8203/All Good Things

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All Good Things
Date of Scene: 07 July 2019
Location: Batcave
Synopsis: Changing circumstances bring Bruce and Kitty to discuss the future of her involvement with the Batfamily
Cast of Characters: Shadowcat, Batman




Shadowcat has posed:
It's been about two weeks since Bruce saw Kitty last. A training session, working on her fighting skills. She'd done well at climbing and stealth, and took well to the science part of criminology, but struggles more with reading people, micro-expressions and the like. Fighting? She'd done well, and her training in ninjutsu definitely showed she'd learned under someone talented. But there were so many things Bruce had been able to teach her with his broader fighting skills.

But it was obvious even during the training that something was going on. Kitty had rarely been very troubled in her time she'd been dating Bruce's adopted son. But something was definitely going on now. And Bruce likely has the skills to read the young woman and deduce what.

Today Kitty had texted to see if Bruce would be about if she came by. And after his confirmation, her car could be seen coming up the road to the manor. A 2026 Toyota Avalon, new though the previous model year, the car had been a gift from Bruce. Kitty had just returned from Oxford, and had no vehicle, making getting to Gotham to see Bruce's son more difficult. Thus the car, though she'd turned him down on the offer, until he just had it delivered to her anyway.

That is the car that drives up to the manor and parks. Kitty is let in by Alfred, and then takes the elevator down to the Batcave. She steps out into the now-familiar enclosure, though looking around at it in a way she hasn't since her first few times there. She walks over towards the area where Bruce works, steps taken slowly as if almost with a reluctance. "Bruce?" Kitty asks softly when she gets near. It had taken her months to stop calling him "Mr. Wayne", even after she deduced he was Batman.

Batman has posed:
One might think Bruce Wayne rolls out of bed, puts on his Batman gear and sets off to fighting crime. But there's decidedly more to it than that. He's been up since the mid-afternoon, engaging in a training regimen carefully designed to keep him at the peak he has occupied for the last ten years. As Kitty enters, he calls out from behind the grand set of screens and terminals that is the Batcomputer.

When she is close enough to see, she finds him in simple and unadorned grey sweats. The chair has been set to one side, allowing him to stand as he watches what appears to be several news programs at the same time. Interspersed amongst them are feeds from security cameras and what looks to be the vital statistics of a low-rent goon-for-hire recently freed from prison. In his right hand he holds a dull kettle bell, swinging it as he reads. He glances sidelong to Kitty, observing her in that patented way that suggests he is already unravelling what she is going to say before she says it. Even if he has, he pays her the courtesy of letting her say it.

"Everything okay?"

Shadowcat has posed:
The rather somber-looking young woman is wearing a grey hoodie and jeans, with boots sticking out from the cuffs. She gives a little shake of her head. Most of her hair is pulled back in a pony tail, but the strands that she's left out to hang free sway with the motion. "No, not really," she says quietly. Kitty runs her fingers up through her hair. "Um... I heard Harley Quinn is out of Arkham. Sighted by a friend in Central Park recently," she says quietly. Harley and Scarecrow were both arrested by Red Hood, Red Robin, Kestrel and Kitty in her guise as Blackbird, after they raced explosive-laden buses across town and down the highway. Joker jumped from one of the speeding buses and escaped.

But sharing that news isn't why Kitty is there, that much is obvious. She falls silent for a few seconds, eyes searching the ground off to the side. Kitty finally reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small jewelry box. "I wanted to return your mother's ring," she says, opening it so Bruce can see the ruby ring, the patina on it and the style speaking to its age. The ring he'd given to his son, who had given it to Kitty as a promise ring when Kitty's mother came to visit.

Kitty quietly offers the ring over. "It's meant a lot to me, how you much you welcomed me into your family," Kitty says quietly. "I... um..." she says, before trailing off. "Well, it meant a lot," she concludes, clearing her throat of some emotion.

Batman has posed:
Bruce receives the news about Harley Quinn with a curt nod, the kettle bell still swinging as he types something one-handed on the Batcomputer's keyboard. Nothing appears to change on the screen, but somehow it is as though Kitty has added a new and valuable variable to whatever vast equation the computer is focused on.

