Omi never would have imagined he'd come back to this place voluntarily.
The memories are still fresh in his mind, and no small part of him wonders if this isn't just a huge mistake of overconfidence, waltzing back here as though with full expectation of keeping his freedom. He's prepared for it, though, and has a much stronger mouth dart this time as a failsafe.
In a rare exception to his standard practice, he doesn't carry his waist darts. This time, it would be more of a liability. He can't use them against the Justice League, and having them on his person will only create evidence for them should they turn this visit into an arrest.
Thus with every appearance of a typical schoolkid, he strides into the lobby and, with an assertiveness far more characteristic of Bombay than Omi, informs the receptionist that he needs to talk to Bruce Wayne.
And, at the awkward hesitation she shows getting such a bold request from this high school nobody, adds, "Tell him it's Omi Tsukiyono... He'll know who I am."
Dick was watching the whole thing go down while hacked into the security cameras. Hey, he was bored. Tsukiyono was persuasive, because the receptionist did send up to ask after the boss, but he was long gone for the day. Dick made his way down to take his place.
The receptionist is somewhat confused, but Dick's recognition of the stranger at least makes her think this is okay.
"Hey, while the big guy is out, I'm handling things," Dick said matter-of-factly.
Every time he interacts with Dick it goes very, very south. Even if this were something he could ask Dick, it would be a terrible idea to. Omi shifts and turns to face Dick more frontally.
"I need to speak to him personally. When will he be back?"
"Well, the length of an office day in the states is usually nine-to-five. If the local customs are different, he'll probably follow that instead, but we usually have dinner together."
"Local customs, in this case, would probably mean getting that dinner together at about 10 o'clock tonight... Is that a reasonable guess of the wait time?"
That would be quite a long time, if it was, and probably longer than he should spend here. He's prepared to wait a couple of hours, but the rest of the evening? He'd be better off to leave and come back another time.
pretend M'gann is somewhere in the building to do the psychic link
Dick thinks very carefully before he answers. He'd previously almost driven Tsukiyono right back into the vortex of shameful self-sacrifice Shuichi Takatori forced on him.
"...He's my foster father," he says, finally. It's a simple, direct statement. It's not something he puts into words very often. Their relationship is... complex. In some ways, they're equals; Bruce never underestimates his capacity for grief, for one thing, or his potential. Especially not since Cadmus.
But in other ways, they aren't. Bruce is his mentor, his teacher, and his commander-- but he's also his parent. Dick rarely vocalizes that particular truth. Most of the team probably isn't aware that Bruce also asks him about his homework and whether he's outgrown his clothes. Most of the team probably doesn't know that the faked mission with Parasite and Haly's Circus got him grounded for a month.
"If I tell him it's important, he'll drop everything and come right back to wherever I am."
That, he thinks, is the difference between Bruce Wayne and Shuichi Takatori. Bruce Wayne didn't just teach him a productive way to channel his frustrations; he let Dick join his family. He wasn't a perfect man, nor a perfect mentor, and especially not a perfect parent, but he tried. Dick knew he was jealous of Bruce's attention, and maybe that jealousy added some vitriol to their previous interactions.
Bruce didn't tell him everything (the Watchtower was still a sore point if he thought about it for too long), but he never... he wouldn't...
Dick knew he wasn't just a project to Bruce. He wasn't a tool. He assumed Batman had plans for him to be Batman when he grew up and he had no idea how to explain that wasn't what he wanted for himself, not anymore, not exactly... they'd still be a family. Maybe Bruce would be disappointed in him and that was a crushing prospect he wasn't at all ready to confront, but there were worst fates than disappointing your parents.
Like losing them forever.
He slipped his cell phone out of his pocket, selected 'Bruce' from the list of recent calls, and... he stopped.
"Just, let me know if it is important, if that's what needs to be done."
Robin has offered seeming olive branches in the past. Omi's not falling for it again. Besides, important in a sense of ripping a working man away from his day... this was important to Omi-- otherwise he wouldn't be risking recapture by coming back and even bothering the receptionist-- but he doesn't delude himself the same will hold true of Mr. Wayne.
Dick turns opposite to Omi's sight line and winds up in front of him, phone still in hand.
He takes a deep breath, and it should be easy, shouldn't it, to drop the metaphorical mask in front of someone who's gotten half his brain shoved down his throat, but no one likes being vulnerable. With more vulnerabilities than most of his superpowered friends, maybe Dick is a little more wary of it.
"Look, I just lost a bet with Bruce because of you." His voice lowered. "I'm gonna be washing the Batmobile, by hand, every day for a month. I thought you'd take the grappling pistol and run, but you didn't."
He isn't restraining Omi, but he is between him and the door. He runs a hand through his hair, averting his gaze, letting his shoulders slump with a sense of...
Is this what stage fright feels like? For once, he can't perform.
This isn't a job for the Boy Wonder. This is something only Dick Grayson can do.
"Bruce sees something in you. Something that reminds him of himself, that he has a hard time talking about, but I recognize it, too, and that's... that's hard for me to swallow."
A more shallow breath.
"Bruce is my family, and-and... I wouldn't have any other family without him. But he's not-- you know, he isn't my dad. He'll never be my dad, so he'll never be-- he's not supposed to--" And oh, God, he has to say it, doesn't he?
"He'll never have to love me. I'm not his son, not really, but I-- I mean, there's the paperwork and-and... and all the other stuff."
Omi has his memories, and Dick is fighting his embarrassment as hard he can. He'd rather go three rounds with the Joker, fresh out of Arkham Asylum, and drown himself in Joker venom.
"So, you know, sometimes... sometimes I feel threatened. And I get... angry, and insecure, and a little bitter, and..."
He sighed.
"I got really, really jealous of you. Of how much he respects you. And I'm sorry for letting that cloud my judgment and jeopardize your well-being."
Omi-- Bombay-- isn't really in the mood to be blocked or messed with. Maybe Robin can see that here, and is adjusting accordingly.
It's dangerous to believe him, because believing him is how it starts. He makes it sound like he cares until Omi lets his guard down. Then it's the ping pong smash, even if all he offered was a soft lob.
