#the girls who get it get it…

[philtstone]

Aditha/nandini jacket

AFTER A MILLION YEARS I FINIALLY FINISHED THIS set in this verse and a prequel to the silly asides in this fic. a mix of book and movie canon as usual! for those who responded to my wip poll im sorry i ignored literally all of your votes and instead worked on "in which vandiyadevan is trapped in the toilet" but it ended up working out for everyone (me and the 2 mutuals reading this) so whos laughing NOW anyway apologies in advance for any cultural errors or general incoherency; its one in the morning and maya is in a different time zone. i had to google things! also none of this is serious. enjoy!

Evening is cooler than Nandini expected.

After the tumultuous heat of Poonghuzhali’s van, and the station, and the day, and the week — well, she did not anticipate shivering in the dark outside this dormitory. The leather motorcycle jacket she so pointedly wore in the blistering sun now, a week later, lies untouched beside her. They have had three stare-offs in the last twenty minutes, she and the jacket. She cannot bring herself to put it on; the idea leaves a queer feeling in her belly that she doesn’t care to examine. 

The dormitory itself is a relatively humble one, considering the wealth of its former occupant’s family. More a boy’s hostel than the kind of lodging the Cholas might secure for their most beloved child. Arunmozhi seems completely unbothered by the state of it. He grins widely at the orange toned walls, scuffed, and the low doors, slamming open and shut at intervals (though less now, so late into the night), and the general ruckus of the boys who greet them. They were all but cheering in welcome of their former dorm mate and his mismatched band of traveling companions, needing a place to avoid the authorities and – impossibly – his Uncles’ and her fathers’ spies, last minute. There was a lot of hugging that went around, at any rate. It’s not quite an elder siblingish relationship, Nandini thinks, though she is absurdly then struck by the question of whether the benign, chummy, kindly way Arunmozhi interacts with the younger boys is patterned after the way his own — that is to say, he has an older br — oooh.

Nandini does not want to think about it.

Just as well, because she’s many other, marginally less useless things to think of.

She is thinking of these things quite obsessively, in matter of fact. Scientific observation would suggest a verge on neuroticism. So it goes in Nandini’s head: oh, Lord, My Mother. She is Here. I’ve met Her. She is Alive after all, and so Beautiful, and so Fucking Weird. 

(The capitalizations are quite manifest in her own thoughts). 

If anyone else were to say the last she’d box them, but God it is true, and Nandini is nearly brought to happy tears by the realness of her mother’s strangeness. Her mother is exactly the same height as she. Her ears are not pierced. She favours her left leg, while Nandini favours neither, but when she walks she sways her hips in much the same way Nandini does when she is not thinking about it. She has hair which is nearly the same length and weight and texture, and it curls around the ears such that it must tickle – Nandini has much experience with this. Her mother’s fingers taper off as hers do; the nail beds are the same; her mother’s chin dimples against her neck in a way Nandini has always felt insecure about in herself. They have a mole in the same spot on their arm; Nandini’s left toe has a bunion near identical to the left toe of her mother; the bottom row of her mother’s teeth lay the same; her mother’s breasts are not very small, but not overly large either, and sit in the same position Nandini's do; her cheeks possess vestiges of the same roundness; her elbow wrinkles in the same way; her eyebrows are a bit unkempt in the middle, like Nandini’s were when she was a child and could not be bothered with their upkeep.

How strange it is! To see your own face so clearly in another. The slope of her nose — the curve of her mouth — the way her hair falls. Nandini wonders if this is what she will look like when she is old. She wonders if she is what her mother looked like when she was young. Surely the answer is yes. They are now inseparable in her mind, she and her mother, and it is overwhelming. She does not even need a father anymore; he has been axed from the equation. She has a mother. She knows her mother! 

And when she saw her mother for the first time, cheerfully led out of the very mundane, uninspired Thanjai local jail, her mother knew her. Nandini had stood, transfixed, as Mandakini had touched her gently on the cheek, just so, and began to cry quiet little tears that slipped down her cheeks like they were the simplest thing in the world for her to give, to feel, to shed.

Nandini has always hated crying. Real crying, anyway; she is an expert fake crier, as anyone successful in the world of Tamil soaps must be. But real crying is snotty and uncontrollable and undignified. 

