exorkismos | @success

@success_story

It’s raining in Gotham, so hard the whole city feels like it’s underwater, and Marcus doesn’t make it three blocks after leaving the Evans house before he’s doubled over laughing. Hard, pained, endorphin-high noises that come right from the bottom of his rib cage. He’s soaked and glad for it, the rain sluicing off some of the grime of his work. He’s got a Tupperware full of leftover stew in his bag. Patricia Evans had insisted. She’d actually tried to make him stay the night in the guest room, but Marcus had needed to be out. Moving. Getting his head clear. He has a surprisingly okay and surprisingly cheap room not so far away, anyway. He wants movement and then he wants stillness, privacy. He wants to call Tim and purr smug and happy and tender down the phone at him. The demon in Adia Evans had been crying by the end of it, begging for forgiveness. Marcus had granted it and seen her eyes clear in that very moment.

In fact — but the rain blurs the touchscreen when he pulls it out, makes it hard to compose a message. He leaves it, tucks it back into his pocket. At least the phone is charged. He’s more vigilant about it since Vermont. He talks more to Tim, leaves fewer silences; he knows it’s not exactly what either of them want, but it’s better than not trying.

He should walk. Get somewhere dry. Heat up the leftovers. Make that call. But for now, he just leans back against the wall and lets the rain drench him, promises himself he’ll start walking again in just a second, just a moment: giving himself longer and longer to enjoy how easy his breath comes in moments like these, how the leaden weight of guilt has eased up off his chest. Done enough. He’s done enough.

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He does take a drink at that: too spot on. It only helps his stomach a little. There's a small, framed photograph of his parents on the desk that Bruce looks to briefly. "You know, the Waynes have a mausoleum. My parents refused to be entombed there, they wrote individual plots into their wills.

"But my sons are there. Two of them." That hook yanks again, and the human thing would be to heed it and sober up. The human thing is weak, though, and this is still half put on, and Bruce continues as if he's teaching a lesson and not learning one. "As fast as my youngest is growing up, I'll be one of those antecedents sooner than later. I don't mind a mausoleum, Mr. Keane. Maybe it isn't chipper, but it's grounding--knowing your place in the world."

Which ones, he thinks, and wonders with a sudden twist in his stomach if he knows one, if that's the story —

He can look it up. Later. There would have to be obituaries. Christ. "Sorry," he says, brief but not unfeeling, and after a moment he nods. "Yeah. Okay. I see that. 'Spose I've always preferred moving. If I get too grounded I'll sink." He half shows his teeth, not quite a smile. That's the sort of thing he have found easier to say a few months ago. Just now it's all a little more complicated.

"And what about the people you help? The kids you work with. You don't think they'll sink without you?"

"No." He's actually surprised, eyebrows tipping up. "No, I don't. They're stronger than that. For the most part, I do...brief interventions. And for the most part, that's all they need. Get them to a place that can get better and let them take charge."

Most of the time. He gets caught up, he always does, but he can't afford to play favourites. And the people he works with, people who get possessed, people who come out the other end — they aren't served best by someone else deciding what their happy ending is and devoting their life to securing it. It doesn't work like that.

Which is hypocritical, he knows, given that he's still in communication with Samuel and Ana. He should stop that. It's not fair to get attached.

They aren't friends, so Bruce doesn’t tell him that he’s wrong outright. Just listens and watches over the rim of him glass as he eases closer, folding the gap between them. But people, especially children, especially after trauma, need stability. Need someone to protect them from the world, from themselves.

“You’re probably right,” is what he says, wandering past Marcus back towards the hall. “Maybe you could give me a few pointers there. I’m sure if you asked Damian, he’d call me a hover parent.” Or nosy. Or over-bearing. Or possessive. Damian’s vocabulary is extensive.

"No, you?" Marcus says, thinking, Yep, no doubt, and wondering exactly how inappropriate it would be to make a point of meeting Damian. Whether it goes against what he promised Tim, what he's mostly stuck to. He's got that nosy, hunting impulse now, the sort of itch in his fingers that leads to him opening people's letters or rifling through their wallets. Hands in his pockets he saunters in Bruce's wake, abandoning his glass to leave marks on the chaise longue. "Doesn't seem like you're hovering right now. You must trust him with some of the socialising going on downstairs." Back past some of the portraits. Marcus carefully doesn't look. "I dunno. Don't have my own, and working with kids is different from raising them."

"Well, he is twenty-one." Bruce grimaces, which is half true and half code for I can leave him in charge while I keep exorcists from snooping around my house. "One thing I have learned is that the Dad Card doesn't work so well past nineteen. Once they hit twenty-three, they all develop, ah--anti-hovercraft measures. I'm trying to wean myself off."

Unhelpfully, Marcus' brain presents him with the mental maths: twenty three is about when Tim would have left here. His jaw tightens a bit, smile getting more strained as he tries not to think about any of that. "Mm. A skillset's a skillset." He's not doing well, at all, at keeping his eyes off the pictures, so he just decides to be overt. "I don't know — sorry. Ain't from around here, don't keep up with high society stuff. These all your kids?"

