Day 37: Breakfast

[scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com]

[for Sylar, I believe]

At the sound of the intercom, Wally jerked awake and blinked around at the room. He’d fallen asleep. He should have been up and keeping an eye open for ZEX, but he’d fallen asleep waiting on his bed.

“Idiot,” he groaned, ruffling his hair and sighing in annoyance. “Way to help a guy out, hotshot.” Hopefully ZEX hadn’t dropped by and thought he’d left or something, or wouldn’t be too mad at him for just forgetting about it like that. If he was lucky, he’d be able to catch up with the other patient at some point and explain what had happened.

Rolling himself a little awkwardly out of the bed, Wally took the opportunity to stretch his injured leg and test how well it was holding up. It was feeling a bit better, not so much that he could abandon his crutch or that it didn’t pull painfully if he wasn’t careful, but better. Tony had apparently made it through the night in one piece as well, which was a relief. He really didn’t feel comfortable about the thought of his roommate wandering about on his own with an injured arm. Not when Wally himself could relax and fall asleep in the apparent safety of their room.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to let himself forget that one in a hurry.

It was at that moment that the door swung open to admit one of the nurses. She seemed surprised to find him awake and ready to go already, but smiled warmly. “Hungry, are we Mr. West? Well in that case, let’s get you to the cafeteria. The staff have provided some delicious French Toast as well as a range of other foods I’m sure you’ll like. Now will you be needing a hand with your leg, dear?”

“No thanks, I can handle it,” Wally replied, smiling back. After all, it probably wasn’t the nurses’ fault that this place was so messed up, so it wasn’t like picking fights with them would do anything. With a cheery wave goodbye, Wally slowly made his way to the cafeteria, keeping a tight grip on his crutch all the while. Obtaining a plate of food was only slightly less difficult than it had been yesterday – he didn’t have the painkillers to work around this time – but he managed well enough, coming away from the buffet with a tray containing a plate piled high with slices of French Toast and slathered in maple syrup, butter, and sugar, as well as a glass of juice. Not quite as good as some coffee would be right now, but the sugar would hopefully make up for it. And, with how few people were here at the moment, he could afford to take more food than might have been considered ‘normal’ – he’d have most of it gone by the time anyone came to keep him company, then he could just worry about how many extra serves would be allowed before he aroused suspicion.

Feeling pretty happy with how things were looking so far, Wally hummed faintly to himself as he dug in to his breakfast.

Comments

[gothamnight.livejournal.com]

Crane had always been intelligent, but, in Batman's experience, not particularly good at maintaining a convincing facade. He hadn't been capable of it; his person was too nervous and ego too large for the Professor to ever truly accept the need to be someone other than himself when it wasn't strictly necessary. This Crane, however...

...the calm demeanor. The rational, articulate speech; the careful way in which he divulged no more information than he needed to continue the conversation. No outwardly visible signs of irritation--only a patient, waiting gaze. They were the eyes of someone who knew exactly what he was doing, and while there was nothing unusual for people to guard their own information in the presence of someone they couldn't trust...

Yes, I do know Gotham. I'm from there, in fact.

Careful. Exceedingly careful. Almost too careful...and again, the tone with which Crane spoke reminded Bruce of a doctor with his patient. There was always the chance that this Crane was even more paranoid than the one he knew; plus, judging from the "prodigal son" remark, this Crane didn't like Bruce Wayne or his behavior any more than the other Crane did. But in that case...

...why was Crane bother seeking out Bruce Wayne to talk at all? If he knew about Bruce from the papers or gossip, then he should've known that Bruce was far from an intelligent conversationalist; granted, even if the other man did take some pleasure out of subtly mocking the rich and slow, that couldn't be a motivating reason. No, this was likely...there was something that Crane wanted...

