Archive of Our Own

One

“Wow.” Kyle lets out a sigh that manages to sound overly corny even to his own drug-addled brain. “You’re really hot, like, Donna was soooo right to be into you. Have you always been that hot?”

“And you're really high.” Jason looks frustrated. He’s kneeling in front of Kyle, holding one hand palm up expectantly—not that Kyle remembers what he is expected to do with it. 

He tries setting his own hand in Jason’s. This is apparently the wrong move. Jason drops his hand, and Kyle watches it plummet, hitting the ground with a sharp smack. 

It takes another second for Kyle to register the pain. 

He cradles the hand to his chest. Raising his eyes to pout at Jason, he catches the tail end of what may have been a sympathetic wince. 

Jason doesn’t apologize. “The ring, Rayner,” he states. “Not you. Your ring.” 

Kyle’s pout deepens into a frown. “My what?” 

“Your green lantern ring? The most powerful weapon in the universe? The thing that could have gotten you out of this kidnapping if you weren’t drugged past the point of concentration?”

What kidnapping? Kyle’s a big-time hero now. He should probably do something about that. He scans the room for the kidnapping victim, ready to reassure them, but it's just him and Jason—or is Jason the victim? 

That thought doesn’t sit right with Kyle. 

“Jason,” Kyle starts. Green eyes snap to him in an instant, shining, and suddenly Kyle’s sitting on sun-warmed dirt, instead of hard concrete, watching light trickle through a forest canopy. It’s breathtaking. 

“Rayner.” Fingers snap in front of his face. The concrete is cold underneath him. “You were saying?” 

Green eyes. Jason’s green eyes. Jason’s been kidnapped. 

It still doesn't make sense. 

“You should be the kidnapper, not the kidnappee,” Kyle points out.

“Yes, yes, I’m the big bad Red Hood. Notably not a hero. Very evil. Love kidnapping and theft, so hand over the ring, or I take it.”

“Not evil,” Kyle insists. He would know. He’s kept an ear out for Jason's interactions with the hero community ever since the multiverse trip. Someone had to make sure the guy was keeping out of trouble (and out of Donna’s pants—mostly Donna’s pants). “You’re just supposed to be, like, too com-puh, no, com-puh-tuh—too good to get kidnapped.”

“Huh.” Jason peers at him, and suddenly Kyle is gazing at the sun through sea glass. It’s mesmerizing. 

Jason rises to his feet, clapping his hands together in a sharp noise that breaks Kyle out of his trance. “Well, good news, I’m still too good to get kidnapped. Bad news, you’re not. I’m here because I tried to interfere with your kidnapping with only the gun I carry in my civilian persona. And now, I have no gun, and you have no concentration. So, ring please.”

It’s a testament to how high Kyle is that he doesn’t stop to question whether Jason will even be able to use a power ring before handing it over.

Jason slides the ring onto his finger. The next second, his eyes disappear behind a familiar angular mask. And it’s not fair, because Kyle is certain he’s never looked as good in his own suit as Jason does right now. It’s the way the white stripe in Jason’s hair mirrors the white block down the front of Kyle’s suit, and the skin tight black fabric hugs all the contours of Jason’s bulging thighs.

Pain. “Ouch,” Kyle wrinkles his nose, glancing down to see a glowing green needle sticking out of his arm. 

Jason pulls back the plunger. “Just figuring out what they got you with,” He explains, feeding Kyle’s blood sample into some overly complicated machine he’s conjured. 

“That’s not fair,” Kyle pushes himself to his feet. Wobbles once, twice, a third time only prevented by Jason swooping in to steady him. He lifts a hand to poke Jason in the chest. “You can’t get my bloodwork before I even get your number. Bloodwork is like… at least second date info.”

“You have an interesting definition for what constitutes a date.”

Is their date not to Jason’s liking? Kyle gazes around the room they’re in. Really, it's more like a cell. Concrete floor, walls, and ceiling, bars marking the only entrance and exit—it is a cell.

“We’ve been kidnapped,” he surmises.

“Yep, really not ideal first date planning on your part,” Jason gripes. He’s moved to be in front of the cell door, reaching through the bars to fiddle with the lock.

There has to be some way Kyle can salvage their date. “What if I rescue you?” He proposes. “I’ll be your knight in shining green armour. Would that be romantic?”

“I think you are forgetting who’s rescuing whom.” Jason doesn’t even look at him as he delivers the line. 

Kyle frowns, but before he can protest—demand that Jason look at him and take off his mask to show him those pretty green eyes again—the cell door swings open. The metal monstrosity that Jason conjured lets out a shrill beep. Both noises hurt Kyle’s head. 

“About what I expected,” Jason comments, taking a peek at the screen before dismissing the construct entirely. 

Kyle watches as his blood falls to the ground, leaving a small puddle on the floor. He reaches out one leg to drag a foot through it.

“Yeah, no,” Jason says. Using his foot to intercept Kyle’s leg, he shoves it back underneath the rest of Kyle’s body. Then Jason scoops one of Kyle’s arms over his shoulder. “No need to track bloody footprints on our way out.” 

Ah, so they’re leaving together. 

“Are we going to my place?” Kyle asks. He’s not sure if he’s cleaned recently, or any time within the last year. Jason probably won’t like that. 

On their multiverse trip, Jason was very particular about their sleeping quarters. He glances at Jason, who is busy tasing the first two guys they encounter into unconsciousness with a green taser that sparks with bright green electricity. Maybe they can go to his place instead?

“No. We’re in Star City, idiot. Once we get out, I’m calling Roy, who will call Hawke, and he can watch your dumbass for the next 12 or so hours that it's going to take for all your decision-making faculties to come back.” 

Kyle brightens at the mention of Connor. He hasn’t seen Connor in a while, so it'll be nice to catch up. Maybe that’s why he’s in Star City, though why he needs to go through Jason and Roy to contact him… wait. 

