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Losing Jason was all hollowness and an inescapable ache in his teeth.
But there was this twisted relief, Dick thinks, in Jason's death, too.
He hadn't despised the kid or anything when he had been alive—not even close—the solace wasn't sourced from that, it was just...
Jason had always been Dick's first brush with sin.
—
Dick is under no illusion of his so-called perfection. Don't get him wrong, he appreciates the sentiment and tries to live up to what is expected of him, but he knows of his faults. It exists just as he does. His quick temper, his controlling temperament, and God knows he tries everyday to rid himself of the things that make him synonymous to the man behind the cowl.
He's a man built from blood and sinewy muscles, tethered by nerves and wrongness, but he's been good. Good as he could be with everything presented to him.
Tried to do good by his parents, by Gotham—and later, Bludhaven—by Bruce and Alfred, by the people who needed someone to do good, and he held on to that. Committed himself to it. Sacrificed his own flesh and meat to do good and keep himself together.
He just hadn't expected something of his own creation to be his undoing.
—
It had been an uneventful day when Bruce called him back to the manor. The summon wasn't unusual, it had only been some few months since slewing his way through the night, now as Nightwing and no longer the kid sidekick of Batman. He stares at the invite displayed on his phone by a lonesome message bubble and sighs. Dick haphazardly pulls on a jacket and makes the drive back to Gotham.
The first time Dick donned the uniform, starry-eyed and bouncing on the balls of his feet, he knew his life was going to cease what it was then, rendered into a cover. Covers need roots. Roots come from habits. Habits are easy, mindless expectations, and it was everything that Dick has known within the four walls of the manor.
He had expected the amuse-bouche Alfred offers him after a warm greeting of Welcome back, Master Richard and Master Bruce will be right down. He had expected the high whistle of the kettle coming from the kitchen as Alfred prepares tea for everyone. He had expected the orderliness of the sitting room, everything shiny and dusted and cared for with so much love and attention it makes Dick think of how much his current room is a far cry from this. He had expected the slight twinge of mischief deep in his chest as he stares up at the chandelier, his old habit of using it as a makeshift trapeze before he gets scolded by Alfred coming back to him in a rush.
He had expected it all. Of course he had. After all, those were his roots as the newly taken-in ward of Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson. As Robin.
What he doesn’t expect is seeing the smaller figure right beside Bruce as they descend the staircase. Doesn’t expect the deep, electric blue eyes staring up at him with open admiration the moment its owner comes to a stop right beside the settee Dick was occupying. Doesn’t expect the Dick, this is Jason Todd, your little brother, with the loaded your successor trailing right after. Doesn’t expect the sweet smile that graced the kid—Jason’s—face, afforded to him.
What the fuck? “My—?” Dick comes up short as he processes what was just presented to him, who is in front of him.
“Little brother.” The kid, his apparent little brother, Jason pipes up. “Your little brother,” He smiles at Dick again, the sweet one that rendered him a little speechless but he chalks it off as a reaction to what the fuck did he just say? “And your successor.”
Dick flicks his eyes up to Jason. He keeps his eyes trained on him, sharp and unrelenting, as he repeats, a little breathlessly, “Mine.”
Jason smiles his sweetest. “Yours.”
“You hadn’t thought to ask me first, Bruce?” Dick seethes, the father and first son seeking refuge in the cave to talk—well, it’s been very one-sided to this point but that’s what most conversations with Bruce are—without the prying ears of the youngest. “Did you forget that Robin’s mine? He’s not yours, B, he’s fucking mine.”
Dick’s voice is harsh and abrasive, even to his own ears. He brushes it off as contempt for the betrayal and tries not to think about pretty blue eyes framed with thick dark lashes staring up at him.
“You and Jason seem to have established that earlier.” He snarks from his place in front of the Batcomputer. Dick bristles at the tone and imagines something along the lines of disapproval on Bruce’s face. “You’re free to train him as you see fit, Nightwing.” He pauses. Dick sees the barrage of words in his head, even with Bruce’s back to Dick, but Bruce doesn’t say them, putting a hold on his words, and Dick knows it's the closest thing he’s ever going to get as an apology.
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
Bruce stays silent for longer, and Dick accepts it as acquiescence. “Lend him some of your time, Dick.” Dick rolls his eyes. Leave it to Bruce to make a call for help sound like an obligation. “He’s your brother first, before your successor.”
Robin lands on the rooftop Nightwing waits on with sure feet, a cat-like saunter as he comes closer to where Dick stands.
