Disclaimers: So... very not mine.

Spoilers: Vague ones for the Titans Tomorrow storyline,
as well as some Red Hood business, and some toonverse,
too.

Summary: Maybe he's schizo.

Ratings Note: Sexual content, content some readers may
find disturbing, and content some readers may find to be
Tim/Kon.

Author's Note: Third, or possibly a riff, on the Gotham
Tomorrow series. Really won't make sense without the
others.

Acknowledgments: To Audrey, Jack, and Petra for
audiencing and encouragement, and really... Audrey
drew this picture. And I couldn't stop staring. For hours.
And it made me write. *For* Zee. Was this... really
what you wanted? *laughs*
 
 

"I'm bored."

Jason does that thing where every muscle Tim can see
through the t-shirt he's wearing -- workouts, soon -- is
just a little more relaxed than it was a minute ago.

"And," Tim says, smiling at the absence of *flex*, "when
you do that, you're just broadcasting that you're about to
fuck me up."

"I'm not about to fuck you up, freak. I'm *about* to get
some damned breakfast." Jason's not looking at him, but
the muscles are still just a little too relaxed. Right where
that freaky blue-teal-whatever 'v' would be.

"Fine," and he knows he's grinning now, and he hates it --
he loves it, and he's going to remember that. "You're about
to clean your gun and you're trying to figure out if you need
to warn Batman about me and --"

"What do you want?"

There. Jason's turning, crossing his arms over his chest,
looking-looking-looking.

Tim lets the smile get a little (not dangerous, not really,
Batman's always watching) wider. "I said. I'm bored."

And -- okay, so this is the sort of game which is actually a
little dangerous, because looking can turn so *easily* into
watching that's not like Batman's watching at all. That's
not.

He doesn't like that. But -- he did start it. Tim sits up on the
bed -- his own, because Jason likes to sleep here when he
decides that Tim shouldn't be screwing Batman for
whatever Jason-specific (oh, but it *might* just be
Nightwing, and wouldn't that be --) reason -- and crosses
his legs under him. "*Just* bored," he says, in the
schoolboy voice that everyone in Tim's life (except *this*
Batman, and that's --), and the life before, takes to mean
that he's being serious. "I promise."

The bad look lasts a little longer, but then Jason's snorting
and rolling his eyes. "Your eyes totally just twinkled, kid.
Was that on purpose, or...?"

Interesting. Tim cocks his head. "Maybe I'm just happy."

This arm-cross is even better than the last one, because it's
the one he never uses in the Nightwing suit unless he's
also *fucking* with Batman. "Thought you said you were
*bored*."

Tim swings his legs over the edge of the bed, and lets them
keep swinging. "Maybe," he says, "I'm schizo."

Jason's nostrils actually flare when he's trying to hold back a
laugh. Most people wrinkle, instead. It's bizarrely *extra*
manly -- over and above, because it's Jason -- and it's one
of the things which makes the fact that Jason can and does
often treat him like he's twelve instead of seventeen
livable.

Tim's secure in his kinks. "Maybe I'm --"

Jason puts up a hand.

"--waiting."

"If you were *just* bored, you'd be rolling around the
manor like a twitchy cat. You're not, so you're bored
*and* you have an idea about what you want to do about
it. Apparently, it doesn't involve fucking -- or else you'd
either be in my pants or trying to get past me to B. So out
with it."

Tim debates some show of something resembling
innocence, but... that's really not what tends to make
Jason... respond the *right* way. "Titans," he says, and
waits.

Jason frowns. "What about 'em?"

Which is... sometimes he misses Babs a lot. Full stop, but
also she had this way, sometimes, of just... riding him,
almost. Just knowing-seeing-being, and one word would
be all it took to *get* them there, wherever it is.

It wasn't even just him -- she could do that with everyone.

Well, except Dick. Tim rotates his ankles in the joints and
thinks about how to keep going without it getting... this is
*important*, and important is a pain when it has to involve
words.

Which... is actually something Jason *gets*, in his own
way, though only tangentially because of the Joker. Which
is kind of funny, it's not funny. The hand on his jaw is all
about pressure, callus, and pain-close-enough-to-know.

"Talk."

Tim looks at Jason from under his lashes.

