#maybe he fails to reach out to Tim and with Steph stepping back goes into an Everyone Leaves Me

[mzminola]

If we find some other way for War Games to kick off (or just...not have that arc, idk), I think my ideal end for the Robin!Steph arc would be for her, not to fuck up and get fired, but decide, on her own, that she prefers being Spoiler.

What she wanted was training, respect, and (ugh, DC, why?) to get back at Tim for the misconception that he cheated on her. The first two don't require being Robin (Bruce gave her a smidge during the Brentwood arc) and the third can be resolved through communication, or if we really want some interesting character growth, Steph confronting her own vindictiveness, wrestling with whether she cares more about Getting Revenge or Helping People.

Actually, that could tie back into her intro and subsequent early appearances pretty well? She became Spoiler to get back at her dad, but later shows up solving crimes in the suburbs pointing out that the Bats tend to focus on the main island city. She also wants to impress her crush, but moves away from that impetus over time. So deciding, "I built Spoiler into something more than revenge, and I want to keep building Spoiler, not get mired back in revenge as Robin," would be some growth.

So yeah, wrap up with Robin!Steph arc by her showing up at the Batcave in her Spoiler suit, mirroring how she first showed up in her handmade Robin suit, and tell Bruce she wants to split time patrolling the suburbs like she used to, and patrolling the city with him for more training. That being Robin was an honor, but she's Spoiler, and she's proud to be Spoiler.

This could be a kick in the pants for Bruce; by reclaiming Spoiler and laying down new terms of partnership, letting go of her grudge against Tim, she's acting more mature than Bruce (who it's implied made her Robin in an attempt to lure Tim back). Maybe this sparks him to reassess how he's handling the Jack situation and Tim's absence, reaching out in their civilian lives or otherwise doing something direct to maintain that important relationship.

[toosicktoocare]

Okay, I’m very much obsessed with the web comic “Batman: Wayne Family Adventures,” and I want to write little one-shots for it. 

If you’d like to see something written, drop a prompt in my inbox! 

Also found on AO3!

1: Better Than Dick Grayson

Jason’s beat by the time he guides his bike through an underground entrance to the Bat Cave. Patrol wasn’t hard – more annoying than anything else. There’s been an increase in copy-cat villains lurking the shadows of Crime Alley, all who can’t even follow through with a napkin-scribbled plan properly.

“Nice work tonight, Hood.”

Jason slips off his bike, boots heavy against the steel floor below him. He taps the comm nestled in his ear. “Thanks, O. Time to sign off? I’m sure you have an absolutely riveting day at the library tomorrow.” A cheeky smile plays at his lips as he slips his helmet off, huffing around a laugh at Barbara’s drawn-out sigh in his ear.

“I honestly don’t know why I help you every night.”

“Come on, O. You know you look forward to our quick-witted banter every day. That’s our thing – our trademark, if you will.” His smile widens when Barbara chuckles in his ear.

“You’re ridiculous, Hood.”

Jason slips into a changing room, grimacing as he cards his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. “Please, O. You know you love me.” His suit is damp against him, an uncomfortable testament to just how much he’s done on patrol in the few hours he was out.

“Maybe a little.”  

Smirking, he shrugs his jacket off and reaches to the back of his neck, working his damp suit off until it’s hanging low at his waist. “You flirting with me, Babs? I’ll tattle to Dick.” He barks out a laugh at the low, impressive string of curse words that echo from his comm.

“I retract my previous statement. My tolerable feelings toward you stem from obligation alone.”

“Babs,” Jason whines, slamming a hand to his chest, “you wound me! Now I’m really going to tell Dick!”

“Well, you’re out of luck. He left for Bludhaven an hour ago.”

Jason pushes down on his suit until he’s stepping out of it, kicking it to the corner of the changing room with the notion that he’ll deal with it later. Tomorrow. He sighs – eventually.

“Detective Grayson summoned for an assignment?” He turns on his heel, snagging a towel that he drapes over his shoulders, using one corner to mop the sweat dripping from his hair.

“Something like that.”

Barbara’s voice goes soft on the other line, and Jason stops, frowning smally. “What’s up, Babs?”

“Damian and Bruce are still out, so I need to get back to them. Can you check in on Tim for me? Steph said he’s been quieter than usual all day.”

“Pump the kid up with coffee, then? I can do that.”

“Jason.”

Jason holds his hand’s up in mock defense out of habit, sighing between his teeth. “Fine, yes. I’ll follow in golden child Dick’s footsteps and take my role as the dutiful big brother.”

“Good. Also, I have that on recording now for the next time you try to sarcastically remove yourself from a family affair.”

“Barbara!”

“Later, Jason!”

There’s a crackle in Jason’s ear, and then the line goes dead. Rolling his eyes, he pulls the comm free, dropping it beside a large monitor in the cave before padding upstairs, eager to shower Crime Alley’s discount villains away.

He swings by Tim’s room first, finding him at his desk, eyes soft and cast toward the window. His expression is somber albeit a tad thoughtful, and Jason promptly pulls him out of whatever muted stupor he’s currently lost in.

“Well,” he starts, nudging the door open wider, eyes flicking to the textbook open at the desk. “You’re doing better than I did. Studying wasn’t really my forte.”

Tim twists around and cocks his head to the side. “You were a straight-A student.”

Scoffing, Jason drops against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Hey. I didn’t say I wasn’t smart.” He nods to the book. “And you’re essentially a boy genius, so do you really need to do that?”

“It’s a good distraction,” Tim sighs, turning back to the window and dropping his cheek against his fist.

“A distraction from what?” Jason’s eyes narrow into sharp slits, watching a small line of tension take to Tim’s shoulders.

“Dick left.”

Jason’s taken aback. Dick comes and goes all the time – they all do. He can’t imagine Tim will be here long, and he, himself, is only staying the night before he heads back to the safe house he’s been frequenting by himself in the morning. Now that he thinks of it, he’s sure he overheard Steph mentioning packing for a trip with Barbara in a few days.

“He’ll come back,” Jason responds, and Tim spins around in his desk chair with a sigh that’s far too long and heavy for a kid his age.

“I know that. It’s just,” Tim pauses, waving one hand around, “too quiet without him here.”

“That’s a bad thing?” Jason cocks a brow, and Tim huffs.

“You know what I mean – Dick’s all energy and smiles, and everything just feels better when he’s here. When we’re all here together.”

This, Jason thinks, is edging a delicate territory he’s not adept to handle. His vocabulary rivals Alfred’s, and yet, piecing together words into a sentence that’s both optimistic and comforting is not something he feels he’s capable of. Instead, he steps into the room, dropping his palm to Tim’s head, and the silence that follows is sharper than Bruce’s best batarang.

“Jason,” Tim finally mutters, voice flat.

“Is this comforting?”

“No, it’s weird.”

Jason rips his hand away, a sigh of relief slipping past his lips. “Well, that’s one thing we can agree on.” He turns toward the door, muscles faintly aching, his reminder that he really wants to shower and sleep. “Night, Timmy. Dick will come back soon.”

He opts not to look behind him lest he wants to feel a big-brother spark of guilt he’s just too exhausted to handle. Instead, he slips out of the room without so much of an over-the-shoulder glance.

---

Jason’s alarm starts softly from his phone, and he slams his hand against it with a low groan, trained to wake at the quietest of sounds. Outside, the sun’s not quite made it up and over the horizon, still casting the manor in a soft glow – a view that Dick swears by. Jason shuffles over to his window and takes in the view for roughly four seconds before he decides he’d rather see it through the visor of his bike’s helmet.

Still, before he can leave, he’s got one more thing he needs to do at the manor – a rather brilliant idea, if you ask him, he came up with in a sleep-ridden mind right before he conked out for the night.

He’s not Dick. He’s better than Dick.

He changes and perks an ear to the sounds down the hall, hearing the others waking. Once he hears Tim’s bedroom Keurig stop running, he acts, plastering a triple-watt smile to his face and storming out of his room.

“Ugh, Jason,” Cass mutters, rubbing her eyes. “What are you doing?”

Jason doesn’t respond, waiting, instead, for Tim to open his bedroom door, and the moment he does, Jason sucks in a long, swelling breath.

“Good morning!” He shouts, dragging out each word, making his voice as loud as possible, a bright bellow that sinks into every crevice of the manor.

Beside him, Cass cups both hands over her ears, and Damian merely turns back into his room, slamming the door behind him. Duke can’t get to his phone fast enough, and Tim promptly jumps out of his skin, his coffee splashing from his mug to burn against his hand and stain the floor. There are footsteps pounding up the stairs, and Jason smiles even wider, his cheeks stretched and tight, and he sucks in another large breath.

“Jason, what the hell—”

Jason cartwheels down the hall, narrowly avoiding a puddle of coffee to stop upright before Tim. He ruffles Tim’s hair, his forced smile fading to something softer, more genuine. “Morning, Timmers!”

“What in the world is going on?”

Bruce is breathless at the end of the hall, and Alfred’s trying, and horribly failing, to hide a laugh behind a cough.

“I’m telling my family good morning,” Jason shouts, arms outstretched. He offers Tim a wink and leans in close. “Grayson’s got nothing on me,” he whispers, tone devious, before he presses a kiss to Tim’s cheek and claps a hand to Tim’s shoulder.

When he pulls away, he slips past Bruce and Alfred, maneuvering around them with a practiced grace that could rival Dick Grayson. “Something smells incredible down here!” He adds from the stairs.

“Oh, Dick’s going to love this,” Duke mutters, ending the video recording on his phone.

“Should I call Leslie?” Bruce asks, worried, his attention torn between the startled and amused faces before him, and the echoing sound of Jason singing Broadway showtunes from the kitchen downstairs.

Tim looks down to his coffee mug, his hand faintly burning and sticky, and he smiles warmly. “Nah, Jason’s fine.”

[justcourttee]

Daminette Marinette accidental pregnancy reveal in front of the whole family

Love it. Daminette is golden. Hope you like it! @speedybakeryneckzipper

Uhm Surprise?

Marinette felt herself spiraling.

She sat in her apartment bathroom, her head buried into her hands in disbelief. They had finally done it. She was finally pregnant. Oh God, Damian was going to be so happy. Eight long months of trying and failing and here she was, sitting in a damp towel, tears of joy pouring down her face.

“Angel? Are you almost finished getting ready? You know how unreasonable Grayson gets when we are late for this cursed family night.”

Marinette wiped the tears from her face, standing as quietly as she could. The problem with marrying a former assassin was that he could always detect the slightest problems with his stupid hearing.

“I’m honestly just finishing up drying off. It’ll take another 15 at least to get dressed and put on some basic makeup.”

The pause on the other side of the door sent a shiver of fear through her spine. Maybe she hadn’t kept her voice level enough, maybe he could hear her excited undertones, maybe-

“Alright my love, but just know, you are risking the wrath of little Grayson as well.”

Marinette rolled her eyes at his nickname for Dick and Barbara’s child. He had only ever called his niece by name once, other than that, it was always little Grayson, or the spawn of satan. (Honestly though, from the stories they had told Marinette, maybe making him babysit the child was Dick’s revenge for Damian’s own childhood.)

She waited until she was sure he was no longer at the door before she released the quietest squeal she could manage. Maybe she would tell him after family night. After all, they were in every right to celebrate this victory together. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stepping out of the portal, Marinette didn’t even have the chance to detransform before she lost her stomach in Alfred’s shrubbery. Immediately, Damian was by her side, a wary look on his face as he did his best to hold back her hair from the assault.

“Are you alright angel? Portaling has never had that effect on you before.”

Marinette nodded as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, calling off the transformation.

‘So no portalling for the next few months. Noted.’

Pulling out a can of mints, Marinette swallowed three of them before breathing out a sigh of relief. Giving an okay to Damian, he pushed open the door, offering his arm for her to take.

“About damn time!”

Marinette sidestepped at the last second as Jason tackled Damian to the ground, putting him into a headlock as he ruffled her husband’s hair.

“You two lovebirds realize that you left me in an insufferable situation right? There’s like three kids and that’s not even counting Dickie bird.”

A vague ‘hey’ echoed through the hallways followed by laughter. Marinette shook her head as she tapped out for Damian, helping him up from the ground.

“So what Miraculous did you bring tonight Mari? I’m so ready for another spar.”

“I, uh, forgot. Yup.”

Jason narrowed his eyes at her.

“You guys didn’t drive up so that means you at least have Kaalki with you.”

“I do, but-”

“Great! We’ll practice my dodging later on.”

Jason slung his arms around the couple as he led them into the living room where several more faces sat, eagerly awaiting their arrival.

“And the last to the party, for the seventh week in a row, Mr. and Mrs. Damian Wayne! And the crowd goes wild!” Tim cupped his hands over his mouth as he exhaled loudly.

Before Damian could raise his fist, Marinette reached over, plucking the fresh bread from Tim’s plate, sending him a wink.

“We’re going for a new record.”

“I’ll say, you guys don’t even have kids yet. I can’t imagine how late you’ll be when you have a third one to dress Marinette.”

Damian grumbled under his breath as Marinette bit her lip hard, avoiding looking Tim in the eyes.

“What, no comeback? You’re slacking tonight Mari.”

Jason settled into the couch, gently kicking Tim in the back of the head in the process. For a second, all eyes were on her. She felt her face flush as she tried her best to hide behind Damian.

“She’s not feeling good tonight, but she came to make Grayson happy. Now leave her be or face my wrath.”

Tim and Jason let out a simultaneous ‘ooo’ before bursting into fits of laughter. Marinette saw Damian’s first begin to curl, but before he could completely close them, she forced her hand in between, intertwining their fingers. Instantly he relaxed as he leaned down to place a small kiss on her forehead.

“Who’s ready to party?” Two more faces joined the party as Stephanie and Barbara wondered in, each carrying a respective bottle of wine. “Brucie put the kids to bed, Dick is reading them a story, and we need to pregame before they come to stop us.”

“You seriously are going to pregame with wine?”

Jason raised his eyebrow at the two girls before shaking his head in disappointment.

“I thought I taught you both better than that.”

The pop of the cork made Marinette’s stomach flip. The smell was so potent. Had wine always smelt like this? She felt herself starting to gag as she tried to shove Tim’s slice of bread down before anything could come up.

“Hey! Marinette’s cheating! She’s eating bread before drinking.” Stephanie reached over in a playful manner, swatting at the piece of bread.

Marinette took a step back, but it was too quick of a movement as she felt all the blood rush to her head. Two sets of arms darted out as Stephanie and Damian caught her before she could hit the ground.

“Angel are you okay? You’re beginning to worry me.”

She couldn’t trust herself to speak so instead she nodded, holding up the half-eaten bread.

“Dude,” Stephanie slapped the back of Damian’s head, earning a growl from the man. “Why aren’t you feeding this tiny woman. If she passes out from lack of calories again, I’m sticking Cass on your ass.”

Jason snickered, earning a smack on the back of his head courtesy of Barbara.

“Well, well, well. Look who finally showed up. They finally showed up Bruce! Can you believe your eyes?”

Bruce shook his head as Dick raced forward, encasing Marinette in a bone-crushing hug.

“Dick, not so hard, please.”

She didn’t mean to let the distress slip into her voice, but it was too late. Dick pulled back, his eyes narrowed in concern as he assessed her face. He opened his mouth and Marinette knew it was over. She braced herself for the words that were about to slip out but alas, nothing came. Instead, Barbara pulled him away, handing him a glass of wine and offering one to her.

“Oh, uhm, no thank you. I’m not feeling so good today.”

“Oh, c’mon Mari! Drink with us!”

A chorus of ‘yeah’s’ and ‘drink up’ rang through the room as they waited for her to accept the glass. Gently she took the drink from Barbara’s hands with a small smile. But it wasn't enough, they all stared at her, waiting for her to take the first sip. Nervously, she raised the glass to her lips, the smell overpowering her senses. The wine rose up to the edge of the glass as she tilted it back. It was so close to her lips, so close-

“I can’t!”

Jason stepped forward, crossing his arms as he narrowed in on the girl.

“Why not?”

“Because!”

“Because why? It’s just wine.”

“Because I’m pregnant!” Instantly she slapped her hand over her mouth as her eyes widened. The room fell deadly silent, all eyes on her and Damian.

“Angel? Did you just say you’re pregnant?” She felt him gather her hand, gently tugging her so that she faced his hopeful face. She shrugged her shoulders as a sheepish smile tugged at her lips.

“Uhm, surprise?”

Damian pulled her into his chest as the group cheered behind them.

“Not wanting to spar, the portal sickness, the fainting, no wine? God, I’m so stupid.”

Marinette pulled back with a giggle as she placed a small kiss on the tear rolling down his cheek.

“No, way. Brucie, you’re going to be a grandpa, and Damian’s having a kid, big night huh?”

Jason nudged his side as Bruce pulled the couple into a hug, tears of his own falling.

“You know what this means Steph?” Jason nodded as Stephanie squatted by the bar pulling out a green bottle.

“I’m one step ahead of you. Champagne to celebrate the miracle baby of Demon Spawn and a literal Angel!”

Another chorus of cheers rang through the room as Damian rested his head on Marinette’s forehead.

“I’m going to be a dad?” his voice was quiet and lulling, his love-drunk face filling Marinette with so much warmth.

“I wanted to tell you later, away from the crazy. I should’ve known better.”

His laughter was short and loud, drawing curious looks from the rest of the room.

“I love you so much, Marinette Wayne.”

“And I love you so much more Damian Wayne.”

His face inched closer to hers as she closed her eyes waiting for a kiss that never came.

“So about that sparring?”

Marinette cracked open one eye to see Jason standing where Damian once had, her husband sprawled out on the ground, struggling to lift his brother’s foot off his chest

“Do you think demon spawn could wield the miraculous? Nine months is such a drag to go on without magical training.”

“Todd if you do not remove your foot from your chest I will chop it off and shove it down your throat!”

“Yeesh.” Jason shook his head before raising an eyebrow at Marinette. “You sure you want to have a kid with this dude?”

Marinette laughed as she watched her husband finally push Jason off sending him flying backward. Reaching down, she helped him up once more, a smile tearing across her face.

“Absolutely.”

@damianette-is-life @rebecarojas07 @ash-amg

[jasontoddiefor]

Summary: Robins left alone: act super serious to make up for the lack of Batman. Duke left alone: so there goes my self control

AN: Duke and Damian bonding

Privately, Duke preferred it when Bruce didn’t leave Gotham. Perhaps that was because deep inside he was still a little boy and Batman was the hero that let him sleep at night. Of course, he knew that Batman was just one non-enhanced human man who couldn’t keep everyone safe but this was the myth Duke had grown up with and like every other children’s fairy tale, it was hard to let go of.

