Work Text:
"I think your boyfriend is stalking you."
Tim is completely taken out of the mindless task of compiling data, brought out of his own thoughts by Jason’s sudden proclamation.
“I’m sorry what?” Tim only just prevents himself from shrinking down into his chair. If he didn’t have his bat-training, he would have crumpled once the words registered. He very much comprehends, unfortunately.
Jason gives him a Look, turning away from where he had been staring off in the distance to hype himself up to stare Tim straight in his eyes. “I said think, but no. I–we–know your boyfriend is stalking you.”
“Danny?”
Jason sighs, appearing as if this is really hurting him to say. It better be, it is hurting Tim to hear. “I know this must be hard to hear, and it surprised me too, but your new boyfriend is lowkey…highkey? Whatever– your boyfriend is just stalking you.”
“How?” Tim wishes he didn’t understand. Wishes he was as confused as he is currently portraying himself as.
"Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but I had Babs look into some things and the evidence just kept piling up.”
"Multiple people think my boyfriend is stalking me?"
"Oh, everyone does, but guess who got elected to tell you?"
"You all gossip about my relationships behind my back?"
Jason just gives him another capital-L-Look and Tim allows himself to be cowed. It’s hard not to be when not ten feet away is a conspiracy board covered in strings all revolving around Damien and Jon’s developing relationship.
Maybe this is karma. Tim isn’t going to reflect on that now. Instead he resigns himself to the conversation happening. "So, how does my boyfriend stalk me?"
Jason pulls up a chair and sits, leaning towards Tim with all the seriousness appropriate for someone who is going to be delivering apparent bad news. "Listen, that boy has your work and personal calendar in his phone."
Tim sits up straighter. If Tim had been acknowledging the situation past the surface level, he would be thanking Jason for starting out with such a straightforward instance to answer for. "A shared calendar is normal? I have his."
"You guys have been together for 4 months, that isn't normal!"
"I shared all of my calendars with my previous partners because of how busy I am."
"That is not normal people behaviour!"
Tim resists crossing his arms defensively but doesn’t resist rolling his eyes. "I'm not taking away his access to my calendars, it works for us. It would cause issues if I randomly did it. Besides, I like having access to his, it helps me know when he's slammed and when I'm able to carve time out to spend together.
Tim hopes the annoyance in his voice deflects from the real problem: the fact that it wasn’t working for them. Oracle must’ve hacked Danny’s civilian phone. This gave a perspective, but an incomplete one.
What they are missing due to their information solely coming from Danny’s phone is very important context. A vision, clear as crystal, manifests in Tim’s mind: Danny in his castle in the Ghost Zone, surrounded by paper schedules (provided by the aptly named ‘Printer ghost’) struggling to comprehend any of it. He turns to Tim, in this vision, tears in his eyes, as he begs Tim to help him so he doesn’t miss their next date.
They had already missed their reservation.
Tim snaps back to the present when Jason speaks again. “Second thing, he always seems to know when you haven't eaten."
"Why?"
"It was a whole thing when he came over unexpectedly after being busy for a few days and called me out for eating nothing but protein bars and energy drinks."
"Dude."
"In my defence there was a crisis at Wayne Industries and we were dealing with the weasel invasion."
They both shudder at the memory, Dick still can't get anywhere near a zoo due to trauma.
Tim still hasn’t recovered from the resulting scheduling conflicts.
Jason shakes his head, seemingly pulling himself out of the memory and refocussing on the present. "Either way, your boyfriend randomly showing up to hand you a takeout container and immediately disappearing is weird. Babs checked the taps, he literally appears for 2 minutes and then disappears, there isn't footage of him entering or leaving!"
"Are you sure?” Tim bullshits, “I know Danny is very light-footed, he still startles me all the time. But the camera footage has to be there."
Tim knows that footage isn’t there, and now he regrets not being more thorough with his editing of the security tapes. He’s glad, at least, they weren’t able to access the originals. If they did, they would have seen Danny disappearing, reappearing as he falls onto the ground after forgetting to go intangible, knocking over a table and lamp on his way to the ground.
"No its weird, Babs said the footage like freezes for a second whenever he appears and after he disappears. Half the time, the footage becomes like corrupted. Does he have any tech that disrupts surveillance cameras?"
"No? I know he's in engineering, but he's never shown me anything like that, nor has anything popped up in his stuff."
Tim however has worked with Danny so his tech interference could be less obvious so Tim doesn’t have to make so many edits. Less work for him, even if it is harder to stalk Danny just by looking for interference.
