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Sometimes, people just fit. They meet and it’s like the entire world has shifted into alignment. It’s like everything they’ve been waiting for and more, everything they didn’t know they wanted right within their grasp. They walk around together and the sun shines just for them. People can’t help but smile when they see them together, because the two of them just look so right in each other’s arms. They aren’t on that fuck-around shit – they’re the relationship you wish you had, the couple you wish you were, the love that doesn’t die.
Tim and Kon are that couple. They fit. Red Robin and Superboy start dating less than a month after Connor Kent reveals he’s come back from the dead, less than a month after Red Robin comes back to Gotham with a chip on his shoulder and a bite in his voice left from too much time with the League of Assassins. Bruce manages to wrangle his way out of the space-time continuum a short time later, and comes back to find Tim better than he’s been in months – and it’s all due to Kon. Tim’s always been a little in love with his best friend, had nearly lost himself when Kon had died, and now that he’s back, he isn’t letting him go. Everyone in the superhero community is a little enamored with the two of them, the tangible example that, yeah, sometimes love wins after all.
Which is why it comes as such a surprise when it ends.
Because it’s always a kick in the teeth when people fall apart.
******
“What are you talking about, you and Kon broke up?” Dick says.
“Exactly what I said, Dick,” Tim says, like he couldn’t be bothered.
Dick gapes at him, exchanges a glance with Damian, who is squinting at Tim like he isn’t sure whether he should say something rude or not. “You’ve been together for two years!”
Tim’s jaw clenches. “And now we’re not.”
There’s something brittle in his voice that makes Dick pause, makes Damian privately glad he hasn’t said anything. Right now, Drake doesn’t look like a man you’d want to toy with. He looks like a man who wishes you’d make the first move just so he has an excuse to put you in the dirt.
“What, uh…” Dick trails off, wets his lips. “Why?”
“I am, quote, deceitful and manipulative, unquote,” Tim announces. His tone grows mocking. “Which, since I’ve apparently always been that way, just isn’t as hot as it used to be.”
“He said that to you?” Dick asks after a moment.
Tim laughs bitterly. “Oh, yeah. I’m also a paranoid control freak. And I’m only honest when it fits my agenda, or with the other members of my super secret fucking bat club. Not with my team. Not with my boyfriend. Only family.”
Alfred materializes like a shadow in the blackness of the Cave. “Perhaps some tea, Master Timothy?”
It doesn’t take long before everyone knows. Just like everyone knew when they were together, now everyone knows they’ve fallen apart. It makes Tim want to crawl inside his own fucking skin.
He hasn’t felt this uncomfortable since standing vigil at Batman’s funeral, vibrating in rage as Dick condescended to him and ignored him and told him he needed to quit with the denial and accept the fact that his father was dead. Except it isn’t like Red Robin had the best reputation in terms of mental health before their very-fucking-public break-up. People won’t stop looking at him and clapping meaningful hands on his shoulder and asking him how he’s doing. Tim would rather dig a bullet out of his own spine without anesthesia than make eye contact with an apologetic Superman every time their eyes meet.
He ghosts out of the Titans. He isn’t ashamed, he tells himself. He just can’t stand the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach every time he sees Cassie’s hand on Kon’s arm, the backwards looks Gar and Bart send him, the unspoken, Are you okay’s? It makes him see red, how easily Kon’s just tossed him aside. Makes him realize just how long Kon had been dissatisfied in their relationship, that it takes him all of two weeks before he’s onto the next one. Tim watches, and he suffocates.
Kon isn’t overly unpleasant; not on purpose, anyway. But Tim hasn’t necessarily been doing well in a long time. He hasn’t been sleeping, hasn’t been eating well, survives on microwave meals and caffeine. Sometimes he still wakes up and has to check that his friends aren’t actually still dead. And now he’s single, after losing the best damn thing that had ever happened to him, and—well. He isn’t willing to be nice, even for his teammates.
So when Kon makes a dumb comment, Tim doesn’t even think about it when he snaps, “If I wanted to know what you thought, I would have asked you.” He doesn’t even look up from his screen.
The tension in the following silence is palpable, a rare thing when the Titans’ team has grown in numbers.
“C’mon, Red, don’t be an ass,” Kon says, quiet but forceful. “It wasn’t funny then, it’s not funny now.”
“I, obviously, have no immediate plans to change my personality just to make you more comfortable,” Tim drawls. “I’d suggest you find some strategies to deal with that.” He knows he’s being unreasonable, and rude, and he knows he doesn’t need to be. But. Tim isn’t particularly interested in putting a filter on. He’s stretched too thin, mind racing too fast, and there’s never been more distance between him and the boy he loves.
The boy who doesn’t love him anymore.
Kon crosses his arms and says, “I know you’re upset, Tim, but now you’re just being a dick.”
“Well, I’ll just go be a dick elsewhere, then,” Tim says. He’s in a plane to Gotham before the hour’s up, and he doesn’t go back to San Francisco for weeks. When he does, it isn’t any better.
******
Jason looks at the young man in front of him, Tim Drake with the swaying shoulders and glassy eyes. He tries not to clench his fists, because what the fuck, Tim. He doesn’t let the surprise and irritation bleed through into his voice. “Are you sober?”
“No,” Tim says flatly. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“You’re only, what, nineteen?” Jason says, repeating the words Tim fires at him every time he offers the kid a beer.
“Practically ancient in our books,” he retorts, cruelty in every line of his mouth.
Jason doesn’t know why he’s surprised at the rebuff. It makes his mouth thin, his eyes angry. He can’t help it. He’s always had a short temper. “Jesus. I—gimme that.” He makes a grab for the bottle of vodka on the countertop, and is blocked by a surprising amount of nimbleness for how blasted Tim looks.
“Don’t.”
Jason doesn’t argue. “Come sit down,” he says tiredly.
Tim stares at him suspiciously, but relaxes when Jason starts shedding his jacket, toeing off his boots, getting comfortable in Tim’s empty apartment.
Jason puts some movie on TV just so he doesn’t have to say anything, and doesn’t look at Tim sitting beside him on the sofa. The problem is that Tim is very, very hard to ignore. Jason is far from plugged in when it comes to Bat drama, but even he’s heard about Tim’s relationship problems.
That lasts for a good half of the movie, until Tim’s finally turning to him, looking at him with those big, unfocused eyes. “He said he couldn’t tell whether or not I even loved him sometimes,” he says morosely, clutching onto the bottle in his hands like it’s going to be the thing that saves him. “I just—what the fuck’s wrong with me that he couldn’t tell how much I fucking loved him? Because I did, man, I loved him, and I couldn’t even ex—express that to him, like—” He stutters over the words, shakes his head like he’s trying to clear the haziness from his mind.
“Oh, baby bird,” Jason says, and gently tugs the bottle from between Tim’s knees. He shifts a little closer on the couch next to him, purposefully too close. Tim takes the unspoken invitation, curls up against Jason’s side and locks onto him like a vice. Jason can feel him shuddering, over and over, like his body is trying to cry but he refuses to let tears fall.
“He was so angry at the end,” Tim whispers. “He just kept fucking yelling, so I kept yelling. Telling me every wrong thing I’d ever done, like he had a list he’d made in his head and he was finally getting to say it all out loud. Shit I never even knew he cared about. Like—how could I not notice he cared?” His voice loses volume the more he talks, until he’s just mumbling into the fabric of Jason’s tee shirt.
