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Tam betrays him on Friday.
“Leaving?” He repeats. “What do you mean you’re leaving? You can’t leave.”
Tam raises a pitying eyebrow. “I can and I will, Tim. I told you I was leaving last week.”
He does remember that, he thinks, somewhere between coordinating charity efforts, talking with investors overseas about a possible acquisition, and the disaster with Poison Ivy that yanked him out of the office right on the heels of a board meeting. He thinks, if he concentrates really hard, that he can totally remember that— but there was a lot going on last week, a lot that’s spilled over into this week that he needs her for and now she’s leaving him.
“Please don’t leave me,” Tim begs. “What do you want? A raise? A better office? My office? You can have my office, we can switch.”
“Why the hell would I want your— Tim, I’m not going to be gone that long. It’s only two months. You’ll live.”
Tim thinks about everything he knows that Tam has on her plate, and everything he doesn’t know about what’s on her plate, and has to bite down on a whimper.
“Are you sure you can’t miss this wedding?” he asks, knowing it makes him an asshole. “How once-in-a-lifetime can it really be?”
She rolls her eyes at him.
“Don’t be so dramatic. I’ve already found a leave replacement, okay? You’re not completely on your own.”
“You have? Who? When?” Tim demands, already dreading the work and a half it’ll be onboarding a temp and correcting their mistakes.
Why is Tam doing this to him? He thought he’d already paid her back for the whole ‘kidnapped by assassins then faking an engagement’ thing ages ago. He thought that was water (and some excellent wine, a fantastic spa day, and an unforgettable sorry-you’re-involved-with-vigilante-bullshit birthday bash) under the bridge.
“I have, don’t worry about it, and last week,” Tam sighs, putting a hand on Tim’s desk. He looks at her miserably, but her soft smile conceals a heart of stone. “He’s a fast learner,” she reassures him. “Quick to roll with the punches, and tough enough to handle even you at your worst, too, so don’t even think about firing him. I know you’d do it out of spite.”
“I wouldn’t fire someone out of spite,” he lies. “Only if they are clearly unfit for the position.”
“Tim.”
“Tam.”
They glare at each other, but Tim caves first. He sighs.
“Have fun on your crazy destination-wedding-slash-vacation-of-your-dreams. Without me. ”
Tam just laughs at him as she starts for the door.
“Try to get some sleep this weekend. I’ll be back before you know it. Who knows, you might even like him more than me.”
“Oh, I highly doubt that,” Tim snorts.
When Tim gets back in the office on Monday, he almost doesn’t recognize him.
In fact, by the time he’s back in the office, Tim had forgotten he would be replacing Tam at all.
“Tam, please tell me you were able to get on the phone with the Mumbai office, they still haven’t— oh!”
He nearly drops his thermos when he sees the much larger, much more masculine person sitting at Tam’s desk outside his office door, wearing a clean white button up, a red silk tie (!), and a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose (!!). He almost doesn’t recognize him with the white dyed out of his hair, with his scars covered up.
But he does. He’d recognize Jason Todd anywhere.
Tim doesn’t get any time to stare, or to ponder when he’s going to wake up from this deeply concerning dream he’s having (he knows he’s pathetic, but come on), because, apparently, Jason doesn’t have the patience. He’s already standing up and snatching things out of the piles of mysteriously organized papers and folders on Tam’s desk.
“Nice of you to finally show up to the office, Mr. Drake,” Tim’s fever dream is saying pointedly, because it’s three past ten and Tim was supposed to be here an hour ago. “Now turn your ass around and get to Conference Room 7 because those fuckfaces in Mumbai are calling in ten and wouldn’t fucking reschedule—”
Tim can only stare, even as Jason rounds the desk (he’s wearing slacks? And dress shoes?) to shove a binder into Tim’s satchel and a lunch bag into his open hand.
“I— you— excuse me, ten—?”
“You’re excused. Here’s the notes, here’s a sandwich, now fuck off,” Jason says flatly.
Tim feels faint.
“What are you doing here, J—?”
“Peter Bennett.” Jason interrupts, impatient and utterly nonsensical. He steps behind Tim and physically turns him around, steering him back to the elevator. His sleeves are cuffed at the elbow, and his hands cover Tim’s shoulders easily. He’s wearing a watch. “I’m your new secretary. Ms. Fox said you would be a handful, but Jesus Christ. I thought she meant you were precocious, not a moron.”
Tim prickles. “Hey. You don’t get to just show up here out of nowhere acting like this is normal, Ja—”
Jason leans in over Tim’s shoulder to call the elevator, squeezing his arm tight enough to bruise. Tim clenches his jaw, strangling a sound he’ll only regret, dream or no. And he’s starting to think no.
“Peter,” he smiles through clenched teeth. “And you can convince me you’re worth my time after your meeting, Mr. Drake.”
And then he shoves Tim into the elevator, smacks the button for his floor, and twiddles his fingers in a condescending goodbye as the doors slide closed.
Staring at his silvered, flabbergasted reflection, Tim has no idea what the fuck is going on.
Jason Todd is in his office.
Jason Todd is not supposed to be in his office, Jason Todd hates this office, why would he be anywhere near Tim’s office? What could Jason possibly stand to gain by inserting himself into the office of Wayne Enterprise’s CEO that he couldn’t get by just— just fucking texting him for christ’s sake? It makes no fucking sense. Does not compute.
Tim leaves the meeting with Mumbai ready to get to the bottom of this. He will not be intimidated by Jason Todd, because Jason Todd isn’t scary. He’s not.
