Post by lizity on Nov 11, 2012 19:41:33 GMT -5
She hadn't heard from Damien in two days. It wasn't unusual, and she hadn't been in costume, so she knew he was busy patrolling and covering for her. He'd told her to take it easy. He told her to recover. He didn't know that it wasn't just a few broken and bruised ribs that was keeping her off the streets now. It was something more than that. She pressed a hand to her belly. She wouldn't start showing for another two months, at least. But she wanted that tell-tale bump now. She wanted to buy maternity tops and show off the baby that was growing inside of her. Her's and Ramsey's. The thought of having his baby made her flush with excitement. She'd never thought that she'd be a mother, not this early at least. But then, she'd never really thought she'd get married, either. Her parents hadn't had the best relationship and she'd sworn off any sort of commitment. It only brought heartache.
She sat in the small cafe that she always visited for lunch when she worked at the DA's office. It was three blocks down from the Federal Building and served the freshest butter croissants. She'd called Lily's old cell phone. Damien said she'd found it. He'd called it to talk to her. She had the number stored from before she left for Tibet with Damien. From when they were all supposed to be partners, but they really weren't. Not yet.
The cafe used real mugs, large white ones. One sat in front of her, a tea bag still steeping. No caffeine. It might have been the hardest thing for her to give up, if she weren't so excited about having a baby.
She was staring out of the window, the croissant already gone, leaving only crumbs on a small plate. Her foot moved back and forth as she waited. She'd left a message - Lily hadn't answered. She didn't even know if the woman got it. But it was worth waiting. If she didn't show up in the next twenty minutes, she'd go and surprise Ramsey, so it wouldn't be a wasted trip downtown.
~~
Since Blake had woken up a few mornings ago and found her sitting on the floor taking a knife to the ‘bat’ symbol on the front of her uniform he hadn’t stopped watching her. Even before she’d told him that her memories had come flooding back he’d known that something was different just from the way she’d touched him when she’d come to him and begged him to fuck her. Now he watched her every movement as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop only there was no other shoe because this had been it. She knew he was counting down the days till he came home from work and she was gone.
She wouldn’t say the thought of leaving hadn’t crossed her mind. It was only a matter of time before he left her anyway. It was her curse, everyone left her. It had started when she’d been an infant and it hadn’t changed now. Her father had just been the first and while he was back it was strange. He wasn’t that much older than she was and he seemed… broken. Not the man that she’d grown up dreaming about. Not the hero that her mother had painted pictures of in her mind. At least she came by being broken honestly. Both her parents were screwed up in the head.
These were the thoughts that she obsessed over, and the fight with Damien again. She remembered their fight and what he’d said to her and it still stung. The fact that he was ignoring all the hard work she’d don’t in the city over the last year hurt even more. He acted like she’d just made things worse instead of better. She had made things better, she had made an impact. He just failed to see it or didn’t want to see it. After all, in his deluded fucked up world he was the only one that could make the difference.
When her phone rang and broke her line of thoughts she’d figured it was her mother calling. Jen’s number had surprised her and she’d stared at it till it had gone to voice mail. She’d waited a few minutes before checking it and debated on meeting her or not. They’d never been friends. No, Lily had been jealous of her, well, it wasn’t so much jealousy as it was fear of her. She’d been afraid back then that she’d take Damien away. In the end she’d done a good job of that herself.
Pushing herself up off the couch she’d changed her t-shirt and pulled a lose knit sweeter on over it in a burnished gold color that made the brown in her eyes lighten and pick up the hues of the shirt. She didn’t bother with her hair much more than running a brush through it. Make up was quick, eye liner and mascara, little touch of gloss on her lips, a touch of foundation to cover the two day old bruise on her jaw and she was out the door.
She took her motorcycle out though the bat symbol had been taken off it and she’d added panels on the sides to hide the modifications to it. It was familiar in the way an old friend was and she enjoyed the comfort of driving it. Pulling up outside the café she looked windblown and caught the eyes of people passing but their eyes didn’t linger. As beautiful a woman as she was, she had a cold air about her that turned them away as quickly as they looked.
She nodded to Jen when she stepped inside and saw her, running a hand through her thick black hair as she stood in line for a few minutes to order then walked over and sat down across from her. The make up covered bruise wasn’t hard for Jen to see, she hadn’t put much effort into hiding it that well. Just enough to keep people from staring. They were both used to covering up things that they needed to considering what they’d been doing and Jen had been doing it longer than she had technically.
