Summary:Dick visits home to get caught up on everything that the family been through lately. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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No, Bruce Wayne does not need Maury Povich. It only took about twenty-four hours to prove what Damian has claimed.
Somehow, somewhere, Talia al Ghul got a hold of his DNA and created a child between herself and him. Really, didn't even ask. The file's in hand with other ones as he makes his way into the kitchen, heading for the coffee pot.
Because he's going to need coffee to deal with this properly. Since the realization, he's been pretty mum on what he's going to do about it, all things considered, /what/ can he do seems to be the question. Which is really why he's called his oldest over for a visit. Oldest being the eldest of the adopted. After all, Helena's the oldest, by a couple of months on Damian, if the DNA is right.
Cassandra, the last few days, has ghosted Bruce. Possibly much to the man's chagrin. At least, ghosted him while in the mansion ever since finding out what had happened. She's still Helena's bodyguard when Helena goes out - that's her role, but inside? There's no longer any practice sessions for her, no longer any 'free' time to figore out things, explore.
Nope. Bruce Wayne might be 'Batman', but where there is one break in, there may be another. And Cassandra isn't taking chances because - well, she's one of the few in the world who can beat him in a straight martial arts contest. There's few better guards to have.
The good thing about this is that there's nobody quieter than Cassandra. Even when walking. MOving around. She's naturally silent. That's also the bad part about it. SOmeone might forget she's there, or she might catch them offguard by stepping out of a shadow, unannounced.
Dick Grayson is already there, french press already well untilized and a sizable mug on the counter, it's brightly colored Stark Industries logo pointed at the doorway like the barrel of a gun. Dick has jokes today. He's already pressing another cylinder of dark liquid for himself, "Al made scones. The ones with the bits of cranberry in them?" he nods at the island with it's plate of pastry goodies. "So…." he leans on the press a bit, "What's up?" somehow the two words are loaded. For the record, his mug is just NYPD emblazoned.
"Coffee?" Bruce asks his shadow. He knows she's there. Though as he notices the logo, there's a smirk, just slight. Ever since he was given that damn thing for Christmas. And he's pretty sure that if Stark has anything Waynetech related in his house, it has nothing to do with coffee. Once he takes out one of the numerous 'Dad' mugs that Helena and other have given him over the years, this one reading 'The best Dad there's ever 'bean'', with little coffee beans labelled as Dick, Jason, Helena, and Tim, he pours himself a mug.
"What do you know about Talia al Ghul?" he decides to address both of them. Dick may know some of the things she's done.. and that whole.. marriage thing that she and her dad tried to drag Bruce into. Once he's made his mug, he takes out another mug, grabbing a Unicorn mug, and sets it down for Cassandra to make her own coffee.
Clearly, by her facial expression, Cassandra has not a clue as to what, or who, Bruce is talking about. She gives her slightly frowny confused face at him - she doesn't like being confused, it irks her. But, she pours herself a cup of coffee into the Unicorn mug, follows it up with two creams, and a 1/4 cup of sugar because only monsters drink coffee black, and she's never had sugary treats untll recently.
Dick's presence earns the oldest adoptee a nod of recognition, but she's not letting down her guard. Cassandra takes her self-appointed job(s) seriously, it would seem.
Dick Grayson sips his own mug and considers, snatching up a scone as he thinks, "Daughter of the Demon's Head, assumed but uncertain affiliation to the League, kinda hot, has a thing for black body suits and swords…" he pauses, "Oh yeah. And she's obsessed with banging you like a pair of bongos in a hippie circle." Dick smiles innocently, "What'd I miss?"
The description is close to yet another black body suit wearing.. but she has kitty ears.
"I haven't had a chance to pin it down yet.." He drops the file in front of Dick uncerimonously. A police file - at least that's what it looks like. "…but at somepoint she was able to secure my DNA. And has used it to create a child." He'll just cut to the chase with Dick, there's no real getting around it.
"He calls himself Damian, and apparently he has been told everything that she and Ras know about us." Which means he also knows their identities, as prickly as that one is for Bruce. "He's come to claim that he's going to be the next Batman."
Cassandra looks at Bruce, then steps in front of him with purpose. She folds her arms over her chest, as if she'd just planted a flag and declared her 'side'. She looks at Dick with a stoic face a young, and very dangerous woman, ready to battle. Luckily for Dick, he's not Damian. So she's not too interested in fighting him. Yet.
That spar, however, may come later.
Dick Grayson eyes Cassandra, quirks a brow, grins a bit more, "Go get 'em." he says, saluting the girl with his mug… But uh… Then Bruce's words sink in and Dick ceases moving, mug resting against his bottom lip. He's been around Bruce to long, his poker face is /excellent/, it helps mitigate the sudden explosiong of thoughts that surge through him. Blink.
