Archive of Our Own

Jason Todd owned exactly one suit that fit him.

This was because Alfred Pennyworth had bodily threatened him after the fourth time Jason showed up to a Wayne event wearing a jacket he’d “borrowed” off a guy who was either a mob accountant or a corpse, depending on how picky you were about the timeline. The suit was black, annoyingly perfect through the shoulders, and probably cost more than Jason’s first apartment building.

Tim hated it.

He hated it in the doorway of the Cave, where Jason came clomping down the stairs already tying his cufflinks like he had not, in fact, spent the last five years pretending he would rather chew glass than attend another gala. He hated the white shirt open at the throat because Jason had refused a tie. He hated the faint scar at Jason’s jaw that the collar didn’t quite hide.

He hated it in a calm, normal, mission-focused way.

“You’re late,” Tim said.

Jason looked up from his cuff. “You look like a funeral home intern.”

Tim glanced down at his own suit. Charcoal. Tailored. Boring enough to be invisible in a room full of people who thought navy counted as daring. “That’s the point.”

“The point is to make the arms dealer think you’re single, rich, and sad?”

“The point is to make the arms dealer think I’m exactly as harmless as he already thinks I am.”

Jason made a face and came down the last few stairs. “He thinks you’re harmless?”

“He thinks Timothy Drake-Wayne is a corporate orphan with a caffeine problem and a trust fund.”

“He’s half right.”

Tim shut the case file on the workstation before Jason could lean over his shoulder and start poking at it. “Wyatt Fane. Old money, newer money laundering, suspected of moving alien-grade weapons components through art auctions. Tonight he’s attending the Wayne Foundation restoration gala. He hates Bruce, wants Wayne contracts, and has a documented weakness for people who look impressed when he talks.”

Jason’s mouth twitched. “So why’m I here? You need somebody to look impressed?”

“I need someone he won’t recognize from WE security briefings.”

“You have, like, six siblings who could do that.”

“Dick is too recognizable. Damian is sixteen and called Fane a ‘soft-palmed carrion insect’ at a charity lunch last year. Steph is banned from the museum after the chandelier thing.”

“Chandelier thing was funny.”

“The chandelier thing cost seventy thousand dollars.”

“Still funny.”

Tim looked at him for a second too long. Jason noticed. Of course he noticed. He always noticed when it would inconvenience Tim personally.

Jason’s eyebrows rose. “What?”

Tim turned back to the file and dragged it open again, because if he had to say this while looking at Jason’s stupidly good shoulders he was going to walk into the Cave wall. “The cover works better if I bring a date.”

Silence.

Not a clean silence. Not the kind where the Cave seemed to hold its breath for drama. The computer fans hummed. Somewhere behind them, the dinosaur creaked very slightly because the Manor above was old and insane. A drip hit stone in the distance.

Jason said, “Sorry, run that again.”

“The cover works better if I bring a date.”

“You have dates.”

“No, I have exes, vigilantes, and people who will sell my location to TMZ.”

“You have Bernard.”

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bernard and I broke up eight months ago.”

“Yeah, but rich people never know what month it is.”

“Jason.”

Jason stared at him, then looked at the file, then looked back at Tim. “You want me to be your fake boyfriend.”

“For approximately four hours.”

“And Bruce signed off on this?”

“Bruce said, and I quote, ‘Jason is capable of behaving when he chooses to.’”

Jason snorted. “That’s his way of saying he cried himself to sleep after you asked.”

“He also said you know how to move through a hostile room without looking like security.”

“Aw. B thinks I’m pretty.”

“Jason.”

“What exactly is the fake boyfriend supposed to do?”

“Stand near me. Talk to people. Keep Fane’s attention when I need to clone his phone. Maybe dance once if necessary.”

Jason’s expression shifted by millimeters. It was the worst thing about him, besides the crime and the jacket collection and the way he could make Tim’s stomach do something stupid by leaning against a table. Jason had a face built for blunt-force sarcasm, but the small changes were where the real thoughts lived. His mouth relaxed, then tightened. His eyes flicked to Tim’s collar, then away.

“Dance,” Jason repeated.

“If necessary.”

“You lead?”

“I can.”

“Yeah, no.”

Tim blinked. “What?”

“If we gotta dance, I’m leading. You walk like somebody taught you waltz from a CIA manual.”

“That’s because someone did teach me waltz from a CIA manual.”

“Jesus Christ.” Jason rubbed both hands down his face, careful not to mess up his hair. It was combed back more neatly than usual, though a stubborn white streak had already fallen forward over his forehead. Tim wanted to put it back. Tim wanted to leave the Cave and go lie down in traffic.

Jason dropped his hands. “Fine.”

Tim had expected more resistance. Several forms of resistance, actually. A joke. A complaint. A fake gagging noise. Maybe a small lecture about why Gotham’s rich deserved to be left to devour themselves in peace.

“Fine?” Tim asked.

“Four hours. I get to leave if somebody says ‘synergy’ at me more than twice.”

“Deal.”

“And you feed me first.”

“The gala has catering.”

“Yeah, rich people catering. One scallop on a tile. I’m not going into combat on decorative seafood.”

Tim hesitated. “Combat?”

Jason gave him a look.

Right. Gala. Same thing.

“Alfred packed sandwiches,” Tim admitted.

“Course he did.” Jason stepped closer, close enough that Tim could smell soap and leather and the faint bitter edge of gun oil that never entirely left him no matter how much he cleaned up. “One more thing.”

Tim’s hand paused over the case file. “What?”

“If we’re doing this, we’re not half-assing it.”

“I don’t half-ass cover work.”

“No, you overthink it until everybody wants to put you in a laundry basket.” Jason reached out and hooked one finger under Tim’s lapel, tugging it straight. It was unnecessary. It still made Tim’s mouth go dry. “People clock fake from hesitation. They don’t clock fake from too much. You flinch when I touch you, they’ll notice. You look startled every time I say something nice, they’ll notice.”

“I don’t flinch.”

Jason’s gaze dropped pointedly to Tim’s hands.

Tim unclenched them.

