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redflagshipwriter · 3 months ago

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Chef Beef 2/2

Part 1

Thursday

11:30 AM.

Only a few more days left of this experiment. Jason wasn’t sure if he was dreading the end or looking forward to it. Streaming twice a day was kind of a lot, but it was also invigorating.

Jason heaved a sigh at his screen, mostly joking in his exasperation. His viewers were little shits. “I already pounded it.” He held up the tenderized steak. “I pounded it within an inch of its life– in bed, against the wall, on the floor–” Jason cut himself off from reading the comments incredulously. “In the kitchen!” He scowled at his fans. “I am not pounding meat anywhere but in a clean kitchen.” He shook his head and scoffed. “I will tenderize one more steak, if you really need to see it. Pay enough attention this time to notice the sterile environment.”

Raven sighed deeply. “I will explode the head of the next puerile loser to comment,” she threatened. She snapped her fingers at the viewers, nails setting off sparks and smoke. “Do not make me read those words.”

Jason gave a theatrical shudder.

She squinted at the comment section. “Are you Nightwing?” she asked him wryly. He was probably the only person who could tell that she was laughing her ass off internally. “They can’t think of another reason for us to know each other.”

Jason jumped so hard he nearly hit his finger with the mallet. “No! Christ.” He shook his head. “We look nothing alike.”

The chat exploded with commentary. He ignored it with a laugh and went back to work. Dick must be giggling his ass off.

A few minutes later, he was explaining the miso-yuzu topping for his steak when he noticed a familiar name dropping another sticker.

Hey, wait. He frowned. “HawaiiHunk2?” He read incredulously. “You the same motherfucker that got blocked yesterday? You are thirsty, buddy.”

Raven put down her spoon and leaned over to see the screen. “Ew,” she said, screwing her whole face up.

“Miso hungry for you 🥺🥺🥺🥺,” HawaiiHunk2 had said. Definitely the same fucker.

“I’ve got it.” GOATman typed up rapidly.

Jason waited a moment for the notification that the guy was blocked to appear. Nothing. But HawaiiHunk2 never sent another message. Huh. Maybe he’d missed it somehow? “Thanks, GOATman,” he said. He stopped stirring his mix and set the bowl aside. “Imma see you again for dinner, right?”

GOATman sent a yes and a flood of emojis.

“Someone has a comparison, look at this.” Raven gave up any pretense of helping and leaned both elbows on his counter. He made an aggrieved noise. “They’ve got screenshots of us standing next to each other and…” she frowned. “Where did you get this image?” she said, sounding dangerous.

Jason looked over. “...Nerd,” he said. Someone had found a high quality shot of Raven and Nightwing and used her as a scale to do math about how big both men were. “You’re doing math? Embarrassing.”

“This image proves that you are taller than Nightwing,” said Kissy6000, a certified freak. “If her stated height is accurate, you are 5 inches taller than Nightwing, and your thighs are an additional 4 inches in circumference compared to his.”

“And much more swole,” added BicepMan. “Nightwing wishes he was built like that.”

He choked on a laugh, because that was kind of mean to his manager. “Back to twice baked potatoes,” Jason said pointedly. “We are almost done.”

He took the first bite on camera, as he always did. “Yupp,” he pronounced, “this is delicious.”

“I agree.” Raven licked her spoon. “I will probably never cook again, but I may manifest on your welcome mat and beg.”

“That’s more polite than my brothers,” he told her, and then turned his attention to his viewers. “Tell me if you make it– hell yeah, I will repost your picture,” Jason promised. “Mm, do I– I don’t see any relevance, BicepMan,” Jason scoffed. “Do I like redheads? Off topic. Blocked and deleted,” he joked. Then he held up his hands in a stop gesture. “Not for real, GOATman.”

That was an asinine inquiry. He shook his head with a laugh.

Obviously he liked redheads. No one could have survived extended contact with Dick’s goddamn menagerie of redheaded hottie hangalongs as a teenager without forming a preference. But it was inoculating. The average redhead on the street could not shake him anymore. He had managed to stay cool under the pressure of extended conversation with redheads hotter than these civilians could have ever dreamed of. Fuck.