When the jewellery box is handed back to him, he doesn't immediately move to take it. He doesn't stop swinging the weight either, as though his body is training on autopilot while his mind focuses on other things. His blue eyes flicker from the ring to Kitty, reading her body language.

"Do you have time to talk?" his voice is quiet, not the usual brusque tones he uses when he doesn't have to keep up the mask of Bruce Wayne. He gestures towards the Batcomputer's large, comfortable swivel chair that currently sits unoccupied: "Please?"

Shadowcat has posed:
The young woman of twenty gives a slow nod of her head as Bruce asks her to stay and talk. She was so different than his son. People hadn't gotten her relationship with him. Though Bruce had heard about his son through Kitty's eyes. Of all of his family, he probably understood the most.

Kitty still has the ring in hand, and after a moment she sets it down on the computer's console nearby, before moving to take a seat in the chair. She glances at the Batcomputer, but this is probably the first time she didn't find herself itching to take a look under the covers as it were. Barbara and Kitty had both found great respect for the other's skills after Kitty upgraded the computer Barbara had set up for Bruce's son.

Those days are not on Kitty's mind now. Or maybe they are. She'd grown close to most of the group, to Bruce's family. Her hands move to rest in her lap, and if Bruce deduces she's thinking about losing that family, he probably is right.

Batman has posed:
"That ring," Bruce answers, inclining his head towards the ring in Kitty's hands while still swinging the weight and staring forward as he keeps an internal count, "was a promise made to you. But not, I think, in the way you imagined."

In one deft motion, the kettle bell passes from his right arm to his left and he takes up the repetitions there. For a moment, he drifts back to the relationships of his own life. All of them failed or aborted before they even begun because of his own darkness. The sort of darkness that compelled him to do what he does every night. The kind of darkness Jason and Kitty can hope to avoid, but which Bruce descended into long ago.

"That was a promise from all of us," he continues, his tone quiet and even in the echoing gloom of the Batcave, "This family. When he gave that to you, you became a part of our family. Where you take that is up to you, but the end of your relationship with Jason doesn't end the one you have with our family. You know a secret, Kitty. One very few people share, and even less fully understand. That binds you to us. Forever."

Shadowcat has posed:
While Bruce speaks to her, Kitty sits quietly, eyes down for the most part on her fingers where they rest in her lap. Though glancing up once or twice towards Bruce. And again, but looking towards the ring box which she left open where it sits on the computer console nearby, listening as Bruce talks of her relationship with his family.

A small tear gathers in one of Kitty's eyes and trickles down her cheek. After a moment she draws a breath and clear her throat, but leaves upon her face the glistening saline path left behind. "You mean a lot to me," Kitty says, speaking of Bruce's entire family. Her hands wring against each other where they sit in her lap, and then finally Kitty reaches up an arm to wipe the tear streak away from her cheek.

"Of course you know I'd never share anything," she says before trailing off. But it will be clear enough on her face that she knows that isn't what Bruce is talking about. It's just taking a few moments for it to sink in. To let herself accept what she's hearing from him. For it to sink through what she's been feeling inside for the last two weeks.

Batman has posed:
"I know you won't," Bruce answers softly, shaking his head, "I'm not worried about that. You've got secrets of your own and you've kept them in confidence."

Only now does he stop hefting the weight, leaning slightly to drop it on the floor plating with a dull thud. He rolls his shoulder to loosen it and then picks up the ring box, looking it over in the monitor's glow without removing it from the small cushion it sits on.

"What I'm saying is that we're here for you. I know things will be ... awkward," he leaves that there, he's not about to get into the awkwardness of being around one's ex, "You can spend as much time away as you need. But you're at home here. In fact, I wanted to show you something."

He steps away from the Batcomputer, not stopping to check and see if she follows as he trots down the staircase to one of the other platforms that hang suspended in the immense subterranean cavity.

Shadowcat has posed:
She does rise of course, her thoughts following the line of his comments. What it would be seeing each of the different people. Most that she thinks of probably do not give her much pause, and some she's even seen since. If not all.

