Tuesday

A Word: 12 Days of JayTim. The theme was date night.

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Tim turns the engine off and lets his head slump down to rest on the steering wheel. Just for a few seconds. Just until he can convince himself he does in fact have the energy needed to walk the few flights up to his apartment. Something that his body is vehemently decrying as false. Not after that last lightning round of attempted corporate espionage/takeover that'd kept him in the office a good six hours past what he'd planned.

Any other day of the week he'd contemplate taking a quick nap right where he is, but he can't. Not tonight. It's Tuesday. Tim cannot, will not let some snot nosed pissant's antics destroy his plans.

He groans as he gets himself out of the car. An adventure that highlights all the ways holding himself back from striking out at people only seems to hurt him more. It takes him three tries to get the right key into the back door of the complex, and a few jerks of the door handle to get the lock unstuck. He's shivering when he fumbles his way in and turns to the stairwell.

It's times like these that Tim curses himself for taking the fifth floor apartment and not the second floor. The fact that days like these are outnumbered by the days he praises his choice after patrol is the only thing keeping him from breaking his lease.

Tim bites back several groans and very stupid thoughts about being too old and climbs. His briefcase a solid lead weight at the end of his arm. Filled with hard drives that will guarantee tomorrow is a work at home day as Tim goes through the confiscated files and looks for any other potential moles or threats.

He's ridiculously pleased with the thought of not having to change out of his sleeping pants to work.

Later, he promises himself as his entire body seems to cry out for the rest implied by that thought. Much later though, because it's Tuesday, and Tuesdays mean Red Robin has a date to keep. A fake date, but he's just pathetic enough to not really mind. One he's going to be late to if he doesn't get suited up and roll out soon.

Tim's contemplating how late a pot of coffee will make him when he shoulders open the door to his apartment and steps in to find the lights already on.

The TV is too, and some commercial is playing. Almost loud enough to cover the cursing coming from the kitchen. Familiar cursing. Tim can't help but smile as he closes and locks the door behind him. Taking his time to get rid of his shoes, tie, and as much of his business suit as he can before going in further. He isn't on a time limit anymore.

He's down to the undershirt and slacks when the smell hits him. Chinese of some kind. Probably from down the street, and Tim's stomach chooses to remind him how very long ago breakfast was since he missed lunch.

There's a jacket over the arm of his couch. Partially obscuring the red helmet. Tim wanders into the kitchen and finds Jason standing over his sink squinting into an honest to god bottle of wine, and Tim wants to laugh because this is taking it a bit far. Jason's eyes flash to the door when Tim makes a choked off noise. "You got a strainer or something?"

Jason turns to lean against the sink and brandishes Tim's corkscrew. Which has a little less than half of a cork on it, and from the way Jason's glaring at the bottle he's pretty sure he knows where the other half is. "No," not one that'll work to keep the wine anyway. Tim shakes his head and sternly reminds himself to keep his mind clear. An impossible task even when he's not as tired as he is now. Tim moves in and takes in the empty containers on the counter and a second bottle of wine as he reaches for a roll of paper towels. "We can filter it?"

"Good enough," Jason snags two mugs, and Tim wonders where his regular glasses went to. He doesn't have anything too fancy but he's relatively sure drinking wine out of water glasses is less sad than drinking it out of a couple of cracked Green Lantern mugs.

Tim stretches a sheet over one and Jason carefully pours. Small chunks of cork come out with the dark red wine, and Tim balls it all up to toss out before getting another sheet for the second mug. Jason's free hand rests low on Tim's back. The slightly textured pads of his gloves pressing through the thin shirt distractingly.

"You get a sudden craving for Chinese and wine?" Tim asks when Jason moves away to set the bottle down. Normally Tuesdays are pizza for them. Or tacos. Whatever is open and nearby when they meet up for their weekly patrol 'dates' as Dick had once called them. An unfortunate word choice that neither Tim nor Jason had corrected him on. Not when they realized how traumatizing the thought was to the older man.

It'd been a game for a long while. To see which one of them could make Dick flinch the most. Something light and playful. A sharp contrast to the usual mocking brutality that had defined most of Tim's encounters with Jason until that point.

Tim wonders if it hadn't been a mistake to change things though.

"Nah," Jason takes a seat and starts piling the food on one of the plates that's been set out already. There's even forks which Tim knows for a fact were all at the bottom of his sink in need of washing when he left for work this morning. Jason grins teasingly up at Tim. "A not so little bird told me shit hit the fan hard today, and that you'd likely end up smeared on the pavement if you tried meeting me."

