[arrival and ota] subtract my age from the mileage on my speeding heart

[jokerized]

WHO: Tim Drake
WHERE: Fountain, Inn, various houses
WHEN: Evening of July 9 and onward
OPEN TO: OTA with closed starter
WARNINGS: Underage character who was subjected to torture, arriving from the moment he murders his abuser.

---

This is the way the world ends. With the bang and the whimper. The world is noise: Arkham's ruins creak and shift in the winds, whistle with the ghosts of rogues broken up and shipped all over the state. Joker taunts Batman as he darts in and out with the knife. There's a spot of silence he places as Batgirl, but she slips between Tim's own screams, projected with the steel slab and his old costume on a freestanding wall.

His knees are cold.

It's the recurring, ridiculous thought that brings him back. His knees are cold, the socks itch his calves. These are not his clothes, perhaps this isn't really him. Or is he both: the bang and the whimper? The boy with all the secrets shaken out, and the boy with the gun in his hands? Gloves and gauntlets, white and black. The Joker tells him to deliver the punchline but the joke is, the joke is--

His shoes pinch and his cheeks hurt and he hates the smell of greasepaint. It feels like he pulled on the wrong skin when he got up and he doesn't know how to peel it off. But he knows who made him wear it, and he knows who all those secrets die with.

Guns are never an option. Bruce taught him that as much as he taught him to throw a punch. They're better because they don't use them, smarter, safer. People hesitate to fire on someone who looks unarmed, even as they leap in to kick them in the jaw. The Joker is standing--grandstanding--yards away. He's sweeping the knife out in his hands like a prop, not a weapon, a glittering flourish as he calls for the finale.

Joker calls him Junior, and Tim wishes he'd died on that slab. His grip shifts on the gun, built like a flare with a spike loaded in the barrel. The flag has already fallen as he aims, lays over his feet. Bang. Bang. When he pulls the trigger, all sound seems to stop.

"That's not funny, that's--not--"

The Joker crumples with one hand dropping from the spike in his chest, dangerous secrets dying with him. A piece of Tim, dying with him. Relieved laughter builds to hysterics, tips into confusion, doesn't even sound like it's coming from his own mouth as it breaks into sobs. Barbara's silence resolves at his side, calling his name, and she catches him in her arms as he drops. The gun spills from nerveless fingers, and the last thing he remembers is the rightness of it, the smell of kevlar and nomex through the grease, before it's gone.

fountain; july 9; veronica

Tim doesn't want to die badly enough, if the deciding factor is the water's chill. When he wakes up, there's less shock than a physical ache, awareness of his own skin fading in the dark. If only it were warmer, he'd float here until it choked him back to sleep. If only he could just sleep, the dark and dreamless transition from Barbara's grip to this.

Whatever this is. It doesn't rush around him like the river, though it's almost as cold. Tastes better too, when it slips into his mouth.

It's the kind of physical, present, lucid thought that he clings to, swallowing a little more and putting his hands on what feels like concrete siding. Some kind of pool, a wall to kick off from. This is good, this is working: something to do with his body that is only about keeping it alive. Whatever its condition, he's a strong swimmer, and he comes up with his arms catching around the legs and sweeping skirt of a statue.

The park, maybe? The statue is in decent condition: no moss, no vines, no signs of long-term deterioration. An old part of the Manor, closer to the cave than the house? The trees he finds outside the fountain's edge are too wild, the path too foot-worn to be the manicured lawns and carefully edged forest. Bruce's neighborhood is the only part of Gotham to have this many trees without Ivy's meddling.

Nerves build with the chill of the water, soaking into his--scrubs.

Right. That makes a surprising amount of sense, and the first slip of a laugh is genuine, but what follows is a horrible tic, rasping out of a sore throat. He's still trying to swallow the laughter as he gets a grip on the statue and pulls himself up, standing on the platform with her to look out at the twilit wood. In his movement, he notices the press of the backpack, the dragging weight on his shoulders. Is he outside some facility? Did he give Leslie the slip? That--sounds like him, even if he can't remember.

Shuffling his way around the statue, still holding tight, he continues to huff and swallow nervous laughter, trying to decide which way to go.


exploring; july 10-11; ota

The inmates are running this prison, far as he can tell. He doesn't know if this is some remote, free-range asylum disrupted by an earthquake, or there's been no time to breathe before tumbling through a rip in reality.