And it's not because Robin is a bad person. He's the exact opposite. The problem is what it's always been: himself. The reality is, Robin demonstrates the beauty of being a kid in that you're free to be honest a lot sooner than most people are. It hurts that the figures he most admires so unfailingly don't want anything to do with him, and sometimes their treatment even makes him angry or defensive because he tries so hard to be someone worth treating better... but he understands, deep down, that this is just what he deserves. Persia is the only one who ever really saw value in him.
"If I tell him it's important, he'll drop everything and come right back to wherever I am."
What it must be like to have someone like that.
Which is why this time Robin's approach is so depressing. He'd love to believe it was true, that somebody who was Somebody saw something worthwhile in him, but... That wasn't reality. It was just a beautiful lie. There was nothing to see and nothing to respect. Certainly nothing to be jealous over.
It's dangerous to believe him. Despite himself, Omi does anyway. At least, he believes that maybe Dick isn't acting here, however ill-founded those feelings are. He saw what kind of history went into that bond, and he understands that fear of losing it all-- all over again-- too, too well.
That's pretty uncomfortable, because it means Omi has to address that massive confession with the respect it deserves. At least he doesn't have to drop his guard to do that.
"...You don't need to be any of those things towards me. I've never been a threat to you, or to anything that you cherish."
Aya, Ken, and Youji, on the other hand... Well, they were never really a threat-- Omi adamantly believes they'd never have actually gone through with bringing harm to Dick if their rescue mission had gone further awry-- but the association is uncomfortable on the heels of that statement. Thinking about that stunt makes him furious all over again; it never should have happened. Wouldn't have happened had it been under his watch.
So as long as he's got Dick here instead of his adoptive parent, it's as good an opportunity as he's likely to get to tell him.
"Before I go, there is one thing I'd like to say to you... I'm sorry for the what the others did trying to retrieve me. It was wrong for them to abduct you, even with no intention of bringing harm. Making an innocent life feel threatened, and making a loving parent fear for their child's safety, is unpardonable. No exceptions."
"Hey, better me than someone who can't handle it. I've been kidnapped by the Joker. Your guys were downright pleasant."
He brushes it off because he just finished kicking himself, and he's not eager to start it up again.
"I'm angrier at myself for being an easy mark."
Also, hey, downplay is as close as he can get to forgiveness right now. He doesn't exactly forgive it, especially not to Omi, who wasn't to blame in the first place, but he also... he gets it. He does get it.
"And to show you there are no hard feelings, I've made the executive decision to call Bruce anyway."
He dials, and Bruce picks up before the second ring. He can hear the tail end of his apologetic Japanese excuse, before he switches to English and says "Hello?
"It's just me," Dick answers, like Bruce doesn't have Caller ID. "Listen, I've got a friend over, and he wanted me to introduce you, so I was wondering if you'd be back within the next hour."
"Certainly," says Bruce. There's no friend that wants to be introduced, not exactly, but Bruce knows when he's acting, no matter how hard Dick tries. They can extrapolate from each other's lies so well at this point that they almost don't bother to speak freely. When he was younger, Dick loved the secrecy. "I've just got to finish the tour of this office building, and I'll be right on my way. Did I tell you about my visit to the mobile flower shop?"
"Yeah, you did," Dick replied, taking the question as an acknowledgment that Bruce figured out the visitor's identity, and acknowledging his correctness in kind. "See you soon."
He slipped the phone back in his pocket, and moved away from the front door, back towards the elevator that would take him back to his suite.
"You can leave, or wait, down here, or upstairs in private with me," said Dick, keeping both hands visible at his sides as he retreated. "He'll be here sometime within the hour."
No credit to the skill of the guys who are professionals at sneaking up on others, it seems. Omi decides he'd rather not bring it up. Maybe it was even left out for the sake of mutual benefit.
That said-- how was doing the exact opposite of what he said a sign of no hard feelings?! Batman and Robin were supposed to be lawful heroes. No one ever mentions they're also trolls cut from the same cloth.
There is another possibility, of course: the possibility that this is a trap, the flower shop visit the bait, and the wait time a stall while they finalize everything they need to spring it. It was one thing to drop in on Bruce Wayne unannounced, another altogether to let them know he's waiting for them, and give them all time to prepare.
What'll it be, Omi? Leave or Stay? Your audience is coming, and will probably know it's you, because friend is classic indirect speech. Intrinsic as the communication tactic is to his own language, it's impossible to miss even in English. Robin is using a polite, discreet word to communicate a presence whose true nature he doesn't want to share aloud for one reason or another. Maybe it's to keep it from the secretary; maybe it's to keep it from him.
Omi hasn't forgotten what happened last time he stayed, and it's almost enough to send him right back out. There's just one problem with that. He's here because Bruce Wayne visited his home in person. He knows where to find them. That made the choice more like "have this confrontation on your terms or on his." He'll take his own.
Without looking especially pleased, Omi silently moves to a waiting area in the lobby and takes a seat. That's to say he isn't blindly following Robin into who-knows-where, and that he isn't intending to thank Robin for defying his wishes.
Besides, it will be harder for them to pull anything at all in a public space like this.
About a block away, in time to reach Omi a good ten minutes before he was expected, Bruce accessed the building security cameras with a wristwatch computer. Dick was more in tune with tech like that, young people always were, but sometimes, it was useful to have that access.
He called Dick when he saw Omi was alone in the lobby. Just to check.
"If you're saying you think I haven't messed up enough for one mission..." He trailed off, and Bruce smiled slightly.
"So long as it's your decision," he answered, dismissing the video feed, and hung up without anything more.
He entered the building without fanfare. He waved to the secretary, and approached Tsukiyono, but he left a fair distance between them.
He wasn't optimistic, because optimism did horrible things to expectations, but he wasn't pessimistic, either. Pessimism's effects were similar, and he had an easier time coping with the damage, but this was a development. Not a positive one, not a negative one... simply, a development.
He isn't surprised to see him, and he isn't Batman, either; it's just plain-faced, smartly-dressed Bruce Wayne. He doesn't take a seat, and doesn't bother smiling, but he does greet Omi pleasantly.