Jason doesn’t know what to do. Tim is a shaking, drunk mess leaning unsteadily against Jason, and Jason is trying his best to not think about how he’s never seen Tim this strung out before. How he’s never seen Tim this bad off. How he’s never seen Tim lose control. Because sure, he’s listened to Dick and Babs talk about Tim, when he’s not around and they can express their worries without fear of Tim overhearing. He’s watched Alfred press carefully wrapped home-cooked meals into Tim’s hands, because otherwise Tim might eat ramen for three weeks straight. And he’s read Bruce’s files on Tim, the ones that talk about grief and insomnia and depression, the ones that Tim doesn’t have access to, because Tim doesn’t need to know that Bruce isn’t always sure whether Tim’s sad enough to be considered a suicide-risk.
But he’s realizing that maybe he hadn’t given enough weight to these things, because Tim is breaking down beside him and Jason never even saw it coming. All he knows is that when he shifts his weight, Tim follows him, like he’s trying to burrow into Jason’s bones.
He ends up wrapping his arms around Tim, tries to cover Tim’s entire body with his own, like maybe if he can just hide Tim from the world, the world will stop trying to destroy him.
“He was angry about you, too,” Tim says, voice muffled against Jason’s chest.
“Why?”
“Thought I might be cheating,” Tim replies. “Not just with you. ‘Cause I wasn’t… committing to the—the relationship.”
“I’m not cut out to be the other woman,” Jason says dryly, and Tim laughs, the sound vibrating through Jason’s body. Jason decides that he’d quite like to hear Tim laugh more, thinks it’s much better than the sound of him crying.
“I missed him so much,” Tim finally says. He sounds a little clearer, though not by much. “He was dead for years. And then he was back, and it was everything I’d ever wanted.”
And Jason understands death, okay, he is well acquainted and isn’t fucking interested in doing it again. But he’s never really experienced it from the other side. Now, he’s looking down at this sad, sad kid, an adult now, an experienced young man who learned the harsh realities of watching his friends die too young, and he can’t help thinking that maybe he doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does.
The last person to die he really, truly cared about was his mother. But Tim’s lost everyone. And sure, a lot of them have come back, in those weird twists of fate that seem to characterize their fucked up lives, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt. It doesn’t mean he’s over it. It doesn’t mean Tim’s okay about it.
Dick comes by the next morning. Jason had texted him after Tim had fallen asleep in his lap, after Jason had carefully hoisted him into his arms and settled the young man in his own bed.
“Is he okay?” Dick asks quietly as he starts up the coffee machine.
Jason shrugs magnanimously. “He got shit-faced last night. I get the feeling it wasn’t the first time this week.” He’s sad, Jason doesn’t say. But he’ll get better.
******
Kon might only need two weeks to find someone new, but it’s months before Tim manages to get enough of his shit together to start dating again. When he does, it really isn’t anything that anyone is expecting.
In retrospect, no one knows why they’re surprised—Tim’s history of meaningful relationships boiled down to two people, an ex-turned-best-friend and an ex-turned-sour, neither of which constituted sufficient data to draw a hypothesis. At least, that’s what Bruce says when Dick comes to him, worried and gnawing on his lip.
“Let him figure it out,” Bruce says. He’s clearly uncomfortable, but he’s the most emotionally aware than he’s been in his entire life. Children had been good to him.
“What if he doesn’t?” Dick bemoans.
Bruce is quiet. “He will. He has to.”
******
Tim shows up at Dick’s apartment in New York City drunker than Dick’s seen him in a long time, and says pleadingly, “Can I stay here for the night?”
Dick lets him in, shrugs at Wally where he’s sitting on the sofa with a beer and an Xbox controller in his hands, and watches Tim stagger into the kitchen. “Isn’t it one of your date nights, or something?” he asks hesitantly. “With, uh. John?”
“I’m single again,” Tim says shortly, and sticks his head directly into the sink, swallowing half a gallon of water from the faucet before he pulls back, shaking wet bangs out of his eyes.
“Oh,” Dick says.
Tim laughs bitterly. “Yeah. I was late to dinner, and then he drank the bar dry because he was pissed off, and by the time the food came… Well. I, uh. I don’t have a safe house in the city, or I’d have just gone there, but.”
There’s something brittle in his voice that betrays the blasé words, and it makes Dick’s heart twist. “You’d been with him for awhile, right?”
Longer than the others, he doesn’t say. He isn’t here to pass judgment on Tim’s serial dating habits. Because that’s what they are: serial. Tim’s dated more people in the last year than Dick has in the last five, and this one—it isJohn, Dick thinks—had been the longest by far. He’s a Wall Street guy, smart and sharp and sophisticated. A few years older than Tim, but Tim’s always been mature for his age, and at 21, he’s allowed to make his own decisions. Not that there’s ever been anyone with enough willpower to stop him.
Tim’s staring hard at the countertop, and Dick’s starting to think that maybe Tim’s drunker than he’d thought and just better at hiding it. “Six months today. Which is about as long as people are usually willing to put up with me, actually.”
Wally stands, says awkwardly, “I think it’s best if I get on outta here.”
Tim jumps hard, says, “Shit,” and it’s abundantly clear that he hadn’t even noticed Wally sitting on the couch.
Dick scratches his neck. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Sorry, man, I’ll make it up to you.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Wally says easily, and drains his beer in one go before stepping in to give Dick a hug. “Catch ya later, Dick. Uh, feel better, Tim.”
Tim looks deathly pale, and Wally’s barely out the door before Tim’s lurching for the bathroom.
“You’ve got to stop doing this,” Dick says, as he watches Tim stick a finger down his throat and throw up half a bottle of rum. “God, Tim, they make you so unhappy.”
It takes Tim an embarrassingly long time before he’s done, and he raises his head to stare at Dick with bloodshot eyes. “What else am I supposed to do?”
“Take a break,” Dick advises. He sits down on the edge of the tub when it looks like Tim isn’t interested in removing his head from the toilet bowl. “Or, stop dating civilians. That’s half the problem, is you keep dating people who don’t know you’re Red Robin, and you build the entire relationship on a lie. Go out with Green Arrow’s new sidekick, or that nice guy Bart knows from Central City who can walk through walls. Someone you don’t have to lie to.”
“I don’t want to date heroes,” Tim says, propping himself against the wall and tugging his knees to his chest. “I don’t like people knowing my business.” Neither of them say Connor’s name. They don’t have to. “And it’s—I just want to be normal, ya know?”
Dick looks at his little brother pleadingly. “Normal doesn’t mean unhappy.”
“I’m not unhappy,” Tim says, so lack luster he doesn’t even convince himself. “I’m just—I liked him, you know. A lot. He was nice, and smart, and funny. He wasn’t anything like some of the other people I’ve dated.”
Dick doesn’t mention anything about the last man Tim had dated, Cal, the one who had literally propositioned Dick in the middle of an art opening the second Tim had left his side. When Tim called him out on it later that night, the asshole left him on the side of the road in the bad part of the Financial District at two in the morning. Dick had asked Jason to trash Cal’s car. Jason had complied after very little convincing.
Dick doesn’t talk about Cal. Instead, he says, “Victoria was a really nice girl.”
“Victoria hated you guys,” Tim says flatly. “She almost stabbed Steph with a steak knife at that last gala B forced her to.”
A lopsided grin makes its way across Dick’s face. “Oh, man, I forgot about that. Gotta admit, it was pretty funny.”