Nandini thinks (she has been thinking all evening – it is really getting to be bad for her health) that is what makes her mother at once so unfamiliar, too.

There is so much tenderness in her face. Even without words (Nandini is so very good with words, honeyed and poisoned and flat and querulous, even, rarely, honest) her mother tells the world of her love. For her daughter (who craves it so badly); for Arunmozhi (who despite Nandini’s earliest assumptions seems to know he must earn it, however freely it is given); for simply living, it seems. Nandini cannot understand this last part. Life has been on whole pretty miserable, for her mother. What right does it have to her love? 

Nandini does not think she could ever love like that. 

She’s seated and steeped in these ruminations on the topmost step of the dusty concrete facing the dormitory courtyard; behind her must be the toilets, for there is a light on inside one of them, and in front of her is a small garden decorated with scraggly trees which housed the mango-stealing monkey who had earlier been tormenting the dorm’s inhabitants, and a little walking path. Earlier, in the dark, she saw Arunmozhi and her mother (her mother!) start off on a little walk along the path. She supposes it does make sense; they have not seen each other in a while, and he has explained to her how Mandakini saved him from that lake, and that rickshaw, and also his own slippery bathtub once in this very same dorm. They’re old pals: Nandini knew this going into the venture. He knows sign language and everything, and can communicate with her far better than Nandini can. So it makes sense that they must now catch each other up – she on why the police inspector was bribed to arrest her (this is still a little muddy) and he on his future career plans (vague) and current family business rescue plans (hairbrained and relying too much on the goodwill of Nandini herself, if she’s being honest). But watching them go, arm in arm, signing animatedly at one another left a strange ache in her heart. That was a while ago. Bits of the yard are illuminated by the light from one or two dorm windows, but on whole, it is past curfew, and therefore dark; Nandini is more or less alone with her thoughts and also the noise from the city beyond the wall. 

Being alone, she has spent the last thirty seconds staring sightlessly at some invisible point in front of her, eyes the size of saucers, spiraling.

“Erm – ahem.”

Nandini startles so badly her bangle-clad wrist nearly knocks into her own nose.

Aditha Karikalan has never been particularly tall. When they were teenagers there was a brief month where she had an inch on him. Right now, however, he stands above her such that she has to look up, and once more notice the fact that he does carry himself with a kind of dignified height. Which Nandini appreciates. Or did appreciate. Or – well, she is not sure. The last week has been quite a lot of everything. He wears a loose linen button down in a bright orange pattern open over a t-shirt, and a simple dhoti clumsily tied (she remembers the rare time he wore one in school, when they weren’t wearing their uniforms, she had helped him tie it), and sandals, and his wrists are sporting a nice fancy watch but they’re also covered in enough bead bracelets that, paired with his hair – unruly and wild and long as ever – he really does look far more the part of children’s camp counselor than first son of any kind of business mogul-cum-politician. 

Which Nandini appreciates. Or could appreciate. Or – well, she is not sure. A week ago, she would have very deliberately said, well, and what does a camp counselor make, anyway – I want to be a Bollywood actress, and glared him down out of spite. 

The last week really has been a lot of everything.

Anyway; she stares at him. Amidst her up-til-now very private spiraling.

Her mother her mother her mother her mother oh she is so known but so unknown oh they cannot love the same oh perhaps Nandini cannot love at all oh that must mean that must mean must it mean? that she, Nandini, well could she be broken is that what her mother sees surely she sees –

“I just – well. There’s the – the restroom is right there. So I’d come to …” And here Aditha stops his terribly uncomfortable and verging on comical awkward explanation, tilts his head – some immaterial spark of understanding happening in his sharp lovely eyes – and says, in an abortedly gruff tone that does very little to prevent what happens next,  “Nandini … are you – alright?”

Nandini, rather unexpectedly, begins blubbering. Loudly.

Her face crumples in on itself. Her shoulders hunch inward. Her nose gets snotty and her throat clogs up. And in general, she makes a very pathetic sort of hiccupy wailing noise, which she had not planned for.

“Shit,” says Aditha above her, after a moment of stunned silence. “Fuck, okay – Nandini? Well, you shouldn’t cry – come on, pull it together. The toilets are right there, look, someone’s even using them. Uh – well – alright, alright. It’s alright.”

