Fic: Two Straws (Two Milkshakes), (Kings Among Runaways, Jason/Tim)
Series Title: Kings Among Runaways
Story Title: Two Straws (Two Milkshakes)
Summary: The AU where Tim ran away from home at the tender age of mumbledyteen, and Jason got let off with a warning, the night he met Batman.
Warnings: Sexual content including minors, both disturbing and hopefully not.
Note: The series is indexed here. This installment occurs after Celebrations and Revelations. Huge thanks as always to kirax2, my partner in crime. <3
It's good to get out of the mansion for a little while. Alfred's cooking is great, but sometimes it's a little intimidating, and the burgers at Jukebox Junction smell delicious. Jason's never been in here before, and he thinks Tim probably hasn't either by the way he's studying the menu like there might be a test on it. There's old rock-and-roll playing on the jukebox in the corner and a couple of people are dancing, but mostly people seem to be here for the food. There are teenagers and small families happily wrecking their arteries all around them.
Jason's kind of just breathing everything in. Mmm... the air is almost thick with grease. He's seriously thinking about ordering one of everything, since he knows Tim's got one of Bruce's gold cards. Jason's had enough of things with fancy french names - he just wants some chili cheese fries, and he'll be a happy man. And so help him, if Tim tries to feed him any vegetables that aren't battered and deep fried, there's going to be a riot.
"The, uh, milkshakes are supposed to be good," Tim says. He's been weirdly quiet all night, even for him - ever since he came and found Jason in the movie room and asked if he wanted to grab a burger. Alfred had driven them into the city - Bruce wouldn't let Jason drive because he didn't have his license, which Jason thought was pretty fucking ridiculous - and Tim had sat quietly on his side of the car the whole way, looking down at his hands and fiddling with things in his pockets. Jason had tried to draw him out, but sometimes Tim just seemed determined to be weird, and when he didn't really respond, Jason had left him alone.
Still, this would be more fun if Tim looked like he were enjoying himself a little. "Sign me up," Jason says, and flips his menu over to look at the back. Tim shifts in his seat, and his foot bumps into Jason's, so Jason moves his out of the way. "What do you want? One of the fruit flavors? Oh, god, there's chocolate-peanut-butter. Okay. I know what I'm getting." He grins and tosses the menu down.
When he looks up, Tim is kind of frowning. "Yeah, I - that sounds good. We could, ah. We could get a big one and share it?"
Jason blinks. "You hate peanut butter." Tim used to force it down - he was too practical not to - back when they were living rough, but he'd made the most godawful faces and gagged around the spoon every time.
"By itself," Tim says, sounding oddly defensive. He ducks behind his menu again, even though Jason knows he's got to have decided by now. His foot bumps into Jason's again.
Jason frowns as he moves away. "Are you okay?" he asks, feeling kind of stupid.
There's a moment's pause, and then Tim folds his menu neatly and sets it aside. "I'm fine."
Jason's about to call bullshit when the waitress walks up. She's kind of hot - dark-skinned and curvy and squeezed into a retro-style uniform with big lapels and a plastic name-tag that says 'Lisa'. Jason gives her his most charming smile and steals a glance down her dress when she bends over to set glasses of water in front of them. "Hi there, boys," she says, a little bit of flirt in her voice.
Jason gives her his best grin. "Hey yourself, beautiful." She's at least ten years older than him and it's not like he's actually trying to pick her up, but flirting is fun. He gets a smile back in return, and he's feeling pretty good until he turns and sees Tim biting his lip. The smile falls off Jason's face all at once. "Uh," he says, "you know what you want?"
"I'll have a half-pounder with mushrooms, swiss and tomatoes. And a salad. Do you have bleu cheese?"
Lisa pops her gum. "Sorry, hun. Nothing that fancy." It makes Jason want to laugh, but he's still kind of worried that he's on Tim's bad side for checking out their waitress.
"Italian, then. And a large chocolate and peanut butter shake." His eyes cut across the table at Jason, looking strangely wary. "Two straws?"
Jason shrugs without thinking much of it - they share pretty much everything pretty much all the time - until he glances up again and Lisa's looking back and forth between them with her eyebrows up. "Two straws," she says. "Okay, then. How 'bout you?"