"Fucking -- *allies*, kid. For now, anyway, and --"

"I don't wanna fuck them up, Jay," he says, quickly -- Jason
really does react *interestingly* to that nickname, which is
fine, because it means 'Robin' is all for him.

Jason looks a *lot* like Nightwing when he frowns like that.
"Then what?"

"I want..." Tim shrugs -- a challenge-*itch* when he's being
held like this, when it's just his head immobilized, except
that it isn't, because Jason outweighs him by sixty-seven
pounds and everything about him that's attached to
everything Tim just isn't.

No words, because most of them are in Arkham, and Arkham
is gone.

"I want to *see*," he says, and doesn't close his eyes,
because the needy sound of his own voice is bad enough,
obvious enough.

Obvious enough that the hand slides off his jaw and into
his hair, still soft from sleep, still --

Jason yanks a little, and it may or may not be because of
Tim's growl. And Jason doesn't ever --

He never blinks, when Tim's holding his eyes.

"Yeah, okay," Jason says, after too long, and then kisses
him on the mouth, fast and soft and -- something. "I'll figure
something."

Way too many of Jason's kisses don't have anything to do
with sex, no matter what he thinks.

*

It takes a little more than a day -- one full patrol, two
training sessions -- for Jason to grab him by the hair, knock
away Tim's knife-slash, grab him by the hair again and tug
him towards one of Batman's jets. Which is...

Well, really. It didn't have to be that way, at all, and he
knows it. If he'd just left on his own, he'd get there, and
then Jason would track him down and take him down as
soon as Tim was stupid (or bored) enough to stand still
someplace private. He'd get there.

If he'd asked (begging would've been different, and difficult
to predict, considering) Batman, he *also* would've gotten
there, probably with Batman's permission to take the plane
and go -- so long as he did something useful like
surveillance while he was gone.

Neither of those methods, however, would've led to
strapping in behind Jason -- because the two-seater is
faster, leaner, and meaner than the four, and Jason can be
obvious, too, sometimes -- and getting to *see*.

Jason was a Titan, according to the files Batman's always
changing the passwords on to make Tim keep working on
his hacking. Jason knows -- maybe, maybe not, and
Batman isn't entirely sure and both of them to like it
that way -- who these people are, or were, or could be,
from more than just intel.

And the back of Jason's neck gets pink before it settles
back to normal, before all the muscles go slack and loose,
before he settles into pretending he's not the one being
examined (for fucking once).

Tim's not entirely sure why he needed it be just like this,
but he did.

*

"Did you *have* a plan?"

Tim waits to see if Jason's neck will pinken up again -- it
doesn't. "I told you," he says, slow and quiet and careful,
so careful --

"Don't play me."

Tim snorts. Not careful enough.

Jason flicks a switch and Tim's seat jerks into the eject
position -- and then jerks back. Jason can't really smack
him on the head in this plane, though, so Tim doesn't
take it as *precisely* a threat.

"Fine. I told you Superman and I were friends."

"No, you *told* me Superman kept trying to get in your
tights."

Tim grins, nice and wide for Batman's cameras and the
translucent reflection he has on the windshield -- no
rearview. "Like I said."

Jason snorts and shakes his head. "If I had maybe a
*decade* I could start working on all the shit wrong with
you --"

"Planning on going anywhere?"

"Live fast..." This time, the laugh is the one which is, as far
as Tim can tell, dead-on perfect for getting Batman to pull
the cowl off, which Jason always gets off on at least a
little, in those Jason ways which aren't ever enough about
sex.

It's too bad -- for Jason -- that he doesn't seem to know
how to do it on purpose. Still, though. "I wasn't playing
you. I *do* want to see --"

"You weren't *just* playing me. Now keep going. What
about Big Blue?"

Tim lets his mouth twist up (Does Babs miss him, too?)
and pulls his knees up until he can rest his heels on a
seat which was designed for a girl with wider hips and
shorter legs than his own. "He's different here."

"Because *this* one offed the guy you were prick-teasing."

Tim waves a hand. "It's a clone."

