Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Till hid behind a crate in a small moving ship, rehearsing his plan. 

All he had to do was disable the one or two Segyin who’d be running the ship and then hotwire the ship itself to get to a meet up with some new rebellion members and some kids that had been 'yoinked'. They just needed transport and, apparently hotwiring an old Keul ship would be the most convenient way to do it.

Plus it would serve as a nice- almost symbolic- stunt if anyone was able to trace this back to the Rebellion, unlikely as it was that someone would notice. 

Till may have loved stunts, but he was still good at his "job" if he did say so himself

Hearing the doors to the ship close, Till quietly listened for footsteps. Two pairs: one larger, probably hired muscle. One smaller, probably the one actually driving the ship. Segyin loved putting themselves in categories and it made it easier to classify who did what. Till nodded to himself and made sure his helmet was fastened properly. No need to show off his face. 

Then he grabbed a loose piece of pipe and jumped at the larger alien once the ship door was locked. This specific species had a brittle skeleton and large amounts of musculature, so one well-placed hit on the back of the skull with the pipe and it crumpled like wet paper almost immediately. 

It was rather gross, all thin shattered bone jutting out awkwardly from its thick skin and stark blue blood beginning to pool at his feet. It was nasty, and while vindicating would not be good for appearances if seen. Till simply dumped the Alien into a previously emptied box. Not noticing that the other alien had already changed its attention to Till and moved to press something on the console. 

Till swung at the smaller alien, hearing the satisfying crunch of brass knuckles against bone. It fell limply against the console, slamming against it with a Thud in its descent. It attempted to crawl away, pathetic as it was.

Ugly, pathetic thing. Segyin had never shown humans a modicum of decency. Why would Till of all people be the one to offer mercy?

He knew the cruelties of the inhuman with far more depth than any person should ever wish to possess. Taking this depth, he had turned it into fire, that fire into justice. A system in which he acted as sole judge, jury, and executioner. No Segyin was safe from his wrath, and no Segyin ever would be.

For each pain that they had caused to Till, he would repay it a hundredfold. It was only the mildest retribution he could provide, but a worthy one nonetheless.

As for that disgusting, crawling thing, Till had 'unfortunately' already jumped on it, hitting the alien in the chest over and over and over until it wasn’t even able to twitch.

The second Segyin was placed in the same box as the first and locked tightly away to make sure none of the people he’d be picking up would see a corpse. 

The grey haired man then went up to the console, crouched down, and tugged open the panel. Exposing the wiring under it. He cut a few wires deliberately before something started sparking.

Perfectly normal situation, honestly. Hotwired ships, especially older models, did that kinda thing a lot. He just needed to tie together those two wires, the sparking didn’t even bother him. A benefit of his messed-up nerves, all things considered.

He finished up his work and stood up, wiping imaginary dust from his pants (for a model this old, the ship is weirdly clean).  He looked back down at the console and saw him .

He was laying stomach-down on the console like an idiot, kicking his stupid white dress shoes back and forth like an excitable child. Lips pulled into a seemingly ‘endearing grin’. Stupid snaggletooth sticking out, eyes filled with that ugly red center.

“Whatcha doing Till ?”

The pipe was back in Till’s hand before he could even think, already slamming down into the console where his head should’ve been. He flickered out of vision and back in near the emergency stop button. Spreading his arms open like he was going to give Till a hug, eyes gleaming unnaturally. Blood dribbled down his chin slightly. A stark contrast to that dumb white outfit . 

“You really 𝗺̘̚𝗶̘̚𝘀̘̚𝘀̘̚𝗲̘̚𝗱̘̚ 𝗺̘̚𝗲̘̚ , huh?”  

Till didn’t even register that he was trying to be funny. Swinging the pipe again so it would go clean through his head. Once again he disappeared, appearing right behind Till and wrapping his arms around the man. 

His head was resting on top of Tills, a phantom sensation of a sharp chin poking him in the head.

He had always been tall enough to do that, even now he was still taller than Till. even now. 

“You’re so mean~”  a pout was easy enough to hear in his voice. 

“As if you have any right to be upset” 

“You wound me Till, I thought we were friends”  

Hands creeping up to his throat

Constricting 

“Very, very, very good friends.” 

Help- I can’t breathe- I can’t breathe-

“Weren’t we Till?”  

What is he doing? This wasn’t a part of the round- he’s not supposed to have done that-

No

NO

LET ME SAY GOODBYE PLEASE– 

I NEED TO SEE HIM ONE LAST TIME–

DON’T TAKE ME AWAY

I SHOULD BE THE DEAD ONE-

IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME–

STOP

PLEASE I’M BEGGING YOU

STOP

His hands come off his neck.

He’s gone. 

Good. 

Till can get back to work then. Take stock of what he has to do now and ignore whatever that just was. Usually when he disappears like that, the peace lasts for a day or two. Till’s better at holding him off than he was seven years ago after all. 

Not much better, but that was just because that… person had always had too much power over him.

The console is sparking and the emergency stop button is wrecked. 

Lovely.

Till didn’t need the emergency stop button anyways.

The sparking console probably isn’t a good sign, but he can salvage it. 

Probably. 

Let’s see… maybe flipping around some wiring and-

His hand presses down on a button. It’s probably fine… right?

Nope. 

 The ship launches itself upwards at top speed, slamming Till into the other end of the vehicle. He huffed, trying to fight gravity but finding it almost impossible to move from his spot. The ship kept moving until stopping with seeming abruptance, finally giving Till a moment to breathe and move. He looked out the window, trying to figure out where he was, eyes widening.

Oh, that’s not good. 

I’m out of atmosphere! Does my com even work? 

I need to let the others know to not be completely useless. 

The hunk of metal and wiring certainly worked, but just barely. He could maybe send one message before he got out of range. Supposing it would be best to send something utilitarian a quick:  ‘in space somehow, unlikely to ever come back. Send someone else to pick up the people because I currently can't.’ Would hopefully suffice.

 He hit send, seeing his comm light up with a hundred different messages that he would ignore for his own sake. The more important thing was to get the ship turned back to the direction that was hopefully the planet.

Till only has hope. When he almost died it was just hope that stopped him from dying. It was only hope that had let him survive until getting treatment. It was only hope that let him get through each day without breaking down and facing everything that had happened to him in that damned tournament.

The console wasn’t working anymore. 

That was a problem. 

A major fucking problem considering that he is in the middle of space, drifting into nowhere with who knows how much oxygen and no food nor water to sustain himself with! 

There’s no way anyone will come and get him and even if a ship does pick him up, Till will probably just end up getting forced into being a pet again. And he is not doing that again. 

Never again.

He moves down to the wiring to try and fix what’s wrong with the ship and just finds that over half of it is absolutely fried. It’s no good, none of it is usable at this point. 

Lovely.

Till slides down the wall of the ship and puts his head in his hands, he doesn’t want to die up here, not seeing any of his friends or pseudo-kids ever again. Dead in some random ship with just some things and the bodies of random aliens shoved in a box. At least he has his soundboard… he can play a stupid sound from his helmet before he dies or something. 

Hilarious.  

Despite how normalized it had been in his little world, Till had always feared death. The feeling had only gotten worse after Round 6, considering… Everything .

How anything in this situation made him think about that, he had no idea. Maybe it was the despair, the depressive atmosphere, the high chance he was going to die. At least there was no stupid song and no stupid black haired obsessive –

Till shook his head, uneffectivley clearing his mind and not particularly helping his spiral. Which was justified, considering that he was going to die on some random ship in the void of space for crying out loud! 

Till was a failure, a terrible horrible failure, and everything from this situation had proved this.

If he’d kept his temper in check he wouldn’t have reacted how he did.

If he was better, Till would’ve been able to fix this issue.

Till is supposed to be better than that. He’s the big scary human who attacks Segyein mercilessly. He’s a wanted criminal for crying out loud! How could he be so stupid?

Till was supposed to die a martyr. It was the least he could do after surviving for so long.

But he’d  always just been a stupid idealistic boy, hasn’t he.

Till was never good for anything, the most he could do is pretend by rebelling and following a cause led by people better than him. 

Well, if I’m going to die anyways… I might as well take a nap. I’m sure it would be better to be asleep once the eventual lack of oxygen takes me. Probably less painful as well. 

He wakes up… some point later to a loud tearing or sort of banging noise, like someone punching metal. As well as frustrated screaming of... some sort?? Though that thought is quickly filed away and briskly forgotten when the ship begins to shake and contort. Till looks out the window and sees an oddly shaped mass of lightless space, anything around it contorting towards the center. 

A black hole?
But those don't look like that- 

Black holes are perfect circles, this one is strange, looking more like a hole you'd get in a shirt, all torn around the edges.

But even if it's a strange black hole... it's still acting like one and pulling the ship towards it.

The tear in space is pulling the ship towards it...

Wait

The tear in space is pulling the ship towards it???

The ship is being pulled into a black hole of sorts-

Oh no.

oh hell no.  

He was prepared to die of suffocation, or of his lungs exploding, or starvation, or dehydration. Something normal all things considered. Something that had been a chance before and he could rationalize. But being turned to metaphysical spaghetti was not something that Till could prepare for! He supposed he would just have to accept his fate and-

The world melted into long strings of color and sounds and light. Everything that was around him shrunk and expanded infinitely into all directions. 

Till’s throat burned, as if his vocal chords were rearranging and making space for something new to burst out of his throat like some freaky jack-in-the-box made of blood, sinew, and flesh. He wondered half-deliriously if it would make that stupid chiptune song as it wound up, if it would come out from the bottom with a sickening  pop, crunch, snap of bone and the rip of flesh.  

It was a funny thought, making an almost manic laugh bubble up in his throat before being shot down by the scorching pain drowning his nerves.

Till’s body felt fundamentally wrong, as if someone had taken a seam ripper to the very fabric of his existence. Everything twisted and contorted, colors too bright and too dark. His head spinning, ears ringing, teeth itching all the way into the roots.

 Till wanted to simultaneously claw his eyes out and find a cold quiet place to crawl into and die. But he couldn’t move, his body wasn’t his own. Like Till was floating a yard away from his body and barely holding onto it at the points where he felt that searing unbearable pain. 

The feeling lasted what felt like an eternity and less than a second at once before it stopped. All feeling was gone. It was nice, floaty, quiet. Till didn’t mind it honestly. 

This was the first time he’d ever felt at peace. 

True peace, not the fake, eternal happiness type, the sort of peace where he no longer felt anything nor longed for anything.

An empty blankness of white void and fleeting color, space, shape, and emotion. perfectly neutral with no deviation.

 Not too bright, not too dark, no feeling other than a persistent itch in his nerves and that still burning sensation in his throat and diaphragm.

