4853/Everyone Wants to Shout at Damian.

Everyone Wants to Shout at Damian.
Date of Scene:	08 July 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Colette suggests the Titans need a co-leader. Damian takes it rather well.
Cast of Characters:	Stardust, Robin (Wayne)

---

Stardust has posed:
There's a soft knocking on Damian's door, accompanied by Colette's voice. "Damian? You there? It's Colette. Can I come in?"

Ever since the fight with the Bandersnatch, the Tower has been a remarkably quiet place. Raven recuperating, Breath bedridden, and Vorpal on vacation is just the start of it. Despite all the threats of shouting, it seems like everyone has been speaking in hushed tones and walking around on cotton wool.

That's particularly true of Colette. Not that it's unusual for her to not be around for a while it seems that she mostly uses her room as a personal entrance to the tower and occasional workroom rather than anything else. However she seems to have been avoiding people, at least until now. She's knocking quietly though. Even her voice is quiet. That's just not a usual thing for Colette.

Nor for that matter is how she's dressed. She's almost never seen out of uniform, but today she's wearing jeans and a plain black t-shirt. Her hair is down, which is a definite first. Superheroing is best done with a ponytail, but today she has her hair covering half her face. The bruised half. She's pretty good at covering things up with makeup, but the hair helps.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian hadn't been in anyone's face lately. He's mostly kept to himself, but that wasn't unusual for him. He much preferred to be around animals than humans.

  "Enter." He responds, looking at the door. He was out of uniform, sitting down for tea. A small table was on the floor, a Japanese style table, but he was serving British tea. Call it Alfred rubbing off on him.

Stardust has posed:
Colette opens the door and slips inside, glancing quickly down the corridor as she does so. Apparently she's hoping this visit will not be noted. She closes the door quietly behind herself, and stands there for a few moments in silence.

"Firstly, I'm not mad at you," Colette says. As opening gambits go it's pretty direct. And probably a relief. "But we do need to talk." She crosses the floor to where Damian is seated, and joins him on the floor, legs crossed beneath her. "Everyone else is, pretty much. You worked your ass off on this, spent a lot of money, ended up feeling guilty as hell about it, and you were trying to help the team. It must be quite frustrating for you that nobody seems to see that. However, as tests go? You did screw up pretty hard. Almost as badly as the rest of us."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian sips from his cup, milk and a little sugar. "Good to know." He retorts, looking to Colette as she comes in. He pours a cup for her, scooting it to her. "I expected them to be. The test was designed to have them face up to failure in a controlled environment."

Stardust has posed:
Colette takes the cup, giving it a sniff. Not suspicious, just savoring the scent. "We're not assassins though, Damian." She takes a sip. "Before you say it, I know. If we were assassins there would have been a lot more stabby. But that's what you were thinking about when you came up with this scheme, wasn't it? It has to be, because that's what you know. How long did it take Moon Moon to recognize it for what it was? Five minutes? It's not us. What we are is... what we are supposed to be is a team. I don't think you realize how much this test of yours undermined that. Getting us to fight one on one meant that the most important lesson, that we are stronger together, was forgotten. What's worse, the lesson it really hammered home is not to trust one another. And that's the worst lesson of all for a team to learn."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian's cup is brought back down to the saucer. "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Half of our members haven't had experience in the field. They think powers are all they need, but they only take you so far. As pointed out." The comment on trust only goes so far with Damian. "Not trusting anyone went pretty far for me."

Stardust has posed:
"If the team was only as weak as the weakest member, we'd all have been splatted by the Bandersnatch," Colette points out calmly. "We weren't. Most of us worked together and defeated it. For all the thought and work and grief you put into the test, that little accidental fight taught us far more about what we can and can't do." She takes another sip of the tea. "Not bad, but I prefer the oolong. You know, I almost walked. Almost left the team, because it no longer felt like there was one." There's a pause as she looks up from the cup, one eyebrow arched. "I couldn't let that bastard X-Face have the satisfaction though. " Her mouth breaks into a grin, and she lets out a short laugh.

Setting her cup down, Colette leans back and gives Damian a speculative look. "Pretty much from the beginning, I knew that you, Moon Moon, Raven and Vorpal were hiding things from me. Cassie wasn't around, but that was everyone else who's been here longer than me. Know how that feels? Not good. I mean okay, Vorp. I eventually figured out he was just hiding himself from everyone. Should have seen that earlier. But that little surprise, bringing everyone in and cornering you? Nearly didn't happen. I was really tempted to let you tire yourself out a bit on Breath and then drop in at the last moment and kick your ass without telling anyone what I was planning." She looks away smirking for a moment. "Thing is, that wouldn't have helped. So I dragged everyone in. Hardest part was persuading everyone they shouldn't hurt you. That includes some of the Titans who knew who they were going to be fighting. I didn't share with everyone. Would have been hard to explain what I'd figured out without revealing Batman's identity, so that much I only shared with people I knew you've told. "

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian holds his hand down, looking to Colette. "I'm glad you didn't walk off. You were the one I was pulling for the most. Vorpal I had a different plan for. Some others...fell short." He knew what he was doing. But this wasn't an exercise for teamwork. It was for him, and it was for him to gage the others.