"Jesus, you seriously work on being this much of a little
prick -- shut up, I know you do -- and now you want me to
buy that a) you *don't* think B walks on water as far as
reading people -- *spying* on them, and b) you haven't
read every single word about at *least* Superman on B's
computers." The back of Jason's neck tenses, relaxes,
pinkens, evens.

Tim waits.

"You know I'm not letting you off the damned leash until
*I'm* satisfied you're giving it to me straight, *too*, so
what the fuck? Did you want a damned *vacation*?
Because SF fucking sucks this time of year."

There are a half-dozen -- maybe more, if he counts -- little
temptations-tangents-tricks in there, all for him, just
waiting for his focus to get hazy, for his mind to trick his
body into believing he's maybe in a lot of pain, and in turn
to trick his mind into -- to a lot of whatever, a lot of things
that *aren't* for this world.

Not for *him* in this world, anyway. But it won't get him
there, not in the right way, and... anyway, it's not that he
actually minds.

"Batman used to fuck him," he says, and waits for -- there.

Just a little tic in the oh-so-relaxed muscles in Jason's neck.
Almost certainly his back, too.

"Batman can be really informative if you ask questions the
right way," Tim adds, and thinks about-wants to lean in,
push the restraints until they're pulling him, breathe on
the back of Jason's neck until he sweats, until he maybe
un-straps and they act like this is just a really small car,
instead of a small plane.

Sometimes he can make Jason remember that he's
seventeen.

Sometimes --

"Jesus. You -- you want a piece. Of the guy who *killed*
Superman."

"Of Superman."

"Whatever. You -- what. Are you trying to make B *jealous*
or something?"

"Don't be an asshole, Jay, I just --" Damn. He hates when
he just *talks* like that, even if it does make the tension
creep all the way up into -- at least -- the part of Jason's
jaw he can see.

"Just *what*?"

"I want to *see*," he says, and folds his arms over his
chest.

"You -- mother*fucker*, you're psycho."

Tim stares out the bulletproof glass.

"Don't fucking sulk, you *are*. Just -- B, this is N. Come
in," Jason says, and gives the radio the same double-tap
they *all* picked up from Bat -- from Bruce, once upon a
time, for urgent-but-not-life-or-death-yet.

Tim considers asking if Jason had always been a narc, or if
it was just that pansy-ass *aqua*...

"B here."

But no. Tim likes listening to Batman, no matter what he's
saying.

"Yeah, I -- how wired up is R?"

"In terms of how much of an explosive kick he would pack
if I pushed the red button...?"

Heh. Robin-bomb.

Jason gives that 'I'm only laughing because you're not close
enough to hit, even though it *is* funny' thing he does
and thumps the console. "Seriously."

"All of his vitals, real-time feed. The usual cameras and
tracers."

"Vitals. So you *knew* he was going after your -- fucking
*ex*."

"I suspected. Anything else, N?"

"You know, B, if you *wanted* a plant in the guy's bed --"

"You're not, actually, his type."

Batman is the best. Tim really wishes he could get more
than just the vaguely-watery reflection of the look on
Jason's face, but it's enough to make him remember the
way Bruce --

No, this is better. Bruce could never do a damned *thing*
with Dick.

"I was going to suggest," Jason says, and he's pulled on
*his* version of the schoolboy voice, and Tim's willing
to bet that no one had ever bought it, "that we just
*hire* somebody, but fine, no --"

"Don't you enjoy it when Robins show initiative, N?"

"I --" And it breaks, just that fast. Jason laughs, and it's
the all-laugh-all-the-time one, the why-is-he-even-*here*
one, and if Batman were here, Tim knows *he'd* just be
listening, too.

Watching.

"See, and if I didn't *know* this was just payback for
interrupting you two's little fucking reindeer games last
night... I probably *would* be pissy."

Batman doesn't say anything.

"As it is... N out."

Jason toggles the radio, shakes his head one more time,
and gets them up to just below the sound barrier.

He doesn't say anything else, but that's all right. It gives
Tim more time to turn over (and over, and again) the
question of whether or not *this* Superman listens as
much as his own.

*

Probably not, he thinks, pretty much within the same
minute as being in the room with him.

He frowns like Clark does (did, perhaps, *here*) whenever
there's something desperately jobbish-for-Superman going
on somewhere *else*, but he doesn't leave, and he
doesn't stop.

