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thejusticelounge2013-07-24 10:04 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2013-07-24 10:04 pm
machine has no will
Bruce is in the HSR before they are, somehow, his hands and fingers sliding against the massive consoles. He is nearly hunched, expression knit into concentration as he keys in commands, watching two screens simultaneously as he turns a dial, watching the input levels carefully.
"I’m gonna go see what your dad’s up to.” Kyle says to Damian. “Apparently he’s in the simulator control room, I dunno how your dad is weird." Kyle steps away from the others, approaching Bruce and knowing Bruce knows it’s him approaching. “So? What do you need me to do?"
The room that commands the machine is displaced to the side of it, located north of the actual room itself, at the top end of an E shaped corridor that leads from the command room to, in the middle, a maintenance corridor and finally, at the end of the shape, the HSR itself, contained within the wide, cavernous room that had once been empty—before that weekend he and Clark, Damian and Ollie, had all worked together to put together the massive enterprising machinery.
Oliver makes a face. “Hey, who wants to be left out here instead of seeing what Batman’s up to? My name’s on this tower! And his name’s on you! We deserve to be in there too!"
Bruce in a quiet, quiet voice, “Just a moment." Polite voice, even. Considering the source.
Kyle only hears him because his ring automatically amplifies Bruce’s voice in Kyle’s ears. Kyle’s ring can do a fuckload of things other Green Lantern rings can’t do, because, well. Because. He waits, rocking idly on his heels as he thinks about how awesome he is for making his ring awesome.
Damian Wayne suddenly realizes Queen is correct and elbows past to proceed him into the console room. “Father," he demands, much louder than Bruce’s voice. “Let me assist."
Bruce looks over at a separate panel, and instantly, frowns, tapping an inlaid screen to turn towards him as he pulls up information from the machine’s last use. A hard stare takes in the numbers—he focuses on input and output—and he taps into the specs on the highest peaks on the chart, bringing them up closely when he looks back to the original information he’d been looking at.
Bruce looks over at Damian, gaze hardening. “Sit down, Damian."
Oliver comes in and hovers at Bruce’s side, hands politely behind his back. “Bette’s been practising her space jump in here," he offers helpfully.
Damian Wayne drops into a chair and watches Bruce work with a sulky little pout
Kyle leans against the wall behind where Bruce is, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking at the other three, huddled together like, well. Like family of some sort. It’s fascinating, really, how the families all sort of co-family each other, in various permutations.
Oliver sets his hand against the back of Damian’s neck, low with his palm resting against the top knobs of the boy’s spine, and absently squeezes now and again, like he used to do with Roy when he was a sprog.
Bruce nods at what Oliver says—but he already knew that. That isn’t what is making him frown, but Bruce isn’t going to say that, no. Instead, he sighs, heavily and says to Damian, his tone a little bit less harsh: “Damian, inside my bag—" The boy had insisted on carrying it. “The computer." He stands, upright, and looks to his son, nodding in his most serious of expression. “Can I have it, please?"
Damian Wayne is growing content and lethargic under Queen’s hand, the pout melting from his face, but Father’s command brings him to high alert once more. He springs from the chair, pushing past Queen again to retrieve the bag and the laptop within. He carries it back to Bruce and presents it to him with an undue air of gravity.
Bruce takes the computer from Damian with no acknowledgement of the gravity, he doesn’t even look at the boy. He merely takes the device and sets it on the console, fingers sliding against the screen with several elaborate paths, unlocking it. He lowers himself, onto the ground, and actually.. gets onto his back. He reaches into his pocket, pulling a small set of screwdrivers from within, and undoes the panel under the slanted console.
“What the heck’re you doing under there??” Oliver demands.
Bruce places one of the thin tools between his teeth, fingers pulling at the inlaid sheet of metal and sets it aside. Through gritted teeth: “Inside the bag, Damian," he ignores Oliver, easily. “The coiled loop." Raises his voice a touch. “The cables." He holds a hand out for them.
Oliver hadn’t particularly expected an answer, but he wouldn’t respect himself if he hadn’t asked.
Damian Wayne traverses the path between bag and console once more, looping the cables over his shoulder as he brings them back to Father. He drops down on his knees beside him, trying to stick his head beneath the panel, too. “Father, what are you doing?" he asks, because perhaps Father didn’t hear Queen. Or perhaps he’s ignoring Queen and will answer Damian instead, a potential scenario that Damian enjoys imagining.
Kyle wonders if Kate’s finished making those carnitas. He constructs a chair to sit in, resketching it around himself to get more comfortable as he takes out a moleskine and pen from his cargo side-pockets, drawing in it and marveling at the way his own time can be so easily frittered away by those who put their own missions in the highest of importance.
Bruce doesn’t answer Damian, either. But, he takes the cables from the boy and reaches inside the machine, wincing a bit as he stretches, along the floor, trying to get to the input at the back. He grunts, but manages to get the male input in, pulling his hand back. He pulls his hand back, slicing it against the open grate, sucking his teeth at the annoyance.
“ -tt-”
Bruce moves out from under the console, holding his bleeding hand up and out of the way as he connects the cable to the computer, swiping his fingers against the screen as he continues to pull up what he needs to run the simulation.
Damian Wayne helpfully points out, “Father, you’re bleeding."
“Oh, jesus. Hang on, I’ll get the first aid,” Ollie says.
Damian pipes up, “Rayner could fix it with his ring.
Bruce nods when Damian speaks, but turns to look at Kyle, keeping his blood off the machinery as he speaks, just to Kyle. “I need you to go in the HSR itself, the very center of the room. I’ll be speaking to you in here, I’ll tell you when to stop."
Oliver says firmly, “Rayner’s not gonna fix anything," and buttles off down the hallway to one of the many, many first aid stations that dot the headquarters. He returns with it and extracts an alcohol swab. “Gimme your hand. And don’t kvetch about it, or you’ll get blood over everything."
Bruce doesn’t fight Oliver, hands him his.. hand.
“Rayner can wait for a minute, his time is of no value,” Ollie assures.
"Why?" Kyle asks.
Oliver cleans the wound without much gentleness and plasters it up neatly, pressing the adhesive bandage down so it sticks before wiping away the blood staining Bruce’s skin. “There you go," he says. “Nurse Ollie got you good as new. No lollipop, though."
Kyle makes an annoyed noise, mostly at Queen. “Why am I going in there?"
Kyle tunes into the scene in front of him, Queen tending gently and attentively to Bruce Wayne like some sort of clucking mother hen. Why, why, why why any of what is going on in this fucked-up tower.
Damian Wayne watches in horrified fascination as Father yields to Queen’s care, not certain what this means. He waits what he thinks is an appropriate time before asking, “Do you have lollipops about, Queen?"
Oliver blinks. “I…actually do. Hang on a second." Ollie heads out again, disposing of the used first aid stuff and replacing the kit, before grabbing a few of the sour lollipops stocked in the rather extravagant candy selection in the kitchen. Mia had suggested that feature. He returns and fans them out for Damian. “Flavours are written on ‘em, go on."
Damian Wayne hops up from his chair and sifts through the selection provided by Queen. He selects sour grape for himself and makes quick work of the wrapper before popping it into his mouth, the stick jutting from the corner of his lips. “You should have sour lemon because your hair is yellow," he recommends as he returns the remaining lollipops.
Oliver says solemnly, “That is a good idea." He puts down the rest of the lollipops within easy reach of Rayner, nodding at him in lieu of actually offering him any, and starts in on the sour lemon lollipop. “So this talk of horses, that was because of a real life horse?" he asks. “Or have you been out to see wild mustangs?"
Bruce ignores Oliver and Damian, his hand moving over the bandage to make sure it sticks. Annoying, more than anything else. He looks to Kyle. “I need you to test the machine for me." He motions to the console, the massive expanse of keys, dials, knobs, monitors. “This is.. the tip of the iceberg for the HSR," he explains, without explaining. “Everything else.." He moves his hand at the wide display panel in front of them: triple reinforced, the darkened view on the other side is the chamber of the HSR, inactive. Unoccupied. “is underneath. Below and above us."
His eyes harden a touch at the edges; it wrinkles a scar at the edge of his right eye. “There’s an element that I haven’t tested yet, because I needed a suitable battery." He presses his lips together for a moment. “If you consent, I’d like to try it out with you."
Damian Wayne points out the sour apple lollipop to Rayner because Rayner is green-themed and this is how Damian assigns candy (himself being an exception because he prefers grape despite his lack of purple clothing or hair). "Mother and I pursued a target through mustang territory before, so we rode horses. He couldn’t pick up our trail to evade us because there were horses leaving trails throughout the wilderness."
Oliver nods, as though this is a perfectly normal story for your average eleven year old to be relating. “Have you ever done any parachuting?" he asks, taking the lollipop from his mouth and smacking it a few times like a cat. “Your dad and me once parachuted into a Nazi camp at night. Well, they weren’t REAL Nazis, they were a bunch of idiots who idolized Nazis, you know how these things go. Anyhow the point is, your dad’s a crackerjack parachutist."
