damned_institute | Day 38: Lunch

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Day 38: Lunch

Soubi was beginning to feel the effects of a busy morning on a tired body. To make things worse, they were serving Tacos and Burritos. He could really do some with something a bit softer today. Blander. But it was hardly his biggest concern right now.

Having picked out his lunch, he looked for Ritsuka. He had to apologise, but these things usually ended up in bigger arguments, so, as could be expected, Soubi was a little nervous. Maybe they wouldn't find each other this shift. Maybe he had a little more time?

Soubi sat alone, being sure that his face was set in the expression that sent the girls at College the other way.

[He gots a Sheeny Beeny]

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Bruce returned Wally's smile with one of his own: it was a dark expression, wry and self-mocking.

"It's starting to grow on me," he said, tone dry. "All the pretty nurses and revolutionary spirit. A few more days and I'll be just like the uniform--gray and smiley."

He recalled his first impression of the place two nights ago--the way his mind had connected this place automatically to Arkham. To some extent, that feeling had never gone away--lurked always in the back of his mind, a reminder of the option he was refusing to consider.

Well. At least he hadn't run into the Joker.

"I guess I don't need to ask you how your date went." Bruce tried his best to keep from smirking--really.

"But what with his talent for giving 'too much information,' I suppose you two really are a match."

"Oh come on, it's not that bad is it?" Wally said, his smile slipping a little. He didn't know what he'd do if Batman thought the situation was hopeless, other than just try all the more to prove him wrong. Especially after Bats had only been here a day or so, compared to Wally's five. If anyone should be getting more depressed, it should have been him.

The next part completely blew that away though. "Whoa, wait, date? Look, all because ZEX, uh, had some other ideas doesn't mean I went along with them. And I know what it might look like, but I swear all I did was give the guy a massage. Which, I might add, he really needed! I mean, I haven't run into anyone so tense since, well, you." He paused to start on his lunch, tearing into a burrito without paying that much attention to what he was doing. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that his powers apparently didn't work at all during the day, 'cause he wasn't exactly able to focus enough on them right now to make sure that he didn't accidentally start eating at superspeed or something.

"And anyway, what do you mean I have a talent for giving away too much? I can keep a secret!" Okay, maybe that was a little too defensive, particularly seeing as Bruce didn't seem mad really, just amused. But Wally knew that could just be a cover. He hadn't thought that he'd done anything too obvious that would give away his powers, well, other than turning up in costume last night. And saving Tony. And with Clark. But those weren't exactly his fault!

...okay so maybe the first one was, but the others weren't! Bats had to understand that, right?

Wally told himself to calm down, Bruce hadn't done anything other than make a joke so far, but it wasn't easy when he remembered a particular note on the bulletin board and how part of it had been torn down pretty quickly afterwards.

[ooc: Sorry for slow, have been sick X__X]

Bruce made (yet another) note to himself to be more careful with what he said around Wally; it was evident enough from the way the man's face fell that he'd been counting on Bruce to be more optimistic about the situation. He found himself wondering again just how well Wally West had known the Batman in that other dimension; the Batman had never been a bundle of sunshine, after all, so just where had Wally's belief and trust in him come from?

On the other hand, trusting people (perhaps even without proper justification) seemed to be Wally's forte. From the few sentences they'd exchanged, Bruce had found very little in ZEX's character to be concerned about, never mind Batman-levels of "tenseness." As for unusual "levels" ZEX did contain...well. Stranger things had happened to Bruce than formerly-tentacled aliens asking him for dates. Maybe.

"...No, it's not hopeless. Far from it." There were potential allies and a generally cooperative attitude among patients in the Institute for Bruce to go on, and he'd worked with less before. Of course, there were far too many things about this entire situation that were wholly unfamiliar or completely unknown, but there was a wide variety of patients here. Someone could very well have encountered similar experiences with "dimension-traveling" or magic or mind control, and if Statesman actually succeeded in building some sort of coalition of "superpowered individuals"....

...it was all speculation, and most of it was uncertain. But Bruce was as certain now as he'd ever be that they'd get out--eventually, somehow, some way: that, he shared with Dr. Uzuki.

