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Tim mentally waved at Wayne Manor as he drove past the decorated gates—Alfred always went all out for Christmas—only to physically wave at his dad and husband as he drove past them.
The half-assed snowplow job meant the street was too narrow to really pull over, but Tim tried to get as far to the side as he could, tapped on his hazards, and hoped that no one would need to pass him. He left the car running and dropped to a half kneel to greet Jason's newest foster.
"Hey sweet girl," Tim pet at the thick fur around Lady's collar and asked her, "are you having fun? Yeah? Are you so cold and so wet?"
She was covered in snow clumps and wagged her tail so hard her entire body wiggled with it. It was a pretty clear answer.
Tim pet at the wiggly dog and patiently waited for Jason and Bruce to make their way down the street. Neither of the seemed to be in any rush. They had both slowed down with age and, in Tim's opinion, they were both better for it. Tim let Lady run to them first and started for them with the same lack of urgency.
Bruce greeted him with a small smile. "Hey, kiddo."
Tim was thirty and still got called kiddo. Bruce had picked up the language from Jason.
He stepped into his dad's offered side hug and stayed there for a beat, just leaning on him. He felt Bruce press a chaste kiss to the top of his head. Jason gave him a look, see?
Jason liked to say Bruce was getting soft with age. Working less, resting more, smiling at all. Tim was pretty sure Bruce's settling and softening was in direct relation to Jason's years of reintegration and warming up. The few times Tim had try to tell him that, Jason had refused to listen.
"My turn," Jason teasingly demanded.
Bruce gave him a squeeze and let him go. Tim echoed the light squeeze before he slid his hands into Jason's offered cold ones.
Jason grinned down at him and pulled Tim's hands up to press a soft, lingering kiss to his knuckles, brushing his lips over Tim's silver ring.
Low, familiar warmth curled under his chest and prickled at this cheeks. Tim loved him. He couldn't think of anything he loved more. Tim took his hands back, putting them on Jason's thick chest, and rolled on to his toes for a chaste kiss.
Jason smiled down at him, crinkling the corners of his eyes behind his glasses, and whispered, "Hey gorgeous."
Tim answered on instinct, "Hey handsome." He dropped back down to his heels and smoothed his hands down Jason's sides, he was colder than Tim was used to him being. Tim noted, "You are not dressed for the weather."
"It's not that bad out," Jason argued, like there weren't thick snowflakes fluttering down around them as they spoke.
Tim gave his outfit a very pointed once over—Gotham High crew neck, sweatpants, socks, and house shoes—and met his eyes again. He had the decency to look a little ashamed. "I didn't mean to end up in the snow?"
"I can tell," Tim said dryly. He thumbed over Jason's stubbly jaw and said, "No contacts, didn't shave, and you still have slippers on. You look like you just rolled out of bed."
Jason grinned sheepishly and glanced at Bruce. The corners of Bruce's mouth twitched up. "Try the lounge in the library," Bruce offered.
"It was a short nap," Jason defended.
Tim scratched at the nape of his neck and said, "It's a Tuesday."
Jason looked down at Tim and grinned, bright and genuine and so handsome, "No, it's winter break. Days don't mean anything anymore." He gave Tim's hips a light squeeze, just holding him.
"So you slept all day?" Tim teased.
Jason mocked offense, "No, I read all day."
"And slept a bit," Bruce tacked on.
Jason gave him a look. "Whose side are you on?"
Bruce said, "Lady's," without skipping a beat.
Lady, who was happily trotting through snow nearly as tall as she was. Jason whistled twice, short and staccato, in a poor attempt to get her out of the snow bank.
"I can drive the car back," Bruce offered quietly, "if you'd like to walk back together."
Tim gave him a look. "And so you can get off that knee you aren't supposed to be on in the first place? Certainly not for three miles in the middle of winter?"
Bruce and Jason simultaneously glanced at each other, equally guilty. Bruce rocked to the side and shrugged, "It would have been impolite to let him walk back alone."
"Yeah, Tim," Jason pulled him in by the hips and said, "it was the polite thing to do."
Tim rolled his eyes at the both of them. "You are in slippers in the snow and you," he pointed at Bruce, "aren't supposed to be on your feet without your brace. The polite thing would have been to drive back."
Jason ignored him, pulled him into a placating hug, and told Bruce, "You could take the car back and then stay for dinner?"
Tim slipped his hands under Jason's thick crewneck and trailed his fingers along the warm muscle above his waistband. He built onto Jason's plan, "Alfred could drive over, stay for dinner, and then drive you back."
Jason hummed in agreement, "I have a black cod miso that I was going to try out tonight."
"Key are still in the car," Tim told him.
Bruce sighed. He lost that fight before it even started. "I'll call Alfred."
