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The first time Dick notices Tim like that, in the wrong kind of way, it's two months after things in Gotham have nominally stabilized. Bruce is back in the cowl, Dick is back as Nightwing—where he belongs—and Tim is. Something new. Red Robin, he calls himself, sharper around the eyes.
The first handful of things Dick feels around this newer Tim are all to be expected. The pride in this determined, stubborn kid who made himself into a hero, who honed those edges all on his own. The guilt, that Tim was left so completely on his own. The hope that there's still something worth building on.
He thinks there might be. Tim rolls his eyes at the dumb quips just like he used to, and sometimes he'll even fire a dumb quip back. If nothing else, they're both very good at faking equilibrium. It's two months after things have settled, and Dick thinks there's still something he and Tim can be. Maybe not what they were before—but something.
"Good work," Dick says, watching the GCPD clean up the bank robbery aftermath from their perch on a nearby roof.
Tim shrugs, a smooth, delicate roll of the shoulder. "They don't pay us the big bucks for nothing."
"You see, RR," Dick says, keeping his face deliberately and mournfully straight. "They do not pay us at all. We go sadly underappreciated."
"Ha!" Tim says, mouth cracking open into a wide grin. "Ain't that the truth."
Dick watches as Tim stands and stretches, pops a joint in his shoulder. He's taller than he was before, Dick thinks, apropos of nothing. Leaner and more muscled around the shoulders.
"Well," Tim says. "This has been fun."
"Just like old times," Dick says.
"Exactly." Dick watches, fondly, as Tim bounces on the balls of his feet. "But I do have to head out. Important Red Robin business. You know how it is."
Dick whistles lowly, indulgent. "Wow. You're that in demand already?"
Tim shoots him a sideways grin, flashing canine, and this—this is where things get strange. This is where something hot spikes its way up through Dick's gut and into his chest.
"You know it," Tim says, completely confident and sure of himself, and Dick—
Dick swallows. Hard.
"Good luck," he manages, but Tim is already going, giving Dick a lazy, over-the-shoulder salute before he shoots the grapple gun off the edge of the building and vanishes into the night.
Dick's heart is still thumping off-pace in his chest, syncopated and aching. Tim's smile sticks behind his eyelids—the honesty, the willfully-gained edge that's always been lurking just beneath the surface. Exactly the kind of power Dick's always gravitated towards. The brilliance isn't new, because even as a kid, Tim was in a category all his own. Dick's reaction to it is.
"He's eighteen," Dick reminds himself, fiercely. "He is just barely eighteen. What the hell do you think you're doing, Grayson?"
But then again, Dick notices attractive people all the time without it becoming a moral or personal quandary. It doesn't have to be anything more than a passing, harmless observation.
For a while, it is. Tim accompanies Dick on a few more casual patrols where nothing of note happens. He's just Dick's clever, slightly dorky partner-in-crime. In fact, Dick almost forgets about it entirely. Enough time passes that when it happens again, it still feels like an outlier. Tim lifts his hair off the nape of his pale, delicate neck, complaining about the heat, and Dick gets that hot, spiking feeling again as he runs his eyes along the hollow of Tim's collarbone. Dick notices attractive people all the time. It doesn't have to go beyond observation.
And Dick makes sure that it doesn't. Not when the muscles in Tim's lean, scarred back bunch and stretch as he pulls on a t-shirt a few weeks later. Not a few weeks after that, when Tim takes out three enforcers with a single swing of his bo staff. Not a week after that, when Tim finishes the last piece of code in the early hours of morning and turns to Dick with the same toothy grin that got him into this situation.
This is the point where Dick very deliberately decides to stop noticing. Because Tim is fantastic and competent and incredibly self-possessed, but he is still eighteen. Only barely legal, young enough that goons with a death wish still call him jailbait before Dick beats the shit out of them. He's still somebody Dick watched grow up. It's not fair to Tim if Dick takes advantage of that trust now.
Unfortunately, simply deciding to stop noticing things does not come so easily to a man raised by the world's greatest detective.
