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Tim doesn't really notice the welling of power under his skin until he just barely pulls back from touching the skin of a trafficker.
With an obvious flinch, he jerks back just in time to avoid touching skin to skin. In his distraction, the trafficker gives him a solid punch to his stomach, but Tim will take that over accidentally sucking the life out of someone any day. He furtively glances around, but everybody else is too busy to notice his slip up.
Tim's powers are hidden from everyone for a good reason. He can kill with just a touch— he has to truly want them to die, but wanting someone to die is very easy in his line of work, and even off-hand thoughts work. But Tim hasn't truly been in danger of hurting anybody for years now. He can turn it off and on at will, and he still wears gloves everywhere he goes.
But one of his gloves is currently shredded from the fight, and his powers are acting up.
He stumbles back from someone attempting to grab his hand for a throw, punching them with his gloved hand. His power sits patiently in the hollow of his chest, and no matter how hard he tries he can't deactivate it.
There's a gunshot and a curse. Tim looks up to find Jason struggling too. His enemy keeps getting up— a meta?— no matter what Jason does to put him down, recovering from kneecap shots in the time it takes Jason to reload. The man looks at his knees with astonishment though, so maybe someone else is healing him? Tim looks around for someone who looks like they're concentrating too hard, but finds nobody.
Jason curses as the man gets one good hit in, and Tim makes a beeline over to help. This trafficking ring is one of the rare occasions that Jason and everybody else's goals align enough to work together. Tim has seen Bruce's mood improve the longer he and Jason have gone without snarling in each other's faces. Tim doesn't want to ruin that by letting Jason get injured because somebody keeps shrugging off incapacitating injuries, even if he considers Jason more of a colleague than a friend.
The moment Tim gets close enough to touch Jason, the man drops like a rock. Jason jumps back in surprise, before laughing.
“Finally, Jesus Christ.” He looks up and spots Tim. “What, came over to help me out? Little late for that, I guess.”
Tim huffs. “See if I ever come to help when I see you struggling again.”
“I'll survive.” Jason jumps into a fight with another guy, Tim taking up the rear and getting in jabs when he's sure that the little skin exposed isn't anywhere within touching distance.
Jason seems to get frustrated with this, poking at Tim. “What's the hold up?” He then spots the way Tim holds his hand awkwardly to his chest and scoffs. “Are you actually germaphobic? I thought you were just playing at being a strange asshole.”
“I'm not—” Tim makes a frustrated noise, before biting the bullet and asking, “Do you have any spare gloves? Or can I use yours?”
“I'm not going to give you my gloves, you little freak.” He punctuates ‘give’ with a punch to the face of one of the traffickers.
“It's not germaphobia, and I promise to explain later, but something bad will happen if I touch any of these guys right now, so I swear to god—”
He's interrupted by Jason throwing one of his gloves at his face. He takes it and puts it on, finally reading up his stance.
“ Thank you,” he says, sarcasm thick. Jason gives him an equally sarcastic salute, and they jump back into the fight.
It's only later, when Tim walks into his apartment and finds Jason there, that he realizes he may not have completely thought it through when he asked for that glove.
“So, Timberlina,” Jason begins. “What's up with the whole ‘if I touch anybody, bad things will happen’ thing? You did say you'd explain.”
Tim sighs. At this point he's resigned to Jason knowing and holding it over his head. He trudges over to get coffee first, though, because if he has to do this he at least wants to feel awake. Jason waits patiently, eyes burning holes into the back of Tim's head.
With coffee in hand, he sits down on a barstool and props up his head with one hand, staring down Jason. “I don't even know why I'm asking, but please— don't tell anybody.”
Jason laughs. “Who would I tell? Bruce ?” he sobers a little, before adding. “Besides— I'm an asshole, but I ain't gonna tattle on you to Big Bats.”
