Chapter Text
Tim had a headache.
Usually, when he had headaches, Steph would blame it on the excessive amount of caffeine he consumed daily, and Jason or Dick would make a comment about how he hadn’t slept in fourty-eight hours. Typically Tim’s excuses to these claims weren’t very believable, but this time, considering he’d just fallen through a literal knockoff Minecraft portal, he was sure they could excuse him for feeling like someone had driven a stake through his forehead.
That was, if they even existed where he was. You know, with the portal and all, Tim could be years, even dimensions away from his family.
He tried to open his eyes, but quickly shut them again as the bright sunlight assaulted his eyes. Birds were chattering around him, just soft enough not to hurt. Okay, so he definitely wasn’t in Gotham, with the whole eternal night and noticeably birdless(the animals, not the vigilantes) city. So he’s definitely changed surroundings, if not worlds.
Okay, first things first, he should figure out where, or when, he was. That is, after his headache went away, at least slightly. He could handle it if it was just a bit milder, he’d done it before, and that was on top of Dick and Bruce talking loudly in his ear the whole time about “pushing himself” and “taking breaks” or whatever.
A shadow fell over his face, and even with his eyes closed, Tim could be grateful for the relief from the damn sun. Soft raindrops hit his skin despite the warmth. But then again, the shadow could be trying to kill him and the rain could be poison and he wouldn’t even notice being blind as he was, so using all the vigilance that comes with being, you know, a vigilante, Tim fought the pain and opened his eyes.
He was met with a face inches from his.
Tim jumped back and rolled to his feet, fingering the batarangs at his belt. The woman, too, jumped back, her eyes wide, and the cloud over her head grew darker.
Wait, cloud? Tim did a double take as subtly as possible, noticing a short man next to her. Both were wearing yellow and regarded him cautiously, but they didn’t look like they’d attack him the moment he spoke, and as Tim’s fingers tightened around his weapon, he forced his shoulders to relax and made his stance nonthreatening,trying to remember how he was supposed to smile.
Channel your inner Brucie Wayne, Tim. Friendly, disarming, clumsy, flirty-nope! He was not flirting with a middle aged couple, no thank you!
Tim could only hope his grin was comforting and not creepy-He’d never been as good as Dick at social things, leaning more into the serious young prodigy persona, and years of leaving the socializing to his siblings after being adopted had put him out of practice- but the man only smiled back at him, disarmingly warm in a way Tim was familiar with. He felt himself relax a little. Sure, warmth didn’t always mean openness, but it was way easier to get answers out of than hostility.
“So…” Tim said, turning his head to look around causally even as it made his vision swim, but keeping a close enough eye on the duo to see them stare at his words. “Where am I?”.
“The Encanto,” replied the woman, scrutinizing him as the cloud above her head continued to soak her orange hair. Tim stared at her, waiting for elaboration, because ‘Encanto’ was pretty vague. He tried to remember what it meant: It was a Spanish word, was it an enchantment of some sort? Wait, didn’t it mean love or something? Tim had never been very good at spanish, everything he knew he’d picked up over the years from when Jason and Dick would go back and forth in as many languages as Jason knew, although for some reason Dick had stopped responding in spanish, or to spanish a few years back, so Tim had lost most of what he’d known.
The man put a hand on the woman’s arm, still smiling at Tim. “The village” he began, “is protected by an enchantment.” He paused and gave Tim a long look, and Tim noted that despite his smile, his eyes were guarded “outsiders aren’t supposed to be able to get in”.
Oh! That explained their caution around him. Tim had clocked the mountains surrounding the area the moment he’d looked around, but he’d assumed there must have been an exit somewhere, and he was just too far away to see it. If it was true what the duo had told him, then to them Tim’s appearance must mean that there was a way to get past whatever spell guarded the place, which, he supposed in a way was true, since if he’d managed to end up in these people’s village he had somehow bypassed their enchantment.
“Sorry,” Tim did his best to look harmless, rubbing the back of his neck and squinting up at them the way Janet Drake had taught him to do years ago back when he was a cute kid who benefactors couldn’t get enough of: “I don’t really know how I ended up here, or how to get home, but I’m sure if I had a little bit more information I could figure it out” mainly, Tim needed a map and the date- If he could get a map of the outside world at the time, he could look for inconsistencies in the timeline- and some more info on the enchantments on the village, he might be able to channel them to get home, where the villain with the portals might still be running free. “If you had a map of outside the..uh…Encanto, and if you could tell me the date it would be useful”.
The woman frowned at him, thinking, before turning to the man. “Let’s take him to mama first”. The man nodded his assent and gestured for Tim to follow him as the woman started walking, not waiting for either. “Come with us.” Tim got up from where he’d been sitting on the ground, taking a moment to let his vision settle, and followed on slightly unsteady feet, making sure to catalog the walk, even as he pondered. Who was Mama? Was she the actual mother of the woman (and possibly the man, Tim didn’t see any family resemblance but who knew), or some sort of matriarchal figure for the whole village. Or both? He turned to the man. “Who’s Mama?”
“Alma Madrigal, she protects the miracle, and our family protects the village,” okay, so she was both a mother and a leader of some sort, possibly a religious leader. And somehow she was in charge of the magic, which would explain the cloud over the woman’s head, even if she didn’t seem able to control it. Was it a punishment of some sort? And how did the family protect the village? Vigilante style or priest style or army style? It could also be- Tim shook his head, ignoring how it increased the pain behind his eyes. The place he was in was very interesting, but his main goal was to figure out where and when he was, and how to get home. If the Justice League, or the Bats were around and nearby that would make his job a lot easier.
“What…year is it?”
“Nineteen fifty-one,” and then, as though he expected Tim to ask it next: “The Encanto is in Columbia.”
Tim nodded his thanks, but his heart was sinking. No Justice League, none of his U.S. contacts. Bruce wasn’t even born yet, no one he knew was.
It was fine, sure his job just got harder, but it wasn't impossible. He could maybe rework the magic, and if he couldn’t, he’d just have to wait until one of the magic users or his family found him, because they would. He wouldn’t be stuck here forever…
…As the woman and man led him towards the entrance to a large, colorful house, and the house waved at them (more like it’s shutters and windows flapped, and the tiles jumped, but the energy was there, the liveliness, as though it were really alive), Tim’s curiosity grew. He never got much of a chance to mess with magic, with Bruce’s distaste of it, and with him being neutral enough not to really want to fight over the subject, but magic was pretty interesting, and he’d never seen a sentient house before. How did it work? Did it have a brain, or was some magical spirit controlling it. Maybe it was designed to imitate intelligence? Maybe…
Maybe his plans to get back home could wait a few hours.