nysalogs | april catch-all.

[ 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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