Tim Drake-Wayne (redrobin) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2018-10-07 15:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !log, ~2018 october, ~25 points, ~~tim drake-wayne (redrobin), ~~zatanna zarara (ssasabsiannataz) |
WHO Zee & Tim
WHAT Reconnecting
WHERE the Arcade
WHEN Oct 2 (backdated)
WARNINGS TBD, low so far
STATUS Closed | Incomplete gdoc
Zatanna had had a rough few months and she really hadn’t been herself because of it. She’d alienated the people who mattered, and she only barely had let Constantine in to help her sleep. It was not her finest moment, and she hadn't really seen how bad she'd gotten until she'd lost her cool with Will.
She'd almost really lost control and it woke her up a little. It had taken a jump through time and then a long conversation with Will to finally find her footing. She'd decided to try to find her friends and sort her relationships out, no matter what kind of relationships they were.
Zee had distanced herself from Tim, the Warehouse and the arcade long before it had become the arcade. She sucked it up, brought pizza and headed to go find him. She wanted to make amends, it would take with but she was willing.
She looked around as she stepped inside, her lips twitching into a thin line for a moment. It made her think of home, and the whole of home, and she missed it. Black hair flicked over her face as she shook her head, stuffing that feeling back down, she didn't really need to think of that. “Hey, Tim, you around?” She called out, smiling a bit more honestly this time.
***
Tim was still feeling a little out of sorts from the whole jaunt to the wild west. He'd certainly been in a good position there and had a good life, but it was weird that he'd been so incredibly focused on Cassie. He knew he loved her, but he also knew there couldn't be anything between them even if he did like waking up with her in his living room. That courtship had gone reasonably well, though now that he could look at it from the lense of someone living in the 21st century, he wasn't so sure they would've been happy together.
And then there was Charlie - or Lottie now, and he'd gone to tease her only to find she was gone from Madison. Tim was genuinely sad about that fact and chose to put his focus on the Arcade to distract him. It was early enough that he was the only one in the building when he heard someone enter and tilted his head curiously when he heard Zatanna. She'd been spiraling pretty hard and he'd had enough on his place that he hadn't wanted to get sucked into it. Now though, she was a welcome distraction.
He came out from the back and saw the pizza. "I don't mind sharing a pizza, but we're not going to hook up again," Tim teased her. The last time she'd been around, that was exactly what had happened and he wasn't in the right place to be that kind of support for Zee right now.
"How'd you make out in the old west?" he asked curiously as he came up to sit at the bar with her.
***
She looked at the pizza in her hands, then looked up at him and burst out laughing, she wasn’t in the mood for mindless sex or anything of that ilk anyway, but now she smirked at the memory. “Well, that’s true isn’t it? I’d forgotten.” she laughed against as she set it down and sat down next to him, shaking her head, eyes bright. She looked much better than she had in months, and honestly felt a lot better. She wasn’t perfect, she had some serious nightmares that were lingering, but overall, she was feeling better.
“Let’s see - I was married to Derek, Erin was my daughter, and I was a happy, domestic little housewife.” she smirked a touch, “and Will’s already made fun of me for being a domestic little housewife.” Zee shook her head a bit more, not even she could believe that she’d been a sweet little housewife. “What about you, then, Tim?” she inquired curiously as she opened the box of pizza and took out a slice.
She had regular cheese, it wasn’t fancy but it was warm and it was food. And she’d decided she was going back to her regular diet, she was done hating herself enough for that. She muttered a few words backwards, like usual, and made a glass of soda appear before her, sugar cane and no crap, before looking at him and lifting a brow, asking what he’d like without words.
***
He grinned when she burst out laughing, not bothered by the fact that she had laughed at the thought. Tim was glad to see that she was doing a lot better and that she had that look back in her eye that told him she was still the same Zee he knew and loved. He wasn't the sort to ever really get hung up on having to see or speak to someone all the time to consider them friends. Zatanna would be his friend for as long as they were both in the same place and if they went a couple of months without talking, that would be fine.
"I mean, someone's got to make fun of you for that." He didn't know Derek, but he knew Erin as that girl who'd told another teenager that Santa wasn't real. Tim didn't think anyone should have to be related to a girl as miserable as that. "Will from Training Terrain?" He wondered if maybe there was something there and he hoped there was for Zee's sake. She needed to keep living her life no matter what Constantine got up to.
"Me? I was Bruce's son and apprentice. Lawyer this time instead of vigilante, but not too different from how things are, now. I was chasing after Cassie though," he admitted with a sigh. "She was cool about it though. We must've fallen asleep after talking most of the night at the wedding and woke up on my living room floor." Tim wasn't thrilled with it but at least she wasn't reading too much into it. Instead of focusing on that, however, he decided to tell her a more fun tidbit.
"The gifts I was giving her to court her? Half the time she was giving them to Diana and saying they were from Bruce." It was amusing now, but it had been a little annoying when Lottie had told him as much.
***
That whole situation wasn't awful - she certainly didn't mind hooking up with Tim. There were plenty of good things about that. But it was funny that she'd copied the steps of that time. It was ironic and funny. And Zee was happy to have a reason to laugh again.
“Me as a happy housewife is very much a tease me thing. I still shake my head.” She shuddered. In every day dream she'd had about life and her future, with or without Constantine, she'd never once imagined a happy normal life. It just wasn't anything she ever expected, or wanted. “Mmmhmm, I went in early to try to work out some of the leftover awkward feelings and he was doing the same.”
Nothing was going on. Yet. She got the feeling Will wanted something but if he did, he'd have to make a move. Zee was finding her footing and really just wanted to feel normal again. But she was coming around to the idea she deserved to enjoy life, here especially.
