Work Text:
He’s twenty-five, and he wakes to cold, and to warmth. There’s a body pressed in a solid line against his front, an arm over his waist, hot breath tickling at the hollow of his throat- and his back is ice, cold air moving freely over bare skin.
He’s awake enough to lift his head and squint at the bundle of blankets clinging to him like some sort of body-heat leech, and think of course he steals blankets, but not awake enough to truly process why he didn’t already know this. He settles deeper into the bed instead, and lazily tugs at corners and loose edges until he frees a blanket enough to drape it over his middle so at the very least he isn’t mooning the whole fucking room.
The realization creeps over him like dawn as he breathes in the smell of coconut shampoo and old sweat, as he dares to pet his fingertips over a single lock of inky hair. He’s never woken up like this before.
“You hog the blankets,” he says eventually, his voice a gravelly burr in the quiet.
A sharp huff of breath blows against his neck, a silent laugh. “You snore.”
He thinks about it for a moment. It’s still early, watery sunlight shining around the corner of a mostly-pulled blackout curtain, his thoughts cottony and distant with sleepiness and rare vulnerability. He can just go back to sleep, and probably will. But.
“You stayed,” he says.
There’s a moment, two. The breathing remains steady, almost perfectly measured, emotional response carefully controlled. “So did you.”
It’s Jason’s turn to not react. He digs his fingers into the strands of Dick’s hair.
And- yeah. Dick Grayson is good enough, graceful enough, quiet enough to slip out of Jason Todd’s arms and leave without waking him up, and they know this from experience. But Jason’s done his fair share of dressing in the dark while ignoring the weight of that resigned gaze on him, so he can hardly claim innocence here.
He’s quiet for a long while, fingers moving idly, eyes closed against even the faintest sunlight. He could go back to sleep- when he wakes up, Dick will be gone. And that would be that. They’re fuckbuddies, nothing more. They just have some common ground, and they can safely blow off steam with each other. They know where they stand with each other, and that’s a precious thing indeed.
But Dick’s relaxed in his arms, not braced against further questions, not preparing to leave. And Dick has turned defensiveness into a damn art form. He’s all smiles and puns and sharp eyes and calm leadership, and you never know he’s torn up and bleeding inside, and the few times he shows it, he’d rather tell Superman to go fuck a cow than accept his help unwilling. People think Jason is an unassailable fortress of a person, but he has nothing on Dick.
And now Dick is still lying there, as exposed and vulnerable as Jason himself.
“Want some breakfast?” Jason asks.
He will take it back if it seems to have crossed a line- he is prepared to snatch it away at a moment’s notice. He would rather have this than nothing at all. But Dick still doesn’t move, doesn’t even tense. He grunts after a thoughtful moment. “You eat breakfast at four in the morning?”
“It’s about seven,” Jason says, squinting at the sunlight and trying to gauge its intensity and angle. “Seven is a perfectly acceptable breakfast time.”
“Seven is a hideous time for anything,” Dick says, but he’s shifting, freeing himself from his cocoon of blankets and pillows and even the freaking sheet, how the hell did he get that out from under Jason without waking him? “Staying in or eating out?”
Jason tries to remember which safehouse they’re in and, if it’s one of his, if the kitchen is stocked. And Dick is still warm and soft and pliable against him, not tensing up, not raising those walls.
“Out.” It’s one of Dick’s places, he’s not taking that risk. He dips his head and kisses Dick’s neck, daring. Dick murmurs something and stretches against him, long and luxurious. Jason risks another kiss, this one on the hinge of his jaw, then a brush of lips on lips.
The next kiss is open-mouthed and lingering, Dick turning and wrapping an arm around his neck, his own hand scraping roughly down Dick’s spine and cupping his ass. Dick shivers and makes a plaintive noise and pushes until Jason lets himself be rolled over, Dick kneeling above him.
“Or,” Dick says with a boyish grin, his hair in his face and bruises from Jason’s teeth only just starting to show on his collarbone, so beautifully messy in the morning sun. “Eight is a better time for breakfast.”
“Is it?” Jason asks, to be contrary, and gets his nose flicked for his trouble.
“Nine, even,” Dick says between kisses. Jason slides his hands down to his hips, then back up to his shoulders, reveling in the touch. They want this. They both want this, both wanting this, and now they can have it.
“Nine is okay, but ten is brunch,” he says, and Dick snorts and kisses him again, and they keep themselves well occupied until a proper breakfast hour.
He’s twenty-eight, and Dick is hours back from a mission that took him to an alien world and kept him there for three months, twelve days, seventeen hours. Not that Jason is counting.
Paul the taco cart guy hears him roaring past on his second-favorite bike- his favorite has no holes in the muffler and sometimes he can even stalk the Batmobile with it- and gives a whistle that pierces air and eardrums alike. Jason whips a u-turn and pulls up alongside his cart, killing the engine.
“Did you need something?” he asks sarcastically.
Paul, who is senior enough that he can reminisce about the days of Batman Before Robin, rolls his eyes at the attitude, which admittedly is about what it deserves. “You hear Nightwing is back in town?” he asks, already plating up Jason’s regular order.
The words hook into his guts and twist, pain and loneliness and a bloom of warmth. No, he hadn’t heard- no one else officially knows they’re together, so no one had kept him up-to-date on Dick’s mission. Coming home, he knew, but actually back?
Jason gets off the bike and comes over, fishing money from an inner pocket. It’s dark enough that he can excuse not seeing the zero that comes after the five on the second bill, though he slides it under the ten and folds them together to buy himself time before Paul figures it out and tries to give it back. “Is he?” he asks conversationally.
Paul rolls his eyes again. “Dropped by, eh, twenty minutes ago?” He wraps the second taco in foil and sticks them both in a paper bag and holds it out. “Didn’t say he was looking for you, but he didn’t stay to chat when I told him I haven’t seen you yet.”
