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For Jason, it was a way to escape the anger. He reasoned he couldn’t be angry with anyone if there was no one around to be angry at. He climbed up to the roof and stared at the sky, the clouds, the buildings, the gargoyles. Didn’t even necessarily run around, just sat down or laid back and breathed, waiting for the green to slip away.
For Tim, it was a way to escape the boredom. There were, of course, the computers in his room, or the library, books, other things to occupy him. But they didn’t interest him most of the time. So, he climbed up to the roofs to find adventure. That was where Batman and Robin were, which was more than enough to pique his interest, and then they were Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, then Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd, then, just Bruce. Then it was Bruce and Tim. Always Batman and Robin. Even as Robin… no, even outside of Robin, he still found himself stalking the rooftops, camera or no. He just liked it up there.
It was the third time Jason’d escaped to the roof of the Manor to get away and calm down when Tim had shown up.
He hadn’t heard the footsteps at first, he was silent as a bat, not until they drew close and he rolled his head to the side to take a look. Tim clearly hadn’t been expecting anyone to be up there either and when he noticed someone else, he flinched.
A batarang whipped towards Jason and he caught it. “What the hell? Trying to kill me or something?” he asked, sitting up.
“I didn’t know anyone else was up here!” Tim defended. “What are you doing up here anyways?”
Jason debated with himself for a second and surprised himself by landing on the truth. “Needed to get away or I was gonna punch someone’s face in.”
“Should I take a step back?” Tim asked dryly.
They weren’t close enough for Jason to be able to tell if he was joking or not. He raised the batarang and an eyebrow to silently say, do you need to?
Tim shrugged and walked to the corner of the roof and sat down, staring at the sky. That was a no then.
Jason continued to stare at him, one hand fidgeting with the batarang. “So, why’re you up here?”
Tim shrugged again and didn’t answer for several minutes. Not until after Jason had laid back down to stare at the dusky sky, finger mindlessly tracing the edge of the weapon.
“It’s interesting.”
Jason couldn’t see him, not without sitting back up. He stared at the slow drifting clouds and focused on Tim’s voice.
“Sometimes, sometimes I get bored. Can’t focus. Everything’s too… boring,” he scoffed. “But up here, there’s a whole sky.” He let out a self-conscious laugh. “I mean-”
“No, I get it.”
“You do?”
“Up here’s where the magic is. Stars, even if you can rarely see ‘em. The sun, too, on those rare days. Can stare at the clouds and forget about life for a minute.” Jason kept his gaze on those clouds above him, ignoring the green in the corner of his vision, the shadows within the clouds creating a shape that Jason could imagine was a bird. A robin. “And Robin. Batman and Robin. It had the magic of Robin. Of bright colours, witty remarks, showy backflips and protecting kids on the streets from the creepy fuckers out there.”
“It had Robin,” Tim echoed.
They were quiet a while. The clouds danced and shifted and the sky darkened further. Neither moved.
“Sometimes I don’t care for life,” Tim said. “It’s boring.”
Jason watched a pirate ship dissolve into a dinosaur. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t come back,” Jason said. It was the first time he’d admitted that out loud. He realized, belatedly, that at some point while lying here, the green had faded out of his vision without his notice. “Probably woulda been easier on everyone.”
They didn’t speak anymore that night. Both stood when the last remnants of the sun had faded to go down to the cave. Jason thought that would be it, he and Tim would never acknowledge it, they’d move on but maybe towards building a more mutually respectful relationship.
Instead, it became a thing. No matter how Jason wanted to deny it, it became a thing.
They’d meet randomly on rooftops all over the city, or at the Manor. Whenever the anger and green got too much for Jason or the dullness and boredom for Tim. If the other was already out there, well, they’d usually end up on the same roof until one of them had to leave.
Sometimes one of them found the other on the edge and joined them. Sometimes they stood on the ledge and tempted fate together. Except when Jason wobbled, Tim was grabbing him before he could even catch himself, and when Tim seemed about to float away in the wind, Jason was there with a hand in his shirt keeping him steady.
