Chapter Text
The Manor is too quiet when it’s empty.
Tim has been telling himself for two weeks that he prefers it this way. It’s easier to think without footsteps echoing down the hall, easier to work without Damian arguing with the computer or Alfred appearing silently at his elbow with tea and a look that says he has, once again, forgotten to eat.
The quiet helps him focus.
Mostly.
He’s at the long desk in the study with three monitors open, a notebook and several odd papers spread out across the wood, and a hoodie pulled up over his head against the draft that always seems to creep through the older parts of the house. Gotham’s early evening light is fading through the tall windows, turning the glow of the screen into the brightest thing in the room.
Tim leans closer to the monitor, fingers moving quickly across the keyboard as he scrolls through a set of property records.
He has to blink twice at one line of text before it resolves into actual numbers. For a second, the columns blur together badly enough that he nearly writes down the wrong address.
Tim rubs at one eye with the heel of his hand and keeps going.
The case file is open beside him, covered in his handwriting — arrows, question marks, addresses circled twice.
He’s been chasing this specific thread for four days now, and the larger case for the last three weeks. That’s why he’s still here, and no one else is. It’s messy. The kind of messy that means someone’s been careful.
Tim likes careful.
Careful means patterns.
Behind him, the Manor creaks softly, settling into night. The sound barely registers. He’s gotten used to the way the place breathes when it’s empty.
Bruce and Alfred are halfway across the world on a Wayne Enterprises trip. Damian insisted on going with them.
Dick’s in Blüdhaven.
Jason is— well. Jason is wherever Jason decides to be.
Which usually isn’t here, but if the suspicious creaks off in the distance are anything to go by, Tim could hazard a guess as to where he might be.
Tim shifts in his chair and scribbles another note. The hood slips back slightly as he tilts his head.
Something itches at the edge of his awareness.
Not the case.
Something else.
A faint sound echoes down the hallway, louder than any of the others he’s heard so far. Footsteps. Heavy ones. Unhurried.
Tim registers them automatically — weight distribution, rhythm, and no attempt to hide it.
He guesses Jason decided the Manor was where he wanted to be. It makes sense. Jason always likes the Manor best when Bruce isn’t in it.
Tim doesn’t bother looking up when the footsteps stop in the doorway. He also ignores the long pause that follows while Jason apparently decides what kind of conversation this is going to be.
Experience has taught Tim that it’s better to leave that sort of thing up to the recovering murderer with a history of pit-induced mood swings.
Eventually, Jason makes up his mind.
“Why the hell are you wearing your mask?” He says flatly.
Tim blinks.
His eyes drift out of focus, sliding away from the monitor as the words register. For a second, he genuinely has no idea what Jason is talking about.
Then his brain catches up.
Mask.
Oh.
Right.
He lifts a hand to his face and touches the edge of the domino like he’s just remembered it’s there. The fabric is warm against his skin.
“Huh,” Tim says, pesnively.
Jason is still standing in the doorway, arms folded, watching him like he’s waiting for the punchline.
Tim lowers his hand.
“Forgot it was on,” he says.
Jason stares at him.
“You forgot.”
“Yeah.”
Tim looks back at the screen and scrolls further down the property file, like nothing about this exchange is particularly noteworthy. Honestly, it isn’t even close to the strangest conversation they’ve had.
They’ve been doing this dance for a few years now: Jason pretending he doesn’t mind being unwillingly cast as the older brother, and Tim pretending Jason never tried to kill him that one time.
In fairness, Damian’s taken a few swings at him since then as well, which helped smooth things over between them.
Jason only tried one and a half times.
Tim can appreciate the restraint.
The domino sits comfortably against his face, the adhesive still holding with impressive stubbornness along the edges. No peeling, no irritation. Bruce had only ever tested the formula on synthetic skin during development — theoretical durability estimates, nothing long-term.
Tim should probably write up a field report.
It’s not uncomfortable. So much so that it barely registers at all.
He must have left it on after patrol.
That makes sense.
He’d come back late — or early, technically — and gone straight down to the Cave to upload the patrol logs. After that, he’d started looking through the case files again.
At some point he’d come upstairs.
At some point he’d sat down here.
The timeframe between those things could vary anywhere from hours to days. He hasn’t been keeping track of that data point. There’s been more iùportant things.
Apparently, the mask had come with him.
