#fic actually

“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. 

“I did,” Sorey answers, throwing the rest of it to the ground before dusting off his hands. They’re probably gonna run out of it in two weeks or so, though, so they’d better get some soon after New Years. Though then again, he did see clovers and stuff, and there’s no real shortage of worms around, if Sorey’s childhood is any indication. They’ll be fine. “Do you want to make the cornflakes now?”

His bike—blue and pretty new, just two years old—is leaning against the wall, and the big bag of cornmeal is tied on the back seat. It’s a tradition, here, to make snacks and just eat as they light a bonfire in the middle of the village, chairs circling it. And well, snacks for an entire village is a lot of snacks, and it’s not rare for them to get ready two weeks prior. With now being a week before the end of the year, they’re cutting it just a bit close, but well. He and Mom work best when chased down with a broom called deadline. Aunt Muse and Uncle Michael have been busy making snowfall cookies these past few days, on the other hand. They’re really the best at it—so soft it seems to melt, with the powdered sugar coating them tasting icy and—

“Sorey! Come on, stop daydreaming about Mikleo. Or cookies. Whichever it is you’re daydreaming about.”

“’m not daydreaming!” Sorey calls back as he hefts the sack over his shoulders, sulking at the ducks passing by. Then, in a murmur, “you’re daydreaming. Probably. Maybe.”

Contrary to popular belief, Sorey grumbles mentally as he makes his way to the kitchen, he does thinks about stuffs, sometimes. Sure, he acts a bit—well, a lot—spacey and jump topics and stop and stares at the ground way too often too fast, but he’s not just dreaming.

Well, at least Mom doesn’t get too on his case about it. His teachers do, though. His answers aren’t always textbook answers, and while his old teacher appreciated his answers on their language arts class, the ones this year are really prickly about what he says on answers sheets, and—

“Sorey, cornflakes!”

“All right, Mom!”

Right, so, past few days—mostly goats, cornflakes, cornflakes, their garden, Lawrence with twenty bottles of soda pop. Food was communal whenever these type of festivities happen, partially—he and Mom end up at Mikleo’s, where they fried up tofu after dinner, dipping it in some soy sauce with chopped up garlic and onions in between batches of snacks.  Sorey knew that Uncle Michael had a thing for coffee, but he wasn’t sure that it was normal or a good idea to drink it at 11 pm. He looks kind of like he’s ready to bike his way to Camlann at that very moment, which isn’t really a good idea considering that a considerable amount of streets there tend to be chained up for the night, thanks to some old wariness for the military. They were gone when Sorey was two or three, but apparently despite the pretty short duration, its effects were long lasting.

Anyway, Sorey’s been eating the misshapen leftovers of the cookies. Ever since he was seven, Uncle Michael was banned from succumbing to his wide-eyed begging to make more misshapen cookies so Sorey can eat them without waiting for the New Year’s Eve. Mom can be cruel sometimes.

“Stop mooching off the cookies,” Mikleo chides as he elbows Sorey’s side, barely making contact from how his hands are holding on to big plastic containers filled with the cookies. Sorey’s just escorting him. Him and his cookies. The cornflakes are already at their places, so he’s just filling his time being nice. “I think you ate like half a kilo of the stuff already. Don’t you get bored of it or something?”

“The likelihood of that is about as high as me getting bored of ruins. I dunno, Mikleo.”

Mason is by the wooden pyramid, yelling and waving at Ed as they get the bonfire ready. It’s seven, eight o’clock now, and everyone’s out of their houses—from hunger, probably, because dinner is postponed until the roasts. Not on the bonfire, of course, but it usually starts with it, if only because that’s when Ed hauls the coals from the storage. He can already smell the birds and chickens and corns, in the distance. The smoke tastes like excitement.

Sorey helps Mikleo place the containers on the coffee tables dragged out, nestled between bowls of cornflakes and berries and soda, cubed papayas and hot ginger milk tea. Behind them the fire crackles to life. Mom is bent over as she talks to Medea, who’s starting to roast the chickens, while Aunt Muse is talking to Gramps, a plate of the cookies extended towards him. Eyes darting, his mind catalogues people, noises, lights, probing each sensation with the curiosity of a bird before hopping back, hopping on, and suddenly, it all feels overwhelming and not enough.

“Sorey?”

There’s so much in this one moment, and it makes him think about the days before—they’re equally rich, aren’t they? But he can’t remember them all. But at least by staying in this year he’s still somehow attached to them, tethered by a thread, a common ground—

“I’m going to get some soda,” Sorey says instead, moving back home for a cup. “Want some?”

Mikleo raises an eyebrow. “I think I’ll get the tea instead, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.”

