Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5682577.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      DCU
  Relationship:
      Tim_Drake/Jason_Todd
  Character:
      Janet_Drake, Tim_Drake, Jason_Todd, Jack_Drake, Tam_Fox, Agent_37,
      Original_Characters
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Bodyguard, Feudalism, Flirting, Eating_Disorder_Not
      Otherwise_Specified, Age_Difference, Secret_Relationship, Minor_Character
      Death, Canon-Typical_Violence, Alternate_Universe_-_Politics, Racism,
      Other:_See_Story_Notes, Background_Relationships, Hopeful_Ending
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-01-10 Chapters: 6/6 Words: 28309
****** Safe As Houses ******
by Mix_Stitch_(Synph)
Summary
     Tim is seventeen the first time that he sees a man die in front of
     him.
     He's not even two days older when he meets his new bodyguard, Jason
     Todd and his world starts to change rapidly and in ways that he never
     could have foreseen. Tim wants to save the world, but will he even
     survive to his next birthday?
Notes
     Contains: fast-paced relationship, flirtation, unspecified disordered
     eating/eating issues, modern feudalism, underage character, age
     difference (Jason is 20/21 to Tim's almost-18), oral sex, making out,
     kissing, clandestine relationship, bodyguards, minor character death,
     onscreen violence, canon typical violence, politics, references to:
     systematic antiblack racism, Jason's "death" at the hands of the
     Joker, weird politics.
     Beta Credit: fleetsparrow (who really went above and beyond for this
     and deserves much love for putting up with me)
     Notes: This is a commission for the darling stevebottoms who still
     gives me all the JayTim feels! I hope you like it, bb!
     This story and the idea of Houses/Houseless in the DCU is inspired by
     the lovely meyari's story "Light and Dark". The history, culture, and
     themes in my AU are different from those in hers as mine is
     definitely closer to an organized crime family & feudal system set in
     the comics' universe, but the inspiration is obvious and it is there.
     I also owe a bit of inspiration to the A&E television series Into The
     Badlands for helping me move away from my original idea of having the
     story revolve exclusively around Gotham City's major families.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Chapter 1 *****
Tim is seventeen the first time that he sees a man die in front of him.
The man, one of his mother's informants that moved amongst the Houses of
Gotham's great families as a temporary Houseless worker with a permit, had been
charged with spying on the Drake House as well as for it. To Tim's mother, that
kind of betrayal earns only one response: a very personal and somewhat private
execution.
"Do you have to do this?" Tim asks his mother as she stalks through the weapons
locker in the subbasement of their House, fingers skating over the tops of the
bullet-proof glass cases that hold her favorite tools. Tim frowns, wincing when
his mother's fingertips linger over a jagged-edged athame that had been a gift
from Jason Blood.
Janet doesn't bother to hide her annoyance.
"We have a reputation to maintain," Janet says, her voice cool. She unlocks the
case with one of the many keys on her keyring and then pulls the athame out
along with a case of needles. "We are not as popular a House as Wayne House and
we simply don't have the resources of the gangs. What we have is our will and
what we are – what we have to be – is ruthless." Janet slips the athame into a
sheath at her right hip opposite the holster where she's kept a loaded 9-
millimeter from as far back as Tim can remember.
The needles, in their see-through box, Janet presses into Tim's hands.
"What is our House's motto, Tim?" Janet says as she looks down at Tim with
narrowed features that look so much like Tim's own and a coolly measuring look
in her dark brown eyes.
Tim forces himself to hold his mother's gaze. His fingers tighten around the
case in his hands until the edges start to dig into his skin.
"We strike first," Tim says with no hesitation in his voice once he starts
speaking. He knows the House motto by heart, the words practically imprinted on
his brain. "We strike deep."
Janet's lips curve up in a crimson smile that manages to make Tim feel warm as
well as faintly frightened. Reaching out, she cards her fingers through Tim's
short black hair, stroking his head the way that she used to when Tim was small
and the order of these Houses was far simpler.
"Tim, you're going to make our House strong when you're older," Janet says, her
eyes bright with anticipation. "I'm going to let you sit in on the session
today." Janet looks Tim over with something like appraisal settling on her
face. Whatever she's looking for, she must find it, because she smiles again.
Bright and not so much happy as satisfied.
"But –" Tim falters, his tongue feeling too-thick in his head.
He's only seventeen, Tim wants to say. He barely knows how to shave. He doesn't
know how to drive. He hasn't even actually had romantic or sexual relationships
with anyone aside from a few clandestine clenches with friends that he doesn't
see as much as he'd like. Tim is too young to drink or to vote in Gotham City's
House-only elections and he's certainly too young to watch a man die in front
of him.
Or worse, to help him on his way.
Tim swallows, the gulping noise almost painfully loud to his own ears. He
doesn't shake his head or frown, but something about his mother's gaze sharpens
like a laser.
"Is there a problem, Tim?" Janet asks.
Tim is quick to shake his head.
"N-no," Tim says in the very next moment. "I'm fine. I'm just –" Tim falters,
unsure of what word he can use next. If he says that he's excited, his mother
might just make him handle the proceedings. If he says that he's thinking,
she'll want to know what he's focused on. "I'm just wondering what we'll find
out. I knew that the other Houses had spies, but I didn't know any of them
would use those spies on us."
Despite Janet's business savvy and their House's reputation as one of the most
ruthless, Drake House is still one of the smallest in the city with the least
amount of territory and dependents. They manage to stay afloat due to their
connections with stronger Houses in Metropolis, the under-the-table sales of
weapons to gangs and other Houses, and Janet's determination to see her House
survive into the future, but they are a far way from being anywhere near as
notorious as Elliot House or as popular as Wayne House.
Janet shakes her head, frowning.
"They're after something," Janet says, speaking more to herself than to Tim. "I
just have to make him tell me what he was paid to do." She glances at Tim.
"After you try, of course."
Tim balks. "Me?"
"You've handled interrogations before," Janet says. "You should be able to
handle this one."
Tim stares at his mother as if he's not sure if he's awake. "Those were
different," Tim says, louder than he intends to. "It was little things like
finding out about someone stealing or taking too many rations. This is -- this
is big."
"I know," Janet says as if that settles things (and for her, it probably does).
"That's why you're going to do it. You're going to lead this House one day and
you need to start taking charge of more things."
"So you want me to interrogate a man and then kill him," Tim repeats, feeling
his face scrunch up with a frown. "Mother, I'm –"
Janet's laughter slices through the air. "You thought I would make you kill
someone, Tim?"
Tim… doesn't nod. He wants to, desperately, but something tells him that it
would be foolish. He settles for a half-hearted shrug. "Maybe?" He regrets the
words the very second that they fall from his lips, but his mother doesn't give
him a chance to apologize or explain.
"Let's go. I don't have time for this," Janet says with that faint tinge of
annoyance returning to her voice. She turns neatly on her heel and then stalks
off without so much as an over the shoulder glance to make sure that Tim is
following her.
Tim takes a moment – both to mourn the loss of warmth in his mother's voice at
his slip and to let her reach the elevator and the guards – and then scurries
after her, the soles of his sneakers squeaking across the tile.
~
Up close, Tim's mother's spy doesn't look like much.
Marcus Caine is thin and wiry, underfed in the way that much of the Houseless
are. Due to his living conditions, the disease ravaging his body, and the
bruising that purples his face, Tim can't quite tell how old he is. Tim settles
for taking notes down in his smartphone, scrawling out the shorthand across the
sleek surface before he tucks it away in his pocket.
"Are you ready to talk, Marcus?" Tim asks, his voice filled with far more
confidence than he actually feels. "Spying on the House that hired you in the
first place is a very serious offense. I know that my House paid you well for
your job and gave your daughter an apartment in our territory, so why did you
decide to turn on us?"
Tim is legitimately curious.
What makes someone turn on their House? What makes a man like Marcus, with an
illness to take care of and a daughter under a House's care, decide to betray a
House like the Drakes?
Tim feels his mouth twist with a frown when Marcus simply sits there and stares
at him with a sullen glare on his face. He can feel the weight of his mother's
stare as he walks in circles around the man bound tightly to a sturdy wooden
chair with straps of thick leather and he knows without looking that she's
marking this down as a failure in his mind.
"Who hired you to spy on us?" Tim asks, daring to walk closer.
Marcus sneers. "You'd like to know that, eh?"
"Was it Cobblepot House? Or Elliot's?" Tim pauses, mind racing. "No. They
already have their spies in place and we know who they are. What could someone
have to gain by making someone like you work as a double agent?"
Tim is so busy, so caught up in thinking that he doesn't hear the ominous creak
of leather until it's too late. Marcus snaps one restraint and then the other,
body flexing with a strength that shouldn't be present in such a skinny body.
He makes short work of the leg restraints while Tim just stands there, mind and
body held fast underneath the fear of the unknown.
"What – how –"
Marcus grins down at Tim. "I'm going to kill you," Marcus says, tone as light
as if he's discussing the weather. He reaches out and grips Tim's shoulder hard
enough that pain immediately spirals out from the joint. "Now should I kill you
first, or your mother? He paid me to kill both of you, but he didn't say how I
had to do it."
Tim gasps, struggling to take in air.
"Who – who paid you?" Tim finally gets out.
Marcus shakes him. "Like I'll tell you that, kid."
In the chaos, Tim hears the sound of the safety on his mother's favorite gun
sliding off. He relaxes as best has he can and tries not to think about how
close things are. If her aim is off or if he moves, Tim is dead and Drake House
with him.
"Put my son down," Janet says. Cool and collected, it would take someone that
knows Janet to notice the fine tremor in her hands and the way that she looks
at Marcus with hatred gleaming in her eyes. "Put him down or I'll have your
daughter killed."
Marcus snorts out a burst of laughter against the back of Tim's head. "You
wouldn't dare."
Janet reaches down for the comm unit pinned to her collar. "Azrael, do you have
your sights on Rebecca Caine?"
The speakers in the room crackle before his mother's personal guard comes on
the line.
"Yes, ma'am," Azrael says. "I'm ready when you are."
"Now do you believe me," Janet murmurs. "Now let Tim go."
Marcus shakes his head and then shakes Tim. "You wouldn't—"
"Shoot her," Janet says in a cold as frigid as the temperature outside.
The high whine of Azrael's gun comes across clearly in the quiet room. Silence
stretches and then –
"It's done," Azrael murmurs.
Tim only gets a moment to stare at his mother, features twisted with horror and
disbelief, before Marcus flies into action. The man lunges at Janet and then,
before he can even make it a foot away from Tim, her gun barks out two neat
slugs. Blood and something thicker spray out across Tim's face and
instinctively, he closes his eyes and takes a quick step backward.
Seconds later, Tim hears the uncomfortably meaty thud of Marcus' body hitting
the ground and he knows. Tim knows.
"Is he –" Tim can't finish his question, but Janet knows what he'd meant to
ask.
"He's dead," Janet says from much closer than Tim had expected.
Tim tries to frown, but then fails. "And his daughter?"
"She's fine. Azrael had orders only to shoot out one of her windows," Janet
says, just moments before a daubing at Tim's face with something that feels
faintly scratchy. "She was just the distraction I needed in case things went
south."
Tim's teeth won't stop chattering. He feels cold, freezing despite the
temperature inside. Even when Janet finishes wiping off his face and forehead,
Tim doesn't dare to open his eyes. He doesn't want to see his mother's
handiwork or evidence of it. Not now while he's still only moments away from
having a breakdown.
"You – you killed a man," Tim says to his mother as bile rises, thick and acrid
in the back of Tim's throat. He thinks about throwing up all over the expensive
Quaraci carpet and then, after thinking about it, decides against it. "And I
was covered in his brains –"
Janet sighs.
"I killed someone that was trying to kill you," she says almost patiently. "You
are the future. I need you to survive." Her fingers hook in the bend of Tim's
arm and when she moves away, Tim has to follow her or risk stumbling. "When you
get to your room, I want you to shower and put on one of your suits. We'll meet
with your father in the labs and discuss how to proceed in the face of such an
obvious attack on our House. Someone is trying to destroy us and we need to
snuff them out."
Tim shudders at the thought of helping his mother hunt down Marcus Caine's
other boss.
"Can't I just stay in my room?" Tim asks as they walk down the hallway towards
his room, managing to barely move his lips as he talks. Despite his mother's
attempts at cleaning his face, Tim still feels as if he has to still be covered
in blood and brain matter. "You don't need me for that, do you?"
Silence rings in his ears and Tim doesn't need to open his eyes to know that
his mother is looking at him with disapproval on her face. The thought makes
Tim even more nauseous. Tim sways, head reeling as his stomach seems to bubble.
The door to Tim's suite of rooms slides open with a soft whisper of air and
then Janet manhandles Tim, helping him across the carpet to the bathroom door
and then nudging him inside.
"Go clean up," Janet says. "I expect to see you in an hour. One of the House
guards will come for you when it's time."
Before the door to Tim's suite has time to close properly behind his mother,
Tim is on his knees in front of the toilet, vomiting. He heaves until there's
nothing more to come out except for bile. Tim's eyes burn with unshed tears and
his breath rushes from him with panting gasps as he clutches at the toilet with
tensely white-knuckled fingers.
"I could have died," Tim breathes, his eyes widening as he realizes how close
he'd come to being killed. It comes to him in flashes –
Marcus's viselike grip on his shoulder. The strength in his hands that he
shouldn't have possessed with him nearly dead from illness. And the threat –
the promise of death in his voice. When Tim closes his eyes he can feel it, the
too-hot splash of blood across his face and the way that thicker things had
splattered across his forehead.
Tim shudders, hunching over the toilet just in time to spew another sickly
trickle of bile into the bowl. He doesn't know how long he sits there, shaking
and trying not to cry because he knows that his mother has access to cameras in
every single room of the House. He knows that she loves him in her own way, but
he doesn't want to fail her. To look weak.
Eventually, Tim flushes the toilet and then manages to stand up.
Neatly avoiding the mirrors in front of the sink and behind the bathroom door,
Tim undresses.
Instead of putting his clothes in the hamper, Tim dumps them in the garbage,
trying to tell himself that the stains on the fabric come from something else.
Somewhere else.
The shower, like much of the tech in Drake House, is voice controlled. When Tim
steps inside the glass-walled enclosure, he takes a second to breathe.
"Temperature eighty-nine degrees," Tim says. It's hotter than his usual shower,
though not quite scalding. Tim needs the heat though. He needs to feel the heat
of the water against his skin, washing away the blood and –
Tim's stomach clenches again at the memory. He forces it back, willing himself
not to throw up again.
"Increase temperature by ten degrees," Tim orders.
The water in the shower feels like heated pinpricks on his skin, but he needs
it. Tim closes his eyes and steps more fully into the spray, his face upturned
as he reaches blindly for a washcloth and his bar of soap. Scrubbing comes
easily to Tim, even withhis eyes shut tightly and his fingers shaking with
every pass of the cloth over his face.
Tim winds up taking about three showers, scrubbing at his skin until it's
faintly red and sensitive to the touch. His face stings when he touches it and
he knows that he'll be avoiding mirrors for the rest of the night. Taking that
many showers and scrubbing so hard might not have been the best idea, but Tim
needed to feel clean again. He'll deal with everything else later.
Tim doesn't bother with a towel, stepping straight into the air-dry unit next
to the shower and letting that take care of him. The unit leaves his skin
feeling a bit tight and his hair stands straight up, but at least –at last– Tim
is clean.
The intercom unit set in a sleep panel next to the door crackles on.
"Are you presentable?" Tim recognizes Azrael's voice immediately and he
relaxes. Out of all of the House guards, Azrael is the most loyal. Certainly,
he's unpredictable in a way, but he truly cares for the future of their House.
"Your mother sent me to fetch you."
Tim shakes his head and then remembers that he has video functions turned off
in the bathroom for the obvious reason. "I'll be out soon. Don't come in."
~
Jack Drake isn't the most… affectionate of men.
Tim can count on one hand the amount of times that his father has hugged him.
So when his father gathers him up into a hug that squeezes the breath out of
his chest, Tim doesn't know what to do with himself. He settles for patting his
father's back with awkward thumps of his hand.
"I'm okay, Dad," Tim says. He has to repeat himself a few times before he can
continue, but eventually, he manages to move on. "He didn't hurt me."
Jack shudders, hugging Tim tightly before pulling back. "I know," he says
against the top of Tim's head. "Your mother told me what she had to do."
At the memory, Tim's head swims and he has to pull back from his father's too-
tight hug. He doesn't look too long at where his mother sits at the head of a
table with papers and computers spread out in front of her and Azrael at her
right side.
"What are we looking at now?" Tim asks. It's a desperate bid to change the
subject but thankfully, Janet either doesn't notice or doesn't care. "Did you
find out who paid Marcus to betray us?"
Janet shakes her head. "No," she hisses, anger intense in her voice. "Nothing.
I'm starting to suspect that there is more than a single traitor in our House.