BicepMan sent crying emojis. Jason waved it off with a hand and tried very hard to forget his teenage fixations. “Whatever. You can live, but you now owe me a picture– no, a picture of food. If it looks shit, I am going to make fun of it on my next stream, so you had better put your whole ass into it.” He tried his potatoes. “Mm, very good.” He showed a forkful to the camera. “Cheers. Fuck off now.” He cut the feed and then tore through his meal.

He had a simple meal for his evening stream. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but this was really growing on him. Maybe Jason was one of the lonely losers who would benefit from eating meals with someone. He considered this as he chatted back and forth with GOATman. “This is nice,” he said out loud. “Maybe I should go eat with my family more.”

GOATman sent him 100 dollars.

“Jesus,” Jason said, startled. “I don’t need your money. But thanks. You think it’s a good idea?” He wondered, cutting a slice of his tart.

“I think your family would love to have you over.”

The sincerity nearly made his skin crawl. Jason fidgeted. “I don’t know, my dad and I have a troubled relationship.” He sighed and put down his fork to rub at his face. “We’re both stubborn.”

“You can resolve it.”

“You are so positive, GOATman.” Jason huffed a laugh. “Maybe. I’ll see my Dad later, maybe I’ll see if he wants me over.”

Later that night on patrol, Jason made a point of swinging to the north end of his patrol radius. He tended to overlap with Bruce’s route there.

As expected, bat ears pricked up in the distance. Jason tried not to fidget as he waited. “Red Hood,” Batman said, landing down. “Everything alright?”

Jason nodded. “It’s good,” he said, feeling very stupid. How was he going to walk the conversation around to maybe coming over for dinner? “I-”

Red Robin cut into the comm line. “Batman, do we have any indication that Luthor is up to something unusual?”

Batman went tense. “Why?”

“A localized EMP went off and ruined Superboy’s phone, laptop, and his family smartfridge today at 12:16 this afternoon,” Red Robin reported, sounding awfully serious for such a stupid topic. Jason stifled a snicker in his glove. “I noticed because he usually sends me thirsty- he sends a lot of reports on his days, normally.” He overcorrected himself, flustered.

Batman hummed. Jason shook his head and got out his grapple, grateful for the exit from this conversation. “Perhaps he was misusing his devices,” Batman said. “The fridge is an unfortunate casualty.”

Jason turned the channel off before he had to hear any more about Superboy’s technological woes.

Friday

“Dear Jason!”

He sat up with a start, not ten minutes after he had gone to bed. Dick was grinning at him like a ghoul, holding out his phone in the darkness of his bedroom. He was still in his Nightwing costume. His gloves were off, so Jason could see that he had a fresh manicure for the first time in a while.

‘I need bug spray or some shit.’

“...Kory,” Jason said groggily. “Good morning.” He laid back down with a groan.

“Good morning!” she chirped. “I am looking forward to our video collaboration today! What should I wear for this occasion?”

Oh, fuck. He stared at his ceiling, struck immobile by horror. He was going to be trapped in his kitchen for more than an hour with one of the most attractive people on earth. Why was this happening to him?

He turned a thoroughly wounded expression on Dick. Dick shrugged. “Wardrobe?” He prompted.

…He did not want to pick out clothes for Kory. That was… no, that was dangerous territory.

Why was she asking him? Was this a normal thing for a celebrity to care about?

Jason ran a hand through his hair and cursed his life. “I don’t care,” he said. “A ballgown. A swimsuit. Old sweats. You literally always look good.” A bit too much sincerity crept into his voice at the end.

Dick flinched.

“You as well!” She sang out. “Let us make a bargain! We will wear the shortest of shorts, and shirts that show our arms! The viewers will find it extremely invigorating.” He just knew she was flexing on the other end of the line.

Jason thought over that for a moment. “I don’t think I own Daisy Dukes.”

Dick tossed the phone onto his bed and started shuffling through Jason’s dresser. He retrieved a pair of jeans and then walked off with them into another room.

It took a moment for the pin to drop. He sat up. “Dick!”

A rip cut through the air as Dick converted his jeans into shorts.