When one of his siblings/co-workers/partners in justice asked though, he said it was because he enjoyed the calm and peace and, most importantly, the order that came with Bruce being here as the leader of the family. Duke hadn’t ever been any specific Bat’s Robin, only ever just another Gotham dwelling songbird, and therefore he hadn’t ever grown the Robin typical ‘calling the Bat out on his bullshit’ attitude.

Out of all members, excluding Alfred and Kate, Duke was the one who could simply discuss and reason with Bruce the easiest. Dick always felt like he had to do all the work, Jason and Bruce couldn’t have normal discussions except when they were trying to get Alfred to rest. Cass was too much like Bruce to discuss anything with him and Steph, much like Jason, was a fiery explosion. Tim tended to end the conversation as soon as it seemed to go south and Damian and Bruce always seemed to talk about the same topic but tackle it from completely different angles.

Having Bruce around him grounded Duke more than any of those breathing techniques his therapist had taught him. When Duke had voiced those thoughts to Alfred, the elder man had looked concerned. The kind of concerned he usually reserved for the moments when Jason was eyeing the paintball sniper rifle too closely while Damian started working out with his swords.

So, yes. In general Duke was a fan of Batman staying at home and not spending too much time with the Justice League outside of Gotham.

Dick, as the oldest and most experienced and previous part-time Batman, usually stepped up as their leader when Bruce was off-planet for a longer period of time.

He did an amazing job, really, considering everything.

“Let’s just blow it up.”

Silence followed his statement. Jason and Steph turned to him with twin confused expressions. Dick, in the true fashion of an older brother being held accountable for his younger siblings’ mistakes immediately shook his head, while Tim seemed to try to figure out what exactly Duke was thinking.

“What did you just say?” Tim asked.

“I said, ‘Let’s just blow it up’. Nobody’s living there due to the toxicity, so we could just blow the warehouse without any civilian causalities. Nevermind that-“

“We are not blowing anything up on a covert mission,” Dick interrupted Duke. “That’s the opposite of covert-“

Jason covered Dick’s mouth with his hand, grinning gleefully.

“Let the man speak, Dickhead. I can feel this is the start of something great.”

X

Dick did not let Duke speak. Instead, he presented the plan he’d created with Oracle and they all went out to hunt down the villain of the week in a complete routine way right up until Duke and Damian has been separated from the rest.

X

“I have misjudged you, Signal,” Robin said from the barrel he had taken cover behind.

“That’s great and I’m super willing to hear how you came to this conclusion when we’re back home.”

But right now they had to carry all this condensed fear gas, powder- whatever into the Batmobile for safe destruction. Instead of just blowing it up because this wasn’t subtle or anything. Nothing in this vigilante family was subtle, why did this have to be?

“I intend to right this wrong immediately,” Robin continued. “Which is why, after throughout consideration, I have deduced that your approach to this mission is much more viable and faster than Nightwing’s.”

Duke slowly turned to Robin. The thirteen-year-old was looking at Duke with his haughty holier-than-thou expression typical for his Robin impresssion, but the corners of his mouth twitched in a failing attempt of preventing a smile.

Duke grinned. “You want to blow up the warehouse, don’t you?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Immediately. I built explosives with a bigger reach with Jason a month ago and I want to test them out in the field and this is the perfect opportunity and we shouldn’t waste it.”

“Let’s Go.”

X

The fire was glorious.

“What did you do?!” Nightwing hissed.

Duke and Damian looked at each other, before facing Nightwing again.

“Our best.”

X

They were benched until Bruce, tired but happy - the mission must have been a success then - returned. And apparently their grounding had been lifted too because Bruce expected them in the Cave for mission briefing.

“Signal and Robin can-“

“Maybe, I can go with Signal,” Nightwing interrupted carefully. “‘Cause you know, I’m pretty fast and less bulky. I can fit into the vents.”

“So can Robin. Why do you really want to go?”

“Eh- See, it’s because-“

“You didn’t tell him,” Red Hood muttered, his voice sounding much higher even with his voice modulated on. “Oh god you didn’t tell B what happened at the last mission, did you? Tell Alfred I’m staying for dinner I’m not missing this.”

“Dick didn’t tell me what?”

Bruce’s expression was hard to decipher. Even without the cowl on, his face was neutral, though Duke was sure to spot the hint of a smile.

Duke glanced at Damian, but Robin seemed unconcerned.

“Robin and Signal deviated from mission parameters when we took down one of Scarecrow’s operatives,” Dick slowly admitted.

“Did anyone get hurt?”

“No, but-“

“Was the mission a success?”

“In a way yes-“

“Are there any damages-“

“They blew up a warehouse!” Dick interrupted. “It was supposed to be an easy in-and-out covert mission, but instead they chose to blow up the warehouse with Damian’s new experimental explosives.”

Bruce didn’t move. Duke could already see himself changing into PJs again. Then the older man sighed and massaged his temples.

“And how exactly is their behavior any different from what you did at their age?” Bruce asked.

“I- what?” Dick stuttered, caught off guard.

“Buuuurn,” Steph yelled from the Batmobile as Jason began laughing and Tim and Cass high-fived each other.

“Your first solo test flight. You made me chase you all over Gotham and ended the night by blowing up a part of the harbor with fireworks. The Poison Ivy case of ‘07. Your first mission with Roy and Wally left unsupervised. Dick, you didn’t know what covert missions were until you started running them yourself. Now, as I said: Signal and Robin will take the backdoor...”

[iphoenixrising]

For 700 Followers!

Hi babe <3

I hope things have gotten better since you sent this. If not, I love you. If they have, I still love you. This isn’t the usual Dr!Tim thing, but I still kind of liked it. The nuances are there if you squint hard.

Ah, I think I headcanon for this ‘verse that the beginning of their relationship, Dick and Jay kind of retreated to their respective places when the stress and fuckery of being a crime fighter gets overwhelming. When it’s a bad night, Dick goes to his apartment and cleans like mad or stares emptily at the television. For hours. Jay hits up his favorite and most secret safe house. A place with his books so he can lose himself and try to fight the Pit back without putting anyone else in harm’s way, you feel me?

**

With the surge in crime over the past month, Tim starts seeing the signs immediately and on the down-low. Dick’s bad knee gives him more fits than usual, even if he tries to play it off. Jay’s eyes are showing more green than blue some nights, even snuggled up to them in bed.

The nightmares are progressing, Dick moaning softly in his sleep, Jay trying to wait it out until he’s exhausted enough to pass out cold without dreaming.

(He made the mistake of lightly touching Dick on the arm and got backhanded as a result, the hit waking both of them immediately.

It’s hot fire along his jaw, but he grabs Dick to stop the babbled apologies, keeps him from getting out of bed and backing away. For the rest of the night, he clenches both of them against his chest tightly, refuses to let go.

It only helps wipe the guilty look on Dick’s face marginally.)

They need a night off because the vigilante life is killing them.

So, he makes a plan.

Looking in the bathroom mirror, Tim adjusts a stupid piece of hair that keeps getting in his eyes and fiddles with the cuff links again. He picks an imaginary piece of lint off the sharp suit lapels and gives himself one last critical glance before turning off the light.

He’s already double-checked the reservations, sent the two very carefully chosen garment bags to Dick’s apartment, and has the promise of Superman himself no one is going to bother them tonight.

(It was easy, he’s got leverage against the Kryptonian after he removed those shards of terrible green rock and got to study a little alien microbiology. It comes in handy when he needs the world to leave his boyfriends the fuck alone. Also handy if he’s running late and a little super in his step gets him to Mercy General in a blink.)

Whistling, he goes to the lower level of the building where his hardly-ever used car is covered. (He told them he had one, they’d just never seen it.) The engine purrs low when he fires it up and pulls out of the space, taking to Gotham’s streets with shades covering his eyes and a grin on his face while the Red Bird darts in and out of traffic like a champ.

When he sees Jay and Dick waiting for him on the corner by Dick’s apartment, he gets a thrill of arousal at the sharp suits outlining his very sexy vigilante boyfriends.

(Not the only ones that appreciate a fine suit.)

The first few buttons are undone at Jay’s throat, making him want to lick the enticing span of skin, and Dick has the tie perfect enough that he wants to use it to pull his taller significant other in for a deep kiss. Restraint is really not his strong point right now, but he manages to get out of the car and open the doors for his boys with a flourish.

“Your chariot, gentlemen.”

Jay whistles at the Lotus and gives him a long, sultry look, keeps the kiss chaste by the smallest margin. He slides in the back, splays his big body all over the leather seat, that small smirk too much inviting. Dick’s eyes are beautifully warm, and the kiss is sweet with a hand on his jaw, thumbing where the bruise has already faded, the other palming his ass. Almost in Jay’s face.

Both of them watch him shift through the gears smoothly, commenting on how sweet the car is, how much they like the suits, how cute he looks in his own.

(How they needed this.)

He laughs and drives faster when Jay eggs him on, taking the Crusoe Bridge out of town like they’re flying.

He talks and banters with Dick’s hand on his thigh and Jay’s reaching between the seats to run fingers up the sensitive underside of his wrist.

When they Metropolis, he stops at the amazing restaurant, gives the valet his keys, and offers each an arm.

He knows he’s playing it right when Jay slides a hand in the crook of his elbow and squeezes while Dick does the absolute same.

The table is secluded, candles and wine, high-class and secluded without being stiff or stuffy, the perfect place for both his boyfriends to be at least somewhat at ease. (He fervently hopes Superman won’t get word they’re in town. He will seriously break someone’s face if anyone take them away from him tonight.)

The food is amazing and they’re all sitting close enough to feed one another. It turns into the kind of play that leads to smouldering arousal and half-mast bedroom eyes, specifically when he sucks the cream off Dick’s fingers and bites down lightly on Jay’s thumb.

He drinks water all night to make sure they don’t have any reservations about him driving, flying through the night on the open road. Jay’s in the front with him now while Dick leans between the seats, slurry and affectionate.

Both of them are buzzing a little with the wine and good food, both of them laughing and relaxed, it makes him satisfied and warm. He laughs with them, flirts outrageously, and rubs his thumb over Jay’s knuckles, just holding his hand.

Dr. Drake gives himself all the kudos for managing a romantic dinner successfully. It’s even more important he’s gotten them out of the masks for the night, given them a much-needed break.

He walks them up to Dick’s apartment, giving the illusion he’s doing it for the goodnight kisses instead of supporting them both to make sure they don’t end up falling all over their own feet.

He gets sloppy kisses while undressing them, maneuvering soft pajamas over scarred, broken skin and bandages, gently touches dark bruises while he smiles at them with soft, affectionate eyes. Glass of water for each and wrestling them down to the blankets, The Good Doctor playing on television.

When he leans down to get his last kisses of the night, Dick whines at him and makes grabby hands, but Jay just wraps both arms around his thighs and looks up with hopeful blue eyes.

His suit is probably going to get wrinkled, hung haphazardly on the back of the bathroom door, but Jay’s shirt and Dick’s sweats are more comfortable than his own clothes any night.

He distracts them from going below the waist by taking the hand and kissing each knuckle, or moving another around his neck so the body drifts more solidly against him. It’s an easy thing to shift his fingers softly through thick hair and nuzzle against a cheek. It’s easy to whisper sweet nothings while cuddled close, to tell them how proud he is to be theirs, how proud he is of their hard work, how much good they do for the city, how much he admires them, how much better they make him just by being them.

He can shake off the numb, tingly feeling in his arms the next morning more easily when both of them are still huddled against him, no nightmares driving them out of bed or in a corner where the fetal position is the only thing that can make them feel safe. He can ignore the way his heart pounds harder in his chest when he looks at their sleeping faces, and something so wonderfully precious swirls around in him until he aches.

It’s easy to gives them sleepy kisses and lingering caresses to hair and backs and faces before sliding out of bed to start coffee and make the attempt to put on something good for breakfast–

(he fails. Epically. Orders out for breakfast instead.)

–and has a mug ready for when they stumble out of the bedroom, bleary-eyed and yawning.  

After this experiment, he’s planning a weekend get-away. Some nice tropical island where Drake Industries has a condo he’s only used like twice and communications are spotty so those calls from Oracle, Batman, the Titans, the Outlaws, and whoever the hell else can wait until they get back.

He’s humming to himself happily while setting out plates and adding syrup, cutting pancakes into bite-sized pieces so maybe he can, you know, feed them again.

(He might have discovered a new kink…)

And he’s standing at the sink, humming to himself while cutting up strawberries to rinse off and put on top with a little whip cream, sinking in to the comfortable silence and motion.

Which is how Jay comes upon him, still rocking a notorious bed-head, all kinds of dressed in their clothes, cutting strawberries by the sink with a soft, sleepy smile on his face. On their table behind him, he’s got a nice looking spread, coffee, milk, and juice ready to pour.

It’s an instinct close to the one that’s all vigilante. An instinct to protect that hits Jason the moment he sees that smile and knows what’s making his boy happy.

(Any fuckin’ one ever lays a hand on ya, and I’ll make ‘im scream ta die.)

“Hey, good morning,” he puts the strawberries on the table and picks up Jay’s ‘Zombies Do It Better’ mug. He tilts his chin up for the kiss, sighing gently against Jay’s mouth when he gets it.

Dick is more clingy than normal when he’s finally drawn by the smell of breakfast, and hangs on him like a blanket to accept bites in between sips of coffee.

It’s too soon when he has to put his suit back on to leave them with the dishes washed and a nap in their immediate future. He’s got to stop at his penthouse, grab a shower and scrubs, be off on his own mission.

None of that means he wouldn’t rather climb back in bed with them and sleep off a good breakfast like a boss.

It’s no surprise when he gets a page deep into the night and leaves Steph to the crickets chirping around their ER, taking off for the roof, heart racing with what he might be coming into. He comes out in doctor mode, ready to drop to his knees and handle anything from burns to toxins to bleeding out.

The sigh of relief is caught up with the gasp of surprise when the rooftop picnic is complete with candles and a small bluetooth speaker playing something soft and perfect for the scene. He drops his vigilante-only bag and laughs loud enough for the whole damn city to hear.

[navpike]

cry out what you need to: chapter 1

“Okay, so, you know my partner, Amy Rohrbach? She died, on Sunday. And she had a daughter. She’s five years old and she had no other family and they were going to put her in the system and I just felt so--” “Dick, did you adopt the kid?” “I adopted the kid.”

Or, the one where Dick adopts a child, learns to balance parenting and superheroing, and falls in love, not necessarily in that order.

Chapter One: Rona [on ao3]

Dick has no idea what he’s doing, if he’s being honest with himself. He doesn’t know what possessed him to agreed to do this, or why he thought it was a good idea, or why he thought he is at all qualified to raise a whole child by himself.

But the important thing is that he’s done it.

And now he cannot undo it.

He’s a dad now, and dear god if that is not the most terrifying goddamn thing. Scarier than facing the Joker, or an angry Alfred, or Babs after he’s done something stupid.

But what else could he have done?

Amy Rohrbach was the best partner he’d ever had, probably the best cop Gotham PD has ever seen, and she had died because he had failed to watch her back. He had been sloppy in the field, and it was because of that that Amy had died. It was because of him that her five year old daughter was an orphan now, with no close family to look after her. So what else could he have done, besides take the kid in? He had failed to look after her mother, he wasn’t about to fail the kid too. His foster license is always up to date, in case a kid in the middle of a case needs a temporary placement for a day or two until they can be safely placed into a more permanent foster home, so it was just a matter of filing a bit of paperwork. A few signatures and a hearing with a judge, and he’s a dad.

He’s only a little bit completely out of his depth.

He gains custody of Rona Rohrbach, moves her into the penthouse, and begins to make funeral arrangements for Amy all in the same day. It feels like the day drags on forever.

He can’t imagine how it feels for Rona.

The next few days pass in a haze, and before he knows it, he’s holding Rona’s hand while they put her mother in the ground. He wonders if this is how Pop Haly felt, when he stood by and watched Dick watch his parents get buried. Dick’s chest feels tight as he watches Amy’s casket lowered into the grave, and he swipes away a few stray tears. He’s never much cared about people seeing him cry, but right now, he has to be strong for Rona. He’ll have time to really mourn later. For now, he’s got a little girl to be there for.

He holds tight to her hand as they step forward to toss white roses into the grave, and then Rona turns around and clutches at Dick’s leg. As the funeral party disperses, she starts sobbing, big fat tears that soak into his suit pants, crying hard enough that not a single sound escapes her.

Dick scoops her up, and holds her tight, and walks them both back to his car, the one he “borrowed” from the penthouse garage, because his bike is not suitable for transporting a young child. He settles her into the back seat and climbs in on the other side and just sits for a minute, letting her cry out what she needs to.

“Rona?” Dick says softly, when she finally seems to settle a bit.

She sniffles miserably, and swipes her snotty nose on the back of her hand and looks at Dick with big wet eyes. “I miss my mommy,” she says, with a trembling lower lip.

Dick’s heart clenches in his chest as he reaches out to take her hand. “I know sweetheart. I know you miss her, and I’m so sorry that you can’t see her. I miss her too. But she’ll always be here with you, right here,” he says, tapping over his own heart twice. “And I’m going to be here to look after you, since she can’t. We’ll take it one step at a time, and we’ll do it together, okay? So, first step. How about we go back home now, and I’ll make us some dinner, if you’re up for eating something?”

She nods, and sniffles again, and Dick makes a mental note to stash a box of tissues in the car from now on as he climbs into the driver’s seat and takes them home.

When they get back to the penthouse, he takes her into the room that’s been claimed as hers and helps her change from the uncomfortable dress she’d worn for the funeral into something more comfortable. He leads the way back to the living room, then, and sits her down on the couch, flipping on the TV and passing her the remote, to let her switch through channels until she settles on some kids show he’s certain she’s not paying attention to.

“How do we feel about spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, huh?” he asks, hoping to get some kind of reaction from her.

She only nods, though, and mutters a quiet, “Yes, please.”

Dick sighs and heads for the kitchen. He supposes that he can only do so much for a little girl who’s just lost her mother, but he still wishes he could be doing more. He is tracking the man who shot Amy, the only one who got away from that scene, and he is going to bring them to justice if it’s the last thing he does, but that still doesn’t feel like enough.

And then, he reminds himself that it cannot be the last thing he does. He has a child to look after now, and that has to come before anything else, because he will not leave her alone again.

He pinches the bridge of his nose as he watches a pot of water waiting for it to boil.

As he watches a single bubble rise to the surface, he is hit with the most terrifying realization he’s ever had.

He hasn’t told Alfred yet.

He hasn’t told Bruce or Babs or any of his siblings, for that matter, but the more pressing thing is the fact that he hasn’t told Alfred, because Alfred is the one that scares him.

Dick spends the rest of the time he’s making dinner debating what to do about that, and almost overcooks everything he gets so distracted thinking about it. Still, he does manage to get dinner on the table without major incident. When he calls her, Rona hops off the couch and goes to the kitchen, and asks if he wants her to set the table, as though this is a routine they’ve worked on for years, even though she’s only lived with him for three days.

