metalogs | [OPEN] When the cure's as bad as the cold.

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[OPEN] When the cure's as bad as the cold.

Who: Tim Drake

mostdangerousbird
What: Robin is lovingly and semi-willingly forced to get out of Central City to ~~get the fuck out of Joker's way~~ recuperate in Little Love
When: Approximately July 4-20ish
Where: In and around Little Love, and the guild residence of Bart Allen
Content Warnings: Possible discussion of the Joker, assault, and mental health.

[ OOC: These are meant to be loose scenarios rather than absolutely precise starters. If you can't figure out a way to bounce off one of them, please let me know and I'll do something more direct for you. ]

The First 72 Hours

[ He is a predictably bad patient, made worse by the fact that his body's newfound ability to heal has him semi-mobile even before he's even brought to Little Love. Tim isn't trying to consciously self-sabotage the healing process, but he hasn't let himself fall asleep since he got here, although he knows that he'd heal more if he did. The ibuprofen and caffeine supplies are going down quickly, when no one's looking.

Retreats to the guestroom are strategic, and Tim doesn't bother to pretend otherwise to friends. Any excuses would result in offerings of alternative solutions or arguments, and he wants neither.

What he wants is distraction or escape from his own head. When all else fails, he wants to curl up where he can't be observed. For the first few days, Tim swings unpredictably between the two.

If it's the former, he can be found anywhere on the grounds of Bart's little farm at all hours. While he'll stick close to the house, he won't run inside if someone drops by for a visit. He won't run anywhere, actually, because Tim's trying to mask the limp, but he also won't resist any idea or hug. He's using up all of his spoons on covering up the worst of the damage: everything else is pliant drifting through the day. ]

Day 3-10

[ Tim is increasingly feeling cooped up. Yes, worse than the chickens. Yes, he gets it - he's a birdie too, ha ha.

(Ha^HAhaHA_hA)

He can't sit still, and so spends a lot of time walking around Little Love, now that he's healed enough to not limp. Most of the time, there's at least one friend with him, but not always. The town is fine, in a stereotypically small Midwest town sort of way. He's never lived anywhere where the downtown was practically one intersection, and the houses are all singles. The tall building is 5 stories, and a bunch of side streets don't have a sidewalk.

Really, he feels a bit like Spock on an away mission, especially when he encounters a buckeye at the local greasy spoon, or that the bakery is closed on the weekends. Huh. The library, too, is so much smaller than he's used to, although the librarian is kind enough to offer to get the books in from the big branch in the nearest city.

Maybe you find him looking perplexed, as a farmer tries to explain why the cornfield on the right side of the street is superior to the left side.

Maybe you find him reading and re-reading a flier for a kegger on the riverbank with an increasingly furrowed brow.

Maybe you try to forcibly piggy-back him home because he hasn't slept in 32 hours over his protests that, really, this is not necessary. ]

Day 11-14

[ But after awhile, Tim is just done with this town and desperately seeking a signal that it's safe to go back to Central City, where he can get espresso at 2 am and no one will judge him.

He's still venturing out, but more time is spent aggressively typing away at something on his laptop rather than making friends with the locales. Back to the wall, privacy film on the screen, one key window-swapping sort of typing. His conversations increasingly revolve around when he gets home and how he's starting to feel like taking this much vacation will lead more work when he returns. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The conversation with Tim had gone... fine, in the grand scheme of things, even if it left her with more questions than she'd syatyed with. He seemed in reasonably good spirits, not that he couldn't be faking it, especially over text.

Seeing him in person will make it easier to tell exactly how he's doing.

In the interest of fostering good relations, she brings a triple shot espresso from the boujiest café she can find in Central City, keeping it safe on the trip over.

She even knocks on the front door, like an actual polite human being, instead of just letting herself in through the nearest window.]

Your strip-o-gram is here!

[Yes that's obviously what she is.]

[ Oh, Tim is doing his damnedest to fake it in person as well. Granted, everyone's been calling him out on the masquerade, but that hasn't stopped him so far. The plan has been refined based on previous failures, not abandoned.

Step 1 is beating the others to the door. Tim wants to leave as little opportunity as possible for any additional discussion about him where he can't hear it. He trusts them with his life - he also knows them, and he's very much trying to avoid the three or four most important people in his life ganging up on him for an intervention.

Tim pulls the door open hurriedly. ]

We don't want any! The Chicken Ranch is a clean establishment.

[It takes a small amount of restraint not to immediately drag him into a hug, but she manages, knowing he likely won't appreciate it, never mind that she doesn't want to risk upsetting any injuries.

She does pout, though, even while holding out the coffee as an offering.]

Aw, are you telling me I shaved my legs for nothing?

Edited 2022-07-28 17:13 (UTC)

[ Tim does hang back, because this reunion is complicated from where he’s standing. He doesn’t want Steph to be here, but he’s glad she is. The more allies they have, the better their chances at getting home… and she’s a potentially welcome distraction from his babysitters.

And if his eyes flick down towards her legs, it’s reflexive. She brought them up. Tim does catch himself quickly and shift his glance to the offered cup. ]

You bought me coffee? I guess we can make an exception. For the coffee.