“Sorry I didn’t get to the phone in time.”
~~
After Damien left, she'd started to think about Lily. The two had never been close. In fact, there'd been competition before they left. And Jenn knew it'd mostly been her fault. No, it was all her fault. She'd wanted Damien, but he wasn't hers to want. It didn't take long to realize, though, that she didn't really want him. He was like a shiny new toy. He was exciting. He was offering her a new life. And she went towards it with wide-open arms and excitment. She just thought that new life meant more than being partners.
Their time traveling the world had been good. She'd realized that she loved him - as a brother. Even if they'd spent one night together, it only solidified how much she wanted Ramsey, not Damien. And it was good, too. Damien found Cecilia and the two worked well. She didn't quite understand it, Cece was so...not socially awkward. But she cared for Damien, and that was all that mattered.
When Lily came through the door to the cafe, Jenn rose her gaze. She offered a half-smile. She didn't miss the bad cover-up of the bruise. She didn't ask about it, either. She knew all too well where it was from. Damien had left to go talk to Lily a few days ago. It was inevitable that they'd get into a fight.
"You two are like gasoline and matches," she said with a brief nod at the bruise.
When Lily settled in the chair opposite her, she shifted, dropped her foot to the floor and leaned forward. "Thanks for meeting me. Do you want coffee? My treat."
She kept her eyes on Lily, studying her. She seemed different. Older. But a year apart and doing what they did - it happened. Jenn was sure she didn't look the same, either. She felt older. And she didn't know if it was because she was pregnant, or engaged. Both would make anyone older.
"I know Damien doesn't want you on the streets anymore." She knew it would get her a look from Lily, but she continued just the same. "I don't think you should be Batman, either." She leaned forward, whispering, though the cafe was mostly empty. She'd picked an area where it'd be hard for anyone to overhear them.
At the way Lily's gaze shot towards her face, she leaned back a little. "I don't mean like that. I mean, you shouldn't try to be a man. You're not. You should be a woman. Batwoman."
Truthfully, she was sick of the fighting between the "family." She was tired of the way that Damien refused to acknowledge anyone else could do it - be Batman and help Gotham. He'd accepted her, but she hadn't grown up with him. And she hadn't tried to take the title. She'd been satisfied following Barbara Gordon's footsteps. It'd been a fluke, a trick of Fate.
"You both need to be out there, Lily. This town needs all the help it can get. But fighting amongst yourself isn't going to save anyone. Make a new legacy. Let Damien do what he thinks his father wanted, and do what you know needs to be done. They can be just as afraid of a woman as they can a man, can't they?"
~~
“Don’t be surprised if you hear a boom, we haven’t exactly exploded yet.” She muttered as she settled in at the table, crossing her arms in front of her and leaning against them. Lily curled in on herself both physically and mentally. She acted like she was waiting for the next hit to come to prove she could take whatever any of them threw at her. She was so different from the young woman that Jen had seen before she’d left with Damien. Once upon a time Lily had smiled and walked through the world as light as a feather. A year had made a hard difference on her.
Jen got a hard edged look for her words though Lily kept quiet. She’d always been good about letting people finish before she answered. She didn’t hold back her looks though and Lily could say a lot with her eyes. Today they were hard and getting angrier by the word. They were the eyes of someone who felt like the outsider and had been told to get out and fuck off. When Jen got to her point though the anger bled out of her eyes and she looked to the side, using the café as an excuse not to look at her.
“I don’t know who I am anymore.” She said quietly. She’d being through to masked identities already. While she hadn’t exactly been Batman, she’d just called herself the Bat. And before that it had been Nightwing but her father was back and taking his mantle back again. “I don’t even know if I want to be a Bat anything. I don’t want to have to deal with Damien’s holier than that attitude all the time. All he sees in me is my grandfather.” She lifted her hands rubbing at her face though her fingers were careful around her eyes, the habit of women who wore makeup.
~~
She and Lily had never been friendly. She knew she should've taken a step back with Damien, but the world had been so new to her. There was so much that she hadn't known about, people who could make things different. And she'd gotten caught up in it. She'd never wanted to be the girl who "ruined" relationships, and she knew it wasn't her fault that Lily and Damien were...well, how they were. But she still felt a twinge of guilt about how she'd acted a year ago.
