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ploppythespaceship · 2 years

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Superman & Lois Season 2 - Thoughts & Review

If I had to pick one word to describe this season, it would be uneven. The overall plot is excellent and the story beats themselves work for the most part -- if you just read the Wikipedia summary of this season, it would sound absolutely incredible. It works on a macro level. But on a micro level, it’s something else entirely. There’s too much going on and not enough room to let things breathe, leading to quite a few characters and plotlines getting let down.

The season is not terrible. The show still has incredibly strong characters and good performances, with a lot of great plot twists to keep me engaged despite the mess. But it did wind up disappointing, because all the pieces were there to make something incredible, just assembled wrong.

So I want to talk about it all -- the good, the bad, the could have been better. I want to stress that I adore the show and these characters, which is why I find it so disappointing that this season was a bit of a mess. These criticisms are made with love.

This is a lot longer than my usual ones, so strap in. Heavy spoilers for all of season two under the cut.

What I Liked

The overall plot is just a lot of fun. There are great twists, nail-biting moments to keep you on your toes... despite my many complaints about this season, I was consistently engaged and never bored.

Tyler Hoechlin’s performance as Clark remains the single best part of the entire show. He’s just so refreshingly good, finding that balance of being a god-like alien with the weight of the world on his shoulders while also being just a guy trying to raise his kids. I also loved his little arc of losing his powers in the last few episodes, and having to deal with being helpless for once.

Jordan gets to become more of a hero this season, and it’s excellent. I love watching him come into his own with his powers, and try to take things on for himself. This was probably the strongest arc of the whole season, building up consistently and believably with plenty of good payoff. (My favorite scene of the entire season was Clark giving Jordan flying lessons up in the Arctic.)

Lana Lang is just a powerhouse this season, and Emmanuelle Chriqui may have surpassed Kristin Kreuk as my favorite version of the character. I saw a fair amount of hate for her, but I just could not disagree more. Watching her handle learning that Kyle had cheated on her, then turn that pain into triumph to become mayor, and then finally entering into the world of secrets that the rest of the characters have been dealing with... hers is one of the few arcs this season that rarely wavered.

Sarah is also great this season. Again, I saw a lot of hate for her, which I have to assume largely stems from her being a bisexual latina teenage girl who isn’t afraid to speak her mind. Apart from a small goof at the start of the season (more on that later) I thought Sarah was another character whose arc rarely wavered. She’s a girl figuring out her place in the world while everything she knows and love shifts around her, and she’s just doing her best. Inde Navarrette did an excellent job with some tough scenes, too.

John Henry and Natalie are just so good. John is the unsung hero of the series, and I loved him briefly settling into more of a co-parent role with Clark and Lois at the start of the season. And Natalie is such a badass. She brings a breath of fresh air to every scene that she’s in.

I adored the direction that they took Tal, even if it happened so quickly that it gave me whiplash. Transitioning him from powerful villain to weird uncle is the best possible choice. I also like that he’s used sparingly, helping out but not taking over the story.

I really liked Anderson at the start of the season. I love the idea of Clark coming into conflict with this soldier who just has a very different ideology. Neither of them is wrong, exactly, they just have different priorities and can’t see eye to eye because of it. It was a much more interesting and nuanced take on an antagonist role, and excellent while it lasted.

Jon-El, my beloved. Whoever decided that the Bizarro version of Jonathan should be an emo mess of a villain is a genius. He’s just so fun, and such a fascinating parallel to the original Jonathan. Jordan Elsass absolutely killed it.

I liked Jordan and Sarah’s relationship drama... eventually. The stuff at the start of the season didn’t work at all (again, more on that later). But after that it transitioned to them struggling as a natural result of the characters and their roles in the story -- Jordan is always off doing things with his family, which he can’t tell Sarah about, but Sarah can tell that he’s lying to her and feels like he’s not trusting or supporting her while she’s struggling with her own stuff. Like everything else in the season this was extremely rushed, basically only happening over the course of one episode, but it was still a great development for the relationship.

I love that the Bizarro world is just stupid fun. The concept is inherently ridiculous and I’m glad that they leaned into the camp rather than trying to play it completely straight. It’s a parallel world where the earth is square, everything is tinted red, things are backwards, and everyone’s emo -- it doesn’t have to be serious.

I love the creation of a new Fortress, with Clark stressing that it’s for all of them. It gives me hope that Jonathan’s character arc isn’t entirely lost.

And lastly, my hot take -- I am completely fine with the show not taking place on Earth-Prime with the rest of the Arrowverse shows. I actually think it’s for the best. Trying to slot this into the rest of the canon, especially with Supergirl, was getting very confusing. Unshackling the series from anything pre-established gives them more room to just focus on these characters and these storylines, and I genuinely believe this can only be a good thing moving forward. (Also, the Arrowverse is basically dead at this point. The only series still standing is The Flash, and most people think it will end soon. I’m glad that this show won’t be sinking with the rest of the ship.)