"Biggest, baddest burger you got," he says, spreading his hands wide to indicate the ideal size. "Load it up, too - onions, pickles, jalapeños-" Tim is making a face, but that just makes Jason smile. "Extra cheese. And some chili cheese fries and some fried pickles... Do we want onion rings?"
"Can you even eat all that?" Tim asks.
"Watch me. And a bottle of hot sauce. Please."
Lisa notes everything down dutifully and smiles. "Have your shake out in a jiffy." She collects their menus and pats Jason on the shoulder as she turns to go.
This time, when Tim's foot bumps his, it's less of a nudge and more of a kick. "Ow!" Jason hisses, and tucks his feet up under his chair. "Why do you keep kicking me?"
Tim looks startled for a moment, but the expression flashes across his face and is gone so fast that Jason might have thought he imagined it if Tim didn't have his poker face on all of a sudden. "Oh, come on. What?"
Tim looks away, turning to play with the paper napkin dispenser at the edge of their table. "What 'what'?" he says, calmly, and Jason knows without a doubt that something is definitely wrong.
"You've been weird all night. What's up?"
"Nothing's up."
"Bullshit," Jason mutters, stretching it out to two words. "What did I do?"
Tim's eyes flicker to his and then back to the napkin dispenser. "I never said you did anything."
That makes Jason chuckle, darkly. "Yeah, but you never say when I do something. You just...sit there. Being fucking displeased at me-"
Tim sighs and folds his hands in his lap. He seems to come to some kind of decision, or maybe he's bracing himself for something, but all he does is lean forward a little, plant his elbows on the table in a mimic of Jason's posture, and smile. "Sorry. It's not you, okay? Can we just..." He trails off and glances around, toward the couples at the jukebox and the kids eating ice cream at the counter. "Let's just enjoy ourselves."
"Sounds good," Jason says. He watches a little girl spin on her stool until she comes to a wobbly stop. He laughs a little and turns to see if Tim was watching, but Tim is just...sitting there looking at him. He's smiling a little, so Jason grins back. "How'd you find this place?"
Tim clears his throat and cuts his eyes away, to the young couple playing footsie at the table next to them. "Dick recommended it. He said he liked to come here when he was our age."
Huh. Jason glances around at the red vinyl and chrome. It's not really a rich-guy kind of place, but it's finally sinking in that Dick isn't exactly the guy he thought he was, despite the money and the supermodels and Tim hanging on his every word. He's not saying he likes the guy, but... well, at least he has good taste in burger joints.
He's broken out of his reverie when Lisa returns with their milkshake held high on a tray. "Here you are, boys," she says as she sets it down on the table in front of them. "One large chocolate-peanut butter shake, two straws."
"Thank you," Tim says, politely, as Jason just grins at her and reaches for the fluted fountain glass. The shake is a dark, rich brown, and it's topped with a mound of whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. He sucks in a mouthful, having to really work to get the thick liquid up the straw, and closes his eyes with a happy hum. When he opens his eyes again, Tim is looking at him with his mouth slack and his eyes glazed.
Jason didn't actually mean it to be a tease, but he waggles his eyebrows and smiles around the straw anyway. He sucks up another mouthful and sits back, pushing the glass back across the small table at Tim, who looks a little embarrassed. "It's good," Jason says, and nudges it closer until Tim catches the glass in his palm and slips the other straw between his lips. His cheeks hollow out as he sucks, and when he looks up and meets Jason's eyes, Jason suddenly feels very warm. He doesn't bother shifting when Tim's toe touches his.
The effect is kind of ruined when Tim actually gets the milkshake up the straw, though, because he pulls back quickly and swallows, making a face like he really hadn't the first time Jason had come in his mouth. Jason feels a flash of triumph, followed by confusion, because he was right, and Tim does hate peanut butter. He looks away so he won't laugh, because Tim is wiping his mouth, as prim as any virgin after her first blowjob, and if he starts laughing now, he's not going to stop.
