nysalogs | april catch-all.

[ The turbolift doors open onto the bridge, and the memory-officers walk out onto it, everyone immediately engaged in lively conversation about what's happening on the viewscreen. Captain Kirk handles it without so much as a double-take, well used to hearing and processing information shouted at him from two dozen people at a time.

Meanwhile, this Jim: ] Engine room? [ C'mon moron, wake up. ] Engineering and the warp core are several decks down, against the secondary hull. The nacelles are -- [ vague gesture over his shoulder. How to you explain this kind of spacecraft without a broad picture?

It's difficult to ignore the proceedings of this memory. It's not significant, this moment, just a day in the life, really. But he misses this and misses them and thinking about the warp core can make him think of -

- Please don't, he thinks, and a shock of pain needles his head. Jim swears and pushes against his temple, and the Enterprise shimmers around them, reforming into, lo and behold, the main engineering deck. Off to one side, Captain Kirk and Commander Scott (and Keenser) are having an impassioned conversation while leaning over a number of technical holo-displays.

Thank fuck. ]

[ He regards it briefly, interested more in the interplay than the content of the words — Bruce's memory can pick that apart at his own leisure, when he has some more privacy. Besides, body language practically paints its own story. These people live together and trust each other. The mechanic of it to a soul like his holds no charm or envy. ]

[ He circles the group of them in the warp core instead, looking up, around, listening. A few brusque questions about the ship's size, crew capacity (it's useful, in the case of evacuation), then, ]

Medical facilities?

[ Yeah right, BATMAN.

But - here, where it's quieter, Jim is quieter, too. He answers questions, but it may be obvious after a few minutes that what he's doing is listening to the ship. The strange low unearthly hum of it, nowhere near the loud noises fiction may inspire of science-fiction engines, something more subtle. Something more alive.

He has a hand on a bulkhead, back a small ways from the warpcore itself, just looking at her. (Her. The ship, the Enterprise, Alan is still being referred to as 'him'.) ]

Huh?

[ Sickbay, he thinks, but a part of his mind is thinking about something else, an echo of an echo. Not him dying, but still his memory, a death not his own. He's seen it before, during, after - thankfully not now. The warp core remains as she is, behind doors and shields, beating its nuclear heart. ]

I don't know if I can actually control this, [ he admits, sounding perhaps strangely subdued. Letting instincts belonging to someone else guide him in matters of psychic traveling. Jim's not actually sure it's working, but at least his head hurts less. ]

[ There's a low, soft, inviting hum from the ship. Machinery.. appeals. It's easy to take apart, understand, improve. The streets of Gotham have resisted most of what he's put into place, as Wayne, as the Bat. Even unfamiliar there is a beauty to her design. ]

[ He understands how someone could miss her. Flying — even centuries in the future — is a metaphor for freedom. ]

[ Bruce brushes Jim's shoulder lightly, in lieu of an awkward pat. Soft, ]

We will.

[ After all, isn't he well-versed in imposing his own will on a swirling vortex of grief and despair? This is better arranged, easier to handle. There are good memories here to walk through. ]

[ He can't even think what would you do, Ambassador, because that train of thought is related to something in a box he can't let himself open. Not like this. (A lot of shit's in that box. It's the worst box.)

But he .. doesn't have to think of sickbay. Jim almost laughs.

They're walking down a hallway again, curving around into a wide oval entryway, following a conversation about fungal infections, and about how they are going to kill you, yes you, in an explicitly awful way, and there will be no cure, at least not for you, because you are the biggest moron in the entire goddamn galaxy. ]

--many times I have to have this conversation with you, [ Doctor McCoy is railing on, and if Alan thought everyone in space was wildly modern and futuristic or alien, well, surprise, no one is more ~down home Americana~ than this motherfucker. ] I should just let you bleed. I'd put your quarters on medical lockdown if you wouldn't just hack it-- sit! --you don't have to go on every single suicidal science experiment field trip that rolls along, you reckless idiot, you have a security team, a security team of ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE--

Oh my god, Bones.

[ Captain Kirk is sitting obediently on a biobed, letting his CMO poke and prod and yell. He looks torn between affectionate amusement and exasperation, over a bruise on his face and a tear on his uniform's left shoulder that's got some dried blood.