Melody and Cynthia and Kyme wave and nod at him as he passes by, and Sorey grins in return. It’s unlikely that it was even visible, though, he muses, smile fading with each step—they don’t have street lamps, and the only lights are from the open doors. There’s tons of noise, cluttered like his house, but it’s the spaces in between the sounds that feel excruciatingly empty. He wants to cram everything into them, things that overflowed from the tight fits, like that concept of osmosis he learned this semester. Even it out, maybe. To divide them into memorable chunks.

He sort of needs to go back to the crowds, somehow. He’s sort of scared.

As he stumbles home his eyes catches Uncle’s silhouette, sitting hunched on the front steps of his home, holding onto a cup by its rim. He’s staring at the festivities, faint lights showing his tiny smile.  Sorey makes a beeline for him.

Uncle raises his glass. Fizzes—soda. “Hey. Waiting for dinner?”

Huh? Oh—the other half of the roasting team, the ones with the birds, are ten meters away. It’s Natalie and Loanna and Shiron, so they’re pretty quiet; Sorey almost didn’t realize they’re there, with how their hunched forms covered the fire’s glow. “Not really,” Sorey says. “Just kind of. Uh.”

Uncle pats the step beside him. “Sit down.”

From here, they’ve got a sort of good view of the sky down to Camlann—the town itself isn’t visible, but Sorey’s seen enough of this scenery to guess where’s what, and every year they always look there, because it’s where all the fireworks are. They don’t do fireworks, here—scares off the livestock. They have sparklers, though, for after dinner. Sparklers remind Sorey of what he’s going to lose, after the fizzling sparks disappear: an after image, too vague to be a concrete leftover, too long to disappear without a pang. It feels like crushing a can. Kinda like the realization that fireworks are gorgeous and exciting and awe-inspiring, but those five seconds are all they have, and afterwards nothing can ever really be like it again.

“Have you ever been scared of New Years, Uncle?”

“Hmm?” Uncle takes a sip of his drink, unblinking eyes on the sky. “New Years? Why?”

“Mm, nothing. I just…”

Like this world is something he loves, and he loves all of it? What makes it it is all the experiences and memories and losing it feels like losing a crucial part of who he is, because Sorey likes to gather all the tiny moments and sort them, tagging them to be reviewed later. Because all of it—the sounds, the tastes, the feelings, the sights—shape him to who he is now, and Sorey likes to know his roots. Because he wants to remember what it is about everything that makes him fall in love with the universe.

“I dunno,” he mutters. “I want to see the New Year, but I also don’t want to leave this behind.”

“Ah,” Uncle says. “That.”

“Yeah.”

Above, the leaves rustle with bats and winds. Some yelp and yells follow, filled with panic about the fires, but they all glide over his skin and just raise goosebumps.

“Why does it scare you, Sorey?”

“Well,” Sorey starts, fiddling with his sleeves—“Like, I mean, everything I am is sort of, uh, an aggregation of all I was and how I react to it? And. All my thoughts during all these years. The decisions. It’s kind of scary to think that I’ll forget them.”

It’s not something people think he has, all things considered. They think he likes living in the possibilities. And he does! It’s just that, well, the past were also possibilities—it’s just that they were possibilities that he chose, subconsciously or not, and that makes them as valuable, too. He likes to understand himself. He likes to know why he’s doing the things he does right now.

“Oh, you mean that,” Uncle says. “There’s no real way to keep all that, that’s true. The brain only has a limited capacity for information—most of what we experience is lost. But honestly, I think… It doesn’t only have to be your brain that remembers.”

Sorey blinks. “Huh?”

Uncle turns his head, staring at him. “Most of your experiences are shared, aren’t they? It’s not just you who remembers it. And your thoughts… You can always write it down—share it with the paper. We’re not put in this world solely to rely on our own capabilities; we all have lived through so many things because we have resourcefulness, people to shoulder half the work. There’s so much we can do, but by distributing, sharing what we have to carry, what we do ends up being what’s meaningful to us.” He takes a sip. The distant stare towards the night sky makes Sorey turn, too, to see what he’s looking at, and his eyes find the pale, blinking stars. “It took me a while to realize that, too. But anyhoo, you should probably get back.”

“What about you?”

Uncle raises his cup, smile lopsided. “I’ll join you all later. Food smells good right now.”