He's still confused, though, because it's not like Tim didn't know he hated peanut butter. He's about to write it off as another weird Tim thing, when his eyes stop on the couple at the table next to them, who also have only one milkshake in the center of their table. They're making gooey eyes over it at each other as they take turns sipping.
He takes in the picture they make, heads bent together, hands clasped, feet tangled under the table in a game of footsie that's resulted in the girl losing one shoe. Everything clicks into place and he turns back to Tim with his eyes wide, but Tim is studiously ignoring him as he shifts the ketchup and mustard bottles in their little basket. Jason opens his mouth.
He shuts it again when he hears a shriek from the kitchen, followed by a sudden crashing of metal on metal and several more screams. He cuts a glance at Tim, who's sitting ramrod straight at high alert. Their eyes meet for a moment, and then the double doors behind the soda counter swing wide and a man steps out.
He's dressed strangely, which in Gotham is enough to set a smart person on edge. Jason doesn't spend a lot of time staring at the stupid hat and the body-suit, the low slung holster-belt hung with pouches and bottles, because the instant he realizes the guy has some kind of weird looking *gun* in his hand, he's out of his seat, helping Tim flip their table forward for cover.
They crouch behind it, bent low, as sounds of chaos fill the room - screams and crashes and horrible, wet, splattering sounds. Out of the corner of his eye, Jason can see a few other diners following their lead, ducking behind cover. He turns his head to do a quick count - there are too many people here, someone's going to get hurt - and so his first hint that Tim is planning to *move* is when he registers the loss of his presence beside him. He turns just in time to see Tim's sneakers disappear around their make-shift barricade. Jason curses and scrambles to a position where he can see what he's doing.
Tim is a few feet away behind another overturned table, supporting the head of a small child who is absolutely *drenched* in blood. It mats the boy's hair and smears his face, spilling over Tim's hands as he checks him over. The boy isn't crying - just staring ahead as if in shock. His mother is making the most awful sound Jason has ever heard.
Fuck *this* guy, Jason thinks, viciously. He looks around for a weapon, but all that's in reach are the things from their table - some silverware, condiments, the shattered remnants of their milkshake glass. None of those things would do him any good unless he could make it to the guy without getting *shot*. The knife from the silverware set is too light and dull to throw, but -
Throw.
Jason grabs the napkin dispenser and rolls out from behind the table, springing to his knees and chucking the brick-sized piece of metal as hard as he can. The creep is doing something to the hose connecting his gun to his backpack, so he isn't even looking when it beans him square in the side of the head, knocking off part of his hat, which looks remarkably like the kind of beer-helmet frat boys wear on game day.
The man stumbles, bringing a hand up to clutch the side of his head, but he doesn't go down. He whips around, bringing his gun up, and Jason dives to the side, scooping up a heavy glass ketchup bottle as he goes and hurling it by the neck like a tomahawk the moment he's upright again.
Jason doesn't stop moving until he's under the table in one of the booths, so he doesn't even see if he hit his target. He crouches, tense in the sudden silence, cornered and now weaponless, and has just enough time to think he can flip the table and go *over* if the guy tries to corner him, when someone across the room shouts "whoo!" and the silence begins to fill with murmurs and rustling.
A kid starts crying, soon followed by a few more, and still more, in a chain reaction, but there's relieved laughter, too. Jason crawls out from under the table and takes stock.
There's blood everywhere, and some kind of thick, yellow liquid splattered across the floor. Jason has no idea what it is, so he steers well clear. He takes in the devastation around him - the mess, the overturned tables - and tries to make an estimation of the wounded.
One of the first things Bruce had taught them was basic first aid, but for all he knows he needs to be doing *something*, Jason doesn't know where to start. Tim's okay, and he's still got the kid, who's crying now, thank god. The mother seems to have calmed down, so maybe it's not as bad as it looks.
He hears a low moan from behind the counter, so Jason puts everything else on hold and hurries across the room to vault over the counter, landing beside the man who'd turned Jason's first honest-to-god *date* into a massacre. The man's flailing feebly, his eyes glassy and nose bleeding freely, struggling against the weight of his gear like a turtle on its back. His gun is nearby, still connected to him by hoses and cables. Jason puts his foot on the man's throat and watches him go still.
