Chapter Text
The thing about tourniquets is that they’re meant to be temporary. An urgent solution for a dire problem, and one that can cause issues of its own, especially if applied too long.
Sometimes it could be difficult to make that call, to know whether it was still needed or not. To decide when risking potential loss of limb is necessary to prevent loss of life. To see when it’s time to loosen that hold before it does more harm than good.
Anyway. Tim had been thinking about them lately. Tourniquets.
He was in a hurry getting ready for the morning. He was in a hurry in the mornings a lot these days, because he kept sleeping later than he meant to, because he kept getting to bed later than he meant to, which was not because he was incapable of stopping at a responsible time without someone there to remind him, thank you very much. He’d been mostly looking after himself for a good part of his life now and he was perfectly capable of managing.
It was just… he’d maybe stopped being used to things being so quiet. Not that the Manor wasn’t quiet when everyone was asleep. There was just a different feel to a house when there were other people in it. And he hadn’t realized he’d been spending enough time at the Manor to get used to that until after he’d started pulling back a bit.
He’d kind of slid into it without realizing. The bringing homework over to work on at the Manor before patrol. Sometimes hanging out at the kitchen table with Alfred while he cooked. It just made it easier to focus and actually get it done instead of being pulled away by any one of a thousand more interesting things, and Alfred liked the company.
And then there was the hanging around for the occasional movie night, on rare occasions when they called patrol early or too many collective injuries required monitoring. Staying for breakfasts whenever he slept over after patrol, because it’d just be rude to duck out when Alfred made enough for him too. Arriving early for pre-patrol dinners because, well, it was really good food and he’d been repeatedly told there was a standing invitation so it probably wasn’t too much of an imposition and then he could get some extra casework done in the Cave before patrol. Coming to random hangouts when Dick was home for the weekend and they’d decided to swim or have a barbecue or something because… team building was good for morale and helped build better cooperation in the field?
Okay, so maybe that was a bit of a stretch. But still, they’d been inviting him. It wasn’t like he’d just shoved himself into the personal parts of their lives whether they wanted him or not. Robin had been necessary, but that was different.
Then Jason came back. And at first everything was an even bigger mess, so it wasn’t even a question that the whole situation called for all hands on deck. And then… it’d taken a while, there were some major bumps in the road, but now Jason was starting to come back back, for real.
Those couple of months after the—situation with Marino had been an absolute disaster of a setback and Tim had been certain for a while there that Jason really was going to cut ties for good. But now that he and Bruce were actually talking again it wasn’t just a reset to where things had been before. It was better than that. Tim definitely wouldn’t want to go through that miserable stretch all over again, but he wasn’t exactly sorry the whole thing had happened, given the results.
Things were still tentative, still fragile sometimes, but some of Jason’s walls had come down. He didn’t refuse to come to the Cave anymore, when it made sense to use it for some case-related briefing, or when he had an injury that could more easily be treated with assistance, or when he was working on something and wanted to use some of the tools he didn’t have easy access to elsewhere.
And Jason had, more recently, started actually coming to some of the meals he was invited to—and after the first couple stopped looking like he was about to bolt if anyone made any sudden moves. Last week he’d spent a night in one of the guest rooms at the Manor after a post-patrol planning session went long. He wasn’t even badly injured or anything, just tired enough to reluctantly decide he didn’t want to drive back into Gotham. He hadn’t slept long, had been gone before any of the rest of them were awake, but still. He’d done it, and he and Bruce were looking less and less mutually spooked every time they caught sight of each other out of uniform.
Which led to Tim’s current dilemma, trying not to get in the way. If the two of them no longer needed a constant buffer just to be in each other’s presence, then it was probably better if he wasn’t too much of a distraction.
He didn’t want to change anything with patrol, with the casework. That was… only partly selfish. It really was helpful to have more people in the field and he was good at what he was doing. And it wasn’t causing problems with Jason, either. Jason had even offered to train with him, give him some tips sometime when he was at the Cave working on something. No knowing if or when Jason would actually get around to it, but he’d offered. That was cool.
But that didn’t mean Tim had to be hanging around the Manor all the time. He could be a good Robin while mostly sticking to his own house, his own life, like he had at first. Give them some space, at least for now. Not be hovering around third-wheeling it when there were important conversations they no doubt needed to have. That would make sense.