"Sorry--I think my mind's still on 'biting and caustic' from talking to your roommate Tony back there. But on the subject of how well you're able to keep secrets..." For the most part, he kept his tone level and apologetic--yet, even Bruce could tell how his voice had dipped briefly into Batman territory with the sternness of that last phrase.

"Let's just say I'm the kind of guy who considers a secret kept if and only if not a single person finds out about it that isn't strictly necessary."

"Well that's a relief," Wally said with a slight smile. "I mean, when you start saying you don't know how to get out of things, it means I've gotta step in and and come up with something. And you know what my plans are like." He stopped, seeming to remember that he was talking with a different Bruce here. "Or, well, you can guess anyway," he added hastily.

The little slip-up reminded him of other problems he'd been having to do with this version of Batman. In one way it would have been so much easier if it had been obviously a Bats from a completely different dimension, like Clark, then he wouldn't have been wondering as much as he was now. But on the other hand, it felt... better that Bats wasn't really that different. Like he had someone he could really rely on. Sure, maybe this Bats didn't really know about the Flash or the League, but otherwise it was just like talking with the one Wally knew. He guessed that was why he was so confused about what he could and couldn't tell the guy: it was hard not to trust him completely with things that Wally felt he would have already known.

Realising he'd gone uncharacteristically quiet and was staring at his lunch, Wally gave himself a mental shake and set to work on a burrito with as much speed and enthusiasm as he could work up at the moment. "You were talking with Tony?" he asked around bites. "He's a pretty great guy, isn't he? I mean, when you can actually get him talking anyway." He laughed at that, but it died quickly as Bruce continued.

"I didn't tell anyone anything on purpose!" he said defensively, colour rising to his cheeks with a wave of heat. "It's just... some things are easier than others to keep secret. You should know that."

There was a slightly awkward silence in the conversation after Wally's comment about Bruce "knowing what the Flash's plans were like." Although yes, Bruce could venture a guess as to what a "Flash" plan would involve based on the man's personality, he didn't feel it was appropriate to do so. He'd had a taste yesterday of what Wally was likely going through now; thinking of a Clark that didn't remember Bruce Wayne and a Crane from an alternate dimension that did...Bruce already had a sense of how potentially dangerous mixing up the different versions of people could be. In light of that, it would be best if he didn't encourage Wally to think of Bruce in terms of the Bruce from the other dimension. Even if--no, especially if their two dimensions were extremely similar.

It would only hurt Wally more, after all, if he thought himself close to the Batman now only to find later that the two Bruces weren't so alike at all.

Bruce stared at Wally staring at his lunch, and only when the man seemed to shake himself out of whatever thoughts he was having did Bruce realize the expression on his face had become too revealingly pensive as well. He took a bite of his taco and paused for a moment before chewing.

"It doesn't matter how 'easy' it is," Bruce said when he swallowed.

"What matters is that you keep it. On purpose or not, the fact is that secrets here are a kind of currency--they determine life and death, not to mention livelihood and mobility."

Few paid their table any attention, and as such, Bruce let his gaze harden as it wanted.

"You wore your costume last night to ZEX's, didn't you?"

He couldn't help it; Wally froze and shot a panicked, guilty look at Bruce. "How...?" Then it occurred to him that even if Bruce hadn't know and had just been putting things together from other details, Wally had just given it away from his reaction. He sighed and flopped backwards into his chair. "Gotta learn to keep my big mouth shut," he muttered. Realising that he might be expected to say a little more in his defense, he sat forward again.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" he insisted. "Things just kinda... happened. I had a lot on my mind and I'm just so used to wearing it that I guess I forgot." He shot Bruce an apologetic look. "I promise it won't happen again. Really." This was reminding him way too much of awkward debriefings in the conference room of the Watchtower and things like 'what were you even thinking then' and 'I told you not to take your eyes off him, not even for a second'.

Well, at least he had a lot of practice in dealing with getting reamed out by Bats or Supes, even if this Bats was still getting used to him. And it probably wouldn't be too long before this Bats perfected the same range of 'dealing with the Flash' facial expressions that the other one had, so things were starting to look a lot like what he was used to.