Honestly this whole thing just makes him suspicious. He can only assume it has to do with a case, or a villainous plot Tim doesn’t or isn’t supposed to know about (for his own safety, naturally).
That, or Jason is just fucking with him. Jason could be fucking with him. It’s an extremely elaborate and resource-intensive way to fuck with him, and it would mean either involving Tam somehow or tricking her, but Tim wouldn’t put it past him. Jason is at his most elaborate when he’s fucking with someone.
Tim is two seconds away from sending the text he’s drafted to Tam asking her very calmly and sanely if she is 100% positive that her friend getting married in Belize is a real person and not just a very convincing psy-op— when the elevator dings, and Tim is forced to put his phone away and confront the actual source of his problems.
He steps out of the elevator and marches up to Tam’s desk.
“Okay, meeting is over, legal is drafting docs, now you’re going to tell my why the fu—”
Jason holds a finger up in his face, cutting Tim short. He swivels in his chair, turning so that Tim can see that he’s on the phone with a warning look that has Tim’s cheeks heating up.
“Yes. Yes. I understand, but—” Jason is saying, sounding like a bizarre barbie-doll version of himself that Tim has never heard before. It’s honestly creepy.
“Once again, Mr. Drake is an incredibly busy man. I’m afraid he won’t have time today to return your call. No. No. I know, that’s why it’s labeled ‘meeting’ in his schedule,” Jason drawls, suddenly dry as patience leaves him. “Now, if you’d like to bring this vital matter to Mr. Drake’s attention directly, I can—”
Tim stares as Jason leans back in the chair, somehow making the act of scheduling an appointment sound threatening. Jason’s tall, and broad (did he get that shirt tailored); he fills the whole seat, and his legs are spread wide under the desk. Tim’s eyes catch on the silver glint of his belt buckle as he listens to Jason politely eviscerate whoever made the mistake of calling.
The rattle of the receiver startles Tim into tearing his gaze back up to Jason’s face, making abrupt eye contact, and he realizes that Jason had been looking at him. That he’d seen Tim looking. Neither of them move for a suffocating beat.
Tim feels caught. Trapped. He clears his throat, trying to move on, opening his mouth to ask Jason what the fuck he thinks he’s doing here and what exactly his game is.
“Who was that?” he stupidly asks instead.
Jason says, “No one worth your time.”
Tim swallows.
“Right.” He swallows again. “Right, so—”
“Mr. Drake, I assume you’ve looked at your schedule today,” Jason interrupts. “So you know that you’re taking a call in your office in five minutes, and that you don’t have any time to be wasting on me. Right?”
“I—” Tim tries, but his throat’s gone dry.
Jason just waits. He looks at Tim expectantly, eyes sharp, eyebrows raised; under that calm stare, Tim wilts. Every scrap of determination flees him.
“Right,” he says weakly. “Well. I’ll just—”
Tim does not flee into his office.
He walks briskly, and with purpose, and only trips once. Jason doesn’t even laugh at him; he’s already turned back to his monitor, the very picture of a professional administrative assistant who doesn’t get in shoot-outs with criminals and take down drug rings in his spare time. Like he’s never grinned at Tim with bloody teeth and told him to try harder. Tim throws himself into his desk chair and sulks.
This is a disaster. Tim is a disaster.
The last time Tim saw Jason Todd, he had been upright and falling asleep, sitting on a safe room couch with his boots kicked up and a companionable arm draped over Tim’s shoulders.
Clean bandages, dirty face; they’d both had a long night. Contemplating Jason’s lax profile— the break in his nose that never healed right, the shadow of stubble growing in fine— Tim had pieced some key things together while Jason nodded off. Some totally fine and chill and not at all scary things.
After carefully cleaning up the first aid kit, Tim quietly saw himself out.
He had not run away.
He was not scared because there was nothing to be scared of, because catching feelings for Jason Todd isn’t scary if Jason never finds out about them. So there.
Still, Tim is a strategist. He knows that even the most carefully laid plans never survive contact with the enemy. Which is why he was supposed to be avoiding all contact with the enemy until he had sorted this whole totally fine and chill feelings thing out. Clearly Tim miscalculated.
Bad enough to be faced with a hundred memories of Jason’s hands on him, violent or otherwise; to be re-cataloging the hot weight of them, to be wanting more. Wanting to feel Jason on his skin, to peel him out of his armor and see and touch and feel— bad enough to suddenly not know how to talk to him, be around him, with this new, aching want coloring everything Tim did— everything Tim said—
He thinks about Jason, clean-shaven and calling him Mr. Drake, sir, and has to cover his face with his hands.
No. Absolutely not. It’s just a cover, Jason is just fucking with him. Tim refuses to be that guy. He will not be the awful boss who secretly lusts after his secretary from behind the oak and pine of his awful boss desk. He will not imagine what it would be like to fuck Jason over said desk, and he definitely won’t imagine what it would be like for Jason to fuck him. If he’d sit in Tim’s chair and unzip his pants, cock an eyebrow before telling Tim to bounce on it. If his eyes would shutter, if he’d get off on Tim moaning for him, if he’d kiss—
The intercom buzzes.
“Drake, quit jerking off in there and answer the damn phone already!”
Tim thunks his head on his stupid desk and groans. He’s going to hell.
The next three weeks pass in terrible, terrible agony.
“Mr. Drake is busy at the moment, can I take a message?”
Every attempt to figure out what the fuck is going on is rebuffed, stonewalled by Jason’s borderline unprofessional Peter Bennett persona. Borderline unprofessional to Tim, anyway— everyone else is treated to a completely different person.