“If I don’t date, how am I ever going to meet someone?” Tim asks. “I’m not like you. I don’t just fall into relationships with perfect redheads who do no wrong.”
“It’s not like I’m with any of them right now,” Dick points out. “Being single can be good for you. I’ve really enjoyed some of it.”
Tim snickers. “That’s because you get to have casual sex with all your coworkers and vaguely-defined acquaintances.”
“I feel judged,” Dick says idly.
The laughter in Tim’s eyes dries up. “It just sucks sometimes. Break-ups suck. I mean—just, thanks. For being here. And letting me stay.”
Dick offers a hand, and helps Tim to his feet. “Of course, Tim. You know I’m always here for you. You’re my brother.”
******
It’s been going on long enough that a pattern begins to emerge. Tim goes on a lot of casual dates, but it’s not dating until he stops seeing more than one person at once, and it isn’t serious until he brings them to a WE event. The media eats it up, calls him the next generation of Wayne Playboy, despite the fact that Tim isn’t nearly as ostentatious as Brucie had ever been.
They’re excited that at least one of Bruce Wayne’s kids has decided to actually accept the limelight, unlike the others. Dick Grayson is a good-looking cop for the City of Blüdhaven, Cassandra Cain is a bona fide cryptid when she visits from Hong Kong, and Damian Wayne would sooner break your camera than pose. They don’t even bother with the other young adults hanging around Wayne Manor—if you don’t have pending adoption papers, you’re not worth the media’s time.
But the interesting bit, the part that makes it all too juicy to avoid, is that Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne likes men, too – and he isn’t the least bit ashamed about it.
Not everyone makes the cut for Tim Drake’s impossibly high standards. In the four years since Kon had dumped him, he’s only brought a handful of people as his plus one, despite the endless number of dates he’s been on and people he’s slept with.
Which is why it’s a Big Deal the next time Tim shows up to an event with someone on his arm, a young woman named Jenny with perfect blonde hair and almost unsettling dark eyes. She’s a doctoral student at Gotham U getting her degree in Comparative Literature, and she’s so nice that even Damian feels like he needs to be on his best behavior when she walks over. She’s got her arm hooked into Tim’s as she talks earnestly about her work on Russian folklore, and Tim’s looking at her with this dazed look on his face like he’s trying to figure out how he got so lucky, and it’s good.
“She’s making every person you’ve ever dated look like a pile of trash,” Barbara says over the comms, her breathing slow and steady compared to Tim’s pants as he swings across rooftops.
“I thought all my exes were trash anyway,” Tim replies from across the city, and takes out a deal with two moves, catching the bag of drugs neatly before it can spill out across the street.
“You know what I mean,” Babs insists. “She’s a good person. She makes you happy.”
Tim pauses before he starts moving again, staring at the stars and trying not to sigh. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”
Bruce wholeheartedly approves. Tim thinks it’s just because Jenny isn’t the type of person who likes to press Tim against walls and grope him in front of every paparazzi camera in the room just to make a point, which is what the last one liked to do, so Bruce doesn’t have to deal with the public relations fallout of his son’s poor taste in significant others.
Jenny, against all odds, seems to like his family. She talks to Dick about her dad, who’s a cop too, and her brother, who followed in his footsteps, and tells him to be careful on the streets. When Cass is home for a Christmas gala, they chat in broken Chinese that Jenny picked up during her year abroad in Hong Kong. Damian even gives her a ridiculously expensive edition of Arabian Nights and tells her not to forget about other cultures in her thesis.
When they break up, Tim doesn’t leave his apartment for ten days, not to work, not even to patrol, and when he finally comes out, everyone’s a little too scared to ask what happened.
And then Jason skids back into Gotham after a month-long hiatus with Roy and Kori and asks the question no one else is willing to: how the hell could you dump a girl like that, Tim?
The thing is, Tim isn’t planning to answer. He’s got a rude remark ready on his lips, but he looks up, and everyone in the Cave is staring at him, waiting for the reply. Even Bruce is peering subtly over his tablet at Tim, and he flushes.
“I—she was too good. For me. She was talking about moving in together, and I started thinking about how I’d been lying to her for months about everything, and I just realized that… well, she didn’t deserve it. She deserved to be with someone who wasn’t going to lie to her. And the longer she was with me, the less time she’d have to find that person.”
Absolutely no one has anything to say to that.
Tim starts putting on his armor with renewed fervor, and when night falls the Bats disappear into the far corners of Gotham, and no one brings Jenny up again.
******
He takes a break after Jenny. Well, he doesn’t call it that, but he also isn’t seen with a different person on his arm every other night, so it’s a safe assumption.
No one says it to his face, but they’re all a little glad that Tim’s taking some time for himself. Dick had done his fair share of sleeping around (ok, and maybe he still does), and Bruce Wayne has every major international supermodel’s cell phone number on his speed dial – but there’s a difference between sex as pleasure and sex as self-destruction.
But the galas keep coming, and Tim keeps showing up alone, and he keeps leaving alone, too – and they wonder if maybe he’s finally starting to figure out the difference between the two.
******
Hal Jordan loves flying. He’d spent his youth wishing for the sky, and now as an adult he’s a flash of green amongst the stars. He loves the freedom and the opportunities and the endless discovery. When he’s flying, he feels like nothing can stop him.
Hal Jordan hates politics. And by politics he means courting new clients. And by that he means: Hal is currently stuffed in a tuxedo and being trotted around like a show pony at this gala, a grand affair honoring of the groundbreaking of a new project between Ferris Air and Wayne Enterprises. Hal doesn’t even know why he has to be here, except that apparently he is good-looking and charming, and those qualities are useful for things other than picking up people at bars. Namely: for wooing WE Executives and hooking them into future projects.
Hal hates everything about it. He’s been spending his time side-eyeing Bruce Wayne and grumbling rude remarks about the Batman under his breath, careful not to talk shit too loudly because Gotham citizens are, for some reason, proud of their shithole city and their broody vigilante and their frankly ludicrously high crime rate? Hal doesn’t understand.
“When can I leave?” Hal says bluntly, downing another glass of the overpriced champagne that Batman’s bankrolled for the occasion.
“Not yet,” Carol snaps, clearly sick of dealing with his whining. Her gaze wanders, and a mean smile crosses her lips. “You dealt with Tim Drake, didn’t you? Wayne’s VP of Strategic Operations?”
“Over email,” Hal shrugs. “He was overseeing the campaign for that promotional shoot you forced me into. He was an unbearable asshole, made me re-do the same shoot ten times, and ended up choosing the first damn one anyway.”
“Well,” Carol draws out, spinning them slightly and directing Hal’s attention to the left, “now’s your chance to say hi.”
Hal squints blearily across the room, looking for the man. Except Carol’s not pointing at a man. She’s pointing at a teenager. He’s standing by himself at the wall, sipping absently at a glass while he scrolls through his phone. He doesn’t even look old enough to have graduated college, even if he does look the part in an impeccably tailored suit. All in all, not in the slightest what Hal was imagining when he was cursing the man to an early grave via email. “No fuckin’ way.”
“Go make conversation,” she hisses in his ear, her polished nails biting into his skin even through the jacket. “And I’ll let you leave.”
And that’s just cruel, really. But it gets him moving.
“Mr. Drake,” Hal says, smiling through his teeth. He stops just inches away, and gets the divine pleasure of looking down at the man who had made his life hell for three weeks straight, modeling Ferris Air uniforms and test-driving planes. “I didn’t know Wayne Enterprises was in the business of hiring children.”
