extrapolating: (pic#12114179)
elizabeth. ([personal profile] extrapolating) wrote in [community profile] awashlogs2018-06-15 02:03 pm

we're all learning something today [closed]

Who: Elizabeth + The Waynes (Damian and Bruce)
What: Damian convinced Elizabeth to trying opening a Tear. It goes Places
Where: The outskirts of town
When: Before the woofs event
Warnings: Mentions of character death and spoilers for Bioshock Infinite if you haven't played it!


[ Damian had mentioned trying to open a Tear a while ago, and honestly, Elizabeth had forgotten about it to some extent. Between fasting and seeing the Tower for a week, she'd had other things on her mind. And really, seeing the Tower just made her all the more sure of what she'd told him. She didn't want to go back. Even if this colorless town was strange and sometimes dangerous, she couldn't entertain the idea that she might go back to Columbia.

This reality, whatever it was? This was her home now. It had to be.

But she had promised to look into it.

So after a quick message to Damian that she was ready to try, she had gone to the outskirts of town just to be safe. Her Tears didn't usually cause problems, but she also hadn't tried to actually create one in a very long time. And in a place where there didn't seem to be any... Well, she thought it better to be careful.

Elizabeth is patiently waiting, and as the father-son duo approaches, they'll actually hear her humming before she actually sees them. ]

bittybat: (yall pray for me so i can)

[personal profile] bittybat 2018-06-15 08:08 pm (UTC)(link)
[For the time being, he kept the fact he met someone who could open rifts in reality a secret even from Bruce, not until he heard from her about any attempts. Bruce may have already met her and found out the same information anyway.

But when he gets word she's going to try, he sends his father a message, too, asking to meet at the conjunction of town and outskirts so they could walk together to Elizabeth. Along the way, Damian explains the conversation (very abbreviatedly) they had during the color trials.

Alternate realities, tears, thin space and time, her being able to see and open them.

Damian doesn't wave when he gets there, but he does nod in acknowledgment. Bruce is the more sociable of the two of them, or at least more sociable as Bruce Wayne than Batman. Damian is dumb enough to suck no matter what he's wearing.]
batsuits: HE'S SO PRETTY (bw – boi。)

[personal profile] batsuits 2018-06-15 08:22 pm (UTC)(link)
[ There's a few connections Bruce makes when Damian explains -- the girl he talked about the Lutece particle with, her familiarity with alternate realities, her enthusiasm over the science of them and then this? It makes sense. It's almost (almost) disappointing to find she is a metahuman and thus, that's where her interest comes from but he won't hold it against her. Instead, he lets his curiosity guide him.

He follows in step with Damian as Damian leads them to the meeting place, dressed in the clothes Damian has procured for them and his hands tucked loosely in his pockets -- stance lax in the Bruce Wayne way rather than held taut like Batman. Ace is here with them as well, dutifully following behind the Waynes and his tail beginning to wag as he sees Elizabeth. She was always nice to him after all.

And it's true that he's the more sociable of the two, to a given extent, in that when he sees Elizabeth -- he actually gives a greeting. ]


Elizabeth. A pleasure to see you again.
bittybat: (“shit it’s 2 a.m.” i say every day)

[personal profile] bittybat 2018-06-15 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
[The only thing giving them away is perhaps how similar they look in the face. If Damian isn't a weird, time-pulled version of young Bruce, then they're related somehow. Weird.]

I asked him to come. He's-- [Damian cuts his eyes up at Bruce a second.] --a scientist. Among other things.

[You're welcome, Dad. He gives Ace a brisk pat on the back and side, sending the dog off to go greet Elizabeth as they come up closer to stop.] Have you tried yet?
batsuits: wait you have a kangaroo (bw – look。)

[personal profile] batsuits 2018-06-15 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[ There's a slight raise of Bruce's eyebrows when Elizabeth addresses him in surprise because well, he expected her to know of their connection. Bruce has been frank about it, by necessity, but Damian's own approach is a little more complicated. So, when Damian replies like... that, all Bruce does is look to him with a curious look before back to Elizabeth. ]

Among other things.

[ It's repeated and his tone is a little amused, just to get under Damian's skin before he continues in a light and breezy tone. ]

I assure you, I'm simply an observer and will help if anything gets out of hand. Damian mentioned you haven't tried this for a while now and I wouldn't want either of you to do this alone, in that case.
bittybat: <user name="probono"> (too many songs about love.)

[personal profile] bittybat 2018-06-15 10:02 pm (UTC)(link)
[One of Damian's eyebrows rise, and he glances up at Bruce at the mention of a "book." See what kind of information he gets when he skirts around certain things? Like the fact they're related.