“I’m afraid Mr. Drake’s time is quite valuable, but let me redirect you to—"
He walks away from every encounter with a reminder about his next appointment, no new information, and spends the whole time feeling like a horny, tongue-tied idiot trying not to stare at Jason’s mouth when he licks his finger to turn a page.
“Sir, call for you on line two, it sounded urgent—"
He can’t even fire him. Jason— Peter is good at his job. He doesn’t really know how he’s doing it, because it’s not like anything in Jason’s history implies very much administrative experience or people skills beyond the vigilante norm, and learning the convoluted internal politics and long-standing traditions within a company as old as WE isn’t something you do overnight— but hell if he isn’t killing it.
“Thank you for your work today, gentlemen, but it is Mr. Drake’s lunch hour. If you’d follow me, please—“
Tim just wishes he could focus worth a damn. Never did he ever imagine knowing the shape of the word sir in Jason’s mouth. How cleaned-up, spit-shined, business-casual would look on him. Arguing over the mundane realities of running a billion dollar corporation and commiserating over stockholders; it’s practically domestic. And now that he does know, it’s keeping him up at night.
“Drake—"
“Sir—"
“Mr. Drake—"
Tim is going to die.
He walks into the lobby one afternoon and is immediately graced with the sight of Jason bent over his own desk, pen cap dangling from between his teeth as he scribbles corrections. Tim’s face heats up and he almost has a heart attack; which is stupid, because the Red Hood uniform with the kevlar and the utility belt and the fucking thigh holsters is arguably more flattering for Jason’s ass than the black slacks he wears in the office. But Tim isn’t given time to pick apart why the butterflies are having a rave in his stomach this time. The second Jason sees Tim, he spits out the cap and points imperiously with the pen.
“Drake, the report for accounting is waiting on your desk, so don’t even think of wriggling out of it today, I’ll tie you to that desk, so help me—"
Oh, that’s so not a fantasy Tim needs to be having right now. Tim quickens his pace and raises his briefcase in front of him as a shield, both from Jason’s commands and Jason himself.
“That’s not top priority right now, Mr. Bennett,” he protests, hoping for firm but just falling short and face-planting into plaintive. Maybe if he walks fast enough, Jason won’t catch him. “They’re always anxious this close to the end of the quarter, we still need the proposal from—”
Jason doesn’t give him a single inch, just follows right after him into his office. “R&D can suck my dick, they’ve been late how many times in the past three years? You give them too much slack just because they’re B’s favorites from back in the day. They’ve gotten too used to being daddy’s golden children to do their fucking work on time, and it’s fucking over everyone else.”
He kind of agrees, but he can’t just say that. Tim strangles whatever noise tries to come out of his mouth, not sure if its a laugh or a sob. “Please tell me you didn’t say all this to Lucius.”
Tim gets a bland Peter Bennett smile, but it’s all Jason at the edges.
“Not in so many words.”
He can’t quite strangle the laugh this time, a disbelieving bark that’s loud in the room. “Oh my god. You didn’t. You’re insane for that, do you know how many toes you’re stepping on?”
Jason’s smile sharpens. He leans over Tim’s desk, a hand on the clean packet that must be the accounting report, sliding it closer to Tim. Tim reaches for it automatically, and their fingers brush. “Just doing my job, sir.”
Tim can’t be looking at Jason right now, but he also can’t look anywhere else. His eyes are crinkled at the corners, those fucking reading glasses slipped low on his nose and doing nothing to obscure his mirth. He’s standing close enough for Tim to see the aqua in the blue. He’s not sure if they’ve ever stood close enough for that, not without two layers of domino lenses between them.
Jason tilts his head, and Tim flushes, realizing that he’s been staring. He picks up the report and begins reading it over without seeing it.
He clears his throat. “Right. Right, well, I’ll see if I can get away with—”
“Tim—” Jason starts.
The phone on Jason’s desk rings, saving Tim from the rest of the conversation; but not before Jason taps the report, making it very clear what Tim’s top priorities ought to be.
It’s hot in the office on Wednesday.
Heat waves in Gotham are humid and unforgiving. The building AC was brave, unflinching in the face of duty, but gave up the ghost about an hour ago. Tim suspects foul play; so does the cybersecurity team. They’re working on it.
In the meantime, the windows are flung open for whatever breeze can be coaxed through, the doors propped as wide as they’ll go. Fans were brought up and now they’re blowing the hot air around the office in cruel facsimile of what could be. Everyone suffers when the AC goes out; CEO’s of billion dollar corporations included.
Trying and failing miserably to keep his eyes on his work, Tim is convinced no one is suffering more than him right now. (Insert necessary caveat here for the genuine suffering of people who aren’t richer than God; Tim is aware of his privilege, but he’s also aware of a lot of other things right now). Due to this new office configuration, Tim now has an uninterrupted line of sight to where Jason is working. Jason had claimed that he needed to move around to ‘maximize airflow’, which, of course, means Tim only has to glance up to see Jason tugging at the clinging fabric of his tank top, pulling it away from the hard cut of his abs in search of relief.
Tracking the path of a glistening drop of sweat down the side of Jason’s neck, Tim bites down on a whimper. Relief is nowhere in his future.
Does Jason know? He has to know. Right? He has to be doing this on purpose.
Watching Jason strip out of his white button up ten minutes ago had felt purposeful. The most vengeful striptease Tim has ever borne witness to, complete with slowly removing his necktie in a whispering slide of silk, rolling shoulders and entirely unnecessary stretching. Tim really shouldn’t get up anytime in the next hour unless he wants Jason to know exactly how he felt about that.