Granted, this world's pretty fucked in a lot of ways -- a lot
like the kitchen would get when Alfred was in the middle
of cooking something big and fancy, when in order to get
*into* the kitchen you had to be good *and* fast
*and* --

Alfred's dead here, so no. No.

Superman is, as near as he can tell, about ten years older
than he is in body, and everything else is... everything else.

Tim knows what Batman likes, though, so... he keeps the
smile on his face, and starts counting, in his head, in time,
in good fun, how long it takes for Superman to return it.

As opposed to just looking him over (and over, and
again) --

No, he's not this patient. Jason said he'd be coming for
him -- with explosives, if necessary -- in three hours, and
it's not the kind of thing Jason ever exaggerates about.
Ever.

"Look," he says, sitting down on the plain-but-classy (who
picked? Is there a Lois? Anymore?) couch and stripping off
the mask --

"I'm looking, and I'm frankly kind of interested to have you
explain who you are and why the hell you're here."

Tim keeps smiling. It's easier, because *this* Superman,
for whatever reason, is just fine with looking people over
at something like human speed. Like maybe it's more fair?
Maybe.

In any event, the mask coming off made him look so much
like *Clark* that the hairline seemed a bit like a
hallucination.

"Batman called me --" Not 'us,' because there's no reason
to out Jason that he can see, if the man isn't even
following rumors about Gotham operatives. "A Crisis
refugee." Tim shrugs, pulls his boots off, and tucks his
feet under himself. "I didn't like my world anymore."

A blink. Good sign -- probably, probably.

"Can I call you Conner?"

For a moment -- not *quite* long enough for comfort --
Superman just keeps looking. (Clark never looked away,
given half an excuse, with any of them.) It's good. It is.
But then his eyes get narrow and he leans back and
crosses his right leg over his left knee, just like he's
wearing some (Bruce) business suit instead of the usual
tights and cape.

And it's almost disconcerting that he doesn't steeple his
fingers. Heh. Almost. Tim lets his smile shift to a
questioning look. "Is something wrong?"

"Let me be specific -- Robin. Why are you in my quarters?"

"Well, I... this *isn't* my world," Tim says, letting his smile
slip, but not his gaze. "And you..." He lets his gaze drop.
"Batman told me about you."

In a way, it's a little unsatisfying to have to go there so fast,
even though he's playing it like a lie. In a couple ways,
actually, because he's not just using someone else to help
him play *his* game, he was also hoping to *save* that --
maybe for when Superman had his dick up Tim's ass. Still,
it makes a big, hard (but not alien hard) muscle in
Superman's calf twitch. Twice.

Tim focuses his gaze on Superman's broad, broad chest for
a beat, another, and then on his mouth. "Not enough,
though."

"You have... questions." Interestingly, *now* the fingers
are steepled.

It's a bit like watching a priest grab for a crucifix *after*
he's already had his hand up the altar boy's robe. "Let's
say," Tim says, pushing up onto his knees and then settling
back on his heels, "that I'm looking -- hoping -- for
something a little familiar."

"But you didn't like your world?"

Slipping. That shouldn't have been... anything *close* to a
question. This world's Clark must've been even more
trusting than his own. "Well. I didn't blow it to hell on my
way *out*... Conner."

"Tim."

Mm. "I like that."

"What do you like?"

"The way you say my name, Conner," Tim says, because he
does -- low and sharp and sudden, like the name would go
away if he didn't catch it -- and because Batman said
certain kinds of praise could be effective. And he lets the
smile come right back. He doesn't know what he would've
done if he hadn't gotten it back. *Batman* would still --
but --

In any event, it kind of looks like Superman -- Conner's
forgotten what he wants to do with his hands. That's
progress.

*

"You're not -- like him."

"Mostly," Tim says, and licks the furrow between Conner's
eyebrows, and again, and it smoothes out to a flat, golden
plane of perfection. He wonders if it would've been like this
with Clark.

He wonders if this one won't want him if he stops being
Robin, too.

