Who: Tim Drake-Wayne and Nico Minoru Where: The Facility Kitchen When: start of october. What: chats and shopping. Rating/Warnings: none/low just some mild mental health chat but nothing too bad. Status: Completed via GDocs
Tim had a sulk for a while over Peter, but decided now was the time to move forward. He could only stand still so long. He showered, took general care of himself before moving into the Facility to start on the day. It was there where all his coffee items were, all the good stuff anyway. He brought a bag of Death Wish coffee and snapped a picture of it to send over to Nico with the text “Interested?” Tim really didn’t spend much time at the Facility these days, but a change was necessary he just wasn’t entirely sure what kind. Either way, he wasn’t going to find it by remaining in his room day after day listening to random true crime podcasts or various emo musics.
He’d even done his hair, decided to put a little gel in it for a classic Tim look. He put various things into the coffee to spice it up a bit, chocolate in his own. Followed by a chocolate froth he’d put into it. Yes, he did basically just want sugar and caffeine for breakfast. What of it?
Tim's phone lit up with the following texts:
It's like you know what my little Goth heart wants.
Please confirm where you are, and then hold onto something for 10-15 seconds.
No really.
And once his location was confirmed, thirteen quiet seconds passed. After that, things got fun.
Golden sparks appeared in the open space between the kitchen and the common area. They spun up in a small circle that expanded slowly, sputtered, and died. This happened a couple more times before something seemed to catch, and it grew into into a whirling portal out of which Nico hopped with a grimace of concentration.
The portal snapped shut the instant she was through. She sighed and shook her head before muttering, "I should be better that that."
I know a thing or two sometimes. ;) Facility kitchen. That was where all the goodness was. He’d missed the coffee machine that Tony had gotten him years ago. Whether Tony knew it or not, was another thing entirely; but nevertheless he got him a fancy machine. Tim did take that advice and casually held onto a corner of a counter when Nico made her sparkly appearance. He swatted away one of the golden sparks from his coffee and made a face.
“You didn’t light anything on fire. I’d say it works just fine.” A light tease, he knew she was looking for someone to help her with her magic so he didn’t poke her too hard about it.
“Made you one already. All you need to do is put in whatever you want.” He had a full set up, various spices and syrups. “Added about six pounds of chocolate in mine.” It was the sort that mixed well with sweet things.
Tim was actually wearing real clothes now, not just sweats and whatever Nightwing shirt he’d stolen from Dick that day. It was a step forward. He was trying to be a bit more social. Plus, it was officially Spooky Season. Who better to indulge in some of that stuff with than his Goth friend?
"Ha-ha." Nico stuck her tongue out for good measure before hopping onto one of the kitchen's tall stools. "You think you're funny, but I had to throw away a perfectly good crinoline underskirt just this past weekend."
Before attempting the portal spell, she'd been ready, willing, and able to have a dark-as-her-soul cup of coffee. The false start and near-disaster had her reaching for the chocolate syrup and cinnamon powder, however. She dumped copious amounts of both in her mug, nearly overflowing it, while she took stock of her friend. "You look" more human. No. less likely to need a hotline. NO. Goddess. Time and place, and this didn't seem like either for that kind of humor. Not yet, anyway. "—better."
Tim snorted at that comment. “Magic yourself a new one.” He wiggled his fingers at her as he took a casual sip of his coffee. He knew most magic wouldn’t work that way, but whatever. It was a throw away comment anyway. He was just being a smart ass who didn’t have any powers.
He shook his head in mild amusement at her singular comment that obviously took her copious amounts of inner strength and shrugged. “I’m getting there.”
He still had his moments where things hurt, and were a lot; but there were reasons he was going back to therapy. “Starting therapy again so week old sweats weren’t on the acceptable clothing list unfortunately." A small smirk; he was climbing his way back to normalcy. At least one step at a time. “Besides, I couldn’t miss out on Spooky Season. What kind of bat would I be?”
Nico let her answering scowl be all the remark she deigned to give. Her lack of progress on the magical front was a sore spot. But she wasn't about to dwell on said spot, not when there was a former sad!boy to keep from backsliding into the emotional quagmire if she could help it. So she sipped at her coffee and listened without a hint of judgment. It didn't exist anyway.
