Tim Drake-Wayne (redrobin) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-09-29 03:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: dc comics, huntress, red robin |
WHO Tim & Helena
WHAT Meeting & Presents!
WHEN After she meets Selina
WHERE Metropolis Public Library
WARNINGS None!
The library wasn't hard to find. Helena had never spent much time in Metropolis, on either world, but she'd spent more time there the second time around. Some things were the same, from what she could remember and the library looked to be one of those things. Parking her rental, wearing the same tailored white button down and heather gray slacks that she'd worn to meet Selina, she tucked her iPad under her arm, her phone already in her pants pocket. The only thing different about her appearance was the sparkling bangle on her wrist, a W in platinum bright against the diamonds. I'll remember. The conversations with Damian, with Selina had left too many things rattling around in her brain and she knew she had to start getting answers for things. If this world was that different, she wanted to know. The last one had been different too, wildly so without the presence of Darkseid everywhere and as far as she could tell, he wasn't here either. Would he find this place too? Would they be ready if he did? It was too late for her normal sunglasses as she opened the door and walked inside, blinking against the harsh lights for a moment before stepping deeper into the bookshelves. There was a landing upstairs, an arrangement of plush, worn chairs that she made her way towards. Tim had arrived hours ago, but he didn’t go spying on Helena’s meeting with Selina like he wanted to. Instead, he circled the library four times, getting a feel for the entrances and exits before moving inside and combing through every floor, walking between every shelf, and noting every last person who was there, late though it was. He was dressed much more casually than she, in simple jeans, a tee, and a nice jacket that kept the chill out. A backpack was slung over one shoulder, filled with his Red Robin gear, his comm device, a comm device for her, and a pair of sunglasses wrapped in simple black paper. It was something he hoped would make her smile because he had a feeling she was going to need it. After ascertaining that they would be quite undisturbed, he found a book for himself and took a seat in the corner of the upstairs room, with clear view of the main landing and with a line of sight on the entrance over the small balcony that was there. Tim didn’t know what she looked like, but when she came up the stairs, there was no mistaking it was her. He set the book aside and walked over to her with a warm smile. “Helena?” He was nearly certain he was right, but no one liked a know-it-all. “Tim. I’m glad you came.” Unlike Tim, she hadn't scoped the place, hadn't scoped the park either, because anything of this Earth she could handle. It was the villains that came from outside (okay and that one radiated Hakkou) that caused her problems. Almost as much as guys that she was apparently related to that couldn't keep their mouths shut. It wasn't worth holding a grudge over. "So you're the one that's following me," she said with a grin as she stepped up to the landing. There was a brief moment where she sized him up, the jeans, the t-shirt, all very unassuming, but the t-shirt was loose enough to cover up the lean lines of muscle that Helena guessed he had. He could have been any number of college kids in this city, even down to the backpack. And he was so very young -- but that was pretty standard for this world, wasn't it? Then there was that smile. Welcoming. Warm. It wasn't like the meeting with Selina where she felt like a cat on a hot tin roof, torn between whether Selina was like her mom or not. There was no Tim Drake in either of her worlds to compare this one to and that was so much easier. "Hey," she finally said, her lips thin as she tried not to grin too much and ultimately failed. “Following implies I actually knew where you were before you showed up on one of my numerous tracking algorithms,” Tim replied with a good natured smirk. He’d already decided that he liked her just from their conversations over the journals and over the phone. She didn’t look too worse for wear, but he searched her face for any sign that they’d be better off going the serious route first. He’d spoken only briefly with Selina, just the once on his flight from Iraq to Gotham, and he steered clear of her. She didn’t seem the least bit interested in him, but that wasn’t a surprise. He didn’t want to think about all of that just now though. Helena was important, not the rest of it. “Here alright or you want to talk in one of the private reading rooms? Oh, and I’ve got this.” He pulled his bag to the front and pulled out the gift he had gotten. “No tracking devices attached, promise.” Tim was serious about not wanting to force her