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."
Omi doesn't content himself to any technological distractions while he waits. It's better to stay alert of his surroundings here, and there's plenty to stew over in the meantime besides. Thus when Bruce Wayne enters the building, Omi is immediately aware of the fact and stands to greet him.
It's professional pleasantries right now. Omi can't read anything across that face. He decides that for now, he'll match that, and offers a bow that acknowledges their status difference.
"Not at all. That you would carve time out of your day on such short notice-- apologies for my ill-mannered visit. Please let me treat you to a coffee as a small gesture of apology-- there's a lovely cafe just south of here."
"Apologies for my ill-mannered ward," Bruce deadpanned, unable to help himself. He doesn't follow up with any of the twenty excuses that his mind immediately comes up with. Most of them are a variation on the theme of "He's spoiled," and while Bruce could credibly claim that Dick was like that when he found him, giving him so much independence at such a young age reaped for them both nearly as much detriment as benefit.
He'd yet to regret it, however. Dick was the kind of person whose talents had to be utilized to their fullest potential, lest he waste away from spiteful boredom and lack of direction. His work ethic alone demanded constant stimulation, and Bruce quickly realized that the only two environments capable of providing on that level were an international traveling circus and a late night in Gotham.
"I'm happy to follow you," he said, quickly shooting off a text to Dick that he was leaving.
Omi was similarly talented, and it pained him to see all of it polished to a lethal point. Blood corrodes, but sometimes, the quality of the base material can recover its fullest splendor.
"No, that's not true at all," Omi immediately replies. "He was-- he was very respectful."
Omi doesn't elaborate; what Dick said to him was between them. With the agreement secured, Omi nods to him and walks for the door.
He has little to say while they're walking-- this isn't exactly a social visit, after all. He's spending the walk preparing himself mentally, thinking over what questions he intends to ask, and how he's going to press when he meets the inevitable deflection or counter. His company seems similarly content to mull in silence, something Omi is glad for.
The smell of coffee beans wafts out past the entrance and the burnt red canopy dressing it. A small wooden sign between the door and an outdoor table advertises the day's specials. Inside is a small seating area with a few tables for two, and beyond that the bar with its menu across the top of the wall and a few snacks inside a glass display: fruit, bagels, biscuits and other baked goods.
"We're together," he says to the barista, and pulls out his wallet. "Iced coffee with almond."
There's a half-beat's surprise that the barista quickly smooths over. "Of course. And you, sir?"
"French roast, black," he says. Every instinct he has wants to pay himself, being an adult as well as wealthy, but that's going to be needlessly fractious right now.
Once they're settled at an outdoor table -- sound will dissipate more easily outdoors -- Bruce gets down to business.
"I'm guessing you have questions," he said. "I'll answer them as straightly as I can."
It was odd to think sometimes, yet he remembered being young. Maybe it was because he was eight when he lived through that moment he'd never stopped living through. The fact was, it served him well. Dick, Kaldur, and the rest appreciated feeling like they were being taken seriously, and while he couldn't always manage it, he did try to meet them halfway.
"I don't have many secrets Dick doesn't," he admitted.
Omi pays the barista without a trace of uncertainty or offense, and once they have their drinks, they settle into the chairs in the outdoor seating area.
It's unsurprising that Mr. Wayne correctly assessed the reason for the visit, though how straightly he'll really be answering them is a point Omi is admittedly suspicious of. He opens his mouth to start to speak, then at the last second decides against it. There has to be a better way to start off than that.
He takes a sip of the iced coffee through a straw. It's entirely a stall.
"...I do have questions," he says quietly. Evenly.
The evenness doesn't hold. His voice drops with his gaze, and it's edged with unease. He realizes that if there is a better way to start off, it's not a way he can afford. He can't dress this up and make that four-alarm fire of a shop visit less frightening, anxiety-inducing, and infuriating than it was.
