2012-10-15 Three Rules

The pale light of dawn begins to creep over the horizon and so those who do their work, criminal and vigilante alike, by night retreat. The rats to their holes, the bats to their cave. The hum of top tier engines fills the air down a lonely, unused service road somewhere in Bristol but is gone almost as quickly as it came.
Inside the Cave, the Batmobile roars down a tunnel from the outer world to the inner sanctum. The engines whir to a stop as the Car does, the passenger side hatch clicking open and the young man in Robin's clothing flings himself out of it. Damian has removed the domino mask he wore, tucking it into his belt, and is already speaking. Each word full of youthful exuberance almost uncharacteristic to him.
"Hah! That was just what I thought it would be," Damian announces, punching his fist into an open palm and walking off in the direction of the Batcomputer, "I think I recognized one of those punks. A serial offender. You think four broken fingers would perturb him from such a waste of life. I'll have to pay him a little visit."
The Dark Knight is more or less silent on the way home, focusing on communicating with Alfred and Oracle and transferring the information he has gleaned. The ringleader threatening Huntress tonight will need to be questioned-- Gordon can facilitate that, and the tracking information along with the operation logs are forwarded to the Batcomputer en-route. One step ahead is the only way the Batman stays alive, after all.
The Bat's own demeanor is substantially more subdued upon their arrival in the cave, the whoosh of the jetfighter-like canopy barely heard anymore, before he too gracefully vaults out of the hybrid of a supercar and APC. "Go change out of the suit. I want it cleaned and back in the case the way you found it within twelve hours." The words are quiet, almost cold-- but undertoned with a tumult of emotions barely hidden under the surface, just now.
It's difficult to accurately decipher all of them; most would just assume they are about to be fired. "When you've changed, I want you back here. We need to talk." Now.
Damian opens his mouth to say something, but immediately thinks better of it and simply nods his head. His father, after all, being one of three people in the whole world who he wouldn't talk back to. He immediately begins scaling the rocks leading to his little ledge set aside as his quarters and, a few minutes later, returns in street clothes. Jason's uniform is neatly folded on the bed and it will be cleaned and back where he found it within twelve hours, just as he was asked.
As he descends from his ledge, Damian makes his way over towards the Dark Knight. He doesn't make any sound to let him know that he's back or that he's ready to talk. He simply clasps his hands at the small of his back, lifts his chin and falls into a regimented posture.
Of course, all -three- of those people /would/ talk back to each other. Perhaps a testament to the enduring quality of sheer stubborness, perhaps to something deeper. There's the slightest bit of surprise as Damian does what he is told without comment, though it's only shown in a brief glance to the boy's back as he retreats to his alcove in the shadowed sanctum. Once he has? There's a long, deep, steadying breath.
In the brief time it takes his son to revert to civilian attire, Batman simply removes his cowl and settles in at the Batcomputer, tiling a myriad of work across the expansive display screen; most notably a map of Gotham pinpointing Helena's location, and a decryption algorithm analyzing and re-analyzing what, right now, plays back as brief burbles of static and interference and little more, a frequency readout zeroed in on a narrow-band transmission as a cypher key attempts to pair up correctly to its digital lock.
These tasks are queued and left automated before Bruce turns back to Damian, though it's clear he realized at some point earlier that the boy was there. "Where is Barbara's suit?" He starts with the simple, in a similar, but calmer tone; still subdued, pensive, introspective rather than expressive with his own emotions.
“I gave it to someone,” Damian admits readily, not hesitating or trying to cover anything up, “She was trained by the League of Assassins but she wishes to help people. She needed a mask and she's been living with Barbara Gordon. I thought she would serve well as Batgirl, given the gap in the ranks.”
The young Wayne is stalwart, brow furrowed and his jaw squared. He takes a steadying breath of his own and continues to speak, doing his best to sound reassuring but instead sounding more like a junior officer reporting to his superior, “I told her to be careful with it. She's a superb fighter. She won't let any harm come to it.”