What I Didn’t Like

By far the worst aspect of this season is simply the sheer amount of plotlines the writers tried to tackle in only fifteen episodes. There’s so much happening, all the time, that everything is overcrowded and plots don’t have room to breathe. So things wind up rushed, or dropped entirely when there just isn’t space for them. They desperately needed to either extend the season to give everything more time to develop, or just trimmed a few plotlines -- possibly both.

If there is any one plot that I wish I could remove from the season entirely, it’s the Sarah/Aubrey plotline. Right off the bat, it’s kinda gross to introduce your only bi character as bi by having her cheat on her boyfriend with a girl. And then the aftermath is handled so strangely, putting the impetus on Jordan to fix things rather than Sarah, the one who actually did something wrong. Besides that, there was more than enough cause for them to be struggling in their relationship without this arc, with Jordan starting to become a hero more naturally leading to him being unable to balance things with Sarah. Frankly, that’s a far more interesting way to introduce relationship drama that feels real and understandable for both characters, and doesn’t rely on biphobic tropes. The few scenes with Aubrey could have been easily reworked for Natalie instead, as Sarah and Nat had a great friendship developing that I would have loved to see more of.

Lois feels like a bit of an afterthought this season, like she’s just supporting everyone else’s storylines rather than having her own. I thought her driving force for the season was going to be investigating the Inverse Society and taking down Ally’s cult, but once the Bizarro world was introduced, that pretty much disappeared. Her behavior in the first episode was also very pointless and strange. I feel like they only included it to get some convenient out of context clips for the trailers.

Ally is a fairly meh villain. It’s an interesting concept, and I think the actress did a fairly good job, but she doesn’t have that personal connection with the characters or quite the presence to pull it off.

I said I liked Anderson at first, and I did. But the end of his character was very strange. His abrupt turn to join Ally felt unclear and unmotivated, and he became much less interesting as a result. Then he has an equally abrupt turn back to Clark’s side. I think they were trying to say that he pretended to join Ally to learn her plan, or something, but this was extremely unclear and didn’t make much sense. His heroic sacrifice lacked a lot of punch as a result of that, and the character ultimately wound up being sort of incomprehensible.

I adore the decision to have Clark finally tell Lana his secret. But it desperately needed more buildup. Clark comes back from the Bizarro world, and everyone suddenly acts like his secret is the worst thing that’s ever happened and actively ruining their lives -- some of them have good points, but it still feels incredibly forced. Then Clark decides that Lana deserves to know the truth because she’s in danger, and he owes it to her. I think the season just needed more moments where Clark’s secret was actually affecting Lana, such as him needing to dash off suddenly when she needs him for something, and it was genuinely putting a strain on their friendship. Then the decision would feel more satisfying and like more of a payoff.

Also, while most of Lana’s reaction was understandable and well-handled, her choice to blame Lois was just strange, especially when Lana was the one primarily pushing for their friendship in season one. I could have accepted it as Lana lashing out and not really thinking clearly because she’s hurt, but then having Lois apologize and say that Lana was right? No. Lois is not a terrible person for being a friend, and it’s ridiculous for the show to claim otherwise.

The decision to tell Chrissy was very odd, too. I think the idea was to show her relationship with Lois struggling because Lois couldn’t confide in her, with the reveal being the payoff. But Chrissy’s presence was so inconsistent that it just wasn’t established enough. I’m honestly not sure why Chrissy got promoted to the main cast when her role feels even smaller than last season’s.

While I adore the Irons, I do think they were handled inconsistently. They would often just disappear for episodes at a time. It was set up that Lois and Natalie getting to know each other would be a big part of the season, but that arc basically disappeared after a few episodes. And the small arc of Natalie learning to trust Clark despite him looking like the man who killed her mom happened way too late in the story -- why is this only coming up now? Months after you’ve been living with the man with zero issue?

Not to mention that Natalie becoming a hero was incredibly rushed. She builds a suit and tells Jonathan he can use it, but it’s clearly custom built for her and the idea of him wearing it never comes up again. She then gets to work as a hero alongside her dad and is immediately the coolest badass of the entire show. Don’t get me wrong, I adore this development for her, but it felt very strange watching Jordan have to train and work to become a hero and get his ass handed to him repeatedly, while Natalie just puts on a suit and is suddenly amazing in a fight despite having no experience. They should have either introduced the suit sooner and let her start training for most of the season, or just put this plot off until next season.

Tal had a very steady arc that gradually turned him from enemy to reluctant ally -- and then suddenly in the finale it was like he was Clark’s best friend, with him even claiming that the Kents are the only people on this planet he cares about. Sorry, but that development happened way too fast for me. I can buy him showing up to help, but statements of that level need at least another season to be believable.