Most times they’d just sit, legs swinging above the city as they stared out at the lights and smog and shadows of their home.
Each time, however, Jason found the green slipping away quicker and quicker. He tried not to think too hard about it.
Tim knew Jason refused to acknowledge the growing frequency of their “rooftop rendezvous’”, but he still smirked to himself when he heard Jason stomp over, purposefully loud. (If he’d noticed Jason start consciously making sound after the second time Tim had flinched at being startled… neither of them brought it up.) He kept staring through the scope of his camera at the city skyline, waiting for… click.
“Bored?” Jason’s dry voice asked.
“Angry?” he replied, not looking away from his camera.
Jason made a sound that Tim took to be a shrug accompanied by a grunt and listened to Jason sit a couple feet away from him.
(The distance between them seemed to be shortening ever so slowly. Not that he was paying attention to something like that or bringing out a measuring tape each time to know for sure. It didn’t matter if he thought about it, because he didn’t dwell on it, so it didn’t count.)
“It’s the prose that gets me. The word choice! The descriptions! The way the characters speak! It’s all so…”
“Precise?”
Jason hummed. “And eloquent. No one talks like that anymore. No one spends three pages describing trees anymore.”
It was Tim’s turn to hum acknowledgingly.
He continued rambling on about his favourite books, authors, the difference in writing styles, arms waving passionately in the air as he lay on the roof, eyes closed.
Tim fiddled with his camera to get the lighting settings right, the evening could be so finnicky. He took some test photos, check them, adjusted again, another test, rinse and repeat, letting Jason’s voice wash over him.
In between taking photos (settings finally right for the moment), he glanced over at Jason and his breath caught. He looked so beautiful, lying there, hair a mess, arms waving and lost in thought, his face so peaceful yet intense from his speech.
Tim took a picture.
Tim kept taking pictures of Jason. Only when he wasn’t looking or paying attention. Kept taking his city photos, skyline photos, gargoyle photos, even printed and framed a few when Bruce asked. But when Jason let himself close his eyes or before he knew Tim was there? Tim would take a moment to immortalize his being. He hoarded those moments.
Jason finally, inevitably, caught him one morning when they were both up to witness the sunrise behind a surprisingly clear sky.
He was once again laid back, hands pillowing his head, looking an angel in the morning sun’s rays. Tim couldn’t resist snapping a picture. Another. Even when he saw Jason’s eyes opening through the viewfinder, he paused but kept his camera up. Not when his muse was yearning for more.
Jason lifted his head slightly and raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.
Tim didn’t either. Click!
Jason lowered his head and closed his eyes again.
Tim took another photo.
“Do I ever get to see them?” Jason asked, part teasing, part genuine curiosity, as they sat on one of their more habitual rooftops in the city. Jason, with his feet dangling over the ledge, Tim, huddled in a ball a couple feet from the ledge, camera in his face.
“Hm?” Tim’s fingers fiddled with something on the top of his camera as he aimed it at Jason. He’d gotten bolder since that time Jason had caught him and took his silence as permission (he wasn’t wrong), not even bothering to wait for him to close his eyes or look away.
“The pictures,” Jason clarified, raising his eyebrow as he stared down the camera lens.
The shutter snapped.
Jason huffed a laugh, turning back out to the city. He heard the camera click a few more times before Tim finally spoke.
“You wouldn’t like them.”
Jason whipped his head around to look at him incredulously. “I’ve seen the pictures you’ve given to B and Dick. Not portraits so it’s different, I get it, but still. You’re incredible. No way you could fuck up my ugly mug more than it already is.”
“You’re beautiful,” Tim responded immediately, automatically.
They both froze.
Normally, this would be the part where Jason would crack a joke to break the tension and brush past the honest words. He wasn’t sure why this time he didn’t. Instead, what came out was, “If I had half the talent and practice you do, I’d take so many pictures of you.”
Tim inhaled sharply.
They stared at each other, neither breaking eye contact.
