choked confines of the hill, his answer would be immediate.

“No, Fa—” he tries to object, but the title is broken as Damian pitches forward with another coughing fit. He’s shaking his head as he hits his chest with a fist, trying to regulate his oxygen intake again after Father’s hand around his throat brought it to a painful halt. When he manages to speak, his voice comes out as a croak. “I had to get you home, to the cave, to Pennyworth.” The plane is extending its landing gear on the designated platform in the cave now, and Damian eagerly points to the butler hurrying down the runway with his medical cart. “You were shot, multiple times. I had to take down the gunners. I had to secure you quickly. I had to, Father, I had to.”

He tries to look up and meet Father’s eyes, to convey his own sincere belief that he acted as necessary in their situation, but the glitching eye socket in Batman’s cowl unnerves him. The little boy looks away, down to his feet instead, and waits until he hears the hiss of the hatch as it opens to free the plane’s occupants.

Pennyworth’s footfalls clang on the metal stairs that rise from the platform to meet the craft, and he’s chiding them both before he’s even inside— Damian had called ahead to inform him of Father’s injuries. He follows along as Father and Pennyworth exit the plane, and he almost maneuvers himself under Batman’s arm to support him as they make the journey to the nearby stretcher.

But on second thought, Damian keeps his distance instead.

speedypuffs: robindamianwayne: speedypuffs replied to your photo: I took Viola into the...

Tue, 07 May 2013 19:27:00 -0500

speedypuffs:

robindamianwayne:

speedypuffs replied to your photo: I took Viola into the gardens to play today. She…

Maybe she’s being shy because she likes you so much and is embarrassed.

Hmm. I had not considered this possibility. But if it’s so, why is she not more forthcoming in her affections? She has no cause to be coy with me. I can only assume Father has done something to secure her love and turn her against me in the process. One must never underestimate him.

Why do you think he’d want to turn her against you?

As some kind of test, possibly. He does such things.

speedypuffs replied to your photo: I took Viola into the gardens to play today. She… ...

Tue, 07 May 2013 19:07:00 -0500

speedypuffs replied to your photo: I took Viola into the gardens to play today. She…

Maybe she’s being shy because she likes you so much and is embarrassed.

Hmm. I had not considered this possibility. But if it’s so, why is she not more forthcoming in her affections? She has no cause to be coy with me. I can only assume Father has done something to secure her love and turn her against me in the process. One must never underestimate him.