A Good Day

It's been a year since the end of the war. Bernard's accustomed, now, to seeing men and a few women with haunted eyes who dive for cover at any sudden loud noise, an adaptation which had been perfectly logical, perfectly natural, when they were in the warzone but which is out of place even in Gotham. Bernard's gotten over it for the most part. He still twitches when he hears fireworks or gunfire a few streets over, but he manages to stay upright. He doesn't think anybody who wasn't there even notices him react any more. But he was only a medic, doing triage not quite on the front lines. Most of the people he'd known over there, even the ones who'd come back before he had, still reacted more.

He'd never expected Tim to be one of them, but then again he'd met a lot of people he wouldn't have expected to be soldiers serving in the war. And he'd never known Tim very well.

He hasn't seen Tim since Tim's dad died, right after the gang war, so when he sees him walking down the street he isn't entirely sure it's actually him. Tim moved to Blüdhaven, why would he be back here? But something about the way he moves makes Bernard willing to risk embarrassing himself. It's not like it would be the first time.

"Tim?" he says hesitantly.

The man's eyes snap to his, and wow, how could he forget those blue eyes that seem to pierce into your soul? "Who wants to know?" He seems different, and not in a minor way. The Tim he'd known (he's sure this is Tim, now) had been the complete opposite of confrontational, breaking up fights he hadn't even been involved in. This Tim seems willing (eager?) to fight.

"It's Bernard, Bernard Dowd," Bernard says. "C'mon, Tim, I know I've changed, but I don't think it's been that much." He gives the grin he didn't feel like giving very often anymore because he knows (hopes) Tim would recognize it.

"Oh," Tim says slowly, relaxing. "Sorry, my memory's kind of…" he gestures vaguely toward his temple.

"Plus I doubt the scar helps," Bernard replies, fingering the raised skin where shrapnel had almost taken his eye out in a familiar motion. Sometimes it's hard to keep his fingers off of it, even though he knows that the more he touches it the more attention it draws to itself.

"Scars are…nothing major," Tim says, rubbing at his neck. His collar moves under his hand and Bernard sees a truly nasty scar across his neck. How had Tim even survived that? It looks old, though, so Tim didn't get it in the war unless he was one of the lucky few who got treated by one of the few metas who can heal. He doesn't have any problems not staring at the scar, which is rare even now, with so many people who were wounded in the war walking around. With his scar being so visible.

"You want to grab a cup of coffee?" Bernard asks. "Or whatever?"

"Sure." They're falling back into the old patterns, a little. Neither of them is the same, or even close, to who they'd been when they knew each other before, but it's easy enough to pretend they are. If he doesn't look at Tim's eyes darting all over the place. If he doesn't look at the windows, at his scarred reflection. If there aren't any loud noises to make them jump.

They order, and Tim chooses the table in the best strategic position, away from the large windows at the front of the shop but right next to the side exit. Where he can see everything that goes on in the coffee shop and can duck out quickly if he needs to. At first Bernard thinks this unconscious positioning is new, something he picked up in the war like so many others had, but when he thinks back to high school he realizes that whenever Tim had chosen their table he'd always chosen one like this. Bernard had never realized because he'd never had to think about how to avoid getting killed back then. Maybe Tim always has.

The silence stretches out awkwardly, and belatedly Bernard remembers that he'd always been more of a talker than Tim had been (how could he forget something like that? He'd always talked a lot). "So, Tim, what have you been doing?" he winces, knowing that can be a really bad question to ask people who were in the war. "I mean…" He can't think of anything to finish his sentence with.

Tim fidgets with a napkin, but there's something off about his fidgeting, about the way that he's completely still except for his fingers. He wouldn't be moving more than one of Gotham's gargoyles if he wasn't shredding the napkin very precisely. Bernard can't remember ever seeing Tim fidget like this (or at all). Seeing even this completely normal fidgeting on Tim is like seeing some of the more messed-up people he'd encountered trying to act normal. Like they know there are some things normal people do, so they do them, but something about the actions is just off. Nothing you can point to and say, "That's wrong", but just something that sets your teeth on edge and makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.

After a moment he realizes Tim isn't going to say anything. Maybe what he'd done is classified. Maybe he can't remember (he did say he had some memory issues, after all). Maybe he just didn't want to talk about it. "I was in the war," he says to make conversation. Not particularly cheerful conversation, of course, but what else are they supposed to talk about? Bernard, at least, hasn't found civilian life particularly engaging since he got back, and it's hard to just forget about something you've lived for years. "Just a medic, but, you know, I was there."

Their drinks are ready, and Tim goes and gets them without a word. Tim has always taken his coffee black (of course), but he raises his eyebrow at Bernard when he sees that he isn't the only one, now. There's a large difference between this and the triple grande vanilla non-fat with whip lattes he'd practically lived on back in high school. He blushes. "I don't really have a sweet tooth anymore," he explains like he needs an excuse for his tastes changing. Tim nods shortly and they drink their coffee in silence for a while.

"I wasn't," Tim blurts, and it takes Bernard a moment to remember where their conversation had left off. Tim doesn't look up from his coffee, and he doesn't seem inclined to say anything more.

"Then how'd you get like this?" Bernard asks. "I mean, no offense, but you look terrible."

Tim twitches, or maybe flinches. "I can't." He clears his throat. "I can't talk about it."

"Well, I hope you're talking to somebody about it," Bernard says.

"No." Tim looks up, finally, his eyes wide. "Nobody else needs to have my nightmares."