into anything she didn’t want to do. Gotham wasn’t a good place and with all of the changes...it was hard to stay positive. Bruce’s presence helped, as did Dick’s and Stephanie’s - when she wasn’t testing his patience putting herself in Riddler’s line of fire. Alfred put him on edge a bit and Damian certainly did. It just made things weird and Helena was a perfect distraction. Well, it had started that way perhaps, but now it was something more. Helena didn’t threaten him in the same way Damian did, being Bruce’s biological child. He saw an opportunity to have a good relationship with her, to be a source of information, comfort, and support as she adjusted to this new situation. "Or until I showed up on the journals, you mean," she teased. How many times had they talked? It seemed easier with him than with the others, any of them. Yes, she'd talked to Stephanie, Jason, Bruce, even to Damian, and though he was the one to out her to Bruce -- something she hadn't wanted -- he hadn't been one to insist that Bruce was like her dad and that they were her family. Oh he'd tried to get her to come back to Gotham, but that was easier to deal with than the rest. "Here's fine," she said, smiling as she took the black wrapped package from him. "So you really did bring gifts." Leaving her iPad balanced on the arm of the worn loveseat, she slid onto it as her fingers worked open the wrapping. "Sunglasses," she said, laughing. "Nice." It was too late at night to wear them, but that didn't stop her from opening them up and sliding them onto her head to keep her hair out of her face. "That brings it up to twelve now," she said as she patted the seat cushion next to hers. "Sit down, would you?" Tim laughed. “I didn’t start a ridiculous number of trackers until after you showed up on the journals.” Mostly because a child of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle scared the shit out of him, but he’d put his own fears aside and found he actually got on really well with her. He just tried not to think too hard about it and focused on the good. Like someone who wouldn’t automatically hate him because Damian talked to them first. He gave her a slight nod and moved toward another chair, without sitting, as she took a seat for herself. He watched, more than a little amused, as she unwrapped the sunglasses and slid them on. “Twelve?!? That’s it?” He scoffed. “I should’ve gotten you a floppy hat. That’s next.” It was all playful though, as he plopped down into the seat just next to her’s. “I have to say though, I’ve enjoyed the challenge. Keeps me on my toes.” Tim let his bag drop right next to the chair and promptly ignored it in favor of giving her a once over. “You know, I figured with the change of venue, a change in dress code was in order. Did I forget to send the memo?” His smile faded for a moment though as he finally asked, “How’d it go earlier?” "A ridiculous amount?" She asked, curious. "Why would you need a ridiculous amount? If I want to let you know where I am, I'll tell you." More to the point, how good was he with them? She had identities, ones she hadn't used yet, ones that weren't Helena White or Helena Bertinelli and she'd been using them to keep herself under the radar, but soon enough she was going to need something better. She grinned as he sat down, waiting for him to get comfortable before she extended her legs out over his lap. "How about a foot rub instead of the floppy hat?" She'd already used him for information and she thought she wouldn't say anything more to him after that phone call, but... This was her third world and she didn't have Kara this time. It wasn't good for her to stay in her own head all the time and things with Tim were surprisingly easy Or they were when he wasn't trying to talk her into returning to Gotham and since he'd promised he wouldn't tonight, she could let her guard down, a little. "This is how I always dress," she said absently and wiggled her toes at him. The fading smile, the little hesitation in the question caught her attention. She regarded him silently for a moment before giving a roll of her shoulders. "It went fine." She rubbed the bracelet against her thigh. “I’m watching financials, all legal travel in and out of wherever I think you are at the time, not to mention the names you’ve used already. Facial recognition only gets so far when someone’s wearing ridiculous sunglasses.” The mock annoyance came all too easy as he leaned back against the chair. It didn’t bother him in the slightest when she put her feet up on his lap, one hand instinctively moving to rest on her ankle, over her boot. “Fancy-shmancy,” he replied, “but I don’t do foot massages. Maybe you should wear different shoes if your feet are bothering you.” Tim wondered, idly, how different things would’ve been if Helena had been from his timeline. Would they have been close? Or would it be as tense as it was with Damian? What would have happened if he’d