"Sorry if the wait was too long," he said. "I hope you're having a good afternoon."
Two weeks since that afternoon coffee. Omi hasn't heard anything else from Batman or Robin. Nothing else from Kritiker either, for that matter. The latter silence was even stranger; the Kanazawa mission was their most recent one. It seemed ages ago now, and Omi isn't sure if the lack of missions is a relief or if it's only compounding his anxiety.
It's only when Birman finally does drop by with a tape that he's certain it had been a relief. While it lasted, anyway. His chest feels uncomfortable and heavy as he follows the others inside and Birman dims the lights for the video.
It opens to a shot of an industrial building from the outside.
"The private arms race has intensified in recent years. Production of weapons for profit does not cease in government work."
The video changes to pictures of the interior: stockpiles of parts and shells.
"In this secret production facility, a profiteer is developing a dangerous biochemical weapon to be sold to terrorist organizations for use against the general public."
A series of corpses flashes across the screen.
"The chemical interacts with the small blood vessels in the lungs following inhalation, causing an acidic burn that ruptures the lining and produces immediate hemorrhaging. The victims asphyxiate on their own blood."
The video changes to a still of Bruce Wayne. Omi freezes and pales.
"The American businessman Bruce Wayne owns the technology for producing the weapon. To stop the sale of it into evil hands requires eliminating the source."
Omi's stomach churns. This can't be real. It can't. It can't.
"White hunters of the night: deny this dark beast his tomorrow!"
The lights come back on. Birman passes Aya a folder with some documents inside. The redhead clinically flips it open to browse while Birman offers further explanation.
"WayneTech's official records report the building sold late last year. However, we believe the real estate sale was a money launder for the contract work to design and create these weapons, and that the project remains under Bruce Wayne's management."
A pause. Birman carefully folds her arms.
"Is everyone in?"
Bruce Wayne. Batman! Their target was Batman!
This had to be a mistake. Kritiker couldn't know that was who they were talking about offing!
Sensing the impending answer from Aya, Omi cuts him off.
"Wait!"
Birman's brows crease with concern.
"Bombay.. this can't wait. A transaction is scheduled within the next 72 hours."
"That's enough time. I just... I need to check something."
Birman closes her eyes. "Be careful, won't you? He's using you."
Aya's gaze narrows. He says nothing. Omi meanwhile averts his eyes. "I know he is..."
He doesn't wait for further protest. He dashes to the door and runs out.
Omi runs until he reaches the bay. He parks himself on the railing that lines the harbor, staring off into the vast sea. This has always been his favorite place to turn things over in his mind. It's remote. It's quiet. It's relaxing. He takes a deep breath of salty air.
Okay. Think. Bruce Wayne has been accused of a serious crime. Maybe he's even guilty; Kritiker's never been wrong before. And if he is guilty.... If he is guilty, his team is going to need every ounce of support and craftiness that he can lend them.
If he's guilty, Omi realizes, he's going to have to be In.
On the other hand, with that decided, Omi wants to be absolutely, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt sure Bruce Wayne is guilty. It's possible that he might be doing similar rotten work in his home country. But it's undeniable that he does a great deal of good in the world, too. Killing him is erasing all of that with him. It better be worth it.
Next question: how does he get to absolutely, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt sure? Money laundering was incredibly difficult to prove by its nature. What about the tech? If it could be definitively traced back to WayneTech, that would be damning. Any evidence of Wayne paying a recent visit to the building, too, would be suspicious. But not rock solid.
Maybe... Maybe he's going about this in exactly the wrong way. Maybe instead of looking for rock solid proof of guilt, he needs to be looking for rock solid proof of innocence. Proving guilt would inherently be next to impossible, especially on their tight timeline. What he needed was to exhaust all potential alibis.
The pictures of stockpiled weaponry were real. The dead bodies were real. The crime was real. For Bruce Wayne to be innocent, someone else had to be guilty. And, most likely, the best place to start looking was the source: the production building. And he'd need to snoop around in WayneTech for comparison.
That... might pose a challenge. Breaking into Batman's company, Omi could only imagine what kind of high-tech security they might be dealing with. And if he was caught... If he got caught, it might end up too late to change anything. Or worse.
Omi stops by the trailer to change into his mission clothes, get a few things in preparation, and review all of Birman's file in extra preparation. By the time he reaches his destination, the hour is late. He parks his bike and hides in an alley with his backpack secure on his back. And he takes out his phone.
Of all people, he can't believe he's calling this guy. But it's his only choice if he wants to get to the bottom of this in time. The only other possibility would be the target himself, and that was out of the question.
He turns around and glares at Bruce, who suddenly is paying much stricter attention to his newspaper than hitherto. Dick is pretty sure that he isn't smiling because Hanshin Tigers won their game yesterday.
He has no idea who could be calling, and is expecting to switch to English as soon as possible. Bruce tried to get him to speak only Japanese for the day, but that got complicated when Barbara e-mailed him his homework.
The slip would be cute in less dire circumstances. As it is, Omi's solidly in Bombay mode, making his capacity for amusement rather limited. It does, however, serve as a reminder that Robin's Japanese is not at the level of fluency that Batman's is. That's going to complicate things, but they'll manage.
In consideration of that fact, he keeps his Japanese simple.
"It's me. Are you bored?"
Central as implicit communication seems to be between Batman and Robin, Omi trusts that question serves well enough as the invitation it's meant to be.
"Yeah, of course," he says slowly. Simple English, to match Omi's simple Japanese. Bruce looks up.
"Dick? Who is it?" he asks.
"K.F.," he says, lying brazenly. Something tells him that 'Are you bored?' is not just an invitation, but a clue. It's not the trained recognition he has of Batman's cues; it's the knowledge, shared by teenagers everywhere, that their parents don't need to know what they get up to.
Gotta make it sound good. Choose a story that won't make Bruce ask questions now, and hope Tsukiyono's real purpose is something he can ask forgiveness for later.
"He's got Red Arrow and Aqualad with him. They think they've got a lead on Speedy."
Nobody would question that. Everyone was desperate to solve that particular mystery, and with him, Kaldur, and Wally being the closest to Roy, it wasn't uncommon for the three of them to drop everything to go along with Red Arrow.