Tim nods. “Fair point.” Then he glances to the side, and says, “I can kill people with a skin on skin touch if I think about it hard enough. I asked for a glove because my powers were messing up, and I was one wrong thought away from sucking the life out of one of those guys.”
Jason stares at Tim in shock, even as an amused scoff comes from his mouth, and he weakly manages, “that wouldn't be a big loss.”
“Well I don't want to kill anybody, so it would be a big loss to me. ” He sighs. “But I digress. That's why I wear gloves. It's much easier to explain germaphobia in a rich sheltered kid than it is to explain someone dropping dead after they touched my hand.”
Jason nods. The shock lessens, instead being replaced by some sort of— wonder?
“You a meta?” He asks.
Tim shakes his head. “No, I don't have the gene. I can just— do this, no rhyme or reason.”
Jason pauses for a second, giving Tim a calculating look, before saying, “That makes two of us.”
“What?” Tim asks.
“That makes two of us.” Jason repeats. “It seems like we're total opposites like this. Because I can bring people back to life.”
“You can bring people back to li— oh, that guy kept getting up.”
“Yeah.” Jason winces. “I doubt it was fun to keep waking up from a headshot. My powers were fucked up too, I couldn't stop. I only stopped—”
“—When I got close to you.” Tim finishes. “Do you think we mess each other up when we're close enough to each other?”
“Well shit, apparently we do.” Jason says. “That's—”
“That's a liability in the field, is what it is.” Tim interrupts. “We’ll inevitably have to fight together again, and this is going to throw us off.”
Jason whistles. “Well, shit.”
“Well shit, indeed.” Tim agrees. Then he asks, “Why did it stop when we got too close to each other?”
“I don't know. Magic— this has got to be magic, right?— works in weird fucking ways. Maybe when we get close enough to each other we cancel out.”
Tim makes a humming noise. “Do you think this is something able to be worked on?”
Jason gives Tim a wary look, which is fair. Nothing fun has ever come of Tim's ‘I have a plan’ hum. “Elaborate.”
“This is a liability in the field, so I'm wondering if we can work up a tolerance to each other. Surely the radius of being ‘too close to function’ can get smaller, right?”
Jason narrows his eyes. “You think I want to spend more time with you, pretender?”
Tim glares right back. “I don't find it all sunshine and rainbows either, but I doubt you want to have to shoot a guy 15 times to get him to go down.”
“Fair point.” Jason groans and says, “Okay, how are we doing this?”
How they're doing this ends up being a set time every week to meet up at Tim's apartment and try to puzzle out the connection between their powers. They get nowhere at first, but slowly they manage to figure out what's wrong.
Tim frowns in concentration, hand up against Jason's heart. Its solid thump-thump almost distracts him, but he manages to keep himself on track.
“Okay, I think I can feel you?” Tim says. “It feels muted— probably because we're touching— but that's definitely you.”
It's been several weeks now, and the only progress they've managed to make is this. Tim can tell Jason is getting frustrated, and to be frank so is Tim.
It's inevitable that in their nightlife they're going to encounter each other, and their powers go completely haywire around each other. It's not just frustrating— it's dangerous , and Tim doesn't want to be caught up in the aftermath of a fight gone wrong because he killed someone due to it.
Jason's powers flow underneath his fingers, muted but unmistakably there . It feels— warm. Like a summer day, or maybe a fireplace. Tim has always thought of his own powers as cold, so he supposes it fits that Jason's are the opposite.
He shivers as Tim trails fingers down to his ribs, bare skin hot against Tim's cold hands. Tim feels surprisingly light— he never noticed he was always exhausted until it had gone away, but now that it's gone he wonders if it's a side effect of his powers, considering that touching Jason cancels it out too. Jason seems less energized, actually, blinking slow and lethargic like a cat.
Tim grabs Jason's hand, and lifts it to his own bare chest. “Okay, now try to feel for me.”
Jason smirks. “That an invitation, Timbers?”