Your father found echoes in the network that didn't belong, but no sign of
their origin."
Tim frowns. "Echoes?"
His father steps forward, a similar frown on his face. "We're going to need to
find the echoes and reboot the system," he says as he turns to Tim. "Can you
take a day off from college to work with me in the labs?"
Of course Tim can. He'd do anything to protect his House, even miss classes.
Besides, it's not like he doesn't know everything that they're teaching him in
the business and computer classes at his college.
"Sure," Tim says with an easy nod of his head. "Just let me know what you need
from me." He manages a smile for his father and then turns to look at his
mother. "What about you, mother?"
Janet glances up at from the tablet computer in front of her. At first, she
blinks blankly at Tim as if she doesn't register his voice, but then her gaze
sharpens.
"We'll need to get a guard for you, Tim," she says. "If something happens to
you, our House will be left without a future." She frowns. "Jason Todd, a
former member of Wayne House, is looking for work out in the West District and
he's agreed to come and speak to us tomorrow."
"You've already picked my guard out?" Tim doesn't mean to bite the words out
the way that he does, but he can't help it. "What do we even know about him?"
Janet's lips curve up with a satisfied smile. She looks up at Tim as if she's
proud of him for asking the question and then taps her nails across the tablet
on her left until Tim comes forward and takes it from her.
"I had a dossier done on him," Janet says. "I also have profiles on three other
potential bodyguards for you to choose from. This is entirely yourdecision,
Tim, so choose wisely." Her smile softens and she reaches out to snag the edge
of Tim's sleeve. "And choose quickly: I don't feel comfortable leaving you
without a guard of your own for too long. Remember, we have Mayor Dent's
birthday party in two days and members of every House in Gotham will be there.
You need to choose someone before then."
Tim nods his head quickly. "I know," he says, voice a low murmur. "I will." Tim
takes the tablet to one the tables of the far side of the lab. He boots up the
device and then stares at the dossiers on the desktop.
At the start, he can see why his mother wants Jason Todd to stand in for his
guard. The man – though Jason is only a few years older than he is – has a
history of good work and seems unafraid to get his hands dirty. Prior to
working on contract as a mercenary and as muscle for hire, he'd been a staple
in Wayne House and the politics of the city.
Tim remembers that actually, mind offering up half-hazy memories of a grinning
kid in a suit that had thumped him on the back in a friendly way during his
House's anniversary day. His memories of Jason are scattered. Most of the
Houses have one or two scions, but Wayne House was – and still is – notable for
the number of children that can claim the title.
Jason was Richard's successor after the older Wayne scion took off for
Houseless New York. An orphan pulled out of the No Man's Land of Park Row and
raised in the lap of luxury until he was almost the same age that Tim is now.
And then –
He was gone. Houseless.
The dossier doesn't have much information on what caused the split, only
suspicions that stretch from one sentence to another. Jason's Houseless status
neatly coincides with the conspicuous absence of the Joker, one of Gotham
City's most aggressive gang-leader and a bane in every House's hide, from
Houseless society.
Missing for the past four years, the Joker's gang of killer clowns has mostly
atrophied despite the efforts of the man's floundering second-in-command.
Jason, Tim suspects as he reads through the notes in the dossier on this
section, might have had something to do with this. Tim suspects an awful lot,
but he can't confirm anything.
Tim doesn't have enough pieces to put the puzzle together, but the image
forming in Tim's mind is interesting enough that he sighs, staring down at the
grainy photograph of Jason heading up the dossier as if expecting it to tell
him something that he doesn't know. The few videos of Jason included in the
dossier show the man in action and on Selina Kyle's dime, body moving and
twisting as he dodges attacks and easily puts down assailants.
Despite the poor quality of the photo, Tim can see that Jason is incredibly
good-looking with sharp features and a twist to his wide mouth that could
barely be called a smirk. There are other photos of course, but those are
older. Not as appealing.
Jason's appeal shouldn't be a significant factor in Tim's choices.
But Tim is seventeen, months away from his majority, and he's only kissed two
people. He's entitled to a little fantasizing and the wild desire to make a
decision based on how attracted he is to someone. Tim catches himself tracing
Jason's features, moving the tip of his right index finger across the tablet in
lazy circles, and jerks his hand back, sending the tablet clattering to the
table top.
"Is everything alright?" Janet calls out from across the lab.
Tim feels his face warm with a flush. "Yes, it's fine. I just – I thought I saw
a bug." It's a terrible excuse and Tim knows it, but he doesn't flinch as his
mother fixes him with a steely, searching look. "And I think you're right about
Jason Todd. I'd like to talk to him about some things in the dossier, but he
looks like a good fit for me."
"Mhm," Janet says with a knowing look on her face.
The blush deepens until Tim feels hot all the way up to his eyebrows.
"He's a good fighter," Tim says, feeling defensive as his mother's own eyebrows
arches up. "And he has experience with the city's House structure and politics.
He'll be able to defend me from threats that I might not even recognize at
first." Tim gestures at the tablet. "I'll admit that I'm curious too about the
gaps in his history and the time spent with the scion to the Quaraci Royal
House, but he seems like someone that would be able to protect me."
Janet sets down her own tablet and then smiles. It's wider than usual and truly
warm.
"Excellent," she says. "I'll send a runner to let him know that he'll be
expected for breakfast tomorrow."
Tim blinks. "Breakfast?"
"We want him sooner, rather than later, Tim," Janet explains. "It can be…
difficult to get used to the loss of freedom that a guard entails."
***** Chapter 2 *****
The next morning, Tim is up before the sun.
After the night before, Tim's dreams had been plagued with nightmares. He'd
dreamt of his mother missing or Marcus killing them both.
By the time that Tim bolts up from his bedroom and slaps his hand over his eyes
to block out the thin stream of light from his half-closed curtains, he's
already a mess. With so much already gone wrong, Tim might as well get up and
get started on what his father needs from him.
After another, shorter shower, Tim wanders down to the lab where his father and
his many assistants tend to congregate at all hours of the day. Honestly, Tim
can't remember a time where he'd walked down to the labs and found them empty.
Even in the case of true emergencies, someone always stays behind to keep the
facilities safe and secure.
His father's favorite assistant, a tall woman with silver streaking her curly
black hair and the faintest of wrinkles on her brown skin, greets Tim at his
workstation with a smile and a silver carafe of coffee that's still hot to the
touch.
"Am I that predictable, Tamara?" Tim asks. He stops very short of actually
whining.
Tamara laughs, shaking her head.
"Not at all, Tim," she says, the warmth in her voice truly comforting. "One of
the maids saw you leaving the elevator and rushed down to tell us. That's all."
She turns to head back to her own workstation and then pauses, glancing at Tim
over her shoulder. "But your mother did tell me to let you know that breakfast
is in three hours and that you need to be somewhat presentable by then."
Unlike the staff that runs the House, Janet isn't opposed to spying on Tim via
the House's network of security cameras. Some days, Tim wishes that his mother
had a bit more understanding of privacy and what Tim needs as a young adult.
And by some days, Tim means every day.
Tim smiles instead of sighing because it isn't Tamara's fault that his mother
wants to micromanage his life on most days.
"I know," Tim says with a faint sighing note to his voice. "I have an alarm set
for forty-five minutes before we're supposed to eat and my clothes are already
laid out for the meal. She needs to remember that she can just message me
instead of bothering you all down here."
Tamara's smile widens. "But where would the fun be in that?"
~
Tim nearly misses his alarm.
It's not his fault that the task of finding the source of the seemingly
infinite echoes and other security errors in the House's computer network is so
interesting. At first, Tim is so busy trying to figure out why one of the
cameras in the kitchens is aimed at a supply closet that he doesn't hear the
chirping alarm on his tablet.
It takes him several minutes to realize that he's still got breakfast ahead of
him and then Tim bolts up from his workstation. Saving the progress on his work
takes only a matter of moments and Tim does so almost absently before scooping
up his tablet and heading in the direction of the main laboratory's double
doors.
"Have a good breakfast," Tamara calls as Tim rushes past her.
Tim barely manages to wave before he heads back to his room. Dressing after
taking another shower eats up more of Tim's time than he expects. By the time
that he makes it down to the private dining room that his parents use for
breakfast meetings, he's already several minutes late.
Wonderful.
When Tim rushes into the small room, he's all ready to blurt out an endless
amount of apologies. However, the words seem to dry up on his tongue when he
realizes that his mother isn't alone in the room.
A man that can only be Jason Todd is seated at Janet's left hand side at the
table. Tim's first glimpse of Jason leaves him speechless thanks to the
ruggedness of the man's motorcycle leathers and the way that his hair – shaved
at the sides and loose at the top – falls in front of a piercing blue gaze.
Despite the smug smile on Jason's face and the faintly disapproving scowl on
Janet's Tim can't stop staring at Jason. He even feels his eyes widen as Jason
pushes his chair back and gets to his feet, easily towering over Janet and Tim
both.
"You – you're –" The words just won't come no matter how Tim tries to speak. He
feels like he's twelve again and standing in front of the Luthor scion with
every single adult in the area staring at them in hopes of figuring out if he
and Conner were about to be friends or worse, future significant others. The
only difference is that Tim wasn't in awe of Conner and he certainly didn't
want anything more from the other scion than friendship.
With Jason, things are immediately and unavoidably different.
And of course Jason notices.
Crossing the room with long ground-eating strides, it takes no time at all for
Jason to come to a stop in front of Tim. Up close, Jason is even taller. More
attractive. He can't be that much older than Tim, but he's tall and muscular
enough that he looks as if he should be in charge of a House of his own. The
way that he stands, the way that he smiles –
Everything about him smacks of so much confidence that if Tim wasn't still
trying to figure out how to get his mouth to start working again, he'd probably
be jealous. As it stands, Tim keeps trying to talk, but Jason's mere presence
seems to short out his brain.
"You're –"
"Jason. Jason Todd," Jason responds, holding out his right hand for Tim to
shake. Despite the leather glove denying Tim the chance to feel skin on skin,
that single touch alone is electric.
Tim doesn't want to let go.
"I'm Tim," he says, managing a smile that hopefully doesn't look too awkward on
his face. "It's… nice to meet you." Tim ducks his head, feeling flushed and
somewhat faint when Jason's smirk widens to a smile in response to his words.
Jason's fingers flex against Tim's own and then he pulls back, nice and calm as
if nothing at all has happened between them in the past few moments.
"It's nice to meet you too," Jason says with a lingering look up and down Tim's
body. "Honestly, if I'd known that you were the Drake scion, I've gotten here a
lot sooner."
The compliment isn't subtle.
Neither is the way that he looks at Tim as if he wants to lick him.
It's also not the sort of thing that Tim is used to hearing from anyone talking
to him in front of his mother or well – at all. As the scion to Drake House,
Tim's had his fair share of flirtations. Most of them didn't last longer than
the dessert course at whatever dinner they were at in the city. There's
something about the fact that Tim is an unrepentant computer nerd that renders
him a less than stellar catch in the city.
"Excuse me?" Tim and his mother say at almost the exact same time.
The only difference is in how they say it.
Janet's voice holds a mix of anger and exasperation that Tim finds to be
incredibly familiar. It's the same voice that she uses for Conner on the few
occasions that they're allowed to spend time together outside of Metropolis.
Tim on the other hand, squeaks the question out as a blush bursts into
existence across his face.
If he's not redder than the poinsettias that his mother keeps on the table as a
decoration, he doesn't want to know what color his face is.
Jason shrugs, seemingly unaffected by either of the Drakes' response to him.
"I call it like I see it," Jason says with a roguish smile settling on his face
as his accent grows even more pronounced. "You're a good looking guy and what
can I say: I've been known to have a thing for the smart ones."
If Tim's face gets any hotter, he's likely to wind up bursting into flames. His
mouth opens and shuts without any sound more stable than a soft squeak slipping
free. Great. Just great.
Thankfully, Janet steps in to cover Tim's slack.
"Is this any way to talk to a potential employer?" Janet asks, her voice sharp
as it rings throughout the small dining room.
Tim winces.
So does Jason.
"Mother…"
"I know that you're not used to this –"
"Mother," Tim says again, a little louder than before. Aggravation seeps into
his voice. "It's fine. I don't mind. In fact, it's nice to hear someone say
nice things about my looks every once in a while." There's bitterness in Tim's
voice that neither he nor his mother are likely to address any time soon. "If
Jason is going to be my bodyguard, then maybe I should handle the interview?"
Janet freezes, her lipsticked mouth forming a crimson O-shape. "Are you – are
you sure?"
Tim shrugs. "The worst that can happen," he says as he glances at where Jason
isn't even bothering to pretend that he's not enjoying himself and his role in
their little tiff, "Is that I like Jason a little bit too much and when have
you ever known me to put pleasure over business? Or food?"
That seems to appease some of Janet's frustration. She frowns but then nods,
standing up in a smooth movement. She doesn't seem to want to look at either of
them for very long, but eventually, she manages to nod at Tim.
"Two hours," she says. "Either make a decision by then or pick out a different
candidate. I need you to be protected at all times after today and I'd like it
if I didn't have to loan you one of the regular House guards in the process."
Of course, Tim understands his mother's reasoning. If the House's guards aren't
at the House, then they can't guard it. Of course, that means that Tim needs to
decide something about Jason Todd that isn't connected to how much he wants to
kiss the other man.
Sometime between Janet's departure and Tim fussing with himself mentally,
Jason's made his way back over to the dining room table and has started laying
out food. It's unsurprising really, that a man with Jason's strength and body
type would eat as much as he does.
What's actually surprising is the way that Tim actually finds himself looking
forward to the chance to sit and take a meal with Jason. Even if he's a little…
thrown by Jason's candor and his claims to find Tim attractive, Tim can't say
that he's unlikely to enjoy the other man's company. He can't even say that
he's not still considering hiring Jason on as his bodyguard.
After all, Tim doesn't want another Azrael.
He wants a guard that he can talk to. Someone that counts as his friend and not
merely someone who is prepared to live, die, and kill by his words.
Jason, Tim thinks to himself as he moves to take the seat opposite the man in
question, has the potential to be so much more.
"So," Jason says after watching Tim make the sparsest plate of food that he can
put together and then fill an over-sized mug with coffee and enough fresh cream
to make the dark liquid take on a pale coloring. "What's a guy like you doing
looking for a bodyguard like me? Drake House isn't one of the big ones and last
I heard, your House didn't have that many enemies."
Tim frowns over his cup of coffee, trying to figure out how much of the
previous night's events he can tell Jason before officially hiring him on.
"There was an incident last night," Tim says eventually, speaking carefully.
"While no one was hurt aside from the assailant, my mother and I both felt that
things came a little too close for our mutual comfort. I don't have guards of
my own due to a recent shortage of hired help, but we felt as if the incident
was too worrying to ignore."
Jason smirks again.
"So you decided to go bodyguard shopping and somehow wound up picking me,"
Jason says with a sarcastic drawl underlying his words. He leans forward in the
next second, elbows resting on the top of the dining room table as he gives Tim
a knowing look that makes him blush even harder. "Say, this wouldn't have
anything to do with how you were downright obsessed with Wayne House back when
you were a kid, would it? I remember how you used to follow me an' Dick around
whenever our families interacted."
Tim is beginning to feel as if he'll never be able to stop blushing while in
Jason's presence.
He shakes his head in the face of Jason's clear amusement.
"It's not like that," Tim insists. "It's not."
Jason snorts out a quiet burst of laughter that makes Tim feel like getting up
from the table. "Sure, sure," he says. "So what – you had a near death
experience and you're worried that something worse'll happen next time? I can
handle that."
Tim shakes his head. "It's not that," he says, his voice rising higher and
higher with every word until he's all but shoutingat Jason. "All signs point to
a traitor on the inside. Someone we've hired on in our House is looking for our
weaknesses and a way to end us from within and we don't even know who they're
working for."
"I get it," Jason says, his voice gentle for a change. "Bru – Back when I was
part of Wayne House, we had a thing like that with Thomas Elliot. He was one of
Wayne's blind spots back in the day and when he came looking for help, there
was no way the old man was going to turn him down. Turns out that Elliot was
planning to speed up the chain of inheritance by using one of his pet assassins
to kill half of us kids off."
Jason's smile is brittle and doesn't reach his eyes.
"So yeah," he murmurs. "I understand that kind of betrayal. And I really don't
like it."
There's probably more to the story than Jason is willing to share right now.
A lot more.
Tim can read a bit more into the way that Jason holds himself, eating slowly
and neatly despite the fact that he looks ready to dive face first into his
plate. He's tense in his shoulders and in the lines of his strong jaw and when
he looks at Tim every so often, there's a distance in his voice.
"You keep staring at me like that, Tim, and I'm going to develop a complex,"
Jason teases.
Tim can't stop himself from flushing and he stares down at his plate.
A second later, he feels a light touch to his shoulder. When he looks up,
Jason's smile is a little softer and more genuine.