Jason called Lady over and held her by the collar as Bruce put Tim's Aston Martin back into drive—no need to repeat the thing that put her in the shelter in the first place—and kept her close until Bruce was too far away to chase.
He let go of Lady only to grab back onto Tim, pulling him back in for a proper hello kiss.
And Tim was happy to melt into him.
Jason was so warm. He was warm under Tim's hands, he made the space under Tim's ribs warm, he made his blood run warm. Jason's hand sunk into Tim's hair and Tim hummed against his lips at the contact.
Jason pulled Tim's hands up and kissed the skin around Tim's silver wedding band. Tim slid his right hand along the stubbled edge of his jaw and cupped it. Jason's eyes fluttered closed as he dropped his head to the side, resting it in Tim's hand.
I love you, Tim thought.
He stroked his thumb along the high edge of Jason's scarred cheekbone and whispered the thought aloud. Jason's expression bloomed into a soft grin. He opened his eyes to give Tim a warm, adoring look. He kissed the center of Tim's palm and murmured against his skin, "Love you more."
Tim scratched at the unmarked skin behind his ear and whispered, "Impossible."
Jason shook his his head in Tim's hand. He pulled his head back on to his shoulders only to dip down into Tim's space. Tim met him halfway for the silently requested, lingering kiss.
Tim leaned back and found Jason's pretty green eyes on him, intent and adoring. "Good day?" Jason asked softly. He tugged Tim into his side as they started home and slid his hand into Tim's, interlacing their fingers. "I was thinkin' about you earlier."
His callouses felt familiarly rough against Tim's palm. Tim bumped his shoulder into Jason's bicep and said, "Good thoughts, hopefully. Steph swung by for lunch, which was nice. The only nice part," he admitted quietly.
Jason hummed in understanding. "You wanna tell me about it?"
Tim shrugged. "Just the usual bullshit. I wish I had the month off instead of arguing with idiots all day."
"You could have," Jason reminded.
Tim shook his head. "I gave myself the same time off that I gave everyone else."
Jason let go of his hand to grab him by the hip and tug him tighter into his side. Tim leaned into him easily, happy to be tucked under his arm. Jason kissed the top of his head and whispered, "I love you, you know that?"
His Gotham High crew neck was soft where Tim nosed into the space between his shoulder and his collarbone. He kissed the fabric and whispered back, "I've heard once or twice." He looked up at Jason and asked, "And you? Did you have a good day? Relaxing, I take it," Tim teased.
"Too relaxing," Jason admitted, "I've still got some assignments that I need to update, and I was hoping to finish grading those Gatsby papers. I should have finished them today."
"It's a break for you too," Tim defended Jason to himself, "you can take a day. Grades don't have to be in until Friday, right?"
"I mean, yeah, but it feels cruel to keep them waiting. I've got a couple of kiddos that are desperate to know what they got. Maddie, that volleyball girl that got that LSU scholarship, emailed me yesterday asking when final grades would be released. I told her Thursday at the latest, so," Jason shrugged.
Tim filled in, "So you need to hunker down and actually do stuff tomorrow."
"Yeah, basically." He brought their clasped hands up to his mouth and kissed the top of Tim's cold knuckles. Jason had been passively paying more and more attention to his ring as their ten year anniversary crept closer. "Speaking of kiddos," Jason said, bringing their hands back down, "I talked to Duke today."
Tim prompted, "Oh?"
"Yeah, he answered the phone in an Australian accent and I couldn't tell if it was a joke or not. He sounded happy though, like he was having fun."
Tim hummed. Lady scampered past them into a snow bank as Tim asked, "When's he getting back for Christmas?"
Jason said, "He said his flight is on the 23rd."
Tim gave Jason a skeptical side eye. Seriously?
Jason nodded in agreement and drawled, "I know. That's what I said."
Tim reached across himself to wrap his free hand around Jason's wrist, holding onto him with both hands. He asked, "Is his flight out of Melbourne on the 23rd or does he land in Gotham on the 23rd? Because those are different."
"Flight out, he doesn't land in Gotham until like 8am on the 24th," Jason told him. Tim raised a judgmental brow at that. "Yup," Jason agreed lowly.
"If the weather gets even slightly worse, or there's a tight connection-"
"I know, I know," Jason cut in, "I told him to see if he could move his flights, and he said that the price was crazy-"
"We'll pay for it," Tim said.
Jason nodded, "I told him that we would pay for it, and he just brushed me off, so," Jason trailed off and shrugged. He passively stroked his thumb along Tim's skin and said, "I told him to call if he needed anything."
Tim shook his head at the snowy street. "I guess we'll let Bruce know to keep the plane warm."
"We talked about it a couple hours ago," Jason said quietly. "He said he's gonna keep a bird fueled up and on the pad in Melbourne and in LA, where he's got a tight connection, just in case."
Tim hummed. Of course Jason had already told Bruce. They had spent the day together, apparently. He asked, "Did you have a good day with him?"