Tim frowns slightly at the screen.
Right.
He should probably take that off.
He stares at the screen for a second too long, trying to remember what thought he was in the middle of before Jason interrupted him. It comes back eventually, but sluggishly, like his brain is wading through mud.
He lifts a hand, fingers brushing the edge of the domino.
For a second, his thumb slips beneath the fabric.
Something tightens in his chest.
His brain offers up the beginning of a memory— wet concrete, the echo of footsteps in an alley, someone standing far too close.
Tim cuts the thought off before it can finish forming.
Nope.
Not useful.
His hand drops back to the desk.
Jason is still watching him.
“Well?” Jason says.
Tim shrugs slightly, already turning back to the keyboard.
“I’ll take it off later.”
The cursor blinks patiently in the search bar. Tim types in another variation of the name he’s been chasing all week, cross-referencing it against property records and utility payments. The guy had been careful. Careful enough that Tim should have spotted it earlier.
Instead, he’d followed the wrong lead.
Followed it straight into an alley.
Tim opens another tab.
He’s distantly aware of Jason pushing away from the doorway and stepping into the room.
“You’ve been wearing it all day?”
“Probably.” Definitely.
The utility bill he’s pulled up belongs to a property that shouldn’t exist on the same tax bracket as the others on the block. Shell ownership. Tim highlights the name of the holding company and copies it into another search window.
The thread is still there.
He just has to find it again.
Jason circles the desk slowly.
Tim doesn’t look up, but he can feel the weight of Jason’s stare.
“You sleep in it too?”
“I slept like three hours,” Tim says absently. “Does that count?”
He scrolls down through the document again.
The guy he’d tracked down had been sloppy about one thing — movement. Cash purchases, but inconsistent ones. Groceries from three different stores in the same week. A gas station thirty minutes outside his normal pattern.
People don’t break habits unless something forces them to.
Tim just needs to figure out what.
Jason stops beside the desk.
Tim types another query, opens two more tabs, and begins comparing addresses.
He’d messed that one up already.
He’s not going to do it again.
The mask sits quietly against his skin.
Jason exhales slowly through his nose. “You look like a raccoon.”
Tim huffs a quiet laugh. “Raccoons don’t have domino masks.”
“Yeah they do.”
Tim glances up.
Jason shrugs. “Trash bandits.”
Tim looks back at the screen. “Not scientifically accurate.”
He highlights a phone number buried in a contractor listing and adds it to the case notes. The man he’d confronted had known something. Tim is sure of that.
He’d just—
Handled it wrong.
“Whatever,” Jason says.
Tim hums vaguely in acknowledgement.
Jason lingers another few seconds. Then he shakes his head and heads for the door.
“Whatever, Replacement.”
He hums again but Jason’s footsteps have already faded down the hallway.
The Manor settles back into silence.
Tim keeps working.
He traces the ownership chain of the property back through two shell companies and into a warehouse lease on the south side. The pattern is starting to come together now — shipments, utilities, storage space.
Different angle.
Better angle.
A few minutes pass before Tim lifts a hand again, absentmindedly adjusting the edge of the domino where it’s shifted slightly against his temple.
The fabric slides back into place.
He doesn’t notice the gesture.
And he doesn’t try to take it off again.
•·················•·················•
The Manor kitchen is quiet in the mornings.
It’s just about the only time it’s quiet. The refrigerator hums steadily, the old clock above the stove ticks with stubborn regularity, and somewhere in the walls the pipes shift with a tired groan. It’s the sort of background noise that disappears if you don’t pay attention to it.
Tim steps into the room already halfway through a thought.
The warehouse lease from last night still bothers him. The holding company attached to it is registered out of Metropolis, which could be a coincidence, but probably isn’t. The shipping records only list two deliveries in the past six months, and the dates don’t line up with anything in the local distribution logs. Either the records are incomplete, or someone’s been careful about where the real shipments are going.
Which means the warehouse might not be the endpoint.
Which means—
Jason is sitting at the kitchen table.
Tim stops just inside the doorway.
Jason is drinking coffee out of one of Alfred’s mugs like he belongs there. He’s slouched back in the chair, one boot hooked over the rung of another chair, like he’s been here a while.
Tim hadn’t heard him come in.
“You’re still here?” Tim says.
Jason doesn’t look up from the mug.