Kyle pouts. “Why does Roy have your number and not me?’

“Why would you have my number?” 

“Because I want it?”

“Yeah, I don’t think you do.” Jason shoulders a door open and suddenly they’re spilling into daylight that’s far too bright. ”But I’ll tell Roy that if you still want my number after the drugs, he’s free to pass it on.”

Kyle pries his eyes open only to shut them again at the immediate onslaught of light. 

“Kyle, are you awake?” 

He recognizes Connor’s voice even with his eyes closed. “Yeah,” he rasps, trying his eyes again. He forces himself to keep them open this time despite the glaring brightness. “What happened?”

“You were drugged and kidnapped.” Connor swims into view on his left. “Jason didn’t warn me there were going to be memory issues.”

Memory issues sound about right. Kyle can’t seem to recall any of the last several hours, including “Jason?” 

“Jason Todd. At least you’re going to finally stop waxing poetic about his eyes now.”

Jason Todd? What had he been doing in Star? 

Also, Kyle does not wax poetic; he’s a different kind of artist thank you very much. Waxing-poetic about Jason’s eyes? Kyle admittedly hadn’t seen them very much while traveling the multiverse, they’d been hidden behind a domino, even while they were resting, but he doubts they are particularly wax-worthy. 

“You’re doing alright, though?” Connor asks. “Jason said you’d be fine after you slept it off.” 

“Fine, just questioning my past self’s decisions.” Kyle pushes himself up. “What say we get—what time is it?” 

“10:00 a.m., you’ve been asleep for 13 hours now.”

“Brunch,” Kyle decides. “We can get brunch.”

Two

Jason gets calls from unknown numbers quite often. Often enough that he has a whole phone dedicated to fishing out which unsavory sorts paid someone to get in touch with him this week. He gets calls from unknown numbers on his personal phone much less often, and even more rarely does he pick one up. But, he did make a promise to Kyle.

“Figured you’d decided against calling me,” he says in lieu of a greeting.

“Yeah, well, I mindlessly doodled you wearing my suit a day ago, and that made me reconsider things,” Kyle replies. “Did you actually use my ring?”

Jason did, and he won’t be apologizing for it if that’s what Kyle wants. It got them both out of there. 

“Maybe,” he replies curtly, sliding his thumb over to the disconnect call button.

He immediately gets a call back. 

Jason could decline, but there’s a chance Kyle is actually calling to share important information. While Jason tolerates Kyle—okay, he more than tolerates Kyle; the other’s reactions are deliciously over the top, and it’s nice being around someone who isn’t constantly measuring him up to his fifteen-year-old self—this tolerance is not mutual. Kyle would hardly be suffering through his company without good reason. 

He hits accept.

“That was rude,” Kyle admonishes. An image of Kyle with his plush lips pressed together firmly in a scowl and one eyebrow ever so slightly raised flashes into Jason’s brain. How he recalls that face so precisely, Jason doesn’t know. He hasn’t seen Kyle make it since their multiverse trip ended three years ago. 

“Sure,” he replies, kicking his feet up onto his coffee table, “‘rude.’ Call my behavior whatever you want, but I won’t be apologizing for it. And I won’t be apologizing for using your ring either.”

“What?” Kyle asks.

“You heard me. I used the ring, and I’m not going to apologize for it or get into a dick-measuring competition over who’s got more willpower or whatever else it is you called to do.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind the chance to measure your dick. I mean,” Kyle clears his throat. “Ignore that. Jason, I'm not mad at you for using the ring. If anything, I’m super impressed because most people can’t just pick up a power ring and make it work. Plus, I also maybe founditsuperattractive.”

This time it's Jason’s turn to ask, “What?”

Kyle rushes to apologize. “That was super forward of me, but I just called to see if maybe you would like to try going on a date with me.” 

Jason’s brain goes blank. Kyle wants to… what?

Theoretically, Jason knows he is a pretty good-looking guy. Theoretically, Jason even knows that Kyle agrees with this statement, since you don’t exactly spend a whole rescue rambling about how hot someone is while high on drugs if you find them unattractive. However, finding someone attractive and wanting to go on a date with them aren't exactly the same thing. 

If that was the case, then Jason has wanted to go on a date with Kyle for years now, considering he’d clocked his ass as dreamy way back during the Bob shenanigans. But if Kyle had asked Jason to go on a date with him after the trip was over?

Jason probably would have said yes, now that he considers it.

Jason’s point still stands. There are plenty of people he recognizes as attractive, but doesn’t want to go on a date with. Donna, for one. And therefore, it was perfectly reasonable for him to be caught off guard by Kyle’s sudden request. 

Kyle doesn’t even, like, like him as a person. Why would Kyle want to go on a date with him?

“Did you hang up again?” Kyle asks into the silence.

“No, I’m still here.” Jason wets his lips as he contemplates how to word his question without making things weird. “I would be interested in going on a date with you,” he begins, “but only if you're actually serious about this dating thing. And I didn’t really think you liked me as a person enough for this to be actually serious.”

“I would have said the same thing a week ago, but then you saved me from a kidnapping on a whim.”

‘On a whim.’ That’s not liking him as a person. 

Kyle believes his good deed from a week ago was a whim, because to Kyle he will always be the Red Hood—not a hero. Not that Jason is trying to be a hero per se, but just because Jason follows a slightly different rule set than everyone else doesn’t mean he isn’t still trying to keep people safe and see justice served. 

So then what does Kyle even like? 

Just that Jason rescued him? Made him feel special?

Fuck that. 

“I hate to break it to you, Rayner.” He doesn’t. In fact, Jason quite enjoys shoving heroes' egos in their faces. “But I’d do the whole kidnapping rescue thing for a vast majority of people. Seems like I never quite managed to unlearn the whole hero thing. You’re not special.”