"Yeah," Jason shrugged. "I didn't really spend it with him more as just like, nearby. I was in the library all morning and he switched between the den and his office. We had lunch together, which was nice—Alf made a roast—and then later I brought him a cup of tea cause I was already making mine, and we sat in his office and chatted for like an hour. Lady sat at B's feet the whole time, it was sweet. And then I said I was going to head back home to get started on dinner, and he offered to walk with me. I don't think he likes the whole empty nest thing."
"Dick mentioned that he's been trying to have him stay over for the entire week before Christmas and the entire week after." Tim pressed a kiss to Jason's shoulder because it was there and he could, and said, "It was nice of you to go over there today."
Jason made a noncommittal noise. "I needed to stretch my legs and Lady needed the walk."
Bruce did the same thing, refusing to admit that he would structure his day around whatever his family needed.
Tim wondered if Bruce knew that Jason spent time in the manor for Bruce's sake more often than not. He wondered if Jason truly understood how much his presence softened Bruce's sharp edges.
Jason asked, "How was Steph? Lunch was good?"
Tim nodded. "She's good, excited for her trip. We were talking about her itinerary for Barcelona, and I told her- I spilled your beans," Tim admitted with a grin, not at all ashamed, "about when we got to Madrid and you had to stretch-"
"Listen," Jason interrupted, "We were on that plane for a thousand hours and I am not built for airplanes, no matter how expensive the tickets are-"
Tim snickered and cut in, "You did lunges."
Jason threw his free hand out, exasperated. "You were the one that wanted to have sex! I am so sorry that I needed to stretch out after sitting still in a cramped tin can for ten thousand hours. If you had given me a little bit, I wouldn't have had to-"
"I told her that I was literally laying there naked, waiting," Tim chuckled at the memory, "and you got off the bed to do side lunges-"
"I was stiff!"
"You had just turned thirty," Tim teased, "and then you needed to do lunges before missionary, I mean, come on. That's funny."
Jason rolled his eyes and huffed. "Next time you wanna fuck, you can call someone that's young and limber enough for you."
Tim leaned into him and rolled up onto his toes to press a kiss to the sharp edge of his jaw. "Speaking of fucking," he whispered, intentioned.
Behind his glasses, the corners of Jason's eyes crinkled as he grinned. He teased, voice warm, "What about it?"
"It's been a bit since I bottomed," Tim grinned, "and I was planning on working from home tomorrow."
Jason hummed knowingly. "So it doesn't matter if you're walkin' funny in the morning?"
Tim scoffed. "Don't flatter yourself. You walk funny if you don't do your lunges first-"
"For the last time-"
Tim laughed, breathy and light, and got manhandled for it. A surprised noise escaped him as Jason tugged him into his arms and off of the ground.
"Jason! Put me down-"
Jason put him down at the top of the driveway only to tug him back in by the hips. Tim knew this song and dance well. He fell back into Jason's space on instinct as Jason's arms snaked around his hips. They settled into each other with a decade of practiced ease. Jason pressed his nose into Tim's temple and inhaled slowly, breathing him in. Tim felt every part of him relax with his exhale.
"Pretty," Jason whispered, and Tim couldn't tell if he was talking about Tim or their home.
The property looked like something out of a movie. Tim hired the same lighting company he used last year because Jason hadn't been able to stop raving about the decor. Warm string lights lined every sharp brick edge and framed door and window of the estate. They did the trees along driveway with care, like every single one was a Christmas tree, and every window got a massive green wreath with bows and ribbons. It cost him nearly ten thousand dollars.
"We've got it pretty good," Jason's lips brushed the shell of his ear, "don't we?"
It was worth every cent. Tim would pay it over a hundred times more to see him happy.
Tim pressed his head back into Jason's sternum and said dryly, "It's passable."
Jason's breathy chuckle tickled the sensitive skin behind his ear and made his heart flutter under his ribs. "Passable," Jason drawled, teasing. "Tough crowd."
Tim grabbed Jason's left hand off of his hip and brought it to his lips, kissing his scarred knuckles and, more importantly, kissing the gold ring on his finger. he held it and thought Mine, and internally preened at the knowledge.
Jason slipped his fingers under Tim's chin and pressed, coaxing his chin up. Tim dropped his head back to Jason's shoulder and tilted his face back, silently waiting for the kiss he knew was coming.
The lights on the gates reflected off of Jason's glasses. His pretty green eyes crinkled behind the smudged glass, fond and happy. Tim's heart felt full to the brim under his chest, like it could stumble and burst within the next beat if he wasn't careful.
With one arm wrapped around Tim's hips and one hand cradling his jaw, Jason pressed the world's gentlest kiss to his forehead and whispered against his skin, warm and honest, "Love you."
And, like it was the easiest thing in the world, Tim said it back.