All right, so maybe they aren’t as careful around some people as they are others. Jason takes the bag with a nod and presses the money into Paul’s palm, then turns and strides back to his bike. He revs the engine over the sound of Paul yelling about getting his ass back here right now, did he look like he needed pity money, and takes off with a jaunty wave that he knows he’ll pay for next time.
He roars through downtown and parks behind the metro library and heads up onto the roof, and is halfway through taco number one when near-silent footsteps approach from behind.
“So how’d it go?” he asks.
“Fine,” Dick says. “Exhausting. Steered them away from total governmental collapse, at least.”
“That’s good,” Jason agrees as Dick comes over to sit on the edge of the roof next to him. “If a planet goes into full-blown revolution while you’re there for the third time, people will start talking.”
Dick swings one dangling foot out to kick at Jason’s ankle, then shifts away. They’re in Batgirl’s territory tonight, and she passed by a while ago, and would likely be the one member of their bizarre family to accept this relationship without question. But still, no knowing what Batman is up to tonight. Best to keep a distance that can be reasonably explained.
“I don’t know why they needed me, every five minutes there’s a new Lantern,” Dick says grouchily, and leans forward and snakes a hand out lightning-fast to steal Jason’s second taco. He’s wearing the old fingerstripes tonight, his newer uniforms probably still packed and possibly- most likely- damaged.
“Most of them are kids,” Jason says, bitterly aware of the irony, and Dick snorts and takes a bite of taco.
“Oh god,” he moans, which really is neither fair nor polite, all things considered. “Food with flavor. I missed this.” He catches Jason’s questioning look and swallows a too-large mouthful of taco and explains. “Had a bad reaction to something I ate at the first fancy dinner party and couldn’t figure out what. I was on space MREs for the last two months.”
“That’ll fuck you up,” Jason says, skating his eyes over Dick’s body. Does he look skinnier? Hard to tell with the darkness and the way he’s sitting. Might explain why he’d gone for a uniform from before his stint as Batman, which gave him some bulk he hasn’t completely shed.
He’ll know soon enough, probably- but the distance between them now aches like saltwater in a half-healed wound. Jason wants him close enough to smell him, touch him, feel him breathing. He wants to be able to say I missed you and be sure of what response he’ll get. Three months had seemed like nothing at the start, and feels like forever now, and Jason is caught on the edge of anticipation, waiting to see what has changed.
“I’m just glad to be home,” Dick says, oblivious to Jason’s spiraling thoughts. He swings his leg into Jason’s again, a gentle nudge this time. “I don’t think I’m cut out for the space adventure lifestyle anymore.”
Jason balls up the foil from the taco and drops it into the paper bag. He takes a moment, takes his courage in both hands and draws in a deep breath, shifts to face Dick properly.
In the distance something moves across a rooftop. Not Robin, not small enough. Jason thinks he saw a flash of purple, but he can’t be sure. Dick goes tense and still beside him, then rolls back and stands.
“I’ll call you tomorrow?” he offers with a soft, tired smile. Jason looks up and meets his gaze, nods once and looks away again. He can wait until tomorrow. He waited three months already.
He waits until he’s alone before he releases the pent-up sigh. He picks up his helmet and stands, turns-
And Nightwing is standing three steps away.
Jason doesn’t startle, not this close to the roof’s edge. He does have a gun out of its holster and halfway aimed, safety off, before he catches himself with a sharp curse. “Nightwing, what the fuck-?” he demands.
Dick takes those last three steps in a hurry and grabs onto the lapels of Jason’s jacket, pulling him down into a fierce, hungry kiss. Jason makes a startled noise into it, then relaxes and puts a hand on Dick’s hip to pull him even closer.
“I missed you,” Dick says once he pulls away, still breathing like he’d run a marathon to reach this moment. Jason swallows air and smiles, small and stupid.
“Yeah,” he says, tongue thick with unspoken words and brain fuzzy with lust. “Me too.”
Dick sways back towards him like he’s drunk, leans into him for a moment, then pulls away again. “Tomorrow,” he repeats.
Jason watches as he leaves for real this time, watches that blue chevron swoop across the sky like a night-flying bird, and smiles.
He’s thirty, and they’re arguing.
Arguing, not fighting- they’ve done enough of the second over the years, left each other bruised and bloody, broken bones and split open knuckles. They still do sometimes, they’re physical people who long ago learned violence as their second language. This, however, is just arguing, voices raised and bodies separated by the width of the living room, gone on long enough that they’ve wandered from the original point of contention and are now simply airing old grievances.
It gets ugly, and it gets uglier, and the neighbor downstairs pounds on the ceiling with something twice- and then Jason says it, says the one thing he always thinks and never says, and Dick looks at him like he’s shot him before disappearing out the window and up the fire escape. Jason is left standing in the living room, wondering if he’s going to be evicted for noise complaints, wondering if he should have gone after him, wondering if he’s ever going to come back. He sits on the couch instead, and drops his head and buries his hands into his hair.
Well. That had been nice while it lasted. Too fucking bad Jason is poison, and ruins everything he touches.
He gets an untold amount of time to sulk- not hours, but not just a few minutes either. Then the window rattles again, and he looks up to see Dick slink into the apartment. His hair is wind-tousled and his cheeks are ruddy, and he’s still scowling and narrow-eyed, but he comes over to stand before Jason and doesn’t even flinch. Which- Dick is a runner, Jason knows this, has always been careful not to apply too much pressure out of fear of it. Dick’s been hurt enough times, he’s always got one foot out the door, and Jason can accept that.
Dick stares down at him, arms folded across his chest and fingers tapping against his bicep. Finally, angrily, still glaring, he says, “I love you.”
