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“Jase- Jason, cut it out.”
Tim had been up for far too long, for far too many stupid reasons, and now he’s being roused back into the land of the living far too soon. He grumbles, shoving his face back into the warm cushions he’s lying on. Tucking his arms more firmly around the plush fabric, he mentally wills whatever disruption to either leave the room or just die. He wasn’t picky.
“...You almost woke him.” The whispered hiss far above only made Tim burrow in further, another discontent murmur rising from his throat. He felt the surface he was lying on tense, as if in anticipation that he would awaken.
An amused scoff sounds out. “No, you almost did. He’s lying on you, Dickiebird.”
“And you’re- Jason- for fuhucks sake!”
There’s an abrupt jolt of his cushion, fully disrupting Tim’s attempt to fall back asleep. How dare it. He voices his displeasure with a groan, eyelashes fluttering open. After a moment of initial blurriness, he can make out a tomato above him. Huh. Maybe the hallucinations weren’t totally gone yet. Four days of refusing the siren calls of his bed did have its downsides, apparently.
“Oh no, Tim-” The tomato is speaking now. How long has Tim been asleep for to allow vegetables to gain sentience?
There’s a click of a tongue, but it’s not quite Damian’s style of expressing dissatisfaction. This one sounds more mocking. “Aw shit, man. You actually woke him up?”
“You woke him up, you little-! GAH! Stohohohopihihit!”
Tim is jostled again, and it finally clicks. He’s in someone’s lap, and by the sounds of the bubbly laughter above him, it could only be one person. He rubs his eyes and blinks up at Dick, who’s flushed a rich scarlet, one arm wrapped around Tim’s back, while the other is clamped over his mouth. It didn’t hide the wide smile that was stretched out across his face, or muffle the laughter spluttering out of him.
Tim rolls over onto his side to find the culprit.
Jason is sitting on the coffee table, an amused grin on his face as he scratches his fingers across the sole of Dick’s socked foot resting next to him. He notices Tim looking, and his grin widens. “Morning, Timmy.” He greets, his grin going from amused to downright shit-eating.
“Wh’t’s g’ing on?” Tim slurs, scrubbing a fist over his face again to get rid of the crust in his eyes.
Dick whines through his giggling, pressing his back deep into the couch. “Jahason ihis tohohorturing mehe!” he accuses, fingers tightening on the fabric of Tim’s oversized jumper.
“Dramatic,” Jason scoffs. “I’m desensitising you, obviously. God forbid, a villain tries to interrogate you for information. You’d crack within two seconds.”
“Jahahason!” Dick’s legs jolt when his younger brother scribbles at his arch, shaking his head helplessly. “Quhuhuit ihihit!”
Ah. Well, that explains why Tim’s ‘cushions’ have been moving so much.
“Say, kid,” Jason hums conversationally, like he isn’t responsible for his older brother’s giggling whines on the couch. “I think Dickiebird broke his own rule with all that wigglin’.”
Tim scrunches his brow, staring at Jason, who’s looking at him like he’s waiting for the dots to connect. He might be waiting a while. Tim really wasn’t firing on all cylinders quite yet.
Dick chokes on a gasp when Jason gives a particularly vicious scratch on the ball of his foot. “Yohou mahade mehe mohove! Thahat cahan’t count!”
The offended outcry clicks the pieces in place. Tim slowly rolls back over to stare up at his brother, his face chillingly serious as he murmurs, “You interrupted my nap.”
Dick had made this rule well before Tim’s time within the manor; If a younger sibling falls asleep on you, then you must adhere to the rules of the ‘Cat Problem’. You are stuck there until said younger sibling wakes up, and any attempt to move is punishable by death.
It was likely a result of Jason’s scrappy, street kid comportment when he first moved in. When he finally allowed himself to trust the residents of the manor and fall asleep around or on them, it was so momentous that a law needed to be passed to not break that tenuous olive branch.
It was a rule that held dominion over the manor ever since. Bruce used it too, though for him it was more sacred because those were his kids.
And something so special, being broken despite the mandated order, deserved a punishment to be remembered.
Dick opens his mouth, something akin to horror washing over his face as he registers how well and truly fucked he is right now, but Tim doesn’t allow him to plead his case. No matter what kind of bullshit that man was about to spin, point and case was simple; Tim’s nap was interrupted, and he was not taking that lightly.
He drives nimble fingers into Dick’s sides - easily achieved with how he’s lying over his brother’s lap - and wriggles them incessantly. He’s rewarded with a sharp yelp and peals of laughter, along with Dick’s heel banging atop the coffee table. Though that might’ve also been caused by Jason’s scribbling over both of Dick’s arches.
“Guhuhuhuys!”