"Lily," she said the girl's name slowly, quietly. It was a different voice. She was younger than all of them by a few years. She'd be turning 21 within a month, and they were all in their mid-twenties. Even Ramsey was older than her by nearly a decade. Though that didn't seem to bother him. The voice she'd used, though, was one of an older, wiser person.
"I'm not going to be out on the streets. At least for a while." Instinctively, her hand fell to her stomach. She was still too early in the pregnancy to feel anything, or even start showing, but she knew what was there, what was growing.
"This city needs a hero, Lily. And while Damien wants to believe he's going to be it - he needs help, at the very least." She settled back in her chair, her eyes moving away from the woman in front of her to look through the window. "I heard Dick Grayson has returned from the dead." She didn't look to Lily when she said it, but the implication of what it meant hung there. "He's a legend, but he's not going to be able to do it. Not like Bruce Wayne did. Not like you can." She wasn't sure why, but she believed in Lily, and she believed Lily had what it took - what was needed - to fix the city.
"Manhunter's out, too. The team is slowly diminishing. The city needs you. We need you. If you want...I can talk to Damien. He runs his mouth, but I think he's just scared. He feels like he's never going to be good enough. And maybe he won't be. But that doesn't mean he should get himself killed, either."
She examined the woman in front of her for a long moment, then blew out a breath. "I want to apologize, too. For how things were...before. I was...young. And stupid. And I'm sorry."
~~
She lowered her eyes, staring down at the mug of tea between her hands. It was an effort not to squeeze it but she wasn’t completely sure that she wouldn’t break it if she did. Over the last few days she’d heard so many conflicting things from the people in her life and had all the memories of a life that she’d forgotten rush back into her head. It was a wonder she wasn’t walking around with a constant headache. What ache she did feel wasn’t in her head though, it was in her heart.
Her mother was staying silent on the matters that concerned her life and for that she was somewhat thankful. Between Damien’s cutting words and the softly said hurting words that her father had said she just hurt. Blake was his usual silent self but he knew that things weren’t the same as they had been. She felt like no one cared about the advances she’d made in the city and just wanted her to conform into their idea of what she should be and what she should do. Her father wanted her to be an influence in the city outside the mask but that wasn’t something she had. She was just another face in the crowd, she wasn’t in the newspapers or television like Damien was. She’d tried to encourage Damien to do those things outside the mask and focus on that but he’d refused and like everything else had thrown in back in her face.
Lily’s eyes flicked up to look at Jen, following the movement of her hand to her stomach. It took a moment for it to click but when it did she looked up at her, surprised and it showed on her face. Honestly it was the last thing she would have thought about for any of them but Jen looked happy despite the conversation and the company she was in at the moment.
She looked down again as Jen continued, releasing her death grip on her mug and moved her hands to her lap. Her face flinched at her father’s name and her shoulders seemed to curl in on herself. Lily wore so much of her thoughts and words on her body rather than words. She stayed silent though, till Jen was through speaking, never once even attempting to interrupt her. When she did speak it was quiet and troubled.
“Thank you for your confidence in me, that means a lot. Everyone else just keeps telling me that I was doing things wrong and that it needs to be done their way, the way it was done back in the day.” Her fingers twisted the paper napkin she’d dragged down into her lap around her fingers. “The first time I got to see my father that’s all he had to say to me too. I think Damien is just counting the days till he thinks he’s going to have to try to take me out. My father thinks I’m going to be just like Jason and push everyone away because I’m too afraid to change. They don’t understand that I’m alright being the villain sometimes. They think it’s wrong. I don’t think they understand what it’s really like out there though. I think my dad still thinks it like it was when he was out there and I think Damien doesn’t understand the severity of it because he’s too wrapped up in trying to be what his father was.” She let out a breath and drew another in, seeming to reflate herself now as she talked to someone that cared about what was going on rather than maintaining an image that was twenty five years dead.
“Damien needs to step back from all this and focus on what he can do as a Wayne. I’ve been trying to tell him that for almost two years now. He has the influence and power in the city to get the corrupt people out of office. I don’t have that ability. Nothing in this city is going to change until we get good people were they need to be. Doesn’t matter how many of them we get off the streets if they’re set free within twenty four hours.”
