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The portal to the alternate universe was beautiful – a sudden split in the grimy Gotham alley, looking out to a park at sunset – but Jason was so relieved that he would never have to look at that universe again he could cry. A breeze from a world away blew past him, ruffling Tim’s bangs and the overgrown red and purple flowers – Ivy must be busy in this universe. Other Dick turned, and the setting sun somehow his lime green suit even more eye-wateringly bright. Who knew his universe’s Dick was the stylish one?
“Later, nerds,” Dick said, saluting as he stepped through the portal. It snapped shut as quickly as it had opened and Jason sagged against the wet brick wall in relief.
“That was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said, and Tim snorted. “You don’t get it,” Jason insisted. “Other B tried to talk to me. About feelings. It was terrible.”
“Harrowing,” Tim said, smirking when Jason gave him the finger. “At least you weren’t here for Owlman.”
Jason sputtered, “Owlman???”
Tim stared into the distance, probably imagining a feathery Bruce. At least that was what Jason was imagining. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Was it as bad as meeting Other Robin?” he asked and Tim groaned.
“I can’t believe Other Me is dating him. He must have had a brain transplant….”
“Well, he’s the oldest in his world,” Jason said, the voice of reason. “Other You probably had a crush on him.”
“Gross,” Tim said, deadpan. “But believe it or not, Owlman was actually worse. It was the first multiverse scenario since I became Robin, and Bruce hadn’t set up the passwords yet, so it was a huge mess.”
“Passwords?” Jason asked.
“Yeah, after dealing with his look-alike older brother, B decided maybe we should have passwords so we can avoid a ‘which doppelganger is the real one?’ scenario,” Tim said and Jason blinked at him.
“I’m sorry, did you say B had an older brother?”
“I told you, you don’t wanna know,” Tim said, but he was delusional if he thought Jason wouldn’t hack the files to read about it for himself. Or pay a visit to Babs. It’d been a while since they caught up.
“So, what’s Bruce’s password?” Jason asked. “Probably Vengeance. Or Justice. Am I right?”
Tim gave him an unimpressed look. “If I tell you, that defeats the whole purpose.”
“Boring,” Jason said, smirking to himself when Tim shook his head.
“If everybody has a password, shouldn’t I have one? Just in case an equally hot alternate universe Red Hood shows up.”
Tim raised an eyebrow. “Equally hot?”
“I know, it is unlikely,” Jason said, and Tim huffed out a laugh despite himself.
“I wonder if he’ll be as humble as you,” Tim said, and Jason hummed thoughtfully.
“Doubtful.”
“So what would be your password? To prevent any hotter Red Hoods running amuck.”
“Hmmm,” Jason said. “Pemberley’s too obvious.”
“Obviously,” Tim said, and Jason flicked the side of his head.
“Well what would your password be, Mr. Smart Guy?” Jason asked.
“Easy. Password.”
Jason burst out laughing. “Password? For real?”
“Exactly. Any other Tim would know it’s a terrible password. They’d never consider it.”
“Sure, makes perfect sense,” Jason said. “We should go with that one.”
“Deal,” Tim said. “Glad to be prepared to bump into any hot alternate Red Hoods. They must exist somewhere.”
“Hey!” Jason said, outraged, and Tim laughed and laughed.
🦇
It became a joke after that. If Jason went on a bagel run to fuel a brainstorming session that turned into a hacking session, or Tim randomly showed up at Jason’s window with new intel. Eventually it almost lost its meaning, but it was familiar, endearing – to see Tim ask him the silly question he’d already answered 500 times.
🦇
Jason’s head was ringing as he watched the shape shifter put on his helmet. This is what happened when he let Dick talk him out of putting a bomb in this model. He tugged on the ropes tying him to the chair – he’d be able to untie them if the room would just stop spinning for a second.
The shape shifter walked out, and he was no Clayface, but he nailed Jason’s walk, down to the way he put his weight on his left leg. The fucker had even stolen Jason’s leather jacket. This was… not great. But it was still manageable. Jason could get himself out of these ropes and then work on breaking out.
