A Light in the Dark (Tim)

[Ivan Stane]

Takes place shortly after this thread.

maybe i'm foolish

maybe i'm blind

thinking i can see through this

❧

He really hoped Tim had disabled the security measures this place probably had. He really hoped Tim just hadn't left a window open because if the security was still in place, Ivan wouldn't have been surprised if that window zapped the crap out of him as he pushed through it, even if he was in wind form.

The research facility gave him the creeps. He had a strong feeling that they did much more here than the public was aware - than some of their own employees was aware because no matter how much he distrusted this place, he trusted Tim with his life. He knew Tim was a good person, even if his friend sometimes didn't believe that himself. If this place was corrupt like he suspected, Tim wasn't aware.

And it was because of Tim that he was even there - or rather he was getting there. It took him a moment to remember where Tim's lab was located but once he remembered, he saw the window open. So far, so good. He flew through the window, successfully clearing it but still re-materializing out of the wind sooner than he would have liked.

He tripped over something Tim had in the lab - maybe even Tim, he wasn't really paying attention, his head swimming - and promptly fell flat on his face. He grumbled and pushed himself into a sitting position, reaching up and wiping blood from his nose onto the sleeve of the grey hoodie he'd hastily thrown on.

It was only because he cared deeply for Tim that he was there still wearing his black pajama pants and an old, faded Green Lantern t-shirt on with that hoodie pulled on top. He glanced down at the hoodie's sleeve that was now, ugh, stained with blood. He remained sitting because the dizziness from using his powers to get here was still lingering but he looked around, assuming Tim was in the lab.

323 ● Timothy Smith ● Brotp uwu Also a not-so-graceful entrance from my son lmao

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[Timothy Smith]

Tim shot up when something stumbled across him. It had been a long several days, he hadn't recharged in a while, and even despite the nightmare Tim was still exhausted and had passed out again. The motion lights had shut themselves off, and they flickered back on as Ivan stumbled his way into the room.

"I wasn't asleep I was awake!"

Obviously a lie.

"Sorry. I... I really didn't want to but I fell asleep again. No... dreams that time. You didn't really have to come over."

Tim went to the nearest wall outlet and put his hand over it, pulling power directly from it. He didn't want to go to sleep again, and this was one way he could keep himself awake.

"So. Um. Hi. How's it going? You... you need some water? A cheese stick or something? You've got.. yeah you've got some blood on your shirt. You know if you let me test your powers we might be able to figure out how to keep that from happening all the time. I've been getting into superhuman biology as a hobby, I've been learning a lot. You know most people with electricity powers actually shift the ions in their body at will as opposed to generating the electricity within themselves they just basically summon a lightning strike between what they want to hit and their focus point, which varies. One guy who let me observe him shot it out of his bellybutton, for whatever reason it was the only place he could do it."

Tim was avoiding the subject. Which was ironic, considering he had sent the initial text that brought Ivan over here. Now that it actually was time to have a conversation face to face, he wasn't sure he wanted to anymore. It wasn't a fun topic of conversation.

Ivan Stane

[Ivan Stane]

maybe i'm foolish

maybe i'm blind

thinking i can see through this

❧

He glared at Tim, who had clearly been sleeping, though his eyes held no real venom behind them. It was more out of annoyance since he felt like he was risking a lot to come here and help Tim and here his friend was, sleeping! The nerve!

He watched Tim move to the outlet, admittedly wondering if that was healthier than having a cup of coffee. He also wasn't sure if Tim should have been doing that to begin with, rather than just going back to sleep. But so long as his best friend didn't comment on the absurd amount of coffee he drank, he wouldn't comment on whether or not Tim absorbing electricity was actually good for him or not.

Also he didn't understand Tim's powers as much as he assumed Tim did.

Ivan didn't really register what Tim was going on and on about because he knew his friend was deflecting, trying to avoid the topic, the reason why he'd flown here. He shifted so he was sitting cross-legged. He then proceeded to give Tim the most unimpressed look he could muster. It was a look he'd learned from watching his mother.

"Are you done?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow as his unimpressed expression turned into a smirk. "You're avoiding this like the plague - or rather like I avoid my brother." He meant Scott which he thought was obvious. He'd never been known to avoid Julian.

"You want to talk about what happened?" he continued, "I can wait. I have... Sadly, I have all day. I have no life."

262 ● Timothy Smith ● Oh god this one's short. >_>;;

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[Timothy Smith]

Tim sighed. Ivan was always good at cutting through the crap and getting to the heart of a matter. At least with Tim he was. It's one of the reasons they were such good friends, they had strengths where the other had weaknesses.

"I had a bad dream. That's--"

Suddenly his throat went dry as he recalled the dream. He swallowed.

"That's all there is. It made me think about things."

