Heyyy I was hoping a I could request for a Jason Todd fic🥺
I was literally thinking abt the reader having a dog who is male and Jason is like talking to her but she’s not exactly listening because she’s baby talking to the dog and Jason thinks the reader is talking to him. And when he says smth he he did good that day and coincidentally she says good boy right after(the dog prob did like a trick or smth) and he’s gets all flustered and stuff and once the reader acknowledges him, he realizes that she wasn’t talking to him but to the dog. And the reader teases him and accuses him having a praise kink and he denies but she drags it and maybe you could do a random day where Jason is home and free and they are baking or cooking and when Jason does smth correctly she praises him and he tries to play it off(the reader is a good cook and baker and Jason is not the best)
Good Boy
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dividers by @cafekitsune
The dog's name is Goose.
Goose is a three year old golden retriever mix with the specific energy of a creature who has never once in his life experienced a negative emotion and intends to keep it that way. He weighs thirty eight pounds and operates at approximately four hundred percent capacity at all times and he is, without question, the love of your life.
Jason has accepted this.
He's also, if he's being honest with himself, a little bit in love with Goose too, but that's information he keeps internal.
The afternoon is quiet — a rare thing, a gift from the universe in the form of no active missions, no family emergencies, no Gotham deciding to have a crisis — and Jason is on your couch telling you about his week while you sit on the floor.
Not because you prefer the floor.
Because Goose is on the floor, and where Goose is, you are.
"So then Roy says — and this is the part that gets me — he says I thought you knew about the second exit like I was supposed to intuit that from — "
"Who's a pretty boy," you say. "Who is the prettiest boy. Is it you? It's you."
Jason stops.
He processes this.
He was, he is fairly certain, in the middle of a sentence. A sentence about Roy and a mission exit point. And you have just — interrupted that sentence to call someone a pretty boy.
He glances around.
You're not looking at him. You're looking at Goose, who is on his back getting his belly scratched with the expression of an entity that has achieved everything it ever wanted.
But Jason didn't clock that yet. Jason is still in the half-second where he thought —
He clears his throat.
"Anyway," he says. "Roy didn't — "
"Yes you are," you say, in the voice. The soft, slightly high-pitched, completely unself-conscious voice that people use when they are talking to animals and have forgotten the rest of the world exists. "You're so good. You're so smart."
Jason stops again.
He is, objectively, doing well lately. The mission this week went cleanly. He'd made a call that paid off. Roy had said something complimentary, which from Roy was like receiving an award.
He is also aware, in some part of his brain, that you are sitting on the floor with the dog.
He is not, in this moment, fully connecting those two facts.
"I mean," he says, and something in his voice is different, just slightly. "It wasn't — it was a good call but I don't know if I'd say smart, exactly — "
"Who wants a treat," you say, to the floor. "Do you want a treat? You do, don't you. You did so good."
And then, at the exact moment Jason is opening his mouth —
"Good boy," you say, warm and bright, because Goose has just executed a perfect sit on command, which he has been practicing and which deserves acknowledgement.
Jason closes his mouth.
Something is happening in his face.
Something he is very quickly trying to not let happen in his face.
He looks at the ceiling. Then at the wall. Then at a neutral point somewhere in the middle distance that is definitely not you and definitely not the dog and is in fact a blank section of air that he has chosen because it is safe.
His ears are doing something.
His ears are, specifically, red.
You look up from Goose.
You look at Jason.
You look at his ears.
You look at the expression he is attempting to have, which is neutral, which is not succeeding, which is in the specific vicinity of a man who has just been caught feeling something he was not expecting to feel and is now engaged in active denial.
You look at this for a moment.
Then, very carefully:
"Jason."
"What."
"Were you — "
"No."
"I didn't finish the — "
"The answer is still no."
You look at him.
He looks at the middle distance.
Goose, having received his treat, wanders over to Jason and puts his head on Jason's knee, because Goose is emotionally intelligent in the way all dogs are and has correctly identified that this human needs support.
"Baby," you say.
"Don't."
"Did you think I was talking to you."
"I think," Jason says, with tremendous dignity, "that you should focus on whatever you were doing with the dog."
"I was praising the dog." You are trying very hard not to smile. You are not succeeding at this any better than he's succeeding at neutral. "He did a sit. I said good boy. For the dog, Jason. The dog did a good sit."
"I know that."