“See?” Jason said. “Laundry basket.”

“This is why I considered asking Cass.”

“You considered asking Cass to be your boyfriend?”

“It would’ve been simpler.”

“She’d spend the whole night staring at people until they confessed. Actually, yeah, ask Cass.”

Tim shoved the file against Jason’s chest. Jason caught it, laughing under his breath, and the sound bounced around Tim’s ribs for no useful reason at all.

By the time they got upstairs, Alfred had the sandwiches wrapped in butcher paper and waiting beside two discreet comm units, a spare phone, and a lint roller.

“Master Jason,” Alfred said, inspecting him for three seconds. “Adequate.”

Jason put a hand over his heart. “You always know how to make a guy feel cherished.”

“I should hate to overexcite you before an assignment.”

Tim reached for the comms. Alfred moved them half an inch farther away with the edge of one finger.

“Master Timothy.”

Tim froze.

Alfred looked at him with the mild, devastating expression that had brought supervillains and emotionally constipated vigilantes alike to heel. “Try to enjoy at least one moment of the evening.”

“It’s a weapons trafficking investigation.”

“And a gala. They are not mutually exclusive.”

Jason was smiling down at his sandwich like he had been given a private gift.

Tim said, “I’ll put it in the mission notes.”

“See that you do, sir.”

The museum glittered like a trap.

Tim had been to the Kane Memorial Museum of Antiquities enough times to map it blind. Main hall: marble floors, two grand staircases, awful acoustics. West wing: Roman collection, currently closed for restoration and therefore ideal for a private weapons component handoff if you bribed the right facility manager. East wing: modern art, ugly enough that no one questioned large crates. Security cameras everywhere, with three dead spots Tim had personally fixed last year and two he had personally created last week.

The gala occupied the main hall beneath a ridiculous hanging installation of glass birds. Donors moved around in herds, all perfume and cufflinks and tiny smiles. Waiters slid through the gaps with champagne. A string quartet fought for its life near a statue of Athena.

Jason stopped just inside the entrance.

Tim braced.

Jason said, very quietly, “That is the ugliest fucking bird ceiling I’ve ever seen.”

Tim coughed into his fist.

A woman in emerald silk looked over.

Jason smiled at her, warm and sharp. “Beautiful turnout, isn’t it?”

She smiled back automatically, baffled and charmed, and drifted away.

Tim stared at him.

“What?” Jason asked.

“You weaponized good manners.”

“I contain multitudes.” Jason’s hand settled at the small of Tim’s back.

Tim’s entire nervous system lit up like a faulty switchboard.

Jason leaned closer, his mouth near Tim’s ear. “Breathe normal, Drake.”

“I am breathing normal.”

“You’re breathing like you swallowed a USB drive.”

“I hate you.”

“Boyfriend voice.”

Tim swallowed and put a smile on his face as Marlene Fox approached in a silver pantsuit, her wife beside her.

“Timothy,” Marlene said warmly. “You made it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Tim accepted the kiss on the cheek and turned slightly. Jason’s hand moved with him, easy as if they’d practiced. They had not practiced. Tim was starting to feel this had been a tactical error. “Marlene, this is Jason Todd.”

Marlene’s eyebrows shot up with the kind of delight people tried to hide and failed. “Jason. Goodness. I haven’t seen you at one of these in years.”

“That was the idea,” Jason said, shaking her hand. “But Tim asked nice.”

Tim’s smile almost slipped.

Marlene’s wife, Ana, gave Tim a look of open interest. “Did he?”

“No,” Tim said.

“Yes,” Jason said at the same time.

Marlene laughed. “Well, I’m glad somebody got you out. Tim works too much.”

Jason sighed. “I’ve noticed.”

Tim stepped on his shoe.

Jason did not react, the bastard. He only rubbed his thumb once against Tim’s back, like he was soothing him. Like that was a thing they did. Like Tim wasn’t going to spend the next ten minutes thinking about the pressure of it through his jacket.

“We’re actually looking for Mr. Fane,” Tim said, because the mission existed and he needed to return to it before his brain dissolved. “Have you seen him?”

Ana’s face tightened slightly. “Near the north bar, last I saw. Talking at Councilman Evers.”

“Poor Evers,” Jason said.

“He deserves it,” Marlene said. “He voted against library funding.”

“Then I hope Fane corners him by the shrimp.”

Tim had to bite the inside of his cheek.

They moved on before Jason could accidentally become the favorite person of every woman over forty in the room, which was apparently a risk no one had accounted for. Tim guided them through clusters of donors, letting the current carry them toward the north bar. Jason moved beside him with shocking ease. He did not fidget. He did not loom. He angled his body so people made room for Tim without realizing they were doing it.

“You’re annoyingly good at this,” Tim murmured.

Jason took a glass of champagne from a passing tray and handed it to Tim without looking. “At standing?”

“At this.”

“I was legally dead, not raised in a barn.”

“You skipped most of the galas.”

“Yeah, but when I went, I paid attention.” Jason took a second glass for himself. “Rich people tell on themselves constantly. Half this crowd would confess to murder if they thought it made them sound interesting.”

Tim looked at him over the rim of the champagne. “That’s almost exactly what Bruce says.”

Jason recoiled. “Take that back.”

“No.”

“Terrible boyfriend behavior.”

Tim’s pulse tripped on the word, which was inconvenient because Wyatt Fane appeared in his peripheral vision at that exact moment.

Fane was in his late fifties, silver-haired, tanned in a way that suggested private islands and moral failure. He held court near the bar with Councilman Evers, two board members, and a woman Tim recognized as the deputy director of the museum. His tuxedo was midnight blue. His watch was worth enough to fund six clinics. He laughed too loudly at his own sentence.

Tim touched his comm once. “Target at north bar.”

Oracle’s voice came through, soft beneath the quartet. “I see him. Phone is in his left inside pocket. Custom security shell. You’ll need thirty seconds within two feet.”

“Copy.”

Jason drank half his champagne. “What’s the play?”

“Introduce myself. He’ll pretend not to know me. I’ll bait him with the procurement contract. You keep him talking.”