Or he's just crazy.

That one always starts the wheezing laugh tickling his throat. Nothing is funny, but everything can elicit it. It isn't just--it isn't just what happened. The ugly laughter is just easier than finding the words. Easier than thinking: what does it mean to be stuck here. Would Bruce really send him so far away, let him be taken again?

Is he angry?

Disappointed.

Whatever this place is, it isn't an entirely foreign world. A yellow sun rises and sets, it's temperate enough for the clothes in his pack. People gather supplies and offer meals in two of the larger buildings, and no one is hunting him down with medication or mandates of group therapy. He shelves the first theory pretty quickly, and puts the other two up just below it, in easier reach. Theories get in the way of deduction, and there's a lot of ground to cover, a lot of disparate information to parse.

Finding crude paper in one of the storerooms, Tim adds to his pack, adding a small jar packed with charcoal and a sharpened stick. He wouldn't have needed a notebook on the streets, but he knew those streets the way he knew how far he could jump, the way he knew the fit of his boots. His grasp of information has suffered in transition, and when he isn't slipping in and out of houses that look shaken in on themselves, he can be found at the board in the Inn, copying information with his makeshift pencil, trying to pick out the facts from speculation.

[Find Tim at the blackboard and map on the Inn's first floor, or exploring any house in a state of disrepair. It can even be your house, if it's suffered damage in the quake.]

Comments

exploring;

[repressings]

He's a new face. One that Credence has never seen before, with features as narrow as his own. The difference is the shifting glare, the strange hard way he sets his jaw, the even stranger scars on his face.

It's fine. Credence has them on his hands, after all, and that's why the moment he spots him in the inn is the moment he slips away to his own house, grabbing what he needs and holding it close to his chest. By the time he circles back, the stranger isn't there.

Credence decides to go on an adventure again--this time, though, he doesn't leave the village. Instead, he finds the strange newcomer near one of the houses, looking like inspecting it is going to solve the world's problems.

He clears his throat from a healthy distance away, still holding onto a book, carrying it tightly, close to his chest.

"Sir?"

[jokerized]

No one but Alfred has ever called him sir, and it's muscle-memory to lift his arm at the elbow in a dismissive gesture. A combination of not now and I don't need anything, thanks. Research before cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Solve the multiverse canyon puzzle in time for tea.

The action carries, becomes his finger scratching at the scar on his cheek. How much time he's lost is another thing on the list, and it's his only immediate clue: at least a few weeks. Doesn't prove or disprove any one idea.

In the ensuing silence, he stops, makeshift pencil pausing on the page. "Oh," he says, looking over as he realizes what he's done, that he has no idea who he's done it to. "I didn't think you were talking to me."

[repressings]

This is new.

Credence can't really hide the look of surprise, mostly mystified that he'd been dismissed. He hadn't been dismissed before. Ignored, yes, and admonished of course, but never dismissed.

He's not sure he likes it.

"I was talking to you," Credence says, and his voice drops just a little in volume. "I'm sorry, I didn't know your name, so--'sir.' Um. You're new." That's not a question, it's a statement, and he takes a step forward, holding his copy of Frankenstein to Tim for him to take.

[jokerized]

Now that he's looking, he takes in his welcome party. Taller--older? No telling how much, no telling how much it matters. He seems young, hunching in on himself, calling people sir. There are scars on his hands, no reason to think they stop there with the cuffs of his sleeves buttoned at the wrist. The kind of person Tim expects to meet, if this place is some kind of retreat gone off the rails.

The posture and voice speak to weakness, and while the voice telling him to map and exploit that doesn't sound like Bruce, he knows first hand how manipulative his mentor could be.

But the weaker personalities don't always reach out like this, and they can be pretty manipulative on their own. That line of thinking hits an abrupt wall when he looks down at what the boy is offering. Frankenstein, a monster brought to life on a slab by a bolt of lightning. Tim stares at it, unanswering, all the gears ground to a halt. When they come back they wind double-time, ticking through rationalizations: this is some kind of facility, there are records, someone's been peeking, he wants a reaction but what?

A nervous laugh slips free, grating in his throat. "Why are you giving me this?"