None of his stammered, asinine condolences register much in Nandini’s ears. She is just very overwhelmed. It is only after a moment of her crying, sat on her rump outside the men’s toilets, that the stiff, chilly awkwardness of the night air changes, and there is a person quite suddenly beside her, and then not just beside her at all, but holding her – his arms carefully wrapped around her shoulders, his warm chest a perfect distance from her cheek, his large hands flattening clumsily over her back. Their knees bump together, and it isn’t very graceful at all – she refuses to move, so he must lean over ungainingly, and is probably quite uncomfortable doing it. 

Nandini cries into Aditha’s shoulder for five or ten minutes. He only pats her back stupidly once, at the start, and by the end of it, it is a proper embrace, and they are even rocking back and forth just a little.

It’s nice.

Presently, Nandini’s tears slow, and she registers the position she is in more properly. Whole-bodily, in fact. She had not expected that her body’s memory would slip back into this embrace so easily, and the realization is disquieting. She does not move, and Aditha does not move – she wonders if he is having the same panicked, wary thoughts – and so they sit in a stupid little impasse, hugging, for another two minutes. 

It’s getting to the point where she is noticing his cologne, so Nandini decides it is high time to pull herself together; she sits up, wiping at the snot on her face, and pretends her stomach is not in knots. A lopsided roll of toilet paper materializes in front of her nose. Oh – Aditha is holding it. She eyes it like a ticking bomb. It’s a bit squashed, like it was in his pocket. He must have brought it with him, earlier, which means he really did mean to use the bathroom, which means he hadn’t actually sought her out – 

Had he? He’s still holding her, sort of, and Nandini is terribly disoriented to realize that it is not an abhorrent sort of feeling, as she has very deliberately imagined it would be in the past, when hosting her more elaborate and vindictive daydreams in which she supposed they might reunite, not because she missed him badly but because she nursed ongoing fantasies of holy vengeance; all of those ended with her dumping a bucket of slop over his head. Instead, she has stopped feeling a decent measure of her earlier anxiety, and is breathing more normally now, and the rapidity of her thoughts have veered away from the breakneck pace of before. 

That could just be the crying. Her brother used to say that a tender weeping was good for one’s spirit. 

Nandini’s lip wobbles again; she misses Nambi, and is overwhelmed with a trickling feeling of shame – hadn’t she just left him, for so many months, and ignored all his overly-formal emails? 

The idea of emails makes her remember she has not sent a mildly threatening missive (subject line: I Know You Know Something About Mandakini Nolastname) from her ghost account to Sundura Chola in a while, and then that makes her think, well, it’s pointless now – her stalwart ally Arnunmozhi won’t have any reason to give her gently reproachful looks re: her long term haunting of his invalid father anymore – she’s found her mother – and then she is re-visited, very strongly, at once, by the dual reality of oh God her mother and oh God, Aditha is holding me.

Fuck, she needs to blow her nose.

“Here,” comes Aditha’s low voice, as though he’s read her mind. Which of course he hasn’t. But still. He tears off a piece of the toilet paper for her. Nandini trembles, and does not know whether she ought to lean in closer, or pull away entirely. She can feel his heartbeat against her shoulder, and while Nandini does not have a lot of experience with the biological sciences, it is beating rather more quickly than the average human heart ought to be.

“Oh,” she says, taking the tissue on autopilot. She dabs at her face, which must surely be smeared in kajol by now, and then her nose, which is probably ugly and red.

Good thing it’s so late at night.

After she’s done, because there doesn’t seem anything better to do – the alternative is getting up and fleeing, and Nandini is not a coward – she turns and stares at him.

Aditha clears his throat and scuffs one foot into the dirt at their feet, but he doesn’t look away. He’s grown a beard. She noticed this first thing last week. He never had one before.

“It’s just,” Nandini says, again on autopilot, “-- my mother.”

Ah, her mother. Poonghuzhali had demonstrated a very rare bout of tearful emotion and Arunmozhi his by now expected kindly friendship; Vandiyadevan had slipped her extra clementines after his grocery run and even Kundavai had been looking at her more gently than usual all afternoon. 

