Owner	Pose
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe Beacon has never had to hide the fact that she was a martial artist. It was widely known, could be seen in her yearbooks from gradeschool to her last appearance in the Gotham Public School system last year that she took pride in it. She moved through an open area on some mats, barefoot and wearing yoga leggings with happy little llamas on them and an athletic top. Her left arm was bared, shwoing all the scarring and burned-in circles. The doors were open, letting in fresh air and the whisper of rain on the breeze as she moved through formsas familiar to her as the streets of the cities she called home, and the smell of chlorine from the pool.     Her hair was bound back in an orange head wrap today, keeping everything neat and out of the way.
Damian Wayne	Coincidental timing is coincidental! Damian just finished some study and prep work for finals exams -- or Happy Harbor Final Jokes, as he calls them -- and decided to head to the gym for a workout and a swim. He is dressed in black gym shorts and a plain black T-shirt (not exactly Mr. Happy Colors), and is barefoot. Phoebe may catch his movement from the corner of her eye but she won't hear him. Dressed like that, he is quiet enough to sneak up on his own shadow. I mean, he *is* literally a ninja.     Sometimes our boy forgets himself. Even for the likes of Damian, maintaining a dour countenance requires the expenditure of energy. So when he sees that Phoebe is here in the gym he accidentally allows a pleased smile to cross his lips. "Phoebe," he says in greeting. No derisive nicknames for her. She is in the same grouping as Alfred or Tim in that regard. "Will my presence here distract you? I can come back later."
Phoebe Beacon	Oh good, our girl already has a rolling identity crisis. Nicknames just further muddy the water.     She had caught the movement (Bruce would be so happy with her situational awareness!), and she pauses a moment, looking over to her 'little brother'.     "Morning Damian!" she cheerily greets the blood heir "-- no, not at all. I'm used to doing this in a classroom with thirteen other students." she jokes, and then brings herself around, bringing the business end of the staff she was using down to solidly hit against the mat.     "Gym is *probably* big enough for the both of us."
Damian Wayne	"It certainly is. But I am aware that some people find my presence to be disagreeable," the teen says as he grabs a jumprope off the wall. "To a certain extent I cultivate that." Damian begins expertly jumping rope to warm himself up and loosen up his muscles. He continues talking while jumping rope, and he may as well be sitting down in in an easy chair in the den for all of the effort that is exhibited in his voice. "You're working on staff techniques," Mr. Obvious comments. "You have a wide range of skills -- healing, magic, fighting. You would make a desirable patrol partner."     Then he increases his jumping rate and begins to cross his hands from side to side as he jumps.
Phoebe Beacon	"Staff was my preferred weapon. Before I learned better and got a little help controlling my powers, I would end up healing people I was fighting." Phoebe explained, "Staves gave me the reach I needed and the leverage to take on more and larger foes than me. I was kinda shrimpy three years ago when I first started out." she explains, and she gives a small grin.     "Everyone's got a wide range of skills. Almost everyone in the Bat Family are really brilliant investigators. Knowledgable. Dedicated --" she draws up her staff again, and procedes through another round of forms.     "Dick is the best acrobat among us. Jason's knowledge of firearms is peerless -- and he's good for providing reality checks when some of us get too idealistic. Tim's technological knowledge is both feared and envied, Cass can read body language like nothing else. Stephanie's brilliant, and you are the most deadly sixteen-year-old I've ever met."
Damian Wayne	A small frown. There is he is! Damian is back. Who knows exactly which part of Phoebe's commentary made him frown. There are so many things in the world that elicit that response from the teen. Trying to run them all down is a fool's errand.     Eventually Damian puts the jumprope back on the wall. The little shit doesn't even have the courtesy to perspire from it. Now that he is warmed up, he starts going through some stretching routines.     "I personally don't like the staff. It is a weapon that was developed under duress, when peasants and farmers were prohibited from possessing weapons. It is, by definition, a compromise."     He rolls back on his shoulders and extends his legs out straight and touches his toes to the ground.     "The katana is a weapon that is deadly, graceful, and beautiful. Learning to use it takes hours, learning to master it takes a lifetime." Damian has an unrivaled katana collection. "Father, of course, prefers that I spend more time emphasizing less deadly weapons. And honoring his wishes has value to me." That...that was the Damian Wayne equivalent of saying 'I love my father.' He doesn't say vulnerable things like that in front of very many people.     He eases himself back up and into a lotus position. He sits calmly watching Phoebe do her forms. Alert, analytical eyes take in every move she does.