Jason’s had a deflated lung before. This feels remarkably similar, driving the air from his body and leaving him reeling. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“No.”
“What?” Jason asks, finally sitting up and looking at Dick properly. Dick sighs impatiently at him.
“Are you saying sorry because you don’t love me? Or because you think I shouldn’t love you?”
First one. Say first one, and Dick will be out of his life, but at least that’ll be it. At least he’ll have control over it, and won’t have to wait for the shoe to drop. Not knowing when it will happen is its own form of torture, and steals the sweetness from their time together.
But he can’t say it, and chokes on the words, and Dick looks at him and sighs again and softens.
“Okay,” he says. “So we’re both giant messes. Good to know.”
Then he turns and walks away into the kitchen, and Jason stares after him until he returns with two bottles of microbrew beer that Jason keeps on hand in case he needs to impress snobs like Tim. He hands one bottle over, and collapses onto the couch next to Jason.
“First of all,” he says into the tense air between them, “don’t ever, ever, try to hurt me with Bruce like that again.”
if you really cared about this at all, you’d have told bruce years ago- but if you did, and he said stop, you’d be out the door without so much as a goodbye, wouldn’t you?
Yeah, not Jason’s finest moment. He doesn’t risk apologizing again, just pops the top off the bottle and takes a sip.
“Second of all,” Dick continues when Jason doesn’t respond, “I’m sorry I made you think I don’t care. I do care.”
“You said,” Jason says, and his voice sounds strangely hoarse. “You love me.”
“Because I do.” Dick sounds resigned more than anything, but given the circumstances, it seems an appropriate response. “You’re smart, you’re loyal, you put up with my shit. And I can be.” He pauses. “Vulnerable, with you. I can’t even remember the last time I could be like that with someone.”
Vulnerable, a word Jason’s been using from the start. He looks over and finds Dick maintaining steady eye contact with the beer bottle. He’s looking plenty vulnerable right now, shoulders up near his ears and fingers fidgeting nervously with the label on the bottle. He looks like he’s braced for a blow.
“And as for Bruce, I told him years ago,” Dick says. “I also told him to leave you alone about it, and if he even thought about interfering, he’d never see me again.” He dares to look up. “I guess it must have worked.”
It’s a casual admission, and it means everything. Jason has to set his beer aside so he doesn’t drop it.
“You shouldn’t love me,” he says, and adds over Dick’s growl of frustration, “no, you shouldn’t. I don’t deserve it.”
“Maybe I don’t deserve you, you ever think about that?” Dick shoots back. “Maybe I’m just as fucked up as you are and neither of us deserve each other.”
Nothing Dick has said is making it easier to breathe. The very idea of him being on Jason’s level- but dismissing him like that is wrong, too. Jason knows better than anyone that Dick’s got plenty wrong with him, he sleeps next to the guy, he gets woken up by the same nightmares.
“I love you,” Dick says, and Jason glares at him, and gets an unfriendly smile in return. “I’m just going to keep saying it, might as well get used to it.”
“Fine,” Jason says, and grabs his beer again for something to do with his hands, and they sit on opposite ends of the couch, angry and awkward and useless.
Except-
Dick came back. He left, and came back, and knowing that helps bring some air back into Jason’s lungs. Dick would fight gods without flinching, but to fight his own nature, his own trauma- he came back.
Words are so easy, when they don’t actually mean anything. Jason can’t bring himself to say those three little words, eight letters, no big deal- so he drinks his beer and sits in silence and thinks them, turns them over and over in his mind until they’re polished and shiny. Maybe next time, he can return them.
Until then, he and Dick are both still there, and not going anywhere anytime soon.
He’s thirty-three, and he’s not rushing, he’s not panicking, he’s not freaking out or counting bullets. Dick had been the one to call him, and he had sounded fine- muzzy, likely from painkillers he probably hadn’t had the presence of mind to turn down, but alive and as well as could be expected. So Jason drove a reasonable ten miles per hour over the speed limit and did not shoot out the plate glass wall when he got stuck entering the hospital behind an old lady with a walker and a man in scrubs trying to help her.
He asks for the ward, not Dick by name, and a nurse points him in the proper direction without any questions. A few minutes of searching, and he’s sliding into an examination room and shutting the door behind him.
“Hey,” he says, trying to sound calm and casual, sweeping his gaze over Dick where he’s laying on the medical bed before focusing on his face. It won’t do any good to stare.
“Hey,” Dick murmurs with a smile, and he holds out a hand in clear expectation. Jason takes it immediately, lacing their fingers together. Dick squirms back a little bit, taking care not to move his right leg at all, and Jason leans his hip against the bed.
“Painkillers?” Jason asks, and Dick nods and hums, brings their hands down and tucks his chin against Jason’s wrist.
“I’m not gonna pass out on you or anything. Just took the edge off.”
“Yeah?” Jason looks at him, at his blown pupils and soft expression, and knows that’s probably not true.
“Yeah.” Dick lifts his head and looks down at his leg, his pants cut away to show his right knee. The grip on Jason’s hand tightens. “So this one looks pretty bad, huh.”
Leslie did say the next one would be. She said things like rehab, and physical therapy, and go easy on it, and they all knew it wouldn’t make a difference.
“We’ve got resources,” Jason says. “We know an archer with a prosthetic arm. If that bunch can pull that off, just imagine what they can do for you. You’ll be fine.”
Dick drops back onto the bed and closes his eyes, and Jason takes the chance to look at his knee for himself. There’s nothing visibly wrong with it- some discoloration that might be a blossoming bruise, possibly the shape of it is wrong. It might be a little swollen. But there’s years of abuse and neglect and hard use there, and Dick had said- he’d smacked it into a door, trying to hold it open for the person behind him, and it had just. Given out.