He dishes her out some food as she places the cutlery and napkins he’d given her out on the table, and he’s just about to hand her the plate when he remembers something that Roy had done for Lian when he’d had dinner with them once, a few months ago. Instead of handing her the plate as is, Dick takes a moment to cut everything into bite sized pieces, and places that in front of her.

As he expected she would, Rona does nothing more than pick at her food, but he doesn’t say anything about it, besides encouraging her to eat some vegetables.

“I’ve got to make a phone call after dinner, okay, kiddo? So after I clean up dinner, I’m going to do that, and then I’ll help you get ready for bed when I’m done, okay?” Rona nods, and stabs a green bean with more force than is probably necessary, dragging it through the pasta sauce on her plate. “While I’m on the phone, why don’t you pick out a book for us to read before bed? We brought a few from your house, remember?” She nods again, though she seems to perk up a little bit at that, and then they lapse into relative silence for the rest of the meal.

When Dick finally gives up on Rona eating anything more, he tells her she’s excused, and she slips away with a quiet, “Thanks for dinner.”

As he tidies up, he tries to make a plan for the immediate future.

It’s a Wednesday, and Rona’s already missed the week of school up until this point, so he figures there’s no reason to make her go for the rest of the week, so he’ll let her take Thursday and Friday off, to give her a chance to get used to the sudden change in everything. Maybe he’ll take Friday to take her out to the manor to meet Alfred and Bruce and whoever else is there. He knows Jason and Cass are in Star City working a case with Roy and Dinah, and Tim is in Metropolis running down a few leads for something else with Kon, and Damian will likely be in school on a weekday, so it’s a good time to go, so she won’t be overwhelmed. They can take Saturday, and Sunday if need be to go back to the Rohrbach’s place to pack up all of Rona’s things, and he’ll go back and pack up the rest of the house while she’s at school the next week so she doesn’t have to see her whole life put away in boxes. He’ll have everything put away in storage somewhere so Rona can decide what she wants to do with it all of it when she gets older, and have the house put on the market, and put whatever money is made off of that into a savings account for Rona for college or something.

He’s got all of next week off of work, so he’ll be able to make it work, and maybe he’ll be able to recruit Steph to help if he asks her nice and buys her a bottle of wine. Maybe he’ll offer to let her use his motorcycle too. Doesn’t seem like it’ll be getting much use, what with the kid and everything, and he’d hate to let it sit unused, and with Steph in college, she doesn’t have the income to have a car, so she’d probably appreciate it. Yeah. He’ll do that.

First things first though, he has to call Alfred and Bruce.

His heart races as the line rings.

“Hello, Master Dick, excellent timing, I’ve just finished tidying up from supper,” Alfred’s voice says on the other end of the line when the ringing stops.

Dick takes a deep breath and tries not to jitter straight out of his skin.

“Hey, Alfie, is Bruce around? I want to talk to you both.”

“Are you quite alright? You don’t sound well.” Dick can hear the concern lacing Alfred’s voice, and his footsteps as he moves through the manor.

“I’m fine, I promise, I’ve just got some big news.”

“I see,” Alfred says, and then quieter, as though he’s pulled the phone away from his face, “Master Bruce, Master Dick is on the line, he wishes to speak to us both.”

“Dick, you’re on speaker, what’s going on?” says Bruce’s voice.

Dick takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Okay, so, you know my partner, Amy Rohrbach?” When he hears answers to the affirmative, he continues. “She died, on Sunday. She was shot while we were out on a call, and I couldn’t… I tried, but there was nothing I could’ve done. Her funeral was today.”

“Dick, I’m so sorry.”

“That’s not it,” Dick says, before Bruce can get any further. “Rohrbach… Amy had a daughter. She’s five years old and she had no other family that could be found and they were going to put her in the system and I just felt so-- I couldn’t let that happen. And you know I already had the foster license so I just--”

“Dick, did you adopt the kid?”

“I adopted the kid.”

“I know you wanted to do good by this girl, but did you really think this through, Dick? A child is a lot of responsibility.”

Alfred clears his throat. “Pot, I invite you to meet the kettle.”

Dick stifles a laugh and Bruce grumbles something that Dick can’t make out, but that’s it. He doesn’t question the decision any further.

“How is the young miss doing, then, Master Dick?” Alfred asks.

“She’s missing her mom, but that’s only to be expected. She’s quiet and a little withdrawn, but she seems to be taking the move well at least. Small mercies, and all that.”

“You’ve brought her to your apartment? Master Dick that is hardly the best place for a child to be raised.”

“I know, I know. It was fine when I would take kids in for a night or two, but I know it’s not good for a kid. We’re at the penthouse. Temporarily at least. I was going to start looking for a better place soon.”

“Don’t bother,” Bruce says, in his strained, I-don’t-want-to-show-emotions voice. “Any granddaughter of mine only deserves the best. Stay there. I don’t want you worrying about apartment hunting on top of everything else. You’ve got enough on your plate.”

Dick heaves a sigh of relief. Holy shit is he glad Bruce just said that. Sure he would’ve been able to find a place just fine, it wouldn’t have been the tallest order. But he’s so glad that he doesn’t have to worry about that all on top of worrying about Rona and packing away his partner’s life to be stuck in a storage unit to gather dust.

God he’s going to miss Amy.

As distant as he had tried to keep himself at work, he couldn’t help but care for Amy. She was nothing but a good person, a good cop, and he knew she cared for her more than anything in the world.

He shakes his head to shake the thought. He can be sad later.

“I’m gonna keep her home from school the rest of the week, and I’ve got some time off work so she can have a chance to adjust to being here, and this weekend we’re going to go back to Amy’s place so I can let her decide what she wants to pack up and take with her. But I was hoping that on Friday we could stop by the manor? I know everyone else is out of town for a bit and I wanted to be able to introduce her to you without all of… that.”

“I know what you mean,” Bruce agrees, almost too easily. Dick coughs to cover an almost laugh. They both know their family can be overwhelming when they all get into one place. Dick knows he’s not innocent on that front either. “I’ll move some things around during the day. Bring her by for lunch.”

“That’s sounds good. Thank you, Bruce. Really. This is--Just thank you.”

“It’s not trouble at all, chum. Just do one thing for me?”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“You want to tell us what her name is?”

Dick smacks himself in the forehead. “Her name is Rona.”

[my-one-love-is-music]

Summary: Jason and Tim hated each other. Their friends new this. But when they end up in the same history class, their differences have to be put aside when they're assigned seats next to each other and their teacher has strict requirements for partner discussion and a group project. But there's something else that worries Tim about being partnered with Jason. Their history teacher is notorious for pairing up people she thinks will end up getting married one day. But surely, she can't know that...right?

A/N: I am so happy to finally get to share this fic! This was part of my 2018 Nanowrimo project and the second of three fics I wrote. I loved the concept and I'm starting to wonder if I've run out of useful high school aus because they all seem to be enemies to friends to lovers nowadays and I'm sure y'all are getting bored with that....But I was also so happy to do a collab for this project and one of my good friends drew the cover art for this. Sadly, he no longer has a tumblr I can direct you to to give him the love and support he deserves but I will definitely pass on all the praise that he deserves because the cover art is amazing and I am in love with it. 

Also on AO3!

Tim sneered as he turned the corner and spotted Jason leaning against the locker next to Kori, his arm pressed against the metal row of lockers and giving everyone a look at his lean torso encased in a tight tee.

“Don’t look like you’re going to die just from being in the same space as him,” Steph muttered, catching the look he was giving him.

“He’s annoying. And full of himself. He doesn’t even care about school, so I don’t know why he’s here. He skips class all the time,” Tim muttered.

Steph raised an eyebrow. “And you’re one to talk? Tim you’ve skipped class to sleep in the back of the library before. You have no idea where he goes.”

“I’ve caught him behind the school during fifth period. I bet he smokes.”

“Have you ever smelled cigarette smoke on him? Or better yet, seen him with a lit cigarette in his hand?” Steph huffed.

“Well, no, but-“

“But nothing. Don’t make people into villains when you have no idea what they’re doing. He could have a study hall fifth period. You’re the one who was cutting class when you saw him back there.”

“Since when are you on his side?” Tim scoffed as they turned the corner and Jason was finally out of sight again.

“I’m just saying that you’ve judged him a while and maybe you should try and get to know him before you hold a grudge for life against him.”

Tim rolled his eyes as he pushed into his afternoon class. “It’s not like I’m going to see him after high school anyway so what difference does it make?”

“You never know,” Steph grumbled, making a beeline for the space next to the teacher’s desk that had a small chair tucked away. The one positive of them being in the same class Steph was TA-ing in was that they got to see each other. The drawback was that Tim would have to do actual work while she got to fuck around.

“Not so fast,” Ms. Edwards said as Tim approached the last aisle. “What’s your name?”

Tim checked a groan. This was going to be one of those teachers. “Tim Drake,” he muttered.

She nodded and checked something off on the paper in front of her. “You’re going to be in that row. Fourth seat back.”

Tim changed course and made for his seat. He was in the third row and even though he didn’t get the back corner like he wanted, he was relieved he wasn’t in the front. He just hoped this teacher wouldn’t keep assigned seats for the rest of the year.

He made a face at Steph who just smirked back and crossed her arms. He heard the door open but didn’t bother looking up to see who it was.

“Name?” Ms. Edwards asked.

“Jason Todd.”

Tim’s head whipped around so fast it made a horrible cracking noise. He winced and rubbed the side of his neck. He stared at Jason where he was waiting for his seat assignment.

“You’ll be in the fourth row, fourth seat back,” she said, pointing at the seat next to Tim.

Tim’s stomach dropped to his toes. He swallowed, thinking he might be sick. Because Jason was going to be sitting in the seat next to him and he just realized which teacher he had. Ms. Edwards was notorious for sitting students next to each other who she thought would get married one day.

He could only hope that she didn’t do that until later in the class and her first seating arrangements had no bearing on her romantic ideas.

Jason turned to find his seat and froze when he saw Tim. His lips turned down in a scowl and he grumbled something under his breath as he tightened his grip on his backpack strap and made his way down the aisle.

Tim crossed his arms and looked away. He was going to ignore Jason for the entire class. He’d ignore him for the entire year if he had to. He caught sight of Steph who was grinning at him like an idiot, glee filling her gaze.

Tim glared daggers back. He knew it was impossible, but this was exactly the kind of meddling she would take part in. Especially since she was saying all that weird stuff about him and Jason earlier.

Several more students filtered in before the bell rang and Ms. Edwards directed them all to their new seats.

“Good afternoon everyone,” Ms. Edwards started, stepping into the center of the room. “I’m your history teacher for the year. I’ll pass out the syllabus to all of you shortly and something I want to make all of you aware of before we get started is that there’s going to be a lot of discussion this year. Every day I’ll have a question or two on the board for you to complete with the person sitting next to you. This person will also be your partner for the project you’ll complete this semester and the paper you’ll write together next semester. If you fail to hold proper discussion during class time, it will negatively affect your grade.”

Tim paled as Ms. Edwards looked around the room. She picked up a stack of papers and handed them to the first person in each row. He took his packet numbly and passed the last two behind him. He didn’t even see what was in front of him. He was going to be stuck sitting next to Jason for the whole year and he’d be expected to talk to him every day and complete a project.

This was going to be the worst.

Tim tangled a hand in his hair and willed the minutes to tick by faster so he could run out of the room and never look back. If he was lucky, he could get switched to another class. If he wasn’t lucky, maybe he could skip every class and hide in the library, doing all his homework and the project alone to make up for it.

He risked a glance at Jason and found he didn’t look much happier about the arrangement, his lips pulled into a thin line as he frowned down at the paper in front of him, hands curled into fists on the top of his desk.

Tim chucked his textbook into his bag after they were passed out, and barely listened to whatever else Ms. Edwards had to say.

Once the bell rang, he bolted from the classroom utterly relieved and not caring that Steph had to sprint to catch up with him when he turned the corner for his next class.

~~

“This is so unfair,” Tim swore as he shoved a handful of fries into his mouth.

“Maybe this is fate telling you to give Jason a chance. Maybe you could actually be friends instead of hating each other’s guts all the time,” Steph said, waving her hand around innocently enough.

Tim narrowed his eyes. “That’s bullshit. What did you do? Did you somehow tell our teacher to sit us next to each other?”

“I did nothing,” she sniffed. “I’m insulted you would think otherwise. And when would I have gotten the chance to tell her? Today was our first class.”

“I know your meddling when I see it, Steph. Don’t try and tell me this wasn’t your plan. If you had nothing to do with it why were you telling me to stop judging Jason?”

Steph shrugged and stole one of his fries, dipping it into her chocolate shake. “I just thought it was time you moved on. My tolerance of your complaining about him has reached a new low and I’m tired of it. There are thousands of better ways you could spend your time than by ridiculing someone who really hasn’t done anything to you other than indulge your petty arguments.”

Tim growled and stared at his fries, willing them to burst into flames for no other reason than the satisfaction that came with destroying something.

“Look,” she sighed. “Just give him a chance. If you don’t talk to him, you’re going to fail the class and we both know Jason probably isn’t going to let you negatively affect his grade.”

“What are you talking about? He doesn’t even care about school!” Tim asked, nearly catching the edge of his basket of fries while waving his hands around wildly. He needed to make Steph understand how crazy everything she was saying sounded.

None of it was making any sense and he was ready to bury himself under the covers and pray it just went away.

Steph huffed and shook her head. She didn’t say anything else but did steal two more of his fries even as he glared at her. He nearly shoved the rest of the basket in her direction, but instead took one of his fries and swiped it through her shake as she squawked and tried to bat his hand away.

He shoved the offending fry into his mouth and grinned as he chewed, feeling a little better about the whole Jason situation.

~~

Tim sneered at Jason when he sat down next to him and Jason gave him the same look. Tim crossed his arms and sank down in his desk chair, staring at the head of the person in front of him. He was going to ignore everything. He was going to ignore Jason. And he was going to ignore this class.

The bell rang over their heads and Ms. Edwards took her spot behind the podium.

“Your prompts for today are on the board. Discuss those and the short reading from last night while I take attendance. Once you’re all finished, we’ll begin our class by opening the floor up to any interesting insights you may have discussed.”

Tim saw Jason shift out of the corner of his eye, but he defiantly kept his gaze away from him. Jason huffed but didn’t say anything.

Someone cleared their throat in front of them and Tim looked up, his heart stuttering when he saw Ms. Edwards standing in front of them with her arms crossed.

“Is there a reason why the two of you haven’t begun to discuss last night’s reading?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Everyone else has already started and yet you two continue to sit here in silence. I believe I made myself clear yesterday that there were no exceptions to partner discussion.”

Tim let out a breath and leaned forward. “I can’t work with him,” he said, jabbing a finger in Jason’s direction.

Jason huffed. “Yeah because you make working with you so easy in the first place.”

Ms. Edwards held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care if the two of you don’t get along or tear each other’s throats out in the hallway our outside of school. When you’re in my class, you’re going to do the assignment I’ve left for you. If you refuse, I’ll have you both booted from class before you can even blink.”

“But I need this class to graduate!” Jason cried, leaning forward in his seat.

“Then I suggest the two of you get past whatever issue you have with each other and get to work. I won’t give you another warning. This is your last chance.” She turned on her heel and walked back to her desk.

Tim caught sight of Steph who was hiding her laugh behind her math homework. He glared at her but she ignored him, trying not to disturb the rest of the class even as Ms. Edwards shot her amused looks.

Jason sighed next to him and Tim braced himself for what was coming. He turned in his seat and faced him.

“Look,” he started, voice tight with dread. “I know we basically hate each other but I can’t not be in this class and get the credits I need to graduate. So, can we just…I don’t know, do the minimum amount of discussion to get Ms. Edwards off our backs?”

Tim dragged his gaze away from where he was glaring at Steph and met Jason’s eyes. His shoulders were tense, and he looked ready to bolt and Tim couldn’t blame him when he felt the same way.

“Aren’t you forgetting about the semester project that will require us to work together outside of class?” he quipped, raising an eyebrow.

“We can meet once in the library and divide up the work. The rest we can handle over email and don’t even have to be with each other while we work. Sound doable?” Jason asked.

Tim scrutinized him for a moment. The whole situation wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t impossible to deal with. Tim just hoped the rest of the year went by quickly so he could get as far away from Jason as possible and go off to college where he’d be able to live his own life.

“Fine. Works for me,” Tim agreed.

Jason let out a breath and relaxed back in his seat. He turned to the whiteboard and scanned the questions Ms. Edwards left for them. He made a face and Tim snickered.

“Are the questions not to your liking?”

Jason made a pained noise in the back of his throat but didn’t look away from the board. “They’re just so simple. The textbook was pretty clear about the first kinds of recorded history and how that’s changed over the years as language evolved. I don’t know why we need to outline that.”

Tim shrugged. “Maybe to make things easy since it’s the beginning of the year?” he asked.

Jason scoffed. “Life doesn’t just take breaks and history is important. We should be diving in and trying to understand as much as possible, not easing ourselves into things for the sake of avoiding difficulty and conflict. Human history is full of that.”

“Do you just, read history books for fun every night before bed? Are you one of those History Channel documentary guys?”

Jason shrugged. “Not really. I look up what I can but I’m more of an English guy than a history one.”

“Then why do you care so much about this class?”

Jason raised an eyebrow and leveled him with an unimpressed look. “Are you serious right now?”

Tim shrugged and nodded, glancing at the other people around him who were still deep in conversation. Ms. Edwards’ gaze roved over the room, not settling on any one pair too long as she smiled gently.

“We all need a history class to graduate and this was one of the most advanced our school offers. If I want to possibly get some scholarships for college, I need to ace this class. If I get kicked out of this class or fail it’ll show up on my transcript,” he huffed.

Tim swallowed, feeling nausea curl in his stomach. “Oh,” he mumbled.

Jason sneered. “I know rich kids like you don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to paying for college or any other expenses in life, but some of us actually have to work for it.”

Tim shifted in his seat, his discomfort growing. “Look,” he sighed. “I’m sorry okay. I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t realize.”

“Of course you didn’t. People like you never do,” Jason growled.

“Alright everyone, bring your attention back to the front,” Ms. Edwards said, straightening behind the podium and oblivious to what had just transpired between Jason and Tim.

Tim pressed his lips together and turned in his seat, facing forward once again. He didn’t know what he would’ve said if given the chance, but he felt like he needed to say something to Jason. Or maybe prove that not all rich people were like that. But he didn’t have much of an argument when he really had things so easy and spent his time judging Jason when he didn’t know the first thing about him or what he was going through.

