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“Oh, I almost forgot,” Dick says, wiping his fingers onto a napkin and twisting himself halfway around to look for something from the pockets of his jacket. Jason only raises his eyebrows, more interested in his food than whatever Dick is doing. He had been prepared to turn down Dick’s brunch invite when he had heard that they were going to some new hipster place that serves embarrassingly named egg dishes, but right now he’s happy that he accepted, not only because Dick is fulfilling his older brother duties by paying, but also because the food happens to be really good. Jason can almost ignore the painfully millennial decor and acoustic pop songs playing in the background just for that.
“Here. I told Alfred I’d give it to you,” Dick says, finally finding what he’s looking for, and hands Jason an envelope over the table. Jason looks at the envelope, then at Dick, and sighs before taking it. He knows what it’s going to be just from the expensive paper and his name written on it in fancy cursive. Still, he tears the envelope open. Sure enough, there’s a gala invite inside. Jason groans.
“It’s supposed to be Tim’s turn,” he says. He had hoped to be “accidentally” out of the country by the time of the next Wayne gala he’d have to attend.
“I know, but he still has a broken leg, and you’re next in line,” Dick says, leaning back on his chair and taking a sip of his coffee with a pleased smile on his face. It’s either because he enjoys seeing Jason in despair or because his turn was last time and so he’s safe until Damian’s turn has passed and the cycle starts again. Jason had thought that assigning turns on who would have to show up to events with Bruce would be convenient since it gave him the time to prepare and to figure a way out of having to go, but since they’re now all breaking their legs for a chance to stay home, they should probably move onto holding some kind of The Hunger Games type of reaping event to decide who has to put on a tux. Just to see the dress code, Jason takes the invite out of the envelope.
“Alfred also said that if you need a new suit or to get an old one fitted, he can get that arranged,” Dick keeps on talking between bites of his stuffed croissant.
“I have a suit,” Jason grumbles, his frown deepening when his eyes land on the names written onto the invite in the same expensive cursive. “Why’s Roy’s name on this, too?”
“Hm?” Dick asks with his cheeks full. “Oh, yeah, I told them to put his name on the same thing, just to save effort.”
“But why?” Jason asks, putting the invite down. “I mean, why’s he invited to a Wayne gala? Is Robin Hood coming, too, or what?”
“Well, I thought you’d want Roy as your plus one,” Dick says, sounding slightly perplexed at Jason’s reaction. And okay, sure, it’s a thoughtful gesture, considering that the galas are such hellish events and Bruce is usually way too busy mingling and flirting and spilling glasses of champagne to help Jason out when the sharks come for him at the dessert table. Having Roy by his side so that they could poke fun at the other guests before leaving quietly to go eat an actual dinner instead of just two million tiny hors d'oeuvres would make the experience a little less dreadful, but Jason hadn’t realized that the thought would cross Dick’s mind. And so he just stares at Dick, who chews and swallows and wipes his mouth before opening it again. “It’s not like it’s supposed to be your debut or anything. It’s like when Tim took Stephanie to the Winter Ball last year.”
“Debut? What the fuck are you–” Jason frowns and shakes his head. “This is not like the thing with Tim and Steph. First of all, they were dating back then.”
“Yeah?” Dick says, eyebrows raised. For a moment they just stare at each other over their half-eaten brunch. Then Dick frowns, too, like he’s come to some kind of confusing realization. “Wait. Are you saying that you and Roy aren’t?”
If Jason had known that saying yes to brunch would lead to this, he would’ve said no, no matter how good the poached eggs are. Right now, though, he can’t say anything. All he can do is stare at Dick with his face as full of shock and confusion as his brother’s. Jesus Christ, this is why he doesn’t do family dinners or lunches or anything. Some kind of bullshit always happens.
Finally, after at least two minutes of silence, Jason regains his ability to speak.
“I’m not dating Roy,” he says as calmly as he can, because they’re in public and because he’s still kind of in shock from finding out that this is something he needs to confirm with his brother. Where the hell is all of this even coming from? Not that he’s ever been close enough with the people who call themselves his family to tell them about his love life, but this is Dick and he knows Roy, whose love life on the other hand has never been a secret to anyone.
“You’re not?” Dick asks as if Jason’s words meant nothing. Jason closes his eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath, and tries to remember the breathing techniques from a YouTube video that Roy showed him once after Jason had had a panic attack.
