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There's a shadow following the Red Hood around.
No one is confident enough to call it a person. It's an amorphous patch of dark against light, but no one can quite trace it to a source. No one can quite bring themself to try.
It lurks behind him, just out of view. Whenever Red Hood turns around, the shadow vanishes. It never lingers for him to see, but he knows about it. It's impossible for him not to know about it.
He's confronted it many times.
"Really, Jason," Tim says, mouth quirked in a little smirk that makes him infinitely more punchable than usual. "What need do I have to stalk you from the shadows? I can stalk you from the light just fine."
It's a poor argument, and Tim's smug face says he knows that, but equally knows that Jason isn't about to argue against it. Jason could, if he wanted to, but all he really wants is for Tim to stop beating around the bush and just tell him what he wants.
For the next few days, it hangs in the corner of his vision, vanishing whenever he turns to face it completely but remaining ever present. If he were a more superstitious man, he would call it ominous, but he's a realist at heart, so really it's just obnoxious.
It doesn't just follow him as Red Hood. Jason feels the intense gaze on him while he walks down streets and ducks through alleyways. He sees people glance over his shoulder, like they see something lurking behind him, but when he turns to find out what they're looking at, he sees nothing.
"Is it fun for you?" Jason questions, nearly snarling.
"Yes," Tim replies easily, flipping through the pages of a report on a case from years ago. "I do find joy in sorting the records on occasion. Why? Were you looking forward to organizing things by date and time?"
It's so easy for him to dodge questions. Too easy. Jason is just paranoid enough to consider that Tim is predicting their conversations and coming up with answers in advance.
"I was chatting with a girl last night," he says.
"You sure do chat up a lot of those," Tim responds.
Jason ignores him and continues, "She pulled me aside, off of the street, and told me she'd seen me around a few times. She said there's something following me. She thinks it's some sort of curse, or a cryptid. She even took a photo."
"Let me see," Tim demands.
Jason obliges. Tim looks at the image of Jason standing facing away from a section of an alleyway, where a spot in the shadows behind him is darker than the rest and a single glowing white eye is visible. He tilts his head.
"Great composition, but probably nothing," he decides. He unsubtly sends the picture to himself. It's a decent shot of Jason, after all.
"I can't believe you stalk me in a domino," Jason tells him, snatching his phone away.
"I don't stalk you, Jason," Tim reminds him. "That would be unethical."
"I wish you'd just tell me what it is you want from me," Jason sighs.
"Nothing, really," Tim claims. "But I'll keep your willingness in mind for future occasions."
Sometimes, Jason doubts himself. Maybe it really isn't Tim, and Tim acts like the most suspicious person in the room simply because that's just the way he is. Why would Tim be stalking him anyway? If Dick is to be believed, which is rarely, then Tim has been stalking all of them for the majority of his life, thus making it his natural state and nothing to worry about.
"Well," Dick says, drawing out the 'e' just to be annoying. "He's never followed me down alleyways in the middle of the night to the point that random women think a cryptid is following me."
He grins.
"Maybe you should be worried, after all."
"Whose side are you on?" Jason questions.
"The one that's funny," Dick replies, because he really just is a dick.
All the same, it's possible that Jason is mistaken. He doubts it, but it is possible.
(Dick surprises him the next day with a gift. It's a T-shirt that says "CRYPTID MAGNET." Jason refuses to wear it, no matter how soft it is.)
Jason pieces it together eventually. He is a detective trained by the best, after all, not that he'll ever admit outloud that Bruce is the best at anything.
He's at home, sprawled on his back across the bed with all the lights turned off, staring up at the ceiling. He's mostly thinking about groceries and the rising cost of vegetables, which he doesn't worry about so much for himself as for the poorer kids who'll get even less vegetables than they already do. It is a problem, but it's more systemic than he generally manages to deal with, and so he doesn't really have a solution beyond pushing it onto Bruce to solve.
