say that you're grateful for the time alone, two years away and i don't miss home;

[xuffasch]

WHO: xuffasch & YOU;
WHERE: Various places throughout the city;
WHEN: All day Friday;
WARNINGS: n/a
SUMMARY: A day in the life of Damian Wayne, with interruptions from YOU.
FORMAT: Reply as you like and I will follow; specify time, too!



↬ MID-MORNING;

If you were to ask Damian about things he never did, one of the first he’d list would be sulking. However, Damian is a terrible liar, because sulking is exactly what he’d been doing for the past few days, though he would never admit it. Watching events unfolding and having no control over them is enough to chafe his already irritable nature, but the fact that Grayson isn’t around is what makes it all the worse. Robin is a formidable force, but without Batman he can be a purposeless one.

Which is why he found himself where he was now, lying on his back on the rooftop of the apartment building he and Grayson had been living in for the past few months. The kitten he’d adopted is there, as well, laying across his stomach as he stares up at the sky. Damian’s legs are hanging out over the edge of the building, and though his body is relaxed his expression is fierce and he is hardly off-guard.

Occasionally he’ll shift his position or mutter something under his breath, but for the most part he just lays there, impassive. Unless, of course, someone sees fit to interrupt.

↬ AFTERNOON;

For someone who prides himself on his ability to adapt, Damian tends to be very habitual. Even after arriving in the City, it had taken him no more than a few weeks to set up a few haunts, and one of those was the corner bakery. Famous for their frivolously-decorated cupcakes, the bakers now know Damian by face, and his order of tall black coffee which he paired with different sweets—they swear he was steadily eating his way through the entire menu.

Today, he sits at his usual corner table. There is a single cupcake wrapper left empty one on side, surrounded by five empty cups that once held coffee. Sprawled across the table are various papers—maps, handwritten notes, print-outs and blueprints. Curious about Damian’s scrawl is its mirrored quality, nearly impossible to read without first reflecting it. Also curious is the different scripts and languages he uses. Every so often, he lifts his pen to his mouth and knocks it thoughtfully against his chin. His expression is one of utmost concentration, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t watching everyone else in the place, coming and going.

↬ MIDNIGHT;

Robin sits on the edge of a building—or perhaps “crouches” is more the right term for it. In any case, he surveys the city with a mixed expression of distaste and resignation, until he catches something out of the corner of his eye. It’s at this point that he swoops down into an alleyway, breaking up a robbery before it can occur. He knocks one man over as he touches down, shoving his elbow up under another’s chin. If he’s even more violent than normal, the people he’s attacking certainly aren’t in a position to complain. But someone else might be.

Comments

[blondevigilante]

Steph can't help the laugh. She'd like to think she's not really laughing at Damian, but the kid makes it so easy with his grown up ideas that are far too large for his frame.

The kitten is as soft as it looks as Steph gently runs her fingers along its back. Who would believe the big, bad bird would love something so small and sweet?

"Everyone was a baby once, even the Batman."

[xuffasch]

Damian just shakes his head. "I began life at age seven; well past infancy." Normally he wouldn't have told her than, but he's more concerned with making a point now.

[blondevigilante]

"There's no shame in admitting that you were once small and cute." There were mumbles about how Damian had probably been raised, and while his mother probably wasn't one to do diaper duty Steph could easily imagine Damian being raised by an army of Alfreds.

[xuffasch]

"I was never small, don't you listen? I thoroughly skipped the periods of bawling and ineffectuality that you no doubt reveled in."

[blondevigilante]

"You can't just skip infancy unless you're some kind of clone. Hell even Connor was technically a child once. Technically." By a long stretch of the imagination maybe, but he had to have started from somewhere, right?

[xuffasch]

"Not a clone," Damian mutters, but the rest is lost under his breath as he pulls his knees up to his chin and just sits like that for a moment.

[blondevigilante]

Steph looked over at him and frowned. Yeah there was something big she was missing here. It was possible that he really lacked those important years of learning to be a person that everyone else got to have. He wasn't some Meta, but he wasn't really normal in the same way your average ten year old boy was either.

Sitting up, Steph scooped up the soft kitten and thought for a moment before quietly saying, "Tell me, D."

[xuffasch]

"I already did," he snaps, and then just rolls his eyes. "I told you--the first years of my life were spent in a lab. I have never been an infant because I was only barely conscious for those years. By the time I was...awake...I was already about seven. So when I say I'm not a child, I mean it."

[blondevigilante]

Counting to ten -- twice -- Steph continued to pet the kitten. There was so much wrong with Damian's life starting with his "birth." She knew it wasn't her place to judge, but she couldn't help believing he had lost out on so much because of the selfishness of the supposed adults around him.

"My first distinct memory is of Daddy taking onto the stage of his stupid game show. I don't remember why, but it was empty except for us and all the lights were on. He let me run around the stage. I think I must have been about three. It was right before everything started to go down the drain." What was she doing? Damian didn't care about her stupid memories. "I had to grow up fast after that, but you...you were never given the chance to have those sort of moments.

"Sure you like a miniature forty year old, but that doesn't mean your really grown. Like, you never got to learn the important things in life that only small kids know. You never got to make stupid memories of yourself just running around because it was fun."