At the end, though, she lost her fight with friendly concern and sat back with a delighted grin and a little clap. "Oh, my goddess! You are totally a sky puppy! That's it: new nickname. I don't make the rules. The universe has spoken. But I'm glad you're seeing someone. I probably should think about that, but who has time when you're trying to master the daaaark aaaarts?"
“...Sky...puppy?” He spoke the words slowly as if to try to process the way they sounded on his own lips. Still weird. But there was also a hint of amusement. “What exactly is a sky puppy...aside from me apparently, I mean?” Thankfully he had no plans on sliding back just yet, at least not if he could help it. He was kind of enjoying having a clear head for once. He could talk and not feel guilty about it.
“Yeah, well, it kinda hit me when I ran out of clean shirts a week ago I probably should start again. Though...I might not see Leo. Nothing against him I just..don't really want to get attached to someone who may disappear again... I don’t know, I might just go see some neutral third party.” Maybe that would work better. Someone they weren’t even associated with. It was a better idea in his head. He’d see how that went. “Appointments abound for several to test them out and try not to interrogate them.” He added with a small shrug and a little amusement. It was a fun little game he liked to play to see if his shrinks could keep up with him.
Pausing a moment to do a flurry of searching, Nico then thrust her phone at Tim to show him evidence supporting his new nickname while she loudly declared, "Sky-Puppy!"
The talk of therapy sobered her, but she kept the pictures of cute bats between them. If nothing else, they could serve as a distraction. "I'm sure this is in your stringent criteria for a decent therapist, but I'm just making sure you've thought about finding someone with the clearance to talk about stuff. Like being from a different universe, for starters. It's not going to help anyone if whoever you see writes you up—or off—as delusional. Have you tried asking anyone at the Consulate for a referral, or maybe through Pepper?"
The pictures amused him as well as her reaction. “Sky-puppy is apparently appropriate.” He shook his head with mild amusement as he scrolled to another image of a ‘sky-puppy’ and couldn’t help but to fawn over it a little. What, he wasn’t a monster. He had an appreciation for cute animals.
“Yeah, I got a couple referrals. I’d like to not end up 51/50-ed by my own therapist.” He shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize how many photos there were of sky puppies.” He looked entertained as the list went on. It was keeping him from drowning in his own depressing thought cycle. “Okay, I’m going to need you to send me everything on the sky-puppies.”
He let go of her phone screen to sip at his coffee. “I’ve been wanting to go take a look at some of the Halloween stuff around town. I mean, if you’re into a Halloween themed shopping day of sorts? There are things I need for both the new center and my own desk.”
"You've just never looked in the right places," she told him loftily, but smiled at him in the next second. "I'll send whatever I can find. It'll be our new meme group or whatever." Now didn't seem like a great time to admit that she was relieved he was keeping certain things in mind in his 'wellness journey'. Tim may have been one of the smartest people she knew—and Nico had been friends with Chase, Gert, and Alex—but he had a bad habit of not taking care of himself.
She took her phone back and slipped it into her pocket again, pretending to consider his shopping proposal. "I suppose I could do with a little bit of a wardrobe refresh. This is the only time of the year when I don't get weird looks. Well, I still do, but they're not as bad. I swear, though, I might curse anyone who says, 'Uh-huh-huh, Halloween's at the end of the month, sweetheart.' Just so you know. It might be a thing."
“Nearly was back home a few times...after Bruce disappeared. The most recent time, I knew he was alive, but nobody believed me. So I keep looking for the right person to do this with until I find them.” Not everyone was going to be a right fit, and he knew it. Therapy was like a weird little game like that. Not everyone was going to have his best interests at heart. “I thought I was past it, but…” He shrugged, maybe nobody got past needing therapy. Either way, it was a start. He was feeling well enough to be out in public without nose diving into an alcoholic beverage or ten.
Tim finished his coffee and put it aside with a warm smile. “If anyone says that, I won’t stop you.” He chuckled in amusement. “Hell, maybe I could dangle them from a rooftop like the old days.” He shook his head with a smirk as he stood up and pocketed his own phone. “...Don’t ask about the old days though.” He ran a hand through his hair and put away the nearby syrup into the cute little basket he’d found for all of them to live in. “Halloween was always my favorite. Crime never happened on that night actually, even in Gotham it’s like they took the night off for it.”