(He still felt a little bad about how much he’d heard, that night Jason and Bruce had both almost gotten themselves blown up. And—he still couldn’t quite stop poking at the memory of hearing Bruce refer to Tim as one of his children. But in the cold light of day, that was… it was metaphorical, obviously. Just, like, talking about the fact that Bruce felt kind of responsible for him, as Robin. The same way some of the Rogues still referred to him as Batman’s kid. Old habit or an easy mistake to make, considering the first two actually had been.)
At any rate, he was mostly sleeping back at his own house again now. It was… an adjustment. And if he hadn’t been in such a hurry getting ready that morning, maybe he would have noticed when he woke up that the house felt different because he wasn’t the only one in it.
As it was, he was startled enough by Jason’s presence in the hallway outside his bedroom door that he could maybe be forgiven for nearly throwing his phone at him reflexively before catching himself and braking to a confused halt, clutching his doorframe.
“What?” Okay, his voice should not still be able to get that high. That was just humiliating, on top of the stress of already running late. Why. He needed coffee. So badly.
Jason was sitting on the floor, back against the wall opposite his bedroom door, one leg tucked up close to him, knee bent, the other stretched across the hallway. He looked up from the book he was reading, one eyebrow raised.
“Morning.”
“Uh, yeah.” Tim tried again. “What are you doing in my house?”
“Waiting for you to get up.”
“Okay. Why?”
“Because I’m gonna teach you to cook a decent breakfast.”
What. Had he forgotten… No, he would definitely have remembered it if they’d discussed something like that.
“I appreciate the thought but I’m already super running late right now so if we could maybe try some other time—”
Jason was eyeing him critically. His eyes skimmed over the school blazer. Backpack hanging off one shoulder. Semi-neatly combed hair.
“You forget it’s a Saturday?”
Tim raised his phone to take a closer look at the screen. Saturday. It was Saturday.
He let his eyes slide closed and thunked his head against the doorjamb. Gently. He could’ve slept in. What a waste of adrenaline. He wanted to go back to bed. But he couldn’t, because Jason was here. Which was very weird. Not bad, exactly, but weird.
He heard a soft rustle of movement. Then, “So, breakfast?”
Tim cracked open his eyes to squint dubiously at Jason, who was now standing. “What's this all about? Is something wrong?”
“I need a reason to hang out now?”
“... no?”
This was starting to feel like one of those hidden minefield conversations and he was not awake enough for it. Jason didn’t just show up randomly to hang out anywhere.
“Good, ‘cause you’re kind of hard to catch around the Manor these days and I was starting to think I’d missed the memo.”
“I’ve just been busy.” Tim gave the best casual shrug he could manage while still leaning against the doorframe.
“Well, you’re not busy now. I’m told your cooking experience is estimated to be somewhere in the range of slim to nil and we’re gonna fix that.”
“Hey.” That got Tim to straighten up a bit from his slump. “I can cook just fine.”
Just because he could didn’t mean he did. But he could figure things out when he needed to. There was always YouTube, right?
“Sure,” Jason said. “So out of curiosity, where do you keep the saucepans in that giant and surprisingly pristine kitchen of yours?”
“In the cabinet with the regular pans?” he bluffed.
And that was definitely a trick question. Jason looked deeply unimpressed.
“There are two of them hanging on the rack over the island in the middle of the kitchen. I can show you when we go down there.”
“So I don’t know the fancy names for stuff,” Tim grumbled, scowling. “Doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself.”
“I know.” Jason’s expression actually softened a bit, which was kind of unnerving, like he was getting something more out of this conversation than Tim was actually saying. “But it’s always useful to expand your skill set. So if you did want to learn how to make something for breakfast, what would it be? Pancakes, french toast, omelets?”
“Um. I’m usually fine with like protein bars or a shake or something. I don’t really have a lot of time in the mornings.”
Jason hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe quiche then. You can make it ahead and it rewarms fine. Plus there’s lots of different stuff you can put in it to mix things up.”
“Quiche?”
“Yeah, you’ve had it, haven’t you? I know Alfred makes them sometimes.”
“I mean, yeah, but isn’t that kind of—” Hard. Complicated. Way more than his brain wanted to contemplate when it hadn’t yet resigned itself to the inevitability of mornings.
Jason must’ve read it in his expression. He grinned. “Nah, it’s easy. I’ll show you how to do one where you don’t even have to roll out the crust or anything.”
“Oh. But I don’t think I have any…” He hesitated, trying to think of what ingredients quiche might require. He’d had it before, yeah, but never really thought about the details of what went into one. “Eggs?”