Damian Wayne keeps his lollipop firmly wedged into the side of his mouth, the round crest of it bulging against his cheek. “I was trained to use a parachute, but I’ve not yet had cause to do so in the field." He sucks once around the stick of the candy. “Crackerjack? A particular kind of parachute?"
Kyle ignores the candy because he’s too busy trying to listen to Bruce - and more importantly to understand what he’s saying - and Kyle can sometimes only do one thing at a time, gdi. So no lollipop for now, as Bruce’s words sink in and Kyle stands up, his chair dissolving away.
"If I consent? I had to ask you three times before you order me in there, and now you’re saying ‘If I consent?!’" Kyle flings his moleskine and pen to the side, letting it clatter to the corner of the floor as he exits the control room. He keeps ranting and they hear him down the hall.
"YOU call me here, I don’t even get an explanation but I come - I come to this weird-ass tower that features Kate cooking and Queen bustling around in everyone’s business ranting about champagne and calling himself a nurse and then I’m in like the central core of the Earth’s mantle or something and I STILL get NADA from any of you whack jobs with your secret satellites and projects and wierd-ass things that only rich-pendejos can do—" Kyle eventually reappears in the HSR, looking up at the viewing screen where he knows he appears to the three in the console room. When he talks, his voice sounds tinny from the comms that Kyle opens with his ring.
"—so? Now I’m Kyle the human battery? What do I need to do? What’s this gonna be for? Promise you won’t hurt anyone - including your own damn self, Bruce."
Bruce blinks.
"No, crackerjack just means he was excellent at it! Although it’s no surprise to you that your dad’s excellent at most—" Ollie cuts himself off, blinking in astonishment at Rayner’s outburst in the room and then down the hall and then into the HSR. He laughs, incredulously, looking over at Bruce. “Wow, I think you broke him, B.”
Bruce depresses a button on the console: it stays green, and when he speaks, it’s clear to Kyle, just like anything he says will be clear to them. “If I’d intended to use this as a weapon, Kyle, I wouldn’t have told you what I did."
Damian Wayne goes quiet and doesn’t answer Queen for now as he listens to Rayner and Father, eyes thinned and wary.
Kyle looks plaintively up at the viewing machine. It’s not quite a camera, something more high-tech. “I don’t understand the things you’re doing, Bruce. I’m sorry. I’m just a guy who has a really powerful ring and goes around laying smackdown on alien thugs, so. C’mon. You want me to charge this thing up? I can do that. I can do anything. You got my consent the moment you texted me, Bruce. I just wanna know why."
Bruce brings his hands over to the small computer he’d brought from the outside, then, to the keyboard of the HSR itself. He begins to work again, his voice taking on a familiar cadence, a roughness to it: Bruce is disappearing into the cowl he doesn’t wear, as he brings the graphs he had been looking at up onto the window Kyle is seen through: it’s also a computer screen, the window that shows them Kyle, in the distance, standing in the center of the room.
Inside the HSR itself, a single light turns on—it had followed Kyle’s path as he’d entered, the light-blue light nearly.. bioluminescent in the artificial intelligence it displays: motion, any motion inside the room will activate it, and besides being pretty to look at serves a greater purpose. Bruce scans the room, before he leans forward and speaks. “Three squares behind you, four to your right, Kyle."
Oliver looks over at Bruce when Kyle says this, almost holding his breath and biting back a grin; he gives a gusty sigh and rolls his eyes at Damian when Bruce doesn’t answer the Lantern’s impassioned plea to know whyyyy.
Bruce hums a noise, low in his throat, his brow knitting: “The room you’re in.. Is suspended below and above what you see as the room and floor, Kyle. Beyond being able to simulate artificially created gravities and near-space, it’s covered entirely in photovoltaic, plasmic plates—" He pauses, and supplements. “Think of solar panels."
Kyle looks about him and obediently follows the instructions. “I can sing Billie Jean for you too, if you like." He listens and starts to shake his head as a ‘no I don’t understand’ at Bruce until Bruce brings up the solar panels. “Ohhhhh. Okay. Solar panels for absorbing my kinda energy? The kind I can produce?" Kyle wonders why Mar’i isn’t involved in this.
"Why not use Mar’i? You don’t literally need star-derived energy?"
Bruce shifts over to the left end of the console, deft fingers moving along a series of keys, depressing a few as he brings up the lights inside the HSR, not much light but enough. He continues to speak. “These plates, beyond being outside of mainstream science for the moment, are able to translate energy into wavelength equations and algorithms, things that I can use to power and create power—"
He shakes his head, because Kyle will be able to see it, from where he is, the lit-up control room: "—and no," his tone is curt, as if Kyle had been directly inferring that Bruce hadn’t thought of that possibility. “If I’d needed someone else, I would have asked someone else."
“You mean *ordered* someone else.” Oliver disposes of the lemon lollipop remains and takes the green apple one
Kyle holds up his hands. “Okay okay, geez. Consider me just asking for my own curiosity, sir. Not because I doubted your omnipotent intelligence. Okay so - this thing needs a battery to power it so it can create power back. Power to do what?"
Damian Wayne notes that Queen has finished one candy and cracks down hard with his teeth on the remainder of his lollipop in an effort to catch up. He queues up the sour cherry lollipop. “Father, will this drain Rayner’s ring energy?"
Oliver adds, “Or Rayner himself, for that matter?”
Kyle is about to say ‘Don’t be stupid’ to Queen, but realizes Damian asked the same question (thereabouts) and reins himself in. “My ring can’t be drained, Damian. I made it that way, like a customization. Good question, though!"
Oliver mutters, “Aye yai yai, I’m surprised he didn’t give you a gold star and a thumbs up."
Damian Wayne normally would think nothing of Rayner’s praise since he is generous in providing it (to Damian, at least), but he can’t allow himself to be patronized when Queen is about. Queen must recognize him as a fellow man, stern and domineering.
“I know that," he snaps, even though he asked the question himself. “But if Father wanted, he could design technology to drain it. I had to make certain it wasn’t the case now."
Bruce ignores the conversation happening between the three of them, because he is still working, tirelessly typing into the console as he looks up at the computer screen/window, down at Kyle. “I’m not going to give you any instructions on something you know how to do.." Bruce begins, but then corrects, firmly: "..but start slow."
Kyle suddenly gets steely and his fists clench as he rises in the air and looks at Damian. “No. He wouldn’t be able to do that, Damian." Then Bruce speaks up and Kyle looks over, releasing his fists. He doesn’t land, though and instead remains hovering in the air, feet kept close together as he raises his arms slightly for effect. The Jesus-look. People respond well to that, with ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of awe, a visual cue that Kyle is /doing/ something powerful as he slowly starts to amp.
Oliver ranges restlessly the length of the control room a few times before coming up next to and slightly behind Bruce again, doing the same thing where he clasps his hands tightly behind his back.
"What the fuck is this *for*?" he asks again, pitched low enough so Damian won’t hear the cussword. Probably.
Damian Wayne watches Rayner through the viewscreen quietly now, recalling him hovering overhead in a similar fashion after he crushed Damian’s ring.
Bruce looks over at Oliver, his gaze catching on the green of the man’s stare and frowns. “Were you not listening?"
Oliver protests, “I was listening! You explained what it *was*, but not what you’re testing it *for*. Not what you intend to power with the Energizer Lantern in there.”
"Pulling the HSR completely off the Star City grid," Bruce responds, curtly, even as he begins to monitor the data coming in from the machine: his small computer, flat on the edge of the console begins to blip with long strings of data, ciphers, strings and strings of it. He looks to Damian, then back to Oliver. “Making sure that it won’t fall apart after the first simulation gone wrong." He arches an eyebrow. “Do you need a few more reasons, or can I get back to work?"
Kyle is growing at an exponential rate now, power piled and doubled and amplifying itself. He’s lost sight of both Oliver Queen and Damian Wayne. His eyes start to close, but he can still see the figure of Bruce Wayne in his mind. He doesn’t feel tired or like he’s expending any effort. The ring doesn’t work that way if he is not feeling stressed and it almost feels like this machine is…speaking back to him. Absorb and reflect, like sheets of power that layer themselves on him, a reverse onion. Kyle’s ring bursts forth a carousel of curly-cues, instinctive Kyle-shapes and patterns that fill the air, almost printing negative space against the bright green light. He is mesmerized.
"What’s it doing?" Kyle asks Bruce, and his voice is disembodied, it comes from everywhere inside the console room they are in.
Oliver throws up his hands and is about to say something snotty to Bruce when suddenly — Rayner surround sound. “Holy fucking christ," he breathes, and the familiar and well-subdued feeling of unease whenever a GL shows off the full portent of those tiny rings starts to knead and knot his belly. His fingers curve into the headrest of Bruce’s chair, digging in.
