Work Text:
Title: Waynie and the Hood.
Fandom: DCU- Batman.
Rating: PG-13.
Genre: Light humor, crack-ish in parts, romantic in others. Fluff.
Wordcount: 2893.
Characters/Pairings: JayTim.
Warnings: none.
Summary: Maybe it was because he didn’t have time to read the gossip columns; maybe it was because he seriously underestimated the audience’s power to “Ship It”, but Bruce didn’t immediately cotton onto the fact that his scheme made half the country think that his son was in love with, well, his other son.
Tumblr link: http://mgnemesi.tumblr.com/post/143382891178/title-waynie-and-the-hood-fandom-dcu-batman
* * * * *
The first time it happened, it wasn’t planned.
Timothy Wayne was attending a charity event, when a masked man with bombs tied around his waist and chest burst in, screaming threats at the top of his lungs.
It was instant chaos. Panic swept like wildfire through the crowd. People began to run, panicked and directionless, pushing the slower out of their paths and crashing against the locked doors in screaming, begging waves.
Outside, the Police gathered quickly, but unless the madman agreed to talk, there was nothing they could do. Commissioner Gordon was hesitant to move, afraid for the hundred or so people kept hostage. Even Batman did nothing but linger on a rooftop for long minutes, assessing the situation and planning carefully his next move.
And then…
Then the bomber snatched a frightened old lady’s arm and began to shake her hard enough that her teeth rattled. Tim’s brain whited out. He ran to help the woman, but he was Timothy Wayne at the moment, not Red Robin, and he was under the glare of several eyes. He had to restrain his instincts and all his training, and as a result, he ended on his knees in front of the bomber, a purple bruise blossoming on the side of his cheek and blood dripping down his lip.
The bomber was just about to hit Timothy again, when something exploded on the other side of the wide room. The ceiling and walls shook violently. Debris rain down from above, a thick, dark smoke flooded the room. The bomber, distracted, turned his head for a second.
A second only.
Less than heartbeat, less than the blink of an eye.
Then the Red Hood descended like an avenging angel from above, knocked the man on the side of the head, kicked him when he was down for good measure. Timothy wanted to add his own input - tie the perp, help disabling the explosives - but he had to content himself with whispering harsh instructions to Jason, who snapped curt “I know” and “Shut it” and “Not my first bomb, sunshine” back at him.
Once the bomb was defused, Jason, the asshole that he was, made a point to chivalrously help the injured Wayne heir to his feet and out of the room. When they emerged from the smoke, he began to check Tim over with gentle, careful hands, brushing the flat of his broad palms up and down Tim’s arms, his shoulders, his neck, laughing quietly at both the “oohs” and “aahs” coming from the rich Gothamites, and at the whispered threats Timothy made to him through a thin smile.
There was no clear picture of that evening that the media could use, but there were enough tweets about the whole event and cellphone snaps of that thin smile of Tim’s, that #WaynieAndTheHood stayed a trend for a whole week.
* * * *
The second time, it was planned.
Batman needed someone in a position of danger during an operation, Damian graciously volunteered Tim for the task, Dick supported the notion, and Jason was strong-armed into guarding Tim’s back. It had worked fine the first time, why change a winning combination?
The set-up was simple. Timothy Wayne would be present at the Gotham’s Gem and Jewelry Exhibition opening ceremony. He’d have on him the exhibit’s best piece: a polished diamond weighing 200 carats that the police had only recently returned. And he’d give a speech as he helped the Mayor put the diamond back into its theca.
Just as a planned, their suspect crashed the ceremony and tried to make away with the jewel. Just as planned, he tried to escape by using Timothy Wayne as hostage. And just as planned, as soon as Timothy was in danger, the Red Hood swept in, guns blazing.
One moment, the man was holding Timothy at gunpoint. The next, he was down and held at gunpoint himself, bleeding profusely from his nose. Tim had to alert Jason that the man had an armed accomplice in the room, and he made the mistake of doing so by placing a hand on Jason’s forearm, leaning close to the helmet to whisper.