He wonders, wonders, wonders, and it's just the sort of
thing boys do, if they're good, and smart, and *extra*
curious --

"God, your tongue --"

Ah. He was slipping. He stops, and smiles -- because he
can, and because he likes to. Conner -- Superman -- cups
the back of Tim's head and pulls him in to a... perfectly
okay kiss. Messy, wet, possessive --

"*Fuck*, Rob -- Tim --"

"Please, keep calling me -- don't make me Robin here."

Robin isn't for Superman.

In any case, it makes Superman groan, deep and loud and
vibrating through his chest right into Tim's thighs. Tim
squeezes Superman with them, just as hard as he can --
there's no give whatsoever that he can *feel*, but Tim
knows it's an illusion. Just a clone. Just --

He wonders -- carefully, this time -- if it would be better or
worse in the grand scheme (he's always liked that phrase --
careful) of things to tell Superman-not-Clark that he'd never
done anything like this with Clark. That he knew it would
make Bruce upset --

That's not careful. That's --

"Are you all right?"

("Subject put a great deal of time and effort into improving
his diction, vocabulary, and abilities of vocal presentation --")

Subject didn't edit out all that emotion. And maybe, maybe --
maybe. Tim slides his right hand down Superman's left arm
until he can bury his fist in Superman's own, then he drags
them both up to his chin, his face --

"Tell me."

Don't you want to say 'please?' No. "Maybe *I'm* a little
familiar, too...?"

Amazingly, there's *guilt* on the man's face, just that fast.

"Conner?"

"It's -- when you were licking me. That -- that focus. Like
there was nothing else you could -- would -- ever think of
doing. I... I'm sorry."

Just -- amazing. Really. Tim smiles, going for something a
little confused, then a little *amused*. "Don't be," he says,
"*Superman*."

And Conner's eyes stop being blue. "Tim --"

Should I call you Kon-El...?

*

In the end, it's not really... he isn't sure.

Batman had been explicit about Conner's sexual habits, and
it's not like there's much deviation from the script, and --
no.

No, he thinks, again, and rests his head comfortably on
the man's broad, hairless chest. He's not asleep, but he
*is* dozing -- going by Batman's calculations on heart
rate and breathing.

No, and no. There hadn't been *enough* deviation from
the script, and even though it *was* also like what he'd
imagined sex with Clark to be like -- effort to get him to
stop hovering, relative ease (compared to humans) in
convincing him to stop holding back as much as possible,
obligatory afterglow -- all check --

It didn't feel like *he* was the one Superman was having
sex with, and, really, that *should* be just fine. Or it is,
and it isn't, and there isn't any way he can make that...
clearer. And there isn't --

And sometimes he gets annoyed not *like* Jason, but
maybe for the same reasons. Right now, he thinks, it
would be good to know exactly why he did this, if only to
have some idea of why it's not quite... right.

Over and above... the other stuff, because that's not
enough to *explain* it. There's something missing, and
even the fact that Batman has all of it to see -- it's all
about *where* you let your uniform pieces land when
someone's yanking them off -- isn't enough to make it sit
better.

He doesn't *know*.

Tim frowns, and stops, and smiles, and stops, and bites
Conner's nipple until his heart rate speeds up a little
(enough), and then bites his way down the man's body,
down his hard-and-harder dick --

"Fuck -- *fuck* --"

He can feel Jason watching, but he can't feel from where...
which means he's probably hacked one or more of the
feeds on top of *actually* being close enough for
surveillance.

"Suck -- oh, just don't *stop* --"

He can keep this short.

*

The first thing Jason does after cutting him out of the city
crowds Tim had melted into and yanking him into a car
which is probably *not* stolen -- this is Batman's city,
too -- is dump him in the shower in the hotel room he'd
grabbed for the day.

Sometimes Jason does this to him when Batman is finished
with him, too, but Tim's pretty sure it's not the same.

He's doing that thing where he's too angry (or too
Nightwing, maybe, but not for Batman) to make himself
loose, and that other thing where he's pretending it's all
business -- maybe probably maybe because he thinks he
doesn't get to be pissed about... whatever.

Tim does his part by letting Jason push and pull and scrub
and disinfect, and doesn't make comments about the
autoclave back in Gotham. Sometimes you just *do* need
to let the grownups be psycho.