"Hey," Jason says, speaking so lowly that Tim has to lean over in order to hear
him. "I didn't say you should stop."
~
It would be impossible for Tim to decide on a different bodyguard.
There's something about Jason that calls to him. If Tim believed in
reincarnation, he'd be hard-pressed to assume that he and Jason hadn't known
each other in another lifetime. Jason just gets Tim. He walks beside Tim on
their way back to Tim's bedroom, stride just long enough that he can move in
front of Tim should anyone leap out of the shadows and attack. He seems to see
everything as well, exchanging nods with some of the guards that call the House
their home.
"Why did you pick me in the first place?" Jason asks once they're paused at the
door to Tim's suite of rooms. He waits patiently for Tim to unlock the door
with his passcode and palm print and then sweeps inside, checking the main room
quickly for any hidden surprises. When he comes back to Tim's side, he pauses,
eyebrows raised expectantly.
Tim bites at his lip.
"I didn't –" The words stick in his throat. The lies, that is. What Tim wants
to say and what is the actual truth vary at times and this is one of them. Tim
sighs instead, combing a hand through his carefully styled hair until it's just
as big a mess as usual, and then heads in the direction of one of the couches
in the living room.
He feels rather than sees Jason following at his heels.
"My mother had a dossier put together for you," Tim confesses as if it's a
shameful secret instead of something that most heads of Houses do when
considering hiring any new blood. "There was a clip of you fighting in the
Narrows on behalf of Selina's crew and it was –" Tim licks his lips to moisten
them. "It was amazing. Watching you fight was unbelievable and you were so
graceful!"
Jason drops down into the chair cattycorner Tim's own couch.
"Seriously," he says with a wide smile on his face. "If you keep complimenting
me like that, I might just take this job for free." He leans back, making
himself nice and comfortable while also not looking away from Tim's face. "And
I can teach you how to fight if you want. It's really not that difficult."
Tim's nose wrinkles with a faint frown. "Are you sure?"
Jason shrugs those distractingly broad shoulders.
"Gimme a week or two to learn your schedule and for the two of us to get used
to each other and I'll have you whipped into shape in no time," Jason says,
almost lecturing as Tim stares at him. "Having a guard is good, but it never
hurts to be able to take care of yourself in the process."
"You're the expert here," Tim says. Like this, it's easy enough to give in. He
tilts his head back along the side of the couch until he can just barely see
the doors for the other rooms in his suite. "Which reminds me… where are you
going to sleep?"
Somehow, Tim knows without looking that Jason is giving him a look.
"In your room, of course," Jason says. "Where else would I sleep?"
Tim flushes. "But – but –" Tim's room isn't that big. Sure, he's got a suite
almost as large as the one that his parents have shared since their marriage,
but his actual room isn't big enough for him, Jason, and Jason's personality.
"I'm just kidding, kid," Jason says, with a faint smile on his face. "We'll
work something out that doesn't get you putting up with my snoring."
Tim feels his face warm with a flush that he hopes isn't something that Jason
can see in the perpetually dim light of his room. He shakes his head after a
moment, managing a smile for his new guard.
"I don't mind snoring," Tim offers hesitantly. "And I'm not in that much
trouble that you'd have to sleep in the room with me all the time. There's a
room that connects to mine through a hidden panel and you can always sleep
there."
Honestly, Tim doesn't know how his parents do it. He knows that his father has
a guard when he leaves the House and that Azrael is only far from his mother's
side when she's armed and decidedly dangerous, but that doesn't explain how
they handle the night shifts. Of course, Tim supposes that the House guards can
take care of things well enough without having to breach Tim's privacy, but
then --
The point of having Jason around, Tim reasons as he watches the older man
fiddle with a cigarette lighter that he pulls from one of his pockets, is to
have a guard that's closer than the others in the House. Even if Jason doesn't
spend the night in Tim's room, he's going to have to be close.
Excruciatingly close.
Tim sighs a little and then shifts in his seat, glancing at Jason from
underneath his eyelashes. After several long seconds, Tim finally settles on
something to say to Jason.
"I know that Mother will most likely have Azrael take you on a tour of the
House and get you up to date on everyone's dossiers, but do you want a small
tour from now?" Tim asks.
He regrets the words as soon as they escape his mouth.
The idea of being alone with Jason, of showing him all of the House's secret
passages and hidden rooms with no one around to see what they get up to, makes
Tim feel heat burn in his cheeks and in his chest. He's seventeen and he's long
been overdue for the chance to interact with someone that he isn't related to
or that his mother didn't handpick for him. Technically, Jason doesn't count on
that note because of how he is supposed to be Tim's guard. Tim knows that. He
does. But that doesn't stop him from feeling a mad little thrill of want when
he glances at Jason and sees a small but seemingly genuine smile on his face.
"Don't we have to talk to your mom?" Jason asks. "Or sign some paperwork?"
Tim waves away the other man's concerns easily enough.
"It's a formality but honestly, I'd say that you're hired even without it," Tim
says in what he hopes comes across as a casual tone. "You don't need paperwork
to be my guard -- I suspect Mother's been paying Azrael off the books since his
second year here -- and it's not like the House isn't covered in cameras. Only
a few of the rooms and hallways don't have them and those are very difficult to
get to."
One of Jason's thick black eyebrows arch up. "Hm?"
"Someone will know that I'm with you and where we are at all times," Tim says.
"So if you're worried about someone thinking that you're taking advantage of me
or that I'm looking to reenact one of those ridiculous romantic dramas where
the client falls for their bodyguard, don't worry. It's fine."
Jason's smirk ratchets up a few levels.
"Thought a lot about that one, haven't you?"
Immediately, Tim entertains and then discards the idea of slapping Jason right
across that smug face. He's not a fan of violence for one thing and for
another, Jason isn't really wrong. A little bit annoying, but then, anyone
that's able to read Tim like a book is someone that Tim is shockingly disarmed
around.
"I've seen those movies," Tim mutters. "My friend --" He pauses, frowning at
the memory of Stephanie who he hasn't seen in months since her mother started
moving around the city in order to sell her services to Houses without a med-
staff of their own. "My friend Steph, she took me to see one on her last
birthday. It was..." Tim trails off, feeling his mouth purse with a frown.
"I feel you there," Jason says with a smile and a stretch of his rangy body
that makes Tim's face feel so hot. He looks Tim up and down though, gaze
lingering at the gap in Tim's shirt that reveals his collarbones and the fit of
his pants to his thighs. "But you've got to admit that there's something about
that fantasy..."
If Tim keeps this blushing up, he'll probably pass out from all the blood in
his body going everywhere other than where it's supposed to go. Which would
mean that he wouldn't have to look at Jason's ridiculously handsome face
anymore but then, that's not the best impression to make on his new guard.
"You keep flirting with me," Tim says, just barely managing to keep a level
tone to his voice. "Why?"
Jason shrugs his broad shoulders as if it doesn't bother him to be interrogated
so fiercely. "Why not," Jason retorts. "You're cute and we're going to be
spending most of our time together for the next few weeks. Why shouldn't I
flirt with you?"
"Because I'm not going to flirt back?" Tim offers the suggestion in an
aggrieved tone that does absolutely nothing to shake Jason's calm. "Who even
says that you're my type?"
Jason's crooked nose wrinkles. "Seriously?"
Tim nods. "Yeah, seriously."
"Obviously, you can't see the way that you've been checking me out all day,
kid," Jason points out. "If I had slightly less morals than I do, I'd have
kissed you ages ago. You're cute and I've heard about the work you do for your
House, but trust me, I wouldn't even be entertaining these thoughts if you
weren't so damn tempting."
Tim feels his jaw drop just a little and he's quick to suck his bottom lip back
into his mouth and bite at it.
Jason's eyes narrow and a hungry, searching look, settles across his face.
"You don't even know how you look right now, do you?" Jason doesn't wait for
Tim to respond or even to sit up straighter on the couch. "I'll give you a
break, kid. Obviously, I'm reading you wrong and you don't want me. No more
flirting unless you ask me for it or give me an actual signal."
Tim blinks. "What --"
"I'm up for whatever," Jason says in a tone that makes Tim feel as if he's
being lectured, "but I need everyone to be on the same page as me. So until you
are, I'm going to just be the best bodyguard I can be and keep your ass safe
with no strings attached. Deal?"
"Y-yeah," Tim says, taken aback by both Jason's frankness and the nature of his
confession. He reaches out to shake Jason's strong right hand and flushes even
harder at the way that the other man's calluses scratch across his skin.
When Tim meets Jason's dark eyes, he's unsurprised to see nothing more than a
vague heat simmering in the depths of that blue gaze. He's a little bit more
surprised that he manages to hold Jason's gaze and even match it.
"Okay. We have a deal."
~
Drake House might be one of the smallest of Gotham City's great Houses, but
that doesn't mean that it's small overall. Their House itself is so big that
after ninety minutes of showing Jason around, they're still in the east wing.
There are smaller Houses, the cobbled-together remains of older families that
married into one another to keep their status, but they control only a block or
two of land in the city itself.
Despite the fact that Drake House has been passed down from one only child to
another for the past three generations, the House still has clout and it still
has actual territory both in the surrounding countryside and the city itself.
If Tim's father were just a little less clever and his mother a little less
ruthless –
No.
Tim doesn't want to think about what could have been. He shakes his head,
forcing himself back into the here and now instead of events that can't
possibly happen, turning to look at a statue that his mother had received as a
gift from the Amazons back when he was a child.
"That's from Themyscira isn't it?" Jason's voice sounds close. Close enough
that Tim can actually feelthe rush of his breath against his ear at any rate.
When Tim doesn't move, Jason steps closer, thoroughly invading Tim's space. In
a thoroughly platonic way of course. "There's one like this in Wayne House in
the entryway. The Themysciran ambassador and my old man have this thing going
on. It's weird, but she commissioned a huge statue for him back when I was
still living there." Jason grunts. "Yours is better though."
Tim can't quite muffle his laughter. He sidesteps Jason neatly, pretending that
he's not tempted to lean back against the warmth of Jason's larger body, and
then gestures at one of the few hallways that he hasn't dragged Jason down yet.
"Do you – do you want to see the passage that takes us down to the garage?" Tim
asks, realizing as he talks that he's volunteering to spend time alone in a
dark passage that no one else goes into unless they have an emergency or a
drill. "We can check out the cars while we're down there and pick out a car
that'll just be for us and our driver."
Jason blinks at him, visibly nonplussed. "Sure, I mean… It's up to you." He
glances along the hallway that is noticeably bereft of House guards. "Just stay
close. You know… Just in case."
At that, Tim can't help but smile at Jason over his shoulder as he leads the
way towards the passageway and the hidden panel for its release. "It's a
passageway that only maybe four people know about in this entire House – well,
five if we count you. I think we'll be fine."
If Tim sounds overconfident in the wake of his near death experience the night
before, it's because he is. Out of all of the two dozen individual secret rooms
and passageways in the main building of Drake House, security only knows about
eight of them.
The others are Tim's finds. Only his father might know more about the House
than he does and so far, their paths haven't crossed in these rooms and
passages.
"This passageway is one that people know about but never use," Tim says,
tilting his head to the side as he bites at his bottom lip. "When I was six or
seven, I spread a rumor that someone died in the passageway and that their
ghost haunted the place ever since."
Jason's answering smile is sharper, amused. "Ghost stories? Really?"
Tim shrugs. "It worked didn't it?"
Once Tim wriggles his fingers underneath the frame of a haphazard Dadaist work
of nonsense, it only takes him a matter of moments to find the pressure switch
for the hidden panel. The wall in front of them shudders and then slides open
with a quiet grumbling sound that makes Tim and Jason glance around the
thankfully empty hallway before looking back at the mouth of the passageway
yawning black and open before them.
"You can go first if you want," Tim offers, grinning when Jason turns to glare
at him.
Jason bares his teeth in an expression that is far from a smile.
Tim blinks back at him, trying to make his own expression as guileless as
possible. "What," he says. "You're not afraid of the dark are you?"
Growling, Jason takes a single strong step into the inky blackness --
Only for the passage way to light up with dozens of tiny overhead lights.
"What –"
Tim laughs and then follows Jason into the passageway before the panel can
close shut behind him. Maybe he moves a little too fast or Jason a little too
slowly, but Tim finds himself pressed chest to chest against Jason's body with
his right hand fluttering in the air above Jason's left shoulder.
Tense and licking his suddenly dry lips, Tim stares up at Jason's face.
"Motion detectors and LED light clusters on a track," Tim blurts out. At
Jason's confused look, he elaborates just a little bit more. "I put them in
when I was like twelve. I'm not the biggest fan of being in the dark and this
was the fastest way to get outside."
Jason doesn't look away from Tim's mouth.
He also doesn't pull away.
"Yeah," he murmurs, staring at Tim's lips with a single-minded sort of hunger
on his face. "That's cool." He curves an arm around Tim's waist, hauling him in
close until it feels as if Tim honestly can't tell where his body starts and
Jason's begins. Still staring at Tim's mouth, Jason leans in with his own lips
parted.
And then –
Jason freezes.
"Tim, I –"
"Jason," Tim says. He reaches up, curving the palm of his left hand over the
nape of Jason's neck as the fingers of his right hand curl in against the front
of his leather jacket. Holding Jason close, he can feel the warmth of Jason's
skin against his own. "I –"
The words dry up in his mouth. All Tim can think of is leaning in and kissing
Jason. All he wants is to tilt his head up and press a quick kiss to Jason's
lips. To satisfy a hunger he didn't even know that he had before Jason walked
into his life.
Overhead, the lights on their track flicker and then go off. Plunged into a
sudden and still darkness, Tim clutches Jason harder, pulling as he rocks up
onto the balls of his feet and presses their mouths together.
Kissing Jason is unlike anything that Tim has done before. It's nothing like
kissing Stephanie in one of Tim's father's cars or Conner grabbing him and
kissing him as they hid from their respective parents in one of the cavernous
hallways of Lex Luthor's downtown penthouse.
Jason's kiss is gentle, searching.
Slick.
Surprisingly soft.
Jason backs Tim up against the wall, still kissing him, still touching. His big
hands move almost restlessly, sliding underneath the hem of Tim's shirt and
then dipping down to palm his ass through his slacks.
"Oh," Tim murmurs against Jason's mouth. He says it again when Jason pulls away
and kisses his jaw, a fleeting brush of lips that makes him shiver, before
moving down to nuzzle and suck a mark into the tender skin of Tim's throat. "Oh
–"
Tim's mother is going to kill him. He knows that. She hasn't even gotten a
chance to put the fear of the House into Jason and he's here with Tim, kissing
him deeply and making him wish that he hadn't said no earlier. They could've
been doing this in Tim's room. In his bed.
When Jason pulls back, it takes every ounce of Tim's willpower not to lean into
him. Or worse, to begfor another kiss, another touch, another something.
The lights come back on overhead, flooding the passageway with weak white
light. Despite the light, or maybe because of it, Jason doesn't meet Tim's
gaze. He holds himself back, physically moving away when Tim reaches for him.
"I said I wasn't going to flirt with you anymore," Jason says, his voice a low
growl that practically vibrates with the intensity of his anger. At first, Tim
can't tell whether the anger is directed at him or if Jason is angry with
himself. That uncertainty lasts only a handful of seconds. "So what do I do? I
kissyou."
Tim licks his lips slowly.
"I kissed you first," Tim points out. "I liked it, and I know you did too."
Tim casts a surreptitious glance down at the front of Jason's black leather
pants and shifts almost restlessly when he notices that Jason is just as hard
as he is. Sure, Tim's sexual experience can be boiled down to hours on the
internet and a few fumbling caresses from other teenagers in the dark corners
of various schools, but he knows what it feels like to want. He also – despite
having much less experience in that part – knows what it feels like to be
wanted.
Emotions play across Jason's face. Anger. Frustration. Resignation. And
throughout it all, a hunger so hot that Tim isn't sure how he's still standing
upright from the force of it.
Eventually --
"If your parents kill me for this, I'm going to haunt the hell out of you,"
Jason growls out before he steps back into Tim's space. It's his turn to cup
the back of Tim's head and he pulls Tim into a tight embrace that makes Tim
melt against him.
Tim can't help smiling at that.
"Don't worry," he murmurs as Jason returns his attention to the faint mark
already on his throat. "We don't have to tell her anything and she has a habit
of missing things like this." Tim shivers delicately as Jason's teeth scrape
against his throat. "Sometimes, I think my parents and half the people in this
House still think of me as if I'm a child."
Jason rocks his hips forward, teasing Tim with the too-perfect drag of their
erections rubbing together. He leans in to steal another kiss, smiling when Tim
whimpers and presses even closer.
"Mmm," he murmurs against Tim's mouth. "Their loss."
***** Chapter 3 *****
Tim honestly isn't used to feeling – or looking – so disheveled.