 It was irritating his scars and making all his old injuries feel fresh. Almost like being turned inside-out.

Yet, Till couldn’t find it in himself to care, it was nice floating in this void. Comfortable and soft, a weighted blanket made of static balming his worries and filling his head with cotton. 

He truly hoped it would stay like this forever, but Till's never been on good terms with lady luck. Everything would crash back into a dingy, disgusting feeling soon enough. 

The world once more feels real and solid. 

The world now smells of rust, metal, blood, the faint tinge of alcohol and vomit among other things feeling sharp and assaulting Till's senses even through the supposedly airtight ship. 

He sits up cautiously, nerves feeling raw, his skin tinged pink like a newborns. He stretched carefully, everything on his body feeling too-tight and wrong. Eyes aching and feeling like the capillaries within them had burst and reformed at once.

Where the hell am I?

Chapter Text

Okay, take stock of your surroundings first

Till is still in the ship, which is now in some sort of warehouse. 

Strange. 

The black hole must’ve transported him to another planet somehow. Till didn’t know how it would’ve worked since his education hadn’t been valued much. It’s not like he knew anything about physics that could explain this. 

Either way, someone might come into the warehouse so Till should probably gather what he can from the ship.

Wait- wait a second.

Something is wrong.

Well, no shit he just got pulled through a black hole but-

Everything is weirdly sized now.

The proportions of everything around him are wrong, and now that he’s no longer preoccupied with other more important things… he can assume that this isn’t anything good

He takes his helmet off and uses it to get a look at his reflection. Maybe it’ll help give him some clearance

He’s fifteen years old. 

That is his fifteen year old body.

With all his current scars and damage sure, but that’s still how he looked at fifteen.

What the hell

That is wrong. Disgusting even. 

How is Till supposed to get anything done now? He’s so screwed. It’s going to be so painfully easy to be turned back into a pet now.

His knees feel weak and he’s suddenly on the floor, world tilting with vertigo and spinning around him. 

He hits the floor with an oomph! And all the air is knocked out of his lungs.

At least the floor of the ship is blissfully cold. He might just stay here for a while…

He sighs, supposing that he was always all sorts of noodle limbed as a kid, guess even with some of his modern features crossing over into his childhood body it seems his lack of strength as a child stayed.

Would that mean that he lost his ability to ride his bike?

If he can’t do that anymore he’s going to cry. That bike along with his guns are his biggest advantages against Segyin. He probably can’t use either now… ugh.

This is potentially one of the worst days of his life.

Though, there’s no reason to make it worse. He has things to do, maybe he can figure out where he is, and how to get home and back to his usual body. 

With that plan settled, he lays on the floor for a minute before pulling his fraying determination together to start grabbing things from the ship that could help him into his backpack, and getting out of there for the time being.

His helmet was packed away because it wasn’t needed anyways. His motorcycle was left in the ship but hidden so he could come back to it later. As much tech and charging cables packed into his backpack as possible, and the crate with the bodies hidden more in the corner. The last thing Till did was a sweep to look for anything interesting and found nothing of note. 

Then the backpack was hidden in the corner so it’d be easier to hide and Till slunk out of the ship.

Looking around the warehouse. It wasn’t like the ones he was used to back at ‘home’. It was too rusty, too dingy, and completely empty.  

The ship stuck out like a sore thumb with how clean it was compared to all this . Now that his helmet was off and he was out of the ship; the assaulting smells of blood, rot, and vomit were a lot more obvious. It was disgusting and sharp and unmistakably real. 

Till certainly wasn’t dead then, everything felt too real to be some sort of strange post-mortem hallucination. That means there’s more to explore, information to get, that kind of thing. 

He really hopes that he understands whatever language they speak on this planet. He never did learn if there was some sort of universal space language. He should've asked back at ANAKT but... eh, he hadn't felt like it then.

Too busy perfecting his skills, too busy hoping for the love of someone slowly drowning in their affections for another.

Only for those affections to be ripped out of both their chests, a grotesque bloody screaming thing ripped from the sternum, vaugley approximating a beating human heart.

Though, their hearts had long been rotted out with this faux-devotion, hadn't they?

Till lets himself stew in self-deprication as he walks through back alleys and tries to stay out of view. The streets are strangely empty for how decent of a day it appears to be. It’s about noon based on the vague position of the planet’s sun, hidden by smog and pollution as it is. 

This entire planet is disgustingly polluted from what he’s seen so far. Till is going to miss looking at the stars, even with how much light pollution the old planet had had, Till’d always been able to see the stars. It was nice. The stars visible from this planet would probably be different though anyways.

Not that it mattered, he didn’t deserve to have something nice like that. He needed to figure out where he was.

The grey-haired man- or, he supposed he was a boy now. Maybe a teen if he wanted to be pedantic… he’s getting off topic.

He realized that he had wandered up to some random building and looked around to where he’d ended up. 

Whatever language they used on this planet, Till hadn’t seen it before but, at least he could understand it for some reason. Maybe the black hole messed with his brain enough to learn a new language? 

That was… oddly considerate compared to everything else. 

For now at least. 

Supposedly, he’d ended up at some sort of a... uh... public library. He wasn’t quite sure what a ‘Gotham’ was, but perhaps that was the sector he was in? 

The name of some planet he didn't know?

It's not important, what is important is that if memory served him right, libraries had... books and files and computers, right? Till had never been to a library before, so that could be wrong. 

Going purely off of things he’d overheard from Segyin talking to each other at investor things or in idle conversation he’d overheard over the years, that would be his best shot at getting information based on the little he did know. 

He walked in, only to be greeted by- 

A human? 

That is a human female-

right?

He’s not seeing things, is he? 

It must just be a Keulibtanyum, right?

No, they all disappeared years ago- there's very few of them and those who do still exist, they wear masks and such so as not to look like disgusting lowly humans.

Besides; her pupils are circular, her hair didn't have that weird slimy undercurrent, her body wasn't disproportionately muscular...

So it can't be one of those

Therefore...

Nononono- that's not right.

It just can't be a human

Unless...

Is she being made to work here? Is she some sort of decoration or mascot? 

She does look preferable. Bright red hair is a good standout feature for branding, her skin is unmarked but her name is probably embedded somewhere under the sweater she’s wearing… 

Huh, green eyes. Till hasn’t seen those before. Maybe it’s some sort of genetic preference from her handlers. She is on the older side, so she must either be a beloved fixture or a diligent worker. Maybe he can get her out of here if he just- 

He can’t do anything, what is he thinking? Till is lacking all his modern day strength and no one would believe that he’s him . It’s not- it’s no good.

“Hey kid, do you need help with anything?”

Her voice isn’t made for singing.  And she’s good at being polite and normal. Good for her, it gives her quite a bit of immunity from dangerous circumstances.

 Not that she’d ever be truly safe, humans weren’t allowed that privilege. But maybe she'll be safer than others. Till could only hope her owners appreciated her.

Oh- Till has to respond- right!

“Oh- uhm- yes. I was wondering if I could use your computers?”

Please let this be how libraries work, please let this be how libraries work  

Till is going to lose his mind if this is how he gets caught. He’d never be able to live it down. But instead, she’s a very professional human. Trained well, good for her.

“Of course! No need to ask as long as you have a library card”

Oh- libraries need identification? Maybe he can bluff? No, that won’t work. Maybe he’ll try being honest and playing up how young he is now? 

This planet is weird and he doesn’t really know what he’s doing… but if he has seeming innocence, it’s probably safest to play it up.

“I don’t have a library card. Sorry ma’am” best to be respectful as well. It should help him keep his cover as a totally normal human child who has no connections to any rebellion whatsoever. Any more stress and his voice is going to shut down. 

Hopefully this goes quickly so he can just get on the computers.

“That’s alright then, I can let you use my card, come on. I’ll scan it for you" The woman smiles kindly and her voice softens incrementally, maybe unidentified humans are common or she’s part of a resistance on this planet? 

Both theories are viable… Till will have to look at the history of this planet to make more sense of it. 

She rolls out of the desk on some sort of chair-thing. Till’s never seen something like that before, it somewhat looks like medical rolling chairs but a lot more permanent. 

Were her legs disabled? That would be quite a way to keep a human docile. She must’ve been very feisty then. Till wonders offhandedly what she did. He won’t ask though, it would be rather impolite.

The walk to the computers is short, the computers themselves don’t look like anything Till has ever seen before. The screens are thick and chunky and everything about the computer feels rather clunky in general. Considering how sleek he knows tech can be, it's rather odd. But he’ll figure it out.

“Thank you” he just says simply once everything is set up for him. He gets a glimpse at her card, the woman's name is ‘Barbra’. 

Nice name, her owner picked a pretty suiting one.

“It’s no problem. The access is good for an hour, if you need the computer for longer than that, just let me know.”

And with that Barbra is gone. Till is free to look up whatever he wants. He’ll start simple.

History is a lot, but it gives him enough of a baseline to understand things. This planet seems to be Earth which it can’t be. Till knows for a fact that Earth is a lot more messed up and there aren’t any humans left on it… right? But- he did it! He found Earth! He… can’t share it with anybody.

Everyone else is still stuck on that planet- Till can’t even tell them how to get here… if the black hole disappeared he’s never going to get anyone to this better planet.

He can’t even get his ship back into the air because of how beat-up it’d gotten and because of how young he is. And if the black hole transport de-ages people… well, all the kids they’d rescued would probably turn into babies with full-grown consciousness’ which just wouldn’t be sustainable. 

Speaking of kids… Till misses his kids so damn much it hurts. He’s once again realizing he’ll probably never see them again and that hurts. 

He’s stuck on the planet they’d worked so hard to get to and he can’t share it. Till needs to get back, he can’t just be on the better planet- he doesn’t deserve it! He won’t be here without anyone to share it with! 

Till doesn’t deserve it at all! 

He’s never deserved anything this good. 

This is terrible. 

This is the worst possible outcome. 

Till is such a failure, he can’t do anything right.

He found it, but no one else can even know about it- this is so stupid.  

Till is so stupid

He needs to calm down, wallowing in his own issues won’t help. He has other things to look at and-

ALIENS?

THERE’S ALIENS

Till needs to calm down. But it’s not easy- he’s staring at a page about the history of Aliens on Earth-

Why are the Aliens being treated like good people? 

Like they would ever do anything good for humanity? 

No, no, they're so stupid here...

Aliens are disgusting, terrible, bad, horrible creatures- they don’t get a modicum of praise. And they shouldn’t have a whole article talking about the good they’ve done for humans! How any past discretions are fabrications made by... something called a twitter monkey?

Unimportant. The more important thing is the conclusions he needs to make.

His current assumption is that he on some sort of past-earth before colonization? No, that wouldn’t make sense. The aliens he’s seeing here are far too ‘nice’. 

