inbox

[pearlstrings]

bruce wayne @ᴡᴀʏɴᴇ @ʙʀᴜᴄᴇ audio & text

PLEASE NOTE: Bruce has two inboxes.

His official user id for the network is Bruce and if you meet in person, in the unlikely event he gave you his contact details, this is the ID he would give you.

That said, his conversations on the network have largely been under the id of Wayne, as a way to keep his two identities separated.
This is the username he uses most often and he will answer replies to that handle- there just seems to be no physical person on the registry to link it to.

Comments

[pearlstrings]

[It's possible that Vanitas hasn't noticed, hasn't accepted that there are other people that find their footing in a place like this. Who are so certain about who they are that the threat of loss, the knowledge of the bad and the ugly isn't enough to force a change. There are other people that can make the generous choices. There are other people to play the role of a knight in shining armor, to perform clean acts of heroism and who have limits around what they're willing to do. How dirty they're willing to get. Bruce has his rules, but there are remarkably few of them. Yes, he wants to help. But his help is what had Alfred stabbed and shot, had his back broken. It killed his uncle, it put Jim Gordon's life in danger time and time again, it was the reason he was murdered. It's the reason Selina has been hurt and betrayed, the reason she was paralyzed, the reason she's something else now.]

I'm used to being alone.

[There's no sense of martyrdom in it either. Why would there be? These things happened because of the choices he's made. And maybe he didn't pull the trigger for his parents, but his inaction is part of the reason they're in the ground and all of the reason that he's not there with them.]

If you want to run, this is your chance.
But you'll never really get away.

[evulsed]

[ There it is again; the similarity. I'm used to being alone. Whether Bruce does it on purpose or not, Vanitas would never be able to tell— but he feels that statement intrinsically, because it's his lived reality. Mercurial as ever, the swell of his fury ebbs out into something more manageable, a settled thing that rolls around under his skin but isn't threatening to burst violently out anymore.

He hasn't forgiven Bruce. It's likely that he never will, just because he's the sort of person to carry these things like an albatross, but it's in his expression— that he isn't going to lay in to the young man across from him anymore with the intent he'd approached just minutes before.

Vanitas' gaze carves over Bruce's face as he speaks. It falls from his eyes to follow the shape his mouth makes as he forms the words. His gaze stays stuck there, like he's memorizing it visually as much as absorbing it by hearing alone. With abrupt clarity, he remembers what happened with Riku, when they'd had their last explosive fight; he remembers what he'd seen in Quentin's memory.

Love and hate skirt the same sharp edges. ]

You can't get rid of me that easily.

[ He says, and his eyes flick back to Bruce's own, and despite his word choice, it's clear he knows that had never been Bruce's intention. ]

[pearlstrings]

Then you'll need to come to terms with this too.

[What could be a word of defiance anywhere else is a statement of fact here. Some people are mutable and while Bruce understands that he too is undergoing a kind of change, this isn't one of the qualities in chrysalis. This won't lock itself up tight and emerge as something softer and more beautiful and he knows that. But there's no protecting Vanitas from the truth of it the same way there'd been no protecting Selina.

They'd had a conversation like this once, about compromise. About choices. About the overlap that happens when an emotion isn't all light any more than it's all dark. Even now he can remember the precise weight of that opal in his hands and there's a kind of irony to be found there too. The way Vanitas had leveled the accusation at him back then: She didn't act like it.]

I'm not a prince from a story.
Like I said. Sacrifice.

[evulsed]

[ Vanitas flickers; something about his stance, or maybe his expression. It would almost be a flinch, if there were more to it, if it lasted longer. Instead, it's the sort of thing that would be missed by a blink.

I think you feel other things, first.
Everything is a risk.
It does always require sacrifice.

It's difficult to remain furious, when this other emotion starts to shoulder it's way into his heart. Vanitas isn't finished being angry, he still wants to be cross with Bruce— but it's clear in the pinch in the corner of his mouth that the shape and taste of it has changed.

Very abruptly, he punches Bruce in the stomach. It isn't a hard punch, so much as his closed fist connecting with his solar plexus like a reprimand. The same way someone would swat the back of another's head. ]

I'm still mad at you.

[pearlstrings]

[There's a small shift in his expression, in the shape of Vanitas's body which is more honest than the rest of him. Is honest in a different way. And though Bruce doesn't anticipate the punch until the very last moment, he doesn't defend against it. Vanitas's sense of normality is skewed, and that doesn't work for everyone- but it's a language that's become familiar to Riku and to Bruce. His body tenses, a beat of preparation. It isn't enough to keep the blow from hurting or landing, but it is enough to keep him from doubling over- rasping with pain and gasping for air.

His body curls forward just a little, compensating. And there's a few moments before he answers. Vanitas might not have intended to cripple with the blow, but his irritation's been well documented.]

I'm still worried about you.
You can't stay up all night tonight.

