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As far as first impressions went, Tim’s was sudden, unwarranted, and above all, intensely embarrassing. In fact, he might even go so far as to say that never in his life had his mind been so utterly at odds with his body. If he could have redone a single moment in his life over again, he never would have woken up today. Instead, he would have slept in, skipped class, and been blissfully ignorant of the way the life of his unlucky doppelganger from an alternate universe changed so dramatically in the space of ten seconds.
Because let’s be real for a moment here; getting a hard on out of nowhere because the new TA did nothing more than walk into Econ 405 and run his fingers through his hair while he introduced himself , literally nothing else, was possibly, probably, most definitely the epitome of humiliation.
“I’m so screwed.”
Drips of deeply mocking laughter fell on his unprotected ears as Tim ground his forehead into the cafeteria lunch table in an effort to scrub the memories from his skull. Beside him, Cassie nearly choked on a forkful of mac-n-cheese as she took pure enjoyment in what was sure to be just the beginning of the inevitable demise of his final undergraduate year.
“More like you wish you were!” Cassie managed to get out in a normal tone before her attempt at calm fully dissolved right back into hysterical guffaws, and Tim had to cling to the tabletop to keep from falling to the linoleum when her mirth came out as a rough punch to his arm.
Across the table, Steph did her absolute worst impression of supportive friend, face going red as she struggled to slow her breathing, lest she join Cassie in her amusement. Tim snarled at her, just daring her to let even a giggle out, but the threat was empty and the effort as effective as a kitten spitting at a rottweiler; Steph lost it. “T-Tim, your f-face!” Her cheeks went even more red as she laughed so hard, all sound and air escaped her.
Much to his personal dismay, he’d run into Steph only a few minutes after he’d left The ClassTM and was still recovering, dammit, which is how he’d found himself in his current predicament to begin with. She’d insisted he join her for lunch – let’s just talk, Tim, you seem stressed – but it was a trap. A Cassie-shaped trap.
The second moment in his life that he would much prefer a do-over for was ever thinking it would be a good idea to hand feed Cassie the single, most galling thing that had ever happened to him and expect her to be a sympathetic friend about it. He knew he should have held out until he had Steph alone. At least then there might have been ice cream and terrible Whodunnit? episodes to soften the blow of being laughed at.
“This isn’t funny!” He hissed at the girls, shoving back at Cassie, the girl barely budging an inch. She smirked at his wasted effort to move her, and Tim’s glare morphed into an incensed scowl.”Freaking bodybuilder,” Tim muttered irritably, only causing Cassie’s smile to grow.
“Tim.”
He cast a wary glance at Cassie and tried to lean back when she dropped a hand on his shoulder.
“You popped a woody because some dude flipped hair out of his face.” A snort of laughter ripped out of Steph for a moment before she could fully contain it, and Tim slapped Cassie’s hand away.
“I know that ! Stop reminding me!” Tim groaned, smacking his hands over his face and dragging them down until the skin pulled below his eyes. “This year was supposed to be easy—”
“Just like you, apparently,” Steph supplied helpfully.
“Shut up!” Tim whipped his head towards her, only to recoil when he found her right in his face, sprawled halfway across the table with a wicked grin splitting her lips.
“How did you even get out of class without anyone seeing? Did you have to take a detour to the little boy’s room?” Tim’s face flushed scarlet at the mere memory of the way he’d performed a speedy shuffle of shame out the door and straight to the nearest bathroom, his bookbag clutched fiercely in front of his traitorous crotch. He hadn't even bothered to collect the syllabus for the semester, afraid that closer proximity to the new TA might induce a bout of spontaneous combustion.
“Relax, Tim, we’re just messing with you.” Cassie waved away his stammering. “She’s totally kidding.”
“Of course I am,” Steph settled back into her chair. “It’s not like you actually had to ‘take care of things’. Though that would be hilarious.”
“I—” Tim didn’t know where to start preserving his dignity, not entirely sure he even could, particularly when his brief hesitation to defend against the accusation had both girls’ eyes widening in shock as they read it for exactly what it was.
Affirmation.
“You actually—!” Tim blanched, beyond gratified when Steph clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from completing the sentence.
Cassie hissed at him demandingly, “Oh my god, Mr. Bang-Me-Bangs was that hot?”
“Mr. Bang-Me-Bangs?” Tim laughed in spite of himself. “How does Kon even put up with you?” Tim deflected desperately, and Cassie dropped back into her seat with a grin so cocky it could put her aforementioned linebacker boyfriend to shame.
“Kon thinks I'm an absolute delight, thank you very much, and if he doesn’t, he knows better than to say so.” Cassie brandished the cheesy tines of her fork close to his nose, making him go momentarily cross-eyed, before she dug the utensil back into her food. Stephanie rolled her eyes at Cassie’s special brand of humbleness.