In public, no less, and Jason is already trying to determine who’s going to have to don the old black-and-blue for a couple weeks to keep people from making the connection. Cassandra, probably- she’s not nearly as showy and acrobatic, but now that Damian’s growing into his promised bulk she’s the only one who has both the size and agility to pass for Nightwing at a glance.
“What are you still here for?” Jason asks.
“They want to do scans,” Dick says. “I don’t want them taking my pants off.”
Yeah, the average hospital personnel was not really prepared for their level of scarring. Dick’s pretty hands-on, especially when he gets mad, and he’s been doing this longer than anyone save Bruce. He’s more scar tissue than skin in some places.
“Bruce will want you moved somewhere more private.” Jason taps two fingers against the back of Dick’s hand and Dick makes a vague noise of protest and tightens his hold. Jason squeezes back, a quiet promise that he isn’t going anywhere. “Do I need to call him?”
It’s- okay. They’re doing better, him and Bruce. They’ll never be great, they’ll probably never be good. But they can coexist now, and that’s all the more Dick has ever asked for from either of them. Jason can do that much for him.
“I texted Tim before I called you, it’s being handled,” Dick says. He starts to lift his head again, and Jason catches his chin with his free hand and turns his face so Jason can lean down and press a light kiss to his lips. Looking won’t change anything.
“Bruce’s back broke and he still does what he does,” he says into Dick’s hair. “You’ll be fine.”
“Right,” Dick says quietly, but he won’t look Jason in the eye- and there it is, the fear Jason’s been braced for.
He’d be scared too, if the one thing in his entire life that gave him meaning was hanging by a thread.
“And if I’m not?” he asks. His grip on Jason’s hand is so tight Jason can feel bone grinding. “You still willing to put up with me when the crazy acrobatic sex is no longer an option?”
There is damage there, Jason knows- Dick’s loved deeply before, and suffered just as deeply for it every time. But it’s been a while since he felt the need to question Jason’s commitment.
Now is not the time to deflect. “ ‘Til you’re done with me,” Jason promises.
“Never,” Dick says immediately.
“Guess we’re stuck together then,” Jason says, and Dick smirks.
“Very romantic,” he mutters.
He’s lagging hard now, eyes drifting shut and snapping back open, voice slowing and words slurring. Jason pushes his hair out of his face and clucks his tongue when it falls right back.
“Go to sleep, I’ll wait for Bruce,” he says, and Dick mumbles something but doesn’t jolt back awake as soon as his eyes close again.
Jason stands there for a long moment, feeling the brush of breath over his knuckles. Finally he steps back and looks down at Dick’s knee again. It feels like there should be more- blood, massive bruising, swollen out of shape- just more. Instead looks almost normal, and not at all like it has betrayed Dick and most likely permanently changed his life.
“We’ll figure something out,” Jason tells himself, and it’s not so much a promise as it is a command.
He’s thirty-seven, and he’s fine. He’s fine.
He stays in Gotham and oversees the move out of the manor, because it would be downright cruel to ask this of Alfred, and to keep an eye on their secrets as the workers winterize the manor and shutter it. They’re civilians, hired and vetted by Tim, and they’re carefully respectful of his grief but mostly just wondering who the fuck he even is. There had been talk, briefly, about legally bringing him back from the dead, but his relationship with Dick had put that one on ice.
Never going to happen now, he supposes.
Dick is- somewhere. The Watchtower, maybe. He’s stone-faced and cold and does a remarkable impression of someone who’s not completely unraveling inside. Who knows, maybe he really isn’t. He’s done this before, after all. He’s older now, got some silver coming in at his temples and new lines on his face, got a cyborg knee joint that left him a part-timer for the rest of his career, but he can hold down the fort until Damian’s got his shit together.
They’re all angry, and grieving, and they’re best left alone for those. Distance right now is saving them, not destroying them.
Jason follows the workers out and watches as they load up the massive hardwood desk from what had been Thomas Wayne’s study, watches as they button up the truck and drive away. He stands in the drive long after they’re gone, and to his left- if he turns and looks, maybe walks a few steps, he skipped the funeral and hasn’t been to visit since so he doesn’t know exactly where it is in the small fenced-in yard- a fresh pile of dirt, a handful of flowers from a family not raised to sentimentality. A shiny new headstone.
In the distance, the Wayne Enterprises building looms over Gotham. The new Batman will work out of there. Fond memories, Jason supposes.
It’s raining. Jason finally steps back, onto the covered entryway, and takes the cigarette box from his jacket pocket. He’d quit years ago, but all things considered, a brief relapse is understandable.
“Now what, old man,” Jason says. There is no answer, of course. Never will be. No miracle saves, not this time.
He breathes out smoke and watches as the rain comes down harder until Gotham is lost in the distance, and Jason is alone in the world.
He’s forty-two, and he’s reading on the couch- an actual physical book, there’s no replacing the feel of that in his hands, though he’s also got a couple of ereaders because he’s not a snob. He’s stretched out lengthwise and has his shoulders in Dick’s lap, who’s idly playing with his hair and staring off into middle distance. Occasionally he’ll trace his thumb along the freshly-healed scar that bisects Jason’s left eyebrow and slides down the side of his face like the trail of a teardrop to end just below his left ear. Even more occasionally, he’ll reach over Jason to rub at his own right knee.
He’s chewing on something, Jason knows. He’ll figure out how to put voice to it soon enough, and he’s best left to it until then.
Sure enough- he makes it to the end of the chapter, and a paragraph or two into the next one, and then Dick hooks a finger over the spine of his book and pulls it away so he can duck his head down and meet Jason’s gaze. “Have you ever thought about retiring?” he asks.