Jason’s eyes flicked across the room. “Exit behind the donor wall, two guys pretending not to be security by the pillar, one by the stairwell. The blond one’s carrying.”

“I saw.”

“Course you did.”

Jason’s hand slid from Tim’s back to his waist.

Tim forgot the next three seconds of his life.

Then Jason said, “Smile. He’s looking.”

Tim smiled.

Fane’s attention landed on them, sharpened, and stayed.

“Timothy Drake-Wayne,” Fane said as they approached. “Now here’s a surprise.”

Tim gave him the exact polite smile he used at board meetings when someone suggested replacing community outreach with a branding initiative. “Mr. Fane. I didn’t realize you supported historical restoration.”

“I support civilization.” Fane shook his hand. His grip was dry and performative. “These days somebody has to.”

Jason made a small sound into his glass.

Fane turned. “And you are?”

“Jason Todd.”

The name did what it always did in Gotham high society: dropped through the conversation like a knife through silk. Evers stared. The deputy director blinked too fast. One of the board members visibly tried to remember whether Jason had been dead at the last gala they’d attended together.

Fane recovered first. “Bruce Wayne’s ward.”

“Sometimes,” Jason said.

Tim felt Jason’s fingers flex once at his waist. Not nerves exactly. Amusement, maybe. Warning.

Fane’s gaze moved between them. “I didn’t know you two were… acquainted.”

“Gotham’s a small city,” Tim said.

Jason looked at him with an expression so fond Tim almost forgot it was fake. “He’s being modest. He hates when people know he has a life outside spreadsheets.”

“I love spreadsheets,” Tim said.

“I know, sweetheart.”

Tim’s brain performed a hard reboot.

Sweetheart.

Fane laughed. Evers laughed too, a beat late and desperately. Someone behind Tim made an audible little interested noise, which meant this was going to be in three gossip columns by midnight and Dick would never let him rest.

Tim reached for his champagne and used the movement to brush his wrist against Fane’s jacket.

The scanner in his watch pulsed once.

Too far.

Fane shifted away to gesture with his drink. “Well, I’m glad to see young people showing interest in preservation. So much of your generation seems allergic to permanence.”

“My generation?” Jason asked. “You mean people with renters insurance?”

Fane’s smile faltered.

Tim almost inhaled champagne.

Jason continued, blandly pleasant. “Sorry. Tim says I’m not supposed to start class warfare before dessert.”

“I said before appetizers,” Tim murmured.

“See? He’s ambitious.”

Evers laughed for real this time. Fane did not. His eyes narrowed on Jason with irritation, which was useful. Very useful. Tim stepped half an inch closer, pretending to hide a smile against his glass.

The watch pulsed again.

Connection established.

Twenty-nine seconds.

Fane said, “I suppose it’s easy to mock tradition when one hasn’t been responsible for maintaining it.”

Jason tilted his head. “Is that what you do?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Maintain tradition.”

Tim could hear the grin in Jason’s voice. It was awful. It was perfect. It kept Fane’s attention fixed exactly where Tim needed it.

Twenty seconds.

Fane lifted his chin. “My family has contributed to this city for four generations.”

“Yeah? Mine too.” Jason’s smile showed teeth. “Mostly through unpaid labor and medical debt, but we all give what we can.”

Evers suddenly became fascinated by his drink.

Ten seconds.

Tim let his free hand drift behind Jason as if he were settling closer, fingers hidden by Jason’s jacket. His watch warmed against Fane’s pocket. The custom shell resisted for half a second, then opened.

Download complete.

Oracle said, “Got it. Oh, that is a lot of encrypted garbage. Give me a minute.”

Tim stepped back, just enough.

Fane was red around the ears. “Bruce always did encourage theatrics.”

Jason’s smile thinned.

Tim felt it before he saw it. The slight shift in Jason’s posture, the narrowing focus. Bruce was one thing. Jason could insult Bruce for sport. Other people did not get the same privileges.

Tim covered Jason’s hand with his own.

It was meant to be tactical.

Jason looked down at their hands.

Then he turned his palm and laced their fingers together.

Tim’s thoughts scattered like startled birds into the ugly glass ceiling.

“Bruce encouraged reading,” Jason said after a second. His voice stayed light. “The theatrics were all me.”

Tim squeezed once without meaning to.

Jason squeezed back.

They escaped Fane three minutes later because the deputy director asked Tim about a donation pledge and Jason smoothly claimed Tim had promised him a dance before “someone put him to work again.” Tim did not remember agreeing. Tim was also not stupid enough to argue in front of Wyatt Fane, who was watching them with the sour interest of a man who hated being excluded from anything.

The quartet had given up on subtlety and started playing something old and romantic. Couples moved across the marble beneath the birds.

Jason set their glasses on a waiter’s tray and held out his hand.

Tim stared at it. “You weren’t serious.”

“Deadly.”

“We don’t need to dance.”

“Fane’s still looking.”

“He’s talking to Evers.”

“Looking while talking. Amateur hour, baby.”

“Do not call me baby.”

Jason’s mouth curved. “Why, sweetheart better?”

Tim took his hand before he could say anything worse.

That was a mistake too.

Jason’s hand was warm and callused, his grip careful without being loose. He led Tim into the slow rotation of donors and spouses and people whose marriages had the emotional depth of corporate mergers. His other hand settled at Tim’s waist again, firmer this time, and Tim put his hand on Jason’s shoulder because that was what the cover required and not because he wanted to know the exact shape of him under the suit.

“You’re stiff,” Jason said.

“I am undercover.”

“You’re dancing like Batman’s grading you.”

“He might be.”

Jason glanced toward the balcony. “If B’s hiding up there in a tux cape, I’m leaving.”

“He wouldn’t wear a tux cape.”

“Give him time.”

Tim’s mouth twitched. Jason saw it and looked insufferably pleased, which was unfair because Tim was trying to keep track of Fane, the guards, Oracle’s quiet muttering in his ear, and the fact that Jason’s thumb had begun moving in a small absent stroke against his side.