Behind him, Tim is speaking to the diners and employees, asking if anyone's called the police yet, if anyone's hurt. Jason's busy staring in shock at the *salt shaker* attached to the guy's hat, and the big yellow 'C' in the middle of his chest, topped with a stylized crown. "You're fucking kidding me," he mutters.
The guy - probably wisely - doesn't say anything. Jason just curses and kicks him until he flops over onto his stomach. He yanks the pack off his back, throws it and the pump-gun to one side, and binds the mans hands behind his back with an apron he finds under the counter. He does his feet too, because the apron string is long enough to pull the man into a very uncomfortable-looking hogtie.
Tim comes around the counter as he finishes off the knot, holding the kid on one hip. He heads for the sink, his head bent low. "You're going to be okay," he murmurs, and then he looks up at Jason as he turns on the water. He's smiling, and his eyes are warm and bright. "Nice throw," he says, and then focuses on wiping the sniffling boy's face clean.
"I thought Dick was making shit up," Jason says, incredulous. "The *Condiment King?*" He kicks the man in the ribs. "Seriously?"
When the kid is mostly clean, and not crying anymore, Tim sets him down and he runs off, presumably to his mother. "Mitchell Mayo," Tim says, smirking slightly. "Disgruntled former fast food employee."
Jason shakes his head. "No fucking way."
Tim shrugs.
Jason's still pissed, but when he looks at the ketchup smearing Tim's shirt, he can't help laughing.
--
They stick around to make sure Mayo doesn't wiggle loose somehow before the police get there, and then they give their statements with the rest of the people who didn't leave right away. The manager gives them coupons for free food and begs them to come back any time they want. There's ketchup and mustard and barbecue sauce *everywhere*, and Tim's shirt is already ruined, so he and Jason stick around and help with the clean-up, putting tables and chairs back where they belong while the staff mop and scrub.
Lisa turns out to have a boyfriend who's in theater, and she and Tim talk about Greek comedy while Jason moves the booth benches around for the guy with the mop. By the time they're done, Jason's really kind of *starving*, but according to the manager, the kitchen is even worse than the dining area. They're getting ready to go when Lisa points out that the soda counter is still mostly intact. Tim's obviously ready to go home and shower for a week, but Jason still wants his ice cream. He sends Tim to the bathroom to clean himself up, and tells Lisa what he wants.
When Tim comes back, Jason's putting a couple of quarters in the jukebox. "How come I don't know what kind of music you like?"
Tim just shrugs as he walks over. "We didn't have a radio? I'm not picky."
Pretty much everything on the box is from the fifties and sixties, so Jason picks a few things he recognizes and pushes Tim toward one of the booths, where the new milkshake is waiting. "Come sit down."
Tim sighs. "I thought we were leaving."
"Milkshake first," Jason says. He puts his hands on Tim's shoulders and makes him sit. "Come on. You said they were good."
"I don't want any," Tim says absently. He closes his eyes and lets his head fall over the back of the bench. "I bet they'd put it in a go cup if you asked."
"I wanna drink it here," Jason says. When Tim doesn't answer, he grins and toes his shoes off under the table. "I got chocolate-strawberry this time."
Tim opens his eyes and lifts his head, looking at the glass with sudden interest. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." He flicks one of the straws, sending it over to Tim's side of the glass. "Pucker up. It's good."
There's a moment where Tim looks at him, and Jason thinks, at first, that Tim doesn't believe him, but the look holds, and he realizes it's probably something else. The moment passes, though, and the expression slides away, leaving Tim smiling his little crooked smile at him, his eyes warm in the way that makes Jason's chest tighten. He bends down and takes a sip. The shake's had a few minutes to melt, so it isn't so stiff he has to struggle anymore, and the look of pleasure on Tim's face when he pulls away is obvious. "That is good," he says, and reaches to push the glass back to Jason's side of the table.
Jason stops him a with a hand on his and leans over the table to catch his own straw in his mouth. He looks up at Tim as he drinks, and gives him a wink.