"I want to know what you're playing at with me. Visiting our shop... knowing I'm going to recognize you, to order flowers for that funeral. Is your goal to signal that you know where to find us? Is it supposed to be some kind of joke to order that from us? You can't pretend that wasn't designed to get a reaction."
Needing his drink to cool first, Bruce doesn't have a built-in stall, but he also doesn't need one.
"It was to get a reaction out of you," he said quietly. "But I didn't have a set reaction in mind. I wasn't aiming to set off a particular one from you. I wanted to see your natural reaction to the aftermath of your work."
Something in Omi's stomach twists. He's pretty sure it's anger, but who it's for is anyone's guess. Maybe everyone. Angry at the man in front of him for manipulating his feelings, apparently just for curiosity's sake no less. Angry at him for presenting the situation as more tragic than was warranted. Angry at himself for falling for it. Angry at the target all over again for everything he did to warrant that death sentence.
Maybe Mr. Wayne got a false impression of remorse from that day. If he did, Omi isn't going to correct him, no matter how much he wants to make the point clear: he'd kill the bastard again. In a heartbeat.
So instead, he focuses back on his real purpose of getting answers. That means asking questions. And under all of this anger and panic and worry about what's going to become of Kritiker, of his friends, of the city if their work is stamped out, there's another question burning a hole through that knotted stomach.
"Why?" Omi presses, just as quietly. "What does it matter to you?"
"Because I've seen the road you're on," he says. "I spent a long time staring down it."
Talented people... use their talents. And it is such an easy trap to fall into, the lack of success the authorities have means the authorities are useless. Someone else needs to take the place of the authorities... eventually, it isn't difficult at all to find yourself at "Someone needs to do what the authorities won't."
"But well aside from whether or not this or what criminal deserves it, you don't deserve to be the one..."
How to describe it without turning Omi against him?
"You don't deserve to be the one who has to sacrifice his soul."
That's the polite way to say it. What he means is that Mr. Wayne's words don't make any sense in any context-- foremost of all in the one that framed this as about him. It wasn't. At least, it shouldn't be. It wasn't even about the criminal. It was about the community. The city needed people who would protect it, who had the power to help in ways that the police couldn't. Through those sacrifices, they prevented additional deaths among the innocent people around them. Protecting those people was more important than any cost to themselves.
Having established that someone had to do it, then, how could someone who still had a life and family and dreams of their own be a more fitting choice? Of course it made sense he should be the one to make that kind of sacrifice. He's the one who died in every meaningful sense of the word years ago.
For just a moment, memories of that dark night in the sewers flash before his eyes. The chill in the air, the suffocating stench, the claustrophobic feeling as the kidnapper closed in with murderous intent...
From his own perspective, of course he doesn't. Bruce felt a deep swell of anger, yet again, for the entire Takatori clan.
Not for the first time, he's glad he decided to take on Dick Grayson. He still makes a mess of things with him, Bruce was never the sort of person who should be a parent, but he is... capable of learning. He is capable of remembering things that happened before, like the times he's tried to force Dick into making the conclusion he wants him to make.
And he also remembers what's happened the times he's left him to be, when he really needed guidance, even if it was guidance that Black Canary provided more skillfully and delicately than he ever could.
"Well, I won't ask you to understand my perspective," he began, mostly to give himself a moment to figure out his phrasing.
"Though, I will offer some elaboration. I think your intentions are good, and your reasoning makes more sense than I wish it did, for what you do. But the slope you're on is a slippery one. My own parents were killed," and while that is common knowledge, his grip around his coffee cup tightens.
"I was eight, and I saw it happen. I've never been able to solve the mystery of who did it, and that's the cross I bear, will probably always bear. If I had him in front of me, I'd certainly want to kill him. But I'm..."
This is a hard thing to admit.
"I'm afraid that, if I did kill him, or anyone else, I would be... used to it. Things get easier over time, even the ones we hate about ourselves. My fear is that, if I could justify killing someone, I could justify doing nearly anything else to them. After all, nothing is as bad as killing them.