Silence crept in for a few seconds before Steph suggested plainly, “You should ask him out.”
“ What!? ” Tim balked, staring at her incredulously as she leaned over with her own fork to steal a few elbows of mac from Cassie.
“What, what ? It’s a good idea.”
“It’s a terrible idea!” Tim fish-mouthed at her, then looked over to Cassie for support, only to receive an indifferent shrug. How to begin explaining why the mere suggestion sounded less exciting than chipping paint off a wall with his bare, stubby fingernails? He couldn’t quite find the words to express the absolute disaster such a thing would likely incur.
“Please,” Cassie dismissed his horror, taking a few gulps of Steph’s soda and flicking the condensation that came off on her fingers at him. “He’s hot, you obviously like him,” her eyes dropped demonstratively to his lap, and Tim abruptly felt scandalized. “What’s bad about it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, how about the fact that he’s got a super hot girlfriend?” Tim hated himself immediately just for saying it. An adult crush. On a straight guy. How unbelievably appropriate that it happened now, right when Tim was just shy of having his entire life worked out. He’d taken the quiz. He had his shit 91% together.
“How do you even know that?” Cassie frowned at him.
“I,” Tim cut himself off, tried again, “I don’t know. But—”
“Never know ‘til you try!” Steph interrupted cheerily.
“I say this completely unironically,” Tim muttered, “but I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.” He nearly caved in on himself at the girls’ twin smiles of evil.
“You’re only feeling that way because you know we’re right,” Cassie nodded with an affected air of wisdom.
Steph rolled her eyes excessively and stated, “Tim, you have such a bad habit of assuming every guy you like is straight.”
“Yeah, well, look what happened last time I decided to just go for it.” Tim raised his brows at Cassie significantly, and only ended up earning a burst of laughter from both blondes.
“Oh, come on! Of course Kon turned you down! He was dating me. He knows how blessed he is,” Cassie proclaimed without a shred of modesty. That unsettling predatory gleam came back into her eyes then and Tim stiffened, holding his ground through sheer willpower when she reached out and twisted a lock of his hair around her fingers with a murderously loving intent.
“Besides, Kon told me he thinks you’re hot. He likes your hair.” Before Tim could even begin touching that bold statement, Cassie’s fingers twined more tightly into the strands and gave them a short tug, tacking on, “Said it looks grippable .”
The complete unlikelihood of that had Tim releasing an unexpected bark of disbelief, and for the first time since this morning, he felt his mood lift a bit. He shook his head free of her grasp, Cassie’s smile softening along with his. “Either that’s a total lie, or you got him incredibly drunk and asked him leading questions to get to that point.”
“Hey,” Steph chuckled, dragging Cassie’s abandoned lunch toward her side of the table. “They say you reveal your deepest desires when you’re three sheets to the wind.”
Cassie matched her grin and tapped her chin thoughtfully. “You two would have been hot though, if I hadn’t gotten there first.” She threw her hands up in an ‘oh well’ gesture. “Too bad I did. I’ll bet you and Professor McFuck-Me-Fringe will look hotter together anyway.”
“Stop with the stupid nicknames. You haven’t even seen him! How do you know he's actually hot and I'm not just insane?” Tim denied it with such a lack of conviction that Cassie’s gaze turned disdainful, and this time, Steph’s eyes couldn’t have rolled harder if they’d fallen out of her head.
“Hun, you got a chub just watching him push hair out of his face. The only logical conclusion is that the guy has the most insanely perfect genes to ever grace humanity if he got you to react that hard...pun absolutely intended.” Both girls dissolved back into laughter at his expense.
“You two are enjoying this way too much right now.” Tim gave the giggling girls a nasty side-eye. “Whatever, it’s still a bad idea. Even if he is into guys, it’s against the rules for students and teachers to—”
“He’s a TA! He’s not an actual teacher!” Stephanie argued.
“What difference does that make!” Tim snapped back.
“Now you’re just trying to make up excuses to—”
“Hey, you’re—sorry to interrupt. You’re Tim Drake, right?”
Cassie’s head flew around so fast over her shoulder at the deep voice, Tim got whiplash just watching, while Steph lost control of her silverware entirely and had to slam her hand down dramatically to prevent it from falling to the ground. Tim knew exactly how they felt though when both their jaws dropped at the sight of the man standing beside them.
Jason Todd, Tim’s new TA, was no less devastating to Tim’s currently fragile psyche than he’d been in the wee hours of early morning classes. In fact, the effect of what had to be at least two day’s worth of stubble spread across a strong jawline and bold features may have been even more destructive in the natural daylight shining through the cafeteria window, when compared to the harsh fluorescent lighting of the lecture hall.