Bruce is thrilled, really, the hairs on the back of his neck rippling at the sound of Kyle’s voice filtering in through the room, without the use of the two-way PA. Of course, for him, it ends up manifesting in a quirk of his brow as he looks down at the Computer’s screen, his voice smooth and low. “The plates are expanding with the—" He pauses, looking over at one of the other monitors, and he nods. “They’re responding to your energy, Kyle. Keep going."
Oliver starts muttering in an undertone. “Goddamn fucking space cops given this kind of fucking unimaginable limitless power and expected to bloody well harness it and rein it in no matter what kind of goddamn fucking mental acuities or lack thereof they actually possess, and the rest of us just at their bloody whim when they could wipe out the entire motherfucking planet before they even blink an eye to think twice about it…"
Bruce grits out: “He can still hear you."
“I don’t care!”
Oliver curls his fingers enough against the chair’s high headrest so his knuckles bump uncomfortably against the back of Bruce’s head
Bruce turns his head and growls at Oliver: “I do. So, if you can’t shut your mouth for another ten minutes, there’s plenty of other space in the Tower that you can go and whine at, Queen."
Oliver gives the back of Bruce’s head one more good jab with his knuckles before folding his arms in poor humour, staring out at Kyle. “You find them just as disturbing as I do," he says clearly, not looking at Bruce. “But I suppose they come in useful if one has secret projects to complete."
Bruce doesn’t acknowledge what he is saying, at all, because he’s already said his piece, but Oliver’s comments have left him gritting his teeth, hard. He looks at the screen in front of them, the dancing bars on the graph spiraling and peaking towards the top as Kyle works. Bruce nods. “Keep going, Kyle, I’ll tell you when to stop."
Kyle sends tendrils from his mind shooting out. He is a battery, sure; but he is also human and he is now curious. The tendrils are invisible, and they reach out to Bruce, to Oliver and to Damian. Currently Kyle can only feel the full power of /machine/, responsive and biotechnical as it is, it isn’t flesh and blood. There is a slight warble of panic in Kyle, the memories of being trapped and used as an energy system for a planet of Manhunters, lifeless machines with AI bloodthirst.
He reaches out to Bruce, Oliver and Damian, just to feel them and know that they are there and alive and with him. His ring, Kyle realizes, all energy and science, feeds into the machine and responds to it but Kyle thinks that no, no nono there is a reason why Manhunters failed. Why Lanterns were organisms. He tendrils to Bruce, to Oliver and to Damian and…hears bickering. A litany of bickering between two old friends which makes Kyle grin and burst suddenly in a small explosive force of energy that make the walls tremble.
“Sorry! Sorry lo siento lo siento. This is exciting!" Kyle exclaims. “Should I keep on pouring it on Dad, or is Mom gonna nag you some more?"
"…’MOM’???”
"Keep working, Kyle."
Damian Wayne hears something, though not with his ears - whispers of a bright soupy green seep into Damian’s mind ~you can come in here too and join me, Damian. it’s perfectly safe~ - and he shakes his head hard against the sensation. He stares at Rayner through the screen, connecting eyes with him in an effort to read his expression.
The walls had trembled, yes. The plates, hundreds of thousands of them, shaking with the energy burst that Kyle had let loose, but the HSR.. Well, it responds to the burst, the bars on the graph jumping, a tiny beeping noise from the monitors Bruce had first been looking at demanding his attention. He shifts, from where he’d been seated, moving to them, and licks his lips, idly, teeth scraping against the dried bits of skin, they are that chapped.
"You asked for it," Kyle responds to Bruce, feeling strangely pleased by this point. Now that he knows the other three are present, he reconnects fully to the machine, plugging in so to speak and deciding that the best way to handle amping at this point is to become one with the HSR itself. He trusts Bruce, and that is what keeps him happy. It’s almost like the HSR itself wants to do the same. Keep Bruce happy.
Kyle shuts his eyes tightly this time and the entire world around him becomes like an x-ray, something where it can see every single blueprint of the HSR, spread out before like like a luxurious technical drawing, the kinds he used to pore over in college. Kyle starts to hum, one note. It’s a low G and it almost ‘tunes’ Kyle into the physical machinery, like putting himself inside the blueprints themselves, imprinting himself over its curves and plugs and motherboards. “It’s beautiful, Bruce…"
~Kyle looks straight at Damian, eyes glowing, piercing like they were when Kyle healed his arm, and before that…before that, when Kyle wasn’t around but Damian could still SEE him. Kyle smiles at Damian, wills him, wills him, for he belongs to Bruce.~
Damian Wayne is perfectly still as he holds Rayner’s gaze, attempting to communicate with him telepathically as he did when Rayner was entangled with Parallax. He wonders now if the Lantern had retained this ability even when he lost the entity, if he could always project ideas into others’ minds. He doesn’t know if Rayner hears him or not, but he heeds his initial suggestion, quietly slipping through the door that leads back to the E-branched corridor and making way toward the HSR hub instead.
Bruce is oblivious to everything being said, to what Kyle is saying, as he looks at the charts on the computer screens. Standing, he hovers, liquid-grace allowing him to shift from side to side of the console. Excitement is rising in him, strands of it, but it doesn’t manifest on his body; Bruce’s self control is such he doesn’t allow the emotions to rise to the surface. He lowers his head, chin almost on his chest as he reads, eyes nearly vibrating they move so fast, his hands smoothing across the glass of the console.
Oliver drops down into the vacated chair, this entire thing setting his teeth on edge. Seeing Kyle in there, transformed and transcended by green Lantern energy, is raising too many hackles of memory for Ollie to be comfortable with it. Especially on the heels of Ion, Parallax, overwhelming alien power just waiting to take over.
Kyle feels the walls warping, but not because he’s doing that to them, like accidentally making the walls shake. No instead it feels like the walls are shaping to /him/, cradle and hold him in, egging him on for more and more of his power. He is simultaneously mother and child, providing sustenance for the machine while being en-wombed by it and Kyle almost chokes at the sudden, overwhelming feeling of…he isn’t sure how to explain it, but when the door slides open and a tiny figure stands in the bower, Kyle suddenly erupts in a string of Arabic, words a certain mother would say to a certain child - in the past palaces, in a tent in the middle of a desert. Wooing and beckoning and /feeding/ off the little boy even as Kyle’s eyes widen and he shouts out - his own voice overlayed on his own other Arabic one -
"BRUCE!!!" A panel suddenly shatters against the wall and wires burst electricity into the room. Kyle flies towards Damian, wrapping bodily around him to protect the child as he ushers them out. He still isn’t amped down properly as he grabs hold of the boy.
Damian Wayne isn’t hesitant at first when he presses the door open, and even when he sees Rayner hovering inside like some battery-powered deity, he’s unafraid. But when the Lantern begins speaking, his voice and words borrowed from memories that Damian tries desperately not to indulge, he backs away, holding out his hands in dread and shaking his head fitfully. He rambles back in his native language as if not speaking to Rayner at all, and he struggles to escape as he’s scooped up from his feet, electricity crackling all around and Rayner’s energy surrounding him in the more immediate vicinity.
Oliver stares, then lurches up suddenly from the chair when it sinks in what that voice is, WHO it is, and that Damian is no longer in the room with them but down there, with the fucking Lantern, with all that bleeding energy. A jolt of guilt (should have been watching Damian, goddammit, instead of bickering with Bruce, should have been WATCHING) bolts through him as he pushes over to Bruce at the controls.
"I can keep it going," Ollie promises, tightly. “You go."
Bruce moves without a second thought, running from the room as he shoots down the corridor, hanging a left, legs pistoning to get him there, get him to the room, his mind too overwhelmed with powering his body that he doesn’t have time for the emotions of guilt, shame, powerlessness. He gets to Kyle, to Damian, his eyes widening and reflecting green in the cobalt pools of his irises and he surges forward, to pull Damian from Kyle’s arms, turning his back to the still-glowing Lantern, shielding the little boy, wrapping him in his body.
Kyle lets go of Damian once he hits the button that slams the door shut and rolls onto the floor on his back in the hallway, still crackling with energy. He isn’t tired or discombobulated or wrecked-feeling, like that time his concentration was broken as Bruce pushed him away to save his son. He is almost overfull of energy and now it’s a matter of willing his ring to pull it all back into him, to cram it back in him forcefully if it needs to, tie it all down and pack it all back into Kyle’s sack of flesh. He’s panting, and his concentration is at full capacity, instead of shot. He’s conscious of /everything/ and it’s almost painful.
"I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay," he reassures himself, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that Damian is being taken care of - by Bruce or by Ollie. By someone. Kyle takes care of himself.
Bruce looks down at Damian, hands smoothing over the boy’s little face, cupping it in his palms for a second before he pushes his fingers through his son’s dark, messy hair. Bruce kneels against the floor, one leg bent at the knee, the other on the floor, holding Damian upright, so he can look him over.
