entrancelogs | [open] so far away from knowing where i'm going

Entry tags:

[open] so far away from knowing where i'm going

Who: Tiny Tim Drake and YOU
Where: Throughout the Mansion
When: Throughout the event.
Rating: PG
Summary: Tim is tiny, confused, and trying to understand what's happening.
The Story:

Tim three years old, and he is Not Happy. He's in a strange place, and he'd woken up in a strange bedroom, and nothing is right at all. He's not a baby, so he's not going to cry, but he would very much like to find his bedroom and his house, and… well, he would settle for anything familiar just about now. He wants nothing to do with the dinosaurs outside. He's a Gotham child, and something like that is definitely Bad News.

He wanders, inside. He's more likely to observe than to approach anyone, but if approached, he will be Very Polite. He knows how he's supposed to behave, and his parents' apparent absence doesn't change that one bit. He does what he's supposed to. He is polite, and he eats his vegetables and he takes his naps and he goes to bed on time.

Of course, where he does those things may vary. He doesn't know where he is, and the place he woke up was clearly wrong, so there's no need to return there. He'll nap wherever is convenient when he gets tired in the afternoon, and go to bed in the same manner. And of course sleeping is another matter entirely.

He tries, but he has nightmares. Screaming nightmares. Every time he closes his eyes.

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Cissie has been looking for her friends. She's starting to wonder, looking around the Mansion, if she's one of the only "adults" left around here for this event, and she's not sure if she's grateful for it or not. The dinosaurs outside are... more than a little concerning, given Wonderland, and given not being able to find her friends and... having no idea how old they might currently be. If she knew even that much, she'd at least feel better about the possibility that they might be trusted to stay inside, away from said dinosaurs... But she has to find them first, before she can lay into them about staying safely away from the Jurassic Park reenactment happening around them.

She heads to the library eventually, both because she's hoping maybe someone she knows could be there and because... well, if she's going to have to venture out--or if the dinosaurs somehow venture in--then she needs to know something about them. And whether arrows are going to make even the slightest dent in a freaking T-Rex's skin.

Never mind a raptor's.

She's browsing the shelves when she hears a noise, and stops to listen. It starts off quiet and then gets louder, until she realizes that it sounds like someone having a really intense nightmare. She moves quickly, rounding a corner and looking around to see who it is, but she doesn't see anything at first. And then she spots a very tiny child, curled up asleep under one of the tables nearby.

Cissie doesn't even think, she just reacts; no one that little deserves to have a nightmare that's this obviously bad. She gets down on the floor and crawls under the table with him, setting a hand gently on his shoulder, hoping to wake him without causing too much trauma.

"Hey there, kiddo. It's okay. You're dreaming," she says softly, keeping her voice calm and low. She's fully prepared to move quickly should this child turn out to be some tiny assassin or something. But she just can't leave him here like this.

He jerks awake and looks at her with wide eyes. He doesn't really know how to tell time yet, but he knows he had been tired, and that when he's tired, it's probably time for a nap, so he'd found someplace quiet to sleep. Libraries are always quiet. He guesses he was probably loud, though, if someone is waking him up--not that he's sorry she'd done it. The dreams he's been having since the circus are... really bad. His heart is still pounding, and he's shaking.

"I'm sorry." He wipes at his eyes. "It was a dream."

"Don't be sorry, it's okay. We all have dreams sometimes," she says gently, wishing she had a tissue on her or something. She keeps her hand on his shoulder, hoping to lend just a little comfort. "Sounds like it was a pretty bad one. My name is Cissie. What's yours?"

He nods. He doesn't want to talk about it, but it's definitely a bad dream. "Tim," he says, answering her question. "Tim Drake. It's very nice to meet you."

It takes pretty much all of her admittedly rusty acting skills to not show her surprise when he says his name, or to not reach out and pull him into her lap for hugs, since he so obviously could use some. Tim's okay with her hugs now, but that's now that he's an adult and he knows her. He's tiny and young, and it kind of breaks her heart a little.

Instead, she smiles and offers a hand to shake. "It's very nice to meet you too, Tim. I'm sorry about waking you."

Not that sorry, given the nightmare, especially now that she knows who he is. But it's worth saying.

He gives her a solemn look in return. "I'm not sorry. I don't like nightmares, and I was probably loud." He leans in toward her. "You're not supposed to be loud in the library. I know that."