Well, Till never learned how Earth had been taken over and destroyed in his own universe. Maybe the aliens are playing the long game? That must be it. Now what is this Justice League thing?

Heroes huh

That’s stupid. Even if they do good things, Aliens are allowed to be the primary defense for Earth . That’s so stupid! Aliens shouldn’t be allowed on earth, that’s so stupid! Aliens are evil , you idiots! 

Humans are so stupid! This is so dumb! 

He doesn't know what a the Kryptonian, Amazonian, Atlantean Aquaman, Thanagarian, or Martian is... but those clearly are not humans and that makes them bad.

Nothing with a lack of humanity should ever be trusted with shepherding humanity. 

He'd heard once, that humans are the root of pain, creatures who can’t seem to love without exploiting. Just as bad as any other species that had attempted and with honesty, succeeded to enslave them, though perhaps humans had been worse. Clinging to false innocence to no end, looking for some sort of noble cause to call their own. Truly, humans themselves are inherently corrupt and can barely take care of themselves independently without corruption. Powerful otherworldly beings who could crush humanity underfoot are just as corrupt as any other sapient. They don't belong within human culture. Truly, they should be expunged immediately and permanently.

Preferably with heavy weaponry. 

A few more searches to see if Earth has any sort of defenses against Segyin and...

Who’s this Lex Luthor guy… ?

Huh, not bad. He really likes this bald man’s philosophy honestly. Finally someone who isn’t stupid and blindly trusting. Just because the aliens are seemingly nice now means nothing. Till knows that fundamentally that aliens can’t be trusted.

He’s getting off track, he should probably look up what a ‘Gotham’ even is.

Alright, this city is apparently just weird. There’s a big problem with homelessness and crime, which would explain why he didn’t get any weird questions from Barbra about his lack of identification. 

There’s also lots of condemned buildings and stuff. Then there’s these things called rouges which are so weird- there’s some sort of plantamorphic Segyin type villain, there’s a crocodilian, a really really ugly human named after a bird, some ice-thing, and more clowns than is normal. Two clown themed bad guys is far too much. 

Maybe they ran out of ideas for unique gimmicks or something… who knows.

There’s also this bat-man-guy, who he saw when looking up the Justice League. Apparently there’s also a bird one? Robin or something. That one…oh. That one’s missing, presumed dead and this Batman just got a new one? That’s nasty. 

Children shouldn’t be treated as replaceable. 

Even if that appears to be a constant wherever he goes.

It reminds Till too much of his own past, he’d been threatened with death for misbehavior so many times and based on the description of Robin  he was rather rambunctious. 

Probably why he got killed huh. Must've been a setup from the Bat to get a better child

A more well behaved child

One who wasn't so difficult

Who didn't fight

Who sounded good

Not some kid who thinks he's a punk chasing an unobtainable-

Till needs to get the new Robin away from the Bat before something bad happens… he doesn’t know if he can pull it off but

he has to. No child should ever be left to-

The computer times out. It’s already been an hour, huh. He should get out of here then since he’s overstayed his welcome already.

He says goodbye to Barbra with a hopefully polite nod and heads out, she looks a little distracted, typing really fast on her computer and looking at something serious looking. The way she’s looking at him seems a little strange now, but he doesn’t pay it much mind. It’s more important to find somewhere to stay for the night. 

If his research was correct, then, there’s this ‘crime alley’ place with a lot of decommissioned buildings he can potentially take residence in for now. And since that area appears to be so decrepit and that Batman figure seems to ignore it… no one will ask any questions. It’s perfect for his purposes. The warehouse his ship was in appears to have been on the outskirts of Crime Alley as well so maybe he’ll even stay in the warehouse.

Okay, alright, he can do this. 

He can do this.

Till may be a failure, but he will persevere for the betterment of humanity.

He has to.

Chapter Text

It has been about two weeks since Till ended up here. Though he could be wrong, it is not like he has a calendar or anything.

Beyond his apparent time blindness, two weeks had gone by productively and without incident. After his arrival he set up shop in that abandoned warehouse and slowly, but surely started working on repairing the ship the best he could with his limited supplies as well as trying to figure out how to recreate the black hole. He would go to the library every day with a stolen notebook and write notes about physics books and things he’d find on the computers. 

Still no library card, but no legal identity meant he was grossly dependent on Barbra’s continuous generosity. Even if it would inevitably run out one day, it was nice to pretend someone actually cared about him.

He didn’t have much in the way of food, water, clothes, or anything else. But there was a pretty decent soup kitchen near where he’d set up shop. Only a twenty minute walk away. He needs to find the Martha lady who runs it and thank her, it’s very well run.

Till would go to that soup kitchen more but… honestly he just could not stand going there, it felt wrong to just get handouts but he unfortunately needed to eat, and even more unfortunately his usual dumpster-diving tricks he’d used with the rebellion don’t work in Gotham considering that the sheer volume of crime in the city meant padlocked dumpsters behind stores. 

Which was stupid and Till didn’t want to give the locks his energy… then again, he probably should, it’d be good for the rest of the homeless population. Something to think about for later he supposes.

Either way, the soup kitchens were a necessary evil considering stealing wasn’t sustainable with creatures like that Bat-man-thing out there, with a reputation for beating people bloody for the smallest infractions as of late… Well, Till would rather take the handouts and feel bad about it than get beat.

He’d been beat more than enough back then for a lifetime and was not eager to be at the hands of someone that didn’t need to worry about permanently damaging merchandise…

At least his old owner couldn’t leave permanent or debilitating marks. Batman would have no such qualms, and with what he’d read up about his apprentices , they tended to disappear or be presumed dead after a while, coming back with an outwardly bad relationship with the Bat. The poor relationship in-of-itself was already a glaring sign. As someone who had worked with the public his whole life, all idols had to be on seemingly good terms when not competing. After the ALNST season started all bets were off... obviously. But before that it was important that the humans looked happy. well cared for. And Nightwing acting out against his handler was a surefire sign something was terribly, terribly wrong in the Bats... lair.

Sure, only one had gone missing and come back as a new vigilante and the other was presumed dead… but both were quickly replaced after outliving their use.

Two instances was one away from a pattern after all.

If going down the rabbit hole on this subject was what he spent a whole day on rather than being useful... well... Till might’ve gotten a little too invested in this, all that could be said was that he shockingly enough utterly despised children being taken advantage of. 

Child soldiers were an evil that not even they would condone back home, even if out of sheer practicality.

Said home is one he’s not any closer to getting back to currently, but with all the surprisingly familiar alien tech he’s seen online it is certainly only a matter of time…

He really needs to stop getting in his head; however, he’s supposed to be at the library right now to study engines and engine repair. He can mope on his own time. 

And with a familiar head of red hair approaching him, Till needs to put his best game-face on.

He has a feeling that this interaction will mark attempt number three for Barbra to attempt to waste food on him.

***

The first time she had approached him was when he got to his usual spot in the library and she had held out a brown paper bag with what Till could only assume to be food inside. 

“No thanks miss, I can’t take your food like that” he declined after she'd offered

This went on for far too long before she changed tactics

“Fine then, what if I buy you lunch?”

She’s too stubborn, Till fully intended to match her and then some. He had a feeling that it was the only way to assert his dependability and independence.

“No thank you, you’re working right now”

A raised eyebrow from Barbra, the expression felt borrowed somehow

“I go on break in five minutes Till”

Right, she knew his name now. It still felt weird to have someone say it on Earth with whatever accent they had in Gotham.

“And? I still couldn’t accept your offer even then”

“Just once and I’ll drop it forever, come on Till”

“Nope”

“Please?”

Seriously, that weird eyebrow raise didn't suit her face or her voice despite slotting so naturally there. Where did she get it from? It’s itching his brain and he really wants to ask. But he wouldn't ask. Lest she use it for leverage.

“Miss Barbara, I simply cannot accept it”

She sighs “fine, but I hope you know I’ll just keep asking every time I can”

Till shrugs in response “yeah well, I’ll keep denying you each time”

***

Well, that’d been the first time, she’d almost tricked him into agreeing the second time, but Till caught himself just on time with a reminder that she was either doing it out of pity or to get a favor from him. 

Till didn’t exactly know what favors she could want from him, but he did not intend on finding out.

Okay, Barbra is rapidly approaching.

This is fine, Till is a legend at conversation and avoiding pity.

He’s so got this.

“Hey Barbra! How are you?” haha! Look at him, initiating conversation this time to gain the upper hand. And it gives him a moment to assess. No brown paper bag this time, maybe she’s given up on her mission? Or maybe going to the library later than usual was a good idea.

“I’m good Till, how are you?” 

She’s smiling politely… too politely. 

Weird. 

“I’m doing good” he nods, hopefully this conversation is quick, he has plans for the rest of the evening after all.

Barbra looks surprised at that statement, “Doing good while reading up on quantum physics? That’s illegal.”

He parries by raising his hands and giving a lazy grin “well then, I suppose I’ll have to make my escape before you catch me officer,”

The middle aged woman pauses as if processing something and bursts out laughing, a little too enthusiastically for how meager Till’s joke was. 

But hey, a win is a win. Maybe humor just has a really low bar in this universe or it’s a reference to something particular in this universe?

Who knows? Not Till, considering he’s become Till is rather hermetic and has no motivation to really check out the media in this universe. Especially since he has other content to consume instead of Earth's

He should probably make an effort though, if he wants to fit in.

“In fact, I’ll be making my escape now, I’ve got plans”

Barbra raises an eyebrow

“Oh? And what would those plans be, dare I ask?”

Uh- what do teenage boys do?

Till doesn’t know about what normal teens do in this universe, but he can assume that romance is expected? Well, he understands that enough… kinda– not that he ever learned about healthy relationships or proper wording. Not that anyone in ANAKT learned that.  It was the greatest cause of pain, truly, they hadn't known of love or family. Just of hurt and devotion, children taught how to express their affections only in the ways which would cause hurt. Children rehearsing the best way to die in order to save their beloveds. Children who would become older and preform, only for the end goal of dying as they knew. They knew...

It might be easier to just deflect...

“No you may not ma’am”

And with that he skedaddled out of the library before Barbra could attempt to trick him.

Even without this convenient opening, Till would be leaving the library early today, considering he would be performing a vital deviation from his schedule.

This was because Till was going to try and ride his bike again.

He’d been working out every day until his muscles were sore and aching to make sure his disgusting teen body was at a point where he could confidently ride his motorcycle again. He donned his helmet and shakily slipped onto his bike. The materials and textures felt alien under his now less-calloused hands. 

It was fine. 

