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“You’re beautiful,” Tim says.
Jason turns over her shoulder to give him a soft smile.
Her hair is cut short, buzzed to leave a soft fuzz on the top of her head. Tim knows it’s just as soft as her if you lay your palm right. Her eyeliner’s sharp and her lipstick’s a dark red that hints at the shade of panties she has on tonight. Tim caught a peek when Jason bent over to lace up her shoes, a trap considering the way she smirked back at his hungry gaze.
She’s wearing a dress that Tim zipped up and a short cropped jacket, gold and rubies hang from her ears and decorate her industrial piercing. He wants to take the cartilage between his teeth and make her sing. He wants to feel the blood rushing through her veins beneath his mouth, lips leaving kisses mimicking her pulse.
Tim’s in a pressed dark red shirt and black dress pants, staring up at her. She feels almost divine, as fluorescent lights frame her fuzzy halo of hair. Jason’s heels make the height difference between them all the more noticeable; her shoes clink in time with his oxfords, and he savors the sound like the whiskey his dad kept in his office.
“Just for you, handsome,” Jason promises, as she stops and smoothes Tim’s hair back into his slicked-back ponytail.
”When did I know, you ask me? Since always, I guess.” - Ivan Coyote, A Tomboy’s Survival Guide
They didn’t have much. Willis took on less than savory jobs that he tried to keep hidden from Catherine and Jason. He was never good enough at hiding it. He promised better whenever he went out at night and came back days later. He shouted often but sung just as often.
He named Jason after his side of the family, “And sides’ name like that will get you hired, girl,” Willis told her. “Long as they don’t look too hard and you don’t give ‘em reason to.”
Reason was stupid, Jason thought.
John, who lived in the apartment beside them, called his wife breathing reason enough. Syd, a working girl studying up for her nursing exam, said there was never a reason. Old woman Grace, who scoffed at Jason’s short hair whenever she saw her for bible study, said that putting on makeup was practically asking for it. Mark said it had to do with the length of her skirt, eyes staring a little too close at Jason’s hemline. The kids in the alley who ran whatever jobs they could get said it was all a load of bull. The cops, the working girls, the shitheads that stalked the alleys for easy targets, the kids who hid in them, the folks lucky enough to be blue-collar workers, everyone had a different explanation for what the reason was.
Reason didn’t keep anyone safe, ‘sides assholes’ from guilt.
“Mama?” Jason asked, a small head propped up against the cracked window. Rain was beating down heavily that day just like every day in Gotham. The ozone coming in from the broken glass mixed with the old smoke that never managed to leave the apartment. Catherine didn’t either these days.
“Yes, love?”
Catherine’s voice was low, raspy and comforting. It was heavy, like their combined weight on the mattress. Soft and gritty, like the rice they had cooking throughout the week. Her skin was pale, not that there was ever sun for her to get even if she did go outside. Her pupils were a little too small, but that was becoming more and more normal these days. Her breathing was harsh, and she winced when she moved. Sometimes she winced even when she didn’t.
She and Willis whispered frantically when they sent Jason to bed. She could hear just fine through the thin walls, anyways.
“We can’t afford that,” her mama would say.
“Am I supposed to let you die? What the hell would I do with Jason?” Willis would shoot back.
Jason tried to tune it out. The pipes in the old building creaked as someone above turned on their shower. A rattle from a nearby explosion of some kind, shook the room ever so slightly.
“Jason?” Catherine asked, sitting up on the mattress she hadn’t left in a week. Willis had been gone for longer than that. The rice on the stove was smaller and smaller each day. Jason didn’t know what would happen when the bag she was almost too small to reach ran out. She didn’t know what would happen when she ran out of money for her mama’s medicine. She didn’t know when her daddy would come home.
Her question died in her throat. Instead she asked, “Can I brush your hair?”
Her mama smiled, and Jason spritzed a little perfume on the hairbrush. “Hides the smoke,” she once told her with a wink. “Our little secret.”
Jason laughed back then. Now the words made her throat go dry and her tummy hurt. She kept too many “little” secrets. If she could hold them in her hands, she thinks they’d all tumble out. The crucifix above the door seemed to judge Jason whenever she stepped in or out of the apartment.
The bag of rice in the cabinets was running low. Willis hadn’t been home in a month. The bills were growing higher in a messy pile, pushed beneath the door with a loud knock that had Jason flinching, thinking of a different visitor. Catherine’s hands shook constantly, and she swayed when she stood. The new medicine she told Jason to keep hidden made her speak funny. She didn’t remember a lot that happened anymore.
She didn’t notice what happened even more.
“It helps, baby,” Her mama promised, so Jason paid for it.
She brushed her mama’s hair, eyes focusing on the now brittle strands instead of the new bruise in Catherine’s inner arm.