Tim is still a constant presence in Dick's life. Which is wonderful, and Dick wouldn't have it any other way—but it's very difficult to not notice how gorgeous Tim is growing up to be when Tim is around him all the time.
On Tim's nineteenth birthday, Dick makes a dumb pun about feathers and Tim laughs so hard he snorts spatkling cider out of his nose. He's comfortable, among friends and family, wearing a t-shirt that hangs loosely around his collarbone and a pair of well-worn athletic shorts. None of it is for Dick. On Tim's nineteenth birthday, Dick jerks off to the thought of him for the first time, the sinew in his neck, the muscles flexing in his legs. Then, he immediately goes out and breaks a guy's leg. It doesn't help.
Tim will get older, sure. He'll get smarter and sharper and even better at what he does. But Dick gets older too. When Tim turns nineteen, Dick is twenty-seven. When Tim turns twenty, Dick is twenty-eight. And when Tim turns twenty-one, Dick is twenty-nine. He's just on the cusp of thirty when Tim stumbles through his bedroom window in full civilian dress and says, "You haven't called me your brother in three years. What's up with that?"
Dick gapes, sitting on the bed watching re-runs of Columbo. Tim's wearing tight slacks and a loose white button-up that's slipping around the neck, which make up just a few of the reasons why Dick hasn't called Tim his brother in so long.
"You—" Dick fails not to sputter. "Tim? Are you drunk?"
Tim waves the complaint off, pinches two fingers together. "Jason cut me off after three beers. But he was at least more helpful than Steph and Cass. They were all like mum's the word and it's not our business, like that's ever meant anything to them before—"
"Steph and Cass?" Dick echoes, bewildered. "Jason?"
"He told me to ask you," Tim says. "And he was right."
He's come around to stand on one end on the bed, hands on his hips, raising an eyebrow at Dick expectantly. His hair is getting long, falling around the lovely hollows of his cheekbones.
Dick swallows. "What?"
"You haven't called me your brother in three years," Tim says again. Dick, suddenly, can't meet his eye. "Give or take a bit. Everybody else gets the sibling title. But not me."
Dick clears his throat, already knowing he's lost all hope of subtlety. "Really? I hadn't, uh. Noticed."
"Hm," Tim says, and in the tilt of his glance, it's clear that he's calling bullshit. Dick winces. "I mean, you act normal. You treat me exactly the same as everyone else. You just don't—" He shrugs. "I don't know. I'm curious."
His tone is too even to be actually casual. Dick swallows again, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed.
What does he say? How does he even start? Tim, I know I've been lusting after you like a creep for the last three years, but calling you my brother while staring at your backside is a step too far even for me. Sorry I made things weird!
No, obviously not that. But anything else would be a lie, and that wouldn't be fair to Tim. And if Tim's noticed this, and noticed it enough to be driven right to Dick's door—well, window—then he must be desperate. He might even be hurting, and that's the last thing Dick wants.
Dick's spent too long sitting on his dirty, dirty secrets. He owes Tim the truth. Tim, who's still watching him, eyes as sharp and cutting as ever.
"Listen," Dick says, already spreading his hands out placatingly. "I know this is the worst thing I could say, but it isn't you—"
"Are you serious?" Tim says, sounding baffled. "That's your line?"
"It's my issue to deal with," Dick says firmly. "It won't impact our work. And it won't—" Here, he stumbles. "It won't impact our—relationship. I promise."
It's a hard balance to strike, making sure Tim knows that Dick cares about him without showing his hand and pushing Tim away. He doesn't always succeed, like now.
Tim's still frowning, slowly pacing to where Dick's sitting on the bed. Dick clenches his fists in the sheets. "That's vague as hell, Dick."
"You're the best of us," Dick blurts. Tim freezes in place. "It's important that you know. You—" He swallows. "You're the best partner I've ever had, Tim. I mean it."
His voice is hoarse, ragged and raw. He's giving it all up, he knows. Tim is standing in front of him now, frowning down with that look he has right before he pieces something together. Only a matter of time.