Part of being House scion is the knowledge that Tim has to promote a certain
look. He has to be perfect at all times, well-dressed and smiling even in the
face of both minor and major annoyances. A House scion like Tim isn't supposed
to tumble out of a secret passageway with his hair all mussed and several of
the buttons of his shirt undone.
Thankfully, the hallway is once again empty when they head back into the House
proper. Outside of the cameras, there's no one there to see Tim stumble and
brace himself against Jason's side. Tim luxuriates in the contact, in the feel
of Jason's body so close to his and so warm.
"So," Jason says as they enter one of the more populated hallways in Drake
House on their way to the office that Tim's parents share on one of the upper
levels of the House. "What can I expect from your routine?"
Here, Tim has the grace to warm with an embarrassed flush. "I'm actually
incredibly boring," Tim admits, his fingers flexing against his sides. "I go to
class downtown three times a week and work in the labs here or in Drake
Industries' main building."
Jason murmurs something that sounds vaguely like agreement. "Friends? Trips?"
"Once a month I go to Metropolis to see Conner," Tim says, neatly avoiding the
fact that he really doesn't have many friends. Really, that he doesn't have
that many friends in Gotham City proper and none amongst the Houses. The scions
in most of Gotham's great Houses are either decades older or years younger.
They're all married or have family looking to marry them into another House to
consolidate their wealth or power.
Not exactly conducive to a friendly relationship.
That's probably why most of Tim's few friends are either Houseless or from
somewhere else.
"And we go to California every year," Tim says into the sudden tense silence.
"It's Conner's thing. He's got some friends there and a house in Napa Valley
that his father gave him for his sixteenth birthday and we usually hole up
there for winter break when Gotham gets too cold."
Jason pauses and then turns to face Tim. "Conner?"
Oh. Yeah. Jason doesn't have a dossier on Tim and Tim's friends.
"Conner Luthor," Tim says. "He's my best friend."
Sort of.
Jason's features blank in a way that discomfits Tim.
Is that –?
Jealousy?
"I've known him since I was twelve," Tim says with a roll of his eyes. "If we
were any closer, we'd be brothers." Tim stops in his tracks, forcing Jason to
do the same. He doesn't mention the kissing or anything in that vein. That
really wouldn't help his argument. "I'm the one that introduced him to his
fiancé after all."
And what fun that had been, Tim thinks with a grin. Lex Luthor had been
planning to marry Conner off to someone from a wealthy house, casually and
subtly arranging the marriage while making Conner think that it was all his
idea. And then came Tim with Tana Moon, a young reporter from Hawaii that'd
done PR work for Drake House in the past and wanted to get an in with the
Luthor family. Conner had asked her out that night and proposed to her a year
later.
If not for his partners and Conner's persistence, Lex Luthor probably wouldn't
have anything to do with Drake House or Drake Industries. The thought makes Tim
smile widely.
"I think you'd like Conner," Tim says. "He's – He's good."
At that, Tim's voice softens and he catches a related smile from Jason's
direction. It's a small, sort of bemused expression, but it makes Tim warm to
see it. He nudges Jason with his right elbow.
"Hey," he says, "Relax. My parents don't bite and neither does Conner."
Jason snags the edge of his sleeve, turning Tim around to face him. "Not even
if they find out about this?"
Even without kissing Tim or making any sort of move towards him that can be
considered sexual, enough of Jason's meaning comes across that Tim finds
himself blushing again. He pushes away from Jason.
"I don't tell them everything," Tim points out, smiling at the way that Jason
reaches for him again before he remembers himself and pauses. He touches the
very tip of his tongue to the center of his top lip before continuing on. "And
I have no intention of telling them either. I'll be eighteen in a few months
and after that, it won't matter what they think."
Jason smirks. "That determined to keep me, eh?"
Tim wills away the warmth in his face.
"Shut up," he grumbles.
Jason of course, does no such thing. "Man, I really need to see that dossier
your mother put together on me."
"No," Tim mutters, "You really don't."
~
Tim has to hope that he imagines the shrewd, almost knowing look on his
mother's faced when he walks into her office with Jason on his heels. Despite a
quick attempt at straightening his clothes and his hair before knocking on the
door, Tim knows that he isn't at his best.
His mother can't possibly miss that.
But she says nothing, choosing instead to greet Tim and Jason with a tight
smile on her face and a thick sheaf of papers.
"What's that?" Jason asks, his eyebrows drawing together in a way that makes
him look even more attractive to Tim's too-interested gaze.
Tim knows the look that his mother gives Jason. It's the look that she gives
him when he's just asked (what she thinks) is a particularly stupid question
and is waiting for him to come to that conclusion himself. It's not the nicest
of his mother's many looks, but when Tim dares to aim a surreptitious glance at
Jason, he doesn't seem bothered.
"It's your contract," Janet says, sounding out sharp syllables as she looks up
at Jason. "I assume that Tim has told you about the benefits of working for
Drake House?"
The wide smile on Jason's face is very nearly a leer.
"Well he might've mentioned a few things," Jason says, his voice just sleazy
enough to make Tim consider shuddering. He forces himself to still and then
roll his eyes as if he too is exasperated with Jason's words and the way that
he carries himself.
Tim's mother frowns, mouth tight. She gives Tim a look that says volumes about
how capable she thinks he is at introducing new employees to the day to day
experience of Drake House and then settles back at her desk.
"All of our employees work on shifts," she says. "As my son's personal guard,
you work longer and earn more. Per year, you'll earn over eighty thousand
dollars. You'll receive bonuses every time you divert a threat."
At the mention of that little bit of incentive, Tim feels his eyes widen. His
mother glances at him, but chooses not to address his expression or the wonder
that she certainly can see on his face.
Janet continues. "When he is in his own rooms, you don't need to share the same
space as him unless you seem sure of a threat. If you wish to sleep, call for a
replacement for one of the guards that aren't on shift. Do you understand?"
Jason's wide shoulders lift and drop in a shrug.
"Sounds easy enough," he says.
"Easy?" Janet hisses.
Tim balks. "Mother --"
Jason doesn't back down.
"Yeah," he says as if he's not talking to a woman that has shown no problem
applying her ruthless nature to weeding out weak points in her own House. "Tim
and I already went over all of the serious stuff together and I'll be working
with him to find the source of this current threat. You're not a huge House
with many enemies and I really don't think that Tim is in need of twenty-four
hour surveillance the way that an heir from Elliot or Wayne House might be."
Almost as if she can't help herself, Janet smiles.
"You've done your homework?"
Jason grins. "You're not the only person with connections," he says. "I had my
own dossier done on you the moment you put feelers out asking for a personal
guard for hire. You've been a very busy woman, Mrs. Drake."
Tim's mother smiles, the expression putting Tim in mind of a very toothy shark.
"Please, call me Janet."
Even the department heads of Drake Industries aren't encouraged to call his
mother anything aside from Madame Drake. She must like Jason despite herself
and Tim --
Well Tim can empathize.
So busy thinking about the worrying combination that is his mother making nice
with his new guard, Tim doesn't realize that Jason has already gotten started
on signing the very thick contract for employment until his mother clears her
throat delicately in order to get his attention.
Feeling as if he's just very lost, Tim blinks and shakes his head. "Yes,
Mother?"
"What do you plan to do for the rest of the day?"
Make out with Jason.
Of course, Tim can't actually say that to his mother's face. Or to anyone in
their House truth be told.
He settles for a different truth. "I'm going to head down to the labs and check
out the progress of the program I'm running," he says. "I think that we'll be
able to figure out where the echoes are coming from and how to shut them down
before the day is out. I'll let you know if we find out anything more about
Marcus' mysterious employer and why he might want me dead."
When Janet smiles at Tim -- a real smile rather than a grim baring of teeth -
- Tim feels himself smile back.
"Excellent job," his mother says with genuine happiness in her voice. "I'll be
busy reviewing some lab results from the biomedical department, but if you find
anything at all, send Azrael a page. He has permission to interrupt me if you
need me."
Wow.
Tim's mother must really want to find the source of their leak.
Tim does too, but then --
It's not as if he has a multi-million dollar company to run. Or a House to keep
in excellent shape.
"I will," Tim says at the same time that he mentally crosses his fingers,
directing a hopeful prayer skyward for success. Then he glances at where Jason
is still busy scrawling his name onto different parts of the contract's many
pages. "Should I -- Should I wait?"
Nodding, Janet waves in the direction of one of the seats in her office.
Silence stretches nearly unbroken but for the scratch of Jason's pen on paper
and his mother's computer emitting soft noises as she inputs data and checks
them. Tim is half-tempted to curl up in the not-so-uncomfortable leather chair
the way that he used to when he was little, but he thinks better of it the
moment that he remembers his mother's preoccupation with appearances. Even
though it's just the three of them -- mother, son, and bodyguard -- appearances
are still everything.
Finally Jason finishes signing away his soul. He pushes the contract across the
table to Janet and then stands up to his full height, stretching out until his
back pops and he returns to towering over Tim as if that is his job.
"Do I need to do anything else?"
Janet shakes her head without looking from her computer.
"Not here at least," she murmurs. "Tim can show you to the main security room
and you can pick up weapons and a comm unit there."
Here, Jason frowns.
"I have my own weapons," he says, his voice almost rough with anger.
Tim doesn't understand the source of that emotion and for a moment, he's not
sure who it's directed at.
Janet doesn't seem bothered. "Then use them," she says, annoyance clear in her
voice. "You could be carrying a scimitar for all I care. Just use it to protect
my son and you'll be fine."
"And if I don't?" Jason asks because apparently he wants Janet to kill him and
feed him to her pets.
At that, Janet looks up from her work. "Obviously, you won't survive long
enough to fix your mistake."
Obviously she says as if normal people go around threatening each other.
Tim doesn't know what to say to that.
After that, there's no further use in sticking around. Tim gets up and leads
the way out of his mother's office without looking back to see whether or not
she's looking back at them.
~
"Your mother is terrifying," Jason announces once they're back in the relative
privacy of one of the House's less-traveled hallways.
Tim can't find it in his heart to disagree, but he does attempt to defend his
mother.
"She's had to work very hard to get where she is now," he points out in a quiet
tone. "Drake House belongs to my dad's family, but she's taken the reins ever
since they got married and she's had to prove herself to a ton of people."
When he glances back at Jason, there's a smirk on the other man's face.
"I'll bet that she's had to kill even more than that," he murmurs.
Tim... doesn't want to think of that.
"Do you mind staying in the lab with me all day?" Tim asks apropos of nothing,
making no effort to hide his change of subject.
Jason shakes his head at that, smiling just a little.
"I don't care," Jason says easily enough. "Just get me a couple books to read
while you're working and I'm good." He waggles his eyebrows at Tim and then
leers at him until Tim blushes again and turns away. "I'm pretty easy to
please."
"Jason!" Tim says at a faintly higher pitch. "We're in public."
Jason's smile doesn't fade.
"When do you have to head to the lab," he asks.
Tim shrugs a little. "I don't exactly have a schedule, you know."
"Good," Jason says, stepping close until Tim can feel his warmth through the
sleeve of their respective shirts. He glances down at Tim, hunger simmering in
the depths of his eyes as his gaze lingers on Tim's mouth. "So why don't we do
something on our own for a little while?"
What red-blooded teenager would -- or could say no to that?
~
There's a room on the third floor that used to be for the servants' children
back in the 1800s when Drake House was smaller and more contained. Over the
years it's been used for storage and as a guest room for visitors from smaller
Houses.
The important thing is that the small room has a threadbare chaise lounge
stretching out in front of one pockmarked wall and no cameras in or around it.
With no windows, secret passageways, or outside access, it's one of the safest
rooms in the building.
It's also the perfect room for the next part of their tryst.
Jason backs Tim up against the door the moment that Tim shuts and locks it
behind them, caging Tim in with the stretch of his long arms. With how they're
standing, Tim has to look up at Jason. He feels slight if not fragile, caught
between the unyielding presence of the door at his back and Jason's hard body
at his front.
"Is this your first time?" Jason murmurs.
At first, Tim has no idea what Jason is talking about. He's only paying the
barest amount of attention, staring at Jason's mouth without registering
anything aside from how much he misses the way that Jason kisses him. It's only
when Jason repeats his question, adding along a pointed squeeze for good
measure, that Tim returns back to earth.
He blinks. "My first time? With --"
Oh!
OH!
He bites at his bottom lip, unsure of how to answer or what to say.
"I -- Kind of -- Yes."
Tim flushes even harder, hating himself a little for how easy it is to make him
blush and stammer all over himself as far as Jason is concerned. There's
something about Jason though that just gets to Tim, as if they'd known each
other in another life and they're just slotting into that familiarity in this
one. Even when Tim swears that he's about to melt from blushing so hard, he
can't make himself look away from Jason.
"Is that okay?"
Jason's smile is small but sincere. "It's fine," he says in a reassuring tone.
"We can take things as slowly as you need."
Tim should hope so considering that they're already moving frighteningly fast
in this new relationship. Between the kissing and the frotting against one
another in the secret passageway, the few hours that they've spent together
have been fraught with sexual tension that only increases the longer that they
spend near one another.
"Slow is good," Tim says softly. He doesn't look at Jason's face.
Jason shifts, moving one hand so that he can reach out and tilt Tim's head
upward until Tim has to look at him. "Slow is perfect."
So is the kiss that they share a moment later. Sweet and soft with the barest
flick of tongue, Jason's kiss leaves Tim shuddering and fighting back against
the desire to whimper. The hand that Jason had on Tim's chin moves down to his
hip, fingers like a brand against his skin.
"J-Jason --" Tim says on a sigh.
"I know," Jason murmurs roughly. "I know."
The button on Tim's pants comes undone too easily and yet not easily enough.
Underneath his expensive trousers, Tim is wearing a pair of plain dark grey
briefs. HIs dick presses out the front of the fabric in an almost obscene way,
a spreading damp spot noticeable at where the tip is. When Jason reaches for
him, Tim's dick leaps and he can feel the slight spill of precome against the
already wet fabric.
Jason groans against Tim's ear.
"You smell so good," he moans, his very touch feather light as he teases Tim
into even higher heights of hardness. "Like sex and sweat. Like need."
The whole room must smell a little bit like sex now. Just from the way that Tim
can't stop squirming, hips hitching as Jason thumbs his dick through his
underwear. He can feel sweat prickling along the nape of his neck and the
length of his spine, a moist heat that Tim simultaneously craves and can't
stand.
Jason nuzzles in against Tim's throat, mouth mapping the throbbing jump of
Tim's pulse and those special erogenous points that Tim didn't even know
existed before that day. He brings his teeth into play after a moment, nibbling
his way along the length of Tim's bared throat up to the lobe of his right ear.
When he bites Tim there, Tim nearly comes.
Tim feels his body jerk, heat flooding him. He thrusts forward helplessly,
nudging the glans and part of his shaft against the amazing roughness of
Jason's callused hands. Somehow, he doesn't come. It's close -- too close -
- but it doesn't go beyond that. Maybe Tim's body knows that he doesn't want to
come too quickly. Maybe the universe itself is having pity on Tim's first
actual sexual experience.
He's just going to be thankful.
Twining his arms around Jason's neck is easy enough and Tim does so after
rocking up onto his toes. He presses light kisses against Jason's smiling mouth
and then turns his own attention to the strongly corded muscle in Jason's neck.
Unlike Jason, Tim doesn't leave a mark. It'll be easy enough to explain away
the dark mark on his own neck but with him and Jason possessing hickeys,
someone is bound to get suspicious sooner rather than later.
Jason's hands settle on Tim's hips for the second time that day, guiding him
and helping him rub off against Jason's thigh.
"Oh god," Tim finds himself crooning, fingers skittering over Jason's slick and
sleek leather jacket. "I'm close -- so close."
At that, Jason pulls away.
Tim only gets a moment to cry out in a harsh, wounded tone before Jason drops
to his knees before him and then yanks Tim's trousers and briefs down all the
way to his ankles.
"Jason -- what --"
"You've never had anyone give you head before, have you?" Without waiting for a
response Jason leans in and licks a long, wet line along the length of Tim's
achingly erect penis. He lingers at the glans, tongue mapping the sensitive
skin as Tim's head knocks back against the door as if it's the only thing
keeping him upright and sane, and then even flicks his tongue against the slick
slit as if he's trying to drive Tim out of his mind. After several moments of
that exquisite torture, Jason's hands return to Tim's hips. This time, instead
of helping Tim move, the pressure of those strong hands holds him still.
The door is cold against Tim's bare skin, but the heat of his mouth is almost
too much.
Tim cries out at the sweet pressure, the rippling vibrations of Jason taking
his dick all the way down into his throat. His eyes slide shut without his
permission, clenching tightly until stars appear in that inky blackness. The
moment that Jason releases his hips, Tim jerks forward. Jason lets Tim fuck his
mouth with too-fast thrusts, only moving to still him if he gets any more
enthusiastic.
Tim comes --
Too soon.