Jason laid back down mournfully. “I have short shorts,” he reported to Kory. “Okay. Wanna coordinate a color or anything?”

She cheerfully demurred. Jason ended the call and then hauled his sore body out to glare at his shitty older brother. “Don’t you have any pride? You know damn well that putting Kory on my livestream is gonna be really weird.”

Dick shrugged. “This hurts, but my rent is paid up for the rest of the year,” he said philosophically. “I can cry into a pile of paid bills.” He held up a pair of horrifically short cut-off jeans with a self satisfied smirk. “I’m going to get a car. You need to work in a reference to this credit card company by the way, say you use them for shopping for groceries.” He tossed a contract on the bed.

Jason blinked. “…How much money am I making?” He asked, baffled. “I haven’t looked at my accounts.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “You’re an asshole,” he said fondly, in a truly incredible bit of projection. “Sleep tight!” He slammed the door on his way out.

Jason laid there for a long and miserable moment, mind ticking unwillingly. He wanted to sleep. He needed to sleep, especially if he was going to deal with how catastrophically hot Kory was. Jason swallowed, hard. He tried not to think about her triceps. In his house. Kory and her hair and her everything, in his home. Holy shit.

He couldn’t sleep. He had to get up and scrub his home from top to bottom. What if Kory pulled the fridge out from the wall and saw the crumbs back there, huh? What if she needed to crawl under his sofa and saw that he had used it to hide an imperfection in the wall molding?

Once that was done, Jason took his nervous energy to the grocery store and changed his damn mind half a dozen times about what he wanted to make.

“Don’t be mad,” Dick texted him, an hour before go time.

What did that mean.

Jason called him immediately. Dick rejected the call. He stared at the phone, genuinely fearful. What did that even mean? How could it get worse?

He called again.

Dick’s phone was off.

He dialed up Barbie. “Hey, what is Dick up to?” Jason asked nervously, as soon as the line connected.

She laughed in his ear and ended the call.

He paced around his kitchen. “That’s cool,” he said. “That’s fine. It probably doesn’t mean anything.”

He found out what it meant when Kory knocked on his door and breezed in a cloud of perfume to land a kiss on his cheek. “Jason!” She announced, way too loudly. “We are so excited!” Her incredible hair sort of lashed and sparked in the air.

He reeled, a hand to his cheek. “What,” he said, like a dumbass. We? Oh no. It was a plural situation.

Roy Harper came in after her and kicked the door shut, arms… out. And bulging. “Yeah, we brought some stuff,” he said, as if Jason had noticed the goddamn tote bags he was hefting. Jason hadn’t gotten that far.

Jason made a wounded sound.

‘If Wally West or Barbara Gordon shows up, I’m leaving. This won’t be my apartment anymore. I’m not strong enough for this. Is Dick mad at me?’

“What’s that?” he said weakly, trying to get his hormones under control. Jason held onto the countertop to stay standing. He needed help. He needed one of those LifeAlert devices. Someone should call an ambulance immediately. His heart was going too fast and it hurt.

Roy grinned at him. It was so white and perfect that it hurt his brain a little. He dropped the totes on the counter and then dug out two honeydew melons. “Perfect melons!” he said, holding them up to his chest.

Jason made a sound like a strangled cat.

Kory threw her head back and laughed. “That is too funny, friend Roy,” she said. She floated over and snatched out some grapefruits. “They resemble your large pectorals!”

Roy grinned at her and sort of jiggled the fruit. “Thanks for noticing,” he said, and then he looked back at Jason. “Some of your followers had some rather… scientific curiosity.”

He tried to make a noise. Nothing came out.

“Yes,” Kory said, idly tossing fruit up and down. “You crushed a root vegetable in your hand. It has spurred inquiries such as, “Can a melon be cracked open in the bend of your arm? Will it crack or be crushed, or will it be unaffected?” Her grin turned extremely mischievous. “I thought we should all try it!” She dashed in between the two men and gave a squeeze to each of their arms. “That is why I thought that we should not wear the sleeves today! It will be easier to clean ourselves.”

Dick was a dead man. He could pay his bills in hell.

