[ Jason tosses his helmet aside, rips his mask off and leaves it all in a pile on the floor next to the chair, along with his jacket. He's immersed, finding every detail he possibly can about these people, what organizations they've been affiliated with, and any new factions of magic and witches, memory loss and mind reading that he can possibly find. He barely hears what's going on around him, though he's vaguely aware of some minor and strained conversation.
He doesn't look away from his work. He doesn't want to see any of it. He's better at this part anyway. Detached and working alone, while a hundred emotions threaten to jarr his insides loose. Jason doesn't have time for it and working at the batcomputer distracts him well enough. If he had this set up for himself? He could get so much more done in this city. He has his own, of course, almost as good, but nothing will ever be as good as Batman- Jason knows he tries hard enough, though.
He knows when Damian comes over- it's more than a couple of hours later. Jason hears him before the kid is even at his side, but he doesn't stop, having compiled a great deal of leads they can start out with. He's pretty sure it all leads back to the same place, and the results he's found are worse than he could have imagined.
Damian's question finally pulls him away from the screens and he looks over at him, furrowing his eyebrows. ]
I've found just about everything on them, if that's what you mean. The man I shot, his name is Bartholomew Heart. He has dozens of men and women following him- a cult or something. You're right, he's some kind of witch, some kind of siphon. It was no mistake that he went right for you and Bruce. They supposedly worship the Bat and want to become him. Heart claims that he can be him.
[Jason pulls up a bunch of photographs, videos every time Batman was caught in some photos, paparazzi, video screenshots. Heart is in all of them, in the background]
This wasn't a one time thing. You've run into him before and he's gotten better and better at finding you. I think those memories he's taken... he's keeping them somehow. He's turning himself into Batman. Stealing memories and making them his own.
So yeah, that's all I've found.
[Jason looks away from Damian, back at the screen and then he squeezes his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. He knows this still doesn't explain how they can get their memories back and he lets out a strangled yell, slamming his finst down on the consol before dropping his head into his hand]
( well — that’s considerably more than he’d originally gleaned from a glassy eyed sweep of the computer screen. damian blinks, any vestiges of sleep long gone by the sudden revelation. it’s invigorating, having a lead; like sinking teeth into flesh and finally having the vantage to read back and rip the mystery at the seams. damian spares jason a side long glance, and he’d be surprised — it’s easy to forget in the face of all that anger and the man’s loud rebellion against batman and his code, that he’d been as great a detective as he was a renegade; still was apparently — if he wasn’t so suddenly sickened by the information. a cult, a fanatic, a stalker. those three thing never mixed together well.
jason yells wordlessly, but damian barely bats an eye. he isn’t dick, not tim, nor jason apparently; he isn’t the type to reign in his brothers, doesn’t scold or comfort or put a hand on jason’s shoulder in a silent show of commiserations. no, he simply reaches around the man for the computer mouse, drags the curser to one of the many video feeds and presses play. it’s one of the rare times batman and robin had been caught on camera intervening in the very public assassination attempt of the mayor of gotham, michael bean. the man had retired shortly after the fiasco with harvey dent and the rooftop guillotine spectacle, and that had been nearly a year ago. the fight had carried two face and batman down to street level while damian has been in charge of unshackling bean and getting him to safety, and the ensuing fist fight had been well documented by reporters and concerned civilians with camera phones. he remembered that night, though nothing particular about the crowd. the most interesting part comes after dent is shackled and loaded into a van for transport to arkham, when a pretty dark haired reporter’d had the nerves to approach batman and shove a microphone in his face, asking rapid fire questions about the events on the roof and his justifications for going above the law.
bruce gives some gravelly rendition of his justice and i will always protect gotham mantra, and raises his grappling gun to fly back up onto the rooftops as the reporter screams one last question after him: why a bat?
huh.
damian purses his lips; pauses, and rewinds the clip. he spots the man jason had identified as the witch in the crowd easily enough, squints at the unfocused distortion of his face and watches again. then again. bartholomew heart’s mouth is moving, and he’s clutching his hand over his chest. damian sets the five second clip to loop, mutes the overlay of audio, and zooms in as much as he can without pixelating the image, and leans even closer to the screen to better read his lips. )
My heart and soul, ( he eventually parses, brow furrowed. that didn’t sound like any sort of magical incantation, more like the crazed ramblings of an obsessive lunatic. an obsessive lunatic with supernatural powers, looks like the joker has some competition. it doesn’t help his understanding of the man’s ploy so much as raises a series of goosebumps along his arms and sends a shiver down his spine and cements jason’s findings. it’s a start, it’s a name and a face to chase, but...
damian tried to use the face of the man on the screen to fill in the blanks, jar his own erased memories back to conscious thought, and finds he can’t. but this time, instead of being infuriation and hitting the control panel like todd had done, he’s reeled backward into quiet introspection. )
If your hypothesis is correct, and Heart is seeking to impersonate Batman by stealing his memories, what use did he have for mine?