Too intensely.
Whimpering Jason's name as if he wants to keep the word to himself as if it's a
secret. He comes until he doesn't even think he could come again if anyone
asked him too, shaking through the aftershocks as Jason cleans him up and tucks
his softening dick away.
"What about you?" Tim asks eventually when he can remember how to talk again.
He slants a meaningful glance down at where the swell of Jason's cock is
obvious even with the thick fabric of his jeans and then reaches down to palm
that tempting hardness.
Before he can do more than sneak a single caress, Jason's closes around his
wrist.
"What --"
Jason shakes his head. "I'm good for now, babe," he murmurs despite the hungry
look in his eyes that says otherwise. He leans in and eases Tim into a deep and
filthy kiss that makes his toes curl in his loafers. "I'll be fine. I just
wanted to know what you taste like, what you felt like in my mouth."
Tim doesn't know how he even has the presence to blush.
"Did you like it?"
Jason's grin is quick, gone in a flash but incredibly bright.
"Of course, I did," he promises. He leans in for another kiss, this one
lingering until Tim feels his dick thickening in response.
Tim pulls back, smiling slightly despite himself.
"I guess we should go down to the labs, huh?" Tim shakes his head, smiling a
bit at the absurdity of the situation and the feeling that he doesn't want to
leave Jason for the labs just yet. "Or we could always just pretend that we've
got better things to do…"
Tim trails off, smiling.
Jason snorts. "I've only been your guard for a few hours, I can't be that bad
an influence on you yet!"
"I don't mind," Tim insists with a surreptitious glance up at Jason's mouth.
The other man's lips are faintly swollen and there's a gleam to them that makes
Tim unable to focus on anything other than where Jason's mouth had been only a
few moments before. "Really, the data will keep."
Rather than let himself be bowled along by Tim's hunger, Jason returns to
finish fixing Tim's clothes.
"What kind of bodyguard would I be if I let you pass up an opportunity to
secure the House?" He laughs at the sudden, sullen look that Tim knows has
settled on his face. "Sex can wait. Your safety can't."
Tim perks up at that. "But we can move a little faster once we finish with the
security stuff," he says, sounding optimistic for the future.
"Only once it's all done," Jason says with a smile on his face that tells Tim
that the other man might not be very opposed to breaking his own rules once in
a while.
~
Tim's computer is busy beeping away when he and Jason finally make it back down
to the labs after a quick detour back to Tim's suite of rooms in order to get
cleaned up and for Jason to grab some novels to read. Dressed in clothing
slightly more suitable for a day in the labs and far more comfortable than his
business clothes, Tim sits down at his workstation and directs a baleful stare
at the program running searches throughout the network.
At first, Tim doesn't see that the computer isn't stuck. It's a similar enough
sound to the noise that it tends to make when stumped by a problem too large
for its processing capacity and the screen is still trying to go over different
parts of the network, but then he notices what his computer is actually doing -
-
"Tamara," Tim calls out, his eyebrows furrowed. "Can you come here for a
moment?"
When Tamara moves to Tim's side, she brings her own assistant, a dark-eyed
young man who is a recent hire only a few months older than Tim. Her hand rests
on the young man's shoulder, guiding him forward so that he can have a better
view of the workstation and the fussy computer.
"Yes, Tim?" Tamara asks, her voice warm.
Tim eases his computer chair back from the table so that Tamara can press in
front of him and peer at the screen.
"Do you see the results?" Tim asks. "Tell me what you think about these
'echoes'? Do you see what I think I'm seeing in the patterns?"
Tamara leans forward, squinting. Tim can tell the exact moment that she comes
to the same conclusion as he has by the way that her shoulders stiffen. "Bugs?"
Tim nods once, shortly. "Piggybacking off of the network and sending
information ahead."
"What kind of information?" Tamara's assistant asks.
Tim shrugs. "Audio. Video. I don't know," he says. "We can't know until we find
them." They should have something for that – "Tamara, do we still have the
models for that scanner I built for that government contract?"
"Oh, yes. They're in the supply closet," Tamara says. Her eyes widen and she
quickly waves for her assistant to head in the direction of the locked room
where all of Drake Industries' prototypes came from. "Will that really work?"
"It's got a twenty foot range and I've used it to find hidden surveillance from
Elliot House in the past," Tim points out with a faintly cocky smirk on his
face. "Unless they're better than I am -- and I doubt that's possible—the
scanners should work."
There's a reason why Drake House has been able to compete with larger Houses as
a power to be reckoned with in the city. They might not have the manpower or
threatening figures to keep other Houses in line, but they have technology.
Tim's father is a genius. His mother a veritable shark when it comes to
business.
Tim is supposed to be the sum of their good parts and for the most part, he
seems to be. Well, when he isn't proving himself to be his father's son in
almost all things. The scanner will work well, probably too well.
"There should be about three of the models," Tim says, pulling his thoughts
together. "Four if we use the prototype as well. We can split up and send some
of the guards through the main building." With his mind racing, Tim smiles
grimly at the plan that starts to set up in his mind. "We'll start in the labs
first and then move outward to the offices and studies and then the private
rooms."
~
By the time that the different teams finish checking almost the entire House
several hours later, they find over a dozen and a half little devices that ping
to the scanners as both sending and receiving signals and therefore,
information.
Some of the small surveillance devices have miniscule cameras. Others,
microphones. A few, like the one that Tim finds inside the casing of his
desktop, seemed designed to capture information from his hard drive. The only
thing that any of the devices have in common is that some of them have a tiny
red spider printed just inside the button-like casing. It's a maker's mark that
Tim knows for sure.
But who made them?
How much of their lives have gone shooting out into the unknown?
How much of Drake Industries' information and their digital correspondence has
gone to someone out to do their family harm?
Tim shudders as he watches his parents and all of the lab technicians crowding
around the biggest workstation in the laboratory.
"You okay, Tim?"
Of course Jason notices Tim's little flinch.
Of course.
Jason reaches out and curves his fingers over Tim's right shoulder, gripping
him in a viselike grip for a moment before pulling back. It's the sort of touch
that'd make Tim's parents suspicious if they weren't busy trying to find out
who's behind the surveillance devices placed in almost every single part of
their lives. It's a touch that makes Tim wish for – among other things –
privacy. Just so that he can sit down and try to put his thoughts together in
private without needing to stay stoic.
"I'm fine," Tim says, lying through his teeth.
Jason's eyebrows lift in a very telling way. "Really?"
"I'm as fine as I'm going to be," Tim mutters under his breath. "How long do
you think we'll have to stay here?"
Almost all of the excitement over the discovery has long-since faded to be
replaced with a sour sort of dread. All Tim really wants is to go back to his
rooms away from the scrutiny and the theories. He wants a nap if he can get one
and a few moments alone with Jason before he has to turn himself back "on" and
put forward the image of the proper House scion.
Tim very nearly misses the worried look that Jason directs his way.
"If you want to leave –"
Tim shakes his head. "I can't. I mean – My parents –"
"Will understand you taking a break to get some food and some fresh air," Jason
murmurs, daring to lean in close and speak into Tim's ear. "If you don't want
to say anything, I will. And not because I want to get you somewhere private so
that we can both destress."
Tim inhales and exhales slowly, breath pushing out in a sigh as he glances at
his parents.
"No," Tim says after a moment passes. "I'll handle it."
Walking towards his parents, Tim tries not to show any of the worry that he's
feeling on his face.
His mother gives him a tight smile and then turns away, lifting her cell phone
to her ear, undoubtedly preparing to yell at the security consultants that they
pay to take care of things like this. When his dad looks up at him, there's a
faint frown on his face and a faraway look on his face. He's busy, Tim notes,
mind hyper focused on trying to find anything that he can that'll identify the
devices' creator and ultimately the person responsible for the attack on their
House.
"Hey, I'm going to go get some lunch and some rest," Tim says, shoving his
hands in the pockets of his slacks. "If you want, I can have the cooks send up
a light lunch for everyone."
While neither of his parents seem to hear him, he catches Tamara's eye just in
time to see her nod her head and offer him a gracious smile. Tim offers her a
smile of his own and then gestures for Jason to follow him right out of the
laboratory. It takes him effort, so much of it at that, but Tim doesn't look
back.
If he does, Tim thinks that he'll probably wind up spending the rest of his day
in the labs instead of getting something to eat and some time to himself that
doesn't revolve around work or panicking about the issues in his House.
***** Chapter 4 *****
After the near-chaos of the labs and the kitchen right after, the silence of
Tim's rooms is almost deafening. Tim lets Jason cover the coffee table in the
suite's living room with enough food to feed an army as he reaches for the
remote for the television set.
The television flickers on to the news, the only channel that Tim watches. He
looks at the screen without actually seeing any of it, his mind a million miles
away. The reporters onscreen could be announcing the second coming of the Joker
and him being voted in as Gotham City's new mayor and Tim probably wouldn't
have realized it.
That's why, when Jason comes up behind him, Tim actually jumps.
"Jason—" Tim gasps, pressing his hand to his chest as he pants. "What the hell
–"
Jason's breath fans across Tim's cheek as he laughs.
"You were thinking too hard," he says. "Come eat something."
Tim shakes his head. "I’m not hungry," he says. It's a familiar untruth, one
that he tells on a near daily basis and one that comes to his lips despite the
actual pangs of hunger gnawing at his belly. It's just something that Tim does.
He doesn't know why it's so easy for him to put off eating until he's nearly
faint with it, but most of the time, food just isn't appealing to him.
The look that Jason gives Tim in response – one of narrowed eyes and a pinched
frown settling on his mouth – makes Tim shake his head.
"I mean – I am hungry," Tim murmurs without meeting Jason's eyes, "but I'm not
really in the mood to eat right now." It's not a complete lie, but still --
Jason doesn't look as if he believes Tim.
Good.
He probably shouldn't.
"I've been with you all day, Tim," Jason says, his voice low and intense. "The
last time Iate was at breakfast and that was hours ago. I'm starving and you
probably are too." Jason moves to gently grip Tim's wrist and then tugs him
over to the couch in front of the table. "So please, eat something."
Jason starts putting together a plate of food for Tim before Tim even has the
chance to think of a counter to his quiet plea. It's not as much food as Jason
could give Tim and it goes more towards sandwiches and fruit than the heavier
fare of pot roast and scalloped potatoes that Jason then heaps onto his plate.
"What kind of bodyguard would I be if I let you starve to death?" Jason says,
catching the way that Tim is sitting and staring down at his plate as though he
expects the food to leap off of the plate and attack him. "Go on, I won't judge
you for being a picky eater, but you do have to eat."
Tim slides his fingers around the golden rim of the plate in his hands. It's
one of the House's nicer china patterns and he distracts himself in it for a
few moments.
"Tim –"
"I know, Jason," Tim says, sighing the other man's name. Less than a day and
Jason already sees so much of Tim – too much, if he's being honest with
himself. But then, this is what he wanted. Sort of. Tim lifts one of the
sandwiches to his mouth and nibbles at one corner as Jason makes short work of
decimating his own meal.
Tim manages to eat two whole sandwiches and a few apple slices. He stops after
that though and sets his plate down on a clean space on the low table. He
winces at the way that Jason looks at him and then reaches for a small cluster
of grapes.
"Good," Jason says with a satisfied smile on his face.
Tim tries and fails to hide his own smile. "Shut up," he mutters good-
naturedly. "I just wanted some grapes."
Ignoring Jason is harder than it should be. Tim keeps glancing to the side,
watching Jason out of the corner of his eyes and he knows that he's not being
subtle. Subtle tends not to be his thing. Thankfully, beyond a telltale curve
to his wide mouth when he's not chewing his food, Jason doesn't comment.
Eventually, things settle down into a peaceful stillness. The news is still on
but the volume is a little lower, more for background noise than anything else
as Tim sits on the floor with his tablet and Jason stretches out across the
couch and dozes.
Awake, Jason is a force to be reckoned with. He's all muscular limbs and
meaningful smirks.
Asleep –
Asleep, Jason almost looks innocent. He definitely looks young. He's not much
older than Tim is, that Tim knows from his mother's dossier. He'd come into his
position as House Wayne's second scion when he was only twelve and was out of
the House by his fifteenth birthday. That had been a few years ago.
"I can feel you thinking from here," Jason murmurs without opening his eyes. He
rolls over onto his side and then shifts about until he gets comfortable. "You
should turn your brain off for a while, get some rest."
Tim shakes his head. "I can't," he says. "There's just too much going on."
"Hm?" Jason opens his eyes just long enough to look at Tim's face with a
measuring stare. "Like what?"
Tim sighs and then says, "Between my mother's obsession with making me into the
perfect scion, the person trying to tear our House down, and this – this thing
between us, how can I stop thinking for a second?"
"C'mere," Jason murmurs, reaching over in order to grab at Tim's arm.
It's surprisingly easy to get used to the sort of manhandling that Jason seems
to be fond of.
When Jason tugs, Tim rises to his knees in a less than graceful fashion and
allows Jason to move him about on the couch until the two of them can lay
comfortably together. Of course, that means that Tim winds up halfway sprawled
across his guard's bigger body, fingers curling in the worn grey t-shirt that
Jason'd been wearing underneath his jacket.
He's not going to complain.
"Don't think," Jason murmurs. His chest rumbles against the side of Tim's face
as he talks. It feels nice. Comforting.
When he starts to rub Tim's back with broad circles of his callused hands, Tim
melts against him. They've kissed. Jason's had his mouth on Tim's dick. All of
this in the space of a day. Less than a day really.
And yet the touch of Jason's hand, the smooth yet purposeful way that he rubs
at Tim's tense smile, is one of the most intimate things that they could've
done. This isn't even remotely similar to the way that other scions interact
with their bodyguards. This isn't even the sort of thing that Tim has seen his
parents do.
It's so…
Sweet.
Tim yawns. Each pass of Jason's hand over his spine draws him deeper, makes his
head feel even heavier. He strokes Jason's sides because he can and because he
wants to, pressing as close as he can and inhaling a scent that seems
particular to the man underneath him.
Gunpowder. Cigarette smoke. The richly sweet smell of his cologne.
It's quite possible that Tim could lay there for days, just for the chance to
breathe Jason in. He probably shouldn't, but Jason just smells so good –
"You're still thinking," Jason murmurs with an amused-sounding lilt to his
voice.
Tim shakes his head. "Only about good things, I promise."
Jason snorts. "Go to sleep, Tim."
~
Tim wakes up in his own bed.
Alone.
When he glances at the clock by his bedside, he's surprised to see how late it
is. He and Jason had fallen asleep together in the living room while the six
o'clock news played over their heads. The clock on his nightstand says that
it's almost four in the morning.
No wonder Tim is alone in the bed. Jason probably dumped him in bed whenever
he'd woken up and moved to the other bedroom. The thought –
Hurts.
"It's not like I told him to stay with me," Tim mutters to himself. He sits up
in bed, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes until the only thing he can
see is a solid, inky blackness with pinpricks of white stars in their depths.
A soft snore cuts through the silent night, sounding far too close to Tim for
it to be coming from the next room.
When Tim turns, he's more than surprised to see Jason sprawled out in the
oversized armchair that takes up the entirety of the right corner near the back
of his room. It's close enough that he can get to his weapons and protect Tim
in case of a raid, but still far enough that they can pretend that there's
nothing being born between them should anyone barge into Tim's rooms in the
middle of the night.
It's the smart thing to do.
But Tim frowns anyway and slips out of bed.
When he reaches Jason's side, he reaches out and gently shakes Jason's
shoulder.
It doesn't quite go as planned.
Quick as a striking cobra, Jason's hand flies out. His fingers press into Tim's
wrist hard enough to bruise – if not to break – and then he forces Tim down to
the floor. He only opens his eyes when Tim cries out and tries to struggle.
"Shit, Tim –" Jason yanks his hands away from Tim's arm as if burned, staring
at them as if he doesn't even recognize them. "Shit!"
Tim shakes his head, scared halfway out of his mind. Not of Jason, not really,
but of the instincts that allow him to be so casual and so efficient about
hurting other people. His eyes weren't even open.
"What – what –"
"I thought you were an attacker," Jason says, his voice soft and filled with
pain. "But I could have hurt you. I can't do this –" Struggling to his feet,
Jason starts to head to the couch. "I'll sleep on the couch."
Tim calls Jason's name. "Stop, please," he says.
"Why," Jason snaps, "So that I can risk hurting you some more?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Tim says as he gets to his feet. "You didn't do it on
purpose."
"Which doesn't make it better," Jason bites out. "I could have hurt you. I
could have dislocated your shoulder."
Tim's blood seems to ice over in his veins. That… that was something that he
hadn't thought of. But he shakes his head, frowning. "So you have weirdly
violent nightmares, big deal," he says. "Who doesn't? All you have to do is
figure out a way to turn those reactions off when you're with me."
"It's not that simple," Jason says.