It’s far later at night. The green glow of his watch is kinda hard to see with all the red and yellows but it’s nearing midnight, now, and everyone’s buzzed up on fizzy soda and lots of sugar, laughing as an occasional firework fires off from Camlann. Sorey’s got one leg up on Mikleo’s chair, and Mikleo’s leg is bent and resting up on his knee. They’re kinda sleepy but one container of cornflakes is sitting precariously on Mikleo’s leg, tilted and leaning against his leg, and they’ve stolen a bottle of the lemon soda for themselves, sharing a cup as they munch. The packs of sparklers rest against their plastic chairs, waiting for midnight.

“C’mon boys,” Mom says suddenly, standing up. “It’s a quarter to midnight. If you want to watch the lightworks, uppity up.”

Sorey jostles, then Mikleo jumps, and they almost spilled everything. Mom swipes the cornflakes, though, and Mikleo just barely saves the cup, so Sorey grabs the sprinklers and hops to the balls of his feet, sleepily exhilarated. The muted sounds of celebrations echo down the mountains—he can’t see the lights, but he can feel it bubble up inside. It would be so, so great to be able to bike down to Camlann as the fireworks fly, to feel the harsh cold air against his hair as his ears ring, but that’s too lonely, and Uncle’s right. This is a moment to be shared, because it’s a precious one he wants to remember.

Mikleo sends him a glare. “Calm down, will you? We almost spilled the soda.”

“Fireworks!”

In the end, it’s pretty much everyone who joins them. Even Gramps and Uncle have gotten up, staying in the far back—Ed and Cynthia and Melody have sparklers of their own, too, while Mason holds the match. Mom taps her foot as she counts out the minutes. Five minutes, three—the light is on, and everything bursts into pale gold.

Sorey looks up, grinning. Mikleo is grinning back, and they wave their sparklers.

“Midnight,” Aunt Muse says, voice light with bated breath.

In the distance, above their ephemeral string of lights, flowers rain. Laughter is echoed by the muted bangs, cloaked and masked and balled up, but it feels free here, in this clearing, so it flies free. They’re at the edge of Elysia—beyond them is the road down to Camlann, the endless steps of fields that line it, the mountains. Beyond them is the world.

Red Robin was in Red Hood’s territory, and he was brandishing a greasy paper bag of Big Belly Burger.

“What are you doing on my turf?” Jason demanded, trying to ignore that he could *smell* the onions from two feet away.

“It’s been pointed out to me,” Tim said wryly, “that I may have been a shit to you.”

Jason shrugged because he fucking hated that Tim’s questions had gotten to him and he wasn’t ready to admit it.

“I hear burgers are the going rate for an apology,” Tim added, shaking the bag a little.

“And fries?” Jason asked, relenting. 

“And fries,” Tim confirmed. 

Jason swept the bag out of his hand and dug out the top burger. Loaded with onions. Perfection.  “So let’s hear it,” he mumbled around the first bite.

Tim lifted the lenses on his domino and rolled his eyes. Jason coughed out a laugh around his double beef patties.

“I’m sorry I got all up in your business,” Tim said. “I wanted - I wanted too many things and I tried to make them all work.”

Jason lifted his own lenses to share his side eye. “What the fuck does that mean?” he asked.

Tim scratched the back of his head. “You had me pretty fucked up, with that kiss,” he admitted.”I know I shouldn’t have done it. But I guess I wanted to be part of what you were going through, like…Bernard was for me.”

“No names in the field,” Jason scolded, shoving some fries into his mouth. “And Cannon Fodder is your actual boyfriend. Were you going to be my actual boyfriend?”

“No,” Tim said immediately and blushed. “I just.”

“Help!”

Jason snapped his attention away from Tim. “Hello?” he called. “Do you need help?”

A child, a little boy, maybe seven or eight, ran out of the alley, his hands fisted in his sweatshirt. “It’s my mom,” he said. “She needs help.”

Jason flipped the lenses on his domino back down and tossed the bag to Tim. “Show me where she is,” he directed.

“This way,”the kid said and ran back down the alley. Jason followed, his long strides eating up the distance between himself and the kid, and then he saw a woman huddled over some cardboard boxes. She was protecting her stomach and Jason’s heart pounded as he assumed the worst. 

“Let me see,” he said, kneeling next to her. “Help is here.”

He heard, rather than saw the taser as she fired, and he barely had time to say, “Fuck,” before everything went black.

*

Jason gained consciousness slowly and regretfully.  For starters, he was upside down and his nose was running.  (It seemed like a problem that would solve itself, but no.)  Moving on, he was lashed to Tim, who was also unconscious.  His head was tucked under Jason’s chin, his mouth breathing short puffs of air against Jason’s neck.  At least he was breathing.  Their hands were tied, Jason’s behind his back and Tim’s in front of him, which basically put them right in Jason’s groin.  For fuck’s sake.  As if Jason didn’t have enough problems with wanting Tim, some absolute psycho went and  put Tim’s hands in Jason’s lap and was probably laughing while Jason tried to be cool about it.  Finally, Jason craned his head down to see what they were dangling over.  Acid?  Alligators?  Something that started with the letter B?