"It's true that I don't—think of you as a brother," Dick says, very quietly, already ashamed. Tim stays incredibly still. "I do care about you. So, so much, Tim, you don't even know." Dick swallows, looking down at his clenched fists. Here it is. The last moment that Tim looks at him without disgust. "But the ways I think about you—"
"Wait," Tim says suddenly. Dick clicks his mouth shut. "Can I—let me try something."
Dick blinks, taken aback. It's not actually a request, but Dick couldn't deny Tim anything anyway.
"Alright?" Dick says. "Go for it?"
And then Tim steps in-between the loose V of Dick's legs, thighs pressing warm against Dick's knees. Dick can't help his sharp, jagged inhale. Tim still has that puzzled, deducting frown creasing his face as he runs one hand up the side of Dick's shoulder, resting his fingers over the top of Dick's fluttering, too thready pulse.
"Hm," Tim says simply.
"Tim," Dick says, strangled.
"Yeah," Tim says. "Yeah, hang on."
He comes, somehow, impossibly closer, until Dick's face is only an inch or so away from his chest, the top two shirt buttons undone to reveal a perfect hint of bare ivory skin. He's got both hands up by Dick's neck, now, coming up to cradle Dick's face and gently swipe under his eyebags. Dick's eyes flutter shut involuntarily.
"What are you doing," he manages.
"Testing a theory," Tim says quietly. When Dick opens his eyes, Tim's wearing an expression he's never seen before. It's cracked open, laid bare. It makes him look sweet and impossibly young. "Just—just let me—"
And with no further fanfare, Tim tilts Dick's face up, leans down, and kisses him full on the mouth.
It's a hot, spiking shock to Dick's system. His mouth slips open automatically, and Tim slides his tongue in. Dick makes some awful, filthy noise as he presses back, one hand coming up to grip at the back of Tim's shirt, keep him close.
Tim's mouth is wet and lush, perfectly shaped against Dick's. The muscles in his back flex beneath the palm of Dick's hand as he shifts minutely against Dick's body, finding new angles to methodically take Dick apart.
Then, Tim steps away. Dick only barely manages to bite back on his needy, pleading noise, letting Tim slip from him. His work is undone in the next second, when Tim uses the space to slide fully into Dick's lap, sitting his full weight on Dick's suddenly fully hard cock. Dick can't keep the noise from escaping him this time.
Tim is grinning at him, eyes strangely and wonderfully bright. "That's why you haven't called me your brother," he says. Dick opens and closes his mouth uselessly. "You want me. You do."
Tentatively, Dick wraps one stabilizing arm around Tim's hip, bringing the other up between his shoulderbones. Tim is perfectly secure, safe and cradled and looking like he isn't disgusted at all. Like he's exactly where he wants to be.
"Yeah," Dick says, helpless and honest. Tim fucking beams. "Yeah, Tim, Jesus—"
Tim's mouth is against his again, and Dick bends to it, lets Tim set the pace. Tim seems frantic, almost desperate, sliding one hand up into Dick's hair and tugging at just the perfect angle. Dick groans. Every new sensation he catalogues makes it harder and harder to keep back his own waves of desperate emotion, scrabbling inside of his chest.
"God, Tim," Dick says, barely even words at all, turned to sweet nothings against the endless warmth of Tim's mouth.
"Dick," Tim says, so lovely, so clever. Dick loses the last shreds of his self-control.
He tightens his grip on Tim's shirt and twists him to the side, onto the bed. Tim lands with a soft oof, and then Dick is all over him, pressing him down. Tim is deceptively slight beneath him, but Dick knows exactly how strong and ruthless he can be.
Tim arches up against his weight, up into Dick's mouth. Dick's bracing himself just over Tim's head, staying as close as he possibly can. Every place Tim's body touches his is a singing nerve ending. All Dick knows is sensation, sparking and catching every time Tim slides his mouth over Dick's. It is catastrophic and consuming. Three years of careful restraint, down the drain in approximately five minutes.
