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Tim will blame his glasses later. Brand new. Thick frames. Different prescription. Wasn't used to them.
Didn't see Jason coming.
Then again, Jason had no business being in the manor at 2:00 in the morning when he was supposed to be out on patrol.
Tim snatches the plate of cookies closer to his chest before Jason can grab another and, in a move that impresses even Tim himself, he does it all without spilling a drop of hot coffee. "Jason..."
Jason only waves the cookie at Tim, backing away. "Oh, come on. Share a little." Jason maintains eye contact while he takes a bite, and Tim uses all the Bat training he's ever had to keep his expression blank. "Mmm," Jason says, flashing Tim a knowing grin after he chews and swallows. "Alfred's the best. Thanks, kid."
Tim gives up the protest and watches Jason go, with an expression Tim hopes conveys the degree of his exasperation with Dick and Jason's persistent need to call him 'kid.'
"I am twenty two, Jason."
Jason raises a hand, waving back at Tim over his shoulder and then disappears into his room.
Tim spins on his heel and hurries into his own room before Dick, or, worse, Bruce, comes along and decides to help himself to a fresh weed cookie too. They're Tim's, and Tim feels like he's been tied in knots by giant Boy Scouts.
Thank god for Alfred.
Tim pulls a leg under him on the bed and clicks on his television, skipping past every single worthwhile channel until he hits the nadir (available at two in the morning on a weeknight) of rerun game show television.
Absolute junk food for the intellectual soul. He leaves the Match Game running in the background while savoring the first cookie of the night (alright, second after the one he filched off the cooling rack in the kitchen). It's not as if he has anywhere to go tonight.
Tim is officially benched.
He didn't even dislocate anything. Much. And he put his shoulder back in before B even showed up. There is no way that man can discriminate one specific pained noise, out of Tim’s incredibly diverse repertoire, that means specifically “I seem to have dislocated my shoulder” followed by a noise indicating: “motherfuckerthat hurts, but I will chew off my own tongue before saying so out loud.”
By the end of (a 1980s re-run of) The Price is Right, which was actually challenging, and past the first commercials during Jeopardy, Tim settles more comfortably back against the pillows and tucks the arm he didn't (not) injure behind his head. There's a little pain with the stretch, but nothing he hasn't handled at least twice a month since he was thirteen.
And it's not as if B is immortal and invulnerable either.
He thinks.
It has been a while since B was last on the injured list.
Tim closes his eyes, leaning into the tickle of his blood fizzing up to his brain and the slow-growing buoyancy in his body and letting all of the stress go in one long breath.
In theory anyway. There's only so much self-medication can accomplish.
Eventually though, Tim's muscles start to loosen and he sets the cookie he's stopped paying attention to on the "now" side of the plate so he can stretch his torso out over his extended leg with a sigh. The tingling weightlessness spreads along his back, and, oh. A series of cracks run up Tim's spine, and he goes limp, still folded over his thigh with a kneecap in his face.
He moans.
Later, Tim will blame the orgasmic bonelessness of his vertebrae snapping magnificently back into alignment for everything that happens within the next minute.
There's a knock on Tim's door.
Tim calls a muffled "come in" against his leg and lets out a long satisfied breath while he rolls his spine upright and thuds back against the headboard.
Huh. His eyes are still closed. But Tim's perfectly fine with that.
"Aw, Timmy. You started without me."
Tim dredges up his will to deal with Jason, and does so, eloquently, if he says so himself, with a single finger.
Unsurprisingly, Jason is the type to find that delightful and bursts into laughter.
Tim's door closes and after a moment, the other side of the bed sinks. "What do you want, Jason?" Tim's brain catches up with him half a second later, filling in all of the things Jason could want on Tim's bed and leaves him momentarily speechless.
There's a click of a lighter along with Jason's chuckle. "I felt like some company," Jason says, accompanied by the truly distinctive smell of burning cannabis.
Tim sighs and drops his head back against the wood behind him. "Go find Dick for company." One of his hands flutters briefly into the air. "Or Roy. Someone who isn't me."
Jason snorts. "Nah. They're not partaking in Alfred's special recipe."