She let out another heavy sigh and looked up at Jen, meeting her eyes and holding them for the first time since she’d sat down. “You don’t have to apologize about back then. We’re all different now. Thank you though, for caring enough to say it. And thank you for thinking I’m a hero. I’m not one though, I’m just the person that’s willing to do the things that need to be done.”
She sat in the small cafe that she always visited for lunch when she worked at the DA's office. It was three blocks down from the Federal Building and served the freshest butter croissants. She'd called Lily's old cell phone. Damien said she'd found it. He'd called it to talk to her. She had the number stored from before she left for Tibet with Damien. From when they were all supposed to be partners, but they really weren't. Not yet.
The cafe used real mugs, large white ones. One sat in front of her, a tea bag still steeping. No caffeine. It might have been the hardest thing for her to give up, if she weren't so excited about having a baby.
She was staring out of the window, the croissant already gone, leaving only crumbs on a small plate. Her foot moved back and forth as she waited. She'd left a message - Lily hadn't answered. She didn't even know if the woman got it. But it was worth waiting. If she didn't show up in the next twenty minutes, she'd go and surprise Ramsey, so it wouldn't be a wasted trip downtown.
~~
Since Blake had woken up a few mornings ago and found her sitting on the floor taking a knife to the ‘bat’ symbol on the front of her uniform he hadn’t stopped watching her. Even before she’d told him that her memories had come flooding back he’d known that something was different just from the way she’d touched him when she’d come to him and begged him to fuck her. Now he watched her every movement as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop only there was no other shoe because this had been it. She knew he was counting down the days till he came home from work and she was gone.
She wouldn’t say the thought of leaving hadn’t crossed her mind. It was only a matter of time before he left her anyway. It was her curse, everyone left her. It had started when she’d been an infant and it hadn’t changed now. Her father had just been the first and while he was back it was strange. He wasn’t that much older than she was and he seemed… broken. Not the man that she’d grown up dreaming about. Not the hero that her mother had painted pictures of in her mind. At least she came by being broken honestly. Both her parents were screwed up in the head.
These were the thoughts that she obsessed over, and the fight with Damien again. She remembered their fight and what he’d said to her and it still stung. The fact that he was ignoring all the hard work she’d don’t in the city over the last year hurt even more. He acted like she’d just made things worse instead of better. She had made things better, she had made an impact. He just failed to see it or didn’t want to see it. After all, in his deluded fucked up world he was the only one that could make the difference.
When her phone rang and broke her line of thoughts she’d figured it was her mother calling. Jen’s number had surprised her and she’d stared at it till it had gone to voice mail. She’d waited a few minutes before checking it and debated on meeting her or not. They’d never been friends. No, Lily had been jealous of her, well, it wasn’t so much jealousy as it was fear of her. She’d been afraid back then that she’d take Damien away. In the end she’d done a good job of that herself.
Pushing herself up off the couch she’d changed her t-shirt and pulled a lose knit sweeter on over it in a burnished gold color that made the brown in her eyes lighten and pick up the hues of the shirt. She didn’t bother with her hair much more than running a brush through it. Make up was quick, eye liner and mascara, little touch of gloss on her lips, a touch of foundation to cover the two day old bruise on her jaw and she was out the door.
She took her motorcycle out though the bat symbol had been taken off it and she’d added panels on the sides to hide the modifications to it. It was familiar in the way an old friend was and she enjoyed the comfort of driving it. Pulling up outside the café she looked windblown and caught the eyes of people passing but their eyes didn’t linger. As beautiful a woman as she was, she had a cold air about her that turned them away as quickly as they looked.
She nodded to Jen when she stepped inside and saw her, running a hand through her thick black hair as she stood in line for a few minutes to order then walked over and sat down across from her. The make up covered bruise wasn’t hard for Jen to see, she hadn’t put much effort into hiding it that well. Just enough to keep people from staring. They were both used to covering up things that they needed to considering what they’d been doing and Jen had been doing it longer than she had technically.
“Sorry I didn’t get to the phone in time.”
