I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter

[alreadywon]

WHO: Tim Drake + YOU!
WHERE: anywhere
WHEN: during the canon point plot shenanigans
WHAT: Thirteen-year-old Tim being Tim, investigating his life and doin' stuff. Catch-all log for the canon pull plot. Feel free to find him pretty much anywhere or PM me for an individual starter.
WARNINGS: Going to be some discussion of suicide with Ted.

Because Tim is Tim, he can't just leave his older self's stuff alone. There's a password-protected laptop with encrypted files on it in his apartment that he patiently works at until he can finally break in. Future him is building a database of what he knows about this world and their situation, criminals he knows are here, and even notes on people he wants find out more about.

Well, he might not be a fully-fledged Robin yet, but Tim can be good at information-gathering. He can at least do a little bit of that, so he picks out some of the things on his older self's to-do list and heads out to cross them off.

Comments

for Mabel~

[alreadywon]

One of the items on Tim Drake-Wayne's to-do list was to find out more about a Mabel Pines, who may or may not have supervillains for a family. (Is there such a thing as a Wellness Check for that?)

A little digging uncovers her workplace, a candy shop in Heropa. The good news is that he doesn't have to come up with an excuse for a thirteen-year-old to be visiting a candy store. Once he enters the store, he scans the store for her and starts browsing as cover for it.

Mostly cover. It seems like a shame to come all this way and not buy anything.

[glitterateur]

Should Mabel maybe not have come to work, considering the fact that half of her family is twelve and she's recently had a flashforward jam-packed with trauma? Well, yeah. But the store needs her plus it's a great way to keep her mind off of things. And avoid those smoke bombs Stan keeps producing.

When Tim walks in Mabel's busy putting the finishing touches on a new display. This magnificent pyramid made entirely of candy bars is her pet project, her baby. So she doesn't immediately abandon it when she spots a cute boy walk into the store. She waits a good thirty seconds before she falls to temptation, rushing over with her best flirty yet work appropriate smile.

"Hi can I help you find anything?! We've got a really great selection! If you're looking for Easter candy, retro candy, a girlfriend, gluten free stuff, you know, whatever."

[alreadywon]

His brain pauses a little at parsing a girlfriend but maybe that's a kind of candy? He hasn't heard of it, but this is a different world. (It doesn't... really occur to him that she might be hitting on him.)

It's the perfect opportunity to start a conversation, at least. "What counts as retro candy?"

[glitterateur]

Tim Drake, you innocent angel. This isn't the first time one of her lines has flown right over a boy's head, though, so Mabel rolls with it. He's not edging away from her or running for the door! This is a good sign.

"Candy buttons, wax bottles with sugary water in them, basically anything you think you could find at the bottom of an old lady's purse. But the stuff we sell is obviously pre-purse! It's never been in anyone's purse, promise."

[alreadywon]

He wrinkles his nose a little - old lady's purse candy doesn't sound especially appetizing. How is a wax bottle with sugar water even candy? "What would you recommend?"

[glitterateur]

Mabel grins, holding up a finger and darting back to her candy bar pyramid for a second. When she returns she has an array of brightly colored chocolate bars fanned out in front of her like a deck of cards for his perusal.

"These! Kapow Chocolate is my favorite brand. They put all kinds of cool weird stuff in their candy! Like pop rocks and potato chips and waffle bits."

[alreadywon]

"That does sound good." Okay, so candy might not be the actual point of this trip, but that doesn't mean he can't get any, right? So he can definitely snag a couple from her offering to take a look. "Do they make them where you're from?"

for Ted

[alreadywon]

One of the most worrying things from his older self's notes were the notes on Ted Kord. He'd been found dead from a gunshot wound back at home, which was investigated and ruled as suicide. Older him was really worried that Ted might still be suicidal but didn't have a solid plan about how to help him.

Well, Tim now has probably even less ideas of how to help him but Ted Kord needs him, so he finds Ted's address and knocks on his door with nothing but an earnest desire to help and also some candy. Mabel was really helpful on that front.

[deadkord]

If there's one thing Ted isn't upset about, it's being alive. But no one ever told him people thought he had killed himself (Thanks Booster, thanks Peej), so he'd just chalked Tim's previous odd behavior around up him to the fact that the kid was a Robin. You don't come through that much time around Bats without some issues, right?

Anyway, Ted answers the door with a pair of welding goggles stuck on the top of his head, gloves still on his hands.

"Uh... Tim?" He's pretty sure Tim wasn't barely pubescent the last time he saw him. What the hell?

[alreadywon]

"Hi, Mr. Kord," Tim says, kind of all in a rush because oh gosh it's Ted Kord it's Ted Kord!!!! He somehow manages to push through the desire to freeze up because Ted Kord!!! because Ted Kord needs him. "Can I come in, please?"

[deadkord]

"Only if you don't call me 'Mr. Kord'."

He steps aside, though, letting Tim in. There's a burnt sort of smell coming from a room towards the back of the apartment.

"Make yourself at home," he says, disappearing briefly into that back room, before coming back out sans gloves and goggles. "Sorry about the smell, I was working on something for my gun. Amplifying the light pulse for the blinding shot." He shrugs. Tim's a gadget person, he knows how it is, right?

[alreadywon]

Well, once upon a time, he will. Tim's read about this stuff, but he doesn't have personal experience yet. He kind of backpedals slightly, though, because if Ted is working, then - "Are you busy? I can come back later."

