10654/Meeting the Family

Meeting the Family
Date of Scene:	04 April 2022
Location:	Second Floor Landing - Wayne Manor
Synopsis:	Liminal spaces create the most interesting meetings?
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Cassandra Cain, Damian Wayne, Julia Pennyworth

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Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe didn't quite feel like a Wayne. She didn't feel like much of anyone, really, other than when she was casting and thinking about who she missed.

    She, however, did have a like of the liminal places. Those halfway points between A and B, where they existed only as transition spaces. The second story balcony? Perfect place. Overlooks two parts of the manor, had bathrooms, sitting areas, and it was a place in the grand Wayne estate that the adoptee could feel at least a little bit secure, back to the wall, situated on the floor with her notebooks with strange, archane languages written on them, her earbuds plugged into the cracked-in-two-places phone with its picture of Idu as a puppy on the lockscreen. The thumb to her wrist of her right hand was silvery from graphite, and her dark eyes were focused. Her glasses were hanging from the neck of her black T-shirt showing a rabbit poking out of a tophat in white, and her damp kinks and coils were not braided, instead pulled back with an orange hair wrap.

    The white-and-red sighthound, Idu, was laying at her side, doin' a snooze.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
An unlikely sight occurs. It's like spotting Bigfoot, or a healthy meal at McDonald's. Cassandra walks past the doorway, not paying attention to what's going on in the room. She's not paying attention because she's reading a book.

What world is this and what did they do with the real Cassandra?

Of all of the people who are living here, she's the only one not really adopted or family exactly. She's also not literate. However, she does peek in while reading.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Emerging from the Family Wing, Damian appears as if by magic. Even when just padding around the Manor the kid moves in a way that makes shadows seem loud by comparison. He stops when he sees two people on the landing. His gaze goes back and forth between Cassandra and Phoebe. "Cass," he says in greeting to Cassandra. There's a sparkle in his eye just beneath the surface. In Damian's world, when a girl stabs you that's pretty much the bee's knees.

Then his gaze shifts to Phoebe. "Did you break in? This is probably officially the worst house on all of planet Earth to break into." His tone is...sarcastic? Most likely he doesn't think Phoebe broke in, or he thinks she did and isn't very concerned about it.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe knows Cass's feeling. Her shoulders relax, and she looks up at Orphan. Her ears darken just a tad (sign of affection), and she brings her sketchbook with its circle work down (acknowleging in case Cass wanted to stop), and she gives a warm smile to the reading Cass as she reaches to pull her earbuds out. "Hey Cass." she greets the other Outsider, and then, she pauses, turning to look up at Damian. She looks down, and then back to Damian with a wro smile, pulling up the athletic sleeve on her left arm.

    "Broke in slowly, over a period of months, followed by paperwork." she replies, and then leans forward. "You must be Damian, the brother I hadn't met yet." she gives a gentle, rueful smile to the younger teen. "How do you do?"

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cass closes her book around her own hand so she can look at Damian as he speaks. She has that habit, as if she's reading a person's lips - she looks directly at you to get the content of what you're saying. So when Phoebe speaks she gets the same treatment, both of them getting a cheery smile in response.

She glances down at her book - something about ballet poses - and then back up at the two. A small tilt of her head to the left goes from Damian to Phoebe, indicating something between the two?

She appears to be unarmed, but it's not like anyone here ever really needed a weapon to be dangerous. Still, a ballet text isn't high on anyone's combat list.

Damian Wayne has posed:
Damian doesn't answer Phoebe's question. He simply asks another one in return. "And you are?" The kid just has this aura around him of total entitlement.

Cass gets a bit more of a friendly treatment, though does anyone ever really get a friendly treatment from Damian? He pads closer to her. "What are you reading?" he asks the girl, angling his head so he can see the book. Probably any other person on Earth would beam and smile, but beaming and smile aren't really this kid's jam. He nods approvingly, which is his version of beaming and smiling. "Ballet is good for balance and control. It's an excellent way to spend your time."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe doesn't seem to mind. "No one important, really." she replies with an air of indifference and a shrug, and she tucks her earbuds back in, and then she pulls her circle work back up and begins to make alterations. Though her shoulders tense, just a little, and instead of continuing the mandala, she flips a few pages back, where she had been sketching Cass from memory. A couple of thumbnails of Cass holding the book form on the page as she watches the interaction between the two.