“You’ve reached the office of Timothy Drake-Wayne,” Jason says into the receiver, reaching up idly to wipe at the back of his neck. Tim tastes phantom salt on his tongue. “Of course, we’re expecting your call. Let me redirect you.”
Jason has to stand up to lean over his desk, reaching for the buttons and punching out the sequence to transfer the call, bracing himself with his other hand— and Tim has to work not to imagine what it would be like to be underneath him, pinned between his hips and the hard edge. How it would feel to be ground up against Jason’s belt, the hot, damp skin of his shoulders under Tim’s arms, the wet slide of his curls tangled in Tim’s fingers. Bent over backwards as Jason licks the sweat off of Tim’s neck, nosing down Tim’s collarbone and popping the first button of his dress shirt, dipping lower and lower, second button, third—
“Drake!” Jason snaps, not bothering with the intercom when he can just glare at Tim directly through the open door. Those go two ways, it turns out. Tim schools his face into something that isn’t inappropriate drooling over his secretary. “If you’re not going to pick up the phone in there, then come out and use this one, Jesus Christ.”
Tim absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, get up out of this chair. He fumbles for his ringing phone.
He doesn’t know how much more of this he can take.
It’s Friday. Jason doesn’t even knock.
“Okay, what the fuck are you doing?”
Tim doesn’t bother looking up from his screen. “What does it look like, Mr. Bennett?” he snaps, cranky with exhaustion and this huge, convoluted proposal from R&D that, frankly, needs to be completely overhauled. Tim’s work day ends at six. It’s creeping up on nine. “I’m working.”
“You’re giving yourself an ulcer is what you’re doing. Did you even stop for dinner?”
Tim rolls his eyes to the ceiling and breathes in tightly through his nose. He can’t fucking do this tonight. Peter Bennett should have gone home three hours ago. Red Hood should be going on patrol in less than two hours. He doesn’t know why Jason is still here.
“Look,” Tim starts. “You’ve been.” Infuriating. Distracting. Incredible. “Fine. But being here for a month does not give you license to judge how I make use of my time. Running a company—”
“Running any organization is like herding cats backwards and blindfolded on the moon, yeah, I know, I get it,” Jason says, unimpressed with Tim’s stringent tone. “What, you thought the Alley ran itself?”
Tim scowls. “It’s not the same and you know it.”
“Come on, don’t bullshit me. It’s similar enough.” Jason’s expression softens. He puts his hand on Tim’s shoulder, and Tim shuts his eyes. His only defense. “Tim.” His voice is so low. “You’re done for today.”
“Jason—“
“Tim.”
Tim rubs his face, frustrated. “Jason, I can’t. This project is already late and if I don’t get this back to R&D before midnight, then—”
“Wait, what?” Jason suddenly bullies into Tim’s space, leaning over the arm of his chair and putting his face next to Tim’s. He smells like aftershave and cologne, something musky and warm. He glares at Tim’s screen. “Okay, no. Oh fuck no. Why the fuck are you the one doing this, you never should have fucking seen this pile of shit, I told R&D—”
Tim blinks.
“What?”
Jason looks murderous.
“They don’t fucking need you to be the one to gut this, did they even run this by Lucius first—?” Jason makes a disgusted sound. “Someone’s just passing the fucking buck instead of doing their fucking job—”
He angrily clicks through pages and closes documents, then tugs out his work phone and starts stabbing at the screen. Jason types and Tim can only stare.
He looks up, eyes glittering, and Tim catches his breath.
Jason looks tired, but fierce. He has faint bruises under his eyes, a match to the deeper ones that always seem to linger under Tim’s. A touch of stubble shadows his jaw. (Jason’s grows faster. Tim has to go a few days without shaving to achieve the same level of growth.) The make-up Jason uses to cover his scars is smearing. He’s never bothered covering up the tail end of the scar that cuts through the hair at his temple, but Tim can make out the rest of it now, curling down his cheek. Tim hadn’t realized how much he’s missed seeing them.
God. He’s so beautiful. Tim is so fucked.
“There,” Jason is saying. “Done. If they try to send you anything else next week I’ll fucking annihilate them. No, I’ll forward it to Lucius and he’ll fucking annihilate them. Now pack up your shit, we’re getting tacos,” Jason commands, and what else is Tim supposed to do?
He packs up his shit and Jason frogmarches Tim out of the office, a proprietary hand loose but grounding on Tim’s lower back. He savors the touch, and refuses to feel guilty for it.
Dinner with Jason had been… nice.
It almost felt like things were normal again. It could have been any slow night on patrol, only they’d traded costumes for suit jackets. They’d stopped at a food truck and talked shit as they dripped salsa on their dress shoes, catching up on the latest vigilante gossip.
Apparently Roy is on the outs with Dick and Kori simultaneously, and he’s crashing at Jason’s until he figures out what he did wrong. Jason does not have high hopes for him. Tim has little sympathy for his plight— Roy can be an ass sometimes, and Kori can probably handle that but Dick deserves better— but he also understands. Tim can be an ass sometimes, too.
Tim almost managed to ask. To finally get to the bottom of why Jason has been LARPing as Tim’s secretary for the past month, when the most exciting thing to happen in all that time was a bee making it up to the executive suite. (Jason is not afraid of bees, but he is a bigger baby than Tim expected for someone who isn’t even allergic.)
But the opportunity slipped him by, Tim too much a coward to push the issue when the night had been going so well. Seeing Jason all the time is even more harrowing than he’d ever expected. That night on Jason’s couch, when he’d come to his first conclusions, he’d never imagined what was lying in wait.