"That's /not/ your decision to make." The words are intense, but the anger is contained, the Dark Knight careful not to let it spill over from the actual heart of his issues with this progression; at least for now. He also doesn't directly contradict the validity of Damian's statement-- just the relevance. "I need to meet the girl, I've been putting it off too long." Batman concedes simply, the gruff resonance fading little even with the piece of acquiescence. There's a pause as Bruce considers the nearly-grown son he barely has had a chance to know, his jaw clenching and unclenching as vibrant eyes study much but speak little.
What the elder Wayne chooses to vocalize is carefully weighed, even patient despite his obvious mix of displeasure and consideration. ".. but it's /my/ call who's ready, and able; even how much they know about /you/." It's important to get the uncompromising ground rules out of the way up front, after all. "And those /aren't/ your suits. Either of yours." Which does nonetheless carry a more benevolent side despite the harshness. The Dark Knight rises from the workstation and strides past Damian and down the Batcave's walkways towards the hardened armory at the heart of the sanctum. "They belong here, now." He appears to expect Damian to follow; or at least, the boy will have to if he wants to continue the discussion.
“She knows nothing about me,” Damian replies, shaking his head, “All she knows is my face. But she cannot speak and even her sign language is so sporadic that I doubt anyone could make much of it without League training. I didn't intend to make any decisions for you, I was only testing her. She's good at this.”
People knowing Damian's face doesn't mean a whole lot of anything. He rarely goes out without his mask and when he does he isn't drawing attention to himself. He doesn't seem to have gotten into the habit of using the Wayne name and fortune to be a spoiled brat yet. He's managing that perfectly well on his own.
“Why does it matter?” he asks, genuinely perplexed as he turns to follow Batman, “They don't use them anymore. They're tools. Tools are meant to be used, are they not? Drake quit, father. He said he no longer has the time to be Robin. I, however, have all the time in the world. I needed a uniform for my new role so I took it.”
There's an acknowledging, if monosyllabic grunt in response to Damian's explanation. Booted footfalls land silently despite the Dark Knight's stature and equipment as he rounds the walkway down until it cuts directly into the stone, deep beneath the earth, a hardened portal in an already hardened bunker. One never knows when one will need to use the Batcave to survive a direct hit from a bunker busting weapon, after all.
"Because they remind me, and should remind you, of the people who've earned their place before you." Bruce explains, directly but surprisingly patiently. "Because those who forget the past, who refuse to acknowledge their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their outright failures are doomed to repeat them forever." There's an additional keypad with an extensive numerical code apparently stored in Bruce's head that he pauses to input, and the entire string doesn't actually unlock the armory until seconded by a signal from the batsuit he wears. "Because your tools should be familiar to /you/, not stolen from someone else."
At the point the Dark Knight triggers that secondary key, several sets of thick doors slide open to either side, revealing a long corridor-- remarkably tall for its location-- lined with weaponry. Proximity mines, charges of all sorts, warheads and their components organized carefully along an expansive set of workstations and displays. Batman's attention now, and destination, proves to be an adjoining section with a myriad of high-tech armored components for the human body.
"Because technology marches /on/." No protege of his is going to fight crime in outdated equipment that got one Robin killed and another apprentice paralyzed.
"Mistakes that I will not make," Damian announces, following along and giving the Armory a careful look as they pass through it, "I spend every day down here. I've studied every file on the Computer that isn't encrypted against me."
He counts his facts on his fingers, "I'm a better fighter. I'm faster and more agile. Never mind that I've been training for this since I was born. They earned their place, but I was made for it."
He falls silence as they enter the armor wing of the Armory.