“You’re still wearing the domino, dipshit.”
Tim blinks.
Right.
His hand comes up automatically, fingertips brushing the edge of the mask like he’s only just remembered it’s there. The fabric sits comfortably against his skin, the adhesive still holding along the edges without any sign of peeling.
“Huh,” Tim says.
“Yeah,” Jason replies.
Tim lowers his hand and crosses the kitchen to the fridge. The light flicks on when he opens it, illuminating the familiar assortment of Alfred’s leftovers and precisely labelled containers. There’s a carton of milk tucked against the back wall and a box of cereal on the counter.
Behind him, Jason is still staring.
Tim can feel it between his shoulder blades.
Jason doesn’t usually stay at the Manor this long. In fact, Jason rarely stays at the Manor at all unless Bruce is here to argue with. The fact that he’s sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee at eight in the morning suggests either a profound shift in personality or a reason Tim hasn’t identified yet.
Tim pours cereal into a bowl.
“You been wearing it all day?” Jason asks.
“Probably.”
Definitely.
Tim adds milk and carries the bowl to the table. Jason’s eyes track the movement like he’s waiting for something interesting to happen. Instead, he nudges Tim’s chair out with his boot before Tim can pull it back himself.
It’s a small thing, done automatically, like he’s done it a hundred times before.
Tim thinks that maybe he has, but certainly never for Tim. He refrains from raising an eyebrow and quietly accepts the gesture by sitting anyway.
The fact that Jason’s foot lingers against the chair leg a second longer than necessary before pulling back doesn’t escape him. It strikes him as odd, but he doesn’t give it more thought than that.
The cereal has gone soggy by the second spoonful. Tim isn’t sure whether that says more about how long he’s been staring at the bowl or how little attention he’s been paying to the fact that he’s supposed to be eating it.
The Metropolis connection is still bothering him. If the holding company is legitimate, the warehouse should have a broader distribution network attached to it. Instead, everything about the records suggests the building exists mostly to store things that aren’t meant to show up in official shipping logs.
Which would make sense.
The man Tim tracked down two nights ago had known something about it. Tim is certain of that. The problem is that Tim handled the encounter badly enough that the man isn’t currently in a position to answer questions.
Tim should’ve approached it differently.
Should’ve—
He cuts the thought off before it can go anywhere useful.
No point revisiting that part.
Jason reaches over and flicks the side of Tim’s spoon with one finger.
Milk splashes lightly against the table.
“Earth to Replacement.”
Tim blinks at him.
“I asked— you sleep in it?” Jason says, enunciating his question irritatingly slowly.
Tim glances down at the cereal bowl and at the milk now not in the bowl.
“I already told you, I slept like three hours,” he says.
So what if that was the night before last. Jason makes a quiet noise that might be a laugh. It’s hard to tell.
Tim eats another spoonful while Jason watches him. The stare isn’t subtle, and it’s definitely not casual. Jason’s attention has weight to it, like he’s cataloguing something.
He files that away.
This one-sided staring contest is getting boring real fast. He sets the spoon down in the bowl and leans back slightly in his chair. “So,” he says.
Jason raises an eyebrow.
“You gonna tell me why you’re camping in Alfred’s kitchen?”
Jason leans back in his own chair, stretching his legs out under the table.
“You gonna tell me why you’re still wearing that thing?”
Tim shrugs. “Forgot.”
Jason’s gaze lingers on him for another second.
Tim holds the look just long enough to make it clear he’s not planning to elaborate, then stands and carries the bowl to the sink.
He gets up a little too fast, and the room tilts for half a second. Not enough to matter. Just enough to be annoying. Tim keeps walking like he didn’t notice.
The water runs while he rinses it, the sound filling the brief silence behind him.
Jason doesn’t move.
Tim dries his hands on the towel hanging from the oven handle and glances back.
Jason is still sitting there.
Still watching him.
Tim turns back to the sink.
There aren’t that many reasons for Jason to be loitering around the Manor, nor are there that many for him to be hanging around with Tim. So clearly, Jason thinks Tim messed something up on his case.
Which, in fairness, isn’t an unreasonable assumption. The last lead Tim followed ended badly enough that Jason probably noticed the aftermath on the patrol reports.
Jason just doesn’t know the details.
Yet.
Tim hangs the towel back in place and heads for the doorway.
