Tim considers himself to be a good person, generally. He is polite and law-abiding and helps little, old ladies cross the street. Well, not really, but only because the little, old ladies in Gotham don't need help crossing the street and will tell you so while smacking you with their fifteen pound carpet bags. But he would, and so he's a good person.
All of the machines are taken, is the problem they're faced with. The Laundromat is packed and Tim and Stephanie are standing just inside the front doors, holding a bag of dirty clothes between them. It's huge and heavy and his arms are tired from hauling it eight blocks.
"Okay," Steph says, and it's in her resolute voice, the one that means she's going to do something and if you get in her way you'll get a brick to the face. "We have to steal one."
Tim is a good person. If ever he does something less than the standard of a boy scout, it's necessary.
And this is necessary.
Or so Stephanie says. When he looks around at all of the innocent people washing their clothes and not deserving of being screwed over as far as he knows and then looks back at Steph, she sets her jaw and peers into his soul imploringly.
"I know it's shitty, but it needs to be done, babe. I have to be at work in less than two hours and my uniform is trashed. If I'm late again I will be fired."
Tim readjusts his grip on the mesh bag. He wants to point out that proper planning and good life choices would have prevented her from being in this situation is the first place, but it's a moot point now and really not worth having her be angry at him. And besides, it would be awfully hypocritical.
"Fine," is what he ends up saying. "How do you want to do this?"
"Good man. Okay, see that guy over there?" With both hands supporting their bag of clothes, she motions with her chin. Tim looks to where she is looking, at two men in the corner.
"The utterly lost, newly-divorced middle aged father doing laundry for the first time ever or the unfairly attractive, tatted-up bad boy that I would let do unmentionable things to me?"
"Bad boy."
"Great. Yes, I see him."
Stephanie leans in close and speaks quickly. "Here's the plan: he's just started taking out his load to put in the dryer, and he has another one ready to be put in, but you can't that happen, okay? You're going to go distract him while I sneak our clothes in the washer."
"How the hell am I supposed to distract him?"
Steph bounces on the balls of her feet. "I don't know, go tell him all about the unmentionable things you want him to do to you."
Tim knows he needs to hurry on over there and start The Plan but he can't help taking another moment to make Stephanie anxious. "Well I can't tell him, sweetie, they're unmentionable."
"Then climb on top of the folding table and show him, sweetie," she hisses as she shoves Tim away.
He drops the bag and stumbles over to his target. The whole situation makes him feel like he's in a crappy spy movie. Mission Impossible VI: Laundry Day.
Tim sidles up behind Bad Boy just as he's putting the last of his things into the dryer and starting it. He turns around to grab his next load of clothes and Tim jumps in front in him. He's too far into the guy's personal space and so he takes a step back, but not before the guy notices with a raised eyebrow.
"Hi," Tim says.
"...Hey," answers Bad Boy. His back is to the now empty machine. Tim intends to keep it that way. He can see Stephanie slinking around to come up behind them, dragging the bag after her.
"Can I smell your fabric softener?"
Bad Boy stares. "My... fabric softener."
"Yeah," Tim answers breezily, like this is a totally normal conversation that normal people have with strangers. He gets eyed up and down, like maybe the guy thinks Tim is going to pull a knife and steal his dirty underwear like a creep, but eventually he shrugs and picks up a bottle and hands it over.
Tim uncaps it and inhales. It smells amazing, but all fabric softener smells amazing, that's its job.
"That's good stuff," Tim hums. He keeps his nose in the open top like he can't get enough. "Where'd you get it?"
"It's- it's Downy. You can get it literally anywhere."
"Ah, well, good to know. Thanks." He finally puts the cap back on and sets it down next to Bad Boy's detergent.
The guy nods, still looking at Tim a bit warily, and moves to grab his dirty clothes.
Tim panics and blurts out, "Can I feel?"
"What?" He's incredulous but at least it's directed toward Tim and not Stephanie, who has finally made it to the machine, has edged her way behind Bad Boy and is opening her bag. She shoots Tim a thumbs up over the guy's shoulder.
