Chapter Text
Jason shows up at 3:17 in the morning.
Tim’s already awake, hunched over a glowing screen in the half-dark, eyes bleary and fingers jittering from too much caffeine and not enough common sense. He’s got crime scene photos pulled up in one window and three tabs of financial records blinking like dying stars in another. His phone buzzes once on the table.
[Jason]: You home?
Tim blinks at it. Frowns.
He barely has time to type “yes?” before there’s a heavy knock at the door.
When he opens it, Jason’s standing there in a battered leather jacket and blood on his temple, duffel slung over one shoulder, and a half-eaten protein bar clenched between his teeth. He looks like hell and also like he’s very much not in the mood for conversation.
Tim steps aside wordlessly.
Jason trudges in.
He doesn’t say anything for the first full minute. Drops the bag beside the couch. Tosses the protein bar wrapper in the trash. Paces the living room once, then collapses onto the couch with a grunt like the weight of the world—and at least two explosions—are riding his spine.
Finally, he says, “Safehouse got blown.”
Tim pauses mid-sip of lukewarm coffee. “Anyone hurt?”
“Just me. And my pride.”
Tim raises a brow. “Did you do something reckless?”
Jason smirks, but it’s tired. “Define reckless.”
“I don’t think I need to.”
Another beat of silence. Jason rubs at his face, then glances around the apartment. “You still keep it this freakishly clean, huh?”
Tim shrugs. “Some of us don’t live like raccoons.”
Jason snorts, but his mouth twitches like he might be fighting a smile.
Tim doesn’t ask why Jason’s here and not at another safehouse. Doesn’t ask why he didn’t go to the manor, or Titans Tower, or Roy’s place, or literally anywhere else. He just disappears into the hall and comes back with fresh towels and a clean t-shirt that might be two sizes too small.
He tosses it onto the armrest. “Bathroom’s the second door on the left.”
Jason grunts something that sounds like thanks, but it gets lost in the shuffle of footsteps.
Tim doesn’t press.
He sits back down, reopens his laptop, and stares at a spreadsheet for ten minutes without processing a single number.
When Jason returns, face clean and hair damp, he’s wearing Tim’s t-shirt. It’s snug across the shoulders and clings to his chest, ending slightly cropped, and Tim very much doesn’t look.
Jason flops back on the couch, looks at Tim sideways, and says, “I’ll be out of your hair by Monday. Just need a place to crash for the weekend.”
Tim nods.
“Sure,” he says.
He doesn’t realise until hours later, when he hears Jason snoring softly from the couch while the sun starts to rise, that he didn’t want him to leave anyway.
And Jason, stretched out in borrowed clothes, still smelling like smoke and rain, doesn’t realise that he’s not really planning on going.
It’s been twelve days.
Jason’s bag is still by the couch, half-unpacked. His boots are by the door. His leather jacket has migrated to the back of Tim’s desk chair. There’s a second toothbrush in the bathroom now—blue, with a worn grip from Jason’s habit of brushing too hard—and two coffee mugs left out in the kitchen sink. One says “Wayne Enterprises,” and the other has a faded skull and crossbones.
They’ve stopped mentioning Monday.
Tim’s not sure when it happened. The part where “just for the weekend” quietly slipped into something else. Jason still says things like, “I’ll be gone soon,” but the words are softer now. Not a promise. Not a threat. Just noise.
He’s still sleeping on the couch, though. Always the couch.
Tim offered the bed once—half-asleep, fumbling, a mumble of “it’s bigger than it looks, we can share if—”—and Jason had looked at him with a strange expression Tim didn’t want to unpack, then grunted, “I’m good, thanks,” and rolled over.
Now they pass like satellites. Close. Orbiting. Never quite touching.
Tim starts making two cups of coffee in the morning without thinking about it. Jason always grabs the mug on the right. Always grumbles about the lack of sugar. Always drinks it anyway.
“You work too much,” Jason says, leaning against the kitchen counter one night while Tim types furiously, still in work clothes at nearly midnight.
