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For once Tim was glad he was currently on an Alfred-mandated coffee break, if only so he could be mostly certain he wasn’t currently hallucinating.
Talk of Amity Park, allegedly the most haunted place on earth, wasn’t new. Sure, it hadn’t really been on the bats’s radar much, since they usually were more focused on things that were a threat than just weird little towns that had a gimmick. And a high concentration of metas in one small town was certainly unusual, but as they didn’t seem to be in danger (or be a danger) the fact was negligible.
But some DNA results taken from the used glasses in a restaurant from a visiting class on a trip to Gotham had more than flapped the bats’s wings, so to say.
Over 20 samples, and not a single hit on the meta gene.
And yet.
Tim had seen, with his own eyes as he followed along on the rooftops, how the teenagers and even their teacher did things that no non-meta human should be able to. Saw them talking to empty air and then saw the air seemingly listen as the things they had asked for came to happen.
They had followed the class along during their trip, collecting evidence and observing, and still reached no conclusions. They were all simply inexplicably weird, the weirdest of all being a boy who sometimes simply disappeared. Extra lab findings, including one of the guy’s blood they had gotten off an alley floor after he had somehow both faceplanted against a wall and taken out a mugger, had shown over and over again an almost mocking result of no meta genes.
So here Tim was, on a “vacation” with his brothers (the situation demanded more than one set of hands at this point), to sightsee the self-proclaimed “Most Haunted Town in The States!”. Most weirdest would be more correct.
It was like entering a different dimension. People were just walking down the street, conversing with thin air, or handing things to empty space that somehow got carried away.
Tim was sure he even saw an entire pizza delivery backpack racing down the street, no driver or even motorcycle in sight. And Tim was sure if he tested any of them few if any would be a meta.
It was fascinating and Tim wanted to metaphorically dig his detective fingers right into it.
His current train(wreck) of thought was interrupted by Jason giving a low whistle at his side.
“Damn, so these are the people we’re investigating? Why didn’t you mention they were green? Feels like a pretty important detail to have just left out,” the second eldest brother said.
“What?!” Dick voiced Tim’s own thoughts. “What do you mean green? They just look like regular people! Or, well, as regular as they can seem when interacting with thin air,” he finished.
“Tt. Is this a prank? Are you and Drake playing a joke on Todd and I after we were gone for that mission this past month?”
“I- no. Baby bat what are you talking about?” Dick answered, even more confused now. Tim was just glad to not be a part of the current conversation. His eye caught a cat being floated out of a tree and settled into a little boy’s arms a little ways away.
“Woah, woah, woah, time out! What do you mean “interacting with thin air”? You’re telling me you genuinely can’t see the green people? They’re just, what, empty space to you? Who are the non-meta metas you were talking about if not them?!” Jason threw in.
“Ummm, wh- uh…” Dick floundered for a response. Tim resisted jumping in place while that all was going on. This just kept getting better and better. What was with the people from this town? Both the ones he could see and the ones he apparently couldn’t?
Jason and Damian casually parted form where they were standing side by side, Jason letting out a low “no problem” along with the action, as if he was letting someone through, while Dick had given up on saying something for the time being.
Tim thought this was better than coffee.
He wanted to figure out why Jason and Damian, and apparently the rest of this town, could see something Dick and him couldn’t. He should test this. His inner mad scientist started peeking through.
His thoughts were (rudely, he was getting so excited for this!) interrupted again, this time by the very disappearing teenager that had made even Bruce almost pop a vessel with the level of weird bullshit he represented.
“Hi! Welcome to Amity. First time?” he asked, as if they weren’t in a small town where everybody knew everybody and therefore could clock foreigners from a mile away. “Are you here on purpose, or do you need the beginner’s information brochure?” he asked, as if any of them knew what the heck he was talking about.
Tim made sideways eye contact with his brothers, all of them discussing what to do. Technically they were here on purpose, but the way the guy had said it alluded to the fact that he meant a very specific purpose.
It was decided they would accept the beginner’s brochure. Answers were answers, after all.
Why did the others agree it was Tim who had to speak, though?
“Uh, yeah, we’ll take the brochure,” he told the teen casually.
For some reason the boy winced a little, looking at them all with slight guilt, as if he knew whatever they were about to learn wouldn’t be pleasant.
He turned to Jason and Damian specifically.
“As I’m sure you have noticed, you two can probably see more of this town than the other two. This may be a bit of a heavy conversation, if you need the brochure, so how about we go get something to eat and I can explain everything in more detail?” he said, taking a bunch of brochures about of nowhere and handing them one each.
They started inspecting them as they walked, the teenager, Jason and Damian occasionally swerving around nothing whereas Dick and Tim went along the sidewalk without trouble.
The brochure was mostly pale blue with small purple rivulets, with little floating blobs of green jelly scattered around the front. That wasn’t too bad.
It was the title that got Tim to full attention immediately and both brought forth why the teen thought they needed to have a deeper discussion and made the situation that much more fascinating complicated.
“So You Have a Closer Relationship With Death Than Most” a happy little blob stated.
Tim was really starting to love this town.