"I would not!" Tim protests automatically. Tired as he is, he's not that bad. He'd likely have just stopped on a roof somewhere and passed out for a while. "Wait. Dick called you?"

"I know," Jason nudges a bowl of fried rice closer to Tim. Jason won't touch the stuff even under threat of Alfred, but they've eaten at enough shady Chinese places for him to know Tim could happily live off of a good fried rice. His teasing grin goes soft in a way that mostly distracts Tim from his next words. "Guess Dickhead's not as against us being together as he says he is."

Tim's setting the rice aside and already nodding when the strange wording hits him. Tim shifts and blinks at his plate. Fork meticulously rolling some grains of rice away from the beef lo mein Jason had put on Tim's plate. Tim wants to blame his confusion on how tired he is, but he thinks he'd be just as confused even if he were fully rested. Because no matter how many times he runs that last sentence through his mind it sounds an awful lot like Jason's quietly pleased. At Dick's approval. Of them. As a couple.

"Something wrong?" Jason's got one eyebrow raised and is peering suspiciously at the rice on Tim's plate. "You got eggshell in your rice again?"

"No, I, uh," Tim leans back after swallowing the mouthful he had been chewing for far too long. His left leg shifts and bumps into Jason's long legs, and before Tim can move it Jason's moved. Stretching out to trap Tim's leg and keep it in place. It's an instinctive move going by the way Jason's expression doesn't change much, and Tim-

Tim's remembering -in technicolor- a whole list of things that should have sent a blaring siren off in his head, or at the very least given him a clue to the fact that he's actually, really been dating Jason for the past few months.

He can write some of it off as stunts to get Dick riled up. Patrol dates and getting a little more touchy in the Cave, but not even Jason -now that he's thinking about it- would go so far as to hold hands under Bruce's -oh, Tim's going to die later for that- glare. And the coffee! The perfect cup of coffee that always shows up around lunch in his office with the tiniest heart on the bottom in marker. He'd thought Dick had been getting back at him, in a really lame way but no. No, Tim's 100% sure that was all Jason, because Jason is a closet sap.

Jason is also watching Tim closely and looks close to hauling him off to the nearest hospital.

"Really?" Tim reaches for his mug and takes a quick gulp of the wine. It doesn't settle the way his mind is whirling around shrieking, 'When? Why? How!?', but it does help to clear his throat and make him sound moderately normal when he speaks again. "You think Dick's going to get over his, 'Ew, little brothers, no!' reaction?"

Jason snorts. He's still watching Tim carefully but he relaxes back into the chair. "Oh, hell bitch and moan till we're all wrinkled and gray, but he won't really mean any of it. You know Dickie, he's a closet romantic. He probably went home and squealed when we first told him."

Part of Tim is panicking, because Jason's saying that this was never a joke. That he's always meant it, and Tim can't really process that at the moment. So he shoves it away and firmly locks it down to be dealt with later. "Obviously," Tim lets his mouth curl up in a smile, "you had to learn it from someone, and it sure wasn't Bruce."

"What?" Jason's eyes dance with laughter, and Tim wonders if he'd have noticed any of this sooner if they didn't spend most of Tuesdays in masks. He takes a loud, obnoxious slurp of his wine. Pinky curling out just enough to make Tim choke on a bit of noodle. "You saying this isn't romantic? I got us food and wine, what more can you ask for? Candle light? I think I got a flare in here somewhere-"

"No!" Tim yelps and halfway dives over the table as Jason starts searching the pouches of the belt he's till wearing. Mind shattering revelations aside he's is still Jason, and Jason will go three steps too far to make a point or a joke. "I prefer not inviting the fire department along on my dates, thank you."

Jason's grin is unrepentant and Tim feels himself flushing as Jason shifts under his hands. Releasing his pouches to help push Tim back upright. Fingers running down Tim's arm and catching his hand. "Aw, don't lie to me like that. You'd love it."

"Sure," Tim picks up his fork with his left hand. Letting his right stay in Jason's between the bowl of rice and plate of noodles. "Who wouldn't want to have a strong firefighter carry them out of a burning building? I hear a lot of relationships start that way. Think if we set the counter on fire I can find my own firefighter to run off with?"

Jason glares at Tim, but he laces their fingers together. Thumb rubbing circles around Tim's palm. "Just for that I'm not letting you pick what movie to watch."

Tim rolls his eyes and turns back to his food. A smile curling his lips up and a buzzing warmth sliding through him from where Jason's touching him. Tim's mostly sure that he's going to pass out the second he gets on the couch, but he thinks that might be alright as long as he can convince Jason to stay in with him in the morning. They have a lot of time to make up for after all.

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