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[peektuttut]

[Tim has been doing his damnedest to pretend everything's fine, and his damnedest is pretty good. Right now he's sitting at his desk, twirling something around his finger. It's his warden Item, his old school birdarang - which is just a stylized R shuriken. Don't ask how it works, just accept that it does. He's keeping it moving, though, so it's

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[gotgreenmagic]

Shego had been sleeping unusually lightly since the breach as it was - a leftover habit of 'Sherry's', maybe - but the sudden combination of noise and cold and the lurching mattress would have jolted her awake no matter what. Her hand fisted around the pillow, green energy circling her arm, and if not for her reduced powers it probably would've set on fire. In that wavering, sickly glow she saw Tim sitting bolt upright, muscles bunched with tension; she blinked, chasing away the few cobwebs not already burnt out by the shock.

"Tim...?"

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[peektuttut]

When the light flared up, Tim jerked his arm up, somewhere between fending it off and lashing out - but he froze before doing anything stupid. The room was familiar, she was familiar, and he just needed a few seconds to make that transition. He wasn't in his old apartment. He was in his room at Wayne Manor. No, on the barge. He looked down at her, confused - an a moment later, he forced the tension out of his shoulders.

"Sorry," he muttered, dropping his face into his hand to scrub. "It was--" He waved his other hand; that it was a nightmare was pretty obvious.

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[gotgreenmagic]

She was silent briefly, with no concept of what to do in this situation that would help, then reached over and fumbled around the nightstand until she found the switch for the lamp. With real light to see by, things didn't look a whole lot better or easier.

"It's okay." She sat up herself and leaned forward, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "Not your fault."

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[peektuttut]

He was pale and sweaty, but at least the lamp didn't make things look sickly. Tim rubbed a hand over his eyes and stiffened when she first touched him. His instinct had, for a long time, been to push people away when he was hurting, and it took effort not do give in and just shove her away. He kept his eyes closed and instead focused on his breathing. He should be able to calm his heart rate. He'd learned how years ago, but it just continued to pound away against his chest.

"Didn't mean to wake you," he said, because it felt like he should say something.

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[gotgreenmagic]

"I know." Shego got nightmares, every so often she still had flashbacks to the mirror flood even though it'd been over a goddamn year ago, she supposed that wound was never going to close. His skin felt clammy under her hands; she could feel the rapid pulse in the crook of his elbow.

"Tim, talk to me."

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[peektuttut]

For a long while he leaned away, like he was about to slide off the bed and disappear. Maybe if he went to the gym, he could at least put this spike in adrenaline to good use. Maybe if he just left, without a word, she'd - what, go back to sleep an forget? Tim kept a hand over his face.

"My dad was murdered," he said quietly. "I was on the phone with him when it happened I dream about it, sometimes. He had a gun--" And the rest stuck in his throat. If his dad could kill, so could he. He'd already seen his future.

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[gotgreenmagic]

She had already gathered that Tim and his adoptive family had some major issues with killing people - it'd make sense that they would have associated issues with firearms, she supposed.

"The flood?" she said quietly. He'd been a deputy, right? So now he was saddled with the memories of being that guy, and being that guy had almost definitely meant using a gun.

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[peektuttut]

He nodded. "I shot at Hoffman. I remember shooting people." He turned away, staring at the wall and clenching his hands to get rid of the feeling of holding a gun. He'd seen his future, and he'd changed it, but there was too real a risk that somewhere down the line, he'd put on his Batman uniform and use a gun, and it terrified him.

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[gotgreenmagic]

"You remember what somebody else did, Tim. I know - I know it's just talk, God knows I'm still not all the way over being some of the people I've been during floods, but it wasn't you. That guy might have had the same face and the same name, but he didn't live the life you have and that's what's important here. You know that."

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[peektuttut]

"I know his life was different, but we weren't that different! If I had lived back then, I'm pretty sure that's how I would have been. And if all it takes is changing my surroundings to make putting a gun in my hand easy, to make killing easy, then what the hell am I doing?" He raked a hand through his hair, scowling at the wall. "It's going to happen." That he int mean to say out loud.

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[gotgreenmagic]

Those last few words stopped her short. The 'if I'd lived a hundred years I would be different' argument was too crazy to really pursue, but that...

"What do you mean, 'it's going to happen'?"

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[peektuttut]

"I saw--" His throat objected, and he paused to swallow and wet his lips. "I've seen my future. In a decade - less than a decade - I'm Batman. I'll have a gun, and I'll talk people into my side, and--" He shook his had, sitting hunched over, staring at the wall. "Kon saw it. We were all there, but he went looking around, and he saw me - he saw Batman--" The phrasing and the tenses didn't sound right, but he pushed past it. "They had Slade as a prisoner. He saw me tell Kon-from-the-future to burn his arm off."

Tim wasn't sure how much of it made any coherent sense; it was hard enough to be sensical about this stuff at the best of times.

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[gotgreenmagic]

She sighed and shifted a little, reaching out to take his hands.

"Tim. Part of the definition of 'your future' is that it's something that hasn't happened yet. Saying that anything is going to happen on the basis of what could have been a mass hallucination is -- crazy."

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[peektuttut]

He tensed, and started to pull away before stopping himself. "It wasn't a mass hallucination. It was a whole time travel thing, it - look, it wasn't just me. The entire Teen Titans team was with me, we all saw it, and we all agreed to put a stop to it." Back when it was easy to think anything was possible, that they could change things. "And we did, but then they came to us.. They were different, things had changed, but it was still me. As Batman. Using a gun." His hands had tightened around hers.

"He happened twice. That - me--" He was starting to think he sounded like a crazy person. "When I dream about my dad, I reach for a gun. It's never there, and there's never anyone to fight. But this time..." He trailed off, hand squeezing around her's tightly before he forced himself to let go.

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[gotgreenmagic]

"You killed someone?" she said, quietly. She was sitting opposite him now, so even with his face turned to the wall she could see him in the half-light. "In your dream just now?"

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[peektuttut]

He paused for a long moment, and drew a slow breath before nodding. "I had a gun. And Boomerang was alive. I woke up before I--" No, that wasn't right-- "As I--" It took effort to move his mouth around the word. "Fired."