8514/Reconciliation, Part II

Reconciliation, Part II
Date of Scene:	31 October 2021
Location:	The rooftops of Gotham
Synopsis:	All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. AKA it's raining, someone cries (not going to spoil who) and eventually Tim and Lonnie make up.
Cast of Characters:	Lonnie Machin, Tim Drake

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Lonnie Machin has posed:
It's Halloween. It's pouring. Fortunately, it started raining after the kids were in for the night. Now it's just partiers and other people in masks, like Lonnie. Being an egalitarian sort, he... went trick-or-treating in his getup at the homes of many of Gotham's wealthiest elites, and now he has has a bag of primo. He's sitting under a gargoyle on a towering building, with his mask up just enough for him to eat a king-size snickers bar as the rain comes down all around him in buckets.

It was actually kind of fun. Lots of them thought he was some sort of psycho killer. One person was so off-base they called him Freddy Krueger, and Lonnie's still trying to figure out what planet they'd been living on for the past 40 years.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim did not go trick-or-treating. In fact, Tim can't even remember the last time he went trick-or-treating, but it was probably before the whole No Man's Land situation. He is in costume, though, because he's so far behind on his share of patrol duty that he's probably going to be out every night for the next month. The soft pop of an air canister discharging precedes his arrival via grapple gun on the rooftop above and a few paces to the side of where Lonnie is perched.

    And then he stops. "Nothing from up here," he reports, no doubt into his communicator. "...No, it's clear. Maybe the rain has chased them all inside." Then Tim pauses, listening to the other half of the conversation coming in to his ear.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
Lonnie has Tim's routes figured out pretty well. But he waits to see if Red Robin sees him. He sits still, aside from placidly eating his candy bar, though his mouth is shrouded in the shadows of his still mostly-down mask. Munch, munch, munch...

Tim Drake has posed:
    "Right. Yeah, will do. Red Robin out." And then it's quiet, aside for the staccato beat of rain falling around them. Tim remains standing there for a while longer before he exhales heavily and sits down on the edge of the roof. His legs kick out a little bit, and his attention remains off somewhere else, a pair of binoculars pressed against the lenses of his domino mask.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
Lonnie looks up - and then he gives the telltale bag a rustle. "I got candy-corn flavor marshmallow eggs." He says, "Like, eight of them. I know you can't resist them." He wads up the candy wrapper and it vanishes someplace. He doesn't litter.

He pulls his mask back down.

Tim Drake has posed:
    If Tim is surprised by Lonnie's presence, he doesn't show it. He's quiet for a long moment, no reply immediately forthcoming, but when he does it's only with a "No, thank you. I'm fine." In a tone of voice that is doing its very best to broadcast yes, indeed, he is totally fine. He also doesn't lower his binoculars.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
"Okay." Lonnie is quiet. And then he says, "I was mad, when I said that. ...I'm sorry." He fishes around, which creates more of the promising rustle of all that candy, and then he sighs. "It wasn't the right time or the right place to have that talk. You're important to me, and hurting you like that was asinine." He fishes a packet of starbursts out - cherry, that's acceptable.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's lips purse, and without looking, he says, "Anarky, I'm on duty. I don't want any candy." He tucks first one leg and then the other, up against his chest, the heels of his boots right on the edge of the roof as he keeps monitoring... well, something that must be happening (or not happening?) down below.

    "It's fine, anyway. You were right."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
Anarky considers and then he says, casually, "...But I have baby ruth. That's technically an energy bar, not a candy." He folds his arm around one leg, as water drips off his bone-white mask. "It doesn't matter if I was right or not."

Tim Drake has posed:
    "How long are we going to pretend this will work?" Tim asks, abruptly. He doesn't respond to the offer of a baby ruth. Carbs? Sugar? Suddenly he has no idea what these things are. The binoculars pull away from his face long enough for him to swipe a gloved hand over his eyes, clearing some of the rainwater that's started to accumulate. "The whole thing just proves that I'm not--that we're just too different. My problems, my life, we can't--."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
Anarky looks up, and then says, "Then dump me. Right here. Right now, do it. I'll go. I'll even leave you the candy. I don't understand it. You have so many things that I didn't - I'm not talking about your wealth and privilege - and you don't seem to want them and I don't get it. But I want to understand. All I know is that until recently I didn't understand how lonely I really was."

"And I'm grateful either way."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim says nothing to that. But he does lower the binoculars, which his fingers tighten against hard enough that they squeak along the outer casing, wet from the rain. "What am I supposed to say?" he asks, instead. "I grew up with parents, but that doesn't mean it was--never mind. It doesn't matter." He seems to remember himself, suddenly, and he raises the binoculars to his face again as he holds up a hand to bring the conversation to a pause.

    After a long moment, he says, "No, still no movement."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
"That's just it." Anarky says, "You're not SUPPOSED to say anything. There's no mark you have to hit, no script you have to follow. That's just it." He pauses again, and then looks down. "I love you. You don't need to be perfect. I don't WANT you to be perfect. What I want - is for you to be happy. And you... it feels like you're engaging in some act of penance for things you didn't do wrong."

His white mask dips. "Well I don't believe in penance, so screw that."

