pearlstrings

No. I've accepted the possibility that it's permanent.

Do you have any nerve damage from the frost?

Nothing serious, thanks to Vanitas and you.
Next time the market comes by, I'll have something to barter to get your hearing fixed.

I'd rather you didn't.

It's an opportunity to grow. And besides, the cost to you isn't something I'm willing to pay.

[ His first instinct is to argue, because he wants to help and there's an option he doesn't mind exercising. Because when it comes to those he considers friends, Riku would do anything, he abides few liabilities that might threaten their safety. Losing people important to him in the last half-year has only made him more stubborn. ]

Bruce

[ The other side of that lies the fact that Bruce probably wouldn't want someone else taking the cost of an outcome to action Bruce himself decided to take.

That what could be a disadvantage might be changed into a chance to gain new skills. It doesn't mean Riku has lost an opportunity to help - he closed one door only to open another. ]

Fine, have it your way. If it's an opportunity to grow you're after, then I'd be a bad friend if I didn't help you train.

[ This is absolutely going to result in random ambushes that attempt to exploit his deaf side, starting this afternoon, Bruce. ]

[ Such ample free time with not much to do but stay warm and recuperate has led to Riku putting his back into a few projects around the museum. Like dragging a desk or two from an office to set the groundwork for a broad workbench. Rummaging through storage and closets for spare metal hoses or fittings for plumbing, sturdy, thick planks of floor boards that he might be able to use for the surface of the workbench, if he can find them somewhere in the museum.

The noise he makes is intermittent, and never during the hours designated for sleep or meals (getting Bruce to stop to eat requires making a communal meal of it; getting Vanitas to eat is easier). Other times, his searching and work is silent. Which makes telling, from this point onward, when he's about to strike a little less predictable.

The first time, Riku comes at Bruce from the side he's lost his hearing, a swift attempt at a tackle that leads with his shoulder, turned low towards the core of his body. It's in one of the museums many liminal spaces, an area between those with a purpose, some hall or corridor, ideally with a wall near and solid enough to bear both of their weight should they collide. ]

[He takes it with a grain of salt because it's the kind of comment they've traded back and forth before. When his guard lowers Riku has a competitive streak that's eager to engage with others, to test his own progress and keep himself engaged. He tells Riku that he prefers to be accountable for his own actions, to carry his own consequences, but he doesn't do so simply to play the role of the martyr. If they're going to finish the task this world has left for them, there will be plenty to sacrifice in the coming months. They're already dead, the things they do now all exist on borrowed time. It's clarifying- that perspective.

And around it all a new routine develops.

Riku and Vanitas both have other homes, other places to spend their time, and Bruce makes no effort to beg for their company. He's very familiar with being alone. He trains in his free time. He studies. He watches the network and takes notes and tries to unravel each new piece of information- examine it from a new angle. He eats when they come over for meals and sometimes he sleeps when they do. They each have their own rhythm and though it's harmonious, they aren't identical. It is just past two in the morning- Bruce is wearing his sleep pants and a long sleeved shirt, to keep the chill at bay. He doesn't use a torch or even his lantern light to navigate the halls because one of the very first things he'd set his mind to was learning where each room began and ended without sight. He knows how many steps it takes to go down the hall and find the room on his left, he knows where the tables and chairs and countertops and displays are. Every now and again he is aware of an Unversed in his periphery but it doesn't give him pause.

He turns into the corridor and paces towards the kitchen when instinct takes over. The cue is very small, a shifting on the floorboards around his bare feet that isn't an audible creak so much as it is the inevitable sound of a step as weight is shifted. Bruce pivots immediately. Adrenaline sings through his bloodstream, instinct widens his stance. Ground fighting works with multiple enemies, but an attack like this means he needs to keep himself on his feet and to do that-

The assailant rushes on his deaf side and the angle is low, towards the center of his body. Bruce's elbow bends and he uses the blade of his forearm like a sword- slamming up into the juncture between his enemy's neck and shoulder to stop him from closing the distance as his back leg comes up. He's close enough to the wall that rotating his weight brings the entire flat bottom of his foot up against it. Bruce pushes off like a swimmer from a starting line. His forearm bears in and then onto Riku's shoulder as Bruce chooses to go up instead of forward; his opposite hand finds the flat space between Riku's shoulderblades and momentum carries him the rest of the way. In the dark Bruce butterfly kicks over his opponent's body and uses the force behind it to encourage the figure to bear forward- that he might fall or slam bodily into the wall ahead. Behind him Bruce finds his feet again, his center of gravity lowers, his hands remain loose.]