Tim coughs twice, obviously and pointedly fake. "Neither are you," he adds. "Alfred made these for me. And you smell."
"Not a fan of hotboxing, huh?"
"Mnh," Tim says, definitively. "Alfred's treats are better."
"Well, you're stingy and you don't want to share." Jason says. "So only one of us technically has Alfred's goodies to partake in."
"You could ask Alfred for your own batch," Tim points out, since Jason clearly already knows about Alfred's midnight baking. He vaguely wonders if it's a "secret" known secretly to every bat who's been individually sworn to secrecy.
That sounds like the kind of thing Alfred would do. They probably each have their own recipes too. And Tim's is dosed for snacking on after the night-of-post-patrol-that-will-never-be-spoken-of-again when he was nineteen.
Tim fails to land the frown he was working up to and realises he's had a faint smile on his face the whole time.
Oh well.
"If I share, will you put that thing out?" Tim leans forward, rubbing his face with his hands and blaming everything on that internal voice telling him not to be greedy.
"What a generous invitation, Timmers. I'd love to share." Jason takes one last long hit, and Tim can hear the soft stubbing noises, which had better be against Jason's boot, not Tim's bedside table.
The bed rocks while Jason settles himself onto it (if Tim opens his eyes to see Jason's combat boots on his duvet, he's going to punch him) and runs a big hand along Tim's spine. The touch feels nice, trailing waves of warmth behind it, so Tim decides to forgive everything but the potential combat boots and not remove Jason's hand at the elbow after all.
Tim flops forward over his folded legs, stretching his fingers towards the foot of the mattress until his lower spine flattens out another inch or so. He groans when something infinitesimal clicks back into place for the first time in weeks.
"Showoff," Jason says, giving Tim's lower spine another gentle push with his palm in the same spot on his next sweep. It draws a decidedly pornographic noise out of Tim that he distantly knows he'd be humiliated by in other circumstances.
"Ugh," Tim says, rubbing his face against the mattress and then sitting up. "If you did your yoga, you could do it too."
"Ugh," Jason says, and Tim can't tell if Jason was imitating him or genuinely reacting to the idea of yoga. Or flexibility in general. Which, as someone who still fights him professionally from time to time, Tim feels qualified to call bullshit on.
"Your loss," Tim says, because when he sits up again, he feels fantastic all over and wants to collapse onto his back, close his eyes, and enjoy his body feeling nice while it lasts. He would do exactly that. If he didn't have an entire Jason Todd in the way, unsubtly trying to reach behind Tim for the cookie plate.
Tim sighs and slides it across the mattress between them. An agreement is an agreement. He settles for slouching comfortably back against the headboard again and watches Jason select a cookie.
"Thank you," Jason says, once he decides to acknowledge Tim staring at him. It's fine. Nobody here is in a hurry. Jason makes a pleased sound with his first bite. "Alfie only makes the best."
"How would you know?" Tim's eyes are closed again, which is also fine. "You smoke yours."
"Not all of us have the luxury of sitting around just waiting until we feel less homicidal, Timothy. And anyway, I was a very high-strung child," Jason says, sounding nearly prim.
Tim shoots for a brilliantly sarcastic response and sputters out a laugh instead.
"Whatever," Jason corrects himself with a shrug. "But I was a nightmare to deal with when I came back from the dead."
No kidding.
"I feel like I would have remembered you coming back to the manor after your post-resurrection treatments with Ra's."
Jason's silent long enough for Tim to blink his eyes open out of curiosity.
"It was Talia, not Ra's. And I did, you know." Jason says, taking another bite of the cookie he's holding.
Tim looks at the plate with a frown, trying to remember how many there were on the plate when he left the kitchen so he'll know where to cut Jason off. That was not Jason's first cookie. Or even his second. He's forced to contemplate the possibility that Jason is a trained snack ninja and Tim's best laid plans to protect him from himself are futile. A defense protocol is clearly needed, and he'll get right on that.
Later.