They’d be fine.
Tim was a lot of things, but a girl definitely wasn’t one of them.
He didn’t have words for it, but he knew he’d rather get instructions on leading a waltz than following. He knew that he stared in envy at the suits the boys at his boarding school got to wear instead of the dresses he was stuffed into.
There wasn’t anyone to tell this to. So he told his camera, when he set out on an important mission.
If he wasn’t a girl, then he was a boy right? And who was more boy than Robin?
He snuck out his window with precise wigglings of the locks, and extremely grateful that the alarm system was very easy to deactivate. Especially, when he knew the passcode and knew his parents wouldn’t be looking at their email alerts during their flight back home. He had a day alone during school break to figure out how to be a boy, so he could convince his parents.
Unfortunately, finding Robin was a lot harder than Tim originally planned.
The new Robin, which was a big shock to him, the old one was clearly having problems with Batman but then he disappeared! Nightwing definitely matched the flips and quips that Robin was known for, but the brand new Robin did not.
Dick Grayson was a hard act to copy, Tim supposed.
It didn’t seem to help that Jason Todd was a lot smaller than Dick was even as a ten-year-old vigilante. Bruce Wayne’s newest boy wonder wasn’t mentioned in any articles besides a leaked paparazzi shot, and even his adoption papers were sealed to prevent nosy people from finding them. Okay, maybe Tim counted as one of those nosy people, but this was Robin! He wanted to know as much as he could, and boarding school didn’t leave a lot of chances to stalk the new hero.
So tonight was his big moment.
A big moment that quickly went very wrong once he found Robin.
Mister Freeze was out of Arkham again, and Tim made the unfortunate choice of following his heroes via fire escapes. Metal railings got very slippery and very dangerous when iced over, who knew? He got a little too close to the edge taking a shot of Robin stringing up some thug who took advantage of the chaos.
“No!” Tim shouted as his camera slipped from his fingers. He tried to grab it and the momentum sent him tumbling over the icy railing.
His heart hammered in his chest and the ground got closer before suddenly a sharp thwip! broke through the sound of his breath catching. A pair of small but muscular arms pulled him to a stop, slowing his fall and helping him land on a lower landing of the fire escape.
“You alright?” Robin, Robin! asked Tim. He could only stammer, nodding like his head would fall off if he stopped. Thankfully the vigilante just laughed and pulled his grapple back in.
“Weird time to be takin’ pictures,” Robin hummed, and Tim gasped as he handed back his camera. A smug smile beneath the domino mask appeared. “What’s there to see out here?”
Tim blushed. “Nothing. I was just-”
Robin tilted his head like his animal namesake.
“Birdwatching,” Tim finished awkwardly. Right, like that made sense at night in one of the most polluted cities in America. Gotham pigeons weren’t nocturnal either despite their many other weird traits.
“You’re who I saw earlier!” Robin pointed with a gasp. “I knew it! B said I was seein’ things! Shows him.”
Tim froze at the ( albeit correct) accusation. “I, you know, I was, it’s, you-”
“Big fan of the bat?” Robin smiled and Tim desperately wished he had a picture of Jason doing the same to match the image. It just didn’t feel real like this.
“Kinda,” he said.
Robin smirked, and Tim gulped. “Birdwatching, huh?”
A bang rang out from behind a building and Robin jumped back, pulling out his grapple.
“Stay safe, kid.” And with that he swung out of sight.
The Boy Wonder was gone, and Tim suddenly felt a bit lost and a tiny bit found at the same time. He wanted to be like that, not Robin of course, he could never! But that easy sense of protection, people felt safe when they saw Robin. He wanted to be that for someone.
The next morning came far too soon, considering what Tim had been up to in the early hours. Still, he wandered down for breakfast meeting his parents with a fake confidence that he hoped was similar enough to the real thing.
“I’m going by Timothy now,” He told his parents, who looked up from their scholarly journals and eggs benedict.
“What was that, my dear?” Janet asked.
“I’m not a girl, and will be going by Timothy Jackson Drake,” He repeated. He braced his shoulders the way his dad did before a board meeting, and met his mother’s gaze with a cold look that mirrored her own.
His parents looked at him then at each other. Jack nodded, “I’ll call up the lawyers.”
“A son will sound better to the shareholders,” Janet added.
Son wasn’t quite right, but it was loads better than daughter. Tim had time to figure it out anyways.
Tim doesn’t remember patching himself up last night. He probably should, considering he knows he got stabbed. There’s bandages wrapped around his ribs. They’re far too tight to be from inexperienced hands, but what fully tips him off is bundled up in his hands like the world’s oddest teddy bear. A familiar leather jacket.
Jason.