“Nightwing,” Jason beams at him, wearing the yellow, green, and red with so much pride and confidence, Dick almost huffs at him with amusement. “B comm’d me to rendezvous with you.”
Dick hums his acknowledgement, eyes crinkling slightly behind the domino. “You’ll come back with me to train.” It was agreed upon that Nightwing would spend some time conditioning the newly minted Robin every once in a while a few weeks after they had broken the news. Dick had insisted on one condition: it won’t be in the Cave. Bruce scrutinizes him for a moment, the severe line of his lips the only indication of a question bubbling up. He doesn’t raise it and relents.
Jason gapes slightly, snapping his mouth shut instantly when he notices Dick raise an eyebrow at him. “Will you really?” He pushes. “Train me?”
“What’s the matter, Robin?” Dick’s voice goes low, watching as Jason’s body goes taut at the sound, then tension suddenly getting released with the slight drop of his shoulders. “Getting cold feet? Don’t think you can handle it?” The tease escapes Dick’s mouth without his notice. He mentally chastises himself for getting distracted.
He watches as Jason goes red with indignation, the flush crossing over the bridge of his nose, extending to right below his domino. “You weren’t that much bigger than me when you started out as Robin, you know.”
“Oh?” Dick prods. He can’t help it. There’s something clawing at his chest, the need to pick at Jason until he falls apart with his own hands, only so he can put him back together by his own design. “‘S’that you admitting you’re little?”
Jason is small. As he said, smaller than when Dick took the suit and flew through the night. He knows why, knows it’s because Jason hadn’t gotten proper care before being taken in. It does nothing but pour fuel all over Dick’s desire to—to take him. Make sure he’s sustained for. Make sure he eats. For both of them to eat.
“I told you,” Jason sniffs, incensed. “Not by a lot.”
Dick laughs as Jason’s pout deepens, his usual bravado melting away in front of his big brother. Dick isn’t one to shy away from attention. He was born under glowing smiles and tracking vision, raised to be easy on the eyes, the best on the stage. Some time after having to spend years under the scrutiny of eyes, you start to look right back. Dick doesn’t always like what he sees but he does, this time. In Jason’s eyes.
He knows what the dark glint means. The sudden downturn of blown-out pupils, accompanied with heat on his cheeks and a sweet turn of his lips. Dick doesn’t take much credit for noticing. Jason isn’t too good at hiding from what he wants.
Dick steps closer to Jason, raising a hand to drag a thumb against the black border of his domino, pushing it deeper on his skin as his fingers brush softly against the apple of Jason’s cheek. “That still makes you little,” Dick quips as he catches himself and drops his hand, watching the slight increase in Jason’s breathing with rapt attention. “Little wing.” Dick declares, a triumphant little smile on his face as Jason’s eyes widen slightly bigger.
“My little wing.”
Dick isn’t alien, nor is he meta, and he isn’t magick either. Nightwing is as human as Dick is and no matter how hard he tries, humans could never be perfect.
Nightwing is reminded of this condition when he chances upon Robin on a low-rise building, domino still glued in place, and a cigarette hanging off his lips.
Jason isn’t phased when Dick drops next to him, light on his feet and arms crossed against his chest. Jason doesn’t protest when Dick plucks the cigarette out from his lips and tucks it between the fingerstripes.
“Any chance I could get that back, big bird?” The kid sounds exhausted, defeated, the question a token resistance against Dick. “Wouldn’t wanna dirty you with stuff like that.”
Ah. Dick understands. So it’s one of those nights. Robin isn’t supposed to stray far away from Batman’s shadow on patrols and yet here he was, alone but shrouded in an insurmountable shadow all the same.
“It’d take more than that to dirty me, little wing.” Dick teases but keeps his voice light, trusting that Jason knows Dick won’t say anything if he doesn’t want him to. “Besides, I think I should be the one worrying.”
The trust is reciprocated when Jason lets out a breath he tries to mold into laughter.
“If I remember correctly, N, I’m the dirty little street rat here.” When Jason looks up to see the crease between Dick’s eyebrows cut something deeper, he clears his throat and continues. “Cancer sticks’ not strong enough, huh. How’d you figure?”
Dick allows Jason the out, flicking some of the ash away. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“You smoke?”
“Not like you do, I don’t think.”
Jason tilts his head to the side but doesn’t ask. “How come I’ve never seen you…?”
