Jason's reaction had been…unfortunate, the first time Tim had whispered the suggestion shyly into his ear, pressed tight and sweat-slick against him in the dark room.
The content lassitude Jason had been feeling dissolved into horrified confusion and hurt. Then the hurt had flashed like lightening into anger. Anger that Tim thought he could, that he would, do something like that to him. He had found himself halfway across the room, sheet wrapped firmly around his hips, clenched in one white knuckled fist which shook with the force of his tumultuous emotions.
Tim was sitting up in the bed, eyes wide and bewildered, blankets clutched against him defensively, hurt and confusion on his face. That look stabbed deep, and all Jason wanted to do was draw him into his arms, to pull the blankets away from both of them and curl back up against his lover with nothing between them, as it should be. Instead, he found himself yelling, flinging horrible accusations at the younger man, his mouth moving even while his brain shouted at him to stop, even as Tim shifted from withdrawn hurt to bewildered fury, shouting right back at him.
Jason ended up storming out in nothing but a hastily donned pair of jeans, taking the rooftop highway to a safe house that hadn't seen his presence in months, not since Tim had become a permanent fixture in the apartment that was now often being called 'home.'
Once he passed the door and engaged the security all of his energy drained from him and he found himself staggering and barely making it to collapse on the dusty pallet, shaking in reaction as he tried to figure out what he had ever done or said to Tim that would make the younger think he was *capable* of doing such a thing to anyone, let alone *Tim.*
He eventually passed into an exhausted sleep - and woke with the sun stabbing into his eyes and calling himself 10 kinds of idiot as his brain finally processed the shy interest that had been in Tim's tone, the way it was a *suggestion* not a question of Jason's intent. He finally recognized the hint of fear and insecurity not as fear of Jason, but of *rejection* and what had Jason gone and done but exactly that?
Only taking a moment to snag a shirt, he shamelessly hot-wired the first bike he found and broke nearly every traffic regulation possible in his haste to make it back to Tim as quickly as possible.
He'd crept into the apartment more tentatively then he ever had before, having spent nearly 5 minutes at the door dithering over whether or not he should knock. He never had before - and technically the place was his - but he'd also never screwed up this badly before.
Tim had been sitting at his desk, stiff-backed and cold, one of the monitors clearly showing their security feed from outside the door. He'd watched Jason dither in silence, not bothering to let him in, or send him away.
He turned now to look at Jason, ice coating his expression and Jason's heart froze correspondingly. Not from the chill in Tim's expression, but from the hurt and wounded trust he could see shining out from beneath the frost, and the knowledge the he was the cause.
Jason was a proud man, but he would have fallen to his knees and begged forgiveness in that moment, if he thought it would have helped. Instead, he took one tentative step towards Tim, then another, nearly tripping over the garish rug Dick had given them as an obnoxious house warming present when the other had found out they were living together. Jason had wanted to burn it, Tim had forbidden him to.
Jason stepped into Tim's personal space, then reached out and gripped Tim's shoulder, letting the flinch he got bite deep, but refusing to let go. He pulled, ignoring the token resistance, until he had Tim tucked stiffly against his chest, still sitting in his damn chair, hands clenched on the arms, unyielding.
Jason curved over him, around him; trying to put himself between Tim and anything that could hurt him. Knowing that the thing which could most easily hurt Tim was Jason himself, but too damned selfish to be willing to do the right thing and go away, remove himself as a threat to Tim's happiness and well-being.
He'd tucked his face against Tim's neck, ignoring the way his spine screamed at him, the way Tim remained unyielding, the way the space between Tim's neck and shoulders was already growing wet as Jason gave up controlling the way his eyes leaked, the way they had wanted to all night. He couldn't be bothered to control it now that he was once again enveloped in Tim's comforting smell.
