Tin Man Fic Ideas

Chapter 20: Ambrose Meets Glitch

The quartet get sent back in time and the only one that can help them get back to the present is Ambrose — who is a bit busy processing Glitch's existence and is going to need a moment, please and thank you.

To save the trouble of paradox nonsense, let's assume that something makes it so that Ambrose will forget after sending them back and he only remembers again after Glitch gets turned back into him.

Mostly comedy as Ambrose deals with watching himself act like an undignified, bumbling fool and him experiencing Glitch's bonds with the others — the sweet parts and the NO GLITCH DON'T EAT THAT actively-having-to-be-managed-like-a-particularly-stupid-child-or-unruly-pet (from Ambrose's perspective, as he hasn't noticed Glitch's brilliant side yet) parts — from the outside.

A little bit of angst because Ambrose is currently bluescreening over the idea that he's going to have half his brain removed eventually and WHAT. Which also works for humor because he wants to have a mental breakdown in peace but these time travelers are telling him to fix the thingy and he pulls himself together while glancing at the thing that is technically him oh Gods every five seconds and what the actual fuck is this day???

Glitch meanwhile is feeling that same sort of sad feeling he gets when he discovers he's been walking in a circle again — that the world around him is familiar and he knows it well, except it isn't and he doesn't, except he's so sure it should be and he does.

He also gets a brief surge of something light in his chest, though, every time he says or does something in sync with his other self. A phrase, a gesture, a conclusion reached together. Finally the brief, spare moments when his brain fires right suddenly have something to be compared to, proof that they should be his baseline. And he manages to hold onto this thought in bits and spurts, but never for long because they are in a lab he thinks he likes labs there's someone that looks just like him ooh what does this doohickey do OH THAT'S SHINY and it SPINS–

(And someday Ambrose will have to deal with remembering both sides of this encounter, which is its own kind of hilarious yet interesting)