Asking forgiveness for it... that would be harder. He can see the color drain from Bruce's face, and he knows, he remembers when Green Arrow's sidekick disappeared for three months, and how Batman seemed to age five years.
But he has a hunch Tsukiyono isn't asking him to come out and play. His instincts are good, and Tsukiyono would happily ignore his existence, he believes. If he isn't... something is up. Something big.
He turns back to the phone, pretending he heard something else.
He's good. Omi can overhear Dick speaking to the room and knows they have an understanding: the two of them, something important, don't tell Bruce. What a relief it is that Dick both Gets It and has agreed to it. He's probably switched to English to pull off the escape without arousing suspicion.
In an effort to confirm Dick's assessment and assert his own good will, he tries to meet Dick halfway, and switches to English himself-- at least as best he can manage it.
"A.S.A.P. Come to west side of the building. I am--" A pause. How does he describe his specific location in English? "--next to moonlight."
That will have to do for explaining he's just inside the alley's shadows.
"Be careful," says Bruce, but it sounds like Batman.
"Hey, I'm always careful," he says, grinning over his shoulder. The excuse he'd given was absolutely compatible with running into his room and changing into costume, and this hunch... he just had a hunch.
"Like you were at Cadmus, right?" Bruce calls after him. "Believe it or not, the results don't always justify the means. Or disobeying a direct order."
"But there were results," says Robin, reemerging in full regalia. "Good results, that resulted in... well, we wouldn't have known about the Light if we hadn't formed the team."
And wasn't that something? No Superboy, no Artemis, maybe no Miss Martian or Rocket... but maybe no Zatanna, maybe they'd still have Zatara. Maybe the Helmet of Fate would still be secure in his Tower.
It wasn't that Bruce could read his mind. It wasn't; Bruce was not Professor Snape or a Martian.
"I know it's a useful saying, but asking forgiveness isn't always better than asking permission, either."
Time to end this conversation before he was proven wrong, though. But Bruce had brought up Cadmus, that was all he was thinking about.
"Maybe I'm a bad kid and sometimes I assume I know what you'll give permission for anyway," he said, grin back in place. He opened the window, and saw the moon bright as a diamond overhead.
"You definitely aren't a bad kid," said Bruce, and Robin's back was turned, facing the next adventure, but he could hear him smiling. "Call if you think it's going to be more than twenty-four hours, will you?"
"Acknowledged."
Next to moonlight? Well, maybe he needs air. He fires a zipline to the to the roof of the building's west side (luckily he was already there!) and tries to get the bird's eye view of the surrounding area as he activates the mechanical recall of the line and rises. There's a small classic car across the street, but that's about it, and Tsukiyono doesn't have a driver's license anymore than Robin does.
Next to moonlight... well, Robin knows where he would hide, and stifles a giggle. The building's west side was pretty dark, and he supposes an assassin would prefer it that way, too.
He fires a line to the building next door, and from there, zips down on a diagonal. Closer to the ground, he can see the shadow that's slightly more human-shaped and Omi-sized. Out of politeness, he chooses to land directly in his sight lines, rather than taking the 'behind you!' approach.
It's definitely progress that this time it's Robin dropping in front of him with a greeting rather than trying to ambush and capture. Omi nods to him and slings his backpack off his back to the ground in front of him.
"Hi... Thank you, for meeting me."
Maybe it's weird to thank him for showing up, especially considering that when you got down to it, the goal would be doing a lot more good for Robin than it would be doing for Omi. Even so, he didn't have to come out. He didn't have to give him a chance.
Yeah, that's about all he understands. It's on the tip of his tongue to say so, but sarcasm probably isn't much better than antagonism at this juncture.
Robin has to consciously restrain his body language from going too businesslike, or too aggressive. He dearly wishes he had something to do with his hands, but checking his weapons fall back into 'antagonism' and there's nothing for him to look up with his computer.
He ends up taking a deep breath and sighing, just to force his shoulders to loosen.
"Trouble," he agrees, because single words of Japanese are easier than grammatically constructed sentences and he wishes to confirm that he does, actually, yes, entirely understand the actual meaning of what's going on.
Youji lowers his binoculars and tries not to laugh. He can't lip-read English as well as his own native language, but he doesn't need to. Omi's face conveys 'trouble' adequately.
The scenario sat right with approximately none of them. Enough time spent in cloak-and-dagger nonsense gave one a feel for it, and Kritiker was losing its touch. That they found out about Bruce Wayne visiting the trailer wasn't surprising.
That they targeted him so shortly after was.
It didn't give Youji much confidence in the organization, that this kind of slipshod bureaucratic incompetence was so transparent even to the kids. Omi ran straight for the target. When the true believer begins to doubt, there isn't much hope left for anyone. He hoped he was the only who noticed, that Aya and Ken were more concerned with Omi's reaction than with the cause, because Manx had been priming him for one of those sweet little missions with sweet little misses who'd missed their calling and ended up killing people indiscriminately instead, and he'd expected to start gathering intel before another full-on mission briefing.
Now here he was, watching two teenagers fumble over a language barrier taller than either of them.
Well, he'd let them get as far as they could on their own. Whatever scheme they were going with, Omi and the Boy Wonder would put on the best show unadulterated by an adult.
Omi can't help noticing the body language, especially that sigh. Is he doing something that's grating Robin? He certainly seems frustrated at something... not the greatest start. Was this a mistake? This was probably a mistake.
But it's too late now. They're both here. It would doubtless be even worse to tell Robin, after he'd gone to the trouble of coming down, to never mind.
He unzips the front pocket of his backpack and pulls out a newspaper folded in half and a map. He's going to have to think about how to communicate everything he needs to, considering neither of them is fluent enough in the other's language for a complex recounting. He might need to make a few creative word substitutions.
He also thinks, this time, he wants to try continuing to speak in English as much as he can. Efforts to bridge the language gap ought to be a two-way street. It isn't very fair to put the full brunt of the translation burden on Robin.
He turns the newspaper to the lower half of the front page and offers it to Robin, then taps the article of relevance.