"From that perspective, I can almost admire those friends of yours, who risked a lot to get you back. The ire of the Justice League is no small thing, and most of the members have known Robin since he was nine. Yet they looked at that, and decided that you were more important. That's a special kind of courage, and I plan to honor it by not pursuing them for that specific crime, since I see no risk for them doing it again."
Omi recognizes how painful it must be, and what a gesture it is, for Bruce Wayne to speak so personally to him about his own traumatic losses. That knot of anger in his stomach triples in size anyway, and drowns it out.
He has the uncomfortable sense that as he tells his story, Bruce Wayne might just be sympathizing with the target, imagining the child he might be orphaning in that action rather than the families of ten innocents he might be sparing the same grief. Like that visit to the shop just to introduce the people left behind.
His memories flash again, to Kuro. To Hirofumi. Those occasions where he'd had to play both sides: the executioner and the one left behind.
"It's brainwashing. Textbook, actually."
He remembers nights spent crying in his bed, aching for those severed connections. For just a second, he can see a little girl with the surname of Kanazawa in his place.
Mr. Wayne must think he's being noble, or earning himself more trust, by saying he won't pursue his friends for that specific crime. But the implication is that he does still plan to pursue them for other crimes. Plans this knowing full well that they had good intentions and were even, by his own admission, taking an action that made far more sense than he wished it did. Plans this, perhaps, even after seeing how capturing any of them could be an effective death sentence. Yet he still sits there speaking as though he never wants to be responsible for a human death?
Batman hadn't known Omi existed when he and his collection of teenaged superhero affiliates flew out here. What was their purpose then? Deep down, didn't that original purpose still exist? Of course it did. And that purpose was to destroy Kritiker completely. He could claim concern for Omi's soul, but this wasn't about him at all, except insofar as he was a strategy. Use him and his willingness to associate with them to stop Weiss from the inside out.
"--people who'd brainwash you to think every criminal needs to die, it's hard to believe they wouldn't convince you your life is just as worthless."
But it was. Even his own parents-- and that was before Persia ever found him! It had nothing to do with Kritiker.
Omi really wished Robin's voice would get out of his head right about then. Weiss. Batman. Batman was trying to use him to destroy Weiss. He couldn't let that happen.
There's a small slip in his composure when he answers.
"I have no comment on what things I have or haven't done. Nor on anything my friends have or haven't done. But if you really care so much about preventing deaths, then why don't you attack the problem instead of the solution?"
"You've got Dick's memories," he says, after a long moment. "You know how seriously I take the mission... and that I'm not at all opposed to multitasking."
With that, it was clear that Omi had enough on his mind to absorb him for a long time.
He hated to leave things this way, but pushing too hard risked too much. He did leave a Japanese-language business card on the table as he stood up to leave.
"I appreciate your hospitality, and I'll be in the country a while longer."
Dick needed the immersion, anyway, and there were dozens of things he could pursue, both in his work and his work. He'd tasked Katana with investigating a potential lead on the whereabouts of the original Roy Harper; if she found anything, he could pass that on to the team to keep them busy and on hand.
He couldn't stay forever, but he could try to see this through. He would try.
Omi has to actively resist the desire to start yelling at him. Because he's leaving already? Because he doesn't understand anything? Because Omi's frustration simply has nowhere else to go? Every passing moment spent with Bruce Wayne makes him that much angrier, and he can't even pinpoint why. (Perhaps, Omi, this is why he's leaving.)
He keeps his mouth shut, sucking in a quiet breath and clenching his fists to contain himself. Fine, fine! It wasn't like there was ever anything Omi could do to go up against the Batman himself. What is he supposed to do for Weiss? For his friends?
He has no idea what to make of the business card either, or what the hell kind of way that was to offer one, like it was a piece of garbage for the barista to collect next time she came by to wipe the table. Of course, Bruce Wayne's phone number was Bruce Wayne's phone number. That could not be an easy commodity to come by. But Omi doesn't even have a card case with him! Where is he going to put such a valuable thing?