At least his brass knuckles fit just well enough for the familiar weight to comfort him. Till adjusted the surprisingly nice biker jacket he’d found in an alley(after all, he didn’t want to just wear his rebel clothes every day. It wasn’t practical and he’d rather not smell too bad if when he got back to the others) before revving up the bike.

He pressed on the gas and jolted forward, falling off his bike and totaling himself at the sudden movement.

“Ow…” he mumbled, rubbing at his elbow, considering it had taken the brunt of his fall. 

Till isn’t dumb enough to be deterred by such a failure however, and he goes back onto his bike and tries again. 

The boy falls on his face once more, accompanied by his distinct laughter. 

Just to spite that black haired idiot, Till tries again.

And again.

And again.

The fifth time however, old muscle memory wins and he’s able to get a few laps around the warehouse without falling like an idiot.

Eh, that’s probably good enough to start the practical exam, general Gotham terrain should be a good bit harder to work with and it’s similar enough to the old planet that it shouldn’t be impossible to pull off.

For once, Till was correct. Driving around Crime Alley and part of an area he thinks is called ‘The Sparrows’ or… something. It’s good practice despite the name.

He’s sure it’d be better practice had he not stopped at the first sounds of conflict. He couldn’t even see what was happening but based on the sound, he could presume it to be a young woman getting pushed up against a wall by somebody, probably a criminal of some kind.

Well that wouldn’t do, now would it? 

Guess Till has a pitstop to make.

The persona slips on like a body-bag on a cold, dead corpse.

“Come on man, leave the lady alone”

Oh did Till miss the whole vigilante shtick. The voice modifier on his helmet made Till sound older, scarier, more competent. A good thing considering he was competent, just not that scary right now.

Humans being common here made it impossible to just be feared by virtue of being a rouge one.

Though, the large-scale criminals are called rouges, so maybe there was some linguistic carry over between dimensions…

He’s getting off track again, he almost missed the guy whip his head around to face Till like he was afraid . It felt oddly comforting to see he could strike that much concern with just one phrase.

Well, maybe not oddly comforting, he’d always enjoyed striking fear into the hearts of freaks, messing with them a good bit when he could. This wasn’t that different, just changing the species of who the freak was.

 It made him feel better about his station in life, what could he say?

“What’cha gonna do about it?”  

ew 

This guys voice is gross. It would not pass regulation or even a speaking check at all and he would have been swiftly disposed of. 

“Well, I suppose I would stop you” yeah, this is nice, familiar, something he was good at before and something he’s still good at now. He's still good at it.

“I’ll give you… a minute to give it back to the nice lady. Tick Tock.” 

Till uses a gesture to activate it and make a ticking noise, even if it seems different somehow this time  it’s still his countdown. Fun and more than enough to creep this freak out quite a bit.

Yeah, Till missed this.

The man runs off, but he still has the ladies purse. 

Therefore, Till has to make chase. 

It’s his obligation as a guest to help keep the house clean. 

Plus it’s fun, which totally isn’t a factor in his decision making whatsoever.

Not at all , he’s just doing this out of the good of his selfish heart… or something like that.

He starts to hum under his breath, energizing himself to the conversation.

He'd always liked this song anyways.

"Just laugh, hey, kick and break ya!"

He’s rapidly gaining on the thief and can see his golden opportunity. There was a can right by the helmeted rebel’s feet, which could be thrown to trip the guy. His aim isn’t perfect but it’s good enough to get him to fall.

"To the galaxy shining bright, chi-cheers~"

Stepping on the man to look him eye-to-visor, Till’s face is split in a grin. Even if the guy can’t see it, he’s surely able to feel the energy.

“Boo!”

The guy screamed, it was kinda funny. Till totally didn’t start laughing when he did, certainly he was more focused on acquiring the ladies purse and kicking the guy for good measure. If he saw that freak around, Till’d have to go after him again. Could be a lot of fun honestly and it’d keep him from causing trouble.

Plus, the idea of his helmeted appearance once more being in people’s nightmares is a bonus.

Anyways, looks like the lady stayed around where he’d left her, Till hands her the purse and uses his soundboard to make a cheering noise. It’s funny, if a bit distorted from traveling dimensions and such but the effect is still the same.

The effect being that it makes Till laugh. The lady looks at him weird but just leaves after a minute. Pretty neat, not asking to talk to him is very nice. He doesn’t really feel like talking anyways. He just gives her a cheery wave and gets back to his practice.

He still wants to drive some loops around the harder to traverse parts of the city.

Well… he’s lost.

He’s also out of gas.

Till forgot about gas- do they even use the same type in this universe? Do the pumps work the same so he can siphon gas out?

Yay… things to consider, this is terrible. Things were going so well too… agh, it’s fine, it’s fine. Things could be worse, everything is fine. 

Well, at least the wheels work without gas. He has a gas station to look for. Then again, they’re less prevalent in cities according to some things he found researching, but uh, what to do, what to- Gas station! Perfect.

He approaches the pump and takes a look at it, turning it over in his hands to try and figure out how it works. The mechanism is different from the pumps back on his old planet, but it’s not too different. He’s sure he could figure it out with enough time-

“Hey! Self-service is illegal punk! Put the pump down”

Wait what- 

Who is this old man in a polo and why is Till being yelled at?

Why does the old man have a gun ? 

What?

“Don’t stare at me all blankly behind your stupid helmet, just because all the other gas station owners in Gotham don’t care doesn’t mean I don’t!”

This is still terribly confusing, he’s still stuck on the ‘self service’ bit. What the hell is that?

“I’m-” oh, there goes his voice.

How convenient

The man gives an expectant hand gesture and raises an eyebrow “...you’re?”

Till doesn’t have his pen and paper on him. Joy of joys, he didn’t think he’d need it for his mission when he’d been back on the planet and he doesn’t have anything on him now because this was just supposed to be a quick drive.

“What, you mute now or somethin’?”

Well, since he asked… Till nods. 

The guy just sighs a “Well I don’t know none of that sign stuff”

What’s…sign?

Till will have to look into it, could be useful in the future.

For now, he’ll just shrug and vaguely gesture that he can just leave

“I just said I don’t know none of that sign stuff kid”

Till sighs and just gives a thumbs up, this guy sure is dense.

The guy blinks at him, Till would blink back but he doesn’t feel like taking his helmet off to do so.

“Y’know what, I ain’t doin’ this. You got money to pay for gas?”

Ah, no he does not… Well, since this guy is so scary already and is rather old and still somehow alive, it’d be rude to lie and disrespect his elder like that. He shakes his head ‘no’.

“So you were gonna steal my gas then?”

…

Till shakes his head yes

“I swear, you must be either a dumbass tourist or just plain stupid, which is it?”

Till holds up three fingers and snickers

“Ain’tcha got a good sense of humor.” the guy huffs, “y’know what, since my only employee got killed in a Joker attack last month, if you can help out with the restockin’ I’ll give ya some gas instead of payin’ you”

Well, ain’t that convenient. That Joker guy is known for being very aggressive as per Till’s research. And it’s not like he’ll get trafficked… probably. Till nods but decides to keep his helmet on. The guy looks him up and down.

“Ya gonna take yer ugly red hood off or are ya tryna moonlight as a bat or somethin”

Till shrugs, he just doesn’t want to show his face.

“Eh, I don’t care as long as you get the restockin’ done.”

Okay…

Till carefully nods his head ‘yes’

Hopefully this isn’t a trap, who’d want to trap him he has no idea but uh… one can never be too careful. 

Especially with how quickly the guy went from aggressive and suspicious to begrudgingly kind, Till isn’t quite sure what his motives are.

Maybe because of how old this man is, he can’t restock heavy items by himself? Old age does cause an increase in fragility afterall…

Only one way to find out the man's real motives he supposes.

Chapter Text

The backroom of the gas station is surprisingly well kept for a dingy place like Gotham, the place smells like cleaning solution, boxes, and the faint undercurrent of Gotham rot that permeates every location in the city. The lights are a little flickery, but overall the quality of the area isn’t bad.

It has good energy, surprisingly enough.

There’s a few shelving units with boxes, a table, and a desk with one of those chunky computer-things on it. 

Till quickly assesses the exits and finds that there’s an employee bathroom he could hide in if anything, as well as a backdoor a few yards out if he really needs to make a run for it.

“Well then kid, I don’t feel like explainin’ everything. So all ya gotta do is take the boxes from the back and open ‘em up,” the guy explained while scribbling onto a paper. 

What is his name anyways? He’s not wearing a nametag or anything.

Till gestures for the paper, a gesture vaguely reminiscent of “grabby hands” that he’d seen Iv-... other children make. The fact that he made such a childish gesture makes him laugh slightly, though his helmet filters it out for the most part.

He makes a mental note to turn sound-muffling off at some point.

“What?”

Till is struck by the sudden thought that maybe his motion was specific only to his own world and decides to gesture for the paper again, tapping on it with one hand and trying to grab the pen with the other. 

The old man seemingly finally got the message after a while of this and wordlessly handed them over to him, at least he’s not going senile. That’s always a bonus.

What’s your name? I never got it

The guy read it and exhaled. 

“Name’s Frank. Ya gonna give me yours or should I make somethin’ up?”

Well then… Frank. You’re not someone trusted yet, 

Make something up I guess

Plus, Till is rather curious what he’ll come up with.

“Tryna be mysterious or somethin’ alright then I’ll call ya…” Frank pauses, trying to think of something suitable, no doubt. 

Y’know, with how spry this man is, Till might’ve overshot his age by a bit. Maybe he’s closer to 30 than 40, the spattering of  grey hair and beginnings of wrinkles was something that despite Till never having seen it before on a human, knew was meant to denote old age.

He’d been called “old-looking” by investors before due to his own grey hair afterall, he’d heard at some point that humans were starting to be genetically modified to not wrinkle and look elderly as they aged, even if most were put down before that could happen, it wasn’t a risk Segyin could run if the human turned out profitable. If his memory serves him right, that blonde freak was a test run for that modification, some sort of combination between human and those damn progenitors to keep him from wrinkling. Even if he’s not right, his owner definitely got some sort of work done on him to some extent because the man is in his late thirties and not showing a single sign of age to Till’s knowledge. 

Not that he’d been looking at that manipulative blonde freak’s face or hair for indicators on purpose, he was more preoccupied with other… things. Namely not dying and not hallucinating him. Focusing on how he was essentially just fighting a senior citizen to the death had simply been the best way to attempt keeping focus.

Anyways, even before the genetic modification, there were injections that idols and pets could be given to stop any unwanted aging, though they stopped a lot of motion and were less common in the industry than they probably would’ve been had they not impeded singing for periods of time. Most just got creams and other products that were applied daily, all sorts of polyphenols, carotenoids, polysaccharides, retinols, and all sorts of other oils were essential for the upkeep of a human pet.