He pulled out his notebook and slapped it onto his desk. He flipped it open to a clean page and marked it with the date. Every reason he had for hating Jason’s guts or avoiding working with him faded away in the face of Jason’s reality. He had no choice but to make sure they both aced this class for the year and he was damn well determined to make it happen no matter what it took or how much time he’d have to spend with Jason.

~~

Tim turned the corner and froze when he saw Jason and Roy walking towards him. Jason glanced at him but didn’t make any other move to address his presence, continuing on past him.

Tim tightened his grip on the straps of his backpack and ducked his head. He didn’t know what he was expecting but maybe having a common goal in history class was enough to diffuse any other interaction between them.

Although now that he was thinking about it, he was almost certain every interaction they’d had in the past was started on his part. He couldn’t deny that he was the most hostile of the two and he wondered if they would’ve fought so much if he let Jason go on his way and kept to himself.

He still felt guilty over the day before and thought he needed to make it up to Jason somehow but any form of apology he could think of felt empty or meaningless when it came to Jason.

Tim sighed and hurried through the hall to his next class. He’d have to keep thinking, but he was sure the only thing he could do at this point was put all of his efforts into history even if it was at the expense of his other classes.

~~

Tim nodded at Jason when he sat down next to him in history class. Jason nodded back and they didn’t say anything as they waited for the bell to ring. The other people around them chatted with their partners, ignoring the prompts on the board for the moment, but enjoying the bonds they were already starting to form.

Tim doubted he and Jason would ever reach that kind of familiarity with each other before the end of the year. He frowned when he realized there was a slight ache in his chest at the thought of missing out on that kind of understanding.

He sucked in a quiet breath when the bell rang and straightened, readying himself like he was going to war. He turned to face Jason who was already watching him.

“You want to start or me?” Tim asked, gesturing at the board.

Jason cocked his head to the side and sneered at the board. “These questions are still more annoying than anything else. It’s like reading quiz level of difficulty.”

Tim couldn’t help himself when he chuckled. “Then what do you want to talk about?” Tim asked, propping his fist against his cheek.

Jason blinked at him, seemingly surprised for a moment. He shrugged and Tim watched a light blush flood his cheeks.

He huffed. “I guess my main problem with the civilizations of the past is not caring about their records. Like, they could’ve made so much amazing art or music or writing. Hell, even public records would’ve been great to have centuries later so we could have a better understanding of what people did, but they just didn’t care and either let it get destroyed or didn’t bother to store it.”

“Can you really tell me that you save your daily schedule in the hopes that it’ll one day be an important historical document?” Tim asked.

Jason scoffed. “Please, like anyone would find anything important in my daily schedule.”

Tim smirked. “And you just answered your own question. Those people back then probably didn’t think anyone would see the worth in the records they were keeping. Or they didn’t have the capacity to even imagine anyone living a hundred years in the future, let alone a year, when they didn’t have much of a concept of time. They probably didn’t think anything would still exist after their lives ended.”

Jason grumbled something under his breath. “Okay, fine I guess you’re right. I still don’t like it though.”

Tim chuckled. “You’re not meant to like it. A lot of historians don’t like it because we have no idea what life was like back then but that’s just the state of things. At least now we have the internet that can keep a digital record of human life.”

“As long as an apocalypse doesn’t happen that totally wipes out the internet and all digital records,” Jason shot back.

“If an apocalypse is happening, libraries and museums won’t last much longer than the technology blackout. They’ll get burned or destroyed, by humans or natural disasters. Whichever category the apocalypse ends up falling into anyway,” Tim said.

Jason narrowed his eyes. “You seem to have a put a lot of thought into this.”

Tim wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Not really. It’s just kind of common sense when you think about.”

Jason narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “How so?”

Tim matched his posture and grinned, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Okay, so…when you’re considering the future of the human race, as far as an apocalypse goes, you have two options. It’s going to be caused by humans or it’s going to be a natural disaster.”

“What about aliens?” Jason interrupted.

Tim waved his hands. “We’ll only take that into account once we find proof of alien life.”

“But there’s plenty of potential on moons and planets which already exist in the universe. Scientists have found conditions similar to Earth’s where life could’ve developed.”

“That’s true, but we don’t know if there’s life there or not. Now stop interrupting so I can explain this to you,” Tim huffed. “The human causes are most likely going to be nuclear, unless society just somehow regresses and we basically abandon organized civilization, which I don’t exactly see happening, but who knows, we could end up driving ourselves into extinction since we can be so stupid sometimes.”

Jason breathed a laugh and Tim swallowed, having to take a moment because he never would’ve imagined Jason laughing when they were together, let alone being the reason Jason laughed.

“Okay,” Tim continued, voice a little unsteady. “The other option is natural disaster which takes out all forms of electricity and destroys major cities, killing large population centers and crippling government and organization.”

Jason nodded. “Okay I’m with you so far, go on…”

Tim grinned. “If the nuclear option happens, that’ll short-circuit all technology so the world will go dark. Some systems might still stay online but if you don’t have the workers to keep things going, those won’t last long, and last time I checked, every person in the world didn’t have the skills to maintain advanced technology systems or power plants. If the natural disaster occurs, again, you won’t have the workers to keep those systems online and all digital footprints will probably get wiped if there’s no one to get them back online and if none of those files are backed up, they’re going to be lost. Not to mention that buildings and businesses in the major natural disaster centers are most likely the most advanced so the hardest hit to cultural records is going to come from big cities located near the coast.”

Tim grinned as he sat back. He could see Jason turning over all the information in his head. He crossed his arms and nodded.

“Okay,” he conceded. “But that doesn’t mean there won’t be enough for future historians to piece together the past and understand what life was like before all that happened.”

Tim shrugged. “That’s assuming this whole cycle hasn’t been repeating itself and past civilizations did have those records, but the destruction was too great that practically nothing survived.”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “Has anyone ever told you that your brain is a terrifying place?” he asked.

Tim chuckled. “More than you know.”

“Okay, everyone let’s come back together,” Ms. Edwards said, catching their attention.

Tim’s smile slipped from his face. He swallowed and turned to face the front of the room, belatedly realizing that he’d actually enjoyed his conversation with Jason. As off-topic as it was.

~~

Tim glanced at Jason as they passed in the hallway after lunch.

“Well that’s interesting,” Steph said beside him, voice taking on a conspiratorial edge.

“What is?” he asked, barely paying her any mind, his thoughts already on his history class that afternoon.

“You walked within two feet of Jason and didn’t tear each other’s throats out.”

Tim rolled his eyes but kept his gaze on the hall ahead of them. “Don’t act so surprised. We have to get along for class. It’s not worth it to fight in the hall.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have history for another period and there’s no teacher around to make sure you act civil around each other right now. And last time I checked, you didn’t give much of a shit about getting to class when you were around Jason.”

“Just shut up,” Tim grumbled, stuffing his hands in his jeans’ pockets.

Steph snickered next to him. “You want to know what I think?”

“No, not really.”

“Okay rude,” she huffed. “And I’m going to tell you anyway since you’re not being nice to me. I think that you actually like talking to Jason and you’ve realized that he’s really not a bad guy.

“And you know what I think?” Tim shot back. “I think you’re crazy for thinking that. We might be getting along now, but I can guarantee that once we get the grade for this class and pass with flying colors, we’re going to go back to hating each other’s guts. It’s not going to change anything, as much as you’re going to insist otherwise.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Steph said, finally catching his attention. He glanced at her and found her smirking at him. “You seemed pretty happy to talk to him about your theories on parallel universes the other day. I think you even smiled. And he seemed more than invested in what you were saying for someone who’s just acting as your project partner.”

“Don’t get so excited, it doesn’t mean anything,” Tim grumbled, ignoring the little stab in his chest at the thought. He wasn’t going to spend time thinking about what that meant. He couldn’t be getting attached. Not to someone who hated his guts and didn’t give a shit about him if it didn’t benefit him in some way.

~~

Tim glanced up at Ms. Edwards when he snatched the folded sheet of paper back from Jason’s fingers. They’d gotten into a heated discussion at the beginning of class and neither of them had been able to leave the topic alone, so they resorted to passing notes in class while their teacher lectured with the most elaborate Powerpoint Tim had ever seen.

He unfolded the paper, jotting down a couple notes in his notebook before he scanned Jason’s words.

You can’t seriously think that people in the past didn’t find remnants from other civilizations. Or even dinosaur bones. I’m sure more than enough fossils have been lost because of poor care or ignorance.

Tim huffed and grabbed his pen, hunching over his chair to scribble out his response.

Maybe so but if that was always the case then what made people curious enough to keep the first fossils we still have? Maybe they were seen as a kind of trophy or sign of status. Maybe dinosaur bones caused wars or feuds to break out because people were desperate to claim them.

He folded up the paper and slid it off the desk, passing it back to Jason.

“Boys?” Ms. Edwards asked, clearing her throat.

They both jumped and looked up, finding Ms. Edwards standing at the entrance to the aisle between their rows, her eyes on the square of paper held between their hands.

“I’m sure whatever conversation you’re having is incredibly interesting, but I am trying to teach a history lesson. So please put that away. You can continue your conversation after class and if I see it again, I will confiscate it.”

Tim let go of the edge of the paper like he’d been burned and slid down in his chair. “Sorry,” he mumbled, picking up his pen to focus his attention on his scrawled notes.

Jason shoved the note into his backpack and sat forward, tangling his fingers in his hair as he picked up his pen to take more notes.

Ms. Edwards nodded and returned to her podium, to the muffled snickers of the rest of the students. She cleared her throat, silencing the class and moving to the next slide in her lecture.

Tim diligently took down the notes and main points she’d prepared for them and hoped his blush went away a lot faster than the lingering heat in his face suggested it did.

~~

Jason unfolded the sheet of paper as soon as he was in the hallway and free of Ms. Edwards scrutiny. He was embarrassed over being caught passing notes in class, but he couldn’t help it if his conversations with Tim were interesting and kept him as occupied as their class lecture did.

He could handle both of those things and knew it wouldn’t cause him to fall behind even if it didn’t look good to the teacher. As long as she didn’t kick him out of class that’s all that mattered.

He scanned Tim’s response and rolled his eyes. As much as Tim was interested in sci-fi and had opinions about alien life and surviving any form of the apocalypse, he still had an astounding lack of creativity or understanding of human curiosity.

“Why do you have such a specific expression of exasperated amusement on your face?”

Jason glanced up and found Roy standing in front of him, eyeing the paper in his hands. He folded it up and shoved it into his pocket.

“Nothing,” he answered, pushing past him to walk down the hall to his last class of the day.

Roy grinned and hurried to keep up with him. “This doesn’t have anything to do with your lovely little partner in history class does it?”

Jason flushed but tried to glare at Roy to keep him from touching that topic.

“Oh it does!” he said, sounding more delighted than Jason thought he had any right to. “I’ve gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this kind of drama to happen during our senior year, but I am so excited that it did. You’re like a real-life soap opera. I need to start carrying popcorn with me.”

“Just shut up,” Jason grumbled. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“Whatever you say,” Roy teased.

Jason rolled his eyes and tried to hurry to his last class in an effort to ignore whatever scrutiny Roy would give him over what was going on between him and Tim, not that it was any of his business. But Roy had a habit of sticking his nose into things where it didn’t belong.

~~

“Okay, now that you’ve had time to get to know each other and jump into the early dredges of history we’ve covered since the beginning of the year, it’s time to start picking out your topics for you history project,” Ms. Edwards said as Tim turned to pick up his conversation with Jason where they’d left off the day before.

Tim sagged back in his chair, wishing their teacher couldn’t have waited until after they got their usual conversation time to introduce their project.

“As I’m sure will disappoint many of you, you’re not going to have complete freedom over what you research, but I do have a list of time periods and topics you’re all going to choose from. I’ll go around and each pair will draw a number from a hat. We’ll go in order of the numbers to choose which topic you’d like.”

Ms. Edwards crossed the room, handing a stack of papers to the first person in each row.

“These papers have a list of the requirements for the project and the list of topics is on the back. I’ll give you about five or ten minutes to go over all of this and discuss things with your partner before we draw numbers. If you find you really don’t like anything on this list, I am willing to assess any proposals you might have, and we can work something out so everyone’s happy. Okay? Okay.”

Tim scanned the page in front of him, reading through the requirements for source material and what would be needed for their presentation. They’d have to put together enough information for a six-minute presentation with a Powerpoint but he was happy they could use a video aid as long as it wasn’t longer than a minute.

Tim flipped over his page and looked down the list of topics. He glanced up at Jason who was staring at the list too.

“Thoughts?” Tim asked with a sigh.

Jason glanced up at him and shrugged. “There’s some interesting topics. Nothing I’m overly excited about but we could do something about the Romans or the Vikings.”

Tim nodded. “The Vikings might be pretty interesting actually. And since we can use videos in our presentation, we can use that to give some background information before diving into something specific about them.”

Jason smiled. “Yeah that would be great actually. We could probably find something in a History Channel documentary. Or even a short Youtube video.”

Tim snickered. “Of course you would go for the History Channel. I knew I was right in tagging you as a documentary guy.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “So, we’re agreed on Vikings for our first choice.”

Tim nodded.

“We should probably have one or two more back-up topics.”

Tim sighed. “Romans could be one. I don’t know, what else would you be interested in?”

“Ancient China?” Jason suggested. “Maybe the silk road.”

Tim nodded. “Yeah okay. There’s probably a lot of information about that too and at least we can use a mixture of documentaries and books.”

Jason smiled and blinked when a basket appeared between them. He glanced up at Ms. Edwards who had an eyebrow raised at him.

“Oh, right,” he mumbled and reached into the hat. He snatched a small piece of folded paper and pulled it out, letting Ms. Edwards step past them to the next pair.

“Well?” Tim asked. “What’s the damage?”

“The moment of truth I guess,” Jason mumbled. He opened the slip of paper and winced.

“Tell me we’re not last?” Tim begged.

“We’re not last,” Jason admitted. “Our number is thirteen.”

“So third to last,” he grumbled.

Jason nodded.

Tim bit his lip and slumped against the back of his chair. He wasn’t going to expect anything. He knew they probably wouldn’t get their first choice of topics and maybe not even their second choice. He just hoped they got something they wanted.

“Okay everyone,” Ms. Edwards said, stepping behind her podium again. “Are we all ready to start picking topics?”

Tim glanced around the room and saw groups giving each other death glares as they began the fight and hopefully won the favor of the draw to get their desired topics.

Tim bit his lip and crossed his arms when the first number was called. The group took one of the most popular topics and he heard several groups groan and start frantically whispering about their other choices. What was picked first wasn’t one they were looking for, offering a little bit of a relief their choice hadn’t been taken yet. But as was always the case when it came to picking topics in class, there were still a lot of groups to go.

The whole process was agonizing, and it felt like ages between one group and the next as they picked what they wanted. Their second choice was snatched up after the first six groups had gotten their assignments and Tim was amazed that their third choice was taken before their first pick.

Tim glanced at Jason who looked just as shocked as him.

“Okay,” Ms. Edwards said. “Number thirteen. Who has number thirteen?”

“We do,” Jason said, raising the piece of paper in his hand.

Ms. Edwards smiled and raised an eyebrow, waiting for them to voice their topic.

“We’re going with the Vikings.”

She nodded and marked something down on her sheet before turning to the next group. Tim let out a breath and sagged in his chair. He scrubbed a hand over his face and shared a look with Jason.

“I can’t believe we managed to get our first choice.”

Jason nodded. “I don’t think that ever happens for people so far down the list like us,” he agreed. “We should get to work on this as soon as possible. The sooner we get it done, the sooner we don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

Jason nodded. “Do you want to meet in the library after school and we can divide the work up?”

Tim nodded. “Yeah. We can find some sources and outline what we want to cover.”

“Quiet down,” Ms. Edwards said, bringing their conversations to a close. “I know you’re all excited to get working on your projects, but I still have today’s lesson to get through. Later next week we’re going to be picking presentation days. You’ll find the range on your assignment sheets so start thinking about what dates would work best for you. And if you really are that excited to get started on your project, you’re more than welcome to get started in the library after school.”

~~

Tim buried his face in his arms after he dropped into a chair at the table Jason had already snagged in the library.

“You okay?” Jason asked.

Tim huffed and nodded. “Just exhausted. You know, the usual I guess.”

Jason chuckled. “Well it’s almost the weekend. Only a few more days to get through.”

“Yeah but now we have this project to work on.”

“But that doesn’t mean you can’t sleep in,” Jason argued.

“Fair enough,” Tim grumbled and finally sat up in his chair, rubbing his fists against his eyes. “Any idea of where we can start with this?”

“Well it’s a history project,” Jason drawled. “So, we can start by outlining which parts of the history of the Vikings we want to cover. Their origins would be a good place to start and their general practices.”

Tim nodded. “I can find a documentary to reference over the weekend. And I’ll look for some reference books, too.”

“Do you want to focus on their everyday lives?” Jason asked, pulling out his notebook.

Tim nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. Aren’t they famous for their raids?”

Jason paused. “I think so? I’ll make a note of it and we can figure it out later. We should probably meet a couple times to put everything together.”

“Does this weekend work for you? I know I was just complaining about sleeping but at least we can order pizza and chill while doing work.”

“Yeah sure,” Jason said, eyebrows raising in obvious surprise. “Does Saturday work?”

“Yeah. Here,” he said, pulling out one of his sticky notes. “Let me give you my phone number and we can text each other a good time.” He shoved the piece of paper with his scrawled number across the table.

Jason took it and pulled out his phone, putting in the digits before he shot a message back to Tim. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and watched as Jason pocketed his phone.

“I feel like we should be doing more work than that,” Tim admitted. “But I also know some of this will have to be done on our own.”

Jason nodded. “Yeah…I kind of feel the same way. But we’re also going to have time over the weekend to do this and I don’t really see the point in spending hours in the library right now.”

“You mind if I just hang out and do some of my homework for tonight?”

He shook his head and pulled out his math textbook. “I was thinking of doing the same thing. Might as well use the time we’ve got here.”

Tim smiled and pulled out his chemistry textbook and the worksheet they’d been assigned. The silence between them was easy as they got to work, pencils scratching against different sheets of paper.

~~

Tim grinned and held up the two pizza boxes in his hands when Jason pulled the door open.

“You brought pizza?” he asked.

Tim rolled his eyes and pushed past him, taking in the small apartment. “Of course I did,” he scoffed. “I couldn’t not bring brain food and you’re letting us work here when you didn’t have to.”

Jason shrugged, shoulders stiff with the movement.

“So…are we going to work in the living room or at the kitchen table or would you prefer your room?” Tim prompted when Jason didn’t make a move to direct him anywhere.

“Right, yeah,” he said, snapping out of whatever daze he’d been in. “We can go to my room. I’ve already got all my stuff spread out over the floor.”