[It's almost as if... they have some kind of good sympatico going on. Neither of them need comfort in the form of reassurance or scolding or comfort, but somehow they've found this way of staying calm when the other lashes out and vice versa. And they just let it happen, then fall right back into what needs to be done.
So Jason simmers for a while longer, while Damian reaches around and continues to look things up and follow along with the work Jason has put in. Detective work is what they're trained to do, and Jason is damn good at it when he puts his mind to it. It's worth more than his anger right now.
Eventually he looks up, right at that man's face, watching him mouth those words. It's eerie. It feels like the words can get into his head, but he knows he's just too tired. He's betting though, that any video they can dig up in the past year that might've caught Batman and Robin, Heart will be there. Maybe that's why Bruce is so depleted. This lunatic has been working on him for a while, without any of their knowledge. There's no way they could have known. ]
Because you're his son. You're a part of him- his life. He has to fill in the gaps. If a person sees Batman... hell, if a person sees Bruce, they wouldn't have the faintest idea about us. They'd have to dig.
[Which then has him thinking, pulling up what he can find on Tim and Dick, Babs, anyone else who is close to Bruce. He leaves himself out for now.]
I bet that Heart will show up in some of their files as well, somewhere in the background. Or maybe he doesn't know yet, but we have to warn them. [He looks at Damian] There are probably more gaps in your memory. Things you don't even know about because... they're just not there.
( the fact that heart had managed to get close enough to Bruce and himself to meddle with their minds — perhaps more than just tonight, maybe before and neither of them could remember enough to combat the zealot, thanks for that complex jason— was enough to rankle every fiber in Damian’s being. and the very idea that he’s similarly pursued the other members of their rag tag family has him outright growling. stephanie, cassandra, tim... on a normal day he could care less for any of them. but if the psychotic magician was on a mission to absorb facts from batman’s actual child as a means to get closer to perfecting his facade, what was stopping him from going after all his other wards and protégées too?
absolutely nothing. and Damian further prickles with a somewhat unfamiliar level of possessive defensiveness. )
I will alert Grayson, Cain, and Gordon, ( he volunteers, divvying up the work before moving further down the console and sending direct, encrypted alerts to his chosen three. )
[ Jason feels those exact sentiments and it shows on his face just as much as Damian's. On a normal day he tries not to think about his cobbled together family at all, but now, he knows they're all pieces to this puzzle and they could be in danger. This could unravel all of them. Everything.
To be completely honest, he doesn't know just how much was stolen from him either. If Heart has been at it for this long, Jason might've come into contact with him before this and just doesn't remember. There's something horribly monstrous about this. More so than most things he's ever come up against. He's still angry at himself for letting the man get away. ]
I'll alert... the rest of them. [Jason knows most of who Bruce has had close contact with, but he wonders if this should be a wider alert. He wonders if they should alert Clark... the Justice League. He'd rather shoot his own foot, but if memories are being stolen, this could get out of their hands really fast. It already feels like it has, with Batman down and out]
I'm going to tell Superman. We don't even know how long Bruce is going to be out.
( he's halfway through tapping out the encrypted mass alert when jason voices aloud the very question that has been eating at damian since the whole memory-loss-my-father-doesn't-remember-me deal had come to light. how long would this go on, when would bruce regain his memories? would he ever? if not, wouldn't that just be a cruel twist of fate, it felt like not all that long ago they'd almost lost him to civilian life. and then — selfishly — damian wonders, where would that leave me? there was no year of blood to occupy his time and need to self-punish. would grayson return to the mantle of batman yet again? would they be able to defeat heart themselves?
hand stilled above the keyboard for all of a moment, heart hammering and mind racing — until the swell of panic is clamped down under the firm air of duty. damian finishes typing the essential details, broadcasts the message, and abruptly turns on his heel and marches towards the stairway. conceals himself in the dark recesses of the manor in early morning, remains relatively unseen for two whole days, very little of which is spent sleeping, resting, or recovering as prescribed. no, damian retreats into his own mind first — layers guilt over anger over concern, attempt to replay the blank spots in his memory over and over until something can be remembered, but always coming up blank. then he throws himself into research, wires all prevalent casefiles from the bat computers mainframe to his own computer and spends hours pouring over video files, bland news clippings, and any other shred of evidence that might lead the investigation somewhere, anywhere.
the wound in his side heals at a miraculous rate, even dodging alfred's regular checkups, but is still tender and sore and weeping hemoglobin into gauze the next time their worlds convene. damian doesn't look up from his laptop, firmly tucked away in the back half of one of the manors larger libraries, but well aware of approaching footsteps and the familiar gait. he wonders briefly if jason had even left — gone home, showered, changed — and tells himself he wouldn't have been surprised in the red hood had returned the to slums indefinitely, content to wait out this storm and watch the dynamic duo fall.