“Little wing,” Dick lets exasperation fall into his tone but he knows it sounds awful lot like fondness anyway. “I’m supposed to be teaching you good things. I don’t think a budding nicotine addiction makes that cut.”
“I don’t mind.” Jason answers breathlessly, taking on the tone he always does when he watches Dick do something he takes far too much interest in, eyes blown out wide. “Teach me anything you want.”
The request was ridiculous, both of them knew it was. Dick doesn’t even smoke that much—just one or two sticks for times he’d severely run into a wall during cases, only ever alone, and not even nearly enough to make a habit out of—and both of them know that Jason has been smoking for far longer than Dick ever has. One glance at the children squatting by the Narrows, plumes of smoke up above their heads and tens of cigarette butts scattered around their feet is enough to tell Dick the kind of life Jason had before being taken in.
Dick knows he should call it off, put a stop to the banter and escort Jason back to the cave. He knows it’s not the first time Jason deviated from a patrol route out of an argument with Bruce but it doesn’t settle anything in him and wants to see to his safety. That doesn’t happen though, Jason’s always been good at making Dick lose his inhibitions.
Dick nods, as if something funny had just been said. “Alright,” he rolls the cigarette to trap the filter in between his forefinger and thumb. “Just this once, little wing.” Just for you.
He brings the cigarette to his lips, taking a long drag, nerves immediately disarming at the first taste of nicotine.
Jason’s looking up at him the same way he did the first time they’d met. Big, blue eyes and slow blinks and his mouth open like he wants something.
And Dick—Dick isn’t alien, nor is he meta, and he isn’t magick either. He’s as human as they come and despite all of his efforts, humans could never be perfect, all taste for temptation and a commitment to sin.
Dick pushes his hand against the back of Jason’s head and dirties him.
Dick keeps Jason around more often than Bruce had expected. Dropping by Gotham more than he did after his departure, keeping conversations with family better. He doesn’t ignore Bruce as much as he did but now, Jason has been reticent. He expected it, the distance and the silent disappointment. Bruce thinks it would be better to give Jason his space, as much time as he needs to process the ultimatum handed to him. Jason has Dick and Dick has Jason. Most of Bruce’s worries wane. He thanks his single lucky star that his boys are getting along better than he had hoped. Better than he could even do for them.
He didn’t think to expect Jason huddled over, small and unobtrusive in the manor library. He thought he was over at Dick’s and said as much.
“Dick is off-world.” Jason answers him curtly, head still buried in the book he has held up on his knees.
Bruce’s eyebrow twitches. “He hadn’t notified me that he would be.”
“Dick doesn’t answer to you anymore, old man.” With that, Jason closes the book and stalks out of the room, not so much as a glance towards Bruce’s direction.
Bruce sighs when the door clicks shut. Jason has Dick and Dick has Jason. Dick isn’t here but Jason is.
He swipes a hand over his face and turns to the shelves, eyes picking out the titles he needs to prepare for Lebanon. Bruce will dole out more thought into it when he can. He’s busy tonight.
He’s on Earth and it is morning and his Robin doesn’t come home from flying through the evening. Jason Peter Todd is inscribed on the tomb, his cold, decaying body six feet underground, beneath Dick’s soles.
Dick drops to his knees and claws at the soil. His vision is getting cloudy and his clothes feel too hot against his skin. He’s angry and he might be crying. Dick might be in hell to look for a little brother he couldn’t call his. Dick’s nails are caked with soil. He’ll walk hell with Jason.
He deserves to be there with him, Dick supposes. At this point in time, he’s done a lot more than brush with sin. It doesn’t feel any different to him. All of it is still for Jason.
He’s on Earth and it is night. Nightwing kills the Joker with his bare hands, soil still under his nails.
Dick has been forbidden to step foot in Gotham for three years now, eclipsing on the fourth anniversary.
He’s made a home out of another shithole city. It’s as close to Gotham as he can get and he’s… relieved, as much as he can be, at least, there are no reminders of Jason in Bludhaven. No gargoyles he seemed to have an affinity for, the chilidog cart miles away from where Dick stands, the rooftops in the ‘Haven feel different from the ones in Gotham but it only serves to comfort him.
There is no Narrows. There is no remnant of Jason Todd in this city.
His city.
There is nothing of Jason Todd in his city.
As Jason Todd was never his.
Dick pushes back patrol to an hour after midnight. The clock strikes 12 and he smiles as the date changes. Four years since he left Gotham for good.