There were quite a few scenes were people with powers beat the shit out of someone, and the other characters just stand around staring and occasionally yelling. And while it’s probably realistic -- if you don’t have powers you’re not gonna get between two Kryptonians -- it’s not very engaging to watch. And I refuse to believe that Lois would watch someone beating the shit out of her son and not do something.

It also felt odd to me that at no point did any of the characters arm themselves with weapons to fight Jon-El and Bizarro!Lana. They have an arsenal of Kryptonite weapons, and some of them can probably be reworked to use X-K instead. When you know that superpowered villains might show up at any time to try and kill you, would you not arm yourself? Jonathan especially, who has shown no hesitation to arm himself before now and whose arc revolves around feeling unsafe and unspecial... why the hell would he not have taken one of John Henry’s weapons again?

But speaking of Jonathan... he definitely got the short end of the stick this season, with his character getting the worst of the rushed and overcrowded storylines. There was so much potential for him to have a truly phenomenal arc, but the writers completely dropped the ball every single time. I have a lot to say here (no really it’s a lot), which is why I’ve left him for last.

Let’s start with the X-K arc. The development of Jon taking X-K is very good and well-motivated. But then the writers decide to overcomplicate things -- instead of simply being caught for taking the drugs, which is the most straightforward, Jon is caught trying to cover for the seller, his girlfriend Candice, and is briefly believed to be selling the drugs. The setup for this is so bad that I actually laughed out loud when I first saw it. Cops are in the school with drug-sniffing dogs, and when Candice freaks out that she’ll be caught, Jon says he’ll get rid of them for her and that no one will check him because he’s a good kid. All of this happens while the cops are in clear view, maybe fifteen feet away down the hall -- and literally seconds later one of the dogs catches Jon. When this happens, no one suspects Candice, despite her being directly in front of him looking extremely worried. I swear everyone involved in this scene had to drop twenty IQ points.

Then we get to the real crux of the plot, which is Jon refusing to name his supplier because he wants to protect Candice, prompting his parents to get very, very upset with him. Again, this makes no sense. We as the audience don’t know Candice nearly well enough to buy that Jon cares about her this much -- she has no development outside of being Jon’s drug-dealing girlfriend. On top of that, Jon was not the only person buying from her, as it’s established that several other team members were as well, including several that were also caught. Are you really telling me that no one ratted her out? The entire plot falls apart under the lightest bit of scrutiny.

The worst part is that very little of it winds up mattering. Sam gives Candice full immunity, so she escapes all consequences -- and hilariously disappears from the show almost entirely once this happens, all but confirming that she only existed for this one plotline. And Jon gets back into school, negating most of his consequences as well. The only real lasting consequence is Jonathan’s strained relationship with his parents, primarily Clark, and his feelings of inadequacy and helplessness being brought to the forefront.

But then the season refuses to actually resolve either of these. Ever. I’m still kind of in shock that none of this ever got conclusively wrapped up. While Lois takes the time to sit with Jon and listen to why he did this, Clark never gets to have that same moment. When Jon acted out in season one, Clark decided against punishing him and instead focused on why he was struggling, addressing that instead -- where the hell did that empathy go? I wouldn’t go so far to say Clark is a terrible parent, as others have done, but it definitely feels odd that we never got a clear moment of Clark just hearing his son out.

Clark does get one heart-to-heart with him, which takes the form of “you’re gonna recover from this and I’ll always be there for you.” That’s only half of the conversation they need to have, though. No one ever address Jonathan’s feelings. Not to mention that Clark immediately ditches him to go fly around with Jordan. Jon does call him out on this, but the plot intervenes before they can talk about it, and it doesn’t come up again. Jon spends most of the finale not doing much of anything, just sort of standing around being sad and scared while the story happens around him.

It’s like they just forgot to finish his storyline. Jon’s arc this season is about feeling inadequate and helpless -- and this is resolved by making him inadequate and helpless. Literally, what the fuck? Did the writers actually think they’d addressed this in a satisfying way? Cause they weren’t remotely close. Ideally I would have loved to see Jon face off with Jon-El to really explore the parallels and differences between them. But barring that, they still could have done something with him. Given him some role in the finale that plays to his strengths as a character, like the season one finale did.

For resolving his conflict with Clark, the answer is painfully obvious. Clark loses his powers during the finale and has to deal with feeling helpless -- which is how Jonathan feels every day. This would naturally lead to Clark having a better understanding of what Jonathan’s going through, and realizing why he feels so unsafe and unheard. This is so obvious to me that I genuinely thought this was how the finale would go.

It’s just such a shame. Jonathan was such a standout character in season one that watching the writers completely drop the ball with him hurts a bit more than the rest.

And very lastly, I know this isn’t really anyone’s fault. But the constant hiatuses made this season feel strange to watch. They’ve said it shouldn’t be as much of an issue going forward, but I can’t deny that having so many big breaks soured my enjoyment somewhat.