[repressings]

He's laughing, but it's certainly not a good laugh. Credence stops moving forward, knowing far better not to bother someone when they laugh-but-don't-laugh, and he tries his best to put on the same voice Stella or Peggy put on, trying to add a touch of warmth that only Queenie has.

"Because you're new," he murmurs. "It took months for me to get a book, and it's the only thing I've really got that keeps me a little bit happy when I feel alone, so I thought maybe you'd like it."

[jokerized]

Tim's cheek twitches under the scars, an ugly tic of muscle that evolves into an ugly titter out the side of his mouth, his eyes never leaving the cover. The electricity is cartoonish, the monster is two-dimensional, and he's read it before. He knows what is and isn't the point of it.

None of that matters to the desperate rush in his head. There's a storm of don't coddle me; what do you really want; why do you get to carry this around like it's just a goddamn book--and most startling, a chasm of rage he doesn't know the edges of. He wants to be the lightning. He wants to strike right now, with the book in his hand.

This is why Bruce sent him away. This is why he's here.

It pulls him back. Crazy. He's fucking crazy. He can put this book through the guy's face or he can just take it, it's just a book. "Thanks," he shapes with his mouth, his face still getting used to words, to anything but that hideous smile. "That's thoughtful, giving away your stuff to a stranger."

exploring

[fightsinheels]

It's been a good week and a half since the quake hit, but they're still cleaning things up. Isabelle's never had a disaster quite like this to clean up after, and she's beginning to wonder when it ends. When does everything look normal again? When do the cracks in the ground fill up, when does the rubble get taken care of? When do the houses get pieced back together?

Never, is probably the answer. The village will always look a little shambled now. Or, at little more shambled than before, at least. She's learned it's not the first earthquake to hit, and they've had their share of lightning and hail damage.

At least it gives her something to do. At least the sun is setting again, and at least the clouds rumbled across the sky and gave them two straight days of much needed rain. A little more shambled is preferable to what they had before — an endless sun and a suffocating drought.

Today is another cleaning day. Slowly, her sleeping schedule is adjusting itself to something more normal, something less nocturnal. It's still morning, and she hasn't crawled into bed to sleep yet. Instead, she's at one of the rougher looking houses, gathering loose wood from it. She's got a stack of it over one shoulder, a load far bigger than somebody her size should be able to carry, and she's making her way to the storeroom with it when she nearly runs into somebody rounding the corner of the house.

"Oh--" She takes a quick step back, steadying and balancing herself, not allowing the stack of wood to tip her too far in any direction.

[jokerized]

That ugly laugh bubbles up at the near impact, as Tim stops himself short of the corner, sidesteps, leans into a twirl on the ball of his foot and stops that too. Like a wind up ballerina whose gears have caught. Back to starting position with both feet on the ground and staring at the dirt, trying to parse his own muscle memory from--Harley.

Another bubble and pop of a laugh, he shakes his head, swallows to clear his throat. "Sorry," he says, even if it wasn't entirely his fault, and nothing actually happened.

Sorry is just the thing you say. Sorry is a building block in the tower he's going to scale back to normalcy. "Here," he offers, finally skirting his gaze up her to her load, noting the insignificant difference in their heights. He turns and offers his own shoulder to take half the weight: "I can help you get that where it's going." Asking questions doesn't seem frowned upon here, but he's always preferred to learn without asking, especially if they're as monitored as people claim.

[fightsinheels]

He laughs, practically twirls, and it's something that's ugly and graceful and halting all at the same time. He must be new here, not just because she hasn't seen him around before, but because he seems as thrown and out of place as the rest of them do when they arrive. Confused, lost, probably angry, probably sad. All the things she felt after she clawed her way out of that fountain.

This place keeps bringing more and more people here. It takes them away, too, without a second's notice. One morning she'll see somebody grabbing breakfast at the inn, and after that, they're never to be found again.

She wonders where they go. Absolute best case, they get brought back home. Worst case, well--

"Thank you," she says, shifting the load on her shoulder to let it balance on his as well. Her's aches a bit as the weight is eased off of it, but it's not an ache she's unused to. She points over his other shoulder, toward the storeroom. "That way. Sorry for almost knocking you out — it's a good thing you're quick on your feet."

