@gaby

[vns]

[ this was supposed to be one of Gaby's days off. in fact, she's not in the safehouse when the message comes in. ]

Turns out that we're missing two new faces around the safehouse.

I'd play a guessing game as to why I wasn't told, but I don't care. These two faces apparently murdered two people that night.

I don't know who they are, but I do know that they're locked up. Any guesses as to what's going to happen to them?

Genuine question. Because I don't know.

Oh, and because some of you think you can do whatever the hell you want around here: don't think the way out for them is a jail break. Don't even fucking try it. And no, Morningstar isn't in the business of breaking people out of jail, because that would be stupid.

[ she's a little angry. no. a lot. but mostly she doesn't know how to handle this one. ]

Look. You know something? Tell me. You won't be "in trouble."

Comments

[preceded]

i didn't see a motive up there, did you?
people show up here drugged to be complacent to instruction, with their bodies violated medically without their knowledge or consent, and dumped to fend for themselves. can you garuantee none of that played a factor?
you're making a lot of assumptions in your hurry to play executioner. something you can't undo if you're wrong.

[batricide]

Did the clown ever need a motive, Grayson?
I'm not hurrying to do anything. I'm stating opinion. And I'm stating it as someone who has been in this situation and knows first hand how bad things get the second you have a leak.
But whatever.
You want to paint me as a murderer? Fine. Go cry to the old bat about it.

[preceded]

are you going to paint every criminal with that brush, because he's a monster?

[No one who knows him is denying that. But there's a world of difference between fraud and petty theft, and killing on accident and in self defence- advocating for murder in any context isn't the answer, but it especially isn't when the only motivation Damian has for doing it is to save their collective asses from a 'potential problem']

without any evidence that that's what's going to happen, your opinion is nothing more than a knee jerk reaction that everyone in this place would be much safer without.

[It's hard not to see Damian as a younger copy of Jason in this moment, doing the exact same thing as he always is- being hurt and pissed at Bruce, and leaking it out literally everywhere else. He's never been more of a stranger]

if you're doing things like this? that's what you are. do you seriously believe that being choosier with your victims absolves you of the same crime?

[batricide]

[ He's wounded. Dick's words hurt. The accusation of it hurts - he wants to back down and apologize, but on the other hand what does it matter? Bruce had longer to indoctrinate him, to teach him everything he knows. How he thinks the world should work. ]

You're disgustingly naive.

[preceded]

maybe.
but i'm not so delusional to think that if i went that route, that if i became the thing i hated the most and went ahead on a cleansing massacre- as if that was the only answer, that there wouldn't be room on the list for me.

that's the problem with you and mal. you think whatever world you're trying to create would still have room for you in it.

it won't.

[batricide]

You know what, I wish I could still buy into that garbage. You're the one taking this to extremes. Some people just deserve to die.

I'll take being a monster if it means innocent people don't get murdered when they're just trying to live their lives.

[preceded]

it's not about whether or not they deserve it.
and you still can't decide something like that without any sort of evidence other than being near the scene of the crime.

[A long, long pause, and then-]

i guess that explains the name choice.

[After what he's learned about Damian's Bruce- he's not surprised he didn't use any sort of version of that name. Wouldn't have even wanted him to. But it doesn't lend an idea as to why he picked this over something completely random, the way Jason had. Genocidal world cleansing and megalomania was always kind of Ra's thing.

When in doubt, be petty and hurtful. It always works with Jason]

[batricide]

[ it works. it works almost too well. dick can't see the hurt expression. or how it galvanizes into angry, grim acceptance that he had been right all along. ]

I chose the name of the family that loved me.
I see I chose right.

[preceded]

nothing you do, will change how i feel about you.
but if you expected me to praise you for this, to say you made the right decisions, that this is what i'd always wanted for you-

[That this is the legacy he'd want you to carry out, wearing his name?]

then you didn't know me.

[It has nothing to do with love- and everything to do with the fact that this violates everything he believes, independently of Bruce. Bruce might have given him the tools and the means- but he's lived this life and knows exactly what it takes out of him to do it, and stands by it. He won't be changing his mind, not even for you]

[batricide]

You're not my Dick Grayson.
You don't know what he would have wanted for me.

[preceded]

i suppose that's true.
i guess that makes me a glorified placeholder.

[Is the implication there, isn't it? But if that were true, and his opinion doesn't really matter, if he doesn't- why are you following him around, and why are you so defensive?]

[batricide]

And I'm just your stand-in.
What a pair.

[preceded]

that's not true.
i'm sorry you think it is.

[But- that's the extent of this now. He said what he wanted to- tried to talk you around, like it was still that easy- and it wasn't. This whole thing has surprised him, that Damian can still feel this way, after all this time-

but he's not interested in hashing out who loves who more on the network because of it]