17973/A Quiet Evening in the Batcave

A Quiet Evening in the Batcave
Date of Scene:	16 May 2024
Location:	Batcave
Synopsis:	Carrie and Damian have a low-key conversation in the Batcave, a mutual sharing of respect between two Robins from two different worlds.
Cast of Characters:	Damian Wayne, Carrie Kelley

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Damian Wayne has posed:
The sun is still up so it's too early to go out on patrol. And anyway, Damien is a bit blue tonight. The kid's inside his own head and maybe patrolling tonight wouldn't be in his best interest. So he's down in the cave wearing shorts, a tank top, and running shoes. All black, of course. And he's working out. He's in a training section of the Batcave doing pushups in the dark. Two-fingered pushups. How long he has been there with the training lights off doing these difficult exercises is anyone's guess. The scowl on his face and the sweat soaked into his workout clothes might lead one to wonder if he's exercising...or punishing himself for any of a thousand sins.

Carrie Kelley has posed:
Carrie didn't expect anyone to be in the bat cave. Usually it's quiet and she can sneakily recoil all the grappling lines like some sort of magical grappling line fairy. It's been a 73 day streak of her doing it without getting caught. Which is why she lets out a "Nooo my streak." when she sees Damian working out.

This is then followed by an equally perplexed look as she taps on her phone. "What? Who is Michael J. Fox?" Her screen shows a rental page for Back to the Future. "But.. Eric Stoltz was the star of this movie." She shakes her head. The weirdest things have changed in this reality. The _weirdest_ things.

"It just won't be the same. But I suppose I must see it now just for the weirdness of seeing it done differently. She gives her phone a twirl in her hand and slides it in to her utility belt - she's half dressed for Bat duties; the bottom half. The top half is an orange hoodie.

Damian Wayne has posed:
The young warrior's pace of pushups doesn't falter as he verbally interjects, "I hope my quiet workout isn't disturbing you." He'd take a bullet for anyone in the Bat Family without hesitation but he ain't much for social graces. Finally he stops and lithely rises to a standing position. Sweat soaks the front of back of his shirt as he walk into the light, squinting slightly as he does, to retrieve his water bottle. He opens the aluminum bottle and guzzles down all of the water in it.

"Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's, which is a neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system," Damian rattles off. He does like to have facts at his fingertips. His voice lowers a little bit as though he's embarrassed to say the next part: "He was really good in that movie." Damian peers at Carrie. Maybe there is just a small list of people Damian might say something like that in front of. Maybe Carrie's on that list.

Carrie Kelley has posed:
"Not at all," Carrie replies as she approaches the workbench with used grappling lines. She sets her phone down and starts recoiling them. She does it at the Clocktower too - some habits of being Robin just never go away. Her eyes wander over to Jason's memorial and the edges of her lips twitch a little. She has little doubt there is a memorial for her back in her reality. She can't help but imagine what her Bruce went through when she disappeared.

"Oh - well then I have to watch it. No one thought much of Stoltz's acting in that movie. The other day someone asked if I knew about the plot hole in Back to the Future 3. Which I didn't because they never made sequels. So now I need to watch three movies."

She takes note of just how sweaty he's gotten. He wouldn't be the first Robin to stress workout. "Something on your mind?"

Damian Wayne has posed:
"That kid yesterday," Damian answers. 'Kid.' Dykstra is probably at least Damian's age, if not a year or two older. "He shouldn't get into this life. Everyone on the outside wants in, and everyone on the inside knows how much of a mistake it is." Damian shrugs one slender shoulder. He watches Carrie like he perhaps expects something from her, maybe for her to interject some contextual wisdom. Like he has framed her as an older sister type. Some people find it unnerving to have a silent Damian Wayne staring at them. Some people.

Carrie Kelley has posed:
Carrie stops coiling. The deep question of being a Bat. Not like Damian ever had much of a choice given his mother and father; any of them could walk away any day but they don't. Heck, Carrie could have walked away the moment she realised she was in an alternate reality. But she didn't.

He's not wrong though. It seems everyone sees the Robin's and Batgirls and Batman and Batwoman and thinks 'yeah I could do that, that'd be awesome' not realising the kind of horrors and knifes edge they wade through night after night.