Tim’s hoodie was going to be stretched in places with how hard Dick was clinging to the fabric. He was trying to pull his knees up to escape Jason’s torment, but Tim, lying over his legs, acted as a counterbalance. Not to mention, they’d fallen asleep almost fifteen minutes ago under the additional weight, causing their movement to be uncoordinated with the numbness. Despite Dick’s claims of how Tim was his ‘baby brother’, the kid was putting on muscle. The laughter wracking him was no help either, turning his strength all the way off and leaving him as capable as a fledgling. Needless to say, he was going nowhere until his brothers let him up.
“You earned your sentence, do your time,” Jason volleys back with a grin, blunt nails skittering over his brother’s toes, Dick’s socks doing nothing to protect him. “Oi, Timbit, get his ribs, would ya? He ain’t squealing enough.”
“I dihihidn’t meHEHEAHAn tohohoho!” Dick shrieks when Tim finds that damning little spot on his bottom ribs, ducking forward to bury his face into his little brother’s hair, like it could muffle the fits of laughter pouring out of him. “PleHEHEHEease!”
“I j’st wanted to sleep, can’t h’ve shit in Gotham,” Tim grumbles, half-intelligible from where his face is smooshed back into Dick’s stomach, though a smile tugs at his lips as Dick begins hiccupping from the force of his giggling. It wasn’t often he could get back at Dick for all of his tickle attacks, not unless he teamed up with another member of the family, so despite the tiredness lingering in his bones, he was enjoying the payback.
He wheedles his nails against the bones, unable to go much higher than the third set due to his current position. Though honestly, that wasn’t his fault, considering Dick had practically melted over him, and was keeping the teenager trapped in his lap. The targeted attack on one of Dick’s worst spots kept the man trapped in an endless whirlwind of fizzling sparks and laughter.
“Tihihim- Jahaha- JAHAhahason! Ihihih’m sohohorry! M-Mehehercy!”
The plead was accompanied by loud cackles rolling through the room from the relentless attack. The pair watches with amusement as Dick unfolds himself from his hunched position to press against the couch again, surrendering himself to the sensations.
Now free to move, Tim rolls from his stomach onto his back, smirking up at Dick. His pink flush has spread across his grinning cheeks, and mirthful tears bud at the edges of his eyes. Tim reaches over and pats Dick’s knee to get Jason’s attention - unable to hold back a snort when Dick flinches and starts giggling harder through his rushed words of, “Nonononono, Tihihim- nohohot thehehere, c’mohon!”
“Relax, Dick, I wasn’t gonna,” Tim assures him with a laugh, sending a wry grin to his other sibling. “I think we broke him, Jase.”
Jason’s smirk is getting dangerously close to fond as he surveys his older brother. “Yeah, he’s done,” he agrees, giving the man’s big toe one last tweak, and chuckling when Dick gives a small giggly whine of protest.
“Thank gohohod,” Dick slumps into the couch, completely boneless. Tim shuffles further down the couch until it’s just his head in Dick’s lap, giving his thighs a break from the additional weight. The older vigilante grimaces at the change. “My legs are gonna get pins and needles.”
“Drama queen.” Jason deftly picks up Tim’s legs and flops on the couch, dropping them uncemeronously into his lap. Tim eyes him with no small amount of distrust. Jason simply winks and flicks the television on. “You two care if I throw a movie on?”
Dick raises a brow. “Are you going to do it regardless of what we say?”
“Yes.”
The eldest brother chuckles, but doesn’t argue against it. Tim is pleasantly surprised when fingers start to card through his hair and scratch his scalp. He blinks slowly up at Dick, eyelids growing heavy as a Pavlovian response to the hair petting. He tries not to obviously lean into the attention, but it’s painfully clear as day. Dick smiles down at him; this time it’s soft and fully voluntary.
“Sorry for interrupting your nap, Timmy,” he apologizes, pressing a gentle kiss to his little brother’s forehead. “You can go back to sleep, I promise I won’t move this time.”
“Do you now?” Jason hums innocently, fingers sliding across the cushions slowly.
Tim feels more than sees Dick’s flinch. “Jason Peter Todd.”
The responding cackle is utterly gleeful. “Ooo, cracking out the full names now?”
Tim gently prods Jason’s thigh with his toe, cracking an eye open - and hey, when did they close? - to pin his brother with a look. “I wanna sleep, Jay.” He may make his voice just a little pathetic and weary, but the courts will never prove it was intentional.
It got the result he wanted. Jason settles back with an amused smile. His period piece drama plays quietly in the background, occupying the man from stirring up more trouble just for the fun of it. “Alright, alright. No more ruffling the Big Bird’s feathers. Knock out already, Timbers.”
Well, with Dick’s fingers returning to scratch his scalp, Tim couldn’t exactly resist the siren song of sleep anymore.
He curls onto his side, wrapping an arm around his eldest brother like he did earlier in a comfortably warm embrace. Jason’s hand comes down to rest on his ankle, a thumb strategically massaging into the overworked muscles there.
Tim’s asleep within two minutes. Dick follows after not even five minutes later. Jason takes a photo, and after a moment of deliberation, sends it to Bruce. The man could do with a new lockscreen image.