damian may know better, but this is what he tells himself. )
I've found nothing new of note, ( he eventually deigns to say aloud, dragging a finger on the trackpad to enhance yet another security camera still of a patrol scuffle a few months ago because the shadow at the edge of the background building looked suspicious. damian's voice is slightly scratchy from disuse, and the second he glances just over the top of his laptop by way of greeting, his eyes feel dry and heavy; the bags beneath them pronounced but nowhere near as alarming as drake's could get after an in-depth evidence binge. they could use his expertise, damian can begrudgingly acknowledge. ) Heart keeps cropping up in the shadows, I don't understand how we never noticed him before. And I may have identified a few more of his henchmen, one or two who seem intent on recruiting more to their cause. They'd made several nonsensical social media posts and seem generally unhinged, as well as none too big on security and secrecy. Perhaps we can press them for more information.
( and yes, he fully intends to break bones if that's what it takes during this process and fully expects jason to not so much as sniff disapprovingly in his direction. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-31 10:36 am (UTC)He doesn't look away from his work. He doesn't want to see any of it. He's better at this part anyway. Detached and working alone, while a hundred emotions threaten to jarr his insides loose. Jason doesn't have time for it and working at the batcomputer distracts him well enough. If he had this set up for himself? He could get so much more done in this city. He has his own, of course, almost as good, but nothing will ever be as good as Batman- Jason knows he tries hard enough, though.
He knows when Damian comes over- it's more than a couple of hours later. Jason hears him before the kid is even at his side, but he doesn't stop, having compiled a great deal of leads they can start out with. He's pretty sure it all leads back to the same place, and the results he's found are worse than he could have imagined.
Damian's question finally pulls him away from the screens and he looks over at him, furrowing his eyebrows. ]
I've found just about everything on them, if that's what you mean. The man I shot, his name is Bartholomew Heart. He has dozens of men and women following him- a cult or something. You're right, he's some kind of witch, some kind of siphon. It was no mistake that he went right for you and Bruce. They supposedly worship the Bat and want to become him. Heart claims that he can be him.
[Jason pulls up a bunch of photographs, videos every time Batman was caught in some photos, paparazzi, video screenshots. Heart is in all of them, in the background]
This wasn't a one time thing. You've run into him before and he's gotten better and better at finding you. I think those memories he's taken... he's keeping them somehow. He's turning himself into Batman. Stealing memories and making them his own.
So yeah, that's all I've found.
[Jason looks away from Damian, back at the screen and then he squeezes his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. He knows this still doesn't explain how they can get their memories back and he lets out a strangled yell, slamming his finst down on the consol before dropping his head into his hand]
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-31 11:11 am (UTC)jason yells wordlessly, but damian barely bats an eye. he isn’t dick, not tim, nor jason apparently; he isn’t the type to reign in his brothers, doesn’t scold or comfort or put a hand on jason’s shoulder in a silent show of commiserations. no, he simply reaches around the man for the computer mouse, drags the curser to one of the many video feeds and presses play. it’s one of the rare times batman and robin had been caught on camera intervening in the very public assassination attempt of the mayor of gotham, michael bean. the man had retired shortly after the fiasco with harvey dent and the rooftop guillotine spectacle, and that had been nearly a year ago. the fight had carried two face and batman down to street level while damian has been in charge of unshackling bean and getting him to safety, and the ensuing fist fight had been well documented by reporters and concerned civilians with camera phones. he remembered that night, though nothing particular about the crowd. the most interesting part comes after dent is shackled and loaded into a van for transport to arkham, when a pretty dark haired reporter’d had the nerves to approach batman and shove a microphone in his face, asking rapid fire questions about the events on the roof and his justifications for going above the law.
bruce gives some gravelly rendition of his justice and i will always protect gotham mantra, and raises his grappling gun to fly back up onto the rooftops as the reporter screams one last question after him: why a bat?
huh.
damian purses his lips; pauses, and rewinds the clip. he spots the man jason had identified as the witch in the crowd easily enough, squints at the unfocused distortion of his face and watches again. then again. bartholomew heart’s mouth is moving, and he’s clutching his hand over his chest. damian sets the five second clip to loop, mutes the overlay of audio, and zooms in as much as he can without pixelating the image, and leans even closer to the screen to better read his lips. )
My heart and soul, ( he eventually parses, brow furrowed. that didn’t sound like any sort of magical incantation, more like the crazed ramblings of an obsessive lunatic. an obsessive lunatic with supernatural powers, looks like the joker has some competition. it doesn’t help his understanding of the man’s ploy so much as raises a series of goosebumps along his arms and sends a shiver down his spine and cements jason’s findings. it’s a start, it’s a name and a face to chase, but...
damian tried to use the face of the man on the screen to fill in the blanks, jar his own erased memories back to conscious thought, and finds he can’t. but this time, instead of being infuriation and hitting the control panel like todd had done, he’s reeled backward into quiet introspection. )
If your hypothesis is correct, and Heart is seeking to impersonate Batman by stealing his memories, what use did he have for mine?