“I brought some basics with me because I wasn’t sure what fresh stuff you’d have on hand. Didn’t expect the answer to be nothing.”
Tim winced. “I’ve been busy?”
He had been. And if he got a lot of takeout and premade meals when he was home alone, it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it.
“So you said. Why don’t you change into some real people clothes and I’ll figure out where you keep your pie pans.”
“‘Kay. Good luck.”
Jason actually laughed at that.
So that was a weird start to the morning.
He felt significantly less frazzled by the time he’d changed into track pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt. And when he got to the kitchen Jason had already started a pot of coffee and found the pie pan, wherever it had been, so things were looking up considerably on giving the day a second chance.
As he sipped his coffee, Tim surveyed the ingredients Jason had set out on the counter and found himself daunted all over again. Jason’s idea of easy might be just a little off-kilter when it came to cooking. Or, like, in general.
“Are we putting all of that in this thing?”
“Nope, you’ve got options.” Jason stopped chopping the spring onion on the cutting board and held up a bell pepper, eyebrows raised in inquiry.
Tim made a face.
Jason pointed at him with the knife he’d been using to chop. “You need vegetables.”
What even was his life. Red Hood was standing in his kitchen with a knife and this time he was here to bully Tim into eating his vegetables. Was this how Bruce felt when Tim first showed up and started yelling at him to do stuff for his own good? Probably not. But still.
“Is that salad?” Tim asked. “Are we—does that go in quiche?”
“It’s spinach. You cook it first.”
The dumbass was not actually spoken, even if it was implied. That was nice of him. So Tim couldn’t distinguish one kind of leaf from other raw green leafy stuff. Plant identification wasn’t exactly one of his specialties. Especially non-poisonous ones.
“Oh, yeah. Right. Spinach is good. And mushrooms? No bell peppers, though.”
Jason nodded. “Solid choices.”
No critique, even though he must like bell peppers himself since he’d brought them. Wait, should he have just let Jason put the bell peppers in since he was technically kind of a guest? The hosting etiquette of this situation was a bit… unclear.
“So what should I be doing?”
“I’ve got the top oven preheated for it if you want to put the bacon on that sheet pan and get it in while I finish cutting stuff up here. Then you’re gonna make the pie crust while I show you how to sautee this.”
“Cool.” That did not sound like something that should be multitasked, but hey. Trust the process?
Jason was a surprisingly good teacher, though. Patient, if relentless in getting Tim to actually do as many of the steps as possible himself instead of just watching it done. This was the most relaxed Tim had seen him… ever, actually? Even back when he’d been photographing Jason as Robin, when he was having fun on an easy patrol night, there was a different kind of energy to him. Right now, he just seemed confident and laidback about the whole thing in a way that eased Tim’s awkwardness despite himself.
And… Jason never did get around to bringing up an actual reason for being here. Not when they were leaning against the counter waiting for the quiche to bake, eating all the bacon they hadn’t used in it from a shared plate. Not when the quiche came out and they finally sliced into the finished product and he actually looked kind of proud of Tim when it turned out the crust wasn’t soggy or falling apart. Not when they were washing up and putting away ingredients afterward.
He didn’t bring up anything case-related. Didn’t even gripe about anything Bruce had been doing lately that annoyed him. Closest he got to that was telling Tim he wasn’t ready yet for Bruce to know he was working on his GED, and that was only because he’d accidentally mentioned it while making sympathetic noises about Tim’s neverending homework woes.
He’d just… hung out. And talked about random stuff. And taught Tim how to make a quiche, which was actually really good, if he did say so himself.
And then, as he was getting ready to head out the door, Jason had paused and asked, “So, if I come to the Cave a couple hours before patrol tomorrow will you be around to do some training together?”
“Sure. Yeah, I can be.”
“Good. Lemme send you those recipes before I go.”
And a second later Tim’s phone had pinged with what looked to be information copied and pasted from a document Jason had on his phone, rather than just links to cooking websites. Recipes and directions for both the crust and the filling, short and to the point, with a few clarifying comments inserted that sounded very much like Jason’s own additions.
Tim tipped the phone in Jason’s direction, acknowledging that he’d received it. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem. See you tomorrow.”
And he was gone.
Tim didn’t know that he’d actually end up making it again anytime soon. It seemed like a lot of work to cook something like that for just himself. But still, now he could if he wanted to. And it had been fun, doing it with Jason.
He still had no idea what that was all about, though.