What book? his eyes ask. Bruce doesn't have it, but he wants to see this book.

He looks again at Elizabeth, down at Ace, then back up to her. She hasn't tried, so at the most, they didn't miss anything. His eyes scour the scenery around and behind her, like he's expecting to see some kind of "Tear," but nothing exists yet.]
A magnanimous decision.

Go ahead. Father and I will watch.
batsuits: who gives you the right (bw – pretty。)

[personal profile] batsuits 2018-06-18 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[ There's definitely a silent exchange here between Damian and Bruce, Bruce looks back to him at the same time with a subtly wry look. He'll lend him the book when he gets it, it's not necessarily about this but... close enough.

But if it's on Bruce to be the pleasant one here, he supposes he'll try. He's never going to be Dick in any way whatsoever but yes, he'll try. ]


We appreciate you sharing as well, Elizabeth.
bittybat: (me: i’m not like other girls. other girl)

[personal profile] bittybat 2018-06-18 06:35 pm (UTC)(link)
[A part of him is as skeptical about this as... well, as the typical Bat skepticism usually goes. Seeing in believing. But he's at least patient, and stands beside Bruce like a sentinel once he calls Ace back over to sit near them.

What if she's a quack? Are they actually standing here, ready, prepared, just for her to not be able to do what she claims?

His eyes narrow when the fabric of reality begins to split, and then his face falls into something surprised. The wind from the opening whips his clothes and his hair, but he doesn't budge in his place. It's like he imagined. It's like what opened and sucked him and Jon in, except bigger.

Slowly, he turns and looks up at his father with the same sort of intrigued surprise. She did it. What do they do with it now? A tear opened to the same town, locking them in.]
batsuits: (bm – oh。)

[personal profile] batsuits 2018-06-22 09:53 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The thing is -- the description of tears, it's quite impossible to picture. Just opening a rip in the air, going to an alternate universe? That's so mind-boggling and if Bruce hadn't seen similar before in his life, he might truly not buy Elizabeth's ability. Yet, he still wonders what the rules for it are -- he thinks of things like Midnighter's doors. They're rectangular in shape and while he can open them anywhere, for the most part, there are still certain guidelines on where exactly they'll appear. No alternate universes either.

So, he wants to know what the guidelines for Elizabeth's tears are. What makes them different from other portals? How can she produce them so easily? Can she choose where they open to at all?

When the tear appears, his eyebrows slowly raise in sincere admiration and he is impressed, truly, by the magic (science?) he's seeing right now. He looks to Damian at the same time he looks to Bruce before he breaks away and starts to move closer. ]


It's... the same town, but different. It's still all grey or is that -- can you usually see color when you look through tears, Elizabeth?

[ He's saying this as he moves closer, holding a hand out to feel the strange sensation of the air around the tear as he circles it. There's a widening of eyes as he goes around the back and sees that it's still there, it just sort of... moves in his vision, to take up the space Elizabeth is holding it open in. Fascinating. ]

Have you ever gone through one?
bittybat: artse • dreamwidth (i am so small and bitter)

i changed my mind i wanted to give bruce a heart attack

[personal profile] bittybat 2018-06-25 02:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[While Bruce goes forward, Damian stands in the same place and--broods. There's wind, he supposes like opening a door or window, but there isn't any gravity. He's not being sucked toward the opening and swallowed. The portal is stable.

And the most frustrating part is the town on the opposite side. Maybe it is a pocket dimension, this place. Opening a wormhole just means opening it within the same plane of existence. Annoying.

Finally, he picks his way over to the two of them and the Tear. His eyes watch his father make a loop around, and then, like Elizabeth, he peers inside. They're never going to know. Clearly, if Elizabeth could pass through them and return, anyone can. Right? They need to know if this is just a fast means of travel or a whole other reality.

So, after a second or two of thoughtful scowling, Damian steps through the Tear.]
batsuits: (bm – blargh。)

sorry liz sorry so sorry

[personal profile] batsuits 2018-06-25 03:10 pm (UTC)(link)
[ There's a glance to Elizabeth then at her words. ]

You could see them -- but no one else could? Were they the same grey like this or is it different here, more similar to the town itself?

[ But her last bit... that's the real catch because what he wants to know is very reliant on what he wants to do next: ]

What if it closed on you?

[ See, Bruce is about to become a really big hypocrite because he's absolutely considering stepping through himself. He's been standing here, observing, wondering the dangers involved here. He wishes he had his batsuit, fuck. That would make testing the stability of the tear so much easier but for now all he can do is bend down to pick up a rock, considering tossing it through.

Except as he's bending down, he looks up to see Damian just stepping right through the tear and he is going to strangle a thirteen year old. ]


Damian, no!