Tim felt a little thrown having her in his safehouse. They had been getting closer, the older didn’t exactly shoot him on sight anymore, and they both occupied the weird edges of the bat’s operations, albeit Jason a lot more than Tim. Still, they both knew what it was like to be discarded. Jason made a point to reach out when Tim got back from his disastrous year finding Bruce.
There were nights spent on rooftops, sharing flash drives and rolling eyes at dry humor.
“You wear makeup on patrol?” Tim asked, swatting away the cigarette smoke Jason blew in his face. Her bright red lips parted to breathe out rings. “Not afraid it’ll stain your helmet?”
“What, you tryin’ to get lucky?” Jason quirked an eyebrow. “You worried I’ll leave a mark?”
Tim laughed, ignoring his brain whispering yes yes yesyesyes very loudly.
So maybe they were pretty close these days, but Tim didn’t think they were patch each other up and crash at the other’s safehouses close.
But sure enough if he closes his eyes, Tim can make out a keyboard clattering away in the living room and the low muttering of somehow softly cursing out a casefile.
Tim wavers on his feet over to the ensuite, but brushes his teeth without any casualties. Once he’s thrown on a pair of sweatpants that were left on the dresser, he leans out to see his savior sitting on his couch.
Her hair’s tucked up into a messy bun, strands falling this way and that. For the first time in years, Tim’s fingers itch to reach for his camera. He wonders if she knows how delicate she looks in the soft lighting of Gotham’s morning. He knows the answer. There is love in implicit trust, but people often forget there is just as much love in deciding to trust. Jason’s shoulders draw ever so tighter when Tim steps into the room, and he watches with nothing short of adoration as she gradually lowers them back into place.
Her voice is rough. Sleep tends to smooth it over, but without it the gravel in Jason’s throat is particularly pronounced. Her crime alley tongue swipes over the syllables in his name, missing the guttural start most would give, pulling out a shiver that runs warm and gentle over his spine. Her voice, he decides then, sounds like something close to home.
“Tim?”
You’re beautiful, Tim doesn’t say.
”If the butch deconstructs gender, the femme constructs gender.” - Joan Nestle
They never got it. Not the girls, not the guys, not Kon, or Bart, or Cassie, or Dick, or Steph. Steph got it maybe the closest. She dated Tim, dated a butch, but she wasn’t femme. Feminine? Sometimes, sure. But there was a difference.
They’d nod and say sure, but c’mon it’s Jason. Jason who hates pink. Would never wear it. Jason, the person who arrived back in Gotham draped in leather and cigarette smoke. The person who took control of the drug trade in less than a week. The woman with a sharp tongue and sharper knives to say nothing of the guns strapped to her legs and tucked away in her jacket. Hell, have you ever seen her in a skirt?
Tim knows better.
He knows that Jason never wears pink, but she smiles at little Sophie down the street who adores it and gives her bubblegum colored ribbons stuffed away in the pockets of her pants she sews herself. She tells her to ignore the girls who scoff at the color and the boys who call her girly like it’s a bad thing. He knows that Jason is always hanging around a bodega or bar ready to snark at those who stop by to bitch; she gripes and frowns, and gives good advice that she learned from the workers on the corners, the abuelitas in the old, half-crumbled apartments, and from underneath her own metal-tipped boots. Jason is not frilly. She is not delicate.
Tim knows that Jason chucks extra food towards anyone she sees. She preps in large batches “just in case”, so she has an excuse to pack away leftovers. She can cook like it's no one's business, but you “won’t get shit” without her say so. She teaches kids and adults to read and write; her thank you notes are written in dozens of languages and dialects. She hands out army knives, the good ones that don’t break at the sight of aluminum. She carries nicotine patches even though she never uses them, bandaids, and naloxone on and off duty. Jason is not sweet. She is not soft.
Jason is kind and protective of her community. The whole of Crime Alley and most of the Bowery know the Red Hood has their backs, but they know the woman underneath the helmet as a vital part too. She wears her makeup on patrol because it makes her unfamiliar skin feel more like hers. Her lips are bright red and match her bloody knuckles. Her leather jacket is as familiar as her perfume.
Jason is femme as in “fuck you” she once says. Femme as in a soft place to land, safety and security ingrained.
“Hey, doll,” Tim smiles at his girlfriend who glares at him from behind the window.
It’s not her patrol night. Still, she was awake when he called, and now already holding an open med kit as he crawls into the apartment. Jason has a concerned look if you know how to see past the grumbling. He’s extremely grateful that he does.
“Don’t “hey” me,” Jason glares, eyes still far too soft to match the annoyance in her tone. “Care to ‘xplain why I have to play nurse?”
