12406/A Chance Encounter at Titans Tower

A Chance Encounter at Titans Tower
Date of Scene:	12 August 2022
Location:	Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Damian and Freddy Have a Heart to Heart. Oh and Damian steals Freddy's crutch!
Cast of Characters:	Freddy Freeman, Damian Wayne

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Freddy Freeman has posed:
The elevator rings and opens up. There stands Freddy Freeman, a scrawny, bedraggled teenager who walks with a severe limp with the assistance of a metal crutch that clasps at his left elbow. Despite his appearance and disability there is right now, as there so often is -- a pleased smile on this kid's face. His eyes glitter enthusiastically as he walk-thunk-walk-thunk-walk-thunks into the Main Room of Titans Tower.

"Hey, anybody around?" the good-natured kid calls out. "It's Freddy." Without even really meaning to, he is walking in the direction of the kitchen. He has to compete with a whole house full of foster kids and this walking stomach is eating for himself and the six gods he hosts.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Robin sat at the table, picking at his fingernail with a batarang. Right before he had been interrupted by the loud call of a Freddy. "Yes, and you don't have to yell. Fuck." He said after jumping a bit in his seat.

  He set the batarang into his belt, before he looked to Freddy. "So, you return." he doesn't exactly sound too peeved, just kind of that normal Robin grumpiness that tends to skip a generation.

Freddy Freeman has posed:
Freddy's gait slows and he comes to a stop. Walking with the crutch is sort of like moving a rowboat: you can't just come to a dead stop. Not too many people can say they've seen a dejected expression on the normally happy-go-lucky teen's face before, but now Robin can truthfully make that claim. He licks dry lips. "Oh. Robin. Um, h-hi. I didn't know were here." He jerks his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the elevator he came up. "I could...I could come back another time." He stands there looking at Robin with guilty eyes.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     "No need. You want to be a Titan right?" He offers, standing up and approaching Freddy. "Despite blasting me in the chest with a lightning bolt, you did well out there." Okay, so maybe he isn't pissed off?

  "Still, you need to practice that...emperor lightning." There was an attempt to be not so scathing in there, somewhere.

  Robin walked over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, uncapping and taking a looong sip. Afterwards looking at Freddy, not saying a word.

Freddy Freeman has posed:
In his normal human form, Freddy doesn't have full, unrestricted access to the Wisdom of Solomon. But bits of it linger within. When Robin stands and walks, Freddy's eyebrows furrow and crease as he watches the vigilante's manner of moving with unusual interest. Something nags. Freddy's head tips slight to one side for a moment, then to the other, like a cat examining something of significance.

"I..." A shrug. "I'm glad that you're okay," he murmurs, then he re-attempts a smile. The expression comes easily to the teenager's face, like it belongs there and has claimed its space. "I'll do better." And with those curious eyes locked on Robin, Freddy walk-thunks to the fridge to see what kind of food is available. When you compete with a gaggle of foster kids for food AND you have a heart of gold, you miss a lot of meals. He sees some bananas on the counter and oohs as he grabs three of them.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Robin's gait was slightly different in costume, the boots and the gear changed things, while being just a little similar.

  "Good, the moment you become complacent is the day you should hang up the cape." Robin offered, leaning up against the counter. "Snaky Shake." letting that hang there, even if Freddy didn't know what that was.

Freddy Freeman has posed:
Freddy quickly devours two of the three bananas. He's unaccustomed to being lectured about complacency. He was chosen for his powers by beings older and wiser than Robin. Complacency is not something he has ever been guilty of.

He stands in the kitchen sort of drumming his fingertips on the counter nervously. After several quiet moments he says, "Well I guess I should get an Uber home now. It was...it was nice t'see you again, Robin. I'm glad you're okay. I'm sorry again about what happened."

He begins the slow walk-thunk-walk-thunk journey to the elevator.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     "It's a shake made for people who burn through calories fast. If you cut the portion in half, it's a filling meal replacement for those of us who don't have the caloric needs of a speedster. And really good if you need to eat." He called. Realizing he may have weirded out the new guy.

  It was something he'd been worried about, protecting the secret identity and all, so he had perhaps been a little more Robin-y than normal.

  "I did not mean to run you off."

Freddy Freeman has posed:
About halfway to the elevator -- a seeming million years of walk-thunk-walk-thunk-walk-thunking -- Freddy stops, not turning around. He leans on his crutch, both of his hands gripping that little horizontal handle. He stops for long moments, silent, thinking the wild thoughts of gods and boys.

"I would never betray you," he says gently, back still to Robin and the kitchen. What a very odd thing to say. "The things that I have done and seen, and the places I've been." A shrug. "I would never betray you."