"I came back here to see Alfred not too long after hitting Gotham," Jason explains, oblivious to Tim's brilliant strategic mind analyzing his every movement (it could be, anyway). "-so we talked. While everyone else was out. Obviously. Then when things finally settled down, Alfie started stopping by with a batch of whatever he'd been making, whenever he was in the neighborhood."
"Why would Alfred just happen to be in your neighborhood with a basket of goodies?"
Jason hums. "More than a basket." He takes another cookie, as if they're just cookies, and taps it against his lips, considering. "He still does a delivery run to Crime Alley with edibles once a month. My guys distribute to the people who need 'em most so he doesn't have to do it himself anymore."
"Why am I only hearing about this now?"
Jason glances at the cookie in Tim's hand and then back at Tim with a raised eyebrow. "For the same reason I only discovered tonight that Timmy the good child likes his ganja: Alfie takes his secrets to the grave."
Tim's about to open his mouth to comment on being an adult who can relax the way he wants to, when he wants to, in the privacy of his own home, when an entirely new thought bubbles up and he stares at Jason. "Is that why you stopped attacking me? Because of Alfred baking edibles for you?"
"Mmmm." Jason says with a faint smile on his face. "Not telling. I take my secrets to the grave too."
"What does that mean when you've already been in the grave and gone, anyway?"
Jason's smile spreads into a grin. "Wouldn't you like to know."
Tim would, actually. "Yes," he says. "As someone with a vested interest in some of the secrets you took with you to the grave the first time, actually, I would."
Jason blinks, having visibly not expected that.
Tim makes himself more comfortable, orienting himself towards Jason and tucking his toes under Jason's thigh.
Jason glances at Tim's feet and then up into his eyes with a raised eyebrow.
"They're cold," Tim says, letting go of the passing urge to snatch his feet back with a glib excuse. He bites into a cookie, eyeing the three left on the plate and mentally giving up on the idea of stashing any for later without making another trip all the way to the kitchen. Whatever. Alfred bakes Tim's batches snackable, and it's Jason who's eating most of them. He's huge. He probably knows what he's doing.
He'll be fine.
And he'll be the one making the trip to the kitchen for more later, not Tim.
"Hey, don't change the subject," Tim says belatedly.
"What was the subject?"
"I would very much like to know what happens with the secrets you took to your grave now that you aren't in it anymore," Tim summarizes, pleased when he doesn't miss anything important.
"Why?" Jason flashes a teasing grin. "You worried?"
"No," Tim says with complete honesty. "I'm nosy."
Jason snorts, folding his arms and staring at the ceiling. "Ain't that the truth." He apparently reaches the decision to accept Tim's urge for questioning the suspect. "They just turn into the secrets I'll be taking to my grave next time," Jason admits.
"You haven't given up even one?" Tim would not have called that.
Jason shakes his head, tapping his fingers over the pocket he'd put the lighter back into earlier. "Apart from giving up Alfie's good deeds to you just now? Not even under torture. And I am nowhere near high enough to talk about that right now."
That makes one of them. Tim is well on his way to baked and could probably talk about anything at this point. It's possible he's a more competitive cookie eater than he's admitted to himself.
Tim gestures to the plate. "Help yourself. There's more in the kitchen. Alfred swears they won't kill me." Tim is an emotional eater after some patrols, okay?
Jason snorts. "Alfred always did look out for us."
"Thank god somebody did," Tim mutters, because in hindsight, it's surprising that Jason is still the only Robin who died.
Tim is giving Alfred something nice for Father's Day, and Mother's Day this year.
The familiar blue screen of Jeopardy is showing on the television. "Hey," Tim says. "If there was Gotham Jeopardy, what categories would they have?"
"You've gotta be kiddin' me." The back of Jason's head thunks when it makes contact with the headboard. But he does think about it. Eventually, he says: "there's got to be at least one Rogues episode."
Tim opens his mouth to say 'too obvious' but Jason raises a hand.
"Hear me out on the categories," Jason says. "One Hit Wonders, Rogues of Gotham's Past, Rogue or Antihero-" (Tim rolls his eyes, and Jason flips him off) "That guy's still alive?, and Rogues with Doctor's degrees."