The yelling continues. ]

[ Bruce blinks at the scene, calibrating his expectation. Locked and loaded: nice to hear good old Southern charm finds it way out in the galaxy, but he doesn't think that for himself, just for someone else. There's more than one way it's familiar. Alfred is no less cutting, more precise. A spy's skillset lends itself well to raising a vigilante, as it turns out. Alfred has become everything Bruce has asked of him. A medic, a pilot, a teacher (a father). ]

[ (He should know better than to think of his ghosts.) The room changes. The bright lights of medbay become dimmer, the walls darken, the smell changes. There's a screech in the background of an animal, screens ahead. A car's next to them, jet black, dashboard still glowing from recent use. A younger Bruce stands in front of it, facing Alfred. There's numerous cuts all over his person, the instrument that made it having torn right through the armour. He pulls off the cowl in a single, violent stroke, exhaling explosively, knowing what's coming. You're not going to let me work, are you? he snaps. Alfred retorts calmly with something about having just cleaned the floor. ]

[ Bruce, meanwhile, next to Jim, is disinterested in the conversation — more curious that the memory is of the old cave, not his current one. ]

[ It's a relief to be taken out of his own head - as good as it is to see his friends, it also hurts - but a heartbeat later when he realizes where to, he feels something like guilt. Alan is a very private person.

A very private person with some kind of spooky bondage tech dungeon.

A very private person pulling off a gimp mask and bleeding in his spooky bondage tech dungeon. Jim tilts his head. Whaaa.

Right. Something is going on here, between a young Alan Foster and his longsuffering nurse, and Jim has to force himself not to wheel himself around to stare ncredulously at the man present beside him. So he just-- looks here, deciding that if Alan was going to slink around Jim's memories and snoop into the warp core, he can't complain about Jim not closing his eyes and plugging his ears. ]

[ It's an act of sheer willpower for Jim not to say the first six things that pop into his head, and a nightmare not to use that exact phraseology out loud, knowing what kind of reaction it will elicit from Bruce. Jim can suffer: Bruce isn't about to ask him for his opinion. ]

[ The standoff ends with Alfred's victory, Bruce's fine, let's just get this over with echoing off the walls as he stalks off to his room like a five year old, his butler dutifully following in his wake. ]

[ Then it's just them in the cave, and Bruce says, ]

I'm not a tour guide.

[ He's not going to show off what he's built here, the half-finished projects littered around in the Cave, the state of the art (for the 21st century) technology he has at his disposal. It's an act of mercy from some god that Jason's suit isn't brazenly displayed in the middle, the rest of the cave brutally oriented towards it — this is a gentler time. A happier place. ]

[ — but he supposes if anyone has earned a little look, it's this obnoxious midwestern space idiot. Still. ]

Yeah no I didn't think that was a tour guide uniform, [ Jim says with such immediacy that it's clear he white-knuckled it through not saying something else. He stops himself from further words, though. With effort.

For now.

The thing is, the mysterious Mr Wayne would probably be having an easier time their association if Jim actually were an idiot. Instead his bright blue gaze trails over computers and works-in-progress with perhaps an unsettling degree of understanding. When he moves it's careful, getting a closer look but not too close, hyper-aware of the cranky, looming sentinel. ]

Nice wheels.

[ Not sarcastic. Jim likes classic cars.

What's Alan like as a driver? (Do you do that in the gimp mask?) (He knows it has to be something else.) (Probably.) ]

[ Bruce gives him a sidelong glance. He says nothing — no sarcastic comeback, no absolute shutdown of anything Jim is willing to give voice. The mist has invaded his mind so much it seems almost ridiculous to protest — like getting your luggage searched at the airport or having to step aside for a scan when the detector beeps. But Bruce still guards who and what he is. There is an unquantifiable value to being unknowable, to making sure people aren't comfortable with your presence. It's annoyed him intensely that people have gone for the cranky antisocial truth of him, instead of a mask that'd be precision designed to be liked. ]

[ People are weird. Bruce's fingers trace over the side of the car — he blew this one up, he remembers it with some fondness after the fact. ]

[ — the smell of rubber burning fills their nostrils. The car takes a turn in Gotham City at breakneck speed, both Bruce and Jim in the back seat, Batman driving. He's fixed on two cars ahead, one of them with a guy half out of the window, desperately trying to shoot him. Too bad the windscreen is reinforced and bulletproof. ]

[ It's a car that shouldn't be going this fast in such narrow streets, but Bruce's control is absolute. ]

[ He had a choice to present that mask, in El Nysa. He could have worked it up so that the contrast between whatever facade he projected and the truth of him was jarring and offensive, he could have set the trap that way: too obnoxious for the people who'd tolerate his quiet cold, too abrasive for the people who'd tolerate something vapid, too dishonest for either party once the curtain comes down. But he didn't do any of that. He decided to act like himself, and as such, gets to suffer through people who appreciate that sort of thing.