One of the reasons they weren't more popular was the high maintenance and all needed to keep a human healthy looking.

Even with all that in mind... a human close to 40, maybe even a bit over....

That’s uncanny.

Till’d never, in his whole life seen someone with so much… skin texture or even bodyfat before.

At his age, Frank would've just been put down for his own good. Elderly humans are not good for much and most are put down much, much younger...

The most variation acceptable in humans was differentiation in muscle mass, pigmentation, and sound. And even then there was an understanding that humans looked best lean. 

Seeing this much of a deviation from the standard is sickening honestly, repulsive. Though, it was an indicator to differentiate between humans and their Segyin copycats. Small mercies.

Frank just looks… bad. Humans on Earth might not be held to the same standards they were on the old planet and have more randomized genetics, but he’d still not expect something like—

“I’ll call ya Red cuz of your helmet. Sound like a deal?”

Oh, right, he was talking to Frank- he needs to stop getting into his head.

Till nods simply at the name.

Red is a nice color.

It was the color of his eyes.

Almost the color of her hair.

Close enough for comfort anyways.

“Kay then Red, all yer instructions’re on this paper so I don’t gotta repeat myself. I’ll be out in the front in case someone else like ya tries pullin’ any stunts”

Okay then, time to look at that list

Alright, just unloading some boxes, putting some things on high shelves and dusting a few things. Nothing crazy, just upkeep. 

Okay, yeah. Easy stuff, it should only take him about an hour or two to knock out. He’s mostly just hauling boxes and doing some cleanup.

Alright, first things first the shelves in the main area of the gas station get dusted and wiped down with a cloth. There should be some in the box to the left

 then he opens the heavy box filled with snacks #1 is easy to get through, box #2 is easy as well and-

“What’re you doing~?”

“What are you doing?” he mutters back to him.  At least he’s nicer when Till’s not stressed or explicitly busy. Easier to ignore as well.

“I was so boreeeedd, you’ve been so boring lately Till” he pouts

“I don’t have to do things for your entertainment”

Oh, his voice is back. 

How he didn't notice the first time he spoke is beyond him.

But still, it's nice to speak again.

“But you’re bored too, you haven’t done anything except work work work and it’s booooooooorrrrrriiiiiinnnnnggggg”

He’s very childish today.

Okay, these boxes of snack food go on those shelves in the back.

“Why are you ignoring me now?”

“I'm busy”

“Aaaaaawwwwwwwww”

Till just shoots the currently twelveish year old  a half dirty look. He doesn’t mind his presence, especially when he’s being nice. But it’s still a bit annoying.

“Fine be like that then, I’m going to explore” the child pouts before going to walk around within Till’s periphery.

Okay, next thing. This box goes in the refrigerator… what’s it filled with?

Mint Chocolate-Chip Ice Cream?

What’s mint?

Scratch that–

What’s chocolate? Why is it in chips?

What’s an ice cream???

“Oh nooooooo, Till~ did you find something we didn’t know about?? Seems like Earth has some interesting things, take some time off and try the food out, please?”

“Why do you care?”

“I just worry about you overworking yourself”

“Why did I even ask?”

***

“He did what?"

A disappointed pause

Then a deadpan

"Why was I not told sooner” 

“Well… you were busy with things and we had the whole situation handled”

“Hn”

***

About thirty minutes later, Till’s done with his “chores” and reports back to Frank with a thumbs-up.

The elder man whistles appreciatively “Damn you work fast kid”

Till makes a pleased noise and plays a cheering sound from... well from his soundboard.

Frank pauses

Looks him up and down

Blinks 

Appraises Till once more

“I’m sorry- what was that noise?”

Till plays the noise again, giggling.

“You’re a strange one…” the man sounds almost… fond?

Ew. Gross.

The pseudo-smile is making his face more wrinkley somehow. Till hates it so much.

“Now I promised ya gas, come with me.”

Finally! 

Gas!

This took long enough, after this he’s taking a 10 hour nap… minimum.

“Oi, Red, can you open yer gas cap for me? I don’t know how your fancy ass motorcycle works”

Right!

Till walks up to the side of his beloved cycle and opens the gas cap, it’s shaped a bit differently on the inside than the nozzle, the ones back on planet were a bit wider, but it should still work. While he did so, Frank pressed some buttons on the console that Till took note of, wondering if the same override code would work at other pumps.

“What kinda gas you need?”

Till presses the button for diesel. It should work, any type really works for his bike… he should probably research it though, just in case.

But that’s for his next time at the library, right now the next step is to put the nozzle inside the  gas cap and let it fill up. His bike is pretty fuel efficient so it’ll take a while.

“So… yer not from Jersey, right? what brings ya to a hellhole like Gotham?”

Unexpected line of questioning, well, maybe not fully unexpected. Considering Frank did call him a tourist when they’d met. Perhaps there’s a stigma in Gotham against non-locals?

Till nods before remembering his voice became viable previously 

“Life circumstances” he replies, not untruthfully “I didn’t think I would end up here”

That earns a snort from Frank

“Nobody thinks they’ll end up somewhere like Gotham, city seems like a real terrible place to be intentionally.” the elder pauses and considers something before his voice warms a pitch  “but, none of us locals leave, because Gotham’s our home, and the city takes care of its own. With the sheer amount of homeless people and street kids, ain’t no other way to survive” the man looks at Till sternly as the pump clicks, Frank’s hands subconsciously moving to remove it from the pump while he maintains eye contact the best he can. Unaware that Till was already looking away from the safety of his helmet.

“So, if you wanna stay in Gotham. You better understand that, ya hear me Red? This city’s full of give and take. And for a non-Gothamite like yourself, ya need ‘ta understand that makes you need to give back to Gotham double what you take. Minimum. Until Gotham accepts ya anyways. Understood?”

Huh, so that was his motive. To indebt Till?

What end does that achieve even? Till isn’t particularly strong or special, just some non-local.

…he’s not even local to this dimension.

He has nothing to offer.

Though, the other man doesn’t know that so maybe he’s just extrapolated based on assumed information. 

Who knows?

Not Till, clearly. 

He’s not very smart.

But, even then he’ll mull over the words when he’s back at the warehouse. Until then he gives a respectful gesture and a  “Yes sir, I understand” before thanking the man sincerely for the assistance and free gas. 

The man shakes out the gas nozzle and sets it back in its spot.

“Yeah, yeah. No need ta thank me too much. You ever need gas again you can stop by and I’ll putcha up to somethin’. You’re pretty useful Red”

Till huffed and closed his gas cap, giving a curt nod.

“I’ll take you up to that sir”

Now to get out of here, he has things to do.

Driving is easy,

Let’s see… this alley looks familiar

This is very enjoyable

Turn here

Then go straight

Turn again

He’s right by the library and now just needs to go straight before turning right then left then right again. After that it’s a few shifty alleyways to his warehouse where he’s going to take a nap. He can feel a killer headache coming on for some reason.

Aaaaaaaaawwwww the animal that that human is walking around is so cute!

Till keeps staring at the creature as he drives, it’s cute. Big fluffy thing, four legs, floppy ears, some sort of snout. It’s really sweet looking–

CRASH

Till runs face first into a wall.

Chapter Text

Ow

Oh ow that hurts like a-

Like a…

Like…

He attempts standing by himself, legs feeling surprisingly jellylike. 

Till falls flat on his face, groaning and trying to get back up. Failing miserably as the feeling of skeletal-liquification intensifies. 

He can’t get up, he just can’t.

His arms aren’t even bound, he’s not on punishment, the injury is on the front of his face if anything, he’s alright… it’s alright… 

Till isn’t there anymore, he’s fine.

He slides down the wall, grimey brick against his back and wet floor against his legs greet him like old friends.

He hits the floor, head tilting forward.

Blood trickles down his forehead, his mouth has cold, unrelenting metal and plastic-like material filling it. 

Cotton fills the backs of his eyes, blooming in his corneas and fogging out his vision, the roots of the plant digging into his central retinal artery and blooming out through his veins. Digging into every inch they can reach. Seeping the nutrients from his body and making the world spin.

He was bad, he knows he was. But this feels disproportionate…

The Segyin kill humans all the time, why would it matter if I killed some guy…

Some guy named…

What was his name?

Somebody…

Some… some- did Mizi like his performance?

He knows Urak didn’t… the bastard locked him up after that, beat his head in against the wall damn good, he can feel the blood trickling down his face.

But his face is dry? Isn’t it?

There’s no blood seeping from his skull, no injury that needed a last-minute patch-up before the next show.

That has to be it… right?

Maybe… maybe they patched him up already?

He reaches a shaky, Oganesson filled arm slowly up to his face to check for bleeding before realizing he can’t feel his face or anything under his hand beyond a strange fabric layer of some sort. 

Was he put in mitts?

It wouldn’t be the first time…

But there’s individual slots for each of his fingers? That’s nothing like the cheap itchy-foamy mitts he’s been put in before. This is some odd sort of item that despite being a little too-tight is surprisingly well made.

If only he could remember what he put on himself?

He put it on himself?

Why would he put mitts on his own hands? That’s stupid–

Wait-

These aren’t mitts, are they…

Ugh, Till is so stupid,

So, so stupid

An absolute idiot

He’s wearing gloves, how did he not realize that? He must be some sort of big-time stupid, huh?

He’s just real dumb and a constant idiot at that. 

He just can’t do anything right. 

Ever.

Getting back on track however… Why is he wearing gloves?

Scratch that— what is this thing on his face and why can’t he get it off?

It’s his helmet– he has a helmet now to protect his face, that has to be it…

When did he get a helmet?

That would be way to expensive for something like him

Whatever it’s fine- his arms aren’t bound yet so maybe he should–

No, no that wouldn’t work. He had one shot before and he fucked himself over with it. It just wouldn’t work, nothing ever worked out for him.

***

Standing before a crowd, █████ begins to speak impassionedly, gesturing to accentuate his point and almost seeming as if he individually speaks to each person despite being a presenter to a large group. 

He makes a game of it these days, trying to make individual eye contact with everyone in the room without it seeming like he has a wandering eye. 

It’s fun.

“One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the “Quartet for the End of Time”; it was written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. The man had been captured by Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. Messiaen was surprisingly fortunate, he found a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and somewhere to compose. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp.”

And to think that he’d been bad at public speaking in his youth, well…  both his current jobs require it, and he’s gotten over most of his anxiety these days.

The only real difference is what kinds of public speaking he does, honestly… being on both ends of an interview has always been odd to say the least

***

It takes him years to get out of his own head and stand up on his own feet but that’s… totally okay and not a sign of weakness… totally. Mhm. totally fine. Nothing to be upset about or cry about.

