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“You’re going to have to stay here,” Batgirl said, when she dropped him off. “Maybe a while, but we’ll fix this.”
The door closed between the apartment and the cinder block garage, leaving Dick in a space of warm light and baking smells. It was... a change. For one thing: windows. No more capes rushing him through hidden tunnels with odd drips and echoes. A weight on Dick’s chest lifted.
He crossed mismatched rugs over scratched wood to the nearest window, a gentle cold coming off the glass. Red and orange leaves swirled up the street outside, disturbed by a passing car. He glanced at the door -- deadbolted but not electronic. He wouldn’t even need a key.
Except for who had dropped him off, it was all so normal. Well, almost normal. It didn't seem likely that a one bedroom ground floor apartment would have direct access to its own private garage. Though perhaps the particulars of who had brought Dick here were more than enough to explain unusual amenities like concealed garages and tunnel entrances.
“Great.” A sigh came from behind him.
His host stood by the garage door, stocking feet planted on old linoleum next to a beige fridge. He looked as worn as his kitchen, wearing beat up jeans and old cable knit sweater. Dick wiggled his toes in the utility boots with which he'd stomped across the little apartment’s neat floors. Rude, probably, but weirdly, he didn’t regret it.
He didn’t know why he didn’t regret it, but of course, at the moment, there were a lot of things he didn’t know. A lot of things he’d -- apparently -- forgotten.
Dick lifted his eyebrows politely. The neighborhood outside looked urban enough to have a bus stop somewhere. He patted his pockets, wondering if he had a transit card or currency.
The guy crossed his arms, wrapped in his chunky sweater. “That's not the face of someone who's going to sit still.”
“Am I supposed to sit?” Dick squished his boots on the thick rug. It had a yard sale feel, like the rest of the eclectic apartment, though somehow all the pieces seemed to fit with each other. Dick frowned a little. There was something familiar about a patchwork compiled into a comfortable whole.
“You can do cartwheels if that’ll keep you here.” The guy picked up a stack of mail, flicking through it. He stuck two of the envelopes to the fridge with a Metropolis magnet.
“Can’t I sit at home?” Dick said.
A glance flicked his way. “You don't have one.”
Dick’s heart stuttered. He stared out the window, grasping at a thread of thought -- bus stops -- glad his host couldn’t see his face. It hurt more than anything had so far, even the headache. Even Batgirl’s sharp-fingered grip pulling him along. His host hadn’t cushioned the blow. Had he relished it? Or was Dick’s homelessness too routine to cushion?
His host blinked at him over his mail, expression changing from surprise to chagrin, then to hastily papered-over indifference. He stuck another envelope to the fridge, then changed his mind, turning back to take it down and toss it in the trash. The throw was forceful, like he was annoyed by the mistake or perhaps that he'd been distracted enough to make it. Dick should know his name. During the speedy dropoff, Batgirl and Robin had introduced his host to Dick, though notably not Dick to his host, what was the name -- Jason.
Dick reached for the door.
“You move around a lot. Your home is -- people. A lot of different people.”
Dick paused, fingers on the brass deadbolt. “People who aren't here.”
“That's not -- ”
“You didn't mean you, I mean,” Dick clarified.
Jason dropped the mail on the kitchen counter to rub his hands over his face. “Ha! No, I really didn't.”
“You have a home. This is a home, right?”
“No it -- ”
Dick turned away from the door, trailing his fingers over shelves and a folded throw blanket that looked well used. There weren’t a lot of knick knacks but the stuff that was there felt purposeful and coherent. Books, but not too many. A few old favourites and few newer current reads. Functional kitchen, well-used basics, and very neat except the baking supplies.
Your home is people was a much less tangible claim than you don’t have a home. But Jason wasn’t one of Dick’s people-homes, not with the expression he’d worn when Dick had asked. Dick thought again about the door. He didn’t want to play detective about all the things he’d forgotten.
Reconstructing his own mystery life as a neutral observer.... the person allegedly known as Richard Grayson disliked the bland passiveness of it more than anything he could remember disliking. He wasn't going to hold off on feeling and doing just because he couldn't personally remember doing or feeling anything before 10:30 am this morning. He could stand and speak (and argue apparently). By his books, he was a person. A fully formed individual, and he wasn’t hitting pause on that to wait for a map.