[ Riku doesn't sleep at his official address, but he visits it daily, brings along something even he can cook without ruining it, trying to get something into his roommate's stomach that isn't another bottle of wine. He doesn't make a lot of noise. Sometimes, the only sign Vanitas is around is the smell of his Darkness, the shift of shadowy Unversed in the corners or up in the ceiling, or the creak when Riku climbs into the bed Bruce made for him, his lantern sending his shadow dancing on the wall.

Sometimes, dishes soaking in the sink end up washed, dried, and back in the cupboards where they belong. Food shows up on the counters. Riku makes a habit of coming by in the evening with some attempt at a side dish or, failing that, bread rolls and juice, and trying to get them to sit down for one meal. Whether that's successful or not depends on a few factors: if Vanitas or Bruce is around, if they have time, if Riku doesn't manage to burn something.

And then there are the ambushes. Like this one, the first, Riku goes hard because he anticipates Bruce can take it, because he remembers their scrap in the forest. He knows he's clever, tough, and in a pinch he's more than capable of handling himself.

Riku swiftly realizes that night had not been the best indication of what Bruce was capable of.

His counter sends him careening into the wall and such is his surprise, Riku doesn't catch himself before he catches it full in the side of his head and one shoulder, stars exploding in his otherwise dark vision. Tasting copper, Riku realizes he's bitten on some soft part in his mouth, he gives his head a shake with a laugh. ]

Where'd you learn that?

There's something reassuring about the thud that follows- not because Riku is eager to cause pain, but because there's a satisfaction in knowing that his counter had been successful. That the line up had gone the way it was meant to, that it concluded in the right way. Bruce doesn't expect a quick turn around but he is prepared for it. He's waiting for this redirection to become one step in a larger, more involved brawl.

There's something less reassuring about the voice that follows.

The museum is like the rest of Beacon, dimly lit with the exception of the bonfire and its torches. There is enough light for the most significant details to come across in an instant- a body's shape and size and mass. It takes a second look, a longer look, to recognize the gait and posture. To see the pale color of his hair. The pieces click into place immediately.]

Riku?

[Never a particularly demonstrative person at the best of times, there's a thread of confusion that is clear and distinct in his voice. In the way the syllables fall. It sounds like what are you doing or maybe more accurately why?

Bruce straightens, takes a step forward.]

Are you alright?

It'll take more than that.

[ Darkness peels away from Riku's lantern, the light fluttering inside the cage of iron throwing illumination over the hallway and the way he rolls his shoulder, the smile he throws at him in challenge. For someone who just took a knock into a wall, his eyes seem bright, not fevered but energized.

He still hasn't explained himself or his unusual late-night ambush, implications aren't enough for him, drawing himself up to his full height, the tip of his chin up turning his mischievous eyes on Bruce's, keen. ]

C'mon, Bruce. Forget already?

[ He blurs, turning into a smudge of black and a vague glimmer of purple - his lantern drops, clattering as it settles into sitting squarely on the floor - the ripple of movement flanks Bruce, as Riku's dark dash has him emerging just behind and to the side, his fist pulled back. ]

This is training.

[There is a strange duality in the moment- where Riku's lantern becomes more muted and Bruce recognizes that his safety isn't in danger, that it's deliberate. The disguise he'd once overheard. Where Riku pushes off of the wall and looks at him, eyes bright with interest. Bruce's head is peeling the image apart, stripping off layer after layer to be sure he understands the shift that's happening- but his body is another story entirely. His body recognizes the change right away, feels it like something tidal. Riku says forget already? and though Bruce's brows come together, creating a crease in his forehead, his center of gravity has lowered and his weight comes to rest on the balls of his feet.