“No, I’m not,” he says, opening his eyes.
“Oh, okay,” Dick says, still looking lost. “I just thought… You’ve lived together for two years!”
“We work together! It’s convenient,” Jason says, crossing his arms across his chest and shrugging. “No one was accusing you of dating him when you were all living in the Titans Tower together.”
“You have a shared bank account.”
“Yeah, see my previous point.”
“Okay, but you’re always together. Like, when you went to Paris,” Dick says, pointing an almost accusing finger at Jason, who leans back on his chair.
“It was a work trip. We were fighting ninjas for half of it,” Jason bites back, leaving out the part where they were eating dinner at the Eiffel Tower. Or drinking coffee at idyllic cafés. Or walking along the Seine together. Whatever.
“What about the trip to Aspen?” Dick asks with one eyebrow raised, and Jason has to search for defense for a second too long. “Ha!”
“We went snowboarding! You’ve never done anything fun with your friends?” Jason argues a bit too loud, getting a couple of amused looks from the neighboring table. Dick purses his lips together and squints at him, not looking convinced. Jason sighs in defeat and crosses his hands in front of him on the table. “Dick, I have, like, four friends, and Roy is the only human one. Of course I hang out with him the most.”
Now Dick just looks a little pitying, which is somehow even worse than when he thought that Jason was banging one of his childhood friends.
“I get it, okay? I really do,” he says, this time with some empathy, and raises his hands in surrender. “But, Jay, your lock screen background is literally the two of you sleeping in the same bed. You can’t blame me for making some assumptions here.”
Jason’s face goes a little warm, and he automatically glances at his phone, which is lying screen down next to his cup of coffee. Okay, Dick isn’t lying about his lock screen. It really is a selfie that Roy took and in which he’s grinning stupidly in bed, while Jason drools onto a pillow next to him. However, Dick doesn’t know the whole story behind it. First of all, they were in Alaska and staying in a cabin that was cold as hell, so sleeping in the same bed was both for convenience (not having to put the sheets onto the other one) as well as for survival reasons (not freezing to death). Second of all, it had been Roy who had taken the photo and set it as Jason’s wallpaper as a joke. The only reason Jason hasn’t changed it is because… well, he doesn’t have any other good pictures on his phone, except for maybe the one where Roy is eating two chili dogs at the same time, but that would probably raise as many questions as the current one, or the one where Damian is sleeping next to Titus on the manor library floor, but Jason would probably get his phone screen smashed to pieces if he ever showed it to anyone else. So…
“Me and Roy are not dating,” Jason says, hopefully for the last time during this conversation. Or ever, for that matter.
“Fine,” Dick says and goes back to his croissant. Jason, however, can’t go back to his food, still too distraught by the whole thing. If Dick has made this assumption about his and Roy’s relationship, he can’t be the only one, right? He’s probably just the only one brave or stupid enough to bring it up with Jason. Jason stays quiet and lets Dick finish his pastry before opening his mouth again.
“So… Was this like a bet or something? Do you owe Babs twenty because I’m not dating your teammate?” he asks. Honestly, if someone has started this rumor, it’s probably Stephanie, but god knows what the girls talk about in the Clocktower.
“Oh, I wouldn’t treat your love life like a game,” Dick says with an exaggeratedly heartfelt expression on his face and puts his hand over his heart. “But if you’re asking if Babs also thinks that you two are dating, then the answer is yeah. She said she hears all kinds of stuff through the comms.”
“Great,” Jason says and makes a mental note to tell Roy to tone down the play flirting or soon Jason’s entire inner circle is going to think that they’re going to get married or something.
“But now that you said it, do I have your permission to bet on it with her?” Dick asks and points a quick finger at Jason again. “But you can’t tell her!”
“I don’t care what you do, man. Enjoy your twenty dollars, I guess,” Jason says, poking at his now cold eggs. “Who else is in on this?”
“Oh, well, Tim and Steph, I guess. And Cass, since she’s the one who pointed it out first,” Dick says with a shrug. Jason blinks, feeling a little weird knowing that Cass had read something like that from him.
“Right, and it must be true because she said so?” he asks, not looking at Dick. The truth is, that Cass is rarely wrong about things like this.
“Well, she’s good at that stuff,” Dick says a little defensively. Jason only grumbles and picks at his toast for a while, still unable to let this conversation become history, even though it’s probably one of the most embarrassing ones he’s had in a while. Or maybe ever.