All that matters is that he gets there eventually and braces against the wall. Arm hooking onto a fire escape a few hundred miles away in order to make sure he doesn’t fall.

What was he thinking about again?

No clue, he’s too dazed to think straight at the current moment, and his vision is all blurry. Ick this sucks, ow his head hurts so bad– it’s like his head is being crushed in one of those hydraulic presser thingies.

Not a fun feeling in the slightest.

If he ever got stabbed in the eyes, then Till would imagine it would feel like this, maybe less painful if anything since the stabbing feeling is slowly seeping into his temples and causing his ears to ring. 

He takes some slow, shallow breaths to steady himself and recuperate the air punched out of his lungs from the impact.

He was lucky that the… wall thing he ran into was fairly flat or he would’ve likely been impaled by something or suffered worse blunt-force trauma from something like… a pipe or… something else attached to a wall…

What even gets attached to the outsides of walls?

Lucky, at least he’s lucky for once. It could be worse… maybe. But he doesn’t like using up his luck so carelessly. At least he was wearing his helmet so even if he’s a bit nauseous and not having a good time, it could be worse.

How annoying.

Anyways, it is genuinely, so frustrating to get hit in the head, it always hurts and feels annoying to deal with. As someone used to head trauma due to his ex-owner’s treatment, Till had never gotten good at withstanding it. Even if the nerves in his head were probably fried a good bit and he had a thin scar at the back of his hair beneath the hairline from all the slamming his owner had put his head through, especially after round two.

Despite all of this, it still sucks to get hit in the head, he needs to check for head trauma and he needs to make sure he doesn’t have a concussion or anything. That would be bad and he’d need to go acquire painkillers and medication which would just generally be annoying.

Let’s see… his vision isn’t spotting out, he’s not dizzy or disoriented, he still understands his surroundings. He doesn’t know the date, but he never knows the date so it’s probably fine? He knows it’s roughly fallish, knows his name is Till, knows he has grey hair and teal eyes. He knows he has family back in his old universe, knows that there’s a stupid apparition that follows him around sometimes, and he knows that his current main mission is to repair his ship and find a way to recreate the black hole that brought him to this universe so that he can bring them to freedom.

Okay, he’s probably not concussed then, everything is alright, he doesn’t have blatant head trauma and-

“Sir are you alright? I saw you take a tumble, honestly it was kinda funny but-”

Huh?

Who’s there-

Till whips his head around(ignoring the pain that the motion causes. He’s fine, really. Nothing bad is happening) to see the…

Child?

There’s a roughly 10, maybe 11 year old child standing there, big amber eyes blinking up at him with surprising amounts of judgement.

Though, maybe that’s a Gothamite trait. Both the young and the old are terribly judgey people.

Gothamites would not survive as a whole, being rude was a one-way ticket to punishment or worse depending on the owner.

That’s a fascinating thought honestly, but one he will dwell on later when his head isn’t pounding a batterie.

“I’m fine kid, don't worry about it” He smiles under his helmet, feeling up the material to make sure it wasn’t damaged. He’s lucky it wasn’t or there’d be issues.

“Sure… well, you wanna tell me how you crashed?”

Till huffs, looking the kid up and down with as much judgement as he can muster up, as much as he respects children this one just has a weird energy around him, not in a way he can place obviously, but something is just kinda off with this child in his opinion.

Till narrows his eyes in suspicion, he doesn’t quite trust this child yet; “Why do you want to know?”

The  child shrugs casually “I’m curious”

Well, that’s a lie if Till had ever heard one

“Curious?” 

“Yes” the child nods

Till does not trust the child. He doesn’t trust people easily, hasn’t in years. It just doesn’t work for him. Trust makes things hurt more when they go bad.

But then again, it is a child… and a very cute one at that. Big amber eyes, an almost cherubic expression, curly hair sticking out in all directions… it could work as a marketing ploy, maybe if he got some work done the kid would’ve been pretty good as a mascot for a brand. 

He’s weak to kids anyways. Something about them is worth protecting and especially since that’s a child human… he can probably be a little honest with him. Not fully, but, maybe a little something just to get the kid to go away.

“I was staring at some… strange creature and got distracted”

“Huh… a strange creature? I haven’t heard any reports of manbats being out recently…” clearly that was not intended for Till’s ears, and what is a manbat? Odd…

There’s a lot of things that Till could say, but the longer he has to think about responses and such, the more his head starts to spin and pound. The roots digging into the capillaries around his eyes and squeezing uncomfortably.

“Since you asked a question I think I deserve to ask one as well”

Maybe he can get this to work out, get some information, and go home with another successful human interaction for the day.

“Fine” the kid huffs, clearly a little done with him already

“What’s your name?”

That is… not what he wanted to ask but… okay, he can work with this. Maybe it’ll end the conversation earlier? That would be really helpful honestly. He’s getting really sweaty for some reason over here

“Wouldn’t you like to know weatherboy”

Huh???

“What is a weather-boy!?”

The child blinks and scoffs, taking a step back and looking scandalized. The way his face scrunches up kinda reminds him of one of those pink Segyin he can’t currently remember the technical name of. Till rubs the side of his head over his helmet as the kid exclaims loudly

“Are you being serious right now?”

“Y-yes I’m being serious!” 

Ow ow ow ow ow

Yelling makes his head hurt worse, that’s really annoying

“Damn you’re sad, you live under a rock or something you hermit?”

“Hey!” ow

“Mimimimimi I’m-”

The young boy pauses, clearly blanking on something to call the elder. Tongue poking out slightly in concentration.

Till grins, watching him shuffle in place slightly, a gesture of thoughtfulness. 

Very childish, surprising it hasn’t been trained out of the kid yet. Eh, maybe it’s considered endearing here or something… or it’s his niche… nah, he doesn’t look like a makane typecast. Not cherubic enough… He’d be a good mascot once he matured a year and got some work, but it just doesn’t suit him right now, since he’s thinking about it, his previous assessment is not that good. The kid definitely would be like… a clothing model maybe once he matured. “Fancy” and “personalized” pet-clothing had been trending lately and models for those brands tended to be a little older unless it was—

It’s been silent too long, Till needs to respond 

“Aww, don’t know my name? Give me yours and we can trade” he says with faux-sweetness

“Boo” the kid sticks his tongue out

“I have all day small child~!” Till sing-songs

“Duke.”

That’s a dumb codename, so self-aggrandizing too… wonder who gave the kid that nickname. Maybe he gave it to himself? Not a clue, but definitely something to look into later when his head stops pounding and he’s not as nauseous. 

“Pleasure to meet you Duke, I’m Red”

“Really? You’re not giving me your real name?”

“You didn’t give me your real name either”

“What?” the kid– Duke, blinks, as if Till isn't making perfect sense. Maybe the kid is just upset that he got caught using a fake name and that he can’t wring information out of Till that easily? That must be it, certainly. 

“Duke isn’t a permitted name, it gives humans too much self-importance being addressed by a royal title”

“What?” the kid blinks again in the same manner. 

“Pretend you don’t understand what I’m saying all you like, I am being nothing but truthful”

“You’re such a freak” Duke scoffs 

A half- lie spills from Till’s lips before he can stop it, “Good, that’s what lets people survive,” he knows from personal experience that being a freak will either guarantee your survival or speed up your inevitable end. Both of the Segyin’s preferred angels had been freaks. For one it had killed him, for the other it kept him alive.

…It kept him alive despite killing all those he held dear.

Till doesn’t pity him. Not really. He doubts that that overgrown child has any semblance of emotions.

Did- did Duke just look him up and down and roll his eyes? 

How rude!

“...don’t become a rouge”

Till rolls his eyes, regretting the motion immediately “I have much more interesting plans than that child, villany isn’t exciting to me. Promise”

“I don’t trust you” Duke responds after a beat

“Fair” Till shrugs, the motion easy despite his oddly tense shoulders.

***

This speech had taken so long to research and █████ is happy that it is coming out how he intended so far

“Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture-

Why in the world would anyone bother with music? And yet… from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn't just this one fanatic.”

***

Sheesh that child  is annoying, but at least he finally got him to leave.

Till hopes he can speak to him again when he’s in a better mood and not having trouble driving his amazing motorbike. 

The annoyance and banter is realistic, nice, refreshing even. 

Much less pitiful than Barbra. Perhaps because the child sees him as an equal or superior while Barbra simply saw him as a pitiful inferior.

He wasn’t a philosopher, he wouldn’t ponder on it.

Thinking too hard is making his head hurt a bunch. He’s going to go home and take a nap for at least a year.

Chapter Text

***

 ‘in space somehow, unlikely to ever come back. Send someone else to pick up the people because I currently can't.’

No one had seen it at first, but it was read out loud off of someone’s communicator a few minutes later. 

The initial response is incredulous

“What?” “He’s joking right? He has to be joking…”           “Okay but, why would he joke about that?”      “Well, he’s literally the reason we made the rule about no jokes without tone indicators,”     “Yeah, he used to make jokes like that all the time. It was always a bit unsettling”

Someone pipes in “well, it’s not that bad, it always reminded me of Hyuna’s leg jokes honestly”

“Huh, I never thought about it that way”        “They would’ve been good friends”        “They would have. It would be unbearable honestly”

“We’ll send a secondary person to the location but send him some messages and see what’s up. It’s probably a weird prank”

“Or an excuse, I could see him pulling that”

“Ppffft– yeah he would,” 

“Oh noooo, I’m in space, I can’t go do my job. Sowwy” Dewey mocks lightly

***

He wakes up to the brief noise of loud tearing and punching metal noise, it’s faint, like something in his subconscious and deep in his bone marrow and veins.

His head still pounds but the nap kinda helped. It hurts less now but everything’s a little fuzzy when his eyes open. At least it goes away after a moment and things go back to being normal. The most annoying part is this burning, itching urge to do something, anything really. He has too much energy, as if he slept for a day or two rather than his intended short five hour nap; like battery acid was poured directly into his veins. 

Despite that, he feels oddly lethargic like something was seeping out all his energy

He doesn’t know why, but he takes his helmet and brass knuckles with him. Sliding them on to his person like a second skin. He doesn’t register how late it is until he witnesses Gotham’s night life for the first time.

It’s… so bright. 

If during the day, Gotham is all sorts of dry and boring and lonely; at night all sorts of neon lights start up and all sorts of people are about. None of them look particularly friendly but that's just the vibe of Gotham.

“Art deco gothic nightmare city” was a phrase he’d seen used when researching Gotham online and despite having had to look up those words initially, it finally makes sense now. All the architecture is so old but pasted over it is this bright life. Despite all the rot, they perfume over it and draw these pretty pictures to make the city bearable. It’s fascinating.

A walk around the city would do him good, he and the child were unfortunately right. Till is completely and utterly unaware of the world that he wants to bring his version of  humanity to and that’s a problem for blending in. 