It is nothing like the fights in the alleyways of Gotham.
Especially when Riku visibly vanishes.

Bruce is at a disadvantage. His lantern gives his location away and there's nothing he can do about it now, inside a dark hallway with his pursuer an unknown distance away. Breath comes through his nose and he wills his heart rate to slow, to focus his attention on reaction and redirection- a rigid defense won't serve him if he can't count on one specific location for the source of the attacks, and offense is out of the question. He has to wait. It reminds him of his time in that cell. Bruce is in his sleep wear, he's unarmed. That's fine. That can be changed. He'd loosened a piece of the banister along the staircase months ago.

He waits, he listens, every inch of his body primed- Riku is so fast that he wouldn't have noticed at all if he hadn't felt the hair at the nape of his neck stir. Instead of blocking (behind him, just to the left) Bruce goes running. He sprints down the hall on bare feet, barely thudding at all as he rounds the corner and makes his way towards the stairs.]

[ Bruce doesn't stand his ground - there's a flutter near the small of Bruce's back and that's the swing that Riku took only to catch nothing but air. As quick as a dog cut loose, Riku starts to sprint after him, his own feet a shuffled hush when he abruptly stops. He's left behind his lantern and must double back to retrieve it.

In the process, he obliterates the glow with the dark miasma he surrounds his lantern with. Cupping his mouth with the other hand, he calls out after him: ]

I'll give you a head start, Bruce! No that it'll do you any good.

[ Starting to grin, he lowers his center of gravity, stealing off towards the stairs.

There's only so many places Bruce can go and, overconfident, or at least forgetting that Bruce has had far longer to get accustomed to this place and where everything is in it, Riku may soon eat those words. ]

[He doesn't expect Riku to let him get away, and that surprise rises through him as he rounds the corner. Bruce's feet slide in his socks, not out of control but rather like a car drifting through an intersection when it knows it's taken it too sharply. Bruce pulls the support rail from under the banister and doesn't stay where he is. When Riku does inevitably give chase he'll have the added benefit of momentum behind him. He's undressed Riku himself, he knows the difference between their bodies is significant; he is in no way an immovable object. Bruce's chin lifts.

A change in perspective then. He yanks his socks off, one after the other and begins to scale the narrow hallway, foot-hand-foot-hand- until he's stretched out overhead, shoulderblades pressed to the ceiling. He means to attack from above- as soon as Riku appears, Bruce intends to ambush him by dropping out of the sky, stick in hand, and bring them both to the ground.]

[ Riku doesn't arrive at a sprint, not with the stairs so close by and his own comparative unfamiliarity with his surroundings in the dark. As someone who could navigate the worlds and fight even while blindfolded, that was with enough people around to sense their darkness. Here, they are alone - Bruce, Vanitas, and some of those strange creatures that shake themselves loose of Vanitas sometimes. That hang around in this place, never too far, if often out of sight.

He inhales sharply, through his nostrils, in the moment before Bruce drops from above, starting to look around but not where he should be, as if there was something to alert him to Bruce's presence even as he quite literally gets the drop on him. There's a strange, spherical shimmer, like he's encased himself in a round bubble, but it's both too hastily erected and poorly formed to provide much protection.

Riku slaps his arms down on the ground as he hits the floor, distributing some of the impact instead of taking it full to the head and back. Surprised as he is, Riku feels a soundless, breathless laugh try to shake itself from his lungs. ]

That's it, Bruce--

[ He wheezes, getting one grip around the shaft of that makeshift weapon. ]

You had to be tougher than you look!

[ For the moment, Riku struggles to maintain his grasp of the weapon, not fighting to wrest control but to keep him from doing anything with it, and the other palms the underside of Bruce's knee in search of another advantage. ]

[They hit the ground not hard, but deliberately clumsy. It's an excellent recovery from such an ambush and Bruce finds himself admiring it even as they land in a pile of limbs. And Riku's palm slaps against the ground and he laughs out Bruce's name. It is not a signal for the fight to end and Bruce finds the edges of his mouth curving in response- it isn't an answering chuckle. But it's close. This is, he can admit- perched on Riku's chest, straddling the other's torso with his own knees as a pair of pins: ridiculous.

