multiversallogs | there is a community of the spirit.

Entry tags:

there is a community of the spirit.

Who: ~~Bruce Wayne~~ Tom and you.
What: Creeping out from the fringes and the shadows, investigating the city through a closer lens.
Where: Various areas in Baedal, mostly the central districts, and along the river.
When: Coardi (Wednesday), or any day this week after that, I'm easy.
Notes: OPEN LIKE AN OPEN THING. I want your cr and I want your revenge, tag in under whatever scenario your dark heart desires.
→ new note: if you'd like to start a new thread please come up with a new setting on another day, Coardi has hit critical mass of things Mr Hermit BatCrab would put up with before vanishing back into the shadows. :E
Warnings: TBA. (Swearing? Not much else.)

Bruce doesn't want to admit it at first, but after he gets a decent night's sleep and has a real conversation with someone, he feels a lot better. It took him an hour of silent reflection on Hasi's little balcony to come to terms with having felt awful to begin with - it's not being here, it's everything else, being here is a strange misstep but it isn't enough to throw him, not really - and to accept that attempting to remain a ghost in the machine wasn't an acceptable plan of action. For a whole armful of reasons. Also on that balcony, struck by the view at night, with oddly-powered lights set into strange buildings like scattered candles and gems, Baedal reminded him of Baku, maybe Lahore, and the inoffensive memories chided at him from quiet corners about his aseptic behavior.

He still isn't social when he goes out. He's quiet, unassuming, and spends hours wandering, watching without truly interacting. He keeps to the edges of the river, then, walking alongside it off the roads, going under bridges where he can. There are people washing the dye out of great, bright reams of fabric in the still shallows, speaking a language he guesses must have once been of Earth; he practices with them for a time, talking of the river's current and temperament and the goddess that lives within instead of about the tenure of their citizenship.

He walks up into the city proper when he comes to the water's split, skirting the arena - there are men and women practicing familiar-but-not-quite movements in a great lined rectangle. It's an experience on a scale Bruce never had even during his own time as a student, and so he sits and watches for a while. A woman speaks to him about a guild that trains and dispatches warriors to serve as private guardians; he keeps the paper she gives him, but invests in nothing further. It isn't anything he'd truly consider, but he's curious in an academic way about what lies inside their doors.

There's a library he'd like to see, but a group of children with wildly varying ages (and genetic markers) end up kicking multicolored rocks into the cobblestone street - he kicks one back, artfully, and ends up engrossed for the next hour learning a game with rules he suspects are not actually written down anywhere. With few words, he teaches one of them how to hold his arm to balance anything on his hand, and laughs a little, privately.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If anything could startle Penelope anymore, it wouldn't be a half-soaked good looking guy wandering out of the river. Not in this city. What's somewhat surprising is that he's staring at her like she's done something more remarkable than walk by holding a coffee and a donut. Maybe she has and she just doesn't remember? The thought stops her in her tracks.

"Oh god," she says, around half a mouthful of donut. "Did I sleep with you?" There's about a fifty/fifty chance of it having happened, it's worth it to ask.

The stages of reaction to that are, suddenly and obviously, uncharacteristically easy to read on his face. For half a heartbeat Bruce keeps looking at her with that reflective expression, as if he hasn't fully registered just yet what she's said. Puzzlement hits first - then something like being scandalized, and then incredulity. Bruce is not hugely expressive, no, but every so often he manages to get a little bit blindsided. Sometimes.

Well. It's Penelope, all right.

He opens his mouth, inhaling, ready to say something - side-eying her a little as he does. A host of potential responses flit through his head like the colorful face of a slot machine, and then the thought of yes it's her, no she doesn't remember me causes him to abandon whatever reply he'd settled on and veer in a new direction that could possibly be summed up as the bantering equivalent of pouring a forty out on the sidewalk for a fallen friend.

Deadpan: "You'd remember."

The long pause is something of a worry, and she narrows her eyes at him mildly while waiting for his reply. Something definitely went on in his brain just there, and if she were one of the more unscrupulous sort of magic people, she'd just love to listen in on whatever it was. But she is, unfortunately, far more scrupulous than most people of her acquaintance would give her credit for.

His actual answer is somehow incredibly reassuring. (Also correct: from the look of the guy, she is relatively certain she would.)

"Okay. You were giving me kind of a look, there." She waves her donut hand (and cigarette hand, incidentally) around vaguely for emphasis. "Having fun... wading?"