"What the hell am I doing?" Dick mutters. He still can't bring himself to pull away.
"Ha," Tim says breathily. "Me, ideally."
Despite himself, Dick laughs too, bringing his mouth down to nip at the underside of Tim's chin. Tim rolls his neck obligingly, with a soft gasp. "Really?" Dick says. "Is that what you want?"
"Yes," Tim says instantly. Dick shudders. "You don't even—you don't even know—"
Dick bites at the jut of Tim's collarbone, like he's been wanting to for three years. Tim's breath hitches deliciously.
"This is such a bad idea," Dick tells him. "You do know how bad of an idea this is, right?"
"Just don't think about it," Tim says, and the way he's grinding his hips up is making it very hard to think about anything at all. "Because if you start thinking about it, it isn't going to happen, and I want—I need—"
His hands are sliding down Dick's chest, lower and lower. Without thinking about it, Dick grabs Tim's wrists and pins them up above his head, leaving them both silent and heaving.
Tim's mouth is slick and red, hanging invitingly open. His blue eyes are blown wide and darting desperately around Dick's face. Dick wants him so, so terribly.
But there's still the roundness of youth around Tim's cheeks, a roundness Dick has watched wax and wane over the years. He's gorgeous, yes, obviously, it's undeniable—but he is devastatingly young. This can't be right, can it?
"It's all wrong," Dick says, letting his hands slip from Tim's wrists. "This isn't—I knew you when you were a kid—"
"I know," Tim says, still breathless. "Isn't that so hot?"
"Tim," Dick says seriously.
"Okay," Tim says, sobering. "Okay. Well. I'm not a kid anymore. I haven't been in years." His hands are coming up again, back to cradle Dick's cheeks. "And, Dick. I've wanted you."
Dick shuts his eyes helplessly, turns his lips into the hollow of Tim's palm.
"I've wanted you since I even knew what wanting was," Tim continues, voice quivering, like there's something caught in his throat. "So, just—don't think about it. Just stay here."
There isn't anything at all Dick can say to that. Instead, he kisses Tim again, cherishes Tim's small sigh of relief. Tim's hand slide up underneath his shirt.
"Can you—" he asks. "Off."
Dick can't even make fun of Tim's bossy disjointedness, because his own coherent thought is hanging on by a thread. He sits up just enough to pull off his tee. Tim props himself up on his elbows to watch, eyes hungry.
"Alright?" Dick asks, a little facetiously. He knows it's alright. He's been told it's more than alright, even.
Tim looks him up and down. Dick's been looked at by a lot of people, but something about Tim's gaze makes him feel splayed open.
"I'd like to see all of it," Tim says, tilting his chin up.
"Yeah," Dick says, mouth dry. "Whatever you want."
He pulls his pants and underwear down past his hard, aching cock. Tim's started working at the buttons on his shirt, painstakingly revealing the expanse of his chest inch by inch. He catches Dick looking and freezes, throat bobbing as he takes Dick in.
"Christ," he hisses viciously, attacking the rest of the buttons twice as vigorously. Dick watches his delicate fingers work, his knuckles flex. Tim shucks his shirt off on the bed and says, "Are you going to help or what?"
"All you had to do was ask," Dick says, faux-gracious. Tim scoffs. It takes the both of them to get his tight slacks down around his legs; mostly because Dick takes his time touching every inch of Tim's bare skin that he can.
But eventually, he's naked. They're both naked, but Dick is so distracted by Tim's nakedness that he can't bring himself to be concerned with his own. He lets himself look for a long, long moment, indulges himself in taking in every inch of Tim's lean, lithe body.
Tim is still propping himself up on his elbows, head tilted as he takes Dick in the exact same way. It reveals the delicate curve of his collarbone, so Dick crawls forward again to put his mouth on it. Tim lets him, let Dick lay him back down on the bed. Dick pulls back a bit. Just to watch him exhale, stroke the hair back from his face.
"Hi," Tim says softly. "You're looking at me kind of funny."