"...Gas poison causes quick death. Many people are dying. Who does the fault the police do not know."
Omi then places his finger on a location on the map he holds.
"This is what I know. The poison is a weapon. The weapon is for shadow buy. The produce is here." Produce was used as a noun, too, right? "But, there is a mystery: the weapon is a copy. A different company owns the design. This company also owned the building of produce until last year. It is a strange... pair of truths. It may be more, or it may be nothing. As a result, who does the fault... it does not seem sure. What if the knowledge is undercomplete? I—"
He stops. They have reached a point where any misstep in his words could be catastrophic. He can't risk bungling this in English, and reverts to Japanese.
"If I do nothing, someone without sin might die. I can't allow that... I have two days to find the truth."
Parsing that, Robin is grateful he's trying English. He can still understand Omi's English better than he can Japanese.
The other thing he latches on to is the 2-day time limit. That's a problem.
He looks up at the building, towards the high rise floor where Bruce is still working.
In Japanese, he tries, "WayneTech... is the... owner?"
It's the only reason to come to him. And it makes him angry, although he tries not to show it, because it's someone or something misusing Bruce Wayne's resources. Bruce isn't the easiest person to deal with, but if nothing else, he tries.
Here's the proof. Here's Omi Tsukiyono come to solve a mystery.
It makes him a little uneasy, because his gut feeling is that Omi is trying to identify a target, but if it's just an identification, that they can work together on. Bruce seems to have called this one correctly, so maybe... maybe they can stop at identifying who it is.
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no subject
The memories are still fresh in his mind, and no small part of him wonders if this isn't just a huge mistake of overconfidence, waltzing back here as though with full expectation of keeping his freedom. He's prepared for it, though, and has a much stronger mouth dart this time as a failsafe.
In a rare exception to his standard practice, he doesn't carry his waist darts. This time, it would be more of a liability. He can't use them against the Justice League, and having them on his person will only create evidence for them should they turn this visit into an arrest.
Thus with every appearance of a typical schoolkid, he strides into the lobby and, with an assertiveness far more characteristic of Bombay than Omi, informs the receptionist that he needs to talk to Bruce Wayne.
And, at the awkward hesitation she shows getting such a bold request from this high school nobody, adds, "Tell him it's Omi Tsukiyono... He'll know who I am."
no subject
Dick was watching the whole thing go down while hacked into the security cameras. Hey, he was bored. Tsukiyono was persuasive, because the receptionist did send up to ask after the boss, but he was long gone for the day. Dick made his way down to take his place.
The receptionist is somewhat confused, but Dick's recognition of the stranger at least makes her think this is okay.
"Hey, while the big guy is out, I'm handling things," Dick said matter-of-factly.
no subject
Every time he interacts with Dick it goes very, very south. Even if this were something he could ask Dick, it would be a terrible idea to. Omi shifts and turns to face Dick more frontally.
"I need to speak to him personally. When will he be back?"
no subject
Color Dick intrigued, though.
no subject
That would be quite a long time, if it was, and probably longer than he should spend here. He's prepared to wait a couple of hours, but the rest of the evening? He'd be better off to leave and come back another time.
pretend M'gann is somewhere in the building to do the psychic link
"...He's my foster father," he says, finally. It's a simple, direct statement. It's not something he puts into words very often. Their relationship is... complex. In some ways, they're equals; Bruce never underestimates his capacity for grief, for one thing, or his potential. Especially not since Cadmus.
But in other ways, they aren't. Bruce is his mentor, his teacher, and his commander-- but he's also his parent. Dick rarely vocalizes that particular truth. Most of the team probably isn't aware that Bruce also asks him about his homework and whether he's outgrown his clothes. Most of the team probably doesn't know that the faked mission with Parasite and Haly's Circus got him grounded for a month.
"If I tell him it's important, he'll drop everything and come right back to wherever I am."
That, he thinks, is the difference between Bruce Wayne and Shuichi Takatori. Bruce Wayne didn't just teach him a productive way to channel his frustrations; he let Dick join his family. He wasn't a perfect man, nor a perfect mentor, and especially not a perfect parent, but he tried. Dick knew he was jealous of Bruce's attention, and maybe that jealousy added some vitriol to their previous interactions.
Bruce didn't tell him everything (the Watchtower was still a sore point if he thought about it for too long), but he never... he wouldn't...
Dick knew he wasn't just a project to Bruce. He wasn't a tool. He assumed Batman had plans for him to be Batman when he grew up and he had no idea how to explain that wasn't what he wanted for himself, not anymore, not exactly... they'd still be a family. Maybe Bruce would be disappointed in him and that was a crushing prospect he wasn't at all ready to confront, but there were worst fates than disappointing your parents.
Like losing them forever.
He slipped his cell phone out of his pocket, selected 'Bruce' from the list of recent calls, and... he stopped.
"Just, let me know if it is important, if that's what needs to be done."
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"No... You don't need to go that far."
He turns to leave.
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Dick turns opposite to Omi's sight line and winds up in front of him, phone still in hand.
He takes a deep breath, and it should be easy, shouldn't it, to drop the metaphorical mask in front of someone who's gotten half his brain shoved down his throat, but no one likes being vulnerable. With more vulnerabilities than most of his superpowered friends, maybe Dick is a little more wary of it.
"Look, I just lost a bet with Bruce because of you." His voice lowered. "I'm gonna be washing the Batmobile, by hand, every day for a month. I thought you'd take the grappling pistol and run, but you didn't."
He isn't restraining Omi, but he is between him and the door. He runs a hand through his hair, averting his gaze, letting his shoulders slump with a sense of...
Is this what stage fright feels like? For once, he can't perform.
This isn't a job for the Boy Wonder. This is something only Dick Grayson can do.
"Bruce sees something in you. Something that reminds him of himself, that he has a hard time talking about, but I recognize it, too, and that's... that's hard for me to swallow."
A more shallow breath.
"Bruce is my family, and-and... I wouldn't have any other family without him. But he's not-- you know, he isn't my dad. He'll never be my dad, so he'll never be-- he's not supposed to--" And oh, God, he has to say it, doesn't he?