He drinks down the rest of the iced coffee so fast he gives himself a headache. He stands, tosses the cup of ice expertly into a trash bin four feet away, and looks again at the business card on the table. Somehow, in the time between Mr. Wayne's exit and finishing the coffee, all of his anger has drained off, leaving mostly a hollow sense of despair in its wake.
But there's something else, too. Omi carefully picks up the card with both hands and takes a few seconds to read it. And he becomes aware of a painful sensation in his chest that he doesn't understand. Like something is missing. Like a scared and childish part of himself wants to go running after Bruce Wayne and beg him not to leave him alone.
It's got to be bleed from Robin's memories.
Omi grits his teeth and runs away to the nearest supplies store for a card case.
Two minutes later, a man seated at the table behind Omi stands and disposes of his Americano, then looks off in the direction Bruce Wayne had gone. Without fanfare, he walks away in the opposite direction.
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no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
It's professional pleasantries right now. Omi can't read anything across that face. He decides that for now, he'll match that, and offers a bow that acknowledges their status difference.
"Not at all. That you would carve time out of your day on such short notice-- apologies for my ill-mannered visit. Please let me treat you to a coffee as a small gesture of apology-- there's a lovely cafe just south of here."
no subject
He'd yet to regret it, however. Dick was the kind of person whose talents had to be utilized to their fullest potential, lest he waste away from spiteful boredom and lack of direction. His work ethic alone demanded constant stimulation, and Bruce quickly realized that the only two environments capable of providing on that level were an international traveling circus and a late night in Gotham.
"I'm happy to follow you," he said, quickly shooting off a text to Dick that he was leaving.
Omi was similarly talented, and it pained him to see all of it polished to a lethal point. Blood corrodes, but sometimes, the quality of the base material can recover its fullest splendor.
Omi was worth further investigation.
no subject
Omi doesn't elaborate; what Dick said to him was between them. With the agreement secured, Omi nods to him and walks for the door.
He has little to say while they're walking-- this isn't exactly a social visit, after all. He's spending the walk preparing himself mentally, thinking over what questions he intends to ask, and how he's going to press when he meets the inevitable deflection or counter. His company seems similarly content to mull in silence, something Omi is glad for.
The smell of coffee beans wafts out past the entrance and the burnt red canopy dressing it. A small wooden sign between the door and an outdoor table advertises the day's specials. Inside is a small seating area with a few tables for two, and beyond that the bar with its menu across the top of the wall and a few snacks inside a glass display: fruit, bagels, biscuits and other baked goods.
"We're together," he says to the barista, and pulls out his wallet. "Iced coffee with almond."
There's a half-beat's surprise that the barista quickly smooths over. "Of course. And you, sir?"
no subject
Once they're settled at an outdoor table -- sound will dissipate more easily outdoors -- Bruce gets down to business.
"I'm guessing you have questions," he said. "I'll answer them as straightly as I can."
It was odd to think sometimes, yet he remembered being young. Maybe it was because he was eight when he lived through that moment he'd never stopped living through. The fact was, it served him well. Dick, Kaldur, and the rest appreciated feeling like they were being taken seriously, and while he couldn't always manage it, he did try to meet them halfway.
"I don't have many secrets Dick doesn't," he admitted.
no subject
It's unsurprising that Mr. Wayne correctly assessed the reason for the visit, though how straightly he'll really be answering them is a point Omi is admittedly suspicious of. He opens his mouth to start to speak, then at the last second decides against it. There has to be a better way to start off than that.
He takes a sip of the iced coffee through a straw. It's entirely a stall.
"...I do have questions," he says quietly. Evenly.
The evenness doesn't hold. His voice drops with his gaze, and it's edged with unease. He realizes that if there is a better way to start off, it's not a way he can afford. He can't dress this up and make that four-alarm fire of a shop visit less frightening, anxiety-inducing, and infuriating than it was.