"I know," Tim replies, still sitting on the floor and staring up at Jason. "But
I don't want you to leave and I know that you don't want to leave either. So
this is all that we can do." In the weak light shining in from the moon
outside, Tim's wrist looks fine. He's a little sore and will probably have a
pattern of bruises over his skin, but he's fine.
Jason sighs. "In less than twenty four hours I've kissed you, had sex with you,
and then hurt you," he mutters bitterly. "I can't call myself your bodyguard in
good conscience. Do you know how fucked up this is?"
"I'm not going to regret the sex," Tim says in strident tones as Jason attempts
once more to head for the door of his bedroom. "I'm not going to regret kissing
you either. I wanted both of those things and I get that you weren't trying to
hurt me just now. It's not your fault."
The smile on Jason's face is bitter, cruel. "Then whose fault is it?"
Tim holds Jason's gaze. "Whoever hurt you badly enough that you couldn't even
be safe in your sleep, that's who."
Jason's mouth hangs open. "Tim –"
"I'm fine, Jason," Tim insists. "And you'll be too." Tim finally makes to stand
up. His wrist aches something fierce when he goes to brace himself on the chair
that Jason had recently vacated, but it's nothing that a brace and some rest
won't be able to fix. "I'm not going to make you talk about anything that you
don't want to, but…"
At the dark look on Jason's face, Tim trails off.
"Jason?"
Jim shakes his head, silent for so long that Tim suspects that he's going to
walk right out of the room without saying anything else.
Tim is quickly proven wrong.
Very wrong.
"I killed the Joker, you know," Jason says in a casual, almost conversational
tone. "He kidnapped me when I was fifteen, beat the shit out of me and my birth
mother in order to get back at Bruce, and then tried to handcuff me to a bomb."
Tim can't muffle his gasp. "How did you escape?"
When Jason turns to face him, there's a faint smirk on his face. "Please, I'd
been picking locks since I was a kid. It was easy to get out of the cuffs."
"And killing him?"
Jason doesn't answer immediately. He paces around Tim's room like a caged
tiger, gaze on everything except for Tim's face. Eventually though, he comes
closer, dropping down on his knees next to Tim.
"You're only the second person I've ever told about this," Jason says, softly.
He reaches for Tim then, his hands warm and callused. "But the Joker didn't die
in that explosion. I know that's what Wayne House said in the press release,
but that's not what happened. I got loose and killed him with the crowbar that
he'd used on me."
Oh.
No.
Tim's mouth falls open. "Jason –"
"He'd killed my mom and was going to do the same thing to me," Jason spits out
the words like bullets shooting from a gun. "And all to get back at Bruce for
something so fucking stupid that he couldn't even remember what it was when he
was ranting." Jason's lip curls with a sneer. "I could've died –"
"But you didn't," Tim murmurs. "That's what's important."
Jason doesn't seem convinced.
"Tell that to House Wayne," he mutters. "Sometimes, I think Bruce was more
upset that I defended myself than the fact that he almost killed me." Jason
shakes his head again, frowning. "I still have nightmares about what could've
been. What if I hadn't been able to pick the locks? What if he'd killed me with
the crowbar –"
The pain in Jason's voice, on his face, and in the way that he holds himself as
if preparing for rejection –
Tim wants to hold him. Help him. Something.
"I'm so sorry," Tim says. The words feel pointless, so small and useless as
they fall from Tim's mouth.
Tim glances up at Jason, trying to read him. "Is there anything I can do – I
mean, to help?"
One corner of Jason's wide mouth twists with a wry smirk. "Got a time machine?"
"Not yet," Tim says, only half-joking. "We've had one in R&D since I was six
and none of us have figured out how to make it work. We've lost about four
rabbits that way and we don't test it anymore." The "but I would if you asked"
is silent, but very heavily implied, Tim knows.
When Jason barks out a sharp, short bit of laughter, Tim grins.
"You're not kidding are you?" Jason murmurs.
Tim shakes his head, still smiling. "I never kid about science." When he holds
out his hand, Jason yanks him up to his feet until they're pressed close
together. "Now, maybe we should both start getting ready for the day. I don't
think either one of us is in the mood to get more sleep."
***** Chapter 5 *****
Jason only lets Tim out of his eyesight long enough for each of them to shower
(separately).
By the time that Tim gets out of his own shower with his hair damp enough to
curl against the nape of his neck, Jason is already fully dressed in a dark red
shirt and a pair of well fitted blue-jeans. His jacket, when Tim looks for it,
is draped carefully over the foot of Tim's bed.
"That was fast," Tim says, carefully towel drying his hair. He'd foregone using
the dryer in his bathroom for a change, just to use a little less power than
usual and so his hair is still not anywhere near as dry as he'd like it to be.
"Did you find everything okay?"
Jason nods.
"Thanks for showing me how to use the shower," he says, a sheepish sort of
smile settling on his face as he watches Tim dry his hair with a towel and then
toss it aside. "Back in my apartment building, we only have old-fashioned
plumbing in the place."
Blinking, Tim speaks without thinking. "But Selina runs one of the biggest
gangs in Gotham. She should have more modern housing. That's –" Tim pauses,
frowning. "This stuff comes standard in any housing built after a certain
point. Everyone knows that."
"Not if you're living in the Narrows," Jason says. There's censure in his
voice, almost as if he's disappointed in Tim for not knowing. He probably is.
Tim still feels it like a sting. He looks down at his bare feet instead of at
Jason's face and sighs. "I'm sorry," he says, "I should probably think before I
speak, huh?"
"It's fine," Jason says in a way that makes Tim think that it isn't all fine.
"It's not like you'd know what goes down in the rest of the city. Drake House
only owns the complex out here and that tower. The Narrows are where criminals
and Houseless hired muscle tend to live. They're – we're – used to having the
old stuff. It's not that bad." Jason's mouth lifts with a faint smile. "If you
lived in the actual city, you'd see how people lived and you'd be used to it by
now."
There's a sudden, sinking feeling in the pit of Tim's stomach. He doesn't see
very many Houseless. Not really. Drake House hires a few Houseless to work in
Drake Industries, but Tim doesn't actually see any of them. Even when he's in
class and everyone is supposed to be equal regardless of classism, Tim knows
that they really aren't.
Honestly, the only Houseless he sees are the ones who live in New York and on
the west coast where the House System was phased out decades ago for being
horribly inefficient and a waste of space management right before he was born.
And there, they're not really Houseless.
They're just… people.
Tim doesn't know how he could've forgotten that for a second.
Tim shakes his head, frowning. "You're wrong."
"Hm?" Jason doesn't sound angry, only confused. "Wrong about what?"
Tim shrugs as he slides back the folding screen that separates his walk-in
closet from the rest of his bedroom.
"I don't see as much as I should, but I don't think I'd want to get used to
seeing people treated like they're lesser than me just because they had the
'misfortune' to be born to people that didn't bribe and steal their way to
success." His fingers flex around the border of the screen. There's so much
more that he wants to say and none of it – absolutely none of it – can be
uttered out loud in his supposedly private rooms. But outside –
Tim can feel the cogs of his mind working, turning as he starts to see avenues
and ideas come together in his head.
"Actually, can we talk about this some more later?" Tim asks. When Jason nods
at him, Tim gives him a real smile. "Great! Now give me a few minutes to think
and to put on some actual clothes on. We can head downstairs and I'll be
frighteningly early for once."
With that, Tim slips into his closet.
That Tim even has a walk-in closet at all is his mother's fault. When they were
remodeling his rooms back when Tim was twelve, the only thing that he'd asked
for was more storage space. He'd meant for his books and his computers, but his
mother, ever annoyed with his decision to choose computers over clothes, had
gone with the closet instead.
Tim still doesn't have that many clothes in it. Aside from the suits that his
mother buys for him every year on his birthday and a few slightly informal
outfits to wear to the office, Tim's closet is mostly empty. Things like the t-
shirts and shorts that he wears when working on computers in the other spare
room of his suite stay there.
Halfway through dressing, Tim hears the folding frame creak open and when he
turns he catches Jason's eye.
"Yes?" Tim asks, feeling his eyebrows raise. "What's up?"
Jason manages a smile. "Once we get out there, I don't think we'll have any
privacy," he murmurs, eyes falling to Tim's mouth with a lingering and heated
look that makes Tim flush. "I should at least try to be a good bodyguard,
shouldn't I?"
Tim can absolutely get behind that.
"Yes," he says, taking several eager steps towards Jason. Once they're close
enough, he presses against the muscular firmness of Jason's body, sighing at
the way that Jason immediately settles a hand low on the small of his back
underneath his shirt. "We should – mm--we should be more professional. I don't
have class today, but I do have meetings and research to handle. "
Of course, Tim does say that while working a hand between their bodies so that
he can run his fingers over the prominent bulge of Jason's dick where it
strains against the dark denim.
Jason's laughter comes out rough with want.
"Yeah," he murmurs as his fingers dip down towards the waistband of Tim's
boxers. "How professional do we have to be?"
Tim gasps at the feel of Jason's strong hand on the bare skin of his ass. His
hips jerk forward, cock shooting slick in his boxers as he grinds against
Jason's leg. For the space of a few moments, the only thing that Tim can think
about is the way that pleasure seems to shoot up his spine and make his knees
weak.
"N – no blowjobs in public," Tim eventually manage to say as he forces himself
to think about something other than how easy it would be to simply rub himself
off against Jason's thigh. "Or in any secluded rooms we come across."
Jason's fingers spasm against Tim's skin, yanking him even closer.
"Ah, but what about secret passages?" Jason asks as his breath fans out against
Tim's left ear. "How do you feel about blowjobs in those?"
Tim wants to laugh. At the moment though… he thinks that any sound that he
makes will probably come out sounding more like a sob than anything else.
"L-love them," he finally manages to gasp out. "And if you manage to find one
at Hudson while I'm in the library, you have my permission to ravish me in it
later."
"It's a deal," Jason rasps out, practically growling just before he presses his
lips against Tim's. This kiss is hotter, hungrier than the handful of kisses
that they've shared before. Jason gives no quarter, easily backing Tim up
against the nearest flat surface and leaning into him as they rock together.
Tim is starting to wonder if they'll ever get any actual work done. He
registers that thought and then discards it, fingers going down to the fly of
Jason's pants. He fumbles the buttons open and then the zipper, fingers
practically aching for a chance to actually touch Jason.
Of course, that's when Jason decides to change things up a bit. He moves Tim –
and really, that shouldn't be as attractive as it is – down to the carpeted
floor, only pulling away from Tim's parted lips to nuzzle kisses along the
length of his throat. The little kisses are too light to do anything more than
make Tim squirm and sigh as he tries to thrust up against Jason's larger,
harder body.
By the time that Jason finally gets his pants down, Tim thinks that the world
could be ending and all he'd do is beg Jason to keep touching him.
Tim wriggles out of his boxers without Jason having to ask.
Nearly naked except for his unbuttoned button up that covers absolutely nothing
on Tim's body, Tim pauses. He's never been naked in front of anyone before. Not
like this. Not with someone looking at him with hunger on their face and proof
that they're just as invested as he is.
Tim has never had this –
And it's a little scary.
"D – do you want the lights off or not?" Tim manages to ask through the
tightness in his throat. He looks up at Jason with his eyes opened wide, taking
in the way that Jason's muscles flex underneath the body-hugging fabric of his
shirt. There's something both appealing and alarming about the fact that Jason
is still wearing most of his clothes.
Jason licks his lips. "Whatever you want," he murmurs, stroking one hand over
Tim's side with an almost tentative touch. "This is supposed to be good for
both of us, remember?"
"Yeah," Tim murmurs, his voice soft and just a little bit shaky. "I remember."
Bracing himself on one elbow, Tim shifts and then reaches up to curl his
fingers in against the nape of Jason's neck. His hand splays across warm skin,
pulling him in until their mouths meet in another kiss. When Tim tilts his head
back, Jason shifts, panging against Tim's ear.
"So we're good?"
Tim gasps out a laugh. "Yeah, we're good."
~
Tim's mother meets them in the garage next to the idling Bentley.
Fifteen minutes after they were supposed to be downstairs.
"What took you so long?" Janet asks Tim with a suspicious frown on her face.
Without looking at Jason or his mother, Tim manages a shrug. "I needed a new
shirt and then I had to run back upstairs for my tablet." He tries to sound
casual and calm, like someone that hadn't spent the past few hours fooling
around with their bodyguard. Maybe his mother doesn't buy it, maybe she does.
The important thing is that she doesn't say anything.
"Will you be coming right home after your classes?" Janet asks. She gives them
both a look. "Remember, we're leaving for the Dents' party at six. As a
family."
Jason speaks up before Tim can.
"Actually, ma'am, I thought I'd have your driver swing by my place so that I
could get my clothes and set the alarm." He pauses for the space of a moment,
just long enough for Tim's mother to interject if she wanted to, but then
pushes on. "I mean, if you want I can just wear what I have on but I'd stand
out a bit too much for that –"
The look that Janet gives Jason is icy enough that it'd freeze a lesser man to
death. "If you don't have Tim back by five o'clock, you're fired."
It's… not as bad as Tim expects. He's seen his mother fire people for even less
and at least she doesn't raise her voice. If she'd been mad, there would've
been yelling.
"We'll be back in time, mother," Tim says.
Tim dares to give his mother a quick hug that leaves her gawping at him and
then he slips into the back of the Bentley with Jason right on his heels. With
the partition already up between the driver's seat and the back, Tim sighs and
lets his head drop back against the cushioned headrest. He squeezes his eyes
shut a moment later.
"That went well," Jason muses.
Tim slides one eye open, pinning Jason with a mild glare. "That depends on how
you stretch the definition."
Jason's smirk is wicked. "She didn't fire me on the spot or shoot me. I'm
taking that as a win."
~
It's surprisingly easy for Tim to get used to having a human shadow.
For one thing, Jason in "work mode" is far more personable than Azrael in the
same mindset. The few times that Azrael had come with Tim to campus or even to
Metropolis, it'd been like walking around with a menacing robot. Like a
Terminator but without being vaguely amusing.
Jason isn't like that. He'd been great about waiting just outside the door as
Tim met with Dr. Kinsolving, but had otherwise stuck close as Tim met with his
group members and started researching the history of the House System in the
city. Even when Tim'd gone to get an early lunch for them with his student ID
card, Jason had gone with him in the terrifyingly long line.
The difference between Jason and the House guards that Tim has otherwise been
saddled with is good.
It's great, actually, because Tim still doesn't want or need an Azrael of his
own. He's not like his mother who prefers obedience over friendships. Azrael
does everything that she tells him to and maybe, that's not such a good idea.
"Do you have any more meetings today?" Jason asks as he follows Tim out of the
library.
Tim blinks. Aside from hopefully seeing Stephanie at the party and talking to
her about her life spent moving between the Houses and the Houseless, Tim's
schedule is clear. "Um… no?" He pauses. "Oh! Is this about getting your things?
We can leave now if you want. I'm sure Robert won't mind having something to
do."
"Thanks," Jason says in a light tone. He grins at Tim in the next moment. "Hey,
you'll get to see what it's like living without the Houses looming over you."
At the possibly poleaxed look that Tim gives him, Jason's smile widens. "What?
Did you think that I'd really leave you in the car while I got my stuff? I'm
not trying to get you killed, here."
Tim snorts. "And here I thought that you just wanted to use me to bring boxes
out to the car."
He likes the way that Jason looks at him, the way that Jason laughs with him.
It's such an amazing feeling that there's a part of Tim's mind that wishes
desperately that he could do it all the time. When Jason laughs and reaches out
to ruffle his hair with a lingering touch that gives Tim goosebumps, it takes
every ounce of Tim's will not to lean into him.
Two friends playing around on campus?
That's one thing.
The Drake House scion getting a little overly friendly with his new guard?
His mother would find out by the time they got back home.
Tim doesn't want to see his mother angry. Not at him.
So Tim doesn't touch like he wants to. He doesn't linger. He does, however,
give Jason a small smile as they head back to the parking garage.
Later, Tim promises himself. Later after he's finished putting his thoughts
together on Gotham City's adherence to the House system and he's gone through
another party at his parents' wishes, then he'll have all the time in the world
to indulge in the powerful desire to be near Jason and to be with him.
"I never thought my life'd be like this," Tim muses as they hit the parking
garage near the library. His words break the silence that's been sitting like a
spell over them for the past few moments, but there's something that makes him
feel as if there's no better time to utter them.
"Like what?" Jason asks.
"Fun," Tim admits. "And a little scary."
Jason actually stops walking so that he can look at Tim. "The surveillance –"
"No," Tim says. "Well, not just that. I don't know – there's something about
us. How we click. Our chemistry. How I feel as if we can tell each other
anything with no consequences." Tim catches himself laughing, bitterly for a
change. "I didn't expect to have that."
Jason, in a matter of fact tone, says, "But you do."