If he waits until Tim has another mouthful of milkshake before he slides his toe up under the cuff of Tim's pants, he thinks he can be forgiven.
Story Title: Two Straws (Two Milkshakes)
Summary: The AU where Tim ran away from home at the tender age of mumbledyteen, and Jason got let off with a warning, the night he met Batman.
Warnings: Sexual content including minors, both disturbing and hopefully not.
Note: The series is indexed here. This installment occurs after Celebrations and Revelations. Huge thanks as always to kirax2, my partner in crime. <3
It's good to get out of the mansion for a little while. Alfred's cooking is great, but sometimes it's a little intimidating, and the burgers at Jukebox Junction smell delicious. Jason's never been in here before, and he thinks Tim probably hasn't either by the way he's studying the menu like there might be a test on it. There's old rock-and-roll playing on the jukebox in the corner and a couple of people are dancing, but mostly people seem to be here for the food. There are teenagers and small families happily wrecking their arteries all around them.
Jason's kind of just breathing everything in. Mmm... the air is almost thick with grease. He's seriously thinking about ordering one of everything, since he knows Tim's got one of Bruce's gold cards. Jason's had enough of things with fancy french names - he just wants some chili cheese fries, and he'll be a happy man. And so help him, if Tim tries to feed him any vegetables that aren't battered and deep fried, there's going to be a riot.
"The, uh, milkshakes are supposed to be good," Tim says. He's been weirdly quiet all night, even for him - ever since he came and found Jason in the movie room and asked if he wanted to grab a burger. Alfred had driven them into the city - Bruce wouldn't let Jason drive because he didn't have his license, which Jason thought was pretty fucking ridiculous - and Tim had sat quietly on his side of the car the whole way, looking down at his hands and fiddling with things in his pockets. Jason had tried to draw him out, but sometimes Tim just seemed determined to be weird, and when he didn't really respond, Jason had left him alone.
Still, this would be more fun if Tim looked like he were enjoying himself a little. "Sign me up," Jason says, and flips his menu over to look at the back. Tim shifts in his seat, and his foot bumps into Jason's, so Jason moves his out of the way. "What do you want? One of the fruit flavors? Oh, god, there's chocolate-peanut-butter. Okay. I know what I'm getting." He grins and tosses the menu down.
When he looks up, Tim is kind of frowning. "Yeah, I - that sounds good. We could, ah. We could get a big one and share it?"
Jason blinks. "You hate peanut butter." Tim used to force it down - he was too practical not to - back when they were living rough, but he'd made the most godawful faces and gagged around the spoon every time.
"By itself," Tim says, sounding oddly defensive. He ducks behind his menu again, even though Jason knows he's got to have decided by now. His foot bumps into Jason's again.
Jason frowns as he moves away. "Are you okay?" he asks, feeling kind of stupid.
There's a moment's pause, and then Tim folds his menu neatly and sets it aside. "I'm fine."
Jason's about to call bullshit when the waitress walks up. She's kind of hot - dark-skinned and curvy and squeezed into a retro-style uniform with big lapels and a plastic name-tag that says 'Lisa'. Jason gives her his most charming smile and steals a glance down her dress when she bends over to set glasses of water in front of them. "Hi there, boys," she says, a little bit of flirt in her voice.
Jason gives her his best grin. "Hey yourself, beautiful." She's at least ten years older than him and it's not like he's actually trying to pick her up, but flirting is fun. He gets a smile back in return, and he's feeling pretty good until he turns and sees Tim biting his lip. The smile falls off Jason's face all at once. "Uh," he says, "you know what you want?"
"I'll have a half-pounder with mushrooms, swiss and tomatoes. And a salad. Do you have bleu cheese?"
Lisa pops her gum. "Sorry, hun. Nothing that fancy." It makes Jason want to laugh, but he's still kind of worried that he's on Tim's bad side for checking out their waitress.
"Italian, then. And a large chocolate and peanut butter shake." His eyes cut across the table at Jason, looking strangely wary. "Two straws?"
Jason shrugs without thinking much of it - they share pretty much everything pretty much all the time - until he glances up again and Lisa's looking back and forth between them with her eyebrows up. "Two straws," she says. "Okay, then. How 'bout you?"