He sat down, and gestured toward a chair for Ivan. He had a feeling that they weren't likely going to go out for pizza, at least not until they'd talked this all out.

"I know you and the police and everyone else tell me I'm not responsible for what happened, but... but I am. I know that I am. I was there. I saw what happened to them. And..."

Dry throat again. Another swallow.

"You know, maybe I should get myself some water."

He stood back up and grabbed a glass and went to the lab sink. He kept some snack stuff here, and was always careful to clean it up before an experiment.

Once his throat was sufficiently wetted, he spoke again, knowing that Ivan would just push if he didn't just get it out.

"I saw what happened to them, and it didn't happen to me. And besides that, other people were affected. Nihilo, for one. Heck, I'm not even sure if I didn't give the neighbors radiation poisoning or something. Someone might have gone walking by and just fshh, that's it, they're off to whatever comes after death. Or possibly worse. They could have been cursed with a power or something that left them in constant pain, like Nihilo."

Tim sat back down, and held up a hand and let fire and light and electricity dance on his upturned palm.

"I don't deserve these powers. The only reason I feel like I have them is to make up for what I did. And I'm not even sure that I can."

He took a long drink of his water.

"So that's what's up. I had a nightmare and it's make me think about things I really don't like thinking about. I texted you because I wondered if you'd ever had something even in the same zip code as similar to what happened. What I did. And you haven't, which is great. I wouldn't wish this on anyone."

Ivan Stane

[Ivan Stane]

maybe i'm foolish

maybe i'm blind

thinking i can see through this

❧

He was quiet when Tim started talking, not wanting to make it harder for his best friend to open up. Despite what most people who met him probably thought, he occasionally knew when to keep his mouth shut.

He pushed himself to his feet to take a seat by Tim, eyes softly on the other man, remaining quiet so he'd continue. He understood Tim's guilt, why he felt the way he felt. He didn't want him to think that he thought his feelings were invalid or illogical. If he'd experienced the same thing as Tim, he was sure he'd feel the same guilt.

But his main concern was to make sure his friend's guilt didn't eat him up, that Tim didn't define himself by his guilt, that his guilt didn't hinder him.

He briefly stood back up when Tim finished speaking, swung the seat around and sat back down where he could lean forward, resting his arms forward, against the back of the chair. It was more comfortable for him that way or maybe he just liked to sit in a different way than most people. Teachers had told him he liked to stick out, that he tried hard to be different from everyone else. He still wasn't sure how true that was.

"Yeah well that's what nightmares do," he replied with a light shrug. He figured Tim knew him well enough to know he wasn't shrugging off his concerns, that he defaulted to forced casual body language when uncomfortable or heavy topics were brought up. It was similar to how he defaulted to sarcasm and sass.

"They fuck with your mind, make you feel shit," he added. He sighed. "Like I've told you before, though, it was an accident. I get blaming yourself for it - Trust me, I do - but it's not like you purposefully caused the explosion."

311 ● Timothy Smith ● Mm I feel like this post could've been better but idk, sorry. ><

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[Timothy Smith]

Tim sat, quietly, as his friend tried to comfort him. One part he said though, stuck in his head.

Accident and "it's not like you purposefully caused the explosion."

"What if I did?"

He said this quietly, softly, looking down at his hands. It was easily audible in the lab, the only other sound besides their breathing being the hum of the fluorescent lights.

"Something very wrong happened that day. If it was an accident I should have been charged with criminal negligence. At the very least. I wasn't. But even then, I... What if I meant to do it? I don't remember everything about that day. Parts of it are burned into my mind, and I see them as clearly as I see you in front of me right now, but... I don't remember exactly what I was thinking, what my intent was when I disabled those safeties. But I disabled them intentionally."

He looked up and met Ivan's gaze, locking eyes with him. "Ivan. I feel like I'm getting away with murder. And it's not a happy feeling. And... I don't know. Maybe I'm going crazy. Nobody else seems to care. 'It's fine, it was an accident, you didn't mean it!' That's what everyone says, man. Everyone blows me off. But I know what I did. I disabled those safeties on purpose. And I should be in jail for it. At the very least."


Tim stood up and turned toward the wall. This entire thing was... uncomfortable. Ivan was probably right, it was probably necessary, but he hated it. There was a reason he worked all the time. Slowing down gave him time to think about all this.

"Sorry. Not the best conversation for the middle of the night."

Ivan Stane

[Ivan Stane]

maybe i'm foolish

maybe i'm blind

thinking i can see through this

❧

He frowned at Tim's question. He hadn't been entirely expecting it and it also confused him. Unless there was something - a big something - Tim had left out about the accident, he was certain that Tim hadn't purposefully killed his own parents. He felt no doubt about that.

But it was obvious Tim did.

He admittedly didn't know what to say as Tim talked. He had degrees in criminology and, while getting those degrees, it'd never occurred to him that it didn't make sense for Tim to not be charged with any crimes. Even believing it was all an accident, people went to jail for accidents.