Four years since he killed the Joker.
Dick is sentimental. Nothing he does lacks meaning. He kills with his hands because he wants to take the life of the ones who take from him. He kills the Joker because he killed Jason. It’s for Jason. All of it is.
Dick chokes on a laugh and realizes the one thing of Jason the ‘Haven has is his memory. Jason has Dick. Dick does not have Jason.
He lets out a passing thanks when the waitress sets the cupcake in front of him, on the empty bar counter of the deserted diner he chose at random to celebrate his exodus. The place looks near-dilapidated, just one other patron sitting in the darkest area of the place, though that’s not too difficult to do when the lighting fixture looks as if it's been due for a change for decades now. Dick blinks in tune with the flickering of the overhead lights to adjust his sight to the dimness of the diner.
For the past three years, Dick had gotten different flavors for the anniversary cupcakes. His first year had been chocolate, the second was vanilla, and last year had been a strawberry cupcake. This year he returns to chocolate to start the Neapolitan of cupcakes all over again. He reaches over the counter and grabs a solitary toothpick from its canister, digging it deep into the molten center of the cupcake.
Dick was about to flag down the waitress, ask them to light the toothpick for him if they could, maybe sneak a candle if they have one lying around, but his eye catches on to a small flame burning a cherry on the cigarette of a man in red, hood up and slouching.
He drops his hand from midair and turns his body towards the man. He was tucked away into the corner booth, left leg folded by the knee, resting his ankle on his other leg. He was balancing a book by the bend of the joint, hand back down, cigarette tucked between fingers, and resting beside the ashtray and the lighter set on the table.
Dick whistles something short and sharp, cursory, and the man raises his head enough to indicate his attention’s been caught, flicking his thumb on the butt of the cigarette over the tray. His face was shrouded in shadows, a singular blue eye peeking up at him from under the hood, reflecting the flickering light.
Dick clears his throat. “Any chance I could get a light?”
The man's head is still facing him, so Dick assumes he’s being observed before deft fingers—nails nicotine stained and finger pads rough—reach out to his lighter, flicking the cover back, rolling the flint wheel then holding it out to Dick’s direction.
Dick blinks, brain not entirely catching up to the silent demand, only getting up and grabbing the cupcake a beat later before he makes the few steps to stand in front of the man, tilting the toothpick into the flame, letting it catch fire.
“Uh, thanks.”
Dick is a master acrobat and combatant, he knows, everyone who has ever had the pleasure of working with him and the displeasure of working against him knows, but beyond that, he has a proficiency over communication, weaponized for either riling up criminals enough to have them slip or to sweet-talk someone enough to fill the silence, maybe even snag some information while he’s at it. The point is, Dick is unusually rendered taciturn that it has alarm bells ringing in his head and it’s making him want to do something stupid.
So he does.
“Do you mind if I join you?” Dick gestures to the empty side of the booth with his head, a small smile gracing his face with his free hand in his pocket, the other holding the cupcake with the alarmingly fast-burning toothpick speared inside it, going for the unassuming, innocent patron character.
The first cigarette has long been exhausted by the man and Dick patiently watches him light a new one before dropping the lighter back where it was. He takes a long drag, cigarette in between his thumb and forefinger. “If you don’t mind.” The man answers, voice rough from the smoke and disuse, as he tilts the stick in reference.
“Sure,” Dick slides into the booth hurriedly, as if he’s worried the man would take the acquiescence back. If the eagerness didn't go unnoticed, the man doesn’t say anything and Dick doesn’t trip over himself having to explain that maybe, just maybe, he needed some darkness-obscured stranger to keep him company on the loneliest night of his years.
He subtly checks at his watch: 12:16. Dick had a little over 40 minutes to get his shit together before patrol so he makes quick work of lowering his eyes to the cupcake, a near-incoherent mumble of little wing leaving his lips unbidden, before he blows the flame out.
“Special occasion?” The man rumbles from behind the hood, the book that was safely tucked on his knee now lying closed on the table. Dick peeks at the title and something starts to itch under his skin when he sees the curly font read out Pride and Prejudice. The copy was obviously very well-loved. The pages starting to yellow, and the corners of the book lifting just slightly. Dick remembers how Jason talked about being unsettled when it comes to keeping books in mint condition.