“I can’t believe I forgot how infuriating you are. Forget it.” The call disconnects. 

Jason doesn’t bother blocking Kyle’s number. He won’t be calling back.

“Bet you’re wishing we were on a date right now instead of fighting demons,” Kyle quips, touching down in the little dead-end alleyway Jason’s been camped out in ever since the comms went down. 

Jason arrived in Metropolis with the other Gotham vigilantes a few hours ago to join the Justice League in fighting the demon incursion, but he’d been adamant about not being partnered up with anyone. It was kind of hard to keep your glowing magic swords a secret when you were fighting side by side with someone. 

He’d started to regret this choice during the second hour of magical-sword-induced strain, and just as he’d decided to coordinate joining Steph, Duke, and Damian, the comms had gone out.

The alley he’s found refuge in is located uncomfortably close to the point of contact with Hell, where Jason had been fighting earlier, but it’s defensible enough that he only has to worry about attacks from one direction. This combined with Jason’s positioning behind a row of dumpsters, means most of the demons that sniff him out get funneled into the All-Blades without Jason having to put in a lot of effort.

Still, Jason is glad to take a break from the swords as soon as Kyle touches down.

A giant green hand grabs the next bunch of demons, squeezing until flames engulf the group. Huh, so apparently disappearing in a lick of fire was just a normal part of the process of sending demons back to hell, not something unique to Jason’s flaming swords.

“Surprised to see me helping out, Rayner?” Jason jabs.

“Can you try holding one conversation with me without making assumptions?”

Jason hasn’t made any assumptions, has he? Kyle had told him just yesterday over the phone that he doesn’t think of Jason as someone who engages in this whole heroic do-gooder shit. 

Jason suddenly recalls the drugged-up version of Kyle telling him he was “not evil.” 

The memory hits like a knife to the gut. 

Never mind, that is actually a knife in his gut. Jason had the audacity to lose his concentration for just a few seconds, and now there is some demon’s jagged obsidian blade lodged deep inside him. 

He crumples to the ground, curling slightly into a ball as if that will do any good to protect himself from the demon, knifeless now, but definitely not harmless.

He doesn’t have to worry about it for long. A green javelin sends the demon careening into a wall. Upon impact, the demon goes up in flames, and so does the knife in Jason’s stomach. So much for leaving the blade in. 

Jason’s eyes slip closed. He wrenches them back open to find the whole world has adopted an eerie green glow. Apparently, Kyle’s decided the best bet is to wall off the mouth of the alley, sealing it with a massive green construct at least 30 feet high.

“Fuck, shit, fuck,” Kyle swears, now kneeling in front of Jason to press a green bath towel to his wound.

"You can conjure anything, and you choose a towel?” Jason’s mouth says before his brain has a chance to catch up. 

Usually Jason thrives on assholery, but he’d have liked to be more helpful than that right now, considering his survival currently depends on Kyle’s apparently dismal knowledge of field medicine. 

“Fuck. Jason. Shit. Is the towel the wrong choice? In my defense, I’m putting pressure on the wound, and they don’t really teach you any more than that in the Corps because the suits do most of the job for us. Wait, my suit!” Kyle glances at the mouth of the alley. “Jason, if I give you my ring, do you think you can keep that wall up for us?”

“Probably not.” The damn knife going up in flames didn’t even seem to cauterize the wound, and Jason’s vision is starting to go grey around the edges from blood loss. Fucking purely ornamental demon fire. Fucking—

Jason chokes out a gasp as Kyle’s hands release the pressure on his wound. They instead grab one of Jason’s pistols from the holster on his leg. 

“Guess this’ll have to do,” Kyle mumbles, looking at the gun dubiously. He slides his ring off, placing it on Jason’s finger. “Suit up.”

Jason does and immediately feels a little more energized. 

It takes him a few tries to gather his concentration enough for the sterile combine pads and set of hands he’s conjured to stick around. But once he has not bleeding to death figured out, he turns to check in on Kyle, who clearly does not know how to hold a gun. 

“Kyle,” he grits out. 

“Yeah?” Kyle’s gaze doesn’t leave the mouth of the alleyway.

“Sword,” Jason replies. 

He almost blacks out with the effort it takes to summon a single sword—it causes the gauze pad and hands to vanish—but he’s left with an All-Blade flaring brightly in his palm. He shoves it clumsily towards Kyle, who turns at the sound of metal scraping across the concrete. The other’s eyes go wide in shock, but he swaps out the gun for Jason’s blade.

A shiver washes through Jason, and it could be shock setting in, but Jason swears he can feel Kyle’s hands all over his soul. It’s not as bad a sensation as one would imagine. 

“Where the hell did this come from?” Kyle asks.

Jason ignores him. “You any good with swords?”

“Good enough to take out some demons, I think.”

“Yeah?” Not exactly what Jason wants to hear, especially with the growing clamor of metal on metal that Jason’s learned means a larger group is approaching the alleyway. He flicks his eyes to the mouth of the alley. “Take them out, and you can take me out on a date after this.”

“I think not dying was a good enough motive, but I will be holding you to that,” Kyle calls over his shoulder as he moves up to take a defensive stance closer to the mouth of the alley.

Kyle positions himself next to the dumpster, so its bulk forces the demons to stay in his range. He is surprisingly fluid with his sword movements as he dispatches the first three demons that wander into the alley. 

Jason knows his swords are unnaturally light, making it easy to put too much power into your swings, to over-commit and leave yourself wide open. But Kyle doesn’t fall into this trap. He fights as though he and the sword are one, as though they’ve had years of practice together. 

It’s hard for Jason to pull his attention away from Kyle, but he has more important things to focus on, like not bleeding out. 

