#and Jason never getting a good look at Tim's bare undisguised face

[themandylion]

For the fic meme I would have to say its the very first fic I've ever read from you, the series "Cats, Birds, Bats, and the Occasional Spoiler"

Haha aw, yeah. The first story I wrote in this series (Of Cats and Conjugals, which ended up becoming the third story) was written in part as an exercise in writing something short. And then I made into a series. Ah well...

So the second story, So It Goes, was originally supposed to be this whole retelling of the first arc of the Red Robin series (or, as I call it, BruceQuest), revealing Tim's big character backstory secret. Some of that gets touched on in WWCSD?, because I realized I'd never finish the big story. But still, this scene lingers on...

He tosses some clothes and toiletries in a backpack, then does a much more careful job packing one of the special bags that gives a false X-ray reading that Bruce came up with for when they have to travel and can't just jump on the Batplane. Grows a mustache and lightens that and his hair to a dirty brown, adds a false nose and chin, and the finishing touch of some grey contacts. It's nothing drastic, but between those small changes and styling his hair differently, it should be enough to keep anyone from recognizing Bruce Wayne's second son, especially overseas where they have their own, homegrown celebrity screw-ups to obsess over.

Jason's not sure if it'll be enough to fool Stray. As an unknown element, Stray's never earned enough trust to know the civilian identities of Batman and his partners, never mind that the guy is more likely to help in a pinch than Selina. Still, with the way things seem to be going between Redwing and Stray, Jason's kind of hoping that keeping the secret won't be so important in the future.

Gathering everything together, he leaves the safe house he's been using to get his face on. Catches a bus and rides it out to the airport per the instructions Stray texted him the day before. He can't go through security yet, since Stray's the one bringing tickets and a passport for this new identity.

"Alvin? Is that you? Oh, good, I thought it had to be, you've got a very distinct silhouette," someone says, and suddenly a girl in a big red hat is looping her arm through his and chattering away. "I told you, darling, we're taking the train to Metropolis, it's silly to fly, a complete waste of money."

"Sorry, I think you have the wrong person," Jason says, trying to somehow extricate himself from the woman's iron grip.

She tilts her head back and pushes up the floppy brim of her hat. Dark brown eyes twinkle at him over ridiculously huge sunglasses and bright red lips tug upwards in a smirk that never fails to send Jason's heart racing. "No, I'm sure I've got it right, Alvin Draper. Or don't you recognize your own girlfriend?"

"…Stray?" he checks, not-quite whispering. He's pretty sure it's the cat burglar, but this is definitely not what he expected when Stray said he'd be in disguise as well.

The question earns him an eye roll. "Duh, who else?"

"You're a girl?" Sure, Bruce wasn't certain of Stray's gender back when the kid first showed up and was running around in a too-large hoodie, but since Stray graduated to the spandex catsuit, they'd been pretty sure they had it figured out.

"For this I am. Why," Stray asks, pulling back while removing his sunglasses to make direct eye contact, "is that going to be a problem?"

He gulps. It's the first time he's seen the other boy without the goggles and while he's not foolish enough to assume Stray is without any kind of mask (Jason was trained by Alfred), he's still just as pretty as Jason always imagined he'd be. "No, of course not! Just—I wasn't expecting it."

"Most of my international contacts all think I'm a woman named Carolina Sandiego. Since I'm not sure how much we'll need to deal with them, I felt it would be easier to just travel as Carolina." Leaning over, he rummages through the bag slung over his shoulder, pulling out a passport and several tickets, all of which he hands over to Jason. "Stateside, Alvin is Carolina's boyfriend. Whenever we meet with my contacts overseas, Alvin is Carolina's bodyguard-slash-grunt."

Taking the proffered items, Jason winces slightly. "I can't believe you gave me a name like Alvin."

"I figured we're trying to stay off the Bat radar, so I couldn't exactly fall back on 'Robbie Malone,' could I? Plus, this was all pretty short-notice, so I had to adapt one of my existing aliases for you. Now, c'mon, we have less than thirty minutes to schlep over to the trains."

"Wait, we really are taking a train to Metropolis? Why?"

"Because we're trying to be sneaky and the first thing Batman will do is check all the plane manifests for someone matching your build. We'll board a late-night flight out of [someplace] when we get there."