been there for her parents’ death? There were a lot of questions, but there was no way he could answer them so he tried his best to put them aside. “Fine is good. Better than bad,” Tim commented lightly, and despite what he said about not giving foot massages, his thumb started to rub circles along the inside of her ankle. She probably couldn’t feel the gesture through the leather of her boot, but he wasn’t particularly focused on that at the moment. “So. How’s Metropolis look in comparison? Same? Good different? Bad different?” He wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk about her meeting with Selina, so he left it up to her if she wanted to get into it. "A foot massage is one of life's simple pleasures. It doesn't matter what kind of shoes you're wearing." She wasn't the fashionista that Kara was, most of her clothing was designed for comfort and movement rather than showing off as much skin as possible or wearing whatever was in for that season. Function over form. And Tim might be saying no, but she could feel the movement of his thumb through the leather, though it took a little longer for her to actually feel the heat of his hand seeping through it. She grinned and nudged at his hand a little with the toe of her boot and promptly dropped the subject of her meeting with her Tim just rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. I think girls just like massages and there’s always an excuse to get one,” he teased, but he didn’t stop. The motion of his hand was absent minded for the most part as his thoughts drifted elsewhere. It was easy to see Bruce in Helena, but he could also see parts of Selina in her. Maybe it was the way she moved that translated it well, or the expensive fashion taste, but either way, it was clear that she was who she said she was. Tim swore to himself that he wouldn’t try to color her opinions of anyone else, and he would absolutely be careful about what he said about Selina. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the woman; she just posed a threat, potentially, to Bruce and the rest of the family. That didn’t sit well with him. Maybe Helena would make a difference though, and maybe, if Damian hadn’t completely soured any chance of a relationship, he’d reach out to Selina. Just to make an effort. “How different is your original world? Can you...tell me what it was like there? I wasn’t there, it sounds like, or the others.” He wanted to know what it was like and he hoped it wasn’t too much of an invasion of her privacy to ask. It was fairly obvious from the way he held himself and the way he spoke that he wouldn’t have been upset if she didn’t say anything "The first one?" If she was going to talk about that, he could put up whatever fight he wanted to, but she was going to get her foot massage and nudged him again with the toe of her boots. It wasn't something she tried to think about anymore, but it was always there, the world she had come from. "I talk, you rub." She opened her mouth to start telling him, paused, and decided on a different starting point. "Some things are the same. Joker, Scarecrow, Riddler... But we had Darkseid and Steppenwolf. There was a Dick Grayson there, do you have one here? I worked for him before he retired.I was Robin then." That came before the invasion of her home. "But they were all older there. And then Darkseid came." She paused, resting her head against the couch cushion. "He wasn't like what we'd fought before. He set up these control towers everywhere and we all fought. Mom, dad, Kal, Diana. Everyone, until it was just Kara and I. There was an explosion and the next thing I remember is falling into the ocean." Tim never did anything half-assed so when she insisted on a foot rub, he sighed and reached up along the inside of her leg to get the zipper, methodically pulling it down and then pulling the shoe itself off. The library was mostly empty at this point and if anyone said anything well, then they said something. He kept her sock on and brought both hands around the top of her foot, starting to firmly rub like she wanted. It was obvious that he wasn’t actually going to be capable of saying no to her, or at least not for long, but Tim honestly didn’t think she’d take advantage of that. It was easy to trust her and he hoped she could trust him, initial panic aside. He listened when she spoke, noting the unfamiliar villains she named. He would add them to the computer when he returned to the mansion. "We do, yea. Dick just showed up not too long ago. He's Nightwing now." He went quiet though, when she started to explain Darkseid. It sounded like a bad experience all around and he wished that there was something he could do for her. "And the ocean you landed in, it was a different version of...the world?" Not once did his hands waver, despite his attention being solely on her and what she was saying. There was definitely something wonderful about a foot rub. Her