His eyelids drooped and Jason tugged on the ropes in frustration. Whatever cocktail he’d been dosed with was worse than benedryl. The hit to the head probably didn’t help either, because his brain kept doing hard reboots that didn’t do anything to stop the feeling that Jason’s skull was about to split in half. Things were starting to look a little less manageable.
He drifted for a while – but eventually floated back to consciousness to the sound of footsteps, and a door creaking open. He kept his eyes closed – gotta keep the element of surprise – but then he felt gentle hands touching his face. He blinked a few times – and either Tim had brought his own doppelganger or his concussion was worse than he thought.
“Jay –” Tim whispered, and Jason huffed out a laugh.
“Didn’t ask… for the password…” he mumbled.
Tim laughed, but it sounded wobbly. “What’s the password, Jay?”
“Password,” Jason mumbled. “You’re lucky, what if I was an impostor?”
“You know, it actually came in handy earlier today,” Tim said, stepping behind him to undo the ropes. “Wow, you got about halfway through breaking out yourself. Not bad for someone with blunt force trauma.”
“And some fucked up sedative cocktail,” Jason said, wincing as Tim massaged his arms to get the blood pumping again. “It was nothing. I’m a professional.”
“You’re right,” Tim said – too easily, Jason really must look like shit if Tim was humoring him. “Can you walk or do I need to carry you, Mr. Professional?”
“I can walk,” Jason said, with 85% confidence. If 5’9” Tim had to carry him out of the building he would never hear the end of it. But it turned out that he could manage just fine – as long as Tim had his arm slung around his waist.
“Where we headed, fearless leader?” he asked, and Tim snorted.
“So you definitely have a concussion,” he said. Jason barked out a laugh and Tim’s arm tightened around him, pulling him closer. “There’s a safe house nearby, you can crash and sleep off the sedative cocktail.”
“Aren’t you supposed to not sleep with a concussion?” Jason asked. He was pretty sure he’d heard that somewhere.
“Actually you are, but somebody is supposed to wake you up every now and then and ask you questions to make sure you don’t have a brain bleed,” Tim said. It was only slightly worrying that he could recite concussion protocols from memory. “So don’t be mad when I wake you up and ask you who the president is.”
“As long as you don’t get mad if I snore,” Jason said, and Tim laughed.
“Deal.”
They eventually made it to the safe house, and Tim miraculously managed to get Jason up the stairs without tripping and giving himself another concussion. The safe house was bare bones, but Jason had never been so relieved to see a shitty safe house mattress in his life.
He collapsed on the bed and Tim helped him get his boots off. “I’m gonna miss my jacket,” he mumbled. “And my helmet, I’ll have to make a new one.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Tim said cryptically.
“The new helmet’s totally gonna have a bomb in it so this doesn’t happen again. I don’t care what Dickhead says,” Jason mumbled, and Tim guided him back and oh, this was so much more comfortable than being tied to a chair.
“You’ll have to save that totally normal plan for later, Jay,” Tim said, and Jason laughed.
“It’s weird when you agree with everything,” he said. “Usually you’d tell me not to be a dumbass and get myself blown up.”
Tim stood up, smirking down at him, but it was fond. “Go to sleep, Jay. I’ll check on you in a little bit.”
“Aye aye, Captain!” Jason said, with the world’s worst salute. He was asleep before Tim even left the room.
🦇
Jason slowly came back to consciousness. His headache was better, only a dull throb right behind his eyes. It looked like the sedatives had finally worn off, but the concussion still left him feeling like his head was stuffed with packing peanuts.
The door opened, and Tim walked in. He’d shed most of his uniform, wearing just his undershirt and pants, and his utility belt for some reason. It looked way less stupid than it should have. “Oh, you’re awake,” he said. “How’s the patient?”
Jason gave a thumbs up. “I only see one of you now, so that’s an improvement.”