Phoebe Beacon	"An everyman's weapon, but also one of aesthetic monks and pacifists. Arguably the first weapon." Phoebe gives a slight grin, and she spins her staff around.     "I'm a healer by birth. My biological mother was a healer and studied to be a doctor. Her mother before her was a healer. And so on, and so on, stretching back to the ancient Egyptians, apparently, if the book with my family history is to be believed." Phoebe explains to Damian. "The Katana was a symbol of the warrior caste; you had to be able to afford one. I'm not of noble bearings." Phoebe states, and she brings her staff around, in a ready position.     "I walk so many worlds that my feet get tired. I'm pretty sure you might be able to understand, considering the very narrow line you have to walk."
Damian Wayne	A slight shrug. "My trajectory has been relatively simple compared to yours. Until my life with my father began, I was given very few choices about much of anything. The result is that I have an impractical and wholly unnecessary level of martial skill at the cost of extreme social maladjustment. I can't even..." Okay, stop. Damian stops talking suddenly. He isn't fully accustomed to how much trust Phoebe engenders. Combine that with the fact that he holds so much inside and lives such an isolated life, and we end up with him saying things to her that he never meant to say.     Do you know what's good for staving off embarrassment? Push-ups! From the lotus position, Damian rolls over into the push-up position, holding himself up not with the palms of his hands, but with his index and middle fingers. He starts to pump them out at a rapid pace.
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe looks over at Damian, and then looks towards the doors to the main building, and with a raise of her hand there's the subtle 'click' of the lock engaging.     She sits down then, her staff held at her side as she also sinks into a lotus position, and regards Damian with a small smile.     "You know you can talk to me about anything, Damian, and it will stay with me. I know the value of a secret, but I also know the value of being able to ask questions you don't feel like anyone can answer." she states quietly. "Bruce brought me here because my isolation wasn't good for me." she explains, and laying her staff across her lap, she lightly touches the scarification on her left arm.
Damian Wayne	For a moment it seems like Damian is going to ignore Phoebe. He just continues rapidly doing push-ups, his upper body supported by two fingers of each hand. Fifty of them, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety...how long will the silence go on? Finally, Damian lithely shifts from push-ups to a lotus, facing Phoebe but very distinctly *not* looking at her. He looks down at his lap. He's frowning deeply. His earlobes are red. There is even a slight, angry tremble to his hands. But at least he's finally showing some signs of working out: a slightly elevated breathing rate, a small amount of perspiration forming in his hair. Apparently he's human after all.     "I can't tell a girl that I really like her. I feel so stupid in front of her and lack the syntax and language skills to translate my complex feelings into words. When other children were learning the give-and-take of social interaction, I was learning the most efficient ways to kill."
Phoebe Beacon	"That is, incidentally, absolutely normal -- the feeling stupid in front of the people you like thing. I can one hundred percent back that up." Phoebe states with a dry tone of her voice. She rests her hands, one on top of the other, palm-up in her lap.     "What is she like?" she asks, eyebrows rising up. "Does she like sports? Activities? The arts?"
Damian Wayne	Damian lifts his head to look directly at Phoebe. He really is a dashing young man. "You know her," he replies. "She is a member of the Outsiders. Gabby Kinney." That's all the direct eye contact Damian can handle for the moment.     "We haven't spent a lot of time in deep conversation. I know she likes the outdoors. She loves animals. Ace is crazy about her...but he tends to like anyone who is willing to rub his belly. She's a total badass who can make bone spikes come out of her fists!" As he describes her, Damian's body language begins to relax and he seems genuinely absorbed in it. "She heals injuries and poisons and stuff. She has total badass scars on her face that I..."     Ooops. Emotional speed bump! He pauses, lowers his head, shrugs. His voice calms and goes quiet. "...that I want to touch and tell her that I think they make her look beautiful."     Phoebe Beacon is now the only person in the multiverse who has heard Damian bear his soul like that.
Phoebe Beacon	Finding out that it's Gabby makes Phoebe both relieved and a little bit worried. She leans back a moment then looking up to the ceiling as she thinks and considers.     "She is a badass. Certifiable. One of the few people who I let hug me. She's a good person and cares a lot about people, especially her teammates and her sisters." she considers a moment.     "Invite her to spar sometime. Talk to her about her admirable qualities -- maybe not the scars, not in the first couple meet-ups." she states, and embarrassedly motions to her left arm. "Some girls get embarrassed. There's a lot of pressure on us to be beautiful one hundred percent of the time." she replies thoughtfully.     "She likes gummy sharks and other candy, she's got a sweet tooth." she thinks. Then she purses her lips.     "Ask her to go to a trampoline park. Rent the whole place out so you two can show off your physical prowess, cut loose, and have fun... but most importantly, Dams?" she gives a wry smile.     "Don't be afraid to be a little volnerable around her. You have better people skills than you think, but you're wrapped up in the cultivated persona that you find everything boring. Don't let that become your life, either. It's very, very lonely."