"Damian?" His hands smooth over the boy’s shoulders and arms, down to his hands. Bruce checks all of his little fingers, counts them, over and over in his head.
"Damian, speak."
Damian Wayne continues ranting in Arabic as Bruce takes hold of him. Something in Bruce’s scent, the aftershave he wears or perhaps a trace of his cologne, calls him back to the present and he shifts his gaze between his father and Rayner curled on the floor, the vivid energy of his power flooding around him as if he’s drowning under a green sea. Damian reaches through Bruce’s arms, trying to return to him— but Rayner begins insisting that he’s okay.
“Father," Damian answers when he’s ordered to speak. “Father… I didn’t…"
Bruce shakes his head, and shifts then, still on his knees, towards Kyle, on the ground. He brings his fingers to Kyle’s pulse, at the inside of his wrist—his other hand remains around Damian’s small hand, thumb stroking at the palm, softly, in circles. He speaks to the Lantern, oddly enough, in the same tone he’d used for Damian.
"Kyle?" He continues to count.
Kyle realizes his powers are diminishing as, inside the HSR room, its power is slowly switched off. Probably by Queen, he surmises, as he can hear Bruce’s voice nearby. There’s a symbiosis there now, something inextricably connected, but in a way that still seems fragile and shakey. He feels Bruce take his wrist, that human-way of checking one’s pulse which propels Kyle back into the present state of mind as his powers blip away suddenly and Kyle sits up, staring at Bruce with wide clear eyes.
"I can do that again. I can make it better next time, I promise. I know what I did wrong. Sh - the HSR, it told me. Not in words, mind you but…" Kyle pulls his lips in, licking them and then puffing out a gust of air. "…but like some sort of…you know robotic communication ha ha. My ring’s a fast learner." Kyle tilts his head past Bruce, looking at Damian. He reaches out to the boy, wanting to touch him as well. “Damian? I’m sorry kiddo, that - that was a - are you okay?"
Bruce rises slowly, removing his touch from Kyle’s wrist, but keeping his hold on Damian.
Damian Wayne shies away from Rayner’s touch, pressing closer to his father instead. “I’m fine."
Kyle stays on the floor, tearing his eyes away from Damian to look up at Bruce.
Bruce brings his gaze to meet Kyle’s and extends a hand to him, to pull him to standing.
Kyle gladly takes it, relying almost completely on Bruce’s strength and sturdiness to pull him upright. He wants to keep talking, but he stays quiet, glancing down at Damian again. What transpired with Damian hasn’t quite sunk in with Kyle, but for the moment he understands the need for the boy to be near his father, a bastion of solace.
Oliver has managed to keep the supercharged energy levels in the HSR in check, but he doesn’t dare take his eyes from the controls. Not until Bruce gets back and gives it the okay himself.
Bruce nods, as if someone had said something—when truly, it was quiet there, in the short hallway; nothing but breathing from all three of them—and then begins to move, back towards the control room, Damian’s hand still in his own. He enters, and does not let go even then, moving to check on the computers, the output and the graphs; he nods to Queen, looking at him, side-long. His hand remains laced around Damian’s for a moment longer, and then, he pulls away, both hands sliding against the console.
Oliver gives a relieved sigh, then turns and scowls at Damian. “What the heck did you think you were doing, running down there? You coulda got yourself fricaseed! Not to mention the rest of this place and the rest of us!"
Damian Wayne opens his mouth to question Rayner just as his father begins to lead him away, and he opts to remain silent, clutching tightly to Bruce’s large fingers. He keeps his eyes averted from Queen when they re-enter the control room, burrowing down in a chair and making himself as small and quiet as possible once Bruce releases him. He watches the door out of the corner of his eye, wondering if Rayner will follow.
Damian Wayne twists his mouth and makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Shutup, Queen."
Oliver thins his eyes. “Don’t you tell me to shut up," he snaps. “You’re the one who endangered yourself and the rest of us."
Kyle follows, for lack of any other type of guidance, but he sort of hovers at the door of the console room. He knows where the thing broke and for a while Kyle isn’t sure if he broke it on purpose, or if the HSR itself reacted badly to Kyle’s reaction to seeing Damian. “It’s no big deal," Kyle says, somewhat clueless of how blase that sounds. “I can fix it, with Bruce’s guidance."
Damian Wayne: I had to check on Rayner!
Oliver “No, you didn’t. Rayner’s a grown-ass Lantern and he can take care of himself. What you HAD to do was stay put so we didn’t have to shut down your father’s test of the simulation suite and whateverthehell else."
"Oh leave him alone, Queen!" Kyle barks suddenly incredibly annoyed. “It’s not his fault!"
Oliver glares at Rayner as if he somehow encouraged this
Bruce barks at all of them: “All of you.. Quiet!"
Bruce growls, his fingers moving against the keys. “Or, get out. As long as you aren’t here, making noise."
Damian Wayne glares at Queen but heeds his father’s command to be silent
Oliver glares back at Damian but likewise clams up
Kyle folds his arms and leans heavily against the doorway, staring out of the window that shows the HSR. He doesn’t know why he’s not exhausted but…he’s just not.
Bruce after a long moment, speaks: “It’s fine." He turns, looks at Kyle—not Damian nor Ollie—and nods. “It worked fine." Not perfectly, not beautifully, but fine.
Damian Wayne asks, “It didn’t break, Father?”
Kyle eyes light up and he practically careens himself off the doorframe. “It did?! I want to do it again!"
Oliver unfolds his arms and leaves the room in long, heavy strides that they can hear echoing down the hallway as he moves away from them.
Bruce nods, and looks back to the darkened main chamber, now, the broken panel no longer sparking: the HSR had repaired itself, cutting the flow of electricity to the exposed wiring. Like the coagulation of platelets in a body. Bruce shakes his head, speaking to Kyle. “We will. But not now. I need time to analyze the data."
Kyle stares in fascination at the machine, not noticing that Ollie has left. But he replies to Damian. “It didn’t break, Damian. It’s doing the opposite of breaking and…" Kyle focuses back on Bruce.
"Alrighty. Then I guess I’m done here, but Bruce —" Kyle takes a few steps in, finally coming up close to Bruce, ensuring he is in Bruce’s personal space in order to get his full attention. "— when you do need me to help out on this again, please. I’m here and I’m willing, no pun intended. The HSR…" Kyle looks back at it. "…it knows - I mean - I know it well now."
Damian Wayne watches Queen depart, relieved though he wouldn’t admit it. He makes an effort to listen to Rayner, but he isn’t focused on his explanation about the HSR. “I heard you, just like I heard you when you were Parallax," he says, tapping his own temple.
Bruce looks over at Kyle, about to answer him, when Damian’s speech cuts the words off, right at the tip of his tongue. He looks over at Damian, eyes tightening. “You what?"
Damian Wayne looks between Bruce and Rayner, drawing his hands close to his chest as hesitation grips him. “Perhaps I only imagined it," he murmurs.
Bruce looks to Kyle, eyebrows arching high.
Kyle almost laughs, and it’s almost derisive as his brows furrow and he smiles in confusion at Damian. “I don’t think so, Damian. Parallax is gone, fu - banished to the craphole universe it came from. Don’t worry, kiddo. Maybe…" Kyle purses his lips, thinking. “Maybe it was just something the image of me, doing that, maybe it just made you remember…" Kyle hisses between his breath in sympathy. “Ayyyyy, lo siento, Damicito."
Damian Wayne frowns at Rayner’s tone, anger and humiliation burning its way through him. He knows what he heard. But Rayner’s denial coupled with Father’s presence convinces him not to press the matter further. “Very well," he says, clipped and even.
Kyle feels a strain, it’s tangible but yet Kyle is too occupied with the room behind Damian to really delve into it. Besides, this isn’t the time or place. “It wasn’t me," he insists soft and urgent, and then slowly backs out of the room. “Thanks for letting me do this Bruce. Keep in touch." And with that, he heads back to the elevators to see himself out.
Bruce stares at Damian for a while, too long of a moment, even after Kyle leaves. His dark gaze does not leave the boy’s face.
"Damian."
Damian Wayne forces himself to sit up straight, to not give in to his inclination to sink back under Bruce’s gaze. “Yes, Father?"
Bruce “What did you hear." He doesn’t ask it, but rather, demands it: if not in tone than with the posture of his shoulders, the way he folds his arms over his chest.
Damian Wayne compulsively pinches the seams of the chair. “Nothing. I didn’t hear anything. I was mistaken."
Bruce doesn’t try to touch Damian, doesn’t even exhale again with the question. He just looks over at him, assuring himself that the boy, again, is fine—ten fingers, ten toes—and nods. “Fine." He turns back around and unplugs his computer, kneeling under the console to pull the cable from the inside of the console, painstakingly screwing the panel back on.
Damian Wayne slowly releases his breath when Father turns from him.
