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It’s been a week since their first date, and Jason is tired. Every time he tries to kiss Peter, someone pulls him away. Either for him to watch a new trick they learned or get a second opinion on something, someone managed to steal Peter right from under him. If Jason didn’t know any better, he would think they were trying to get in the way. But he knows that they don’t mean it…well, most of them don’t. Jason doesn’t know about the demon brat yet; the kid is attached to Peter and doesn’t like sharing. Ever.
That brings them to now. Peter and Jason were in the movie room, and Jason had his arm around Peter. It was perfect; he had everything planned out. The movie was a rom-com, the lighting was low, and they were cuddled under a blanket. Just when Jason was leaning in, finally able to get Peter to look in his direction, Damian barged in, saying he was stealing Peter to help with Batcow. He grabbed Peter’s hand, and on his way out, he kept eye contact with Jason while leading Peter away. Jason's jaw clenched as he watched them walk away. He narrowed his eyes at Damian’s smug expression.
“Well, damn….cockblocked again?” Tim appeared in the doorway and looked at Jason with a smirk. Jason huffed and stood up.
“What do you want?”
“Revenge on the demon brat.” That made Jason pause and look at the teen. IT wasn’t uncommon for the siblings to gang up on each other, especially on Damian and Dick. Tim had a look of mischief in his eyes, causing Jason to raise an eyebrow.
“And do tell, what did the kid do to get on your bad side?”
“He mentioned to Alfred that I stayed up the last three nights to work on a case. Now, I’m benched for a week, and I can’t go to Kon’s this weekend. I want vengeance.”
Jason smirked, “What were you thinking?”
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Damian, we talked about this. You can’t pull me away from others every time you want to hang out.” Peter sighed as the boy pulled him in the direction of the barn. He felt bad leaving Jason behind, but he knew that he needed to address this behavior with Damian.
“But…Batcow needs your assistance.” Damian said seriously. Peter looked at the boy. Ever since he was outed as an assassin, Damian seemed to leech onto him. He gets it, Peter, besides Cass, is the only one who was a trained assassin from birth. Even then, Cass is typically away on missions or hanging out with Steph. With the other brothers typically having other hobbies, there is no common interest among them. Sighing, he replies to the boy,
“I’ll help this time, but later, we’ll set up a schedule for when we can hang out, okay?” Damian stayed silent for a while. They had finally reached the barn, and he opened the doors.
“Would those be the only times we hang out?” He asked softly. Peter looked at him with a fond smile.
“Of course not, Dami. It’s more of a…reassurance. We’ll have time set aside to hang out with each other.” Peter responds, grabbing Batcows food and feeding him. Damian starts gathering the stuff for Batcows bath. “Now, there may be times were other things pop up, like cases, but we’ll work around it.”
“Okay,” Damian says after a moment, sounding relieved. Peter smiles, and they work together to take care of Batcow.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Okay,” Tim says, looking at what Jason and he wrote down for their revenge plan. “There are three options. One, hide all of his blades. Two, move all of his furniture a half inch to the left, or three, keep Peter away from him for as long as possible.”
Jason nodded along, thinking about each option thoroughly. “One and two would take lots of time. We could do it while he’s at school.”
“But it’s Saturday, we’d have to wait days, I need revenge now,” Tim says in a whiny voice. Jason chuckles at him.
“Okay, then that leaves option three. Just so you know, Damian might actually stab us for this.” Tim nodded.
“Worth it.”
“Then let’s go.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Peter and Damian had finished up with Batcow and were now in the kitchen making a late lunch while Alfred went grocery shopping. Damian sat and talked about his ‘allies’ in school that he has lunch with and how they are ‘tolerable.’
“I’m glad you have some friends outside of Jon.”
“Allies, not friends.”
“Right, Allies.” Peter smiles while plating Damian’s veggie wrap and putting it in front of the boy. Damian nodded in thanks and started eating. Peter made himself a few sandwiches and went to sit down when Tim entered the room.