But he thinks he’s getting used to it. He has to be. The last thing he wants is to ruin everything.
He’s had a weekend’s reprieve, but all things must eventually come to an end. It’s Monday. Back at it again with Mr. Bennett.
“This isn’t fucking funny, Jason,” Tim hisses, tearing through his office desk and coming up with nothing. “I need that for the director’s meeting at two! I thought you gave me a copy last week, where the hell—”
Jason looks extremely unbothered for someone who’s currently sabotaging their temporary boss’ work day. He’s leaned up in the doorway, arms and legs crossed, watching Tim have a breakdown with a faintly smug expression that Tim can’t fucking stand.
“Peter. And no, you don’t.”
“I don’t? I don’t? The fuck do you mean I don’t need—”
“The meeting’s been rescheduled.”
Tim whips his head up and boggles at him.
“Rescheduled? When? Why? I swear to god, if Jerry thinks he can stall any longer for his backwards-ass bullshit to get through the planning committee—”
“You rescheduled the meeting,” Jason says breezily, like that isn’t bullshit. “‘Unforeseen circumstances’. I’ve been reworking this week’s schedule all morning. Everyone’s been very understanding.”
Tim plants his hands on his desk, jaw clenched. He doesn’t even know where to begin.
“I swear to god, Todd, I will fire you—" he bites out.
“Bennett. And you’re not gonna fire me,” Jason says with disgustingly earned confidence. “Tam won’t be back for another month and you won’t be able to find a single person who does this as well as me on such short notice. And—”
He grins at Tim, sharp-toothed and mean , oh god, what now—
“—you like the eye-candy.”
He winks.
The world grinds to a sharp halt. All of the air has been sucked out of the room.
Tim’s face is on fire. It takes him two grasping seconds to find his voice again, and it still stutters out of him.
“That’s not— I don’t— you’re not—”
Jason cocks his head, ruthless. “I’m not what, Tim?”
Tim takes a centering breath, hands balling into fists. He fixes on a bland smile, ha ha, how funny of you Jason, now knock it off, desperately shoving a lid on his internal screaming. Jason is taking the joke a little too far.
“Mr. Bennett, if you feel my behavior has been somehow inappropriate and the matter cannot be resolved between us, then I encourage you to voice your concerns to HR. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have— I have a company to run—”
Jason’s expression sharpens. He pushes off the door frame, catching the handle and shutting it behind him with a loud thud-click. Tim’s pulse spikes in anticipation.
“Oh, no. You’re not running away from me this time.”
Tim eyes the doors.
“Jason—?”
“You know, I didn’t really get it at first,” Jason says, and the casual tone he affects drops ice down Tim’s spine.
Then Jason pins him with a look. “Three months, Tim. Three months of ‘rain checks’ and excuses and obvious deflecting. Eventually you have to take the fucking hint. I thought we were friends. Sucks to be wrong, right?”
Tim clams up. Very suddenly, he can’t breathe. Jason walks slowly across the floor, and Tim can only watch him approach.
“But then I realized, you never actually told me what was wrong. Squirmed your way out of ever giving me a straight answer by never being available. Not too busy for the night job, but suddenly too busy to ever see little old me. So when Tamara Fox posts an opening for a leave replacement? Perfect. Can’t be unavailable if I’m the one managing your schedule, can you?”
Tim gapes at him. Jason snorts, looking almost sheepish. “Kind of, uh. Kind of fucked up in retrospect,” he admits. “Honestly, I thought it would just piss you off worse than whatever I’d done. Or maybe you’d think it was funny. But either way, even if you threw me out right after, we’d have finally fucking talked about it.”
Tim winces.
“I didn’t mean to—”
Jason’s not done.
“But then I saw you.” He covers Tim’s wrists on the desk, the palms of his hands big and hot on Tim’s skin, and he looms over him; Tim’s heart leaps into his throat. “I saw the way you looked at me. The way you’ve been looking at me all month. You weren’t mad. And you weren’t laughing.” Jason’s voice turns soft and slow as molasses. “You were scared.”
Tim’s chest flips over. Jason won’t stop looking at him.
Jason already knows the answer to his next question, and Tim watches helplessly as it falls out of his mouth.
“Why do I scare you, Tim?”
The phone on Tim’s desk rings. Jason snatches it up before Tim can even look at it.
“I’m afraid Mr. Drake is unavailable at this time, and will be for the rest of the afternoon,” Jason says without blinking, gaze boring into Tim and keeping him pinned in place. The promise in those words makes Tim’s breath catch. “Please call back tomorrow.”
He slaps the phone back down into its cradle, then yanks the power cord. Tim thinks, a little giddy, that he’s going to have to reprogram that later.
“Well?” Jason asks.
Oh god. He was supposed to have this figured out by now. He’s had four months to try to figure this out, and he still doesn’t know what to say. Tim wets his lower lip, trying to find the words.
“I— you— you’re—“ Jason waits him out. Tim shuts his eyes. “Because I.”
This is excruciating. Just fucking say it, Drake. He scrapes it out of his throat.
“Because I want you.”
Jason huffs, and Tim startles at the brush of fingers over his jaw.
Jason’s not looking at his eyes anymore. He’s looking at Tim’s mouth.
“Christ. Was that so fucking hard?”
Tim scowls. “Hey—"
Jason kisses him.
It’s—
Heat and skin, soft and gliding wet over Tim’s lips. Jason’s nose pressed against his cheek, his breath puffing hot and close between them. His hand strong on Tim’s jaw and holding him in place, tilted up to meet Jason halfway. Tim opens to Jason’s prodding tongue, fast to accommodate him, partly convinced he’s still in bed asleep.