[ He gets up, moving to grab Damian but he's already through the tear so Bruce does exactly one expects an overprotective dad like Bruce to do -- and he steps right through after him. SORRY, ELIZABETH. He's still reaching out to grab Damian's collar in an effort to drag him back, at least. Even if they're... now both... on the other side of the tear. ]
bittybat: artse • dreamwidth (sneeze on your knuckles)

[personal profile] bittybat 2018-06-25 04:46 pm (UTC)(link)
[To be honest, when he first goes through, there isn't much he feels is wrong. Not exactly. It feels like he's passing through some of those dangling beads across a doorway. One town is exchanged for another just like it, and the only difference (he can tell for the moment) is Bruce and Elizabeth are yelling at him from the other side.

Which just makes Ace start barking, too.

Everything is fi-- Unsteadily, he staggers back when Bruce grabs him by the collar, and he can hear a familiar certain voice growled in the space near. Hell--his father had stepped through, too.]
It's fine. There's nothing--

[Half turned, he watches as the opening of the Tear is sucked down into nothing despite Elizabeth's struggles. It's gone. He gets exactly one second to glance up at Bruce. The town begins trying to spit them out--in?

The world distorts horrendously, wobbling and unsteady, like looking into a funhouse mirror. There's pressure, building, bubbling from behind and below, and Damian grabs his father by the forearm.]
It's going to-- [He wants to say it's unstable enough to vomit them out, and yet...

A part of him worries it's going to crush them by collapsing.]
Father! [It's not exactly the scream Bruce heard during the yellow trial, but it's exceptionally worried. He's ready, barely: to be smashed like a can or hurled twenty feet across the ground.

But what he gets is dead eyes and black vision, like he's blind, and then he gets Bruce halfway through a portal before it closes. A guillotine. It cuts Bruce diagonally through the middle. When he "wakes up," it's back in the town with Elizabeth and Ace and Bruce and with a short, sharp scream.

Mistakes.]
batsuits: (bm – nooo。)

[personal profile] batsuits 2018-06-25 05:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Bruce is close enough to the other side of the tear that when it snaps closed, he can feel the slight gust of wind behind him as it goes. It makes his eyes widen and he looks back, the space it once resided in looking absolutely... fine? It's like they're in the same town, except for the odd splashes of color here -- only this one is entirely grey, including the two of them. Something about it unsettles Bruce completely, even more so than Chroma and his grip on Damian stays locked tight as a result.

Then he can feel the shift, the way reality seems to bend around them, adjusting and changing and Bruce makes sure to drag Damian even closer, swapping the hand on his collar for an arm around his shoulders as he grips him tight and holds on. Damian's panicking now, he can feel the tenseness of him and when he yells for him, Bruce looks down at where he's holding him and it's -- nothing? He doesn't know why he's yelling, all he knows is reality even gets even stranger, his eyes not quite understanding what they're seeing until --

It's like a vacuum, he feels them squeezed tighter and tighter and then they're spat right back out on the ground in front of Elizabeth and Ace. Ace is still barking erratically, frightened by the disappearance and reappearance of the two Waynes and Bruce is trying desperately to make sense of what he just saw.

Unthinkingly, he drags Damian forward, gets his other arm around him and holds him close. When he looks down again at Damian, his nostrils flare and eyes go wide because something -- something's happened, there's a large pool of blood in the middle of his chest and no, no, no. Not again. Bruce was right here, there was nothing there, how could Damian be hurt right in front of him when he could've protected him, could've saved him --

But then Damian is jerking forward in his arms with a scream and the blood is gone and Bruce's jaw clenches as he tightens his grip on Damian and he hugs him tighter to his chest, pressing his forehead to his hair and holding on for a moment. ]


Damian. You're fine. You're alive. We're both alive.

[ His eyes squeeze shut and just like that, Elizabeth is left with a pile of very distraught Waynes as Ace moves forward to start sniffing and licking at them both. ]
bittybat: me, when ppl ask me to do something important: i am 12 years old (me when ppl think i'm 12:)

[personal profile] bittybat 2018-06-25 08:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[Between the three of them, no one is fine. Everyone is especially Not Fine, and maybe Damian is the most not okay this whole month between being invisible to Dad, being hassled by the Bogeyman, and being a werewolf.

The portal was, surprisingly (?), fine up until the town decided it wasn't.

For a moment, he thinks Bruce is smothering him in the squeezing arms, then he realizes he's only partially hyperventilating. Curling his fingers, he sucks air in through his nose and releases it out of his mouth a few times. His father isn't clutching at him from the torso up. Thank God.