Bruce stands when the panel is returned to normal, and moves for his satchel, replacing the computer inside of it. He begins to power down the devices, planning to leave the machine locked and unusable until he can come back to repair the broken plate inside.
"I’m gonna go see what your dad’s up to.” Kyle says to Damian. “Apparently he’s in the simulator control room, I dunno how your dad is weird." Kyle steps away from the others, approaching Bruce and knowing Bruce knows it’s him approaching. “So? What do you need me to do?"
The room that commands the machine is displaced to the side of it, located north of the actual room itself, at the top end of an E shaped corridor that leads from the command room to, in the middle, a maintenance corridor and finally, at the end of the shape, the HSR itself, contained within the wide, cavernous room that had once been empty—before that weekend he and Clark, Damian and Ollie, had all worked together to put together the massive enterprising machinery.
Oliver makes a face. “Hey, who wants to be left out here instead of seeing what Batman’s up to? My name’s on this tower! And his name’s on you! We deserve to be in there too!"
Bruce in a quiet, quiet voice, “Just a moment." Polite voice, even. Considering the source.
Kyle only hears him because his ring automatically amplifies Bruce’s voice in Kyle’s ears. Kyle’s ring can do a fuckload of things other Green Lantern rings can’t do, because, well. Because. He waits, rocking idly on his heels as he thinks about how awesome he is for making his ring awesome.
Damian Wayne suddenly realizes Queen is correct and elbows past to proceed him into the console room. “Father," he demands, much louder than Bruce’s voice. “Let me assist."
Bruce looks over at a separate panel, and instantly, frowns, tapping an inlaid screen to turn towards him as he pulls up information from the machine’s last use. A hard stare takes in the numbers—he focuses on input and output—and he taps into the specs on the highest peaks on the chart, bringing them up closely when he looks back to the original information he’d been looking at.
Bruce looks over at Damian, gaze hardening. “Sit down, Damian."
Oliver comes in and hovers at Bruce’s side, hands politely behind his back. “Bette’s been practising her space jump in here," he offers helpfully.
Damian Wayne drops into a chair and watches Bruce work with a sulky little pout
Kyle leans against the wall behind where Bruce is, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking at the other three, huddled together like, well. Like family of some sort. It’s fascinating, really, how the families all sort of co-family each other, in various permutations.
Oliver sets his hand against the back of Damian’s neck, low with his palm resting against the top knobs of the boy’s spine, and absently squeezes now and again, like he used to do with Roy when he was a sprog.
Bruce nods at what Oliver says—but he already knew that. That isn’t what is making him frown, but Bruce isn’t going to say that, no. Instead, he sighs, heavily and says to Damian, his tone a little bit less harsh: “Damian, inside my bag—" The boy had insisted on carrying it. “The computer." He stands, upright, and looks to his son, nodding in his most serious of expression. “Can I have it, please?"
Damian Wayne is growing content and lethargic under Queen’s hand, the pout melting from his face, but Father’s command brings him to high alert once more. He springs from the chair, pushing past Queen again to retrieve the bag and the laptop within. He carries it back to Bruce and presents it to him with an undue air of gravity.
Bruce takes the computer from Damian with no acknowledgement of the gravity, he doesn’t even look at the boy. He merely takes the device and sets it on the console, fingers sliding against the screen with several elaborate paths, unlocking it. He lowers himself, onto the ground, and actually.. gets onto his back. He reaches into his pocket, pulling a small set of screwdrivers from within, and undoes the panel under the slanted console.
“What the heck’re you doing under there??” Oliver demands.
Bruce places one of the thin tools between his teeth, fingers pulling at the inlaid sheet of metal and sets it aside. Through gritted teeth: “Inside the bag, Damian," he ignores Oliver, easily. “The coiled loop." Raises his voice a touch. “The cables." He holds a hand out for them.
Oliver hadn’t particularly expected an answer, but he wouldn’t respect himself if he hadn’t asked.
Damian Wayne traverses the path between bag and console once more, looping the cables over his shoulder as he brings them back to Father. He drops down on his knees beside him, trying to stick his head beneath the panel, too. “Father, what are you doing?" he asks, because perhaps Father didn’t hear Queen. Or perhaps he’s ignoring Queen and will answer Damian instead, a potential scenario that Damian enjoys imagining.
Kyle wonders if Kate’s finished making those carnitas. He constructs a chair to sit in, resketching it around himself to get more comfortable as he takes out a moleskine and pen from his cargo side-pockets, drawing in it and marveling at the way his own time can be so easily frittered away by those who put their own missions in the highest of importance.
Bruce doesn’t answer Damian, either. But, he takes the cables from the boy and reaches inside the machine, wincing a bit as he stretches, along the floor, trying to get to the input at the back. He grunts, but manages to get the male input in, pulling his hand back. He pulls his hand back, slicing it against the open grate, sucking his teeth at the annoyance.
“ -tt-”
Bruce moves out from under the console, holding his bleeding hand up and out of the way as he connects the cable to the computer, swiping his fingers against the screen as he continues to pull up what he needs to run the simulation.
Damian Wayne helpfully points out, “Father, you’re bleeding."
“Oh, jesus. Hang on, I’ll get the first aid,” Ollie says.
Damian pipes up, “Rayner could fix it with his ring.
Bruce nods when Damian speaks, but turns to look at Kyle, keeping his blood off the machinery as he speaks, just to Kyle. “I need you to go in the HSR itself, the very center of the room. I’ll be speaking to you in here, I’ll tell you when to stop."
Oliver says firmly, “Rayner’s not gonna fix anything," and buttles off down the hallway to one of the many, many first aid stations that dot the headquarters. He returns with it and extracts an alcohol swab. “Gimme your hand. And don’t kvetch about it, or you’ll get blood over everything."
Bruce doesn’t fight Oliver, hands him his.. hand.
“Rayner can wait for a minute, his time is of no value,” Ollie assures.
"Why?" Kyle asks.
Oliver cleans the wound without much gentleness and plasters it up neatly, pressing the adhesive bandage down so it sticks before wiping away the blood staining Bruce’s skin. “There you go," he says. “Nurse Ollie got you good as new. No lollipop, though."
Kyle makes an annoyed noise, mostly at Queen. “Why am I going in there?"
Kyle tunes into the scene in front of him, Queen tending gently and attentively to Bruce Wayne like some sort of clucking mother hen. Why, why, why why any of what is going on in this fucked-up tower.
Damian Wayne watches in horrified fascination as Father yields to Queen’s care, not certain what this means. He waits what he thinks is an appropriate time before asking, “Do you have lollipops about, Queen?"
Oliver blinks. “I…actually do. Hang on a second." Ollie heads out again, disposing of the used first aid stuff and replacing the kit, before grabbing a few of the sour lollipops stocked in the rather extravagant candy selection in the kitchen. Mia had suggested that feature. He returns and fans them out for Damian. “Flavours are written on ‘em, go on."
Damian Wayne hops up from his chair and sifts through the selection provided by Queen. He selects sour grape for himself and makes quick work of the wrapper before popping it into his mouth, the stick jutting from the corner of his lips. “You should have sour lemon because your hair is yellow," he recommends as he returns the remaining lollipops.
Oliver says solemnly, “That is a good idea." He puts down the rest of the lollipops within easy reach of Rayner, nodding at him in lieu of actually offering him any, and starts in on the sour lemon lollipop. “So this talk of horses, that was because of a real life horse?" he asks. “Or have you been out to see wild mustangs?"
Bruce ignores Oliver and Damian, his hand moving over the bandage to make sure it sticks. Annoying, more than anything else. He looks to Kyle. “I need you to test the machine for me." He motions to the console, the massive expanse of keys, dials, knobs, monitors. “This is.. the tip of the iceberg for the HSR," he explains, without explaining. “Everything else.." He moves his hand at the wide display panel in front of them: triple reinforced, the darkened view on the other side is the chamber of the HSR, inactive. Unoccupied. “is underneath. Below and above us."
His eyes harden a touch at the edges; it wrinkles a scar at the edge of his right eye. “There’s an element that I haven’t tested yet, because I needed a suitable battery." He presses his lips together for a moment. “If you consent, I’d like to try it out with you."
Damian Wayne points out the sour apple lollipop to Rayner because Rayner is green-themed and this is how Damian assigns candy (himself being an exception because he prefers grape despite his lack of purple clothing or hair). "Mother and I pursued a target through mustang territory before, so we rode horses. He couldn’t pick up our trail to evade us because there were horses leaving trails throughout the wilderness."
Oliver nods, as though this is a perfectly normal story for your average eleven year old to be relating. “Have you ever done any parachuting?" he asks, taking the lollipop from his mouth and smacking it a few times like a cat. “Your dad and me once parachuted into a Nazi camp at night. Well, they weren’t REAL Nazis, they were a bunch of idiots who idolized Nazis, you know how these things go. Anyhow the point is, your dad’s a crackerjack parachutist."