Especially since Jason turns a vicious scrub of Tim's dick
into a hand-job, and kisses him -- perfect perfect *perfect* --
when Tim screams. That's pretty regular, too, if not regular
enough to excuse the fact that the only time Jason's ever
fucked him was that time in Batman's bed, with Batman
right there.

Which would *also* be fine, if it happened more often.

And if Jason could at least *pretend* it wasn't about... Tim
isn't sure of that either. The second washing is, as usual,
slow and gentle and drowsy-making, and Tim rests his
arms against the tile and his head against his arms.

"Psycho," Jason says, and bites his ear.

*

"Do you wanna talk about it, Jay?"

Not a shift, a tic, or a color-change in the back of Jason's
neck. "Nope."

Tim blinks.

"Not..." Jason's laugh is the one which -- a little, a little --
makes Tim feel twelve. "Not until I figure out what *it* is,
anyway, bro."

Tim likes 'bro' too much to feel like arguing the point.

Jason probably knows it just as well as Tim knows
anything else.

*

Jason thinks Batman looks like him when he's sleeping, but
Tim can't really see it. Tim didn't really even have problems
sleeping deeply after (after), and while for a while he was
only sleeping deeply for short periods of time...

No, Batman sleeps precisely the way he should (and he
should've known, shouldn't he? Bruce screamed so
*much*.), silent and light and dangerous.

It's a fun game to see how far onto the bed he can get
without waking him -- it's almost three in the afternoon,
and that means Batman's pushing hard on REM -- but he's
never going to win.

It's a better game to try to guess what it'll *be*, this time.
Sometimes it's a hand on his throat, sometimes it's both
hands in his hair, sometimes...

Today it's just a smile. Small (perfect), right at the
right-hand corner. Tim leans in and nuzzles it, since Batman
doesn't really like to be licked there unless it's Jason
(maybe, maybe Nightwing maybe).

"What's wrong?"

Tim sighs -- turning away from Batman's mouth enough to
avoid irritating him -- and settles down into a sprawl over
his chest. As ever, it's a surprise that he's sprawled over
Batman's hips and thighs, too.

Batman is shorter than Jason, though still taller than Tim is
likely to get without HGH. Bruce had talked a lot about
malnutrition, and...

And Batman would've been dosing him from the word go,
probably. Tim smiles against Batman's shoulder.

"Tell me," Batman says, and presses two fingers -- lightly --
against the bundle of nerves at the base of Tim's spine.

"I didn't have fun and I don't know why."

"Mm."

"I didn't have... *enough* fun," Tim says, and closes his
eyes.

"You were told what to expect, Robin," and Batman draws a
counter-clockwise spiral with his fingertips, and then a
clockwise one.

Tim frowns. "You *told* me how he was with *you*.
When -- Jason *told* me what you were like when you
were Robin. It wasn't --"

"Like you, no. Save in certain... subtleties."

"*You* said," and Tim digs his chin a little into Batman's
collarbone. Just next to where you can feel a chip missing,
if you press firmly and carefully enough. "You said that
subtlety was the best way to get around him, and you
were right --"

Batman's other hand -- fingertips, and he keeps gauntlets
in a hidden compartment built into the night-table, but he's
not using them now -- is on Tim's mouth. "He read you,"
Batman says, and moves the hand away from Tim's mouth
again.

But not his spine. "But --"

"You never... there wasn't a Stephanie. Or even a
Cassandra..." Batman frowns, thoughtful and absent
(Bruce) and it's good that he doesn't do that often.

"Batman," Tim says, when he can't really stand it any
longer.

"Wait."

Tim nods, internally. Better.

"To some extent, it was to your detriment that your
socialization was so... limited. There are people... in my
experience," Batman says, and now the hand is *pressed*
to his back, the palm warm and dry and smooth-over-
hard, "there are people who could easily be described as
ignorant -- and even naive -- who nonetheless can see
things."

"And we're not talking about meta and magic-users."

"No. Just... perceptive people. Perhaps you could
understand it as the difference between the Barbara you
knew and the... Dick."

Which... hunh. That absolutely works. "Dick was kind of...
he could be kind of a dumbass."

"Hm."

"I mean, Babs didn't always see... or." Tim chews his
bottom lip once, again. Again, hard.

"Robin."

"I'm fine --"

"Suck me."