“Patrol at nine,” he says over his shoulder, on the off chance Jason sticks around till then.
Jason stands and drains the last of the coffee from the mug.
“Cool.”
They leave the kitchen at the same time, which isn’t a choice; it just sort of happens. Jason falls into step beside him in the hallway like it’s the most natural thing in the world, except that it’s very much not, and Tim can tell that Jason is trying just as hard as Tim is not to let it show just how uncomfortable it is.
So he doesn’t comment on it, but he files it away with everything else.
Jason is definitely watching him.
Which means Jason definitely suspects something.
Which means Tim needs to solve this case before Jason starts digging in the wrong direction.
Jason reaches out and hooks two fingers briefly into the back of Tim’s hoodie, tugging him sideways to avoid a corner table.
Tim would have missed it anyway. Probably.
Just as quickly as he'd grabbed him in the first place, Jason lets go, like it never happened.
Tim glances back at him.
Jason shrugs.
And Tim smiles despite himself.
As before reach the stairs and thankfully Jason turns to head down the hall, Tim lifts a hand absently and brushes his fingers over the edge of the domino where it softly itches near his temple.
The fabric stays in place.
Jason notices the gesture.
Tim notices Jason noticing.
Neither of them says anything.
Patrolling alone with Jason is weird.
It shouldn’t be. Tim has worked with him before — plenty of times — but Jason isn’t usually the kind of person who volunteers to run the rooftops with someone else. Especially not Tim.
Still, it works.
They move through Gotham easily enough, red and black shadows slipping across rooftops and fire escapes. Jason takes the higher jumps and longer routes, boots hitting gravel with the confidence of someone who knows exactly how much noise he can afford to make.
Tim stays a half-step ahead most of the time, gliding from ledge to ledge while the city unfolds beneath them in blocks of orange streetlight and distant traffic.
Once, when Tim lands a little too close to the edge of a gravel roof, Jason catches the back of his harness and steadies him before letting go.
“Careful,” Jason mutters.
Tim rolls his eyes.
He wasn’t going to fall.
But he doesn’t pull away from the touch.
Neither of them says much of anything at first.
Jason breaks the silence halfway across Park Row.
“So,” he says, landing beside Tim on the edge of a rooftop. “You gonna tell me what you’re working on?”
Tim keeps scanning the street below.
“A case.”
“Yeah, I got that far smartass.”
Tim doesn’t answer.
Jason lets the quiet sit for a few steps as they move again, grappling lines carrying them across the alleyway and up onto the next building.
When he speaks again, his tone is lighter.
“Oh, come on, Replacement.”
Tim sighs quietly.
“You know damn well I did this too,” Jason continues. “Obsessing over some thread until it starts eating your brain.”
Tim glances sideways.
Jason shrugs.
“I might have some insight for you.”
Tim considers that.
Technically speaking, Jason’s “insight” usually involves threatening people who deserve it until they talk.
Which, admittedly, can be effective.
Tim lands on the next rooftop and pauses there, scanning the streets again.
“It’s a logistics network,” he says finally. “Shell companies, warehouse storage, inconsistent shipments. Someone’s running something quiet.”
Jason nods once.
“You got a name?”
“Not a useful one.”
Tim pulls up the file on his wrist display and flicks it toward Jason’s helmet. A few addresses and company names scroll across the HUD.
Jason studies it while they run.
After a moment he snorts.
“Yeah, okay.”
“What?”
Jason points at one of the names.
“A holding company.”
“You recognise it?”
“Not exactly,” Jason says. “But I recognise the guy who uses it.”
Tim slows slightly.
Jason shrugs.
“Low-level distributor. Runs protection out of Coventry. Mostly keeps his nose clean.”
“You think he’s connected?”
“I think,” Jason says casually, “he’s gonna answer a couple questions for me.”
The lead pans out faster than Tim expects.
Jason drops them into the back entrance of a warehouse office that smells faintly like stale cigarettes and industrial cleaner. The man inside takes one look at the Red Hood helmet and immediately decides cooperation is the best possible life choice.
Jason leans casually against the desk while the guy talks.
Tim stands nearby, arms folded, listening.
Most of the information isn’t new. Just confirmations.
Addresses.
Shipment patterns.
A couple names Tim hadn’t linked yet.
Jason doesn’t even raise his voice.