Damian Wayne keeps his lollipop firmly wedged into the side of his mouth, the round crest of it bulging against his cheek. “I was trained to use a parachute, but I’ve not yet had cause to do so in the field." He sucks once around the stick of the candy. “Crackerjack? A particular kind of parachute?"
Kyle ignores the candy because he’s too busy trying to listen to Bruce - and more importantly to understand what he’s saying - and Kyle can sometimes only do one thing at a time, gdi. So no lollipop for now, as Bruce’s words sink in and Kyle stands up, his chair dissolving away.
"If I consent? I had to ask you three times before you order me in there, and now you’re saying ‘If I consent?!’" Kyle flings his moleskine and pen to the side, letting it clatter to the corner of the floor as he exits the control room. He keeps ranting and they hear him down the hall.
"YOU call me here, I don’t even get an explanation but I come - I come to this weird-ass tower that features Kate cooking and Queen bustling around in everyone’s business ranting about champagne and calling himself a nurse and then I’m in like the central core of the Earth’s mantle or something and I STILL get NADA from any of you whack jobs with your secret satellites and projects and wierd-ass things that only rich-pendejos can do—" Kyle eventually reappears in the HSR, looking up at the viewing screen where he knows he appears to the three in the console room. When he talks, his voice sounds tinny from the comms that Kyle opens with his ring.
"—so? Now I’m Kyle the human battery? What do I need to do? What’s this gonna be for? Promise you won’t hurt anyone - including your own damn self, Bruce."
Bruce blinks.
"No, crackerjack just means he was excellent at it! Although it’s no surprise to you that your dad’s excellent at most—" Ollie cuts himself off, blinking in astonishment at Rayner’s outburst in the room and then down the hall and then into the HSR. He laughs, incredulously, looking over at Bruce. “Wow, I think you broke him, B.”
Bruce depresses a button on the console: it stays green, and when he speaks, it’s clear to Kyle, just like anything he says will be clear to them. “If I’d intended to use this as a weapon, Kyle, I wouldn’t have told you what I did."
Damian Wayne goes quiet and doesn’t answer Queen for now as he listens to Rayner and Father, eyes thinned and wary.
Kyle looks plaintively up at the viewing machine. It’s not quite a camera, something more high-tech. “I don’t understand the things you’re doing, Bruce. I’m sorry. I’m just a guy who has a really powerful ring and goes around laying smackdown on alien thugs, so. C’mon. You want me to charge this thing up? I can do that. I can do anything. You got my consent the moment you texted me, Bruce. I just wanna know why."
Bruce brings his hands over to the small computer he’d brought from the outside, then, to the keyboard of the HSR itself. He begins to work again, his voice taking on a familiar cadence, a roughness to it: Bruce is disappearing into the cowl he doesn’t wear, as he brings the graphs he had been looking at up onto the window Kyle is seen through: it’s also a computer screen, the window that shows them Kyle, in the distance, standing in the center of the room.
Inside the HSR itself, a single light turns on—it had followed Kyle’s path as he’d entered, the light-blue light nearly.. bioluminescent in the artificial intelligence it displays: motion, any motion inside the room will activate it, and besides being pretty to look at serves a greater purpose. Bruce scans the room, before he leans forward and speaks. “Three squares behind you, four to your right, Kyle."
Oliver looks over at Bruce when Kyle says this, almost holding his breath and biting back a grin; he gives a gusty sigh and rolls his eyes at Damian when Bruce doesn’t answer the Lantern’s impassioned plea to know whyyyy.
Bruce hums a noise, low in his throat, his brow knitting: “The room you’re in.. Is suspended below and above what you see as the room and floor, Kyle. Beyond being able to simulate artificially created gravities and near-space, it’s covered entirely in photovoltaic, plasmic plates—" He pauses, and supplements. “Think of solar panels."
Kyle looks about him and obediently follows the instructions. “I can sing Billie Jean for you too, if you like." He listens and starts to shake his head as a ‘no I don’t understand’ at Bruce until Bruce brings up the solar panels. “Ohhhhh. Okay. Solar panels for absorbing my kinda energy? The kind I can produce?" Kyle wonders why Mar’i isn’t involved in this.
"Why not use Mar’i? You don’t literally need star-derived energy?"
Bruce shifts over to the left end of the console, deft fingers moving along a series of keys, depressing a few as he brings up the lights inside the HSR, not much light but enough. He continues to speak. “These plates, beyond being outside of mainstream science for the moment, are able to translate energy into wavelength equations and algorithms, things that I can use to power and create power—"
He shakes his head, because Kyle will be able to see it, from where he is, the lit-up control room: "—and no," his tone is curt, as if Kyle had been directly inferring that Bruce hadn’t thought of that possibility. “If I’d needed someone else, I would have asked someone else."
“You mean *ordered* someone else.” Oliver disposes of the lemon lollipop remains and takes the green apple one
Kyle holds up his hands. “Okay okay, geez. Consider me just asking for my own curiosity, sir. Not because I doubted your omnipotent intelligence. Okay so - this thing needs a battery to power it so it can create power back. Power to do what?"
Damian Wayne notes that Queen has finished one candy and cracks down hard with his teeth on the remainder of his lollipop in an effort to catch up. He queues up the sour cherry lollipop. “Father, will this drain Rayner’s ring energy?"
Oliver adds, “Or Rayner himself, for that matter?”
Kyle is about to say ‘Don’t be stupid’ to Queen, but realizes Damian asked the same question (thereabouts) and reins himself in. “My ring can’t be drained, Damian. I made it that way, like a customization. Good question, though!"
Oliver mutters, “Aye yai yai, I’m surprised he didn’t give you a gold star and a thumbs up."
Damian Wayne normally would think nothing of Rayner’s praise since he is generous in providing it (to Damian, at least), but he can’t allow himself to be patronized when Queen is about. Queen must recognize him as a fellow man, stern and domineering.
“I know that," he snaps, even though he asked the question himself. “But if Father wanted, he could design technology to drain it. I had to make certain it wasn’t the case now."
Bruce ignores the conversation happening between the three of them, because he is still working, tirelessly typing into the console as he looks up at the computer screen/window, down at Kyle. “I’m not going to give you any instructions on something you know how to do.." Bruce begins, but then corrects, firmly: "..but start slow."
Kyle suddenly gets steely and his fists clench as he rises in the air and looks at Damian. “No. He wouldn’t be able to do that, Damian." Then Bruce speaks up and Kyle looks over, releasing his fists. He doesn’t land, though and instead remains hovering in the air, feet kept close together as he raises his arms slightly for effect. The Jesus-look. People respond well to that, with ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of awe, a visual cue that Kyle is /doing/ something powerful as he slowly starts to amp.
Oliver ranges restlessly the length of the control room a few times before coming up next to and slightly behind Bruce again, doing the same thing where he clasps his hands tightly behind his back.
"What the fuck is this *for*?" he asks again, pitched low enough so Damian won’t hear the cussword. Probably.
Damian Wayne watches Rayner through the viewscreen quietly now, recalling him hovering overhead in a similar fashion after he crushed Damian’s ring.
Bruce looks over at Oliver, his gaze catching on the green of the man’s stare and frowns. “Were you not listening?"
Oliver protests, “I was listening! You explained what it *was*, but not what you’re testing it *for*. Not what you intend to power with the Energizer Lantern in there.”
"Pulling the HSR completely off the Star City grid," Bruce responds, curtly, even as he begins to monitor the data coming in from the machine: his small computer, flat on the edge of the console begins to blip with long strings of data, ciphers, strings and strings of it. He looks to Damian, then back to Oliver. “Making sure that it won’t fall apart after the first simulation gone wrong." He arches an eyebrow. “Do you need a few more reasons, or can I get back to work?"
Kyle is growing at an exponential rate now, power piled and doubled and amplifying itself. He’s lost sight of both Oliver Queen and Damian Wayne. His eyes start to close, but he can still see the figure of Bruce Wayne in his mind. He doesn’t feel tired or like he’s expending any effort. The ring doesn’t work that way if he is not feeling stressed and it almost feels like this machine is…speaking back to him. Absorb and reflect, like sheets of power that layer themselves on him, a reverse onion. Kyle’s ring bursts forth a carousel of curly-cues, instinctive Kyle-shapes and patterns that fill the air, almost printing negative space against the bright green light. He is mesmerized.
"What’s it doing?" Kyle asks Bruce, and his voice is disembodied, it comes from everywhere inside the console room they are in.
Oliver throws up his hands and is about to say something snotty to Bruce when suddenly — Rayner surround sound. “Holy fucking christ," he breathes, and the familiar and well-subdued feeling of unease whenever a GL shows off the full portent of those tiny rings starts to knead and knot his belly. His fingers curve into the headrest of Bruce’s chair, digging in.