Tim nodded and followed Jason to his bedroom. The floor was covered in books and papers, but Tim didn’t have an issue finding a spot for himself. Jason helped him move his homework out of the way to set the pizza down.

He flipped open the top of the first box and grabbed a slice before stretching his legs out in front of him and pulling his laptop from his bag. Jason was a little more hesitant to take a slice of pizza and he didn’t relax right away when he settled back down among his piles of papers and ideas.

Tim hummed under his breath and opened his programs.

“So,” he started, taking another bite of pizza. “I was thinking we could use this video in our presentation. I know we can’t take up more than a minute, but it gives a pretty good explanation as to the practices of the Vikings.”

Jason nodded. “Lay it on me.”

Tim turned his computer and let the clip play, the sound filtering through his speakers clearly.

“Looks good to me,” he agreed. “I think that would be good to put between the history of the Vikings that I’m covering and the start of your section.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too. Have you put any slides together?”

“No. I didn’t really feel like I was ready to do that, and I think it would be better to do that together anyway.”

Tim nodded and opened his web browser. “We can use the free software through Google so we can both access it.”

He quickly set up a presentation and sent the link to Jason’s email.

Jason grabbed another slice of pizza and pushed himself to his feet, sitting down in his desk chair to bring his desktop to life. He tapped away at the clunky keyboard and Tim smiled when his name appeared in the corner of his screen.

Tim added a few slides and stuck the video in the middle of them, knowing they’d both add more slides as they needed and compiled their work together.

Silence fell between them, but Tim didn’t find it uncomfortable in the slightest. Jason prompted him to pass him the pizza every now and then and they ate most of it as they worked on their project in companionable silence. Tim had never expected to be in the same room as Jason for so long without fighting. He never expected to be in Jason’s home in the first place.

Tim startled when he heard the front door slam, his fingers jerking against the keys and making his sentence deteriorate into a bunch of jibberish.

“Jason?” a woman called.

“Shit, sorry,” Jason mumbled to Tim, pushing himself from his chair. He hurried from the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

Tim strained to hear what was being said but couldn’t make out much more than the soft murmurs of their voices. He sighed and went back to his work, wiping his fingers on a crumpled napkin to keep the grease off his keys.

Jason returned a few minutes later. “Sorry about that,” he apologized. “I guess we lost track of time. I thought you were going to be gone by the time my mom got back from work.”

Tim shrugged. “It’s not a big deal, really. If you want me to, I can go…”

“No really, it’s okay,” Jason said in a rush, holding up his hands. “My mom’s fine with it, too.”  

“Although,” Tim continued, smirk pulling at his lips. “I don’t know if we really need to do that much more work or we’re going to have this finished today.”

Jason sat down in his chair and grinned. “That might not be such a bad thing.”

“Maybe not but we’re still a month out from when presentations even start.”

“Well,” Jason said, “if we’re not going to work on this anymore, you feel like watching a movie? Or do you need to get home? I guess I shouldn’t assume-”

“A movie would be great. We still have some pizza left anyway that I’m dying to eat. What do you have?”

Jason grinned and pushed himself out of his chair. He pulled a large bin out from under his bed and shoved it in Tim’s direction. Tim started sorting through the cases as Jason picked up his schoolwork, putting it in a small pile on his desk.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to watch all of the ones I want in one sitting,” Tim warned as he made a small pile next to his hip, flipping through the next few cases.

“We can always continue this next weekend,” Jason said with a shrug.

Tim swallowed and ducked his head, hoping to hide the grin that pulled at his lips. “Sure. If you don’t mind having me around.”

“Not at all,” Jason said, voice light. “We have to finish our project anyway.”

“Let’s start with this one then,” Tim said, passing him one of the cases he’d picked out.

Jason looked over the title and nodded. “This is a good one. Just let me get this set up.” He turned back to his computer and inserted the disk into his tower. He clicked several things and enlarged the screen so it took up his whole monitor.

He glanced over his shoulder and paused. “It might be easier if we both sat on the bed,” he said, flush rushing to his cheeks as he pulled the curtains over the window behind his desk.

“Yeah, no problem,” Tim said, pushing himself up from the floor. “It makes sense since we only have a computer monitor to work with.”

Jason heard the bed shift behind him and fought not to look until he hit play and stood up from his chair. He spared a quick glance in Tim’s direction before he crawled onto his bed and leaned back against the wall next to Tim.

Their shoulders brushed as they settled into place and even though there was some space between them, Jason could still feel the warmth wafting off Tim.

He swallowed and fought to focus on the movie, ignoring why he was so distracted by their proximity in the first place. There were project partners and really nothing more even if it felt like they were edging into that kind of territory.

Jason didn’t want to get his hopes up. And he questioned why he’d even have to worry about that in the first place.

~~

“Oh come on,” Tim protested, eyes focused on Jason’s computer screen.

He angrily shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth and Jason hid his smile behind his sip of soda.

They’d worked on their project for about an hour before they both got distracted and bored and decided to put it to the side in favor of continuing their movie marathon. They were ahead of where they needed to be anyway, and Jason knew that taking some time to enjoy themselves on a Saturday wouldn’t put them that far behind.

He glanced to the side, taking in Tim’s profile. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but he thought they were sitting closer than they had the week before. Every time Tim reached to grab a handful of popcorn, their biceps brushed together, sending a jolt of warmth against his skin.

Tim’s eyelashes almost seemed to brush his skin when he blinked, and Jason wondered if they were as soft as they looked. His eyebrows were turned down because he was annoyed with whatever choice the protagonist was making and Jason couldn’t blame him when he had the same thoughts.

Every time Tim offered some insight or commentary into the plot of the movie, Jason was drawn in by his thoughts. When he laughed, his nose would crinkle up in an adorable way as his eyes nearly squeezed shut and he leaned back against the wall to keep himself upright.  

Jason froze and pulled his gaze away from watching how Tim’s blue eyes were focused on the screen, soaking up every detail of the film they were watching and no doubt catching things Jason would never understand. He swallowed and fought down the rising panic in his chest that wanted to drown him under his new revelation.

He wasn’t supposed to be interested in Tim. They were supposed to hate each other’s guts. They had hated each other’s guts until they were paired together for their history class. And it didn’t help anything that their teacher had paired them because she thought they would work out romantically.

Jason grabbed a fistful of popcorn and shoved it into his mouth. Tim moved next to him and Jason almost thought he’d been found out but he did nothing more than hold the bowl towards him so he could have more of the snack.

He ducked his head in a half-nod and grabbed another handful of popcorn to keep his mouth busy. He was afraid that his realization would burst out of him and incriminate him. He couldn’t find Tim attractive. He couldn’t think he was cute. Not when Tim probably only tolerated him at best.

Tim would hate him if he knew about his growing feelings. They’d never be able to get along again, and it would put them right back where they’d been at the beginning of the year. And Jason was just starting to realize that he never wanted to go back to that place. He realized how much he hated it and had hated it when he was still there.

He’d just have to suffer through their work sessions on their project and the time they had to spend together in class. Beyond that, he’d need to keep his distance. He’d need to get some of the distance that used to be between them back.

He couldn’t push Tim away fully. He was too selfish for that and he didn’t think Tim would let him if he tried. Not when he was content to spend a couple hours together without an issue.

Jason swallowed. He’d make it through the year. He’d spend as much time with Tim as he could, but he wouldn’t become weak to what he wanted. They’d get through their project and that would be it. The only time they’d spend with each other after this would be in class.

He could deal with it. It would be enough. Even if it wasn’t what he wanted.

~~

Tim shoved the door to his bedroom open and let it slam shut behind him. He dropped his backpack on the floor and tried to keep himself from hyperventilating as his chest tightened and his breaths came faster.

He swallowed and fought to push the memories of sitting next to Jason on his bed for a handful of hours from his memory. They weren’t friends. They could barely be classified as friends. They were just bored and needed to get their project done for class. It meant nothing more than a grade and he was trying to convince himself of that.

Jason didn’t like him. He tolerated him and he knew he just put up with his presence in his home, but he didn’t like him. And even if Tim was drowning under the beauty of Jason’s intelligence and every comment he made that got Tim to laugh, he couldn’t do anything about it.

Tim squeezed his eyes shut when his brain wanted to fixate on the size of his biceps and how great he looked in whatever he decided to throw on for the day. And then there was his secret nerdy side…

He shook his head, fighting to push his thoughts to the back of his mind. The longer he lingered on them, the closer to the forefront of his brain they would be and if that happened, they would not doubt get him into trouble. And if he didn’t get himself into trouble with Jason, then he would definitely out himself to Steph and he couldn’t allow that to happen.

Tim would fight to get through the end of their project and then he’d bury anything he felt for Jason under the rest of his classes and his homework. He knew there wasn’t going to be anything for them once this project was done.

They’d be back to where they were before it happened and would have no more interaction than their conversations in class.

There wouldn’t be any more movie nights. There would be fewer witty conversations. And Tim would struggle with the loss of a great relationship he could’ve had for years but would no doubt be out of his reach because of the choices he made in the past.

Tim sighed and threw himself onto his bed. He buried his face in his pillows and was determined to block out the rest of the world for a few hours at least. He didn’t want to think about anything.

And if he did think about something, he wanted to be able to bury it in his dreams so that his suspicions of soft-looking lips and tight hugs would never see the light of day and he’d never risk embarrassment over his attraction to the one person he was supposed to hate for the rest of his life.

~~

Tim kept his head down as they neared their project deadline. They finished ahead of schedule and used the extra time they had to prepare to practice their presentation once a day in the library after school.

Now that they didn’t have to prepare anything and had their portions of the presentation practically memorized, there was no longer an excuse for longer conversations or their movie marathons.

Something ached deep in Tim’s chest when he couldn’t go over to Jason’s house and lock himself away in his room while they watched a movie. He’d never get to sit close to him on the bed or share snacks or talk about the most ridiculous thing from whatever movie they put on.

He tried to ignore the pain that seemed to hurt him deep inside whenever the light caught Jason’s eyes just right, or he caught him laughing at something Roy had said to him in the hallway. He missed pulling those deep belly laughs out of Jason.

Steph had noticed where his gaze lingered and asked him about it, but he wasn’t ready to admit his feelings, let alone talk about missing the time he’d gotten to spend with Jason over the course of the semester.

When the moment of truth finally came, he got through their actual presentation in a daze but knew he hadn’t messed up a single line from how many times they’d practiced.

Jason grinned at him when they finished, and their class offered polite applause. Tim returned Jason’s enthusiasm easily even if something inside his core shattered that Jason didn’t like him for anything more than the grade they were working to get together in the class.

And now it was all over.

The days following their presentation were painful. They barely talked before class started and Tim constantly glanced in his direction but didn’t get any sign that Jason might be missing their usual camaraderie like he was. He wasn’t able to focus on any of the other presentations that were given, thoughts swirling in a toxic circle that always came back to the same thing.

Tim’s sleep got worse. He stayed up late staring at the ceiling, worried that he’d done something to piss Jason off as the distance between them continued to grow. He didn’t know how to fix anything between them and thought they were back to the point of no return. He was sure if they didn’t change things before their semester ended, they’d never get back to the point where they had been.

~~

Jason forced his eyes closed but knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep any better than he had been the past few weeks. The sounds of the city outside his apartment were too loud. They accused him of all the mistakes he’d made in his life, the most horrible of them the distance growing between him and Tim again.

Things had been going well between them. Every second they spent together outside of school was like a small victory for him and what he wanted in life. They hadn’t even gotten through every movie Tim had wanted to watch before it was time to give their presentation and their time working on their project had ended.

They still saw each other in school and had class together and Jason was ecstatic they got the best grade in the class on their project, but things were awkward between him and Tim like they never had been before.

Sure, things hadn’t been easy when they were forced together at the beginning of the year but that was more because of the lingering animosity between them. They’d never been awkward.

And now he was sure he’d been reading the signs wrong between them. Even if he had to suffer through his growing attraction for Tim, he was happy to have him as a friend. But now that even seemed out of reach. He didn’t know how to fix it either.

If he asked Tim what happened he’d probably scoff and say that they were only spending time together because of their class and that would make things even more awkward because Tim would know he’s interested.

He’d become the school joke because there was no way Tim would keep that quiet if they were still the furthest thing from friends they could be.

Jason huffed and rolled onto his side, burying his face in his pillow. He could only hope that they could fix things or at least get back to where they had been before their presentation.

He wouldn’t survive if he had to stew with this uncertainty for the two weeks of winter break.

~~

Tim glanced at Jason when he sat down in his seat next to him in class. They’d passed each other in the hall earlier but neither of them had made eye contact or any other sign of recognition.

He wanted to say something, but he seemed to be at a spectacular loss of words as of late. Even their conversations in class which used to delve into the most random topics never strayed from the questions Ms. Edwards wrote out on the board for them.

The bell rang over their heads and as the other groups around them started their discussion, Tim sluggishly turned in his chair.

“Hey,” he said.

Jason glanced at him and turned in his chair, leaning heavily against the back of his seat.

“So, what did you think of last night’s reading?” he continued, nearly wincing at how stilted and formal the question sounded like they hadn’t already spent a whole semester talking and working on a project.

Jason shrugged. “It was interesting. I want to know more about the ritual practices that were touched on in the middle of the chapter. It didn’t go into much detail.”

“Was that really the most important section to focus on though?” Tim asked.

“Does it matter if it was or not?” Jason scoffed. “I found it interesting and would’ve liked to know more. Obviously, they can’t go in depth on every topic or the textbook would weigh a thousand pounds.”

“Right,” Tim huffed and rolled his eyes. “I guess you can just watch a documentary and get the answers you want.”

Tim swallowed the bitter taste that filled the back of his throat. This wasn’t how he wanted their conversation to go. It felt wrong and tainted. They couldn’t go back to how they’d been. He didn’t want them to.

They stared at each for a moment and Tim sighed.

“Okay everyone,” Ms. Edwards said, cutting off what he was about to say. “Let’s get things started, shall we? Who wants to go first?”

Tim turned to face the front of the room and pulled out his notebook. He sagged down in his chair and tried to push any thoughts of his crumbling relationship with Jason to the back of his mind. He’d fix it later.

~~

Tim felt more irritable the closer to winter break they got. If the stress from studying for finals wasn’t bad enough, he always seemed to be plagued with thoughts of what was going on between him and Jason.

His sleep schedule was beyond fucked up and it had nothing to do with trying to cram as much studying in as possible. His brain never shut up and Steph was avoiding him after he snapped at her because he couldn’t handle his own shit.

“Okay I’m going to take pity on you and forgive you for snapping at me yesterday,” Steph huffed, sitting across from him at lunch.

Tim glanced up from his tray of sad looking food. “I’m sorry about that,” he mumbled.

“I know you are, but you can’t take out your teenage angst on everyone else. Especially your best friend,” she said, giving him a onceover. “Normally I would hold out until you came crawling back to apologize, but you look so sad I decided to take pity on you.”

“Thanks.”

Steph stared at him for a minute and Tim tried not to shift under her scrutiny. “You really need to fix whatever’s going on with you.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Here’s a thought: talk to him.”

“It doesn’t matter. It won’t do any good,” he said, throwing his plastic fork onto his tray.

“God, you’re so hopeless sometimes. Okay, fine,” she huffed. “If you’re not going to try to fix this and just let whatever happens, happen, then you can’t be sad and moan and groan and get mad at me. So, get your shit together and talk to him, or shut up and get through the next week before break.”

Tim slouched further in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. He nodded and shoved a cold fry into his mouth, chewing bitterly.

~~

Tim threw himself onto his bed when he got home from his last day of school. He’d struggled to get through his history final without being distracted by Jason next to him. Even when he finished his test and turned it in, he still couldn’t do anything because they weren’t allowed to talk and Jason took more time than he did.

He didn’t want to risk trying to pass a note and getting caught by Ms. Edwards either. She could’ve thought they were cheating and as desperate as he was to repair what was between them, he wasn’t going to risk Jason’s grade even if he didn’t care that much about his own.

Tim was ready to bury himself in bed and ignore the rest of the world for two weeks. He didn’t want to go to his parents’ Christmas party, and he didn’t even care about what happened on Christmas and the pile of consolation prizes his parents bought for him.

The only thing he wanted was for things to be fixed and if it meant willing away the time off they had, then he would give it all away and jump right into second semester.

His heart ached and he almost wished he could show up at Jason’s front door and settle in for a movie night with pizza and ice cream.

Tim sighed and yanked his blanket over him, forcing his eyes shut in the hopes that he might finally be able to get some sleep.

~~

Jason stared out his bedroom window. Snow was falling gently between Gotham’s buildings and the road was already covered with a light dusting of snow. It would turn to slush soon even with the reduced traffic on the streets because of Christmas.

His mom was still asleep after getting in late from work the night before and he hadn’t managed to pull himself into the kitchen to start making breakfast. He’d pulled out the small plastic Christmas tree they kept in their place when he got home after his last day of school before break and managed to put it up, the mindless task letting him empty his head for a few minutes.

There were two boxes under the bent and crooked branches. Their gifts always bordered on practical. They didn’t have the money for anything extravagant and they learned early on they only really wanted things they had a use for rather than the meaningless trinkets that filled store windows during the shopping season.

Jason sighed and pushed himself away from the wall. He grabbed his hoodie from the back of his chair and slipped it over his head. He carefully moved into the kitchen, keeping an eye on his mom’s room to make sure he wasn’t waking her.

He pulled the milk from the fridge and filled a small saucepan. He left it to heat up as he put the jug away and grabbed the cocoa powder and the sugar from the cabinet.

Jason pulled the whisk from the jar on the counter and measured out the cocoa and sugar, slowly mixing it in the heating pot.

He heard a noise come from his mom’s room and sighed, hoping she would’ve had a bit longer to sleep in before she was roused and brought back to the land of the living.

Her door opened and she wasn’t quiet or subtle as she approached.

“Hot chocolate?” she asked, voice still rough from sleep.

“Yeah,” he murmured, watching the cocoa dissolve into the milk.

“Have you eaten breakfast yet?” she asked.

He shook his head. She moved around him and grabbed a pan to set on the stove next to him. She pulled two mugs from the cabinet and left them next to Jason for when their drinks were ready. She grabbed the carton of eggs and a bowl and began to crack eggs into it in preparation for scrambling.

She paused after closing the egg carton and reached across the counter for the small radio plugged into the wall. She turned it on and quickly changed channels before settling on a station playing Christmas music.

Jason smiled as she began to hum along and prepare their breakfast. He turned off the stove eye he was using and poured the hot chocolate into the two mugs.

Something still ached in the back of his chest and he tried not to dwell on any thoughts of Tim, but he was going to let himself have one day where he didn’t beat up on himself for thinking about him. He could worry about Tim and their crumbling relationship later. They might have the chance to fix things once their spring semester started, but right now he had some time with his mom on Christmas and he knew he wasn’t going to see her much for the rest of his break, so it wouldn’t do to be in a sour mood.