This was bad cover work. Tim was supposed to maintain emotional distance from the cover. Tim was supposed to use the intimacy without reacting to it.

Jason turned them neatly around a couple blocking the flow, his shoulder brushing Tim’s. He smelled good. He had no right to smell good.

“Where did you learn to lead?” Tim asked, because speaking was safer than whatever his brain was doing.

“Alfred.”

“Really?”

“Who else? Bruce dances like he’s trying to disarm the floor.”

That startled a laugh out of Tim, quiet but real.

Jason’s face did something soft and immediate. It was gone almost as soon as it appeared, replaced by the crooked half-smile, but Tim had seen it. His fingers tightened on Jason’s shoulder.

Jason looked away first.

Oracle cleared her throat in their comms. “Hate to interrupt whatever extremely normal heterosexual nonsense this is—”

“Not heterosexual,” Tim muttered.

Jason stepped on his foot.

Oracle continued, delighted, “Fane has a delivery scheduled to the west wing in twelve minutes. Manifest says climate-control equipment. The shell company is one of his. Museum cameras will conveniently loop for six minutes starting at nine twenty.”

Tim’s focus snapped back into place. “Security?”

“Three private guards, one museum staff member with debt problems, and possibly our buyer. I’m still digging.”

Jason’s hand tightened once at Tim’s waist. “We can peel off through the sculpture hall.”

“Too obvious,” Tim said. “Fane knows I was looking for him. If I disappear right after the dance, he’ll check.”

“So we make him think we’re disappearing for a different reason.”

Tim looked up.

Jason looked far too pleased with himself.

“No,” Tim said immediately.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“Whatever you’re about to suggest, no.”

Jason leaned closer until his cheek almost brushed Tim’s. From a distance it probably looked intimate. Up close it was intimate, and Tim hated his own blood for noticing.

“We’re fake dating,” Jason murmured. “Use the cover.”

Tim stared at his collar because looking at his mouth would be worse. “You want to sneak into the west wing by making people think we’re going to hook up in a museum.”

“I mean, I was gonna say make out, but I appreciate the ambition.”

“Jason.”

“Tim.”

Tim made the mistake of looking up.

Jason’s grin had softened around the edges. He was teasing, yes, because Jason teased when nervous or cornered or trying to drag somebody else out of their own head. But his eyes were steady. He was waiting for Tim to choose the line. He would push a lot of things; Tim had seen him push doors, ribs, luck, Bruce’s patience. This he was leaving in Tim’s hands.

Tim hated that more than the suit.

“Fine,” Tim said. “We imply.”

“Scandalous.”

“We do not provide visual confirmation.”

“Your dirty talk needs work.”

“I’m going to poison your sandwich next time.”

“There’s my guy.”

My guy.

Tim lost a step.

Jason caught him without making it look like anything at all, just pulled him in half an inch and turned them with the music. His face stayed casual. His hand, though, pressed once against Tim’s back. A question.

Tim breathed in. Breathed out. Nodded very slightly.

The song ended. People clapped because people at galas clapped for things they were glad had stopped. Jason kept Tim’s hand as they left the dance floor.

They made it ten feet before an elderly woman in pearls intercepted them.

“Timothy, darling,” she said. “You’ve been hiding.”

“Mrs. Haverly,” Tim said, already shifting into the social register. “I didn’t realize you were back from Zurich.”

“Oh, Zurich was dreadful. Too clean. And who is this?”

Jason smiled. “Ma’am.”

Mrs. Haverly looked him over with the cool assessment of someone appraising a horse, a painting, or a scandal. Then she turned to Tim. “Well done.”

Tim’s ears went hot.

Jason coughed. “Thank you?”

“I knew your father,” she said to Jason.

That shifted the air.

Jason’s smile stayed, but Tim felt his hand go still.

Mrs. Haverly patted Jason’s arm. “Not well. He stole my car in 1986.”

Jason blinked.

She continued, “Awful man. Very handsome. Terrible taste in shoes.”

A strangled sound escaped Tim before he could stop it.

Jason’s face had gone blank with a kind of complicated horror. “That sounds like Willis.”

“I hit him with my handbag.” Mrs. Haverly leaned in. “He cried.”

Jason stared at her.

Then he laughed.

It was not the laugh he used when trying to be charming. It came from somewhere lower, startled out of him, loud enough that a couple people glanced over. Mrs. Haverly looked pleased.

Tim stood there with Jason’s hand in his and felt something in his chest fold itself into a smaller, more dangerous shape.

“Good,” Mrs. Haverly said. “Men ought to laugh at their fathers. It keeps the ghosts manageable.” She patted Tim’s cheek like he was still seventeen and underfed at board dinners. “Feed this one. He has eyes like he forgets lunch.”

“I’m trying,” Jason said.

Tim pulled him away before either of them could start comparing notes with eighty-three-year-old Gotham aristocracy about his eating habits.

“West wing,” he hissed.

“Mrs. Haverly’s a real one.”

“Focus.”

“I am focused. On feeding you later.”

“You are impossible.”

“You picked me.”

Tim did not have an answer for that.

They cut through the sculpture hall, where the lights were dimmer and the donors thinner. Tim let his pace change, not enough to alert anyone, just enough to suggest urgency of a more personal kind. Jason noticed and slid right into it, crowding closer as they passed under an archway.

A museum guard glanced their way.

Jason dipped his head toward Tim’s neck.

Tim stopped breathing.

The guard looked away fast, embarrassed.

Jason’s mouth did not touch skin. He hovered there, breath warm near Tim’s ear, and whispered, “Visual non-confirmation.”

Tim dug his fingers into Jason’s sleeve. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Later. Cameras first.”

They slipped through a staff door during the loop window. Tim picked the lock in under four seconds. Jason watched the corridor while Tim disabled the alarm contact with a strip of foil and a stolen museum donor badge he had lifted from a man who kept calling him Tommy.

“Show-off,” Jason whispered.

“You like it.”

Jason’s reply came a little too late. “Yeah.”

Tim glanced back.