Julia Pennyworth has posed:
There's a heavy thumpy footfall barreling down the stairs as Julia makes her way down with complete disregard for the fact that the manor is a house full of ninjas of various sorts. Quiet? Ftt. She wasn't working right now. Nor was she a ninja. The stairs are taken two at a time in a half-run down them, and she arrives wearing running shorts, a tanktop, and a towel draped over her shoulders.

When she spots the others she pauses to greet them with a simple, "Oi," and curt nod. The end of the towel is tugged up to run over her short pixie cut helping dry it off from whatever shower she'd just taken. "Got to admit the hot water tank here is so much better than the barracks. How's tricks?"

Cassandra Cain has posed:
    Cass leans down and puts a kiss onto Phoebe's cheek as she slips in her earbuds, then glances at the pages a second. She looks away as Damian speaks, then runs her free hand through her hair, blushing just slightly and fidgeting her feet. A small nod is her response, and body language suggesting that she's still new at it.

    But enjoyment is also evident, and she opens her book to show Damian a pose with both hands raised high above the head. The balance, the posture. She straightens her own spine just looking at it, and it makes her shiver with delight.

    Then she sees what Phoebe was drawing, and pauses to look at it more closely. She looks at Phoebe's face, then nods appreciatively.

    Turning as Julia appears, with her incredible lack of subtlety, Cass eyes Damian and winks, then turns and throws her book at Julia. She'll either catch it or she won't, you know the drill around here.

Damian Wayne has posed:
A small, amused smirk crosses Damian's features as Cass throws the book at Julia. Cass is not wrong, it's a fairly mild test around this place. He's not really much of a social type, kind of all business. But he does at least stick around long enough to see how Julia is going to handle the Test of the Flying Book!

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe blinks a moment as Cass kisses her. Shoulders rise up, her ears darken a bit and she mumbles some sort of possible nonsense word, and in the light of the manor she actually does glow for a few seconds before she clears her throat, leaning forward and eyeballing Julia as she makes her approach, and she gives a hesitant moment of a wave at her, in question.

Julia Pennyworth has posed:
Before she can even greet the others properly, or say hello, Julia finds a book thrown at her head. Honestly it wasn't the first time. Her reaction though isn't to catch it since her hand was currently sunk deep into the terrycloth towel she'd been drying herself off with. Instead she lashes her hand out, still grasping the towel, to snap the semi-damp cloth in the air knocking the book soundly to the floor before it has time to reach her completely. With a flourish she whip-twists the towel back letting the fabric coil in on itself as if she were preparing to do a few more snap-slaps of the towel locker-room style.

An eyebrow raises at Cass as if to say 'really?' though she does smirk a little, and turns to dip down scooping up the poor smacked book. "Going to ruin the pages that way." It's plucked up, dusted off, and then offered back. "I see I don't have to ask how you're all doing then. For those I've not met yet, I'm Julia Pennyworth."

Cassandra Cain has posed:
    Cass walks up and reclaims her book, assuming she's allowed to do so. She places her hand over Julia's, smiling in approval. Then turns back to the other two in the room. She glances over her shoulder as Julia speaks, mostly out of habit; she's not into names exactly anyway.

    She tosses Phoebs a grin, then looks at Damian. Then she tilts her head toward the exit, and forms a fist. Tightens the muscles in that arm and gets this evil grin on her face, then raises an eyebrow in a question?

Damian Wayne has posed:
Seeing a second person he has never met before -- the first of whom refused to identify herself -- Damian folds his arms over his chest. "Are we just leaving the doors unlocked and letting everyone into the manor?" he asks.

He nods his head in Julia's direction. "So...Pennyworth? Are you part of the staff here, following in Alfred Pennyworth's footsteps?" There is not derision in his tone, no indication that he thinks being a member of the staff is anything to look down his nose at. But neither does pussyfoot around the subject.