He flushes and gives Jason a deadpan look. “You know what I meant. It's— I don't know how to explain it. It's almost like you're listening for something? But with a separate sense.”
Jason nods, and closes his eyes. Up close, Tim can see every little nick of a scar on his face. It's charming looking. He pulls it off, somehow.
When he opens his eyes, they're a spring green— not Lazarus green, nor his normal blue. Tim wonders if his own eyes change color. He's never thought to look.
“I can feel it.” Jason says. “So what now?”
“Now comes the actually difficult part,” Tim says. “We need to figure out how to work around the way we go haywire when within a certain distance. Or at least shrink the amount of proximity needed.”
Jason groans. “Joy. More time spent with you . Just what I needed.” There's less bite to it than usual.
Sometimes they just give up. They don't say they're giving up, of course, but they stop working at it for the night and begin fucking around with the TV instead. It never occurs to Jason to leave, and Tim feels reluctant to suggest it to him for some reason. So Jason pokes through Tim's house for entertainment, and Tim pulls out cases to work on, and they both still let the power debacle simmer in the back of their mind in case they can think of something.
On one such day, Jason flops down on the couch next to him and declares, “Okay, fuck this. We both know we're not getting anywhere tonight, but I don't feel like driving home in this weather, so we're gonna watch a movie and make fun of it or so help me God I'm gonna go insane.”
Tim snorts, eyeing Jason's form sprawled across his couch with amusement. “I'll only do it if you put on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
Jason makes a scrunched face, before sighing dramatically. “You drive a hard bargain, but deal.”
It's actually nice to hang out with Jason. Tim is surprised at how witty he is, snorting un-gracefully as Jason gags at the shitty writing and soliloquizes about the main character.
Over the course of the movie, Tim ends up half slumped over Jason, half asleep. Jason has gone silent, accommodating him with an arm around his shoulders to keep him in place. Tim is too tired to really question it, the last week of poor sleep due to extra patrols finally catching up to him in the worst way possible.
He ends up falling asleep on Jason, head tucked into the crook of his neck. It's comfortable in a way he's never really been, warmer than he's been since his powers first activated.
When he wakes up the next morning, it's to Jason's nose in his hair and the realization that this is going to be a painfully embarrassing morning. He's proven right, because Jason stirs awake in the next moment and stares at him with a deer-in-headlights expression. Tim is definitely mirroring him. He can feel his cheeks heat up.
He clears his throat, carefully untangling from Jason's grasp, before quietly asking, “do you want breakfast?”
Jason jumps on the escape route, coughing before saying, “sure, yeah. Breakfast sounds good.”
Tim makes breakfast with his ears still steaming hot, and they settle down to eat in awkward silence. Eventually he can't take it anymore, and blurts out, “is it just me, or are there side effects to our powers that we've never considered because they've always been there?”
Jason finally stops looking embarrassed, which Tim takes as a win. He looks up and asks, “What do you mean?”
“I'm always exhausted as a baseline, but whenever we're close enough to cancel out our powers I feel noticeably more energized?”
He makes a thoughtful sound, swallowing the bite of food in his mouth before replying, “Huh. I didn't think about it, but I always feel kind of hopped up. When we get too close I actually feel calm for once. Maybe you're right.”
Tim groans. “I did not want to be right. I just thought the exhaustion was because I need more sleep than normal, not because my powers drain me.”
Jason snorts. “Sucks to be you.”
From that moment onward, there's a quiet shift in their dynamic. Jason starts coming over more often— ostensibly so they can work more on their powers conflicting, but Tim can read between the lines.
It's only when Tim collapses into Jason's chest and buries his head in his shoulder that their dynamic truly changes, though. Jason is out a startled sound, not unlike a dog's yelpl, and his hands automatically come up to rest on Tim's waist.
“What are you—”
“Shush,” Tim replies. He grabs his laptop, never moving from Jason's lap, and inputs the password. “I am exhausted , but I have work to do, and I know part of the exhaustion is my stupid fucking powers. I need you to cancel it out so I can focus or I'm going to get behind.”