Jason hummed along to the radio under his breath and pulled a loaf of break from the cabinet, popping two slices into the toaster before he clinked his mug to his mom’s and they both took a sip.

~~

Tim paused in front of the double doors to his school and took a deep breath. It was cold and snow was drifting down over his head, but he needed a moment before he faced the day ahead of him.

He was going to fix things with Jason. He didn’t care what Jason’s reaction was and if it turned out he still hated him, then knowing that was better than drifting in an abyss of uncertainty.

He hurried up the steps and pushed through the doors with the people around him. He shivered at the warmth that enveloped him, glad the school wasn’t being stingy with the heat considering the freezing temperatures outside. He studied the crowds around him, searching for Jason’s familiar profile.

Steph waved at him, trying to catch his attention. He waved her off and mouthed ‘later’ in her direction. She frowned, eyebrows drawing down in her confusion but nodded and let him move away.

Tim kept an eye on the hall as he stopped at his locker. He pulled it open and grabbed his books for his morning classes and shoving his winter coat inside before slamming it shut. He pushed up onto his toes to look over the heads of the crowds around him. He huffed when he didn’t catch sight of Jason and continued down the hall.

He didn’t know where Jason’s first class was, but he knew if he wandered around long enough he’d find him somewhere. Unless he was hiding out under some stairwell.

Tim shoved his way through a line of people and turned the next corner, eyes sweeping up and down the hall. He caught sight of a head of red hair and blinked, hurrying forward, thinking it might be Roy and where Roy was Jason was a step ahead.

He slowed when the student turned, and it was definitely not who he was looking for. Tim huffed and continued, turning down the next hallway where another row of lockers and classrooms were.

“Looking for someone?”

Tim jumped and whirled around, finding Jason had snuck up on him. He narrowed his eyes and looked him up and down.

“Where did you come from?” he accused.

Jason hiked his thumb over his shoulder at the door to the bathroom a few feet behind them.

“Oh,” Tim sighed and relaxed.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Jason said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Were you looking for someone?”

Tim cleared his throat and shifted on his feet. “Yeah actually. I was looking for you.”

“Me?” Jason asked, brow furrowing. “Why?”

Tim sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I don’t know if you feel the same way or what, but I really missed how well we got along when we were doing our history project. I liked being able to hang out with you and watch movies and I want to do that again. If you do, anyway…”

Jason stared at him for a minute, turning the words over in his head. He nodded and smiled. “Yeah, I’d…I’d really like that actually. I missed getting to spend time with you, too, and we still have a stack of movies to get through.”

Tim chuckled and felt his face flush with their proximity. “Movie day this Saturday?” he asked, biting his lip.

“And every Saturday after until we get through them?” Jason offered, voice small.

Tim nodded eagerly. “Yes. Yeah. That sounds good.”

Jason nodded. “Cool.”

They stared at each for a moment.

The bell rang over their heads and pulled them out of their daze.

“I uh, have to get to class,” Tim said, stepping around Jason to head back the way he’d come.

“Yeah,” Jason agreed, turning to face him. “Me too. I’ll see you in class, I guess?” he asked.

Tim nodded. He paused for a second longer, letting himself soak up Jason’s appearance before he turned and disappeared into the throng of students hurrying to their first class, the anxiety and unhappiness finally uncurling in his chest and letting him breathe a little easier.

~~

Tim grinned as he rounded the corner to his history classroom. He stopped short when he saw Jason coming from the other direction. He was walking with Roy who had an arm around his shoulders.

Tim frowned, anger curling in his gut at the easy contact the two of them were able to share. He finally had their friendship back, but he was starting to realize that wasn’t enough. He wanted to be able to have such casual personal interactions with Jason like Roy did.  

Actually, what he wanted was to be able to curl into Jason’s side and lean his head against his shoulder as they curled up in his bed and watched a movie. He wanted to play with Jason’s fingers and hold his hand. He wanted to see if Jason’s lips were as soft as they looked and wanted to run his fingers through Jason’s hair.

Tim ran a hand through his hair and shook his head, pushing the thoughts from his mind. He couldn’t think like that. Things were finally back to normal. He was going to be friends with Jason and the rest of the year was going to be great. He didn’t need anything else from him. He wouldn’t let himself linger and fixate on those kinds of things.

Not when it could easily destroy everything they’d just repaired.

Tim ducked his head and pushed through the door to Ms. Edwards’ classroom. He hurried over to his desk and slid into his seat, dropping his backpack on the floor. The board was empty of the usual questions they had at the beginning of class and Ms. Edwards was already standing behind her podium and smiling at the students in their seats.

Tim didn’t look up as the door opened but he saw a figure slide into the chair next to him out of his periphery.

“Hey,” Jason greeted, voice light and happy.

Tim glanced up, unable to stop the smile that pulled at his lips at seeing Jason next to him. “Hey,” he greeted, turning in his chair. “What’s up?”

Jason shrugged. “Not much. I’m ready to go home but I wish I wasn’t back to having homework to do.”

Tim chuckled, thinking about all the books he’d have to take home. “I know. I’m ready to ignore all of it instead and hope it just magically works out.”

“I don’t think that’s the best idea. But as long as you do the work for this class, I don’t really care,” Jason shot back with a grin.

Tim nodded slowly. “Of course.”

~~

Jason sighed as he walked out of History. He couldn’t stop the happy smile that graced his lips. He was happy. He felt lighter than he had for weeks and winter wasn’t looking quite so gray as it had over break.

He had Tim back and he was going to get to hang out with him more often than he thought. He could even survive without the movie days they were already planning, satisfied with the light conversation they would share in class.

“What’s that look for?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“That smile,” Roy said, poking him in the cheek. “You look kind of dopey. What fairy godmother came and granted your wish?”

“No one, duh,” he shot back.

“Well I know it’s not school that has you looking like that so what happened. Spill all of your dirty secrets for me, Todd.”

Jason batted his hand away from his face. “It’s nothing.”

“Uh-huh,” he grumbled, not sounding like he believed him in the slightest. “I don’t believe you. This doesn’t have anything to do with why you were such a grouch over break, does it?”

Jason swallowed and looked away, eyes unconsciously searching the crowd of students in the hall.

“Okay, so it does. Now…who was the person that got your pants in a twist before break…” he said, sounding contemplative.

Jason’s eyes landed on Tim in the hall. He was standing next to Steph while she dug through her locker. Jason was on the verge of smiling at just seeing Tim, but when Steph placed a hand on his shoulder and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek his stomach dropped.

Jason’s jaw clenched, his teeth clacking together. Anger curled in his gut at the sight. Tim looked exasperated and swiped at his cheek to wipe away the lip gloss. It eased Jason’s anger slightly, but he still didn’t like that someone else could touch Tim the way he wanted to.

“I thought you hated Drake,” Roy said, grabbing his arm.

Jason froze and glared at him. “What?” he asked.

He waved at Tim. “Drake. I thought you hated him. I mean I know you had that whole project with him and everything, and you had to do some work together so he went over to your place, but…” Roy trailed off as his eyes widened.

Jason sighed, eyes sliding shut as Roy put all the pieces together.

“Dude, what the hell?” he asked. “When did that happen?”

“When did what happen?” Jason asked, bracing himself for the biggest shitstorm of all shitstorms.

“When did you start dating him?”

“What?” he asked, eyebrows furrowing.

“You and Drake. When did that happen?”

Jason opened his eyes. “Roy, we’re not dating.”

Roy frowned and glanced back at Tim. “Then why did you…” He paused and his eyes somehow got even larger. “Holy shit,” he breathed. “You’re not dating, but you want to be.” He made a face. “Great, now I have to deal with your lovesick, angsty ass over this whole thing. Please don’t do the whole emo teenager in love thing. I can’t handle any more of that with you.”

Jason rolled his eyes and tried to step around Roy, intent on getting to his last class without catching Tim’s attention while he was having this conversation.

“I’m not gonna do the whole emo teenager in love thing. And nothing’s going to happen between us. Tim doesn’t like me like that, and I think that’s something we can all agree on.”

“I dunno man. I think if you got over your hatred for him then he could, too. You already spend a ton of time outside of school with each other. And willingly I might add. None of us ever expected that to happen so I think anything’s possible at this point now.”

Jason sighed. He wished that was true, but he didn’t think it was possible. There was no way things could work out that well in his life. He didn’t get the happy fairy tale ending. Guys like him never did.

~~

“Can you believe people are already planning things for prom?” Tim scoffed when he pushed through the door to Jason’s apartment for their weekly Saturday movie day. “Like, I don’t get what the big deal is. Prom isn’t that impressive and yet people are getting all worked up over getting tickets and finding dates when it’s still forever away.”

Jason snickered and shut the door behind them. “It’s not that far away. Just a couple of months. And I guess if you have to make limo reservations or whatever, you’re going to want to get that done as soon as possible.”

Tim huffed and threw himself onto Jason’s bed, staring at where their next movie was already set up. “I guess. I still don’t get why it’s so important. I mean yeah, I did go last year but it wasn’t that great so what’s so great about this year? It’s not going to be that different just because I’m a senior.”

Jason grinned and hit play on his computer before crawling onto the bed next to him. “Maybe other people are just more romantic than you and think that even if something was bad before that doesn’t mean it can’t get better with time.”

“I guess, but I still don’t really want to go.”

Jason shrugged and pulled his knees up to his chest, eyes focused on the screen. “Then don’t go. There’s no one saying you have to. I’m not going.”

“But I can’t not go,” he cried, running his hands through his hair.

“Okay, you’ve officially lost me,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. “You don’t want to go but you have to go. How is that even possible?”

“Because Steph wants to go, and she’ll stop at nothing to get me into a tux and a limo.”

“Ah so she’s the one who’s forcing you,” Jason muttered, trying to ignore the familiar souring in his gut whenever he saw Tim and Steph together.

“Yeah,” Tim huffed. “I don’t see why it matters that I’m coming along. She put together a huge group and will have plenty of other people to talk to. But, of course she won’t let me sit at home and eat oreos on the couch when an overpriced night that I’ll forget about ten years from now is the highlight of spring semester.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it,” Jason huffed, slouching back against the wall. “Pick out the restaurant or stick yourself next to the refreshment table. Are you even paying for your tux or the limo rental?”

Tim was silent before he bit out a soft, “No.”

Jason shrugged. “Then it doesn’t really matter that much. Enjoy it while you can, and you can duck out early if it really gets to you that much and you’re not having fun.”

Tim fiddled with the comforter spread over the bed under him. “Thanks, I guess. What about you? Are you going to be there? Wait…you answered that already. Sorry, stuck too far in my own head, I guess.”

Jason tightened his hold on his knees. “No, you’re right I won’t be there. I’ll probably just be hanging out here all night.”

“Why aren’t you going?” Tim asked, looking up at him.

Jason kept his gaze on the computer, not wanting to see Tim’s reaction to what he was going to say. “No one to go with is the biggest thing, I guess. And I can’t really afford to rent a tux. It’s kind of a frivolous expense and since money’s already pretty tight, I don’t want to ask for something like that.”

“I wish I could stay in and hang out with you,” Tim grumbled.

“If you ever work up the courage to say no to Steph, you can,” Jason said with a shrug, forcing his hopes to stay considerably low.

Tim grumbled in the back of his throat and curled onto his side, content to sag into the warmth of Jason’s blanket and let the hours slide away in the face of their movie marathon.

~~

Tim tugged at the bowtie around his neck. It felt like just yesterday he was complaining to Jason about going to prom and now he was stuck in the constricting suit. Steph would undoubtedly criticize a handful of things about his appearance and the lack of effort he put into it.

His interest in prom had only seemed to wane as the semester continued and he dreaded the day as it slowly approached. He still wished that he could stay at home and curl up in bed or go over to Jason’s and watch movies with him.

He sighed and let go of his bowtie. He smoothed down his suit jacket and ran a hand over his hair to make sure none of the strands were out of place. The one thing he could be happy about was that instead of going to a fancy hotel like the year before, prom was being hosted at their school so he could make an escape at any time and he wouldn’t be too far from home.

The doorbell echoed down the hall and Tim sighed, shoulders slumping under the weight of what he was about to do. He trudged out of the bathroom and headed for the stairs.

“Tim!” Steph sang from where the butler had already let her in.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he huffed.

He swung around the corner to the foyer and found Steph in all her purple glory. Her hair was curled and clipped at the side of her head and she wore large silver earrings and a resplendent necklace around her throat.

“Could you look any less happy?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

“I told you I didn’t want to go,” he grumbled, following her through the door and down the steps to where the limo was waiting in the drive.

“And I told you we had to go because it’s tradition and we can’t miss out on our last prom ever.”

“We went last year and, no offense, but this is more your thing than it is mine,” he said, sliding into the backseat. He nodded tightly at the other people who’d already been picked up, not as close with any of them as he was with his best friend.

“And what would you be doing if you weren’t going to prom?” Steph asked, voice high and sweet as she levelled him with a knowing look.

Tim flushed and shifted in his seat, not wanting to start their usual argument over Jason they’d been having as of late. It was bad enough Steph was accusing him of having feelings for Jason and he had to deny it at every turn, but it was almost worse that Tim was actively battling his crush and had been since January.

He wasn’t sure if he was happy or heartbroken that he wouldn’t have to be faced with Jason again once May rolled around and they walked across the stage to receive their diplomas. He didn’t want to part with him. As much as he’d hated him before, he couldn’t imagine not having him in his life now that they’d gotten the chance to bond over movies and homework and Jason had become someone he considered a friend.

Tim stared out the window as the limo wove through the streets in his neighborhood and turned towards the streets of Gotham. The others around him started talking and Tim tuned it out once their initial attempts at trying to draw him into their conversation failed.

He wondered what Jason was doing. He wondered if he’d made popcorn and which movie he was watching, if he was watching one at all. He might not have been in the mood to watch a movie and was reading a book instead. He hadn’t made much progress through the pile on his bedside table lately, more concerned with getting his assignments for his AP classes done and studying for the tests that would be coming the next week.

“Tim. Tim!”

He jolted and looked up, finding Steph standing with a hand on her hip in the limo door. Everyone else had already crawled out and were waiting for him. He flushed and hurried to step out of the limo.

Steph shut the door behind him and reminded the driver what time he’d need to be back to pick them up.

Tim trailed behind the group as they headed for the open gym doors. Balloons swayed in the nighttime air and music filtered out from the darkened interior.

They stepped inside, a few white strobe lights flashing over the dance floor. Softer, electric lamps lit up the refreshments table in the corner and the tables around the perimeter of the room.

Tim’s smile was tight as he took his picture and hurried inside, not caring if he left Steph and the others behind.

“Tim, what’s wrong with you?” Steph asked, catching his elbow.

He heaved a sigh, looking around the room. “Nothing, I just, wanted to get a drink is all.”

She stared at him, eyebrows furrowing but let his arm go as the rest of their group came up behind them. “Okay, if you’re sure. I think we’re going to head on out to the dance floor.”

Tim smiled and slipped away as she turned to talk to everyone else. He walked around the back of the table and filled a paper cup with punch. He tossed it back and swallowed, the sweet taste bursting to life over his tongue.

He sighed and crushed the cup in his hand, tossing it into the waiting garbage can. He spotted Steph moving through the crowd as she dipped her head to the beat of the music. Tim knew he’d be expected to dance to at least one song during the night but the thought of getting into the midst of the thrashing bodies was horrific and one he didn’t want to participate in.

Tim shuffled over to the corner, hoping the shadows would keep him concealed from Steph’s prying eyes. He tilted his head back, letting it hit the painted brick behind him. His heart was several streets away at Jason’s apartment. That’s where he wanted to be. That’s where he knew he could be happy.

He straightened spine snapping into place and he glanced at the dance floor again. Steph was completely consumed with the people around her and he knew he wouldn’t be missed as long as she was surrounded with people who cared as much about prom as she did.

Tim glanced at the gym doors and started for them, intent on leaving prom and all of this behind. He darted around people crossing the floor for drinks or the dance floor and fought his way through the wave of people that pushed through the double doors after getting their pictures taken.

“If you leave, there’s no reentry!” one of the volunteers called after him.

Tim waved his hand over his head and took off, sprinting across the parking lot for the sidewalk. The toes of his dress shoes nipped at his toes, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care, not when he finally had the chance to close the gaping distance that had been pulling at him for most of the night.

His suit jacket flapped against him as he ran and turned the corner. He barely noticed his labored breaths as he crossed the next street, barely making it across before the light changed and cars whizzed through the spot where he’d just been.

He charged down the sidewalk, darting around people who stared at him, no doubt worried that he’d lost his mind and would last out at the next person in his path. He practically sighed when he caught sight of Jason’s apartment building and jumped off the edge of the sidewalk, high-tailing it across the two lanes of traffic that ran in front of the building without a care in the world.

He shoved the broken gate open and took the stairs two at a time before he made it to the floor of Jason’s apartment. He swallowed and fought to catch his breath as he walked the last few feet to stand in front of his door.

Tim raised his hand, hesitating for only a moment before he knocked several times. He pressed his lips together to try and calm his breathing and waited, hoping he hadn’t misjudged everything between him and Jason. He heard the muffled sounds of someone moving around inside and Jason’s grumbling reached his ears as he approached the door.

It stopped when he no doubt glanced through the peephole and saw him standing there.

The lock clicked and the door was yanked open a second later, Jason staring at him with wide eyes as he braced a hand on the doorjamb.

“Tim?” he asked. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at prom. Hell, you’re wearing a tux!” he cried, looking him up and down.

Tim smiled, trying to put Jason at ease even though he was still a little breathless. “I left.”

“You left?” Jason asked. He ran a hand through his hair, obviously trying to make sense of everything going on around him. “Jesus just…get in here,” he said, pulling Tim inside.

Tim stumbled slightly but righted himself quickly when Jason shut the door and locked it before turning to face him.

“Okay, explain,” he said. “Why did you leave prom?”

Tim shrugged, losing some of his earlier confidence but he knew he couldn’t beat around the bush. They’d been doing it for long enough and the end of the year was crawling closer with every day that passed. Tim was going to run out of time if he didn’t make a move soon and at least try to go after what he really wanted. And if he ruined it, then he wouldn’t have to see Jason ever again after graduation.

“I realized prom wasn’t where I wanted to be.”

“I know that,” Jason huffed. “You spent months complaining about having to go. But why are you here?”

Tim took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, trying to meet Jason’s eyes even in the face of possible rejection.

“This is where I wanted to be.”

“In my apartment?” Jason asked, making a face.

Tim huffed and rolled his eyes. “You know, for someone as smart as you, you can be really fucking stupid sometimes.”