[deadkord]

Ted waves a hand, dismissing the thought. "It's fine, I'm at a good stopping point." What he really means is if he didn't have an interruption, he'd probably forget to take a break for several hours and/or days, so it's a good thing someone stopped by.

"So," he says, taking a seat on the couch. "You're noticeably smaller than the last time we talked. I hear that's going around."

for Dick~

[alreadywon]

At this age, Tim is really used to minimal adult supervision if any at all, so it just didn't occur to him that maybe he should have said something to Dick before disappearing for a large portion of the day. He had important Things To Do. Plus some exploring and maybe a tiny bit of photography because c'mon, he's in another universe!!

So yeah, it's pretty much dark by the time he makes his way back to Dick's place. That's cool, cause there is clearly No Possible Reason anyone could object to a thirteen-year-old having wandered off on his own for that length of time.

[wing_it]

Even if he hasn't had to personally experience the 'concerned parent waiting on the living room sofa for a kid to get home past curfew' cliche, it's probably hard-coded somewhere in Dick's DNA. Because when Tim gets home, that's exactly what he's doing. If he was really worried, he would have called or texted or something. That's what he'd told himself, anyway, despite the tight, anxious knot in his stomach.

He mutes the television, glancing up without getting to his feet. Keep it casual, don't lecture the kid. "Out kind of late for your day job. Busy evening?" Great, Dick, good job not sounding like a worried mom.

[alreadywon]

Is Dick mad at him? He doesn't look mad, but he looks... unhappy, and Tim can't really think of anything he could have done to upset Dick. Tim's primary personal experience with this particular situation is based on books and movies and stuff, so yeah, he's not quite connecting anything yet. "Kind of? I had some stuff I wanted to look into."

[wing_it]

"What kind of stuff?"

It's funny, how Dick can hear the edge that would have annoyed him as a kid creeping into his own voice. He'd evolved somewhere along the way, taking up the mantle of team leader, losing first his successor, then his teammate, then his best friend. But he was also three years younger just last week, and if that doesn't lend a unique perspective, he doesn't know what would.

"You know," he amends, "you don't have to sneak out on me. If that's what you're worried about."

[alreadywon]

"I wasn't...?" Sneaking or worried about it, although now Tim's wondering if he should have been. "I had some notes and things from... when I'm older. I. Um. He wanted to check if someone was okay, so I went and did it."

He fidgets a little, uncertainly. "Did I do something wrong...?"

[wing_it]

"No, no." Dick waves a hand, dismissing the idea. "Look, I'm not mad, don't misunderstand. I was just..."

He really doesn't want to admit it. He really really doesn't. But with something almost approaching sheepishness, he finally manages, "Worried."

[khajidont]

Just because a lot of seriously strange things are going on doesn't mean that people suddenly stop committing crime. No matter what odd things happen to them, Jaime likes one bit of consistency in his life, and that's going on patrol, even if it does mean just flying around.

It's a slow night, which means he's done a whole lot of mundane things. He stopped a mugging, scolded a shoplifter at a local business, helped an old lady with her cat, and, surprisingly, helped some dude twist one of his pipes back into place so his leak wasn't so bad. (Look, he asked, and Jaime never has it in his to say no.)

Jaime winds up landing on the rooftop that Tim's on, holding a drink that the old man had insisted on giving him (from his country, he said, and Jaime didn't have the heart to say no) and as he sniffs it suspiciously, wonders aloud, "Does this have alcohol in it...?"

Of course, almost immediately after speaking, he realizes that he's not alone.

"Oh. Hi."

Man, rooftops sure are crowded these days.

[alreadywon]

"Hi." Tim'd gotten used to climbing to weird places even before Bruce starting training him to be Robin. You have to find some difficult-to-reach hiding spots if you want to get a good angle and be reasonably hidden from discovery.

He's not trying to hide now, though, just wanted to get the view on the rooftop. He tilts his head at the hero that just touched down; he's pretty sure this is the new Blue Beetle from his older self's notes. "You probably shouldn't drink it. If you don't know what's in it."

[khajidont]

"That's a very good point, and you should probably follow that rule for the rest of your life. Just, you know, for reference," Jaime says, because number one? This kid's small. And number two? He needs to differentiate between what he does and what he says, because almost immediately afterwards, he takes a sip of the drink.

Hey, nobody said that he was smart.

"Soooo... whatcha doing hanging out on a rooftop? I'm here 'cause I can fly, but I'm betting it was kind of a bigger hassle for you."

[alreadywon]

"I like the view. Do you feel okay?" Tim asks, because he grew up in Gotham, okay, and Gotham has a history with mind-altering drugs. Or, Jaime could have just poisoned himself.

[khajidont]

Jaime has to laugh at that. "I'm telling you to do as I say and not as I do 'cause I have a suit that tells me when things are poisonous. It doesn't like it when I eat McDonalds. I promise, it's fine. Just a little funky tasting."

Jaime finds a nice little ledge on the rooftop, and hops onto it so he can sit comfortably and enjoy (or, really, consume; he's not sure if he likes it or not yet) his drink. "The biggest warning it's given me is trace amounts of cinnamon."

[alreadywon]

"What else can it tell you about what's in it?" Tim peers at him curiously. "Can it tell you what's in anything?"