Time slips away from him, Kyle slips away from him, and there is only Jason, his set of green hands, the combine pads, and the faint notion that Kyle is still alive and fighting through his connection to the All-Blades. That is until Wally West is suddenly inches in front of his face.

“Fuck. Kyle, you alright?” he swears, his face becoming a blur as he looks back and forth between Jason in Kyle’s suit and Kyle at the mouth of the alley wielding Jason’s swords. “You got cloned and stabbed?”

It seems like far too much effort to reply. 

Luckily, Kyle does the talking for them. “Nope, it's still just me. That's Jason Todd in my suit. Could you get him to medical and then come back for me? I’m not sure how far away he can get without his sword disappearing."

“What the fuck?” Wally asks, but he doesn’t wait around for answers before stooping to pick Jason up. The world warps around them, and Jason is being placed on the bed of a Justice League medical facility. This sudden movement is finally too much for him. The last thing Jason sees before his vision goes dark is Kyle appearing in a flash of yellow on a nearby chair.

Surprisingly, Kyle is still by his side when Jason wakes up. Or maybe not surprisingly, Jason has no clue how long it's been. 

“Is the battle still going on?” Jason asks.

Kyle startles, looking up from the pad of paper he’s probably sketching on. “Oh, yeah, or at least I assume since the Watchtower hasn’t been flooded with people yet.”

“Why are you…” Jason lets his question trail off.

“Still here? Because you are still wearing my ring,” Kyle nods towards Jason’s hand. “Couldn't have taken it off if I tried, actually. The rings are cool like that.”

Jason takes off the ring and is immediately glad he hasn’t tried sitting up yet when an intense bout of dizziness hits him. However, it passes quickly. He hands the ring back to Kyle, and swings his legs over the side of the bed.

“Woah.” Kyle hastily sets the ring down on the bedside table, bringing both hands up to rest lightly on Jason’s shoulders. “Are you sure you should be getting up yet?”

Is it the best thing for his health? Probably not. But consider that Jason would rather be dead than suffer through all the Bats telling him off for going in without backup while everyone else either gossips about his presence or avoids acknowledging his existence, as if they’re too good for the gossip. 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Jason says. He pushes himself to his feet. 

He must look unsteady because as soon as Kyle has the ring on he’s back at Jason’s side, looping one of Jason’s arms over his shoulder. Kyle insists on helping Jason all the way to the Zeta tubes, then all the way to a safe house in Gotham, before flying back to the battlefield. 

Once home, Jason makes a beeline straight for his bed. His phone is plugged in by his pillow, right where he left it. He picks it up and shoots off two messages. 

One to Barbara, informing her that he got injured during the fight, made his way home, and to let the other Bats know once comms go back online. The second is to Kyle, proposing the night after tomorrow for their date.

He’d made the offer as a joke, but he’s actually looking forward to a date with Kyle. They make a good team even when they’re at each other's throats. So hopefully they’ll make an even better team if they’re not. 

Three

Kyle frowns down at the butter and flour mixture that is stubbornly refusing to combine. His ring glints on his middle finger, catching his eye. There’s got to be a way he can speed this up. 

Jason catches Kyle approximately three seconds into telekinetically cutting the mixture. “Nuh-uh, give me that ring, Kyle,” he demands, setting down the bowl and whisk. “No cheating. Need I remind you that you’re the one who wanted to experience making soda bread from scratch.”

During date three, Kyle discovered that Jason was also raised by an Irish-American mother and suggested a throwback activity: making soda bread. A task he is discovering is much more arduous now that cutting cold butter with the flour mixture is his job. 

Jason snaps his fingers, holding out his hand for the ring, which Kyle slips off his finger. The pastry cutter he was controlling clatters back into the bowl.

He hands the ring to Jason. “Fine. But I better not catch you using a construct to wash the dishes later.”

“I’d argue that washing dishes hardly affects the sanctity of the soda bread compared to speeding your way through pastry cutting. What if you had accidentally let those hands over-mix the dough?”

“I didn’t realize we had a pastry expert. Here.” Kyle picks up the bowl, handing it off to Jason. “I believe you’re far more qualified for this job.”

“Fuck off,” Jason says before acquiescing and making short work of the mixture. 

Kyle smiles despite himself. The fake refusals are just one of Jason’s many idiosyncrasies he’s starting to find incredibly endearing.

Endearing and hot. Kyle has seen Jason in the warm ambient lighting of a bar; the direct, crisp sunlight at Central Park on a Tuesday afternoon; and the soft glow emitted by a sky full of stars at the top of Mauna Kea. (Yes, the dormant volcano in Hawaii. Kyle has a power ring. If they’re going stargazing, he’s going to make sure they go somewhere with the dark enough skies to make it worth their while.) But perhaps he’s never seen Jason look as lovely as he does right now in Kyle’s kitchen under the harsh fluorescents that Kyle has never bothered to swap out.

It helps that Jason’s wearing a tank top that leaves his arms on full display as he pounds the butter into submission. There was probably a better way to have phrased that thought. 

It’s not just the tank top, though. There’s also something incredibly attractive about the confidence with which Jason navigates Kyle’s space. Like it hasn’t even occurred to him that it’s his first time here, making the same notion seem strange and incorrect to Kyle’s brain. 

This is practically their kitchen now, and they aren’t even technically an us yet. 

Three dates, technically four if the current one counts, and Kyle wants to make it official. He hasn’t seen anyone since his first date with Jason three weeks ago, and he doubts Jason has either. However, Kyle is also well-aware of his tendency to move too fast in relationships. 

See, he doesn’t just want to be official. He also wants to talk about Jason to his teammates or invite Jason to join him next time he and Donna hang out together. He wants to take Jason as his plus-one to Lantern Corps, Justice League, and Titan events—and he can’t imagine Jason wants that. 