toes stretched and curled as his hands went to work, the words coming easier. "Yeah. He was Robin in my world before I was. He was my mentor." The fondness for him was still evident in her tone. He'd been a good guy and she'd been at his side when they'd fought Joker together. "I ended up... somewhere else. It's a lot like this world. The differences are smaller." The differences between that world and her world had been great. Not only were her parents alive, but everyone was so much younger. "He had a Robin there. A boy," she laughed a little. There was no reason to specify who 'he' was. "I tried to -- talk with him. He had me committed." Which had not been the highlight of that world, but she eventually got out and stayed far away from him after that. "I told him I wanted to talk to him after this." Tim smiled when she spoke so fondly of Dick. "He's amazing. I met him at the circus, and his parents." He stopped massaging her foot to reach into his bag, pulling out the photo he and his parents had taken with Dick and his parents the night they died. He handed it to her before going back to her foot. "I followed Batman and Robin, and I saw a move from the circus, the one he performed that night. I knew it was him, and from there, it was easy to deduce who Batman was. After Jason died..." Tim trailed off for a moment before shrugging. "He needed someone, so Dick helped me convince him to take me on." Then the real work had begun and he'd found his place in the world. It was fairly easy to connect the 'him' she spoke of to Bruce and Tim frowned. "That won't happen here," he replied firmly. "He hasn't committed the rest of us. He won't do that to you, not here. Not now." And Tim would never let him, if Bruce ever put that on the table. The pressure of his hands increased with the determination in his tone, but he relaxed it when he realized what he'd done. "You should, if that's what you want. He won't make you come to Gotham." Tim almost added that none of them would, be he wouldn't talk for the others and he had been asking her anyway, so there wasn't much point. "He's a good guy, but he's different from the Bruces you knew. All of us are different, I think. It's a...well, weird honestly. Really weird. When I'm from, or where-" his expression said he wasn't sure how to phrase it "-Bruce had supposedly died. I didn't believe any of it. Dick stepped in for him and took Damian as his Robin. I couldn't be there. I had to go look for him. Turns out, he had been alive and I was right, but I heard that from Steph. She's from further along than me, but the same where as far as we can tell." The pressure hadn't hurt, not when he managed to hit at particularly tense muscle with his hands at the same time. Her toes flexed, but no sound escaped Helena as she looked at the picture in his hands. There he was, a very young Tim and a very young Dick. Though she could tell that the photo was at least a few years old, he was so much younger now. Maybe a little older than Tim, which meant that they were all fairly close in age. Interesting. Was that just the way that these worlds worked? She filed the information away for later. No answers would come now. "It is," she said quietly. She wanted to talk to him, but she wasn't ready yet to return to Gotham and she wouldn't ask him to come here. Gotham needed him. But the phone? Definitely doable. She placed the picture on her knee, ready for him to take back when he wanted to. "Are you the only two from the same place?" If they were all from different worlds, was there something special about this Tim and Stephanie that they came from the same world, but different times? Why them? And did they all come from a time or a place where they'd lost their Bruce? It was another one of those questions, filed away for later. And then there was the way his voice changed slightly when speaking about Steph. "What's the story there? I told you mine." Tim left the picture there, trusting her with one of his most prized possessions for a little while longer. “We’ve got each other at least,” he offered, meaning the others through the door, not literally the two of them (though that counted too). He was quiet after that, trying to remember where and when everyone was from. “No, Alfred is from Bruce’s timeline too, and there’s a man here named John Blake who is as well, but I think Bruce technically comes from before meeting him. I’m not certain.” He shrugged and worked her foot over for a few moments longer before moving to take her other shoe off. “As for the others, I honestly don’t know. With Damian, it’s hard to tell because he’s 18 out of nowhere and we just don’t get along. And I don’t know anything about when or where the villains come from.” He should have expected that mentioning Steph would create more questions, simply by virtue of being someone that Helena didn’t seem to know. He also should’ve known better than to trust that she wouldn’t say