#shhh dont ask about logistics

[aceofshitposts]

did a little writing challenge with @yasmindifference! we randomly generated a prompt and both wrote for about an hour for it :3c prompt was: Have one character brushing the hair away from the face of the other. and here's mine! make sure to also check out yas' fic <3 -

Generally, Tim stays out of the limelight. Disastrous PR debacles was more Bruce’s thing, a man known for swinging between partners and parties like a squirrel caught in a hurricane.

Not that Tim didn’t make his appearances but each was carefully crafted to affect a certain image. Timothy Drake-Wayne was known to be kind but aloof, just funny enough to get people to let down their guard. Charming and put together.

Scandals were not in Tim’s public itinerary. He had enough work to deal with in his day and night job both.

The first bouquet of flowers to show up goes relatively unmentioned. There are a few looks from others in the office but it’s nothing particularly alarming. Flowers have shown up before, from Bernard once or twice and a few separate attempts at wooing him from others. Tim takes the card from the vase, no name left and a simple note that says have a nice day, and regifts the flowers to the lobby reception.

It’s when Tim is surrounded by several bouquets, one from each day of the week, that he starts to get annoyed. Someone has to be playing a joke on him or else he’s got a very persistent stalker– which wouldn't be the first time and leads Tim to wondering if something new has crawled up Ra’s’ ass recently.

He starts tracking the orders. There’s three bouquets from a florist down in the bowery, one from the diamond district and another from a larger florist by Gotham General. Each order was paid for with cash, naturally.

Calling the shops proves fruitless with the various shopkeepers giggling about customer confidentiality. Tim is able to identify some of the flowers, however, discovering that the all white and green bouquet from Wednesday contained coriander, white gardenia, white camella and white clover.

Then the press catches wind of Tim’s anonymous flower gifts. It’s not quite headline worthy, thankfully, but the gossip mill is in full swing with questions about who this mystery admirer could be.

Which also means the other bats catch wind of it.

“Shut up,” Tim mutters dejectedly at Dick’s joyous cackling. “This could be a serious problem.”

Nobody is taking Tim’s concerns seriously. It doesn’t help that Tim has ruled out this being some ploy from Ra’s, if only because in response to this ridiculous situation Ra’s had sent a bouquet. Directly to Tim’s living room with a not so anonymous card.

“What are you laughing about now? Please tell me B fell off a fire escape or something.”

Great, just what Tim needed; to have Jason come in and start laughing at his public persona’s disaster of a love life also. Dick wastes no time in launching into the whole thing, embellishing the story more than Tim would like honestly, while Jason leans against the Bat-Computer console.

Tim makes the mistake of making eye contact with Jason, earning himself a wide grin from the older robin.

It takes Tim a moment to remember Dick is actively making fun of him. That’s why Jason is smiling at him. It’s a funny story, Tim might even be amused if he wasn’t at the centre of it.

“I’m going on patrol,” he mutters to no-one in particular.

Tim is expecting it when he exits the office elevator on Monday. As he walked through the building there had been several not so subtle looks and not so quiet whispers that alluded to his ordeal not being over.

Despite this, he was not quite prepared for what was waiting for him outside his office.

He’d recognize the worn leather jacket and broad shoulders anywhere.

The office is suspiciously quiet as Tim walks through, eyes following him like the hungry vultures they were. Tim wonders the ethics of hoping for an Arkham breakout just to keep this off the cover of the Gotham Gazette.

Jason grins at him when Tim comes to stand in front of him, not unlike the other night in the cave.

“A little birdy said you were lookin’ for me,” Jason mock whispers, leaning towards Tim.

“How did you get in the building?” Tim asks cooly, unlocking the door to his private office. If this was a joke Tim was going to personally bug all of Jason and Dick’s equipment for the foreseeable future.

“Oh, y’know, my boyish charm.” Jason shrugs and Tim notices the bouquet of bright red roses held in Jason’s hand.

Tim might not be an expert on flower meanings.

But that one is pretty clear.

Jason reaches out with his free hand to brush some hair out of Tim’s face.Someone in the office shrieks, reminding Tim that they were not only currently in public but also in his workplace and Jason looks like he’s about to laugh even though his face is also rapidly turning red. Tim decides he’ll deal with the PR crisis later and shoves Jason into his office and shuts the door and blinds behind him.

[wordsinhaled]

because genderqueer payneland naturally settling into the best ways to care for each other is my beloved trope - here's a little something on their disguises, for @icarian-iscariot and @dont-offend-the-bees !!!

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Charles is tinkering with the two pairs of glasses they'd just received as payment for their last case. Doing up their disguises for the first time. It's a lovely bit of magic, really, and he can already tell it's going to be dead useful. He might even be rambling about it, just a little, in his excitement, picking through the logistics of how two middle-aged versions of him and Edwin ought to look. He's just starting in on the necktie patterns he vaguely remembers his teachers wearing, when—

"Charles?" Edwin interrupts, and Charles turns toward him, expectant. "Actually, I. Well, I wondered if… I thought perhaps. If there is the choice… of course, only if it is possible, and if it doesn't—if it doesn't suit that is perfectly fine. But I—"

"Edwin, mate. What is it? It's all right. Whatever it is, just spit it out. Better out than in, yeah?"

"Well… I only wondered… must we both be men, as it were? In our disguises?"

And Charles feels taken aback, a little, if he's honest. It's a new thought, if not exactly an unfamiliar one, somehow. But he smooths his face out, keeps the catching up his mind is doing from showing. "I mean, I hadn't really thought about it, mate. Don't think I'd really fancy being anything else."

"I was not referring to you." Edwin's voice is tight and high, bordering on defensive, and suddenly it dawns on Charles that this is—this is something important to Edwin. Maybe more so than he'd picked up on, before. "I have been considering that I might prefer—but it is nothing. I can simply abide—"

"Oh, no. Shhh, no," Charles croons, overtaken with the instinct to step closer, to clear away the clouds from Edwin's expression. "Stop that right there, we're not having you abide anything, mate." And he puts his hands on Edwin's shoulders, where they belong, and rubs a little, digs his fingers into taut muscle that shouldn't be able to carry tightness. Feels the tension seep out slowly, as Edwin relaxes into his grasp.

"All right," Edwin says, as though he's convincing himself, "all right."

"I've just got to fiddle with the charm a bit, but… should be easy enough. S'not like there's rules to the disguises, after all. 'Course you can be a woman, Eds. Nothing stopping you. Don't matter one bit to me."

"Truly?"

Edwin sounds so unsure, and so terribly hopeful, as though he isn't asking Charles for the easiest thing in the world: to take him just as he is and still adore every bit of him. The secret parts becoming not so secret anymore. The mystery of Edwin Payne revealed, piece by piece, the innermost bits of him entrusted into Charles' care. It makes Charles' chest tighten in sympathy. In something like love.

He nods, insistent. "Truly. Actually, it sort of… and don't be put out, now. But it sort of… fits, don't it? Now I think about it. Fits you." Charles gives him an exaggerated, appraising once-over, grinning. "Fits us, even."

And then Edwin is smiling back, a tiny upward quirk of the lips. His eyes gone bright and beautiful, the storm in them dispersed. Privately, Charles thinks he might even be well on his way to coaxing out that crooked flash of teeth he likes on Edwin so much: the one he looks forward to every time because it means Edwin is proper content.

"I daresay it does, Charles."