I'm Sure Someone Else Has Already Had This Thought But Like.

I'm sure someone else has already had this thought but like.

The Robins end up being way stealthier than Batman because it's easy to be stealthy when you're wearing all black, but sneaking around dressed like a traffic light takes some skill.

Like putting a bell on a cat's collar, the cat will figure out just how to move without disturbing the bell.

Food for Thought - JayTim - Batman

Jason just finished making pasta, a meal full of carbs and protein, with only enough sauce to make all the ingredients stick together, just the way Tim liked it. He wouldn’t eat it otherwise. He added some extra sauce to his bowl and left the kitchen.

“Any progress?” Jason asked, sitting next to Tim on the couch, mouth full of pasta and fork dripping with his properly sauced food.

Tim’s eyes flickered over, before almost immediately returning to the computer

Hook.

“The budget is almost illegible. It’s definitely on purpose but I don’t have proof of which shareholder is responsible for it.”

Tim has been chasing a shareholder through botched paperwork for a few weeks. It was a string of issues that they were not used to. Most situations they came up against could be dealt with through well-placed violence, but this was a game of cat and mouse. Which if it were an actual game, Tim might have enjoyed. But as it stands, he has a shareholder stealing money from the company and botching projects for insurance scams. The difficulty Tim was running into, the reason the investigation has been going on so long, has been because corporate scum bags fight in paper work and contracts. So, Tim has had to dig his way through red tape, new and old contracts, current budget meeting and previous budget meetings, all to match up numbers that claim to have been lost in the shuffle.

There have been a few of his ‘board of old men’, Tim’s words, that he had cleared. Each cleared shareholder lightened the load, but sniffing out one specific pompous asshole at Wayne Enterprises was taking its time; and a toll on Tim. He hasn’t been able to take time to patrol as Red Robin, and his team have had to manage a few cases without him at the helm because of the near quadrupled amount of paperwork he’s had his nose in lately. It was making him antsy, his mind had been busy, but Jason could feel Tim’s body aching to move. The way he shifted constantly lately, or got up just to walk around, the lessened patrols were definitely getting to him. When he had been able to go out, he wasn’t even working on investigations, and had taken to the role of simply beating assholes senseless.

But Tim wouldn’t let anyone help. His pride wouldn’t let him.

“So, no progress?” Jason said through another mouth full of sloppy, wet pasta.

“Not in this specific file yet,” Tim sighed, “but I was able to eliminate one more suspect today.”

Tim began chewing on his thumb nail, eyes still glued to his computer screen.

“Well,” Jason grunted as he stood up, “you have like, three extra jobs at WE now, so no one can blame you for it taking time.”

“I blame me,” Tim grumbled, “I have to wait for every new edition of every new contract and every new budget, and then having studied those, I have to wait for the board meeting, which I then spend most of that time trying to catch someone slipping, but these guys lie, cheat, and steal through their whole lives. It just feels like the progress is so slow its non-existent.” Tim pulled the laptop into his lap, slouched against the couch and scrolled through another page of gibberish on his computer that seemed to make sense to him.

“Of course it does. You’re climbing a wall of old man greed with bricks made out of million-dollar budgets and legal jargon.” Jason spoke up louder, so his voice could be heard from the kitchen.

He made his way back to the living room, taking a bite of pasta with not enough sauce, before sitting back down and staring intensely at the computer. Tim looked over at him as he entered.

Line.

“Wait.” Jason said, grabbing the computer off Tim’s lap, and putting the pasta where the laptop had been.

“What?” Tim said, leaning in. Jason held up his hand to pause Tim, and scanned the document on the computer.

“Nothing.” Jason said, looking over at Tim, then at the bowl, and back at Tim with a smile.

It was boring, and Jason had to reread every line twice for any of them to make sense. Beside him, Tim took a bite of too dry pasta.

Sinker.

Tim looked down at the bowl of pasta, made with just enough sauce for everything to stick together and extra parmesan cheese, just the way he liked it.

Tim’s glare meant nothing, as it was followed by an eye roll and a small smile. Jason closed the laptop, and Tim moved closer, another forkful of pasta in his mouth, once again reminded that, yes, he did need to eat.