A Late Night and a Nightmare
Peter stared at his homework, his eyes reading the same line over and over as he failed to comprehend any of it. He turned to Tim, who had an equally empty expression on his face. “You dead, man?”
“Just about. I think I’m going to go get a coffee, you want any?”
“No, no coffee. We should just get to sleep, honestly.”
“Should and will are two different things,” Tim mumbled, starting to stand up.
Peter rolled his eyes and tugged him back down, giving him a Look. “No, nope, no siree. We’re going to sleep now, come on.”
“But the assignments—”
“Will still be there tomorrow. Come on, sleepy head.”
Grumbling something incoherent, Tim followed Peter to his room. Jason was conveniently with the Outsiders, leaving Peter to stay at Tim’s apartment, per Batman’s orders of no one being alone right now. Tim took off his shirt, starting to change into pajamas, only for Peter to wrap his arms around the other man’s torso. Tim squawked, shooting Peter an insincere glare. “Jesus, Peter. You’re ice cold!”
“And you’re not,” Peter replied petulantly. “What’s your point?”
Tim rolled his eyes and got changed the rest of the way the best he could with a large spider clinging onto his back. Peter made no move to let go, even as Tim tried to put a sleep shirt on. “Peter, come on,” Tim tried.
Peter shook his head. “No.”
“You were the one who said we had to get ready for bed.”
“Yes, and?”
“I promise to not put a shirt on if you can manage to get into your pajamas and brush your teeth in the next seven minutes.”
Peter let go and started changing at a superhuman (or a metahuman) speed, while Tim finished putting on his beloved flannel pajama pants. Tim sleepily padded over to the bathroom and started flossing, chuckling when Peter rushed in to do the same thing, except significantly faster. Peter was done a minute later (with brushing his teeth too) and was clinging onto Tim’s torso once more, sighing contentedly. Tim rolled his eyes and finished brushing, padding over to the bed and turning on the lamp, before going to the door and turning out the lights. Tim laid down, turned off the lamp, got under the covers, and hugged Peter’s hands to his chest. The two teens were all but dead to the world minutes later.
Tim blinked groggily, squinting around the dark room to see if he could find what woke him. He turned to his partner, whose hair was clinging to his damp forehead. Peter jerked again, groaning slightly as his face twisted in discomfort. Tim’s brow furrowed as he brushed Peter's hair out of his face. “Peter? Peter, you’re having a bad dream, wake up.”
Peter thrashed in place, taking the sheet with him as anything that touched Peter was sticking to him adamantly. Tim grabbed his shoulder, shaking it. “Peter? Come on, you’re dreaming.”
When that did nothing, Tim grabbed both of the metahuman’s shoulders, shaking them more aggressively. “Peter? Peter! Come on!”
Finally, Peter sat bolt upright, panting and with tears streaming down his face. Immediately he curled into Tim, trying and failing to hide his sobs. “Oh, Peter,” Tim murmured, holding him close.
They sat there until Peter had calmed down. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Peter shook his head, not meeting Tim’s eyes.
“Do you want to go back to sleep?”
Peter nodded and they laid back down, trying to have as much skin to skin contact as possible. Before long, Peter was breathing deeply, and Tim wasn’t that far behind. The world could wait; sleep was important.
Tim woke to the smell of glorious coffee wafting through his open bedroom door. He rubbed the crust from his eyes and shoved the sheets off, stretching before shuffling into his slippers and heading towards the kitchen. Peter was cooking again, handing Tim a mug of coffee just the way Tim liked it this time of year— a delicious peppermint mocha. Tim took a sip and almost moaned, smiling at Peter, who wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“You good?” Tim hesitated, before asking, “Is this about that dream you had last night?”
Peter nodded, looking sullenly at the eggs he was cooking.
“Is it a quiet morning?”
Peter nodded, blinking tiredly before turning off the stove. Tim got out the plates and silverware before fixing Peter a mug of coffee the way he liked it (with hazelnut creamer, please and thank you) before the two sat down and ate their breakfast quietly.
“Let me know if you’re ever ready to talk,” Tim murmured.
Peter nodded and Tim swore he could see a tear forming in his partner’s eye. Tim smiled and pulled the other close. “I’ll do the dishes and you can cling onto me like a spider monkey, okay?”
Peter gave Tim a watery smile and nodded, wrapping his arms around Tim’s torso once more as Tim did the dishes. “Do you want to go to school today?”
Peter hesitated, then shook his head.
“Yeah,” Tim said, “me neither. We’ll call it in today, okay? And I can hack the school systems easily and get it excused. They would think after having several Wayne children there that they should update it, but I’d imagine the IT guys are having a hard enough time trying to run computers and shit in that old ass building, huh?”
Tim moved carefully back to the bedroom before sitting back down on the bed. “I don’t know about you, but I could use some more sleep. Do you want to join me?”
Peter shook his head against Tim’s back, and Tim nodded. “Okay. Wake me up if you need anything, yeah?”
Peter nodded and let go so Tim could get back under the covers. Peter clung back to Tim’s torso as Tim slowly fell asleep again, soothed by the breathing and the warmth of the person next to him.