Somewhere between going on dates and showing up with Jason to all the superhero events as an item, there’s a line that separates Kyle’s wants that are feasible and reciprocated and the ones that are going to scare Jason off forever, and Kyle has no freaking clue where that line lies.

Kyle should really figure out how to start a conversation about this, but he’d prefer Jason take that next step.

Once the dry ingredients have been cut, they mix them with the wet ingredients and shape them into a loaf. They spend a little too much time debating whether it’s loaf-shaped enough before sending it off into the oven. 

Kyle ends up on a stool, sketchpad in hand, watching Jason from behind as he does the dishes. It’s a pretty great view, but it could be better. 

“I take it back. You have my full permission to suit up to wash those dishes,” he announces.

Jason suits up and shoots him a smirk from over his shoulder. “So wearing this does something for you, Kyle?”

Well, yeah, Kyle likes to think he’s pretty good at design, and he designed the suit to look pretty damn flattering. 

(And also maybe it helps that it is Kyle’s suit.)

Does Jason think about things like that? Kyle thinks back to when he learned that the sword Jason handed him had been forged from Jason’s soul, and suddenly he wants to know what that was like for Jason. 

He doesn’t get the chance to ask before hot, wet hands are pulling him in across the counter, and Jason’s mouth is on Kyle’s, and his own cold, hard, and entirely too chunky mask is pressing into his face. 

Kyle pulls back. “Will the mask away, dumbass.”

“Don’t call me a dumbass while I’m trying to make out with you,” Jason reprimands.

He wills the mask away, and Kyle is treated to the sight of Jason’s eyes glinting like blue-green tourmaline held up to the heavens. Kyle leans even more of his weight onto the counter, trying to close the gap in between them as much as possible. It doesn’t work all that well. 

Eventually, he gives up and walks around to join Jason on the serving side of things. “If you’re not a dumbass, why did you initiate a makeout session with the whole freaking kitchen island in between us?” 

Jason glances at the oven timer. “I was thinking that we probably shouldn’t get too into things since we have bread in the oven that needs to come out in twelve minutes and 43 seconds.”

“Point,” Kyle concedes with another peck to Jason’s lips, easing off before he risks escalating things further. A very real risk with Jason Todd involved. 

He looks Jason up and down in his suit. It’s his first time seeing it that isn’t a half-remembered sketch or Jason lying sickly and pale. “Were you any good with that thing?” he asks, gesturing to his ring.

Jason frowns. “I keep forgetting you don’t have nearly as good a memory of kidnapping incidents as I do. You know, you were very insistent that that was our first date, and then we fought demons together, so I guess that makes this one our sixth?”

Kyle flushes. “Please tell me I managed to do something besides coming onto you the whole time.”

“You didn’t, but it was kind of cute. I think you were really concerned about whether or not I was having a good time. Personally, I thought I was pretty good with the ring. Made a whole functioning Batcomputer with it to figure out what you were drugged with.”

Batcomputer, Kyle mouths.

“So uh,”—and Kyle said he was going to let Jason do this, but he’s actually not sure he can wait much longer—“if we’re on our sixth date, does that mean it’s a good time to ask you to be my boyfriend?”

Apparently, this question breaks Jason’s focus enough he can’t maintain Kyle’s suit. It vanishes, leaving Jason in just his sweats at the center of Kyle’s kitchen. And Kyle knew he shouldn’t have asked. Should have let Jason make the move on his own time. It’s all over.

“Knock-knock, Rayner.” Jason accompanies his statement with two quick raps on Kyle’s counter. “If we’re not already boyfriends, what the fuck have we been doing?”

Kyle’s too busy feeling relieved to defend himself, but for the record, Jason’s definitely the weird one here. 

“Boyfriends,” he grins.

“Yeah, Kyle, boyfriends.”

“Okay, boyfriends. Great. Amazing actually. But I still have a few questions. Like, is it okay if I talk about you to my friends and teammates?”

Jason winces.

Kyle jumps in. “It’s okay. I don’t have to. I don’t mind not being super public about our relationship.”

“It’s fine, Kyle. Spread it around however much you want. Just be prepared for pushback.”

Kyle opens his mouth to tell Jason that’s ridiculous, but then he remembers his own reaction to Jason and Donna on the multiverse trip and shuts it again. 

The circumstances had been a little different there. For one, Kyle was Donna’s ex, and they were cooped up with no escape from each other for three straight months. But Kyle had mostly ragged on Jason because he’d heard other people do it before, and he would hear other people do it again.

“Yeah, well, I’ll push back on their push back,” he promises.

“You do that,” Jason says, in a tone that Kyle’s pretty sure means he doesn’t believe him. 

“I will,” Kyle insists, but leaves it there. Fighting Jason is far less fun when it’s about something that actually matters. He searches for a good subject change. “Out of curiosity, what was it like for you when I was wielding the All-Blades?”

“Good, but less good than when you have your hands on my dick.” 

Okay—the time for vulnerability is over. Message received. “I think we could manage that,” Kyle says.

Jason looks at the oven again. “You’ve got ten minutes and twenty seconds to clean your room.”

Oh, fuck.

Four

Jason is not nervous about Kyle’s upcoming trip to Oa. He isn’t. Jason has been alone most of his life, sans those few years when it had been him and Batman against the world. Now it was starting to be him and Kyle, and it was nice. 

Five months ago, Kyle decided to quit paying for his apartment in New York, and Jason purchased a spacious apartment in the Hill for them to move into. For five months now, Jason’s been used to a warm presence in his bed when he crashes after patrols, and days that are full of light, laughter, and a bit more mess than usual. 

Now, he’s facing six months without any of that, but he’s not nervous.

Jason knew this was coming. Kyle was very upfront about the realities of his job when they started dating, and Jason had very deliberately avoided hurting Kyle’s feelings by not replying that he suspected he would be just fine. 