Bruce is thrilled, really, the hairs on the back of his neck rippling at the sound of Kyle’s voice filtering in through the room, without the use of the two-way PA. Of course, for him, it ends up manifesting in a quirk of his brow as he looks down at the Computer’s screen, his voice smooth and low. “The plates are expanding with the—" He pauses, looking over at one of the other monitors, and he nods. “They’re responding to your energy, Kyle. Keep going."
Oliver starts muttering in an undertone. “Goddamn fucking space cops given this kind of fucking unimaginable limitless power and expected to bloody well harness it and rein it in no matter what kind of goddamn fucking mental acuities or lack thereof they actually possess, and the rest of us just at their bloody whim when they could wipe out the entire motherfucking planet before they even blink an eye to think twice about it…"
Bruce grits out: “He can still hear you."
“I don’t care!”
Oliver curls his fingers enough against the chair’s high headrest so his knuckles bump uncomfortably against the back of Bruce’s head
Bruce turns his head and growls at Oliver: “I do. So, if you can’t shut your mouth for another ten minutes, there’s plenty of other space in the Tower that you can go and whine at, Queen."
Oliver gives the back of Bruce’s head one more good jab with his knuckles before folding his arms in poor humour, staring out at Kyle. “You find them just as disturbing as I do," he says clearly, not looking at Bruce. “But I suppose they come in useful if one has secret projects to complete."
Bruce doesn’t acknowledge what he is saying, at all, because he’s already said his piece, but Oliver’s comments have left him gritting his teeth, hard. He looks at the screen in front of them, the dancing bars on the graph spiraling and peaking towards the top as Kyle works. Bruce nods. “Keep going, Kyle, I’ll tell you when to stop."
Kyle sends tendrils from his mind shooting out. He is a battery, sure; but he is also human and he is now curious. The tendrils are invisible, and they reach out to Bruce, to Oliver and to Damian. Currently Kyle can only feel the full power of /machine/, responsive and biotechnical as it is, it isn’t flesh and blood. There is a slight warble of panic in Kyle, the memories of being trapped and used as an energy system for a planet of Manhunters, lifeless machines with AI bloodthirst.
He reaches out to Bruce, Oliver and Damian, just to feel them and know that they are there and alive and with him. His ring, Kyle realizes, all energy and science, feeds into the machine and responds to it but Kyle thinks that no, no nono there is a reason why Manhunters failed. Why Lanterns were organisms. He tendrils to Bruce, to Oliver and to Damian and…hears bickering. A litany of bickering between two old friends which makes Kyle grin and burst suddenly in a small explosive force of energy that make the walls tremble.
“Sorry! Sorry lo siento lo siento. This is exciting!" Kyle exclaims. “Should I keep on pouring it on Dad, or is Mom gonna nag you some more?"
"…’MOM’???”
"Keep working, Kyle."
Damian Wayne hears something, though not with his ears - whispers of a bright soupy green seep into Damian’s mind ~you can come in here too and join me, Damian. it’s perfectly safe~ - and he shakes his head hard against the sensation. He stares at Rayner through the screen, connecting eyes with him in an effort to read his expression.
The walls had trembled, yes. The plates, hundreds of thousands of them, shaking with the energy burst that Kyle had let loose, but the HSR.. Well, it responds to the burst, the bars on the graph jumping, a tiny beeping noise from the monitors Bruce had first been looking at demanding his attention. He shifts, from where he’d been seated, moving to them, and licks his lips, idly, teeth scraping against the dried bits of skin, they are that chapped.
"You asked for it," Kyle responds to Bruce, feeling strangely pleased by this point. Now that he knows the other three are present, he reconnects fully to the machine, plugging in so to speak and deciding that the best way to handle amping at this point is to become one with the HSR itself. He trusts Bruce, and that is what keeps him happy. It’s almost like the HSR itself wants to do the same. Keep Bruce happy.
Kyle shuts his eyes tightly this time and the entire world around him becomes like an x-ray, something where it can see every single blueprint of the HSR, spread out before like like a luxurious technical drawing, the kinds he used to pore over in college. Kyle starts to hum, one note. It’s a low G and it almost ‘tunes’ Kyle into the physical machinery, like putting himself inside the blueprints themselves, imprinting himself over its curves and plugs and motherboards. “It’s beautiful, Bruce…"
~Kyle looks straight at Damian, eyes glowing, piercing like they were when Kyle healed his arm, and before that…before that, when Kyle wasn’t around but Damian could still SEE him. Kyle smiles at Damian, wills him, wills him, for he belongs to Bruce.~
Damian Wayne is perfectly still as he holds Rayner’s gaze, attempting to communicate with him telepathically as he did when Rayner was entangled with Parallax. He wonders now if the Lantern had retained this ability even when he lost the entity, if he could always project ideas into others’ minds. He doesn’t know if Rayner hears him or not, but he heeds his initial suggestion, quietly slipping through the door that leads back to the E-branched corridor and making way toward the HSR hub instead.
Bruce is oblivious to everything being said, to what Kyle is saying, as he looks at the charts on the computer screens. Standing, he hovers, liquid-grace allowing him to shift from side to side of the console. Excitement is rising in him, strands of it, but it doesn’t manifest on his body; Bruce’s self control is such he doesn’t allow the emotions to rise to the surface. He lowers his head, chin almost on his chest as he reads, eyes nearly vibrating they move so fast, his hands smoothing across the glass of the console.
Oliver drops down into the vacated chair, this entire thing setting his teeth on edge. Seeing Kyle in there, transformed and transcended by green Lantern energy, is raising too many hackles of memory for Ollie to be comfortable with it. Especially on the heels of Ion, Parallax, overwhelming alien power just waiting to take over.
Kyle feels the walls warping, but not because he’s doing that to them, like accidentally making the walls shake. No instead it feels like the walls are shaping to /him/, cradle and hold him in, egging him on for more and more of his power. He is simultaneously mother and child, providing sustenance for the machine while being en-wombed by it and Kyle almost chokes at the sudden, overwhelming feeling of…he isn’t sure how to explain it, but when the door slides open and a tiny figure stands in the bower, Kyle suddenly erupts in a string of Arabic, words a certain mother would say to a certain child - in the past palaces, in a tent in the middle of a desert. Wooing and beckoning and /feeding/ off the little boy even as Kyle’s eyes widen and he shouts out - his own voice overlayed on his own other Arabic one -
"BRUCE!!!" A panel suddenly shatters against the wall and wires burst electricity into the room. Kyle flies towards Damian, wrapping bodily around him to protect the child as he ushers them out. He still isn’t amped down properly as he grabs hold of the boy.
Damian Wayne isn’t hesitant at first when he presses the door open, and even when he sees Rayner hovering inside like some battery-powered deity, he’s unafraid. But when the Lantern begins speaking, his voice and words borrowed from memories that Damian tries desperately not to indulge, he backs away, holding out his hands in dread and shaking his head fitfully. He rambles back in his native language as if not speaking to Rayner at all, and he struggles to escape as he’s scooped up from his feet, electricity crackling all around and Rayner’s energy surrounding him in the more immediate vicinity.
Oliver stares, then lurches up suddenly from the chair when it sinks in what that voice is, WHO it is, and that Damian is no longer in the room with them but down there, with the fucking Lantern, with all that bleeding energy. A jolt of guilt (should have been watching Damian, goddammit, instead of bickering with Bruce, should have been WATCHING) bolts through him as he pushes over to Bruce at the controls.
"I can keep it going," Ollie promises, tightly. “You go."
Bruce moves without a second thought, running from the room as he shoots down the corridor, hanging a left, legs pistoning to get him there, get him to the room, his mind too overwhelmed with powering his body that he doesn’t have time for the emotions of guilt, shame, powerlessness. He gets to Kyle, to Damian, his eyes widening and reflecting green in the cobalt pools of his irises and he surges forward, to pull Damian from Kyle’s arms, turning his back to the still-glowing Lantern, shielding the little boy, wrapping him in his body.
Kyle lets go of Damian once he hits the button that slams the door shut and rolls onto the floor on his back in the hallway, still crackling with energy. He isn’t tired or discombobulated or wrecked-feeling, like that time his concentration was broken as Bruce pushed him away to save his son. He is almost overfull of energy and now it’s a matter of willing his ring to pull it all back into him, to cram it back in him forcefully if it needs to, tie it all down and pack it all back into Kyle’s sack of flesh. He’s panting, and his concentration is at full capacity, instead of shot. He’s conscious of /everything/ and it’s almost painful.
"I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay," he reassures himself, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that Damian is being taken care of - by Bruce or by Ollie. By someone. Kyle takes care of himself.
Bruce looks down at Damian, hands smoothing over the boy’s little face, cupping it in his palms for a second before he pushes his fingers through his son’s dark, messy hair. Bruce kneels against the floor, one leg bent at the knee, the other on the floor, holding Damian upright, so he can look him over.
"Damian?" His hands smooth over the boy’s shoulders and arms, down to his hands. Bruce checks all of his little fingers, counts them, over and over in his head.