Huh. Tim can see it. Gotham's got enough rogues to film that topic at least every month.
Jason tilts his head to one side with the air of someone who's been waiting. "No notes?"
Tim shrugs. "For once, I concede without debate." And then, because Jason is giving him an unfairly shocked look: "I expect at least a rain of toads by morning, if not a small plague of locusts." Tim pauses, running back over what he just said and shelves the rest of the original lecture. "Is it a plague of locusts when it's small, or is it an outbreak?" Tim crunches his stomach muscles to sit up far enough to see Jason's face. "Can you have a highly localized outbreak of locusts, and if you could, what would it portend? And, more importantly, would we be the ones expected to deal with whatever it portends?"
"God, I wish I was recording you right now," Jason says with a fond note in his voice that Tim can't identify.
"I'm not that funny," Tim complains and flops back into place.
"Prove it. Gotham Jeopardy categories, go." Jason pops the last of the cookie into his mouth, solely to talk with his mouth full. "Make me not-laugh."
"Fine." Tim thinks for a moment. "Gotham Jeopardy. Today's categories are all Gotham Bad Ideas: Metahumans, Telling Jokes to Batman, Surely This Will Never Happen, Arkham history, and, um." Tim reaches for the idea he could swear was right there. Ah. He snaps his fingers at Jason, making a finger gun. "Robins."
Jason's blank expression cracks and he bursts out laughing. "Robins are the worst idea."
"I wouldn't say worst," Tim says, feeling a little protective of the Red Robin identity.
"Worst," Jason insists. "Nightwing, Red Robin, and Red Hood are way better ideas."
"Can't have those without Robins," Tim says after taking that statement, from Jason, fully on board. "And what about Damian?"
"He's still the worst."
Tim considers stepping up like a good big brother and defending Damian. Then he remembers that Damian stabbed him in the spleen. As of now, Damian is on his own whenever Jason's in the mood to impugn his character in absentia.
"He stabbed me in the spleen," Tim volunteers.
"See? And would he have stabbed you in the spleen if he wasn't Robin?"
"Yes," Tim says without a moment of doubt. "He's Damian."
"You could stab him back," Jason offers.
"Stabbing never solved anything." Tim says, ignoring at least 20% of political history.
"Tell that to Marcus Antonius," Jason says.
Tim admits: "That stabbing solved a lot."
"I don't know if I'd exactly say solved, but it did move the plot along." Jason drums his fingers, and Tim wonders if he's distracting himself from another joint or another cookie.
Tim might not mind hotboxing his room later on. Lungs heal. Fine, technically lungs don't heal, but whatever. They're young and dumb.
"Caesar's pretty slow in performance," Jason is saying. "It needs all the help it can get."
"I was speaking Historically," Tim says with a sigh.
"So? It all more or less ends the same way."
Tim shakes his head. "Nerd."
"Yeah," Jason agrees, slouching further down the bed and tucking a hand behind his neck. "You're a bigger nerd," he says comfortably.
Tim's flattered. "I am the biggest nerd." He likes Jason like this: relaxed, agreeable, and flattering Tim. Which means he'd probably like Jason if Jason wasn't so good at contrary, insulting, and parading around like a hair trigger in a person costume. "I like you," Tim informs Jason, once he's satisfied with his own conclusions. "When you're not being a bag of dicks."
"A whole bag, huh?" Jason switches his nervous drumming to playing with the hem of Tim's jeans. "How big's the bag?"
"Lunch bag on a good day," Tim says. "Lawn bag on a normal day."
"How big on a bad day?" Jason has his eyes closed and has found a loose thread to wrap around his finger.
"Lawn bag," Tim says again.
Jason shoves Tim's feet out from under his thigh. "Fuck you. I do not have mostly bad days. I give bad days."
"We can agree on that."
"I liked it better when we were agreeing on Jeopardy."
"Gotham Jeopardy categories," Tim says again. "Red Hood edition: Death threats, Rivalries, Food trucks of Gotham, Charitable endeavors, and Arsenal."
"I don't spend that much time with Roy."
"You are joined at the hip."