Jason was watching him in the low emergency light. The joking line of his mouth had gone crooked and quieter. For one fragile second, there was no gala noise. No string quartet. No Fane. Just Jason in a suit that fit him, looking at Tim like he had forgotten the next part of the con.

Then something heavy thudded behind the west wing doors.

Jason blinked first. “Work.”

“Work,” Tim agreed, too quickly.

The west wing smelled like dust, plaster, and expensive fraud. Half the exhibits were covered in protective sheeting. Crates lined the walls with printed labels: lighting rigs, humidity control, archival glass. Tim scanned the nearest with his watch.

Lead lining.

“Subtle,” Jason muttered.

Voices drifted from the restoration gallery ahead.

Tim and Jason moved without discussion. Jason took point along the left wall, silent despite the dress shoes. Tim followed high-right, phone out, cloning the nearest security tablet through the door. The museum camera feed showed three guards inside, Fane’s indebted staff member, and a buyer Tim did not recognize: tall, shaved head, black gloves, face turned away from the camera.

The climate-control crate was open.

Inside sat six cylindrical components packed in foam. Not weapons by themselves. Worse, maybe. Stabilizers for something larger, marked in a script Tim had only seen twice before, both times in League reports involving off-world tech.

Oracle said, “Those are not standard arms-dealer party favors.”

“No,” Tim whispered. “They’re Apokoliptian.”

Jason’s jaw flexed.

The buyer turned, and the camera caught his face.

Tim’s stomach sank. “That’s Kanto’s courier.”

Jason looked at him. “As in Darkseid’s fancy knife guy Kanto?”

“As in we need to stop the sale before those leave the building.”

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Love a gala.”

The staff member signed something with shaking hands. One guard rolled the crate toward the service elevator.

Tim calculated angles, exits, civilians in the main hall, likely weapons on guards, Jason’s current lack of armor, Tim’s own lack of armor, the decorative sword display twenty feet behind them that was probably bolted down but not well enough to survive Jason.

“We can jam the elevator,” Tim whispered. “Force them through the corridor, separate the crate from the buyer.”

“Guards?”

“Three.”

“Four. One breathing behind that column.”

Tim looked again. He caught the shift of shadow half a second later. “Nice.”

“Boyfriend privileges include pointing out ambushes.”

“This is not the time.”

“Feels like the time.”

The service elevator dinged.

Tim moved.

He crossed the hall low and fast, popped the elevator panel, and slid a microjammer into the control port. The doors opened six inches, shuddered, and froze. Inside the gallery, someone swore.

Jason knocked twice on the west stairwell door.

The guard behind the column turned toward the sound.

Jason hit him with a marble bust of somebody’s dead uncle.

It did not shatter. The guard dropped anyway.

“Sorry, art,” Jason whispered, setting the bust gently on the floor.

Tim almost smiled. Then the gallery doors slammed open.

The next thirty seconds were ugly in the efficient way fights became ugly when everyone involved had been pretending to be civilized five minutes earlier. Tim took the first guard’s knee out with a low kick and used his own momentum to drive him into the wall. Jason caught the second guard’s wrist, twisted the gun free, unloaded it, and hit him with the magazine. The third got a hand around Tim’s jacket and tore the seam before Tim planted an elbow in his throat.

The courier went for the crate.

Jason went for the courier.

“Alive,” Tim snapped.

Jason made a deeply offended noise and redirected what would have been a horrifying punch into a slightly less horrifying body check. The courier hit the crate, bounced, and came up with a blade sliding out of his sleeve.

“Cute,” Jason said.

“Jason.”

“I heard alive.”

The blade hissed through the air. Jason moved back, then in, using his suit jacket wrapped around one forearm to catch the courier’s wrist. The fabric split. Alfred was going to be quietly apocalyptic. Jason hooked a foot behind the courier’s ankle and dropped him to the floor hard enough to rattle the crate.

The indebted staff member stood frozen by the wall, hands up, crying silently.

Tim ziptied the first guard with black-tie event cable management ties. Resourcefulness was important.

Oracle said, “Museum security just noticed the elevator loop. You have maybe two minutes.”

“Fane?” Tim asked.

“Main hall. Looking sweaty. He knows something’s wrong.”

The courier on the floor laughed through blood in his teeth. “You have no idea what you’re delaying.”

Jason crouched beside him. “Yeah, yeah, doom, fire, big ugly space god. Heard it.”

Tim opened the crate and placed a tracker beneath the foam. “We need the full route. If we arrest Fane here, the rest disappears.”

Jason looked up. “So we let them take it?”

“We let them take a crate.”

Tim pulled a compact scrambler from his pocket and pushed it into the foam beneath the stabilizers. It would fry the components if they left a ten-mile radius without the right code. He had built it on a hunch after reading Fane’s import logs. Bruce had called it excessive. Tim was going to be graceful about not mentioning that later.

Maybe.

Jason’s eyes glinted. “You beautiful paranoid little freak.”

Tim’s hands stuttered.

The staff member made a small confused sob.

Jason seemed to realize where they were. “Respectfully.”

Tim shut the crate. “Oracle, alert Gordon in eight minutes. Send him the warehouse coordinates after the tracker pings twice.”

“Already drafting the warrant request,” Oracle said. “Also, your heart rates are hilarious.”

“Oracle.”

“I said nothing.”

Jason hauled the courier up and shoved him toward the crate. “Congratulations, buddy, deal’s back on. Elevator’s busted, though. Guess you’re taking the long way.”

The courier stared.

Tim stepped in, letting the cold Drake-Wayne smile settle over his face. The one Bruce had once told him was “useful” in the tone of a man realizing one of his children had become alarming. “You can walk out with your delivery and get paid, or you can explain to Kanto why you lost his merchandise in a museum because you panicked over a jammed elevator.”

The courier’s eyes flickered.

There it was. Fear. Not of them. Of his boss.

Tim smiled a little more.

Jason leaned near the courier’s ear. “I’d pick the walking thing.”

They left him conscious and angry with a plausible path out. Museum security arrived ninety seconds later to find three guards dazed, one staff member ready to confess to every bad decision she had ever made, and Tim Drake-Wayne standing in the corridor with his torn jacket, looking scandalized.