Sometimes the happy-go-lucky Freddy steps aside for the Wisdom of Solomon Freddy. These erratic, capricious changes are simply what one must deal with if they wish to be close to Freddy. He has forces inside of him that he, himself, barely understands.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     That sentence. That specifc sentence just sits there in his mind.

  He drops his water bottle, and practically runs over to Freddy. "When?" That word meaning when did Freddy know about Damian. His eyes look both concerned and conflicted on the matter. He's never been in this situation before and he never expected Freddy to have figured it out that fast. But then again, he never knew Freddy had been watching him from afar for two years, nor did he know the extent of the powers Freddy had, or how they bled into his non-transformed form. Robin even made sure no one was around enough to hear what they were talking about.

Freddy Freeman has posed:
"I'm so sorry," Freddy whispers, still not turning around, still gripping that handle of his crutch with two hands. "I'm so fucking sorry. There's like..." Hs shrugs. "...six fucking people inside me competing for my attention. When I'm...when I'm like this I can barely hear them, not like I can when I transform, when I call upon the powers of Shazam." He turns to look at Robin. "But they're in there all the time."

Freddy draws in a deep, slow breath. He looks at Robin directly. "No one will ever find out from me. Not ever. By the Six, no one will ever find out from me." He purses his lips. "If you tell me to never come back, I won't. I don't want to put your life and safety at risk. You do so many amazing things, and your only tools are secrecy and your honed body and mind. I don't wanna...I don't wanna fuck that up for you."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian's white eyelets look Freddy over, and nudge him towards the Men's hallway. There was only one good place to say the things he wanted to say, and that was his own room, where he could control who was present and not.

  His footfalls weren't angry, they were very concerned though.

  Luckily it wasn't too far off from the kitchen, he was one of the first to join the reunited Titans afterall. Once the automatic door closed and he made sure it wouldn't open unless someone inside allowed it, he turned around. His Titans room was different than his room at Wayne Manor. There was a display of swords, two of them looked very old, and a small arsenal of bat-gadgets. More than enough for a complete loadout for a Robin. "I have much more than secrets. but I appreciate the sentiment." He raises his hands to his mask, removing it, leaving Damian's face there.

  "You aren't some one night stand or a defenseless whatever-her-name-is lik my brothers bring home. You're a goddamn hero, and don't give me some bullshit humility like you aren't." This obviously was not something he was trying to talk himself out of, but he would be remiss if he didn't do the same for Freddy. "You have your own identity to look out for. Damian Wayne is never caught off guard enough that he can't get himself out of the situation. For fuck's sake, Freeman, that day you walked up to me in the quad: I had a knife in my shoe, and on my belt buckle, a small sawblade on my class ring, and a lock pick halfway down my esophagus." All true.

Freddy Freeman has posed:
Damian's going to have to be patient. Freddy simply isn't physically capable of walking quickly without being transformed. It's just the way it is. But finally he makes into Damian's room and stands there quietly, letting Damian speak uninterrupted. Damian has earned that. He's earned at *least* that, if not so much more.

When Damian pauses, Freddy reaches out and grasps the side of the other teen's neck with his free hand. He leans in and kisses Damian fiercely. He lingers there for several seconds with his eyes squeezed shut before standing straight again and looking downward a little bit.

"What I have was given to me. I didn't earn it. What you have, you work for every second of every day, Damian." Freddy looks at him intently. "I won't jeopardize that."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Freddy's fierce kiss happens, and there is a moment of just...letting go. There is nothing to really explain it farther. "Good. Though you should know...I..." That was the hardest thing for Damian to admit, was he the boy in the costume, or was he the one that attended HHHS. "The me that they are scared of...at Happy Harbor, that's me. After a while...things got easier, less rough. But my...what I had grown up to be, was not a Robin. It was not a hero, up until three years ago, I would have never have been."

  That was what Damian had been brought up to think at least. So much has changed since then.

Freddy Freeman has posed:
Freddy, of course, knows absolutely nothing about Infinity Island and Talia and the Year of Blood or any of that. He likely just assumes that Damian grew up at the Wayne Estate. So when Damian makes his small admission, Freddy tips his head once more. His eyes see the things that they see. Yet to his credit, Freddy doesn't ask a thing about who knows what, or how Damian received his training. He knows that maintaining a secret identity makes juggling a dozen tennis balls simultaneously look easy by comparison.

"What's more important?" he asks quietly. "Where you've been, or where you're going?"

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian takes a long moment to think about it. But his face knows the answer. "Just...be patient...I don't... I don't get everything social right. A lot of that stuff I don't get right, yet." He never looked downward, shame was a feeling very foreign oto him. "And you'll know why I do things the way I do them, in time."