"Sorry," Dick says, not really meaning it. "You're just—" He sighs, stirring the hair around Tim's face. "Jesus, Tim, do you even know what you do to me?"
Tim blinks, like Dick's startled him, before he swallows and says, "I think you should, uh. Show me."
That, Dick can do. He has to pull himself away from Tim to pull the lube and condoms out from the nightstand, Tim watching all the while. He freezes, halfway through squirting the lube over his fingers, to say, "You have done this before, right?"
"Oh, my God." Tim thunks his head back on the pillow. "Dick. I'm twenty-one. I've had plenty of time to have sex, trust me."
Dick's already settled himself between Tim's open, waiting legs. He still can't help the sharp frown and the, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
It's the wrong reaction, he knows. Too greedy by far. Tim glances back up, but Dick busies himself by putting a knuckle to Tim's rim. Tim inhales sharply.
"There we go," Dick mutters, slipping a finger in. Tim is warm and tight around him, shuddering just slightly as Dick comes back up so they're face to face, so Dick can kiss that sweet, shuddering mouth as he twists and crooks his finger inside.
"Hey," Tim says. "Can I—ah—test something out?"
"Sure," Dick says, confused but no less willing.
Tim grins, the kind of grin Dick has come to associate with trouble. "I lost my virginity when I was seventeen." Dick's pace stutters, and he knows Tim catches it because he grins wider. "I think he was a little older too. Pretty nice to look at. I don't—I don't actually remember his name—"
Something about this detail infuriates Dick, the fact that some nobody got to see Tim like this, flushed and panting, that they got to walk Tim through it while Dick was too old and trapped. Impulsively, he goes for another finger. Tim makes a triumphant, punched-out noise, throwing his head back on the pillow.
"Yes," he says. "Yes, Dick, just like that—"
Dick has to work to pull oxygen into his lungs. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Why," Tim says, with some kind of coy, cocky grin. "Does it bother you?" Dick crooks his fingers, quicker and harder than has to be comfortable, but Tim just bears down into it with a pleased gasp. "And then there was Ariana. Steph. Bernard. Kon—"
"Enough," Dick says, harsher than he should. Tim just shivers with that same self-satisfied smile.
"Dick," Tim says, slow and deliberate. "You jealous bastard."
"I just—" Dick leans forward through the guilt to press the top of his head to Tim's shoulder. "I'm sorry, it's just—"
"Are you kidding?" Tim says, still squirming around Dick. "It's hot as hell."
Dick pulls back to stare. Tim just lifts a shoulder. "We are so fucked in the head," Dick says, and he doesn't give Tim a chance to respond before he's crushing their lips together again, slipping a third and final finger inside.
"It means you—want me," Tim blurts, like it's being torn out of him. "Like you're thinking about me. Like it matters who I'm with."
"I do," Dick promises. He presses deeper inside. Tim arches up. "It does. But right now—" He spreads his fingers wide. Tim actually shouts. "You're with me."
"Yes," Tim says immediately, straining and shaking. "Yes, I'm with you, I'm yours."
"Good," Dick says, somehow immensely relieved, and he pulls himself out of Tim entirely. Tim makes a high-pitched, keening noise. Dick shushes him gently. "It's alright. I've got you."
Tim is breathing so hard that his ribs come to the surface with every inhale. Dick's hands are shaking as he pulls the condom over his already leaking cock.
"I've got you," he says to Tim again as he lines himself up. Then, with wonder, "You're with me."
"Always," Tim tells him.
Dick pushes in.
Tim is still so, so tight around him, hot and molten. Dick groans, hanging his forehead over Tim's shoulder.
"Oh, my God," Tim says, distantly, echoing Dick's thoughts exactly. Tim's hands are gripping at his shoulders, tight enough to bruise. Dick twitches his hips experimentally. Tim's fingers spasm on his back. "Fuck."