"He'll never have to love me. I'm not his son, not really, but I-- I mean, there's the paperwork and-and... and all the other stuff."
Omi has his memories, and Dick is fighting his embarrassment as hard he can. He'd rather go three rounds with the Joker, fresh out of Arkham Asylum, and drown himself in Joker venom.
"So, you know, sometimes... sometimes I feel threatened. And I get... angry, and insecure, and a little bitter, and..."
He sighed.
"I got really, really jealous of you. Of how much he respects you. And I'm sorry for letting that cloud my judgment and jeopardize your well-being."
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It's dangerous to believe him, because believing him is how it starts. He makes it sound like he cares until Omi lets his guard down. Then it's the ping pong smash, even if all he offered was a soft lob.
And it's not because Robin is a bad person. He's the exact opposite. The problem is what it's always been: himself. The reality is, Robin demonstrates the beauty of being a kid in that you're free to be honest a lot sooner than most people are. It hurts that the figures he most admires so unfailingly don't want anything to do with him, and sometimes their treatment even makes him angry or defensive because he tries so hard to be someone worth treating better... but he understands, deep down, that this is just what he deserves. Persia is the only one who ever really saw value in him.
"If I tell him it's important, he'll drop everything and come right back to wherever I am."
What it must be like to have someone like that.
Which is why this time Robin's approach is so depressing. He'd love to believe it was true, that somebody who was Somebody saw something worthwhile in him, but... That wasn't reality. It was just a beautiful lie. There was nothing to see and nothing to respect. Certainly nothing to be jealous over.
It's dangerous to believe him. Despite himself, Omi does anyway. At least, he believes that maybe Dick isn't acting here, however ill-founded those feelings are. He saw what kind of history went into that bond, and he understands that fear of losing it all-- all over again-- too, too well.
That's pretty uncomfortable, because it means Omi has to address that massive confession with the respect it deserves. At least he doesn't have to drop his guard to do that.
"...You don't need to be any of those things towards me. I've never been a threat to you, or to anything that you cherish."
Aya, Ken, and Youji, on the other hand... Well, they were never really a threat-- Omi adamantly believes they'd never have actually gone through with bringing harm to Dick if their rescue mission had gone further awry-- but the association is uncomfortable on the heels of that statement. Thinking about that stunt makes him furious all over again; it never should have happened. Wouldn't have happened had it been under his watch.
So as long as he's got Dick here instead of his adoptive parent, it's as good an opportunity as he's likely to get to tell him.
"Before I go, there is one thing I'd like to say to you... I'm sorry for the what the others did trying to retrieve me. It was wrong for them to abduct you, even with no intention of bringing harm. Making an innocent life feel threatened, and making a loving parent fear for their child's safety, is unpardonable. No exceptions."
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He brushes it off because he just finished kicking himself, and he's not eager to start it up again.
"I'm angrier at myself for being an easy mark."
Also, hey, downplay is as close as he can get to forgiveness right now. He doesn't exactly forgive it, especially not to Omi, who wasn't to blame in the first place, but he also... he gets it. He does get it.
"And to show you there are no hard feelings, I've made the executive decision to call Bruce anyway."
He dials, and Bruce picks up before the second ring. He can hear the tail end of his apologetic Japanese excuse, before he switches to English and says "Hello?
"It's just me," Dick answers, like Bruce doesn't have Caller ID. "Listen, I've got a friend over, and he wanted me to introduce you, so I was wondering if you'd be back within the next hour."
"Certainly," says Bruce. There's no friend that wants to be introduced, not exactly, but Bruce knows when he's acting, no matter how hard Dick tries. They can extrapolate from each other's lies so well at this point that they almost don't bother to speak freely. When he was younger, Dick loved the secrecy. "I've just got to finish the tour of this office building, and I'll be right on my way. Did I tell you about my visit to the mobile flower shop?"
"Yeah, you did," Dick replied, taking the question as an acknowledgment that Bruce figured out the visitor's identity, and acknowledging his correctness in kind. "See you soon."
He slipped the phone back in his pocket, and moved away from the front door, back towards the elevator that would take him back to his suite.
"You can leave, or wait, down here, or upstairs in private with me," said Dick, keeping both hands visible at his sides as he retreated. "He'll be here sometime within the hour."
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That said-- how was doing the exact opposite of what he said a sign of no hard feelings?! Batman and Robin were supposed to be lawful heroes. No one ever mentions they're also trolls cut from the same cloth.
There is another possibility, of course: the possibility that this is a trap, the flower shop visit the bait, and the wait time a stall while they finalize everything they need to spring it. It was one thing to drop in on Bruce Wayne unannounced, another altogether to let them know he's waiting for them, and give them all time to prepare.
What'll it be, Omi? Leave or Stay? Your audience is coming, and will probably know it's you, because friend is classic indirect speech. Intrinsic as the communication tactic is to his own language, it's impossible to miss even in English. Robin is using a polite, discreet word to communicate a presence whose true nature he doesn't want to share aloud for one reason or another. Maybe it's to keep it from the secretary; maybe it's to keep it from him.
Omi hasn't forgotten what happened last time he stayed, and it's almost enough to send him right back out. There's just one problem with that. He's here because Bruce Wayne visited his home in person. He knows where to find them. That made the choice more like "have this confrontation on your terms or on his." He'll take his own.
Without looking especially pleased, Omi silently moves to a waiting area in the lobby and takes a seat. That's to say he isn't blindly following Robin into who-knows-where, and that he isn't intending to thank Robin for defying his wishes.
Besides, it will be harder for them to pull anything at all in a public space like this.
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He called Dick when he saw Omi was alone in the lobby. Just to check.
"If you're saying you think I haven't messed up enough for one mission..." He trailed off, and Bruce smiled slightly.
"So long as it's your decision," he answered, dismissing the video feed, and hung up without anything more.
He entered the building without fanfare. He waved to the secretary, and approached Tsukiyono, but he left a fair distance between them.
He wasn't optimistic, because optimism did horrible things to expectations, but he wasn't pessimistic, either. Pessimism's effects were similar, and he had an easier time coping with the damage, but this was a development. Not a positive one, not a negative one... simply, a development.