You can't lie about this kind of thing to another Robin. It's an unspoken bond. They all -know- what it means to be a warden of the night. "Because of the car? Yeah I was wondering that myself."

What separates a Robin from any ol' person with a bit of martial arts training and a grudge against crime? it might be unquantifiable but there's a reason they don't end up dead in a ditch somewhere. No hardened Gotham criminal would hesitate to take a Batbrat down if they got the chance.

She turns around and leans back against the workbench. Of all the Robin's Damian was the exception. He didn't grow up in Gotham. His childhood was even harder. "Some people think they have no one to turn to. No friends, no family, nothing else left. They think they can do the job. They get in too deep and that's when they remember everything they've got to lose. And their enemies remind them. There was a young guy called Warren who wanted to be Robin. He was the same age as me - he took on a mob boss called The Facts. It didn't take too long until he'd made a menace of himself."

"Usual story, Facts found out who he was and made his life a living hell. Bats and I saved his family, Warren quit and moved to California with them. This Dykstra guy has too many connections. All those old mob ties are going to come back to haunt him."

She pauses a moment, "May be we can save him the pain by reminding him there are people out there who care for him. Old friends, family, people he went to school with. If he pushes them away we know he's headed for the wrong side of the track."

Of course none of this was about Dykstra. There's a knowing sympathy in her eyes; she's been here plenty of times herself. "We make the most of it. We're the ones who survived the crucible so people like him don't have to."

Damian Wayne has posed:
A connection. Definitely a connection. Damian stands motionless and silent as Carrie speaks, the true sign that someone is focused on your words. "Yeah," is all he says, the tone and volume of that single word spoken in the language of all Robins everywhere.

Blinking his eyes a few times quickly -- the damned air is so damp down here, isn't it? -- Damian lowers his head and walks over to Carrie's gear, perhaps walking a half a pace too quickly. "This line has a small imperfection," he murmurs in a tone that suggests he's trying not to think or feel something right now. With expert fingers, Damian separates it out and tosses it in a trash bin, then gets a fresh line out of a storage cabinet.

Once he replaces the line in Carrie's gear, he peers once more into that bin.

"It's flawed."

Carrie Kelley has posed:
That small piece of care from her Batbrother makes her realise just how deep in it Damian is tonight. He's not the type you hug. He's not Tim. He's far too much like his father - oh how she wished she could get a hug from Bruce. When she did get that hug it meant so much more because of all the times he hadn't hugged her prior.

"Thanks," she says and connects the line in to her grappling ascender so that it's the next one she uses. "Theseus's grappling line. We shed the bits that have served their time but the whole is still the same."

She faces Damian and folds her arms across her chest; but not in the 'stay away' kind of posture. "It's perfect. Proof that it was of use and it did its job. Now that it's had some TLC it's ready to go again."

She narrows her eyes a little. "Are you going to watch these movies with me or not? I'll make popcorn. And I'll tell you all the awful bits of acting Eric Stoltz did in the version my reality had." As if to emphasis she gives a very wooden rendition of "Doc.. NOooo"

Damian Wayne has posed:
Damian /does/ occasionally smile, but not often. But at Carrie's mention of the Greek hero, one corner of his mouth tics upward. It counts! It's technically a smile. Sorta. "Like us. Batman sheds the old Robins who have served their purpose, but the whole is still the same."

Upon Carrie posing the question about movies and popcorn, Damian heaves a big sigh. He looks Carrie up and down silently. It's absolutely not any sort of avaricious way. No, it's an assessment of respect. "I'll hop in the shower and meet you in whatever that room with the TV and the fabric couches and that weird elk head mounted on the wall is called." Damian strides toward the elevator. He stops short and with his back still to Carrie he adds, "Don't you dare tell anyone I watched Back to the Future and ate popcorn."

Carrie Kelley has posed:
Her lips press in to a slightly thin line. Giving up the name Robin was hard. Very hard. But she woke up in an alternate reality where there had already been several other Robin's and even a current one. Perhaps that is part of being a Robin too - letting go.

"Alright. But hey Damian..." She says to his back before he's completely gone. "We never stop being Robin. Even when another takes the title."