20012/Shelves and Shelves and Shelves...

Shelves and Shelves and Shelves...
Date of Scene:	04 February 2025
Location:	Library - Wayne Manor
Synopsis:	Gwen ventures into the library in Wayne Manor to find an obscure reference text and comes across Tim Drake reading Lord of the Rings. Awkwardness ensues.
Cast of Characters:	Gwen Stacy, Tim Drake

---

Gwen Stacy has posed:
The manor is too big. Gwen has thought so since the first time she saw it, a looming, gothic silhouette on the Gotham skyline. But knowing and experiencing are two different things.

She follows Alfred's steady pace through the halls, her arms folded over herself despite the warmth inside. Winter air still clings to the thick knit of her oversized sweater -- soft gray, slouching off one shoulder. Black tights disappear into ankle boots, and the ever-present slender choker rests neatly against her throat. A small silver eyebrow piercing glints against the artificial light, a quiet defiance against the overwhelming grandeur around her.

Alfred, of course, is unfazed. He moves through the space with the ease of someone who's spent a lifetime within its walls, leading her up a wide staircase and down a corridor, past old portraits and busts and vases that are probably from some Chinese dynasty that she knows nothing about.

"Thank you for this, Alfred. I'm sorry to pull you away from what you were doing. I just... I don't want to just wander around," Gwen finally breaks the silence.

"It's no trouble, Miss Stacy," he says, his voice warm but measured. "And you needn't wait for Master Dick to send you. You're welcome to use the library as you wish."

"I... don't like to impose," she shrugs, adjusting the strap of her bag. "But he insisted. And if any place is gonna have a copy of A Theory of Temporal Drift just casually lying around, it's probably this one."

She says it lightly, a laugh almost audible in her words, but she's not entirely joking. The book is rare, something she only stumbled across in an old research citation, and the kind of text that would probably have interested Bruce Wayne at some point. Not impossible to find, just difficult.

They reach the doors to the library, and Alfred moves to open them with practiced ease. The room beyond is massive -- two stories with towering shelves stretching toward the high ceiling, rolling ladders tucked neatly in place.

The scent of aged paper and polished wood fills the space, warm and familiar in a way she hadn't expected. It's too much, like stepping into a scene from a movie. She exhales softly, adjusting her bag again.

"Shall I help you look?" Alfred asks, kindly.

"Ohmygodno," she blurts out, already moving past him, but turning to face him as she takes another step backwards. "I mean, I'll be fine. I promise. I spend half my days in libraries working on my dissertation. Thank you, though. Really."

Alfred's gaze lingers, but he only inclines his head. "As you wish, Miss Stacy. If you require anything, I shall be in the kitchen."

She waits until the door clicks shut behind him before letting out a breath, hands settling on her hips as she surveys the endless rows of books.

"Yikes," she mutters to herself, turning in place. "Okay... if I were a rare, potentially impossible-to-find book, where would I be hiding?"

Her voice is quiet, but the sound carries in the vast space.

Tim Drake has posed:
On the second floor of the library, in an area furnished in a half circle towards a wall, Tim Drake is lounging in a leather Chesterfield two-seater. He's wearing a casual hoodie and is flipping through a book in his hands. Occasionally he'll pause and move his attention to a second book, a smile briefly flashing on his lips before he goes back into the first book.

The voices downstairs don't disturb him at first, but the door closing is a bit louder than library talk, and it leads the young man to peek over the upstairs railing. Just in time for Gwen's voice to talk about rare books. She doesn't mention the title that time, but Tim does find a pair of bookmarks to slip into his copy of The Two Towers and Lord of the Rings Companion Book, setting them aside for later. Quietly, he observes from above. Like a bat, get it?

Gwen Stacy has posed:
The library is too quiet.

Not in the peaceful way, not in the cozy, curl-up-with-a-book way. It's the kind of quiet that carries weight, the kind that makes you second-guess your own footsteps. Gwen stands between two towering shelves, arms folded over her chest, fingers drumming against her sleeve as she exhales softly.

"This is fine," she mutters. "Just an absurdly massive library in an absurdly massive house. No big deal."

The sound of her own voice feels too loud, even at a murmur. She rocks forward onto her toes, glancing down one row, then the next. Where do you even start?

She trails a hand lightly along the spines of a row of books, scanning titles she doesn't recognize. A lot of them look old -- probably worth more than anything she actually owns. It's one thing to casually browse a library, another to browse _this_ library.

It's intimidating in a way she doesn't want to admit.

She exhales, shifting her weight, rolling her shoulders back. "Alright, Stacy," she says under her breath. "Dig in.. you've gotta start somewhere."