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-31 11:42 am (UTC)So Jason simmers for a while longer, while Damian reaches around and continues to look things up and follow along with the work Jason has put in. Detective work is what they're trained to do, and Jason is damn good at it when he puts his mind to it. It's worth more than his anger right now.
Eventually he looks up, right at that man's face, watching him mouth those words. It's eerie. It feels like the words can get into his head, but he knows he's just too tired. He's betting though, that any video they can dig up in the past year that might've caught Batman and Robin, Heart will be there. Maybe that's why Bruce is so depleted. This lunatic has been working on him for a while, without any of their knowledge. There's no way they could have known. ]
Because you're his son. You're a part of him- his life. He has to fill in the gaps. If a person sees Batman... hell, if a person sees Bruce, they wouldn't have the faintest idea about us. They'd have to dig.
[Which then has him thinking, pulling up what he can find on Tim and Dick, Babs, anyone else who is close to Bruce. He leaves himself out for now.]
I bet that Heart will show up in some of their files as well, somewhere in the background. Or maybe he doesn't know yet, but we have to warn them. [He looks at Damian] There are probably more gaps in your memory. Things you don't even know about because... they're just not there.
#crapphonetags ❤️❤️
Date: 2018-02-12 05:19 pm (UTC)absolutely nothing. and Damian further prickles with a somewhat unfamiliar level of possessive defensiveness. )
I will alert Grayson, Cain, and Gordon, ( he volunteers, divvying up the work before moving further down the console and sending direct, encrypted alerts to his chosen three. )
❤️
Date: 2018-02-12 06:56 pm (UTC)To be completely honest, he doesn't know just how much was stolen from him either. If Heart has been at it for this long, Jason might've come into contact with him before this and just doesn't remember. There's something horribly monstrous about this. More so than most things he's ever come up against. He's still angry at himself for letting the man get away. ]
I'll alert... the rest of them. [Jason knows most of who Bruce has had close contact with, but he wonders if this should be a wider alert. He wonders if they should alert Clark... the Justice League. He'd rather shoot his own foot, but if memories are being stolen, this could get out of their hands really fast. It already feels like it has, with Batman down and out]
I'm going to tell Superman. We don't even know how long Bruce is going to be out.
breathes life into this
Date: 2018-05-09 08:22 am (UTC)hand stilled above the keyboard for all of a moment, heart hammering and mind racing — until the swell of panic is clamped down under the firm air of duty. damian finishes typing the essential details, broadcasts the message, and abruptly turns on his heel and marches towards the stairway. conceals himself in the dark recesses of the manor in early morning, remains relatively unseen for two whole days, very little of which is spent sleeping, resting, or recovering as prescribed. no, damian retreats into his own mind first — layers guilt over anger over concern, attempt to replay the blank spots in his memory over and over until something can be remembered, but always coming up blank. then he throws himself into research, wires all prevalent casefiles from the bat computers mainframe to his own computer and spends hours pouring over video files, bland news clippings, and any other shred of evidence that might lead the investigation somewhere, anywhere.
the wound in his side heals at a miraculous rate, even dodging alfred's regular checkups, but is still tender and sore and weeping hemoglobin into gauze the next time their worlds convene. damian doesn't look up from his laptop, firmly tucked away in the back half of one of the manors larger libraries, but well aware of approaching footsteps and the familiar gait. he wonders briefly if jason had even left — gone home, showered, changed — and tells himself he wouldn't have been surprised in the red hood had returned the to slums indefinitely, content to wait out this storm and watch the dynamic duo fall.
damian may know better, but this is what he tells himself. )
I've found nothing new of note, ( he eventually deigns to say aloud, dragging a finger on the trackpad to enhance yet another security camera still of a patrol scuffle a few months ago because the shadow at the edge of the background building looked suspicious. damian's voice is slightly scratchy from disuse, and the second he glances just over the top of his laptop by way of greeting, his eyes feel dry and heavy; the bags beneath them pronounced but nowhere near as alarming as drake's could get after an in-depth evidence binge. they could use his expertise, damian can begrudgingly acknowledge. ) Heart keeps cropping up in the shadows, I don't understand how we never noticed him before. And I may have identified a few more of his henchmen, one or two who seem intent on recruiting more to their cause. They'd made several nonsensical social media posts and seem generally unhinged, as well as none too big on security and secrecy. Perhaps we can press them for more information.
( and yes, he fully intends to break bones if that's what it takes during this process and fully expects jason to not so much as sniff disapprovingly in his direction. )