metalogs | I knew it was over when the soundman said I wish we were still in June. [open]

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I knew it was over when the soundman said I wish we were still in June. [open]

Who: Tim Drake

overlyprecocious + whoever else
What: July catch-all
When: July, maybe late June
Where: Descendant attic safehouse, Central City, maybe other places
Content Warnings: none yet

attic safehouse | open to those with access

Technically speaking, Tim doesn't need to be using the safehouse like he is, but Jason has a good thing going with a hideaway that (hopefully) the Alliance isn't aware of yet. It's nice to be able to visit and be somewhere that Fantastic's goons don't know about, which is why he's dropping in tonight. Once he does the basic stuff - in this case, making sure the area still looks secure, has a good supply of emergency food, and locating Sleeper's hidden chocolate stash so he can tuck away a few new bars with it - he settles in with his laptop to chill and definitely not doomscroll current news to see how much worse Fantastic's making the country lately.

Central City at Night, Bullying the Guards | open to anyone

Robin doesn't usually fly alone officially, and when he is on his own he's somewhat more likely to be in surveillance mode, not fighting. It's how he was taught back home, where Robin is almost always accompanied by Batman, Nightwing, and/or Batgirl, or working with the Team. He's not trained to be a solo act.

He just happens to be one tonight, when he finds some of Fantastic's guards hassling some kid who may or may not even be Starfallen, who even knows? Robin's not letting that stand, regardless. And the good news is, their power dampeners barely affect him, given that his abilities are barely combative in nature and he's used to fighting powerless. So one moment, they're being assholes with a little taste of power, and the next, they're getting their asses kicked by a fourteen-year-old with a bo staff.

"Just wondering, did you read about the goons following fascist ideologies as a kid and think, that's gonna be me?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

“Not complicated,” Nico says without batting an eye.

He slides his sword out from under his pillow - it’s sheathed, he’s not crazy - and gets it out of the bed. The pillow he tucks behind him and sits cross legged deep in the bunk to make space for Tim. “Most of the siblings I know aren’t biologically related. We only get genes from our mortal parent. Hazel and I aren’t “biologically” related. So what. She’s my sister. I snuck her out of Asphodel - brought her back to life. But I don’t talk about her because she’s not here.”

He misses so many people when he thinks about it. The trick is to never think about them. “But Jason’s here. You could talk about him. You don’t.”

Tim follows the unspoken invitation to join Nico and kicks his shoes off so he can sit tidily on the mattress.

“ - I don’t talk about my family very much to anyone,” he admits, after considering for a moment what to say. I guess - the ones that are unofficially adopted family are kinda private about some things, and I picked up the habit from them.”

Not just from them. He has other secrets. But it’s accurate enough.

There's a difference between could and do. Nico could talk about Hazel. He doesn't talk about his mother.

Could and do are oceans apart, and he's very aware of how precarious his own position is here. He pushes about Tim's family, and Tim asks the obvious questions about Nico's family in return. If the other boy says too much, crosses the line of some omertà, well, that'd be his fault, wouldn't it?

And Nico's been very neatly left out of Jason's unofficially adopted family by Tim. "You don't have to talk about them if you don't want to."

"It's just - it's strange, I guess. I stay with his family back home, but like I said, I never met him, really, because he died before I started staying with them. But there were all these stories about him, and his stuff still in the house, and it was like there was always an echo of him around, or I was walking in his footsteps.

"But he's here now, and he's different than I pictured him, and I mean - he has you guys, too, now? So he doesn't need me around. And the first couple times we talked were rough, too, and it's partly because he's really angry at his dad and I - remind of that. And he's told me that it's not my fault and he's not mad at me, but it still sucks."

He lets his head fall back against the wall with a light thunk.

Oh, he's talking?

Tim Drake is an utterly confusing individual. When Nico doesn't want to talk about something, he doesn't talk about it. When Tim doesn't want to talk about something, he launches into the center of the story in a confusing tangle of pronouns.

Nico's not even sure who he's talking about until the final third. "I'm not your replacement."

