#gotta expect a little bit of pseudo-scientific nonsense

[feline-gal]

Talia arches a brow “You thought I had something to do with him?” she asks, setting the paper down.

Bruce shrugs “It seemed like a reasonable theory.” he replies “You do have a bit of history in cloning, after all.”

“Never made any blue-eyed ones, though.” Talia rebuts “Can't very well give my baby boy replacements of the wrong color, now, can I?”

“How very considerate.” Bruce drawls sardonically, slowly raising an eyebrow at the casual statement.

“Indeed.” Damian concurs genuinely “Thank you, mother. I appreciate it.”

“Glad one of you does~.” Talia chirps sunnily.

Bruce stares flatly between the two, feeling a bit like he's missing something.

Talia sighs and uncrosses her legs “Anyway, point is;” she starts, rising to her feet and walking to stand in front of the two as she continues speaking “He's not one of mine. So, who is he? What do you know about him?”

“And just why should I tell you anything?” Bruce asks back, crossing his arms “If you're just going to look for some flimsy excuse to murder him..”

Talia turns her nose up and sticks him with a challenging glare “The only reason I'd need to kill him is if he poses some kind of threat to my family and the line of succession I've so painstakingly set up for our son.” she informs, gesturing to the teenager “Can you prove to me that there's no need for me to eliminate him? Or am I going to have to hunt that information down myself?”

There's a beat of tense silence.

Then Bruce's stomach growls.

“Perhaps we should have breakfast before discussing this further?” Damian suggests.

Talia shifts her gaze to her son “What's stopping us from discussing during breakfast?” she asks.

“Pennyworth.” Damian answers simply.

“No work talk allowed at the dining table.” Bruce elaborates “And if we're treating this as an investigation..” he trails off.

Talia stares flatly for a long moment, then shuts her eyes and sighs out her nose “Very well.” she concedes.

. … . … . … .

Tim looks up from the clutter of his table at the three that have just entered the cave and focuses on the woman of the trio.

“Heyyy, Talia..” he slurs out tiredly, glaring suspiciously at her “Here for your overgrown guinea pig?”

“Assuming by which you mean the man whom people are claiming to be my beloved's long lost son;” Talia starts, crossing her arms “His existence is just as much a surprise to me as it is to the lot of you.”

“Riiight...” Tim drawls out with an unconvinced nod “Sure it is. Sure it is.” he takes a long sip of his coffee.

“I believe she's telling the truth, Tim.” Bruce states.

Tim swallows his drink and levels Bruce with a judgmental stare “So you're letting her in on the investigation?” he asks “Just like that?”

“All I'm letting her in on is whether or not the man is related to us,” Bruce informs, gesturing between himself and Talia, then side-eyes her as he continues bitterly “and thus, a 'threat' that she 'needs' to 'eliminate'.”

Tim lets out a 'hrrmm' and takes another long sip of his drink.

Bruce sighs despondently “I'm not going to like the test results, am I?” he asks.

The younger vigilante gulps down his beverage and raises one hand up, tilting it side-to-side as he drags out and 'ehhh' “It's complicated.”

“How so?” Talia asks, quirking a brow.

“Well, thing about this guy..” Tim starts, tapping at a keyboard and shortly pulling up a series of glitched out photos of the guy in question for his small audience to see “Is that nothing about him likes to be digitized, which made testing his DNA an absolute Pain In The Ass. Single strand of hair crashed everything I tried to scan with. So I had to-”

“I don't need to know the whole testing process.” Talia cuts in “Just the results.”

Tim grunts “Well, the initial result was-” he pulls up an image of a DNA helix “-this mess that I couldn't make heads or tails of for forever until-” with a couple simultaneous key presses, the colors of the image completely change “-I accidentally hit Invert Color and, bam! Normal human DNA. Most of which-” a couple more key presses and sections of the helix become highlighted in three different colors with lines extending to connect to various symbols and bits of text “-matches the mixture of yours and B's DNA that makes up Damian's. The rest,” he gestures to the red highlighted portions connected to question marks and [UNKNOWN]s and then shrugs “Not a damn clue.” he looks back to Talia “Does it look familiar to you?”

Talia leans slightly forward and stares intently at the image ��..No.” she soon answers.

Tim squints suspiciously at her and glances over at Bruce, who gives a half-shrug and nod, indicating she's telling the truth insofar as he can tell. The younger vigilante lets out a short hum and takes another sip of his coffee.

“So..” Talia pipes up after a moment of digesting the information “The color inversion means.. what? That he's inversely related to us?”

Tim gives another, mightier shrug “I don't fuckin' know.” he answers helplessly “I've got a bunch of crackpot theories, like; maybe he's a really messed up clone, or he's from another universe or dimension or timeline or whatever, or-”

“I don't care about alternate realities.” Talia interrupts irritably “I want to know who he is here in this one. Is there anything about his internet presence that could point us in the right direction?”

