Summary:Selina tracks down Bruce for a heart to heart on Helena - and learns what happened to a previous Robin. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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When Wane Manor is silent, the silence can be deafening. The gentle clicks of the grandfather clock mark the passing of time. As for Bruce? Alfred will direct Selina towards the conservatory. The look he has for the woman is sympathetic - he knows how stubborn a Wayne child can be after all.
Sitting at one of the tables in the conservatory, Bruce is still in the Batsuit. The cowl's pulled back. And set on the table before him is one of the number of photo albums that he has amassed over the years. He's got it open, his fingers resting one one of the pages as he looks at the pictures on the page.
Tonight has been… chaotic, to say the least. Selina tried to take roughly three sides or so down in the cave - she doesn't TRY to sit on the fence, she swears - and ultimately came down deeply disappointed in her daughter's behavior. She'd take time to fume for awhile, but… there's something she considers a bit of an emergency.
"Thank you, Alfred." She says very softly, touching his arm as she passes him, pulling her cowl and goggles away with one pull, the cowl hanging from her costume while the goggles come off and dangle from her fingertips as she makes her way to the study.
She regards Bruce's back for a long moment, giving a little sigh before she raps on the doorframe lightly with her fingers, leaning against it slightly with a sympathetic smile. "… Hey, big guy." She greets softly. "This a solo brooding zone, or can anyone join?"
"I had assumed you'd still be with Helena." Bruce's voice is tight, but there's concern there. Regardless of the very heated argument that he just had with his daughter, he doesn't want her… being the very thing he accused her of. Looking up at her as he sits at the table, his eyes take in the sight of her. "I could never turn you away, Selina. Even if I wanted to." he admits quietly to her. Which is his way of allowing her entrance.
If she approaches, she'll find that he's got the book open to a set of pictures. One of them is of Bruce, dressed in one of his suits, with the young man standing next to him in a near matching suit. "Do you remember when I told you about the first night he came home with me? What I told you that he tried to do?"
Steal the tires off the Batmobile. And he had nearly gotten away with it.
"I said my piece. Gave her some space." Selina replies, and steps towards Bruce and hooks both arms around one of this, pressing herself into it gently as she sets her cheek on his shoulder, and looks down at the album; first with a note of regret, though a wistful little smile comes to her face as Bruce asks her about it. "Stole the tire right off your car. A man after my own heart~."
She lets that hang there for a moment, sighing softly. 'Little bird' she used to call him, to tease him, make him blush or fume. She called Dick that exactly once, and felt too sick to ever do it again.
She inclines her head to look up at Bruce's face and says, softly. "… You know she didn't mean it." It's not really a question, just… reassurance, of a sort.
"People say things they don't mean in the heat of anger, Selina." Bruce responds. He feels the press of her against him, and it's comforting. He never realized how much he felt comforted about her presence - until she was just there. All the time. He lets out a breath, considering the pictures. "We had arrived in Ethiopia, because we were following a lead on the clown." he starts, his hand moving to cover hers.
Turning away from the book, he moves around so that he can face you, to be able to look up into your eyes without having to turn away. "He had some kind of scam going on there - and I was going to find out the truth behind it to bring it down. Then he heard…" he closes his eyes, going through the memories. "…that his mother was still alive. And was nearby. He wanted to go to her. Begged me to let him. It was too convenient, Selina. It was too easy. I sensed a trap."
"Who do you think she gets that from?" Selina asks rhetorically with a bit of a smile. Lord knows Bruce and Selina have probably said some things to each other over the years. It took some hammering to make those mismatched jigsaw pieces fit with each other, but it worked out in the end. Insofar as there is an end.
Selina goes very quiet, however, when he begins to talk about what happened with the first Robin. At first she isn't sure what he's talking about, but it doesn't take long. Bruce… *never* talks about this. Selina did what she could after it happened - even as a crook, at the time - and tried to get him to open up about it off and on for a long time even after Helena came along. Eventually she got frustrated at being shut out, but sooner or later she accepted that some things are too painful to share.