"Books are meant to be read, aren’t they?” It’s rhetorical, Dick knows, but he still nods when Jason lifts a brow at him. “It’s how you show the words love. I don’t think I’d mind it if my favorite story knew how much I loved it.” A sweet, little smile lights up his face and Dick wants to keep it there, keep Jason happy for as long as he can. He’d buy Jason all the fucking books in the world if it meant securing that happiness, even those internet-celebrity-authored “self-help” books Jason likes to shit on so much, though that would probably just gift him Jason’s ire—playful or not.
(He still teases the boy though, idly asking, “The first editions Alfred gifted you seem to be very mint, though.” He delights in seeing Jason splutter, grumbling about how he just didn’t want Alfred’s hard-earned money to go to waste and “Books are never supposed to cost that much.”)
Dick purses his lips and considers the man in front of him as he brings the cigarette up to his mouth, chest expanding as he breathes in, blowing the smoke out to the side.
Dick internally debates giving anything away to the man. He was well-built, to say the very least, with biceps threatening to burst from underneath his sleeves, and the quick once-over Dick did before sitting down tells him the built arms weren’t just for show when his thighs were absolutely fucking ripping. He should be thinking more about how likely that would make the stranger to be in the night business—regardless of the side—but instead, Dick idly wonders how it would feel to have those thighs gripping tight around his waist, arms wound up circling his neck.
Dick tears his eyes away from what he could see of the man’s physique. Time and place, Grayson.
It’s not that Dick liked not trusting people. He didn’t find joy out of being immediately suspicious of new faces, but he was raised by the most paranoid man on the face of the Earth and this guy doesn’t seem to even try at giving off an ingenious energy, angstily brooding in the darkness and all, so it’s not as if Dick could help it… but he supposes he can say just enough.
Dick nods at him, picking at what’s left of the toothpick from the cupcake, laying it meticulously on top of the tissue paper dispenser on the table. “An anniversary of sorts.”
“If it calls for a cupcake then I suppose congratulations are in order.”
“I guess. Something like that.” Dick snorts. “Thanks.”
The man doesn’t ask any questions and just stubs out what’s left of his cigarette, bringing out his pack and tapping out a new one. Before he lights his own though, he angles the pack towards Dick. “You smoke?”
And Dick hadn’t been. Not since—not since he lost Jason. There wasn’t even much of a habit there to break but it still felt painful to, one other reminder of Jason being snuffed out.
Dick is feeling indulgent though, a little too much, but he brushes it off. Lets himself have this, just for today, just for this hour.
He extends a hand across the table, meeting with the man halfway. “Not like you, I don’t think.” He slides one out and nods at the man in silent thanks.
He waits while the other man lights his own, the cherry luminating the little bit of blue Dick can see of his eyes, the silhouette of the curve of his nose, and the fullness of his lips. His features aren’t lit enough to say for sure, or even put a name to the face, but Dick surmises the man is attractive and a grim line overcomes his lips as he tucks the cigarette between them.
The man leans a little over the table, holding the lighter out enough for Dick to only inch forward just slightly, breathing in until the flame catches. He drags the smoke in deep, keeping it in his lungs a few seconds longer before tilting his chin up and breathing it out above their heads.
“You don’t look it.” The man says after a few silent seconds shared between them and Dick raises an eyebrow at him, not that he could see if that incites any reaction from his company.
“Is there a standard that I’m not cutting out for?” Dick jokes. “Should I be all broody and gruff like you?”
The man hums. “I could teach you.”
“I’ll take you up on it.”
Dick knows he’s being stupid and reckless and dear God, is he not thinking straight, but he couldn’t… help it. The banter feels so familiar and raw and it reminds him too much of something that’s been lost to him for four fucking years now, today, just this hour, that he couldn’t help it if it killed him.
“Don’t think so, big bird,” Dick freezes and the man sighs, a put-on little thing. “Think you should be out patrolling soon.”
Dick’s being pulled back into time, into a low-rise rooftop, into a shared cigarette between two mouths, and he doesn’t come to himself fast enough to stop the man from grabbing his things and leaving the establishment.
When Dick gets out of his head, he’s alone and shrouded in darkness, the sluggish gleam of the cigarette slowly going out, the steady stream of smoke surrounds him and assaults his senses.
That was… It couldn’t be… right? But—but it has to be.
He feels numb when he checks his watch. 12:38. He knows he has to head back to his apartment, sling up the suit, and warm-up to start his routes, but he’s—fuck, it couldn’t be, could it?
Jason’s always been good at making Dick lose his inhibitions, always had Dick committing to the next wrong thing and more.
He chases after him.