Damian Wayne	Damian stats blinking his eyes rapidly. It's rough when you're chopping onions and stuff. It's dusty in here. Hay fever sucks. "I don't deserve to be happy. You can't imagine the things I've done. Murder. Torture. Humiliation. I killed Golia...." In his lotus position, he leans forward and touches his forehead to the ground as he becomes awash in total embarrassment as sobs involuntarily wrack his body. "...Goliath's entire family. Everyone knows he's an orphan. He's an orphan because I'm a murderer."     Damian suddenly and viciously pops up into a standing position. Given how close he is sitting to Phoebe, it might be startling. He goes over to a hanging heavy bag and starts to deliver punches and kicks savagely on it. Despite his small, reed-thin frame, the bag bounces and sways wildly from the power of each strike.
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe takes a deep breath as Damian speaks. SHe lets him get it out, but at the sobbing, she leans forward, her hands moving, but pausing, watching as he touches his forehead to the ground and sobs. Her own face softens, and she leans over a little bit, reaching out hesitantly to put her hand on his shoulder.     And then Damian pops up like a Jack-in-the-Box, and startles Phoebe so that she leans back and out of the way -- watching as he goes to wail on a bunching bag.     And Phoebe gets up. She walks over, and she braces herself, holding the bag in place for Damian.     "On orders from the LEague?"
Damian Wayne	For many moments more Damian pounds that bag with such fury. Finally he launches into a jump spinning roundhouse of perfect form. He hits the bag so hard it literally launches up into the air, hangs precariously in the air a moment, then plunges swiftly downward. The bag falls with such force than when the length of chain holding the bag up goes taught, the vibrations can be felt in the floor. The steel chain holds.     "My training was over. I had barely started puberty and none of my so-called peers could best me. So grandfather and mother began my formal initiation into the League of Assassins. One year of daily missions, each more brutal and vicious than the last. The tests were physical, to be sure, but that was not their purpose. They already knew I was more than physically capable of being a Master Assassin. The tests were designed to rip me apart morally so that I could find refuge only amongst the League."     Damian sits back down on the floor. He tugs one knee up this chest and rests his chin on it. "Now I can never have a legacy. My future is poisoned by my past. What I wouldn't give to meet a girl..." He doesn't same a name. He doesn't say Gabby. "...and go somewhere far away where nobody can find us. Raise animals. Have children. Be at peace."     A deep frown. A patented Damian Wayne frown. He shakes his head. "But that is a selfish conceit, and a waste of my capabilities. I owe a debt that I can never repay, and I will spend every day of my life paying it until my life is done." His voice sinks into a soft, soft whisper. "Then I will pass into the hell that I deserve."
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe listens, holding the bag, but releasing as Damian unleashes a spin kick. She steps back, ducking out of the way, and as Damian Wayne sinks down, she mirros his movements. Bright and happy llama pants and orange hair wrap to his dark countenence.     And she listens.     And she lets his words hang in the air a moment, and then she reaches out with her hand, offering it, face u p. A hand to hold.     "Your future isn't known, Damian." Phoebe answers back. "I have seen Hell. You don't belong there." she states softly, and she reaches out with her hands, and she holds his shoulders.     She leans forward, putting her forehead against his.     "And if I should find you there, I shall find you, and I shall free you. You are my brother, Damian."
Damian Wayne	Damian stiffens a little bit. But then he closes his eyes and leans into Phoebe's touch, relaxing. Two broken toys in the toy box sharing some comfort.     After several quiet moments: "You are a good soul. Father was wise to bring you into this family. You are my sister in all of the ways that have real meaning. I will always be there when you need me."
Phoebe Beacon	Phoebe stays like that, forehead against forehead with Damian, gently squeezing her hands at his shoulders, and when she pulls away, she smiles.     "He saw someone who needed help, and helped them. It's what Bruce does." she smiles. She'd never call Bruce her dad, she decided, but Damian and Tim, Steph and Cass and Dick and Babs, Alfred and Julia?     They were her family as much as Chas and Geraldine.     "And whenever you need a touch of magic in your life, I will be there, Sunny D."
Damian Wayne	Damian jumps back up to his feet. There is only so much emotional stuff the teen can take for now. It's all very new to him. "I'm going for a swim," he announces as he tugs off his T-shirt. Ten-pack abs, ripped body, blah blah blah. We all know the drill, everyone around this house is built like a photoshopped supermodel. "Maybe later if you're feeling it we can do a patrol."     He heads over to the pool, drops his T-shirt on the deck (Alfred will scold him later, no doubt), and dives into the water.