He just taps the desk once with a gloved finger and says things like, “Try again,” when the answers start getting vague.
Within fifteen minutes they have what they need.
The rest of the patrol is uneventful.
They run the rooftops, intercept one attempted mugging, and spend a while sitting on the edge of a building watching traffic crawl through Gotham’s midnight streets.
Jason is quieter than usual.
Tim fills the silence by mapping out the new leads in his head.
By the time they return to the Cave, the sky outside the Manor windows is beginning to pale at the edges, the early light filtering faintly through the long shafts of rock above the underground entrance. The Cave itself is dim in the way it always is at this hour, the computer banks casting a soft blue glow across the platforms while the distant drip of water echoes somewhere deeper in the cavern.
Tim drops down onto the main platform and moves automatically toward the computer. The patrol data is already halfway through organising itself in his head — timestamps, locations, the new names they pulled from Jason’s contact earlier in the night. If the shipping routes line up with the addresses they were given, the next step will probably be—
“You should take that thing off.”
Jason’s voice cuts through the quiet from somewhere behind him.
Tim pauses at the console and glances back over his shoulder.
“What thing.”
Jason gestures vaguely toward Tim’s face as he steps off the lift, helmet tucked under one arm.
“The mask, genius.”
Tim reaches up automatically, fingers brushing the edge of the domino like he’s just remembered it’s there. The fabric shifts slightly beneath his touch, the adhesive still holding firmly against his skin.
“Oh.”
Jason drops his helmet onto the workbench with a dull thud and leans back against the railing, watching him.
“You’ve been wearing it for days.”
Jason reaches over and flicks the edge of the domino with one finger.
Not enough to move it.
Just enough to make Tim swat his hand away as he pointedly glares at the computer.
“Don’t.”
Jason grins.
The patrol logs flicker onto the screen as he pulls them up, the familiar layout settling across the monitors. He starts organising the new information they gathered earlier, dragging a few files into the case folder and adding a quick note about the Coventry connection Jason identified.
Behind him, Jason exhales slowly through his nose.
“The adhesive’s gotta be killing you.”
Tim considers that for a moment while typing.
Now that Jason mentions it, there is a faint itching along the edges where the mask meets his skin. Nothing dramatic. Just a low, persistent irritation — the sort of thing you get when you’ve been wearing something longer than you probably should.
He rubs the edge of the domino absently while reading through a shipment record.
“Not really.”
Jason doesn’t say anything right away.
Tim can feel the weight of his stare from across the platform. He keeps working, cross-referencing the warehouse address with a new set of transport records and adding the names they pulled from the distributor earlier in the night.
After a few seconds, Jason snorts quietly.
“Whatever.”
He pushes himself away from the railing and heads toward the stairs leading up to the Manor.
Tim barely looks up from the monitor.
A moment later, the lift doors close above with a soft mechanical hum, leaving the Cave quiet again.
Tim keeps working.
The itching along the edge of the domino is still there, faint but persistent. Probably just the adhesive reacting to sweat or heat from the patrol. It’s not the first time he’s worn the mask longer than intended.
He reaches up again without thinking and adjusts the edge of the fabric where it has shifted slightly over the bridge of his nose.
The domino slides back into place.
Tim doesn’t notice the gesture.
And he still doesn’t take it off.
•·················•·················•
The next morning, Tim doesn’t really know if he’s surprised that Jason is still here, or that he finds Tim in the library
Tim had migrated there sometime after sunrise, spreading case files across the low table near the window and opening three separate browser windows on the laptop. The light filtering through the tall glass panes is thin and grey, Gotham’s version of morning that always feels more like the night reluctantly letting go.
He’s halfway through tracing the financial history of another shell company when Jason appears in the doorway.
Tim doesn’t look up immediately. The Coventry distributor’s accountant has a cousin who runs a small trucking business out of Burnley, and the shipping manifests attached to that company—
“You’re still wearing it.”
Tim pauses mid-scroll.
Right.
He leans back in the chair and finally glances toward the doorway. Jason is standing there with his arms crossed, leaning one shoulder against the frame like he’s been watching for a while.
Tim lifts a hand and touches the edge of the domino automatically.
“Huh.”
Jason doesn’t move.
“You said that yesterday.”
“Did I?”
“You also said you forgot.”
Tim shrugs and drops his hand back to the keyboard.
“Forgot.”