Until now, Aditha had been avoiding her. At her words his expression flickers, oddly, a shade of genuine concern colouring his face, before settling into something not quite effortless in its knowing but careful and gentle. She’d forgotten that he could look at her like that. It’s different now, just a little bit. The Look from before was more boyish, and the look now has a kind of sadness to it that makes it feel more real. Maybe it’s the beard. Unease fills her chest again, tenses up her hands. What must he be thinking? Why did he go about all day avoiding her? Alright, so she has also been avoiding him – all week now, to be sure – but – but –

“It must be really strange,” he says suddenly. His voice is deeper than before but not by much. She has not noticed this until right now, because they are sitting so closely and he is speaking quite softly. “Finding – finding someone who is so like you, all of a sudden.”

Whatever was on the verge of backflipping in the pit of Nandini’s stomach sours. Her chin trembles; she looks away. “I suppose.”

“Can’t really prepare for it, I guess.”

She sniffs. “I’ve been looking for months,” she says, more pointedly than perhaps she means. Looking does not equal preparation; the person she was in that Sri Lankan library was not entirely well, let alone prepared. Nandini is woman enough to acknowledge this. To herself, anyway. 

“It’s – it’s funny really,” he continues, deliberately gruff again, but not with the awkwardness of before; it’s more sincere now, roughened with honesty, yet in a way that is entirely oblivious to Nandini’s chin wobbles, “I can’t really understand what she’s saying half the time,” he rubs at his knee with one free hand, “but you know what I’ll tell you – I don’t think – well, I’ve never seen anyone with the same sort of sweetness in their face.” 

“As what,” croaks Nandini.

He looks at her strangely. Nightlife honks and buzzes past the dorm walls, cocooning them. “As you,” he says, like she is being stupid.

Nandini flushes deep from within. No – he must be lying. Hadn’t he called her a poisonous witch just last week? 

She supposes he must have meant that, but she knows Aditha well, and she knows when he is lying, even now – she has come to know, through many a painful altercation (the witch thing, and also she has threatened to kill him a few times) – and she resolves that whatever he meant last week, right now, he is also being honest. She feels somewhat dizzy. The urge to bolt is real. He, too, is looking a bit terrified, like maybe he did not exactly plan to say that in so many words, or maybe he had but now that it is out in the open he’s realizing it sounds a lot more – a lot more – than anticipated. 

“Have you really watched my show?” Nandini blurts out, more loudly than she means to. 

If Aditha’s eyes were wide already, they widen even further in alarm. This was a tidbit Vandiyadevan gave away two days ago; she thinks Aditha has still not forgiven him. He stammers,

“It was the only thing on TV,” with very little bravado. But then, before Nandini’s chest can deflate, as though shaking himself he says, more resolutely, “well, what was I supposed to do? That one scene of yours went viral on Twitter and the aunties at camp – who know very little about acting, may I add – just repeated what they read, blah blah blah like twittering little quails, but I am an educated person, Nandini, and a role model for children, and I have to investigate my news for myself –”

“Thank you for the tissue,” Nandini interrupts, because if she keeps her mouth occupied, then maybe that will quell its urge to spread into a large smile – maybe even emit a hysteric giggle or two – as if it’s forgotten that she only went into dead-end television acting in the first place because of the Veera Pandiyan scandal –

How much of that was really Aditha’s fault, though?

Nandini’s heart thumps rapidly. Now she’s really being crazy. Think of your mother again, girl. Go back to blubbering or something. Aditha blinks at her a few times. The light is pretty dim (they are lit from behind), but just enough that she can see the flush on his neck and ears. Have they been this close the whole time? 

“You – you were shivering when I got here,” he manages, instead of answering. “It’s kind of cold, isn’t it?”

Nandini is not shivering now. In fact, the place where his arm is still held against her back is so warm she thinks she could doze off in contentment just leaned up against him, if not for the fact that her stomach is doing gymnastics beneath the crop of her top. She nods anyway.

“I will be fine.”

“You should wear your jacket,” he says, roughly.

Nandini blinks. “Oh – no, I can’t. That’s yours.”

She isn’t looking for a reaction, per se; the words just sort of come out. She can very well see the bob of his throat, though, and the slight inhale he takes – his chest moves against her shoulder – before he says,

“Come on, Nandu, it was a gift.”

