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alecmagnuslwb · 3 years

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You’ve Changed Man - @doubleredweek Day 4

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Jason doesn’t mind stakeouts generally. He likes the peace and quiet of being alone, of stalking his prey and figuring out their ins and outs so he can take them out. It’s probably a bit of the Selina Kyle training he got in his youth slipping in and he absolutely loves it.

A stakeout with Roy isn’t even too bad, because he loves Roy and even though Roy loves to talk sometimes, he gets the need for quiet when on a stakeout. He understands Jason’s desire for silence, for focus. Plus if things get really boring they can just make out. It’s a win-win situation no matter what really.

Jason however decidedly hates stakeouts with his brothers, except for maybe Duke who at least knows the value of silence even if he thinks quote on quote ‘stakeouts are stupid, that’s what the internet is for’. Damian’s impulse control makes Jason look like a patient saint, Dick treats it like he’s a still a cop and Tim might be worst of all.

Tim Drake is incredibly smart, though Jason doesn’t like to tell him that. He’s hardwired like a better detective than Batman himself, which he also doesn’t like to tell him. He’s focused, determined and sharp as a tack at most times. Except evidently on a stakeout when he’s on his tenth black eye with three extra shots of the night. Jason has no idea when Tim last slept, but he’s starting to feel like it was a worrying amount of time ago.

Tim’s gone from focusing his attention solely on the target across the street to looking in the living rooms of any place he can find and seeing what’s on tv. He’s quoted a range of television shows and movies verbatim and he’s spouted out so many facts about things only barely related to what he’s catching on people’s televisions that Jason can’t keep track.

He’s basically driving Jason insane as he tries to keep his own focus on Sophia Falcone in her luxury penthouse apartment that she’s rumored to have not left in pushing three months now. She’s up to no good, that much they know, just what kind of family business no good they’re not sure. Which is why they’re staked out on a rooftop in 70-degree nighttime heat in form fitting leather. Not to watch people’s tv’s.

Tim’s leg is bouncing up and down the jitters of the coffees keeping him in constant motion. Frankly between the heat, the deeply uneven ratio of coffee to water and the constant movement Jason’s not quite sure how Tim hasn’t passed out from dehydration yet.

Scientists should probably study Tim for inhuman ability related to coffee which is coming from a guy who should probably be studied for the whole coming back from the dead thing.

Tim’s been quite for a while now, finally, but the silence is broken when he starts muttering under his breath. Jason looks over from where Sofia has been barking orders at a maid to see Tim swaying back and forth and gives him a judgmental look.

Soon enough the muttering gets a little louder and Jason can clearly tell he’s singing, poorly so but singing nonetheless.

“And the line where sky beats the sea, it calls me!” he sings a little too loud for their position. Jason smacks him on the shoulder gaining his attention.

“Keep it down,” he says before turning his attention back to Sofia, but he can only see the poor haggard maid now. “Also, that’s not the lyrics.”

Tim doesn’t say a thing which he knows he should be grateful for, but he really needs to know if Tim’s coffee addled brain understands that he has to keep it down so he pulls his focus back to Tim.

He expects him to be once again watching Moana through some poor person’s window, but instead Tim is looking directly at him eyes bright, wide and positively delighted under his domino mask sporting the dorkiest fucking smile Jason has ever seen on a human being.

“What?” he asks confused, feeling like he’s clearly missing something.

“You know the lyrics to Moana,” Tim says with absolute glee.

Jason just shrugs. “So? Lian loves it and Roy does this whole thing where he sings it to her when she’s in the tub. There’s a whole production with plastic boats and a water-logged Barbie involved and everything,” he says trying to play it off as nothing to think about, but knowing he sounds exceedingly fond. It’s one of the cutest things he’s ever seen and Roy’s voice is actually pretty nice, in another life he might have been a low rent rockstar. He has the hair for it.

“You’re so domestic now,” Tim giggles taking another sip of his latest cold brew. Jason thinks Alfred and magic must be involved in how he fit so many into his little cooler. “It’s adorable.”

“I’m not domestic now,” Jason balks at Tim his gut instinct to instantly deny. He’s the Red Hood, the nightmare that criminals tell their lackeys about. He’s a badass raised on the streets who’s spent time in the tutelage of some of the greatest criminal masterminds alive. He can take any gun you sit in front of him apart and put it back together in under fifteen seconds. He was raised on the streets dammit, he’s the broken son of the Bat. He’s not domestic, he’s a badass.