He isn't surprised to see him, and he isn't Batman, either; it's just plain-faced, smartly-dressed Bruce Wayne. He doesn't take a seat, and doesn't bother smiling, but he does greet Omi pleasantly.
"Sorry if the wait was too long," he said. "I hope you're having a good afternoon."
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i need to use these icons while i have 'em
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It's only when Birman finally does drop by with a tape that he's certain it had been a relief. While it lasted, anyway. His chest feels uncomfortable and heavy as he follows the others inside and Birman dims the lights for the video.
It opens to a shot of an industrial building from the outside.
"The private arms race has intensified in recent years. Production of weapons for profit does not cease in government work."
The video changes to pictures of the interior: stockpiles of parts and shells.
"In this secret production facility, a profiteer is developing a dangerous biochemical weapon to be sold to terrorist organizations for use against the general public."
A series of corpses flashes across the screen.
"The chemical interacts with the small blood vessels in the lungs following inhalation, causing an acidic burn that ruptures the lining and produces immediate hemorrhaging. The victims asphyxiate on their own blood."
The video changes to a still of Bruce Wayne. Omi freezes and pales.
"The American businessman Bruce Wayne owns the technology for producing the weapon. To stop the sale of it into evil hands requires eliminating the source."
Omi's stomach churns. This can't be real. It can't. It can't.
"White hunters of the night: deny this dark beast his tomorrow!"
The lights come back on. Birman passes Aya a folder with some documents inside. The redhead clinically flips it open to browse while Birman offers further explanation.
"WayneTech's official records report the building sold late last year. However, we believe the real estate sale was a money launder for the contract work to design and create these weapons, and that the project remains under Bruce Wayne's management."
A pause. Birman carefully folds her arms.
"Is everyone in?"
Bruce Wayne. Batman! Their target was Batman!
This had to be a mistake. Kritiker couldn't know that was who they were talking about offing!
Sensing the impending answer from Aya, Omi cuts him off.
"Wait!"
Birman's brows crease with concern.
"Bombay.. this can't wait. A transaction is scheduled within the next 72 hours."
"That's enough time. I just... I need to check something."
Birman closes her eyes. "Be careful, won't you? He's using you."
Aya's gaze narrows. He says nothing. Omi meanwhile averts his eyes. "I know he is..."
He doesn't wait for further protest. He dashes to the door and runs out.
God. What is he going to do?
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Okay. Think. Bruce Wayne has been accused of a serious crime. Maybe he's even guilty; Kritiker's never been wrong before. And if he is guilty.... If he is guilty, his team is going to need every ounce of support and craftiness that he can lend them.
If he's guilty, Omi realizes, he's going to have to be In.
On the other hand, with that decided, Omi wants to be absolutely, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt sure Bruce Wayne is guilty. It's possible that he might be doing similar rotten work in his home country. But it's undeniable that he does a great deal of good in the world, too. Killing him is erasing all of that with him. It better be worth it.
Next question: how does he get to absolutely, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt sure? Money laundering was incredibly difficult to prove by its nature. What about the tech? If it could be definitively traced back to WayneTech, that would be damning. Any evidence of Wayne paying a recent visit to the building, too, would be suspicious. But not rock solid.
Maybe... Maybe he's going about this in exactly the wrong way. Maybe instead of looking for rock solid proof of guilt, he needs to be looking for rock solid proof of innocence. Proving guilt would inherently be next to impossible, especially on their tight timeline. What he needed was to exhaust all potential alibis.
The pictures of stockpiled weaponry were real. The dead bodies were real. The crime was real. For Bruce Wayne to be innocent, someone else had to be guilty. And, most likely, the best place to start looking was the source: the production building. And he'd need to snoop around in WayneTech for comparison.
That... might pose a challenge. Breaking into Batman's company, Omi could only imagine what kind of high-tech security they might be dealing with. And if he was caught... If he got caught, it might end up too late to change anything. Or worse.
He grimaces tightly, realizing what he must do.
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Of all people, he can't believe he's calling this guy. But it's his only choice if he wants to get to the bottom of this in time. The only other possibility would be the target himself, and that was out of the question.
He dials Dick's number and listens for the tone.
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"Konnich-- ah! Moshi moshi?"
He turns around and glares at Bruce, who suddenly is paying much stricter attention to his newspaper than hitherto. Dick is pretty sure that he isn't smiling because Hanshin Tigers won their game yesterday.
He has no idea who could be calling, and is expecting to switch to English as soon as possible. Bruce tried to get him to speak only Japanese for the day, but that got complicated when Barbara e-mailed him his homework.
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In consideration of that fact, he keeps his Japanese simple.
"It's me. Are you bored?"
Central as implicit communication seems to be between Batman and Robin, Omi trusts that question serves well enough as the invitation it's meant to be.
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"Dick? Who is it?" he asks.
"K.F.," he says, lying brazenly. Something tells him that 'Are you bored?' is not just an invitation, but a clue. It's not the trained recognition he has of Batman's cues; it's the knowledge, shared by teenagers everywhere, that their parents don't need to know what they get up to.
Gotta make it sound good. Choose a story that won't make Bruce ask questions now, and hope Tsukiyono's real purpose is something he can ask forgiveness for later.
"He's got Red Arrow and Aqualad with him. They think they've got a lead on Speedy."
Nobody would question that. Everyone was desperate to solve that particular mystery, and with him, Kaldur, and Wally being the closest to Roy, it wasn't uncommon for the three of them to drop everything to go along with Red Arrow.
Asking forgiveness for it... that would be harder. He can see the color drain from Bruce's face, and he knows, he remembers when Green Arrow's sidekick disappeared for three months, and how Batman seemed to age five years.
But he has a hunch Tsukiyono isn't asking him to come out and play. His instincts are good, and Tsukiyono would happily ignore his existence, he believes. If he isn't... something is up. Something big.
He turns back to the phone, pretending he heard something else.
"Yeah, I'll be there. When?"
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In an effort to confirm Dick's assessment and assert his own good will, he tries to meet Dick halfway, and switches to English himself-- at least as best he can manage it.