Jason tensed when Dick walked behind him to inspect the hand written recipes taped to the microwave, the poetry magnets assembled into little phrases on the fridge. There was a windowsill herb garden -- in use, not aesthetic. The garden was something else. The grow lights had timers attached, an easy buy, but the DIY automatic watering system was not. Dick stared at it, a weight sinking in his chest like congestion.
He couldn’t handle the time, all the minutes and hours glaring back at him from the corners of this tiny warm place, every selective yard sale purchase, every poetry phrase assembled on the fridge, in the careful maintenance of harmony between all of it, in the rich smell of baking bread.
“Take your fucking shoes off, alright.” The tone sounded casual enough, though Jason’s eyebrows pulled down when he saw Dick’s face.
“Thanks,” Dick said. For the hosting, he meant. He’d just have to assume that Batgirl and Robin would be able to find him if they wanted him. He wasn’t staying.
He crossed the kitchen, exiting around the other side of the island and hanging cabinets, opposite Jason and the small dining area. He passed the book nook, framed with another set of plants and a wooden side table/bookshelf in a mid century modern style that was outrageously expensive in reproduction and had probably cost Jason $15 in someone’s front yard.
The armchair wasn’t quite big enough to be called a loveseat, making it the only thing in the apartment that felt more lonely than warm. Time, Dick thought, but not people, huh.
“Hey,” Jason said, sounding for the first time neither reluctant nor uncaring. “You can’t even remember me and you hate my fucking kitchen?”
Dick tapped his own chest. "People." He tilted a finger towards Jason. "Book nooks."
Jason's face scrunched into a strange expression, frozen halfway between offended snarl and wary squint. He left the kitchen, teaching past Dick to re-throw the deadbolt on the front door. "There is no way you're gonna stay here if I need to step out for a bit, is there?"
Dick lifted his eyebrows, face blank. It wasn’t diplomatic, being that obvious about making no promises. He must be diplomatic usually, or he wouldn’t be so aware when he wasn’t.
Jason swore under his breath. He said again, “Take your goddamn shoes off.”
“No thanks,” Dick said. His eyes drifted around the apartment like he couldn’t stop himself, his empty mind hungry for texture. On the counter by the sink, a small green shoot grew in a cracked mug. Against a full and vibrant frame of reference, the plant would have been a small detail, but Dick had no frame of reference. He existed as contextless instincts arriving second by second. In that state, tiny green leaves in an old, shabby cup hijacked the emotional machinery of his brain the way children yearn for a parent’s embrace.
Dick breathed slowly like a motion sick guest of a sightseeing boat tour. Jason was a looming offended presence between Dick and the door. Dick shoved his hands in the pocket of his pea coat, pulling in tight around him. All his clothes were black, even the practical work boots that didn’t match his slacks or the silk shirt in a blue so dark the only color was in its sheen. He was an ink stain in Jason’s autumn colored home.
“I don’t hate your kitchen,” Dick said. He rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand, not realizing until he’d already done it that his eyes were wet or that he should have tried to hide it.
“Alright.”
“Alright?” Dick heard the sniffle in his voice and closed his eyes in embarrassment.
“Alright,” Jason repeated. He strode past Dick, grabbing up the throw blanket as he passed, tossed backwards at Dick’s head as he entered the kitchen. “Take off your coat and your fucking shoes. Stay here for an hour. I’ll feed you bread.”
Jason obviously wanted some sign that Dick was going to stick around. People are your home, Jason had said. That felt true to Dick, but so had You don’t have a home. Homeless and peopleless, Dick had been humiliatingly overwhelmed by plants and shabby chic decor.
Jason wasn't wearing shoes either. He had bread in the oven. If he didn't want Dick to go anywhere, he was apparently willing to pay for it in kind. Jason had better information on Dick's inner self than Dick did, and he was weaponizing it via bread and company.
Dick took his hand out of his pocket where it was still feeling for loose bus tickets and began unsteadily pulling off his shoes.