dualislogs | They say it's your birthday.

WHO: Tim Drake and OPEN
WHAT: It's Tim's birthday. That doesn't mean he has to acknowledge it.
WHERE: Various Locations through Dualis
WHEN: July 19
WARNINGS: None yet!

Tim hasn't actually forgotten that it's his birthday. It's happened before and he'd been roundly mocked for it, but that's not the case today. It's just that he doesn't want to do anything about it. He gets up early and ducks out so that Cissie can't rope him into a birthday breakfast or something, and decides to spend the day really getting to know the new city he's found himself in.

It's not Gotham--nothing else could be--but there are parts of it that almost seem familiar, and he doesn't think he's going to have a chance to get bored here. People are people, no matter where and when they are, and there's always going to be something for a civically minded vigilante to do when they get together in numbers like these.

He finds the chess players in the park and watches for a while, then plays a few rounds with some strangers. He wanders through neighborhoods, and eventually even makes his way to a beach. Opts not to go swimming.

He knows he can't avoid Cissie and Steph and his birthday forever, but he feels like he's doing a pretty good job right now.

[Feel free to find Tim at any of the locations listed above, or any other place you think he might wander! He'll be eating foods and looking around getting to know the layout of the city, so anything is game! Even potentially rooftops if it's late enough!]

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They don't talk much, and Jason would be inclined to say that's mostly his fault - him and the other Jason Todds of the worlds who've been complete shitsacks to their respective Tim Drakes. Jason never met Tim before Wonderland, but he was told what his alternate selves did, and the secondhand guilt of that knowledge has effectively kept him from trying too hard to approach Tim. What would he say? "Sorry you got stuck with my evil twin"? Nah. Better to just stay out of his way. It's simpler for everyone.

But it's not Jason's style to run away, either, so he makes no move to leave when Tim asks his question. If there's a tentative, awkward peace between them, Jason means to keep it, even if he keeps his intention to himself.

"Tim," he says, acknowledging his successor's presence, and flicks the ash off the end of his cigarette, watching it drift into the wind current below winding around the building. The question is a curious one, and Jason traces his thumb along the edge of his bottom lip as he considers his answer. "I think ... this is the third place I've been tossed since I left Gotham, and at this rate, I dunno that I'm ever gonna go home again." He laughs dryly under his breath; yes, Gotham is his home city, but as far as a home? It's been a long time since he had that, and he's fairly certain it doesn't exist for him to return to anymore.

"Maybe that's for the best." He pauses to take in a lungful of smoke and slowly breathe it out, then glances to Tim and returns his question: "What do you think?"

There's a temptation to comment on cigarettes being bad for one's health and lung capacity, but statements like that are meant for some other Jason in some other time and place. Someplace where they have a history, where maybe he's not trying to make friends.

He lets it go.

"Second for me. Third, if what Cissie says is right, but I guess I got to go home after that one." He doesn't remember it. That doesn't mean he doesn't believe her, but it's hard to claim a shared experience when he can't recall any of it. "I guess the interdimensional travel train keeps on rolling, whether we want it to or not." He should probably be more mad that Cissie and Steph had dragged him along on a new adventure, rather than letting him go back to Gotham, but he's not. Gotham is in good hands. It will still be there when he gets back.

Probably. Assuming he makes it back, which is certainly not a guarantee.

"Hard saying without more information. I know I don't trust the beings in charge here. Kidnapping doesn't exactly bring out my warm and fuzzy side."

"Kidnapping's definitely not the best way to ingratiate yourself with people." Jason nods, thinking back to Gotham and his own stint of kidnapping the Joker to lure Bruce to Crime Alley. That, of course, was different. Jason didn't give a shit about making a good impression, just an effective one.

He pauses to take another inhale from the cigarette, slowly exhale, tap the ash off the end. Should he say what he's thinking of saying? If he were in Tim's place, with memories missing, Jason would want to know. So he continues:

"You were there in Wonderland with us. Damian too, but he disappeared soon after I got there. You were just a kid, and I had no idea who you were."

Jason stares out at the illuminated skyline, remembering that meeting in the library as the lit end of the cigarette smolders and the heat climbs closer to his fingers.

"It's probably better that you don't remember being there, 'cause I wasn't exactly the nicest guy in the world when you told me who you were."

He smiles thinly. "The more things change." He shakes his head a little. It's possible it could have gone as badly as it had in the past Tim does remember, but he feels like Cissie probably would have said something about it by now if it had. "As long as it didn't devolve into any major injuries, it probably went better than the ones I do remember."

And the less said about Damian the better, so--

"Sounds like you've been all over the Multiverse."

Yeah, Jason wasn’t overly enamored with Damian, even if Jon did say that Damian considered both him and Tim brothers. And while he may’ve said that to Jon, Damian was nothing but abrasive and confrontational with him, so. Yeah, the less said.

Jason frowns, looks down at his cigarette, and grinds it out on the rooftop ledge next to him. “Nah, no injuries,” he says, tone even more deflated. “I said I’d use your face as a punching bag if you got in my way, and you said you didn’t make a good punching bag, ‘cause you fight back.” Jason huffs a nearly-silent laugh and leans back with his hands propped behind him, both legs now stretched out to dangle over the ledge.

“Cissie told me what happened back in Gotham when I came back and found you wearing the suit.” He shakes his head. “That was real shitty.”

Which is about as close as he can get to an outright apology, at the moment. Happy birthday?

He blinks in surprise. It must be his birthday, because this is not a conversation he could ever have imagined having with Jason, even considering their current circumstances. He'd wanted it, or something like it, but had never been able to envision it, considering how well they didn't get along every time they happened to be in the same room.

He gives Jason a wry smile. "I got a few of my own in. Younger me was right--I don't make a very good punching bag. And that sounds exactly like something I would say if you had said that to me, so points for it probably being this version of me, rather than some other Tim Drake." Which is possible, but he can't help thinking about what Billy had said--about how it might not be that unusual for people who were scooped up in some weird multiverse adventure to keep on landing together in similar adventures. It seems to make some sense. He and Cissie and Jason had been together in Wonderland, then the Village, now here with a lot of the people from there. Maybe they'll just keep rolling down the hill of the Multiverse, collecting more and more people like some kind of freakish snowball.

He shakes his head, dismissing the thoughts. "Anyway, what happened back home? It was a long time ago."

Jason huffs a quiet laugh. "I would expect nothing less from another Robin."

For once, it doesn't hurt as much to acknowledge that he and Tim both held the same title, even if Tim did get to a point of considering both Dick and Bruce his friends, while Jason only had the bitter taste of disinterest left in his mouth from his post-resurrection interactions with them. Jason's always been an outsider, after all, so maybe it shouldn't have been so much of a shock to discover (in his perception) that he'd been unmourned and his death remained unavenged. And with time and distance to mull it all over, he can see that none of that is Tim's fault, so he shouldn't be punished for it simply by association.

"Besides, it sounds like I'm the one who started shit, so I'm sure I deserved it."

Tim... can't argue that. For all that he has been a willing participant in his and Jason's little feud in the years since it started, he definitely had not initiated it. There's been so much between them that hearing Jason call him Robin instead of "Replacement," and without sarcasm, is surprisingly affecting. It gets past his guard more than any of his other interactions with Jason have done, and he give him little grin. "One does what one can." His tone is pure Alfred, inviting Jason to share the joke.

They say it's your birthday.

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