For some weird reason that made Wally smile, though he tried to cover it immediately with an extra big bite of his lunch - most of which was gone by now, he noticed - and a more apologetic expression.

So it was true, thought Bruce as he watched Wally blanch. Truthfully, Bruce had only heard rumors about a "red blur" seen in the hallways last night, but it seemed he'd been right in putting the "red blur" together with ZEX's sudden knowledge of Wally's "altruistic" friends. Wally mumbled something to the side, something that sounded an awful lot like "keep my big mouth shut"; if the situation hadn't been so serious Bruce might have smiled.

"You forgot," intoned Bruce with a note of disbelief.

"You forgot."

Wally flinched. When Bruce said it like that, it sounded pretty bad, he realised. "Not on purpose!" he repeated. "And besides, I already apologised and said it won't happen again, what more do you want from me?" He glared defiantly at the older man pushed aside what remained of his lunch in order to cross his arms. In all honestly, what else could Bruce possibly want him to do? It wasn't like he could undo what had happened or anything. Just make an effort to learn from his mistakes and move on.

"Okay, so I might have screwed up, but at least it's still pretty, you know, secret. ZEX will keep things to himself, he promised." And he trusted Tony, and Tony had trusted him in return with his secret. And as for Clark, well, it was Clark. Even Bats wouldn't have a problem with him.

...would he?

"I'm not sure just what your standards for 'pretty secret' are, but I do know that ZEX just made a wholly unsubtle reference to Bruce Wayne's altruism on the bulletin."

Bruce's glare intensified, but where Wally's was full of heat Bruce's was cold. He lowered his voice so not to disturb the people around them, but though his voice was soft and the tone carefully tempered, the words themselves were angry. Batman's words.

"If you think that the little things don't matter, that just a little slip here or there won't be enough to expose you to the people who matter, think again. We're not dealing with Captain Boomerang and the Trickster here. Where there are heroes there will always be people out there to destroy them--people who don't give a damn about your ideas of 'justice' and 'trust' and 'faith.' You'd like to think that people don't cross lines and that people whom you tell to be careful will be careful, but people don't work like that. They'll lie, they'll cheat, they'll use you like a superspeed rag and break you apart into so many pieces you'll never get in their way again."

Wally was an optimistic person: he preferred to look towards the future rather than the past. Bruce, however was not; the past was to him as powerful a tie as the present he had to change, and if Wally was harboring any illusions as to just how generous the Batman could be, this was as good a time as any to break them.

"Even if 'your world' doesn't work like that, mine does. Even if you don't have any old enemies here, I do. If you want to go public with your identity like Cole, by all means feel free. But I can't take the risk of letting people know. Not yet. Maybe not ever."

He fell silent, reigning in his emotions tighter before resuming in a calmer voice.

"Our first priority here is to get out. If what it takes to do that involves avoiding you and keeping this--" He paused, "--friendship private, then I will do so."

Bruce's stare intensified while his voice softened.

"Do you understand?"

Wally swallowed hard as Bruce's voice went quiet and, while not exactly angry, he could definitely tell that that was only because of how many other people were around. If anything, it was an even better sign of exactly how much trouble he was in than the actual content of the lecture.

"I get it," he said quietly, dropping his gaze to the table and clearly not unfamiliar with this situation. "I screwed up big time and nothing can change that." He didn't want to believe that he couldn't trust anyone, but Bruce had more experience than he did in this kind of situation. He was right that this wasn't like any of the bad guys Wally faced in Central; he was out of his depth.

But that didn't mean he had to just roll over and give up.

"I know there's nothing I can do to undo this, but I can promise that I won't make that mistake again. I won't wear my costume unless I have no choice, and I'll be even more careful about... everything. I should have realised that all because no one recognised me, doesn't mean that the same stood for you or Clark." He glanced up at Bruce long enough to cast a pleading look in his direction. "I'll do whatever it takes, just... don't cut me off, okay? I'm not so good at working things out on my own after all," he said with a hint of wry laughter. "Without someone giving me an idea of where to go and who to hit, I think I'd be stuck here for even longer."

He hesitated slightly before continuing. "And I'm kinda having a hard enough time with that as it is."