“Peter! I need help,” Tim sounded frantic and grabbed him before he could even respond.
“What? Tim, slow down!” Tim dragged Peter out of the kitchen and into the Batcave, leaving Damian frowning. Tim led him to his workspace, where he is trying to reverse-engineer the new strand of Joker’s laughing gas.
“We need to find an antidote before Joker can use this on Gotham.” Tim pulled out some notes on previous attempts and placed them in front of Peter. “So far, tests three and eleven have been proven to be the most effective.”
“Okay,” Peter quickly looks through the notes, “first we should…” Peter and Tim spend the next few hours going through different trials and perfecting the anredote. After lots of testing, adjusting, and analyzing, they were finished. “We won't be able to tell if it works unless someone gets affected, but if it doesn’t work, it would at least slow it down while we do more test runs.”
“It’s perfect, Peter! I knew those hours you spent studying biochemistry would be worth it. Though you are a freakishly quick learner.” Peter simply shrugs while stretching.
“It was an interesting topic, so I didn’t mind. Though I thought B didn’t want me down here working on projects?”
“Eh, I was here, so it’s okay. What are you going to do now?” Tim stretched as well, grabbing his phone. Both of them started walking back up to the manor. Peter was in front and didn’t pay any mind to who Tim was texting.
“I promised Damian we would do something real quick.” The two boys exited the grandfather clock and walked into the hallway.
“Damian again?” Peter raised an eyebrow at Tim’s tone. Tim wasn’t one to get jealous that Peter was with Damian a lot. Peter knew that he couldn’t actually care less. Tim would just grab Peter if he wanted to hang out, like he did today.
“Yes? Me and him are–”
“Peter!” Jason called out, putting an arm around him. Peter softened slightly, any suspicion leaving his body.
“Hey Jay. What’s up?”
“Me and you are going to the garden.” He started leading Peter towards the garden entrance while Peter frowned slightly.
“The garden?” Peter looked out the windows. “It’s already dark, we’ll miss dinner. Plus, I promised Damian–”
“Oh, come on, we can have dinner in the garden and the brat can wait.” Peter sighed and let Jason drag him.
“Jason, I promised him.” Jason tensed up slightly before relaxing.
“You’ll still see him, just later on.” He tried to reason, not looking at Peter as they continued to walk towards the garden.
“That’s not fair to him.”
“But it’s fair to me?” Peter blinked at his question. He knew Damian dragged him around a lot, but he always made time for Jason as well. And with Damian and Peter setting up a new schedule, Peter would have more time for Jason. He tried to explain this.
“Jason, I know that Damian has been hogging me a lot lately, but–”
“So you knew he was taking up most of your time and didn’t stop him?’
“What? I made plenty of time for you, too.” Peter stopped walking and yanked Jason to a stop as well.
“Do you really?”
“Yes, we literally spent hours this morning watching movies. Just because we aren’t attached at the hip doesn’t mean I don’t spend time with you.”
“....Okay yeah, you're right, but..” Jason trails off and hesitates.
“But what? I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong is that Damian is always stealing you away!”
“And if you had let me finish earlier, I would’ve told you that me and Damian are–”
“Master Jason, Master Peter, dinner is ready.” Alfred appears behind them, looking between the couple. Peter and Jason went quiet before Peter took a deep breath.
“Thank you, Alfred,” Peter started walking, and Alfred followed behind, but not before raising an eyebrow at Jason. “How was shopping, Alfred?”
The two made conversation, leaving Jason behind, before he finally started walking towards the dining room. When he got there, the conversation was lively and animated. Damian took Jason’s seat by Peter, forcing him to sit by Bruce. Dinner went by pretty fast, with Peter throwing worried looks at Jason. Soon everyone finished and Damian went off while talking. Everyone else went to get dressed for patrol. According to Bruce, Damian requested the night off.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
The next day, Tim and Jason planned to keep separating Damian and Peter, but they couldn’t. Not because Peter was being stubborn and hanging out with Damian because of their spat yesterday, like Jason thought he would, or because Damian was insistent on dragging Peter away like Tim thought, no. They couldn’t separate them because they weren’t at each other’s hip. Damian was in his art room, painting or sketching, and Peter was helping Alfred maintain the garden as usual.