Nandini is overcome by a very strong urge to scream. Or swoon. If she had ever had reasons for wanting to kill him, she’s forgotten them just now. In fact it is very easy to forget the existence of everything around them – her lingering fragility about her mother, or the fact that they are right out in the wide open air, and there’s the real possibility that Kundavai of all bloody people will interrupt them. All these are things entirely immaterial, because unbidden her hand has moved up to press gently against Aditha’s chest, and she can clearly feel the rough pad of his thumb against the bare skin of her back, and they really are sitting so very close – a puff of his breath brushes against her cheek – and her heart goes thump thump thump thump so loudly she can’t really hear anything else.

His eyes have dropped to her mouth. “Nandini, love …” he starts, in a murmured, involuntary whisper.

Nandini tilts her head so very slightly closer …

Bang! 

If it is possible for two people to jump a foot apart while still being seated, Nandini and Aditha achieve this. Behind them, in the spilling light of the open bathroom door, lounges the person of Vandiyadevan, who is doing a very bad job at putting on suave and chill airs. Faintly, there is the sound of a toilet flushing behind him.

“No one could have guessed how badly this door sticks, eh?” he says loudly, holding up a roll of paper not unsimilar to Aditha’s. He tries and fails to adjust his footing, stumbling sideways a little into the door frame and then giving them both the finger guns. “Well! Beautiful night. Don’t mind me, carry on!”

“Vandiyadevan,” Aditha’s voice filters into her ears distantly, like it is coming from very far away. “How – long … have you been in there?”

“I was using the facilities! What, can’t a man take a piss after a long day’s honest espionage –? Ayyo! Wait, no, I promise I’m leaving!”

“That’s not the – we weren’t doing anything –!” Nandini hears Aditha splutter out in a strangled yell.

Which is just as well, too, because by the time he has turned back around, she is already gone, bangles clinking as she flees, scrambled away to hide behind the dark corner of the building’s edge, where stands frozen and with her eyes squeezed shut, while her errant, traitorous heart tries its damndest to beat right out of her chest.

[variksel]

i hate you ai art i hate you "unalive" i hate you youtube premium i hate you twitter 8$ checkmark i hate you nfts i hate you therapy app advertisements i hate you non-chronological timelines i hate you instagram reels i hate you subtle tiktok filters that cant be turned off i hate you family bloggers i hate you ads on true crime episodes i hate you facebook i hate you vr glasses on chickens i hate you dystopian social media

[stardustmuseum]

girls will be like “this shade of green 😍” about every shade of green they see, and they’re right

[dancefloors]

Right now Israel's bombing Rafah, the last refuge for a million Palestinians, where they were previously ORDERED to evacuate to and are now trapped in while the US news cycle is dominated by Big Football Game And Celebrities In Attendance (at which Israel also aired a million dollar propaganda video). I wish I could say this is unbelievable.

[malinaa]

if i think about the hunger games in peeta's perspective i WILL start sobbing

[mochlus]

This tiny gray cat showed up in our backyard and we were like oh shes so small she must be a little baby kitten, we have to help her, so we got her inside and took her to the vet and they were like nope. no she has all her adult teeth. shes just small. she's literally just that small.

[llamahearted]

two people will go through similar things & learn to cope in different ways

print ♥︎ song

[izzyliker]

i’m not like an incest shipper (although like yeah me and 10k other people shipped wincest in 2013) but the more i see people absolutely losing their minds over the concept of fictional incest the more i laugh like come the fuck on now like this trope is quite literally hundreds of years old and we’re acting like it was invented by fanfiction writers. “richard siken condones incest” “ethel cain condones incest” you mean the artists who write about the rotten and the wretched and the unhealthy and the abusive enjoy digging into fictional relationships that are just that. have you lost your goddamned minds. do you ever read anything except for steven universe fanfiction. like could you handle a 12th grade english lit module on the god of small things.

[anna-scribbles]

adrien tell ur mom to leave me alone !

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Dungeon Meshi crew 'leap' into action!

[prettyysavagee]

Wild imagination😈

[starjunkyard]

Obsessed with the degrees to which james wilson is a messy bitch. Primps and preens himself whenever he realises his boy best friend is stalking / sabotaging / psychological-warfare-ing him. Slept with his terminal patient. Immedicable people pleaser. Chronic adulterer. Three ex wives. PROPOSED TO HIS GIRLFRIEND AT SOMEONE ELSE'S WEDDING? Fuck you doin in the oncology wing my boy. Psychiatric ward is on the left corner

[idolomantises]

Rewatching Adventure Time, I can't help but think so much Princess Bubblegum discourse would be non-existent if people actually watched the show to completion instead of randomly hyperfocusing on some of PB's bad deeds.