Tim Drake looks up from his phone slowly, like he has all the time in the world, and surveys the older man in front of him with interest. “Hal Jordan.” He sounds amused. If he is, Hal doesn’t get the joke. “It’s, ah. Lovely to meet you in person.” His eyes dip down to the tux, and he smirks. “And wearing something other than a uniform, no less.” There’s an odd inflection in his voice that Hal doesn’t pay too much attention to.
Hal offers the young man a champagne glass, and Tim takes it without breaking eye contact, tossing back half the flute. “I was expecting someone a little older, I have to admit.”
Tim grins toothily at him. “I’ve been working for WE for a few years now. I’m a smart young thing, and all that. I’m surprised my name’s never come up in your, uh, line of work.”
Hal squints at him, not sure what to make of the guy. He’s got a way of speaking that makes Hal feel like he isn’t getting the full picture, like he’s trying to talk about something else without saying it. He sips from his own glass so he has an excuse not to respond, and catches sight of Clark fucking Kent. Hal is so tired of running into his work partners in his personal life. Can a man not catch a damn break?
Clark is talking to someone, but he’s distracted, his attention on Hal and Tim Drake even as he nods half-heartedly to the person in front of him. There’s something in his eyes that Hal doesn’t understand.
Tim catches him staring and cocks his head, a secret grin in his eyes. “You know that guy?”
“He’s a reporter for the Daily Planet,” Hal mutters. Better to pretend he knows Clark Kent than knowing Superman.
Tim grimaces. “Metropolis. I guess you’re a Superman fan, huh? Why am I not surprised? Does being that depressingly idealistic hurt sometimes, Mr. Jordan, or are you just numb to the feeling at this point?”
Hal doesn’t sputter, but he comes close. “I take it you’re one of the Batman freaks.”
“I’m a Gothamite, born and raised,” Tim says cheerfully. A slow smile curves across his face that really shouldn’t look as suggestive as it does. “We tend to like things a little bit… darker.”
And Hal—he stops playing. Because Tim Drake is looking at him with sharp blue eyes that keep dipping down to stare at his mouth, and his chest, and lower, and he looks like a fucking dream in his perfectly-fitted suit, and despite what Hal might have teased, it’s clear he’s not a child, oh no, not at all. Hal’s always been a sucker for pretty people.
“Yeah?” he says, and steps just close enough that he gets Tim’s guard to go up. He props a nonchalant arm against the wall, above Tim’s head, and smirks. “How dark ya feel like going tonight, Mr. Drake?”
Tim blinks at him with those big blue eyes, his head whipping around to check if the coast is clear—Hal is struck with an unsettling amount of deja vu, because that action seems so familiar for some reason—and steps up into the welcoming curve of Hal’s body, one of his hands settling lightly on the center of his chest beneath his bowtie. “Why, Mr. Jordan,” he says, his voice coming a little rougher, “I thought I was an unbearable asshole?”
“Sure, but you look like you got a tight ass under that suit,” Hal shrugs the insult away deftly, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that’s wondering how Tim knows he’d said that, and his free arm moves to settle on Tim’s waist, fingers splaying out across the small of the young man’s back.
There’s a slight flush high on Tim’s cheeks that Hal knows he can’t blame entirely on alcohol, but he’s still putting off an infuriatingly smug air that Hal doesn’t understand.
Tim leans forward, up on his tiptoes so he can get closer to Hal’s face, and Hal leans down just a bit to meet him, thinking that maybe this night might end okay after all—
And then Tim’s pulling away, a breathy, “We’ve got company,” that makes Hal jerk his hands away like he’s been burned.
“Mr. Jordan,” Bruce Wayne of all fucking people, greets, and suddenly their intimate corner is a lot more cramped with the addition of another person. Bruce swings an arm around Tim’s slender shoulders, tugs him forcibly into a more appropriate distance from Hal, and says, “I see you’ve met my son, Tim.”
A sick feeling begins to rise up in Hal’s stomach, sort of like he’s abruptly lost gravity and is free-falling to the ground below him. It isn’t a pleasant sensation. “Your son.” Which. For fuck’s sake.
Hal has the unbridled urge to hit the smug look off of Tim Drake’s face, because he gets it now, why Tim had been so ridiculously self-satisfied throughout their entire interaction. Because Green Lantern has known Robin 3.0 for years, ever since he’d first put on the tights. Hal knows that Red Robin is Batman’s son. But when he saw the name he hadn’t made the connection, had been looking for the Wayne instead of the Drake, and how the hell was he supposed to know that Red Robin was hiding an unfairly slender body under all that armor, a devastating pair of baby blues underneath the mask? They’re secret identities. How is it Hal’s fault he can’t recognize one of Batman’s twenty-odd damn kids?
Tim looks all the world like a cat who’s caught his canary. “I’ve really got to run now. But, uh, call me if you ever feel like mixing your green and my red, huh, flyboy?”
He saunters off, leaving Hal facing the full force of Batman’s glare.
“Don’t call him.”
“For Christ’s sake, I’m not,” Hal snaps. He can’t believe Batman is giving him the shovel talk. He can’t believe he propositioned Red fucking Robin. In Wayne Manor itself. He can’t believe he destroyed an entire fleet of enemy goo-aliens from an alternate dimension two days ago, and this moment has still managed to be the worst thing about his week.
It’s less than a week later that he’s working on something in the JLA HQ and a slender figure appears over his shoulder, sidling up too close to Hal and breathing in his ear, “Hello, Mr. Jordan.”
Hal’s a big enough man to say that he knows it’s a bad idea, knows that Red Robin is too young for him, knows that Tim Drake should be wanting something better than him. But he isn’t good enough to refuse the offer.
******
“What are you doing?”
Tim pulls off Hal’s dick so fast it would be comical, if Hal didn’t also look like he’d been dunked in ice water at the sound of Superman’s scandalized voice.
“Hey,” Tim says, wiping at his mouth.
Hal’s busy fumbling with his zipper, tucks himself away and brings himself to look up at Superman. “Hey, Clark.”
Clark’s all Superman right now, actually floating in the air he’s so blown away, his arms crossed and glaring. “You are a full-grown man,” he says, all judgment, his eyes on Hal.
Tim gets to his feet, his knees aching from where he was kneeling on the floor of the fucking Watchtower. In retrospect, they probably shouldn’t have chosen the conference room for this. But, well… needs must.
Clark turns his gaze on Tim, concern written all over his face. “And you’re—gosh, Tim, you’re so young.”
“We really don’t need to talk about this,” Tim says. He hadn’t even taken his mask off to blow the Green Lantern, and he’s glad for it now, glad for the layer of protection, even if Superman can see him through the shield.
“Talk about what?” None other than Nightwing walks in then.
Tim’s cheeks flush for the first time in the encounter.
Hal, the asshole, starts laughing, and chokes out, “You have got to be fuckin’ kidding me.”
Nightwing looks from Tim to Hal, to Superman, and Tim can actually see the realization light up in his brain. “Tim,” he says, disappointed.
“For fuck’s sake,” Tim mutters. “You were the one who told me to start seeing people within the superhero community.”
A vein in Nightwing’s forehead pulses. “Someone your own age.”
“I didn’t lecture you when you started hooking up with Midnighter,” Tim snaps. “Even though you were basically feasting on the bones of his recently-ended relationship.”
“That’s completely different,” Dick sputters.