“No,” Jason says immediately, just barely swallowing the scoff at the very idea. It’s still plenty present, judging by how Dick’s eyes go flat and humorless. “Didn’t think I’d live long enough to worry about it,” he adds, trying to find his footing after that misstep, and immediately knows he only made it significantly worse.
“Oh, so, death,” Dick says, and yeah, he’s pissed. “Was your retirement plan. Were you ever going to mention that to me?”
Jason sets his book aside and sits up, giving himself time and organizing his thoughts because clearly just giving answers as they came to him was only digging the hole deeper. He turns to face Dick on the couch and takes a moment to wonder at how small Dick looks. He’s been a force of nature Jason’s whole life, a shooting star untouchable high in the sky, a wildfire scorching everything he touched. But now he’s just a guy with a bum knee and an idiot for a boyfriend.
“No, I wasn’t going to mention it to you, it was long before we got together,” he says. He’s wearing his reading glasses, and he starts to reach for them before aborting the motion. Dick occasionally goes all tongue-tied and wide-eyed when he sees Jason wearing them, and he needs every advantage he can get right now. “I never really decided I’d rather die than get old, Dick. I just.” He shrugs, helpless. “I figured there was no way I’d actually survive, not how I was back then.”
Dick stares at him, unamused, then flicks a glance at the scar, and, oh. That is what this is about.
He’s still the Red Hood. He’s still raining hellfire on Gotham’s scum. The new Batman doesn’t object as strongly to his methods and minds his own territory a little better, and Jason’s starting to put more emphasis on the guns and less on the brawling as he’s noticed his bones aching more and more first thing in the morning, but he’s still going out every night, and half the time Nightwing still swings out with him. But the scar, that injury, that night- gunpowder smell and shattered circuits from his helmet spitting sparks and rainwater washing his blood into the gutter- it scared Dick.
It scared Jason, too, if he’s being honest with himself.
He sighs, then scoots forward and reaches out to Dick. He resists for a moment, but not enough for Jason to give up, and finally lets himself be pulled into Jason’s arms, head tucked neatly below Jason’s chin.
“I’m not leaving you,” he says, and Dick flinches hard. “I love you. I don’t want to leave you. I said we’re stuck together, and I meant it.”
Dick curls tighter into him, pressing tight against him. “That’s good. I’m tired of losing people.”
Jason hums and rocks from side-to-side a little, the way he does when Dick wakes up gasping and wild-eyed from nightmares, and tries not to think of the ever-growing graveyard at Wayne Manor. It’s all anyone goes back there for anymore.
“I keep waiting to wake up and realize it’s all been a dream,” he says. He’s not talking to Dick, just thinking out loud. Easy to forget Dick is even there, when he’s silent and out of sight. “I never thought about how I wanted this to end because I still can’t quite believe I even have it.”
Two strong arms loop around behind him and squeeze him tight. “You have it,” Dick says. “You have me. You’ve got me, Jason.”
It’s not that easy, and they both know it, but Jason nods all the same. They sit in silence, twined tightly together, until Dick finally eases up and leans back a little.
“I’m not saying you have to retire,” he says, tracing a soft finger down the scar, and Jason closes his eyes against the understanding in Dick’s face. “Just, be careful. And know how to quit while you’re ahead.”
“I will,” Jason promises, and he will- he does.
He’s forty-eight, and he’s holding probably a cool five million in stolen jewelry while Catwoman sorts through her stuff in order to find a carrying case for these.
It’s kind of sad, but he’d sort of forgotten her, after Bruce. She’d disappeared after the funeral, and when she returned, she flaunted her stolen goods but stayed off the rooftops and out of other people’s belongings. Her time was past, and without Bruce to antagonize, she had no reason to keep living the pseudo-villian life.
“Here,” she says to him, holding out an empty purse.
The chains are tangled together, heavy stones snagged on each others’ edges, so Jason just dumps the whole lot into the purse without trying to sort them out. Selina seals it and sets it aside, just one more piece of luggage.
“That’s the last of it,” she says, smoothing her hands down her thighs as she looks around. Her penthouse is starkly empty, the big stuff already moved out, her cats long since relocated to wherever she’s going, her belongings reduced to a pile of bags at her feet. One of them is a duffel bag that looks old and worn and even patched in a few places, and Jason’s pulled up roots and abandoned enough places in a hurry to recognize the bag of essentials.
Her hair is elegantly white, and cropped short in a ‘do only Selina Kyle could pull off. Her earrings are topaz and platinum and also definitely stolen, but Jason says nothing- it’s him here, not any of the others, for a reason. Her dress is a simple gold sheath that is probably a bit much for daytime but is easy to move around in, and she slinks around with the grace of a cat on its ninth life. Her nails are still sharp, and the bracelet on her left wrist is emitting a very soft electrical hum.
“So where are you moving?” Jason asked, more curious if she would answer than about the actual answer itself. She sighs and slants him an amused look.
“Somewhere with a lot of sand and sunlight,” she says. “You and the former Nightwing should look into that. You’re getting a little old for this game.”
Forty-eight is not old- forty-eight is ancient. Stairs are a challenge to both of them now, and he can’t remember the last time he ran more than a few blocks. He can still put enough power behind a punch to knock Killer Croc on his ass, but-
But Killer Croc is gone now, disappeared into the Everglades, rumor has it. Victor Friez is long dead, Cobblepot too. The Joker died a week after the new Batman took up the reins, and no one mourned him, Harley Quinn too busy living it up with Pamela Isley on their plant sanctuary island. Crane’s medicated and cooperating with medical researchers, and Jason heard something about him recovering slowly after a stroke last month. Catwoman was the last real holdout, and now she’s packing up and heading south for the long winter.