"Some of them." A laugh as he turns, walking a little slower backwards. "Ah, not all of them. So many of these were commissioned after--we lost Jason years ago. About fifteen years ago. After that I learned to keep records like this."

He lingers in front of the larger portrait, pointing as he explains. "My oldest, Dick. He was a little younger than Damian when this was commissioned. He captains a precinct in Bludhaven, just down-river. Damian, whom you'll see. Tim, he must have been...fourteen, fifteen here?"

The beat that he takes speaks to man whose child is dead, but his delivery of the fact sounds more like a man whose child's dog ran away. "We lost Tim a few years ago, actually. Train accident in New York."

Marcus' eyes track along the portraits, lining them up alongside what Tim has told him until Bruce says we lost Tim like maybe Tim just slipped out and didn't come back. He does a bad job at controlling his expression, his mouth tightening slightly. It's a cliche and it's stupid but it feels like someone's walked over his grave, it really does. Shiver between the shoulders, a superstitious urge to check his phone, send Tim something stupid and irrelevant just to get something equally trivial back, just checking up. Testing the line. He knows it's just a smokescreen, a necessary one, arranged between Bruce and Tim for Tim's own sake, but seeing him memorialised makes his stomach twist.

"Yeah. That's awful," he mutters, after too jagged a moment of silence. "Sorry. I'd go fucking crazy, probably."

Marcus does a sorry job of keeping himself opaque. Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce watches him and reads. He didn't get this reaction out of mentioning Jason. Maybe it's the photograph. Possibly. Some people are sensitive.

Marcus looks at the picture with familiarity that makes him wonder, though. "...You said you don't have children?"

He's startled into a laugh by the question, even though it feels like an inopportune moment and he quickly cuts it short with a brief expression of self-rebuke. He just doesn't get that one often. "No. Uh, never a thing I thought about, really. Even after I left the priesthood." Which they haven't discussed while Bruce is wearing this mask, but the scotch is settling in and Marcus doesn't really have much patience for delicacy when sober.

"But you're missing someone right now." Soft but fast, meant to catch him off guard just a little. "If not a child, who are you missing?"

Marcus spears him with a look, and says, prompt and deadpan as anything, "I mean, I reckon by now Bishop Conlan downstairs will have just about convinced himself I've fucked off and he can relax. I'm ready to ruin that moment of relief."

Bruce warms slow, but laughs loud when the full idea overtakes him, and claps his free hand to Marcus' shoulder--keeps it there to lead him along with. "Well, let's see if the good Bishop hasn't had enough wine to make him a little friendlier. Anyway, if we don't get down, we're going to miss the salmon puffs. I know that sounds incredibly--I know how it sounds. But you'll thank me, I promise..."

The hall is in fuller swing as they come down, and Bruce keeps Marcus close as they enter a more Bacchic throng that they left. More flutes, more trays, more music, and more waitstaff rushing back and forth. The music is a bit louder, and everyone just a little bit looser. Bruce doesn't seem concerned by the party, but he can't find who he's looking for; no one has seen his son for the last half hour.

"Alfred." The Butler. The father/mother. The barrier. Bruce finds him first, one hand at Marcus' shoulder and the other at Alfred's. "Damian?"

The older man has to lean much closer to be heard. "Out for a cigarette, sir."

The scowl Bruce gives is entirely genuine. He pushes the two men at his hands nearer. "I'm going to pull him back in. Make sure Mr. Keane here gets a salmon puff? I'll be back. Don't lose him!"

The crowd pulls Bruce in before he even completes a step away. Alfred stays close, but the look he gives Marcus is appraising, at kindest. "...Mr. Keane, was it? You must be some kind of musician, then?"

Bruce steers him and Marcus has to swallow down a moment of alarm. Wait! isn't a good look and it won't be listened to, so he raises his eyebrows and gives into it. Fine. At least it means he can justify his continued presence at the party as not his fault. Which might be important, later, when trying to explain to Tim, you know how I promised I wouldn't pry.

He's already admitted that he wants to meet Alfred, though, and he relaxes, grinning, immediately much more comfortable with him than with Bruce, though he recognises the barb in his words. He didn't expect him to be English, except now he thinks about it of course he is, and he didn't expect him to look quite so much like he's popped out of a BBC drama, but again: of course that's the case. "Marcus," he says by way of introduction, sticking his hand out as Bruce gets swallowed up by the crowd. "Youth worker, actually, but I'm not gonna contest the compliment."

Alfred takes his hand only slightly less assertively that Bruce, with none of the manufactured warmth. The man is working, not to mention set on edge by an observation: "Master Wayne gave you the tour of the house? Every thing in order, I hope?"

It’s not the first time that Marcus has been called out for snooping. He grins, totally shameless, and says, “Yeah, it’s gorgeous. How’s the party going? Can’t be easy, corralling this lot. Had any troublemakers?”

He snorts, amused but not smiling. "If there's no trouble, it's hardly a party. I believe Master Wayne mentioned the puffs."