"Biggest, baddest burger you got," he says, spreading his hands wide to indicate the ideal size. "Load it up, too - onions, pickles, jalapeños-" Tim is making a face, but that just makes Jason smile. "Extra cheese. And some chili cheese fries and some fried pickles... Do we want onion rings?"
"Can you even eat all that?" Tim asks.
"Watch me. And a bottle of hot sauce. Please."
Lisa notes everything down dutifully and smiles. "Have your shake out in a jiffy." She collects their menus and pats Jason on the shoulder as she turns to go.
This time, when Tim's foot bumps his, it's less of a nudge and more of a kick. "Ow!" Jason hisses, and tucks his feet up under his chair. "Why do you keep kicking me?"
Tim looks startled for a moment, but the expression flashes across his face and is gone so fast that Jason might have thought he imagined it if Tim didn't have his poker face on all of a sudden. "Oh, come on. What?"
Tim looks away, turning to play with the paper napkin dispenser at the edge of their table. "What 'what'?" he says, calmly, and Jason knows without a doubt that something is definitely wrong.
"You've been weird all night. What's up?"
"Nothing's up."
"Bullshit," Jason mutters, stretching it out to two words. "What did I do?"
Tim's eyes flicker to his and then back to the napkin dispenser. "I never said you did anything."
That makes Jason chuckle, darkly. "Yeah, but you never say when I do something. You just...sit there. Being fucking displeased at me-"
Tim sighs and folds his hands in his lap. He seems to come to some kind of decision, or maybe he's bracing himself for something, but all he does is lean forward a little, plant his elbows on the table in a mimic of Jason's posture, and smile. "Sorry. It's not you, okay? Can we just..." He trails off and glances around, toward the couples at the jukebox and the kids eating ice cream at the counter. "Let's just enjoy ourselves."
"Sounds good," Jason says. He watches a little girl spin on her stool until she comes to a wobbly stop. He laughs a little and turns to see if Tim was watching, but Tim is just...sitting there looking at him. He's smiling a little, so Jason grins back. "How'd you find this place?"
Tim clears his throat and cuts his eyes away, to the young couple playing footsie at the table next to them. "Dick recommended it. He said he liked to come here when he was our age."
Huh. Jason glances around at the red vinyl and chrome. It's not really a rich-guy kind of place, but it's finally sinking in that Dick isn't exactly the guy he thought he was, despite the money and the supermodels and Tim hanging on his every word. He's not saying he likes the guy, but... well, at least he has good taste in burger joints.
He's broken out of his reverie when Lisa returns with their milkshake held high on a tray. "Here you are, boys," she says as she sets it down on the table in front of them. "One large chocolate-peanut butter shake, two straws."
"Thank you," Tim says, politely, as Jason just grins at her and reaches for the fluted fountain glass. The shake is a dark, rich brown, and it's topped with a mound of whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. He sucks in a mouthful, having to really work to get the thick liquid up the straw, and closes his eyes with a happy hum. When he opens his eyes again, Tim is looking at him with his mouth slack and his eyes glazed.
Jason didn't actually mean it to be a tease, but he waggles his eyebrows and smiles around the straw anyway. He sucks up another mouthful and sits back, pushing the glass back across the small table at Tim, who looks a little embarrassed. "It's good," Jason says, and nudges it closer until Tim catches the glass in his palm and slips the other straw between his lips. His cheeks hollow out as he sucks, and when he looks up and meets Jason's eyes, Jason suddenly feels very warm. He doesn't bother shifting when Tim's toe touches his.
The effect is kind of ruined when Tim actually gets the milkshake up the straw, though, because he pulls back quickly and swallows, making a face like he really hadn't the first time Jason had come in his mouth. Jason feels a flash of triumph, followed by confusion, because he was right, and Tim does hate peanut butter. He looks away so he won't laugh, because Tim is wiping his mouth, as prim as any virgin after her first blowjob, and if he starts laughing now, he's not going to stop.
He's still confused, though, because it's not like Tim didn't know he hated peanut butter. He's about to write it off as another weird Tim thing, when his eyes stop on the couple at the table next to them, who also have only one milkshake in the center of their table. They're making gooey eyes over it at each other as they take turns sipping.