Social mimicry and integration should have been a higher priority if he hadn’t been so distracted he’d have noticed but… Till had always been the obsessive type anyways.

It’s… unimportant, he’s still all sorts of dizzy so maybe he shouldn’t think too hard about it.

He can come back tomorrow night to draw the city properly, but for now he should just explore and take in the sights. When he feels better he can appreciate the color contrasts and shape language of the city better. For now, a night walk should provide an increase in health that he desperately needs with how gross he feels. 

Picking idly at his sleeve it occurs to Till that he probably needs a shower, he likely smells terrible and some cold water would do him good in general after an injury. It’s a common enough trick he’s picked up over the years in the rebellion.

Damn his to-do list keeps getting stacked more and more. Taking one step forward always seems to push him back at least ten.

But… that’s alright! He’s fine with that.

“You sure?”

He appears out of nowhere, leaning over Till’s shoulders and wrapping his arms around to cling on Till's back. The weight is similar to a backpack, he must be a child right now then. Till tilts his head to look at the young child(ten years old, only five years younger than Till’s current body is. Disgusting, he hates it. Everything about being a child is disgusting, his mind and body don’t feel like his own anymore. And he would rather be back in that black hole than be fifteen(ew). But, maybe, if he just ignores it, Till can deal with it. He’s seen some of the tech on Earth that those “Superheroes” use and maybe he could steal it at some point to make himself normal now.)

He just huffs… playfully, continuing his walk and hoping that he would go away eventually.

He doesn’t go away after five minutes and Till finally responds coldly.

“What is your sorry ass doing here?”

He seems pleased that Till responds, placing his stupid head on the crook of Till’s neck and responding playfully, like there’s some inside joke Till is missing.

“Oh nothing much, I just wanted to see my favorite person”

Till rolls his eyes, though he probably can’t see it through Till’s helmet, the gesture is likely felt.

“Get a better favorite person, I do not like you enough for that to be fair to you”

“Oh cheer up Till”

Till blinks, suddenly feeling grimy and disgusting all over “Why are you saying it like that?”

“It’s one of the first conversations we had. I remember it clearly, don't you?”

Till’s eyes widen, he hadn’t thought about that conversation in years. Why was it coming up now? He hadn’t thought about it since before season 50 started. It was so strange to come up now

“I don’t.”

“Liar”

“You can’t prove anything”

***

“Why am I benched? Give me one reason and I’ll consider behaving. And if you say it’s because of my sprained wrist, I can still patrol without it being a problem” ███ all but whines, pulling on his uniform as the elder glares at him.

“It is a problem. You are benched” That’s more words than the old man usually uses. 

“No I’m not–” takes off running, away from █████ and into the night before he can be stopped

***

He’s been oddly quiet for the past few minutes. 

It’s strange, Till does not like it whatsoever. 

Usually when he goes silent, he leaves. But the current teenager(is he… matching Till's age? How oddly considerate) is still walking with him, side-by-side, easily as the apparition can just phase through things that would cause a normal person to change their movement.

Not a bad way to tell he isn’t real, but still mildly disturbing to see a person pass through another person. Usually he follows the laws of physics but today doesn’t seem like that sort of day. The specifications for that behavior have fascinated Till for a while, he always wanted to know what made the parasite tick, though… he would never ask. There was no need to configure himself to become more like the man. He could already compare their cruelties and humors some days, and it was a true fear that it could become a worse condition.

He chooses to ignore it, preferring to look around and take in more of the scenery, wandering between alleyways and intentionally trying to get lost again for a reason he could never place. The usual control he had was slipping, probably a fault of once more being a hormone-unregulated teen. Perhaps he should not worry so much about these things… his head still hurts so it should probably be left alone.

Perhaps he should go back to sightseeing. That was more pleasant. He’s been staying in the poorer and middle class areas, it feels more comfortable and less surveilling than anything else he could do. 

The scenery is beautiful from below… he wonders if it would be better from above. Unlike the scenery he’s used to, Gotham is surprisingly flat. The buildings are tall, sure, but the city itself has no layers. There’s no bridges that could take Till to different layers of the city, no multi-floor architecture he could run around and exploit for cool places to hide, draw, or just generally hang out in. 

He’s surprised to miss anything from that planet, but tiered cities are something he would like to see again on Earth, it genuinely would be so cool to see another one like that, how humans handle the architecture with their less advanced technology, and how they navigate. 

He takes a turn, then another, pausing at some shady establishment to listen to the low thrum of base coming out of it. Feeling the beat, one hundred and twenty five beats per minute, roughly in a G key(he couldn’t tell if it was flat, natural, or sharp), maybe a flat A.

What a quaint arrangement. 

He wonders what is happening in that building. Humans fascinate him, real humans fascinate him. The way society works, the way human nature sits around him and makes him feel like something accepted and something other, but never less than. 

It is fascinating how quickly humanity could accept a brood parasite such as himself. Perhaps when he’d leeched enough resources or failed all their social tests they would realize he was not one of them. That his DNA was spliced with other species and disgusting Segyin mix-ins. He’s less-than and from what he understands based on his very brief research, Earth has many many different cultures, and the specific culture in Gotham protects its own.  

Or so he’d been told anyways. He wasn’t sure if he trusted Frank but the advice seemed genuine and the guy seemed… nice enough? Almost?

He would probably stop being nice though once he realized how worthless and different Till was. How he wasn’t actually a human child. Instead a disgusting middle-aged man himself who would be keeling over any day now, a crossbreed, a cheap mutt bought half-off. He wasn’t worth it, his family   the people he appreciated were the only reason he persevered these days.

If he didn’t want to go back and bring everyone here, he would have just let the elements take him the first day he’d been in Gotham. Doing anything to get those who deserve it to Gotham and Earth in general was the least he could do for them with how good they are. Even if they probably think he is dead at this point. And honestly, the Till they knew is dead. Till is no longer a twenty seven year old man, he’s a stupid child once more. Even if he had always felt dumb and stupid and childish, he could hide behind his elderly status. Being young again was truly disgusting. Seems that his injury made him more introspective, huh? He doesn’t even know where he is anymore and the world around him has been too fuzzy to make out for a long time at this point.

Ugh… he should get away from this building, the music is making him reminisce too much. And it doesn’t even sound anything like the song his mind relates it to. 

That blonde bastard really did a number on him, huh? That pisses Till off. He was supposed to be over all of that, but apparently his mind disagreed with him. He un-leans from the wall(when did he lean against the wall?) and heads out.

He’ll walk for another five minutes, then start trying to find his way home. He does want to get some work done on his ship after all.

***

A week with no reply, He was never seen at the pickup location and the ship he took over was classified as Rouge, Missing, internal sensors could not pinpoint its location using planetary positioning systems and galactic positioning systems failed within 15 AU, glitching out due to the recent conflicts, wars, and issues plaguing space the past few years(Thank goodness for the people who cleaned up the mess. They got that psychotic bastard out of airspace).

“Is– is Till really dead?”

“No, he can’t be- he’s not, right? Till doesn’t die. He always comes back”

“Shit- what are we going to tell hi-the kids?”

“We can’t tell them anything yet… We’ll just– we’ll just say he went on a long mission and– if we can’t find him in a year we get a fake body. It’s the least we can do for them”

Someone laughs wetly “damn, they’re gonna be pissed that mama bird left the nest without warning”

“Ppfft- remember when he took that last minute to go to that auction?”

Someone snorts, another person bursts out laughing. None of it feels real though, just a way to keep a brave face, really.

“Let’s just… hope we find him, yeah?”

***

He is once again lost and lonely now that he is gone  , not a surprise given how stupid Till is, but still rather annoying. 

Maybe he should take this turn?

Okay…

Still kinda lost but getting better maybe?

Nope!

Oh wait! There’s one of the buildings he recognizes–

“Ey you!” ew that guy’s got a nasty voice. All nasally and pitched up. Sounds almost prepubescent but his base voice is fully adult. That’s just a fully grown man who sounds like that. Gross.

“You! Turn your sorry ass around!”

Wonder who he’s talking to, sounds like they’re in real trouble… maybe if he can figure out who this guy is going after he can… help whichever side is in the wrong.

He turns around on his heel “Who are you yelling at?”

The guy looks offended for some strange reason, face scrunching up unpleasantly in a way that is definitely going to give the man premature wrinkling. Which is so bad for humans to have, spoiling early isn’t good for them. The only saving grace this man would have appearance wise would be his dilated pupils and slightly flushed expression. It was starting to become a preferable trait in human-pets recently. Dilated or large pupils were youthful and attractive, very angelic of a trait.

“You dumbass” The man jabs a long finger at Till, seemingly getting more irritated by the moment.

Oh

“Oh”

“Yeah ‘Oh’,” The man mocks in his stupid nasally, ugly voice. 

“I heard ya talkin’ to my cousin. What was that ‘bout?”

Till has spoken to a grand total of three humans, two of which can actually be related to this man as a ‘cousin’ since the third is very elderly and probably doesn’t have any living relatives and none of them sound or look like this man. Assuming his definition of  ‘Cousin’ is correct, a human related to another via parentage or ownership. And since humans on Earth are not owned(still a concept that makes his now constantly throbbing head pound) that means only one definition is viable.

“Your… cousin?”

Till still can’t believe how many humans there are, it’s both majorly overwhelming and oddly freeing. Like everything is as it should be, no aliens, no breeding laws. Just humans, left to their own devices to take care of human business. As it should be

“Yeah, what was that about?”

“I… who is your cousin exactly?”

“What? You didn’t talk to Tommy?”

Who the hell is Tommy? Till hasn’t met a Tommy yet… he is so lost right now, what is happening with this guy? He looks all… pissy and upset

“No?”

“I know you’re lying to me man, stop lying” damn this guy is paranoid, Till takes a step back just to be safe

“I am not lying, you however are acting very strange”

The man just stands there a moment before lunging at Till, it’s shocking for a moment so the hit connects with his sternum. 

Why is he attacking a fellow human? That doesn’t make any sense– 

At least this guy is pretty weak and Till rolls to dodge the next hit before hitting the man with a hook to the cheek only remembering he’s wearing his brass knuckles when he hears the snap-crackle-pop of bone breaking under his hit that was supposed to be light.

Why is he so weak? 

Humans are supposed to have thick bones aren’t they?

The man stumbles back but keeps going, Till attempts to keep it at simple parries but the man Will. Not. Stop.

It’s like he’s being mind controlled or something, he looks upset and glassy-eyed. Till feels severely out of his depth right now, usually his enemies go down quicker. He’d read humans have some sort of chemical advantage which made them good performers but he’d never faced it against another human seriously.

Is this just what all humans are like?