“You loiter too much,” Tim fires back without looking up.
Jason snorts and steals a fry from the takeout container beside him. “Loitering implies I don’t live here.”
Tim freezes for half a second. Just long enough for Jason to notice.
He covers it with a sip of soda. “Do you?”
Jason chews the fry, swallows. Shrugs. “Not officially.”
Tim doesn’t reply.
They leave it there, floating, fragile and unspoken.
Later that night, Tim wakes up to the sound of soft footsteps.
Jason’s standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the hallway light. His hair’s a mess. His shirt is rumpled. There’s a cut healing on his collarbone, pink and jagged.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says. “Just… couldn’t sleep.”
Tim sits up, blinking. “Bad night?”
Jason hesitates. “Dreamt about the explosion.”
Tim gestures to the bed. “Couch not cutting it?”
Jason doesn’t move. “Didn’t want to assume.”
Tim’s heartbeat stutters. “You never have to ask.”
Another pause. Then Jason walks in, slow and unsure, and sits on the edge of the mattress like it might disappear beneath him. He doesn’t lie down, just leans forward, elbows on his knees, head bowed.
Tim inches closer, not touching. Just there.
“You’re safe,” Tim says quietly.
Jason lets out a breath. “Yeah. I know.”
They don’t speak again.
Jason stays until dawn.
The next morning, Tim wakes up to find breakfast already on the stove.
Jason is in the kitchen, hair damp, a ridiculous cartoon apron tied over his black t-shirt. He’s burning the eggs and cursing about it.
Tim stares at the scene for a second too long.
Jason turns, spatula in hand. “Don’t say a word.”
Tim grabs a plate and says, “You’re home late.”
Jason shrugs. “Got in an hour ago. Thought I’d make you breakfast as thanks. And because I know you’re incapable of feeding yourself before noon.”
Tim leans against the counter, watching him.
“It’s not really thanks if you keep doing it every week,” he says softly.
Jason’s hands still. He doesn’t look over.
Tim doesn’t push it. Just slides into the rhythm again.
There’s no more talk of leaving.
Just two mugs in the sink.
Two toothbrushes in the bathroom.
And the unmistakable feeling that something has changed.
Dick’s not trying to be nosy. He’s just… observant. It’s part of the job.
So when Jason starts responding to texts on time, stops vanishing for weeks on end, and doesn’t start fights at the family group chat level, Dick notices.
When Tim starts brushing his hair, sleeping actual hours, and shows up to meetings with a second coffee that he swears is just “extra”, Dick notices that, too.
He doesn’t say anything at first. Maybe they’re just getting along better. Maybe a mission forced them to be civil. Maybe Bruce threatened them into cooperating with fatherly disappointment and a PowerPoint presentation again.
But then Dick calls Tim one night and hears a voice in the background—low, grumbling, laughing. Jason.
Dick squints at the wall like it personally offended him. “Are you—are you with Jason right now?”
Tim makes a sound suspiciously close to a choke. “What? No. I mean yes. Kind of. He’s just—he’s crashing here for a bit.”
“A bit?”
“His safehouse got blown up.”
Dick hums. “That was two weeks ago.”
A pause. “Time’s relative.”
“…Tim. Is he living with you?”
Another pause.
“He’s not not living with me,” Tim says finally, like that’s a reasonable answer.
Dick nearly drops his phone. “Are you dating him?!”
“No!”
“Okay, you don’t have to yell—”
“I’m not yelling!”
“You’re definitely yelling, and now I definitely think you’re dating him.”
Tim groans audibly. “We’re not. He’s just staying here. Temporarily.”
Dick grins. “You sound defensive.”
“I sound like someone who would really like to hang up now.”
“Sure,” Dick says, far too pleased with himself. “Just one last thing.”
“What.”
“…Do you have matching toothbrushes yet?”
The line goes dead.
Dick stares at his phone, smug.
“Oh, they’re so in love,” he mutters, already opening a group chat with Babs.
It happens on the rooftop.
Because of course it does.