"Do you like check that routinely? That's weird, Timberly."
"No, but you never know, its Gotham, and he's in school here."
"He's not from here right?"
"No, he got a good scholarship to go here, remember we met because Wayne Industries had an interest in him?"
"The man charmed you and successfully got a date, I–”
Charmed, that was one way to put it. Another way to put it is that Tim was weak. The day had involved some brief flirting on Danny’s end followed by a spilled drink on Tim’s shirt. Fast forward to the bathroom and Danny is taking his shirt off right off right in front of Tim. Before Tim knew it he was taking the shirt and exchanging it for a number. Sue him, he liked what he saw.
Or roast him, as his siblings proceeded to do.
“ –third thing that makes everyone know your boyfriend is stalking you, he always seems to know when your busy or injured due to your night life."
Well that was patently untrue. "What, I've hidden it really well."
"Dude has access to your work and personal life calendars. How can you not question why he knows to stay away on certain nights or days, even though the time isn't blocked off in your behemoth calendar."
"No the time is blocked off in my calendar."
"Having it say, focus work does not mean shit."
It doesn’t mean shit, not to Danny, but clearly not for the reasons Jason is attempting to imply.
"Your boyfriend clearly knows something is up, but he never said anything to you. He also can see the news and social media when Red Robin gets got. When you sprained your ankle a few weeks back, I remember you commenting that Danny was just there the next morning and had all of the things to help, without you even saying a word? That's what made us all raise our eyebrows and actually start paying attention."
Welp, this is what Tim gets for trying to brag about his boyfriend just once. Danny had been helpful, and caring, and brought over everything. It just took Tim actually saying a lot of words, some more than once, to make it happen.
"Okay, what else is there? Three things is not enough to convince me that my boyfriend is stalking me."
"He knows all the things you like and dislike."
"My partner should know that!"
"No one know what your favourite brand of handcream is. Why the fuck did you get a text during patrol that he noticed it was on sale and picked some up for you."
"Well…" That had been the sanatized version of that text, for sure. The actual wording of the text Danny had sent him was ‘This handcream makes me think of sex for some reason? On sale so I got some :D’.
"……Ew I need to burn my brain now."
If Tim has to painfully sit through this conversation, then so does Jason.
"What else do you got? Because all of this behaviour is just whatever I do whenever I'm in a relationship."
"I want you to think about what you just said."
"What? How Danny is behaving is just like how I do in my relationships?"
"Tim."
"Oh god, I'm a stalker, Danny is stalking me." Badly.
"And here we go."
"Jason I'm dating a stalker, what should I do?" He was stalking Tim so, so badly.
"Normal behaviour would be for you to dump him and run."
"But I love him?" Despite all of it, all of the work Tim had to put in to get Danny even up to this level, he loved him.
"Dude it's been 4 months. That's just obsession, you'll get over it."
"Will I?"
"Yes, now dump him. Is my data ready to go?"
Tim looks down, so relieved "Yeah give me a second to put it on a USB."
"Yeah, thanks, if you need held telling your boyfriend to fuck off, just let me know. I'm used to dealing with people who can't take no for an answer," Jason finishes with a menacing look on his face, brandishing his hands.
"No, I need to consider things carefully, before I do anything, I know how I would react, if it was me and you guys think he's acting like I am." So carefully. He needed to come up with an accelerated training regime for his boyfriend.
Tim pulls the USB out of the port—without ejecting it first because he feels like continuing to make questionable decisions right now—and hands it to Jason.
"If you need help, just let any of us know, we got your back." Jason nods at Tim and goes to leave the apartment. Tim definitely needs help, but it’s not the kind any of his family could give him.
As soon as the door closes he opens his security cameras and squints at the one facing him at his desk. He squints, and can only barely make out a few flickering pixels. He grins as he feels arms wrap around him from behind.
Tim spins around in the grip, cupping the cautiously proud face of his boyfriend as it appears.
One of the hands wrapped around Tim reaches into Danny’s chest as he pulls out Tim’s favored gum that he specifically only chews when struggling to focus on WI projects. A fact that Tim hasn’t ever told Danny. It might be inappropriate gum for this specific moment in time but…
Danny’s grin becomes more confident as Tim’s own grows. “Guess what? I only had to ask Tam twice about the schedule today before I got it.”
Tim pulls Danny down for a kiss. They both deserved it for all of the progress they’ve made.
“Oh yeah? We’ll make a professional stalker out of you, yet.”
And they would, because Tim deserves someone to match his freak.