"You didn't know that thirty seconds ago."
"I knew it." A pause. "I was momentarily confused about the context."
"The context was me, on the floor, with my dog."
"I'm aware of what the context was."
"And you thought — "
"I don't want to continue this conversation."
"Jason." You are fully smiling now. You have lost the battle entirely and you’re not sorry. "You thought I was calling you a good boy."
"That's a significant mischaracterization of — "
"Your ears are red."
He puts his hand over one ear. Then removes it because that makes it worse.
"They're not," he says.
"They are extremely." You get up from the floor, because this requires closer range, and you sit on the couch next to him, pulling your knees up, looking at him with the expression that he knows means you've found something and you're keeping it. "Jason Todd. You have a praise kink."
"I don't have a — that's not — "
"You heard good boy and you got flustered."
"I didn't get flustered. I was momentarily — "
"Flustered," you say. "You were flustered. Your ears went red."
"My ears are always — "
"They are not always red, Jason."
He looks at you.
You look at him.
Goose, between you, looks at both of you.
"This is a private moment," Jason tells Goose.
Goose wags his tail.
"This is staying here," Jason tells you.
"Absolutely," you say, in the tone that means the opposite.
"I mean it."
"I know you do." You pat his arm. "Good boy."
"I will leave this apartment," he says.
"No you won't."
He doesn't.
The thing is, you don't bring it up again.
Not immediately. Not for several days. You let it exist in the space between you as a known thing, unnamed, which is almost more effective than naming it because Jason knows you know and you know he knows you know and the whole thing sits there.
He thinks maybe you've let it go.
He has not yet learned.
The Saturday that follows is the specific kind of Saturday that Jason has been looking forward to without quite knowing how to say so — no patrol, no mission, no obligations, just the apartment and you and the approximate shape of a normal day.
You decide to bake.
This happens sometimes. You bake the way some people meditate — methodically, with specific attention, producing results that are unreasonably good for a home kitchen. Jason has opinions about your banana bread that he's never said out loud because they're a little embarrassing.
"You can help," you say, pulling out a mixing bowl.
"I'll watch," Jason says.
"You'll help," you say, in the tone that isn't a discussion. "You can do the dry ingredients."
"I don't know the dry ingredients."
"I'll tell you the dry ingredients." You slide a recipe card across the counter. "It's literally measuring and mixing. You can do measuring and mixing."
"I feel like this is going somewhere," Jason says.
"It's going somewhere delicious. Come here."
He comes to the counter.
You talk him through it — flour, baking powder, salt, the specific order and ratios — and Jason measures with the focused attention of someone who approaches new tasks like they’re mission briefings, which means he measures very precisely and double-checks the card twice.
"Good," you say, when he tips the flour in correctly.
Jason's hands do a thing. A very brief thing. He continues measuring.
You are looking at the butter.
"Okay," you say. "Can you do the sugar? Two cups, white sugar, that jar — "
"Yeah," he says. "I see it."
He measures the sugar. He levels it off with the back of a knife because you'd told him how to do that and he'd retained it. He adds it to the bowl.
"Really good," you say.
Jason stirs the dry ingredients.
"Stop," he says, without looking up.
"Stop what," you say, innocently.
"Whatever you're doing."
"I'm praising your baking technique. It's good technique." You're making an elaborate project of creaming the butter. "Most people don't level off properly."
"You're doing the thing."
"I’m giving you accurate feedback." You glance at him sideways. "You're very good at following instructions, Jason. It's a real strength."
"I will put this flour back."
"You won't. You're too invested now." You nod at the bowl. "Keep stirring. Even strokes."
He keeps stirring with even strokes.
You watch him with the peripheral vision of someone who is absolutely paying attention while appearing to focus on something else.
"Okay," you say, after a moment. "That's perfect. You can set that aside."
He sets it aside.
He's not looking at you.
"You're doing great," you say, casually, reaching past him for the vanilla.
"You're enjoying this," he says.
"I'm enjoying baking with my boyfriend on a Saturday." You uncap the vanilla. "I'm also enjoying that my boyfriend has a praise kink and is trying to pretend he doesn't."
"I don't — "
"Your jaw does a thing," you say. "When I say you did something well. It goes — " you make a small motion with your hand that very accurately represents the way his jaw tightens slightly when he's holding something back. "That."
"That's just my face."