As such, she's all but worried for him by the time he pauses, her hand going to his cheek. "Babe, you don't have to do this." She all but whispers. It's not her intention to silence or shut him down, it's said out of impulse of concern for him. Today's already been hard.
Someone needs to know. He can't tell Helena. Not right now. He shakes his head, and Bruce powers on. His hand reaches to cover the one on his cheek and he pulls it away. "I asked him to wait. To let me check the situation - to figure out what was going on. It was all too neat, Selina. But.." he draws in his breath and his other hand settles on Selina's hip. Just to steady himself. To remind him that she's there, and she's not going anywhere.
"He disobeyed me. He went off on his own. He assumed that I would follow him - but he also assumed that it would all work out. He was wrong. His mother was there. But so was He." Bruce doesn't need to say who He is, both of them are keenly aware of the clown painted elephant in the room. "She had sold him out to that madman. He had told her who he was - and she gave that information to Him." There's a hard swallow of that lump in his throat. "I can only imagine what happened next from what I saw when I arrived. I was too late, Selina. He was in trouble.."
"And I saw the building explode in front of me." His hands tighten, not too much, but then they drop to his side. "I found their bodies in the rubble. His, and his mother's. I can only imagine what he had been through. It wasn't the explosion.. he was so battered and beaten… I could tell the marks were there pre-mordum. I didn't need an autopsy. I didn't want an autopsy. I just wanted to bring him home."
And he did. His grave is at the family's plot at the cemetery. "I can't stop her from living this life, Selina. And I won't stop her. But I can't let her make the same mistakes…"
Selina presses her lips together tightly when her touch - or rather the sentiment she'd expressed with it - is rejected, bracing herself for the story she'd been trying to help him get off his chest, and which she only in this moment finally realizes she doesn't want to hear.
As he talks, she gradually lowers her head, and closes her eyes, taking a deep, sharp breath at one point, as she feels her eyes watering up and stinging, her green eyes glistening when she looks up at him again. She puts one hand on his side, and pets his shoulder slowly with the other until the story is done.
For the second time tonight, Selina has no idea what to say, just murmuring "Jesus…" It hurts. She didn't know the little bird half as well as Batman did, and it still… really… hurts. She doesn't tell him she's sorry, doesn't bury him in platitudes, she just wraps her arms around her body and hugs him tight as she looks up at him, the man's height looming over her.
When he talks about Helena, Selina frown slightly. "… I don't think it's as simple as that, Bruce." she says softly. "I don't think it's possible to get where we are without making mistakes, without… feeling those lessons in our bones." Despite how grim that may have sounded, she smiles a little and brings one hand to his cheek again. "But you and me? We were a couple of dumb, angry kids, all alone. And *he*…" she sniffles, softly, still struggling to speak the little bird's name, "He ran away from his one source of support. But Helena… Helena has us… she has Zatanna, and Kate… Barbara and Dick… everyone who's passed through this mansion, and a whole *community* of freaks like us to watch out for her. She has… she has the biggest safety net any of us have ever had."
The number and scale of threats has also risen, but that's not something she needs to tell him. She kisses him on the chin softly and says, "We'll keep her safe. I promise."
It's an irresponsible promise to make, Selina of all people knows there's no such thing as a sure thing… especially not when you go looking for trouble. But they both know *absolute* safety is never going to happen. All she can do to try to comfort him in this regard is remind him she's as safe as she possibly can be. Safer than any of them were in the beginning.
He listens to her. He's listening hard. And Bruce knows what Selina is saying to him. She's right, Helena has far far more than either of them did when they started on this journey. Neither of them had parents - much less the parents that Helena has now. And she has all the support of the connections they've built over their lives.
But he also hears what she doesn't say. All of things that could go wrong. And sometimes, it is going to go bad for Helena. And sometimes, she is going to fall.
But she needs to know they will always be there for her.
For their daughter.
He doesn't know what to say, looking up into Selina's green eyes as she tries to sweep away his worries with a few well placed words - and he does find the irony that it's usually him that's doing this. So, it's probably a surprise that his response is to take Selina's cheeks in his hands and he pulls her down into a kiss. One of warmth. One of understanding. And one of a definite need to know that they're in this together. In every way.