The training takes over and he turns to the file, the mission comes first. "Okay." the jokes are gone, and he begins to flip through the pages, "I assume you did the due diligence…" that wasn't asking for confirmation, just noise to fill the air as he speed reads throuh the information available. "Okay." he adds a second one to the first. "So what's the play?" he asks, looking up with carefully controlled curiosity.
"I don't have one." That may be the first time that any of them have heard those words from Bruce Wayne. He has plans for /everything/. But never, in his wildest dreams, did he consider someone /cloning/ him.
Somewhere, out there, Amanda Waller may be doing the same damn thing with a different idea.
Taking up the coffee and a scone, he frowns. "Inviting him to just move in is remiss. Just because he knows what he knows doesn't mean I want him in the house." That much is a given, as he's trying to puzzle it out. "I have him in one of the safehouses at the moment until I figure out the next step. I need to figure out his intentions. Plans. How much his mother may have influenced him. And how and why he's here." His hand sets on Casandra's shoulder. He appreciates her support.
"But that's not the biggest issue we have at the moment. A new maggia family is making a play on Staten Island. And they've already tried to blackmail Selina into helping them. We can discuss that down in the cave."
Cassandra looks up at Bruce as the hand is placed, and she smiles at him. Then, as the maggia is mentioned, the clear body language from Bruce referencing that fateful encounter, she frowns again, this tiem more deeply. People? She can fight people like nobody can.
Armed robots, though? Big disadvantage for her, all things considered.
Dick Grayson blinks agian, "Hold on. So the invent of your clone baby /isn't/ the biggest bit of news for the day." again, this is not a question. He just stares at Bruce. Dips his scone in the coffee. Then munches. He tastes none of it. "I'm gonna need a minute here."
There's a little mock whisper to Cassandra. "He's scared of you. It's always the quiet ones." Bruce winks to the young woman, "I'll get things prepared then. I assume you remember how to get to the cave." comes his response as he moves towards the clock to get the elevator up to the ground floor so that they can head down.
"And no, that's not the biggest bit of news. That only affects us, after all."
Cassandra watches Dick dip his scone in the coffee, and immediately she glares at him and covers her own mug of coffee with her hand as if he's committed some awful sin. She gives him a warning look, then turns to follow Bruce into the cave.
Dick Grayson lifts a finger and points at Bruce while making the tcktck sound of affirmation, "Duh. She's a tiny human typhoon." he points out. He sits alone upstairs, sipping his coffee and processing for a full three minutes before gathering the file and heading down after the other two. He refills the coffee first. Mostly out of habit.
.~{:--------------:}~.
When Dick comes downstairs, there's already an image on-screen.
Currently, Julia has a search running on the woman in the image. When Dick arrives, Bruce knows it's best to to go ahead and share what he knows now, and Dick can decide what goes back to the NYPD. "We don't have a name yet, she calls herself Madame Masque. She has an extensive technological pull - she nearly took out a small team - if it had not been for Jason setting off a bomb.." Bruce trails off at that.
"She's made it her goal to set up in Staten Island. Other than that, I suspect she has ties to the recent break out of three supervillains from Ravencroft.
Images of Electro, Vulture, and Doctor Octopus come up on screen.
"She also has asked Selina to report on my patrol routes. In return, she will not release this."
A photo comes up - a grainy security cam photo from at least ten years ago, if not more, judging by the costume designs, of Selina and Bruce in a salacious kiss.
Dick was probably off 'gathering evidence'.
Cassandra sips her mug of coffee now that it's cooled down some. She has already seen all of this, so instead, she focuses on watching Dick's body language as the information is presented.
Dick Grayson feels he owes Bruce one, so nonchalantly drops, "I knew I never should have snapped that photo." as he sips noisily from his mug, waiting a full three count before letting the corners of his mouth twitch upward a teeny bit.
Dick is guarded and careful, and reading him would usually be challanging at least, but today there's to much going on. He's a choir of things happening all at once, two dozen shouting voices all saying nothing coherent save for copious amounts of 'noise'. And apparently his defence mechanism is humor. Because he's back to jokes again.
"What's her gimick?" he asks curiously, "And if you say 'masks' I'm gonna paint the Batmobile lavender and retire to Belize."
"She's a technological genius that has access to more robots than we may have batarangs." Bruce says with a shake of his head. "She's had run ins in the past with Iron Man." And he's going to leave it at that, for now.
"I have Penny-Two doing a deeper dive to see what we can find out." comes Bruce's response. "In the meantime, you may want to have the NYPD searching out technological crimes to connect to her as well. If we can find the pattern…"
Cassandra's mouth twists in clear disapproval of all of this. The entire Damian thing. And the entire Madame Masque affair. She exhales, a brief sound of air coming from her, before she takes a last sip of her coffee and sets the mug down.