“I’m the fucking Red Hood,” he says instead of all that, it seems like he’d be reaching too far and being a bit too defensive if he went on the rant he just had in his head.

“Yeah you are,” Tim says with that goofy smile just getting goofier. “And the fucking Red Hood is a big ol’ domestic softie now who’s in love,” Tim singsongs the word love. “And makes casseroles and knows all the words to Moana,” he finishes off in explanation with playful poke to Jason’s shoulder

Jason shoves his hand away and bristles at the implication he’s gone soft. So what if he spends more time at home than he ever has before and he puts a little more effort into his cooking now that he’s cooking for three instead of quick meals for one in empty safehouses. So what if he makes his choices based entirely on whether it will cut into his time with Roy and Lian. And yeah, maybe he knows more about Disney animation now than he ever did even when he was a child himself, but he’s a sort of stepfather and sort of husband these days and it all comes with the territory.

It doesn’t mean he can’t still kick ass and demolish the criminal underbelly of Gotham.

“Am not,” he replies like the mature adult he is. “You are.”

Tim just scoffs at him, actually says the word scoff. The coffee has to be making him delusional by now.

“Don’t live in denial brother o’ mine, you’ve changed man,” Tim giggles again swirling his coffee around the ice clinking loudly in the rare quiet of a Gotham city night.

“No I haven’t,” Jason says even though he knows that’s not true. He’s better than he used to be. It’s not a thing to get defensive about, but he feels like his brother’s should still think of him as tough for some reason. His sister never has, so he’s not too worried that Cassandra has definitely caught him making unicorn shaped pancakes in the kitchen one morning and caught him obsessing over rings in a jewelry store window for a reason he hasn’t quite admitted to yet that one time. She’s a great secret keeper too, since Tim definitely would be bringing up those events right now if she had blabbed.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Tim says between big slurps of his coffee. “You’re still the spooky boogeyman that criminals fear, but you’re also the guy whose ringtone is from the Little Mermaid. It’s a cool balance, pretty sure it’s the balance we’re all trying find.”

“Lian changed my ringtone and every time I switch it back she just does it again, so I left it,” Jason says feeling a little less defensive now. Maybe Tim’s right, maybe it’s not necessarily a bad thing. He is the happiest he’s been since he crawled out of his own grave, happier than he was even in those vague rare memories of joy he has from his own childhood.

“Sweet,” Tim says warmly picking his binoculars back up and going back to the house where the movie is playing instead of the criminal kingpin’s daughter. Jason just rolls his eyes focusing his own attention back on the task at hand.

They sit quietly after that Jason watching as Falcone Jr. paces in front of her fireplace clearly agitated about something while Tim quietly enjoys his movie.

“So what are the lyrics?” Tim asks breaking the quiet. It seems he’s run out of coffee now and has resorted to just chewing on the straw.

“It’s where the sky meets the sea not beats,” he emphasizes.

“Cool,” Tim says finally shifting his binoculars back to the same place Jason has been looking for the past four hours. Another few beats of quiet pass and Jason thinks maybe finally they’re back in business, until Tim ruins it.

“Will you sing it for me? You know to make sure I get it right?” he asks and Jason looks over at him his eyes still trained on the penthouse, but with that goofy smile on his lips again.

Why did Bruce have to adopt so many damn kids? Jason could have been an only child, that would have been nice.

Jason squares his shoulders and puts on his best Red Hood voice. “Absolutely fucking not.”

He only sings for Lian dammit.

#my fic #jayroy #jayroyweek2021 #jason todd #roy harper #writersmonth2021

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alecmagnuslwb · 4 years

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Inked

Writer’s Month 2020 Day One

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The door swings open right on cue just like it has at three o’clock on the second Tuesday of every month this year.

Jason looks up from where he’d been sketching at the front desk when the little bell above the door chimes and he hates to admit he freezes for a moment. Roy Harper looks good, really good. He’s cut his hair since the last time he saw him for his monthly tattoo in July and it gives Jason a whole new view to admire.