"I want to know what you're playing at with me. Visiting our shop... knowing I'm going to recognize you, to order flowers for that funeral. Is your goal to signal that you know where to find us? Is it supposed to be some kind of joke to order that from us? You can't pretend that wasn't designed to get a reaction."
no subject
"It was to get a reaction out of you," he said quietly. "But I didn't have a set reaction in mind. I wasn't aiming to set off a particular one from you. I wanted to see your natural reaction to the aftermath of your work."
no subject
Maybe Mr. Wayne got a false impression of remorse from that day. If he did, Omi isn't going to correct him, no matter how much he wants to make the point clear: he'd kill the bastard again. In a heartbeat.
So instead, he focuses back on his real purpose of getting answers. That means asking questions. And under all of this anger and panic and worry about what's going to become of Kritiker, of his friends, of the city if their work is stamped out, there's another question burning a hole through that knotted stomach.
"Why?" Omi presses, just as quietly. "What does it matter to you?"
What does he matter to you?
no subject
"Because I've seen the road you're on," he says. "I spent a long time staring down it."
Talented people... use their talents. And it is such an easy trap to fall into, the lack of success the authorities have means the authorities are useless. Someone else needs to take the place of the authorities... eventually, it isn't difficult at all to find yourself at "Someone needs to do what the authorities won't."
"But well aside from whether or not this or what criminal deserves it, you don't deserve to be the one..."
How to describe it without turning Omi against him?
"You don't deserve to be the one who has to sacrifice his soul."
no subject
That's the polite way to say it. What he means is that Mr. Wayne's words don't make any sense in any context-- foremost of all in the one that framed this as about him. It wasn't. At least, it shouldn't be. It wasn't even about the criminal. It was about the community. The city needed people who would protect it, who had the power to help in ways that the police couldn't. Through those sacrifices, they prevented additional deaths among the innocent people around them. Protecting those people was more important than any cost to themselves.
Having established that someone had to do it, then, how could someone who still had a life and family and dreams of their own be a more fitting choice? Of course it made sense he should be the one to make that kind of sacrifice. He's the one who died in every meaningful sense of the word years ago.
For just a moment, memories of that dark night in the sewers flash before his eyes. The chill in the air, the suffocating stench, the claustrophobic feeling as the kidnapper closed in with murderous intent...
He sucks in a long sip of iced coffee.
i need to use these icons while i have 'em
Not for the first time, he's glad he decided to take on Dick Grayson. He still makes a mess of things with him, Bruce was never the sort of person who should be a parent, but he is... capable of learning. He is capable of remembering things that happened before, like the times he's tried to force Dick into making the conclusion he wants him to make.
And he also remembers what's happened the times he's left him to be, when he really needed guidance, even if it was guidance that Black Canary provided more skillfully and delicately than he ever could.
"Well, I won't ask you to understand my perspective," he began, mostly to give himself a moment to figure out his phrasing.
"Though, I will offer some elaboration. I think your intentions are good, and your reasoning makes more sense than I wish it did, for what you do. But the slope you're on is a slippery one. My own parents were killed," and while that is common knowledge, his grip around his coffee cup tightens.
"I was eight, and I saw it happen. I've never been able to solve the mystery of who did it, and that's the cross I bear, will probably always bear. If I had him in front of me, I'd certainly want to kill him. But I'm..."
This is a hard thing to admit.
"I'm afraid that, if I did kill him, or anyone else, I would be... used to it. Things get easier over time, even the ones we hate about ourselves. My fear is that, if I could justify killing someone, I could justify doing nearly anything else to them. After all, nothing is as bad as killing them.
"From that perspective, I can almost admire those friends of yours, who risked a lot to get you back. The ire of the Justice League is no small thing, and most of the members have known Robin since he was nine. Yet they looked at that, and decided that you were more important. That's a special kind of courage, and I plan to honor it by not pursuing them for that specific crime, since I see no risk for them doing it again."
no subject
He has the uncomfortable sense that as he tells his story, Bruce Wayne might just be sympathizing with the target, imagining the child he might be orphaning in that action rather than the families of ten innocents he might be sparing the same grief. Like that visit to the shop just to introduce the people left behind.