Jason was behind him, shirt sleeves rolled, hair slightly messed up, one split knuckle held discreetly behind his back.

Fane appeared with the deputy director and two security officers. “What the hell happened?”

Tim turned sharply, letting his shoulders rise with exactly the right amount of embarrassed guilt. “Mr. Fane—”

Jason stepped in close, one hand at Tim’s waist again. His voice dropped, rough with manufactured sheepishness and something that made Tim’s skin go warm anyway. “We were looking for somewhere quiet.”

The deputy director closed her eyes.

One of the security officers looked at the floor.

Fane stared at them, then at the broken elevator, then at Tim’s torn jacket.

Tim adjusted his cuff with a hand that did not shake because he was an excellent liar and had been trained by lunatics. “The west wing door was unlocked. We heard a noise. Jason thought someone was hurt.”

Jason lifted his split knuckles with a rueful shrug. “Somebody was.”

Fane looked like he wanted to peel Tim’s face off and check the wiring. “How fortunate you were here.”

“Mm,” Tim said. “That’s one word.”

The staff member began babbling to security. The guards groaned. The courier and crate were already gone through the service hall, trackable, compromised, and carrying enough evidence to put Fane away if Gordon moved fast and the federal agencies didn’t trip over one another trying to claim jurisdiction.

The gala, unfortunately, did not end.

Gotham high society could forgive gunfire, murder, poison gas, and the occasional hostage situation, but it never wasted catering.

Tim spent the next hour being gently mobbed by people who wanted to know whether he was all right, whether the museum was safe, whether Bruce was coming, whether Jason had really hit someone with a statue, whether he and Jason had been dating long, whether it was serious, whether they had considered the optics.

Jason stayed beside him through all of it.

That was the problem.

He did not drift. He did not make Tim manage the social fallout alone. He took sparkling water from a waiter and pressed it into Tim’s hand before Tim noticed he was thirsty. He told three separate board members that Tim was fine but done answering questions. He charmed Mrs. Haverly again. He insulted Councilman Evers so politely that Evers thanked him. When someone from the Gazette tried to angle for a photo of Tim’s torn jacket, Jason moved half a step and blocked the shot with his body.

Tim could handle Jason reckless. He could handle Jason angry. He could handle Jason bleeding on his floor and eating his cereal and calling him a freak for owning four monitors.

This was much worse.

This was Jason competent in a room Tim hated. Jason careful with him. Jason remembering the name of a donor’s wife because Tim had mentioned it once on the ride over. Jason touching him like it was easy. Like Tim was allowed to lean back.

At ten thirty-seven, Fane left the gala.

At ten forty-two, Oracle confirmed the tracker’s first ping.

At ten fifty-eight, the second ping landed at a warehouse near the river.

At eleven oh-three, Gordon texted Tim a thumbs-up, which meant arrests were happening and Gordon had either finally learned emoji or Barbara had stolen his phone.

At eleven ten, Alfred appeared by the entrance with the car and one look at Jason’s torn jacket that made Jason say, “In my defense—” before Alfred had spoken a word.

“There is no defense,” Alfred said.

“It was for the mission.”

“I am certain the mission is grateful for the sacrifice of Italian wool.”

Tim, exhausted enough to be stupid, said, “He was very impressive.”

Jason looked at him.

Alfred’s gaze moved between them. His expression did not change at all, which was how Tim knew they were both doomed.

“How fortunate,” Alfred said, “that the evening contained at least one enjoyable moment.”

Tim got into the car before Jason could see his face.

The ride back to the Manor was quiet.

Not awkward exactly. Tim knew awkward. Awkward had texture. Awkward scratched at the walls and demanded to be solved. This was something else. Jason sat beside him with his jacket folded over his lap, split knuckles cleaned with a napkin, head tipped back against the seat. Passing streetlights dragged gold across his face and vanished.

Tim checked his phone because that was easier.

Dick had sent thirty-seven messages.

Steph had sent a blurry photo from someone’s Instagram story of Jason apparently kissing Tim’s knuckles on the dance floor. Tim did not remember that happening. He opened the image, stared at it, and then remembered.

It had been right after Mrs. Haverly. Tim had scraped his finger on the edge of his watch clasp, not even enough to bleed properly. Jason had caught his hand, rolled his eyes, and pressed his mouth to the knuckle with ridiculous courtly exaggeration to make Marlene laugh.

In the photo, it did not look ridiculous.

In the photo, Jason’s head was bowed over Tim’s hand, eyes half-lidded, mouth soft. Tim was looking at him like the room had gone quiet.

Tim locked his phone.

Jason said, “Bad?”

“What?”

“The photo.”

Tim looked over. “You saw?”

“Window reflection.” Jason’s mouth twisted. “Sorry. Didn’t think about cameras.”

“It’s fine.”

“Yeah?”

“We were undercover.”

Jason nodded. He looked out the window again. “Right.”

Tim hated the word. He hated the neatness of it. He hated that it should have relieved him and instead made something under his ribs pinch.

Alfred did not drive them to the Manor entrance. He took the side road down toward the old carriage house, which Bruce had converted into a secondary garage after the third time someone blew up the first one. The excuse was security. The reality was probably Alfred deciding the two of them needed five minutes without an audience.

Subtle as a brick, that man.

Jason got out first and held the door for Tim because apparently he was still doing that. Tim stepped out carefully, his dress shoes crunching on gravel. The night smelled like damp leaves and engine oil.

Alfred lowered the window. “I will inform Master Bruce that you are both intact.”

“Thanks, Alfie,” Jason said.

“And Master Jason?”

Jason winced preemptively. “Yeah?”

“Leave the jacket in the laundry room. I will assess whether it can be salvaged once I am less disappointed.”

The car rolled away.

Jason watched it go. “He’s gonna bury me in the garden.”

“He loves you.”

“Yeah, that’s why it’ll be a marked grave.”

Tim laughed, but it came out tired and thin.

Jason glanced over. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Liar.”

Tim looked at the carriage house doors. “We got the route. Fane’s finished if the courier talks. The components are neutralized.”