“I'm strangely not surprised at this.” She smirked a bit before she took a bite of pizza then swallowed. “Oh Tim” she said with a faint frown, she knew things were complicated there. It must have been a little awkward for both of them.
“Sneaky woman. Oh man, that's priceless. I can see that happening, too.”
***
"I've got a feeling there's a lot of that going around." He gestured around the arcade. "Here I am, burying myself in work to process. Having a whole other lifetime of memories isn't something that's just going to be alright overnight." Tim was definitely the sort who wouldn't just run head first into something. There was a part of him that was glad that Lottie hadn't come back with them so he could figure that out better. He still missed her, though.
"Plus, my maintenance girl is gone so I figured it would be worthwhile to get more familiar with these games just in case." He knew enough, but Charlie had a better handle on it all. Maybe if he understood the machines better, he'd have a better idea of what was going on with her. It wasn't the best theory, but it was all he had right now.
Tim waved off her frown. "It wasn't as bad as it could've been. Things are getting better between us and she knows that what happened there can't happen here." At least, not right now. He didn't feel like he could be the kind of boyfriend that she deserved. "Diana's been a good influence on her, but honestly? I think it's all the father-daughter days she has with Bruce and Constantine." It was weird, especially with Constantine, but they were teaching her the lessons she needed to learn and that was all that mattered.
"Based on the fact that she showed up at the wedding as a Deputy? I'd've put money on Diana and Bruce ending up together again." They were good together so Tim didn't have anything against it, even if it did sometimes put a weird context on the feelings he and Cassie had for one another. He took a slice of pizza from the box and took a bite, grateful for the distraction from his work.
***
Zatanna nodded a little as she listened to him update her on things. She tapped her fingers on the counter lightly. “No, those memories are going to just be added to the others this place has given us and it’s a long path to sort them, and anything else it does to us, out. I’m still working on it myself, to be honest.” She didn’t mind too badly, she liked Derek and it had been a nice time. She just never wanted to have that happen again.
Or go home. She didn’t want that either. The memories were always hard and she really wasn’t a fan of them. They made her reassessing her relationship with John a lot harder. Every time. She just did not want that. “Well, to be fair, Constantine is better at giving advice than taking it, and he’s really not that bad a person, he just has the world’s worst luck half the time.” she laughed softly.
“Sounds like a solid bet that I wouldn’t put my money against.” she laughed softly. She was happy if Diana was happy, and to be honest, she liked what Diana did to Bruce. She knew it was a little awkward for Tim, but he seemed to be making his own way, too. She wasn’t too worried, well beyond her usual worry.
“Things at Terrain are going well - rearranging the course again. I must truly have an evil streak in me for some of the new designs.” she grinned a little, “And Will brought me coffee and breakfast so that was kind of awesome. I didn’t have to go get my own caffeine for once.”
***
"Everyone is a work in progress," he replied with a shrug. Sure, she'd been a little off her game lately, but this place messed with them often enough and in more insane ways that it was to be expected. The fact that more of them weren't completely off the rails was a miracle. Tim wouldn't begrudge her that spiral so long as she recognized it and pulled herself out of it. He'd always be there at the top to help pull her up that final little bit.
"I think that's something of an understatement," he said about Constantine. "I'm just going to hope that we don't have to deal with him as a teenager ever again. Can't say I want to have to explain either a dead body or if someone were to find him hogtied in a dark corner somewhere." That had been a mess he hadn't gotten too involved in but he remembered it all too well. Bruce definitely had a protective streak a mile wide and he wasn't afraid to give someone a beat down when they deserved it. Tim wouldn't be surprised if Constantine did something else to deserve it, teenager or not.
He arched a curious eyebrow when Zee spoke about Will. "Did he now? Sounds like a keeper to me," Tim commented before he took a bite of his pizza to see how she might respond to that one.
***
Zee was getting there, she wasn’t fully back to normal, but she was working on it. It was pretty evident, too, she looked happier and more together than she had been a few months ago. Even a few days ago. She was feeling like she was making good choices again. This place had been nasty, and cruel, and while she’d never get rid of her scar, she knew she couldn’t linger on things either.
“Oh, god, no. Never again please. Never. I can’t handle that.” she cringed as she ran her hand through her hair. “Don’t worry if I’m an adult and he’s a teen, next time I’m just locking him in a room myself and saving all of us from that” she couldn’t handle that. “Though, if someone did hog tie him in a dark corner I might laugh. He probably deserved it.”
She shrugged a little. “He’s a good guy.” she wasn’t committing to anything, “I’m lucky to have him as both a friend and a boss. He’s had a rough go too.” She liked Will, she did, and she might even be happy to enjoy his company more, but Will was treating her like she was glass. And it was frustrating the hell out of her.
How did you even deal with that?
***
"I think Bruce would be more worried about Diana," he admitted with a chuckle, though he didn't know the extent of just how true that statement was. "But I've learned to not worry about things before they actually happen. Or at least to acknowledge that something might happen and put together a plan and leave it at that. There are too many variables here to try accounting for everything." As much as he didn't like that fact, Tim knew his own limitations. He needed to have plans, but he couldn't obsess over every little thing.
"Friends are important in a place like this. Anything more and it gets dangerous, especially with people you'll never see again." He was feeling that a little more acutely right now because of losing Lottie - Charlie - but it was still true all the same. People like them, the ones who had a lot of baggage, could handle a lot more but they also needed to be careful about just how much they took on and risked getting hurt over. He'd felt a little immune to it lately, but the old west had given him someone new to worry about in a different way.