He takes in the picture they make, heads bent together, hands clasped, feet tangled under the table in a game of footsie that's resulted in the girl losing one shoe. Everything clicks into place and he turns back to Tim with his eyes wide, but Tim is studiously ignoring him as he shifts the ketchup and mustard bottles in their little basket. Jason opens his mouth.
He shuts it again when he hears a shriek from the kitchen, followed by a sudden crashing of metal on metal and several more screams. He cuts a glance at Tim, who's sitting ramrod straight at high alert. Their eyes meet for a moment, and then the double doors behind the soda counter swing wide and a man steps out.
He's dressed strangely, which in Gotham is enough to set a smart person on edge. Jason doesn't spend a lot of time staring at the stupid hat and the body-suit, the low slung holster-belt hung with pouches and bottles, because the instant he realizes the guy has some kind of weird looking *gun* in his hand, he's out of his seat, helping Tim flip their table forward for cover.
They crouch behind it, bent low, as sounds of chaos fill the room - screams and crashes and horrible, wet, splattering sounds. Out of the corner of his eye, Jason can see a few other diners following their lead, ducking behind cover. He turns his head to do a quick count - there are too many people here, someone's going to get hurt - and so his first hint that Tim is planning to *move* is when he registers the loss of his presence beside him. He turns just in time to see Tim's sneakers disappear around their make-shift barricade. Jason curses and scrambles to a position where he can see what he's doing.
Tim is a few feet away behind another overturned table, supporting the head of a small child who is absolutely *drenched* in blood. It mats the boy's hair and smears his face, spilling over Tim's hands as he checks him over. The boy isn't crying - just staring ahead as if in shock. His mother is making the most awful sound Jason has ever heard.
Fuck *this* guy, Jason thinks, viciously. He looks around for a weapon, but all that's in reach are the things from their table - some silverware, condiments, the shattered remnants of their milkshake glass. None of those things would do him any good unless he could make it to the guy without getting *shot*. The knife from the silverware set is too light and dull to throw, but -
Throw.
Jason grabs the napkin dispenser and rolls out from behind the table, springing to his knees and chucking the brick-sized piece of metal as hard as he can. The creep is doing something to the hose connecting his gun to his backpack, so he isn't even looking when it beans him square in the side of the head, knocking off part of his hat, which looks remarkably like the kind of beer-helmet frat boys wear on game day.
The man stumbles, bringing a hand up to clutch the side of his head, but he doesn't go down. He whips around, bringing his gun up, and Jason dives to the side, scooping up a heavy glass ketchup bottle as he goes and hurling it by the neck like a tomahawk the moment he's upright again.
Jason doesn't stop moving until he's under the table in one of the booths, so he doesn't even see if he hit his target. He crouches, tense in the sudden silence, cornered and now weaponless, and has just enough time to think he can flip the table and go *over* if the guy tries to corner him, when someone across the room shouts "whoo!" and the silence begins to fill with murmurs and rustling.
A kid starts crying, soon followed by a few more, and still more, in a chain reaction, but there's relieved laughter, too. Jason crawls out from under the table and takes stock.
There's blood everywhere, and some kind of thick, yellow liquid splattered across the floor. Jason has no idea what it is, so he steers well clear. He takes in the devastation around him - the mess, the overturned tables - and tries to make an estimation of the wounded.
One of the first things Bruce had taught them was basic first aid, but for all he knows he needs to be doing *something*, Jason doesn't know where to start. Tim's okay, and he's still got the kid, who's crying now, thank god. The mother seems to have calmed down, so maybe it's not as bad as it looks.
He hears a low moan from behind the counter, so Jason puts everything else on hold and hurries across the room to vault over the counter, landing beside the man who'd turned Jason's first honest-to-god *date* into a massacre. The man's flailing feebly, his eyes glassy and nose bleeding freely, struggling against the weight of his gear like a turtle on its back. His gun is nearby, still connected to him by hoses and cables. Jason puts his foot on the man's throat and watches him go still.