If he was surprised by how easily the Flash'd yielded to him, Batman didn't show it. Instead, he kept the same facial expression as he listened to the rest of Wally's words, quietly unsettled by their tone.

Wally West was impulsive, yes. Trusting, perhaps. But stupid? No. Perhaps he'd gone a bit too far with his words--Bruce was certain that were Alfred or Barbara here, he'd be getting his own lesson in empathetic behavior. Though the man had friends, Bruce had essentially just told Wally that he couldn't count on any of them--a category that should, Bruce noted with irony, by extension include Bruce.

Bruce wanted to tell Wally not to rely on him, not to think that Batman had all the answers and the Flash was simply baggage without another's direction. While Bruce had done very little to show it, Wally's presence was one of the few things in Landel's Bruce could even begin to be thankful for--perhaps Bruce should tell the man, or at least--

He couldn't.

The intercom came on, and when the announcement was over Bruce considered his mostly uneaten lunch for a moment before pushing it across the table to Wally.

"...I'm going down to the file room to get our patient files tonight," he said, keeping his voice quiet but otherwise conversational.

"Last night I met with Cole and my roommate, but we weren't able to do much before the night ended--maybe because of the size of our group."

Bruce waited until he held Wally's full attention before continuing.

"If we're a group of two, however, we should have enough time to get the files and come back fairly quickly."

Bruce stopped at the end of his sentence, watching Wally's face for a minute and thinking of a post on the bulletin he'd seen just yesterday. And its responses. He stopped, thought, then continued.

"If there's anything you wanted to tell me then...I'll be listening. We'll work out a more convenient way to contact each other then as well, and if you have the list of people you've met with you now..."

Bruce responded to him with a familiar, intense silence which was only broken when the intercom sounded announcing the next shift. Only then did the other man say anything at all and it turned out to be largely unrelated to what they had been talking about only moments ago.

"...right," Wally answered, glancing over at the tray pushed in his direction but not moving to take it. It wasn't that he wasn't hungry - he wasn't ever not hungry - it was just that he didn't really feel like eating anything more at the moment.

"Patient files... Do you think they'll have anything interesting?" He honestly hadn't given the subject much thought; with how the Institute had been busy insisting that all of his past was a lie, he'd figured any patient files would have said the exact same thing. But there was always the chance he'd missed something significant, not to mention it wasn't like he had any better plans of what to do come nightfall.

Bats was watching him carefully again, and when he spoke Wally realised it must have had to do with the dumb note he'd made earlier. Yeah, way to not be secretive at all, putting a bat symbol up where everyone could see it. He may as well have written 'Batman is here' up there too, specially if there were others who knew Bats and Bruce. He was probably going to get even more reamed out about that tonight.

But at least he hadn't screwed up the list Bruce had asked for. "Yeah, it's right here," he said quickly. There wasn't much time before the nurses came over to move them along, so Wally quickly tore the page (http://scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com/2926.html) out of his journal and handed it to the other man. "Hope it's okay," he added.

"Maybe. We have to start somewhere, and the radio two nights ago mentioned the files as being important. At the very least it should provide some clue as to how much about us they know at the Institute."

Bruce took the page, scanning it quickly before nodding.

"Which room are you in?" He asked quickly, watching for the nurses.

"I'm in M84 with a man named Logan, but it might be best if I met you in front of your room."

"Well it's better than nothing, right?" Wally said with a faint echo of his usual smile. He didn't comment that it was news to him what the radio had said because he'd been asleep in his room at the time. After the reaming he'd just gotten, he didn't want to remind Bruce of that waste of time too.

"M79, with Tony," he said as a nurse approached their table. "I'll stick around there if it's easier." He stood an managed to force a smile for the nurse, not wanting to make things look too suspicious or anything. "I'll see you then?" he said over his shoulder, still faking a relaxed happiness he didn't really feel. "Oh, and Bruce?"

Wally paused, weighing what he was about to say before continuing. "Thanks. For giving me another chance. I'll make sure you don't regret it." And with that he turned away and followed the stream of others through to the Sun Room.

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Day 38: Lunch

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