Cameras flashed.
The next morning, the front page of the Gazette was filled with the picture of Timothy Wayne and the Red Hood leaning against one another, Tim’s forehead pressing against the helmet where the Hood’s own forehead ought to be, his eyes closed, hair sweaty and mussed, lips almost brushing their own reflection on the shiny red metal.
They had to reprint the issue due to the high demand.
Several times.
* * * * *
The third, fourth and fifth time it wasn’t just planned, it was all part of a ploy.
“No,” Jason said.
“Absolutely not,” Tim echoed just as strongly.
Bruce narrowed his eyes, warned them that “The plan becomes effective at 7:00,” and left the Cave with a swish of his cape.
The next day, Timothy grudgingly played Damsel in Distress to Jason’s Reformed Knight in a Shining Helmet at another public event, this one involving a concert and a gas leak.
The week after it happened again, this time at Robinson Park and with Ivy as the threat.
Another hostage situation occurred a little over a month after that.
And then Vicky Vale - and Dick had bet good money that Vicky Vale was going to be the one to cement their farce - Vicky Nosey Vale had some sort of epiphany. She went to check the Gazette’s archive, browsed some gossip blogs, googled a few keywords, and somehow uncovered no less than 45 other instances when Red Hood and Timothy Wayne might’ve come into contact.
Within an hour of its publishment, her article was the talk of the city. Everyone and their aunt knew that the masked vigilante had been sighted in Gotham basically every time Timothy Wayne had had to partecipate to a potentially dangerous event, and had left afterwards without causing trouble. More often than not, whenever the Red Hood was sighted in a foreign city, Timothy Wayne happened to be in the same country at the same time. Usually with flimsy excuses such as “absolutely having to participate to that meeting in person” or after dropping his WE project for impromptu vacantions.
By suppertime, Waynie and The Hood
weren’t just a twitter trend.
They were Gotham’s very own
sensation couple.
Gotham’s own Ship.
As he read the Gazette, Tim muttered about how they hadn’t met even half of those times, and how the times they did meet, it was mostly by coincidence.
Jason cussed up a storm for ten minutes (How the hell did that Red-head Ninja-Reporter from Hell manage to find out so much about their family all the time? He owed Dick 50 bucks, now!) laughed for another ten, and then told Tim they were lucky she didn’t have anything on those 15 or so times they did actually meet up to work a case together. Lucky that she had no pictures of them having breakfast at Lex Towers.
Or drinking in that bar in Belize City.
Or in that other bar in Florence.
Or that Club in Star City.
Or that Café in Central.
Or…
...he wisely stopped listing the times he had taken Tim out for drinks when Alfred’s eyes narrowed dangerously at him (Bruce and Dick at started scowling from the very start, but no menace in the Bat Clan is as big as Alfred).
But hey, at least now the Red Hood had a believable background to be hired as part of Batman Inc. - slash - Timothy Drake’s personal bodyguard. And that was the whole point of Bruce’s plan. Wasn’t it?
* * * * *
Maybe it was because he didn’t have time to read the gossip columns; maybe it was because he seriously underestimated the audience’s power to “Ship It”, but Bruce didn’t cotton onto the fact that half the country thought his son was in love will, well, his other son, until the time when an enemy of the Red Hood thought it’d be a good idea to snatch the Hood’s Sweetheart from a WE gala and use him as bait for Jason.
“Sweetheart? He called you the Hood’s Sweetheart? Really?” Dick laughed, even as he handed Tim his jacket back.
Tim’s kidnapper was bound and gagged, clearly not having expected the whole Bat Clan and then some to come after him. Or for Tim to be an expert martial artist. He was hanging from a Gargoyle like some mutant crysalis of rope, and swishing to and fro with the wind. Damian kept poking at him with the handle of his katana. Jason had had to be restrained when he tried to poke the man with his bullets instead, and was still in time-out on the other side of the roof.