Bruce has given him these requests before, plenty, and they run the gamut from real requests for special treatment and code for get this asshole out of here. Worry over the Wayne heir's location left them without time for much clarification, so Alfred draws a line somewhere in between, cutting Marcus out of the crowd in the wake of a moving server. His fingers pinch at Marcus' elbow to herd him along.

The area they enter isn't a kitchen, but a side room set up as an intermediate space, hors d'oeuvres trafficking in from the kitchen and out by not-yet frazzled wait staff. There's an aluminum urn of coffee in the corner that two servers are huddled near, and Alfred is about to come up with some bit of small talk.

But before Marcus steps fully through the threshold, he's shoved forward--grabbed by the back of his collar and his shoulder. The person grabbing him (Damian, barked about six feet too far back) doesn't relent until Marcus bumps hard against the sturdy table, covered by two protective clothes and a collection of dishes waiting for washer. It rattles.

Marcus had wondered if salmon puff was code for don't let him steal anything. Being gently removed to a sideroom provides some evidence for the theory. But he's perfectly willing to go along with being steered for now, interest piqued by Alfred and the chance to sample more food a welcome second objective. Towed in Alfred's wake, he says cheerfully, "Yep, real reason I — Jesus!"

He stumbles and growls as he's grabbed and shoved into the table with a crash and a rattle; his elbow drives back hard, purely on instinct, teeth baring in a snarl.

It isn't that they planned this; it's simply that they have a plan. Alfred sees the Wayne men come in looking stormy and automatically goes to shoo out the help and block the door. Bruce has to stop his son, but he has to lock the door to the hall first before anyone follows them in and Damian runs his mouth.

Damian isn't operating on a plan. They were off-duty for the night--until now, of course. His hand snaps around the elbow that Marcus throws at him, twisting to wrench that arm painfully behind his back before rolling the man over to face him.

He has his father's eyes in green and height in a slimmer model, but Damian is still imposing in size. Dressed to the nines, but not someone that belongs here: head shaved bald, skin-fit top crawling all the way up his neck and all the way down his palms still doesn't hit the tattoos creeping out from under his collar and over his knuckles, leather skirt, leather pants, leather boots--he's more of a gothic monk in green than a someone who should be here.

The voice still ties him to his family though; he sounds almost exactly like Batman as he bends Marcus back over the table. "What were you doing in Paucity, Ohio?"

The growling demand stops Bruce from pulling him back, freezes Alfred at the opposite end of the table.

Marcus snarls again, again struggles although he knows there's no point — but there's an incredulity to his expression that wasn't there the other night when Batman was growling at him. Here, he hasn't done anything.

But then Damien says Paucity and Marcus' eyes widen in disbelief and alarm. "In — " He chokes on the echo, eyebrows up, and ends up accidentally telling the truth in very genuine tones of simmering righteous anger: "Visiting my boyfriend, you prick. That a crime? Jesus Christ, let go."

Over Damian's shoulder, tension visibly leaks out of Bruce's posture, leaving just frustration in his voice when he calls his boy again like snapping for a dog. Behind Marcus, too, there's an exhausted Master Damian easing closer. But Damian doesn't give an inch.

He's close enough to see the ripples under the surface. He knows he's right the moment Marcus speaks. "Did he tell you to come here, your boyfriend? Why are you here, don't lie to me, you haggard witch!"

That's Bruce's hands forcing Damian back by his chest and arm, apologizing even while he tries (tries) to break Damian's grip. "Mr. Keane, I'm sincerely sorry--stop. Stop."

"Witch, that's new — never had that before — " A breath of harsh, unhappy laughter escapes him as he twists aggressively in Damian's grasp. He can feel his heart racing, not slowing down at Bruce's attempts to drag his son back. "What the hell is this about? What are you talking about?"

"I'm not a sniveling, grieving mother you can trick with religious trappings--" The Evanses, he's been watching the house, too. "--I won't be patronized in my own house--!"

Bruce handles Damian's wrists with a force that might break anyone else, pulling him back from behind like a biting hound. Growls in his ear as he wrenches Damian back, warning him to relent, but Damian addresses him with his eyes till burning into Marcus'. "Drake is compromised--he's compromised, he's in danger--"

"Damian--"

"Father, are you blind?!" Slowly, shakingly, his arms are forced, crossed over his chest. Bruce human-straitjackets him against his chest. "You let him in our home, how much did you show him?!"

Alfred's hands light at each side of Marcus arms. He watches in case the man flinches, but gives him heads up in the form of a dry joke, quiet enough for only him. "You wondered about troublemakers, Mr. Keane? Out the back, he's had a bit much--"

But even as Alfred veers him away, Damian kicks up in Bruce's hold and bellows: "Keane!" There's a knock on the door from the hall side that no one acknowledges. Damian spits, strong as a curse, "If you touch him, I'll have your head, do you understand? If you go near him, I will rip you apart!"

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"youth worker" this is chefs kiss

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seal claps!!

GREAT also hello i finally name the made-up city tim lives in :\a

SHRIEKS ahhhh and also lmfao what a good name

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