“Look, Hal’s not even on-planet half the time,” Tim rolls his eyes. “I come over when he’s here, we fuck around. It isn’t a big deal.”
“He’s twice your age!” Superman throws up his hands, sends an accusing look at where Green Lantern is whistling unrepentantly and pretending to ignore the way Nightwing is boring holes into the side of his head.
“I’m twenty-three, it’s not like he’s a dirty old child molester,” Red Robin says sullenly, crossing his arms right back like Superman doesn’t have the power to erase him from the face of the earth.
“Tim,” Superman says earnestly, “if you need someone to talk to, we’re here—”
Tim interrupts him with a harsh laugh. “Christ, Clark. It isn’t serious. I—Hal, you intending to marry me anytime soon?”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Hal replies nonchalantly.
Superman looks pained.
“We’re all adults here,” Tim says. “No one says anything when you duck off to be with Lois, or when Wonder Woman decides to go visit Cheetah. Green Arrow and Black Canary are married, for Christ’s sake. What’s so different about this?”
Clark doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. What’s different is that it’s Tim. Tim, who Clark had kind of thought was going to be his son-in-law one day. Tim, who, despite his age and his strength and his skill, still looks like a fourteen-year old Robin in Clark’s mind. Tim, who operates on pure caffeine and spite, and who hasn’t really been happy since before Clark even met him. It’s different because it’s Tim.
And Tim knows it. “That’s what I thought,” he says icily. “I’ve got things to do. I’ll see you around, Hal,” he mutters, leaning in close enough for Hal to squeeze his waist.
“See ya around, Red,” Hal replies languidly, leaving out the opposite door before Superman has a chance to lay into him more.
Neither man regrets a thing. But they know when something’s run its course.
Nightwing watches his brother’s back until the door closes behind him. “I don’t know what to do,” he says brokenly, looking beseechingly at Clark. “I don’t know how to help him. He’s so unhappy. He keeps going after these people, and none of them are giving him what he needs, and he won’t stop looking, even when it ends like this.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Clark sighs. “It isn’t your job to tell him how to live his life, Dick. All you can do is be there for him so he knows he isn’t alone.”
******
After Hal, all the previously held, relied-upon patterns are lost. Tim has apparently given up all pretenses of dating for love, and the media has a field day with printing Tim Drake-Wayne’s newest sexual exploits. The family notices, worries privately, don’t think about intervening until Bruce reads the society pages and sees a comparison of his own sexual history with Tim’s body count. Then he’s all we need to have a chat, Tim, and Tim leaves on a conveniently timed two-week business trip to Los Angeles while Bruce simmers.
He’s photographed leaving the apartments of three different men and one woman in the span of two weeks, and none of them are the person he brings to the Valentine’s Day benefit for domestic abuse the following Friday night.
Clay is tall and muscled, bigger than Tim but smaller than Bruce, and flashes perfect white teeth accompanied by stone cold eyes. He doesn’t leave Tim’s side except to get them drinks, just wraps his arm around Tim’s waist and chats like he isn’t sending a message of possession to everyone in the room.
Absolutely no one in Tim’s life likes him.
Tim is a little enamored with the tall, golden man, even as he brushes aside worries and questions about how much they fight.
“He looks like a predator,” Steph says, swinging her legs on Tim’s island as he pulls out a mountain of takeout boxes to make them a quasi-meal out of leftover stir-fried vegetables. “Cassie told me he yells at you.”
“We’re both confrontational people who like to be right,” Tim waves her worries aside. “Cassie shouldn’t eavesdrop, it’s fucking rude.”
“What, so all you do is argue?”
Tim’s mouth lifts into a smirk. “We do other things too.”
Steph’s eyebrows waggle as she leans forward to snatch the last spring roll out of the Chinese container. “Scandalous. The paparazzi get a photo of his hand down your pants yet?”
“Not yet,” Tim mutters ominously.
“Ya know, you date an inordinate amount of people who like to do that,” she half-lectures. “My boyfriends would at least wait until we were in private. It’s just common courtesy. You’re dating an asshole.”
“He’s got muscles for days, though,” Tim sighs. “Once you’re used to everyone around you flashing an eight-pack, you just can’t live without it. You want the Indian or the Mexican?”
“Gimme the tacos.” She lunges for the box at the same time that Tim’s new boyfriend walks in like he owns the place, already tossing his keys on the table by the door before he notices Steph and freezes.
“Oh, hey babe,” Tim says over his shoulder. “You’re just in time for lunch.”
His back is turned, so he doesn’t see the anger that Steph sees, the tight line forming on Clay’s face, his knuckles cracking when he clenches his fists.
Tim pulls the piece de resistance out of the fridge, a tin of Alfred-made cookies he’s been harboring, and turns to grin at Clay. It fades slightly when he sees Clay still standing awkwardly in the entryway, and meanders over to press a kiss to the man’s jaw.
“Who the fuck is this?” Clay asks quietly.
Tim’s eyes flick to where Steph is pretending not to listen. “That’s my friend Steph. I told you about her. And she’s sitting right there, don’t be rude, babe.”
Clay’s grip goes tight around Tim’s waist. “I never get to see you, and one day you happen to have a whole afternoon free, and you don’t even tell me?”
He’s being quiet, but not nearly quiet enough that Steph can’t hear. Tim knows that, too, tries to head Clay off before he really gets going. “I don’t want to fight,” he says lowly. “She’s a friend. Don’t be jealous.”
Clay smiles humorlessly. “You’re right. It’s all my fault. I’ll just get out of here, leave you two lovebirds be.” He yanks away from Tim, slams the door behind him, and doesn’t even remember his keys. Tim watches him go with a pinched edge to his mouth.
“He’s a charmer,” Steph says.
“Please don’t.”
******
The Red Hood is even less subtle about it.
“He’s hot,” Jason says, conversationally, like he has the right to talk to Tim about his relationships.
Tim flushes, because he can never really control himself around Jason, even after all these years. “Yeah, he is.”
“Kind of an asshole though,” Jason drawls.
“Worse than the last one?” Tim snarks, because apparently he’s a fucking masochist who wants to feel Jason poke at his wounds.
Jason’s smile is mean like Tim wants. “And which one was that, Drake?”
“Fuck off.”
Jason’s grin grows wider. “Don’t worry, he’ll never be as bad as me, baby bird.”
Tim snorts without even meaning to. “You’re an OG asshole, huh?”
Jason laughs like he hadn’t been expecting to, caught off guard. “Just your type,” he croons. “Lemme know when you wanna party with the real thing.”
Tim blushes, says something biting that makes Jason laugh again, and steers the conversation away from Tim’s latest boyfriend.
******
They’re attending another event when the shit hits the fan. It’s some business dinner in Wayne Manor, and Tim Drake-Wayne’s presence is definitely required, and he’s asked Clay just to make the night bearable because he’s already tense and exhausted and has better shit to be doing than making nice with the Board. Clay, apparently, thinks the same thing, because he’s done nothing but talk shit in Tim’s ear, too loudly not to attract attention.
“Please excuse us,” Tim says sweetly after the third time Clay’s sighed in boredom, right in someone’s face, and half-drags his boyfriend out of the main hall. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he demands, the second they’re out of earshot.
Clay scoffs. “What’s wrong with me? How about the fact that you’re flirting with every person who looks at you tonight?”
Tim gapes. “What?”