They’re fresh off a stakeout that went sideways—two gunmen, one explosion, and a mad dash across Gotham’s north district to cut them off before they slipped underground. Jason’s knuckles are raw. Tim’s got a shallow cut just under his jaw, the blood trailing down like a red string, delicate and sharp.
Jason’s the one who wipes it away.
Tim doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t speak.
The sky is bruised black and violet behind them, city lights flickering below like stars trying to pretend they’re something more. The wind cuts between their suits, cold and biting, but they don’t notice.
Jason’s fingers hover for a second longer than they need to.
“Didn’t even flinch,” he murmurs. “Tough guy.”
Tim exhales, barely a laugh. “You’re one to talk. You caught a crowbar to the ribs and still kept swinging.”
Jason shrugs. “Occupational hazard.”
He’s still close. Too close. The heat of him seeping through the armour. The cut on Tim’s jaw already forgotten, but Jason hasn’t stepped back.
Tim’s heart is a riot in his chest.
Jason tilts his head, eyes searching, soft in a way Tim hasn’t seen since before the Lazarus Pit.
“Tim.”
It’s just his name. But it cracks something open.
Tim swallows. “Yeah?”
“I—” Jason hesitates. His hand twitches like he might reach up again. “This doesn’t feel temporary.”
The words hang there, sharp and vulnerable.
Tim nods, just once. “It’s not.”
And for one perfect, unbearable second—they both lean in.
It’s instinct. It’s gravitational. Tim tilts forward and Jason does too, breath catching, lips nearly brushing—
Then the comm crackles.
“Red Robin, do you copy?”
Tim jerks back.
Jason blinks like he’s coming out of a dream. His hand drops. The space between them snaps back like an elastic band stretched too far.
Tim fumbles for his comm. “Yeah. Copy. What’s the sitrep?”
He listens. Answers. Doesn’t look at Jason.
Jason doesn’t say anything. Just steps away, gaze locked on the skyline.
By the time the call ends, the moment is gone.
They grapple away in silence, hearts pounding, pretending it didn’t happen.
But later, when Tim lies awake and Jason tosses restlessly on the couch just a few feet away, neither of them can stop thinking about it.
About how close they came.
About how much closer they still want to be.
The morning after, the rooftop feels too quiet.
Jason’s already in the kitchen when Tim stumbles in, hair a mess and a frown carved deep between his brows. He doesn’t say good morning. He just grunts and grabs the mug that’s already waiting for him—black coffee, splash of oat milk, exactly how he likes it.
Jason made it without asking.
Tim stares at the cup for a second longer than necessary before sipping.
Jason flips a pancake with unnecessary violence. “You snore, by the way.”
“I do not.”
“You do. Real soft. Like a dying pigeon.”
Tim narrows his eyes. “You’re in my apartment. Eating my food.”
“You’re in my apartment,” Jason says without thinking.
They both freeze.
Jason clears his throat and drops the spatula with a clatter. “I mean—I’ve just been here a while. It’s habit. Not ownership. Not like I’ve moved in or anything.”
Tim raises a brow, slow. “Right. Obviously. Because you haven’t.”
“Exactly.”
A beat.
“You just have a toothbrush here. And a drawer. And my Wi-Fi password memorised.”
Jason’s ears go red. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
Tim leans against the counter. “So we’re just… roommates now?”
Jason shrugs with one shoulder, but he won’t meet Tim’s eye. “I mean. Roommates who patch each other up and share groceries, and go on night patrol together. Totally normal. Nothing weird.”
Another pause.
Tim arches an eyebrow. “Married, basically.”
Jason snorts. “Yeah. Married for tax reasons.”
Tim blinks.
Jason laughs, trying to brush it off. “I mean, if we were, you could probably write off, like, half of my trauma as a deduction.”
Tim sets down his mug. “You’ve thought about this?”
“No!” Jason says way too fast. “Not—not really. Just—joking, Drake. Calm down.”
Tim is very much not calm.
His voice is quieter when he speaks again. “Would it be so bad?”