They started the stream. He introduced his guests. Jason was in such a fugue state that he knew damn well he wouldn’t remember what had happened. He stammered his way through the introduction so severely that Kory patted his back and then cheerfully announced they were going to make fruit juice!

“We will begin with guavas.” Kory pulled them out with a flourish. “Let us crush them with our hands!” She grinned to the camera.

Jason managed one look at her crushing fruit between her palms and then went back into survival mode. He wanted to lick her hands. He wanted to join a monastery.

“Next, oranges. I wanted to see if we could juice them inside the rind. What do you think?” Roy gave the screen a winsome smile and a piece of fruit a teasing squeeze.

“Oh!” Kory floated upwards in her excitement. “Let us take turns crushing them with our biceps! Everyone, please observe.”

“This is debatably sanitary,” Roy said, and then effortlessly crushed his orange over the bowl. It flattened and spurted out violently.

Jesus.

Jason watched, transfixed, as juice dripped down his arm. Kory crowed a laugh and then copied him. Jason let himself be bullied into it next. Why not? This might as well be happening to him.

HawaiiHunk2 returned just long enough to type up an all caps scream. He then disappeared from the list of viewers.

Relatable. He was right. For once in his miserable and horny little life, HawaiiHunk2 was right. It was better to run away.

“Next!” Kory brandished two melons. The chat exploded into incoherency. “Let us attempt the honeyed melons! Their rind is very thick.”

Jason looked at the orange juice drying on his arm.

“Looks sticky,” Roy said casually. Too casually. “Need me to clean that up for you?” He stuck his tongue out ever so slightly.

Jason reflexively made the sign of the cross.

“We also have watermelons!”

“God help me,” Jason begged. He gripped the counter hard.

“I have heard that it is an internet challenge to crush them in one’s muscular thighs! We, too, shall crush watery melons!”

“Yeah, buddy,” Roy said, extremely unhelpful. “Lucky we are all in such short shorts.” He twined around to show the camera his flank, lifting a leg. His thigh muscles flexed.

Jason didn’t really remember the rest of the stream. He didn’t remember ending it. It was sort of a rush of blood and hormones. He just survived the experience, honestly.

When it was all over, Kory and Roy each kissed a cheek and then bustled out with cheerful efficiency. They said something about going to blow up a warlord. Or something. He didn’t really know English anymore.

“Good luck,” Jason said, dazed. He sat down on his floor. His laptop and phone chimed constantly with notifications. Me too, buddy, he thought.

His window slid open and Dick crawled in like Sadako. “Yooooo,” the world’s worst sibling crooned. He tumbled into the room with a roll and then landed in a crouch. He giggled to himself, the white light from his phone reflecting on his face. “Oh, hey, did you see Tim’s message? Someone set off another EMP at the Kent farm during your livestream.” He snickered. An app made a ping noise, as a transaction registered. Dick threw his head back and cackled. “I have infinite money now! I don’t care about using paid vs unpaid leave anymore. I am going to get a 401k and health insurance! I am never going to die.” He threw himself back into the sofa and kicked his feet in the air.

Jason looked at his phone, seeking something that would numb the pain of his brother’s happiness.

His back went rigid.

He opened his messages. He scrolled past the 102 unopened messages from Kon, as was his habit. The top one said, “I am free ton….”

That was unimportant. He had unopened messages from both Kory and Roy.

Roy

You looked hot as hell today. 🔥 u free tonight? 👅 🫦 what else them thighs do? 🍈

Kory

Jason! 💕 You have the cleanest sofa I have ever seen. ✨ Let us spend some time upon it together and cause it to become filthy and possibly broken! 💋 🍑 💪

He looked at Dick. He looked back at his phone and the R U up style messages from two of Dick’s exes. He looked again at how heinously happy Dick was.

“Hey, Dick,” Jason said slowly. He felt a terrible smile creeping across his face.

He had the power to make all of that go away.

Dick stopped smiling. He went very still, like a meerkat in the grass. “…What up?”

“C’mere.”

#red chef beef #chef beef #Jason Todd #detective comics #Jason is living in the most challenging timeline for a bit #dick pays off his loans #dick gets a mani pedi #accidental influencer Jason Todd

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