“Well, that’s something,” Tim said. “Drink this for me?” he said, holding out a bottle of pedialyte. Jason gave him a look and Tim rolled his eyes. “Trust me, it actually has more electrolytes than gatorade. Dick swears it got him through that round of food poisoning from the fried chicken place on Church St.”
“He got food poisoning at Guthrie’s?” Jason asked. “But that place is so good!”
“I know. He got it from the salad, believe it or not.”
“That’s what he gets for trying to be healthy,” Jason said, belatedly cracking open the top of the pedialyte. God, he hadn’t realized how thirsty he was.
“That’s what Steph said,” Tim said. “You hungry?”
“Not for Guthrie’s, apparently,” Jason said.
“I got Thai from that place on Main last night,” Tim said. “I ordered too much, so there’s plenty left.”
“God, you’re the best,” Jason said, and Tim laughed.
“Alright, pad see ew coming right up,” he said, and if Jason didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought Tim’s ears were pink as he ducked out of the room.
He came back with a two bowls piled high with takeout – and Jason’s leather jacket draped over his arm.
“Damn, you found it! How’d you get it?” Jason said, surprised, and Tim handed Jason his bowl and laid the jacket on the bed.
“Figured you didn’t want some shape shifter wearing it when he got picked up by GPD,” he said with a shrug. “Your helmet’s in the other room, but I figured I should leave it alone in case there actually is a bomb in it.”
Jason laughed, and promptly burned the shit out of his mouth with a bite of steaming basil fried rice. Once he managed to swallow without burning his esophagus irreparably, he coughed and said, “Don’t worry, Dickhead yelled at me when I did that last time, so this one is bomb-free.”
“You know you’re making good decisions when Dick is the voice of reason,” Tim said, and Jason rolled his eyes.
“Please, we both know you’ll talk yourself into hacking the Pentagon if you’re left to your own devices too long.”
Tim shrugged, taking a bite of pad see ew. He’d apparently fried all the nerves in his mouth ages ago, because he didn’t even blink. “Well, you know, it’s nice to have hobbies.”
“Uh huh,” Jason said. “You never said how you noticed the shape shifter wasn’t me.” Tim gave him a look and Jason shrugged, stirring his fried rice around. “He had my walk down pretty well. Plus the helmet. He might’ve fooled me.”
“Easy. He didn’t know the password,” Tim said, and Jason looked up at him, startled. “He tried to guess, but it was so bad, it was obvious he wasn’t you.”
“What’d he say?” Jason asked, intrigued despite himself.
Tim bit his lip, clearly trying not to laugh. “He went with vengeance,” he said, and burst out laughing when Jason groaned.
“Oh my god, why? That’s something Bruce would come up with, why’d he have to make me sound so melodramatic?!”
“Well…” Tim said, with a shit eating grin. “You did put a bomb in your old helmet. So. He’s not totally off base.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Jason said, laughing and grabbing a pillow and swatting Tim with it. Tim raised an eyebrow, carefully setting his bowl down, out of harm’s way. Jason put his down in a hurry, and he was just in time because Tim grabbed a pillow and swatted Jason’s shoulder lightly.
“This isn’t a fair fight,” he said, laughing. “I can’t hit you, you have a concussion.”
“Sucks to be you,” Jason said, catching Tim’s wrist on his next swing and flipping him down onto the bed. Tim laughed again, reaching to steal Jason’s pillow, so Jason caught his other wrist without thinking – only to realize that he was pinning Tim to the bed.
They stared at each other for what felt like a year, Jason’s heart hammering in his ears. Then Tim’s eyes landed on Jason’s mouth and lingered.
“Tim –” Jason breathed. “Tim, what’s the password?”
Tim looked Jason in the eye, biting his lower lip. “Password,” he said, and Jason closed the distance, kissing him light as air – and then deeper, hungrier. Tim wrapped his arms around Jason’s neck, pulling him even closer, and Jason kissed him and kissed him, until he forgot how to breathe and the fried rice was stone cold.
Tim eventually put it back in the microwave, and Jason looped his arms around Tim’s waist, nuzzling into Tim’s neck while they watched the bowls spin.