"A.S.A.P. Come to west side of the building. I am--" A pause. How does he describe his specific location in English? "--next to moonlight."
That will have to do for explaining he's just inside the alley's shadows.
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"Be careful," says Bruce, but it sounds like Batman.
"Hey, I'm always careful," he says, grinning over his shoulder. The excuse he'd given was absolutely compatible with running into his room and changing into costume, and this hunch... he just had a hunch.
"Like you were at Cadmus, right?" Bruce calls after him. "Believe it or not, the results don't always justify the means. Or disobeying a direct order."
"But there were results," says Robin, reemerging in full regalia. "Good results, that resulted in... well, we wouldn't have known about the Light if we hadn't formed the team."
And wasn't that something? No Superboy, no Artemis, maybe no Miss Martian or Rocket... but maybe no Zatanna, maybe they'd still have Zatara. Maybe the Helmet of Fate would still be secure in his Tower.
It wasn't that Bruce could read his mind. It wasn't; Bruce was not Professor Snape or a Martian.
"I know it's a useful saying, but asking forgiveness isn't always better than asking permission, either."
Time to end this conversation before he was proven wrong, though. But Bruce had brought up Cadmus, that was all he was thinking about.
"Maybe I'm a bad kid and sometimes I assume I know what you'll give permission for anyway," he said, grin back in place. He opened the window, and saw the moon bright as a diamond overhead.
"You definitely aren't a bad kid," said Bruce, and Robin's back was turned, facing the next adventure, but he could hear him smiling. "Call if you think it's going to be more than twenty-four hours, will you?"
"Acknowledged."
Next to moonlight? Well, maybe he needs air. He fires a zipline to the to the roof of the building's west side (luckily he was already there!) and tries to get the bird's eye view of the surrounding area as he activates the mechanical recall of the line and rises. There's a small classic car across the street, but that's about it, and Tsukiyono doesn't have a driver's license anymore than Robin does.
Next to moonlight... well, Robin knows where he would hide, and stifles a giggle. The building's west side was pretty dark, and he supposes an assassin would prefer it that way, too.
He fires a line to the building next door, and from there, zips down on a diagonal. Closer to the ground, he can see the shadow that's slightly more human-shaped and Omi-sized. Out of politeness, he chooses to land directly in his sight lines, rather than taking the 'behind you!' approach.
"...Hey?"
Now what?
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"Hi... Thank you, for meeting me."
Maybe it's weird to thank him for showing up, especially considering that when you got down to it, the goal would be doing a lot more good for Robin than it would be doing for Omi. Even so, he didn't have to come out. He didn't have to give him a chance.
"I am sure you understand, there is big trouble."
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Robin has to consciously restrain his body language from going too businesslike, or too aggressive. He dearly wishes he had something to do with his hands, but checking his weapons fall back into 'antagonism' and there's nothing for him to look up with his computer.
He ends up taking a deep breath and sighing, just to force his shoulders to loosen.
"Trouble," he agrees, because single words of Japanese are easier than grammatically constructed sentences and he wishes to confirm that he does, actually, yes, entirely understand the actual meaning of what's going on.
"What... is trouble?"
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The scenario sat right with approximately none of them. Enough time spent in cloak-and-dagger nonsense gave one a feel for it, and Kritiker was losing its touch. That they found out about Bruce Wayne visiting the trailer wasn't surprising.
That they targeted him so shortly after was.
It didn't give Youji much confidence in the organization, that this kind of slipshod bureaucratic incompetence was so transparent even to the kids. Omi ran straight for the target. When the true believer begins to doubt, there isn't much hope left for anyone. He hoped he was the only who noticed, that Aya and Ken were more concerned with Omi's reaction than with the cause, because Manx had been priming him for one of those sweet little missions with sweet little misses who'd missed their calling and ended up killing people indiscriminately instead, and he'd expected to start gathering intel before another full-on mission briefing.
Now here he was, watching two teenagers fumble over a language barrier taller than either of them.
Well, he'd let them get as far as they could on their own. Whatever scheme they were going with, Omi and the Boy Wonder would put on the best show unadulterated by an adult.
<3!!
But it's too late now. They're both here. It would doubtless be even worse to tell Robin, after he'd gone to the trouble of coming down, to never mind.
He unzips the front pocket of his backpack and pulls out a newspaper folded in half and a map. He's going to have to think about how to communicate everything he needs to, considering neither of them is fluent enough in the other's language for a complex recounting. He might need to make a few creative word substitutions.
He also thinks, this time, he wants to try continuing to speak in English as much as he can. Efforts to bridge the language gap ought to be a two-way street. It isn't very fair to put the full brunt of the translation burden on Robin.
He turns the newspaper to the lower half of the front page and offers it to Robin, then taps the article of relevance.
"...Gas poison causes quick death. Many people are dying. Who does the fault the police do not know."
Omi then places his finger on a location on the map he holds.
"This is what I know. The poison is a weapon. The weapon is for shadow buy. The produce is here." Produce was used as a noun, too, right? "But, there is a mystery: the weapon is a copy. A different company owns the design. This company also owned the building of produce until last year. It is a strange... pair of truths. It may be more, or it may be nothing. As a result, who does the fault... it does not seem sure. What if the knowledge is undercomplete? I—"
He stops. They have reached a point where any misstep in his words could be catastrophic. He can't risk bungling this in English, and reverts to Japanese.
"If I do nothing, someone without sin might die. I can't allow that... I have two days to find the truth."
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The other thing he latches on to is the 2-day time limit. That's a problem.
He looks up at the building, towards the high rise floor where Bruce is still working.
In Japanese, he tries, "WayneTech... is the... owner?"
It's the only reason to come to him. And it makes him angry, although he tries not to show it, because it's someone or something misusing Bruce Wayne's resources. Bruce isn't the easiest person to deal with, but if nothing else, he tries.
Here's the proof. Here's Omi Tsukiyono come to solve a mystery.
It makes him a little uneasy, because his gut feeling is that Omi is trying to identify a target, but if it's just an identification, that they can work together on. Bruce seems to have called this one correctly, so maybe... maybe they can stop at identifying who it is.
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