Dick can't help his stupid, silly grin. "That's the idea." He rolls his hips forward again, slow and gentle. Tim's got his head thrown back on the pillow, leaving a wide expanse of pale, pretty neck for Dick to mouth at. Tim's pulse pounds underneath Dick's tongue.
Tim lifts his hips up, shifting and squirming. "Dick," he says, almost pleadingly. "Dick, you gotta—"
"Maybe I want to take my time," Dick says, even though all he wants is to move. Tim is usually so, so carefully controlled, and now he's flushed and panting and wild-eyed. Dick wants to unravel him. Hoard the pieces for himself.
He pulls out almost entirely, slow and steady. Tim tries to shift down and follow, but Dick puts a hand to his stomach, holds him in place. Tim's breath is rabbity-quick beneath his hand, but he stays still. Then, Dick slides back in. Just as slow and careful.
"Dick," Tim says turning petulant. "I already told you—"
He's cut off when Dick shifts again inside of him, breaking off into a choked gasp.
"And I'm supposed to listen?" Dick says. "Is that how things normally go for you?"
He can't help the bitter, dirty jealousy that leaks into his voice, thinking about Tim in bed with other people. But Tim only grins, sharp and smug, and says, "Yeah, it is. People like it when I tell them what to do in bed. People like Bernard, and Steph, and—"
Dick doesn't give him the chance to round out the list, thrusting into him hard. Tim shouts.
"Well, I'm not any of those people," Dick says. He's setting a pace now, harder than he meant to going in, but—some small, addled part of his brain needs to prove to Tim that Dick's just better than anyone who came before, that Dick's the one who should keep him. "Am I?"
Tim's shaking his head frantically, hair mussing up against the pillows. "No, no, Dick, you're—God, don't stop—"
Dick wasn't planning on it. "They don't have you right now," he says lowly. He barely even knows what he's saying. All that matters is the constant, dragging heat of Tim around him, building and mounting in the pit of his gut. "Tim, who has you right now?" He punches into Tim again. Tim moans. "I need you to tell me who has you right now."
It's too desperate and revealing by far. But Tim only moans again, locking his dilated pupils into Dick's and saying. "You, Dick."
He's going to come in probably the next five seconds, but he isn't going without Tim. He wraps one hand around Tim's cock and Tim makes a lovely, stuttering noise. "I have you," Dick says, pumping once, twice. "I have you, baby."
And with that, Tim comes, spectacular and gorgeous. Dick makes sure to kiss his still-open mouth as he thrusts one last time, falling off the precipice into his own staggering release. When he comes back to himself, head tucked in the curve of Tim's neck, it's to the sound of Tim laughing.
Dick lifts his head, frowns. "What is it?"
"You have no idea," Tim says, still laughing. "How fucking surreal this is, holy shit—"
Carefully, Dick pulls himself out, and Tim's laugh breaks off into a shocky, oversensitive noise. "Sorry," Dick says, as he takes care of the condom.
"I promise," Tim says. "You don't have a single thing to apologize for."
He's sprawled out on the bed. He looks more relaxed than Dick has seen him in years, even with reddening bruises scattered across the line of his shoulders and neck. Dick doesn't even remember leaving half of those.
Tim's warm fingers wrap against his wrist, tapping lightly against his pulse. He's smiling, soft and sweet. "Hi."
Helplessly, Dick smiles back. "Hey." When Tim tugs on his wrist, pulling him back down on the bed and side-to-side with Tim, he goes.
But the beautiful, shining afterglow is fading quickly. Now, Dick is left with the aftermath, left with the fact that he's just fucked his semi-brother, the partner who's eight years his junior, the kid who used to look up at him with bright, hopeful eyes—
Tim taps him on the forehead, breaking his train of thought. "Are you overthinking things?" Tim asks. "Because I'm pretty sure that's my territory."
"I'm not—" Dick says, taken aback by the casualness of it. "Tim, this isn't—it's not a small thing that we just did."
Something in Tim's eyes sharpens, like Dick's just handed him a new puzzle to figure out. "Isn't it?" He says, carefully. "I mean. People have sex all the time."