Jason looks at him, guarded. “What?”
Tim holds his gaze. “If we were something more.”
The words are soft. Almost a whisper. The kind you say only when you’re not sure how badly you’ll regret them.
Jason doesn’t laugh this time.
He doesn’t joke, or snark, or roll his eyes.
He just looks at Tim like he’s trying to figure out whether this is real or another one of those near-kiss dreams he pretends not to have.
But then—
He backs off.
Just a step. Enough to make it feel like a cliff opened up between them.
“I should… go do a patrol sweep,” Jason mutters, grabbing his helmet from the counter.
Tim doesn’t stop him.
He just watches the door close.
And thinks about how much it hurts when someone chooses not to stay—even when they’re already home.
Dick shows up unannounced, as older brothers do.
He lets himself in with a spare key Alfred swears he gave him for emergencies only. But apparently, “my little brothers are emotionally constipated and obviously in love” qualifies.
Jason is sprawled on the couch, reading something that is absolutely not a book—unless "Gotham's Weirdest Cold Cases" has suddenly been added to the Gotham Public Library’s nonfiction collection.
He barely glances up. “You know, breaking and entering’s still a crime.”
“So is avoiding your feelings,” Dick says cheerfully, kicking the door shut behind him. “Guess we’re both guilty.”
Jason groans like he’s in physical pain. “Why are you here?”
Dick drops a bag of groceries on the counter. “Because you live here now, apparently, and Tim won’t admit it, and I need to see this disaster with my own eyes.”
Jason sits up, eyes narrowing. “We’re not a disaster.”
“Didn’t say you were,” Dick says innocently. “Yet.”
He pokes around the apartment like a mom inspecting a dorm room, opening cabinets and humming at the second set of dishes, the shared calendar on the fridge, the fact that Jason’s boots are lined up neatly next to Tim’s by the door.
“So,” Dick says casually, leaning against the kitchen island. “You two kissed yet?”
Jason actually chokes on air.
Dick grins. “I’ll take that as a no.”
Jason glares. “Drop it, Grayson.”
“You do realise you’re living with your maybe-boyfriend and neither of you wants it to end, right?”
“It’s not like that.”
Dick raises both brows. “Oh? Then what’s it like?”
Jason doesn’t answer.
Because he doesn’t know.
Because if he names it, it stops being safe.
That night, Tim comes home late from a solo recon. His shoulders are tense. His jaw’s set tight. Jason looks up from the couch, notices the drawn expression, and doesn't ask.
Instead, he moves over.
Tim sinks down beside him, bone-weary, and leans—just slightly—until their shoulders touch.
Jason lets him.
They sit like that for a while. No words. No movement. Just the sound of the city outside and the shared rhythm of two people who are trying very hard not to feel too much.
Tim breaks the silence. “Dick came by.”
Jason grunts. “Yeah.”
“Said something about emotional constipation.”
Jason huffs a breath. “That’s putting it nicely.”
Tim turns his head slightly. “Was he wrong?”
Jason meets his eyes, tired and honest. “I don’t know what this is.”
Tim doesn’t flinch. “Do you want to?”
Jason doesn’t answer right away.
Then, softly—so soft it’s almost afraid: “Yeah.”
Tim swallows. “Me too.”
They don’t kiss.
Not yet.
But Tim leans in just a little more, rests his head on Jason’s shoulder, and this time—
Jason lets himself stay.
It starts with a mission.
Routine surveillance. Split patrol. Nothing major. Nothing that should’ve gone wrong.
But of course it does.
Tim hears the explosion over comms first—just a dull, thunderous boom from several blocks away, followed by static. His heart skips.
“Red Hood, report.”
No answer.
He tries again. “Jason. Do you copy?”
Nothing.
He’s already moving before the words leave his mouth, grappling from rooftop to rooftop with the kind of reckless speed Jason usually lectures him about. His chest is tight. His fingers won’t stop trembling.
The building is half-collapsed. Smoke curls into the sky like warning signs in ink.
And then he sees him.
