This was dumb. Steph was dumb, you were dumb, and Tim especially was dumb.

This wouldn't have happened if he handled your relationship with some more... nuance.

You were his teammate. His partner — in vigilantism. A small, local vigilante who didn't have too many enemies after you. So obvious, when Tim's civilian life was threatened, you were the perfect candidate to be his bodyguard for appearances — especially since you didn't have many prior interactions with him.

The mission went fine as long as Tim was confined to being guarded, but... some other aspects went awry. Most people aren't supposed to fuck their prop bodyguard, but Tim was a man of many rare occasions. It happened a few times before the mission ended. And more after the mission ended. And each time just held more and more weight in your chest, and his.

He thought it was obvious. He like liked you. He loved you. Even if he texted you begging for nudes everytime you went to brunch with Steph, or to come back and sit on his face when you went down for cereal, or to let him fuck you slow when you decided to spend one night in your ratty apartment.

Tim was a man of many words, but none of them were, 'I love you.'

He should've known. He was a detective for fuck's sake. He should've seen the signs, seen that you weren't taking the relationship seriously — if it even was a relationship in your eyes. No, it wasn't that you weren't taking it seriously. You thought he wasn't taking it seriously.

He only got to know at Steph's fourth brunch with you that week after she found out. He was blowing your phone up again for fun, asking for everything vulgar and beyond, when he got a notification from her.

stupid dumb blonde (steph) the love of your life thinks you're fucking like rabbits everyday for shits and giggles. fix it before i fix your face.

He'd learned the hard way that you thought that he thought you were convenient. Not sexy, not the love of his life, not the person who's finger he wanted to put a ring on. Convenient. Easy. There for him to take every single night because you were five feet from his bed.

So now he was staring at you during the mission debrief out of the corner of his eye. He paid as much attention as he could when you were right there, but dammit, Bruce was making this longer than it had to be. When the Bat finally concluded with, "Any questions?" Tim bolted. Fast. Waited for you outside the room and whisked you away with his charm and distractions, just as he was trained.

Then the mood fell. Darkened. Became serious. "Steph told me what you said yesterday. At brunch," he said, straightforward, words sharp and eyes sharper. He wasn't mad. Not at you, at least.

He bit his cheek, just... looking at you through the mask. Almost distraught because you were the best thing to happen to him and you... didn't think he liked you. "What, you think this some is trade of sex just out of convenience? That I don't— don't like you, don't want you?"

"Do you? Every other text I get from you is something about rearranging my insides," you snapped back because why was he confronting you like you were in the wrong?

"That's how I flirt, asshole!" he retorted. "Because I'm not good at the sappy shit, I just tell you how I want to share, y'know, my most intimate moments with you for the rest of my life."