Nope.  Concrete.  Great.  He groaned and Tim stirred against him.

“Wake up, Baby Bird,” he said because the jig was up and he might as well have company in immortal humiliation.  “They got us.”

“Temporary situation,” Tim said crisply, even though his voice was muffled by Jason’s skin and his own shirt.  

“Let’s not fall on our heads,” Jason suggested when he realized Tim was picking the ties on his own hands.  Actually, falling on his head sounded pretty good right now, with Tim’s hands shifting and twitching *so fucking close* and his cock aching for those hands to hold it.  Only Jason could get a stiffy while dangling over certain death.

“Just stay really still for a sec,” Tim said, and then he twisted around and wrapped his arms around Jason’s back. Jason tried not to die inside. Tim tucked his head into the small of Jason’s back - it was really weird to get turned on by this, right? - and rotated his body so he was facing upright, his knees hooked around Jason’s shoulders. “You need my pick before I jump?” he asked.

“I have a knife,” Jason replied, choked.

Tim pushed off and somersaulted to the floor. His landing was light, not as soundless as Dick’s, but far less noisy than Jason’s was about to be. Tim had freed Jason’s feet, which had been  tied with his own, so Jason wrapped one leg in the hanging chain before he sliced apart the ropes holding his hand. He grasped the chain and swung himself down, landing beside Tim with a quiet thunk.

“I don’t know what kind of candyass bullshit that was,” he said, rubbing at his chest which still tingled from the taser. “But we need to kick some asses.”

“I got tased by a third grader.” Tim sounded salty. “I’m guessing it’s not my drug ring.”

“We weren’t even in costume when we pissed them off,” Jason pointed out. “It’s gotta be somebody else.”

“Smart enough to use decoys, dumb enough to leave us alone,” Tim added.

Jason tried to remember the woman’s face as he bent over her. “Mind control?” he asked. “Hatter’s still in Arkham, isn’t he?”

Tim tapped his earbud. “Oracle,” he asked. “Is Mad Hatter still in Arkham?” He looked at Jason and shook his head. A metal door screamed open a thousand feet away and about a dozen people marched through the opening. “Oh. That fits. Yeah, Red Hood and I will take care of it.”

“Who is it?” Jason demanded, unholstering his guns. 

“Professor Pyg,” Tim said. “He escaped sometime this afternoon. He probably hasn’t had time to turn anyone into a Dollotron yet but he has some method of mind control.”

“Dammit.” Mind control meant no bullets. Not even rubber ones. “All right, let’s find this guy and put him back where he belongs. You still owe me a burger.”

“I gave you a burger,” Tim protested. “It’s not my fault you got duped into abandoning it.”

“I handed it back to you,” Jason pointed out. “It’s not my fault you got tased by an eight-year-old.”

“Ugh,” Tim said. “There are offices up there, on the catwalk. Pyg’s probably up there. Let’s skip the henchmen and go straight to the source.”

Jason didn’t often use a grapple but Tim was already on his way and there was no way Jason was letting him face Pyg without backup. He grappled up to the catwalk, ducking under the metal guardrail, and took off after Tim. They started clearing offices and had covered the east side of the warehouse when Jason heard a footstep behind him and spun around.

Pyg, brandishing a cleaver, and a syringe, had emerged from the next office down and was trying to rush Jason. Fortunately he was neither fast nor accurate and Jason managed to side-step him and take him down with a judo throw. He kicked the cleaver down the catwalk but Pyg lunged at his with the syringe. It wouldn’t have pierced his armor, but it didn’t matter. Tim was there and he cracked his bo staff across the back of Pyg’s head. Pyg went down and Jason picked up the syringe. “We’re gonna want to analyze this,” he commented.

“Later,” Tim snapped. “We’re getting him back to Arkham before he can do anymore damage.”

Sirens were already wailing. Jason zip-tied Pyg’s wrists and checked the back of his head. “You got him good, baby bird,” he said, finding a sizable goose egg. “Cops are on their way. They can give him a lift back to Arkham.”

“We need to figure out what this is and how to counteract it,” Tim said, nodding at the syringe still in Jason’s hand. “We’ll have to take it back to the Bat-Cave.”

“I’m not going there,” Jason said automatically. “Which office was he using? Are there notes?”

The notes were in the third office they checked. Tim took the notes and the syringe and slipped out of the warehouse to tell some cop he was friendly with how to synthesize an antidote.