Dick Grayson nods his head, "Yeah, I'll let the word drop." he doesn't sound happy about it. "Speaking of technological-" he reaches into his back pocket and comes out with a few sketches of his own, "Ran into these two the other night. Tagged them, got some details on their movements. Cyber-ninjas-if you can believe that-of the Order." he shrugs slightly, "I'll be sending you a full break down from the Nest once I get back there. Stole something, but the Hand were chasing them. I'm looking into it." Long as they're all dropping bombs. "Related question. Cy-ja's, or Nin-Borg? I'm leaning towards Nin-Borg myself."
And the news keeps getting better. Bruce's features pull into a frown as he takes the sketches. "I'll have these run to see what the international set may find. How old did they appear? Training? What cybernetics?" He's already asking questions, before pulling back when Dick mentions he's going to report from the Nest. There's a terse nod of his head.
And then he glances to Cassandra. Perhaps he can sense her own tenseness, and he frowns. "One more thing I may need from you. I have not had much time, with all that's going on to help Cassandra with her training. And what she can really use is agility training. Especially if she's going to be facing more firearms." The suggestion is there - and the sparring arena is /right over there/.
Cassandra side-eyes Bruce as he mentions she might need more training. She doesn't think so, by her set expression. She can 'dodge' bullets just fine because she knows where people are going to shoot, and it's /easy/ for her. But, she's seen Dick's athletisicm in acrobatics and gymnastics and internally at least acknowledges she doesn't have that expertise.
So those eyes turn on Dick, waiting for when such a training might occur.
Dick Grayson sighs and looks down into his mug, his expression troubled and thoughtful. He turns to set it down, along with the file he'll take with him when he leaves, "Come on," he says, offering Cass a smile she can see right through, "let's give the old man a show. Got a preference?" he asks curiously, eyeing the sparring area.
The young woman looks at Dick briefly, then nods, and walks casually over to the sparring area. Before entering onto the mat, she pulls off her shoes and socks with an easy motion and then she moves onto the area, she turns then and looks back to Dick, waiting.
Dick Grayson follows suit, shoes, socks, the whole thing, then takes up opposite Cass rotating one of his shoulders lightly as if it pained him, "Lets get it over with." he says with a shake of his head before taking up a light fighting stance more reminicent of Bruce Lee's then of any traditional school.
Bruce smirks. Why the smirk?
What training are we doing today?
Are you going to show me the grapple gun?
Can you teach me to drive the Batmobile?
Oooh, when are going on patrol?
Wanna wrestle? I'm getting better!
More training!
Helena makes her way down the stairs from the manor, a plate in her hand with half a sandwich on it. The other half is in her other hand, munching as she makes her way toward the ring to see who's hitting the mats. "Oh, hey Dick," she says around a mouthful of sandwich, grinning with chipmunk cheeks. "Heya, Cass. Give 'im hell."
Cassandra makes a 'flippy flippy' motion with her fingers at Dick, and looks at him questiongly, but only briefly.
Then, from her otherwise relaxed position she moves into a wicked-fast, but not impossible-to-block, series of tiger-palm strikes to start things off.
It's one thing that Bruce at least, if not others have realized - Cassandra, even in sparring, does not have any setting besides 'full tilt'.
Dick Grayson isn't waiting around, he seems distracted, and so when she catches him a bit off guard, it's all he can do to just avoid being beaten in the first salvo. Mostly he avoids this by avoiding her. He bends backwards away from her, hurling himself physically away, and using a planted hand to change direction unpredictably, starting a simple back handspring, but twisting mid flip to shunt himself to Cass' left instead. Run away Dick!
As Cassandra and Dick start, Bruce is alerted to the sound of his daughter. "You were home late, Helena." comes the comment from him, a lift of his brow in a question.
Normally? This would be easy. Patrol.
But the Blackbird costume is still in place. So, she wasn't out on patrol. And he's curious. What father wouldn't be?
Cassandra briefly allows herself a lopsided smile. He did flippy-flippy. Don't think she wasn't watching. Because she was. And it will be a move she will practice later on, ferverantly, until she gets it right.
But, she has a clear advantage on Dick. It's the same advantage she had on Bruce, when she first sparred with him. Her ability to read body languages transcends the ability to just interpret what people are saying and manuvers into the realm of combat.
She sees the twist even as he prepares to do it, and her knee is already rising to where he will land, a maui-thai kick straight to his kidney.
At least she's not going for the sore-shoulder, right?
Helena laughs a bit at Cassandra's flippy motion with her fingers, nodding. "Yep, that's him," she says, as if that was a question that made sense. She does seem to have a knack for understanding the other girl, words or no. No wonder Steve calls her the Babblebat.
She finds a spot where she can watch the match, taking another bite of her sandwich before Bruce's question. "I went to the movies with Peter," she answers with a small smile, easy.
