Work Text:
Jason’s plan to take a break on the couch while he waited for Tim to finish showering was brutally destroyed by the insistent blare of Tim’s default ringtone.
How the hell did he not have it on silent?
They were off patrol, finally resting like they deserved, and nobody should have been bothering them with vigilante business.
Tim should learn to say no. Starting with turning his phone off when he had no intention of leaving the apartment all night.
They were going to watch a movie, close enough to brush against each other until one of them (Tim) would probably end up with his head resting on the other’s shoulder (Jason).
No interruptions.
With Dick and Damian out of the picture, it was just the two of them.
Alone.
Something that hadn’t happened in a long time. Something Jason had missed.
Sometimes he wanted to drag Tim away from everyone else and keep him to himself for a few hours. Just a few. His not-so-small crush seemed to pass completely unnoticed by Tim, who stayed warm and friendly in that effortless way of his, oblivious to what it did to Jason’s pulse.
Maybe that was why Dick and Damian had canceled at the last minute when Steph and Cass hadn’t even confirmed in the first place. Giving them space like they expected something to happen.
A stupid thought. There was nothing to happen.
Tim didn’t look at him that way, and Jason was fine with that.
Another chime. Another message.
Jason shut his eyes for a second before shoving himself off the couch. Every muscle in his body protested as he crossed the room toward the damn phone. If Tim hadn’t threatened to kill him for destroying another one, Jason probably would have launched it out the window by now.
Just for fun.
He grabbed the device, lowered the volume immediately, and started shoving it into one of the drawers—only to pause when a message preview flashed urgent across the screen.
Frowning, he unlocked the phone without hesitation. Whatever was happening had to be serious if someone was contacting them as backup.
The full message loaded, making Jason roll his eyes instantly.
Wally: Urgent: handsome man lost 😭 (Photo attached: Dick tripping over absolutely nothing.)
More messages followed right behind it. More photos of Dick. More people mockingly reporting their missing partners with increasing urgency.
Jason chuckled under his breath as he scrolled.
By the time he reached the end of the chat, he briefly considered how much it would annoy Tim if he sent a picture of himself from Tim’s phone.
His cheeks warmed immediately at the thought.
It would just be a joke. They joked like that all the time. It didn’t have to mean anything else.
Jason shook his head once, clearing it away, then minimized the chat and moved through the phone toward his actual target.
Tim had to have embarrassing pictures of himself hidden somewhere. The guy collected blackmail material like it was a survival instinct. For once, Jason would be the one weaponizing it.
Not that he was defenseless. He had enough ammunition stored on his own phone if Tim ever decided to escalate things into full-scale war inside the Titans group chat.
He opened the gallery just as another message appeared.
Jason barely glanced at it at first, catching it from the corner of his eye before his brain fully processed what he had seen.
That wasn’t the group chat.
And it wasn’t from someone he didn’t know.
No.
It was from someone he knew very, very well.
The message disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, giving him no chance to actually read it. All Jason caught was the heart beside the name.
He exited the gallery, weighing possibilities for half a second before opening it again.
Jason<3: “Are you looking for something to send me, birdie?”
His name.
A picture of his face cropped from some older photo Tim must have taken years ago.
A message Jason definitely had not sent, appearing the second he opened the app.
But it was the heart beside his name that hooked itself into Jason’s brain and refused to let go.
What… what the hell was that supposed to mean?
He closed the app again and stared at the gallery with suspicion. His gaze flicked toward the hallway. Tim was only one door away. If Jason focused hard enough, he could still hear the steady hiss of water against tile.
He still had time. His thumb moved before he could think better of it, reopening the gallery.
Another message appeared immediately.
Jason<3: “I love all your photos. You’re… they’re really beautiful.”
“What the hell?” Jason whispered.
His head snapped up, his heart pounding hard in his chest.
The shower had stopped. He should stop too.
Instead, his grip tightened around the phone. He needed to know what the hell this was. Why an AI using his name was sending compliments to Tim like it knew him. Jason already did that. Maybe not out loud every time, but—
Tim didn’t need some cheap robot telling him nice things.
That was Jason’s job.
He switched apps, opening the next one closest to his thumb.
Jason<3: “Is it hot today, or is it just you, birdie?”
A strangled squeak punched out of Jason before he could stop it, humiliatingly high-pitched.
Why the hell was the weather app doing this too? Did Tim seriously have automated Jason messages hidden inside every app on his phone?
There was absolutely no way Jason was leaving that unanswered.
He opened another app. One that should not, under any circumstances, have been capable of flirting.
Jason<3: “1 + 1 equals you and me, baby.”
Jason folded forward, clamping a hand over his mouth to contain the hysterical laugh threatening to break loose alongside something dangerously close to an excited squeal.
If this was some elaborate prank from one of their friends, he was going to kill someone. If this was Tim’s joke…
Well. Tim didn’t know about Jason’s feelings. There was no reason for him to mean anything cruel by it.
The thought still dragged heavily at Jason’s chest. He exhaled through his nose and opened another app, almost chasing the next message now.
Jason<3: “For you, I’d go to a five-star hotel, a rundown shack in the worst part of Gotham, or the darkest alley.”
Jason scoffed under his breath.
Please. He had way better taste in romantic lines than this AI.
He’d have to tell Tim that later, just so Tim could improve the pathetic little digital version of him living inside the phone.
Or delete it entirely.
Honestly, that option sounded better.
A strangled noise snapped Jason’s attention upward.
Tim frozen stood at the entrance to the dining room, still damp from the shower, tension locked through his entire body. One hand twisted tightly into the edge of his towel while his eyes darted from Jason’s face to the phone and back again.