Bruce looked like he’d been hit by Harley’s mallet and was trying to hide it. He made a pensive noise in the back of his throat.
“Hood’s Sweetheart. Is that Vale’s new nickname for you?”
“No, she actually refers to us as Wayne Drake & Boytoy.”
“Or as Hood & Eyecandy,” Dick supplied gleefully, leaning in to tousle Tim’s hair. “I bet the sweetheart thing comes from Lois And Clark’s articles.”
“No, they call Tim my Marian,” Jason groused. “Clark especially, keeps talking as if Tim magically turned me from villain to hero with the power of his as--”
“Actually, all credit for that one goes to Tana Moon,” Tim snapped, swatting Dick’s hands away. “She’s been campaigning against her most vicious colleagues on our behalf, actually.”
“I read some of that woman’s articles,” Damian said from his perch, rolling his eyes when every set of eyes swung towards him. “What? Like I would not think to monitor the situation in case it needed to be contained. She does refer to the two idiots as being adorable, and proposed the theory that they might be more vanilla than most her colleagues insinuate, whatever that might mean,” Damian grumbled, which set Nightwing off into a laughing fit.
Jason groaned out loud, and tried not to think that people were speculating about his non-existent sex-escapades with Tim all the way to frickin’ Hawaii.
* * * * *
“Jason?”
“...replacement?
Why are you using this
frequency to contact me?”
“I have three words for you, Jason.
Three. Simple. Words.”
“You’ve already told me more than--”
“Vicky. Vale. Kidnapped.”
“I… can’t hope that’s code for “I kidnapped Vicky Vale”, can I?”
“Jason!”
“It’s not my fault.”
“Jason!!”
“How is that even remotely my
fault! I’m not
even on planet
right
now!”
“Which is exactly why Vicky Vale came to me in the first
place! You haven’t been in town for a while, and she wanted to know
if we were having trouble in Paradise!”
“Tim.”
“She ambushed me at Wayne Tower! She had an entourage, Jason. A whole entourage!”
“An entourage of what?”
“Damned if I know?! She said they’re all journalist trainees, but they might be assassins from the League for all I know! They backed me into a wall and then basically strong armed me into her car!”
“Wait, wait hold on, she actually had you kidnapped?!”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you!”
“Where are you right now?”
“I thought you’d never ask. The men’s restrooms at the Iceberg Lounge.”
“Penguin’s nightclub? Why would she interview anyone there? Is she crazy? Wait, don’t answer that. Hold a second.” There was some rustling, urgent whispers as if Jason was talking with someone. “Okay, Roy says he can teleport us in the alley right behind the Lounge.”
“I love you.”
“...”
“...”
“A-all of you, I mean. Platonically. As in. I’m so grateful. I feel like. I could. Uh. You know. Love you. Platonically. Like. Stated before. Stop me anytime, now. Please. I’m rambling.”
“Yeah. Uhm. Me too. I’m rambling too, I mean. Prone to rambling. I don't mean. The other thing. That. You didn't mean anyway. So. Yeah. Well. Right. Err. Do… do you want the full Outlaws treatment? Doors kicked down, windows crashed, smoke arrows, lotsa lovely fire courtesy of Kor... or you’d rather I just waltz in with my domino on and whisk you away?”
“A combination of both? I mean, I’d appreciate the smooth save, but I think Cobblepot is up to something in the back."
“See you in fifteen.”
“Minutes?!”
“Seconds, you dork. The wonders of alien teleportation technology.”
* * * * *
Naturally, it all came to a head in a manner no one would have expected.
“And if you don’t feel inclined to listen to my proposal, I shall hurt your boyfriend. Really badly.”
Tim blinked like he’d been blinded.
“Is… is he serious?” he asked breathlessly. Jason shrugged, crossing his arms.
“Your rogue Timmy, not mine.”
Tim frowned.
“He’s a competitor, not a Rogue!”