"Do you at least have somebody looking after you?"

"As if I could avoid it."

"And they let you just wander around the city? You look like you could have a flashback at any moment."

Tim laughs, one short ha! which contains no amusement whatsoever. It sends chills down Bernard's spine. "None of my flashbacks are lethal. Besides, they're keeping a very close eye on me even if it doesn't look like it." He waves at the security camera as if he thinks somebody's watching the feed in real time. With how weird Tim's acting, Bernard isn't sure if he believes Tim's delusional (which would be the safe bet in normal circumstances, but if Tim wasn't in the war who knows what he got mixed up in that messed him up so badly) or that somebody really is watching him. It's theoretically possible, since a lot of security cameras are now police-accessible over the internet, but it's very unlikely.

He's worried about Tim even after seeing him again for such a short time, but he isn't his mother, so he drops the subject. Unfortunately, that means they have nothing to talk about. Again. Bernard's always filled in the empty spaces in conversations with gossip, but he hadn't kept in touch with anybody from high school, so they don't know any of the same people any more.

Tim tenses in an all-too-familiar way when two women wearing head scarves sit down at the table next to theirs, speaking what sounds like Arabic. Bernard tenses too, ready for Tim to have a flashback. Hearing Arabic is one of the bigger triggers, in Bernard's not limited enough experience. And just because Tim claims he wasn't in the war doesn't mean he was telling the truth. But Tim relaxes as much as he has during the rest of their conversation after a second and drains his coffee.

"I should go," he says dully. "If I'm not back for my meds at 4 they'll start stopping me when I leave."

Bernard stands up and follows him out, still sipping at his coffee. "Can I call you?" he asks. "Or you could call me."

Tim shakes his head, just a quick jerk to the side. "Today's a good day. They're rare."

"They won't always be rare."

Tim's expression is guarded. His eyes only meet Bernard's for a second before resuming their darting around. Bernard thinks that, if it were anyone but Tim, he'd have an expression of hope. He doesn't know if Tim knows how to do emotions any more, or even fake them the way he'd used to sometimes in high school (Bernard wasn't supposed to notice, but sometimes he'd caught Tim out of the corner of his eye, expressionless, although he'd always been all smiles when Bernard had turned to him). He fumbles in a pocket and sorts through several scraps of paper before he finds the one he wants. That's new; Tim had never been less than organized (some, like Bernard, would say anal) back in high school. "Try this number," he says, shoving the paper at Bernard. "It isn't mine, but she might let you talk to me."

"Thank you."

"Don't get your hopes up."

Bernard opens his mouth to say something, but the sharp retort of gunfire cuts him off. He throws himself to the ground before he can even register that it actually is gunfire, not a car backfiring or somebody dropping a stack of plates. Tim doesn't duck and cover, though, he falls into a pose like he's ready to do karate on somebody, not like he's possibly in the firing range of a semiautomatic. Tim reaches for his waistband, and half of Bernard's thoughts are Please, God, tell me they didn't let him out with a gun and half of them are glad that he is armed (unless he only thinks he's armed, if this is some sort of a flashback and he actually doesn't have anything) because he can stop whoever's shooting.

But it turns out that Tim doesn't have a gun. He pulls something metal out of his waistband, and it takes a moment for Bernard to register that it's a shuriken, or rather several shuriken, and by that point they're flying through the air, the sun glinting off of them and half-blinding Bernard. He doesn't have time to think of even one reason shuriken are ineffectual in gunfights before they've lodged in the gunman's hand and arm and demonstrated that sometimes, at least, shuriken can be effective.

There's a sudden strong wind and suddenly there's a man in front of Tim, who's looking around frantically and clutching another shuriken. "Tim," the man says in a soothing voice. "It's okay, you got him. There isn't anybody else. You're having a flashback. Concentrate on my voice. Come back to the real world."

All at once the tension drains out of Tim, leaving behind a weary confusion. The shuriken drops from his limp hand. "Bart…?" His voice wavers.

The man puts his hands on Tim's shoulders and looks into his eyes. "It's me." Tim's frantic eye movement (trying to watch everything at once) seems to have stopped, perhaps because he's with somebody he trusts. It hurts, a little, to know that Tim doesn't trust him, but he hadn't expected anything else. They'd only known each other for a few months back in high school, after all.

"I did it again, didn't I." It isn't a question, just a statement full of resignation. Tim's perfect posture has collapsed, and he slumps standing up, only the other man's hands on his shoulders holding him up.

"Sorry I was so late," the other man apologizes, even though he'd gotten there within seconds of the first burst of gunfire. "Barbara took a bathroom break at just the wrong time."

So they had been watching him! Bernard really doesn't want to know what Tim had been mixed up in, now. But Tim's his friend, or was anyway, so he picks up the shuriken and stands up. He isn't an expert on shuriken, but this one looks handmade, not like the ones he's seen in knife shops and in the possession of some of the guys he'd known during the war. He holds it out to Tim silently, since even the noise he'd made standing up had attracted their attention to him and he's being looked at intensely by a pair of blue eyes and a pair of gold. Tim accepts it just as silently, but the other man grabs his wrist.

"Tim…" he says almost warningly. Tim doesn't reply, just tucks the shuriken back where it came from and doesn't meet the man's eyes. The man gives up, sighs and throws his hands in the air. "Fine. Come on, we have to go." He turns and walks off, Tim following silently behind him.

Bernard watches them go, fingering the paper Tim had given him in his pocket. This was a good day for Tim. He isn't sure he can deal with that.