Summary: The city is different, and M-21 can't place why. That's when he bumps into his younger self and he's sure Tao would say something along the lines of 'We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto'. Except he still is. Just not in the time he's used to anymore.
I made a joking comment about what M-21 would do if he travelled back in time. And then the plotbunny refused to let me sleep until I wrote one scene.
Aaaand thanks to some people I now have plotbunnies everywhere so I'm putting this into it's own section. I'll probably be writing this snippets style like nekomata!Tao.
Displaced
By Dark Ice Dragon
The city is different, and M-21 can't place why. It smells the same, the weather is the same though sunnier when the forecast said it would rain, and the people are the same.
It still feels off for some reason.
It's while he's trying to figure it out that he walks into someone.
"Watch it!" the other person snarls as 'Sorry' is on M-21's tongue.
It dies there as M-21 sees who he walked into.
Himself.
It's his younger self with longer hair, wearing the trenchcoat with the upturned collar.
M-24 is standing next to him.
M-21's stomach lurches and he runs as his younger self's eyes widen.
He's zigzagged to five different roofs before he drops down to ground level again, his heart hammering. He couldn't have - that couldn't have been.
But his nose doesn't lie. That was both himself and M-24.
He digs out his phone and there it is. The date's updated since the last time he checked.
He's several months in the past.
Shit.
He has no idea how that happened. There had been no flashing, no weight of power or anything to indicate something had happened. It was a normal day. He'd thought.
"Shit," he says for extra emphasis. When had he arrived here? Younger him. How long is it going to be before things started coming to a head?
Has younger him found the empty room yet?
Has Frankenstein found Raizel-nim yet?
He's watched enough time travel movies with Takeo and Tao (Because 'We gotta catch up on the classics, you guys! Do you know how much we've been missing?') to know there were so many ways to fuck up the timeline.
And he'd already started with meeting his younger self.
At least the universe hadn't imploded when they'd touched.
But what can he do now?
Stay out of everyone's way since he knows how it'll all end and just wait for his own timeline to come around again? There's a few places he can think of holing himself up to bide his time. Or he could just leave the city, or even the country. That would make it harder to bump into anyone who would recognise him.
"Is there something wrong?"
M-21 snaps his head towards the voice even as he recognises it.
It's Frankenstein and Raizel-nim, Raizel-nim walking towards him.
Or he could run right into the next pair he was trying to avoid.
Raizel-nim has to know something's up, that he's time displaced or whatever the fuck it's called. Tao would know. Tao's not here right now. Won't be for another week or so.
He's going to fuck everything up further if he doesn't just run again. Leave. He should.
But if there's anyone who would know what happened and how to fix it, it's them.
"Yeah," he says, nodding, and Raizel-nim smiles.
Maybe...everything's going to end up okay after all. With them, it always does.