[jokerized]

There's a deep tissue ache for the weight that is as much tension as injury. Coming out of the fountain was fine, he'd been--fixed, in a lot of ways. He doesn't have to smile, the cuts down his sides are scarred over, his bones don't feel so immediately popped out and back into their joints.

A few of those times had just been him, trying to loosen himself from restraints.

It isn't enough to stumble him under the load, but he's glad he's facing away from her as he does it. "You move quietly," he comments, unable to make it anything but praise. They hadn't heard each other coming, but had both pulled back soon enough to avoid collision.

This isn't just about finding the storeroom, but it'll be good to know what's kept in there. "I mean, as much as any of us do in these hiking boots. I thought you weren't supposed to give people shoelaces in places like this."

[fightsinheels]

"You do, too," Isabelle comments, and she wonders if it would've been any different if she had her powers. Would she have heard his footsteps if she'd had a rune applied? Would she have sensed it coming, giving her enough time to avoid the near-collision all together? Her powers, being a Shadowhunter, have always been so deeply ingrained in her. It's in her blood.

It's an ugly thing to have it taken away like it's been.

She turns her face towards the sun, taking joy in the warmth now that it's cooled off a bit. It was nothing but a burden when it wasn't setting, but now it sinks gratefully behind the horizon each night. Now, it's just the sun, and nothing more.

"Places like claustrophobic murder canyons?" She asks, tipping her gaze down again to look at his back.

July 11th - Inn Board

[scepterschild]

Wanda has had an interesting couple of days. Clint was finally back and the hectic jungle that has become her house hold has calmed down. She was exhausted and her ankle continued to ache slightly but she was in one piece and Clint was in one piece. She'd happily celebrate small blessings.

She had finished up at the inn, curing fish and meat that had been caught that morning, and was heading out when she spotted a new face at the inn's message bored. He looked as if he was taking notes; new perhaps?

Wanda took a step towards him and spoke. "Do you need help?" Her accent rolled over each word, over enunciating the end of her sentence. Wanda was dressed in a pair of black jeans and a white tank top. Her long hair had been pulled up leaving only a few wisps of brown to frame her cheeks.

[jokerized]

There's information to gather before he turns to the voice: Eastern European, faint smell of smoke, not cigarettes but--that too, underneath. Wood smoke is a common smell in the village. Uncommon in Gotham City, but a part of home he didn't know to miss until he sat in the pub by the bigger fireplace.

When he flicks his eyes there's more: height, weight, build, measured against himself and filed away. Is there a distinction to be made here, civilian and others? He needs to figure out the categories if he's going to sort them, if he's going to make sense of this, but everything in the last few days, in the last few weeks, is a puzzle he's putting together from the wrong side. No colors, no patterns, only shapes.

She's another person not wearing scrubs or overalls, which could mean something or nothing, he hasn't gotten bogged down in any one idea. Could mean she's higher up some hierarchy, or just been here longer. Either might mean better information. "Sure," he answers, tapping his stick rapid-nerves to the pile of paper in his hand. "All the notes on here, some of it seems so fantastical, but I assume it's all first-hand accounts? This all really happened?"

[scepterschild]

Wanda waited, noting the boys posture and gaze. There was something about him that she found unsettling, as if she was suddenly looking at one of the crazed Hydra soldiers bent on turning the world upside down for what they considered the greater good. It might have all been in her head but it made her tense and her thoughts guarded.

Not that Wanda was the most open person. She didn't talk about herself and while she had scars there were many things that she didn't dare give away.

"Yes. A lot of those people aren't in the village anymore but some are." If he was looking for first hand accounts anyway. With Sam gone, Peggy was the only one who had been in the village for a substantial amount of time. She didn't specify what she meant when she said that people aren't in the village, implying only that they were dead or gone.

[jokerized]

That's certainly something of note. Tim's pencil stops abruptly over the page, and he looks sidelong at it in an exaggerated huh, said aloud as he makes another note. When he looks back to her, its up through his lashes, making his eyes bigger, his next question a little less--clinical.

It's off-putting. He knows it's off-putting, and it feels less like him than the thing left over when you strip the rest of him away. But all he has to pull on in this place is blue scrubs and a pair of overalls, and the internal stuff--the masks and the identities--are still scrambled and raw.