And he will be just fine. 

He just thought they’d have more time before Kyle’s first extended space stay. Kyle was going to be gone longer than they’d even spent living together. It didn’t seem fair. But then again, when has life ever been fair to Jason?

Jason glares at the power ring sitting on his right middle finger. 

There’s no point in being upset now. He has plenty of time for that after Kyle leaves. Right now, Jason is executing a plan. He’s making a surprise for Kyle on his trip because Kyle is a good boyfriend, and Jason likes to think he’s not half-bad himself. 

“Okay, ring, you can record messages and play them back in the future, right?”

“Recording this message.”

“Oh, so we’re starting right away, are we. Ignore this one Kyle. Hey, ring, stop recording.”

“Recording complete. How would you like to save this recording?”

“Don’t save this recording.”

“Recording saved under ‘Don’t Save This Recording.’”

“Lovely.” 

At least Jason knows his plan stands a chance of working now. He pulls up Jujutsu Kaisen on Netflix. The first few episodes are fine. It strikes him as a little strange that all the emotional moments seem to be handled as part of fight scenes, but after thinking about it for a second, that’s oddly accurate to his life too.

“Okay, ring, start recording.”

“Recording this message.”

“Hey, Kyle,” he begins, “I hope you’ve had a good first week so far, and that the universe hasn’t threatened to end itself yet, but if it has. I’m sure you had handled it. I have no clue how things are going in Gotham for me, but I’m sure I’ve got it handled too.” Jason cringes but pushes on. “That’s not the point of this message. The point is I’ve decided that in the month leading up to your leave I’m going to watch all of season 1 of that show you really like and share my thoughts, and I just finished the first three episodes…”

He talks about the show for a few minutes before he asks the ring to wrap it up, titling his message ‘Jason Todd Week One.’ Then he heads back to the office where Kyle has his headphones on, as Jason requested, and is working on some commissions. 

He looks up as Jason slides into view.

“Just returning this.” Jason tosses the ring in Kyle's direction.

Kyle fumbles, barely managing to catch it. “Are you going to tell me what it was for?”

“Nah.” Jason goes to slip back out of the room, but the sound of Kyle putting his tablet down stops him.

“Is this about the fact I’m being stationed on Oa?”

“Technically, but it's a surprise. Don’t go poking around your ring yet.”

“Okay,” Kyle agrees. He squints at his ring as if close visual inspection will reveal its new secrets. “But about Oa, is there anything I can do to make my stay on Oa easier for you?”

“I’ll be fine,” Jason says. 

He will. Jason has never really needed anyone else’s company. It’s just a bonus.

“I’d hope so. But we’re doing better than fine right now. And it’d be great if we could both be doing better while I’m away too.”

They are doing better than fine. They’re doing far better than Jason anticipated. He gives Kyle’s question a little more thought and draws a blank. They’d already established Kyle was going to send him short daily messages around their usual lunch hour. However, the connection only went one way, thus he’d come up with this series of prerecorded messages. 

He gives Kyle a shrug.

“Fair enough, you think about that. And I guess I’ll think about it too. Maybe the other Lanterns will have some ideas.”

The other Lanterns do. Kyle introduces him to Jessica and Simon a week later, who agree to let Jason use their rings to call Kyle once a week while they’re on Earth. Soon word gets out about who Kyle’s dating to the entirety of the human members of the Green Lantern Corps, and they join the rather short list of people in the know. 

On Jason’s side, the list is comprised of Rose after she’d popped by to borrow one of Jason’s bikes, Stephanie for a surprisingly similar reason, and Roy Harper, who Jason had insisted on telling on purpose. 

Donna had been Kyle’s top choice of person to tell, and the three of them have started hanging out together occasionally. Wally found out after he wouldn’t stop bothering Kyle to explain the whole demon situation where Jason had been in Kyle’s suit. Finally, Connor, who had watched Kyle through his comedown off the drugged high, where apparently he would not stop talking about Jason’s eyes or thighs, so Kyle felt he was also owed the truth. 

No one on the list has given Jason any shit about it yet, which is both nice and surprising. He suspects it’s because Kyle’s been running interference on his behalf, and he feels a rush of gratitude towards his boyfriend. 

He makes sure to express his gratitude during their next call, stopping short of explaining what exactly he’s thanking Kyle for.

“I’m grateful for the stuff you do too,” Kyle replies. “But you’re lucky I’m as into Jujutsu Kaisen as I am; otherwise your messages would be incomprehensible. You should send me recordings of the show next time too.”

“Noted,” Jason says. He hopes next time isn’t for quite some time.

Five

Kyle stands across from Jason in the circle of vigilantes who’d responded to this particular alien invasion while they listen to Batman explain the issue. Apparently all their problems would be solved—aka a bunch of alien space ships would turn tail and flee all the way back to their home galaxy, delaying them long enough for permanent countermeasures to be put into place—if they had someone capable of both hacking and flight, a Mr. Terrific type. Unfortunately, Mr. Terrific and many of the other Justice League full-timers were off-planet. 

The best idea they’d managed to come up with right now was sending up some combination of Bat and Super, Kara and Stephanie had volunteered, and praying they would manage to outmaneuver the alien’s blasts as a duo. However, Batman seemed reluctant; it was going to be dangerous for whoever went up, and two people would have a much slower and less coordinated reaction than one.

Jason makes eye contact with him from before dropping his gaze to Kyle’s ring. Kyle shakes his head.

And then Jason, the idiot, steps forward and clears his throat.

“No.” Kyle snaps into the shocked silence that always seems to echo through any group of heroes in the wake of Jason’s contributions.

“Kyle, this is one of our hard rules. ‘No interference.’”

It works like this: Kyle and Jason are together, the Red Hood and the Green Lantern aren’t, not publicly at least, and therefore they only interfere with each other's missions with explicit permission in advance. It also means no backseat driving the way the other does superheroing. That’s more for both their sanity. 