"I don't see him around anywhere right now," Jason says in the tone Tim's starting to think of as Jason's 'I am very reasonable' tone of voice.
"I bet you only come home so you're not high around him."
Jason's lingering silence is telling, also his decision not to protest the idea of the Manor as "home."
Speaking of: "Seriously? You only come home to get high?"
"I come for Alfred's food and company too," Jason says defensively.
Tim considers that if not for Alfred, Bruce's family would be significantly smaller.
Jason mumbles something else to himself.
"What?"
"And I come home when Roy and Dick are around together," Jason says eventually with a grimace. "They get loud."
Yeah, Tim can imagine.
Dick's newfound embrace of both his sexuality and Arsenal came as a surprise to everyone but Jason. "How long have they had a thing going on anyway?"
"Maybe fifteen years?"
Tim sits up and stares at Jason, a detailed profile of Dick and Roy's dating history and exes scrolling through Tim's thoughts before his mind goes protectively blank.
Jason shrugs. "They've got history. It's pretty fucked up."
"No kidding." Tim would hate how high his voice pitches on the 'kidding' but he feels like it's earned its emphasis.
"They've been all on-again off-again, deep in Dick's closet, until this time. This time, they're 'taking it seriously and making a real family' because Lian deserves two daddies." Jason makes a hand motion from the wrist that could be construed as 'and so on and so forth,' 'as one does,' or possibly 'they are idiots of the highest order but they have finally gotten their heads out of their asses and will see this through or I will shoot them.' Jason's wrists are especially eloquent.
"How's Lian?" Tim asks, taking the safest likely way out of the Dick-and-Roy topic.
"Deadly, cute, smart as hell, and one manipulative little princess," Jason says, like the proudest uncle.
"Did you say 'deadly, comma, cute' or 'deadly cute'?"
Jason shrugs. "Dealer's choice. Anyway," he continues with a sigh for the ages, "this time, Roy also happens to be living with me."
Realisation dawns. "That's why you've been home so much lately."
Jason does not confirm or deny. "I can't reconcile with my beloved family while Dick does the same?"
Tim's brain skips at Jason referring to the Waynes as 'beloved.' "You barely tolerate two days in a row with Dick and Damian on a good—oh."
If Dick is with Roy, Dick is not in the manor. And if Dick is not in the manor, Damian is either on patrol or stalking him like a creepy little bodyguard.
A grin breaks out on Jason's face and he makes a finger gun at Tim. "I knew you'd get there eventually, Timmy. You're the smart one."
Tim doesn't even think about the wisdom of starting shit with Red Hood while armed with a pillow. He just hauls back and whacks him with it. "I am not-"
Jason snickers. "Yes?"
"Oh. You weren't being sarcastic."
Jason shakes his head.
"Okay, thank you, yes, I am the smart one." Tim tries for another hit with the pillow for the hell of it only for Jason to steal it from him and tuck it behind his head with the others. Tim looks down at his empty hands, admitting and accepting that he just had, and lost, one half of a pillow fight with Jason.
Tim has also miscalculated. All of his pillows are now under Jason, and he's out of extra pillows.
Jason gives him a lazy challenging look that Tim decides he isn't high enough to do anything about. Yet.
"I demand pillow compensation," Tim says instead of jumping Jason.
"You obviously didn't want your pillows enough," Jason says, making himself more comfortable in the most obnoxious possible way.
"I'm resourceful." Tim considers his likelihood of ending up on the floor if he throws caution to the winds after all and attacks Jason over a pillow.
He doesn't want to end up on the floor.
Tim considers his likelihood of ending up on the floor if he uses Jason as a pillow.
"Hey, what're you doing?"
Making love or something, definitely not war.
"Pillow compensation," Tim says, curling around Jason like he's a body pillow. Tim should get a body pillow.
"I didn't agree to be a pillow," Jason says, even though not throwing Tim off the bed is more agreeable than Jason usually gets. It's clearly Tim's lucky night.
"Should've thought of that before stealing my pillow. Pillows."
Jason only answers with a long sigh.
"Do you actually mind being my pillow?" Tim asks after they're done shuffling around until both of them are comfortable.
And he is very comfortable. It's like having a weighted blanket and a waterbed at the same time. With a Jason pillow.
He smells better than Tim expected.
Jason scoffs, bringing Tim back to the conversation at hand, and Tim, realizing Jason hasn't actually answered, reluctantly gets ready to move.
Jason's hand settles on Tim's head, fingers combing through his hair. "If I minded, you'd be on the floor."
'Ha," Tim tells his conscience. "You're a nice pillow."
"I've been told." Jason's voice is dry.
Tim doesn't think it's fair he's gone this long without knowing how comfortable Jason is. "I might've liked you sooner if I knew you were this nice to lie on."
Jason shifts underneath Tim, half sitting up on his elbows. "You like me now?"
"You're in my room, Jason. If I didn't like you, you'd be in the hall. Or out the window." Tim's arguments are so watertight.
"You're pretty confident there," Jason says and goes back to petting. "Huh. You like me."
"I let you steal a cookie," Tim points out. "Multiple. Those were mine."
"And thank you for sharing."
"You're welcome," Tim says. Because allowing Jason to steal from him is sharing, in a way. He appreciates Jason understanding that.
Tim throws an arm over Jason's stomach while the TV switches over to Hollywood Squares after the Nightly Ninety minutes of Jeopardy.
"I still think I could take you while you've got a plate of cookies in one hand and coffee in the other," Jason says.
"If I have coffee, I'm armed," Tim reminds him. "And I drink my coffee hot when it's hot."
"So?"
"That means I am armed, I am loaded, and I've got two shots."
"So you're a cute little Deringer."
Tim's brain registers a lonely 'one' on a one-to-five scale for comprehension. "…Was that your attempt at a pet name?"
Jason's face shutters over imperfectly, and while Tim's brain might be running a slightly slower and simpler OS at the moment, it is still Tim's brain. And pieces slot together until it occurs to Tim that Jason must have had some kind of trust in Tim already before he decided spending time with Tim while they're both compromised was a good idea. And that Tim is the slow one tonight. "No," Jason answers at last. "I don't do pet names."
"Because that was a Remington," Tim says, rushing in before Jason can decide to act on perceived rejection. It is not rejection. It's Tim.
"…You want me to call you Remington?" Jason squints at him. "Because that's weird."
"No," Tim says, because he absolutely does not want Jason calling him 'Remington' because that is weird.
They stare at each other until Tim drops his head back onto Jason's chest.
"The classic double barrels were Remington Model 95s." Tim nestles his cheek against Jason's pec and snuggles up along Jason's side. "And I don't think the modern American Derringer DoubleTaps are especially cute."
"They're kind of cute," Jason says.
"You would think that." Tim considers his comfort levels before throwing a knee across Jason's thighs for optimal relaxation against him. "I am a classic example of skilled engineering in an aesthetically attractive and unique package."
"Sure, but are you pearl-handled?"
Tim lifts his head again, because that deserves staring at. "If that was a metaphor, I am lost but unwillingly intrigued."
"I usually do better than that with metaphors," Jason admits.
"Still intrigued."
"You're cute and fancy," Jason elaborates.
Tim wasn't expecting Jason's answer to make him blush. He hides it by ducking back down into his clinging sprawl. "I'm not that fancy," Tim manages to say while his cheeks are still burning.
"You're pretty fancy," Jason disagrees and goes back to the gentle scratching at Tim's scalp that radiates pleasantly from the point of contact.
"I trust you too," Tim says, not quite out of nowhere, but it feels important to say before he forgets to. Or remembers two dozen reasons why he shouldn't. The swooshy waves are starting to crest through Tim and mold him to Jason's side with, he realizes distantly, a stupid little smile on his face.
Jason tenses. Tim wonders, in the following silence, if Jason is going to go with the standard face-saving (and valid) reply of 'what?' Tim doesn't think he'll mind.
Instead, Jason's muscles unlock and soften under Tim, and he settles his arm more comfortably around Tim's waist while continuing the hair petting, which feels fucking incredible. "What's not to trust?"