"Well thank god someone in here isn't completely bonkers," he said, confidence returning and a wide grin breaking out on his face. Leaning forward, Bruce lowered his voice to a conspicuous whisper, "Between me and you? They don't call this a mental institution for nothing. I mean, sure, I'd expected crazy people to, y'know, look the part, or something...but I met these two redheads last night and they'd never even heard of Gotham. And the nurse this morning said it didn't exis--"

He suddenly stopped himself, as if once again noticing the people around them--the uniforms, the weary expressions. Turning, he looked down; his eyes widened as he noticed the same bright yellow smiley face on the shirt Crane was wearing. The exuberant, relieved expression soured into a mixture of shock, horror, and complete confusion.

"Oh no..." he said slowly, to himself, under his breath. Quickly moving back, he made a slightly inconspicuous move at scooting his chair backwards. Aiming a sheepish but visibly very shaken smile at Crane, he opened his mouth as if to say something--then closed it, and tried again.

"I'm--oh gosh, I can't believe this, but--I'm so sorry. Really, I...I didn't realize that you are, uh...one of them."

[scaredy-crow.livejournal.com]

His trying to be obnoxious and chatty was an excellent mask, really, and the man appeared to be a very good actor. It was becoming increasingly obvious that if he wanted hard evidence, then Crane would have to keep an eye out at night and see if anyone began mentioning Batman wandering around at night.

Of course, there was always the possibility that he really wasn't Batman, but Crane was going to stick with his conviction until it was proven wrong. He was already getting another idea of how to go about it, and he needed to let Harley know.

Crane snorted at Bruce's final comment, though. In a way it was true, but that didn't mean that he couldn't find it just a bit annoying. "No offense taken, don't worry. So long as you're dressed like that, however," he said in a slightly exasperated tone, pointing at Bruce's own uniform, "you're one of them, as well."

While he still intended to not reveal more than he had to, Crane was also willing to adapt to an opportunity that he saw. There were certain pieces of information that he couldn't help but use, but if given with several pieces of fake information...

Well, that could be well worth it, so long as he presented it properly.

"I do, however, advise against listening to the nurses past being shuffled around during the day. As you've seen, they're useless. At least they do their job well enough to keep watch over us all the time. They have cameras in our rooms, but still have enough patients trying to escape at night that they've taken to electrocuting a third of the doors on a rotational basis."

If only that were true, morality be damned. Were it not for the lawyers and other city officials who tended to come through Arkham to speak with patients, he might have wanted to have that done there, as well.

[gothamnight.livejournal.com]

"Me? One of--oh," Bruce said, eyes widening with understanding before narrowing, annoyed.

"Right. The shirt. Atrocious things. I tell you, the instant my lawyer gets here and the paperwork's settled, I'll make personally sure that all the uniforms in this place are replaced. It's a nasty business, these 'medical' institutions--but it's just plain bad for its image when its patients are walking around like this."

There were no visible cameras in the rooms--not last night, and not this morning. Crane himself had just said that the nurses were "useless," so it was unlikely that the staff would treat Crane any differently from the other patients in terms of disclosing useful information. Similarly, Bruce doubted his story about the electrocuted doors. No matter how different this Crane was from Bruce's own, he was no Lyle Bolton. Crane lacked the expertise to be able to deduce locations of secret cameras and bugs on his own. Bruce would go and confirm his suspicions by talking to some other patients later on in the day, but meanwhile...

Crane was lying. And Bruce wanted to know why.

Under usual circumstances, Bruce might've assumed that Crane was simply toying with Bruce Wayne: exaggerate the horrors of the Institute just to see how he'd react. Still, the manner in which he'd said it...it was if he didn't expect Bruce wouldn't try and check the information with other patients. Like he hoped Bruce would use the false warnings. Like he thought the information would actually interest Bruce Wayne on a level deeper than simple blind acceptance and horror.

"Electrocuting the doors? Wow. Sounds like they take security pretty seriously, then." While Bruce's voice was a bit surprised, there was no more emotion in it than there would have been if their conversation had been about a break-up

"Well, at least it provides you with an incentive to get out of here, right, Mr.--"

He stopped, as if just realizing something.

"--uh, sorry. I don't think I caught your name...?"