“This would hardly be ‘no interference,’” Kyle argues. “It’s my fucking ring. My fucking decision.” 

“I’m sorry, what’s going on here?” Nightwing asks. 

Jason ignores him, instead making eye contact with Batman through the cowl. “Look, B, imagine there was a Green Lantern with my hacking skills. You’d send them in a heartbeat, correct?”

It takes Batman a little while to respond, and despite dating Jason for over a year, Kyle is pretty sure he has no better idea of what could be going through Batman's head than any of the other non-Bats in the crowd.

Jason doesn’t have this issue, even with how estranged he and Batman are nowadays. He walks over and accepts the thumb drive and tablet without a word being exchanged.

“You can’t be on board with this. He’s your son,” Kyle protests.

“And your write-up from your multiverse travel was missing a lot of key information, Lantern,” Bruce growls in response. 

He must have concluded that Jason being able to use Kyle’s ring is a quirk they discovered then. It surprises Kyle that Jason’s family actually doesn’t know about their relationship. He’s been assuming they’ve just been pretending not to for the sake of acting like they respect Jason’s privacy and autonomy.

“Kyle?” Jason tips his head towards a shaded building, away from the crowd. 

Kyle contemplates pretending not to know him, even though it’s far too late for that. He follows Jason.

“Hey.” Jason’s thumb strokes his cheek. His other hand takes his helmet off, bringing it down to hang at his side. 

“Hey,” Kyle croaks out, just now realizing how tight his throat is. 

“This isn’t a goodbye.” Jason’s voice is firm. “This isn’t a suicide mission. If I think the choices are coming back to you alive or fulfilling the mission, I’m headed straight back. I’ll use that weird tether thing.”

Kyle’s voice only shakes a bit when he says, “That’s a Star Sapphire only thing.”

“And you were or are the White Lantern—it’s hard to keep up. Don’t laugh at me.” 

Kyle is not at all close to laughing, but he appreciates Jason’s attempt at mimicking the cadence of their usual banter. 

“What I’m saying,” Jason adds, “is your ring is capable of the tether thing, so I’d figure it out.”

Kyle twists the ring around and around his right middle finger. “Okay, you can go, but only because this isn’t a suicide mission. Batman wouldn’t let his son go on a suicide mission.”

“Well…”

“Jason! Not the time. Reassure me again.”

Jason grabs his hands where he is still messing with the ring, interlacing their fingers. “It’s not a suicide mission. There are other ways to deal with the aliens, and I will leave if I feel out of my depth. Now hand over the ring and watch your incredibly smart, badass, and capable boyfriend kickass in front of everyone while wearing your suit.”

“Okay,” Kyle says. 

“Okay?” Jason pulls his hands away. 

Kyle allows his ring to slide off his hand in Jason’s grip. 

“Okay,” he breathes out into the fresh air, now maskless. The breeze barely has a chance to hit his face before Jason is pulling him in for a kiss. This is followed by Jason stuffing the Red Hood helmet over Kyle’s head. 

“Secret identities,” Jason says, Kyle’s suit washing over him. 

Kyle takes a step back towards the crowd, and immediately notices that Jason isn’t following.

“I think I’m just going to…” Jason points up at the ships far above them.

Kyle looks at the crowd, sees a lot of people with a lot of questions and opinions, and decides that Jason has the right idea. 

He keeps an eye on Jason as best he can while the other works. Jason has shown him how to use some of the helmet’s functions in the past, and he has the zoom up as far as it can go. That’s probably why he doesn’t manage to catch sight of Red Robin and Spoiler sneaking up on him until they’re nearly on top of him.

“So you’re the person Jason’s dating,” Spoiler remarks.

Kyle shakes his head, a command that reverts the zoom to its baseline. “You’ve literally known about us for months.”

Tim shoots Steph a look and she dances backwards, raising her hands. “I wasn’t sure if they wanted it to be known I knew.”

“Jason told Stephanie? Who else knows?”

“We didn’t exactly tell her. She just kind of showed up at our house one day.”

Tim seems affronted. “You’re living in Gotham now?” 

Tim seems to think this is a very large deal, which would intrigue Kyle at any other moment in time, except his boyfriend is actively facing being blown up out of the sky right now. He turns his sight back to the impending alien invasion and the little green bubble that his boyfriend has encased himself within.

“I,” Kyle searches for the right words, “am using Gotham as my home base when I’m not in space. Jason and I have a slightly more permanent place than the safe houses we used to crash in.”

Tim seems stunned speechless. 

“How long have you been in Gotham?” he finally asks.

“Like a year and a half?”

“Wouldn’t we know? Babs at least would know.”

Kyle gives him a little half shrug. 

Up in the sky, Jason’s bubble has just taken a pretty direct hit. He responds by plugging up the ports the ships are firing out with big green stoppers. Two of the ports explode before the aliens get the hint and stop firing.

Tim turns to Stephanie. “How long have you known?” 

“Three months? I think it’d been going on for a while before that, though.”

“What are we talking about?” Signal asks.

Kyle thought he knew why they didn’t talk to most of Jason’s extended family. Things with Bruce were complicated and mostly ugly. Dick was never in town often enough, and when he was Jason certainly wasn’t his priority. And the rest of them Jason had never really known, so besides Stephanie, who’d done the hard part of making contact first, Jason didn’t seem to talk to them. Sure, Kyle’s boyfriend worked with them plenty, but they were more like coworkers doing a job together. A job Kyle strictly wasn’t involved with. 

However, Kyle had never considered that there could be more innocuous reasons why he and Jason didn’t really talk to Jason’s family. Like that Jason’s family is really freaking annoying.

“Green Lantern says he’s been living in Gotham for five months and without any of us knowing,” Tim reports, sounding almost offended.