#personal #superman and lois #superman and lois spoilers #this one actually did get so long #and a third of this is just rambling about how poorly jon's arc was handled #welp

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ragnarokhound · 2 months

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((you don’t have to do both if you don’t want to, you can consider this one a back up / alt))

“If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here.” 💞

From this writing prompt list i reblogged in...november lmao fljdsjfa

anyway this grew legs and sprinted away the second I picked it up yesterday - clearly it just needed some time to proof lmao. Thank you for the ask, tauria!! From *checks watch* almost 5 months ago fjdslafjsa I will be cross-posting it to Ao3 in my new oneshot collection fic :)

Warnings for: Vague allusions that Ra's Al Ghul is a creep (what else is new), threats of gun violence, canon-typical violence

15. “If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here.”

When Tim arrived in Gotham this morning, he had no way of knowing that his day would end in Jason Todd’s bed.

Frankly, he wasn’t really sure what bed he’d end up in— because his own certainly wasn’t an option right now. But If he had to pick, Jason Todd’s was somewhere near the bottom of whatever list he’d make.

He didn’t exactly plan on this, okay?

But, uh. Let’s back up a little.

—

Tim knew his day was going to go to shit when he got back from the airport at 7 AM.

He had his driver drop him off two blocks away from his townhouse for the sake of caffeine at the hole in the wall place he likes. Wealthy CEO he may be, but a sixteen hour flight is still a sixteen hour flight and Tim is cursed with an inability to sleep in the air.

Don’t ask. He’s tried. It doesn’t work.

So he wants coffee, and he wants a shower, and he wants his own bed. In that order.

With the first thing on his list acquired and blessedly burning his tongue, he managed to tug his brain cells together enough to realize that the building they’d passed that had been shrouded in tents and canvas was his building.

"What's going on here?"

The worker outside his building looks up from her clipboard, her face wrinkling into apprehensive confusion.

"Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

He hasn’t slept in roughly seventy two hours. He is not awake or patient enough for this.

“My name is Tim Drake. I own this building. What’s going on here?” He repeats.

The woman raises her eyebrows and looks down at her clipboard again. “Mr. Drake?” She questions, clearly expecting him to look like a grown-ass man and not a sleep-deprived college student coming home from spring break or whatever.

“Yes. Timothy Drake-Wayne. Why are you—” he tries to gesture with the hand still holding his suitcase handle, walking towards the tarps and tents erected around his townhouse with increasing trepidation, “—here?”

“I’m sorry sir, but you can’t go in there. Not for at least forty-eight hours.”

Tim stops in his tracks.

“Forty-eight—?”

“We've been scheduled to fumigate the property today.” She says it like she’s reading it out of a handbook. “It won't be safe to enter the building for at least forty-eight hours. You should have received prior notice. Uh. Sir.”

Tim's jet-lagged brain kicks into overdrive.

Bruce hasn't made any disappointed noises about Tim’s perfectly normal work ethic lately so it probably wasn't a misguided attempt at benching him. And besides, rendering Tim’s apartment inaccessible is counterproductive on that front.

Dick wouldn’t. They haven’t been exactly— great, lately but he wouldn’t. Besides, if he wanted to get Tim out of the house more, he’d show up to drag Tim out into the daylight himself. This is a little too roundabout for him.

It’s too much work to be Steph. She would think it’s funny, but there’s no way she’d follow through.

Damian might, but this doesn’t quite fit his preferred methods for making Tim’s life hell. It could be some cloak and dagger maneuver to leave him vulnerable, faking a complaint to the city so he’ll—

And then Tim thinks about the call.

The call he’d brushed off at fuck o’clock in the morning somewhere over Europe, too busy with another project. The call his secretary took for him instead. He thinks about the distracted confirmation he’d given to whatever it was she’d asked him about five minutes later.

He also thinks about the form he signed about two weeks ago, before this last minute trip to Hong Kong had consumed his entire attention. The one with “Two Weeks Notice” stamped across the top. His stomach sinks.

“Today,” he repeats.

She looks apologetic. “Today,” she confirms. “And we just started about an hour ago. I’m very sorry, Mr. Drake-Wayne but—”

"No it's—" he says through gritted teeth, "fine. I'll just. Make other arrangements."

—

He does not make other arrangements. Though not for lack of trying.

Tim has a handful of safehouses scattered throughout the city. He has options. He gets a taxi to the closest neighborhood, and nearly falls asleep in the backseat. The cabby has to knock on the glass divider to get his attention when they come to a stop. He grumbles and hauls his suitcase out of the backseat, and tips the man excessively.

Shower. Bed. Sleep. He’s so close he could cry.

Except when he finally rolls around the block, coffee half gone and trying to remember if this safehouse is the one with in-unit laundry or if he’ll have to haul his shit down to the laundry room, his building is a blackened husk with police tape all around it.