Jason slowly raised the device a little higher, silently proving it was still intact.
“Wally and Dick started an image war,” he explained. “I thought about replying, but then I got distracted by—”
“Give it back.”
Tim cut across him sharply, stepping forward with his hand already outstretched. A faint flush crawled across his cheeks while his mouth flattened into a tight line.
Jason lifted a brow and raised the phone farther out of reach, mischief flickering warm in his chest. He’d gone through way too many emotional crises tonight. Tim could survive a few minutes of discomfort too.
“Why?” Jason asked.
“Because it’s mine.”
“Really?” Jason tilted the phone slightly. “Then why is my name showing up everywhere?”
The words hit harder than he intended.
Jason regretted them immediately.
Tim’s hand dropped. He took a step back.
Jason moved forward without thinking. “Tim, we should probably talk about the little AI.”
Tim retreated another step.
“It’s not an AI,” Tim muttered through clenched teeth.
Jason blinked once. Then a grin started pulling at the corner of his mouth despite himself.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “Then who exactly is Jason less-than-three supposed to be?”
He took another step forward.
Tim immediately took one back. Not running yet, but definitely considering it.
Jason’s grin widened. “Tim—”
Tim suddenly spun on his heel and bolted.
Jason barked out a laugh and lunged after him without hesitation.
“Tim!” he shouted.
Tim rounded the couch at full speed, vaulted over the table, and slid past it in one smooth motion. Jason cut around the other side instead, refusing to lose momentum.
“Don’t you want your phone back?” he called after him, exhilaration beating steadily in his chest.
“You could break it!” Tim shot back.
He slammed shoulder-first into the window, fumbling briefly with the handle before glaring at it like it had betrayed him.
“Why the hell is this closed?”
Jason’s laugh slipped out quieter this time as he followed him into the kitchen.
“You’re the one who locked it,” he reminded him. “You didn’t want anyone bothering us.”
Tim’s steps faltered for half a second before he kept moving, shooting Jason a sharp glare over his shoulder.
“They always show up even when they swear they won’t,” he muttered through clenched teeth.
Jason slowed slightly as he watched him disappear back into the dining room.
The color across Tim’s cheeks had deepened into a warm, obvious pink. Jason couldn’t tell how much came from the sprint and how much came from embarrassment anymore.
Probably both.
“Yeah,” Jason said, unable to stop smiling now. “They do that.”
He leaned lightly against the doorway.
“Why don’t you stop running so we can talk about how annoying they are?”
Tim scoffed, grabbing his staff from the side table and extending it with a sharp metallic snap as he positioned himself near the window like he was genuinely considering breaking through it.
“We’ll talk in a month,” he growled, still edging backward slightly, “when you’ve forgotten the messages.”
Jason blinked.
Okay. That felt a little dramatic for a few embarrassing messages. Tim was actually panicking over what Jason might think.
The realization hit so hard the words left Jason’s mouth before he could stop them.
“Your AI has terrible pickup lines!”
Tim froze. Only for a second, but it was enough. Jason grinned immediately and stepped closer before Tim could recover.
“I could do way better if you let me.”
“It’s not an AI,” Tim protested, tightening his grip on the staff. “And those are very good lines. I approved them myself.”
Jason’s smile widened helplessly.
God, that was adorable.
“I’ve got better lines than those.”
Tim dragged his tongue across his lips, and Jason made absolutely no effort to hide the way his gaze dropped to follow the movement.
“Like what?”
Jason closed the remaining distance between them until they were almost chest to chest. Confidence came strangely easy now.
“You look like the kind of person who could’ve been the reason the Trojan War started.”
Tim stared at him blankly.
“Seriously?”
Jason nodded once, completely unashamed.
“Completely.”
Tim scoffed hard enough for it to almost sound like a laugh.
The staff hit the floor with a sharp crack an instant before Tim grabbed Jason by the back of the neck and yanked him down into a kiss.
Jason groaned against his mouth, hands immediately sliding around Tim’s waist as he pulled him in tight, pressing their bodies together without hesitation.
One of his hands slapped triumphantly against Tim’s back before settling there possessively while he kissed him harder, careless with breath, savoring the heat of Tim’s mouth against his.
AI: 0. Jason: 1.
“What do you mean you programmed it?”
Tim nodded and handed him the phone again.
Several kisses later, the initial awkwardness had almost completely evaporated. They’d barely been in this undefined whatever-it-was for two hours, and somehow they were already acting like this.
“I go into the notification settings and assign messages to different apps,” Tim explained, scrolling through the examples he’d made for each one. “And for the record, I got those from a very good flirting book, so stop insulting them.”
Jason immediately raised his hands in surrender.
“My mistake. I deeply apologize to the genius romance author.”
Tim hummed, visibly pleased with himself.
Jason leaned closer again, unable to help it.
“Wouldn’t you rather get messages from me instead of the programmed ones?”
Tim lifted a brow, though the slow flush spreading across his cheeks gave him away immediately.
“You think your pickup lines are better than mine?”
“Well,” Jason murmured, stealing another kiss before Tim could finish rolling his eyes, “there’s only one way to test that.”
Their mouths met again, soft for barely a second before the kiss deepened.
“Or,” Jason added quietly against his lips, “we could continue what we started earlier.”
The phone was forgotten almost immediately when Tim surged into him again, kissing him hard enough to leave both of them breathless, mouths wet, bruised, and smiling between collisions of teeth and lips.
Jason was definitely thanking Wally for this later.
Maybe by sending him a few more humiliating pictures of Dick.
Yeah.
That sounded fun.