"Yes."

This is true. He did enjoy himself wading, so there.

(Her responses, while comfortingly herself, carries a lack of personal piss-taking that he finds slightly unsettling. It's better that she never went through the frustrating nightmare of that alien city; this shouldn't bother him at all.)

"You looked strikingly like someone I knew at home, for a moment. Sorry."

"That's not all that weird here. From what I hear, I mean, it's never been me before. It's still like... mildly unsettling that there is another person with my face wandering around somewhere, but I guess that's the fun of multiple universes!" Penelope attempts jazzhands here, but with so much crap in her hands, the effect is slightly less than ideal. "And by 'fun' I mean 'bullshit', of course, but you know."

Penelope shifts her weight on her hip, here, making it clear that she's going to hang around and wait for this guy to get his shoes back on so she can interrogate him further. It's not every day she meets a somewhat genial, not-bad-looking male-type individual who claims to A) know an alternate version of her and B) not have slept with her. Or maybe it's just some bitch with her face, who knows. Whatever. She intends to find out.

"So who's this bitch you know? She's probably not me, since you didn't seem pissed off at me when I caught you staring before, and if it was me, let's face it, you would be. So." At least she's smiling when she says it! Or what passes for a smile, with Penelope's dry expressions.

"It's mostly how you hold yourself," he says, and the soft-spoken quality of his voice somehow still seems to fit, compared to his flatline humor moments before. While that statement is mostly some mild-mannered defense in the face of the steamroller of WORDS WORDS WORDS that is this woman, it's also true. Physical likeness, despite being something Bruce has a very keen eye for, hardly matters. She acts, sounds, speaks, stands like herself.

He hasn't even heard her name yet; Bruce thinks very highly of his own intellect, news at eleven.

"Why would I be pissed off at you, if it was?" Faintly amused; he goes for his socks and beat-up combat boots that might be older than she is.

Penelope raises an eyebrow. That's not exactly the most common way people identify her. Almost always it's something far less... sweet, in a really neutral, inoffensive way. Her horrible mouth, or her smug fucking face, or something rude about her ass or how short she is. Never anything as considerate or involved as how she holds herself. It's perplexing. Why on god's green earth (or Baedal, whatever) would she allow someone she isn't related to and more importantly, isn't a woman, to know her long enough to know how she holds herself?

Abruptly, Penelope concludes that this man must be gayer than a box of birds.

"Hi, have you met me? That's why." She takes a sip of her coffee. "I have been alerted to the fact that I am more than your recommended daily dosage of snotty bitch several thousand times by people far less good looking than you. Apparently I make enemies. Shocking, I know, keep breathing."

Bruce balances easily on one foot at a time as he gets this done, knotting laces quickly without actually seeming hurried. He does wobble a little, once, but it's slight (and wholly manufactured as to not seem quite so eerily physically competent). It's only then, in her little diatribe about herself, that he feels a pang of loss - he stops himself from frowning.

"I'll manage." To keep breathing, he means - and he keeps watching her, too, without a trace of offense. "I'm Tom, by the way."

Which is not what he told her the first time, and he wonders if it matters, here. That odd feeling of loss remains like smoke; they aren't alike at all, but that visceral sense of not belonging, not-at-fucking-all, was something they shared.

"Penelope Lane, just... to confirm. Nice to meet you." And weirdly enough, it is. It is nice to meet someone who, for whatever reason, already has a positive personal opinion of her. For once.

"You have me at kind of a loss, though, I have to say. I mean, look at you, with all the advantages in this situation, and me, standing here with my fucking donut like a moron." It is a delicious donut, though, so she takes another bite. It occupies her mouth just long enough for him to finish tying his shoes in blessed silence. But that's about all he'll be getting for a while, because Penelope fully intends to squeeze this Tom guy for every last drop of information on how the hell he knows her. "Tell me the tale. How did we meet?"

And finish tying his shoes he does, tugging the ends of his still-damp jeans back into place and straightening up. It's not so cold out he'll be in any real discomfort - it's warmer than Gotham - and he doesn't mind the condition he's in at present. After he wipes the remnants of moisture and grass off his hands against his thighs he starts pulling his jacket on, and moves so that he's fully off the sloped incline of the riverbank, up next to Penelop.

"Nice to meet you too," he says, and quirks an eyebrow a little. "I never said it was you, you know. Just you reminded me of someone." ... Teasing her?