He stops on the sidewalk. He peers up at the window of his unit, squinting at the peeling black wood and shattered glass. He ponders whether two is enough data points to be considered a pattern. And whether he could get away with napping in the alley on this street or if that’ll end with him stabbed and robbed.

As he’s pondering, he catches sight of a passerby and stops him.

“‘Scuse me,” he says apologetically. “What the hell happened here?”

The guy looks up from his phone and takes in his rumpled clothes, his suitcase, and the scorched remains of his apartment.

“Oh, uh. Yeah, there was a big fire about a week back? Bad fire. Took out, like, half the block. Cops are saying it’s arson.”

“A week ago,” Tim repeats. The guy’s eyes widen.

“Oh shit, bro, did you live here?”

“I’ve been out of town,” he explains numbly.

“Dude, that sucks. And right in the middle of con’ season. Good luck finding a hotel!”

“Yeah,” Tim sighs as the guy walks away. “Thanks.”

—

The next safehouse he tries isn’t in much better shape.

He remembers hearing about Freeze going on a rampage a few days into his trip, but he hadn’t realized another one of his places had been caught in the cross-fire. The cold burst the pipes, and now the whole place is undergoing renovation.

He hears all this from the crotchety old lady who lives in the next building over (her building needs renovation too, but will the city pay for it? Of course not, they weren’t ‘directly impacted by disaster’ so they won’t see a penny of relief funds even though their pipes are on the same line. Typical) and when he finally extricates himself from the conversation, it’s almost noon, his second cup of coffee is long-since empty and he’s at the end of his goddamn rope.

By the time he sees his next safehouse, he isn’t even surprised anymore.

“Does God hate me?” He asks the boarded up building. “Is this a punishment? What did I do? What the fuck did I do?”

He is 99% sure at this point that someone is burning his bolt holes. There’s a short list of people with the resources and the intel to do it, and while he’s not above ruling out the likes of Damian just yet, he seriously doubts anyone wearing a bat is behind this.

Besides, Dick would have noticed by now if Damian were sinking this many resources into convoluted covert ops designed to make Tim suffer. Definitely. Probably.

Fuck it.

He goes around the back and hops on top of his suitcase to reach the clunky camera watching the back entrance. This building is on the shittier side, closer to Crime Alley than his other haunts; cameras break all the time around here. He’ll have it replaced after he’s a functional human again.

Reportedly, this building was tagged for ‘high toxicity levels’— which is pretty typical for any building where fear toxin or Joker gas are found in any amount. They must have found a lot to condemn the whole building, but Tim is confident he’ll be fine. The airborne shit dissipates to safe levels within hours depending on the ventilation. If it was in the air, it’s long gone. Anything else needs to be injected to be effective.

Once the camera’s busted, he kicks out the boards and heads inside.

He drags his suitcase in after him, and mourns the shower he probably won’t be getting. The hall lights are out, and chances are the water’s been shut off along with the electricity. But at this point, he simply does not give a shit. All he wants are four walls and a mattress.

Leaning on the door to his floor to make it open, he stumbles out into the hallway—

And catches sight of the glistening curved dagger stabbed into the wall next to his door, the hilt gleaming green in the sinking sun.

“Nope,” Tim says, spinning on his heel and going back down the stairwell double time. “Nope, nope, nope.”

He is now 100% certain that the League of Assassins has been burning his bolt holes. Ra’s al fucking Ghul can eat his whole ass.

—

Seven blocks away, Tim sits on the sidewalk in front of a bodega and contemplates a third cup of coffee. The shittiest one yet.

See, here’s the thing.

The thing is, he has options.

He could go to the Manor. Or the penthouse. Or to Steph’s place. He’d have to answer some unnecessary questions like ‘Master Timothy, you know you can’t sleep on aircraft, why didn’t you sleep before your flight’ or ‘Tim, why didn’t you come here first, you know you can still come to me if you’re in trouble, right’ or ‘why did you agree to fumigate your fucking house, you loser, lmao’. (Stephanie is not going to let him live this down).

He is absolutely certain that he would be welcomed in any of these places and after a completely undeserved amount of fussing, he could take a fucking nap and someone else would deal with the League bullshit for him.

And that’s the thing. There’s the rub.

No one should have to deal with the League bullshit for him. This is his problem. He’s not in a hurry to bring them down on anyone. Not even Damian.

With grim resignation, he reaches for his phone to try and find a hotel room (during a con’ weekend apparently, RIP) and maybe get a fucking handle on this whole stupid thing, when he hears:

“Hand over your wallet!”

He lifts his head slowly and finds himself looking down the barrel of a gun. A gun held by some guy wearing a ski mask in broad fucking daylight. There’s another guy next to him who’s watching the street. There’s a third guy somewhere behind him who he can’t see, but he can hear the scuff of his boots.

Sure. Why not. With the day he’s had, this might as well happen. He holds up his hands placatingly.