Dick Grayson can already see how this is going to end. He can't win in a straight up battle with Cassandra, he's stronger, sure, but even if they were evenly matched for speed, she's always just a little /ahead/ of him, maki-wait. He's twisting even as he sees her balance shift, knowing that he's going to take the hit but also knowing it won't land where it should. Flippy floppy is what he does after all. Which is why the kick lands firmly… on his backside. About six inches away from where it should have. Well. Hip really. But that's less funny.
Dick rolls with the kick, and then keeps rolling, turning the momentum into a twisting flippy-floppy kip up that launches him up and into the air, so that he lands poised and balanced atop the shoulders of a sparring dummy. He's grinning as he rubs his butt, "Hey now, that's my best feature!" he quips at Cass.
"Was it a good evening?" Bruce asks curiously of his daughter. He's not interrogating her, really. "What was the movie about?" He's watching Cassandra and Dick spar, and when Dick makes the adjustment, there's a nod of his head in approval. Dick is probably the /only/ one that can keep Cassandra off guard on predicting the next move. He can power through her - and has done so - but this isn't that type of training.
"It was nice," Helena answers Bruce with that same small smile. "Normal. Just a romantic comedy, nothing special. The guy left his fiancee because he wanted to travel? I dunno, you know how much sense they make." Especially when you're busy making out and talking in the back row, but that's not something her father needs to hear about.
"Who told you that?" she calls over to Dick, not helping. "Someone who was trying to get into your pants with it?" Teasing.
Cassandra moves to follow up, but Dick is already flippy-flopping away. Again, she watches him as he does so, and lands up on the training dummy. She tilts her head at Dick, briefly as he makes the comment and then she runs towards him, jumping high and launching a master-level tae-kwon-do kick at Dick. Well.
…At his legs. That quickly, she's determined the way she can win this match is to take away the flipping. Or … is she just baiting him? Her stoic features are practically impossible to read.
Ah. And that right there is the problem. Cassandra is matched in a very narrow contest, so Dick's decided to change the rules. She leaps at him, so he just leaps back, effortlessly hurling himself off of the dummy, and backwards, catching a support beam, using it to whip his lower half around, altering direction, only to land on his hands and use them to alter himself back the way he came but at an accute angle, slipping /under/ any counter Cass is most likely to send up high. "You don't want to know." he responds to Helena as he simply continues to retreat.
While it may not be clear to anyone else, Bruce will have been able to suss out the new tactic Dick is employing. Cass is in the contest to /win/. Dick isn't. Dick is now only playing /not to lose/. Which means, he will happily dodge her all day long, lead her around through obsticles like a kite. Bruce did say the training was supposed to focus on her basic athletic qualities after all, what better way then to try to play 'tag' with Nightwing? Can't wing the game? Change the game. It was like, lesson #4 when Dick was 8 years old.
Helena has watched countless sparring matches here in the cave. From the time she was old enough to make it down the stairs from the manor, she's watched Dick, Jason, Barbara, Stephanie, Kate, her parents…anyone who's come through here. And she's trained with most of them too. Cassandra can see what they'll do before they do it. Helena's just…seen them do it. From the receiving end usually, at least a hundred times. So she sees when Dick's tactics change, a wry smile tugging at one corner of her lips as she waits to see when Cass picks up on it.
As Dick continues the evasion game, Cassandra lands neatly, aptly, on her feet, crouched low. She considers the acrobatic bat-kid, then, assessing him further. But she doesn't take her eyes off him to gauge how Bruce, or Helena are measuring the match.
Dick's 'game changing plan' escapes her for the simple fact that just as that was driven into Dick, the 'win or die' mentality was driven into her - she can tell he's evading her, and well. But, she knows how to adapt to any situation too. The scars over her body - which Helena has seen - proves it. She's still alive.
She moves towards Dick yet again as if she were driven to try and indeed 'catch' him, moving for a quicker serpent-strike. But this is a feint. Because now she's -watching- for Dick's next manuever, his body language will tell her where he's heading.
It's it's backwards, she's going to try and back him into a corner. If it's to the side, or above her (or below) she's in a perfect position to move, and counter-attack while he's airborne, or landing.
The studious expression on her features could be mistaken for intensity of the fight. And that wouldn't necessarily be wrong. But, she's also studying Dick, still. These are manuevers, if she practices, she can build into her own repitoire, to make her even more dangerous. She can see the potential, there.
Dick Grayson is nothing if not unpredictable, and Cass has at least three glaring weaknesses in Dick's mind. And one of them he's going to exploit the hell out of right now. She is short. She does not have the 'hops' to match his. He is nowhere more at home, then 'up'. And up is where he goes. Up, and instead of coming back down, he simply scales the support beam he was using as a swing post moments before, scampering up it like a monkey on handfuls of stimulants. "So… How long do you wanna play at this? We could do something else? Maybe work on your communication skills? Or eat sugary snacks? Everyone likes sugary snacks."