Another parry

No, no, this must be just a bad apple of some sort

Are there eyes on Till right now? Something is itching the back of his skull and getting in between the cranial sutures to get right into his brain, now his spinal cord is itchy. 

What a pain.

Speaking of pain, this man is painfully easy to dodge. Till doesn’t want to hurt humans more than he has to so he won’t complain, but some challenge could be fun.

That was a bad thought, why would he find it fun to harm humans? Till is just a bad person isn’t he?

The moment of distraction and angst gives him a deserved punch to the throat, and then it feels like everything is collapsing in on him. His body no longer taking in the precious oxygen that it needs and he goes for a cheap shot to the crotch. The man crumples with a satisfying groan, and Till has half the mind to keep beating him, but it’s different hurting humans than hurting Segyin. He actually feels kind of bad for the guy… so he’ll just leave him there to think about his actions. 

Till looks both ways and once satisfied that no one saw him, and runs off like a coward. Choosing to take a few extra turns for good measure because he can’t shake the feeling of being watched. Though that might be the weird paranoia from the man rubbing off on him. 

***

What was that? And who was that man? He’s certainly new to Gotham or he’d have seen this strange person before

███ will have to look into this, not get █ or ███ involved though or else the man will be even more upset than he probably already is....

Maybe he can get ████ to help.

Bribe him with ice cream from that one place or something.

***

Honestly, the adrenaline from that fight made him feel better. Sure, it dulls pain and sensations and makes people more reckless but–

Oooh, that building looks cool! 

Chapter Text

Oooh a box!

It won’t hurt to go take a look, right?

No, no it won’t. It will actually be perfectly fine. Because he is fueled by his prior adrenaline high, is mildly bored, and is majorly curious as to what is in this warehouse. 

Most importantly, he refuses to think about the consequences of his actions because that would mean thinking and thinking has been giving him headaches all day.

This not thinking thing is actually pretty nice, he should do it more often.

He takes a cautious step forward, the door is unlocked, meaning it’s completely free game to go in, which is why he always locks the door to his warehouse, because he is very smart.

The inside of the warehouse is surprisingly clean. Whoever is using it must be quite enjoying the space. Good for them. Besides the lack of dust there is also a large amount of crates. Suspicious crates if Till had anything to say about their immediate appearance, considering they are all in spooky looking badly lit corners.

Someone had clearly attempted and failed miserably to hide these things, meaning they’re suspicious.

Till strides up to the crate. It might be closed but the box is only wood and metal screws. How… primitive, Till would rather deal with bio-locks. They’re brittle. Though the wood and metal is quaint, the wood has a nice enough grain to it, and when he runs his fingers along it no splinters embed in his skin, he runs his fingers along the seams of the box, index circling a cool metal screw in curiosity. The drive is just big enough to stick his fingernail in and attempt twisting. It doesn’t do much, strong metal then probably.

Eh, he just needs a different flat object thingy. Well, Till is in a warehouse. Time to check the wares that are out and about for anyone’s taking!

Well it’s Gotham, meaning that anything is really able to be out here. Maybe if he finds a used needle that could have the potential to work well. 

It takes less than five minutes to find a knife. 

Impressive. 

It’s a bit sharp, but Till doesn’t find he minds dulling it. The metal slides between the groove of the first screw and he twists easily, now having enough leverage to unscrew the piece, the first three go off rather easily, though the fourth and final screw is a lot tougher to deal with. The screw refuses to budge no matter what Till tries. 

Maybe a change of angle is in order. 

The new way doesn’t help much either honestly, but the screw has some give, so it must just be a matter of adjusting leverage until he gets it to work.

Adjusting the angle may have been a bad idea however. The knife slips, just the tip piercing skin before Till jolted away as if the knife would suddenly become a conductive material, taking the scarce electricity from his nerve endings and sending it through the blade slashing lightly across his ring and middle fingers. A small line of scarlet beading up and just resting there, waiting to burst and spread out.

The liquid is almost mesmerizing in a way, Till lifts his fingers to his mouth before realizing that he is both wearing a helmet and gloves. And that his hand… isn’t bleeding. The leather protected his hand. The symptoms seem to be simply psychosomatic. That handled… Till should just get onto it with the box.  

He already opened the box up with just a knife, some bad security is in this warehouse if just anyone can open up the merchandise like that.

Now… let’s take a looksie in here… 

He takes a slight step back as his pupils dilate in sync with his widening eyes. Till’s pulse spikes, the pounding akin to that annoying throbbing that had been plaguing his head the past day or two.

His mouth opens slightly at the sight within that crate as he lets out a near-silent gasp.

Are those–

***

“—really?”

████ closes his mouth, not exactly prepared to respond. Then opens his mouth, then closes it again before settling on a dignified response.

“So let me get this right, you want me to help you hunt a mystery guy just because, and I quote ‘he looked suspicious’?” ████ stares plainly at the window in front of him while talking into his com, the smoggy Gotham skyline plainly visible through his grimy window. ███ is somewhere out there, freaking out about some random masked guy, like Gotham doesn’t have enough of those… goodness.

The familiar skyline provides some comfort at least, the rise and fall of the buildings has always reminded ████ of a really weird ECG wave. Probably something philosophical there but ████ is a bit too tired to think about that at the current moment.

“You don’t understand! Something- Something about the way he moved, it was just wrong. Like- It’s not like the things I’ve seen in trained fighters. Ever! A completely new fighting style! Someone like that walking around and–” sheesh this kid talks a lot. It would be more endearing if ████ wasn’t currently nursing a monster hangover(what he gets for indulging his friends he supposes). He’ll listen to the whole thing for the sake of his little brother-figure, he’s feeling oddly indulgent if anything. No particular reason but especially with how seriously #3 is taking this case with seemingly zero information about it. The whole situation feels endearing.  “–because the way he reacted to the other guy fighting back wasn’t normal, even accounting for the way he holds his weight it–” Is- is he seriously still talking? Sheesh, ████ thought tuning him out would help. Apparently not…

“Aaannd I’m going to interrupt you there █████” he huffs slightly, rubbing at the corner of his eye to stave off his little shadow. There isn’t time for that right now. “Have you run this by anyone else yet?”

Silence for a good thirty six and twenty seven hundredths of a second 

“Well, I don’t exactly want to get them involved because there’s been the big like– smuggling thing going on that O and █ have been busy with. So I don’t want to bug them”

This time ████ pauses, only for twenty seconds but that did catch him off guard. “Smuggling thing?” he asks incredulously, mentally tracing the rise and fall of Gotham’s skyline absentmindedly to ground himself.

“Yeah, there’s some like… weapons smuggling that B is being hyper secretive about. He only just let O into the fold about it like… two weeks ago I think?”

Well, of course the stalker would know about it. Makes perfect sense honestly.

Despite that, ████ still rubs the bridge of his nose slightly, he feels like an old man when he does it though and stops immediately “uh-huh, and is that the whole story”

Another pause. Eighty six and twenty two hundredths of a second. Accompanied by the fact that ███’s breathing has picked up ever so slightly over the call, ███ is simply frustrated with the line of questioning. Kid wants to be trusted immediately, like ████ would fold that easily.

“Yes. Yes it is” the child asserts. ████ huffs a light laugh.

“Okay then, why would I even help you if it is?” There’s only so many things he could be bribed with and he highly doubts that it would be something like

***

Weapons and motorcycle parts!!!

Till’s eyes sparkle in excitement, the slight phantom stinging in his finger and any residual pounding in his head utterly ignored to focus on the far more important things. For one, the fact that inside the crate is a mass of sleek metallic guns, red lining, little black barrel-holes. They’re small, handheld. Till picks one up gingerly, flipping it around in his hand. The weight is nice, albeit the design feels outdated…

No, no that can’t be right… this Earth-thing is in a different universe, so perhaps humans are just kind of stupid and lack the same resources that Segyin have. 

Though, that doesn’t matter, Till is still pretty good with this type of gun and he elects to take the entire crate back to his warehouse, it’d be useful to have a weapon that he actually knows how to use. Earth-guns haven’t made any sense to him lately. And this is just a perfect way for him to have extra defense.

…and a way to kill any aliens he sees but that isn’t important currently.

Plus, within the box is a collection of parts he can use to upkeep his motorcycle, or at least attempt to use. The sizes of the items might be different, maybe using different ports…

Actually wait- why is he thinking about his motorcycle? If it looks like cycle parts, then the pieces are probably also applicable for his ship! Yes! The pieces aren’t perfect, but the type of wiring inside some of these guns and components can be used to properly fix parts of his ship. Till thought that this sort of wiring did not exist on Earth, but clearly he was wrong considering that it exists right here and now in this box. He lifts the entire box, realizing it is way too heavy to carry before looking around for something to help him look around.

Just Boxes, boxes, and more boxes…

Some vehicles with assorted parts missing…

A dollie…

More boxes…

Oh! A dollie! Well then… Till could probably take an extra box or three. Best to have more supplies than needed.

Clearly he is feeling more reckless than usual, but this is their fault for making it too easy to take from them. Plus, this is probably some villain warehouse like what he read about online. So, no harm done clearly. A public service if anything, getting these dangerous weapons out of the wrong hands. Much easier to move the boxes around now. He’s keeping the dollie. He likes it and has decided it is his now. He leaves the warehouse, whistling to himself happily. Now to actually implement these parts. Should be a breeze.

***

Duke finishes regaling his friends with the details of the weird guy from earlier, earning a few chuckles. They’d heard the crash from where they were and despite being the youngest in the group, he still drew the short straw in checking it out.

“So… you’re tellin’ me that it was just some random ass guy seein’ some shit?” he’s asked incredulously, which, fair. A guy saying he saw a ‘weird creature’ isn’t out of the ordinary for Gotham, considering fear gas and croc and man-bats and Ivy’s things. But it’s still weird when none of those have been reported. Duke just shrugs and nods

“Pfft- yeah. Just some guy riding around narrows. Real weirdo” then because he can’t stop himself, he muses out loud “Wonder how long it’s gonna take him to get whooped by The Bat. He seems almost like a rouge in the making”

His buddy shakes his head “nah, Bats calmed down a bit with the violence after he got Robin back or whatever.”

“Oh! Speaking of, what does this go to with the Robin betting pool?”

“Well, I think it still works with the timelord theory”

“One of them dying fully or at least going fully missing this long… it kills the shapeshifter theory right?”

“No, Nightwing killed the shapeshifter theory because he just got revealed to be associated with the Bat, remember?”

“Right, right.”

Conspiracy theorists, the lot of them. 

After a minute Duke grins a "So, I believe I was promised something for interrogating that guy" 

"Right."

***

"Ice-cream, from that one place~ come on, all you have to do is help me out ████"

"... deal."