Somehow, it's just what Tim needs to hear. "Thanks," he says, not bothering to
hide his smile. He dares to lean in close, bumping shoulders with Jason in the
darkened garage. If they were anywhere else, anyone else, Tim would kiss him.
But then, if Tim were anyone else –
He wouldn't be here with Jason.
"Do you think Gotham would be any better if the House System was shut down?"
Tim asks.
"Yes and no," Jason murmurs with the immediacy of a person that's spend time
thinking about the subject. "I think that the House system lets good people
fall between the cracks because they're not part of a powerful family. If we
got rid of it, they'd have more chances to do better, but –"
Tim snorts. "I knew there was one coming.
Jason's smile is soft and indulgent. "But Gotham was created by Houses like
yours. That much history, that much power? If we woke up tomorrow and the House
system was gone in favor of actual class equality? I think they'd still be in
charge."
"So to take down the House system, we'd have to take down the individual
Houses," Tim murmurs without thinking.
"That's what your research was about?" Jason asks, sounding genuinely shocked.
Shrugging, Tim tries to change the subject. "What? No! This is for a project,"
he says.
"Yeah, a project that'll end with everyone in Gotham after you," Jason says,
his tone just a bit heated. "Is this what you’ve been thinking about all day?"
"Well… yeah," he confesses. "Wouldn't you? I can't believe I never thought
about the House system like this before. It's not helping as many people as it
hurts."
Jason frowns. "Tim –" He pauses. "Okay, I don't disagree with you. I lived
outside of a House until I was adopted by Bruce so I know what it's like, but
Tim, if you do anything more than think about changing Gotham, you're going to
need help. And maybe another bodyguard."
The wry smile on Tim's face feels like it belongs there. "I know," Tim says. "I
mean – when California shut down their House system, the Houses clamped down on
resources. But that was a whole state. Gotham is one of the few major cities
that still adhere so strongly to the system. It should be easier to change a
city than a state."
"You'd think that," Jason says, but he's smiling. "Just warn me if you decide
to stage a coup and get Dent kicked out of office or something like that."
"Why?" Tim asks.
"I'll need time to build up an arsenal," Jason replies.
Somehow, Tim thinks that the other man isn't joking.
~
When they get to Jason's apartment, Selina Kyle is sitting on the steps with
her bodyguards at the curb.
Tim doesn't need Jason to point her out. For all that Tim has never met
Gotham's biggest opponent of the House system, he's seen her around. Despite
the fact that she's been working to undermine the system and essentially
redistribute wealth and property since Tim was a kid, Selina still gets invited
to House parties.
In fact, Tim realizes that she'd probably have been invited to the Dents'
party.
Jason gets out of the car first and then turns back to Tim.
"I texted her and told her we were coming," Jason says by way of explanation.
"She probably just wants to make sure that you're nothing like the current
asshole in Elliot House who wanted to hire me for muscle a few months back."
Tim blinks. "Thomas Elliot wanted to hire you?"
Tim's met the scion to Elliot House. It wasn't fun. Thomas Elliot is the same
age as Bruce Wayne and yet he's in the same position as Tim. The fact that his
mother is still clinging to life and holding onto the purse strings seems to
have made the man a little… unhinged. Their one and only meeting had left Tim
frowning at his computer and wondering how anyone could've stomached him enough
to have a daughter with him.
"I don't like him," Tim mutters under his breath.
Jason laughs and squeezes his shoulder. "No one does. I think that's why he
wanted me as his bodyguard."
Selina stands up when they get close. She's taller than Tim is, but then, most
people are. Slender with light brown skin and a sleek black haircut, Selina
Kyle looks half as threatening as Tim's mother does on a regular basis. That
probably means that she's twice as ruthless.
When Tim moves to introduce himself, Selina greets him with a smile and a firm
grip on his right hand.
"You're the scion for Drake House," Selina murmurs, peering at him as if she
can read his mind. "I've been hearing rumors about you and your House. Is it
true that your House had to deal with an intruder?" Selina doesn't wait for Tim
to respond, picking up his flinch easily. "Ah. I knew the rumors had to have
some truth to them. And Jason brought you out anyway?"
Jason scoffs. "He's safer out here than in that House." He glances up at his
apartment and then at Selina's two bodyguards. "Can I borrow one of your
bodyguards, Selina? I came to get some of my stuff and leave the alarm codes
and key with you."
Selina waves and one of her guards starts trudging up the stairs to Jason's
apartment building. "Go on," she says when Jason glances at Tim. "I'll keep an
eye on your boss."
The moment that Jason disappears into the apartment, Selina's smile changes.
There's something enigmatic and searching about the way that she looks at him
and Tim, helplessly following instincts, takes a single step back.
"You're going to be at Harvey's party tonight aren't you?"
It's just about the lastthing that Tim expects to hear from Selina.
"Excuse me?" Tim asks.
Apparently, his question is as close to confirmation for Selina because she
continues.
"Watch your back tonight," Selina says in a solemn tone that is at odds with
the look on her face. "I've heard rumors – nothing that I can send to my
contacts in the police force – that you're being targeted. Something about your
House – information, maybe, or a new form of tech – is making someone powerful
feel very uncomfortable and there are people out there that want to see Drake
House torn down."
Tim frowns. "What – Why are you telling me this? Shouldn't you tell Jason?"
"Jason, for all of his positive attributes, can be a little stifling at times
like this," Selina says. "If I told him about this threat before he'd accepted
the job, he'd go in armed for bear. And that might get you both killed."
Selina reaches into one of the unzipped pockets on her jacket and slides out a
slim slate gray phone that lights up at the touch of her fingers. "My associate
will be at the party in disguise. If I find out anything from him, I'd like to
have your number so that we can get in touch."
"What – Oh, sure."
Absently, Tim rattles off the digits to his phone.
"This 'associate' of yours," Tim says, "Will I be able to recognize him if
things get bad?"
Selina smiles, lips curving up. "Sure. Just look for the man with no face."
~
Later, once they're in the car and back on their way to Drake House, Tim calls
his mother. Her phone rings and rings to the point where Tim's starting to
worry. Just as he gets ready to hang up and try calling the landline in the
office, she answers.
"Yes?" Janet says. "I assume that you're calling me because you're running
late?"
"Actually," Tim says, "We're on our way home. I just wanted to check and see
how things were going with the lab. You know, with the bugs?"
Silence.
Painfully pointed silence.
"Mother?" Tim says hesitantly.
"Your father has it under control," his mother says, her voice sharp. "You need
to let it go."
What –
"Mother –"
"He's doing his best and he doesn't want you involved."
Involved? In what?
Tim barely manages to ask that question before his mother rushes him off of the
phone and then hangs up.
Glancing at Jason, he decides to tell him everything that Selina had said.
"I think there's something going on with my House, Jason," Tim says in a quiet
voice. "Selina said that there was someone looking to shut our House down and
my mom – she's acting so weird. There's something out there and I don't know
what it is, but it's bad."
Jason's eyes narrow. "Did she tell you anything else?"
Tim shrugs. "Only that I should watch my back tonight and that she has someone
that'll be at the party in case we need help."
"That's it?" Jason asks.
Tim shrugs. "I got the feeling that she was being cryptic on purpose."
"Yeah," Jason says with a gusty sigh. "That sounds like Selina all right."
***** Chapter 6 *****
On a good day, Tim hates parties.
Maybe he wouldn't if he'd been a more social child or had more than like three
friends, but he's guessing that he's just too introverted to find fun in
cramming themselves into a ballroom and pretending they don’t dislike the
person they're chatting with. Maybe he'd like them more if he wasn't always the
youngest person in the room after the youngest Fox sisters.
But then, if Tim's being honest with himself, this doesn't even come close to
being a good day.
Even the sight of Jason in a sleek black suit that makes him look coolly
untouchable and dangerous can't distract Tim from his unease. Tim's been on
edge all night and it only gets worse as he hangs out near the back of the
room.
"Relax," Jason murmurs via the comm unit in Tim's ear. He's only a few feet
away, but the distance between them is palpable.
Tim shakes his head, drawing a strange look from the young woman standing close
by on her phone.
"I can't. I mean, I'm trying but it's just too much going on at once." He gives
Jason a tiny smile when the other man looks at him. "Honestly, I'll relax once
I'm home."
He's done his duty for the night after all, walking around and smiling at
people that his mother likes (or hates) and pretending that he's not worried
that one or more of them might be trying to destroy his family. The sad thing
is that Tim's so good at faking his smiles that no one outside of Jason and
maybe Tim's own mother notice that something is off.
For the rest of the night, Tim gets to avoid actual interaction with people. He
stands in a corner by himself, people watching and drinking bottled water in
what's probably the most suspicious way possible. But near the end of the
night, his mother comes up to him with one of Lucius Fox's daughters following
behind her at a fast enough clip that the flared out hem of her pale green
party dress swirls around her calves.
"Mother –" Tim doesn't actually get to finish his sentence, something that he
doesn't think he's ever going to get used to.
"I'm sure you know Tam Fox," Tim's mother says with a smile that is decidedly
smug. "Her father works at the R&D department for Wayne Enterprises and she's
just completed an internship at STAR Labs."
Tim wants to ask his mother why she's coming to him here of all the places, but
then he remembers that he actually likes not being the source of his mother's
annoyance. So he steps forward and gives Tam a handshake and a smile.
If his hands tremble, Tam is kind enough not to point it out.
"It's good to meet you," Tim says.
Between them, his mother beams as if she's just made a perfect match and then
excuses herself with some plainly transparent excuse about needing to check on
her husband. When she leaves, Tim and Tam wind up sharing an amused look.
Tam's nose wrinkles when she smiles. "I'm sorry about that," she says. "I told
my mom that I wasn't following in Dad's footsteps and taking up with Wayne
House a few days ago and she's been trying to introduce me to every single
House that she can." She shrugs. "I keep trying to tell her that I don't care
about the House System or working for one of the Houses, but she's just not
hearing it."
"You – you don't like the House System?" Tim asks, blinking rapidly.
Tam shakes her head. "Hell no. We're one of the newest Houses and one of like
four Houses in the city that aren't headed by one of Gotham's rich, white sons.
Do you know how bad things get for us?"
Silently, Tim shakes his head.
"Last week, Wayne had to have a car bring my dad home because someone went and
slashed all of the tires on his car," Tam says in a furious whisper. "We had to
transfer schools because some jerk's kids got pissed that Bruce Wayne was
fighting for our family to be recognized as a proper House and set fire to my
big sister's locker."
Tim thinks back to what Jason had said about the House System and how dangerous
it is to even thinkabout changing it.
"What if I could give you a way to put your mother off for a little while?" Tim
asks.
The suspicious look that Tam gives him changes her face a little. It's a shrewd
sort of look that reminds him of Selina.
"What would I have to do?"
Tim holds up his hands. "Nothing. Not much, I mean. There's something I've
started looking into about the Houses and I'd like to have help on it," he
says. "You could put in some time in our labs if you wanted or even just hang
out in the greenhouse if you wanted."
If anything, Tam seems to become even more suspicious of Tim.
"Is this about the Houses?"
Tim nods once. "I don't – I can't say anything more. There are too many cameras
and nosy people around for this to be safe, but I'll have a car sent to your
building in a few days. We can say that you're looking into an open position on
my team and talk more then."
"You've thought this through," Tam says, her eyes wide.
"Not enough," Tim admits. "I'm surprised that you can't feel my bodyguard
staring at us right now. I think he's realized that I'm not even close to
following his directions about this whole mess." Tim smiles. "But I think that
we can make a difference here, don't you?"
At first, Tam's mouth purses with a faint frown.
Then she smiles and nods. "Okay, yeah. I'm free on Friday in the afternoon,"
she says. "I'm sure that by now, our mothers have exchanged all of our personal
information so I'm expecting an email from you before then."
"About what?"
Tam shrugs, the gesture charming. "How much you're planning to pay me to work
for you?"
~
After Tam heads back to her family, things change for the worse.
Tim decides that he's had enough of propping up his share of wall space and
heads through the crowd to his own parents with Jason right on his heels. He's
almost there when he feels someone grab for him. With so many people around
him, Tim can't see the culprit. When he tries to jerk free, he feels the sharp
edge of a knife skate over the outside of his left arm.
The pain makes Tim cry out. People turn around in the crowd, but no one
seriously tries to help. No one would in this crowd.
Jason reaches for Tim's attacker, but Tim can see the moment that his fingers
slide right off of the back of a sleek coat. When Jason makes as if to chase
after the assailant, Tim reaches for him with the arm currently not bleeding
all over Mayor Dent's nice floors.
"We need to leave," Tim says. "We need to grab my parents and get out of here
before someone goes after them next." He squeezes Jason's arm. "Jason, please
–"
"Fine," Jason bites out. He taps the comm unit he's wearing and then barks out
a command for the driver to bring the car around for them.
When they reach Tim's parents and Azrael, Janet gasps at the blood dripping
down Tim's arm. She reaches for him and then pauses, frowning.
"Who did this to you?" Janet asks.
Tim shakes his head. "We need to get to the car."
"But, Tim –"
"No, we need to leave now." This has to be related to his House's secrets,
whatever they are. No one aside from Tam and Jason knows about Tim's burgeoning
quest to change the way that Gotham City runs. If they did, Tim would already
be dead. He knows it.
As a group, they leave the party. It doesn't surprise Tim at all that by the
time that they clear the doors and are heading down the stairs, the party is
back in full swing. A House scion get stabbed right in the midst of the party
and it doesn't actually matter.
Gotham City really is a piece of work.
The car is idling out front when they reach it, but the driver isn't someone
that Tim recognizes. Actually, even when Tim squints he can't make out a single
defining feature on the man's face.
"Where's our driver?" Tim's mother asks, one hand falling to her hip and her
holster.
Of course she's armed.
The man takes a step forward. "I found him dead by the garage," he says. "And
there was a nasty little surprise waiting for you all underneath the car."
"A bomb?" Janet says.
Their mysterious rescuer nods. "But don't worry, it's been taken care of," he
says. "And I'm here to make sure that you all actually make it home."
"But – who areyou?"
Tim blinks. "Wait – You're Selina's contact aren't you? You're the man with no
face." He ignores the way that his parents look at him and takes a step
forward. "Did Selina know what was going to happen in there?"
The man in front of him looks at where Tim's arm is still sluggishly oozing
blood and then shakes his head. "No," he says. "She wouldn't have asked me to
check the cars if she did. Are you okay?"
Tim shakes his head. "No, but there's a first aid kit in the car and we can get
a doctor to come to the House once we're there." It feels good to take charge
of a situation. And even though Tim is starting to suspect that it's because
he's a little woozy from blood loss, he moves toward the car. "And who are you
supposed to be again?"
"You can call me Agent 37."
~
"What's going on, Mother?" Tim asks as he watches his parents avoid his gaze.
"You know more than you're telling me and you're going to get me killed. What
are you two doing that has someone ready to kill me for it?"
In the confines of the speeding car, Tim's voice echoes alarmingly. His parents
flinch, but Jason doesn't look away from where he's busy bandaging Tim's arm.
When it looks like neither one of his parents is willing to answer him, Tim
shakes his head. "This isn't the time for secrets," he insists. "I could've
died in there and for what? Something I didn't even know about? You need to
tell me what's going on and how we can fix it."
Janet shakes her head. "Tim, it's not that simple."
Beside Tim, Jason is practically vibrating with tension. He rakes his fingers
through his hair, sending the dark strands standing straight up. "Then make it
simple because you almost lost your son tonight."
The look that Janet gives Jason is chilling.
"You haven't even been working with our family for a week," she bites out. "How
dare you tell me anything about how I run things?"
Tim shakes his head. "You know he's right," he says softly. "Maybe you didn't
know what was going on at first, but you definitely know something now that
you're not sharing. And you need to share it. Whoever it is isn't going after
you, they're going after me."
His mother's mouth twists, but then she sighs.
"One of the spies I had in place in Elliot House found out something about
their scion," she murmurs, reaching for her husband's hand as if she needs that
grounding touch. "Something terrible. I managed to get the transmission and
files saved, but a few days later they found her dead. Then I caught Marcus
sending a transmission through to Elliot House right after that."
Tim blinks rapidly. "What – what did you find?"
"How he plans to make Elliot House as powerful as the Luthors are in
Metropolis," Janet says, her voice barely above a whisper. "He's going to kill
his mother and wife so that he can take over the House and raise his daughter
to be his scion."
"What –"
Janet nods. "He'd frame both deaths as very public accidents and in the wake of
scrambling to set him up as the head of Elliot House, he'd have his people cut
down anyone that'd stand in his way. He's already set aside money that's been
wired to different accounts that definitely aren'this."
"When you say plans, you don't mean that he's actually had someone write down
all of this, do you? That’s –" Tim cuts himself off, frowning. This all seems a
bit too subtle and neat for a man like Thomas Elliot. "Are you sure that he's
the person behind this?"
For the first time, Tim's father joins the conversation.