Slowly, haltingly, Jason told Tim stories he never had before. About the way the girls who lived in his apartment would look, sometimes, after certain nights. About a few of the worst boyfriends his mother had, and the rare times she brought them home when he was there. The way they would look at him, and offer to tuck him into bed. About the one time he had woken to one of them in his room, hand inches from his bare chest before Jason slashed at him with the pocket knife he kept beneath his pillow and bolted out of the window, down the fire escape. About the way he had spent hours the next day constructing noise-traps on his bedroom door.
He told Tim about the first terrifying weeks in the manor, the way Bruce would come into his room every night, and Jason was so ready for it to happen again, not sure what he would do if it did because on the one hand Jason Todd didn't let kid-fuckers touch him, but on the other, leaving would mean giving up *Robin.* His confusion when Bruce - after a week of coming in, staring for a minute, then leaving - finally did reach out, and Jason was frozen, not even breathing, torn with indecision and hurt because he'd finally started believing that maybe Bruce was a good man, maybe this was a safe place and being proven wrong just hurt too much to take - and the bewilderment when all Bruce did was tug the blanket a little higher around his shoulders and walk back out.
Sometime between Jason first beginning to speak, and the story about the way one of the children he had stolen away from Egon had clung to Jason as he took them to the embassy, tiny hands clenched tight on his jacket, and little face pressed trustingly against his chest as he drifted to sleep in Jason's arms, Tim's own arms had come up to clutch at Jason's back, and they had sunk to the floor, Tim tucked into the curve of Jason's broad frame, hands petting steadily through white-shot hair and down his tense back.
When the words pouring out of Jason finally slowed, stuttered into silence against Tim's throat, the sun was sinking back down in the west, pouring through the picture windows to pool around them. Jason felt wrung out, drained and tired, and like he still hadn't managed to convey when he was trying to say.
When he took a deep breath to try to begin the proper apology he'd intended to start with, Tim had laid a finger over his lips, whispered "I understand" and pulled him gently to bed, let Jason curl back up around him, and just…breathe, until he drifted off into a much more restful sleep that he had achieved the previous night.
That hadn't been the end of it though. Tim had been reluctant to bring it up again, but Jason had wanted to understand. What made Tim want *that?* A couple tentative discussions - more awkward for their reluctance to speak of something relatively minor when compared to the previous frank discussion of kinks, and the kind of dirty-talk Jason reveled in using to make Tim fall apart - and Jason thought he understood. It was a mater of trust. Tim trusted Jason with everything, even when he was at him most vulnerable, and wanted to *know* him in that moment.
That, and he thought it would be hot.
Jason could, when not blindsided with the notion and reacting instinctively, see the appeal, but his own demons fought him tooth and nail whenever he seriously contemplated it. Tim could see that, and had shelved the discussion, saying that no matter if he wanted it or not, he didn't want Jason to do anything that he thought would be uncomfortable.
Now though, staring down at Tim in the grey of pre-dawn, Jason thought back to that first heated question and reconsidered his reticence.
"Would you fuck me while I sleep?"
To touch Tim like this - soft and pliant, trusting and open with Jason in his bed, despite having gotten much of the same training Jason had. To bring the morning swell to full hardness, to move so gently, carefully, to not wake Tim until he was sinking inside him, to watch those eyes. Would they snap open with instant awareness, sharp and assessing before he claimed control, pushing Jason back and making the older man work for his pleasure? Or would pleasure ease Tim from dreams to a foggy, softened wakefulness, eyes meeting his blurred with pleasure, content to let Jason keep control, keep taking care of him so sweetly?
Jason shuddered, enraptured by either thought, by both, by anything to do with his sharp-tongued, occasionally awkward, earnest, adorable lover. He reached out carefully and laid a palm against Tim's sharp shoulder-blade, cupping the bone in his hand as he pressed himself against Tim's front, breathing harshly controlled as Tim barely stirred, just let himself be arranged against Jason. Not today, but maybe, just maybe, Jason could make Tim's fantasy a reality.