“Didn’t ask for the mission report.”

Tim shoved his hands in his pockets. The night was cooler than expected. Or maybe he was crashing. “I’m okay.”

Jason did not say anything for a moment. Then he nodded toward the side path. “Walk?”

Tim should have gone inside. Bruce would want a debrief. Alfred would want proof Tim had eaten something besides one decorative crab cake and spite. Dick was probably already building a conspiracy board labeled TIMJAY? in the group chat.

Tim walked.

The path curved behind the carriage house and down toward the edge of the property, where the trees thickened enough to hide the Manor lights. Jason kept pace beside him, jacket over one arm, shirt sleeves still rolled. His knuckles were going to bruise.

Tim said, “Your hand.”

“It’s fine.”

“Liar.”

Jason huffed. “Cute.”

Tim’s ears warmed. He hated that one too. “I have supplies in my car.”

“Course you do.”

“I’m prepared.”

“You’re a raccoon with a trust fund.”

“You’re welcome for the scrambler that prevented an Apokoliptian arms sale.”

“Beautiful paranoid raccoon with a trust fund.”

Tim stopped walking.

Jason made it three steps before he noticed. He turned back, face hard to read in the dark.

Tim had done harder things than this. He had jumped between Bruce and bullets. He had lied to Ra’s al Ghul. He had stitched his own thigh in a gas station bathroom while concussed. He had once told the WE board that their five-year plan was structurally unsound while running a fever of 102.

This should not have been the thing that made his palms sweat.

“Was that all cover?” Tim asked.

Jason’s face went still.

Tim regretted it immediately. “Forget it.”

“No.”

“Jason—”

“No, give me a second.” Jason rubbed the heel of his hand over his mouth. “You can’t just hit me with that and sprint off into the bushes.”

“I wasn’t going to sprint.”

“You absolutely were. You’ve got sprinty shoulders.”

Tim stared at him. “Sprinty shoulders.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re impossible,” Tim said again, softer this time.

Jason looked down at his ruined jacket. He folded it once, badly, then unfolded it. “It wasn’t all cover.”

The night insects kept going. Somewhere far off, a car moved along the road outside the Manor grounds. Tim heard his own breathing, too careful.

Jason laughed once without humor. “That came out too smooth. It wasn’t, uh. I knew what I was doing for the op. I wasn’t gonna put you in a weird spot in front of people. But some of it…” He stopped, jaw working. “Some of it was easy.”

Tim looked at Jason’s hands. The bruised knuckles. The split seam of his cuff. “Easy.”

“Yeah.”

“Because you’re good at cover.”

Jason’s eyes flicked up. “Because it was you.”

Tim’s heart did something so humiliating he was grateful no one had telemetry on him except, possibly, Barbara. He would have to destroy the comm later.

Jason shifted his weight. “And now I’m making it weird.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.” Tim took one step closer, then stopped because his courage had limits and apparently the limit was three feet of damp garden path between him and Jason Todd in a torn dress shirt. “You’re not making it weird.”

Jason looked at him for a long moment. “You sure? Because I can. I got range.”

Tim laughed again, barely. “Jason.”

“Yeah.”

“I asked you because I trust you.”

Jason’s face softened, then shuttered like he did not know what to do with that and refused to drop it.

Tim continued before he lost the thread. “I asked because you’re good in hostile rooms, and because you notice things other people miss, and because Fane wouldn’t know what to do with you. But also…” He pushed a hand through his hair. It was sticky with product and sweat. “Also because I wanted to.”

Jason went very quiet.

Tim looked somewhere near Jason’s shoulder. Safer. “I wanted it to be you.”

A leaf skittered across the path.

Jason said, rougher than before, “Tim.”

“I know it was fake. I know that. I’m not— I’m not asking you to retroactively make it something else.”

“Christ, you’re bad at this.”

Tim’s head snapped up. “Excuse me?”

Jason stepped in close, close enough that Tim had to tilt his chin up. His face was flushed, visible even in the bad light, and his eyes were doing that thing again. The small changes. The real thoughts. “I’m trying to tell you I’ve been half in love with you for two years and you’re giving me contract language.”

Tim’s mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

Jason grimaced. “Too much?”

“No,” Tim said quickly. Then, because quickly was embarrassing, he added, “No, that’s— I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Two years?”

Jason looked away. “Give or take.”

“Give or take what?”

“Like six months.”

“Jason.”

“I was busy having a crisis about it.”

“For two and a half years?”

“Some of us commit to the bit.”

Tim stared at him. A laugh rose in his chest and got tangled with something else, something tender and stupid and too large to fit behind his ribs. “You’re serious.”

Jason’s shoulders hunched slightly. “Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately?”

“I had a whole plan to take this to the grave.”

“You’ve already done that once. Try a different plan.”

Jason’s laugh cracked out of him, surprised and fond. “That was terrible.”

“You liked it.”

“Yeah,” Jason said, looking at him. “I did.”

Tim stepped closer.

Jason went still again, but this time it was a different stillness. The kind before a grapple line fired. The kind before a door opened.

Tim reached for his hand, the injured one, and held it carefully between both of his own. Jason swallowed.

“You called me sweetheart,” Tim said.

Jason’s mouth twitched despite himself. “Undercover.”

“You called me baby.”

“Also undercover.”

“You called me your guy.”

Jason’s smile faded into something helplessly honest.

Tim brushed his thumb around the edge of Jason’s bruised knuckle. “Was that undercover?”

Jason’s voice dropped. “No.”

Tim leaned in and kissed him.

It should have been awkward. Statistically, realistically, given their lives and timing and the gravel underfoot, it should have been at least a little awkward. But Jason made a soft wrecked sound against his mouth and everything in Tim that had been bracing for impact simply stopped.

Jason kissed like he fought, which Tim should have expected: focused, responsive, a little reckless once he knew where the openings were. His good hand came up slowly, giving Tim time to pull away, and then settled along Tim’s jaw with a care that made Tim’s knees feel unreliable. Tim’s fingers curled in Jason’s torn sleeve. The fabric was ruined anyway.