There's a very bizarre and commonly held belief that Princess Bubblegum did terrible things and got away with it, that nobody held her accountable. When the show makes a point, repeatedly, that Princess Bubblegum is well meaning but deeply flawed, and to some characters, straight up evil.

I see fans point to "The Cooler" a lot as proof that PB is an irredeemable character, and while it is her worst act in the entire show.... I think people forgot that that was the point. Near the end of the episode she stops spying on people in Ooo because it was an invasion of privacy. In another episode she's called out for exploiting some aliens and lets them go. She feels ashamed that her own people are terrified of her. She loses her entire kingdom, and realizes she needs to get her shit together.

I'm pretty critical of shows that are way too lenient on flawed female characters but Princess Bubblegum isn't one of them. She's awesome, and heavily misunderstood.

[gallusneve]

This isn't going to be easy, you know?

[delicourse]

been watching dungeon meshi...🌱

[confessedlyfannish]

Writing Prompt #12

Bruce is reading the paper when the pour of Tim's coffee goes abruptly quiet. It would be hard to pinpoint why this is disturbing if it wasn't for the way the soft, tinny sound the vent system in the manor makes cuts out for the first time since being updated in the 90s. The pour, Bruce realizes, has not slowed to a trickle before stopping. It has simply stopped. And there is no overeager clack of a the mug against the marble counter or the uncouth first slurp (nor muttered apology at Alfred's scolding look) immediately following the end of the pour.

Bruce fights the instinct to use all of his senses to investigate, and instead keeps his eyes on the byline of the article detailing the latest set of microearthquakes to hit the midwest in the last week. Microearthquakes aren't an unusual occurrence and aren't noticeable by human standards, which is why this article is regulated to page seven, but from several hundred a day worldwide to several hundred a day solely in the East North Central States, seismologists are baffled.

Bruce had been considering sending Superman to investigate under the guise of a Daily Planet article requested by Bruce Wayne (Wayne Industries does have an offshoot factory in the area) when everything had stopped twenty seconds ago. That is what he assumes has happened (having not moved a muscle to confirm) in the amount of time he assumes has passed. His million dollar Rolex does not quite audibly tick but in the absolute silence it should be heard, which confirms the silence to be exactly that—absolute.

While Bruce can hold his breath with the best of the Olympian swimmers, he has never accounted for a need to remain without blinking without being able to move one's eyes. Rotating the eyeballs will maintain lubrication such that one could go without blinking for up to ten minutes. But staring at the byline fixedly, he estimates another twenty seconds before tears start to form.

These are the thoughts Bruce distracts himself with, because he doesn't dare consider how Tim and Alfred haven't made a (living) sound in the past forty-five seconds. About Damian, packing his bag upstairs for school after a morning walk with Titus that was "just pushing it, Master Damian".

There is a knife to his right, if memory serves (it does). In the next five seconds—

"Your wards and guardian are fine, Mr. Wayne," the deepest voice Bruce has ever heard intones. For a dizzying moment, it is hard to pinpoint the location of the voice, for it comes from everywhere—like the chiming of a clocktower whilst inside the tower, so overpowering he is cocooned in its volume.

But it is not spoken loudly, just calmly, and when he puts the paper down, folds it, and looks to his right, a blue man sits in Dick's chair.

He wears a three piece suit made entirely of hues of violet, tie included. He has a black brooch in the shape of a cogwheel pinned to his chest pocket, a simple chain clipped to his lapel. Black leather gloves delicately thumb Bruce's watch (no longer on his wrist, somewhere between second 45 and 46 it has stopped being on his wrist), admiring it.

"You'll forgive me," the man says with surety. "Clocks are rather my thing, and this is an impressive piece." He turns it over and reveals the 'M. Brando' roughly scratched into the silver back. He frowns.

"What a shame," he says, placing it face side up on the table.

"Most would consider that the watch's most valuable characteristic." Bruce says, voice steady, hands neatly folded before him. Two inches from the knife. To his left, there is an open doorway to the kitchen. If he turns his head, he might be able to get a glance of Tim or Alfred.

He doesn't look away from the man.