At this point she really didn't have an idea of where she was going with this; she was simply talking. "That's not to say it's too late, because it's never too late. You need to find that part of you that other squashed or you'll end up too hard."

[xuffasch]

Moment of feeling sorry for himself over, Damian's mood switches to defensive. The city gave him more opportunity than Gotham did to compare how normal people were raised and what had been his upbringing. He had always been taught that the discrepancies between the two were the result of his privilege, and were something to take pride in. Lately, however, he wasn't so sure.

However, he wasn't about to let Stephanie judge what he hadn't been able to, yet. His chin juts up as he raises his head, glare etched across his features.

"I don't need to have fun, Brown, and I don't need you pitying me. I'm exactly what I'm supposed to be, too hard or not."

[blondevigilante]

Her body tensed for a moment. She wasn't feeling sorry for him she was just-just...okay so perhaps she was feeling sorry for him. A lot. It was hard for her not too although his attitude often made her want to hit him as opposed to hug him.

"Everyone needs to have fun." Carefully she moved the kitten off her lap and stood up. "You're exactly who you think you should be."

[xuffasch]

"Which is who I should be," he argued automatically, not caring that he was talking in circles. It was one thing for him to reveal information to her; it was quite another for her to make judgments about him. Almost unacceptable. "Tt. I don't need to go through with any of that nonsense of 'finding myself' or 'having fun' or any of it. I know who I am, what I was born to do. That's enough."

[blondevigilante]

Rolling her eyes she mentally told herself she wasn't going to argue with a ten year old except she really couldn't help it, and besides they weren't arguing just talking.

"What's wrong with having fun?"

[xuffasch]

"It wastes time, it achieves nothing, and it weakens an otherwise resolved spirit."

[blondevigilante]

"Keep telling yourself that, kid."

Steph moved to stand closer to the edge of the roof. At least Damian had picked a spot with a decent view. "So tell me oh wise one, why do you do it?"

[xuffasch]

"Not a kid," he mutters thickly. And then, as though to simply be contrary, Damian leans back as she moves forward. He's no longer looking at her. "Do what?"

[blondevigilante]

"Fight. Yeah, I get your whole sense of duty, but is there anything more?" She had a list. Literally. Some nights where hard and threatened to make her hard, but then she'd lay in her bed and read that list. It made things good again when she remembered why she had to stay strong, but also why she had to care.

[xuffasch]

Damian wasn't entirely sure how he was supposed to answer that question. He didn't know what he'd even be doing if he wasn't Robin; maybe he'd still be with Talia, biding his time among the assassins. Or perhaps he'd have gone off on his own, to do...what, exactly? There were two roads presented to him: his mother's, and his father's. He'd chosen the latter, and knew of nothing else he could do. He'd chosen it, yes, but how deeply had he thought about it before doing so?

"I have my reasons," he says after a moment. And then, more quietly, "What else would I do?"

[blondevigilante]

Yeah, that whole being made to fight thing really made life unnecessarily difficult. Cass seemed to be doing alright though, so there was hope for Damian is Steph opinion.

"That's where the fun comes in...and some of the unfun. School, friends, all that little stuff helps you learn about this world. The fight is worth it, believe me, but only if you know why you pull on the cape every night. It's all a bit after-school special, but worth it."

[xuffasch]

"I don't need those things," he protests, too used to arguing with her to do otherwise, and too stubborn to admit he might be right. "What would a school possibly teach me? And I don't want friends. They're liabilities."

[blondevigilante]

He is right about liabilities. It's something she's thought about a lot especially when it comes to her mother, but in the end it's all worth it and she wants him to see that.

"School teaches you about social interaction and gives you chance to find some of those liabilities. You and Big B might think emotional connections to people are liabilities, but if you cut yourself off from people then you become a machine, and maybe you might become like those people we hunt. They've lost touch with humanity and look at them." Steph spins and sits back down, probably closer to Damian than he would like. "Keeping that connection raises you above them. It keeps you human."

[xuffasch]

Humanity is a relative term, Damian thinks bitterly. This is a boy who had no concept of the value of human life until a short time ago, a boy who is still deciding whether it wouldn't be easier to take out those people who threaten or annoy him. After a moment, however, he just huffs dismissively.

"I don't think I want to be human."

[blondevigilante]

She has to resist the urge to wrap an arm around him like she would Cass. There's something that draws her to him pushing her to remind him that it's okay to just be a kid now and again. Maybe it's because even with all the crap she went through as a kid she still found time to just be a kid.

"It's not that bad. Given half a chance it can even be fulfilling. Seven billion people can't be that wrong, can they?"

[xuffasch]

"Statistically? Probably not. Truthfully? It's entirely likely." Growing up with Talia, he had always been taught that the vast majority of people were below him, in every way. Coming out into the world, this view was slowly starting to change, but old habits died hard.

[blondevigilante]

"Okay, toss the stats and truth and think about what you feel." Steph looked over at him and frowned. "Maybe not how you feel, but try and think about those close to you. There's a reason you reached out to them and it's not all about tactics and whatnot. People need connections little man and like it or not you're starting to connect to people and them to you." She grinned and reached over to scratch the kitten. "Even this little guy gets it."