It did not last long. Someone’s phone buzzed. Tim’s, probably. Maybe Jason’s. Maybe both. Gotham could not allow a man dignity for thirty consecutive seconds.

Jason broke the kiss first, but only far enough to breathe. His forehead rested against Tim’s. “If that’s Dick, I’m throwing your phone into the pond.”

“It might be Bruce.”

“I’ll throw it harder.”

Tim smiled, and Jason saw it from inches away.

That was almost worse than the kiss. Jason seeing him pleased. Jason being the reason.

The phone buzzed again.

Tim sighed and checked it.

It was Dick.

The message read: DID YOU KISS YET???

A second message arrived.

Answer carefully. Alfred owes me twenty bucks.

Tim turned the screen toward Jason.

Jason stared. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“Alfred bet against us?”

“No, Alfred definitely bet for us. Dick’s just bad with money.”

Tim laughed into Jason’s shoulder, and Jason’s arm came around him like that was allowed now.

Maybe it was.

They went inside through the carriage house because neither of them wanted to face the front rooms yet. Tim found the first-aid kit in his car, and Jason sat on the edge of a workbench while Tim cleaned his knuckles under the fluorescent garage lights.

This, at least, was familiar. The two of them in a half-lit room after a fight, blood on somebody’s hands, the city turning over outside without them. Tim knew how to bandage Jason. He knew which antiseptic made him hiss and which tape held best over scar tissue. He knew Jason complained when he was fine and went quiet when he wasn’t.

Jason complained the entire time.

“You’re enjoying this,” he said as Tim wrapped gauze around his hand.

“I enjoy competent medical care.”

“You enjoy poking me.”

“You hit a man in front of witnesses while wearing Italian wool.”

“Bust hit him. I supervised.”

Tim secured the bandage. “You’re a menace.”

“Yeah, but you like me.”

Tim looked up.

Jason’s ears went red. “That sounded smoother in my head.”

Tim leaned forward and kissed him again, short and smiling. Jason’s breath caught on the end of it.

“I do,” Tim said.

Jason stared at him like he had said something impossible.

Then his mouth pulled into a grin so shy and bright that Tim had to look down at the first-aid kit for a second. It was obscene, honestly, that Jason Todd could blush. Someone should have warned him.

The door to the garage opened.

Bruce stood there in a tux, cape-less but somehow still radiating Batman from every inch of him.

Tim had never seen Jason move so fast without a weapon involved. He jerked back, knocked his heel into the workbench, and nearly sent a jar of bolts crashing to the floor.

Bruce looked at Jason. Looked at Tim. Looked at Jason’s bandaged hand. Looked at Tim’s mouth, which was probably red.

A long silence settled.

Then Bruce said, “Gordon has Fane in custody.”

Tim cleared his throat. “Good.”

“The components are secured.”

“Good.”

“Oracle sent the files to the League.”

“Good.”

Jason muttered, “Lot of good news.”

Bruce’s gaze moved to him. “Alfred wants the jacket.”

Jason groaned. “Of course he does.”

Bruce nodded once, then stepped back. His expression remained grave, unreadable, entirely Batman.

At the door, he paused.

“Tim.”

Tim braced. “Yeah?”

Bruce’s mouth twitched. Barely. Almost nothing. “Try to enjoy at least one moment of the evening.”

Then he left.

Jason stared after him in horror. “He made a joke.”

Tim covered his face. “I hate this family.”

“No, that was a joke. From Batman. About us making out in the garage.”

“We were not making out.”

“We were absolutely working up to it.”

Tim dropped his hands. “You hit your head tonight?”

“Nope.”

“Then come here.”

Jason came.

The third kiss was less careful. Still sweet, still edged with laughter, but easier now, like they had both survived the first impossible step and discovered the floor held. Jason’s hand slid to Tim’s waist. Tim stepped between his knees at the workbench. The first-aid kit dug into his hip. Somewhere upstairs, his phone buzzed itself toward death.

Tim ignored it.

After a while, Jason pulled back and said, “So.”

Tim hummed.

“Four hours are up.”

Tim looked at him.

Jason’s thumb moved along Tim’s side, the same absent stroke from the dance floor. He was trying for casual and missing by a mile. “Just checking the terms of the arrangement.”

Tim pretended to think about it. “I suppose we could extend the cover.”

“Yeah?”

“For operational consistency.”

Jason smiled slowly. “Love when you talk dirty.”

Tim rolled his eyes, but he was smiling too. “Dinner tomorrow.”

Jason blinked.

“A real one,” Tim said. “No donors. No weapons components. No fake anything.”

Jason’s face did the small-change thing again, except this time Tim was close enough to watch every piece of it happen. Surprise. Want. Fear, quickly handled. A warmth so open it made Tim’s throat ache.

“Yeah,” Jason said. “Okay. Dinner.”

“And you lead if we dance.”

Jason’s grin came back, crooked and beautiful. “Damn right I do.”

Tim kissed him once more, just because he could.

Later, they would have to deal with the group chat, the gossip columns, Bruce being quietly pleased in a way that made everyone uncomfortable, and Alfred’s surgical disapproval over the jacket.

Later, Tim would find out Jason had spent twenty minutes before the gala asking Alfred whether Tim preferred sparkling or still water when he was nervous. Later, Jason would discover Tim had built three separate contingency plans around keeping him safe without making it obvious. Later, they would both be insufferable about the fact that the fake boyfriend bit had solved a case, destroyed an arms deal, and accidentally ended two and a half years of mutual pining.

For now, Jason sat on the workbench in his ruined suit, Tim stood between his knees in a torn jacket, and the Manor garage hummed around them like any other safehouse after any other fight.

Jason looked down at their joined hands.

“You know,” he said, “Mrs. Haverly was right.”

Tim groaned. “About feeding me?”

“About me being well done.”

“I’m leaving.”

Jason caught him around the waist, laughing, and Tim let himself be pulled back. Let himself settle there. Let himself press his smile into Jason’s shoulder where no one else could see it.

Outside, Gotham glittered like a trap.

Inside, for once, Tim did not feel caught.