There’s not a great explanation for that, so Tim settles for grunting through the antiseptic she swipes on his skin. It burns through the cut, and he reminds himself that it’s extremely needed with his lack of spleen considered. The spray is cold, but her hands are warm. Tim can’t help leaning into them. She searches for every nick and scratch just in case before swatting at him, soft.
“You popped a hole near your T site,” Jason points out. Ah, shit. Sure enough, Tim’s usual injection point is slightly bloodier than normal, and he groans at having to switch it already.
“I like that spot,” Tim complains and Jason huffs a laugh. She doesn’t quite manage to choke it back under her exaggerated annoyance.
“Too bad, baby. Maybe try not getting stabbed by a fuckin’ knife, yeah?”
“I wasn’t trying to,” Tim complains. It’s a pointless argument, but one they both need. The tension and worry drips out of Jason’s face with every obviously childish comeback Tim says. It’s a blessing to see it.
Tim is Tim. That’s how he describes himself. A woman? Definitely not. A man? Kind of? Nonbinary? Sort of? Trans? Yes. Butch? Yes.
He wears his suit and tie with the same confidence he wears a wife-pleaser and a pair of well-loved jeans. His carabiner clicks against his belt with a sound that makes Jason smile when she hears it.
Tim stands out. Always has since his name changed and clothes didn’t match what people thought they should be. He stood out even before then in the way children are so good at finding what doesn’t belong even when they don’t have words for it.
They have the words now.
Hateful, crude, and all others get hurled at him from across the street. People chase him out of bathrooms, no matter which one he uses. Security called on him for no reason. People in his board meetings squint like he doesn’t belong there. People at charity events wipe their hands none too subtly when he shakes them.
Tim is a visible sign that Jason is a lesbian. The catcalls turn to slurs when he holds her hand, but it also means people take a look at Tim’s muscles and think twice about touching Jason. Even Jason’s own muscles don’t keep creeps off.
He holds her softly and loves her knowing that the world hasn’t. He kisses her with a gentle love even when it isn’t anywhere near soft. Tim fucks her knowing that it’s his job to make sure she’s smiling after. He interlocks his fingers with Jason’s and holds on even when the world screams at them to let go.
Tim knows how to hold his head high the way his father taught him, keep his glance neutral like his mother’s. Still it’s all far too much sometimes.
Tim crashes the second he opens the door to Jason’s apartment one day.
Well not just Jason’s. Their apartment smells right in a way that immediately loosens the tension stuck between his shoulders even after the day he had. Jason’s perfume lingers near the entryway and weaves under his ribcage, burrowing into his heart. A familiar smell that trails after everything she touches —and god does he love how he’s included in that. The whispers in the office at the scent that hides under his shirt wrists and peaks out of his collar make him smile. A claim that this butch is taken and loved.
“Baby?” Jason calls. Her eyebrows are scrunched together, hands setting down a gun and unloading it.
Tim lets out a nearly soundless keen, and she jumps to stash the weapon and ammo before wrapping him in her arms. The pressure is welcome, as is the reminder that Jason actually wants this, wants him, wants Tim. Wants him when he’s weak and crumbling just as much as when he’s standing next to her and daring someone to approach them.
“Easy, love,” She whispers.
The world is suffocating. Too much work, too much crime, looks from his coworkers, hums from Bruce and Dick, too many expectations, and thoughts. The cases pile up and the air feels too heavy to breathe.
Here, it’s muffled. Not gone, but resting just outside of their windows. The shitty Crime Alley infrastructure makes for poor insulation; he can still hear the buzz of ringing alarms and traffic. But for once it feels more like a melody than a cacophony. An orchestra that he finally gets control over instead of listening helplessly to.
“I’ve got you,” Jason says.
Tim knows it’s true.
Tim’s butch as in protection. Butch as in a warning that these people are cared for. Butch as in kindness for the people he holds close and for the ones he doesn’t.
”I’m…trying to remember that I cannot keep you safe, but I can keep you loved.” - S. Bear. Bergman, Butch is a Noun
“You’re beautiful,” Tim whispers into dark crunchy curls (it’s wash day, after all).
Jason’s laid out in their bed, hair spread everywhere after it escaped from her bonnet. Soft pillows form a sort of nest around them that Tim inventively without fail kicks off in the night in his quest to wrap around her.
“Biased,” Jason grumbles back.
“Happily,” he says. She still hasn’t opened her eyes, but she’s curled herself towards him, and Tim can feel her muscles start to twitch. Thick thighs, powerful calves, a soft and full stomach. Her eyelids are streaked with yesterday's eyeliner and the remnants of sleep. She didn’t have time to take it off properly before Tim threw her on the bed, and she was far too tired hours after to do more than scrub haphazardly with a face towel. “Still beautiful.”