"Your clothes, I mean. Can I feel your clothes? Because it smells great and all, but more important than smell is efficiency. So I need to know if it makes clothes soft." Before he can answer, Tim reaches over and snatches up something from his basket of clean, folded clothes. He presses it to his face, as if he didn't get a good enough sample smell from the bottle itself. It is soft. And still warm.
"Wha- you're. That's." None of the starters see a middle or an end.
Tim pulls the fabric away and realises what exactly he's holding. Boxers.
He has just grabbed a stranger's underwear and shoved his face into it.
The moment is a personal high. Even Stephanie has taken a quick break from stuffing clothes into the washing machine to twist around and (silently) laugh at him.
"Well it is soft. You have good taste in, uh. Laundry equipment."
Bad Boy just stares at him and while Tim doesn't mind it too much, he needs to fill the silence, cover up the small noises of Stephanie closing the door to the machine.
"I'm Tim."
"...Jason."
Stephanie is reaching into her pockets. All of them. Over and over again.
"Jason. Nice. That's um, a nice name."
"Hey, Tim."
"Yes, Jason?"
She looks up with manic eyes.
"Are you trying to flirt with me?"
And that's a pretty good excuse for whatever the hell Tim is doing. It's a perfectly reasonable excuse. Jason has given him an out, and he takes it gratefully. "Yes! Yeah, I am."
Stephanie waves her arms and it's hard to not glance past Jason and acknowledge her, but he understands. She has no coins.
"You're not very good at it."
"I'm aware." He is, he really does know. He can't even defend that this isn't him flirting, because it's pretty much as good as it would be if he was.
But back to the immediate problem: the lack of money.
Tim leans against the folding table where Jason has set up his stuff. His hand "slips" and knocks off the pile of dirty clothes. Jason drops down to pick them up. Tim takes his wallet from his back pocket and tosses it over Jason's head. Stephanie catches it and takes out some bills. She throws the wallet back to Tim and dashes off to the far back corner of the Laundromat to the bills-to-coins machine.
Tim thinks he would make a great spy. Eat your heart out, Ethan Hunt.
Jason has gathered his clothes and stands, depositing them on the table once more.
"Oh, sorry about that."
"It's fine."
As Jason straightens his pile Stephanie tiptoes back looking a little too much like Bugs Bunny to not be intentional. She crams the quarters into the slots and pushes the slide in slowly, carefully, silently. It clicks faintly and turns on. Stephanie sprints away.
Mission Completed.
Jason turns around and sees the washing machine running. "Damn! Someone stole my machine! Did you see them? Do you know who it was?" he asks Tim.
"No! Nope, sorry, I was just watching you."
Jason sighs, sets his stuff back on the table. "Well I guess I'm gonna have to wait."
"That sure sucks," Tim says, trying to sound super sympathetic. And he is, a little. "Well, I have to go... launder."
"Right." Jason looks around and then back at Tim. "Where is your stuff?"
And that is a great question, totally fair, because Tim, if he were normal, would have clothes and detergent and such. But he isn't, and he doesn't, because his clothes are in Jason's machine.
"Um. Well. I-"
"Hey, Timmy, here's your stuff." Stephanie appears like a slightly sweaty angel and pushes the half empty mesh bag at him.
"Ah, yes, thank you. Here is my stuff. That I need to go launder."
Stephanie whispers, "Stop saying 'launder'."
"I wish I could," Tim whispers back.
Stephanie addresses Jason. "You should give this jackass your number. I know he probably got super weird and freaked you out, but he's great when he's not so nervous."
Tim wants to be offended but can't help a smile and has to bite back a cooing noise.
Jason laughs. "Well if you insist."
"I do."
With a wave Jason motions for Tim to hand over this phone and he inputs his own number.
"I'll see you around, Tim"
"Yup, yeah. That's great, I'll see you-"
"Okay," Stephanie thankfully interrupts, grabs Tim's arm and pulls him away.
"Oh, Tim," Jason calls.
"Yeah?"
"You're still holding my underwear."