[ He holds the door open wide for her to come in, but does grab for the cup. The espresso will not be held hostage to make him talk. ]

[If Steph is amused by that brief glance, she's polite enough not to comment on it.]

Why do you think I brought it? I knew there'd be an admission fee.

[Which is why she'll let Tim take it. She isn't cruel enough to hold it hostage, and she doesn't really plan to force him to talk about what happened, not when she certainly wouldn't have wanted to, so soon.

But she will come inside, not bothering to hide her curiosity.]

This place does not suit you at all. It's kinda cute, though.

[ As soon as Steph is fully inside, he shuts the door and locks it, even throws the deadbolt. It doesn’t come off quite as paranoid as it could, as he’s busy taking a series of sips to down about a quarter of the espresso. Tim likes coffee on a normal day, but the past few days, he’s been doing a good impersonation of a complete caffeine addict. It’s how he’s acting like he’s been awake for 18 hours when it’s at least 36. He looks like it’s been 48 hours since his head touched a pillow. Peaky.

Still, he can appreciate the upgrade from the kitchen coffee machine to real espresso. ]

Thanks. We won’t tell Bart I stole it. This is his place. I’m just here on vacation.

[ He’ll just slide that in there while waving an arm at the room as a whole to keep the focus on the apartment. ]

This is what the assigned housing for the Guardian Alliance. Maybe just the ones in Little Love. I don’t know. I’m not a member, so I’m in a regular apartment in Central City.

[ There is nothing regular about his disaster studio. ]

[It's the regular flavor of paranoid that Steph is used to, from Tim and the other more intense Bats, so she doesn't think too much of it.

She's more worried about how exhausted Tim looks, even if that's also fairly standard for him. None of them are exactly good about sleep schedules. It's just more concerning when he really should be resting.]

It kinda makes sense, right? Toss the superheroes out into the middle of nowhere, keep them from getting into too much trouble.

[ Waking up is where Tim's targeted all of his fears right now. He knows that his meta ability apparently heals him when he's asleep and, even if it didn't, the lack of sleep isn't helping anything. This - flopping down on the couch - is the best he can do. ]

Most of the superheroes are in the big cities that I've heard of - Central City, Michigan, and Excelsior. I think this is the option that's closest to "home" for Bart. I'm just hoping that Kon doesn't mutiny and move out here, too.

Calling anything in Michigan a big city is a stretch.

[Is she just being an asshole? Yes.

She's also sitting herself down on the couch near Tim; she's not exactly relaxed, not when she's in a stranger's house, not when she knows Tim has been hurt, not when there's clearly some weird alternate universe nonsense going on, but she's making an effort to look more settled than she feels.]

Don't they both have superspeed? Does it matter where they live?

We're on the outskirts of a town of less than 10,000 in Kansas, Steph. Michigan's looking pretty good right now.

[ Tim will join her in making an effort to look at ease, albeit for different reasons. It's not just Steph that's making him uncomfortable. He's been trying to project a constant lie of I'm fine since he was pulled out of the lake. ]

Yes, it matters. I don't have superspeed, and I need to keep an eye on them. Trouble just finds them. I don't know how they do it.

Yeah, but it's Kansas, it's suppose to be like this.

[Do not ask her to explain the logic because there isn't any, she's just following her own nonsense logic.]

From what you've told me about the two of them, it's probably them finding trouble.

[ Slumping back further into the couch, Tim nods wearily. ]

That's why I need Bart to move to Central City. I have keep track of B, Jason, Kon, Bart, and you. And that doesn't cover the other Batman, that Prodigy guy who knows Bart's IDs, the Loki that B and Jason spilled their secret IDs in front of who knows that I'm Robin, my boss, Kon's boss, and the garage that Jason's working at.

[ And the Joker, but Tim is not bringing him up. ]

[Steph, used to Tim, waits patiently through his very important list of people that he needs to keep track of, making a few mental notes to poke into the people she isn't familiar with.

But more importantly:]

Or... you could relax a little and trust us to look after ourselves. Maybe even delegate a tiny bit. [She pinches her fingers together to illustrate just how tiny.] Me and Cass aren't new to the game, we can keep an eye on things if you need us to.

[ He shakes his head at this suggestion, but Tim quickly explains why. ]

I can’t delegate it to people who are on the list. You can’t watch yourselves the same way. Even Bruce is on the list - it’s not that I don’t think you’re competent.

[ It’s that Tim thinks they all have blind spots and bad habits, including Batman, and that’s why they need him to pay attention. ]

We can watch each other, can't we?

[They know each other better than most people, especially when it comes to blind spots and bad habits.]

I get that this is like, way different than what we're used to, and trust me, I'm gonna miss having Babs looking over my shoulder, but you don't have to be responsible for everyone.

[ Tim hesitates just a second too long. No, it's not the same if they watch each other, because they're not him. Maybe Steph and Cass could watch over each other, but Kon and Bart? No. ]

Sure. We can watch each other.