He watches Elizabeth over the edge of Bruce's shoulder, unfocused at first, and then paying attention to the distress. It gives him something to sort as he comes down from the harrowing jostle of portal jumping, allowing him to compartmentalize the anxiety, the adrenaline, the fear.

They went in and came back out in one piece. He's not sure if what he had seen was because of the portal destabilizing or... the town. He doesn't say anything to Bruce about it; not right now at least.]
Father.

The girl.
batsuits: (bw – oof。)

[personal profile] batsuits 2018-06-25 08:55 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Part of him doesn't want to let go of Damian -- the stability of having him physically there helping Bruce keep his head on straight even as his mind tries to produce horrors that are false, completely untrue but still frightening. He knows if he lets go of the hold on his own sanity and vision for a moment, he'll see things he can't come back from.

But of course, there's another part of him, the one that looks to Damian when he addresses him and looks back towards Elizabeth where she's collapsed on the ground. It's the part of him that knows he can't just leave her there, that he's the protector and in some way, this was all his responsibility. The pain they're all feeling right now is his fault and he has to quickly make sure the other two are okay, that they're safe. He grits his teeth, slowly letting go of Damian so he can extract himself from their hold and pushing up from the ground to make his way to Elizabeth.

He approaches low, hands outstretched as he sinks to a knee in front of her and slowly takes hold of Elizabeth around her elbows. His voice is gentle, even with his own heart hammering in his chest and the mixture of adrenaline and fear making him want to vomit. ]


Elizabeth, breathe. It's not real, what you're seeing is just a hallucination. It's... [ A pause, he quickly puts a few pieces together. The tear, Elizabeth, what just happened and -- ] The town. It's not real.

[ One hand moves to gently pet Elizabeth's hair, trying to calm her down in any way he can. He glances to Damian who is definitely being whined at by Ace now that Bruce has moved away and then back to Elizabeth. ]

You didn't do anything wrong. I am so sorry, we acted rashly despite your warnings. But it's okay, we're all okay.
bittybat: (pic#12305861)

[personal profile] bittybat 2018-06-26 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)
[Almost immediately, Damian's head dips a little down like a puppy that's watching its master roll up the newspaper. Bruce says, "We acted rashly," but really, he knows, he acted rashly. The two of them blame themselves for something that, in the end, he obstructed by being bold.

What's worse than knowing he'll get a talking to later is the fact that, now after three years, being self-aware hurts more than any scolding. The difference between fucking up and knowing you fucked up.

Carefully, Damian reaches up to reassure Ace by petting the dog along the neck and shoulder. He's quiet. Going in didn't feel as stupid as not knowing how to react once he did. Clinging to his father like a braindead simpleton. Ridiculous.

He picks himself up to his feet, finding his balance with a hand on Ace's back. He's glad his father is here. He'd be fine, but personally, he's unsure whether or not he could find the right words to say to her after this mess.

Bruce hadn't necessarily acted any more strangely than usual. Damian knows what he saw. He assumes now, by Elizabeth's distress, she may have seen something similar. Then again, she could just have been terrified for their safety.]
batsuits: (bm – ah。)

[personal profile] batsuits 2018-06-29 03:44 pm (UTC)(link)
[ That does it. Elizabeth's return to awareness and Damian clearly alive in front of him, Bruce is able to take a breath. He drops into the grass next to Elizabeth with a soft oof and the hand in her hair drops to her shoulder, squeezing lightly before he lets go of her and lets his arms hang over his knees. His eyes are on Damian from here, the way he interacts with Ace and he can only imagine what's going through his head right now. It's easy to predict for Bruce -- they both know Damian was the catalyst here and while Bruce is still wondering what to say about it, Damian is very much going to beat himself up into Bruce finds his words.

Then Bruce hears a soft thumping nearby, something landing in the grass with them and he looks. He regrets it moments after when he sees Selina's head, and just her head, rolling towards him from the toss and in reaction, his hands clench into fist, his heart hammers in his chest. No. That's not -- it's not real. He closes his eyes again and when he opens them, he realizes it's just an apple that fell off a tree nearby. He frowns before looking back at the other two.

It's sheer luck that he's had so much practice controlling his reaction to hallucinations like this. Thanks, Crane.

Bruce is quiet for a moment, watching the two of them recover and he knows, he's the adult here, they're both just kids. Fuck, he needs to do something, to bring the levity back to them both. It's not something natural for him but it's something he knows is necessary. Damian and him usually handle situations like this their own way, but Elizabeth isn't anything like them. She doesn't deserve this. ]


... Clark. Made some cake. [ He doesn't actually know. He's just assuming because -- well, it's Clark. ] Would you both like to go get some?