He's completely serious and adorable and it hurts a little bit, because even though he's so small, she can see a little of the person he's going to grow up to be.

She leans in to him and lowers her voice. "I think this particular library is used to loud noises happening from time to time. And nightmares are always a good reason to make noise. That way someone knows to come wake you, right?"

He frowns. Well. It's true that he would rather not have his nightmares any longer than he has to, so maybe it's good that he makes noise if it means someone can wake him up, but he's still sorry to have disturbed anyone.

"...I've never been to a library where it was okay to be noisy before," he says finally.

She smiles at him. "Well, weird things happen sometimes, even in libraries. The librarian here is super nice and I think she'll forgive noises from bad dreams. I don't think we should play tag or anything, but talking like this is okay. Do you like libraries?"

He nods happily, straightening a little. "I love libraries. There's always a new book to read." Well. He isn't reading much on his own yet. A few words here and there. But he likes the picture books, and the children's librarian is very friendly and always happy to help him.

If she wasn't already smiling, she would be now. Tim is charming; it's the only word she can think of. She just wants to hold him and protect him and not freak him out, and she's more than a little concerned about how he's going to react once this is over and he's himself again. "Books are pretty great. What do you like to read about?"

"Um." He thinks about that for a minute, thinking about his favorite books in the library. "I like the ones about the Justice Society!"

Cissie can't help herself; she laughs, and leans over to ruffle his hair. "Of course you do. I bet you love superheroes, huh?"

Good thing the manor's going to fix itself because when ~~Superboy~~ Superman hears a small child screaming, he wastes no time slamming right through the door, smashing it to smithereens.

"What's going on? You in trouble, kid?" He punches his hand. "Who I gotta punch?"

Tim jerks awake and stares at him with wide eyes. His nightmare is still very, very real to him, but.

"...Are you Superman?"

He gives the kid a megawatt grin, striking a pose. "That's right, kid. Maybe not the one and only, but certainly the coolest. You need help?"

He scrubs at his face with his hands. "I'm okay. I had a bad dream." But he giggles a little at the pose Superman is striking. It looks a little silly.

"Oh. That doesn't really sound like a job for Superman." But still he takes a seat next to the kid on the bed. "Wanna talk about it?"

The grin fades, and he looks down, frowning. "It was the falling dream." But Superman's not going to know what that means. "I was watching and... and they fell. Both of them. And they died. And then I was falling, too." He looks up at him again. "But I'm not a baby. I'm okay."

He has no idea who they are, but Superman knows a thing or two about people falling. "Hey, it's okay." He pushes himself off the bed and into the air. "Cause I'm here now, and if you fall? I'll totally catch you before you can get hurt."

He gives him a little smile. "Okay." Well. Superman had been there for his nightmare very quickly. He might be able to help him--not that Tim is planning on going any high places. That would be a very Bad Idea. He wonders if the Graysons would have been okay if Superman had been there that night. Maybe. Maybe not. Batman was there, and he hadn't been able to stop it. "Do I have to yell for you?"

"It'll probably help." He reaches over and scruffs Tim's hair. "But I'll be keeping an eye out, okay?" He leans forward, still balancing in the air. "Check it out, I'm really good at catching things cause of this great power I have."

He drops a hand to the bed and lifts it--and Tim--up.

"Tactile Telekinesis!"

Tim grips the edge of the bed in panic when it moves, but then he realizes that he's being steadied himself by an invisible hand. He beams at Superman. There's no way he can fall like this! "This is amazing!"

Superman grins as he puts the bed down gently. "Yeah, being a superhero's pretty great. Uh.... here."

He goes over to the closet. He means to see if he can find a jacket he can draw on S on or something, but as he's thinking about jackets, he actually pulls one just like his from the closet. He blinks. Is textile telekinesis another power he has that he didn't know about? Well. He can at least pretend he did it on purpose. He grins and goes over to Tim, putting the oversized jacket around the kid's shoulders.

"Now you don't have to be scared, right? You got Superman on your side."

The jacket is so huge on him that it would be dragging the floor if he tried to walk in it, and he doesn't care at all. He pulls it tighter around himself (like a hug) and grins up at Superman happily. "Thank you."

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[open] so far away from knowing where i'm going

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