Jason stares at him for a long moment.
The itch along the edges of the domino is worse today. Tim can feel it whenever he moves his face, a faint burning tightness where the adhesive has been sitting too long. If he presses lightly near the temple he can feel the skin underneath pulling.
He ignores it.
Jason pushes himself away from the doorway. He does that a lot. Tim wonders if he'd stop doing it if he told him how reminiscent of Bruce's own brooding it is.
“You’ve been wearing that thing for days.”
“Probably.”
“Your skin’s turning red.”
Tim doesn’t look up from the screen.
His eyes burn every time he looks up from the screen. He’s been reading the same shipping record for the past three minutes and only just realised he stopped taking in the words. He'll blame that on Jason.
“It’s fine.”
The irritation that is Jason stops beside the table.
Tim becomes briefly aware of how close Jason is standing — close enough that if he leaned forward he could touch Tim’s face without even moving his feet.
He ignores the thought and keeps typing.
The cursor blinks patiently in the search field. Tim types in the trucking company’s registration number and cross-references it against a set of port authority records.
If the shipments passed through Burnley before arriving in central Gotham, that changes the timeline of the whole network.
Jason exhales through his nose.
“Take it off.”
“In a minute.”
Jason leans down slightly.
“No, like… now.”
Tim’s shoulders tighten automatically.
He doesn’t look up from the screen, but his attention shifts anyway — tracking Jason’s hands in his peripheral vision without meaning to.
He keeps typing.
Jason waits another second.
Then he says, “Alright.”
Tim barely has time to glance up before Jason reaches across the table, grabs the front of Tim’s hoodie, and yanks him clean out of the chair like he weighs nothing.
It’s insulting, frankly, considering the amount of muscle mass Tim has spent the last few years building.
The sudden pull sends a sharp spike of adrenaline through Tim’s chest that feels wildly disproportionate to the situation.
He pushes it down automatically but he doesn’t refrain from complaining about it.
“Hey— what the hell—”
Jason is already moving, dragging him backwards across the rug like he weighs nothing.
“You’re taking it off,” Jason says. “Now.”
“Fucking— No.”
Tim plants a foot against the leg of the couch and twists sideways, slipping out of Jason’s grip with the sort of reflex that comes from years of being tackled by people much larger than him.
Jason swears.
“Jesus Christ, Replacement— stop wriggling.”
“Stop grabbing me!”
Jason lunges again, hooking an arm around Tim’s shoulders in an attempt to drag him down into the couch cushions.
Tim ducks under the hold and spins away, nearly tripping over the coffee table in the process.
“You’re acting like a raccoon,” Jason says.
“You’re acting like a psychopath.”
“I am a psychopath.”
“That’s not helping your argument.”
Jason tries to grab him again.
Tim slips the hold, grabs Jason’s wrist, and flips it away in a practiced motion.
Jason blinks.
“Oh, so we’re doing it like that?”
Tim grins despite himself.
“You started it.”
Jason lunges again.
This time Tim manages to dodge him completely, vaulting sideways over the arm of the couch and landing lightly on the other side.
Jason stops.
Looks at him.
Then laughs.
“Oh, you are so full of shit.”
“What?”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m absolutely not.”
Jason points at him.
“You smiled.”
“That was not a smile.”
Jason swears again and comes at him properly this time.
Jason catches Tim’s other wrist and pins both of them down against the couch cushion.
The shift is small. Barely anything, really — just Jason adjusting his weight, the couch dipping slightly beneath them.
But Tim feels it immediately.
The weight presses down through his shoulders and into his back, the firm pressure of Jason’s grip flattening his wrists into the upholstery. The couch fabric scratches faintly against his knuckles. Jason’s knee settles against the edge of the cushion beside his hip, locking him in place without much effort.
The laughter drains out of him before he quite realises it.
For a second he is intensely aware of how little room there is to move.
Jason doesn’t notice. Or if he does, he misreads it as the usual annoyance. From Jason’s perspective, this is still just roughhousing — the kind of stupid wrestling match they’ve both been having with Dick since it felt safe to do so both on and off the training mats.
Tim forces himself to stay loose beneath the hold.
He could get out of it. Easily. The position isn’t good leverage for Jason. Tim could slip his shoulder, twist his hips, roll them both off the couch if he really needed to.
He just—
He doesn’t want to escalate it.
