skywire | we're painting the town blue.

skywire

i hate captcha and so do you.

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From:

undisclose

... how he could've seen something of himself in you.
And I see some stuff about your motives/mindset more clearly, maybe.

Among other things, idk

From:

skywire

liiike?

I'd genuinely like to know what your observations on this subject are
since it's basically the defining moment of my childhood
if you don't mind

From:

undisclose

If it's the defining moment of your childhood then maybe you shouldn't be concerned what some random kid from another dimension thinks

From:

skywire

okay for starters you're not "some random kid"
I'm not dumb enough to fall for that one and you're not dumb enough to think I would
so let's not kid ourselves
but if you really don't want to talk about it, it's fine
I just like talking to you
your observations pick up on things I missed
you have a unique perspective, you can't deny that

From:

undisclose

Sure, but you still met me like 2 weeks ago. That's pretty damn random, Grayson.

I did a little reading on the bat's history, and it's similar enough to mine I guess I can overlook the whole pathological behavior thing in order to offer some speculation into his mindset at the time. That's obviously what you're fishing for.

From:

skywire

lol oh man
you think I'm fishing for your perspective on Bruce?
adult Bruce?
the man who I ate breakfast with every day for over a decade??

look
you're a great kid and I love talking to you
but I never need anyone else's perspectives and speculations on big B
I have my own and I promise they're much better than yours

what I'm "fishing" for
is what you think of ME

From:

undisclose

And yet despite your expressed intentions to the contrary, you've persisted in referring to us as the same person. Whatever you say, Dick. I'll take the compliment, though. It's comforting to think his motivations are beyond me.

What do I think about you, though?

Top of my head: you're smarter than you let on, more stubborn, less flippant
you're lucky you had someone there to recognize you needed a strong direction or purpose after the senseless humiliation of your parents' death so you didn't have time to introspect too deeply about the circumstances surrounding it, uh
maybe you're not as introspective as some about that sort of thing

I do think your extracurriculars and the theatricality with which you pursue them are a fitting homage to your parents' lives. I didn't know them but I'd be audacious enough to say I bet they'd like who you've become, too

Also, I look at him and then I look at you and think: martyr complex vs. Atlas personality/savior complex maybe but then again it's a fine line

Is that what you're fishing for?
I'm no good at this.

From:

skywire

I do think of you as different people if that matters any
I'm not very good at expressing it I guess
he's a huge presence in my life
it tends to overshadow other things
I look at you and I see potentials and I know the outcome of a few
we're both kidding ourselves if we pretend I'm not biased but I'm trying not to push that on you too much
I may not be succeeding

are you saying I'm smarter than I look?
I was trained by the best you know ;)

and don't worry, I'm pretty introspective when it comes down to it
I've seen what not being introspective enough about your motivations and choices can do to a person
it's just another couple of things I don't discuss openly with people I don't know very well
and despite an uncanny resemblance to a certain bat, you aren't in that category
yet

wait am I the martyr or the atlas?
Jason says I have a Napoleon complex but he's just an asshole

From:

undisclose

Atlas. I get the feeling if you took the night off to, say, teach somebody to jump off of rooftops and then read about a crime that'd gone down while you were busy, you'd feel guilty about it. The martyr thing could apply, too, though, idk. If you're really smarter than you look I don't have to explain why.

I guess I shouldn't pathologize everyone but I had a recent run in with some Arkham escapees and maybe the habit kind of stuck ...

From:

skywire

I'm taking the comment about my looks as a compliment 💪🐦

and I think if I felt any guilt on the matter it'd be the same amount say a cop or a fireman would feel
also there's always the next night and the night after that
to hold apprehend the perpetrator and help more in other places
a lot of my job is more solving crimes already committed than preventing them from ever being done
it's not about instant gratification

out of curiosity
which escapees?
any of them uh
how do i say this
fond of comedy

From:

undisclose

Well, he thinks he's funny.
Chuckles is a guy named Jerome Valeska, and we have some unfortunate history. There were a few more, too. It was an asylum-wide break out Valeska planned, actually. Happened right before I got ripped through space-time.

"Instant gratification" is an interesting way of phrasing that.

From:

skywire

never heard of a Jerome Valeska
so hey that might mean you might not have to deal with him much longer
orrr that our timelines diverge in some weird other direction
interdimensional travel 🤷

how do you mean?
idk an annoyance I have with a lot of younger crime fighters is
they just want to rush in and beat up the bad guy
they don't think about the detective work or the training or the preventative measures
I'm not a methodical planner and yeah, sometimes I rush in to finish off the job
but that's only after I've done the majority of the legwork
(I mean some older vigilantes are the rush in and don't ask questions type but they're mostly terrible at it)
(don't tell big B I said that I don't want him to know I agree with him about some of his colleagues)

Edited (pthhbt.) Date: 2018-04-12 08:28 pm (UTC)

From:

undisclose

When I've had the opportunity to prevent a crime, I've felt something more like a sense of relief than anything like gratification. I said there was a "satisfaction" to solving a mystery, but that's intellectual and after the fact. "Instant gratification" makes it sound like the confrontation itself is the motivation, and not the outcome, I guess.

Maybe that's just semantics. OR maybe that's just a reiteration of what you just said. Regardless, I won't tell the bat

From:

skywire

I wouldn't second guess your instincts so much
because your observations are very astute
not just because I'm biased and trust my Bruce's
honestly I'd say you tend to analyze in a different direction than big B does
with a lot of different outcomes
it's part of why I like talking to you, kiddo
your perspective is interesting independent of who you share a name with

From:

undisclose

That's kind of you to say. Recently, I've found second guessing my instincts is a useful habit.
Usually I'm not so obvious about it.

What do you mean "different direction"? What's his direction?

From:

skywire

I mean I may be biased because I'm very uhhhhh
the nice way of saying impulsive
intuitive!
but I've found second-guessing instinct can lead to a lot of waffling
trust your gut, even if your hunches are wrong, your gut feeling is there for a reason

it's hard to describe
but for starters he's generally more secretive and less communicative
which is a feat considering how getting details from you is like pulling teeth 😒
when you DO open up though...
your observations tend to be more caught up in the microcosm of the event
I guess that's how I'd put it
Big B's always been detail oriented but you seem to fixate on the unique categories of the individual situation
this is just from the brief time I've known you of course so I could be off

From:

undisclose

Sometimes it's the wrong reason.

You're not off. The myopia's from being an overprivileged 16yo with limited real world experience. You probably caught on to it because I've mostly questioned you about aspects of your history that remind me of my own.

From:

skywire

omg kid
thats not what i meant
you're almost as grim as him
what I mean is you're good at focusing on things in a vaccuum and not letting outside details distract you
my Bruce is more of a 'everything is connected, let's look at the big picture' kind of guy

From:

undisclose

People always think I'm being grim when I'm honest. I didn't mean it in a bad way.

Tbh almost any way you differentiate me from him, I consider a compliment

From:

skywire

I don't think either approach is wrong
or better than the other
but like I said it's part of why I enjoy your perspectives
when I can drag them out of you
honestly when I look past the name
you don't remind me of Bruce at all
you remind me of someone else entirely