Tim Drake has posed:
    "Well I'm not happy!" Tim spits out, and he says it so forcefully that he shifts forward, far enough that his heels slip off the edge of the roof and he only just barely manages to catch himself before he falls. His breath stutters to a stop in his chest, and then he turns away, breathing rapidly for several moments until he gets himself back under control. "But I can't talk about that, because nothing that happened to me matters, in comparison."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
Lonnie gets up. He's standing on that Gargoyle, no wire, 50 stories above the city streets. His eyes are half-lidded. He looks at the candy, and then he looks down at the street... and he just throws himself off the gargoyle. Of course, he has a grapple of his own, and if he has to he'll use it, but that's not the point.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim looks up, and somehow he just... knows what Lonnie is about to do. Of course when Lonnie decides to do something he just does it, so Tim has all of half a second to get out "Wait, don't--" before it's too late.

    A second or two later, he slams into Lonnie from behind in the air and his grapple gun fires off a line with a quiet pop of decompressing air. They free fall for just the tiniest bit longer before the line snaps tight and they swing across to a nearby rooftop, lower to the ground. Tim lets go of Lonnie first before he ends up tumbling to the ground with a grunt.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
Except that Lonnie doesn't let go of him, so they end up going arse-over-teakettle together, and Tim winds up staring straight into that blank white mask.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's still got a white-knuckled grip on the handle of his grapple gun, and he grimaces as he looks up at Lonnie. There's a moment, just a split-second, where his fingers shift, and the tension that works its way up his arm suggests he's about to pistol-whip Lonnie right across that mask. But then his hand relaxes, and he turns his head away.

    His chin trembles once, but then he blows all of the air out of his lungs through his nose. "Get off of me."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
Lonnie lets go, and gets up. "I guess... that's it then?" He asks, before he tosses the bag of candy at Tim. "I want you, Tim. I do. More than I remember wanting a lot of things." He sighs. "I remember - my mother had a really bad trip, and I was yelling at her. I think... I was ten. I was so mad. And she was bawling. And she said that she understood if I didn't love her, because she was garbage. And I realized that I was angry because I loved her - so much that it was hurting me." He doesn't expound upon that further, he just stands there in the rain.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "You threw yourself off-- what were you--." His next attempt to speak just results in Tim letting out a wordless noise of frustration. And then he sits up, because no matter what, his reflexes won't let him not catch something thrown at him. Tim drops the bag of candy to the side, after. "I don't want to hurt you," he says, after a long pause. "And that's all I'll ever do, because I had things you didn't, and they made me miserable. So." He gestures, loosely, though even Tim isn't sure what he's trying to express.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
Lonnie - or Anarky - says, "I think I should be the judge of whether you've hurt me or not. Not you." He narrows his eyes, behind his mask, and then he says, "Believe it or not, all I really wanna do right now is hold you while you're hurting. So yeah, you are hurting me, just not the way you think you are."

"I jumped because I knew you'd catch me." He admits.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's legs have ended up tucked against his chest again, and he presses his fingers against the bridge of his nose through his mask. It's a familiar expression, one he only does when he's Red Robin, and he's silent through whatever pain prompts him to do so. He doesn't have a reply.

    At least until Lonnie says that last thing, and Tim's breath catches in his throat. His hand flattens against his face, over the lenses of his mask, and his shoulders shake.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
Lonnie watches Tim for perhaps twenty seconds, thirty - and then he slowly walks over. He sinks down, and puts his arms around Red Robin's shoulders, and his chin on top of his head.

Tim Drake has posed:
    As soon as Lonnie's arms wrap around him, Tim leans in heavily, working himself into the space against Lonnie's chest. He's dead silent as he sobs, and if not for them being pressed against each other there probably wouldn't be any obvious way of telling. Especially not with the rain pouring down around them. One hand takes hold of Lonnie's jacket and doesn't let go.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
The white-masked vigilante doesn't say anything, instead letting Tim cry it out. The rain gets worse. He shifts to cover Red Robin with his back, so his waterproof jacket keeps the worst of it off him.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The whole crying it out thing doesn't actually take as long as it probably should. Because Tim's in costume, and he's supposed to be doing things. Things that are, no doubt, important. So he pulls himself together long enough to at least sign off, which is probably a little abrupt for whoever's on the other end of the line, and then he pulls away.

    Though it's just to peel off his domino mask and look up at Lonnie, blinking against the rain.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
Lonnie is for a moment, struck dumb by how beautiful Tim is - vulnerable. He uses a thumb to wipe away a raindrop, maybe a tear, from under Tim's eye. "If you'd jumped, I would've caught you, too." He says, before he looks up. "...You're going to catch a cold. I told you, add a hood to your cape. ...My place is closer, but if you'd prefer I can take you back to yours."

Tim Drake has posed:
    After a moment, Tim's eyes lower, and he puts his mask in place again. "I have to get back to patrol." He rises to his feet, and waits for Lonnie to do the same, so that he can press the candy bag against his chest. "Go home. Eat your candy. Say hi to Yap for me." He bites his lip and half-turns, on his heel...

    ...before he turns back, rips Lonnie's mask off, and rises up on his toes to press their mouths together.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
In the middle of the pouring rain, Lonnie grabs Tim's hair, and their mouths mash together, and he clings, holding it, with the water running down their faces. He gently separates them. "...I'll come with you." He says. "I think... I'd feel better if you're not out there alone tonight."

Tim Drake has posed:
    When Tim pulls back, his expression is inscrutable. Fully in Red Robin mode again, mentally. He looks down at his grapple gun, still in his hand. "Well," he says, after a pause. "You better keep up, then."

    And then he's off, racing towards the edge of the roof.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
"Seems to me I've got a lot of experience staying ahead of you." He puts his mask back on, and gives chase into the rain and the night.