"Your mother, ah, well she had me look into Marcus' finances yesterday and the
trail leads back to one of Elliot's smaller accounts, not the House one."
"And he knows that you know about his plans?"
Janet nods. "He's been calling the House since yesterday and threatening us if
we planned to release his secrets," she confesses. "I didn't say anything to
you because well – it's Thomas Elliot. For all we knew, Marcus was an easily
bribed fluke. I've known Elliot for over twenty years and I never thought that
he was capable of this kind of power grab."
The partition separating them from Agent 37 and Azrael slides open.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Agent 37 says in a tone that sounds like he's far
from apologetic. "But Thomas Elliot is more than capable of that sort of
treachery. That's why I'm here in Gotham actually, to ferret out all of that
man's nasty little secrets for my superiors."
Tim doesn't bother to crane his neck so that he can glance at the mysterious
man driving them back to the House. He settles for pressing close to Jason and
sighing.
"Did everyone but me know that Elliot was moments away from staging a coup?"
Tim asks, bitterly. He sighs and just barely manages to keep from lifting his
injured arm. "Maybe that's something I should've known?"
"We didn't think that he would go after you,"Janet insists.
"Except for the way that this is the second time he's had someone come after
me," Tim mutters. "Was Marcus the only person on Elliot's payroll?"
The answer that Tim gets from his parents isn't necessarily the one that he
wants.
"We've taken care of it," Janet says, her voice decidedly sharp. "There were a
few… traitors, but you don't need to worry about them anymore." Which of course
means that she's killed them. Or locked them up in one of unused cellars
underneath the kitchen.
Wonderful.
"Well you can't 'take care' of Elliot," Jason points out, practically taking
the words right out of Tim's mouth. "He's a House scion. Someone would miss
him."
Janet scoffs.
"I've been handling House business like this for years before you were born,"
she says. "Besides, he's been trying to kill the scion of our House.
Ruthlessness is required in this situation. If he's working with someone or
trying to turn other Houses against ours, then he needs to be put down."
Jason shifts against Tim's side. "Even if that means turning all of Gotham's
Houses against you?"
"You don't seem to understand how much my family means to me," Janet parries.
"I'd tear the system down if it meant that I would be able to protect them."
She shakes her head. "Look, we're almost at the House. Can we please table this
discussion until I can get Tim's arm looked at properly?"
~
For the first time in what seems like forever, the House is dark.
Empty of seemingly everyone aside from the guards who eye the car and the
faceless man standing beside it with unease and fingers falling to their guns.
Only the imperious-looking wave of his mother's hand keeps things from
escalating.
"Did you call ahead?" Tim asks his mother as he lets Jason hold him upright on
their way through the garage. They're only heading up the one flight of stairs
to the small study on the next floor, but every step jostles his injured arm
and makes him feel like collapsing.
Agent 37 speaks up from behind them, sounding sheepish. "No, ah. I did. Well, I
asked Azrael to do it since I was driving, but the end result is the same.
Drake House is essentially on lockdown for the next twenty-four hours. No one's
getting in or out."
"You put our House under lockdown?"
Tim can't tell whether his mother is mad or begrudgingly impressed at Agent
37's gall.
Honestly, he also doesn't think that he cares. Tim's vision starts to swim
alarmingly and he clutches at Jason as hard as he can, trying to focus past the
pain. Thankfully, there's a soft couch right near the entrance of the study and
when Jason eases him on to it, Tim sits down and immediately winces when he
bangs his arm against the couch.
"This is going to need a little bit more than a bandage," Agent 37 observes.
"And you need something for the pain you're doing a terrible job of hiding."
Tim forces himself to look up at the spiral pattern obscuring the man's face.
The sight of it makes him nauseous, but he keeps at it, making what he hopes is
eye contact. "What – we don't –"
"Don't worry, Tim," Agent 37 says. "Your House has a medical center, doesn't
it? You can have a guard run down to get what I need and I'll fix you up right
here." In fact, before Janet or Tim can say anything Azrael leaves, presumably
in search of medical supplies.
There's something about Agent 37's earnest tone that makes Tim want to trust
him. Something familiar.
"Why are you being so helpful?"
Agent 37 balks.
"What do you mean? Selina –"
"Selina wouldn't have asked you to come here," Jason says, his own voice sharp.
He takes a step forward, hands clenching into fists as his mouth tightens with
anger. "She's not thataltruistic. What's your angle? Who're you really working
for?"
Agent 37 moves away from Tim's side, his hands up in the air. "My employer has
an interest in secrets," he says. "Right now, Elliot House has the most
interesting ones. Drake House only happened to be holding on to them."
Realization slowly dawns for Tim.
"The spider," he breathes.
Agent 37's shoulders slump sheepishly. "Yeah. They're an older model that we
don't use very often, but they were the only ones I could get."
"So you were spying on us?" Tim asks at the same time that his mother does.
Agent 37 doesn't flinch underneath the combined weight of their respective
stares.
"I did what I had to do and I'd do it again," he says. His voice softens for
the rest of it. "But I'm willing to help you out now. I'll make sure that you
get the information about Elliot's plans to someone that can do something about
them – Commissioner Gordon has no loyalty to any of Gotham's Houses and Wayne's
been looking for a reason to knock Thomas Elliot down a few pegs – and have a
little chat with him about leaving your House alone."
"Why – why would you do that?" Tim asks.
There's a flicker in the spiral pattern and Tim, for a moment, thinks that he's
caught a glimpse of Agent 37's smiling face.
"Drake House has secrets of its own," Agent 37 says with a darkly amused note
in his voice. "And I'm interested in seeing how they'll play out. Keeping your
House intact for now will make sure that happens."
Janet takes a step forward, speaking up for the first time in several minutes.
"For now?"
"Who knows," Agent 37 says with a shrug. "The House system could collapse
tomorrow and take your House with it."
Tim can't possibly be imagining the way that Agent 37's gaze seems to linger on
his face.
He can't know about Tim's plans –
Can he?
Just when Tim opens his mouth to ask for – no, demand – answers, Azrael returns
with a kit from the medical facilities. Within minutes, Tim finds himself the
focus of attention as Agent 37 cleans his wound and then sprays a thin layer of
a Drake Industries biomedical innovation over Tim's skin.
Once finished, Agent 37 plucks a package of painkillers out of the depths of
the kit.
"Take two of these with food and get some rest," he says.
Tim frowns down at the pills put grabs them anyway. "And just what will you be
doing?"
Agent 37 rises to his feet and then jerks his right thumb over his shoulder at
Tim's parents. "Strategizing."
~
Tim must have fallen asleep the moment that his head hits the pillow. The last
thing that he remembers is Jason undressing him carefully as not to aggravate
his injured arm and then –
Blissful nothingness thanks to the painkillers.
The next time that Tim opens his eyes, it's late the next morning. The sun
streams in through the window that Tim never remembers to close, flooding the
room with golden light. Tim struggles to sit up, biting back a pained moan when
he puts his weight on his still-injured arm.
His room is empty, but Tim can hear the faint sounds of the television and
Jason's deep voice over that coming from the main part of the suite
The thought makes Tim smile and slip out of bed. His first few steps are
unsteady, but by the time that he clears the doorway, he's mostly fine. Well,
aside from the persistent ache in his arm and the intense dry mouth caused by
the pills, but it's nothing that will kill him. From his vantage point at the
doorway, Tim can see that the coffee table in between the couch and loveseat is
laid out with a breakfast spread and that Jason is taking bites of a bagel in
between talking on his phone.
Surprisingly enough, Tim's stomach gurgles with hunger at the sight.
Of food, not of Jason.
Although he does appreciate the sight of Jason in boxers and a thin grey t-
shirt that hides absolutely none of his impressive musculature.
"You're awake," Jason says, a smile on his face. "That's good. I was just
coming to wake you up for some food." Jason quickly gets rid of the person on
the other end of his phone call and then pats the space of couch next to him.
"Come, sit here. You need to watch the news."
Tim blinks, feeling his nose wrinkle. "The news?"
He trots over to Jason's side, feeling more than a little bit exposed in his
underwear, and then sits down carefully on the couch. When he turns towards the
screen, he recognizes a bird's eye view of the townhouse that Thomas Elliot has
lived in from before Tim was born. Police vans and police officers swarm the
building, some of them leaving with boxes and others leaving with members of
the House's staff.
"Is that --"
"Just watch," Jason murmurs.
Linda Park, a reporter that Tim recognizes as one of Tana's friends, comes on
screen standing in front of the great iron fence that delineates the House's
property.
"We're here at Elliot House's downtown property where the House scion, Thomas
Elliot, has just been arrested on a number of serious charges," she says.
"These charges include conspiracy to commit murder and embezzlement. Most
damning is that Elliot has been connected with an attack on the Drake House
scion that left him injured and one other dead. When asked for a comment,
Commissioner Gordon said that --"
Tim waves one hand and mutes the television screen.
"They arrested him?" Tim asks as if he really can't believe it.
And maybe, honestly, he can't.
Jason nods. "I don't know what that Agent 37 did or what was in the files that
your mom had, but Commissioner Gordon came by personally to thank her after
they served the warrant this morning. They've been at it all day, I think."
"And Agent 37?"
"Gone," Jason mutters as he frowns. "He left a letter for you and his contact
information with your mom." Jason sits back against the couch and combs his
fingers through his hair as he looks at Tim. "I can't put my finger on it, but
there's something about him that's familiar. I feel like I know him, but
without a face to go by, I can't be sure."
Tim actually startles a little bit at that. "You too? I knew he was someone
familiar, but I thought that maybe he used to work for us or something," Tim
says. "Now we just need to narrow it down to people that we both know."
"So basically half of Gotham," Jason teases.
"Shut up," Tim says, finding himself laughing despite himself. He leans back
against the warm weight of Jason's arm, stretching out as much as he dares and
then sighing at the way that his stomach grumbles again.
Jason doesn't miss that sound. In fact, he's already leaning forward with his
eyes on a plate of fruits and cold cuts.
It's a party platter, hors d'oeuvre basically, but Tim takes the entire plate
when Jason presses it upon him. He's truly hungry now. Between barely picking
at anything at last night's party and then waking up so late in the day, he's
not surprised that almost everything looks good.
Selecting a thin slice of prosciutto wrapped around a melon cube, Tim pops it
into his mouth. Salty and sweet, the little piece of food does nothing to whet
Tim's appetite and he makes it through most of the plate before he realizes
that maybe he should offer Jason a piece.
"Try it," Tim says, holding a prosciutto melon cube up to Jason's mouth. "It's
good."
Still smiling, Jason opens his mouth and lets Tim feed him, giving one last
teasing flick of the tongue that would make Tim's knees weak if he wasn't
already sitting down. He chews for a moment and then swallows.
"Not bad," Jason murmurs, "but I can think of something else I'd rather try."
The kiss when it comes is amazing. Light and sweet, it starts out chaste at
first before Tim gasps and it deepens, becoming something more. Tim utters a
quiet, almost whimpering sound into Jason's mouth, reaching for him due to some
mad thread of instinct. Heedless of the fact that his plate is close to
falling, Tim tries to move closer, to climb right into Jason' lap and stay
there for maybe an eternity.
A hand on his hip stills him.
"You're still injured," Jason points out, gently. "Why don't we wait a little
bit longer? You know, just so we're not worried about hurting your arm
anymore."
In that moment, Tim realizes that he can see quite clearly how his mother could
want to "take care" of Thomas Elliot. If not for him, Tim could be curled up in
bed with Jason's arms around him. He could be having sex. He could be --
"You know, you look hot when you're annoyed," Jason murmurs, leaning in so that
he can say the words against Tim's left ear. His breath fans out across Tim's
skin, tickling him and making him wriggle a bit helplessly, and then he presses
a quick kiss to Tim's skin. "But I promised myself that I wouldn't do anything
that could set back your healing."
If Tim could kill with his mind, Thomas Elliot would be but a smoldering
crater.
"I think I'm starting to wish that my mother had killed Elliot," Tim grumbles.
He inches back to his original position on the couch, but allows Jason to
exchange his nearly empty plate for one with a more balanced breakfast of eggs,
toast, and bacon. In between picking at his food, Tim gestures at Jason with a
single crispy piece of bacon. "This isn't fair."
Jason laughs.
At Tim.
But Tim can't even pretend to be mad at him because then Jason leans in and
kisses him again. He pulls away before Tim can really get into it and then
settles back against his corner of the couch, looking smugger than any one
person has any right to be.
"You'll be alright," Jason says, smiling as if he's probably not as frustrated
by the lack of sex as Tim is. Well, maybe he's not. Tim's always had a thing
for going a little overboard when he's found something or someone that he likes
and sex with Jason --hell, even just touching him -- leaves him feeling
deliciously out of control. "It wasn't a very deep cut and the skin sealant
that Agent 37 used will do most of the hard work. You just can't jump me for a
few more hours."
For once, Tim gives into the shockingly childish urge to stick his tongue out
at Jason. "You're an ass."
"Yeah, but I'm your ass."
~
Breakfast turns into lazing about in front of the television as every single
station in Gotham seems focused on documenting Thomas Elliot's many, many
crimes. After a while, Tim doesn't even hunch in on himself at the mention of
the previous night's attack. It's just part of the story.
"What do you think will happen to Elliot's daughter?" Tim asks as he watches
yet another reporter talk about how noble Elliot House is despite its long
history of supporting criminals and criminal elements. "I'm guessing that
she'll become House scion, but then what?"
Jason murmurs something that's frankly hard to decipher.
"Hm?"
"Boarding school," Jason says a little louder. "They'll probably send her off
to boarding school and keep her away from everyone until people forget that her
father tried to kill a bunch of people including her grandmother. And then,
they'll watch her to make sure that she's not following in her father's
footsteps."
He speaks as if he has experience with that and --
Oh.
He probably does.
Tim presses close to Jason and then squeezes his side gently. "I'm sorry."
"Thanks," Jason says, leaning so that he can press a kiss to the top of Tim's
head.
Suddenly, the intercom crackles.
"I hope you two are decent," Janet says across the line. "Because I'm coming
in."
Tim bolts up. "What – No!"
Too late. The door to his suite opens and Janet comes in just in time to catch
Tim's graceless scramble off of Jason's body. There's no way for either of them
to pretend that they hadn't been closer than a bodyguard and his client should
be, but instead of frowning at them or firing Jason on the spot, Tim is
surprised when his mother simply smiles at them.
"Oh, don't hide on my account," She says in a purring tone almost worthy of
Selina. "I figured out that you two were running around from day one. Tim never
looks disheveled unless he can help it and he's been a lot happier lately."
Tim struggles to sit up properly. "So you don't mind?"
Oh, of course I mind," his mother says, somehow still smiling. "But there's not
much that I can do about it, can I? You'll be eighteen before we know it. What
am I going to do: forbid you to see Jason only for you to fall into his arms on
your birthday?"
"Mother –"
"We're hiring another bodyguard for you," his mother says as if Tim hasn't even
tried to speak. "Someone that you won't fall for."
Beside Tim, Jason mutters, "I would hope not."
Both Tim and Janet ignore his comments.
"Is that all?" Tim asks, a little annoyance seeping into his tone.
Janet's smile doesn't waver, but it does soften. Brandishing an envelope in one
hand, she approaches the couch. When Tim makes to take the envelope from her,
she squeezes his hand.
"I'm glad that you're alright," Janet says in a low voice. "I know – I know
that the past few days haven't been easy on you, but believe me: I only wanted
to protect you. I'll do a better job next time." Another squeeze of the hand
later and Janet leaves in a faint cloud of camellia-scented perfume.
"You know," Jason says into the silence left behind in Janet's wake.
"Sometimes, she's not that scary."
Tim pauses in the process of tearing open the envelope. "Okay, you keep saying
that, but you haven't seen her at her worst," he pauses and then smiles. "But I
love her, even when she's terrifying."
Surprisingly, that earns Tim another kiss from Jason and a gentle tug that
pulls him back against Jason's broad chest. Jason peers down at the envelope in
Tim's hand.
"Is that from Agent 37?"
Tim nods as he finishes opening the envelope. He pulls out a piece of paper
covered in a sprawling script and then frowns.
"He wants me to keep doing what I'm doing with my research," Tim says, in a
softly stunned tone. "And to get in touch with him if we need any help in
sharing the secrets we find out about the House System and Gotham's Houses.
He'll be 'around'. "
Jason plucks the sheet of paper out of Tim's hand, quickly skimming it for
himself.
"I'd say that he wants to get you killed, but he could've done that last
night," Jason murmurs. "But maybe he actually thinks that you can do this
without getting us all killed."
He tosses the letter aside carelessly and then strokes one hand over Tim's back
in a gentle caress. "But you can change the world later, when you're healed.
Deal?"
Tim laughs quietly. "Deal."
End Notes
     Ah! This was the last story I wrote in 2015 and the first one that I
     posted in 2016! I'm so proud of it!
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