~~
After Damien left, she'd started to think about Lily. The two had never been close. In fact, there'd been competition before they left. And Jenn knew it'd mostly been her fault. No, it was all her fault. She'd wanted Damien, but he wasn't hers to want. It didn't take long to realize, though, that she didn't really want him. He was like a shiny new toy. He was exciting. He was offering her a new life. And she went towards it with wide-open arms and excitment. She just thought that new life meant more than being partners.
Their time traveling the world had been good. She'd realized that she loved him - as a brother. Even if they'd spent one night together, it only solidified how much she wanted Ramsey, not Damien. And it was good, too. Damien found Cecilia and the two worked well. She didn't quite understand it, Cece was so...not socially awkward. But she cared for Damien, and that was all that mattered.
When Lily came through the door to the cafe, Jenn rose her gaze. She offered a half-smile. She didn't miss the bad cover-up of the bruise. She didn't ask about it, either. She knew all too well where it was from. Damien had left to go talk to Lily a few days ago. It was inevitable that they'd get into a fight.
"You two are like gasoline and matches," she said with a brief nod at the bruise.
When Lily settled in the chair opposite her, she shifted, dropped her foot to the floor and leaned forward. "Thanks for meeting me. Do you want coffee? My treat."
She kept her eyes on Lily, studying her. She seemed different. Older. But a year apart and doing what they did - it happened. Jenn was sure she didn't look the same, either. She felt older. And she didn't know if it was because she was pregnant, or engaged. Both would make anyone older.
"I know Damien doesn't want you on the streets anymore." She knew it would get her a look from Lily, but she continued just the same. "I don't think you should be Batman, either." She leaned forward, whispering, though the cafe was mostly empty. She'd picked an area where it'd be hard for anyone to overhear them.
At the way Lily's gaze shot towards her face, she leaned back a little. "I don't mean like that. I mean, you shouldn't try to be a man. You're not. You should be a woman. Batwoman."
Truthfully, she was sick of the fighting between the "family." She was tired of the way that Damien refused to acknowledge anyone else could do it - be Batman and help Gotham. He'd accepted her, but she hadn't grown up with him. And she hadn't tried to take the title. She'd been satisfied following Barbara Gordon's footsteps. It'd been a fluke, a trick of Fate.
"You both need to be out there, Lily. This town needs all the help it can get. But fighting amongst yourself isn't going to save anyone. Make a new legacy. Let Damien do what he thinks his father wanted, and do what you know needs to be done. They can be just as afraid of a woman as they can a man, can't they?"
~~
“Don’t be surprised if you hear a boom, we haven’t exactly exploded yet.” She muttered as she settled in at the table, crossing her arms in front of her and leaning against them. Lily curled in on herself both physically and mentally. She acted like she was waiting for the next hit to come to prove she could take whatever any of them threw at her. She was so different from the young woman that Jen had seen before she’d left with Damien. Once upon a time Lily had smiled and walked through the world as light as a feather. A year had made a hard difference on her.
Jen got a hard edged look for her words though Lily kept quiet. She’d always been good about letting people finish before she answered. She didn’t hold back her looks though and Lily could say a lot with her eyes. Today they were hard and getting angrier by the word. They were the eyes of someone who felt like the outsider and had been told to get out and fuck off. When Jen got to her point though the anger bled out of her eyes and she looked to the side, using the café as an excuse not to look at her.
“I don’t know who I am anymore.” She said quietly. She’d being through to masked identities already. While she hadn’t exactly been Batman, she’d just called herself the Bat. And before that it had been Nightwing but her father was back and taking his mantle back again. “I don’t even know if I want to be a Bat anything. I don’t want to have to deal with Damien’s holier than that attitude all the time. All he sees in me is my grandfather.” She lifted her hands rubbing at her face though her fingers were careful around her eyes, the habit of women who wore makeup.
~~
She and Lily had never been friendly. She knew she should've taken a step back with Damien, but the world had been so new to her. There was so much that she hadn't known about, people who could make things different. And she'd gotten caught up in it. She'd never wanted to be the girl who "ruined" relationships, and she knew it wasn't her fault that Lily and Damien were...well, how they were. But she still felt a twinge of guilt about how she'd acted a year ago.
"Lily," she said the girl's name slowly, quietly. It was a different voice. She was younger than all of them by a few years. She'd be turning 21 within a month, and they were all in their mid-twenties. Even Ramsey was older than her by nearly a decade. Though that didn't seem to bother him. The voice she'd used, though, was one of an older, wiser person.
