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“You go.” Tim has her fingers weaved together, resting on her chest.
Staring at the plain pale dull white ceiling with nicks and marks etched in.
“You go.” Jason has his hands the same way, in the same position.
The dips in the ceiling could almost be misconstrued as constellations if he tilted his head left. But he can't, or he'd hit her head with his. Knocking noggin's.
Tim shakes her head, his head above hers moving with the movement on the springy mattress, “Nuh-uh. You.”
“Nope. You,” he raises his thighs and lets them slam on the bed, making them both bounce as the sound of his thick soles make a dull thud in the room, “gotta go first.”
“I,” Tim kicks her legs up in the air, landing back on her headboard without bothering to move either her or him with the force, a dull wood sound from unsocked heels, "don't wanna go first.”
“Too. Bad. I wanna see you suffer.” Jason pettily responds.
She snarks back, “You'd have to be down there to see that.”
They'd both have to be down there. At the weekly dinner. That neither of them want to go to. Jason because he's mad at Bruce. Tim because she doesn't want to go.
And for some reason Alfred thought the whole thing would be a good idea. Neither want to disappoint him, really. But…
Neither get up.
The bed's comfy.
Too soft light blue sheets.
Jason should go down there. First. Just so she doesn't have to be the one to break up whatever conversation they are all having.
Tim starts, breaking the boring silence, one finger lazily up pointing to the ceiling using her elbow as the base, “Challenge. You go first.”
“Challenge. You go fuck yourself.” He responds with the same finger, only left, so she can see it in her peripheral vision.
She rolls her eyes, dropping her hand back to her chest with a thump, Jason thinks he's the most mature person in the world as his hand thumps down with a middle finger next to her head, “Alfred will know you sneaked out if you leave now.”
Jason's hand changes to a thumbs up, it looks like an emperor deciding fate with how she looks at it sideways, “Not if I make you lie to him.”
She goes back to looking at the ceiling, “Make me?” He can't make her do shit.
He nods like he's solved a riddle, she can feel it, “Yeah. Make you. Get me out the function and I won't tell them about your weird psycho-sexual relationship with R—”
Tim turns over up onto her forearms, glaring at him, “Fuck off. You attend the dinner and don't say anything about him, and I don't turn your bullet vibrator looking helmet into a walking abstinence ad.”
He gasps, “Rude.” Jason, scandalized, with a hand splayed across his chest like an old Hollywood actress, looks at her like she's slapped him with a fish.
Tim flips him off.
Jasons relaxes back into the bed, staring back at the ceiling. But, holds up a finger right in front of her nose, “Challenge. I'll attend. Won't say anything about him. But,” his wrist goes limp and points to her, poking the tip, “you have to make Dick choke.”
Tim thinks it over for a moment. Lets his finger rest there. Glares at it. Rolls the idea around in her head for another. Twists it up and down and side to side. Flips it like a rubix cube at contest speed. Flops back down on the bed.
The sound of a thump follows her. What could she do that would make Dick choke? Conversations with him are still a little strained, but it's clawing its way back to the way it used to be.
The way things used to be…, “I can make that work.”
Her bed is still too comfortable to get up off of though.
“You have to get up first.” She points to the door.
With an overdrawn sigh, “Fuck you,” Jason gets up and pulls the covers off the bed, her with them.
Tim hits the ground, flailing. Elbows hitting at every wrong part, head over heels, tailbone slamming pain.
“Fucker!”
If she gets bruises on her ass because of him Tim's going to fill his bed with his own grave dirt.
Jason laughs, paying her no mind, walking out the room while she crawls up off the floor behind him.
Tim catches up quick, he having lessened his stride so she's right beside him. The halls feel less big and large with someone right next to you.
The manor is silent in the same way it always is, when its two bats walking down a hall. Or when there's none. Black carpets and wood flooring. Paintings on dusk navy walls in dark oak frames. The staircase is made of marble, a genuine safety hazard for every accident prone member. Which is all of them, Tim will even include herself in that bunch. Especially Damian, who currently has a broken arm.
The dummy failed at de-escalating a hostage situation with a horse. Damian, ever the lovable little brat, was a bit too gung-ho about animal rights in the high stakes moment. And while antagonizing the cowboy robot looking person, didn't see them let go of the reins, fed up with him, and somehow didn't expect the obvious conclusion of them smacking the animals behind.
Looking back at it now, past the worry of if he got hit in the head, the way he flew off the ground was glorious. He slammed into a tower of cardboard boxes, all tumbling down around him like snow.
Sound starts coming back to her, tickling her senses from the almost suffocating silence of the house itself as they creep closer to the dining room doorway. Steph’s there, by the sound of her cackles.
The dining room is probably one of the most warm rooms in the manor. Not because of temperature, but because of how loud and close together it can become inside.
Jason is stood just in front of her, waiting for anyone to look up. He's shielding her view of the yellow toned room where she can smell dinner wafting through the air. He's like a big hulking mammoth of muscle. But not one without weaknesses.
Tim strikes him with a knuckle in the back, right between the ribs.
Jason, off guard, with his body's natural response, fumbles into the room belly first as his spine curves to get away from the intrusion. The table quiets for a moment as he turns to glare at her. The sounds pick back up like nothing happened.
She gestures for him to continue, a mockery of a butler guiding. Alfred’s still plating, so he can't do it himself.
“How nice of you two to join,” he says anyways as Jason spins back around, marching to his seat.
Now it's time for her to act her part in this play.
Alfred leaves back to the kitchen, so she doesnt have to worry about him clocking her plan.
Tim controls her gait, not too quick to look like rushing, but not slow enough to set it as something fake. Head a little bowed, her eyes trained to her chair next to Jason.
She sits to the right of Bruce. Near the head of the table. Across from Dick. Jason to her right. Damian to Dick’s left. Steph to Damian's left. Lopsided amount.
Duke's missing. Probably because it's late enough in the day that he's either getting in an early nap or is visiting his parents.
Cass is off in Hong Kong.
Tim stays quiet, tucking her feet beneath her chair. She stares down at the large slice of steak pie, with carrots and peas piled in their own sections. The honorable vegetable standing above to the north, the wretched pea vagabond to the east.
Glancing up, Damian has the same thing, but its mushroom. She can tell from the way he chews down like it's just barely rubbery. Not her thing, the mushrooms, but he's eating. Which is good, he can stomach solid food and meat around him after throwing up for hours on end from bruised intestines. Not fun.
Stephanie gives a little wave when she looks over, but goes back to telling Damian about something involving roller skates, “And then my History professors TA said that no one can safely spin that fast.”
“I can,” Dick points out, biting into his carrots and saying sideways over his plate. Eyes flickering to Tim.
Jason's silent still. Not looking at Bruce. But making a weird example of his pie by eating the meat pieces at just the right percentage that it's like he's eating the head, then the body of this man metaphor. Wacko.
She's resting her head on the back of her palm, paying attention to the conversation but focused on her plate with a pout. Tim has the side of her fork separating her pea soldiers into groups of scouts. One all the way down to south of the bread wall of chow.
Damian barely glances at him, left arm, the good one, is on the arm of his chair and he's resting his chin in his palm and leaning towards Steph, “Obviously Richard, but not everyone is blessed with the inability to feel inertia forcing their brain against their skull.”
Dick tilts his head with an appreciative smile at the backhanded compliment, “Aw— wait.”
“I do not have brain damage.” Dick pouts.
Tim hides the slip of a smile by leaning into her fist, placing it right up to her mouth. Fingers and knuckles against her lips with a sigh as her carrots don't stand on their own, their fortified towers won't be able to hold against the assault from the greens. Especially not from the vagabonds scouting party circling behind.
Jason kicks her a little under the table, a nudge to her chair leg. He isn't looking at her, looking as invested as possible in the conversation that's moved onto ice skating and speed bumps.
She turns her head back down, moving the root vegetable empire lines to be taking up the eastern wall of the dough, where the meat runs out onto the porcelain battlefield. It encroaches on pea territory, and shortens their available playing field, stuck between the rolling walls and the edge of the plate's ridged ends.
“And how's your day been, Tim? WE paperwork kicking your ass still?” Dick asks, looking concerned as she plays dejected.
She misses a pointed fork at Bruce as Dick picks his water up at the same time.
She sighs, a huff more like, and pushes the soggy peas back to their battalion station from whence they came.
Tim keeps her eyes lowered, just enough to see at Dicks plate as his elbow rises to tip his water back into his mouth.
“My girlfriend's pregnant again.”
Dicks throat seizes up, and he sputters. Choking.
He turns to his right, coughing into his elbow before pounding his chest.
Steph's jaw dropped. Eyes popping open.
There's a crash of silverware in the sink.
Jason snorted so hard he sounded like a pigs final breath, a wheezing sound exiting his nose in an incredibly ugly fashion Tim will attest. His head hits the table and his arms can barely keep his sides from shaking so hard as he just about laughs himself out of his chair.
Bruce is looking into the middle distance with a thousand yard stare. A dawning horror and mix of emotions she isn't sure she's ever seen on his face before. His meat drops off his fork onto his plate.
Damian, with his brows more furrowed than she's ever seen on him, with big round green eyes, asks in the most confused and littlest voice, “Again?”
“Again?” Steph echoes. A whisper. A croak. Only barely heard over the hacking coughs of Dick Grayson and raucous laughter of Jason Todd.
Tim can keep her smile down, she can, “Yeah. Me and Tam are going to name him Tom,” She says, in all seriousness.
Jason falls out of his chair and hits the ground. Payback.
Dick finally stands up, chair scraping back, breath barely under control and still strained.
“That— you can’t—” Dick, despite on the edge of passing out is pointing at her, trying to say something, “But—”
And his breathing, coming out in short puffs, devolves into short laughs. Slowly becoming a body shaking laughter like Jason's as he realizes he's staring down his little sister. Who can't exactly get someone pregnant from one on one with another girl.
He slowly sits down, hands over his mouth. Midsection pulsing with repression.
“Tim?” Bruce asks,
He's looking at her like he hasn't put the puzzle pieces together, as if he thinks he'll be a grandfather. He's leaned towards her like this is a serious conversation. Body angled at her and furrowed brows. Raising his hand with a relaxed and open palm.
Wait—
“Are you kidding me?”
“What? I'm not—” Bruce is about to lay his hand on her shoulder, “Tim you're going to be a moth-?” But he pauses mid air.
It dawns on him.
His face relaxes into its usual unimpressed state with pursed lips.
Dick snorts.
Louder than Jason.
Jason, whose hand just settled on the table to get back to his seat, slips back off down.
Tile is harder than carpet. Tim wins.
And then she grins as the room erupts in noise.
“Again?!”