Freddy Freeman has posed:
One side of Freddy's mouth quirks upward. He's starting to come back out, the true Freddy, the boy who smiles through pain because he just plain loves to be alive. "Hey, look at me," he snarks. "I'm the gay crippled kid with the crutch who lives in a foster home, has the biggest nerd gear collection ever, and attends the Haps on scholarship. I'm not exactly ground zero of social popularity."

He leans back against a desk to give his bum leg a little bit of a break. "Neither one of us are perfect." A shrug. "So let's just be perfect for each other." Since he's leaning back against the desk and doesn't need to lean on the crutch, he whacks the side of Damian's leg with it. A full smile blooms on his face.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     "To answer your question: it's what is ahead." Damian answers, though he lets Freddy continue on explaining himself. "Oh, and that's gonna change soon. Believe me." He answers regarding popularity. Though once his leg is tsmacked, Damian lifts his foot, twirling that crutch and turning it to his hands, twirling around and around and around like a rifle corpsman would, stopping at full speed, then twirling it ro rest against his back like a bo staff. "You know, I had to earn this hood? I don't need to see to know something is headed towards me, like a fist or a kick."

Freddy Freeman has posed:
Freddy is, obviously, easily 'disarmed' by Damian. He watches with glittering eyes as the vigilante -- *his* vigilante -- spins the crutch around. "Believe me, I've seen some of what you're capable of. Billy and I did an entire episode of our podcast about various pieces of private camera footage of you fighting. And I'm sure the amazing stuff you can do has never been caught on camera."

Leaning back against the desk, hands in his front pants pockets, Freddy just shrugs his slender shoulders slightly. "You're a warrior, Damian. And as one champion to another, I have nothing but respect for what you do." And then holy subject change, Batman, Freddy's eyes suddenly go wide with realization and he grin-gasps. "THAT'S why I could never get you to eat dessert!" He lets out a laugh. "I just figured you were lactose intolerant or something."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     "No, I am not lactose intolerant. But american sweets have too much sugar and not enough...character. Same reason I don't drink soda with every meal, just some times."

  "But it is why I didn't eat the Triple Belly Buster with the large fries, like you did." Yep, gotta keep the engine burning clean fuel. Damian obviously didn't eat a lot of junk foods, a mixture of training and heritage. Something that he could always fall back on would be the foreigner excuse at school. He gives the crutch back, before he decided aluminum was a good material for a beating stick. "And now that you know, Freeman, I don't have to pretend to be anyone. Me three years ago would have said you weren't ready to be a Titan. Now...you're exactly where you should be."

Freddy Freeman has posed:
Freddy takes back the crutch and slides his left arm through the elbow clasp. "Mary talks about it all the time, being a Titan. Don't tell Billy I said this, but she's the greatest hero I know. I always knew if I could follow her path as a Titan..." He shrugs. "I don't wanna get too corny or whatever, but *this* is the team I wanna join."

He slides the chair out from the desk and sits down properly. His bad leg is really singing right now and he needs to rest it. "Look, when you can fly faster than sound and go into space and lift massive stuff it's really easy to get the false impression that you're the solution. I mean, do you see what I'm saying?" He lifts up the crutch. "The powers and the crutch? They're the exact same thing. It's a metaphor for hubris. But if I get accepted as a Titan, the powers are no longer the goal. They aren't the solution. They're just one tool in a really big toolbox." Another shrug of his slender shoulders. "That's what I want. I know it sounds cliche, but I want to be part of something bigger than me. I want to be beholden to others, and have them be beholden to me." He whaps the side of his own head with his palm. "That sounded way less stupid in my head."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian stands there watching and listening to the short rant from Freddy. Though Damian can't do much but chuckle at the end of.

  He gets closer, and closer, giving Freddy a kiss. "You got my vote, Freeman."

  "Though this does mean if you save Damian Wayne one day, I'm going to sarcastically make snarks at you like 'Oh Pantheon, you're my hero'." He contorted his voice to sound exactly like Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, just one of Damian's party tricks.

Freddy Freeman has posed:
Okay, yeah, well it was a bit of a rant. Most of the time Freddy is just Freddy, but he can't always filter out the voices of The Six and he ends up in some sort of of mental dead end. But the kiss from the maskless Robin brings him back to the here and now.

The 'Oh Pantheon' line fully dispels The Six, and Freddy breaks up into genuine, honest-to-goodness teenager laughter. It's kinda nice. From his sitting position, he gives Damian a playful shove. "You do that and I'm gonna start calling you Lightning Rod." Glittering, playful eyes.