Jason, bruised and bloodied, crawling out of the rubble, helmet cracked down the side and suit torn at the shoulder.
“Jesus,” Tim breathes, dropping beside him. “Are you—?”
“Alive,” Jason rasps. “Mostly pissed off. Some guy in a knockoff Freeze suit set up a booby trap.”
Tim presses his hands to Jason’s ribs, checking for breaks. “You’re a moron.”
“Glad to see your bedside manner hasn’t improved.”
“You didn’t answer the comm.”
Jason winces. “Comms are fried. Helmet took the brunt.”
“You didn’t answer the comm, Jason.” Tim’s voice is shaking now. “You went silent for four whole minutes.”
Jason finally meets his eyes.
And he sees it.
The panic underneath Tim’s anger. The fear buried in the way his hands tremble, even as they work to stabilise Jason’s side. Tim Drake does not fall apart easily. But Jason has learned, slowly, that he’s part of that fragile handful of people Tim lets himself care about.
Jason’s voice drops. “I’m okay. I swear.”
Tim presses harder than necessary against the gauze. “Don’t you ever go quiet like that again. I thought—I thought you were gone.”
Jason hesitates. Then, softer: “You’d care?”
Tim’s hands still. “Of course I would.”
Jason swallows. “I didn’t think—”
“Well, think better, because I—”
He cuts himself off.
Jason watches him. Bleeding. Dust-covered. Waiting.
Tim exhales shakily.
And says, finally: “Because I love you, you idiot.”
They don’t talk about it on the way home.
Jason sits on the couch, fresh bandages wrapped around his ribs, silent and staring. Tim paces. Then stops. Then paces again.
He says, quietly, “I meant it.”
Jason looks up.
Tim’s heart is pounding. “I love you.”
Jason blinks once. Twice.
Then stands.
And crosses the room.
They’re so close.
Jason says, “I didn’t think I deserved that. You.”
Tim breathes, “You don’t get to decide what you deserve. I do.”
Jason exhales a breath that sounds more like surrender.
Then finally—finally—he kisses him.
It’s not perfect. It’s messy, and too much, and filled with fear and longing and the months they wasted dancing around it.
But it’s real.
And when they pull apart, foreheads pressed together, Jason whispers:
“I’m not leaving. Not now. Not ever.”
And Tim, eyes glassy, smiles like it hurts.
“Good,” he says. “I was never going to let you.”
Jason doesn’t sleep on the couch anymore.
That night—after the kiss, after the confession, after the adrenaline has drained out of both of them like blood from a wound—Tim grabs Jason’s hand and leads him to the bedroom without a word.
There’s no hesitation.
They don’t undress each other. Don’t do anything but climb into the same bed and let the quiet wrap around them like a blanket. Jason lies on his side, one hand splayed against Tim’s back, holding on like he might drift if he doesn’t. Tim buries his face in the space between Jason’s neck and shoulder and breathes.
Neither of them says I love you again that night.
They don’t need to.
In the morning, Jason makes breakfast again. But this time, he lets Tim sit on the counter while he does it, legs swinging, hair messy, shirt rumpled from sleep and affection. Jason complains the whole time—“This apartment’s tiny,” and “You’re in the way,” and “Stop staring at my ass while I flip eggs,”—but he’s smiling.
Tim steals bacon off the plate anyway.
They don’t talk about what happens next. They don’t make plans. But Jason’s bag is still by the couch, still half-unpacked, and neither of them even pretends it’s temporary anymore.
There are shared keys. Shared food. Shared silences.
And, eventually, shared space in Tim’s closet.
That night, Jason drags Tim into bed early with an arm slung over his waist and a mumbled, “Stop working. You already got me. No need to impress me now.”
Tim laughs into Jason’s chest. “So needy.”
“Damn right I am,” Jason mutters, pressing a kiss to his hair.
Tim closes his eyes and thinks: This is it.
This is what it feels like to be wanted. To want back.