“Armed man, here!” The guy with the Armani suit said, waving around his small Smith & Wesson carry gun. It looked like a toy in his pudgy hands. He waved it around some more, then remembered he was supposed to point it towards the Red Hood and hastily lowered his arm, a manic glint in his eyes. Jason rolled his eyes, and helpfully nudged the small gun away from the helmet and towards his shoulder. “You know, aiming at a less armoured part of me makes for a more proficient threat to the boyfriend there.”
Not that he wasn’t armored all over, mind you.
“Ja--Hood! Stop giving him pointers!”
“What?” Jason shrugged again, watching as his attempted kidnapper fumbled a lace handkerchief out of his front pocket and used it to wipe the sweat streaming down his forehead. “He’s bankrupt and has the tragic backstory to go with it, I think you ought to listen to him.”
“See?!” The businessman squeaked out. “Even he agrees you should give me a million dollar to save my company!”
“Let’s make it two,” Jason stage-whispered. “He loves me enough.”
The businessman nodded like a bobble-head.
“Yes, yes, sure, give me two, no, no, nononono, three millions! Three! Love has no price!”
“Love has no price!” Jason crowed, way too delighted.
The other people attending the Museum’s opening oooh-ed and aaah-ed like it was choreographed. Because of course the Businessman With The Tragic Backstory decided to jump them during a public event.
Tim licked his lips.
For how… trained… protected… self-assured Jason was, the man who held him at gunpoint, inept as he might be, was still a menace. His gun was a small caliber, but his hands shook violently, and no Kevlar suit was completely impenetrable. Tim’s heart seized suddenly. If the gun fired. If the bullet hit that thin sliver of unprotected skin at the base of Jason’s head, where the helmet ended and the collar of the suit didn’t reach. It’d be. It’d be seconds. And then. Then Jason would be--
Tired of being ignored, the Businessman made an irate sound. He raised the gun. High, higher, looking like he wanted to use the butt of it to hit Jason, in the head, but then his hand twisted, shake-shake-shaking, the mouth of the gun briefly touching skin and--
There was a resounding CLANG.
Tim became aware of the fire extinguisher in his hands only after he’d dropped it. Businessman was out cold on the floor and Jason was frozen in place, arms held in a strange position between crossed and reaching out. Underneath the helmet, his mouth was agape. A second. Then he fumbled the helmet off, threw it away and went to Tim amidst a renewed choir of “oooh” and “aaah” from their devoted crowd, because, damn, but was the Hood handsome even with that pesky red domino over his eyes!
“Ti--”
Tim looked up sharply, pointed an accusing finger at him.
“You idiot! What--what were you think--”
“Tim, he grazed you.”
“What are you saying, he did not.”
“What do you mean, he did not, you’re bleeding!”
Tim glanced down at the line of red on his shoulder.
“It’s just a scratch! You are the one who was in danger!”
“I had it under control!”
“He was pointing a gun at you!”
“I’m armoured! You’re not!”
“It was still dangerous!”
“More dangerous to you!”
“Then why didn’t you incapacitate him?!”
“He was a civilian, I didn’t want to hurt him too bad, I was waiting for my chance!”
“You’re an idiot!”
“No, you ‘re the idiot, idiot!”
And then, somehow, Jason’s arm was around Tim’s waist, pulling the smaller man into his chest, and Tim’s arms were around Jason’s neck, and he was standing on tip-toe, pushing against Jason as if he thought he could crawl under his skin if he tried hard enough, kissing him like he wanted to devour him, his heart hammering, blood pulsing in his ears, making him dizzy and happy and scared and strong, and Jason, Jason who was giving back as good as he got, tightening his hold on Tim as though he wanted to press the smaller man inside his own heart, set him there like some jewel stone, and he was so ferocious in his intensity, but so strangely gentle, palms warm and big cradling Tim like something he thought precious, something he lov--
The crowd roared. Hundreds of little pinpricks of light flashed as people snapped picture after picture.
It was Vicky Vale and the Gazette, of course, that captured the best shot.
They made it into a poster and offered it for sale on the newspaper site.
It sold out in three minutes flat.