Not to say there hasn’t been a veritable rush to fill in the blank spots. There’s also the occasional roving gang of Joker cultists now, which drives Jason to the point of white-out fury, but they’re getting harder and harder to find and put down, and their numbers are growing. But the old guard has a certain- class.
“Surprisingly enough, I think I’m going to miss you,” he says, and Selina snorts, undignified but honest. “Would it be weird of me to wish you well?”
“Says the zombie boy to the cat burglar,” Selina says dryly. “It’s appreciated all the same.”
They hesitate there for a moment, just a moment- she looks around, thinking god knows what, and Jason watches her and thinks about Dick. Five years ago, the very idea of getting to her age, older even- it had been impossible. But Dick is nothing if not persistent, and has chipped away at Jason’s ingrained ennui, and now he’s thinking- he’d like to retire somewhere with lots of sand and sunlight. It sounds nice. It sounds like something they both deserve.
“You ever regret not marrying him?” he asks, all the subtlety of a brick to the face, caught off-guard by his own question. He has no idea where that even came from.
Selina tenses, then relaxes again. She looks at Jason with tired old eyes. “Every day,” she says. “But only until I remember- I couldn’t have changed anything that happened. And then, I don’t regret it anymore.”
Well. A complicated answer, for a complicated relationship with a complicated man. Jason doesn’t know if he envies her for keeping clear of that mess, or pities her for losing what little time she could have had.
She picks up her very expensive purse and her old duffel bag and nods to the rest of it. “Be a dear and grab that, will you? My cab’s here.”
“I’ve never once been a dear in my whole life,” Jason says, and Selina actually laughs, mostly amused and just a tinge of sadness.
He grabs her bags for her, and follows her out of the penthouse, flipping the lights off with his elbow as he goes.
He’s fifty-three, and the world has gone silent.
Tim, who retired the cape young and stands unbent by age, the smartest of the family by far, had promised him multiple times that WE has a prototype hearing aid that they could fit to his exact needs. They could even work it into the Red Hood helmet, connect it to his HUD. It will be a weakness, but Jason can adapt. He always has before.
He thanks Tim, distant and distracted, and goes home for the first time since.
He’s not really hurt- his armor protected him from the worst of it. There’s some minor electrical burns on his face from his helmet short-circuiting, but aside from the whole hearing loss thing, he got away basically without a scratch. And he knows he’s thinking that because of the shock, because what he’s lost hasn’t really set in yet. He’ll be dealing with the fallout of it for years, he’s watched Dick go through something similar with that bum knee of his. But for the moment-
He goes to bed, and sleeps soundly, and wakes up to Dick sitting next to him, watching him with patient expectation.
“You are lucky Bruce taught us all sign language,” he says. His hands are fast and fluid, and Jason smiles.
“I’ll be sure to thank Cassandra,” he says pointedly, and Dick rolls his eyes. It’s alright- it’s been long enough by now, the grief is familiar and comfortable like an old teddy bear, instead of some raging thing with sharp teeth. They can poke fun at Bruce without driving a wedge between them.
“How are you?” Dick asks next, and the humor has left his expression, his eyes dark and worried. His hands are shaking, just the tiniest bit, and Jason wonders if they had known that he had survived with very minor injuries when they’d called to tell Dick that there had been an explosion.
Jason considers this for a moment. “Numb,” he decides finally. “It hasn’t hit yet. I’ve had temporary hearing loss from explosions before, and this feels the same.”
Dick nods and presses his hands together. He looks Jason over, close and observant, and Jason allows it. He knows what this is like, he’s been on the other end of moments like this before.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asks finally, slowly, and Jason watches his hands long after they go still because it’s easier than looking him in the eye.
“Tim promised some fancy top-of-the-line hearing aids,” he says. “I won’t be completely deaf. I’ll adjust.”
“Not what I asked.”
Jason blinks away surprising hotness in his eyes. “Of course I will,” he says, and Dick reaches over and grabs his hand, just touching, holding, reassuring. His eyes shine wetly, but he’s smiling.
There’s a moment of peace- of silence, maybe, but how would Jason know?- and then Jason rolls onto his back and says, “I think,” and stops. A minute later Dick taps against his wrist, a reminder that he’s here and listening, and Jason stares at the ceiling above him.
“You told me once to quit while I’m ahead,” he says to the ceiling.
The hand in his pulls free, and a moment later Dick leans over him, watching him.
“How about, not ahead, just not too far behind?” he offers.
“You’re giving up Red Hood?” Dick asks, his expression caught between an actor’s blank mask and genuine shock.
“Yeah.” The idea bothers him, but it doesn’t burn anymore, doesn’t eat at him and drive him up and out the door. It’s something he can live with. “Let them think they killed me. They’re only forty years too late.”
Dick drops down to curl up beside him. Jason catches him on the way down and wrestles them into a better position. They end up tangled together, Jason’s head on Dick’s chest.
He can’t hear the heart beating under his ear, but he can feel it, and that’s good enough.
He’s fifty-five, and the newest Kent is annoying the shit out of him.
She’s tiny and, improbably enough, a redhead- she’ll grow out of that, Lois promised with a quietly distraught look at her husband and son, as though their jet-black hair exists only to spite her. But the kid’s mom is a blonde, and Jon is half-human, and those Kryptonian genetics are starting to fray at the edges, so who knows, she may surprise them yet. Her name is Marta, which makes Clark smile, and she calls Damian papa and her family spends a lot of time at the penthouse with him, which delights Dick. She’s a winner all around, except-
“Are you gonna get married?” she asks from where she’s hovering, literally, at Jason’s elbow. He puts a hand on top of her head and gently pushes her down until her feet are flat on the floor, but as soon as he lets go she pops right back up.
“Not this time,” he says, because it’s an easier answer than a simple no, and less complicated than, well, it’s complicated.