"Are you trying to bribe her out of beating you?" Helena asks, amused. "Good luck with that. Don't worry, Dick. It's not the worst thing, getting beaten." She would know. She's trained with everyone, and everyone has pretty much always been bigger, stronger, or more experienced than she is. Meaning she's lost to everyone, too. And yet, she doesn't hold any grudges. For that, at least.
Cassandra looks up at Dick, and while she might not 'get' everything he's saying, she can tell he's taunting, or teasing her. She lifts her chin, watches him another few moments and then without taking her eyes off him, she nods, once. And then steps off them mat.
Helena, who knows her best, might be able to tell the lines of frustration in the young girl's features. Cassandra doesn't take well to be shown up.
But, she does understand the lessons learned. She looks at those gathered for another few brief seconds, and then starts to head back upstairs. Presumably to brood.
Dick Grayson snorts at Helena, "Not bribe her out of beating me, entice her to try something new and potentially awesome! Seriously. Who doesn't like brownies?!" He tilts his head, his expression growing more serious and less childlike when he meets her gaze, and he nods once in return, channeling just a bit of Bruce in the look. The lesson wasn't meant to be about physicality, and whatever Bruce wanted her to learn, Dick doesn't care. He was hoping she'd pick up something less punchy related instead. He makes a mental note to swing by her again and 'chat'. He'll bring brownies.
He rolls over and grips the edge of the support before letting himself slowly lower out to his fingertips, dangling from it for a moment before releasing and dropping like a stone. At the last second he absorbs the fall in his legs and shoots to the side, rolling twice and coming up on the balls of his feet lightly. He waits until Cass is at the stairs before eyeing Helena, his serious expression not yet having faded, "Lots of changes since I left, eh?" he asks, kidding set aside.
Helena watches Cassandra go with a faint smile, shaking her head. "She's going to use that against you in the very near future, you know," she says, then offers out the plate with the other half a sandwich. She's good at sharing like that.
"Things've been busy, yeah," she agrees, sobering a bit. "Some good things. Cass is…a little unusual, but she's cool. Mom and Dad are finally going to tie the knot. I've got a boyfriend. Also, a supersuit," she points toward where her own uniform stands with the others. "So things are all right. What about you?"
Dick Grayson shrugs as he walks over and snags up the half sandwhich before lightly hopping up onto a work surface, his legs crossing neatly under him, "Everyone does eventually." he says, stuffing a big bite into his face and talking while chewing, cause if you can't do that with family who can you do it with? "That's why I carry the sticks." he points out. "And the armor." then adds, "And the tazer." after a second's thought.
"Me? Welp. All those lectures from your Dad about my love life seem a bit hypocritical now. I mean it's not 1 for 1 or anything, but we were all pretty sure /I/ was gonna be the one with a mystery kid come crawling out of the woodwork, right? Be honest." he shoots her a look, "Worst case senerio, Jason. But no. It's him. Wanna travel back in time and point at him and laugh every time we had that talk." bite. munch. "And you know, people keep murdering one another and now there's a ninja war kicking off in my part of town." he shrugs again, "So it's like… a Tuesday or something?"
"So he seriously sent him to your place?" Helena shakes her head, moving to lean against the table next to him. "He doesn't believe it, but I'm pretty sure he's just lying to himself. He looks just like him. Which is weird. Not that adding one more random kid to the mix even registers at this point in my life, but it's weird to think he's blood."
She takes another bite of her sandwich, chewing thoughtfully for a moment. "It's kind of convenient for the whole dating thing, I guess. But I get the feeling Mom and Dad already know they're in a serious glass house on that front, so they usually aren't too crazy about it."
Dick Grayson blinks and turns to look at Helena, "I'msorrywhosentwhotowherenow!?" he asks, the entire sentence coming out in a single word. He just. Stares.
"Uh…" Helena pauses, looking away with a bite of food still stuffed in one cheek. "I guess not? He'd said something about maybe sending him to stay with you until he could figure out whether or not he was telling the truth or if he could trust him. But I'm pretty sure you'd know if he had, so." She shrugs, getting back to chewing. "What, like you've got a live-in girlfriend it's going to disturb or something?"
Dick Grayson lets out a long breath and reaches up to push floppy hair from his face, "You've met your dad, right?" he asks in a resigned and annoyed tone. If Bruce decided to send Damian, he /might/ tell Dick. He also might not. Dick gives up on it for now and makes a mental note to remotely deactivate the security system just in case. Last thing he needs is NYPD showing up to take down a kid raised by the League. "Live in is a strong word… and girlfriend is a fairly uh… cemented bit of terminology. Maybe more like a uh, drive by beneficial companion…s…" he counters.
Helena rolls her eyes. "Gross." Apparently Dick's big brother status grants him membership in the 'sex is gross' club. Along with Bruce and Selina. It's a very elite club.