He is immediately greeted with an eyeroll that has had a lifetime of perfection. He has perfect balance and ninja reflexes-- Penelope has facial expressions that can set fire to someone she doesn't like from 100 yards.

"Come on. Who the fuck else would I remind you of." That's not so much a question as it is a mild scolding.

It strikes her that it's strange how not threatened she is by this guy, physically. It seems like as soon as he started talking to her, she settled into her usual easy-yet-curse-laden banter, the kind she assumes with her friends (her mother gets a much less angry version, naturally). She hasn't gone into Fuck Off mode, or Business Talk mode, or even I Would Like To Have Sex mode, which is actually sort of alarming. Why is this guy different, just because he says he knows a different version of her, one which might be nothing like her at all? It's disconcerting, and it knocks her off her game, just a little. She hates that. But what she hates more is that he keeps avoiding her questions.

"Are you always like this? Or are you just having a day. Because I cannot understand why I would have put up with your extreme evasion if I wasn't fucking you."

"I could be having a bad day," he faux-muses, breezing by her demands about who she reminds him of. "I haven't been here for very long, it's pretty weird still."

He really is kind of insufferable, sometimes. But this is familiar, this back and forth, and he likes it a little. Plus he's stalling, because not even Bruce Wayne knows how to explain something like this; it makes him think about Richard Grayson a bit, which is irritating.

"Yeah, okay, granted," Penelope gives him that, regardless of the answers still not coming. He is definitely messing with her, and enjoying the hell out of it. That's fine; she can give as good as she gets.

"Still, I'm not weird. I mean everybody here probably thinks that but no, for real, I am genuinely the least weird person here. I mean aside from the obvious." This is her way at hinting to him about her, er. 'Family Secret.' The only other person in Baedal who knows about her magic is Ruby, and that's only because they've both got it. The only reason she's even hinting at it with 'Tom' is because if he knows another one of her, with as familiar as he's acting, it's likely he knows this too.

"How long have you been here? Do you have a place to stay? I mean, not that I'm offering, my cat would probably kill you in your sleep, but. The Inn gets fucking tedious after a while."

And ah, here we come to the multiversal impasse: Bruce doesn't know about her magic, because the Penelope he knew merely (... 'merely', yes, sure) only had trouble with seeing and interacting with dead people, spirits. It was still far beyond his understanding, but he knew that it weighed on her greatly - one of the last times he saw her was when they were speaking about it, and he'd been worried. He wanted her to speak to Enfys about it, really.

So he just gives her a bit of a look, like he's just not sure what she wants him to say, there, but he might have a few responses tucked away if he was the sort to blurt things out.

"Long enough to get out of the Inn." Shrug. "Did you get a pet here?" Oh god her fucking cat.

That's something to think about-- exactly how much about her she should assume he already knows. One thing she's learned about this city is that it is far more inherently dangerous than the world she came from. There seems to be no limit to the nonsense that Baedal pulls in, and Penelope would rather not let it know about her precise brand of nonsense, thanks very much. The less that gets out about her, the better.

So she does the wise thing (FOR ONCE), and keeps her mouth shut.

"He came with me. Angus. Did I not have him before? Weird to think there'd be a Penelope without an Angus. We're kind of a matched set. Like tacky salt and pepper shakers, except one is a cat and one is fucking amazing." It would be fairly obvious to him that she's pretty clearly scrutinizing the hell out of him and using the excuse of taking a sip of her coffee to peer at him so blatantly. Fascinating.

The look he gives her in response is pointedly tolerant, but not unkind. He has still not confirmed anything to you, Ms Lane. Tom has no comment about her cat, apparently, because whatever further questions he might have had are effectively answered already by her illuminating speech, there.

So:

"Where'd you get the donut?"

"Same place I got the coffee." Now who's being vague?? That'll learn 'im. "Donut's not as good as it would be if I got it from the pastry place but the coffee's better at the coffee place so. Lesser of two evils, there."

Penelope 101: Even Donuts and Coffee Are A Choice Between Shit And Slightly Less Shit, Even When They're All Good.

She shifts her hips again, her body language saying so are you going to walk with me or not, and shrugs. "You're telling me more than you think you are, just. In case you thought you were being all Secret Peter at me for some reason."

"I'll keep that in mind." He likes coffee. And donuts. And judging from her trajectory, disposition, and occupation, he can probably sort out where she came from just now. (It doesn't even occur to him to think that might be insane. It's just how he thinks.)