“You heard me!” Clay argues, tosses back his champagne and shoves the empty glass at the mantle. The glass isn’t quite sturdy, and it tips over, spilling a few drops onto the ancient dark wood. “You act like such a slut at these events, like you need to impress every damn person in the room just to make it through the day.”
“I’m an executive,” Tim snaps, a blush rising in his cheeks. “I make my living by playing nice!”
Clay rolls his eyes and stabs a finger into Tim’s chest, making Tim stagger back a step. “I came here for you. Not to sit here and watch you grovel just for a chance to get another big contract for Wayne fucking Enterprises.”
Tim shakes with anger. “This is my job, you ass, people rely on me. But I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you. When am I going to hear anything about a promotion, huh, babe? Or is that a little too far-fetched for your lackluster ambitions—”
“Don’t fucking condescend,” Clay spits, and then his fist is in the air, and then it’s connecting with Tim’s face, and it’s so far beyond what Tim had been expecting that it knocks him back, his head making a sharp crack when it hits the wall.
And Tim—doesn’t know what to do. His first instinct is to hit back, obviously, to steady himself and ignore the stars in his vision and pummel the rage out of Clay’s face. He doesn’t, because he is a professional, and he would never use his strength on a civilian. But if he can’t fight back, what’s he supposed to do? What the fuck is he supposed to do in this situation?
“Oh my god,” is what he ends up saying, slow and heavy. His hand rises up to cradle the ache in his cheek where Clay’s just hit him. “You just—”
“Fuck,” Clay says, his eyes wide. “Tim, baby, I’m so sorry,” and he reaches out for Tim, and Tim sidesteps him with his heart in his throat, because his boyfriend’s just hit him, and he doesn’t know how to handle this.
“Get out,” Tim says, and there isn’t anything in his voice that books room for argument.
“Baby—”
“Get the fuck out!” Tim says, only it’s more of a shout, isn’t it, and then the door’s opening, and there are people joining them in the hallway. But Tim’s so angry, he’s so fucking angry, and he keeps yelling, “Get out, get out, get the fuck out!”
Clay swears, looks around, and raises his hands defensively, like he’s surrendering. The flash of a camera lights up the space, first one then two then so many, and Tim flinches.
“I didn’t do anything,” Clay says loudly, except Tim’s leaning against the wall and cupping a rapidly swelling cheek, and Clay’s fists are still balled up.
“Get out,” Tim repeats again, and his breath catches, because I trusted you, you asshole, I trusted you and you just fucking hit me.
Clay does, shoves his way through the crowd of people who are staring and asking what’s going on and asking Tim is he’s okay.
Tim watches him leave, and there are hands on his arm, and someone’s tugging him away from the people, further into the mansion. He looks up through the haze, sees Dick with a look like murder on his face, and Tim’s voice sort of seizes in his throat. His legs stop working, but they’re far enough away that Dick lets him pause, lets him lean against the armchair and breathe.
“I shouldn’t have—I knew he was an asshole, I never should have fucking—” Tim’s tipsy, and shell-shocked, and babbling, and there’s a bruise blossoming across his cheekbone that his boyfriend has just created, and this is so bad.
“Tim,” Dick says, but he doesn’t get to finish his sentence because Bruce has appeared, and for some godforsaken reason Selina fucking Kyle is with him, and Alfred’s trailing behind, and there are too many goddamn witnesses to his humiliation and shame.
“What happened?” Alfred demands before Bruce can even get a chance.
“Nothing, we were arguing, we always fucking argue, and he just got—it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t, we’re done, we’re so fucking done—” Tim realizes he’s rambling again. He presses his hand against his mouth to make himself stop talking and ignores the familiar pain of the hit.
“He hit you,” Dick says, a mixture of something like wonder and the promise of retribution in his voice. “And you didn’t even—you just let him?”
“I wasn’t expecting him to hit me!” Tim yells, interrupts. It’s too loud in the empty room. “He’s my fucking boyfriend, how was I supposed to react, he isn’t—he isn’t supposed to do that. I didn’t. I didn’t expect him to hit me,” he repeats, and he sounds so small.
That admission is met with silence, and Alfred steps up, says, “I think we should put some ice on that, Master Tim.”
“Yes,” Bruce says impassively. It makes Tim flinch. “I think you should too.”
******
It’s all over the news when Tim wakes up.
Lover’s brawl, the headlines proclaim, and there’s a photo of Tim against the wall holding his cheek and staring in the direction of the camera with an expression that Tim doesn’t recognize on his own face. There’s a photo of Clay storming through the banquet hall, getting into his car and driving off.
There’s photos of past dates and appearances together, a mini-timeline of their short but tumultuous relationship, of Tim smiling up at Clay and Clay’s arm around his shoulder. There’s a photo of Tim pressed up against Clay’s side at a premiere and one of Clay tilting Tim’s chin up to kiss him outside of WE.
Tim looks at the pictures and thinks about how there’s an argument and a fight to go along with every single one of the sweet moments, and closes his eyes tightly. He thinks about yelling at Clay for being rude to the waiter, about Clay yelling at him for skipping out another planned event. He thinks about how every fight they’d ever had ended in sex instead of apologies, about the unresolved issues because neither had been willing to talk things out.
He feels like he’s going to be sick.
******
Less than two days after the incident with Tim Drake-Wayne and his boyfriend, they’re back in the news again. He hasn’t even left his apartment, hasn’t wanted the media to catch sight of the bruise on his face. It’s different when he’s covering up a bruise from a lucky kick at night. The media knows to look for this one—to look for the physical embodiment of his failure.
He gets woken up by a call from the team of lawyers for Wayne Enterprises that demands full disclosure, Mr. Wayne, if you had anything to do with this we need to know now.
“I haven’t seen the news yet, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tim snaps into the phone. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll call you back.”
He ignores the several other calls and texts and emails he’d missed when he was sleeping and turns on CNN—and nearly chokes. He can barely even hear the news reporter over the ringing in his ears, has to read her lips to make sense of the accompanying picture. The picture of Clay, bloodied up and dazed and propped up in a gurney on the street outside his office in the Diamond District. Clay, who has apparently been beaten within an inch of his life by an unknown male assailant, twice his size with dark hair and a black mask.
Tim squeezes his eyes shut, counts to ten four times before he feels calm enough to call his lawyers back. “I didn’t do it,” he says bluntly.
Mr. Bloom sighs deeply over the receiver. “Please tell me you have an alibi.”
“I was doing paperwork with Tam Fox from home until midnight,” he says. “My friend Stephanie Brown came over after that, she stayed the night.” Well, technically they were out patrolling silently, but it’s not like he can tell anyone that.
Another sigh. “We’ve been in communication with his lawyers.”
Tim feels something ugly and mean rise up inside of him, and he can’t help his biting words. “Yeah? The fuck is he gonna do? He hit me so hard he slammed me into a wall, and everyone fucking saw. As far as I’m concerned, if he decides to accuse me of this, he’s lost already.”
“Yes, Mr. Wayne, that is true,” Mr. Bloom says patiently. “We’ve got a preliminary defense already, should he choose to take that route. But from what little his lawyers said, I don’t think we need to worry about legal action against you. It seems that… Well, in his eyes, you’re even now.”
Tim smiles pleasantly into the empty room and resists the urge to shatter his cell phone against the exposed brick in his apartment. “Even. Sure. Listen, thanks for the update. Call if anything else urgent arises.”
