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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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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