[ He'll just ... slide himself into that we, and Batman watches everyone regardless. Tim wouldn't be so focused on this if Oracle or they had a proper Batcomputer. He's been working on building a better system for Bruce, but it's a far, far cry from the multimillion dollar rig that they had. It could never run the routines he had on the old databases. ]

I'll only be responsible for a rotating third?

[In the grand scheme of things, Tim agreeing to only being responsible for a rotating third of them is actually a pretty good compromise.]

You've got yourself a deal, birdboy.

[She's a good friend.

A good friend who's nudging Tim's ankle with the toe of her boot.]

And now you owe me an explanation for all this multiverse weirdness.

A few ground rules: one, the multiverse exists, and I’m not going to waste time debating that. By the time, I’m having this conversation with you, you already know all about it. Two, this universe is different from a lot of the others. We have no native counterparts here.

[ Which will inevitably lead to questions about what everyone’s like in other universes in the end. Tim will try to avoid the Batman Who Laughs. ]

Our universe has undergone a few significant events that critically impact the timeline. Lives get altered, people can get written out of existence. Your memories can get involuntarily suppressed. The last time it happened, I forgot about Young Justice.

[ Like it never even happened. Like Kon never even existed. He has the memories now, but that only makes him boggle at how he didn’t notice how much was gone. ]

Zatanna unlocked my overwritten memories. They’re not sequential - if they were, I’d be at least 23. It’s more like someone flipped back to beginning of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books and made slightly different choices. They’re concurrent. I remember being the majority shareholder in Wayne Enterprises. I also remember telling Bruce that I was going to Ivy U and running away with you. I can’t have done both, but I did.

[ It occurs to Tim to pause the exposition and give Steph space to breathe and interrupt. It’s likely both too much and not enough information. ]

Essentially, that’s why I think you might be from my universe. I think you’re from the original timeline.

[It both is and isn't a lot to take in. She's made peace with the multiverse existing, Power Girl is running around, after all, and she's already met Jason, who clearly isn't from the same world as them.

The fact that this world lacks counterparts also doesn't come as too much of a shock. It would be a bit egotistical to assume she exists in every universe, and she has enough of an understanding to know that tiny choices can make huge differences.

Everything else is a little more difficult to wrap her head around, although that's partly due to the fact she doesn't like the idea of some force being able to suppress their memories or rewrite their lives. It makes her feel powerless.

But that isn't Tim's problem.

She takes a breath when he stops, her expression thoughtful (if a bit perturbed) as she files away this new information.]

So it's like — you were at the same point as me, then something rewound you a few years, changed something, and you lived a whole new life? And in that one we're still dating?

Yes to the first part. We were dating more recently for me than for you, I think, if I make all the memories as linear as I can.

[ He’s not eager to talk to her about this. He’s barely even talked to the “correct” Steph about it. To tell a past Steph more seems gauche. (Like avoiding her was more dignified.) ]

We broke up a little over a month ago. It was my fault and my choice, so it’s not going to be weird and you don’t have to sympathize. As far as you’re concerned, it didn’t happen.

[Knowing Tim for a significant chunk of her life means that she's immediately able to decipher exactly what he isn't saying behind that very vague explanation.]

You were a jerk about it, huh?

[On one hand, she feels bad for alternate self, but if their universes are actually as similar as they seem to be, she's comforted by the knowledge that her and Tim just — don't quite work.

It might be for the best, at the end of the day, even if he was a jerk.]

I wasn't a jerk -

[ Then what was he, if not a jerk? He certainly didn't handle it well, and he's still not handling it well as Tim hasn't had an honest, face-to-face conversation with Steph about the breakup or underlying reasons yet. ]

I just... didn't know how to a nuanced conversation about it, so I didn't. I'll talk to her, talk to you? When I've figured out what to say. You wouldn't like it if I went with the cliché of 'it's not you; it's me'.

[There's no doubt in her mind that he was definitely a jerk about it, but arguing that point isn't going to get them anywhere, it never has.]

Don't wait too long to find the right words, boy wonder. It's one thing to break up if it's not working out, just don't lose me as a friend 'cause you got too in your head about it.

[She can forgive him for breaking her heart, that's fine. Making her wait for an explanation or a conversation is, well, a jerk thing to do, and she'd like to hope this other version of her respects herself enough not to put up with it.]

I’ll figure it out eventually.

[ He has come out to Bruce, and Dick, and it was difficult but survivable. Steph is something else entirely. He feels like he’s betrayed her, as absurd as it is.

But not this Steph. Not yet. He doesn’t have to explain anything to her - they’re not dating, and Bernard isn’t here to complicate the situation. He can just move them back to the grand scheme of things. ]

So that’s my universe, but we should get you caught up on t hi is one. Did you join one of the guilds?

[Steph gives him a look that should be relatively familiar; it's the one she has to break out when Tim is trying to distract her by changing the topic, and she's allowing it, but wants him to know that she knows exactly what he's doing.

True love.]

Not yet, I want to do my research before signing up for anything.

[Look at her, not being impulsive.

You know what that is? Growth.]

beep beep bitch

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Just pretend I hadn’t left Cass off the list.

absolutely

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