fridgetothefire | 041 ☣ something for everyone

[Filtered to graduates/wardens who were once inmates]

What did you sacrifice, to graduate?

Someone asked me recently, and I didn't have an answer. I'm wondering if that's strange.

[Filtered to wardens who were never inmates.]

Do any of you feel trapped here? Or have you, in the past, because you needed your deal so badly? It just - it seems like a much more important distinction, in some ways, between wardens and inmates, than being able to get a drink without asking someone to buzz you in first, that we can walk away and they can't.

But I'm not sure it's that straightforward.

[Filtered to inmates]

How many of you want to change? Not to graduate, that's a very different question, and not necessarily into - whoever the admiral wants you to be. Just change, in general.

Do you want to be different than you are, in any way, or not?

[Private to the Admiral]

[Wryly, amiably.]

I don't suppose you'll tell me what you're getting out of all this.

[Spam for Harvey]

[For a long time, she practiced in private. In Bruce's room, in Cass's. She'd work with Natasha or Sokolov or Bea in the gym, because that's where they were, but when she was on her own, without the clear label of 'student' hanging over her, she'd do it with a yoga mat and a locking door. Old paranoid habits, needing to be underestimated. She's realized, lately, how much more convenient the gym is, has been gradually trying to acclimate herself to working through drills under anyone else's eyes. She's there now, moving through forms and combinations Bruce taught her, counting out her breaths. Her lungs are - compensating, slowly, better than they were, even if she'll never quite hit the same caliber of athleticism that she might have otherwise. It feels good, not just to push herself, but to know she's going somewhere.]

[Private to Abigail; wibbly timed to after their conversations with Ben.]

I told you once that I was being as straightforward with you as I knew how to be. In the interest of resurrecting that - this scares me. Not what Ben's doing, me and you.

But I will do everything in my power to take care of both of you, as much as you need.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Her style is just a little askew from his, a with a dash more Krav Maga in it - developed for someone without Bruce's sheer bulk, though Anya isn't really small, and markedly less stamina, someone who needs to be able to end fights brutally and quickly, designed by a version of the Batman who was willing, on occasion, to kill. The fundamentals, though, the synthesis of his travelling and studying, is utterly clear in the swift motion of her limbs.

She breaks, after a little while, grabs her water and takes slow, meditative breaths, bolsters her struggling lungs before going through another round. There's no moment where she notices him, or no obvious one, just the moment when she meets his eyes without surpise and wanders vaguely over.]

Something interesting?

[Signed. She keeps her breathing even. Handy.]

[ He prefers to keep the silence; his hands are up, and a moment later he works through the motions. ]

I see Bruce.

[ His big shovel hands aren't that flexible though she might not know the next sign; he learned it simply because of the man it relates to: arms crossed over his chest, index fingers extended, only to curl twice like the grasp of chiropteric bones. ]

Bat.

[She learned it for similar reasons.]

My first teacher.

[Not last.]

[ He snorts, tired and unhappy; everyone has a piece of Bruce that he didn't. That he lied to him, after all that-- after everything-- it still wounds him. He loved him, once. He was his best friend, he was family, he was a rock and a supporter and -- ]

[ He looks away, mastering the conflict that threatens to spill over his face, out of his mouth. ]

Could have had worse.

[ He can say that at least, without breaking open the floodgate. Respect him as an opponent now. It makes the separation safe; Bruce from Bat, friend from foe, face from mask. ]

[She knows jealousy intimately; it took her months to forgive him for leaving, for loving Jason more.]

He was my first friend, too.

Yours wasn't a killer, right?

[Distinguishing; they each have a Bruce of their own, in a way.]

Edited 2014-02-21 16:55 (UTC)

No. He wasn't.

Could've been, but... [ He doesn't know how he managed not to be, sometime. ]

Didn't mean he was a kinder, gentler man.

[She snorts softly.]

Yeah. Probably not. It drove me nuts, the way he'd clam up. Like - okay, you died for me before we even knew each other, and now I'm spilling my crazy guts out to you and all you can say is 'I see'?

God.

[Stupid man. She loves him a lot.]

He abandoned the Bruce persona. [ He new the difference between Bruce and the Bat now, had gone over all the conversations; knew when he was talking to the man, not one of his masks. At least, he thought he understood. ] Bruce was flightly, good natured chatty.

The Bat, the real him - was none of those things.

[ He paused, considering. ]

He introduced me to my wife and a fundraiser. We got married at the manor. He was the best man.

[ Funny, how he wonders how much of it was act, how much was real. Did he urge him to run for DA because he was his friend or because the Bat needed an in? ]

I never saw him like that.

I'd have liked to, I think.

[Big lies are important; they're part of who you are too. The stories you want to tell, and why, and to whom. Anya knows.]

Maybe. But then you'd have to question what was real, and what was just a face.

[ He'll never get a straight answer. ]

If you tell a story, and it means something, if you aren't just spitting out random words, then it's part of you.

I've worn a lot of faces. Some of them were nothing like me - stupid, meek faces. But there was still something true about them. That I was afraid, that was cautious, that I was quiet and patient and brazen enough to lie so vastly in the first place, that was in there.

He spent half his life wearing that face, didn't he? Designed it, thought about it, generated it moment by moment and thought of the things that man would have thought of, used it to get through the world with. Maybe it wasn't as neat as your faces, maybe it wasn't as dear to him, maybe it didn't have a voice of its own.

But just a face - that sounds, to me, a little like a contradiction in terms.

[Maybe there is no straight answer. Maybe the answer is yes.]

[ It's lucky that Two-Face is relatively content in all this, that he lets Harvey have his time to vent. It's his laziness that allows Harvey the brainpower to process, to put his hands on the jagged, broken plane of glass in his life where everything about Bruce Wayne has been broken over time. It cuts him up to do it; but at least he can gather himself and admit the gap hurts, that the betrayal hurts, that the loss hurts. He can admit to himself that he misses his friend -- both sides of him. ]

[ Bruce was a part of his life; so was Batman. Two faces. Two-Faced. ]

A mask isn't a face; not really. It's a thing you wear, you take off. You'd need to talk to ol' Roman Sionis about those, sometimes. Well, if the fucking prick ever comes to the barge. Now there's a man who nobody regrets being dead.

[ He talks to buy himself time; dazzle the jury of one to regroup, think. Come out swinging. ]

Wear one long enough though, I suppose... it becomes real enough.

[ He glances away, eyes tracking some distant point. The prosecution rests. The Defense for Bruce Wayne takes the trial. ]

Something you can take off. Yes. Well.

[If that's the distinction.]

That makes it a choice, then, doesn't it. Every day, to put it back on. To put it back on that way, instead of one slightly different. You only make a choice like that if it gives you things you need. You're more in control of a mask than a face.

If he used his mask to invite you into his home, it's because he wanted you there.

[And didn't know how to say it as himself. The idiot.]

[ He didn't know how to say anything as himself. A lot. He looked away, before he huffed out a breath. Choice is always a sticky thing with Harvey; other people get it. He does not. ]

He's...

It doesn't matter, anymore, does it?

[ He paused, looking away. This was getting awkwardly feelsy. ]

You done? I'm hitting the shower and getting breakfast.

The past matters.

[It's okay to have feels with your friends, Harvey.]

Nah, I'll probably go do another set. Maybe I'll meet you over waffles later.

Right. See you later.

[ He's going to shuffle off to think about things in the shower, and try not to be angry about Bruce all over again. ]

041 ☣ something for everyone

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