The deep gray t-shirt with an abstract red slash across the chest was possibly even more form-fitting and tight wrapped around that trim torso than Tim recalled. His eyes zeroed in on sleeve hems hugging unfairly defined biceps and swore he could practically hear the seam stitches moaning with pleasure from the stretch. An abrupt moment of body envy hit him, entirely separate from his attraction, that dissipated a few moments later. God, how many hours does a person have to log in a gym to get a body like that? Not my ideal way to spend time. Tim’s eyes scanned unconsciously along broad shoulders and a strong neck and had to admit, I’d watch, though. I’d definitely watch.
The crooked grin on the man’s face faltered slightly when all of them simply continued to gape in silence at him. “Uh, did I...make a mistake?”
The question snapped Tim out of his momentary stupor, although the rough quality of the man’s voice wasn’t helping the situation. “Yes, sorry, yes. Tim, that’s me. Drake. I’m Tim Drake,” he finished, biting his tongue before he could repeat his own name one more time and solidify his obvious insanity; he could feel the judging look Steph turned on him burn into the side of his head.
The grin came back, a little more smug this time, and Tim could swear – or maybe it was just high, heavenly, thirsty hopes – that the tone of voice was flirty when Jason replied, “You sure about that?”
Unable to suppress his own embarrassment, Tim barely managed to look his new TA in the eye when he nodded and replied, “Yes, I’m sure. You just caught me off guard.”
The smarmy grin turned into a pearly-white smirk, and Tim was positive this time that he wasn’t imagining it when he heard the flirtatious inflection in the return of, “Yeah, I seem to be getting that a lot today.”
The pair stared at each other, Tim incapable of grasping enough words to string together because Jason, once again , chose that moment to drag long, strong-looking fingers through his hair in a graceful swoop. Really? For god’s sake, since when was this a thing for him? Tim barely registered the cough, or the nails digging into his thigh. At some point, Steph had worked her way around the table.
“Umm, Tim?”
When it was clear that Tim had no intention of introducing either of the girls anytime soon, too transfixed by the way the small swath of white bangs curved just so at his TA’s hairline, Steph turned back to the man, who extended his hand out in greeting.
“I’m Stephanie. I’m a friend of Mr. Speechless here.”
“Hey, I’m Jason.” The TA grinned at her introduction, and despite wanting to throttle her with his bare hands, Tim still couldn’t bring words to the surface, entranced by the way the muscles in Jason’s forearm flexed when he gripped Steph’s hand. “I’m the teacher’s assistant for Warwick’s Econ classes this semester.” Jason turned to Cassie, who, like Tim, had yet to appropriately react. “You must be another friend of Tim’s?”
“Cassie.” Her name came out in a breathy, almost surreal whisper as Cassie slipped her hand into Jason’s larger one, and it garnered a humorous smile from the man.
“Pleasure to meet you, Cassie.” Glancing at Tim, he lowered his voice and asked with that same smirk, “He always this talkative?”
Cassie erupted into the highest-pitched giggles Tim had ever heard come out of her, and it blessedly gave him the ability to look somewhere other than Jason’s face, if only to stare at her like she’d gone completely batshit. Even Jason looked a little stunned. She clapped a hand over her mouth, shooting a mortified look at Tim, who finally managed to find some spine in the wake of Cassie’s utter embarrassment, and he turned to fully face Jason.
“What brings you over to our table, Mr. Todd?”
“Ugh, please, I can’t be more than a few years older than you,” Jason’s lips curled back in a disgusted grimace. “Let’s just stick with Jason.” He paused, watching Tim assessingly for a second before some sort of decision must have been made and he offered, “Or you could call me Jay.”
Was it just Tim or had there been a strong emphasis on “you” in that offer?
“Jason, then.” He’d work himself up to Jay. He could barely handle his reactions to the man finger-combing his own hair; Tim would probably implode trying to use an intimate nickname at this point. And it was definitely intimate. Tim could practically taste it on his tongue, the same way he'd say it in the bathroom when— “Did I forget something in class?” He questioned a little harshly, just to choke off his own train of thought.
“Yes, actually.” Jason turned to rummage in his bag, and Tim’s eyes instantly dropped down to the strip of skin showing as the t-shirt shifted and rose with each motion of his digging arm.
Skin...no skin...smooth, tanned skin...no skin...gorgeous, begging to be licked skin…
A sound of success was followed almost immediately by a piece of paper blocking Tim’s fantastic view, and he inadvertently glowered at the sheet without actually processing what it was.
“Whoa, didn’t realize you’d hate office hours that much.”