“Why were you so… accepting about the, um, possibility?” he asks after a stretch of silence, even though what he really should be doing is just eating his damn eggs and maybe ordering something more since he’s now given Dick a way to trick his ex into giving him money. Dick raises his eyebrows again.
“What? Are you calling me a homophobe?” he asks with a smile of disbelief on his face. “You’re breaking my heart, Jay.”
“No! It’s just that Roy’s your friend and I’m your brother, and I saw the fit you had when you found out about him and Kori, so–” Jason starts, but Dick waves his hand to make him stop talking, visibly not wanting to hear more about any of that.
“Yeah, yeah, I get what you mean,” he says. “And believe me, the only reason I didn’t ask about any of this from Roy was because I didn’t want to hear any details about whatever he’s doing with my little brother –” Now it’s Jason’s turn to gesture him to shut up, but Dick pretends not to notice “– like, wasn’t my ex enough for him? But then I… I saw that you seemed happy together and didn’t want to interfere.”
He ends his speech with a sheepish shrug, while Jason feels his face slowly turning as red as the cherry tomatoes on his plate.
“We’re not–”
“I got that one,” Dick says, popping one of the tomatoes into his mouth with a grin. “Doesn’t change anything about my deductions, though.”
“You didn’t deduct shit,” Jason mutters, unable to look anywhere but into his almost empty coffee mug. “Raised by the world’s greatest detective, my ass.”
Dick only laughs but is also merciful enough to change the topic, and so Roy’s name doesn’t come up once during the rest of the brunch.
*
“Can you believe that shit?” Jason asks later that night when he’s already lying in bed with a book, the gala invite left discarded on the kitchen table. “I’m gonna make Tim wish he’d gone to that damn gala.”
Roy is leaning against the bathroom doorway with a toothbrush in his mouth, listening to Jason’s venting, and makes a sympathetic sound through the toothpaste before turning away to step back into the bathroom. Jason looks at the dimples on his lower back and frowns when he realizes that Roy is wearing his pajama pants again, which wouldn’t be a problem if Jason wasn’t the only one doing the laundry in this household and also if Roy wore underwear, which he apparently isn’t doing right now. Well, whatever. Jason is far past the point of complaining.
“You know we can just bail before anyone starts doing any speeches, right?” Roy says when he emerges from the bathroom after a short moment. Jason watches him search for a shirt from the bedroom floor until he eventually gives up and throws himself onto the bed with Jason, still shirtless. Jason isn’t going to complain about that, either.
“Yeah, but why go at all?” Jason asks and puts the book down on the bedside table because he knows that Roy isn’t going to let him read in peace, anyway. “It’s so much work and for what? So that I can talk to some snooty-ass socialites who still think of me as Bruce Wayne’s charity case? Honestly, I’d rather shoot myself. Or someone else.”
“You just gotta learn to play their game, Jaybird,” Roy says, rolling onto his side and leaning on his elbow. “They ask you why everyone thought you were dead and you ask them why they’re bald and going through their fifth divorce. Boom, no one wants to bother you anymore.”
Jason gives him an unimpressed look and gets a grin in answer. He manages to hold his stare for a moment, but it’s a lost fight.
“Fine,” he groans finally and thumps his head against the headboard. It’s honestly stupid how Roy can make him do things without even really asking him to. “But you’re coming with me and keeping me company instead of flirting with the servers.”
“Hey, that was the old me. I’m an honest man now,” Roy says and lifts the covers so that he can get underneath them with Jason. Oh, yeah, they’re sharing Jason’s bed nowadays, because last month Roy managed to set his own on fire while testing something he called “the flamethrower arrow”. It was a miracle that Roy’s room was the only place that took damage instead of the entire building burning down, and Jason had been reasonably angry afterward, but not angry enough to make Roy sleep on the couch for more than one night after the incident. It’s not like they haven’t shared a bed before, and Jason’s bed is big enough for the two of them, even though he usually wakes up with Roy plastered all over him and drooling onto Jason’s shirt. Besides, Jason has to admit that it’s nice to sleep next to someone for a change. That’s also why he hasn’t told Roy to hurry up with finding himself a new bed.
Right now, Roy shuffles closer to Jason underneath the covers and puts his cold feet against Jason’s leg. Jason kicks him.