(Maybe, deep in his little bat-heart, that's what he wanted. To pretend less. Maybe that's why when they're both still, he and Jim understand each other.) ]

Okay, [ the 23rd century space captain who has no room thinking anyone else is nuts says, calmly, after he and Alan are jostled around in this very stylish tank. It looks like the worst stereotypes of old Earth. ]

That's you.

[ In the gimp mask. (He knows it's not a gimp mask. Now, even encased in this vehicle, Jim can tell it's armor.) ]

[ He could've. Bruce chose instead to tie himself to an avatar of truth — an unbreakable bond, unflinching both outwards and inwards. It wasn't only Diana's strength or healing that filtered through that bond. It was the terrible understanding of wanting a place, wanting to share what it was with the few that were worth it. Cracked and ruined though it was, with little to offer. He's not giving. He takes, steals, keeps, hoards. Jim is one more little piece, to be safely wrapped, sheltered if he needs. Maybe that's what he wants, when he jumps. Not fearing the fall, but knowing there's somewhere that'll catch him. ]

That's me.

[ The window of the hatchback shatters. ]

And that's a bazooka. Brace yourself.

Cool.

[ They're probably thrown and squished together back here more and more as the car jostles and weaves and-- whatever other action movie things are happening. So: ] Man, you're made of concrete bricks, eat a cake sometime.

[ Jim's attention is torn between watching the complete bonkers altercation and looking up through the tinted windows at the strange city, unlike he's ever seen. ]

What's it called?

[ He tries for a question less personal. Joke's on him. ]

[ Bruce does push him off a few times, not violently. Sad that seatbelts don't seem to work here. ]

The car.

[ Now if he'd asked what Dick named it — Bruce really shouldn't have let a nine year old through his armoury. ]

The city, you dork.

[ Who names a car? (Side-eye. The car has a name, doesn't it.)

Jim is fine with being pushed around, navigating the turbulence like - you know, turbulence. Used to surfing shaking deck surfaces. It's just awkward in such small quarters. ]

[ Bruce returns it with a flat look. Yes, the car has a name, it has to fit the theme. ]

Are you thinking of visiting?

[ Gotham City: where a guy with a bazooka hanging out of the back of a car is shooting at a guy in a batsuit driving a tank. Nobody on the sidewalk seems remotely fazed by this. ]

You're my friend, I'm curious about you.

[ The car swerves, Jim braces himself with one hand on the ceiling. Curious and not asking Why are you dressed like that, what do you call yourself, what exactly is all this. Because they're friends, whether Alan likes it or fucking not, and Jim knows he'd squeeze shut even tighter.

(Like a clam. Clamman. In the clammobile.) ]

Very subtle.

[ Re: that F word. He makes a soft noise. ]

This is Gotham City. I was born here, it's where I've lived most of my life.

Thought I'd go along with the atmosphere. [ The car, the armor, the bazooka. Subtlety, that's definitely the name of the game they're playing here. ]

Gotham, [ he echoes, interested. Not anywhere he's heard of. That's not surprising, given the nature of this place - but also, his world went through a nuclear holocaust that lost much of history. (Gotta wait 'til old Earth stuff comes more in vogue in TNG.) ]

Are you a terrorist or are you whatever the opposite is?

What do you think?

[ Not that Bruce gives half a shit about other people's opinions, negative or otherwise. Accustomed to engendering one more than the other, however — but Jim's perspective isn't wholly baseless or reactionary, despite whatever he thinks about ~the dungeon~, it's a useful angle. ]

I think you're dangerous and smart enough to be either. [ Jim looks at him, calm and honest. ] Though my gut tells me you're good. Since you seem to hate it if I think anything positive of you.

[ And he's clearly not thrilled Jim is seeing this. Jim thinks-- if it were something awful, Alan would find it easier. ]

[ If it was something terrible — broken bones, the brand, any number of nights he's had to show cruelty, it would be easy. It would just be that. ]

[ Jim likes him. His cheerful relentlessness has made it absolutely clear he's not going anywhere. Unstoppable force meets immoveable object? Hardly. He trusts Jim, that's not a currency Bruce is rolling in. ]

[ — so the answer is not this is what made me. The horrors of a past can linger. Even the most determined, the most resilient, can lose their way if they walk in the dark too long. But it's what you reach for, — what you desperately try to hold on to when all else crumbles. ]

You go with your gut.

[ He won't approve. But he knows where he is now — that Jim will leave the front porch light on, there'll be food in the fridge, it'll be somewhere to rest for a while. ]

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