He shifts his gaze to Cassandra. "I've got some analyses to do for Tim on the..." He was about to say Bat computer, but he doesn't know what Julia's status is. He glances at her, then back to Cass. "...on the big computer downstairs."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    " -- are you helping him with the nanomachines?" Phoebe asks, pulling one earbud out of her ear as she tilts her head, crossing her right arm over her knee as she draws it up. "Or is he exhausting himself with a different project at the same time?" she inquires, and there is a little bit of worry that leaks into voice, shoulders drawing up a little bit -- and she gives a brief nod to Julia.

    "Phoebe, nice to meet you Julia. Alfred's been absolutely a dream to know since I've had the pleasure of meeting him." she smiles, and then she slowly unfolds herself, stretching a moment and pulling the atheltic sleeve off.

    Her left arm is a mass of burned-in scars in arcane geometry ranging from the top of her shoulder to her elbow, the scar tissue shiny and pale on the dark of her skin. She rubs the back of her neck with her right hand a moment. "Ah, forgive me for not shaking hands -- graphite makes a bit of a mess."

Cassandra Cain has posed:
    Cass nods at Damian, stretching her head over to the left with a bone-crunchy sound that suggests she's just realigned her spine. Hopefully. She upnods, then glances from Julia to Phoebe. Then she frowns, her brow furrowing.

    A step puts her close to Phoebs, and she reaches out hesitantly toward the burnt arm. She doesn't touch, but the suggestion of concern is obvious. She looks from arm to Phoebe's face, then lets her gaze linger there?

Damian Wayne has posed:
Damian's gaze shifts over to Phoebe as she asks some pretty detailed questions about Tim's affairs. He regards her cooly and then looks back to Cass and Julia without answering her. "Well, this was...interesting," he says to nobody in particular, in that way of his. "I have work to do." He heads for the stairs. About the closest that Damian gets to social kindness is he glances back at Cassandra and gives her a curt nod. She did, after all, stab him.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Nice to meet you in person, Damian. If you see Tim before I do, let him know... I was..." Phoebe trails off a moment, and she shifts her weight before glancing to Cass, and she looks to where Cas was reaching for her arm.

    "I'm OK, Cass. It's old. It doesn't hurt." Phoebe replies quietly, and gives a slight smile. "Old news."

Julia Pennyworth has posed:
Julia Pennyworth had gone quiet to finish drying off her hair since there was an apparent aire of tension in the room. Just as she's about to answer Damian, he heads off earning a small shrug in response. "Guess I'll tell him later. It's okay though, I know the know." This is informed to Phoebe, and Cass, whom she regards while Cass moves to examine Phoebe's arm.

That earns a frown. "That looks painful. And my call sign is Tuxedo One in case you need to know at some point. I've already read the dossiers on most of you," she explains with a shrug. "Parts of mine are classified. Sorry, British Military, can't tell all the secrets."

Cassandra Cain has posed:
    So Cass just puts her hand on Phoebe's scars, then. She touches, letting that simple contact be a thing for a minute. She's never been one to babble words, but there are times when a person just needs to know that she's not made ugly by her scars.

    Once she's met Phoebe's eyes, she looks up to see what Julia's saying (kinda has to, she's not good with words), and nods. "Orphan," she says softly. Wtf, words came out and her mouth moved and everything! And she was reading a book...

Skrull. Gotta be skrull.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    There are few people Phoebe would let touch her casually. Cass is one of the few. The scars are burnt into Phoebe's skin, carefully branded on with brass wire, left to agonize and scab, and it's clear byt he way that Phoebe turns away a moment, her breath hitching and her shoulders coming up, and the strain in her voice as she says "They were necessary." is all she replies back, though her right hand briefly goes to lightly touch against the back of Cass's as she turns back, and gives a slight smile. Soft eyes. Shoulders slacking.

    "Complicated." she explains a moment, turning back to Julia, "But, ah, Bruce adopted me as a matter of course. Trying to make sure I have something solid to fall back on. Given the death of one of my parents, the disappearance of another and being un-adopted by another. So. Very exciting." said very flatly. "A whole lot of paperwork."