His memories flash again, to Kuro. To Hirofumi. Those occasions where he'd had to play both sides: the executioner and the one left behind.
"It's brainwashing. Textbook, actually."
He remembers nights spent crying in his bed, aching for those severed connections. For just a second, he can see a little girl with the surname of Kanazawa in his place.
Mr. Wayne must think he's being noble, or earning himself more trust, by saying he won't pursue his friends for that specific crime. But the implication is that he does still plan to pursue them for other crimes. Plans this knowing full well that they had good intentions and were even, by his own admission, taking an action that made far more sense than he wished it did. Plans this, perhaps, even after seeing how capturing any of them could be an effective death sentence. Yet he still sits there speaking as though he never wants to be responsible for a human death?
Batman hadn't known Omi existed when he and his collection of teenaged superhero affiliates flew out here. What was their purpose then? Deep down, didn't that original purpose still exist? Of course it did. And that purpose was to destroy Kritiker completely. He could claim concern for Omi's soul, but this wasn't about him at all, except insofar as he was a strategy. Use him and his willingness to associate with them to stop Weiss from the inside out.
"--people who'd brainwash you to think every criminal needs to die, it's hard to believe they wouldn't convince you your life is just as worthless."
But it was. Even his own parents-- and that was before Persia ever found him! It had nothing to do with Kritiker.
Omi really wished Robin's voice would get out of his head right about then. Weiss. Batman. Batman was trying to use him to destroy Weiss. He couldn't let that happen.
There's a small slip in his composure when he answers.
"I have no comment on what things I have or haven't done. Nor on anything my friends have or haven't done. But if you really care so much about preventing deaths, then why don't you attack the problem instead of the solution?"
no subject
With that, it was clear that Omi had enough on his mind to absorb him for a long time.
He hated to leave things this way, but pushing too hard risked too much. He did leave a Japanese-language business card on the table as he stood up to leave.
"I appreciate your hospitality, and I'll be in the country a while longer."
Dick needed the immersion, anyway, and there were dozens of things he could pursue, both in his work and his work. He'd tasked Katana with investigating a potential lead on the whereabouts of the original Roy Harper; if she found anything, he could pass that on to the team to keep them busy and on hand.
He couldn't stay forever, but he could try to see this through. He would try.
no subject
He keeps his mouth shut, sucking in a quiet breath and clenching his fists to contain himself. Fine, fine! It wasn't like there was ever anything Omi could do to go up against the Batman himself. What is he supposed to do for Weiss? For his friends?
He has no idea what to make of the business card either, or what the hell kind of way that was to offer one, like it was a piece of garbage for the barista to collect next time she came by to wipe the table. Of course, Bruce Wayne's phone number was Bruce Wayne's phone number. That could not be an easy commodity to come by. But Omi doesn't even have a card case with him! Where is he going to put such a valuable thing?
He drinks down the rest of the iced coffee so fast he gives himself a headache. He stands, tosses the cup of ice expertly into a trash bin four feet away, and looks again at the business card on the table. Somehow, in the time between Mr. Wayne's exit and finishing the coffee, all of his anger has drained off, leaving mostly a hollow sense of despair in its wake.
But there's something else, too. Omi carefully picks up the card with both hands and takes a few seconds to read it. And he becomes aware of a painful sensation in his chest that he doesn't understand. Like something is missing. Like a scared and childish part of himself wants to go running after Bruce Wayne and beg him not to leave him alone.
It's got to be bleed from Robin's memories.
Omi grits his teeth and runs away to the nearest supplies store for a card case.
Two minutes later, a man seated at the table behind Omi stands and disposes of his Americano, then looks off in the direction Bruce Wayne had gone. Without fanfare, he walks away in the opposite direction.