"I'm not going to be out on the streets. At least for a while." Instinctively, her hand fell to her stomach. She was still too early in the pregnancy to feel anything, or even start showing, but she knew what was there, what was growing.
"This city needs a hero, Lily. And while Damien wants to believe he's going to be it - he needs help, at the very least." She settled back in her chair, her eyes moving away from the woman in front of her to look through the window. "I heard Dick Grayson has returned from the dead." She didn't look to Lily when she said it, but the implication of what it meant hung there. "He's a legend, but he's not going to be able to do it. Not like Bruce Wayne did. Not like you can." She wasn't sure why, but she believed in Lily, and she believed Lily had what it took - what was needed - to fix the city.
"Manhunter's out, too. The team is slowly diminishing. The city needs you. We need you. If you want...I can talk to Damien. He runs his mouth, but I think he's just scared. He feels like he's never going to be good enough. And maybe he won't be. But that doesn't mean he should get himself killed, either."
She examined the woman in front of her for a long moment, then blew out a breath. "I want to apologize, too. For how things were...before. I was...young. And stupid. And I'm sorry."
~~
She lowered her eyes, staring down at the mug of tea between her hands. It was an effort not to squeeze it but she wasn’t completely sure that she wouldn’t break it if she did. Over the last few days she’d heard so many conflicting things from the people in her life and had all the memories of a life that she’d forgotten rush back into her head. It was a wonder she wasn’t walking around with a constant headache. What ache she did feel wasn’t in her head though, it was in her heart.
Her mother was staying silent on the matters that concerned her life and for that she was somewhat thankful. Between Damien’s cutting words and the softly said hurting words that her father had said she just hurt. Blake was his usual silent self but he knew that things weren’t the same as they had been. She felt like no one cared about the advances she’d made in the city and just wanted her to conform into their idea of what she should be and what she should do. Her father wanted her to be an influence in the city outside the mask but that wasn’t something she had. She was just another face in the crowd, she wasn’t in the newspapers or television like Damien was. She’d tried to encourage Damien to do those things outside the mask and focus on that but he’d refused and like everything else had thrown in back in her face.
Lily’s eyes flicked up to look at Jen, following the movement of her hand to her stomach. It took a moment for it to click but when it did she looked up at her, surprised and it showed on her face. Honestly it was the last thing she would have thought about for any of them but Jen looked happy despite the conversation and the company she was in at the moment.
She looked down again as Jen continued, releasing her death grip on her mug and moved her hands to her lap. Her face flinched at her father’s name and her shoulders seemed to curl in on herself. Lily wore so much of her thoughts and words on her body rather than words. She stayed silent though, till Jen was through speaking, never once even attempting to interrupt her. When she did speak it was quiet and troubled.
“Thank you for your confidence in me, that means a lot. Everyone else just keeps telling me that I was doing things wrong and that it needs to be done their way, the way it was done back in the day.” Her fingers twisted the paper napkin she’d dragged down into her lap around her fingers. “The first time I got to see my father that’s all he had to say to me too. I think Damien is just counting the days till he thinks he’s going to have to try to take me out. My father thinks I’m going to be just like Jason and push everyone away because I’m too afraid to change. They don’t understand that I’m alright being the villain sometimes. They think it’s wrong. I don’t think they understand what it’s really like out there though. I think my dad still thinks it like it was when he was out there and I think Damien doesn’t understand the severity of it because he’s too wrapped up in trying to be what his father was.” She let out a breath and drew another in, seeming to reflate herself now as she talked to someone that cared about what was going on rather than maintaining an image that was twenty five years dead.
“Damien needs to step back from all this and focus on what he can do as a Wayne. I’ve been trying to tell him that for almost two years now. He has the influence and power in the city to get the corrupt people out of office. I don’t have that ability. Nothing in this city is going to change until we get good people were they need to be. Doesn’t matter how many of them we get off the streets if they’re set free within twenty four hours.”
She let out another heavy sigh and looked up at Jen, meeting her eyes and holding them for the first time since she’d sat down. “You don’t have to apologize about back then. We’re all different now. Thank you though, for caring enough to say it. And thank you for thinking I’m a hero. I’m not one though, I’m just the person that’s willing to do the things that need to be done.”