Sure, he'll walk with her. Half-smile on his face he asks, "What am I telling you?"

It's okay, Bruce. Now you've got Penelope (well... a Penelope) to tell you when you're being insane. And she will. At great length. Whether you want her to or not.

"That you're the kind of guy used to getting what he wants. Usually without giving anything in return. And you're kind of insufferably smug. No, seriously, why do I like you?" Note the lack of past-tense, there. Freudian slip? Maybe. Or maybe half of the reason she's visibly annoyed with him (nothing remarkable and honestly nothing to be concerned with) is that her Magic Radar is telling her this one's okay, and she has, as of yet, little to no evidence as to why. Besides the fact that he hasn't axe murdered her yet.

His eyebrows go up at that assessment - genuine incredulity. It's like she's managed to distill the exact facade he presents to Gotham's media and high society, without... ever seeing that front. Which is completely fake, anyway. But he also knows Penelope is as hostile as all get out, and he knows that, in general, women have no reason to think any man is motivated by anything other than selfishly getting what he wants.

It's that last bit, more than anything about her personally, that makes him disinclined to be annoyed.

"I'm a supporter of the arts."

Now he's just trolling - but, yes, that is a sideways cop to having known her before, for those paying attention.

Penelope is many, many things. Paying attention is certainly one of them.

"So we're doing business. Jesus, you could've just said so. Not that I'd use the word 'artist' to describe myself like... ever, but since we're being unbearably facetious already, why not go all out. I don't do menswear, but somehow I think asking you to elaborate would get me precisely fucking nowhere."

Speaking of going nowhere. Penelope takes a moment out from her casual stroll to finish her coffee and dump the empty cup into a nearby bin-- it's weird how society in this city can be both ultra-modern and practically medieval. Not that it bothers her, but it can make for a surreal, sort of post-modern state of mind.

"Would it even be worth it to ask anything else? Like what would happen if I just stopped talking, would we just keep going forever in silence? Oh, you'd fucking love that, wouldn't you, you miserable bastard." Penelope June Lane is the only person in the known universe (maybe ALL known universes) who can say that with genuine affection.

"Maybe."

It is a beautiful skill, to be sure, but - and this is unlikely to be a shock - this is not the first time anyone's called Bruce a miserable bastard. Even in fondness. (Though Penelope has a certain flair to her delivery.) He stays quiet for a while; he can't really go into detail, and even if he could, he's not sure he wants to. What happens when he goes home? That Penelope still exists.

He can't even tell this one his real name, much less what they went through. He can't admit to anything near any of that. His capabilities, his tendencies - he has to keep it quiet.

"This isn't weird, to you?"

"What, this?" Penelope gestures between them, pointing lazily back and forth between him and herself. "This you and me thing? Yeah, fucking massively so, actually, but compared to the last few years of my life? Or actually, the last few, like, weeks? This is nothing. This is a stroll down the street. It is a fucking bizarre-ass street, as you can see, but it's just a fucking street, and these fashionable yet affordable boots are made for fucking strolling if you know what I mean."

Like water off a duck's back, Penelope is pretty well acclimatized to weirdness at this point, sir. (She still hasn't run into Balthazar.)

"But then, I'm not running into a buddy of mine who doesn't recognize or remember me. So I'd say I've got a leg up on you, figuratively speaking. Obviously, I mean, again, with the apparently-not-fucking-you."

It's never just a street, with him - especially not with someone that he ostensibly trusted in some slight way. While it's nice to see Penelope, he can't - won't - just drop everything and pretend it's the same woman. She isn't; it's not even a matter of time. If she'd recognize him from somewhere else while they were in Taxon, he's positive she'd have said so. (Loudly and repeatedly, probably.)

"I'm trying not to be a jerk about it." To the other her, or whatever he'd like to call it. He's not enough of an asshole to think of it in terms of 'his Penelope' vs 'this Penelope'.

He can't just let go of it, and he can't use it like a tool, either.

"Don't worry about it. Anyway it's probably not the 'being a jerk' you're having trouble with. You don't take losing people well, do you?"

She pauses here, to smoke the last bit of her cigarette. It was almost like she'd been purposely ignoring it, and it had burned away while they chatted. She crushed the butt underneath her heel while she spoke.

"It's cool; most people don't. It's when you start taking it well you should be worried." Penelope herself is far, far past that point, and its in her reluctance to look at him as she says it that delivers that point home.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject