Imaginary Things

“Are you cooking?” Tim asked Jason, who was in the kitchen, surrounded by pots and pans and ground beef and tomatoes and Tupperware.

“Gosh,” Jason deadpanned, cleaving an onion in half with a bang. “It’s like you were trained by the World’s Greatest Detective.”

Tim shut his mouth in his next question, which was going to be <i>what</i> Jason was cooking, and surveyed the ingredients. Ground beef, chopped onions, tomatoes - “Chili?” he asked hopefully.

“Yeah and if you want any, you’d better get in here and get to work,” Jason suggested. 

His tone was only slightly menacing but Tim got in there and said gamely, “Okay, what do you need me to do?”

“These onions aren't going to chop themselves,” Jason said, sliding the cutting board in front of Tim. He turned to the stove and started unpacking the ground beef. 

“Okay, cool,” Tim said to hype himself up. Then he searched YouTube for an onion cutting tutorial. 

“Are you for real?” Jason asked as Tim watched it on 1.5 speed. “Have you never had to cut an onion before?”

“It turns out it's much safer to let your kids microwave their meals instead of letting 9-year-olds use butcher knives and gas stoves, “ Tim said mildly and started making clockwise cuts through the onion like the person in the video. 

At the first cut, Tim’s sinuses ached. He winced, eyes burning. He scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his wrist and tried to open them to look where he was cutting. <i>Tear gas</i> he realized, slamming the knife down. How had it gotten in his kitchen?

“Jason,” he shouted. He couldn’t see but Jason had only been a few steps away. He reached out - 

Jason was laughing like this was fucking hilarious.

“What the fuck?” Tim managed. He staggered sideways and the burn in his eyelids eased a little.

“Whoa, kid.” Jason’s big hands clasped Tim’s shoulders. “C’mon,” he laughed. “There’s no crying in cooking!”

“Ha,” Tim said, squinting up at him with watering eyes. “What?”

“The onions did you in,” Jason said. “Hold on a sec.”

Tim pried his eyes open wide enough to see light and then squeezed them shut again.

“Here.” Jason pressed a damp cloth to Tim’s face. The burn eased and finally Tim was able to shutter his eyes open. Jason grinned ruefully at him. “You okay?”

“Ugh,” Tim said. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

Jason shrugged. “It doesn’t hit everyone like that.”

“Oh, I’m just lucky.” Tim dabbed at his eyes and glared at the offending vegetable on the counter.

“If you take over the beef, I’ll finish the onion,” Jason offered.

“Maybe,” Tim caged. “What’s it gonna do to me?”

“The worst it’ll do is burn if you don’t keep it moving,” Jason told him.

Tim took over stirring the ground beef and breaking up the pieces. He watched from a safe distance as Jason sliced up the onion and started in on a green pepper.

“Did you pick this up from Alfred?” he asked, shoving the ground beef around the pan.

“Some of it,” Jason said, scooping the onion and pepper into the stock pot and slicing into the tomatoes. “I sometimes made stuff when my mom wasn’t feeling well. Most of it came out of a can, though. Alfred taught me about real food.”

There was an awkward silence as Tim realized this was the most Jason had ever said about his childhood in Tim’s company. He poked at the ground beef.  “When I was a kid, we had a cook named Mrs. Mac. Mrs. McIlvaine. Everything she made seemed to be a casserole. Except lasagna. She made a really good lasagna.”

“Isn’t lasagna kind of a casserole, too?” Jason asked, taking the pan of beef away from Tim and draining it in the sink before scraping it into the stock pot.

“Yeah, I guess,” Tim said after due consideration.

“What happened to her?” Jason asked. He glanced over at Tim as he was adding chili powder and Tim wondered if he should be concerned that Jason didn’t feel the need to use measuring spoons.

“My dad had to let her go when he declared bankruptcy,” Tim admitted. “She went back to Ireland to live with her sister.”

“That sucks,” Jason declared, moving on to a half dozen other spices. “What’s it like going from riches to rags?”

“It wasn’t that big a deal,” Tim said because for him what came later was so much worse. “We moved to an apartment downtown but we were only there a few months before - “ He shrugged. “And then I lived with Bruce full-time before I bought the Nest.”

Jason slowed in his stirring of the chili.  “Yeah. I always thought you were lucky, having parents longer than any of the rest of us. But what happened to your dad was shitty.”

“Thanks,” Tim said, because that was actually pretty empathetic for Jason. 

“Here, taste this,” Jason said, shoving a spoon in Tim’s face. Sharing time was apparently over.

Tim mouthed the chili from the spoon. “Needs more garlic,” he said.

“It doesn’t even - “ Jason stopped and dipped the spoon back in the chili. Tim winced, but only a little. Whatever finally took him down, it wasn’t going to be his own germs. Jason stuck the spoon in his mouth.

“You’re right,” he declared, and Tim shrugged, trying not to be too pleased.

$

It was weirdly easy to avoid Bruce these days. The most important thing to remember was to not be weird about it. Tim showed up for roll call and patrol assignments, showed up for work at Wayne Enterprises, showed for training. 

He made it through August and most of September in this fashion, and then Bruce said,

“Tim, you're with me, tonight.”

Stephanie kicked him in the ankle.

“Ooh, what did you do?” she stage-whispered and Tim played his part, rolling his eyes and hissing back,

“Nothing!” He kicked her ankle for good measure and tried to look innocent and attentive when Bruce glanced back their way.

When everyone split up to go their separate ways, Tim drifted over to Bruce’s side.

Jason hadn't shown up that night, not that Tim was surprised. He had his territory and he didn't need to be told to patrol it. There was no citywide emergency thus far and no reason for Jason to be hanging around. But if Tim was going to get called out on his marriage of convenience, he wanted his co-husband along for the ride.

<i>Don’t be weird,</i> he reminded himself and lingered in Bruce's shadow.

Bruce kept it broodingly silent as they got into the Batmobile and accelerated quickly through the long tunnel that took them out to Gotham proper. Tim, who paid attention to the briefings, made a pertinent remark about the night’s stakeout plan and received an approving nod.

“I haven't seen much of you since classes started,” Bruce finally said. “I know you've been busy. Do you need anything off your plate?”

“What? No!” Tim’s brain raced through his to-do list and tried to remember if there were any balls he'd dropped. Maybe he didn't always do all his reading and maybe he was a few HR trainings behind at WE but his case files were up-to-date and he hadn't been taken hostage in literal months. 

“It's not a criticism,” Bruce said mildly. “It's just a matter of delegating some of the responsibilities you've outgrown if necessary.”

“Oh, um, no,” Tim said. “I mean, there's that ethics training I haven't done yet but - “

“I’ll make that go away,” Bruce said. 

“It’s <i>ethics</i> training,” Tim protested. “I’ll…just play it in the background while I’m in a meeting or something.”

Batman side-eyed him. “Tim,” he intoned. “It’s <i>ethics</i> training.” The corner of his mouth twitched and Tim knew he was good to let out the laugh that had been lurking behind his poker face. Bruce didn’t seem to have any unusual suspicions about his marital state. Good.

“What about next week’s board meeting?” Bruce asked. “I can ask Lucius to cover it if you need.”

“I got it,” Tim said confidently. This was the one thing he shared with Bruce that was just his. Dick wasn’t interested in the business and Jason could care less - at least Tim assumed he could care less. He was starting to question his assumptions about Jason these days. Damian had tried to insert himself into the workings of Wayne Enterprises but middle school had (thankfully) diverted his attention.

“Hm.” There was silence while they surveyed the streets of Gotham and then Bruce said, “I’ve heard Jason has been taking classes, too.”

Tim was used to long silences. He worked with Batman, after all. He knew long silences were designed to make people want to fill them. So he would. But carefully.

“We actually have a freshman English class together,” he said casually. “I gave him a key to the Nest in case he wants to crash.” In case he wanted to crash every weeknight so far. 

“That’s generous of you,” Bruce said slowly. “So you and Jason are getting along?”

“More or less.” Then, before Bruce could express any sort of concern - “More, really. He’s pretty chill when it comes to class.”

“Hm.” Bruce’s mouth twitched. It wasn’t quite a quirk, not quite a concession to a smile but Tim could tell he was pleased. “And you?” he asked. “Getting all your reading done?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tim scoffed. “Absolutely.”

$

Between his day job and his night job and school and being married to Jason - which didn’t actually take up any time but was hell on his concentration - Tim hadn’t gotten around to the assigned reading. He wasn’t worried though. He’d read The Great Gatsby when he was a freshman and he had good recall.

“Mr. Drake, what did you make of the subtextual indications of Nick’s homosexual experience?”

“The what?” Tim answered, because he sure as hell did not recall gay sex in The Great Gatsby.

“Ha!” Jason said from the next desk over. “I knew you missed that when we were talking about it last night. What did you <i>think</i> he and Mr. McKee were doing in their underwear, looking at pictures?”

Tim’s mind raced, landing on the party scene. “Holy shit.”

“While Mr. Drake digests this revelation,” Professor Worthington said dryly, “Mr. Peterson, please elaborate.”

“McKee comes with a wife,” Jason said, “but doesn’t go home with her. The last we see of her, she’s doing something with Myrtle’s roommate, who is the obvious pairing for Nick. Instead he takes Nick to his apartment, there’s a time skip, McKee’s in bed in his underwear, another time skip and Nick’s in Penn Station.”

“To what purpose?” Worthington asked. 

“Small-scale, to establish Nick as an unreliable narrator,” Jason says, his words coming fast with his thoughts. “He claimed to be an honest man but here he’s lying by omission, he’s skipping time on purpose, leaving things out.”

“And broad-scale?” Worthington prompts. 