Three months later, Tim’s accountant sends a very polite, very long email that ends with:
“Given your current living arrangement and shared financial responsibilities, you technically qualify for domestic partnership status under state law, unless you’d prefer to file jointly under the marriage provision…”
Jason reads it over Tim’s shoulder and promptly chokes on his coffee.
Tim blinks. “Huh.”
Jason wipes his mouth. “Are we—we’re not—are we married?!”
“Not yet,” Tim says with the kind of calm that makes Jason nervous.
Jason narrows his eyes. “You’re thinking about it.”
Tim sips his coffee, eyes bright. “I mean. For tax reasons.”
Jason groans into his hands.
“You started this,” Tim says, nudging him with his foot.
“I was joking.”
“I wasn’t.”
Jason peeks through his fingers. “Wait. Seriously?”
Tim shrugs. “If the government already thinks we’re married, why not just… make it official?”
Jason’s heart skips.
He looks at Tim.
Tim looks back.
And then Jason mutters, “You’re such a little shit,” before grabbing him by the shirt and kissing him senseless in the middle of the kitchen.
When they finally come up for air, Tim grins and whispers:
“So that’s a yes?”
Jason nods.
Always.
It happens at family dinner.
Alfred insisted. As usual. No patrol. No excuses. Just a table full of Waynes pretending to be functional human beings over roast chicken and civility.
Jason’s seated next to Tim. Of course. Their knees touch under the table. Nobody says anything.
At least, not until dessert.
Bruce is halfway through a particularly uncomfortable story about Wayne Enterprises' quarterly projections when Tim, very calmly, sets down his fork and says:
“So… Jason and I got married.”
The silence is instant.
Like a bomb went off.
Dick freezes with a spoon of pudding halfway to his mouth. Damian blinks once. Cass stops mid-text. Duke physically turns his head like a confused dog. Babs drops her fork and doesn’t even try to pick it up.
Bruce just blinks. “I’m sorry. You… what?”
Jason leans back in his chair, looking smug. “You heard him.”
“You’re joking,” Dick says, eyes wide. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“We signed the forms last week,” Tim adds helpfully. “Apparently, it’s great for tax optimisation.”
“You got married for taxes?” Duke repeats, scandalised.
“Technically,” Tim says.
“Emotionally,” Jason adds, quieter but honest, “we were already there.”
Dick makes a sound like a kettle boiling over.
“You two were dancing around each other for months,” he snaps. “I had to watch it like a slow-motion car crash. You flirted with comm unit insults. You kissed during a concussion check! And now you’re just—married?!”
“Kind of anticlimactic,” Damian mutters. “I expected a blood ritual.”
Cass signs something that might be finally and about time, followed by a very enthusiastic thumbs up.
“I’m sorry,” Barbara says between breathless laughs. “Did you guys… skip dating? Was it just domestic partnership, shared closet, shared trauma, and then BOOM, courthouse wedding?”
Jason grins. “Basically.”
Tim shrugs. “It was efficient.”
Dick slams his hands on the table. “YOU—CAN’T JUST—MARRY EACH OTHER LIKE IT’S A POWERPOINT MERGER—”
“Technically, they can,” Alfred cuts in smoothly, appearing with coffee. “And given how many years it took Master Bruce to admit he cared about anything, I daresay we should be encouraging this level of emotional development.”
Bruce looks mildly betrayed. “Alfred.”
“I made them a cake,” Alfred adds.
There’s a pause.
Tim blinks. “Wait. How did you—”
“I live here,” Alfred says, setting the cake down. It’s frosted simply in white and red, and in beautiful script, it reads:
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR LEGALLY BINDING POOR DECISION.
Jason stares. “You are my favourite.”
“I know,” Alfred says.
The rest of the evening devolves into chaotic questions, Damian asking if he now has to call Tim “Todd,” Cass stealing a slice of cake and disappearing, and Dick demanding an actual wedding ceremony with tuxes, flowers, and “at least one emotional speech, dammit!”
Jason slings an arm around Tim’s shoulder and murmurs, “Still worth it.”
Tim leans into him and grins.
“Definitely worth it.”