“Go fuck your own husband for once, Theresa!” A door slammed in an apartment below them.
They both flinched. Looked down. Looked back at each other and started cackling.
“Think Jerry’s sleeping on the couch tonight?” Jason asked between giggles.
“Jerry? Who the hell is Jerry?”
“Oh yeah. I named them in my head. Yelling lady’s name is Manda, her husband, Jerry. I had homewrecker as Patty and her husband as Donald, he seems like a Donald.”
“Those aren’t their actual names.” Tim frowned. “It’s Bernice and Chris who live there, and Theresa’s husband is MacDowell. Pretentious asshole.”
Jason blinked. “You know their actual names?”
Tim shrugged and went back to fiddling with his camera. “Yeah. I got bored.”
Jason hummed, nodding slowly, watching, observing, considering.
Tim was fiddling with his camera in the living room of the Manor, trying to figure out the right settings for the dim indoor space. He knew Jason liked the Manor library and since he wasn’t ready to share his photos of Jason with the man himself yet, he figured he could offer something else but didn’t want to give away the surprise if Jason came across him before he was ready.
“It’s good to see you with your camera again,” Dick said, scattering Tim’s thoughts.
“Huh?” Tim looked up at him.
Dick smiled and sat on the couch arm. “Just seemed like you hadn’t taken pictures in a while, but now I see you with your camera again. I’m glad.” Dick ruffled his hair and walked off.
Tim puzzled it over. He didn’t feel like he’d ever stopped his photography? It was practically the only thing that kept his interest, other than running over the rooftops in costume, fighting and thwarting bad guys. He supposed he’d been bringing his camera out more often recently and not just sneaking off to rooftops in the middle of the night. He had started taking some pictures in the Manor, and had been going up at random times with less effort to avoid passing anyone on his way.
He was so lost in thought as he wandered back up to his room, he jumped when Jason called out to him.
Jason raised his eyebrows, walking closer and leaning against the wall. “What’s got you so in your head?”
Tim couldn’t respond. The lighting in the hallway… the shadows over Jason’s face as he leant against the wall in front of him, he seemed to be posed like a marble statue, a perfect muse the way his hands were in his pockets, ankles crossed, relaxed posture. Beautiful.
Jason opened his mouth.
“Don’t move!” Tim cried.
Jason raised an eyebrow. (But didn’t move.)
“Just-” he held a hand out “-stay there.” Tim took a step back, bringing his camera up to yet again fiddle with the settings. He couldn’t fuck this up. When he finally looked through the viewfinder, his breath caught.
Sometimes Tim wished he could paint. Some sort of Renaissance or Baroque style. Those grand paintings, with the way the artists had crafted their art. To capture what a camera couldn’t, what he imagined around his subjects. Dragons hiding between gargoyles, faeries dancing under streetlamps, Nightwing’s wings glowing golden behind him, creatures in Batman’s shadows. Right here, with Jason looking like that? He glowed. In a way he didn’t think digital editing could do justice. Jason deserved a giant oil painting. The kind that took up an entire wall in a museum, that people could look at a million times and want to look again because the subject was so beautiful, so breathtaking, so enigmatic.
Tim would work with what he had here, but he longed to manipulate the scene. Strategic lighting and curtain backgrounds, help the camera capture the glow he saw around his muse. Create the setting he wanted to see, but there was no time for that, not with Jason right in front of him like that. Click!
Jason stood there as Tim took picture after picture of him. Neither of them said a word, it was silent except for the shutter of the camera. Only when Alfred’s call for dinner came did Tim finally pause. And only when Tim put his camera down for several seconds did Jason finally shift, stand from the wall, and ask, “We goin’ then?” with a raised eyebrow.
Tim could only stare.
Jason rolled his eyes and bumped his shoulder gently into Tim’s. “C’mon.”
Tim followed robotically. Jason hadn’t moved. Had stayed still, in position, until Tim signalled the end. How much longer would he have stayed, uncomplaining, if Tim had kept going? For as long as he asked, came unbidden, but seemingly true. Tim didn’t know how to feel about that.