She takes another step, glancing up at the second level as she moves. The way the shelves stretch toward the ceiling makes the whole place feel cavernous. A little dramatic, honestly. Then again, she's living on the property of a guy who built a secret underground lair for crime-fighting, so it tracks.

Her gaze flickers upward again, just for a second.

Movement.

A figure, up on the second floor, looking down.

Her head tilts slightly. "Please tell me this place isn't haunted," she calls up to the man looking down at her, lips twitching in something caught between amusement and unease. Her voice echoes in the space, surprisingly loud enough to make her wince.

"Sorry," she hisses.

It may not be a public library. The rules may not be the same, here. But it _feels_ like one to Gwen.

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim isn't -trying- to be stealthy. It just comes second nature when he's observing from above like this. The blonde dips out of sight for a moment, then reappears just to slip into the next aisle of books.

Tim just watches her, his steely blue eyes narrow. He knows who she is, of course, with her many distinct features. Blonde hair, pink streak, pierced this-and-that.. Dick Grayson's girlfriend, set loose inside the manor. Hide the fine china from her, she's a punk rocker from TV.

When he's finally noticed and called out to, Tim shrugs. "Might be haunted. But not by me." he replies in similar volume. It's not a public library, and they're alone in the expansive room, so he doesn't feel like he has to whisper. At any rate, there's nobody there to shush them angrily. "Don't even worry about it. I was just reading Lord of the Rings for the.. however many-th time?" He shrugs casually. It's not like the amount is important. Safe to say it's a lot. "What are you looking for? Does Dick know you've escaped the lake house?"

Gwen Stacy has posed:
It's not just the hair, the punk streak, the piercings...

Dick has appraised Batman of the 'whole situation,' Ghost-Spiderness and all, but how much has been shared among the others in the Batfam, Gwen has no idea.

It's pretty safe to say, though, that it'd be hard to miss the fact that at the exact same time Dick invites the punky blonde from New York to shack up with him, Ghost-Spider starts paling around with Nightwing, showing up in the back of his bike on their way to handle the Rustborn and going on more than one rooftop excursion across Gotham.

Ghost-Spider isn't Gotham's first Spider, of course. Spider-Man -- or, well, the black-and-red one -- has been in Gotham for a few years.

So... maybe it's just a huge coincidence!

Except, it's not.

"You re-read Lord the Rings?! So wait.. do you read the whole Tom Bombadil thing every time, or do you secretly skip that part?"

Amusement shines in her eyes, but it's also Tim's first glimpse into how much of a nerd the pink-streaked blonde really is under the piercings and the choker and the highlights.

She _sort of_ knows who he is, too, of course. By public reputation alone -- and, also, whatever Dick has told her. Which could be anything from Tim's whole life story to just a passing mention of his existence. That's the interesting part about these little superhero dances -- trying to figure out how much the person already knows about your secrets.

"Escaped?!" the word slips past her lips in a bubble of surprised laughter, clearly more amused than offended. "It's not like he keeps me chained up."

Usually.

"It's called A Theory of Temporal Drift: Foundations and Anomalies in Quantum Causality by Dr. Elias Hawthorne," she says. "It was published in 1967. Is there like a... physics section?"

Punk rocker from TV, indeed. Hmph!

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim starts descending the stairs to join Gwen, so he looks less like an oppressive overlord talking down to the common folk. Which, this being his home for a good long while, he could've become. Raising an eyebrow he fires back. "I never skip the parts that aren't in the movies. Some of them are my favorite chapters." he points out. "Like the Scouring of the Shire. It's like the prologue to the epilogue, and in the movies it's.. one shot in the first movie."

"It seemed that way. I've seen you at the New Years Eve party at the Clocktower, where we met, and you had to have Dick take you home. Alfred claims you don't come up here usually." He says the last thing with a slight hint of incredulity. "Which is crazy, because Alfred is always taking care of everyone more than they think they need. And.. well, you live here now. Sort of? Like me?" All Tim has on the Wayne Manor grounds is a bedroom in the manor itself, not a lakehouse or some sort of private area, but it never bothered him. He'd only used it for a couple of months while working on the Theater.

When Gwen starts describing the book she's looking for, Tim gestures towards the first set of rows from the entrance. "Should be around there. The way the library is set up is.. you have all the scientific studies, educational material, stuff like that, all in the front on the bottom floor. All the fun fictional novels are upstairs." He pauses with a small grin. "It's so Bruce can impress whoever's getting the tour like 'Look at me, I have an original "A Brief History of Time"'. And then Lord of the Rings is all the way in the back. Yours, if it's here, should be down here somewhere." He gestures around helpfully.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"Nerd."