He's not fine. He's not -- he doesn't belong, this isn't --
except that there's nowhere, and --

"Now," Batman says, and Tim moves, taking as much as
he can in the first gulp, and the rest in the second.

Batman always showers before he sleeps, but it's been long
enough that the shaft doesn't taste like soap so much as
warmth. (Superman?) Tim closes his eyes.

"Good boy," Batman says, and his breath hitches. Once.

Tim moans, and doesn't stop until Batman pushes into his
throat, pushes him quiet.

And then Batman sighs, and says, "he saw me in you,
Robin."

He wishes he could moan again.

"Now is that -- nn -- so bad?"

*

He goes to Jason's bed after, because Batman needs sleep
more than he needs him, and they clean Jason's favorite
guns and sharpen Tim's favorite knives, and Jason doesn't
want to talk, yet.

What he does want is to touch him, in that way he has
that's all about the scars Tim has, and how it's five times
as many as Jason does, because Jason was dead, once,
and now he isn't.

It turns into a rough, practical (Nightwing) rubdown, and
then into katas, because Jason actually prefers doing as
much of his workouts as he can *out* of the Cave, and
because Tim likes the way they can move, together, with
the afternoon sun beaming through kind of soft and --

He doesn't know. Or --

He still can't spend more than an hour in direct sunlight ("If
you wish, I can make you forget you want to."), and
sometimes he starts to miss it, and it's a little like cheating
to be here, sometimes.

Even with the way Jason carefully checks the skin of Tim's
cheekbones and forehead and shoulders after, and then
pulls the curtains.

In the dark (sun spots behind his eyelids, and actual
sunspots look black, but that still doesn't seem right),
Jason pulls Tim into his arms and just --

Jason hugs him, and buries his face in Tim's hair, and stops,
and picks Tim up and Tim hitches his legs around Jason's
hips and lets Jason shove him against a wall, and Jason
hugs him that way, because Jason is absolutely capable of
shoving you against a wall and hugging.

Jason.

Sometimes he thinks Jason loves him, in some way, but he
doesn't know how that happened, and he doesn't really
know what to do with it.

He *does* know that asking Jason to tell him wouldn't
really work very well, and, anyway, he can follow cues, and
instructions. Jason always makes the first move when it's
sex, he always does when it's a spar, and Jason's good
enough at sleeping with someone else in a bed that Tim
comes here just as often, almost, as Jason comes for him.

He thinks that's good enough. He's -- hm.

"Do you think Batman wants us to... socialize?"

Jason laughs, quiet and sleepy -- he likes sleeping in the
early evenings better than any other time -- and knocks
his chin against Tim's forehead. "Ask him next time he
lets you take a breath between blowjobs."

But Jason's only about half-serious. "I. I don't know. It
was weird, today."

And Jason's muscles go loose, and his hands tighten on
Tim's hips, and he doesn't say anything at all.

And he doesn't say anything at all.

And -- "*I* think he'll want us out there spying. He's fucked
his own reputation here, but Nightwing and Robin are...
different. So yeah, more people. Probably liaison work
between teams. Maybe *diplomacy*, considering." Jason
shakes his head. "Or maybe we'll all stop fucking around
and take the rebels out, once and for all."

"Maybe," Tim says, yawning, "we'll use the Death Star."

Jason laughs, silent and shaking them both.

And -- hm. "Do you think Batman *has* a Death Star?"

"No he doesn't -- well. Maybe." Jason laughs again. "Shit,
ask me when I'm *not* right about to put myself in
nightmare-land." He straightens, rolls his head on his neck,
squeezes Tim's hips and doesn't look at him, squeezes
Tim's hips and kisses his forehead, and this is when Jason
either asks if he wants to stay or just tosses him on the
bed and grins when he -- inevitably -- bounces. "I --"

"Yeah," Tim says, trying it out and saying it and wondering
and not being too careful, because Jason can handle it if
things --

Jason is okay with it, and Tim wonders if he means it, and
why he's saying it if he doesn't know, and if that was even
the question Jason was asking, and Jason frowns down
into his eyes and Jason opens his mouth and Jason closes
his mouth and squeezes Tim's hips again.

And then they go to bed.

end.