“Hood’s got you hiding from us?” Duke clarifies.

“No,” Kyle says. “We just keep our private life separate from his vigilante life. I go elsewhere to do my Earth-based vigilantism unless I’m playing backup for Red Hood work.”

“You help him with that?” It’s a new voice. Kyle manages to place it as Damian’s despite never meeting the kid before.

“Occasionally.” He doesn’t mind being his boyfriend's back up when dealing with the rogues or in situations where lots of innocent lives are at risk, like trafficking rings. 

“I thought you were better than that,” the kid asserts.

“Big talk from someone currently waiting for Jason to save the world,” Kyle retorts.

“Objective complete,” Jason’s voice echoes through everyone’s comms. 

Sure enough, the airships turn tail, shrinking until they disappear entirely. Then, because he is a jackass and a total idiot, Jason seems to decide the fastest way back down to Earth is free fall, waiting till almost the very last moment to catch himself and get his flight under control. 

This, Kyle would like to point out, is not even the fastest way back to Earth, because he can fly plenty faster than a human’s terminal velocity. Jason just likes making his heart palpitate.

“What’s going on here?” Jason asks as he approaches Kyle and the gaggle that has surrounded him.

“I think your family might be on to us.” Kyle replies. 

He plants his hands on the latches of Jason’s helmet, quickly running through the protocol to slide it off. He gladly exchanges it for his ring, feeling much more at home behind the suit.

The last of the remaining Bats—Batman, Nightwing, and Black Bat—make their way over.

Bruce nods at him. Kyle forces himself, against instinct, not to respond. He was Batman’s teammate well before he ever met Jason, but it’s hard to date Jason and not end up a certain amount of pissed off at Batman all of the time, no matter how their father-and-son relationship has actually been going recently. 

Dick and Cass just stare. Well, Dick might be glaring at him. It reminds Kyle of the time Donna had tried to introduce the two of them.

Jason hands Bruce back the tablet. 

“Are you hurt?” Bruce inquires.

“No,” Jason says. 

Kyle’s pretty sure he would say that in this scenario, whether or not it was true, but he believes him this time. He’d been watching pretty closely and had seen no opportunities for injury.

Jason walks over and hooks his arm through Kyle. “My boyfriend and I are going to head out now. Cool?”

“You should come to the tower to debrief,” Bruce suggests.

“We’ll file it from home,” Jason says. “Kyle, if you’re not going to take over flying us back home, you’d better give me that ring back.”

Kyle gladly summons them a carriage. If indulging in his boyfriend's whims means he gets to debrief from the comfort of their home, well, he’s incredibly down for that. “After you,” he insists.

Jason gives a cheeky wave to the Bats as the carriage lifts them up and away. 

Plus One

Kyle’s ready. He has a ring, his power ring, of course, but the one that matters for this particular mission is the thick black band with a stripe of teal sapphire in its center that matches Jason’s eyes. 

He also has the address he needs from Roy, who’d assured him the building was currently sitting empty, and, finally, he’d coerced Jason into joining him on a trip to Star, ostensibly so they could hang out with Roy and Connor. It’s not exactly a lie; they will do that tonight at the engagement party Roy is throwing, but not yet. 

Jason laughs when they round the corner, and he catches sight of the warehouse. “What’s this, Kyle, an attempt at making new memories since you’re peeved that only I remember our second first meeting?”

“Yeah actually.” Jason got it in one. In the end, Kyle’s mental debate had come down to either this warehouse or Mt. Everest, and the gloves Jason would have to be wearing to protect himself from the cold would be far too large to slip a ring on top of. Kyle checked. 

“What are we going to do? Have sex in there?”

That’s… not a bad suggestion. Not tonight, though. They have a timetable to stick to. Engagement, maybe a little bit of time for making out, and then they’re off to Kyle’s dinner reservations, followed by meeting up at Roy’s with some of the Arrows, some of the Lanterns, all of the Outlaws, and also Jason’s flight attendant ex-girlfriend who Roy had insisted on inviting for equal ex representation. (Oh, yeah, Donna was going to be there as well).

“Nope. I’ve got better plans than sex,” he says, shoving the door open. “Okay, you lead the way now. Where’d the kidnapping go down?”

Jason leads him through a series of winding hallways that end in a row of barred cells. They cross over to stand before the third one.

Jason gives Kyle the grin that means whatever comes out of his mouth next is going to be in equal measures insufferable and endearing. “And if you look to your right,” he announces like a guide giving a tour, “I believe we can make out a little bit of your blood on the floor there.”

Kyle rolls his eyes at him before suiting up to open the cell door. A silent command to his ring takes care of it in an instant. 

He feels excitement race through him as they cross over into the cell, even though the interior is really not much to look at. 

“Really, Rayner, you need to be a better listener. I told you on our first ever date that this place has a terrible ambience. I can’t believe you would take me here again.” Contrary to his words, Jason seems absorbed in the cell. One of his hands comes up to skim over the bars.

Kyle drops to one knee while Jason’s back is turned, taking the jewelry box out of his jacket pocket. It makes the slightest creak when he opens it enough to get Jason’s attention, the bat that he is.

“The first time we were ever in this cell, I offered you my power ring, and it was the start of a relationship that has made me so very happy. Now I’m hoping this will be the start of a very happy rest of our lives. Jason Todd, will you marry me?” 

The teal sapphire band doesn’t shine here as it had under the bright lights of the jewelry shop or in the natural light of Kyle’s study in their apartment the many times he’s pulled it out since, but it's still beautiful. Besides, Jason’s own eyes glisten with tears, shining enough for the both of them. 

“Yeah, Kyle, gladly,” Jason agrees.

Kyle slips the ring onto Jason’s finger and pulls his boyfriend, no fiancé, in for a kiss.