You just haven't decided how you're going to go about it yet, [ Bruce says, about his non-confrontational way. ] But you will.
[ Personally, he thinks Barry's got more figured out than he realizes. He just needs to accept himself and embrace— not even his ability, but his own right to exist, and exist as he is, uncompromising in who he is, awkwardness and all. Bruce understands the slide into depression after trauma, and Barry's mother and his father's incarceration are as dire as it gets (even in this crowd, with its six members but only three parents who have not died or vanished under horrifying circumstances). It's hard to get out of. Hell, Bruce hasn't even gotten out of it, he just went in the opposite direction from hesitancy. Egotistical ultraconfidence and no sense of self-preservation.
Which is perhaps not actually better. ]
Well. [ Bruce does not fidget his hands on the steering wheel. He's not sure why this tick from young childhood has begun to resurface, in recent weeks, but it has, and he is going to mercilessly crush it.
The thing is, ]
I do need you.
[ So. Anyway, they are pulling into a diner parking lot, an ancient thing under a service road overpass, clearly resentfully built around by a city that could not get a land lease to expire early. But despite the shabbiness and the hour, it's not deserted, which is a testament to some kind of quality.
Car: parked. Bruce: turning to look into the back seat again, to snag whatever it is he'd checked for earlier, which turns out to be a worn-in Gotham Knights cap, which he tucks over his head. ]
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[ Personally, he thinks Barry's got more figured out than he realizes. He just needs to accept himself and embrace— not even his ability, but his own right to exist, and exist as he is, uncompromising in who he is, awkwardness and all. Bruce understands the slide into depression after trauma, and Barry's mother and his father's incarceration are as dire as it gets (even in this crowd, with its six members but only three parents who have not died or vanished under horrifying circumstances). It's hard to get out of. Hell, Bruce hasn't even gotten out of it, he just went in the opposite direction from hesitancy. Egotistical ultraconfidence and no sense of self-preservation.
Which is perhaps not actually better. ]
Well. [ Bruce does not fidget his hands on the steering wheel. He's not sure why this tick from young childhood has begun to resurface, in recent weeks, but it has, and he is going to mercilessly crush it.
The thing is, ]
I do need you.
[ So. Anyway, they are pulling into a diner parking lot, an ancient thing under a service road overpass, clearly resentfully built around by a city that could not get a land lease to expire early. But despite the shabbiness and the hour, it's not deserted, which is a testament to some kind of quality.
Car: parked. Bruce: turning to look into the back seat again, to snag whatever it is he'd checked for earlier, which turns out to be a worn-in Gotham Knights cap, which he tucks over his head. ]