Duplicity Contact Post

[notrosecolored]

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[notrosecolored]

[ Without his glasses on, Scott's startled expression and confusion are really readily apparent. Would be to Dick anyway, probably, but more so without them. He glances down the building for a moment, before looking back to Dick.

Now with some dry, pretty dead-pan humor. ]

What, a blank check to ask questions? It might not be the usual outcome, but I don't know that it needs an apology.

Let's turn it around. Is there anything you don't know about me, but want to?

[covert]

Sure.

[There are a dozen, but let's start with the obvious one.]

What was that look for?

[Because he's seen shock, seen pity, but that wasn't quite it.]

[notrosecolored]

[ Well, at least they're starting off easy.

Assuming his expression was what he thinks it was, which... hard to say.

Murdered parents? Sad, but not outside the level of trauma he... sees too much of. Nine year old deciding (or feeling they had to) do something and being able to do it? Outside the norm and concerning but not shocking. ]

Because you winced, and then apologized to me.

[covert]

[Dick's lips circle an oh, - still, it seems fairly evident to him. Maybe it's just that he's the only traumatized person he knows who didn't use it as an excuse to throw social skills out of the window.

...]

Maybe it's just that I'm the only one in my family who didn't let trauma mean throwing social skills out of the window. You want some smaller talk at any point, I'll be good for it.

But, since we're asking. How old were you?

[notrosecolored]

Social skills? Never heard of them.

[ It's not really a joke - there is truth there - but it isn't a whole truth, either. Also not really what the discussion here is. He doesn't need or want smaller talk, anyway.]

X-men? 16. Parents? 7, though my dad wasn't actually dead. I thought he was, he thought it was better that way, but he was off [ he gestures upward, though the sky is definitely not the one he knows ] being a space pirate.

[covert]

That's not how I expected that sentence to end.

[He takes a seat next to Scott, easy in his company, despite the subject matter.]

Why did he think it was better? Nobody ever told him his dog went to live on a farm, before?

[notrosecolored]

[ Scott has reached a point of being comfortable with Dick. A lot (most) of that is Dick's personality. Some of it is the intersection between Dick knowing things, thanks to his relationship with Logan, and Dick not having a close relationship and a lot of expectations about him in particular.

Outside, but not entirely outside.

He cracks a crooked smile, because yeah. Space pirates are weird.

Then backs up.]

We thought they were dead because the plane we were in was going down. It was actually the Shi'ar - aliens. Both of them got taken. Dad lived, mom didn't. So. It was a guilt thing, basically.

[covert]

[Dick accepts this, the sad parts and the alien parts (he nearly married a space princess, these things happen) and the part that makes a painful kind of sense. Guilt can be a doozy.

He's quiet long enough to take it in, then gestures with one arm, casually.]

Guilt's the reason my adoptive father's a giant crime-fighting bat.

[#relatable.]

[notrosecolored]

[ The 'guilt made me do it' is highly relatable.

Less relatable: ]

Why a bat? Assuming he isn't actually a bat and doesn't have sonar.

[ Does Dick know? Because that's a really weird one.

Unlike 'wolverine'. or cyclops.]

[covert]

I barely blinked at Space Pirate and you're going to hassle me over Batman?

[It's a tease, you don't live this long as a small brightly coloured assistant to someone in a bat onesie and not appreciate the absurdity.]

He wanted to instill fear in people, and he's afraid of bats so - he might have overestimated how universal that feeling is. But he does have sonar. Me too. It's in the suit.

[notrosecolored]

[ He holds his hand up, thumb and forefinger held about an inch a part to say yeah, he's hassling a little. ]

And to think, I settled for spandex and a shutter trigger in my gloves. I should have held out longer.

[ It's an easy, dry, sort of humor ]

So Batman is who took you in after your parents died?

[covert]

Batman's who stopped me from killing the man who murdered them. It was a longer fall for me than them but with a better ending. Bruce is who caught me.

[It's not without sentimentality. These are the defining motives of his life - the reason he, guilty as anyone, finds to stay alive. If, maybe, his life can be of use.]

And that's why I do what I do.

[notrosecolored]

[ He really isn't sure where literal and metaphor intersect there, but after a second of thought decides it doesn't matter. ]

I landed on my head, but eventually with Charles. He built the team around me. I'm sure that saved my life. Also why I do what I do. Or did what I did.

[covert]

[Charles. He's picked up on more than a few mixed feelings around that man, but every one of them passionate. Not unlike what people must pick up when he talks about Bruce.

Since they're on commonalities - he slides a glance across.]

I've thought about setting up a team, here. How about you?

[notrosecolored]

[ Scott looks Dick dead in the eyes, lifts both of his eyebrows and keeps his voice so deadpan it's frankly making a mockery of himself. Exaggerated 'innocence' but without actually trying to sell it. ]

I have no idea what you're talking about. What would I possibly do with a team. I just put out periodic calls for experienced people looking for advanced combat training. It's how I make a living here.

[ Yeah. He's thought about it. You want his notes? Because there are notes. Very, very sketchy ones that look innocent. ]

[covert]

[One corner of Dick's mouth ticks up.]

A few months before you got here I put a call out for skilled or powered people - not just fighters. Magic users, telepaths - we had a few more mutants, then, we had technopaths, aliens, hackers.

I called it a network - just to train together, have people to call on when we needed to. [And the aim, of course, was ultimately to narrow it to a team of the most capable and a pool of reserves and lookouts.] Most of that network's gone and - I admit - I let more of it slip than I should have.

[He tips his head back, looking up to where pale clouds skim across the black of the sky. Of course, never being able to put things in plain terms doesn't help.]

There are plenty of threats, here - giant tigers, tentacle monsters [Themselves.] And whenever something happens the response is a piecemeal mess. Having a response unit couldn't be a bad thing. At least, people tell me I shouldn't try and do everything myself.

[As long as it doesn't look like they're arming themselves to bring down the system.

Doesn't look like it.]

[notrosecolored]

[ This is the first time Scott has so much alluded to doing anything, to anyone. The need for that level of discretion certainly does not make it easy to get shit done.

It also makes his relationship with his son complicated and tense.

It is what it is.

He unfolds and leans back onto his elbows so he can look up, more than out. Still moving carefully but a lot more normally, too.]

There's a lot of chaos that is inherent in the place. You'll never keep people from responding on their own, but some of it could certainly be cut out with a little careful organization.

The continual turn over in who's here's it's own sort of problem. People who keep turning up for their training session does a decent job of tracking that subset, but I'm probably overdue for putting out an offer for newer arrivals who might need to burn off some aggression. [ Ie: Find out who's there and pissed and can hold their own. ]