He kinda was though, from the sound of it, but Tim lived with Jason's family back home. That's an easy fix with the truth. "Jason didn't adopt me. I traded him teleports to sign the papers to keep me out of a real foster home because he hung out with Dylan's dads. I figured he was crazy enough to take the deal. So it's not a big deal. I don't even have a drawer. I keep all my clothes in my backpack."

During the school year, he kept half of them in his locker at school. "There's a lot of kids at camp who're mad a parent."

Inevitably the godly one that ignores them. "They don't blame their siblings for it though. I bet he means it when he says it's not your fault. Maybe he doesn't say a lot, but he always seems to mean what he says. That's better than a lot of kids get. And the attic isn't patrolled by harpies."

"He kinda did adopt you, though. He lets you come here. It's not like he makes it open to everyone. Does he even really ever have you teleport places?"

That first part was. Kind of an argument re: his feelings about Tim, as well. Hmm.

"I bet he'd give you a drawer. If you wanted one."

“He lets Dylan and Hunter come here, too, so there’s not enough drawers. It’s not a big deal. This isn’t his real apartment. He lives with Dylan and Sleeper.”

Too late, he realizes that Tim also isn’t staying at the penthouse tonight. “Where do you live when you’re not here?”

“I stay with a different brother. Dick. He works here, too. He’s a little less complicated but he’s still not from my world.”

“I think your family likes having you around, Tim.”

He’s got two homes with his brothers here. He can add all the adjectives that he wants, but they’ve made a space for him. “It’s okay to feel like you don’t fit, but it’s okay to see when you do. If you don’t, people get annoyed and tell you you do. I hate that. I never know what to say.”

“I guess.”

It’s… weird, having it said out loud like that. He’s not sure if he’s ever be able to take it for granted that that’s the case. “It’s hard getting used to.”

“I know. It’s easier when they’re bossy about it,” Nico says from his place of experience, picking at the comforter while he speaks. He struggles with it at camp. “I can tell them to tell you you’re being dumb and people like you. It works on me.”

“Thanks, but I think that would just make it weirder.”

It would be awkward. Plus, it would feel bad if people were saying they liked him because Nico told them to.

“Okay.”

Nico’s quiet for a moment. Then he elbows Tim in the side. “Stop being dumb. People like you. You’re pretty cool, even if you want to be a cat.”

“It was just an interesting experience! I didn’t want to be a cat forever! And it was temporary!”

He’s never living that down, is he.

“My stepmother turned me into a dandelion. It was not an interesting experience.”

Sorry not sorry, Tim. Nico likes being a humanoid.

Blink.

Blink blink.

“How did you - were you still conscious?”

How does that even work?!

Nico shrugs. These things happen sometimes. “Not the same way as normal. I felt sunny and leafy. It sucked.”

“That’s… awful?” It’s hard to conceptualize, honestly, but he gets that it was bad for Nico. “I don’t know, being a cat was kinda neat. But I’d also heard about it happening so I knew I wasn’t going to be stuck like that.”

That earns a chuckle, and Nico shakes his head. “I wouldn’t call it awful? It’s normal in -

“Okay, maybe it’s not normal in my world, but it’s within the spectrum of normal for demigods. Triptolemus turned me into a corn plant and I dreamed about popcorn.”

He only ever tells the fun stories, on the rare occasions he talks about home. “You shouldn’t waste awful on being temporarily flora. What would you call the really bad stuff if you did?”

"Terrible? Horrifying? Trauma-inducing? I bet I could think of some more synonyms."

It's still really hard to conceptualize being turned into a plant, though that does track with what he knows of Greek mythology.

“Those sound pretty awful to me.” Get it? Nico plays it straight, for a joke.

"Atrocious, even," says Dick Grayson's protégé. He can fire back puns and synonyms all day, Nico.

“I still say it wasn’t awful, and I’m the one who turned into a plant.”

There’s worse things that they can do to you. “They turned me back. The gods are like that, if they’re not really angry.”

"Still sucks."

Parents can be hard to predict, but Tim absolutely cannot imagine what it would be like if Jack and Janet had the ability to turn him into plantlife on top of everything else. Nightmare material.

“Yeah, it does.” Nico won’t argue that it sucks, but there doesn’t seem much to say about it. “So why are you here? I know he said you can, but I’ve never seen you here. Is everything okay?”

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