“Roy, I swear to god–” This has almost become their nightly routine. Jason really hopes that it doesn’t escalate into wrestling tonight.
“What else did Dickie say?” Roy asks, his head basically resting on the same pillow as Jason’s. He likes to get close. It took some time for Jason to get used to that at the beginning of their partnership, but now he finds it pretty nice and strangely comforting. Not that he would let anyone else do it, but still.
“Well, he asked me if you and I are dating,” Jason snorts. Roy only hums and slots one leg between Jason’s so that they’re entangled.
“I was starting to wonder how long it would take him to figure it out,” he says. Jason can feel his breath against his neck – yet another feeling he’s gotten used to ever since he let Roy take over his bed. It takes a moment for Roy’s words to dawn on him, but when they do, Jason pauses. Wait. He turns his head to the side and looks at Roy, their faces so close that their noses are almost touching.
“What do you mean?” he asks. Roy just stares at him, looking slightly confused.
“What do I mean by what?”
“By us dating,” Jason says, brows furrowed. Roy looks even more confused now, and Jason… Wait. “We’re not… We’re not dating, right?”
He gets his answer when Roy pulls back and sits up with a look somewhere between confusion and hurt on his face.
“Are you joking?” Roy asks, his shoulders and voice tense. Jason can only stare at him, feeling like his world has been tilted to the side a little. When he says nothing, Roy lets out a choked-out laugh that sounds more like a sob.
“Oh, we’re not? Okay. I’d love to hear what you call all this then, Jason,” Roy says, waving his hand around to gesture at the bedroom around them. He looks upset in a way that Jason hasn’t seen before, and Jason is gradually starting to realize how stupid he’s been for the last… Well, for a long time
“I thought… I wasn’t gonna make you sleep on the couch,” he says weakly. Roy only looks at him with his face full of disbelief and blinks.
“I’ve been kissing you goodnight for a month and you thought that it was just me being a good friend?” he asks, sounding like he’s not sure if he should laugh or cry. Now that he’s put it like that, Jason doesn’t really know how to answer. Okay, there are some things that have changed ever since they started sharing the bed, things that could seem pretty intimate to other people, like the sleeping and hugging and kissing part, but Jason had kind of thought that that’s just how Roy is with the people he’s close with, and he had gone along with it because, well, it was nice, even if it didn’t really mean anything serious.
“Did you also think that I gave you that handjob in the shower just to strengthen our friendship or what?” Roy continues. Jason’s face goes warm at the memory. Yeah, that happened, too.
“My arm was broken–” he begins, even though it’s no use. Roy takes a deep breath, but Jason gets to speak first. “Okay, fine, I get it! I’ve been oblivious about this… thing.”
“Oh, you noticed that?” Roy scoffs and runs a frustrated hand through his hair, a blush creeping down his neck and towards his chest. “You know, I would break up with you, but it doesn’t really work that way if one of us didn’t even know that we were dating.”
For a moment neither of them says anything. Fuck his earlier chat with Dick, this is the most embarrassing conversation Jason’s ever had and he can’t really blame anyone but himself.
“Uh, right. I think I’m gonna go and hit my head against the kitchen counter until I pass out and forget about all of this,” Roy says finally, sounding a bit strangled, and moves the covers aside. “Fuck, this is embarrassing. And I thought I fumbled Donna and Kori badly.”
Jason grabs his arm before he gets to get out of the bed. Roy turns to look at him over his shoulder, suddenly looking exhausted.
“Roy…” Jason tries. Roy gives him a wry smile.
“Jay, I’m not blaming you for not dating me, even though this whole thing is kinda ridiculous. I mean, I guess I should’ve caught onto it, too, but I thought that maybe you were going to wait until marriage or something.”
Jason can’t speak or look at him but doesn’t let go of Roy, either. Now that he thinks back on the last month – or honestly, even the time before that – he can see why Roy (and apparently everyone else) would think that they’re dating. Roy is an affectionate guy, sure, but even Jason could point out the difference between how he’s with Jason, compared to the way he’s with other people. Then there’s all the other, smaller stuff. The not-so-quiet domesticity of their shared life, the pet names Roy throws around with complete sincerity, and the content feeling Jason sometimes gets when it’s just the two of them at home (or the safehouse, but it’s been starting to feel a little more like home lately) doing nothing.