“Jason,” he says, aiming for irritated.
Jason grins down at him, completely oblivious.
“You done?”
“Never.”
Jason laughs, the sound easy and bright.
“Cool.”
Then he shifts his weight forward. One hand still holding Tim’s wrists down, the other lifting toward his face.
“Let’s get this stupid thing off you.”
The movement is casual. Almost lazy. Jason reaches for his mask the way someone might brush a leaf off a friend’s shoulder.
His fingers move toward the edge of the domino.
Tim’s body locks.
It happens so fast he doesn’t even understand it.
One second he’s on the couch in the Manor library. The next—
Concrete under his back.
Cold seeping through his suit.
Someone leaning over him.
A hand coming down toward his face.
Too close.
Too close—
“You look scared.”
The room tilts violently.
“Don’t—!”
The word rips out of Tim’s throat before he even knows he’s speaking.
Jason freezes.
But it’s already too late.
Tim’s body moves before thought can catch up. Training takes over completely — instinct sharpened by years of drills and muscle memory.
He tears one arm free with a brutal twist and drives his forearm hard into Jason’s ribs. At the same time he snaps his hips upward and slams his shoulder into Jason’s chest.
The couch frame cracks loudly under the sudden impact.
Jason’s grip breaks instantly.
Tim shoves him away with enough force to send him stumbling backwards into the coffee table. The table scrapes violently across the floor. Jason catches himself against it with a grunt, the breath knocked briefly out of him.
Tim is already on his feet.
Breathing hard.
Backing away.
His heart is hammering so loudly he can hear it in his ears. The room feels wrong — too bright, too sharp, every sound amplified.
“Don’t—” Tim says again, louder now, the word cracking in the middle. “Don’t touch it.”
The room goes completely still.
Jason straightens slowly.
He presses a hand briefly against his side where Tim’s elbow connected, but he barely seems to register the pain. His attention is locked entirely on Tim.
And Jason’s expression changes.
The playful irritation disappears so quickly it’s almost frightening.
He knows.
Tim can see it in his face instantly. Jason’s entire posture shifts, shoulders lowering slightly, hands coming up where Tim can see them.
Jason knows that reaction didn’t come from nowhere.
Tim’s chest is rising and falling too fast.
His vision tunnels.
The room is suddenly full of details — the faint smell of old books in the library, the scrape the coffee table made against the hardwood floor, the uneven pattern in the rug beneath his feet.
Ground yourself.
Tim drags in a breath.
Five things.
The couch. The laptop. Jason’s phone sitting on a side table, the screen unlocked and lit up. The window. The cracked board in the wooden floor near the door.
Four things he can feel.
The rough fabric of his hoodie. The too-tight pull of the domino against his skin. The sting in his palms where he hit the couch. The floor beneath his shoes.
Three things he can hear.
His own breathing. The clock ticking faintly on the wall. Jason shifting his weight.
Two things he can smell.
Dust.
Coffee.
One thing—
His pulse slows enough for the room to settle back into place.
The panic drains away in a sudden, nauseating rush, leaving heat flooding up the back of his neck.
Embarrassment hits just as hard.
Jason is still watching him.
Not angry.
Not defensive.
Concerned.
“Jesus,” Jason says quietly.
Tim’s shoulders are still rigid.
The panic is fading now, leaving behind the familiar rush of embarrassment and heat crawling up to his ears.
He crosses his arms.
“You tackled me.”
Jason blinks.
“That wasn’t—”
“You tackled me.”
Jason stops.
Looks at him for another long second.
Then he nods once and takes a deliberate step back.
“Okay.”
Tim looks away first.
The itching along the edge of the domino has gotten worse. The skin beneath it feels hot now, tight and irritated.
Neither of them says anything.
Jason exhales slowly.
“…I was trying to help.”
Tim shrugs stiffly.
“Well don’t.”
Jason watches him for another few seconds.
Then he nods once and backs toward the door.
“Right.”
He disappears into the hallway.
Tim waits until the sound of his footsteps fades before lifting a hand and pressing his fingers lightly against the edge of the domino.
The skin underneath burns.
He lowers his hand.
And sits back down at the laptop like nothing happened. But when his hands settle over the keyboard, his fingers are shaking too much to type. He stares at the screen anyway, as if waiting for the letters to arrange themselves without him.