Nico shifted on her stool uncomfortably. She knew a thing or twelve about being gaslighted, but it wasn't something she wanted to talk about—especially when all it would probably do was kick off a "who had it worse" contest. Neither of them needed that. So unsteady she just sipped her coffee as he went on before shaking her head and setting the mug down again. "The quintessential 'easier said than done'." Nico sent a wry smile his direction. "Well, good luck finding a therapist you gel with. I mean it. All any of us want is for you to feel better, and to feel better about feeling better."
She snorted and finished off her own mug while Tim put away the coffee things. "You never tell me the fun stories. But I get it. I know i haven't told you all of mine." Well, she'd told him a lot, but she'd been skimpy on the details. It wasn't like she was in a hurry to get on the Tragic Memory Express, next stop Traumaville. "That's kind of crazy. It would be like… okay, I don't have a good analogy, but it seems pretty weird that a night of costumes and dressing up and the potential for no one to know who you are would turn a city like yours into a criminal playground. But what do I know? I'm from L.A., the city of dream and lies and liars. So, uh, anyway—when are we shopping?"
Tim also wasn’t a fan of that subject, so he just nodded. “Yep. I know. I get kind of… heady.” He wiggled his fingers at his own brain as if to emphasize the point. He got trapped in there sometimes. Finishing up putting away the coffee stuff so nobody else had to, he looked down at his Nightwing shirt and raised an eyebrow. “Guess I should technically give this back to my brother… but I’m not gonna.” So they were going shopping with Nightwing merch on. Well, he was anyway.
“There was this one time I left a guy hanging off a telephone pole with no pants because he tried to rob a woman at gunpoint. Figured it was fair trade. Nobody came to get him until morning, so his dick was just flopping around in the daylight for all to see until someone called the cops.” Tim didn’t even feel a little bad about that one. Just desserts as it were. “You would think it’d be All-You-Can-Rob like the buffet at Sizzler.” Tim had a few decent analogies. “Ah, L.A. City of plastic surgery. I’ll take Gotham. At least it’s colorful.”
Tim just smiled at her and shrugged. “We could go into the village, I saw some fun decorations and a couple bookstores I wanted to stop at.”
If she rolled her eyes, it was only because she didn't feel like commenting on his mental state any more than she already had. She found when people got down on themselves and she did her best to bolster them back up, but they proved resistant, it was better to just let it go. "His loss. Maybe you'll start a trend. Or no one will get the reference and just assume it's some art thing."
Nico started to laugh, but then made a face and shook her head. "I hope you realize that that was a mental image that I super didn't need in my brain, thanks. We need to work on your storytelling skills." She shrugged a shoulder, but couldn't fault the comparison. "Los Angeles has color—you just can't trust that it's not all manufactured anyway."
Leaning back against the kitchen island, she tilted her head in open confusion. "What, like Greenwich? Soho?"
“Probably the latter.” He shook his head in amusement and shrugged. He wasn’t much of a trendy type. And even if he was, he didn’t tend to hang out in fashionable areas of any city to be seen anymore. These days he was pretty low key about everything. Quieter, but without Peter around to draw him out, Tim found he had to do that on his own and it was a little harder than he expected.
“I know, I know, storytelling is more of Dick’s thing.” He mused as he leaned against the bar and thought for a moment. Tim wasn’t good at being chatty unlike his brother. “Gotham is mostly just…colorful.” He emphasized the colorful part. “All of it is fake...never heard any one person say nice things about that city."
He paused to scratch the back of his neck with a bit of a laugh. “I kind of miss it in a weird way sometimes. No messy Accords to deal with.”
They had their own government issues, but at least there wasn’t anything like that.
“I’ve been wanting to see Greenwich.” He imagined it’d be magical just based on name alone, Tim really hadn’t seen much of New York. His time there had been spent mainly locked away in Tony’s lab for the first half, and only recently was he starting to explore on this go round.
Nico pushed off and came around to her friend and took his arm. "All right, but you're driving one of those crazy-fancy cars."