Chapter Text
Tim was….
Tim was pretty sure this wasn't his fault. At least like, pretty sure that is.
One moment he's chasing a rogue metahuman that decided Gotham was a good playground to test out their powers and the next there's something close to electricity was zapping in the air and the air itself tears open.
And sure, he's running on empty. Has been running on empty for a few days now.
(No B he wasn't laying down yet he has things to do)
And then the next he's falling through said tear in the sky and landing roughly in a surprisingly clean ally way. Before he can even roll over and try to climb back through the tear it's gone.
Landing hurt.
He hit concrete shoulder-first, rolled twice, slammed into a dumpster, and somehow managed to end up crouched on one knee out of pure muscle memory.
Everything hurt.
Which, admittedly, wasn't unusual.
This was… less than ideal for sure.
Tim sighed the exhausted sigh of someone whose life had long ago stopped surprising him.
"Okay."
Step one, Figure out where he was.
Step two, Find a computer.
Step three, Steal exactly enough Wi-Fi to figure out where he was and the rules so he could blend in.
Step four, Try not to think about how absolutely unbearable Bruce was going to be once he got home from wherever here was.
Tim did a slow turn in the alley, Different architecture. Way too clean.
No overflowing garbage bags. No graffiti layered over older graffiti. The streetlights actually worked.
He climbed the fire escape without thinking, boots finding rusted metal by instinct, and pulled himself onto the first nearby rooftop.
First priority was getting a look at his surroundings.
The skyline spread out around him.
Glass, Steel, Bright advertisements.
More greenery than Gotham ever allowed itself.
No Wayne Tower.
No LexCorp.
No familiar landmarks.
“Justtttt wonderful…”
Definitely not home.
Tim crouched near the edge, pulling a compact pair of binoculars from his utility belt.
Traffic moved with practiced order several stories below. Pedestrians flowed around each other with almost eerie efficiency.
Then someone floated past.
Not on a jetpack.
Not on wires.
Just...
Floating.
Tim lowered the binoculars.
"...Okay…?”
Alien? Meta? Magic? Dimension?
His headache was already starting to try and make itself known again.
Any of those were still on the table.
He desperately needed more data before conclusions. A large digital map several blocks away caught his eye.
Libraries had the internet.
Libraries also tended to ask fewer questions than police stations.
Decision made.
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Twenty minutes later—
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He'd crossed half the district entirely by rooftop. Old habits he supposed.
Stay high, Avoid cameras, Don't silhouette yourself, Keep moving at all times.
Unfortunately...
There were cameras everywhere. Traffic cameras. Building cameras. Street cameras.
Tiny dome cameras tucked beneath awnings.
Either crime here was ridiculous...
...or security standards were. Tim adjusted his route accordingly.
It became less of a straight line and more of an elaborate game of "avoid the electronic eyeballs."
Thankfully, this wasn't Gotham.
These systems weren't expecting someone who treated security like an insult.
A quick jammer pulse disabled one camera just long enough for him to swing past.
Another he bypassed entirely by dropping between two buildings and climbing back up using drainpipes.
Not elegant.
Just effective.
Eventually he spotted exactly what he'd been looking for, a modern public library.
Six floors, Glass front.
Closed.
It was perfect.
Breaking into libraries ranked unsurprisingly low on Tim's list of morally questionable activities.
He checked the locks.
Electronic, Easy. His multitool slid into place, seven seconds later..
Click.
“...Still too easy.”
Inside was blissfully quiet. The air smelled like old books and fresh coffee. He paused.
That... actually helped with the growing headache.
Man, Jason would have a field day here, Something about libraries always settled that man's brain just enough to keep functioning.
He slipped through dark aisles until he located the public computers, One problem.
Language.
The keyboard looked familiar.
The letters mostly weren't.
"...Please tell me this world believes in multilingual operating systems."
Luck, for once, decided to throw him a nice appetizing bone. A small icon in the corner.
English.
He could have kissed whoever designed the interface on the lips
Instead, he pulled and plugged in a small encrypted drive into the machine, not because he expected anyone here to be watching, but because assuming a network was safe had gotten smarter people than him killed.
Search one:
‘Current location?’
‘Musutafu, Japan.’
Huh.. Japan? That would explain why the words looked different but similar.
Search two:
‘World news.’
The first dozen results all had one word repeated over and over.
Heroes.
Professional Heroes.
Hero Rankings.
Hero Agencies.
Hero Public Safety Commission.
Hero Licensing.
Tim frowned at the overuse of the word, scrolling through them all.
He clicked into one of them and five minutes later his headache was whispering threats into his brain again.
After a while he leans back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
"So everyone just..."
He gestured vaguely in no particular direction.
"...gets superpowers?”
Well the article had actually called them Quirks but details. Roughly eighty percent of humanity here had one. The statistics looked legitimate enough for a sudden fairytale.
The videos looked real though.
Everything from fire generations to giant hands to washing-machine-level spin speeds.
He'd seen stranger things but it didn't mean he wanted to.
This wasn't even in the top ten.
That licensed superhero industry though..
Now that was fascinating and weird.
Heroes with salaries, heroes with agencies, heroes doing interviews, heroes with legal merchandise, heroes ranked like athletes.
Bruce would probably have a stroke thinking of the logistics. Tim snorted quietly at the thought.
"Actually..."
Considering Batman's opinions on commercialization...
"he'd just brood louder.”
His smile faded as another realization hit. No Justice League, No Titans, No fellow bats.
No records of Gotham.
Nothing.
Not hidden, not absent.
Completely gone. He was really and truly alone…
The cursor blinked expectantly.
Tim rubbed at eyes that felt packed with sand.
Next search.
‘Dimensional travel.’
If he was going to get home...
He needed to know whether this world had ever dealt with someone like him before.