"You know the dumb part?" She finishes the last of her sandwich, setting the plate down on the table and brushing off her hands. "I'm…okay with having a brother. I'm okay with him showing up out of nowhere. But it's just straight up not fair if he's better than I am in a fight, too."
Dick Grayson is quiet for a long moment, and he stares at his half of the sandwhich, "You never dealt with Ra's or Talia did you?" he asks, his expression turning a bit inward as memories assail. Most of the time Dick's all smiles and warmth, it's what seperates him from Bruce more then anything else. Talk about fighting Riddler or Penguin and he's got twenty joke stories to tell, each funnier then the last. But there are some guys they faced that not even Dick cracks wise about, not really. Zsasz, Ra's. Joker.
Some shit just isn't funny.
"If he's better then you in a fight, it's because you're better then him at other things. Like having a broyfriend, or sharing a sandwhich, or staying up til three in the morning to watch all three Star Wars movies for the first time with your big brother." he does grin now, if only for a moment. "I havn't met the kid, but I knew his mom, /certainly/ his grandfather, and Ra's is a great big tool bag. Let him be the better fighter, that's fine. Be the happier person. Trust me, in the end? Always the best vengence anyway."
"Hey, I've never dealt with most anyone," Helena points out, snorting softly. "You know. It's only been a couple months since Mom and Dad actually let me get out in the field. I mean, lord knows I've trained myself to pieces. But that's all it's been. Training and theory." She crosses her arms loosely over her chest, letting out a sigh.
"But no, I've definitely not had any dealings with the League, aside from reading the files in the computer. Which are mostly enough to tell me that somehow, once again, I'll lose in a fight. Probably. Probably because I'm not going to be willing to maim or kill, at least," she admits, tilting her head. "I guess that's sort of a win."
Dick Grayson looks up and eyes her seriously, "It's important." he says with a quiet fervor. "This life," he waves a hand around at the cave, "it will devour you if you let it. It's so easy to get lost in the vengence and the violence and anger. Your dad, before Seli-" he stops and looks away, shakes his head, "he was lucky to find her. I tried to sort of," he makes a motion with his hands as if he were holding something up, but after a moment they fall back down to his lap, "Being happy is hard. Harder with this." another motion to the cave, "If you can manage it, find it, you hold on to it. Bruce, me, even Jason or your mom, any of a dozen people we know can teach you to pummel someone to a pulp. Hell, that's the /easy/ stuff. But being happy? Not letting it get in you and snuff out the light?" he offers a sad grin, "That's harder. You want, I'll get you a sit down with Jason about it." he looks away now, and something like guilt flashes over his face. They've had this talk in the past of course, few things in the Batfam haven't been discussed to within an inch of it's life.
Dick hops down off the table and breaks into his more common assured grin instead, crooked and jovial, "I'm gonna get some time in on the mats," he nods towards the area he was just in only minutes ago with Cass, "gotta keep sharp or the next eight pretrained death ninjas Bruce adopts are gonna eat me for lunch, and I have a reputation to uphold."
"No, I've picked up enough of that from Jason," Helena shakes her head, rueful. "He needs a lot more of this. This," she clarifies, gesturing between herself and Dick. "He's got a lot of rebuilding to do before he's really a whole person again."
She snorts again at the idea of more pre-trained ninja orphans. "Hey, count your luck. I managed to get one handed off to Bucky before Dad could bring her home. Guess it was moot since Cass ended up showing up not long after that. Maybe I should see how Bucky's holding up. You're supposed to get more than one kitten at a time so they can play together," she chuckles.
Dick Grayson shakes his head slightly, "Jason and me, we're complicated." he offers a snort, "First and second sons, there's always…" he shakes his head agian, firmer this time, "Stupid shit, there is always stupid shit." he offers with a wry grin as he steps back onto the mats. He begins to stretch a bit then, working some of the kinks out, "Oh? Planning on pawning off the new kid to Barnes before he's even had a chance to meet the whole family? Seems callous." he teases.
"Admit it, it's not the worst plan." Helena grins. "I mean, Steve and Bucky can handle one adolescent assassin, right?" She moves over to the edge of the mats, sitting cross-legged to watch him train. "Also, they don't have to worry about one-night stands getting weirded out by the presence of strange teenagers."
She pauses, snickering. "Awkward conversations with Dick's not-girlfriends. Why is there a teenage boy in your apartment? Well you see, I picked up some unique habits from the man who adopted me…"
Dick Grayson shakes his head, "Oh no no no. I avoid all talk of my parentage and it's complications with them. Bit of a mood killer." he admits while making a face before he slowly lowers himself in a squat and beings the carefully, painfully, slow, practice, of, working, his, forms. "Did Bruce really say he was sending the kid to live with me?" he asks, "Or are you just screwing with me? This is important. I will have calls to make."