But Jason digs his teeth into Tim’s bottom lip, startling a short moan out of his throat, and he’s wound Tim’s tie around his open fist. He uses it to haul Tim across the desk between them, forcing Tim to catch himself instead of reaching for Jason like he wants to.
It’s overwhelming. Consuming. Tim is being consumed.
Jason breaks off and rakes dark eyes over Tim’s undoubtedly flushed face, and Tim can only catch his breath, holding himself up on the tips of his toes and the base of his palms.
“I never really noticed before,” Jason murmurs, tracing Tim’s cheekbone. “But you’re not very good at asking for things, are you?”
Tim blinks, swallows; eyes and throat fluttering. He stares at Jason’s mouth, red and wet from kissing Tim. He can still taste Jason’s tongue.
“Huh?” he says eloquently. Smooth.
Jason bares his teeth, amused and hungry, and licks across Tim’s open mouth. He traces a wet line over Tim’s cheek, his jaw, under his ear, to speak husky and close and smoldering.
“You want something, you tell me. Got it?”
Tim shudders, toes curling as prickling heat washes down his spine.
“What if I want a lot?” he blurts. “What if I want too much?”
Jason just tugs on his necktie, forcing him higher, closer. He repeats himself. “You want something, you tell me. Got it? ”
“I— yeah,” Tim breathes, trying very hard not to let his eyes cross. “Yes. Got it.”
“Good.”
He rewards Tim with another devouring kiss, and Tim surrenders to it entirely.
He feels insane. He feels high. Jason Todd is kissing Tim in his office on the executive floor of Wayne Tower. With tongue. If he’d been told two months ago that this was going to happen, he would have laughed whoever tried it out of the room. And then probably jerked off about it.
“I– I have to say,” Tim says when Jason gives him the chance, lips ghosting over Tim’s and feeling each word. “This past month has been— a bit of a mindfuck. Of all the roles you could play, ‘bratty secretary’ never once crossed my mind.”
Jason huffs. “What, you don’t like Peter Bennett? I think he’s pretty fun.” Jason bats his eyelashes and simpers. “‘Oh, Mr. Drake, anything you need, sir’.”
Tim raises an eyebrow. “You have never once said that, not even for sexy secretary roleplay. And I, uh. I like Jason more, anyway.”
A smile twitches across Jason’s mouth. “Sexy secretary roleplay, huh?”
He kisses Tim softly this time, once, then twice. He unknots Tim’s tie and slides it off his neck, letting him rock back onto his heels, and rounds the desk.
Tim is greedy to finally touch him. He reaches out with seeking fingers to drag over the soft cotton of his dress shirt, to feel the undisguisable muscles over his stomach, his ribs, his back. He wants to find the rest of his scars. Jason crowds him against his desk and presses a kiss to his temple. That, of all things, makes Tim feel dizzy.
“What do you want, Tim?” Jason murmurs, the backs of his fingers trailing soft down Tim’s cheek, squeezing gently at Tim’s hip. “Huh? What have you thought about? You want me on my knees for you, sucking you off under the desk? Taking a call and barely scraping it together, can’t let them know that your cock’s out, that you’re getting head from your… bratty secretary? You wanna stop my mouth?”
“I—” Tim can’t help but glance down at Jason’s slacks, the growing bulge he isn’t imagining for once, and swallows. “Not. Not that. Exactly.”
“Oh? Come on, princess. Spill. You gonna leave me in the dark again? You gonna make me guess?”
“It’s—" Tim’s face flames with new heat, embarrassment bullying out arousal in the worst trade-off in history. How can Jason just say this shit? “It’s more like. Um. The other way around?”
Jason’s grin is electric. “Oh, babybird, you little slut. You wanna get on your knees for me? Out in the lobby, where anyone could walk in? I'd love to see that.” Tim’s breath hitches.
“And— other. Things. I’ve thought about, uh,” he stumbles through it, and Tim can’t decide if it’s merciful of Jason to duck down and start mouthing at his neck, or cruel. “About sitting in your. Your lap and riding you, and— about—about— ahn, Jason —!”
“Don’t stop now,” Jason pants, one hand tight on Tim’s ass, kneading at him through his slacks. Tim clings to his broad shoulders, making divots in the collar of his shirt. “You’re just getting to the good part.”
“This isn’t— the good part—?” Tim asks, and in response Jason shoves between Tim’s legs and grinds him down onto Jason’s thigh.
The sound Tim makes is— loud. The friction is relief and fire both, exactly what Tim wants, has been wanting, but making him crave infinitely more. He rocks at Jason’s urging, and bites his lip to stifle his moaning— until Jason’s other hand slides up into Tim’s hair, jerking his head back in reprimand.
“Don’t,” Jason growls. “You don’t get to hide from me anymore. I want to hear you.”
“Jason—” Tim begs, but Jason doesn’t let up.
“Come on,” he says, harsh in Tim’s ear. “What else did you want? Tell me.”
Tim nearly stifles a whimper before he remembers not to. He’s rewarded for his obedience with Jason’s fingers yanking his shirt out of his pants, sliding hot under the fabric and over the skin of Tim’s back, branding him. Jason tugs hard at his hips as he undoes Tim’s belt, sliding it out of the loops and tossing it aside with a muted clatter.
“I— I wanted— I wanted this, to be pinned between you and your desk. To be laid out. Laid bare. I wanted— I wanted—“
“Yeah, yeah, yes,” Jason chants, encouraging, undoing the buttons on Tim’s shirt, rapid but precise. Tim can’t seem to keep track of his hands. “What else.”