“Talia,” Bruce chides “I feel that's overstepping the bounds of our agreement.”

“I'm not satisfied with this information.” Talia retorts “So I'm not going anywhere until I get some proper answers.”

The two glare intensely at eachother.

Tim sighs tiredly “Unfortunately, you're probably not going to get any today.” he says, typing away at the keyboard again “All I was able to get on him is this.”

On queue, the screen displays the driver's license of one Dan Nightingale, 26 year old resident of an Amity Park.

“Seriously?” Damian asks with an incredulous tilt of his head.

“Just the driver's license?” Bruce questions.

“That can't be it.” Talia denies.

“Wish I could say otherwise.” Tim bemoans, then points at the address “Wherever this 'Amity Park' place is, it's got some ridiculously strong firewalls around it that not even me & Oracle combined can hack.”

“That's-” Bruce frowns “-highly concerning.”

“And highly inconvenient.” Damian adds.

“Also highly INFURIATING!” Tim grumbles with an enraged roar at the end, then slumps into his chair with an exhausted groan “I feel like I've been bashing my head against a brick wall all day.”

“And we've only just had breakfast.” Damian quips.

Tim stares up at the Cave's high ceiling, eyes shifting about in calculation “..That ain't right.” he eventually mutters out in denial before taking yet another sip from his mug.

“It most certainly is.” Damian affirms.

“Tim,” Bruce deadpans “How much coffee have you been drinking recently?”

Tim eventually swallows his drink and sets the cup back down “Not enough.” he replies with the utmost of gruff severity.

“Too much.” Bruce corrects with the utmost of exasperation. He sighs wearily and starts to walk towards his adoptive son “I think it's about time you go to bed.”

“Nuh-uh!” Tim rebukes, backing away from the Dark Knight.

“Tim..” Bruce says slowly, stepping closer to the younger vigilante, who backs further away in response, and then turns and starts running away “Get back here!” Bruce demands, chasing after him “Don't make me break out the tranquilizers!”

Damian gives a roll of his eyes and an annoyed 'tt' at the shenanigans, snags a set of bolas and promptly throws it at his elder brother's legs, snaring them and sending him tumbling to the ground, where their father proceeds to grab him up and then start to drag him off, thrashing and shouting, towards the elevator.

“I'll be right back.” Bruce says to Talia & Damian as the doors open, then to Talia specifically he adds “Don't touch anything.” to which the woman rolls her eyes.

The elevator doors close and the lift begins to ascend, trapping the father and son duo together in the small space for a few moments before the doors open back up, allowing them to stumble out into the manor's main study in a tangle of limbs.

“Asshole.” Tim hisses out as he disentangles himself and shoves away from Bruce.

Bruce scoffs “Sorry for trying to prevent you from succumbing to caffeine poisoning.” he snips back.

“Finally come up for morning dinner, master Tim?” Alfred pipes up as he pokes his head into the room.

“Apparently.” Tim gripes with a petulant huff, knowing there's no fighting against Alfred “But first..” he turns back to Bruce, gesturing for him to come closer. The two lean towards eachother conspiratorially “The guy's hair isn't made of keratin.” Tim whispers “It's composed of super concentrated Lazarus Water.”

Bruce's eyes widen and he lets out a 'hrrm' “That complicates things.” he remarks.

“Like they weren't complicated enough already.” Tim scoffs, flicking open his wrist computer “I'll hide that information remotely while I eat.” and with that, he turns and walks over to where Alfred is waiting patiently, then the two disappear around the corner.

Bruce sighs wearily, running a hand through his hair before turning and re-entering the elevator.

. … . … . … .

The elevator doors close and the lift begins to ascend, leaving the mother and son duo alone in the cave.

Talia idly sweeps her eyes across the smattering of information on the familiar stranger for a few moments.

She soon shifts her gaze over to her son, expression subtly pensive “Do you think..” she speaks softly “this man might have something to do with.. him?”

Damian stares back at his mother for a moment, not needing her to specify who she's referring to. He knows. He's had similar suspicions since he'd first seen his blue-eyed, aged up reflection.

“..Nothing is impossible.” he eventually replies “We can't rule anything out.”

Talia gives a simple hum of acknowledgment and turns back to the screen.

Another moment later, the elevator comes back down and Bruce re-enters the cave.

“Alright, Alfred's dealing with Tim now.” he reports, walking over to the two “So,” he stops before them and sets his hands on his hips “how are we going about this?”

Submitted Prompts #70

Bruce & Damian encounter a man who looks like he could be related to them and also seems to be suppressing the expression of someone looking at the ghosts of his own murder victims.

Dan, meanwhile, is internally freaking out ‘cause he’s just bumped into the father and no-longer-twin brother he murdered in cold blood just this morning over a decade ago.