Riku's attention splits- it goes up to the bar in Bruce's hand, an attempt to immobilize him. And it grapples through the dark for his hip, his knee- searching for leverage. It's a good tactic and one that would be effective against less experienced opponent. Unfortunately neither of them qualify.

The wooden beam rocks back and forth in the weight exchange- a kind of high stakes vertical arm wrestling. But Bruce has no intention of beating Riku into submission. Even if he hadn't gotten a close, there's enough taut, lean muscle underneath him now to speak to the futility of that kind of battle. Instead Bruce's grip adjusts on the curved shape of the beam, twisting around it as if he's unscrewing a particularly large bottle cap one handed. The gesture is just bizarre enough to be considered part of the fight.] I'm flattered.

[In the dark, what could be a chunky bracelet falls over Bruce's wrist, a faux artistic addition to the staircase. It would be more accurate to describe it as a bobbin. But instead of maintaining it's cylindrical shape, Bruce reaches for the bottom ring and tugs until it tightens, snug and secure. It means sacrificing sure footing, and depending on how wildly Riku bucks beneath him, sacrificing the high ground. But it's a compromise he's willing to make.]

[ The strangeness of the motion draws attention all on its own, not because Riku suspects it to be some kind of diversion, but because Bruce has proven resourceful and effective with the tools that are always at his disposal. Obviously, he's prepared, if he can find a weapon so quickly, hide up above in the ceiling and, what's more, acquire something else fitted in the weapon he brought to bear on Riku.

Riku's been bested before, he's been immobilized by Bruce one way or another more times than he cares to admit. Although he might have Bruce on sheer muscle bulk but Bruce has cleverness and determination, a lithe flexibility of body and mind, a certain readiness to take risks with himself to score a tactical advantage. Bruce pulls on a ring and the bobbin cinches to his wrist like a bracer; the display sharpens Riku's focus on the edge of anticipation.

He would be a poor opponent if he didn't take advantage of the momentary lapse in Bruce's balance; all the abdominal muscle of his core tightens at once, so too does his grip under Bruce's knee. When he swings himself up, the only reason this doesn't send Riku's forehead on a collision course with Bruce's chin is the way he's levering him by tipping up his bent knee. Like a human seesaw, he seeks to upend him, to try to send Bruce's back to the floor, hips over head.

Bruce is perpetually full of surprises. Riku half expects he'll find some way to slip the full body lock this might become, if Riku is able to hem Bruce in against the floor, one arm a muscled pillar between his shoulder and ear and broad palm flat on the ground.

His hair falls nearly into Bruce's face. It's grown long, these days. ]

Are you. [ Riku's grin is equal parts exhilarated and rakish. ] I think you expect nothing less of yourself.

[Riku doesn't waste his opportunity. Bruce feels the imbalance the moment it starts- not when his knees begin to lose contact with the floor, but when the muscle in Riku's stomach goes taut underneath him. A precursor to movement. There is no time to adjust his posture and try to compensate. Riku is too powerful in a show of strength alone- a lesson Bruce wears in the pale scar over his nose, in the thin line that cuts through one eyebrow.

But it's a good thing, not a point of resentment. Bruce cannot learn to compensate for what's out of his control unless he's challenged by what's out of his control. He cannot make himself stronger in this moment, he cannot overpower Riku. His options pare themselves down as the grip around his knee flexes, tightens. Surrendering to the momentum is his decision. They hit the floor for a second time and Bruce feels it- smooth and cool through the thin fabric of his shirt. It rides up around his ribcage, is distended around his collar from the scuffle.

Inches above him, Riku looks quite pleased with himself- pink from the exertion without panting for breath. Stamina. His arm is a powerful column beside Bruce's head. His hair drops over his shoulder like a stream, nearly grazing Bruce's cheek. His brows crease and the question is very earnest, even if it is also a lie.]

What was that? I couldn't hear you?

[His head turns, offers his good ear.

And Bruce stretches his arm out beside him only to fire off the grappling hook secured around his wrist- that yanks him across the floor like a conveyor belt.]

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that icon is a very personal attack every time

good.