"It's a specific face. It's a pleased face that you're trying to make into a neutral face."
"Those are the same face," he says.
"They're not, baby, and you know it." You pour the vanilla. "You can whisk the eggs. Three eggs, that bowl."
He whisks the eggs.
He does it competently and with more focus than eggs strictly require.
"See," you say, when he's done. "You're a natural."
"I'm a person who can crack eggs," he says. "This isn't a skill set."
"You leveled the sugar without being asked twice. That's a skill set." You take the eggs. "Also you're being very good about doing what I say without complaining, which — "
"Do not," he says.
"Is very mature of you."
"That was close," he says. "That was very close to something I was going to have to leave over."
"But you didn't." You stir. "Because you're — "
"Don't."
"Doing so well," you finish.
Jason puts both hands on the counter.
He looks at the middle distance.
Goose, from his bed in the corner, lifts his head to observe the situation and then puts it back down, satisfied that no intervention is required.
"This," Jason says, "is targeted."
"This is baking," you say.
"This is you finding a thing and using it against me in a kitchen."
"I'm not using it against you. I'm praising your contributions to our baking process." You hand him the wooden spoon. "Here. You can fold in the chocolate chips."
He takes the spoon.
He folds in the chocolate chips.
He does it carefully, the way he does everything, and the batter comes together and he doesn't overmix it because you'd told him once that overmixing is the enemy and he'd filed it away like a mission parameter.
"Perfect," you say.
He exhales.
"That's — " he starts.
"The perfect amount of folding," you say. "I mean it. Some people overmix. You didn't overmix."
"I'm aware of the overmixing issue. You mentioned it."
"And you remembered. And applied it correctly." You take the bowl. "You're genuinely getting good at this."
Jason leans against the counter.
He looks at you.
You look back at him with the expression — the one that is warm and a little bit wicked and entirely sincere all at once, the one he can't do anything about because it contains all of those things simultaneously.
"You did this on purpose," he says.
"I did baking on purpose, yes."
"The whole thing. The praising. You set this up."
"I set up cookies, Jason." You start spooning batter onto the tray. "I'm a simple person with simple goals."
"You are not a simple person."
"No," you agree. "But the goals are simple. Cookies and watching you try to pretend you don't like it when I tell you you're doing well." You spoon another cookie. "Which you do. Like. Very much."
Jason is quiet for a moment.
"It's not a kink," he says.
"Okay."
"It's not. It's just — I don't hear it a lot. Good job. Well done. That kind of thing." He says it like he's stating a fact, which he is, the Jason Todd version of admission that doesn't dress itself up. "So when you say it, it — lands differently than you probably intend."
You stop spooning.
You look at him.
He's looking at the cookie tray, jaw doing the thing, the actual thing, not the baking-praise thing but the real version of it.
"Jason," you say.
"Don't make it a whole thing," he says.
"I'm not." You put the spoon down. You go to stand next to him. "I mean it, by the way. When I say you did something well. I'm not winding you up. You leveled the sugar without being told. You didn't overmix. You follow instructions better than most people I know."
"Most people you know aren't trained — "
"You're also really good at other things," you say, cutting him off gently. "A lot of things. And I don't say it enough probably."
He looks at you sideways.
"Don't," he says.
"I'm being genuine."
"I know you are. That's why I'm telling you to stop because you're going to make me — " He stops. "Just stop."
"Make you what?"
"Nothing. Stop."
You look at him.
The tips of his ears are doing the thing.
"Good boy," you say, very softly, and you mean it, and you're smiling, and it's entirely sincere and entirely wicked simultaneously.
Jason closes his eyes.
"I'm getting the dog," he says.
"Goose is asleep."
"I'm waking the dog up and I'm going to the other room and I'm going to sit with the dog until the cookies are done."
"That's a completely reasonable response," you say.
"Thank you."
"You're doing great," you add.
He points at you.
He opens his mouth.
He closes it.
He goes to get the dog.
The cookies are perfect.
Jason eats four of them and pretends he's not pleased about this either, which doesn't work on you at all, which he's aware of, which is fine.
On the couch afterward, Goose between you, he says: "This stays here."
"Obviously," you say.
"I mean it this time."
"I know you do, baby."
He looks at you.
"You're going to tell Dick," he says.
"I would never," you say.
You are absolutely going to tell Dick.
Jason knows this.
He eats another cookie.
It's a good Saturday.