"It is the arrogance of man," the man says, raising red eyes (sclera and all) to Bruce, "to think they can make their mark on time."

"...Is that supposed to be considered so literally?" Bruce asks, with a light smile he does not mean.

The man smiles lightly back, eyes crinkling at the corners. He looks to be in his mid thirties, clean-shaven. His skin is a dull blue, his hair a shock of white, and a jagged scar runs through one eye and curving down the side of his cheek, an even darker, rawer shade of blue-purple.

The man turns the watch back over and taps at the engraving. "Let me ask you this," he says. "When we deface a work of art, does it become part of the art? Does it add to its intrinsic meaning?"

Bruce forces his shoulders to shrug. "It's arbitrary," he says. "A teenager inscribes his name on the wall of an Ancient Egyptian temple and his parents are forced to publicly apologize. But runic inscriptions are found on the Hagia Sophia that equate to an errant Viking guard having inscribed 'Halfdan was here' and we consider it an artifact of a time in which the Byzantine Empire had established an alliance with the Norse and converted vikings to Christianity."

"The vikings were as errant as the teenager," the man says, "in my experience." He leans back in his chair. "I suppose you could say the difference is time. When time passes, we start to think of things as artistic, or historical. We find the beauty in even the rubble, or at least we find necessity in the destruction..."

He offers Bruce the watch. After a moment, Bruce takes it.

"The problem, Mr. Wayne, is that time does not pass for me. I see it all as it was, as it is, as it ever will be, at all times. There is no refuge from the horror or comfort in that one day..." he closes his hand, the leather squeaking. And then his face smooths out, the brief severity gone. He regards Bruce calmly.

"You can look left, Mr. Wayne."

Bruce looks left. Framed by the doorway, Tim looks like a photograph caught in time. A stream of coffee escapes the spout of the stainless steel pot he prefers over the Breville in the name of expediency, frozen as it makes its way to the thermos proclaiming BITCH I MIGHTWING. Tim regards his task with a face of mindless concentration, mouth slack, lashes in dark relief against his pale skin as he looks down at the mug. Behind him, Bruce can see Alfred's hand outstretched towards the refrigerator handle, equally and terrifyingly still.

"My name is Clockwork," the man says. "I have other names, ones you undoubtedly know, but this one will be bestowed upon me from the mouth of a child I cherish, and so I favor it above all else. I am the Keeper of Time."

"What do you want from me?" Bruce asks, shedding Wayne for Batman in the time it takes to meet Clockwork's eyes. The man acknowledges the change with a greeting nod.

"In a few days time, you will send Superman to the Midwest to investigate the unusual seismic activity. By then, it will be too late, the activity will be gone. They will have already muzzled him."

"Him."

"There is a boy with the power to rule the realm I come from. Your government has been watching him. The day he turned 18, they took him from his family and hid him away. I want you to retrieve him. I want you to do it today."

"Why me?"

"His parents do not have the resources you do, both as Batman and Bruce Wayne. You will dismantle the organization that is keen on keeping him imprisoned, and you will offer him a scholarship to the local University. You and yours will keep him safe within Gotham until he is able to take his place as my King."

This is a lot of information to take in, even for Bruce. The idea that there could be a boy powerful enough to rule over this (god, his mind whispers) entity and that somehow, he has slipped under all of their radars is as frustrating as it is overwhelming. But although Clockwork has seemed willing to converse, he doesn't know how many more questions he will get.

"You have the power to stop time," he decides on, "why don't you rescue him? Would he not be better suited with you and your people?"

"Within every monarchy, there is a court," Clockwork. "Mine will be unhappy with the choice I have made," he looks at Bruce's watch, head cocked. "In different worlds, they call you the Dark Knight. This will be your chance to serve before a True King."

Bruce bristles. "I bow to no one."

"You'll all serve him, one day," Clockwork says, patiently. "He is the ruler of realms where all souls go, new and old. When you finally take refuge, he will be your sanctuary." He frowns. "But your government rejects the idea of gods. All they know is he is other. Not human. Not meta. A weapon."

"A weapon you want me to bring to my city."

"I believe you call one of your weapons 'Clark', do you not?" Clockwork asks idly. "But you misunderstand me. They seek to weaponize him. He is not restrained for your safety, but for their gain."

