The rehabilitation of Wayne Manor is not a quiet affair. The overgrown road to the main gate has to be cleared off and repaved before a few of the crucial vehicles can even approach - new material hauled in, destroyed material hauled out - traffic in the area shoots up from basically nothing to a brisk clip of construction workers and artisans. There will be a brief mention of it in the local county paper, but not yet, as it doesn't take something so obvious to lure in the driver of the Payne's grey 2001 Porsche 911 parked beside a truck full of drywall slabs.
He loiters for a while near the formal entrance, but deviates. There's a more homey entry near the primary kitchens, and the way he pushes the door open, steps over plastic sheeting to protect surviving heavy tile, elbow shifting as though anticipating a long-gone entryway table speaks more to identity than if he'd been wearing a nametag.
Richard Grayson doesn't look anything like Bruce Wayne. His build is different, bones arranged in dissimilar angles and lengths, half a foot missing from both wingspan and height, his skin is a rich olive that defies the inherent pasty paleness of New Jersey, his hair's a different brown, his eyes are bright blue, the cheekbones are all wrong. Richard Grayson doesn't look anything like Bruce Wayne, except in all the ways he could be cloned from him. He moves like Bruce. He stands still like Bruce. The coat he's wearing, mature and timeless, is the kind of garment only bought because someone grew up watching their role models wear them. The look he gives the bespectacled stranger standing in the back of the parlor, quick and lancing and gone before it's even manifested, is identical to how Bruce looks at strangers.
"Don't tell me Alfred hired his own Alfred, finally."
Unlike Bruce, his wary suspicion manages to sound genuine in its tentative friendliness. (Because it is.)
familial interlude.
He loiters for a while near the formal entrance, but deviates. There's a more homey entry near the primary kitchens, and the way he pushes the door open, steps over plastic sheeting to protect surviving heavy tile, elbow shifting as though anticipating a long-gone entryway table speaks more to identity than if he'd been wearing a nametag.
Richard Grayson doesn't look anything like Bruce Wayne. His build is different, bones arranged in dissimilar angles and lengths, half a foot missing from both wingspan and height, his skin is a rich olive that defies the inherent pasty paleness of New Jersey, his hair's a different brown, his eyes are bright blue, the cheekbones are all wrong. Richard Grayson doesn't look anything like Bruce Wayne, except in all the ways he could be cloned from him. He moves like Bruce. He stands still like Bruce. The coat he's wearing, mature and timeless, is the kind of garment only bought because someone grew up watching their role models wear them. The look he gives the bespectacled stranger standing in the back of the parlor, quick and lancing and gone before it's even manifested, is identical to how Bruce looks at strangers.
"Don't tell me Alfred hired his own Alfred, finally."
Unlike Bruce, his wary suspicion manages to sound genuine in its tentative friendliness. (Because it is.)