A shadow falls across the bed. Jason stiffens, then slowly turns his head to the side to look through the open curtains around his window.
The lack of lights inside means that it's a black shape on his windowsill, two glowing eyes staring at him from a void of shadows. It's entirely black, which means even the sides of it that are backlit by the faint light of a flickering streetlamp just seem like the strange curves of some sort of shadowy creature.
Jason blinks, honestly stunned. He stares at it, thinking that Tim isn't that short or that shape, but his mind changes when the window opens and the shape slips inside. Because, looking at it standing and closing the window instead of crouching on the sill, it's obviously Tim.
"What are you doing?" Jason asks, mostly just tired at this point.
"Visiting," Tim replies.
Jason can't see his eyes through the domino, but he can feel his gaze travel down his body. It isn't a particularly heated gaze, and nothing of Tim's body language speaks to any sort of seduction, but Jason shivers anyway.
"You aren't bleeding out underneath all those layers, right?" Tim asks.
"No," Jason replies. "I'm not."
"Good," Tim says.
He turns and starts re-opening the window. Jason surges up and snags him by the cape, dragging him back until he sits on Jason's bed next to him.
"Where'd you even get a black suit this small?" Jason wonders. "Is it a batsuit or what?"
"Or what," Tim answers.
Jason rolls his eyes.
"Spill. Why do you keep following me?" Jason demands.
Tim cups his chin with his hand and cradles his elbow in his opposite hand. Jason almost groans outloud. This pose almost always equals trouble for him.
"Three months ago, you got shot," Tim eventually announces. Jason vaguely recalls such a thing occuring. "I was just dropping by at the time-"
So he really does just stalk all of us for fun, Jason thinks to himself.
"-and I noticed, which is why I was able to help you so quickly."
Jason has vague memories of being lifted on someone's back and dragged a couple of blocks before passing out completely. He clearly remembers waking up to find himself clean and patched up, which had been a real surprise for him. It's less surprising that Tim was behind it all. He is a notorious perfectionist, so Jason's dishes magically being washed and put away is no longer something he has to think of with concern.
"So," Tim continues, "I just figured I'd keep an eye on you for a little while. In case you got hurt again."
"Three months is a little while?" Jason asks.
"Well," Tim draws out the 'e', proving that Dick is the worst influence, "I was having fun."
"You were following me like a shadowy creature for fun?" Jason clarifies.
Tim shrugs. Jason knows that can't be all there is to it. Tim does dangerous, dumb things for fun, sure, but he wouldn't risk getting shot all these months just for a bit of fun.
As he thinks about it, Tim gets up to leave, so Jason tugs on his handful of cape until Tim resignedly sits back down.
He's spent more time with Tim in the past three months than he ever has before. Tim's annoying, obnoxious, too clever for his own good and almost smug about it. If it was just a joke, just something done for shits and giggles, he would've admitted that he was the one stalking Jason from the beginning, but he didn't.
Instead, he hung around places where Jason could easily find him to tell him off, baited him with a shit-eating grin, and let Jason stew in it all for three entire months.
"Are you stupid?" Jason asks him.
Tim smiles, the same smile that makes Jason and the majority of Gotham's worst criminals want to punch him so badly. Jason grabs his collar, but instead of inflicting bodily harm, he reels him in to kiss him.
Tim stiffens, shocked, and Jason can't help the grin that spreads across his face. He pulls back and looks at Tim, who is actually flustered. It's a glorious feeling, being the one behind the pink blush on his cheeks and the slight gape of his reddened lips.
"You could have told me like a normal person," Jason says. "Or at least tried to beat me up every time we crossed paths so I'd get a hint."
"I didn't think you'd be so accepting," Tim admits, holding a hand to his mouth like some sort of dainty love interest.
"I've been threatening to kill you for years," Jason states, rolling his eyes.
Tim looks slightly annoyed. It really does feel good to turn the tables on him. Jason pulls his hand away from his mouth to kiss him again, just because he can and he feels a bit smug about it.