"And if I don't take him?" Bruce asks, because a) Clockwork has implied he will be at the very least impeded, at worst destroyed over this, and b) he never did quite learn not to poke the bear. "You won't be around if I decide he's better off with the government."

"You will," Clockwork says, with the same certainty he's wielded this entire conversation. "Not because he is a child, though he is, nor because you are good, though you are, nor even because it is better power be close at hand than afar.

"I have told you my court will be unhappy with me. In truth, there are others who also defend the King. Together we will destroy the access to our world not long after this conversation. The court will be unable to touch him, but neither will we as we face the repercussions for our actions. I am telling you this, because in a timeline where I do not, you think I will be there to protect him. And so when he is in danger, even subconsciously, you choose to save him last, or not at all. And that is the wrong choice.

"So cement it in your head, Bruce Wayne," the man says, "You will go to him because I tell you to. And you will keep him safe until he is ready to return to us. He will find no safety net in me. So you will make the right choice, no matter the cost."

"Or, when our worlds connect again, and they will," his voice now echoes in triplicate with the voices of the many, the young, the old, Tim, Bruce's mother, Barry Allen, Bruce's own voice, "I will not be the only one who comes for you."

"Now," he says, producing a Wayne Industries branded BIC pen. "I will tell you the location the boy is being kept, and then I would like my medallion back, please. In that order."

Bruce glances down and sees a golden talisman, attached to a black ribbon that is draped haphazardly around the neck of his bathrobe, so light (too light, he still should have—) he has not felt its weight until this moment.

Bruce flips the paper over, takes the pen, and jots down the coordinates the being rattles off over the face of a senator. By his calculation, they do correspond with a location in the midwest.

"You will find him on B6. Take a left down the hallway and he will be in the third room down, the one with a reinforced steel door. Take Mr. Kent and Mr. Grayson with you, and when you leave take the staircase at the end of the hallway, not the elevator."

The man gets up, dusts off his impeccably clean pants, and offers him a hand to shake.

"We will not meet again for some time, Mr. Wayne."

Bruce looks at the creature, stands, and shakes his hand. It feels like nothing. The Keeper of Time sighs, although nothing has been said.

"Ask your question, Mr. Wayne."

"I have more than one."

"You do," Clockwork says. "But I have heard them all, and so they are one. Please ask, or I will not be inclined to answer it."

"What does this boy mean for the future, that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for him?"

There is a pause.

"So that is the one," Clockwork says, after a time. "Yes. I see. I should resolve this, I suppose."

"Resolve what?"

"It is not his future I mean to protect," the man says. "It is his present."

"You want to keep him safe now..." Bruce says, but he's not sure what the being is trying to say.

"I am not inclined," Clockwork repeats, stops. His expression turns solemn, red eyes widening. In their reflection, Bruce can see something. A rush of movement too quick to make heads or tails of, like playing fast forward on a videotape. "Superman reports no signs of unusual seismic activity. With nothing further to look into, you let it go in favor of other investigative pursuits. You do not find him, as you are not meant to. He stays there. His family, his friends, they cannot find him. His captors tell him they have moved on. He does not believe them, until he does. He stays there. He stays there until he is strong enough to save himself."

Clockwork speaks stiffly, rattling off the chain of events as if reading a Justice League debrief. "He is King. He will always be King. He is strong, and good, and compassionate, and he is great for my people because yours have betrayed his trust beyond repair. He throws himself into being the best to ever Be, because there is nothing Left for him otherwise. We love him. We love him. We love him. My King. Forevermore."

The red film in his eyes stall out, and Bruce is forced to look away from how bright the image is, barely making out a silhouette before they dull back to their regular red.

"I am not inclined," Clockwork says slowly, "To this future."

"Because of what it means in the present," Bruce finishes for him. "They're not just imprisoning him, are they."

"They will have already muzzled him."

Clockworks is right in front of him faster than he can process, fist gripping the medallion at his neck so tight he now feels the ribbon digging into his skin.

"Unlike you, Mr. Wayne," and for the first time, the god is angry, and the image of it will haunt Bruce for the rest of his life, "I do not believe in building a better future on the back of a broken child."

"Find him," the deity orders, and yanks the necklace so hard the ribbon rips—

Clack!

"sluuuuurp!"

"Master Timothy, honestly!"

"Sorry Alfred!"