anything if she picked up how he spoke about the other woman. “There’s a lot of history there,” he admitted with a shrug. “Her dad called himself Cluemaster and she became Spoiler, to foil his plans. After he died, she still wanted to be a part of everything, so she and I started working together. She was Robin for a while, and now she’s Batgirl apparently.” He didn’t sound all too thrilled about that, but he’d long since accepted that she was going to do what she wanted to do and there wasn’t anything he could say or do to change her mind. The best he could do was be there for her. “I care about her, but she and Damian have been here longer than I have.” That was clearly a bad thing, as far as Tim was concerned, especially with how buddy buddy they apparently were. “So it’s just trying to figure out my place in all of this.” Tim shrugged again. So many of them and from all different places, though not all of them. It gave her hope that Kara might be around here somewhere. "I didn't have any of you in my world. Bruce, Selina, the villains, and Dick, those are the only ones we ever had." But that's where the similarities ended because even there, the villains had been aging, and none of them had caused quite the problem that Darkseid had. "And Kal-El, but I hear he's not around anymore?" There was that change in his voice again, when speaking of Steph and Damian. Tim had mentioned before that Damian was 10, but not this particular piece of news."Eighteen out of nowhere?" she asked, head tilted to the side, catlike as she regarded her half-brother. Half-brother? It was easy to adopt Tim, to think of him as a family member with the easy way they got along. And if he was adopted by Bruce, then half brother it was. "He seems younger than that." Acted like he was younger at least. “Superman? No, he was here, younger than what Lois remembered, but now he’s gone. I’m not really sure how that works.” Tim was curious, but it was hard to really test any theories without putting himself or Spencer at risk. He was more than willing to not push too hard on that particular topic for that reason alone. “He got aged up I guess? Still acts like the bra-uh kid I knew from my time. He was ten, when I’m from,” Tim explained, wincing slightly at the slip. He hadn’t wanted to say anything negative about Damian, but it was always there just under the surface. It was unfortunate that they had such a sour relationship, but Tim couldn’t help it. Damian, as a biological son, could very well cut him out. It didn’t matter that Bruce was better than that, that he would probably never pick a side. Tim knew if he was ever forced to, Damian would come first. Well, second now, after Helena, but he wasn’t upset about that. He’d save Helena over Damian any day. “Steph and Catwoman have been spending the most time with him, I guess. It’s always better if Damian and I stay out of each others’ way. The brief conversation we had at the Manor resulted in him pouring water in the pan I was frying bacon in.” He frowned just remembering the interaction though, as well as Damian’s...insistence that he not get between him and Steph. Tim did not like it in the least, worried about what Damian might say or do and how that would affect Stephanie. “Anyway, you deserve to come to your own conclusions so I’m just going to zip it unless you’ve got anything specific you want to know?” So Damian was 18, but acted like he was 10. Helena wondered if that was a side effect of the Doors that brought them all here, which she suspected, or something else. It didn't seem like something one of the villains of their world was capable of -- or willing to do -- but those were the ones she knew. There were others out there, maybe it was up their sleeve, but what would have been the purpose? All those questions she kept to herself, something to mull over later. "Sounds like you have a little ten year old brother," she remarked lightly, grinning. Whatever was going on between the two of them, she wasn't going to get involved. "Has he always been like that?" The question was curious, not accusatory. Even from her interactions with him, Helena could understand how Damian could get on someone's nerves, but she could also understand that it would be hard to go from a ten year old to an eighteen year old if it happened like they said it did. As long as she could remember that about the younger man, it might make their interactions easier. "I want to know about all of them. And what's going on in Gotham. I'm getting bits and pieces, but not the whole picture." That was what she wanted. She'd heard about Crane and the children just a few minutes ago from Damian, but she knew that wasn't the whole story. There was Riddler, and Joker, and whatever those two were up to. "I want to know everything." “In name only,” Tim muttered, focusing entirely on Helena’s feet. “And not even that most days,” he added sourly. Damian was not a good topic of conversation so he was going to just drop it right then and there. He wouldn’t even add that Damian had always been that way, for as long as Tim could remember between the pair of them. Finally though, he sighed and dragged his gaze up to meet hers. “That’s a lot to know, and unfortunately, I’m not the best person to ask. I wasn’t really around for all of that. Steph went after Riddler, Bruce and Jason after Joker, and Damian and Selina after Crane. I picked Steph up and fixed her up as best I could. Dick showed up shortly thereafter, but...” Tim shrugged. “Bruce can give you the big picture, certainly. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful in that regard, but-” Tim stopped and reached for his bag again, taking out the small case that held the communication device within. “Here. You can talk to them securely over this line, either to everyone or individually. Hopefully they’ll be similar to what you used in your world,” he explained, hoping that was the case. “It’ll work wherever you are in the world so you don’t need to go to Gotham if you don’t want to.” It was a small consolation, but he hoped it was enough. Bruce. It always came back to him. She nodded and took the case from him, her fingers closing around the comm inside. It was similar to the one back home, enough for her to figure out how to use it. "Can I listen without being heard?" She rolled it back and forth between her fingers, but there was no refusal of the gift, such as it was even if she knew that taking it was only bringing her one step closer to Gotham. She was still moving it back and forth between her fingers as she removed one foot from his grip and nudged him lightly with her other toe. "Switch." She knew already that she wouldn't resist listening in. It was the best way to learn about them, all of them. Yes, she could look up the articles and the clippings and whatever was in the Batcomputer, but none of that was like the hands on experience of learning what someone was truly like. Like Tim here. Like Selina. She could talk to them a thousand times but it didn't compare with meeting them in the flesh. Tim looked thoughtful at her question. “Well, whoever’s on the Batcomputer would know it’s active, I imagine, but I don’t see why you can’t listen provided it’s an open channel. You wouldn’t be able to listen in on comms isolated to specific people,” he explained, changing feet at her request. His hands were methodical, massaging every muscle along the arch of her foot and then the outside, up and down, all around. There was no denying that he was good at the task, simple though it was. “But otherwise, it’ll prove effective if you want to stay in touch with everyone on a more secure channel than the journals. I’m not sure what yours looks like, but mine’s a tablet and in the right hands, someone could break into it. The comms are harder to hack,” he continued easily enough. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.” Helena nodded to all the information provided. Even with this in her hands, she'd still call Bruce later instead of reaching out to him over the comms. It wasn't secure, but she wanted to practice with the device first, learning how to switch channels, how to mute, and what limitations if any the thing had before she used it to converse over. "Also a tablet." Helena kept it close, but Tristan always left it in the basement unless she was on it and she tried not to think too hard about what the woman was doing on it. It always gave her a headache and she always found out something she didn't want to know. "You've been helpful, Tim. In more ways than you know." She paused and grinned at him. "But if you want to know where I'm going, you can just ask." Tim nodded, pleased that at least she found him useful. He had his moments, but with Damian around and things so up in the air, his insecurities were magnified quite a bit. “Look at us, high tech kids. Guess that’s one more thing in common,” he teased, before reaching for her shoe again and helping them back on her feet. If it had been anyone else, Steph maybe, the gesture might have been construed as intimate, but that wasn’t the case with Helena. “If you wanted to tell me where you were going, you would, Hels.” Tim didn’t know where the shortened version of her name was, but it was there all the same and he kind of liked the ring of it. It could have been an intimate thing, but there was something more playful about it, innocent in the way that he rubbed her feet and put her boots back on. Like the nickname that came tumbling out of his mouth, something that usually only Kara called her.. If he knew that she would tell him, she suspected the only reason why he continued to track her was because of the challenge. "That's right. And until then, you're just going to have to admire my sunglasses." She grinned, wiggling her feet on his lap and pulling the shades off her head to settle them on the bridge of her nose. |