And if Jason is completely honest with himself, he can admit that he likes those things. He likes how Roy shows affection straight up, instead of it being like some kind of a test or puzzle that Jason has to solve in order to get even the smallest bit of warmth. He likes sleeping next to Roy, and to be honest, if Roy went and bought himself a new bed now, Jason would probably set it on fire himself. And, yeah, he likes kissing Roy, too. A lot, since he’s being honest now.
They haven’t talked about any of this stuff, obviously, and in hindsight Jason can see that it’s probably been because of his own fear of confrontation. Or maybe the fear of all of it falling apart if he brings it up. As long as neither of them says anything, they can keep doing what they’re doing with no labels or obligations. Not that Jason hasn’t been thinking about the concept of a relationship, about being able to call Roy his, but he has the tendency to ruin everything good in his life, and he’d rather have something instead of having nothing, even if that something doesn’t have a name.
Well, it turns out that he has that something , has been having it for a long time, actually, all the while he’s been completely unaware of it.
“Listen, we don’t need to talk about this right now,” Roy says after what feels like an eternity of silence, softly enough to make Jason feel even more guilty, and tries to push himself up from the bed. Jason pulls him back down, probably leaving a handprint on his forearm with how hard he’s gripping it.
“No, wait. I want to,” he says quickly and finally forces himself to look at Roy. Roy’s shoulders are tense and Jason can see him chewing on the inside of his cheek but other than that he hides his nerves pretty well.
“You wanna talk about it? Okay,” he says and shifts on the bed so that he’s sitting sideways. Jason shakes his head.
“No, I mean… I want to be with you,” he says. God, it feels weird to say it, but at the same time, it’s like a weight has been lifted from over his heart. Roy looks at him with his lips slightly parted and a slightly incredulous look on his face, as if he’s still not sure about what Jason means. Jason can’t help but let out a frustrated huff and close his eyes, feeling like he’s a high schooler again. “I want to date you, okay?”
There’s a moment of silence, during which Jason is too scared to open his eyes. Then, he hears Roy let out a breathless laugh.
“And what do you think I’ve been doing for the last month?”
Jason opens his eyes and meets Roy’s disbelieving smile. Warmth creeps up his neck, and he sinks down onto the bed to hide it.
“I don’t– You never actually said it!” he tries to say, but Roy only laughs and gets his knees onto the bed, crawling closer to Jason until he’s leaning over him, the tips of his long hair tickling Jason’s face.
“Actions speak more than words, Jaybird, and I thought that my mouth was doing plenty of things that didn’t need words to back them up,” he says, his eyes gleaming with amusement and his lips ghosting over Jason’s, almost touching. Almost.
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Jason says, but there’s no bite to his words since he’s more focused on Roy’s lips, which stretch into a wicked grin.
“I thought you wanted to talk,” Roy says
“Yeah, and I changed my mind. Kiss me,” Jason says and gets to catch a glimpse of Roy’s canines before Roy’s lips are on his. It’s a nice kiss, just like all the kisses they’ve shared, but this one feels even better because now Jason knows that it actually means something. Thank god for brunch.
*
Jason: You have a bet going on with Dick, right?
Barbara: I’m not supposed to tell you but yeah I am.
Jason: Double it.
*
The gala is surprisingly fine. Hellish, as always, but not as bad as it could be. Jason’s favorite part of it is pushing Roy against the main balcony railing and kissing him there, public enough for at least someone to see them. Wearing a suit isn’t too bad, either, especially when he doesn’t need to take it off by himself.
When he wakes up underneath Roy’s slightly crushing weight the next morning, his phone is almost bursting with all the messages he’s gotten overnight. The gossip rags always have a field day when one of the Waynes is caught dating, so the response is expected. Bruce has sent him a long and formal paragraph, which Jason ignores, and Steph has sent him multiple, much less formal messages, where she screams something about “always being right”. Dick, on the other hand, seems to have gone through all five stages of grief at 3 am.
jason peter todd you’re a goddamn liar i cant believe this
you lied to my FACE and i had to find out from gotham gazette of all places
i hope you’re real proud of yourself because now i owe babs fifty fucking dollars. thanks a lot
Maybe one day Jason will tell Dick that their conversation at brunch is what led to this and not the other way around, but now he just puts his phone down onto the bedside table and drifts back to sleep underneath Roy’s warm weight.