Jason laughs. “Is that all I am to you? A way to circumvent your exhaustion?”
“Of course not. You're also a heater.” Tim says, and Jason laughs again.
They start touching as much as they can, after that. Brushing their shoulders, linking hands, tucking their faces into each other's necks, everything they can do to get skin on skin contact. Sometimes they slip up and do it in costume and get weird looks, but nobody ever says anything. Maybe they're too afraid to disrupt the delicate balance of Tim and Jason actually getting along. They don't really care either way, as long as they can get away with whatever this is without a lecture from Bruce.
And it does feel like something. Tim isn't stupid, he can sense the tension between them both, but there's no way in hell he's going to act on it when he could very well be making it up to fuel his stupid, reignited crush on Jason.
Jason makes it hard sometimes though, especially right now as he crawls through Tim's window in just his night clothes, grumpy expression on his face.
“I can't fucking sleep. I'm burning up.” Jason growls, and then crawls into Tim's bed.
Tim bluescreens.
“Wh—” he sputters.
“Don't go all tense,” Jason murmurs sleepily, “You're cold, and I'm hot. ‘S basic math.”
And, well, it certainly does add up.
Tim slowly relaxes— and when Jason doesn't move away from him, he brings an arm up to wrap around Jason's shoulders. The heavy weight of him on top of Tim is relaxing, and the warmth he radiates lulls him to sleep faster than he's ever gone to bed before.
When they wake up that morning, they don't talk about it.
Tim starts leaving his window unlocked, though. Just in case.
It's a foggy night when Tim falls to a particularly well aimed gunshot.
He and Jason have been working together on cases recently— they've been spending so much time together that they inevitably end up leaning over each other's shoulders and pointing out obvious connections, and eventually they just started sharing their caseload. Tonight they're following up on a lead against a gang, and Tim pays the price for inattention dearly.
Tim clutches the side the wound is on, hissing between his teeth. Jason is tinny in his ear, demanding, “Red Robin, I heard a gunshot. Report, damn it!”
“Losing blood fast.” He grits out. “Need an extraction if possible.”
Jason curses, and the sound of gunshots rings out both through his comm and across the shipyard. Tim hears hurried footsteps in his ear, and manages to catch sight of Jason's worried expression before he tilts forward into his arms.
“Shit— fuck— Red Robin, can you hear me? Status report, I need a status report.”
Tim mumbles into Jason's neck, “Doin’ fine, besides all the bleeding.”
“The bleeding is kind of what I'm worried about, birdy!”
Tim begins to list to the side, legs giving out. The last thing he hears before he faints is a worried shout of, “fuck, I can't lose you Tim—!”
Tim fades in and out of consciousness for a while. What little he sees doesn't really make sense. Tim's apartment, plus an IV bag. The smell of pastries. The sound of footsteps pacing a hole into his carpet. The sight of Jason holding onto his hand like a lifeline.
When he does finally wake up for good, he does so slowly. He groans. Footsteps approach him, quick and heavy.
Tim manages to open his eyes and struggle his way into a sitting position right before Jason bursts into the room, sees him awake, and snags the front of his shirt to pull him into a desperate kiss. He makes a surprised noise into Jason's mouth, but doesn't manage to kiss back. He has just enough brainpower to chase Jason's lips with his own when he pulls away.
“Don't ever scare me like that again, you motherfucker!” Jason shouts, brows furrowed.
Tim is still dazed. “You kissed me.” He says dumbly.
Jason's eyes widen, and he flushes, looking away with an angry look on his face. “Well—”
Tim repeats, “you kissed me. Was that a one time thing, or are you open to doing it again?”
The tips of Jason's ears go bright red. Tim finds it cute.
“I'm going to beat the shit out of you for scaring me as soon as you can walk again,” Jason says, and then kisses him again.
Tim can't find it in himself to be concerned.