“It calls into question the entire narrative,” Jason said. “Nick’s in love with Gatsby and sees him through rose-colored glasses, paralleling how Gatsby sees Daisy. Everything is built on perception, everything is artificial, even the perspective of the text itself.”

<i>This</i>, Tim realized, staring at Jason’s mouth. This was why he had married Jason in a court clerk’s office, hacked into the university system to put himself in a class he otherwise never would have taken, actually showed up for class. To have the chance to watch Jason argue passionately about the role of gay subtext in a narrative that was otherwise pretty PG. He wanted to crawl into Jason’s lap and kiss the words out of his mouth. 

“Okay,” another student piped up. “But last week you were saying that Jay and Nick were the same person, like in Fight Club. If Nick’s gay, why is Gatsby in love with Daisy?”

“Because Nick’s the truth and Gatsby’s the lie,” Jason shot back, turning slightly in his seat and Tim bit his lip against the sigh that wanted to escape when the muscles in Jason’s shoulders bunched under his shirt. “Nick’s a failure to his family - 25, busted career, still single. But he has this, this ideal in his head, of what people want, and it’s Gatsby. Made his money illegally, but he’s still respectable, a man about town, fancy parties, the works.”

“So you’re saying,” said another girl, “that Daisy’s a beard?”

“More like a delusion.” Jason shrugged. “She’s an ideal, too, unattainable, which means he won’t ever actually have to fuck - uh, sleep with her.”

“But he’s attracted to Jordan,” someone protested as the bell rang. “Maybe he’s bi?”

Jason snorted. “Jordan’s built like Tim,” he said, glancing over. Tim tried to look casual. “She has a boy’s name, and she’s a professional athlete in the 1920s. She’s the beard.”

“We’ll pick this up on Thursday,” Professor Worthington cut in. “Good discussion. Mr. Drake, please have your husband explain the nuances of subtext to you.”

Tim flushed. “I just - “

“He’s an engineer at heart,” Jason said, suddenly in his space and resting a big, warm, hand on the back of Tim’s neck. “He likes plain meaning.”

“I like subtext,” Tim protested, but Jason just laughed and Professor Worthington smirked. 

“I like noodles,” Jason said. “Let’s get Thai for dinner.”

“Is that subtext?” Tim demanded, only half joking. 

“Not in front of the teacher,” Jason chided softly and crap, maybe it actually was subtext.

Jason nudged Tim out of the classroom and tangled their fingers together as they walked down the hall. “Did you even read the book?” He asked when they were out of Professor Worthington’s earshot. 

“Yes,” Tim insisted mulishly. “Just. It’s been a while.”

“You’re eighteen,” Jason pointed out. “What’s a while?”

“Like three years,” Tim mumbled. 

“Oh baby bird,” Jason said, voice pitched low, “even I knew whose lever Nick was pulling when I was fifteen.”

$

There’s minimal subtext in pad thai, but Tim has trouble keeping his eyes off Jason’s lips when they purse around the ends of his noodles. 

“Thanks for the save,” he said, picking at a piece of chicken with his chopsticks. “Between Clock King last night and a shareholder meeting today, I’m toast.”

“No problem,” Jason said, picking out a sprout. “Why are you taking this class anyway?”

Tim’s throat suddenly burned. “Requirement,” he managed.

“And you picked this one?” Jason asked. “I’m actually surprised they want you to take required classes now. I figured you’d just take the computer engineering ones to set you up to transfer to MIT or CalTech or somewhere.”

“Nah,” Tim said, frowning at his noodles. He had an answer for that. “I’m probably staying here. The job at Wayne Corps pays well and it’s a good cover for, you know, other things.”

“You never wanted to get out of here?” Jason asked and the tinge of wistfulness in his voice surprised Tim. 

“When I was younger, maybe,” he said. “My parents were always somewhere more interesting and I thought I’d like to see that. But I have and - “  The next thought didn’t lend itself easily to articulation.  He finally settled on, “Gotham is home.”

Jason’s eyes were on him and Tim memorized the layout of his noodles, bean sprouts, and crushed peanuts. 

“Yeah,” Jason said eventually. “I wanted out when I was younger too. But things are different when you have...power isn’t exactly what I mean, although it sure works for Bruce.”

“Autonomy,” Tim offered, forgetting that he wasn’t looking at Jadon. 

“Yeah,” Jason said. “That’s it.”  

He glanced down at his food and Tim studied the way his lashes fanned across his cheekbones from that angle. 

“Do you think it’s weird that I’m married to a guy and can’t recognize gay subtext in anything?” he blurted out. 

Jason laughed around his noodles, no more than a slight cough in the beginning. Tim was never, ever that lucky. 

“Absolutely,” he said. “But entirely in character.”  

This time Tim choked on his noodles. “Hey!”

Jason thumped him on the back, which didn’t actually help at all, and then left his hand resting between Tim’s shoulders.