"So people get out," he asks, and some of the hope in his voice is real: "People get to go home?"

[scepterschild]

Wanda waited and watched Tim as his pencil came to a dramatic pause. He was strange but his countenance was more familiar to her. It was at least more familiar than the overly friendly collection of people that had managed to find their way to this village.

At his question, Wanda closed her eyes momentarily and sighed. "I don’t know." She wasn’t going to sugar coat anything for him. Even if it was his preferred method of being handled. "Some leave. A few claimed to have returned home, then back here. Some die." It was all spoken like a series of fact. Her accent was thick but there was no other indication of any of this bothering her.

Wanda was used to the world being shitty, even if it wasn’t quote in these terms.

June 11, inn

[onlyeverdoubted]

Bodhi's making an effort to stop at the inn more often. It's the center of things, might possibly be the beginning of actually being part of the village instead of just drifting through it, and besides, he might as well walk this direction as any other while he's taking a break from home repairs.

He's not usually sure when he's spotted a newcomer unless it happens next to the fountain or thereabouts. Faces aren't his forte. But this one looks so young. First year pilot cadet young. He'd remember that, if only because it bothers him so much. Sure, when he was that age he was resolving to leave home forever to escape the bombs and raids that had defined most of his life. He can't be sure that this place isn't better than whatever option was left behind. But no one really seems to land in the fountain coming from a comfortable situation, and he doesn't like the idea.

Usually Bodhi just goes ahead and lets the social awkwardness flow with new people, since no one is going to be comfortable or have a workable baseline for interactions, so might as well embrace the level playing field. This time he's a bit more careful in his approach, smiling the uncertain quirk of a smile he usually has to work a little to dredge up and waving casually, an invitation to an introduction.

[jokerized]

Tim pauses as he's waved to, lowering the pad of paper and pencil to his sides. Before he responds, he looks around the room, trying to place other people, determine whose side they're on if this isn't something innocuous. It's a friendly face being projected, and his instincts are split--a friendly face is something he needs, but it has to be one he can trust, and that's--

Almost no one, when he thinks about it. Barbara. Maybe Dick.

Suspicion lets him avoid the sinkhole of missing them. He's between an inward-facing blackboard and a wall, legs visible below it to anyone else in the room. The guy isn't moving toward him, and might be fine with waiting for Tim to come out, might--be harmless. It would be nice to believe anything could be harmless, anyone could have better intentions. He has to go over, he can't see a way around that without causing some kind of offense, and not knowing the wave of repercussions for it. But how does he go? Shy and appreciative? Wary like a stray dog? Brightening and friendly?

Not the last one. It hurts to smile. The wave itself is restrained, so he goes with that, mirroring the uncertainty of his new acquaintance. Slipping back out from the board, Tim points to his chest with the pencil, brows raised in a hopeful, who, me?

[onlyeverdoubted]

There's no thought as deliberate and conscious as this is a kindred spirit, but he understands without knowing quite what he's recognizing. Hesitation, scanning the room, you could call it paranoia, but that's not really it once something really has been out to get you. Bodhi stands slowly and closes about half the distance between them, stopping to lean against a neutral spot of wall.

He billows a bit as he walks, not quite used to moving in all these loose layers yet. He was probably close to the kid's age last time he wore one of these.

"Since, um, you're reasonably calm, I'll go ahead and assume you've heard the basic introduction already?" he asks lightly, not quite making eye contact but making it clear Tim has his attention. He's always thought of himself as good with children (he always intended to have his own, after all), but there's a vast gulf between child and this in-between stage. He's pretty sure he was pretty good with the cadets as they entered the academy, but he never thought to ask one. Funny, the seventeen and eighteen year olds on their way in seemed the merest infants when he was twenty-one and about to earn his rank and license, but now he feels more sympathy than superiority. He just hopes there are better choices ahead than the ones he made.

[jokerized]

Pressing his tongue to the back of his teeth, he drags a breath over it and measures a response. "Sure," seems appropriate: "in a manner of speaking." He's still sizing the man up as he moves in, judging the size of him under the obfuscating layers. It's the strangest thing he's seen anyone wear yet, though he supposes the princess gowns and slippers are as out of place as this.