Tim contemplates his muggers. The guy with the gun is jittery, probably new to this, or hopped up on something. He keeps glancing between Tim and the bodega behind him, so they were probably planning a run on the till. Might have chickened out, or thought Tim was an easier target, an unexpected meal ticket plopped right in their path. Or they were already inside when Tim sat down, which wouldn’t bode well for his situational awareness seeing as he just came out of there himself.

The grinding gears of his tired brain keep getting caught on the fact that this is happening in the middle of the fucking day. Tim glances at the street corner and bites his cheek in frustration. Yeah, he’s smack dab in the middle of the Alley. Figures.

“Are you deaf or somethin’ man?” The guy with the gun is saying. “Hand over your fucking wallet!”

The other guy doesn’t seem as crazy-eyed. He’s nervous, though. He keeps looking around like he’s expecting Batman to materialize, to come whistling down the street like a beat cop.

“Dude, come on, it’s not fucking worth it,” he says, grabbing at the gunman’s shoulder. “We got the money, let’s fucking go.”

The third guy kicks over Tim’s suitcase. “Yeah, come on, Don, let’s just grab this shit and bounce.”

Tim can’t do anything. He’s not Red Robin right now. He’s Timothy Drake-Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and he’s getting mugged in front of a bodega at two in the afternoon in a rumpled suit and tie and still toting his suitcase from his early morning flight.

His hands are trembling from unspent adrenaline, too much caffeine, and not enough sleep. His eyelids are the heaviest they’ve ever been in his godforsaken life. His ears are ringing. He could knock all three of them down in less time than it takes to tie his shoelaces. But he can’t.

“Shut up, Johnny, look at him shaking! What’s he gonna do? If he doesn’t wanna get shot, rich boy’s gonna hand over all his fucking shit!”

“Hey, let’s just—” Tim tries to say.

Stars explode across his vision as Tim takes a punch he genuinely wasn’t expecting. He stares up at the blue sky for about half a second, more confused than anything else, before the gunman grabs him by the front of his shirt and hauls him up to shout in his face.

“What’s it gonna be, pretty boy?!”

Caught on the exhausted edge between vigilante training and the preservation of his identity, Tim is frozen. He doesn’t know what to do. He kind of wants to cry.

“Gee, Donny, what is it gonna be?” A fourth voice says, full of false cheer.

Tim blinks. So do the muggers.

He knows that voice.

“Who the fuck—?” The gunman drops Tim, spinning around and into a fist. He tumbles down to the ground, out cold.

Everything happens pretty quickly after that.

Jason Todd is in civvies. He’s sporting a worn out looking hoodie and a pair of jeans that have seen better days. But his heavy boots are the same ones he wears for his uniform, and the kick he delivers to Johnny’s face is all Red Hood.

Almost in a daze, Tim watches him fight with the usual mix of seething envy and raw desire that rears its ugly head any time he gets to see Jason in action. He’s fast, decisive. Efficient. Beautiful. Tim wishes he had Jason’s skill. And he wishes—

Well. He wishes a lot of things about Jason Todd.

Tim is pretty sure he and Jason are friends. Maybe. Probably. They’ve pretty much moved past the whole “replacement”, “zombie-dickhead” part of their relationship and have graduated to occasionally providing backup on ops that overlap in each other’s sectors, ganging up on Dick when they’re all in the same room, and maintaining a surprisingly steady stream of vigilante gossip to keep each other in the loop.

So, ok, yes, due to the aforementioned, he’s pretty sure they’re friends. And also because Jason wouldn’t have stuck his neck out for him otherwise. He would have just let him get mugged.

Watching Jason fight is one of Tim’s favorite pastimes. But right now, Tim’s usual appreciation is soured by the gut-roiling embarrassment of being caught in this position by Jason of all people. His eyes itch. His cheek throbs. He’s so fucking tired.

“Hey, little stalker,” Jason says suddenly, holding out an expectant hand in Tim’s face. The muggers are groaning on the ground around them. Tim isn’t sure when that happened. He might have zoned out. “Did you know that you had a stalker for a change?”

Tim flushes. “I resent that. I haven’t stalked anyone in years.” He takes the hand. It’s warm, and calloused, and big around his.

Jason laughs at him and yanks him to his feet. “Liar.”

Tim’s mouth twists into a scowl. He tries to glare at Jason, but he can feel himself swaying and Jason still hasn’t let go of him, and it’s ruining everything.

Also, lowkey, Jason is right. But in his defense, it is literally their job to stalk people, so.

“I haven’t stalked you in years then. Just other guys. Bad guys. Not non-bad guys. Fuck. You know what I mean. Whatever.” He pauses; recalibrates. “Had?” He asks.

Jason’s eyebrows inched higher and higher the longer Tim talked. Tim doesn’t blame him.

“Yeah. Had.”

So much for the League, Tim muses.