The shoulder length red tresses are gone his hair now shaved down on the sides and a little longer at the top. Jason likes it, it gives him a view of Roy’s strong neck that had previously been covered. Roy lifts an arm running his hand through the top of his hair as he gives Jason one of those big beaming smiles he always seems to sport. The movement highlights his biceps which are blissfully exposed due to the oppressive August heat of the city.

He slips the beat-up grey trucker hat in his hand on his head backwards once he reaches the desk leaning on it with his strong exposed forearms.

“Hey, ya Jaybird. Ready for me?” he asks that grin still on his lips.

“Always,” Jason says closing up his sketchbook.

Jason moves back a bit so that he and Roy aren’t practically nose to nose. Not that he doesn’t want them to be nose to nose it’s just that they aren’t there yet. They might never be, he’s not really sure what’s going on between them if he’s being honest.

Jason and Roy have technically known each other since they were teens, back when they were Robin and Speedy the children of two of the most known superheroes in the world, but Jason made a choice to hang up the pixie boots before he graduated high school for his own mental and physical health and Roy chose the same after his first round in rehab had nearly killed him.

After that their paths had diverted. Jason had gone to art school and promptly dropped out a year later to pursue art on his own terms. Roy had attempted an engineering degree, but his mind was lightyears ahead of anything any college could teach so he’d flunked out for not doing his assignments properly ever.

Then came a dark year for both of them, a year that no amount of therapy will every completely wash away. Jason had hit rock bottom with is career and his estrangement from Bruce for choosing a world outside of vigilantism came to a violent head while Roy hit his own rock bottom at the end of a needle.

It took years of failed relationships, bad decisions and hard work for them both to pull themselves back up out of it all, only ever really hearing about each other’s struggles through the gossip grapevine that is Dick Grayson.

Eventually Roy made his way back to Star City. Upon finding out he had a daughter he had gotten truly sober and stable for the first time in his life with the support of his dysfunctional super family. He made amends with Oliver, primarily through Dinah’s stubborn insistence they work it out, took to single fatherhood in a way he’d never taken to anything so quickly and got a job at a florist’s shop giving himself a peaceful place to spends his days that allows him to tinker with every new invention he can in his spare time without the stress of making exploding arrows to fight crime at night.

Jason had had a similar path. He and Bruce still rest on shaky ground and he’s fairly certain they always will, but he’s good with his brood of siblings again and putting his art expression into something as permanent as tattoos has been therapeutic.

Moving to Star City for Jason had been a whim. He needed out of Gotham, he’d saved up enough to start his own shop to truly make a name for himself, but he couldn’t do it in a city that was swimming in Bats. Dick had been the one to suggest Star, at the time Jason hadn’t thought anything of it. Had just assumed he was sending him to a town that still had the comfort of rampant vigilantism, but with the advantage of being on the other side of the country from anything with the name Wayne slapped on it.

Ever since Roy came walking into his shop, Bat Tats a name he 100% chose to piss of his adoptive father, eight months ago on Dick’s suggestion Jason thinks maybe his overbearing brother had ulterior motives. That maybe there’s a reason Dick is one of the few people who understands why Jason and Roy have become so close.

So here they are now two former sidekicks with their fair share of daddy issues and trauma doing a little bit better in every aspect of their lives every day and finding a friendship in one another Jason’s come to treasure.

“No Lian today?” Jason asks as Roy moves on autopilot to his usual station to take a seat.

Roy shakes his head taking off his hat and throwing it on the wall ledge behind him.

“I love that little girl more than anything, but keeping her sitting still and entertained for an extended period of time can be a struggle, especially when she knows she could be playing outside,” he says chuckling. Jason smiles remembering some of the previous months when she had tagged along and the way Lian had twirled around on a swivel chair asking Jason a million questions and briefly running into one of the brick walls when she spun a little too hard. “Don’t need her distracting you so much you end up accidentally inking me with something that looks like a dick.”

“Lian is no distraction, trust me, she’s a delight,” Jason responds with a smile as he sets up his station. He means it Lian is a ball of energy with a smile like her father and wit far greater than most adults Jason has met. Roy is far more of a distraction, his tattoo in April which had been on his bare chest had nearly killed Jason. “And if I was going to tattoo a dick on you there would be nothing accidental about it.”