Maybe this guy is actually from here, and Tim doesn't know what his mildness and nerves speak to if that's the case. "I'm still trying to get my head around it," he adds, in case there's something he wants to elaborate on from the basic introduction.

"Does anyone, like, live here? Like a staff or a native population."

[onlyeverdoubted]

He never feels like he's any good at the introduction, frankly. On the rare occasion he's tried to give it he's wound up feeling like he just confused the poor newcomer more. Might just be that his own arrival, coming from chaos and certain death, really made everything on this side seem smooth and simple. Even if that's not the reason, he's just as happy not to have to try this time.

The direct question tempts him to start in on his theories, which he's pretty sure are correct, if unformed, but he reigns it in. A new kid (too literally) doesn't need to hear the fine points of the various ideas kicking around right away. "Not that anyone knows about? It was empty when, well, the first people who overlap with us got here, so..." Well, he's winding up splitting hairs over idle speculation anyway. Oops. "Someone built it, but, well, as far as I know there's not even a way to tell if that was people or machines." The lack of information bugs him, frustration bleeding into his voice a bit despite his best efforts.

Fountain

[teen_angst_bullshit]

For a long time, Veronica came by the fountain daily, every time it was convenient and some times when it wasn't, out of the naive belief that she could actually, possibly help the poor people who pulled themselves out of it. Things changed, though, and at some point between Ren's death and Frank up and leaving, she found herself more than a little bent out of shape. Less likely to give a shit.

It's only recently that she's come back around to this idea, of doing good in what ways she can, even if it's simply out of a lack of anything else to occupy her. As she stands at the edge of the trees skirting the park and watches this guy, she wonders if she's really up for this kind of heavy lifting again.

Although it's not like she can just walk away.

Stepping forward, she stops at the edge of the fountain and peers a moment at the dark head half-obscured by the constant cascade of water.

"The sooner you get out of there, the sooner I can explain what just happened to you," she says, and doesn't even feel guilty about the lie.

[jokerized]

The rush of water masks any footsteps, but he still tenses for the voice at his back. Female: not Barbara, not Leslie.

Not Harley either, and that's maybe more important.

He doesn't recognize it at all, but it sounds human, and it speaks English. Looks human too, when he shifts his grip and looks back, just-peering around the edge of the water sheeting between them. In a way, she's answering questions just by standing there.

Sentient life: check. People not in scrubs: check.

None of it's a reason to let his guard down, so he toes and turns his way around the statue, making his way to land from its other side. Another dunk in the water keeps the laughter from hiccuping back out--at the delusional mess of it all, or the idea that this girl knows anything about what's happened to him. It isn't until he wanders back around--stance wide and gripping the straps of his pack in both hands to placate and prepare for flight--that he gets a look at her face.

It's getting dark, and the hair is too long, but--it's been years. His hands tighten their grip. She's close enough, and he's been stripped down enough, a word resolves in the chasm of ugly laughter. "Annie?"

[teen_angst_bullshit]

Veronica falters, her eyebrows arching, and then shakes her head. "No, sorry. Veronica," she answers, unable to keep her eyes from going soft with sympathy. Some people -- A lot of people, now that she thinks of it -- don't want to be pitied, but it's not exactly fun being the bearer of really shitty news, either.

"Welcome to Nowhere," she adds with a sweeping gesture toward the trees, and it's meant to be something light, a sort of wink and a nudge, but the execution is somewhat lacking. Her hand falls to her side and she sighs. When she and Kira had decided to do this, to be the Pollyanna Welcome Wagon, she'd failed to remember how difficult it actually is in practice. There's no nice way to tell someone they just got shoved into a box.

"What's your name?" That seems as good a place to start as any.

[jokerized]

His head dips, chin down, then to the side in a dismissive swivel, an odd loop as he tries to nod his understanding at the same time. Not Annie, not Kansas anymore. What had Annie been anyway? A piece of Clayface no one believed existed. A confusing blow to the concept that girls were icky, despite watching her get absorbed into The Blob.

Maybe that's what he was to the Joker, now. Maybe if he gets home he'll look her up.

"Rob," he answers automatically, eyes skirting the distance between them. Considering Annie, considering Harley, there's no reason to assume harmlessness or good intentions. "No offense, Veronica, but Nowhere wasn't on the agenda, and it looks like the kind of pit stop you and your fiance get murdered in."