Jason gives him a once over before tugging decisively on Tim’s wrist, easily grabbing the handle of his suitcase and starting to walk with both in tow, to Tim’s rising horror.

“You’re coming with me, shortstack. What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk? You look like shit.”

Tim tries to yank his wrist out of Jason’s grip, but the asshole doesn’t budge. “I’m not drunk,” Tim snaps. “I’m fine. I’m just. I’m just… really tired.”

Jason stops abruptly, and Tim stumbles into his shoulder.

“I can see that,” he says, steadying Tim with an amused but ultimately sympathetic look. He loads Tim’s suitcase onto the back of a motorcycle that Tim literally just now noticed.

God, he’s fucked. And not even in a fun way.

“C’mon,” Jason says. “Don’t fall asleep on the way over— road rash sucks ass.”

—

They don’t talk on the way to— wherever Jason is taking them, but once they’re parked in a random garage and walking towards the elevators, the game of twenty questions begins.

“So why’ve you got League assassins after you, anyway? Piss in a lazarus pit? Push over the baby brat on the playground?”

“Ra’s al Ghul wants my body,” Tim says, dejected but resigned to this bizarre fact of his life. “Since I was seventeen, I’m pretty sure.”

Jason wrinkles his nose. “Ew.”

“I don’t think it’s a sex thing? But it could also be a sex thing.”

“Again. Fucking ew.”

“Yeah. Also I blew up a bunch of his shit and I think he’s still salty I got away with it.”

“Is that why you weren’t at the Manor?” Jason asks, herding Tim out of the elevator and down a long hallway. “Or anywhere but a random street in Crime Alley?”

Tim nods. “Yeah. They found all my safehouses, but— my mess. My problem.”

Jason thwacks him upside the head.

“Ow! What the fuck?”

“You’re the dumbest person on the planet.”

“Am not. B is on-planet right now.”

“Then you’re pretty fucking close,” Jason snarks, fishing out some keys and opening one of the apartment doors.

Tim scoffs at him as he’s pushed inside. “Oh, please. Don’t try to tell me you would let Dick swoop in and solve all your problems for you.”

Jason rolls his eyes, stepping into the side kitchen and popping open the freezer door of the fridge.

“Dickiebird can’t even solve his own problems,” he says as he rummages. “But maybe when I’m fucked up enough to let three nobodies robbing a fucking bodega get the jump on me, that’s a sign that, maybe, it might be time to call in the cavalry. Dick isn’t the only person who’s got your back.” He presses an ice pack to Tim’s face until he takes it himself, and keeps steering him through the apartment. “Just saying.”

Tim would protest with all of his very good reasons why Jason is definitely wrong here, but he’s too busy processing the fact that Jason has led him into a bedroom. With a bed. There’s a bed, with a mattress and pillows and blankets. Right there. Tim stares at it with lustful eyes.

Jason catches him staring. He rolls his eyes, but he’s sporting a small smile that Tim has the presence of mind to memorize. He walks over to a dresser and pulls out a big shirt and a pair of shorts that he hands to Tim.

“Look. If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here. No guarantees I’ll be always around, but, yeah. Mi casa es su casa, or whatever.”

Tim eyes him up, clutching the bundle of Jason-smelling fabric in his hands. “And you’d do that for me because…why, exactly?”

Jason flicks his forehead, a stinging reprimand. Tim hisses.

“Because, dumbass, you need help and I feel like it. And you don’t actually suck to be around, so shut up and be grateful.”

“Oh, yes,” Tim deadpans, rubbing at his forehead. “So grateful to be allowed the privilege of squatting with you.”

The thing of it is, Tim is grateful. But Jason doesn’t need to know that.

Jason squawks, and before Tim can duck, he’s snatched Tim around the neck in a headlock. His arm is thick and doesn’t budge no matter how Tim shoves and kicks. The ice pack and the clothes go flying, and Tim just about dies. Jason is warm.

“Jason—!”

“Brat!” Jason crows, not giving an inch. “I paid for this place fair and square— you’re the only squatter here!”

“Blood money doesn’t count as square!”

“Tell that to half of Gotham, kid.”

“I’m trying to, thanks for noticing,” Tim says, finally wrenching himself free of Jason’s grip, stumbling into the bed and giving into its siren song. He sits down heavily on the edge, toppling over sideways and reaching pathetically for the fallen ice pack that’s just out of his reach.

“And don’t call me kid—” he complains, muffled by the pillow. It also smells like Jason. “You’re barely two years older than me.”

The cold ice pack is pressed into his fingers. He cracks an eye open to look, but Jason is just smirking at him, like he’s giving Tim the win. Ass.

“Coulda fooled me, shortstack.”

Tim rolls his eyes, and onto his back, toeing off his shoes and letting them clatter to the floor. He can’t tell if Jason’s bed is the best bed in the world, or if he’s just deliriously inventing things.