Dick's throat is suddenly very dry. Ariana. Steph. Bernard. Kon. More that Tim hadn't gotten around to listing. Who's to say that this isn't just another name on the list? It would be his right. It might even be the smart thing to do. "Is that what…you want?"
At that, Tim suddenly dips his gaze away from Dick's, looking uncharacteristically shy. "If that's what you want."
It isn't. Of course it isn't. Dick reaches out to hook a finger underneath Tim's chin, brings his blue eyes back up. "If this was about what I wanted," he says, throat still tight. "I would have had you years ago. There wouldn't be any need for this conversation."
Tim's eyes blow wide. "Years?" he says. "Dick—"
"But we don't always get what we want," Dick says, trying to soften the brittleness of it with an only slightly fractured smile. He touches his thumb to Tim's still flushed cheeks. "You're so, so brilliant, Tim, and you have no idea how crazy I am about you, but you're still—I mean, Jesus Christ, Tim, I'm turning thirty in—"
"I already told you," Tim snaps. "I'm not a kid. I'm twenty-one-years-old. I run a company. I've seen shit. I've done shit. I can make my own goddamn decisions."
His voice is flat, bitter. He hasn't pulled away from Dick's touch, but he's holding his body stiffer, like he's expecting to have to any minute now. Dick's guilt must be written all over his face, because Tim shuts his eyes with a quiet sigh.
"Listen," he says, looking back at Dick. "If this is a one-time thing, then that's fine." Dick makes some involuntary, aborted noise. "It is, Dick, really. You don't have to come up with excuses or let me down easily. I can handle it." He snorts, self-deprecating. "I mean, hey, I spent the last twenty-one years of my life wanting you all on my own. Why should anything change now?"
"You spent how long?" Dick says, a little faint.
"Since I knew what wanting was," Tim quotes himself, with a small, resigned smile. "Come on. Like you didn't know."
Tim's early hero worship slots into a different light. Dick finds himself blinking hard. "Oh."
"Anyway," Tim says, cheeks newly red, shifting like he means to get away. "I should probably—"
Dick tugs him in again, a little clumsily, until their mouths meet slightly off-center. It's Tim who adjusts so they're aligned, kissing like they never stopped at all.
"You make me so stupid," Dick says. For once, he is rendered entirely honest. Tim laughs, surprised and bright. "I'm serious. Two months after I got back to Gotham, I just looked at you and I—I hadn't ever looked at you like that before. And then I couldn't stop looking."
Tim pulls back, eyes flickering across Dick's face. "That was three years ago."
Dick winces. "I know," he says. "You were barely eighteen, and it wasn't right of me to—"
"It's not like I would have minded," Tim says.
"It's not about you minding," Dick says. "It's about me not taking advantage of—"
"Okay, okay," Tim says. "You don't need to defend teenaged me's virtue." There's a sly smile slipping onto his face, and he shifts closer to Dick to say, "He was jacking it off to you pretty much every night anyway."
The thought of an even younger Tim, jerking off with Dick's name on his lips, makes Dick shudder through a hot swell of shame. Tim's smile widens. Dick is inordinately fond of him. "You are such a brat."
"Hm," Tim says, clearly pleased. He's flush with Dick's chest, and Dick brings both his arms up around Tim's back, just to see if they can get any closer. They can. Dick likes it very much. "Are you going to get offended if I call you a pervy old man?"
"Maybe a little," Dick says honestly.
Tim's still laughing, open and warm, when he kisses Dick, and Dick is smiling right back. Maybe they both wake up tomorrow and remember all the reasons why this is a catastrophically bad idea. Maybe Dick remembers why he needs to be ashamed, and Tim remembers why he needs to be disgusted. But maybe Dick will wake up before Tim, and he'll get to watch Tim sleep for a moment before he wakes Tim up with a kiss. Maybe Tim will smile up at him sleepily before kissing him back. Maybe, just maybe, they'll be fine.
"It's okay," Tim whispers. "I think it's super hot that you're a pervert."
Dick sighs.