Behind him, Tim is speaking to the diners and employees, asking if anyone's called the police yet, if anyone's hurt. Jason's busy staring in shock at the *salt shaker* attached to the guy's hat, and the big yellow 'C' in the middle of his chest, topped with a stylized crown. "You're fucking kidding me," he mutters.
The guy - probably wisely - doesn't say anything. Jason just curses and kicks him until he flops over onto his stomach. He yanks the pack off his back, throws it and the pump-gun to one side, and binds the mans hands behind his back with an apron he finds under the counter. He does his feet too, because the apron string is long enough to pull the man into a very uncomfortable-looking hogtie.
Tim comes around the counter as he finishes off the knot, holding the kid on one hip. He heads for the sink, his head bent low. "You're going to be okay," he murmurs, and then he looks up at Jason as he turns on the water. He's smiling, and his eyes are warm and bright. "Nice throw," he says, and then focuses on wiping the sniffling boy's face clean.
"I thought Dick was making shit up," Jason says, incredulous. "The *Condiment King?*" He kicks the man in the ribs. "Seriously?"
When the kid is mostly clean, and not crying anymore, Tim sets him down and he runs off, presumably to his mother. "Mitchell Mayo," Tim says, smirking slightly. "Disgruntled former fast food employee."
Jason shakes his head. "No fucking way."
Tim shrugs.
Jason's still pissed, but when he looks at the ketchup smearing Tim's shirt, he can't help laughing.
--
They stick around to make sure Mayo doesn't wiggle loose somehow before the police get there, and then they give their statements with the rest of the people who didn't leave right away. The manager gives them coupons for free food and begs them to come back any time they want. There's ketchup and mustard and barbecue sauce *everywhere*, and Tim's shirt is already ruined, so he and Jason stick around and help with the clean-up, putting tables and chairs back where they belong while the staff mop and scrub.
Lisa turns out to have a boyfriend who's in theater, and she and Tim talk about Greek comedy while Jason moves the booth benches around for the guy with the mop. By the time they're done, Jason's really kind of *starving*, but according to the manager, the kitchen is even worse than the dining area. They're getting ready to go when Lisa points out that the soda counter is still mostly intact. Tim's obviously ready to go home and shower for a week, but Jason still wants his ice cream. He sends Tim to the bathroom to clean himself up, and tells Lisa what he wants.
When Tim comes back, Jason's putting a couple of quarters in the jukebox. "How come I don't know what kind of music you like?"
Tim just shrugs as he walks over. "We didn't have a radio? I'm not picky."
Pretty much everything on the box is from the fifties and sixties, so Jason picks a few things he recognizes and pushes Tim toward one of the booths, where the new milkshake is waiting. "Come sit down."
Tim sighs. "I thought we were leaving."
"Milkshake first," Jason says. He puts his hands on Tim's shoulders and makes him sit. "Come on. You said they were good."
"I don't want any," Tim says absently. He closes his eyes and lets his head fall over the back of the bench. "I bet they'd put it in a go cup if you asked."
"I wanna drink it here," Jason says. When Tim doesn't answer, he grins and toes his shoes off under the table. "I got chocolate-strawberry this time."
Tim opens his eyes and lifts his head, looking at the glass with sudden interest. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." He flicks one of the straws, sending it over to Tim's side of the glass. "Pucker up. It's good."
There's a moment where Tim looks at him, and Jason thinks, at first, that Tim doesn't believe him, but the look holds, and he realizes it's probably something else. The moment passes, though, and the expression slides away, leaving Tim smiling his little crooked smile at him, his eyes warm in the way that makes Jason's chest tighten. He bends down and takes a sip. The shake's had a few minutes to melt, so it isn't so stiff he has to struggle anymore, and the look of pleasure on Tim's face when he pulls away is obvious. "That is good," he says, and reaches to push the glass back to Jason's side of the table.
Jason stops him a with a hand on his and leans over the table to catch his own straw in his mouth. He looks up at Tim as he drinks, and gives him a wink.
If he waits until Tim has another mouthful of milkshake before he slides his toe up under the cuff of Tim's pants, he thinks he can be forgiven.