The accusation slips out on a smile, but's almost too comfortable, too fast, like somehow Tim's presence -- even from above -- was actually making Gwen feel _more_ comfortable rather than less, even though she doesn't even really know him.

Still, the back-and-forth about something so familiar was grounding. Gwen Stacy, daughter of a widowed NYPD police captain, who grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in Queens, is standing amid... frankly?... unimaginable wealth. Every time she's tried to get her mind around the size of the bank account required to even maintain a place like this, much less own it, she just... can't.

A few months ago, she was scrounging for change in her purse to pay for a hot dog from a cart in Brooklyn.

Now?

Well, some of the money she was saving on NYC rent was going into a savings account. Some of it was going to pay her dad back. But at least she wasn't digging for change anymore. And she's surrounded by... this. All this.

Which doesn't even make any sense, really.

...and you had to have Dick take you home. Alfred claims you don't come up here usually...

The questions -- accusations? -- are peppered out, and despite the comfort she'd felt just a moment ago, she can't seem to help taking a step back. It's less of an immediate retreat and more of a... surrender of space? A silent admission that she still feels like she's trespassing?

Her fingers hook into the shoulder-strap of the satchel hanging against her hip, just looking for something to hold on to... something to ground her.

"I..."

...don't know how to answer any of those questions. It's there in the flash of panic in her eyes, the way apology mingles in there too. But she's not sure what to say she's sorry for. Not hanging out in the manor? Not acting like she owns the place? It's been months now. She met Bruce once, finally, but to say she feels like 'part of the family' would be far more than just a stretch.

"Alfred brings cookies to the lake house, sometimes," she offers, pushing a smile onto her lips and a hopeful lilt into her voice. "But... it had gotten late." Plus, there was the bat signal. "We were only planning to stay for the countdown..."

Excuses.

No nudge-nudge, 'you know why we left' secret handshake.

So, maybe Dick hasn't told her as many secrets as one might suspect.

"As far as living here..." She rolls one narrow shoulder, that smile lingering just on the edges of her mouth. "I'm ... Dick's girlfriend. It's not exactly the same."

There's no heat at all in those words. Just a kind of quiet acceptance. She's not 'one of the kids.' She doesn't have a partial 'ownership' interest or a lifetime standing invitation. She seems acutely aware that she's allowed to exist here as long as she behaves and she stays in Dick's good graces.

And maybe that's the first indication that, for as friendly as she outwardly is -- and that sense of kindness, gentleness, that girl-next-door charm radiates from every pore of her body -- she still keeps everyone at arm's length. Even if that means that she refuses to step through a doorway and accept what is an otherwise open invitation.

She could really 'join' this family. She could make more of an effort to connect with each and every person -- Bruce, Tim, Barbara, Damian... even Stephanie, who she arguably replaced at Dick's side. She could insert herself into all of their lives, make her presence known, share in the manor and their stories.

But she doesn't.

She keeps to the lake house, and if it weren't for family gossip, they might not even have known she was there at all.

Gwen has problems with attachment, with letting anyone close, and the last thing she needs is more even family to have to lie to, to disappoint, or to lose.

"Thanks," she answers, warming a bit more at the easy gesture to the right shelves, and seeming to appreciate the distracting of moving to find her book.

But even when she moves towards that area, it doesn't seem as if she's outright running from Tim or trying to turn her

Gwen Stacy has posed:
But even when she moves towards that area, it doesn't seem as if she's outright running from Tim or trying to turn her back to him. She glances over her shoulder as she goes.

"I was glad to meet you at the party, though," she adds. "I'm sorry we didn't have more time to talk. There were... a lot of people."

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim's eyes narrow at the single syllable accusation. "You're a skipper?" he shoots back, his expression an approximation of Batman's usual disapproval. Shaking his head, he waves her off. "I only skip the songs, mostly. The fully Elvish ones. I don't understand them, so I'm not missing out. And there are -so- many."

Tim notices Gwen's demeanor change. He's quick to pick up on things like that. "Look, I didn't mean it in a bad way. It's just.. you know, with Steph.." Frowning, he shakes his head. "It's none of my business. I just know Steph was devastated, might still be, and Dick has -fully- moved on, in the same amount of time. And it's not on you. Not at all. I'm sure you're great. But it's not exactly the same." he finishes, deliberately using her same words.

When Gwen turns into the aisle at his direction, Tim smirks at her recollection of the party. "Yeah. I hadn't seen some of them in months. Or since." he notes lightly. "It was nice to meet you as well." Moving back to the stairs, Tim calls out, "I'll be up there in the nerd paddock in case you want to join me with your book later."