He hangs up in the middle of Bloom’s goodbye, stares at the ceiling for a moment, and then throws one of the dining room chairs into the wall. It splinters beautifully, reduced to a pile on the floor. “Fucking asshole,” Tim says, mildly pleased at the chaos he’s caused, and crawls back into bed.
******
“So, has anyone talked to baby bird yet?” Jason asks conversationally, leaning on his elbows and ignoring the angry line of Dick’s mouth.
“He doesn’t really want to talk about it,” Dick finally says, casting a look at where Bruce is typing dedicatedly on his computer.
Jason hums. “Don’t you think someone should?”
Dick casts him a dubious glance. “Are you offering?”
“Well, I mean, I’m the only one of us who’s got any real-world experience with gettin’ hurt by people who are s’posed to love you,” Jason shrugs, like the abuse he’d suffered as a child, the blows he and Bruce had come to after his resurrection, the pain, is no big deal.
Bruce stops typing, turns to his two elder sons with the same pinched look on his face that Dick has. Even if they’re not biologically related, Dick’s inherited almost everything from the Bat. “Jason.”
“I’m not going to hurt him,” Jason snaps. “Honestly. It’s been years since I was that angry, and you’re still expecting me to try and slit his throat first chance I get?”
“That’s not what I was going to say,” Bruce says evenly. “But I don’t think you’re the best person to talk to him about this.”
Jason cocks his head, a look crossing his face that no one’s really seen before, introspective, thoughtful. “Timmy and I get along better than you think. I’m probably the best person to talk to him about this.”
“You broke that man’s leg in four places, fractured three ribs, and snapped his collar bone,” Bruce says. There’s less disapproval and more pride in his tone, and it makes Jason soften. Because Bruce cares too, in his own way. His son was attacked by someone he trusted, someone who shouldn’t have hurt him. No one in their fucked-up little family is going to let that slide.
“I also destroyed his fucking nose,” Jason drawls, a pleased smirk on his face. “See if he ever hits another soul again.”
All arguments against Jason are gone after that, and he whistles to himself as he knocks on the door of Tim’s door at Wayne Manor. The door opens barely a crack, and he wedges his foot into it before Tim can slam the door on him. “Hey, Timmy. You wanna get drunk?” Jason says bluntly.
Tim looks at him with narrowed eyes through the crack. “It’s one in the afternoon.”
“Yeah. So you in?”
Two hours and a bottle of the cheapest tequila Jason snatched off the shelf later, and they’re flopped pathetically on the floor of Jason’s apartment. Tim presses his cheek against the cool tile and makes a pleased rumbling noise. “That feels good.”
“Your face still hurt?”
“Something always hurts,” Tim mumbles. He cracks open an eye as if to check whether Jason’s gonna buy that answer. “No. Harley Quinn hits way harder than he did.”
“He hit hard enough to bruise,” Jason points out.
Tim pushes himself into a sitting position, leans against the side of the sofa and stares at Jason with sharp, focused eyes, even as he stutters his way through a response. “He was never a nice person. I always knew that. We fought a lot. Like—our relationship was just months of fighting and fucking, ya know? I didn’t care that he wasn’t a good person. But. I never thought he’d hit me. He wasn’t that kind of asshole.”
“You like that kind of guy,” Jason says, taking another swig straight from the bottle and blinking when he realizes there’s nothing left.
“Which kind?”
“The kind of person who’s an asshole to everyone in the world, ‘cept for you. Makes you feel special.”
“Thanks for the psychoanalysis,” Tim says.
“Just an observation,” Jason drawls. “Taken from several case studies.”
Tim stares at him intently. “They’re not serious,” he says abruptly. “Any of them. Like, I know they can’t work. I’m never going to tell them about the Bat stuff, and I’m not going to spend my life hiding it from someone I’m supposed to love. Every relationship has an expiration date. I don’t care that they’re not… good people. That isn’t what I’m looking for.”
“Why do you keep doin’ it then?” Jason says, his head lolling against the wall behind him.
“I don’t like to be alone,” Tim says. His tone isn’t sad, or angry. It’s matter of fact, like he’s just stating the obvious.
Jason’s teeth grind, but Tim isn’t done, so he doesn’t say anything.
“Dick keeps telling me to date heroes, people I can be honest with. But I don’t want to. When Kon and I broke up, it made everything bad. I didn’t even want to look at him, and instead I had to lead our fucking team every damn weekend. Everyone was just—staring at me. All the time. Fucking Superman got invested in my personal wellbeing. Like I wanted to talk about it.”
“It’s been over five years since you guys broke up,” Jason says gently.
Tim grimaces. “That isn’t the point. When I date civilians, there’s privacy. If the relationship goes bad, there are no consequences, because they just disappear into the world. If I fuck up a relationship with a hero, everyone knows.”
“That’s a very fatalistic point of view,” Jason says. “Assuming every relationship is gonna go bad before you even enter into it.”
“I’m not a great boyfriend,” Tim says flatly. “I’m manipulative and I lie a lot and work too much and I’m still emotionally unavailable. People generally don’t find that attractive.”
“So be upfront about it. Find someone who knows that shit about you and decides to stay anyway,” Jason shrugs. “I’m a criminal fuck-up who hangs out with other criminal fuck-ups. We’re all disappointments. Own it. Live it. Fuckin’ love it.”
“I never did thank you for kicking the shit out of him,” Tim says absently. “Once my lawyers were done freaking out about whether I’d gone Girl with the Dragon Tattoo apeshit on my ex, I was quite pleased with how you’d broken his nose.”
Jason laughs until he feels like he’s going to throw up, and Tim just smirks at him from behind his drink. “How’d you know it was me?”
Tim rolls his eyes. “He described a man with dark hair who was twice his size. Now, I know a fair amount of people who fit that description, actually, but not quite so many who are willing to hit him with a 2 by 4.”
They settle into a comfortable silence, and Tim yawns behind his hand. “Jason.”
He’s staring at Jason with those wide, blue eyes, the ones Roy says make him look like pedo-bait even if he is an adult, and Jason feels like he needs to clear his throat. “Yeah?”
“I—thanks.”
Tim falls asleep first, curled tight into the couch and head pressed against the side of Jason’s leg.
******
It’s a good two weeks after the incident before Red Robin runs into the Justice League. When he does, it’s nothing sort of disastrous. Superman’s looking at him with pity in his eyes, Wonder Woman’s looking at him like she wants to beat his ex up, and Aquaman’s looking at him like he’s wondering why Tim is a superhero.
“You were on the news,” Wonder Woman announces.
Tim almost flinches. Instead, he drawls, “Yeah. I’ve got bad taste.”
Batman doesn’t quite growl out loud.
“He dead in a ditch somewhere?” Green Lantern says. He says it with a certain level of wariness, like he isn’t sure if the uncertain end in their tryst means he’s allowed to be concerned.
“Red Hood beat the shit out of him in an alley. We’re even now.”
“Red Hood, huh?”
The Justice League might have given Jason a free pass due to his affiliation with Batman and general desire to do the right thing, despite criminal tendencies, but that didn’t mean any of them actually liked him.
“Yep,” Tim pops the word. “My guardian angel.”
******
The Titans, the ones who have been around long enough to remember that first encounter with the Red Hood, when Jason Todd broke into the Tower and beat Tim bloody, screaming hate the whole time, are even less enthused about Tim’s renewed friendship with Jason.
“He’s a maniac,” Gar complains. “Do you remember the whole severed heads thing? Because I definitelyremember the severed heads thing.”
“He got better,” Tim says, only half paying attention as he reads the logs on the screen in front of him. “The healing process is different for everyone. Hood needed time.”
