Chapter Text
For once, Jason is having a peaceful night. His crew had his territory covered, dinner was in the oven for another half hour, and the Tv played quietly in the background on some telenovela he was only half paying attention to as he tidied up the kitchen. It was more for the noise than the story, and the quiet rhythm of the voices helped keep his mind occupied. His head snapped up at a knock at his door.
It was almost eleven at night, nobody should be knocking. Jason grabbed his pistol from the table before cracking the door open and barely avoiding a double take. It was Tim, and not Red Robin, but Tim in his civvies, blood covering the right half of his face and knuckles bruised. He almost slammed the door right then and there.
He and Tim didn't have a great relationship, but it wasn't bad either. Sometimes they teamed up when their cases crossed, other times they avoided each other like the plague. But there's no challenge in Tim's eyes, he didn't come here for a fight or a case. He just looks…defeated.
He looks the younger man up and down, and the assessment is rough. His under eyes are darker than usual, and he's got more than a bloody face and bashed knuckles. Tim's jaw is purpling on the left, and there's a boot mark on his stomach over what used to be a white dress shirt, now more dirt than fabric.
Jason opened the door, stepping aside and letting Tim in. Tim limps the five steps from the door to the couch and faceplants with a heavy sigh, dress shoes dangling off the edge.
Jason locks the door before casting an annoyed look that Tim doesn't see. “Get your face out of my couch, it doesn't need more blood on it.” The words come out rough, but there's an undercurrent of worry. Tim grunts an acknowledgement, and when Jason returns from the bathroom with a first aid kit, he's sitting up, arm over his ribs, but aware.
Jason sits on the coffee table and begins standard procedure. He holds Tim's chin with his hand, shining a light and checking reflexes for a concussion. Tim winces at the light, but Jason holds firmly and nods when it meets his expectations. He tries to ignore how warm Tim is under his palm.
“Small knock to the head but no concussion.” He grabs an instant ice pack and cracks it. “Ribs broken or bruised?”
“Bruised.” They're the first words Tim's said so far, and if Jason thought Tim looked rough, he sounds even worse, voice cracking without its usual confident competence. He presses the pack to Tim's ribs at the boot print and Tim obediently holds it there.
From there Jason wipes off enough blood from his temple to see how deep the cut is. “Shouldn't need stitches.”
Tim hums, but there's little emotion in it. Jason grabs the antiseptic and starts to disinfect the various scratches, pausing when Tim winces when he dabs at his temple with a touch of concern.
“Did you win at least?” Jason tries to cut the tension. He and Tim don't do the feelings thing like Dick, but he can't quite hide that he's concerned.
Tim snorts, and Jason can't help but meet the small smile with his own. “Define win. I'm alive, but I wasn't too worried about that.”
“Oh?” Jason raises an eyebrow as he carefully places the butterfly suture, pulling the edges of the wound together. When the bleeding has fully stopped, he wipes some of the blood with a wet rag. “So what exactly has you coming to my door at,” Jason glances at the stove clock, “an hour to midnight? We're not exactly the drop in for tea kind of people.”
Tim grimaced, and it made his expression even more haunted. “I'd rather not talk about it.”
“Tough shit.” The words came out softer than Jason meant, grabbing Tim's jaw again to hold him still as he wiped the blood from his cheek. He could feel his face warming at their proximity. “You come to me to get patched up, you owe me a good story, especially considering you're in your civvies.”
Tim wouldn't meet Jason's eyes, but he sighed in an unexpected defeat that had Jason's expression moving to shock before he could control it. He'd expected a fight, a snarky comment. Not this, not this Tim. Tim didn't do defeated.
“Went to a club with friends. Caught a few guys dragging a drunk girl behind the building, but it was one of me and three of them and I can't fight like Red Robin when I'm just Tim Drake.” As his mouth moved the edge of his lip split, and Jason didn't think, just moved the rag to wipe along the line of red.
Jason just gave a small nod. It was something they all went through- wanting to step in, needing to interfere, but unable to go all out without the mask. “You did the right thing.”
“Getting my ass kicked was the right thing?” Tim chuckles and Jason joins, low and quiet but present nonetheless. He followed the line of blood up a pale jaw to Tim's mouth, wiping his lower lip clean with smooth strokes.
“Unfortunately, yeah it's-” Tim's breath hitched, and Jason glanced up, the rest of his sentence forgotten. Their noses were close, almost too close. Jason froze, rag halfway across Tim's lip, other hand still cupping his jaw. He'd never noticed how intense Tim's eyes were.
He should pull away, shouldn't be sharing breath with Tim like this, but his eyes drift to Tim's mouth in a different way. His hand flexes just barely, warmth almost burning his fingertips. He looks back to Tim's eyes, and they're just as intense as his own must be. Tim shouldn't look at him like that, nobody should look at Jason like that.
The kitchen alarm blares, and Jason flinches back, dropping the rag and standing quickly. “Sorry, uh, food- oven- I gotta-”
“Yeah, yeah you're good.” Tim mumbles, having jumped himself, and if his face is red from more than his wounds they don't say anything about it.
Jason pulls the lasagna out, dropping it on top of the stove in an embarrassed rush. Why did he feel embarrassed?
“You have shit taste in television.”
Jason glared at the back of Tim's head, but smiled with mischief. He recognized the opening. “Fuck you, at least I watch TV like a normal person instead of binging conspiracy theories on YouTube.”
Tim shot him a smirk over his shoulder, and it felt softer than usual. “I’ll have you know some of them were true. Now you gonna feed me or what?”
“Yeah yeah, get your scrawny ass over here.” Jason flexed his hand, willing away the lingering warmth in his palm. He didn't need to make up things that weren't there.
They eat quickly, but when Tim stands to leave, Jason finds himself throwing a blanket at his face. “Take the couch, you'll want to sleep that off a bit.”
Jason doesn't let himself turn around and look, just heads straight to the bedroom and shuts the door. The next morning the blanket is folded on the couch and there's a sticky note pasted on the forehead of his helmet. 'Thanks' is scribbled in Tim's crappy handwriting, and it makes Jason smile before he shoves it down. He doesn't need to think about that, and he puts the thoughts away to deal with Gotham's underbelly.