“I want to be fucked over it. Over your— over my— I want you to fuck me over this desk, Jason, please,” Tim sobs, and Jason kisses him hard.
“You got it, boss,” Jason purrs against his lips. Tim smacks weakly at his shoulder, and shudders.
Jason flips Tim around and pushes him down with an unyielding steadiness that borders on brutal. Jason’s hand on the back of his neck is a collar, firm and owning, and it all feels inevitable. It was always going to end with him here. He’s always belonged to Jason. Tim gasps against the wood, and his breath fogs against his own skin.
It strikes him, then, the picture they must make. The papers Tim had tossed haphazardly around the room in his manic hunt a lifetime ago, his chair kicked into the wall behind them. Jason in his wrinkled shirt, Tim never having gotten around to unbuttoning it, still mostly put together besides the flush in his cheeks, the puffy red of his mouth. Towering over Tim— over his boss— who’s panting under him in debauched disarray, fingers scrabbling for something to cling to and finding only his own fists.
Jason said he already canceled all of Tim’s appointments today, but he can’t help but imagine what they would look like if someone walked in. What anyone would see if they just turned the handle.
“This is such a bad idea,” Tim breathes, too little, too late. “If you forgot to lock the door—”
“You want me to stop?” Jason pauses where he’s tugging down the back of Tim’s slacks, the cool air of the office prickling over his exposed hips. Tim shivers.
“I— didn’t say that.”
Jason’s hand remains hot on Tim’s neck, heavy and implacable. He squeezes once, a warning, but to Tim it feels like reassurance.
“Good. You aren’t calling the shots anyway, sir.” Jason leans down to nose at his ear. “It’s my turn now.”
Tim whines.
Jason slides Tim’s pants and briefs down his legs, finally exposing his dripping cock to the open air. He kicks Tim’s legs further apart, making Tim’s knees buckle, his stomach catching on the edge of the desk where it digs in sharply. Tim’s breath hitches in his chest.
“Do you know, I never thought about this before,” Jason says, almost conversationally if not for how harshly, how breathlessly he says it, squeezing at the meat of Tim’s ass, stroking over the skin and spreading. “Not until I saw you turn red the second I caught you staring at my crotch.”
Oh no. Oh fuck. Tim goes very still, thoughts racing, casting back to that moment and cringing.
Jason laughs under his breath, dragging a hand up to shove Tim's shirt to his armpits, starts mapping out the ridged lines of Tim’s own scars with light fingers, searching for them under the cover-up Tim applies every morning.
“It took me all of three seconds to know that I wanted you,” Jason tells the curve of his spine, lazy and wet with a hint of teeth. His body settles heavily over Tim’s as he trails up to the fine hairs at the base of his skull, close and hot, cotton fibers rasping against his bare skin and making Tim shiver. He settles the hard line of— of his cock against Tim’s ass, that stupid fucking belt buckle digging in to the soft flesh of Tim’s lower back.
“You pink up so pretty, Mr. Drake. Never seen you do that before, eyes all big, mouth hanging open. Fuck, did you even know what you were doing with your face? I half wanted to drag you into my lap right then. Make you feel what you were staring at, right there in the lobby. But you had a call to take. Can you believe it? You really were too busy.”
Tim shakes under the onslaught, from Jason’s voice and his hands, boxing him in, from his mouth, taking him apart; grinds his forehead into the smooth finish where he signs off on tax forms and has to work every fucking day without somehow thinking of this. His cock twitches under the desk, hard and aching and neglected. Oh god.
“No more interruptions, baby. No more excuses. I’m gonna make you feel it this time.”
Tim twists to peer at Jason over his shoulder, neck straining.
“Promise?”
Jason smacks his ass. Tim jerks and yelps, falling back onto his cheek as Jason rubs over the sting, as he opens something behind Tim with a small snik. Tim breathes out hard through his nose as a cool, wet finger prods at his hole.
“Relax, babe,” Jason murmurs, soothing. “I promise.”
Tim buries his face in his arms, and shakes.
Jason opens him up slow, unhurried, like they have all the time in the world. Tim doesn’t know if he’s grateful or incensed; if he wants Jason to make good already on a promise that he’s been secretly making for five fucking weeks— or if he needs Jason to draw this out for as long as he possibly can. There’s an infuriating relief in knowing that Tim doesn’t get to decide either way. This is Jason’s show. No interruptions.
He moans like a whore with Jason’s fingers in his ass, and can’t do a damn thing about it.
“W-why do you— even have that—?” Tim manages as he hears Jason tear open a condom. Jason kisses the side of his neck, more teeth than lip as he smiles.
“Always come prepared, sir,” Jason quips.
“I’m— I’m not that easy,” Tim mumbles.
“No, you’re really not. Call it a hunch, though,” Jason says smugly. Tim kicks at him.
Jason catches his thigh with a hard hand, stilling him, then uses his grip to hold Tim steady as he lines up the head of his cock. Jason took his time, but Tim still sucks in a breath, his muscles twitching in anticipation. Then Jason starts pushing in.
Tim’s mouth drops open, wide around his whining, cut-off keening, his chest heaving. Jason moves a hand back to Tim’s neck, sliding up into his hair, petting, then making a fist. He holds Tim down and his hips up, grounding him as he keeps sliding in, and in, and in. The open zipper of Jason’s pants digs into Tim’s skin as he bottoms out, and Tim gasps, tight and overwhelmed.
Jason is panting above him as they both adjust to the stretch, words tumbling out of his open mouth, washing Tim in a waterfall of filth.