[evulsed]

[ This is when he would say something contrary. Make me or You can't stop me. But this whole conversation has happened because somewhere, in something, Bruce had laced his food to knock him out and force him under. Making him, and stopping him from staying awake as long as he wants.

Between this and the hospital, the things those spirits forced him to eat, it might be enough to put him off food entirely. You don't actually need to eat in order to stay alive in this place. It isn't like being truly alive, where you need all of those things. But he remembers well what it had been like, those first few weeks. The headache, his stomach cramping, like something was trying to eat him from the inside out. When Gene had given him water and he'd thrown it all back up right away.

Besides that, he likes food, and sweets. He's more irritated than anything else that circumstances have warped his comfort with one of the few things that brought him some sort of primal pleasure. ]

You're worried for nothing. I'm not sick anymore.

[ But he narrows his eyes.
Sacrifice. ]

Promise you won't put anything in my food and I'll sleep on my own.

[pearlstrings]

[His head shakes. This too is something that Bruce has had time to grow used to- that Vanitas sees things only in the present, that he recognizes a problem for the severity and immediacy of it. He says I'm not sick anymore and means: he's functional, he's able to walk and stand, he could fight if he had to. He has yet to see the nuance because he's never been allowed to. Bruce suspects that he's not a matter of priority so much as deliberate training. A quality and behavior that's been encouraged and nourished and validate to the detriment of all else.]

I know you aren't sick anymore.
But your body is still recovering.

From the prison and the abduction and the illness and the portal.

[evulsed]

[ His frown deepens, because he doesn't understand what Bruce could possibly be referencing. This isn't something he understands, and how could he, when his whole life has been pushed into a box with set parameters? How could he possibly thing what he's feeling is outside the norm when to him, it has always been this way? ]

What are you talking about?

[ He arches back, cocking his head and raising an eyebrow, gesturing with one hand. There's a dubious tilt to his tone, making it clear he doesn't see sense in Bruce's train of thought. ]

Do you want to check them again? You said they were healing fine.

[pearlstrings]

[They've circled this conversation before, but it took a great deal of reinforcement for Vanitas's assessment of 'okay' and 'fine' to be what they are. The beliefs passed onto him here, the questions asked by Riku and Bruce- they're just a drop in the bucket.]

Recovery is more than the closing of a wound.

[He's patient, not condescending. Bruce reaches for the wrapping around his wrists and begins to work it loose with two fingers- pushing the fabric down, then unwinding it.]

Are you as fast as you normally are? Could you recover from a blow or redirect it the same way? What about your reflexes, and your stamina?

You're more than scarred skin, Vanitas. These things take time.

[evulsed]

[ This redirect helps to steer Vanitas out of the fury that'd been sitting in his bones for hours, that had sent him marching in here with aggressive, violent intent. He frowns deeply. ]

I'll get that back.

[ He sounds reproachful, like Bruce has suggested he no longer has those capabilities, even though that isn't at all what he's said. His gaze drops, following the movement of Bruce unwrapping his hands from training. ]

This is no different from any time before. Once these are gone I'll be the same as before.

[ Vanitas doesn't understand that fundamentally, maybe some part of him has shifted. Like his fear of the water. Like his obsession with Bruce, like Riku. His gaze flicks back up, defiant. ]

[pearlstrings]

[The bindings come off one hand first, loosely hooked in one palm, before he starts on the other. It isn't ideal, perhaps, that he finds a kind of... comfort in this one of Vanitas's qualities; in how easily he wears his intentions, on how easy he is to read. A kinder person, a less manipulative person, wouldn't. And Bruce can remember a time when that was a skill he'd never considered much less honed. Yes it had been necessary to achieve his goals, yet it had kept him alive. But the cost was always there in the margins.

In some ways it feels like a scale of unknown weight. He doesn't know when he'll do something and the balance will be forever altered. When it will be too much.]

Yes. But they'll return faster with rest.
With food.

[evulsed]

[ How many times have they had this conversation, now? It circles around in the margins, though Bruce has never sounded so much scolding as informative. Save for now— there's something else in his tone. Vanitas thinks it has something to do with I didn't want to see you hurt. He watches Bruce with narrowed eyes, and tries to place the tone; maybe a memory that isn't his own. A parent, or an older sibling. ]

I can't just lay around all day, Bruce.

[ He finally returns, exasperated. That isn't wholly true. In the desert, he could spend hours, or days, laying or sitting and doing absolutely nothing— but that sort of stillness feels very far away from him right now. Restlessness sits under his skin like bees buzzing in a hive. ]

[pearlstrings]

Making an effort to go to sleep at night isn't the same as laying around all day.

[This too is worth pointing out, because he knows that there are times when Vanitas is given an inch and then takes a mile. The wrappings come off and he drapes them over a low mounted board- a place to air dry. Despite the work, his skin is a patchwork of bruises in various stages. Some pale and yellowing, others a deep, unforgiving purple. His knuckles are worst, three are bleeding.

He loops a foot around one leg of a stool and drags it over, slowly sinking down.]

Will you grab the kit? Shelf behind you, on the right.