Kitty follows Bruce down the steps from the Batcomputer. Her footsteps trace behind him as the girl stuffs her hands into the pocket of her hoodie. She's been in the Batcave quite a few times, but it never really has stopped being novel to her, how well equipped the space is.

She follows Bruce up onto the other platform, one that she hasn't been to before, causing her to slow as she reaches and look around more carefully.

Batman has posed:
The platform looks to be a space for armaments - a large circle suspended from the ceiling and linked by a grated metal staircase. There are several such places throughout the Batcave, including a vault that seems to contain a hundred different variations of the suit that Batman wears. But the unusual thing about the platform Bruce leads Kitty to is the way it seems less utilitarian. It seems like the trophy areas set up elsewhere in the Cave, but rather than mementos of the various villains he has faced this contains something else.

Several person-sized glass cases stand arrayed on the outer edges of the platform in a circle, leaving a space wide enough for the two of them to pass between. Each case itself is occupied by a featureless mannequin clad in the uniform of a member of the Bat Family. There is Batman's suit ? perhaps a few generations outdated now but easily recognizable. Alongside it is an old Robin outfit more like a circus costume than the uniform Damian wears, but further along Damian's own Robin gear is also present. There's Nightwing. There's Batgirl. There's Red Robin. There's even a coat and tails that is unmistakably Alfred's. Each case bears a small plaque with the codename of each member.

And there, amongst them all, is a dark suit that is unmistakably that of Blackbird. A half-face mask. The armored plating. All of it. Not Kitty's own uniform, of course, but a facsimile of it that is perfect down to the millimeter. Bruce simply stands back for a moment, letting Kitty look at the display and take it all in.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty Pryde steps up onto the platform, eyes going slowly across the display cases. She moves to the first one to stop and look at it, taking in the uniform before moving on to the next. And the next. And the one after that.

Finally she ends up stopping before Blackbird's uniform. She bites her lip as she looks at it, and then manages one of the soft smiles that helped win people over when they first met her. "I haven't told you my history with uniforms," she tells him. "I had some real doozies. I mean, you wouldn't believe them if you saw them. There were roller skates with one of them, when I was thirteen," she says, and managing a laugh at the memory.

But the bit of nostalgia passes quickly as Kitty gazes at the inclusion of her Gotham uniform with the others. She looks down for a moment as she says, "Thank you." She looks back up finally and over to Bruce.

Batman has posed:
"My first suit had purple gloves and a bat wing mask," Bruce answers, about as close to humor as he ever properly gets, "We grow. We learn."

When Kitty turns around to thank him, he nods his head and closes his eyes somewhat. He holds the box with the ring out in one palm to her, making eye contact as he does.

"You're one of us. And even if it doesn't represent what you thought it might, I'd feel better knowing that you had this rather than putting it back in the drawer upstairs. My mother always said jewelry was for wearing, after all. Maybe when you wear it you'll remember that you always have a home here."

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty takes a few steps over towards Bruce, closing the distance between. But perhaps not as much so as Bruce's words have. The brunette stops near the older man to look down at the ring that she's worn for the last four months. Her tongue touches her lips for a moment, and then she reaches out to take the offered jewelry box from him.

Kitty removes the ring, and one can tell from the way she handles it that it is a cherished thing. It was before this moment. And after it will be even more so. Kitty slowly slips it back onto her finger where it has not been for the last week and a half or more.

The twenty-year-old gives a little sniffle of emotion before clearing her throat. "Thank you Bruce," she tells him softly. "Your whole family, they mean a lot to me," she says, wiping at one eye, though the tear fall from earlier does not repeat this time. Kitty clears her throat. "So I'll be here tomorrow? I know I have a bit of training to make up for," she says.

Batman has posed:
"More than a bit," Bruce says, "And if you think you're getting a day off, Pryde, then you've got another thing coming."

It may be Bruce's brusque and authoritarian taskmaster voice, but the fact that she's hearing it may be more heartwarming even than handing over the ring. He jerks a thumb back over his shoulder, turning and striding purposefully down the walkway.

"I still have forty-five minutes before sunset. Get into your training gear."