Chapter Text
Barbara truly had her work cut out for her. With her Bats and Birds and their constant need for her attention, a girl could hardly go out for a drink without getting a phone call.
After Jason's desperate call for help last night, Barbara found herself in her apartment the next morning, on her day off, opening her door to a sheepish Jason coming in with a fancy bottle of the wine she likes.
Shutting her door and clicking all fifteen locks into place, Barbara hums to the song playing on her kitchen speaker.
“So this is love, mm mmm mm mmm,” she hums. Jason twitches slightly outside of her eye line. She continues ignoring him and sings Cinderella to her heart's content.
One excellent rendition of the song and a flustered Jason later she takes mercy on the guy.
“So, you’ve found yourself smitten with a guy and you were so entranced by, you forgot to even ask his name, huh?” Barbara asks him as she picks up one of the cookies she set out on the table, tsking slightly. Like this was a common occurrence.
“Er. Yes.” Jason's shoulders drooped slightly. Perhaps Barbara had taken the teasing too far. She didn’t want to actually hurt the big lug. Just tease him to the ends of the Earth.
Then she remembered her new cavities and suddenly it wasn’t nearly enough teasing. And she was still a tad peeved he got to see more of Peter's works of art and she didn't.
Did she have access to his instagram and saw each new photo immediately after he chose to share it with the world? Yes. Was she still upset? Absolutely .
“Tell me about the pictures you saw.” Is blurted out before she can go back to teasing and poking at Jason. Jason blinks in surprise but seems pleased by the change in subject. She huffs. She’ll get him later.
“There were a lot of really pretty photos of Gotham. Lots of rooftop shots and some building and street pics too. He makes the city look so, so gentle Barbara.” Jason recounted fondly. She would’ve found it cute if she didn’t internally bristle. Of course she knew that. She knew more than Jason did about his photos. “There was also this shot of Bruce laughing at the gala from the other day. He was spilling some of his champagne expertly and clutching onto Clark. It was hilarious.” Jason chuckled at the memory.
She pulls out her tablet and searches for the Gotham Gaze tte.
“What’re you doing?” Jason asks.
“Looking up Peter's job to see if the photos were put out yet.” She says dismissively as she finds that with a click, that yes they were out already. There's an article about the gala and the front page of the article has Peter's photo of Bruce Wayne laughing and spilling champagne. It's a wonderful photo and she sends a link to the article to the Bat-Casual-Chat.
She noticed Peter was rather fond of personalized shots. All the other articles about the gala had photos of Bruce at the podium speaking. A scroll through the article revealed his expert eyes as she found a beautiful photo of Steph and Dick dancing together. Barbara continued scrolling, wrinkling her nose at a photo of Lex Luthor, and found a lovely moment of Bruce with Dami and Tim.
She had to find out if he did commissions.
As she slid her tablet away on the couch she turned to the man who was going to eventually help her set that up. Jason was presumably staring at the photos Peter had taken in the article she sent out to the group chat.
His dopey grin and mouthed “Peter Benjamin Parker” prompted Barbara to snap a picture of him. If their lu ck turned out alright and Jason charmed Peter, more than he’d already been charmed, she’d be able to send it to Peter to win some points in her favor.
Maybe she’d be a bridesmaid.
When Jason finally slid his phone away, soft eyes and a softer smile on his face, Barbara felt a renewed vigor flood through her.
It was time to get to matchmaking.
_____________
While Barbara continued to scroll on her tablet, her gaze inexplicably fond, Jason's phone dings. A text from Barbara, he hums as he opens the message, revealing a link to a Gotham Gazette article. With furrowed brows he blinks at the link. A quick glance at Barbara reveals, yes she is still distracted. With a huff he opens up the link.
And the very cover is a very familiar photo of Bruce staring back at him. He zooms in on the name given credit for the photo.
“Peter Benjamin Parker.” Jason hums. The name tastes sweet on Jason's tongue.
It suits the cutie, Peter, from the library.
He laughs to himself when he realizes the two had a similar name. Jason Peter Todd and Peter Benjamin Parker. What a pair the two would make.
He really hoped the two made a pair at all.
As he scrolled through the article he saw that every photo except for one of Lex Luthor were credited to Peter.
The guy was truly an artist.
Each of his photos had some movement, some sort of life to them.
That's what must've made it so obvious that Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter , hadn’t taken the shot of Luthor. The photo felt so…boring, or maybe he was just caught up in how lively Peter’s, Peter’s shots were.
As he grinned at the cute frustration from Damien in one of the shots, he shuts his phone off and puts the Gotham Gazette to the forefront of his memory. He’ll be sure to check the paper out more often.
Just so he can see more of Peter's work.
Jason wonders if Peter would be the kind of boyfriend he read about. Would he be the type to love physical affection? He had moved closer to Peter when they were also so close . Not close enough though, Jason thought only slightly bitterly.
Would Peter want to snuggle up close or would he be the type to only place his legs over Jason's lap?
Would Dog like him? That was a dealbreaker for Jason. If she didn’t like Peter, Jason would give up the endeavor and stick to remembering Peter like a fond memory.
Peter clearly knew his way around a camera, would he take photos of Jason when they started dating? Would he pose Jason or would he just take photos of him when he wasn’t paying attention?
It’d be impossible for Jason to not pay attention to Peter though.
Maybe he’d be an attentive boyfriend. Maybe he’d know to hold Jason without Jason having to look like a kicked dog, as Dami had so affectionately told him.
It didn’t have any bite to it, not when Jason knew how fond the kid was of animals. The farm building at Wayne Manor and the animals constantly appearing in Smallville were not as subtle an action as Damien seemed to believe they were.
Maybe Peter would cover Jason's face in small gentle kisses like he read about in one of his favorite nove–his thought was interrupted by Barbara's voice.
“So, you find yourself with a name and occupation of a cutie you found in the library, what now?” Barbara chuckles to herself.
She was right though. Oh god. What does he do from here?
It wasn't like Peter had left a glass slipper behind at the library, what was he going to do now?
Maybe he could go to his place of work and– ooh no. That was out of Jason's personal stalking tendencies.
…
Maybe Red Hood could go to his place of work–
As he silently struggled to figure out what to do Barbara gave him a look.
One of her, “are you seriously struggling right now or do you just want me to spell it out for you” looks.
He must shoot her one of his “I'm absolutely struggling, please help me” looks.
Dick had made numerous comments to him about how he’d make that face. Much to his chagrin.
Especially, Dick told him, in their earlier years of reconciliation where Jason would rather sit naked on a hot grill than ask any family for help. Dick’s words not his.
Barbara sighed. Nice, that meant his look was received properly.
“Well, it's not like you'd just waltz into his job and ask for him. I mean who in their right mind would do that.” She laughs. Jason tenses. Her smile drops immediately. “Are you…Did you seriously consider going to his job ?”
Jason sniffs and turns to look at her fascinating book shelf. Barbara stares at him before laughing in his face, she's not outright pointing at him while she laughs, but it's a close thing.
“Okay. Okay. Here's the plan. Since someone, someone, needs the reminder that he met Peter at the library I work at.” Jason smacks himself in the forehead. Barbara carries on. “He’s been there multiple times before to print out photos. Eventually he’ll turn back up again. I'll send you an SOS so you can haul your ass over to the library to make your move, Romeo.”
“Thanks Barbara.” Jason beams at her so sweetly she has to blink and turn away.
God.
The pair that he and that doe eyed Peter were going to make would be deadly.
She only hoped that Peter was half as put together as he seemed.
Somewhere Peter sneezed.