“Just tell me what you mean!” Jason cried, running his hands through his hair.

“I wanted to be here with you,” Tim shot back.

Jason froze and stared at him, eyes wide.

Tim sighed, shoulders sagging. “I didn’t want to be at prom. I wanted to be spending time with you. Here or anywhere. I don’t really care as long as you’re there.”

“Tim, I-” Jason started and stopped before staring at him.

“I…like you,” Tim said, voice careful and steady. “I have for a while and I realized the only way I actually wanted to be at prom was if you were there with me. But if I’m being completely honest…if I had to choose between being with you at prom and being with you here so we could chill and watch movies, I’d definitely choose being here.”

Jason gaped, mouth moving as he tried to find something to say. “Okay,” he finally said, voice higher than normal. “Okay, so that’s a thing.”

Tim chuckled, his chest warming at seeing Jason flustered in front of him as he tried to process everything Tim just admitted. He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heals.

“So…” Tim said, glancing around. “Not that I’m not happy to have finally told you that, but I wouldn’t mind you telling me if you feel the same? Because if not-”

“I do!” Jason said, waving his hands in front of him like he was afraid Tim was going to walk away. “God yes, I feel the same way. It was driving me insane because I thought you didn’t want to be anything more than friends and then when things were weird between us after our history project I thought-”

“I know,” Tim agreed, wincing at the memory. “That wasn’t a happy time. And winter break was awful because I didn’t get to see you and I didn’t get to talk to you. Everything sucked and I couldn’t wait to start school again if it meant getting to see you in class.”

“Me too. And I like you, too,” Jason said, cheeks turning pink. “I guess I should actually say that and not let us keep going around in circles but…yeah I like you, too.”

Tim grinned, feeling happier than he had in a long time. “I know this is kind of sudden but I already ran out of prom to come here do you think we could-”

“Movie marathon?” Jason asked hopefully.

Tim nodded.

“I’ve already made popcorn,” Jason said, stepping past him.

“Wait,” Tim said, catching his elbow.

Jason frowned and looked down at the hand on his arm before giving Tim a questioning look. “What is it?”

“Do you mind if I…” Tim trailed off and sucked in a breath before he rocked up onto his toes and pressed his lips to Jason’s cheek in a quick kiss. He wanted to go for the lips, but he wasn’t sure where Jason’s boundaries were since things were all kind of new between them.

Jason pressed his lips together, trying to hide the pleased smile that pulled at his lips.

“Come on,” he muttered, tugging Tim down the hall to his room.

Jason started the movie that was paused on his computer and made himself comfortable on the bed, moving the bowl of popcorn around to keep it from spilling.

Tim bent over and unlaced his dress shoes before pushing them off. He slid his jacket from his shoulders and draped it over the back of Jason’s desk chair. He yanked off is bowtie and breathed a sigh, happy to be free of the constricting material.

He crawled onto the bed next to Jason and pressed their shoulders together. Jason glanced at him and met his gaze, smile small and personal and sweet. He shifted towards Tim and reached for him before hesitating.

“Can I…” Jason asked.

Tim nodded and waited a beat as Jason’s hand came to rest on his cheek. They gazed into each other’s eyes, the movie playing in the background as they gave it none of their attention.

Jason ducked his head and pressed their lips together. Tim sighed and wrapped his arm around Jason’s shoulders, sliding closer. Jason tilted his head forward, searching for more contact.

Warmth spread in Tim’s chest and he was happy to spend the rest of the night, and even wishing he could have spent the next day, curled up with Jason and getting to know him in all the ways he hadn’t gotten to yet.

~~

“You look amazing,” Jason whispered, staring into Tim’s shining blue eyes.

“So do you,” Tim agreed, grin crooked as they slowly turned in the middle of the dance floor.

Moonlight cascaded through the skylight over their head now that the lights had been dimmed and candles flickered on the tables surrounding the dance floor.

“Can you believe we’re finally here?” Jason asked, glancing around at the tables around them.

“I know,” Tim sighed. He pressed their foreheads together and closed his eyes, trusting Jason to guide him around the floor. He wouldn’t let him fall. He’d never let him fall. Or he’d catch him if he went. “We’ve been planning this for so long and now it’s finally here.”

Tim tightened his hand on Jason’s shoulder, the cooler temperature of the band around his finger pressing into his skin. Jason pulled him closer, flattening his palm on Tim’s lower back.

“And to think so many things could’ve gone differently, and we might not have made it here at all,” Jason whispered.

Tim chuckled and pulled back, grin nearly hurting his cheeks. He glanced around and saw other couples had begun to join them as they danced.

“Ms. Edwards?” Tim asked.

Jason bit his lip, trying to fight down his own grin. “Exactly what I was thinking,” he agreed with a low laugh that made warmth curl in Tim’s stomach whenever he made Jason laugh.

“It’s been eight years since we’ve had her, but none of this would’ve happened without her.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. “It’s kind of scary that she was able to see so much potential between us. Especially when we hated each other’s guts.”

Tim shrugged. “Yeah but someone had to kick some sense into us. And finding even ground was easier through schoolwork than if we’d been forced together for something else. We wouldn’t have stayed in the same room long enough to talk if it wasn’t a requirement.”

“And now I can’t imagine anything better than being stuck with you.”

Tim pulled his hand free from Jason’s and wrapped his arms around Jason’s shoulders. He pulled him down for a kiss, one of the first they’d gotten to share as they started the rest of their shared lives together.

 If you enjoy my work, please reblog or consider buying me a ko-fi!

[audreycritter]

Flash fic request: Dev & Jason please?

In the continuing saga of “Audrey has forgotten how to write Flash Fiction” I give you this, this thing, that ended up at almost 6200 words and I’m sorrynotsorry I hope it’s what you were hoping for because it’s not very angsty.For She’s a Jolly Good City (AO3 Link)

The muggy August evening air blankets the patio around the pool and in the fading daylight, the party is winding down. Despite the perfect patrol weather, when it will be cooler but not freezing on the high rooftops, the Wayne family plus usual company is in nearly complete attendance even now.

“I ate way too much steak,” Tim complains from where he’s sprawled across a lounge chair near Steph’s feet, while she sits with her legs drawn up and sips something pink and fizzy from a tall glass.

“No such thing,” Bruce argues, stretched out more comfortably on his own reclined lounge chair. Despite the nearly set sun, he is still wearing sunglasses and it’s hard to tell how awake he is. Steph stretches her legs out and drops them on Tim’s stomach like on a footrest.

“Oof,” is all Tim says. He doesn’t move.

Cass is the only one still actually in the pool, quiet at one end with just her eyes and nose above the water. She’s staring at Damian’s cat, who is regarding her with some suspicion and confusion, tail raised and curled.

“Don’t,” Bruce says, without lifting his head.

Cass blows bubbles in the water and her eyebrows tilt in an angry slant. She goes completely under and reemerges on the other side of the pool and splashes Dick and Barbara, who are sitting in deck chairs talking. Without a moment’s hesitation, he dives in after her while Babs yells in feeble outrage at Cass or Dick or both of them.

There is another lounge chair near Bruce’s that Alfred is reclined upon, softly snoring and actually asleep without sunglasses. No one bothers him and he does not stir even as Cass and Dick’s battle in the water turns into delighted shrieks and teasing shouts.

On the other end, closer to Tim and Steph, Dev is sitting and mostly just enjoying not moving at all. Damian is sitting on top of Jason’s shoulders the next chair over, looking down past Jason’s head while the older boy– the man, it is a 21st birthday, after all– turns a wooden and metal brain teaser over in his hands. After another moment, Jason holds it up and Damian takes it with a triumphant, “I knew you’d concede defeat.” The boy slips off Jason’s shoulders to the patio in a fluid motion, without using his hands or arms.

“You made a promise,” Jason says, dragging his chair closer to Dev. The legs scrape across the concrete. “I am here in one piece and I haven’t forgotten.”

“Nor have I,” Dev says, still not moving. “And I’m bloody looking forward to it, to be honest.”

“To what?” Tim asks, half sitting to look over at them.

“Plans,” Jason says vaguely, with a crooked grin. “Don’t worry, Timmy. I’ll return him in mostly good shape.”

“Now I’m worried,” Tim says, lying back down anyway. Steph’s feet are still on his stomach. “But keep your secrets.”

“You’ll return me?” Dev demands with a wry laugh. “In what universe? I’ll be returning you.”

Jason stands and stretches and calls out across the pool, “Thank you all for an effing delightful birthday, I’m off for other birthday plans.”

“Designated driver,” Bruce says when Dev and Jason are at the door to inside the manor.

“One beer!” Jason yells as he steps into the house. “One! Friggin.” He glares at Dev. “Did you tell him?”

“Nah, mate, Alfie must’ve,” Dev says, closing the door. “You’re legal, anyway. That’s the point, innit?”

“It’s more fun if it’s a secret,” Jason grumbles. “Why’d you tell Alfred, anyway?”

“I didn’t,” Dev protests. “Alfie knows everything.”

They split up to change out of swim trunks and meet again near the kitchen in day clothes. Dev just grabbed a tee that was in his room, with a partial Batman mask graphic and the words “MY PAY IS JUSTICE.” Jason’s wearing jeans that might or might not have come with the holes already made and a Wonder Woman t-shirt that Dev watched him pull out of a gift bag not an hour ago.

“Tags, mate,” Dev nods and Jason looks under his arm and rips the store tag off.

“We look like gorram groupies,” Jason says, looking at Dev and then down at himself.

Dev shrugs.

“Eh, worse things to be.”

There’s a buzzing sound from Jason’s pocket as they walk down the hall toward the front door and the cul-de-sac drive where Dev’s car is parked.

Jason checks his phone and immediately snorts in something that might be indignation or might be amusement.

“Bruce just sent me the number for GCPD’s bar ride service. Does he think we’re fricking idiots?”

They’ve both stopped at the front door and Dev gives Jason a look, an arched eyebrow and Jason meets the expression with an angry frown that fades to something muted and resigned.

“I rather think your da thinks everyone’s an idiot,” Dev says, opening the front door. “We’ve not given him much reason to think otherwise. But at least he sometimes likes us.”

“He likes you,” Jason corrects. “He loves me. Current ranking says I’m just below Cass unless I screw up again.”

“Oi,” Dev exclaims, stopping again halfway down the steps as Jason jogs ahead. “You’ve an actual ranked list? I’m quite certain that’s a bloody mental idea. Where’s it kept or managed?”

“Group chat,” Jason shrugs, waiting for Dev to catch up. “Tim set it up, I think to prove a point to Damian. We vote anonymously every week, but it’s basically just shuffling us around beneath Cass’ spot.”

“The wanker,” Dev mutters under his breath. But curiosity is getting the better of him anyway. “Who’s lowest, right now, then?”

Jason grins sharply, “I knew you’d have to ask.”

“Sod off,” Dev says, taking the driver’s seat. “Forget it.”

The passenger door opens and then closes as Jason climbs in and buckles. The car starts and Dev rounds the curved drive and pulls out onto the main road.

“Dick,” Jason says. “Dick is at the bottom this week.”

“I said forget it,” Dev laughs. “I’ve enough trouble without carrying all the bloody emotional insecurity wrapped up in this experiment, and I mean to have a word with Timothy.”

“You want to know why,” Jason smirks, drumming his fingers on the dash. “It’s fucking eating you alive.”

Dev focuses on the road. It’s not a difficult stretch but it’s that weird twilight time that makes it hard to see. The beat of Jason’s fingers is speeding up, gaining volume, and Dev leans over and jabs the button for the radio.

“…joining us for another fine evening here at Mountain Stage…” a calm, deep voice seeps from the speakers in contrast to Jason’s drumming, which has not relented.

“You gorram nerd,” Jason says, turning the radio up. His half-shouted words add to the cacophony. “It’s. Making. You. Go. Crazy.”

Dev slams a hand against the steering wheel and flicks the radio off. Jason’s drumming stops.

“You arse,” Dev complains. “Why is Dick at the bottom of the bloody list?”

“He…” Jason sat up in his seat and cleared his throat. “You sure you’re ready?”

“You’re as bad as your da, you know that?” Dev demands, sighing. “Are we parking at your place and walking, still?”

“That’s the plan,” Jason affirms. “Then we can puke all over my building’s parking lot and crawl up the stairs to my apartment and I can forget which pocket my key is in and we’ll both fucking panic and you can call Tim and cry while I kick my door down and set off the alarm and then Bruce can bail us out of jail in the morning.”

“When I promised to take you out for a drink, that was the promise: a drink. You even shouted as much at your da. I intend to down a pint and call it a night,” Dev says. “But I’m rather flattered you put so much thought into our theorized disorderly conduct arrest.”

“Just being fricking realistic,” Jason says, turning the radio back on and fiddling with the dials while the volume is down. “‘He who fails to plan, plans to fail.’”

“Usually planning to avoid failure doesn’t involve jail time,” Dev observes, his brow creasing. “And bloody wait a moment. Why would I ring Timothy and cry?”

“I dunno,” Jason shrugs and turns the radio back up. It’s pop music and it takes Dev a second to realize he doesn’t understand the words because it’s in Spanish. “That’s just how it worked in my head. Maybe because of that one time.”

“There was sodding fear toxin involved in that one time!” Dev yells over the music. “It’s not like it’s bloody habit!”

“It made a fricking impression, I guess,” Jason yells back. Neither of them reach to turn the radio down. “Dick threw bath bombs into the pool last week. A whole box of them. Bruce was pissed. It made the water look like pond scum and they had to drain the pool.”

“Alfie mentioned the pool had been drained but he wouldn’t say why,” Dev says. “He was rather miffed so I didn’t press.”

“It took hours,” Jason says. “And when Bruce complained, Dick’s only defense was ‘at least they were organic.’”

“What an arse,” Dev laughs.

“I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty fucking sweet. Steph said her hair smelled nice for days.”

“What, did you all swim, then?” Dev asks, startled.

“Hell yes. But we sang like gorram canaries when Bruce got home. Dick’s still mad at us and Cass is mad at Dick that he didn’t wait til she was back from Hong Kong.”

Dev frowns.

“Is this why Timothy had glitter all over his face on Wednesday?”

Jason snorts, “No. But flaming crickets, now I need to hear that story. Shut up though, I like this song.”

When they get out of the car at Jason’s apartment, Dev looks around the small alley lot and leans against the car.

“You’re not taking your gun, mate,” he says. “And where are we going, anyway?”

“I have a concealed carry!” Jason protests, slamming the door.

Dev crosses his ankles while he leans and he hums for a minute while Jason gripes and unstraps the holster.

“I mean, I don’t, but it’s not like anyone’s gonna ask.”

“Both of ‘em, mate. I’m not in the mood to survive a shoot up just because you’re buzzed.”

“You’d rather die in one?” Jason asks with a smirk. “No. I’m bringing this one. It’s my favorite.”

“What are you?” Dev asks, standing up and throwing an arm in the air. “Five?”

“It’s my security item,” Jason says seriously. “But I’ll go put the .45 in my apartment. Somebody told me there’s a new English pub near here. See if you can find directions.”

Dev sighs and pulls out his phone.

Jason comes back out into the lot a few minutes later and Dev has directions memorized already.

“It’s three blocks west, mate,” he says when Jason is closer.

“West,” Jason echoes. “Fancy. Are you showing off, Dev?”

“I’ll have you know,” Dev glares as they begin walking, “that despite your useless outrage, it was Damian who proved most helpful on that count. Also, Siri will tell me if I ask,” he admits.

“Cheater,” Jason shoots back.

The streets are crowded so they don’t talk much as they walk and Dev resists the urge to roll his eyes when the spot the pub. The facade is altered from the surrounding building in an attempt to look like a classic pub, but the result is overdone kitsch slapped onto American brick. Even the small, swinging sign is overdone.

They step into the dim interior and the whole place reeks of alcohol and grease and something Dev can’t quite place. It’s not very busy, though, and when they stop to scan the interior– Dev out of curiosity and Jason out of defensive habit– Jason heads straight for open barstools and mutters, “Shit.”

“Something wrong?” Dev asks, glancing sideways as he sits down. Jason has both hands up shielding his face but he pulls them away and keeps his shoulders hunched.

“It just fricking figures,” Jason complains. “See that guy back there?”

Dev sneaks a look over his shoulder.

There’s a disheveled looking man in a trenchcoat nursing a tall glass of beer.

“Yeah,” Dev confirms, turning back to the bar and scanning the menu. “Should we go? We can find somewhere else.”

“No,” Jason grumbles. “It’s fine. Maybe he’ll leave me alone. Just order something.”

Despite the garish, twee decor, they have a decent stock of good drinks and Dev orders for himself and Jason orders the same. The bartender doesn’t card Jason.

Before the drinks are even pulled from the tap, the seat next to Jason swivels and the trench-coated man sits down with them and plonks his beer on the bar.

“Hood,” the man hisses under his breath.

“John,” Jason acknowledges, staring stiffly ahead. “You’re a long way from London.”

“You from London, mate?” Dev asks and immediately regrets it.

“You don’t want to stay here,” the man warns, giving Dev a once over. “It’s about to get violent.”

“Are you threatening me?” Jason demands in a whisper. “Fuck off.”

Dev chews his lip and looks around, attempting to find some balance between staying out of it and keeping an eye on things. He’s a bit hampered in this by the ready acknowledgment that there’s not a whole lot he could do if things go downhill, other than keep himself in one piece or swing wildly.

“Despite our…misunderstanding last year,” the other man says slowly while the bartender sets the drinks in front of them and hurries down the bar, “I will let bygones be bygones if you get the hell out of here. I’m not particularly in the mood to explain to Bats why his death aura bird was torn to bits by a starving demon.”

Jason stiffens all over and John tilts his head toward the back of the room.

“I’ve been tracking him,” John says. “Maybe he owes me money. Maybe I just hate the bastard. None of your business. But he’s already noticed you, guv.”

Dev and Jason both look, not very subtly, at the small table of three in the corner. One of the men there is staring straight at Jason with pink-tinged eyes and a hungry expression.

“You run along and I’ll make him forget you,” John says. “We’ll say you owe me one more favor to call it even over Liverpool.”

“I’m not fricking agreeing to owe you anything,” Jason spits out. “I can take him.”

“Probably,” John tips his chin. Dev’s hand is wrapped around his beer but he hasn’t picked it up. “But likely not in one piece. I’m offering you a chance to save your evening.”

“Fine,” Jason growls. “Fudge. Fine! I owe you one. But only because Dev is here.”

“John,” the man offers, leaning forward to offer Dev his hand. Dev shakes it automatically, without thinking.

“Dr. Devabhaktuni,” he replies.

“Arsenal or Chelsea?” John asks, sipping his beer.

“West Ham,” Dev answers, standing as Jason does.

“Bollocks,” John exclaims and Dev opens his mouth to defend himself, but John is looking past him.