“Daddy says that people who are in love should get married,” Marta tells him solemnly. Jason grins into the mirror- oh, hadn’t they all had a good laugh when New Jersey first passed the polygamous marriage law and Damian woke up to Jon Kent on the roof of the penthouse with a ring and new sword. The sword was made out of some fancy space metal and almost did the trick, but Damian fancies himself some sort of forever-alone bachelor like his old man, so efforts are still ongoing.
“Maybe we will,” he says, and thinks they probably won’t.
To distract her, he turns away from the mirror and goes over to the bed, the kid bobbing along in his wake. “Which one?” he asks her, holding up two ties. They’re both deep, bloody red, with different patterning and a different material.
She hums thoughtfully and pets her small fingers down the shiny silk tie and frowns at the metallic matte one, then points to the shiny, naturally. “That one,” she says.
He’d go with the matte, given his druthers, but he did ask. He takes the silk tie back over to the mirror and ties it on quickly, settling the knot against his collar and smoothing its length down his sternum. Then he turns to Marta, who scoots back a little bit to get the whole picture. “How do I look?”
“You like red,” Marta observes.
It’s a fair observation, in that it’s the only real color he’s wearing. The suit- and thank god men’s fashion is resistant to change, he’s seen what women consider stylish these days and they have his sympathies- is gunmetal grey, the shirt black. Dick will bring the color to the table, although he’ll have to get past Damian first, so with any luck he at least won’t be an eyesore.
He raises an eyebrow at her, and she giggles and rocks on her heels. “You look handsome!” she tells him.
“Thank you.” He looks in the mirror one last time. There’s more grey in his hair than black anymore, and a long, faded scar meandering down the left side of his face, and it’s starting to take a lot of work to keep all that muscle he’d so easily put on as a kid from going flabby now. The hearing aid, small and discreet behind his ear, feels like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Then his focus shifts, and he smiles, because Dick’s in the doorway, sixty years old and breathtaking as ever. He’s gone a dignified silver instead of Jason’s rough salt-and-pepper, and his face and body wear his age well. He’s also, thankfully, wearing shades of midnight blue, nothing too obnoxious.
Marta squeals and hurls herself at Dick, although she pumps the brakes so she only bumps him instead of slamming against him. He scoops her out of the air and spins her around and tucks her under his arm like a sack of potatoes, and she laughs nonstop.
“Nothing but the best of fashion advice, I see,” Dick says, and Jason rolls his eyes.
“Glass houses, Discowing,” he says, and Dick grins in challenge, knowing no shame as always. Jason comes over and presses a quick, chaste kiss to his lips, mindful of his luggage. “Anyways, who taught you how to hold children? This is how you do it.”
He takes Marta from Dick and slings her over his shoulder. She actually lets him take her full weight, and grabs the collar of his suit and kicks his ribs as she balances herself, but she’s still laughing. She really is a good kid.
“Oh, right, of course,” Dick says, leaning around Jason and doing something that has Marta bursting into a fresh round of giggling. Then he ducks back around and leans forward to kiss Jason again, since the kid is safely facing away, and again, and again. When they stop, Dick sighs against his throat and mindlessly fixes the knot of his tie.
Marta starts squirming for real, so Jason pulls her back and puts her down. She wraps her arms in a hug around Jason’s waist, then Dick’s, then takes off out of the room, yelling for Papa that her uncles were ready to leave now, did he have the car? Could he take her out somewhere too? She wants ice cream.
“Did you ever want one of those?” Jason asks. Bit late now, but there has never been any time before. Something else was always coming up.
“Nah, I like the loaners. Send ‘em home when I’m tired of them.” Dick steps forward again, draping his arms over Jason’s shoulders and pressing their foreheads together.
“Happy anniversary,” he says, softly, sadly. There’s enough water under that bridge, he’s allowed to be bittersweet.
“And you.” Jason straightens up and pushes that ever-stubborn cowlick out of Dick’s eyes, not that it makes any difference whatsoever. “Ready to go paint the town red?”
“Damian’s already said he’s not bailing us out again,” Dick warns him. “So maybe just light pink instead.”
“You bats are always cramping my style,” Jason complains, and hooks an arm around Dick’s waist and draws him out of the room as he laughs.
He’s fifty-nine, and Dick’s been taken hostage at a charity event, and he’s not worried at all because the new (new new) Batman had already taken care of it by the time Jason got the call.
He waits until the dust has settled and the building is mostly empty, and in strolling in, he passes Commissioner Gordon rolling out. She’s three years away from mandatory retirement, and they’re probably gonna have to send in some sort of professional to get her out of the building when the time comes. She looks Jason in the eye and nods once, and Jason sidesteps to give her room and nods back, then carries on.
The new (new new) Batman is talking to Dick still, and he’s quite the sight, form-fitting black void of a suit with no cape, a mask that somehow is his face, and a bright red bat emblazoned across his chest in a way that makes Jason feel a little flattered. It’s a jarring change from Bruce’s brick shithouse legacy, though Damian probably has the kid loaded up with gadgets and weapons. Jason knows nothing about him save that he exists- Damian had been the only Batman without a Robin, but he’s savagely protective of his replacement bat. Word has it even his superhusband doesn’t know the kid’s identity.
He turns his head sharply and pins Jason with those eerie eyes, not relaxing until Dick turns as well and smiles. Jason sticks his hands in his jacket pockets, just to keep the kid on edge, and ambles over.
“Exciting night, I hear,” he says.
“Eh,” Dick says, tilting a hand to and fro. He’s far from Gotham’s darling prince anymore- the press doesn’t know who to award that title to, with no kids in the family save Marta, who has sunset red hair and the social graces expected of someone co-parented by Damian Wayne. But Gotham’s upper crust still dote on the Wayne name, and Dick’s still got claim to that. He’s mostly retired from WE crap, and spends ninety percent of his time surrounded by the superhero community, but he’ll still dandy up and trot out the Wayne boy act for a good cause.