“Huh?” Tim answered intelligently, transferring his gaze up to find Jason grinning at him with a single raised eyebrow.
“My office hours.” Jason waved the paper, recapturing Tim’s attention so he could see the location and hours each week that Jason had set up for students to come see him for help. “You just tried to eviscerate my selfless offering with your eyes.”
“What! I did not—” Tim snapped his attention back up, ready to defend his insanity, but found himself enthralled by deep teal eyes that sparkled--whose eyes actually sparkle in real life?-- when Jason opened his mouth and laughed at Tim's earnest protest.
“You are too easy,” Jason commented, no doubt in reference to Tim's apparent gullibility. Tim could only agree wholeheartedly that, for Jason, yes. Yes, he would be so easy. In fact, the man would probably never have an easier time even if he walked into a hands-on strip club.
Tim took the paper from Jason's hand, careful not to touch him, as he was fairly certain his entire body would go numb from the contact. His efforts were futile though because the moment Jason let go, he reached up and ruffled a hand through Tim's hair in a friendly gesture.
Time slowed. Tim’s vision blurred as all his senses honed in on the feeling of that large, warm hand roughly carding through his locks. Tim’s entire being turned to jelly from the sensation and the paper floated softly to the floor at his feet. The hand paused. No, keep petting me , Tim’s pathetic brain pleaded.
But then.
Then .
Fingers pulled at his hair a bit, got a grip on the strands, and tipped Tim’s head back a few inches so he was trapped in a stare-off with his unnaturally striking TA, and Jason was just looking. At. Him.
He can’t, Tim’s brain spasmed, unable to quite comprehend that a virtual stranger could so blatantly ignore the concept of a personal bubble, or that Tim would have absolutely zero words of complaint. And of course, Jason’s head leaned down so he was even closer, so Tim’s brain completely short-circuited.
“Are you feeling okay?” Jason’s brow furrowed with concern as he looked Tim over, who for his part, felt he must be hallucinating the entire situation, it was so surreal. “You seem a little out of it.” Jason stepped back, releasing his hold, and Tim couldn’t have controlled his lean to follow that hand if his life depended on it. Jason paused, lips twitching a little at Tim’s obvious motion, but he graciously let it slide.
Tim was certain it would come back to bite him in the ass eventually, so he was only slightly less horrified with himself.
“I’m good. Just, tired.” The excuse felt lame just leaving his mouth, but Tim had nothing. He’d been rendered incapable of his usually quippy mind, and could only do what was necessary to keep his nose above the water.
“I can imagine,” Jason eyed him, obviously not believing it for a second, but Tim was once again forced to be grateful that the man was letting it go. “Well, I’ve delivered what I came for. I’ll let you guys get back to lunch.” With a little wave, Jason turned to leave. “See you Thursday, Tim.”
“What? Oh, yeah, class. Bye.” Tim could only wave absently back because Jason’s smile was devastating when he shot it over his shoulder and walked away.
The moment the TA was out of earshot, all three friends collectively drew a stabilizing breath.
“ Shit , he’s hot. I completely lost it for a minute there.” Cassie fanned herself dramatically.
“For a minute ?” Steph scoffed, moving back around the table to take her seat. “I’m telling Kon you nearly dropped your panties in the cafeteria.”
“Don't you dare tell Kon. I will break you.” Cassie growled, fingers curling into harpy claws, though Steph seemed unfazed.
“I’m so telling Kon, you are going to be playing good girlfriend for weeks to make up for this,” Steph cackled.
“I’m so glad it wasn’t just me,” Tim commiserated, pulling a murmur of assent from both girls as they simultaneously craned their necks to watch the last flash of Mr. Jason Todd, Teacher’s Assistant Extraordinaire, exit the cafeteria doors. The moment his back was no longer visible, Steph shook her head in wonderment and stabbed absently at Cassie’s cooling macaroni, missing it by a mile but obviously not caring in the least.
“That man’s picture is right beside the word ‘rugged’ in the dictionary.” Steph’s eyes flared with heat, and she practically waxed poetic. “He looks like he just got back from logging in the woods, and is casually prepared to fight off a bear and then later take you by the light of the cabin fireplace. The only thing missing is plaid and an axe.”
Tim laughed hoarsely at her over-the-top, but somewhat scarily accurate description.
“That, or he’s straight out of a Chippendale’s show,” Cassie surmised, and all three of them shared a moment of breathless imagination at the very prospect. Cassie turned wide eyes filled with endless pity on Tim, one hand held lightly to her chest. “Sweetie, you really weren’t kidding. You are so screwed.”
Tim’s head fell to the table once again with a thump, Jason’s office hours scrunching in his hands. “Oh god. I’m gonna fail Econ.”