Stardust has posed:
"That's the kind of thing you shouldn't be saying." She raises a finger in admonishment, but there's something almost playful about it. "Oh, I don't mean you shouldn't tell people when they fell short. Speaking personally, I've got a lot of yelling... or talking to people to do. The reality is that every single member of the team fell short to some degree or another. I'd give Brick and Rainman a pass. They didn't do enough, both lacked initiative. But they both acquited themselves pretty well when asked. Everyone else though, pretty much a fail. And that includes you."

Colette sighs a little and picks up her cup again, giving it a gentle swirl and watching the liquid move. "Which is why I'm here. Giving you the talk I intend on giving to everyone else. Yep, I'm going to do evaluations on this test too. Feel free to give me mine, but I'm pretty sure I already know the ways I failed. You failed because you're meant to be the leader of this team, and you ended up weakening the uh... cohesion. The team itself. We forget, you know. That you're the youngest of us. And for all the experience you have... doing this, doing the stuff we do, you're the least experienced when it comes to dealing with people. I don't know whether anyone's going to be brave enough to say it, but I guarantee you there are people who think you should step down as leader."

"They're wrong." She takes a sip of her tea. "But you should consider appointing a co-leader. Someone who's better at the people stuff. Someone who can work with you, who can tell you when you're going to far. I recommend Vorpal."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     "The cohesion? We were hardly cohesive to start with. We have an alien that seems to be more interested in lounging in a bikini on the pool. Another member that won't step up to the plate 'without motivation'. I didn't ask to be leader, Stardust." Doesn't mean he didn't want to be, he just fell into it.

  Looking at the other Titan, he speaks up again. "I recommend you, as well.

Stardust has posed:
"You're not wrong, Damian." Colette smiles. "That's why we need a co-leader. Because you just don't quite get people well enough to strengthen our biggest weakness. You just made it worse. We need someone who can do the strategy stuff, who can make people fight better. But at least as much, we need someone who can get people working together. The whole is much greater than the sum of the parts, all that stuff. And that's not me, either."

Colette looks almost apologetic as she shrugs her shoulders. "I spent the last few months intentionally aggravating people to get them to slip up and reveal things to me. Kept what I was doing secret. Even essentially set up Rainman. I didn't buy the EMP thing. I also didn't believe he'd get seriously hurt. But I let him go off and get hurt anyway. Didn't have the courage of my convictions, I guess. Don't mistake persuading everyone to get off their asses and actually follow a plan for the kind of leadership this team needs. I'm not as good at the strategy stuff as you, and my instinct is to rely on myself rather than get people working together."

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian listens to what Colette says, though he doesn't agree with some of it. "I don't know if Vorpal will be up for it. But I'll approach him when he returns."

  Damian takes another drink. "What else for me?"

Stardust has posed:
"I'll try to persuade him too. For you though?" Colette shrugs her shoulders and drinks some more tea. "When people figured out so quickly that it was an inside job, you should have changed your plans. By the end even a couple of people who hadn't followed the evidence were guessing it was you. You're not good at hiding your guilt feelings. Your cover stories didn't make sense. X-Face said that Raven had almost caught him before, so it couldn't have been your cousin. Oh... and jumping to Moon Moon's defense the way you did revealed more than you really should have. Though he didn't exactly help himself by reacting badly when I casually asked him a question about the League." She grins slightly, then drains the rest of her cup.

"And you probably should have had me earlier on the list." Colette stretches her arms and gets to her feet. She stands on one leg, stretching the other, then swaps over. "I mean before I figured out what was going on. Because you never really did get to find out what I can do in a fight, did you? We were both holding back far too much for that."

Colette heads for the door, turning back when she has it part open. "I even showed you I had a trick you didn't know about before the fight, remember the soda can? And then didn't use it." She breaks into a broad grin. On her way out, she adds "Always leave 'em wondering."

She might just be letting Damian know she's guessed what the other motivation for the test was...

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian is actually listening to Colette as she presents her information. Every morsel, information to process.

  Despite what most people think, Damian doesn't just think about stabbing and fighting. "I couldn't be the one to solve everything, it would have defeated the reason for the game. Raven was supposed to get the hint that it was me from that before. I never found out if she did. And if so, she played that close to the vest."

  Robin looks to Stardust as she leaves, giving a nod. "And I went easy on you all!" He adds in as she closes the door, a pearl of truth to that.