“…fuck, Tim, you’re so tight baby, you’re fucking perfect. Should have fucking done this sooner. Should have shoved you under my desk and kept your mouth full until your brain turned off, should have walked right in and done this day fucking one— should have—”
“Jason,” Tim whines, agonized. “Move.”
He moves.
Tim loses track of time. Gets lost in the dragging slide of Jason rutting in and out of his body, sparking hot inside of him and lighting him up from head to toe. He aches with how good it is, his thoughts turning to static, only held afloat by the iron clamp of Jason’s hand on his hip, the punishing grip in his hair. The slap of their hips is muffled by the layers Jason is still wearing, and Tim shudders to think that once he’s done with Tim he could just zip himself back up and walk away in seconds, looking a little mussed, but nothing a quick trip to the bathroom won’t fix. Get back to work like nothing happened.
But not Tim. Anyone could look at him and know. Tim is ruined.
“Ja— Jay, Jason, Jason,” Tim sobs, not recognizing the loud moans spilling out of his own mouth. His hips work, meeting Jason’s thrusts, but it’s not— it’s not enough. He needs— he needs— “Please, please, please—”
Jason grunts and pulls out. Tim cries out at the loss, but the cry stutters in his throat as he’s lifted up off the desk and spun over. He lands flat on his back, his head knocking into his nameplate and sending it clattering to the floor. Jason props Tim’s legs high over his shoulders, yanking his pants and underwear completely off and letting them fall. He fucks right back into him, making Tim shout and squirm at the change in angle, still giving him no leverage to speak of, no way to chase his own release.
He reaches desperately for his own cock, needing the friction— and Jason slams his wrist down to the desk, making Tim arch and gasp.
“What— what did I say, sir,” Jason snarls, leaning between Tim’s legs and roughly forcing them wider around him, bracing Tim with the hand on his wrist, another under his shoulder. Tim’s eyes roll back in his head. “It’s my— fucking turn. You’ll come when I want you to.”
Tim nearly disobeys immediately; heat flashes through him, white-hot and debilitating. He feels himself tighten around Jason, and he savors the shudder that works through Jason as he briefly drops his head to Tim’s bare chest.
“Jason, please, I— please,” Tim begs, but Jason doesn’t let go, doesn’t stop fucking into him, relentless.
“Say it. Say what you want, Tim,” Jason demands. Tim thrashes under him, shaking his head. “Say it.”
“I— I want— I want you to come in me, Jay,” Tim whimpers, and Jason’s eyes widen. “Come in me, come in me, come in me—”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jason swears. “Tim— you— fuck—!”
Jason’s movements become frantic, and he thrusts roughly once, twice, three times, hard into Tim, mouth open on a guttural moan before he goes still.
For long, aching seconds, Jason pants above him, and Tim quakes. Sweat drips off his nose and onto Tim’s chest, and Jason leans down to lick it off of him. In the same motion he reaches down between them, and Tim all but dies when he finally wraps a hand around his cock.
Jason is still catching his breath, still hard inside Tim, but his voice is soft as he says, “What else? Come on, Tim. What else do you want.”
“I— I— I want to come,” Tim moans. Jason strokes him base to tip, tight, and hot, and perfect, and he feels it rushing up on him, he doesn’t know if he can hold on much longer even though Jason said—
“Then do it, babybird,” Jason grants. “Come for me.”
Like a star bursting behind his eyes, Tim does.
Eons later, Jason helps Tim un-plaster himself from the surface of the desk, sticky with sweat and come.
Jason doesn’t, however, let Tim out of the office all afternoon. He’s owed time, Jason tells him. And he plans to collect.
Tim can’t really bring himself to mind.
Tam gets back on a Tuesday.
“You survived,” she announces when he finally makes it in. “I’m so proud.”
“Welcome back,” Tim smiles, handing over her coffee order. Happy as he is to see her, he kind of wishes he’d given in to temptation and called out sick. His bed was particularly hard to leave this morning. “How was Belize?”
“Oh,” Tam sighs into her cup. “Gorgeous, of course. It’s so nice to be somewhere new.” She narrows her eyes. “Speaking of new.”
Tim winces. He’d hoped she wouldn’t notice.
“Tim, where is my chair?”
Tam believes strongly in proper lumbar support during office activities.
“I can explain.”
So, as it turns out, does Jason. During all kinds of activities.
“You’d better.”
He opens his mouth to explain that she really would not want that specific chair back after what he and the secretarial leave replacement did in, on, and around it— but thinks better of it. He closes his mouth. Opens it.
“Please consider this new and improved chair a bribe to never, ever leave me again?”
“I don’t want a new chair, I want my— what happened?” She sighs, exasperated. “Please tell me you weren’t a complete ass to Peter. You made him feel welcome, right?”
Tim goes beet red. Tam looks at him warily.
“Tim. What did you—”
She zeroes in on his neck. Tim tries to fend her off, but it’s too late. She grabs him by the collar and yanks it aside, revealing the enormous hickey Jason gave him fresh last night. Possessive bastard.
“Tim! Are you kidding me? What possessed you to—?”
Dawning realization. Tam looks at him in horror. Tim carefully doesn’t look her in the eye.
“No. Wait. No. Tim. You and—“ Her eyes go wide. She looks ready to murder him. “You didn’t. In my chair?”
“Now, I really think you should just be happy, because, hey! You were right!” Tim tries, ducking out of Tam’s grip and quickly putting the desk between them.
“And what exactly was I right about this time?” Tam growls, lunging for him.
“I did end up liking him more than you,” he says, and makes a run for the door. Jason, at least, will be happy to see him— looks like he’s calling out sick today after all.