They all whirl to see a woman glowing at another table while a man stands with flames on his palms. Their argument is growing in volume and is definitely not English.

“What is this?” Jason growls at John. “A fricking meta bar?”

“You are a bright one,” John says, downing the rest of his beer. “Get your friend out of here. I’ll handle this.”

“Go,” Jason snaps at Dev, pulling on his arm. “Go, go, go.”

The table between the arguing couple explodes into splinters that almost as quickly freeze, suspended in the air while smoke seeps around their feet. Two more patrons are yelling now and Dev doesn’t have to be told a fifth time.

Out on the sidewalk, they can see the bartender slamming a silver-tipped spear– a spear– on the bar while he stands and shouts at the couple. John is already in the corner with the demon, his hands around the thing’s throat.

“Should we,” Dev swallows, “uh, should we help?”

“No,” Jason spits out, looking uneasy. “John’s a grown-up. Let’s go find another bar. Fucking magicians.”

They’re a few steps away when Dev stops and says, “We didn’t pay.”

“We didn’t drink anything!” Jason exclaims.

“I should go back,” Dev insists.

“You’d go back into that?” Jason asks incredulously. Dev spins on the sidewalk. The window into the bar is glowing faintly blue and there’s shouting in Latin coming from inside, faint and muffled by the glass.

“Bloody hell, it’s not like I want to,” Dev says. “But it does rather seem like the sort of place that might hunt one down. Just the bartender alone…”

“Had a stake for vampires, not thieving mortals. It was a little redundant but hey, who could blame him. Write down the damn address,” Jason says, grabbing his arm again and hauling him down the sidewalk with a determined frown. “Mail it.”

Dev stops resisting and Jason lets go of his arm.

“Ugh,” Jason says, shuddering a moment later as they walk. “Death aura. He’s so full of shit.”

“You alright, mate?” Dev asks. “We can call it a night.”

“It’s barely evening and you promised me a beer,” Jason says firmly. “I’m fine. Let’s just go into the first place we find.”

The next place they find looks normal on the outside but turns out to be a pulsing, noisy blacklist club once they’re inside, so they duck right back out.

The second place, however, seems normal if slightly run-down. They both order beers, again. Dev slightly mourns the loss of his earlier, nicer beer but doesn’t complain.

“Happy birthday,” he says, lifting the beer. Jason lifts his in return and but instead of cheer, his face goes blank and instead of thanks, what comes out of his mouth is,

“Don’t move.”

Dev freezes. Jason is looking down the bar with his beer suspended and he slowly lowers it.

“Good gravy,” he exclaims in a harsh whisper. “That’s Tim’s guy. Shit, he’s leaving. Call Tim.”

Without more warning, Jason slides off the stool and reels backward as if drunk, falling against a man in a bright Hawaiian print shirt and white khakis, talking on his phone.

“What the hell,” the man exclaims, as Jason staggers against him.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Jason warns the man, slurring his words.

“Not on these shoes, you aren’t!” the man yells, stepping back. Jason goes with him, clutching the shirt.

“Benny, ya always been there for me,” Jason moans, sounding near tears.

Dev is so startled, watching this, that he feels a stab of panic when he realizes he’s wasted valuable seconds not calling Tim. He presses the contact on his phone and it goes to voicemail while Jason is profusely apologizing to the man while sniffling, promising to make it up to him.

It’s actually dark outside now and on a hopeful gut feeling, he calls Barbara Gordon instead.

“Hiya, Dev,” she answers. “What’s up?”

“Is Red out?” he asks, facing the bar with his head ducked down.

“Yep,” she answers, sounding more serious. “Something wrong?”

“Give him my location?” Dev asks, muting the receiver and turning it to speaker phone. He sets it on the counter.

“You sure you ain’t Benny?” Jason asks, squinting. He pats the man’s hair while leaning on the guy’s shoulder. “You look so much like him, I swear it’s like youse was twins.”

“No,” the man snaps. “I’m Warren Oliver. Half the town knows me.”

“Benny, you don’t gotta lie. I swear I’ve got the money,” Jason wheedles, his face an expression of grave hurt when the man shoves him off. “I know I said I didn’t but you don’t gotta be mean. I came into some. I got it with me, look? I even brought my accountant so we can do it right. I just got a little bored waitin’ for ya, but I can sober up.”

Jason begins crying.

The man gives Dev an up and down look.

“This is your accountant?” he asks skeptically, now no longer refuting his name. Dev isn’t sure if this is because he had been lying or because Jason mentioned money. Either way, he’s not trying to leave.

“I’m not bloody well going to wear office clothes out to drink,” Dev snaps at him and from the other side of the man, away from the man’s attention, Jason gives Dev the briefest of thumbs up.

“Let’s talk,” the man says, “what kind of money? You know I doubled my interest rates last week. It’s a tough economy.”

“It’d be more but my uncle liked Jackie better, everybody always said so,” Jason says bitterly, his words still slurred. “He only left me half his million.”

Dev sees the man’s eyes widen and then gain a predatory gleam.

“Well, we can work with that. I can be charitable,” the man says coolly. “Should we talk?”

“I need some air,” Jason says loudly, “I need some air. It stinks in here.”

He stumbles out the door and the man follows. Dev throws a ten on the bar and takes his phone and goes out after them with a suppressed sigh.

“I have an office,” the man says.

“It stinks everywhere,” Jason complains. “I never did get why youse like this hellhole, Benny.”

There’s a flash of red and black and the man screams as he’s swept off the sidewalk and carries into the air, swinging from a grappling line.

“That’s our exit cue,” Jason says, standing upright and hurrying away. A small crowd of angry faces has appeared at the bar door and one of them swears at Dev. He hurries to catch up with Jason just as two of them decide he’s worth chasing.

“Run,” Jason orders, turning mid-stride with his fist raised.

“Other arm!” Dev bellows, thinking of Jason’s tendon just recovered from surgery.

“Augh,” Jason growls, switching mid-swing and losing a lot of momentum. He still catches the first pursuer on the jaw hard enough to throw the man backward. His friend stops to help him and Jason runs with Dev.

They’re two blocks away before it’s clear the others gave up, maybe not in the mood for a fight. Dev feels like they narrowly escaped disaster and his heart is thudding in his chest but Jason is grinning.

“Great day!” he says, pleased with himself. “Did you fricking see that? I didn’t even pull my piece.”

“I’m so,” Dev gasps, catching his breath and attempting sarcasm anyway, “proud of you.”

“You jumped right in!” Jason says, pleased. “But I’d like to thank the men and women of the Academy–”

“You’ve not won an Oscar, mate,” Dev claps Jason on the back. “It was a bit over the top.”

“Professional jealousy,” Jason says, pushing back his hair. “Come lick your wounds at my after party.”

“Speaking of after party,” Dev says, looking around them. “That was the second time we’ve had to leave beers.”

But Jason’s good mood isn’t so easily dampened.

“C’mon,” he says. “Don’t fricking pout. It was shitty beer anyway. We’ll just go to the bar near my place. Nothing exciting but it’s a quiet place, at least.”

“Does it rather defeat the purpose if we go the place that you already drink?” Dev asks, pushing his own flopped over hair out of his eyes. Steph has been teasing him about needing a haircut and he hasn’t admitted it to himself until right now.

“Do you want a beer or not?” Jason asks. “Hell, Dev. I’m just gonna be glad to have one at this point. We could go to an Applebee’s at this point, for all I care.”

“Let’s do that,” Dev says with a grin. “They’ll card you. Where’s the closest?”

Jason sighs heavily, an exaggerated noise, and slumps forward.

“I can’t fricking talk you out of it now, can I?”

“Bloody hell, no,” Dev says. “Siri, where’s the closest Applebee’s?”

“There’s one close to my place,” Jason grumbles before Dev’s phone can answer. Dev clicks the phone off. “I hate you.”

They walk in silence, Jason kicking against the concrete sidewalk as they go. Dev’s mood is considerably improved even if it’s solely on the basis of him being difficult.

The restaurant is built into the ground floor of another building that towers above the sidewalk and they go in through the heavy glass and wood doors to the sounds of conversation and large-screen TVs set to sports channels. After assuring the bored-looking man at the front that they just want the bar and not menus, they’re let in and sit beneath a screen where two men are debating team rosters.

A very pregnant bartender takes their drink orders and says, a little apologetically, “I need some ID, buddy.”

Jason shoots Dev a dirty look while taking his wallet out and showing it to her.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jason says to the bartender in a much kinder tone than his look to Dev. “It’s your job.”

“Aw, happy birthday,” she says, nodding. “I’ll tell the kitchen.”

“Dev,” Jason whines after she goes. “They’re gonna sing or something effing embarrassing.”

The bartender is pulling drinks from the tap on the wall and she stops mid-drink while Dev watches, then she continues after a moment.

“So, you’ll love it, then?” Dev asks. “Mr. Academy Award?”

Jason breathes out long and slow between gritted teeth.

“Steve,” the bartender says to a passing waiter, “tell Taylor to send a slice of cake to the bar. Something nice. Hey, kid, you like maple?”

“Sure,” Jason shrugs.

“One of those blondies,” she clarifies to the waiter.

She’s two steps away from them with the beers in her hand when her whole body jerks and one beer drops to the floor and shatters, splashing everywhere behind the counter. Dev and Jason half-rise from their stools in unison to look over.

“Shit,” she says in a tight voice. “I’m sorry.” She’s still gripping one beer, white-knuckled, and is bent forward but doesn’t kneel to pick up the shards of glass.

“How far apart?” Dev asks and she looks up at him, escaped strands from her ponytail framing her pale face.

“What?” she demands, as if offended.

“Dev’s a doctor,” Jason says, hopping over the bar. He crouches and picks up pieces of glass with his finger tips, and the protest she half-shouts dies away within a second.

“Two minutes,” she says, taking a deeper breath and grabbing a trash bin. She holds it out to Jason. “But only for the past fifteen minutes or so.”

Dev has been hoping the pause at the tap was a beer quality thing.

Dev knew before he asked her that it was a false hope.

He forces himself to sound calm even though the last thing he wants to deal with tonight is delivering a baby.

“Ma’am,” he says, “I don’t want to be a sodding bother, but that sounds rather a good bit like labor.”

“‘Rather a good bit’,” Jason mimics in a mocking tone, but Dev hears a mild edge of fear in it.

“No,” she says dismissively. “It’s just those false contractions. I’m not due for another three weeks. And my water hasn’t even broken.”

Dev closes his eyes, very briefly, and then looks right at her.

“I’m well aware this is going to sound bloody rude, but is it possible that you’re in denial?”

“Oh my god,” she says, her eyes wide. “Oh my god.”

She stops again, one hand to her belly, and leans on the trashcan propped precariously on the rubber mats behind the bar. This time, a groan escapes her while she’s bent there.

“Oh my god,” she hisses for a third time. “And while my car is in the shop. Damn it, Ryan.”

“Everything okay?” a waiter pokes his head over the bar.

“Call me a cab,” she hisses back. “Right now.”

“With the Knights pre-game happening?” he asks, startled. “Are you kidding?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” she snaps.

“We’ll give you a ride,” Jason says quickly, standing and flicking beer off his fingers. “Dev works at the hospital.”

“I’m a neurosurgeon,” Dev says. He’s not trying to brag; he intended it as an argument against Jason’s implied transfer of authority.

“Thank you,” she says with relief, which is not the reaction he was hoping for, but he swallows his own inherent desire to avoid involvement here and mentally shifts to state of mind more suited for work.

“Jason, go get my car,” he says, tossing the younger man the keys. Jason ignores the swinging door set in the bar and jumps over the counter again. He hits the ground running. The bartender moves more slowly, taking the time to untie her apron and throw it over the bar, which strikes Dev as oddly mundane.

“I’m an idiot,” she mutters. “An idiot. I just didn’t want it to happen this soon.”

“It’s alright,” Dev says gently. “Is this your first?”

“Do I look like an expert?” she shoots back, with a frustrated frown. She winces and leans on a bar stool. “Yes.”

“I’m Dr. Dev,” he says. “What’s your name?”

“Yvonne,” she says, her jaw tense. “And I’m not having this baby in Applebee’s.”

“No,” he agrees, almost as much for himself as for her, he thinks. “You aren’t. Can you make it to the front alone? I’ll lend my arm if you need it.”

“I can walk,” she says, standing and moving slowly.

A few people are watching but also keeping their heads down, staying out of it now that it’s clearly not turning into something to film or anything more exciting. By the time she makes it to the front door, a busboy has handed off her purse to Dev and Jason is parked halfway on the sidewalk arguing with a cop.

“Oh,” the cop says when Dev and Yvonne emerge. She gives him the finger and he backs off.

“I freaking told you!” Jason snaps and the officer leaves after threatening to write a ticket if he sees Jason again. The car is still idling and Jason pauses by the bumper, while Dev opens the rear door for Yvonne. “You or me driving?” he asks.

“You,” Dev answers, sliding onto the rear bench to sit with her just in case. For the first time in months, he’s grateful that Tim talked him into getting a bigger car when he replaced the hatchback. Inside, she moans while trying to buckle. “Don’t bother,” he tells her.

“I’m not gonna kill me and my baby,” she argues, clicking the seat belt clasp into place anyway.

Jason peels off the sidewalk and into traffic, which is thankfully light.

“Fastest way to hospital?” he asks, taking a left.

“Why are you driving if you don’t know that?” Dev exclaims angrily. “Take Wilson street up here.”

“Which one is Wilson? None of the signs are up!”

“Oh my god,” Yvonne says.

“The one with– right there– the one with the Asylum Coffeeshop and you missed it already. Take Killdeer instead.”

“Why didn’t you just say that?” Jason yells. “Who gives directions with street names? Do I go north or south to avoid the one-ways?”

“Can everybody just calm down,” Yvonne asks in a deadly quiet tone.

“Siri, which–”

“Don’t fucking ask Siri,” Jason snaps at Dev. “Killdeer, I see it, good freaking lord. Left?”

“Right!” Dev corrects, trying to curb his mounting frustration.

“Left is right or right, right?” Jason asks.

“Toward the dry cleaner with the busted machines,” Yvonne says, swearing right after.

“Thank you!” Jason says, jerking the wheel.

“I’m gonna die,” Yvonne says and Dev stops watching the road and cringing at Jason’s driving and refocusing. She’s got a thin sheen of sweat on her brow and her hand is splayed across the seat.

“My driving isn’t that bad,” Jason says, sounding worried.

Dev offers her his hand and she takes it and squeezes hard.

“I’m gonna die,” she says again. “This is gonna kill me. I want an epidural. I changed my mind.”

Something, a small light, goes off in the back of Dev’s mind from years ago during his residency rotations and it is only years of practice that keep him from cringing.

“Love, I’m quite sure it’s too late for that,” he says in an apologetic tone. It’s unpleasant but it’s also pointless to not be truthful. “Jason, a bit faster, mate?”

“Just take me home,” she says. “I’m not doing this today.”

“What?” Jason yelps.

“Ignore that,” Dev says sternly. “You’re doing rather well,” he says to her. “Honestly.”

“You really are,” Jason says, looking at her in the rearview mirror. He’s acting far less panicked now that he’s on a familiar route. “I’ve whined and cried more about a broken arm before, and that’s nothing.”

She’s looking at Jason now as he talks, telling her about another pregnant woman he helped who was apparently “a screamer,” and Dev uses his free hand to pull out his phone and dial a memorized number.

“Emergency department,” the nurse answers.

“Hullo,” he says. “This is Dr. Devabhaktuni from neurology. I’m enroute with an L&D patient who’s–” he glances over as Yvonne’s grip tightens and she groans, a deep and buried sound. “I’d say she’s in transition,” he assesses.

“I’ll have an OB down here,” the nurse promises. “How far away are you?”

“Less than five minutes,” he says and hangs up.

“I’m gonna hurl,” Yvonne says, her hands shaking. “Your car.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dev assures her, grabbing an empty coffee cup Tim had left in the cup holder earlier in the day. He pries the lid off and holds the cup for her. “This might help but honestly, if you miss, the car will clean up.”

She’s crying now, and stops to vomit as predicted, and begins crying again.

“You’re both being so nice,” she complains. “My deadbeat ex-boyfriend isn’t even in town. I was gonna be all alone.”

Yvonne groans again and Dev puts the cup back down in the cup holder just as Jason skids to a stop in front of the ER doors. A nurse is waiting with a wheelchair and Dev suspects it’s for Yvonne but he’s willing to commandeer it if not.

“We have Dr. Hawkins down here,” the nurse says as Dev opens the door for Yvonne, who refuses for a moment to move while she trembles. Then she hurries from car to wheelchair, sitting sideways. “They’re prepping a room down here.”

The nurse begins asking Yvonne questions that the woman answers with gasping breaths and Jason stands next to the car, looking helpless. Dev lets the nurse push her away until Yvonne twists her head and cries, “Wait, aren’t you coming?”

Jason and Dev exchange a glance and almost as quickly she says, “No, no, it’s okay, it’s okay, you don’t even know me.”

“We’ll stay,” Jason says, striding forward with Dev at his side. “What’s a little more blood in our lives.”

“I think I need to push,” Yvonne moans in answer to this. “Like, right now.”

“Wait,” the nurse says sharply.

“You’re fine,” Dev says, taking her hand again. “It’s alright. Take a deep breath. We’re nearly there and you can do whatever you need.”

An hour later, Jason and Dev sit in Dev’s own office, looking a little shell-shocked.

“Fuck,” Jason says after five minutes of quiet.

“Fuck,” Dev answers wearily.

“Fuck!” Jason exclaims, looking at Dev.

“Fuck,” Dev agrees, leaning back in his office chair. “This is why I’m not an OB.”

“Okay, now I need a beer,” Jason says. “But what the fricking hell happens if we try again?”

“We can’t risk it,” Dev says.

“I mean, at least she’s okay. And the baby,” Jason says, as if to himself. “It wasn’t that bad. It’s a good thing, even.”

“Yeah,” Dev nods. “Could have been much worse, bloody hell.”

“We’re gonna go get a beer anyway, right?” Jason asks, slumping down on the office couch. “Just say screw it and go?”

“Wake me up in an hour and ask,” Dev says, letting his eyes drift shut. “Maybe I’ll have rallied by then.”

“Okay,” Jason says. “This is a gorram comfortable couch. I’ll just wait for you.”

Jason himself is pretty drowsy, coming off an adrenaline high.

“Happy birthday, Zombie Boy,” Dev says, reclining the office chair with a lever.

“You haven’t called me that all day,” Jason mumbles. “Thought you were going soft, Dr. Frankenstein.”

“Bloody hell, no,” Dev says. “Just don’t like upsetting Alfie.”

Jason doesn’t answer. He’s already asleep.

Dev is out a moment later, the office light still on overhead.