“Well, if Batman trusts him,” Cassie mutters. “Your family is so fucked up, Red. Diana’s an immortal goddess and Donna’s terrifying, but at least when we go out for ice cream, no one screams at each other.”
“Thanks,” Tim mutters. “He and Roy will be here at midnight to pick me up for a job, so if you’re still hanging around, at least try to be nice, yeah?”
“No promises,” Raven hums.
He’s still working when the others leave on a mission, and looks up blearily at the next interruption, hours later. “Hey, I’m almost done and I’ll—”
He catches sight of the visitor in the reflection of the computer screen, and his jaw snaps shut.
“Tim,” Kon says awkwardly.
Tim’s eyes are gleaming even as he turns around, hisses, “Do not.”
“C’mon, Tim,” Kon pleads. “I saw the news, I saw that guy, and I just—”
“There is nothing I want less than to talk about this with you,” Tim sneers, and it’s harsh and cruel and cold, and it makes Kon stop dead in his tracks.
“I still care about you,” Kon says quietly.
Tim laughs, an ugly noise that ends just as soon as it starts. “How the fuck is that supposed to make me feel better, Connor? It just makes me feel worse. Just, why can’t you just be an asshole like the rest of them?”
“Why would you want that?” Kon sounds bewildered.
Tim’s voice is very small when he replies. “It’s so much easier to hate you.”
They’re both quiet for a long while, avoiding each other’s gazes, standing too far apart to be casual. It’s been over five years, and Tim still feels like his heart is being squeezed out of his chest every time he sees Kon’s guilty look.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Kon finally says.
“I’m fine,” Tim mutters. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all good.”
Before Kon can reply, the doors open, and Bart strolls in, chatting animatedly with Roy about his past experience with the Titans, Red Hood smirking behind them. There’s a dip in their conversation as they all realize what they’ve accidentally interrupted, and Tim tastes metal on his tongue.
“Hey,” Hood says, an edge in his voice. “Red, we’re heading back to Gotham. You ready?”
Tim snaps back into action without a moment’s hesitation. “As long as Harper’s not driving.”
“Fuck you, man, I’m a great pilot,” Roy says without any real heat. “Built that baby on the roof myself.”
“Is that supposed to make me trust you more, or…?”
“It was good to see you, Tim,” Kon says beside him.
“You have to come back sometime for an actual visit,” Bart complains, cocking his head. “Not this bullshit work vacation.”
Tim doesn’t smile, because he doesn’t think he can fake a convincing one right now, but he does nod. “I will,” he promises.
He doesn’t speak for most of the ride home, thanks Roy when he drops him and Jason off at the edge of the Bowery to begin patrol. It takes Jason another hour before he finally broaches the subject, and when he does it, they’re in the middle of interrupting a drug deal. “So you good?”
Tim rolls his eyes, decks the closest ganger and uses a line to trip another two. “Please stop asking me that.”
He hears Jason bark a laugh through his helmet, an awful noise when it gets filtered through the voice modulators, and hears a muttered shit from one of the gangers. “It’s a valid question. You don’t deal with exes well.”
“Can we talk about this later?” Tim grits out, knocks out the last man standing with a blow to the side of his head. He turns to glare at Hood, hands on his hips to complete the vision. “At home.”
Jason cocks a head at him. “Home, huh?”
If he were a lesser man, Tim would blush. “I mean. My… my apartment.”
Jason bows gallantly. “Of course, sweetheart.”
By the time they’ve finished patrol, Tim is so sweaty he feels like he needs to peel himself out of his suit, Jason’s hungry enough that he’s considering breaking out the freezer meals Tim survives on, and neither are concerned with feelings. Tim takes a shower for so long the hot water starts giving out, even in his expensive high-rise, and when he emerges wrapped in sweatpants and a hoodie, Jason’s making scrambled eggs.
“Hey,” he says, settling onto the stool at his island to wait. A few minutes later Tim’s demolishing the plate in front of him. Jason watches him eat, picking at his own food, and Tim’s pretty sure he knows what’s coming soon.
“Hey, Tim,” Jason says, his voice odd.
“Yeah?”
“Do you still love him?”
Tim blinks. “I probably always will. He meant a lot to me. Both before we were a couple, and after. But I’m not in love with him. There’s a difference.”
“What about the others?”
He almost laughs. “Christ. I don’t know. I guess not. Maybe Jenny. But I told you; they weren’t serious. I never envisioned a future with them.”
It dawns on Tim all of a sudden that Jason has stopped eating, is looking at him with intense, careful eyes. The same eyes that have stared him down over the last five years, time and time again, whether he was picking Tim off the floor after a drunken night or stitching up a stab wound after a bloody fight or talking shit while they ate Chinese food with their legs dangling over rooftops of industrial warehouses.
There’s a feeling in his stomach that he isn’t sure about, a tense knot that feels more fluttery than anxious, a feeling that’s been caused by hearing the word love come out of Jason Todd’s mouth. Tim is sitting at his kitchen island watching Jason cook, a position they’ve been in a thousand times, and Tim’s suddenly realizing that there’s maybe one more person to add to his list of love.
“Have you – have you ever loved anyone?” the question comes out of his mouth much breathier and unsure than he wants.
Jason nods thoughtfully. “Ya know, I thought not. But I’ve been thinking about some things over the past few weeks.”
“Yeah?” Tim urges. His plate is abandoned in front of him, all attention on Jason’s calm, sure expression.
“Yeah,” Jason affirms. “Cus you know, I think I do love someone. He’s this stupid guy, keeps falling for the wrong people and then always ends up in my arms when it’s over. Doesn’t know when to quit, you know?”
“I know a guy like that,” Tim says, playing along. The tight knot in his stomach is loosening, warming, turning into something he does recognize.
“I thought you might.” Jason’s moving, comes to stand right in front of Tim. Sitting on the bar stool, Tim is almost as tall as Jason now.
“You’re not one of the others,” Tim begins. “The ones I’m not in love with.”
“No, I am not,” Jason agrees.
“I think I might have been missing something that was right in front of me,” Tim says after a brief pause. He doesn’t look away from Jason, keeps their eyes locked. “I, ah, have a tendency to do that.”
Jason’s mouth quirks, a warm smile. “What about now? What do you see now?”
Tim smirks at him, hands inching up to rest on the other man’s shoulders. “I see an asshole.”
Jason is right in front of him now, barely any space between their bodies. “Just your type, huh, baby bird?”
“I know what I like,” Tim says. His lips brush Jason’s when he speaks. The motion makes him draw back, biting his lip. “You really wanna try this, Jay? I meant it when I said – I’m not always good at being in relationships. I try, but I—”
He’s interrupted by Jason’s mouth pressing hard against his, big hands circling his waist. Tim doesn’t protest, leans in close and returns as good as he gets. After a moment, Jason pulls back – Tim follows him helplessly, lips searching for his.
“Tim,” he says. Tim looks at him with those big blue eyes, waits. “I’ve been waiting to try this, like, twenty-five relationships ago. The real question is, do you?”
Tim thinks about Clay, and Jenny, and John, and Hal. He thinks about all the nameless men and women in between, the endless empty nights. He thinks about Kon, and for the first time in a long time there isn’t even a twinge of pain – there is only anticipation for the next big step.
“Yeah,” Tim says, already leaning back in for another kiss. “I think I’m ready, Jay.” And he thinks he finally means it.