Jason and Tim stood next to each other, watching Peter work with no shadow, and looked at each other in disbelief. Hestitantly, they walked up to Peter as he took a break to drink some water.
“Hey Peter, my man. What’s going on?” Tim started, trying to act casual, but not fooling Peter.
“Just doing my part to help Alfred. This is a pretty big garden, so I figured he’d need help.” Tim nodded and gave Jason a side eye. Jason cleared his throat and looked at Peter. Surprisingly, Peter didn’t look upset, he looked amused.
“So, where is your shadow?” Jason asked while looking around, as if Damian would pop up at any moment and steal Peter away again.
“Probably tending to his knives or painting. Though you would know that since you checked up on him first.”
“You doing that will never not be freaky.” Tim chimes in, talking about Peter’s ability to track them through their heartbeats. Peter simply shrugs, knowing that they aren’t too freaked out, but a little relieved to have someone who can check their location when needed.
“So, why isn’t he…here….with you?” Jason questions further. Peter only chuckled while taking another sip of water.
“Well, if you let me finish last night, I would’ve told you that we set up a schedule to hang out, that way he isn’t stealing me away at random.” Tim and Jason looked at each other, blinking in surprise.
“Ooooooh.” They said in unison, making Peter laugh more.
“Yeah, sorry I ruined your revenge plan.” That made the boys look at Peter in shock.
“You knew?! How?!” Tim asked. Jaso was also confused. Their acting may not have been the best, but they made sure to steal Peter for actual task so he wouldn’t think they had a secondary motive.
“For one, Tim has never cared about me and Damian spending time together, but he was pretty tense about it. Also, the notes you gave me stopped at test fifteen, yet I saw a paper on the floor for test twenty-one. So you had gotten close before, but hid the additional test so I would be down there for longer. Two, Jason made no sense in our spat last night. He’s pretty good at collecting evidence and arguments before saying anything, so it was probably a way to make me feel guilty and hang out with him more.”
By the time he stopped talking, Jason and Tim looked at him with their jaws open, blinking in shock. They ran through everything in their head before realizing he was right.
“That makes you so much more attractive.” Jason blurted out after a moment. Tim scrunched his face.
“And, I’m out.” Tim walked away while Peter laughed.
“Make sure you apologize to Damian!” Peter looked back at Jason. “You find the weirdest things attractive.”
“You’re competent and headstrong. What’s not to like?” Peter smiled and shook his head. Jason took a step closer.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“So…. there’s this thing I’ve been trying to do for a while, but people keep getting in between us, and it’s so frustrating. I want it to be perfect, but it gets messed up somehow and–”
“Jason, breathe.” Jason does as he’s told and looks at Peter, waiting for him to finish talking. “It would be perfect as long as it’s me and you, right?” Jason nods at his words. “Good.”
Peter grabs Jason’s collar and pulls him down, his lips gently touching his. After a moment, Jason snaps back into reality and pulls Peter closer by his waist, deepening the kiss. It didn’t feel like fireworks were going off or butterflies were fluttering in their stomachs. They felt at peace and calm. They felt at home.
After what felt like hours, but was only a minute, Jason pulled away. He looked down at Peter’s soft smile and flushed cheeks.
“So worth it.” He leaned in for another kiss when Peter’s phone alarm when off.
“Peter!” Damian shouted from the garden entrance. “It’s our turn to hang out.” Jason groaned while Peter laughed.
“I’ll be back in an hour and a half. Promise.”
Jason watched Peter walk off towards Damian with a smile. He chuckled fondly as he saw Damian trying to fix his hair that Peter had messed up.
“Since you’re here, might as well help.” Jason turned around to see Alfred holding a pair of gardening gloves. With a sigh, he put them on.
“What’s first?”