"Damian, speak."
Damian Wayne continues ranting in Arabic as Bruce takes hold of him. Something in Bruce’s scent, the aftershave he wears or perhaps a trace of his cologne, calls him back to the present and he shifts his gaze between his father and Rayner curled on the floor, the vivid energy of his power flooding around him as if he’s drowning under a green sea. Damian reaches through Bruce’s arms, trying to return to him— but Rayner begins insisting that he’s okay.
“Father," Damian answers when he’s ordered to speak. “Father… I didn’t…"
Bruce shakes his head, and shifts then, still on his knees, towards Kyle, on the ground. He brings his fingers to Kyle’s pulse, at the inside of his wrist—his other hand remains around Damian’s small hand, thumb stroking at the palm, softly, in circles. He speaks to the Lantern, oddly enough, in the same tone he’d used for Damian.
"Kyle?" He continues to count.
Kyle realizes his powers are diminishing as, inside the HSR room, its power is slowly switched off. Probably by Queen, he surmises, as he can hear Bruce’s voice nearby. There’s a symbiosis there now, something inextricably connected, but in a way that still seems fragile and shakey. He feels Bruce take his wrist, that human-way of checking one’s pulse which propels Kyle back into the present state of mind as his powers blip away suddenly and Kyle sits up, staring at Bruce with wide clear eyes.
"I can do that again. I can make it better next time, I promise. I know what I did wrong. Sh - the HSR, it told me. Not in words, mind you but…" Kyle pulls his lips in, licking them and then puffing out a gust of air. "…but like some sort of…you know robotic communication ha ha. My ring’s a fast learner." Kyle tilts his head past Bruce, looking at Damian. He reaches out to the boy, wanting to touch him as well. “Damian? I’m sorry kiddo, that - that was a - are you okay?"
Bruce rises slowly, removing his touch from Kyle’s wrist, but keeping his hold on Damian.
Damian Wayne shies away from Rayner’s touch, pressing closer to his father instead. “I’m fine."
Kyle stays on the floor, tearing his eyes away from Damian to look up at Bruce.
Bruce brings his gaze to meet Kyle’s and extends a hand to him, to pull him to standing.
Kyle gladly takes it, relying almost completely on Bruce’s strength and sturdiness to pull him upright. He wants to keep talking, but he stays quiet, glancing down at Damian again. What transpired with Damian hasn’t quite sunk in with Kyle, but for the moment he understands the need for the boy to be near his father, a bastion of solace.
Oliver has managed to keep the supercharged energy levels in the HSR in check, but he doesn’t dare take his eyes from the controls. Not until Bruce gets back and gives it the okay himself.
Bruce nods, as if someone had said something—when truly, it was quiet there, in the short hallway; nothing but breathing from all three of them—and then begins to move, back towards the control room, Damian’s hand still in his own. He enters, and does not let go even then, moving to check on the computers, the output and the graphs; he nods to Queen, looking at him, side-long. His hand remains laced around Damian’s for a moment longer, and then, he pulls away, both hands sliding against the console.
Oliver gives a relieved sigh, then turns and scowls at Damian. “What the heck did you think you were doing, running down there? You coulda got yourself fricaseed! Not to mention the rest of this place and the rest of us!"
Damian Wayne opens his mouth to question Rayner just as his father begins to lead him away, and he opts to remain silent, clutching tightly to Bruce’s large fingers. He keeps his eyes averted from Queen when they re-enter the control room, burrowing down in a chair and making himself as small and quiet as possible once Bruce releases him. He watches the door out of the corner of his eye, wondering if Rayner will follow.
Damian Wayne twists his mouth and makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Shutup, Queen."
Oliver thins his eyes. “Don’t you tell me to shut up," he snaps. “You’re the one who endangered yourself and the rest of us."
Kyle follows, for lack of any other type of guidance, but he sort of hovers at the door of the console room. He knows where the thing broke and for a while Kyle isn’t sure if he broke it on purpose, or if the HSR itself reacted badly to Kyle’s reaction to seeing Damian. “It’s no big deal," Kyle says, somewhat clueless of how blase that sounds. “I can fix it, with Bruce’s guidance."
Damian Wayne: I had to check on Rayner!
Oliver “No, you didn’t. Rayner’s a grown-ass Lantern and he can take care of himself. What you HAD to do was stay put so we didn’t have to shut down your father’s test of the simulation suite and whateverthehell else."
"Oh leave him alone, Queen!" Kyle barks suddenly incredibly annoyed. “It’s not his fault!"
Oliver glares at Rayner as if he somehow encouraged this
Bruce barks at all of them: “All of you.. Quiet!"
Bruce growls, his fingers moving against the keys. “Or, get out. As long as you aren’t here, making noise."
Damian Wayne glares at Queen but heeds his father’s command to be silent
Oliver glares back at Damian but likewise clams up
Kyle folds his arms and leans heavily against the doorway, staring out of the window that shows the HSR. He doesn’t know why he’s not exhausted but…he’s just not.
Bruce after a long moment, speaks: “It’s fine." He turns, looks at Kyle—not Damian nor Ollie—and nods. “It worked fine." Not perfectly, not beautifully, but fine.
Damian Wayne asks, “It didn’t break, Father?”
Kyle eyes light up and he practically careens himself off the doorframe. “It did?! I want to do it again!"
Oliver unfolds his arms and leaves the room in long, heavy strides that they can hear echoing down the hallway as he moves away from them.
Bruce nods, and looks back to the darkened main chamber, now, the broken panel no longer sparking: the HSR had repaired itself, cutting the flow of electricity to the exposed wiring. Like the coagulation of platelets in a body. Bruce shakes his head, speaking to Kyle. “We will. But not now. I need time to analyze the data."
Kyle stares in fascination at the machine, not noticing that Ollie has left. But he replies to Damian. “It didn’t break, Damian. It’s doing the opposite of breaking and…" Kyle focuses back on Bruce.
"Alrighty. Then I guess I’m done here, but Bruce —" Kyle takes a few steps in, finally coming up close to Bruce, ensuring he is in Bruce’s personal space in order to get his full attention. "— when you do need me to help out on this again, please. I’m here and I’m willing, no pun intended. The HSR…" Kyle looks back at it. "…it knows - I mean - I know it well now."
Damian Wayne watches Queen depart, relieved though he wouldn’t admit it. He makes an effort to listen to Rayner, but he isn’t focused on his explanation about the HSR. “I heard you, just like I heard you when you were Parallax," he says, tapping his own temple.
Bruce looks over at Kyle, about to answer him, when Damian’s speech cuts the words off, right at the tip of his tongue. He looks over at Damian, eyes tightening. “You what?"
Damian Wayne looks between Bruce and Rayner, drawing his hands close to his chest as hesitation grips him. “Perhaps I only imagined it," he murmurs.
Bruce looks to Kyle, eyebrows arching high.
Kyle almost laughs, and it’s almost derisive as his brows furrow and he smiles in confusion at Damian. “I don’t think so, Damian. Parallax is gone, fu - banished to the craphole universe it came from. Don’t worry, kiddo. Maybe…" Kyle purses his lips, thinking. “Maybe it was just something the image of me, doing that, maybe it just made you remember…" Kyle hisses between his breath in sympathy. “Ayyyyy, lo siento, Damicito."
Damian Wayne frowns at Rayner’s tone, anger and humiliation burning its way through him. He knows what he heard. But Rayner’s denial coupled with Father’s presence convinces him not to press the matter further. “Very well," he says, clipped and even.
Kyle feels a strain, it’s tangible but yet Kyle is too occupied with the room behind Damian to really delve into it. Besides, this isn’t the time or place. “It wasn’t me," he insists soft and urgent, and then slowly backs out of the room. “Thanks for letting me do this Bruce. Keep in touch." And with that, he heads back to the elevators to see himself out.
Bruce stares at Damian for a while, too long of a moment, even after Kyle leaves. His dark gaze does not leave the boy’s face.
"Damian."
Damian Wayne forces himself to sit up straight, to not give in to his inclination to sink back under Bruce’s gaze. “Yes, Father?"
Bruce “What did you hear." He doesn’t ask it, but rather, demands it: if not in tone than with the posture of his shoulders, the way he folds his arms over his chest.
Damian Wayne compulsively pinches the seams of the chair. “Nothing. I didn’t hear anything. I was mistaken."
Bruce doesn’t try to touch Damian, doesn’t even exhale again with the question. He just looks over at him, assuring himself that the boy, again, is fine—ten fingers, ten toes—and nods. “Fine." He turns back around and unplugs his computer, kneeling under the console to pull the cable from the inside of the console, painstakingly screwing the panel back on.
Damian Wayne slowly releases his breath when Father turns from him.
Bruce stands when the panel is returned to normal, and moves for his satchel, replacing the computer inside of it. He begins to power down the devices, planning to leave the machine locked and unusable until he can come back to repair the broken plate inside.