"You've already made mistakes." The Dark Knight points out without missing a beat. "Just tonight, our hunt for a missing girl was delayed because of mistrust that the Huntress has for /you/." No, Batman didn't miss those signals. "No matter how much knowledge you have, it is incomplete; no matter how good you are, there is someone better. If you do not understand that, you /will/ fail, and the stakes are seldom dictated by you or I." It's men like the Joker who make that call, too often-- who decide just what those mistakes will cost.
A hand goes out to forestall the objection Bruce predicts, "It's about foresight, Damian. Understanding the impact of your actions into the future, and carefully measuring the steps you take with an eye to the branching consequences. Men have been able to kill and maim since our ancestors first held bone and rock; it hasn't fixed the world yet, no matter how good we get at it. Restraint. Insight. /Understand/ the people we are here to save, and that the world will never be saved through blood." Directly contradicting Ra's is pretty much Bruce's life's work.
It is a difficult thing for Damian to fathom and he does indeed open his mouth to protest before Bruce stops him. Contrary to the way he acts, the young man takes in everything that is said. He files it all away, all of it will be mulled over at length as a means to answering that question that is always foremost in his mind. What does his father want?
“She delayed it by not trusting /you/,” Damian answers, because he can't go completely without arguing, “She didn't trust that you had me there for a reason. She was trying to protect her secret and then she gave it away because she doesn't know when to hold her tongue. Her secrets are more important to her than helping.”
He falls back into silence for a moment, weighing up his argument before abandoning it as a lost cause.
"Another person's mistakes don't negate the presence of your own. Lack of judgement in others is to be expected; it's part of foresight. We have to create the situations that serve the Mission." Often, for them, that means terrorizing the guilty; other times, it's shades of grey and exponentially more complex and compassionate than that. It's easy to paint the Dark Knight as an unfeeling force of nature, but nothing could be further from the actuality of his crusade.
"There's always someone else to blame, and in almost every situation those people will lack our training, knowledge, and discipline. It falls to us to be /better/.. or we're just making it worse." Unreasonable standards? Check. It's a watermark Damian is at least already used to dealing with at this point-- a leg up on the others indeed, at least in one sense.
Damian says nothing, his silent assent to doing what he's told, accepting his mistakes and acknowledging this much more complex role. He usually argues, going silent is his not-so-obvious way of agreeing to a point. He'll have to be better. No, he /will/ be better.
It's a methodology that Bruce often shares; even earlier in this same conversation. "Tim hasn't spoken to me about his desire to move on, but assuming you're correct.." which /is/ clearly the standard the Dark Knight is using, in this case. "There are three hard and fast rules." Batman counts them out on gloved digits, "One: You give me everything you've got. Two: Then you give me more. Three: I make the rules." Reiterating that he doesn't really /care/ how accomplished Damian already thinks he is is important: both of them will have to learn.
"Your palmtop can tell you the exact nature and function of everything in this room. Design a functional suit, organize a new utility belt." Deceptively complex mandates, especially as Batman turns to the door to leave his son to it. "Oh, and Damian-- I expect to see scaled threat solutions. Overstated brutality as standard operating procedure only creates more violence and hate; our vengeance must /always/ be analytical, surgically precise. It's not about personal wrath. It can't be."
"Alright," Damian agrees, looking as though her perhaps hoped for a little more than a rundown of the rules and a couple of orders. But he can't be blamed for not knowing his father and his attitudes so well, he's known him the least amount of time out of all his family. He moves to pick up an unpainted gauntlet from one of the shelves, turning it around in his hands. He speaks without looking up as Bruce leaves.
"Can I keep the sword?"
"As long as you learn when /not/ to use it." The Caped Crusader answers simply from the doorway, appending nothing else at the moment. He's given his son enough difficult philosophy to ponder, for the moment.
Damian lets his father leave, not wanting to keep him from whatever he has planned and, somewhere deep down, not wanting to push his luck anymore than he has. When the Bat has departed, the newly-minted Robin turns about to look at the shelves and the dozens off different components with which to put together his uniform.
"Let's go to work."
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