“So you must be Todd,” the new (new new) Batman says, and Jason looks at him. Short, barely Dick’s height and trying to hide it by putting his weight on the balls of his feet, and all but bouncing on his toes. “Nice to finally meet you. The bossman talks about you guys a lot.”
“Does he?” Jason asks, genuinely surprised by that, and the new (new new) Batman hesitates, clearly caught out.
“Well, he’s mentioned you like, twice,” he admits. “That’s a lot, for him.”
Jason and Dick exchange quick glances. Then Dick slides his gaze past Jason and to the window. He doesn’t need to look to know there’s at least one news drone out there. The windows are tinted so most cameras get nothing but feedback trying to shoot through them, but it’s an arms race of privacy violations, and Jason’s out of the loop enough on who’s winning that he’s not willing to gamble any secret identities on security.
However, the new (new new) Batman, who has never known life without social media, feels no such need for caution. “Can I just say- not trying to fanboy or anything here- it’s an honor to meet you? I mean, you two were the real deal.”
“Still are, kid,” Jason says with a sharp grin. “Try me someday.”
The mask- god, such a weird thing- disguises the kid’s features while mimicking his facial expressions perfectly. He returns the grin. “I just might,” he says. Then the smile falters, and he turns his head like he’s hearing something they can’t. Jason is getting used to that, and it only stings a little- but Dick looks blank too.
“Heading out?” he asks, and the new (new new) Batman looks back at them.
“Like he said, exciting night,” he says, tipping his head towards Jason. “Drop by the old place when you’re feeling up to it, oldtimer,” he adds to Jason, already backing away.
“Thanks for the rescue,” Dick says, voice dripping with irony, and the kids barks a laugh.
“Thanks for not electrocuting me,” he calls back, and then he’s gone, a red bat fading into shadows as he’s out the door and up to the roofs.
“You brought your escrima?” Jason asks, and Dick pulls his suit jacket away enough to show that- yup, he brought the escrima. One still has what might be wine, but probably isn’t, on the end.
“You know,” he says, wrapping an arm around Jason and leaning into him. “I got an e-mail the other day.”
“Shockingly outdated,” Jason says, and Dick pinches his side.
“An old friend left us a private island in her will,” Dick continues. “I was wondering- wanna retire for real?”
“Tired of the big city life, darling?” Jason asks, but he pulls Dick close. An old friend with a private island. Another piece of their youth, gone.
God, they’re getting old.
“We can come back to visit,” Dick says. “Hell, we can invite the family out to our place, with the jet it’s about a two-hour flight. Marta and Jon can race them there.”
“The new Batman passes inspection, then?”
“He’s getting there. And he’s got Dami. We’re leaving the city in good hands.” Dick sighs and slumps, his good posture gone now that he’s got no one to judge him. “And I’m tired, Jay. I want to be selfish for once.”
“All mine,” Jason says, pulling Dick to lean against him. No sign of his cane, probably confiscated by the idiots who stormed the event. His knee must be killing him.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Jason presses a kiss to Dick’s hair and takes his hand, threading their fingers together. Dick’s left hand, he realizes, and he brings it up and kisses the back of his empty ring finger.
“But before we go,” he says, and Dick shifts and looks up at him questioningly, “there’s one more thing we have to do first.”
He’s- he doesn’t really know. He’s stopped keeping count. Sixty-something. And he wakes up to cold, and warmth.
The blankets, lightweight and soft, are all gone, wrapped around his thief of a husband, who snorts muffled snores and clings to him unrepentantly. He’s long used to this, though, and simply reaches behind him to the blanket he’d left on the floor for exactly this reason. Dick murmurs when he has to roll away and sighs happily against him when he settles back into place, all felt as vibrations against Jason’s skin instead of heard.
Jason tucks his blanket back around him, then pushes Dick’s down until the sunlight is shining ruthlessly on his face. Sunrise is fast and early, this close to the equator.
“Morning,” Jason murmurs when Dick squints one eye open to glare at him.
Dick’s hands are still trapped in his cocoon so he can’t answer with any sort of eloquence. Luckily for him, fuck you is something Jason’s heard enough times to know it even without having ever bothered to learn lip reading. He laughs into Dick’s hair and strokes the back of his neck as Dick tucks down against him and tries to hide from the light.
Some mornings he actually lets Dick sleep in. He’ll put in his ears and make coffee and listen to waves on the shoreline and seabirds quarreling, and go fetch his husband only when the second pot is brewing. But some days-
He remembers what it was like, being twenty-five and waking up to this body in his arms for the first time. It was breathtaking then. It still is.
Dick finally gives up and shrugs off his blankets, freeing up his hands. “What time is it?” he asks.
“Mm. Seven?” Jason offers, looking at the angle of sunlight. He’s an early riser and, after a couple years living here, familiar enough with the rhythm of the days to make an accurate guess.
Dick pushes into him until Jason rolls onto his back and drapes himself over Jason’s chest. “Always seven, with you,” he says with a blurry smile.
Jason catches a hand and presses a kiss to the pulse point on his wrist. “Want some breakfast?” he asks. They had groceries delivered yesterday, they can make it a proper spread.
Dick shifts up onto his elbows and looks down at Jason, looks at him like he’s the good-looking one in this relationship. He looks at him like they’re both still twenty-something, and the heat is still scorching the air between them, and they’re living their best days stealing kisses on rooftops.
He ducks down for a kiss, and Jason digs both hands into his hair and holds him close, clinging, worshipping. When he finally pulls away, his eyes are dark and burning.
“Better make it brunch,” he says, and Jason laughs and draws him back down and falls in love again, and again, and again.