Roy full out belly laughs and Jason loves the sound.

“Speaking of dick’s,” he says as he rolls up his chair to Roy’s side snapping on his gloves. “You sure you don’t want that Nightwing tattoo? It’s a best seller.”

Jason tilts his head up to the wall where proudly, because Dick framed it the ass that he is, is the Nightwing symbol with a gold plate below it reading #1 bestseller. If Jason didn’t like paying his bills he’d probably stop offering it, but the last three months has seen a surge in his popularity since he and Babs essentially stopped an apocalypse on their own and Jason has found himself with at least a dozen requests for the symbol every week.

“Not a chance, I will not take part in fluffing Grayson’s ego, I refuse,” Roy says before gesturing down at his body. “This body is temple now.”

Damn right it is, Jason thinks eyes lingering a little too long at the body in question. Long enough that he’s pretty sure he’s been caught so he clears his throat not meeting Roy’s eye as he loads up the tattoo gun.

He doesn’t see Roy smirk as he stretches out his arm for Jason and he definitely doesn’t notice how Roy watches the white streaks at the front of his hair fall over his eyes intently as he bends his head to get to work.

Today’s tattoo is a simple one. A small date that’s just a few days away to be added onto his ‘Lian forearm’ as they call it, alongside her name, the word for daughter in Navajo and a handful of little drawings Lian herself has proudly designed. The date marks his fifth year of sobriety, the day he decided to be there for his little girl for the rest of his days.

They chat while Jason works, Jason trying to ignore the way Roy’s scars feel warm under his fingers at every pass. Roy gives an update on Lian as back to school nears and Jason updates him on the weirdest tattoo requests he’s had the past few weeks. His personal favorite being the 82-year-old grandma who’d come in requesting a tattoo of a lion’s head that her grandson designed.

Roy chuckles as Jason finishes up getting the materials to wrap up the new ink.

“Well she sounds cool as hell, any chance she’s willing to take on new grandchildren?” he asks.

“I asked, she said she could direct me to some equally as cool friends since she’s already got 13 of her own,” Jason chuckles as he finishes wrapping up. “All done.”

He pulls away with a smile snapping the gloves off and throwing them in a nearby trash can. They walk back up to the front together, Roy paying and tipping him way too much like he always does.

“You’re absolutely worth it,” Roy says when Jason tries to wave off the excessive tip. Jason’s breath catches, the context isn’t remotely what Jason’s dumb gay brain is thinking, but it feels loaded anyways.

Jason brushes it off best he can. “If you say so,” he shrugs.

“I do,” Roy says back instantly not missing a beat. Jason’s about to ask him if his tattoo streak is going to continue next month, but Roy beats him to it.

“I know we usually have a monthly date here and I do plan to keep that up, Lian has a killer new idea with a lizard wearing a top hat,” Roy says a little nervousness in his words. He reaches up adjusting his hat, a nervous tick Jason has picked up on over the months, it’s a little thing most people would overlook, but no matter how much time passes his training from Bruce is always there telling him to watch every little move and tick of every person he encounters. “But I was thinking we could have another date before that, you know not here and not you giving me a tattoo. Maybe over dinner?”

Jason’s eyes drop down to Roy’s at that quickly looking away from where he’d been watching him play with his hat.

Evidently Jason is quiet for far too long because Roy starts to fumble the hat around even more.

“Obviously if I’ve read everything wrong all these months then we can just act like this never happened and call it nothing more than a friend hang,” Roy rambles. “Or you know just let me die of embarrassment for a few more minutes and we’ll only ever see each other inside these four walls.”

“No,” Jason says finally snapping out of his shock that Roy just asked him out. “I mean yes, yes I’d love to go to dinner with you on a date.”

Roy puts his hat back on properly and smiles that big smile of his again.

“Great, how about Friday? Lian’s having a sleepover at Dinah and Ollie’s, so I’d be all yours for the evening,” Roy says, there is a little bit of implication in his words, months of built up charm and light flirting via friendship slipping in.

“Friday works for me,” Jason replies easy with his own smile no doubt as big as Roy’s.

#my fic #writersmonth2020 #jayroy #jason todd #roy harper #fun fact idk if i like writing jayroy but i've commited to three fics for them this month so i'm putting them out there #30 more days to go

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