He wondered if there could've been someone protecting Tim from prosecution, someone within the justice system, or perhaps the justice system was just crap in Astaria, lazy due to the presence of heroes like Aegis.

But he wasn't going to say any of that because he didn't think that would help at all. And he was here to help. He wasn't as good with comforting, with knowing what to say as Scott seemed to be but Tim had naturally reached out to him not Scott. And now they were there and Tim's feelings were out, in the open, dreading to be touched, to be addressed.

"Nah," he eventually said with a light shrug, "These are the perfect conversations for the middle of the night." It admittedly felt fitting, discussing this now rather than earlier in the day. He wasn't sure why. It just felt right to him.

"Look, dude, I don't know why you weren't arrested," he admitted, which admitting that to anyone else would've caused him to be embarrassed since he was supposed to be a freelance detective. "But I also don't think knowing why - or even knowing whether or not there was a reason - would make you feel better."

He knew that sometimes having the answers was worse than asking the questions. Of course that didn't stop people from yearning for those answers.

"Even if you disabled the safeties on purpose," he continued, "That doesn't mean you wanted to kill your parents."

Ivan wasn't naive enough to think one conversation would make Tim's guilt go away. He honestly wasn't sure if anyone except Tim himself could accomplish that.

379 ● Timothy Smith ● n/a

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[Timothy Smith]

"At least I'd know."

That was one of the things that bothered him the most. Everyone just acted like it didn't happen. Like he didn't kill his parents, whether intentionally or not. Everyone just glossed over it.

"I... I feel like I'm this monster just hiding in my body. Nobody acknowledges it, everyone ignores that it happened, but somewhere inside me... there's the capacity to do that. And I'm scared that it'll come out and hurt everyone I care about again."

He picked up a test tube and toyed with it. "You know besides you, my parents were the only people I cared about in the world? And I still did that to them. Whether I wanted to kill them or not, I wanted to spite them at the very least."

He put the tube back in the rack. He really hated thinking about it. He figured that was why he spent so much time doing something, anything else.

"Maybe I should get back to work. That's one of the only things that helps. What was I working on..." he mumbled to himself as he started to sort through what he had left on the table. "If you want to help I'm sure I can figure out something, but you probably wanna get back to sleep.

Ivan Stane

[Ivan Stane]

maybe i'm foolish

maybe i'm blind

thinking i can see through this

❧

This wasn't the first time in his life Ivan felt unqualified for a conversation he was actively in and had partially started. He felt useless, like a lifeguard that wasn't taught how to swim, not knowing what he could do to help Tim, who was clearly drowning.

He frowned when Tim said he'd wanted to spite his parents. He knew that had to play into Tim's guilt. If Tim hadn't wanted to kill them - which Ivan believed he hadn't - then certainly Tim was feeling guilty about possibly wanting to do something so little as spite them. At least spite seemed little to Ivan.

"Everyone wants to spite their parents at some point in their life," he pointed out, "It's just part of being family. Doesn't mean you stopped loving them. Doesn't mean you wanted them gone." He hesitated. Never in one night had he wished Scott was with him so many times.

"That doesn't mean you can't feel guilty about the times you didn't get along with them," he added, "Grief has a way of making us look at those times and coat them with guilt. You just - You just need to remember that doesn't mean you ever stopped loving them."

He held back a sigh when Tim seemed to focus back in on his work. He worked too much - Ivan thought that was obvious to anyone who knew Tim.

"Eh sleep's overrated," he replied, trying to sound nonchalant, shrugging and giving a playful grin at his friend. "I think what you need is a day away from all this-" He gestured around at the lab. "-and to just cut loose and have some fun." He paused for a moment, thinking. "We haven't been to an arcade in years. If you ever want to, you can hit me up and we can go?"

309 ● Timothy Smith ● First Anna post of 2020! O-O

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[Timothy Smith]

Tim blinked. Cut loose? Have fun? Wasn’t work fun? Wasn’t that the whole goal of picking out your career, to find something that was fun for you so it wasn’t a slog every day?

“I... sure. I guess. I just...”

He sighed. It was honest time, after all.

“When I’m working I’m focused on fixing a problem. I don’t have the brainpower or time to think about anything else. My parents. What I’ve done. Whether I’m making the right decisions. It... it works. I guess.”

He slid the test tube he was holding back in the rack and looked at it like it held all the answers to all the questions that life had, and the answers weren’t all just “forty-two.”

“Life’s just simpler when I’m beating up a bad guy or making my latest doohickey.”

He turned to Ivan. “Alright. Let’s go. Right now. Let’s call it an experiment in managing my mental state.

He smirked as he took off and hung up his lab coat. “First round of pizza, beer, and tokens are on you though.”

Ivan Stane