Jason didn’t know why he was headed up to the roof. Well… rather, he didn’t want to admit it. Because he wasn’t angry and there wasn’t green tinting his vision, had been having less moments where he struggled with control, yet found himself on the roof more and more often. This time he barely had an excuse.
He told himself he was just looking for Tim, to check up on him. The truth he didn’t want to admit, even to himself, was that he wanted to see him. Wanted to hangout with, talk to, be around Tim.
It wasn’t a thing.
He slipped out the upstairs window and pulled himself onto the roof. His eyes scanned the area, corner to corner, around all the chimneys. He ignored the pit of disappointment growing in his stomach.
He sat down and waited.
It wasn’t a thing.
He watched the sun set. He watched the city lights flicker. He saw the occasional star peak through the gaps in the clouds.
Tim never showed up.
It wasn’t a thing.
“For you,” Tim said, holding out the flat box after having cornered Jason outside his room in the Manor.
Jason frowned at him. “What is it?”
Tim rolled his eyes. “It won’t bite. Take it.”
Jason took the box, his eyebrows raising when he felt the weight of the box. “What’s in here?”
“Open it.”
Jason made a face and Tim sighed again.
“Just open it.”
“Fine, fine, but if something jumps out at me, I’m stealing your chargers.”
“Rude.”
Jason gave Tim one last suspicious look before turning it over to look for the seem of the paper wrap. Tim graciously supported the box as he sliced the paper open and tossed it to the ground to deal with later.
“A cardboard box, I’m so touched,” Jason said dryly.
Tim rolled his eyes. “Shut up and open it.”
Jason chuckled and did as asked, slowly lifting the lid off. His breath caught when he saw what was inside. “Tim…” Jason exhaled and picked up the frame, eyes glued to the image.
“I tried to pick the best one, I wasn’t sure what you’d like and honestly you’re just too beautiful to take a bad photo of, so it was a difficult choice in that respect, but then again-”
“Tim,” Jason interrupted, eyes flickering up to look at him. “Thank you.”
“Oh. You’re welcome.”
“It’s- beautiful. I’m… how- you made me beautiful.”
“You are.”
“Tim.”
“I- it’s how I- it’s how I see you,” Tim said softly. “Magnificent. Glowing.” He shrugged. “You’re beautiful. I wanted you to see that.”
“Fuck,” Jason exhaled, still mesmerized by the photo Tim had taken of him. Had taken, edited, printed and framed. Put effort into making. Put effort into Jason.
It wasn’t any of the photos he’d been aware of, and he was slightly surprised it wasn’t from the night in the Manor when time had seemed to slow as Tim and his camera circled him like crows. It was just one random evening, immortalized by Tim.
He was lying on a rooftop somewhere, legs dangling off the edge, eyes closed, with one arm behind his head, the other in the air gesturing as he talked about… something he couldn’t recall now, but there was a curl to his lips and a calm to his face he didn’t think he’d ever seen in the mirror. The way Tim had captured the evening lighting made it look like the sky was on fire, like Jason was on fire, he couldn’t describe it. This is how Tim sees me.
“Thank you,” he said, looking up at Tim. “It’s- thank you.”
Tim shrugged bashfully. “My pleasure,” he said softly.
“Do you-” Jason started, then stopped himself. He swallowed. “Believe it or not I’ve never been on top of the Clocktower… I hear it’s got a great view of the city.”
Tim’s lips started curling up at the corners.
“Wanna meet up there later?”
Tim smiled and Jason imagined this was how Tim felt when he wanted to take a picture, he wanted to bottle up this moment, Tim's smile, forever. “Love to.”
“Wanna help me hang this first?” Jason held up the frame. “This really awesome photographer took this picture of me, it’s really great actually, you might’ve heard of him-”
“Shut up.” Tim rolled his eyes, smiling.
“Is that a yes?” Jason teased.
“Yes.”