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Nights like these remind Tim of why he doesn't like to drink in a social setting.
The night started off great. When Dick sent the address to the bar they were meant to meet in—one on the border of Gotham and Blüdhaven—Tim punches it into his GPS and drives. The wind in his hair feels nice and being able to spend off time with the other Bats felt even better.
Tim and Jason get there first, greeting each other with shy smiles before ordering their own drinks—a Blood and Sand for Jason while Tim straight up sips on cranberry juice with no alcohol. Then Dick shows up with Barbara, with Cass and Steph not too far behind, and Tim can't help but be happy that they're all there.
At least, everyone who can drink anyway.
They're all sitting comfortable at the biggest booth they can find in this bar, talking about whatever, and the vibes are nice and comfortable. Then, somehow, they got on the topic of love and all its complicated ventures, and the conversation suddenly held a different undertone.
"Have you ever had a first love?" Dick asks him, slinging his arm around Tim's shoulders. It was supposed to be an innocent question, but for Tim it was….something else. It was a question from Dick that nearly shell shocked Tim into silence. He wasn't sure how he wanted to delve into the topic, if he were completely honest, because it was a long and complicated story involving leaked identities and ressurection that Tim didn't want to touch with a ten foot pole.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Grayson," Tim says. It's probably way too quick all things considered and Tim hoped that, through all the drunken stupor, no one would notice him taking a quick glance at Jason before answering.
Now look, Tim knows he can just lie. He could lie and pull it off rather convincingly, but with how candid everyone in the room had been with their answers it would have just felt bad. This was supposed to be a team bonding moment and outright lying to them would not be conducive to well…team bonding.
"Come on, Tim," Dick replies, "Don't act like you've never had one."
"I mean, I have had one. I'm just," Tim thinks about a careful way to say all of this, "It's not who you think and that's it." Hopefully that was enough to answer the question, Tim can't help but think because another cranberry juice had never been so enticing in this very moment. This time with actual alcohol, Tim thinks to himself. He just wanted to shut his brain off from this conversation at this point.
But, instead, he has three sets of eyes on him and a sneaking suspicion that this conversation won't continue forward unless Tim gives them even more of a hint. Which he won't and he knows as much, so they're stuck at an impasse.
"Ooh, who?" Steph asks, lightly elbowing Tim in the ribs.
He knew that was coming.
"I'm going to have to be siginifcantly more fucked up to give specifics," Tim answers honestly, "And I'm not going to get there tonight since I have to drive so I'm not saying another word." Because how do you explain that Jason freaking Todd—even when he quite literally tried to kill Tim for replacing him—was the one? How do you explain that all the stupid shit you do, from planting cameras to developing new trackers, was all to make sure he was okay?
You don't. Not without it being weird.
"You don't have an embarassing one? Like some snot nosed bumbling idiot from your youth?" Steph asks, "I know I have."
"I didn't really socialize like that," Tim answers. And really, it was the truth. Since he was young, Tim was enraptured with the Batman Robin duo. He spent nearly all his time trying to figure out their specifics that he never really talked to or about….anyone else. Concerning now that he thinks about it, but it was the truth of his youth quite honestly.
"No one you'd do stupid shit for?" Steph says. The way she looks at Cass tells Tim all he needed to know, to be fair, and he's glad that she's found the love that she deserves.
"You know, Wally does stupid shit in a heartbeat for me to this day," Dick adds simply, causing everyone to laugh. Tim knows he's saying it like he's prodding for something and hoping saying that would make Tim more comfortable sharing. Mirroring or whatever it was called.
Tim chuckles at that. "That's because he's in love with you despite swearing up and down he's straight, Grayson. That's just a fact of life," he says simply.
"Don't you do the same for Kon?" Cass chimes in.
"That's different."
"How?"
"Kon wasn't the first, Cass. Neither was Bernard."
"Well if it's not Kon or Bernard, who's left?" Steph ponders aloud, and Tim really wished in that very moment that whatever other worldy deity responsible for death would tactically strike him down. The invitation to speculate was driving him up the wall, but the cranberry juice he'd been sipping on the entire night distracted him just enough to make it bearable.
It was Jason for sure.
Of course it was. He'd come to reckon with the fact that he'd had a love at first sight moment with Jason from the first moment they'd met as actualized, rational thinking people (meaning: post Lazarus Pit Jason; after he'd attacked Tim at Titans Tower, came to and then apologized). He'd fallen in love with the deeply complex person Jason actually is.
But then Jason started dating Artemis and Tim found himself having to crush down all those complicated feelings down deep inside his brain.
So when Tim says, "It doesn't matter. He's taken anyway. No point in stewing on it," he means it honestly. It doesn't matter anymore. He wasn't going to rip away Jason's happiness with a declaration of first love and have everything be awkward between them. He wasn't going to ruin the team dynamic by being selfish.
And when Jason's eyes meet his own, Tim can't help but shy away at it because he feels horrifically exposed despite trying to keep it on the low. He just hopes that everyone else didn't pick up on it because explaining it away was something that Tim just couldn't do.