"It was a maybe thing. That might be one of the first times I've seen him actually…unsettled," Helena muses. "He wasn't really at his sharpest." She shrugs, then leans forward to prop her chin up in one hand. "I'd probably make the calls anyhow if I were you though. He didn't seem super keen on boundaries."
Dick Grayson lets out his breath in a slow controlled manner, trying to maintain focus on the form itself while also carrying on the conversation, forcing himself to multitask while not missing anything. Harder then laymen would imagine, "Excellent." because Dick totally moved out on his own so that Bruce's lost clone baby could upset his sex life. Wow. There's a sentence Dick never thought he'd /ever/ think in his life. "We lead weird lives." he says into the air as a knife hand slowly crawls throuh the air before him, veins starting to stand out on his skin as beads of sweat begin to appear.
"No kidding," Helena agrees, falling silent for a moment after. "Hey, Dick. So. Speaking of dating and sex lives." She draws her knees up toward her chest, wrapping her arms around them. "Is this weird life part of why it's just random one-night stands and not an actual girlfriend? Or is that a different sort of choice?"
Dick Grayson controls his breathing. Very. Carefully. In. Out. Woo-Sah. He begins to step now, sloooowly, working his feet in a circle as his torso turns one way, then back again, his hands working through weaving open handed motions with painfully focused precision. Ba-Gua, a style that suits Dick's more graceful motions and one he's worked well into his personal style, "You mean why do I seem to have no interest in setteling down and living a so called normal life? Get myself a wife and a Robin of my own?" he asks carefully, his tone as neutral as his features.
"No, I mean do you think people like us can really date?" Sure, Helena could work her way around to it, but it's under her skin. "You know, with all the secrets. I mean, how far can you go in a relationship when relationships are built on trust and honesty if you can't really talk about how just about everyone you know is a secret vigilante crimefighter and oh, by the way, you dabble a bit yourself?"
Dick Grayson ahs a bit and lets relief sort of flow through him. Whew. He thought this was gonna get all personal and what not. This … well this is still personal, but safer for all that. "Yes. And no." he says cryptically, helpful git isn't he? "It's easier if the person you're into is already in the life. Exponentially easier, by magnitudes. They understand the rules, the dangers, they can make informed decisions about the life they'll be falling into. But if you fall for a civilian it's harder, so much harder. Because you, by nature, render them powerless. You take from them all of their agency and ask that they allow it. You will, by definition, be the most selfish member of your relationship. So no, I don't think we can be with so called normal people, not without paying an extremely high and unfair toll." he asks with a grin threatening his carefully schooled features as he ducks low to the ground and extends a leg, his arm and body following along the length of a leg in a disturbingly serpent like motion, "Unless of course, you join them in their world and leave ours behind." he doesn't look at her, he's busy at the moment, focusing, but she can all but feel Big Brother stare boring into her despite that, "Why oh why do you ask little Lena?" innocence drips from his words.
"Because Peter's a good guy - like, the ultimate good guy - and it feels kind of crappy not telling him things." Helena wrinkles her nose, making a face. "I'm not going to, of course. I already talked to Mom and Dad about it. I get why the rules are the rules, and they make sense. And besides, it's not even just my secret. If someone tags me, it gets a lot easier to tag all the rest of you. I can't let that happen."
She reaches up to rub a hand at the back of her neck, shrugging awkwardly. "I guess I'm kind of…keeping my space from him because of it. I'm not sure I like doing that. I get it, it makes sense. But I also kind of want to just…let go, too. You know?"
Dick Grayson can't help but smile a little at this, listening to her stumble her way through her feelings on the matter and he suffers the worst kind of deja vu, of a smaller boy then himself talking to a gi clad Bruce about the same thing as the pair faced off, working on their grapling. He also remembers the lesson punctuated with the wind knocking out of him and him gasping for air with lungs that wouldn't expand properly. Ah. The good times. "The eternal struggle." he says with the same small smile. "Had this talk with your dad when I was fifteen. He explained his views on the matter while beating the floor into submission with my body." he exhales in a long slow hiss as his fingers knife forward in one hand and the other sweeps a slow blocking motion in a graceful arc.
"You like this guy, and that's good. You wanna be honest with him, and that's good. You can't for obvious reasons, and that's bad. And then you feel guilty for it. Which is worse." he sighs, "I want to tell you that I have a magical bit of advice here that I could give you, some life lesson that will make it all clear and give you the perfect solution to your lifes troubles. Sadly, I havn't cracked this code yet either. Tell you what I use to make the call?" he asks as his feet slide in a perfect circle, his body flowing from one motion into the next.
"Well if you haven't figured it out despite all the girls you've tried it with, then I can't feel too bad about it," Helena smirks, retreating to the familiar comfort of playful barbs. She may not be the strongest or the fastest or maybe even the smartest of the bats, but she's learned how to hold her own this way.