Frankly, Jason Todd’s bed is the last place he ever thought he’d end up, this morning or otherwise, so he’s never bothered to speculate. He does not have a contingency plan for this.

“Is there a reason you keep calling me short,” he complains, “Or will I just need to fill in the blanks myself?”

“Can’t help it. You’re just so small,” Jason coos. Tim props himself up on an elbow at that, raising a disgusted eyebrow.

“You don’t hear me constantly talking about how big you are.”

Jason grins like he just won the lottery; Tim shuts his eyes the second it’s out of his mouth.

“Baby, you don’t know how big I am.”

He does, actually. Not in a creepy stalker way, just— there was this one time. A big rogue breakout at Arkham, all-hands on deck type of situation; Tim, Cass, and Jason were covering Poison Ivy in the park. Acid-spitting pitcher plants were involved.

And look, Jason’s tactical gear is fine in the day to day, but it’s not like any of them had time to prep a neutralizing agent, so when Jason needed his pants off, stat…uh. Well. Tim was right there.

He knows, okay?

“Alright,” he rallies, trying desperately not to replay the memory of Jason adjusting himself through his boxers. All of himself. “I walked right into that one.”

“Oh, trust me. You’ll know if you’ve walked into it.”

Tim scoffs, but he can feel how red his face is.

And the thing is. He says it without really meaning to.

But he still means it.

“You gonna put your money where your mouth is, big guy?”

The change is immediate. Jason had been halfway out the door, but now he turns to Tim, giving him his full, undivided attention. He looks at Tim, laid out in Jason's bed, giving him a very slow once over. The scrutiny is at once nerve-wracking and thrilling.

“Thought you didn’t want my money,” Jason murmurs.

The temperature in the room spikes. If it weren’t for the slow throb of his bruised cheek, Tim would think that he’s already asleep and dreaming.

But he isn’t. He’s very much aware that he’s wide awake.

Tim swallows. “Well. It’s not your money I want.”

Jason’s grin is electric.

He stalks over to the bed, and Tim is frozen like a rabbit, waiting to see what he’ll do next. Jason settles a knee on the sheets between Tim’s legs, looming over Tim and boxing him in against the mattress. Tim’s free hand reaches up of its own accord to tangle in the collar of Jason’s hoodie, and the cotton is softer than he expected.

Jason’s eyes rove over his face, dark and heavy. He catches Tim’s face in his hand, swiping his thumb lightly across the bruising hot ache of his cheekbone. He leans in deliberate and slow and—

—and stops about an inch away from Tim’s mouth.

“Get some sleep, babybird,” Jason teases, his breath puffing gently over the skin of Tim’s lips. “You can proposition me again tomorrow.”

“It’s, like, 3:30 in the afternoon,” Tim argues, breathless.

“Yeah, and your body thinks it’s 3:30 in the morning. You’re dead on your feet. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and go the fuck to sleep.”

Jason moves to rise. But Tim hooks a stubborn arm around his neck and pulls him down that last remaining inch.

The kiss is— bad. At first.

Tim basically smashed their mouths together to prove a point, and Jason muffles a surprised sound against Tim’s teeth. He lands heavily on top of Tim at an awkward angle, and he’s kind of crushing him. Tim refuses to let go, but— Jason doesn’t pull away.

Jason gentles the kiss instead, and Tim thrills. He levers himself up onto his elbow, wrapping an anchoring arm around Tim’s back. He finds a home between Tim’s legs, and he lets Tim kiss him until Tim's lips are tingling and his fingers go slack; until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore.

Somewhere between fifteen minutes and a small eternity later, Jason presses one more kiss to the corner of his mouth. He curls around Tim on his side, and Tim turns his face into Jason’s neck with a soft wondering sigh.

“I’ll keep it. Promise. Wait n’ see,” Tim mumbles. Jason snorts, but doesn’t budge, and Tim can hear his smile in his voice, lilted and lulling.

“Sure, babybird. I’ll wait. I got nowhere else to be.”

Tim is already asleep.

#one hundred thousand years have passed #i creak up out of the soil gasping and hacking and coughing #'i lived bitch'#'have some jaytim that grew legs on me'#my writing #asked and answered #jaytim #ladytauria #hurt/comfort #this one is sillier and more light-hearted than the other ones #the hurt is more like 'near tears travel exhaustion' than your typical aftermath of violence lol but it so definitely counts #i held a gun to the head of the muse that said 'this is way too short' and pulled the fucking trigger #i KNOW it's a very fast get together but i did Not want this to become my next 5 digit wordcount fic okay. okay. oka #the bones of a long 'tim and jason vs the league of assassins' fic is hiding here #and if i actually wrote that this would have ended much differently #but i am Not Writing That okay I am Writing Cowboys and also Werewolves Right Now. I Do Not Have Time For This!!!!!!#prompt fill

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