She props her chin up on one knee, still watching him go through the motions. "All right. What's your trick?"
Dick Grayson would snerk, but he can't, that would constitute loss of control, "I enjoy my life Lena, but I don't date a lot of women in the way you seem to date this Peter punk. I've only come close a few times, and almost all of them were with those already in the life." he doesn't name names, if the Fam doesn't know, they suspect and that's almost the same thing in this cave. "I don't have a trick, I have a code." he brings his hands down in front of him slowly, blocking an imaginary kick incoming and steps into it, 'swiming' into the motion so that the knife edges of his hands strike at throat, ear, and bracial nerve clusters all in small motions. "Life isn't fair. You can be." he says simply.
"It's not fair that you were raised as you were. It's not fair that this life is nessicary to the continued saftey of others. It's not fair that you have to carry the weight of these secrets, or that by sharing them with Peter you would endanger not only yourself and him, but also all of your family as a whole. None of these things are fair. But you can be. You need to sit down in a quiet place and really ask yourself what's fair for Peter, and how you can best offer that to him. The hard part will be excising your own wants and desires away from the internal struggle. Is it fair for you to drag him into our world? To put him in a place where he cannot possibly defend himself, against monsters of the most dangerous kind, just because you wanna be with him? Is it fair for you to ask him to spend every night afraid this is the night some punk gets lucky and finds a crease in your armor, or you fall from a grapple, or some super villain comes up with a trick to finally end you? At some point, you're going to have to face off against this monster. But luckily, you're barely not a kid anymore." this time he does flash a bit of a smile, just a hint of teeth before becoming serious once more, "You have time. This isn't a decision to be made lightly or quickly. And in the interim, enjoy your boytoy while also understanding that eventually we'll all look into him ourselves."
Little do they know that said 'boytoy' is arguably better equipped than any of them to deal with the problems this life throws at them. But then again…Helena does know that. And yet she still has her doubts. Which is maybe something she should listen to herself about.
"Fair," she huffs, unfolding to stand up. "Please. You know no one ever told me anything was fair." Her smile quirks, sharp-edged. "Actually, I'm pretty sure we were both explicitly told that it was in our best interests to assume nothing was ever fair and at least try to make it unfair in our favor."
Moving back toward the table, she retrieves the empty plate. "Thanks, Dick. Next time, sparring. Cass might not be able to keep up with your flippy nonsense, but I've got a little more practice," she winks.
Dick Grayson stands slowly and shakes his head, "No one told me." he says simply, ignoring the memory of two people in garishly colored tights plummeting through the air to impact the hard packed earth of the circus with audible crunching noises. The smile's gone. He pauses, stands, abandons the form to turn and look at Helena, his face warring a bit with itself before he sighs and his shoulders slump just a touch, "Honestly?" he asks, but continues before she can answer. He knows what she'd say anyway. "This shit is hard enough. It is soul crushing. If you're lucky enough to find someone that makes you happy? That /truely/ makes you happy, then enjoy them as best you can for as long as you can. If, given time, you feel he might be the one, then you tell him." he walks over and ruffles her hair before pressing a little kiss to the crown of her head as if she were still a little girl.
"If he's half the man you think he is he won't run screaming for the hills, and hey, you'll already have all the handcuffs and leather outfits to make fun times funner." smirk. More ruffling. "But whatever decision you make, /you/ make it. Don't let my insecurities, your father's choices, or Jason's fears, or Selina's hardheadedness influence you. You think he's the guy. You make the call. We-/I/-trust you to make the right one. And if by some stretch he's an asshole and outs us all to the newspapers… well… we'll fight on anyway. We're /really/ good at it."
Helena leans against him, slipping one arm around his waist for a hug. "You're a good brother," she chuckles softly. "Not like that rotten Jason kid." It's true enough. Dick's always been golden in Helena's book. Jason had a harder time of things, showing up when she finally thought it was her turn to be Robin, though the two of them grew close enough eventually. Helena's had a unique relationship with each of her father's wards.
"It's no rush," she sighs as she pulls back. "I just sometimes have to sort of purge the guilt. I think it's probably like going to confession. That whole thing never made sense until now," she muses. "I feel like I've learned something."
Dick Grayson chuckles, "Well, don't tell your father. He'll beat me until my skin matches my suit." he gives her a squeeze then relases and turns back to the mats, "I'm gonna get some more work in before I head out. I have to look into some Nin-Borgs tonight to. Work work work." he says, offering that same smile. "Now shoo. It's gonna get all sweaty and macho in here. Might be grunting."
"Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on," Helena smirks as she steps back, headed for the stairs. "Please. I mean that. Alfred doesn't deserve it."
And then she's running up to the manor, giggling, like she has a thousand times before.